Tag: spaceflight

Professional software hacker demonstrates how to hack Starlink terminals

10:49 am

A professional software hacker not only recently succeeded in hacking the terminals SpaceX sells customers to use its Starlink satellite internet service, he first got a bounty from SpaceX for doing so, then made his technique freely available on the web for everyone else.

[Lennert] Wouters is now making his hacking tool open source on GitHub, including some of the details needed to launch the attack. “As an attacker, let’s say you wanted to attack the satellite itself,” Wouters explains, “You could try to build your own system that allows you to talk to the satellite, but that’s quite difficult. So if you want to attack the satellites, you would like to go through the user terminal as that likely makes your life easier.”

The researcher notified Starlink of the flaws last year and the company paid Wouters through its bug bounty scheme for identifying the vulnerabilities. Wouters says that while SpaceX has issued an update to make the attack harder (he changed the modchip in response), the underlying issue can’t be fixed unless the company creates a new version of the main chip. All existing user terminals are vulnerable, Wouters says.

Starlink says it plans to release a “public update” following Wouters’ presentation at Black Hat this afternoon, but declined to share any details about that update with WIRED prior to publication.

Wouters is a researcher at the Belgian university KU Leuven.

While it can certainly help SpaceX to figure this out, by publishing the hack to the world Wouters looks like a blackmailer unsatisfied with his payoff who is now following through with his blackmail threat. One also wonders why SpaceX, as part of its bounty payment, did not require Wouters to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

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SpaceX launches 46 more Starlink satellites

2:49 pm

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch another 46 Starlink satellites into orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its 10th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. It was also the fourth flight for both fairing halves. During the live stream the announcer also mentioned that because SpaceX has recently switched to using Starlink for transmitting its launch video feeds, the loss of picture signal that use to occur during the landing of the first stage on the drone ship has almost completely vanished.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

36 SpaceX
30 China
11 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
5 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 51 to 30 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 51 to 48.

I should also add that the United States has now matched the number of launches achieved in 1962, the nation’s fifth highest total of successful launches in a single year.

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Curiosity finally looks out into Gediz Vallis

12:56 pm

First look into Gediz Vallis
Click to view full mosaic.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! Curiosity’s right navigation camera today produced the mosaic above, cropped and reduced to post here, taking its first good look into Gediz Vallis, the canyon that the rover has been aiming for since it landed on Mars ten years ago.

The green dot on the overview map to the right marks the approximate location of a recurring slope lineae, a streak that comes and goes depending on the seasons whose cause remains uncertain. The yellow lines show the approximate area covered by the mosaic. The red dotted lines show Curiosity’s upcoming route. According to previously announced plans, the rover will not head straight into Gediz Vallis, but circle to the west or right of the mesa to the right of Kukenan.

The valley of course looks spectacular. For scale, the cliff face of Kukenan is estimated to be about 1,500 feet high.

The most important revelation from this image however is the ground terrain. It looks like Curiosity will have no problem moving forward into the canyon from this point, something the science team could not know for sure until the rover reached the saddle and could look down and actually see ahead.

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InSight seismometer data suggests no underground ice at landing site

9:25 am

Using a computer model combined with seismometer data gathered by the Mars lander InSight, scientists have concluded that there is little or no underground ice in the equatorial region where InSight sits.

From the paper’s abstract:

We use rock physics models to infer cement properties from seismic velocities. Model results confirm that the upper 300 m of Mars beneath InSight is most likely composed of sediments and fractured basalts. Grains within sediment layers are unlikely to be cemented by ice or other mineral cements. Hence, any existing cements are nodular or formed away from grain contacts. Fractures within the basalt layers could be filled with gas, 2% mineral cement and 98% gas, and no more than 20% ice. Thus, no ice- or liquid water-saturated layers likely exist within the upper 300 m beneath InSight. Any past cement at grain contacts has likely been broken by impacts or marsquakes.

As the lander sits just north of the equator in the red planet’s equatorial zone, which ample orbital data has suggested is a dry region (as shown in the global map below), this result is not a surprise. It does provide further confirmation however of this conclusion, that if there is any water on Mars within 30 degrees latitude of the equator, it will be deep underground, and likely only in certain regions.
» Read more

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Another and this time longer static fire tests for Superheavy prototype #7

9:02 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX engineers yesterday conducted a second static fire engine test of the 7th prototype of its Superheavy first stage booster, firing a different engine for 20 seconds.

The action ramped up on Thursday (Aug. 11) for Booster 7, which conducted a much longer static fire on Starbase’s orbital launch mount. The burn, which occurred at 3:48 p.m. EDT (1948 GMT), lasted for 20 seconds, SpaceX said via Twitter (opens in new tab).

The long-duration burn aimed to “test autogenous pressurization,” according to a tweet posted by Musk (opens in new tab) shortly before Booster 7 fired up.

Expect these engine tests to occur on a regular basis over the next few weeks, as engineers ramp up their operations in preparation for the first orbital flight of both prototype #7 with Starship prototype #24 stacked on top.

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A typical Martian rock on Mount Sharp

10:03 am

Panorama of pass
Click for full 360 degree panorama.

Typical Martian rock
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to right, taken by the Mars rover Curiosity on August 9, 2022, provides a nice close-up of what might be a somewhat typical rock on the flanks of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater, many layered with some of those layers extending outward to the side for somewhat ridiculous distances as thin flakes.

The scientists call it a float rock, because they think it actually fell from the cliff dubbed Bolivar in the panorama above. Thus, it gives geologists data on the layers higher up that are not easily accessible from Curiosity’s present position.

The panorama is a mosaic created from images taken by the rover’s right navigation camera on August 8, 2022. The white arrow marks the rock. The green dot marks the approximate location on the cliff face of a previously observed recurring slope lineae, streaks that appear to come and go seasonally whose origin is still not understood.

The red dots mark my guess as to the route engineers will pick for Curiosity as it weaves its way around the other float rocks ahead.
» Read more

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SpaceX gets FCC communications license for Starship orbital launch

8:47 am

Capitalism in space: The FCC yesterday approved SpaceX’s communications license for one or more Starship orbital launches, with a six month launch window beginning on September 1, 2022.

This FCC approval is not a launch license, which must be given by the FAA. It does tell us that SpaceX will not attempt the first orbital launch of Starship before the end of this month. It also tells us that the company likely plans on an aggressive test program from September ’22 through February ’23, assuming the FAA and the federal bureaucracy finally stops blocking that program.

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FCC cancels $900 million award to Starlink

3:07 pm

The FCC today canceled a $900 million subsidy it had awarded to SpaceX in December 2020 as part of a federal program to help establish broadband service in rural communities.

The reasoning for canceling the award given at the link is very unclear. However, since the award a lobbying effort by Starlink’s competitors — teamed up with Democrats in Congress — to cancel the award has been on going. It now seems to have succeeded.

Another clue to explaining this cancellation is timing. The award was announced at the end of the Trump administration, when his appointees controlled the FCC. The cancellation took place during the Biden administration, with the FCC now controlled by Democrats who are increasing revealing themselves to be very hostile to private commercial space in general and Musk and SpaceX in particular.

Nonetheless, it seems absurd to give SpaceX any such subsidy, regardless of the politics. As I said in February 2021:

No one, including SpaceX, should get these funds. SpaceX is proving they aren’t necessary to get the job done (bringing fast internet service to rural communities). Moreover, the federal government really doesn’t have the cash, deep in debt as it is.

Sadly, just because the FCC cancelled its award to SpaceX we should not expect as modern taxpayers that the money won’t be spent. Expect the Biden administration to instead dole it out to its preferred vendors.

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Fractures in the Martian northern lowland plains

1:35 pm

Fractures in the northern lowland plains
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on April 21, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) of a spot in the Martian northern lowland plains.

Generally the surface of these lowland plains — especially at high latitudes above 30 degrees — tends to appear very water saturated, producing blobby features and what look like mud volcanoes. This picture however features something different, what the scientists have labeled fractures, geological features that appeared caused by dry conditions and sudden quake-like events. The break in the fracture near the top of the photo illustrates why water flow had little if anything to do with its formation. Other fractures in the full image show the same thing. Also the stippled surface along the picture’s right edge also suggest there is little near surface water or ice at this location.

The location, as shown by the overview map below, suggests that water might still have played a part, but only a long time ago.
» Read more

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InSight’s power status holding steady on Mars

9:47 am

InSight's status as of August 9, 2022

Yesterday the InSight science team posted the lander’s ongoing power status, as it has been doing about every week since in June the team announced that they expected power to run out sometime in August, ending the mission.

I have created the graph to the right, showing the data from all those updates, to try to glean the overall trends. The red line indicates the tau level of dust in the atmosphere, essentially telling us how much that dust is blocking light from the Sun. Normally outside of dust season this number should range from 0.6 to 0.7. Since May 17 that dust level has been steadily declining, which thus increases the amount of sunlight reaching the panels.

The blue line marks the amount of power the lander’s panels have been able to produce. The lack of change in this line reveals both good and bad news. The good news is that the power level is holding steady, at a level that allows InSight’s one operating instrument, its seismometer, to continue to function. Should this power level continue to remain stable, that seismometer should be able to operate past August, thus extending the instrument’s life longer than expected.

The bad news is that the power levels are not going up as the dust level is dropping. This suggests that the dust layer on the panels that is preventing them from generating power is actually getting thicker. InSight has still not experienced any puff of Mars’ weak wind capable of blowing dust off those panels. Instead, as the dust settles out of the atmosphere with the end of dust season, some is settling on the panels themselves.

As new updates arrive I will update this graph. Stay tuned. InSight is not yet dead, though the vultures are unfortunately circling overhead.

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