Wind energy and batteries drive future rare earth metal market

The global rare earth metal market is evincing intense interest from various market players because of its growth prospects with a rise in production capacities across the world as governments try to secure and leverage these scarce resources, according to a new report published by ReportsnReports. This expansion in the supplier base will drastically change the supplier landscape and is expected to lead to a softening of prices going forward.

Market research analysts predict the rare earth metals market to grow at a rate of 14 percent during the forecast period. According to the "Global Rare Earth Metals Market 2015-2019" report, increasing use of rare earth metals in the wind energy sector and NiMH batteries stand as the prominent ones. Rare earth elements are widely used in the manufacture of magnets for wind turbine generators and for the electrodes in metal hydride batteries.

The rare earth metals are used in NiMH batteries where neodymium, praseodymium and lanthanum are used in combination with nickel, cobalt and aluminium. These batteries are powerful, light and occupy less space when compared to the conventional lead and lithium batteries.

Recycling of rare earth metals from electronic wastes is gaining prominence and is expected to contribute to the market growth during the forecast period. The recycling process is being adopted by nations such as Germany, France and Japan that have limited reserves but high consumption.

China accounted for around 63 percent of the market share during 2014, in terms of consumption. The report predicts this region to maintain its leadership until the end of 2019. The increased demand for rare earth from the automotive and electronic industries in this region is driving the market.

Around 250 firms are involved globally in the exploration and production of rare earth metal deposits. Most of the firms' operating activities are based in China, followed by U.S., Australia and Canada. State-owned firms either directly or indirectly control about 60 percent of the global rare earth output.

NASA seeks science investigations for Earth Venture Mission - 2

This week, NASA's Science Mission Directorate will release an Announcement of Opportunity (AO) to solicit Principal Investigator-led space-based science investigations for the Earth Venture Mission - 2 (EVM-2) element of the Earth System Science Pathfinder Program.

Earth Venture investigations must address NASA's goals to acquiredeeper scientific understanding of the components of the Earthsystem, their interactions, and the consequences to life of changes. “All investigations proposed in response to this solicitationmust be implemented through the provision of a complete spaceflightmission,” NASA officials said in contract documents released Tuesday.

The term "spaceflight missions" for this EVM-2 AO is defined as Earth orbital and deep-space missions in a dedicated spacecraft or as a hosted payload; it specifically excludes International Space Station payloads and suborbital missions, such as those flown via sounding rockets, balloons, and aircraft. These spaceflight missions will be used to conduct innovative, integrated, hypothesis, or scientific question-driven investigations addressing pressing Earth system science issues.

The key dates for this AO are:

• Sept. 3, 2015 - AO Release Date
• Sept. 17, 2015 - Preproposal Conference
• Oct. 2, 2015 - Notice of Intent to Propose Deadline
• Dec. 4, 2015 - Electronic Proposal Submittal Deadline
• Dec. 11, 2015 - Deadline for Receipt of Proposal on CD-ROMs
• August 2016 - Selections Announced (target)
• June 30, 2022 - Launch Readiness Date

Space-based instrument to monitor air pollutants hits milestone

The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument, developed by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. is headed toward its Critical Design Review this month following an earlier milestone that included Preliminary Design Review (PDR). Ball is now well into the fabrication of the instrument following the successful PDR and a confirmation review.

TEMPO, an air quality sensor that will provide hourly monitoring of pollution across North America, is the first NASA Earth Venture Instrument mission with a ultraviolet-visible air quality spectrometer to be placed in geostationary orbit.

Ball Aerospace is building the TEMPO instrument under a firm-fixed price contract with NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia. Ball has a long history of providing cost-effective solutions for Earth observation and remote-sensing missions with fixed-price contracts.

The TEMPO instrument is designed to make accurate observations of atmospheric pollution with high spatial and temporal resolution over North America, from Mexico City to the Canadian oil sands, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. TEMPO will observe Earth's atmosphere in ultraviolet and visible wavelengths to determine concentrations of many key atmospheric pollutants, such as ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and formaldehyde. TEMPO will share a ride on a yet unidentified commercial satellite as a hosted payload.

In addition to TEMPO, Ball Aerospace is jointly developing a similar geostationary ultraviolet visible spectrometer, the Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer, with the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, South Korea.

Space station to improve monitoring of Earth's plant health

A new space-based instrument to study how effectively plants use water is being developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. The instrument, called the ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS), will monitor one of the most basic processes in living plants: the loss of water through the tiny pores in leaves.

When people lose water through their pores, the process is called sweating. The related process in plants is known as transpiration. Because water that evaporates from soil around plants also affects the amount of water that plants can use, ECOSTRESS will measure combined evaporation and transpiration, known as evapotranspiration.

"When a person sweats during a workout, it helps cool their body, and if they get enough water they can keep exercising," said Simon Hook, a research scientist at JPL and the project's principal investigator. "If they do not get enough water, they show signs of overheating and stress and eventually collapse. Similarly, if plants do not get enough water, they show signs of stress. By measuring evapotranspiration, we get an early indicator of that stress, and we can do something about it before the plants collapse."

ECOSTRESS's science instrument is a high-resolution thermal infrared radiometer, which works like a giant thermometer from space to measure the temperature of plants and the amount of heat radiating from Earth's surface. "If we find a plant is too hot, that's because it's not getting enough water to cool itself down," said Josh Fisher, a JPL research scientist and science lead for ECOSTRESS.

Existing satellite instruments that monitor evapotranspiration offer either high spatial resolution but low time frequency (a couple of measurements a month), or high time frequency and coarse spatial resolution. Scientists, farmers and water managers need both high resolution and high frequency.

The International Space Station provides a particularly beneficial vantage point not regularly available with traditional free-flying (sun-synchronous polar-orbiting) satellites, which fly over the same spot on Earth at the same time on each pass. The station's orbit shifts so that it flies over any given spot on Earth at different times. By looking at ECOSTRESS imagery of a certain location over the course of days to weeks, scientists will be able to see how evapotranspiration varies in that location throughout the day. This is important, because plants that get enough water in the cool of the morning might shut down in afternoon heat, just as a person stops sweating under extreme heat stress.

Scheduled for completion in 2017 and launch between 2017 and 2019, ECOSTRESS is one of two instruments selected in July for NASA's Earth Venture-Instrument series of missions. These missions are part of the Earth System Science Pathfinder program, managed by NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The ECOSTRESS team includes researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture; Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.; and the University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho. The California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages JPL for NASA.

TeleCommunication Systems antennas will track flock of Earth imaging satellites

TeleCommunication Systems, Inc. (TCS), a world leader in highly reliable and secure mobile communication technology, announced Wednesday that it has entered into a contract with Planet Labs to supply a global network of X/Y Tracking Antenna Systems. These precision systems are designed specifically for low-Earth orbit and medium-Earth orbit satellites used for Earth observation, remote sensing, as well as telemetry, tracking and control applications. Planet Labs is utilizing TCS' antenna systems to track "Flock-1", the world's largest, single constellation of Earth-imaging satellites.

Planet Labs Director of Engineering Strategy Kevin Meissner said: "Operating a large fleet of small spacecraft creates unique ground station requirements. We needed a high-speed, high-performance system at a competitive price, and TCS was able to put together a winning solution for us in a very short time period."

"Planet Labs is leading the transformation of Earth imaging systems for high-value monitoring applications, such as global environmental protection, distributed commercial assets or humanitarian relief," said TCS Government Solutions Group President Michael Bristol.

Planet Labs Inc. is a space-information company based in San Francisco, Calif. The company operates Earth imaging satellites to image the entire planet at an unprecedented frequency, collecting data and insight to encourage global action. Planet Labs aims to provide universal access to information about the changing planet to enable both commercial and humanitarian applications.

A one-two punch from the Sun in 1859

The impact of space weather was dramatically demonstrated approximately a century before the United States launched their first satellite into space when awe-inspiring auroral displays were seen over nearly the entire world on the night of Aug. 28-29, 1859. In New York City, thousands watched “the heavens . . . arrayed in a drapery more gorgeous than they have been for years.” The aurora witnessed that Sunday night, the NewYork Times told its readers, “ will be referred to hereafter among the events which occur but once or twice in a lifetime.” Even more spectacular displays occurred on Sept. 2. For residents of Havana, Cuba, the sky that night “appeared stained with blood and in a state of general conflagration.” Earth had experienced a one-two punch from the Sun, the likes of which have not been recorded since. From Aug. 28 through Sept. 4, auroral displays of remarkable brilliance, color, and duration were observed around the world, as far south as Central America in the Northern Hemisphere and as far north as Santiago, Chile, in the Southern Hemisphere.

Even after daybreak, when the auroras were no longer visible, disturbances in Earth’s magnetic field were so powerful that ground-level magnetic field monitoring sensors were driven off scale. Telegraph networks in many locations experienced major disruptions and outages. In several regions, operators disconnected their systems from the batteries and sent messages using only the current induced by the aurora. In fact, telegraphs were completely unusable for nearly eight hours in most places around the world.

Humanity was just beginning to develop a dependence on high-tech systems in 1859. The telegraph was the technological wonder of the day. There were no high-power electrical lines crisscrossing the continents or sensitive satellites orbiting Earth, both of which are vulnerable to events of the sort that disrupted telegraph systems in the 19th century. There certainly was not yet a dependence on instantaneous communication and satellite remote imaging of Earth’s surface. Now, in the early part of the 21st century, as the Sun is ramping up its activity in solar cycle 24, decision makers are asking: Has there been adequate preparation for severe space weather events, and what might be the consequences of worst-case events like that of the storm of 1859?

Source: Solar and Space Physics: A Science for a Technological Society, published by the National Science Council.

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Join the hunt for potentially hazardous asteroids

The asteroid mining company Planetary Resources announced on Thursday that they have entered into a collaboration with Zooniverse that will empower the general public to aid in the search for dangerous near Earth asteroids (NEAs).

It's been 66 million years since scientists believe a 10-kilometer asteroid slammed into the Earth, leading to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Today, there are approximately 620,000 objects that are actively tracked in our Solar System, which represents merely one percent of the 60 million asteroids estimated to orbit the Sun.

Planetary Resources is in the final stretch of its Kickstarter campaign, ARKYD- the world's first crowdfunded space telescope for the public, which has generated nearly 15,000 supporters and $1.2 million in pledges. If pledges reach $1.7 million in the three remaining days of the campaign, Planetary Resources and Zooniverse will create Asteroid Zoo, a program to allow students, citizen scientists and space enthusiasts to find potentially hazardous asteroids.

Modeled after Zooniverse's popular Galaxy Zoo and other astronomy projects, Asteroid Zoo will allow the public to search through more than three-million images collected by Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) for undiscovered asteroids in a fun, game-like process from their personal computers. The public's findings will be used by scientists to develop advanced asteroid-searching technology for telescopes on Earth and in space, including the ARKYD. Of all the asteroids ever discovered, 93 percent were found in the last 15 years and nearly half of the near-Earth asteroids were discovered by CSS.

Chris Lintott, astronomer at the University of Oxford and Zooniverse principal investigator said, "Zooniverse volunteers have already inspected more than a million galaxies, discovered planets and kept an eye on solar storms. We're looking forward to working with Planetary Resources to make sure citizen scientists everywhere can make a real contribution to spotting asteroids too."

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