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Presto Engineering Announces its Participation in the MACSPACE Consortium

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CAEN, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Presto Engineering, Inc., a world leader in semiconductor back-end turnkey production services, is pleased to announce its participation in the MACSPACE consortium. The consortium brings together some of the top European technology companies and universities to research and develop high-performance computer processors that can meet the specialized requirements of space flight and manage the massive amount of data generated during space missions.

The ability to analyze data in space, make real-time decisions and obtain better situational awareness will greatly enhance mission capabilities, said Ran Ginosar, CEO, Ramon Chips, an Israel-based semiconductor company that is coordinating the consortium. Consequently, we need higher-performance computing systems that can handle the massive amount of data being generated during modern space missions. The MACSPACE consortium is a major step for Europe toward developing onboard computing technologies that consume a fraction of the power used by current technologies.

Presto Engineering, along with Germany-based DSI Informationstechnik, will work on characterizing and testing the prototype computer system. According to Cdric Mayor, Vice President Technology and Marketing, Presto Engineering, Inc., We are very honored to be part of this very important initiative. The ambitious, multidisciplinary project involves the development of a computer system that combines very high performance with low power consumption, small size and light weight, so that it is practical for use on space craft. It needs to be robust enough to withstand the harsh environment of space, where temperatures range from -55 to 125 degrees Celsius and radiation accelerates aging. And, of course, it needs to be reliable, since space missions can last many years.

The collaborative project is funded by the European Commission under the FP7 SPACE programme (grant no 607212) and is managed by the Research Executive Agency. It is expected to last approximately three years.

The consortium includes a very complementary team, including: Thales Alenia Space Italia, the European leader for satellite systems and orbital infrastructure as an excellent representative of the customer base for this technology, which will drive requirements and subsequently test the system; CEVA, a leading IP DSP core provider, which will develop the computer processors specialized core; Technische Universitaet Braunschweig, the oldest institute of technology in Germany, which will be responsible for benchmarking and evaluating the work; and Arttic, a European specialist in the set-up and management of collaborative international research and development projects, which will assist with the operations of the consortium and the dissemination of its results.

Details of the research and results will be shared in a symposium and summer school in 2016. Prior to this, users will be able familiarize themselves with the onboard system through access to a web-based demonstration and emulation system.

For more information about Presto Engineering, please visit: http://www.presto-eng.com. For more information about MACSPACE, please go to http://www.macspace.eu.

Disclaimer

This text reflects only the authors views and the Union is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

About Ramon Chip, Ltd.

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Presto Engineering Announces its Participation in the MACSPACE Consortium

Smaller is better: Researchers at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., discover new technique to …

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Space dust might sound like something out of a 1950s-era science fiction novel, but such particles actually may hold some of the greatest secrets of our universe. The problem is that the material is extremely difficult to examine, especially when larger meteorites are more available.

In a Feb. 3 study done by researchers at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., it is now possible to analyze extremely small dust, comet particles and other extraterrestrial material for certain organic compounds such as amino acids: the building blocks of life.

Michael Callahan of NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center and lead investigator of the study said examining small materials almost as thoroughly as meteorites could prove useful in examining these organic components.

It started out kind of a technical challenge, he said. Looking at very small samples just is always difficult, even when its not even a meteorite sample If we knew that we could be successful doing these techniques and methods, [we could] look at very specific organic molecules which are the classes of amino acids.

The new analysis is made possible through a new technique aided by a previously used nanoflow liquid chromatography instrument, which separates mixtures into their components.

If we could do this on meteorite samples, we could do this on other very small extraterrestrial materials like interplanetary dust particles and potentially cometary particles that were returned from NASA missions, he said. These later types of samples are much less studied and really havent been studied for these biologically relevant molecules.

Researchers were motivated because current methods of analyzing small particles of extraterrestrial material did not prove successful in identifying organic compounds, Callahan said.

Existing methods are not well suited for these classes of organic compounds in extraterrestrial samples, he clarified in a subsequent email.

So Callahan and his team of researchers decided to build on previous techniques of analyzing organic molecules, but with a more specific focus.

Callahan says the technique is based on the dissection of a meteorite.

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Smaller is better: Researchers at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., discover new technique to ...

What does Space Station do with its trash?

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A private cargo ship is now packed with Space Station trash. The ship, Cygnus, is headed for Earth's atmosphere, where it will burn up on Wednesday.

The International Space Station has one less capsule and a lot less trash.

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A commercial cargo ship ended its five-week visit Tuesday morning. NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins used the space station's big robot arm to release the capsule, called Cygnus, as the orbiting lab sailed 260 miles above the South Atlantic.

Cygnus is filled with Space Station garbage and the trash-packed capsule will burn up Wednesday when it plunges through the atmosphere, over the Pacific.

Orbital Sciences Corp. launched the Cygnus capsule last month from Virginia under a $1.9 billion contract with NASA. The Cygnus delivered 3,000 pounds of goods, including belated Christmas gifts for the six-man crew and hundreds of ants for a student experiment.

The ants are still aboard the space station. They'll return to Earth aboard another company's cargo ship, the SpaceX Dragon.

SpaceX or Space Exploration Technologies Corp., based in Southern California will launch its next Dragon from Cape Canaveral on March 16 with a fresh load of supplies.

NASA is paying Orbital Sciences and SpaceX to keep the space station stocked. Russia, Japan and Europe also take turns making deliveries.

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What does Space Station do with its trash?

Flight attendants want plane call ban to remain

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by BART JANSEN / USA TODAY

NWCN.com

Posted on February 17, 2014 at 12:14 PM

If cellphone calls are allowed on planes, flight attendants warn that safety lectures will be ignored more often and passengers will get into fights about noisy conversations.

"We cannot and will not be the 'cellphone police' on board as people yack loudly, in a confined space, without any concern for anyone else on board," said Russell Fuller, a flight attendant from Warrenton, Va.

He as among more than 1,000 people who have submitted comments to the Federal Communications Commission, which is considering lifting its 1991 ban on in-flight cellular service. Commissioners say the ban is no longer necessary because planes can carry their own cell towers, so they no longer interfere with ground-based communications.

A 30-day comment period ended Friday, and replies to the comments are due by March 17. So far comments are heavily opposed to allowing calls, although hundreds of respondents said they could live with silent text messages and Internet service for phones.

Even if the FCC lifts its ban, Congress is debating a legislative prohibition to voice calls. The Transportation Department would have to decide what service to allow on planes, and then airlines could decide whether to offer it.

But flight attendants, who would face the brunt of whatever is approved, are vocally against allowing calls. The Association of Flight Attendants with 60,000 members and the Association of Professional Flight Attendants with 16,000 members each opposed the FCC move.

"A plane full of people talking on cellphones is the stuff of nightmares," said Laura Glading, the APFA president.

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Flight attendants want plane call ban to remain

Space Dust Is Filled with Building Blocks for Life

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A study of teeny-tiny meteorite fragments revealed that two essential components of life on Earth as we know it, could have migrated to our planet on space dust.

Researchers discovered DNA and amino acids components in a smidgen of a space rock that fell over Murchison, Victoria, in Australia in September 1969. Previous studies of the meteorite revealed organic material, but the samples examined then were much larger. This study would lend more credence to the idea that life arose from outside of our planet, researchers said in a statement.

"Despite their small size, these interplanetary dust particles may have provided higher quantities and a steadier supply of extraterrestrial organic material to early Earth," said Michael Callahan, a research physical scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. [5 Bold Claims of Alien Life]

Amino acids are the basis of proteins, which are structures that make up hair, skin and other bits of living creatures. DNA is a molecule that contains information on building and running an organism.

Size matters

Meteorites such as Murchison are rare types of space rocks: the carbonaceous chondrites make up less than 5 percent of meteorites found on Earth, NASA said. Further, the molecules discovered in these space rocks are usually in miniscule concentrations of parts-per-million or parts-per-billion.

These factors have researchers questioning how significant the carbon-rich rocks themselves were in bringing life to Earth. Space dust, however, is more plentiful as it is constantly available from comets and asteroids shedding debris in their travels through the solar system.

The Murchison study (a proof of concept for further work, the researchers say) found life's building blocks in a sample that weighed about the same as a few eyebrow hairs. The 360-microgram sample was about 1,000 times smaller than a typical sample analyzed by researchers.

Do you think life exists on Mars today?

Samples from space

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Space Dust Is Filled with Building Blocks for Life

Space junk endangers mankind's usual course of life

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The Russian cargo spacecraft Progress M-20M, which undocked from the International Space Station on February 3, has ended its free flight and is to be sunk in the unnavigated part of the Pacific Ocean on February 11 around 8 pm MSK.

On board the spacecraft there is about a ton of garbage and decommissioned equipment taken from the ISS. Scientists have not come up with ways of utilizing other types of space debris. However, space debris poses a great threat to satellites and astronauts.

The era of active space exploration began 56 years ago. On October 4, 1957 Soviet scientists launched the first artificial satellite from the Earth. One cannot count how many satellites and piloted missions have been launched since then, each one leaving behind a trace in space - a booster, an apparatus that got out of control or a piece of the spacecraft coating.

Such garbage poses a serious threat, Andrei Ionin, a member of the Russian Tsiolkovsky Academy of Cosmonautics and specialist in space policy, points out.

"One must not be fooled by the fact that the size of most parts of that space debris is not big. Because in space particles move at a great speed and one must take into account relative speeds as well," he says.

There have been several instances when debris approaching the ISS presented a threat to the station. Astronauts then put on their space suits and moved to the Soyuz capsules so that they had an opportunity to start moving towards the Earth if needed. So far the ISS has been lucky.

The coating of the American shuttle spacecraft has been damaged twice. In 2006, a tiny space fragment collided with a satellite in its orbit, as a result of which residents of the Far East were left without a TV signal for a while. Taking into account that the planet's technologies are increasingly linked to space, orbital debris can at any moment interrupt the usual course of life for any of us, Igor Marynyn, editor-in-chief of the News of Cosmonautics magazine, notes.

"Currently neither Russia nor any other country has any reasonable solution as to how to clean the space debris. Some propose to use a net. It is an absolutely unrealistic project. Because all the debris fly in different directions at speed of 10-12 km per second. That is faster that a bullet. It is impossible to catch such debris with a net. Some propose to use a magnet. That is also unrealistic as most metals satellites are made of are not influenced by a magnetic field as they are made of duralumin," Marynyn adds.

There have been fantasy ideas to burn the debris with a laser beam from the Earth or launch a cleaning robot into space. But so far the only effective solution is to clean after yourself. For example, a booster block that launches satellites from a low orbit into a high one as a rule is left drifting in space.

If their design includes more fuel and an opportunity of control, then at a certain moment the booster can be sent back into the atmosphere to be burned down. But that makes the project more expensive, that is why not everyone likes that idea, the expert Igor Marynyn asserts.

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Space junk endangers mankind's usual course of life

The Experimental Hypersonic Rocket Plane That Ushered in the Space Age

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Chuck Yeager's historic supersonic flight in 1947 set off a firestorm of research into flight beyond the speed of sound. The most ambitious of these projects was the X-15 program, a top secret USAF program that aimed to test the limits of Mach 7. In X-15: The World's Fastest Rocket Plane and the Pilots Who Ushered in the Space Age, John Anderson and Richard Passman recount the death-defying flights of a steel-nerved team of test pilots at the controls of the world's first rocket plane.

The first hypersonic vehicles in flight were missiles, not airplanes. On February 24, 1949, a WAC Corporal rocket mounted on top of a captured German V-2 boost vehicle was fired from the White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico, reaching an altitude of 244 miles and a velocity of 5,150 miles per hour. After nosing over, the WAC Corporal careened back into the atmosphere at over 5,000 miles per hour, becoming the first object of human origin to achieve hypersonic flight. In this same period, a hypersonic wind tunnel capable of Mach 7, with an 11- by 11-inch cross-section test section, went into operation on November 26, 1947, the brainchild of NACA Langley researcher John Becker. For three years following its first run, this wind tunnel was the only hypersonic wind tunnel in the United States. It later provided key data for the design of the X-15.

The real genesis of the X-15, however, was human thinking, not test facilities. On January 8, 1952, Robert Woods of Bell Aircraft sent a letter to the NACA Committee on Aerodynamics in which he proposed that the committee undertake the study of basic problems in hypersonic and space flight. At that time, several X-airplanes were already probing the mysteries of supersonic flight: the X-1, X-1A, and X-2. Accompanying Woods's letter was a document from his colleague at Bell, Dr. Walter Dornberger, outlining the development of a hypersonic research airplane capable of Mach 6 and reaching an altitude of 75 miles. By June 1952, the NACA Committee on Aerodynamics recommended that the NACA expand its efforts to study the problems of hypersonic manned and unmanned flight, covering the Mach number range from 4 to 10.

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After two more years of deliberation, the committee passed a resolution during its October 1954 meeting recommending the construction of a hypersonic research airplane. Among the members of this committee were Walter Williams and Scott Crossfield, who would later play strong roles in the X-15 program. Kelly Johnson, who not only was the Lockheed representative to the committee but was considered to be the country's most famous airplane designer, opposed any extension of the manned research program, arguing that to datethe research airplane program was "generally unsatisfactory" and had not contributed to the practical design of tactical aircraft. Johnson was the only dissenter; he later appended a minority opinion to the majority report. The spectacular success of the X-15 program and the volumes of hypersonic data it contributed to the design of the Space Shuttle later proved Johnson wrong. The X-15 program was launched.

The X-15 was designed to be, purely and simply, a research vehicle to provide aerodynamic, flight dynamic, and structural response data for use in the development of future manned hypersonic vehicles, such as the Space Shuttle. No hypersonic wind tunnels, past or present, can provide accurate data for the design of a full-scale hypersonic airplane. The frontiers of flight today are the same as they were in the 1950s: the exploration of hypersonic flight. The X-15 will ultimately be viewed as the Wright Flyer of hypersonic airplanes.

The X-15 was the third of a series of research aircraft that were designed specifically to obtain aerodynamic data, beginning with the Bell X-1, the first piloted airplane to fly faster than the speed of sound. The X-1 investigated aircraft behavior primarily in the transonic flight regime. The transonic regime is generally considered to be flight between Mach 0.8 and about 1.3. It begins when air is accelerated to Mach 1 at any local location on the airplane, usually when the airplane is flying at the subsonic airspeed of about Mach 0.8 The second research airplane, the Bell X-1A, investigated supersonic flight to a Mach number of 2.44. This was followed by the Bell X-2, a swept-wing aircraft of stainless steel construction designed to investigate the effects of sweepback and aerodynamic heating to a Mach number of 3.2.

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Each of these aircraft, like the later X-15, was rocket-powered and carried aloft to be dropped at an altitude of about 30,000 feet. At these high altitudes, where the air is less dense and the drag is therefore low, the rocket provides maximum acceleration to the airplane following launch. This acceleration is sufficient to allow the airplane to reach the desired speeds and altitudes that allow scientists to study the flight regions between where aerodynamic forces are still useful, and outer space, where they are not, and to study speeds of almost Mach 7, which are solidly in the hypersonic regime.

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The Experimental Hypersonic Rocket Plane That Ushered in the Space Age

NASA Tests New Technologies for Robotic Refueling

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It's corrosive, it's hazardous, and it can cause an explosion powerful enough to thrust a satellite forward in space. Multiple NASA centers are currently conducting a remotely controlled test of new technologies that would empower future space robots to transfer this dangerous fluid -- satellite oxidizer -- into the propellant tanks of spacecraft in space today.

Building on the success of the International Space Station's landmark Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) demonstration, the ground-based Remote Robotic Oxidizer Transfer Test (RROxiTT) is taking another step forward in NASA's ongoing campaign to develop satellite-servicing capabilities for space architectures and human exploration.

On Earth, RROxiTT technologies could one day be applied to robotically replenish satellites before they launch, keeping humans at a safe distance during an extremely hazardous operation.

Building on the Past to Set the Stage for the Future In January 2013, RRM demonstrated that remotely controlled robots -- using current-day technology -- could work through the caps and wires on a satellite fuel valve and transfer fluid into existent, orbiting spacecraft that were not designed to be serviced.

To meet the safety requirements of space station, ethanol was used as a stand-in for satellite fuel. For the team that conceived and built RRM, the Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office (SSCO) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., the successful conclusion of this refueling demonstration was not the end of their work -- only the beginning.

"We were immensely pleased with RRM results. But doing more was always part of the plan," says Benjamin Reed, deputy project manager of SSCO. "There were certain aspects of satellite refueling that couldn't be demonstrated safely while we were using space station as a test bed - aspects that we chose to defer to a later test date. RROxiTT is the next step in that technology development."

Taking lessons learned from RRM, the SSCO team devised the ground-based RROxiTT to test how robots can transfer oxidizer, at flight-like pressures and flow rates, through the propellant valve and into the mock tank of a satellite that was not designed to be serviced in space.

"No one has ever attempted this type of oxidizer transfer before," says Marion Riley, the SSCO test manager for RROxiTT. "Like any NASA-sized challenge, we had to figure out -- and at times, create -- the right set of technologies and procedures to get the job done. Testing on the ground helps us know we're on the right track."

At the heart of RROxiTT's complexity is the nature of the dangerous substance the robot is handling. Oxidizer -- namely nitrogen tetroxide -- is a chemical that, when mixed with satellite fuel, causes instant combustion that provides thrust (motion) for a satellite.

Oxidizer is contained within a satellite tank at intense pressures, up to 300 pounds per square inch (about 20 times atmospheric pressure). Toxic, extremely corrosive and compressed, it requires special handling and a unique set of technologies to transfer it. A Collaborative Effort to Build Space Capabilities

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NASA Tests New Technologies for Robotic Refueling

NASA Currently Testing New Technologies For Robotic Refueling

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Image Caption: In space, a robot servicer could use propellant transfer technologies to extend the life of orbiting satellites (depicted, artists concept). Credit: NASA

Dewayne Washington/Adrienne Alessandro NASA

[ Watch The Video: Another Step Toward Servicing Satellites in Space ]

Its corrosive, its hazardous, and it can cause an explosion powerful enough to thrust a satellite forward in space. Multiple NASA centers are currently conducting a remotely controlled test of new technologies that would empower future space robots to transfer this dangerous fluid satellite oxidizer into the propellant tanks of spacecraft in space today.

Building on the success of the International Space Stations landmark Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) demonstration, the ground-based Remote Robotic Oxidizer Transfer Test (RROxiTT) is taking another step forward in NASAs ongoing campaign to develop satellite-servicing capabilities for space architectures and human exploration.

On Earth, RROxiTT technologies could one day be applied to robotically replenish satellites before they launch, keeping humans at a safe distance during an extremely hazardous operation.

Building on the Past to Set the Stage for the Future

In January 2013, RRM demonstrated that remotely controlled robots using current-day technology could work through the caps and wires on a satellite fuel valve and transfer fluid into existent, orbiting spacecraft that were not designed to be serviced. To meet the safety requirements of space station, ethanol was used as a stand-in for satellite fuel. For the team that conceived and built RRM, the Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office (SSCO) at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., the successful conclusion of this refueling demonstration was not the end of their work only the beginning.

We were immensely pleased with RRM results. But doing more was always part of the plan, says Benjamin Reed, deputy project manager of SSCO. There were certain aspects of satellite refueling that couldnt be demonstrated safely while we were using space station as a test bed aspects that we chose to defer to a later test date. RROxiTT is the next step in that technology development.

Taking lessons learned from RRM, the SSCO team devised the ground-based RROxiTT to test how robots can transfer oxidizer, at flight-like pressures and flow rates, through the propellant valve and into the mock tank of a satellite that was not designed to be serviced in space.

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NASA Currently Testing New Technologies For Robotic Refueling


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