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MWC Barcelona is an annual opportunity for connections and collaboration across the telecommunications industry. Over 100,000 people attended this year’s event, which ran from 3 to 6 March and showcased almost 3,000 exhibitors. Darwin’s Irving Galva Tapia was present at the show, speaking about Darwin’s work with autonomous vehicles and ubiquitous communications. Irving had the opportunity to meet with Darwin’s partners, including the UK Space Agency (UKSA), the European Space Agency and Virgin Media O2, and to speak to other organisations about potential collaborations. In particular, Wednesday’s ‘Accelerated Journey to Autonomous Driving’ session was a great opportunity to connect with other professionals in the autonomous driving industry. At the UKSA stand, visitors could watch a short video about Darwin’s work. This video gave a quick overview of the Darwin Autonomous Shuttle, and looked ahead to Darwin’s future work installing self-driving transportation services in ports. As ports have heavy transportation needs, with constant movement of people and goods, they’re in the perfect position to benefit from self-driving vehicles. We’re looking forward to beginning our deployment of autonomous vehicles in UK ports later this year, with mainland Europe to follow in 2026. Darwin Innovation Group is a UK-based company that provides services related to autonomous vehicles and communications. If you’d like to know how we can help your organisation make use of autonomous vehicles, contact us. You can also follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter.

As the first crewed moon landing, Apollo 11 gets a lot of attention, but there’s plenty to discuss about the later landings as well. Today, we’re going to talk about Apollo 12, humanity’s second visit to the moon’s surface. Apollo 12 launched on 14 November 1969, four months after Apollo 11, with a crew consisting of commander Pete Conrad, lunar module pilot Alan Bean and command module pilot Dick Gordon. For a quick rundown of what these roles mean, you can take a look at our article about the Apollo spacecraft. Apollo 12 lightning strike Apollo 12 had a slightly alarming start. Less than a minute after liftoff, the rocket was hit by lightning twice, causing most of the onboard systems to fail. John Aaron, a flight controller at NASA’s mission control centre, advised the crew to switch the signal conditioning equipment (SCE) to auxiliary power, which enabled them to resolve the issues and continue the mission. Aaron’s role in Apollo 12 is a reminder that the moon landings relied on many people for their success. The astronauts themselves played the most visible role, but they were supported by a huge number of people: people overseeing the mission, people designing systems, people building equipment. These people may not have walked on the moon themselves, but they helped to bring the crew there. If something went wrong, the team on ground level would work quickly; the instruction to switch the SCE to auxiliary power reached the crew just sixty seconds after the first lightning strike. If you’re wondering why present-day launches often seem to be delayed because of weather conditions, a large part of this is to reduce the risk of lightning strikes like the ones Apollo 12 suffered. Because rockets can trigger lightning while flying through electrically charged clouds (this BBC article on Apollo 12 describes the rocket as essentially becoming a conductive rod), it’s important to be cautious. After the Atlas-Centaur rocket AC-67 was destroyed by lightning while attempting to launch a satellite on 26 March 1987, a Lightning Advisory Panel was created and laid out specific rules for the conditions in which rockets could be launched. Precision landing on the moon Fortunately, despite the rocky start to the mission, Apollo 12 made it safely to the moon. In fact, it landed on the moon with impressive precision. The main goal of the earlier Apollo 11 was to land humans on the moon and return them to Earth. It had landed about four miles from the site it was aiming for, but simply landing on the moon was more important than landing at precisely the right location. One of the goals of Apollo 12, however, was to retrieve parts from the uncrewed spacecraft Surveyor 3, which had been on the moon for two and a half years. To achieve this goal, it needed to be landed precisely, and it did indeed manage to touch down only about 500 feet from Surveyor 3. This was an important achievement, not just for Apollo 12 but for future missions. It’s a lot easier to plan activities on the moon if you know that it’s possible to land at a specific chosen location. As a mission, Apollo 12 was lighter in tone than Apollo 11. When Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon during Apollo 11, his first words were, ‘That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.’ Less famously, Apollo 12’s Conrad, who was five inches shorter than Armstrong, stepped onto the moon and declared, ‘Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that’s a long one for me.’ Conrad’s first words were, in fact, the result of a bet he’d made with a journalist. The journalist was convinced that the government dictated what astronauts should say when they stepped onto the lunar surface. By saying something silly, Conrad demonstrated to the world that astronauts were able to choose their own first words on the moon. Dangerous dust During Apollo 11, Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon for just two and a half hours. Apollo 12’s crew spent much longer outside the lunar lander: over seven hours across two different excursions. This meant that the Apollo 12 crew had more time to explore, make observations and collect samples. However, it also meant they had a larger problem with lunar dust. Inevitably, while Conrad and Bean were exploring on the moon, the dust of the lunar surface ended up on their boots, equipment and spacesuits. When they went back inside the lunar lander, the dust came with them. As they lifted off and returned to lunar orbit, the dust began to float, suddenly presenting dangers; it could be breathed in, get into the astronauts’ eyes or clog up the equipment. ‘The LM [lunar module] was filthy dirty, and it has so much dust and debris floating around in it that I took my helmet off and almost blinded myself,’ Conrad reported. ‘I immediately got my eyes full of junk, and I had to put my helmet back on.’ Due to the lack of wind or flowing water, there are almost no natural processes of erosion on the moon. This meant that the dust particles were sharp and hard-edged, like ground glass, making the dust particularly unpleasant to deal with. Conrad and Bean tried to vacuum the dust off each other, without much success. In the end, to minimise the amount of dust they brought back into the main spacecraft from the lunar lander, they had to strip naked for the transfer between spacecraft. Having learnt from the Apollo 12 crew’s experience, later Apollo missions would carry a large brush that the crew could use to dust themselves down before entering the lunar module. Success in spite of struggles Apollo 12 was planned to be the first mission to broadcast footage in colour from the moon’s surface, whereas Apollo 11’s moon landing was broadcast in black and white. However, there’s not much video footage from the Apollo 12 landing, on account of a mishap: when Alan Bean was setting up the camera on the moon, he accidentally pointed it at the sun, destroying the image. Between the dust issues, the lightning on liftoff and the camera trouble, Apollo 12 was a mission with its share of problems. However, it was undoubtedly a success; the mission reached the moon, the lander touched down at the chosen location, and the astronauts returned safely to Earth. The next Apollo mission would deal with a more serious issue. In the next article in our Apollo series, we’ll be talking about Apollo 13. Darwin Innovation Group is a UK-based company that provides services related to autonomous vehicles and communications. If you’re interested in working with us, take a look at our careers page. If you’d like to know how we can help your organisation make use of autonomous vehicles, contact us. You can also follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter.

In June, the European Space Agency (ESA) published the report ‘Space for Automotive: Use Cases and Market Opportunities’. This report looks at how modern technology is transforming the automotive industry, and at the role the space industry can play. In particular, the report talks about the importance of reliable connectivity for modern vehicles, especially self-driving vehicles. Rural areas, which are often underserved by public transport, could see strong benefits from self-driving vehicles. However, ESA notes that drivers on major European routes are disconnected for an estimated 12.4% of the time, particularly in rural areas. This creates a challenge: how do autonomous vehicles remain connected in areas with poor connectivity? Darwin was originally founded to address this challenge, and ESA’s support has played an important role in our work. The key to reliable connectivity lies in combining terrestrial networks with satellites. A vehicle is only able to connect to a terrestrial network if there’s a communications tower within range. This is why communications are less reliable in rural areas, which tend to have fewer communications towers than cities. However, if a vehicle is given the ability to communicate with satellites, it can remain connected anywhere it has a direct line of sight to the sky, making satellites ideal for rural connectivity. Darwin’s Hybrid User Terminal technology switches seamlessly between networks depending on availability, allowing vehicles to remain connected without interruption while driving. If a vehicle drives beyond the range of one network, another network will already be connected and ready to go. As the terminal can connect to both terrestrial and satellite networks, it can quickly adapt to changes in environment and pick up a signal almost anywhere. You can find ESA’s quick profile of Darwin’s work on page five of the report, but we’ve also included it below: Darwin Innovation Group, founded in 2019 with the goal of achieving reliable and widespread connectivity in autonomous driving, has developed a solution that combines terrestrial and satellite communications to overcome the limitations of each. Crucial to their success has been the support of the European Space Agency under the 5G/6G programme, which provided both funding and expertise to carry out the project. Traditional terrestrial networks often fail in remote areas or when a car moves in and out of range. Satellite networks, on the other hand, offer broad coverage but can be expensive and complex to integrate. By combining these technologies, Darwin’s Hybrid User Terminal seamlessly switches between networks, ensuring a constant connection for users on the move. This is particularly important for connected and autonomous vehicles. By gathering data from these vehicles, [Darwin] are not only improving their own services but also helping partners in the insurance sector, such as Aviva. With reliable connectivity, these vehicles can bridge gaps in rural public transport, reducing both dependence on single-occupancy vehicles and emissions. The full ESA report is available here. Take a look to learn more about how the automotive sector is changing, and about how the space sector can offer its support. Darwin Innovation Group is a UK-based company that provides services related to autonomous vehicles and communications. If you’re interested in working with us, take a look at our careers page. If you’d like to know how we can help your organisation make use of autonomous vehicles, contact us. You can also follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter.

We’ve already given a general overview of the Apollo moon landings and the Apollo spacecraft, and we’ve talked about Apollo 7 to Apollo 10. Over the rest of our Apollo article series, we’ll be taking a closer look at each of the individual Apollo missions from Apollo 11, the first crewed moon landing, to Apollo 17, the last time to date that humanity set foot on the lunar surface. As the first time humans walked on the moon, Apollo 11 is the Apollo mission you’ll hear most people talking about. In today’s post we’ll take a look at how Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made it to the moon’s surface, and at what stayed behind when they left. The Apollo 11 crew and patch You’ve probably already heard the names of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the first two people to walk on the moon. Armstrong was the commander and Aldrin was the lunar module pilot; you can read more about these roles in our post on the Apollo spacecraft. Michael Collins isn’t as much of a household name, but he played an essential role in Apollo 11 as the command module pilot. While Armstrong and Aldrin went down to the lunar surface, Collins remained in the main body of the spacecraft, orbiting the moon alone, to help ensure they would be able to return safely. Collins also designed the emblem for the mission patch, showing a bald eagle coming in to land on the moon. The emblems for previous crewed Apollo missions had included the names of the crew, but the Apollo 11 crew decided to leave their names off it, as they wanted the patch to represent all the many people who had made the moon landing possible. The eagle on the patch is carrying an olive branch: a symbol of peace. Originally, it was planned to be carrying this branch in its beak. Due to concerns that the eagle’s extended talons looked too warlike, the design was changed so it was instead gripping the branch with its feet. The lunar module for the Apollo 11 mission was named Eagle, leading to Armstrong’s famous phrase ‘The Eagle has landed’ when it touched down on the moon. Apollo 11 launch, landing and global impact Like all the Apollo missions from Apollo 8 onwards, Apollo 11 took off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch took place on 16 July 1969, and a few days later Neil Armstrong became the first person to step onto the surface of the moon, at the landing site that he and Aldrin had named ‘Tranquility Base’. The moon landing was a huge event, and the black-and-white live broadcast was watched by an estimated 650 million people around the world: close to a fifth of the global population at the time. If you were around in 1969, there’s a good chance you remember watching it. For the UK, Armstrong stepped onto the moon at around 4 am on 21 July, and BBC One stayed on air throughout the night to cover the event; it was the BBC’s first all-night broadcast. If you’re interested in how the moon landing felt for the people on the ground, the Guardian has an interesting collection of accounts from members of the public. What did Armstrong and Aldrin do on the moon? Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spent 21 hours and 36 minutes on the moon, but most of that time was spent inside the lunar lander. They were actually on the moon’s surface, outside the lander, for about two and a half hours on a single excursion. After the crew of Apollo 11 had tested the waters, later Apollo astronauts would spend longer periods on the surface of the moon. Like later Apollo astronauts, the Apollo 11 crew had undergone scientific training as well as training in how to operate the spacecraft. They’d been educated in various scientific fields, with a focus on geology, so they would be able to make meaningful scientific observations on the moon. In NASA’s transcript of Armstrong and Aldrin stepping onto the surface, the astronauts report various details about the lunar surface and the physics of moving around on the moon: Armstrong: The surface appears to be very, very fine grained, as you get close to it. It's almost like a powder ... I can kick it up loosely with my toe. It does adhere in fine layers, like powdered charcoal, to the sole and sides of my boots ... There seems to be no difficulty in moving around – as we suspected. It's even perhaps easier than the simulations of one-sixth [gravity] that we performed in the various simulations on the ground. It's absolutely no trouble to walk around. Aldrin: The mass of the backpack does have some effect in inertia ... Traction seems quite good ... You do have to be rather careful to keep track of where your centre of mass is. Sometimes, it takes about two or three paces to make sure you've got your feet underneath you. Apollo 11 also gathered about 21 kg of lunar dust, soil and rocks to be returned to Earth for later study. Decades later, some of this soil would be used in experiments to determine whether it might be possible to grow plants on the moon. While on the moon’s surface, Armstrong and Aldrin received a call from Richard Nixon, the US president at the time, to congratulate them on their achievement. ‘For one priceless moment in the whole history of man,’ the president said, ‘all the people on this Earth are truly one: one in their pride in what you have done, and one in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth.’ After their moonwalk, Armstrong and Aldrin tried to sleep in the lunar lander before leaving the moon. The original plan had been for them to sleep before stepping onto the surface instead, but they had asked permission to do the moonwalk first, as they were understandably excited to explore. The astronauts struggled to sleep on the moon. The lunar lander was cramped, noisy, too cold and too bright, and there was nothing to use as a bed. NASA learnt from Armstrong and Aldrin’s uncomfortable experience, and later Apollo missions were equipped with blankets and hammocks. What did Apollo 11 leave on the moon? As mentioned, Apollo 11 collected some material from the moon’s surface, but it also left some things behind. Some of these were tools such as tongs, scoops and a hammer, discarded to save weight, but others were more significant. The Apollo 11 crew placed several items on the moon to honour fellow spacefarers who had passed away, both from their own country and from overseas. Armstrong and Aldrin left behind an Apollo 1 patch, honouring Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, the crew of Apollo 1, who were killed in a fire during a launch rehearsal. They also left two Soviet medals that had been awarded posthumously to the Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov. One item left on the moon was a coin-sized silicon disc inscribed with microscopic messages of goodwill from the leaders of 73 countries. You can read the messages over here. The Apollo 11 crew installed a retroreflector on the moon: an array of mirrors, designed to reflect a beam of light back the way it came rather than at an angle. Similar retroreflectors were also left on the moon by Apollo 14 and Apollo 15. The retroreflectors left behind by the Apollo missions are used to this day to measure the exact distance between the Earth and the moon, by bouncing laser pulses off the reflectors and calculating how long it takes the light to return to Earth. It’s not far off the way LiDAR works. Perhaps most famously, Apollo 11 left behind an American flag, with a horizontal bar holding it up at the top to prevent it from drooping in the absence of wind. This flag was purely a symbolic gesture, rather than an attempt to claim the moon as US territory, as the 1967 Outer Space Treaty declares that nations cannot claim ownership of celestial bodies. The flag wasn’t standing for long, though. Aldrin saw it being knocked over by the exhaust as the lunar lander took off. The flags planted by later Apollo missions were set down further from the lander. Speaking of the lunar lander, the lower part of it remained on the moon. As we mentioned in our article on the Apollo spacecraft, the lunar module was divided into a lower descent stage and an upper ascent stage. When it was time for Armstrong and Aldrin to return to the main Apollo spacecraft, the ascent stage used the descent stage as a launchpad to take off, leaving the descent stage of the lander on the moon. There’s also a plaque at the Apollo 11 landing site, attached to the descent stage of the lunar lander. Above the signatures of the three Apollo 11 crew members and President Nixon, the plaque reads: Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon July 1969, AD We came in peace for all mankind Similar plaques were left to commemorate all the Apollo landings that followed. To emphasise the message of peace, Neil Armstrong left behind a small olive branch symbol made of gold. You can see it in the below message from the NASA History Office’s Twitter account: Here's a fun fact you might not know about the Moon landing: This small olive branch crafted in gold was left on the Moon's surface by the Apollo 11 crew. Astronaut Neil Armstrong left it to emphasize that they came in peace for all humankind. pic.twitter.com/jVQQktNQ4m— NASA History Office (@NASAhistory) July 21, 2020 Perhaps most strikingly, Armstrong and Aldrin left behind their own footprints. With no wind or rain to disturb them, the footprints of the first people to walk on the moon are still there after five decades and will probably remain for a long time. Images: NASA Darwin Innovation Group is a UK-based company that provides services related to autonomous vehicles and communications. If you’re interested in working with us, take a look at our careers page. If you’d like to know how we can help your organisation make use of autonomous vehicles, contact us. You can also follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Our Apollo article series is getting closer to humanity’s first steps on the moon, taken during Apollo 11. Before that, though, we’re going to take a look at Apollo 9 and Apollo 10. These crewed missions tested the spacecraft’s lunar module, making sure that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin would be able to land safely on the moon’s surface a few months later. Apollo 9 Apollo 9 launched on 3 March 1969. The crew were commander Jim McDivitt, lunar module pilot Rusty Schweickart and command module pilot Dave Scott. Scott would return to space two years later as the commander of Apollo 15, so we’ll be talking more about him in a later article. Although Apollo 8 had travelled all the way to the moon, the Apollo 9 mission was conducted closer to home. Apollo 9 flew in low Earth orbit, its altitude varying between about 200 and 500 km. For comparison, the International Space Station, which had its first launch about three decades later, orbits at an altitude of about 400 km. This was the first mission to test the performance of the Apollo spacesuit outside a spacecraft. Schweickart went out into space in the suit and spent a little under an hour spacewalking, ensuring that the suit’s life support systems functioned correctly. This suit would later be used by astronauts walking on the moon. It was absolutely essential for the spacesuits to work correctly. In order for the Apollo astronauts to survive on the moon’s surface, their suits needed to address many different issues. You can learn about some of the Apollo spacesuit’s functions in our first Apollo article. Apollo 9 was also the first flight to take the Apollo lunar module into space. The lunar module was the part of the spacecraft that was designed to take the astronauts down to the moon’s surface and return them to the main spacecraft afterwards. It wouldn’t be anywhere near the moon on this occasion, but the mission was an opportunity to ensure it could be flown as expected. During the mission, the crew detached the lunar module from the command and service module, which formed the main body of the Apollo spacecraft. McDivitt and Schweickart flew the lunar module for several hours before docking with the main spacecraft and joining Scott in the command module. Before detaching the lunar module, the crew also tested the lunar module’s engine while docked to the main spacecraft, to see whether the lunar module could provide backup propulsion for the spacecraft as a whole if the main engine in the service module failed. During the later Apollo 13 mission, that possibility of engine trouble became a reality. After an explosion in the service module compromised the spacecraft’s fuel cells, the Apollo 13 crew had to rely on the lunar module’s engine to get them safely home. In a later article, we’ll talk in more depth about Apollo 13. Apollo 10 Apollo 10 took off on 18 May 1969, crewed by commander Tom Stafford, lunar module pilot Gene Cernan and command module pilot John Young. Young and Cernan would later command their own missions to the moon; Young walked on the lunar surface during Apollo 16, and Cernan during Apollo 17. Each Apollo mission had its own name for the spacecraft. In the case of Apollo 10, the command module was named Charlie Brown and the lunar module was named Snoopy, after the characters from the Peanuts comic strip. It’s not the only time Snoopy has been to space; he was also aboard Artemis I in the form of a soft toy. Apollo 10 was essentially a full rehearsal for the planned moon landing during Apollo 11. The spacecraft reached the moon and went into lunar orbit. Stafford and Cernan took the lunar module close to the moon’s surface and returned in it to the main spacecraft, as if they were performing a moon landing, although they didn’t actually land; at their closest point, they were about 14 km from the moon. NASA wanted to be certain that everything would work as expected for the actual landing. There was an alarming moment when Stafford and Cernan fired the lunar module’s engines and, due to an incorrectly positioned switch, the module started spinning wildly. This was a case of human error, which is something that also affects Earth-based vehicles and which self-driving vehicles may help to reduce. Fortunately, they were able to get the situation under control and returned safely to the main spacecraft. The Apollo 10 crew returned to Earth at 39,938 km/h: the fastest speed at which humans have ever travelled. The rehearsal had been a success, and, with the knowledge gathered from this mission and the ones preceding it, humanity was finally ready to land on the moon. Two months later, during Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong would become the first person to step onto the lunar surface. We’ll talk more about that mission in the next article of our Apollo series. Cover image: NASA Darwin Innovation Group is a UK-based company that provides services related to autonomous vehicles and communications. If you’re interested in working with us, take a look at our careers page. If you’d like to know how we can help your organisation make use of autonomous vehicles, contact us. You can also follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter.