Pehuensat-1

Nowadays, it is possible to achieve low cost and short production times space missions using satellites with a mass below 10 kg. These small satellites are described as nanosatellites. Current microelectronic technology makes it possible to develop nanosatellites for scientific experiments and relatively complex measurements (as well as for other applications), making it easy for universities and small research groups to have access to space science exploration and to exploit the new economic possibilities that emerge. This paper describes an experiment developed in Argentina at the Universidad Nacional del Comahue to design, construct and flight test a nanosatellite called Pehuensat-1. Finally is presented to Pehuensat-2 as future commercial nano-satellite.

Applications of Virtual Reality Technologies in Architecture and in Engineering

Virtual reality (VR) is a technology which permits to create virtual objects and 3D virtual worlds which are hosted on the computer’s memories. It is indispensable in critical simulation, for instance in military training, in surgical operation simulation, in creation of environments which could set off phobias (in psychiatry), or in realization of virtual prototypes, for instance in industrial design. The aim of this paper is to present how VR technologies also find excellent application fields in architecture and in engineering. For instance, in the teaching of the basic concepts, in techniques of graphic rebuilding for the building restoration, in realization of virtual visits inside buildings, and in urban generative processes simulated by computer. Another use of the virtual reality is in the introduction of a new kind of architecture: Virtual Architecture, strongly connected to the Information and Communication Technology (ITC) and to the Internet, and in the virtual prototyping which connects engineering and architecture.

Airport Enterprise Service Bus with Three Levels Self-Healing Architecture (AESB-3LSH)

This paper introduces the different aviation and airport information technology systems. Also, this paper provides Airport Enterprise Service Bus with Three Levels Self-Healing Architecture based on the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) that improves the information accessibility and sharing across the different Airport’s departments, integrate the existing legacy systems with other applications, and improve and maximize the system’s reliability, adaptability, robustness and availability using the Self-Healing Agent, Virtual Web Service Self-Healing Connector and Extended Execution Engine with Process Execution Self-Healing Manager to guarantee the Quality of Service (QoS) or Service provided and business process execution.

Challenges in Climate Change and Environmental Crisis

Climate change challenges need to be considered in various dimensions. Aviation industry has multiple impacts on human lives such as impacts on the urban and natural environments. Various dimensions of the issue and its importance have been reported by the IPCC, following a request from the ICAO and the Parties to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer in 1999. In this paper different related topics have been investigated. Aviation: Development and Improvement, Climate changes as main environmental crisis, causative source of pollutions: Air pollution (GHGs, aerosol, smoke and particulate, dust), water pollution, biodiversity, hazardous materials, and aeronautical noise. Link between aviation impacts and environmental crisis have been discussed. Different perspectives of the aviation challenge briefly are presented: I- Human dimension, II- Urban environment (local, regional, and global), III- Natural environments (terrestrial, aquatic, and atmospheric) and IV- Birds killed by intervention. In concluding remarks two aspects of the issue, A) benefits, and B) impacts have been considered, and in the end some recommendations have been made on Emissions Trading, Environmental Performance, and Technological Developments.

Investigating Public Acceptance on Public Oriented Human Space Commercialization

Based on people’s enthusiasm and economical reasons, space commercialization will get more momentum in the future, and eventually reach a full commercialization status, a public-oriented human space commercialization (POHSC) where the public freely participate and purchase space products and services. In this study, the authors conduct a survey-based research model to investigate public perception on POHSC in the human space exploration (HSE) context. The authors want to identify what factors influence public acceptance and adoption of POHSC, and to evaluate public willingness to pay for future services provided by POHSC. For these objectives, the authors develop the concept of ‘eMerge’, a conceptualized mobile device-based application tool with which the public access and pay for their services. The authors also propose the Technology Acceptance Model with ‘eMerge’ specific (TAMe). The results show that public perceptions are strongly affected by perceived availability, perceived usefulness, and perceived enjoyment to use ‘eMerge’. The Perceived availability and perceived enjoyment have significant effect on public motivation to use ‘eMerge’ by forming a positive attitude toward intention to use it. It also shows that the public have very high expectations and enthusiasm on POHSC in terms of their estimated spending on ‘eMerge’. These results can be used as base knowledge in POHSC for future R&D and commercialized technology development.

Mechanisms of Innovation in the Space and Defense Sector

Despite a rich legacy of space sector technological achievements, agencies are increasingly being criticized for their inability to deliver on their innovative promises. Although the phenomenon of innovation has received substantial attention across multiple disciplines, it has largely focused on relatively simple products in nearly competitive markets, making its applicability to the space system context suspect. This paper reviews the economic, political science/strategic, business and operational literatures most relevant to complex product innovation in government markets. It categorizes their insights in terms of the sources of innovation as – external political-level leadership, internal bureaucratic politics, structure of the system, new technologies and user innovations – to illustrate the overlap and gaps among the disciplinary insights. It argues that past studies have over emphasized innovations that were generated by idiosyncratic events and have not adequately addressed the architectural dimension of complex product innovation. If useful prescriptions are to be developed, the process of normal complex product innovation in monopsony markets must be examined as a whole. To this end, the paper suggests several priorities for future work.

The BABEL Tower

The idea of reaching the heavens has captivated humans throughout the ages. Rockets have proved extremely inefficient in overcoming this challenge and constructing a “Centrifugally Extended Carbon Nano-Tube Tether Space Elevator” (CECNTTSE) presents unsolved technological challenges. The authors conclude that to efficiently achieve the goal of unrestricted movement away from Earth’s gravitational pull; both the current state of the art and the proposed method for a Space Elevator should be reinvented. Therefore, the authors propose the “Buoyant Advanced Building Elevator Lightweight” (BABEL) Tower, a new concept of “a floating tower” capable of reaching up to the Karman Line and beyond. While providing the structural support to a sub-orbital elevator and offering a better launching platform for space vehicles, with built-in rocket engines, directed specifically to LEO but also beyond. Using a (hybrid) LTA and electromagnetically driven elevator car, this super-tall tower could lift tremendous amounts of cargo (and passengers) while avoiding problems associated with space elevators, and could be more feasible in a shorter time. This concept combines characteristics of the Skylon Tower (of London) and the Burj Khalifa (of Dubai) into a flared tensegrity structure with buoyant platforms, “linked” every 2.5 km and tethered to the ground. This anchor-mooring system will support a beam-stalk like buoyant shaft. The estimated aspect ratio (2.5:100) for each wing of its “Y-shaped footprint” will be 2500 meters wide at sea level. The platforms and the shaft “must be built” following a modular principle. Its buoyancy will be generated using a perfect vacuum inside its cells, thus becoming; lighter than air, free from the scarce availability of helium, and safe from hydrogen’s reactiveness. Because its foundations would have to resist the up-thrusting forces that the buoyant structure will produce (instead of the compressive forces caused by weight), the engineering of this buoyant tower is structurally comparable to a maritime spar platform for deep-water oil-extraction. This concept will have a high potential efficiency in reducing the cost per kilogram to be in transit to orbital insertion. In providing an infrastructure of planetary scale, this tower could provide the requisite platforms for other uses such as astronomical observation, clean solar energy distribution (by laser beaming), space tourism, telecommunications, research laboratories, aerosols dispersion, carbon and methane sequestration, airship hub terminals, etc.

BOREAS Space and the Prospects for Private Spaceflight in Bulgaria

BOREAS Space is a private aerospace organisation based in Sofia, Bulgaria. It was formed around the Sofia-based core of participants in the Bulgarian Orbital REsearch And Satellites (BOREAS) initiative, which included students in Bulgaria, Canada and the United Arab Emirates. Since then, the team has launched its own private space effort, based around affordable new technologies like CubeSats. BOREAS Space aims to revitalise the domestic space technology sector with a series of pico- and nanosatellites and to promote space research as the cornerstone of a highly integrated knowledge economy.

Collaborative and Educational Crowdsourcing of Spaceflight Software using SPHERES Zero Robotics

Crowdsourcing is being researched as a problem-solving technique by issuing open calls for solutions to large crowds of people with the incentive of prizes. This paper tackles the dual objectives of building cluster flight software and educating students using collaborative competition, both in virtual simulation environments and on real hardware in space. The concept is demonstrated using the SPHERES Zero Robotics Program, a robotics programming competition where the robots are nano-satellites called SPHERES onboard the International Space Station (ISS), traditionally used as a Guidance, Navigation and Control testbed in microgravity. Zero Robotics allows students to program SPHERES to play a game through a web-based interface and the most robust projects are evaluated on the ISS hardware, supervised by astronauts. The apparatus to investigate the influence of collaboration was developed by (1) building new web infrastructure where intensive inter-participant collaboration is possible, (2) designing a game that incentivizes collaboration with opponents, to solve a relevant formation flight problem and (3) structuring a tournament such that inter-team collaboration is mandated. The web infrastructure was also built using collaborative competitions, to demonstrate feasibility of building space software end-to-end by crowdsourcing.