September 10, 2020 - No. 068 In This Issue FAA grant to support aviation maintenance careers Rolls-Royce On-Wing Services Team Walmart chooses Fayetteville for pilot project delivering groceries by drone Bombardier Safety Standdown To Broaden Reach AirAsia Group creates MRO for owned planes and other airlines in Asia-Pacific region Pratt & Whitney Continues Service Network Expansion Aviator College of Aeronautical Science & Technology approved for bachelor's degree program by Airline That Plans to Lay Off Hundreds of Workers Wants to Defer Lease Payments to Dayton Fairbanks pilot convicted of lying to investigators after fatal 2014 crash is sentenced to a year Amazon Air hires ATSG to fly six more freighters Delta, TSA Will Add Antimicrobial Bins in Atlanta, Other Hubs SpaceX's Dark Satellites Are Still Too Bright for Astronomers FAA grant to support aviation maintenance careers The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recently announced the Aviation Maintenance Technical Workforce Development Grant Program to increase interest and recruit students for careers in aviation maintenance. The goal is to provide grants to academia and the aviation community to help prepare a more inclusive talent pool of aviation maintenance technicians, to inspire and recruit the next generation of aviation professionals. Congress appropriated $5 million in fiscal year 2020 to fund projects to address the projected shortages of aviation maintenance technical workers in the aviation industry. Eligible groups may apply for grants from $25,000 to $500,000 for any one grant in any one fiscal year. Potential applicants may visit the website for more information. The FAA posted the announcement in the Federal Register and will accept public comments until Sept. 23, 2020. https://www.verticalmag.com/press-releases/faa-grant-to-support-aviation-maintenance-careers/ Back to Top Rolls-Royce On-Wing Services Team With more than 3,500 Rolls-Royce powered business jets in service worldwide, the company is the leading business aviation engine supplier. Its top priority is to provide an extraordinary level of service that exceeds their customers' expectations. "What's unique about Rolls-Royce is that we have a separate Business Aviation unit," says Andy Robinson, SVP Customer & Services, Business Aviation. This unit includes its own services organization; purposely set up to assist the special needs of business aviation clients, which differ from those in commercial aviation. The spearhead of this organization for quick responses and special missions is the Rolls-Royce On-Wing Services team. It is composed of 50 highly qualified technicians which are strategically placed around the globe with supporting teams of quality and logistics professionals and is led by Tim Wyckoff, Director of On-Wing Services. More than half of Rolls-Royce's Business Aviation clients have a fleet of one aircraft, which means they typically do not have a comprehensive maintenance department to perform maintenance on the engines themselves. While this no problem for predictable, routine tasks, which can be done in one of more than 75 Authorised Service Centres, it can prove to be difficult if you need help somewhere remote. Fortunately, Rolls-Royce created the On-Wing Services team to solve this problem for their unique clientele. These technicians, who rank in the best in their profession, travel to the respective aircraft to perform special maintenance tasks, often to rescue customers from an aircraft-on-ground situation and ensure our clients make their next planned flight. When a new product is about to be introduced to the market, the team works directly with the airframer, often at their facility or testing location. They support the airframer during the rigorous flight test phase of aircraft/engine development. This opportunity to be the first to work on state-of-the-art Rolls-Royce products positions the On-Wing Services technicians to be the hands-down experts once the engine is in service. Finally, the On-Wing Services team oversees all extensive maintenance and lease engine service. These services take place out of Rolls-Royce's Indianapolis facility. It goes without saying that the On-Wing Services team is a vital part of Rolls-Royce's dedicated global service network. All moving parts - from the 24/7 Business Aviation Availability Centre, logistics and spare parts to On-Wing services - have to work like a perfectly tuned machine. This ensures faster response times and reduces AOG downtime wherever their customers are in the world. New challenges, new solutions Before COVID-19 interrupted our lives there were over 350,000 business aviation flights per month. While that number has understandably decreased, business aviation operators are utilizing their time machines for repatriation flights, medical missions or to transport urgently required personal protective equipment for front-line medical personnel. Even during the pandemic, the On-Wing Services team is supporting customers around the clock. This allows the team to maintain its award-winning response time to an AOG. But it is not business as usual....Not exactly. In order to respond to the pandemic, Rolls-Royce has kept their employees and customers safe by providing N95 masks and wipes for tools, following local guidelines as essential workers to ensure that whether working from an airport hangar or the Indianapolis shop the team is well protected. Also, before traveling to a customer's facility we provided a required questionnaire to understand potential exposure scenarios. "Although we're still working at full steam, we spend a lot of time cleaning all surfaces between shifts. It's added a burden; it's made it more difficult to get the job done but safety is the priority" commented Tim when asked about the recent measures taken. While the On-Wing Services team has a wide network, it doesn't always have an on-site technician where an aircraft is down. Typically the team would take a commercial flight to resolve an AOG, however, Tim has had to find other ways. Recently, a team of mechanics had to drive ten hours for a three-hour job. What mattered most is that the job was completed on time and the customer was satisfied. Outstanding service is a major differentiator for business aviation customers. It is clear that despite the difficulties presented Rolls-Royce's On-Wing Services Team has remained committed to the mission and united by a sense of purpose. For this reason, Rolls-Royce continues to show why they are the number one service provider in business aviation. https://www.ainonline.com/sponsored-content/business-aviation/2020-09-10/rolls-royce-wing-services-team Back to Top Walmart chooses Fayetteville for pilot project delivering groceries by drone Walmart has chosen Fayetteville to launch a pilot program in which customers can have groceries and household products delivered to their homes by automated drones. The company has partnered with Flytrex, a software company, which is delivering select grocery and household items from Walmart stores using Flytrex's drones. The company chose the Walmart Neighborhood Market at 970 Strickland Bridge Road as the site where it will try out the new system. An associate at the store said Thursday that the system is being tested but had not yet started. The retailer on Wednesday announced the launch of an on-demand drone delivery pilot program with Flytrex, an end-to-end drone delivery company. Tom Ward, senior vice president of customer products at Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart, said in a blog that it will be a while before drones are widely used for package deliveries. The drones, which are controlled over the cloud using a smart and easy control dashboard, "will help us gain valuable insight into the customer and associate experience, from picking and packing to takeoff and delivery," Ward wrote. "We know that it will be some time before we see millions of packages delivered via drone," Ward said. "That still feels like a bit of science fiction, but we're at a point where we're learning more and more about the technology that is available and how we can use it to make our customers' lives easier." He added that Walmart has been on the cutting edge of the technology, with its recent autonomous vehicle work with Gatik, Ford and Nuro. The company has been using self-driving vehicles to deliver customers' online grocery orders from Walmart's main warehouse to its neighborhood stores in Bentonville. Ward said from that experience, the company has "gained loads of valuable insight into how autonomous vehicles fit within our business." "At the end of the day, it's learning from pilots such as this that will help shape the potential of drone delivery on a larger scale and, true to the vision of our founder, take Walmart beyond where we've been," Ward said. According to media reports, Walmart has accelerated the expansion of its pickup and delivery services in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Last week, Amazon won regulatory approval to deliver packages by drone, but the company said it is still testing the self-piloting aircraft and didn't say when they could be used to deliver goods to shoppers on a large scale, the Associated Press reported. Delivery company UPS and a company owned by search giant Google have also won regulatory approval to deliver by drones, AP reported. Robert Van Goens, president and CEO of the Fayetteville Cumberland Economic Development Corp., said Thursday that he is pleased to hear that Walmart chose Fayetteville for its pilot project. He said it's just the type of company his agency is trying to bring here. "We want Fayetteville and Cumberland County to be the center of applied innovation in bringing new technologies to the public, so this is exactly the type of project that we want to see happening here," Van Goens said. Flytrex's website says its drones "include extensive features to ensure safety." "This includes hardware redundancies on multiple layers: motors, navigation, an autonomous parachute and a flight termination system," it says. "We've successfully conducted thousands of flights and are committed to the highest general aviation maintenance standards. In addition, our system uses the unique landscape of suburbs to plan safe routes that avoid flight over people." The website says that people often associate drones with cameras that raise privacy concerns. "However, we deeply care about preserving your privacy, which means our drones carry no cameras whatsoever. Our system navigates using GPS and sensors only," the site says. The drones can carry as much as 6.6 pounds, or six to eight hamburgers, for a distance of 3.5 miles and back, according to the company's website. "We cruise at 32 miles per hour and fly at an altitude of 230 feet," the site says. "Our current drone does not fly in the rain and at wind gusts stronger than 18 miles per hour. We only operate with regulatory and insurance approval." The company's site says it is part of the Federal Aviation Administration UAS Integration Pilot Program and has partnered with the North Carolina Department of Transportation "to standardize backyard drone delivery." https://www.fayobserver.com/story/news/2020/09/10/walmart-picks-fayetteville-try-out-drone-grocery-delivery/3456689001/ Back to Top Bombardier Safety Standdown To Broaden Reach Bombardier's annual Safety Standdown, set for October 21 in a virtual format, will feature a new speaker whose presentation should be of interest to aviation professionals beyond pilots. The speaker, Toronto-based Multi-Health Systems executive chair and founder Steven J. Stein, will discuss "broader, more abstract concepts of safety...to permit maintenance technicians, pilots, dispatchers, safety program managers, or accountable executives to design and implement safety improvements," according to the Canadian airframer. In its 24th year, the standdown was originally scheduled to be held over two days in Wichita but was moved to a virtual format because of the Covid-19 pandemic. With the theme of "Safety in Focus 2020," this year's standdown is designed to "prompt aviation professionals and organizations to question how to turn their vision of a safer and more efficient organization into reality," Bombardier explained. "For more than 20 years, Bombardier has led the industry in providing aviation professionals with knowledge-based aviation training, and this year's virtual event builds on this very important goal," said Bombardier Aviation v-p of customer support Andy Nureddin. Returning presenters include Dr. Tony Kern, Dr. Amy Grubb, and Dr. Antonio Cortés. https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2020-09-10/bombardier-safety-standdown-broaden-reach Back to Top AirAsia Group creates MRO for owned planes and other airlines in Asia-Pacific region AirAsia Group announced Wednesday (9 September) that it had created a new MRO company called Asia Digital Engineering, a wholly-owned subsidiary that will provide engineering services for AirAsia's group of airlines as well as other commercial airlines in the region. CEO of AirAsia Group Tony Fernandes said, "Asia Digital Engineering expands our existing expertise in aircraft engineering and is well positioned to become Asia's leading data and technology-driven Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) service provider for all commercial airlines in the region, starting with the AirAsia group of airlines. This new business division provides numerous efficiencies and will leverage off our combined 19 years of experience in operating and maintaining a large fleet of over 250 Airbus A320 and A330 family aircraft. All AirAsia engineers and MRO assets will be consolidated to provide a centralised technical support service for our fleet of aircraft, and potentially for other commercial airlines in the near future also." The CEO of the new group, Mahesh Kumar, said, "I am honoured for the opportunity by the AirAsia management to lead this new business unit which has just received the Aircraft Maintenance Organisation (AMO) approval by the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia (CAAM). We would like to thank CAAM and other relevant authorities for believing in us as we push the envelope in all areas of commercial aviation, which includes air transport services, passenger services, and now, MRO services for airlines." Based at the airline group's global headquarters RedQ in Sepang, the newly-formed subsidiary will be providing line maintenance, engineering support, component and warehouse services, digital and innovation services for the fleet of aircraft under AirAsia's group of airlines and potentially other airlines in the region. https://asianaviation.com/airasia-group-creates-mro-for-owned-planes-and-other-airlines-in-asia-pacific-region/ Back to Top Pratt & Whitney Continues Service Network Expansion Pratt & Whitney continues to build out its worldwide network of designated maintenance facilities (DMF) with two recent additions: Prince Aviation in Serbia and Aero-Dienst in Germany. The facilities reflect "our desire to grow our points of service around the world," a Pratt & Whitney spokeswoman told AIN. As a new DMF, Prince Aviation is authorized to provide service on the PT6A, PW500, PW600, and JT15D engine families. In addition to Serbia, its service area will encompass Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. Aero-Dienst will support the PW300 engine family. Besides Germany, Aero-Dienst's service territory for those engines comprises Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, France, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Norway, Portugal, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. Pratt & Whitney has more than a dozen DMFs in North and South America, Europe, and Asia supporting helicopter and business and general aviation industries with line maintenance and mobile repair services. https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2020-09-10/pratt-whitney-continues-service-network-expansion Back to Top Aviator College of Aeronautical Science & Technology approved for bachelor's degree program by FL Dept. of Education FORT PIERCE, FLORIDA, USA, September 9, 2020 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Florida based Aviator College of Aeronautical Science & Technology has been approved by the Florida Department of Education to offer a bachelor's degree in aeronautical science and technology at the College's Fort Pierce campus. They will immediately begin offering a 2 + 2 program which allows a student to earn both an associate's degree and a bachelor's degree in as little as 3 years. Students will earn the degree in aeronautical science and technology along with their pilot training. Aviator also offers an Airplane Maintenance Technician program at their campus in Kissimmee. Aviator College offers up to $20,000 in Achievement Scholarships to qualifying students. Maintaining a 3.5 GPA, students can earn an Associate's degree for as little as $68,000, which includes the flight training, and a bachelor's degree for an additional $21,000. There are military scholarships available to qualifying veterans as well. "We are thrilled to offer our students an additional degree to further their professional careers in the aeronautical industry," said M. E. Cohen, Founder and President of Aviator College. "With the expansion of both our Fort Pierce and Kissimmee campuses, this opportunity allows us to serve a greater number of students while meeting more of their educational needs. And with the current and projected worldwide national shortage of pilots and mechanics, now is the time for those interested in these careers to begin their education." CNBC's Sam Meredith, June 17, 2019, reported that, while at the Paris Air Show, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg described a global pilot shortage as "one of the biggest challenges we have going forward." Muilenburg said that, according to Boeing's latest outlook, the estimated number of new commercial airplanes would rise to 44,000, up from 43,000, over the next two decades. "If you look at those 44,000 new airplanes over the next 20 years, to go along with that we need about 800,000 new pilots, and 750,000 new aviation technicians and so building that talent pipeline for the future is really important." A 2016 report by Boeing shows that 42% of the pilots currently flying for the major airlines in the United States will reach their mandatory retirement age of 65 in the next 6 years. Some airline pilots are being forced into early retirement due to COVID-19. The U.S. Bureau of Labor & Statistics reported the 2019 Median Income for Airline and Commercial Pilots as $121,430 per year while Airplane Maintenance Technicians earn an average of $73,050. Cohen stated that as a sign of the current industry, many of Aviator College's airplane maintenance technician students are being hired pre-graduation. The current 36,000 square foot academic building is a modern two-story building that houses the classrooms, flight simulator, learning resource center, FAA testing center, library, pilot shop, bookstore and administrative offices. Additional expansion plans include adding 18,000 square feet of new Airframe Power Plant Technician Training facility in Fort Pierce, along with another facility with additional classrooms and simulators. Aviator recently expanded their line of airplanes with a new fleet of Piper Archer aircraft which have all glass cockpits and air-conditioning. ABOUT AVIATOR COLLEGE OF AERONAUTICAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Aviator College started in 1983 as an aviation school offering flight training. Now more than 37 years later, Aviator College has developed into one of the leading aviation colleges and flight school and academy in the United States, and has over 500 students currently enrolled. Aviator's Aviation Degree program has specific emphasis on the pilot training aspects needed to meet the requirements of the commercial airline pilot industry. Aviator College also offers an Aircraft Maintenance Technician program at its newest campus located in Kissimmee, Florida. All of Aviator's classes are taught by professional, certified teachers preparing students for their new career in the aviation industry. For more information on Aviator's programs, financial assistance or for a tour of the campuses, view their website at www.aviator.edu, call 1-800-635-9032 or visit their campuses located at 3800 Saint Lucie Blvd., Fort Pierce, Florida 34946 or Kissimmee Gateway, Airport Campus, 606 Dyer Blvd., Kissimmee, Florida 34741. https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/525882072/aviator-college-of-aeronautical-science-technology-approved-for-bachelor-s-degree-program-by-fl-dept-of-education Back to Top Airline That Plans to Lay Off Hundreds of Workers Wants to Defer Lease Payments to Dayton Sep. 8--PSA -- Airlines, still reeling from huge declines in air travel due to the coronavirus epidemic, wants to defer its lease payments for a maintenance and hangar facility it rents at the Dayton International Airport. PSA Airlines, which is headquartered at the airport, wants to suspend its payments for one year to help cut costs at a time when passenger traffic has plunged and the aviation industry is facing unprecedented challenges related to weak demand. PSA Airlines already has announced plans to lay off a few hundred workers because of disruptions in air travel. Most leisure travel and a significant share of business travel have been cancelled because of infection fears. "Due to the unprecedented impact of COVID-19 on the airline industry, we are engaging in critical financial discussions with the city as part of our ongoing work to reduce costs during this time," a PSA Airlines spokesperson said. On Wednesday, the Dayton City Commission will decide whether to amend the city's lease agreement with PSA Airlines to suspend its rental payments through August 2021. The company leases a 77,500-square-foot hangar and maintenance facility at 3751 Cargo Road. Under the proposal, PSA Airlines will not have to pay the $586,690 it owes over the next 12 months, and the company's 20-year lease agreement would be extended for an additional year, through January 2037. If the changes are approved, the city says it expects to collect an additional $87,730 in revenue over the life of the agreement because PSA's monthly lease payments will shift to a higher rate. PSA expects to pay the city more than $12.4 million over the 20-year agreement. JobsOhio provided $5 million to help fund the construction of the maintenance hangar. The organization has agreed to defer the city's loan payments until August 2021 to provide some financial relief. Earlier this summer, PSA Airlines notified the state it plans to lay off nearly 260 workers at the airport in October. This includes about 156 pilots, 62 flight attendants and 13 dispatchers. In late August, the company also announced plans to lay off an additional 47 employees, including maintenance staff and other specialists. The company said it planned to outsource its professional maintenance and engineering technical services work to a third-party vendor to "increase reliability," according to a WARN notice letter. https://www.aviationpros.com/airlines/news/21153502/airline-that-plans-to-lay-off-hundreds-of-workers-wants-to-defer-lease-payments-to-dayton Back to Top Fairbanks pilot convicted of lying to investigators after fatal 2014 crash is sentenced to a year in prison A Fairbanks pilot convicted of lying to federal investigators after a fatal Brooks Range crash in 2014 was sentenced Wednesday to spend a year in prison. Jurors decided last fall in federal court that Forest Kirst was guilty of obstructing the crash investigations performed by the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board after the crash. In August 2014, three Canadian tourists boarded Kirst's Ryan Navion four-seater for a flightseeing tour out of Bettles. The plane began flying too low, and "after circling over a moose in a pond, the airplane lacked the power and altitude to clear Atigun Pass," according to federal prosecutors. The plane crashed below the Dalton Highway and above a trans-Alaska pipeline maintenance road. All four people on board were seriously injured. Passenger Darrell Spencer, 66, died just over a month after the crash from the injuries he sustained. Federal prosecutors said that Kirst lied to investigators by misleading them about the altitude he was flying at prior to the crash and that he told several different versions about what happened just beforehand. The charges were filed in 2017, and a jury convicted him in November 2019 on two counts of obstructing the crash investigation but found him not guilty on a federal charge of flying without a valid airman's certificate. Kirst spoke during Wednesday's hearing to deny that he lied to investigators and instead blamed the crash on a propeller he said was improperly installed and came apart during flight. Federal investigations did not show that the propeller came off during flight, but found that it had come off during the crash. In 2016, Kirst filed a civil personal injury and wrongful death lawsuit, along with the two surviving passengers and Spencer's wife, against the company that sold him the propeller. The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed, and the group was ordered to pay $98,000 in attorney fees to the company. Federal judge Ralph Beistline sentenced Kirst to spend a year and a day in prison, followed by three years of probation. Kirst will also pay a $5,000 fine. Beistline said the sentence was needed to send a message to the aviation community and passengers about Alaska's commitment to safety. https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/crime-courts/2020/09/09/fairbanks-pilot-convicted-of-lying-to-investigators-after-fatal-2014-crash-is-sentenced-to-a-year-in-prison/ Back to Top Amazon Air hires ATSG to fly six more freighters Air Transport Services Group (NASDAQ: ATSG) will operate six more medium-size freighters for Amazon Air, operationalizing a lease agreement struck in late May, the company announced Wednesday. ATSG subsidiary Air Transport International will fly the six Boeing 767 converted freighters under a preexisting contract with Amazon to provide crew, maintenance and insurance. Amazon is leasing the planes for 10 years from another ATSG company, Cargo Aircraft Management (CAM), part of a deal this summer for 12 aircraft. The first leased freighter began operating under the Amazon banner in May, with the remainder scheduled to start work next year. With the new flight award, ATSG projects that its airlines will operate 38 767s for Amazon Air by April 2021, 36 of which CAM leases to Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN). A higher work tempo for Amazon due to increased e-commerce sales helped ATSG achieve a 20% increase in second-quarter pre-tax earnings. Amazon's chartered fleet numbers nearly 70 aircraft, but now it appears to have taken ownership of its first aircraft. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's aircraft registry database shows that Amazon.com Services registered a 767-300 on Aug. 31. It has also reserved four more registration numbers for future aircraft, FreightWaves confirmed. Cargo Facts first reported Amazon Air's aircraft purchase. https://www.freightwaves.com/news/amazon-air-hires-atsg-to-fly-six-more-freighters Back to Top Delta, TSA Will Add Antimicrobial Bins in Atlanta, Other Hubs Sep. 10--Delta Air Lines and the Transportation Security Administration are adding plastic screening bins with built-in antimicrobial technology this month for customers moving through security checkpoints at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. A 2018 study by Finnish and British researchers found plastic security screening trays posed the highest potential risk for respiratory viral surface contamination at airports, noting that "handling [the bins] is almost inevitable for all embarking passengers." The bins had more virus detected than toilet surfaces. Antimicrobial bins have been deployed since last year at other airports' security checkpoints. SecurityPoint Media, known for security bins with advertising on them, has rolled out bins with Microban antimicrobial technology at airports across the country. The bins from engineering firm Leidos continuously minimize microbes through an additive. However, TSA still advises travelers to wash their hands before and after going through security screening. And Delta said it will still have hand sanitzier throughout the airport. TSA also encourages travelers to remove items from their pockets and put them into carry-on bags rather then directly into bins, to reduce contact. Delta bought the antimicrobial bins through a public-private partnership with TSA. The antimicrobial bins will roll out at automated screening lanes at the Atlanta airport next week, including the main checkpoint and north checkpoint in the domestic terminal. The south checkpoint is closed for construction of an expanded checkpoint. The solid black bins will also be added to Delta hubs at Minneapolis/St. Paul, Los Angeles, New York LaGuardia and JFK airports, according to the airline. https://www.aviationpros.com/airports/news/21153701/delta-tsa-will-add-antimicrobial-bins-in-atlanta-other-hubs Back to Top SpaceX's Dark Satellites Are Still Too Bright for Astronomers Starlink, a "megaconstellation" of hundreds of Internet satellites launched by the aerospace company SpaceX, has been causing headaches for astronomers by outshining celestial objects. Set to eventually include tens of thousands of spacecraft beaming high-speed Internet to the entire planet, Starlink has a downside for stargazing: the satellites reflect enough sunlight at night to be seen clearly with the naked eye (not to mention sensitive telescopes). Their brightness is only accentuated by the long trains they are arranged in, which pass across the heavens like dozens of glowing beads on a celestial string. Ever since the first 60 Starlink satellites were launched in May 2019, 655 more have been placed in orbit, affecting a number of astronomical observations. Each launch has steadily held around 60 satellites, with one or two batches going up each month since January-the last did so on September 3. Finally, in August-after more than a year of complaints from the scientific community and damage-control efforts from SpaceX-the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the American Astronomical Society (AAS) released a report on the situation. It drew from discussions among more than 250 experts at the virtual Satellite Constellations 1 (SATCON1) workshop earlier this summer to provide recommendations for both astronomers and satellite constellation operators in order to minimize further disruptions. For now many astronomers can do little more than hope that the situation will improve. Although SpaceX's satellites pose a problem for astronomical observations, the company does not "want to mess up astronomy," says Meredith Rawls, an astronomer at the University of Washington. Rawls works with the upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, formerly known as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. The project's steady stream of panoramic images of the entire sky will help uncover the nature of dark matter and dark energy, identify countless instances of transient astrophysical phenomena and map Earth-threatening asteroids-if, of course, interference from satellite constellations does not scuttle its delicate work. SpaceX's initial efforts at mitigating the spacecraft's impact involved launching a prototype Starlink satellite known as DarkSat earlier this year that features a black antireflective coating. Recent ground-based observations of DarkSat in orbit found it half as bright as a standard Starlink satellite-a great improvement, according to experts, but still far from what astronomers say is needed. "I would not consider DarkSat as a victory but instead a good step in the right direction," says Jeremy Tregloan-Reed, an astronomer at the University of Antofagasta in Chile and a member of the observational team that assessed the prototype. The team compared it with a typical Starlink sibling using a 0.6-meter telescope at the Ckoirama Observatory in Chile and found that although DarkSat's antireflective coating rendered it invisible to the naked eye, it remains far too bright to avoid interfering with the Rubin Observatory and other major telescopes. These results show that DarkSat is essentially a dead end, says Jonathan McDowell, a researcher at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution, who has run computer simulations of megaconstellation effects on astronomical observations. Nevertheless, he says, the investigation by Tregloan-Reed's team is an important step. "This study is notable as one of the first significant observational studies of a Starlink satellite, something that the community is now organizing to do on a much bigger scale," McDowell adds. He cautions that if the satellites continue to be launched without a fix, "the impact would be huge." In the long term, Rawls worries that as satellite constellations become more common, future companies may launch them without any attempts to compromise with astronomers. "It creates a lot of systematic errors.... It becomes kind of a mess," she says. SpaceX is hoping to eventually put 12,000 Starlink satellites in the sky, and last year it filed for permission to put up 30,000 more. With those plans-as well as Amazon's Project Kuiper aiming for 3,236 satellites and OneWeb, a now bankrupt company recently acquired by the U.K. government, perhaps striving for 2,000-the scale of astronomy's satellite-constellation problem will only increase. While the dimming techniques tested by DarkSat are far from a sufficient solution, SpaceX has continued to develop other ways to further reduce spacecraft brightness. The company's second attempt at a darkened satellite, VisorSat, uses a black sunshade to reduce light reflection. The first spacecraft with this design was launched on June 3. Astronomers are hoping to observe VisorSat and compare it with DarkSat once observatories reopen, following the COVID-19 shutdown. Even before any detailed observations of VisorSat have been made, SpaceX seems to have doubled down on the new model. All the satellites in the two Starlink batches launched in mid-June and early August were VisorSats, with each carrying its own sunshade. Astronomers are not yet sure whether darkening methods such as DarkSat and VisorSat are the solution. Of the SATCON1 report's 10 recommendations, only one asks satellite operators to use darkening techniques. The others suggest deploying satellites in orbits below 600 kilometers to minimize their nighttime glare, controlling their orientations in space to reflect less sunlight, developing ways to remove their trails from astronomical observations and making their orbital information available so astronomers can point telescopes away from them. By some mix of approaches from this menu of options, it is hoped, the problem can be managed. Even so, the advent of satellite megaconstellations may have made further degradation of astronomers' view of the night sky inevitable. For now Tregloan-Reed is comforted by the fact that SpaceX is taking the problems seriously. "The development of both DarkSat and the new VisorSat shows that Starlink appears to be dedicated to mitigating the impact" of its satellites on both astronomers and backyard stargazers, he says. The spirit of collaboration at the SATCON1 workshop and the creation of the report that followed it are also promising, according to Patrick McCarthy, director of the NSF's NOIRLab, which produced the report with the AAS. "I hope that the collegiality and spirit of partnership between astronomers and commercial satellite operators will expand ... and that it will continue to prove useful and productive," he said in a statement in late August. SATCON2, the next workshop bringing together astronomers and satellite constellation operators, is planned for early to mid-2021. It will be geared toward tackling policy and regulation. With the prospect of hundreds of satellites being launched in the meantime, Rawls stresses the urgency and importance of the issue. "This is only going to accelerate," she says. "And it's a long-term precedent. It's a question of what kind of sky you want your grandkids to have." https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/spacexs-dark-satellites-are-still-too-bright-for-astronomers/ Curt Lewis