Trump delays plan to cut satellite data access crucial to hurricane forecasting
There has been alarm among scientists about the plan to cut access to the data after it emerged last week in a public notice sent by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa).
Some scientists had warned the sudden loss of access to the data for Noaa and Nasa experts could set hurricane forecasting 'back decades'.
Monday's delay in the program's abrupt termination comes after an apparent intervention by a top Nasa official – a sign that the Trump administration's stance towards science may be receiving meaningful internal pushback.
The data is collected and processed by US Department of Defense satellites and had been due to be suspended on Monday.
It has been unclear why the decision had been made to cut forecasters out, though media reports had suggested it was driven by concerns about cybersecurity, and the new notice on Monday by Noaa describes steps as being taken to 'mitigate a significant cybersecurity risk'.
Noaa had insisted last week that the changes would not affect the quality of forecasting and had previously not said anything publicly about cybersecurity.
Scientists use the data for a myriad of key weather and climate purposes, including monitoring the rapidly changing evolution of hurricanes, wildfires and sea ice. Should the satellite program end on 31 July, it would still be unavailable to forecasters during the peak months of this year's Atlantic hurricane season, which runs until 30 November.
In last week's notice, the agency said that 'due to recent service changes' the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) will 'discontinue ingest, processing and distribution of all DMSP data no later than June 30, 2025'.
Then on Monday, in a new post Noaa said the cut to DMSP data would be postponed until the end of July after a request for a postponement of the removal by Dr Karen St Germain, Nasa's earth science division director.
The new notice by Noaa said the US navy's Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC), which sends the data to Noaa, had planned to 'decommission the DMSP ingest system in Monterey to mitigate a significant cybersecurity risk to the High-Performance Computing environment.
'However, late on Friday, June 27th, CNMOC (Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command) received a request from Dr Germain with Nasa to postpone the removal and to continue processing and distributing DMSP data through July 31st.
'In response, FNMOC has coordinated with CNMOC and is ready to continue processing the DMSP downloads … An update service advisory will be sent and FNMOC now expects to decommission DMSP processing no later than July 31st.'
The satellites also track changes to the Arctic and Antarctic, and have been tracking changes to polar sea ice for more than 40 years.
On Friday an official at space force, which is part of the Department of Defense, had said the satellites would remain functional.
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2 hours ago
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A simple timepiece and humanity's greatest adventure
Behind a plate of glass, overshadowed by the conical capsule that brought three American astronauts home from the moon in 1969, a wristwatch rests on a small stand. The command module Columbia, part of the Apollo 11 rocket assembly that Neil Armstrong and Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin rode to everlasting renown on the lunar surface, is still an intricate piece of space-age technology lined with buttons, lights, handles, hatches and an external coating of hexagon tiles, now faded a rusty orange. But the watch seems rather ordinary: white lines on a dark analog face, with a dark canvas Velcro strap. It's an Omega Speedmaster Chronograph, to be exact. A classic pilot's watch, worn by the third member of that famous crew. Michael Collins never set foot on the moon; his job was to man the Columbia while the Eagle carried the others to the surface, miles below. But Collins' path of orbit took him as far from Earth as any human had ever been. Each time the module circled the far side of the moon, the radio went dark. He was cut off from his crewmates, from NASA's control center in Houston, from all humankind. While his crewmates took a familiar 'giant leap' into history, Collins waited. They spent 21 hours, 36 minutes in the Sea of Tranquility, as he waited, alone. I can almost picture him peering through the window and holding his breath each time the Columbia emerged from the moon's shadow, relieved to find the sun still shining over our little blue planet, but waiting for some distant, reassuring voice to come over the radio waves. What was it like when somebody finally broke that infinite silence? 'I knew I was alone,' he observed later, 'in a way that no earthling has ever been before.' That quote is immortalized on a placard near the watch, though Collins remains a supporting character in one of America's greatest stories. On my first visit to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., I'm fascinated by a range of more spectacular exhibits, from the Wright brothers' first plane to Armstrong's moonwalk suit. But I keep coming back to the watch worn by 'the world's loneliest man.' I think about his quiet role in what we accomplished as a nation, working shoulder to shoulder for the common good, and I wonder if we'll ever do that again. Generations of American kids have dreamed of becoming astronauts and exploring the cosmos. But few were bigger space nerds than my parents, both of them scientists. We lived in South Florida, so naturally, we traveled to the John F. Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral almost every year. The nation's premier rocket launch facility covers 6,000 acres on the 'Space Coast,' about 40 miles east of Orlando, with plenty of room to store certain artifacts that just wouldn't work on the National Mall. Like the entire space shuttle Atlantis, which flew 33 missions between 1985 and 2011. I remember stumbling backward when I tried to look up at the roof of the Vehicle Assembly Building, eighth-largest in the world by volume. It's so big, some have claimed that clouds can form inside (this is sadly not true). I remember the Astronaut Hall of Fame. I remember The Crawlers, tracked transports that could carry the weight of 20 fully loaded Boeing 777 jets. And I remember the Saturn V rocket that hangs from the roof of the Apollo Center — the kind that powered the moon missions, the most powerful ever built. Seeing it all made space feel real to me. A small theater there tells the story of Apollo 11, from political initiative to technological innovation and the human characters who played it out. It tells of Armstrong, gliding over the lunar surface, looking for a spot to land where he and Aldrin wouldn't get stuck after he missed the original target. President Richard Nixon even had a speech prepared for that scenario. 'These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding,' he would have said. 'In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.' Thankfully, the speech wasn't needed, but the sentiment was real. 'Not since Adam has any human known such solitude.' Humans have always felt an urge to explore, often at our own peril. Perhaps it began when we wondered what berries or game waited beyond that hill or across that river. Every mile we covered opened up a thousand more, over and over, for millennia. But what's left for us to find? When every inch of land is mapped, photographed, scanned with LiDAR and analyzed by artificial intelligence? No wonder Captain Kirk, in the 'Star Trek' TV and film series, calls space 'the final frontier.' Where I grew up, there was no hope of emulating Leif Erikson, Amelia Earhart or Meriwether Lewis. Space was all we had left. And we ate it up. Look at most any streaming service, and you'll find a galaxy of space programming, from the romantic 'Star Wars' universe to gritty dramas like 'Interstellar.' But most of the genre misses the point. For their characters, space travel has been figured out, becoming about as rare as commuting to the office and about that risky, too. As viewers, we've come to accept space as a background, part of the scenery. But what made it so alluring to begin with was always the unknown, the danger and the selfless cooperation, sacrifice and mutual competition it took to get us off this planet to begin with. The Communists started it. On October 4, 1957, amid ratcheting tensions in the Cold War, the Soviet Union launched an unmanned satellite called Sputnik into orbit. A month later, they sent up a stray dog drafted off the streets of Moscow — known as Laika — who died in Sputnik 2. These weren't PR stunts. Space travel called on advanced rocket technology that could also deliver nuclear missiles more effectively. The United States had to respond, joining the space race. In July 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower created NASA to 'carry out the peaceful and scientific parts of the space program,' per a display at the National Air and Space Museum. But the U.S. was already far behind. The Soviets landed an unmanned spacecraft on the moon in 1959. In 1961, they made cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin the first human in orbit. NASA didn't even have rockets designed for space travel. Even so, three weeks later, they strapped a capsule to the top of an intercontinental ballistic missile, built to deliver a nuclear warhead. In its place, Alan Shepard crammed himself into a compartment the size of a refrigerator inside the Freedom 7 — also on display — and blasted off to replicate Gagarin's feat in May 1961. It wasn't enough to stay neck-and-neck. That same month, President John F. Kennedy asked Congress for funding to land American astronauts on the moon by decade's end. Speaking at Rice University in 1962, he doubled down. 'We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.' Watching these speeches on video at the museum, I feel the same awe and inspiration I did as a kid. The message worked on Congress, too. NASA's budget was increased fivefold by 1966. The cost of the Apollo program totaled about $25.8 billion — 10 times that in today's dollars. 650 million people watched Armstrong and Aldrin walk on the moon. Collins was nowhere to be seen. Cash was just a start. Massive infrastructure centers were built in Houston and Cape Canaveral, where teams of scientists, mathematicians and intrepid pilots put in the work and took the risks. On January 27, 1967, three astronauts assigned to the Apollo 1 mission were killed during a simulated launch test, unable to escape after fire broke out in the command module. They were mourned on the cover of Time magazine, and the program's naming convention skipped to Apollo 4 in their honor. Even so, by late 1968, manned flights were inching closer to the moon every two to three months. As the Apollo 11 crew prepared to make history, Life magazine photographer Ralph Morse was making them famous — and human. In his work, Armstrong plays baseball with a son and reads the paper over dinner, getting home too late to eat with his family. Aldrin keeps it professional, posing in a jumpsuit by a model of the moon. Collins rides bikes with his three kids, paints at home and reads paperbacks at a beach with his wife. These images — some published then, some decades later — bring home what these ordinary men were willing to risk for love of country and to see what was around the bend. When Armstrong and Aldrin took their first steps on the moon, about 650 million people around the world watched on TV and heard Armstrong's iconic narration of a truly unique accomplishment. Collins, as we know, was nowhere to be seen. But an American flag was planted on the surface, a Cold War victory that the Soviets never matched. Back on Earth, they took a 38-day celebration tour, visiting 24 countries. As one display at the museum notes, 'people worldwide looked upon the first moon landing as a human achievement, not just an American one.' If Morse made the astronauts celebrities, their journey made them heroes. 'People enjoy being amazed, and space exploration never fails to deliver,' writes Andrew Chaikin via email. The author has largely dedicated his career to chronicling the Apollo era. It's not just about discovery. Unmanned missions and space telescopes have delivered crystal-clear portraits of Pluto, snapshots of distant nebulas and video of the sunrise on Mars. But this was different, because they went there. 'When astronauts are the ones seeing new things, it's all the more compelling, especially when they come home and tell us about it.' The space race was won, but politics never sit still. 'Space was no longer the priority,' Chaikin says. A year later, 'NASA was struggling to keep its human spaceflight program alive in the face of budget cuts and political opposition.' It's easy to forget that as many or more Americans opposed government funding for trips to the moon than supported it. Even the museum admits that 'many citizens marveled at the achievement but questioned the billions of dollars it cost.' Each time he circled the far side of the moon, he was cut off from his crewmates, from Houston, from all humankind. Even so, the museum is less a record of the journey than a shrine to its memory. Flags are draped everywhere, and placards speak of a nation pulling together to achieve something extraordinary in a violent and unsettled age. 'We're drawn to experiences that aren't universal, that represent the farthest edge of what humans can do,' Chaikin says. 'We're compelled by 'firsts,' by extremes, by frontiers. The moon missions fit all three.' We also remember the little things. Like the miniature harmonica and six small, silver bells that the two-man Gemini VI-A crew smuggled aboard just before Christmas 1965, which they used to play a surprise rendition of 'Jingle Bells' for their counterparts back in Houston. There's also Collins' checklist for an earlier mission on Gemini X, citing the necessity to 'prepare waste jettison bag' — another reminder that this was a human endeavor after all. And that brings me back to his watch. At first, I was fascinated, but perplexed. Like looking at a piece of abstract art, I knew it meant something but couldn't put it into words. Then, on my way out, I saw the original model of the starship Enterprise, from 'Star Trek.' That series depicts a utopian future for humanity, beyond war and even currency. 'We've eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions,' says Captain Jean-Luc Picard, played by Patrick Stewart, in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation.' 'We've grown out of our infancy.' In creator Gene Roddenberry's idealistic vision, humans are united in their quest for knowledge and the mysteries of the universe. In reality, the Apollo program may be the closest we've ever come to that. The Enterprise model is a prop, like the life-sized X-wing fighter from the original 'Star Wars' trilogy that hangs from the rafters nearby. Both look cheap and uninteresting compared to the real deal, though we spend far more time as a society visiting their fictional worlds. Meanwhile, profit, rather than idealism, motivates the private companies that launch most space missions in the news today. Down the hall, the 'Futures in Space' exhibit remains under construction. But that wristwatch is real and tangible. It accompanied a man who truly went where no man had gone before. 'Not since Adam has any human known such solitude,' observed one mission control official. And out there, the watch tethered him to his home and our place in the cosmos. In outer space, where days are not days as we know them, and time itself can be warped by mass and energy, the watch kept ticking. Second by second. Collins was less philosophical about it. Reconnecting with mission control, he said, was unremarkable. He spent his time alone listening to music and looking out into the void of space. He was comfortable. The idea that he felt existential loneliness or yearning for the voice of mankind was, simply, 'baloney.' The watch doesn't disagree. Collins was a man, and nothing more, it tells me, who just happened to redefine the limits of our existence. This story appears in the July/August 2025 issue of DeseretMagazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
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NASA's new toys for upcoming Artemis mission to map moon's subsurface, lunar minerals
NASA has officially chosen three new scientific instruments to study the moon, specifically its south polar region, as part of the upcoming Artemis mission. Two of these instruments will be mounted on a new Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV), and one will fly on a future moon-orbiting satellite. The LTV, or rover, is believed to resemble a high-tech sports utility vehicle (SUV). It will carry two astronauts across the lunar surface, but it can also drive itself remotely when no one is aboard. This mission will mark the first time a rover has been on the moon in over 50 years. Three private companies are building rover designs, including Texas-based Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost from Colorado, and California-headquartered Venturi Astrolab. NASA will choose one for a demonstration mission by late 2025. NASA's Artemis program aims to send humans back to the moon for the first time since the Apollo missions. As for the instruments in question, the first is called the Artemis Infrared Reflectance and Emission Spectrometer (AIRES). This will be mounted directly on the LTV and will be used to detect minerals and volatiles (like water or carbon dioxide) by analyzing how sunlight reflects off the moon's surface. According to NASA, AIRES will also create detailed maps showing what materials are present, especially around the satellite's south pole. The second instrument, Lunar Microwave Active-Passive Spectrometer (L-MAPS), will also be mounted on the rover. This will use ground-penetrating radar and temperature sensors to scan up to 40 meters underground. It will help locate buried ice and gain a deeper understanding of the moon's subsurface structure. The third and final piece of kit, Ultra-Compact Imaging Spectrometer for the Moon (UCIS-Moon), will be mounted on a future moon-orbiting satellite, not on the rover. This device will capture high-resolution images and scans of surface water, minerals, and assess how human activity (such as landings) may be affecting the moon. It will also help guide astronauts to areas rich in resources or scientific value. Together, these instruments will help map resources for future missions. They will also support astronaut safety and planning by understanding the terrain and environment. The tools will further help contribute to science by revealing how the moon evolved and what it tells us about other rocky planets. Overall, the move marks a critical step in NASA's effort to build infrastructure on and around the moon to support long-term exploration. The development is part of a broader effort to return humans to the moon, explore more deeply than ever before, and eventually prepare for missions to mars. "The Artemis Lunar Terrain Vehicle will transport humanity farther than ever before across the lunar frontier on an epic journey of scientific exploration and discovery," said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "By combining the best of human and robotic exploration, the science instruments selected for the LTV will make discoveries that inform us about Earth's nearest neighbor as well as benefit the health and safety of our astronauts and spacecraft on the Moon," he added. "Together, these three scientific instruments will make significant progress in answering key questions about what minerals and volatiles are present on and under the surface of the Moon," said Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. "With these instruments riding on the LTV and in orbit, we will be able to characterize the surface not only where astronauts explore, but also across the south polar region of the Moon, offering exciting opportunities for scientific discovery and exploration for years to come," Kearns stated.
Digital Trends
6 hours ago
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This NASA astronaut manages to make vacuuming look kinda cool
Vacuuming is a bit of a chore at the best of times, which is why many people have a robot to do it for them, or even pay someone else to take care of it. But on the International Space Station (ISS), there are no robots or cleaners that can step in, which means the astronauts have to do it themselves. But heck, it looks like a whole lot of fun. NASA astronaut Jonny Kim has just shared a video showing how they use a vacuum cleaner in space. How do we clean in space? Similar to how we clean on Earth, but weightlessness has some extra challenges. — Jonny Kim (@JonnyKimUSA) July 11, 2025 Thanks to microgravity, there's no lifting or pulling (or possibly pushing) a machine. Instead, as Kim demonstrates in his video, you just clip the cleaner to your pants before floating off around the station to perform the task in hand. But that same microgravity means that the dust doesn't settle anywhere, so what then? Kim explains the process. Recommended Videos The American astronaut, who arrived at the station in April on his first orbital mission, says they clean the station using a 'pretty standard vacuum cleaner that you'd find on Earth,' but notes that the particles just float around in the weightless conditions. 'Luckily, we have an environmental control system that's got fans and diffusers and HEPA filters and so most of the dust tends to collect in these areas,' Kim explains. It means that instead of looking like a goof and vacuuming the air, all you do is run the vacuum over the filters and other devices to suck up the trapped dust. Responding to a comment to his post asking why he's using a mains-connected vacuum and not a battery-powered one, Kim says that while cordless vacuums are available on the ISS, the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries don't last long enough to clean the entire facility. 'The International Space Station is not just a place where we conduct research on behalf of institutions across the world, but it's also our home for long periods of time,' Kim says. 'And like any home, you have to keep it clean and tidy, so we distribute these chores across crew members and one of these chores is vacuuming.' Interested in watching other videos showing daily life aboard the ISS, including how to use the bathroom? Then check out these videos made by the astronauts themselves over the years.
