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Can satellites combat wildfires? Inside the booming 'space race' to fight the flames

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Thursday, May 30, 2024

As the threat of wildfire worsens in California and across the world, a growing number of federal agencies, nonprofit organizations and tech companies are racing to deploy new technology that will help combat flames from a whole new vantage point: outer space.New satellite missions backed by NASA, Google, SpaceX, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and other groups were announced this week and promise to advance early wildfire detection and help reduce fire damage by monitoring Earth from above. Collectively, the roster of big names, billionaires, government groups and nongovernmental organizations reflects a considerable interest in using new technology to solve some of humanity’s biggest problems. Among them is the Earth Fire Alliance, a global nonprofit coalition that recently unveiled its vision for a constellation of more than 50 satellites that will focus specifically on wildfires and their ecological effects. Known as FireSat, the orbiting surveillance network will scan the globe every 20 minutes in search of wildfire activity — analyzing the landscape across six spectral bands that can spot signs of fires through clouds, smoke, darkness and extreme sunlight, according to the organization. The first three satellites will be launched and operational by 2026. “It’s really a game-changer when it comes to resource allocation, because now we have this really high-fidelity picture that’s very, very granular of every single fire, which will ultimately help us better deploy resources in a much more efficient manner,” said Chris Anthony, an Earth Fire Alliance board member and former chief deputy director at Cal Fire. Earth Fire Alliance’s FireSat Constellation will consist of multiple Muon Halo satellites equipped with state-of-the-art 6-band multispectral infrared (IR) instruments designed to detect and track the impact of wildfires across the planet. (Muon Space) Data and images gathered from FireSat will not only inform crews about the location of fires, but also how hot they are and how fast they are moving — helping to guide firefighting, emergency operations and evacuations, Anthony said. He noted that during his career battling blazes, he often wondered when California would use its reputation as a global hub of technology and innovation to tackle the issue of wildfires.“With every large wildfire we have — and the emissions and the carbon that’s released in that smoke — I feel like we’re in this negative feedback loop, which is going to be really hard for us to get out of,” he said. “And I strongly believe that technology and innovation is a core component of our ability to turn this ship in the other direction. I mean, we have to — I don’t think we have a choice.” Indeed, while California has enjoyed two relatively tame fire seasons thanks to back-to-back wet winters, the threat has not dissipated. The state has experienced the majority of its largest, deadliest and most destructive blazes since the year 2000, according to data from Cal Fire. The state’s worst wildfire year on record, 2020, saw nearly 4.4 million acres burn and the state’s first million-acre fire, the August Complex. Experts say wildfires here are expected to grow larger, faster and more frequent in the years ahead due in part to warmer and drier conditions driven by human-caused climate change, as well as vegetation buildup and forest management practices. Similar trends are expected globally, where wildfires are projected to increase 30% by mid-century, according to the United Nations. Images taken by the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite 17 (GOES-17) show smoke blanketing portions of the western United States at the time of the Dixie fire, in August 2021. (Courtesy of NOAA and the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service) Earlier this year, Texas experienced its largest wildfire on record, which burned through more than a million acres, claimed two lives and killed at least 7,000 cattle. Last year, a relentless procession of fires seared more than 45 million acres across Canada and sent noxious smoke billowing into parts of the United States and all the way to Europe. “Even though California has been at the epicenter of so many large and destructive fires, it is becoming super clear that the wildfire problem that we have right now isn’t just a California, or a Western states, problem, but it is truly a global issue that we need to resolve,” Anthony said. The Earth Fire Alliance’s satellites will join similar missions from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The agencies announced this week that they will soon launch GOES-U, the last in their series of four advanced weather satellites, which provide continuous monitoring of much of the Western Hemisphere.Roughly the size of a small school bus, the GOES-U satellite was designed and built in partnership with defense contractors Lockheed Martin and L3Harris. It will lift off on June 25 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and will provide rapid data for tracking severe storms, including destructive wildfires and their smoke, as well as tropical systems, floods, lightning, snowstorms, dense fogs and other hazards, officials said.“NOAA’s geostationary satellites are an indispensable tool for protecting the United States and the 1 billion people who live and work in the Americas,” Pam Sullivan, director of NOAA’s Office of Geostationary Earth Orbit Observations, told reporters Wednesday. GOES-U — which will be renamed GOES-19 once in orbit — will scan the Earth every 10 minutes, and can zoom in to track dangerous storms and hazards with 30-second updates, she said. It will also carry the first operational compact coronagraph that will help detect space weather for early warnings of disruptions to power grids, communications and navigation systems. Earlier this month, a powerful geomagnetic storm prompted some reports of such impacts. The GOES series will play a critical role in hurricane tracking, but perhaps its “biggest game-changing aspect” is its ability to detect wildfires, said Dan Lindsey, a program scientist with NOAA. “We knew it could detect fires, of course, but it is able to do this in a much more impressive way than we foresaw,” Lindsey said. He said the GOES series has already detected fires the size of a small barn, but the new imaging tools will have four times better spatial resolution on its fire detection band. “This is important because it allows us to get the word out to emergency responders, firefighters and take care of those fires as quickly as possible,” he said.Experts are also experimenting with more terrestrial technology to combat conflagrations, including the use of artificial intelligence tools to fight wildfires in California. One program — a Cal Fire partnership with UC San Diego’s ALERTCalifornia system announced last year — includes more than 1,000 high-definition cameras across the state that use AI to scan the landscape and alert fire crews to burgeoning blazes. The system is already proving effective, with its pilot program flagging dozens of fires before 911 calls came in, officials said.Still, space is its own frontier which brings with it its own set of challenges. Rocket launches are known to emit considerable planet-warming carbon dioxide, along with black carbon, methane and other pollutants. Last fall, a United Nations report also warned of new risks from growing space debris — including roughly 8,300 satellites and 35,000 other tracked objects that are circling the Earth, many of which are used for weather monitoring, early warning systems and global communications.Too many orbiting objects run the risk of collision, which could set off a chain reaction that takes those systems offline, the report said.But new regulations and designs are helping to mitigate some of those risks, said Brian Collins, interim executive director at Earth Fire Alliance. The potentially life- and property-saving benefits of the technology are also part of the balance. A new economic report published by the alliance and the consulting firm Mandala Partners found that early detection of fires could reduce annual direct fire damage costs by approximately $1.2 billion across the U.S., Australia and Southern Europe. Wildfires in the U.S. alone cost about $11.3 billion annually, with property damage accounting for a large part of that — a trend that has already seen some insurers flee the Golden State and other fire-prone regions. Indirect costs from fires in the U.S. could be as large as $415 billion annually, including labor productivity losses and health costs, the report found. Almost half — 46% — of the wildfire costs are borne by local communities and businesses. The Earth Fire Alliance’s suite of satellites will fly at a lower orbit — about 370 miles from Earth compared with NOAA’s 22,000 miles — affording even more granular information in real time, Collins said.“We view it as complementary to the big, heavy lift systems that NOAA and NASA produce,” he said. “Knowing where a fire is — on this side of the road or that side of a road, or on one side of a hill or another — is very important to the ecosystem and to the first responders.” The Earth Fire Alliance raised $12 million in its early round of investments, and is on its way to securing an additional $50 million to $60 million to get the first three satellites into space, he said. The full constellation of 50 or more satellites will require about $300 million to $400 million, some of which will come from partnerships. The alliance’s supporters include Google.org, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Minderoo Foundation and the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation. It made sense to tackle the issue of wildfires through the nonprofit structure, which can move more nimbly than government agencies that are tied to specific funding cycles, Collins said. However, data captured by FireSat can be integrated with NASA and NOAA and will be provided to all users for free.“The reason for the organization was largely those two things — capturing a budgetary process, and interest and passion that can move a little quicker,” he said. “This was a nice blend to fill a gap of a capability while advancing the mission.” Anthony, the former Cal Fire chief, said the FireSat program will not only help guide attacks on ongoing fires, but also provide an added layer of intelligence around prescribed fires, or fires that are intentionally set to clear vegetation and preserve forest health. For instance, the tools can help assess the right time to apply prescribed fire, track the fire’s intensity and integrate it with fire modeling. The thousand-mile view afforded by the satellites will mark a new era of firefighting tools with a fidelity and resolution that have never been seen before, Anthony added. “You can understand anything if you can see everything,” he said.

New missions backed by Google, NASA and other groups will monitor the planet's worsening wildfire activity from outer space.

As the threat of wildfire worsens in California and across the world, a growing number of federal agencies, nonprofit organizations and tech companies are racing to deploy new technology that will help combat flames from a whole new vantage point: outer space.

New satellite missions backed by NASA, Google, SpaceX, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and other groups were announced this week and promise to advance early wildfire detection and help reduce fire damage by monitoring Earth from above.

Collectively, the roster of big names, billionaires, government groups and nongovernmental organizations reflects a considerable interest in using new technology to solve some of humanity’s biggest problems.

Among them is the Earth Fire Alliance, a global nonprofit coalition that recently unveiled its vision for a constellation of more than 50 satellites that will focus specifically on wildfires and their ecological effects.

Known as FireSat, the orbiting surveillance network will scan the globe every 20 minutes in search of wildfire activity — analyzing the landscape across six spectral bands that can spot signs of fires through clouds, smoke, darkness and extreme sunlight, according to the organization. The first three satellites will be launched and operational by 2026.

“It’s really a game-changer when it comes to resource allocation, because now we have this really high-fidelity picture that’s very, very granular of every single fire, which will ultimately help us better deploy resources in a much more efficient manner,” said Chris Anthony, an Earth Fire Alliance board member and former chief deputy director at Cal Fire.

A rendering of a satellite orbiting Earth.

Earth Fire Alliance’s FireSat Constellation will consist of multiple Muon Halo satellites equipped with state-of-the-art 6-band multispectral infrared (IR) instruments designed to detect and track the impact of wildfires across the planet.

(Muon Space)

Data and images gathered from FireSat will not only inform crews about the location of fires, but also how hot they are and how fast they are moving — helping to guide firefighting, emergency operations and evacuations, Anthony said.

He noted that during his career battling blazes, he often wondered when California would use its reputation as a global hub of technology and innovation to tackle the issue of wildfires.

“With every large wildfire we have — and the emissions and the carbon that’s released in that smoke — I feel like we’re in this negative feedback loop, which is going to be really hard for us to get out of,” he said. “And I strongly believe that technology and innovation is a core component of our ability to turn this ship in the other direction. I mean, we have to — I don’t think we have a choice.”

Indeed, while California has enjoyed two relatively tame fire seasons thanks to back-to-back wet winters, the threat has not dissipated.

The state has experienced the majority of its largest, deadliest and most destructive blazes since the year 2000, according to data from Cal Fire. The state’s worst wildfire year on record, 2020, saw nearly 4.4 million acres burn and the state’s first million-acre fire, the August Complex.

Experts say wildfires here are expected to grow larger, faster and more frequent in the years ahead due in part to warmer and drier conditions driven by human-caused climate change, as well as vegetation buildup and forest management practices. Similar trends are expected globally, where wildfires are projected to increase 30% by mid-century, according to the United Nations.

A satellite image shows smoke blanketing the western United States.

Images taken by the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite 17 (GOES-17) show smoke blanketing portions of the western United States at the time of the Dixie fire, in August 2021.

(Courtesy of NOAA and the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service)

Earlier this year, Texas experienced its largest wildfire on record, which burned through more than a million acres, claimed two lives and killed at least 7,000 cattle.

Last year, a relentless procession of fires seared more than 45 million acres across Canada and sent noxious smoke billowing into parts of the United States and all the way to Europe.

“Even though California has been at the epicenter of so many large and destructive fires, it is becoming super clear that the wildfire problem that we have right now isn’t just a California, or a Western states, problem, but it is truly a global issue that we need to resolve,” Anthony said.

The Earth Fire Alliance’s satellites will join similar missions from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The agencies announced this week that they will soon launch GOES-U, the last in their series of four advanced weather satellites, which provide continuous monitoring of much of the Western Hemisphere.

Roughly the size of a small school bus, the GOES-U satellite was designed and built in partnership with defense contractors Lockheed Martin and L3Harris. It will lift off on June 25 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and will provide rapid data for tracking severe storms, including destructive wildfires and their smoke, as well as tropical systems, floods, lightning, snowstorms, dense fogs and other hazards, officials said.

“NOAA’s geostationary satellites are an indispensable tool for protecting the United States and the 1 billion people who live and work in the Americas,” Pam Sullivan, director of NOAA’s Office of Geostationary Earth Orbit Observations, told reporters Wednesday.

GOES-U — which will be renamed GOES-19 once in orbit — will scan the Earth every 10 minutes, and can zoom in to track dangerous storms and hazards with 30-second updates, she said.

It will also carry the first operational compact coronagraph that will help detect space weather for early warnings of disruptions to power grids, communications and navigation systems. Earlier this month, a powerful geomagnetic storm prompted some reports of such impacts.

The GOES series will play a critical role in hurricane tracking, but perhaps its “biggest game-changing aspect” is its ability to detect wildfires, said Dan Lindsey, a program scientist with NOAA.

“We knew it could detect fires, of course, but it is able to do this in a much more impressive way than we foresaw,” Lindsey said. He said the GOES series has already detected fires the size of a small barn, but the new imaging tools will have four times better spatial resolution on its fire detection band.

“This is important because it allows us to get the word out to emergency responders, firefighters and take care of those fires as quickly as possible,” he said.

Experts are also experimenting with more terrestrial technology to combat conflagrations, including the use of artificial intelligence tools to fight wildfires in California.

One program — a Cal Fire partnership with UC San Diego’s ALERTCalifornia system announced last year — includes more than 1,000 high-definition cameras across the state that use AI to scan the landscape and alert fire crews to burgeoning blazes.

The system is already proving effective, with its pilot program flagging dozens of fires before 911 calls came in, officials said.

Still, space is its own frontier which brings with it its own set of challenges. Rocket launches are known to emit considerable planet-warming carbon dioxide, along with black carbon, methane and other pollutants.

Last fall, a United Nations report also warned of new risks from growing space debris — including roughly 8,300 satellites and 35,000 other tracked objects that are circling the Earth, many of which are used for weather monitoring, early warning systems and global communications.

Too many orbiting objects run the risk of collision, which could set off a chain reaction that takes those systems offline, the report said.

But new regulations and designs are helping to mitigate some of those risks, said Brian Collins, interim executive director at Earth Fire Alliance. The potentially life- and property-saving benefits of the technology are also part of the balance.

A new economic report published by the alliance and the consulting firm Mandala Partners found that early detection of fires could reduce annual direct fire damage costs by approximately $1.2 billion across the U.S., Australia and Southern Europe. Wildfires in the U.S. alone cost about $11.3 billion annually, with property damage accounting for a large part of that — a trend that has already seen some insurers flee the Golden State and other fire-prone regions.

Indirect costs from fires in the U.S. could be as large as $415 billion annually, including labor productivity losses and health costs, the report found. Almost half — 46% — of the wildfire costs are borne by local communities and businesses.

The Earth Fire Alliance’s suite of satellites will fly at a lower orbit — about 370 miles from Earth compared with NOAA’s 22,000 miles — affording even more granular information in real time, Collins said.

“We view it as complementary to the big, heavy lift systems that NOAA and NASA produce,” he said. “Knowing where a fire is — on this side of the road or that side of a road, or on one side of a hill or another — is very important to the ecosystem and to the first responders.”

The Earth Fire Alliance raised $12 million in its early round of investments, and is on its way to securing an additional $50 million to $60 million to get the first three satellites into space, he said. The full constellation of 50 or more satellites will require about $300 million to $400 million, some of which will come from partnerships.

The alliance’s supporters include Google.org, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Minderoo Foundation and the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation.

It made sense to tackle the issue of wildfires through the nonprofit structure, which can move more nimbly than government agencies that are tied to specific funding cycles, Collins said. However, data captured by FireSat can be integrated with NASA and NOAA and will be provided to all users for free.

“The reason for the organization was largely those two things — capturing a budgetary process, and interest and passion that can move a little quicker,” he said. “This was a nice blend to fill a gap of a capability while advancing the mission.”

Anthony, the former Cal Fire chief, said the FireSat program will not only help guide attacks on ongoing fires, but also provide an added layer of intelligence around prescribed fires, or fires that are intentionally set to clear vegetation and preserve forest health. For instance, the tools can help assess the right time to apply prescribed fire, track the fire’s intensity and integrate it with fire modeling.

The thousand-mile view afforded by the satellites will mark a new era of firefighting tools with a fidelity and resolution that have never been seen before, Anthony added.

“You can understand anything if you can see everything,” he said.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

Ice in Crisis: Andean Glaciers Have Retreated to Lowest Levels in 11,700 Years

No longer covered in ice, Andean rocks signal the world’s glaciers are melting far faster than predicted. Tropical glaciers have reached their smallest size in...

A study reveals that tropical glaciers are at their smallest in over 11,700 years, surpassing warming thresholds of the Holocene and entering the Anthropocene. This finding, based on isotope analyses near Andean glaciers, points to a rapid and concerning retreat pattern.No longer covered in ice, Andean rocks signal the world’s glaciers are melting far faster than predicted.Tropical glaciers have reached their smallest size in over 11,700 years, according to a study in Science by Boston College researchers. Utilizing isotope analysis of rocks near Andean glaciers, evidence indicates these glaciers are smaller than at any point in the Holocene, suggesting a significant warming of the tropics. The accelerated retreat signals a shift into the Anthropocene, an epoch characterized by human impact, raising concerns about similar patterns globally.Tropical Glaciers Shrinking RapidlyRocks recently exposed to the sky after being covered with prehistoric ice show that tropical glaciers have shrunk to their smallest size in more than 11,700 years, revealing the tropics have already warmed past limits last seen earlier in the Holocene age, researchers from Boston College report today (August 1) in the journal Science.Scientists have predicted glaciers would melt, or retreat, as temperatures warm in the tropics – those regions bordering the Earth’s equator. But the study’s analysis of rock samples adjacent to four glaciers in the Andes Mountains shows that glacial retreat has happened far faster and already passed an alarming cross-epoch benchmark, said Boston College Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences Jeremy Shakun. A researcher collects a sample of bedrock from the Queshque Glacier in the Peruvian Andes Mountains. The samples show tropical glaciers have retreated to their smallest size in more than 11,700 years based on cosmogenic nuclide measurements of recently exposed bedrock, an international team of scientists, led by Boston college researchers, reports in the journal Science. Credit: Emilio Mateo, Aspen Global Change InstituteEvidence of Unprecedented Glacial Retreat“We have pretty strong evidence that these glaciers are smaller now than they have been any time in the past 11,000 years,” said Shakun, a paleoclimatologist and co-author of the report. “Given that modern glacier retreat is mostly due to rising temperatures – as opposed to less snowfall, or changes in cloud cover – our findings suggest the tropics have already warmed outside their Holocene range and into the Anthropocene.”In other words, the glaciers may no longer be classified as being of the Holocene interglacial period, a significant epoch that saw the birth of civilization, where the flow of water and sea level dictated where towns and cities formed, and where agricultural and commercial activity emerged. Instead, they may be best classified by an epoch that may be well on its way to spelling their end: the Anthropocene.The findings signal more of the world’s glaciers are likely retreating far faster than predicted, possibly decades ahead of a grim climatological schedule.A ‘Canary in the Coal Mine’“This is the first large region of the planet where we have strong evidence that glaciers have crossed this important benchmark – it is a ‘canary in the coalmine’ for glaciers everywhere,” said Shakun.Glaciers have been retreating worldwide over the past century but it has been unclear how the magnitude of this retreat compares to the range of natural fluctuations over the past several millennia, Shakun said. The team set out to determine how small tropical glaciers are today compared to their range over the last 11,000 years.Research Expedition and MethodologyResearchers who formed the international team of scientists traveled to Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia to measure the chemistry of bedrock only recently uncovered in front of four melting glaciers spanning the tropical Andes. Two rare isotopes – beryllium-10 and carbon-14 – build up in bedrock surfaces when they are exposed to cosmic radiation from outer space, Shakun said.“By measuring the concentrations of these isotopes in the recently exposed bedrock we can determine how much time in the past the bedrock was exposed, which tells us how often the glaciers were smaller than today – kind of like how a sunburn can tell you how long someone was out in the sun,” Shakun said.Collaborative Effort and FindingsShakun led the project with former BC graduate student Andrew Gorin, partnering with researchers from the University of Wisconsin and Tulane University on the American Cordillera project, then seeking samples and data from colleagues at Aix-Marseille University, the National University of Ireland, Aspen Global Change Institute, Ohio State University, Union College, University Grenoble Alpes, and Purdue University.“We found essentially no beryllium-10 or radiocarbon-14 in any of the 18 bedrock samples we measured in front of four tropical glaciers,” said Gorin, now a PhD student at UC-Berkeley. “That tells us there was never any significant prior exposure to cosmic radiation since these glaciers formed during the last ice age.”Twenty years ago, researchers at the Quelccaya Ice Cap in Peru, the largest tropical ice mass in the world, found rooted plant remains melting out of the ice margin as it retreated. Radiocarbon dating showed that those plants were 5,000 years old, indicating Quelccaya had been larger than its size at the time of that study for that whole interval — otherwise, the plants would have decayed away if there was a prior period of exposure, Shakun said.Broader Implications and Future StudiesThose Quelccaya findings suggested that modern ice retreat has been abnormally large, but was not yet progressing to an alarming level compared to ice melt across the entire Holocene, Shakun said. He and his team wanted to study a larger number of glaciers and use a technique that can unambiguously show if a glacier was ever smaller than today.Shakun and his colleagues have been applying the same technique to glaciers along the entire length of the American Cordillera, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. The team previously published the results of its North American sampling last year and aims to publish the results from southern South America soon.“Once we do that, then these studies can all be put together into a global perspective on the current state of glacier retreat,” said Shakun.Reference: “Recent tropical Andean glacier retreat is unprecedented in the Holocene” 1 August 2024, Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.adg7546

Nasa 'Earthrise' astronaut dies at 90 in plane crash

The photo taken by Bill Anders is one of the most famous images ever snapped in outer space.

Nasa 'Earthrise' astronaut dies at 90 in plane crashGetty ImagesApollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders, who snapped one of the most famous photographs taken in outer space, has died at the age of 90.Officials say a small plane he was flying crashed into the water north of Seattle, Washington.Anders' son Greg confirmed that his father was flying the small plane, and that his body was recovered on Friday afternoon."The family is devastated. He was a great pilot. He will be missed," a statement from the family reads.Anders - who was a lunar module pilot on the Apollo 8 mission - took the iconic Earthrise photograph, one of the most memorable and inspirational images of Earth from space. Taken on Christmas Eve during the 1968 mission, the first crewed space flight to leave Earth and reach the Moon, the picture shows the planet rising above the horizon from the barren lunar surface. Anders later described it as his most significant contribution to the space programme.NasaThe image is widely credited with motivating the global environmental movement and leading to the creation of Earth Day, an annual event to promote activism and awareness of caring for the planet.Speaking of the moment, Anders said: "We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing that we discovered was the Earth."Officials said on Friday that Anders crashed his plane around 11:40PDT (1940BST).The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said the 90-year-old was flying a Beechcraft A A 45 - also known as a T-34. The agency said that the plane crashed about 80ft (25m) from the coast of Jones Island.Witness Philip Person told King-TV in Seattle that he saw the crash.The plane began doing what appeared to be a loop and became inverted, he told the network. "I could not believe what I was seeing in front of my eyes," Person told the local news station. "It looked like something right out of a movie or special effects. With the large explosion and flames and everything."Footage that allegedly captured the plane crash appears to show an effort to pull up at the last second, before its the surface of the water and becomes a fiery wreck.BBC News has not verified the video. Anders also served as the backup pilot to the Apollo 11 mission, the name of the effort that led to the first Moon landing on July 24, 1969. Following Anders' retirement from the space programme in 1969, the former astronaut largely worked in the aerospace industry for several decades. He also served as US Ambassador to Norway for a year in the 1970s.But he is best remembered for the Apollo 8 mission and the iconic photograph he took from space. "In 1968, during Apollo 8, Bill Anders offered to humanity among the deepest of gifts an astronaut can give. He traveled to the threshold of the Moon and helped all of us see something else: ourselves," Nasa Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement.Mark Kelly, a former astronaut who now serves as a US Senator for the state of Arizona, said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that Anders "inspired me and generations of astronauts and explorers. My thoughts are with his family and friends".

Folding the Future: How Origami Modules Are Redefining Construction

Foldable origami with thick panels opens a world of possibilities. For the first time, engineers at the University of Michigan have shown that load-bearing structures,...

Yi Zhu, a Research Fellow in Mechanical Engineering, holds an origami design that is capable of folding up into something that could fit into a pocket and capable of expanding out into something much longer. Credit: Brenda Ahearn/University of Michigan, College of Engineering, Communications and MarketingFoldable origami with thick panels opens a world of possibilities.For the first time, engineers at the University of Michigan have shown that load-bearing structures, such as bridges and shelters, can be constructed using origami modules. These versatile components are capable of folding compactly and morphing into various shapes.It’s an advance that could enable communities to quickly rebuild facilities and systems damaged or destroyed during natural disasters, or allow for construction in places that were previously considered impractical, including outer space. The technology could also be used for structures that need to be built and then disassembled quickly, such as concert venues and event stages.Advancements in Origami Construction“With both the adaptability and load-carrying capability, our system can build structures that can be used in modern construction,” said Evgueni Filipov, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and of mechanical engineering, and a corresponding author of the study in Nature Communications. Principles of the origami art form allow for larger materials to be folded and collapsed into small spaces. And with modular building systems gaining wider acceptance, the applications for components that can be stored and transported with ease have grown.From left, Yi Zhu, a Research Fellow in Mechanical Engineering, and Evgueni Filipov, an associate professor in both Civil and Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, working in his lab in the George G. Brown Laboratories Building. Filipov and Zhu are applying principles of origami to create Modular and Uniformly Thick Origami (MUTO) for large-scale, load-carrying, adaptable structures. These can be used to create temporary structures such as stages or concert venues as well as to build structures such as buildings or bridges to be used in response to natural disasters. Credit: Brenda Ahearn/University of Michigan, College of Engineering, Communications and MarketingResearchers have struggled for years to create origami systems with the necessary weight capacities while keeping the ability to quickly deploy and reconfigure. U-M engineers have created an origami system that solves that problem. Examples of what the system can create include:A 3.3-foot-tall column that can support 2.1 tons of weight while itself weighing just over 16 pounds, and with a base footprint of less than 1 square foot.A package that can unfold from a 1.6-foot-wide cube to deploy into different structures, including: a 13-foot-long walking bridge, a 6.5-foot-tall bus stop, and a 13-foot-tall column.A New Approach to Origami DesignA key to the breakthrough came in the form of a different design approach provided by Yi Zhu, research fellow in mechanical engineering and first author of the study.“When people work with origami concepts, they usually start with the idea of thin, paper-folded models—assuming your materials will be paper-thin,” Zhu said. “However, in order to build common structures like bridges and bus stops using origami, we need mathematical tools that can directly consider thickness during the initial origami design.”Evgueni Filipov, an associate professor in both Civil and Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, demonstrates different folds and structures with a small model in his lab. Credit: Brenda Ahearn/University of Michigan, College of Engineering, Communications and MarketingTo bolster weight-bearing capacity, many researchers have attempted to thicken their paper-thin designs in varying spots. U-M’s team, however, found that uniformity is key.“What happens is you add one level of thickness here, and a different level of thickness there, and it becomes mismatched,” Filipov said. “So when the load is carried through these components, it starts to cause bending.“That uniformity of the component’s thickness is what’s key and what’s missing from many current origami systems. When you have that, together with appropriate locking devices, the weight placed upon a structure can be evenly transferred throughout.”In addition to carrying a large load, this system—known as the Modular and Uniformly Thick Origami-Inspired Structure system—can adapt its shapes to become bridges, walls, floors, columns, and many other structures.Reference: “Large-scale modular and uniformly thick origami-inspired adaptable and load-carrying structures” by Yi Zhu, and Evgueni T. Filipov, 15 March 2024, Nature Communications.DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-46667-0U-M’s research has been helped along by use of its Sequentially Working Origami Multi-Physics Simulator (SWOMPS). It’s a simulator that accurately predicts the behaviors or large-scale origami systems. Developed at U-M, the system has been available to the public since 2020.The research was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Automotive Research Center.

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