September 22, 2017

Nanosatellite Beams Smartphone Voice Call for First Time (Source: Space.com)
For the first time, a voice call has been made via a nanosatellite using a regular smartphone. The voice call lasted more than a minute and went off without a hitch, said Meir Moalem, CEO of the United Kingdom-based startup Sky and Space Global.

During the testing, Sky and Space Global engineers also sent text messages, images and voice recordings via the company's three nanosatellites, dubbed the 3 Diamonds. The satellites, launched on June 23, circle the Earth in a sun-synchronous orbit at the altitude of 500 kilometers (310 miles). (9/22)

Space Travel Debris Clutters Earth’s Orbit, Putting Innovation at Risk (Source: The Hill)
Even as space-based services like weather forecasting and GPS become an intimate, inseparable part of our daily lives, we risk the sustainability of the space environment through sloppy practices that could make near-Earth space into a perilous demolition derby.
 
Right now, more than 500,000 pieces of space debris (ranging in size from that of a marble to a school bus) closely orbit the Earth. This space junk — such as defunct satellites or rocket parts left over from past launch missions — can whip around uncontrollably at 17,500 miles per hour. In space, a fleck of paint can bring about more damage than can a speeding bullet on Earth. (9/22)

New Mexico Delegation Tries to Lure New XS-1 Spaceplane to WSMR, Spaceport America (Source: Las Cruces Sun-News)
All five members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation have written a letter to company officials at Boeing asking that they include Spaceport America and White Sands Missile Range in the development of a new reusable space aircraft named the Phantom Express.

Boeing recently was awarded the contract by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for development of a reusable spacecraft that can deploy a medium payload at a lower cost.

The Phantom Express will “reinvent space missions for commercial and government customers by providing rapid, aircraft-like access to space,” according to information on Boeing’s website. “Within minutes, the autonomous, reusable spaceplane would launch its upper stage to deploy small satellites into low Earth orbit. It would then land on a runway to be prepared for its next flight.” (9/22)

ULA Atlas-5 Launch Delayed at California Spaceport (Source: Noozhawk)
A technical issue postponed Thursday night's schedule launch of an Atlas 5 from California. United Launch Alliance announced several hours before the scheduled 1:38 a.m. Eastern Friday launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base that a faulty battery on the rocket would postpone the launch until at least Saturday night. The rocket is carrying a payload for the National Reconnaissance Office on a mission designated NROL-42. (9/22)

Soyuz Launches Russian NavSat (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com)
A Soyuz rocket lauched a Glonass navigation satellite Thursday night. The Soyuz-2.1b lifted off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia at 8:02 p.m. spacecraft. The rocket's payload was a Glonass-M navigation satellite that will replace a retired satellite in the global navigation system. (9/22)

Russia May Support US Deep Space Gateway (Source: Popular Mechanics)
Russia is reportedly set to agree to cooperate with NASA on the proposed Deep Space Gateway. The head of Roscosmos, Igor Komarov, could announce a partnership with NASA on the project next week at the International Astronautical Congress in Australia, perhaps by offering to develop a lunar lander that could be used for sending crews from the gateway to the lunar surface. NASA unveiled the Deep Space Gateway, located in cislunar space, earlier this year, but has not formally committed to developing it. (9/22)

New Mexico Congressional Delgation Wants to Host DARPA XS-1 Spaceplane Program (Source: Las Cruces Sun-News)
New Mexico is seeking to be the host for DARPA's XS-1 experimental spaceplane program. The state's five-person congressional delegation wrote a letter to Boeing, the XS-1 prime contractor, asking it to consider using White Sands Missile Range and Spaceport America for future test flights of the vehicle, known as Phantom Express.

Boeing won a contract earlier this year from DARPA to develop XS-1, a reusable suborbital vehicle capable of carrying an expendable upper stage, including a series of test flights. Boeing hasn't decided where those XS-1 test flights, involving vertical launches and horizontal runway landings, will take place. (9/22)

China Plans High-End Camera for Mars Orbiter (Source: GB Times)
China's upcoming Mars orbiter will carry a camera comparable to that on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The instrument will be able to take images with a resolution of 50 centimeters, nearly as good as the high-resolution camera on MRO, which can take images as sharp as 25 centimeters a pixel. The Chinese camera, though, will have a wider swath than MRO's camera. (9/22)

ISRO Working on Substitute Navigation Satellite (Source: The Hindu)
A team from an industry consortium is being trained to assemble the IRNSS-1I. Work has begun in Bengaluru to assemble a substitute navigation spacecraft, which became essential after the main backup was lost in a failed launch on August 31, 2017.

IRNSS-1I was earlier approved as a ground spare, to be sent to space in an emergency. The Indian Space Research Organisation has been training a team from an industry consortium to assemble this spacecraft and its lost fellow satellite, IRNSS-1H. (9/22)

FCC Can’t Verify Satellite Constellations’ Interference Threat, Passes Buck to ITU (Source: Space Intel Report)
Current and prospective satellite fleet operators are asking the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reverse a proposed rule that would allow operators of low-orbiting constellations to self-certify that their networks won’t interfere with satellites in geostationary orbit. The FCC’s decision represents a 180-degree switch from its earlier position. (9/21)

Vitamin Super Cocktail to Combat 60 Days of Bedrest (Source: ESA)
This week will see the second ESA bedrest study investigating a mix of antioxidants and vitamins that could help astronauts to combat the side effects of living in space. Ten volunteers will lie in beds with the head end tilted down 6º for 60 days, keeping at least one shoulder on their bed at all times.

Intense bedrest such as this is no fun: muscles and bones waste away, and the tilted beds makes blood and fluids move to the head – similar to the changes astronauts endure in space. As all animals on Earth, humans have evolved to live in gravity so finding ways to stay healthy in weightlessness is important for further exploration of our Solar System.

To test new exercise regimes, diets and understand what happens to astronauts, ESA conducts regular bedrest studies that simulate the effects of weightlessness on the human body. (9/21)

'Not One Insult': Briton Tells of Eight Months in Simulated Mars Base (Source: Guardian)
Losing internet access was a bigger problem than personality clashes for six “astronauts” confined for eight months on a remote simulated Mars base, a British member of the team has said. Not a single personal insult was uttered by any member of the crew during the whole of the “mission”, which ended on 17 September, claimed the astrobiologist Sam Payler, 28, a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh. (9/22)

How NASA is Trying to Save Earthquake and Hurricane Victims (Source: Fox News)
What if you are still alive, but buried beneath rubble and with limited time left? Maybe you are at work when an earthquake like the one that just hit Mexico City strikes. Currently, search and rescue teams use methods like dogs, video cameras and listening devices to try to find trapped victims who are still alive. But NASA has worked on a new technology that may supersede all of those methods.

FINDER (short for Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response) takes advances for space exploration and is using them to save lives here on Earth. This revolutionary technology can help rescue someone, whether they are conscious or not, using the person's heartbeat. Click here. (9/22)

Our Closest Star System May be Home to a Stolen Star and Planet (Source: New Scientist)
Proxima Centauri may be an interloper from far away. The stellar system closest to Earth consists of three stars: the closely orbiting pair of Alpha Centauri A and B, and an outlier called Proxima Centauri. A new analysis finds that Proxima, along with its planet Proxima b, may not have been born alongside its stellar siblings. If so, the planet could have a better chance at harboring life. (9/22)

Arecibo Battered by Hurricane Maria (Source: Washington Post)
All staff at Puerto Rico's Arecibo Observatory are safe after Hurricane Maria roared over the island Wednesday, but the iconic radio telescope suffered some damage during the storm.

SRI International, which helps manage the huge telescope, said Thursday night that they were able to make communication with the small team who weathered the storm there. There had been radio silence from the observatory since early Wednesday morning, hours before the eye of the storm passed over Arecibo, in Puerto Rico's northwest. (9/22)

Boeing Says Large Constellations Cannot Meet US Regulator's Satellite Launch Deadline (Source: Space Intel Report)
The global launch-service market is incapable of placing even half of a large constellation of satellites into orbit within six years of the network’s receipt of a license, which is the requirement recently proposed by U.S. regulators, Boeing said. Boeing proposes that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) relax its rules to allow constellations more time for complete deployment (9/22)

New Evidence That Highest Energy Cosmic Rays Come From Beyond Our Galaxy (Source: Science)
When it comes to the highest energy cosmic rays—subatomic particles raining in from space—the sky is lopsided: More come from one direction than the other, according to a new study. And because most come from a direction that points away from our galaxy, the observation bolsters the idea that the cosmic rays originate far beyond the Milky Way. However, the result falls short of astrophysicists’ goal of pinpointing the ultimate sources of such cosmic rays. (9/22)

Trump Pick for NASA Lays Out Agenda for Space Program (Source: USA Today)
Rep. Jim Bridenstine, President Trump’s pick to run NASA, wants to expand the role of new commercial space companies, end dependence on Russian rockets now carrying astronauts to the International Space Station, and establish a “consensus agenda” on future missions that can outlast the whims of changing administrations.

In other words, not unlike the broad goals pushed by his predecessor, Charles F. Bolden Jr. Sean O’Keefe, NASA administrator during George W. Bush’s first term, applauded Bridenstine’s objectives. Click here. (9/22)