March 28, 2023

Isar Raises $165 Million Toward First Launch of Spectrum Rocket From Norway (Source: Space News)
Isar Aerospace has raised $165 million as it gears up for the first flight of its Spectrum rocket. The company announced Tuesday it raised the Series C round, the largest so far this year by any space company, from a group of European investors. The funding will support work to complete the Spectrum rocket, scheduled to make its first launch in the second half of the year from Norway, and to scale up production of the vehicle. Spectrum is designed to place up to 1,000 kilograms into low Earth orbit, and Isar has several customers who have signed contracts for launches over the next few years. (3/28)

Firefly Aerospace Completes Risk Reduction Testing for Critical Miranda Engine (Source: Space Daily)
Firefly Aerospace, Inc., an end-to-end space transportation company, recently completed risk reduction testing for critical Miranda engine components ahead of the first hot fire scheduled this summer. As a larger, scaled-up version of the company's Reaver engines, Miranda will power the Medium Launch Vehicle (MLV) Firefly is co-developing with Northrop Grumman.

The risk reduction testing was successfully completed for Miranda's main fuel valve and the throttle valve hot seal design. The hot seal was tested several times during routine Reaver engine hot fires. Due to the commonalty of Firefly's engine designs, the team can conduct robust flight-like testing and validate performance for both Alpha and MLV. (3/28)

Soyuz Capsule, Uncrewed, Lands in Kazakhstan (Source: NASA)
An uncrewed, damaged Soyuz spacecraft returned to Earth from the International Space Station this morning. The Soyuz MS-22 undocked from the ISS at 5:57 a.m. Eastern this morning. It landed in Kazakhstan at 7:46 a.m. Eastern. The spacecraft experienced a coolant leak in December that led Roscosmos and NASA to conclude the spacecraft could not be used to return its three-person crew to Earth.

The cause of the leak was originally blamed on a micrometeoroid strike, but after a similar leak on a Progress spacecraft docked to the station in February, officials said they could not rule out a manufacturing defect. Russia launched the uncrewed Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft in February that will return two Roscosmos cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut from the station in September. (3/28)

Thales Alenia to Develop Satellites for IRIDE Italian Imaging Constellation (Source: Thales Alenia)
Thales Alenia Space has won contracts to build several spacecraft for an Italian Earth imaging constellation. Thales will build six synthetic aperture radar satellites and one optical imaging satellite for the IRIDE constellation funded by the Italian government. The contracts are worth $154 million, with options for additional satellites valued at $102 million. Both the radar and optical satellites will use the same bus, called NIMBUS. (3/28)

Europe Contemplates a Space Revolution (Source: Space Review)
The European Space Agency has considered developing human spaceflight capabilities, but first sought the advice of an outside group. Jeff Foust reports on the conclusions of that group that support not just an expansive European human spaceflight program but a more commercial approach for doing so. Click here. (3/27)

ESA Shuffles Managers (Source: ESA)
ESA is reshuffling some of its senior management. The agency said that Daniel Neuenschwander, currently its director of space transportation, will take over as director of human and robotic exploration in July. He succeeds David Parker, who will move into a new special adviser role to strengthen ESA's relations with the U.K. Space Agency. Toni Tolker-Nielsen, who had served for a time as acting director of Earth observation, will take over for Neuenschwander as director of space transportation. ESA also extended contracts for Rolf Densing, director of operations, and Eric Morel de Westgaver, director of European, legal and international matters. (3/28)
 
GEDI on ISS Gets Second Life (Source: The Guardian)
An Earth science instrument on the ISS will get a second life. The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) instrument, which provided the first 3-D map of forests, was scheduled to end this spring so that the port where it is attached could be used by another instrument. While NASA did remove GEDI last week, the agency said it will keep it in storage on the station's exterior and reinstall it in 18 months, potentially keeping it there through the end of the station's life. Earth scientists had lobbied NASA to keep GEDI operational to extend its data set and calibrate results from other Earth science spacecraft. (3/28)

Webb Measures Temperature of Rocky Exoplanet for First Time (Source: AFP)
The James Webb Space Telescope has measured the temperature of a rocky exoplanet for the first time, finding that a "cousin" of Earth most likely lacks an atmosphere, researchers said Monday. When the Trappist-1 system was discovered in 2017, astronomers were excited at the prospect that some of its seven rocky planets -- which are roughly similar to Earth in size and mass -- could be habitable. Just 40 light years from Earth, the planets orbit much closer to their ultracool red dwarf star than the rocky planets in our Solar System. But their star gives off far less energy than our Sun.

By subtracting the brightness of the star, the researchers calculated how much infrared light the planet was giving off. The MIRI instrument was therefore able to act like "a giant touch-free thermometer," NASA said in a statement. The planet's dayside temperature was determined to be 230 degrees Celsius (450 Fahrenheit) -- "just about perfect for baking pizza," NASA added. (3/27)

No Atmosphere on TRAPPIST-1b (Source: Nature)
Astronomers have ruled out the presence of an atmosphere on an Earth-sized exoplanet. Observations by the James Webb Space Telescope found no evidence of an atmosphere on TRAPPIST-1b, the innermost of seven planets all similar in size to the Earth orbiting a nearby M-dwarf star. The finding is not surprising, since the planet orbits very close to the star, but astronomers said it will help them better understand exoplanet systems while turning their attention to other, most distant planets in the same solar system. (3/28)

Constellation Complete, OneWeb Turns Attention to Ground Stations (Source: Space News)
OneWeb is turning its attention to setting up ground stations now that its full satellite constellation is in orbit. Sunil Mittal, executive chair of OneWeb, said Monday that the company has most of the critical ground stations needed to provide service in markets where it is authorized to provide service, with more to come online in the next several months. OneWeb currently provides service for customers above 50 degrees north latitude, generating several million dollars a month in revenue, but he said the company should generate "hundreds of millions" in the next year from commercial and government customers. (3/28)

Indian ASAT: Mission Shakti Should be a Comma, Not a Full Stop (Source: Space Review)
Four years ago, India demonstrated its anti-satellite capabilities by destroying a satellite with a direct-ascent missile. Ajey Lele argues India needs to discuss what other ASAT technologies it is developing and its space deterrence strategy. Click here. (3/27)

Middle East Nations Consider Military Space Forces (Source: Space News)
Several U.S. allies in the Middle East are interested in creating their own space forces. Col. Christopher Putman, commander of U.S. Space Forces Central, said at an event Monday that countries in the region are studying whether they need a dedicated space force and how to integrate space with their air force or defense departments.

The U.S. military recently graduated a class of Saudi Air Force personnel that completed "Space 100", an introductory course on military space taught at the unclassified level. Putnam runs a component of the U.S. Space Force that reports to U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in a region stretching from Northeast Africa across the Middle East to Central and South Asia. (3/28)

Space Command Encourages Congress to Uphold Indo-Pacific Command’s $3.5B Wish List (Source: Breaking Defense)
Perhaps the most striking thing about US Space Command’s fiscal 2024 wish list for funds not included in the Defense Department’s annual budget request is its full-throated call for lawmakers to back Indo-Pacific Command’s bold bid for $3.5 billion in extra FY24 cash. In a March 23 letter conveying his own command’s “unfunded priorities” list to the Senate Armed Services Committee, obtained by Breaking Defense, SPACECOM head Gen. Jim Dickinson expresses “strong support” for INDOPACOM’s ask.

“The space capabilities captured within USINDOPACOM’s submission are critical to ensuring that the Department of Defense’s integrated deterrence posture extends to the space domain, and, if called upon, will enable USSPACECOM to fully support USINDOPACOM’s efforts to defeat aggression,” he wrote. (3/27)

Space Policy: Why a Step-by-Step Plan Matters (Source: Space Review)
People widely discuss the content of space policies by the United States and other nations, but talk far less about how such policies are created and implemented. Namrata Goswami examines the five-step process of space policy development and how it is put to use in various countries. Click here. (3/27)

Virgin Orbit Extends Unpaid Pause as Brown Deal Collapses, ‘Dynamic’ Talks Continue (Source: CNBC)
Virgin Orbit is again extending its unpaid pause in operations to continue pursuing a lifeline investment, CEO Dan Hart told employees in a company-wide email. Some of the company’s late-stage deal talks, including with private investor Matthew Brown, collapsed over the weekend, people familiar with the matter told CNBC. “Our investment discussions have been very dynamic over the past few days, they are ongoing, and not yet at a stage where we can provide a fulsome update,” Hart wrote in an email to employees, which was viewed by CNBC. (3/27)

Taking Space Command Away From Huntsville is ‘Worst of Washington,’ Tuberville Says (Source: AL.com)
Four days after an opinion column in The Washington Post indicated President Joe Biden was leaning toward keeping U.S. Space Command in Colorado, Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville fired back with his own opinion. The Post published an op/ed from Tuberville on Monday and the senator repeated his arguments that Redstone Arsenal has been determined to be the best site. In the column’s penultimate sentence, Tuberville – a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump – referred to Biden as “Mr. Biden” and not as “President Biden.” (3/27)

Harvard Physicist Plans Expedition to Find ‘Alien Artefact’ That Fell From Space (Source: The Guardian)
A prominent Harvard physicist is planning a Pacific expedition to find what he thinks might be an alien artefact that smashed into the ocean. Avi Loeb announced that he is organizing a $1.5m ocean expedition to Papua New Guinea to look for fragments of an object that crashed off the coast of its Manus Island in 2014.

Loeb noticed the object in 2019 and identified it as the first interstellar meteor ever discovered – meaning it originated outside our solar system. According to Loeb, the meteor’s interstellar origin was confirmed to Nasa in April 2022 by DoD’s space command. Loeb and his team also concluded that the meteor was tougher than all other 272 meteors in Nasa’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies catalog.

“Intrigued by this conclusion, I established a team that designed a two-week expedition to search for the meteor fragments at a depth of 1.7km on the ocean floor. Analyzing the composition of the fragments could allow us to determine whether the object is natural or artificial in origin,” Loeb wrote. (3/24)

Damaged Soyuz MS-22 Craft Prepares to Come Home Uncrewed (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
The Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, which launched Expedition 68 crewmembers Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin, and NASA’s Frank Rubio on Sep. 21, 2022, is preparing to come back to Earth in automated mode after suffering a leak in a coolant loop last December. Before Soyuz MS-23 docked at the Station, Progress MS-21 also suffered a coolant leak of its own from its service module. The leaks on both spacecraft had occurred after approximately three months in orbit, and both the uncrewed Progress and crewed Soyuz vehicles use the same service module architecture. (3/27)

NASA Space Operations Head Lueders to Retire (Source: Space News)
Kathy Lueders, the NASA official who oversees the International Space Station and commercial cargo and crew programs, will retire from the agency at the end of April and be succeeded by her deputy. NASA announced March 27 that Lueders would retire after more than three decades at the agency, most recently as associate administrator for space operations. Ken Bowersox, who is deputy associate administrator for space operations, will take over that post effective May 1. (3/27)

Spaceport America Appoints Francisco Pallares New Director Of Business Development (Source: Los Alamos Daily Post)
Dr. Francisco Pallares has been selected as the new Director of Business Development at Spaceport America. Pallares joins the New Mexico Spaceport Authority from Sul Ross State University and was the former Deputy Director for Economic Development at the City of Las Cruces. (3/27)

Does the Future of Medicine Lie in Space? (Source: The Guardian)
The idea of leaving Earth to further medicine goes back to the dawn of the space age. Needing a way of justifying the enormous cost of launching as many as 50 flights a year, NASA suggested that its astronauts could multitask, using their time in orbit to pursue a cure for cancer or the many other illnesses afflicting humankind. It is the absence of gravity that has long made space such an attractive playground for teasing apart some of biology’s intricacies.

The pull of the Earth’s gravitational field can mask some of the ways in which cells communicate, making it harder to understand why they behave as they do. Gravity makes it far more complex to keep stem cells in their purest and most useful state for extended periods, constantly nudging them and encouraging them to develop. It also makes it much more difficult for scientists to study the complex crystal structures of key proteins, for example those linked to cancer, viruses, genetic disorders and heart disease.

Growing these fragile crystals from scratch is crucial for analysing how a tumour or a virus evolves, or detecting little pockets where a new drug could sit. But when they are grown on Earth, gravity tugs at them, obscuring how they really look. For Massachusetts–based biotech company MicroQuin, a series of experiments conducted on the ISS in the past four years have helped kickstart a new pipeline of drugs for ovarian and breast cancers, as well as traumatic brain injury, Parkinson’s, and even influenza, based on a family of proteins called TMBIMs. Click here. (3/26)

Biden Should Proudly Reverse Trump on Space Command (Source: The Gazette)
We hope Washington Post columnist David Ignatius is right on the mark. If so, President Joe Biden will soon announce Colorado Springs as the permanent home of Space Command’s headquarters. Ignatius reported “the Biden administration is quietly moving to repair” Trump’s ill-advised Space Command decision, citing an unnamed White House official. If true, Biden will prove himself a serious and adept commander-in-chief who understands the dangers of mounting world tensions.

Then-President Donald Trump, on his way out of office in 2021, ordered relocation of Space Command from Colorado to Huntsville, Ala. His motives are not in question. Trump put his ego ahead of the country’s safety and security, rewarding Alabama without commonsense thought to national security. Trump announced the dangerous decision in 2021, after losing the White House to Joe Biden. What seemed unwise back then looks dangerous in today’s geopolitical imbroglio. (3/27)

Black Holes May Be Swallowing Invisible Matter That Slows the Movement of Stars (Source: Space.com)
For the first time, scientists may have discovered indirect evidence that large amounts of invisible dark matter surround black holes. The discovery, if confirmed, could represent a major breakthrough in dark matter research.

Using computer simulations of the black hole systems, the team applied a widely held model in cosmology called the dark matter dynamical friction model, which predicts a specific loss of momentum on objects interacting gravitationally with dark matter. The simulations revealed that the observed rates of orbital decay matched the predictions of the friction model. The observed rate of orbital decay is around 50 times greater than the theoretical estimation of about 0.02 milliseconds of orbital decay per year for binary systems lacking dark matter. (3/27)

Maybe the Universe is Shaped Like a Doughnut (Source: Space.com)
The universe may be flat, but could still be shaped like a doughnut, weird patterns in leftover light from the Big Bang suggest. The universe could, in fact, be a giant doughnut, despite all of the evidence suggesting it's as flat as a pancake, new research suggests. Strange patterns found in echoes of the Big Bang could be explained by a universe with a more complicated shape, and astronomers have not fully tested the universe's flatness, the study finds. (3/26)

Branson Swaps Risk for Reserve in Virgin Orbit’s Costly Flameout (Source: Edge Markets)
Richard Branson, 72, whose Virgin Group has pumped more than $1 billion into Virgin Orbit — including $60 million in the past six months — hasn’t recently put in the money now needed to prop up the venture. That’s forcing the company to speak to external investors such as little-known Texas-based venture capital funder Matthew Brown, who has been touting himself as a possible savior of a business that was worth billions just a year ago.

The small launch market “has room for one or two” companies, Tory Bruno, CEO of United Launch Alliance, said during a panel at a satellite industry conference in Washington on March 15. “So Rocket Lab, perhaps, and one other, at most.” Success for launch companies may mean doing more than just launches. SpaceX builds satellites and offers broadband internet through its Starlink business, while Rocket Lab also has its own satellite manufacturing arm.

“Launch alone doesn’t make a business,” Anderson said. “All of the launch companies that have successfully made it to orbit, starting with SpaceX, will tell you that the launch market isn’t enough to support a business. They’re all doing other things.” (3/27)