New Starlab Space Station Update!

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
On today's episode, we are gettinginto the latest space news, including Amazon
launches their first Kuiper Internet satellite,Northrop Grumman partners up for the next NASA
space station, and a new thermalimaging satellite is going to change the way
we develop our cities. This isthe space race. Amazon has finally launched
their initial round of Project Kuyper communicationssatellites, beginning the first real competition to

(00:25):
the SpaceX Starlink Internet service. TheOctober sixth launch was completed by the United
Launch Alliance aboard one of their Atlasfive rockets. A pair of test satellites
were loaded into a payload fairing andlaunched at about two pm Eastern Standard time.
Project Kuiper is Amazon's version of theSpaceX Starlink service, using a constellation
of relatively small satellites to cast broadbandInternet to customers by bouncing signals between the

(00:49):
ground and the vehicles in orbit.As usual, Amazon is fairly tight lipped
over exact specifications of their hardware.They even had the ULA cut the live
feed just before vehicle deployment started inthe upper atmosphere. But we do know
that while Starlink can functionally provide anywherefrom fifty megabits per second to one hundred
and fifty megabits per second with itsstandard package. Amazon is advertising up to

(01:11):
four hundred megabits per second with Kuyper. This is largely due to Amazon's twelve
ground relay stations, which aren't builtyet, and SpaceX has applied for their
own ground station permits, so thetwo seam neck and neck for capabilities,
with the exception of SpaceX actually havingoperating hardware. Obviously, Musk's company does
have a bit of a head startin that department, with an estimated three

(01:34):
thousand, five hundred satellites currently providingservice, but Blue Origin has a plan
to catch up and an FCC licenseto launch three thousand, two hundred and
thirty six new Kuiper SATs by twentytwenty six. Originally these were due to
go up on the new Ula Vulcanrocket, but with delays continuing for the
ULA's new vehicle and their own newGlen rockets still in the prototype phase,

(01:57):
Blue Origin purchased a ride on nineAtlas five rockets instead. They also made
contracts with aary in Space to usetheir Arean six rocket, which is also
experiencing delays. The obvious choice herewould be to make use of SpaceX to
launch the Kuyper constellation, but itseems that Bezos is holding a bit of
a grudge and is willing to getsued by his shareholders for it. But

(02:17):
it seems like the company is onlywasting time. Back in July, Amazon
announced its plan for a one hundredthousand square foot satellite processing plants at Florida's
Launch and Landing Facility in NASA's KennedySpace Center. This facility would be where
Amazon would receive completed satellites from theirfactories, inspect them, and process them
for launch on a nearby pad onceBlue Origin is able to get their rockets

(02:39):
up and running. Of course,we probably don't have to remind anyone that
the FCC only just close their mishapinvestigation into Blue Origin's new Shepherd vehicle two
weeks ago and demanded organizational changes asone of its requisites for a new launch
license. This leads to the obviousquestion. If Amazon and Blue Origin keep
stumbling around with delays and inefficient organization, then how exactly are they continuing to

(03:05):
operate. Aside from the obvious wealthof the company, the real thing To
note here is the contract's Blue Originholds with government agencies, specifically the US
military. Again, this is notsomething Blue Origin has over SpaceX. Musk's
company also has a lot of importantmilitary contracts, but Project Kuiper is built
to directly link with the DoD's Meshnetwork of low Earth orbit satellites. Back

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in October of last year, Amazon'sexecs sat down with folks from the military
to discuss using Project Kuiper to enhancethe speed and reach of the military's orbital
network, and they agreed. Thesefirst two Kuiper test satellites will reportedly also
be testing the laser communications uplink withthose very systems, meaning the DoD is

(03:49):
very interested in getting Amazon caught upto competitors like SpaceX. Amazon and Blue
Origin certainly have their work cut outfor them. It would be much easier
if they just asked space for somehelp, but it seems like they're fine
with going it a bit slower.It is Amazon's mo to see what the
competition is doing and then undercut theirprices to kill off their business, So

(04:10):
who knows, maybe they can dothat with broadband satellites. On October fourth,
Voyager Space announced that they would bepartnering with veteran aerospace company Northrop Grumman
to build a commercial space station forNASA, meaning that Northrop Grumman would be
backing out of their previous solo contractto do the same. Voyager, and
more specifically, its subsidiary, NanoRacks, was already planning their own station,

(04:31):
called Starlab, due to launch asa single flight project sometime in twenty
twenty eight. Some of you mightremember last year's orbital cutting tests from the
Nano Racks team, who were attemptingto showcase their orbital cutting technology. At
the time, the company believed theycould make use of this tech to recycle
old rocket hulls for commercial use asstation modules, something that Starlab could facilitate

(04:55):
once complete. The original vision hasn'tchanged much yet. The station is design
and as a science park, allowingNASA and anyone who pays to gain access
to a slew of modern microgravity laboratories. Really, the only thing to change
so far is that Northrop Grumman willbe contracted to supply the station with an
upgraded version of their Sickness Cargo dronefor the first five years or so.

(05:16):
Back in twenty twenty one, NorthropGrumman, along with Nano Racks and Blue
Origin, were selected as part ofNASA's Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development program to
design and construct new stations that theadministration could use once the ISS is deorbited
at the end of this decade.This is part of NASA's new tactic of
providing commercial entities their expertise and somefunding in exchange for letting them make use

(05:41):
of any new facilities and technology thatcomes out of the deal. But while
the other two are going strong,Northrop Grumman has apparently decided their plan wasn't
going to be feasible. To befair, Northrop Grummen has been mostly an
infrastructure company for some time now.Their Sickness cargo vehicle is reliable, for
sure, but they're a company thatthat's more used to making parts rather than

(06:01):
pursuing large complex projects on their own. Aside from that, they likely didn't
have the funding to finish. NASAgave each company some funding for the research
and prototyping. Blue Origin got onehundred and thirty million, Nano Racks got
one hundred and sixty million, andNorthrop Grumman got one hundred and twenty five
point six million. Amazon owned BlueOrigin definitely had the capital to make a

(06:24):
station all on their own, andNano RAS is funded primarily by Voyager Space
and had technology already to go forstation building. So it looks like Northrop
Grumman made a pragmatic decision to helpthe other small company challenge one of the
billionaires, and it's probably for thebest. STARLAB seems like a solid plan
for a station, and Northrop Grummanare season professionals at cargo running. The

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only thing they had to give upwas the rest of the research funding.
NASA says the remaining eighty nine milliondollars will be spread among the active projects,
including the new Northrop Grummen Voyager partnershipand act Space, who have been
working on their own station using ahabitation module from an earlier experiment. It
must be pretty rough to realize youcan't effectively compete with other companies, but

(07:10):
Northrom Gumman is definitely making the smartmove here, so let's hope they see
lots of contracts. The first imagesfrom the new hot Sat one thermal imaging
satellite have just been released and theresolution is wild. Run by London based
company satview. The hot SAT onerepresents a huge leap forwards in thermal imaging
technology, opening the door to someextremely important uses for the type of images

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we are seeing. Take these firstimages, for instance, the initial crop
of red and blue scale pictures weretaken of urban areas in Chicago and Las
Vegas. As with most thermal imagingsoftware, the darker and bluer an area
is the colder it is, andvice versa for heat. The big difference
with hot SAT one is the levelof detail. Before this new satellite,

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thermal imaging of this type had aresolution of only a about one hundred meters
or so at its finest, andthis is mostly because of how difficult it
is to snag a thermal image.Some thermal imagers have been able to shoot
very fine detail shots, but thosetechniques can only show current thermal properties,
not change over time. For that, a lengthier exposure time is needed because

(08:20):
thermal wavelengths of light are longer,meaning a slow shutter speed has to be
used. Even though most satellites travelat about seven kilometers per second, hots
AT one is equipped with a midwaveinfrared camera and more importantly, better tracking
software to keep the lens pointed atthe target more smoothly, and the results
speak for themselves. Remember earlier whenwe said previous imagers could only grab resolutions

(08:43):
of one hundred meters at the finestdetail level, Well, these new images
from hots at one are at tenmeters of resolution, ten times finer,
and it can even take short videos. So obviously this is the sort of
thing that gets firefighters and climatologists excited. Which a good view of a moving
wildfirefront or the heat mixing of abody of water in finer detail is wonderfully

(09:05):
helpful to both those fields. Butfor really the first time, hotsat one
is letting a whole new field makeuse of thermal imaging. City planners.
One hundred meters of resolution is fairlyuseless for catching building to building evidence of
heat loss or gain, but tenmeters that's a whole new ballgame. Look

(09:26):
again at the pictures of Chicago andLas Vegas. You can see the right
lines of individual streets, not justhighways, and the patches of parking lots.
You can see most buildings are relativelycold because insulation generally does a good
job, but that industrial buildings likeoil tanks and processing factories are very hot
and in some places, like satViews, Native England homes are generally much

(09:48):
older and have worse insulation. HotsAt one could point out exactly which buildings
need fixing. Aside from that,a lot of work is being done in
modern city planning to get rid ofthese heat islands as they're called. These
are pockets of open air, parkinglots, and knots of roadway that largely
contribute to the higher heat range ofmost cities. And we knew that before

(10:09):
hots At one, But it's hardto plan mitigation options when the roadway you're
trying to see is actually a patchyblur. This technology is just a start.
Of course, Satview has a planto get a constellation of eight to
ten satellites up eventually. It ishonestly wild to see satellite thermal imagery go
from being useful for just weather patterndata to helping us build our homes and

(10:33):
cities more efficiently.