On Earth as it is on Mars

The UAE (United Arab Emirates) confirmed plans this week to build a city called ‘Mars Scientific City’, a US$135 million (Dh500 million) project that will simulate life on the red planet on Earth.

The announcement was made on the first day of the Annual Government Meetings in Abu Dhabi and also coincided with the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) being held in Adelaide, Australia. Dubai will host the IAC in 2020.

The high-tech city will cover 1.9 million square feet, making it the largest space-simulation city ever built, providing a viable and realistic model to simulate living on the surface of Mars.

The project encompasses laboratories for food, energy and water, as well as agricultural testing and studies about food security in the future.

It will also include a museum displaying humanity’s greatest space achievements, including educational areas to engage young citizens with space and inspire a passion in them for exploration and discovery. The walls of the museum will be 3D printed, using sand from the UAE desert.

"We are seeking a better life and education as well as a stronger economy and the internationally most sophisticated infrastructure for generations to come," said His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

The Mars Science City project falls within the UAE’s objectives to lead the global scientific race to take people to Mars and is part of the country’s Mars 2117 Strategy which seeks to build the first settlement on Mars in the next 100 years.

The project seeks to attract the best scientific minds from around the world in a collaborative contribution in the UAE to human development and the improvement of life. It also seeks to address global challenges such as food, water and energy security on Earth.

The plan for the Mars Science City project includes an experiential element, which will involve a team living in the simulated red planet city for one year, involving a range of experiments are to be devised, which will lead to innovation around self-sufficiency in energy, water and food.

The Mars Science City structure will be the most sophisticated building in the world and will incorporate a realistic simulation environment replicating the conditions on the surface of Mars.

The city will consist of several domes, with innovative construction techniques providing support for the structures. A team of Emirati scientists, engineers and designers, led by a team from the Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Centre and Dubai Municipality, will carry out the project, in cooperation with internationally renowned architects.

An inconvenient BBC

Perhaps I should not have been quite so astounded to hear on the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme a week ago Lord Lawson, the former Conservative chancellor, being wheeled out again in the interests of so-called ‘balance’ on a climate change story.

In response to an interview with Al Gore an hour or so earlier, Nigel Lawson was largely unchallenged as he pedalled a series of untruths disguised as fact.

Despite overwhelming scientific opinion that human-induced climate change is heating up the atmosphere, melting glaciers and raising sea levels, Lawson was yet again given a prime slot by the BBC to shout down evidence in an unsubstantiated way.

He lightly dismissed the former US Vice-President Al Gore film The Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power saying it had "bombed" at the box office a week before it even went on general release (in the UK from today), adding that he would not "bother seeing it" either.

Listeners to BBC radio’s flagship news programme also heard Lawson, Britain’s most renown climate science sceptic, claim global temperatures have not been rising in recent years.

It was a lie which went completely unchallenged by the interviewer Justin Webb even though Lawson’s think tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), was forced to admit immediately after the broadcast that the statement was based on data from an "erroneous" temperature chart.

Gore’s latest film describes how climate change is already having a significant effect on our planet but also says that the plunging cost of renewable energy might offer a viable solution.

The film points out the world’s average temperature has hit the highest on record for three years in a row – 2014, 2015 and 2016 – and highlights a significant increase in global extreme weather events.

But in his BBC interview Lord Lawson claimed that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had "confirmed that there has been no increase in extreme weather events".

He then added: "As for the temperature itself, it is striking, he [Gore] made his previous film 10 years ago, and to the official figures during this past 10 years, if anything, mean global temperature, average world temperature, has slightly declined."

Afterwards the GWPF revealed the source of these supposedly ‘official’ figures was a meteorologist who works for a libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute, founded by US billionaire and leading climate sceptic, Charles Koch.

For the UK’s leading broadcaster, there are worrying parallels between the BBC’s ‘balanced’ or ‘impartial’ coverage of climate change and other major issues of the day, such as Brexit.

Today, it is Nigel Lawson being portrayed as a so-called expert on climate change. Tomorrow, it is po-faced, right-wing Tories such as Ian Duncan-Smith, Liam Fox and Jacob Rees-Mogg intelligently moving the Brexit agenda towards a cliff-edge clean break.

In a sense the BBC’s policy of ‘impartiality’ is actually giving credence and currency to more extreme views and, because of this, we are inadvertently being fed a distorted reality, which some would call ‘fake news’. Either way this is ultimately is going to be a disaster for us all.

Spy satellite buzzes ISS

AMATEUR satellite observers are keeping a close eye on a US National Reconnaissance Office classified satellite (USA 276) to see whether it returns to the vicinity of the International Space Station (ISS).

After its launch into orbit from Cape Canaveral by SpaceX on 1 May 2017 analysts around the world quickly realised it was doing something more unusual.

Its orbit was similar to that of the Space Station and so could theoretically make close approaches to the orbiting outpost.

Then, just over a month after launch on 3 June, that is exactly what happened. "USA 276 made a close approach and effectively circled the ISS," reported satellite bserver Marco Langbroek of Leiden, The Netherlands. 

Amateur satellite watchers have been tracking USA 276 since late May and their observations have resulted in ever-improving estimates of the satellite's orbit. 

"With the latest data included, we can establish the moment of closest approach as 3 June 2017, 14:01:52 UT. It happened in daylight over the southern Atlantic north of the Falklands, near 43.75 S, 45.45 W, with a miss distance of only 6.4 ± 2 km,” says Langbroek.

In the accompanying chart (prepared by Langbroek) showing the circumstances of the encounter, the brick-coloured box has dimensions of  4 x 4 x 10 km and normally, whenever an object looks like it is going to pass through the box, ISS mission controllers evaluate the possibility of a collision avoidance manoeuvre.

"USA 276 remained just outside the 4 x 4 x 10 km box at closest approach and as a result collision avoidance manoeuvres were not required,” adds Langbroek.

Diagram prepared by Marco Langbroek showing encounter.

The question arises as to why a US spy satellite buzzed the ISS and senior satellite analyst Ted Molczan has published arguments for and against that possibility. "I am inclined to believe that the close conjunctions between USA 276 and the ISS are intentional," he says.

Molczan points out that USA 276 might be visiting the ISS to test Raven - a technology demonstration project on the ISS researchers are using to develop spacecraft autopilot systems.  Raven has visible, infrared and lidar sensors that can track incoming spacecraft, feeding the data to an onboard processor for decision-making about rendezvous and docking.

"I imagine that USA 276 could add to the Raven data set as follows," speculates Molczan. "If it can rendezvous, then it could keep station for long periods, during which it could change its attitude to present the sensors with a variety of views, under a variety of lighting conditions. The total data collected could potentially far exceed that from the other visiting spacecraft."

Another way of looking at the problem, is to ask why, if the ISS is not a target of USA 276, would the highly secretive NRO have permitted a launch so close to its plane, let alone one that yielded such close conjunctions not long after launch, which could only have increased public interest in the mission?

USA 276 looped around the ISS, according to an analysis.

Langbroek says he does not believe for a moment that the NRO was not aware that the launch on 1 May would lead to the ISS close approach a month later. “It would be extremely sloppy of them - from a Space Situational Awareness (SSA) viewpoint - if they were not aware, especially given how close the orbital parameters are to that of the ISS.”

He adds: “This event was sure to attract attention which harms the classified character of the mission. USA 276 is relatively bright and the approach was bound to be noted by independent observers.

“Indeed, some space enthusiasts in Europe unaware of the issue who were out to spot Dragon CRS-11 and Cygnus OA-7 close to the ISS on 4 June, did accidentally see USA 276 passing some three minutes in front of it.

At the time of the launch - and at the request of the NRO -SpaceX cut off launch coverage two minutes and 48 seconds after liftoff, some 30 seconds after the booster’s first-stage separated from the upper-stage. The NRO has declined to provide further details about the satellite or its orbit.

Langbroek also speculates that such a close approach of a high profile object like the ISS is politically risky too.

“As the ISS is an international cooperation which includes two parties (the United States and the Russian Federation) that are currently geopolitically on an uneasy footing, sending your military payload so close to the ISS as one party is eyebrow raising,” he says.

Space industry's Brexit fears



ESA's Jan Worner at the opening of UKSC in Manchester this week

AN AIR of confidence and normality prevailed at the fourth biennial UK Space Conference (UKSC) in Manchester this week despite its rather awkward juxtaposition between the city's terrorist atrocity and the country's unexpected general election.

But scratch a little deeper amongst delegates and exhibitors and there was one over-riding business concern just under the surface - the potential impact of 'Brexit' on the future of the industry.

Last June's referendum result seems to have been universally unpopular across both the rapidly growing UK space industry itself and in academic circles more generally.

So it was no surprise that speakers not constrained by pre-election 'purdah' rules took the opportunity during the opening plenary to have their say.

Speaking to more than 1200 British and European space experts at UKSC, Richard Peckham, head of trade organisation Ukspace and director of strategy for Airbus Defence & Space, raised the prospect of Brexit damaging the buoyant and expanding sector.

His general tone was that a 'hard’ or ‘no deal’ Brexit delivered by a future [Tory] government could seriously affect the UK’s £14 billion a year space industry, which is estimated to contribute around £250 billion a year across the British economy. 

  

“Research-based academia and industry here and in Europe are completely entwined with goods, services, data and people crossing borders and I don’t think I’ve met anybody in the space industry or academia who wanted Brexit. Uncharted waters lie ahead,” he said.

“The space industry sees many challenges ahead as we navigate ourselves as a nation out of the European Union with the potential for major disruption to our businesses if things go badly.”

Mr Peckham described the most immediate threat as continued participation in the EU’s Galileo navigation and Copernicus Earth observation programmes, as well as Govsatcom (communications), IRIS (air traffic management) and SSA/SST (space debris).

“Our industry is already feeling the pain, especially as customers and suppliers in other nations are making contingency plans for the worst case in which British companies become ineligible for future contracts, and are planning to exclude British companies now just to be on the safe side,” he added.

“To be realistic there are some other countries out there who will see this as an opportunity to take work from the UK and I would urge government not to approach these negotiations in such an adversarial manner.”

Earlier Graham Tunnock, appointed chief executive of the UK Space Agency (UKSA) on 1 April, said election rules allowed him to attend the conference but restricted his comments on future government space policy.

Jan Worner, European Space Agency (ESA) director general, reminded delegates that at last year’s ministerial meeting the UK had committed €1.4 billion to ESA’s budget until 2020 and he urged the UK to remain a strong member of the ESA community.

“Brexit is happening and you have made a decision which I do not like,” he said. “UK membership of ESA is not at all in question but of course a future exchange rate might have an effect in the future.”

He also said it would be vital to find a solution for the ESA family members living and working in the UK from other countries.

 “I understand the politicians will be discussing a divorce between London and Brussels but in any divorce there are the children and in that respect we are the children,” he added.

The UK space trade association presented a ‘facts and figures’ document and urged British delegates to lobby their MPs on behalf of the space industry.

“The decision to leave the EU has created significant uncertainty and could impact the efficiency of the integrated supply chain, R&D collaboration and joint programmes with other countries,” it stated.

Five key requests for the Brexit negotiations are listed:

• Retain full access to vital EU space programmes
• Avoid UK industry being marginalised during Brexit process 
• Retain access to and influence in the collaborative R&D programmes run by the EU
• Maintain access to the EU pool of skilled labour which is required to maintain UK competitiveness
• Keep frictionless access to the EU single market without burdensome customs and administration.

The UK space industry is currently showing growth of around seven percent a year and provides jobs for around 40,000 people.

Prior to any notion that the UK might leave the EU, the Space Innovation and Growth Strategy (IGS) set an ambitious target to increase Britain's share of the global space economy form six to 10 percent by 2030, raising revenue to £40 billion a year and potentially creating more than 100,000 skilled jobs.