China has sent the first-ever quantum communications satellite to space onboard a Long March-2D rocket, China’s state-run news agency Xinhua reported Aug. 16.

The Quantum Experiments at Space Scale satellite took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern Gobi Desert toward a sun-synchronous orbit and the spacecraft will navigate around the Earth every 90 minutes, according to Xinhua.

Xinhua reports the satellite is intended to transmit secured keys to the ground as part of a two-year mission to establish quantum communications.

QUESS is designed to help scientists test quantum key transmission from the satellite to ground stations and perform quantum communications between Beijing and Xinjiang’s Urumqi, according to the report.

The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory‘s optical sciences division has detected acoustic emissions from cracks in riveted lap joints with a new fiber laser-acoustic emission sensor during a demonstration for that technology.

Researchers inserted distributed feedback fiber laser acoustic emission sensors in riveted aluminum lap joints and measured acoustic emission for two hours over a bandwidth of 0.5 megahertz during the test, NRL said Wednesday.

The test also demonstrated that the sensors could fix low-level acoustic events generated by the so-called fretting from the riveted joint.

“Our research team has demonstrated the ability of this fiber laser technology to detect acoustic emission at ultrasonic frequencies from cracks generated in a simulated fatigue environment,” said Geoffrey Cranch, a research physicist for NRL’s optical sciences division.

“An automated, in-situ structural health monitoring system, capable of monitoring key structural parameters such as temperature, strain, impacts and cracks, and capable of reliably detecting damage well before reaching a critical level is needed to increase safety and readiness while lowering operational cost of Navy platforms.”

Based on the demonstration, the fiber laser sensor could also measure compromising impacts and operate with current fiber optic strain and temperature sensing systems to help fulfill operational safety requirements for an SHM system.

India and the U.S. will sign a memorandum of agreement meant to provide both countries access to each other’s supplies and services, Defense News reported Tuesday.

Vivek Raghuvanshi writes the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement will be signed during the visit of Indian Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar to the U.S. in late August.

LEMOA specifically gives India access to U.S. bases in the Indian Ocean, according to the report.

The LEMOA pact was part of the agenda discussed by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter with Parrikar during his official visit to India in April.

A Congressional Budget Office report predicts the federal budget deficit to hit $590 billion in fiscal year 2016, a figure $56 billion higher than the agency’s shortfall projection in March and $152 billion up from the previous fiscal year.

CBO said Tuesday it forecasts public debt to rise from $14 trillion by the end of 2016 to $23 trillion, or 86 percent of gross domestic product, by the end of 2026 due to the increase in budget deficit.

The agency also predicts annual federal outlays to increase by $2.4 trillion to 23.1 percent of GDP by 2026 driven by growth in interest payments and mandatory spending.

The budget shortfall will climb from 3.2 percent of GDP in 2016 to 4.6 percent of GDP in 2026, according to the report.

CBO expects revenues to gradually rise from 17.8 percent of GDP or $3.3 trillion in 2016 to 18.5 percent of GDP or approximately $5 trillion by 2026.

The agency also lowered its 10-year cumulative deficit forecast from $9.3 trillion to $8.6 trillion between 2017 and 2026, a $0.7 trillion drop from its estimated deficit in March.

NASA has re-established contact with one of its sun-watching spacecraft after 22 months of communication attempts.

The space agency said Sunday its Deep Space Network was able to connect with the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatories spacecraft’s downlink signal during a monthly recovery operation.

The connection allowed the mission operations team to determine STEREO-B’s attitude and power down the transmitter high voltage in an effort to conserve battery, NASA added.

The team plans to continue the recovery process to evaluate the sun observatory’s health, subsystems and instruments as well as reset attitude control.

NASA said it lost communications with STEREO-B on Oct. 1, 2014, during a trial of its command loss timer, which works to perform a hard reset when the spacecraft loses communications for 72 hours, as part of preparation for solar conjunction.

The test aimed to prepare STEREO-B for when its line of sight to Earth gets blocked by the sun and it loses communication functions.

The Lone Star UAS Center of Excellence and Innovation at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and NASA have inked an agreement to develop opportunities for Texas A&M researchers to access NASA’s information network and exchange unmanned aerial system flight data.

Under the new agreement with the NASA Ames Research Center, LSUASC will have the authority to monitor a space agency UAS flight in real time on a live map in LSUASC’s Mission Control Center, Texas A&M-UCC said Aug. 11.

NASA awarded LSUASC a contract to document and update information security practices and complete an Interconnection Security Agreement that sets the guidelines for links of information technology systems operated by two separate organizations.

“This new connection gives us the capability to pass live and simulated UAS data within NASA’s secure information network,” said Melanie Neely Willis, LSUASC assistant director.

The Island University’s Division of Information Technology assisted in the network updates and Lionel Cassin, information security officer, led the development of secure procedures for LSUASC.