Hello, and welcome to The Edge, the newsletter that brings you groundbreaking stories from the frontiers of technology and science.
We’ve got some great stories for you today including NASA’s Mars helicopter being fired up, Northrop Grumman’s second satellite rescue and groundbreaking progress in quantum computing. For today’s Start-up Stories we’ll be talking about Satellogic. As always, we’ve added extra stories under each article should you find yourself in a curious state of mind.
Get to the chopper
A milestone in space exploration. Image credit: NASA
NASA Just Powered Up Its Mars Helicopter
NASA’s Mars-bound Ingenuity helicopter - the one hitching a ride with the Perseverance rover en route to Mars - has just been powered up for the first time.
On the 30th of July this year, the Perseverance rover launched. Just over a week later, NASA powered up the lithium-ion batteries in the helicopter for the first time and began charging them. Over an eight hour period, the batteries were charged to 35 per cent. The team behind it found that 35 per cent was the ideal charge level for the six-month journey to Mars.
Tim Canham, the operations lead for Mars Helicopter at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said “This was a big milestone, as it was our first opportunity to turn on Ingenuity and give its electronics a ‘test drive’ since we launched on July 30. Since everything went by the book, we’ll perform the same activity about every two weeks to maintain an acceptable state of charge.” This is an important step in the preparation for Ingenuity’s first flight on Mars - it shows that the helicopter can withstand the tough environment of interplanetary space.
Flying on other planets is a bit tricky.
Quantum coherence
Quantum computing becomes more accessible by the day. Image credit: ESA/Victor Tangermann
Scientists Create Quantum System That Stays Operational 10,000 Times Longer
Quantum computers are strange machines which could revolutionise the world of computing down the line. However, they’re only useful to us if the state of how electrons relate to each other in the system is known. This is known as “quantum coherence” and is extremely difficult to attain, not to mention expensive. That might all change soon though, thanks to a new discovery.
A team of University of Chigaco scientists has figured out how to keep a quantum computer system operational - coherent - 10,000 times longer, covered in a new study. According to the scientists, their solution could be applied to any kind of quantum system, potentially revolutionising the field.
Quantum computers are extremely difficult to control. Qubits, the quantum equivalent of binary bits, can be affected by their “noisy” environment. Temperature changes, vibrations and many other factors can throw the system into disarray. Up until now, the solution has been to physically isolate the system from the noise, or increase the purity of the materials in the system. Both solutions are tricky and more often than not very expensive. The revolutionary method used by the researchers relied on both electromagnetic pulses and a continuous alternating magnetic field to keep the system under control. The magnetic field was then tuned so that any noise was simply filtered out.
According to first author Kevin Miao, a postdoctoral researcher at UChicago, “With this approach, we don’t try to eliminate noise in the surroundings; instead, we “trick” the system into thinking it doesn’t experience the noise. To get a sense of the principle, it’s like sitting on a merry-go-round with people yelling all around you. When the ride is still, you can hear them perfectly, but if you’re rapidly spinning, the noise blurs into a background.” As a result, the quantum system stayed coherent for 22 milliseconds, 10,000 longer than the norm.
The origins of quantum physics.
A view from above
The Hubble Space Telescope observing a total lunar eclipse. Image credit: M. Kornmesser/Hubble/ESA
Hubble Viewed a Lunar Eclipse to Aid Search for Habitable Planets
Researchers have run a unique dress rehearsal with Earth - using it to practise searching for extraterrestrial life.
In January 2019, the Earth found itself between the Sun and the Moon for a total lunar eclipse. At the same time, the Hubble Space Telescope observed how the chemicals in the Earth’s atmosphere prevented certain wavelengths of sunlight from getting to the Moon. This setup is similar to how astronomers are planning to explore the atmospheres of Earth-like exoplanets when they pass their host stars, which filters out some of the starlight.
Using Hubble let the researchers focus on determining the effects of atmospheric ozone. Ozone is both a shield that protects from the Sun’s ultraviolet rays and a chemical by-product of oxygen resulting from photosynthesis. As such, astronomers believe that atmospheric ozone could indicate whether a distant world is habitable or not. During the eclipse, the telescope examined sunlight that had passed through Earth’s atmosphere and bounced off the Moon, which was then analysed for signatures of ozone. The researchers learned that chemicals in Earth’s atmosphere filter light as predicted, based on their understanding of atmospheric chemistry. This increases confidence in the ability of astronomers to recognise possibly habitable exoplanets.
How to find an exoplanet.
Saving satellites
Not their first rodeo. Image credit: Northrop Grumman
Northrop Grumman Launches Second Satellite Rescue Mission
Back in February of this year, Northrop Grumman’s “Mission Extension Vehicle-1”, or MEV-1, docked with a satellite in orbit. The satellite, known as Intelsat 901, was in the “graveyard orbit”, which is where satellites go to retire. The MEV-1 mission gave the satellite a new lease on life as it was refuelled, had its engine changed and then pushed back into a serviceable orbit in April. Once back in geosynchronous orbit, the satellite could function once more. Now, Northrop Grumman has done it again - sort of.
On Saturday, Northrop Grumman successfully launched MEV-2, the MEV-1’s successor, on an Ariane 5 rocket. According to Joe Anderson, vice president of operations and business development at Space Logistics, which is a Northrop Grumman subsidiary, “MEV-2 is essentially a carbon copy of MEV-1 from a design standpoint.” There is however one key difference. MEV-2 will attempt to dock with a satellite (Intelsat 10-02) that’s still working and in a functional orbit.
Once docked, it will take over the task of maintaining orbit as opposed to moving the satellite into a different orbit. So efficient will the operation be that Northrop Grumman claim that communication disruptions will last less than 20 minutes.
What the MEV-1 is all about.
Start-up Stories
Satellogic
Image credit: Satellogic
A huge number of businesses and industries the world over rely on satellite data to function. Satellogic is one of the satellite start-ups providing such data.
Satellogic provides industries and fields such as agriculture, oil pipeline monitoring and disaster response/preparedness with high-quality satellite data. Specifically, Satellogic provides customers with high-resolution geo-intelligence, or live images from Earth, which it gathers from its network of 35-kg microsatellites.
Satellogic’s satellites are known as “spectroscopic satellites”, which gather signals from light to determine the health of environmental organisms at the molecular level.