SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch in 2012

Main points about the SpaceX announcement are:

• Rocket developed from Saturn V
• Largest rocket by a private enterprise
• Twice the lifting capacity as the next largest US rocket
• Could save more $1 billion for US if allowed to compete for  government contracts
• SpaceX saves money on labor costs and attracts young engineers
• It is run like a Silicon Valley startup rather than a large company
• First fight expected in 2013 from Vandenburg airforce base

Cable Laying Ship Ile de Batz Connecting Cuba to The Outside World

Work started this week on laying a 1,600km (995ml) underwater fibre-optic cable linking Cuba to Venezuela. When complete it will improve telephone and internet services to Cuba which presently relies on slow and expensive satellite internet connection, The data capacity will increase by 3,000 times on what Cuba has at the moment.

In a telivised ceromony divers were seen attaching the cable to the seabed before the cable laying ship Ile de Batz, owned by the French contractors Alcatel-Lucent, moved away from Camuri beach near the port of La Guaria, trailing the cable temporarily suspended on buoys, heading for Eastern Cuba.

The ship is expected to reach Cuba on the 8th February and the cable is expected to be in operation by July. The cable will be laid in depths of up to 5,800 metres as it crosses the Caribbean Sea.

The cable is being funded to the tune of $70m by President Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelan government and Science, Technology and Industry Minister Ricardo Menendez said that improved communications is necessary to effect “historic, political and cultural” change.

Cuba is one of the least internet connected countries in the western world with less than 15% of the population having access to the internet with and those are restricted to government offices, universities, tourist hotels and foreign companies. Members of the general public have to apply for official permission to use the internet.

Despite the arrival of the new internet access it is unlikely that there will be an information explosion in the communist state where news is supplied by the government and is a mix of propaganda about government success and distorted reports about the outside world. The daily newspaper Granma said that higher quality access will be given to present users but not necessarily “broader” communications will be allowed, shooting down hopes of internet for all.

Cuban officials blame the 50-year old US embargo for its present poor and costly internet link by satellite at a mer 379 megabits per second. Under the embargo Cuba has not been allowed access to fibre-optic cables that cross the Caribbean.

The Ile de Batz is owned by Alcatel-Lucent and is a specialized cable-laying ship of 140m length and operates on cable laying work worldwide. It is capable of laying 200km (120ml) of cable a day to a depth of about 8000m during normal operations.  Each of the ship’s two cable tanks can hold up to 5,500km, or 3,000 tons, of fiber-optic cable.

Delta-$ Lifting Off to Launch Spy Satellite

For anyone in the area of southern California on Thursday watching the launch of the The 235ft-tall Delta-4 Heavy Launch Vehicle it would have been a spectacular sight as the largest rocket ever launched from the US west coast streaked away from its launch pad at the Vandenberg Air Force Base, 130 miles north-west of Los Angeles

With three core boosters powering the rocket up to a speed of 17500 mph it could be seen from 50 miles away as it arched out over the Pacific Ocean heading for space with its secret cargo. Six minutes into the flight the first stage rockets broke away and splashed down into the ocean.

This was the third launch in a series of six launches spread over a period of six months. The fourth launch is scheduled for February 5th. No details were released about the payload onboard but it was for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) which operates satellites for the US Department of Defense and the CIA.

Analysts believe that the secret payload is a spy satellite, capable of snapping pictures detailed enough to distinguish the model of a car hundreds of miles below. It is believed that it will replace an imaging satellite that has been operating since 2001.

Vandenberg’s position on the west coast allows the rocket to fly out over the ocean on its way to deploy the satellite on a polar orbit and thereby avoid crossing any land as it climbs. In preparation for this launch a reputed $100m has been spent upgrading the SLC-6 launch pad at the Air Force base.

The National Reconnaissance Office is an US intelligence agency that designs, builds and operates spy satellites for departments in the US Government such as the CIA and the Department of Defence. It also collects and analysis information from aircraft reconnaissance as well as satellites.  One important mission that it undertakes is the tracking of non-US submarines on patrol in the world’s oceans.

Galileo Three Times Over Budget is Money Well Spent

It has been announced that to have the Galileo satellite-navigation system capable of offering all the services envisaged for the system will require spending a further 1.9bn Euros ($2.56bn) mostly on building and launching 12 more satellites.

In a published assessment from the European Commission it is said that the money will be needed in the next multiyear EU budget period, 2014-2020, by which time the initial 18 satellites will be providing services. This is several years later than envisaged when  the project was given the go ahead. The assessment follows a review of the project by the EC’s technical partner, the European Space Agency.

The project has encountered many problems since conception including a whole myriad of technical problems as well as commercial and political ones. It is being built as a high precision positioning system so that European nations can have an independent civilian system from the alternative US GPS and Russian GLONASS military systems which can be modified or turned off in times of conflict.

The project has been criticized for its costs but European Commission Vice-President Antonio Tajani said the 3.4bn euros already committed to Galileo was money well spent. He said: “We do intend to move ahead because we believe in this project. It is necessary to reach 30 satellites; I think it would be a mistake not to go ahead and launch the other satellites.”

One of the critics was Berry Smutny, chief executive of German space company and Galileo contractor OHB-Systems who called Galileo a “stupid idea that primarily serves French interests”, and a waste of taxpayers’ money. His comments were made in 2009 to US diplomats and quoted in cables that were recently released by Wikileaks, resulting in Mr. Smutny’s dismissal.

The commercial implications for a fully operating Galileo system are vast and this is one of the reasons that, despite the costs and delays the Galileo project has not been abandoned. GPS has spawned markets and services worldwide that have generated tens of billions of dollars annually and Galileo will be offering a superior system with much better accuracy.

At present GPS is used in so many application, many of which affect our daily lives but we are not probably aware of. Apart from the obvious applications relating to transport and navigation of ships and aircraft, GPS is found in factory production lines, mobile phones, palm computers, sports applications, especially golf, construction, security and tracking systems.

Flying Telescope Offers Better Views Than Land Based Observatories

A flying telescope fitted in a modified Boeing 747 has taken images of space and captured colors that are blocked by the Earth’s atmosphere and therefore unavailable to land based observatories. Images released of the Orion Nebula are in a never seen before clarity.

The high quality images and results are from the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) and were presented at the 217th American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle, Washington. SOFIA allows astronomers to see light at colors deep in the infrared end of the light spectrum, which can also be seen by space telescopes but SOFIA offers more flexibility to the users.

Space telescopes cannot normally be modified once launched, Hubble was modified at great expense by using the space shuttle, but with a telescope as used by SOFIA, instruments and modifications can easily be carried out.

The much delayed SOFIA project captured its first image in May last year and undertook its first science mission in November capturing images of the Orion Nebula showing very newly born stars. It has always been the dream of astronomers to find stars that are just born and SOFIA allows astronomers to look in detail at the earliest generation of stars.

The telescope mounted in the 747 is 2.5 meter reflector telescope designed for infrared astronomy and is gyro stabilized to keep the telescope steady and fixed on the object as the plane is moving. When in use a large door is opened in the fuselage of the aircraft which normally operates at about 41000ft (12000m).

SOFIA’s work might only just be beginning but it has been a long time in the making. Formed as a joint venture between NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and is the successor to the Kuipoer Airborne Observatory. The modified 747 used to carry the telescope was purchased back in 1997. The operation and management of NASA’s share of the project is handled by Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (USRA). The project has been delayed many times by timeline and budget over runs but is finally up and running with the potential for some exciting results.

Apart from exploring and researching the formation of stars the objectives of SOFIA are to study planet atmospheres, comet structure and composition and research interstellar space.

Image by permission of NASA, USRA (Universities Space Research Association), and L-3 Communications Integrated Systems”

Intel Announces Record Profits But Investors Are Concerned

Chip-making giant Intel has announced record figures saying that 2010 was the best year in its history with sales of $43.6bn and profits of $11.6bn. CEO Paul Otellini is forecasting that “In 2011, everything gets better”.

Intel’s microprocessors are found in about 80 percent of the world’s personnel computers and servers that power the internet and its fortunes are seen as a barometer for the economic health of the tech industry in general.

The company is ploughing its profits into building a new manufacturing plant in Oregon that was announced last October and upgrading four existing plants for a total investment of $8bn. That money is in addition to $7bn that was invested in factory upgrades that were started in 2009. This spending will no doubt be seen as Intel’s confidence in its products future demand.

Intel is forging ahead with its latest chip code-named “Sandy Bridge” which the company says will have the ability to allow home computers to beam high-definition video to compatible TVs.

As sales of smartphones, tablets and other small mobile devices are overtaking those of PCs, Intel is seen by some analysts as being vulnerable to competition from other chip makers already producing chips for the new phones.  The market leader here is ARM Holdings and their chips are dominant in the sector.

However, Intel has been promoting its low cost and power efficient Atom microprocessor as being suitable for these types of products and several Atom powered tablets are being developed.

If Intel cannot compete against ARM’s technology based chips, the expected growth in mobile computing and smartphones will see and increased demand for data-center capacity which will benefit Intel. There is also an ever-increasing demand for online data storage and most of the servers are Intel powered.

Intel’s lack of penetration into the mobile devices market combined with demand for its server chips has resulted in a strange paradox whereby Intel is reporting record profits yet its valuation remains near the bottom of the chip stocks sector.

Online Piracy is Much Larger Than Previously Thought

A report has been release into a study undertaken by online anti fraud firm MarkMonitor that shows 53 billion visits were made last year to digital piracy and counterfeit goods websites. MarkMonitor estimates that worldwide the cost of online piracy and counterfeiting amounts to $200bn annually.

The study was made on behalf of the US Chamber of Commerce who are aware of the damage that can be done to US businesses and their brands by digital piracy and counterfeiting but were not sure how big the problem was. As a result MarkMonitor set up a study of identify rogue sites and their traffic, identifying the worst offenders and their locations.

A small sample of only 22 brands was used in the study and only provided a snapshot of the scope of illicit e-commerce. They concluded that given the large number of popular brands around the world then it can be assumed that thousands of brands and rights-holders are suffering the same problem as what they identified.

The 22 brands chosen were products from luxury goods, music, films, prescription drugs and athletic gear. Using its in-house technology to scan the web MarkMonitor identified more than 10,000 sites considered suspicious. These sites were further filtered to identify only dedicated digital content and e-commerce sites which were then examined by experts to determine whether they were handling pirated digital content or selling counterfeit goods. The sites were ranked for traffic from publicly available data from Alexa.

Among the findings from the study were that 73 percent of sites classed as selling counterfeit goods and 67 percent of sites believed to be holding pirated content were hosted in the US, Canada or Western Europe. The study also revealed that payment processing and order fulfilment took place in different countries than those used to host or register the website. This cross-national border activity makes it harder to prosecute the rogue sites.

Steve Tepp, a senior director for the Global Intellectual Property Center at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said: “We have known for a long time that rogue websites, those dedicated to piracy and counterfeiting, were flourishing at our expense. Now we begin to see the staggering scope of this problem”

The top traffic file sharing site and one that was highlighted in the report is Switzerland based RapidShare.com which is today ranked as the 81st most visited site on the internet. This site has been blamed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for illegally hosting large amounts of pirated content.

Content producers have asked that the site install filters to police the illegal content passing through the site. However, only this week a court in Dusseldorf, Germany ruled that RapidShare was taking reasonable measures to fight piracy and does not have to install any such filters. This is really a contradiction as the editor has downloaded illegal movies, software and e-books from RapidShare quite recently.

More Delays Are Expected For The Boeing 787 Dreamliner

Boeing is about to announce another delay to the first deliveries of its 787 Dreamliner, which is already running three years behind schedule. It is expected that when it unveils its result for 2010 on the 25th January Boeing will admit that there will be a further three to six months delay as technical problems still remain to be resolved.

Boeing was hoping to make the first deliveries of the 787 to All Nipon Airways in the first quarter of this year but there is now no chance of that taking place and back in December the French newspaper Les Echos had reported that Boeing had told Air France that their first delivery would be delayed until July.

Some aviation analysts believe that deliveries will only start to trickle out this year including Hans Weber, founder of Tecop International who puts the primary factor for the delays down to the amount of new technology in the 878 from the composite materials that make up fifty per cent of the aircraft to the advanced power generation systems.

Boeing currently has 847 of its long range, mid sized, wide bodied, twin engined 787 aircraft on order. Subcontractors and suppliers are spread all over the world from the Far East and across Europe including Rolls Royce the main engine supplier.

The 787 made its maiden flight on December 15th 2009 but since then it has been hit by a series of electrical, systems and engine problems delaying the deliveries even more. One test aircraft had to make an emergency landing in Texas after a fire broke out on a test flight. The plane has encountered that many problems that the Federal Aviation Administration has considered preventing the aircraft from flying until it proves its reliability.

Initially Boeing were estimated to have allocated $5bn for developing the Dreamliner but that has now reached a staggering $12bn. The original price of the plane was $130m each but Boeing have offered discount sin order to boast sales and maybe placate customers for late deliveries.