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Starting From a Company of One

BusinessTechnology

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has named Brian Geisel, CEO of Geisel Software, the Massachusetts Small Business Person of the Year for 2020.

Geisel Software is a custom software development company that specializes in the medical device and robotics industries and whose clients include FLIR Systems, Medica, iRobot, the U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs, Carbon Black and more.

After spending years as an industry consultant, Geisel started the company out of a loft in 2011. By 2015, Geisel had added his first full-time employee and a couple of interns. In 2017, the company moved to a space in the Higgins Armory and sales started to take off.

Today the company occupies a large office space in the Worcester Business Center and employs a large staff of permanent employees, contractors, freelancers and interns. Sales have grown at 83 percent CAGR since 2017.

“I am honored to be recognized by the SBA and I am profoundly grateful to Massachusetts’s incredible support programs that have helped with so many aspects of growing our business,” commented Geisel. “And while the award says Small Business Person of the Year, it really reflects the commitment, hard word and exceptional talents of everyone at Geisel Software so I’m really excited for my team.”

Diversity in STEAM Magazine asked Geisel a few questions about his own journey in business:

Diversity in STEAM: What is your educational background?

Brian Geisel: My educational background is pretty non-traditional. I picked up a few books in junior high on computer programming and taught myself from there. By the time I graduated high school, I was considering entering the professional world. I went to Rochester Institute of Technology for one year, skipped to senior level computer science courses and then took the early retirement package. I feel strong that education is really important, but it may or may not come through traditional channels.

DISM: Why did you start your own company?

Geisel: I knew that no matter what I did, it would only ever be the work of one person so I started the company to scale. With a team, you have this multiplication effect like compound interest that gives you an opportunity to have a real, tangible positive impact on the world.

DISM: What has been your biggest challenge as a business owner?

Geisel: We founders tend to start companies out of our superpower — something we’re really great at. For me, that was writing software. Suddenly, you find that you need to be really good at running and growing a business and your old superpower can even become a liability. That becomes a tremendous challenge on many levels.

DISM: What advice would your give others who want to start their own business?

Geisel: Never let low self-confidence be your guide in starting a business. There are plenty of great reasons to start a business and plenty not to, but self-esteem should never be one of them. Do you want to know a secret? None of us knew going in that this would work. That’s the nature of business. You learn to embrace it. So, if you want to start something, get out of your own way and get going!

Geisel has been featured as a thought leader in Entrepreneur Magazine, Bloomberg Business, The BBC, Forbes and other major outlets. Outside of the office, he is passionate about helping others. He’s participated in many mission trips to Guatemala, Thailand and other locations to hand out food and supplies and assist with medical care.

Brian Geisel, CEO of Geisel Software, is named Massachusetts Small Business Person of the Year for 2020

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has named Brian Geisel, CEO of Geisel Software, the Massachusetts Small Business Person of the Year for 2020. Geisel Software is a custom software development company that specializes in the medical device and robotics industries and whose clients include FLIR Systems, Medica, iRobot, the U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs, Carbon Black and more.

Diversity in STEAM Magazine asked Geisel a few questions about his own journey in business:

Diversity in STEAM: What is your educational background?

DISM: Why did you start your own company?

DISM: What has been your biggest challenge as a business owner?

DISM: What advice would your give others who want to start their own business?

Each year, the SBA recognizes the achievements of outstanding small business owners and entrepreneurs across the United States. All winners are invited to attend ceremonies in Washington, D.C., in May where they will be honored with their award and the 2020 National Small Business Person of the Year will be announced.

Has the electric car’s moment arrived at last?

EnvironmentTechnology

Woman kneeling down to charge her electric car

BY CRAIG WELCH, National Geographic

Joe Biden’s father sold used cars, steeping the future president in the world of combustion engines. The younger Biden washed vehicles on weekends, borrowed a Chrysler off the lot to drive to the prom, and hit automobile auctions to help stock his dad’s dealership. President Biden still owns the green ’67 Corvette his father gave him as a wedding gift, which he told Car and Driver magazine has “a rear-axle ratio that really gets up and goes.”

But if the White House’s resident motorhead gets his way—and that remains a big “if”—we may one day look back on the Biden presidency as the beginning of the end for gasoline-powered cars and trucks in the United States.

Biden is proposing sweeping reforms to the nation’s energy system to tackle climate change. But they aren’t just aimed at greening the electric grid or driving the nation away from coal and natural gas. Transportation accounts for more than a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions; it’s proven particularly thorny to figure out how to reduce that, given the number of vehicles on the roads. So, Biden is pitching a host of ways to steer the country toward electric vehicles, or EVs.

By nearly every measure, the popularity of EVs and hybrid vehicles is already surging. Yet despite an avalanche of promising news, the shift away from gas-fueled cars remains stubbornly marginal, compared with the scale of the problem, even as global temperature records driven by fossil fuel use are broken year after year. Clean vehicles still account for just 2 percent of cars sold in the United States, 5 percent in China, and 10 percent in Europe—and those are the world’s biggest markets.

“This transition is by no means inevitable,” says Nic Lutsey, with the International Council on Clean Transportation, an independent research outfit that works with policymakers around the world.

Yet analysts, environmentalists, clean-tech experts, and auto industry-backed researchers all say the right mix of regulation, consumer incentives, and research support might just be enough to spur dramatic acceleration. And thus far, these experts agree, Biden seems intent on pulling the right levers.

“The dam is breaking; the tipping point is here,” says Sam Ricketts, a member of the team that authored Washington Governor Jay Inslee’s climate action plan during his presidential run. Many of Inslee’s ideas have since found their way into Biden’s plans. “The question is how fast can the auto industry go,” Ricketts says, “and can it be fast enough to confront the climate crisis?”

That will depend in no small part on what happens next in Washington, D.C.—and whether Biden and the Democrats, who hold the White House and a razor-thin majority in Congress, can even get the pieces into place.

So close, yet so far
Vehicles powered by electricity have been around since the auto industry’s inception—several of the first 19th-century cars were powered by electrons. But their real promise wasn’t apparent until Toyota began globally mass-producing the Prius hybrid 20 years ago. Less than a decade later, Tesla introduced the Roadster, its all-electric sports car, and got a $465 million Department of Energy loan, jump-starting production of its all-electric sedans. The loan has since been repaid, and Tesla is currently worth seven times as much as General Motors.

Today, the trend is impossible to miss. Just since 2016 EVs and hybrid sales have nearly doubled in North America, and in 2018, for the first time ever, sales rose even as gas prices collapsed. Last year, with an economy wracked by COVID-19, electric or partly-electric vehicle purchases rose almost 5 percent over 2019 as auto sales overall declined by 15 percent.

There are electric Hummers, an electric Mustang, and an electric Harley-Davidson motorcycle, and North American car manufacturers plan to triple the number of non-gas-powered models by 2024 to 203.

Battery and motor prices are falling, and the innovation and economies of scale that come into play when companies like Amazon, which plans to buy 100,000 electric delivery vehicles in coming years, require more mass-produced vehicles almost certainly will drive them down more. Just as solar and wind energy now cost pennies to produce, the cost of buying a fossil-fuel-free car or truck, by some estimates, may match traditional vehicle prices in five years or less. Ford expects that an upcoming electric version of its popular F150 pickup will be vastly cheaper to own, over time, than the gas-powered original.

In all, more than seven million electrified vehicles now travel the world’s streets. Tesla alone has produced more than one million. BMW has sold a half million and hopes to double that by this year. Volkswagen, the world’s largest automaker, has proposed dozens of electric models.

Click here to read the full article on National Geographic.

Neuralink: We Got a Monkey to Play Pong Using Only Its Mind

scienceSTEAMTechnology

A monkey playing pong on the computer while sucking a smoothie out of a straw in front of a forest backdrop

By Alyse Stanley, Gizmodo

Neuralink, the secretive neuroscience startup co-founded by Elon Musk, has been even more quiet than usual these days. That is, until this week when it released a YouTube video of a monkey appearing to play the classic video game Pong with its mind.

The video stars Pager, a 9-year-old macaque monkey who had a Neuralink implanted in either side of his brain roughly six weeks prior, according to the narrator. And apparently, he loves Pong. Before he learned how to play the game with his mind, though, researchers first conditioned him to use a joystick, rewarding him with “a tasty banana smoothie” through a straw whenever he moved an on-screen cursor to certain lit-up squares on a grid.

While he was maneuvering the joystick and happily slurping up his smoothie, the Neuralink devices in his brain recorded his brain activity, monitoring more than 2,000 electrodes implanted in the region of Pager’s motor cortex that controls hand and arm movements. Researchers could also interface with the devices in real-time by pairing their phones via Bluetooth.

That Neuralink data was then fed into a “decoder algorithm” to train it to predict Pager’s intended hand movements in real-time based on which neurons were firing. Following a short calibration period, the decoder understood Pager’s neural patterns well enough that the joystick was no longer needed. The narrator says that even with it disconnected, Pager continues to move the cursor around using only his mind. He then appears to play a game of so-called MindPong with no joystick insight.

“A monkey is literally playing a video game telepathically using a brain chip!!” Musk said in a tweet sharing the video Thursday.

More than four million people have watched it since then, and it’s currently among the top 10 trending videos on YouTube. If you’re interested, Neuralink also shared a video showing what the raw data behind Pager’s neural activity looks like while he’s busy playing.

Musk went on to discuss future plans for Neuralink’s devices in a series of tweets, echoing the video’s narrator that the ultimate goal for this technology is to enable people with paralysis to operate their computer or phone via their mind.

The initial versions of the device “will enable someone with paralysis to use a smartphone with their mind faster than someone using thumbs,” Musk wrote. “Later versions will be able to shunt signals from Neuralinks in brain to Neuralinks in body motor/sensory neuron clusters, thus enabling, for example, paraplegics to walk again.”

Back in August, Neuralink showed a live demo of the Neuralink implant in action, though on pigs rather than monkeys.

“It’s like a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires,” Musk said at the time.

Click here to read the full article on Gizmodo.

Mars helicopter Ingenuity unlocks its rotor blades to prepare for 1st flight on Red Planet

scienceSTEAMTechnology

Blades on the Ingenuity Mars helicopter during the unlocking process, as seen on Apr. 8, 2021

By Meghan Bartels

The Mars helicopter Ingenuity has unlocked its two rotor blades as preparations continue for the vehicle’s first flight, due to occur no earlier than Sunday (April 11).

Ingenuity arrived on Mars Feb. 18 along with NASA’s Perseverance rover, having made the long trek out to the Red Planet tucked inside the rover’s belly. As of April 4, the little chopper has parted ways with Perseverance, preparing to take to the skies during a month-long test campaign. If Ingenuity’s Sunday sortie is successful, it will be the first powered, guided flight on another planet.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

“The blades of glory, aka rotor blades of the #MarsHelicopter, have been unlocked and are ready for testing,” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California wrote in a tweet posted early today (April 8). “Next, we’ll do a slow-speed spin-up of the blades for the first time on the Martian surface.”

Ingenuity’s flight preparation process has been slow and cautious, in part because the 4-lb. (1.8 kilograms) helicopter made the journey to Mars in a folded configuration, tucked behind a protective shield.

After the rover dropped that shield and drove to the airfield, the helicopter’s personnel had to order the device to unpack and slowly unfold itself. Then Perseverance had to set Ingenuity directly on the Martian surface and drive away, allowing the helicopter’s solar panels to begin supporting the aircraft.

Unlocking and testing Ingenuity’s blades mark the last major milestones before the helicopter attempts to fly. NASA officials have said they will test the blades first at 50 and then at 2,400 revolutions per minute before the helicopter attempts to fly.

Read the full article at Space.com.

Will.i.am reveals his $299 face mask featuring dual fans, ANC headphones, Bluetooth, and more

Diversity in STEMTechnology

Will.i.am wearing the technology powered face mask with a blue beanie on

By Rob Thubron, TechSpot

What just happened? Will.i.am, best known as the frontman for the Black Eyed Peas, has made several pushes into the world of technology—not all of them successful. But the rapper hasn’t been put off by a few past failures. His latest project is a tech-packed face mask that features everything from noise-canceling headphones to Bluetooth connectivity. It’s also a lot more expensive than most masks: $299.
Created through a partnership with Honeywell, the Xupermask (pronounced “Super mask”) features dual three-speed fans and HEPA filters. That’s the same setup found on LG’s equally Cyberpunk 2077-looking PuriCare Wearable Air Purifier mask.

As Will.i.am was involved in the Xupermask’s creation, it has built-in active noise-canceling headphones for enjoying your tunes while looking like a Fallout character. There’s also a microphone, Bluetooth 5.0, and a magnetic earbud docking system.

Taking a leaf from Razer’s Project Hazel, the Xupermask boasts LED day glow lights, though they’re not of the RGB variety, as is the case with the PC accessory maker’s product. You also get 7-hour battery life.

Click here to read the full article on TechSpot.

How Technology Will Change The Way Business Is Run In 2021

BusinessTechnology

Taryn Lee filming a vlog on her laptop while being surrounded by halo influencer lights

By Celinne Da Costa, Forbes

Today’s technology is evolving at a breakneck pace.

New digital trends pave the way for a rise in society’s expectations, and things that seemed impossible just a decade ago are now taken for granted. Having witnessed virtual reality, enhanced 5G connectivity, and even drones integrate seamlessly into society, it begs the question of when—not if—the next breakthrough is coming.

One man leading the charge in modern technological development is none other than Elon Musk. Taking a keen interest in “wondrous, new technology,” Musk has been furthering research and development in new technological spaces since the start of his career.

Originally from South Africa, he’s the founder and CEO of aerospace manufacturer SpaceX, and the CEO of electric vehicle and clean energy company Tesla. The former company aims to reduce space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars. Back on Earth, he aims to accelerate the world’s progression towards sustainable energy and drive the world’s transition to electric vehicles.

A relentless innovator, Musk is well known for his brazen, unorthodox ideas about the future. Musk is quoted as saying, “Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.” His position has never been more relevant as the global landscape changes day by day during the global pandemic. Yet despite the calamity, the outbreak of Covid-19 has breathed new life into old markets. According to McKinsey, consumer and business digital adoption were fast-forwarded by an astounding five years in just the first eight weeks of lockdown. The competition is rampant, and industry innovators show no signs of stopping.

Owing to Musk’s impact, and combined with the worldwide influence of Covid-19, a multitude of contrasting technological trends have now entered the scene for business owners to explore. Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the biggest: the industry is estimated to be worth $190 billion by 2025, paving the way for job creation in sectors such as data, cybersecurity, and even healthcare. With the sheer volume of data collated on infection rates and the performance of the vaccine, algorithms need to be sophisticated enough to offer solutions that may well change the world as we know it.

And as for what these trends mean for you, the answer is simple. As technology changes, so do the skills you need to know to enamor your audience, run a future-proofed business, and find long-term success. Undoubtedly, technology will transform the way businesses are run in 2021 and beyond. To stay current, competitive, and in the know about what’s coming next, take it from these three successful entrepreneurs gaining momentum in the online space.

Automation is Reshaping Business

Jaikishaan Sharma, CEO of Sharmaatricks, connects hardworking individuals with social media-based business opportunities. His company shares accessible tools and educational resources to help his growing community of over 70,000 members build budding online businesses and achieve freedom from the rat race.

He believes that automation is reshaping business. Sharma shares, “Digital shifts are opening new opportunities for businesses. I believe that both 5G and artificial intelligence are going to change the way business owners will run their business. With each passing day, automation is reshaping business and contributing to increased productivity – it’s very hard to ignore the impact of technology regardless of whether you’re operating a multinational or a start-up.”

“For the last few years, one thing that has frequently risen above all else in technology is automation. Automation tools are being innovated and developed every single day to make business processes agile. For this reason, I believe that the innovation surrounding automation will cause a rapid expansion of both remote working and video conferencing. We have already seen such rapid growth during the pandemic; Zoom has become a household name and other tools like Google Hangouts, Microsoft’s Teams, and Cisco’s Webex have all been making a buzz in the corporate world. Technology gives business owners and their staff the option to work from home, and moving forward, working from home will continue to be the new normal.”

These advancements in technology lead Sharma to his final point: because of the pandemic, schools and education institutes have been forced to fast-track e-learning and shift online education into the new normal. “Many institutions are changing portions of their curriculum to accommodate online learning well into the future,” he says.

“In 2021, we expect to see huge demand and rapid growth of artificial intelligence. AI is already known for speech recognition, smartphone personal assistants, ride-sharing apps, and so much more. But there is plenty of room for growth and expansion, and small businesses will begin to adopt this new technology in 2021 to help them operate daily. Covid-19 has pushed the adoption of digital technologies by several years, and that could be here for the long haul.”

Click here to read the full article on Forbes.

Astronomers discover new galaxy clusters hiding right in front of us

scienceTechnology

By Shawn Knight, Tech Spot

Astronomers at MIT have discovered previously unidentified galaxy clusters that were overlooked by earlier studies. Their results, which were recently published in The Astrophysical Journal, suggest that as many as one percent of galaxy clusters could be misidentified as a single bright galaxy.

Clusters of galaxies containing hundreds or even thousands of individual galaxies are held together by gravity. As MIT highlights, they move through a sea of hot gas called the intracluster medium, and give off X-ray radiation that we can see using space-based telescopes.

This radiation creates a “fuzzy halo” around galaxy clusters, making them easier to identify versus an object with a single source of X-rays, like a star or quasar.

As MIT Associate Professor Michael McDonald discovered in 2012, however, not all clusters adhere to this general principal. The cluster he discovered, dubbed the Phoenix cluster, contains a black hole that emits X-rays bright enough to drown out the radiation from the intracluster medium. Thus, it looked like a single X-ray source and was misclassified for decades.

Armed with this new possibility, the Clusters Hiding in Plain Sight (CHiPS) survey came to life. During its six-year run, the survey identified three new galaxy clusters, one of which is similar to the Phoenix cluster. That’s notable considering astronomers only know of just a few Phoenix-style clusters.

Click here to read the full article on Tech Spot.

This is how the human heart adapts to space

CareersDiversity in STEMEducationTechnology

Two men are standing looking at each other in front of what appears to be a map.

By Ashley Strickland

When astronaut Scott Kelly spent nearly a year in space, his heart shrank despite the fact that he worked out six days a week over his 340-day stay, according to a new study.

Surprisingly, researchers observed the same change in Benoît Lecomte after he completed his 159-day swim across the Pacific Ocean in 2018.

The findings suggest that long-term weightlessness alters the structure of the heart, causing shrinkage and atrophy, and low-intensity exercise is not enough to keep that from happening. The study published Monday in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation.

Photo : CNN

The gravity we experience on Earth is what helps the heart to maintain both its size and function as it keeps blood pumping through our veins. Even something as simple as standing up and walking around helps pull blood down into our legs.

When the element of gravity is replaced with weightlessness, the heart shrinks in response.

Kelly lived in the absence of gravity aboard the International Space Station from March 27, 2015, to March 1, 2016. He worked out on a stationary bike and treadmill and incorporated resistance activities into his routine six days a week for two hours each day.

Lecomte swam from June 5 to November 11, 2018, covering 1,753 miles and averaging about six hours a day swimming. That sustained activity may sound extreme, but each day of swimming was considered to be low-intensity activity.

Even though Lecomte was on Earth, he was spending hours a day in the water, which offsets the effects of gravity. Long-distance swimmers use the prone technique, a horizontal facedown position, for these endurance swims.

Researchers expected that the activities performed by both men would keep their hearts from experiencing any shrinkage or weakening. Data collected from tests of their hearts before, during and after these extreme events showed otherwise.

Kelly and Lecomte both experienced a loss of mass and initial drop in diameter in the left ventricles of the heart during their experiences.

Both long-duration spaceflight and prolonged water immersion led to a very specific adaptation of the heart, said senior study author Dr. Benjamin Levine, a professor of internal medicine/cardiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

While the authors point out that they only studied two men who both performed extraordinary things, further study is needed to understand how the human body reacts in extreme situations.

Read the full article at CNN.

NASA Analysis: Earth Is Safe From Asteroid Apophis for 100-Plus Years

scienceSTEAMTechnology

These images of asteroid Apophis were recorded by radio antennas at the Deep Space Network’s Goldstone complex in California and the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia.

The near-Earth object was thought to pose a slight risk of impacting Earth in 2068, but now radar observations have ruled that out.

After its discovery in 2004, asteroid 99942 Apophis had been identified as one of the most hazardous asteroids that could impact Earth. But that impact assessment changed as astronomers tracked Apophis and its orbit became better determined.

Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech and NSF/AUI/GBO

Now, the results from a new radar observation campaign combined with precise orbit analysis have helped astronomers conclude that there is no risk of Apophis impacting our planet for at least a century.

Estimated to be about 1,100 feet (340 meters) across, Apophis quickly gained notoriety as an asteroid that could pose a serious threat to Earth when astronomers predicted that it would come uncomfortably close in 2029. Thanks to additional observations of the near-Earth object (NEO), the risk of an impact in 2029 was later ruled out, as was the potential impact risk posed by another close approach in 2036. Until this month, however, a small chance of impact in 2068 still remained.

When Apophis made a distant flyby of Earth around March 5, astronomers took the opportunity to use powerful radar observations to refine the estimate of its orbit around the Sun with extreme precision, enabling them to confidently rule out any impact risk in 2068 and long after.

“A 2068 impact is not in the realm of possibility anymore, and our calculations don’t show any impact risk for at least the next 100 years,” said Davide Farnocchia of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), which is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “With the support of recent optical observations and additional radar observations, the uncertainty in Apophis’ orbit has collapsed from hundreds of kilometers to just a handful of kilometers when projected to 2029. This greatly improved knowledge of its position in 2029 provides more certainty of its future motion, so we can now remove Apophis from the risk list.”

Farnocchia was referring to the Sentry Impact Risk Table. Maintained by CNEOS, the table keeps tabs on the few asteroids whose orbits take them so close to Earth that an impact can’t be ruled out. With the recent findings, the Risk Table no longer includes Apophis.

Relying on optical telescopes and ground-based radar to help characterize every known near-Earth object’s orbit to improve long-term hazard assessments, CNEOS computes high-precision orbits in support of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office.

Science Opportunity

To arrive at the latest Apophis calculations, astronomers turned to the 70-meter (230-foot) radio antenna at the Deep Space Network’s Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex near Barstow, California, to precisely track Apophis’ motion. “Although Apophis made a recent close approach with Earth, it was still nearly 10.6 million miles [17 million kilometers] away. Even so, we were able to acquire incredibly precise information about its distance to an accuracy of about 150 meters [490 feet],” said JPL scientist Marina Brozovic, who led the radar campaign. “This campaign not only helped us rule out any impact risk, it set us up for a wonderful science opportunity.”

Goldstone also worked in a collaboration with the 100-meter (330-foot) Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia in order to enable imaging of Apophis; Goldstone was transmitting while Green Bank was receiving – a “bistatic” experiment that doubled the strength of the received signal.

Although the radar imagery of Apophis appears pixelated, the images have a resolution of 38.75 meters (127 feet) per pixel, “which is a remarkable resolution, considering the asteroid was 17 million kilometers away, or about 44 times the Earth-Moon distance,” added Brozovic. “If we had binoculars as powerful as this radar, we would be able to sit in Los Angeles and read a dinner menu at a restaurant in New York.”

As the radar team further analyzes their data, they also hope to learn more about the asteroid’s shape. Previous radar observations have suggested that Apophis has a “bilobed,” or peanutlike, appearance. This is a relatively common shape among the near-Earth asteroids larger than 660 feet (200 meters) in diameter; at least one in six have two lobes.

Astronomers are also working to develop a better understanding of the asteroid’s rotation rate and the axis it spins around (known as its spin state). That knowledge will enable them to determine the orientation the asteroid will have with Earth as it encounters our planet’s gravitational field in 2029, which could change that spin state and even cause “asteroid quakes.”

Read the full article at NASA.

New Effort To Clean Up Space Junk Reaches Orbit

EnvironmentscienceSTEAMTechnology

A rendering showing ELSA-d's concept of operations.

By CHLOEE WEINER, NPR

A demonstration mission to test an idea to clean up space debris launched Monday morning local time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Known as ELSA-d, the mission will exhibit technology that could help capture space junk, the millions of pieces of orbital debris that float above Earth.

The more than 8,000 metric tons of debris threaten the loss of services we rely on for Earth-bound life, including weather forecasting, telecommunications and GPS systems.

The spacecraft works by attempting to attach itself to dead satellites and pushing them toward Earth to burn up in the atmosphere.

ELSA-d, which stands for End-of-Life Services by Astroscale, will be carried out by a “servicer satellite” and a “client satellite” that launched together, according to Astroscale, the Japan-based company behind the mission. Using a magnetic docking technology, the servicer will release and try to “rendezvous” with the client, which will act as a mock piece of space junk.

The mission, which will be run from the U.K., will carry out this catch and release process repeatedly over the course of six months. The goal is to prove the servicer satellite’s ability to track down and dock with its target in varying levels of complexity.

The spacecraft is not designed to capture dead satellites already in orbit, but rather future satellites that would be launched with compatible docking plates on them.

Space junk has been a growing problem for years as human-made objects such as old satellites and spacecraft parts build up in low Earth orbit until they decay, deorbit, explode or collide with other objects, fragmenting into smaller pieces of waste.

In 2019, for example, India blew apart one of its satellites orbiting Earth, creating hundreds of pieces of debris that threatened to collide with the International Space Station.

According to a recent report by NASA, at least 26,000 of the millions of pieces of space junk are the size of a softball. Orbiting along at 17,500 mph, they could “destroy a satellite on impact.” More than 500,000 pieces are a “mission-ending threat” because of their ability to impact protective systems, fuel tanks and spacecraft cabins.

And the most common debris, more than 100 million pieces, is the size of a grain of salt and could puncture a spacesuit, “amplifying the risk of catastrophic collisions to spacecraft and crew,” the report said.

According to NASA, cleaning up space — and addressing the risks associated with debris — depend on preventing the accumulation of more waste and actively removing it.

Click here to read the full article on NPR.

Coding and space: Microsoft and NASA learning pathways serve as a STEM career launchpad

scienceSTEAMTechnology

Astronauts on the moon gathering samples from the ground and rocks.

By R. Dallon Adams, TechRepublic

The last few months have been exciting times for space enthusiasts around the globe. Last fall, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft momentarily touched down on asteroid Bennu and collected samples of its surface during a “touch-and-go” millions of miles from Earth. In February, NASA successfully landed its latest rover on Mars and another roving bot is set to join Perseverance on our celestial neighbor later this year. Coding is an integral part of modern space exploration and educational pathways could help aspiring scientists enable tomorrow’s missions with artificial intelligence, machine learning and more.

“Coding has been a part of space exploration since its inception and will only continue to play a more crucial role,” said Sarah Guthals, Ph.D., a principal program manager for developer relations at Microsoft. “Software is enabling us to explore, discover and learn about our planet and universe safely.”

As a result of these efforts, Guthals said developers worldwide are able to map asteroids to “discover what materials might be present in which locations for future collection,” predict radiation to protect astronauts on the moon, and provide open source projects with access to “petabytes of Earth science data” to study our home planet.

Coding in the final frontier
In September, Microsoft in partnership with NASA announced a number of coding lessons, modules and learning paths focused on space exploration. There are also educational offerings based around the “role of Python in space exploration” as well as a space-focused introduction to the programming language.

“This course not only gives you an introduction to one of the most popular and used programming languages; it also introduces you to innovation like AI and ML and the tools professional developers use, such as Visual Studio Code and Python notebooks,” Guthals said.

“What better way to be authentically introduced to an entire industry than through the inspiring perspective of space exploration?” she continued.

Within this introduction to Python, aspiring coders are able to gain a better understanding of NASA’s Artemis program, which is set to place a man and a woman on the moon by 2024. Other pathways allow STEM students to use data science and coding to help create solutions for exploration challenges ranging from strategies for rock sample collection to forecasting rocket launches years in advance.

“NASA is pleased to work with external organizations to create innovative, high quality offerings for students,” said Rob LaSalvia, the partnerships manager for the Office of STEM Engagement at NASA. “Through our collective work with partners we focused on making meaningful impacts in the lives of students and teachers and creating the Artemis generation.”

Click here to read the full article on TechRepublic.