January 5, 2021

Lockheed Martin Wis $4.9 Billion Contract for Missile Warning Satellites (Source: Space News)
Lockheed Martin won a $4.9 billion Pentagon contract Monday for three missile warning satellites. The contract covers the manufacturing, assembly, integration, testing and delivery of three geosynchronous Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) satellites, which will complement two polar orbiting Next-Gen OPIR satellites being built by Northrop Grumman. Lockheed previously won a $2.9 billion contract for initial development of those satellites. The first of the Lockheed-built satellites could launch as soon as 2025. (1/5)

Space Force Foresees Rebound in Demand for Small Satellite Launches (Source: Space News)
The Space Force hopes its small launch vehicle program will rebound in 2021. Small satellite launches by the Space Force slowed considerably in 2020 due to the pandemic and technical setbacks, the service acknowledged, with launches by Rocket Lab, Space Vector and Virgin Orbit slipping to 2021. A Space Force official said they plan to evaluate as many emerging providers as possible and figure out how to contract for their services to meet a still-uncertain future demand. (1/5)

China's CASC Plans for 40+ Launches in 2021 (Source: Space News)
China's main space contractor is planning at least 40 launches this year. China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) announced the target at a meeting Monday where it outlined its goals for the year. Those launches are expected to include the core module of China's new space station, along with a cargo spacecraft and the Shenzhou-12 crewed mission. China carried out 39 launches in 2020, with CASC responsible for 34 of them. (1/5)

Chana's Spacety Activates SAR Satellite (Source: Space News)
Chinese startup Spacety has released the first images from its synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite. Hisea-1, a satellite with a C-band SAR system, launched Dec. 22 as a secondary payload on the first Long March 8 rocket. The spacecraft started returning SAR imagery days later at a resolution of three meters, and Spacety released the first image, of a region of Tennessee, last week. Spacety says Hisea-1 is the first miniaturized C-band SAR satellite and the first commercial Chinese SAR system. (1/5)

SpaceX: Flight Proven Rockets Now an Easier Sell Than New Ones (Source: Ars Technica)
SpaceX is not having problems convincing customers to fly on "flight-proven" Falcon rockets. In an interview, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said persuading customers to fly on Falcon 9 rockets with previously flown first stages has been less difficult than selling the first Falcon launches, since the company has demonstrated its capabilities to safely launch and reuse the vehicles. Shotwell added that SpaceX has some launch services contracts where it can choose whether to use Falcon or its next-generation Starship vehicle for the mission. She said she was optimistic that Starship will make its first orbital flight this year. (1/5)

Starship Wreckage Cleared for Next Texas Tests (Source: Teslarati)
SpaceX has been clearing the wreckage of the last Starship prototype as it prepares to launch the next one. Workers removed Monday the last major elements of the SN8 prototype vehicle from the landing pad at its Boca Chica, Texas, site. The vehicle exploded when it landed too fast on the pad at the end of an otherwise successful test flight last month. The SN9 prototype is currently on a launch pad at Boca Chica, preparing for what's expected to be a similar test flight later this month. (1/5)

India Sees Several Companies Interested in Space Commercialization Effort (Source: Deccan Herald)
More than two dozen Indian companies want to participate in a commercialization effort by the country's space agency. Jitendra Singh, minister of state for India's Department of Space, said those companies are seeking to work with the Indian National Space Promotion and Development Center, or In-SPACe, which the government established last year as part of efforts to support the development of a commercial space industry. The companies include those working on small launch vehicles, satellite constellations and space applications, Singh said. (1/5)

The Insane Amount of Cool Space Things Happening in 2021 (Source: Ars Technica)
As we look ahead to a new year, there is as much, if not more, space goodness to come. I asked readers for suggestions on Twitter about what they're anticipating in the coming year and received more than 400 responses. This list is a distillation of those ideas, plus some of my own, to compile the space goodness we most have to look forward to in 2021. Click here. (1/5)

Missions to Mars, the Moon and Beyond Await Earth in 2021 (Source: New York Times)
About a month after the new year has started on Earth, three spacecraft will pull into the vicinity of Mars. These explorers, which launched in July last year, will be heralds of a busy year of space exploration, launches and astronomical occurrences. What follows is a preview of some of 2021’s most notable expected events. Private companies and the world’s space agencies are likely to announce more. The Times’s Space and Astronomy Calendar will help you keep up with these dates, and you can subscribe to it here.

The United Arab Emirates, China and the United States all launched robotic missions to Mars last summer, seeking shortened voyages during the period every two years when Earth is closest to the red planet. The three spacecraft will join a bustling community of explorers either in orbit or on the planet’s surface. The first to arrive will be the Emirati Hope orbiter, the first deep space explorer of the Arab country’s small but ambitious space program. The mission will study the Martian atmosphere, sending valuable data back to scientists on Earth. It is to reach its destination on Feb. 9.

China’s Tianwen-1 mission is also to arrive at Mars on Feb. 10. After orbiting the planet for a time, it will send a lander containing a rover to the surface in May. Landing intact on the solar system’s fourth planet is perilous, and only NASA has done it more than once. A successful landing there would extend China’s record of impressive spaceflight achievements. Soon after, on Feb. 18, NASA’s Perseverance rover will arrive and immediately plunge toward the surface of Mars. If it lands successfully, the rover will seek signs of extinct life in a dried out crater lake and riverbed. But first it will deploy Ingenuity, a small helicopter. That device has its own mission of carrying out the first powered flight from the surface of another planet. (1/4)

Why is Earth Still Habitable After Billions of Years? In Part, We're Just Lucky (Source: SyFy)
We know that stars like the Sun grow hotter as they age, and that long ago the Sun was about 30% fainter. That either means the ancient Earth should have been frozen solid, or, assuming it was clement, the Earth should be boiling hot now. Neither is true, which is a mystery. This is called the Faint Young Sun Paradox, and has prompted many scientists to presume that the Earth has a kind of thermostat, a set of conditions that tend to rebalance a system that gets out of whack so it doesn't get too hot or too cold. This would be a negative feedback system, where if a condition arises to, say, heat up the Earth, things will change in a way to cool it back down.

But we know positive feedback conditions exist, too. If you release too much carbon dioxide into the air the oceans will warm up, which releases more CO2, and you get a feedback loop that ends badly. As we're seeing now. And if there's too little CO2 in the air the Earth would be frozen solid. So maybe we're just lucky, and our environment just happened to stay stable for all those eons life has been around. (12/28)

China's Space Achievements Out of This World (Source: Space Daily)
China's space industry has produced a remarkable scorecard this year: characterized by the nation's first independent Mars mission, the completion of a global navigation satellite network and a landmark adventure that retrieved rocks and soil from the moon. The most significant event in China's space field, and also one of the most notable space activities globally, this year-the Chang'e 5 robotic mission-returned 1,731 grams of lunar rock and soil to Earth, marking a historic accomplishment 44 years after the last lunar substances were retrieved. (1/1)

SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon 2 is Coming Home (Source: Go Space Launch)
NASA announced the return of SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft. The spacecraft launched to the International Space Station for SpaceX’s 21st cargo resupply services mission last year on December 6th. Scheduled to depart the ISS on January 11, the spacecraft will return with 5,200 pounds of scientific experiments and other cargo. The spacecraft is expected to make its parachute-assisted splashdown around 2100 EST. This will mark the first return of a cargo resupply spacecraft in the Atlantic Ocean. (1/4)

Scaling Up Hypersonic Vehicles for Passenger Flight (Source: Aerospace America)
One of the great remaining accomplishments of flight would be creating an operational aircraft that can fly hypersonically, defined as Mach 5 or above, by gleaning oxygen for combustion from the air, just as conventional jets do. The U.S. has tested air-breathing hypersonic engines but not of the size required for aircraft that would carry passengers, weapons or intelligence equipment.

Scaling up such designs to carry conventional bombs, cameras and eavesdropping equipment for the military or passengers in the civil context would require a larger inlet to provide more air and therefore oxygen to burn more fuel and generate more thrust. In fact, such an air-breathing engine might need to ingest 10 times more air than the X-51A engine, depending on the mission, and U.S. military researchers have made this 10X performance a top goal.

Here in the U.S., the Air Force Research Laboratory in Ohio hopes to resolve many of those challenges through a potential new program nicknamed Mayhem for its goal of disrupting the hypersonics status quo. If this Expendable Hypersonic Multi-Mission Air-Breathing Demonstrator Program proceeds, then in five years one or more expendable, air-launched Mayhem demonstrators could be streaking over a test range at over five times the speed of sound. (1/4)

Bad Space Weather May Make Life Impossible Near Proxima Centauri (Source: Space.com)
If you look up in the southern sky you can see the "pointer" stars, pointing towards the Southern Cross. One of these pointers is Alpha Centauri, which is actually a pair of Sun-like stars that are too close together to tell apart by eye. There is a third member of the Alpha Centauri system as well: Proxima Centauri (Proxima Cen for short), which circles the central two stars in a wide orbit. This is the Sun’s nearest neighbour, at a distance of just 4.2 light years.

It is possible one of Proxima Cen’s planets is suitable for life. However, we recently detected the signature of fierce space weather from Proxima Cen, which implies an orbiting planet could be blasted with hazardous particles and magnetic fields. (1/3)

Varda Space Raises $9 Million Seed Round for Space Manufacturing (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Varda Space Industries has raised $9 million in a seed round to advance its goal of manufacturing products in space. Varda said that Founders Fund and Lux Capital were the co-leads on the round. Other participants in the round included Also Capital, Fifty Years, Raymond Tonsing, Justin Mateen, and Naval.

“Over the long-term, Varda can build the infrastructure needed to enable humanity to industrialize space. How? First, make profitable unmanned in-space factories manufacturing product #1 (more to come soon). Next, manufacture other important things in-space that benefit from low G. Then, build the first platform infrastructure that can easily harvest the source materials for those and other products in-space via asteroids and the like." (1/4)

Can Space Bridge a Widening Partisan Divide? (Source: Space Review)
Some in the space industry hope that a new Congress, which convened this week, will pick up where the last one left off on legislation like a NASA authorization bill. Jeff Foust reports that may be difficult given a growing partisan divide that may affect even the traditionally bipartisan issue of space policy. Click here. (1/4)
 
Catalonia’s Space Ambitions (Source: Space Review)
In the fall, the government of the Spanish region of Catalonia announced it would form its own space agency, leading to headlines about the “Catalan NASA”. Marçal Sanmartí discusses what is driving Catalonia’s interest in space. Click here. (1/4)