Relativity Space co-founder and CTO Jordan Noone announced on Twitter Wednesday that he began a transition to the role of executive advisor earlier this week "in preparation for starting my next venture."
<p>Noone did not provide details on what that venture may be and the company did not respond immediately respond to a request for comment.</p><p>Tim Ellis, Relativity Space's co-founder and CEO, said in his own tweet that it's been an "absolute honor and privilege" to partner with Noone to build Relativity Space, which aims, eventually, to print 3D rockets on Mars.</p>
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Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator's latest class announced partnerships with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Maxar Technologies and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) North America, among others, at Wednesday's long-awaited showcase. It was the culmination of months of focused and sometimes grueling remote work.
The program aims to help companies achieve several years of commercial growth within three months, with mentorship from the accelerator's partners, including the U.S. Air Force, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Lockheed Martin, Israel Aerospace Industries North American (IAI), SAIC and Maxar Technology.
<p>The <a href="https://dot.la/heres-the-2nd-class-of-techstars-starbust-space-accelerator-2646164360.html" target="_self">class of 10 companies</a> come from Los Angeles, Toronto, Poland and states across the U.S. Among them is a company that provides a user-friendly AR/VR platform for use in education and training, a developer of an advanced AI system for data scientists as well as an air contamination and quality monitoring system.</p><p>"This is cutting edge development, and we need it for space exploration," said Tom Cwik, who manages the space technology office at JPL.</p><p>Because of the pandemic, Wednesday's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4vRRrqdiUg&feature=youtu.be" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Demo Day was held over YouTube</a>, rather than in-person at the California Science Center. "It's kind of like the first day of the rest of your life," said the program's managing director Matt Kozlov.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
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<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator - Demo Day 2020 (Updated)</small>
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</p><p><em>Here are some of today's key announcements:</em><br/></p>
<p>___<br/></p><p><em>Do you have a story that needs to be told? My DMs are open on Twitter </em><a href="https://twitter.com/latams" target="_blank"><em>@latams</em></a><em>. You can also email me at tami(at)dot.la, or ask for my contact on Signal, for more secure and private communications.</em></p>
Prewitt Ridge Partners with JPL
<p>Los Angeles-based Prewitt Ridge co-founder and CEO Steve Massey joined forces with his co-founder, Zeke Brechtel, both formerly with SpaceX to build an integrated software platform that aims to remove data duplication, lower the likelihood of error and let companies work faster.<br></p><p>Prewitt Ridge announced that JPL will be its first major external user in the aerospace and robotics space, which is a target market for the company. Massey said the company has been able to gain a deeper understanding of JPL's needs, approaches and challenges through the accelerator program. The company will help with a small research and development project, building the robotic arm for the lunar lander payload — <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2009/07/27/211353/a-robotic-arm-for-lunar-missions/" target="_blank">which helps deploy equipment</a> onto the moon's surface.</p>Urban Sky's Stratospheric Balloon Gets PreSeed Investment
<p>In less than a year, Urban Sky co-founder and CEO Andrew Antonio said the company has "designed, built and flown the first-ever reusable high altitude balloon and collected sample aerial imagery from the stratosphere."<br></p><p>Its microballoon is reusable and reduces the cost of high-resolution remote sensing and weather-related data capture from its stratospheric vantage point.</p><p>Antonio announced that Urban Sky oversubscribed its pre-seed round with investments from New Stack, L.A.-based VC firm TenOneTen, Catapult and Techstars. The company also won a $250,000 cash grant from the state of Colorado as a top startup in the state and a small business innovation research contract from JPL to further develop its tech for wildlife monitoring applications. Antonio also said that Maxar has stated its interest in partnering with Urban Sky as an imaging subcontractor. Lastly, Atonio announced the company's first commercial customer and partner, Arturo, to conduct its one-year imaging pilot program over Colorado.</p>vRotors Gets a Slew of Partnerships
<p>L.A.-based vRotors, which provides a platform that aims to make it easier to control a remote robotic device from a PC, Mac, mobile phone or VR headset, from anywhere in the world.</p><p>Co-founder and CEO Neil Malhotra announced vRotors' first partnerships with Dish Network to help with remote tower inspections; with Maxar Technologies to do real-time, high-resolution 3-D map applications; and Honeywell to do remote supervision of its autonomous air taxi fleets. vRotors is also working with IAI to automate the landing process for their next moon mission.</p>Lux Semiconductors Gets Federal Backing
<p>Co-founder and CEO Shane McMahon announced that Lux, which has developed a flexible silicon wafer to help miniaturize electronics, has raised more than $200 million from major federal agencies including the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense.</p><p>The company has been collaborating with Oak Ridge National Laboratory on technical matters and is also working on several cooperative research agreements with strategic defense agencies focused on advanced microelectronics. McMahon said the company has received support from five of the top aerospace and defense firms and is partnering with two of them on "joint proposals to embed our electronics into their systems."</p>Bifrost Will Generate Martian Landscape
<p>Charles Wong, the CEO and co-founder of Bifrost, which helps AI developers generate labelled datasets faster, announced Wednesday that it will be working with JPL to generate synthetic Martian terrain with the aim of helping to achieve the dream of safely landing a helicopter on Mars. Wong said the company is also in talks with Rolls Royce to enable new capabilities in aerospace.</p>Holos Will Bring Its Virtual Reality Training to the Air Force, IAI
<p>The Madison, Wisconsin-based company Holos aims to "give people agency over the virtual experience" so that they can create immersive education and training environments without having to outsource to a firm.</p><p>The company received a $750,000 small business innovation grant from the U.S. Air Force to work on developing a virtual maintenance and repair training system for the F-35 out of Southern California's Edwards Air Force base. It's also contracted to develop a prototype to integrate the command and control of space, air and cyber assets for the U.S. Air Force. Holos also announced that it will be working with IAI to explore developing a next generation multi-domain command and control system powered through AR and VR that can be used for training.</p>From Your Site Articles
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With the fiery flash of a rocket launch, NASA's Perseverance rover headed out today for what's expected to be a decade-long campaign to store up and bring back Martian samples that may hold evidence of alien life.
United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 7:50 a.m. ET (4:50 a.m. PT), sending the rover into space for a seven-month cruise to Mars.
<p>Access to the area surrounding the launch pad was restricted due to the pandemic, but hundreds of thousands of people watched the liftoff via streaming video. And as if the pandemic wasn't enough of a challenge, in the minutes before launch, a <a href="https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?currentFeatureId=ci39322287&extent=9.18887,-142.11914&extent=59.31077,-47.90039" target="_blank">magnitude-4.2 earthquake</a> rattled through NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., where the rover mission is managed.</p><p>Mission managers said the complications had no effect on the countdown.</p><p>"This is all about perseverance," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said during the buildup to liftoff. "Going to Mars is all about persevering in general. Doing it now is more persevering than ever before."</p><p>An hour after launch, Perseverance's spacecraft separated from the Atlas 5's Centaur upper stage and flew outward to the Red Planet. NASA said the signal from the spacecraft was initially<a href="https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere/status/1288848763277029377" target="_blank"> "too loud for the antennas on Earth."</a> But in the midst of a post-launch news briefing, deputy project manager Matt Wallace reported that the operations team was eventually able to lock onto the signal properly.</p><p>Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said such adjustments came with the territory. "You want to be a rocket scientist, this is what you do. … You have to have a little bit of nerves if you're in this business," he said.</p><p>Adam Steltzner, the mission's chief engineer at JPL, said he expected in-space operations to settle into a routine. "I'm looking forward to, ideally, a very quiet and boring cruise to Mars, as we prepare for the never-boring and always stressful entry, descent and landing on the 18th of February," he said on NASA TV.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
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<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Mars 2020 launch</small>
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</p><p>Like its older cousin, NASA's Curiosity rover, Perseverance will land with the aid of parachutes and a retrorocket-equipped descent stage. A "Sky Crane" will lower the 1-ton rover to the surface of Jezero Crater, and then the descent stage will blast itself away from the landing site.<br></p><p>The six-wheeled, nuclear-powered robot is designed for a primary mission lasting at least one Martian year, which is the equivalent of nearly two Earth years. But if Perseverance follows Curiosity's example, it could be on the job for far longer.</p><p>Perseverance bears a strong resemblance to Curiosity, in that they're built on the same basic chassis with a similar-looking camera mast and robotic arm. NASA and its collaborators have added some new twists, however.</p><p>A mini-helicopter called Ingenuity is tucked under Perseverance's belly and will be deployed for unprecedented test flights after the landing. Another experiment called <a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/instruments/moxie/" target="_blank">MOXIE</a> will test a technique for turning the carbon dioxide in Mars' thin atmosphere to oxygen. That trick will come in handy if and when NASA sends astronauts on extended trips to Mars as is planned in the 2030s.</p><p>The biggest difference between Curiosity and Perseverance is that the new rover's scientific instruments are fine-tuned to look for signs of life on the microscopic scale.</p><p>A laser-equipped camera system called SuperCam can detect organic compounds in rocks and soils from a distance of more than 20 feet. Two close-up imaging systems, <a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/instruments/sherloc/" target="_blank">SHERLOC</a> and <a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/instruments/pixl/" target="_blank">PIXL</a>, can theoretically make out the structural and chemical signs of fossilized microbes. And a radar imager called <a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/instruments/rimfax/" target="_blank">RIMFAX</a> can map subsurface structure at a resolution of inches, to depths as deep as 30 feet.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
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<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Mission Overview: NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover</small>
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</p><p>The <a href="https://www.geekwire.com/2018/nasa-mars-jezero-crater-2020-rover/" target="_blank">target landing site in Jezero Crater</a> is thought to have been a river delta in ancient times, and it was chosen in hopes that the minerals in Martian rock would preserve fossils — or at least the chemical evidence of biological processes.<br></p><p>It's unlikely that Perseverance will find indisputable evidence of life on Mars. Debates about Martian life detection tend to end inconclusively, whether we're talking about the <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/47031923/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/viking-robots-found-life-mars-scientists-say/" target="_blank">Viking lander missions of the 1970s</a> or <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/tiny-blobs-tunnels-meteorite-revive-debate-over-life-mars-n38431" target="_blank">suggestions of "nanofossils" in Martian meteorites</a> that fell to Earth. But this mission has a long-term strategy for settling such debates.</p><p>Perseverance is designed to drill out and save dozens of promising core samples for later pickup. The current plan, which is still under development by NASA and the European Space Agency, calls for sending out a <a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/mars-exploration/missions/mars-sample-return/" target="_blank">NASA lander</a> and a <a href="https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press-releases/en/2020/06/airbus-wins-next-study-contract-for-martian-sample-fetch-rover.html" target="_blank">European-built rover in 2026</a>. That rover would fetch the samples and put them into a capsule, which would in turn be loaded onto a <a href="https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/04/20/nasa-narrows-design-for-rocket-to-launch-samples-off-of-mars/" target="_blank">mini-rocket</a> and launched into Martian orbit.</p><p>"It's kind of an interplanetary relay race we're doing," David Parker, ESA's director of human and robotic spaceflight, explained during a pre-launch briefing.</p><p><a href="https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2019/05/Earth_Return_Orbiter" target="_blank">Yet another spacecraft</a> would take a trip to Martian orbit, capture the capsule and bring the samples back to Earth for study in 2031. That would mark the first opportunity to examine fresh samples from Mars with the best instruments that scientists have at their disposal — and the best opportunity to answer the age-old question about life on Mars..</p><p>"I do believe that the ultimate proof and the ultimate analyses that are really critical to that question, at the level of standard that we need to answer this, will come from laboratory analysis on Earth," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "So I believe this will be a process that will extend over 10 years or so, where evidence is mounting from remote sensing and in-situ measurements up there, but then really culminating in bringing these samples back."</p><p>More morsels about the Mars mission:</p><ul class="ee-ul"><li>Both Perseverance and Ingenuity were named by students who participated in essay contests — and as a reward, Virginia seventh-grader Alex Mather <a href="https://www.geekwire.com/2020/perseverance-nasa-reveals-name-next-mars-rover-suggested-seventh-grader/" target="_blank">(who named the rover)</a> and Alabama high-school junior Vaneeza Rupani <a href="https://www.geekwire.com/2020/nasa-takes-high-school-students-suggestion-gives-mars-helicopter-new-name-ingenuity/" target="_blank">(who named the helicopter)</a> are <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/excited-to-be-here-students-who-named-nasa-rover-and-helicopter-arrive-at-ksc-to-view-launch/ar-BB17ienb" target="_blank">attending the launch</a> with their families at NASA's invitation.</li><li>Speaking of names, Perseverance is carrying three stamp-sized chips that bear the micro-etched names of<a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8634/109-million-names-now-aboard-nasas-perseverance-mars-rover/" target="_blank"> nearly 11 million people</a> who responded to NASA's online "Send Your Name to Mars" campaign.<a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/mars2020/" target="_blank"> The campaign has been revived</a> to collect more names to be sent aboard the next Mars probe.</li><li>Perseverance is also carrying a <a href="https://www.geekwire.com/2020/nasas-perseverance-rover-will-go-mars-monument-covid-19-medical-teams/" target="_blank">3-by-5-inch plaque that pays tribute to healthcare workers</a> and their work to quell the coronavirus pandemic. The <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA23921" target="_blank">COVID-19 Perseverance Plate</a> bears the serpent-and-staff symbol of the medical profession, topped by planet Earth.</li><li>The spacecraft is <a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/microphones/" target="_blank">equipped with microphones</a> that scientists hope will pick up the sounds associated with Perseverance's descent and landing, as well as the <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7591" target="_blank">zapping sounds created by the SuperCam's laser blasts</a>. Perseverance is the third Mars probe to carry a microphone, but <a href="https://www.planetary.org/sci-tech/mars-microphones" target="_blank">setbacks prevented the microphones from being used</a> during the two earlier missions (Mars Polar Lander in 1999 and Phoenix Mars Lander in 2008).</li><li>Perseverance is the last of three Mars missions to take advantage of this month's favorable launch opportunity — an opportunity that comes around only once every 26 months, due to the relative orbital positions of Earth and Mars. The other two are the <a href="https://cosmiclog.com/2020/07/19/hope-rises-emirates-first-mars-probe-lifts-off-from-japan/" target="_blank">United Arab Emirates' Hope orbiter mission</a>, and <a href="https://cosmiclog.com/2020/07/22/china-launches-mars-probe-amid-big-questions/" target="_blank">China's Tianwen-1 mission</a>, which involves an orbiter, lander and rover.</li></ul><div></div><div><em>This story <a href="https://www.geekwire.com/2020/liftoff-nasas-perseverance-rover-begins-odyssey-seek-traces-life-mars/" target="_blank">first appeared on GeekWire</a>.</em></div>
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