September 14, 2020

Astronomers Have Found a Potential Sign of Life in the Clouds of Venus (Source: New York Times)
High in the toxic atmosphere of the planet Venus, astronomers on Earth have discovered signs of what might be life. If the discovery is confirmed by additional telescope observations and future space missions, it could turn the gaze of scientists toward one of the brightest objects in the night sky. Instead, for decades, scientists have sought signs of life elsewhere, usually peering outward to Mars and more recently at Europa, Enceladus and other icy moons of the giant planets.

The astronomers reported the finding in a pair of papers. With powerful telescopes, they have detected a chemical — phosphine — in the thick Venus atmosphere. After much analysis, they assert that something now alive is the only explanation for the chemical’s source. Some researchers question this hypothesis, and they suggest instead that the gas could result from unexplained atmospheric or geologic processes on a planet that remains mysterious. But the finding will also encourage some planetary scientists to ask whether humanity has overlooked a planet that may have once been more Earthlike than any other world in our solar system. (9/14)

Is There a Black Hole in Our Backyard? (Source: New York Times)
Some astronomers contend that a black hole may be lurking in the outer reaches of our solar system. All summer, they have been arguing over how to find it, if indeed it is there, and what to do about it. The speculation began back in 2016 when astronomers proposed that the weird motions of a few ice balls billions of miles beyond Pluto could be evidence of a previously unknown and unsuspected object way. According to their calculations, that object would be roughly 10 times as massive as Earth and would occupy an egg-shaped orbit that brought it as near as 20 billion miles from the sun — several times the distance from the sun to Pluto — and took it as far as 100 billion miles away every 10,000 to 20,000 years.

Dr. Michael Brown called this hypothetical object Planet Nine. Last year, another pair of astronomers -- Jakub Scholtz and James Unwin -- suggested that Planet Nine might actually be a black hole. But not just any kind of black hole. Some cosmologists have speculated that black holes could account for 25 percent of the mass of the universe and could constitute the famous and elusive “dark matter” that determines the gravitational structure of what we see in the sky.

But you don’t need a star to die to make a black hole. In 1971, Stephen Hawking theorized that intense pressures during the Big Bang could have collapsed matter directly into black holes. Those primordial black holes could be of any size and could be anywhere. A black hole as massive as Earth would be about the size of a Ping-Pong ball and would be exceptionally hard to see. (9/11)

Space Weather Bill Ready for House Committee (Source: Space News)
The House is expected to pass a long-awaited space weather bill this week. The Promoting Research and Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow (PROSWIFT) Act is scheduled to be considered in the House on Wednesday under suspension of the rules, a process used for expedited passage of noncontroversial legislation. The bill, which the Senate approved in July, puts into law elements of a space weather action plan and strategy first published in 2015, assigning roles and responsibilities to various government agencies to monitor and respond to space weather events. Advocates of the bill had been working for about five years to get a bill like the PROSWIFT Act passed. (9/14)

Evasive Maneuver Considered as CubeSat Neared Space Station (Source: TASS)
International Space Station controllers prepared for, and then called off, a maneuver to avoid a close approach by a cubesat. The Russian space agency Roscosmos said Saturday that a spacecraft called BRICSat-2 would pass close enough to the station Sunday night to warrant a maneuver to move the station a safe distance from it. By Sunday, though, controllers called off the maneuver after concluding the satellite did not pose a collision threat to the station. BRICSat-2, identified in Russian media as a U.S. military satellite, is a 1.5-unit cubesat developed by the U.S. Naval Academy and George Washington University for technology demonstration, and was launched last year as one of the payloads of the Falcon Heavy STP-2 mission. (9/14)

ULA Atlas to Use New Strap-On Boosters From Northrop Grumman (Source: Space News)
ULA is also preparing for launch the first Atlas 5 to use new strap-on boosters from Northrop Grumman. The company said last week it's started stacking the rocket, which will fly the NROL-101 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office later this year. The rocket will use three GEM-63 boosters from Northrop Grumman as ULA switches from similar strap-on solid-fuel boosters previously provided by Aerojet Rocketdyne. (9/14)

SpaceX Plans High Altitude Hop for Starship (Source: Space News)
SpaceX is getting closer to a high-altitude test flight of a Starship prototype. Elon Musk tweeted over the weekend that the next Starship prototype, SN8, should be completed in about a week, and will be outfitted with a nose cone and flaps. The vehicle will then undergo static-fire tests ahead of a hop to nearly 20 kilometers, Musk said. So far, two other Starship prototypes have made only brief hops to altitudes of no higher than 150 meters. Nearly a year ago, Musk said that a Starship vehicle would fly to 20 kilometers and back in one to two months. (9/14)

Ligado Approval Shows US Spectrum Policy Challenges (Source: Breaking Defense)
Experts say the Federal Communications Commission's highly controversial decision to grant Ligado approval for a 5G wireless network shows inefficiencies in the US regulatory process. "[T]he United States' current approach for managing the use of spectrum is no longer effectively serving the needs of the entire stakeholder community and would benefit from reform," states a report by the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee. (9/11)

Longtime Climate Science Denier Hired At NOAA (Source: NPR)
David Legates, a University of Delaware professor of climatology who has spent much of his career questioning basic tenets of climate science, has been hired for a top position at NOAA. Legates confirmed that he was recently hired as NOAA's deputy assistant secretary of commerce for observation and prediction. The position suggests that he reports directly to Neil Jacobs, the acting head of the agency that is in charge of the federal government's sprawling weather and climate prediction work.

Legates has a long history of using his position as an academic scientist to publicly cast doubt on climate science. His appointment to NOAA comes as Americans face profound threats stoked by climate change, from the vast, deadly wildfires in the West to an unusually active hurricane season in the South and East. Global temperatures have already risen nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit as a result of greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. Warming is happening the fastest at the Earth's poles, where sea ice is melting, permafrost is thawing and ocean temperatures are heating up, with devastating effects on animals and humans alike. (9/12)

Northrop's 'Life Extension' Spacecraft Heads to the Rescue (Source: UPI)
A second spacecraft designed by Northrop Grumman to extend the life of satellites in orbit is headed toward a rescue some 22,200 miles above Earth. The spacecraft is part of Northrop's new in-orbit services. Analysts and observers predict such services will grow into a multibillion-dollar market over the next 10 years. Northrop is the first commercial service to enable private space companies to extend the life of large, expensive satellites past their life expectancy as designed. (9/11)

Should We Be Looking Harder For Asteroids? Mystery Space Rock Could Have Caused ‘Global Devastation’ (Source: Forbes)
Not a month goes by without an asteroid of note being detected, but this week something rather alarming happened. An asteroid measuring a kilometer wide was spotted last week by amateur astronomer in Brazil. This was not a near-miss. It wasn’t on course to hit Earth and nor will it in this century, but the fact that this relatively large near-Earth object (NEO) went undetected until now is a bit of a concern. After all, a kilometer-wide asteroid like 2020 QU6 could create global devastation if it were to hit the Earth.

Thankfully that’s not going to happen. 2020 QU6 missed our planet by 25 million miles/40 million kilometer on September 10, 2020. That’s about 100 times the distance between Earth and the Moon. It’s thought that around 90% of objects at least a kilometer wide have already been found, and none found so far will hit Earth in the next few centuries. However, last week’s discovery highlights that 90% isn’t good enough. NASA spends about $160 million per year on —planetary defence projects; that’s under 1% of its total spending and equivalent to 48 cents for each American. (9/13)

Astra Failure Posed No Safety Threat, Next Attempt Could Come Before 2021 (Source: Space.com)
The fireball, though dramatic, was not dangerous, said Astra co-founder and CEO Chris Kemp, stressing that Rocket 3.1's flight-termination system did its job as expected. The two-stage booster is so small that an onboard self-destruct system is not required, he explained. "We can actually just cause the rocket to safely land within a safety area by commanding the engines to stop," Kemp said. "That's a very effective technique. And it means the rocket doesn't have any explosives or pyrotechnics onboard, which makes it safer."

It appears that the guidance glitch was caused by a software issue, London and Kemp said. That's good news if confirmed, suggesting that Astra's road back to the launch pad won't be a particularly long or grueling one, they added. The required changes "will likely involve a software update to our guidance system," he added. "That's fantastic news, and I couldn't be more delighted that we will likely be up to Alaska before the end of the year with Rocket 3.2." Rocket 3.2 is nearly ready to go. Final assembly and testing of the booster, which is very similar to Rocket 3.1, is underway at Astra's California headquarters. (9/12)

Modernization of Sea Launch Will Allow Larger Soyuz Rocket Payloads (Source: TASS)
Reconstruction and modernization of the Sea Launch space complex, currently based in Russia’s Far East, is expected to begin in November 2020, Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin said. Earlier, Roscosmos said its top management along with industry experts had assessed the Sea Launch’s readiness for missions of the prospective Soyuz-5 and Soyuz-6 rockets. According to Rogozin, a Soyuz-5 rocket, with the capacity to deliver up to 18 tonnes of payload to the orbit when launched from the Baikonur and Vostochny space centers, will be able to lift more than 20 tonnes if launched from the sea-based facility positioned at the equator. (9/13)