Short Takes – 5-2-23

Elon Musk May Not Like It But Plug Power Plans Hydrogen-Fueled EV Charging Stations. Forbes.com article. Pull quote: “Latham, New York-based Plug debuted its station at the Advanced Clean Truck Expo on Monday in Anaheim, California, the country’s biggest trade show for battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The station combines an 18,000-gallon liquid hydrogen tank with a stationary fuel cell system Plug makes and which produces more than 60-megawatt-hours of electricity. That’s enough to charge more than 600 EVs before needing to be refueled, according to the company.” These facilities may be CFATS covered facilities (10,000-lb CISA reporting threshold) which will make them more expensive.

REGAN Vest: Inside Denmark's secret nuclear bunker. BBC.com article. Ahh… the Cold War, I remember it well… Pull quote: “The resulting nuclear-proof bunker was a staggering 5,500sq m behemoth, shaped like two large, connected rings, each with an upper and lower floor, and more than 230 rooms that would house around 350 personnel. Mostly these would be ministers and civil servants, part of a slimmed down administration tasked with running the nation's affairs during the darkest of times, plus a few medical staff, several journalists and a priest.”

Wrong material + Wrong tank = Trouble. AICHE.org CCPS Beacon. Pull quote: “Procedures should establish a requirement that facility personnel are physically present during deliveries. Both facility personnel and drivers should verify the correct connection before discharging chemicals using written checklists, piping diagram and/or equipment walk-downs.”

The Malice of Security as an Afterthought: New Medical Cybersecurity Regulations and Guidelines. NozomiNetworks.com article. Pull quote: “The secretary [should be ‘Comissioner’] of the FDA will continue working within public-private partnerships to incorporate sector-specific feedback from manufacturers, healthcare practitioners, consumers, affected third parties, and any additional stakeholders. The Omnibus amendments have the potential to provide precedence for regulations across all internet-of-things type devices and technologies. The most significant feature of the legislation is the broad mandate to provide security before products are brought to market, and to adequately address security issues that arise during the device lifecycle.”

Rocket Lab hitting its stride with high cadence, new venture for Electron. ArsTechnica.com article. Pull quote: “Beck's next challenge is taking the lessons learned from Electron and developing the larger Neutron vehicle. With a planned capacity of 15 metric tons to low-Earth orbit and a reusable first stage, Neutron is moving into territory presently occupied by SpaceX. However, there is a great demand in the Western world for additional medium-lift capacity, and Neutron is one of several vehicles under development—including the Ariane 6, Vulcan, New Glenn, and Terran R rockets—coming along to meet it.”

Aerospace Corporation released SPARTA v1.3, a new version of the Space Attack Research and Tactic Analysis (SPARTA) matrix.  SpaceSecurity.info article. Pull quote: “The Aerospace Corporation’s Space Attack Research and Tactic Analysis (SPARTA) matrix is intended to provide unclassified information to space professionals about how spacecraft may be compromised due to adversarial actions across the attack lifecycle.” SPARTA portal.