Our society relies heavily on plastic products and the amount of plastic waste is expected to increase in the future. If not properly discarded or recycled, much of it accumulates in rivers and lakes. Eventually it will flow into the oceans, where it can form aggregations of marine debris together with natural materials like driftwood and algae. A new study from Wageningen University and EPFL researchers, recently published in Cell iScience, has developed an artificial intelligence-based detector that estimates the probability of marine debris shown in satellite images. This could help to systematically remove plastic litter from the oceans with ships.<h2>Automatic analysis</h2>Accumulations of marine debris are visible in freely available Sentinel-2 satellite images from the European Space Agency that capture coastal areas every 2-5 days worldwide on land masses and coastal areas. Because these amount to terabytes of data, the data needs to be analysed automatically through artificial intelligence models like deep neural networks. Marc Rußwurm, Assistant Professor at Wageningen University and former researcher at EPFL: “These models learn from examples provided by oceanographers and remote sensing specialists, who visually identified several thousand instances of marine debris in satellite images on locations across the globe. In this way they ‘trained’ the model to recognise plastic debris.” Devis Tuia, associate professor at EPFL and Director of the Sion-based Laboratory of Computational Science for the Environment and Earth Observation (ECEO), is corresponding author of the study.<blockquote>The detector remains accurate even in more challenging conditions. For example when cloud cover and atmospheric haze make it difficult for existing models to identify marine debris precisely.<footer>Marc Rußwurm, Assistant Professor at Wageningen University and former researcher at EPFL</footer></blockquote><h2>Improved detection</h2>The researchers developed an AI-based marine debris detector that estimates the probability of marine debris present for every pixel in Sentinel-2 satellite images. The detector is trained following data-centric AI principles that aim to make best use of the limited training data that is available for this problem. One example is the design of a computer vision algorithm that snaps manual annotations from experts precisely to the debris visible in the images. With this tool, oceanographers and remote sensing experts can provide more training data examples by being less precise in the manual clicking of outlines.Overall, this training method combined with the refinement algorithm teaches the deep artificial intelligence detection model to better predict marine debris objects than previous approaches. Rußwurm: “The detector remains accurate even in more challenging conditions. For example when cloud cover and atmospheric haze make it difficult for existing models to identify marine debris precisely.”<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1701346986180-9a9faa64.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Heavy precipitation over Durban, South Africa on 22 April 2019, 19:00. Continued precipitation between 18th and 22nd of April lead to the Durban Easter floods 2019 that washed substantial amounts of plastic litter into the Indian ocean, which are visible in Satellite images. Map data © 2023 Google. Precipitation data © JAXA Global Rainfall Watch<h2 id="isPasted">Following plastic debris</h2>Detecting plastics in marine debris under difficult atmospheric conditions with clouds and haze is particularly important, as often plastics are washed into open waters after rain and flood events. This is shown by the Durban Easter floods in South Africa: In 2019 a long period of rain led to overflowing rivers, resulting in much more litter being washed away than normally. It was taken along through the Durban harbour (left picture) into the open Indian Ocean (right picture). In satellite images, such objects floating between clouds are hard to distinguish when using common red-green-blue colour ‘channels’. They can be visualised by switching to other spectral channels, including near-infrared light.<h2>Double view</h2>Apart from more accurate prediction of marine debris aggregations, the detection model will also notice debris in daily-accessible PlanetScope images, coming from cubic nanosatellites. “Combining weekly Sentinel-2 with daily PlanetScope acquisitions can close the gap towards continuous daily monitoring”, explained Rußwurm. “Also, PlanetScope and Sentinel-2 sometimes capture the same patch of marine debris at the same day only a few minutes apart. This double view of the same object at two locations reveals the drift direction due to wind and ocean currents on the water. This information can be used to improve drift estimation models for marine debris.”<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1701347058805-06fb92a9.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The scientists tested the AI model predictions on Sentinel-2 satellite images of challenging atmospheric conditions with clouds and haze. In red, the correctly detected debris with plastic waste. © ESA / Cell iScience<h2 id="isPasted">Further explorations</h2>These directions will be explored further in the research of Prof. Marc Rußwurm at Wageningen University together with Prof. Tim van Emmerik, who is an expert in river plastics, and partners in the Netherlands, such as the Ocean Cleanup, who collect plastics on open oceans with dedicated ships. It originates from work in the AI for Detection of Plastics with Tracking (ADOPT) project in collaboration with the Swiss Data Science Center (a joint venture between ETH Zurich and EPFL) and EPFL by Prof. Devis Tuia, Dr. Emanuele Dalsasso, and Prof. Marc Rußwurm that investigates the continuous tracking of marine debris in between satellite imagery further.<h2>Sentinel-2 and PlanetScope</h2><a href="https://sentinel.esa.int/web/sentinel/missions/sentinel-2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ESA’s Sentinel-2 satellite constellation</a> from the European Space Agency consists of two large satellites that cover the Earth every 2-5 days. They measure the reflected light in multiple spectral channels beyond the visible red-green-blue and up to 10m pixel size. The images are openly available.<a href="https://earth.esa.int/eogateway/missions/planetscope" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PlanetScope Doves and SuperDoves</a> make up a constellation of several hundred small CubeSats (nanosatellites) that cover the Earth every day at 3-7m pixel resolution. The images are not free to acquire, but can be used to a limited extent for research purposes at no cost through a Research and Education programme.<hr>References<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004223024793" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Marc Rußwurm, Sushen Jilla Venkatesa, Devis Tuia, "Large-scale Detection of Marine Debris in Coastal Areas with Sentinel-2", Cell iScience, 8 November 2023.</a>

Durban's beach after a flood on 13 April 2022, two years after the one of 2019. © iStock/Antonio BlancoDR

A research team from EPFL and Wageningen University has developed a new artificial intelligence model that recognises floating plastics much more accurately in satellite images than before. This could help to systematically remove plastic litter from the oceans with ships.

AI helps detecting plastic in oceans

Small satellites are becoming increasingly compact and powerful. The technology of conventional radio channels is reaching its limits due to the rising number of satellites. Laser communications offers solutions for the efficient transmission of high data volumes without interfering with other channels. For this application, the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) <a href="https://www.dlr.de/en/kn" target="_blank">Institute of Communications and Navigation</a>, together with the company Tesat-Spacecom GmbH &amp; Co. KG <a href="https://www.tesat.de/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TESAT</a>, developed OSIRIS4CubeSat, the world's smallest commercially available laser communications terminal. The reliability and error-free functionality of the terminal, which was specifically developed for use on microsatellites, was confirmed during a test mission in space.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1699086525920-image-1600-66c2779f82a779fcbe74aba8d1b6a0ad.jpeg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The highly compact communication terminal CubeLCT was developed at the DLR Institute of Communication and Navigation on behalf of the company Tesat Spacecom. It is prepared for series production and can be integrated and adjusted with a few degrees of freedom. Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)"This success is the result of our many years of research in the field of optical satellite communications," says Florian David, Director of the DLR Institute of Communications and Navigation. "It demonstrates the impressive potential for designing small, light and at the same time powerful optical satellite terminals. This is an important building block for future satellite systems, for example for Earth observation or in megaconstellations."<h2>Microsatellite with an optical communications system</h2>The first OSIRIS4CubeSat terminal was launched into space on board the CubeL satellite on 24 January 2021. During the <a href="https://www.dlr.de/de/aktuelles/nachrichten/2021/01/20210124_pionierstart-kleinsatellit-mit-kleinstem-laserterminal-der-welt" target="_blank">PIXL-1 mission</a>, images acquired by the camera system on CubeL could be sent to the Optical Ground Station Oberpfaffenhofen using the OSIRIS4CubeSat laser. Both the satellite and the laser terminal have since undergone extensive testing. Now the tests have been successfully completed with an end-to-end demonstration. The reliability and error-free functionality of OSIRIS4CubeSat in space have been confirmed.Microsatellites, or CubeSats, have a standardised cube shape with an edge length of 10 centimetres and can be extended as required. The laser communications terminal developed in the <a href="https://www.dlr.de/kn/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-17840/#gallery/36173" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">OSIRIS4CubeSat</a> project together with TESAT complies with this standard. The patented design, in which an electronic circuit board was used as the mechanical basis for the optical elements for the first time, made it possible to achieve a high degree of compactness.<h2>High data transmission rates without electromagnetic interference</h2>With a data rate of 100 megabits per second, the laser terminal's speed far surpasses the transmission capabilities of comparable radio systems. In addition to the high data rate, laser light as a transmission medium is unaffected by electromagnetic interference. Channel crosstalk, as often occurs with conventional radio channels, does not exist with laser transmission. This means that laser transmission channels do not require lengthy approval procedures on the part of the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur; BNetzA) or the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).When transmitting image data to Earth by laser, encoding procedures developed at DLR were employed to safeguard the data. This is necessary to maintain stable, zero-loss transmission from the satellite to Earth, since the data must be protected from disruptions caused by atmospheric effects. For this purpose, they are encoded on the satellite before being sent to the ground station using the laser link. There, following reception, they are decoded and then processed. The <a href="https://www.dlr.de/en/research-and-transfer/projects-and-missions/iss/the-german-space-operations-center" target="_blank">German Space Operations Center (GSOC)</a> is responsible for the commanding, operation and support of the satellite. CubeL is thus the first CubeSat to be successfully integrated into GSOC's existing ground segment.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1699086552505-image-1600-a23a7a8f570e1abd2658cf00a0296875.jpeg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The new op­ti­cal ground sta­tion on the roof of the DLR In­sti­tute of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Nav­i­ga­tion in Oberp­faf­fen­hofen. Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)<h2>From research to industrial application</h2>The results from PIXL-1 show the error-free functionality of the OSIRIS4CubeSat terminal along the complete transmission chain. This will enable widespread use of laser communications on a large number of satellites in the future. The technology was transferred to TESAT even before the demonstration mission was completed. TESAT has since incorporated the terminal into its portfolio and offers it to commercial customers under the name 'CubeLCT' or 'SCOT20', which is a further development of the product.Siegbert Martin, Chief Technology Officer at TESAT said: "This underlines the great opportunities that arise from cooperation between research and industry in Germany."

The PIXL-1 small satellite can acquire images of the Earth with a high-resolution camera and send them to the Optical Ground Station Oberpfaffenhofen with the CubeLCT via a laser link. Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Small satellites are becoming increasingly compact and powerful. The technology of conventional radio channels is reaching its limits due to the rising number of satellites.

Demonstration of data transmission from a microsatellite by laser

Caracol had the possibility of working with D-Orbit and the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Politecnico di Milano, thanks to the financed call 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗙𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗟𝗼𝗺𝗯𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗮 (𝗣𝗢𝗥 𝗙𝗘𝗦𝗥 𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟰-𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟬) by Regione Lombardia, Caracol was able 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗳𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗸 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗪𝗔𝗔𝗠.&nbsp;As the final component is meant to be mounted on a carrier satellite to transport and release CubeSats into orbit, D-Orbit&#39;s input was essential to help pinpoint the functional characteristics the component needed, while Politecnico di Milano was fundamental for material characterization, optimizing process parameters, and qualifying the final product.From this first project and collaboration, it was possible to test first-hand the real advantages and potential, both in terms of product and process efficiencies, such as:&nbsp;<ul><li>𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗼𝗺 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗶𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 of complex parts with be-spoke geometries&nbsp;</li><li>𝗪𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 with a positive environmental impact due to propellant consumption and waste reduction&nbsp;</li><li>𝗛𝗶𝗴𝗵-𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲, 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗰 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀, eliminating the need to assemble several parts&nbsp;</li><li>𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 of 𝗿𝗮𝘄 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗱 and 𝘄𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱&nbsp;</li><li>𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘁 and 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, if compared to traditional manufacturing</li></ul>

Caracol has introduced Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing to explore how to manufacture advanced applications such as space vehicles, leveraging the benefits of AM and robotics. This project enabled the production of propulsion tanks for CubeSat carrier space vehicles,

Manufacturing Tank for CubeSat Carrier with WAAM technology

COWVR, at center, and TEMPEST, not shown, were installed aboard the International Space Station in late 2021 and since then have provided valuable weather data to forecasters tracking tropical cyclones. The two instruments are part of the U.S. Space Force STP-H8 demonstration mission. Credit: NASA

In this episode, we talk about a new satellite system from NASA that leverages technologies used in other missions to accomplish the same performance that has been delivered by heritage satellites but smaller and less complex while also being a fraction of the cost.

Podcast: Eye of The Storm: NASA's New Weather & Tropical Storm Tracking Sensors

The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum f&uuml;r Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) is currently working with <a href="https://www.uarx.com/" target="_blank" title="External link UARX Space">UARX</a> Space to develop a specialised spacecraft that will transport multiple satellites to different desired orbits after separation from the launch vehicle. DLR is providing a radio platform called Generic Software Defined Radio (GSDR), which is used to communicate with the ground station. GSDR is a multifunctional radio system that allows multiple applications to performed in different frequency bands. The hardware does not have to be adapted to the application-specific requirements, as is usually the case, but can be reconfigured via software and commands while in orbit.<h2>Planned mission in 2024</h2>In commercial spaceflight, one launch vehicle typically delivers several satellites into the same fixed target orbit to save costs. As a result, certain users must wait a long time for a launch vehicle that will fly to their target orbit or face the prohibitive cost of booking a rocket for their sole use. The Orbit Solutions to Simplify Injection and Exploration (<a href="https://www.uarx.com/projects/ossie.php" target="_blank" title="External link OSSIE">OSSIE</a>) orbit transfer vehicle from UARX Space is being developed with the aim of carrying satellites deployed in space to their desired target orbit, regardless of the initial deployment orbit of the launch vehicle. This places considerable demands on communication between the spacecraft and the ground segment, as the radio communication distance varies greatly throughout the mission.The GSDR, developed by DLR, will be used as the communication subsystem, as this innovative radio platform is ideally suited to OSSIE&#39;s needs and can respond flexibly to the varying communication requirements. &quot;After more than five years of development and extensive testing, our GSDR has now reached a technology readiness level (TRL) of 7. The next step is to demonstrate the system in orbit. We are delighted that our system will contribute to UARX&#39;s mission and help us harness OSSIE&#39;s full potential,&quot; says Jan Budroweit, Project Manager at DLR.OSSIE is a cost-effective Orbital Transfer Vehicle (OTV) designed to deploy customer payloads that require transport to specific orbits. To accomplish a controlled deployment, the vehicle is commanded to conduct precise manoeuvres that change its orbital parameters. During these manoeuvres, constant communication with the ground segment is often very important. OSSIE is also capable of carrying orbital demonstrators that allow customers to test their hardware without being deployed into orbit. During such a flight, the payload receives all required services, such as power and communications, from the OSSIE platform.UARX Space already has customers for OSSIE&#39;s demonstration mission, which is planned for mid-2024, and during which the capabilities of the spacecraft will be validated in preparation for more complex missions. &quot;Counting on the support of DLR to handle such complex communication scenarios is essential to ensure we can offer the best quality of service to our customers,&quot; says Andr&eacute;s Villa, CTO at UARX Space.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1676889026224-ossie-laboratory.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Lab&shy;o&shy;ra&shy;to&shy;ry test&shy;ing of Gener&shy;ic Soft&shy;ware De&shy;fined Ra&shy;dio (GS&shy;DR) at the DLR site in Bre&shy;men. Credit: &copy; DLR. All rights reserved&nbsp;<h2>A modular, reusable radio system</h2>GSDR is designed to be easy to reuse and adapt from mission to mission. Its advanced technology enables high-performance data processing and extreme flexibility for rapid development and reconfiguration. Mission-specific features are primarily implemented through software customisation.GSDR can operate in different frequency bands without any need to adapt the hardware. This allows various applications &ndash; including communication between the ground station and the spacecraft and the reception of aircraft signals &ndash; to be implemented within a single system. This saves space and weight, which in turn reduces costs, particularly for space missions. Due to its compact design and low power consumption, the platform is especially well suited to operation with small satellites. Ensuring reliability under space conditions was a priority during the development of the GSDR. The system has been specifically designed and extensively tested to handle the effects of radiation and guarantee a high level of reliability and operational availability. The GSDR currently has a TRL of 7, so it is certified with respect to critical environmental influences such as thermal and mechanical factors and electromagnetic compatibility (EMC).

The OSSIE space­craft from UARX Space fea­tur­ing DLR ra­dio tech­nol­o­gy. Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) is currently working with UARX Space to develop a specialised spacecraft that will transport multiple satellites to different desired orbits after separation from the launch vehicle.

The future of small satellite transfer orbits

In this episode, we talk about how a group of researchers at the University of Michigan have gained a thrust output 10x greater than what was thought to be possible by challenging preconceived limitations and how their breakthrough could hold the key for deep space travel.&nbsp;<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/7186eb06-8962-46c9-b8e9-52a754f7cdb3?dark=false" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe><hr><h3 id="isPasted">EPISODE NOTES</h3>(2:20) - <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/plasma-thrusters-used-on-satellites-could-be-much-more-powerful" target="_blank">Ultra-efficient Plasma Thrusters For Deep Space Travel</a><hr>As always, you can find these and other interesting &amp; impactful engineering articles on Wevolver.com.To learn more about this show, please visit our&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" target="_blank">shows page</a>. By following the page, you will get automatic updates by email when a new show is published. Be sure to give us a follow and review on&nbsp;<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/the-next-byte/id1548255861?l=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Apple</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6lPPsRtegnivsRUEsQ09R7?si=IPMiah7xT_apJtPjqvXMlA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Spotify</a>, and most of your favorite podcast platforms!

The glow of the plasma from the H9 MUSCLE Hall thruster during a test with krypton propellant. PHOTO: Plasmadynamic and Electric Propulsion Laboratory. 

In this episode, we talk about how a group of researchers at the University of Michigan have gained a thrust output 10x greater than what was thought to be possible by challenging preconceived limitations and how their breakthrough could hold the key for deep space travel.

Podcast: From Blastoff to Beyond: Ion Thrusters Pushing the Limits of Space Travel

This article was discussed in our&nbsp;<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte&source=gmail&ust=1672821999265000&usg=AOvVaw3lLKdHdEN0YvCEsaHI7hx9" href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Next Byte podcast</a>.&nbsp;<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/7186eb06-8962-46c9-b8e9-52a754f7cdb3?dark=false" class="fr-draggable" data-gtm-yt-inspected-7="true" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe> The full article will continue below.<hr>It was believed that Hall thrusters, an efficient kind of electric propulsion widely used in orbit, need to be large to produce a lot of thrust. Now, a new study from the University of Michigan suggests that smaller Hall thrusters can generate much more thrust&mdash;potentially making them candidates for interplanetary missions. &nbsp;<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jM_wcsTQxek?&wmode=opaque&rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-gtm-yt-inspected-7="true" id="636557646" title="Advances in Thruster Technology Lead the Way to Mars"></iframe>&ldquo;People had previously thought that you could only push a certain amount of current through a thruster area, which in turn translates directly into how much force or thrust you can generate per unit area,&rdquo; said <a href="https://aero.engin.umich.edu/people/jorns-benjamin/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Benjamin Jorns</a>, U-M associate professor of aerospace engineering who led the new Hall thruster study to be presented at the <a href="https://www.aiaa.org/SciTech" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">AIAA SciTech Forum</a> in National Harbor, Maryland, today.His team challenged this limit by running a 9 kilowatt Hall thruster up to 45 kilowatts, maintaining roughly 80% of its nominal efficiency. This increased the amount of force generated per unit area by almost a factor of 10.Whether we call it a plasma thruster or an ion drive, electric propulsion is our best bet for interplanetary travel&mdash;but science is at a crossroads. While Hall thrusters are a well-proven technology, an alternative concept, known as a magnetoplasmadynamic thruster, promises to pack much more power into smaller engines. However, they are yet unproven in many ways, including lifetime.<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjc0ODI4MDcxNDAzLTUyNjQ1NDUzODI5XzM2NGYwMjQ4N2Jfay0xMDI0eDY1NS5qcGciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The team at the PEPL lab poses for a photo near the new Hall thruster. Leanne Su, lead author of the study, kneels with a print of the mission patch. From left in the back: Christopher Sercel, Thomas Marks, Madison Allen, Parker Roberts, Will Hurley, Benjamin Jorns (U-M associate professor of aerospace engineering and senior author of the study) and and Tate Gill. PHOTO: Marcin Szczepanski/Michigan Engineering&nbsp;Hall thrusters were believed to be unable to compete because of the way they operate. The propellant, typically a noble gas like xenon, moves through a cylindrical channel where it is accelerated by a powerful electric field. It generates thrust in the forward direction as it departs out the back. But before the propellant can be accelerated, it needs to lose some electrons to give it a positive charge.Electrons accelerated by a magnetic field to run in a ring around that channel&mdash;described as a &ldquo;buzz saw&rdquo; by Jorns&mdash;knock electrons off the propellant atoms and turn them into positively charged ions. However, calculations suggested that if a Hall thruster tried to drive more propellant through the engine, the electrons whizzing in a ring would get knocked out of the formation, breaking down that &ldquo;buzz saw&rdquo; function.&nbsp;&ldquo;It&rsquo;s like trying to bite off more than you can chew,&rdquo; Jorns said. &ldquo;The buzz saw can&rsquo;t work its way through that much material.&rdquo;In addition, the engine would get extremely hot. Jorns&rsquo; team put these beliefs to the test.&nbsp;&ldquo;We named our thruster the H9 MUSCLE because essentially, we took the H9 thruster and made a muscle car out of it by turning it up to 11&mdash;really up to a hundred, if we&rsquo;re going by accurate scaling,&rdquo; said Leanne Su, a doctoral student in aerospace engineering who will present the study.They tackled the heat problem by cooling it with water, which let them see how big a problem the buzz saw breakdown was going to be. Turns out, it wasn&rsquo;t much trouble. Running with xenon, the conventional propellant, the H9 MUSCLE ran up to 37.5 kilowatts, with an overall efficiency of about 49%, not far off the 62% efficiency at its design power of 9 kilowatts.&nbsp;<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjc0ODI4MDk2MDA3LXBsYXNtYS10aHJ1c3RlcnMtdXNlZC53ZWJwIiwiZWRpdHMiOnsicmVzaXplIjp7IndpZHRoIjo5NTAsImZpdCI6ImNvdmVyIn19fQ==" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The glow of the plasma from the H9 MUSCLE Hall thruster during a test with krypton propellant. PHOTO: Plasmadynamic and Electric Propulsion Laboratory.&nbsp;Running with krypton, a lighter gas, they maxed out their power supply at 45 kilowatts. At an overall efficiency of 51%, they achieved their maximum thrust of about 1.8 Newtons, on par with the much larger 100-kilowatt-class X3 Hall thruster.&nbsp;&ldquo;This is kind of a crazy result because typically, krypton performs a lot worse than xenon on Hall thrusters. So it&rsquo;s very cool and an interesting path forward to see that we can actually improve krypton&rsquo;s performance relative to xenon by increasing the thruster current density,&rdquo; Su said.Nested Hall thrusters like the X3&mdash;also developed in part by U-M&mdash;have been explored for interplanetary cargo transport, but they are much larger and heavier, making it difficult for them to transport humans. Now, ordinary Hall thrusters are back on the table for crewed journeys.Jorns says that the cooling problem would need a space-worthy solution if Hall thrusters are to run at these high powers. Still, he is optimistic that individual thrusters could run at 100 to 200 kilowatts, arranged into arrays that provide a megawatt&rsquo;s worth of thrust. This could enable crewed missions to reach Mars even on the far side of the sun, traveling a distance of 250 million miles.<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjc0ODI4MTE1NTA3LTUyNjQ1NjczOTgzXzBiNTcxNTU4ZGFfay0xMDI0eDY4My5qcGciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Ph.D student Will Hurley leaves the chamber where the new Hall plasma thruster is tested at the PEPL lab. PHOTO: Marcin Szczepanski/Michigan Engineering&nbsp;The team hopes to pursue the cooling problem as well as challenges in developing both Hall thrusters and magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters on Earth, where few facilities can test Mars-mission-level thrusters. The amount of propellant exhausting from the thruster comes too fast for the vacuum pumps to keep the conditions inside the testing chamber space-like.The research was supported in part by the Joint Advanced Propulsion Institute.

It was believed that running more propellant through a Hall thruster would wreck its efficiency, but new experiments suggest they might power a crewed mission to Mars.

Plasma thrusters used on satellites could be much more powerful

In this episode, we talk about a microsatellite from MIT that is testing autonomous flight while in Earth&#39;s orbit. This technology could help improve the agility and robustness of future satellite missions.&nbsp;<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/aaa85b2e-2890-4d4e-9a19-fb7d81fd42b6?dark=false" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe><hr>This podcast is sponsored by <a href="https://www.durolabs.co/?utm_source=Wevolver&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=the_next_byte" id="isPasted" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Duro</a>. &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1672193846860-eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjY1NDI0NjIyNDYwLVVudGl0bGVkIGRlc2lnbi5wbmciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19.webp" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><hr><h3 id="isPasted">EPISODE NOTES</h3>(5:10) - <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/tiny-satellite-tests-autonomy-in-space" target="_blank">Tiny satellite tests autonomy in space</a><hr>This episode was brought to you by Duro, the PLM platform behind some of Farbod &amp; Daniel&rsquo;s favorite hardware products!Click <a href="https://www.durolabs.co/?utm_source=Wevolver&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=the_next_byte" target="_blank">here</a> to learn more about Duro and <a href="https://www.durolabs.co/blog/former-spacex-engineer-breaks-down-the-code-to-successful-hardware-engineering/?utm_source=Wevolver&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=TheNextByte" target="_blank">here</a> to check out the article written by Duro&rsquo;s co-founder, Kellan O&#39;Connor, on his early experience at SpaceX and how that helped him crack the code to successful hardware engineering.&nbsp;<hr>As always, you can find these and other interesting &amp; impactful engineering articles on Wevolver.com.To learn more about this show, please visit our <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" target="_blank">shows page</a>. By following the page, you will get automatic updates by email when a new show is published. Be sure to give us a follow and review on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/the-next-byte/id1548255861?l=en" target="_blank">Apple</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6lPPsRtegnivsRUEsQ09R7?si=IPMiah7xT_apJtPjqvXMlA" target="_blank">Spotify</a>, and most of your favorite podcast platforms!

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched in May 2022 carried multiple missions, including Lincoln Laboratory’s Agile MicroSat. Photo courtesy of SpaceX

In this episode, we talk about a microsatellite from MIT that is testing autonomous flight while in Earth's orbit. This technology could help improve the agility and robustness of future satellite missions.

Podcast: Self-Flying Satellite's Successful Space Mission

Bion Space, a team of ITMO students, became one of the finalists in the Stratosphere Satellite research and engineering program. Their project became a part of a research probe sent into the stratosphere on November 19 to analyze the way lower gravity can affect the biomimetic process of bone-like tissue formation. In the future, this data can be taken into account when designing space stations. Read on to learn more about the project.&nbsp;We are so used to gravity that we barely notice it, however, it plays an important role in the way our bodies work &ndash; ultimately, every system in our body, from our blood vessels to our bones and inner ear, depends on gravity. That&rsquo;s why being without it, in weightlessness, for extended periods of time can be <a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-12191-8_126" target="_blank">damaging</a> to the body: the muscles become weaker, the heart gets less active (causing a decreased oxygen flow to the brain), and the bones grow more fragile, increasing the risks of traumas and osteoporosis.In order to find out how lower gravity can affect the formation of bone tissue, researchers from ITMO University used specially selected reaction-diffusion systems. Within the <a href="https://www.stratosputnik.ru/#rec479426180" target="_blank">Stratosphere Satellite</a> research program, they sent to space several test tubes with hydroxylapatite, a mineral that is a key component in skeletal bones and teeth. During the flight, patterns of the material formed within the test tubes.<blockquote>&ldquo;It all started with a project we developed within the Smart Materials course: we had to come up with a material that would allow single-cell organisms to survive in space. Having completed the project, we thought, &ldquo;What if we could actually do this experimentally?&rdquo; I assembled a team and we spent a month analyzing related articles before we realized that a bunch of similar experiments had already been conducted. But the idea was too good to part with it, so I suggested a similar experiment at a conference I attended. Space engineers from the Bauman Moscow State Technical University got interested, so we decided to apply for the Stratosphere Satellite project,&rdquo; says Daudi Dauddin, the head of the project and a student at ITMO&rsquo;s ChemBio Cluster.</blockquote><img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjY5ODg5NjU1MzA3LTEyOTI5MDAuanBnIiwiZWRpdHMiOnsicmVzaXplIjp7IndpZHRoIjo5NTAsImZpdCI6ImNvdmVyIn19fQ==" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Left: Daudi Dauddin with the aerostat carrying the participants&#39; CubeSats. Right: the research team: front &ndash; Daudi Dauddin; back, left to right: Ramil Gaynutdinov, German Yandalin, Azamat Nuraev, and Roman Arduvanov. Photo courtesy of the team&nbsp;Apart from Daudi Dauddin, the team includes Daniil Silin, an infochemistry student at ITMO, who is responsible for the chemical aspect of the project, and is supervised by Ekaterina Skorb, the head of the university&rsquo;s Infochemistry Center, and Svetlana Ulasevich, an associate professor at the center and the head of the biomimetic materials group. German Yangalin, a student at the Bauman Moscow State Technical University, and Ramil Gaynutdinov, a student at the Moscow Aviation Institute, were responsible for assembling the team&rsquo;s CubeSat, the satellite with experimental samples inside, while students of the Bashkortostan Quantorium Azamat Nuraev and Roman Arduvanov developed the experimental software.<h2 dir="ltr">The experiment in detail</h2>To be able to identify the specifics of bone tissue formation in low gravity, the researchers analyzed the periodic precipitation of hydroxylapatite not only in the stratosphere but also in the lab on Earth in room and low temperatures. Having first prepared a hydrogel based on agar and sodium phosphate, the researchers then added calcium chloride to the system right before the launch, repeating the same steps in the ground-based lab.This reaction results in Liesegang rings, concentric circles of hydroxylapatite precipitation. You could have seen such patterns in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agate" target="_blank">agate</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper" target="_blank">jasper</a> rock formations, where they too are the result of periodic precipitation. This reaction is often used in physics and chemistry, as well as in decorative art. In Earth&rsquo;s gravity, such rings typically form in gelatin and collagen media, and the process of their crystallization in the stratosphere is currently analyzed by the researchers.In order to obtain the sample, researchers attached one of the tubes with the substance to the CubeSat, supplied with a camera and an abundance of sensors, that were transmitting the probe&rsquo;s location, surrounding temperature and radiation, as well as other parameters to the lab during the flight. Moreover, the CubeSat had a special compartment for more test tubes that was developed and 3D printed by German Yangalin.&nbsp;CubeSats submitted by all participants were attached to an aerostat, an aircraft lifted by buoyant gas (similar to a hot air balloon). As the aerostat lifts higher and the surrounding atmospheric pressure decreases, the balloon keeps expanding until it bursts (in this case, it happened at an altitude of about 25 kilometers), lowering down to Earth on a stabilizing system. The flight lasted three hours and the aerostat launched by the team was swept 90 kilometers from the starting location. After it was located thanks to its GPS sensor, it was delivered to the researchers for further analysis.Having compared the acquired samples, the students discovered a substantial difference between the crystallization of Liesegang rings in normal and lower gravity. According to the current hypothesis, the stratospheric samples might contain <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_pattern" target="_blank">Turing patterns</a>, which form as a result of a reaction-diffusion mechanism.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1669890028001-1292901.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The research satellite at the altitude of 10 km. Photo courtesy of Stratonavtika company&nbsp;<h2 dir="ltr" id="isPasted">What next</h2>Now, the researchers from ITMO&rsquo;s Infochemistry Center will need to analyze the procured samples, identifying the structure&rsquo;s diversity coefficient, as well as its phase and crystal composition. These tests will help determine whether Turing patterns have actually formed in the samples sent to the stratosphere. At the same time, the researchers will analyze the samples that remained on Earth.As a result of this experiment, the scientists will be able to tell how various conditions in the stratosphere, namely, radiation, atmospheric pressure, and temperature, affect the formation of hydroxylapatite patterns. Thanks to this data, the researchers will be able to explain the process of bone tissue formation in lower gravity, which can be taken into account in development of future space stations. The project will culminate in a scientific publication that will describe the experiment and acquired results.Stratosphere Satellite is a national program that aims to interest young people in design, engineering, and aerospace research, as well as equip them with experience in these fields. The team with ITMO students became one of the ten finalists, whose projects were launched into the stratosphere. Each team received a special kit with parts of their CubeSat, which the participants assembled and programmed on their own.<hr>Translated by <a href="https://news.itmo.ru/en/profile/51/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Catherine Zavodova</a> and originally published by <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://news.itmo.ru/en/&source=gmail&ust=1669792023195000&usg=AOvVaw2nipuSP2aMh5iCSQ0BjMPU" href="https://news.itmo.ru/en/" target="_blank">ITMO.NEWS</a>

The research satellite at the altitude of 25 km. Photo courtesy of Stratonavtika company

Bion Space became one of the finalists in the Stratosphere Satellite research and engineering program. Their project became a part of a research probe sent into the stratosphere on November 19 to analyze the way lower gravity can affect the biomimetic process of bone-like tissue formation.

Students Launch Stratosphere Satellite to Analyze Bone Tissue Formation in Low Gravity

In this episode, we talk about how a method leveraging ground data and satellite imagery can help prevent wetland losses. &nbsp;<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/a470d96e-2d6f-42ab-9aff-e52672c3e85a?dark=false" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe><hr>This podcast is sponsored by <a href="https://www2.mouser.com/" id="isPasted" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mouser Electronics</a>. &nbsp;&nbsp;<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1669714706413-Mouser-sponsor-1-a.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><hr><h3 id="isPasted">EPISODE NOTES</h3>(2:42) -&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/satellites-help-scientists-track-dramatic-wetlands-loss-in-louisiana" target="_blank">Satellites Help Scientists Track Dramatic Wetlands Loss in Louisiana</a>This episode was brought to you by Mouser, our favorite place to get electronic components for any project. Click <a href="https://resources.mouser.com/space/communications-in-space-a-deep-subject" target="_blank">HERE</a> to learn more about the intricacies of deep space communication!<hr>As always, you can find these and other interesting &amp; impactful engineering articles on Wevolver.com.To learn more about this show, please visit our<a href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" target="_blank">&nbsp;shows page</a>. By following the page, you will get automatic updates by email when a new show is published. Be sure to give us a follow and review on<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/the-next-byte/id1548255861?l=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">&nbsp;Apple&nbsp;</a>podcasts,<a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6lPPsRtegnivsRUEsQ09R7?si=IPMiah7xT_apJtPjqvXMlA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">&nbsp;Spotify</a>, and most of your favorite podcast platforms!

The researchers mapped land change in coastal Louisiana from 1984 to 2020. Basins that failed to build new soil, such as Terrebonne and Barataria, experienced the most land loss – more than 180 square miles (466 square kilometers). Credit: Jensen et al. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences

In this episode, we talk about how a method leveraging ground data and satellite imagery can help prevent wetland losses. 

Podcast: Fighting Wetland Loss From Outer Space

This article was discussed in our <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte&source=gmail&ust=1669765825866000&usg=AOvVaw0adN1ijmCNIvr_GfjyI5jV" href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" id="isPasted" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Next Byte podcast</a>.&nbsp;<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/a470d96e-2d6f-42ab-9aff-e52672c3e85a?dark=false" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe>The full article will continue below.<hr>From Lake Pontchartrain to the Texas border, Louisiana has lost enough wetlands since the mid-1950s to cover the entire state of Rhode Island. Using a first-of-its kind model, NASA-funded researchers quantified those wetlands losses at nearly 21 square miles (54 square kilometers) per year since the early 1980s.In the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JG006794" target="_blank">new study</a>, scientists used the NASA/USGS <a href="https://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/" target="_blank">Landsat</a> satellite record to track shoreline changes across Louisiana from 1984 to 2020. Some of those wetlands were submerged by rising seas; others were disrupted by oil and gas infrastructure and hurricanes. But the primary driver of losses was coastal and river engineering, which can have positive or negative effects depending on how it is implemented.Centimeter by centimeter, wetlands are built by the slow accumulation &ndash; accretion &ndash; of mineral sediment and organic material carried by rivers and streams. Accretion makes new soil and counters erosion, the sinking of land, and the rise of sea level.Human intervention and engineering often hold back or divert the flow of sediments that naturally accrete to build and replenish wetlands. For instance, reinforced levees and thousands of miles of canals and excavated banks have isolated many wetlands from the Mississippi River and the network of streams that course through its delta like veins and capillaries. In a few cases, engineering projects have added sediment to delta areas and built new land.<a data-caption="The researchers mapped land change in coastal Louisiana from 1984 to 2020. Basins that failed to build new soil, such as Terrebonne and Barataria, experienced the most land loss – more than 180 square miles (466 square kilometers). Credit: Jensen et al. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences" data-fancybox="" data-src="https://d2pn8kiwq2w21t.cloudfront.net/original_images/e1-wetlands_land_loss_map.jpeg" href="https://d2pn8kiwq2w21t.cloudfront.net/original_images/e1-wetlands_land_loss_map.jpeg" target="_blank"></a><div data-v-47d42ddc=""><a data-caption='The researchers mapped land change in coastal Louisiana from 1984 to 2020. Basins that failed to build new soil, such as Terrebonne and Barataria, experienced the most land loss – more than 180 square miles (466 square kilometers). Credit: Jensen et al. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences' data-fancybox="" data-src="https://d2pn8kiwq2w21t.cloudfront.net/original_images/e1-wetlands_land_loss_map.jpeg" href="https://d2pn8kiwq2w21t.cloudfront.net/original_images/e1-wetlands_land_loss_map.jpeg" target="_blank"><img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjY4MTM4NTc4OTIwLWUxLXdldGxhbmRzX2xhbmRfbG9zc19tYXAud2lkdGgtMTMyMC5qcGciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">The researchers mapped land change in coastal Louisiana from 1984 to 2020. Basins that failed to build new soil, such as Terrebonne and Barataria, experienced the most land loss &ndash; more than 180 square miles (466 square kilometers). Credit: Jensen et al. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences</a></div>By analyzing Landsat imagery with tools from cloud computing, the researchers developed a remote sensing model that focused on accretion or the lack of it. Basins that failed to build new soil, such as Terrebonne and Barataria, experienced the most land loss over the study period &ndash; more than 180 square miles (466 square kilometers). Other areas gained ground, including 33.6 square miles (87 square kilometers) of new land in the <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-change/WaxLake" target="_blank">Atchafalaya Basin</a> and 43 square miles (112 square kilometers) in the area known as the &ldquo;Bird&rsquo;s Foot Delta&rdquo; at the mouth of the Mississippi River.&ldquo;The Louisiana coastal system is highly engineered,&rdquo; said Daniel Jensen, lead author and postdoctoral researcher at NASA&rsquo;s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. &ldquo;But the fact that ground has been gained in some places indicates that, with enough restoration efforts to reintroduce fresh water supply and sediment, we could see some wetland recovery in the future.&rdquo;Understanding wetland dieback and recovery is critically important because the Mississippi River Delta, like many of the world&rsquo;s deltas, drives local and national economies through farming, fisheries, tourism, and shipping. &ldquo;For the 350 million people who live and farm on deltas around the world, coastal wetlands provide a key link in the food chain,&rdquo; said JPL&rsquo;s Marc Simard, principal investigator of NASA&rsquo;s <a href="https://deltax.jpl.nasa.gov/" target="_blank">Delta-X</a> mission and co-author of the paper.<a data-caption="A map of soil accretion in coastal Louisiana showing higher buildup in parts of Atchafalaya and the “Bird’s Foot Delta,” where the Mississippi River system deposits mineral-rich sediment during flood periods. Credit: Jensen et al. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences" data-fancybox="" data-src="https://d2pn8kiwq2w21t.cloudfront.net/original_images/e2-Wetlands_accretion_map.jpeg" href="https://d2pn8kiwq2w21t.cloudfront.net/original_images/e2-Wetlands_accretion_map.jpeg" target="_blank"></a><div data-v-47d42ddc=""><a data-caption='A map of soil accretion in coastal Louisiana showing higher buildup in parts of Atchafalaya and the “Bird’s Foot Delta,” where the Mississippi River system deposits mineral-rich sediment during flood periods. Credit: Jensen et al. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences' data-fancybox="" data-src="https://d2pn8kiwq2w21t.cloudfront.net/original_images/e2-Wetlands_accretion_map.jpeg" href="https://d2pn8kiwq2w21t.cloudfront.net/original_images/e2-Wetlands_accretion_map.jpeg" target="_blank"><img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjY4MTM4NjIxNjUzLWUyLVdldGxhbmRzX2FjY3JldGlvbl9tYXAud2lkdGgtMTMyMC5qcGciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">A map of soil accretion in coastal Louisiana showing higher buildup in parts of Atchafalaya and the &ldquo;Bird&rsquo;s Foot Delta,&rdquo; where the Mississippi River system deposits mineral-rich sediment during flood periods. Credit: Jensen et al. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences</a></div> In several airborne and field campaigns since 2016, the Delta-X research team has been studying the Mississippi River Delta, the seventh largest on Earth, using airborne sensing and field measurements of water, vegetation, and sediment changes in the face of rising sea level. The Landsat analysis builds on this airborne mission. Delta-X is part of NASA&rsquo;s Earth Venture Suborbital (EVS) program, managed at NASA&rsquo;s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.The new model by Jensen and colleagues is the first to directly estimate soil accretion rates in coastal wetlands using satellite data. Working with ground-based accretion records from Louisiana&rsquo;s Coastwide Reference Monitoring System, the scientists were able to estimate amounts of mineral sediment from water pixels in the Landsat imagery and organic material from the land pixels.The researchers said their approach could be applied beyond Louisiana because wetland loss and resiliency is a <a href="https://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/article/landsat-reveals-dramatic-loss-of-global-wetlands-over-past-two-decades/" target="_blank">global phenomenon</a>. From the <a href="https://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/article/where-the-wetlands-are/" target="_blank">Great Lakes</a> to the Nile Delta, the Amazon to Siberia, wetlands are found on every continent except Antarctica. And they are declining in most places. Wetlands were recently called some of the &ldquo;most vulnerable, most threatened, most valuable, and most diverse&rdquo; ecosystems on the planet, according to an international<a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781119536789.ch5" target="_blank">&nbsp;analysis</a> co-authored by NASA researchers.

A satellite image of the Mississippi River Delta with land shown in bright green and water shown in dark blue. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Michael Taylor and Adam Voiland, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey

New research uses NASA satellite observations and advanced computing to chronicle wetlands lost (and found) around the globe.

Satellites Help Scientists Track Dramatic Wetlands Loss in Louisiana

In this episode, we talk about how researchers are bringing affordable space technology to the masses via additive manufacturing along with a manufacturing approach that could serve as the keystone for wide scale use of affordable, semitransparent organic solar cells.&nbsp;<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/539903f0-00a7-4eca-b553-fdc27c2083b3?dark=false" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe><hr>This podcast is sponsored by <a href="https://www2.mouser.com/" id="isPasted" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mouser Electronics</a>. &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1660217804118-Mouser-sponsor-1-a.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><hr><h3 id="isPasted">EPISODE NOTES</h3>(3:30) -&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/researchers-3d-print-sensors-for-satellites" target="_blank">3D Printing Satellite Sensors</a>🛰🔬(19:33) -&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/toward-manufacturing-semitransparent-solar-cells-the-size-of-windows" target="_blank">Useful Semitransparent Solar Cells</a>🪟☀️Episode 82 was brought to you by Mouser Electronics, Farbod &amp; Daniel&rsquo;s favorite electronics distributor. Click <a href="https://www.mouser.com/blog/amateur-space-exploration-cubesats" target="_blank">here</a> to read about the Mouser technical resources discussing cubesats!<hr>As always, you can find these and other interesting &amp; impactful engineering articles on Wevolver.com.To learn more about this show, please visit our<a href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" target="_blank">&nbsp;shows page</a>. By following the page, you will get automatic updates by email when a new show is published. Be sure to give us a follow and review on<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/the-next-byte/id1548255861?l=en" target="_blank">&nbsp;Apple</a> podcasts,<a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6lPPsRtegnivsRUEsQ09R7?si=IPMiah7xT_apJtPjqvXMlA" target="_blank">&nbsp;Spotify</a>, and most of your favorite podcast platforms!

MIT researchers have demonstrated a 3D-printed plasma sensor for orbiting spacecraft that works just as well as much more expensive, semiconductor sensors. These durable, precise sensors could be used effectively on inexpensive, lightweight satellites known as CubeSats, which are commonly utilized for environmental monitoring or weather prediction. Figure courtesy of the researchers and edited by MIT News

In this episode, we talk about how researchers are bringing affordable space technology to the masses via additive manufacturing along with a manufacturing approach that could serve as the keystone for wide scale use of affordable, semitransparent organic solar cells.

Podcast: 3D Printing Space Sensors & Solar Cell Windows

Reliable and powerful computers play a central role in spaceflight &ndash; for example, computer systems in satellites enable sophisticated Earth observation missions. The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum f&uuml;r Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) is developing a new computer architecture that will provide On-Board Computers (OBCs) with more power as well as enabling them to repair themselves. Distributed heterogeneous OBCs are being created in the Scalable On-Board Computing for Space Avionics (ScOSA) flight experiment project. They feature different computing nodes that are connected to form a network.A general challenge for computer systems in satellites is that cosmic radiation can interfere with their operation. &quot;If a radiation particle impacts a digital memory element, it might turn a zero into a one,&quot; explains Project Manager Daniel L&uuml;dtke from the <a href="https://www.dlr.de/content/en/institutes/institute-for-software-technology.html" target="_blank" title="Institute for Software Technology">DLR Institute for Software Technology</a> in <a href="https://www.dlr.de/content/en/sites/braunschweig.html" target="_blank" title="Braunschweig">Braunschweig</a>. Ultimately, the system can even fail or deliver incorrect results. For this reason, radiation-hardened processors are available for use in space. However, these are very expensive and have only limited computing power. On the other hand, processors such as those used for smartphones are very powerful and also much cheaper. They are, however, much more vulnerable to space radiation. ScOSA integrates both types of processors in one system.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1655207909908-scosa-computer.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">ScOSA computer. Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)<h2>Testing on the OPS-SAT satellite in low-Earth orbit</h2>Special software detects errors and failures, and manages the computers. &quot;In this process, programs running on a faulty processor are automatically transferred to other processors via the network,&quot; explains L&uuml;dtke. Meanwhile, the satellite continues to function normally. The software then restarts the processor and re-integrates it into the system.An experiment on the <a href="http://www.esa.int/" target="_blank" title="External link ESA - European Space Agency">European Space Agency</a> (ESA) <a href="https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Operations/OPS-SAT" target="_blank" title="External link ESA OPS-SAT">OPS-SAT</a> satellite has now shown that this works. &quot;The satellite, which is 30 by 10 by 10 centimetres in size and contains an experimental computer, has been in low-Earth orbit since the end of 2019. OPS-SAT is available to researchers as a fully equipped and open platform,&quot; explains David Evans, ESA Project Lead for the mission.The DLR researchers installed and successfully tested the ScOSA software on OPS-SAT together with ESA. To do this, the satellite acquired Earth observation images, then processed and evaluated them using artificial intelligence. The satellite then only transmitted the viable images to a ground station. &quot;Sensors with increasingly high resolutions and complex algorithms require more and more computing power,&quot; says Daniel L&uuml;dtke, summarising the requirements for software and hardware. A larger ScOSA system consisting of radiation-hardened and commercially available processors will soon be tested on a dedicated DLR CubeSat. This small satellite is expected to be launched at the end of 2023.

The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) is developing a new computer architecture that will provide On-Board Computers (OBCs) with more power as well as enabling them to repair themselves.

Smartphone technology provides satellites with increased computing power

Last year marked the beginning of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. This initiative is aimed at halting the degradation of ecosystems by 2030, preventing it going forward and, if possible, remedying the damage that has already been done. Delivering on these kinds of projects calls for accurate foundations, such as surveys and maps of the existing vegetation.In an interview, Ralph Dubayah, the Principal Investigator of NASA&rsquo;s Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) mission, explains: &ldquo;We simply do not know how tall trees are globally. [...] We need good global maps of where trees are. Because whenever we cut down trees, we release carbon into the atmosphere, and we don&rsquo;t know how much carbon we are releasing.&rdquo;Analysing and preparing precisely this kind of environmental data is what the <a href="https://prs.igp.ethz.ch/ecovision.html" target="_blank">EcoVision Lab</a> in the ETH Zurich Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering specialises in. Founded by ETH Zurich Professor Konrad Schindler and University of Zurich Professor Jan Dirk Wegner in 2017, this lab is where researchers are developing machine learning algorithms that enable automatic analysis of large-scale environmental data. One of those researchers is Nico Lang. In his doctoral thesis, he developed an approach &ndash; based on neural networks &ndash; for deriving vegetation height from optical satellite images. Using this approach, he was able to create the first vegetation height map that covers the entire Earth: the <a href="https://nlang.users.earthengine.app/view/global-canopy-height-2020" target="_blank">Global Canopy Height Mapcall_made</a>.The map&rsquo;s high resolution is another first: thanks to Lang&rsquo;s work, users can zoom in to as little as 10x10 metres of any piece of woodland on Earth and check the tree height. A forest survey of this kind could lead the way forward particularly in dealing with carbon emissions, as tree height is a key indicator of biomass and the amount of carbon stored. &ldquo;Around 95 percent of the biomass in forests is made up of wood, not leaves. Thus, biomass strongly correlates with height,&rdquo; explains Konrad Schindler, Professor of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.<h2>Trained with laser scanning data from space</h2>But how does a computer read tree height from a satellite image? &ldquo;Since we don&rsquo;t know which patterns the computer needs to look out for to estimate height, we let it learn the best image filters itself,&rdquo; Lang says. He shows his neural network millions of examples &ndash; courtesy of the images from the two <a href="https://sentinel.esa.int/web/sentinel/missions/sentinel-2" target="_blank">Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellitescall_made</a> operated by the European Space Agency (ESA). These satellites capture every location on Earth every five days with a resolution of 10x10 metres per pixel. They are the highest-quality images currently available to the public.&nbsp;<blockquote>&quot;The trick here is that we stack the image filters. This gives the algorithm contextual information, since every pixel, from the previous convolution layer, already includes information about its neighbours.&rdquo; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; <cite>Konrad Schindler</cite>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</blockquote>The algorithm must also have access to the correct answer &ndash; that is, the tree height derived from space laser measurements from <a href="https://gedi.umd.edu/" target="_blank">NASA&rsquo;s GEDI missioncall_made</a>. &ldquo;The GEDI mission delivers globally distributed, sparse data on the vegetation height between the latitudes of 51 degrees north and south, so the computer sees many different vegetation types in the training process,&rdquo; Lang explains. With the input and answer, the algorithm can acquire the filters for textural and spectral patterns itself. Once the neural network has been trained, it can automatically estimate the vegetation height from the more than 250,000 images (some 160 terabytes of data) needed for the global map.In specialist jargon, Lang&rsquo;s neural network is known as a convolutional neural network (CNN). The &ldquo;convolution&rdquo; is a mathematical operation in which the algorithm slides a 3x3 pixel filter mask over the satellite image to obtain information on brightness patterns in the image. &ldquo;The trick here is that we stack the image filters. This gives the algorithm contextual information, since every pixel, from the previous convolution layer, already includes information about its neighbours,&rdquo; Schindler says. As a result, the EcoVision Lab was the first to successfully use satellite maps to also reliably estimate tree heights of up to 55 metres.Because their many layers make these neural networks &ldquo;deep&rdquo;, this method is also called &ldquo;deep learning&rdquo;. It heralded a major revolution in image processing around ten years ago. However, dealing with the sheer amount of data remains very challenging: calculating the global vegetation height map would take a single powerful computer three years. &ldquo;Fortunately, we have access to the ETH Zurich high-performance computing cluster, so we didn&rsquo;t have to wait three years for the map to be calculated,&rdquo; Lang says with a laugh.<h2>Transparency by estimating uncertainties</h2>Lang didn&rsquo;t prepare just one CNN for this task, but several. This is known as an ensemble. &ldquo;An important aspect for us was also letting users know the uncertainty of the estimate,&rdquo; he says. The neural networks &ndash; five altogether &ndash; were trained independently of each other, with each one returning its own estimate of tree height. &ldquo;If all the models agree, then the answer is clear based on the training data. If the models arrive at different answers, it means there is a higher uncertainty in the estimate,&rdquo; Lang explains. The models also incorporate uncertainties in the data itself: if a satellite image is hazy, for instance, the uncertainty is greater than when atmospheric conditions are good.<h2>Foundation for future ecological research</h2>Thanks to its high resolution, Lang&rsquo;s global map provides detailed insights: &ldquo;We have already discovered interesting patterns,&rdquo; Schindler says. &ldquo;In the Rocky Mountains, for example, forests are managed in fixed sections, and the rainforest also forms interesting structures that can&rsquo;t be coincidental.&rdquo; Now ecologists can interpret these captured patterns and data globally.<blockquote>&ldquo;Thanks to Sentinel-2, vegetation height can be recalculated every five days, making it possible to monitor&nbsp; rainforest deforestation.&rdquo; <cite>Nico Lang</cite>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</blockquote>To allow this research to continue, the map and its source code will be made publicly accessible (see link). The first interested parties have already been in touch: Walter Jetz, a professor at Yale University, wants to use the Global Canopy Height Map for biodiversity modelling. However, the map could also be of interest to governments, administrative bodies and NGOs. &ldquo;Thanks to Sentinel-2, vegetation height can be recalculated every five days, making it possible to monitor rainforest deforestation,&rdquo; Lang says.In addition, he adds, it is now also possible to globally validate regional findings, such as the way tropical leaf canopies act as a climate buffer. Coupled with the <a href="https://highcarbonstock.org/" target="_blank">High Carbon Stock Approachcall_made</a>, which classifies forests according to their carbon storage and biodiversity value, the vegetation height map is an important foundation for maintaining and strengthening ecosystems. According to Lang&rsquo;s calculations, vegetation with a height of more than 30 metres is found on only 5 percent of the landmass, and only 34 percent of it is located in protected areas.With the GEDI mission set to end in 2023, Lang&rsquo;s newly developed approach offers the possibility to continue mapping vegetation height in future. However, getting the GEDI mission extended &ndash; something that is currently also being discussed in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/20/nasa-urged-to-extend-life-of-key-climate-sensor-that-maps-worlds-forests-gedi-aoe" target="_blank">mediacall_made</a> internationally &ndash; is key to comparing its data with future satellite missions such as the <a href="https://earth.esa.int/eogateway/missions/biomass" target="_blank">ESA Biomass missioncall_made</a> and calibrating the model for changes.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a world map that for the first time uses machine learning to derive vegetation heights from satellite images in high resolution. (Image: EcoVision Lab)

Using an artificial neural network, researchers at ETH Zurich have created the first high-​resolution global vegetation height map for 2020 from satellite images. 

Neural network can read tree heights from satellite images

In this episode, we talk about how ambitious, non-rocket propelled payload launching technologies can revolutionize the space industry in the not-so-distant future. As always, you can find these and other interesting &amp; impactful engineering articles on Wevolver.com.<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/099106f4-e23d-4252-a3ec-c323067bd9c4?dark=false" class="fr-draggable"></iframe><hr>This podcast is sponsored by <a href="https://www2.mouser.com/" id="isPasted" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mouser Electronics</a>.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1637922236279-Mouser-sponsor-1-a.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><hr><h3 id="isPasted">EPISODE NOTES</h3>(3:33) - <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/spinning-payloads-into-low-earth-orbit" target="_blank">Spinning Payloads Into Low Earth Orbit&nbsp;</a> ☄️ SpinLaunch is making a giant robotic discus thrower to fling satellites into space.(19:07) - <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/startram-all-aboard-the-train-to-space" target="_blank">Startram: All Aboard the Train to Space</a> 🚅 Startram uses maglev technology to create a high-speed train that can launch both objects &amp; people into space.Episode 45 was brought to you by Mouser Electronics, Farbod &amp; Daniel’s favorite electronics distributor. Click <a href="https://www.mouser.com/applications/beyond-calculating-journey-space/" target="_blank">here&nbsp;</a>to read about the various technological advancements that have enabled our exploration of the final frontier.<hr>About the podcast:Every day, some of the most innovative universities, companies, and individual technology developers share their knowledge on Wevolver. To ensure we can also provide this knowledge for the growing group of podcast listeners, we started a collaboration with two young engineers, Daniel Scott Mitchell &amp; Farbod Moghaddam who discuss the most interesting content in this podcast series.&nbsp;To learn more about this show, please visit the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" target="_blank">shows page</a>. By following the page, you will get automatic updates by email when a new show is published.Be sure to give us a follow and review on&nbsp;<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/the-next-byte/id1548255861?l=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Apple</a> podcasts,&nbsp;<a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6lPPsRtegnivsRUEsQ09R7?si=IPMiah7xT_apJtPjqvXMlA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Spotify</a>, and most of your favorite podcast platforms!Take a few seconds to leave us a review. It really helps!&nbsp;<a href="https://apple.co/2RIsbZ2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://apple.co/2RIsbZ2</a>if you do it and send us proof, we’ll give you a shoutout on the show.

Startram launching a payload into space (source: Startram.com)

In this episode, we talk about how ambitious, non-rocket propelled payload launching technologies can revolutionize the space industry in the not-so-distant future.

satellites

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