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  • MIL-OSI Europe: EIB Group donates €300 000 to NGOs helping communities affected by flooding in Spain

    Source: European Investment Bank

    • The EIB Group – through the EIB Institute, the group’s philanthropic and social impact arm – will donate €300 000 to the NGOs Save the Children, SOS Children’s Villages and Casa Caridad to support communities affected by flash flooding in Spain.
    • The funds will be used to provide psychosocial support, create suitable conditions for children’s schooling and restore housing to a liveable state.
    • This donation comes in addition to an initial financial package of €900 million launched by the EIB Group in November to support recovery and reconstruction in the affected areas.
    • The EIB Group will channel an additional 400 million through financial institutions to support SMEs and mid-caps affected by the floods.

    The EIB Institute, the philanthropic and social impact arm of the European Investment Bank Group (EIB Group), has announced a donation of €300 000 to support communities affected by the flash flooding that devastated parts of Spain on 30 October and in the first few days of November. The donation will be channelled through the NGOs Save the Children Spain, SOS Children’s Villages and Casa Caridad.

    The floods have left many communities in urgent need of help. This donation by the EIB Institute will lend critical support for residents to restore decent living conditions. With the funds, Save the Children Spain will provide psychosocial support and create adequate learning conditions for children, SOS Children’s Villages will give communities administrative assistance and help them meet essential needs, and Casa Caridad will help families restore their homes.

    The EIB Group is thus continuing to increase its support for recovery and reconstruction in the parts of eastern and south-eastern Spain hardest hit by the storms. This includes a €900 million initial response package announced by the group on 6 November to reschedule and accelerate planned disbursements and thereby facilitate the reconstruction of critical infrastructure to be carried out by regional authorities and public bodies in the affected areas, as was also done following the floods in Central Europe in September.

    The EIB has also launched operations to channel approximately €400 million through financial institutions to support SMEs and mid-caps affected by the floods, with a first agreement with Banco Sabadell.

    “The EIB Group has been quick to mobilise to support recovery efforts in the aftermath of the devastating floods in Spain. Today, we supplement our lending with this donation from the EIB Institute, as a sign of our solidarity and commitment to helping the hardest hit communities,” said EIB President Nadia Calviño.

    “The EIB Institute has a long track record of responding to humanitarian crises with swift, impactful support. Over the past decade, we have consistently prioritised providing aid to the most vulnerable, such as children, single-parent and large families, elderly people, people with disabilities and those suffering from malnourishment. Our donations have reached countless individuals, providing critical aid and building resilience in communities around the world. Our mission is to bring hope and relief to those in need, wherever they may be,” said EIB Institute Director Shiva Dustdar.

    The EIB Institute regularly grants aid in response to crises and natural disasters, and donates IT equipment from the EIB. In 2023, EIB donations through the EIB Institute helped populations affected by the war in Ukraine, the earthquake in Türkiye and Syria and the flooding in Slovenia, among other events.

    Background information

    European Investment Bank

    The EIB is the long-term lending institution of the European Union, owned by the Member States. It finances investments that pursue EU policy objectives. EIB projects bolster competitiveness, drive innovation, promote sustainable development, enhance social and territorial cohesion, and support a just and swift transition to climate neutrality.

    The EIB Group, consisting of the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund, reported total financing signatures in Spain of €11.4 billion in 2023, approximately €6.8 billion of which went to climate action and environmental sustainability projects. Overall, the EIB Group signed €88 billion in new financing in 2023.

    The EIB Institute was set up within the EIB Group to foster thought-leadership and impact initiatives with European stakeholders and the public at large.

    MIL OSI Europe News –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: Commission approves €4.06 billion German State aid measure to support the operation of four Floating LNG Terminals

    Source: European Commission

    European Commission Press release Brussels, 20 Dec 2024 The European Commission has approved, under EU State aid rules, an estimated €4.06 billion German measure to support the operation of four storage and regassification units (‘FSRUs’) for the import of Liquefied Natural Gas (‘LNG’) by Deutsche Energy Terminal (‘DET’).

    MIL OSI Europe News –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: The Commission and Switzerland complete negotiations to bring the EU-Switzerland bilateral relationship to a new level

    Source: European Commission

    European Commission Press release Brussels, 20 Dec 2024 On 20 December, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and the President of the Swiss Confederation Viola Amherd confirmed the completion of negotiations on a broad package of agreements that aim to deepen and expand the EU-Switzerland relationship.

    MIL OSI Europe News –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: At a Glance – Plenary round-up – December 2024 – 20-12-2024

    Source: European Parliament

    The European Union’s external relations topped the agenda for the December 2024 plenary session, with several debates on statements by the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and Vice-President of the European Commission, Kaja Kallas, attending the plenary for the first time in her new capacity. These included the toppling of the Syrian regime and its consequences; Russia’s disinformation activities and fraudulent justification of its war against Ukraine; the use of rape as a weapon of war (e.g. in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan). The day after Kallas’s remarks on the crackdown on peaceful pro-European demonstrators in Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili, President of Georgia, addressed Members in a formal sitting. Other debates on Commission statements covered, inter alia: the situation in Mayotte following the recent devastating cyclone; a European innovation act; harassment and cyber-violence against female politicians in EU candidate and neighbouring countries; a shared vision for sustainable European tourism; promoting social dialogue and the right to strike; tackling abusive subcontracting; the need to ensure swift action and transparency on public-sector corruption allegations; urgent EU action to preserve nature and biodiversity; and the Commission’s plans to revise outstanding proposals on animal welfare in its 2025 work plan. Members also debated ahead of the European Council meeting of 19 December 2024 and set out their expectations ahead of the EU-Western Balkans Summit that took place the previous day. Parliament created two new standing committees, upgrading the former sub-committees on Public Health, and on Security and Defence; and set up two special committees: on the European Democracy Shield, and the Housing Crisis.

    MIL OSI Europe News –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: Briefing – EU Cyber Resilience Act – 20-12-2024

    Source: European Parliament

    New technologies come with new risks, and the impact of cyber-attacks through digital products has increased dramatically in recent years. Consumers are increasingly falling victim to security flaws linked to digital products such as baby monitors, robo-vacuum cleaners, Wi-Fi routers and alarm systems. For businesses, the importance of ensuring that digital products in the supply chain are secure has become pivotal, considering three in five vendors have already lost money as a result of product security gaps. The European Union’s lawmakers signed the ‘cyber-resilience act’ in October 2024. The regulation imposes cybersecurity obligations on all products with digital elements whose intended and foreseeable use includes direct or indirect data connection to a device or network. The regulation introduces cybersecurity by design and by default principles and imposes a duty of care for the lifecycle of products. The Cyber Resilience Act was published in the EU’s Official Journal on 20 November 2024. It entered into force in December 2024 and will apply in full as of 11 December 2027. Fourth edition. The ‘EU Legislation in Progress’ briefings are updated at key stages throughout the legislative procedure.

    MIL OSI Europe News –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: Written question – Management of invasive species – E-002927/2024

    Source: European Parliament

    13.12.2024

    Question for written answer  E-002927/2024
    to the Commission
    Rule 144
    Sebastian Everding (The Left), Anja Hazekamp (The Left), Tilly Metz (Verts/ALE)

    Article 19(3) of Regulation (EU) No 1143/2014 on invasive alien species (IAS) provides that Member States must ensure that animals are spared any avoidable pain, distress or suffering when implementing management measures. Safe and humane non-lethal management methods such as immunocontraceptive vaccines and oral contraceptives are available or could be further developed and assessed to manage IAS populations, reducing the use of cruel lethal methods and potentially being more effective. When available, however, these methods cannot be implemented because the regulation also prevents the release of kept IAS animals.

    Can the Commission clarify:

    • 1.Could animal IAS be released after being neutered and could animal IAS be released after being temporarily contained for the purpose of immunocontraceptive vaccine injection?
    • 2.How can the legislation prevent the use of inhumane methods when alternatives exist and why does it provide for such a restrictive framework for the use of alternatives?
    • 3.Are there any plans for funding opportunities for developing, testing and implementing innovative humane management methods, including fertility control?

    Submitted: 13.12.2024

    Last updated: 20 December 2024

    MIL OSI Europe News –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: Written question – Protecting the rights and working conditions of self-employed delivery workers in the EU – E-002631/2024

    Source: European Parliament

    22.11.2024

    Question for written answer  E-002631/2024/rev.1
    to the Commission
    Rule 144
    Galato Alexandraki (ECR), Emmanouil Fragkos (ECR)

    Self-employed delivery workers in Greece are facing a decline in working conditions, due to sky-rocketing costs and the longer working hours required to make ends meet. During a recent 24-hour period of industrial action, unions highlighted that platforms were charging more for their products on strike days, without improving pay or providing the necessary labour protection. The lack of fairer taxation, free provision of personal protective equipment (PPE), professional licences and better paid contracts remains a serious problem for the sector. At the same time, pressure on delivery workers leads to a toxic working environment and incidences of violence. Furthermore, delivery workers complain that the lack of regulation fosters instability and exploitation by platforms, which force workers to endure conditions that put their health and safety at risk.

    In view of the above, can the Commission answer the following:

    • 1.What measures could it take to ensure fair taxation and working conditions for self-employed delivery workers, especially with regard to PPE and the recognition of their professional expenses?
    • 2.What actions could it take to help prevent delivery workers from experiencing pressure and violence, protecting both social peace and workers in this sector?

    Submitted: 22.11.2024

    Last updated: 20 December 2024

    MIL OSI Europe News –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: Written question – Instability in the Middle East and the Levant as an aggravating factor in security risk levels – P-003021/2024

    Source: European Parliament

    18.12.2024

    Priority question for written answer  P-003021/2024
    to the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
    Rule 144
    Sebastião Bugalho (PPE)

    On 3 December 2024, Sven Koopmans, the European Union Special Representative for the Middle East Peace Process, said, during an exchange of views in a meeting of Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, that we should not be surprised, although it is never justifiable, if we see an increase in terrorism in the coming years, owing to the way in which war is being waged in the Middle East.

    Following the fall of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has supported the ongoing transition, but stressed that Syria should be prevented from becoming a ‘base for terrorism’.

    I therefore ask the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy:

    • 1.Is an assessment currently being carried out of the extent to which the instability in the Middle East and the Levant is an aggravating factor in security risk levels, not only regionally but also around the work, including for European countries and people?
    • 2.What specific steps and responses are being taken or considered in that regard, including to control and prevent risks of that kind?

    Submitted: 18.12.2024

    Last updated: 20 December 2024

    MIL OSI Europe News –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: France: EIB and Rhône department sign first finance contract for lower secondary school construction and refurbishment

    Source: European Investment Bank

    • The EIB will provide a 25-year loan of €45 million for seven collèges (lower secondary schools) in the department.
    • The collèges will be highly energy efficient following the work, reducing their carbon footprint and making operating cost savings.
    • This is the first time the EIB has lent funds to the Rhône department in France.

    The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the Rhône department have signed a 25-year, €45 million finance contract to help modernise educational facilities and adapt them to local demand, with a view to improving the quality of secondary-level education in the area.

    With this funding, the department will be able to improve the quality of the infrastructure of seven new or refurbished collèges. The project also includes investments in digital equipment and the refurbishment of schoolyards.

    The collèges will be highly energy efficient following the work, enabling energy use reduction goals to be achieved and making operating cost savings. Climate change adaptation measures will also be included.

    This project is fully in line not only with the department’s education efforts (2025 New Collèges Plan), but also with the green transition set out in its low-carbon strategy.

    The project focuses on the construction, reconstruction or refurbishment of collèges. It will enable the department to support the adaptation of its network of educational facilities to local demand. This investment will make school infrastructure more resilient to climate risk and school buildings more energy efficient. The work carried out will include a wide range of solutions to adapt to global warming, such as sunshades, rainwater retention systems to supply water for toilet facilities in particular, and permeable soil solutions.

    The project will benefit around 4 020 students enrolled in the department’s lower secondary schools (20% of all students in the department’s collèges). Around 30 000 m2 of educational facilities will be built, expanded or refurbished as part of this project.

    EIB Vice-President Ambroise Fayolle said: “Investing in education is a priority for the EIB, the EU bank. We are very pleased with the trust placed in us by the Rhône department, which we are supporting for the first time in the financing of its public infrastructure. This project will also contribute to the low-carbon transition of collèges through improved energy efficiency and reduced operating costs.”

    Christophe Guilloteau, president of the Rhône department, said: “We are delighted to sign this maiden financing contract with the EIB, which will enable us to carry out the ambitious educational infrastructure projects of our Rhône Bâtisseur programme, such as the 2025 New Collèges Plan.”

    Background information

    About the European Investment Bank (EIB)

    The European Investment Bank (ElB) is the long-term lending institution of the European Union, owned by its Member States. It finances investments that contribute to EU policy objectives. In the education sector, which is one of its priorities, the EIB financed investment projects in France in 2023 to the tune of more than €900 million, a figure that has risen sharply. The EIB finances education infrastructure from nursery schools to higher education in both the public and private sectors. In secondary education, it recently financed school construction and refurbishment projects for lower secondary schools in six departments and for upper secondary schools in the Brittany and Île-de-France regions. In higher education, it financed refurbishment projects on the campuses of CentraleSupélec in Saclay, École Polytechnique in Palaiseau and INSEAD in Fontainebleau.

    About the Rhône department

    The department’s policy regarding collèges relates both to education itself and to work in schools. The educational aspect concerns pupils in the 33 public collèges and the 19 private collèges under contract in the Rhône department (upkeep, catering and maintenance), adaptation to changes in numbers (location and size of collèges, prospective students, allocation of schools by catchment area, transitional measures), development of cross-cutting and multidisciplinary educational actions in the collèges, and also covers the 12 training centres for young people in the Rhône department (environment, sustainable development, food, health, law, ensuring memory of past events, sport, culture). In this context, the department is carrying out major refurbishment work and constructing public collèges to provide the best learning conditions for young people and the best working conditions for all staff and the educational community in the Rhône department.

    MIL OSI Europe News –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: Written question – Driving decarbonisation: leveraging quantum computing for Europe’s clean industrial future – E-002937/2024

    Source: European Parliament

    13.12.2024

    Question for written answer  E-002937/2024
    to the Commission
    Rule 144
    Lídia Pereira (PPE), Sebastião Bugalho (PPE), Paulo Cunha (PPE), Hélder Sousa Silva (PPE)

    In order to decarbonise growth, we need to grow decarbonisation. Quantum computing will reshape the economics of decarbonisation, advancing transformative innovation across cleantech applications and enabling a greenhouse gas reduction of up to 7 gigatonnes by 2035. The quantum market could be as large as EUR 78 billion by 2040. As pointed out by the Draghi report, today ‘five of the top ten tech companies globally in terms of quantum investment are based in the US, four in China and none in the European Union’. Given Executive Vice-President of the Commission Stéphane Séjourné’s task to ensure the industrial application of quantum computing is at the heart of our economy, how is the new Commission planning to harness quantum computing’s potential in the Clean Industrial Deal considering:

    • 1.a pan-European strategy for quantum applications in clean technologies, driven by public funding and supported by a comprehensive capacity-building plan for the quantum and clean tech industries;
    • 2.the promotion of public-private partnerships in the form of centres of excellence to incentivise research and development (R&D) investment in quantum computing by the private sector;
    • 3.the proactive involvement of European universities in the development of the skills and knowledge at the heart of a quantum economy for clean technologies.

    Submitted: 13.12.2024

    Last updated: 20 December 2024

    MIL OSI Europe News –

  • MIL-OSI Security: First Assistant United States Attorney Zachary T. Lee to Serve as Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia

    Source: Office of United States Attorneys

    ABINGDON, Va. – First Assistant United States Attorney Zachery T. Lee will serve as the Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, effective December 21, 2024, at 12:00 a.m. He is assuming the office under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, 5 U.S.C § 3345, upon the departure of United States Attorney Christopher R. Kavanaugh, who announced his resignation earlier this year.

    “For two decades, Zach Lee has served the Western District of Virginia with honor, distinction, and dedication as an Assistant United States Attorney, Criminal Chief, and most recently as First Assistant United States Attorney,” United States Attorney Kavanaugh said today. “There is nobody more qualified to serve in this role, and I look forward to watching the United States Attorney’s Office continue to thrive and serve the citizens of the Western District of Virginia under his leadership.”

    “In my role as the First Assistant United States Attorney, I’ve had the privilege to work side-by-side with Chris Kavanaugh on our district’s most pressing matters,” Mr. Lee said today. “We are sad to see Chris leave the Western District after more than a decade of service, but I promise to keep the men and women who work here focused on the priorities he’s put in place: Keeping our District safe, ensuring civil rights, reducing gun violence, and leading complex white collar investigations and prosecutions.”

    Mr. Lee, 48, has served the Department of Justice since joining the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia in 2005 as a Special Assistant United States Attorney, transitioning to an Assistant United States Attorney in 2007. During his tenure, Mr. Lee has prosecuted complex narcotics, public corruption, firearms, and other criminal matters. He also served in the district’s leadership team as Criminal Chief and First Assistant United States Attorney.

    Prior to his employment with the Department of Justice, Mr. Lee served as an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney for the City of Bristol, Virginia, and as a law clerk to the Honorable James P. Jones, United States District Judge for the Western District of Virginia.

    He earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Wyoming College of Law, Laramie, Wyoming, and a Bachelor of Arts from Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia. 

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Two officers convicted for assaulting 16-year-old boy

    Source: United Kingdom London Metropolitan Police

    Two officers have been convicted of assaulting a 16-year-old boy who they were transporting to hospital for a mental health assessment.

    Following a trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court which concluded on Friday, 20 December, PC Sevda Gonen, 33, was found guilty of two counts of assault by beating – one for using unlawful force when searching the victim and the second for slapping him and holding his hair. PC Stuart Price, 35, was found guilty of one count of using unlawful force when searching the victim.

    Both officers, who are attached to the North Area Basic Command Unit, will be sentenced on Thursday, 24 January.

    The officers were convicted following an investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) in relation to an incident on 14 November 2023 when officers were voluntarily transporting a 16-year-old boy to hospital for a mental health assessment, as there were no ambulances available to immediately take him.

    Area Commander Hayley Sewart, said: “We know this incident had a significant impact on the victim and his family, and I would like to apologise to them for the distress and upset caused. Very sadly, what started out as an attempt to get the right medical attention for a teenager in mental health crisis quickly escalated to the events we saw unfold that day.

    “The actions of PC Gonen in slapping the victim are deeply troubling and fall well below the standards and behaviour we expect from our officers. An internal review of the incident raised concerns about her actions and as a result we referred the matter to the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

    “We will continue to exercise such diligence where standards are not being upheld.

    “The decision to charge and subsequently convict the officers with assault because the search was deemed to be unlawful, however, raises important questions and we need to now take some time to understand the outcome and carefully consider the possible wider implications for officers and policing in general.”

    + PC Gonen is suspended. PC Price remains on restricted duties. Now that criminal matters have concluded, we will be liaising with the IOPC regarding misconduct procedures.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Two California Men Charged in Largest NFT Scheme Prosecuted to Date

    Source: United States Attorneys General 7

    Note: View the indictment here. 

    A six-count indictment was unsealed today in Los Angeles charging two California men with defrauding investors of more than $22 million in cryptocurrency through a series of digital asset project “rug pulls,” a type of fraud scheme in which the creator of a nonfungible token (NFT) or other digital asset project solicits funds from investors for the project and then abruptly abandons the project and fraudulently retains investors’ funds. Both men were arrested yesterday by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Los Angeles.

    According to court documents, from May 2021 to May 2024, Gabriel Hay, 23, of Beverly Hills, and Gavin Mayo, 23, of Thousand Oaks, sponsored several NFT and other digital asset projects and undertook promotional activities in support of those projects. Hay and Mayo allegedly made or caused others to make materially false and misleading statements regarding the digital asset projects being launched and provided false and misleading project “roadmaps” detailing plans for the NFTs or other digital asset projects after their launch that the sponsors never intended to fulfill. For example, the indictment alleges that in promoting the Vault of Gems NFT project, Hay and Mayo falsely claimed that the project would be the “first NFT project to be pegged to a hard asset.” However, instead of pursuing the Vault of Gems project or others as they had represented they would, Hay and Mayo allegedly abandoned the projects after collecting millions in funds from investors.

    “Gabriel Hay and Gavin Mayo allegedly defrauded investors in digital asset projects of tens of millions of dollars and threatened an individual who attempted to expose their roles in these fraudulent schemes,” said Principal Deputy Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Fraudsters take advantage of new technologies and financial products to steal investors’ hard-earned money. The department is committed to protecting investors and will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to root out fraud involving cryptocurrency and other digital assets and bring offenders to justice.”

    “For three years, Hay and Mayo apparently lied to their investors in order to defraud them out of millions of dollars,” said HSI Executive Associate Director Katrina W. Berger. “Such technological fraud schemes cost investors millions of dollars every year. Just because such crimes aren’t violent does not mean they are victimless. HSI will continue to investigate, disrupt, and dismantle such cryptocurrency fraud networks.”

    “Whenever a new investment trend occurs, scammers are sure to follow,” said U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada for the Central District of California. “My office and our law enforcement partners will continue our efforts to protect consumers and punish wrongdoers involved in crypto fraud.”

    Hay, Mayo, and others allegedly used these tactics with a variety of digital asset projects, including Vault of Gems, Faceless, Sinful Souls, Clout Coin, Dirty Dogs, Uncovered, MoonPortal, Squiggles, and Roost Coin. Hay and Mayo also allegedly used a variety of means to conceal their involvement in the fraudulent projects by falsely identifying other individuals or causing other individuals to be falsely identified as owners of the projects. When one project manager on the Faceless NFT project exposed Hay and Mayo as being behind that project, Hay and Mayo allegedly embarked on a harassment campaign against the project manager, sending or causing the sending of messages to the project manager and his parents for the purpose of intimidating him and his family and causing them great emotional distress.

    Hay and Mayo are each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, two counts of wire fraud, and one count of stalking. If convicted, they each face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on each of the conspiracy and wire fraud counts and a maximum penalty of five years on the stalking count. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

    HSI Baltimore is investigating the case.

    Trial Attorneys Tian Huang and Tamara Livshiz of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section, both members of the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET), and Assistant U.S. Attorney Maxwell Coll for the Central District of California are prosecuting the case.

    The NCET was established to combat the growing illicit use of cryptocurrencies and digital assets. Within the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, the NCET conducts and supports investigations into individuals and entities that are enabling the use of digital assets to commit and facilitate a variety of crimes, with a particular focus on virtual currency exchanges, mixing and tumbling services, and infrastructure providers. The NCET also works to set strategic priorities regarding digital asset technologies, identify areas for increased investigative and prosecutorial focus, and lead the department’s efforts to collaborate with domestic and foreign government agencies as well as the private sector to aggressively investigate and prosecute crimes involving cryptocurrency and digital assets.

    If you believe that you are a victim of any of the scams listed above or other scams involving the defendants, please email rugpullvictims@hsi.dhs.gov.

    An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Economics: Luis de Guindos: Interview with the Telegraaf

    Source: European Central Bank

    Interview with Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB, conducted by Wouter van Bergen and Martin Visser

    20 December 2024

    What has kept you awake over the past year?

    Looking back at recent times, I would say that my worst nightmare was that a cyber attack would wreak havoc in the payments system. We would have a complicated situation on our hands that would be very difficult to resolve and would have serious consequences for all of us.

    And what do you expect will keep you awake next year?

    For the future, I’m more concerned about trade policy and the potential fragmentation of the global economy. The new US administration has announced far-reaching import tariffs. If they materialise, a wholly new situation could arise, which would go completely against the lessons from the 1930s and the path we have chosen since the end of the Second World War.

    Trump has introduced import tariffs before. What is different this time?

    It’s not only the import tariffs imposed by the United States that are the problem, but also the retaliation by other countries in response. If a trade war erupts, it would be extremely negative for the world economy, mainly for growth but also for inflation. For example, if you impose a 60% tariff on goods from China, which already has excess capacity, it would cause a diversion in trade flows and even impact exchange rates. Nobody knows where that will end.

    What can the ECB do about that?

    We’re not responsible for trade policy. We can provide our advice and explain that a trade war would be extremely detrimental for the world economy and a lose-lose situation for everyone, and that is why it is better to be prudent. But the response is up to the European Commission, and our role is to give our view and deal with the consequences.

    Might it also threaten the euro?

    It should be the other way around. If such threats emerge, the answer lies precisely in more European integration. The euro plays a hugely important role in that.

    But election results indicate that the population in many European countries is not that keen on it…

    I think that the European population is smart, and people are well aware that the uncertainties and risks are intensifying, and that becoming more fragmented within Europe would be the wrong response. My impression of populist politicians is that they propose simple solutions for highly complex problems.

    Immigration is one such complex problem…

    There is talk about restricting immigration, but looking at demographic developments in Europe, you see that the population is ageing. From an economic viewpoint, it is crystal clear that we need ordered immigration, so we should focus on properly managing its social impact.

    Are you concerned about the high levels of public debt in many Member States, such as France?

    Countries need to put in place credible and prudent fiscal consolidation plans. The fiscal rules were suspended for five years due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the energy crisis, but now we have a new fiscal framework, and it’s important to implement it accordingly. France is not the only country whose budget has not yet been approved. The same goes for Germany, Spain, Belgium and Austria. They know what they need to do, and I am convinced that they will act accordingly.

    Relative to GDP, public debt is indeed on average 10% higher than it was before the pandemic. At the same time, the situation in the southern European countries that were in trouble 12 years ago is much better now. Portugal now runs a budget surplus, as do Ireland and Cyprus. Greece and Italy are running primary surpluses. Precisely the ‘usual suspects’ back then are doing well now, thanks to the measures taken at the time.

    Former ECB President Mario Draghi painted a dire picture of the state of European competitiveness in a recent report. What can we do to restore it?

    The demographic reality is that our population is ageing. An ageing society takes less risks and innovates less. That’s why targeted immigration is so important. It’s something that Europe should reflect on from an economic perspective.

    Europe has other structural problems too, like the lack of a genuine single market for goods and services. The array of different rules applying throughout means that Europe is still highly fragmented, in contrast to the United States. We don’t have a real banking union as we don’t have a common deposit insurance scheme. And we don’t have a capital markets union, because there is no single capital market supervisor and insolvency laws still differ across countries. On top of that, we don’t have a fiscal union, unlike the United States. Savings are taxed differently everywhere in Europe, there are disparities in labour market rules and some exceptions to the temporary framework on state aid still have to be fully phased out.

    The list of necessary measures is long…

    Yes, there is a lot of work to do and the world is not going to wait for us. Because of the policies of the new United States administration, we may need to deal with import tariffs, uncertain fiscal policy, the possibility of deregulation in financial markets and, going beyond economics, even defence. This is a wake-up call for Europe.

    How can you remain optimistic in the face of such huge challenges?

    It’s not a question of optimism, but pragmatism. In Europe, there is only one way to preserve our current standard of living, and we will eventually choose the correct path.

    The inflation rate in the Netherlands has risen again to 4%. The ECB’s policy does not suit the situation in our country…

    In the euro area, we have seen that although there is an increase in households’ real disposable income because wages have started to catch up with past inflation, consumption is not recovering well. This is an issue of confidence, which has to do with past inflation, the lagging effects of the pandemic, and the current geopolitical landscape.

    People mainly look at prices and they now see that supermarket prices are much higher than they were two or three years ago. That’s why it’s so important that they realise that price levels are stabilising and wages are catching up. And not everything is negative, as labour markets are doing well.

    As the ECB, we have to look at the euro area average (at 2.2% in November, ed.). Dutch inflation is more volatile than average. We are confident that inflation will gradually decrease in the Netherlands too, and that inflation across the euro area will gradually converge towards our 2% target.

    What message do you have for Dutch consumers?

    You still have higher inflation, but inflation in the euro area has declined substantially and without a recession. You have very high employment, so wages are increasing and catching up with past inflation. The tight labour market also shows the need for targeted immigration.

    Do you already hold bitcoin?

    No, no bitcoin, but I know some people who do.

    You missed out on big gains…

    Yes, but I could just have gone to the casino [laughs]. The world of crypto-assets is a mixed bag, with stablecoins being very different from others like bitcoin. In general though, there are no fundamentals that determine the value of bitcoin, like there are for shares or bonds. There is only scarcity.

    Are crypto-assets a risk for the financial system?

    Not for now, there are few of them and volumes are still too small to pose material risks to the financial system.

    Europe is lagging behind the rest of the world. Out of the 50 largest tech companies, only three are European. Europeans heavily invest their funds on US stock exchanges and European banks can’t keep up with their US competitors. Is there still hope?

    This is an indication that there are some structural issues that we need to improve in Europe, namely by deepening economic integration. I talked earlier about common solvency and taxation rules and a coordinated approach to supervision in capital markets, for example. We have to channel European savings to Europe, and to attract savings from abroad.

    Every cloud has a silver lining. Europe is at a crossroads now. The future is now more uncertain than ever since the pandemic due to geopolitical tensions and the risk of significant frictions in global trade in the advent of the new United States administration. That is why we need more integration, not less. It will take courage, but common sense will ultimately prevail.

    MIL OSI Economics –

  • MIL-OSI Economics: Verizon donates $25,000 to the American Red Cross in response to the Franklin Fire

    Source: Verizon

    Headline: Verizon donates $25,000 to the American Red Cross in response to the Franklin Fire

    IRVINE, C.A. – To support much needed local wildfire relief efforts in response to the Franklin Fire in Malibu, California, Verizon is upholding its commitment to the community with a $25,000 donation to the American Red Cross.

    “The Franklin Fire in Malibu is a reminder of the disruptive impact wildfires can have on our communities,” said Steven Keller, Pacific Market President for Verizon. “We hope our grant to the American Red Cross will provide much-needed aid to those affected by the fire.”

    Earlier this year, Verizon contributed to the American Red Cross in response to various wildfires in Southern California, including the Mountain, Line, Bridge and Airport wildfires. 

    “We sincerely thank Verizon for their generous $25,000 donation to support our response to the Malibu Franklin Fire,” said Joanne Nowlin, CEO, American Red Cross Los Angeles Region. “This contribution strengthens the American Red Cross Los Angeles Region’s commitment to providing relief, hope and care to those affected by disasters.”

    Wildfire conditions and Public Safety Power Shutdowns in the Malibu area caused a service interruption for some customers. In response, our engineers and local emergency crews worked quickly to mitigate impacts and, as a result,we are seeing the restoration of service to those customers affected across the area. In support of public safety agencies responding to the Franklin Fire, the Verizon Frontline Crisis Response Team provided mission-critical communications support, deploying mobile assets to help provide connectivity in the area.

    Verizon facilitates year-round efforts to ensure the network is engineered for resilience, with extensive redundancy measures and backup power solutions across critical sites. To learn more about Verizon’s emergency response efforts, visit our Emergency Resource Center.

    MIL OSI Economics –

  • MIL-OSI NGOs: If the EU won’t stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza, member states must go it alone

    Source: Amnesty International –

    Ursula von der Leyen knows that the EU’s reputation as a credible actor for human rights and international law is in tatters over the horrors in Gaza.

    EU leaders and officials have gone from privately condemning the EU’s double standards behind closed doors to publicly lamenting them. Instead of tackling these double standards however, the European Commission President rebranded them as “anti-EU narratives” and tasked the new Commissioner for the Mediterranean and foreign policy chief to elaborate a communications strategy to highlight the EU’s contribution to the region. But there are issues that even the canniest communications strategy cannot bury.

    After the atrocities committed by Hamas and other armed groups on 7 October 2023, Israel’s military campaign has killed over 45,000 Palestinians, 60% of whom are children, women and older people. The Israeli offensive has left the occupied Gaza Strip a wasteland, inflicting shocking and unprecedented levels of death, suffering and destruction. Amnesty International investigated Israel’s offensive on Gaza, examining a variety of unlawful acts constituting a pattern of conduct, the harmful and destructive impact of its policies and actions, and Israeli government and military officials’ racist, dehumanizing and genocidal rhetoric.

    The conclusion is clear: Israel is committing these acts with the intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza. Israel is committing genocide. We also found that not only is the genocide in Gaza the most documented in history, but the EU and many of its member states are failing to prevent it. Moreover, some member states risk becoming complicit in Israel’s genocide by continuing to transfer arms to the country.

    ‘All signs of genocide are flashing red’

    Amnesty International’s report ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza is the culmination of nine months of meticulous research and spans 296 pages. During our investigation, we interviewed 212 people, conducted extensive fieldwork and analyzed a wide range of visual and digital evidence, including satellite imagery. Crucially, we also analyzed evidence of Israel’s intent, before concluding that Israel has committed — and is continuing to commit — genocide in Gaza.

    In 15 airstrikes we found that Israel killed 334 civilians, including 141 children, and wounded hundreds of others in direct attacks against civilians and without effective warnings. These airstrikes represent a subset of a wider pattern of deliberately indiscriminate attacks. We also documented how Israel has deliberately imposed conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza calculated to bring about their physical destruction. Within the context of Israel’s long-standing apartheid and unlawful occupation, the inescapable conclusion is that Israel committed these acts with the intent of destroying the Palestinians in Gaza.

    Unsurprisingly, the world has been reluctant to recognize the situation in Gaza as genocide. After all, if what we have been witnessing every day for 14 months was indeed genocide, what would that say about the international community?

    The International Court of Justice (ICJ) recognized that a risk exists that genocide could be committed against Palestinians in Gaza, ordering multiple binding measures to prevent it. The International Criminal Court (ICC) further issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and former minister of defense for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

    As ICJ judge Abdulqawi Yousef put it: “All signs of genocide are flashing red.”

    Not everyone agreed with our findings. Yet  many states have reached the same conclusion before us. While others may refuse to acknowledge the reality, the EU and its member states are faced with two primary responsibilities under international law: the obligation not to aid or assist genocide and the obligation to prevent it.

    In the absence of unity, EU member states must go it alone

    As European leaders gather in Brussels for the European Council, the new HR/VP Kaja Kallas faces the daunting challenge of convincing all 27 member states to uphold these two fundamental obligations under international law.

    However, in the absence of united action at EU level, individual member states have a duty to act on their own to uphold their obligations to prevent genocide and avoid being complicit in it. In practical terms, this entails five concrete actions.

    The remaining EU member states that continue to export or allow the transfer of arms to Israel must follow the lead of those who have rightly suspended arms exports and transshipments to Israel.

    States must exert diplomatic pressure on Israel, including by publicly recognizing that Israel is committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, among other violations of international law.

    States must support justice mechanisms, including by safeguarding the ICC from reprisals, supporting the court financially and politically, and publicly committing to enforcing arrest warrants issued by the ICC. Additionally, states have a responsibility to investigate and prosecute international crimes committed in Gaza under universal jurisdiction, or when suspected perpetrators or victims are dual nationals.

    For its part, the EU must not allow Israel to decimate the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees, which remains the only lifeline for millions of Palestinians. This requires both financial and political support for the UNRWA, as well as supporting Norway’s efforts at the UN General Assembly to challenge Israel’s attempt to dismantle it.

    Finally, regardless of EU leaders’ discourse on the ‘day after’ and long-term prospects for peace, as long as Israeli settlement expansion and unlawful occupation and apartheid persist, this will remain empty rhetoric. The EU must start by implementing their legal obligations, as clarified by the ICJ, to ban trade and investments that contribute to maintaining Israel’s illegal occupation.

    In the pages of history, two groups of politicians will be remembered: those who remained silent in the face of Gaza’s genocide — and those who rose up to stop it.

    *This article was originally published on 19 December in EUobserver.

    MIL OSI NGO –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: Provincial Court Judges Appointed in Regina and Prince Albert

    Source: Government of Canada regional news

    Released on December 20, 2024

    The Government of Saskatchewan is announcing today the appointment of three new judges to the Provincial Court of Saskatchewan.

    Cynthia Alexander is appointed to the Provincial Court in Regina. Lori O’Connor and Buffy Rodgers are appointed to the Provincial Court in Prince Albert.

    “It is a privilege to announce the appointment of these three new judges to the Provincial Court of Saskatchewan,” Justice Minister and Attorney General Tim McLeod said. “Saskatchewan prides itself on its record of appointing highly skilled legal professionals to our judiciary, and I am confident these new appointees to the Provincial Court will carry on this tradition in their communities.” 

    Judge Alexander received her Bachelor of Laws from the University of Saskatchewan College of Law in 1996 and was called to the Bar in 1997. She completed her articles with Woloshyn & Company (now W Law) in Regina, where she remained as an Associate Lawyer until 2000. Judge Alexander then took a position as a Crown Prosecutor with Public Prosecutions in Prince Albert, and became a Senior Crown Prosecutor there in 2008. In 2022, she moved to the Head Office of Public Prosecutions in Regina as the Director of Professional Development.

    Judge Alexander has spent the majority of her career prosecuting criminal matters in Provincial Court and the Court of King’s Bench. She has developed expertise in criminal procedure, trial advocacy and rules of evidence. She has mentored prosecutors, articling students, and summer students within the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General and has also lectured at the University of Regina, the Saskatchewan Police College and Saskatchewan Polytechnic. 

    Outside of work, Judge Alexander and her husband have raised two sons. She enjoys music and travelling, and has volunteered with the Prince Albert Music Festival and the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival. 

    Judge O’Connor received her Bachelor of Laws from Dalhousie University in 2008 and was called to the Bar in 2009. She completed her articles with Legal Aid in Thompson, Manitoba, where she continued as a Staff Lawyer until 2010. In 2010, Judge O’Connor joined Saskatchewan Public Prosecutions as a Crown Prosecutor. She became a Regional Crown Prosecutor in Melfort in 2019. 

    Judge O’Connor has extensive experience in criminal law gained from her career as a Crown Prosecutor. She has taken an active role in mentoring law students through Dalhousie Law School’s Weldon Mentor Matching Program, and has provided court and testimony training to nurse examiners, victims services volunteers and peace officers. She also regularly contributes book reviews to the Canadian Law Library Review that appear on CanLii.

    Outside of her professional life, Judge O’Connor bakes banana bread for the Melfort Food Bank and enjoys walking her dog.   

    Judge Rodgers received her Bachelor of Laws from the University of Saskatchewan College of Law in 1998 and was called to the Bar in 1999. She completed her articles with Wardell Worme & Missens in 1999, and remained there as a Junior Lawyer until 2001. Judge Rodgers held a variety of roles from 2001 to 2006, including acting as legal counsel at Legal Aid Saskatchewan and Partner at Wardell Driedger Cotton & Rodgers, later Wardell Gillis Tangjerd Rodgers & Cotton. She joined the Saskatchewan Ministry of Justice and Attorney General as Crown Counsel in 2006 and became a Senior Crown Prosecutor with Saskatchewan Public Prosecutions in 2007. She has held the position of Senior Crown Prosecutor – OH&S since 2015.

    Over her legal career, Judge Rodgers has developed expertise in a wide variety of legal areas including criminal defense, child protection, civil law, small claims and legal aid. As a Crown Prosecutor she has spent a significant portion of her career in docket and trial court, and in the Court of King’s Bench practicing both criminal and regulatory law, with a specialty in OH&S files. 

    Judge Rodgers is a past Secretary of the Saskatchewan Crown Attorneys Association, and is a recipient of the Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Public Service for her work on the Serious Violent Offender Response Team. 

    -30-

    For more information, contact:

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: US Department of Labor, Office of the Trade Representative announce resolution of alleged labor rights’ denial at Hidalgo manufacturer

    Source: US Department of Labor

    WASHINGTON – The U.S. and Mexican governments have announced the successful resolution to a Rapid Response Labor Mechanism petition alleging the denial of workers’ rights at Odisa Concrete Equipment, a manufacturer in Hidalgo. 

    To remediate workers’ claims, the Mexican government facilitated a resolution with Odisa taking several actions, including posting a neutrality statement, creating guidelines on freedom of association and collective bargaining, reinstating a fired worker with back pay and refunding improperly withheld union dues to workers. In addition, the Mexican Ministry of Labor provided labor rights training to workers.

    “We commend the actions taken by Odisa Concrete Equipment and the government of Mexico to resolve the alleged labor violations at the facility and ensure that freedom of association is fully respected,” said Deputy Undersecretary for International Labor Affairs Thea Lee. “The reinstatement of an improperly dismissed worker involved in union activity underscores a commitment to ensuring that workers can freely choose their union and engage in collective bargaining.” 

    This is the 29th use of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement’s Rapid Response Labor Mechanism by the department and the U.S. Office of the Trade Representative to benefit workers in partnership with Mexico.

    “The successful resolution of this case reflects the RRM’s effectiveness as a tool for holding employers accountable and enabling workers to freely exercise their union rights,” said Ambassador Katherine Tai.  “We commend the government of Mexico and Odisa for their actions to remediate the denials of labor rights that occurred. The Biden-Harris administration celebrates this outcome and recalls that nearly 42,000 workers have directly benefited from the mechanism to date.”

    Founded in 1976, Odisa Concrete Equipment S.A. de C.V. manufactures and exports concrete equipment and material-handling equipment, including sheet metal and aluminum goods, to more than 35 countries. 

    Learn more about the department’s international work.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: US Department of Labor awards Florida $1.5M in funding to support jobs, training services in 21 counties affected by opioid crisis

    Source: US Department of Labor

    WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Labor today announced the award of $1.5 million in grant funding to Florida’s Department of Commerce to assist people affected by the health and economic effects of widespread opioid use, addiction and overdose.

    The opioid epidemic has significantly affected Florida’s workforce, with opioids involved in over 6,000 fatal overdoses in 2022, as well as contributing to absenteeism, increased healthcare costs, turnover, loss of productivity and shortages of treatment providers and facilities.

    Overseen by the department’s Employment and Training Administration, the National Health Emergency Dislocated Worker Grant will serve people in 21 counties across Florida by creating disaster-relief positions to address the shortage of health and counseling services available to individuals impacted by the opioid crisis.

    “The Employment and Training Administration is committed to ensuring Florida workers affected by the opioid crisis have access to assistance that will help their communities address the unique impacts of this complex public health crisis,” said Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training José Javier Rodríguez. “This Dislocated Worker Grant provides critical support to Florida by providing jobs to affected workers and training in the areas of addiction treatment, mental health and pain management.”

    Funds will also support employment and training services for workers experiencing unemployment and other workforce barriers resulting from the opioid crisis. Six workforce development boards will operate the project, serving eligible participants in Baker, Bay, Brevard, Clay, Duval, Flagler, Franklin, Gulf, Hillsborough, Lake, Manatee, Nassau, Orange, Osceola, Pinellas, Putnam, Sarasota, Seminole, St. Johns, Sumter and Volusia counties.

    In October 2017, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declared the opioid crisis a national public health emergency, enabling Florida to request this funding.

    Supported by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014, Dislocated Worker Grants temporarily expand the service capacity of dislocated worker programs at the state and local levels by providing funding assistance in response to large, unexpected economic events that cause significant job losses.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: NASA’s Terra Satellite Captures 2015 Eclipse Shadow

    Source: NASA

    During the morning of March 20, 2015, a total solar eclipse was visible from parts of Europe, and a partial solar eclipse from northern Africa and northern Asia. NASA’s Terra satellite passed over the Arctic Ocean on March 20 at 10:45 UTC (6:45 a.m. EDT) and captured the eclipse’s shadow over the clouds in the Arctic Ocean.
    Terra launched 25 years ago on Dec. 18, 1999. Approximately the size of a small school bus, the Terra satellite carries five instruments that take coincident measurements of the Earth system: Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER), Clouds and Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES), Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR), Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT), and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS).
    On Nov. 28, 2024, one of Terra’s power-transmitting shunt units failed. A response team reviewed Terra’s status and discussed potential impacts and options.  Consequently, the team placed ASTER into Safe Mode.  As a result, ASTER data are not currently being collected. All other instruments continue uninterrupted.
    Image Credit: NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Station Science Top News: Dec. 20, 2024

    Source: NASA

    A method for evaluating thermophysical properties of metal alloys
    Simulation of the solidification of metal alloys, a key step in certain industrial processes, requires reliable data on their thermophysical properties such as surface tension and viscosity. Researchers propose comparing predictive models with experimental outcomes as a method to assess these data.
    Scientists use data on surface tension and viscosity of titanium-based alloys in industrial processes such as casting and crystal growth. Non-Equilibrium Solidification, Modelling for Microstructure Engineering of Industrial Alloys, an ESA (European Space Agency) investigation, examined the microstructure and growth of these alloys using the station’s Electromagnetic Levitator. This facility eliminates the need for containers, which can interfere with experiment results.

    Overview of techniques for measuring thermal diffusion
    Researchers present techniques for measuring thermal diffusion of molecules in a mixture. Thermal diffusion is measured using the Soret coefficient – the ratio of movement caused by temperature differences to overall movement within the system. This has applications in mineralogy and geophysics such as predicting the location of natural resources beneath Earth’s surface.
    A series of ESA investigations studied diffusion, or how heat and particles move through liquids, in microgravity. Selectable Optical Diagnostics Instrument-Influence of VIbrations on DIffusion of Liquids examined how vibrations affect diffusion in mixtures with two components and SODI-DCMIX measured more-complex diffusion in mixtures of three or more components. Understanding and predicting the effects of thermal diffusion has applications in various industries such as modeling of underground oil reservoirs.

    Research validates ferrofluid technology
    Researchers validated the concept of using ferrofluid technology to operate a thermal control switch in a spacecraft. This outcome could support development of more reliable and long-lasting spacecraft thermal management systems, increasing mission lifespan and improving crew safety.
    Überflieger 2: Ferrofluid Application Research Goes Orbital analyzed the performance of ferrofluids, a technology that manipulates components such as rotors and switches using magnetized liquids and a magnetic field rather than mechanical systems, which are prone to wear and tear. This technology could lower the cost of materials for thermal management systems, reduce the need for maintenance and repair, and help avoid equipment failure. The paper discusses possible improvements to the thermal switch, including optimizing the geometry to better manage heat flow.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: 2024: NASA Armstrong Prepares for Future Innovative Research Efforts

    Source: NASA

    [embedded content]
    NASA/Quincy Eggert

    NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, is preparing today for tomorrow’s mission. Supersonic flight, next generation aircraft, advanced air mobility, climate changes, human exploration of space, and the next innovation are just some of the topics our researchers, engineers, and mission support teams focused on in 2024.
    NASA Armstrong began 2024 with the public debut of the X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft. Through the unique design of the X-59, NASA aims to reduce the sonic boom to make it much quieter, potentially opening the future to commercial supersonic flight over land. Throughout the first part of the year, NASA and international researchers studied air quality across Asia as part of a global effort to better understand the air we breathe. Later in the year, for the first time, a NASA-funded researcher conducted an experiment aboard a commercial suborbital rocket, studying how changes in gravity during spaceflight affect plant biology.
    Here’s a look at more NASA Armstrong accomplishments throughout 2024:

    Our simulation team began work on NASA’s X-66 simulator, which will use an MD-90 cockpit and allow pilots and engineers to run real-life scenarios in a safe environment.
    NASA Armstrong engineers completed and tested a model of a truss-braced wing design, laying the groundwork for improved commercial aircraft aerodynamics.
    NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility mission and supporting projects worked with industry partners who are building innovative new aircraft like electric air taxis. We explored how these new designs may help passengers and cargo move between and inside cities efficiently. The team began testing with a custom virtual reality flight simulator to explore the air taxi ride experience. This will help designers create new aircraft with passenger comfort in mind. Researchers also tested a new technology that will help self-flying aircraft avoid hazards.
    A NASA-developed computer software tool called OVERFLOW helped several air taxi companies predict aircraft noise and aerodynamic performance. This tool allows manufacturers to see how new design elements would perform, saving the aerospace industry time and money.
    Our engineers designed a camera pod with sensors at NASA Armstrong to help advance computer vision for autonomous aviation and flew this pod at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
    NASA’s Quesst mission marked a major milestone with the start of tests on the engine that will power the quiet supersonic X-59 experimental aircraft.
    In February and March, NASA joined international researchers in Asia to investigate pollution sources. The now retired DC-8 and NASA Langley Gulfstream III aircraft collected air measurements over the Philippines, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, and Taiwan. Combined with ground and satellite observations, these measurements continue to enrich global discussions about pollution origins and solutions.
    The Gulfstream IV joined NASA Armstrong’s fleet of airborne science platforms. Our teams modified the aircraft to accommodate a next-generation science instrument that will collect terrain information of the Earth in a more capable, versatile, and maintainable way.
    The ER-2 and the King Air supported the development of spaceborne instruments by testing them in suborbital settings. On the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem Postlaunch Airborne eXperiment mission (PACE-PAX), the ER-2 validated data collected by the PACE satellite about the ocean, atmosphere, and surfaces.
    Operating over several countries, researchers onboard NASA’s C-20A collected data and images of Earth’s surface to understand global ecosystems, natural hazards, and land surface changes. Following Hurricane Milton, the C-20A flew over affected areas to collect data that could help inform disaster response in the future.
    We also tested nighttime precision landing technologies that safely deliver spacecraft to hazardous locations with limited visibility.
    With the goal to improve firefighter safety, NASA, the U.S. Forest Service, and industry tested a cell tower in the sky. The system successfully provided persistent cell coverage, enabling real-time communication between firefighters and command posts.
    Using a 1960s concept wingless, powered aircraft design, we built and tested an atmospheric probe to better and more economically explore giant planets.
    NASA Armstrong hosted its first Ideas to Flight workshop, where subject matter experts shared how to accelerate research ideas and technology development through flight.

    These are just some of NASA Armstrong’s many innovative research efforts that support NASA’s mission to explore the secrets of the universe for the benefit of all.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: NASA’s Webb Reveals Smallest Asteroids Yet Found in Main Asteroid Belt

    Source: NASA

    NASA’s powerful James Webb Space Telescope includes asteroids on its list of objects studied and secrets revealed. 
    A team led by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge repurposed Webb’s observations of a distant star to reveal a population of small asteroids — smaller than astronomers had ever detected orbiting the Sun in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
    The 138 new asteroids range from the size of a bus to the size of a stadium — a size range in the main belt that has not been observable with ground-based telescopes. Knowing how many main belt asteroids are in different size ranges can tell us something about how asteroids have been changed over time by collisions. That process is related to how some of them have escaped the main belt over the solar system’s history, and even how meteorites end up on Earth.  
    “We now understand more about how small objects in the asteroid belt are formed and how many there could be,” said Tom Greene, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley and co-author on the paper presenting the results. “Asteroids this size likely formed from collisions between larger ones in the main belt and are likely to drift towards the vicinity of Earth and the Sun.”
    Insights from this research could inform the work of the Asteroid Threat Assessment Project at Ames. ATAP works across disciplines to support NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office by studying what would happen in the case of an Earth impact and modeling the associated risks. 
    “It’s exciting that Webb’s capabilities can be used to glean insights into asteroids,” said Jessie Dotson, an astrophysicist at Ames and member of ATAP. “Understanding the sizes, numbers, and evolutionary history of smaller main belt asteroids provides important background about the near-Earth asteroids we study for planetary defense.”

    The team that made the asteroid detections, led by research scientist Artem Burdanov and professor of planetary science Julien de Wit, both of MIT, developed a method to analyze existing Webb images for the presence of asteroids that may have been inadvertently “caught on film” as they passed in front of the telescope. Using the new image processing technique, they studied more than 10,000 images of the star TRAPPIST-1, originally taken to search for atmospheres around planets orbiting the star, in the search for life beyond Earth. 
    Asteroids shine more brightly in infrared light, the wavelength Webb is tuned to detect, than in visible light, helping reveal the population of main belt asteroids that had gone unnoticed until now. NASA will also take advantage of that infrared glow with an upcoming mission, the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor. NEO Surveyor is the first space telescope specifically designed to hunt for near-Earth asteroids and comets that may be potential hazards to Earth.
    The paper presenting this research, “Detections of decameter main-belt asteroids with JWST,” was published Dec. 9 in Nature.
    The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
    For news media:
    Members of the news media interested in covering this topic should reach out to the NASA Ames newsroom.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Lab Work Digs Into Gullies Seen on Giant Asteroid Vesta by NASA’s Dawn

    Source: NASA

    Known as flow formations, these channels could be etched on bodies that would seem inhospitable to liquid because they are exposed to the extreme vacuum conditions of space.
    Pocked with craters, the surfaces of many celestial bodies in our solar system provide clear evidence of a 4.6-billion-year battering by meteoroids and other space debris. But on some worlds, including the giant asteroid Vesta that NASA’s Dawn mission explored, the surfaces also contain deep channels, or gullies, whose origins are not fully understood.
    A prime hypothesis holds that they formed from dry debris flows driven by geophysical processes, such as meteoroid impacts, and changes in temperature due to Sun exposure. A recent NASA-funded study, however, provides some evidence that impacts on Vesta may have triggered a less-obvious geologic process: sudden and brief flows of water that carved gullies and deposited fans of sediment. By using lab equipment to mimic conditions on Vesta, the study, which appeared in Planetary Science Journal, detailed for the first time what the liquid could be made of and how long it would flow before freezing.
    Although the existence of frozen brine deposits on Vesta is unconfirmed, scientists have previously hypothesized that meteoroid impacts could have exposed and melted ice that lay under the surface of worlds like Vesta. In that scenario, flows resulting from this process could have etched gullies and other surface features that resemble those on Earth.

    But how could airless worlds — celestial bodies without atmospheres and exposed to the intense vacuum of space — host liquids on the surface long enough for them to flow? Such a process would run contrary to the understanding that liquids quickly destabilize in a vacuum, changing to a gas when the pressure drops.
    “Not only do impacts trigger a flow of liquid on the surface, the liquids are active long enough to create specific surface features,” said project leader and planetary scientist Jennifer Scully of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the experiments were conducted. “But for how long? Most liquids become unstable quickly on these airless bodies, where the vacuum of space is unyielding.”
    The critical component turns out to be sodium chloride — table salt. The experiments found that in conditions like those on Vesta, pure water froze almost instantly, while briny liquids stayed fluid for at least an hour. “That’s long enough to form the flow-associated features identified on Vesta, which were estimated to require up to a half-hour,” said lead author Michael J. Poston of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.
    Launched in 2007, the Dawn spacecraft traveled to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to orbit Vesta for 14 months and Ceres for almost four years. Before ending in 2018, the mission uncovered evidence that Ceres had been home to a subsurface reservoir of brine and may still be transferring brines from its interior to the surface. The recent research offers insights into processes on Ceres but focuses on Vesta, where ice and salts may produce briny liquid when heated by an impact, scientists said.
    Re-creating Vesta
    To re-create Vesta-like conditions that would occur after a meteoroid impact, the scientists relied on a test chamber at JPL called the Dirty Under-vacuum Simulation Testbed for Icy Environments, or DUSTIE. By rapidly reducing the air pressure surrounding samples of liquid, they mimicked the environment around fluid that comes to the surface. Exposed to vacuum conditions, pure water froze instantly. But salty fluids hung around longer, continuing to flow before freezing.
    The brines they experimented with were a little over an inch (a few centimeters) deep; scientists concluded the flows on Vesta that are yards to tens of yards deep would take even longer to refreeze.
    The researchers were also able to re-create the “lids” of frozen material thought to form on brines. Essentially a frozen top layer, the lids stabilize the liquid beneath them, protecting it from being exposed to the vacuum of space — or, in this case the vacuum of the DUSTIE chamber — and helping the liquid flow longer before freezing again.
    This phenomenon is similar to how on Earth lava flows farther in lava tubes than when exposed to cool surface temperatures. It also matches up with modeling research conducted around potential mud volcanoes on Mars and volcanoes that may have spewed icy material from volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Europa.
    “Our results contribute to a growing body of work that uses lab experiments to understand how long liquids last on a variety of worlds,” Scully said.
    Find more information about NASA’s Dawn mission here:
    https://science.nasa.gov/mission/dawn/
    News Media Contacts
    Gretchen McCartneyJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.818-287-4115gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov 
    Karen Fox / Molly WasserNASA Headquarters, Washington202-358-1600karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
    2024-178

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Avalanches, Icy Explosions, and Dunes: NASA Is Tracking New Year on Mars

    Source: NASA

    [embedded content]
    It’s a new year on Mars, and while New Year’s means winter in Earth’s northern hemisphere, it’s the start of spring in the same region of the Red Planet. And that means ice is thawing, leading to all sorts of interesting things. JPL research scientist Serina Diniega explains. NASA/JPL-Caltech

    Instead of a winter wonderland, the Red Planet’s northern hemisphere goes through an active — even explosive — spring thaw.
    While New Year’s Eve is around the corner here on Earth, Mars scientists are ahead of the game: The Red Planet completed a trip around the Sun on Nov. 12, 2024, prompting a few researchers to raise a toast.
    But the Martian year, which is 687 Earth days, ends in a very different way in the planet’s northern hemisphere than it does in Earth’s northern hemisphere: While winter’s kicking in here, spring is starting there. That means temperatures are rising and ice is thinning, leading to frost avalanches crashing down cliffsides, carbon dioxide gas exploding from the ground, and powerful winds helping reshape the north pole.
    “Springtime on Earth has lots of trickling as water ice gradually melts. But on Mars, everything happens with a bang,” said Serina Diniega, who studies planetary surfaces at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
    Mars’ wispy atmosphere doesn’t allow liquids to pool on the surface, like on Earth. Instead of melting, ice sublimates, turning directly into a gas. The sudden transition in spring means a lot of violent changes as both water ice and carbon dioxide ice — dry ice, which is much more plentiful on Mars than frozen water — weaken and break.
    “You get lots of cracks and explosions instead of melting,” Diniega said. “I imagine it gets really noisy.”
    Using the cameras and other sensors aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which launched in 2005, scientists study all this activity to improve their understanding of the forces shaping the dynamic Martian surface. Here’s some of what they track.
    Frost Avalanches
    In 2015, MRO’s High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera captured a 66-foot-wide (20-meter-wide) chunk of carbon dioxide frost in freefall. Chance observations like this are reminders of just how different Mars is from Earth, Diniega said, especially in springtime, when these surface changes are most noticeable.

    “We’re lucky we’ve had a spacecraft like MRO observing Mars for as long as it has,” Diniega said. “Watching for almost 20 years has let us catch dramatic moments like these avalanches.”
    Gas Geysers
    Diniega has relied on HiRISE to study another quirk of Martian springtime: gas geysers that blast out of the surface, throwing out dark fans of sand and dust. These explosive jets form due to energetic sublimation of carbon dioxide ice. As sunlight shines through the ice, its bottom layers turn to gas, building pressure until it bursts into the air, creating those dark fans of material.

    But to see the best examples of the newest fans, researchers will have to wait until December 2025, when spring starts in the southern hemisphere. There, the fans are bigger and more clearly defined.
    Spiders
    Another difference between ice-related action in the two hemispheres: Once all the ice around some northern geysers has sublimated in summer, what’s left behind in the dirt are scour marks that, from space, look like giant spider legs. Researchers recently re-created this process in a JPL lab.

    Powerful Winds
    For Isaac Smith of Toronto’s York University, one of the most fascinating subjects in springtime is the Texas-size ice cap at Mars’ north pole. Etched into the icy dome are swirling troughs, revealing traces of the red surface below. The effect is like a swirl of milk in a café latte.
    “These things are enormous,” Smith said, noting that some are a long as California. “You can find similar troughs in Antarctica but nothing at this scale.”

    Fast, warm wind has carved the spiral shapes over eons, and the troughs act as channels for springtime wind gusts that become more powerful as ice at the north pole starts to thaw. Just like the Santa Ana winds in Southern California or the Chinook winds in the Rocky Mountains, these gusts pick up speed and temperature as they ride down the troughs — what’s called an adiabatic process.
    Wandering Dunes
    The winds that carve the north pole’s troughs also reshape Mars’ sand dunes, causing sand to pile up on one side while removing sand from the other side. Over time, the process causes dunes to migrate, just as it does with dunes on Earth.
    This past September, Smith coauthored a paper detailing how carbon dioxide frost settles on top of polar sand dunes during winter, freezing them in place. When the frost all thaws away in the spring, the dunes begin migrating again.

    Each northern spring is a little different, with variations leading to ice sublimating faster or slower, controlling the pace of all these phenomena on the surface. And these strange phenomena are just part of the seasonal changes on Mars: the southern hemisphere has its own unique activity.
    More About MRO
    The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colorado. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
    For more information, visit:
    https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-reconnaissance-orbiter
    News Media Contacts
    Andrew GoodJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.818-393-2433andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov
    Karen Fox / Molly WasserNASA Headquarters, Washington202-358-1600karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
    2024-177

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  • MIL-OSI USA: NASA Runs X-59 Engine with Maximum Afterburner for First Time

    Source: NASA

    NASA completed the first maximum afterburner engine run test on its X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft on Dec. 12. The ground test, conducted at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California, marks a significant milestone as the X-59 team progresses toward flight.
    An afterburner is a component of some jet engines that generates additional thrust. Running the engine, an F414-GE-100, with afterburner will allow the X-59 to meet its supersonic speed requirements. The test demonstrated the engine’s ability to operate within temperature limits and with adequate airflow for flight. It also showed the engine’s ability to operate in sync with the aircraft’s other subsystems.
    The X-59 is the centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission, which seeks to solve one of the major barriers to supersonic flight over land by making sonic booms quieter. The X-59’s first flight is expected to occur in 2025.

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  • MIL-OSI USA: 25 Years Ago: STS-103, The Hubble Servicing Mission-3A

    Source: NASA

     “Trying to do stellar observations from Earth is like trying to do birdwatching from the bottom of a lake.” James B. Odom, Hubble Program Manager 1983-1990.
    The third servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, placed in orbit in 1990, occurred during the STS-103 mission in December 1999. During the mission, originally planned for June 2000 but accelerated by six months following unexpected failures of the telescope’s attitude control gyroscopes, the astronauts restored the facility to full functionality. During their eight-day mission that featured the first space shuttle crew to spend Christmas in space, the seven-member U.S. and European crew rendezvoused with and captured Hubble, and four astronauts in rotating teams of two conducted three lengthy and complex spacewalks to service and upgrade the telescope. They redeployed the telescope with greater capabilities than ever before to continue its mission to help scientists unlock the secrets of the universe.

    The discovery after the Hubble Space Telescope’s launch in 1990 that its primary mirror suffered from a flaw called spherical aberration disappointed scientists who could not obtain the sharp images they had expected. But thanks to the Hubble’s built-in feature of on-orbit servicing, NASA devised a plan to correct the telescope’s optics during the first planned repair mission in 1993. A second servicing mission in 1997 upgraded the telescope’s capabilities until the next mission planned for three years later. But after three of the telescope’s six gyroscopes failed in 1997, 1998, and 1999, mission rules dictated a call up mission in case additional gyroscope failures sent Hubble into a safe mode. NASA elected to move up some of the servicing tasks from the third mission, splitting it into missions 3A and 3B, planning to fly 3A in October 1999 on Discovery’s STS-103 mission primarily to replace the failed gyroscopes. Delays to the shuttle fleet resulting from anomalies during the launch of STS-93 in July 1993 slipped STS-103 first into November and ultimately into December. Technical issues with Discovery itself pushed the launch date to mid-December, and raised concerns about having a shuttle in orbit during the Y2K transition. Once the launch had slipped to Dec. 19, mission planners cut the mission from 10 to eight days, deleting one of the four spacewalks, to ensure a return before the end of the calendar year. The servicing mission couldn’t come soon enough, as a fourth gyroscope failed aboard Hubble in mid-November, with Discovery already poised on the launch pad to prepare for STS-103. Controllers placed Hubble in a safe mode until the astronauts arrived.

    To execute the third Hubble Servicing Mission, in July 1998 NASA selected an experienced four-person team to carry out a record-breaking six spacewalks on the flight then planned for June 2000. The spacewalkers included Mission Specialists Steven L. Smith serving as payload commander, John M. Grunsfeld, C. Michael Foale, and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Claude Nicollier from Switzerland. The addition in March 1999 of Commander Curtis L. Brown, Pilot Scott J. Kelly, and Mission Specialist ESA astronaut Jean-François A. Clervoy of France rounded out the highly experienced crew with 18 previous spaceflights among them. Brown earned the distinction as only the fifth person to fly in space six times. For Kelly, STS-103 marked his first spaceflight. Smith, Clervoy, and Grunsfeld each had flown two previous missions, Foale four including a long-duration mission aboard Mir, and Nicollier three. Smith participated in three spacewalks during the second Hubble Servicing Mission and Nicollier served as the Remote Manipulator System (RMS) or robotic arm operator during the first.

    Discovery arrived back to KSC at the end of the STS-96 mission on June 6, 1999, and workers towed it to the Orbiter Processing Facility the same day to begin readying it for STS-103. The vehicle rolled over to the Vehicle Assembly Building on Nov. 4, where workers mated it with its external tank and twin solid rocket boosters, before rolling the stack out to Launch Pad 39B on Nov. 13.

    Beginning its 27th trip into space, Discovery lifted off from Launch Pad 39B at 7:50 p.m. EST on Dec. 19 to fix the ailing space telescope. Two days later, Brown and Kelly maneuvered Discovery to within range of Hubble so Clervoy operating the 50-foot-long RMS could grapple the telescope and berth it into the payload bay.

    Smith and Grunsfeld conducted the mission’s first spacewalk on Dec. 22, the flight’s fourth day in space. The duo, aided by Clervoy operating the RMS from inside Discovery, completed two of mission’s highest priority objectives. They replaced the failed gyroscopes, installing three new Rate Sensor Units, each containing two gyroscopes, to return control to the ailing telescope. They also installed six Voltage/Temperature Improvement Kits to prevent the telescope’s batteries from overheating as they aged. The excursion lasted eight hours 15 minutes, at the time the second longest spacewalk.

    The next day, Nicollier and Foale conducted the mission’s second spacewalk. The main task for this excursion involved installing a new computer aboard Hubble, replacing the original 1970s vintage unit. The new radiation-hardened system ran 20 times faster and carried six times more memory while using one-third the electrical power. They also installed a fine guidance sensor before concluding the eight-hour 10-minute spacewalk.

    Smith and Grunsfeld ventured outside for a second time to complete the flight’s third and final spacewalk on Dec. 24, the first spacewalk conducted on Christmas Eve day. First, they replaced an old reel-to-reel tape recorder with a solid state unit providing a 10-fold increase in recording capability and replaced a failed data transmitter. They installed seven new covers on Hubble’s electronics bay doors for added protection of the telescope’s insulation. This third spacewalk lasted eight hours eight minutes.

    The next day, the STS-103 astronauts earned the distinction as the first space shuttle crew to spend Christmas Day in space. Clervoy grappled Hubble, lifted it out of the payload bay and released it to continue its mission. Hubble Space Telescope Program Manager John H. Campbell said after the release, “The spacecraft is being guided by its new gyros under the control of its brand new computer. [It] is now orbiting freely and is in fantastic shape.” After deploying Hubble, the astronauts enjoyed a well-deserved Christmas dinner, with Clervoy providing French delicacies. The crew spent Dec. 26 readying Discovery for its return to Earth, including testing its reaction control system thrusters and aerodynamic surfaces and stowing unneeded gear.

    On Dec. 27, the astronauts donned their launch and entry suits and prepared for the return to Earth. They closed the payload bay doors and fired Discovery’s engines to bring them out of orbit. Just before landing, Kelly lowered the craft’s landing gear and Brown guided Discovery to a smooth night landing at KSC, concluding a flight of seven days, 23 hours, 11 minutes. They circled the Earth 119 times. The flight marked Discovery’s last solo flight as all its subsequent missions docked with the International Space Station. Workers at KSC began readying it for its next mission, STS-92 in October 2000.
    The Hubble Space Telescope continues to operate today, far exceeding the five-year life extension expected from the last of the servicing missions in 2009. Joined in space by the James Webb Space Telescope in 2021, the two instruments together continue to image the skies across a broad range of the electromagnetic spectrum to provide scientists with the tools to gain unprecedented insights into the universe and its formation.
    Watch the STS-103 crew narrate a video of their Hubble servicing mission.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: NASA, Notre Dame Connect Students to Inspire STEM Careers

    Source: NASA

    High school students in Indiana are contributing to NASA’s groundbreaking research to develop quieter, more fuel-efficient aircraft engines.
    Their learning experience is a collaboration between aircraft noise researchers from NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and educators from the University of Notre Dame’s Turbomachinery Laboratory. The collaboration aims to encourage students’ interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers.
    Recently, Notre Dame hosted students from The Portage School of Leaders High School and a team from NASA Glenn to see the Advanced Noise Control Fan operate in an outdoor setting. The fan is a NASA-owned test rig that has been configured to enable the study of a quieter aircraft engine technology. Known as the open rotor fan concept, the configuration involves an engine fan without a cover. Ground microphones were used during the test operated by Notre Dame to evaluate the radiated sound as the open rotor fan spun at various speeds.

    Students from the high school, which is part of the Career Academy Network of Public Schools, used 3D printers from the school’s facilities to fabricate parts for the open rotor test fan. The parts, known as stator blades, help direct and control airflow, ensuring smooth operation of the large, exposed fan blades that are the defining feature of an open fan engine design.
    “It was beyond words,” said Rebecca Anderson, a junior from the high school. “The part I enjoyed most was when they got the fan running. It was really impressive to see how quiet it was. I feel like everyone involved in STEM would love to work for NASA, including me.”
    NASA researcher Dr. Daniel Sutliff was part of the team from NASA Glenn to spend time mentoring the students.
    “This is real-world, hands-on research for them,” Sutliff said. “If airlines are able to use technologies to make flight quieter and cleaner, passengers will have more enjoyable flights.”
    The Advanced Noise Control Fan is on loan to Notre Dame from NASA through a Space Act Agreement. The fan research is supported by NASA’s Advanced Air Transport Technology project and its Efficient Quiet Integrated Propulsors technical challenge.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: NASA Science Payload to Study Sticky Lunar Dust Challenge

    Source: NASA

    The Moon may look like barren rock, but it’s actually covered in a layer of gravel, pebbles, and dust collectively known as “lunar regolith.” During the Apollo Moon missions, astronauts learned firsthand that the fine, powdery dust – electromagnetically charged due to constant bombardment by solar and cosmic particles – is extremely abrasive and clings to everything: gloves, boots, vehicles, and mechanical equipment. What challenges does that dust pose to future Artemis-era missions to establish long-term outposts on the lunar surface?
    That’s the task of an innovative science instrument called RAC-1 (Regolith Adherence Characterization), one of 10 NASA payloads flying aboard the next delivery for the agency’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and set to be carried to the surface by Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost 1 lunar lander.
    Developed by Aegis Aerospace of Webster, Texas, RAC will expose 15 sample materials – fabrics, paint coatings, optical systems, sensors, solar cells, and more – to the lunar environment to determine how tenaciously the lunar dust sticks to each one. The instrument will measure accumulation rates during landing and subsequent routine lander operations, aiding identification of those materials which best repel or shed dust. The data will help NASA and its industry partners more effectively test, upgrade, and protect spacecraft, spacesuits, habitats, and equipment in preparation for continued exploration of the Moon under the Artemis campaign.
    “Lunar regolith is a sticky challenge for long-duration expeditions to the surface,” said Dennis Harris, who manages the RAC payload for NASA’s CLPS initiative at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “Dust gets into gears, sticks to spacesuits, and can block optical properties. RAC will help determine the best materials and fabrics with which to build, delivering more robust, durable hardware, products, and equipment.”

    [embedded content]

    Under the CLPS model, NASA is investing in commercial delivery services to the Moon to enable industry growth and support long-term lunar exploration. As a primary customer for CLPS deliveries, NASA aims to be one of many customers on future flights. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the development of seven of the 10 CLPS payloads carried on Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander.
    Learn more about. CLPS and Artemis at:
    https://www.nasa.gov/clps
    Alise FisherHeadquarters, Washington202-358-2546Alise.m.fisher@nasa.gov
    Headquarters, Washington
    202-358-2546
    Alise.m.fisher@nasa.gov
    Corinne Beckinger Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. 256-544-0034  corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov 

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: NASA Flight Rerouting Tool Curbs Delays, Emissions

    Source: NASA

    It’s the holiday season — which means many are taking to the skies to join their loved ones.
    If you’ve ever used an app to navigate on a road trip, you’ve probably noticed how it finds you the most efficient route to your destination, even before you depart. To that end, NASA has been working to make flight departures out of major international airports more efficient — thereby saving fuel and reducing delays — in close collaboration with the aviation industry and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). 
    The savings are possible thanks to a NASA-developed tool called Collaborative Digital Departure Rerouting. 
    This tool determines where potential time savings could be gained by slightly altering a departure route, based on existing data about delays. The software presents its proposed more-efficient route in real time to an airline, who can then decide whether or not to use it and coordinate with air traffic control through a streamlined digital process. 
    The capability is being tested thoroughly at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and Love Field Airport in Texas in collaboration with several major air carriers, including American Airlines, Delta, JetBlue, Southwest, and United. 
    Now, these capabilities are expanding out of the Dallas area to other major airports in Houston for further research. 
    “We’re enabling the use of digital services to greatly improve aviation efficiency,” said Shivanjli Sharma, manager of NASA’s Air Traffic Management — eXploration project which oversees the research on aviation services. “Streamlining airline operations, reducing emissions, and saving time are all part of making an efficient next-generation airspace system.” 

    The animation above shows the savings Collaborative Digital Departure Rerouting is responsible for at just a single airport. As the tool is expanded to be used at other airports, the savings begin to add up even more. 
    It’s all part of NASA’s vision for transforming the skies above our communities to be more sustainable, efficient, safer, and quieter. 
    Collaborative Digital Departure Rerouting is one of a series of new cloud-based digital air traffic management tools NASA and industry plan to develop and demonstrate as part of the agency’s Sustainable Flight National Partnership. These new flight management capabilities will contribute to the partnership’s goal of accelerating progress towards aviation achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. 

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