DETROIT — Toyota is adding 1.2 million vehicles to a major recall in the U.S. to fix possible fuel pump failures that can cause engines to stall.

The company said Wednesday that the added vehicles bring the total to 1.8 million.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
TM	TOYOTA MOTOR	131.85	+0.90	+0.69%

In January Toyota recalled nearly 700,000 vehicles in the U.S. for the same problems. Engine stalling can increase the risk of a crash, although the company wouldn’t say if there have been any. The automaker said Wednesday that about 118,000 vehicles in the January recall shouldn’t have been included.

The vehicles include trucks, SUVs, minivans and cars across the model lineups of Toyota and its Lexus luxury vehicle brand.

The company says owners of vehicles not involved in the January recall will be notified in early May about when to make a service appointment. Dealers will replace the fuel pump with an improved one.

Models now included in the recall are certain 2018 and 2019 Toyota Avalon, Camry, Corolla, Highlander, Sequoia, Tacoma and Tundra vehicles, as well as the 2018 and 2019 Lexus ES 350, GS 350, IS 300, IS 350, LC 500, LC 500h, LS 500, LS 500h, RC 300, RC 350, RX 350L.

Also covered are the 2013-2015 Lexus LS 460, the 2013-2014 Lexus GS 350, the 2014 Toyota FJ Cruiser and Lexus IS-F, the 2014-2015 Toyota 4Runner and Land Cruiser and Lexus GX 460, IS 350 and LX 570. Other vehicles include the 2015 Lexus NX 200t and RC 350, the 2017 Lexus IS 200t and RC 200t, the 2017-2019 Toyota Sienna and Lexus RX 350, and the 2018 Lexus GS 300.

Evidence from an ancient section of the Earth’s crust suggest that Earth was once a water-world, some three billion years ago. If true, it’ll mean scientists need to reconsider some thinking around exoplanets and habitability. They’ll also need to reconsider their understanding of how life began on our planet.

A new paper presents these results in the journal Nature Geoscience. The title of the paper is “Limited Archaean continental emergence reflected in an early Archaean ¹⁸O-enriched ocean.” The co-authors are Boswell Wing of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and his former post-doc student, Benjamin Johnson at Iowa State University.

The work is focused on an area in the Australian Outback called the Panorama district. In that region in northwestern Australia there’s a slab of ocean floor 3.2 billion years old, that’s been turned on its side. The chunk of crust holds chemical clues about ancient Earth’s seawater.

“There are no samples of really ancient ocean water lying around, but we do have rocks that interacted with that seawater and remembered that interaction,” Johnson said in a press release.

“The origin and evolution of Earth’s biosphere were shaped by the physical and chemical histories of the oceans.”

From the paper “Limited Archaean continental emergence reflected in an early Archaean ¹⁸O-enriched ocean.

The authors wanted to re-boot the debate over what ancient Earth looked like, and to break new ground in the discussion.

In the introduction to their paper, the two authors say “The origin and evolution of Earth’s biosphere were shaped by the physical and chemical histories of the oceans. Marine chemical sediments and altered oceanic crust preserve a geochemical record of these histories. Marine chemical sediments, for example, exhibit an increase in their ¹⁸O/¹⁶O ratio through time.” 

Marine sediments have been well-studied over time, but the authors of this study looked at the ancient crust instead. The ancient oceans held different types of oxygen that were then deposited into the crust. The scientists gathered over 100 samples of the ancient rock and analyzed it for two oxygen isotopes: oxygen-16 and oxygen 18. They wanted to find the relative amount of each isotope in the ancient crust, to compare it to the amounts in the sediment.

Their results showed more oxygen-18 in the crust when it was formed 3.2 billion years ago, meaning the ocean at that time had more oxygen-18. The pair of researchers say that means that when that crust formed, there were no continents. This is because when continents form, they contain clays, and those clays would have absorbed the heavier oxygen-18. So if there had been continents 3.2 billion years ago, their crust samples would have held less oxygen-18.

The over-arching conclusion of their work is that the Earth’s oceans went through two distinct states: one prior to continents forming, and one after continents formed.

Marine chemical sediments have been studied extensively to try to piece together continent formation on ancient Earth. As the study says, those ancient sediments include “carbonates, phosphates, microcrystalline silica and iron oxides. As these minerals form directly from aqueous species, they can reflect the ?¹⁸O of the water with which they coexist.” The sediments are like an archival record of Earth at the time, and the older sediments show oxygen-18 values increasing steadily through time, all the way up to today. But this work contrasts with that, and the authors suggest that seawater oxygen-18 decreased through time.

The pair of scientists constructed a model for ancient Earth, showing that “the initiation of continental weathering in the late Archaean, between 3 and 2.5 billion years ago, would have drawn down an ¹⁸O-enriched early Archaean ocean to ?¹⁸O values similar to those of modern seawater.” So only after continents formed, could the oxygen-18 values begin to look like modern values.

Although this study points to the possibility of ancient Earth as a water-world, it doesn’t mean that the planet was without any land-forms. Island-size areas of land, or even micro-continents, may have existed at the time, volcanic in nature, and very rocky. But the types of vast land-forms that cover the Earth today, rich in soil and with tall mountain ranges, may not have existed. If they had, the oxygen-18 content would have more closely resembled today’s.

“There’s nothing in what we’ve done that says you can’t have teeny, micro-continents sticking out of the oceans,” Wing said in a press release. “We just don’t think that there were global-scale formation of continental soils like we have today.”

The authors aren’t suggesting that their work is the definitive piece of evidence in the ongoing discussion around early Earth. They note that their are other possible reasons for their results.

If the ancient continents formed much more slowly than modern continents, that could explain the the discrepancy in oxygen-18. It’s also possible that the clays that absorb oxygen-18 formed in the ocean itself, rather than on the continents.

That points to an enduring mystery in Earth science: when exactly did continents form?

It’s likely, according to some evidence, that the continents could only form as the Earth’s core shed heat and cooled down. In any case, modern continents didn’t take shape until after the Jurassic. Prior to that, the single super-continent of Gondwana covered about one-fifth of the Earth’s surface. Wing wants to examine younger areas of the Earth’s crust to try to determine more clearly when the modern continents formed.

This study also touches on early life on Earth, and how and when it formed. Earth’s early oceans, much like modern oceans, acted as a buffer, which “mediated climatic feedbacks between the biosphere, atmosphere and geosphere through deep time, helping to ensure long-term planetary habitability.”

Science has painted a picture of what the early Earth may have looked like, and what the nature of the oceans was. But it’s far from complete. The evidence is all buried, in rock and in time. And as we seek to understand climate change here on Earth, and as we get better and better looks at exoplanets, all these questions about ancient Earth, the oceans, and the biosphere, take on new importance.

As the authors say in their paper, “An early Earth without emergent continents may have resembled a ‘water world’, providing an important environmental constraint on the origin and evolution of life on Earth as well as its possible existence elsewhere.“

“The history of life on Earth tracks available niches,” said Wing. “If you’ve got a waterworld, a world covered by ocean, then dry niches are just not going to be available.”

This job opportunity is out of this world — literally. For the first time in over four years, NASA is accepting applications for its next crop of astronauts, the agency announced Monday.

Not every space hopeful will get to don the iconic astronaut suit, however. Applicants must be U.S. citizens and meet one of the stringent education requirements, which include having either a master’s degree in a STEM field, a medical degree, or a combination of a STEM degree and test pilot training.

Potential astronauts must also have at least two years of related professional experience — or have completed at least 1,000 hours of “pilot-in-command time” in jet aircraft. Then they still have to pass NASA’s long-duration spaceflight physical.

Applicants are required to complete an online assessment that can take up to two hours to finish. The deadline to apply is March 31.

The agency announced last month that it would begin hiring new astronauts, but just began accepting applications Monday.

The opportunity comes as NASA moves ahead with plans to send the first woman and next man to the moon by 2024 with its Artemis program.

The Artemis mission seeks to “demonstrate new technological advancements and lay the foundation for private companies to build a lunar economy.” The goal is to have humans explore the moon’s South Pole surface for the first time ever and lay the groundwork for human missions to Mars later this century.

“America is closer than any other time in history since the Apollo program to returning astronauts to the Moon,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a press release. “We’re looking for talented men and women from diverse backgrounds and every walk of life to join us in this new era of human exploration that begins with the Artemis program to the Moon. If you have always dreamed of being an astronaut, apply now.”

The final astronaut candidates are expected to be selected by the middle of next year and would then begin training as the next class of Artemis Generation astronauts, according to NASA.

In 2015, when the agency was last looking for new astronauts, more than 18,000 people applied. Following over two years of “intensive training,” 11 new astronauts made the cut and graduated in a public ceremony in January. A member of that class, Jonny Kim, notably became NASA’s first Korean-American astronaut.

“Becoming an astronaut is no easy task, because being an astronaut is no easy task,” said Steve Koerner, NASA’s director of flight operations and chair of the Astronaut Selection Board. “Those who apply will likely be competing against thousands who have dreamed of and worked toward going to space for as long as they can remember. But somewhere among those applicants are our next astronauts, and we look forward to meeting you.”

NASA has chosen 350 people to train as astronaut candidates since the 1960’s and currently has 48 astronauts in its “active astronaut corps.”

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — National news agency Australian Associated Press said Tuesday it was closing after 85 years, blaming a decline in subscribers and free distribution of news content on digital platforms.

“The saddest day: AAP closes after 85 years of excellence in journalism. The AAP family will be sorely missed,” AAP Editor-in-Chief Tony Gillies said in a tweet.

AAP’s more than 170 journalists will cease operations by June 26. Its Pagemasters editorial production service will also close at the end of August, the company said.

“The unprecedented impact of the digital platforms that take other people’s content and distribute it for free has led to too many companies choosing to no longer use AAP’s professional service,” the company said in a statement. “We have reached the point where it is no longer viable to continue.”

Sydney-based AAP is renowned for its fair and impartial reporting as well as its extraordinary reach across rural and urban Australia.

The Australian Parliament applauded AAP for its contributions an hour after its demise was made public .

“When you have such an important institution such as AAP coming to an end, … that is a matter of real concern,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison told Parliament.

Opposition leader Anthony Albanese said, “Today is a tragedy for our democracy.”

“You will leave a massive void in terms of information coverage,” he added.

AAP Chairman Campbell Reid said the organization had been for generations “journalism’s first responder.”

“It is a great loss that professional and researched information provided by AAP is being substituted with the un-researched and often inaccurate information that masquerades as real news on the digital platforms,” Reid said.

AAP’s domestic nationwide news coverage with bureaus in every state and territory is complemented by alliances with major international news agencies including The Associated Press.

The AP licenses its news text and photo services to AAP for redistribution into the Australian media market and its customers. AP is also contracted to use AAP text and photos.

AAP was started in 1935 by newspaper publisher Keith Murdoch, father of News Corp. founder Rupert Murdoch.

AAP is owned by Australian news organizations News Corp. Australia, Nine Entertainment Co., Seven West Media and Australian Community Media.

The first inkling that most AAP staff had that their jobs were in danger came on Monday with a Nine newspapers’ report that noted the weakest advertising market since the global financial crisis in 2008.

AAP made a modest 929,000 Australian dollar ($608,000) profit last year on AU$65,674,000 ($43 million) revenue.

AAP management broke the news of the closure to staff on Tuesday afternoon.

“We are obviously devastated by the news,” AAP Canberra Bureau Chief Paul Osborne said.

“But we are proud of AAP’s achievements over 85 years and know that everyone who worked on the wire gave it their all, in the name of fair, balanced and accurate reporting, ” the 20-year AAP veteran said.

AAP Melbourne reporter Benita Kolovos described as “heartwarming” the sight of #saveAAP trending on Twitter on Tuesday afternoon.

“I work with the best women and men and hope I will continue to be able to,” Kolovos tweeted. “Impartial journalism is vital to our democracy. Without it, the public will be worse off.”

Her Melbourne colleague Karen Sweeney noted that AAP’s top 10 sports stories on Monday were published 1,595 times and top 10 news stories were published 2,514 times.

“That’s 4109 blank spaces on websites and newspapers, dead air on radio that would need to be filled without us,” Sweeney tweeted.

AAP Brisbane reporter Christine Flatley described her workplace since 2006 as “hands down the best news organization I have worked for.”

Australian media organizations are under mounting financial pressure with global digital giants Google and Facebook taking a growing chunk of advertising revenue.

Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, the journalists’ union, described the decision to shut down AAP as a “gross abandonment of responsibility by its shareholders — Australia’s major media outlets.”

“Bean-counters at the top of media organizations might think they can soldier on without AAP, but the reality is it will leave a huge hole in news coverage,” the union’s federal president, Marcus Strom, said in a statement.

“Filling those holes will fall to already overburdened newsroom journalists. Or coverage will simply cease to occur,” he said.

SpaceX is planning a huge boost to the number of rocket launches from its Florida launch sites in the next few years as the company builds its Starlink satellite megaconstellation while meeting flight demands from its customers, according to a federal environmental report.

The missions for SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets will also have more options than in the past, according to the report, which was first reported by SpaceNews. One change will be a new mobile service tower allowing some missions to be assembled vertically, rather than horizontally. Another will be the capability to launch to polar orbits — quite the feat, since Florida is located close to the equator and better optimized for missions that operate close to the equator. SpaceX also plans to test recovering payload fairings as the company pushes for greater mission reusability.

By 2023, the company wants to launch 70 missions a year from its two Florida launch sites at the Kennedy Space Center and nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, using Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. This rate is a seven-fold increase from the 11 missions SpaceX put into orbit in 2019, and almost double the 38 planned launches in 2020. That information comes from a draft environmental assessment published Thursday (Feb. 27) by the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation.

“This launch schedule is based on SpaceX’s anticipated need to support NASA and DoD [Department of Defense] missions, as well as commercial customers,” the assessment reads in part. “In addition to its typical launch trajectories, SpaceX is proposing … to include a new Falcon 9 southern launch trajectory to support missions with payloads requiring polar orbits. SpaceX estimates approximately 10 percent of its annual Falcon 9 launches would fly this new southern launch trajectory.”

SpaceX has two launch sites in Florida. One is at the historic Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and the other is located Space Launch Complex 40 of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The company also has two rocket landing pads at the Air Force Station. Its drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You,” used for rocket landings at sea, is based in Cape Canaveral, as are two payload fairing recovery ships and a Dragon spacecraft recovery ship.

The Hawthorne, California-based company also has a West Coast launchpad at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, with a second drone ship available for offshore landings. SpaceX’s first rocket, the Falcon 1, launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands of the Pacific Ocean.

Polar launches and a Mobile Service Tower

The new polar trajectory would require missions to fly alongside the Florida coast to reach the correct orbit, which could generate sonic booms. The SpaceNews report, citing a March 2019 assessment by Blue Ridge and Consulting included as an appendix to the FAA’s document, says there would be a “low probability of structure damage (to glass, plaster, roofs, and ceilings) for well-maintained structures” in that area, assuming a peak overpressure of 4.6 pounds per square foot under typical flight trajectory and atmospheric conditions.

The mobile service tower would be used for a variety of launches, including security missions from the United States Air Force. The FAA states it will be built on SpaceX’s existing launch pad at LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center, standing about 284 feet (86 meters) tall and 118 feet (35 meters) wide on its longest side. Any lighting for the tower would be constructed to comply with local environmental regulations concerning sky glow, the FAA added.

SpaceX plans to recover payload fairings, in which satellites are stored during launch, “using power boats to ‘chase and catch’ the chutes and the fairings,” FAA said. SpaceX caught half of a fairing on June 25, 2019 after a Falcon Heavy launch, and it hopes to recover three payload fairings a month between 2020 and 2025. This could lead to an environmental problem.

“During these six years, SpaceX anticipates up to 432 drogue parachutes and up to 432 parafoils would land in the ocean,” the FAA stated. “SpaceX would attempt to recover all parafoils over this time period, but it is possible some of the parafoils would not be recovered due to sea or weather conditions at the time of recovery.” There is a backup available if the power boats fail, which is using a salvage ship that could track down the fairing using GPS data and strobe lights located on the fairing data recorders. That said, recovery could be impossible “if sea or weather conditions are poor,” the FAA said.

SpaceX’s rocket fleet

Of note, the report covers activities from Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches and makes few mentions of Starship, which is SpaceX’s forthcoming larger rocket system that could take on even heavier launches. The FAA noted, however, that “as Starship/Super Heavy launches gradually increase over time to 24 launches per year, the number of Falcon launches would decrease.”

FAA issued the report because “SpaceX’s launch manifest includes more annual Falcon launches and Dragon reentries than were considered in previous … analyses,” the FAA stated in the executive summary. This launch activity could affect both humans and animals in the region — which is relevant since part of the downrange launch zone is a protected area filled with marine mammals, sea turtles, and sharks, the FAA said. That said, the report does not contain a detailed list of which missions would be launched under the accelerated launch schedule.

While few details are available about SpaceX’s plans, in general the company has made announcements that do point to far more launch activity in the coming years. SpaceX is in the midst of building out its Starlink constellation, which could include as many as 42,000 individual satellites. The satellites are being launched into space at a rate of one launch every few weeks.

The company is also planning to launch humans from Florida’s Space Coast for the first time when its Dragon spacecraft is certified under NASA’s Commercial Crew program, which could happen as early as this year. No astronauts have been launched from this area since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011. That said, the normal pace of International Space Station flights from Kazakhstan (the only spot that sends humans to space right now) is about four launches a year, which is an appreciably lower rate than the Starlink lauches.

FAA proposes to modify or issue new launch licenses to SpaceX for Falcon rocket launches, and to issue new licenses for Dragon spacecraft reentry operations. The report is open to public comment until March 20, and the FAA urges all commenters to make their remarks “as specific as possible, and address the analysis of potential environmental impacts and the adequacy of the proposed action or merits of alternatives, and any mitigation being considered.”

A new ban on single-use plastic bags in New York left shoppers used to their old ways shocked at the new changes Sunday.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” letter-carrier Scott Kimmel, 56, told the New York Post while shopping at a Target in College Point, Queens. “I understand about ‘conserve, take care of the environment,’ but c’mon!”

New York officially prohibited stores from handing out most thin plastic bags starting Sunday.

State environmental officials were encouraging New Yorkers to start using reusable bags often made out of canvas or polyester. They said the state has purchased over a quarter-million reusable bags to give out to food pantries and shelters.

“I was totally shocked,” Target shopper Richie Alvarez, 49, added of the change. “This is what our world is coming to. Yeah, they charged me extra for the bag. That’s why I only took one. It would normally be two or three bags.”

The law, which the state passed last April, barred many types of businesses from using the thin plastic bags that have been clogging up landfills, getting tangled in trees and accumulating in lakes and seas.

Single-use paper bags will still be allowed, but counties had the option of imposing a 5-cent fee.

The state has planned to enforce the ban by issuing a warning to stores that violate the law for the first time. Each store eventually could face a $250 fine for a subsequent violation, and a $500 fine for violations in the same calendar year.

New York’s ban exempted bags used for restaurant takeout food, plastic bags used to wrap meat and bags used for prepared food.

“Plastic bags are officially banned,” the city posted on Twitter. “Together, we can create a cleaner future for our city and planet.”

The change seemed to affect residents who are elderly or of lesser means.

“This is nonsense,” said Constance Tripoli, 53, in Brooklyn. “I ain’t got no SUV like the mayor to take my groceries home. I told them I needed bags, and they snuck me a few.”

McDonald’s has blessed March 2 as National Egg McMuffin Day, which is good news for breakfast enthusiasts.

The fast food giant took to Twitter Friday to announce that customers can get a free Egg McMuffin Monday.

“What’s better than breakfast? A FREE Egg McMuffin for breakfast,” the restaurant tweeted.

You can get yours by ordering on the McDonald’s app. It’s free on the App Store and Google Play.

To take advantage, order between 6 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today proposed fines of more than $200 million against the nation’s four largest wireless carriers for selling access to their customers’ location information without taking adequate precautions to prevent unauthorized access to that data. While the fines would be among the largest the FCC has ever levied, critics say the penalties don’t go far enough to deter wireless carriers from continuing to sell customer location data.

The FCC proposed fining T-Mobile $91 million; AT&T faces more than $57 million in fines; Verizon is looking at more than $48 million in penalties; and the FCC said Sprint should pay more than $12 million.

An FCC statement (PDF) said “the size of the proposed fines for the four wireless carriers differs based on the length of time each carrier apparently continued to sell access to its customer location information without reasonable safeguards and the number of entities to which each carrier continued to sell such access.”

The fines are only “proposed” at this point because the carriers still have an opportunity to respond to the commission and contest the figures. The Wall Street Journal first reported earlier this week that the FCC was considering the fines.

The commission said it took action in response to a May 2018 story broken by The New York Times, which exposed how a company called Securus Technologies had been selling location data on customers of virtually any major mobile provider to law enforcement officials.

That same month, KrebsOnSecurity broke the news that LocationSmart — a data aggregation firm working with the major wireless carriers — had a free, unsecured demo of its service online that anyone could abuse to find the near-exact location of virtually any mobile phone in North America.

In response, the carriers promised to “wind down” location data sharing agreements with third-party companies. But in 2019, Joseph Cox at Vice.com showed that little had changed, detailing how he was able to locate a test phone after paying $300 to a bounty hunter who simply bought the data through a little-known third-party service.

Gigi Sohn is a fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law and Policy and a former senior adviser to former FCC Chair Tom Wheeler in 2015. Sohn said this debacle underscores the importance of having strong consumer privacy protections.

“The importance of having rules that protect consumers before they are harmed cannot be overstated,” Sohn said. “In 2016, the Wheeler FCC adopted rules that would have prevented most mobile phone users from suffering this gross violation of privacy and security. But [FCC] Chairman Pai and his friends in Congress eliminated those rules, because allegedly the burden on mobile wireless providers and their fixed broadband brethren would be too great. Clearly, they did not think for one minute about the harm that could befall consumers in the absence of strong privacy protections.”

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a longtime critic of the FCC’s inaction on wireless location data sharing, likewise called for more stringent consumer privacy laws, calling the proposed punishment “comically inadequate fines that won’t stop phone companies from abusing Americans’ privacy the next time they can make a quick buck.”

“Time and again, from Facebook to Equifax, massive companies take reckless disregard for Americans’ personal information, knowing they can write off comparatively tiny fines as the cost of doing business,” Wyden said in a written statement. “The only way to truly protect Americans’ personal information is to pass strong privacy legislation like my Mind Your Own Business Act [PDF] to put teeth into privacy laws and hold CEOs personally responsible for lying about protecting Americans’ privacy.”

Mother Nature has interfered again with a potentially prize-winning launch.

Spaceflight startup Astra had aimed to launch its first-ever orbital mission today (Feb. 29), from the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Alaska’s Kodiak Island. But bad weather — specifically, strong winds and thick clouds — has pushed the attempt back at least another day.

The liftoff is part of the $12 million DARPA Launch Challenge, which seeks to spur the development of private American rockets that can carry small military satellites to orbit cheaply and on short turnarounds. (DARPA is short for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.)

If Astra’s first flight, which is carrying four small payloads, succeeds, the company will get $2 million. Acing a second launch in short order, from a different pad at the Kodiak complex, will bring in an additional $10 million.

The contest rules give Astra 14 days to launch mission number one, as counted from the opening of a DARPA-declared window on Feb. 17. Today was day number 13, which means that tomorrow (March 1) could technically be Astra’s last chance to get off the ground.

But DARPA may give Astra a fair bit of extra time to compensate for the weather, which has not cooperated much of the time. Just four of the 13 days to date have been “green” from a weather perspective, meaning environmental conditions presented no problems, Todd Master, the DARPA program manager for the competition, said during a webcast update today. The other days were either marginal or “red” — a trend that’s likely to continue tomorrow (March 1).

“Tomorrow’s looking like a red day,” Master said. “We’re going to get through today’s operation, see how that goes, and then assess from there.”

The operation he referred to was a portion of the regular launch-day countdown work with Astra’s 38-foot-tall (11.6 meters) Rocket 3.0, which the mission team wants to perform to iron out some kinks identified during a “wet dress rehearsal” yesterday (Feb. 28).

The competition rules call for Astra to get mission number two up by March 18. But that date also assumes no weather-delay compensation.

The DARPA Launch Challenge was announced in 2018, and 18 companies initially expressed interest in competing, Master has said. Three advanced to become “full participants” — Astra, Virgin Orbit and Vector Launch. But Virgin Orbit and Vector Launch dropped out, leaving California-based Astra as the sole competitor.

Astra was founded in 2016 but stayed in stealth mode until earlier this month. The Bay Area company attempted two suborbital test missions in 2018 but has not yet launched an orbital flight.

The program manager in charge of Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule program said Friday that additional checks would have uncovered problems with the spaceship’s software that plagued the craft’s first unpiloted orbital test flight in December, but he pushed back against suggestions that Boeing engineers took shortcuts during ground testing.

Boeing missed a pair of software errors during the Starliner’s Orbital Flight Test. One prevented the spacecraft from docking with the International Space Station, and the other could have resulted in catastrophic damage to the capsule during its return to Earth.

Both errors could have been caught before launch if Boeing had performed more thorough software testing on the ground, according to John Mulholland, vice president and manager of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner program.

Mulholland said Boeing engineers performed testing of Starliner’s software in chunks, with each test focused on a specific segment of the mission. Boeing did not perform an end-to-end test of the entire software suite, and in some cases used stand-ins, or emulators, for flight computers.

“We are recommitting ourselves to the discipline needed to test and qualify our products,” Mulholland said Friday in a conference call with reporters. “The Boeing team is committed to the success of the Starliner program, and we are putting in the time and the resources to move forward.”

The Orbital Flight Test, or OFT, in December was intended to demonstrate the Starliner’s performance in space for the first time ahead of the capsule’s first flight with astronauts this year. The issues that plagued the OFT mission might force Boeing and NASA to plan a second unpiloted test flight before moving on to a crewed mission.

Officials have not decided whether another automated test flight might be required, or said when the Starliner might fly in space again.

Boeing developed the Starliner spacecraft under contract to NASA, which is seeking to end its sole reliance on Russian Soyuz crew capsules to ferry astronauts to and from the space station. NASA awarded Boeing a $4.2 billion contract and SpaceX received a $2.6 billion deal in 2014 to complete development of the Starliner and Crew Dragon spaceships.

The Crew Dragon completed a successful unpiloted test flight to the space station in March 2019, and then demonstrated the capsule’s in-flight launch abort capability in January. Final preparations are underway for the first Crew Dragon flight with astronauts on-board, which could take off as soon as May.

After the OFT mission exposed inadequate testing, Boeing’s engineers are examining every line of Starliner software to ensure teams did not miss any other errors that went undetected during the spacecraft’s December test flight.

“Hindsight uncovered a couple of the issues, but I really don’t want you or anyone to have the impression that this team tried to take shortcuts,” Mulholland said. “They didn’t. They did an abundance of testing, and in certain areas, obviously, we have gaps to go fill. But this is an incredibly talented and strong team.”

One of the software problems was immediately apparent after the Starliner’s otherwise successful ascent into space Dec. 20 from Cape Canaveral aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. A mission elapsed timer on the capsule had a wrong setting, causing the spacecraft to miss a planned engine firing soon after separating from the Atlas 5’s Centaur upper stage.

The orbit insertion burn was required to inject the Starliner capsule into a stable orbit and begin its pursuit of the space station. After the automated sequence failed due to the on-board timer setting, ground controllers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston had to uplink manual commands for the Starliner spacecraft to perform the orbit insertion burn, but the ship burned too much fuel during the process, leaving insufficient propellant to rendezvous and dock with the space station.

Ground teams in Houston also encountered trouble establishing a stable communications link with the Starliner when they attempted to send commands for the orbit insertion burn, further delaying the start of the maneuver. Boeing says ground teams had issues connecting with the spacecraft on more than 30 additional occasions during the Starliner’s two-day test flight.

With a docking to the space station no longer possible, mission managers cut short the Starliner test flight and targeted a landing of the capsule at White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico, on Dec. 22.

After the mission timer problem, Boeing engineers reviewed other segments of the Starliner’s software code to search for other problem areas. They uncovered another software error that was missed in pre-flight testing, which could have caused the Starliner’s service module to slam into the craft’s crew module after the ship’s two elements separated just before re-entry into the atmosphere.

Controllers sent a software patch to the Starliner spacecraft to resolve the potential problem before it performed a deorbit burn to aim for landing in New Mexico.

Mulholland said Friday that more extensive testing before the Starliner test flight would have revealed the software errors.

Engineers traced the mission elapsed time problem to a coding error that caused the Starliner spacecraft retrieve the wrong time from the Atlas 5 rocket’s flight control system. The Starliner set its internal clocks based on a time captured from the Atlas 5’s computer hours before launch, when it should have retrieved the time from the launch vehicle in the terminal countdown.

Joint software simulations between Boeing and ULA focused only on the launch sequence, when the Starliner spacecraft is attached to the Atlas 5 rocket. The simulations ended at the time of the capsule’s deployment from the launcher, but testing would have revealed the timing error if the simulations continued through the time of the orbit insertion burn, which was scheduled to occur around a half-hour after liftoff.

“If we had run that integrated test for a number of minutes longer, it would have uncovered the issue,” Mulholland said.

“I think the sensitivity of this mission elapsed time was not recognized by the team and wasn’t believed to be an important aspect of the mission, so ideally we would have run that (software test) through at least … the first orbital insertion burn,” Mulholland said. “So from a hindsight standpoint, I think it’s very easy to see what we should have done because we uncovered an error.

“If we would have run the integrated test with ULA through the first orbital insertion burn timeframe, we would have seen that we would have missed the orbital insertion burn because the timing was corrupt,” he said. “When we got to that point in time, the software believed that the burn had happened many hours before, so it didn’t do the burn.”

Mulholland said Boeing teams thought it was more logical to break the Starliner mission phases into pieces, and run software testing on each segment of the flight.

“When you do a single run from launch to docking, that’s a 25-plus-hour single run in the computer,” he said.

“The team, at the time, decided that they would have multiple tests of different chunks of the mission,” Mulholland said. “It was not a matter at all of the team consciously shortcutting, or not doing what they believed was appropriate.”

Before every future Starliner mission, Boeing will run longer tests in software integration labs encompassing all events from launch through docking with the space station, then from undocking through landing, according to Mulholland.

Mulholland said more thorough testing could have also revealed the mis-configured software needed to safely jettison the Starliner’s service module before re-entry. Without a software patch, the service module, or propulsion element, could have rammed back into the crew module after separation, damaging the ship’s heat shield, or worse.

A propulsion controller is responsible for coordinating thruster burns on the service module to ensure it does not recontact the crew module after separation, which occurs after the Starliner’s deorbit burn and before re-entry.

The service module is designed to burn up in the atmosphere, while the reusable crew module descends back to Earth protected by a heat shield.

The propulsion controller on the Starliner service module is based on a design used by another program, and its software was improperly configured for the service module’s disposal burn after separating from the crew module, Mulholland said. The propulsion controller had a wrong “jet map,” which contains information about the service module’s thrusters and valves.

The Starliner uses two different jet maps: One when the entire spacecraft is connected — when the crew module computers command thruster firings — and another for the disposal burn after the service module is jettisoned.

“The only thing that was picked up was the one jet map for the integrated spacecraft, and we missed the jet map that was required for the service after separation,” Mulholland said.

He said software testing for the propulsion controller used an emulator, or a simulated component, rather than the actual controller intended to fly on the Starliner spacecraft. When Boeing ran the software simulation, the real propulsion controller was being used for test-firings of the service module thrusters in New Mexico.

“While that propulsion controller was outside supporting that other test was when they ran the qualification test of that section of the software, and because we had an incorrect emulator (and) it didn’t have the correct jet mapping, that issue was not uncovered during the qualification test,” Mulholland said. “Because that hardware was returned to the lab, we were able to, during the mission, re-run that sequence, identify the jet mapping issue and upload the software fix before we did the re-entry burn.”

One of many improvements Boeing says it is implementing is a requirement to ensure the proper hardware, avionics boxes and other components are included in future software tests.

“So if it is important to have a specific piece of avionics in the lab, we’ll be required to have that in there before we actually run the qualification test,” Mulholland said.

Another problem encountered during the Starliner test flight involved the ship’s communications link with NASA’s network of Tracking and Data Relay Satellites.

The spacecraft had trouble locking onto the TDRS network 37 times during the two-day test flight in December, according to Mulholland. Boeing engineers have identified the cause of one of the communications interruptions, which was caused by an explainable “false lock” condition, Mulholland said.

The other 36 instances of an unexpected communications outage all occurred over northern Europe and Russia, including on the Starliner’s first pass over the region minutes after launching from Florida. That’s when ground teams had trouble sending a command for the spacecraft to perform an orbit insertion burn after the mission elapsed timing error.

An independent review team chartered to investigate the problems that cropped up on the Starliner test flight is nearing the end of its inquiry. The results of the investigation will be announced next Friday, March 6.

But Mulholland said engineers are still looking into the communications issues, and a final verdict on the cause of the radio link interruptions is not expected next week.

Despite the problems in flight, the Starliner spacecraft safely returned to Earth and post-landing inspections show it can be flown again, Boeing says.

The ship’s heat shield and parachutes performed well, as did the Starliner’s life support systems, Mulholland said. Boeing was also able to test the functionality of the capsule’s docking system, but teams were unable to fully check the performance of the Starliner’s rendezvous and navigation sensors because the spacecraft did not dock with the space station.

Boeing technicians at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida are readying a second Starliner vehicle for the next test flight, whether it is a redo of the unpiloted OFT mission, or the first test flight with astronauts on-board.