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Our client was a company that provides liquid filtration bag products that are used in a multitude of industrial applications. This organization provides new or refurbished liquid filter bag systems. The company has over 50 years of success serving the manufacturing industry and is growing. The growth is driving the need to integrate information system and communication technology to increase productivity, profitability, and overall business performance for a competitive advantage.
Requirements
Schroeder & Schroeder was commissioned to assist the organization in choosing the right enterprise resource planning software, using a structured approach to analyze business requirements and match them to a solution to support operations today and for the next 5 to 10 years. The approach taken included:
• Analyzing key functional areas and activities within the client organization
• Conducting requirements workshops to elicit and prioritization of business requirements
• Conducting solution provider industry research
• Delivering a vendor long list and short list, visit maidsalamode.com
• Delivering formal request for proposal documentation including high-level workflows
• Request vendor proposals and manage the competitive bidding process
• Evaluate and compare vendor proposals for best fit for client
• Score vendor proposals and evaluate costs
• Delivering an unbiased system selection report
Challenges
The main challenges faced on this project included:
• Very tight timeframes to analyze requirements collected between and during visits to client
• A limited amount of time exposed to the client environment
• A limited selection of vendors within the desired price range
• Limited client subject matter understanding of their business requirements
• A changing client environment through the course of the system selection process
• A tight timeline to craft a custom Request for Proposal (RFP) narrative
Actions
After analyzing the project requirements, our consultants addressed the challenges presented and performed the following actions:
1. Conducted a Requirements Workshops & Site Walkthrough – Conducted a kick off meeting to set expectations, reviewed the client current state and conducted a site tour, interviewed executives on their business and growth strategy, obtained approval for an additional day of on-site requirements sessions, conducted functional requirements workshops, created a Request for Proposal and obtained client signoff. The approach involved employees throughout the process to ensure that their needs were being met and that they would take ownership of the new system once selected.
2. Identified Potential Vendors – Researched possible industry solution and assessed vendors against business goals, budget and current product version industry ranking and reputation, obtained vendor contacts, and validated their interest to participate in RFP process.
3. Managed RFP Process – Distributed the RFP, answered vendor questions, reviewed and consolidated vendor responses, analyzed and compared compare vendor responses, created an analysis report for the client, presented results to the client, and supported the discussions on next steps.
Results
Through this approach, Schroeder & Schroeder delivered Request for Proposal documentation and guidance for selecting an ERP solution, including:
• A list of existing technologies, problems with the current systems and opportunities for improvement.
• Guidance on a “needs assessment” along with a requirements importance weighting, employee training, and re-engineering of the client’s business processes to support the future vision.
• A detailed business requirements document, including high-level workflows
• A scored analysis on how well the vendors met each requirement, and determined the total cost of ownership of each proposal, including the costs for licensing, professional services and maintenance
• Documented an ERP system selection report to provide a side-by-side, apples to apples, comparison, highlighting each vendors’ strengths and weaknesses to support the client decision process.
Upon conclusion of the project, all key success factors had been achieved, and the client was highly satisfied with both the project deliverables and the value added by Schroeder & Schroeder Inc. | https://schroeder-inc.com/uncategorized/filter-manufacturer-erp-system-selection/ |
Whilst business continuity is often described as ‘just common sense’ it is about:
The list of possible potential threats is depressingly endless. It includes:
Once all the potential risks have been identified, the next step would be to carry out a business impact analysis to assess the affect each would have and prioritise its critical importance to the business.
This would be followed by a recovery plan for each risk setting out what needed to be done, by when and the costs involved. At this point the senior management team would need to consider its position if costs could not be met or the situation remedied within an acceptable time frame.
Once the business continuity plan is completed, it should be tested by means of introducing a number of impact scenarios and assessing how the relevant people react. Scenarios can be:
Whilst all this may seem excessive, those businesses that have effective business continuity plans and regularly update them, generally survive! | https://www.al-consulting.co.uk/our-services/business-continuity/ |
We’ve talked a lot in the past about ERP implementation, and how important it is to choose the right system in the first place, but we can’t stress enough how challenging the actual preparation for an ERP project can be. Not only do you need to be able to clearly identify the benefits of ERP for your business, but you also need to be able to create a clear vision statement and be able to accurately estimate the costs involved as well.
Our years of offering independent ERP consulting services have shown us that to be able to successfully build a business case for an ERP system there are certain questions that need to be answered:
- Does an ERP system make sense for our business?
- What will an ERP system cost?
- What benefits will we get from the introduction of an ERP system?
The people who really need to be involved in this first stage of justifying the purchase of an ERP system are the top management of your company, the leadership team as such, as well as the operations management team (if you have one). The aim is to involve everyone who will be held accountable for the costs and the realisation of the benefits of the chosen system since the goal is to allow the company to make an informed decision about the purchase of the software.
Step One: Vision Statement
When any business development decisions are made, the best way to go about them is to write a vision statement, i.e. what the company will look like after the ERP system has been installed and what new competitive capabilities it will bring to the company. This may sound like a lot of work, and something you don’t want to get involved in, but actually it doesn’t take a lot of time and it is an essential part of the project and making sure it is successful.
The vision statement only needs to be one page long, and it should include an overview of where the company is today (including what problems it is facing), where it wants to be in the future, what marketplace environment it is operating in and the competition it is facing. A good vision statement will drive action within the company and should be communicated to the team – so that they know which direction the company is headed in and so that they can work together to get it there.
Step Two: Cost Analysis
Another vital step in building a great business case for ERP implementation is to establish the costs and the benefits of completing the project as this not only helps with the allocation of funds but also establishes it as a solid commitment for the business.
Costings should include hardware (or hosting) and software costs, as well as the costs for installing, configuring and on-going maintenance. They should also take into consideration the costs of cleansing and migrating the necessary data, including making sure inventory records are not duplicated, bills of material are accurate and so on. You also need to factor in people costs such as the cost of the project team, training all the users so they are able to use the ERP system to its full advantage, and any additional support on the project such as professional guidance from an independent ERP consultant.
Once you have identified the costs, you can take a look at what the benefits to your business will be of an ERP system, as this is a great way to convince upper management to invest.
Step Three: Analysis of the Benefits of an ERP System
Typical benefits of an ERP system include:
- Increase in productivity – surveys which have been completed in the past have revealed that there was an average gain of 11% in productivity after businesses had ERP systems installed, and in some cases, this rose to 20%.
- Reduction in cost of sales – an ERP system will give companies the information they need to improve forward planning and so produce more accurate production schedules. This in turn allows companies to have a clear picture of what materials are needed, and when. As a result, they can optimise their purchasing and produce items at a lower cost.
- Reduction in inventories – improved scheduling will mean that businesses should have lower inventories for raw material, work in progress and finished goods.
- Increased sales – customer service will also improve, with improved scheduling and more efficient internal processes resulting in products being shipped on time and customer queries being handled more promptly. We all know that better customer service equals happy customers which equals more sales. | https://www.greenbeamconsulting.co.uk/how-to-build-a-business-case-for-erp/ |
We examine the connection between business continuity and disaster recovery, explore what business impact analysis is and who's involved, and the tools available for this analysis.
Disaster recovery and business continuity are terms that are often used interchangeably. Our guest, Rich Schiesser, explains the difference, explores what business impact analysis is as well as who is involved and what major steps are part of the analysis. He helps clear the air about the tools available for performing this analysis, and the part risk management plays in business continuity. Rich is the author IT Systems Management, now in its second edition (2010: Prentice Hall).
Enterprise Systems: What is business continuity?
Rich Schiesser: Business continuity is a program of plans and activities that ensures critical business processes can be resumed within agreed-upon time frames if a sustained outage occurs. The agreed-upon time frames are referred to as recovery time objectives (RTOs), and the agreed amounts of associated data to be restored are called the recovery point objectives (RPOs). The RTOs and the RPOs are determined from a business impact analysis.
How does business continuity differ from disaster recovery?
Disaster recovery (DR) had its origins in the 1970s and referred to the recovery of a company’s IT infrastructure in general and its IT data center in particular. Business continuity (BC) had its origins in the 1990s and emphasized the continuity of all critical business operations across the entire enterprise, not just IT. Where IT tends to be reactive, BC is more proactive. DR focuses on technical recovery, whereas BC focuses on business recovery.
DR involves mostly technicians, whereas BC involves mostly business users. Finally, DR is usually part of IT with no specific career path or certifications as part of it. BC can be a part of risk management or an entity on its own and has widely accepted career paths and certifications.
What is a business impact analysis (BIA)? Who prepares it and what does it cover?
A business impact analysis is an enterprise-wide activity in which the effect of prolonged outages to business processes is determined. The purpose of a BIA is to identify and prioritize the most critical business processes in terms of the amount of time a process can be idled before significant business impact is felt. For some processes the amount of allowable time down might be only minutes or a few hours, whereas for others it might be days.
These estimated times are called recovery time objectives and are closely related to the point at which data must be restored (recovery point objectives) to support the recovered business process. The results of the BIA, RTOs, and RPOs are combined with risk management to determine appropriate recovery strategies.
A BIA is usually prepared by a group of business continuity planners from within an organization or by outside consultants. A full BIA covers all major departments of an enterprise, including core competencies, finance, administration, and IT.
What role does IT play in preparing the BIA? What is the business users' role?
IT plays a major role in preparing a BIA. Most business processes today depend on various IT services to operate. This means that if a major disaster disrupts a business process, the IT services that support the business process must first be restored before the business process can be recovered. If a process needs to be recovered in 4 hours, the IT services supporting it, and the associated data, might need to be recovered in 3 hours.
IT’s main role in a BIA is to determine the feasibility and costs of recovering IT services in time to meet the RTOs and RPOs of the business processes. Sometimes the RTOs need to be extended because the cause of the IT recovery can be prohibitive. Another role of IT in a BIA is to identify the IT dependencies that a particular IT service might have. These dependencies could influence the feasibility and cost of recovery.
The main role of the business users in a BIA is to identify their critical business processes and dependencies and to estimate how long a process can be down before significant impact occurs. Impacts can be financial or legal (among other categories) and need to be quantified by the users.
What tools are available to help an enterprise create the BIA? If created in-house, what are the steps in preparing it? Who's on the team? What expertise is needed?
Three of the major disaster recovery service providers are IBM, HP, and SunGard. Each of these provides software tools that help an enterprise create a BIA. Last year, SunGard acquired Strohl Software Systems, which had developed one of the premiere tools of this type called BIA Pro that, among other features, has Web interfaces. A few other vendors also supply BIA tools that give users a variety of alternatives based on function, cost, and ease of use.
An in-house created BIA consists of five major steps:
Step 1: Acquire executive support to ensure appropriate priority and resources are dedicated to the effort. Included in this step is a clear agreement as to the objectives and scope of the effort. This step needs to occur regardless of the BIA created in-house or by outside consultants.
Step 2: Develop a questionnaire and interview form for planners to use in gathering data about processes from users.
Step 3: Schedule and conduct the interviews with users to determine RTOs, RPOs, and dependencies.
Step 4: Analyze the results and prioritize all processes across the enterprise.
Step 5: Compile the final report and present recommendations and costs of recovery strategies.
Business continuity planners, business user sponsors, and IT recovery specialists are usually on the BIA team. Excellent analytical and communication skills and knowledge of business and technical recoveries are the types of expertise needed for this effort.
What is the impact of the BIA on business continuity?
The BIA has significant impact on business continuity. A properly conducted BIA determines the viability and costs of recovering within reasonable time frames for most types of calamities. The BIA helps prioritize business processes for recovery and identify the dependent processes and IT services needed for restoration.
What is meant by risk management?
Risk management involves three major steps: identification, analysis, and recommendation:
Step 1: Identify the threats (causes of major outages) and vulnerabilities (probabilities of the causes occurring) an organization has to the stability of its operations. This is sometimes called a risk assessment.
Step 2: Analyze the levels of threats and vulnerabilities, and propose countermeasures (and their costs) to these exposures. This is often referred to as risk analysis.
Step 3: Weigh the costs and benefits of implementing these countermeasures and recommend and implement appropriate responses.
For each risk, one of three actions is typically taken: the risk is either eliminated, ignored, or mitigated.
The combination of risk assessment, risk analysis, and proposing and implementing recommendations is collectively referred to as risk management.
What role does risk management play in business continuity?
Risk management, in collaboration with the BIA, helps to determine appropriate recovery strategies for business continuity. Understanding the threats and vulnerabilities an organization has for normal business operations can help minimize these exposures by implementing cost-effective countermeasures.
How are recovery strategies generated?
Recovery strategies are generated by compiling the results of the BIA and the risk assessments and risk analysis. This compilation should identify the appropriate recovery strategies needed to meet the agreed-upon RTOs and RPOs. For example, if a business processes has an agreed to RTO of four hours, the recovery strategy must be such that all dependent processes and IT services are recovered in less than four hours to ensure the primary business process is operational within the four-hour RTO.
What types of testing are performed, and how often should they be done?
There are three types of testing performed in support of business continuity: verification, simulation, and operational.
A verification test updates the factual contents of a business continuity plan. These contents include current participants, their contact information, call trees, hardware model numbers, software versions and releases, and other types of data that is likely to change over relatively short periods of time. A verification test should be done once every three to six months depending on the dynamics of the environment.
A simulation test, sometimes called a table-top exercise, consists of assembling the business continuity planners, recovery team members, appropriate business users, and other participants in a single room to act out the response to a simulated disaster. The purpose is to validate the accuracy, sequence, and dependencies of the recovery steps. Simulation tests should be performed once every 6 to 12 months.
In an operational test, critical business processes and the IT services that support them are stopped as if a major calamity had rendered them inoperable. IT services and business processes are restored at a designated recovery site. The purpose is to confirm the viability of restoring all critical processes, and to compare the actual recovery times and recovery points to the RTOs and RPOs.
What are the biggest mistakes enterprises make in their business continuity plans?
The three biggest mistakes involve participants, dependencies, and testing. Organizations sometimes involve only technical participants in developing technical recovery plans instead of including business users to address the recovery of business processes. Both groups need to participate collaboratively as a team to ensure the business continuity plan covers both the business and technical aspects of recovery.
Another frequent mistake companies make is to omit the dependencies that many business processes and IT services require to make them operational. If a particular IT service needs to be recovered within four hours and it depends on two other services to function, then the two other dependent services need to be recovered at the same time.
The last mistake is failing to test the plans. So much effort is often spent on developing the plans that there is little time or few resources left over to actually plan and conduct testing. Validation, simulation, and operational testing should be conducted approximately every three, six, and 12 months, respectively. Seldom are these done.
What best practices can you recommend to avoid these mistakes?
The best practice to avoid the mistake of improper participation is to ensure the effort to develop business continuity plans has the executive support from both the business community and IT. This support is critical to ensuring both groups collaborate as a team to develop the most comprehensive recovery plan possible.
The best practice for identifying dependencies is to thoroughly review every recovery step with several pairs of eyes to ensure all input and output dependencies are identified. The best practice for testing is to establish a schedule by which validation, simulation, and operational testing is conducted approximately every 3, 6, and 12 months, respectively. | https://esj.com/articles/2010/05/18/business-continuity-dr.aspx |
We are car loan professionals. Our parent company is headquartered in Japan and is a leader in used cars.
- Minimum Qualification: Diploma
- Experience Level: Senior level
- Experience Length: 5 years
Job Description/Requirements
• Undertake daily administrative tasks to ensure the functionality and coordination of the marketing activities.
• Analyze and determine the target audience for all marketing campaigns, and monitor marketing campaigns performance.
• Develop marketing strategies and ensure it is in line with HAKKI objectives and within a reasonable budget
• Organize promotional events and traditional campaigns and attend them to facilitate their success.
• Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to ensure all marketing activities are aligned to HAKKI’s sales strategy
• Organise printing and installation of outdoor advertising materials
• Drive sales through creative and innovative marketing by identifying the latest, best marketing trends, and competitors activities that will help the business gain visibility in the market
• Prepare marketing reports
• Liaise with branch managers and team leaders to ensure that all marketing materials are prepared and up to date when needed. | https://www.brightermonday.co.ke/listings/marketing-manager-7598vd |
Michael is an Associate Professor of Practice at Texas Tech University in the Department of Advertising & Brand Strategy within the College of Media and Communication. He has experience in both higher education teaching and professional practice. His professional experience includes senior roles in marketing management; marketing communication development of earned, shared, owned, and paid media; leading product management teams and developing business strategy across several industry sectors including advertising, publishing, educational assessment, financial services, higher education, and nonprofit. Michael's higher education teaching experience is in learning environments that include traditional in-person, hybrid, and online classrooms. Course subjects range from advertising, marketing, internet marketing and social media, to strategic communication, organizational communication, channel management, consumer behavior, and public relations.
Research
Michael is interested in research on the communication effectiveness of integrated advertising and promotional communication across multiple channels and vehicles to improve creative development, messaging and performance. This includes the measurement of social media, email direct response, internet advertising (mobile, search and display/banner) in coordination with broadcast, print and out of home media to drive customer relationship management and to increase the return on investment on advertising and promotional communication activities. He has a particular interest in the role of media multitasking on the cognitive processing of mediated messages. This focus includes the development of target audience profiles that include media multitasking intensity in order to provide insight on improving creative and media strategy.
Methodologies
- Surveys
- Focus Groups
- Interviews
- Secondary/Archival Research
Research Areas
- Media Multitasking Audience Behavior
- Integrated Strategic Communication Effectiveness
- Programmatic Advertising Planning & Evaluation
- Message Recall, Recognition & Persuasion
Teaching Focus
Michael's teaching interests include approaches to planning, managing and evaluating integrated strategic communication. Courses taught include the following: | https://www.depts.ttu.edu/comc/faculty/faculty/mzahn.php |
The study examined the influences of sales promotion of an employee in an organization. The research problem involves an investigation of the extent of which sales promotion influences an employee performances.
The extant literatures were reviewed, directly look at inducing retailers, consumers and sales persons by offering incentives or adding value for a product of interest, sales promotion encompass all promotional activities and materials excluding personal selling, adverting and public relations and publicity.
The method of analysis used in this research include descriptive analysis and nonparametric statistical methods, such as percentages, chi-square test (X2) spearman rank order correlation were logically tested and interpreted with the support of most relevant questions in the table accepted.
The result of the findings indicate that there is a significant relationship between sales promotion and sales performance and overall growth of the organization.
In conclusion, it was recommended that for any companies to-break even or make profits, such organization must intensify efforts on promotional activities achieve high sales.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title page i
Certification ii
Dedication iii
Acknowledgement iv-v
Abstract vi
Table of content vii-ix
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
1.1 Background of study 1-3
1.2 Statement of the problem 3
1.3 Purpose of the study 3
1.4 Research questions 3 – 4
1.5 Research hypothesis 4
1.6 Scope of study 4
1.7 Significance of study 5
1.8 Plan of study 5
1.9 Operational definition of terms 5 – 6
References 7
CHAPTER TWO
Literature Review
2.0 Introduction 8
2.1 Overview of the study 8-9
2.2 Promotional practices 9-16
2.3 Depressed Economy 16-17
2.4 Relating marketing to economic depression 17
2.5 Definition of sales promotion 17-18
2.6 The nature of sales promotion 19-22
2.7 Purpose of sales promotion 22-25
2.8 Importance of sales promotion 25-28
2.9 Demerits of sales promotion 28-29
2.10 Designing sales promotion programmes 29-30
2.11 Major decision involved in sales promotions 30-32
2.12 Sales promotion tools 32-37
2. 13 Sales promotion method of retails 37-40
2.14 Major decisions involved in sales promotion 40-44
2.15 Review of banking industry in Nigeria References 44-45
CHAPTER THREE
Research Methodology
3.1 Introduction 48
3.2 Restatement of the research question 48-49
3.3 Restatement of research hypothesis 49
3.4 Population of the study 49-50
3.5 Sample size 50
3.6 Sample design and procedures 50
3.7 Sources of data collection 50-51
3.8 Data collection instrument 51
3.9 Questionnaire administration 51-52
3.10 Procedure for processing and analyzing collected data 52-53
3. 11 Method of data analysis 53-54
3.12 Limitation of study 54
Reference 55
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Sales promotion is important in marketing as a way of increasing the demand for products or services. It is a substitute for price competition and as a way of differentiating similar products or services, Achumba (2000). Sales promotion is used frequently to improve the effectiveness of other promotional mix elements, especially advertising and personal selling.
Sales promotion along with advertising and salesmanship are the major techniques used in merchandising products/services to the public. Within the banking arena, sales promotion can be sued as an incentive to encourage potential and current customers to patronize different services/products offered by the banks.
Sales promotion is not only applicable in the product sector but equally useful in the service sector and the banking sector is no exception. Sales promotion is important, considering the ever increasing competitive banking atmosphere where "aggressive marketing strategy" is the order of the day.
Sales promotion devices are usually irregular. They make valuable contributions to marketing effectiveness by supporting advertising, personal selling and public relations activities and thereby increasing sales volume.
It's often attracting brand switchers, who are primarily looking for low price, good vale or premiums. This is commonly seen in banks because of the competitive banking arena where banks have in their marketing strategy a policy attracting and retaining their customers.
Sales promotion are all around us as we are constantly faced with coupons, sweepstakes and prize-cuts that try to make products ever more appealing and induce us to make a purchase. These promotions can have dramatic effects. Firms’ sales promotions have been on a steady increase over the last decade, while a advertising expenditures have Shrunk by almost half. Tellis (1998) noted that sales promotion is any time bound program of a seller that tries to make an offer more attractive to buyers and requires their participation in the form of an immediate purchase or some other action.
Particular emphasis is laid on three (3) key banks relevant to the case study. The banks include: Access Bank PLC, Zenith Bank Plc and Standard Trust Banks, now United Bank for Africa Plc. The banks were used in analyzing the impact of sales promotion as a marketing strategy.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Sales promotion ash been defined as short term incentives to stimulate selective demand for a product or brand. Thus, it is one of the promotional mix tools employed by an organization to boost or enhance sales of a rand.
Thus, the major problem of this research study is to find out the impacts or influences of sales promotion on the performances of employees on an organization.
Moreso, another problem of the study is to know whether sales promotion have effects on both the short term and long term performances of an organization.
1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
Ø To find out whether sales promotional activities as a marketing strategy can improve the banks performance in terms of customer base.
Ø To find out the best sales promotional tools as a marketing strategy relevant in the banks.
Ø To find out whether a sales promotional action can be sustained for a long time as a marketing strategy in the three selected banks.
Ø To effectively make recommendations on findings.
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTION
· What are the best sales promotional tool (s) used as a marketing strategy in the case study?
· What are the objectives of sales promotion in the three (3) case studies?
· Are the sales promotional tools used currently in the three (3) case studies improving the level of sales and actualizing the marketing objective desired?
1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
H0: Sales promotion does not improve sales/customer patronage.
Hi: Sales promotion improve sale/customer patronage
H0: Sale promotional efficiency does not result in improved profitability.
Hi: Sales promotional efficiency result in improved profitability.
1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This research work will be limited to the :impact of sales promotion as a marketing strategy, case study of three (3) selected banks (Access Bank Plc, Zenith Bank Plc and United Bank for Africa Plc)
1.7 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This research will be of great value to the management, personnel of rims within and outside the industry. It will assist them to determine the most effective sales promotional tools for not only the sake of improving customer patronage but also to improve on the level of profitability within the industry.
Additionally, this work will be immense value to student who are interested in carrying out research on related topics as far as the issue under investigation is concerned.
1.8 PLAN OF THE STUDY
The research will cover key participants in decision making in the respective banks. Here both primary and secondary data will be used. The primary source of data will constitute responses form questionnaire to be administered while secondary data is to be obtained through available material, relevant literature text books and other secondary data.
1.9 OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS
Promotion: Promotion an element in the marketing mix (4Ps of marketing) is a set of marketing activity designed to boost sales condition. Within promotion there exist promotional mix such as:
Advertising, personal selling sales promotion, publicity and public relations.
Sales promotion: This is a program that makes a firm's offer more attractive to buyers and require buyer's participation.
Product: The term product is sued generally to refer to any good, service, idea, time or candidate that an individual or organization offers to another individual or organization.
Advertising: Advertising is the act of communicating a firm's offer to customers by paid media, time or space.
Coupons: Coupons are certificates entitling the bearer to a stated saving on the purchase of specific product.
Price cuts: This is also called prize off deals. They are offers to consumers of saving off the regular prize of a product, a flagged on the label or package.
REFERENCES
Achumba, I. C. (2000): Strategic Marketing Management in the 21st century, Mac Williams and Capital Publishes Inc, Charlotte, USA, pp 364- 369
Achumba, I.C. and Osuagwu, L.C (1994): Marketing Fundamentals
and Practice, Al-Marks Educational Research Inc, Nigeria
Adebayo, O. (2000): Marketing Management, Olafemi Prints Lagos, Nigeria. | https://www.projectshelve.com/topics/preview/the-influence-of-sale-promotion-on-employees-performance-in-an-organization-a-case-studies-of-some-banks |
Featured:
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians (or "irregulars") use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and less-mobile traditional army, or strike a vulnerable target, and withdraw almost immediately.
See also
- Asymmetric warfare
- Fabian strategy
- Irregular military
- List of guerrilla movements
- List of guerrillas
- List of revolutions and rebellions
- Long range reconnaissance patrol
- Partisan
- Petty warfare
- Reagan Doctrine
- Special forces
- Unconventional warfare
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Guerrilla warfare" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on original research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice. | http://artandpopularculture.com/Guerrilla_warfare |
Agenda setting is a concept where the issues the public believes are important are decided by the media. Agenda Setting came to light by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw in 1972. It was introduced when they conducted a survey for the 1968 U.S Presidential elections to figure out what issues were important at the time for voters. What they found was that the issues important to voters were the same issues mass media were reporting as important. Basically, media decides what issues the public will focus their attention on, which makes the public believe those issues are more important than the rest. This is seen mostly during political campaigns, where media shapes issues importance instead of reflecting on them.
An algorithm is a kind of a recipe that describes the exact steps indeed to reach a goal. The word algorithm has its roots in Latinizing the name of Muhammad Ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi in a first step to algorismus.
Augmented reality designate computer systems that make possible the superimposition of a virtual 3D model or 2D the perception we have of course the reality and this in real time. It refers to the various methods to embed realistic virtual objects in an image sequence. It applies as well to visual perception (virtual image superimposed on real images) as “proprioceptive” perceptions such as touch or auditory perceptions.
Saturation, exhaustion. In particular, it may designate a burnout syndrome. The diagnosis of this state of fatigue classifies this disease in the category professional psychosocial risks and as a consequence of exposure to extended. In Japan, the translation would even be “death by overloading work” (Karōshi). + cf. boreout /brownout.
The role of citizen journalism is to develop an information and communication to the internet and it´s an active role from the citizens. in the process of collecting and reporting news and it can be anyone. Any citizen that has a smart phone and who is on social media platforms can perform a “Glocal news´´ and being an eye journalist, as the object is happening if front of citizens.
The Article about the 4th European conference for science journalists that took place in Copenhagen in 2017 citizen journalism; a phenomenon that is here to stay: it´s also mentioning that citizen journalism is a threat to the professional, as the video’s and photos posted by citizens from an event before the professional journalists appears.
The expression “citizen journalists” emerged after the tsunami in Southeast Asia in December 2004 as people took video’s and pictures that were published online.
For Stuart Allan, Head of the school of journalism, media and cultural studies at Cardiff University: “the term includes someone who happens to be in the right place at the wrong time with their smartphone in their pocket and as the presence of mind to bear witness to something unfolding before them”.
Cloudsourcing is a process whereby specialized cloud computing products (services and maintenance) are entrusted to one or more cloud computing service providers. It allows organizations to recover their entire IT infrastructure from a cloud, which integrates easily to any platform and requires no management fee.
Even if we do not yet find a stable definition of the expression cloudworking, it is used when wants to evoke a mode of work according to which the main part of the collaboration is carried out on line. This term is marking because it crystallizes a change of epoch but it is not to detach from the new territories of work. In “new territories of labor”, there is the idea of exploration, which describes the current context in which the status freelancer, self-employed or self-entrepreneur is increasingly attracting assets.
Cloudworking refers also a realization of the work by an employee outside the company’s premises by means of communication which connect him to this one, whether mobile phones, laptops, private connections to the internal network of the company or hosted tools in the cloud.
A cluster (or cluster of competitiveness) is a concentration of interconnected companies and institutions in a geographical territory. A cluster can be defined as a region, usually urban areas, where there is accumulated know-how in a given technical field, which can competitive advantage at the international level. The economic growth generated tends to spread to other activities, particularly in services and subcontracting.
Computing refers to any activity that focuses on objectives requiring, benefiting or creating from computers. By example, computing includes the design, development and construction of hardware and software, processing, structuring and managing different kinds of information, doing research scientists on and with computers; that computer systems behave in a way that intelligent, creating and using communications and entertainment, etc.
The term “creativity” refers to the formulation of new ideas and the application of these ideas to the production of works original art and cultural products, functional creations, scientific inventions and innovations technology. Also, artistic creativity refers to the imagination and the ability to generate ideas and new ways of interpreting the world, through text, sound and image.
Creative City /Creative territory
The creative city is a concept developed by the town planner Charles Landry in the 1980s and has since become a global movement that reflects a new paradigm of planning for cities.
A creative territory would be a place associated with a quality of life that would be central to territorial marketing, in particular in order to attract new businesses. The convergence of technologies and offers opportunities for growth and acquisition of specific and competitive industrial positions. These movements make culture and creativity the key stakes for territories, both from the point of view of their branding in order to attract investors. Creativity and creativite territories are then clearly considered from the point of view of the knowledge economy and the digital world in the era of glocalization.
More info ? http://en.unesco.org/creative-cities/home , http://creativecities.britishcouncil.org/
US geographer Richard Florida introduced the term “creative class” to emphasize the role creative people in the creative age. He argues that the economy moves from a companies to a people-oriented system. The term “creative class” therefore refers to a population urban, mobile, skilled and connected, which is mainly defined by the slogan “Talent, Technology and Tolerance “.
To the notion of creative class, Florida combines a theory of economic development of cities that makes the attraction of creative class members a key to the creation of new activities. This thesis is supported by spatial correlations between the development of cities and the indices of cultural of tolerance.
Creative economy refers to the growth of creativity and creativity in the economy as a whole. It is a group of activities exploiting the aesthetic and artistic inventiveness of groups of creative workers.
Various commentators provided suggestions on activities to be included in the concept of “creative industries” and the name itself is controversial – with significant differences and overlaps between the terms cultural industries creative industries and creative economy (Hesmondhalgh 2002).
If we look at the genesis of expression, we note that the political and theoretical origins come from a British notion: creative industries (Hesmondhalgh 2002, Howkins 2001). Early writers such as David Hesmondhalgh, researcher at the Media Industries Research Centre at the University of Leeds and John Howkins, author of The Creative Economy: How People Make Money from Ideas (2002), define the creative industries as a whole, economic activities related to the production or exploitation of knowledge and information. Very quickly, this terminology is taken up by international, supranational organizations, governments, local authorities, statistical institutions, socio-economic actors throughout the world.
Nowadays, Creative economy refers to the growth of creativity in the economy as a whole. It is a group of activities exploiting the aesthetic and artistic inventiveness of groups of creative workers.
In English, “communal lands” in the literal sense, “common property” in the figurative sense. Informally speaking, digital common goods involve the distribution and ownership of information and technological resources. Resources are generally designed to be used by the community through which they were created.
Examples of digital commons: Wikipedia, Wikimedia, Creative Commons, Open Source, etc.
The community manager – or even the community animator for french speakers– refers to somebody which the role in a business is to involve animating and federating communities on the Web for a structure, a company, an association, a NGO, a brand, a celebrity, an institution or a product, for examples. The community manager is involved both in the monitoring of information, the setting up of content and the creation and running of communities.
Cross-cultural communication has become strategically important to companies due to the growth of global business, technology and the Internet. Understanding cross-cultural communication is important for any company that has a diverse workforce or plans on conducting global business. This type of communication involves an understanding of how people from different cultures speak, communicate, and perceive the world around them.
Cross-cultural communication in an organization deals with understanding different business customs, beliefs and communication strategies. Language differences, high-context vs. low-context cultures, nonverbal differences, and power distance are major factors that can affect cross-cultural communication.
More info ? http://study.com/academy/lesson/cross-cultural-communication-definition-strategies-examples.html
Cross-cultural management is the study of management in a cross-cultural context. It includes the study of the influence of societal culture on managers and management practice as well as the study of the cultural orientations of individual managers and organization members. At the individual level the values, cognitive structures, and reactions of individuals to their cultural context and experience figure prominently. Contributing disciplines include cross-cultural psychology, sociology, and anthropology as well as the broader disciplines of management and organizational behavior and the related area of international human resource management. General topic areas include the cultural context in which management must take place, the various roles of the international manager, the influence of culture on organizational structure and processes, and management across nations and cultures.
Cross-cultural studies are research comparing human behaviors across two or more cultures. This, in order to understand variations of human behavior as it is influenced by cultural context. The first cross-cultural studies appears by the 19th century, with anthropologists such as the British Edward Burnett TYLOR (1832 – 1917) or the New Yorker Lewis H. MORGAN (1818-1881). In the recent decades historians and particularly historians of science started looking at the mechanism and networks by which knowledge, ideas, skills, instruments and books moved across cultures, generating new and fresh concepts concerning the order of things in nature. Cross-cultural studies, also called comparative studies, is a specialization in anthropology and other Human Sciences (sociology, psychology, economics, political science, information and communication sciences). Cross cultural studies uses field data from many societies to examine the scope of human behavior and test hypotheses about human behavior and culture. Cross-cultural studies is the third form of cross-cultural comparisons. Unlike comparative studies, which examines similar characteristics of a few societies, cross-cultural studies uses a sufficiently large sample so that statistical analysis can be made to show relationships or lack of relationships between the traits in question. These studies are surveys of ethnographic data.
Cross-cultural management is the study of management in a cross-cultural context. It includes the study of the influence of societal culture on managers and management practice as well as the study of the cultural orientations of individual managers and organization members. At the individual level the values, cognitive structures, and reactions of individuals to their cultural context and experience figure prominently. Contributing disciplines include cross-cultural psychology, sociology, and anthropology as well as the broader disciplines of management and organizational behavior and the related area of international human resource management. General topic areas include the cultural context in which management must take place, the various roles of the international manager, the influence of culture on organizational structure and processes, and management across nations and cultures.
More info ? http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199846740/obo-9780199846740-0074.xml
In French, one could translate by “foule”. But also by “a great number of people gathered together”, “the common people / the populace” or “a lot of things positioned or considered as a whole”.
Participatory finance (or collection) is an expression describing all the tools and methods of financial transaction between individuals with little or no inter mediation by traditional actors. The emergence of participatory finance platforms has been allowed through the Internet and social networks. This trend is part of a more global movement: that of collaborative consumption.
Someone’s cultural awareness is their understanding of the differences between themselves and people from other countries or other backgrounds, especially differences in attitudes and values.
Cultural industries, in the narrowest sense, encompass those sectors which, in the field of culture economy, involve reproduction of works and widespread dissemination. The term covers the film, audiovisual, publishing, record (and musical record) industries. Today, the theme of the creative industries would complement that of the cultural industries (first translation into French of the German expression Kulturindustrie, created by the researchers of the Frankfurt School, Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer in 1944).
Founded in the 1930s by them, the Frankfurt movement suffered from the second world war as many of these intellectuals had to run away from Germany to the USA. THe name came into use in the 1950s when the Institute for Social Research where these intellectuals were located re-opened its doors.
Sometimes called Francfort Circle to demonstrate the fact that it was more a group of people oriented towards the same subject than a well-established school of thinking, the 1960s and the cold war will make its theory more vivid with the arrival of Habermas or Axel Honneth. Main characteristics of analysis must be self reflexive, encompass multiple fields (e.g. litterature, musicology in addition to sociology), ability to re-invent the initial goal of the school based on present evolving context, diversity of opinions of any repetion of a dogma.
It brings together the cultural industries and all cultural and artistic production activities, whether they are live or produced as an individual entity.
For Horkheimer and Adorno, the world is structured by the cultural industry (mass culture).At that time, cultural industries are defined as a group formed by cinema, radio, press, television. It is also noted that two British authors on the subject of the creative industries (Hesmondhalgh & Howkins) can also use the term “cultural industries” to refer to the creative industries.
Cultural relativism refers to the idea that the values, knowledge, and behaviour of people must be understood within their own cultural context. This is one of the most fundamental concepts in sociology, as it recognizes and affirms the connections between the greater social structure and trends and the everyday lives of individual people.
Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s own ethnic group, nation, or culture is superior, or any reason based solely on their heritage. It is a major cause for divisions amongst members of different ethnicities, races, and religious groups in society nowadays
While many people may recognize the issue, they may fail to realize that ethnocentrism occurs everywhere and everyday at both the local and political levels and they have themselves a biased day-to-day ethnocentric behavior.
More info ? http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-ethnocentrism.html
Gatekeeper
The Gate Keeper is a word derived from the IT field. It is the person that applies to the process for dissemination, whether for publication, broadcasting, the Internet, or some other mode of communication.
This means Gate Keeping falls into a role of surveillance and monitoring data. It is a theory of mass communication is a method which allows us to keep our ability to think and behave in a normal and rational manner. the person who is responsible for controlling passwords and access rights or permissions for software that the company uses.
A secretary who controls who gets an appointment with a president of the company is an example of a gatekeeper.
Glocalization is a mixture of the end result of combining the words globalization and localization. Glocalization refers to the practice of conducting business by taking simultaneously into account both the universalizing and particularizing tendencies in contemporary social, political, and economic systems. The term, was popularized by the sociologist Roland Robertson in 1994 and coined, according to him, by economists to explain Japanese global marketing strategies for their products or services designed to benefit a local market while at the same time being developed and distributed on a global level. The phrase “Think global, act local” has been used since in various contexts, including planning, environment, education, mathematics, and business.
GDPR
The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) concerns the protection of private data. It increasesand unifies the data protection for the persons living in the European Union. The GDPR is applied since the 25/05/2018 in the 28 UE states. Its goal is to increase at once the protection of concerned persons by a treatment of theirs data privacy and the responsibility of players of this treatment. But now some websites are unattainable for UE citizens with the GDPR. And with the article 13 someother websites will be unattainable for UE citizens.
Guerrilla Marketing is an advertising strategy that focuses on low-cost unconventional marketing tactics that yield maximum results.
The original term was coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his 1984 book ‘Guerrilla Advertising’. The term guerrilla marketing was inspired by guerrilla warfare which is a form of irregular warfare and relates to the small tactic strategies used by armed civilians. Many of these tactics includes ambushes, sabotage, raids and elements of surprise. Much like guerrilla warfare, guerrilla marketing uses the same sort of tactics in the marketing industry.
This alternative advertising style relies heavily on unconventional marketing strategy, high energy and imagination. Guerrilla Marketing is about taking the consumer by surprise, make an indelible impression and create copious amounts of social buzz. Guerrilla marketing is said to make a far more valuable impression with consumers in comparison to more traditional forms of advertising and marketing. This is due to the fact that most guerrilla marketing campaigns aim to strike the consumer at a more personal and memorable level.
More info ? http://www.creativeguerrillamarketing.com/what-is-guerrilla-marketing/
A hub can design literaly speaking, a central part of a wheel, rotating on or with the axle, and from which the spokes radiate. In term of business, nowadays, it is considerate as the effective centre of an activity, region, or network as a central airport or other transport facility from which many services operate.
Leadership is political, psychological, social influence of an individual or group of individuals on a group or other group. The leader has personal skills that make him different and allows him to be listened and followed by a group of people. Leadership does not equal management.
The concept of management is uncertain. Its epistemological status is controversial. According to the authors, it would be an art, or a science, or a process, or a function. For cross cultural studies, we will consider management as the control and the organization of a business or other organization. It can also be considered within plural : a group of people responsible for controlling and organizing a company, a corporate structure.
It should not be confused with leadership. According to « Trends and Perspectives in Management and Leadership Development » by Richard Bolden from the Centre of Leadership Studies « Leadership development is distinct from management development in the extent to which it involves preparing people for roles and situations beyond their current experience. Management development, he argues, equips managers with the knowledge, skills and abilities to enhance performance on known tasks through the application of proven solutions, whilst leadership development is defined as “orientated towards building capacity in anticipation of unforeseen challenges.” »
Miscommunicate is the failure to communicate ideas or intentions successfully. For Paul Watzlawick (1921-2007), Austrian-American family therapist, psychologist, communications theorist, and philosopher from the Palo Alto School, « One cannot not communicate » but « one can be misunderstood or not understood » (Pr. Alexandre Marius Baron Dées De Sterio – 1944-2006).
as the term implies “narrow” which means limited or restricted. Narrow casting has to do with the transmission of information to a specified group of people or audience. Thus form of information dissemination is targeted. Eg: an agricultural information transmitted as an enlightenment program to farmers or to a specific region.
In addition, the use of cable tv is a good example of narrow casting because it requires subscription and only subscribes are able to view content of the information disseminated.
Finally, narrow casting can be restrictive and could require a login details from site. This is possible due to the presence if new media technologies. Eg: the use of emails.
Broadcasting: this concept encompasses the use of old media such television and radio. The information is far reaching and not restricted. A large audience is able to receive this information through network TV. In other words, anyone who owns an antenna can receive information through TV or radio. Broadcasting is not targeted to any region, or audience.
A prejudice can be defined as a preconceived judgment or opinion ; an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge or even an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, or their supposed characteristics.
Prosumer
A prosumer is a person who consumes and produces a product. It is derived from “prosumption,” a dot-com era company term meaning “consumer manufacturing.” These terms were invented in 1980 by American futurist Alvin Toffler and were commonly used by many technology authors of the moment. Today it usually relates to a individual using commons-based peer production.
This blurring of the roles of consumers and producers has its origins in the cooperative self-help movements that emerged during various economic crises, e.g. the Great Depression of the 1930s. Another example of prosumer would be: Solar, wind and other renewables, on-site battery storage, and microgrids are the future, not fads. They’re becoming reality as governments and regulators incentivise grid defection, with seemingly scant regard for the utilities that enable this change.
i.e. Solar panels for electricity / Wind turbine for water
Public Sphere
Habermas’ definition of a public sphere is the first and founding trigger to classification attempts of the formation of public opinions and the legitimization of state and democracy in post-war Western societies. It is accepted as standard work but the concept of it is challenged by many critics. Public Sphere is defined as a domain of social life where opinions can be formed. For Habermas :
“The parliament no longer is an ‘assembly of wise men chosen as individual personalities by privileged strata, who sought to convince each other through arguments in public discussion on the assumption that the subsequent decision reached by the majority would be what was true and right for the national welfare.’ Instead it has become the ‘public rostrum on which, before the entire nation (which through radio an television participates in a specific fashion in this sphere of publicity), the government and the parties carrying it present and justify to the nation their political program, while the opposition attacks this program with the same opennes and develops its alternatives.”
Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/31386.J_rgen_Habermas
A stereotype refers to a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.
Theory which presents society as the result of people engaging in social interaction. Social reality can therefore only described and exists in the context of the human behavior. Athough the theorical works of George Herbert Mead, this theory gained popularity thanks to Herbert Blumer, while teaching at the University of Chicago in the 1930s. The 3 main principles are:
Derived ideas include that these social interactions are possible because humans are capable of thought and this capacity comes from and is shaped by social interaction, and all these actions and interactions are the basis for making up societies or groups of people.
Research institute (usually independently financed) staffed with interdisciplinary group of experts engaged in the study of policy issues in business and government. The term, first applied in 1940’s to the Rand corporation (funded largely by the Ford Foundation), is now loosely applied to any group formed to solve a problem or to study a particular topic.
Viewertariat
Viewertariat is defined as viewers that use publishing platforms and social media to freely comment, exchange ideas, opinions, experiences, and viewpoints while watching live tv (Anstead and O’Loughlin, 2011, p.441). Recent technological advances have made it possible for individuals to exchange their opinions through Social media on a real-time basis while watching TV. Live tweeting while watching political leaders give speeches or debate is an example. The emergence of Viewertariat shows a shift in consumption from passive which is when audiences are not engaging or questioning the message or information, to active which means that the audience is actively involved with the content and interprets what they are viewing it in their own personal and social contexts.
Watchdog Journalism
An individual or individuals that share information concerning institutions, companies, governments, societies etc to the public. This information shared is usually shared with the aim of getting a public reaction. One could say it’s another word for “whistleblower”.
The role of a watchdog is like that of a guardian, in order to protect the people from higher institutional abuse of power. Before sending or sharing the information, a watchdog must fact check, construct interviews, beating reports, and investigative journalism in order for the information is accurate and adequate enough for the public.
ADLER, Nancy J., with Allison GUNDERSEN (2007). International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior. 5th ed. Mason, OH: Thomson Learning.
DERESKY, Helen (2013). International Management: Managing across Borders and Cultures, Text and Cases. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2013.
EARLEY, P. Christopher (2002). “Redefining interactions across cultures and organizations: moving forward with cultural intelligence”. In B. M. Staw. Research in Organizational Behavior.
HESMONDHALGH, David; BAKER, Sarah (2006). «Creative work in Cultural Industries». Communication au colloque international “Mutations des industries de la culture, de l’information et de la communication”, September 25, 26, 27, La Plaine Saint-Denis.
Available : http://www.observatoireomic.org/fr/art/180/creative-work-in-the-cultural-industries.html.
FLORIDA, Richard (2008). Who’s your city? How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life, New York, Basic Books.
HOWKINS, John (2002).The Creative Economy: How People Make Money from Ideas, London, Penguin Press.
LANE, Henry W., MAZNESKI Martha (2014). International Management Behavior: Global and Sustainable Leadership. 7th ed. Chichester, UK: Wiley, 2014.
LANDRY, Charles (2000). The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators.
THOMAS, David C., PETERSON Mark F. (2014). Cross-Cultural Management. 3d ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. | https://ameddias.org/media-communication-strategies/ |
Members:
- Lee Coleman
- Deja Monroe
- Micheal Romain
- LaDonna Raeh
Marketing and communications includes advertising, promotions, sales, branding and online promotion. The process allows the public to know or understand a brand. Successful branding involves targeting audiences who appreciate the organization’s marketing program.
Advertising is a small but important part of marketing communications; the marketing communications mix is a set of tools that can be used to deliver a clear and consistent message to target audiences. It is also commonly called the promotional mix. Crosier (1990) states that all terms have the same meaning in the context of the 4ps: Product, price, place and promotion. | https://ilbcc.org/marketing-communications/ |
Why “counter-insurgency” is a misnomer (and counter-productive).
Posted on 17:28, December 10th, 2009 by Pablo
My first “real” job involved creating a Latin American Studies program for US military and civilian intelligence officers at a military post-graduate institution. One of the factors that contributed to my being hired was that I had familiarity with how Latin American guerrilla organizations fight. When asked at the job interview about how to “counter” them, I noted that the very term “counter-insurgency’ was self-defeating on two levels, one semantic and one practical. That impressed and surprised my interlocutors, who then allowed me to teach my interpretation of counter-insurgency (COIN) theory to my Latin-America bound students. In return, I got to learn and participate in their business. But that was two decades ago. Since the doctrine of counter-insurgency has resurfaced and been applied in recent years to Afghanistan and Iraq, and is seemingly back in vogue and unchallenged in those settings, I thought I would reprise my argument against its use.
“Insurgency” refers to counter-hegemonic or anti-status quo groups that use armed struggle as the means to the end of political victory. It is not a form of warfare per se, but instead a term used to describe the nature of a particular guerrilla (or irregular or unconventional) group using irregular warfare as the means to their end. Thus one does not “counter” insurgency by fighting, but by ideological means. Hence “counter-insurgency” properly applies to non-coercive measures employed by political status quo regimes to thwart the ideological appeal of (most often nationalist) guerrillas. The term is therefore misused when applied to the kinetic part of asymmetric warfare, which more properly can be termed “counter-guerrilla” or irregular warfare operations.
But even then the practical problem remains: by defining kinetic operations as “counter-guerrilla” or (mistakenly) “counter-insurgency,” the conventional fighter begins on the back foot. Anyone familiar with guerrilla warfare knows that you do not “counter” it, or merely respond to guerrilla operations. That is because such an approach gives the guerrilla forces the initiative as to how and when to stage their operations. Such a “countering” strategy inevitably allows guerrillas to remain on the offensive and dictate the timing, nature and tempo of armed confrontations. It is, therefore , often a self-defeating strategy doomed from the onset.
In order to be successful, counter-guerrilla operations need to be offensive, irregular and consequently symmetrical to those of the guerrillas themselves. The idea is to fight guerrillas on their own terms but with all of the capabilities afforded to conventional militaries (e.g. air cover, precision-munitions, satellite guidance, signals and technical intelligence). That involves small group operations–such as what the NZSAS is trained to do–acting with excellent and precise tactical intelligence to strike preemptively at guerrilla targets, focusing on leadership and command, control, communications and intelligence (C3I) structures. Rather than large group operations that rely on massed force and kinetic friction, the irregular approach emphasizes fluidity and maneuver. In other words, it operates the way guerrillas do.
Therein lies the problem with Western counter-insurgency strategy. It confuses the nature of a guerrilla grievance with a type of irregular warfare, and in doing so legitimizes the grievance in contexts in which the status quo regime is unpopular. In such contexts “insurgents” are awarded popular appeal as symbols of resistance to the unpopular regime and foreign oppressors, thereby undercutting any “hearts and minds” efforts undertaken by the latter. This in turn undermines efforts to obtain precise, reliable and timely intelligence on guerrilla targets, which is a function of the rapport between the civilian population and various armed actors. Instead, the intelligence flow preferably goes to the guerrillas, and what passes for intelligence to the conventional actor is often disinformation.
To that can be added the mindset created by the “countering” posture of irregular operations. Such a strategic posture condemns the countering party to react to the actions of the guerrillas, which although leading to tactical success on occasion, denies the countering side the possibility of strategic victory. So long as guerrillas can avoid confrontations with massed force, they survive to fight another day, another week, and years thereafter. “Countering” strategies also have the drawback of not being fine-tuned to the cultural norms and fighting styles of irregular opponents. Although much has been written about the different approaches to conventional warfare adopted by different nations (such as American, Arab, British, Chinese, Israeli and Russian fighting styles), much less attention has been paid to different unconventional or irregular fighting styles. Not all guerrillas copy the Guevara, Guillen, Marighella or Mao playbook when undertaking their campaigns, and many hybrid versions of guerrilla warfare exist that are rooted as much in local armed custom as they are historical examples. A “countering” strategy is less capable of embracing that fact.
I have refrained here from taking a position on the worthiness of the cause (pro or anti-guerrilla) in a given case. Readers can choose sides in any conflict as they deem fit. What I am doing here is briefly explaining why Western counter-insurgency strategy has elementary problems that seriously impede the possibility of success in any context in which its adversaries are well organised and highly motivated, particularly if the latter adopt a guerrilla strategy of fighting prolonged wars of attrition on their home soil against foreign forces that are not as committed to the long-term struggle (or who do not have the support of their home populations to do so).
As the old saying goes, in asymmetric wars, strategic stalemates are victories for the militarily “weaker” side. However, if the militarily “superior” side bases its campaign on erroneous assumptions and faulty strategic logics, then more than a stalemate is within the grasp of the ostensibly “weaker” side. After all, asymmetry in warfare works both ways.
PS: I have updated the post. For those interested, here is a link to US counter-insurgency doctrine. The Spec Ops community understands the problem, but as a minority component of a large conventional military, they ultimately are not determinants of the solutions offered. | http://www.kiwipolitico.com/2009/12/why-counter-insurgency-is-a-misnomer-and-counter-productive/ |
Position Summary:
The core of our offering is to find, teach and develop entrepreneurs at McGill. This involves engaging with students, staff and faculty across all of McGill as well as numerous external stakeholders, including alumni, donors, funders and other parts of the Entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Reporting to the Senior Program Manager, McGill Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship (DCE), the incumbent will be responsible for external and internal communications management, along with supporting the program managers and coordinators in the development and delivery of extra-curricular entrepreneurship programming and content for the McGill Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship.
The incumbent will oversee all aspects of the centre’s digital presence as well as the digital communications and marketing activities. This role involves ensuring that the centre’s website is optimized across all platforms, ensures consistent branding and messaging, and coordinates regular updates with each program, event and important news item.
Primary Responsibilities
Digital Communications:
- Oversee the maintenance of all social platforms (Envoke, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, ..) as well as the website content of the Centre; conceptualize new design and content, and implement changes in alignment with the centre’s activities and strategic priorities.
- Work closely with all Program Managers and Coordinators in support of the Centre’s activities; from the planning stage, to preparing and sharing promotional materials, helping out during the events (online or on campus)
- Work closely with the Director and program managers to plan, create and format digital content (text, videos, graphics/photos) across digital platforms
- Write and edit all promotional material in both French and English, oversee direct mailing and other promotional activities as well as assist with creative assignments and revisions of content created by other contributors.
- Contribute in the creation of strategic documents such as annual donor report, reporting to the government and grant proposal writing
- Manage and update in an on-going manner both our Startup database and our Community database
- Optimize all social content in relation to its analytics
- As Content Strategist, oversee all aspects of the centre’s website: text, design, navigation/structure, digital assets, and coordinate new content when required, ensuring that it adheres to Faculty guidelines and standards.
- Community relations:
- Act as a liaison function with other University units and with external organizations.
- Act as a liaison function with Dobson alumni and donors
- Is key contact and resource person to student clubs, and other communities internal and external to the University.
Other Duties and Responsibilities:
- Supports team with the execution of programs, events, competitions and services by establishing priorities and ensure efficiency and quality of output
- Participate in the unit's overall strategy, by providing insights and analytics to ensure continued growth and success of the DCE's long-term strategy; lead, direct and approve the strategic selection tools and software to support the communication platforms, IT infrastructure and operations at the DCE.
- Foster and maintain business relationships with academics and other stakeholders to build networks both domestically and internationally and participate in these events as required.
Education and Experience
- Undergraduate degree
- Three (3) years’ related experience
Other Qualifying Skills and Abilities:
Strong oral and written communication skills in both English and French, a requirement. Experience in digital marketing and communications as well as project management. Ability to manage multiple tasks simultaneously, set priorities, and meet tight deadlines. Is able to work independently, highly self-motivated, and proven organizational skills with meticulous attention to detail. Involvement in some aspect with an entrepreneurship community and/or connected to the McGill and Montreal entrepreneurial and/or academic ecosystem a definite asset. Demonstrated ability to work in a MS Office environment using word-processing, databases, spreadsheets and presentation software as well as graphic content creation.
Annual Salary:
$44,140 - $59,720
Please apply by Sunday, August 15 at 11:59 P.M. EDT .
We thank all applicants for their interest, however only those candidates selected for interviews will be contacted. | https://www.grenier.qc.ca/emplois/50597/communications-associate |
How to Define Your Target Audience: Is Your Nonprofit a Match for Your Community?
A good Guerrilla will have the personality traits of: Imagination : Someone who’s not trying to be the most creative, but wants to be the most strategic. This post originally appeared on the Guerilla Marketing for Nonprofits blog. | https://www.nonprofitmarketingzone.com/best-practice/creative/guerilla/ |
As a Digital Marketing Executive, you will ultimately be responsible for audience development and execution of the digital marketing strategy, particularly through managing the companies online marketing campaigns and promotional activity. You will also analyse performance, delivering insights to different teams and identifying potential opportunities.
What will you be doing?
- Developing and executing a digital marketing strategy
- Managing social campaigns, as well as native advertisement. You will analyse the successfulness of the campaign, delivering insight back to the creative team.
- Delivering ROI analysis of Digital Marketing campaigns
- Conducting insights and analysis across editorial and social, using Google Analytics and ComScore. You will identify potential areas of opportunity from the gathered data.
- Managing and executing email marketing campaigns.
- Managing promotional activity through social media platforms
What skills do you need?
- At least 3 years’ recent experience of working within a Digital Marketing role, preferably within publishing. | https://www.nativegravity.co.uk/job/digital-marketing-executive-1/ |
An exciting opportunity exists for a Branding and Promotions Co-Ordinator to join our team in Zimbabwe.
The main purpose of this role is to provide oversight of in-country branding activities and assist in the development and implementation of marketing and sales promotions.
The Promotions Coordinator role reports into the Country Representative. Guided by the strategic direction set out by the Group Marketing Department and in-country Sales Department to implement branding projects, promotions and activations. The Promotions Coordinator tracks and analyses market trends and competitor activity to tailor messaging for the target customer.
Duties and Responsibilities (Include but is not limited to):
- Align group marketing strategy with in-country sales operations
- Partner with the marketing department to build the most effective roll-out plans for localised campaigns, i.e. activations, roadshows, etc
- Research competitors’ promotional activities and relay information to group marketing and in-country sales team
- Develop awareness of Mukuru brand and services
- Assist in development and implementation process for sales promotions
- Assist all relationship managers to formulate promotional packages to their clients
- Supervise and perform as on site, on-mic host of events when necessary
- Coordinate the creation of monthly activation plans
- Custodianship of the Mukuru brand and maintenance of that standard
- Management of Mukuru and partner site branding
- Oversight of marketing and sales collateral production, storage and distribution
- Drive the production of marketing and sales collateral
- Maintain required stock of marketing and sales collateral
- Ensure that assets and content created locally are approved and pre-aligned to Marketing strategy and CI
- Organise distribution of assets as required
- Manage marketing and sales collateral budget
- Generate weekly reports
Key Requirements:
- Grade 12 or equivalent
- Tertiary Sales /Marketing/Communication Design qualification (Essential)
- At least 5 years sales/marketing experience of these, 2 years should be at supervisory level (Essential)
- Experience in managing a sales team
- Experience managing branding projects
- Knowledge of sales and marketing principles
- Knowledge of marketing collateral design and production
- Knowledge of procurement methodology
- Knowledge of sales and marketing campaign management
Additional Skills:
- Verbal and written communication skills
- Selling skills
- Time management skills
- Organisational & administrative skills
- Interpersonal skills Attention to detail
Should you be appointed in a remote/work from home role at Mukuru, it is your responsibility to ensure that you have uninterrupted internet connectivity and a ‘work-like’ environment at your home location, in order to deliver your best in terms of performance, productivity and service to our customers.
If you do not receive any response after two weeks, please consider your application unsuccessful. | https://www.jobs263.com/jobs/branding-and-promotions-co-ordinator/ |
By Jacelyn Nesmith | Content Development Specialist on November 6, 2020 at 10:38 AM
During the fall semester, student programs across the country typically host various fundraisers to support their programs and activities. While community members want to support local programs, social distancing guidelines and economic disruption has impacted school fundraisers over the last year.
Career & Technical Education (CTE) programs often host multiple fundraisers to help teachers buy new supplies and tools, fund students to attend competitions and to help charities. This year, many CTE programs have had to cancel their fundraising plans due to the pandemic. However, it is not too late for CTE programs to host a fundraiser while abiding by social distancing guidelines.
We are about to enter the "season of giving," therefore, this is an excellent time for CTE programs to host a virtual fundraiser. For events initially planned for in-person, shifting online is undoubtedly a challenge. Understand, you may not fully recreate the event, but an engaging, online fundraiser is still possible. Keep the primary goal of the fundraiser in mind.
Begin planning by thinking of ways to reach fundraising goals through virtual tactics. Livestreaming, social media or a website may be helpful for the fundraiser. Prioritize communication throughout the fundraiser. It is especially important for everyone in the community, especially sponsors, to know what to expect, how to get involved and why their support is essential.
Consider the following questions before you begin planning a virtual fundraiser.
• Is this a public or private fundraiser?
• Are tickets needed or registration?
• What is our fundraising goal?
• How will we engage the audience?
We have compiled a comprehensive list of tips for hosting a virtual fundraiser. Regardless of the fundraiser's format, the following tips will help your program plan a successful, virtual fundraiser.
1. Create a Clear Vision
Whether your program is creating a virtual fundraiser from scratch or reworking an in-person experience, a clear vision for the event will transition initial ideas into reality. Before getting started, take some time to formulate your "why." It is important to understand why you are hosting a fundraiser. The why should attract your target audience and sponsors. While crafting your "why," be sure to bridge the gap between your program and the community. The vision of the fundraiser should communicate your program's mission and impact.
2. Make a Detailed Plan
Virtual fundraisers often require less planning than an in-person fundraiser. However, it is important to have a detailed plan for the fundraiser by creating a budget, timeline, goals, event page and donation plan. Identify a well-defined target audience in your plan. Knowing your target audience is key to success and will help guide the planning process. When creating the agenda, highlight key themes and important points to interest your target audience.
If this is your first virtual fundraiser, it is recommended to begin planning no less than 4-8 weeks in advance. However, if the fundraiser is multiple days, it is recommended to start planning 12 weeks in advance.
3. Marketing the Fundraiser
Promoting fundraisers have always been important, but it's especially crucial for virtual fundraisers. Incorporate various marketing strategies into the planning stages for virtual fundraisers. Printed flyers may have a place in the marketing strategy; however, online marketing is often vital for spreading the word about virtual fundraisers.
When marketing fundraisers, consider the following:
• Call/Email local partners
• Send marketing emails and reminders
•Utilize social media channels
• Consider using an event website
• Create promotional materials
4. Explain the Impact of Donations
One of the most critical factors in fundraising is the wording used to ask for donations. Whether inviting sponsors to donate via email, on social media, over the phone or in-person, your wording impacts the response. The goal when asking sponsors to attend the virtual fundraiser is to be authentic and to build trust between the two of you. One way to earn trust is by being transparent about what the donations will fund. What is the impact of sponsors donating to your program?
Whether you are raising money for a trip, buying classroom supplies, or expanding the program, it is important to communicate the purpose to fundraiser sponsors and partners. Another strategy to help build trust is by sharing the goal of the fundraiser. For example, "We are hoping to raise $6,000 to ensure each of our students can attend National FFA Convention." Providing examples of the impact a donation entices sponsors to participate.
5. Practice with the Team
Even if your program has experience with virtual fundraising, it is advisable to do a mock fundraiser. A practice fundraiser will help programs prepare for possible difficulties, ensure the video and sound work and iron out last-minute details. Additionally, a practice helps performers work out any jitters and get comfortable in front of the camera. Invite a few sponsors to attend the mock event to provide feedback.
6. Engage the Audience
In today's technologically driven world, people are used to engaging and interacting online. During a virtual event, it is critical to plan ways for the audience to participate. Get creative to engage the audience and sponsors. Q&A sessions, surveys, polls and chats all create a sense of interaction. Regardless of the interaction, make sure to have opportunities for the audience to interact to create the best experience possible.
7. Follow Up and say "Thank You"
Following up with attendees is crucial after a virtual fundraiser. Sending follow up information is an excellent way for programs to stand out from others. Send a handwritten thank you card, an email or call each person to thank them for attending personally. During the initial planning stages, have a plan to follow up with each attendee. Make sure to gather the information needed to execute the follow-up plan. For example, if you plan to send a thank-you card, you will need their mailing addresses.
If your program hasn't pivoted and explored virtual fundraising strategies, now is the time. With the year-end giving season around the corner, now is an excellent time to plan a virtual fundraiser. Keep an eye on our blog for virtual fundraising ideas and events to keep revenue flowing while schools are navigating today's pandemic. | https://blog.icevonline.com/7-virtual-school-fundraising-tips |
As part of the scientific research activities at the college, the second scientific seminar was held in the Department of Administrative Sciences. It included three researches which were presented as follows:
First research:
Title: Promotion of Banking Services in Sudanese Banks / Case Study of Al Baraka Bank Khartoum
Prepared by: Masha’r Hussein Khalifa
Main Ideas:
1. Detecting the types of promotional means directed to customers.
2. Distinguishing the efficiency of employees in dealing with customers to sell the distinctive banking service.
3. Measuring the satisfaction of the client and the extent it has been achieved through promotional programs by the bank.
Research Hypotheses:
1. Having an effective marketing department in the bank leads to achieving the Bank's objectives.
2. Achieving customer satisfaction by providing an outstanding banking service leads to profitability.
3. Promotion leads to increasing the effectiveness of the banking services.
4. Identifying the target audience when developing the promotional strategy at the bank increases the effectiveness of promotion.
Second Research:
Title: The impact of MIS on the performance of workers in business establishments. An applied study on the implementation of dams in Khartoum from 2005-2007.
Prepared by: Dr. Maram Ahmad Ali Al Tayeb
Main Ideas:
1. The theoretical framework of management information systems
2. Administrative performance in the dam implementation unit
3. Case Study
Third Research:
Title: Effect of the banking system in Sudan on savings (Case study on Faisal Islamic Bank of Sudan) (1996-2005)
Main Ideas: | https://comf.kku.edu.sa/en/content/1462 |
Ninjutsu, sometimes used interchangeably with the term ninpō, is the martial art, strategy, and tactics of unconventional warfare and guerrilla warfare as well as the art of espionage purportedly practiced by the shinobi (commonly known outside of Japan as ninja). The feature of mudras and Sanskrit like writing in their casting refers to the magic of Horiki, being said to be fantastical powers gained in the sects of Mikkyo Buddhism through intensive meditation, and are said to be one curriculum in Ninjutsu said to be responsible for their mythical powers.
Usage
See Special:Whatlinkshere/Etymology:Ninjutsu for a list of articles using this term.
This is an etymology page: a page detailing the origins of terminology used in the series in regards to real world culture and history.
Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted. | https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Etymology:Ninjutsu |
When it comes to writing, it’s all the same right; a bunch of words thrown at the page, and people read it with little to no, though, right? Wrong! There is a wide variety of writing styles and how to use each one.
This article is focused on user experience (UX) writing and content strategy. UX writing is the discipline of writing that is seen or heard about a product while using it. It’s a part of the user experience, as the name suggests.
Content Strategy, on the other hand, is when you make or have to figure out how to market anything published on your site. Although both of these terms are similar, and sometimes interchanged with one another, there’s a subtle difference between the two.
In grade school, you may have heard all squares are rectangles, but all rectangles are not squares. That same concept applies to UX writing and content strategy.
Content strategy is not user-experience writing, but UX writing uses content strategy principles. To get a better idea of these two terms, let’s do a deep delve into each word and figure out what makes each distinct, and then the similarities.
What is User Experience Writing
This sort of writing is used to communicate with the reader. It helps explain what a product is through not only the written word but also the tone used while creating the description.
User experience writing is also known as microcopy because rather than create entire essays, UX writing is designed to serve as quick hints and tips to users. This form of writing is also intuitive, and people should receive help without feeling like they’re being babied.
What Are Some Questions an User-Experience Writer Commonly Asks
- What information do we have on the target audience, and how have they reacted to the text?
- If I found this product or site, what would I want to know?
- Can we be more concise?
- Does the tone match everything else on the site?
Quick Example of User Experience Writing
Let’s say Jane Doe is googling information about the rainforest, and she comes across your site. After clicking on several tabs, she comes across a broken link and comes across the dreaded “404 page not found” error notification.
Rather than leave a dated tab, you could dress it up. It could say, “You’re lost in the jungle. Click on the vine to swing home.” This image would appear below a set of trees with various vines dangling from the canopy.
This brings us to our next tool for UX Writing.
Be Creative
Whether you are writing error messages, security notes, terms, and conditions or product usage instructions, the writing is as important as the product itself. Poorly written content can ruin the best of products or the most well-designed interfaces.
This type of writing is typically done by product marketers and copywriters and has been done for years; however, the term is a new one. It’s designed to target various groups of people to promote a product, and the best way to do that is through imaginative language and explanations. It also doesn’t hurt to know how to market something to your target audience.
Some things to keep in mind while writing User Experience content
- Write so you are easily understood
- Be concise in your writing
- Think outside the box
What is Content Strategy
This is what businesses use to figure out what should be created and made available to the public. This is the what and why behind any campaign. The strategist determines what needs to be developed and how can it promote our business’s goals and objectives.
Content strategy can also be used to define problems a company is facing, or refine solutions to give a better outcome. Similarly to UX-writing, it’s also built around a target demographic.
What Are Some Questions Content Strategists Commonly Asks
- What is the target audience?
- What is the problem we are addressing?
- How does the content fit into the broader scheme of things
- What is the public’s attitude towards our products
When designing content strategy, you can follow a 5-step plan, and although it’s simple, the difference between a good company and a great one is having a game plan for your content before you begin writing it.
5 Steps to Developing Content
1. Understand the Business Objective
The objective is whatever you are trying to do. This is arguably the most important part of the process because once you decide on what you want to accomplish, you can decide on what sort of content needs to be created and how to effectively use it.
2. Develop Content With the Audience In Mind
Create content based on the target demographics. Something you can do is create a focus group to figure out the best way to present the information.
3. Define the Goals and Metrics
This step involves figuring out what you are trying to accomplish. Rather than have one goal, most businesses have two, if not more. By meeting the objectives, you can consider whatever content created to be a success, and exceeding your goals meant it was well worth the effort.
4. Revisiting Focus Groups
Now that you have started developing something for the public, go to a similar focus group from the second step and see what their reactions are to the content. It’s important to note their thoughts, reactions, and feedback.
You may need to make something new or tweak what has already been developed based on these sessions. It’s ok if you want to do several rounds of getting feedback on the prototype because, by fine-tuning everything, you’ll have better content.
5. Publish It!
Now that everything is good to go, publish what was made on your app or website. The first four steps were important for you to develop the process. Now, you have to use everything you learned to keep cranking out things that interest your base.
Bonus: Consider tools and services
Whatever it is that you’re working on, UX writing or blog entries, you need the right tools to ensure the quality of your text. There is now a large variety of tools and services like Hemingway, Writing Judge, Grammarly, and Trust My Paper that can help you calibrate the tone and voice of your texts and continually improve them over time.
Similarities Between UX Writing and Content Strategy
Now that we’ve given enough background on the two processes, how are they similar. The two things that jump out to us is that both are designed to help people learn or use a product, and they have a broad scope.
Content marketing requires people to make an attractive presentation and lead people to certain products by promoting a variety of features. Once someone finds the content or buys the product, UX writing is there to help explain things if something isn’t clear, because UX is all about providing a 5-star experience.
The wide scope is important because trends and audiences’ interests will change over time. By tweaking content every now and again by using the 5-steps, you can revisit the content to make sure it’s still relevant.
Summarizing the Major Differences
Whereas Content strategy and UX writing are similar, their differences between more prominent with time. User-experience writing requires you to write clearly and to research the target audience. Content strategy, on the other hand, educates and guides users by using a variety of keywords.
The UX Writing also is the how on any digital platform, and the content strategy is designed to guide the process of making the digital platform and anything featured on it, to meet a variety of metrics.
UX Writing is also done by specialized writers and focus more on the interface. Content strategy can either come from a strategist or a copywriter, and their focus is creating the final product like a blog post, a video for social media, or a podcast.
However, both are needed for an effective campaign and don’t forget
Content strategy is not user-experience writing, but UX writing uses content strategy principles.
Kristin Savage nourishes, sparks, and empowers using the magic of words at reputable writing services like Grab My Essay, Studicus, Best Essay Education and WOWGrade. Along with pursuing her degree in Creative Writing, Kristin gained experience in the publishing industry, with expertise in marketing strategy for publishers and authors. As of recently, she has become a senior editor at Supreme Dissertations, an academic writing service.
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The Cluster Tourism of Galicia celebrated with its associates its Annual General Assembly that serves to give account and to close the exercise of the last year and to expose to the maximum organ of this entity the proposal of actions and activities for the present exercise. Thus, the General Assembly unanimously approved the report of the actions carried out in 2018 and, after the presentation of the technical secretariat, also ratified the proposal of the plan of activities and budget for the current year that assuming a total of 946,500 euros, representing an increase of 7% over last year. To this figure must be added, in addition, the membership fees, since the General Assembly also approved the implementation, for the first time, of economic contributions that will have to make effective each of the entities or associations that are part of the Galician Tourism Cluster.
In this regard and as explained by the secretary of the entity, Cesar Ballesteros, “after the first years of operation of the entity we believe it is necessary to contribute to its sustainability and verify the commitment made to the CTG through quotas that have been defined according to the weight and representativeness of the members and ranging from 150 to 600 euros. In addition, the associates ratified also a quota of entry that fixed in 900 euros for the entities that request to form part of the Cluster.
Adding up representativeness
Altas that, year after year, continue to be produced, which allows the CTG to add associates and representativeness of the sector to reach the current 72 associated entities, representing more than 7000 companies in the Galician tourism sector. Eight entities from Ferrol, Santiago, Pontevedra and Ourense joined the CTG this year: Asociación Festivales de Galicia, Asociación para o Desenvolvemento do Turismo de Calidade na Comarca de Ortegal, Asociación Unión Hotelera Compostela, Asociación da Cociña Galega, Asociacion Unión de Hosteleros Ourensanos, Cociña Ourense, Gran Hotel Talaso de Sanxenxo and the Asociación de Empresarios de Hostelería de Ferrol e Comarca.
Tourist promotion and marketing actions
As for the budget that this entity will handle for this year, the largest item is allocated to the chapter of promotion and marketing of Galicia as a tourist destination, through an agreement signed with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and endowed with half a million euros. Through it the CTG will carry out actions aimed at improving the marketing of tourism products in Galicia, especially those that affect the strengthening of marketing, as well as specific promotional actions for both national and international markets, through publications and promotional material specific support to the promotion and dissemination of tourism resources; organisation and participation in fairs, congresses, exhibitions, technical conferences, meetings and seminars of a tourist nature, as well as projects to promote and improve knowledge of the offer of a marketable tourist product and the creation of a branded head tourist product, in accordance with the provisions of the Galicia 2020 Tourism Strategy, with special attention to emerging products or those aimed at target audiences (senior, millenials, family tourism)…).
As the main novelty, the budget incorporates a new agreement, pending signature with the Xunta de Galicia, for an amount of 250 thousand euros that will be used for the management and design of initiatives, the creation of innovative pilot projects and the promotion of innovative mechanisms of Galicia, mainly oriented towards the creation of product clubs and the implementation of projects or singular initiatives for the promotion or commercialization of a tourist product or that encourage the promotion of the destination in an original way, with special attention to collaborative proposals that involve international operators or that involve hybridization with cultural activities. The agreement also includes the organisation of an event for the social recognition of the tourism sector, the Galician Tourism Awards, the first edition of which will be held before the end of this year.
The approved budget is completed, in addition, with an agreement for the promotion of associationism, worth 36 thousand euros, and another for the promotion of the Q for Quality, amounting to 150 thousand euros for the president, in addition to an agreement signed with the Diputación de Pontevedra for the execution of a professional day oriented to the Galician tourism sector. | https://clusterturismogalicia.com/en/el-cluster-de-turismo-de-galicia-aprueba-por-vez-primera-cuotas-de-socio-y-un-presupuesto-anual-de-casi-950-mil-euros/ |
1.1 Discuss the principles of strategic management and the role of strategic marketing management in Emirates Group.
1.2 Explain the processes involved in strategic marketing. Illustrate your answer with examples from Emirates Group.
1.3 Evaluate the links between strategic marketing and corporate strategy. Give examples of how marketing strategy is influenced by corporate strategy in Emirates Group?
2.1 What are the different tools and models used in strategic marketing management? Explain them and assess the value of models used in the strategic marketing planning of Emirates Group?
2.2 Discuss the links between strategic positioning and marketing tactics. In what way are the tactics related to the strategic positioning used by Emirates Group?
2.3 Analyse the merits of using relationship marketing in a given strategic marketing strategy of Emirates Group.
3.1 For the selected organisation, what are the growth opportunities? Use appropriate marketing techniques to ascertain growth opportunities in a market.
3.2 What are the different marketing strategy options available to this organisation? Plan how to use the marketing strategy options in a market?
3.3 Create appropriate marketing objectives for the marketing plan, based on your research of the organisation and the selected market.
4.1 Based on your research of the current external environment, report on the impact of changes in the external environment on a marketing strategy for Emirates Group.
4.2 Conduct an internal analysis to identify current strengths and weaknesses in a marketing strategy as applied to the Emirates Group.
4.3 What are the key local, national or global emerging themes affecting the organization? Propose strategic marketing responses to key emerging themes in a marketing strategy.
The concept of strategic management emerged in 1970s and in the present dynamic business environment importance of strategic management has been increasing rapidly (Viljoen and Dann, 2003). Strategic management activities include development, communication as well as implementation of the strategic plan. Strategic management is consisted of five important constituents: vision, objectives, strategy, implementation and rectification. The principles of strategic management focus on considering different parts of an organization as whole. Strategic management considers the external environment of a firm and it focuses on gaining the competitive advantage. The vision of an organization helps in indicating potential of the company and the states which are desired to achieve in future. Therefore, the objectives are set which needs to be achieved by the company. The next step of the strategic management of the company is to develop strategy which will help in meeting the objectives (Hunger and Wheelen, 2000). Strategic management of an organization is responsible for designing a plan for implementing the strategies. Therefore, it monitors the planned activities so that the achievement of the goals is ensured.
The corporate strategy has a significant correlation with the strategic marketing strategy of the firm. It has been found that the marketing strategies are the integral part of the corporate strategy in order to achieve the organizational objectives (Anderson and Vincze, 2004). Strategic marketing is one of the most critical business functions of Emirates Group. Emirates group is a large organization and a significant organization in the travel, tourism and leisure industry. Presently, it has fifty business units along with associated companies and it is primarily based in UAE. The employee base of the company is greater than 62,000. Emirates airline is one of the leading global airlines and it is one of the key division of the group. Dnata is associated with offering services in the field of IT solution, travel, cargo, ground handling and flight catering (Theemiratesgroup.com, 2015). From the annual report of the firm it has been found that the company has been able to continue its growth over the years. The revenue of the company has increased by 13.4% and the operating profit is improved by 50.1%. In 2013- 2014, it was estimated that the capacity of the airline has enhanced by 32% and the profit margin has been increased to 3.9% from 3.1% in the previous year. These figures clearly indicate that the company has been able to manage its marketing activities efficiently for achieving consistent growth (Emirates United Arab Emirates, 2014).
The strategic marketing in the Emirates group is responsible for determination of appropriate pricing strategy, product strategy, marketing communication strategy, customer relationship management process for ensuring growth in spite of the global challenges (Fernando, Mat Saad and Sabri Haron, 2012). Strategic marketing has focused on integration of promotional activities through adoption of the social media. The positive economic benefits of the company are attributed to the strategic marketing management of the Emirates Group (Chernev, 2012).
Strategic marketing is a systematic approach that focuses on the designing strategies for the organization in order to ensure successful achievement of the organizational objectives (Viljoen and Dann, 2003). The procedures involved in the strategic marketing management can be discussed by studying the procedures in case of the Emirates Airline, key division of the Emirate group.
The first step of strategic marketing is to analyze the mission statement of the organization for analyzing the purpose of existence of the company. Emirates Group has significantly focused on the business ethics as the foundation of their success. The company has been providing care to the customers, employees, shareholders along with the community and environment (Jeffs, 2008). The company is committees for achieving highest standards in every aspect of operational activities. Additionally, it has been identified that the company has been emphasizing on maintain the global reputation for excellence in the industry. This clearly implies that the products and services of the company need to be differentiated, upgraded on order to retain the industry leadership in the global market (Anderson and Vincze, 2004).
The next important step of the strategic marketing procedure is the analysis of situation. Various strategic management tools are used by the management of the organization for analyzing the situation. In case of Emirates group, the management may use SWOT analysis for getting a preliminary overview of the internal situation through identification of the major strengths and weaknesses of the company along with the external situation through identifications of the opportunities as well as threats. Additionally, Porter’s five forces analysis can be conducted through getting an insight regarding level of competition, condition of the suppliers, customer analysis etc. PESTEL analysis is useful for analyzing the macroeconomic environment of the organization. It helps in analyzing the political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal factors. PESTEL analysis is effective in order to determine business integration in new nation (Jeyarathnam, 2008). Situational analysis helps the company to recognize the factors which are important to consider at the time o development of marketing strategies (Capon, 2008).
One of the most important processes of strategic marketing management is to set marketing objectives which is aligned with the corporate objectives, values and mission of the company. In case of Emirates Group, extensive importance has been given to set SMART objectives for a particular period of time (Henry, 2008).
Strategy development is one of the most important aspects of strategic management. In case of Emirates group, the company considers the implication of vision and value analysis, situation analysis for development of the appropriate marketing strategy. Development of the marketing strategy ensures that the strategic goals set by the organization are met effectively (Jeyarathnam, 2008).
The set of strategies are implemented in different levels of the organization. These strategies are expected to deliver the desired outcome and hence, needed to be monitored (Jeffs, 2008). Therefore, one of the important responsibilities of the strategic management department of Emirates Group is to evaluate the strategies in order to finds its effectiveness for the company and relevance to the pre-determined objectives (Clark, 2000).
Corporate strategy is considered to be the base of all other plans or strategy of the organization. It is evident that the strategic marketing activities have a significant association with the corporate strategy of the firm. Corporate strategy is developed on the basis of the vision, mission, values, culture and goals of the company. The functional strategy of the organization focuses on development of strategies related to finance, marketing, research and development, information technology, operations, human resource etc. All the functional strategies are developed for meeting the organizational objectives and aligning with the corporate strategy of the organization. Corporate strategy is the foundation of all the business strategies including the marketing strategy of the organization. Often the strategic marketing coincides with the corporate strategy for meeting the organizational objectives through marketing activities. The corporate strategy develops a generalized plan for the growth, development and future prospect of the company. On the other hand, strategic marketing uses various tools such as marketing mix, growth plan, customer relationship management etc by conforming to the organizational values to achieve the corporate objectives (Ungson and Wong, 2008).
In case of the Emirates group, corporate strategies are found to be developed at the strategic level of the company. The corporate strategy of Emirates Group has extensively focused on the growth and profitability. Additionally, it ahs focused on the determination of the organizational structure, managing the gearing ratio effectively and enhancing the value of the shareholders. Additionally, corporate strategy focuses on diversification, acquisition, merger, implementation of new technology, optimization of the cost for improving the overall profit margin of the organization (Heracleous, Wirtz and Johnston, 2004). On the other hand, the marketing strategy of the Emirates group has extensively emphasized on the development of efficient plan in order to sell the services of the company. First of all, emirate group considers the marketing mix and develops strategies for each element such as product, price, place and promotion. Marketing strategy is responsible for identification of the target market and presenting the product to the target audience for meeting the expectation of consumers. Pricing strategy determines the appropriate pricing technique so that the sales can be maximized. For example, during the lean season and advanced booking to a less demanded destination, Emirates offer huge discount seasonally (Park, Qu and Lee, 2011). Additionally, promotional strategies of Emirates group play a major role in communicating with the target market. Lately, it has integrated its promotional mix to the social media such as Face book, twitter etc. Appropriate implementation of the corporate strategy is dependent on the success of the functional strategies. Hence, the marketing department of Emirates has huge responsibility for ensuring the achievement of the corporate goals through implementation of the corporate strategy of growth (Mellahi, Frynas and Finlay, 2005). Emirates are planning to continue its growth through international business integration. For successful business integration of Emirates, effective marketing strategy is essential for influencing the purchasing decision of the target market (Kotler, 2000).
Strategic marketing management utilizes various tools as well as models for designing appropriate strategies for achievement of the corporate strategies. Porter’s Generic Strategy, Porter’s Five Forces Model, Boston Consulting Group Matrix, SWOT Analysis etc are the common tools used by various organizations in order to develop effective strategy for marketing to achieve the corporate goals. In case of Emirates Group, it is important to utilize various strategic marketing tools for developing new strategies for achieving sustainable growth across the globe for long term. Therefore, the strategic models need to be applied as well as the results will be used for designing, implementation as well as monitoring of the strategies. This section will focus on discussing the implication of different strategic models that are important for conducting strategic marketing activities in order to compete in the dynamic business environment.
First of all, SWOT analysis is considered to be one of the important tools which provide a preliminary idea regarding the potentials, drawbacks, growth opportunities and threats for the company. It is very important to conduct SWOT analysis regularly for identifying the major strengths of the company that can be capitalized for enhancing the sales of the company. Additionally, the identified weakness of the firm such as low presence in the airline market of United States and employee relations are needed to be revised (Anderson and Vincze, 2004). Additionally, emirates get a chance to identify the major opportunities that will support the growth objectives of the company. SWOT analysis will clearly indicate the threats so that the company can develop effective marketing strategies for combating with the threats (Capon, 2008).
Porter’s five forces analysis is important for determining the marketing mix strategies as it significantly helps in the position of the suppliers, strength of the customers, level of competition etc. while integrating the business activities of Emirates in an international market, the marketing strategy is based on the results of the porter’s five forces analysis. When it is found that the market rivalry is high, Emirates has to focus on adoption of competitive pricing strategy and offering differentiated service. It has been found that the airlines market is continuously growing and becoming more competitive. Hence, it will be reflected in the market strategies of the company.
Porter’s generic competition model will be important as it will assist in identification of the appropriate strategy that will help in competitive advantage in the dynamic as well as competitive market. The product and pricing strategy of Emirates will be assisted by the utilization of the Porter’s generic strategies tool. On the basis of the corporate strategy of the company, it can identify the best strategy among cost leadership, differentiation, cost focus and focused differentiation (Chernev, 2012).
Emirates have adopted use of balanced scorecard for measuring the performance of the marketing strategies adopted by the company. This helps in identification of the major issues in the strategy as well as marketing performance of the organization (Drucker and Maciariello, 2008). Thus, application of various strategic tools significantly contributes in the strategic marketing management of Emirates.
Positioning is an important marketing activity that will help in identification of the market opportunity of problem and therefore development of a solution on the basis of extensive market research, market segmentation along with supporting evidences (Kotler, 2000). Strategic position is the position that is selected by the organization for meeting the marketing as well as corporate objectives. Positioning statement is formulated so that clearly state that the major purpose and key benefits of the product to the customers. Effective brand positioning is considered to be an important aspect of marketing communication (Park, Qu and Lee, 2011). Strategic positioning has significant association with the marketing tactics for every organization seeking growth. The strategic position clearly states the current as well as future position of the company. Therefore, it significantly influences the techniques for market analysis, selection of marketing strategies, methods of implementation of strategies as well as monitoring. The position statement of an organization is extensively associated with the marketing tactics that will ensure achievement of desired growth (Warren, 2008).
The link between strategic positioning and marketing tactics also holds in case of Emirates Group. The position statement of Emirates group is “The Finest in the Sky”. The long terms objective of Emirates Airlines is to carry about 70 million passengers to greater than 180 destinations by utilization of an advanced fleet of more than 300 aircraft. The major responsibility of the strategic management is to develop effective marketing plan that will be helpful in meeting the goals. It has been anticipated that the demand will grow across the globe. It has been found that Emirates collect relevant information as well as analyze it for supporting the growth plan of the company (Capon, 2008). The strategic position of Emirates has significant influence on various marketing tactics. The positioning strategy of the company is based on the internal growth plan; strategy for market penetration, development of products has significant correlation with the marketing tactics in Emirates. It has been found that the product strategy is an important aspect of marketing tactic which develop plan for the type, range and quality of the product. On the basis of the positioning statement of Emirates, the marketing tactics empathizes on providing superior service in comparison to its competitors. Additionally, the branding strategy of Emirates is significantly dependent upon the positioning statement. The leading airline brand has been focusing on the offering high quality service to its customer in order to achieve high level customer satisfaction as well as customer loyalty. It will also help in supporting the growth objective of the company. Additionally, the pricing and promotional strategy, terms of delivery, logistics management etc (Park, Qu and Lee, 2011).
Customer relationship is considered to be one of most important corporate strategies for achieving long terms growth in the competitive market. Relationship management is an effective strategy for managing the relationship with customers. It is associated with the direct response of the marketing campaigns that focuses on the retention of the customers by meeting the expectations of the customers. This concept pays less attention to the sales transaction and prioritizes the customer’s satisfaction so that customer loyalty can be achieved (Kothandaraman and Wilson, 2000). The corporate strategy of Emirates has suggested that it will focus on broadening the customer base for enhancing the revenue. Hence, it becomes very important to attract more number of customers as well as retain the customers (Chernev, 2012). It must be noted that the major aim of the relationship marketing is to develop effective strategies for retaining the customer base for supporting long terms growth of the organization. If the traditional transactional marketing approach is adopted by Emirates, it may attract significant number of customers but fail to retain them. Hence, relationship marketing has significant implication for Emirates (Weinstein, 2000).
In Emirates, relationship marketing is based on the principles of customer experience management. It emphasizes on enhancing the interactions with customers in order to foster improved brand loyalty. The business communication channels are evolving and it has a significant impact on the relationship marketing of the Emirates Airlines. Presently, Emirates has a particular database for managing the customer relationship. Knowledge-driven in-Flight Service (KIS) helps in running the flight which is run during the flight for maintaining the profitable lasting association with the clients through delivery of satisfaction. This system will help to keep a track of the customers’ previous trips. This database will help to know about the personal preference of the passengers regarding seats, wine and food. The gathered data is extracted for offering better service to the customer (Weinstein, 2000). Additionally, Emirates has significantly focused on gathering relevant information regarding the customer expectation (Bennett and Barkensjo, 2005). These data re analyzed for using enhancing the quality of service and making significant changes in the marketing strategy. Hence, it can be inferred that the decision making process of Emirates is significantly dependent on the relationship marketing (Emirates, 2012).
The relationship marketing in Emirates has enabled the organization in providing more customers centric as well as personalized service to the passengers. As relationship marketing strategy of Emirates has emphasized on catering the needs of the customers, it can be stated that relationship marketing has extensive contribution in delivering superior service to the customers for meeting their expectation (Cravens and Piercy, 1994). Consequently, it has been found that the relationship marketing will effectively retain large number of customers in Emirates. Additionally, the frequent flyer program of Emirates has been an important part of the relationship marketing. The crew of the airlines tends to invest more for the loyal customers enrolled in this program for delivering personalized service. The relationship marketing of Emirates has significantly emphasized on the up grading the customer service for achievement of the business growth objective of the organization. Thus, the relationship marketing of Emirates has been providing significant strength to the organization for meeting the corporate objectives (Firdaus and Kanyan, 2014).
The Emirates Airlines of UAE is strategically targeting the African market in the upcoming decades. This will help the organization to grow by 40%. According to Sir Tim Clark, President of Emirates Airlines, this focus would help to create a Dubai Hub Africa. The reason behind tapping this market is that the Dubai Government recognized that the African market is still an untapped market in Africa and Emirates Airline can instrumentally support the region’s growth. The fleet investment of Emirates in Africa tops around $7billion with operating costs of around $2billion. It presently operates in 10 different destinations. The Emirates group is currently focusing on increasing the commitment and investment in Africa. The group is planning to add up around 10 more destinations in the coming decades and have planned to add 8.5million seats in the African market. Further, the geographical location gives the African travelers an opportunity for short times of traveling. By 2020, the group has decided to reach out to 1.5million visitors every year. Emirates have decided to channel traffic through its Dubai Hub. According to the survey of Sabre, there are 1185353 estimated bi-directional O&D passengers from UAE who are demanding Emirates flight (Maslen, 2013).
The positioning of Emirates in the expense authority quadrant is attained to not just through economies of scale in examination, advancement and advancement additionally through learning, information and involvement underway and operational methodologies and in addition the way it deals with its establishments.
There are various marketing options for Emirates to grow in the African market. The BCG Matrix (Boston Consulting Group) as shown below is one of such options that would help to create as strategic view of their business that can be utilized in various decision making aids.
In the event that the right choice is made and the products & services chosen attains to a high market share, it turns into a star. Stars have high market share in high-development markets. Stars create expansive money streams for the business additionally obliges huge integrationtures of cash to maintain their development. Stars are frequently the focuses of expansive consumptions for publicizing and innovative work to enhance the products & services and to empower it to build a prevailing position in the business. Cash cows are specialties units that have high market share in a low-development market. These are generally products & services in the development phase of the products & services life cycle. They are normally entrenched products & services with wide shopper acknowledgement, so deals incomes are generally high. The technique for such products & services is to put minimal expenditure into keeping up the products & services and redirect the substantial benefits created into products & services with all the more long haul profit potential, i.e. starts and question marks. Dogs are organizations with low piece of the overall industry in low-development markets. These are generally cash cows that have lost their market share or the question marks the organization has chosen not to create. The prescribed system for this business is to discard them for whatever income they will produce and reinvest the cash in more appealing business (stars and question marks) (Goel, 2009). Having utilized the Boston Consulting Group framework above, it ought to likewise be noted that the BCG network experiences constrained variables on which to support asset allotment choices among the organization making up the corporate portfolio. The BCG grid is best utilized, then, as a starting point yet surely not as the last determination for asset designation choices as it was maybe initially expected for Emirates business position (Iatrou and Oretti, 2007).
The strategies help the organization to underpin its success. Strategists have a huge measure of both scope and obligation in creating and adjusting the vital choices of an association. The incalculable choices needed of these directors can be overpowering considering the potential outcomes of mistaken choices. One approach to manage this unpredictability is through categorisation; one categorisation plan is to arrange corporate-level method choices into three separate sorts or terrific systems. These fabulous techniques include endeavours to extend business operations (development methods), diminish the extent of business operations (conservation procedures) or keep up the present state of affairs (soundness methodologies).
With a concentration strategy the firm endeavours to attain to more noteworthy business infiltration by getting to be exceedingly effective at adjusting its market with a constrained product offering. By utilizing a vertical integration technique, the firm endeavours to grow the extent of its present operations by undertaking business exercises earlier performed by one of its suppliers (backward integration) or by undertaking business exercises performed by a business in its channel of dissemination (forward integration) (Shaw, 2011).
A diversification strategy involves moving into distinctive markets or adding diverse products to its blend. On the off chance that the markets or products are identified with existing item or administration offerings, the method is called concentric diversification. On the off chance that development is into services or products disconnected to the company's current business, the enhancement is called conglomerate diversification (Hoffman, Bateson and Hoffman, 2006).
Further, the marketing mix concept is a timeless technique that the Emirates need to focus on for categorising different strategies. By concentrating on the service marketing mix, Emirates can reap and adopt different strategies. Failing to adhere to this concept may become a huge failure or disaster for the Emirates. This service marketing mix is the activity that helps the organization to deliver, communicate and create customer value. The marketing mix mainly consists of 4P’s Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Since marketing is a very sophisticated stream, the service industries have further added physical evidence, process and people. Thus Emirates need to focus on all the 7P’s of service (Sharma, 2008).
Product: Emirates has always been focusing on offering the latest technologies and best quality services to the customers. This helps the travellers the ability to receive and send mails and also SMS messages from different class.
Price: Emirates focuses on premium pricing strategy that mainly provides high pricing strategy than others. However, Emirates need to keep in mind that the service or the product they are planning to provide should understand the worth that the customers are ready to provide. In Africa, as it is developing country there is a need of low-pricing strategy as the customers as quite price sensitive. This would help the organization to generate more revenue from this market (Loudon, Stevens and Wrenn, 2005).
Place: Emirates have around 122 branches apart from UAE that gives excellent services to the customers. In this way creating helping centers in Africa can help to capture the customers. Emirates Airlines also has an online website that consists of 9 different languages targeting different nationalities.
Promotion: For advertising, Emirates can advertise their services and products in newspaper that can mostly attract the segment and also in cheap magazines. Billboards are also one of the best advertising tools that can help to attract people from everywhere.
People: Emirates Airlines Management needs to promote common goal to all the employees. This would help to make an efficient team working collaboratively towards the goals of the organization. Through this the management can focus on the needs of the employees and also the customers. This would help to sustain in this competitive world (Parry, 2005).
Process: the services of Emirates Airlines mainly emphasizes on the operation departments like Business and First Class Lounges, then special services like helping unaccompanied minors or the disable passengers. Further to maintain good relation with the customers, Boarding services, Check-in and the Baggage services in Airport helps to maintain relationship with the customers.
Physical Evidence: The Airlines of Emirates mainly emphasizes on reducing the emission of carbon dioxide due to burning of fuel. Emirates Airlines is focusing on how to decrease the emission and make an ecological friendly environment. Thus they are utilizing less resource and thus developing less pollution and waste.
External environment of a business has significant potential to influence the business activities of an organization. The wave of globalization has influenced various organizations to integrate their business operation into the international market. In this case, analysis of the external environment is given extensive importance (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson, 2005). Business strategies for international market are developed on the basis of the analysis of external environment. Additionally, it has been found that the external environment is dynamic and various components of the environment changes with time. The company needs to keep an eye on the changes in the external environment as it will influence the marketing strategies of the company (Henry, 2008).
In case of Emirates various external factors have significant potential to reorient the marketing strategies. Emirates Airline is present in 40 countries and the external environment is different for each of the nations. First of all, if there is a change in the legal framework and regulation relevant to the business operations of Emirates, it may affect the cost of service which will affect the marketing strategy of the organization. Economy of the nation plays a major role in determination of the marketing strategy of Emirates. If it is observed that a nation is encountering economic downturn, Emirates must consider it for re-formulation of the marketing strategy. In difficult times, Emirates need to decline the price for making it affordable for the present market situation. Additionally, the company can adopt some cost cutting strategy for offering discounts (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson, 2005). Though social factors play a major role in determination of the marketing strategies, it must be noted that social changes do not take place suddenly. However, in order to deal with social changes, Emirates need to reformulate their product as well as promotional strategy on the basis of changing demand as well as psychology of the customers (Park, Qu and Lee, 2011).
Technology has an important influence on the development of marketing strategy especially in case of place and promotional strategy. It has been found that the along with the advancement of technology the marketing strategy of Emirates need to be changed. (Kotler, 2000) For example, increasing dependence on web technology must be capitalized for communicating with the target audience. Emirates have been present on the popular social media sites for networking with the social media users. It has been using social media for undertaking promotional activities. Additionally, the online booking has provided greater convenience to the customers (Jung, 2014).
Competition is one of the important elements of the external environment for developing the marketing strategy of Emirates. If there is a change in the level of competition, Emirates need to change the marketing strategy. For instance, if the level of competition enhances, the company needs to differentiate its products as well as pricing strategy needs to be changed in order to increase the customer base even in the competitive market. Hence, it can be concluded that the external environment has significant influence on the marketing strategy of the company (Mellahi, Frynas and Finlay, 2005).
Marketing strategy of an organization has major role to play in ensuring success of the firm through achievement of corporate objectives. The marketing strategy changes over time and it is very important to identify which strategy needs to be changed and why. Hence, analysis of the marketing strategy of Emirates will be helpful in identification of the strengths as well as weakness of the marketing strategy of the company. The strength of the marketing strategy will be capitalized and on the other hand, weaknesses of the strategy will help in the improving the marketing strategy that will ensure achievement of the corporate objectives of Emirates.
The marketing strategy of Emirates has been significantly focusing on the need and expectations of the customers in terms of product quality. This has significantly helped the organization in assessing needs of the customers and therefore changes the product strategy accordingly for catering the customers (Dalrymple and Parsons, 2000). It has been found that this strategy is very useful in attracting as well as retaining the customers.
The marketing strategy of Emirates has adopted relationship market to manage customer relationship in an efficient manner. The Knowledge-driven in-Flight Service (KIS) and frequent flyer program of Emirates has focused on maintaining database of their customers. It has helped in keeping a track of their customer preferences for personalized services.
The marketing strategy of Emirates has adopted effective promotional strategies for reaching the target market. Emirates have been utilizing the social media networks for promotional activities. It is a major strength for the organization (Winer, 2000).
Though the marketing strategy of the company has been found to be effective in achieving the organizational goal, weakness is recognized which is important for improving it.
The pricing strategy of Emirates has been found to be premium pricing strategy. Hence, it cannot be afforded by huge number of customers. The company must consider that the competition in the airline industry is growing across the world. Hence, it is important to change the pricing strategy for addressing number customers. It has been found that the company has been emphasizing on enhancing the customer base. Hence, in order to achieve this objective the pricing strategy must be changed.
The advertising strategy can also be changed for attracting the more number of customers (Kansu and Mamuti, 2013).
The company has to pay significant is based in United Arab Emirates. It has been observed that the nation has been encountering significant growth opportunities. It is important to analyze the emerging themes for responding to it by reformulation of the marketing strategies. UAE is becoming the international business hub and the business tourism has enhanced in UAE. The company must focus on development of innovative marketing strategies for capturing the growing number of international customers. Additionally, it has been found that increasing number of competitors have been intensifying the level of rivalry in the airline market (Hunger and Wheelen, 2000). It is evident that Emirates is one of the leading airlines of the world. However, it must consider the new competitors for development of the marketing plan. It needs to be noted that the presently Emirates has been planning to enhance its customer base across the globe. In United Kingdom, the company has a significant market base and operating successfully over the years. The marketing strategy of the company needs to be changed along with the present economic condition of United Kingdom. In the Asian market, Emirates airline has been operating successfully. Additionally, it has been reported that the company is experiencing significant growth in Australian market. Moreover, Emirates has focused on exploring the Australian market through making significant investments. All these international activities will be affected due to the global emerging themes. Extensive growth in number of the internet users and dependence on web has enabled the customers to access the global airline market. They also get a chance to compare the services, price and values offered by different airline service provider before making purchasing decision (Doyle, 2000). Hence, Emirates need to reformulate their marketing strategy for achieving sustainable growth in the international market (Mellahi, Frynas and Finlay, 2005).
Another important emerging trend is globalization. Various organizations across the globe have been focusing on integrating its business activities to the foreign countries. This trend also holds in case of airline industry. Consequently, the competition in the international market has been intensifying. It has become important to consider the international player and their presence in the international market for designing the marketing strategies (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson, 2005). It must be considered that the marketing strategies of Emirates must be competitive as well as growth oriented. Additional emphasize must be given on the attracting more number of customers as well as retaining those in order to achieve the objective of enhanced customer base. Additionally, it has to focus on adoption of effective promotional strategies in order to communicate with the target market regarding their quality of service, discounts, key features and benefits of the service etc (Drucker and Maciariello, 2008). Additionally, the company must focus on adoption of competitive pricing in order to achieve sustainable growth in the increasingly competitive market.
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About Belmont Charter Network
What makes us unique? Belmont Charter Network equips students with the knowledge and skills to succeed wherever their talents, diligence, and heart take them. Serving as a network of community schools, we strive to ensure that each child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. We believe that teaching and learning should be joyful!
Are you ready to create an impact and celebrate your students’ successes? If you are interested in showing what is POSSIBLE, apply today!
Job Description
The School Psychologist provides services to support the academic, social, emotional and cognitive development of students. This position will perform evaluations, psychological assessments, crisis response, consultations, counseling and research. They will create safe and healthy learning environments through collaboration with educators, administrators, families, students and mental health professionals.
Duties and Responsibilities
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Duties and Responsibilities Include:
- Conduct psychoeducational evaluations of referred students, administer individual psychological and educational tests and assessments to identify exceptional students
- Participate in the development of the individual educational program by making placement, service and referral recommendations
- Follow-up on students placement, consult with multi-disciplinary team, provide training and support to team
- Maintain regular contact with parents/guardians during the evaluative process
- Identify and provide solutions for student needs to create safe, healthy, and supportive learning environments for all students
Qualifications
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QUALIFICATIONS: | https://www.teachphl.org/job/school-psychologist-k-12/ |
Our staff is diverse in many ways and we strive to mirror the population we serve in the Rowan University community. Rowan serves students in ways that support and affirm all of their identities. We welcome candidates who will continue to expand our reach to marginalized and under-represented students, including but not limited to BIPOC, international, first-generation, veterans, those with disabilities, and LGBTQ+. Our ideal candidate possesses an understanding of intersectionality and how it impacts the daily lives of students.
Under the direction of the Associate Director of The Wellness Center, the Licensed Clinical/Counseling Psychologist (Full-time, temporary) will be responsible to provide the following services for University students: mental health intake assessments; triage evaluations; psychological evaluations; treatment planning; individual and group psychotherapy; crisis intervention; case management; referral services; and, as designated by the Associate Director, supervision of graduate trainees. The clinician works with university and Student Life staff across the following areas: the Academic Success Center, Student Health Services (SHS), Residential Learning and University Housing (RLUH), Community Standards and Commuter Services, ASCEND, Campus Recreation and Student Center, and community agencies to assist or lead the development and delivery of relevant programs, presentations, and events. The clinician provides confidentiality, accuracy and integrity of client interactions, treatment protocols and records
Functional Areas of Responsibility:
QUALIFICATIONS
Education: Ph.D./Psy.D. in Counseling or Clinical Psychology is required.
Experience: Our ideal candidate possesses an understanding of intersectionality and how it impacts the daily lives of student, faculty and staff. Cultural competence is of utmost importance. We seek individuals who are collaborative in nature, have strong communication skills, practice good self-care, maintain healthy boundaries, and possess the ability to manage a challenging workload while promoting a positive atmosphere and healthy relationships.
At least three (3) years clinical experience required in a mental health outpatient setting with demonstrated experience working with a diverse adolescent/young adult population performing risk assessments; intake evaluations; individual and group psychotherapy; psychological testing; and supervision of other professionals and/or trainees. This clinician will be providing supervision of psychological assessments for pre-doctoral interns, so experience with completing comprehensive psychological batteries and providing supervision of such administration is ideal.
Licensures/Certifications: Licensed Psychologist in the State of New Jersey.
As required by the State of New Jersey, must complete a criminal history check and have proof of U.S. citizenship or legal resident alien status.
Rowan University celebrates diversity and is committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ethnicity, race, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, national origin, (dis)ability status, military status, and other NJ protected classes. Rowan University does not discriminate on the basis of sex in its educational programs and activities, including employment as required by Title IX. Rowan is committed to providing access, equal opportunity, and reasonable accommodation for individuals with (dis)abilities. To request reasonable accommodation, contact Christy Mroz, Administrative Assistant, [email protected], 856-256-5494. Rowan strongly encourages applicants from underrepresented groups to apply. | https://careers.insidehighered.com/job/2139284/licensed-psychologist-pss2-aft-ft-temp-/ |
This article contains information on course evaluations and how to set them up for an online course.
Contents:
- Evaluations overview
- Adding an evaluation to an online course
- Setting up Surveys and Feedback
- Setting up Assessments
- Evaluation emails
- Course evaluation report
Evaluations overview
Three levels of course evaluation are available within Blue LMS:
- Pre-course
Comprising Survey and/or assessment
Pre-course can be used to gauge learner opinions on a topic area, to measure confidence and to assess knowledge prior to taking a course.
- Level 1&2
Comprising Feedback and/or assessment
Level 1&2 evaluation can be used to obtain feedback and satisfaction immediately after taking a course, this can be useful for course development and for detecting any problems which may exist within a course. This level can also be used to administer assessment on course content to be taken immediately after completing the course. When used with the other two evaluation types, this can be used as a bench mark to measure knowledge acquisition (compared to the pre-course assessment) and knowledge retention (compared to the level 3 evaluation).
- Level 3
Comprising Feedback and/or assessment
This level of evaluation is activated at a chosen point after completing a course (often after 3 months). It can be used to gauge thoughts and opinions on course content, which may have changed over the elapsed period. Level 3 evaluation can also be used to measure knowledge retention.
These can be activated individually, e.g. to obtain feedback on a course using Level 1&2 evaluation, or together for a full, beginning to end, programme of evaluation.
All three levels of evaluation can be used to obtain opinions and thoughts (survey/feedback) and to administer assessment to measure learning and knowledge retention.
Adding an evaluation to an online course
To add an evaluation to a course, access the Courses menu, search for the required course and select the Edit icon.
Controls for adding and amending evaluations are contained within the Course evaluation menu:
Select the evaluation level to be activated from the menu then select 'Yes':
Next choose the type of evaluation required.
For Pre-course the options are: Survey and/or Assessment
For Level 1&3 and Level 3 the options are: Feedback and/or Assessment.
The evaluation can be customised by changing the title, sub-title and evaluation text. These will appear at the top of the evaluation form when accessed by learners.
By selecting 'Yes' to Enable course details section the course name and training provider will be displayed at the top of the evaluation form:
The evaluation can be made mandatory or non-mandatory. If a pre-course evaluation is set to mandatory, learners will not be able to access the online course until they have completed the evaluation (and passed the assessment, if applicable). For a Level 1&2 evaluation which is set to mandatory, the course certificate will not be activated until the evaluation is completed (and the assessment passed, if applicable).
Setting up Surveys (Pre-course) & Feedback (Level 1&2, Level 3)
Surveys for pre-course evaluations and feedback for level 1&2 and level 3 evaluations are set up and amended in the same way.
A survey/feedback title and instructions can be entered if required.
The survey/feedback questions section contains generic questions by default. These can be activated and deactivated by ticking the red cross/green tick icon.
Questions can be edited by clicking the pencil icon and new questions can be added with the Add question button. Available question types are:
Descriptive: a free text box will be provided underneath the question for learners to type into
Single-select: Learners must select one answer from a pre-filled list
Multi-select: Learners must select multiple answers from a pre-filled list
Setting up Assessments
An assessment title can be entered if required, otherwise this can be left as the default ('Assessment').
There are no generic assessment questions as each assessment must be created as bespoke to the course and level of evaluation, therefore all questions will need to be entered at this stage.
As with surveys and feedback, questions can be activated and deactivated, they can also be edited after creation.
Available assessment question types are:
True / false: True or false must be selected
Single-select: One answer must be selected from a pre-filled list
Multi-select: More than one answer must be selected from a pre-filled list
For all question types, feedback can be entered for both correct and incorrect answers.
A passing score can be set as required (the default is 80%). It is possible to randomise the display order and also to select a number of questions to be included in the assessment. Using these controls, an assessment could contain ten questions with only five being included and the display order randomised. This will increase the element of challenge for the learner on subsequent attempts.
Assessment instructions can also be entered. It may be necessary to change the default text if the number of questions and the pass mark differs from the defaults.
Evaluation emails
To activate and deactivate evaluation emails, access the Emails menu section. From here emails and reminder emails can be activated and deactivated for all levels of evaluation.
Learners can access evaluation forms directly from evaluation emails, meaning it is not necessary for the learner to log into the system to complete the evaluation.
Course evaluation report
Access the Reports menu then Course evaluation report. One course to be reported on must be selected using the course search box, or by selecting from the full course list. It is possible to apply filters on learners and dates at this point if required by selecting the orange Show filters link. Select run report to view evaluation data.
The on-screen report will show a list of all learners who have completed at least one level of evaluation within the search criteria selected (course(s) and any other filters). Completed evaluations are displayed with a green tick, evaluations which have been activated but not completed are represented by a red exclamation mark and evaluations which are yet to be activated are represented by a grey exclamation mark. Survey and feedback questions are represented as pie charts along with the range of responses and the responses given by learners as percentages.
Selecting the Details icon from the list of learners produces a screen with full details of all levels of evaluation undertaken by that learner. Survey and feedback questions are shown in the report, along with learner responses. For assessments, the passing score, learner's final score and the number of attempts are provided.
The report can be saved, filters can be saved as a template, the report scheduled and also exported to excel. These options are accessed via the drop down menu which appears both above and below the user list: | https://support.melearning.co.uk/hc/en-gb/articles/115004527645-Setting-up-an-evaluation-programme-for-an-online-course |
Part-time, I have a private practice conducting forensic and clinical psychological evaluations. Forensic psychology is a specialization in assessing clients who are involved with governmental or legal issues for which evaluations are requested. Presently, I do not provide professional counseling services but, rather, my private practice specifically focuses on psychological evaluations.
General psychological evaluations that I have conducted include:
- pre-sugery
- adoption families
- mental retardation
- autism
- learning disabilities
- ADHD
- employment assessments
Forensic evaluations that I have conducted include:
- child custody
- parenting
- sex offender
- substance abuse
- competency to stand trial
- Miranda waiver evaluations
- personal injury
- Bureau of Disability Services
- parole
- risk assessments
- Rule 30 (bind-over from the juvenile to adult system)
Additional services to attorneys include case consultations, reviews for standards of care, second-opinion evaluations, and expert testimony. Other than custody evaluations, generally I have reports in the hands of referral sources within one week of the scheduled appointment. Immediate, weekend, and evening appointments are available to accommodate client work schedules. | https://www.cedarville.edu/Academic-Schools-and-Departments/Psychology/Firmin/Private-Practice.aspx |
The Columbia Center for Occupational and Forensic Psychiatry specializes in performing Independent Psychiatric Evaluations (IME's) and Fitness For Duty Evaluations (FFDE's) for clients requiring an IME or FFDE Evaluation. We can schedule an evaluation within 2 days of the referral and generate a report for the client within 1 week after the evaluation.
We serve a wide variety of clients who present with a range of psychiatric and forensic needs. The Columbia Center will strive to help our clients achieve their specific goals by identifying the core issues involved and then help the client to arrive at the appropriate solution. Towards this end, we review the medical records, and obtain necessary additional information, perform psychiatric evaluations, assessments and administer psychological testing as required. An objective clinical evaluation of the issues involved is provided to the client in a comprehensive written report that is sufficiently detailed to serve as a basis for subsequent deposition testimony or courtroom testimony if required.
Our staff can assist you with occupational and forensic consultation and advice for legal issues, which have psychiatric implications. The Center's Director, Dr. David J. Fischer, has extensive experience in clinical and forensic psychiatry. He has been in practice for 45 years. Dr. Fischer has extensive experience and knowledge in outpatient and inpatient psychiatric evaluation and treatment as well as extensive occupational and forensic expertise.
As an Occupational and Forensic Psychiatrist, Dr. Fischer applies psychiatric expertise to organizational and legal matters. He is a medical expert. A medical expert is a physician who has the requisite clinical experience and academic achievement to form an objective medical opinion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty. A forensic psychiatrist is a physician who integrates clinical experience, knowledge of medicine, mental health, and the neurosciences to form an independent, objective opinion. In the process of forming an objective opinion relevant data is gathered and analyzed as part of a process of alternative hypothesis testing to formulate an expert medical/psychiatric opinion. This expert opinion can be effectively communicated in a written report, a deposition, or courtroom testimony. The applications of forensic psychiatry are widespread in settings ranging from health care and the workplace to criminal justice and public safety. | http://www.columbiaforensic.com/about-columbia-center-for-occupational-and-forensic-psychiatry.html |
The mission of Parker Collins Family Mental Health, PLLC is to help individuals and families gain freedom from self-limiting ideas, traumatic emotional pain, or self-destructive behaviors through the delivery of evidence based, responsible, respectful, dignified, and compassionate psychological services. We strive to provide highly responsive customer service to referring providers, individuals, and organizations concerned with our clients’ care. We wish to provide an environment for staff, clients, and other professionals that is enjoyable to work in, stylistic, and free of discrimination, harassment, and social injustice.
The Parker Collins predoctoral practicum is an assessment focused practicum placement that also offers opportunity for therapy engagement. Our client population is primary comprised of individuals presenting with complex trauma histories. We focus on therapeutic and treatment focused psych evals. The evaluation training goes into in-depth, highly integrated, and rigorous psychological evaluations designed for trauma and dissociative disorders. We also conduct evaluations for ADHD, high functioning Autism, and a variety of childhood and adult disorders. We practice from multicultural, feminist, family systems integrated perspectives, which are our defining values.
Students who have a desire to gain a deep competency with trauma designed personality and clinical psych evals is the primary opportunity offered at Parker Collins. Students will be given a chance to learn to conduct very in-depth, research based, and comprehensive evaluations. Psychological assessment tools that are commonly used include: MMPI, MCMI, MID, TSI, TSCC, SCID, ACE, Conners 3, CBRS, BASC system, GARS-3, WAIS, WISC, NEO, others. A schedule of didactic trainings is offered and will cover HIPAA, writing progress notes, diagnostic assessment basics, complex trauma, trauma designed psychological evaluations, and therapy engagement. Students must be prepared to engage in all services through multicultural, feminist, systems, and trauma lenses.
Because of complexities and therapeutic focus of our psych evals, candidates for a Parker Collins practicum position require a minimum of one previous training experience such as previous practicums or other clinical experiences (e.g. masters or doctoral practicums). Candidates need to be able to articulate interest in learning and growing competencies in these areas. Candidates must also be prepared to engage all services through multicultural, feminist, systems, and trauma lenses. Background checks are required.
Trauma Focused – Learn how to administer and interpret psychological instruments using current research for trauma designed psychological evaluations.
Client Population – Parker Collins treats clients ages 4 and up. A practicum at Parker Collins will allow you to expand or solidify your therapeutic range.
Cultural Respect - One of our primary therapeutic values is being culturally mindful. We have a passion for respecting the culture of every individual and family we meet.
Specialties – We are a trauma focused clinic that has a team of clinicians who are specialized in treating Complex Trauma, PTSD, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), MICD, depression, anxiety, and general relationship issues. We work extensively with both individuals, families, parenting, couples’ therapy, and other systems.
Interdependence – Beyond receiving the support of your supervisor, you’ll work closely with other clinicians to deliver the best possible care.
Practicum Commitment:
- Weekly supervision with LP, weekly group supervision.
- Bi-monthly training and business meetings.
- Weekly commitment of 15 to 20 hours a week.
- One year commitment.
Application process:
Parker Collins participates in the uniform practicum application process. All candidates must be approved by their graduate school to apply. All qualifying applicants will participate in face-to-face interviews with their potential supervisors and other staff. | https://parkercollins.com/predoctoral-advanced-practicum/ |
Family Psychological Center, PA.
Interview with Dr. Nichols
Match # 192511
Internship positions available: 1
Family Psychological Center (FPC) is a private practice facility located in Harrison, Arkansas, that provides outpatient psychological services in a rural context with a surrounding population of 60,000. FPC receives referrals primarily from physicians, public schools, judges, juvenile services, and the Arkansas Department of Human Services. Other referral sources include attorneys, Social Security Administration, and local pastors. Populations served include children, adolescents, adults, and geriatrics with a wide range of presenting problems.The area features mostly low-income to middle-class families along with some of the highest rated public schools in Arkansas. The Harrison area boasts some of the state’s best outdoor recreational opportunities, including highly rated water recreational and fishing lakes, the scenic Buffalo National River (for kayaking, swimming, and fishing), hundreds of miles of pristine state and federal hiking trails, and numerous regional shopping, sporting and entertainment venues in Fayetteville/Bentonville, Branson, and Little Rock. There is also a growing Hispanic population in the areas surrounding Harrison.
For a video tour of the site go here.
Our Mission
The mission of Family Psychological Center is to provide quality, intensive training in practicing clinical psychology in a rural setting.
Our Supervisors
Site Training Director
Dr. Nichols is the training director of Family Psychological Center, P.A. He established FPC in 2000 with the goal of providing generalized psychology services in a comfortable, family-centered atmosphere. Dr. Nichols earned a master’s degree in counseling (Marriage and Family Therapy) at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in 1995 and his doctoral degree in psychology (Clinical Psychology) in 1999 from Forest Institute of Professional Psychology. Dr. Nichols completed his Pre-doctoral Internship at Cook County Jail (Chicago, Illinois) and his Residency in private practice at the Mental Fitness Center. He is a licensed clinical psychologist in the State of Arkansas and a provider for Medicaid, Medicare, and numerous private insurance companies.
As the Training Director and primary supervisor at Family Psychological Center, Dr. Nichols provides clinical supervision of psychological interns and residents. Dr. Nichols has worked with clients in a range of settings, including acute psychiatric units, residential facilities, private practice, and correctional institutions. His interests are in ADHD, learning disabilities, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and forensic assessment. He is a member of the Allied Health Staff at North Arkansas Regional Medical Center. His supervision is geared toward providing students with enhanced differential diagnostic skills through focused interviewing, careful observation, and psychological testing. His theoretical orientation is best described as integrated.
Primary Supervisors
Phil Brown, Ph. D.
Dr. Brown is a seasoned psychologist who has practiced in a variety of organizations, including a state hospital, community mental health centers, and private practices. He consults closely with health professionals, including psychiatrists and physicians from the Harrison area. His Ph.D. was earned from the University of Oklahoma, and he has been a licensed psychologist in Arkansas since 1998.
Training Opportunities
Training opportunities are varied and include assessment of a range of clientele and presenting problems, not only through the outpatient clients, but also through the site’s evaluation contracts with area public schools. Interns have the opportunity to work with clients with diverse age, cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds, including training in providing culture-fair assessment and treatment for ESL students. On average this center serves 60 clients per week with diagnoses ranging from neurocognitive, mood, and trauma-related disorders in adults to ADHD, depression, trauma-related, autism spectrum, and disruptive behavior disorders in children. Interns may also get the opportunity to attend the Trauma-Focused CBT training in Little Rock. Training at this site will follow two modules described in more detail below: Psychological Assessment Module and Psychotherapy Module
Psychological Assessment Module
Psychological assessment is a core emphasis of the internship. Training is focused on providing a diverse range of experience to hone the intern’s assessment skills. Evaluations include psychoeducational assessments for children and adolescents in local public school districts, treatment-focused assessments for therapy clients, and guided participation in forensic evaluations for local circuit courts. Assessments will address cognitive, academic, emotional, behavioral, personality, and developmental functioning. Experience with a wide range of assessment techniques and instruments is available. Interns are expected to complete a minimum of 50 full psychological batteries during the year. Supervision and guided participation in evaluations will focus on careful review of collateral documentation, developing rapport, best practice interviewing techniques, focused diagnostic questioning, test administration and interpretation, report writing skills, and treatment planning. Interns will be closely supervised in the administration and interpretation of a wide range of assessment instruments during the year. As competency is gained with core test instruments, interns enjoy greater autonomy as well as the opportunity to expand their assessment skills into more specialized psychological tests in their interest area.
Psychotherapy Module
In addition to assessment, interns will spend approximately five hours per week providing outpatient therapy services in office to children, adolescents, and adults. Interns may also have the opportunity to co-facilitate a trauma-related group. Patients are selected to provide interns with a generalist experience and will include a variety of presenting problems as well as the opportunity to provide individual and family therapy. Interns will also have the opportunity during the year to complete formal training in Trauma-Focused CBT for children and adolescents.
Secondary involvement in forensic evaluations (e.g., risk assessment, parenting capacity) can also be expected. Interns have scheduled weekly supervisory sessions in addition to open access throughout the week to their primary supervisors in the event that special training issues or unplanned client crises arise. Case formulation and supportive supervision from multiple theoretical orientations and treatment modalities, including cognitive-behavioral, client-centered, and interpersonal approaches, are provided by supervisors.
APPIC Training Experiences
|Patient Demographics|
|Total number of clients (agency wide)||510|
|Elderly||5%|
|Adults||30%|
|Adolescents||30%|
|Children||35%|
|African American||3%|
|Caucasian||80%|
|Hispanic/Latino||7%|
|Asian/Pacific Islander||1%|
|American Indian/Alaska Native||1%|
|Multiethnic or None of the Above||1%|
Interns at this site have the opportunity to work with clients with diverse age, cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds, including providing culture-fair assessment and treatment for ESL students. This site sees diagnoses ranging from depressive and anxiety disorders in adults to ADHD, depression, and disruptive behavior disorders in children.
Example patient populations (as listed by APPIC):
- Children
- Adolescents
- Adults
- Older Adults
- Families
- Outpatients
- LGBTQI+
- Ethnic Minorities
- Spanish-Speaking
- Students
- Rural
- Low Income
Example treatment modalities for this rotation (as listed by APPIC):
- Assessement
- Individual Intervention
- Couples Intervention
- Family Intervention
- Group Intervention
- Community Intervention
- Consultation/Liaison
- Crisis Intervention
- Evidence-Based Practice
- Evidence-Based Research
Example supervised experiences (as listed by APPIC):
- Health Psychology
- Eating Disorders
- Learning Disabilities
- Developmental Disabilities
- Assessment
- Anxiety Disorders
- Trauma/PTSD
- Sexual Abuse
- Substance Use Disorders
- Forensics/corrections
- Pediatrics
- School
- Counseling
- Vocational/Career Development
- Religion/Spirituality
- Empirically-Supported Treatments
- Program Development/Evaluation
- Supervision
- Research
- Administration
Example Schedule
Salary, Benefits, and Support
Benefits provided at this site include:
- 80 hours (10 days) vacation
- 32 hours (4 days) of sick leave
- 24 hours (3 days) of Professional Development
- Discounted health insurance
- Free Long-Term Disability
- Flex spending account (free to intern, but no site contribution to plans)
- Professional liability insurance (for those not already covered)
- Mileage reimbursement for travel (32 cents per mile over 20 miles)
Family Psychological Center observes the following 7 holidays:
- New Year’s Day
- Memorial Day
- Independence Day
- Labor Day
- Thanksgiving Day
- Christmas Day
- Personal Holiday
FPC provides extensive clerical and technical support to trainees. Clerical staff to professional staff is kept at a 1:1 ratio. Clerical staff provides a range of services, including professional calendar/appointment management, phone services, insurance and private pay billing, invoicing agencies contracted with FPC, and general document management. Interns are provided with a dedicated office that is not shared with other staff. Technical support includes computer-administered scoring of most testing instruments by trained clerical staff members and a range of contemporary digital devices that improve the efficiency of the trainees’ time.
More information about the Support and Benefits offered in each of our regions can be found here.
Background Check
Intern Selection Process
- Quality of references
- Writing style in letters and application materials
- Graduate program GPA
- Interest in private practice
- Number of testing hours accumulated
- Types of test instruments administered
- Experience and preference for rural settings.
While not required, an intern who is fluent in Spanish would be of benefit for this area. | http://psychologyinterns.org/central-current-sites/family-psychological-center-pa/ |
It’s widely known that one person cannot force another into receiving a mental health evaluation or treatment for a mental health condition; the individual has to reach the decision to get help on their own. But in some instances that affect other parties and involve childcare or criminal activity, individuals may be court-ordered to get a psychiatric evaluation.
What Is A Psychiatric Evaluation?
Also known as a mental health or psychological evaluation, a psychiatric evaluation is used to determine if someone has a specific mental health disorder or a physical condition that isn’t immediately visible/identifiable. It can be administered by a psychiatrist, psychologist, or family doctor – but in most cases, a psychiatric evaluation is done by a psychiatrist.
This type of examination can be used to diagnose conditions and disabilities such as:
- ADHD (Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)
- OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)
- PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)
- Bipolar disorder
- Anxiety disorders
- Depression
- Eating disorders
- Personality disorders
- Schizophrenia
- Substance abuse disorders
- Intellectual disabilities
- Head trauma
- Alzheimer’s Disease
- Dementia
- Stroke
If a psychiatrist identifies one or more of these conditions, they can then determine how severe it is and begin to create a treatment plan that will be most successful for their patient.
A psychiatric evaluation may involve several types of screenings and assessments, including: physical exams, verbal and written questionnaires, lab tests, medical evaluations, and cognitive evaluations. The type of tests a psychiatrist uses will depend on the patient and their needs.
While psychiatric evaluations can be helpful for anyone who is experiencing effects of a mental or physical health condition without a diagnosis, it is perhaps most beneficial for individuals who:
- Have issues in school at work because of a condition
- Display radical changes in mood or behavior
- Experience severe memory loss
- Engage in any violent behavior
- Use any substances in excess
Some of these individuals may not think they have a problem or don’t want to receive help, so they might not take the steps to get a psychiatric evaluation on their own. Unfortunately, going without diagnosis or treatment for certain conditions can cause deeper issues and could result in behavior or conflict that calls for legal action.
Can A Psych Evaluation Be Court-Ordered?
Yes, a psychiatric evaluation can be ordered by a court. However, whether or not a specific court will order an evaluation depends on the state it is in and its individual laws.
Court-ordered psychiatric evaluations may be used in different types of court cases, most commonly in child custody and sex crime cases. There are a couple of ways that a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation may come into effect: a judge could determine whether circumstances warrant a psychiatric evaluation, or the plaintiff can request an evaluation that the judge will then have to approve.
People can make this request by filing a Motion for a Mental Health Assessment if they think that the other party has a mental health condition that affects the case. They must complete and submit an application with as much detail about the defendant and the case as possible. Judges may be more inclined to order a psychiatric evaluation if the defendant has drug or alcohol dependency, previous criminal charges, or allegations of child abuse.
If the judge orders or approves the motion for a psychiatric evaluation, they will hire an impartial mental health professional to perform one. The specialist will administer the tests that they deem fit to determine an individual’s psychological state.
After Psychiatric Evaluations: What’s Next?
A psychiatric evaluation will usually be followed by treatment for the diagnosed condition/s. Treatment may include a combination of medication, one-on-one therapy, support groups, family therapy, and more. To learn more about psychiatric evaluations and the treatment that follows, contact our team of mental health treatment representatives by giving us a call at 866-552-3758. | https://eliumhealth.com/can-a-court-order-a-psychiatric-evaluation/ |
Mediscan is currently seeking a full time School Psychologist for an immediate hire opportunity for this school year. The selected candidate must be licensed as a Psychologist with the appropriate credentials to work in California Schools. This position will be interviewing immediately!
Administer I.Q. tests, achievement tests, and other tests required to determine eligibility for special services.
Provide written reports of assessment for student evaluations.
Collaborate with building and support staff throughout the district to meet the needs of students.
Make recommendations to the Director of Special Prgrams concerning the need to obtain additional medical, psychological and/or psychiatric information on an evaluation.
Participate as an IEP team member with functional behavioral assessments, behavior intervention plans and /or in the manifestation determination process as necessary.
Collaborate with outside agencies, parents and teachers to meet the need of students.
Review student records for the screening and evaluation process of students.
Provide group and individual lessons on social skills development. | https://careers-therapy-mediscan.icims.com/jobs/10958/school-psychologist/job |
ETHICAL PRINCIPLES IN EDUCATIONAL TESTING
Now that you have developed a good understanding of such important concepts as validity and reliability, you are ready to focus on issues related to test design and development, test administration, test scoring, and the reporting and interpretation of scores.
The term, test development, refers to the process of producing a measure of some aspect of an individual’s knowledge, skills, abilities, interests, attitudes, or other characteristics by writing questions or developing tasks, and then combining them to form a test according to a specified plan.
The term, test design, on the other hand, outlines the steps and considerations for test development as well as test administration, scoring procedures, and reporting the results.
This assessment looks at APA ethical principles (2010) as they relate to psychological assessment. According to APA Standard 9.0,
“Psychologists administer, adapt, score, interpret or use assessment techniques, interviews, tests or instruments in a manner and for purposes that are appropriate in light of the research on or evidence of the usefulness and proper application of the techniques.” In addition, it is the ethical responsibility of test users to “use assessment instruments whose validity and reliability have been established for use with members of the population tested.” (APA, 2010)
It is important to view testing as a social relationship. While the psychologist, like an engineer, is measuring an object with a technical tool, the tester’s object is a person. Establishing personal rapport in administering tests is, therefore, essential, especially in individual testing. Examiners should be aware that their rapport with the test taker can influence the results.
They should also remember that scores sometimes can be affected by subtle processes, such as the level of performance the examiner expects. The recurrent question about the match of the examiner to test takers in ethnicity or race is a serious one, and has received considerable attention. An important point to note is that the examiner’s effects tend to increase when procedures for properly administering the test are not clearly presented in adequate detail, and when the examiners have not received the required training.
The Use of Technology in Assessment
Psychology is changing the way we conduct evaluations, administer tests, and the way we provide treatment. Technological advances in neurology, physiology, and genetics are just a few areas that have changed our ability to evaluate, treat, do research, and teach about the field of psychology. More to the point, how we administer psychological tests has been greatly impacted by technology. We can also reach more people; people who might not otherwise receive the services they need. These changes all sound good, but there are cautions about the changes that will be required. In this unit, you will examine technology and the future of testing. Positive and negative aspects will be addressed.
Hi there! Click one of our representatives below and we will get back to you as soon as possible. | https://cheapnursingpapers.com/discuss-issues-revolving-around-test-administration-errors-bias-and-fairness-and-the-role-of-technology-in-psychological-testing/ |
The purpose of this course is to familiarize students with the knowledge necessary to select, administer and interpret assessments and evaluations in clinical settings,including the implications of testing and evaluation for cultural and special needs populations. Students will be introduced to assessment and evaluation concepts, terminology, and methodology, including the psychometric statistics underlying commonly used tests and assessments, with an emphasis on legal and ethical considerations guiding the practice of assessment. Non-test assessment theory and practice will be studied and demonstrated experientially. | https://www.unf.edu/catalog/link/GRMHS6205H/ |
A new plastics recycling depot in B.C. is ready to fight plastic ocean debris.
The Cumberland depot, which was opened in mid-June, was christened with a 40-yard-storage-container’s worth of ocean plastic collected by a volunteer group. One of three similar facilities to date in B.C., the depot will help deal with the ongoing coastline plastic debris issue.
Story preview:
Coastal community cleanup groups on eastern Vancouver Island have been itching for the opening of B.C.’s newest ocean debris recycling depot.
The Cumberland site, operated by Comox Strathcona Waste Management (CSWM) in partnership with the Ocean Legacy Foundation, opened in mid-June to tackle the tonnes of plastic washing ashore in the region, said Stephanie Valdal, CSWM’s waste management services co-ordinator.
The site collects materials from shoreline cleanup efforts and legacy equipment from commercial fishing and the aquaculture industry, providing essential infrastructure to divert plastics from the landfill and reduce oceanic pollution, she said.
A volunteer community cleanup group on Quadra Island, the Beach Clean Dream Team, christened the depot by collecting enough marine debris to fill a 40-yard shipping container, Valdal said.
“There are lots of people who have been waiting specifically for the depot to open so they can bring stuff in so it won’t end up in the landfill,” she said.
The site will collect lost or discarded fishing and aquaculture gear (such as netting, ropes and shellfish trays) and marine debris like plastic buoys and chunks of polystyrene (Styrofoam), typically used to float docks and platforms. | https://plasticactioncentre.ca/news/west-coast-infrastructure-is-on-the-rise-to-stem-the-wave-of-ocean-plastics/ |
The European Union wants all plastic packaging to be recyclable by 2030, according to a new strategy unveiled on Tuesday by the European Commission.
The news comes just as the leading recycling country, China, announced that it is closing its doors to foreign waste. The EU exports half of its collected and sorted plastics, 85 percent of which goes to China.
In 2016, according to figures from Chinese Customs, the Asian giant had to date imported 7.3 million tons of plastic waste, mainly from Europe, Japan and the United States. In the EU, 39 percent of plastic waste ends up being incinerated to produce energy, 31 percent goes to landfill and 30 percent is recycled, according to figures from the Commission.
Announcing the proposed new policy on Tuesday, European Commission vice president Jyrki Katainen said Brussels was ready to explore fiscal measures to improve recycling and prevent plastic waste, but poured cold water on the prospect of an EU-wide tax on plastics. The measures announced include curbs on throw-away items like plastic bags and restricting the use of micro-plastics. New rules on port reception facilities will tackle sea-based marine litter, with measures to ensure that waste generated on ships or gathered at sea is not dumped into the ocean but returned to land to be disposed of. | https://en.myeurop.info/2018/01/17/european-commission-unveils-strategy-to-make-all-plastics-recyclable-by-2030/ |
Litter is waste products that have been improperly disposed, without consent, or in an inappropriate location. Litter can also be used as a verb, to litter is to leave items, often made by man, such as aluminum cans and paper cups, food wrappers and cardboard boxes, on the ground and let them remain there indefinitely, or for other people to dispose them off.
Sometimes, hazardous and large items of rubbish, including tires, electronic appliances, batteries, and large industrial containers, are disposed in isolated areas, such as national forests or other public lands.
Litter is an environmental problem that has a significant human impact. Litter can remain in the environment for a long time before it is decomposed and transported to the oceans. Litter can impact the quality of your life.
With 4.5 trillion cigarettes being thrown away each year, cigar butts are the most polluting item in the world. There are many estimates of the time it takes for cigarettes butts to be completely degraded. They can take anywhere from five to 400 years.
Table of Contents
Causes
While littering is intentional, nearly half of the litter found on U.S. roads today is accidental or unintentional litter. This includes trash that has fallen off garbage collection vehicles, pickup trucks, and recycling collection vehicles. Higher litter rates are associated with factors such as population density, traffic density, and the proximity of waste disposal sites.
It is possible to illegally dump hazardous waste due to the high costs associated with dropping material at designated locations. Some of these sites charge a fee for hazardous material deposit. Access to facilities nearby that can accept hazardous waste could discourage their use. Inadequate knowledge of laws regarding hazardous waste disposal can lead to improper disposal.
A study done by VROM in the Netherlands found that 80% of people believe that everyone leaves litter on the streets. The litter that is left behind by people between the ages of 12 and 24 years old is more than that of an average person (Dutch, Belgian). Only 18% of litter-makers are older than 50. A 2010 survey in the United States found litterers over 55 in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont at a rate of less than 5%. According to the same observational study, 78% of litterers were male.
Littering behavior can be caused by negligent or lenient law enforcement. Other factors include economic, entitlement, and inconvenience. According to a survey, Pennsylvania had the highest number of illegal dumps. This report also mentions the inability to collect curbside trash or recycle, a lack of enforcement and habits as possible causes. More littering is encouraged by the presence of litter.
The two-stage model of littering behavior describes the various ways people litter. James Liu, Chris Sibley, and James Liu proposed the model. It distinguishes between active and passive littering.
This theory can be used to understand the best litter reduction strategies that will reduce littering in an environment. According to the theory, passive littering is more resistant to change than active littering. This is due to two psychological processes. 1. Diffusion of responsibility increases with the latency between the time an individual places litter and the time they vacate it. 2. Forgetting, which can also occur at longer intervals between the litter being placed and the time they leave the territory.
Life cycle
Litter can be visible for long periods before it biodegrades. Some items made from condensed glass, plastic, or styrofoam may remain in the environment for more than a million years.
Around 18% of litter ends up in streams, rivers and waterways, most often through stormwater systems. Litter that is not collected can accumulate and flow into local streams, bays and estuaries. Litter in the ocean can either be washed up on beaches, or collected in ocean gyres like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Around 80 percent of marine debris is from land-based sources.
While some litter can be recycled, degraded litter cannot. It eventually becomes sludge, which is often toxic. Most litter is disposed of in landfills.
Effects
Litter can have many negative effects on the environment and humans.
Human effects
Tires and other illegally dumped rubbish that contain hazardous materials can leak into water supplies, pollute the soil, and cause health problems.
The most hazardous waste that is disposed of is tires. The United States produced 262 million tires in 2007. There are 38 states that have laws banning whole tires from being placed in landfills. Many of these tires end up illegally being dumped on public land. Tires can be a breeding ground of insect vectors that can transmit diseases to people. In stagnant water, mosquitoes can transmit West Nile virus or malaria. Rodents can transmit diseases like Hantavirus by nesting in tires that have been accumulated.
Tires can smolder when they are burned. This can cause hundreds of chemical compounds to pollute the air and lead to respiratory diseases. The residue can also cause soil damage and leach into the groundwater.
Litter can have a significant impact on the eyes.
Open containers, such as cardboard cups, paper food packets and plastic drink bottles, can be filled with rainwater. This creates breeding grounds for mosquitoes. A spark or lightning flash can also start a fire, especially if it hits litter like a cardboard box or paper bag.
Litter can pose a danger to your health. Automobile accidents are becoming more common due to debris falling from vehicles. Accidental injury to people can result from the accidental disposal of dangerous goods, chemicals and tires.
Litter can also be a significant cost to the economy. The cost of cleaning up litter in the US is hundreds of dollars per tonne, which is about ten times the cost of trash disposal. This cost amounts to about $11 billion annually.
Wildlife effects
Litter can trap or poison animals in their natural habitats. Filters and cigar butts can pose a danger to wildlife. They have been found in the stomachs or other animals, including fish, birds, and whales that mistakenly believe they are food. Animals can also become trapped in rubbish, causing them severe discomfort. The plastic that holds beverage cans together can wrap around the necks of animals and cause them to choke. Broken glass can also cause injury to animals, especially cats and dogs.
Other effects
Large amounts of organic litter can lead to water pollution and algal blooms. If cigarettes are not disposed of in a clean environment, they could start fires.
Extent
Many countries worldwide are concerned about litter. While developing countries may not have the resources necessary to address the problem, western consumers are able to generate more litter per capita because they consume more disposable products.
Numerous credible studies have shown fast food packaging to be one of the most prevalent forms of litter. McDonald’s, however, is the most popular brand of litter, even though it has messages about how to properly dispose of them, such as the Ronald McDonald’s “tidy guy” marking. Keep Britain Tidy 2013 found that Cadbury chocolate wrappers and Walkers crisp packets were the top three most common items of litter on UK streets.
Solutions
Litter bins
Local authorities provide street bins or public waste containers to dispose of and collect litter. There are more recycling and general waste options. The waste is collected by local councils and taken to the recycling or reuse facility. This approach has its problems. If the bins aren’t emptied regularly, they can overflow and cause litter to be created indirectly. Local authorities may not take responsibility for litter that is left in the bins. Littering can be blamed on a lack or well-placed bins. Many hazardous materials can be improperly disposed of in the containers, which can encourage dumpster diving.
Cleanup
Sometimes, volunteers pick up litter alone, but sometimes they are paired with other organizations to do so. Sometimes, cleanup events are organized where participants will comb a particular area in a straight line to remove litter. Organisations might promote litter cleanup events or have separate media campaigns to discourage littering.
Adopt a Highway is a popular program in North America. This involves companies and organizations committing to clean up roads. Since 1998, Keep America Beautiful has organized litter cleanups known as the Great America Cleanup in more than 20,000 communities across the country.
Since 1970, Earth Day cleanups are held worldwide. For the first nationwide Earth Day CleanUp, Earth Day Network joined forces with Keep America Beautiful (Nature Conserves) and National Cleanup Day (Natural Cleanup Day). More than 500,000 volunteers participated in clean-ups that were held across all 50 states, five US Territories and 5,300 sites.
Commercial properties, such as office, retail and industrial, have litter picking maintenance plans. Property owners can provide this service or contract it to service providers. Property management companies may also be able to do so on behalf of the owner. Simple hand tools are used to pick up litter on foot. The worker will clean up the litter from the streets, parking lots and landscaping. On the job site, all contents are emptied into a trash bin.
Some of the litter collected (flip-flops), is used in Kiwayu, Kenya, to create art that is then sold.
Litter traps
Litter traps are a way to catch litter that has escaped stormwater drains and is entering waterways. Litter traps can only be used to capture large, floating litter items and should be maintained. Recent watershed litter surveys showed that there was a significant difference in street litter composition and stormwater litter.
Monitoring dumping sites
There are increasing efforts to make technology more effective in monitoring areas that are susceptible to dumping. In Japan, a study used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to map areas of dumping based on site characteristics.Another study used satellite images to detect possible illegal dumping sites.
Container deposit legislation
Container deposit legislation can help reduce littering as well as encourage picking up via local recycling programs that offer incentives for plastic bottles and aluminium cans. New York’s expanded bottle bill, which included plastic water bottles, increased recycling rates. It also generated 120 million dollars in state revenue from unclaimed deposits.
Container-deposit legislation was introduced in some countries, such as Germany and Netherlands. It applies to plastic bottles and cans. Some parts of Belgium are also looking at adopting such legislation. This type of waste can be used to get money back. This has led to a decrease in litter along roadsides in Germany. The Netherlands has seen a significant drop in litter since the new law was introduced. 95% of plastic bottles can now be recycled. Chris Snick claims that the income from trash picking can be very profitable in countries with container deposit legislation. He was able to pick up 108 cans in one hour and 31 plastic bottles in 30 minutes, earning him 13.90 euros (EUR0.10 per bottle/can). In contrast, countries that only return the aluminum’s value, such as the United States, would only yield 1.72 euros (0.0124 Euro per can). This assumes that there are 15 grams of aluminum per can and that scrap aluminum is valued at 0.8267 €/kg.
Fines
Some countries and local authorities have passed legislation to address this problem.
Anti-litter campaigns
Many groups are formed with the goal of spreading awareness and running campaigns, including clean-up events. World Cleanup Day is an international campaign. Individual scale litter movements include Plogging and TrashTag.
There are many anti-litter campaign organizations in the United States. Keep America Beautiful was established in 1953 and used the term litterbug that its partner, the Ad Council, in 1947. At least 38 states have high profile, government-recognized slogan campaigns, including Don’t Mess with Texas; Let’s Pick It Up New York; Don’t Trash California; Take Pride in Florida; Keep Iowa Beautiful. National CleanUp Day takes place every September 3rd.
Clean Up Australia Day in Australia is supported by major Australian businesses, volunteers, and firms. The 1963 founding of Keep Australia Beautiful, an anti-litter organization, is a good example. It was the creator of the “Do the Right Thing”, and the Tidy Towns competition, which became a well-known expression of civic pride.
Keep Britain Tidy, a British campaign led by the Keep Britain Tidy environment charity and partially funded by the UK government, is called “Keep Britain Tidy”.
History
People have always disposed of unneeded materials on roadsides and streets throughout human history. Before the reforms in cities that took place in the middle-to-late 19th Century, sanitation was not considered a priority by the government. Disease spread was caused by the growing waste piles.
Anti-littering legislation appears to have been in existence in ancient Greece. This is evident by the discovery of a road sign on Paros with the inscription , which reads “whoever leaves litter on the streets owes 51 Drachmae to anyone who wishes to claim them” .
The 1965 Solid Waste Disposal Act was created to address the increasing amount of waste in the United States. The 1976 amendment to the Solid Waste Disposal Act by the Federal government created the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. This requires a “cradle-to-grave” approach to handling potentially hazardous materials. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under RCRA, has the authority to regulate and enforce hazardous waste disposal. Many countries have laws that require household hazardous waste to be deposited in a designated location, rather than being dumped in regular garbage dumps. Paints and solvents, chemicals and light bulbs, fluorescent lighting, spray cans, disposable battery, and yard products like fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides are all household hazardous waste. Also, any medical waste that is generated at home must be properly disposed of.
Related Products And Info: | https://www.sclittercontrol.org/litter/ |
A poll released last week by Raw Materials Company, a leading battery recycler, states that only 37 per cent of Canadians properly dispose of their used batteries. The poll, conducted by Angus Reid, states that 87 per cent of respondents reported awareness of the detrimental effects improperly disposed batteries have on the environment, a mere 28 per cent currently utilize recycling programs, with an additional 11 per cent reporting to a hazardous waste centre.
GallonDaily’s take is that, as is often the case with polls about the environment, the rate of participation in battery recycling is significantly overstated by the Angus Reid poll. People have a very strong tendency to tell pollsters what they know they should be doing, not what they are actually doing. RMC states that Environment Canada estimates that only 5 only per cent single-use, disposable of batteries in Canada were properly disposed of in 2007. That is a more credible number.
GallonDaily’s perspective is that industry efforts to encourage household dry cell battery recycling are, to put it mildly, woefully inadequate. The result of the inadequate effort is likely to be government intervention and regulation within two or three years. With the collapse of support for ecofee based systems in Ontario, regulation may well place a significant additional burden on battery brandowners and retailers. | https://gallondaily.com/2011/10/31/far-too-few-household-batteries-being-recycled/ |
The government should not export UK rubbish to developing countries, according to an Early Day Motion backed by a cross-party group of MPs, including Conservative Zac Goldsmith and the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas.
The EDM requests the government to introduce a complete ban on plastic waste exports to developing countries. The National Audit Office has reported that millions of tonnes of plastic waste exported by the UK to developing countries was processed improperly and ending up in landfill or as ocean litter.
Two-thirds of plastic waste collected for recycling in the UK is exported for the purpose of recycling. China banned almost all imported waste in January 2018. Much of the surplus has been exported to neighbouring countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam for processing. | https://www.rwfreight.co.uk/news/2019/02/13/parliament-motion-for-ban-on-plastic-exports-123/ |
For years, Georgetown University was among the leading universities for recycling in the nation. Recently, however, recycling at Georgetown has been marred by rumors and clouded by widespread confusion over the state of recycling; it has, in effect, fallen off track because of unorganized policy. A sustained effort on the part of both students and administrators is needed to get back to our old standing.
You may have heard the rumors that Georgetown doesn’t recycle properly — or, even worse, that we don’t recycle at all. Students of the Georgetown Renewable Energy and Environmental Network were originally convinced by these rumors and prepared to protest the administration.
However, after investigating Georgetown’s recycling history and learning the truth that Georgetown never actually stopped recycling, we decided that divisiveness was not the answer. We now feel obligated to set the record straight to instill the transparency that we, as students, deserve.
In 1989, the Office of Planning and Facilities Management instated a recycling manager to oversee and coordinate all aspects of the university’s recycling program. As a result, Georgetown made serious progress in its waste management, including rising percentages of total waste recycled. By 2011, Georgetown was one of the nation’s most highly rated universities in terms of recycling. The Office of Sustainability at the time attributed Georgetown’s success to a combined student and administration effort.
Georgetown filled the position of recycling manager a number of times, but the position was left vacant in 2012. Georgetown still has not filled that position, even though local peer institutions still have recycling managers to this day. Without anyone handling recycling in an official capacity, crucial duties started falling through the cracks. Tasks like researching rates offered by different recycling plants, monitoring material recovery facilities, optimizing schedules and tracking data were left unattended.
At this time, the university decided to transition to a new single stream system, meaning all recyclables belong in the same bin, but signage was not appropriately administered, inadequately trained facilities custodians often confused which bags to put in which trucks, and we, the students, didn’t bother taking the time to understand and sort recyclables from trash properly.
As a result of this lack of readjustment, Georgetown was failing to recycle “commingled” materials, which refers to aluminum, glass and plastic. But, to dispel all rumors, there was never a point in time that Georgetown did not recycle at all. The university has always recycled waste like construction materials, cardboard, steel, electronics, yard waste and dining compost, which are handled in separate processes.
Currently, recycling at Georgetown falls victim to a culture of complacency. Students won’t spend time sorting recyclables from trash if they believe that Georgetown doesn’t recycle. Facilities struggles to improve the situation because of insufficient custodial training and lack of funding to tackle the recycling issue head-on.
However, in collaboration with the Office of Sustainability and facilities management, we can improve the system.
For a permanent solution to this problem, Georgetown must reinstate the position of a recycling manager. Without this position, no one is officially designated to revamp and maintain the recycling program.
Students of GREEN and the Office of Sustainability have already been working on procuring better bins and supplementing them with image-based labels in order to educate students and faculty on proper recycling practices.
Members of the Georgetown community must stay informed and sort their items properly. Based on GREEN’s preliminary surveys of the Georgetown waste stream, a significant amount of all materials is improperly sorted.
Among the most common contaminants are plastic straws, forks, spoons, knives, wrappers and bags, all of which are not recyclable. Containers with food or liquids must be emptied out before they can be recycled. If a load of recyclables is too contaminated, it will be rejected by the local recycling facilities and disposed of as trash — so when in doubt, throw it out! Beyond recycling, we all need to consider ways that we can reduce disposable items in our daily lives, including plastic shopping bags, straws and drink lids.
If everyone plays their part, we will be able to overcome this culture of complacency. Let’s work together and lead Georgetown to become what it once was: an all-around leader in sustainability.
Caroline Flibbert is a sophomore in the College. Nareg Kuyumjian is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service. Ava Rosato is a junior in the College. All three are leaders of the GREEN Recycling Team. Flibbert is also an intern in the Office of Sustainability.
Hunter Congdon (SFS ’19) and Olivia Torbert (SFS ’20) contributed research.
The authors encourage you to learn more about recycling at https://dpw.dc.gov/service/residential-recycling-collection. | https://www.thehoya.com/viewpoint-collaborate-campus-recycling/ |
Plastic Flows in Flux: Increasing legislation on plastic waste
Over a year after Chinese legislation reducing plastic scrap imports, global flows of plastic waste continue to be in flux. Increasingly governments across Southeast Asia have started to enact measures targeting plastic imports. This article highlights examples of key national legislation on plastic-scrap, along with notable industry initiatives driving private sector involvement in plastics.
The Chinese ‘National Sword’ policy, which announced the cessation of plastic scrap purchases that were not 99.5% pure, disrupted a $200 billion global recycling industry. Prior to this, China imported 2/3 of the world’s plastic waste. China’s decision has pushed the top exporters of plastic scrap waste, including the US, Germany and Japan to find new buyers. Chinese legislation on plastic waste imports has served as an opportunity for recycling industries in Southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia, as demonstrated below.
Source: Financial Times, 2018
Within a few months of China’s ban, Malaysia became the world’s biggest importer of scrap plastic. Vietnam has seen imports double, and Indonesian imports rose 56%. Thailand has seen the largest percentage increase of 1370%. In Thailand, the government has started to implement raids on scrap-processing facilities, dumps and ports to examine the plastic waste being accepted by facilities. Raids found that 95% of imported plastic scrap did not meet governmental regulations.
However, the diversion of plastic waste to countries that lack the recycling capacities of China, has created significant challenges. Illegal plastic scrap recycling facilities have been found by government raids in Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines, which do not implement environmental or social safety standards, or contribute to government tax revenues. Improper wastewater disposal has led to contaminated water supplies and crop devastation, and hazardous emissions from open-burning and incineration of scrap plastic has led to respiratory illness.
Following community-led grassroots movements protesting plastic imports, several of the new destinations for plastic waste have started to implement restrictions. Both Malaysia and Thailand announced in late 2018, that they would be implementing bans on plastic scrap imports to take place from 2021 onwards. In March 2019, the government of India announced a complete ban on plastic scrap imports, including within Special Economic Zones (SEZs). In Indonesia, Bali implemented a complete ban on all single-use plastics from December 2018, following the emergency closure of beaches inundated with plastic waste. Indonesia is the first country in the region to partner with the Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP, following the government’s pledge of spending USD 1 billion per year to address marine plastic pollution. The partnership will develop a data-driven model that substitute materials and increase recycling and waste collection rates.
On 11 May 2019, 187 governments across the world agreed to amend the Basel Convention to include plastic-scrap. As a result of the amendment, all exporting countries will have to obtain prior consent from receiving governments to send contaminated, mixed or unrecyclable plastic waste to private entities. Global monitoring and tracking of plastic waste exports is expected to due to the legislation.
Timeline of plastic waste bans and restrictions
|January 2018||China implements the ‘National Sword’ policy enforcing plastic restrictions|
|April 2018||Thailand issues temporary ban on plastic scrap
|
Malaysia temporarily stops issuing import permits for plastic scrap
|May 2018||Thailand lifts temporary ban|
|June 2018||Malaysia resumes issuing permits
|
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announces the aim of eliminating all single-use plastic within the country by 2022.
|July 2018||Vietnam states new licenses for waste imports will no longer be issued, and it will begin to crack down on illegal shipments
|
China announces a ban of all imports of “solid waste”, to be in effect by end 2019
|August 2018||Malaysia announces 3-month curtailment of plastic waste permits
|
Thailand issues ban on 432 types of e-waste
|October 2018||Malaysia announces limitations on plastic waste imports, and phasing-out of certain forms of plastic scrap within 3 years
|
Thailand announces permanent ban of plastic imports to be in place by 2021
Taiwan limits forms of plastic scrap allowed into the country
|March 2019||India announces all plastic scrap imports will be banned|
|April 2019||Vietnamese officials announce ban of plastic scrap imports by 2025|
|May 2019||187 governments across the world agree to amending the Basel Convention to include plastic waste|
Source: ‘Discarded: Communities on the Frontlines of the Global Plastic Crisis’ GAIA, 2019; Resource Recycling, 2018, and The Guardian, 2019
Increasing legislation against plastic waste imports raises the question – where will the waste go now? Innovation along the waste management supply chain is needed to address plastic leakage and pollution. Industry initiatives are increasingly being formed across Asia to address the issue.
In Hong Kong, approximately 2.2 tons of plastic waste is generated daily, with only 14% being recovered and sent for recycling. The Single-Use Beverage Packaging Working Group has developed the Drinks Without Waste initiative, representing a coalition of stakeholders including producers, importers, distributors, retailers, NGOs, and waste management service providers. The multi-stakeholder initiative has committed to reducing single-use beverage packaging in the country, through developing a transparent framework that shares responsibility between institutions.
The Philippine Alliance for Recycling and Materials Sustainability (PARMS) is another example of a multi-stakeholder industry led initiative seeking to address plastic waste across the value chain. PARMS includes junkshops and haulers, critical parties involved in collecting and recycling waste in the Philippines. The premise is to increase recovery and reduce landfill dependence. Corporate partners, including Coca-Cola FEMSA Philippines, Nestle Philippines, Unilever, and Procter & Gamble Philippines committed to the development of a plastic recycling facility that would address low-value plastics sachets. GAIA found that approximately 60 billion single use sachets were disposed of as plastic waste in the Philippines.
CSR Asia continues to provide a platform for engagement and proactive discussion on the issue of plastic waste, and will be holding a dedicated session at the annual CSR Asia Summit. Our Strategic Partner Program convenes leading businesses in the region to facilitate peer learning and exchange of best practices on the region’s most material sustainability challenges. Our series of roundtables on plastics and sustainable packaging connects those who are already working on answers to the plastic challenge in the region and supports the sharing of practical solutions.
To learn more contact us at [email protected]. | https://www.elevatelimited.com/insights/plastic-flows-in-flux-increasing-legislation-on-plastic-waste/ |
what happens to plastic waste
GEP Ecotech is a manufacturer of industrial shredders for use in disposal of tires, pallets, plastic and many other materials. The solutions provided by GEP Ecotech are widely used in municipal solid waste recycling, commercial and industrial waste recycling, construction and demolition waste recycling, Plastic recycling and bag opening, paper and cardboard recycling, bulky waste recycling, tire recycling, etc. We design overall solutions according to the materials and specific requirements.
National Overview: Facts and Figures on Materials, Wastes and Recycling
Jan 28, 2021 · Measured by tonnage, the most-recycled products and materials in 2018 were corrugated boxes (32.1 million tons), mixed nondurable paper products (8.8 million tons), newspapers/mechanical papers (3.3 million tons), lead-acid batteries (2.9 million tons), major appliances (3.1 million tons), wood packaging (3.1 million tons), glass containers (3 million ... What really happens to the plastic you throw away - Emma Bryce Apr 21, 2015 · View full lesson: http://www.stantheman.com.au/lessons/what-really-happens-to-the-plastic-you-throw-away-emma-bryceWe’ve all been told that we should recycle plastic bo...
What will happen if we don’t cut down on plastic waste?
Plastic has infiltrated every corner of the world. No matter where you go and how serene you expect the landscape to be, you’ll find sweet wrappers, plastic bottles, and waste almost everywhere. As plastic doesn’t degrade for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years, the plastic we use will continue to build up in our cities and environment. What really happens to our recycling? - www.stantheman.com.au Nov 14, 2019 · The price of producing plastic, and hence the price you can get for plastic waste, is influenced by the price of oil, because oil is what’s used in the production of virgin plastic...
What Happens To Plastic Waste?
Jun 09, 2019 · Byline: Alexis J, Writer. Have you ever wondered what happens to plastic after you put it in the recycling bin? The world produces nearly 300 million tons of plastic every year, with only 9% of the plastic produced from 1950-2015 having been recycled. Is burning plastic waste a good idea? - Environment Mar 12, 2019 · (The Alliance to End Plastic Waste includes pyrolysis companies.) Plastics 101. Seven relatively small pyrolysis plants now operate in ...
Should we burn or bury waste plastic?
Well, according to the HMRC's UK trade info website, about 800,000 tonnes of plastic waste was exported from the UK for recycling to nations like China in 2014. What happens to my household waste? | SeaPigs Do you know the truth about your household Waste? Does it really get recycled?
What Happens to All That Plastic?
Jan 31, 2012 · In 2014, Americans discarded about 33.6 million tons of plastic, but only 9.5 percent of it was recycled and 15 percent was combusted to create electricity or heat. Photo credit: Samuel Mann. Most of the rest ends up in landfills where it may take up to 500 years to decompose, and potentially leak pollutants into the soil and water. It’s estimated that there are ... What happens to all of our plastic trash once it enters the ocean? | ... A small fraction of plastic waste is incinerated, but the lion’s share – 79% – winds up in landfills, littered in landscapes, or bobbing in our rivers and oceans. Exposed to sunlight, saltwater and the mechanical forces of waves, winds and tides, plastic ...
Plastic Pollution: What Earth Will Look Like if We Don’t Reduce Plastic Waste …
The reason our oceans are becoming home to plastic garbage is because plastic is resistant to natural biodegradation processes. This means that the microbes that eat and break down organic matter do not recognize plastic as food. Furthermore, much of the plastic pollution in our oceans are being ingested by marine lifeforms. Plastic pollution facts and information - Environment Jun 07, 2019 · Plastic trash has become so ubiquitous it has prompted efforts to write a global treaty negotiated by the United Nations. How did this happen? Plastics made from fossil fuels are just over a ...
What happens to the extracted river waste?
Apr 15, 2020 · Plastics, which make up a significant amount of the waste in the rivers we want to tackle (hence the reason for deploying the Interceptor), include bottles of different plastic composition, Styrofoam, and an array of other hard and soft plastics, often with different types of plastic combined into a product, like diapers. CLOSING THE LOOP: WHAT HAPPENS TO PLASTIC WASTE? - ... Have you wondered what happens to plastic waste? Plastic recycling is the process of recovering scrap plastic or waste. It will be reprocessed into working and useful products that people can use again. It is a vital process for the circular economy. It prolongs the life of plastic to serve an extended and broader purpose.
What Happens To Plastic Waste?
Jun 09, 2019 · In 2016, China was responsible for recycling 2/3rds of the world’s recyclable plastic waste. However, when the ban was announced, this waste was diverted to developing countries like Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia. Shortly after this diversion, other countries started implementing their own bans. Plastic Pollution Affects Sea Life Throughout the Ocean | The Pew ... Sep 24, 2018 · Plastic waste can encourage the growth of pathogens in the ocean. According to a recent study, scientists concluded that corals that come into contact with plastic have an 89 percent chance of contracting disease, compared with a 4 percent likelihood for corals that do not.. Unless action is taken soon to address this urgent problem, scientists predict that the ...
What Happens to Plastic Waste Around Us?
The most popular way to dispose of plastic waste is to send them to landfills. Not only does it take a lot of landfill space but it is quite an expensive affair as well. This can be eliminated by recycling plastic. In America 7.4 cubic yards of a landfill is saved by recycling one ton of plastic. How Toothbrushes Affect the Environment: An Infographic | MYSA Remember: Every plastic toothbrush impacts the environment. One billion plastic toothbrushes are thrown away every year in the United States, creating 50 million pounds of waste annually. Don’t be part of the problem. Recycle your plastic toothbrush, make the world a little greener, and get your own non-toxic, silicone ISSA toothbrush here.
Plastic Waste Facts
If it’s not made from plastic, it’s wrapped in plastic. We use around 5 trillion plastic bags a year worldwide! The US alone throws away enough plastic bottles in a week to encircle the world 5 times. Only 1 to 3% of all plastics used are recycled. After we use them, we throw them away. More: Interesting Facts about Plastic Bags What happens to my household waste? | SeaPigs Do you know the truth about your household Waste? Does it really get recycled?
A Guide to Plastic in the Ocean
Many plastic products are single-use items that are designed to be thrown out, like water bottles or take out containers. These are used and discarded quickly. If this waste isn’t properly disposed of or managed, it can end up in the ocean. Unlike some other kinds of waste, plastic ... Plastic waste in the United States - Statistics & Facts | Statista Sep 07, 2020 · Plastic waste is sometimes burned in waste to energy facilities, but the majority of plastics are sent to landfills. There are seven different codes stamped on plastic ...
Here's What Really Happens to Recycled Plastic
Nov 06, 2019 · The shreds are filtered to remove impurities like paper before the plastic goes through the rest of the recycling process. There are ways to recycle just about anything though, so don’t give up ... What Happens To Our Plastic Waste When We Discard It? What happens to our plastic waste is a problem for our environment, on a scale which we cannot ignore. Plastic waste affects Earth’s ecosystems and has a profound negative impact on the environment, wildlife and people. What Happens to Our Plastic Waste When We Litter? Approximately 80% of the litter in the seas comes from the land 6. One of the direct ways that ...
Here’s Why America Is Dumping Its Trash in Poorer Countries – Mother Jones
Mar 09, 2019 · So-called clean plastic recyclables like industrial plastic waste are mostly recycled in the United States, but “easily 80 percent of America’s ... Pros & Cons Of Sending Plastic To Landfill - Better Meets Reality Feb 11, 2021 · The type of plastic, and plastic items and products need to be taken into consideration too (as each may present different challenges and variables) Plastic in landfill seems to get a bad reputation in a lot of places, whilst recycling plastic or sending it to waste for energy incineration can be seen as magic bullets or clear cut solutions
What Happens To Our Waste When We Throw It Away?
After throwing your rubbish into the bin and having it collected we don’t tend to give much thought to what happens to it. Recycling has improved dramatically over the years and with our consumption of plastic packaging increasing all the time it is as important as ever that we reduce the amount of our waste that makes it to landfill. Plastic Waste: Environmental Effects of Plastic Pollution | Earth ... What is Plastic Pollution? Plastic pollution is currently one of the biggest environmental concerns. It may seem like large amounts of plastic waste are inevitable in the world we live in, but you can help with the plastic pollution issue by being aware of its dangers and taking steps to reduce waste.
Plastic Recycling and the Plastic Recycling Process
Nov 23, 2020 · Plastic recycling refers to the process of recovering waste or scrap plastic and reprocessing the materials into functional and useful products. This activity is known as the plastic recycling process. The goal of recycling plastic is to reduce high rates of plastic pollution while putting less pressure on virgin materials to produce brand new ... Earth in 50 Years: How Plastic Pollution Will Impact our Future | ... Mar 07, 2019 · As plastic continues to grow in distribution, so will the hormonal and chemical effects onto our bodies, water systems, and air. By 2050, researches believe that there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean as the rate of plastic production and plastic pollution continues to compound with each coming year. Further, the creation of plastics ... | https://www.stantheman.com.au/2021/23/what-happens-to-plastic-waste.html |
Recycling in the Republic of Ireland
Rates of household recycling in Ireland have increased dramatically since the late 1990s. The Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the agency with overall responsibility for environmental protection in the Republic of Ireland and monitors rates of recycling in Ireland along with other measures of environmental conditions in Ireland. The EPA, along with Repak, the principal organisation for packaging recycling in Ireland, report on recycling rates each year. In 2012 Ireland’s MSW recycling rate was 34%, while the rate of packaging recycling reached 79% (the second highest in the European Union behind Germany). The amount of municipal waste generated per person per year in the Republic of Ireland has fallen significantly in recent years (from over 800 kg of waste in 2007 to 570 kg per person in 2012). This figure remains above the European Union annual municipal waste average of 503 kg per person however. Each local council in Ireland has considerable control over recycling, so recycling practices vary to some extent across the country. Most waste that is not recycled is disposed of in landfill sites.
Plastic Bag Levy
One noticeable success in Ireland's environmental track record was the introduction of a plastic bag levy in 2002, the first country in the world to do so. All consumers were required to pay 15c for a plastic bag; this led to an immediate decrease of over 90% in the amount of plastic bags in circulation. From 328 bags per inhabitant per year when the levy was introduced, usage fell to 21 bags per capita.
The levy encouraged retailers to switch to paper bags, and encouraged consumers to bring their own bags when shopping. The National Litter Pollution Monitoring System showed that when the levy was introduced, 5% of all litter was plastic bags. The 2006 figure is 0.5%. Media coverage also helped raise awareness about the damage plastic bags do to the environment.
There has been some evidence of complacency, however, suggesting that the number of plastic bags had begun to rise again to 33 bags per capita. To address this, the levy was increased in July 2006 to 22c; preliminary figures indicate the rate has again fallen to 21 bags per capita. In Dunnes Stores single use bags are no longer sold. Customers may purchase a bag for life priced at €1.
WEEE
The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive was introduced into Irish law in August 2005. Under this law, retailers of electrical goods are required to provide free in-store take back for old electrical goods for customers buying new electrical equipment. The cost of this is passed onto consumers.
Ireland is the top country in Europe for electronics recycling as a result of the WEEE directive, with 30,000 tonnes of electrical and electronic being collected in 2008. This works out at around 9 kilograms per person, a figure more than double the EU target.
Packaging
Repak is Ireland's packaging recovery organisation.
Repak is a not for profit company set up by Irish business and owned by its members. Repak charges fees to its members in accordance with the amount and type of packaging they place on the Irish market. These fees are used to subsidise the collection and recovery of waste packaging through registered recovery operators across Ireland – so that the individual member companies are exempt from this requirement. Repak is approved under licence by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government to operate as a compliance scheme for packaging recovery. Since Repak was set up in 1997 packaging recycling in Ireland has grown from a very low base to the point where Ireland is now one of the leading recycling countries in the EU.
For more, see www.repak.ie
Practices around the country
Although waste collection practices vary in each county in Ireland, most services share the guiding principles that waste is sorted into different categories at household level and that waste collection charges are highest for waste going to landfill sites. Waste collection services have been increasingly run by private companies, rather than local government, over the last decade. In Dublin several companies now compete to provide waste collection services. Grey bins are used to collect non-recyclable waste. Green bins, used to collect packaging waste and glass, are collected every two weeks-householders can dispose of paper, cardboard, cans, plastic bottles and tins in this bin, and it is illegal to dispose of such waste in a grey bin. Most householders have to pay every time their grey bin is collected.
In 2008 Dublin City Council introduced use of a third bin (brown bin) to households in Dublin City Council area. This was introduced to reduce landfill use for compostable waste. Households use this brown bin to dispose of compostable waste such as grass and hedge cuttings and uncooked food waste. Dublin City Council began to charge for waste collection to fund improvements in recycling facilities. Nine Bring Centres, which consist of bottle banks and recycling facilities were made available at various locations around the City in 2001. At the end of the year 54 public and 53 private bring centres were in operation." Most householders have to pay every time their grey bin is collected but pay a lesser fee for collection of their brown bin and no fee for collection of their green bin. This system is designed to discourage people from using the grey bin and therefore to reduce the amount of waste going into landfill.
In Dundalk, Oxigen took over from the Dundalk Town Council for waste disposal. They have since in introduced a green bins (2001) and brown bins (2007) along with the black bin. Up until the 2007 the black bins were collected every week but now they are collected every second week with the other bins been collected the week the black bins are not collected.
Variations of this system are in place across the country. Some local authorities, such as Limerick County Council, now outsource all waste collection to private authorities. Householders can choose what size bin they want, and pay accordingly. However, they are not charged every time the bin is collected. Other councils operate a weigh-and-pay system, where households are charged according to the weight of the waste collected,for example,South Tipperary County Council charge 14c per kg (accurate as of 31 August 2007). Recyclable waste in South Tipperary is collected separately in plastic bags which are purchased at local shops, together with stickers that are placed on the bags. In Galway city, over 50% of waste is now recycled, the highest proportion in the country.
Websites have been set up where people can post their junk or items they no longer need and have it taken away, such as , or the well known freecycle sites.
There has been a sharp increase in the number of bottle banks and recycling facilities across the country over the last 10 years, but facilities continue to struggle with demand.
References
- Waste Atlas(2012). Country Data: IRELAND
- Waste Atlas (2012). Country Data: IRELAND
- BreakingNews.ie – Ireland tops EU table for electronics recycling (20 April, 2009)
- Dublin City Profile, p. 57. National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis (NIRSA). January 2002.
- Grey bins are used to collect non-recyclable waste. Annual Report, p. 19. Dublin City Council, 2001. "Recycling Initiative: Last year Dublin City Council commenced a major recycling drive with the aim of dramatically reducing the amount of waste. A dual bin system was introduced for individual households, a grey bin for general waste and a green bin for dry recyclable waste. Nine Bring Centres, which consist of bottle banks and recycling facilities were made available at various locations around the City in 2001. At the end of the year 54 public and 53 private bring centres were in operation." | https://zims-en.kiwix.campusafrica.gos.orange.com/wikipedia_en_all_nopic/A/Recycling_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland |
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is conducting a statewide waste and recycling composition study with a goal to create a targeted recycling program, optimize collections and provide guidance and assistance to local municipalities, haulers and material recovery facilities (MRFs).
Larry Holley, manager of the division of waste minimization and planning for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, says one of the biggest challenges the state is facing is contamination fees. He says facilities that have eliminated commodities, including paper and plastics, from recycling programs have been rejecting loads and charging municipalities and small and medium-sized businesses with penalties for contamination.
"For 30 years, we educated the public to recycle glass," Holley says. "Now the hauler is saying we don't take glass anymore and hitting local governments with penalties for glass appearing in the recycling stream. On our end, that's not acceptable because we acknowledge that's not a behavior you can change instantaneously."
Holley says data from the study will help the DEP “adjust our funding and prioritize grant programs” and “help local governments focus their programs on what material is in the stream.”
Pennsylvania DEP conducted a municipal solid waste (MSW) characterization study in 2003 in which incoming material was sampled and sorted through at 13 facilities, including landfills and transfer stations. The report concluded that 3.2 million tons of organics (12 percent of the waste stream) and 3.1 million tons of paper (9.3 percent of the waste stream) were being disposed of in landfills. In addition, old corrugated containers (OCC) made up 8.4 percent of the waste stream and was primarily being generated by the commercial sector.
“We think that our study will reaffirm that we need to look at OCC in the waste stream and have everybody collect that material,” Holley says.
The study also found that packaging materials—OCC (5.7 percent), mixed paper (2.3 percent) and plastic film (2.2. percent) made up 24 percent of the residential waste stream.
“We believe we need to make an adjustment to the multitude of packaging and plastics being generated,” Holley says. “It might not be feasible to create a collection program that accounts for all these different types of plastics. Maybe there’s an extended producer responsibility that comes as a result of the recycling audit study.”
Holley says local governments and waste and recycling facilities have been subject to the same challenges as the rest of the nation, including rising recycling costs and changes in the marketplace; however, MRFs in the state have been able to withstand programs because they were depending on domestic markets, he says.
While Crawford County ended its recycling program last year, many other Pennsylvania municipalities have made changes and adjustments to their recycling guidelines in terms of what materials are accepted to maintain programs.
Penn Waste Inc., York County, Pennsylvania, revised its recycling guidelines in 2017 to eliminate Nos. 3-7 plastics and paper, says Amanda Moley, director of marketing at Penn Waste.
Penn Waste built its first facility in 2008 and currently operates a 96,000-square-foot single-stream processing facility, which was built in 2015. The facility has undergone several upgrades in the last four years,including a retrofit and the addition of a robot on the PET sorting line.
"Contamination continues to be an ongoing issue,” Moley says. “We’ve responded to the changes by investing heavily in equipment, adding team members and slowing down our equipment. Our focus continues to be on lowering contamination in inbound material. We’ve invested significant dollars in educating the public on what not to put in their recycling bin.”
She adds, “Rates are increasing due to higher processing costs for recyclables and labor issues.”
Holley says many municipalities have eliminated glass from programs to increase the quality of paper in the recycling stream. He says the DEP has observed an emergence of drop-off locations for glass in Pittsburgh. Lancaster has also implemented a “comprehensive” drop-off program to augment their curbside recycling program, which is “doing very well,” he says.
“We believe this study and data is the foundation to start a conversation on changes to how we collect material and implementing regulations or recommendations and other changes that will result in the reduction in the amount of waste we generate and targeted recycling programs.”
Holley says about 12 waste facilities and six to 12 recycling facilities will participate in the statewide audit. The study will look at six geographic regions of Pennsylvania and include more than 1,200 samples of waste and recycling.
The DEP is in the process of selecting a vendor to conduct the study. After a vendor is selected, the DEP will reach out to industry and local governments to “facilitate the support and cooperation” in the study, Holley says.
“The information that we all gain from this will help us modify our programs, whether you’re a MRF, a landfill operator or a recycler,” Holley says. “It lets you know what you’re collecting and how better to structure your programs, and in a big way your education programs.”
One goal of the study is to understand how much organics is being disposed of in the state. Holley says this is of interest to landfills that have energy recovery systems, but also to local governments interested in diverting organics from landfill and creating organics collection programs.
While there is a successful organics program in the State College, Pennsylvania, other cities have ruled that curbside organics collection is not an “economic or environmentally responsible way to handle organics.” Centre County developed a proposal for curbside organics collection and found the cost would be $8 a month for residents. The program would result in 10 percent reduction to the landfill and increase the counties carbon footprint by 585 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions.
Holley says this study will allow the DEP to “focus our grants on those targeted materials and materials we need to increase in the recycling stream.”
He adds, “We need to develop a comprehensive education program to assist businesses, recyclers and consumers in creating a higher quality recycling stream.”
Pennsylvania has launched an education campaign around recycling in the past, which cost millions of dollars per year on educational efforts, including public service announcements and commercials. The DEP will work to launch an education campaign that appeals to the next generation of recyclers, Holley says. | https://www.wastetodaymagazine.com/article/pennsylvania-dep-waste-recycling-study/ |
Recycling report finds piles
Australia’s recycling industry may not be doing nearly as much recycling as many people believe.
Media investigations have found that much of Australia’s plastic waste is not being reused or recycled at all.
Australia’s plastic recycling chain has for decades ended in China, but China has now closed its doors to Australia’s low-grade plastic waste, leaving companies desperate for a new place to send it.
Tonnes of mixed plastic is piling up in yards and warehouses across Australia, while the waste that does get exported is ending up in less scrupulous hands.
Our waste is being dumped, buried and burned in processing locations across Southeast Asia, according to journalist Liam Bartlett.
He says Malaysia is taking China’s place as the world’s largest importer of plastic rubbish, with Australia having sold more than 71,000 tonnes of plastic to Malaysia in the past 12 months.
The Malaysian recycling chain often ends in illegal processing facilities and junkyards.
Local processors and environmentalists say they want government support to improve the processing of waste onshore. | http://state.governmentcareer.com.au/archived-news/recycling-report-finds-piles |
Plastic pollution is the accumulation of plastic objects and particles (e.g. plastic bottles, bags and microbeads) in the Earth's environment that adversely affects wildlife, wildlife habitat, and humans. Plastics that act as pollutants are categorized into micro-, meso-, or macro debris, based on size. Plastics are inexpensive and durable making them very adaptable for different uses; as a result levels human produce a lot of plastic. However, the chemical structure of most plastics renders them resistant to many natural processes of degradation and as a result they are slow to degrade. Together, these two factors allow large volumes of plastic to enter the environment as mismanaged waste and for it to persist in the ecosystem.
Plastic pollution can afflict land, waterways and oceans. It is estimated that 1.1 to 8.8 million tonnes of plastic waste enters the ocean from coastal communities each year. It is estimated that there is a stock of 86 million tons of plastic marine debris in the worldwide ocean as of the end of 2013, with an assumption that 1.4% of global plastics produced from 1950 to 2013 has entered the ocean and has accumulated there. Some researchers suggest that by 2050 there could be more plastic than fish in the oceans by weight. Living organisms, particularly marine animals, can be harmed either by mechanical effects, such as entanglement in plastic objects, problems related to ingestion of plastic waste, or through exposure to chemicals within plastics that interfere with their physiology. Degraded plastic waste can directly effect humans through both direct consumption (i.e. in tap water), indirect consumption (by eating animals) and disruption of various hormonal mechanisms.
As of 2018, about 380 million tonnes of plastic is produced worldwide each year. From the 1950s up to 2018, an estimated 6.3 billion tonnes of plastic has been produced worldwide, of which an estimated 9% has been recycled and another 12% has been incinerated. This large amount of plastic waste enters the environment, with studies suggesting that the bodies of 90% of seabirds contain plastic debris. In some areas there have been significant efforts to reduce the prominence of free range plastic pollution, through reducing plastic consumption, litter cleanup, and promoting plastic recycling. As of 2020, the global mass of produced plastic exceeds the biomass of all land and marine animals combined. A May 2019 amendment to the Basel Convention regulates the exportation/importation of plastic waste, largely intended to prevent the shipping of plastic waste from developed countries to less developed countries. Nearly all countries have joined this agreement but the world's largest producer of plastic waste, the United States, opposed it.
The trade in plastic waste has been identified as "a main culprit" of marine litter.[a] Countries importing the waste plastics often lack the capacity to process all the material. As a result, the United Nations has imposed a ban on waste plastic trade unless it meets certain criteria.[b]
There are three major forms of plastic that contribute to plastic pollution: microplastics as well as mega- and macro-plastics. Mega- and micro plastics have accumulated in highest densities in the Northern Hemisphere, concentrated around urban centers and water fronts. Plastic can be found off the coast of some islands because of currents carrying the debris. Both mega- and macro-plastics are found in packaging, footwear, and other domestic items that have been washed off of ships or discarded in landfills. Fishing-related items are more likely to be found around remote islands. These may also be referred to as micro-, meso-, and macro debris.
Plastic debris is categorized as either primary or secondary. Primary plastics are in their original form when collected. Examples of these would be bottle caps, cigarette butts, and microbeads. Secondary plastics, on the other hand, account for smaller plastics that have resulted from the degradation of primary plastics.
Microdebris are plastic pieces between 2 mm and 5 mm in size. Plastic debris that starts off as meso- or macrodebris can become microdebris through degradation and collisions that break it down into smaller pieces. Microdebris is more commonly referred to as nurdles. Nurdles are recycled to make new plastic items, but they easily end up released into the environment during production because of their small size. They often end up in ocean waters through rivers and streams. Microdebris that come from cleaning and cosmetic products are also referred to as scrubbers. Because microdebris and scrubbers are so small in size, filter-feeding organisms often consume them.
Nurdles enter the ocean by means of spills during transportation or from land based sources. The Ocean Conservancy reported that China, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam dump more plastic in the sea than all other countries combined. It is estimated that 10% of the plastics in the ocean are nurdles, making them one of the most common types of plastic pollution, along with plastic bags and food containers. These micro-plastics can accumulate in the oceans and allow for the accumulation of Persistent Bio-accumulating Toxins such as bisphenol A, polystyrene, DDT, and PCB's which are hydrophobic in nature and can cause adverse health affects.
A 2004 study by Richard Thompson from the University of Plymouth, UK, found a great amount of microdebris on the beaches and waters in Europe, the Americas, Australia, Africa, and Antarctica. Thompson and his associates found that plastic pellets from both domestic and industrial sources were being broken down into much smaller plastic pieces, some having a diameter smaller than human hair. If not ingested, this microdebris floats instead of being absorbed into the marine environment. Thompson predicts there may be 300,000 plastic items per square kilometre of sea surface and 100,000 plastic particles per square kilometre of seabed. International pellet watch collected samples of polythene pellets from 30 beaches from 17 countries which were then analysed for organic micro-pollutants. It was found that pellets found on beaches in America, Vietnam and southern Africa contained compounds from pesticides suggesting a high use of pesticides in the areas. In 2020 scientists created what may be the first scientific estimate of how much microplastic currently resides in Earth's seafloor, after investigating six areas of ~3 km depth ~300 km off the Australian coast. They found the highly variable microplastic counts to be proportionate to plastic on the surface and the angle of the seafloor slope. By averaging the microplastic mass per cm3, they estimated that Earth's seafloor contains ~14 million tons of microplastic – about double the amount they estimated based on data from earlier studies – despite calling both estimates "conservative" as coastal areas are known to contain much more microplastic. These estimates are about one to two times the amount of plastic thought – per Jambeck et al., 2015 – to currently enter the oceans annually.
Plastic debris is categorized as macrodebris when it is larger than 20 mm. These include items such as plastic grocery bags. Macrodebris are often found in ocean waters, and can have a serious impact on the native organisms. Fishing nets have been prime pollutants. Even after they have been abandoned, they continue to trap marine organisms and other plastic debris. Eventually, these abandoned nets become too difficult to remove from the water because they become too heavy, having grown in weight up to 6 tonnes.
Plastics themselves contribute to approximately 10% of discarded waste. Many kinds of plastics exist depending on their precursors and the method for their polymerization. Depending on their chemical composition, plastics and resins have varying properties related to contaminant absorption and adsorption. Polymer degradation takes much longer as a result of saline environments and the cooling effect of the sea. These factors contribute to the persistence of plastic debris in certain environments. Recent studies have shown that plastics in the ocean decompose faster than was once thought, due to exposure to sun, rain, and other environmental conditions, resulting in the release of toxic chemicals such as bisphenol A. However, due to the increased volume of plastics in the ocean, decomposition has slowed down. The Marine Conservancy has predicted the decomposition rates of several plastic products. It is estimated that a foam plastic cup will take 50 years, a plastic beverage holder will take 400 years, a disposable nappy will take 450 years, and fishing line will take 600 years to degrade.
It was estimated that global production of plastics is approximately 250 mt/yr. Their abundance has been found to transport persistent organic pollutants, also known as POPs. These pollutants have been linked to an increased distribution of algae associated with red tides.
In 2019, the group Break Free From Plastic organized over 70,000 volunteers in 51 countries to collect and identify plastic waste. These volunteers collected over "59,000 plastic bags, 53,000 sachets and 29,000 plastic bottles," as reported by The Guardian. Nearly half of the items were identifiable by consumer brands. The most common brands were Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and Pepsico. According to the global campaign coordinator for the project Emma Priestland in 2020, the only way to solve the problem is stopping production of single use plastic and using reusable products instead.
Coca-Cola answered that “more than 20% of our portfolio comes in refillable or fountain packaging”, they are decreasing the amount of plastic in secondary packaging.
Nestlé responded that 87% of their packaging and 66% of their plastic packaging can be reused or recycled and by 2025 they want to make it 100%. By that year they want to reduce the consumption of virgin plastic by one third.
Pepsico responded that they want to decrease "virgin plastic in our beverage business by 35% by 2025” and also expanding reuse and refill practices what should prevent 67 billion single use bottles by 2025.
The United Stated produces an annual 42 million metric tons of plastic waste, more plastic waste than any other country in the world.
Top 12 mismanaged plastic waste polluters
In 2018 approximate 513 million tonnes of plastics wind up in the oceans every year out of which the 83,1% is from the following 20 countries: China is the most mismanaged plastic waste polluter leaving in the sea the 27.7% of the world total, second Indonesia with the 10.1%, third Philippines with 5.9%, fourth Vietnam with 5.8%, fifth Sri Lanka 5.0%, sixth Thailand with 3.2%, seventh Egypt with 3.0%, eighth Malaysia with 2.9%, ninth Nigeria with 2.7%, tenth Bangladesh with 2.5%, eleventh South Africa with 2.0%, twelfth India with 1.9%, thirteenth Algeria with 1.6%, fourteenth Turkey with 1.5%, fifteenth Pakistan with 1.5%, sixteenth Brazil with 1.5%, seventeenth Myanmar with 1.4%, eighteenth Morocco with 1.0%, nineteenth North Korea with 1.0%, twentieth United States with 0.9%. The rest of world's countries combined wind up the 16.9% of the mismanaged plastic waste in the oceans, according to a study published by Science, Jambeck et al (2015). However, this is an incomplete picture, since the United Stated produces an annual 42 million metric tons of plastic waste, more than any other country in the world, of which and an annual 0.15-0.99 metric tons is mismanaged in the countries to which the plastic waste is exported from the U.S., and an 0.14 and 0.41 metric tons is illegally dumped in the U.S. Thus the amount of U.S.-generated plastic estimated to enter the ocean environment was up to five times greater than the acknowledged amount, which makes U.S.-generated plastic waste the world's third-largest source of plastic pollution of the oceans.
All the European Union countries combined would rank eighteenth on the list.
A 2019 study calculated the mismanaged plastic waste, in millions of metric tonnes (Mt) per year:
Around 275 million tonnes of plastic waste is generated each year around the world; between 4.8 million and 12.7 million tonnes is dumped into the sea. About 60% of the plastic waste in the ocean comes from the following top 5 countries. The table below list the top 20 plastic waste polluting countries in 2010 according to a study published by Science, Jambeck et al (2015).
In a study published by Environmental Science & Technology, Schmidt et al (2017) calculated that 10 rivers: two in Africa (the Nile and the Niger) and eight in Asia (the Ganges, Indus, Yellow, Yangtze, Hai He, Pearl, Mekong and Amur) "transport 88–95% of the global plastics load into the sea.".
The Caribbean Islands are the biggest plastic polluters per capita in the world. Trinidad and Tobago produces 1.5 kilograms of waste per capita per day, is the biggest plastic polluter per capita in the world. At least 0.19 kg per person per day of Trinidad and Tobago's plastic debris end up in the ocean, or for example Saint Lucia which generates more than four times the amount of plastic waste per capita as China and is responsible for 1.2 times more improperly disposed plastic waste per capita than China. Of the top thirty global polluters per capita, ten are from the Caribbean region. These are Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Guyana, Barbados, Saint Lucia, Bahamas, Grenada, Anguilla and Aruba, according to a set of studies summarized by Forbes (2019).
The distribution of plastic debris is highly variable as a result of certain factors such as wind and ocean currents, coastline geography, urban areas, and trade routes. Human population in certain areas also plays a large role in this. Plastics are more likely to be found in enclosed regions such as the Caribbean. It serves as a means of distribution of organisms to remote coasts that are not their native environments. This could potentially increase the variability and dispersal of organisms in specific areas that are less biologically diverse. Plastics can also be used as vectors for chemical contaminants such as persistent organic pollutants and heavy metals.
In 2019 a new report "Plastic and Climate" was published. According to the report, in 2019, production and incineration of plastic will contribute greenhouse gases in the equivalent of 850 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere. In current trend, annual emissions from these sources will grow to 1.34 billion tonnes by 2030. By 2050 plastic could emit 56 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, as much as 14 percent of the earth's remaining carbon budget. By 2100 it will emit 260 billion tonnes, more than half of the carbon budget. Those are emission from production, transportation, incineration, but there are also releases of methane and effects on phytoplankton.
Plastic pollution on land poses a threat to the plants and animals – including humans who are based on the land. Estimates of the amount of plastic concentration on land are between four and twenty three times that of the ocean. The amount of plastic poised on the land is greater and more concentrated than that in the water. Mismanaged plastic waste ranges from 60 percent in East Asia and Pacific to one percent in North America. The percentage of mismanaged plastic waste reaching the ocean annually and thus becoming plastic marine debris is between one third and one half the total mismanaged waste for that year.
Chlorinated plastic can release harmful chemicals into the surrounding soil, which can then seep into groundwater or other surrounding water sources and also the ecosystem of the world. This can cause serious harm to the species that drink the water.
A 2017 study found that 83% of tap water samples taken around the world contained plastic pollutants. This was the first study to focus on global drinking water pollution with plastics, and showed that with a contamination rate of 94%, tap water in the United States was the most polluted, followed by Lebanon and India. European countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany and France had the lowest contamination rate, though still as high as 72%. This means that people may be ingesting between 3,000 and 4,000 microparticles of plastic from tap water per year. The analysis found particles of more than 2.5 microns in size, which is 2500 times bigger than a nanometer. It is currently unclear if this contamination is affecting human health, but if the water is also found to contain nano-particle pollutants, there could be adverse impacts on human well-being, according to scientists associated with the study.
However, plastic tap water pollution remains under-studied, as are the links of how pollution transfers between humans, air, water, and soil.
Plastic waste clogs drains and in many cities increasing flood damage.
Plastic waste entering the seas is increasing each year with much of the plastic entering the seas is in particles smaller than 5 millimetres. As of 2016[update] it was estimated that there was approximately 150 million tonnes of plastic pollution in the world's oceans, estimated to grow to 250 million tonnes in 2025. Another study estimated that in 2012, it was approximately 165 million tonnes. In 2020 a study found that the Atlantic Ocean contain approximately 10 times more plastic than was previously thought. The largest single type of plastic pollution (~10 %) and majority of large plastic in the oceans is discarded and lost nets from the fishing industry.
The Ocean Conservancy reported that China, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam dump more plastic in the sea than all other countries combined.
One study estimated that there are more than 5 trillion plastic pieces (defined into the four classes of small microplastics, large microplastics, meso- and macroplastics) afloat at sea. In 2020, new measurements found more than 10 times as much plastic in the Atlantic Ocean than previously estimated to be there.
The litter that is being delivered into the oceans is toxic to marine life, and humans. The toxins that are components of plastic include diethylhexyl phthalate, which is a toxic carcinogen, as well as lead, cadmium, and mercury.
Plankton, fish, and ultimately the human race, through the food chain, ingest these highly toxic carcinogens and chemicals. Consuming the fish that contain these toxins can cause an increase in cancer, immune disorders, and birth defects.[failed verification]
The majority of the litter near and in the ocean is made up of plastics and is a persistent pervasive source of marine pollution. In many countries improper management of solid waste means there is little control of plastic entering the water system. According to Dr. Marcus Eriksen of The 5 Gyres Institute, there are 5.25 trillion particles of plastic pollution that weigh as much as 270,000 tonnes (2016). This plastic is taken by the ocean currents and accumulates in large vortexes known as ocean gyres. The majority of the gyres become pollution dumps filled with plastic.
In October 2019, when research revealed most ocean plastic pollution comes from Chinese cargo ships, an Ocean Cleanup spokesperson said: "Everyone talks about saving the oceans by stopping using plastic bags, straws and single use packaging. That's important, but when we head out on the ocean, that's not necessarily what we find."
Almost 20% of plastic debris that pollutes ocean water, which translates to 5.6 million tonnes, comes from ocean-based sources. MARPOL, an international treaty, "imposes a complete ban on the at-sea disposal of plastics". Merchant ships expel cargo, sewage, used medical equipment, and other types of waste that contain plastic into the ocean. In the United States, the Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act of 1987 prohibits discharge of plastics in the sea, including from naval vessels. Naval and research vessels eject waste and military equipment that are deemed unnecessary. Pleasure crafts release fishing gear and other types of waste, either accidentally or through negligent handling. The largest ocean-based source of plastic pollution is discarded fishing gear (including traps and nets), estimated to be up to 90% of plastic debris in some areas.
Continental plastic litter enters the ocean largely through storm-water runoff, flowing into watercourses or directly discharged into coastal waters. Plastic in the ocean has been shown to follow ocean currents which eventually form into what is known as Great Garbage Patches. Knowledge of the routes that plastic follows in ocean currents comes from accidental container drops from ship carriers. For example, in May 1990 The Hansa Carrier, sailing from Korea to the United States, broke apart due to a storm, ultimately resulting in thousands of dumped shoes; these eventually started showing up on the U.S western coast, and Hawaii.
The impact of microplastic and macroplastic into the ocean is not subjected to infiltration directly by dumping of plastic into marine ecosystems, but through polluted rivers that lead or create passageways to oceans across the globe. Rivers can either act as a source or sink depending on the context. Rivers receive and gather majority of plastic but can also prevent a good percentage from entering the ocean. Rivers are the dominant source of plastic pollution in the marine environment contributing nearly 80% in recent studies. The amount of plastic that is recorded to be in the ocean is considerably less than the amount of plastic that is entering the ocean at any given time. According to a study done in the UK, there are "ten top" macroplastic dominant typologies that are solely consumer related (located in the table below). Within this study, 192,213 litter items were counted with an average of 71% being plastic and 59% were consumer related macroplastic items. Even though freshwater pollution is the major contributor to marine plastic pollution there is little studies done and data collection for the amount of pollution going from freshwater to marine. Majority of papers conclude that there is minimal data collection of plastic debris in freshwater environments and natural terrestrial environments, even though these are the major contributor. The need for policy change in production, usage, disposal, and waste management is necessary to decrease the amount and potential of plastic to enter freshwater environments.
Estimates for the contribution of land-based plastic vary widely. While one study estimated that a little over 80% of plastic debris in ocean water comes from land-based sources, responsible for 800,000 tonnes (880,000 short tons) every year. In 2015, Jambeck et al. calculated that 275 million tonnes (303 million short tons) of plastic waste was generated in 192 coastal countries in 2010, with 4.8 to 12.7 million tonnes (5.3 to 14 million short tons) entering the ocean – a percentage of only up to 5%.
In a study published by Science, Jambeck et al (2015) estimated that the 10 largest emitters of oceanic plastic pollution worldwide are, from the most to the least, China, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Egypt, Malaysia, Nigeria, and Bangladesh.
A source that has caused concern is landfills. Most waste in the form of plastic in landfills are single-use items such as packaging. Discarding plastics this way leads to accumulation. Although disposing of plastic waste in landfills has less of a gas emission risk than disposal through incineration, the former has space limitations. Another concern is that the liners acting as protective layers between the landfill and environment can break, thus leaking toxins and contaminating the nearby soil and water. Landfills located near oceans often contribute to ocean debris because content is easily swept up and transported to the sea by wind or small waterways like rivers and streams. Marine debris can also result from sewage water that has not been efficiently treated, which is eventually transported to the ocean through rivers. Plastic items that have been improperly discarded can also be carried to oceans through storm waters.
A garbage patch is a gyre of marine debris particles caused by the effects of ocean currents and increasing plastic pollution by human populations. These human-caused collections of plastic and other debris, cause ecosystem and environmental problems that affect marine life, contaminate oceans with toxic chemicals, and contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.
The best known of these is the Great Pacific garbage patch which has the highest density of marine debris and plastic, visible from space in certain weather conditions. Other identified patches include the North Atlantic garbage patch between North America and Africa, the South Atlantic garbage patch located between eastern South America and the tip of Africa, the South Pacific garbage patch located west of South America, and the Indian Ocean garbage patch found east of south Africa listed in order of decreasing size.
In the Pacific Gyre, specifically 20°N-40°N latitude, large bodies with floating marine debris can be found. Models of wind patterns and ocean currents indicate that the plastic waste in the northern Pacific is particularly dense where the Subtropical Convergence Zone (STCZ), 23°N-37°N latitude, meets a southwest–northeast line, found north of the Hawaiian archipelago.
In the Pacific, there are two mass buildups: the western garbage patch and the eastern garbage patch, the former off the coast of Japan and the latter between Hawaii and California. The two garbage patches are both part of the great Pacific garbage patch, and are connected through a section of plastic debris off the northern coast of the Hawaiian islands. It is approximated that these garbage patches contain 90 million tonnes (100 million short tons) of debris. The waste is not compact, and although most of it is near the surface of the pacific, it can be found up to more than 30 metres (100 ft) deep in the water.
Research published in April 2017 reported "the highest density of plastic rubbish anywhere in the world" on remote and uninhabited Henderson Island in South Pacific as a result of the South Pacific Gyre. The beaches contain an estimated 37.7 million items of debris together weighing 17.6 tonnes. In a study transect on North Beach, each day 17 to 268 new items washed up on a 10-metre section. The study noted that purple hermit crabs (Coenobita spinosus) make their homes in plastic containers washed up on beaches.
Plastic pollution has the potential to poison animals, which can then adversely affect human food supplies. Plastic pollution has been described as being highly detrimental to large marine mammals, described in the book Introduction to Marine Biology as posing the "single greatest threat" to them. Some marine species, such as sea turtles, have been found to contain large proportions of plastics in their stomach. When this occurs, the animal typically starves, because the plastic blocks the animal's digestive tract. Sometimes marine mammals are entangled in plastic products such as nets, which can harm or kill them.
Entanglement in plastic debris has been responsible for the deaths of many marine organisms, such as fish, seals, turtles, and birds. These animals get caught in the debris and end up suffocating or drowning. Because they are unable to untangle themselves, they also die from starvation or from their inability to escape predators. Being entangled also often results in severe lacerations and ulcers. In a 2006 report known as Plastic Debris in the World's Oceans, it was estimated that at least 267 different animal species have suffered from entanglement and ingestion of plastic debris. It has been estimated that over 400,000 marine mammals perish annually due to plastic pollution in oceans. Marine organisms get caught in discarded fishing equipment, such as ghost nets. Ropes and nets used to fish are often made of synthetic materials such as nylon, making fishing equipment more durable and buoyant. These organisms can also get caught in circular plastic packaging materials, and if the animal continues to grow in size, the plastic can cut into their flesh. Equipment such as nets can also drag along the seabed, causing damage to coral reefs.
Sea turtles are affected by plastic pollution. Some species are consumers of jelly fish, but often mistake plastic bags for their natural prey. This plastic debris can kill the sea turtle by obstructing the oesophagus. Baby sea turtles are particularly vulnerable according to a 2018 study by Australian scientists.
So too are whales. Large amounts of plastics have been found in the stomachs of beached whales. Plastic debris started appearing in the stomach of the sperm whale since the 1970s, and has been noted to be the cause of death of several whales. In June 2018, more than 80 plastic bags were found inside a dying pilot whale that washed up on the shores of Thailand. In March 2019, a dead Cuvier's beaked whale washed up in the Philippines with 88 lbs of plastic in its stomach. In April 2019, following the discovery of a dead sperm whale off of Sardinia with 48 pounds of plastic in its stomach, the World Wildlife Foundation warned that plastic pollution is one of the most dangerous threats to sea life, noting that five whales have been killed by plastic over a two-year period.
Some of the tiniest bits of plastic are being consumed by small fish, in a part of the pelagic zone in the ocean called the Mesopelagic zone, which is 200 to 1000 metres below the ocean surface, and completely dark. Not much is known about these fish, other than that there are many of them. They hide in the darkness of the ocean, avoiding predators and then swimming to the ocean's surface at night to feed. Plastics found in the stomachs of these fish were collected during Malaspina's circumnavigation, a research project that studies the impact of global change on the oceans.
A study conducted by Scripps Institution of Oceanography showed that the average plastic content in the stomachs of 141 mesopelagic fish over 27 different species was 9.2%. Their estimate for the ingestion rate of plastic debris by these fish in the North Pacific was between 12,000 and 24,000 tonnes per year. The most popular mesopelagic fish is the lantern fish. It resides in the central ocean gyres, a large system of rotating ocean currents. Since lantern fish serve as a primary food source for the fish that consumers purchase, including tuna and swordfish, the plastics they ingest become part of the food chain. The lantern fish is one of the main bait fish in the ocean, and it eats large amounts of plastic fragments, which in turn will not make them nutritious enough for other fish to consume.
Another study found bits of plastic outnumber baby fish by seven to one in nursery waters off Hawaii. After dissecting hundreds of larval fish, the researchers discovered that many fish species ingested plastic particles. Plastics were also found in flying fish, which are eaten by top predators such as tunas and most Hawaiian seabirds.
Deep sea animals have been found with plastics in their stomachs.
Plastic pollution does not only affect animals that live solely in oceans. Seabirds are also greatly affected. In 2004, it was estimated that gulls in the North Sea had an average of thirty pieces of plastic in their stomachs. Seabirds often mistake trash floating on the ocean's surface as prey. Their food sources often has already ingested plastic debris, thus transferring the plastic from prey to predator. Ingested trash can obstruct and physically damage a bird's digestive system, reducing its digestive ability and can lead to malnutrition, starvation, and death. Toxic chemicals called polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) also become concentrated on the surface of plastics at sea and are released after seabirds eat them. These chemicals can accumulate in body tissues and have serious lethal effects on a bird's reproductive ability, immune system, and hormone balance. Floating plastic debris can produce ulcers, infections and lead to death. Marine plastic pollution can even reach birds that have never been at the sea. Parents may accidentally feed their nestlings plastic, mistaking it for food. Seabird chicks are the most vulnerable to plastic ingestion since they can't vomit up their food like the adult seabirds.
After the initial observation that many of the beaches in New Zealand had high concentrations of plastic pellets, further studies found that different species of prion ingest the plastic debris. Hungry prions mistook these pellets for food, and these particles were found intact within the birds' gizzards and proventriculi. Pecking marks similar to those made by northern fulmars in cuttlebones have been found in plastic debris, such as styrofoam, on the beaches on the Dutch coast, showing that this species of bird also mistake plastic debris for food.
An estimate of 1.5 million Laysan albatrosses, which inhabit Midway Atoll, all have plastics in their digestive system. Midway Atoll is halfway between Asia and North America, and north of the Hawaiian archipelago. In this remote location, the plastic blockage has proven deadly to these birds. These seabirds choose red, pink, brown, and blue plastic pieces because of similarities to their natural food sources. As a result of plastic ingestion, the digestive tract can be blocked resulting in starvation. The windpipe can also be blocked, which results in suffocation. The debris can also accumulate in the animal's gut, and give them a false sense of fullness which would also result in starvation. On the shore, thousands of birds corpses can be seen with plastic remaining where the stomach once was. The durability of the plastics is visible among the remains. In some instances, the plastic piles are still present while the bird's corpse has decayed.
Similar to humans, animals exposed to plasticizers can experience developmental defects. Specifically, sheep have been found to have lower birth weights when prenatally exposed to bisphenol A. Exposure to BPA can shorten the distance between the eyes of a tadpole. It can also stall development in frogs and can result in a decrease in body length. In different species of fish, exposure can stall egg hatching and result in a decrease in body weight, tail length, and body length.
Compounds that are used in manufacturing pollute the environment by releasing chemicals into the air and water. Some compounds that are used in plastics, such as phthalates, bisphenol A (BRA), polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE), are under close statute and might be very hurtful. Even though these compounds are unsafe, they have been used in the manufacturing of food packaging, medical devices, flooring materials, bottles, perfumes, cosmetics and much more. The large dosage of these compounds are hazardous to humans, destroying the endocrine system. BRA imitates the female's hormone called estrogen. PBD destroys and causes damage to thyroid hormones, which are vital hormone glands that play a major role in the metabolism, growth and development of the human body. Although the level of exposure to these chemicals varies depending on age and geography, most humans experience simultaneous exposure to many of these chemicals. Average levels of daily exposure are below the levels deemed to be unsafe, but more research needs to be done on the effects of low dose exposure on humans. A lot is unknown on how severely humans are physically affected by these chemicals. Some of the chemicals used in plastic production can cause dermatitis upon contact with human skin. In many plastics, these toxic chemicals are only used in trace amounts, but significant testing is often required to ensure that the toxic elements are contained within the plastic by inert material or polymer. Children and women during their reproduction age are at most at risk and more prone to damaging their immune as well as their reproductive system from these hormone-disrupting chemicals.
It can also affect humans because it may create an eyesore that interferes with enjoyment of the natural environment.
Due to the pervasiveness of plastic products, most of the human population is constantly exposed to the chemical components of plastics. 95% of adults in the United States have had detectable levels of BPA in their urine. Exposure to chemicals such as BPA have been correlated with disruptions in fertility, reproduction, sexual maturation, and other health effects. Specific phthalates have also resulted in similar biological effects.
Bisphenol A affects gene expression related to the thyroid hormone axis, which affects biological functions such as metabolism and development. BPA can decrease thyroid hormone receptor (TR) activity by increasing TR transcriptional corepressor activity. This then decreases the level of thyroid hormone binding proteins that bind to triiodothyronine. By affecting the thyroid hormone axis, BPA exposure can lead to hypothyroidism.
BPA can disrupt normal, physiological levels of sex hormones. It does this by binding to globulins that normally bind to sex hormones such as androgens and estrogens, leading to the disruption of the balance between the two. BPA can also affect the metabolism or the catabolism of sex hormones. It often acts as an antiandrogen or as an estrogen, which can cause disruptions in gonadal development and sperm production.
Efforts to reduce the use of plastics and to promote plastic recycling have occurred. Some supermarkets charge their customers for plastic bags, and in some places more efficient reusable or biodegradable materials are being used in place of plastics. Some communities and businesses have put a ban on some commonly used plastic items, such as bottled water and plastic bags. Some non-governmental organizations have launched voluntary plastic reduction schemes like certificates that can be adapted by restaurants to be recognized as eco-friendly among customers.
In January 2019 a "Global Alliance to End Plastic Waste" was created by companies in the plastics industry. The alliance aims to clean the environment from existing waste and increase recycling, but it does not mention reduction in plastic production as one of its targets.
The use of biodegradable plastics has many advantages and disadvantages. Biodegradables are biopolymers that degrade in industrial composters. Biodegradables do not degrade as efficiently in domestic composters, and during this slower process, methane gas may be emitted.
There are also other types of degradable materials that are not considered to be biopolymers, because they are oil-based, similar to other conventional plastics. These plastics are made to be more degradable through the use of different additives, which help them degrade when exposed to UV rays or other physical stressors. yet, biodegradation-promoting additives for polymers have been shown not to significantly increase biodegradation.
Although biodegradable and degradable plastics have helped reduce plastic pollution, there are some drawbacks. One issue concerning both types of plastics is that they do not break down very efficiently in natural environments. There, degradable plastics that are oil-based may break down into smaller fractions, at which point they do not degrade further.
A Parliamentary committee in the United Kingdom also found that compostable and biodegradable plastics could add to marine pollution because there is a lack of infrastructure to deal with these new types of plastic, as well as a lack of understanding about them on the part of consumers. For example, these plastics need to be sent to industrial composting facilities to degrade properly, but no adequate system exists to make sure waste reaches these facilities. The committee thus recommended to reduce the amount of plastic used rather than introducing new types of it to the market.
Up to 60% of used plastic medical equipment is incinerated rather than deposited in a landfill as a precautionary measure to lessen the transmission of disease. This has allowed for a large decrease in the amount of plastic waste that stems from medical equipment.
At a large scale, plastics, paper, and other materials provides waste-to-energy plants with useful fuel. About 12% of total produced plastic has been incinerated. Many studies have been done concerning the gaseous emissions that result from the incineration process. Incinerated plastics release a number of toxins in the burning process, including Dioxins, Furans, Mercury and Polychlorinated Biphenyls. When burned outside of facilities designed to collect or process the toxins, this can have significant health effects and create significant air pollution.
Agencies such as the US Environmental Protection Agency and US Food and Drug Administration often do not assess the safety of new chemicals until after a negative side effect is shown. Once they suspect a chemical may be toxic, it is studied to determine the human reference dose, which is determined to be the lowest observable adverse effect level. During these studies, a high dose is tested to see if it causes any adverse health effects, and if it does not, lower doses are considered to be safe as well. This does not take into account the fact that with some chemicals found in plastics, such as BPA, lower doses can have a discernible effect. Even with this often complex evaluation process, policies have been put into place in order to help alleviate plastic pollution and its effects. Government regulations have been implemented that ban some chemicals from being used in specific plastic products.
In Canada, the United States, and the European Union, BPA has been banned from being incorporated in the production of baby bottles and children's cups, due to health concerns and the higher vulnerability of younger children to the effects of BPA. Taxes have been established in order to discourage specific ways of managing plastic waste. The landfill tax, for example, creates an incentive to choose to recycle plastics rather than contain them in landfills, by making the latter more expensive. There has also been a standardization of the types of plastics that can be considered compostable. The European Norm EN 13432, which was set by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN), lists the standards that plastics must meet, in terms of compostability and biodegradability, in order to officially be labeled as compostable.
Major plastic producers continue to lobby governments to refrain from imposing restrictions on plastic production and to advocate for voluntary corporate targets to reduce new plastic output. However, the world's top 10 plastic producers, including The Coca-Cola Company, Nestle SA and PepsiCo have been failing to meet even their own minimum targets for virgin plastic use.
There have been several international covenants which address marine plastic pollution, such as the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter 1972, the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, 1973 and the Honolulu Strategy, there is nothing around plastics which infiltrate the ocean from the land.
In 2020, 180 countries agreed to limit the amount of plastic waste that rich countries export to poorer countries, using rules from the Basel Convention. However, during January 2021, the first month that the agreement was in effect, trade data showed that overall scrap exports actually increased.
Some academics and NGOs believe that a legally binding international treaty to deal with plastic pollution is necessary. They think this because plastic pollution is an international problem, moving between maritime borders, and also because they believe there needs to be a cap on plastic production. Lobbyists were hoping that UNEA-5 would lead to a plastics treaty, but the session ended without a legally binding agreement.
The Canadian federal government formed a current institution that protects marine areas; this includes the mitigation of plastic pollution. In 1997, Canada adopted legislation for oceans management and passed the Oceans Act. Federal governance, Regional Governance, and Aboriginal Peoples are the actors involved in the process of decision-making and implementation of the decision. The Regional Governance bodies are federal, provincial, and territorial government agencies that hold responsibilities of the marine environment. Aboriginal Peoples in Canada have treaty and non-treaty rights related to ocean activities. According to the Canadian government, they respect these rights and work with Aboriginal groups in oceans management activities.
With the Oceans Act made legal, Canada made a commitment to conserve and protect the oceans. The Ocean Acts' underlying principle is sustainable development, precautionary and integrated management approach to ensure that there is a comprehensive understanding in protecting marine areas. In the integrated management approach, the Oceans Act designates federal responsibility to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Canada for any new and emerging ocean-related activities. The Act encourages collaboration and coordination within the government that unifies interested parties. Moreover, the Oceans Act engages any Canadians who are interested in being informed of the decision-making regarding ocean environment.
In 2005, federal organizations developed the Federal Marine Protected Areas Strategy. This strategy is a collaborative approach implemented by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Parks Canada, and Environment Canada to plan and manage federal marine protected areas. The federal marine protected areas work with Aboriginal groups, industries, academia, environmental groups, and NGOs to strengthen marine protected areas. The federal marine protected areas network consists of three core programs: Marine Protected Areas, Marine Wildlife Areas, and National Marine Conservation Areas. The MPA is a program to be noted because it is significant in protecting ecosystems from the effects of industrial activities. The MPA guiding principles are Integrated Management, ecosystem-based management approach, Adaptive Management Approach, Precautionary Principle, and Flexible Management Approach. All five guiding principles are used collectively and simultaneously to collaborate and respect legislative mandates of individual departments, to use scientific knowledge and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) to manage human activities, to monitor and report on programs to meet conservation objectives of MPAs, to use best available information in the absence of scientific certainty, and to maintain a balance between conservation needs and sustainable development objectives.
The two common forms of waste collection include curbside collection and the use of drop-off recycling centers. About 87 percent of the population in the United States (273 million people) have access to curbside and drop-off recycling centers. In curbside collection, which is available to about 63 percent of the United States population (193 million people), people place designated plastics in a special bin to be picked up by a public or private hauling company. Most curbside programs collect more than one type of plastic resin, usually both PETE and HDPE. At drop-off recycling centers, which are available to 68 percent of the United States population (213 million people), people take their recyclables to a centrally located facility. Once collected, the plastics are delivered to a materials recovery facility (MRF) or handler for sorting into single-resin streams to increase product value. The sorted plastics are then baled to reduce shipping costs to reclaimers.
There are varying rates of recycling per type of plastic, and in 2017, the overall plastic recycling rate was approximately 8.4% in the United States. Approximately 2.7 million tonnes (3.0 million short tons) of plastics were recycled in the U.S. in 2017, while 24.3 million tonnes (26.8 million short tons) plastic were dumped in landfills the same year. Some plastics are recycled more than others; in 2017 about 31.2 percent of HDPE bottles and 29.1 percent of PET bottles and jars were recycled.
In 21 May 2019, a new service model called "Loop" to collect packaging from consumers and reuse it, began to function in the New York region, US. Consumers drop packages in special shipping totes and then a pick up collect them. Partners include Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever, Mars Petcare, The Clorox Company, The Body Shop, Coca-Cola, Mondelēz, Danone and other firms. It has begun with several thousand households, but there are 60,000 on the waiting list. The target of the service is not only stop single use plastic, but to stop single use generally by recycling consumer product containers of various materials.
The organization "The Ocean Cleanup" is trying to collect plastic waste from the oceans by nets. There are concerns from harm to some forms of sea organisms, especially Neuston.
In 2015 The European Union adopted a directive, that require a reduction in the consumption of single use plastic bags per person, to 90 by the year 2019 and to 40 by the year 2025. In April 2019, the European Union adopted a law banning almost all types of single use plastic, except bottles, from the beginning of the year 2021.
In 2020 China published its plan to cut 30% of plastic waste in 5 years. As part of this plan, single use plastic bags and straws will be banned
The government of India decided to ban single use plastics and take a number of measures to recycle and reuse plastic, from 2 October 2019
The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Government of India, has requested various governmental departments to avoid the use of plastic bottles to provide drinking water during governmental meetings, etc., and to instead make arrangements for providing drinking water that do not generate plastic waste. The state of Sikkim has restricted the usage of plastic water bottles (in government functions and meetings) and styrofoam products. The state of Bihar has banned the usage of plastic water bottles in governmental meetings.
The 2015 National Games of India, organised in Thiruvananthapuram, was associated with green protocols. This was initiated by Suchitwa Mission that aimed for "zero-waste" venues. To make the event "disposable-free", there was ban on the usage of disposable water bottles. The event witnessed the usage of reusable tableware and stainless steel tumblers. Athletes were provided with refillable steel flasks. It is estimated that these green practices stopped the generation of 120 tonnes of disposable waste.
The city of Bangalore in 2016 banned the plastic for all purpose other than for few special cases like milk delivery etc.
The state of Maharashtra, India effected the Maharashtra Plastic and Thermocol Products ban 23 June 2018, subjecting plastic users to fines and potential imprisonment for repeat offenders.
In July 2018, Albania became the first country in Europe to ban lightweight plastic bags. Albania's environment minister Blendi Klosi said that businesses importing, producing or trading plastic bags less than 35 microns in thickness risk facing fines between 1 million to 1.5 million lek (€7,900 to €11,800).
In Bali, a pair of two sisters, Melati and Isabel Wijsen, have gone through efforts to ban plastic bags in 2019. Their organization Bye Bye Plastic Bags has spread to 28 locations around the world.
In 2009, Washington University in St. Louis became the first university in the United States to ban the sale of plastic, single-use water bottles.
In 2009, District of Columbia required all businesses that sell food or alcohol to charge an additional 5 cents for each carryout plastic or paper bag.
In 2011 and 2013, Kauai, Maui and Hawaii prohibit non-biodegradable plastic bags at checkout as well as paper bags containing less than 40 percent recycled material. In 2015, Honolulu was the last major county approving the ban.
In 2015, California prohibited large stores from providing plastic bags, and if so a charge of $0.10 per bag and has to meet certain criteria.
In 2016, Illinois adopted the legislation and established “Recycle Thin Film Friday” in effort toe reclaim used thin-film plastic bags and encourage reusable bags.
In 2019 The New York (state) banned single use plastic bags and introduced a 5-cent fee for using single use paper bags. The ban will enter into force in 2020. This will not only reduce plastic bag usage in New York state (23,000,000,000 every year until now), but also eliminate 12 million barrels of oil used to make plastic bags used by the state each year.
The state of Maine ban Styrofoam (polystyrene) containers in May 2019.
In 2019 the Giant Eagle retailer became the first big US retailer that committed to completely phase out plastic by 2025. The first step - stop using single use plastic bags - will begun to be implemented already on January 15, 2020.
In 2019, Delaware, Maine, Oregon and Vermont enacted on legislation. Vermont also restricted single-use straws and polystyrene containers.
In 2019, Connecticut imposed a $0.10 charge on single-use plastic bags at point of sale, and is going to ban them on July 1, 2021.
In 2019, The House of Representatives of Nigeria banned the production, import and usage of plastic bags in the country.
In Israel, 2 cities: Eilat and Herzliya, decided to ban the usage of single use plastic bags and cutlery on the beaches. In 2020 Tel Aviv joined them, banning also the sale of single use plastic on the beaches.
In January 2019, the Iceland supermarket chain, which specializes in frozen foods, pledged to "eliminate or drastically reduce all plastic packaging for its store-brand products by 2023."
As of 2020, 104 communities achieved the title of "Plastic free community" in United Kingdom, 500 want to achieve it.
After 2 schoolgirls Ella and Caitlin launched a petition about it, Burger King and McDonald's in the United Kingdom and Ireland pledged to stop sending plastic toys with their meals. McDonald's pledged to do it from the year 2021. McDonald's also pledged to use a paper wrap for it meals and books that will be sent with the meals. The transmission will begin already in March 2020.
Kenya
In August 2017, Kenya has one of the world's harshest plastic bag bans. Fines of $38,000 or up to four years in jail to anyone that was caught producing, selling, or using a plastic bag.
Vanuatu
On July 30, 2017, Vanuatu’s Independence Day, made an announcement of stepping towards the beginning of not using plastic bags and bottles. Making it one of the first Pacific nations to do so and will start banning the importation of single-use plastic bottles and bags.
Taiwan
In February 2018, Taiwan restricted the use if single-use plastic cups, straws, utensils and bags; the ban will also include an extra charge for plastic bags and updates their recycling regulations and aiming by 2030 it would be completely enforced.
The ten corporations that produce the most plastic on the planet, The Coca-Cola Company, Colgate-Palmolive, Danone, Mars, Incorporated, Mondelēz International, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Perfetti Van Melle, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever, formed a well-financed network that has sabotaged for decades government and community efforts to address the plastic pollution crisis, according to a detailed investigative report by the Changing Markets Foundation. The investigation documents how these companies delay and derail legislation so that they can continue to inundate consumers with disposable plastic packaging. These large plastic producers have exploited public fears of the COVID-19 pandemic to work toward delaying and reversing existing regulation of plastic disposal. Big ten plastic producers have advanced voluntary commitments for plastic waste disposal as a stratagem to deter governments from imposing additional regulations.
As early as the early 1970s, petrochemical industry leaders understood that the vast majority of plastic they produced would never be recycled. For example, an April 1973 report written by industry scientists for industry executive states that sorting the hundreds of different kinds plastic is "infeasible" and cost-prohibitive. By the late 1980s, industry leaders also knew that the public must be kept feeling good about purchasing plastic products if their industry was to continue to prosper, and needed to quell proposed legislation to regulate the plastic being sold. So the industry launched a $50 million/year corporate propaganda campaign targeting the American public with the message that plastic can be, and is being, recycled, and lobbied American municipalities to launch expensive plastic waste collection programs, and lobbied U.S. states to require the labeling of plastic products and containers with recycling symbols. They were confident, however, that the recycling initiatives would not end up recovering and reusing plastic in amounts anywhere near sufficient to hurt their profits in selling new "virgin" plastic products because they understood that the recycling efforts that they were promoting were likely to fail. Industry leaders more recently have planned 100% recycling of the plastic they produce by 2040, calling for more efficient collection, sorting and processing.
In 2019, the Earth Day Network partnered with Keep America Beautiful and National Cleanup Day for the inaugural nationwide Earth Day CleanUp. Cleanups were held in all 50 states, five US territories, 5,300 sites and had more than 500,000 volunteers.
Earth Day 2020 is the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day. Celebrations will include activities such as the Great Global CleanUp, Citizen Science, Advocacy, Education, and art. This Earth Day aims to educate and mobilize more than one billion people to grow and support the next generation of environmental activists, with a major focus on plastic waste
Every year, 5 June is observed as World Environment Day to raise awareness and increase government action on the pressing issue. In 2018, India was host to the 43rd World Environment Day and the theme was "Beat Plastic Pollution", with a focus on single-use or disposable plastic. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change of India invited people to take care of their social responsibility and urged them to take up green good deeds in everyday life. Several states presented plans to ban plastic or drastically reduce thei use.
On 11 April 2013 in order to create awareness, artist Maria Cristina Finucci founded The Garbage Patch State at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France, in front of Director General Irina Bokova. This was the first of a series of events under the patronage of UNESCO and of the Italian Ministry of the Environment.
China, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam are dumping more plastic into oceans than the rest of the world combined, according to a 2017 report by Ocean Conservancy
the Asian continent was in 2015 the leading generating region of plastic waste with 82 Mt, followed by Europe (31 Mt) and Northern America (29 Mt). Latin America (including the Caribbean) and Africa each produced 19 Mt of plastic waste while Oceania generated about 0.9 Mt.
The 10 top-ranked rivers transport 88–95% of the global load into the sea
It turns out that about 90 percent of all the plastic that reaches the world's oceans gets flushed through just 10 rivers: The Yangtze, the Indus, Yellow River, Hai River, the Nile, the Ganges, Pearl River, Amur River, the Niger, and the Mekong (in that order).
MARPOL Annex V contains regulations on vessel-borne garbage and its disposal. It sets limit on what may be disposed at sea and imposes a complete ban on the at-sea disposal of plastics. | http://wikilion.com/Plastic_pollution |
8 NEW Facts about Plastic–And Why You Should Care
As Chief Scientist at Ocean Conservancy I have a responsibility to share new research results with you even if they are tough to comprehend. A new study published in the journal Science Advances paints a shocking picture of how much plastic humans have produced and thrown away. This paper should encourage all of us to step up to address the challenge of plastics in the natural environment. This first-of-its-kind analysis led by Dr. Roland Geyer from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara found:
- Widespread use of plastics has surpassed all other man-made materials except steel and cement.
- Global production of plastic increased from 2 million tons in 1950 to 380 million tons by 2015, a growth rate 2.5 greater than that of the global economy. Half of that amount was produced in just the last 13 years.
- If this global trend in production continues, humans will have produced 34 billion tons of plastic by 2050 (100 times greater than the weight of all the humans on the planet), four times more than we have made to date. Close to half—46% of that (a whopping 12 billion tons)—is expected to be discarded in landfills or the natural environment.
- As a material, plastic is long lasting and durable and doesn’t degrade. This is one of the reasons plastic can be so useful when it comes to human health and food safety–especially in the developing world. But this also means that plastics accumulate in the natural environment and landfills, leading to what Geyer and his coauthors call a growing concern of a “near-permanent contamination of the natural environment.”
- Six different types of plastic (polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS), polyvinylchloride (PVC), polyethylene terephthalates (PET), and polyurethane (PUR) account for 92% of all the plastics ever made and 42% of that has been used for packaging, generally with a lifespan of less than 1 year before being discarded.
- There are only 4 ways to handle plastic at the end of its life. Plastic waste can be recycled, destroyed or converted to fuel or energy through incineration or pyrolysis, disposed of in managed waste systems or discarded where it ends up in the natural environment.
- The highest recycling rates are in Europe (30%) and China (25%) whereas the United States has had a relatively dismal rate of 9% since 2012. Even so, only 9% of all the plastics that have ever been produced have been recycled and only 10% of that amount (less than 1%) has been recycled more than once.
- A whopping 79% of all the plastics ever produced have now been discarded. Only 21% of plastics are still in active use.
These numbers are startling. And they may actually be underestimates. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the global plastics industry is on the verge of a massive expansion, driven by a 57% increase in oil and shale gas production over the last decade in the United States. In response, the nation’s petrochemical industry is investing $185 billion in 310 projects to expand production, based largely in the Gulf of Mexico. By the end of next decade, the industry is predicted to have increased plastics exports by 500%; just two new facilities in the Gulf will have production capacity of over 3 million tons per year.
At Ocean Conservancy we know that plastics use and plastic waste is not a black or white issue. In many countries, plastic is absolutely critical to improving human health and food safety. And we believe that there are many ways that we can reduce the amount of plastic used in the world, especially single-use plastic in developed countries. And given we are an ocean conservation organization we are unwavering in our focus on keeping plastics out of the ocean.
For more than 30 years, we have been at the forefront of efforts to engage a global community of ocean lovers that has removed over 210 million pounds of trash from coasts, beaches and waterways in 112 countries. Be sure to mark your calendars–the next International Coastal Cleanup is September 16. Find a cleanup near you at www.signuptocleanup.org.
We are also working to eliminate unneeded plastics from the market and investing in science and new knowledge like this new study to inform our decision making. We are proud to have supported the scientific working group on marine debris at The National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara, that resulted in the new Science Advances study. This group of ocean scientists, plastic researchers and waste management experts has now published a suite of studies that have fundamentally changed how we think about the problem of plastics in the ocean. This includes a seminal study published in Science in 2015 by Dr. Jenna Jambeck that found that 8 million tons of plastics enters the global ocean each year, with nearly half of that originating from a handful of rapidly developing countries in Asia.
And we are also working collaboratively with industry leaders around the globe through our Trash Free Seas Alliance to invest in solutions to minimize and better manage plastic waste.
All of this can help stem the tide. But today’s findings are a sobering reminder that we must all work together and redouble our efforts to ensure a healthy ocean–free of plastic–for the future. | https://oceanconservancy.org/blog/2017/07/19/8-new-facts-plastic-care/?ea.tracking.id=18HPXWJBXX&gclid=Cj0KCQiAkKnyBRDwARIsALtxe7h1UgUbFqPewqm62g9IxRZoWj3JtLyQzORfJ2y78rkXEXxBRfDDPS4aAnztEALw_wcB |
Following is the speech by the Secretary for the Environment, Mr Edward Yau, at the Seminar on Thermal Waste Treatment today (March 7):
Professor Lam, Professor Poon, Dr Ng, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
Waste, and the treatment of it, does not seem to be a good topic for a luncheon talk as it might upset our appetite, or worse still, create a sense of guilt amongst us as I can observe we are all contributing to Hong Kong's daily creation of over 3,000 tonnes of food waste. I hope my ongoing speech will not make it worse.
The waste management issue is imminently pressing in Hong Kong as evident from the following facts : -
Daily waste generated: 17,000 tonnes
2/3 household and
1/3 commercial/industrial
Waste reduced through recycling: 8,000 tonnes
Waste ending up at our three landfills: 9,000 tonnes/day
Unfortunately, the three strategic landfills operating will be running out of capacity in four to eight years' time. In short, the current mode of waste disposal is simply not sustainable.
We have back in 2005 published a policy framework on the management of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW). This framework provides the blueprint for sustainable waste management in Hong Kong. To recap, this comprehensive package of initiatives sets out specific waste management targets that are to be met through a multitude of policy tools. These include targets to reduce waste through waste charging, producer responsibility schemes, promotion of waste recycling, and state-of-the-art facilities for bulk reduction and disposal of waste. The challenge is how to put all these measures into implementation in a timely and publicly acceptable manner.
Let's take a look at how we have been doing since 2005, when we published the policy framework.
Taking the latest figures for the year 2007, we have achieved some solid results in reducing domestic waste disposal and in recycling more waste. In 2007, the amount of domestic waste disposed of at the landfills dropped by 4% compared with the year before, despite an increase of about 1% in the local population over the same period. This was due, I believe, largely to the continuing expansion of the source separation of waste programme. To better facilitate waste recycling at the domestic level, we will introduce legislation shortly to mandate the provision of a refuse storage and material recovery room for new residential buildings.
On the other hand, the landfill disposal of commercial and industrial (C&I) waste increased by almost 16% in 2007, which was probably driven by robust economic growth and strong tourism influx. As a result, the overall landfill disposal of MSW (i.e. domestic plus C&I waste) increased slightly by 1.6% to about 3.44 million tones in 2007. It is therefore necessary for us to speed up the implementation of waste reduction initiatives and the development of waste treatment infrastructure, while sustaining our momentum in waste recovery and recycling.
On recycling, we achieved a MSW recovery rate of 45% in 2006, not too bad an interim level of achievement, but the question is whether we can sustain this and are able to push for even a higher recovery rate. In addition to publicity campaigns and public education, we need new tools especially in introducing a targeted approach in bringing producer responsibility into our management options. In the past year, we have struggled but finally succeeded in putting the Product Eco-responsibility Bill to the Legislative Council in January this year. This bill will provide the legal basis for us to pursue the Producer Responsibility Scheme and to implement an environmental levy on plastic shopping bags initially. It also allows us to extend the scheme to cover vehicle tyres, electrical and electronic equipment, packaging materials, beverage containers and rechargeable batteries. The current construction of the bill is a compromise of early implementation of a levy on plastic shopping bags and paving the way for other forms of mandatory recycling measures. We are thankful to Legco in giving us the slot in spite of the tight legislative timetable this year, being the last year of the current term. We need their ongoing support in processing the bill swiftly and should give them bigger applause if this could be enacted within the current session.
In the policy framework, we have also considered the introduction of MSW charging, which is another useful tool that follows the "polluter pays" principle to achieve waste avoidance and reduction. However, it is also a measure that could invite heated debates as it could easily be misconstrued as a form of new tax, let alone some enforcement issues. Last year, we conducted a trial to examine the feasibility of a charging system using designated garbage bags. The result of the trial suggests that a designated bag system would meet with difficulties in Hong Kong's multi-storey multi-tenant household setting where there are practical difficulties in tracing waste to the individual source. We need to sort this out before moving further. That said, we are not giving up the idea as abandoning this very important tool would greatly jeopardise the effectiveness of the package of policy options. We will also embark on a comprehensive territory-wide baseline survey later this year to collect information on waste generation patterns and waste collection modes under different domestic and commercial/industrial settings. The survey will provide vital information for us to develop a waste charging scheme that will suit the needs of Hong Kong.
Turning to the initiative of developing bulk waste reduction facilities, we have set out in the Policy Framework that Integrated Waste Management Facilities (IWMF) would be developed. We have made some progress and will adopt a two pronged programme whereby Organic Waste Treatment Facilities (OWTF) for treating source separated biodegradable food waste generated by the commercial and industrial sectors will be developed in Siu Ho Wan on North Lantau Island. The facilities will adopt a biological process that turns the waste into useful products such as compost for fertilisers and bio-gas for power generation.
Today, we are here to talk about thermal incineration that will reduce the volume of waste requiring landfill disposal. This is an obvious choice given Hong Kong's scarcity of land. This will help extend the useful life of the landfills so that the further need to use our scarce land resources for landfill development will be greatly reduced. The design capacity of 3,000 tonnes per day will save more than one million cubic metres of landfill space each year, equating to more than two hectares of land each year. The clock is ticking that if we do not start planning for the IWMF, we could have a big headache like what Naples in Italy was recently facing.
Another very important function under the IWMF is the recovery of resources. The mixed MSW reaching the facility will include some recyclables for reuse or recycling. Moreover, through the incineration facility of the IWMF, we can recover energy from the waste and produce heat and electricity for the community's use. We estimate that for a 3,000 tonnes per day incineration facility, the electricity generated would be adequate for use by more than one hundred thousand households. This would offset the need to burn fossil fuel for electricity generation, resulting in a reduction of some 0.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gas emissions each year.
I will not go into the details of the proven technologies of IWMF, which many expert speakers will cover in the various sessions.
In short, the IWMF with incineration will contribute positively to the sustainable management of waste in Hong Kong by significantly reducing use of land for landfills, generating a considerable amount of renewable electricity and leading to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Notwithstanding the many potential benefits of such a facility, some have raised concerns over its health and environmental impact. Some perceive it as visually intrusive and fear it may attract additional waste traffic that would have an impact on the nearby community. Some also are worried that once the Government has developed the IWMF, it will lessen its resolve to pursue waste avoidance and reduction measures. All these are quite legitimate concerns.
There is no short-cut to convincing our community of the need for the IWMF without addressing all these concerns through a public engagement process. We have recently started this process by identifying two sites for a more detailed environmental impact study with a view to finding the most appropriate location. More work would need to be done in ensuring that the facility when built will provide not just the best waste treatment facility for the entire territory but also a good community facility for the local district.
Hong Kong is not alone in tackling this problem. Indeed, there are also good examples overseas showing that high recycling rates can go hand in hand with the use of incineration for waste management. Waste incineration facilities are already a common feature for waste management in many advanced cities such as Tokyo, Hamburg, Singapore and Paris, so there is a lot for us to learn on how to address community concerns in the course of pursuing our IWMF plan. Today's seminar is timely and useful as renowned speakers in the field of thermal technology on waste management have shared or will share their wisdom and experience on the subject.
For sure, Hong Kong will make reference to the successful experience of other cities in developing its IWMF. We will employ state-of-the-art technologies and adopt the highest standards to safeguard public health and the environment, and to harness resources from waste efficiently. We will develop the IWMF in such a way that it will blend in well and be acceptable to the surrounding community.
I thank the organiser for organising this event. I admire the wisdom of the organiser in picking the headline of this seminar - "Thermal Waste Treatment"- as we know full well that the topic of waste management will generate heat -- heated debates and arguments. But if we could turn these heated debates into enthusiasm for solutions as we turn waste burning heat into usable energy, we stand to make Hong Kong a greener city, and in so doing, some cool-headed deliberation amongst experts, academics, professionals and stakeholders, in a seminar like the one we have here today, would be most productive.
Thank you. | http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/200803/07/P200803070230_print.htm |
As a project created in Landmark Education’s Self-Expression and Leadership Program, Ishreen Bradley took on creating an event to enable people of influence to enquire into and expand their appreciation of the unique challenges faced by Muslims from different regions of the world, whilst celebrating the current cultural contribution of Islam to her country, the United Kingdom.
The result of the project was a visit by Prince Charles as the guest of honor of the British Sufi muslim community at the Manchester United football grounds in Old Trafford on February 4th. At the event the Prince heard a musical recitation of the Quran and watched an exhibition of dancing by whirling dervishes dressed in traditional costumes.
The event, which was hosted by Sufi spiritual leader Shaykh Mohammed Hisham Kabbani and which marked the opening of the Centre for Spirituality and Cultural Advancement, highlighted the positive contributions of Sufi traditions and practices to British society, and featured the testimonies of those rehabilitated from criminal behavior who told of the influence of Sufi skills such as art, music and silat in changing their behavior.
In addition to Prince Charles, the event featured a wide range of other notable guests and foreign delegations. The mayor and mayoress of Manchester, the Bishop of Middleton, the Chaplain of Stockport College, the Earl of Yarlborough, senior members of parliament and a Swiss Baron were all among the attendees, along with delegations that highlighted a range of different delegations and dignitaries that highlighted different aspects of the muslim world community.
Also attending were musicians from Morocco, delegations from Kosovo and Somalia, and a group of senior Pakastani scholars who have been supporters of Shaykh Hisham’s campaign to educate people about Islam and provide grass roots initiatives to deter them from extremism.
Thank you for publishing news like this on Islam to show the humanitarian side of the religion and it’s true meaning.
Congratulations to Ishreen on her project.
many congratulations on your project. | https://www.landmarkforumnews.com/sufi-event-draws-prince-charles/ |
March 17 is St. Patrick’s Day, a holiday associated with green everything, Ireland, and alcohol consumption. Bars have Guinness specials, friends pinch friends not dressed in a certain colour, and the whole thing is an excuse to get drunk. The holiday originated from a Christian celebration honouring the Saint Patrick, a missionary, bishop, and patron saint of Ireland who lived in the fifth century. Today, in Ireland, it is a huge five-day festival celebrating the country’s culture and heritage, showcasing all that the nation has to offer.
Around the world, particularly in North America, businesses cash in on this cultural celebration in a secular and bastardized fashion. The majority of people downing pints in pubs downtown have no significant Irish heritage; many pretend to be so as an excuse to mock accents and ask for kisses. March 17 has become an odd socially acceptable period of cultural appropriation, when people can pretend to be of another ethnic descent.
Historically, Irish people have often faced mass discrimination, both for their national heritage and religious affiliation. St. Patrick’s Day is the equivalent in Ireland to Canada Day or the Fourth of July—an incredibly important time to celebrate the country’s culture and roots. Its mass celebration by non-Irish people, particularly the abundance of leprechaun and shamrocks, pushes stereotypes and infringes on a group of people that are in many ways marginalized.
On the other hand, even St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland is a departure from the original Christian tradition. Religiously, it is traditionally celebrated by commemoration, themed services, and feasts in many Irish churches (Old Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican). The restrictions on eating and drinking during Lent are lifted, which is why boozing is such a common part of the celebration.
Most holidays are bastardizations and manipulated from their original form, particularly religious-turned-secular ones. Christmas and Easter have Christian origins that have nothing to do with Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Easter eggs, mistletoe, baskets, or gift giving. Nevertheless, such things are incorporated into the festivities by Christians and non-Christians alike. As traditions get passed down throughout centuries and our culture becomes more diverse and inclusive, it’s no wonder that the roots of these holidays are lost.
The beer drinkers with shamrock tattoos who have never been to Ireland on March 17 don’t mean any harm. They’re merely having fun by participating in a socially acceptable societal celebration. Still, there’s something insensitive and almost culturally prejudiced about becoming too immersed in a cultural tradition and pretending to be of that culture. There’s a difference between participating in the fun of another culture’s celebration, and completely overtaking it altogether. | http://theotherpress.ca/bastardization-of-cultural-holidays-for-the-masses/ |
ITANAGAR, Nov 24: Governor Brig (Retd) Dr BD Mishra has extended his warm greetings to the people of the State on the eve of Chalo Loku, the annual agro-based festival of the Nocte community of the State who celebrate it with great fervour. He expressed hope that the socio-religious festival of the Nocte tribe will further help in showcasing the cultural mosaic of the State.
In a message, the Governor said, “Our State is the custodian and repository of diverse cultures, traditions and ethnicity. In a multi ethnic society, culture and heritage of each tribe truly reflect the unity in diversity of the State. Celebration of our festivals, therefore, is the cultural need for the awareness of the present generation,” he said.
“For preserving our rich cultural heritage in its original form, festivities become a good adjunct. In the fast pace of the march of time, ethnic cultural events provide the cushion to the roots of a Fold, from erosion. Our heritage can be preserved only by carrying forward the vibrant and rich customs and traditions which our forebears have bequeathed to us.
“I trust the time honoured rituals and beating of ‘Tham’ of Chalo Loku will bind together each and every member of the community. On this festive occasion, I join my fellow Nocte people of Tirap district in offering our prayers to the Almighty Rang for socio-cultural and socio-economic well being of all,” the Governor said in his message. | http://echoofarunachal.in/news_details.php?nid=19610 |
While best known for its iconic glaciers and peaks, Torres del Paine and its gateway community of Puerto Natales also possess a rich cultural heritage. Much of this heritage is rooted in the history and traditions of the region’s indigenous people – the Kawésqar. A seafaring, nomadic people, the Kawésqar were among the first inhabitants of southern Chile’s channels and fjords. Today, only 13 Kawésqar communities remain across the Magallanes region.
Like many first peoples, the Kawesqár have been marginalized from the local tourism economy. Despite the fact that over 260,000 tourists visit Torres del Paine each year, few learn about the Kawésqar and their unique heritage. Traditions and stories of the past tend to be overshadowed by the dramatic natural landscapes the area is known for. The predominant historical narrative centers around the figure of the gaucho, cowboys descended from European immigrants.
Our Role
The Torres del Paine Legacy Fund is working with members of the Kawésqar pueblo to revitalize their culture through a series of capacity-building, tourism, and entrepreneurship trainings. Ultimately, this project will allow the participating communities to build a common narrative and create a space where Kawésqar can share their rich history and traditions with visitors and residents. The project imagines Kawésqar exchanging their traditions with tourists, and selling their food, art, and guide services. The Legacy Fund and its partners will equip Kawésqar communities with the necessary skills and knowledge to sustainably manage and develop their own tourism products.
This indigenous empowerment project aims to enhance destination sustainability by:
- Raising awareness and increasing appreciation of the region’s indigenous heritage
- Preserving and celebrating waning cultural traditions
- Expanding income generating opportunities for the Kawésqar people
- Providing a more diverse, immersive, and authentic visitor experience
Protect the Places You Love
Join us in preserving Chile’s unique cultural heritage and expanding opportunities for indigenous communities! Make a gift today to support our work in Chilean Patagonia. | https://sustainabletravel.org/approach/community-engagement/page/2/ |
FFA’s Tim Mitchell presented the National Park Service Minidoka National Historical Site Visitor Contact Station project to students in the University of Oregon Architecture and Allied Arts program as part of their coursework entitled “Cultures of Sustainability.”
At FFA, we are committed to encouraging education opportunities and supporting learning institutions. We believe sharing the possibilities of design with a diverse student body encourages lifelong learners and critical thinkers who have a voice in their community. Tim Mitchell is one of FFA’s historical architects working on a variety of rehabilitation projects for the National Park Service and regularly shares historic preservation insights with students and fellow professionals. In January 2020, Tim and other FFA staff hosted a panel discussion for University of Oregon students about different career routes that touch on historic preservation. Tim has stayed involved with the college and enjoyed presenting to students for associate professor Chad Randl’s Fall 2020 “Cultures of Sustainability” class.
The course explored the cultural construction of sustainable development as a concept and a practice and encouraged students to critically evaluate claims of sustainability. Several interrelated themes and questions were explored including:
How the rhetoric of sustainability is used and misused;
How sustainability, as understood within various disciplines (architecture, preservation, product design, landscape), shares common goals and can transcend disciplinary divisions;
How preservation practices (including repair, maintenance, rehabilitation, and adaptive reuse) are inherently sustainable and provide models for a larger-scale approach to the built environment;
How “low tech” sustainable practices (drawing from vernacular, indigenous, and artisanal traditions and knowledge) may inform contemporary design work.
Tim presented the Minidoka Visitor Contact Station (VCS) as a case study for the course. The VCS project is both an act of physical sustainability – the repurposing of existing buildings for new uses – as well as cultural sustainability – preserving and sharing culture and its stories for the enlightenment and benefit of future generations. The VCS was originally a warehouse building constructed in 1942 to serve the needs of the imprisonment camp and later adapted for use as an automobile repair shop. Conceived by NPS as an adaptive reuse project, FFA transformed the existing building into a visitor contact station (mini visitor center) housing interpretative exhibits, audio-visual programs, and ranger services. The historic, three-bay remnant of the original building was rehabilitated and extended with an additional four-bay, new construction portion to allow sufficient space for outdoor presentations, restrooms, and mechanical equipment.
Tim presented to students the backstory of the site and how FFA’s transformation of the building created a definitive place on the site for visitor services and interpretative exhibits. The visitor contact station provides the needed space for NPS to display a broad range of interpretative messages expressing the alienation, fear, and prejudice experienced by persons of Japanese ancestry (Nikkei) in the buildup to war with Japan and their relocation to the imprisonment camps. The visitor contact station and other physical remnants of the camp are important to the story of injustice and require both preservation and adaptation to effectively convey the events from this time.
The rehabilitation program focused on preserving building elements (wood framing, wood siding, windows, and doors) to create a visitor experience suggestive of the space, materials, and feel of the original warehouse. Working with exhibit designer Daniel Quan, FFA coordinated the interior exhibits with the layout and circulation sequence of the warehouse to enhance the connection between the interpretative messages and the physical realities of the rehabilitated building. Original barn door openings were repurposed as storefront windows to allow views from the interior of the building to the exterior and serve as a physical link between the warehouse building and the site’s cultural landscape. The new addition to the warehouse provides visitor restroom facilities and a partially covered outdoor breezeway. Architecture of the new addition is compatible with the original warehouse in form and appearance but differentiated with the use of steel framing, metal panel siding, and rooftop-mounted photovoltaic panels. The architectural approach to the new addition is aligned with The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties.
The latter half of the presentation provided students an overview of the project during construction, emphasizing the complexity of rehabilitation projects. Progress photos showed the radical transformation of the warehouse, through extensive deconstruction, salvage, and preservation efforts, into a modern visitor services building.
The presentation of the Minidoka Visitor Contact Station provided students a small glimpse into the complexities of rehabilitation projects but also emphasized the importance of historic preservation as a sustainable activity. In concert with other topics presented in the course, Tim’s presentation provided students an approach to thinking about and considering how society both values and protects common resources (natural and cultural) for future generations. | https://ffadesign.com/news/university-of-oregon-cultures-of-sustainability-course-rehabilitation-and-reuse-presentation/ |
"How are we to reconcile the act of justice that must always concern singularity, individuals, irreplaceable groups and lives, the other or myself as other, in a unique situation, with rule, norm, value, or the imperative of justice which necessarily have a general form…?"
— Jacques Derrida
Law, human rights, legal protection, equality, etc.— these are some of the terms we hear when people speak about justice. And rightly so, since by recognizing the authority of law and rights we both assert our own significance and recognize the significance of others. But law is only one ingredient of justice, and on its own is incapable of producing just personal, social, and political relationships. What law can never completely do justice to is, first, our singularity or uniqueness, and second, our status as belonging to communities that define us in certain ways.
Over the last several years I have thought about the nature, necessity, and inadequacy of law with regard to justice. Working from this theme I have engaged with various issues, such as the limits of the liberal political framework; the significance of various forms of cultural, religious, and familial identification to human agency and responsibility; the connection between the undecidability of justice and the exercise of responsibility; and the significance of forgiveness to the restoration of viable social relations. I've thought about the nature of the human beings that law purportedly protects: that they are not universal but singular creatures, and they act out of limited knowledge and perspectives, required to bring their singularity to bear upon the laws and the traditions they would uphold if they are concerned about justice and about faithfulness. My interest in law and forgiveness thus leads me also to an interest in the possibility of loving, responsible, and just action in the face of others, one's personal and social communities, and one's tradition. These issues are discussed in my inaugural address, which can be read here.
I have recently published a book on these issues, called The Laws of the Spirit: A Hegelian Theory of Justice. Since then I have been developing new projects, involving Locke and the historical roots of liberalism, Derrida and feminist political practice, Heidegger and the nature of human existence, Reformational philosophy's analysis of the religious roots of theoretical thought, and ancient Greek philosophy.
My Research Foci
My Bio
Shannon Hoff, PhD
Associate Professor of Social and Political Philosophy
BA (Calvin College), PhD (Stony Brook University)
Shannon Hoff is Associate Professor of Social and Political Philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies, and President of the Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy. In 2013 she was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry in Berlin, Germany. She is the author of The Laws of the Spirit: A Hegelian Theory of Justice, forthcoming in April with SUNY Press, as well as of numerous articles in political and European philosophy. | http://faculty.icscanada.edu/shoff |
As part of its Constitutional mandate the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) today launched the LANGUAGE ACTIVISM MONTH at a function held in Pretoria. The campaign which is aimed at encouraging South Africans to speak and live their languages and create a more multilingual society, will run from 01-28 February 2017.
PanSALB has organised a month-long campaign that includes five days of Dictionary Promotion Activities around Gauteng from February 6 to 10, seven days of public hearings in Pretoria from February 13 and a public lecture and awards presentation on February 28 to close the campaign. The big day, February 21, will be broadcast live on public broadcaster the SABC. All these activities are running with the hashtag #SpeakItLiveIt, encouraging all to not just speak their mother tongues, but live the languages.
As we celebrate linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism, it is important that we also reflect on the Republic’s use of all official languages and other languages as enshrined in the Constitution,” said PanSALB chief executive officer (CEO) Dr Rakwena Mpho Monareng.
This is in pursuance of PanSALB’s functions as outlined in the Constitution and the the Pan South African Language Board Act 59 of 1995 (the Act). The hearings, which will be open to the public, will target all National Government Departments of the Republic in order to monitor and investigate the observance of the constitutional provisions regarding the use of languages and the provisions of the Use of Official Languages Act 12 of 2012 (The Languages Act).It is hoped that, through this campaign, South Africans will acknowledge the importance of preserving African languages while promoting multilingualism. South Africans can participate in the campaign by speaking their languages, reading a book in their mother tongues and posting their activities on our social media sites using the ##SpeakItLiveIt.
“Languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing humanity’s tangible and intangible heritage. All moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will serve not only to encourage linguistic diversity and multilingual education, but also to develop fuller awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions throughout the world and to inspire solidarity based on understanding tolerance and dialogue,” said PanSALB CEO Monareng. | https://pansalb.org/language-activism-month-launch/ |
In conjunction with the 25th anniversary of ASEAN-India Dialogue Relations, the Ministry of External Affairs in collaboration with SEHERheld the ASEAN–India Music Festival from 6th-8th October, 2017 in New Delhi. Ms. Preeti Saran, Secretary (East), Ministry of External Affairs and Mr. VongthepArthakaivalvatee, DSG for ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community attended the concluding session. ASEAN and India share common cultural and civilizational linkages that go back to the medieval times. A lot of similarities can be found in literature, architecture, and artistic practices and even in folk practices. It is important to strengthen the people to people and the cultural ties by exploring the similarities while celebrating the differences and provide a platform for the artists and musicians to initiate a deeper understanding of the values and traditions of both ASEAN countries and India.
The ASEAN-India Music Festival featured musicians and bands from the ASEAN region bands from India. The bands from ASEAN and India performed together at one iconic stage at Old Fort, Delhi. This was the first time that musicians from ASEAN and India came together and played on one platform in this unique festival. This not only initiated an interaction and further a deeper understanding and appreciation of the rich musical traditions in ASEAN and India but also increased awareness of the ASEAN identity amongst musicians and creative intellectuals and public at large. They presented various genres of music carrying a flavour of their respective cultural and musical traditions. These contemporary bands played genres such as rock, alternative rocks, ambient, rock and roll, pop rock while still imbibing the flavour of their unique musical traditions and roots and yet appealing to the youth. | https://www.indmissionasean.gov.in/highlight?id=kazYe |
By Kyle Yukawa
Many countries throughout the world have unfortunately experienced colonization. Names, languages, ceremonies, and traditions that have been seemingly wiped away in a single generation are struggling to maintain a place in the modern-day world. Looking at these fights for recognition and cultural respect shows amazing stories of grit and pride in one’s heritage. Such can be said for the country of Ryukyu, or modern-day Okinawa.
Okinawa is Japan’s 47th prefecture, and is located in the very south of the country. It is often said that Okinawa, “is technically Japan, but nothing like the mainland.” The islands host multiple indigenous languages including: Uchinaaguchi (Okinawa Hantou), Dunan Munui (Yonaguni), and Myākufutsu (Miyako). Many of these languages have tones similar to Mandarin and many of these languages are as similar to Japanese as Spanish and Italian are to each other. The selection of traditional food greatly differs from that of the mainland in addition to the native religion and spirituality of Okinawa, which stands alone. DNA research has also been conducted showing that Uchinaanchu, or indigenous Okinawans, are genetically different from Japanese people. We can see this in their facial features when we compare Uchinaanchu to mainland Japanese people.
Before annexation to Japan in 1879, Okinawa, then known as Ryukyu, was a sovereign island nation with its own language, culture, king, and international relations. Trade with China, Korea, Japan, South East Asia, and even India influenced the island nation culturally, and Ryukyu enjoyed great financial prosperity. After being a tributary state of China for hundreds of years, a secret colony of Japan for just as long, and being occupied by the American military from 1945 to 1972, many traditions have been outlawed or erased.
One tradition which has beat the odds and recently made a comeback is the tattooing of hajichi. Hajichi is the traditional art of tattooing a woman’s hands (and, on some islands, forearms) throughout her life. To the trained eye, these tattoos tell a story of the woman’s life. Certain designs can signify things like birthplace and familiar ties. Images such as stars, arrows, and circles are used to explain the story of that woman’s life. Each area or island has a different and unique design. Depending on which island the design is based on, it can also represent spiritual wishes the woman prays for, such as safety for her family or abundance in food throughout her life.
Traditionally, the indigenous women of Ryukyu were seen as protectors of the spiritual domain – men were the protectors of the physical domain. Women were, and still are, carriers of culture, language, tradition, and spirituality. These tattoos are not only a story or accessory to the Uchinaanchu people, but a bond between women celebrating life and the accumulation of experiences. On some islands, the tattoos themselves were thought to hold a special power which protected the women from harm and brought good fortune. It is said that these tattoos were more important to them than any other possession.
After annexation to Japan, the Ryukyuan practice of hajichi was banned, and women with hajichi tattoos were ridiculed. The ridicule and discrimination that the Uchinaanchu faced were not only in Japan. Discrimination and bullying could be seen in places like Brazil and Hawai’i by Japanese immigrant groups emigrating alongside Uchinaanchu.. Looking through old photographs of women with hajichi, one can note how many of these women posed with their palms facing up or wore dark gloves so as not to show the beautiful designs of their tattoos.
As years passed, seeing hajichi became more of a rare experience. Now, in modern day Okinawa, many youths have no idea what hajichi is. This tradition which was framed as embarrassing and savage was almost completely forgotten. However, young people in both Okinawa and the diaspora abroad are making efforts to ensure that the beauty of hajichi is not forgotten.
Looking up the tag #hajichi on social media, one can see many stories of women connecting to their culture and ancestors by choosing to tattoo their hands with traditional designs. Tattooing one’s hands is a deep commitment that many Uchinaanchu take seriously. Temporary tattooing techniques like henna and jagua are now becoming popular and allow people in the community to confirm their conviction before doing anything permanent. Ancient texts describing the significant designs and their various meanings are being translated and passed person to person in order to educate each other on the proper designs for your story. Reclaiming these tattoos is not just saving this one aspect of Uchinaanchu culture. It’s about resisting colonization and the erasure of such a beautiful and meaningful practice. Hopefully as time goes on, we will be able to see more indigenous cultural practices being uplifted and celebrated not only in Japan, but abroad as well. | https://nagazasshi.com/2021/11/hajichi-a-story-of-overcoming-colonization/ |
Goucher creates partnership with Smithsonian
Goucher has partnered with the Smithsonian Institution to develop educational curricula for M.A. in Cultural Sustainability students.
In an era where globalization prevails, how does one cultivate and preserve folklife and cultural heritage?
Goucher’s Master of Arts in Cultural Sustainability (M.A.C.S.) Program helps graduate students pursue answers to that question by focusing on studying, preserving, and supporting local histories, traditions, and ways of life across societies around the world.
Now, to bolster these efforts and the status of the program, Goucher has partnered with the Smithsonian Institution to develop educational curricula for M.A.C.S. students. While programmatic details are still being finalized, educational opportunities are likely to include internships, field schools, residencies, certificates, and courses developed in collaboration with the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage in Washington, DC.
“This partnership will give our students access to some of the most innovative and groundbreaking thinkers in the field of cultural sustainability,” says Amy Skillman, academic director for Goucher’s Cultural Sustainability Program. “It also provides a perfect bridge between theory and application as students will have the opportunity to work alongside Smithsonian staff to see how the principles of cultural sustainability are being applied.”
Goucher’s relationship with the Smithsonian has deep roots and continues building on a long-standing connection. Smithsonian staff members have previously consulted on M.A.C.S. program development, while Goucher students have participated in internships and training opportunities at the cultural institution.
This formalized association will give the Smithsonian access to the top Goucher students studying to become professionals in the cultural sustainability field. “We hold Goucher’s program in the highest regard, and we are truly thrilled to be able to support the important work that [Goucher] is doing,” says Michael Atwood Mason, director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
Skillman is currently collaborating with curators at the Smithsonian to develop the specific curriculum that will be offered to Goucher students. Through hands-on training opportunities that will explore multiple perspectives and approaches to the discipline, experiential learning is expected to be a key theme of the academic partnership.
The agreement will include activities for students throughout the year, including a residency at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival beginning in 2020. That prominent festival, which takes place on the National Mall and features hundreds of artisans from around the country and the world, drew a crowd of more than 10 million on-site and online visitors in 2018.
Skillman anticipates the partnership will lead to career opportunities for some of the program’s students. Laura Williams, M.A.C.S. ’18, and Daniela Panetta, M.A.C.S. ’20, have both interned at the Smithsonian and been hired back by the institution for additional projects. Williams worked as a volunteer coordinator for the Smithsonian’s Folklife Festival in 2017, while Panetta served as an interpreter for the same festival in 2015 and was then hired to serve as a volunteer coordinator in 2018. | https://www.goucher.edu/news/goucher-partners-with-smithsonian |
Raíces Cultural Center is a New Jersey based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to preserving cultural roots through the arts, history and ecology.
Through our programs and initiatives, we seek to provide a platform for the investigation, documentation, preservation, dissemination, and exchange of knowledge and ideas related to the history and evolution of cultural traditions.
In everything we do, we strive to develop meaningful interchanges and resources that pay homage to ancestral cultural traditions while exploring and building upon their evolution in an ever-changing world. | https://raicesculturalcenter.org |
You have to know what computer programming is because only then, you will be able to understand why App inventor is way more easy than it.
What is purpose of a computer ?
Well, like any other machine computer has been created to perform specific tasks. Say for example a refrigerator in your home reduces the temperature to keep the food fresh.
Even though they seem to be same to some extent but, the tasks that a computer can perform is a way more superior and truly different from any other machine. Basically, they can perform operations like multiplication, addition or division e.t.c but, if you want to solve a more complex problem like calculating simple interest or compound interest then, you need to execute a program that can calculate it. But, before discussing more on programming you have to know what language does a computer understands.
What language does a computer understand?
Computers can understand only machine language. In machine language, each instruction is represented by a binary number. A binary number is a number that has only 1s and 0s. Ex: 110100. For me and you this may be just a number but, for computer it is an instruction and it is a command to perform some operation.
A computer program is a stream of binary numbers (representing instructions) which can be executed by the computer.
So, this rises a question that whether you have to learn machine language for programming? No, absolutely not necessary because of the availability of no of programming languages for different purposes. Ex: Java, c++ e.t.c
What does programming languages do?
Before writing any program the first step that every computer programmer does is
developing an algorithm. An algorithm is a set of logical steps that must be followed in order perform a specific task (as the steps we follow to find a solution for a mathematical problem). For example, if you were to create a program that can calculate an average for n numbers then, your algorithm would be like this
- Calculate sum of all the numbers
- Divide the sum with n (i.e, no of given numbers)
Algorithms are written in english and it is easy for me and you to understand it. but, in order to execute them on a computer we need to translate them into machine language. The process of translating an algorithm to machine language is very difficult and hence, we use Programming languages . Programming languages use words instead of numbers to represent instructions and it is the reason why they are easy to learn and understand. So, programmers use programming languages to write a program and this can be easily translated into machine language by special softwares called compilers or interpreters.
So, as you have understood why we need a programming language to perform a specific task on computer. Now, you can go further to learn about why App Inventor is easy than any programming language. | https://blog.learnappinventor2.com/what-is-computer-programming/ |
When you imagine a computer programmer at work, what comes to mind? Science fiction movies like The Matrix might give you the impression that programmers read and write endless streams of 1s and 0s, communicating with the computer in a digital dialect unintelligible to most humans.
But in reality, computer programming isn’t about the 1s and 0s, any more than painting is about the blobs of oil and pigment. When a painter works, their mind is focused on expressing an artistic vision for audiences to appreciate. Likewise, when computer programmers work, our minds are focused on expressing instructions for computers to perform. The 1s and 0s (binary code) are just the most raw, basic form of our medium, and we very rarely work in it directly.
Just like painters have invented new tools and techniques over the centuries, computer scientists have been working for decades to invent new ways of expressing instructions for computers. Where painters develop new brushes, paint formulas, and artistic movements, we invent and improve operating systems (like Unix, Windows, and Mac OS), programming languages (like Fortran, Java, and Ruby), and paradigms (like object-oriented programming and functional programming). Each new advance is based on advances of years past, as we build up layers of abstraction, allowing us to express instructions more easily, effectively, and economically.
Abstraction is a fundamental aspect of computer science and a valuable technique used by programmers every day, but it’s easy to understand even if you aren’t a computer scientist. To get a grasp on the concept of abstraction layers, let’s explore a common scenario unrelated to computers: walking to a restaurant.
An Everyday Example: Walking to a Restaurant
Suppose you want to meet some friends for lunch. They are waiting for you at the restaurant down the street and around the corner. What actions would you perform to get there?
If we think about it at a low level of abstraction, we could say that you perform some actions like these:
# Flex the muscles in your abdomen to lean forward slightly.
# Flex the muscles in your *right* leg to move it forward until it is in front of you.
# Extend your right leg until your right foot is on the ground.
# Extend your *left* leg to shift your balance onto your right leg.
# Flex the muscles in your *left* leg to move it forward until it is in front of you.
# Extend your left leg until your left foot is on the ground.
# Extend your *right* leg to shift your balance onto your left leg.
# Check whether you have reached the street corner. If you have, turn 90 degrees, then continue to action 9. Otherwise, go back to action 2.
# Perform actions 2 through 8, then go to action 10.
# Check whether you have reached the restaurant. If you have, stop. Otherwise, go back to action 9.
Even though you _do_ flex your muscles to bend and extend your legs when you walk, it would be very difficult to maintain a smooth stride if you had to think about each muscle movement individually. Thankfully, we can think more abstractly. Instead of specifying such minor details, let’s describe the actions a little more broadly:
# Step forward with your right leg.
# Step forward with your left leg.
# Perform actions 1 and 2 until you are at the street corner.
# Turn 90 degrees.
# Perform steps 1 and 2 until you are at the restaurant.
We can consider this an additional _layer_ of abstraction, because the ability to step forward is built on top of the ability to flex your muscles to move your legs. If we assume that you already know how to step forward by flexing your muscles, then there is no reason to write out the instructions in so much detail.
This new layer of abstraction makes the instructions easier to understand, and you could probably follow these instructions without looking like a real-life version of QWOP. But it’s still pretty awkward to think about each individual step you take. Let’s add another layer of abstraction:
# Walk to the street corner.
# Walk to the restaurant.
Now we’re getting somewhere! This is another layer because the ability to walk to a certain location is built on top of the ability to take steps. As you can see, there can be many abstraction layers built on top of each other.
Those instructions are pretty good, but we can go up to an even higher level of abstraction:
# Go to the restaurant.
This action is so abstract that we have actually just expressed our overall intention or goal. Even though you might accomplish this action by performing all those lower-level actions, there are definite benefits to thinking about actions and instructions (including computer code) at a higher level of abstraction.
h2. Why Think Abstractly?
Computer programmers think and write instructions abstractly because it allows us to:
* *Express instructions more succinctly and understandably.* We have already seen how abstraction can make instructions more succinct and understandable. Compare the one simple instruction (“Go to the restaurant.”) to the long list of complex instructions we started with. If you already know how to walk, it’s unnecessary and counterproductive to go into all that detail. In computer programming, if the programming language you use already provides the ability to calculate the sum of a table of numbers, for example, it’s usually a waste of time to write your own code to do that same thing.
* *Eliminate distracting details.* If you try to consciously control each muscle while walking, you’ll be so preoccupied with those little actions that you can’t think about anything else. Likewise, if programmers had to write directly in binary code, we would have a hard time thinking about anything except the immediate task at hand. By thinking abstractly and allowing the lower-level systems (the abstraction layers built up over the years) to take care of the details, we free up our mind to think about the overall structure and goals of the software we are creating.
* *Avoid needless repetition.* Notice how in the first walking instructions above, I had to repeat the instructions for each leg. Actions 2-4 are almost exactly the same as actions 5-7, except that right and left have been switched. As we added abstraction layers, the instructions became less and less repetitive. In computer programming, we have a principle known as DRY: Don’t Repeat Yourself. The fewer places you repeat some instruction, the easier it is to read and write, and the less work it takes to fix a bug or make the code more efficient later.
* *Use alternative solutions and implementations.* Suppose you were late for lunch with your friends, so you decided to ride a bicycle instead of walking. If we are thinking at the lowest level, we would have to totally replace many complex actions. But the higher we go, the fewer changes we would have to make. At our highest level of abstraction, we don’t require any changes at all: riding a bicycle is a valid way to perform the abstract action, “Go to the restaurant.” In computer programming, this type of abstraction allows one application to work on many different computers, even though each computer might have a different CPU, type of memory, etc. The application relies on the abstraction provided by the programming language, which in turn relies on the abstraction provided by the operating system, and so on down, layer by layer.
Of course, there are times when you need to give low-level instructions, such as when a certain action is not obvious or must be done in an unusual way. Likewise, programmers sometimes need to dive down into a lower level of abstraction to implement some low-level details that aren’t already provided, or to do something in a special way. But when we do that, it is useful to think of it as creating a new layer of abstraction upon which the higher-level instructions will rely.
h2. Abstractions All Around
Computer programming is certainly not the only area where abstraction layers exist. As we saw earlier, abstraction allows us to think about and express everyday actions, like going to a restaurant, without being distracted by little details.
Some other examples of abstraction layers in our everyday lives are:
* Workplace management, where a manager can delegate some task to an employee, without having to specify every detail of how the work is done.
* Government, where each state or province can have different local laws, which in many cases do not affect how the national government operates.
* Making a purchase at a store, where the staff doesn’t really care whether you pay with cash or credit card, as long as you complete the abstract action of paying.
* Even the concept of money is an abstraction that eliminates the distracting details of a barter system. (Next time you pay your electric bill, thank abstraction layers that you don’t have to negotiate in terms of goats and potatoes!)
Think about your own line of work and everyday activities. What layers of abstractions do you use and rely on? Have you ever devised an abstraction layer to simplify some task or process? Tell us about it in the comments. | https://spin.atomicobject.com/2012/12/07/thinking-abstractly/ |
Introduction To Programming Languages
Introduction To Programming Languages
C.Lifecycle of a software project phases
3.Analysis
The step is about analysing the performance of the software at various stages and making notes additional requirements.Analysis is very important to proceed further to the next step.
4.Design
Once the analysis is complete, the step of designing takes over, which is basically building the architecture of the projects.This step helps remove possible flaws by setting a standard and attempting to stick to it
2.Planning
Without the perfect man, calculating the strengths and weaknesesvof the project ,development of softwareis meaningless.Planning kicks off a project flawlessly and affects its progress positively.
5.Maintenance
Once the software passes through all the stages without all the stages without any issues, it is to undergo a maintenance process where in it will be maintained and upgraded from time to time to adapt to changes.
1.Testing
The testing stage asseses the software for errors and documents bugs if there are any.
6.Development and Implementation
The actual task of developing the software starts here with data recording going on in the background.Once the software is developed,the stage of implementation comes in where the product goes through a pilot to study to see if it's functioning properly
B.Generation of programming languages
1.) 1st Generation (Machine languages)
First-generation language was (and still is) machine language or the level of instructions and data that the processor is actually given to work on (which in conventional computers is a string of 0s and 1s).
2.) 2nd Generation (Assembly language)
Second-generation language is assembler (sometimes called "assembly") language.An assembler converts the assembler language statements into machine language.
3.3rd Generation (High-Level Programming Language)
Third-generation language is a "high-level" programming language, such as Java. A compiler converts the statements of a specific high-level programming language into machine language. (In the case of Java, the output is called bytecode, which is converted into appropriate machine language by a Java virtual machine that runs as part of an operating system platform.) A 3GL language requires a considerable amount of programming knowledge.
4.4th Generation (Natural Language)
Fourth-generation language is designed to be closer to natural language than a 3GL language. Languages for accessing databases are often described as 4GLs.
5.5th Generation (Programming)
Fifth-generation language is programming that uses a visual or graphical development interface to create source language that is usually compiled with a 3GL or 4GL language compiler. Microsoft, Borland, IBM, and other companies make 5GL visual programming products for developing applications in Java, for example. Visual programming allows you to easily envision object-oriented programming class hierarchies and drag icons to assemble program components.
A.Life cycle of a Software Project and programming
The software development life cycle (SDLC) is a framework defining tasks performed at each step in the software development process. SDLC is a structure followed by a development team within the software organization.
The stage of System Development cycle life;
1.Intiation
2.System concept development
3.Planning
4.Design
5.Requirements Analysis
6.Development
7.Intergeration and test
D.Fundamentals of programming languages
Programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine.
There are three types of Programming languages:
1.Machine languages
2.Assembly languages
3.High level languages
E.Standards and best practice
Standards in computer programming are methods of programming that have been declared acceptable and thereafter are recommended as the approach that should be used. Much like what GAAP is to Accounting, programming standards allow programmers to use a common ground when writing code. Closely tied with programming standards, best practices are simply recommended methods of writing code
Best practices may also involve addition of extra code segments or removal of redundant code segments. To sum it up, best practices are simply the most recommended way of writing a segment of code, whereas programming standards are a specific set of rules to apply to coding style and techniques. | https://coggle.it/diagram/WzuPxqfTAlOgRvQu/t/introduction-to-programming-languages |
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The following diagram shows the way we classify software.
System Software
We use the term System Software for software which is primarily used to operate the hardware.
Operating Systems
The operating system is the software that allows you to operate the hardware. The programs that we want to execute, the applications that we want to use all require a platform on which to execute. That platform is provided by the operating system.
One role of the operating system is to provide a virtual machine. This refers to the way that, by clicking on icons and menus, or by typing in commands at a prompt, we get to interact with the computer hardware without having to understand its complexity. By hiding the true complexity of the system from the user, the operating system makes it easier for ordinary people to make computers perform useful tasks.
Utility Programs
Some utility programs are bundled in with operating system software these days. Others you buy or source in some other way.
Utility programs tend to perform specific tasks related to the management of hardware. Examples of utility programs include compression programs, formatters, defragmenters and other disk management tools.
Library Programs
Library programs are compiled libraries of commonly-used routines. On a Windows system they usually carry the file extension dll and are often referred to as run-time libraries. The libraries are run-time because they are called upon by running programs when they are needed. When you program using a run-time library, you typically add a reference to it either in your code or through the IDE in which you are programming.
Some library programs are provided within operating systems like Windows or along with development tools like Visual Studio. For example, it is possible to download and use a library of routines that can be used with Windows Media Player. This includes things like making playlists, functions and procedures for accessing and manipulating the music library (which is a binary file) and playback routines.
Using library programs saves time when programming. It also allows the programmer to interact with proprietary software without having access to its source code.
Language Translators
Whatever language or type of language we use to write our programs, they need to be in machine code in order to be executed by the computer. There are 3 main categories of translator used,
Assembler
An assembler is a program that translates the mnemonic codes used in assembly language into the bit patterns that represent machine operations. Assembly language has a one-to-one equivalence with machine code, each assembly statement can be converted into a single machine operation.
Compiler
A compiler turns the source code that you write in a high-level language into object code (machine code) that can be executed by the computer.
The compiler is a more complex beast than the assembler. It may require several machine operations to represent a single high-level language statement. As a result, compiling may well be a lengthy process with very large programs.
Interpreter
Interpreters translate the source code at run-time. The interpreter translates statements one-at-a-time as the program is executed.
Interpreters are often used to execute high-level language programs whilst they are being developed since this can be quicker than compiling the entire program. The program would be compiled when it is complete and ready to be released.
Some programming languages make use of both compilers and interpreters. If you were to write a Java program in a text editor, when you came to compile it with the Java compiler, you would actually be creating something called bytecode. Bytecode can be thought of as an intermediate stage between source code and object code. When a computer executes a Java program, library programs on that machine interpret the bytecode. This allows Java to be platform-independent - a user needs the correct run-time libraries for Java on their machine in order to execute the programs.
Application Software
Application software tends be used for the tasks that have some relationship to the world outside of the computer. For example, you might use a word processor to write a letter or an essay. Although you use the computer to perform the task, the task itself might reasonably be considered to be a non-computer task.
General-Purpose Software
Software is general-purpose if it can be used for lots of different tasks. You can use a word processor to write letters, memos, essays, instructions, notes, faxes, invoices and lots more.
These days we tend to use integrate suites of office software where a range of general-purpose software is provided, usually with the facility to combine elements from each application in a single file.
Special-Purpose Software
This software performs a single specific task. This task might be complex like payroll calculation, stock control etc. but will be based on a single task.
As with many abstract concepts, you can stretch these definitions until they blur a little. These days, web browsers can contain a lot of features. They are still primarily focused on a single task, rendering web pages and so the web browser is special-purpose. Being able to access an application using a browser does not change the main purpose of the browser software itself.
Bespoke Software
Bespoke software is written for a single client. Large organisations have a need for well-developed applications suited to their specific needs. Such software is often expensive to develop since the development costs are not shared among a large number of people purchasing the software.
Generations Of Programming Language
First Generation Languages
Here we are talking about machine code. This is the only form of code that can be executed by the computer directly.
Second Generation Languages
Assembly language was developed to make it easier for programmers to write instructions than it would be using machine code. Mnemonics are used instead of bit patterns (which are harder to remember).
First and second generation languages are low level and machine-oriented. This refers to the way that they are based on the machine operations that are available for a given processor.
Third Generation Languages
Third generation languages are high level, platform-independent and problem oriented. When source code is compiled, there is a one-to-many equivalence of high level language statements to machine code statements. Third generation programs can be run on any platform for which an appropriate compiler or interpreter exists.
High level languages are developed to help solve particular types of problem. The FORTRAN language was designed with Mathematics, Science and Engineering in mind, it contains lots of scientific functions that the average programmer may not need. The COBOL language was developed with business logic in mind, PHP was developed for server-side scripting and so on.
All of the languages in the first 3 generations are called imperative languages because the program's statements are executed in the order specified by the programmer.
Fourth Generation Languages
Fourth generation languages are declarative. This means that the programmer will write facts or rules rather than statements. The interpreter for the language produces the result using whichever standard algorithms it has been given for doing so.
SQL and Prolog are both examples of declarative languages. Both are described in the programming section of this site and are relatively easy to try out. A quick half-hour blast at each would give you a feel for how they work and help you to understand how they differ from the other types of language. | http://multiwingspan.co.uk/as2.php?page=soft |
It’s a collection of instruction of instruction written in a language understandable by a machine to do a particular task solving a specific type of problem. Without a program computers are useless.
A programmer is a computer professional skilled in using programming languages to create executable and acceptable computer programs their jobs usually involves coding, debugging, documentation, integration,. Programmers work with system analyst on bigger projects.
Programming languages and databases
We use programming languages to write a source code which you eventually need to convert it into machine language which a computer can understand it
We have two way to do this:
- Compile the program
- Interpret the program
Compiling in programming and database
is to translate a program written in high-level programming languages from source code into object code. This is done using a compiler. A compiler goes through the whole source code and transform it into complete machine code program to do the required function
Interpreter in programming and database
is a program that executes instructions written in high level languages, it reads the source code line at a time, converts this instruction and executes it. You should be very careful not to confuse between the two, compiler and the interpreter.
Programming and database assignment
Programming is the art of designing and developing executable computer programs to attain a specific computing result with the help of selected programming languages by a programmer. It is a skill whose quality is tested by the quality of the resulting software.
Computer programming entails the following processes:
- Identifying the problem
- Designing the solution
- Writing the code
- Testing the program
- Documenting and maintaining the source code
Identifying the problem
This is first step in programming get to know what the problem is
Designing the solution and the database
There are commonly two ways of planning a solution to a task drawing a flowchart and writing a pseodocode, a flowchart is a representation of a series of steps of a solution to a problem. It consists of arrows and symbols.
Pseodocode is nonstandard language that allows you to state your solution with more precision, pseodocode is not executable on the computer
Writing the programming code
This is expressing the solution in a programming language. You will translate the logic from the pseodocode or flowchart or some other tool. Programmers use a text editor to write there code.
Testing the program
Most programs are written correctly by the programmers but some contain a few errors. After coding the program you must prepare to test it on compute this involves the following steps:
- Desk-checking. This step is similar to proofreading it is the process of reading through the whole code this will help you identify some errors and may save you time at the end
- Translating. This is checking the syntax of your program to make sure the programming language was used correctly.
- Debugging. This is process of detecting, locating, and correcting mistakes (bugs) by running the program.
Documenting and maintaining the program and database
Documenting is writing the description of the program and its specific facts about it. Maintaining the program is regular or routine check of the program to detect changes and make updates.
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Database assignment and overview
A database is a well-organized collection of data that are related in a meaningful way, which can be accessed in different logical orders. It stores data that serves the needs of multiple users within one or more organizations.
Simplified view of database
A DBMS is used to create, maintain and access a database.
Advantages of databases
- Reduce redundancy(repetition of data)-unit record kept and used in many areas
- Due to above, information in databases is consider to have more integrity-they are more likely to be accurate and up to date.
- There is improved data security
Database management system (DBMS)
It is a program that sets up and controls the structure of a database and access to the data. Example of DBMS software’s are:
- Microsoft access,
- MS SQL server,
- Corel paradox,
- Oracle,
- MySQL,
- And many others.
Advantages of database management system
- Reduced data inconsistency-Different versions of the same data showing up in different places will be minimized
- Improved data integration-access to properly managed data promotes integrated view of operations in an organization.
- Improved data sharing-DBMS creates an environment which user access more and well managed data better it makes respond to changes easier
- Improved data security-DBMS enforces data privacy and security policies by providing a proper frame work
- Enables better decision making-well managed and better access generate better quality information enabling better decision making
DBMS database models
Hierarchical model
This model organizes data into tree like structure, with single origin to which all other data is linked. The hierarchy starts from root data adding up like a tree.
Network model
In this model data organization is more like a graph it is the extension of the above model. Data in this model data is more related since more relations hips are created.
Relational model
Most widely used form of database, data is organized into related tables each table containing rows and columns. Rows are called record and the columns are called fields for example
Entity relationship model
In this model, relationships are attained by dividing objects into entity and characteristics into attributes. This model is defined to represent relationships in pictorial form for easier understanding by different stakeholders.
Data structures
It is a specialized way of collecting organizing retrieving and storing data in a manner that we can perform operations on data effectively.
Database schema
It is the is an abstraction representation of logical view of the whole database. It shows how data is organized and how they are related and associated among themselves.
Levels of schema
- Conceptual level-information from the point of view by the users
- Physical level-information with other details
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In the workplace, experienced employees are subject matter experts at what they do, and they are often called upon to provide help or training to new employees or colleagues from other departments. For example, a human resources generalist might need to show colleagues how to change their health care benefits, an office manager might need to show employees how to clear a paper jam from a copier, or a supervisor might need to show direct reports how to set performance goals and enter them using a new software program. In such cases, it is often more efficient to create instructional documentation to show people what to do rather than to provide individualized assistance repeatedly.For this assignment, you will create a brief set of instructions to perform a simple workplace task that you are familiar with but that most people know little about. Ideally, these instructions will be based on a task that is relevant either to your current career or to the career you are pursuing. In addition to the examples shown above, here are a few more ideas.How to safely operate an important device or piece of equipmentHow to download, install, or use a certain type of software that your company usesHow to navigate a complicated website or program to locate an important resourceThere are numerous possibilities for this assignment. Your choice will most likely reflect either your past, current, or future occupation. If you have military experience, you may choose to create instructions for a duty you perform regularly. If you are computer programmer, you may provide instructions on how to debug a program. If you are an engineer, you may show how a device you designed should be operated correctly.How to Create Useful InstructionsGenerally speaking, it is better to show people how to do something rather than just tell them. As such, effective instructions are highly visual. A side benefit of making your instructions visually oriented is that you’ll have less writing to do. Here are two ways to create engaging, visually appealing instructions.Screenshots: Screenshots are especially useful when showing someone how to perform a software or programming task using a screen. Take one screenshot for each step of the task, and then provide a brief caption, such as “Next, click on ….”.Photos: Photos are great for instructions related to operating equipment or devices. As above, take one photo for each step in the task, and provide a brief written description, such as “Next, push the blue button that says….”.Formatting and Length RequirementsYou may format your instructions using either a word processor, such as Microsoft Word, or a presentation software, such as PowerPoint. The assignment should consist of between 6 to 10 steps. If the assignment is submitted in Word, it should be about two to three pages long, including the screenshots or photos. If the assignment is submitted in PowerPoint, it should be between 6 to 10 slides long.
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construction of some of its subclasses.
A value, or reference to a value, passed to a function; an actual argument.
An ordered sequence of same-typed values whose elements are fast to access by their
numerical index in the array.
A data type for yes or no, true or false values.
A set of objects having the same behavior (but typically differing in state), or
a template defining such a set.
A computer program which transforms source code into object code.
An identifier that is bound to an invariant value.
A class method (in object-oriented programming) that creates and initializes each instance of an object.
A classification or category of various types of data, that states the possible values that can be taken,
how they are stored, and what range of operations are allowed on them.
In object-oriented programming, the command sequence that is launched when the execution of
an object is finished.
A data type whole values are a set of mutually exclusive named constants.
An interruption in normal processing, especially as caused by an error condition.
A formal name used in source code to refer to a variable, function, procedure, package, etc.
A data type for integer values.
When the first letter of any concatenated words are given an upper-case letter names.
System of instructions and data directly understandable by a computer's central processing unit.
In object-oriented languages, a subroutine or function belonging to a class or object.
Usually used in Java to describe the act of hiding source code in plain sight.
The output of a compiler or assembler, not necessarily executable directly without linking
to other modules.
Using entities called objects that can process data and exchange messages with other objects.
A fundamental style of computer programming to which the design of a programming language typically has
to cater, such as imperative programming, declarative programming, or, on a finer level,
functional programming, logic programming or object-oriented programming.
A name in a function or subroutine definition that is replaced by, or bound to, the corresponding actual
argument when the function or subroutine is called.
A software application, or a collection of software applications, designed to perform a specific task.
The time during which a program is executing, as oppose to the compile time.
Human-readable instructions in a programming language, to be transformed into machine instructions by
a compiler, interpreter, assembler or other such system..
The portion of the computer memory used to keep track of called procedures or call instructions.
A data type for a sequence of characters such as letters of English alphabet.
In object-oriented programming, an object class derived from another class (its superclass) from which
it inherits a base set of properties and methods.
A class that passes attributes and methods down the hierarchy to subclasses.
A tag attached to variables and values used in determining what values may be assigned to what variables.
A named memory location in which a program can store intermediate results and from which it can read them.
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Focuses on the geosynchronous communications satellites for commercial Ku-band service. Longitude; Satellite name; Launch year; Nation; Service; Transponders; Manufacturer; Bus type; Coverage.
- Super-GEO Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) projects. // Telecom Asia;Nov98, Vol. 9 Issue 11, pS15
Offers a look at several geostationary mobile satellite service projects in Asia. Asian Cellular Satellite System in Jakarta; Asia Pacific Mobile Telecommunications Satellite Pte. Ltd.; Afro-Asian Satellite Communications.
- Large satcoms thrive for now, but financing crisis may loom. Taverna, Michael A. // Aviation Week & Space Technology;9/13/1999, Vol. 151 Issue 11, p28
Focuses on the geostationary sector of the satellite communications business as of September 13, 1999. Increase in sales of geostationary satellites to television and telecommunications companies projected for the year 1999; Increase in number of satellite launches; Problems faced by the market.
- Satellite-Communications Links, Part 4 — Link Losses in a Typical Link. Adamy, Dave // Journal of Electronic Defense;Jun2002, Vol. 25 Issue 6, p56
Presents a two typical satellite-communications systems in the U.S. Basis of the actual link-throughput calculations; Description of a geosynchronous satellite; Identification of the link losses to a satellite.
- Communication professionals are looking up. Zacharilla, Louis A. // Information Executive;Mar2000, Vol. 4 Issue 3, p1
Focuses on information technology professionals' interest in geostationary satellites as a way to extend their networks. Important niche in the global communications network; Projected growth of the satellite transmission of Internet backbone services; Means of multi-point distribution for...
- Ariane proves reliability; launch pace accelerated. Sparaco, Pierre // Aviation Week & Space Technology;7/18/1994, Vol. 141 Issue 3, p83
Reports on the success of the Ariane 44L launching of the telecommunications satellites PanAmSat PAS-2 and BS3N into geostationary orbit on July 8, 1994. Other scheduled launches for Ariane; Remarks from Arianespace chairman and chief executive officer Charles Bigot.
- Technology Leaps Shape Satellites of Tomorrow. Anselmo, Joseph C. // Aviation Week & Space Technology;1/25/1999, Vol. 150 Issue 4, p56
Outlines the technology trends in the aviation industry and how they could alter the space landscape. Features of the geosynchronous spacecraft; Emergence of on-board processing, power and communication satellites; Significance of advanced flywheel technology; Major changes in the trend of...
- Ariane 5 Lifts Civil, Military Spacecraft To Orbit. Svitak, Amy // Aerospace Daily & Defense Report;4/28/2015, Vol. 252 Issue 20, p4
The article reports that the European space company Arianespace SA has launched two telecommunications satellites to geostationary transfer orbit on April 26, 2015.
- A Handover Management in LEO Satellite Network using Angular and Distance Based Algorithm. Sarddar, Debabrata; Banerjee, Joydeep; Chatterjee, Shubhajeet; Ghosh, Pradipta; Naskar, Mrinal Kanti; Chakraborty, Sougata; Hui, Kunal // International Journal of Computer Applications;Oct2011, Vol. 31, p9
In satellite communication networks, low propagation delay and power requirements increase the plausibility of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites over geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) satellites. High relative speed and random direction of motion of LEO satellites provide a serious barrier for... | http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/38997893/back-big-way |
International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations specialised agency for information and communication technologies or ICTs, released a report on September 18, Identifying the Potential of New Communications Technologies for Sustainable Development.
The report was prepared by The Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development's Working Group on Technologies in Space and the Upper-Atmosphere. The Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development was established in 2010 and comprises more than 50 leaders from across a range of government and industry sectors who are committed to actively supporting countries, UN experts and NGO teams to fully leverage the huge potential of ICTs to drive national SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) strategies in key areas such as education, healthcare and environmental management.
More than half the world's population remain unable to connect regularly to the Internet. The Working Group's report states that new space-based and upper-atmosphere technologies, including high throughput satellites (HTS), massive non-geostationary satellite orbit (NGSO) constellations, and high-altitude platform stations (HAPS) systems can help address this challenge, by bringing reliable broadband connectivity across the globe, including to the hardest-to-reach corners of the Earth.
Space-based and upper-atmosphere technologies have evolved dramatically in the last decade, in capacity, cost and reach. The report notes that while satellites have long been a part of the telecommunications ecosystem, recent technological innovation and an explosion in capacity has enabled them to play a key role in emerging broadband markets.
Similarly, recent developments in HAPS have made that technology a promising way to provide quick deployment and cost-effective coverage across entire regions, focused on backhaul operations in support of mobile broadband systems.
The report highlights the evolution that has happened at each component level of space-based and upper-atmosphere communications technologies. Improved power generation and storage, combined with efficiencies in propulsion and control systems have made greater power available for satellite payload operations.
Advancements in aerial platforms, battery technology, lightweight composite materials, autonomous aviation and solar technology are opening new opportunities for HAPS. Simultaneously, transmission and reception technology at both ends of the communication path have developed enabling system operators to do even more with their input resources.
Innovative network designs have caused breakthroughs in the capacity, capabilities, and service quality of space-based and upper-atmosphere technologies. In the case of satellites, some of the most significant advances in services have evolved from the development of HTS, which leverage multiple, narrower spot-beams from satellites in geostationary orbit to increase frequency reuse and deliver exponential growth in system capacity.
In addition, massive constellations of hundreds of NGSO satellites in low-earth orbit (LEO) are being planned and manufactured that, when fully deployed, will cover the globe in low-latency, high-bandwidth capacity. These advances in technology will also allow solar-powered HAPS to provide cost-efficient and high-speed broadband to underserved markets, while providing tens of gigabits of backhaul capacity.
These new technologies feature substantial increases in capacity compared to their predecessors. And many of these systems are coming online simultaneously. According to the report, over 100 HTS systems will be in orbit by 2020-2025, delivering terabytes of additional capacity. This does not account for multiple NGSO constellations in development. The introduction of HAPS may see thousands of platforms deployed in previously unserved and underserved areas.
Traditionally, space-based and upper-atmosphere technologies have been perceived as costly solutions. All of the above is driving down costs, making space-based and upper-atmosphere technologies more accessible than ever before. The price per gigabit per second (Gbps) of throughput has dropped continuously for the past decade and will continue to do so.
Satellites have the ability to provide global, ubiquitous coverage and reach where terrestrial-based broadband is not economically viable or very hard to deploy, including sparsely populated and geographically challenging areas.
Using small mobile and fixed user terminals, satellites can bring broadband services across the “last mile” directly to individual users. Deployment costs in wired broadband systems rise dramatically as population density decreases, whereas capital expenditure for space-based and upper-atmosphere technologies is largely independent of user density.
In combination with smaller wireless or wireline networks, these technologies can also provide backhaul links connecting remote networks to the global Internet.
Moreover, because of its flexibility, accessibility, and range of capabilities, high-speed satellite broadband is often preferred not just by rural users who face limited terrestrial alternatives, but also by urban users whose demands for very high speeds and high capacity may not be fulfilled by the available terrestrial infrastructure.
The broad geographic coverage of satellites and HAPS systems mean that once deployed, connectivity flows immediately and indefinitely. Broadband is accessible from any ground terminal in the coverage area. In addition to facilitating largescale simultaneous broadband rollout, this also allows for rapid extensions of connectivity during events that require it, including one-time civil needs abd natural disasters.
Satellites are immune to the risks of accidental damage, theft, conflict areas and natural disasters, which threaten terrestrial networks and they are designed for continuous operation. Satellites are designed with multiple layers of redundancy, giving nearly 100% uptime. In the unlikely event that one satellite does fail, multiple spare satellites are immediately available, preventing service interruption. On top of that, satellite systems are designed for lifetimes of 20 years or more, allowing for longer deployment and support of equipment.
Finally, the carbon impact from satellites is nearly zero once deployed, in light of developments in solar technology and electric propulsion. Reusable launch vehicles could further reduce the environmental impacts of satellite operations. HAPS, which already require very limited amounts of power to operate, are designed to take full advantage of solar-power and be entirely reusable.
The report also says that 5G will need to be an ecosystem of technologies – a network of networks – with satellites and HAPS filling key roles to enable the entire system. The ubiquity and capacity of satellite coverage means it will be an important component of 5G networks, working together with terrestrial fixed and mobile systems. | https://www.opengovasia.com/itu-report-finds-key-role-for-space-based-and-upper-atmosphere-technologies-in-bringing-global-broadband-connectivity/ |
Was Intelsat’s first Epic-series HTS (high-throughput satellite) the victim of a collision with space junk? The reasons are as yet unidentified, but Intelsat has reported that on April 7, 2019 Intelsat-29e (IS29e) “experienced damage” to its propulsion system. This damage instigated a fuel leak, resulting in an interruption in service to customers.
Space is a very harsh environment and spacecraft such as satellites, with their critical electronic components, face very difficult conditions ranging from extreme temperatures to intense radiation. Australia National University (ANU) has produced a new study describing several “2D Materials” that not only withstand the harsh conditions of space, but that may even thrive there. 2D Materials, also referred to as “single layer materials” are crystalline materials that consist of a single layer of atoms.
On February 27, 2019, at 9:37 PM UTC a Soyuz launch vehicle lifted off from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana with six OneWeb satellites. The satellites were successfully deployed, and signal acquisition was confirmed with all six satellites. The satellites manufactured by OneWeb Satellites, a joint venture between OneWeb and Airbus Defense and Space marked the start of the largest satellite launch campaign in history, marking the transition from proof-of-concept to commercialization.
News from the satellite industry has been focused on the darlings of NewSpace, the new LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellite constellations, with their effusive marketing message of internet for all; but GEO (Geosynchronous Earth Orbit) satellites are not going away, and indeed may be joined by a new breed of satellites. GEO satellites are generally quite large and heavy and require powerful launch vehicles dedicated to transporting them into orbit.
LEO Update - The Big Three: Which is Best?
A recent analysis by the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology proclaims that Telesat LEO is the most efficient of the three leading contenders for delivering broadband satellite services. Technical aspects of the OneWeb, SpaceX and Telesat solutions were analyzed to determine the total system forward capacity – or sellable capacity – for each of the three systems.
In a January 23, 2019 article, “Can Satellite Broadband Support the Streaming Wave?” Northern Sky Research (NSR) reviews the huge growth in demand for streaming video services including YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu. These streaming video applications are referred to as OTT, or Over the Top. These are providers who stream video over the internet, bypassing the typical broadcast television platforms that normally distribute video content.
BusinessCom Networks’ first experience with Ebola came in the Sierra Leone epidemic of 2014-2015. People in rural areas were dying of a terrible disease. Ebola is a deadly disease caused by a virus that kills cells and causes heavy bleeding inside the body, damaging most organs. The virus is not spread through the air and requires direct contact with bodily fluids such as blood or vomit.
Thomas Choi, the outspoken Co-Founder and former CEO of ABS Global, is a successful entrepreneur whose innovations have significantly expanded the contribution of satellite to the economies, societies and people of the developing world. He was a founder of Speedcast in 1999 and he founded ABS Global in 2005. Choi has been a vocal critic of NGSO (Non-Geostationary Satellite Orbit) solutions, pointing out several challenges for new MEO (Medium Earth Orbit) and LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellite constellations being developed to provide broadband services to consumers.
In November 2018, the FCC granted LeoSat access to the US market. LeoSat plans to launch up to 108 LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellites to provide high-bandwidth, low-latency, high-security data transmissions for large commercial and government customers in the United States. OneWeb plans 882 satellites. Similarly, SpaceX has been authorized by the FCC to deploy over 4000 satellites to deliver broadband services in the US and around the world.
Here at BusinessCom Networks, one of the most frequent tasks involved in providing broadband satellite services is estimating how much bandwidth to propose. A few clients know exactly what they need, but many require some assistance estimating how much capacity they should sign up for. Our bandwidth estimates for clients have risen steadily over the last 15 years and will likely continue to do so.
November 2018 is scheduled to be a busy month for the FCC. It will be voting on at least nine space-related issues. One of these issues, seems like a no-brainer. There is a proposal on the table to allow US devices to access the new European Galileo global positioning system, to enhance the existing American GPS system.
As the commercial development of space proceeds full speed ahead, we’ve examined some of the issues that will face companies such as OneWeb, Telesat and Starlink (SpaceX), as they develop and launch new LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellite constellations that are intended to compete with terrestrial broadband, and deliver services to the many in the world who remain without internet access.
So many choices. ADSL, wireless, cable, fiber…. What role does satellite play in providing broadband services to enterprises? Accessing the internet over satellite is a technology and business option that has been steadily developing and maturing over the last few decades, and it continues to do so.
A topic of growing interest is the “Kessler Syndrome,” the scary hypothesis that a chain reaction of events could occur in low earth orbit (LEO) as the result of collisions between various pieces of space junk above earth’s atmosphere. As one piece of debris collides with a satellite or other piece of space junk additional pieces of junk will be shed, resulting in more collisions due to more junk in a cascading disaster. Models show that the collisions may snowball out of control, destroying satellites in low earth orbit and leading to the unavailability of LEO, potentially for generations.
Formerly known as the Google X project, Loon LLC now an independent subsidiary of Alphabet, Inc. has been making some real progress. As discussed in February 6, 2018, “A Looney Idea?”, Loon is a HAPS or High-Altitude Platform System based on reliable weather balloon technology. The concept involves having a fleet of floating balloons that are guided by raising and lowering them to use the prevailing wind currents around our world.
NewSpace, as has been discussed, aims to further the commercialization of space, and is pushing the industry to evolve creative, cost effective business models. Advocates propose new ways to deliver space-based services using smaller, cheaper, highly capable satellite platforms. These services include imagery, communications, content delivery, civil sciences and government/military applications.
NASA scientist, Donald J Kessler, proposed in 1978 that a chain reaction of debris exploding in space could end up making it impossible to use satellites, and ending many other space activities. Should this happen, the region above our atmosphere could become unusable for generations. The idea is that the extensive number of things we launch into low earth orbit (LEO), could create such a dense environment, that an inevitable collision could create a cascading effect, with each collision adding to the growing crescendo.
Is US C band Capacity Packing its Bags for Mobile Land?
C band is a set of frequencies used by GEO (Geosynchronous Earth Orbit) satellites. These stationary satellites located above the equator utilize two sets of frequencies. 3.7 – 4.2 GHz is for transmission from space to earth, and 5.925 – 6.425 GHz is used for transmission from earth to space. The FCC is evaluating proposals to use the 3.7-4.2 GHz capacity for mobile use, in addition to legacy satellite use. This range is judged to be the “spectral sweet spot” for 5G technology known as massive MIMO. Owning this spectrum provides a huge competitive advantage.
The satellite industry, sporting the moniker “NewSpace,” is poised for a major evolution, if not a revolution, in commercial space projects. New constellations comprised of hundreds or even thousands of small satellites are being staged for launch into LEO (Low Earth Orbit). Deployments for some of these will begin this year (2018) and will go on through the mid-2020’s. To be successful, the endeavor will require several things to come together.
Recent announcements from Facebook that they are abandoning their HAPs program suggests that it might be a good time to see how HAPs are doing. There have been some HAPs success stories, and these have been shared in the press. Google’s Project Loon provided services to Puerto Rico following a large hurricane. Others such as Worldview Enterprises and Raven Aerostar have demonstrated the effectiveness of balloons for communications, remote sensing and adventure tourism applications.
With the advent of a new generation of NGSO (Non-Geostationary Satellite Orbit) satellites going into design and development, new frequency bands for these satellites are also being studied. GEO satellites today, typically use C band (4 to 8 GHz), Ku band (12 to 18 GHz), and Ka band (27 to 40 GHz) to deliver services. From their position high above the equator, they deliver services to various sized regions on earth, ranging from hemisphere to region to country to state-sized spot beams. MEO and LEO satellites, operating closer to the ground, will have even smaller, tighter beams and will use higher frequencies that will need to be made available to support growing capacity demands, if these new ventures are to be successful.
On March 12, 2018 at the Satellite 2018 Show at the Washington, DC Convention Center, Isotropic Systems announced that they intended to become a contender in the emerging flat panel antenna (FPA) market.
Almost all satellite based broadband communication today takes place between a GEO satellite and one or more teleports or earth stations, within its footprint below. The next generation of LEO (Low Earth Orbit) constellations being developed and deployed will not be fixed in orbit, as GEO satellites are, high above the equator. These low flying satellites must orbit the earth at a fast rate, or fall into its gravity well, and burn up. This means these satellites will pass quickly over earth stations, rather than be permanently stationed above them, raising the question of how will these satellites continue to provide uninterrupted communications between users and earth stations and teleports, if they are not permanently stationed above them.
An application that continues to be of interest in broadband satellite services is VoIP (Voice over IP). While many people turn to Skype and similar voice or video applications to communicate with others on a variety of devices, standardized VoIP remains popular for those who want to make phone calls to the POTS or plain old telephone service. The POTS service, we grew up with delivers consistent, reliable, high quality communications. Businesses that rely on good telephone service need that quality to be extended to remote locations over satellite links. That is not as easy as it sounds, and it’s one reason that there is a perception among many people that satellite is not capable of supporting high quality voice communications.
Satellite has long been recognized as a key player in disaster recovery scenarios. A major disaster such as a hurricane, flood or tornado, can wipe out standard means of communication. Cell phone services can go down and internet access may be unavailable due to power outages or damaged infrastructure. Satellite services can quickly be deployed to provide services for first responders and permit companies that plan ahead, to remain operational. The focus here is on humanitarian efforts.
Is Satellite Limited to Providing Backhaul for 5G Networks?
Most broadband satellite networks are based on a “star” or “hub and spoke” topology. There is a central hub which connects to all the remote sites that it supports. This is a simple, standard solution for basic internet access. All the remote sites connect to the central Hub, which in turn passes them to the Internet backbone. Sometimes networks are more complicated.
The recent news that SpaceX has launched experimental satellites following FCC approval, has taken the NewSpace industry by storm. Several satellite companies such as OneWeb, LEOSat, and Telesat LEO have been working to develop and manufacture a constellation of LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellites designed to offer high speed, low latency broadband services to underserved regions of the world. Where these operators are proposing a few hundred satellites in their constellations, SpaceX is proposing to launch almost 12,000 satellites by the mid-2020s.
HTS satellites provide a significant improvement in throughput and capacity by leveraging “spot beams” and “frequency reuse.” Instead of providing a large, but weaker satellite beam, HTS uses small hot beams that can deliver higher speeds to clients. Because the beams are smaller, the same frequencies can be used again, as long as they are far enough away from each other not to cause interference.
Tom Choi recently resigned as CEO of Asia Broadcast Company (ABS). He turned ABS into a huge success as a tough competitor in the satellite industry. Choi remains on the board of ABS, but he has not abandoned the satellite industry, and remains outspoken and influential. In an article in ViaSat’s March 2018 newsmagazine, he questioned how realistic a view the satellite industry holds for its future.
One of the earliest companies to get involved in “NewSpace” was O3b Networks, Ltd. The name O3b refers to the “Other 3 Billion,” or the population of the world where broadband internet services are not generally available. And it continues its mission, launching new satellites this year.
Most satellite networks are based on a star, or hub and spoke architecture, in which all the remote sites connect back to a central hub that is responsible for allocating bandwidth and managing, aggregating and routing traffic. What happens when a remote site in City A wants to have a VoIP (Voice over IP) call with another remote site in City B?
While the satellite industry is all abuzz with “NewSpace,” down here on earth, the buzz is “5G.” Is there a relationship between the two? Should there be? When it comes to the “wish list” for the digital revolution, the market is demanding that services be unlimited, with super-fast speeds - all the time. Services should be available everywhere, indoors or out; they should be reliable and consistent, and switching between them should be seamless. This is clearly not our current reality.
In the first quarter of 2018, SES, a world leading satellite operator, will be launching a new satellite SES-14 to replace NSS-806 at 47.5° west, providing new capacity over the Americas and North Atlantic Region. SES-14, based on the Eurostar-3000 platform manufactured by EADS Astrium, will bring additional Ku band capacity to service growing Direct-to-Home and Direct-to-Cable services.
Military organizations in many countries are big users of commercial satellite services, and in the past, they have been challenged to find enough capacity to serve their growing bandwidth needs using their own satellites, so they have been seeking capacity on commercial satellites. | https://www.bcsatellite.net/blog/ |
On 23 June 2020, the third geostationary Earth orbit satellite (GEO-3), the last satellite of the China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS)-3 space segment construction project, was successfully launched, marking the completion of the BDS global constellation deployment and indicating the successful completion of the BDS ‘‘three-step” development strategy. The positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) service and special-feature services provided by the BDS have been widely used in key infrastructures of the national economy and defense security; they have also promoted a transformation of the production method and upgraded industrial infrastructure in China.
《2. BDS-3 overview》
2. BDS-3 overview
The BDS-3 is composed of a space segment (a navigation satellite constellation), a ground segment (including master measure and control stations, monitoring stations, and uplink stations), and a user segment (user terminals) . The space segment constellation is the core component of the system. The BDS-3 hybrid constellation consists of three geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellites, three inclined geosynchronous orbit (IGSO) satellites, and 24 medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellites (often referred to as ‘‘3GEO + 3IGSO + 24MEO”; Fig. 1), which are based on the regional BDS-2 constellation. These satellites provide basic PNT service worldwide and special-feature services in China and surrounding areas.
With the design of a new navigation signal structure, improvements in the performance and measurement accuracy of spaceborne atomic clocks, the establishment of inter-satellite links, and the enhancement of its short-message report service capabilities, the BDS-3 has achieved global navigation signal coverage and performance improvement, as well as stable operation goals and compatibility and interoperability with other global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs). The principal characteristics and functions of the system are detailed below.
《Fig. 1》
Fig. 1. Structure of the BDS-3 constellation.
《2.1. Hybrid constellation services》
2.1. Hybrid constellation services
As mentioned earlier, the BDS-3 space segment consists of a combination of GEO, IGSO, and MEO satellites, for a total of 30 satellites . The services provided by this hybrid constellation are distinct from those of other navigation satellite systems. The BDS-3 combines the advantages of navigation, positioning, and communication technology. Compared with other GNSSs, the BDS-3 emphasizes high-precision, short-message, and positioning reporting, and basic PNT services. Of the six types of satellite-based services that are provided (Table 1), the three global services are PNT (i.e., radio navigation satellite service (RNSS)), global shortmessage communication (GSMC), and international search and rescue (SAR). The three regional services (in China and surrounding areas) are satellite-based augmentation service (SBAS), precision point positioning (PPP), and regional short-message communication (RSMC) . The services provided by BDS-3 better meet the needs of different users, and its technical solutions and system achievements have led the multifunctional aggregation trend of GNSS technologies.
《Table 1》
Table 1 Services provided by GNSSs.
The symbol marks available services and × represents unavailable services. RNSS: radio navigation satellite service; SBAS: Satellite-based augmentation service; PPP: precision point positioning; RSMC: regional short-message communication; GSMC: global short-message communication; SAR: international search and rescue.
Testing and application were implemented during the construction of BDS-3, and basic BDS-3 PNT service has been provided to global users since December 2018 . GSMC and SAR services have been at full capacity since December 2019, and the SBAS, PPP, and RSMC services became available in 2020.
《2.2. The Internet of Everything on the space–time datum》
2.2. The Internet of Everything on the space–time datum
With the installation of a high-precision and high-stability time–frequency system on its satellites, the BDS-3 constellation can be used as a space–time datum infrastructure to provide global users with continuous, all-weather, and high-accuracy PNT services. The system has the unique advantages of uniformity, accuracy, ease of use, and low cost; it establishes and maintains a space–time datum for ground-based, sea-based, space-based, and low Earth orbit (LEO) spacecraft users; and it plays an important role in obtaining the time and location information of users or objects under a unified space–time reference. The system also provides a basis for the Internet of Everything and the Intelligence of Everything in an information-based society.
The BDS-3 is a perfect combination of space science and technology and space–time datum requirements. In the BDS-3, multiple satellites are distributed to form a constellation; their positions and orbits are accurately measured through ground stations within a unified time and coordinate system. These satellites become position and time navigation standard stations using radio navigation signals to transmit time and space reference information to users within the coverage area. According to statistics, more than 80% of the information data in today’s information-based society is related to position and time messages. The integration of the BDS with mobile communication, big data, artificial intelligence, and other technologies will provide more significant support and a greater boost to the intelligent era with the Internet of Everything.
《2.3. A world-class space infrastructure》
2.3. A world-class space infrastructure
The signal-in-space (SIS) accuracy of the four major GNSSs was evaluated by the International GNSS Monitoring and Assessment System (iGMAS), which is composed of multiple global monitoring stations. The assessment results showed that the average SIS range error (SISRE) of the BDS-3 in 2020 was 0.47 m, which was better than those of GPS and GLONASS (Table 2). Thus, the BDS-3 can independently provide a navigation signal service at an internationally advanced level.
《Table 2》
Table 2 The SIS accuracy of four GNSSs.
The testing and measurement results of the BDS-3 in 2020 showed that the horizontal positioning accuracy of all frequency signals is better than 4 m. That of the smooth transition signal B1I (the BDS-2 signal) is about 3 m, and that of the new signal, B1C, is better than 2 m (Figs. 2 and 3). See the next section for a description of the B1I and B1C signals.
In the BDS-3 system, great importance is attached to international cooperation and coordination. With limited navigation signal frequency resources, advanced technologies are used on the BDS-3 satellites to improve and optimize navigation signals. A dedicated signal is broadcasted in the B1 frequency band in order to achieve compatibility and interoperability with other navigation satellite systems, including the GPS (the United States) and GLONASS (Russia). The BDS-3 enables global users to share highquality services provided by multiple GNSSs. By further improving the user experience, the system has made a great contribution to the integrative development of GNSSs. The test results show that, in comparison with the positioning service provided by a single GNSS system, the positioning service performance based on the joint use of four systems (BDS, GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo) is increased by more than 50%.
《Fig. 2》
Fig. 2. Positioning accuracy of the smooth transition signal, B1I.
《Fig. 3》
Fig. 3. Positioning accuracy of the new signal, B1C.
《3. Major technological breakthroughs 》
3. Major technological breakthroughs
《3.1. Innovative navigation signal designs》
3.1. Innovative navigation signal designs
The navigation signal is the core carrier of GNSS design and service. As the frequency and bandwidth of navigation signals were primarily occupied by the earlier constructed GNSSs (i.e., GPS and GLONASS), the frequency resources available for the BDS navigation signal were extremely limited. The signal system design of the BDS-3 aims to improve user-oriented performance and function integration, achieve transition smoothly from the BDS-2 signal, and adhere to the requirements of independent innovation, compatibility, and interoperability. The system involves a new three-frequency navigation signal configuration (Fig. 4).
《Fig. 4》
Fig. 4. BDS-3 open service navigation signals.
The BDS-3 broadcasts new global navigation signals and smooth transition signals (Table 3), such as B1I and B3I, to ensure the continued use of the BDS-2 user terminals . In the B1 and B2 frequency bands of the BDS system, quadrature multiplexed binary offset carrier (QMBOC) and asymmetric constant envelope binary offset carrier (ACE-BOC) modulations are respectively adopted to ensure compatibility and interoperability with other GNSS signals while maintaining system independence. The system design adopts the constant envelope multiplexing technology of multi-carrier signals, which is characterized by sparse frequency domains and a constant time-domain envelope. This technology effectively utilizes non-continuous spectrum resources and improves the ranging accuracy and anti-interference ability of navigation signals. The navigation signal of the BDS-3 satellite has a flexible structure and diverse receiving methods.
《Table 3》
Table 3 BDS-3 services and signals.
《3.2. Development of a new inter-satellite link》
3.2. Development of a new inter-satellite link
GNSSs, such as GPS and Galileo, rely on the deployment of ground stations around the world to achieve satisfactory global PNT service performance. In response to problems such as nonglobal station deployment and short satellite observation arcs, BDS-3 innovatively introduces a technical solution that involves domestic ground stations plus inter-satellite links to build a GNSS. The inter-satellite links constantly provide satellite-to-satellite measurement data within the entire constellation and perform satellite precise orbit determination and time synchronization to achieve global navigation operation and to ensure uniform global system service performance.
With the installation of radio signal measurement and communication equipment on BDS-3 satellites, pseudo-range measurement and two-way communication between satellites are obtained, thereby achieving the goal of improving the accuracy of satellite orbit determination and time synchronization and supporting all-weather in-orbit management of all satellites. Through the inter-satellite links, the BDS-3 constellation system displays the significant features of an information network (Fig. 5).
《Fig. 5》
Fig. 5. Schematic diagram of the BDS-3 inter-satellite links.
The inter-satellite links on the BDS-3 satellites use Ka-band phased-array antenna technology and a time division half-duplex system. Based on the working condition of each satellite on each orbit in the hybrid constellation, the onboard integrated information processing and control unit controls the antenna signal beam direction of the spaceborne phased-array link with a network routing plan and link-building strategy in order to establish periodically changing inter-satellite links for satellite data transmission and precise ranging. The inter-satellite links adopted by the BDS-3 system achieve global-leading performance including a higher ranging accuracy, superior data-transmission capacity, and stronger anti-jamming capability than other systems. The in-orbit test results show that the orbit prediction accuracy of the BDS-3 MEO satellites improved from 0.4 to 0.15 m while using the intersatellite link; additionally, the clock offset prediction error was reduced from 3 to 1 ns, and the navigation constellation achieved one-station management capability.
《3.3. Continuous upgrading of the spaceborne atomic clock》
3.3. Continuous upgrading of the spaceborne atomic clock
The spaceborne atomic clock generates time and frequency reference signals on the satellite and is an important basis for navigation satellites to transmit high-performance navigation signals. The performance of the clock directly determines PNT service accuracy. The BDS-3 satellites are equipped with a new generation of domestic rubidium clocks (Fig. 6(a)) with high integration, high performance, and reliability, which satisfy the new integration load conditions of the satellite platform. The stability of the clocks reach the international advanced 10–14 level.
To further improve the positioning, timing accuracy, and autonomous operation capability, the BDS-3 satellites are also equipped with domestic hydrogen atomic clocks (Fig. 6(b)). These clocks enable the satellites to achieve better frequency stability, frequency accuracy, and daily drift rate, as the daily stability of the hydrogen atomic clock has reached the 10–15 level.
The BDS-3 constellation fully utilizes the characteristics of these two types of atomic clocks. A hybrid clock configuration operates the spaceborne time–frequency system with high performance and reliability and the seamless switching of time–frequency signals; in this way, it significantly improves the time–frequency performance and service accuracy of the BDS-3 satellites.
《Fig. 6》
Fig. 6. Atomic clocks in the BDS-3: (a) spaceborne rubidium clock and (b) spaceborne hydrogen clock.
《3.4. Expansion of short-message communication capability》
3.4. Expansion of short-message communication capability
Short-message communication is the best service of the BDS navigation–communication integration design concept. The BDS3 further enhances the service capabilities of BDS-2 while inheriting its regional active technical system. The RSMC service in China and surrounding areas has smoothly transitioned to the BDS-3 and has ensured continuous use by BDS-2 terminals by optimizing the satellite antenna design and increasing the number of transponder channels and antenna beams to six (Fig. 7). Consequently, radio frequency (RF) signal power and service capability have been greatly improved.
《Fig. 7》
Fig. 7. Service coverage area of the regional short-message S-band signal.
Measures have been taken to improve the system, such as increasing the transmitted signal power and improving the signal design. These measures permit a smooth transition of the original user experience and increase the communication service capacity of the BDS-3 by ten times in comparison with BDS-2, up to more than ten million times per hour. The length of a single RSMC message is thus increased from 120 to 1000 Chinese characters, while the user transmission power is reduced to 1/10.
By configuring movable spot beams on three GEO satellites, the short-message service range has been expanded to the Indian and Pacific Oceans. In addition, the BDS-3 further extends its short message communication service to the world. The MEO satellites are equipped with a message communication receiver based on processing and retransmission to achieve dual coverage at a 15° elevation angle and single coverage at a 30° elevation angle. Through the BDS-3 global coverage and inter-satellite link, global users can receive services such as message communication, location reporting, and emergency SAR (Fig. 8).
《Fig. 8》
Fig. 8. Schematic diagram of the BDS-3 global short-message service.
《3.5. Batch development of satellites and domestic satellite technologies》
3.5. Batch development of satellites and domestic satellite technologies
The high-density batch-production capacity of navigation satellites has been a key factor in the rapid constellation deployment of BDS-3. The first domestic whole-trussed satellite platform (Fig. 9), which was independently developed by the BDS-3 satellite team, solved the problems of multi-MEO satellite launching and met the rapid deployment requirements. The satellite platform has reached an internationally advanced level in terms of satellite carrying efficiency and the weight ratio and power–mass ratio of the payload platform.
《Fig. 9》
Fig. 9. A BDS-3 MEO satellite. (a) An MEO satellite; (b) a structural exploded view of the satellite.
In accordance with engineering construction and batch-project development management requirements, the BDS-3 satellite development team put forward new measures and methods for dynamic resource allocation, development process reengineering, batch-production technical status control, quality control, assembly, integration, and testing. In this way, they achieved the parallel assembly and testing of 12 satellites per year. This development capability entailed an unprecedented scale of satellite batch production and strongly supported the high-density launch of 30 satellites in the BDS-3 system within three years. BDS-3 construction was completed half a year ahead of schedule, creating a new ‘‘China speed” in the global history of navigation constellation deployment.
As the BDS is space infrastructure of national significance, the key technologies and core products of the BDS must be independently controlled. At the early design stage of BDS-3 satellite development, the requirements for domestic products and independent control were clearly prioritized, and the localized development, verification, and application of satellite devices were integrated. Adhering to the philosophy of original innovation and independent development, the system- and equipment-level satellite product developers achieved major breakthroughs in key technologies, such as the spaceborne atomic clock, the traveling wave tube amplifier, and the high-power microwave switch. The 100% localization of spaceborne equipment-level products and the autonomous control of core components were implemented in order to free China from dependence on other countries.
《4. Prospects for future BDS development》
4. Prospects for future BDS development
With the development of user requirements and modern science and technology, the capabilities and services of the BDS will be continuously improved and upgraded. Similar to other GNSSs, the BDS navigation signal, which is based on radio signal measurement and transmission technology, has inherent vulnerabilities and limitations. These include low landing power, poor penetration, and susceptibility to interference, especially in environments such as deep space, underwater, and indoors. Thus, the BDS team has embarked on the demonstration and research of the next-generation BDS. While fully utilizing the service capabilities of the space-based hybrid constellation navigation system, the BDS will be integrated with multiple navigation technologies to create a more accurate and credible space–time datum. A comprehensive PNT system will be developed to provide more robust space–time information support for national security and economic development in the following manner . First, a more ubiquitous, integrated, and intelligent national PNT system will be built in accordance with the system integration development concept. Solutions with different PNT services will be provided according to different user scenarios in order to achieve threedimensional service coverage ranging from deep space to deep sea. Diversified service capabilities with positioning accuracies from the kilometer level to the decimeter and centimeter levels will be tailored to user needs for more ubiquitous, more accurate, and safer space–time information services (Table 4).
《Table 4》
Table 4 Structure of the national PNT system.
Second, the cornerstone role of the BDS will be further strengthened to create a more accurate, stronger, wider, and more intelligent BDS service capability:
• More accurate: space–time reference service;
• Stronger: navigation countermeasure services;
• Wider: navigation information services; and
• More intelligent: space-based cloud service.
An integrated space–time datum network and a navigation information service network will be constructed. Breakthroughs will be made in key technologies, such as the satellite-based space–time datum, intelligent satellite systems, and navigation information service networks. A hybrid constellation of high Earth orbit (HEO), MEO, and LEO satellites will be built to form a safe, reliable, efficient, and convenient integrated national PNT system with unified references and seamless coverage.
Third, supplement, backup, and augmentation systems will be built. By combining the existing BDS with the LEO communication constellation, an augmentation system based on the LEO communication constellation will be built to achieve global PNT backup service capability and to improve BDS service performance in complex environments. Through the integration of BDS and mobile 5G/6G communication technology, the weakness of indoor PNT service will be improved to achieve seamless indoor and outdoor positioning. By upgrading and building long-range land-based navigation systems, a backup of basic PNT capability will be established that will function under extreme conditions at sea. Underwater navigation systems can be deployed as needed to gradually fill the gaps in underwater capabilities. Space X-ray pulsar navigation technology should simultaneously be actively explored to provide PNT support for human deep-space exploration activities, and micro-PNT systems should be developed to achieve coordinated development with radio navigation. | http://www.wedowebpages.com/en/10.1016/j.eng.2021.04.002 |
The SpaceX satellite constellation is a development project underway by SpaceX to develop a low-cost, high-performance satellite bus and requisite customer ground transceivers to be used to implement a new space-based internet communication system.
SpaceX has plans to also sell satellites that use the same satellite bus, satellites that might be used for scientific or exploratory purposes
Development began in 2015, initial prototype test-flight satellites are expected to be flown in 2017, and initial operation of the constellation could begin as early as 2020.
By October 2016, SpaceX had developed test-flight satellites that they hope to launch in 2017 and they are focusing on a significant business challenge of achieving a sufficiently-low-cost design for the user equipment, aiming for something that can ostensibly install easily at end-user premises for approximately US$200.
The internet communication satellites are expected to be in the smallsat-class of 100-to-500 kg (220-to-1,100 lb)-mass, which are intended to be orbiting at an altitude of approximately 1,100 kilometers (680 mi). Initial plans as of January 2015 are for the constellation to be made up of approximately 4400 cross-linked satellites, more than twice as many operational satellites as are in orbit in January 2015
SpaceX plans to begin flight testing of their satellite technologies in 2017, with the planned launch of two test satellites, MicroSat-1a and MicroSat-1b. The satellites will orbit in a circular low Earth orbit at 625 kilometers (388 mi) altitude in a high-inclination orbit for a planned six to twelve-month duration. The sats will communicate with three testing ground stations in Washington and California for short-term experiments of less than ten minutes duration, roughly daily. Both microsats will be launched into 625 km circular orbits at approximately 86.4 degrees inclination, and will include panchromatic video imager cameras to film image of Earth and the satellite
SpaceX expects its own latencies to be between 25 and 35ms, similar to the latencies measured for wired Internet services. Current satellite ISPs have latencies of 600ms or more, according to FCC measurements.
SpaceX promises that its satellites will boast impressive bandwidth, the amount of data that can be delivered each second. That could potentially reduce or eliminate the need to impose strict limits on consumers.
“Once fully optimized through the Final Deployment, the system will be able to provide high bandwidth (up to 1Gbps per user), low-latency broadband services for consumers and businesses in the US and globally,” SpaceX told the FCC. “Subject to additional development work, SpaceX plans to design and manufacture its own satellites, gateway earth stations, and user terminals.” Home Internet customers would receive a “low-profile user terminal that is easy to mount and operate on walls or roofs.”
Each satellite will provide aggregate downlink capacity of 17 to 23Gbps, the application said. “With deployment of the first 800 satellites, the system will be able to provide US and international broadband connectivity; when fully deployed, the system will add capacity and availability at the equator and poles for truly global coverage,” SpaceX said.
Upgrades will follow
SpaceX said per-satellite bandwidth should increase periodically as the company deploys improvements. “The system leverages phased array technology to dynamically steer a large pool of beams to focus capacity where it is needed,” the company said. “Optical inter-satellite links permit flexible routing of traffic on-orbit. Further, the constellation ensures that frequencies can be reused effectively across different satellites to enhance the flexibility and capacity and robustness of the overall system.”
SOURCES – Spacex, Ars Technica, Wikipedia
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements. | https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/11/spacex-satellite-net-could-start.html |
Early Theories. In 1895, a Russian scientist, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, gave the world its first vision of a stationary satellite. He observed that an object orbiting Earth at 22,300 miles up would match the angular rotation of Earth and thus provide a seemingly stationary ”star” overhead.
Fifty years later, the English science fiction writer and Royal Air Force electronics officer Arthur C. Clarke expanded on this vision. In 1945, he indicated that such an object orbiting Earth at 22,300 miles up must also have its orbit in the equatorial plane to be considered stationary. Clarke called the object a ”satellite” and further noted that providing a satellite in this orbit with a communications repeater could produce a very valuable communications capability. Clarke named such satellites ”geostationary communication satellites.” Clarke postulated that three geostationary satellites spaced 120° apart would provide full global communications coverage for telephone and television service to the world’s population (1,2).
Clarke’s concept was ahead of the technologies needed to make it a reality. In 1945, the science of rocketry was still crude, and radio communications depended on large, unreliable vacuum tubes. However, rocketry and electronics technologies both began to advance rapidly, particularly after the development of the transistor in 1947. The first satellite launches, into a low Earth orbit (LEO), occurred during the Cold War following World War II. The United States and Soviet Union were intent on achieving military and technological superiority over each other. Satellites were seen as potentially valuable Cold War tools for reconnaissance and for maintaining reliable communications among far-flung troops.
The Earliest Satellites. On 4 October 1957, a Soviet satellite named ”Pros-teyshiy Sputnik” (”Simplest Satellite”) was launched into a low Earth orbit and began transmitting telemetric information for what would turn out to be 21 days. Sputnik weighed 184 pounds and was a sphere two feet in diameter. This dramatic Soviet achievement shocked the world, and particularly the U.S. public, which perceived it as a threat to national security. The event was likened to the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and it sparked a flurry of U.S. government activity in rocketry and satellites (3).
The rocket that lifted Sputnik into orbit was four stories high. Such heavy-lift launchers used technology similar to that of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), so it was perceived that the launch vehicle was at least as important as the actual satellite. In the United States, the public feared that the Soviet Union’s ability to launch satellites translated into the capability to launch ballistic missiles that could carry nuclear weapons from Europe to America. The ”Space Race” had begun (4,5). The Sputnik launch led directly to the creation of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (6). In October 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Act launched NASA out of the old National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which had existed since 1915. NASA became responsible for civilian space science and aeronautical research, whereas the U.S. Department of Defense continued to carry out defense work.
The launch of Sputnik II on 3 November 1957, was a second blow to America’s perception of itself as technologically superior to the Soviet Union. A third blow came on 6 December 1957, when the first U.S. satellite, Vanguard, exploded on launch. But on 31 January 1958, the United States launched Explorer I, which successfully transmitted telemetric data for 5 months. Shortly thereafter, in December 1958, America launched Score, the first satellite to transmit a radio broadcast, President Eisenhower’s Christmas message. In 1960, two more satellites followed, Echo I and Courier. On 10 July 1962, NASA launched the first non-government-built satellite, AT&T’s Telstar 1, a LEO spacecraft for relaying transatlantic television and data. In that same year, Telstar was used for the first transoceanic television ever transmitted, a live broadcast that commemorated the first anniversary of the death of U.N. Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold by a link-up of simultaneous ceremonies held at the United Nations in New York and Paris and Hammarskjold’s tomb in Sweden (7). Relay I, launched by NASA in December 1962, was built by RCA, also for transoceanic communications. Meanwhile, in May 1958, Sputnik III was placed into orbit by the Soviet Union. This was a large satellite for the time and demonstrated that the Soviets were ahead of the United States in heavy-lift rocketry.
Geosynchronous Satellites. All of these early satellites were nongeostationary and nongeosynchronous [a geosynchronous (GEO) satellite orbits at 22,300 miles, but is not necessarily geostationary, that is, limited to the equatorial plane—see discussion later]. They were launched into low-altitude Earth orbits because the rockets of the day could not propel the satellites into an orbit 22,300 miles up.
In the early 1960s, when U.S. rockets could at last boost a satellite into geosynchronous orbit, one of the most important questions centered on which was the best orbit to use for a communications satellite, low Earth orbit or geosynchronous. Low-altitude systems had the advantages of lower launch costs,heavier payloads, and relatively short radio-frequency propagative times. The main disadvantages were that many orbiting satellites were required to achieve continuous global communications, and these needed continuous tracking. Geosynchronous satellites, in contrast, had two key advantages. Only three satellites were needed for global coverage, and only minimal tracking was required. Their one primary disadvantage was relatively long radio-frequency propagative times. No one knew how the one-quarter-of-a-second transmission delay would affect the feasibility of using this orbit for telephony (see extended discussion later).
By 1959, a small team of scientists led by Dr. Harold Rosen from the Hughes Aircraft Company (now Hughes Electronics Corporation) was moving ahead, determined to create a geosynchronous communications satellite. By 1960, they had built a satellite prototype (8,9). Meanwhile, at AT&T’s Bell Laboratories, similar work was taking place under the direction of Dr. John R. Pierce and with at least as much zeal. Arthur Clarke would later name John Pierce and Harold Rosen the ”fathers of communications satellites.” Pierce’s team demonstrated the first active communications repeater, but Rosen and his team at Hughes are credited with making it possible, technically and economically, to have a continuous communications capability by satellite earlier than anyone thought feasible (10).
In August 1961, NASA contracted with the Hughes Aircraft Company for the first geosynchronous communications satellite, called Syncom (Fig. 1). Though the first Syncom launch failed in February 1963, a second attempt, the launch of Syncom II in July of the same year, succeeded. Syncom I had just one voice channel and was designed to weigh 86 pounds at the beginning of its life. Though it never attained orbit, it paved the way for Syncom II and Syncom III, satellites that, by August 1964, proved the feasibility and cost-efficiency of domestic and international satellite communications. The Syncom series also validated the concept of geosynchronous satellites, and by 1964, government and other users turned away from LEO satellites for voice, data, and video communications (11).
COMSAT, INTELSAT, and INMARSAT. The 1962 U.S. Communications Satellite Act had a profound impact on international satellite communications. It provided for the establishment of the Communications Satellite Corporation (COMSAT) (12), a privately financed and managed organization that had a minority of U.S. government representatives on its board of directors. AT&T emerged as COMSAT’s largest shareholder. COMSAT was created (1) to govern the operation of communications satellites and ground facilities used to transmit to and from the United States and (2) to develop and manage a new international communications satellite organization, which, in 1964, emerged as the International Telecommunication Satellite Organization, or INTELSAT. COMSAT wasresponsible for the procurement, testing, and launch acquisition of all INTELSAT satellites, and it owned 61% of the organization (13,14). The global, commercial INTELSAT cooperative was formed on the initiative of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, who, at the time COMSAT was created, said, ”I invite all nations to participate in a communications satellite system in the interest of world peace and closer brotherhood among peoples of the world.” INTELSAT was the first organization to provide global satellite coverage and connectivity. In its role as a commercial cooperative and wholesaler of satellite communications capacity, INTELSAT provides service through its signatories in member countries. Currently, COMSAT is the only U.S. signatory, though pending deregulation will encourage others (15).
Figure 1. Hughes engineers Dr. Harold Rosen (right) and Thomas Hudspeth hold a prototype of the geosynchronous Syncom satellite atop the Eiffel Tower during the 1962 Paris Air Show.
COMSAT’s initial capitalization of $200 million was considered sufficient to build a system of dozens of medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellites. These orbit the Earth at about 3000 to 7000 miles up; fewer MEOs are needed for global coverage than LEOs. In 1964, when COMSAT was in the process of contracting for its first satellite, two Telstars, two Relays, and two Syncoms had operated successfully in space. For a variety of reasons, including cost, COMSAT ultimately rejected a joint AT&T/RCA bid for a MEO system that incorporated the best of Telstar and Relay. Instead, COMSAT chose the geosynchronous satellite offered by Hughes, based on Syncom technology. Procured by COMSAT but transferred to the newly formed INTELSAT, the Early Bird satellite (also called “INTELSAT I”) was launched on 6 April, 1965, as the first commercial communications satellite. Built by Hughes, it was launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta rocket and weighed 85 pounds—still about all that could be lifted to a geosynchronous orbit at that time by American technology.
Early Bird was designed to test the feasibility of synchronous orbits for commercial communications satellites and was a resounding success. The satellite provided 240 transatlantic telephone circuits capable of carrying that many calls simultaneously. This greatly increased telephone capacity across the Atlantic. Early Bird could provide almost 10 times the capacity of a submarine telephone cable for almost one-tenth the price and thereby helped prove the cost-efficiency of communications satellites. Moreover, the public readily accepted the transmission delay. Early Bird was also designed for transmitting television. Though built for just 18 months of life, it could still transmit live pictures of the Apollo Moon landing in 1969. By 1967, three of these first-generation INTELSAT satellites were operating over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, providing ubiquitous global telephone and television communications for the first time (16).
In February 1976, COMSAT launched a new kind of communications satellite, Marisat, to provide mobile communications services to the U.S. Navy and other maritime and aeronautical customers. Subsequently, in 1979, COMSAT transferred Marisat to the newly formed International Maritime Satellite Organization, INMARSAT. Sponsored by the United Nations, INMARSAT has an intergovernmental structure similar to INTELSAT’s. Each signatory is required to provide an interface with land-based telecommunications networks and is assigned an investment share based on its actual use of the system. Today, COMSAT manages access to the global satellite fleets of both INTELSAT and INMARSAT on behalf of U.S. and foreign telecommunications operators that want to initiate or terminate their satellite transmissions in the United States COMSAT currently enjoys an exclusive relationship with both INTELSAT and INMARSAT in providing this service.
As of June 1999, INTELSAT owned and operated 24 satellites and had a membership of 143 countries and signatories. The highly successful organization, expected to be privatized soon, provides voice, data, video, and Internet services on a nondiscriminatory basis to more than 200 countries and territories. Since its formation, INMARSAT has greatly expanded its services. Today, the organization provides satellite global mobile communications services on land, sea, and in the air. For maritime users, INMARSAT supports phone, telex, fax, electronic mail, and data transmission. Aeronautical applications include flight-deck voice and data, automatic passenger telephone, fax, and data communications. INMARSAT’s land-based customers have access to in-vehicle and transportable phone, fax, and two-way data communications, position reporting, electronic mail, and fleet management for land transport. INMARSAT is also available for disaster and emergency communications, as well as news reporting, where alternative communications links are difficult to access or nonexistent (17). Initially, INMARSAT leased transponders on other organizations’ satellites, but in October 1990, it launched the first of its own satellites, INMARSAT II-F. As of June 1999, INMARSAT had 85 member nations and a global fleet of four geosynchronous satellites.
The arrangement, mentioned earlier, whereby COMSAT enjoys monopoly status as an access point for U.S. domestic and international communications organizations, along with other ”privileges and immunities” conferred on it by the U.S. government, is currently being challenged. In fact, there is a worldwide effort underway to push COMSAT, INTELSAT, and INMARSAT to serve their customers on a fully commercial basis, free of all government ties and protective legislation and regulations. Both INTELSAT and INMARSAT have embarked on this path with the New Skies and ICO satellite systems, respectively. Today, COMSAT is partly owned by Lockheed Martin, a U.S. aerospace corporation and satellite manufacturer. As of June 1999, Lockheed Martin was seeking to buy all of COMSAT, for which it needs regulatory approval.
It is inevitable that INTELSAT will evolve to privatized organizations. These will remain one of history’s best examples of successful international cooperation.
A Worldwide Industry. The use of communications satellites proceeded apace in the United States and other countries. In a number of cases, satellites offered cost savings and improved signal quality, compared with terrestrial and submarine cables. Importantly, satellite transmission was cost-insensitive to distance, as opposed to the way terrestrial transmission facilities were priced. Although the initial commercial launch vehicles and satellites were American, other countries had been involved in commercial and government satellite communications from the beginning. For example, as early as 1961, the German Post Office announced plans to construct a satellite-receiving ground station that could handle up to 600 phone calls simultaneously. The ground station interfaced with Telstar and Relay-type satellites. By the time Early Bird was launched, satellite Earth stations already existed in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Brazil, and Japan.
In 1969, the Canadian government created Telesat Canada, a corporation charged with building and operating the world’s first national satellite network. The first satellite, Anik A (Anik means ”little brother” in the Inuit language), was launched in November 1972, and a three-satellite system was completed by May 1975. Anik was notable for introducing new spacecraft technologies, such as the shaped beam. Syncom, Early Bird, and Intelsat II used global beam technology, meaning that the satellites broadcast their signals across the entire third of the world they faced. Anik’s shaped beam permitted a pattern, or footprint, that covered only Canada (18). Following the success of Canada’s Anik system, both Europe and the United States developed domestic satellite systems. In 1974, Europe’s first telecommunications satellite, Symphonie, was launched. In the United States, Western Union contracted with Hughes for three Anik-type satellites to serve the U.S. market. The first of these, Westar I, was launched in April 1974. In the following year, RCA launched its network system, and in 1975, the first live commercial television program was transmitted in the United States. Also in 1975, Home Box Office became the first national cable TV network to be delivered by satellite—and thus began a whole new entertainment industry. By the end of 1976, there were 120 satellite transponders available in the United States; each could provide 1500 telephone circuits or one TV channel (19).
Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago of more than 13,000 islands, launched its first Palapa satellite in 1976 and followed with another in 1977. Besides supporting telecommunications, Palapa-A1 and Palapa-A2 were intended for distance learning, including teaching the national language (20). By the mid-1980s, many nations had national satellite systems. These included Australia (OPTUS), Mexico (MORELOS), and Brazil (BRASILSAT). In 1999, this tally had grown to include most of the world’s developed and developing countries. In addition, there are numerous private regional satellite systems, such as
Eutelsat (Europe); SES Astra (Europe); Europe*Star; Nahuel (Central and South America); Galaxy Latin America; Thuraya (Middle East and parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe); ACeS (Asia); and AsiaSat, which delivers service to China, Thailand, Malaysia, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Burma, and Mongolia (21).
Today, INTELSAT continues to own and operate the world’s largest global satellite communications system (Fig. 2). However, there is now strong competition from such international entities as PanAmSat, which, it is projected will overtake INTELSAT in the near future. Loral, GE Americom, and Intersputnik also operate global fleets. Despite the early failure of Iridium (Motorola), Globalstar (Loral/Qualcomm) and ICO (a private INMARSAT spinoff) promise to provide worldwide satellite mobile services. Spaceway (Hughes), Teledesic (Boeing, Motorola, Matra Marconi Space), and Astrolink (Lockheed Martin, TRW, Telespazio) are among several companies that anticipate operating global satellite systems for high-speed data exchange, Internet applications, and interactive multimedia.
Satellite manufacturers and launch vehicle providers are found throughout the world, too. Satellite manufacturers in the United States, include Hughes, Loral, Lockheed Martin, TRW, Orbital Sciences, and Motorola. They are joined by non-U.S. competitors such as Daimler-Chrysler Aerospace (Germany), Alenia Spazio (Italy), Aerospatiale (France), Matra Marconi (France) with British Aerospace (UK), Thomson CSF (France), and Alcatel (France). In the United States, launch vehicles are provided by Boeing (Delta and Sea Launch) and ILS-Lock-heed Martin (Atlas). Other prominent launch vehicles include Ariane (France), Long March (China), ILS Proton (Russia), H-IIA (Japan), and Soyuz (Russia). It is likely that there will be consolidation of the many satellite and launch vehicle manufacturers and service providers in the future.
Figure 2. The tiny Syncom satellite (foreground) would fit into one of the INTELSAT VI fuel tanks to which Dr. Harold Rosen is pointing.
Today, communication satellites are a basic element of the world’s telecommunications infrastructure and an indispensable tool of the global marketplace. More than 325 commercial communications satellites—mostly GEOs—now orbit Earth. New applications for these satellites and those in LEO or MEO orbits are constantly evolving, based on new technological developments and increasing demand for space-based communications. Among the newest applications are satellite mobile radio, high-speed broadband data exchange, interactive multimedia, handheld global mobile telephony, and direct-to-home TV featuring high-definition pictures—HDTV (see fuller discussion in the article on commercial applications). These business and consumer services are provided through GEO as well as LEO and MEO satellites.
The early satellites had one television channel, weighed less than 100 pounds, and could require a 30-meter diameter antenna for reception. Today, a communication satellite can transmit more than 200 digital television channels, weigh 10,000 pounds, and deliver signals to one-half-meter Earth stations or palm-sized receiver/transmitter units.
Satellite Technology
Communications Satellites—Yesterday and Today. In a few decades, communications satellites have become an indispensable part of the world’s telecommunications infrastructure. They serve as repeaters in the sky and relay radio transmissions from/to terminals on Earth and in space, much as terrestrial microwave repeaters receive, amplify, and retransmit signals on Earth. During the years since Early Bird, communications satellites have grown in many aspects—size, weight, lifetime, power, and capacity. One way of illustrating this growth is by comparing Early Bird to a satellite designed for the early twenty-first century. The drum-shaped Early Bird was 71 cm (28 in) in diameter and only 58 cm (23 in) high. Its mass in orbit was 34.5 kg (76 lb). By contrast, a late-model, high-powered satellite called the HS 702 towers over Early Bird. In its stowed configuration, this Hughes-built satellite measures 2 m (6 ft 7 in) x 3.15 m (10 ft 6 in), and rises to a height of 3.6 m (11ft 11 in), not including its antennae. Deployed in space, it spans 40.9 m (134.5 ft) in length (Fig. 3). Its mass at launch is as much as 5200 kg (11,464lb), depending on the type offuel. Its dry weight (which excludes fuel) is as much as 3450 kg (7590 lb), two orders of magnitude greater than that of Early Bird. Early Bird was designed for 18 months of life, the HS 702 is designed for missions 15 years long. It can generate as much as 15 kW of direct current (dc) power, three orders of magnitude more than Early Bird. Its transponder capacity is nearly 100 times that of Early Bird.
Figure 3. Artist’s concept of the Hughes-built HS 702 satellite deployed in space shows how the long solar panels collect light that is used to generate 15 kW of dc power.
Orbits. Communications satellites travel in space along a gravity-induced path, or orbit, much as natural satellites orbit celestial bodies throughout the solar system (22-24). For the first 30 years of commercial service, communications satellite designers relied almost exclusively on geosynchronous or geostationary orbits. To observers on the Earth, a geostationary satellite appears to be “fixed” in space, although it is actually traveling at a speed of 11,062 km/h (6875 mph). From a position in geostationary orbit, approximately 35,880 km (22,300 mi) above the equator, a single satellite can illuminate a large oval-shaped area on Earth that is roughly one-third of the globe’s surface. Because the GEO satellite is ”fixed” in space, ground stations within the illuminated area do not have to rotate their antennae to track the satellite, as they historically had to do for satellites in non-GEO orbits. Eliminating this bit of complexity was significant, especially in the early years when the antennae ofground terminals had to be large—of the order of 30 m (98 ft) in diameter—to receive weak signals from low-powered satellites. Large antennae were necessary to compensate for the loss of energy transmitted across the lengthy geosynchronous distances because energy received by a ground antenna is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the transmitting source. As the power transmitted from GEO satellites has increased over the years, satellite system operators have been able to reduce the size of ground antennae significantly.
At times, satellites can be operated usefully from nonstationary geosynchronous orbits. For example, when onboard fuel is nearing exhaustion, a GEO satellite can be allowed to drift north and south of the equator while still maintaining its longitudinal position. Under these conditions, its orbit develops a small inclination with respect to the equator that grows about 1° a year due to the pull of solar and lunar gravity. For some commercial applications, like TV distribution to cable operators, departure from the satellite’s “fixed” north-south position is acceptable. In this event, the satellite would appear to a ground observer to trace out a figure eight pattern in the sky; the midpoint of the eight is centered on the equator.
Until the advent of personal mobile satellite communications late in the 1990s, all commercial and most military communications satellites operated in geosynchronous orbits (25). The GEO orbit is also favored for government weather, communications, and defense early warning satellites. However, a few of the first experimental military communications satellites and several precursors of today’s commercial communications satellites were placed in much lower altitude orbits. The first version of the U.S. Defense Department’s Strategic Communication Satellite System (DSCS 1) operated from an orbit that combined features of medium-altitude and geosynchronous orbits. A variety of other orbital geometries that range across many combinations of altitudes and inclinations, including widely employed 90° polar orbits, have been popular for weather, navigational, Earth resources, and surveillance satellites. The satellites of the Global Positioning System (GPS), for example, operate in six planes defined by 12-hour circular orbits—each plane separated from its neighbor by 55°—and are located 20,178 km (12,541 mi) above Earth (26).
In recent years, a number of non-GEO orbits have gained currency for such applications as personal mobile satellite communications (27,28). These include LEO and MEO orbits. The altitude of LEO orbits usually ranges from about 500 km (311 mi) to 1500 km (932 mi) above Earth, whereas MEO orbits are roughly 5000 km (3,107 mi) to 12,000 km (7457 mi). Orbital configurations at these lower altitudes are carefully chosen to avoid exposing a satellite’s electronic components to life-limiting radiation in the Van Allen belts, unless the operator is willing to bear the cost and weight of radiation shielding. The belts are between about 2000 km (1243 mi) and 8000 km (4971 mi), and also above MEO, but well below GEO altitude. Still another type of orbit, the high Earth orbit (HEO), a form of the highly elliptical, 12-hour Molniya orbit extensively employed by reconnaissance satellites during the Cold War, has been adapted for broadcasting CD radio from space.
The historical attraction of GEO orbits is that they can provide service with few satellites and operate through fixed antennae on the ground. Moreover, they provide ubiquitous service for users throughout their broad coverage area. A satellite operator can offer service across nearly a third of the globe using one satellite—and can serve the entire Earth, excluding sparsely populated polar regions, with three. As the altitude of an in-orbit satellite system decreases, more satellites are needed for continuous global coverage because of the shrinking area they can illuminate on Earth at any given time. However, the satellites themselves can be smaller and lighter, and therefore less costly than modern GEO satellites (29). The typical LEO satellite is shorter lived because of the effects of atmospheric drag and radiation at low altitude. Hence, it needs to be replaced more frequently than its GEO counterpart, adding to system cost. The cost of launching LEO satellites, however, is lower because they require less energy to boost them into low-altitude orbits. But the lower the altitude, the greater the need for extensive ground networks or complicated signal handoffs from one satellite to another, as the satellites pass within view.
This is so because lower altitude systems remain in view of the mobile satellite system user for very brief intervals, perhaps only minutes. By contrast, higher altitude satellites pass much more slowly through the viewer’s field of vision. Consequently, at lower altitudes, a typical call will have to be handed over from one satellite to another more frequently than at higher altitudes. The greater the frequency of handovers, the greater the chance of a phone disconnect. Often, low-altitude satellites will appear close to the observer’s horizon, increasing the likelihood that an obstruction such as a building will interrupt the call. This in turn means that the higher the satellite’s elevation angle (i.e., the angle from the observer to the satellite) at any given time, the less likely that the call will be lost due to surrounding obstructions. Lower altitude satellite systems add to the cost and complexity of the ground infrastructure. Communications Links, Frequencies, and Bandwidths. The communications link between satellite and ground station can be represented by a power balance equation expressed logarithmically in decibels (dB). This relationship takes into account the predictable factors in the communications loop. It indicates that the power received at the receiver is equal to a summation of all of the gains and losses in the link. Thus, power received equals the transmitted power, minus the waveguide losses, plus the gain of the transmitting antenna, minus the propagative path losses, plus the gain of the receiving antenna, minus the receiver waveguide losses. The free-space path loss is substantial and is fixed for a given frequency and distance. At GEO altitude, it amounts to 200 dB at the 12-GHz transmission range of a direct broadcast satellite and 196 dB at the 4-GHz band of a video distribution satellite (30). The measure of the difference between the power actually received and the threshold power required for reception is called the link margin. System designers try to provide sufficient link margin to ensure successful communications.
Frequencies allocated for use or potential use by satellites extend through a number of bands, or range of frequencies (31). Within those bands, separate portions are allotted for communications uplinks to and downlinks from the satellites to keep the two separated from one another. The satellite’s transponder translates signals from the uplink frequencies into downlink frequencies. The bands are identified by letter designations, a practice derived from the World War II lettering scheme for military electronic equipment. Thus, satellite frequencies extend from longer wavelengths at L band up to very short wavelengths at Q band (32). Satellite communications service for mobile users, such as those aboard ships, barges, and oil rigs, are in the L band (1-2 GHz), where they have replaced unreliable short-wave radio. Other mobile services, including personal mobile communications, are in the S band (2-4 GHz) as well as the L band. Fixed satellite service (telephony, data, and facsimile communications through Earth stations at fixed locations) is in the C (4-8 GHz), Ku (12.5-18 GHz), K (18-26.5 GHz), and Ka (26.5-40 GHz) bands. Broadcast satellite service (direct-to-user TV) is in the Ku and K bands. Military communications satellites use the X band (8-12.5 GHz) for fixed satellite service and Ka and ultra-high-frequency (300 MHz to 3 GHz) bands. Other bands in the high millimeter range, V (40-50 GHz) and Q (above 50 GHz) have promising applications for transmitting large quantities of information to small antennas.
Frequencies in the Ku, L, and C bands are regarded as prime real estate for communications satellites. C-band frequencies are most commonly employed by commercial communications satellites. Among available frequencies, the C band is least affected by man-made noise and atmospheric attenuation. But where broadband and high capacity are needed, the higher frequencies located in the Ku and Ka bands become more desirable. Portions of the Ku band, in particular, are widely used for business communications through small Earth terminals and for high-power TV broadcasting. The shorter frequencies (longer wavelengths) below the L band are subject to ionospheric disturbances that cause fading and other random signal disruption. This explains why L-band mobile satellite communication service quickly supplanted short-wave communications for ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore applications in the 1970s.
Bandwidth, the capacity of a satellite communications link, is the spread of usable (i.e., as allocated by regulation) frequencies available for transmitting intelligible information. Available bandwidth is divided among the transponders contained in the satellite’s communications payload. Transponders (or repeaters) are electronic devices that receive radio signals, amplify them to increase their strength, and transmit them on command at different specific frequencies (33). At the heart of the transponder are either traveling-wave tube amplifiers (TWTAs) for high-power, higher frequency applications or solid-state power amplifiers (SSPAs) for lower frequency, usually lower power applications. Communications satellites that orbited in the late 1990s typically carried 48 transponders. The newest satellites entering service at the turn of the century offer as many as 94 transponders, plus backups. By the late nineties, the satellite fleets of major international satellite service providers such as INTELSAT and PanAmSat each provided service via about 800 orbital transponders.
How bandwidth is divided among transponders reflects a balance of factors, including the satellite’s power resources, the number of TWTAs that can be carried, and the desired power per channel, or power per transponder. The following is an illustration. A satellite that can generate 8000 W of dc power might supply 7000 W to its communications payload, mainly for the TWTAs. If the TWTAs’ portion of that figure—say, 6800 W—is converted to radio-frequency (RF) power at 60% conversion efficiency, there will be 4080 W of RF power available from the TWTAs. If satellite designers want 100 W of power per channel, there is sufficient power for 40 channels. For 200 W per channel, 20 channels can be created. If the choice is 20 channels—10 channels for each of two polarizations—the total available bandwidth will be divided by 10. If the bandwidth (capacity) available within the allotted ”usable frequency” range is 250 MHz, there will be 25 MHz available per channel. Some of that bandwidth, perhaps 10%, has to be reserved for guardbands that separate the channels.
Consequently, the usable bandwidth will be 0.9 times 25, or 22.5 MHz per channel.
Onboard Antennas and Spot Beams. The area on Earth illuminated by communications satellites, or coverage area, is commonly referred to as the satellite’s footprint. To improve efficiency, satellite designers usually configure antenna patterns to illuminate specific high-revenue-producing areas on the ground, or a particular country or group of countries for a domestic or regional satellite system. Traditionally, shaping beams to match the contours of specific areas on Earth requires directing energy from the transponders at a sculpted parabolic reflector by an array of feedhorns (Fig. 4) controlled by a beam-forming network. The reflector then collimates the energy on Earth. This is a complicated, costly process, made even more so as customer requirements have grown. As an alternative, designers can use mathematical techniques to contour the otherwise smooth parabolic reflector, so that it can produce the desired pattern when fed by only a single horn. The reflector surface is mechanically shaped and creates a rippling or dimpled appearance. The dimples are precisely positioned by extensive computation to produce the desired pattern, thereby supplanting complex multiple feed arrays for directing radiated energy in the desired pattern. Elimination of the feed arrays reduces weight and expense.
Figure 4. Feedhorn array that helps generate spot beams for INTELSAT VI satellite is checked out in simulation laboratory.
There is increasing use of reconfigurable spot beams, narrowly shaped beams that illuminate specific areas, thereby increasing the power concentrated in those areas. By using onboard digital processing, modern satellites can generate many, even hundreds, of reconfigurable beams simultaneously. This has created the opportunity for satellite operators to obtain greater bandwidth by reusing the limited amounts of assigned spectrum. Using the same frequencies a number of times does not create interference if these frequencies are confined within spot beams directed at geographically separated regions (34). Special Challenges: Attenuation and Echo Cancellation. Attenuation of electromagnetic energy becomes increasingly severe at higher frequencies above 12 GHz, as signals are absorbed by the atmosphere. Some spectral points experience more severe effects than others (35). At 22 GHz, energy is almost totally absorbed by water vapor, and at 60 GHz by oxygen, rendering these and some other higher frequencies useless for communications between satellites and Earth. Attenuation of microwave signals by rain droplets in the atmosphere can become a severe problem at higher frequencies because of the relatively large size of the droplets compared to the diminishing size of wavelengths at these frequencies (36). The droplets absorb and scatter the microwave energy. Rain attenuation in the Ku band can account for about 2 dB in signal loss and three to four times that amount in the Ka band. The presence of rain attenuation is not accounted for in the power balance equation because of the random nature and unpredictable magnitude of rain cells. Systems have to be designed with sufficient link margin to accommodate rain attenuation. This could mean increasing transmitter power and/or the gain of the transmitting antenna. The amount of attenuation will vary with geographic area and seasonal rain activity. A system designed for 99.5% availability—where attenuation is less than 2dB in 99.5% of the time—could experience about 4 hours of outage in the months of heaviest rainfall. Under these conditions, a viewer’s TV picture could freeze, and the sound would stop. A large telecommunications installation typically would need a 6- to 8-dB link margin to be certain that it could offset the effects of random rainstorms. Or the attenuation could be averted by using spatial diversity, transmitting from the satellite to two widely separated Earth stations (37).
Despite rain attenuation in space-to-Earth or Earth-to-space links, Ka-band frequencies are successfully used in space-to-space communications as intersat-ellite links. As cross-links for communicating between satellites, they are free from rain attenuation. Such links are used by some military satellites and new commercial personal mobile communications satellite systems. Intersatellite cross-links are transponder links that transmit and receive information between satellites, thereby establishing connectivity among satellites in a system. In military communications applications, cross-links permit authorities to pass information securely from one GEO satellite to another in achieving global or near-global connectivity without fear that potential enemies will eavesdrop on or jam these links. In the commercial satellite-based personal mobile communications systems coming on-line, cross-links are a key to providing global coverage. For example, each satellite in the system’s six orbital rings is equipped with four Ka-band (23.18-23.38 GHz) antennae, two fixed and two gimbaled. A satellite can communicate directly with the satellite before and after it in the same orbit through the fixed antennae. The gimbaled antennae on a satellite allow communicating with the two neighboring satellites on either side in adjacent orbital planes. A user’s call can be relayed via the cross-link from satellite to satellite until it reaches a satellite within reach of its destination. At that point, calls are downlinked directly to the desired parties, if they are system subscribers, or to local gateways and through the public switched telephone network to the intended individuals. Ka-band frequencies are expected to have widespread applications in broadband, high-power commercial satellite systems in the future.
Digital echo cancellers have been developed and installed in digital phone exchanges and satellite networks to eliminate the once-troubling problem of voice echoes on satellite-relayed telephone calls (38). The echoes were produced by the reflection of a party’s speech created by a hybrid in the telephone network. The hybrid’s function is to route energy between the two-wire phone pair connecting a caller in an office or at home to the four-wire trunk line on longdistance calls. Additional hybrids that may be present between the two parties in the network add to the problem. The difficulty is further compounded in a GEO satellite connection by the nearly 36,000-km separation between the speakers and the satellite. The round-trip propagative time for electromagnetic energy across the lengthy distance creates a 260-ms signal delay. In a satellite hookup, telephone parties could be disturbed by echoes of their own voices delayed by 260 ms in the midst of phone conversations. Digital echo cancellers in the form of software or firmware solve the echo problem by sampling a digitized version of speech and mathematically removing the echo. The echo is suppressed by a factor of 10,000 (39). Though the echo is essentially gone, the delay caused by the signal transit time to and from a GEO satellite is not. Some people are annoyed by the delay, but various studies indicate that 90% of telephone subscribers have no serious objection to it.
Ground Antennas (40). As satellites have grown in size and power, the size of Earth stations for accessing a satellite’s communications capacity has dramatically declined, giving users greater flexibility, easier access, and lower costs. The antennae of large communications facilities today are about 3-9 meters (9.8-29 ft) in diameter for operation in the C and/or Ku band. At Earth stations, terrestrial signals typically are multiplexed, encoded, and modulated in the baseband section of the ground terminal. The signals are upconverted and amplified before transmission through the antenna to a satellite. Weak signals downlinked from the satellite are amplified through a low-noise amplifier, down-converted, and passed to baseband equipment for demodulation, processing, and interfacing with the terrestrial networks.
Customer premises antennae for offices or homes measure about a meter (3 ft) or less in diameter. Individual subscribers can receive TV programming broadcast to their homes by satellites operating in the Ku band through antennae as small as one-half meter (18 in) in diameter for some systems (e.g., Hughes’ DIRECTV—see discussion in the article on Commercial Applications of Communications Satellite Technology). Subscribers to satellite-based personal mobile communications systems (e.g., Globalstar, Thuraya, and ICO) can speak to other parties via L-band satellites through handheld, cellular-like phones that have small omnidirectional antennae. The appearance of small, compact ground terminals, called very small aperture terminals (VSATs), has led to the widespread use of satellite networks by businesses, schools, governments, and telecommunications organizations throughout the world. Typical VSATs vary in size, depending on application, but generally range from 0.85 m (2.8 ft) to 1.2 m (3.9 ft) in width or diameter for Ku-band systems.
Arranged in what is called “star,” or “hub-and-spoke,” network architecture, VSATs provide multipoint communications between a hub station at an entity’s headquarters or data center and a multiple number of remote sites. A computer at the hub handles switching for voice or video. The hub station broadcasts data via satellite to the VSATs at various remote sites. The terminals of individual remote sites are smaller and less powerful than the higher power, more expensive one at the hub. The remote sites can complete a return link to the hub through the satellite, thereby bypassing any terrestrial link, but their signals are too weak to be received by, or to interfere with, other sites in the network. (More expensive, “mesh” networks enable all sites to communicate directly with each other.) The “star” concept enables users to balance the higher cost of the hub against that of multiple lower cost VSATs. Manufacturers have reduced the size and weight of VSATs and increased their capability by adding more processing power. Size reductions help in two respects: the smaller the size, the lower the cost of installation on a customer’s premises, and the smaller the area occupied by the VSAT.
For all satellite applications, satellite systems are controlled and monitored from the ground by skilled technical personnel through one or more tracking, telemetry, and command (TT&C) stations. INTELSAT, for example, operates six such sites internationally to ensure reliable, line-of-sight contact with its entire orbital fleet (41). The exact positions of the satellite are determined from data secured by on-site tracking antennae. Personnel, consoles, and data processing equipment are housed in a satellite control center, which may or may not be collocated with a TT&C station. The satellite control center is manned and operated 24 hours a day throughout the year.
Spacecraft Design. Communications satellites have two fundamentally different designs. One is the spin-stabilized satellite, or spinner; the other is the three-axis, or body-stabilized satellite (42). The spin-stabilized satellite has a cylindrically shaped body that is spun about its axis, typically at a rate of 60 rpm to achieve stability inertially, much like a toy top becomes gyroscopically stable by spinning. The attitude and orientation of the satellite can be altered by a number of onboard thrusters. Almost the entire satellite spins, with the notable exception of its antennae, which are despun and pointed in a fixed direction toward Earth. Subsequent innovations in this concept led to a dual-spin design in which the entire payload, not just the antennae, is despun. To achieve stability, the body-stabilized design relies either on an internal gyro, called a ”momentum wheel,” or a set of reaction wheels. The satellite’s control system compensates for changes in attitude by applying small forces to the spacecraft’s body.
The spinner design is the simpler of the two, and that simplicity translates into relatively low cost and long life without much ground intervention. The spinner employs a novel control system to maintain satellite attitude, or orientation, in space. A single axial thruster pulsed in synchrony with signals from an onboard Sun sensor controls the attitude of the satellite’s spin axis. When that thruster is operated in a continuous mode, it provides velocity control around the spin axis. Pulsed radial jets control velocity in a particular direction. The control concept is covered by what has become a seminal patent, referred to by the name of its inventor, Donald Williams, and validated in extensive legal proceedings. Prime power for the satellite comes from solar cells that cover the circumference of the spinning cylinder. More and more power has been squeezed from this design by enlarging the cylinder and by such steps as adding a second concentric solar-cell-covered cylinder that telescopes out from the first in space. But covering the spinning cylindrical surface with solar cells means that, at any given time, the Sun is illuminating no more than a third of the surface solar cells. The remaining two-thirds are not converting solar energy into electrical energy. This relatively inefficient use of energy resources becomes less acceptable when higher satellite power levels are necessary. As the power required exceeds 1 or 2kW, the body-stabilized configuration becomes the preferred choice.
Because the three-axis stabilized spacecraft does not rely on a spinning body for stabilization, the satellite can assume any convenient shape, usually a box, for the convenience of its communications function. One surface of the box, on which antennae are mounted, is oriented toward Earth. Solar cells are mounted on flat panels that extend in wings from either end of the body and are oriented toward the Sun. The solar panels can be kept pointing at the Sun by motors aboard the satellite, as it revolves about Earth.
In addition to more efficient use of its solar cell resources and its potential for higher power levels, the body-stabilized satellite provides better pointing accuracy. This permits more accurate pointing of the satellite’s antenna beams. Otherwise, the size of the antennae would have to be enlarged to ensure sufficient gain across the coverage area. When its solar wings and antennae are folded in a stowed position, the body-stabilized configuration lends itself to more efficient use of the volume within the shroud of a launch vehicle. And the box-like shape has more surface space for mounting antennae, permitting designers to employ more complex antennae. The drawbacks of the three-axis design stem from its relative complexity. Its momentum wheels have to be controlled in speed and pivoting. The satellite has to be commanded frequently, requiring an onboard computer. A typical spin-stabilized communication satellite can now be constructed in about 60% of the time required to produce a body-stabilized version. The difference in time is a measure of both the greater capability of the latter and the greater simplicity of the former.
Spacecraft Subsystems. An active satellite consists essentially of two parts—a payload and a bus. (A passive satellite is one that does not generate energy; an example is the Mylar-coated reflective balloons considered promising candidates for communications relay in the early 1960s. The payload contains the satellite’s communications equipment and antennae that create an infrastructure for communicating with users throughout a continent or in regions or countries where service is supplied. The bus has the task of protecting the pay-load during the demanding launch period, placing the payload into its assigned orbit or orbital slot, and maintaining it there. The bus supports and maintains the payload throughout its lifetime (43).
A communications satellite contains seven subsystems (44):
• The communications subsystem (“payload”) contains the satellite’s radio-frequency equipment. A wideband receiver at the front end of the subsystem accepts incoming communications channels that occupy a specified band of frequencies. Then the channels are separated according to frequency by a multiplexer, or bank of filters, and apportioned among the payload’s various transponders. After amplification in the transponders, the channels are re-combined by another multiplexer for retransmission to the ground.
• The power subsystem generates, regulates, and controls power obtained from the solar arrays and onboard batteries primarily for use by the communications payload. This subsystem also maintains operation of the satellite during periodic solar eclipses.
• The attitude control subsystem senses any deviations from proper pointing directions and keeps the spacecraft and the antennae pointing in the correct directions—the solar arrays pointing toward the Sun and the radiators away from the Sun.
* The propulsion subsystem generates thrust to place a GEO satellite into a desired orbital slot and to adjust its position periodically to offset movements in the (1) north-south direction due to solar and lunar gravitational attraction and (2) east-west direction due to the oblateness of Earth’s poles. The last-named function is called station keeping. GEO satellites contain either a solid rocket apogee kick motor (AKM) or a liquid bipropellant (separate fuel and oxidizer) system. The function of the AKM (45) and in part that of the bipropellant system is to insert the satellite into geosynchronous orbit when it reaches the apogee of a geosynchronous transfer orbit. The satellite is placed in an elliptical transfer orbit by a perigee kick motor during the final phase of the launch sequence. Besides performing the apogee kick function, the bipropellant system also helps raise the perigee of the transfer orbit to coincide with its apogee in geosynchronous orbit, a process called orbit raising. It also handles the station keeping duties. On satellites that have an AKM, a monopropellant system performs orbital positioning and station-keeping duties. The tankage, valves, lines, thrusters, and fuel of this subsystem account for a significant portion of the mass of a satellite at launch and even after initial insertion into GEO orbit.
* The thermal control subsystem radiates the heat generated onboard the satellite into space. The thermal environment inside the satellite is kept at room temperature and all excess heat has to be radiated from the satellite. For this purpose, the subsystem uses such devices as thermal blankets and reflective mirrors. If the satellite has an AKM, as spinners do, an insulating wall and thermal barriers protect components from heat generated by the motor firing. New satellite designs are adding more TWTAs that have higher power outputs to their payloads. Despite increases in TWTA efficiency to as much as 70%, the remaining 30% is generated as useless heat that must be removed.
* The TT&C subsystem enables ground personnel to monitor the health and status of the satellite and issue commands to the satellite. It telemeters to the terrestrial TT&C station information regarding satellite temperatures, remaining fuel, TWTA performance, and pointing directions. The command portion accepts signals from the ground for controlling housekeeping functions, recharging batteries during solar eclipses, and dumping the energy buildup from the momentum wheels ofa body-stabilized model. When the satellite comes to the end of its mission life as onboard fuel nears depletion, it can be commanded through the TT&C subsystem to deorbit and turn off its communications subsystem.
• The structures subsystem is the chassis that provides physical support and protection for sensitive equipment during launch when the satellite must survive the effects of severe acoustic and vibrational forces. It employs a truncated cone or trusswork with panels for mounting bus and payload electronics.
Reliability, Lifetime, and Cost. Satellite designers constantly seek to improve reliability so that service delivery by communications satellites is ensured throughout their contracted mission lives. Satellites have to operate in space without physical intervention for as long as 15 years in the case of newer GEO models. And the space environment is unforgiving; such phenomena as ionizing radiation pose hazards for sensitive electronics. Satellites are usually designed with redundancy for all critical components to prevent catastrophic failures. The increased reliability achieved through the years is attributable to numerous factors. Among them are better designs, fewer parts, improved manufacturing processes, and fewer electronic interconnections due to the application of semiconductor chips that have high circuit density. Potential life-limiting spacecraft elements are batteries, lubricants, thrusters, and TWTAs. Mechanical deployments of antennae and solar panels are another source of possible difficulties. Once a matter of great concern, TWTA technology and manufacturing know-how have advanced to the point where the chances of losing a transponder because of a TWTA failure are slim. Like other portions of a satellite, transponders are designed with redundancy to permit continued operation in the event of a failure. Now, transponders need only a single TWTA to back up three or four active TWTAs, not the one for two ratios of two decades ago. The TWTA suffers from only a single wear-out mechanism—its cathode. But the design of this element is well proven by millions of hours of actual operating experience. The infrequent failures that occur result from processing errors, not design inadequacies. This compels the tube manufacturer to maintain constant vigilance over production processes.
Commercial GEO satellites are actually designed for a lifetime as long as 18-20 years, but this life span, or design life, is limited by practical matters, such as the inability to replace degraded components and battery cells in an orbiting satellite. The satellite’s design life is also limited by the onboard fuel supply. Therefore, the actual mission, or operational, life, of necessity, is shorter than the design life—no more than 12 to 15 years. Satellites in LEO orbits have shorter operational lifetimes—perhaps 5 to 8 years—limited as they are at very low altitudes by the effects of atmospheric drag and radiation. The contracts of GEO satellite manufacturers with their customers generally contain performance incentives that reward the builder for achieving specific operational lifetimes. Just as Early Bird surprised its owners by unanticipated longevity, many other commercial satellites have as well. For example, Marisat 2, one of INMARSAT’s satellites for mobile communications, had a 5-year mission life when placed in orbit in 1976. Twenty-two years later it was still providing service for the international maritime consortium, albeit from an inclined geosynchronous orbit.
Buying a satellite system involves a large investment by a communications entity. For instance, one major mobile communications satellite system, Thuraya, that was built in the late 1990s has an estimated value of $1 billion. The figure includes the cost of two GEO satellites, the launch of one, ground facilities, training, and user equipment. (See further discussion of Thuraya in the article on Commercial Applications of Communications Satellite Technology.) The customer’s cost of communications satellites, as measured by several key parameters, has been declining as a consequence of enhancements in satellite power, bandwidth, and lifetime. Thus, the satellite’s price per kilowatt of power, price per transponder, and price per transponder year are all declining.
The costs of launching a satellite, the associated launch services, and insuring the launch and in-orbit satellite performance are a significant portion of the total price of acquiring and orbiting a satellite. The cost of insurance varies with the satellite, launch vehicle, recent claim experience, and available underwriting capacity, so that it varies to reflect current circumstances. During a period of 20 years, launch insurance premiums have varied from 6-20% of the insured value; the average is in the 10-13% range. In general, acquisition of the satellite represents slightly less than half the cost of a satellite in orbit; launch services and launch insurance account for the remainder.
New Technologies
Digitalization. The latest communications satellites incorporate greater amounts of digitalization to enhance their capabilities and flexibility (46). Digital signal processors of increasing capacity began to appear in satellite payloads during the 1990s. They can perform such roles as routing signals to any one of scores of individual spot beams and controlling and forming the beams. The beams are generated by a planar phased array antenna that contains multiple elements. In the process, called digital beam-forming, each element of the array captures a portion ofthe signal. The processor computes and controls the relative phase and amplitude of each element and can electrically bend the antenna beams into any desired shape. In this digital beam-forming antenna, the outputs from the array are sampled by an analog-to-digital converter and are stored in a processor that computes the phase changes needed to bend the antenna beam into the desired shape. A nearly unlimited number of these virtual antennae can be created. Each of them, shaped differently and pointed in a different direction, emanates from the one multielement phased array. They can be repointed quickly because the process of generating them is mathematical and there is no movement of mass involved in repointing. The ability of the processor to generate as many as 200 or 300 spot beams, to reuse limited frequencies extensively, and to support thousands of voice channels simultaneously makes possible such new satellite services as personal mobile telephony, broadband data exchange, and multimedia communications. Digital processors give operators the freedom to satisfy changing customer demands by reconfiguring the power level, frequency, and beam shape after a satellite is in orbit (47).
Four separate generations of digital processors evolved in rapid sequence during the initial 10 years after they were introduced into communication satellites. They demonstrate successive improvements in circuit density, decreasing power consumption, and compactness that led to a progression in capability. The first generation, for example, for a military payload, used 13 different types of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs); each circuit had about 15,000 gates. By the third generation, for application in a personal mobile communication satellite (Thuraya), the number of ASIC designs dropped to nine, but their density rose to 1.5 to 3.5 million gates per ASIC—a 100-factor jump over the first-generation level. By the fourth generation, for application in a broadband, multimedia satellite (Hughes’s Spaceway, see discussion under ”Commercial Applications of Communications Satellite Technology”), the ASICs count climbed to the four-to-seven million-gate range. Processor power consumption declined by approximately 50% from generation to generation. Consequently, the power required by the fourth generation was merely 13% of that of the first. The fourth-generation design provides 960 times the processing capability of the first, measured in raw processing power, or number of tera operations per second.
In a satellite application, a digital processor functions as a massively parallel digital computer with analog inputs and outputs. It converts analog radio signals received from individual terminals into numbers, performs the necessary computations entirely in the mathematical domain, and reconverts the resulting data into analog signals for retransmission to the terminals. This is called a “demod/remod” design. A demod/remod digital processor also performs filtering, switching, demodulation, modulation, beam-forming, and other functions without introducing distortion or drift. It can correct errors, reconstruct corrupted signals, and eliminate noise. The demod/remod design relies on known characteristics of the user’s signals. An alternate design, the transponded system, knows nothing about the format of incoming signals and is insensitive to changes in them. Processors of this design perform little or no filtering. Also, they cannot flexibly allocate downlink power to accommodate different sizes of user terminals.
Power. Several technical innovations have contributed to the ongoing trend toward increased satellite power. The introduction of gallium arsenide solar cells marked a turning point in efforts to improve the efficiency with which photovoltaic cells convert solar light into electrical energy. Gallium arsenide cells achieved efficiencies of 21.6%, nearly doubling the 12.3% figure obtained from traditional silicon cells. The increase enabled designers almost to double the dc power output from solar arrays of comparable size and mass. The greater power can be translated into an increase in the capacity ofthe communications payload. Alternatively, when the extra power is not needed, the size and mass of the satellite solar cell arrays can be reduced, thereby decreasing satellite mass and possibly launch vehicle cost.
The initial gallium arsenide cells were dual-junction devices that have two semiconductor junctions—a gallium arsenide layer on a single crystal germanium substrate and a gallium indium phosphide layer atop the gallium arsenide. The improved efficiency stems from the ability of each layer to convert a different part of the light spectrum into electrical power. When the Sun’s rays strike the top layer of the cell, shorter wavelengths are converted to power. The top layer is transparent to the longer wavelengths, which penetrate the gallium indium phosphide layer and strike the gallium arsenide layer, where they too are converted to electrical power. The cells are grown in an epitaxial chamber by a gas reduction process. Continuing work has led to triple-junction gallium arsenide cells. These enhanced the efficiency of earlier gallium arsenide cells by 20%, and brought conversion efficiency up to 26.8%. Four-junction cells are expected to reward satellite manufacturers with still higher solar cell efficiencies in the early years of the new millennium. The solar arrays of the new body-stabilized Hughes HS 702 satellite employ gallium arsenide cells, as did several other satellites in the late 1990s. Gallium arsenide cells are an important contributor to the satellite’s ability to generate as much as 15 kW of end-of-life (EOL) power. Satellite builders generally specify power levels expected at the end of the satellite’s lifetime, as opposed to higher power levels at the beginning of life (BOL). The difference reflects anticipated degradation in the solar cell output due to the deleterious effects of X rays, solar protons and electrons, and other particles encountered in different orbits.
Innovative solar concentrators mounted along the satellite’s solar wings add significantly to the power generated by the HS 702 satellite’s solar cell panels. The angled solar reflector panels add 50% to the power output from the solar cell panels on the wings by concentrating more solar energy on the solar cells. The reflector panels are angled outward along both sides of the wings to form a shallow trough, and the solar panels are at the bottom. Sunlight that otherwise would not strike the flat panels is reflected back from the reflectors onto the solar panels. The HS 702 is configured to enable designers to tailor the power output from the arrays to satisfy specific customer requirements. This is done by choosing any one of six different solar array configurations that have up to five panels per wing.
Power subsystems of today’s communications satellites rely primarily on nickel-hydrogen batteries for powering payloads during eclipses. But batteries are heavy and costly; they weigh of the order of 500 kg. The next battery technology expected to provide capacity for higher power satellites early in the new century was in the development stage in the closing days of the 1990s. Lithium ion batteries hold the promise of halving the mass of nickel-hydrogen satellite cells while offering a less expensive alternative. One possible version built of plastics contains a nonliquid electrolyte within the plastic. High-speed flywheels that extract the energy of a spinning mass are another promising technology but are further removed from application (48).
Propulsion. Beginning in the early 1960s, cesium and mercury electric ion propulsion systems flew aboard U.S. Air Force and NASA satellites. Since then, the performance of new commercial communications satellites has been getting a dramatic lift from a newer spacecraft propulsion system first flown on a noncommercial European Space Agency satellite in 1992. Also a form of electric propulsion (49), the xenon ion propulsion system (XIPS) makes possible reductions of as much as 90% in the mass of a satellite’s fuel (Fig. 5).
Figure 5. Thruster for xenon ion propulsion system (XIPS) protrudes from PanAmSat PAS-5 satellite. The electric propulsion system complements the satellite’s less efficient bipropellant propulsion system to reduce substantially the amount of fuel required by that system .
Normally, at the beginning of orbital life, chemical propellants required by a satellite’s bipropellant propulsion system for attitude control and station keeping throughout the mission account for at least 25% of satellite mass. This could amount to 500 to 700 kg (1102 to 1544 lb) for a conventional communications satellite. The comparable amount of fuel for the more efficient XIPS propulsion system would be only 75 to 105 kg (165 to 232 lb) of inert xenon gas. At a cost of about $30,000 per kilogram to place that mass in orbit, millions of dollars could be cut from launch costs. The mass reduction can also be translated into an increase in satellite payload, or communications capacity. Or, with additional xenon, a longer satellite mission life can be obtained because the quantity of onboard fuel is the principal limiting factor on the satellite’s operational life. Alternatively, the XIPS technology could produce benefits that combine these savings. A XIPS-equipped satellite uses the impulse generated by a thruster assembly and ejects electrically charged particles at high velocities. The entire system consists of a source of pressurized xenon propellant, a power processor, and the cylindrically shaped thruster assembly. Thrust is created by accelerating positive ions generated within the assembly’s ionization chamber through a series of gridded electrodes at one end of the assembly. The electrodes create more than 3000 tiny beams of thrust. The beams are prevented from being electrically attracted back to the thruster by an external electron-emitting device called a neutralizer. XIPS generates a very high specific impulse, expressed in seconds as the ratio of thrust to the rate at which the propellant is consumed. The higher the specific impulse, the less propellant required. The specific impulse of a XIPS system is 2600 to 3800 seconds, depending on the satellite configuration—rough-ly 10 times that of a bipropellant system. (Note that the 1964 NASA SERT I satellite, which used a combination of mercury and cesium ion, had a specific impulse of about 5000 seconds, but this was not proven sustainable or available all the time.)
The thrust level of a modern XIPS system is very small. For an HS 702 satellite, it is 0.165 newton, or 0.037 pound of force. In a satellite such as the HS 702, the XIPS system can also augment the satellite’s bipropellant propulsion system in orbit-raising. Using XIPS to help circularize the elliptical transfer orbit further reduces the amount of chemical propellant needed on the satellite, thereby again shrinking satellite mass. The extra mass reduction gives customers even more latitude in choosing among the benefits of a less expensive launch vehicle, additional payload, or longer mission life. The HS 702 XIPS is designed for a maximum orbit-raising duration of 90 days, compared to 3 days for the higher thrust but less efficient bipropellant system. The trade-off for satellite customers is one of mass reduction benefits versus delayed arrival on station. Systems. The power per kilogram of satellite mass has grown steadily. Early in the 1980s, when the current generation of spinners was introduced, the figure stood at about 1W per kilogram. It climbed to 2 W per kilogram for the HS 702′s predecessor, the three-axis HS 601, in the early 1990s. Later in the decade, the figure reached 4W per kilogram for the HS 702. It is likely to rise for later generation satellites. The availability of higher power from a satellite like the HS 702 enables operators to increase transponder effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP), a measure of performance that takes into account transmitter power, antenna gain, and the losses in the transmitter waveguide. This is the satellite portion of the previously cited power balance equation. A high EIRP permits customers to use smaller Earth antennae such as the 45.7-cm (18-in) and 60-cm (24-in) home antennae for direct-to-home TV in the United States and Europe, respectively. Or operators can apportion available power among a larger number of transponders, effectively doubling the transponder complement and reducing cost per transponder in orbit. Still another option is to choose a combination of both performance benefits.
The newer, higher power satellites are the backbone of high-speed, broadband satellite services (e.g., Teledesic, Spaceway, Astrolink—see later) coming on line early in the new millennium. Because switching functions are handled by digital processors in the satellite rather than on the ground, whole new vistas will be opened for corporate and other VSAT users. The small terminals will be able to broadcast at data rates of multiple megabits per second, compared to the recent 128-kbps rate. And hundreds of megabits per second will be down linked to them.
Digital compression techniques account for a panoply of new satellite-delivered entertainment and business offerings. Digital video compression effectively increases the use of communications satellite capacity by factors of 4-8, and could double that by the early 2000s. Thus, a 16-transponder satellite could transmit 256 TV channels. The doubling could reduce an operator’s operating and capital costs by an order of magnitude. Before the recent application of compression techniques, only one analog broadcast-quality video signal could be transmitted through each transponder on a satellite. Consequently, the number of video programming channels was limited by the transponder count. Now, using digital compression, broadcasters can convert analog video channels into digital data. The digital signals are compressed and transmitted by the satellite to end users. At the end user’s set-top receiver, they are decompressed and converted back into the customary analog form for viewing. Each video channel occupies only a portion of the transponder’s bandwidth, so additional channels can be squeezed into that transponder. The compression process involves representing video signals by a series of numbers, eliminating redundancy in the scenes, retaining only frame-to-frame differences, and reconstructing the video at the receiving end from the sequence of numbers.
A comparable transformation is occurring in the transmission of CD-quality audio by satellite. The entire contents of a compact disk amounting to 620 megabits can be compressed into 32 megabits and replaced by a ”flash” random access memory (RAM) chip. The contents of the flash chip can be downloaded in 1.5 s from a satellite to a consumer by a direct-to-the-home transponder. There, it can be stored in the hard drive of a TV set-top box. A 10-gigabit hard drive has sufficient capacity to store the equivalent of approximately 300 CDs. Now the set-top box with speakers becomes the storage medium and solid-state ”music player” for the home, replacing the stereo and compact disk player. Similarly, digitally compressed audio can now be transmitted by a satellite to a moving automobile through a ”whip” antenna and stored in memory. Drivers can then select the music or audio programming they wish to hear. In another application of the same technology, pictures taken by a digital camera now can be sent around the world in seconds. A typical digital camera can store about 100 pictures on a flash chip. The chip can be removed and inserted into a computer to uplink the contents to a satellite for retransmission.
In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in both LEO and MEO orbits for communications satellites (50). The non-GEO orbits have won adherents among operators of global mobile personal communications systems. Those such as Globalstar, for example, permit subscribers who have handheld cellular phones to speak to others beyond the range of normal cellular transmission towers almost anywhere in the world. Note that the now-defunct Iridium handheld global mobile telephony system did not fail because of its LEO orbit, nor for any technical reason. Missteps in marketing and financing are generally cited. LEO orbits also are being used for two-way data communications and messaging systems (e.g., Orbcomm). All of these systems require that the user maintain line-of-sight contact with the satellite. Unlike terrestrial cellular phones, they have insufficient link margins to permit subscribers to place or receive calls from inside a building or other structure.
The interest in non-GEO orbits was stimulated by explosive growth in worldwide cellular phone usage and an accompanying upsurge in demand for greater telephony infrastructure. Designers of LEO systems rejected GEO orbits on two counts (51). They believed that a GEO satellite system could not provide enough link margin for a satisfactory link between satellites and on-the-go mobile subscribers using small handheld phones that have omni-directional antennae. They also maintained that the high latency, or 260-ms signal delay, from GEO orbit (plus any processing and speech compression delays) would be unacceptable to cellular phone subscribers. Other designers, however, concluded that an attractive compromise was offered by a MEO global mobile communications satellite system: global coverage that uses fewer satellites at high elevation angles; fewer handovers than a LEO system; and, at 100 ms, a shorter round-trip propagative delay than the 260-ms delay from geosynchronous orbit.
GEO mobile communications satellite builders resolved the margin issue by resorting to higher power satellites using very large deployable parabolic antennas of about 12.5 m (40 ft) in diameter (52). The combination of high spacecraft power and high gain of the large antenna ensures acceptable margins for satellite-based personal mobile communications. GEO systems of this type (e.g., Thuraya (53), and ACeS (54)—operated by PT Asia Cellular Satellite) offer mobile service to properly equipped subscribers anywhere in a region within the footprint of a single GEO satellite. But they do not offer global coverage. To do so would require additional satellites and, possibly, more than a single hop.
As for the latency issue, GEO satellite designers are convinced that users can accept as much as a 400-ms delay in voice communications. Consequently, GEO mobile systems are configured to keep the burdensome and unalterable round-trip propagative delay, plus compression and processing delays, within the 400-ms limit. At low orbital altitudes, LEO systems pay only a small penalty for shorter propagative delays, but they still must deal with appreciable processing, handover, and compression times, especially for geographically separated parties on long-distance calls.
Conclusions
Amidst the post-World War II Cold War environment, President John F. Kennedy urged all nations ”to participate in a communications satellite system in the interest of world peace and closer brotherhood among people of the world.” By 1967, three INTELSAT satellites were operating over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, providing ubiquitous global telephone and television communications in hundreds of languages. By the early to mid-1970s, new domestic satellite systems were created in many countries and regions, such as Canada, Europe, the United States, and Indonesia. By April 2000, the date this chapter was written, sophisticated communications satellites became a fundamental element of the world’s telecommunications infrastructure and an indispensable tool of the global marketplace. These satellites have enabled many new space-based applications to be introduced to businesses and consumers around the world. These include direct-to-home television broadcasting, handheld global mobile telephony, and high-speed broadband data exchange.
These sophisticated communications satellites have evolved since the mid- 1960s. In 1965, the Early Bird (INTELSAT I) satellite weighed 76 pounds. The mass of today’s satellites can exceed 12,000 pounds. Strides in satellite technology have also extended the lifetime and transponder capacity by several orders of magnitude. The comparative sophistication of today’s communications sat ellites derives from the application of several advanced technologies. These include digitalization, which is used for numerous functions to enhance their capabilities and flexibility. For example, by using onboard digital signal processing, modern satellites can generate hundreds of reconfigurable spot beams simultaneously. Among other things, this enables satellite operators to generate maximum revenue and to obtain greater bandwidth by reusing the limited amounts of assigned spectrum. Digital echo cancellers have also been developed and installed in digital phone exchanges and satellite networks to eliminate disturbing voice echoes on satellite-relayed telephone calls. Digital compression techniques have already increased satellite use capacity by a factor of 8, and soon a 16-transponder satellite might transmit 256 TV channels. This will greatly reduce an operator’s operating and capital costs. Before the advent of digital compression, only one broadcast-quality analog video signal could be transmitted through each satellite transponder. Digitalization is also revolutionizing the transmission of CD-quality audio by satellite, thus enabling the start-up (to date) of three new satellite digital audio services: Sirius, XM Radio, and World-Space (see discussion under ”Commercial Applications of Communication Satellite Technology”).
Other advanced technologies are making their imprint on a satellite’s power and propulsion. As gallium arsenide solar cells replaced traditional silicon cells, satellite power doubled and enabled satellites to generate as much as 15 kW of power at the end of life. As a replacement for mercury and cesium electric propulsion systems, xenon ion propulsion makes possible reductions of as much as 90% in the mass of a satellite’s fuel requirements. At a cost of about $30,000 per kilogram to place a satellite in orbit, millions of dollars can be saved in launch costs. This reduction can also be applied to an increase in satellite payload, longer satellite lifetime, or any combination.
These and all ongoing technological innovations are intended to provide maximum available bandwidth through frequency reuse; maximum flexibility for operators and users; lower launch and in-orbit operating costs; more space-based communications options for consumers; extended satellite lifetimes and greater reliability; larger satellite footprints, including those created by reconfigurable spot beams; higher power levels resulting from increased use of solar power; and reduced cost per transponder. | http://what-when-how.com/space-science-and-technology/communications-satellites-technology-of/ |
Last week, Xinhua News agency reported that the State-owned China Aerospace Science & Industry Corporation (CASIC) is planning a network of 156 mini-satellites to facilitate global broadband coverage. CASIC is a large state-owned hi-tech enterprise under direct administration of central government. It developed a series of high-tech products in aerospace defense, information technology, equipment manufacture and intelligence industry.
This is the first low orbiting, networked satellite project. The satellites developed by China will orbit 1,000 km above the ground, and it fits into the country’s wider push for commercial space development, according to CASIC.
"The network is a general satellite platform," said Bei Chao, a CASIC engineer. He added that add-ons and upgrades were being explored next.
Satellite communication services with frequencies from 26.5 to 40 hertz will improve Internet access. Small satellites are easy to mass produce and upgrade at low cost, while the low orbit helps in avoiding signal delay.
The first satellite under the project will be launched before 2018. Four more satellites will be launched by 2020 and all 156 are expected to be in operation by the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025).
Earlier in March, CASIC launched an experimental satellite "TK-1" for remote sensing, telecommunications and experiments in minisatellite-based technologies. It is the first satellite independently developed by CASIC.
China’s long-term ambitions and recent landmarks
In the 13th Five Year Plan, ‘utilizing satellite frequencies and orbital resources’ is mentioned as part of the measures for developing an An Advanced and Ubiquitous Wireless Broadband Broadband Network.
Last year, Xu Dazhe, director of the China National Space Administration said that China aims to become a global aerospace power by 2030. China will complete aerospace projects currently underway by around 2020, including manned space programs, lunar probes, the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System and the Gaofen observation satellite program. Around 2025, China will complete construction of a national civilian space infrastructure.
On March 3, plans were announced to launch six to eight BeiDou-3 satellites in 2017, as part of a plan to put 35 BeiDou satellites into space to form an orbiting satellite network and offer worldwide navigation services by 2020. This is intended to be an alternative to GPS. China has already sent 22 BeiDou satellites into space.
During 2017, China also plans to launch 6 communication satellites. Its first high-throughput communications satellite will be launched in April, which will help provide better access to the Internet on planes and high-speed trains.
In other recent landmarks, China launched a carbon dioxide monitoring satellite in December, becoming the third country after Japan and the United States to monitor greenhouse gases through its own satellite.
In January this year, China's quantum communication satellite, a world-first, launched last August, became officially operational after four months of in-orbit testing. The Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) satellite will help explore "hack-proof" quantum communications by transmitting unhackable keys from space, and provide insights into the quantum entanglement. | https://www.opengovasia.com/chinese-state-owned-corporation-plans-network-of-156-mini-satellites-to-facilitate-global-broadband-coverage/ |
Satellites can transmit data directly to ground stations, but to do so requires a direct line-of-sight between the satellite and the receiving ground station, which is only available for a few minutes per day. Dr. Richard Welle, a senior scientist at Aerospace’s Space Science Applications Laboratory, is conducting research on how a network of small satellites, like CubeSats, could use lasers to transmit data to ground stations more efficiently than current systems, which use radio frequency (RF) transmitters.
Optical Communication For Satellite Constellations
In his paper, CubeSat-Based Optical Communication Network for Low Earth Orbit, presented at the 2017 Small Satellite Conference held in Logan, Utah, Welle describes how a constellation of small satellites could receive and transmit data to other satellites within its network, that have immediate access to a ground station. This system could provide extended communication capability between satellites and ground stations, and be a service to any satellite in low Earth orbit (LEO).
According to Welle, technological advances have “allowed satellites to shrink significantly in size, disrupting a legacy industry where traditional satellites cost $500 million to $1 billion to build and launch.” There are increasing opportunities for companies to launch microsatellites for data collection. Small satellites, used as a network to relay data, could also help companies reduce the need for additional or extended ground stations. “An available LEO network could minimize, or even eliminate, the need for new satellite companies to develop their own ground network,” he writes.
The NASA OCSD Program
As part of NASA’s Optical Communication and Sensor Demonstration (OCSD) program, Aerospace has built a CubeSat to demonstrate this technology–called the AeroCube-7. Aerospace’s design is a 1.5-unit CubeSat that is 10x10x15 cm and weighs about 2.3 kg. Each CubeSat carries a laser hard-mounted to its body. The laser is guided by the satellite’s attitude control system (which stabilizes the satellite and points the laser), rather than the larger and more complicated two-axis gimbal control that larger spacecraft use for laser pointing. These pointing capabilities are critical, Welles says, “because it allows the laser beams to be very narrow, which is required to support very high communication rates.”
From the experience with AeroCube-7, and an expectation of increased downlink requirements, there’s “a preference for including laser communication, where appropriate, on future CubeSat missions being developed by Aerospace,” according to Welle.
OCSD consists of two flight units and an engineering model. The engineering model was flown in 2015 to provide risk reduction for the flight units. The flight units were completed in 2016 and successfully launched from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in VA in November 2017, aboard Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft. | https://aerospace.org/story/advancing-laser-communications-technology |
Satellite telemetry, tracking and control subsystems col john e keesee october 29, 2003 massachusetts institute of technology 1 overview • the telemetry, tracking and control subsystem provides vital communication to and from the spacecraft command system • reconfigures satellite or subsystems in response to radio signals from the ground. Communication and surveillance equipment the british army has the most powerful information and communication systems available commanders must be able to talk to their units - at all times - whether it is by voice or data, satellite link or landline. The cheetah flyaway vsat system is now available in commercial ka-band for applications over inmarsat global xpress (gx) satellite constellation it is a fully auto-acquire system that provides high-speed data communications for internet, vpn connectivity, video transmission, and emergency response. General overview of the techniques that are employed, the existing communication satellites, the most well-known civil systems, the military systems, and the future developments in techniques, technologies and applications.
Satellite communication systems overview satellite communication enables two stations on the earth to communicate through radio broadcast which are located far away from each other the two stations use satellite as a relay station for their communication. Satellite and communications this module describes the overall architecture of a satellite communications system, discusses the concept of orbit and what are the typical sub-systems of a satellite introduction 0:37. Satellite communication systems provide vital and economical fixed and mobile communication services over very large coverage areas of land, sea and air in this course, you will learn the fundamentals and the techniques for the design and analysis of satellite communication systems. In the 50 years that followed the first satellite launches of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the diversity of satellite services has expanded enormously today, there are direct broadcast radio and television services to the home and even to mobile receivers there are mobile satellite services to.
Overview satellite communication systems operator-maintainers are responsible for making sure that the lines of communication are always up and running. The company’s multi-network satellite, fiber and cellular infrastructure is the backbone of mission-critical rf and ip communications for government, maritime, media, enterprise and oil & gas markets in over 100 countries. Overview of leo satellite systems christopher redding communication • less exposure to van allen belt radiation • inter-satellite links versus bent-pipe • jitter iridium system overview 1999 international symposium on advanced radio technologies 26 iridium call scenario. Milstar provides the president, secretary of defense and the us armed forces with assured, survivable satellite communications (satcom) with low probability of interception and detection designed to overcome enemy jamming and nuclear effects, milstar is the most robust and reliable satcom system. The distributed tactical communications system 1 overview the distributed tactical communication system (dtcs) provides beyond line-of-sight (blos), over-the-horizon (oth), and on- division under the commercial satellite communications (comsatcom) center in the defense information systems agency’s.
Satellite industry overview services & applications voice/video/data communications vsat satellite system 8 typical dbs system 9 dbs subscribers at the end of 2003, there were nearly 22 million us satellite television subscribers —over 20% of us television households. Products overview mercury systems' rf microwave component product family consists of high performance receiver components, noise components, voltage controlled oscillator components, linearized and non-linearized power amplifier components, mixer and ferrite components. Overview of satellite communication systems the era of satellite communications began with the launch of the sputniks in the late 50s by the erstwhile ussr this was followed by the launch of satellites such as the next feature of satellite communications is the frequency band in which the satellite operates satellites use the band of. Viasat designs and manufactures antenna systems that lead several satellite communication markets worldwide installations include over 100 gateway systems for the most advanced satellite communication networks in the world.
The wideband global satcom system (wgs) is a high capacity satellite communications system planned for use in partnership by the united states department of defense (dod) and the australian department of defence. Satellite technology is developing fast, and the applications for satellite technology are increasing all the time not only can satellites be used for radio communications, but they are also used for astronomy, weather forecasting, broadcasting, mapping and many more applications. Army transmission systems overview col enrique l costas project manager 24 jan 2018 2 pm dcats structure plans, operations, readiness division mr craig powderly wideband military satellite communications and payload control capabilities for the dod and the joint warfighting community mission manages, engineers, acquires.
His research and teaching interests are in communications and information systems, requirements engineering, systems engineering, project management, and technology management he is the editor-in-chief of an international journal, and is a co-chair of the requirements working group incose. Military satellite communications 2 mission: plan for, acquire and sustain military satellite systems are essential to provide assured comm for the deployed warfighter, with augmentation from commercial systems to meet surge requirements 5 mcsw wing mission area overview space segment af satcom terminals mission/comm planning satellite. Practices for satellite system approaches for broadband delivery satellites as a component of imt- advanced and the use of satellites for disaster relief work are then explained.
Satellite communications basics tutorial - an overview, tutorial and information about the basics of satellite communications and the various types of satellite communication systems that are in use today. The on-board processing system of each satellite provides satellite control (telemetry, temperature and power control, and fault management) and supports communications routing of iridium transfer mode (itm) packets through the network. Marine satellite communications services cover the entire gamut of communications, but there are key areas that customers need depending on their situation common services include voice calling, data services for satellite email and internet access, and weather and oceanographic data access for navigation and fishing.
2018. | http://vpassignmentqypo.alisher.info/satellite-communication-systems-overview.html |
The International Telecommunication Union on Nov. 20 said the world’s spectrum regulators had reached consensus on milestones for constellations of satellites outside of the geosynchronous arc to preserve their spectrum rights.
4.1 billion people online • Iridium completes $1.45 billion refinancing • SES exec to chair Space Data Association
An estimated 53.6% of the world’s population now has access to the internet, according to a new report from the International Telecommunication Union.
Megaconstellation milestones high on U.S. WRC-19 priority list
Finding international consensus on deployment milestones for constellations of non-geosynchronous satellites is a top space-related priority for the U.S. delegation attending the 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference, officials said Nov. 1.
WRC-19 begins • Hiber buys green thrusters • Ariane 6 facility inaugurated in Germany
The 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference began this week in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. The satellite industry and the cellular industry are both hoping to gain new spectrum
SpaceX submits paperwork for 30,000 more Starlink satellites
The FCC, on SpaceX’s behalf, submitted 20 filings to the ITU for 1,500 satellites apiece in various low Earth orbits, an ITU official confirmed Oct. 15 to SpaceNews.
Satellite industry prepares for WRC-19 on multiple fronts
This fall when the International Telecommunication Union’s next WRC begins, the satellite industry will have its attention divided on multiple fronts ranging from new rules for smallsats to losing satellite airwaves to 5G cellular networks, creating a fear that efforts could be spread too thin to give each topic the attention it needs.
Op-ed | Satellite communications are an essential link for a connected world
There is no slowdown in the pace of satellite innovations: reading the press, it seems that every week brings another new example of how satellite industry could have profound impact on improving people’s lives.
ITU wants megaconstellations to meet tougher launch milestones
Regulators worry that the ITU’s current bring-into-use rules make it too easy for companies to warehouse spectrum, potentially tying up valuable non-geostationary satellite orbit (NGSO) frequencies for years without introducing new satellite services.
Op-Ed | Intelsat’s myopia on C-band
The recent proposal made by Intelsat and Intel in response to the FCC request for proposals on how the satellite industry and the mobile networks can coexist took many of us by surprise.
ITU: mobile networks want some C- and Ka-band spectrum for 5G
The mobile network operators that strove with limited success to obtain large chunks of C-band spectrum two years ago in Geneva will try again in 2019 to secure more spectrune future 5G networks.
FCC Chairman issues sharp warning to satellite industry
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s bare-knuckled attack on satellite operators’ refusal to share Ka-band spectrum with future 5G terrestrial mobile providers ripped through the Satellite 2016 conference here like a cold mountain wind.
Officials fear precedent set as Egypt wins ITU satellite approval pleading ‘force majeure’
Global satellite regulators, in a decision some fear could undermine coordinated management of satellite orbital slots, have granted Egypt three additional years to launch a civil/military telecommunications satellite whose launch deadline was next May.
Laos, with China’s Aid, Enters Crowded Satellite Telecom Field
The Nov. 21 launch of LaoSat-1 highlights three trends changing the global satellite telecommunications market, including regulators' willingness to relax the rules for poor nations.
U.S., Germany Face Uphill Fight for UAV Spectrum
The United States and Germany, backed by several large commercial satellite fleet operators, are fighting an uphill battle to persuade global governments to allocate Ku- or Ka-band satellite spectrum for the command and control of unmanned aerial vehicles on transoceanic or trans-continental routes.
ITU Aircraft Satellite-tracking Agreement Bolsters Aireon Business Case
Global governments’ approval of radio spectrum permitting aircraft to provide additional tracking data to satellites reduces the chance of another lost jet like Malaysian Airlines MH370 and immediately improves the business case for Iridium Satellites and its Aireon LLC aircraft-tracking affiliate.
Low Earth Orbit Constellations Could Pose Interference Risk to GEO Satellites
A proposed wave of low Earth orbit communications satellite constellations could become an interference hazard for satellites in geostationary orbit even if those new systems comply with existing rules, some satellite operators fear. | https://spacenews.com/tag/itu/ |
The satellite industry is one of the giants of the modern world, with applications ranging from cutting-edge orbital telescopes for space exploration to telecommunications and GPS signaling, used on a daily basis by the average person. One integral part of satellites is the radio system, which is responsible for generating, transmitting, receiving, and processing electromagnetic signals. Modern satellites cannot rely on simple analog-based radio systems anymore, as they introduce significant limitations in terms of flexibility, upgradability, and information processing. Therefore, software-defined radios (SDRs) are one of the fundamental building blocks in any satellite. They are responsible for not only basic radio communications, but also more complex tasks, such as wideband spectrum monitoring for space situation awareness (SSA) and space domain awareness (SDA) applications, jamming and interference detection/avoidance, common clock sources, and ground station control/communication. This article will discuss the role of SDRs in the satellite industry, covering from the basic structure of SDRs to the applications mentioned above. This is the 12th article in a series of SDR use cases. Click here to see more articles in this series.
Before delving into the SDR technology and its applications, let’s take a step back and focus on the current state of the satellite industry, and what demands the global satellite system must fulfill in modern applications. This includes the satellite orbits and their applications, the exponential increase in the number of satellites over the years, and the role of international collaboration in these matters. Furthermore, this article will briefly discuss how our entire modern economy is dependent on the satellite system due to GNSS/GPS.
Evolution of the Satellite Industry
A satellite system consists of the satellite itself and one (or more) ground stations. The satellite can be defined as a self-contained communication device orbiting Earth, able to receive and transmit radio signals to and from ground stations by using a transponder RF module. These signals can then be used in telecommunications, telemetry, and geolocation. The satellite receives communication and command signals from the ground station. Historically, satellites are designed to operate in three different orbits:
GEO satellites are a remarkable breakthrough in technology, as they allow the stationary positioning of the satellite relative to a point in the surface of the Earth. These satellites were first proposed by Arthur C. Clarke in 1945, and are applied today in communications, meteorology, and navigation. Twelve years later, in 1957, the first satellite was launched by the Soviet Union: the famous Sputnik 1. However, the first voice signal transmission via satellite is credited to the US, with the SCORE (Signal Communication by Orbiting Relay Equipment) project. Commercial satellite communication was then developed through the pioneer works of John Pierce (Bell Laboratories) and Harold Hosen (Hughes Aircraft).
Modern Satellite Communication
The most basic communication link in modern satellite applications is the connection between the satellite and the tracking telemetry and control (TT&C) in the ground station. This communication link provides position tracking of the satellite and control over its functionality, such as the propulsion system and thermal manager. Moreover, the TT&C is used to monitor several variables of the satellite, including temperature, electrical signals, and radiation incidence. The hardware requirements for the communication link also change with the type of orbit: LEO and MEO satellites need tracking antennas to ensure a consistent connection between devices, which is not a requirement in GEO satellites. Moreover, while GEO systems can provide global coverage using only three satellites, LEO and MEO systems require more than 20 and 10 devices, respectively. This is the reason why GEO satellites are the preference in GPS, as they provide huge coverage and consistent positioning/navigation. However, LEO and MEO satellites are more adequate for mobile communications, as the signal delay of GEO satellites is unacceptable in telephony applications. Therefore, orbit selection is highly dependent on the application.
In general, satellites are applied in three sectors: telecommunications, including mobile phones and wireless networks; broadcasting of radio and television signals; and data transference. Satellites are also the ideal option for applications with limited ground resources, such as isolated areas with small and dispersed communities. Future developments in space technology can further improve the performance of satellites in terms of on-board computing capabilities, bandwidth power, and lifespan. Furthermore, the advent of nanosatellites is bringing a new perspective into satellite communications, with mega-constellations of devices operating in a coherent network for a variety of applications.
Modern Ground Stations
In terms of ground station technology, the hardware required depends mainly on the frequency range of the satellite transmission. The operation frequencies, also called bands, are divided into seven different categories, defined by letters. The L, S, and C-bands are lower frequency bands typically transmitted with low power, requiring larger antennas for reception. The ground station typically consists of a large antenna, a feed horn, a waveguide, the main receiver, and often a radome for protection. Higher frequency bands, including the X, Ku, Ka, and V-bands, are known for transmitting more power to the ground stations, thus the antenna dishes can be made very small. Ku and Ka-bands are typically used by Internet service providers (ISPs). Parabolic antennas are a popular choice in high-frequency ground stations, as they provide high directional capabilities with a small volume (see Figure 1). They use the dish geometry to amplify the incoming signal passively, reducing the overall noise. As shown in Figure 1 below, the actual antenna is the feed horn at the focal point of the parabolic dish, where the electromagnetic energy is concentrated for amplification.
Figure 1: Uplink and downlink with parabolic dish antennas are shown.
Modern Challenges
Modern applications are pushing the boundaries of satellite technology. High-frequency applications beyond the V-band are already being employed in space: in 2021, the ARTES Advanced Technology program launched the first W-band satellite, operating with a 75 GHz transmitter onboard an LEO satellite. Using such high frequencies, powerful radio receivers with high-end modulation/demodulation systems are required to extract the information from the signal with minimum noise. Moreover, rain fading is much higher in these cases, which increases the noise figure at the receptor. Another bottleneck in modern satellite technology is the monitoring of thousands of devices in nanosatellite constellations, which is significantly burdensome for the ground station. Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radio equipment is fundamental to accomplish simultaneous connection to the whole constellation network. Moreover, the monitoring of space debris and satellites is becoming increasingly necessary as the number of debris increases in the earth’s orbit, especially in the context of satellite constellations. Finally, there is a crucial need for tight timing synchronicity between satellites and the ground stations, particularly in multiple satellite networks for navigation, maritime, and positioning systems. This issue is a major challenge in modern satellite technology, so let’s dive a bit further into this matter.
Because satellites are way above the ground, they provide a pathway for radio signals with virtually no obstacle, which results in a much more reliable and deterministic transmission of information. To achieve time precision, each satellite must be equipped with precision onboard atomic clocks, with multiple ground stations being responsible for monitoring and synchronizing the time sources of the network. Precise modeling of the transmission delay is fundamental in a variety of applications, including navigation, positioning, and telecom synchronization. For instance, time-related data is extremely important in TT&C systems, where both position, velocity, and time information about the target need to be resolved. Also, the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) would certainly not be feasible without reliable time-tracking of signals to obtain the propagation delay, which is essential to resolve the distances with enough accuracy for target positioning. The performance of GNSSs can be significantly improved by using satellite-based augmentation systems (SBAS). In an SBAS, the GNSS transmissions are constantly being monitored by reference ground stations, that are precisely located across a large area. These stations are used to correct the time error and improve the accuracy, availability, integrity, and continuity of the GNSS service. The SBAS then broadcasts the calculated error and corrections using GEO satellites, with the augmented signals overlaying the basic GNSS message.
Breakdown of SDRs for the Satellite Industry
SDRs are composed of three basic stages: the radio frontend (RFE), the digital backend, and the mixed-signals interface. The RFE contains the receive (Rx) and transmit (Tx) functions of the SDR, managing signals over a wide tuning range. The highest-bandwidth SDR in the market right now, the Cyan SDR (Per Vices, Figure 2 below), uses an RFE with a tuning range between 0-18 GHz (upgradable to 40 GHz), as well as an instantaneous bandwidth of 3 GHz over 16 independent Tx/Rx channels. The digital backend contains an FPGA with onboard DSP capabilities. The backend is responsible for modulation, demodulation, up/down-converting, signal processing, and data transferring. The SDR is based on FPGA technology, which means the backend can be easily reprogrammed to accommodate different radio protocols, DSP algorithms, and even artificial intelligence, without any hardware replacement. This increases the flexibility, adaptability, and upgradability of the system. The mixed signals interface connects the RFE to the digital backend, and it is performed by powerful DACs and ADCs. Furthermore, precise timing can be obtained through dedicated clock sources, based on internal time boards. High-end SDRs use oven-controlled crystal oscillators (OCXO) to obtain extremely stable and accurate clock frequencies for the FPGA, the ADCs/DACs, and channel synchronization.
Figure 2: Per Vices Cyan is a high bandwidth SDR.
The first radio systems were completely based on analog components. With the advent of digital electronics, the fast evolution of digital signal processing, and the invention of the FPGA, software-defined radios (SDRs) started to dominate over their analog counterparts. Traditional analog radios are bulky and defined by hardware, so they require a lot of dedicated electronics tuned to a particular application. This means that any small upgrade or modification will require hardware replacement, which is onerous and expensive. SDRs, on the other hand, are defined by software, so modifications can be easily implemented by reprogramming the digital backend, without any hardware replacement. Moreover, the modular nature of SDRs allows device customization based on the size, weight, and power (SWaP) requirements, which is critical in the satellite industry – in particular nanosatellite applications. Finally, SDRs can integrate advanced signal processing algorithms and even artificial intelligence within onboard devices, which is not possible on purely analog radio systems.
Both satellites and ground stations are completely dependent on radio systems, so the SDR is a crucial component in the satellite industry. However, the selected SDR must withstand the orbital conditions while still providing sufficient performance to satisfy the satellite’s requirements. For instance, onboard SDRs must be designed to resist the extreme temperatures and radiation levels of space. Furthermore, SDRs are needed during the deployment of nanosatellite constellations after launching, to properly distribute the satellites into position by tracking the constellation configuration using RF communication and feeding control information to the onboard maneuvering system. Ground stations also employ SDR systems in the TT&C, receiving data, issuing commands, and uploading software to the satellite. In multi-satellite networks, like nanosatellite constellations, high data rates and high throughput are crucial in ground stations, to avoid losing data and ensure that all satellites are accounted for. SDRs can support high data throughput by using 40GBASE and 100GBASE optical links. Furthermore, very fast data processing can be obtained through parallel computing using FPGAs, which gives high performance at low power consumption. Finally, SDRs provide high sensitivity, which improves the detection of weak signals.
SDRS for Modern Satellite System Applications
SDRs can operate normally with all the satellite bands mentioned in the previous sections (L, S, C, X, Ku, Ka, and V), thus there is a large range of applications in the satellite industry. For instance, SDRs play a major role in inter-satellite tracking: by performing a variety of DSP computing on the received signals, they can evaluate important parameters that are used in distance estimation, including received signal strength (RSSI) and Doppler shift. Also, the high SFDR and high SNR in modern SDRs are crucial to measure the weak signals received in RSSI-based tracking systems. Furthermore, in the context of SSA/SDA, high throughput data links with very low latency are required, to ensure that the data packages are transmitted/received in time. The lowest latency SDRs in the market, like the Cyan model from Per Vices, should be implemented in critical SSA/SDA applications. Finally, SDRs can be used to simulate and test satellite networks, protocols, and modulation/demodulation schemes, improving the efficiency in system design and optimization.
In the ground station context, MIMO SDRs are capable of providing multiple independent Rx/Tx sources that are essential in phased-array radars, typically used in satellite tracking. The MIMO SDR must not only provide a multiple-channel RFE, but also needs to be capable of handling the vast amount of data coming from several sources simultaneously, so high data throughput and fast signal processing are also mandatory. The FPGA-based digital backend allows the SDR to perform beamforming/beam steering algorithms, optimizing antenna directionality, efficiency, and gain. Furthermore, ground stations often need to control or communicate to multiple satellites, with different frequencies to avoid interference. In these cases, MIMO SDRs are the best choice, as they can handle multiple channels independently. Finally, SDRs can implement different filtering and digital processing techniques to improve the RF performance of ground receivers, including noise rejection, bit-error rate, co-channel interference, and signal sensitivity.
Another important function of SDRs in satellites is the generation of a common clock signal. The clock board presented in most high-end SDRs provides the time stability required for critical time and frequency applications, making it a great choice for GNSS systems. The use of the internal SDR clock as the main system clock for the satellite increases system flexibility and reduces the engineering time, by using resources that are already available in the device. However, if another external clock is being used as a reference, the SDR can be easily implemented in a “slave mode”, where the internal clock is replaced by the external reference clock for synchronization.
Finally, SDRs can perform several DSP calculations that are fundamental in any satellite application, such as decoding/encoding, modulation/demodulation, up/down-converting, and multiplexing. With an FPGA, several different modulation schemes can be implemented using the same hardware, including BPSK, QPSK, and QAM. These features allow the development of satellite modems, also called SATCOM modems, on the embedded FPGA of the SDR. The FPGA allows modification of the modulation scheme and the RFE parameters, including gain, frequency, and sample rate, enabling estimation and adjustment of Doppler shifts. This reconfigurability allows the SDR to support complex communication standards, such as the Digital Video Broadcast Satellite Second Generation Extension (DVB-S2X). DVB-S2X systems can be used HDTV broadcast services, internet access, and cellular backhauling. Figure 3 below shows the main differences between an FPGA-based modem and a traditional modem.
Figure 3: Traditional and FPGA-based modems are compared.
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Cape Canaveral, Florida. July 14, 2014 – Six Orbcomm telecommunications satellites, built by Sierra Nevada Corporation Space Systems, were successfully deployed in orbit this morning.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida at 11:15 AM ET, lofting a constellation of six ORBCOMM OG2 satellites to orbit. This launch was the first in a series of ORBCOMM’s OG2 machine-to-machine communications satellites launching on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 vehicle.
Compared with ORBCOMM’s current constellation, the next generation OG2 satellites have advanced communications technologies, and are significantly larger, more capable, and more efficient. The satellites were built by Sierra Nevada Corporation and weigh approximately 170 kg each. The full series of OG2 satellites will be launched to low-Earth orbit.
OG2 satellite shown stowed on the ESPA Grande deployment system at SNC’s Louisville facility. Image Source: Sierra Nevada Corp.
ORBCOMM’s OG2 satellites will provide existing customers with significant enhancements, such as faster message delivery, larger message sizes and better coverage at higher latitudes, while dramatically increasing network capacity.
The total OG2 constellation is comprised of 17 satellites. The remaining 11 satellites in the constellation are in final integration at SNC’s facility in Louisville, Colorado, and are on track to support the next launch (OG2 Mission 2) scheduled in the fourth quarter of 2014.
In addition to developing the satellite buses, SNC has directed the development and integration of the advanced communication payload and is assisting in the key roles of launch planning and launch mission operations for the OG2 constellation, including developing a Satellite Operations Center that will support essential communications with the OG2 satellites prior to launch and during early on-orbit checkout and operations. SNC is currently housing the first fully functional small satellite production line in the U.S. | http://www.coloradospacenews.com/sierra-nevada-orbcomm-generation-2-satellites-deployed/ |
01 Apr 22. Launch of Kleos’ Patrol Mission Satellites Targeted for 1st April (UTC). Kleos Space S.A (ASX:KSS, Frankfurt:KS1), a space-powered Radio Frequency Reconnaissance data-as-a-service (DaaS) company, is advised that their four Patrol Mission (KSF2) satellites are targeted to launch on the 1st of April 2022 from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida with a launch window opening at 12:24 p.m. ET, or 16:24 UTC onboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 Transporter-4 mission.
Kleos Space CEO Andy Bowyer said, “The launch of our third cluster of four satellites will enable us to further increase the volume of our precision geolocation data. The need for cost-effective intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities has never been greater and we are continuing to rapidly develop our constellation to cater to this demand. Our radio frequency data is increasingly being incorporated into aggregated datasets to enhance or verify other commercial GEOINT datasets.”
Kleos is targeting a constellation of up to 20 satellite clusters, with its fourth cluster, the Observer Mission, scheduled to launch in mid-2022. The Patrol Mission satellites will be deployed into a 525km Sun Synchronous orbit under a rideshare contract with Spaceflight Inc., and deployed via D-Orbit.
The launch was livestreamed on Kleos’ website at https://kleos.space/satellite-launch-patrol/ and on the SpaceX website at: https://www.spacex.com/launches/transporter-4/index.html. The latest forecast shows a 30% chance of favorable liftoff conditions, for updates refer to the SpaceX twitter account: https://twitter.com/SpaceX .
The four Patrol Mission satellites, flown in formation, will significantly increase Kleos’ global data collection capability by an additional 119 million km² per day and improve the average daily revisit rate over a 15-degree latitude area of interest to around five times a day.
30 Mar 22. Boeing Debuts High-Throughput Small Satellite Production Facility. 30,000 square-foot facility (2,787 square meters) is housed in world’s largest satellite factory where Boeing builds advanced space and communications systems for commercial and government customers
– Powered by Boeing subsidiary Millennium Space Systems, virtually every aspect of satellite manufacturing will be accomplished in the new production facility.
Boeing (NYSE: BA) unveiled a new high-throughput small satellite production, integration and test facility designed for efficiency and rapid delivery timelines. Housed in the world’s largest satellite factory, Boeing’s 1-million-square-foot El Segundo facility (92,903 square meters), the small satellite production line will be powered by Boeing subsidiary, Millennium Space Systems.
“Boeing and Millennium are bringing together Boeing’s production expertise, domain knowledge, and manufacturing capacity with Millennium’s agility and rapid prototyping,” said Jim Chilton, senior vice president of Boeing Space and Launch. “We’re scaling and growing to fulfill our customers’ vision for multi-orbit constellations with demand across markets and mission sets.”
The companies are applying advanced and additive manufacturing techniques, including 3D printing entire space-qualified satellite buses, to offer faster cycle times while improving performance.
“Our customers need satellites on-orbit faster than ever,” Chilton said. “Much like an airplane or auto production line, we’re employing lean production principles and advanced manufacturing techniques to accelerate delivery and pass on cost savings to our customers.”
Millennium’s team will staff the small satellite factory, bringing the subsidiary’s proven processes and infrastructure, in addition to environmental test capabilities tailored to small satellites. Boeing will also provide access to extensive environmental and specialty testing capabilities that have qualified some of the most iconic spacecraft, including the first vehicle to make a fully controlled soft landing on the moon and more than 300 satellites.
“Millennium’s culture is rooted in creating innovative ways to revolutionize space,” said Jason Kim, chief executive officer, Millennium Space Systems. “We’re bringing that culture into our facilities, rapidly building large constellations of high-performance small satellites, taking advantage of a footprint that’s larger than two professional hockey rinks.”
Designed to build small satellites for different security levels on the same assembly line, the digitally-defined small satellite factory incorporates model-based systems engineering, digital design engineering, and design for manufacturability.
“Understanding security protocols and how to build secure systems is critical to national security space, and this is an area where Millennium and Boeing excel,” said Kim. “We’re excited to leverage this impressive capability to support our customers’ critical missions.”
Initial operating capability took place in September 2021, and the small sat factory’s full operational capability is expected in late 2022.
Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing Company, delivers high-performing prototype and constellation solutions across advanced national security and environmental observation missions. Founded in 2001, the company’s small satellite missions support government, civil and commercial space customers’ needs across orbits. Learn more at www.millennium-space.com.
31 Mar 22. HENSOLDT Cyber and Beyond Gravity: Bringing IT security for satellites to a new level. Beyond Gravity (formerly RUAG Space) and HENSOLDT Cyber announce their collaboration to offer the IT security operating system TRENTOS for the latest satellite computer Lynx from Beyond Gravity. Ensuring a high level of IT security for satellites is at the heart of today’s efforts to make satellites more robust and reliable. “As satellites have become increasingly critical to the infrastructure of modern society, there is an increased need for cyber resilience protecting space,” says Anders Linder, head of the global satellites business at Beyond Gravity (formerly RUAG Space). There is a strong demand for both, highly secure IT solutions for ground systems on Earth as well as for satellites in Space. HENSOLDT Cyber’s approach to cyber security is different from conventional IT solutions. Instead of standard add-on security products, which treat symptoms rather than addressing the underlying problems, HENSOLDT offers products that are designed to ensure the integrity of embedded systems at the core: the operating system and the processor. “We build systems that are secure from the ground up using formal methods which provide mathematical proofed system features to achieve true trustworthiness,” says Sascha Kegreiß, CTO at HENSOLDT Cyber, who is also member of the governing board of the open-source seL4© Foundation. “With TRENTOS we are providing an easy way to enable security-by-design for space application development to strongly oppose cyberwarfare.” The new high security operating system TRENTOS is based on the seL4© microkernel, which provides proven security capabilities under all operating conditions. “It is therefore an excellent choice to meet the high requirements of the space industry,” adds Kegreiß.
“With HENSOLDT Cyber’s new IT security operating system for our satellite computer Lynx, we can offer a higher value to our customers worldwide”, says Anders Linder from Beyond Gravity. “This cooperation is an important step to offer spacecraft platforms with IT security at a new level.” As the Lynx computer is flexible, it can be easily configured with TRENTOS. “We also see possibilities to combine this computer with several additional capabilities, such as different communication links, as well as other features and hardware.”
30 Mar 22. Australia will build and operate 4 new satellites. Australia’s federal budget announcement marked a huge boost for the local space industry, as the sector is set to receive $1.16bn to build and operate four new satellites. Dubbed the National Space Mission for Earth Observation, it will be led by the Australian Space Agency, and aims to make Australia “more self-sufficient” due to an ongoing track record of relying on other country’s satellite capabilities.
The mission is also expected to create hundreds of jobs.
“The information we get from Earth observation satellites is central to our everyday life – from forecasting the weather and responding to natural disasters through to managing the environment and supporting our farmers,” said Minister for Science and Technology Melissa Price.
“This investment reinforces the Morrison government’s commitment to growing space capability here at home so we can remain safe and secure and create important economic opportunities.”
The investment for the satellites will extend until 2038-39, and $38.5m per year ongoing will fund the first phase of the space mission.
According to the budget announcement, the project is set to create over 500 jobs for the first four years of the “build phase” and the government expects to utilise over 100 local companies for the supply chain.
“Developing and launching these first four Australian satellites will create the foundation of industry know-how for more complex space missions next decade. That means more expertise and more jobs right here in Australia in this critical industry,” Minister Price continued.
She also said it will “solidify” relationships with allied countries, so Australia will continue to benefit from their satellite data.
While this move is significant for Australia, the nation has already taken steps to establish satellite sovereign capability in recent months.
This includes the nationwide JP9102, a $3bn project underway to create a new military satellite communication capability for Australia.
It’s hoped it will eventually reduce the country’s reliance on the United States’ defence capabilities, including the US military’s Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS).
Building sovereign technology such as these will draw more international investments and drive other countries to rely on Australia for space technology.
However, the government did not only invest in satellite manufacturing in the latest budget announcement.
It also includes $65.7m over five years to establish conditions for rocket launch, $12.1m over five years to remove cost recovery requirements under previous regulations, $9.5m over two years to develop a Space Strategic Update, $3m to enhance overseas relationships and $25.2 m to expand the International Space Investment Initiative and continue projects with India.
Since Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s coalition began in 2018, over $2bn has been allocated to the civil space sector.
Along with the ASA, the mission will be led by Geoscience Australia, CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and Defence. (Source: Space Connect)
29 Mar 22. Next-Generation Polar is Indispensable in Highly Contested Space. On the battlefield, snipers rarely work alone.
Snipers act as part of a system with a spotter who surveys a wide area to identify potential targets.
That’s one way to think about the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) system, according to Mike Ciffone, director of programs, OPIR, Northrop Grumman.
The Next-Generation Polar (NGP) satellites act as the spotter, surveying an enormous swath of the Northern Hemisphere from an orbit more than 20,000 miles from Earth. Once spotted by NGP, the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor satellites (HBTSS), which will operate in low-earth orbit, can act as the sniper’s high-resolution scope, precisely tracking hypersonic missiles in flight and relaying timely data to shooters on the ground or at sea.
“A soldier looking through a sniper rifle scope has a narrow field of view,” Ciffone said. “That’s great for honing in on a specific target, but without that wide view from the spotter, the soldier could miss a developing threat and would be altogether less effective. The teamed system ensures a better, safer outcome.”
In May 2020, the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC), formerly called Space and Missile Systems Center, awarded Northrop Grumman a $2.37bn contract for the first phase of the NGP program. NGP will serve as the spotter for the HBTSS’s scope.
“When it comes to detecting ballistic missiles, it’s a mission that can’t fail,” Ciffone said.
NGP is a technological leap forward compared to the current polar monitoring system – the Space-Based Infrared System in Highly Elliptical Orbit (SBIRS HEO) – because it will detect both hypersonic and traditional ballistic missile launches.
SBIRS HEO service life is planned till 2028, when NGP is slated for launch. According to Jeff Sneller, Northrop Grumman’s chief engineer for NGP, these combined factors increase the urgency of launching NGP on schedule.
NGP is an indispensable part of the next-gen OPIR construct for numerous reasons:
It covers the poles. NGP will cover the northern polar region — the shortest route for a ballistic missile to travel toward the United States. It is the most difficult region to monitor from space, said Randy Weidenheimer, director of programs, OPIR, Northrop Grumman.
“Covering the North Pole region requires highly elliptical orbiting satellites,” Weidenheimer said. “It just can’t be done as effectively from geosynchronous (GEO), geostationary or low-Earth orbit (LEO). If the North Pole is uncovered, an adversary could exploit it.”
Failure isn’t an option. Infrared missile detection strengthens nuclear deterrence and NGP is key to the OPIR construct.
“Without NGP, not only will we risk missing a ballistic missile launch from the polar region, we will lose the resilience inherent in having a robust capability in HEO,” Weidenheimer said. “One reason that’s important is that, for example, low-Earth orbit satellites need to orbit over countries that could seek to target or disable them several times a day, making HEO an inherently safer option.”
Near total coverage. According to Sneller, NGP provides round-the-clock coverage of the Northern Hemisphere, including adversarial countries in Eurasia, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific.
“NGP monitors virtually every country from which a ballistic or hypersonic missile threat directed at the United States or its allies is likely to originate,” Sneller said.
Resilient. On top of the wide coverage NGP provides from its unique orbit, HEO is more resilient than other orbits.
“Satellites in HEO are difficult to target and NGP has features that will help ensure it can continue to operate in contested environments,” Ciffone said. “NGP is always in communication with ground terminals in the continental United States. If forward-deployed ground stations for satellites in GEO or LEO are attacked or jammed, NGP can still get information back to commanders in the U.S.”
NGP is on track and on schedule to begin its vital mission in 2028. According to Ciffone, “NGP is a vital part of the United States’ missile defense space architecture that we can’t afford to do without.”
25 Mar 22. Nanosatellites are still in the early stages, says Fleet Space CEO. Nanosatellites are diversifying every day, and many consider them as the future of the space industry – but they still have a long way to go. Flavia Tata Nardini, the chief executive and co-founder of Australia’s Fleet Space Technologies says that like how mobile phones were once bulky and fairly useless but are now smaller and smarter; satellites are going through the same phase. South Australian-based Fleet is launching the only commercial nanosatellites in Australia, aiming to boost connectivity across all sectors in a cheaper and more accessible way.
In Space Connect’s latest podcast episode, Nardini explains why nanosatellites are important, and how these are furthering Australia’s space industry, despite still being in the early stages of development.
What are nanosatellites?
Nanosatellites, or also known as small satellites or CubeSat’s, typically weigh less than 10 kilograms.
Nanosatellites can be used for varying applications such as telecommunications, mining, agriculture, defence, Earth observation and more, just like typical ones.
Larger satellites can weigh up to 1,000 kilograms, and while less governments and companies are launching bigger ones, they still have served the space industry for many decades.
While nanosatellites’ span of view may be smaller, many providers have switched to launching constellations of them into space, which are easier to maintain, and if some fail or are destroyed, the others can compensate, according to Nardini.
They started big, but are getting smaller
The first satellite ever launched was by the Soviet Union in 1957, named Sputnik 1. It weighed around 80 kilograms and orbited for three weeks before its batteries ran out.
Sputnik 1 and many satellites after it paved the way for the space industry, and now there are thousands of satellites in low-Earth orbit serving the world’s connectivity, military, monitoring and observation needs.
“We need to understand that every technology takes time in the history of humankind, so that everyone can benefit from it,” Nardini said.
“You know, we started with massive supercomputers that were as big as a room that just government or NASA could use, and then look forward 30 or 40 years, and everyone has got an iPhone.”
Similarly, satellites are getting smaller and more accessible, following decades of them being large and only used by governments and space agencies. But they still aren’t perfect, Nardini says.
“I think we are in that phase. Small satellites are small, and like a small phone, there is no battery, not enough data … there are these small satellites, they look very basic, they do basic things, but we like the fact that they’re small, and then we work to make them good.”
Should Australia launch more nanosatellites?
Many Australians are already launching nanosatellites into space, such as the University of Sydney’s CUAVA-1 and Curtin’s Binar-1 small-sat, and Nardini believes it is even more important for the nation to invest in nanosatellites due to our infrastructure “struggling to keep up” with the vast remote land.
“We are all trying to move into a more environmentally sustainable planet,” she said. Manufacturers are pushing for solar farms and sustainable fuel for cars, but companies need to search for these resources efficiently.
Lithium resources are in strong demand in Australia, as it is used for the development of electric vehicles, and Nardini says without satellites monitoring remote land, it will be difficult to find.
“We can use satellites to help look for some more lithium or copper … we can find it and satellites can come into rescue,” Nardini added.
Nanosatellites are also critical for Earth observation applications, allowing for better preparation when it comes to weather events like bushfires, floods and storms.
Almost 40 per cent of the world’s population have no access to internet, mostly in developing countries, according to a UN agency’s data from December 2021. Nardini says that nanosatellites will allow for the most remote areas to even be connected soon.
“Eventually the satellites will provide satellite connectivity for your phone so you can’t be out, outside in the middle of nowhere not having connectivity anymore.”
Although nanosatellites are being manufactured rapidly across the globe, large satellites are still being utilised for defence capabilities – but not for long.
At the inaugural Australian Space Summit on Thursday, South Australian Senator the Hon David Fawcett and chair of the joint standing committee on foreign affairs, defence and trade said the nationwide Joint Project 9102 may be the last time the government invests in a large satellite.
JP9102 is the name for the $3bn project to create a new military satellite communication capability for Australia. It’s hoped it will eventually reduce the country’s reliance on the United States’ defence capabilities, including the US military’s Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS).
“[JP9102] will potentially be one of the last major programs when talking [about] satellites measuring in tonnes as opposed to smaller systems,” he said in a panel.
“Space is becoming more congested and contested, which is a large theme of our defence space strategy. But what that means is, resilience [is] not just defending exquisite capabilities from large satellites, but potentially through multiple small satellites… providing similar capabilities.”
What about space weather?
Despite the benefits of launching technology into orbit, manufacturers still consider space weather a main concern as all spacecraft are exposed to many unforeseeable solar events.
Such weather includes geomagnetic storms – like the one that destroyed 38 Starlink satellites in February – or solar flares that can cause blackouts on entire cities for hours.
Nardini says that while satellites cannot avoid being exposed to space weather, nanosatellites pose a particular advantage compared to larger ones.
It’s about “building satellites that can die, and you can bring them down very fast, then launch another one without having to put debris everywhere,” she said.
Engineers are faced with the unfortunate event of rebuilding large satellites when they are destroyed, which is costly and time consuming.
Constellations of nanosatellites can address this issue, according to Nardini, by essentially equipping operators with many backups in case a few get destroyed, or even fail.
“If we keep building these technologies that are ancient, and they stay up there, and then they die – then that’s not going to work,” Nardini said.
Despite small satellites still refining and improving, Nardini argues that these are the future of space technology.
“It’s a bit of a shift in thinking,” Nardini said. “It’s not about failing or not failing, it’s about how you react when you fail, and how fast you can react to it, and that’s what happens when you go from launching one satellite, to launch 10,000.
“It’s a complicated exercise … but the dream is, can satellites really support connectivity so much that no one ever get lost without communication?” (Source: Space Connect)
20 Mar 22. Anokiwave + Requtech AB Developing High Performance SOTM User Terminals. Anokiwave, Inc. and Requtech have engaged in a collaboration to enable SATCOM-On-The-Move (SOTM) applications over LEO/MEO/GEO communication satellites. As part of this collaboration, Anokiwave provides advanced, low-cost, silicon 2nd generation SATCOM Ku- and K/Ka-band ICs to power Requtech’s RESA-S family of fully integrated phased array flat panel antenna terminals.
Requtech’s phased array flat panel antennas enable SOTM applications over LEO/MEO/GEO constellations. Designed as a lightweight member of the RESA family of flat panel satellite terminals, RESA-S can be used as a stand-alone product or used in a networked mesh configuration with several RESA terminals to avoid signal blockage from for example, ships superstructure.
Anokiwave provides Silicon SATCOM beamforming ICs to Requtech that improve performance, reduce cost, simplify thermal management, and provide a host of unique digital functionality to simplify overall system design. Compared to multiple other companies that are just starting to promise their early-stage ICs, Anokiwave ICs are fully released and are shipping in volume.
“Phased array antennas are changing the way in which users communicate with SATCOM networks as they enter a new era of global communication. As the market moves to commercial, high-volume terminals, ground communications with LEO/MEO/GEO SATCOM systems require low-cost antennas with extremely fast steerable beams in a low-profile form factor,” said Andy Crofts, Anokiwave VP of Applications. “The Anokiwave CMOS based beamformer ICs are the key enabling technology making electronic beam steering in flat panel active antennas a commercial reality.”
“The Anokiwave chipset offers huge advantages in terms of ‘time to market’ and performance. This is why Requtech has selected Anokiwave for its Ku and Ka Satcom Phased Array Antenna design,” said Omid Sotoudeh, Requtech’s CEO. “Requtech previously has extensive knowledge and experience with military phased array radars and felt that the Anokiwave chipset was the best vehicle for using those skill sets in the development of products for the SATCOM market.”
All Anokiwave SATCOM ICs are released, available and shipping in volume.
Requtech’s antenna products are released and undergoing type approval and certification with several LEO, MEO and GEO satellite constellations in both Ku- and Ka-band. Modems can be embedded internally or connected externally depending on the application requirements.
Anokiwave is a cutting-edge provider of highly integrated IC solutions that enable emerging mmW markets and Active Antenna based solutions. Anokiwave’s creative system architectures and optimal selection of semiconductor technologies solve the toughest engineering problems. Anokiwave is based in Boston, MA and operates design centers in Austin, TX, Boston, MA, and San Diego, CA with sales offices in Taipei, Taiwan, Boston, MA, and San Diego, CA. Additional information can be found at www.anokiwave.com/satcom.
Requtech is a leading SATCOM product developer based in Linköping, Sweden. Built around a team of ex-Saab Defense and Sony Ericsson engineers, we deliver fully integrated terminal solutions for LEO, MEO & GEO connectivity. We offer robust and reliable high-performance SATCOM terminals based on cutting edge technology. Additional information can be found at www.requtech.com. (Source: Satnews)
23 Mar 22. Spaceflight + Astrocast Extend Their Smallsat IoT Constellation Launch Contract. Spaceflight Inc. has initiated an extended multi-launch agreement (MLA) with long-time customer and Internet of Things (IoT) constellation developer, Astrocast. This agreement will add two missions to accommodate Astrocast’s fast-growing IoT constellation which helps track assets in some of the world’s most remote regions.
In February of 2020, Astrocast and Spaceflight signed an MLA for the launch of 10 additional IoT smallsats, representing the sixth launch booked with Spaceflight. In total, Spaceflight is now set to launch a majority of the satellites that will complete the Astrocast IoT Nanosatellite Network.
Spaceflight has already managed the successful launch of 10 Astrocast spacecraft, including demonstration models on Spaceflight’s historic SSO-A mission in 2018 and PSLV-C45 in 2019. The companies most recently partnered and successfully launched an additional five smallsats on Spaceflight’s SXRS-5 in January of 2021.
The uniqueness of Astrocast’s constellation lies in a very low signal and small antenna and terminal with long battery life. The small size lets the company put the terminal on everything from fishing buoys to animals. For example, Astrocast is helping its customers track illegal fishing, endangered animal species, and heavy machinery in remote locations. By default, IoT solutions implemented in many of these situations are deployed in remote locations – from mines to farmland, ships to oil platforms. Astrocast’s solution minimizes the need for human intervention and repair, wherever possible, safeguarding the business case.
2022 promises to be a year of unprecedented innovation and leadership for Spaceflight, with approximately 20 planned missions across its diverse portfolio of launch vehicle partners. In January 2022, NASA named Spaceflight to provide launch services for the agency’s Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) missions. The company also successfully executed its first launch with Astra last week and plans to debut the next two variations of its Sherpa OTV family with its much-anticipated quarter lunar slingshot mission, GEO Pathfinder.
“Flexibility is a key differentiator going forward,” said Astrocast CFO, Kjell Karlsen. “Spaceflight has already demonstrated their flexibility in launch timing and availability across multiple vehicles in our existing contract. Assured access to space is critical for Astrocast to grow our constellation and we’re looking forward to working with Spaceflight to continue to efficiently build out our constellation in orbit.”
“We’re pleased to expand our relationship with Astrocast,” said Curt Blake, president and CEO of Spaceflight. “Having a portfolio of launch options and the expertise to move quickly to accommodate changes is something we’re very proud of, and one that fast-growing constellation builders like Astrocast rely on.” (Source: Satnews)
21 Mar 22. AvL Technologies’ Reveals New COTM Terminal, New X-Y Antennas, Intelsat Antenna Qualifications, New Tri-Band Antenna + An SES Contract. AvL Technologies has announced a new Communications-On-The-Move (COTM) terminal, new X-Y antennas and terminal qualifications with Intelsat. These new products are being showcased in the AvL Technologies booth this week at SATELLITE 2022.
COTM Terminal
AvL has developed a unique, multi-band COTM terminal for land and sea applications. Designed for today’s evolving battlespace and emergency response environments, the terminal is band reconfigurable to support multi-orbit GEO and MEO applications. This new product features an operator friendly interface and a simple band reconfiguration capability. Customers will also appreciate the life cycle costs and ease of maintenance.
The AvL COTM terminal operates with high efficiency for greater throughput over an entire range of networks, enabling a lower cost per bit to operate. It was developed with best-in-class performance, reliability and ruggedness, and high precision mechanical steering for fast acquisition and re-acquisition tracking. Key features include pre-commissioned plug and play technology, modem agnostic, OpenAMIP, open and closed loop tracking, user friendly graphical interfaces, multiple non-pen rooftop mounts, and easy maintenance with its modular design and field replaceable components.
1.3 meter and 2.4 meter X-Y Antennas
AvL has designed new X-Y antennas for operation in GEO and MEO orbits. The 1.3 and 2.4 meter antennas operate in pairs and support make-before-break uninterrupted links, and the antennas feature rapid retrace ability to operate independently for many applications. The antennas operate with full hemispheric coverage and eliminate the overhead pass keyhole with the X-Y positioner, enable high gain with AvL’s uniquely shaped optics, and maintain accurate and reliable beam pointing with AvL’s AAQ antenna control system.
The antennas are transportable and pack into cases, with the 1.3 meter antenna packable in three, airline checkable cases and the 2.4 meter antenna packable in four, MIL-STD-1472G two-man lift/carry cases. The antennas can be assembled and acquire a satellite signal within 15 minutes and both operate in X-, Ku- and Ka-bands with optional customized frequency bands.
Intelsat Qualified Terminals
Three AvL terminals are now certified for operation on the Intelsat GEO network. The AvL terminals are the 0714 75cm 25W BUC, 0914 98cm 25W BUC, and 1314 1.35m 25W BUC terminal.
“2021 was an incredibly busy year for AvL Technologies with the development of the COTM terminal, the new XY antennas and Intelsat terminal qualifications among other efforts,” said Mike Proffitt, President of AvL Technologies. “We’re excited to debut our new products and Intelsat qualified terminals at SATELLITE 2022..”
Plus, AvL Technologies has revealed a new 1.55 meter, tri-band, manual point terminal. The antenna is being showcased in the AvL Technologies booth this week at SATELLITE 2022.
The antenna features include high efficiency X-, Ku- and Ka-band feeds integrated with high power Mission Microwave block upconverters, an all-new AvL quad-pod positioner and the company’s Terminal Interface Unit with high-stability 10Mhz reference and built-in graphical user interface for ease of satellite acquisition and peaking. Importantly, this terminal includes standard and high wind configurations and has been demonstrated in extremely harsh environments during 25m/sec (56 mph) winds with minimum gain loss with the optional high-wind kit. The terminal packs into 4 lightweight cases and can be assembled by two people in 15 minutes.
Additionally, AvL Technologies has been selected by SES to develop and produce 2.4 meter, X-Y Ka-band transportable antennas to operate with O3b mPOWER, SES’s second-generation, MEO constellation. The antennas are now in development and a pre-production prototype is featured in AvL’s booth this week at the SATELLITE 2022 show.
AvL is developing two types of transportable 2.4 meter X-Y antennas for O3b mPOWER to be used as high-throughput user terminals or transportable gateways. The X-Y antennas will track O3b mPOWER satellites in MEO and provide direct overhead satellite tracking. The antennas operate in pairs and also feature enhanced retrace speeds that are optimized for robust network operational performance.
The AvL antennas will allow SES’s customers, ranging from governments to mobile network operators, to leverage the soon-to-be launched O3b mPOWER system that will provide unprecedented flexibility, performance coverage, and scale. The software-driven O3b mPOWER communications system is capable of delivering secure and intelligent connectivity services from tens of megabits to multiple gigabits per second to any customers who require rugged, portable land mobile applications across the globe.
AvL and SES have a longstanding relationship of collaborating on antennas as AvL developed 85cm, 1.2m and 2.4m terminals that operate with O3b, SES’s first-generation network. AvL recently upgraded and certified three traditional AvL GEO terminals to provide field-upgradeable (re-configurable) MEO operability on the SES first-generation O3b network, including 1.0 meter and 1.2 meter vehicle-mount terminals and a new 2.2 meter ultra lightweight, flyaway terminal.
“We’re thrilled to continue the long relationship between SES and AvL,” said Mike Proffitt, President of AvL Technologies. “Together AvL and SES will continue to innovate and take SATCOM to new dimensions, with the output being impressive new high bandwidth applications suited for AvL’s rugged and resilient antennas with O3b mPOWER intelligent connectivity services.” (Source: Satnews)
21 Mar 22. Mission Microwave Ka-Band SSPAs To Be Implemented In SES O3b mPOWER Gateways. Mission Microwave Technologies, LLC, a manufacturer Gallium Nitride (GaN) based Solid State Power Amplifiers (SSPAs), has confirmed the initial production orders for high power SSPAs in support of SES O3b mPOWER gateways — this order follows nearly three years of work between the companies to implement this forward-looking technology into the O3b mPOWER system.
SES and Mission Microwave shared their vision of replacing classic Traveling Wave Tube Amplifiers (TWTA) with state-of-the-art SSPAs. Exchanging Tube based amplifiers for Solid State Amplifiers is best understood with the analogy of replacing incandescent light bulbs with LED lighting. The benefits include reliability, energy efficiency and lower total cost of ownership over the lifetime of a satellite project/ground station. Tube amplifiers also have a limited shelf life, complicating logistics for global deployments in remote locations.
O3b mPOWER is SES’s next generation, Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellite constellation whose beams can be shifted and scaled in real-time to meet customer demands. When launched later this year, the O3b mPOWER system will deliver connectivity services ranging from tens of megabits to multiple gigabits per second.
Mission Microwave President and CEO, Francis Auricchio, said, “SES did a fantastic job in leading the industry to this technology innovation. As the O3b mPOWER network architecture was being designed SES wanted to explore the potential of using SSPAs rather than classic TWTAs in the network gateways. SES’s earlier efforts to source SSPAs at this power level were not successful. SES’s engineering teams understood the technology risks and benefits and worked closely with Mission Microwave’s product development team to define a form, fit and function replacement for 500 watt TWT Amplifiers that took advantage of the benefits of Solid State Amplifiers while allowing early network deployments to rely on traditional TWT amplifier designs. This was a substantial engineering challenge in terms of RF and thermodynamic design. The result is a new benchmark in high power amplifier design that is an enabler for SES network designers for O3b mPOWER and future network enhancements.”
Stewart Sanders, Executive Vice President of Technology and O3b mPOWER program lead at SES, said, “We need to bring together all the latest and most innovative technology so that we can optimise capabilities of the O3b mPOWER system and deliver the unprecedented scalability and flexibility connectivity services that our customers demand. Mission Microwave SSPAs are a key element to making the network reliable, scalable and supporting our customers’ global reach. Our technology team is justifiably proud of the joint accomplishment in bringing this new technology to support our global gateway infrastructure.”
Mission Microwave Technologies continues to be at the forefront of the satellite terminal industry in shipping high power X, Ku and Ka Band BUCs for critical applications in ground, maritime and aerospace applications for government and commercial industry sectors that require high efficiency, reliability and performance. Mission brings revolutionary design for RF (Radio Frequency) and microwave electronics, using the latest in semiconductor technology. Mission’s focus is to minimize the size, weight, and power (SWaP) for these critical applications while providing its customers with the best possible reliability. (Source: Satnews)
22 Mar 22. Comtech Unveils World’s Fastest 5 Gbps Gateway Modem To Optimize Satellite Constellations + Large VSAT Networks. Comtech has unveiled their new, advanced, high-speed CDM-780 Gateway modem, capable of managing unprecedented amounts of data delivered over new ultra-powerful and complex wideband GEO, MEO and LEO satellites and constellations to provide high-speed trunking services to gateways and support massive VSAT networks of hundreds-of-thousands of sites. The CDM-780 Gateway Modem, with five times the bi-directional speed of the nearest offering, further extends Comtech’s successful portfolio of advanced high-speed trunking and broadcast modems with a level of flexibility capable of delivering 2.5 Gbps simplex and 5 Gbps duplex data rates over a single solution.
The modular CDM-780 modem can be equipped with up to three modulators, three demodulators, or a combination of both to enable high-speed trunking or hitless satellite handover capabilities. Each modulator and demodulator is capable of supporting users at 500Msps and 2.5Gbps data rates.
Comtech’s new modem features a broad range of built-in redundancy features – from dual data management interfaces and power supplies – that allow the modem to run simultaneously on two different grid sources to keep the gateway link and its customers always on and operational.
When used as the DVB-S2X outbound for Comtech’s new Next-Gen ELEVATE VSAT platform, leveraging superior speed and statistical multiplexing, the CDM-780 modem can support five times the remote sites over a single outbound carrier compared to other platforms. It’s a key differentiator that will allow providers to serve both data hungry and light applications using less overall satellite bandwidth.
The CDM-780 Gateway modem was designed to be the most efficient, highest throughput trunking and feeder link modem across the market. The advanced platform delivers space segment efficiencies that reduce both capital and operating costs.
“The CDM-780 Gateway modem is the world’s fastest, most reliable and scalable modem, set for commercial rollout by summer to support new advanced satellites and constellations beginning to initiate service in multiple orbits,” said Louis Dubin, Senior Vice President of Product Management for Comtech Satellite Network Technologies. “This state-of-the-art platform offers global connectivity and the unparalleled reliability and resiliency content providers must have to meet mission-critical network demands around the world.” (Source: Satnews)
20 Mar 22. CISA + FBI: Strengthening The Cybersecurity Of SATCOM Network Providers + Customers.. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are aware of possible threats to U.S. and international satellite communication (SATCOM) networks. Successful intrusions into SATCOM networks could create risk in SATCOM network providers’ customer environments.
Given the current geopolitical situation, CISA’s Shields Up initiative requests that all organizations significantly lower their threshold for reporting and sharing indications of malicious cyber activity. To that end, CISA and FBI will update this joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) as new information becomes available so that SATCOM providers and their customers can take additional mitigation steps pertinent to their environments.
CISA and FBI strongly encourages critical infrastructure organizations and other organizations that are either SATCOM network providers or customers to review and implement the mitigations outlined in this CSA to strengthen SATCOM network cybersecurity.
Mitigations
CISA and FBI strongly encourages critical infrastructure organizations and other organizations that are either SATCOM network providers or customers to review and implement the following mitigations:
Mitigations for SATCOM Network Providers
- Put in place additional monitoring at ingress and egress points to SATCOM equipment to look for anomalous traffic, such as
- The presence of insecure remote access tools—such as Teletype Network Protocol (Telnet), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Secure Shell Protocol (SSH), Secure Copy Protocol (SCP), and Virtual Network Computing (VNC)—facilitating communications to and from SATCOM terminals.
- Network traffic from SATCOM networks to other unexpected network segments.
- Unauthorized use of local or backup accounts within SATCOM networks.
- Unexpected SATCOM terminal to SATCOM terminal traffic.
- Network traffic from the internet to closed group SATCOM networks.
- Brute force login attempts over SATCOM network segments.
See the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, February 2022 for specific state-sponsored cyber threat activity relating to SATCOM networks.
Mitigations for SATCOM Network Providers and Customers
- Use secure methods for authentication, including multi-factor authentication where possible, for all accounts used to access, manage, and/or administer SATCOM networks.
- Use and enforce strong, complex passwords: Review password policies to ensure they align with the latest NIST guidelines.
- Do not use default credentials or weak passwords.
- Audit accounts and credentials: remove terminated or unnecessary accounts; change expired credentials.
Enforce principle of least privilege through authorization policies. Minimize unnecessary privileges for identities. Consider privileges assigned to individual personnel accounts, as well as those assigned to non-personnel accounts (e.g., those assigned to software or systems). Account privileges should be clearly defined, narrowly scoped, and regularly audited against usage patterns.
Review trust relationships. Review existing trust relationships with IT service providers. Threat actors are known to exploit trust relationships between providers and their customers to gain access to customer networks and data.
- Remove unnecessary trust relationships.
- Review contractual relationships with all service providers. Ensure contracts include appropriate provisions addressing security, such as those listed below, and that these provisions are appropriately leveraged:
- Security controls the customer deems appropriate.
- Provider should have in place appropriate monitoring and logging of provider-managed customer systems.
- Customer should have in place appropriate monitoring of the service provider’s presence, activities, and connections to the customer network.
- Notification of confirmed or suspected security events and incidents occurring on the provider’s infrastructure and administrative networks.
Implement independent encryption across all communications links leased from, or provided by, your SATCOM provider. See National Security Agency (NSA) Cybersecurity Advisory: Protecting VSAT Communications for guidance.
Strengthen the security of operating systems, software, and firmware.
- Ensure robust vulnerability management and patching practices are in place and, after testing, immediately patch known exploited vulnerabilities included in CISA’s living catalog of known exploited vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities carry significant risk to federal agencies as well as public and private sectors entities.
- Implement rigorous configuration management programs. Ensure the programs can track and mitigate emerging threats. Regularly audit system configurations for misconfigurations and security weaknesses.
Monitor network logs for suspicious activity and unauthorized or unusual login attempts.
- Integrate SATCOM traffic into existing network security monitoring tools.
- Review logs of systems behind SATCOM terminals for suspicious activity.
- Ingest system and network generated logs into your enterprise security information and event management (SIEM) tool.
- Implement endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools where possible on devices behind SATCOM terminals, and ingest into the SIEM.
- Expand and enhance monitoring of network segments and assets that use SATCOM.
- Expand monitoring to include ingress and egress traffic transiting SATCOM links and monitor for suspicious or anomalous network activity.
- Baseline SATCOM network traffic to determine what is normal and investigate deviations, such as large spikes in traffic.
Create, maintain and exercise a cyber incident response plan, resilience plan and continuity of operations plan so that critical functions and operations can be kept running if technology systems—including SATCOM networks—are disrupted or need to be taken offline.
Contact Information
All organizations should report incidents and anomalous activity to CISA 24/7 Operations Center at or (888) 282-0870 and/or to the FBI via your local FBI field office or the FBI’s 24/7 CyWatch at (855) 292-3937 or
Resources
National Security Agency (NSA) Cybersecurity Advisory: Protecting VSAT Communications
NSA Cybersecurity Technical Report: Network Infrastructure Security Guidance
Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI): Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, February 2022
CISA Tip: Choosing and Protecting Passwords
CISA Capacity Enhancement Guide: Implementing Strong Authentication
Revisions March 17, 2022: Initial Version (Source: Satnews)
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At Viasat, we’re driven to connect every warfighter, platform, and node on the battlefield. As a global communications company, we power millions of fast, resilient connections for military forces around the world – connections that have the capacity to revolutionize the mission – in the air, on the ground, and at sea. Our customers depend on us for connectivity that brings greater operational capabilities, whether we’re securing the U.S. Government’s networks, delivering satellite and wireless communications to the remote edges of the battlefield, or providing senior leaders with the ability to perform mission-critical communications while in flight. We’re a team of fearless innovators, driven to redefine what’s possible. And we’re not done – we’re just beginning. | https://battle-updates.com/update/satellite-systems-satcom-and-space-systems-update-216/ |
In the past few months, there have been multiple stories in the news about an FCC grant that would enable SES to expand its fleet of O3b Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites by an additional 26 spacecraft. Many of the headlines, including one from Space News, about the FCC’s decision claimed that it would enable SES to expand from an equatorial constellation to a global one. This has raised some interesting questions across the satellite industry and the U.S. Government. To learn more about this topic, we sat down with three members of the SES team, including:
- Ken Mentasti, Director of NextGen Systems Development at SES Networks
- Will Lewis, Senior Legal Counsel at SES Networks
- Mike Blefko, Vice President Business Development at SES Government Solutions
During our conversation, we discussed the FCC approval, the real impact that it will have on the O3b constellation, why this is so important to SES, and why government users should consider the impact of the next generation global fleet, called O3b mPOWER, set to launch in 2021. Here is what they had to say:
Government Satellite Report (GSR): The FCC recently gave SES its blessing to expand the O3b equatorial system to a global system. What does that mean? How are these two things different?
Will Lewis: Effectively, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave us market access and the ability to serve the United States using additional satellites in the space above the United States. Currently, we have 16 Ka Band O3b MEO satellites in equatorial orbit that are authorized by the FCC. This most recent grant gives us the ability to expand that number dramatically.
That’s the first important takeaway from this announcement – an expansion in the number of satellites in the O3b constellation.
What could be even more impactful in the long run is that this grant gives SES the authority to deploy MEO satellites in two different orbits – equatorial orbit and inclined orbit.
That means the O3b satellite constellation could be expanded to deliver coverage from the equator all the way to the poles. This will enable global coverage – the ability to deliver MEO-enabled, high throughput, low latency connectivity virtually anywhere on Earth.
Ken Mentasti: The O3b satellite constellation is evolving, and a new generation of MEO satellites that offer more customization, flexibility and bandwidth than the previous satellites are going to be launched in the near future. This signals a major paradigm shift. The launch of these new satellites and the expansion of the constellation – as enabled by this FCC approval – essentially means that thousands of highly flexible global beamformed beams offering configurable bandwidths and routing will soon be available to deliver connectivity for satellite customers – government or otherwise.
GSR: What motivated SES Networks to pursue expanding the O3b constellation and making it a global system? What is driving demand?
Ken Mentasti: Demand for the O3b satellite constellation has been extremely high. In fact, it will soon outpace the available coverage and bandwidth that exists today. A large part of that is due to a demand for real time applications across all of our market segments. There is incredible demand for high throughput connectivity – ranging from aeronautical and maritime connectivity to services supporting mobile network operators and government customers.
Ultimately, it comes down to what MEO offers – high capacity to practically anywhere on the globe with low latency and with incredible reliability. It comes down to being able to deliver connectivity in places that GEO, fiber or microwave can’t service or can’t service as well.
Mike Blefko: While I cannot speak on behalf of the USG, the services that the O3b constellation offers to our military end users greatly expand the mission capabilities at austere remote locations. Delivery of terabyte-sized files in a few hours, simultaneous viewing of multiple HD video feeds, 4GLTE over last mile communications links and enterprise utilization of cloud-based applications are the differentiating services enabled by MEO satellites. All this at a total cost of ownership that is significantly less than historical VSAT services.
GSR: What will a global O3b constellation mean for government users? What capabilities will this give them that they wouldn’t receive from an equatorial system?
Ken Mentasti: Multiple HD video feeds from a single platform can help the military with ISR and intelligence gathering by disseminating actionable intelligence and information to the government user. The applications are almost limitless. In fact, many applications don’t even exist yet that can take advantage of the bandwidth we’ll be capable of delivering. This kind of bandwidth can become a driver of future innovation by eliminating limitations.
The expansion of the O3b MEO constellation can enable global Ka band coverage that can be flexibly allocated globally that has the capability to route traffic wherever and whenever the government needs it. These new satellites will apply the latest and greatest security and encryption. Their steerable beams will be key for risk avoidance and for avoiding interference. And the size of the constellation will give it baked-in resiliency.
All of these things are essential for government and military applications.
Mike Blefko: The current MEO O3b constellation of 16 satellites that will grow to 20 in 2019 has provided our government users with unmatched throughput (600×600 Mbps) at low latency (<150msec). The next-generation O3b mPOWER system in 2021 will increase this throughput by 10 fold over a gateway-less architecture. Truly ‘anywhere to anywhere’ connectivity will unleash another satellite industry paradigm shift to make the untethered user more capable, more effective, more productive, and more empowered.
GSR: What is the timeline for the launch of the O3b global satellite system? How long before this is available for government users?
Will Lewis: As is standard with FCC approvals of NGSO systems, SES is required to launch at least half of the 26 additional satellites within six years to maintain the approval.
Those new satellites would all be the next generation of our MEO satellites — O3b mPOWER — with advanced technologies, higher throughput, additional flexibility and increased bandwidth. In addition, the satellites are authorized to operate for both Ka and V band. The initial O3b mPOWER launches are targeted for 2021 and are expected to be for equatorial satellites.
During the course of those six years, SES will be actively assessing the market for satellites in inclined orbit and will respond according to market demand.
To learn more about the ways that commercial satellite services are being used within the military, download the following resources: | https://ses-gs.com/govsat/defense-intelligence/what-fcc-approval-really-means-for-the-ses-meo-satellite-constellation/ |
Recently, the availability of innovative and affordable COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf) technological solutions and the ever-improving results of microelectronics and microsystems technologies have enabled the design of ever smaller yet ever more powerful satellites. The emergence of very capable small satellites heralds an era of new opportunities in the commercial space market. Initially applied only to scientific missions, Earth observation and remote sensing, small satellites are now being deployed to support telecommunications services. This review paper examines the operational features of small satellites that contribute to their success. An overview of recent advances and development trends in the field of small satellites is provided, with a special focus on telecommunication aspects such as the use of higher frequency bands, optical communications, new protocols, and advanced architectures.
1. Introduction
In the short span of the first two decades of the new millennium, a revolution has taken place in the field of satellite systems: the availability of innovative and affordable COTS technological solutions and the ever-improving results that are produced by microelectronics and microsystems technologies have paved the way to a process of size reduction for the satellite components and to the design of smaller and smaller satellites that have been defined as small satellites (whose weight is less or equal to 1000 kg), microsatellites (from 10 to 100 kg), nanosatellites (), and picosatellites () .
These technological trends have allowed new opportunities in the space market and the implementation of long-awaited projects that have been postponed or suppressed for years due to high inherent costs. More importantly, a new space rush has been originated by these technological achievements with hundreds of small satellites being launched in the last few years and even more envisaged to be commissioned in the near future.
So far, the main drivers of small satellites developments have been Earth observation and remote sensing, as they may greatly contribute to filling the gap of data poverty in many industry verticals (e.g., agriculture, disaster management, forestry, and wildlife). Nevertheless, new investments in developing mega-constellations (hundreds) of pico/nanosatellites for providing global communications, the increased role of satellites in Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications , and the interest in taking advantage of one of the main possibilities enabled by small satellites, which is the development of distributed systems with interconnected satellites, are moving the attention also towards the telecommunication aspects. Therefore, this paper provides an overview of recent advances and development trends in the field of small satellites, with a special focus on the telecommunication aspects such as the use of higher-frequency bands and optical communications, protocols, and architectures.
It is worth outlining that some surveys about small satellites have been published recently [3–6]: whereas focuses on the evolution of the antennas for small sats, concentrates on intersatellite link and related communication protocols for small sat constellations. On the other hand, reviews the history of small satellite development and summarizes its capabilities and applications. A rather comprehensive review is provided in , which deals with many aspects, from hardware components and structures, to network topology and communication protocols; moreover, focuses on Cubesat class of small sats. With respect to previous surveys, this paper provides a more extensive overview on telecommunication aspects and aims at describing this rapid evolving field, giving more insights into new protocols, architectures, and technology developments.
The paper is organized as follows: in Section 2, a brief history of the evolution of the small satellites is provided, trying to unveil the commercial reasons of their success. An overview of the services and applications which are enabled by the small satellite is given in Section 3. Section 4 is devoted to a description of the evolution of the payloads, focusing on the used frequencies and the Software Defined Radio (SDR) concept. New telecommunication architectures and the suitable protocols for small satellites based systems are described in Sections 5 and 6, respectively. Finally, the perspectives and the open challenges are discussed in Section 7 and the conclusions are drawn in Section 8.
2. A Brief History of Small Sats Evolution
From the dawn of the space era to their latest developments, satellite communications have been one of the most reliable indicators of the technical and societal evolution: as a matter of fact, in the last of few decades, amazing and unexpected progresses and changes have been obtained in the diverse fields of broadcasting, mobile communications, Earth observation and remote sensing, interplanetary exploration, transport, and remote monitoring, so encompassing commercial, civil, and military applications . However, it is worth stressing that starting from the postwar times to the today scenarios, satellite systems have undergone themselves a radical and systemic evolution which proves the fact that their abilities perfectly adapt to the ever-changing needs of both the society and the market; particularly, while in the first decades, governments and national agencies were the main players in the start of space race, in the design of satellite missions, and in the development of satellite-based systems, more recently private companies have largely increased their role in this strategic industry .
This trend has also been enforced by the privatization of the main international satellite organizations which has taken place at the end of the last century and produced high revenues as shown by Figure 1 . As far as the VSAT and broadband satellite systems are concerned, the same trends of deregulation and stimulation of the market forces have been experienced from their launch to the final successful spreading as reported by the graphs in Figure 1 .
On the other hand, the end of the twentieth century has also seen the birth and the first steps of a new paradigm that is based on the exploitation of the so-called small satellites, whose size and weight are much smaller than the huge geostationary orbit (GEO) or the big medium Earth orbit (MEO) and low Earth orbit (LEO) ones. These new systems are identified as micro-, nano-, and picosatellites according to their dimensions . The early missions of small satellites were mainly organized and performed by research groups of Universities and Research Organizations with the goals of enabling a technology demonstration or an application validation .
More interestingly, these early attempts have paved the way to a new philosophy which has been aimed at implementing and exploiting very-low-cost satellites . As reported in , the estimated production and launch cost for a single small satellite can be approximately assumed to span from to USD: particularly, in the case of shared small satellite, the launch unitary costs percan lower down to few kEuros, as sketched in Figure 2.
As a result, these unprecedented features of small satellites have been favourably considered by market forces which have been largely stimulated in the last thirty years and pushed to start a new gold rush in space, with original objectives and well-targeted applications such as Earth observation and communications, in the civil, military, and commercial dominions. Since the possible applications will be reviewed in the following section, it is now important to provide some rough numbers that can give the idea of how strong the new race to the space exploitation is.
Overall, 551 satellites () have been launched between 2010 and 2015, while the expectations for the successive five years are targeted on other 1380 launches : these trends are shown in Figure 3. These numbers are confirmed by the 300 launches of nano/microsatellites which have been recorded in 2017 .
Moreover, three constellations for satcom and Earth observation accounted for 38% of the total and this share should grow up to 68% in the next 5 years driven by several large projects. As a result, this analysis unveils the main booster of the massive development of the small satellites: the ability to relatively easily build a constellation. This peculiar aspect will be considered in the following sections with a specific focus on the intersatellite communications.
Finally, it is worth introducing the main player of the massive increase of the number of small satellites: the CubeSat. The CubeSat has been designed as the goal of a Stanford University program which was started in 1999 to obtain a very low-cost/weight satellite which could be quickly developed and used for educational purposes . Together with the California Polytechnic State University, Stanford University developed CubeSat specifications with the goal to obtain a customizable satellite, but with standard shape and weight, in order to simplify launch and deployment operations. As it is known, a CubeSat is made by one (1U) or more (nU) 10 cm X 10 cm X cm units, with a mass of up to 1.33 kg per unit . The nature of CubeSats has enabled the standardised production of subsystems that can even be purchased as a COTS product from online shops, so keeping the mission cost very low .
These peculiar features of the CubeSat solution have been very important in the fast increase of the small satellite missions and in the huge development of companies whose main core is in the new space market, such as Terra Bella (formerly Skybox Imaging), Spire, Planet Labs, and OneWeb, who are developing mega-constellations of small spacecrafts in LEO orbit .
3. Overview of Services and Applications
Around the year 2000, the SmallSats were able to properly exploit innovative COTS technological solutions (hardware and software), achieving the ability to compete effectively and to make profit. The successful growth of the modern SmallSats services, encompassing a large variety of application contexts, shall be analysed also based on a new management approach the small satellite organizations started to adopt: the agile methodology. This paradigm comes from the IT industry and it is based on a highly iterative design technique: well-defined objectives, missions and requirements, incremental changes to the design for a continuous improvement of the system performance, short timescale, and reduced cost. Agile approaches and the exploitation of the latest off-the-shelf technologies represent the two main drivers of the New Space Age .
In the following, a brief overview of the main applications and services of the SmallSats is provided. Since some of the following acronyms may be unknown to the reader, a comprehensive list is provided in Table 1.
(1) Earth Observation and Remote Sensing. So far, the primary use for nano/microsatellites has been Earth observation (EO) and remote sensing. The implementation of large satellite constellations allows performing many simultaneous and distributed measurements or observations (Earth resources monitoring, weather monitoring, and disaster monitoring) with an increased temporal resolution of collected data (i.e., shorter revisit times) .
A more extensive use of small satellites for EO and remote sensing calls for higher and higher data rate links to download the acquired information in a short time.
(2) Science and Technology Demonstration Missions. Micro- and nanosatellites enable a wider access to space and represent an affordable test for young engineers and scientists to prove prototype systems and experience the idea of a future satellite. To this aim, NASA created the NASA Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa), an initiative oriented to students of several disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). A number of ESA CubeSat missions have been funded under the In-Orbit Demonstration part of the General Support Technology Programme (GSTP): GOMX-3 and GOMX-4B for demonstrating new capabilities of nanosatellites, QARMAN (QubeSat for Aerothermodynamic Research and Measurements on Ablation) for demonstrating re-entry technologies, PICASSO (Pico-Satellite for Atmospheric and Space Science Observations) for the analysis of the ozone distribution in the stratosphere, the temperature profile up to the mesosphere and the electronic plasma characterization in the ionosphere, RadCube for real-time monitoring of the cosmic radiation and space weather environment, and PRETTY (Passive REflecTomeTrY), a nanosatellite to measure and register ice on the glaciers or on the poles and wave movements of the oceans.
(3) Interplanetary Exploration Missions. Small Satellite Platforms have led to a new era of space exploration especially thanks to new enabling technologies and new highly capable launch vehicles, which open many opportunities for future lunar and planetary exploration. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and European Space Agency (ESA) have adopted the Interplanetary CubeSat Model, supporting missions and studies, ranging from Mars and Lunar observation to the study of meteoroids and asteroids. Some of them are MarCO (Mars Cube One) , NEA Scout (Near-Earth Asteroid Scout) , LUCE (LUnar Cubesats for Exploration), LUMIO (Lunar Meteoroid Impacts Observer), VMMO (Volatile and Mineralogy Mapping Orbiter), Lunar Flashlight , and Arkyd series .
(4) Communications Services. Small micro- and nanosatellites organized in constellations can be used for providing data distribution (broadcasting applications) and data exchange (Internet of things and Machine-to-Machine paradigm) and also for extending the Internet access to the entire Earth . According to Space Works Market outlook, in the next years, communication constellations of micro- and nanosatellites, which are now in the technology demonstration phase, will be used to serve and support the rapidly growing Internet of things (IOT) and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) market. Sky & Space Global, Kepler Communications, Hiber (Magnitude Space), Helios Wire, Astrocast, Blink Astro, Fleet Space, and Myriota are some of the main communications operators offering IOT/M2M and data relaying services.
An overview of the nano/microsatellite trends by application in the near term is provided in Figure 4 . Although the analysis highlights that the primary use for nano/microsatellites will remain Earth observation and remote sensing, an increase of communications constellations is expected. SpaceWorks estimates that about 700 communications nano/microsatellites will require launch over the next 5 years.
(5) Commercial, Civil, and Military Applications. Transport, smart environments (including remote monitoring), quality of life, safety, and security represent the main application contexts of the adoption of small, micro-, and nanosatellites . As examples of commercial constellation of nanosatellites, Aerial & Maritime and Sky & Space Global are two GomSpace commercial missions: the former is oriented to aircraft and vessel tracking for situational awareness, while the latter will provide a global communication infrastructure in space. Moreover, Astrocast has a project for offering global M2M services as remote monitoring, geolocalization, intelligent data collection, and predictive maintenance .
Figure 5 shows the SpaceWorks analysis on the Nano/Microsatellite Operator Trends: Military Operators (aiming to support national defense activities), Commercial Operators (whose purpose is profit revenue generating activities), and Civil Operators (nonmilitary or non-profit activities) are considered
4. Payload Evolution
In the early implementation of small satellites, mainly used as a platform for university and technology development projects , the payload was supposed to perform very simple operations such as transmission of a beacon, storing data or transmitting data collected by simple sensors at very low data rate (1 to 9.6kbps). Amateur frequencies at UHF were mainly used and operated via the standard AX.25 . At such low frequencies, wire antennas (dipoles, monopoles, and helical) are especially common as the wavelength is long and achieving good radiation efficiency within a small volume is challenging. A considerable number of the CubeSats that are currently in space use wire antennas for their simplicity of implementation. Moreover, the omnidirectionality of dipoles makes them viable candidates for intersatellite communications. Emerging applications and the associate need for transmitting at higher data rate or performing more complex tasks, keeping low mass and weight, have raised the need for larger bandwidths and higher-frequency bands, an increasing request of digital implementation and SW control.
4.1. Evolution in the Frequency Bands and Antennas
In recent years, the use of higher frequencies than the common VHF/UHF bands such as S-Band (mainly for telemetry) and X-Band (for data transmission) has become more widely available thanks to the advent of commercially available Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits (MMICs). The shift towards higher-frequency bands implies other requirements on the spacecraft design, mainly on the power system and the antennas. For instance, already at frequencies higher than S-band, the efficiency of solid-state high-power amplifiers drops from 80% (at UHF) to 30%. At such frequencies, most common antennas are still wire antennas or planar antennas, such as patch and slot antennas. Patch antennas have gained special attention for CubeSats, as they are relatively easy to fabricate. A variety of patch antenna designs have been investigated at S bands. Downlinks on S-Band would be expected to be able to implement data rates from 100 kbps to 1 Mbps. Larger data rates require the use of higher-frequency bands such as Ku-, K-, and Ka-band, which are the state of the art for large spacecrafts, but they are still young technologies in the small satellite world. A Ka-band transmitter on a CubeSat began orbital operations in 2015 . At such higher frequencies, it is possible to implement also high-gain reflector antennas which can meet the strict size and weight requirements of a small satellite. Reflectarray antennas are also very suitable, as they provide high gain and can be easily integrated with the CubeSat structure. Their structure consists of flat panels, which can be folded and stowed on the CubeSat . In , the development of a reflectarray for the Mars Cube One (MarCO) is described. MarCO is the first CubeSat mission designed for Mars operation. The frequency of operation in this case was 8.425 GHz, with a measured gain of 29.2 dB.
As a matter of fact, small satellites also represent a viable and cost-effective way to test new frequency bands for satellite communications (both in terms of HW components and propagation channel), such as W-band . The investigation of such high-frequency bands is mainly motivated by the need of bandwidths in High Throughput Satellites . On the other hand, those frequencies could be an interesting option for intersatellite links of small sats . At Q/V and W-band, horn antennas can be a viable option for small sats as they provide good gain and could be fabricated also for university experiments . A potential horn design that could be considered for future Ka-band CubeSat communication is discussed in [27, 28].
The need of higher data rates, low cost, and small size has also moved the attention towards FSO communications, especially for intersatellite links as presented in the next section.
4.2. Laser Communication Terminals for Small Satellites and CubeSats
In recent years, free-space optical communications have become a mature alternative to traditional RF communication systems. With the use of laser communication terminals in systems like the European Data Relay System (EDRS) for intersatellite links, the technology has passed the barrier from research to the operational application. Concerning downlinks from satellite to Earth, a number of demonstrations have been performed in recent years, like the Small Optical Transponder (SOTA) experiment of the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, which used a dedicated satellite, or the Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS) experiment of the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (NASA-JPL), which demonstrated optical downlinks from the International Space Station (ISS). The Aerospace Corporation demonstrated an optical downlink from a 1.5U-CubeSat . Even optical links from the Moon to Earth have been demonstrated .
A number of further demonstration missions are currently planned, such as NASA’s Terabyte Infrared Delivery (TBIRD) mission, aiming at demonstrating alink from a CubeSat to ground , or within the Optical Space Infrared Downlink (OSIRIS) programme of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), which aims at demonstrating optical downlinks from small satellites and CubeSats to Earth .
Practical implementations of current optical communication systems for small satellite applications may reach data rates of aboutwith a terminal weight in the order ofand a power consumption of about. For applications on CubeSats, Figure 6 shows OSIRIS4 CubeSat implementation as an example. The terminal weighs in the order of, consumesof electrical power, and requires only 0.3U of space within the CubeSat. It reaches a data rate of. OSIRIS4CubeSat will be offered on the market by DLR’s commercialization partner Tesat Spacecom under the market name CubeL.
An important challenge in optical satellite-to-ground communications is the limited availability due to clouds. This can be overcome by employing a world-wide network of optical ground stations. By using a sufficient buffer memory onboard the satellites, this enables overcoming the issues due to limited availability of the space-to-ground link . Although most optical ground stations available to date have been developed mainly for research purposes, both new and established ground segment operators have expressed strong interest in building up the required infrastructure. Thus, it is only a matter of time until optical links can be used in an operational manner, even in small-satellite applications.
4.3. Towards SDR Payloads
Since the early development of small satellites, one trend in the payload design can be identified: privileging the use of low-cost COTS and in general HW components and moving towards a digital implementation. Thanks to the availability of modern high-speed and low-power digital signal processors and high speed memories, the trade-off between the HW/SW implementation is moving more and more towards the SW implementation and the concept of SDR. SDR is an evolution of flexible and reconfigurable payloads. An early adopter of reconfigurable technology for space applications was the Australian FedSat microsatellite communications payload launched in 2002. The FedSat communications payload utilized Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) components for baseband digital signal processing and included a code upload mode allowing it to be reprogrammed while in orbit . The evolution from reconfigurable and reprogrammable devices to SDR has been driven by the demand for flexible and reconfigurable radio communications in support of military and public safety operations and it has been pushed by advances in the enabling technologies such as Analog to Digital Converters (ADCs), General Purpose Processors (GPPs), Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), and FPGAs. SDR payloads are considered as a needed technological step in traditional satellite systems for assuring a longer lifetime and a more efficient resource utilization , even if so far, few SDR payloads have flown on big satellites. For small satellites, which are designed with few years of lifetime in mind, the reason for moving towards SDR payloads is mainly related to the offered flexibility to adapt to new science opportunities and potentially reducing development cost and risk through reuse of common space platforms to meet specific mission requirements. SDR can be used to support multiple signals, increase data rates over reliable intersatellite and ground links to Earth, and also help in facing the shortage of available frequencies for communications in the more crowded bands. As a matter of fact, the use of an SDR approach also allows implementing Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) techniques and hence a more efficient spectrum utilization. To date, no satellite application of DSA is in use, although companies such as Tethers Unlimited (U.S.), with funding from NASA, are looking at upgrading SDR platforms with advanced cognitive radio.
The challenge of this more digital approach is related to one of the strong limitations of a small satellite: power consumption. For this reason, FPGA has been preferred so far, especially for higher data rates in the X- and Ka-band, as they allow performing compute intensive tasks in parallel and use more efficiently every clock cycle . Additionally, modern FPGAs have embedded processing systems, such as ARM cores, integrated inside the FPGA. Few SDRs have already flown in small satellites and other are under development, e.g., AstroSDR, NanoDock SDR, GAMALINK, and STI-PRX-01. It is definitely a hot topic of research and development, and there is growing interest in developing and testing new solutions. Pinto et al. exploited SDR in small satellite systems to design an intersatellite communication model which could be easily reconfigured to support any encoding/decoding, modulation, and other signal processing schemes. In , a novel SDR architecture on an embedded system is proposed, whose potential applications are the ground station for multisatellite communications, deployable mobile ground station network, and can be further extended to distributed satellite system.
A new generation of SDR technologies have been integrated in the SCAN Testbed (Space Communications and Navigation Testbed), which is an advanced integrated communications system and laboratory facility to be installed on the International Space Station (ISS), to develop, test, and demonstrate new communications, networking, and navigation capabilities in the space environment . The SCAN Testbed consists of reconfigurable and reprogrammable SDR transceivers/transponders operating at S-band, Ka-band, and L-band, along with the required RF/antenna systems necessary for communications.
5. New Telecommunication Architectures
Small satellites are playing an increasingly important role in telecommunication architectures in two main ways:(i)They are increasingly used to form application-focused segments of the infrastructure supporting existing communication architectures, notably the Internet.(ii)They also form and/or utilize altogether new, distinct communication architectures.
5.1. As Supporting Infrastructure
The use of Earth-orbiting satellites to conduct Internet traffic is of course not new. From TELSTAR in 1962 through Iridium, Globalstar, ViaSat, and EchoStar, the market for relaying data via radio links to satellites has grown rapidly. But historically, those satellites have been large and expensive, whether operating in LEO or GEO orbits. What is new is the use of large numbers of small satellites for this purpose. The field has grown rapidly in recent years as new concepts are proposed; many of them highly ambitious:(i)The OneWeb constellation is initially expected to comprise 882 small Internet service delivery satellites in LEO orbit, potentially growing to 2620 satellites .(ii)Samsung has proposed a 4600-satellite constellation, projected to be able to carry one billion terabytes of Internet data per month .(iii)The SpaceX corporation’s Starlink constellation is envisioned to comprise up to 12,000 small satellites in LEO orbit, with the capacity to carry up to 10% of local Internet traffic in densely populated areas .
5.2. As Participants in New Architectures
In addition to supporting the propagation of traffic within the Internet, however, small satellites require new, increasingly capable telecommunication architectures to sustain their own operations. Coordination among satellites in LEO orbit relies on cross-links between satellites, relay services provided by ground stations (typically via the terrestrial Internet), or a combination of both. This capability is critical for constellations such as the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) mission and the QB-50 project.
Moving farther, the twin MARCO spacecrafts (each a 6U CubeSat) accompanying the InSight spacecraft on its mission to Mars will primarily serve to relay information from the InSight lander to its mission operations center on Earth, while the lander is engaged in entering the atmosphere of Mars, descending to the surface, and landing. As shown in Figure 7, the link from InSight to each MARCO orbiter will be in the UHF band, while the MARCO vehicles communication with Earth will be by X-band radio transmission. Each MARCO can use only one of these links at a time, so the communication architecture will be very different from the continuous end-to-end connectivity that characterizes Internet traffic.
Projecting that deviation from the Internet traffic model back to high-volume terrestrial communications, a satellite communications architecture that is designed to tolerate the associated delays in end-to-end communication on a large scale has been proposed. The “Ring Road” architecture is based on the use of delay-tolerant networking (DTN) protocols , discussed later. The basic idea is to deploy, gradually, one satellite at a time, a constellation of DTN Bundle Protocol (BP) routers in LEO orbit. As shown in Figure 8, the network encompasses three classes of DTN nodes:(i)Router satellites, called “courier” nodes, in polar orbit(ii)Nodes residing in computers that are attached to the Internet, called “hot spots”(iii)Nodes residing in computers that are highly isolated, with no electronic connectivity, called “cold spots.”
The constellation operates as follows:(i)A user at a cold spot node issues data in a bundle (such as an email message or an HTTP proxy query). The node queues the bundle up for transmission to the next courier that flies overhead .(ii)Eventually, a courier flies over the cold spot. The courier’s orbit is well known, so the contact between the courier and the cold spot can be scheduled far in advance. The courier and cold spot begin communications using BP over LTP (Licklider Transmission Protocol ; see more details in the next section) over whatever radio frequencies are available. Bundles from elsewhere that are destined for this cold spot called “forward traffic” are transmitted from the courier to the cold spot node for forwarding within the local network, if any. Bundles issued from the cold spot called “return traffic” are transmitted to the courier and queued on-board for future transmission.(iii)The courier computes a route for each bundle it receives from the cold spot. It knows about its own future scheduled contacts, so any bundle that is destined for some other cold spot that the courier will reach before the bundle’s TTL (Time-To-Live) expires is queued for future transmission to that cold spot. All other bundles are queued for transmission to the next hot spot the courier will fly over.(iv)When the courier flies over a hot spot, the queued bundles are transmitted to the hot spot and the courier receives bundles that the hot spot node has queued for transmission to that courier.(v)When a hot spot node receives bundles from a courier, it computes a route for each bundle. If the bundle’s destination endpoint is directly reachable via the Internet (e.g., a database server in Montreal), then the hot spot uses BP over TCP/IP to send the bundle immediately to that endpoint. Otherwise, the hot spot consults the contact schedule to determine which courier has the earliest scheduled contact with the destination cold spot and then reconsults the contact schedule to determine which hot spot has the earliest scheduled contact with that courier. If the first hot spot that will see that courier is the local hot spot itself, then the hot spot simply queues the bundle locally for future transmission to that courier; otherwise, it uses BP over TCP/IP to send the bundle immediately to that computed best-way-forward hot spot.(vi)When a hot spot node receives bundles from some node in the Internet (possibly another hot spot), it computes a route for each bundle as above. When a courier flies overhead, it exchanges bundles with the courier. When the courier subsequently flies over a cold spot, it exchanges bundles with it in the same way, and so on.
The concept offers a number of advantages:(i)Unlike a crosslink-based routing-fabric constellation, there is no need to orbit the whole constellation all at once in order to get data moving. The network could begin with one hot spot, one cold spot, and one courier. In that case, the round-trip time for the cold spot would be very long as there would be only one contact per N orbits of the satellite, where N is however many orbits would be needed to bring the cold spot back into the satellites ground track. Nonetheless, bidirectional data flow between the cold spot and any point on the Internet would be reliably supported, albeit at very low effective data rates. As more satellites are added, the frequency of coverage of any given cold spot increases and N drops, which increases the carrying capacity of the network as a whole (the aggregate storage capacity of all the couriers), so that the number of cold spots supported can increase. Adding more hot spots on the ground would also incrementally increase the carrying capacity of the network, by enabling earlier drainage of the return-traffic bundles in couriers’ on-board storage and thereby making room for more bundles, which would further increase the number of supportable cold spots you could support.(ii)While the routing is somewhat complex, it takes place in potentially powerful ground-based computers at hot spots, not in the courier satellites. This means that small, mass-produced satellites can be suitable as couriers.(iii)All elements of the architecture are, therefore, relatively inexpensive.
As a conclusion, this SmallSat-based architecture could enable very widely available network data service at low cost, starting with a very modest initial investment.
5.3. Integration with Terrestrial Architectures
The potentials offered by Small- and CubeSats constellations from a service point of view have to be analysed from a wider angle in order to consider the data availability from different stakeholders. In the case of processing centres placed nearby control centres or in any case directly connected to them via dedicated terrestrial infrastructure, the architecture design may essentially consist in the extension of the exemplary one illustrated in the previous subsections. This can be achieved by terminating the proposed DTN architecture directly at the processing centres or by making use of specialised gateways capable of interfacing native DTN architectures with non-DTN aware counterpart (i.e., in the case of legacy networks building on pure TCP/IP protocol architectures).
On the other hand, the increasing interest towards the service provided by small satellite constellations may result in distributing data to enterprises, universities, schools, public authorities, and single users for different applications (e.g., space data exploitation, education purposes, surveillance and monitoring, etc.). In this context, data retrieval will likely happen over Internet terrestrial infrastructure, hence calling for proper integration strategies to be deployed between the ground segment of the small satellite system and the core terrestrial network. This integration task can be easily considered in the broader plan of converging satellite and 5G networks (and papers included in that special issue), which has recently become a hot topic for the satellite industry. Without entering the details of the architecture proposals elaborated to meet this goal, it is of pivotal importance to provide a flexible integrated architecture. Network flexibility is indeed recommended in order to ensure proper coexistence of existing Internet flows and small satellite data retrieval, which may be regarded in terms of different network slices, each characterised by diverse QoS/QoE characteristics. To this end, the implementation of proper SDN (Software Defined Networking) and NFV (Network Function Virtualization) solutions is desirable, so as to achieve also the “softwarisation” of the satellite network, whose understanding is however still not complete and will deserve additional studies for the case of small satellite constellations.
Still related to the objective of distributing small satellite data across the Internet is providing the network architecture with content-oriented functions in order to differentiate QoS management and routing functions applied to the data objects obtained from the small satellite systems. This may suggest the application of the existing Information Centric Networking architectures , whose baseline concept should be however adapted in order to meet the content characteristics of the data objects retrieved from the satellite systems and to interface with the network architecture (e.g., DTN-based) proposed for the satellite network (as illustrated in the previous subsection).
In more detail, ICN-based architectures build on publish-subscribe (pub-sub) paradigms, so that users subscribe to content distributions services and accordingly contents are distributed upon request reception. One of the main peculiarities of ICN networks is in that contents are explicitly mapped to object names, which enable more advanced content-aware routing and security schemes. Moreover, this approach helps implement a content-centric networking approach, hence superseding the typically employed host-centric approach (i.e., as implemented in IP-based systems), where locations and content descriptions are mapped into a unique identifier (e.g., IP address), hence posing some limitations on implementing content-based networking functions. Another intrinsic key advantage of ICN networks is to implement distributed caching functionalities throughout the entire network, hence possibly simplifying the integration of MEC (Multi-Access Edge Computing) and Cloud Computing functionalities, which are pivotal building blocks in the modern communication networks.
ICN functionalities are typically supported by specialised networking elements, i.e., ICN routers, which can be deployed not only in terrestrial networks, but also in the space counterpart, provided that satellites offer the necessary storage and computing capabilities. As a matter of fact, the coexistence of DTN- and ICN-based protocol architectures in the same network deployment is possible in order to exploit the main advantage offered by the two with respect to disruption resilience and caching, although specific adaptations of the protocol interfaces are necessary (not treated in this paper as beyond the scope).
In general, the overall network architecture encompassing 5G and satellite segments, building on ICN/DTN architectures, and interacting with MEC and cloud computing elements is exemplified in Figure 9, where the case of a satellite constellation complementing a 5G access network to boost the content delivery is sketched.
6. Advances in Communications and Network Protocols
New protocols for communication with and among small satellites have emerged rapidly in the past decade. The new capabilities are provided at multiple layers of the protocol stack.
6.1. Physical Layer
Originally, the only communication links supported for CubeSat satellites were UHF links operated via AX.25. Given the low requirements in terms of data rate of most of the original, mainly scientific, missions, simple modulation schemes have been used, such as binary-FSK [53, 54]. It is also worth outlining that the AX.25 protocol allows detecting errors but not correcting them. The emerging need for transmitting at higher data rate and keeping low mass and weight is pushing to use larger bandwidths and higher-frequency bands, as reported in Section 4, but also to use more efficiently the available bandwidths through more advanced modulations schemes. Moreover, the shift towards SDR payload and ground stations, made possible by the rapid evolution of digital electronics, opens the opportunity to implement more advanced communication protocols and modulation schemes, including error correction capabilities and dynamic adaptation of modulation parameters depending on the current link conditions . This has motivated some theoretical studies on the choice of the most appropriate modulations [56, 57]. However, there are already some innovative transceiver designed for CubeSat and Small Satellites using higher-frequency bands such as X-band up to Ka-band, implementing Variable and Adaptive Coding and Modulation (VCM, ACM) capabilities [58, 59]. For instance, RADIOSAT is an innovative transceiver developed by ESA, working at a Ka-band and integrated with a DVB-S2 modem, overall characterized by low power consumption. On the design of intersatellite link, it is worth mentioning the recent studies on the use of Visible Light Communications (VLCs), which can provide higher data rates with smaller, light-weight nodes, while avoiding the usual interference problems associated with RF, as well as the apparent radio spectrum scarcity below the 6 GHz band. Furthermore, the electronics required for achieving precision pointing accuracy for laser communication systems will be avoided. With approximately 300 THz of free bandwidth available for VLC, high capacity data transmission rates could be provided over short distances using arrays of LEDs .
6.2. Link Layer
While operators of Earth-orbiting CubeSats initially had few options beyond AX.25, new and more capable protocols that are suited for space flight operations at Earth and beyond Earth orbit are becoming available. The new CCSDS Unified Space Link Protocol (USLP) is designed to be adaptable to a very wide range of space data transmission conditions. It includes a “virtual channels” concept that enables a single physical link to be transparently shared among multiple data streams at higher layer, together with further multiplexing accommodation multiplexer access points that enable multiple data services to share a single virtual channel. It also provides mechanisms for aggregating small service data units and segmenting those aggregations, for extensive control over the sizes of protocol data units. CCSDS has also defined a security service at the link layer, called Space Data Link Security (SDLS). Security is rapidly becoming an urgent concern of space flight mission designers, as security breaches at ground stations and mission operations centers served by the Internet grow ever more troublesome. SDLS provides a security standard for simple space flight missions, where a single spacecraft is in contact with its control center through a ground station. It includes data origin authentication, connection and connectionless confidentiality, connection integrity with and without recovery, and connectionless integrity.
6.3. Network Layer
DTN concepts date back to the early days of the Interplanetary Networking Research Group of the Internet Research Task Force. DTN is a network architecture that is aimed at eking as much data communication as possible out of inhospitable networks—in particular, those where link interruptions (whether anticipated or not) are frequent and significant and/or where signal propagation latency is high. The effects of high delay and of disconnection are in fact similar in many ways, and the network architecture features developed for DTN serve to mitigate both. The central fact in both circumstances is the potential inability of each network node to request timely assistance from any other, for any purpose, and at any given moment. The unifying principle in the design of the features of DTN, then, is recognition of this fact. Nodes must be able to make their own operational decisions locally, on their own, with global information that may well be stale or incomplete, and the network must be able to continue to operate at some useful level even when these decisions are flawed. The core protocol of DTN is BP , a network-layer protocol that functions as the DTN analog to the Internet Protocol. BP is similar to IP in that a BP node receives data issued by an application entity, stores the data in some medium, and forwards the data through the network toward the node serving the application entity that is the destination of the data. It principally differs from IP in that a forwarding node does not immediately discard data items (called “bundles”) for which no onward communication link is currently available; instead, it may store bundles for a lengthy period of time, waiting for a link to become available. The DTN analog to the Internet’s TCP is the LTP . An LTP “engine” divides an outbound bundle into small “segments” and transmits the segments to the LTP engine serving the BP node that BP has determined to be the best next proximate destination for the bundle the next step on the bundle’s end-to-end path. Both LTP and TCP account for transmitted data, detecting data loss and automatically recovering from that loss by retransmitting segments as necessary. The principal difference between LTP and TCP is this:(i)In TCP, the entity that discovers and reports data loss is the TCP instance serving the application entity that is the destination of the data, and the data loss is reported to the TCP instance that serves the application entity that was the source of the data. That is, retransmission is “end-to-end” and TCP is situated above IP in the Internet protocol stack.(ii)In a space flight mission scenario, end-to-end retransmissions could result in extremely lengthy delays in data delivery because the source and destination of data might be on different planets separated by many light minutes of propagation latency. In LTP, data loss is instead reported to the LTP instance at the proximate source of the data (the immediately prior BP node on the end-to-end path), which retransmits the lost segments as early as possible. LTP retransmission is “point-to-point” within the network, and LTP is situated below BP in the DTN protocol stack.
Complementary to the use of DTN protocol solution is the exploitation of network coding (NC) for improving the robustness of data transmission as well as optimised use of the available network resources (i.e., bandwidth). Taking as reference the case of Ring Road network model for small satellite constellations, network coding can be applied on all the network nodes (i.e., on the space and ground segments) . In this case, network coding functionalities would actually consist in online (on fly) encoding and decoding functions. In more detail, each NC-enabled node will be in charge of collecting a given number of information packets and to encode them so as to generate a certain number of redundancy packets, where the overall network coding configuration plays an important role in what concerns both the specific number of input information and output redundancy packets as well as the adopted coding strategy . In this respect, the use of random linear network coding has gained quite some popularity in the last two decades, so that it is nowadays considered on the most appealing approach to implement NC in real network deployments. In particular, the application on random linear network coding of data chunks to be dumped to ground stations would help increase the reliability of data exchange against sporadic fluctuations of the transmission channel quality. Moreover, the network coding can be also exploited to transmit a reduced number of data packets, hence improving the actual bandwidth utilisation. This advantage can be particularly relevant if multicast data communications are exploited [64, 65], so that the performance advantages recognised for network coding can be fully exploited.
On the other hand, in spite of the aforementioned advantages, it is also worth considering the complexity implications arising from the implementation of network coding on the space segment . As a matter of fact, network coding implementation requires some dedicated computation capability for online coding functions as well as specific on-board storage to keep temporary copies of the data chunks being subject to encoding or decoding procedures. Moreover, some attention has to be also paid to the protocol layer wherein network coding is being applied, so that often either (i) layered or (ii) integrated approaches are considered . In the former, NC is implemented as a dedicated shim layer placed in between existing protocol layers in order to have a limited increase in the overall system implementation. In the latter, instead, NC functionalities have to be incorporated in an existing protocol, hence increasing the overall implementation complexity. Another point relates to the actual position of NC functionalities in a protocol stack, for which no specific consensus has been reached yet. On the one hand, it would be desirable to keep NC implementation as much closer as possible to the lower layers of the protocol stack (i.e., datalink) in order to have a more efficient recovery of possible packet losses. On the other hand, implementing NC in the upper layers of the protocol stack would help matching more precisely the characteristics of data services and eventually also meet the corresponding QoS requirements. In this respect, a good compromise could be to implement NC functionalities directly within the bundle protocol or immediately beneath it as part of any of the convergence layers (i.e., UDP or LTP) considered for that specific mission design. As such, it is immediate to see that all these requirements have to be properly taken into account in the full system design, with respect to the capabilities offered by existing satellite payloads and the actual service requirements to be targeted by the considered system.
Another interesting point related to the use of network coding in the proposed network architecture is about their use in the form of for mitigating packet losses. In this case, network coding is not implemented throughout the entire network, but only limited to the network legs exhibiting more challenges from a communication reliability point of view. As such, no re-encoding functionalities are necessary (as those made possible by random linear network coding) and on the contrary classical packet layer FEC solutions can be considered, i.e., based on LDPC or Reed-Solomon codes. In this respect, some proposals have been already worked out by CCSDS with reference to the case of erasure codes applied space downlinks , where the potential of LDPC-based erasure codes was exploited especially for the case of free-space optical link communications. Although in this case, network coding is implemented only on specific links, the node capability to implement encoding/decoding functionalities as well as to store data prior to processing functions is certainly an important requirement to be taken into account in the system design phase in the light of the typically resources-constrained implementations of nodes in space. Other activities looking into implementation of network coding for intersatellite links have been also considered, although the aforementioned constraints coming from the space segments were not completely taken into account, hence requiring additional study for a deeper understanding of all underlying implications and requirements.
7. Perspectives and Open Challenges
The paper has reviewed the state of the art of small satellite systems, highlighting the distinctive features enabling novel applications and focusing on telecommunication services.
The provision of advanced Internet services through mega-constellations of pico/nanosatellites is going to become reality in the near future. However, several challenges must be faced yet, which are summarized in the following.(i) Physical Layer.(a)The use of frequency bands higher than Ka-band and the use of free space optical (FSO) communications for Earth-satellite links (i.e., not only for intersatellite links), as reported in Section 4, raise one important challenge: the propagation channel can be strongly attenuated. Both for high frequency RF transmission and for FSO, this issue could be overcome by providing a ground network with a high number of ground stations at highly diverse sites. The concept of site diversity has been extensively studied in the field of High Throughput Satellite (HTS), and recent works have highlighted the fact that SDN paradigm could provide the gateways implementing the concept of Smart Diversity, a high level of reconfigurability that could allow efficient resources allocation during traffic switching events .(b)Besides the few theoretical studies mentioned in Section 6.1, and some transceiver implementing ACM techniques, much more work is needed to design optimized modulation and coding schemes able to satisfy strict requirements in terms of mass, weight, size, and power consumption.(ii) MAC Layer. In view of emerging system constraints, the implementation in small satellites of the scheduled and random-access MAC protocols adopted in existing satellite networks needs further investigation.(iii) Upper Layers. Definition is needed for interoperable application-layer protocols to be employed on top of the lower layer satellite protocols, addressing a wide range of application scenarios and traffic data configurations.(iv) Routing over Time. Due to the frequent topology changes in a CubeSat network, successful data delivery will require ample long-term storage at intermediate nodes to deal with satellite link disruptions.(v) Security Issues in LEO Satellite Networks. Telemetry, command and control messages, and mission specific data are sent through radio links. Therefore, security concerns arise. CubeSats are susceptible to Denial of Service (DoS) attacks as well as eavesdropping and data can be accessed by unauthorized user. The attacker could send spurious commands causing excessive resources consumption, data loss, or mission failure. Security challenges are exasperated by the use of SDR payload which opens the possibility of placing new software on the SDR unit through unauthorized and potentially malicious software installed on the platform . Another security concern that has been raised recently is related to the use of small satellites that have propulsion systems and they could be hacked and endangering other satellites . As also reported in Section 6, communication protocols currently implemented for CubeSat have almost no security features. Security mechanisms developed for conventional terrestrial networks, characterized by lengthy handshake exchanges and substantial computational effort, can hardly be directly applied to networks of small satellites. Power, space, and weight constraints related to CubeSat pose challenges in implementing complicated encryption schemes and computational expensive mechanisms . Scientists are already working on them [71, 72]. The challenge is still open. Interesting works are ongoing on the use of physical layer approaches to security in satellite communications [73, 74]. No specific work on application of physical layer security to CubeSat can be found; even this could open novel solutions to overcome the challenges of security in the small satellite framework. Interesting research is ongoing on the use of quantum cryptography. Some missions have been designed and developed, using nanosatellites and CubeSats, which show the feasibility of ground-to-space quantum key distribution (QKD) [75–78]. QKD uses individual light quanta in quantum superposition states to guarantee unconditional communication security between distant parties. Satellite-based QKD promises to establish a global-scale quantum network by exploiting the negligible photon loss and decoherence in the empty outer space. No eavesdropping can take place as the distribution of entangled photons between the ground and the satellite is used to certify the quantum nature of the link. By placing the entangled photon source on the ground, the space segments contain “only” the less complex detection system, enabling its implementation in a compact enclosure, compatible with the 12U CubeSat standard . In , a LEO satellite has been developed and launched to implement decoy-state QKD with over kHz key rate from the satellite to ground over a distance up to 1200 km, which is up to orders of magnitudes more efficient than that expected using an optical fiber (with 0.2 dB/km loss) of the same length. In , it was demonstrated that a 4 kg CubeSat can generate a quantum-secure key, which has so far only been shown by a much larger 600 kg satellite mission.(vi) Adoption of the SDN/NFV. It is clear that SDN/NFV paradigms will play a key role in the integration of satellite systems with 5G. However, the use of SDN/NFV in a network of small satellites has yet to be investigated; as discussed in Section 6, it could be important. Indeed, small satellite network deployments could accelerate the infusion of SDN concepts into satellite systems. For instance, on-board SDN-compatible routers could be developed and operated on small satellites as router functions migrate into software.
It is worth mentioning that 3GPP Service and system Aspects (SA) activities have identified satellite systems both as a possible solution for stand-alone infrastructure and as complements to terrestrial networks . In this framework, HTS systems could play a key role in some of the 5G application scenarios once they will be able to provide extremely high data rate.
However, in many other 5G applications scenarios that focus on M2M communications or require extremely low latency, only small satellite constellations can really provide an effective complement to terrestrial systems. It is crucial to effectively face the challenges discussed above in order not to miss the opportunities offered by the 5G ecosystem.
8. Conclusions
An up-to-date review of the operational features of the small satellite has been provided in this paper, aiming at highlighting the reasons of their recent attention from the industries, universities, and stakeholders and describing the main trends of development. A special emphasis has been given to the telecommunication aspects such as the use of higher-frequency bands, optical communications, new protocols, and advanced architectures.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
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Copyright
Copyright © 2019 Scott C. Burleigh et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. | https://www.hindawi.com/journals/wcmc/2019/6243505/ |
Inmarsat has completed the launch of its first sixth-generation satellite (I-6), a dual payload Ka- and L-band satellite set to offer a major boost in capacity for Fleet Xpress users once integrated into the existing network.
The new satellite, manufactured by Airbus Defence and Space, was launched from the JAXA Tanegashima Space Centre in Japan by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries onboard its H-IIA launch vehicle on December 22nd (early on December 23rd local Japanese time).
Separation from the rocket was completed successfully and initial communication was initiated with the satellite for telemetry acquisition approximately three hours after lift-off.
After completion of the initial launch programme, the satellite will begin an extended phase of testing and positioning manoeuvres to bring the I-6 to its final geostationary orbital position (GEO) over the Indian Ocean in readiness to begin commercial services in 2023.
The new I-6 alone will deliver more capacity than the entire first-generation Global Xpress Ka-band satellite fleet (the I-5s), while also doubling the power of Inmarsat’s previous generation of L-band satellites (the I-4s) to allow more data to be carried over the same amount of bandwidth.
Inmarsat plans to introduce two I-6 satellites, with a second launch expected to take place in 2022. These two I-6 units form part of an extensive technology upgrade roadmap that will see the company launch a total of seven satellites by 2024, two of which will operate in a highly elliptical orbit (HEO) to provide polar coverage for the first time.
The new satellites also form an integral part of Inmarsat’s upcoming ORCHESTRA and ELERA plans.
The ORCHESTRA hybrid network will leverage the higher capacity Ka-band payloads and integrate with terrestrial 5G connectivity and an additional planned low earth orbit (LEO) constellation (not included in the current seven-satellite launch schedule) to offer the best available connection speed to users. ELERA meanwhile is envisioned as a global internet of things (IoT) network that will use Inmarsat’s L-band narrowband capabilities to deliver data for a variety of machine-to-machine applications. | https://smartmaritimenetwork.com/2021/12/23/inmarsats-sixth-generation-satellite-fleet-completes-first-launch/ |
14 December 2021
The South African government has initiated a review of the national space programme to accelerate the development of telecom and location satellites, according to the country’s minister of communications and digital technology.
Speaking November 22 at the 23rd Southern African Telecommunications Networks and Applications Conference (SATNAC), held from 21 to 23 November, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said “we are currently working on accelerating the development of South African-owned satellites and are looking at ways to condense an eight to ten year project into three to four years, but this depends on access to finance, which I hope will be from telecommunications, mining, etc”.
The minister added that “companies will participate” in the project and co-finance this development. “Of course, we cannot afford to deploy a single satellite and as a government we will coordinate with South African industry and other interested investors to also deploy South African-owned low earth orbit satellites,” she addedFind out more
10 December 2021
5G networks promise greater capabilities to critical users but further specification work is needed to ensure their unique requirements are met. A new white paper from TCCA, the global organisation for the advancement of standardised critical communications technologies, says that ultimately, 5G will enable cooperation between critical users to become more efficient and effective. As a result, the safety of first responders and the communities they protect will be enhanced.
The white paper addresses a number of key questions raised by the critical communications community on the role of 5G, including how it compares to 4G LTE, the initial use cases, the expected impacts on user operations and the likely market availability of such solutions.Find out more
06 October 2021
The Tanzanian government plans to use electricity infrastructure to deploy additional internet broadband connectivity and services across the nation – a project that will be by state-owned Tanzania Telecommunications Corporation Limited (TTCL).
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has joined forces with the country’s power utility company, the Tanzania Electricity Supply Company (Tanesco) to extend broadband connectivity using Tanesco’s infrastructure (electricity poles).
It is understood that the partnership will connect ten regions to the national fibre network and expand broadband to at least 4, 449km, more than double the planned 1, 880km in the 2021/2022 financial yeaFind out more
04 October 2021
An analysis by the Global Certification Forum (GCF) has revealed that the rate of adoption of 5G technology in mobile devices is significantly outpacing the rate at which 4G LTE was adopted in its early years. GCF is a non-profit, global, membership driven organisation. With more than 300 members from major operators, MVNOs, all major device and IoT manufacturers and the test industry, working together with key industry partners on certification programmes demanded by the market. | https://www.africanwirelesscomms.com/News?category=CRITICAL-COMMUNICATIONS&tagid=233 |
Sharm El-Sheikh, 22 November 2019: The World Radiocommunication Conference 2019 (WRC-19) concluded today as agreements signed by some 3400 delegates from around 165 Member States were enshrined in the Final Acts of the Radio Regulations, the international treaty governing the global use of radio-frequency spectrum and satellite orbits.
- Additional spectrum allocations agreed for IMT-2020 (5G mobile)
- Earth monitoring and space research satellite services protected
WRC-19 identified additional globally harmonized (millimetre wave) frequency bands for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT), including IMT-2020 (otherwise known as 5G mobile), facilitating diverse usage scenarios for enhanced mobile broadband, massive machine-type communications and ultra-reliable and low-latency communications. This will unlock a host of applications facilitating Intelligent Transport Systems, creating smart cities and making communities more sustainable while allowing for effective climate action, improved health care, sustainable agricultural practices, and greater energy efficiency.
At the same time, protections were accorded to the Earth-exploration satellite service (EESS) as well as meteorological and other passive services in adjacent bands, such as the space research service (SRS) to ensure that space-based monitoring of the earth and its atmosphere remain unhindered. Satellite services supporting meteorology and climatology that aim to safeguard human life and natural resources will be protected from harmful radio-frequency interference, as will systems used by radio astronomers for deep space exploration.
Steps were also taken to ensure that radio astronomy stations would be protected from any harmful radio interference from other space stations or satellite systems in orbit.
"WRC-19 paves the way for new, more innovative ways to connect the world using both terrestrial and space-based communication technologies," said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. "As leading edge broadband technology manifests itself in new industrial developments, people in the remotest areas will also get better and more affordable access.
"The hard won agreements at WRC-19 will favourably impact the lives of billions of people around the world, creating a digital landscape for sustainable growth and development," said Mr Mario Maniewicz, Director of the ITU Radiocommunication Bureau. "The achievements of WRC-19 in enabling new communication technologies and the protection of existing services will be reflected in the continuous growth of the trillion dollar telecommunication and ICT industry."
The deliberations at WRC-19 were steered by conference Chairman Amr Badawi with assistance from six Vice-Chairmen: Mr Kyu Jin Wee (Republic of Korea), Mr Tareq Al Awadhi (United Arab Emirates), Mr Peter Zimri (South Africa), Mr Alexander Kühn (Germany), Ms Grace Koh (United States) and Mr Sergey Pastukh (Russian Federation).
KEY OUTCOMES OF WRC-19
- Additional bands for IMT identified in the 24.25-27.5 GHz, 37-43.5 GHz, 45.5-47 GHz, 47.2-48.2 and 66-71 GHz bands, facilitating development of fifth generation (5G) mobile networks.
- Earth exploration-satellite (EESS) service – Protection accorded to EESS with the possibility of providing worldwide primary allocation in the frequency band 22.55-23.15 GHz in order to allow its use for satellite tracking, telemetry and control.
- Non-Geostationary Satellites – Regulatory procedures established for non-geostationary satellite constellations in the fixed-satellite service, opening the skies to next-generation communication capabilities. Mega-constellations of satellites consisting of hundreds to thousands of spacecraft in low-Earth orbit are becoming a popular solution for global telecommunications, as well as remote sensing, space and upper atmosphere research, meteorology, astronomy, technology demonstration and education.
- Regulatory changes introduced to facilitate rational, efficient and economical use of radio frequencies and associated orbits, including the geostationary-satellite orbit.
- High-altitude platform stations (HAPS) – Additional frequency bands Identified for High Altitude Platform Systems – radios on aerial platforms hovering in the stratosphere – to facilitate telecommunications within a wide coverage area below for affordable broadband access in rural and remote areas.
- WiFi networks – Regulatory provisions revised to accommodate both indoor and outdoor usage and the growth in demand for wireless access systems, including RLANs for end-user radio connections to public or private core networks, such as WiFi, while limiting their interference into existing satellite services.
- Railway radiocommunication systems between train and trackside (RSTT) – Resolution approved on Railway radiocommunication systems to facilitate the deployment of railway train and trackside systems to meet the needs of a high-speed railway environment in particular for train radio applications for improved railway traffic control, passenger safety and security for train operations.
- Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) – ITU Recommendation (standard) approved to integrate ICTs in evolving Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) to connect vehicles, improve traffic management and assist in safer driving.
- Broadcasting-satellite service (BSS) – Protection of frequency assignments, providing a priority mechanism for developing countries to regain access to spectrum orbit resources.
- Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) – Expanded coverage and enhanced capabilities for GMDSS.
VISION 2023: A LOOK INTO SOME AREAS OF THE WRC-23 AGENDA
VISION 2023: A LOOK INTO SOME AREAS OF THE WRC-23 AGENDA
- Earth stations in motion (ESIM) – Conditions to be defined for communications of ESIMs with geostationary space stations in the fixed-satellite service to provide reliable and high-bandwidth Internet services to aircraft, ships and land vehicles.
- High-altitude IMT base stations (HIBS) – Possible use of same frequency bands as ground-based IMT base stations on HAPS for extended mobile broadband connectivity to underserved communities and remote areas.
- Aeronautical mobile applications – Modernizing aeronautical HF radio, new non-safety aeronautical mobile applications for air-to-air, ground-to-air and air-to-ground communications of aircraft systems, and possible new allocations to the aeronautical mobile satellite service to support aeronautical VHF communications in the Earth-to-space and space-to-Earth directions.
- Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) – Improved communications and additional spectrum and satellite resources to enhance maritime capabilities in GMDSS, such as e‑navigation.
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27 May 21. Viasat Demonstrated High-Capability Expeditionary Communications at Recent Naval Technology Exercise. Viasat Inc. (NASDAQ: VSAT), a global communications company, showcased its ability to enable resilient and tactical cloud-based communications during the Naval Integration in Contested Environments (NICE) Advanced Naval Technology Exercise (ANTX) from April 5-15, 2021, at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The NICE ANTX event, led by the Naval Research & Development Enterprise (NR&DE), invited organizations from across industry, academia and government R&D to demonstrate emerging technologies that could be leveraged by the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps in support of Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) and Littoral Operations in Contested Environments (LOCE). During the exercise, Viasat proved methods to increase network capacity and resilience at the tactical edge, improving Situational Awareness (SA) and enabling advanced battlespace applications. Viasat demonstrated its ability to:
* Enable secure ship-to-shore communications in a littoral environment;
* Rapidly employ and manage agile communication nodes at all echelons, allowing access to the tactical cloud;
* Enable Electronic Warfare Operations across distributed systems with Office of Naval Research ENDOR Future Naval Capability (FNC) and Viasat NetAgility™;
* Provide dismounted leaders access to information and networks critical to maintain situational awareness; and
* Implement an automated Primary, Alternate, Contingency, and Emergency (PACE) plan for increased resiliency, transport bonding orchestration, and management across all network nodes
“The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps understand the importance of exploring technological innovations that can support critical operations in difficult contested environments,” said Craig Miller, president, Government Systems, Viasat. “At NICE ANTX, we demonstrated a diverse set of communication advancements—in an environment of emerging cyber and electronic warfare threats—and augmented existing military communication networks, tailored command and control capabilities at the tactical edge and provided advanced methods to deliver reliable, uninterrupted broadband connectivity through an enhanced on-the-move communications platform.”
Viasat demonstrated resilient ship-to-shore communications leveraging its Expeditionary Lightweight Integrated Tactical Edge (ELITE) kit and its roll-on/roll-off prototype G-18 Ku/Ka-band antenna to provide assured, satellite communications-on-the-move capability for maritime and ground-based platforms, allowing a commander to tailor their command and control (C2) capabilities to the mobility needs of the operation. Viasat also showed its NetAgility™ Mobile Software Defined Networking (SDN) router, enabling greater resiliency by bonding and aggregating multiple communication pathways for automated traffic routing from the Tactical Operations Center to Small Form Factor sensor integration. Finally, Viasat showcased the C2 gateway capabilities of the ELITE kit by simulating Link 16 tracks and disseminating them across all nodes in the network and to all dismounted warfighters via multiple Direct Line of Sight (DLOS) radio links.
28 May 21. UK space sector wins over £2m to help develop options for a national position, navigation and timing space system. 6 UK businesses have won a share of over £2m in government funding to help shape options for the UK’s satellite navigation and timing capability, to protect UK Critical National Infrastructure. Leading UK space companies Airbus, CGI, Sirrus Analysis, GMV NSL, Inmarsat, and QinetiQ will each receive a share of the funding to help develop system design and operation, signals and algorithms, resilience, assurance, and cost modelling for the UK Space Agency’s Space Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Programme (SBPP).
UK Space Agency deputy CEO Ian Annett said, “The UK is critically dependent on position, navigation and timing information from satellite navigation systems in transport, communications, energy distribution, and emergency response. This initial funding will help us design options for a new system to support our critical national infrastructure, whilst growing the space sector, boosting economic growth and making daily life more secure for people everywhere in the UK.”
Satellite navigation is a sophisticated technology that works by beaming signals from space that devices such as smartphones can use to determine their location and time – otherwise known as position, navigation and timing (PNT).
PNT services from satellite navigation systems are essential to modern day life in the UK, underpinning our National Security, defence, and transport. PNT signals are also an important component of future technologies including autonomous vehicles and smart cities, transforming the way people live, work and travel whilst supporting the net zero carbon emissions agenda.
Formed in October 2020, the Space Based PNT programme is exploring innovative ways of bringing a space PNT capability to the UK. Later this year it will advise on options to Government for a space-based solution to improve the UK’s PNT resilience.
Work from the programme will boost the UK’s already thriving space industry and expertise whilst paving the way for a more ’Global Britain’, bolstering UK interests with greater independence from foreign systems.
(Source: https://www.gov.uk/)
26 May 21. Consortium to develop satellite prototype for disaster relief, 5G. OneWeb is leading a consortium of space industry businesses for the development and delivery of a prototype ‘beam-hopping’ satellite.
Internet and satellite communications provider OneWeb is leading a consortium of UK-based space businesses to create a beam-hopping satellite which will allow satellites to bolster coverage in areas with greater demand, and even respond to events such as natural disasters.
The research was supported by the UK Space Agency with £32m in funding, which forms part of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Sunrise Program.
It is hoped that the consortium will be able to develop a prototype satellite by 2022, with the concept dubbed as the “Joey-Sat”.
UK Minister for Science Amanda Solloway outlined that the new development will bolster the UK’s ability to respond to disaster relief scenarios as well as providing critical civilian infrastructure.
“From helping during a disaster to providing broadband on planes, this amazing technology will show how next-generation 5G connectivity can benefit all of us on Earth,” Minister Solloway said.
“It is fantastic to see some of our finest space tech companies joining forces on this exciting project which will put the UK at the forefront of satellite communications technology.”
Chief technical officer at OneWeb Massimiliano Ladovaz welcomed the opportunity to partner with other technology providers for the satellite.
“Innovation and collaboration are at the core of OneWeb. Working together with our partners, Oneweb will accelerate the development and expansion of our cutting-edge technologies and manufacturing capabilities for the benefit of communities, enterprise and governments around the world,” Ladovaz commented.
“This is an exciting opportunity to work with talented potential supply chain partners, and we are delighted with the support from ESA and the UK Space Agency to bring continued innovation across the whole of OneWeb’s connectivity ecosystem.”
Elodie Viau, director of telecommunications and integrated applications at the ESA, welcomed the opportunity to support the growth of 5G connectivity.
“Joey-Sat will be used to demonstrate how next-generation 5G connectivity can benefit life on Earth. ESA is proud to support the space industry in Europe to bring such innovation to the competitive global telecommunications market. We congratulate all the partners involved,” Viau said. (Source: Space Connect)
26 May 21. Isotropic Systems secures UK Space Agency, ESA support. UK-based Isotropic Systems confirmed that it has received support from the UK Space Agency and the European Space Agency to develop satellite communications capabilities. Broadband terminal developer Isotropic Systems confirmed that the company has been the recipient of funding from the European Space Agency (ESA) and the UK Space Agency to support the ongoing innovation of their satellite communications capabilities.
Under the announcement, Isotropic will receive €18.5m from the UK Space Agency, which is expected to support funding via the ESA’s Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) program.
The announcement comes following the company’s successful $40m capital raising from SES, Orbital Ventures, Boeing HorizonX Global Ventures, Space Angels, firmament Ventures and the UK government’s Future Fund.
It is hoped that the funding will support a new research facility in Reading, with another 150 jobs being created.
According to a statement released by the company, the Isotropic is already engaged with British space businesses such as QintetiQ, Statellite Applications Catapult and Innovate UK.
John Finney, chief executive officer of Isotropic Systems welcomed the opportunity to collaborate with the UK Space Agency and ESA.
“This important milestone contract with ESA demonstrates the potential of our revolutionary terminals and will secure our role in the near-term growth of the UK and global space market. The level of support, expertise and technical oversight we receive from ESA, along with our recent fundraising, will enable us to scale our business to plan and help solve the world’s connectivity challenges across a range of applications and industries,” Finney said.
Domenico Mignolo, the ESA’s head of ground user segment technologies and products, expressed the importance of supporting small and medium enterprises within the space industry.
“The contract signed with Isotropic Systems demonstrates that ARTES Competitiveness & Growth really supports SME’s ambitious plans to turn disruptive technologies into products for the satcom market,” Mignolo said.
The head of telecommunications strategy at the UK Space Agency, Michael Rudd, outlined that these programs support the ongoing growth and development of the country’s nascent space industry.
“This ARTES-program contract with Isotropic Systems is an exciting catalyst for growth and innovation, not only for a new generation of disruptive and transformational connectivity terminals, but also high-value technology jobs supporting the growing UK space sector,” Rudd said.
“The UK’s ambitions to grow our space sector will be realised, in a large part, thanks to incredibly innovative UK-based firms like Isotropic Systems.”
Minister for Science Amanda Solloway outlined that not only do these advancements support British businesses, but also create beneficial technology.
“The UK space sector is thriving, and with connectivity never having been more important, it’s vital we support pioneering companies like Isotropic Systems who are tapping into the benefits that space technology can bring us all on Earth. Backed by UK government, these new multi-beam antennas will improve connectivity for us all at home, and for emerging technologies such as driverless cars, while helping to create 150 highly skilled UK jobs as we build back better,” Minister Solloway said. (Source: Space Connect)
26 May 21. USAF Research Laboratory opens new space war-fighting facility. The Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate recently opened a space research and development lab at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.
The $12.8m Space Warfighting Operations Research and Development, or SWORD, lab will be used to track objects on orbit, advance satellite cybersecurity, and develop autonomous capabilities to help space vehicles avoid each other and space debris, Col. Eric Felt, the head of AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate, said in an announcement Tuesday.
“One of the reasons we stood up the U.S. Space Force was to ensure our nation has the capabilities to deter any threats in space,” Felt said. “Our job in the SWORD lab will be to continue to develop resilient and innovative technologies that will protect our nation and allies from threats by our adversaries. Recognizing that space is an emerging domain for warfighting, we want to make sure there is never a war in space.”
The 26,000-square-foot facility that will serve as the home of 65 personnel from AFRL’s Space Control Branch.
“This is a laboratory for the nation, for AFRL and the Air and Space Forces where new partnerships will be enabled,” Felt said. “We want to bring people together to ensure we will continue to deliver innovation to the nation.”
The new facility continues AFRL’s development of new infrastructure at Kirtland Air Force Base dedicated to space. In October 2020, AFRL opened the Deployable Structures Laboratory, or DeSel. That $4m lab hosts the Spacecraft Component Technology Center of Excellence to develop materials for new deployable space structures. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
26 May 21. Lockheed Martin, General Motors Team-up to Develop Next-Generation Lunar Rover for NASA Artemis Astronauts to Explore the Moon. Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] and General Motors Co. [NYSE: GM] are teaming up to develop the next generation of lunar vehicles to transport astronauts on the surface of the Moon, fundamentally evolving and expanding humanity’s deep-space exploration footprint. NASA’s Artemis program is sending humans back to the Moon where they will explore and conduct scientific experiments using a variety of rovers. NASA sought industry approaches to develop a Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) that will enable astronauts to explore the lunar surface farther than ever before. The LTV is the first of many types of surface mobility vehicles needed for NASA’s Artemis program.
To support NASA’s mission, the two industry leaders will develop a unique vehicle with innovative capabilities, drawing on their unparalleled engineering, performance, technology and reliability legacies. The result may allow astronauts to explore the lunar surface in unprecedented fashion and support discovery in places where humans have never gone before.
Lockheed Martin will lead the team by leveraging its more than 50-year-history of working with NASA on deep-space human and robotic spacecraft, such as NASA’s Orion exploration-class spaceship for Artemis and numerous Mars and planetary spacecraft.
“This alliance brings together powerhouse innovation from both companies to make a transformative class of vehicles,” said Rick Ambrose, executive vice president, Lockheed Martin Space. “Surface mobility is critical to enable and sustain long-term exploration of the lunar surface. These next-generation rovers will dramatically extend the range of astronauts as they perform high-priority science investigation on the Moon that will ultimately impact humanity’s understanding of our place in the solar system.”
GM is a leader in battery-electric technologies and propulsion systems that are central to its multi-brand, multi-segment electric vehicle strategy, positioning the company for an all-electric future. Additionally, GM will use autonomous technology to facilitate safer and more efficient operations on the Moon.
“General Motors made history by applying advanced technologies and engineering to support the Lunar Rover Vehicle that the Apollo 15 astronauts drove on the Moon,” said Alan Wexler, senior vice president of Innovation and Growth at General Motors. “Working together with Lockheed Martin and their deep-space exploration expertise, we plan to support American astronauts on the Moon once again.”
GM has a proven history of supporting NASA and working within the space industry. The company manufactured, tested and integrated the inertial guidance and navigation systems for the entire Apollo Moon program, including Apollo 11 and the first human landing in 1969. GM also helped develop the electric Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV), including the chassis and wheels for the LRV that was used on Apollo’s 15-17 missions.
Unlike the Apollo rovers that only traveled 4.7 miles (7.6 kilometers) from the landing site, the next-generation lunar vehicles are being designed to traverse significantly farther distances to support the first excursions of the Moon’s south pole, where it is cold and dark with more rugged terrain.
Autonomous, self-driving systems will allow the rovers to prepare for human landings, provide commercial payload services, and enhance the range and utility of scientific payloads and experiments.
26 May 21. Lynred’s NGP infrared detector to fly on Copernicus CO2M satellite mission. Thales Alenia Space selects Lynred’s large SWIR detector, NGP (Next-Generation Panchromatic), to enable its spectral imager to cover a high number of wavelengths of interest, as well as a large swath, for major Earth observation satellite mission. Lynred, a leading global provider of high-quality infrared detectors for the aerospace, defense and commercial markets, today announces that Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), has contracted it to supply its large shortwave infrared (SWIR) detector, NGP (Next-Generation Panchromatic), for the CO2M mission, as part of Europe’s Copernicus program. Copernicus is the core satellite Earth observation program of the European Commission and a cornerstone of the European Space Agency (ESA) activities in the field as well.
Thales Alenia Space – contracted by OHB System, the prime contractor of the CO2M (Carbon Dioxide Monitoring) project – will integrate Lynred’s NGP SWIR detector in a spectral imager instrument. The spectral imager is designed to measure the quantity of CO2 gas in the Earth’s atmosphere generated by human activity. As part of the payload, Lynred will participate in playing a key role in studying the causes of climate change and monitoring it.
“Thales Alenia Space has a long track of record of using Lynred infrared technology and detectors in space projects. Given its space heritage and the availability of the NGP detector, Lynred was the logical choice for the CO2M project,” said Jean-Philippe Fayret, CO2M instrument project director at Thales Alenia Space.
Previous space project contracts Thales Alenia Space has awarded Lynred include the MTG FCI (Flexible Combined Imager) and the MTG IRS (Infrared Sounder).
“Lynred is honored and excited to once more collaborate with Thales Alenia Space, this time on the CO2M mission, one of Copernicus’ major programs,” said Philippe Chorier, space business development manager at Lynred. “Our NGP is well adapted for imaging and hyperspectral applications to enhance the ability of scientists to correctly identify and characterize chemical phenomena with the right spatial accuracy. The data provided by the CO2M mission will significantly reduce current uncertainties in carbon dioxide emission estimates, at national and regional scales.”
NGP SWIR detector key features
NGP is the first large format SWIR flight model in a class higher than 1k² developed by a European firm:
* It covers wavelengths of interest in the SWIR region, corresponding to the absorption of different elements present in the atmosphere (e.g. CO2, NOx, CH4, etc.)
* The format is well suited to meeting the current requirements of spectro-imager instruments, notably the swath cover (the area imaged on the Earth’s surface) as well as the spectral resolution
* Radiometric performances are also well adapted to meet the signal-to-noise ratio parameters of the atmosphere chemistry applications required, such as in the CO2M mission
Flight models of NGP are currently deployed in instruments onboard other environmental space observation missions, showing the remarkable performance and reliability of this high-end large format SWIR detector. These missions include the Sentinel 5 ESA instrument onboard the METOP-SG platform and the French space agency CNES’ Microcarb.
Lynred will host the webinar: ‘How infrared imaging applications became a key asset in Earth observation from space’ on June 3, 2021, at 09:30 (CET). Click here to Register.
* Copernicus is the core satellite Earth observation program of the European Commission and a cornerstone of the European Space Agency (ESA) activities in the field
* It provides Earth observation data for environmental protection, climate monitoring, natural disaster assessment and other social tasks
* CO2M will measure images of total column CO2 with the resolution, accuracy, time sampling and spatial coverage required to provide the key space component input of the Operational Anthropogenic CO2 Emissions Monitoring & Verification Support (MVS) Capacity
* The atmospheric measurements made by the combination of satellites and in-situ networks will provide Europe with a unique operational capacity that will contribute to the global monitoring of fossil CO2 emissions
About Lynred
Lynred and its subsidiaries, Lynred USA and Lynred Asia-Pacific, are global leaders in designing and manufacturing high quality infrared technologies for aerospace, defense and commercial markets. Lynred, a merger between Sofradir and ULIS, has a vast portfolio of infrared detectors that covers the entire electromagnetic spectrum from near to very far infrared. The Group’s products are at the center of multiple military programs and applications. Its IR detectors are the key component of many top brands in commercial thermal imaging equipment sold across Europe, Asia and North America. The organization is the leading European manufacturer for IR detectors deployed in space.
26 May 21. Kleos partners with ISISPACE to build new satellite cluster. The firms have agreed to collaborate to support the upcoming Polar Patrol Mission.
ASX-listed data-as-a-service company Kleos Space has announced a partnership with Netherlands-based firm Innovative Solutions in Space (ISISPACE) to support the delivery of its third satellite cluster (four satellites) as part of the Polar Patrol Mission (KSF2), scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 later this year.
This is in addition to ISISPACE’s current development of Kleos’ second satellite cluster, the Polar Vigilance Mission (KSF1), set to launch later this month.
As part of this latest contract, ISISPACE has been tasked with providing a “full turn-key solution”, which includes design, development, production, testing, launch integration services and early orbit phase support.
The Polar Patrol satellites are designed to provide more frequent cover over commercial areas of interest and additional data products to the Kleos inventory.
Upon launching into a 500 to 600-kilometre sun-synchronous orbit, Kleos’ third satellite cluster is expected to double the company’s coverage over both poles, complementing the firm’s Scouting Mission and Polar Vigilance Mission satellites.
“ISISPACE has proven to be an ideal development partner for Kleos, with our second satellite cluster nearing completion ahead of a mid-year launch,” Kleos Space CEO Andy Bowyer said.
“Targeting a constellation of up to 20 satellite clusters, each new satellite cluster will increase sensing and intelligence gathering capabilities generating higher value data products for subscribers.
“Our commercial ISR data is able to effectively geolocate radio frequency transmissions irrespective of the presence of positioning systems, unclear imagery, poor weather or targets being out of patrol range.”
Bowyer added: “It has broad applications spanning security and defence, environment, insurance and regulatory sectors.”
Jeroen Rotteveel, CEO of ISISPACE, said: “We are proud to continue our partnership with Kleos, utilising our extensive nanosatellite experience to build and design their third satellite cluster within a relatively short time frame.
“As a strategic partner, we look forward to supporting them as they continue to build and launch their satellite constellation.”
The contract includes an option to extend ISISPACE’s support for a further three satellite clusters. (Source: Space Connect)
24 May 21. Space-Based Capabilities Are Critical to U.S. National Security, DOD Officials. Space-based capabilities are vital to U.S. national security in today’s era of de-stabilizing challenges from Russia and undeniable strategic competition with China, the Defense Department’s principal director for space policy told a House Armed Services Committee panel today.
John D. Hill told the HASC subcommittee on strategic forces that Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III has also testified that the growth of Chinese and Russian counter space capabilities presents the most immediate and serious threats to U.S. allied and partner space activities. Additionally, ”Russia and China view space as critical to modern warfare and consider the use of counterspace capabilities as both a means of reducing U.S. military effectiveness and winning future wars,” Hill said.
As these developments portend, the United States must be prepared for conflict to extend to, or even originate, in space, he said. But to be clear, such a conflict would not be a space war distinct from terrestrial war, but would represent ”an extension of traditional armed conflict into the space domain of human endeavor,” Hill clarified.
The 2020 defense-based strategy addresses such challenges of deterrence and the challenges of crisis de-escalation and warfare, extending to space along four lines of effort, Hill said. The DOD is building comprehensive military advantages in space; integrating space into national joint and combined operations; shaping the strategic environment to enhance domain stability and reduce the potential for miscalculation; and enhancing space cooperation with its international partners, commercial entities and agency partners.
Supporting national security strategic guidelines, Hill noted his office also leads DOD’s participation in the U.S. government space diplomatic initiative, which centers on establishing voluntary non-binding standards of responsible behavior and on exposing the disingenuous space arms control initiatives of Russia and China.
Air Force Gen. David D. Thompson, vice chief of space operations, U.S. Space Force, told Congressional members that Space Force, the newest military service, has made tremendous strides in the first year by establishing and resourcing the organizational blueprint for the service; moving aggressively in the areas of human capital, force design, acquisition, integration; and providing the foundations to establish a truly digital service — while executing its critical space missions around the clock, without fail.
The direction for the second year of the force, he said, is the integration of Space Force into the joint force, the interagency, and with U.S. allies and partners as building out the newest service continues.
”[We] have established the first field command Space Operations Command and completed the organizational design of the remaining two Space Systems Command and Space Training and Readiness Command, with the anticipated standup of those two commands later this year,” Thompson said, noting that Space Operations Command is responsible for preparing and presenting forces to U.S. Space Command and other combatant commands.
As part of the second year’s integration activities, Space Force put increasing emphasis on strengthening relationships within existing partners and establishing relationships with new partners, he said. It extends to the other services, combatant commands and allies and other international partners. ”The United States as a whole and the U.S. Space Force in particular are much stronger when these relationships are strong,” he added.
The entire leadership of the Department of the Air Force remain committed and adamant that the pace of space acquisition must be increased, Thompson said, adding, ”Maintaining program delivery timelines of the recent past will not outpace the threat. We must go faster.”
Thompson emphasized that the Space Force will continue to smartly leverage the authorities granted by Congress and it will partner with industry and academia to leverage technology and innovation of the commercial sector.
”In my opinion, the creativity, ingenuity and innovation of the American mind is one of our greatest assets,” the general said. ”We must leverage that fully in this endeavor. Our people, our guardians, are critical to the success of the Space Force. We are adapting new and innovative human capital and talent management approaches for both civilians and military members.”(Source: US DoD)
25 May 21. Kleos engages ISISPACE to build third satellite cluster. 2nd Cluster to be delivered to Launch Site.
- Contract placed with ISISPACE to build and support Kleos’ third mission – Polar Patrol Mission – four satellites scheduled for end of 2021 launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9
- ISISPACE to provide a turn-key solution from satellite design and build through to launch and Early Orbit phase support
- Polar Vigilance Mission second satellite cluster of four satellites expected at launch site week commencing 31st May
- ISISPACE Contract includes potential for a further three clusters of four satellites in 2022
Kleos Space S.A (ASX:KSS, Frankfurt:KS1), a space-powered Radio Frequency Reconnaissance data-as-a-service (DaaS) company, has signed a contract with Innovative Solutions in Space B.V. (ISISPACE) to build and support its third satellite cluster of four satellites, the Polar Patrol Mission (KSF2), scheduled to launch at the end of 2021 onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9.
ISISPACE is also completing Kleos’ second satellite cluster, the Polar Vigilance Mission (KSF1), for dispatch to the launch site week commencing 31 May 2021.
Netherlands-based ISISPACE has more than 15 years’ experience in the design, manufacture, and operation of nanosatellites. Under the contract ISISPACE will provide a full turn-key solution including design, development, production, testing, launch integration services and Early Orbit Phase support. The Polar Patrol satellites create an opportunity for higher value subscriptions, increasing revenues by adding more frequent cover over commercial areas of interest and additional data products to the Kleos inventory.
Launching into a 500-600km Sun Synchronous orbit, Kleos’ third satellite cluster doubles the company’s coverage over both poles, complementing the Scouting Mission and Polar Vigilance Mission satellites, thereby enhancing global coverage. Scouting Mission satellites data delivery, is expected to commence to early adopter customers shortly. Kleos’ Polar Vigilance satellites are on track for a mid-2021 launch onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9, following the recent successful completion of key development milestones with ISISPACE.
Kleos Space CEO Andy Bowyer said, “ISISPACE has proven to be an ideal development partner for Kleos, with our second satellite cluster nearing completion ahead of a mid-year launch. Targeting a constellation of up to 20 satellite clusters, each new satellite cluster will increase sensing and intelligence gathering capabilities generating higher value data products for subscribers.
“Our commercial ISR data is able to effectively geolocate radio frequency transmissions irrespective of the presence of positioning systems, unclear imagery, poor weather or targets being out of patrol range. It has broad applications spanning security and defence, environment, insurance and regulatory sectors.”
Jeroen Rotteveel, CEO of ISISPACE, said, “We are proud to continue our partnership with Kleos, utilising our extensive nanosatellite experience to build and design their third satellite cluster within a relatively short timeframe. As a strategic partner, we look forward to supporting them as they continue to build and launch their satellite constellation.”
The mission costs incurred are anticipated to be compared to publicly available satellite costs and within the envelope of the cost of the Kleos Scouting Mission advised within the prospectus. The contract includes an optional addendum for a further three satellite clusters (12 further satellites in total) that will facilitate constellation growth with volume purchasing advantages. Funding methods for subsequent clusters will be determined by the directors and will be through a combination of revenue, equity or borrowings depending on capital market conditions prevailing at the time.
Kleos’ satellites detect and geolocate radio frequency transmissions to enhance the detection of illegal activity, including piracy, drug and people smuggling, border security challenges and illegal fishing. Its global activity-based data is sold as-a-service to governments and commercial entities, complementing existing commercial datasets to improve their intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities.
19 May 21. Horizon Technologies gets funding for maritime surveillance satellites. A British company that equips spy planes and drones to track satellite telephones has raised capital to launch a handful of tiny surveillance spacecraft to listen for signals from ships operating clandestinely. Horizon Space Technologies, a recently established subsidiary of Berkshire, England-based Horizon Technologies, is prime contractor for the U.K. government’s cubesat signals intelligence program called IOD-3 Amber.
Amber IOD-3, its first satellite, is part of the In-Orbit Demonstration (IOD) program run by government-backed nonprofit Satellite Applications Catapult.
With funding from the U.K. government’s innovation agency, the Amber IOD-3 cubesat is being built by AAC Clyde Space to provide data for the country’s National Maritime Information Centre (NMIC). L3Harris Technologies is assisting with the payload’s development.
The satellite is slated to launch aboard a SpaceX Cargo Dragon mission in August for deployment from the International Space Station shortly after arrival. Houston-based NanoRacks arranged for the cubesat’s deployment from the ISS.
More satellites incoming
Horizon Technologies CEO John Beckner told SpaceNews the company has secured funds to launch two more Amber satellites next year, amid plans for an initial constellation of six satellites.
Beckner declined to discuss the size of Horizon’s Series A funding round, which was led by private equity firm Maven Capital Partners. An industry source said it is in the “single-digit millions of dollars.”
Virgin Group founder Richard Branson’s financial services firm Virgin Money participated in the round through its Clydesdale Bank lender. Virgin Orbit, Branson’s air-launch rocket startup, has been investing in other space ventures in return for launch agreements.
The British government aims to use Horizon’s data to counter activities ranging from illegal fishing to human trafficking across its coastal waters.
“The Amber program to date has been an excellent example of a successful public/private partnership,” Beckner said.
“We are thrilled to have received so much support from the U.K. government, and this includes the [innovation accelerator] Catapult, Department for International Trade (DIT) and Defence & Security Organisation (DSO). Their help has simply been invaluable.”
Tracking the untracked
All passenger ships and most ocean-going vessels above a certain tonnage are required by law to be fitted with Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) transponders, enabling them to be tracked by coastal stations and satellites equipped with AIS receivers. However, ships can deactivate AIS transponders to avoid detection.
Horizon’s satellites will supplement AIS data by picking up faint electronic signals from navigation radars and satellite phones, enabling the tracking of vessels even if they turn off AIS.
The company will buy AIS data from third parties that will feed into its ground station. Becker said its satellites will have AIS receivers to double-check measurements, but it does not plan to sell this service.
The market for radio-frequency mapping (RFM) networks has been expanding in recent years, with venture capital investors helping to expand the number of players and satellites in orbit.
U.S.-based HawkEye 360 currently provides RFM services with six in-orbit satellites, saying in April that it raised an extra $55m to complete its constellation with nine additional satellites.
Horizon’s technology builds off an L-band satellite-phone detection system called FlyingFish, which the company already sells to governments that operate it from crewed and uncrewed aircraft.
The company recently split into two business segments, hardware-based Horizon Aerospace Technologies and data-based Horizon Space Technologies, after FlyingFish helped it report more than 4.5m British pounds ($6.4m) in sales for 2020.
As well as launching satellites, Beckner said Horizon’s Series A funding enables it to hire new personnel and cover research and development for expanded features, supporting software payload upgrades for Amber IOD-3 and beyond.
He said the signals it picks up are demodulated to provide government end-users with intelligence data, ranging from radar “fingerprints” to satellite phones’ GPS locations.
Six satellites will enable worldwide coverage with latency under one hour.
Rapidly expanding market
Three other companies, all founded in the last six years, have been raising capital to deploy commercial RFM networks. These are U.S.-based Aurora Insight, Luxembourg’s Kleos Space and Unseenlabs of France.
“Demand for radio frequency sensing and monitoring by U.S. and international government organizations has continued to grow rapidly in recent years, with no signs of slowing down,” said Nicolo Dona dalle Rose, engagement director in boutique management consulting firm Avascent’s space practice.
“Defense and intelligence agencies will likely remain the core consumers of this data for the near future. However, appetite is rapidly expanding among commercial customers as well. Early movers in this space have an opportunity to shape the way in which data is consumed and the service is delivered.”
Unseenlabs said April 27 it raised a 20m euro ($25m) Series B round for its radio-frequency geolocation constellation.
The venture launched its first satellite in August 2019, and aims to deploy between 20 and 25 of them by 2025 to expand its services.
BRO-1, its first satellite, was still operational in November when Unseenlabs announced the launch of two more spacecraft: BRO-2 and BRO-3.
It plans to enable full coverage of the globe and a half-hour revisit time by growing its constellation.
Kleos Space raised $13.8m following the Nov. 7 launch of its first cluster of four radio-frequency mapping satellites, providing daily coverage of the Earth.
The venture, which says on its website that revisit times are dependent on the specific area of interest, is funded to launch four more satellites toward the end of 2021. It is planning ten four-satellite clusters in total.
Beckner was coy about future plans but confirmed Horizon’s Amber constellation would be growing in the future.
He said work would begin soon on securing additional funding as Horizon accelerates its deployment of cubesats.
The company has also started looking for partners to combine its space-based data with tower-based systems, providing 24/7 coverage of critical maritime choke points, as well as UAVs for full-motion video to support legal proceedings. (Source: Space News)
25 May 21. CUAVA selected for NSW space project. The research centre has been tasked with leading a NSW government initiative aimed at testing locally-produced space technology.
The Australian Research Centre (ARC) for CubeSats, Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles and their Applications (CUAVA) has been selected to head-up ‘Waratah Seed’ — a Space Qualification Mission of the NSW Space Industry Development Strategy, led by newly established government agency Investment NSW.
Waratah Seed aims to launch locally-developed space technology into orbit to test and prove functionality.
CUAVA, based within the University of Sydney, is expected to leverage its experience working on the development of CubeSat and UAV capability for Earth observations, GPS, satellite communications and space weather services.
Minister for Jobs, Investment, Tourism and Western Sydney Stuart Ayres congratulated CUAVA, which leads a consortium made up of ACSER (UNSW), Saber Astronautics, Delta-V, Macquarie University and UTS.
“This is a first – an Australian ride-share satellite, orbiting the Earth 550 kilometres above us, that industry and researchers can use to test and prove the functionality of their tech – making getting started in the space industry more accessible and affordable,” Minister Ayres said.
“NSW is home to almost half of Australia’s space-related businesses and generates around half of all space-related revenue nationally – there is no better place to support space technology research and development to create jobs of the future.
“CUAVA is leading the way in developing the space technology of the future and training the people that will use it. They are an outstanding choice to take charge of this mission.”
CUAVA director, Professor Iver Cairns, said project Waratah Seed would help accelerate the growth of the space industry.
“Waratah Seed will be Australia’s first ride-share satellite – it will also be the first satellite funded by the NSW government,” Professor Cairns said.
“The consortium is very excited to be working with the NSW government on this project to build a vibrant, nation-leading space sector for NSW.”
The launch of project ‘Waratah Seed’ follows the establishment of the NSW government’s own Node of the SmartSat Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), which aims to foster collaboration between industry and academia for the development of advanced telecommunications, intelligent satellite systems and Earth observation data services. (Source: Space Connect)
24 May 21. SOCOM seeks low-SWaP ESA for improved satcom capability. The US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) is pursuing a requirement to field electronically steerable arrays (ESAs) at reduced size, weight, and power (SWaP) and cost to support connectivity requirements around the world. Speaking at the virtual Special Operations Forces Industry Conference (SOFIC) on 19 May, US Army Colonel Joel Babbitt said how ESAs will facilitate satellite communications (satcom) by connecting ground users to satellite constellations in low (LEO), medium (MEO), and geostationary (GEO) Earth orbits.
“We’re interested in low-cost, low-SWaP electronically steerable antennas, specifically for satellite terminals operating in a number of [commercial and military] frequency spectrum bands including Ka and Ku,” said Col Babbitt, who serves as SOF Warrior program executive officer.
”We’re looking for terminals able to connect to LEO, GEO, as well as MEO satellites that are out there. There’s a number of capabilities that we’re looking to leverage. And we’d like to go after all three of those,” he added.
SOF Warrior is on the lookout for low-profile, manpack variants and vehicle-mounted applications measuring no more than the size of a laptop. ESAs must be able to automatically track satellites while on the move, irrespective of whether carried on the back of a dismounted soldier patrolling through a village or integrated onto a tactical ground vehicle moving across a desert. (Source: Jane’s)
24 May 21. US Army preps for TITAN ground station experimentation. US Army officials are preparing to implement a full-scale experimentation plan for new ground stations designed for the Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) programme, with service leaders anticipating development of a full-on TITAN ground station by 2022.
The TITAN ground station platform, as envisioned, will consolidate functionalities of several legacy fixed and mobile ground stations, and then fuse the collected data from various ground, aerial, and space-based sensors into a single station, according to Willie Nelson, director of the army’s Assured Positioning, Navigation, and Timing/Space Cross-Functional Team (APNT/Space CFT). That capability will also be scalable to support all echelons from brigade to division, Nelson added.
Once functional, the technologies within the ground station will be able to collect, curate, fuse, and disseminate collected data across domains – including satellite constellations – and provide target data for long-range fire support missions. Theoretically, army long-range artillery units will be able to leverage targeting co-ordinates gathered in space to locate and terminate battlefield threats. This deep-targeting capability is one of several key capabilities that army leaders are pursuing, as part of the army’s Multi-Domain Operations 2028 concept.
“We are finding ways to use multiple sensors at multiple altitudes, to include airborne high-altitude [sensors] even in space, and be able to fuse that data in a positive way … and infuse that data, very rapidly, is really where the secret sauce is,” Nelson said of the ongoing TITAN ground station development effort. “Every time we have to stop and analyse something [equals] time, it increases the room for error and slows down the overall process,” he added. (Source: Jane’s)
24 May 21. US Army approves initial Tactical Space Layer capability requirements. The US Army is pressing forward with plans to develop a new network of space-based tactical sensors and ground stations, as senior service brass continue talks with US Space Force (USSF) counterparts on how to divvy up space requirements and capabilities for future conflicts. Officials from the army’s Assured Positioning, Navigation, and Timing/Space Cross-Functional Team (APNT/Space CFT) have signed off on an Abbreviated – Capability Development Document (A-CDD) for the Tactical Space Layer (TSL) programme. The document, approved in April, “validates the need and provides the source for desired capabilities to execute rapid experimentation and prototyping efforts for tactical space-based sensors with supporting ground-based equipment”, team members said in an April statement. The A-CCD approval “is an acknowledgement that the army relies on space for a number of things … and that has not changed, but how we use those things is changing, and the way we integrate those things is changing”, said Willie Nelson, director of the APNT/Space CFT. However, the A-CDD will only guide army-led experimentation and prototyping for the TSL programme, and “it does not suggest the army is going to go build its own constellation of satellites”, he added during a briefing in May. As envisioned, the TSL programme will integrate current and future space-based command-and-control (C2), intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms and programmes into a more streamlined construct. The goal will be to shorten the transmission timeline between data collection by space-based ISR assets to delivery of targeting intelligence to air- and ground-based fires platforms.
“Access to the TSL will [also] allow soldiers to operate in anti-access/area-denied environments” while also shrinking the tactical sensor-to-shooter window, army officials said in the statement. (Source: Jane’s)
24 May 21. UK companies join forces to build revolutionary beam-hopping satellite. A group of UK space tech companies are developing a new beam-hopping satellite that will allow satellites to switch which part of the world they cover
A group of UK space tech companies are developing a new beam-hopping satellite that will allow satellites to switch which part of the world they cover, managing real-time surges in commercial demand or responding to emergencies such as natural disasters, thanks to government funding.
Led by global satellite communications network OneWeb, the industrial partners have received over £32m from the UK Space Agency, via the European Space Agency’s Sunrise Programme, for a demonstration satellite due for launch in 2022.
The satellite, nicknamed ‘Joey-Sat’ for its beam-hopping abilities, will be able to remotely direct beams to boost coverage in certain locations, such as areas of high usage where the network is struggling to cope with demand.
Science Minister Amanda Solloway said, “From helping during a disaster to providing broadband on planes, this amazing technology will show how next-generation 5G connectivity can benefit all of us on Earth.
It is fantastic to see some of our finest space tech companies joining forces on this exciting project which will put the UK at the forefront of satellite communications technology.”
The new funding, which builds on the UK Space Agency’s previous investments in the Sunrise Programme, will see OneWeb team up with other UK companies, SatixFy, Celestia UK and Astroscale UK, to demonstrate the technology for its second-generation constellation of satellites.
Massimiliano Ladovaz, Chief Technical Officer at OneWeb, said, “Innovation and collaboration are at the core of OneWeb. Working together with our partners, Oneweb will accelerate the development and expansion of our cutting-edge technologies and manufacturing capabilities for the benefit of communities, enterprise and governments around the world.
This is an exciting opportunity to work with talented potential supply chain partners and we are delighted with the support from ESA and the UK Space Agency to bring continued innovation across the whole of OneWeb’s connectivity ecosystem.”
The satellite’s pilot beam-hopping payload will be developed by SatixFy, based in Farnborough. The user terminal to support this satellite is also being developed by SatixFy, who have been awarded over £25m.
Charlie Bloomfield, CEO of SatixFy Space Systems, said, “We are really excited to be demonstrating new game-changing satellite payload capabilities in space next year, in collaboration with OneWeb.”
The £25m funding from the UK Space Agency via ESA, matched with SatixFy’s own internal investment, will not only demo best-in-class future payload capability, but will also result in the lowest-cost and highest performance electronically-steered multibeam user-terminals on the market. UKSA and ESA support has been fundamental in unlocking these new technologies and we look forward to a fruitful and ongoing partnership with them.
Celestia UK, based in Edinburgh, has been given £4.4m to develop and trial smart ground-station technology featuring multibeam electronically steered antenna to reduce the footprint and costs of each ground station and increase the efficiency of the whole ground network.
José Alonso, President of Celestia UK, said, “The business opportunity that OneWeb and UK Space Agency have presented to Celestia UK in the context of the Sunrise Programme is outstanding. The pioneering project we are developing looks set to become a game changer in the satcom ground segment market.”
Gateways and user terminals are key elements in the OneWeb constellation, and Celestia UK’s products will be state-of-the-art and fit for commercial purpose. We are very proud to be part of Sunrise.
The Sunrise Programme has maintained a clear focus on encouraging the development of Responsible Space using debris removal technologies, and this element is being developed by Astroscale UK, based at Harwell Campus, Oxfordshire. Astroscale UK has received close to £2.5m to develop novel technologies to safely de-orbit unresponsive satellites.
Astroscale’s current mission, ELSA-d, is preparing the way for a multi-debris removal service, ELSA-M. This funding will support further technological innovations and UK in-orbit servicing skills development and demonstrate the government’s commitment towards developing a sustainable and vibrant New Space economy.
John Auburn, Managing Director of Astroscale UK and Co-Chair of the In-orbit Servicing and Manufacturing Working Group at UKspace, said, “Astroscale UK will deliver important innovations in space debris removal, develop new expertise on Harwell Campus, and provide UK commercial leadership to help protect space for future generations.
Following our ELSA-d mission demonstrations later this year, the Sunrise programme will help to mature our debris removal technologies ready for commercial service launch by 2024.”
OneWeb currently has 182 satellites with another launch of 36 satellites scheduled for 27th May. Designed to provide organisations and governments with global and resilient connectivity services, OneWeb’s network will feature 648 Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, global gateways and air, maritime and land user terminals. In late 2021, OneWeb will begin providing commercial services across the Arctic regions and expanding to global coverage in 2022.
Elodie Viau, Director of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications at ESA, said, “Joey-Sat will be used to demonstrate how next-generation 5G connectivity can benefit life on Earth. ESA is proud to support the space industry in Europe to bring such innovation to the competitive global telecommunications market. We congratulate all the partners involved.”
With the support of these British companies, OneWeb is already starting to create the roadmap for its future generation constellation so as to be launch-ready for its Gen2 constellation in 2025.
OneWeb recently launched its first Innovation Challenge to seek further new technology to give its future constellations the capabilities to keep it at the forefront of satellite communications technology and meeting end-user demands.
The findings from the latest ‘Size and Health of the UK Space Industry’ report, commissioned by the UK Space Agency and published this week, show income from the UK space sector has risen from £14.8bn to £16.4bn, representing growth of 5.7% in real terms, while employment is up by 3,200 from 41,900 to 45,100. (Source: https://www.gov.uk/)
21 May 21. Arianespace to conduct launch for OneWeb payload. Arianespace is expected to conduct a launch over the coming week for a new payload of OneWeb satellites.
The next payload of OneWeb satellites is expected to enter orbit this coming week, with Arianespace and Starsem expected to launch flight ST32.
OneWeb is a collaboration between OneWeb and Airbus, with the OneWeb constellation expected to provide global high speed internet services, including 3G, 5G and LTE.
The payload aboard the ST32 will include 36 OneWeb satellites, with the mission duration expected to last three hours and 51 minutes. This flight marks the seventh launch for OneWeb this year, bringing the total number of satellites in the OneWeb constellation to 218.
According to a company statement, OneWeb has scaled its manufacturing and delivery services and is now able to construct up to two satellites a day.
OneWeb increased its rate of launches following an agreement between the company and Arianespace in September 2020 to undertake an additional 16 launches onboard the Soyuz out of the Vostochny Cosmodrome until 2022. (Source: Space Connect)
24 May 21. British spaceflight to become reality as government provides launchpad for spaceports. Satellites and rockets could launch from UK soil in 2022, with spaceports planned for Cornwall, Wales and Scotland.
- government paves the way for commercial space launches from UK soil with new regulations
- planned spaceport sites across Great Britain to create hundreds of jobs as we build back better
- regulations provide grounding for new business opportunities such as space tourism from newly established spaceports
Another barrier to space exploration from UK soil is lifted today (24 May 2021), with spaceports expected to be in operation from next summer.
Developed with the UK Space Agency and the Civil Aviation Authority, new regulations being laid in Parliament today will mean satellites and rockets can launch from UK soil for the first time – with spaceports planned for Cornwall, Wales and Scotland.
Future satellite launches will improve our access to data and communications, and revolutionise services such as satellite navigation and earth observation – enhancing the way we live, work, travel and interact with our planet.
Space exploration has a long history of inspiring us all to consider our impact on the Earth, and access to space is essential as we tackle global environmental issues such as climate change.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said, “This is a pivotal moment for our spaceflight ambitions. Since the start of the spaceflight programme in 2017, we have been clear that we want to be the first country to launch into orbit from Europe. The laying of these regulations puts us firmly on track to see the first UK launches take place from 2022, unlocking a new era in commercial spaceflight for all 4 corners of our nation.”
The legislation, laid just 2 weeks before the G7 summit in Cornwall, will come into force this summer and will help propel the development of commercial spaceflight technologies, from traditional rockets to high-altitude balloons and spaceplanes.
In time, we will also start to see new and emerging space activity – including sub-orbital space tourism and eventually new transport systems such as hypersonic flight, which will dramatically reduce aviation travel times.
UK spaceport launches will help create new jobs and offer economic benefits to communities across the country, as well as inspiring the next generation of space scientists.
Not only will this support our thriving space sector, it will also attract companies from around the globe to come to, and benefit from, these commercial opportunities.
Science Minister Amanda Solloway said, “Continuing to grow our launch capability will help bring jobs and economic benefits across the UK. The Space Industry Regulations we’ve tabled today will create a supportive, attractive and safe environment for commercial spaceflight.
Today marks another crucial milestone that will enable the first launches from British soil in 2022 and make UK commercial spaceflight a reality.” (Source: https://www.gov.uk/)
22 May 21. Virgin Galactic Completes First Human Spaceflight from Spaceport America, New Mexico. Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: SPCE) (“The Company or Virgin Galactic”) today completed its third spaceflight and the first ever spaceflight from Spaceport America, New Mexico. Today’s flight sees New Mexico become the third US state to launch humans into space.
VSS Unity achieved a speed of Mach 3 after being released from the mothership, VMS Eve, and reached space, at an altitude of 55.45 miles before gliding smoothly to a runway landing at Spaceport America.
On VSS Unity’s flight deck were CJ Sturckow and Dave Mackay, while Kelly Latimer and Michael Masucci piloted VMS Eve. CJ, who flew as pilot-in-command, becomes the first person ever to have flown to space from three different states. The crew experienced extraordinary views of the bright, blue-rimmed curvature of the earth against the blackness of space. New Mexico’s White Sands National Park sparkled brilliantly below. Their experience today gives Virgin Galactic’s Future Astronaut customers a glimpse of what lies ahead.
Michael Colglazier, Chief Executive Officer of Virgin Galactic, said: “Today’s flight showcased the inherent elegance and safety of our spaceflight system, while marking a major step forward for both Virgin Galactic and human spaceflight in New Mexico. Space travel is a bold and adventurous endeavor, and I am incredibly proud of our talented team for making the dream of private space travel a reality. We will immediately begin processing the data gained from this successful test flight, and we look forward to sharing news on our next planned milestone.”
Virgin Galactic fulfilled a number of test objectives during the flight, including:
- Carried revenue-generating scientific research experiments as part of NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program.
- Collected data to be used for the final two verification reports that are required as part of the current FAA commercial reusable spacecraft operator’s license.
- Tested the spaceship’s upgraded horizontal stabilizers and flight controls and validated EMI reductions.
Following the flight, and in line with normal procedures, Virgin Galactic will conduct a review of all test data gathered and thoroughly inspect the spaceship and mothership. Once the team confirms the results, the Company plans to proceed to the next flight test milestone.
To celebrate the first human spaceflight from New Mexico, the Zia Sun Symbol of New Mexico’s state flag was placed prominently on the exterior of the Spaceship. In addition, we flew green chile seeds, which are synonymous with the state’s rich agricultural and culinary history.
“Fifteen years ago, New Mexico embarked on a journey to create the world’s first commercial spaceport,’’ said Sir Richard Branson. ‘’Today, we launched the first human spaceflight from that very same place, marking an important milestone for both Virgin Galactic and New Mexico. I am proud of the team for their hard work and grateful to the people of New Mexico who have been unwavering in their commitment for commercial spaceflight from day one. Their belief and support have made today’s historic achievement possible.”
Governor Lujan Grisham said: “After so many years and so much hard work, New Mexico has finally reached the stars. Our state’s scientific legacy has been honored by this important achievement, one that took guts and faith and an unwavering belief in what New Mexico can achieve — and indeed is destined to achieve. I can’t wait to see what comes next. We are on the cutting edge, the forefront of innovation, and I plan to do everything in my power to keep us there, taking full advantage of our robust economic and scientific potential. On behalf of proud New Mexicans everywhere, I’m incredibly grateful to so many dedicated and visionary collaborators in this effort, not least Sir Richard Branson and former Governor Bill Richardson, the entire Virgin Galactic team and Spaceport team who made possible this long-awaited day.”
“The Spaceport has always been about the future of New Mexico,” said former Governor Bill Richardson. “Our state and our people have a long track record of inspiring innovation and being catalysts for national advances in science and technology. So many of New Mexico’s children will benefit from both the educational opportunities and the career opportunities that the space industry offers. I want to congratulate the team at Virgin Galactic for this historic achievement today. This dream began with a handshake between Sir Richard Branson and me, and I’ll always be grateful to him for recognizing that New Mexico can and should be the base for the space industry. I want to recognize Rick Homans, who was critical in the creation of the Spaceport. And thank you to Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham for your dedication to the future of New Mexico and to the Spaceport.”
“The Zia Sun Symbol is one of our most sacred symbols, central to the Pueblo of Zia,” said Governor Frederick Medina. “We are pleased that Virgin Galactic reached out to our Pueblo for permission to utilize this iconic symbol of the state of New Mexico. It is an honor to work with Virgin Galactic and to know that a part of Zia Pueblo will be traveling to space.”
17 May 21. Rocket Lab’s 20th Electron Launch Anomaly Flight Review Results + First Stage Recovery. On May 15, 2021, Rocket Lab experienced an anomaly almost three minutes into the company’s 20th Electron launch. Following a successful lift-off from Launch Complex 1, Electron proceeded through a nominal first stage engine burn, stage separation, and stage 2 ignition. Shortly after the second stage ignition, the engine shut down, resulting in the loss of the mission.
Rocket Lab continued to receive good telemetry from Electron following the safe engine shutdown on stage two, providing engineers with comprehensive data to review as part of a robust review into the anomaly. The extensive data is being methodically scoured to enable the review team to accurately pinpoint the issue and implement corrective actions for future missions. Rocket Lab is leading the flight review with the support of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA); a structure that ensures Rocket Lab maintains a high degree of control over its return-to-flight schedule.
Preliminary data reviews suggest an engine computer detected an issue shortly after stage 2 engine ignition, causing the computer to command a safe shutdown as it is designed to do. The behavior had not been observed previously during Rocket Lab’s extensive ground testing operations, which include multiple engine hot fires and full mission duration stage tests prior to flight. The vehicle remained within the pre-determined safety corridor during the flight. The full review is expected to be complete in the coming weeks and Rocket Lab anticipates a swift return to flight.
“We deeply regret the loss of BlackSky’s payload and we are committed to returning to flight safely and reliably for our customers,” said Rocket Lab founder and chief executive, Peter Beck. “We are methodically working through the review process to address the issue. After 17 successful missions and more than 100 satellites deployed to orbit prior to this mission, and with multiple launch vehicles currently in production, we are confident in a swift and reliable return to flight with minimal impact on our launch manifest this year.”
Flight data shows Electron’s first stage performed nominally during the mission and did not contribute to the flight issue. The first stage safely completed a successful splashdown under parachute as planned and Rocket Lab’s recovery team retrieved the stage from the ocean for transport back to Rocket Lab’s production complex as part of the company’s reusability test program.
The new heat shield debuted in this flight protected the stage from the intense heat and forces experienced while re-entering Earth’s atmosphere and the program took yet another major advancement towards reusability of the rocket. The engines remain in good condition and Rocket Lab intends to put them through hot fire testing for analysis.
Selected components from the recovered stage are also suitable for reflight on future missions. Rocket Lab’s program to make Electron a reusable launch vehicle is advancing quickly and the company intends to conduct its third recovery mission later this year.
In March 2021 Rocket Lab announced plans to become a publicly listed company on the Nasdaq via a merger agreement with Vector Acquisition Corporation (Nasdaq: VACQ), a special purpose acquisition company. On May 7, 2021, Vector and Rocket Lab confidentially submitted a registration statement on Form S-4 to the Securities and Exchange Commission and both parties continue to work towards the completion of the transaction. (Source: Satnews)
16 May 21. Sateliot + Spanish Ministry Of Defense Involved In IoT Smallsat Constellation Project. This is a cross-cutting project led by Sateliot, which will involve an investment of more than 176m euros and has just been submitted to the Spanish Ministry of Industry as part of the Program for the Promotion of Industrial Competitiveness and Sustainability projects that will serve as a guide for the allocation of European Next Generation funds. With this project, the consortium seeks to position Spain as a world reference in 5G IoT constellations and secure global communications, enabling the Spanish industrial sector to digitize as a priority.
Precisely, this technology is part of the European Quango project that opens a new business avenue for Sateliot and stands as an evolution of the original constellation proposed by the company. This network of 96 nanosatellites, in addition to connecting IOT elements on the 5G standard, compatible with more than 70 mobile operators, will also ensure secure communication by introducing an end-to-end encryption device using QKD (Quantum Key Distribution), the first quantum technology that could be widely applied.
In this way, this constellation will allow cost savings by sharing the infrastructure originally designed with this innovative system that will be key to guarantee the secure exchange of sensitive information between organizations located thousands of kilometers away, protecting vulnerable data such as money transfers, commercial transactions, private data or the remote control of critical infrastructures from all types of external interference.
Thus, this project will respond to two of the levers considered key to economic recovery: digitalization and sustainability, as it will allow the Internet of Things (IoT) to be deployed in all productive sectors with a positive impact on the efficiency and profitability of economic activities such as agriculture, livestock, fishing, mining, construction, energy, transport and tourism. It will also respond to pressing challenges such as depopulation or the emptying of Spain.
It will also have direct applications in the Public Administration, ensuring the secure exchange of information in Ministries that work with extremely sensitive data, such as the Ministry of Defense, which is actively participating in the project, but also between ministries, city councils and areas such as Education, Health, Ecological Transition, Transport and Justice.
Currently, Sateliot has already launched the first of the smallsats that will offer IoT coverage with 5G connection, marking a milestone and positioning itself as a benchmark in the satellite telecommunications industry. The overall project, which will be fully operational by 2023, is divided into nine phases. The first of these will include the demonstration of both technologies on two satellites that will be tested gradually over the coming months.
According to Jaume Sanpera, founder and CEO of Sateliot, “With this consortium, we are taking a step forward to provide not only global connectivity but also unconditional security. Thus, with the development of 5G and QKD technologies, we will build a unique constellation in the world that will enable the digitization of the Spanish industrial sector; a fundamental advance towards its recovery after the pandemic.”
Sateliot is the first satellite telecommunications operator to provide global and continuous connectivity to all the elements that will make up the Internet of Things (IoT) universe – such as the connected car or the connected home – under the 5G protocol. Thanks to a constellation of state-of-the-art smallsats, located at low altitude and acting as mobile towers, Sateliot is the perfect complement to large telecommunications companies by providing them with the necessary infrastructure where terrestrial technologies do not reach. (Source: Satnews)
19 May 21. Australian Military To Set Up Space Division With $7bn Budget. “To reach for the stars and actually get there is a phenomenal feeling”… The new division will comprise army, navy and air force officers and be based at RAAF headquarters in Canberra.
Australia is assembling a new space division comprising military officers from the army, navy and air force to better protect satellites from attack.
The space division will be established within the Royal Australian Air Force headquarters in Canberra early next year.
The chief of the air force, Mel Hupfeld, said guaranteeing access to the “contested domain” of space was becoming increasingly important.
“However, this does not mean that defense encourages the militarization of space,” Air Marshal Hupfeld said on Wednesday.
“All space operations are conducted consistent with international and domestic legal obligations.”
Defense will invest $7bn in space capabilities over the next 10 years.
The shadow treasurer, Jim Chalmers, confirmed Labor supported the spending.
“Clearly our defense force needs to maintain capability and clearly the definition of capability changes very rapidly when it comes to defense,” he told the National Press Club.
“There are new frontiers in defense technology all of the time, and any country like ours investing so heavily in our defence needs to keep up with those developments and ideally get ahead of them.
“If the developments in technology require us to invest in those areas then so be it.”
Hupfeld said satellite technologies were used daily to gather information about the weather, navigation and geospatial intelligence.
“Defense is delivering capabilities including space domain awareness, sovereign controlled satellite communications and space-based Earth observation, and navigation,” he said.
Air Vice-Marshal Cath Roberts will head the new division.
“To reach for the stars and actually get there is a phenomenal feeling,” she said.
“As an aerospace engineer I have always been fascinated by space – the ultimate high-ground.” (Source: Satnews)
18 May 21. Hughes’ First-of-a-Kind S-Band Satellite/Cellular Hybrid Terminal. Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES) announced the availability of the Hughes 4510 satellite/cellular hybrid terminal for customers in remote and power-challenged areas in Europe. The first-of-its-kind dual-transport terminal intelligently routes IP traffic via terrestrial or mobile satellite system (MSS) networks, enabling reliable, ubiquitous connectivity for critical applications. As the terminal moves in and out of terrestrial cellular coverage areas, the S-band satellite service takes over automatically, ensuring constant connectivity.
“Hughes has embraced multi-transport innovation as essential to enabling the most reliable and cost-effective connection anywhere in the world,” said Graham Avis, vice president, MobileSat, Hughes. “The unique features of the 4510 terminal allow for ubiquitous service for critical applications for vehicles or boats that pass in and out of cellular coverage areas, and for remote fixed sites that rely primarily on solar or battery power.”
EchoStar Mobile, a sister company to Hughes, utilizes the 4510 to enable its new EM SYNERGY™ service, which delivers comprehensive, hybrid connectivity to customers across Europe from dense urban areas to the most remote corners of the continent utilizing S-band satellite service in combination with pan-European mobile roaming. Use cases for the Hughes 4510 span enterprise, government and maritime sectors, oil and gas industry, Smart-Grid monitoring, yachting and industrial Internet of Things (IoT) functions.
The terminal contains an embedded SIM (eSIM) for global 4G cellular operation and intelligently and dynamically routes IP traffic between the terrestrial and S-band networks based upon path availability. IP67-rated and thus environmentally sealed, the terminal features an omnidirectional satellite antenna and requires low power, making it suited for simple deployment on a vehicle, fixed site or boat in off-the-grid locations. Operators can manage the 4510 terminal and update firmware remotely, and auto-context activation automatically restores power and connection following any disruption — without human intervention. (Source: Satnews)
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At Viasat, we’re driven to connect every warfighter, platform, and node on the battlefield. As a global communications company, we power millions of fast, resilient connections for military forces around the world – connections that have the capacity to revolutionize the mission – in the air, on the ground, and at sea. Our customers depend on us for connectivity that brings greater operational capabilities, whether we’re securing the U.S. Government’s networks, delivering satellite and wireless communications to the remote edges of the battlefield, or providing senior leaders with the ability to perform mission-critical communications while in flight. We’re a team of fearless innovators, driven to redefine what’s possible. And we’re not done – we’re just beginning. | https://battle-updates.com/update/satellite-systems-satcom-and-space-systems-update-170/ |
Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) has delivered 11 ORBCOMM Generation 2 (OG2) satellites to the launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
The satellites are part of ORBCOMM's upcoming OG2 Mission 2 launch aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which is targeted for mid-December 2015. As the prime contractor for ORBCOMM's OG2 satellites, SNC is responsible for the design, manufacture and integration of the OG2 satellites in the constellation.
"SNC looks forward to completing the OG2 constellation with the delivery of 11 flight-proven and highly-capable satellites for the Mission 2 launch," said Mark N. Sirangelo, corporate vice president of SNC's Space Systems. "These 11 satellites were integrated and tested in a high-volume production environment, demonstrating our ability to efficiently integrate and produce constellations in this class. In addition to the design and build of all OG2 satellites, SNC will also support launch, in-orbit testing and deployment of these satellites simultaneously from our Satellite Operations Center in Louisville, Colorado."
SNC successfully completed the Pre-Ship Review in late October 2015, and soon thereafter, all 11 satellites were shipped to the launch site, initiating launch operations. During launch operations, with the support of SNC engineers and technicians, the OG2 satellites will undergo further post-transport testing, fueling and inspection. This approach builds upon the OG2 Mission 1 launch and deployment of six spacecraft in July 2014. Following the launch and the completion of in-orbit testing, the spacecraft will be incorporated into ORBCOMM's global machine-to-machine (M2M) communications network, consisting of the Mission 1 OG2 spacecraft currently in operation as well as ORBCOMM's Generation 1 (OG1) spacecraft. ORBCOMM's ubiquitous M2M network provides tracking, monitoring and control services for remote and mobile assets in core markets including transportation and distribution, heavy equipment, industrial fixed assets, oil and gas, maritime and government.
"ORBCOMM and SNC are pleased to be in the final stages of the launch and test of our advanced next generation OG2 satellites," said Marc Eisenberg, ORBCOMM's chief executive officer. "We expect to be offering our customers in Q1 2016, an enhanced, more efficient communications network, significantly increasing network capacity, coverage and performance, including an Automatic Identification System (AIS) payload on every spacecraft."
All OG2 spacecraft are based on SNC's flight-proven SN-100 satellite bus, which can be tailored to support a variety of applications, including communication, Earth observation, weather and space science. The SN-100 is designed for a five-year-minimum life and utilizes a modular payload deck that can be rapidly integrated and tested using highly automated scripts to test all functions. This allows the baseline satellite to be quickly and cost-effectively configured to meet the needs of many customers.
Photo Cutline: Eleven OG2 Mission 2 Satellites at SNC's facility in Colorado Prior to Shipment to Cape Canaveral, Florida.
About Sierra Nevada Corporation's Space Systems
Sierra Nevada Corporation's Space Systems business area based in Louisville, Colorado, designs and manufactures advanced spacecraft, space vehicles, rocket motors and spacecraft subsystems and components for the U.S. Government, commercial customers, as well as for the international market. SNC's Space Systems has more than 25 years of space heritage and has participated in over 400 successful space missions through the delivery of over 4,000 systems, subsystems and components. During its history, SNC's Space Systems has concluded over 70 programs for NASA and over 50 other clients. For more information about SNC's Space Systems visit www.sncspace.com and follow us at Facebook.com/SNCSpaceSystems and Twitter @SNCspacesystems.
About Sierra Nevada Corporation
Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), headquartered in Sparks, Nevada, delivers technology and teams designed to connect and protect, through innovative solutions in aircraft, aerospace, electronics, cyber and avionics. With a track record of success spanning five decades, SNC has been honored as one of America's fastest-growing private companies, "The Top Woman-owned Federal Contractor in the U.S.," and is among "The World's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Space." SNC and its subsidiaries and affiliates operate under the leadership of President Eren Ozmen and CEO Fatih Ozmen, with a workforce of more than 3,000 personnel in 33 locations in 18 U.S. states, England, Germany and Turkey.
For more information on SNC visit www.sncorp.com and follow us at Facebook/Sierra Nevada Corporation. Sierra Nevada Corporation and SNC are trademarks of Sierra Nevada Corporation.
Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook. | http://spaceref.biz/company/snc-completes-shipment-of-11-satellites-for-orbcomms-og2-mission-2-launch.html |
Shred-It’s 2018 State of the Industry Report states that 86% of business management executives tend to believe remote workers increase an organization’s chances for a data security breach. Before working from home became a trend, IT infrastructure used to be unified. Employees operated in their offices out of secure PC applications housed in the same network. Now that we are enjoying fast internet, affordable smart devices like laptops, and smartphone apps, remote work has gone from being an unpopular workplace custom to a standard component of many employees’ workweek.
Why Companies are Increasingly Adopting the Work-From-Home Culture
According to a Gallup survey, 43% of American employees said that they spent at least some time working remotely. Employees and employers who have embraced the work-from-home cultures view the practice as broadly beneficial, citing that flexible work schedules enable remote employees to be more productive. For companies, adopting the work-from-home culture helps to minimize overhead costs, boost recruiting efforts, and increase employee retention.
Security Risks for Remote Employees
While work-from-home opportunities are an increasingly attractive option for many organizations due to the many benefits they present, they are often the source of network security incidents that are less common when employees work from the office. As remote employees routinely access company data outside the company’s physically secure, centralized IT system, they may intentionally or unintentionally put company data at risk.
So, how can your organization enjoy the benefits that are associated with working remotely while ensuring that company data is safe? Below, we have provided some helpful tips for both employers and employees for keeping company data safe when implementing the work-from-home model.
Cybersecurity Best Practices for Employers
As the employer, the responsibility for keeping your company data safe starts with you. Here are some tips for keeping your company data safe:
1. Establish a cybersecurity policy
The first step to securing company data is to ensure that all employees, both new and existing employees, know that data security is a priority. As the employer, you come up with a strong cybersecurity policy and see to it that employees, whether they work remotely or from the office, have reviewed it and signed it. That way, everyone who is responsible for handling company data will know everything about cybersecurity and their role in it.
2. Secure your internet connections
Using unsecured internet connections is one of the most common ways to expose your company to cybersecurity threats. To safeguard your company data, you should secure your internet connections by using the right virtual private network.
3. Use strong safeguards to protect your company data
Another way of mitigating cybersecurity risks is by adopting a variety of security measures to secure company data. These measures include using strong passwords, using two-factor authentication for your data security management, using encryption software, and using firewalls, antivirus, and antimalware. It’s also essential to upgrade your security software and operating systems regularly.
4. Conduct cybersecurity risk assessments regularly
A cybersecurity risk assessment is a procedure that is carried out to evaluate the cyber risks of an organization. Performing this assessment is necessary to identify the gaps in your company’s critical risk areas and to determine the actions required to close those gaps. Since the cyber threat landscape keeps evolving, it is crucial to develop a process to periodically re-evaluate your program to reinforce your cybersecurity risk management stance.
5. Train your employees on cybersecurity
According to a Kaspersky report, 52% of companies believe that they are at risk from within. Their employees, whether deliberately or through their ignorance or carelessness, end up putting their companies at risk. One of the first steps to ensure that your employees will not put your company at an increased risk of cyber threats is enlightening them about cybersecurity. Regularly training your employees about the current cybersecurity landscape will help to minimize the probability that they will put your company at risk out of ignorance. Learn how to make cybersecurity training more engaging and lively to ensure the concept is easy to grasp.
Cybersecurity Practices for Remote Employees
To ensure that remote employees do not expose the companies that they work for at an increased risk of cyber threats, they should observe the following cybersecurity best practices:
1. Avoid clicking on suspicious links
One of the popular ways that cybercriminals use to steal data is through phishing. This is a cybersecurity attack where hackers plant suspicious links with malware to seize information. To avoid being victims of phishing attacks, employees should avoid clicking on suspicious links.
2. Keep devices safe
The physical loss of mobile devices is another contributing factor to an increased risk of a company to cyber threats. Remote employees, therefore, should keep the mobile devices they use to access company data.
3. Never use unsecured wireless networks
Like previously mentioned, using unsecured internet connections increases your vulnerability to cyber threats. To minimize this vulnerability, remote employees should never use unsecured Wi-Fi connections. Instead, they should always ensure that they access company data using virtual private networks or secured internet connections.
4. Avoid using the company devices for personal use
There has to be a boundary between company work and personal work. When remote employees make use of company devices for personal use, they expose the company at an increased risk for cyber attacks. As such, remote employees should avoid using company devices for their use.
5. Use strong passwords for company devices
Using strong passwords is one of the best ways to keep company data out of hackers’ reach. Password-protected devices and apps make it difficult for hackers to access the information that’s stored in the devices. This makes password protection a good security measure that can come in handy in case a remote employee loses a mobile device that he or she uses to access company data.
Final words
Maintaining a safe and secure cybersecurity space is a collective responsibility. Employers must put security measures to protect company data. At the same time, employees must adhere to cybersecurity best practices to ensure that they are not the weak link in the fight against cybersecurity threats. | https://thebusinesstechies.com/tips-for-keeping-company-data-safe-when-working-remotely/ |
Cyberattacks on SMBs continue to rise and they are more targeted and more complex than ever. Consider the following:
- 66 percent of SMBs experienced an attack in the past 12 months
- 69 percent experienced an attack that got past their intrusion detection system
- 45 percent of SMBs said that their organization’s security posture was ineffective at mitigating attacks
- 57 percent of the attacks were from phishing/social engineering
Source: 2019 Global State of Cybersecurity in Small and Medium-Sized Businesses, Ponemon Institute
Why adopting better security practices matters
A high proportion of successful cybersecurity attacks – we believe it’s over 80 percent - are due to employee carelessness. Most come in through phishing emails in which a user opens an attachment or clicks on a link without thinking twice about vetting the sender. Email filtering works to some extent, but the bad guys have learned how to get around protections that organizations have put in place. For instance, some phishing emails even have the capability of waiting until human interaction is detected – a mouse click or typing – before downloading their nastiness.
Companies understand that employees are a major component of their organization’s information security challenges. In IDG’s 2019 Security Priorities Study, 44 percent of respondents said they wanted to increase security awareness and staff training, making it the second highest priority for the year.
But here’s the ugly truth: Training won’t work.
Part of the problem is the negative connotation of the term “training”. While employees need to understand the importance of adopting security best practices, “training” conjures up images of sitting in a stuffy conference room all day listening to boring lectures. And, like training at a gym, it’s hard to maintain good practices unless they are woven into your lifestyle.
Adopting best practices: make it personal
Instead of training, change the culture of your company to incentivize your employees to adopt good security habits whether in the office or working remotely. The best way to do this is to make it personal for your workers. Good physical security habits, like locking the door and installing cameras, keep people safe from physical burglaries and assaults. And, adopting good cybersecurity habits will help keep their personal data safe, protecting them while also protecting the integrity of your organization’s cyber security.
It’s one thing to say that a major data breach could lead to a loss of customers and revenue for the company. But, aside from the business risk, how might that affect employees directly? Maybe that loss will lead to corporate downsizing or a lack of annual salary increases.
You can also use examples of a personal data breach to bring home the point. How much distress would an employee experience – in terms of mental anguish and even possible financial damage and identity theft – if a hacker got into the corporate network and stole their Social Security number from the human resources department?
Make sure employees understand that this concept isn’t a stretch as most attacks do have the potential to impact employees personally. In doubt? Consider the following type of data which are often targets of cybersecurity hacks:
- Confidential business information, which includes financial data, customer data and also employee data
- Privileged account information (credentials, personal passwords)
- Sensitive personal information, including personally identifiable information (PII) and even protected health information (PHI)
Rather than talking about how a hacker could steal your company’s intellectual property or cripple your business through ransomware, talk about how your employee would react when finding out that their digital family photos were being held for ransom.
Building good cybersecurity practices into your culture is a matter of helping employees see these habits not as a burden but as personal protection for them as well as for the business. The process should start when you onboard new employees and then make sure it is constantly reinforced:
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Build good security hygiene into your processes,
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Require the adoption of multi-factor authentication,
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Remind employees to use passphrases rather than passwords, not to reuse the same ones, and to secure them in a password manager.
At least once a year, have a security awareness refresher. But don’t call it training. Another of that term’s bad connotations is that it is the same, boring class that employees are obligated to attend each year, just so IT can check that box.
Instead, update the course with new information and tips for improving cybersecurity. Whether it’s in-person or you host it remotely, make sure to liven it up. Identify the latest twists in phishing and social engineering to watch out for. Use some recent examples of how a SMB experienced a crippling attack (and how that impacted its employees). Maybe even bring in a local victim of identity theft.
The truth is, most of us won’t go too far out of our way to protect a company, unless we own it. That’s why it’s so important for employees to understand the potential personal consequences of not adopting good security practices.
Learn more about our security capabilities and how we can help improve your organization’s security posture and protect your business from cybersecurity attacks. | https://www.btbsecurity.com/blog/how-to-get-your-employees-to-adopt-cybersecurity-best-practices-in-the-office-or-remote |
It’s no secret that the healthcare industry faces some serious challenges when it comes to protecting patient data and health information systems. Read any article on this topic, and you’ll find an abundance of statistics on the healthcare sector’s exposure to cyberattacks. At first glance, this may seem gloomy, but in some ways, this is good news.
The increased awareness of these challenges shines a spotlight on the needs of the healthcare sector, provides numerous resources and references, and continues stakeholder discussions on how to improve. It also brings attention to the issue so that practitioners, developers, regulators and industry leaders can appreciate the importance of having an actionable cybersecurity strategy.
A key and foundational component of an actionable cybersecurity strategy is one that can be implemented at the basic level and starts healthcare providers down the path of cybersecurity vigilance, maturity and compliance. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Security Rule is the regulation that governs security compliance. Other laws, such as the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, also aim to help improve the health sector in maturing providers’ and staff’s cybersecurity awareness and posture. There are practical day-to-day approaches healthcare providers and staff can take to step up their cybersecurity defenses against some common threats. These are not new practices and they are not new, exciting cybersecurity tools, but when compared with the cost of recovering from a cyberattack, they can be critical in proving the old adage, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Phishing Threat
As defined by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), phishing is a social engineering tactic that is used to persuade individuals to provide sensitive information and/or take action through seemingly trustworthy communications.1 Phishing attempts are delivered primarily by emails worded and targeted to elicit a “click me” response. Although phishing threats have been around for years, they are still, in 2020, wildly successful. According to Verizon’s Data Breach Digest Report, “90 percent of the data-loss incidents the team investigates have a ‘phishing or social engineering component’ to them.”2
Phishing Defense Strategy
In the frenzy of the work day, it is easy to “click” before you read. However, the primary defense against this popular email threat is to cultivate a critical eye. Be skeptical of emails from unknown sources. In addition, be critical of emails from known sources that look suspicious. Some of the elements that might be suspicious include hyperlinks or attachments in emails that do not normally include these elements, missing letters or random characters in the sender’s email address, misspelling of organization names, or email text that appears stilted, generic or includes seemingly inappropriate greetings. (See Figure 1.)
If you receive an email that looks suspicious, delete it or move it to your junk email folder. Do not click on any links or open any included attachments. As attackers become savvier, using real organization logos, for instance, it may be difficult to determine if an email is authentic. In these instances, take actions to verify the authenticity by contacting the supposed sender by phone. Taking a moment to discern the validity of emails is a crucial tool in the day-to-day defense strategy against phishing attempts.
Ransomware Threat
Ransomware is a type of malicious software that encrypts system data files and prohibits access. The attacker demands ransom payment to restore access to the encrypted data files. Ransomware can affect organizations in multiple ways, causing system downtime, lost productivity and lost sales and, at its most severe, threatening patient safety. (See Figure 2.)
Ransomware Defense Strategy
Ransomware attacks are usually launched through phishing attacks. Therefore, the ransomware defense strategy starts with all of the best practices noted for phishing attacks. Additional safe practices include the following:
- Restrict Internet browsing to safe and trusted sources.
- Install antivirus software that scans email attachments.
- Ensure that software applications have security patching enabled and are scheduled to run at set dates and times.
- Establish a means to back up and restore system data files on a frequent schedule and on a separate system. This is very critical. Backing up your system data may not prevent a ransomware attack, but to recover from this kind of attack with minimum disruption of business operations, a backup is vital.
Unintentional Insider Threat
An unintentional insider threat is loss or compromise of data caused by accidental actions, such as a process or procedural mistake, a deception, process errors or circumvention of established security protocols. A 2019 report by Egress found that 79 percent of IT leaders said that employees had accidentally placed sensitive data at risk of exposure. In addition, 60 percent believed they would suffer an accidental data breach within the next 12 months.3
Unintentional Insider Threat Defense Strategy
The major defense against this type of threat is a daily dose of security training and awareness. Being aware of the value of the data that health professionals use and are responsible for protecting can help put into perspective why security policies, such as strong passwords, are so important. For example, if a bank employee received a cash deposit of $10,000, he or she would secure it right away, no matter what, right? The value of money is immediately apparent. Patient data also has a high value. According to the 2020 Vision Report by CyberMDX, highly sensitive patient information can sell for as much as $1,000 per health record on the black market.4 Thus, establishing and following organizational security policies, ensuring the use of strong passwords and taking a moment to be cautious and critical can go a long way in helping to avoid threats to valuable patient data.
As an organization’s security policies are only as strong as their weakest links, an additional defense strategy includes getting everyone involved in daily cybersecurity awareness and training. For instance, establishing a rotating “patient data defender” role to promote and communicate best security practices on a reoccurring basis can serve as an excellent awareness and training tool. This type of strategy not only can get an entire organization engaged in best cybersecurity practices but also can contribute to a larger culture of safety and security throughout the organization. An organization’s teams can realize that they are part of the defense team, and all parties (the team and patients) benefit from good cybersecurity practices.
Cybersecurity Defense Strategy Helpful Resources
Leading healthcare industry organizations and government agencies have published and distributed numerous resources, guides and training materials to assist healthcare providers in establishing good cybersecurity practices and policies. After implementing the basic and foundational steps discussed in this article, check out the resources and tools listed in Table 1 to help get to the next level in maturing a cybersecurity defense strategy.
Table 1. Cybersecurity Defense Strategy Helpful Resources
This resource list is not exhaustive but offers good references as starting points for learning about and building robust cybersecurity practices. | https://www.mdadvantageonline.com/feature-articles/cybersecurity-daily-defense-strategy/ |
Moving forward, we can expect to see a wide variety of sophisticated and complex cyberattacks, including social engineering, ransomware, DDoS attacks, third-party exposures and exploitation of cloud computing vulnerabilities. As suspected, many of these attacks and their devastating impacts can be linked back to when there were unsecured gaps that developed when companies and their employees were thrust from their secure on-premise IT infrastructures to remote networking capabilities.
The key here is that, at a time when organizations are at their most vulnerable and trying to take their first steps back to their office environment, malicious actors are continuing to ramp up their efforts. To combat an ever-evolving range of cybersecurity threats and compliance requirements, it’s time to invest in a plan of attack that combines new technology and integrations with tried-and-true best practices.
In this article, the experts at Your Tech Team will cover several best security practices to protect your network today and into the future. If you’re interested in protecting your team with reliable cloud security, mobile device management, and more, contact us today.
Step 1: Determine Where Your Vulnerabilities Lie
Do you ever wish you had a way of identifying potential threats and how they could impact your organization before they occur? With a comprehensive security risk assessment, not only can you identify and mitigate potential threats, but you can pinpoint the source of the threat, understand that the threat will likely materialize, and recognize ways you can remediate vulnerabilities in your organization. Common tasks performed in a risk assessment include the following:
- Review the adequacy of your organization’s existing security policies and procedures
- Analyze threat and vulnerabilities, including likelihood and impact
- Review agreements involving products or services from vendors
- Review logical access and other methods of authentication
- Check the configuration, usage and maintenance of firewalls, servers, and remote access systems
- Create a report that documents the assets at risk, their corresponding threats, likelihood of occurrence and potential impact for future decision-making
- Develop an assessment policy that defines what your organization must do to address and mitigate the identified risks
Step 2: Adopt Proactive Cybersecurity Solutions
Once you’ve identified the current and emerging threats posed to your organization, it’s time to invest in a cybersecurity strategy that covers all of your bases, including cloud security, network security, VPNs, firewalls, data backup and mobile device protection. This typically involves gaining an in-depth understanding of the assets your organization is expected to protect. Then, you need to determine the appropriate level of risk exposure for your organization and get to know the threat landscape. Lastly, you will need to create a multi-layered strategy that addresses the vulnerabilities of your current security measures.
Step 3: Turn to Your Employees
When it comes to mitigating cybersecurity threats, your enterprise and all of its stakeholders need to be savvy. The basis for preventing a cyberattack of any kind starts with knowledge of cybersecurity best practices and the role you play in defending the organization from risks. When employers prioritize cybersecurity awareness training to address constantly evolving threats, it helps mitigate one of the most prevalent risk factors: human error. Some of the largest data breaches have occurred as a result of one employee falling prey to a phishing scheme that popped up in their inbox. Whether your method of prioritizing cybersecurity awareness involves creating a bulletin of cybersecurity news or routine sessions on secure browsing practices, it’s important to keep new and emerging cyberthreats in your line of vision at all times.
Step 4: Partner with a Dedicated Technology Partner
Last but certainly not least, you’ll want to work with a dedicated technology partner that can help ensure you accomplish all of your IT and cybersecurity business goals with ease. No matter whether you’re looking to ramp up your cloud security or double down on ransomware prevention and response, Your Tech Team is here to provide you with a strategy customized specifically for the technology needs and compliance requirements of your business. No stress, no hassle, and no strings attached. Contact our team of security experts today. | https://yourtechteam.com/blog/how-to-take-a-proactive-approach-to-cybersecurity/ |
Is your enterprise ready for the latest LockBit ransomware?
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Perhaps the hardest element in staying protected against ransomware is managing the many different variants. LockBit 2.0 is the latest strain. Find out if you're ready, and what needs to be done to be prepared for tomorrow's threats.
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How to approach advanced email protection in your organization
Oct 7, 2021
Email is still perhaps the greatest potential cybersecurity threat to most organizations. We look at the best way of approaching advanced email protection.
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Is It Time Your Organization Adopted A Zero-Trust Approach to Cybersecurity?
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Zero-trust is a rapidly emerging approach in modern cybersecurity. Clearswift DLP solutions can help with zero-trust without impacting the day-to-day business operations.
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Cybersecurity Risks in the Supply Chain are Leaving Organizations Vulnerable
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The cybersecurity risk from weaknesses in an organization’s supply chain is a growing challenge. How can this risk be successfully mitigated?
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Are Cybersecurity and Data Protection Now Integral to Business Success?
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Organizations have had to increase the cybersecurity measures they put in place to keep data safe and secure. Consequently, cybersecurity solutions are more widely deployed, and data protection measures are prioritized more than ever.
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Why Cybersecurity Matters – Elevating Cybersecurity to the C-Suite in Your Organization
Sep 8, 2021
Any CEO not taking this seriously would be roundly criticized by customers, shareholders, partners, and more for such a stance. Yet is there a difference between what is said publicly by CEOs and what is actually done in private?
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Heads up! New Canadian Data Privacy Act is Around the Corner
Sep 6, 2021
The time to prepare to meet soon-to-be-enacted Canadian data privacy regulations is now. Around the world, the awareness of the need to protect the privacy rights of individuals, including the access, transparency, and security of personal information has never been higher.
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Maintaining Cybersecurity During Rapid Digital Transformation
Sep 1, 2021
Digital transformation is the process of using digital technologies to create new — or modify existing — business processes, culture, and customer experiences to meet changing business and market requirements.
Five Key Points When Preventing Cybersecurity Attacks in a World of Hybrid Working
Aug 30, 2021
Although the benefits of homeworking are well-documented and recent events have proven that people can work just as effectively from home as they can from the office, many people will likely want at least a partial return to the workplace.
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Ryuk, REvil, and Clop – How to Prevent Ransomware in Your Organization
Aug 26, 2021
Ryuk, REvil, NHS, Clop, Cezar, Pubg, Webroot, and Cryptolocker are just some examples of ransomware that have been prevalent over the past 12 months or so – there are others, and there undoubtedly will be more to come.
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Using Clearswift’s Secure Email Gateway to Improve Enterprise Cybersecurity
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Whether you are a subscriber to the Inbox Zero mode of email management or prefer to let your unread emails rack up to hundreds or even thousands, there can be little doubt about the sheer volume of email communication.
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Key Takeaways from Biden's Sweeping Executive Order on Cybersecurity
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On Wednesday May 12, the Biden administration took a critical step towards addressing security issues that have come to light after several recent, high profile cyberattacks.
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Will Social Engineering Lures Become Even More Common in 2021?
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With the world starting to open back up again, it provides an even greater opportunity for cyber-criminals to use social engineering lures to gain access to corporate systems.
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Best Practice Steps for Safe Data Sharing
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Digital data is everywhere, you only have to look at how much data is transmitted over the internet on a weekly, daily, hourly, or even second-by-second basis to understand just how much data is being shared.
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Cristiano Ronaldo or Harry Kane to be top scorer? The Social Engineering Lures to Watch Out for This Summer
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How can organizations keep their employees safe from social engineering lures during this summer of sport? We look the tactics to watch out for and ways to minimize risk.
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Data Security Best Practices Every CISO Should Know
Apr 29, 2021
The responsibility for an organization’s information and data security is a hefty one, knowing each day that it’s not a matter of whether a cybersecurity attack will happen, but rather when it will happen on your watch.
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Remote Working One Year On: What the Future Holds for Cybersecurity
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Depending on where you are in the world, it is now approximately one year since the COVID-19 pandemic meant that many employees had to start working from home suddenly.
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How to Enhance Data Loss Prevention in Office 365
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What are Data Security Solutions and How do They Work?
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The widespread use and distribution of information makes securing data a significant challenge. In this blog post, we take a detailed look at how Data Security Solutions help solve this problem. | https://www.clearswift.com/resources?resource_type=14 |
October is Cybersecurity Month: 5 Tips to Beef Up Security
October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM). This is the 15th year of the National effort spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA).
So, what is cybersecurity? Basically, it’s ensuring the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of information. More specifically, it’s the practice of defending Internet-connected systems, including hardware, software, and data, from malicious attacks.
Here are 5 tips to help beef up the security of your agency or department:
- Be aware: More than 90 percent of cyberattacks and resulting data breaches begin with the fraudulent practice of sending emails disguised as a known source to get the recipient to reveal confidential information – better known as spear phishing. Know what you are clicking and opening to ensure you don’t accidentally compromise your computer or your entire network.
- Lock your screen: If you walk away from your desk, even for a brief moment, do you lock your computer? You may not think it’s a big deal, but leaving your computer unlocked is a lot like leaving your car running with the doors unlocked. Anyone could sit at your computer and gain access to all the information that is on it, including your mail accounts, confidential and or sensitive company data, social media accounts, etc. And if you allow your browser to save your passwords, an unauthorized user could gain access to accounts you thought were secure, so leaving your computer unlocked could pose a huge security risk.
- Password management: Don’t share your password with others, don’t write it down, and don’t put it on a post-it note on your monitor. Don’t use your initials or use the same password for multiple sites. If your password is compromised, it leaves you vulnerable and more susceptible across various platforms. Don’t use common words for your password unless you are using a passphrase – meaning multiple words that make up a single password. As a general statement, the longer passwords are the better they’ll protect you, even if they’re not complex. Lastly, if you suspect your password has been compromised, change it! It’s always better to be safe than sorry.
- Browsing best practices: Only do your shopping or banking on a device that belongs to you and a network that you trust. Browsing on public networks using sensitive data can you leave you exposed and potentially compromised.
- Keep your antivirus up to date: Make sure you have the latest antivirus installed and that it’s up to date. Antivirus companies constantly research the latest threats and risks, and update their antivirus signatures to help protect your machine.
Be safe out there! | https://www.eso.com/blog/cybersecurity-month-5-tips/ |
Last Updated on June 15, 2021
With the advent of the novel coronavirus — COVID19, a lot of people have been forced into working remotely than ever before. This situation is going to continue for some time until the medical community finds a way to contain this deadly virus that is causing a catastrophe in the world. On top of it, a lot of companies are providing options such as ‘work from home,’ to attract employees to come and work for them. While this is good, it comes with its own disadvantages. Most importantly, the security of the sensitive data that people will access each day. Working with a managed IT service provider can help alleviate these security issues.
Since there are so many Managed IT service providers in the country, you need to work with the best. They will help in mitigating the risk associated with this kind of work culture. Here are the pros and cons of working remotely.
Table of Contents
- Pros of Working Remotely
- Cons of Working Remotely
- Best Practices That Employers Can Follow
- Improve your cyber security.
- Best Practices That Employees Need to Follow When Working Remotely
Pros of Working Remotely
One of the greatest benefits of working remotely is that you can work from anywhere. This means you have more freedom to find a place to live that suits your needs and lifestyle. Not only do you save money because no commute costs are needed, but it also means less time spent in traffic jams and dealing with all the other hassles of commuting. Whether or not this is true for everyone, there are many who find it an attractive option for their lifestyles.
- Improves productivity and employee retention.
- Flexible schedule.
- Reduce the overhead costs of the business by reducing the need to have office space.
- Removes the unnecessary wastage of time such as commuting to the office.
- Employees can work remotely when they are sick.
- Allows employees to spend more time with their families as they don’t need to commute back and forth from home every day.
- Many people find it rewarding due to fewer interruptions in the flow of work or distractions by colleagues, phone calls, and other office noise.
Cons of Working Remotely
- Sensitive data of the company is at risk as the employees are handling emails and other data on their personal devices and network in most cases.
- Cybercriminals can get their hands on sensitive information if they try their best.
- Vulnerable to network threats as people use different devices to connect to sensitive data.
- Can’t be productive as the employees have to juggle between their duties and other tasks.
- Tasks are not completed in time, which causes more stress for everyone involved.
- Employees feel disconnected because they’re constantly on the move or working from different places at a given point in time.
- No-transferring knowledge across teams
Best Practices That Employers Can Follow
The average person is not trained in IT security, and the difficulties of this recent crisis have made it even more difficult to maintain safety when working remotely. It’s crucial for you to work with a managed service provider who can take care of your needs without requiring major investments on your part.
Improve your cyber security.
Do you need to improve your cybersecurity or get started protecting your business? Get in touch with a cyber security expert now before it’s too late.
Train Your Employees
Staying safe in the digital age can be challenging, but there are a few steps you can take to reduce your risk. Train employees on how to protect themselves from cybercriminals and keep company data secure by following these three tips:
- Don’t open suspicious emails or click links that have been sent without confirmation from someone familiar with their content first; if it sounds too good for true then it probably is!
- Minimize document access privileges so people don’t accidentally share sensitive information they shouldn’t; this includes passwords as well which should only be given out when necessary
- Always update antivirus software regularly because new viruses come around every day
Connect to Network Using the VPN
A VPN is a type of virtual network that acts as an intermediary for web browsing. They are used by businesses and home users to protect their data from outside intruders, such as hackers or spies. The level of security they provide is usually on par with what you would find in your average office building’s firewall system!
• Safeguard your data and identity from hackers, spies, and other intruders
• Get peace of mind knowing that your information is private with a VPN
• Browse the internet in complete privacy thanks to a VPN’s encryption services
• Stay connected to work or school networks without sacrificing safety
Update the Employees Application and Devices
With the recent rise in security breaches, updating apps and devices have become a priority. However, many people are still confused as to what exactly these updates entail– they think that it’s just about adding new features when really those updates solidify your device or app’s ability to keep you safe from malicious attacks!
• Your device or app will become more resistant to hacking with the right updates
• You’ll enjoy a safer browsing experience so long as you update regularly
• Updates are quick and easy, one-click fixes your problem fast!
It’s important for people to know that having up-to-date devices and apps really does make all the difference.
Best Practices That Employees Need to Follow When Working Remotely
Many times employees that work remotely are complacent when it comes to matters related to cybersecurity. They feel they have no role to play in it as the IT department of a company or the partner that provides managed IT services is going to take care of this aspect.
Some of the activities that they do online like shopping can pose your company’s data at risk. Here are some best practices that they can follow to avoid these situations.
Beware of Email Phishing
Nowadays cybercriminals are phishing emails or messages to get confidential information such as login information and passwords. Employees need the knowledge of how to identify these things in order for them not to be hacker’s puppets. Train your employees so they know what a potential threat is, and can remain vigilant about their personal security while at work!
• Help your employees identify and avoid phishing emails
• Remind them of the importance of staying updated on cybersecurity in order to protect yourself from scams
• Train them how to identify a potential threat while at work
• Stop your employees from being someone’s puppets
Create Strong Passwords
The best passwords are those that cannot be easily guessed. Strong, complex passwords help protect your system from malicious attacks and can also prevent data theft. By encouraging employees to create a strong password they will have peace of mind knowing their sensitive information is safe on the company’s network.
• Require employees to use complex passwords so that their data is secure
• Prevent the loss of important corporate information from malicious attacks
• Employee data will be safe and sound with the help of a strong password
• Employees won’t need to worry about hackers since their passwords are safe.
Don’t Leave the Belongings
You should train your employees about the importance of keeping an eye on their belongings. They want to make sure that they don’t leave them unattended and if possible, store them in a secure place when not using them so that no one else can take advantage of this lapse in attention.
• Train your employees to be more aware of their belongings
• Make sure that they store them and don’t leave them unattended
• Give your employees a strong password for added security
Using Wireless Networks
It is crucial that your employees are careful when using any public wireless networks because they can be made soft targets for cybercriminals. Secured network usage should always be prioritized to ensure safety and security in the workplace!
• Ensure your employees are safe when using public wireless networks
• Make sure you have secured networks so that you can protect company secrets and private information.
The pros of working remotely are that you have the freedom to work from anywhere, anytime and there is no commute. However, one of the cons is that it can be difficult to find a balance between your work life and personal time. Employers should provide their employees with resources on how to get started with remote-working tasks such as setting up an office workspace in a coffee shop or library so they feel more comfortable while away from home.
Employees need to make sure they follow best practices when using public wifi like not browsing unencrypted websites without VPN protection. If these topics interest you or if you want some help getting started with this type of employment arrangement, please reach out for a free consultation here at Forum Info-Tech!
Do you need to improve your cybersecurity or get started protecting your business? Get in touch with a cybersecurity expert now. | https://foruminfotech.net/8-security-tips-to-enhance-security-when-people-work-remotely/ |
Beyond the Phish Report Shows Need for Broader Employee Awareness and Training
On September 1, we released our 2016 Beyond the Phish™ Report, a cybersecurity awareness analysis that shows major end-user knowledge gaps that pose significant risk to organizations across a range of vertical markets, including healthcare, telecoms, retail, and transportation.
The report reveals that many cybersecurity threats that are prevalent today — including oversharing on social media, unsafe use of WiFi, and company confidential data exposure — are not well-understood by end users. These activities are not only dangers in their own right, they are contributing factors to the ever-expanding phishing problem.
20 Million Questions Asked and Answered
The Beyond the Phish Report includes data compiled from nearly 20 million questions asked and answered about nine relevant cybersecurity topics:
- Using Social Media Safely
- Protecting and Disposing of Data Securely
- Identifying Phishing Threats
- Protecting Confidential Information
- Working Safely Outside the Office
- Using the Internet Safely
- Protecting Mobile Devices and Information
- Protecting Against Physical Risks
- Building Safe Passwords
We also surveyed hundreds of security professionals — customers and non-customers — about the security topics they assess on, and their confidence levels in their end users' abilities to make good security decisions. Key findings from the report show there is room for improvement in a number of areas:
Users, Organizations Are Lax About Social Media Safety
Safe use of social media was the biggest issue for end users; 31% of questions asked about this topic were missed. But organizations are partly to blame here, as only 55% of the infosec professionals we surveyed said they assess employee knowledge about this topic.
Nearly a Third of Users Struggle With Secure Data Handling
On average, end users across all industries missed 30% of questions related to proper data protections and secure data disposal. And while healthcare organizations are most likely to assess their employees’ ability to protect confidential information, 31% of questions about this topic were missed by users in this industry.
Remote Workers Need Better Training on Security Best Practices
With the rise in remote employees and end users who value the ability to work outside the office, organizations need to better educate end users who work remotely and those who travel regularly. Improper use of free WiFi, inattention to physical security, lax data protections, and the lack of security guidelines during travel led to 26% of questions missed by end users on this important topic.
Click the button below to access a full copy of the 2016 Beyond the Phish Report.
Share your thoughts and stories with us on our social media channels (LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook) and include #BeyondThePhish in your posts.
More Attention to Threats Yields a Better Informed Employee Base
In reviewing the results from the Beyond the Phish Report, Derek Brink, CISSP, Vice President and Research Fellow, Aberdeen Group said, “We should all be thankful to Wombat Security for sharing empirical data from nearly 20 million actual end-user assessments! The findings here are clear — organizations that measure user knowledge on a variety of security topics are gaining valuable insights into the most important factors of security risk, which can focus their efforts to address it.
“Depth of data, combined with a continuous, metrics-based approach to end-user security education, results in a solid knowledge improvement program. In my own analysis, successfully changing user behaviors has helped Wombat customers reduce security-related risks by about 60%.”
While there is room for improvement in all risk areas, the report also highlights categories where employees have answered the highest percentage of questions correctly. Not surprisingly, these were topic areas that organizations were also highly likely to assess.
- 90% of questions were answered correctly about building safe passwords.
- 85% of questions were answered correctly on how to best protect against physical risks, such as ensuring no one follows you into a secure area or not leaving sensitive files on your desk.
- 79% of organizations assess end users on internet safety, and 84% of the questions in this category were answered correctly. | https://www.proofpoint.com/us/security-awareness/post/beyond-phish-report-shows-need-broader-employee-awareness-and-training |
Cybersecurity is a serious matter for any company, but especially so if your business deals with sensitive information or assets. While there are many things to think about when it comes to implementing a cybersecurity policy, here are some of the most important ones that will help ensure you’re doing everything you can to protect yourself from cybercriminals:
Evaluate your network security.
Evaluate your network security.
How?
- Get an outside perspective on your organization’s IT infrastructure, whether it be from a third-party consultant or another employee with more expertise in cybersecurity than you currently have. If you are the only one responsible for developing and implementing the cybersecurity policy, this can be difficult to do alone.
- Conduct a risk assessment on your network security by analyzing each of its components: information systems and applications; data storage devices; physical access control measures; personnel screening practices; etcetera (as detailed in Section 1).
- Evaluate how well these elements meet industry standards as well as best practices for cybersecurity protection by looking at whether they’re up-to-date with current trends in technology and human behavior (such as phishing scams or social engineering attacks). Do they have any gaps that need filling? Are any of their policies outdated or ineffective? The answers to these questions will help determine if the system is effective—or not—in protecting its users’ data from external threats like malware or ransomware attacks while also safeguarding internal information integrity within this same system itself.”
Map out acceptable employee usage of company devices.
There are a few areas you should consider when mapping out acceptable employee usage of company devices. First and foremost, you need to have clear rules about what is okay and what isn’t. For example, if the use of social media on work computers is prohibited except for during lunch breaks, that should be made clear in your policy. You can also make it clear if certain websites or apps are off-limits for your employees; for example, if Facebook Messenger is banned because it uses data but WhatsApp does not (or vice versa).
Another important aspect of creating an acceptable employee usage policy is enforcing it. It may seem obvious that employees should follow their company’s policies—but sometimes they don’t! Make sure to include disciplinary measures in your plan so that anyone who doesn’t comply with these guidelines receives consequences accordingly.
Finally, remember that this document should be checked frequently as new technologies emerge and employees learn how they can use them at work—and make sure to keep up with any changes in legislation surrounding cybersecurity!
Develop a plan for dealing with breaches.
One of the most important steps in creating a cybersecurity policy is to develop a plan for dealing with breaches. A breach is any unauthorized access into your system, whether accidental or malicious. These can include:
- Data breaches
- Ransomware attacks
- Phishing attacks (spear phishing)
- Social engineering attacks
Educate your employees on the do’s and don’ts of cybersecurity.
In order to be successful, you need to educate your employees on the do’s and don’ts of cybersecurity. This education can be formal or informal and should be based upon their roles within the organization.
Here are some ways you can go about this:
- Create a comprehensive training program that includes everything from proper use of company devices to best practices in handling sensitive data. Your program should also include information on how to identify phishing schemes, spam emails and other cyber threats.
- Make sure your training is both accessible (accessible by email or web portal) as well as available in person at least once per year for staff members who work remotely or outside normal working hours (i.e., part time workers). If everyone is physically located in one location, then it may suffice that they receive at least two hours of annual training over two weeks instead of daily or weekly courses all year long like those who telecommute often do not have access during business hours due too travel constraints such as public transportation routes being limited with little flexibility.* Set up reminders so that all staff members complete their security awareness training every quarter before renewing their access credentials.* Track employee compliance with these policies using tools like this one which tracks both computer usage history across multiple devices including mobile phones; tablets etcetera since many companies now have BYOD policies allowing employees greater freedom when it comes time setting up devices themselves rather than having IT do everything behind closed doors.”
Create a written policy outlining the above information and distribute it to employees.
Once you have created and finalized your cybersecurity policy, distribute it to all employees. The written policy should be distributed in a format that allows employees to print, save or download the document. The policy should contain:
- A summary of what the organization’s cyber security policies are;
- An explanation of how to report incidents;
- Guidelines for protecting personal information;
- Instructions for terminating access to network resources; and
- Information about reporting potential violations of the system use standards.
Implementing a cybersecurity policy is an ongoing process that requires careful evaluation, planning and employee participation.
Implementing a cybersecurity policy is an ongoing process that requires careful evaluation, planning and employee participation.
- It’s not a one-time event. Cybersecurity policies should be reviewed regularly to ensure they are still in sync with your organization’s goals, objectives and capabilities.
- Update your cybersecurity policy when necessary or as needed—ideally on an annual basis at least—to reflect changes to technology, regulations or other factors affecting the security environment.
- The primary purpose of any cybersecurity policy should be to protect your organization from cyber threats by raising employee awareness about potential risks in order for them to take appropriate steps to protect their personal information from unauthorized access (as well as preventing misuse of company assets). However, it is equally important that employees understand how such threats impact their ability function effectively within the organization itself so they can look out for themselves while working together toward achieving common goals (i.e., achieving company objectives).
Conclusion
The most important thing is to understand that creating an effective cybersecurity policy is an ongoing process that requires careful evaluation, planning and employee participation. Once you have these three things down, though, it should be easy for your business to implement a plan that keeps everyone safe and secure! | https://cyberintelmatrix.com/how-to-create-an-effective-cybersecurity-policy/ |
For all the talk of criminal hacking, ransomware infections and the technologies to prevent them, the key to protecting your organisation is cyber security awareness training. The importance of cyber security staff awareness. Cyber security awareness best practices.
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Backchannel Security Security / National SecurityA sprawling tactical industry is teaching American civilians how to fight like Special Ops forces. By preparing for violence at home, are they calling it into being? | https://www.informationmanagementtoday.com/security/training/ |
¿De qué se trata?
An indispensable guide to baking cybersecurity best practices into the corporate culture and everyday habits.
Recommendation
Having lived through disastrous hacks and breaches at McAfee, one of the world’s foremost security software firms, author Allison Cerra proves an effective evangelizer for the everyday importance of corporate cybersecurity. Cerra offers detailed advice for each key player in the constant battle against hackers and cybercriminals, none more important than employees themselves. Her practical checklists for lead security officers, boards, the C-suite and HR and marketing professionals make this brief, accessible and engaging guide useful to building cybersecurity into the corporate culture.
Take-Aways
- Much of corporate cybersecurity depends on the good habits of employees.
- The C-suite and the board must address cybersecurity in every board meeting.
- Product designers must build security into network-connected products and devices from the ground up.
- Human resources plays an important role in building cybersecurity awareness, capabilities and resilience.
- Develop and practice executing a detailed communications and response plan to any major security breach.
- With risk management at its core, cybersecurity falls squarely within the CFO’s interests and responsibilities.
- Chief Information Security Officers bear much of the burden.
Summary
Much of corporate cybersecurity depends on the good habits of employees.
One in five security breaches involves a mistake by a negligent employee. Mundane but important practices by employees in the firm represent one of the most vital defenses to cybercrime. These include creating strong passwords, changing them often, and not reusing them. Employees should familiarize themselves with common hacker tactics, including phishing emails. They should check with IT security before using cloud services and tools, use encrypted thumb drives, report suspicious emails and activity, never leave laptops and other devices with sensitive information unattended, and simply realize that hacker prevention doesn’t just fall to the cybersecurity team – everyone must contribute.
“Cyber threats are now so pervasive that they lurk around every connected device, every bit of data we take for granted.”
In most organizations, phishing emails succeed in fooling about 4% of employees and/or executives. Phishing emails – often in the guise of a message from a leader or colleague – invite the recipient to click on a link or download a file. When they do, they may compromise their credentials, introduce a virus or give a hacker entry to the firm’s networks. Employees need awareness training to spot phishing attempts and should report them to IT immediately.
Convincing employees to do these things proves exceptionally challenging in most organizations. Unfortunately, those responsible for cybersecurity often operate in the shadows, and when they do appear, their rules and restrictions just as often meet with derision as acceptance.
“Cybersecurity is a team sport with everyone needing to play her or his position for every minute of the game.”
Only by weaving safe practices and habits into the culture of the organization can Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and their teams hope to prepare the firm for attacks and minimize the damage. No organization can ever hope to prevent cyberattacks, but they can respond to them quickly and effectively.
The C-suite and the board must address cybersecurity in every board meeting.
Cybersecurity preparedness requires the combined efforts of all parts of the organization, led by a CISO who has the ear of the board and senior executives. Everyone in the organization should take responsibility for securing data, whether data are behind a firewall, in the cloud or on an employee’s personal smartphone.
Lest any executive or board member believe that cybersecurity belongs in the back office, consider that firms lose more than $600 billion each year to cybercrime, the third largest economic scourge globally, encompassing more than half a million attacks daily. Indeed, a full 25% of firms experience at least one breach every 24 months. Increasingly, governments punish these breaches by fining the firms. In the EU, for example, the average fine under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was almost $4 million in 2018.
Perhaps most worrisome of all, the talent market for cybersecurity professionals currently falls about two million short, even while cybercriminals gain sophistication in tactics and tools. New techniques and combinations of tactics appear almost daily – everything from Ransomware, in which hackers hold data they’ve stolen hostage until you pay (using untraceable cryptocurrency), to denial of service, where cybercriminals overwhelm websites with queries until they shut down.
Despite portrayal in the media as lone wolves, hackers organize online in communities on the Dark Web. Here they share information and strategies, and buy and sell stolen passwords. CEOs and board members must realize that for CISOs, this means fighting a continuously escalating battle with measures and countermeasures – a never-ending chess match. And though more than 3,500 cybersecurity software vendors compete, no single tool solves the problem. Unfortunately, technologies have a short useful life because hackers constantly probe them for vulnerabilities. In short, the game is one in which CISOs have to win every time; criminals only once.
“Bad actors want you to deprioritize cybersecurity as a nonstrategic investment. Don’t give them that power.”
To counter these odds and protect the firm’s most important and strategic assets, the CEO and board should put the topic of cybersecurity on the agenda in every board meeting. In these meetings, the CISO should present and update the board from a strategic risk management perspective, explaining how the firm is protecting its most important assets. For example, the CISO might summarize insights from the latest Red Team/Blue Team games. These exercises pit contracted external hackers – the Red Team – against the internal cybersecurity Blue Team to expose vulnerabilities and scenario plan against various types of attacks.
“Not only is your company destined to play defense against cybercriminals, but it must do so with near-perfect precision.”
With regular updates from the CISO, the board and CEO should earmark security budgets favoring the protection of the firm’s most important, strategic and vulnerable assets.
Product designers must build security into network-connected products and devices from the ground up.
Recent hacker attacks have attracted wide media attention. In October, 2016, a denial of service attack at Domain Name System provider Dyn brought down access to some of the Web’s most popular sites, including Twitter, Netflix and others. Hackers now launch these attacks using armies of bots and by gaining access through the dozens of connected, in-home devices the average American family uses, like baby monitors and DVRs. As inconvenient as the Dyn attack proved to millions of Americans, the specter of future attacks leeching into corporate networks looms larger. In future, a similar attack on fleets of self-driving cars could do unimaginable damage.
“Every adoption of a technology, be it mobility, cloud or the Internet of Things (IoT) subjects a company to greater risk.”
The lesson from Dyn and similar real or potential attacks pertains to the types of network-connected products and devices in the market. Developers have an obligation to make security a foremost consideration in product design, from the minimum viable product (MVP) stage forward. This means building security features as requirements, not as afterthoughts later on, and assigning accountability for continuous security monitoring and upkeep to product managers and others throughout the product life cycle. Anyone who sees or suspects a security flaw in a product should have the authority to stop its production or sale until resolved; indeed, they should receive reward and recognition for doing so.
Human resources plays an important role in building cybersecurity awareness, capabilities and resilience.
Most firms can’t find the IT security talent they need because a vast talent shortage pervades the United States and most of the world. HR professionals can ameliorate this problem by sourcing candidates in atypical places and with less obvious credentials. Foremost, women.
The first computer programmers were women, a tradition that continued through the 1940s and 1960s. Higher pay, bias in university admissions, and portrayals in movies and the popular media may have combined to make IT and programming less attractive to women. Women, minorities, and people with less obvious credentials but strong aptitude need more encouragement and opportunity to enter the field.
“As long as there is no shortage of bad actors, there will be no surplus of cybersecurity professionals.”
HR should also lead the charge to train employees in the basics of good cybersecurity practice; adjust reward and recognition programs to incentivize good security behaviors (including whistleblowing); continuously review personnel and their need for various access to sensitive data and repositories; add questions to job interviews to ensure consideration of candidates’ experience and attitudes toward security; and make sure that every executive has at least one cybersecurity-related metric in their performance plan.
Develop and practice executing a detailed communications and response plan to any major security breach.
Hacker stealth proves one of the most frightening aspects of cybersecurity. On average, a breach occurs six months before a firm knows it happened, and then it takes months more to contain it. Once learning of a breach, the average firm takes another month to report it to customers. Instead, report it immediately, get in front of the story to reduce the damage and to serve your customers ethically. When you announce it, make it about the victims – your customers – not the firm.
Prepare ahead of a breach. With your CISO, scenario plan for various types of breaches and role-play your response. Devise a full communications plan: who will you notify and when; how will your message change depending on your firm’s level of negligence; how will you handle emerging information, and how will you compensate victimized customers? Know exactly who will do what, in order, minute-by-minute after you discover the breach. Prepare your messages ahead of time – emails, executive statements, press releases – on what your firm plans to do. Include a sincere, empathetic apology. Have responses ready for tough questions.
With risk management at its core, cybersecurity falls squarely within the CFO’s interests and responsibilities.
Unfortunately, the CISO’s relationship with the CFO proves fraught in many cases because the CFO wants ROI and a CISO can never deliver it. CISOs must reframe their conversations with CFOs from a focus on ROI to one of risk management. For example, if the CFO asks why the firm should purchase a new security software or platform, connect your request to protecting a strategic, important and vulnerable asset – one at-risk otherwise. Where possible, estimate the financial damage that a breach might inflict. You can’t make guarantees but you can estimate risk reduction and potential avoidance of losses. The language you use with the CFO will also prove resonant with the CEO and board.
For their part, CFOs should hold CISOs accountable for how they’ve used resources in the past. For example, have they deployed past security technologies or have some stayed on the shelf? Have they maintained the effectiveness of past products, for example with the latest patches and upgrades? When was the last time they conducted penetration testing and what were the results? Have employees received the latest training? And so on.
“CFOs carry the flag for their organizations in ensuring the procurement process sufficiently vets third parties’ cybersecurity posture.”
CFOs should also ensure that the entire corporate supply chain conforms to IT security standards, including outsource partners, suppliers and any new products or platforms under consideration. Almost three-quarters of firms outsource all or parts of their IT, including elements of cybersecurity, and about 60% of firms have suffered breaches caused by vendors and partners. Though outsourcing some components of cybersecurity itself might make sense (for example, penetration testing), CFOs and CISOs should ensure that the core of the responsibility remains inside the firm: An internal team can reach a higher level of readiness than outside partners.
Chief Information Security Officers bear much of the burden.
CISOs must break down resistance to sound security protocols and gain the respect of senior executives and the board. CISOs can do so by striking a balance between policing employees who naturally want to use convenient, performance-enhancing tools and services, and allowing a free-for-all that puts the firm at grave risk.
For the board and executives, CISOs must translate threats to strategy and risks – how potential attacks put revenue and the firm’s most important strategic objectives at risk. A CISO-guided tour of the Dark Web might show leaders that anyone can easily buy passwords into the firm’s cloud services, for example, just as reliance on these services is growing. CISOs can also share the results of phishing tests, which for example, chart the percentage of employees and executives who take phish bait. CISOs should brook no compromise concerning basic security best practices among employees and partners, like password management, and commonsense measures, such as comprehensive, encrypted data backups.
“AI, like any technology, is a weapon in both your company’s cybersecurity arsenal and your enemies’ arsenals.”
Of course, CISOs must work in lockstep with CIOs, whatever the reporting relationship. This includes agreeing on metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), penetration testing schedules and planned purchases. CIOs and CISOs often clash when the latter object to technologies proposed by the former. Avoid this by using services such as Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) who help manage cloud security. CISOs should also deceive hackers using decoys to draw them away from prized data and toward attractive bait, and use AI to discover attacks. AI promises to automate threat detection, allowing firms to better utilize scarce cybersecurity talent. On the other hand, it results in more false positives, which requires resources to investigate. And like any other tool available to CISOs, hackers have AI too, and have already used techniques like “Adversarial Machine Learning (AML)” to scramble firm’s machine learning models and/or produce mass false positives.
In short, just as safety has come to dominate airline industry culture, organizations must develop a “sixth sense” for detecting threats and breaches; an outcome possible only when cybersecurity infuses the culture.
About the Author
Allison Cerra leads McAfee’s marketing and communications teams as SVP and chief marketing officer. In this role, she has seen firsthand the reputational and financial risks wrought by lax cybersecurity measures.
This document is restricted to personal use only. | https://www.getabstract.com/es/resumen/the-cybersecurity-playbook/37838 |
In this article we will learn how to address and effectively respond to major enterprise cybersecurity threats and provide tips to mitigate IT security risk. Today, cyber security incidents lead to significant damage, alarming organizations of all types and sizes in different geographic locations. In 2017 the following primary sectors, increasingly turning to cloud, file-sharing services, and big data technology, top the list of the most high-target industry verticals vulnerable to cyber-attacks:
- The public sector (governmental services, transportation, and state infrastructure)
- Healthcare
- Insurance
- Banks and financial services
- Retail
- Telecommunications
- Manufacturing
- Education
- Law firms
- Military
The biggest cybersecurity disasters in 2017 compromised records and impacted major banks in the world; numerous state-sponsored attacks targeted critical national infrastructure or defence capabilities.
Social engineering attacks, including phishing, spam, and viruses introduced via clickable links within e-mail affected 80% of the banking institutions in 2016. VoIP phishing and impersonation also victimized millions of corporate employees across the world, contributing to an even greater cyber threat.
The contemporary world has witnessed the rise of the Internet and global communication, and collaboration technologies, including mobile data use and the culture of bring your own device [BYOD]. It is vital for any enterprise landscape to ensure viable, open, and reliable corporate communications – fostering innovation and economic prosperity, with respect to safeguarding against disruption and serious cyber risk perception.
Table of Contents
How to Enhance Cyber Security Awareness and Cyber Intelligence
Enterprise cyber security awareness and cyber risk management programs encircle a full range of actions required to protect corporate IT infrastructure and sensitive data. For enterprise digital health, it is imperative to prevent illegitimate access attempts and to deter inside and outside attackers from causing serious damage. Cyber threat management, being an advanced discipline, craves analytical attention and a commander’s strategic skills of information security executives to confront and overcome the multi-dimensional cyber threats.
Cloud security success and choosing the right investments is all about having a clear understanding of threat types and their resulting damages. We recommend to categorize types of cyber threats by:
- Source (external/internal point of origin and employees’ activities or hacker’s assaults)
- Agent (human or technological)
- Motivation (accidental, intentional)
- Intention (malicious or non-malicious)
- Impacts
Consecutively, there are several kinds of cyber threat impacts:
- Destruction and corruption of information
- Theft
- Data Loss
- Disclosure
- Denial of use
- Elevation of privilege
- Illegal usage
- Data leaks
The above classification of cyber threat types will enable you to functionally assess and evaluate their impacts, and elaborate good strategies to avoid, prevent, or mitigate the cyber threat impacts.
Be On Your Guard with the Most Treacherous Insider Roles
A paramount priority when addressing the threat is to distinguish the fundamental insider risks. Let’s consider several types of dangerous insider roles and types of behavior (inadvertent, deliberate, or inaction), which may weaken the enterprise’s cyber protection endeavors.
- Trusted insiders, demonstrated accidental or inadvertent behavior, who may damage the systems or facilitate outside attacks.
- Discontented employees, seeking revenge for the company, may launch vindictive attacks or break the safety of IT and on-premise or cloud file-sharing systems.
- Financially-driven employees, willing to manipulate the corporate data assets or the systems for personal advantage and capitalization on high administrative access levels.
- Insiders with privileged access expose companies to the most dangerous cyber threats, and damage the most valuable and sensitive corporate data.
Always keep your eyes open to control-rights of the senior IT managers or systems administrators with the authority to configure servers, firewalls, cloud storage, and file-sharing (or another network privilege). Regularly revisit the rights of business users, including executive officials, finance, HR, Legal, and IT departments, and make sure you are able to change and revoke them.
It’s worth noting that the most high-risk groups of insiders may also include contractors, service providers, and business partners with insufficient controls placed on their data entry rights. The IT landscape’s complexity requires the deployment of Privileged Identity Management technologies, given the increasing sophistication of modern attacks via malware and ungated entries.
The Global State of Information Security Survey 2017 suggests that companies should look into deploying threat detection tools and processes (including monitoring and analyzing security intelligence information), conducting vulnerability and threat assessments, penetration tests and security information, and event management (SIEM) tools. Aimed at reducing corporate vulnerability to insider threats, info security professionals should regularly monitor the most important infrastructure locations. These are where enterprise-sensitive information is normally stored, including rapidly-growing cloud service environments, databases, and file servers.
The key enterprise cyber security risk management process
- Maintain increased cybersecurity awareness of major types of threats.
- Detect and mitigate the impact of critical anomalies and incidents affecting IT systems and valuable data.
- Develop cybersecurity strategy and implementation plans with a responding view, and to recover from incidents.
- Place tight controls around the use of all admin rights, including the ability to grant administrative privileges.
How to Defend: Empowerment Through Cyber-Threat Intelligence
Executive boards and departments face a greater frequency of cyber-attacks and an increased number of vulnerability types across enterprise operations. Truly effective cyber risk management requires the combined efforts of the following departments:
- Enterprise Board and senior executives
- Human Resources
- Legal and Compliance
- Finance
- IT and Cybersecurity teams
Enterprise-grade and medium organizations are looking to increase budgets and efforts to protect the essential data assets from insider threats and reduce the level of cyber risk exposure. To pursue cybersecurity culture change, we recommend you to institute a cost-effective, company-wide security awareness training for your employees. What are the benefits of cyber security awareness trainings?
- You will create cyber awareness among your staff, as well as users, partners, customers. Consequently, when different sophisticated hacking techniques, types of assaults, and malware are learned, your innocent employees become your cyber security partners.
- You will be able to smoothly incorporate cyber threat information into your enterprise data protection policies, with your employees being aware of cyber threat prevention methods.
- You will enable your staff to effectively perform essential security functions.
- And last but not least: Your organization is only as strong as your weakest link!
Tips for Employees’ Cyber Security Awareness Improvement
Get smarter and deploy the following cybersecurity techniques to address insider threats, using a people-centric security approach. Cyber security awareness training for employees provides them with a general understanding of insider threat terminology, different types of insider threats, and technical and behavioral indicators.
We recommend including the following suggested modules, representing the key elements of the enterprise cybersecurity in the protection enhancement program:
- Cybersecurity landscape overview with real-world threat scenarios, types of attacks, and examples of major recent disasters;
- Ransomware protection essentials with ease of infection examples;
- Password protection techniques (with a special focus on privacy of login info);
- Mobile, add-ons and lost device cyber security;
- Network security and data protection;
- Protection against e-mail spoofing, and phishing awareness;
- Rules and policies for protecting Personally Identifiable Information (PII);
- Credit card security and fraud prevention techniques;
- Best practices to safeguard against social-engineering attacks (digital attacks, in-person attacks, and telephone attacks);
- Rules for reporting unusual/extraordinary incidents;
- Secure network and browsing essentials;
- Cloud cybersecurity and best practices for secure file-sharing;
- Secure online behavior basics;
- Monthly corporate cybersecurity newsletter, containing tips, mitigation techniques, tactics, and tools from your company’s security leaders and practitioners.
How to Set Priorities For Cyber Risk Management
Deploy Gartner Best Practices for Building an Outstanding Cybersecurity Team. Make sure you engage the following professionals with due roles and cyber risk management functions within your Superb Cyber Security Team! Encourage your key cyber professionals to develop first-rate security awareness training materials for employees and executive staff.
|Key Job Positions in Cyber Security||Risk Management Roles|
|CIOs, CSO, CISOs|
|Business continuity and IT disaster recovery managers|
|Governance, risk, and compliance professionals|
|Network security and executives|
AFTERWORD
This article addresses some important issues of enterprise security. However, even CEOs and cybersecurity experts love shortcuts, simple tricks, and straightforward formulas. Here are two truly magical tips to empower corporate security:
Backup is Fundamental for your Cyber Security Hygiene
The current and future cyber security challenges comprise of growing data volumes and data transitions between on-prem systems to cloud, and big data environments that come into play (with concerns about a lack of control over third-party access), highlight the importance of backup and recovery solutions. I’m not exaggerating: A secure cloud backup solution can save hours, days, months and years of your team’s work.
That said, empower your employees with an effective and simple Data Loss Protection solution, allowing Automated backup and restore, deletion control, smooth migration, version control, activity reports, etc., and you will never lose sleep over you cybersecurity issues – because Spinbackup takes care of your valuable data.
Deploy Genuine and Elegant Ransomware Protection
As the ransomware threats continue to grow as we observed with the recent WannaCry, NotPetya and other recent cyber disasters, Spinbackup offers the most innovative and unique cloud security Backup & and Ransomware protection for cloud environments. One example is our phenomenal Ransomware Protection and G Suite security feature. This feature is designed to guarantee an immediate response to Ransomware attacks targeting a Google Drive. In the event of the Ransomware assault, the G Suite administrator will receive a notification about the incident either via e-mail or by Slack. The G Suite Admin can then immediately log in to their Spinbackup account and be able to see the list of encrypted files, and either restore all of them with one click, if the “Auto-recovery” mode is on (Spinbackup automatically blocks Google Drive for PC application and recovers all encrypted files), or manually in case the mode is off.
Protect your business from cyber assaults and never assume that cyber risk management occurs on its own!
Check out the cloud security expertise that Spinbackup CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker) brings to the table and stay fully protected! | https://spinbackup.com/blog/cyber-security-awareness/ |
The cybercriminals in the cybersecurity threat landscape are always after sensitive data for exploitation.The significance of medical data such as repositories for health records,clinical research data,patient records comprising social security numbers, billing information, and insurance claims has made the healthcare industry a popular target of cyber-attacks. According to the US government data, the number of healthcare breaches in the first five months of 2022 has increased exponentially and nearly doubled from the same period last year.
Bleeping computer highlights the alert issued by The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about the increase in targeted attacks by hackers on healthcare payment processors in an attempt to expropriate and redirect the payments to attacker-owned bank accounts.Cybercriminals are employing several extortion tactics of misusing employees’ publicly-available Personally Identifiable Information (PII),social engineering techniques to impersonate victims by making unwarranted changes in Exchange Servers’ configuration, phishing campaigns against financial departments of payment processors,spoofing support centers to gain illegal access to login credentials of healthcare employees’ to retrieve files, healthcare portals, payment information, and websites. The FBI announced that after the threat actors gained illicit access to healthcare payment processors, millions of dollars have been stolen from the victims in just three cyberattacks in February and April this year amounting to a whopping value of $4.6 million. During the subsequent investigation the Federal agency further reiterated that these attacks on healthcare payment processors are not the first of its kind from June 2018 to January 2019 attackers targeted and accessed at least 65 healthcare payment processors throughout the U.S, resulting in $1.5 million in losses.
To help mitigate potential damage and enhance cyber resilience, the FBI has urged the healthcare organizations to implement a number of practices and summarized a short list of indicators to identify cyber-threats:
- Employees requesting a reset of two-factor authentication (2FA) within a short period and failed password recover attempts should trigger an alarm.
- Regular network security assessment including penetration tests and vulnerability scans to ensure compliance with current standards and regulations.
- Deploy up to date email security and fraud prevention solutions.
- Mitigate vulnerabilities related to third-party vendors and organizational collaborations.
- Implement multi-factor authentication for all accounts.
- Train the employees on identifying and reporting phishing, suspicious emails, changes to email, exchange server configurations, denied password recovery, password resets, social engineering and spoofing attempts.
- Draft an incident response plan, in accordance with (HIPAA) privacy and security rules.
- Require strong and unique passwords for login, and if there is evidence of system or network compromise, implement mandatory passphrase changes for all accounts.
- Minimize exposure to cybersecurity threats by timely patching
These measures ensure a safe and cyber secured environment for healthcare payment processors. | https://x-phy.com/hackers-steal-millions-of-dollars-from-healthcare-payment-processors/ |
Cybercrime is rising rapidly on a global scale and affecting millions of organizations, big and small. Experts warn that costs in fighting this threat could reach $10.5 trillion annually by 2025. Human error continues to be the biggest threat to information security. The training content we offer to your employees and contractors is the first step in fighting the major impact cybercrime has on personal information.
As an introduction to our cybersecurity awareness training programs, this course aims to reduce human error by teaching how to secure remote and home offices, ensure mobile security, avoid social engineering scams such as pretexting and phishing attacks, as well as create strong passwords to protect personal data and avoid data breaches. The Cybersecurity Awareness Challenge engages users by describing real-life security challenges and asking them to choose the best course of action for each challenge. This course is a recent update to course 5826 and includes a final 8-question quiz.
The Cybersecurity Awareness Challenge course:
Course Curriculum
Module 1: Introduction
- Communicates the need for a strong information security program and the consequences of not having one
Module 2: Data Classification and Protection
- Explains the importance of classifying data correctly and using strong passwords — and also how to handle, share and protect data from unauthorized disclosure and insider threat
Module 3: Mobile and Remote Office Security
- Teaches how to protect secure data when using mobile devices and working from home or a remote office
Module 4: Social Engineering
- Describes common social engineering tactics, such as phishing, baiting, quid pro quo and tailgating — and provides best practices to avoid becoming a victim
Module 5: Final Reminders
- Reinforces the importance of information security and how organizational employees are the best line of defense against cyberattacks
Quiz
- Tests the user’s knowledge via a scenario-driven eight-question quiz
Upon completion, learners will be able to: | https://globallearningsystems.com/cybersecurity-awareness-challenge/ |
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