February 19, 2023

Every Company Has the Potential to Enter the Space Economy. Here's How (Source: Enterpreneur)
We are living through a new era of space activity, and the evidence is all around us. From striking images of private sector rocket launches to new satellite and data capabilities to the innovative tools that will permit lunar exploration, the space industry is more vibrant and ripe with opportunity than ever before — and this is true not just for "space companies," whose primary business is space activity, services and tools, but for every company.

In this era of dynamic growth in the space market, the challenge for entrepreneurs is to answer: 1) Is their enterprise space adjacent or could it be changed to become space adjacent? 2) What is the space market demanding and what could the company offer? and 3) How does the business leader or entrepreneur identify and access opportunities that require fundamentally innovative applications for space? Click here. (2/6)

NASA Launches Two Sounding Rockets For Tech Research (Source: SpaceRef)
NASA launched two suborbital sounding rockets about 30 minutes apart Thursday, Feb. 16, to test a new capability for supporting science research in the mesosphere, an area of the atmosphere between 31 and 53 miles altitude. The two, nine-foot, Improved-Orion sounding rockets lifted off at 7 a.m. and 7:28 a.m. respectively. at NASA facilities at the Virginia spaceport. (2/18)

Spurred by Ukraine war, 18 Western Countries Plan to Share Remote Sensing Data (Source: Breaking Defense)
A group of 17 European nations, plus the US and Canada, today announced a plan to share intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance data from satellites — spurred by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine that has highlighted the value of space-based remote sensing for warfighting. Under a letter of intent, the nations will launch the Allied Persistent Surveillance from Space Initiative (APSS) to explore “the potential for sharing data from national surveillance satellites; processing, exploitation, and dissemination of data from within national capabilities; and funding to purchase data from commercial companies,” according to a UK Ministry of Defence press release. (2/16)

Creation of a Space National Guard Gets Renewed Push from Lawmakers (Source: Military.com)
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are once again backing a bill to create a Space National Guard, renewing a fight over how the Space Force will manage reserve service members. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, and Marco Rubuio, R-FL, introduced the “Space National Guard Establishment Act" on Wednesday, arguing that the estimated 1,000 service members who perform space missions under the Air National Guard should be aligned under the Space Force. (2/17)

NATO Braces for Space Warfare (Source: National Interest)
Space capabilities are a vital aspect of modern security and defense architecture, but their deployment presents increasing challenges. The use of satellites for intelligence gathering, reconnaissance, navigation, and communication has turned outer space into one of the most congested, contested, and consequential domains for military operations while simultaneously raising the likelihood of escalating tensions between space-faring nations.

In response to the rapid technological advancement and the proliferation of actors and interests in space, in 2019 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) promulgated space—along with air, land, maritime, and cyberspace—as its fifth domain of operations and warfare. The coverage of NATO’s relatively new space policy has been scarce, yet it offers an intriguing approach to the alliance’s evolving thinking on extraterrestrial security and collective defense while soberly assessing the alliance’s informational and technical gaps. (2/17)

Outer Space: a Growing Military Domain (Source: Express Tribune)
After air, land and sea, outer space has become an emerging military domain. Today, outer space exploration has become a vital aspect of the global economy and security. Outer space has become a critical domain for nations, with a wide range of applications and benefits for both civilian and military purposes. In recent years, the importance of outer space has grown as technology has advanced and the use of space-based systems has increased and dependency on space has grown for military purposes. (2/18)

JAXA Eyes H3 Rocket Retry by Early March (Source: NHK)
Japanese space agency officials are working to find out why their new flagship rocket did not lift off on Friday. They say they could make another attempt by early March. The H3 was due to blast off on its maiden voyage from JAXA's Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan. Speaking to reporters on Friday, project manager Okada Masashi indicated that engineers could try another launch by March 10. (2/17)

Dark Energy From Supermassive Black Holes? Physicists Spar Over Radical Idea (Source: Science)
Earlier this week, a study made headlines claiming that the mysterious “dark energy” cosmologists believe is accelerating the expansion of the universe could arise from supermassive black holes at the hearts of galaxies. If true, the connection would link two of the most mind-bending concepts in physics—black holes and dark energy—and suggest that the source of the latter has been under theorists’ noses for decades. However, some leading theorists are deeply skeptical of the idea.

“What they are proposing makes no sense to me,” says Robert Wald, a theoretical physicist. Other theorists were more receptive to the radical claim—even if it ends up being wrong. At first blush, black holes and dark energy seem to have nothing to do with each other. According to general relativity, a black hole is a pure gravitational field so strong that its own energy sustains its existence. Such peculiar beasts are thought to emerge when massive stars collapse to an infinitesimal point, leaving just their gravitational fields behind.

Quantum mechanics suggests that the vacuum of empty space should contain a type of energy known as vacuum energy. This is thought to be spread throughout the universe and exert a force opposing gravity, making it a prime candidate for the identity of dark energy. In 1966, Soviet physicist Erast Gliner showed that Einstein’s equations could also produce objects that to outside observers look and behave exactly like a black hole—yet are, in fact, giant balls of vacuum energy. If such objects were to exist, it would mean that rather than being uniformly spread throughout space, dark energy is actually confined to specific locations: the interiors of black holes. (2/17)

Russian Cargo Ship Departs ISS After Coolant Leak (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
Russian cosmonauts took pictures of the location where coolant leaked out of a Russian Progress cargo ship earlier this month when the supply freighter departed the International Space Station Friday night, as scheduled, to head for a destructive re-entry over the Pacific Ocean. The Progress MS-21 cargo ship undocked from the Russian segment of the ISS, keeping a departure date that has been set for months.

But the routine undocking took special significance after the Progress MS-21 cargo ship suddenly leaked coolant on Feb. 11, soon after the docking of a fresh Progress resupply spacecraft to a different port on the space station. The timing of the leak soon after the docking of another Progress supply ship was presumably a coincidence, but it was the second time in less than two months that a Russian spacecraft suddenly lost its coolant fluid while docked at the international research complex. (2/17)

Peraton Wins NOAA Contract (Source: Space News)
Peraton won a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration contract with a potential value of nearly $400 million to provide ground services for polar-orbiting weather satellites. Under the Low Earth Orbit Ground Sustainment Services contract announced Feb. 17, Herndon, Virginia-based Peraton will support and maintain the Joint Polar Satellite System Common Ground Services. JPSS CGS offers communications links for satellites operated by NOAA as well as the agency’s U.S. government and international partners. (2/17)

Eutelsat Nearly Ready to Seek Bids for Building OneWeb Gen 2 (Source: Space News)
A search for companies to build OneWeb’s second-generation constellation could kick off by summer, French satellite operator Eutelsat said Feb. 17 as it closes in on buying the British venture. A request for proposals will “most likely” be issued in the three months to the end of June, Eutelsat CEO Eva Berneke said during financial results, enabling launches to start in 2025 or 2026 for a low Earth orbit (LEO) network estimated to cost $4 billion.

The companies previously said they have reserved launch options to cover most of Gen 2’s needs, including new rockets being developed by Arianespace, Blue Origin, and Relativity Space. Replenishment plans for OneWeb’s current generation of 648 proposed satellites only extend the constellation’s lifespan to 2027 or 2028, Berneke added. Editor's Note: I guess it is TBD whether these new OneWeb satellites will be built at the OneWeb factory at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. (2/17)

Deep Space Smallsats Face Big Challenges (Source: Space News)
Craig Hardgrove, a professor at Arizona State University, is principal investigator for LunaH-Map, one of 10 cubesats that hitched a ride on SLS as secondary payloads. The six-unit (6U) cubesat carried a neutron spectrometer designed to map water ice concentrations at the moon’s south pole. He had been quietly raising concerns about the health of LunaH-Map, as there was no ability to recharge its batteries. As the Artemis 1 launch slipped from early 2022 to late in the year, he worried that the batteries were discharging, keeping the spacecraft from operating immediately after deployment.

Ground tests of batteries like those on the cubesat showed a low discharge rate, suggesting they should still have plenty of charge left. Even if the batteries were depleted, he said the spacecraft’s solar panels could charge them up enough to get the spacecraft ready for a key maneuver days after launch. The problem instead was with the cubesat’s propulsion system, an electric thruster called BIT-3 from Busek that uses solid iodine as propellant. The thruster did not operate as expected in the days after launch, causing the spacecraft to miss its primary opportunity to maneuver into orbit around the moon.

The experience of LunaH-Map is emblematic of the challenges facing deep space smallsats. Spacecraft developers hoped the experience from building cubesats and other smallsats for Earth orbit could translate into more technically demanding missions to the moon and beyond. An early success was NASA’s twin Mars Cube One, or MarCO, cubesats that accompanied the InSight mission to Mars in 2018 and relayed telemetry from InSight as it landed. More than half of the cubesats launched on Artemis 1, though, suffered problems after launch that, at a minimum, jeopardized their missions. The problems affected cubesats built by both space agencies and startups, and had little technically in common. Click here. (2/17)