Patent filed for new lithium mineral location technology

TEL AVIV, Israel (ASTERRA PR) — Today, ASTERRA announced a patent filing on advancements in using PolSAR-based technology for lithium exploration that will greatly accelerate the identification of lithium (LI) deposits. The patent was based on extensive field testing for validation. 

“The expansion to mining is a natural progression of our ability to use AI analytics to monitor soil moisture underground,” said Elly Perets, CEO of ASTERRA. “It also fulfills our mission to become humanity’s eyes to protect the environment.”

ASTERRA’s complex artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms extract the signal of lithium concentration underground from satellite based PolSAR data and can pinpoint locations containing high lithium. This technology creates a way to find lithium before investing in costly exploration with intensive labor, and where it may result in environmental destruction and civil conflicts.

In the United States, the Department of Energy published its National Blueprint for Lithium Batteries, which makes sourcing lithium inside the U.S. a priority through the year 2030 because this mineral is often unavailable to meet the needs of the manufacturing industry. Lithium is essential in the transportation, semiconductor, microchip, cell phone, and any industry where a battery is used. Last week, the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 was enacted, further bolstering these initiatives.

Neuraspace’s advanced space debris monitoring and satellite collision avoidance system is already being tested by some the biggest satellite operators.

The product is aimed at Satellite Operators, Insurers, Regulators and Policy Makers.

COIMBRA, Portugal (Neuraspace PR) — Neuraspace, a Portuguese start-up which is developing an advanced system for monitoring and preventing collisions in space, has announced the market availability of its product starting today.

PARIS (ESA PR) — An ESA-financed nanosatellite, which lifted off aboard the inaugural flight of Vega-C, will operate an AI system in the harsh, radiation-wracked environment of the Van Allen Belts. The shoebox-sized Trisat-R – one of six ‘CubeSats’ on the flight, headed up to a rarely-trafficked, close to 6000 km altitude orbit – is also carrying radiation-detection payloads from CERN, the European Council for Nuclear Research, Slovenian firm SkyLabs and ESA itself.

PARIS (CNES PR) — On Tuesday July 12, 2022, the Pitch Day of the CNES Artificial Intelligence R&D Challenge applied to space transport was held. The objective of this challenge was to imagine innovative concepts and breakthrough technologies for launchers by 2040.

Start-ups, TPI, SMEs, associations, laboratories and large industrial groups were invited to present their innovation proposals to an audience of experts from the space sector, partners, supervisory authorities, industrialists… In total, 700,000 euros in contracts from the CNES were won by the winners, for an amount of up to 100,000 euros, in order to boost innovation activities and develop the space economy.

Company’s unique Spectra AI machine-learning platform accelerates application of SMART technologies for automated recognition of strategic activity and change

HERNDON, Va. (BlackSky Technology Inc. PR) — BlackSky Technology Inc. (NYSE: BKSY) received a $4.4 million award from the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) to support the second phase of the multi-year Space-based Machine Automated Recognition Technique (SMART) Program.

HANGZHOU, China (STAR.VISION AEROSPACE GROUP LIMITED PR) — STAR.VISION AEROSPACE GROUP LIMITED, a Chinese space technology innovator, has recently won the second place in the Multimodal Learning for Earth and Environment (MultiEarth 2022) competition during the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR 2022). They also topped the rankings in another track “CropHarvest 2022” which focuses on crop classification, using testing data set from Kenya, Togo and Brazil.

HERNDON, Va. (BlackSky Technologies PR) — BlackSky Technologies Inc. (NYSE: BKSY) was awarded a basic order agreement from the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) to create and optimize data sets for use in DoD AI models and applications. The JAIC agreement has a ceiling value of $241 million over five years.

“With demonstrated AI expertise in space-based dynamic monitoring, this agreement will open even more doors for BlackSky to contribute its unique value to the diverse national security challenges faced by the wider DoD community,” said Patrick O’Neil, BlackSky chief innovation officer.

PARIS (CNES PR) — On May 25, CNES launched a new call for projects aimed at all organizations (SMEs, start-ups, industrial groups, research laboratories, schools, universities, etc.) with an innovative project to propose on the subject of intelligence. technology applied to space transport by 2030-2040. Candidates, who have until June 12 to submit their project, may be awarded up to 100,000 euros in funding as well as dedicated support within the […]

Demonstrating a new era of software-driven asteroid discovery

SAN FRANCISCO (B612 Foundation PR) — The Asteroid Institute, a program of B612 Foundation, today announced it is using a groundbreaking computational technique running on its Asteroid Discovery Analysis and Mapping (ADAM) cloud-based astrodynamics platform to discover and track asteroids. The Minor Planet Center has confirmed and added the first 104 of these newly discovered asteroids to its registry, thus opening the door for Asteroid Institute-supported researchers to submit thousands of additional new discoveries. 

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

NASA is funding a trio of research and development (R&D) projects by Nanoracks, Teltrium Solutions and Emergent Space Technologies aimed at enabling swarms of small satellites to better operate in Earth orbit and to explore other worlds.

The companies each received Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II awards worth $750,000 to continue work on the their technologies. They each received smaller awards under the first phase of of the program.

Nanoracks, which is based in Houston, is focused on reusing spent rocket stages known as Outposts to help improve communications with satellite swarms exploring the moon and other planets.