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The US Space Force announced the transfer of satellite communications billets, funding, and mission responsibility from the Army and Navy.

The United States Space Force, through its chief of operations, announced that the satellite communications billets, funding, and mission responsibility of the US Army and Navy will be transferred to the Space Force.

Space Force Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond made the announcement on Tuesday at the Air Force Association meeting in Washington. The transfer is not yet complete and still needs approval from the Department of Defense.

If it is approved, the transfer is expected to take effect on October 1 2021. A total of 15 global units, with 319 military, and 259 civilian billets from the Army and Navy, will be transferred to the Space Force.

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The US Air Force recently tested a robotic system prototype for aircraft weapon loading at the Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana.

The Square One Systems Design, MHU-TSX, uses non-hydraulic actuation making its movements precise, a key advantage over the current weapon hauling systems, the Jackson-based company revealed.

Bob Viola, Square One Systems Design director of engineering, stated that adding a sensor package to the system would make it more autonomous, leaving the personnel only to “supervise what it’s doing, which should make the loading process quicker.”

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As artificial intelligence grows in intelligence, militaries are incorporating the tech into their arsenal. From Minority Report style predictive AI to anti-aging research, AI is steadily being introduced to everything. In one bizarre example, the Israeli military has created an AI Sniper Rifle.

Reported by The New York Times, Israeli operatives carried out an assassination mission with an AI Sniper Rifle. Conducted in November 2,020 the Israeli military used a “souped-up, remote-controlled” rifle to kill Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. The military had been chasing the target “for at least 14 years”.

The Israeli military has reportedly used an AI Sniper Rifle to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh after 14 years of trying.

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WASHINGTON — The ground stations and tracking antennas the U.S. military relies on to communicate with its satellites — known as the Satellite Control Network, or SCN — are decades old and short of the capacity needed to keep up with the projected growth in space activities.

There are seven SCN sites located in the United States and around the world. About 15 large dish antennas at these sites command more than 190 military and government satellites in multiple orbits.

“Certainly the Satellite Control Network is a venerable system that’s been around for a long time. So we have multiple efforts ongoing to ensure that it’s ready for the future that we now find ourselves in,” Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of the U.S. Space Operations Command, said last month at the 36th Space Symposium.

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A ship in the Pacific Ocean carrying a high-power laser takes aim at a U.S. spy satellite, blinding its sensors and denying the United States critical eyes in the sky.

This is one scenario that military officials and civilian leaders fear could lead to escalation and wider conflict as rival nations like China and Russia step up development and deployments of anti-satellite weapons.

If a satellite came under attack, depending on the circumstances, “the appropriate measures can be taken,” said Lt. Gen. John Shaw, deputy commander of U.S. Space Command.

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Civilian Space Development has kicked-off: the work begins now!

Newsletter 17.09.2021 by Bernard Foing & Adriano V. Autino

During the last months we have seen the first civilian passengers fly to space, onboard Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic vehicles. September 15th, four civilian astronauts, onboard a Space X Dragon capsule, passed the 500 km orbit, more than 100 km higher than the ISS.In 2016 we started to publicly talk about and promote Civilian Space Development, while the whole space community kept on talking only about space exploration. Earlier, in 2,008 we founded the Space Renaissance movement, and a couple of years later the Space Renaissance International, as a philosophical association targeted to complete the Kopernican Revolution, supporting the Civilization expansion into space. Nowadays the concept of civilian space flight is everywhere on the media, and many people in the space community talk about a space renaissance. Of course the Coronavirus pandemics accelerated the awareness of the urgency to expand humanity into outer space. And space tourism — the first stage of civilian space settlement — is now a reality, in its first steps.

Of course nobody could be more happy than ourselves, for the above development, and of course**2 we want to congratulate with Elon, Richard and Jeff, for such a great achievement!

So, may we consider that our mission has been completed? Let’s see.

Firstly, were those crews composed by regular travelers, like normal air-flight passengers? Not exactly. The Inspiration4 crew members received astronaut training, for many months, including lessons in orbital mechanics, operating in a microgravity, stress testing, emergency preparedness training, and mission simulations. They have studied over 90 different kinds of training guides and manuals and lessons to learn to fly Crew Dragon, and what to do under emergency situations. The legal aspects are not clear: did FAA quickly authorize Space X and Blue Origin to deal commercial space flights? Doubt is more than legitimate, considering the long procedure followed by Virgin Galactic to be authorized to transport paying passengers in space. Likely, these first “civilian” passengers — like the first orbital tourist Dennis Tito did in 2001 — accepted conditions similar to the military astronauts (i.e. zero rights and warrants).

Therefore, we cannot say that the first “civilians” has gone to space. Yes, they are not military, but (i) they needed a hard astronautic training and (ii) they don’t have the rights and warrants given by air-flight companies to their passengers. It means, basically, that the vehicles are still more suitable to transport astronauts means than civilian passengers.

A lot of work is still to be done, to allow civilians to travel, live and work in space. And the real implementation of such work depends mostly on the right political decisions, and from the support by public opinion. We still need to fight against the fake news, the opposers, the misconceptions, the so many apparently reasonable objections to human expansion into outer space.

Our recently closed 3rd World Congress, significantly titled “The Civilian Space Development” approved a final resolution, including, among other, some relevant points. Some excerpts: * To allow a quick and smooth transition from the space exploration to the space settlement paradigm, **there are scientific works to be done with more energy and investments**, technologies to be consolidated and enhanced, collaborations to be agreed and pursued, in a spirit of a global support to the greatest enterprise of all times: the sustainable renaissance of our civilization in the outer space. * **Not going back, but going forward to the Moon**: develop proper industrial infrastructure to produce fuel in space, from lunar and asteroid materials, also mining resources such as water, rare earths, precious metals and Helium-3. * **Space debris recovery and reuse**. It is not only a necessary and overdue cleaning action. Starting the reuse of space debris is a bootstrapping point for Earth orbit industry, signaling the transition from a worthy public environmental initiative to the first orbital industrial business. * **Enhance life protection in space**. Radiation from our sun and deep galactic cosmic rays represent a big threat to health and reproduction. Humans cannot travel and live in space for long time and distances without proper protection. * **Start experimenting with simulated gravity**. It can be done by rotating connected modules, as an initial method: we need to learn a great deal about the effects of different diameters and rotation speeds on human perception, psychology and physical conditions. * **Keep on supporting the development of 100% reusable space vehicles**. Low cost, safe and reliable passenger space transportation vehicles. * **Support the space tourism industries** and their effort to develop civilian space travel and accommodations (hotels), turning the aeronautic experience into profit. * **To add an 18th SDG, bootstrap the civilian space development**, to UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals. In order to make the 17 SDG feasible and sustainable.”

Promoting the above key concepts, we strongly focus on inspiring and involving younger generations, to empower their growth and inspire them on their path to space.

SRI President — prof. Foing — was attending Luxembourg Space Forum on 14 Sept, and discussed projects and collaborations with industries, academia and entrepreneurs present there. He will give a keynote talk at SUTUS Space & Underwater Tourism Universal Summit on 22 Sept.

Our SRI webinar will host Mars Society founder Robert Zubrin on 4 October. Also see the SR Academy webinar series calendar.

SRI is co-organizer of events, and will talk to partners at IAC Dubai on 25–29 October. Several SRI members will present papers. Btw, we’re seeking for sponsors, **to support our mission to IAC 2021**.

https://spacerenaissance.space/space-renaissance-at-iac-2021-in-dubai/

In summary, we started to talk about space renaissance 13 years ago, and about civilians in space 5 years ago… Our 3rd Congress was fully centered on Civilian Space Development, it was a great success, and we have elected a new President and a new Board of Directors… Yet, we’re still a small organization, with many tens of thousands of followers but less than 100 registered members.

We need our many thousands followers to **join the SRI Crew as members,** and help us bringing SRI to its deserved place, in the galaxy of space advocacy! That will not cost too much to each member, yet it will allow us to better develop our programmes!

https://spacerenaissance.space/membership/international-membership-registration/

Keep on following and supporting the Space Renaissance!

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The study, published in Physical Review Letters, used historic records between 1962–64 from a research station in Scotland. Scientists compared days with high and low radioactively-generated charge, finding that clouds were visibly thicker, and there was 24% more rain on average on the days with more radioactivity.

Professor Giles Harrison, lead author and Professor of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Reading, said: By studying the radioactivity released from Cold War weapons tests, scientists at the time learnt about atmospheric circulation patterns. We have now reused this data to examine the effect on rainfall.

The politically charged atmosphere of the Cold War led to a nuclear arms race and worldwide anxiety. Decades later, that global cloud has yielded a silver lining, in giving us a unique way to study how electric charge affects rain.

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Trials will take place in 2023 of laser and radio frequency weapons mounted on a Type-23 frigate and a Wolfhound vehicle, Jeremy Quin will say. Full capabilities are expected to be in service within 10 years.

British Army and Royal Navy will mount high-tech weapons on Wolfhound vehicle and Type-23 frigate, with aim of full capabilities in 10 years.

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The spacecraft will provide fast transport between Earth and the moon—and beyond.

Picture this: World War III is just hours away. In the cold vastness of space, enemy robotic spacecraft are slowly adjusting their orbits and preparing to launch a surprise attack on the U.S.’s fleet of satellites. The uncrewed craft, with robotic arms strong enough to disable a satellite, are creeping up on American spacecraft, about to deal a knockout blow to the U.S. military.

But down on Earth, U.S. Space Force guardians have been keeping track of the assassin craft, knowing that in order to present as low a profile target as possible, they have just enough fuel for one attack. At the last minute, after the enemy satellites have committed to attack, the command activates the nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) engines on the American satellites, quickly boosting them into a higher orbit and safely out of range.

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