What's past is prologue (2/9/23)

Good morning. Happy Birthday to Mo Islam, Payload’s fearless leader. Another trip around the sun. Our bday gift to Mo is not saying how many trips around the sun.

In today’s edition…
🤖 Bard fumbles JWST answer
📡 SpaceX’s spectrum switcheroo
📝 This week’s meaty contract report

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BardAI Struggles with Space

The brave new world of large language models (LLMs) has finally dealt us a space angle.

This week, accompanying a Paris event to preview its new Bard chatbot, Google released an ad about the ChatGPT competitor. The issue? Bard confidently shared an incorrect answer about JWST.

The incorrect answer, first shared Monday but widely circulated Wednesday, sent shares of Google parent Alphabet ($GOOG) tumbling by more than 7%.

The fault, dear Google…As part of a demo video for BardAI, Google posed the question, “What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9 year old about?” In response, the AI announced that JWST “took the very first pictures of a planet outside of our solar system.”

The problem, really, lies not in the facts, but in ourselves the phrasing. JWST took the first images of HIP 65426 b, an exoplanet that had not been imaged before, last year. The first image of any exoplanet was taken in 2004 by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope.

All that glitters is not gold: ChatGPT, BardAI, and other LLMs are impressive tools and respond to users’ queries very confidently, but they’re frequently flat-out wrong.

“It perfectly shows the most important weakness of statistical systems,” Carissa Véliz at the University of Oxford told New Scientist. “These systems are designed to give plausible answers, depending on statistical analysis—they’re not designed to give out truthful answers.”

Still, chatbot interfaces are catching on. On Tuesday, Microsoft announced that it is integrating a souped-up version of ChatGPT with Bing search and the Edge browser to return more tailored answers to queries. Google has similar plans with Bard. Not to be outdone, Chinese search giant Baidu has its own LLM plans in the works.

What’s past is prologue: Bard’s JWST flub helped wipe as much as $100B from Alphabet’s market cap yesterday. Now, Google is looking to make sure it doesn’t repeat its mistake.

“This highlights the importance of a rigorous testing process, something that we’re kicking off this week with our Trusted Tester program,” a Google spokesperson told New Scientist. “We’ll combine external feedback with our own internal testing to make sure Bard’s responses meet a high bar for quality, safety and groundedness in real-world information.”

The best advice comes from the Bard himself: “Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall.”

+ While we’re here: ChatGPT is struggling with rocket science…

A Spectrum Switcheroo

SpaceX withdrew three applications with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for mobile Starlink services on Tuesday, only to resubmit revised regulatory filings based on Gen2 satellites the same day.

Care to get really in the weeds? The spectrum filing switcheroo, noted by telco lawyer Ryan Thompson, took place Tuesday.

• Out…these three filings.

• In…This filing for the PCS (personal communications services) G block, and this filing for the L- and S-bands.

Just like swords: Satellite operators live and die by spectrum rights. As Payload wrote last July, “there are three certainties in life: death, taxes, and fights over spectrum rights.” And SpaceX’s Starlink unit is making multiple spectrum plays to facilitate the rollout of additional mobile satellite services (MSS) over US airwaves.

MSS refresher: MSS systems offer two-way voice and data communications to users on the go (or remote devices). Fixed satellite services provide communications between specific points. Satellite-to-cell, direct-to-smartphone, satellite-to-smartphone…whatever term you prefer, it’s a next-gen technology architecture seeking to connect satellites to handsets and provide cellular service from space, it falls into the MSS bucket.

The significance: Spectrum is a precious commodity and finite resource. Through its acquisition of Sprint, T-Mobile owns the rights to the PCS block that SpaceX is interested in using to provide MSS via Starlink V2 sats. That shouldn’t be an issue, given SpaceX and T-Mobile’s alliance.

But Dish and Apple partner Globalstar use (or are entitled to use) the other spectrum bands that SpaceX is eyeing. And at the end of the day, something’s gotta give.

In Other News…

• Airbus is integrating three European Service Modules in its Bremen cleanrooms.

• Small launchers are feeling the dual pressures of Transporter rideshares and increased competition.

• Ingenuity completed its 42nd Martian flight, learning the meaning of life.

• SpaceX says it will attempt a 33-Raptor static fire today.

• Firefly is targeting May for its first mission with the Space Force.

The Contract Report

• Maxar ($MAXR) won a $192M IDIQ contract from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) to provide satellite imagery to US partners (via Payload.)

• Iridium ($IRDM) and the Nat Geo Society have formed a philanthropic partnership to use portable satcom devices to support Explorer-led work.

• Anuvu has selected Telesat ($TSAT) to provide antennas and ground infrastructure for its Astranis-built MicroGEO satellites, which are on track to launch in mid-2023 and enter commercial service by year-end.

• Ovzon remanifested Ovzon 3. Rather than riding with Arianespace, the company has signed a launch services deal with SpaceX to deploy the satellite.

• Sateliot and Sentrisense struck a deal to provide space-based connectivity to remote power lines and grid infrastructure.

• CACI International ($CACI), a Virginia-based defense contractor, entered into a five-year CRADA with the US Army to develop payload technologies, space sensor applications, and resilient PNT services.

• Galaxy Broadband, a Canadian satellite internet provider, signed a multi-year deal with OneWeb to buy $50M of capacity (NB: the deal was announced Feb. 1).

• Hydrosat won a $1.2M contract from AFWERX to study how thermal infrared data can be used for national security applications.

• Momentus ($MNTS) agreed to fly a PocketPod for FOSSA Systems on a Vigoride mission later this year.

• Astrotech and SpaceX won NASA contracts worth up to $100M total over 10 years for spacecraft processing operations.

• EchoStar ordered 28 satellites from Astro Digital to build out its IoT, S-band constellation.

• SatRev, a Polish satellite developer, tapped Virgin Orbit ($VORB) for several launches as early as this year.

• AAC Clyde Space won a $590,000 order for smallsat reaction wheels from an unnamed US “blue chip company.”

The View from Space