Sri Lanka to replace its ageing fighter jets

Colombo (AFP)
Aug 10, 2016

Sri Lanka Wednesday announced plans to replace its ageing jet fighters to better defend its maritime borders including rich fishing grounds, seven years after the island's separatist war ended.

Cabinet approved President Maithripala Sirisena's proposal to call for expressions of interest from global manufacturers to sell Sri Lanka the jets, government spokesman Rajitha Senaratne said.

"The idea is to buy eight multi-role fighter aircraft with associated weapons on a government-to-government basis," Senaratne, who is also a cabinet minister, told reporters.

Sri Lanka's fleet of Chinese-made F-7, Soviet-era MiG-27 and Israeli Kfir aircraft are about 30 years old and have become obsolete, according to experts.

Sri Lanka used both the MiG-27 and Kfir jets to bomb rebel targets in the north at the height of the Tamil separatist war which ended in May 2009.

The country lost large numbers of aircraft during the decades-long fighting.

The main role of the new fleet would be to defend the island's exclusive economic zone which stretches some 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) offshore, senior sources in the government said.

Both neighboring India and its rival Pakistan are keen to sell combat aircraft to the island, they said.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Sri_Lanka_to_replace_its_ageing_fighter_jets_999.html.

Brazil's political mess keeps foreign leaders away from Rio

August 05, 2016

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A reception welcoming foreign dignitaries to the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics promises to be a lonely affair, with many heads of state staying away from Rio de Janeiro for fear of offending Brazilian political sensibilities.

Ahead of South America's first Olympics, officials had predicted as many as 100 heads of state would attend. But a list provided Friday by the Foreign Ministry showed fewer than 25 in attendance, among them the presidents of Argentina, France and Portugal. The United States is being represented by Secretary of State John Kerry.

They apparently are staying away because of the prospect of stepping into a country with two presidents. Interim President Michel Temer took over following the suspension in May of President Dilma Rousseff on impeachment charges.

For many leaders, it's too delicate of a diplomatic dance, said Maristella Basso, a professor of international law at the University of Sao Paulo. "Leaders don't know which president to greet, the one who was removed or her interim replacement," Basso told The Associated Press. "So many decided not to come at all, to either avoid an uncomfortable encounter or to protest what they view as a coup."

Temer, who has avoided travel outside the country and kept a low profile since taking over for Rousseff, is holding a reception for foreign leaders Friday at the former Foreign Ministry palace, which was in use when Rio was Brazil's capital before 1960.

After a cocktail party, the group will relocate under tight security to the Maracana stadium for the opening ceremony. Among the notable absences are leaders from some of Brazil's closest allies: Russia, India, China and South Africa — the so-called BRICS group of emerging market powerhouses that drew close to Brazil during during an aggressive, 15-year diplomatic push under Rousseff and her predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Each instead sent their sports ministers.

Reflecting South America's ideological divide, only two regional leaders are here: fellow conservatives from Argentina and Paraguay. Leftist governments in Chile, Uruguay and Venezuela stayed home. "The foreign leaders that are here are from countries that have a cold and distant relationship with Brazil," Basso said. "The timing couldn't have been worse."

Switzerland's Stan Wawrinka pulls out of Rio Olympics

August 02, 2016

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Two-time major champion Stan Wawrinka pulled out of the Olympics on Tuesday because of injury, leaving the Rio Games without half of the men ranked in the ATP's top 10. A statement issued by Wawrinka's management company said he "felt increasing pain" during the Rogers Cup in Toronto last week and was told by his doctor after an MRI exam to "reduce his physical activity for an undetermined period."

The statement does not say where Wawrinka is injured. He lost in the semifinals in Toronto. Wawrinka, who is No. 4 this week, joins his Swiss teammate Roger Federer, who is No. 3, along with No. 7 Milos Raonic of Canada, No. 8 Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic and No. 10 Dominic Thiem of Austria in withdrawing from the Rio de Janeiro Olympics for a variety of reasons.

No. 5 Rafael Nadal has been sidelined with an injured left wrist since the French Open and has been testing his fitness in Brazil. The draw for tennis in Rio is Thursday. Play begins Saturday. Wawrinka won the 2014 Australian Open and the 2015 French Open.

He teamed with Federer to win a doubles gold medal for Switzerland at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Another Swiss tennis player, Belinda Bencic, also pulled out of Rio.

Cassini discovers flooded canyon on Titan

by Brooks Hays
Pasadena, Calif. (UPI)
Aug 10, 2016

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found deep, steep-sided canyons on Saturn's moon Titan that are flooded with liquid hydrocarbons. The finding represents the first direct evidence of the presence of liquid-filled channels on Titan, as well as the first observation of canyons hundreds of meters deep.

A new paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters describes how scientists analyzed Cassini data from a close pass the spacecraft made over Titan in May 2013. During the flyby, Cassini's radar instrument focused on channels that branch out from the large, northern sea Ligeia Mare.

The Cassini observations reveal that the channels - in particular, a network of them named Vid Flumina - are narrow canyons, generally less than half a mile (a bit less than a kilometer) wide, with slopes steeper than 40 degrees. The canyons also are quite deep - those measured are 790 to 1,870 feet (240 to 570 meters) from top to bottom.

The branching channels appear dark in radar images, much like Titan's methane-rich seas. This suggested to scientists that the channels might also be filled with liquid, but a direct detection had not been made until now. Previously it wasn't clear if the dark material was liquid or merely saturated sediment - which at Titan's frigid temperatures would be made of ice, not rock.

Cassini's radar is often used as an imager, providing a window to peer through the dense haze that surrounds Titan to reveal the surface below. But during this pass, the radar was used as an altimeter, sending pings of radio waves to the moon's surface to measure the height of features there. The researchers combined the altimetry data with previous radar images of the region to make their discovery.

Key to understanding the nature of the channels was the way Cassini's radar signal reflected off the bottoms of the features. The radar instrument observed a glint, indicating an extremely smooth surface like that observed from Titan's hydrocarbon seas. The timing of the radar echoes, as they bounced off the canyons' edges and floors, provided a direct measure of their depths.

The presence of such deep cuts in the landscape indicates that whatever process created them was active for a long time or eroded down much faster than other areas on Titan's surface. The researchers' proposed scenarios include uplift of the terrain and changes in sea level, or perhaps both.

"It's likely that a combination of these forces contributed to the formation of the deep canyons, but at present it's not clear to what degree each was involved. What is clear is that any description of Titan's geological evolution needs to be able to explain how the canyons got there," said Valerio Poggiali of the University of Rome, a Cassini radar team associate and lead author of the study.

Earthly examples of both of these types of canyon-carving processes are found along the Colorado River in Arizona. An example of uplift powering erosion is the Grand Canyon, where the terrain's rising altitude caused the river to cut deeply downward into the landscape over the course of several million years. For canyon formation driven by variations in water level, look to Lake Powell. When the water level in the reservoir drops, it increases the river's rate of erosion.

"Earth is warm and rocky, with rivers of water, while Titan is cold and icy, with rivers of methane. And yet it's remarkable that we find such similar features on both worlds," said Alex Hayes, a Cassini radar team associate at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, and a co-author of the study.

While the altimeter data also showed that the liquid in some of the canyons around Ligeia Mare is at sea level - the same altitude as the liquid in the sea itself - in others it sits tens to hundreds of feet (tens of meters) higher in elevation. The researchers interpret the latter to be tributaries that drain into the main channels below.

Future work will extend the methods used in this study to all other channels Cassini's radar altimeter has observed on Titan. The researchers expect their continued work to produce a more comprehensive understanding of forces that have shaped the Saturnian moon's landscape.

Source: Saturn Daily.
Link: http://www.saturndaily.com/reports/Cassini_discovers_flooded_canyon_on_Titan_999.html.

The First Commercial Interplanetary Mining Mission

Moffett Field, CA (SPX)
Aug 10, 2016

Deep Space Industries has announced its plans to fly the world's first commercial interplanetary mining mission. Prospector-1 will fly to and rendezvous with a near-Earth asteroid, and investigate the object to determine its value as a source of space resources. This mission is an important step in the company's plans to harvest and supply in-space resources to support the growing space economy.

"Deep Space Industries has worked diligently to get to this point, and now we can say with confidence that we have the right technology, the right team, and the right plan to execute this historic mission," said Rick Tumlinson, chairman of the board and co-founder of Deep Space Industries.

"Building on our Prospector-X mission, Prospector-1 will be the next step on our way to harvesting asteroid resources."

Recently, Deep Space Industries and its partner, the government of Luxembourg, announced plans to build and fly Prospector-X, an experimental mission to low-Earth orbit that will test key technologies needed for low-cost exploration spacecraft.

This precursor mission is scheduled to launch in 2017. Then, before the end of this decade, Prospector-1 will travel beyond Earth's orbit to begin the first space mining exploration mission.

"Our Prospector missions will usher in a new era of low cost space exploration" said Grant Bonin, chief engineer at DSI.

"We are developing Prospector-1 both for our own asteroid mining ambitions, but also to bring an extremely low-cost, yet high-performance exploration spacecraft to the market. At a tiny fraction of what traditional custom-built space probes cost, the Prospector platform has the versatility and ruggedness of design to become the new standard for low cost space exploration."

Prospector-1 is a small spacecraft (50 kg when fueled) that strikes the ideal balance between cost and performance.

In addition to radiation-tolerant payloads and avionics, all DSI spacecraft use the Comet water propulsion system, which expels superheated water vapor to generate thrust. Water will be the first asteroid mining product, so the ability to use water as propellant will provide future DSI spacecraft with the ability to refuel in space.

"During the next decade, we will begin the harvest of space resources from asteroids," said Daniel Faber, CEO at Deep Space Industries. "We are changing the paradigm of business operations in space, from one where our customers carry everything with them, to one in which the supplies they need are waiting for them when they get there."

The destination asteroid will be chosen from a group of top candidates selected by the world renowned team of asteroid experts at Deep Space Industries.

When it arrives at the target, the Prospector-1 spacecraft will map the surface and subsurface of the asteroid, taking visual and infrared imagery and mapping overall water content, down to approximately meter-level depth.

When this initial science campaign is complete, Prospector-1 will use its water thrusters to attempt touchdown on the asteroid, measuring the target's geophysical and geotechnical characteristics.

"The ability to locate, travel to, and analyze potentially rich supplies of space resources is critical to our plans," continued Faber. "This means not just looking at the target, but actually making contact."

Along with customer missions already in progress, such as the cluster of small satellites being built by DSI for HawkEye 360, the Prospector missions will demonstrate the company's simple, low-cost, but high-performance approach to space exploration. The Prospector platform is now available to government and commercial explorers interested in developing sophisticated, yet low-cost missions of their own.

"Prospector-1 is not only the first commercial interplanetary mission, it is also an important milestone in our quest to open the frontier," said Tumlinson.

"By learning to 'live off the land' in space, Deep Space Industries is ushering in a new era of unlimited economic expansion."

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/The_First_Commercial_Interplanetary_Mining_Mission_999.html.

The rise of commercial spaceports

Bethesda MD (SPX)
Jul 27, 2016

Just last year, the FAA gave Houston the "go-ahead" to build America's 10th commercial spaceport. Yes, the US already had nine spaceports designated for commercial operations. One must ask, "Why do we need 10 spaceports for so little commercial space activities?"

This represents a great deal of investment and ongoing expense for an industry still in its infancy. The reason for all this excitement among several states and entrepreneurs is space tourism, the so-called "killer" space application that has yet to become reality. Yes, the media continues to expend a great deal of energy and newsprint on the topic.

So much so, that any person might think we are launching tourist spaceships every hour on the hour, to several orbiting hotels and resort complexes. In reality, that industry is still taking "baby" steps toward the future objective of populous orbiting resorts and theme parks.

Progress is slow. We are still taking baby steps toward sending passengers on suborbital flights. It is true that multiple companies are in the development and testing phases. But, the presumptive front-runner, Richard Branson is well behind his own schedule. In fact, he had predicted a steady flow of launches that carry wealthy tourists to the edge of space by 2009.

That schedule has been stretched more than six years already. The 2014 crash of SpaceshipTwo has increased the delay and caused some customers to ask for refunds on deposits. One additional casualty of this situation is Spaceport America, a $200 million facility investment that is gathering dust, and not much more.

Virgin Galactic was its anchor tenant. It is hardly a surprise that Spaceport America has had to readjust its business model and is looking for new clients. The New Mexico site has become an elaborate events destination, hosting everything from school trips and corporate events to product launches.

Thanks to the early hype, spaceport projects have attracted international attention, and countries around the globe have announced plans for building such facilities. Sweden and the UK are both indicated interest in building spaceports that may dominate the European space tourism business. In addition, Space Ventures has announced interest in building spaceports in Singapore and the UAE.

There appears to be little doubt that space tourism will become a reality. It is simply a matter of time. The market for commercial space transportation and human space travel will likely grow exponentially, and the demand for spaceport services will grow as well. Launchspace has anticipated such new space support activities and has created a new course for spaceport operators and users. It is "Spaceport Operations for Commercial Clients," and it is available for presentation at your facilities and on demand.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/The_rise_of_commercial_spaceports_999.html.

Russia could break diplomatic ties with Ukraine, PM says

August 12, 2016

MOSCOW (AP) — Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday Russia could break diplomatic ties with Ukraine over reported security incidents in Crimea, something it didn't even do after annexing Crimea or throwing its support behind separatist rebels in the east.

State news agencies quoted Medvedev as saying that he wouldn't like the ties to be severed but "if there is no other way to change the situation, the president could take this step." Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 following a hastily called referendum, and a conflict between Russia-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces flared up in eastern Ukraine weeks later. Despite that and the conflict in the east, which has killed more than 9,500 people, Kiev and Moscow didn't break diplomatic ties.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin earlier this week also spoke of that possibility but said Kiev wouldn't want that because it would mean abandoning 4 million Ukrainians who live and work in Russia.

Medvedev's announcement comes after Ukraine put its troops on combat alert Thursday along the country's de-facto borders with Crimea, amid an escalating war of words with Russia over Crimea. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Friday appealed to Russia and Ukraine to avoid a further escalation in tensions after Moscow accused Kiev of sending "saboteurs" to conduct attacks in annexed Crimea.

He said in comments published by the Welt am Sonntag newspaper that Germany is in contact with both countries, and he plans to speak with Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov during a previously planned visit to Russia on Monday.

Geir Moulson contributed to this report from Berlin.