Space News from Last Week

Last week things had me looking up.  Literally.  There were several news stories that caught my attention all related to things is space.  They all had some surprising, previously unknown element to them.  So, I just thought I’d share them with you.  

GPS (in all its Varieties)

At the beginning of the week I found out that the Global Positioning Satellite system (GPS) was wholly and solely owned and operated by the United States Military.  While the military allows private companies and individuals to access and use the system, its primary purpose is to allow the military to locate and position troops, ships, planes, and resources with precision.  

Additionally, it is used far more often than when you’re driving in a strange neighborhood and want to find the nearest gas station.  There are usages that civilians put it to use when they are not even aware of it.  For example, every time you access your account through an ATM machine the GPS system is contacted.  Why?  The ATM is stationary, right?  And we’re standing right in front of it when we’re using it, so we KNOW where we are, right?  Well, one reason is the create an “electronic fence” around the ATM.  If the ATM is moved beyond a specific radius of where it is installed, by thieves trying to get the money inside, it sends a signal to the financial institution that owns it to alert the police and advise of its location.  In 2014, a system was proposed to use the GPS system to track lost or stolen ATM cards.  This is for the newer cards that have a chip embedded into the card itself.  I don’t know whether this proposal was put into effect, or to what degree, but it was something I didn’t know until recently.  

There is more than one “GPS” system out there, too.  The general name for these satellite systems is “Global Navigation Satellite Systems, or GNSS.  The American GPS system is the largest, with 33 satellites, and is global, covering the entire world.  The other global systems are GLONASS (Russia), Galileo or Galileo Position System (EU), and BeiDou (China).  There are two regional systems as well, QZSS (Japan) and IRNSS (India).  

The reason why other countries want their own navigation system makes more sense when you remember GPS’s military heritage.  In a conflict it would be very bad to be unable to locate the position of your soldiers, ships, and planes, and very likely to happen if you were using the system of the country you were in conflict with.  One article I read while surfing the net on this topic indicated that it’s believed that China’s BeiDou system has features that may allow it to track the locations of specific users on demand, and there was speculation that the GLONASS system may have these same capabilities as well.  It’s not difficult to believe that GPS, both the EU’s and American’s, would something similar features.  

Space War

One thing that was made clear in my readings about GPS was how heavily the United States military makes use of it, and how that is a vulnerability for the military.  Satellites in orbit are in what is referred to as an “Offensive Dominant” environment.  This means that satellites to defend, being in the worst possible defensive position: their position, velocity, and direction of travel is well known, they are bright and easy to spot, and they are relatively easy to damage or destroy.  The only defensive posture is one of deterrence.  If someone does something to one of our satellites, then we do something like that or worse to one of theirs.  

In a Scientific American article entitled, “Orbital Aggression” by Ann Finkbeiner (November, 2020), the threat to the United States, both in terms of threats to civilian life and military operations, were described.  Not only is our military’s actions heavily dependent on the GPS system they created and operate, but surveillance and communications as well.  And in our everyday lives we depend on our satellite systems, to make phone calls, pay for things, watch movies, etc., etc., etc..  And these satellites are, as described in the article, “sitting ducks” to any potential enemy that might want to disrupt our lives or even damage the fabric of our society.  

I remember when the newest branch of the military, the United States Space Force, came into existence about fourteen months ago, it was met with some derision.  Not the least of which was directed toward its emblem, which looks a lot like that of Star Fleet Command in Star Trek.  But the article, which interviewed several people formally or currently in or associated with the U.S. Space Force, made it clearer why such a command is necessary to protect such vital assets, while heavily stressing that long term protection should also include diplomatic efforts to create agreed upon rules and procedures to give each other space in…. Well…. Space.   

It still didn’t explain why the Space Force uniforms are camouflage, though.

Perseverance and Friends

On Thursday, February 18th, the NASA Mars Rover, “Perseverance,” successfully survived it’s “seven minutes of terror” during descent to successfully land on Mars.  

Perseverance is the largest and most ambitious rover to land on the system’s fourth planet to date.  It also includes a flying drone, the first helicopter on Mars, that will allow it to extend it’s exploration range farther than its wheels along can take it.  It has already sent back some spectacular pictures, including my personal favorite of an image taken during the descent, looking down at the rover in its harness as the jet pack descends to set it on the surface.  

It has been took long, it seems to me, for us to have something literally making us look up and into the future with a positive perspective.  The Perseverance landing has given us that, along with the possibility of more in the future.  

But surprised me the most in the news coverage of the Perseverance landing was something that I had not known before.  That there are two other space vehicles recently arrive in Mars orbit.  

A Chinese rover mission, Tianwen-1, arrived in order before Perseverance.  It is spending the next three months studying the martian terrain before landing a rover in June for a 90 day mission.  This is China’s first interplanetary mission and first independent probe sent to Mars.  The scientific mission is to study martian climate and soil, and prepare samples for a possible return mission to Earth.  But it’s overall goal is to validate Chinese communication and control technologies for deep space missions.  

The other vehicle in Mars orbit is a satellite called Hope launched by the United Arab Emirates Space Agency.  The UAE has a Space Agency?  I had no idea.  Well, they do.  And with the help of laboratories at Arizona State University, the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the University of California, Berkeley, they’ve launched their Mars probe.  The probe was launched from Japan’s launch facilities in Tanegashima.  They are the first Arab country, and fifth country overall, to send a probe to Mars, and the second to do it successfully on the first try (India was the first in 2014).  Quite the accomplishment.  Hope will send two years orbiting the red planet studying its atmosphere and climate.  

The reason for the trio arriving at Mars at almost the same time was Earth and Mars being in the ideal positions for a fast trajectory back in July.  All three missions took advantage of that to launch at that time.  

After a year of masking up and looking down, these missions have given me something positive to look forward to.