George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was published 70 years ago, on 8 June 1949. Together with his political allegory Animal Farm published in 1945, Nineteen Eighty-Four brought Orwell worldwide fame. As I hope you know, Nineteen Eighty-Four describes a dystopian future occurring in 1984 (now 35 years in our past) in which a totalitarian government imposes repressive regimentation on all persons and behaviors through prescriptive laws, propaganda, manipulation of history, and omnipresent surveillance. Fortunately for us, the real year 1984 fared much better. However, Orwell’s vision of the future, as expressed in this novel, still may be a timely and cautionary tale of a future yet to come.
First edition cover. Source: Wikipedia
George Orwell. Source: BBC
You’ll find an interesting collection of quotations attributed to George Orwell on the AZ Quotes website here:
You can read Nineteen Eighty-Four chapter-by-chapter online on The Complete Works of George Orwell website at the following link, which also contains other Orwell novels.
Here, it’s easy to search the whole novel for key words and phrases, like “Though Police,” “Big Brother,” “Ministry of Truth,” “thoughtcrime,” “crimethink,” and “face crime,” and see how they are used in context.
Orwell was right about the concept that an entire population can be kept under constant surveillance. However, he probably didn’t appreciate the commercial value of such surveillance and that people voluntarily would surrender so much information into an insecure (online) environment, thereby making it easy for agents to legally or illicitly collect and process the information they want. Today, it’s hard to know if Big Brother is the government or anonymous aggregations of commercial firms seeking to derive value from your data and influence your behavior.
With the increasing polarization in our society today, it seems to me that we are entering more precarious times, where our own poorly defined terms, such as “politically correct” and “hate speech,” are becoming tools to stifle alternative views and legitimate dissent.
I remember in the late 1970s when I first read the words “politically correct” in Jim Holman’s local San Diego newspaper, Reader. My first reaction to this poorly defined term was that it will lead to no good. Since then, use of “politically correct” has grown dramatically, as shown in the following Google Ngram. While I agree that political correctness has its place in a polite society, the muddled jargon of political correctness easily can becomes a means to obfuscate a subject under discussion.
Ngram 1800 – 2008. Source: Google
In the past two decades, use of the term “hate speech” has become commonplace, as shown in the following Google Ngram. While laws have been written to define and combat actual “hate speech,” this term is easily misused to stifle dissent, even legitimate dissent, by forcefully mischaracterizing one side of a discussion that never was intended to be hateful. Our ability to hold opposing views without being mischaracterized as a “hater” is being eroded in our increasingly polarized society, where self-appointed (and often anonymous) Thought Police are using social media (What an oxymoron!) to punish the perceived offenders. Such “policing” is not centralized, as in Orwell’s novel, but its effects can be very damaging to its victims.
Ngram 1800 – 2008. Source: Google
Of course, the word “dissent” has been in common usage for a very long time and is a fundamental right of American citizens.
Ngram 1800 – 2008. Source: Google
Seventy years after first being published, Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four still stands as a relevant cautionary tale for our own future. I encourage you to read it again, keep an open mind, and piss off the self-declared Thought Police from time to time.
Higgins landing craft are the ubiquitous, flat-bottomed, shallow-draft, barge-like boats used widely throughout WW II to deliver troops, vehicles and supplies from offshore ship to the beach during opposed (the enemy was shooting back) amphibious landings. Designed by Andrew Jackson Higgins, these boats were built in large quantities at the Higgins Industries shipyard in New Orleans, LA, using a diverse labor force.
The Higgins Memorial Project provides a biography of A. J. Higgins at the following link:
The biographer notes: “In 1964, Dwight D. Eisenhower called Andrew Jackson Higgins ‘the man who won the war for us’. Without Higgins’ famous landing crafts (LCPs, LCPLs, LCVPs, LCMs), the strategy of World War II would have been much different and winning the war much more difficult.”
Andrew Jackson Higgins Source: Higgins Memorial Project
Higgins designed more than 60 types of landing craft, all built largely of mahogany plywood (same as the Higgins and other WW II PT boats), with a strong, internal wooden frame structure, and limited use of steel. By the end of WW II, Higgins Industries has built more than 20,000 boats; 12,500 of them were LCVPs.
The first Higgins boats be used were the LCPs (Landing Craft, Personnel) and LCP(L)s (Landing Craft, Personnel, Large), which did not have a bow loading ramp. Men had to jump over the gunwales after the boat landed on the beach.
Higgins LCP(L). Source: Wikipedia
Higgins LCVPs (Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel) were the primary way that soldiers, sailors, Marines and supplies got to the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. The LCVPs has a steel bow loading ramp and steel armor plate added on the exterior of the hull. They could ferry a platoon-sized complement of 36 soldiers with their equipment to shore at 9 knots (17 kph). LCMs (Landing Craft, Mechanized) carried larger vehicles, including tanks, to shore.
At the following link, you can read a 3 June 2019 article by David Kindy, “The Invention That Won World War II – Patented in 1944, the Higgins boat gave the Allies the advantage in amphibious assaults.”
That article notes one of the few surviving LCVPs is now on display outside of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office headquarters and National Inventors Hall of Fame Museum in Alexandria, Virginia.
The men who rode into combat during WW II in these little vessels were very brave men. We owe them a debt of gratitude for their costly success in storming the beaches of Normandy 75 years ago and turning the tide of WW II.
In an effort to improve the generating and economic performance of wind turbines, manufacturers have been designing and building increasingly larger machines. Practical limits on transporting these very long and heavy components between the factories and the installation sites may limit the scale of the wind turbines selected for some applications and may require novel solutions that affect component design, factory siting and choice of transportation mode. In this post, we’ll take a look at these issues.
1. The latest generation of wind turbines
1.1 GE Cypress platform
On 13 March 2019, General Electric (GE) Renewable Energy announced that its largest onshore wind turbine prototype, named Cypress, started commercial operation in the Netherlands. Unlike other large wind turbines, the prototype Cypress composite turbine blades come in two pieces and are assembled on site. Cypress was announced in September 2017 and construction of the prototype began in 2018.
The 5.3 MW Cypress prototype wind turbine. Source: GE
The Cypress 5.3-158 prototype has a nominal generating capacity of 5.3 MW. A smaller Cypress 4.8-158 (with a 4.8 MW rating) is currently under production at GE’s Salzbergen, Germany factory, and it is expected to be commissioned by the end of the 2019. Both have a rotor diameter of 158 meters (518.3 ft).
Anatomy of a GE Cypress wind turbine. Source: GE
GE reports that the Cypress platform is “powered by a revolutionary two-piece blade design that makes it possible to use larger rotors and site the turbines in a wider variety of locations. The Annual Electricity Production (AEP) improvements from the longer rotors help to drive down Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE), and the proprietary blade design allows these larger turbines to be installed in locations that were previously inaccessible.” Site accessibility can be limited by the practicality of ground transportation of single-piece blades that can be nearly 91.4 meters (300 feet) long.
1.2 GE LM 88.4 P, the longest one-piece rotor blade in the world
LM Wind Power, a GE Renewable Energy business, has delivered the longest one-piece wind turbine blades built to date, the LM 88.4 P, which measure 88.4 meters (290 ft) long. Three of these giant blades are installed onshore in Denmark on an Adwen’s AD 8-180 wind turbine, which has an 8 MW nominal generating capacity and a 180 meter (590.5 ft) rotor diameter. You can get a sense of the size of an LM 88.4 P in the following photo showing a rotor blade leaving the factory.
88.4 meter (290 ft) LM 88.4 P wind turbine rotor blade leaving the factory. Source: LM Wind Power
1.3 GE Haliade-X platform
GE is developing an even larger wind turbine platform, the Haliade X, which will become the world’s largest wind turbine when it is completed. This 12 MW platform, which is being developed primarily for offshore wind farms, features 107 meter (351 ft) long one-piece blades and a 220 meter (722 ft) rotor diameter. The first prototype unit will be installed onshore near Rotterdam, Netherlands, where it will stand 259 meters (850 ft) tall, from the base of the tower to the top of the blade sweep.
Anatomy of a GE 12 MW Haliade-X wind turbine. Source: GE
Construction of the prototype Haliade-X wind turbine began in 2019. The first blade is shown in the photo below. After securing a “type certificate” for the Haliade-X platform, GE plans to start selling this wind turbine commercially as early as 2021. The near-term market focus appears to be new wind turbines sited in the North Sea.
The first 107 meter (351 ft) Haliade-X blade at the factory in Cherbourg, France. Source GE Renewable Energy
1.4 Siemens Gamesa SG 10.0-193 DD platform
In January 2019, Siemens Gamesa launched its next generation (Generation V) of very large offshore wind turbines, the SG 10.0-193 DD, which has a nominal generator rating of 10 MW, blade length of 94 meters (308 ft) and a rotor diameter of 193 meters (633 ft). The nacelle housing the wind turbine hub and generator weighs up to 400 tons.
The 10 MW Siemens SG 10.0-193 DD. Source: Siemens Gamesa
1.5 Vestas EnVestusTM platform
The EnVestusTM platform, which was introduced in 2019, is Vestas’ next generation in its evolution of wind turbines. The V162-5.6 MW has a rotor diameter of 162 meters (531 ft), which is the largest rotor size offered in the current EnVestusTM product portfolio. Various tower sizes are offered, with hub heights up to 166 meters (545 ft). With this tallest tower, the blade sweep of a V162-5.6 MW wind turbine reaches a height of 247 meters (810 ft).
V162-5.6 MW nacelle. Source: Vestas
The trend in Vestas wind turbine maximum rotor size is evident in the following diagram. In comparison, the largest GE wind turbine, the Haliade-X will have a rotor diameter of 220 meter (722 ft), and the largest Siemens Generation V wind turbine will have a rotor diameter of 193 meters (633 ft).
2. Transporting very large wind turbine components
The manufacturer’s efforts to improve wind turbine generating and economic performance has resulted in increasingly larger machine components, which are challenging the limits of today’s transportation infrastructure as the components are moved from the manufacturer’s factories to the installation sites. Here, we’ll look at the various ways these large components are transported.
2.1 Transportation of wind turbine components by land
Popular Mechanics reported that, “Moving long turbine blades is such a logistical nightmare that the companies involved sometimes resort to building new roads for the sole purpose of moving blades.” Transporting wind turbine tower and nacelle components can be equally challenging. You’ll find an interesting assessment by CGS Labs of the challenges of wind farm ground transportation planning at the following link: https://www.cgs-labs.com/Software/Autopath/Articles/Windturbinetransport.aspx
As noted previously, the GE one-piece LM 88.4 P, which is 88.4 meters (290 ft) long, is the longest wind turbine rotor blade currently in service. You can watch a short video of a single LM 88.4 P blade being transported 218 km (135 miles) to the construction site at the following link. Total transport weight was 60 tons (120,000 lb, 54,431 kg). https://www.lmwindpower.com/en/products-and-services/blade-types/longest-blade-in-the-world
88.4 meter (290 ft) LM 88.4 P wind turbine blade during transport. Source: Screenshot from LM Wind Power video
Specialized trucks are employed to negotiate existing roads. Examples of difficult transportation situations are shown in the following photos.
Siemens 75 m (243 ft) rotor blade was transported 320 km (199 miles) by road. Source: utilities-me.com, 14 Aug 2012Making a sharp turn with a specialized truck for transporting a Vestas V117 57.5 meter (189 ft) wind turbine blade. Source: CNN.com, 5 October 2017
Specially-designed trucks move 52.4 meter (172 foot) long wind turbine blades on narrow roads on Baoding Mountain in China. Source: Business Insider, 2 Mar 2017
2.2. Transportation of wind turbine components by sea
The single-piece blades for the GE Haliade X wind turbine are so long that they couldn’t be transported by land from GE’s existing factories. Therefore, a new LM Wind Power blade factory for the offshore wind market was built in Cherbourg, France, on the banks of the English Channel in Normandy. This factory can load blades directly onto ships for delivery to offshore wind turbine sites.
GE wind turbine blades shipped by sea. Source: LM Wind Power
In December 2016, Siemens Gamesa reported, “When our new factories in Hull, England and Cuxhaven, Germany become fully operational, and both Ro-Ro (“roll-on, roll-off”) vessels are in service as interconnection of our manufacturing and installation network, we expect savings of 15-20 percent in logistics costs compared to current transport procedures. This is another important contributor reducing the cost of electricity from offshore wind.”
The Hull, UK rotor blade factory, located at the Alexandra Docks on the harbor, was completed in 2016. The Esbjerg, Denmark factory also is located on the harbor with direct access to shipping.
In 2018, Siemens Gamesa opened its modern factory in Cuxhaven, Germany for manufacturing offshore wind turbine nacelles. These three Siemens wind turbine factories have direct Ro-Ro access to shipping.In November 2016, Siemens commissioned its first specialized Ro-Ro transport vessel, the Rotra Vente. This ship is designed to transport multiple heavy nacelles, or up to nine tower sections, or three to four sets of rotor blades, depending on what else is being transported. A second specialized Ro-Ro transport vessel, the Rotra Mare, was commissioned in the spring of 2017 to transport tower sections and up to 12 rotor blades. These specialized transport vessels link the Siemens factories and transport the finished wind turbine components to the respective installation harbor.
The Rotra Vente provides Ro-Ro access for large Siemens wind turbine components. Source: Siemens
2.3. Transportation of wind turbine components by airship
For more than two decades, there has been significant interest in the use of modern lighter-than-air craft and hybrid airships in a variety of heavy-lift roles. One such role is the transportation of large wind turbine components. Airships offer the potential to transport the components quickly between factory and installation site without the constraints of current ground and sea transportation networks.
Three examples of airship concepts for transporting wind turbine components are described below.
Hybrid airships
In 2017, Lockheed-Martin proposed its LMH-1 hybrid airship to deliver large wind turbine components weighing up to 23.5 tons (47,000 lb; 21,000 kg). The LMH-1 will be capable of flying 1,400 nautical miles (2,593 km) at a speed of about 70 knots (80 mph, 129 kph). Lockheed-Martin is expected to fly the commercial prototype of its LMH-1 hybrid airship in 2019. You can read Lockheed-Martin’s proposal for airship transport of wind turbine components here: https://www.lockheedmartin.com/content/dam/lockheed-martin/eo/documents/webt/transporting-wind-turbine-blades.pdf
This type of airship conducts short takeoff and landing (STOL) operations when transporting heavy loads, but can operate from relatively unprepared sites. When off-loading heavy cargo, this airship must take on ballast at the landing site.
After LMH-1, Lockheed Martin has plans to build a medium-size (90 ton cargo) hybrid airship that would be more competitive with trucking and rail transport.
Anatomy of the LMH-1 hybrid airship. Source: Lockheed Martin
Variable buoyancy airships
In January 2013, Worldwide Aeros Corp. (Aeros), located in Montebello, CA, conducted the first “float test” of their Dragon Dream variable buoyancy airship. More recently, Aeros has reported that they are working on the first commercial prototype of a larger variable buoyancy airship to be known as the ML866 / Aeroscraft Gen 2, which will be 169 meters (555 ft) long. This airship is being designed with great range (3,100 nautical miles; 5,741 km) and a cruise speed of 100 – 120 knots. The ML866 will have a cargo capacity of 66 tons (132,000 lb; 59,874 kg). The first ML866 prototype is not expected to fly before the early 2020s.
This type of airship is designed to conduct vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) operations with a full cargo load, and can hover above a site and take on or deliver cargo without landing and without transferring ballast to/from the ground site.
Concept drawing of an Aeroscraft variable buoyancy airship delivering wind turbine blades to a site. Source: Worldwide Aeros Corp.
Semi-rigid airships
The KNARR initiative is a project created by two Danish design architects, Rune Kirt and Mads Thomsen to design a freight solution using modern airships to reduce the cost and energy consumption of today’s wind turbine freight business and make the logistics for wind turbine freight simpler and more efficient. Their main point is that transportation and installation costs can be up to 60% of the total cost of a new wind turbine, and these activities have a large carbon footprint. Their solution is a modern airship that is designed specifically for transporting very large and heavy wind turbine components directly from the manufacturer’s factory to the installation site. For their work, they were awarded both the Danish Design Center’s Special Prize and the International Core77 Design “Speculative Concept.”. You can read more about the firm, KIRT x THOMSEN aps, and the KNARR initiative here: https://www.kirt-thomsen.com/case10_airship-knarr
The KNARR semi-rigid airship would be 360 meters (1,181 ft) long and would carry the wind turbine components in a large internal cargo bay. This type of airship is designed to conduct VTOL operations with a full cargo load. When off-loading heavy cargo, this airship must take on ballast at the landing site.
The KNARR airship is a concept only. No prototype is being built at this time. You can view a short video defining the wind turbine transport application of KNARR airship here: https://vimeo.com/21023051
Concept drawing of a KNARR airships it lifts off after making a delivery. Source: https://www.kirt-thomsen.com/Concept drawing of a KNARR airship flying over a wind farm. Source: https://www.kirt-thomsen.com/
3. Conclusions
The scale of the latest generation of wind turbines, particularly the GE LM 88.4 P, which measure 88.4 meters (290 ft) long, is approaching the limits of existing ground transportation infrastructure to handle delivery of such blades from the factory to the installation site. GE’s introduction of two-piece blades on their new Cypress platform will significantly improve the logistics for delivering these large blades to installation sites.
Siemens’ practice of siting its wind turbine component factories with ready access to Ro-Ro shipping at an adjacent port facility greatly reduces the complexity of delivering large components to a port near an installation site. GE has adopted the same approach with their latest factory for manufacturing the Haliad-X rotor blades in Cherbourg, France, on the English Channel.
Airships could revolutionize the transportation of large, heavy items such as wind turbine components. However, the earliest likely candidate, the Lockheed Martin LMH-1 will not be available until the early 2020s and will be limited to a maximum load of 23.5 tons (47,000 lb; 21,000 kg). It seems unlikely that larger heavy-lift airships will be introduced before about 2025.
So, in the meantime, we’ll see the largest wind turbines being installed in offshore sites. For onshore sites, we’ll see more creative ground transportation schemes, and, probably, a broader introduction of multi-part rotor blades.
4. Recommended additional reading on wind turbines:
The best current supercomputers are “petascale” machines. This term refers to supercomputers capable of performing at least 1.0 petaflops [PFLOPS; 1015 floating-point operations per second (FLOPS)], and also refers to data storage systems capable of storing at least 1.0 petabyte (PB; 1015 bytes) of data.
In my 13 November 2018 post, I reported the latest TOP500 ranking of the world’s fastest supercomputers. The new leaders were two US supercomputers: Summit and Sierra. A year later, in November 2019, they remained at the top of the TOP500 ranking.
Summit: The #1 ranked IBM Summit is installed at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee. It has a LINPACK Benchmark Rmax (maximal achieved performance) rating of 148.6 PFLOPS (1.486 x 1017 FLOPS) and an Rpeak (theoretical peak performance) rating of 200.8 PFLOPS. Summit’s peak electric power demand is 10.01 MW (megawatts).
Sierra:The #2 ranked IBM Sierra is installed at the DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California. It has an Rmax rating of 94.64 PFLOPS (0.9464 x 1017 FLOPS) and an Rpeak rating of 125.7 PFLOPS. Sierra’s peak electric power demand is 7.44 MW.
The next update of the TOP500 ranking will be in June 2020. Check out their website here to see if the rankings change: http:// https://www.top500.org
New exascale machines are only a year or two away
The next big step up in supercomputing power will be the arrival of “exascale” machines, which refers to supercomputers capable of performing at least 1.0 exaflops (EFLOPS; 1018 FLOPS), and also refers to data storage systems capable of storing at least 1.0 exabyte (EB, 1018 bytes) of data. As you might suspect, there is intense international completion to be the first nation to operate an exascale supercomputer. The main players are the US, China and Japan.
In the US, DOE awarded contracts to build three new exascale supercomputers:
Aurora, announced in March 2019
Frontier, announced in May 2019
El Capitan, announced in March 2020
In this post, we’ll take a look at these three new supercomputers, each of which will be about ten times faster than the existing TOP500 leaders, Summit and Sierra.
Aurora supercomputer for ANL
The Aurora supercomputer is being built at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) by the team of Intel (prime contractor) and Cray (subcontractor), under a contract valued at more than $500 million.
Aurora supercomputer concept drawing. Source: DOE / Argonne National Laboratory
The computer architecture is based on the Cray “Shasta” system and Intel’s Xeon Scalable processor, Xe compute architecture, Optane Datacenter Persistent Memory, and One API software. Those Cray and Intel technologies will be integrated into more than 200 Shasta cabinets, all connected by Cray’s Slingshot interconnect and associated software stack.
Aurora is expected to come online by the end of 2021 and likely will be the first exascale supercomputer in the US. It is being designed for sustained performance of one exaflops. An Argonne spokesman stated, “This platform is designed to tackle the largest AI (artificial intelligence) training and inference problems that we know about.”
The Frontier supercomputer is being built by at ORNL by the team of Cray (prime contractor) and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD, subcontractor), under a contract valued at about $600 million.
Frontier supercomputer concept drawing. Source: DOE / Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The computer architecture is based on the Cray “Shasta” system and will consist of more than 100 Cray Shasta cabinets with high density “compute blades” that support a 4:1 GPU to CPU ratio using AMD EPYC processors (CPUs) and Radeon Instinct GPU accelerators purpose-built for the needs of exascale computing. Cray and AMD are co-designing and developing enhanced GPU programming tools.
Frontier is expected to come online in 2022 after Aurora, but is expected to be more powerful, with a rating of 1.5 exaflops. Frontier will find applications in deep learning, machine learning and data analytics for applications ranging from manufacturing to human health.
The El Capitan supercomputer, announced in March 2020, will be built at LLNL by the team of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and AMD under a $600 million contract. El Capitan is funded by the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) under their Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) program. The primary users will be the three NNSA laboratories: LLNL, Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory. El Capitan will be used to perform complex predictive modeling and simulation to support NNSA’s nuclear weapons life extension programs (LEPs), which address aging weapons management, stockpile modernization and other matters.
El Capitan supercomputer concept drawing. Source: Hewlett Packard Enterprise
El Capitan’s peak performance is expected to exceed 2 exaflops, making it about twice as fast as Aurora and about 30% faster than Frontier.
LLNL describes the El Capitan hardware as follows: “El Capitan will be powered by next-generation AMD EPYC processors, code-named ‘Genoa’ and featuring the ‘Zen 4’ processor core, next-generation AMD Radeon Instinct GPUs based on a new compute-optimized architecture for workloads including HPC and AI, and the AMD Radeon Open Compute platform (ROCm) heterogeneous computing software.”
Hewlett Packard Enterprise acquires Cray in May 2019
On 17 May 2019, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) announced that it has acquired Cray, Inc. for about $1.3 billion. The following charts from the November 2018 TOP500 report gives some interesting insight into HPE’s rationale for acquiring Cray. In the Vendor’s System Share chart, both HPE and Cray have a 9 – 9.6% share of the market based on the number of installed TOP500 systems. In the Vendor’s Performance Share chart, the aggregate installed performance of Cray systems far exceeds the aggregate performance of a similar number of lower-end HPE systems (25.5% vs. 7.3%). The Cray product line fits above the existing HPE product line, and the acquisition of Cray should enable HPE to compete directly with IBM in the supercomputer market. HPE reported that it sees a growing market for exascale computing. The primary US customers are government laboratories.
The March 2020 award of NNSA’s El Capitan supercomputer to the HPE and AMD team seems to indicate that HPE made a good decision in their 2019 acquisition of Cray.
TOP500 ranking of supercomputer vendors, Nov 2018 Source: https://www.top500.org
Meanwhile in China:
On 19 May 2019, the South China Morning Post reported that China is making a multi-billion dollar investment to re-take the lead in supercomputer power. In the near-term (possibly in 2019), the newest Shuguang supercomputers are expected to operate about 50% faster than the US Summit supercomputer. This should put the new Chinese super computers in the Rmax = 210 – 250 PFLOPS range.
In addition, China is expected to have its own exascale supercomputer operating in 2020, a year ahead of the first US exascale machine, with most, if not all, of the hardware and software being developed in China. This computer will be installed at the Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Beijing.
Why, zettascale, of course. These will be supercomputers performing at least 1.0 zettaflops (ZFLOPS; 1021 FLOPS), while consuming about 100 megawatts (MW) of electrical power.
The Phoenix Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is a small, autonomous airship designed to serve as a very long endurance, high-altitude “atmospheric satellite” that is capable of station keeping using an innovative variable buoyancy propulsion system. The UAV is intended for use in telecommunications and a range of other civil and military applications.
Phoenix development is being lead by a consortium of UK universities, businesses, and innovation centers, with a distribution of roles and responsibilities as shown in the following graphic.
Source: https://phoenixuas.co.uk
This project runs for three years. It is one of several projects supported the UK’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), through the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) and Innovate UK, to invest in “research and technology projects to deliver world leading aerospace technologies in the UK.”
The Phoenix UAV is a small, variable buoyancy airship measuring 15 meters (49 feet) long, with a wingspan of 10.5 meters (34 feet). The UAV’s teardrop-shaped fuselage is constructed from a Vectran fabric, with short wings and a cruciform tail made of carbon fiber composite material. Thin film solar panels on the wing and horizontal stabilizer surfaces generate electric power for the UAV’s systems and to charge an onboard battery that provides continuous power at night and during inclement weather.
The fuselage contains 120 cubic meters (4,238 cubic feet) of helium lifting gas (hydrogen is an alternative), a supply of lifting gas, and a separate inflatable 6 cubic meter (212 cubic feet) cell containing heavier air. I would expect that the Phoenix is ballasted for near neutral buoyancy so that the control span of the buoyancy control system can produce both positive and negative buoyancy.
To increase buoyancy, air in the inflatable cell is released to the atmosphere via a vent in the tail. If needed, lifting gas can be released to the gas envelope to gain positive buoyancy. As the lighter-than-air Phoenix gains altitude, the aerodynamic surfaces generate forward momentum, propelling the UAV forward during the unpowered climb.
At the top of the climb, buoyancy is decreased by pumping outside air into the inflatable cell, increasing the gross weight of the UAV. As the now heavier-than-air Phoenix enters an unpowered dive, the aerodynamic surfaces continue generating forward momentum to propel the UAV.
During an extended mission, the climb-dive cycle is repeated as often as needed to provide propulsion for controlling the position of the UAV.
First indoor flight. Source: https://phoenixuas.co.uk
On 21 March 2019, the Phoenix UAV made its first successful flight indoors, covering about 120 meters (394 feet) and becoming the world’s first large variable buoyancy powered autonomous UAV. Outdoor tests will be conducted after the UK Civil Aviation Authority certifies the UAV. As currently configured the developers expect that Phoenix can operate at altitudes up to about 914 meters (3,000 feet).
You can watch a short video of the first flight here:
But was it the first ever flight of an airship using variable buoyancy propulsion?
No, it wasn’t. First there was Aereon in the 1860s and then there was AHAB in the early 2000s.
2. Aereon
Back in the 1860s, Dr. Solomon Andrews invented the directionally maneuverable, hydrogen-filled airship named Aereonthat used variable buoyancy and airflow around the airship’s gas envelope to provide propulsion without an engine. The gas envelope on the original Aereon airship consisted of three side-by-side, cigar-shaped balloons, each with seven internal cells containing the hydrogen lifting gas. The balloons formed a gas envelope measuring 80 feet (24.4 meters) long and 13 feet (4 meters) wide.
Buoyancy of the airship was controlled by venting some hydrogen lift gas or dropping some sand ballast.
The angle-of-attack (pitch angle) of the gas envelope was controlled by moving the center of gravity of the gondola (i.e., by moving people in the gondola fore and aft as needed)
Propulsive force was generated by alternating between positive buoyancy (lighter-than-air) flight and negative buoyancy (heavier-than-air) flight, and by coordinating the pitch angle of the gas envelope.
During a buoyant ascent, the pitch angle was adjusted to as much as 15 degrees up. Air flow along the top surface of the envelope moved from bow to stern and drove the airship forward. The airship can continue to ascend until it reaches its “pressure altitude” where the decreasing atmospheric air density reduces airship buoyancy from positive to neutral.
During a semi-buoyant descent, the pitch angle was adjusted to as much as 15 degrees down. Air flow along the bottom surface of the envelope moved from bow to stern and continued to drive the airship forward.
Direction was controlled by a rudder at the stern of the airship
Source: Popular Science Monthly, January 1932
Andrews first flew Aereon over Perth Amboy, NJ on 1 June 1863 and flew at least three times more. With Aereon, he demonstrated the ability to fly in any direction, including against the wind, make broad 360 degree turns, and navigate back to and land at his starting point. Aereon’s gondola could carry the pilot and three passengers.
On 5 July 1864, the US Patent Office issued Patent # 43,449 to Solomon Andrews for his invention of a balloon that was capable of directed flight and could even be flown against the wind. You can read the patent here: https://patents.google.com/patent/US43449
Lithograph of Solomon Andrews’s first airship “Aereon” Source: United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division, digital ID cph.3b01438.
Andrews’ second airship, Aereon 2, had a different gas envelope design, described as “a flattened lemon, sharply pointed at both ends.” Aereon 2 also used a different approach for controlling buoyancy. The new approach used a complex set of ropes and pulleys to squeeze or release external pressure on the hydrogen gas bags, thereby changing their volume and how much air was being displaced. Aereon 2 flew over New York City on 25 May and 5 June 1866. The second trip ended up about 30 miles away with a landing in Oyster Bay, Long Island. This was Andrews’ last flight.
Source: Skinner Auctioneers
Andrews organized the Aerial Navigation Company, which was chartered in November 1865 for “the transportation of passengers, merchandise and other matter from place to place.” The firm intended to build commercial airships and establish regular airship service between New York and Philadelphia. During the post-Civil War economic crisis, many banks failed and Aerial Navigation Co. went bankrupt, ending the plans for the first commercial passenger and freight air service in the world.
Source: Worthpoint
3. Advanced High-Altitude Aerobody (AHAB)
In the early 2000s, the Physical Science Lab at New Mexico State University was developing the Advanced High-Altitude Aerobody (AHAB), which consisted of a large, solar-powered, non-rigid, winged aerobody with the payload suspended below on several retractable cables. Changing the length of the cables moved the center of gravity and thereby controlled the attitude of the aerobody. Changing the buoyancy of the aerobody caused it to climb or descend. As with the Phoenix UAV and Solomon Andrews’ Aereon, a forward propulsive force was generated during each climb or descent maneuver. With this modest propulsion capability, AHAB was designed for station-keeping operations in near-space (very high altitude) where propellers would be ineffective.
In 2004, Mary Ann Stewart, et al., reported, “This superpressure balloon incorporates wing-like devices to give it a sleek aerodynamic shape. AHAB is designed to offset the effects of light winds by using a porpoising technique as necessary, trading altitude for horizontal motion. The craft is made up of a series of individual cells, and helium is pumped between cells to effect movement.”
Lt. Col Ed Tomme and Sigfred Dahl provided additional performance information, noting that such vehicles “will use a variety of unconventional buoyancy-modification schemes that allow vehicles to propel themselves by porpoising through the air at about 30 to 50 knots, enabling them to overcome all but the most unusual near-space winds.”
The AHAB airship. Source: adapted from Air & Space Power Journal, Winter 2005, Volume XIX, No. 4, p. 47
In the 1-14 July 2019 issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine, former AHAB program manager, Mike Fisher, commenting on the new Phoenix UAV, provided the following historical insights on AHAB:
“The Aerobody was a solar-powered lighter-than-air vehicle (non-rigid rather than semi-rigid, as in the Phoenix) that pioneered the idea of using a ballonet to cause buoyancy and changes in center of gravity to enable propeller-less forward flight.
We took the concept far enough to demonstrate the validity of the underlying physics by building a subscale prototype that we successfully tested in indoor flight tests. Ultimately, the then-existing limits to photovoltaic cell and battery technology kept us from going past the prototype stage.”
What’s old is new again!
In the past two decades, winged underwater gliders implementing Andrews’ basic variable buoyance propulsion principle have been developed. See the 2001 article, “Autonomous Buoyancy-driven Underwater Gliders,” which you can read here:
Now, the UK Phoenix team has demonstrated variable buoyancy propulsion in a small, unmanned airship, 156 years after Solomon Andrews first flew the much larger Aereon with passengers in Perth Amboy, NJ, and almost two decades after the indoor test flight of the subscale AHAB prototype at New Mexico State University.
Best wishes to the UK Phoenix team in their efforts to develop an operational variable buoyancy propulsion system for a modern airship.
Additional resources on the Advanced High-Altitude Aerobody (AHAB)
Lt Col Edward Tomme & D. Phil, “The Paradigm Shift to Effects-Based Space: Near-Space as a Combat Space Effects Enabler,” Airpower Research Institute, Research Paper 2005-01, 2005;http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cadre/ari_2005-01.pdf
Xiaotao Wu, “Modelling and control of an buoyancy driven airship,” Automatic Control Engineering, Ecole Centrale de Nantes (ECN); South China University of Technology, 2011; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01146532/document
Xiaotao Wu & Claude Moog, “Full model of a buoyancy-driven airship and its control in the vertical plane,” Aerospace Science and Technology, Volume 26, Issue 1, April–May 2013, Pages 138-152; available for a fee at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1270963812000545
The firm Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems (formerly Orbital ATK, and before that, Orbital Sciences Corporation) was the first to develop a commercial, air-launched rocket capable of placing payloads into Earth orbit. Initial tests of their modest-size Pegasus launch vehicle were made in 1990 from the NASA B-52 that previously had been used as the “mothership” for the X-15 experimental manned space plane and many other experimental vehicles.
Since 1994, Orbital ATK has been using a specially modified civilian Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, a former airliner renamed Stargazer, as a mothership to carry a Pegasus launch vehicle to high altitude, where the rocket is released to fly a variety of missions, including carrying satellites into orbit. With a Pegasus XL as its payload (launch vehicle + satellite), Stargazer is lifting up to 23,130 kg (50,990 pounds) to a launch point at an altitude of about 12.2 km (40,000 feet).
Orbital ATK’s Pegasus XL rocket released from Stargazer. Source: NASA / http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov
Paul Allen’s firm Stratolaunch Systems Corporation (https://www.stratolaunch.com) was founded in 2011 to take this air-launch concept to a new level with their giant, twin-fuselage, six-engine Stratolaunch carrier aircraft. The aircraft has a wingspan of 385 feet (117 m), which is the greatest of any aircraft ever built, a length of 238 feet (72.5 m), and a height of 50 feet (15.2 m) to the top of the vertical tails. The empty weight of the aircraft is about 500,000 pounds (226,796 kg). It is designed for a maximum takeoff weight of 1,300,000 pounds (589,670 kg), leaving about 550,000 pounds (249,486 kg) for its payload and the balance for fuel and crew. It will be able to carry multiple launch vehicles on a single mission to a launch point at an altitude of about 35,000 feet (10,700 m). A mission profile for the Stratolaunch aircraft is shown in the following diagram.
Typical air-launch mission profile. Source: Stratolaunch Systems
Stratolaunch rollout – 2017
Built by Scaled Composites, the Stratolaunch aircraft was unveiled on 31 May 2017 when it was rolled out at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, CA. Following is a series of photos from Stratolaunch Systems showing the rollout.
Stratolaunch ground tests – 2017 to 2019
Ground testing of the aircraft systems started after rollout. By mid-September 2017, the first phase of engine testing was completed, with all six Pratt & Whitney PW4000 turbofan engines operating for the first time. The first low-speed ground tests conducted in December 2017 reached a modest speed of 25 knot (46 kph). By January 2019, the high-speed taxi tests had reached a speed of about 119 knots (220 kph) with the nose wheel was off the runway, almost ready for lift off. Following is a series of photos from Stratolaunch Systems showing the taxi tests.
Stratolaunch first flight
The Stratolaunch aircraft, named Roc, made an unannounced first flight from the Mojave Air & Space Port on 13 April 2019. The aircraft stayed aloft for 2.5 hours, reached a peak altitude of 17,000 feet (5,180 m) and a top speed of 189 mph (304 kph). The following series of photos show the Stratolaunch aircraft during its first flight.
Source, above two photos: Stratolaunch SystemsSource: REUTERS/Gene Blevins/File PhotoLanding at the conclusion of the first flight. Source: Stratolaunch Systems
Stratolaunch posted an impressive short video of the first flight, which you can view here:
Stratolaunch family of launch vehicles: ambitious plans, but subject to change
In August 2018, Stratolaunch announced its ambitious launch vehicle development plans, which included the family of launch vehicles shown in the following graphic:
Up to three Pegasus XL launch vehicles from Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems (formerly Orbital ATK) can be carried on a single Stratolaunch flight. Each Pegasus XL is capable of placing up to 370 kg (816 lb) into a low Earth orbit (LEO, 400 km / 249 mile circular orbit).
Medium Launch Vehicle (MLV) capable of placing up to 3,400 kg (7,496 lb) into LEO and intended for short satellite integration timelines, affordable launch and flexible launch profiles. MLV was under development and first flight was planned for 2022.
Medium Launch Vehicle – Heavy, which uses three MLV cores in its first stage. That vehicle would be able to place 6,000 kg (13,228 lb) into LEO. MLV-Heavy was in the early development stage.
A fully reusable space plane named Black Ice, initially intended for orbital cargo delivery and return, with a possible follow-on variant for transporting astronauts to and from orbit. The space plane was a design study.
Stratolaunch was developing a 200,000 pound thrust, high-performance, liquid fuel hydrogen-oxygen rocket engine, known as the “PGA engine”, for use in their family of launch vehicles. Additive manufacturing was being widely used to enable rapid prototyping, development and manufacturing. Successful tests of a 100% additive manufactured major subsystem called the hydrogen preburner were conducted in November 2018.
Stratolaunch Systems planned family of launch vehicles announced in August 2018. Source: Stratolaunch Systems
After Paul Allen’s death on 15 October 2018, the focus of Stratolaunch Corp was greatly revised. On 18 January 2019, the company announced that it was ending work on its own family of launch vehicles and the PGA rocket engine. The firm announced, “We are streamlining operations, focusing on the aircraft and our ability to support a demonstration launch of the Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL air-launch vehicle.”
You’ll find an article describing Stratolaunch Systems’ frequently changing launch vehicle plans in an article on the SpaceNews website here:
Air launch offers a great deal of flexibility for launching a range of small-to-medium sized satellites and other aerospace vehicles. With only the Pegasus XL as a launch vehicle, and with Northrop Grumman having their own Stargazer carrier aircraft for launching the Pegasus XL, the business case for the Stratolaunch aircraft has been greatly weakened.
Stratolaunch’s main competition: The Northrop Grumman Stargazer at the Mojave Air and Space Port in January 2019, available for its next Pegasus XL launch mission. Source: Author’s photo
Additional competition in the airborne launch services business will come in 2020 from Richard Branson’s firm Virgin Orbit, with its airborne launch platform Cosmic Girl, a highly-modified Boeing 747, and its own launch vehicle, known as LauncherOne. Successful drop tests of LauncherOne were conducted in 2019. The first launch to orbit is expected to occur in 2020. You’ll find more information on the Virgin Orbit website here: https://virginorbit.com
An inert LauncherOne rocket falls away from its 747 carrier aircraft in a July 2019 drop test. Source: Virgin Orbit
Additional competition for small satellite launch services comes from the newest generation of small orbital launch vehicles, like Electron (Rocket Lab, New Zealand) and Prime (Orbix, UK), which are expected to offer low price launch services from fixed land-based launch sites. Electron is operational now, and achieved six successful launches in six attempts in 2019. Prime is expected to enter service in 2021.
In the cost competitive launch services market, Stratolaunch does not seem to have an advantage with only the Pegasus XL in its launch vehicle inventory. Hopefully, they have something else up their sleeve that will take advantage of the remarkable capabilities of the Stratolaunch carrier aircraft.
19 March 2020 Update: Stratolaunch change of ownership
Several sources reported on 11 October 2019 that Stratolaunch Systems had been sold by its original holding company, Vulcan Inc., to an undisclosed new owner. Two months later, Mark Harris, writing for GeekWire, broke the news that the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management was the new owner. It appears that Jean Floyd, Stratolaunch’s president and CEO since 2015, remains in his roles for now. Michael Palmer, Cerberus’ managing director, was named Stratolaunch’s executive vice president. You can read Mark Harris’ report here: https://www.geekwire.com/2019/exclusive-buyer-paul-allens-stratolaunch-space-venture-secretive-trump-ally/
It will be interesting to watch as the new owners reinvent Stratolaunch Systems for the increasingly competitive market for airborne launch services.
Peter Lobner, updated 28 Jun 2019, 14 Dec 2019 & 12 May 2020
JASON and the Naval Research Advisory Committee (NRAC) are both established, independent advisory groups that have long histories of providing important scientific and technical advice to the U.S. government, primarily to Department of Defense (DoD) clients. The Pentagon cancelled the JASON and NRAC contracts in early 2019. Immediately, efforts were undertaken on several fronts to attempt to restore funding. The efforts on behalf of JASON were successful, but NRAC was not so fortunate.
Following is an overview of these two advisory groups and an update on their current status.
1. JASON
JASON is an independent advisory panel of elite scientists that was created in 1960 to address a wide range of scientific and technical issues, primarily for the U.S. military. Originally, the JASON panel had about 20 members, known informally as Jasons, increasing to about 40 members by the 1970s. JASON maintains its independence by requiring that new members be selected by its existing members rather than by external sponsors.
JASON is a very controversial organization with a very low public profile. For a good introduction to JASON, I recommend Ann Finkbeiner’s 2006 book, “The Jasons: The Secret History of Science’s Postwar Elite,” which is available from Amazon and other booksellers. You can watch an hour-long video created by Microsoft Research with Ann Finkbeiner providing an excellent narrative overview (no Powerpoint slides) on JASON here:
Ann Finkbeiner notes: “Working in secrecy to solve highly classified problems for the Department of Defense, CIA, and NSA is an elite group of scientific advisors who provide the government with analyses on defense and arms control and they call themselves JASON. Named for the hero in Jason and the Argonauts, the group grew out of the Manhattan Project and counts as its members scientists such as Freeman Dyson and Murray Gell-Mann. Of the roughly one hundred Jasons over time, 43 have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, eight have won MacArthur awards, one a Field’s Medal, and 11 have won Nobel Prizes. Its members have gathered every summer since 1960, working in absolute secrecy and with unparalleled freedom. The Jasons’ work poses vital questions: what role should the government play in scientific research? At what point is the inventor accountable for the hazards of the invention?”
You’ll find a list of JASON research topics compiled on Wikipedia here:
Most of the resulting JASON reports are classified. You’ll find a list of unclassified JASON reports (and links) on the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) website at the following link: https://fas.org/irp/agency/dod/jason/
Since the late 1970s, the JASONs have been assigned tasks and been funded via Indefinite Delivery / Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contracts managed by MITRE Corporation. The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) issued MITRE’s most recent five-year IDIQ contract for managing JASON tasking and funding. Task Orders are issued under the main IDIQ contract and the actual work is performed according to the individual task orders. The IDIQ contract structure broadly allows government agencies to commission a JASON study and fund it via a new task order. MITRE’s IDIQ contract expired on 31 March 2019. A follow-on IDIQ contract was in the works, but OSD cancelled that solicitation on short notice on 28 March 2019.
On 10 April 2019, the article, “Pentagon Cancels Contract for JASON Advisory Panel,” written by Steven Aftergood, was posted on the FAS website at the following link: https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2019/04/pentagon-jason/
Aftergood speculated that, “The Pentagon move to cancel the JASON contract appears to be part of a larger trend by federal agencies to limit independent scientific and technical advice.”
Additional resources related to JASON
See the following documents for more background information on JASON.
Joel Shurkin, “True Genius: The Life and Work of Richard Garwin, the Most Influential Scientist You’ve Never Heard of,” Prometheus Books, ISBN-13: 978-1633882232, 21 February 2017
Joël van der Reijden, “The JASON Group: National Security Science,” Institute for the Study of Globalization and Covert Politics (ISGP), originally written 20 August 2005, version 3.5 posted 12 December 2014; https://isgp-studies.com/jason-group-national-security-science
Lyncean link
At meeting #65 of the Lyncean Group in August 2011, the subject of our presentation was “Experience with the JASONs.” See more at the following link: https://lynceans.org/talk-65-82411/
2. The Naval Research Advisory Committee (NRAC)
NRAC was established by Congressional legislation in 1946 and provided science and technology advice to the Navy for the past 73 years. NRAC is the Navy counterpart to the Army Science Board and the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. Background information on NRAC is available on the Office of naval Research (ONR) website at the following link: https://www.onr.navy.mil/About-ONR/History/nrac
On 5 April 2019, Steve Aftergood reported that, “This week the U.S. Navy abruptly terminated its own scientific advisory group, depriving the service of a source of internal critique and evaluation. Now it’s gone. The decision to disestablish the Committee was announced in a March 29 Federal Register notice.” The cancellation of the NRAC contract may be part of the apparent trend by federal agencies to limit independent scientific and technical advice. You can read this report on the FAS website here: https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2019/04/nrac-terminated/
3. Update 28 June 2019: NNSA issues new contract for JASON
In April 2019, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) issued a notice of intent (NOI) for a sole-source contract to provide funding for JASON through at least January 2020. You’ll find this NOI here: https://fas.org/irp/agency/dod/jason/nnsa-jason-noi.pdf
This article provides a good overview of the history of JASON and offers the following view on future funding for the group.
“What happens when Jason’s contract with NNSA expires in 2020 is unclear. One possibility is yet another home within DOD: This month, the U.S. House of Representatives added a line to DOD’s preliminary budget directing the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment to pick up Jason’s contract.”
4. Update 14 December 2019: DoD contract for JASON is in the 2020 DoD Budget
On 11 December 2019, Steve Aftergood reported that Congress, via the National Defense Authorization Act for 2020, has directed the Department of Defense to reach an “arrangement with the JASON scientific advisory group to conduct national security studies and analyses.” Aftergood identified the following specific JASON studies:
Performed in 2019: Nuclear weapon pit aging (NNSA), bio threats (DOE), and fundamental research security (NSF)
Planned for 2020: Assessments of electronic warfare programs, and options for replacing the W78 warhead currently carried by the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile force
5. Update 12 May 2020: JASON COVID-19 pro bono study
On 11 May 2020, Jeffrey Mervis, writing for the Science.mag website, reported that JASON was engaged in a pro bono study, led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) physicist Peter Fisher, of how to reopen university laboratories safely in the midst of the corona virus pandemic. The results of this JASON study are expected in June 2020 and should be a useful resource for university officials and government agencies that are now drafting their own policies on reopening.
Peter Lobner, updated 7 April 2020 & 19 January 2024
The first image of a black hole was released on 10 April 2019 at a press conference in Washington D.C. held by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) team and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The subject of the image is the supermassive black hole known as M87* located near the center of the Messier 87 (M87) galaxy. This black hole is about 55 million light years from Earth and is estimated to have a mass 6.5 billion times greater than our Sun. The image shows a glowing circular emission ring surrounding the dark region (shadow) containing the black hole. The brightest part of the image also may have captured a bright relativistic jet of plasma that appears to be streaming away from the black hole at nearly the speed of light, beaming generally in the direction of Earth.
The first ever image showing the shadow of a black hole (M87*), which remains unseen at the center of the dark circular region. Source:The EHT Collaboration, et al.
The EHT is not one physical telescope. Rather, it an array of millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelength radio telescopes located around the world. The following map shows the eight telescopes that participated in the 2017 observations of M87. Three additional telescopes joined the EHT array in 2018 and later.
The EHT array as used for the April 2017 observations. Source: The EHT Collaboration, et al.
All of the EHT telescopes are used on a non-dedicated basis by an EHT team of more than 200 researchers during a limited annual observing cycle. The image of the M87* black hole was created from observations made during a one week period in April 2017.
The long baselines between the individual radio telescopes give the “synthetic” EHT the resolving power of a physical radio telescope with a diameter that is approximately equal to the diameter of the Earth. A technique called very long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) is used to combine the data from the individual telescopes to synthesize the image of a black hole. EHT Director, Shep Doeleman, referred to VLBI as “the ultimate in delayed gratification among astronomers.” The magnifying power of the EHT becomes real only when the data from all of the telescopes are brought together and the data are properly combined and processed. This takes time.
At a nominal operating wavelength of about 1.3 mm (frequency of 230 GHz), EHT angular resolution is about 25 microarcseconds (μas), which is sufficient to resolve nearby supermassive black hole candidates on scales that correspond to their event horizons. The EHT team reports that the M87* bright emission disk subtends an angle of 42 ± 3 microarcseconds.
For comparison, the resolution of a human eye in visible light is about 60 arcseconds (1/60thof a degree; there are 3,600 arcseconds in one degree) and the 2.4-meter diameter Hubble Space Telescope has a resolution of about 0.05 arcseconds (50,000 microarcseconds).
You can read five open access papers on the first M87* Event Horizon Telescope results written by the EHT team and published on 10 April 2019 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters here:
Congratulations to the EHT Collaboration for their extraordinary success in creating the first-ever image of a black hole shadow.
7 April 2020 Update: EHT observations were complemented by multi-spectral (multi-messenger) observations by NASA spacecraft
On 10 April 2019, NASA reported on its use of several orbiting spacecraft to observe M87 in different wavelengths during the period of the EHT observation.
“To complement the EHT findings, several NASA spacecraft were part of a large effort, coordinated by the EHT’s Multiwavelength Working Group, to observe the black hole using different wavelengths of light. As part of this effort, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory space telescope missions, all attuned to different varieties of X-ray light, turned their gaze to the M87* black hole around the same time as the EHT in April 2017. NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope was also watching for changes in gamma-ray light from M87* during the EHT observations.”
“NASA space telescopes have previously studied a jet extending more than 1,000 light-years away from the center of M87*. The jet is made of particles traveling near the speed of light, shooting out at high energies from close to the event horizon. The EHT was designed in part to study the origin of this jet and others like it.”
NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) experiment on the International Space Station also contributed to the multi-spectral observations of M87*, which were coordinated by EHT’s Multiwavelength Working Group.
Chandra X-ray Observatory close-up of the core of the M87 galaxy, showing the location of the M87* black hole (+) and the relativistic jet. Source: NASA/CXC/Villanova University/J. Neilsen
On April 25, 2019, NASA released the following composite image showing the M87 galaxy, the position of the M87* black hole and large relativistic jets of matter being ejected from the black hole. These infrared images were made by NASA’s orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope.
The M87 galaxy, with two expanded views, first showing the location of the M87* black hole and two plasma jets (orange) at the center of the galaxy, and second, the closeup EHT image of the M87* black hole’s shadow. Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/IPAC/Event Horizon Telescope
19 January 2024 Update: Results of the second M87* black hole EHT observation campaign
The original image of the M87* black hole released in April 2019 was derived from data collected during the April 2017 EHT observation campaign. In January 2024, the EHT Collaboration published the results of a second M87* black hole observation campaign, which took place in April 2018 with an improved global EHT array, wider frequency coverage, and increased bandwidth. This paper shows that the M87* black hole has maintained a similar size in the two images and that the brightest part of the ring surrounding the black hole has rotated about 30 degrees.
Original M87* black hole image (left) & an image from data collected one year later (right). Source: EHT Collaboration via Astronomy & Astrophysics (Jan 2024)
The EHT Collaboration concluded, “The perennial persistence of the ring and its diameter robustly support the interpretation that the ring is formed by lensed emission surrounding a Kerr black hole with a mass ∼6.5 × 109M⊙ (mass of the Sun). The significant change in the ring brightness asymmetry implies a spin axis that is more consistent with the position angle of the large-scale jet.”
For more information:
See the following sources for more information on the EHT and imaging the M87* black hole:
In my 6 August 2016 post, “Lunar Lander XCHALLENGE and Lunar XPrize are Paving the way for Commercial Lunar Missions,” I reported on the status of the Google Lunar XPrize, which was created in 2007 to “incentivize space entrepreneurs to create a new era of affordable access to the Moon and beyond,” and actually deliver payloads to the Moon. In addition, the lunar payloads were tasked with moving 500 meters (1,640 feet) after landing and transmitting high-definition photos and video back to Earth. Any additional science data would be a plus. In January 2018, after concluding that none of the remaining competitors could meet the extended 31 March 2018 deadline for landing on the Moon, the Google Lunar XPrize competition was cancelled, with the $30M in prizes remaining unclaimed. You can read this post here:
One of the competing Lunar XPrize teams was SpaceIL from Israel, which was developing a small lunar spacecraft named Beresheet (originally named Sparrow), that was designed to hitch a ride into an elliptical Earth orbit as a secondary payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9 commercial launch vehicle and then transfer itself to a lunar orbit and finally land on the Moon.
The SpaceIL lunar landing program continued after cancellation of the Lunar XPrize competition. You’ll find details on the SpaceIL lunar program here:
As completed by SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the Beresheet spacecraft has a launch mass of 600 kg (1,323 pounds) and a landing mass of about 180 kg (397 pounds). The lander carries imagers, a magnetometer, a laser retro-reflector array (LRA) provided by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and a time capsule of cultural and historical Israeli artifacts.
The Beresheet spacecraft. Source: by Abir Sultan/EPA-EFE
After landing on the Moon, the Beresheet spacecraft electronic systems are expected to remain operational only for a few days. The original Lunar XPrize plan to demonstrate mobility and move the spacecraft after landing on the Moon has been dropped. The laser retro-reflectors will enable the spacecraft to serve as a fixed geographic reference point on the lunar surface long after the mission ends.While not designed for a long lunar surface mission, Beresheet is intended to demonstrate advances in technology that enable low-cost, privately-funded missions to another body in the solar system. Beresheet was developed and constructed for about $100 million. You’ll find more information on the Beresheet spacecraft here:
Beresheet was launched from Cape Canaveral, FL on 21 Feb 2019 into an initial elliptical Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) that was dictated by the requirements for the Falcon 9 booster’s primary payload. Once in GTO, Beresheet used its small rocket engine to gradually raise its orbit to a 400,000 km (248,548 mile) apogee to intersect the Moon’s circular orbit, and phase its orbit so the spacecraft passed close to the Moon and could maneuver into a transfer orbit and be captured by the Moon’s gravity. This mission profile is illustrated below.
Source: SpaceIL
You can watch a short video with an animation of this mission profile here:
On 4 April, SpaceIL tweeted: “Critical lunar orbit capture took place successfully. #Beresheet is now entering an elliptical course around the #moon, as we get closer to the historical landing #11.4″
After circularizing its lunar orbit, Beresheet is scheduled to land on the Moon on 11 April 2019. NASA is providing communications support during the mission.
Artist’s concept of the Beresheet lander on the lunar surface. Source: Israel Aerospace Industries(IAI)
On 28 March, the X Prize founder and Executive Chairman Peter Diamand announced that, if the lunar landing is successful, the Foundation would award a $1 million “Moonshot Award” to Beresheet’s builders. Peter Diamand noted, “SpaceIL’s mission represents the democratization of space exploration.”
Best wishes to the SpaceIL team for a successful lunar landing. If successful, Israel will become the 4thnation, after Russia (Soviet Union), USA and China to land spacecraft on the Moon.
Update 12 April 2019: Beresheet spacecraft crashed during Moon landing attempt
The Beresheet spacecraft successfully initiated its descent from lunar orbit on 11 April 2019. Initial telemetry indicated that the landing profile was proceeding as planned.
Beresheet status graphic during landing sequence. Source: IAI / SpaceILPhoto taken from Beresheet during the descent, from an altitude of about 22 km. Source: IAI / SpaceIL
Communications with the spacecraft was lost when Beresheet was about 489 feet (149 meters) above the moon’s surface. Opher Doron, the general manager of IAI, reported during the live broadcast, “We had a failure in the spacecraft; we unfortunately have not managed to land successfully.”
X Prize founder and Executive Chairman Peter Diamandis announced that SpaceIL and IAI will receive the $1 million Moonshot Award despite failing to make the planned soft landing on the Moon.
Update 14 May 2019: Preliminary failure analysis
On 17 April 2019, SpaceIL announced that its preliminary failure analysis indicated that a software command uploaded to restart a failed inertial measuring unit (IMU) may have started a sequence of events that ultimately shut down the main engines prematurely during the landing attempt, resulting in the crash of the Beresheet spacecraft.
Morris Kahn, SpaceIL’s primary source of funding, pledged that the team will try again for a Moon landing with a new spacecraft dubbed “Beresheet 2.0,” which will incorporate lessons learned from the first lunar landing attempt.
For more information on the Beresheet mission, see The Planetary Society mission report at the following link:
On 3 April 2019, Verizon reported that it turned on its 5G networks in parts of Chicago and Minneapolis, becoming the first wireless carrier to deliver 5G service to U.S. customers with compatible wireless devices in selected urban areas. In its initial 5G service, Verizon is offering an average data rate of 450 Mbps (Megabits per second), with plans to achieve higher speeds as the network rollout continues and service matures. Much of the 5G hype has been on delivering data rates at or above 1 Gbps (Gigabits per second = 1,000 Megabits per second).
In comparison, Verizon reports that it currently delivers 4G LTE service in 500 markets. This service is “able to handle download speeds between 5 and 12 Mbps …. and upload speeds between 2 and 5 Mbps, with peak download speeds approaching 50 Mbps.” Clearly, even Verizon’s initial 5G data rate is a big improvement over 4G LTE.
At the present time, only one mobile phone works with Verizon’s initial 5G service: the Moto Z3 with an attachment called the 5G Moto Mod. It is anticipated that the Samsung’s S10 5G smartphone will be the first all-new 5G mobile phone to hit the market, likely later this spring. You’ll find details on this phone here:
Other U.S. wireless carriers, including AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile US, have announced that they plan to start delivering 5G service later in 2019.
5G technology standards
Wireless carriers and suppliers with a stake in 5G are engaged in the processes for developing international standards. However, with no firm 5G technology standard truly in place at this time, the market is still figuring out what 5G features and functionalities will be offered, how they will be delivered, and when they will be ready for commercial introduction. The range of 5G functionalities being developed are shown in the following ITU diagram.
Range of 5G applications
Verizon’s initial 5G mobile phone promotion is focusing on data speed and low latency.
The primary 5G standards bodies involved in developing the international standards are the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). A key international standard, 5G/IMT-2020, is expected to be issued in (as you might expect) 2020.
You’ll find a good description of 5G technology by ITU in a February 2018 presentation, “Key features and requirements of 5G/IMT-2020 networks,” which you will find at the following link:
In my 6 June 2016 post, I reported on SC2, which eventually could benefit 5G service by:
“…developing a new wireless paradigm of collaborative, local, real-time decision-making where radio networks will autonomously collaborate and reason about how to share the RF (radio frequency) spectrum.”
SC2 is continuing into 2019. Fourteen teams have qualified for Phase 3 of the competition, which will culminate in the Spectrum Collaboration Challenge Championship Event, which will be held on 23 October 2019 in conjunction with the 2019 Mobile World Congress in Los Angeles, CA. You can follow SC2 news here:
