June 12, 2022

Roscosmos Resumes Talks on ExoMars Mission with European Space Agency (Source: TASS)
Russian state-run space corporation Roscosmos has resumed negotiations with the European Space Agency (ESA) about the launch of the ExoMars mission, with launch possible no earlier than in 2024, Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin has told TASS. In his words, the equipment and Kazachok landing platform for the mission have the potential for launch in 2024. He estimates the likelihood of this scenario to be at about 708%. Roscosmos plans to get the response in late June. (6/11)

US General Says Starlink has 'Totally Destroyed Putin's Information Campaign' (Source: Business Insider)
Starlink, the satellite-internet service from SpaceX, has been crucial part of Ukraine's defense against Russia, according to a US official and Ukrainian military members. From sending coordinates for artillery strikes against Russia to broadcasting Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's speeches across the world, US Brigadier General Steven Butow told Politico that SpaceX's Starlink services have been indispensable to the Ukrainian military. The general has worked closely with SpaceX as the director of the space portfolio at the defense innovation unit.

"The strategic impact is, it totally destroyed [Vladimir] Putin's information campaign," Butow told the publication. "He never, to this day, has been able to silence Zelenskyy." Starlink's capabilities are put to the test on a daily basis by Ukrainian soldiers. Politico reported that the satellite dish is used to plan missions and fight misinformation from Russia, as well as keep soldiers in touch with their family and provide a source of leisure activity during down times. (6/9)

Bold Idea Also Launched Space Coast (Source: Space Coast Living)
A few months after President Kennedy’s announcement, NASA began acquiring land on Merritt Island to support the Apollo Lunar Landing program. On July 1, 1962, 60 years ago, NASA activated the site as its Launch Operations Center. In September 1962, in a speech at Rice Stadium in Texas, Kennedy uttered the now-famous words, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.’’

Kennedy would be assassinated a year later before his dream could be filled, but his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, named the Launch Operations Center the John. F. Kennedy Space Center just seven days after Kennedy’s death. Ever since, KSC and the Space Coast have been center stage in human space exploration. While the creation of the Kennedy Space Center and the Apollo mission clearly put the U.S. in the lead in the space race, it also had a profound effect close to home.

Brevard County, which attracted the best and the brightest to the space program, became known as the Space Coast, sporting an incredibly robust economy. NASA says Kennedy Space Center generates more than $5.2 billion for Florida’s economy annually through the employment of more than 12,000 government and contract workers. In all, NASA says the Kennedy Space Center supports more than 27,000 jobs in Central Florida. (6/10)

Pluto's Stellar Occultation - Searching for the Flash (Source: ABC.net)
According to scientists, there are clues that the atmosphere on Pluto is not behaving as expected. It’s been getting thicker even though models suggest it should be getting thinner as the planet moves further and further from the sun. The scientists hope to solve those mysteries through this project, and even — possibly — reveal what lies beneath Pluto’s frozen surface. According to Professor Young, this Earth-based mission — which is probing a different part of the atmosphere to New Horizons — could reveal even more secrets than the spacecraft itself. 

For the scientists, the equation is relatively simple: In four days time, Pluto will pass directly in front of a star. When it does that, it will temporarily block most of the light coming from the star — an event called a “stellar occultation”. Crucially for these astronomers, as that happens, the starlight will shine straight through Pluto’s thin atmosphere, bending and colouring the starlight. Exactly how it is bent and coloured will help the scientists create the weather report for the dwarf planet. (6/11)

Axiom Space Pays for Vande Hei’s Flight with One Month’s Delay (Source: TASS)
US company Axiom Space has paid for astronaut Mark Vande Hei’s flight on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft with a month’s delay, Russian State Space Agency Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rozozin said. "They were exactly one month late. There was a delay in payment but the money was eventually paid in full," Rogozin noted. When asked if the payment had been made in rubles, the Roscosmos chief answered in the affirmative.

Rogozin told Channel One in April that Axiom Space had not yet been able to pay two bln rubles ($34.4 mln) for the flight due to logistical issues. The Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft’s capsule carrying Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei landed in Kazakhstan on March 30. (6/11)

Astra Launch Fails to Deploy NASA's TROPICS Satellites (Source: SPACErePORT)
The first of three planned Astra flights to launch NASA's TROPICS weather satellites happened Sunday afternoon at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport, but Astra’s LV0010 vehicle appeared to suffer an early engine shut-down several minutes into flight, causing the rocket to tumble before delivering its two-cubesat payload into the intended orbit. This was the company’s seventh orbital launch attempt. Astra's previous NASA mission also failed to reach orbit and deploy the spacecraft. This would have been the company's first successful Florida launch. (6/12)

Space Industrial Base Workshop Finds U.S. Falling Behind China in Key Areas (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Industry and government thought leaders gathered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the fourth annual State of the Space Industrial Base (SSIB) Workshop between May 31-June 3, 2022 to assess the health of, and provide recommendations to sustain, the United States’ leadership and advantage in space. Previous SSIB reports provided in-depth assessments and actionable recommendations for U.S. leadership. This year’s theme was “Prosperity & Sustainability: Winning the New Space Race.” 

More than 350 representatives from industry, academia, government and the investment community attended the combination live-virtual conference hosted by New Space New Mexico and led by the Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate, Defense Innovation Unit, the United States Space Force, and NASA. Several high-level officials, including the NASA Administrator and Space Force leadership, shared strategic assessments on key areas of focus.  A separate workshop for Launch Services was held at Cape Canaveral, Florida in May and hosted by Space Florida. The report summarizing the insights and conclusions from SSIB 2022 is expected to be released in August. (6/11)

Satellite Vu Partners with Landmark to Provide Vital Climate Change Data to the UK Land and Property Sector (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Satellite Vu, the UK satellite firm set to become the world’s thermometer from space, have partnered with Landmark Information Group to provide vital climate data to the real estate market. The partnership will see Satellite Vu provide data from their thermal infrared satellites to Landmark, a leading provider of data to the UK land and property sector, to distribute to businesses as part of the global push towards Net Zero. (6/11)

Space-Enabled 5G Links Japan and Europe (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Engineers have connected Japan and Europe via space-enabled next-generation 5G telecommunication links. It is the first time that such an intercontinental connection has been established between Europe and Japan.

Next-generation 5G technology is poised to provide fast and high-volume data connectivity to fuel the digital transformation of society. When people and objects are travelling internationally on aircraft or ships, telecommunications satellites will play a crucial role in keeping them connected. International connectivity – for example, between a localised 5G network in a company’s head office and those in its subsidiary offices around the globe – could also use satellites for communication. (6/11)

How a Rocket Expansion in Utah will Boost the World (Source: Salt Lake Tribune)
What appeared on a Salt Lake County Council agenda this week as a routine rezoning request will help fuel a low-cost broadband option for underserved communities across the globe. Council members voted unanimously Tuesday to reclassify 35 acres on the west bench from agricultural to manufacturing zoning, allowing aerospace and defense giant Northrop Grumman to expand its rocket motor manufacturing plant.

The growth of the Bacchus West plant, just outside of Magna, is primarily related to a contract with United Launch Alliance that was announced Wednesday. The partnership, worth more than $2 billion, will supply boosters for United Launch Alliance rockets, which will in turn support the U.S. Space Force and NASA. (6/10)

Why We’d All be Screwed Without the Space Force (Source: Task and Purpose)
“Fundamentally, integrated air-land operations are completely space-enabled,” said Aaron Bateman, an assistant professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University who studies space policy. “That’s what’s at stake.” Despite being mostly invisible to the naked eye, space assets have become so ingrained in everyday military life that it’s hard to imagine what it would be like to operate without them.

Like the Navy, the Air Force, and the other services, the Space Force does not actually command space operations. That job falls to the U.S. Space Command, which has been around, with starts and stops, since 1985. Space Command is the unified combatant command for all things space across the military, just like how U.S. Central Command oversees operations in the Middle East, and U.S. Cyber Command oversees operations in cyberspace. The Space Force’s job is to “organize, train, equip and provide forces and capabilities” for Space Command and other unified combatant commands that need it.

All this goes to show that U.S. military space operations have existed for decades, but the creation of the Space Force as a separate branch within the department of the Air Force centralizes that space culture and expertise. “We needed a separate service to start developing a space culture, which just doesn’t exist in the Air Force,” Harrison added. “Operating a satellite is nothing like flying an airplane, and no one in the Space Force will go into space. But it will have a culture of people who understand the physics and the domain.” (6/10)

Spaceport Camden Leader Continues Job Hunt in Florida (Source: The Current)
Camden County Administrator Steve Howard, who also serves as the project leader for Spaceport Camden, was among three finalists who interviewed with the Seminole (Florida) County Commission Friday for the county administrator position. After the public interviews, which were streamed live online, the five-member commission rejected all three candidates and voted to start its search again with a new search firm.

Howard became Camden Administrator 15 years ago and added the role of Spaceport Camden project leader in 2014. He’s been a staunch advocate of the controversial project, which aims to launch small commercial rockets from a former industrial site over Cumberland Island National Seashore. During the Seminole County Commission meeting’s public comment period, resident Nancy Harmon said she had lived in Camden County and worked at King’s Bay Naval Base. She praised Howard’s work on spaceport as “great” for diversifying the economy but said the environment in the county “sucks.”

She had issues with how Howard’ could play two roles at once. “He’s an industry man. He’s worked very hard with industry to get what he wants,” she said. “And he was the executive (for) spaceport the whole time pretty much that he was their administrator. I have an issue with that. I think that’s a conflict of interest. I don’t think that was very professional.” (6/10)

Why France Signing NASA’s Artemis Accords is the Most Important Signature Yet (Source: The Verge)
France has finally come to the table, and the country is considered the most significant signatory yet for the Accords. “It was critical to get France on the same page as us for our lunar exploration and other plans, because they’re the dominant player in Europe along with Germany,” Gabriel Swiney, a senior policy advisor at NASA and one of the original authors of the Accords, tells The Verge. France is the largest contributor to the budget of the European Space Agency. The US also has a long-standing partnership with France’s space agency, CNES, and the country plays a pivotal role in operating the launch site and rockets for Europe’s primary launch provider, Arianespace.

France wasn’t completely sold on the Accords at first. “They have been open about the need for clarity on some of the issues with the Artemis Accords,” Swiney says. Now, it seems the country’s issues with the agreement have been resolved, giving the Accords a major stamp of approval from a once-skeptical nation. France has been one of the countries making clear that they think that space resources is something that the international community needs to really spend some time and think about,” he says. “So that it doesn’t become either a Wild West gold rush situation, or that it doesn’t just replicate some of the same inequalities that we see on Earth.”

NASA and government officials worked with the French space agency, attempting to combat what they considered to be a misperception that space resources were prohibited by the Outer Space Treaty. Ultimately, France came around, with NASA presenting the Artemis Accords as simply a starting point — not an end to the space resources discussion. Under the Accords, nations can extract resources, but “you have to do it lawfully and you need to keep talking about it and resolve some of these bigger questions.” Swiney says.  (6/10)

These Little Satellites Could Bring Big Advances to Tropical Storm Forecasts (Source: The Verge)
NASA is gearing up to launch tiny satellites into space that will help forecasters keep a closer eye on tropical storms as they develop in a mission called TROPICS. Crucially, if the launches are successful, the satellites will mark a big advancement in our ability to watch rapidly intensifying storms. At the moment, NASA’s weather satellites can only check in on a storm every four to six hours. “So we’re missing a lot of what’s happening in the storm,” Bill Blackwell, principal investigator for the TROPICS mission and a researcher at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, said in NASA’s announcement yesterday.

The new set of six satellites NASA plans to launch should shrink that timeframe significantly, giving researchers updates about every hour. The agency expects to launch the first two satellites as early as June 12th, with two more launches scheduled for later in the year. The satellites are headed for low Earth orbit, where they’ll circle the globe at an angle about 30 degrees above the equator. Each satellite is just under a foot long and equipped with a powerful instrument that’s about as big as a cup of coffee. The instrument, a mini microwave radiometer, can measure heat and light emanating from oxygen and water vapor in the air. (6/10)