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More than 87 per cent of global virtual asset trading now traceable with CipherTrace – HedgeWeek

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Danzig

CipherTrace, a provider of cryptocurrency intelligence and blockchain security, has launched an expanded cryptocurrency intelligence platform, which in addition to Bitcoin (BTC), allows customers to trace more than 700 tokens.

Combined, that comprises more than 87 pe rcent of the volume of the top 100 cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum (ETH), Tether, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Litecoin (LTC). CipherTraces increased monitoring support further includes the capability to trace several hundred ERC20 tokens.I would emphasise that this giant leap in blockchain visibility was no easy feat, says Shannon Holland, CipherTrace CTO. It has taken intense work and technological breakthroughs over the last four years, as well as collaboration with regulators and financial investigators. We can now discern and automatically verify previously unfathomable amounts of blockchain data and characterise it with a high level of confidence. We will continue to add more tokens, stablecoins, and blockchains in the coming months.CipherTraces proprietary algorithms, digital enrichment, advanced clustering, and tradecraft combine to deliver unprecedented traceability and resolution to previously unknowable public blockchain information. Additionally, CipherTrace has 522 million attribution data points such as account type, account holders, contract types, contract owners and other metadata on cryptocurrency addresses.Only by helping virtual asset service providers rid their networks of criminals and terrorists will the industry achieve the level of trust required for widespread adoption and government acceptance, says Dave Jevans, CEO of CipherTrace. Until now, large swaths of the cryptocurrency ecosystem have remained opaque to AML and CTF monitoring. By delivering the most comprehensive cryptocurrency intelligence, we are helping to create a multi-trillion-dollar global crypto economy.The expanded tracing capabilities included in the latest CipherTrace Cryptocurrency Intelligence platform are immediately available to end-users via the CipherTrace API for an automated monitoring. Users will have the power to explore complete BCH, ETH, ERC-20, LTC and USDT addresses and view valuable details on transactions, wallets, exchanges and smart contracts. Financial investigators can also now trace Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin addresses forwards and backward in their transaction history.Bitcoin takes centre stage in financial crime investigations because it is the easiest crypto to obtain and has the largest transaction volume. Still, billions of dollars move through alt-coins daily, says CipherTraces head of financial investigations, Pamela Clegg. To close cryptocurrency money laundering gaps, we must expose more of the true number of illicit transactions that occur across the entire ecosystem. This platform expansion does just that by providing regulators, exchanges, and investors visibility into more than 87 percent of the virtual asset market trading volume.CipherTrace users can now also explore ERC-20 transactions of interest, or research and explore smart contracts. With a single click on the contract icon, CipherTrace can highlight details of the smart contract, including all transactions, counterparties, and counterparty attribution.Banks and other crypto asset businesses will benefit immensely from the addition of support for ERC-20 and other significant tokens, says Jevans. Fully complying with AML/CFT regulations requires monitoring ERC-20 transactions for illicit activity. In addition, exchanges need to assure their banking partners that they understand and can monitor the risks associated with these and similar tokens.The enhanced platform also includes alerting features to deliver notifications of transactions and changes to address risk ratings. Watchlist addresses are constantly monitored, and alerts are sent every time an address of interest sends or receives payments.

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More than 87 per cent of global virtual asset trading now traceable with CipherTrace - HedgeWeek

More than 87% of Global Virtual Asset Trading Now Traceable with CipherTrace – Business Wire

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Danzig

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CipherTrace, the worlds number one provider of cryptocurrency intelligence and blockchain security, today announced the industrys most comprehensive virtual asset tracing capability. With the expanded cryptocurrency intelligence platform launched today, in addition to Bitcoin (BTC), CipherTrace customers can now trace more than 700 tokens. Combined, that comprises more than 87 percent of the volume of the top 100 cryptocurrencies*, including Ethereum (ETH), Tether, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Litecoin (LTC). CipherTraces increased monitoring support further includes the capability to trace several hundred ERC20 tokens.

I would emphasize that this giant leap in blockchain visibility was no easy feat, said Shannon Holland, CipherTrace CTO. It has taken intense work and technological breakthroughs over the last four years, as well as collaboration with regulators and financial investigators. We can now discern and automatically verify previously unfathomable amounts of blockchain data and characterize it with a high level of confidence. We will continue to add more tokens, stablecoins, and blockchains in the coming months.

CipherTraces proprietary algorithms, digital enrichment, advanced clustering, and tradecraft combine to deliver unprecedented traceability and resolution to previously unknowable public blockchain information. Additionally, CipherTrace has 522 million attribution data pointssuch as account type, account holders, contract types, contract owners and other metadataon cryptocurrency addresses.

Only by helping virtual asset service providers rid their networks of criminals and terrorists will the industry achieve the level of trust required for widespread adoption and government acceptance, said Dave Jevans, CEO of CipherTrace. Until now, large swaths of the cryptocurrency ecosystem have remained opaque to AML and CTF monitoring. By delivering the most comprehensive cryptocurrency intelligence, we are helping to create a multi-trillion-dollar global crypto economy.

Support for 700 currencies available immediately

The expanded tracing capabilities included in the latest CipherTrace Cryptocurrency Intelligence platform are immediately available to end-users via the CipherTrace API for an automated monitoring. Users will have the power to explore complete BCH, ETH, ERC-20, LTC and USDT addresses and view valuable details on transactions, wallets, exchanges and smart contracts. Financial investigators can also now trace Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin addresses forwards and backward in their transaction history.

Bitcoin takes center stage in financial crime investigations because it is the easiest crypto to obtain and has the largest transaction volume. Still, billions of dollars move through alt-coins daily, explained CipherTraces head of financial investigations, Pamela Clegg. To close cryptocurrency money laundering gaps, we must expose more of the true number of illicit transactions that occur across the entire ecosystem. This platform expansion does just that by providing regulators, exchanges, and investors visibility into more than 87 percent of the virtual asset market trading volume.

Unique Ethereum ERC-20 Expansion Features

CipherTrace users can now also explore ERC-20 transactions of interest, or research and explore smart contracts. With a single click on the contract icon, CipherTrace can highlight details of the smart contract, including all transactions, counterparties, and counterparty attribution.

Banks and other crypto asset businesses will benefit immensely from the addition of support for ERC-20 and other significant tokens, continued Jevans. Fully complying with AML/CFT regulations requires monitoring ERC-20 transactions for illicit activity. In addition, exchanges need to assure their banking partners that they understand and can monitor the risks associated with these and similar tokens.

New Alerting Feature Automatically Notifies Users of Payment and Risk Changes

The enhanced platform also includes alerting features to deliver notifications of transactions and changes to address risk ratings. Watchlist addresses are constantly monitored, and alerts are sent every time an address of interest sends or receives payments.

*Measured in trading volume as of October 7, 2019

About CipherTrace

CipherTrace is the leader in blockchain security. CipherTraces anti-money laundering, blockchain analytics, and crypto threat intel solutions are powered by advanced cryptocurrency intelligence. Financial investigators and auditors use CipherTrace blockchain analytics to trace virtual asset transactions. Leading exchanges, virtual currency businesses, banks, and regulators themselves use CipherTrace to comply with regulation and to monitor compliance. Its quarterly CipherTrace Cryptocurrency Anti-Money Laundering Report has become an authoritative industry data source. CipherTrace was founded in 2015 by experienced Silicon Valley entrepreneurs with deep expertise in cybersecurity, eCrime, payments, banking, encryption, and virtual currencies. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology (S&T) and DARPA initially funded CipherTrace, and it is backed by leading Silicon Valley venture capital investors.

Visit http://www.ciphertrace.com for more information or follow the company on Twitter @CipherTrace and on LinkedIn.

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More than 87% of Global Virtual Asset Trading Now Traceable with CipherTrace - Business Wire

Latest cryptocurrency news and prices, 16 October 2019 – The South African

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Danzig

Bitcoins price has stumbled back below a key support area, while most of the altcoin markets are swimming in a sea of red price losses on the day. Here are your latest cryptocurrency news and prices.

The worlds number one cryptocurrency traded flat for the better part of yesterday, with an intraday high at $8,400. At around 20:00 last night, the OG crypto took a sudden dip below the $8,200 price area, thus recording a loss of more than 2% on the day.

Bitcoins market share has decreased to 66.3%, its lowest level since early August, with its daily trading volume sitting at around $15 million.

Read more at fxstreet.com

(Trading at $224.10 at 14:00 16 October 2019)

Cyber criminals keep evolving with each passing day as they seek to avoid detection from security experts. Having started off by demanding BTC in ransom, they have started switching to Litecoin according to a new report. Litecoin addresses are not as easily detectable by most firewalls, allowing the criminals to get through to their victims.

Initially, extortion claims came in the form of plain text, with the criminals claiming to have footage of the victim doing some things that they would prefer to keep private. The ransom is demanded in BTC for most cases. Usually, its just a hoax, but it still manages to convince quite a few victims. However, in time, businesses began installing programs that blocked any email that contained keywords related to extortion.

Read more at fxstreet.com

(Trading at $55.47 at 14:00 16 October 2019)

Dan Larimer, the chief technical officer of Block.One, the company behind the EOS ecosystem, published several proposals on how to improve network decentralization.

The purpose of blockchain governance is to make decisions in the best interest of as many people as possible while minimizing the opportunity for a small group of people to act in ways that benefit themselves at the expense of the community, the CTO of Block.One explained.

He also added that is was necessary to align interests and select the parties that would lose a lot if the network failed to operate to its potential. Larimer suggested providing voting rights only to the tokens locked in a long-term staking contract to ensure a long-term outlook and skin in the game

Read more at fxstreet.com

(Trading at $2.98 at 14:00 16 October 2019)

Amun AG in collaboration with Binance is launching a Binance Coin (BNB) based exchange-traded product (ETP). The trading of Amun BNB (ABNB) ETF is trading service is starting on Tuesday. According to the announcement via a blog post by Binance:

The launch of the ETP is a first step for the partnership, paving the way for more innovative products contributing to the global transition to crypto assets.

The new product, ABNB introduces Binance Coin to the traditional market structure while expanding BNB utility. In addition to that, access to the digital asset has been made possible for institutional clients as well as the retail market.

Read more at fxstreet.com

(Trading at $18.41 at 14:00 16 October 2019)

TrueReviews.io was one of the standout projects at the Bitcoin Associations recent Pitch Day in Seoul, South Korea. Not wanting to lose that momentum, the project recently had successful limited alpha test, inviting real users to start using the service and test its limits.

True Reviews, founded by Connor Murray, seeks to solve the problem of fake or unfair business reviews by removing advertising from the experience, and instead replacing it with a Bitcoin SV (BSV) reward system.

The site began looking for alpha testers on October 12, quickly finding several dozen to help give the project a good once over. Murray returned to Twitter on October 15 to announce the results of the test.

Crypto Investing in the 2020s – FXStreet

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Danzig

As we cross the threshold into the next decade, what truly is in store for crypto investors?

Will Bitcoin be many times more valuable by the end of the decade?

Or will it be mostly dead?

Will it be replaced by cryptocurrencies with more advanced technology?

If so, will those cryptocurrencies have begun to replace most fiat currencies?

What about digital assets controlled by companies the likes of Facebook or JPMorgan Chase?

Before I can answer these questions about the future, lets first look back at the past ...

When Bitcoin was born ten years ago, the world was torn by financial crisis.

It was 2008.

Major governments had piled up massive debts.

Lehman Brothers failed, triggering a chain reaction of even greater failures in the banking system.

Governments responded by printing unlimited quantities of money.

And Bitcoin was born as Satoshi Nakamotos indignant response to the mess they created.

The dream: To create a peer-to-peer system of electronic cash, killing three birds with one stone:

One: Bitcoin would unshackle money from the control of those who created the financial crisis.

Two: It would replace their behind-the-scenes deliberations and manipulations with the first-ever form of money that has a built-in monetary policy.

Three: The monetary policy would be stable, predictable and completely transparent visible to everyone.

That was the dream. But it has not been the reality.

Bitcoin will more closely resemble a store of wealth (like gold) than a system of electronic cash.

Heres what actually happened ...

When Bitcoin creators looked at fiat money, there was little desire to sort out the good from the bad. Instead Bitcoins specs were deliberately designed to be the exact antithesis of every critical aspect of existing monetary policy.

Specifically, in these four ways ...

This was the theory. But in practice, these strict design choices have taken a heavy toll on the Bitcoin network over time:

So, with the benefit of hindsight, its very possible that

Bitcoin was an overreaction to the financial crisis and to the monetary system that allowed the crisis to occur.

But today, instead of functioning as an efficient peer-to-peer system for transferring cash, Bitcoin is evolving into a store of value like gold.

We dont really see a lot of changes being made, so store of value will likely end up being its only function by the end of the next decade.

Not that theres anything wrong with that, but it does leave the door open for other projects to pick up the slack and take on the mantle of peer-to-peer electronic cash.

The good news is stores of value are in high demand in todays world of geopolitical and financial uncertainty. Like gold, Bitcoin still retains the potential to rise dramatically in value.

Moreover, the fact remains that Bitcoin introduced the first public, open, digital asset the world has ever seen. Bitcoin was the first successful experiment with Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). And in recent years, that revolutionary technology has evolved rapidly.

So, what comes next? Looking ahead to the next decade, we can see how ...

DLT could contribute not only to the evolution of money and the stability of monetary policy ... it could also enhance economic productivity, political governance, social cohesion and more.

DLT could revolutionize democratic elections, transform the world of lending and massively disrupt social media. So, the potential for cryptocurrencies to change the world is big, much bigger than originally expected ten years ago.

In fact, whether or not Bitcoin can deliver on its original promise is now a moot point. Other cryptocurrencies are rising to the occasion to fulfill the original dream ... plus much more.

Yes, the invention of Bitcoin broke the ice ...

It unleashed teams of developers and thinkers who are passionate about a decentralized digital cash system. They are fixing the deficiencies of Bitcoin and fine-tuning their algorithms to create a currency for the masses.

More recently, it has also unleashed a parallel trend of a very different kind: Regulators and gatekeepers of the traditional financial system see the writing on the wall.

They have become increasingly aware of the powerful advantages that DLT could bring to the table. And they are already looking for ways to adapt, adopt or co-opt the new technology to modernize the existing system.

Depending on which of these prevails, there are two possible scenarios on how cryptocurrencies evolve over the next decade:

Public open ledgers and their native cryptocurrencies begin to replace the fiat currency system. Instead of saving, spending or investing dollars, euros or yen, people begin to do all those things with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano or EOS.

A growing share of the population transitions from government-issued currency to public cryptocurrencies. They are attracted to crypto by handy, practical distributed applications (dApps), powered by free and open cryptocurrencies.

This activity is not controlled by government or government-regulated institutions. Its governed by the consensus of each community.

Initially, governments resist. But eventually, they accept the new reality. They realize they can no longer control the monetary system the way they used to. Instead of bucking the trend, they begin to recognize these new forms of money as legal tender.

No currency emerges as the sole winner. Rather, a select group of cryptocurrencies becomes dominant, thanks to superior technology, the most practical applications and the broadest mainstream acceptance.

Governments and corporations of the worlds largest economies the U.S., the European Union, China and Japan lead the way toward adopting Distributed Ledger Technology.

They realize that digital money is the wave of the future. And they see that the single, most-efficient form of digital money is based on DLT.

BUT instead of creating open, decentralized systems, they focus on digital money systems that mimic the fiat system already in place.

Yes, the technology is similar. But the governance is not: The new kinds of money remain under the direct control of central banks.

For political and business leaders who crave more power and control, its an upgrade: Government and corporate agents gain the ability to directly monitor every single transaction in the system. They are empowered to freeze accounts with a few clicks of a mouse.

And once various kinds of property are digitized, a government or company decree to confiscate assets of targeted groups can be executed in seconds.

The technology is still distributed ledger. But instead of opening the network to everyone (a permissionless system), those who wish to join must first get the okay from some type of entity (a permissioned system).

Facebooks Libra is a good example of the latter. Bitcoin, the former.

And instead of relying on the rules embedded in the code to ensure fairness (a trustless system), participants must accept the authority of the rulers (a trusted system).

In a country with strong democratic traditions and judicial protections, this would not be of immediate concern. The government is expected to act in the best interests of the people. Its assumed it will use its new digital superpowers strictly against rogue actors.

But in countries already leaning toward autocracy or with no independent judiciary to speak of, the picture goes from dark to darker: Those governments will use centralized DLT to snuff out whatever individual freedoms remain.

And what about companies that dont exactly have a pristine record when it comes to handling your personal data? Think Facebook and Cambridge Analytica here.

Remember: All technology is inherently neutral. It can be tool of evolution or a weapon of destruction; a blade for harvest or for war.

DLT is a prime example. Its one of the most revolutionary technologies on the planet. It can help enhance individual freedom, guarantee property rights and build wealth.

Or, it can be used by authoritarian governments and companies to install a draconian surveillance state.

Ten years from now, which will it be? A lot will depend on which scenario prevails: Decentralized DLT or centralized DLT?

My guess is that, for now at least, we could wind up with an unholy mix of both. But in the longer term, decentralized DLT will always have two major advantages:

First, DLT derives its greatest power from voluntary mass participation. But centralized DLT represses that mass participation. Its contrary to the essence of what DLT does best.

Second, even if private entities can create their own form of cryptocurrency thats fully under their control, it will be almost impossible for them to ban decentralized DLT networks.

In the end, the same dynamic that ultimately makes democracies stronger than dictatorships will also make decentralized DLT stronger than the centralized alternative.

Read the rest here:

Crypto Investing in the 2020s - FXStreet

NASA names new chief of human space operations – Spaceflight Now

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Danzig

STORY WRITTEN FORCBS NEWS& USED WITH PERMISSION

Douglas Loverro, a veteran manager with broad experience in national security space operations, has been selected by NASA to lead the agencys human space flight programs. He takes over at a critical moment as the agency assesses the readiness of new commercial crew ships amid a full-court press to land astronauts on the moon in 2024.

Loverro is a respected strategic leader in both civilian and defense programs, overseeing the development and implementation of highly complicated systems, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement.

He is known for his strong, bipartisan work, and his experience with large programs will be of great benefit to NASA at this critical time in our final development of human spaceflight systems for both Commercial Crew and Artemis.

Artemis is the name of NASAs second-generation moon program, an accelerated Trump administration initiative to send astronauts back to the moon four years earlier than NASA originally had planned.

Bridenstine announced Loverros appointment three months after dismissing long-time associate administrator Bill Gerstenmaier, a widely respected NASA engineer with decades of human spaceflight experience, in a major management shakeup intended to spark a fresh approach to running the agencys most complex and expensive programs.

Former astronaut Ken Bowersox served as acting associate administrator of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate after Gerstenmaiers departure. He now will resume is previous role as deputy associate administrator.

Its an interesting appointment, John Logsdon, a noted author and space historian, said of Loverro. Hes a good guy, very accessible, very easy to get along with. In his earlier life, he managed big procurement projects and has a reputation as a good manager.

More recently, Logsdon said, Loverro dealt with the White House, Congress and international partners on security space issues. I think hes well fitted to negotiate the relationships in exploration going forward.

Loverro holds a masters degree in physics from the University of New Mexico, a masters in political science from Auburn University and an MBA from the University of West Florida. He spent three decades working with the Department of Defense and the secretive National Reconnaissance Office.

He retired from the Air Force as a colonel in 2006 after selection as a member of the Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service.

As chief of NASAs Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at agency Headquarters, Loverro will be taking over top-level management of the International Space Station, the Commercial Crew Program and the Artemis project.

Boeing and SpaceX, working under NASA contracts to commercially develop new space capsules to ferry astronauts to and from the space station, are struggling to ready their ships for initial piloted test flights in the wake of budget shortfalls and technical issues.

Both companies now plan to launch astronaut crews on those long-awaited test flights early next year to pave the way toward operational crew rotation missions that will end NASAs sole reliance on Russias Soyuz spacecraft for ferrying astronauts to and from the station.

Even so, NASA likely will be forced to buy additional Soyuz seats to ensure a continuous U.S. presence aboard the lab complex if significant additional delays are encountered. As it now stands, the final NASA-contracted seat aboard a Soyuz will be used in April.

Its not yet known when the first piloted Commercial Crew mission will take off, but Loverro will play a major role in assessing NASA requirements and launch targets as testing proceeds.

His biggest challenge will be overseeing the Artemis moon program in the midst of political wrangling over how much the project might cost and resolution of major technical challenges, from work to ready NASAs huge new Space Launch System SLS booster for flight to development of a commercially procured lunar lander.

NASA originally hoped to send astronauts back to the moon in 2028, but the Trump administration reset the agenda and ordered NASA to move that up four years for a landing in 2024. The administration requested $1.6 billion in supplemental funding for the agencys 2020 budget request to kick-start development of key systems, including a moon lander.

During a hearing Wednesday of the House appropriations subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies, chairman Jos Serrano repeatedly pressed Bridenstine for an Artemis cost estimate beyond 2020.

I remain extremely concerned about the additional costs to accelerate the mission to the moon by four years, he said in opening remarks. Some experts have said the additional financial resources needed to meet the administrations imposed 2024 deadline could exceed $25 billion over the next five years compared to the original 2028 schedule.

To date, NASA has not provided the committee with a full cost estimate despite repeated requests. At a time of huge financial needs across numerous government programs, all competing for funding within the budget caps, an additional $25 billion cost would severely impact vital programs.

Bridenstine said later that NASA is working to refine schedules and cost estimates and will include projected costs for Artemis in the agencys next budget proposal.

We are working with the Office of Management and Budget and the National Space Council to come up with an administration consensus for what the total cost will be, and we will submit that in February, he said.

NASA is relying on the huge Boeing-built SLS rocket to propel Artemis astronauts back to the moon aboard Orion capsules built by Lockheed Martin. The SLS is years behind schedule and is not expected to make its initial unpiloted test flight until 2021.

Assuming the rocket makes it through development and flight tests, current plans call for an astronaut crew to dock with a mini space station Gateway in lunar orbit in 2024 before descending to the surface in a commercially developed lander.

Managing how that program will play out in Congress and in space will be at the top of Loverros agenda.

Its really a management challenge, Logsdon said. Theres a flip side to his not having a background in human spaceflight, that is, he doesnt have background in human spaceflight with all the culture that comes with that. He can take a fresh look.

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NASA names new chief of human space operations - Spaceflight Now

Boeing Aims to Launch Unpiloted Starliner Test Flight to Space Station in December – Space.com

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Danzig

LAS CRUCES, N.M. Boeing has set a new launch date for the first orbital flight of its new commercial crew vehicle that will soon begin ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

The unpiloted CST-100 Starliner capsule is now scheduled to launch to the International Space Station on Dec. 17, said John Mulholland, Boeing's vice president of commercial programs, here at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS).

For this mission, titled "Orbital Flight Test" (OFT), the Starliner space capsule will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on an Atlas V rocket and dock with the International Space Station, where it will stay for about a week before making a parachute-assisted landing at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

Related: How Boeing's Commercial CST-100 Starliner Spacecraft Works

A Boeing Starliner spacecraft is prepared for a planned December 2019 test flight to the International Space Station for NASA.

(Image credit: NASA)

Before Starliner makes its first trip to the space station, Boeing will first conduct a test of the spacecraft's abort system. That in-flight abort test, which is now scheduled to take place in on Nov. 4, will demonstrate Starliner's ability to return astronauts to safety in the event of an emergency on the launch pad or during the spacecraft's ascent.

Meanwhile, SpaceX is also gearing up for the first in-flight abort test of its Crew Dragon spacecraft, another commercial crew vehicle NASA has commissioned to begin flying astronauts to and from the International Space Station to end the agency's reliance on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft. According to SpaceX's chief executive Elon Musk, the Crew Dragon's in-flight abort test could also launch sometime next month. Musk tweeted on Tuesday (the same day that Boeing announced its new launch schedule) that the Crew Dragon in-flight abort test will probably happen in late November or early December.

Although Starliner has yet to reach orbit, SpaceX has already launched its Crew Dragon to the International Space Station for its first unpiloted test mission, called Demo-1, in March. However, both vehicles have faced delays in their development.

In July 2018, Boeing reported an "anomaly" had occurred during a test of one of the pad-abort engines, putting Starliner behind schedule. A few months later, Boeing announced that the OFT mission would be ready to fly in March, but it was delayed yet again due to a scheduling conflict with another Atlas V launch from the same launch pad, Boeing said. Meanwhile, NASA said it had been delayed to allow more time for testing and safety reviews.

SpaceX also recently faced its own "anomaly" with a Crew Dragon spacecraft that put the company behind schedule for its first crewed launch to the International Space Station. In April, during a routine test of Crew Dragon's SuperDraco escape engines, a Crew Dragon capsule (the same one that flew to the space station for the Demo-1 mission) exploded at SpaceX's test facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, adding to the delays.

Benjamin Reed, SpaceX's director of commercial crew mission management, said the investigation into the accident is now wrapping up, and that SpaceX has already implemented changes to mitigate the cause of the explosion: a leaky valve. Both the Crew Dragon vehicle and the Falcon 9 rocket that will be used for the in-flight abort test have arrived at the launch site, launch complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Reed said. And if all goes according to plan, SpaceX could launch its first crew of astronauts to the space station in 2020.

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and onFacebook.

Need more space? You can get 5 issues of our partner "All About Space" Magazine for $5 for the latest amazing news from the final frontier!

(Image credit: All About Space magazine)

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Boeing Aims to Launch Unpiloted Starliner Test Flight to Space Station in December - Space.com

Moon VIPER: NASA Wants to Send a Water-Sniffing Rover to the Lunar South Pole in 2022 – Space.com

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Danzig

NASA is already pulling together plans for what could become its first long-lived robotic rover on the moon's surface, designed to sniff out water and targeting a landing date of 2022.

Right now, that rover, called Volatiles Investigation Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER), is still a mission concept. If all goes well, the project could develop a long-lived, mobile robot that can hunt for water and other volatiles near the south pole of the moon. And VIPER has a head start, since the would-be mission builds on previous NASA development conducted as part of a project called Resource Prospector, which was axed in 2018. This time around, the rover would reflect the Artemis program, NASA's initiative to land humans on the moon in 2024.

"We are heavily ensconced in the intersection between science and exploration," Brad Bailey, program scientist with NASA's Lunar Discovery and Exploration Program, said about NASA's lunar program during a Planetary Science Advisory Committee meeting held in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 23. Volatiles are an area of particular overlap between the two programs, hence VIPER's relevance to both.

Related: Water Ice Confirmed on the Surface of the Moon for the 1st Time!

On the science side, understanding how water arrived at our closest neighbor would explain how Earth got its own water, even though plate tectonics has destroyed the geologic record of that era. Would-be explorers are on the hunt for fuel or even drinking water they could generate from stores of ice.

But in both cases, the first step is figuring out where the water is and that's what VIPER is designed to do, not only at the south pole, where it would land, but over the entire lunar surface. "The idea is that that mission is a very important part of looking for volatiles, looking for these potential resources on the lunar surface," Debra Needham, a planetary scientist at NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center, told Space.com. "It's a highly desired mission under formulation."

Scientists have confirmed the existence of sizable chunks of frozen water on the moon only over the past decade. But as it stands right now, NASA's last soft-landed mission to the moon was Apollo 17 in 1972, when humans last set foot on the moon. The agency has also only flown lunar rovers designed to work with humans, during the latter three Apollo missions. These rovers carried some instruments but primarily served as transportation devices for astronauts.

That means that although VIPER won't necessarily be the first mission to land in NASA's new, moon-focused Artemis era, it could be NASA's first lunar rover in decades and the agency's first independent rover ever.

The combination means that there are plenty of new capabilities NASA wants to build into such a mission. A particularly high priority for the agency is to design a rover that can power through the dramatic temperature swings between night and day. A couple of long-duration lunar rovers the Soviet Union's Lunokhod 2 and the Chinese Yutu rovers have slept through the night, woken up and resumed work.

But NASA wants to do something more: The agency wants VIPER and other future missions to keep gathering data through the night, without shutting down for safety. "One of the biggest technologies that needs to be developed is being able to survive and operate through the lunar night," Needham said.

Working through the night would double the amount of observations a rover could make in the same mission duration, which is of course appealing. But full-time observing would also offer crucial science data about phenomena that aren't observable during the lunar day. In particular, Needham said, scientists think that at dawn and dusk, dust may levitate and electrical currents could form in the lunar surface.

VIPER would let engineers test technologies designed to let lunar rovers work through the night, but it wouldn't tackle those specific science measurements. Instead, according to Bailey's presentation last month, there are four primary instruments that NASA is eyeing for VIPER.

Two of those instruments were under development for Resource Prospector; NASA also included both in a list of a dozen instruments selected in February to land on the moon as early as this year. (Bailey said they are scheduled to fly on board Astrobotic's lunar lander, which is due to fly in the summer of 2021.)

Those projects are the Neutron Spectrometer System, which measures hydrogen in the lunar surface; and the Near-Infrared Volatile Spectrometer System, or NIRVSS, which can study volatile composition, mineralogy and surface temperature.

A third instrument NASA is eyeing for VIPER is a drill designed to reach about 3 feet (1 meter) into the lunar regolith.

Scientists have glimpsed below the moon's surface before: Astronauts on the later Apollo missions also carried a drill, and they returned subsurface samples to Earth. But volatiles literally get their name from their ability to easily evaporate away, so scientists can't be sure what volatiles disappeared from the subsurface moon rocks they have examined up close with modern technology.

VIPER would change that, as both NIRVSS and a second instrument, called Mass Spectrometer observing lunar operations (MSolo), which can analyze isotopes, will conduct their analyses not only while the rover is moving but also on material that the drill pulls to the surface.

NASA also wants to make sure that the findings of a mission like VIPER could stretch far beyond the small patch of lunar surface that the rover itself would explore. In particular, the agency wants to work with the U.S. Geological Survey to establish how to apply the rover's local findings to orbital data about the rest of the lunar surface, Jay Jenkins, program executive for exploration at NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said during a panel about NASA's commercial partnerships for lunar science at a symposium held by NASA in Huntsville, Alabama, on Sept. 12.

After all, although the south pole's apparent ice cache is particularly intriguing to scientists and would-be explorers, it isn't the only water on the moon. "Ultimately, we really are trying to ground-truth all of the orbital data that we have, in terms of volatile, extent, composition, forms, etcetera," Bailey said during the advisory committee meeting.

Both Bailey and Jenkins said that NASA is hoping to launch VIPER in late 2022. "It's a very aggressive schedule," Jenkins said.

But that sort of timeline wouldn't be completely unprecedented, he added, pointing to NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, which he said was designed, built and executed within two years. (According to a NASA website for the mission, LCROSS was selected in April 2006; the flight concluded in October 2009. That would make for a slightly more generous timeline than VIPER would have if it hits its launch target.)

LCROSS is nothing if not a success story when it comes to understanding moon water. The mission, which launched with NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, watched a rocket stage crash into the moon and studied the debris until its own equally violent demise. The LCROSS data showed that its impact location is twice as wet as the Sahara Desert.

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Moon VIPER: NASA Wants to Send a Water-Sniffing Rover to the Lunar South Pole in 2022 - Space.com

Dream Chaser Space Plane Begins Full Assembly Ahead Of First NASA Mission In 2021 – Forbes

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Danzig

The vehicle will transport cargo to and from the ISS.

A new miniature shuttle called Dream Chaser is moving closer to completion, with the primary structure of the vehicle now constructed and full assembly set to begin for its first planned mission in 2021.

Designed by the Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) from Sparks, Nevada, Dream Chaser is a reusable space plane that, at about nine meters long, is roughly four times smaller than NASAs historic Space Shuttle. It is designed to transport cargo, and possibly even crew one day, to the International Space Station (ISS).

At an event in Colorado, where the finished vehicle will be constructed, SNC unveiled the primary structure of the vehicle, which weighs in at 1,000 kilograms and was made with a variety of materials including carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRPs).

Built by Lockheed Martin, the primary structure is a pressurized structure designed to carry payloads on their way to the ISS. It was built in Fort Worth, Texas but has now been shipped to Louisville, Colorado, where SNC will construct the complete Dream Chaser spacecraft.

Its an extraordinary engineering and manufacturing accomplishment, said Eren Ozmen, chairwoman and president of SNC, in a statement. Our team has been looking forward to this day for a long time so that we can fully assemble Americas spaceplane in preparation for its first mission for NASA.

Dream Chaser is contracted with NASA to complete six missions to the ISS as part of a Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS-2) contract, with the first expected in late 2021. It will be capable of taking about 5,500 kilograms of cargo, supplies, and experiments to the ISS on each flight.

The vehicle will launch vertically on ULA's upcoming Vulcan Centaur rocket, before gliding back to a runway landing on Earth. This will make it one of only two private uncrewed vehicles in operation that can return equipment from orbit back to Earth, the other being SpaceXs Dragon spacecraft.

According to NASASpaceflight, each Dream Chaser vehicle will be reusable up to 15 times, which could allow for missions beyond the six that have been contracted with NASA. [This] will be useful if SNC gains additional flights via the likely extension of the CRS2 contract if the ISSs lifetime is also extended, they noted.

The vehicle has already completed several tests, including a free flight test in 2017 when it was dropped from a helicopter (although a similar test in 2013 was less successful). NASA approved the space plane for missions to the ISS in December 2018.

Now with final construction of the vehicle set to begin, SNC hope to have the cargo module built by February 2020, the left wing by the end of 2020, and the right wing by January 2021. If all goes to plan, we could then soon see this innovative vehicle take to the skies.

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Dream Chaser Space Plane Begins Full Assembly Ahead Of First NASA Mission In 2021 - Forbes

SpaceX news: Elon Musk is the Thomas Edison of the 21st century, claims veteran astronaut – Express.co.uk

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Danzig

Elon Musk and his Amazon counterpart, Jeff Bezos, are in the midst of a spaceflight industry revolution. An international team of scientists and astronauts has praised the two moguls for pushing the envelope in spaceflight technology. Canadian astronaut Bob Thirsk likened the two pioneers to the 19th-century inventor Thomas Edison.

The astronaut said: Musk and Bezos are not crazy, theyre the Thomas Edisons of the 21st century.

Im a big fan of them, their vision and the work that they have been able to do so far.

Frank De Winne and I are colleagues, who following spaceflight, have become ambassadors for this notion that space can be used as a way to encourage people in their educational path towards STEM careers.

The astronaut spoke about the SpaceX and Blue Origins founders during a panel dedicated to the future of human spaceflight.

Mr Thirsk was joined by fellow astronaut Frank De Winne from Belgium who served on the International Space Station (ISS).

The other panellists included former NASA scientist Dr Mark Shelhamer, NASA Apollo programme scientist Professor Laurence Young, Floris Wuyts of the University of Antwerp and the Minster of Information for space nation Asgardia Lena De Winne.

The panellists have all agreed Mr Musk and Mr Bezos have disrupted the spaceflight industry.

They were, however, sceptical about some of the loftier goals presented by the self-made billionaires.

READ MORE:Asteroid warning: The 2019 SU3 asteroid could hit Earth - will it hit?

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SpaceX news: Elon Musk is the Thomas Edison of the 21st century, claims veteran astronaut - Express.co.uk

ISRO’s Space Shuttle-like Reusable Launch Vehicle will attempt its first landing in Karnataka – Firstpost

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Danzig

tech2 News StaffOct 16, 2019 13:04:58 IST

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is finally following in the footsteps of NASA and SpaceX by developing a space program for Reusable Launch Vehicles(RLV) which it has been testing since2016.

The RLV program aims to cut down on launch costs by, well, reusing the spacecraft. ISRO's current project appears to be using a hybrid design that sits somewhere between NASA's now-shutteredSpace Shuttle program and SpaceX's reusable rockets.

India'sRLV includesa Space Shuttle-like craft that could feature an air-breathing ramjet engine. This craft will take a payload to space and then glide back to Earth, landing like a normal aircraft, much like the Space Shuttle. The rocket that will take this shuttle to orbit will return to Earth much like Musk's Falcon 9 rockets. It will return under its own power and make a landing on a floating platform out at sea.

So far, the RLV shuttle has been tested over water. Now, it will be tested over land and make an attempt at an actual landing.

An artist illustration of the RLV-TD concept. Image: ISRO

The scientists at ISRO will be tracking the flight and landing of the RLV at the Aeronautical Test Range (ATR) at Challakere in Chitradurga district, Karnataka.

The ATR has 2.2 km runway and the RLV will be dropped from a helicopter at an altitude of three km. According to a report in the Deccan Chronicle, an onboard computer will help the RLV glide for some distance before touching down on the runway like an aircraft.

The launch vehicle is critical to unleashing ISROs dreams of human space flight, Gaganyaan. It will also helpto further cut the cost of launches.

The first demonstration of the rocket's concept was tested on 23 May2016, when ISRO carriedout its 'Hypersonic Flight Experiment'of a two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO), fully-reusable rocket.

An illustration showing the different stages in the RLV technology demonstration, from launch to landing of both stages. Image: ISRO

Four aspects of the vehicle are to be tested:

ISRO plans to recover and reuse two stages of the rocket.

To recover the first stage, ISRO willuse a similar principle to SpaceX's Falcon 9 boosters, whereby the rocket is programmed to land on a pad in the sea afterlaunch.

For the second stage of the rocket, ISRO plans to test an advanced version ofthe RLV, tested in 2016, in an advanced test in June or July2019. The rocket will be controlled by ISRO engineers after launch to land on an airstrip, after which it will be used again for a second launch.

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ISRO's Space Shuttle-like Reusable Launch Vehicle will attempt its first landing in Karnataka - Firstpost

NASA scientist creates engine concept that can reach ‘close to the speed of light’ – Fox News

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Danzig

A NASA scientist has created a new concept for an engine that he says can move "close to the speed of light" all without any moving parts or need for fuel.

The paper, written by David Burns from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, discusses a "helical engine" that can be used to travel across interstellar distances, send astronauts to the moon in approximately one second and Mars in less than 13 minutes,according to The Sun, which first reported the news.

"A new concept for in-space propulsion is proposed in which propellant is not ejected from the engine, but instead is captured to create a nearly infinite specific impulse," Burns wrote in the paper's abstract. "The engine accelerates ions confined in a loop to moderate relativistic speeds, and then varies their velocity to make slight changes to their mass. The engine then moves ions back and forth along the direction of travel to produce thrust. This in-space engine could be used for long-term satellite station-keeping without refueling."

NASA IS READY TO TEST ITS FIRST ALL-ELECTRIC EXPERIMENTAL X-PLANE: 'A SIGNIFICANT EVENT'

"It could also propel spacecraft across interstellar distances, reaching close to the speed of light," Burns added in the abstract."The engine has no moving parts other than ions traveling in a vacuum line, trapped inside electric and magnetic fields."

Burns' idea is novel, as it completely removes one of the heaviest components of space flight--fuel.

NASA is looking into the possibility of usingice and water on the surface of the moon as rocket fuel, but any potential solution would likely be years, if not decades, away.

The concept, which Burns admitted he is not sure is viable, takes inspiration from high-tech particle accelerators, similar to what is seen at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

"If someone says it doesn't work, I'll be the first to say, it was worth a shot," Burns said in an interview with New Scientist."You have to be prepared to be embarrassed. It is very difficult to invent something that is new under the sun and actually works."

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NASA scientist creates engine concept that can reach 'close to the speed of light' - Fox News

Why Is Turkey in NATO Anyway? – The Atlantic

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Danzig

What about the air base though? Incirlik [the base the U.S. Air Force uses in southern Turkey] is an albatross, said one former senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. But there are people in [the U.S. government] for whom Turkey is sacrosanct and all of its problemsbusting U.S. sanctions, holding Americans hostage, threatening other NATO allies like Greece, supporting jihadists, buying Russian weapons, not to mention internal oppression and ongoing purges are our fault. Truth is, we cant do much at Incirlik. We need Turkeys permission to blow our nose there.

On the Turkish side, too, the marriage has been one of serial disappointments and misunderstandings. A February article in the pro-government Daily Sabah ran through a litany of issues with the alliance: Turkey, wrote the papers politics editor, Seyma Nazli Grbz, is the second-largest military in the alliance, is a key partner in Afghanistan and elsewhere, hosts NATO initiatives around its own territory, and contributed more than $100 million in 2018. (This is short of the 2 percent of its defense budget that Trump has insisted all NATO members pony up.)

But NATO disappointed Turkey more than once over the yearswhen the U.S. refused to side with the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, when Germany accused Turkey of killing civilians in its battle with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in its own country in the 1990s, and through Americas ongoing refusal to hand over Fethullah Glen, the U.S.-based leader of a Turkish political movement that Erdoan blames for orchestrating the 2016 coup attempt. Over time, siding with terrorists rather than Turkey became a pattern for many NATO member countries, particularly the U.S., Grbz wrote.

Read: Trumps gift to ISIS

Two U.S. presidential administrations running have now sided with Kurdish fighters in Syria tied to the PKK over Turkeys strenuous objections. Since Sunday, however, the dynamic seems to have shifted, and Trumpwho has been sharply critical of the NATO alliance himself, and who has touted his administrations achievements against ISISopted to take a NATO partners side over the Kurdish forces who did so much to help defeat the Islamic State. The shift was so sudden, it left officials at the State Department and the Pentagon scrambling to explain it and contain the fallout. In a phone call with the Turkish defense minister yesterday, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the incursion risks serious consequences for Turkey, according to the Pentagons readout.

Once again, as Erdoan sees it, some of his allies are siding with the terrorists. Hey, European Union, pull yourself together, he said in a speech yesterday. If you try to label this operation as an occupation we will open the gates and send 3.6 million refugees your way.

Separately, at the United Nations Security Council, the NATO allies France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Poland introduced a statement condemning Turkeys incursion into Syria. Turkey did have an ally on its side there. Ironically, given the alliances Cold War roots, America joined with Russia and declined to endorse it.

Yara Bayoumy contributed reporting.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

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Why Is Turkey in NATO Anyway? - The Atlantic

Congressman Suggests Turkey Could Be ‘Kicked Out’ of NATO: ‘I Don’t Think They’re An Ally Today’ – Newsweek

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Danzig

Congressman Eric Swalwell suggested Tuesday that Turkey could be "kicked out" of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) because of its invasion of Syria, saying he didn't view the nation to be acting like an ally.

"Turkey is also a NATO ally and I don't think they want to be kicked out of NATO, which I think is also something that I think may be on the table," Swalwell, a Democrat who represents California's 15th District, said in an interview with CNN. "We should in a bipartisan way seek to ... change Turkey's behavior."

He then criticized President Donald Trump for his handling of Syria policy and relations with Turkey, arguing that leadership should "come from the top."

"If in secret phone calls with Turkeys leaders [Trump's] essentially giving them a greenlight, and then when he gets the blowback from the American press and people at home changes the policy," Swalwell said, "you know, Turkey, how do they interpret that? That's very confusing for them."

"I don't think they're an ally today, but that can change," he asserted.

Trump has received significant bipartisan backlash to his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northeastern Syria, allowing for Turkey to move in with its forces. The president's decision came after a phone call with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoan last Sunday. A source with Trump's National Security Council told Newsweek last week that the president got "rolled" by Erdogan during the call.

"President Trump was definitely out-negotiated and only endorsed the troop withdraw to make it look like we are getting somethingbut we are not getting something," the official said.

As a result of Trump's decision, Turkey has moved into Syria and targeted the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which had been a key U.S. ally in the fight against the Islamic State (or ISIS). Turkey has long been in conflict with the Kurds, and Republican and Democratic lawmakers predicted accurately that Erdogan's forces would target the group. Now the Kurds have allied themselves with the Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad, a foe of the U.S. Hundreds of ISIS affiliates and some ISIS fighters have also escaped from detention camps in the chaos surrounding the Turkish advance.

The president has now implemented economic sanctions against Turkish officials but continued to defend his decision to withdraw U.S. forces. Top Republican and Democratic lawmakers are pushing for harsher sanctions, and pushing for the president to reverse the withdrawal, which they argue will embolden ISIS as well as American foes Iran and Russia.

Swalwell is not the first member of Congress to suggest Turkey could be removed from NATO due to its actions. GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who has been one of the harshest critics of Trump's decision despite normally aligning with the president, said last week he would call for Turkey's "suspension from NATO."

However, despite the lawmakers' remarks, NATO has no mechanism allowing the 29-nation alliance to expel a member. Although members can voluntarily withdraw under Article 13 of the treaty, there is no such avenue to force a country out. A new article would have to be written, and that would be subject to approval by all members, including Turkey. It would seem highly unlikely that Turkey would voluntarily withdraw or agree to an article that could allow it to be kicked out.

"The historical record is that NATO deals with these problems by privately sanctioning the member violating alliance values, but does not officially terminate their membership," Jorge Benitez, an expert on NATO with the Atlantic Council think tank recently told Stars and Stripes.

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Congressman Suggests Turkey Could Be 'Kicked Out' of NATO: 'I Don't Think They're An Ally Today' - Newsweek

Kick Turkey out of NATO? It wouldn’t be easy – Stars and Stripes

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Danzig

Kick Turkey out of NATO? It wouldn't be easy

STUTTGART, Germany Turkeys invasion of Syria has generated widespread international condemnation, infuriated allies and raised questions about whether the countrys inclusion within NATO should be reconsidered.

But even if there was consensus inside NATO about kicking Turkey out, the 70-year-old military alliance faces this key obstacle: no mechanism exists in NATOs founding charter for revoking a states membership.

While Article 13 in NATOs Washington Treaty offers a way for a county to quit, the charter is silent on how to force out a member state that has fallen out of favor.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on the eve of Turkeys Wednesday push into northern Syria, said he would call for their suspension from NATO if the U.S.s Kurdish partners in the fight against the Islamic State group came under attack.

Similar statements have been made this week by some European politicians and former American military leaders, who say Turkeys incursion into Syria should be answered with suspension or expulsion from the 29-nation NATO alliance.

Other international organizations such as the United Nations and European Union have legal mechanisms for suspending and even removing members, but NATO does not, said Jorge Benitez, a NATO expert with the Atlantic Council think tank.

The issue has been raised several times before, when the behavior of a NATO member is in conflict with the values of the alliance and the spirit of the Washington Treaty, such as (past) military coups in Greece and Turkey, Benitez said.

Should NATO ever decide to remove a member, it would have to amend its treaty. And that would mean getting unanimous support from all members, including Turkey.

During the course of NATOs history, members have fallen out of favor numerous times and debates have swirled about how to deal with a recalcitrant ally.

In 1974, allied leaders discreetly debated suspending Portugals membership in NATO following a leftist coup, Benitez said.

Instead, the Portuguese were quietly sanctioned and excluded from most NATO activities during 1974-1975.

The historical record is that NATO deals with these problems by privately sanctioning the member violating alliance values, but does not officially terminate their membership, Benitez said.

Ultimately, NATO leaders wait out the misbehaving national leaders until a government consistent with alliance values eventually returns to power, he said.

It is important to note, that in these cases NATO members act more strongly outside of the alliance, through their bilateral relationships with the offending government, Benitez said.

For example, the U.S. Congress cut off military aid to Turkey after it intervened in Cyprus in the 1970s. Turkey responded by cutting off American access to military bases in the country.

A current example would be Norway, which on Thursday announced it will block exports of military equipment to Turkey.

Inside NATO, there are other steps allies can take to punish a member, such as withholding information and excluding them from alliance meetings, Benitez said.

For its part, NATO continues to emphasize that Turkey is an ally in good standing.

Turkey is a valued ally, said a NATO official, speaking on customary condition of anonymity. We have deep relations that allies built over decades.

On the issue of how the alliance would go about expelling a member, the official said, this is a hypothetical question, which would be a matter for the parties to the treaty to determine.

vandiver.john@stripes.comTwitter: @john_vandiver

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Kick Turkey out of NATO? It wouldn't be easy - Stars and Stripes

Secretary General in Istanbul: Turkey is a great power in this great region and with great power comes great responsibility – NATO HQ

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Danzig

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg visited Turkey on Friday (11 October 2019) to discuss preparations for the NATO leaders meeting in London this December, marking NATOs 70th anniversary. Mr. Stoltenberg met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoan. They discussed the Alliances continued adaptation and the security situation in the region. In his meeting with Foreign Minister Mevlt avuolu, the Secretary General thanked Turkey for its commitment and many contributions to NATO.

In his meetings in Istanbul, Mr Stoltenberg also discussed the situation in Syria. He underlined that while Turkey has legitimate security concerns, I expect Turkey to act with restraint.Mr. Stoltenberg expressed his serious concerns about the risk of further destabilising the region, escalating tensions, and even more human suffering. He emphasized that We have a common enemy Daesh. A few years ago, they controlled significant territory in Iraq and in Syria.Working together in the Global Coalition, we have liberated all this territory and millions of people. These gains must not be jeopardized.

Turkey is a great power in this great region, the Secretary General stressed, and with great power comes great responsibility. Mr. Stoltenberg urged Turkey to avoid any unilateral actions that may further destabilize the region and escalate tensions.

During his visit, the Secretary General had also discussions with Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar.

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Secretary General in Istanbul: Turkey is a great power in this great region and with great power comes great responsibility - NATO HQ

Fighting the bureaucracy: For NATO, the Defender 2020 exercise in Europe will test interoperability – DefenseNews.com

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Danzig

WASHINGTON Defender 2020 in Europe is set to be one of the largest exercises the continent has seen in decades. And while it will test the U.S. Armys ability to project capabilities from the continental United States to nations across Europe, the opportunity will also put NATO to the test.

The U.S. and its NATO partners and allies acknowledge none of them will fight alone in a war against an aggressor in Europe, and thus operating jointly is critical but also difficult.

The U.S. Army has several years of experience performing tactical readiness drills at the brigade level in Europe through its gapless rotations of armored brigade combat teams and combat aviation brigades. But with Defender, the service will demonstrate strategic readiness, testing its ability to respond with force and project itself across Europe in coordination with its fellow NATO members and partners, Lt. Gen. J.T. Thomson, the head of NATO Allied Land Command, told Defense News in an interview ahead of the Association of the U.S. Armys annual conference.

The exercise will test all the systems that go with that kind of strategic reinforcement, he said.

Defender 2020 is set to be the third-largest military exercise in Europe since the Cold War, Lt. Gen. Chris Cavoli, the U.S. Army Europe commander, told Defense News in an exclusive interview earlier this month. The division-scaled exercise will test the Armys ability to deliver a force from fort in the United States to port in the United States, and then to ports in Europe, and from there to operational areas throughout the continent, including Germany, Poland, the Baltic states, Nordic countries, and Georgia, among others, Cavoli said.

The exercise will involve at least 15 NATO countries and two partner nations, Thomson said. And NATO specifically will participate at the corps level down to the tactical level, Thompson noted.

From a land forces standpoint, the demonstration of collective defense is our best deterrent, he said.

Were actually doing collective defense, and I stress collective, just not one or two nations, he said. This is from fort to port. This isnt just a river crossing or a specific fight, its very comprehensive in nature.

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While the U.S. puts its National Defense Strategy Multi-Domain Operations concept to the test in Europe, NATO will evaluate its own strategic approach, according to Thomson.

For NATO, its ability to receive forces and equipment from the U.S., stage them, move them forward onto the battlefield and integrate them will be the focus throughout the exercise. Though this has been simulated before, in this case, were not simulating it, we are doing it, Thomson said. Once those forces get integrated, were actually going to conduct defensive operations collectively.

Crucial to NATO will be evaluating the current state of military mobility and ensuring countries can seamlessly operate together. But those are also the biggest challenges, Thomson said.

During the Defender exercise, theater mobility will be put to the test at a massive scale something that hasnt always been easy.

Defense News flew on a Black Hawk from Bulgaria to Romania during the U.S. Army-led exercise Saber Guardian in 2017 with then-U.S. Army Europe Commander Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges when crew members were alerted they might have to land for an unanticipated customs check. The delay would have caused the general, who was leading the entire exercise, to miss a live-firing demonstration on the Black Sea.

A few emails and phone calls later, the stopover was diverted. But the experience highlighted the red tape the military runs into on a regular basis. Hodges called for the establishment of a military schengen zone that would ease border crossings, but that evolved to a focus on military mobility across Europe.

Since then, the European Union has worked to improve crossings for militaries and their equipment over the past several years to ensure rapid movement.

But there are still hiccups, Thomson said. During Defender, participants must move massive amounts of equipment and troops across countries in the northeast of the continent. The effort will test infrastructure and border policies. Forces will have to cross through EU member countries and nations that are not part of the organization, such as Norway, and each nation has its own set of rules, policies and procedures.

Ensuring nations can be interoperable has been a challenge for NATO. Im fond of saying theres no such thing as 100 percent interoperability, not even within nations, Thomson said, but we are headed in the right direction on interoperability. We test it and train on it daily across NATO through work with the enhanced forward presence units in Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia and at other episodic exercises.

This one is an outstanding opportunity to do it at division, corps and joint task force level, Thomson said. We dont do that that often.

At the exercise, interoperability will be tested as U.S. Army Europe serves as a combined joint force land component command and a NATO corps operates underneath it alongside American divisions. The scale of this one will give us very good lessons and some good azimuth to work into the future, Thomson explained.

From 2020 onward, the Defender exercise will become an annual series taking place in both the Pacific and Europe, but every other year will be a light year referring to the number of participating troops the acting U.S. Army Pacific commander, Lt. Gen. John Pete Johnson, told Defense News in a recent interview. The drill in Europe will be heavy this year, and the Pacific version will be smaller. In 2021, the Pacific-based Defender will have its turn being the larger of the two.

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Fighting the bureaucracy: For NATO, the Defender 2020 exercise in Europe will test interoperability - DefenseNews.com

NATO Allies Need to Come to Terms With Offensive Cyber Operations – Lawfare

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Danzig

In May 2008, the U.S. Department of Defense and the German Ministry of Defence signed a memorandum of understanding concerning Cooperation on Information Assurance and Computer Network Defense. Computer network defense (CND) refers to actions taken on computer networks to monitor and protect those networks. It is not the only memorandum the U.S. Department of Defense has signed with allies on cyber defense.

In late 2016, U.S. Cyber Command operators wiped Islamic State propaganda material off a server located in Germany. The German government was notified in some fashion but not asked for advance consent, causing much frustration. While U.S. Cyber Commands reported action may have violated Germanys sovereignty, it didnt explicitly violate the memorandum. It wasnt an act of CND; it was a computer network attack (CNA), seeking to disrupt, deny, degrade or destroy.

This reveals an uneasy situation within cyber cooperation: Allies do not agree on the appropriate procedures and boundaries for offensive cyber operations. More specifically, there is no agreement on when military cyber organizations can gain access to systems and networks in allied territory to disrupt adversarial activity. As I have argued previously, this issue may end up causing significant loss in allies trust and confidence. My proposed solution: NATO allies should establish memoranda of understanding on offensive cyber effects operations in systems or networks based in allied territory.

Objectives of Out-of-Network Operations in Allied Networks

Allied states may operate in each others systems or networks in at least three ways: as an observer, gathering intelligence on adversarial activity in others networks; as a passerby, transiting through allied systems and networks to access a certain adversarial target; or as a disrupter, seeking to cause friction for an adversarys operation within an allys network or system. The German case discussed above is the only publicly known case of a state acting as a disrupter in an allied network. But we can expect that more of these cases will be publicly disclosed in the future.

It has now been widely discussed that the U.S. Cyber Command has undergone a significant shift in strategic thinking away from deterrence toward persistent engagement and defend forward. Following these recent changes in strategic thinking, U.S. Cyber Command seeks to cause friction wherever the adversary maneuvers, operating globally, continuously and seamlessly. In a similar vein, NSA director and Cyber Command head Gen. Paul Nakasone writes in an article for Joint Force Quarterly: We must maneuver seamlessly across the interconnected battlespace, globally, as close as possible to adversaries and their operations, and continuously shape the battlespace to create operational advantage for us while denying the same to our adversaries.

While one may expect adversaries to maneuver in allied networks, the U.S. is currently the only NATO state that makes causing friction in allied networks a necessary and explicit component of its strategy. Other military cyber organizations could follow in the near future.

And we already see countries moving in this direction. On Aug. 1, the Communications Security Establishment Act (CSE) came into force in Canada. According to the Canadian government, CSE could be authorized to proactively stop or impede foreign cyber threats before they damage Canadian systems or information holdings, and conduct online operations to advance national objectives. The Canadian government does not explicitly talk in its latest strategy about the need to operate globally, continuously and seamlessly or to cause friction wherever the adversary maneuvers. In that regard, it needs to do more strategic thinkingas other countries doon the exact role of cyber operations on allied networks in the military context.

But the proposed memorandum of understanding on cyber offense addresses exactly this possibility.

The Goal of the Memorandum of Understanding

The goal of the proposed memorandum is to reduce discord among the allies; enhance trust, transparency and confidence between allies; and improve the effectiveness of disrupting and deterring adversaries operations in cyberspace.

The scope of the memorandum should include (a) developing a common notification equity framework for out-of-network operations that seek to achieve cyber effects in allied systems or networks; (b) identifying procedures for communicating the consideration and conduct of offensive cyber effects operations between states against systems or networks in allied territory; and (c) identifying technical solutions and administrative documentation required for the continuous exchange of information on offensive cyber operations.

In writing the memorandum, states first and foremost should agree on the equities involved in permitting signatories to conduct cyber effect operations in each others networksand the relative weight of those equities. Equities that should be considered include (a) the ability of an actor to take action to negate known threats on or to the other parties networks and systems; (b) the likelihood that an action will negate known threats; (c) the imminence and scale of the threat; (d) the risk of collateral damage; (e) whether the computer system or network is government owned or privately owned; and (f) the certainty that the system or network will be used to achieve strategic effects by the adversary.

There are three open questions about the memorandum of understanding.

I. Should the Proposed Memorandum Be NATO-Wide or Bilateral?

There are benefits of negotiating a NATO-wide agreement, including ensuring it contributes to the defense of all NATO members networks and enhances resilience across the alliance. It could also guard against the potential that persistent engagement and defense forward might be exploited by adversaries, as I argued previously:

Adversaries dont randomly choose which intermediate nodes to direct their operations through. If Russia has the choice to go through a network that would raise some serious diplomatic friction between the U.S. and a U.S. ally, or operate through a network that would cause no diplomatic friction for the U.S., what would it prefer? It would make sense for adversaries to operate through the networks of exactly those countries with which the U.S. has a strong relationship but that do not want the U.S. to operate within their networks causing any effects.

But there are constraints on a NATO wide-memorandum, too. To start, not all states are equally willing to share intelligence information. A bilateral agreement would make it easier to tailor the notification equity framework to the specific preferences and capabilities of both governments.

II. Can It Be Used as a Public Signaling Device?

The notification equity framework part of the memorandum of understanding can remain classified. Governments might not get it right the first time. As the framework might need tweaking, immediate public disclosure is risky. But a public version, if crafted carefully, can also help to set the parameters of what Michael Fischerkeller and Richard Harknett call agreed competition. That is, it can help clarify where adversaries are allowed and not allowed to go within each others networks. If we want stability in cyberspace, this is a mechanism by which to achieve it.

III. Should the Memorandum Also Address Cyber Operations Beyond Allied Networks?

A memorandum of understanding narrow in scopethat is, addressing the allies conduct of cyber effect operations taking place only in systems or networks in allied territorywould ignore the negative impact on allied intelligence operations and capabilities beyond these systems and networks.

Military cyber organizations are operating in a global environment historically dominated by intelligence agencies, and the Five Eyes has always been the most dominant actor in cyberspace. But the anglophone intelligence alliance is not the only intelligence actor operating across the world. Recent casessuch as the Dutch s General Intelligence and Security Service infiltration into the Russia-based network of the infamous hacking group Cozy Bearhave illustrated the continued global prevalence and value of allies intelligence operations beyond the Five Eyes alliance.

If military cyber organizations increasingly take up the role of disrupter, it may negatively impact global intelligence collection of alliesparticularly those countries that favor long-term access over immediate effect. It will also more likely uncover and burn allied capabilities.

The risks of occurring are higher than one may think as intelligence agencies have a tendency and incentive to target and track the same entities. For example, in late 2014, cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab reported on the Magnet of Threats. The cybersecurity company discovered a server belonging to a research organization in the Middle East that simultaneously hosted implants for at least five Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actors: Regin and the Equation Group (English language), Turla and ItaDuke (Russian language), Animal Farm (French language) and Careto (Spanish language). Consider what would have happened if one of those five APT groups had sought to cause a disruptive effectrather than collect intelligenceagainst the target in the Middle East. It likely would have resulted in much earlier discovery and analysis by threat intelligence companies (or other actors) exposing the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) of each actor group.

Also, even the anticipation of more cyber effect operations in nonallied networks from one allied state could lead to a change in operations by another state. Indeed, states have shown in the past that the anticipation of early discovery of an operation has led to a change in their TTPs. For example, the National Security Agency (NSA) created an exploit orchestrator called FoxAcid, an Internet-enabled system capable of attacking target computers in a variety of different ways, depending on whether it is discoveredor likely to be discoveredin a given network. FoxAcid has a modular design, with flexibility allowing the NSA to swap and replace exploits and run different exploits based on various considerations. Against technically sophisticated targets where the chance of detection is high, FoxAcid would normally choose to run low-value exploits.

Not a Silver Bullet

While I argue that the NATO memorandum of understanding on offensive cyber operations in systems or networks based in allied territory can greatly help in promoting stability and enhancing confidence among allies, it is not a silver bullet. It can only reduce allied concerns rather than mitigate them. Military cyber organizations may still conduct effect-based operations in allied territory without consent, leading allies to assert that their sovereignty has been violated. And theres another crucial player involved. As Gen. Nakasone noted in the Joint Force Quarterly article, cyberspace is owned largely by the private sector. They deserve a seat at the table as well.

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NATO Allies Need to Come to Terms With Offensive Cyber Operations - Lawfare

How to Heal the NATO Alliance – Foreign Policy

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Danzig

The alliance between the United States and the rest of NATO has begun fraying in recent yearsat the very moment when the threat posed by both Russia and China is surging. NATO was founded in 1949 on a promise of mutual self-defense. But U.S. President Donald Trump has raised new questions about Americas commitment to that promise, heightening fears across the alliance.

This week onAnd Now the Hard Part, we trace the roots of the problem and talk about how to fix it.

My concern is simply that if we ever had a catastrophic moment or a security crisis, do the rest of the members of NATO feel secure enough in the way the United States supports them that they would support us if we needed them? said the Brookings Institution scholar Victoria Nuland, a former assistant secretary of state and the guest on our show this week.

It depends on how long this seeding of doubt about our own reliability continues.

Listen to the episode on this page or subscribe and download wherever you get your podcasts.

About And Now the Hard Part: The world is a particularly confusing and daunting place these days: Russian bots, North Korean nukes, trade wars and climate emergencies. To understand it better, Foreign Policy and the Brookings Institution are teaming up for an 8-part podcast series. On each episode, host Jonathan Tepperman and a guest from Brookings discuss one of the worlds most vexing problems and trace its origins. And then, the hard part: Tepperman asks the guest to focus on plausible, actionable ways forward.Jonathan Tepperman, Foreign Policys editor in chief, hosts the podcast. The guests are some of the smartest and most experienced analysts aroundall scholars from the Brookings Institution, including former government and intelligence officials.See All Episodes

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How to Heal the NATO Alliance - Foreign Policy

Turkey says it expects solidarity from NATO against threats – Reuters

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Danzig

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu shakes hands with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg after a news conference in Istanbul, Turkey, October 11, 2019. REUTERS/Huseyin Aldemir

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey has reiterated to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that it expects the alliance to show strong solidarity with Ankara against threats to Turkish security, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday.

Speaking alongside Cavusoglu at a news conference in Istanbul, Stoltenberg said he expected Turkey to act with restraint in its push into Syria, adding that the international community must find a sustainable solution for Islamic State prisoners held by Kurdish forces in Syria.

As Ankara pressed on with an offensive against Kurdish militants in northeastern Syria, Stoltenberg said Turkey must ensure that progress in pushing back Islamic State in Syria was not jeopardized.

(This story corrects second paragraph to say international community, not NATO)

Reporting by Can Sezer; Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Kevin Liffey

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Turkey says it expects solidarity from NATO against threats - Reuters

Fast-Moving Developments in Syria Highlight US-Turkey Breakdown as NATO Allies – CBN News

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Danzig

It's been one week since President Trump ordered US forces out of northern Syria which critics say is effectively abandoning America's allies on the battlefield.

Thousands of people have been displaced and many Kurds have been killed.

The fast-deteriorating situation was set in motion last week when Trump ordered US troops in northern Syria to step aside. Turkey quickly stepped into the void and began attacking the Kurdish people who live there.

Mass atrocities are being committed against the Kurdish people at the hands of Turkish-backed militias, including some ex- al Qaeda fighters.

It's a move that's leaving a trail of displacement, destruction, and death.

The United Nations estimates at least 130,000 people have been displaced by the fighting and hundreds more have been killed.

Syria's Kurds say Syrian government forces have agreed to help them fend off Turkey's invasion, which marks a major shift in alliances.

The shift could lead to clashes between Turkey and Syria and raises the chances of an ISIS resurgence in the region.

With Turkey quickly advancing, Trump has ordered all remaining US forces out of northern Syria. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Sunday that Trump had directed US troops in northern Syria to begin pulling out "as safely and quickly as possible." He did not say Trump ordered troops to leave Syria, but that seemed like the next step in a combat zone growing more unstable by the hour.

Esper said the US withdrawal would be done carefully to protect the troops and to ensure that no US equipment was left behind. He declined to say how long that might take.

Many on both sides of the political aisle at home and abroad call the president's actions a betrayal of an ally.

"Leaving an ally behind is abandoning people that we frankly told we are going to be with, is disheartening, depressing and frankly it is weak," Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) told CBS's "Face The Nation" on Sunday.

US Pastor Andrew Brunson prayed for President Trump to have God's wisdom during the Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC Saturday night. Trump helped free the pastor who had been falsely imprisoned in Turkey where he was a missionary for 24 years.

"Father God, I ask now for an impartation of your Holy Spirit," Brunson prayed. "May the fullness of the spirit of Jesus rest upon President Trump that he be anointed with wisdom and understanding, with your counsel and might, with knowledge and fear of the Lord. And accordingly, may President Trump not judge by what he sees with his eyes or decide by what he hears with his ears or lean on his own understanding but may he recognize your prompting and move according to your guidance."

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has threatened Turkey with economic penalties for its invasion.

"Big sanctions on Turkey coming!" Trump tweeted on Monday, and US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that while no final decision on sanctions had been made, the president's national security team was meeting again to consider a way ahead.

The fast-moving events of the past week have revealed an extraordinary breakdown in relations between the United States and Turkey, which have been NATO allies for decades. Turkish troops have often fought alongside American troops, including in the Korean War and in Afghanistan. Some believe Turkey is becoming, even more, friendlier to Russia and should be thrown out of NATO.

The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) said the US and its NATO partners should consider expelling Turkey from the alliance. "How do you have a NATO ally who's in cahoots with the Russians, when the Russians are the adversaries of NATO?"

Fast-Moving Developments in Syria Highlight US-Turkey Breakdown as NATO Allies - CBN News

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