NASA is Working on a
Camera That Could Save Humanity From Extinction (Source:
Quartz)
Astronomers tend to be patient people. When it comes to stars, much of
what they examine happened millions of years ago, and when it comes to
space probes, even pre-launch prep can take a decade or more. But they
are getting impatient about launching an infrared space telescope
called NEOCam. It has a very specific mission: Spotting near-Earth
objects—astronomical bodies, most commonly asteroids, whose orbits
around the sun could pass close to Earth and potentially collide with
our planet, some of which could damage or destroy civilization itself.
(4/19)
Ground Station Startup
Leaf Space Plans Capital Raise (Source: Space News)
Italian startup Leaf Space wants to triple the number of ground station
locations it has by late next year, citing customer demand for
providing communications services to small satellites. Founded in 2014,
Milan, Italy-based Leaf Space operates a total of four ground stations
in Italy, Spain, Ireland and Lithuania. The uptake of services using
those stations has the company preparing to seek funding for another
eight locations, including some in the United States and at least one
near the equator, Giovanni Pandolfi, Leaf Space’s chief technology
officer, said. (4/19)
Boeing Receives $605
Million Air Force Contract for WGS-11 Communications Satellite
(Source: Space News)
Boeing received a $605 million contract for the production of the Air
Force’s 11th Wideband Global Satellite Communication satellite that
Congress funded more than a year ago. The WGS constellation provides
broadband communications to the U.S. military and allies. The deal
announced on Friday is a modification to an existing WGS Block II
follow-on agreement that brings the total value of Boeing’s WGS
contracts to nearly $2.5 billion. Boeing has been the prime contractor
since 2001. The first satellite was launched in 2007. (4/19)
Blue Origin will expand
HQ and R&D in Kent (Source: I Love Kent)
Blue Origin is “going vertical” with its new headquarters and research
and development facility in Kent Washington, as they are expanding
their world-class team, and will be building a new 250,000-square-foot
facility that will support their new growth. This means more rocket
building, more hiring of rocket scientists, and a continued connection
to space for the home of the original Lunar Rovers – Kent! (4/19)
Virgin Galactic Expects
Rapid Conclusion of SpaceShipTwo Test Flights After Downtime
(Source: Space News)
Virgin Galactic’s chief pilot believes the company will be able to go
through the remainder of its SpaceShipTwo test program fairly quickly
once test flights of the suborbital spaceplane resume. In an interview
during the 35th Space Symposium here April 9, Dave Mackay said the
SpaceShipTwo vehicle called VSS Unity, which he piloted to the edge of
space on a test flight Feb. 22, is currently undergoing work that
includes outfitting the interior with the cabin the company plans to
use on commercial flights that will carry space tourists. (4/19)
Methane-Filled Lakes on
Titan are “Surprisingly Deep” (Source: Universe Today)
The Cassini mission to Saturn and its moons wrapped up in 2017, when
the spacecraft was sent plunging into the gas giant to meet its end.
But there’s still a lot of data from the mission to keep scientists
busy. A team of scientists working with Cassini data have made a
surprising discovery: Titan’s methane-filled lakes are much deeper, and
weirder, than expected. Titan is an unusual world. It’s the only body,
other than Earth, that has liquid on its surface. Scientists suspect
that some of the Solar System’s other moons, like Enceladus and Europa,
have liquid oceans. But those oceans are subsurface water oceans. Only
Titan has lakes of liquid hydrocarbons. (4/18)
Physicists Closer to
Solving Mystery of Weird Glowing Ring Around Milky Way's Black Hole
(Source: Live Science)
Astronomers watched a high-speed gas cloud slam into the matter getting
sucked toward Sagittarius A* — the supermassive black hole at the
center of the Milky Way — and then zip away into space. Now, careful
observations have revealed just how much the gas cloud, which
astronomers named G2, slowed after the collision.
That measurement tells scientists something important: the density of
the hot matter surrounding Sagittarius A*, which is the nearest known
supermassive black hole to Earth. SagittariusA* (SagA*) is quiescent,
meaning it's not gobbling up a huge disk of matter and firing off jets.
But there's still something hot and glowing surrounding it that
physicists don't understand very well. The collision with G2 is
offering astronomers one of their best clues yet as to what that
glowing ring is made of.
"There was this drag force. The thing [G2] became slower," said Stefan
Gillessen, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for
Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany. G2’s deceleration proved
that there was something substantial in the immediate vicinity of the
black hole for G2 to crash through, Gillessen said. Physicists detected
that slowing-down using data from the GRAVITY collaboration at the Very
Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. (4/18)
SpaceX Delays ISS
Resupply Launch (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
The launch date for a SpaceX mission to carry cargo to the
International Space Station has been pushed back. A Falcon 9 rocket
plans to launch a Dragon capsule carrying supplies, experiments and
other materials to the space laboratory at 4:22 a.m. on April 30. The
mission had previously been scheduled to send the rocket up on April
26. NASA used its Twitter account to announce the change of plans for
the launch, which will take off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station. This will be the 17th time SpaceX has
launched a cargo mission to the space station. (4/19)
Latest Lost Satellite is
Now Space Junk That Could Put Other Spacecraft at Risk
(Source: The Verge)
Intelsat announced that one of its communications satellites is now
completely lost in orbit above Earth, rendering the vehicle an
unmovable piece of space debris. Intelsat says that something damaged
the satellite, causing its onboard propellant to leak out into space.
Now, without the ability to maneuver and communicate, the satellite
could pose a potential threat to other vehicles in the same orbit.
For Intelsat, the most obvious consequence of the loss is a financial
one. Built by Boeing, the satellite, called Intelsat 29e, cost between
$400 and $450 million and was supposed to operate up to 15 years in
space. But now its lifetime has been cut short after just three years
in orbit, preventing Intelsat from receiving any planned revenue from
the spacecraft’s communications coverage over North and South America.
But the now-dead satellite is also a liability for other satellites
that are on a similar trajectory. The spacecraft’s orbit is a high one
above Earth known as geostationary orbit, or GEO — a path above the
equator where satellites match the eastward rotation of the planet.
That means they essentially “hover” over the same patch of the Earth at
all times. It’s a popular spot to deposit communications and
surveillance satellites because they just sit in one location of the
sky for years. (4/19)
Techstars and Starburst
Unveil Space Startup Accelerator (Source: Space News)
Starburst Aerospace and Techstars announced plans Feb. 12 to begin
accepting applications for a new space-focused accelerator based in Los
Angeles and backed by the U.S. Air Force, NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Lockheed Martin, Maxar Technologies, SAIC and Israel
Aerospace Industries North America.
The Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator is scheduled to review
applications and announce the selection in May of ten companies to
participate in the three-month program. Each participant will receive a
$120,000 investment and the opportunity to work with mentors who have
space technology experience as well as executive mentors to help them
prepare business plans and strategies, said Matt Kozlov, managing
director of the Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator. (2/12)
Former NASA Deputy
Administrator Garver Joins Earthrise Alliance (Source:
Parabolic Arc)
Lori Garver, former NASA Deputy Administrator, has teamed with leading
environmental and space scientists to form Earthrise Alliance, a
philanthropic initiative established to fully utilize Earth science
data to combat climate change. Earthrise funds fellowships and awards
grants to partner organizations that engage and activate educators,
journalists, voters and decision makers. In addition, Earthrise
provides partners with meaningful content, tools and applications
derived from satellite data to inform the actions of these target
communities.
Stressing the importance of their mission, Garver reflects that “in the
50 years since the first Earthrise photo was taken by Apollo 8
astronauts, our planet has literally changed before our eyes.
Investment in space activities have driven scientific and technological
advances that have transformed our understanding of Earth’s changing
climate. Earthrise was created to translate this knowledge into
meaningful action and to inform critical decision making that supports
and sustains humanity on planet Earth.” (4/18)
A Mars Colony Could Be
Humanity's First Shot at a Ground-Up, Pure Economy (Source:
Inverse)
A city on Mars could provide the first-ever truly blank slate to
organize a new kind of economy. While attempts to re-organize the means
of production are as old as humankind itself, these experiments have
always been limited to some extent by the economic systems that came
before. People can only change so much so fast. Space exploration, and
the establishment of new colonies, may be humanity’s first shot at
creating an economy from the ground up. Its first settlers could opt
for pure socialism — where all ownership was shared — just as easily as
they could establish a city that enshrines property rights so much
there are no other laws at all.
The dusty red surface, in other words, will provide us with what could
be the first history-free moment to start anew. “To an economist, this
is perhaps the most exciting thing about space settlement!” Matt
Weinzierl, a professor at Harvard Business School who has written about
the economics of space, tells Inverse. With Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk
possibly on the verge of opening up space to society, a prospect that
has venture capitalists excited, this developing area of research has
started to grapple with how economics may shift as humans explore
beyond Earth. Click here.
(4/20)
Pepsi's Obsession With
Outer Space Has Spanned Decades (Source: The Atlantic)
Think about the dreaminess of twilight, when the sun has slipped below
the horizon, and the darkening sky is streaked with dusky purples and
blues. There, among the emerging stars and the silvery moon, lustrous
as a pearl, you see it—an ad for a soda company. This was the future
envisioned by PepsiCo, specifically the corporation’s division in
Russia. According to a recent story by Futurism’s Jon Christian, the
branch planned to launch an “orbital billboard,” a cluster of small
satellites flying in formation, like migratory birds that want to sell
you something.
The ad would orbit more than 250 miles above Earth, at about the same
altitude as the International Space Station. In the early morning and
evening, little sails on the satellites, made of reflective Mylar,
would catch the light of the sun and become visible to the ground. The
artificial constellation, blinking a logo, would promote Adrenaline
Rush, a PepsiCo Russia energy drink aimed at gamers.
A Russian company has already tested a prototype using a helium balloon
that carried one of its reflectors into the stratosphere, a layer of
Earth’s atmosphere far below the edge of space, Futurism reported. But
that’s apparently as far as this effort is going to get; this week, a
PepsiCo spokesperson in the United States shot down the idea, saying
there had been a miscommunication between Russian and American PepsiCo
employees, perhaps because of a “language issue.” (4/19)
Last-Ditch Ways to
Reverst the Climate Trend (Source: Business Insider)
Geoengineering is a term that refers to technology that can alter
Earth's natural cycles to cool down the planet. It's being increasingly
discussed as a potential way to address climate change. Putting mirrors
in space, capturing carbon dioxide, and seeding clouds with particles
are all ways of manipulating weather or the atmosphere. But some
scientists and politicians think geoengineering could damage the planet
or lead to war. Here are 11 strategies researchers have put forth to
hack the planet and combat climate change. Click here.
(4/20)
Alien 'Megastructures'
May Hold Key to Making Contact with Extraterrestrials
(Source: NBC)
If you’re trying to come up with the best game plan for proving the
existence of extraterrestrials, you’ve got plenty of options.
Naturally, you want a strategy with a high chance of success, simply in
the interests of time, money and a shot at the Nobel Prize. For nearly
70 years the scheme favored by most scientists has been to look for
signals — radio transmissions. That’s the classic approach of SETI (the
search for extraterrestrial intelligence), and frankly, it makes sense.
Radio can easily traverse light-years, and the technology for detecting
it is well known and highly sensitive.
But is looking for signals really the best plan? Is it possible that
we’re making the wrong bet? There’s an attractive alternative:
searching for physical artifacts — alien structures. We’re not talking
about crop circles or other odd phenomena here on Earth. We’re talking
about massive engineering works that an advanced society has
constructed somewhere in space. Why search for artifacts? Because it
eliminates the requirement that the aliens have chosen to get in touch
— to transmit radio signals our way. (4/20)
All-Woman Engineering
Team Heads to NASA Mars Competition (Source: University of
Colorado)
NASA has named a University of Colorado Boulder team a finalist in a
competition to design a greenhouse for use on Mars. The annual NASA BIG
Idea Challenge is set for April 23-24 in Virginia; it calls on student
groups at universities across the country to develop solutions to
vexing space problems. The 2019 contest is seeking innovative ideas for
the design and operation of a Mars greenhouse. The students are putting
the finishing touches on their entry before the final competition,
where their written research and physical prototypes will be evaluated
by a group of NASA experts.
Five universities advanced to the championship and CU Boulder is the
only one sending an all-woman team. “It wasn’t intentional. In the
beginning, I reached out to people I knew who would be good for the
project, and one day we looked around the room and realized we were all
women.” The team is also heavily interdisciplinary, drawing students
with majors from across the college, including aerospace, computer
science, architectural engineering, chemical and biological
engineering, and mechanical engineering. (4/18)
Kivelson Succeeds
Harrison as Chair of Space Studies Board (Source: Space
Policy Online)
Margaret Kivelson is the new chair of the Space Studies Board (SSB) of
the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and
Medicine. She succeeds Fiona Harrison who stepped down in
order to co-chair the ongoing Decadal Survey on Astronomy and
Astrophysics. Harrison was the first woman to chair SSB in its 61-year
history. Now Kivelson is the second.
Margaret Kivelson standing next to the engineering model of the Galileo
spacecraft at JPL’s museum. Credit: NASA website. Kivelson is Professor
of Space Physics, Emerita at the University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA) and a research professor at the University of Michigan. Her
specialty is magnetospheric plasma physics of the Earth, Jupiter and
Saturn. (4/19)
NASA Announces Upcoming
ISS Crews, Which Won’t Fly Commercial (Source: Discover)
Ever since the space shuttle retired in 2011, NASA has been paying
Russia for rides to the International Space Station. They’d hoped that
dependency would finally end in 2019. But with its new lineup of
flights and launch dates released this week, the space agency
acknowledged they’re not quite done needing Russia’s Soyuz rockets yet.
NASA will remain dependent on Russia for the next round of space
station rotations. Thanks to delays in commercial launches by SpaceX
and Boeing, which NASA has paid billions to ferry crews to ISS, the
space agency is now settling on longer missions for their astronauts,
who will continue to hitch rides on Soyuz rockets. In fact, the new
long-term crew roster and launch dates for the next year does not list
any flights on commercial launches.
NASA had planned to stop buying rides to the space station aboard
Russian Soyuz flights by the end of 2019 and switch to buying seats
from SpaceX and Boeing instead. But both companies have suffered delays
and are still in the process of testing and being certified to fly
humans. NASA’s solution, to avoid abandoning the ISS in the meantime,
was to purchase two additional Soyuz seats to get them through the rest
of 2019 and into early 2020, and stretch out the assignments of their
crew. (4/19)
Why We Love Investing in
Space (Source: Via Satellite)
The worse the pain in a sector, the more we get intrigued. Space was an
area that was, and still is, a very difficult industry in which to
successfully start and grow a data business. The recent emergence of
small satellite technology was a key variable change that we believed
would unlock the industry in new and exciting ways. No longer did a
large expensive satellite need to stay up in geosynchronous orbit for
20 years with outdated technology. While small satellites offered a
much shorter life, a company could launch them cheaper and more
frequently, as well as continually upgrade these constellations in the
sky whenever needed. We are seeing these important shifts clearly play
out in the industry today. Click here.
(4/19)
No comments:
Post a Comment