May 9, 2023

NASA Working to Fix Lunar Flashlight Propulsion (Source: NASA)
NASA is continuing efforts to fix the propulsion system on a lunar cubesat launched last year. The thrusters on Lunar Flashlight have been underperforming since shortly after its launch last December. Engineers have gotten one of four thrusters to deliver more thrust and are now trying to repeat that on the other three. Those efforts have been partially successful, "inconsistently producing some increased levels of thrust," NASA said last week. The agency said they need to improve the propulsion system's performance in the coming days to enable the cubesat to go into orbit around the moon to look for water ice at the lunar poles. (5/9)

Space Force Reviewing STEP 2.0 Bids (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Space Force is reviewing bids from satellite manufacturers competing to produce and integrate experiments for the Space Test Program. The Space Force said Monday it plans to select companies to participate in the Space Test Experiments Platform (STEP) 2.0 program as soon as December. Through STEP 2.0, the Space Force will procure commercially developed spacecraft to host payloads sponsored by the Defense Department. The first mission under that contract will be STPSat-8, a 12U cubesat projected to launch in 2025. (5/9)

ClearSpace to Launch Debris-Removal Mission on Vega C (Source: Space News)
ClearSpace will launch its first debris removal mission on a Vega C. The Swiss company announced Tuesday it signed a contract with Arianespace to launch its ClearSpace-1 spacecraft as a secondary payload on a Vega C in the second half of 2026. The primary customer for that launch has not yet been selected. The 700-kilogram ClearSpace-1 will attempt to grapple a payload adapter left in orbit from a Vega launch a decade ago and deorbit it. That mission is funded by ESA, and the contract for it required ClearSpace to launch with Arianespace. (5/9)

Maxar Offering Smallsats for Defense Programs (Source: Space News)
Maxar see opportunities offering a line of smallsats for defense programs. The company is producing 16 satellite buses for L3Harris for that company's Tracking Layer contract with the Space Development Agency (SDA). L3Harris is the first customer for Maxar’s newly designed small satellite bus, tailored for the megaconstellation market. The bus is now offered to other defense contractors competing for SDA satellite contracts. Maxar CEO Dan Jablonsky sees SDA and other defense programs using smaller satellites as a "growing market opportunity" for the company. (5/9)

NASA Considers "Hybrid" Contract for ISS Deorbiter (Source: Space News)
NASA is considering a "hybrid" contract approach for procuring a spacecraft to help deorbit the International Space Station. In a draft RFP released last week, NASA proposed an approach where design work for the United States Deorbit Vehicle would be done under a cost-plus contract, while the production of the vehicle and related work would be done under a fixed-price contract. NASA didn't elaborate on this approach but said it is seeking feedback on it as part of the draft.

NASA plans to procure the launch of the vehicle separately and operate the spacecraft once launched after earlier considering a services approach to producing the vehicle. The vehicle would be used for the final phases of deorbiting the station to ensure a controlled, safe reentry. NASA plans to deorbit the station around 2030, although the draft RFP includes options that could extend that deorbiting to as late as the mid-2030s. (5/9)

GEO Satellite Orders Slow (Source: Space News)
Commercial GEO satellites orders are off to a slow start this year. Through the first four months of the year, companies announced just three satellite orders, two by "micro GEO" manufacturer Astranis and one by Maxar. After a burst of orders in 2020 stimulated by the C-band clearing efforts of Intelsat and SES, operators ordered only 12 satellites in 2021 and 11 in 2022. Manufacturers project 10 to 15 orders this year. (5/9)

ESA to Deorbit Aeolus (Source: ESA)
ESA is preparing for a controlled deorbit of a decommissioned Earth science satellite. The agency ended science operations of the Aeolus spacecraft last month and is now preparing a series of maneuvers of the 1,360-kilogram spacecraft to target a reentry over the ocean, keeping any debris that survives reentry from endangering the public. ESA plans to provide a detailed timeline of the spacecraft's reentry in mid-June, and expects the spacecraft to be deorbited by August. (5/9)

Space Force Promotes Bentivenga (Source: USSF)
The Space Force has selected its next top enlisted member. The service said Monday that Chief Master Sgt. John F. Bentivegna will become the chief master sergeant of the Space Force later this year. He will succeed Roger Towberman, who has held the post since the service was established in late 2019. Bentivegna, currently senior enlisted adviser for the Space Force's chief operations officer, was one of five finalists for the position, the Space Force's highest-ranking non-commissioned officer. (5/9)

NASA Platform Used to Launch Apollo 8, Apollo 11 Set for Demolition (Source: CollectSpace)
The historic steel platform from which the first astronauts departed Earth to fly around and land on the moon now, itself, only has a limited time left on the planet. Mobile Launch Platform-3 (MLP-3), or Mobile Launcher-1 (ML-1) as it was known when NASA used it for the Apollo 8 and Apollo 11 lunar missions more than 50 years ago, is set to be demolished, having recently been moved out of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to a nearby yard at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (5/8)

ISRO's Missions to Moon, Sun Likely in July (Source: Hindustan Times)
India is planning to launch the third edition of India’s moon mission and the first sun mission in July, an official said on Saturday. The space agency is aiming to launch Chandrayaan-3 in July, followed by Aditya-L1, an Isro official aware of the project development said. “We are completing all tests and hoping we will be able to stick to schedule,” the official said. Aditya-L1 is India’s first scientific mission to study the sun. Earlier, this mission was conceived as Aditya-1 with a 400kg class satellite carrying one payload, the VELC, and was planned to be launched in an 800km low earth orbit. (5/7)

SpaceX Receives FCC Approval That Can increase Starlink Network Speeds Significantly (Source: WCCF Tech)
SpaceX has received a crucial FCC authorization for its Starlink satellite internet constellation. The firm, which has launched more than four thousand satellites to date, suffered from high usage in certain areas and low in others even as it rushed to populate orbital shells with the satellites. This led to a degradation of internet speeds for users in North America. The FCC has approved SpaceX's request to increase the transmit duty cycles of its second-generation user dishes after SpaceX submitted data to the Commission outlining that doing so would not violate any radiofrequency emissions regulations. (5/5)

Breaking Out of the Space Echo Chamber (Source: Space News)
As space advocates, we know these are bad ideas, but we are simply terrible at communicating our perspective, and as a result, the vast majority of people, including most with a “good education,” don’t understand what we are talking about. Our collective dysphasia makes it harder for space companies to raise money and dramatically more difficult to sustain support in Washington.

More than 40 years of space advocacy have convinced me that the heart of the problem lies in the fact that our community consists overwhelmingly of people who are comfortable with science and engineering.  Even the artists, lawyers, actors, writers and musicians active in our community are into science and technology.  This separates us from the vast majority of people making business and political decisions. (5/8)

NASA Decommissions Mars Orbiter Mineral-Mapping Instrument (Source: SpaceFlight Insider)
After more than 15 years of operation, NASA has turned off one of six science instruments aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, or CRISM, produced global maps of minerals of the Red Planet’s surface. According to NASA, the instrument was switched off on April 3, 2023, a move the agency said it has been planning since last year. (5/8)

Ball Aerospace Zeroes In on Future Technologies (Source: Space News)
Ball Aerospace is growing rapidly. The backlog for the Westminster, Colorado, company’s portfolio, which includes sensors, spacecraft, data services and components, jumped 20 percent between 2021 and 2022 to reach $3 billion. Another $5 billion in Ball contracts booked were not yet added to the backlog, the company reported in February. (5/8)

Propelling ASCENT Into Commercial Markets (Source: Space News)
Daniel Cavender has worked extensively with ASCENT, the non-toxic propellant developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory. When ASCENT, short for Advanced Spacecraft Energetic Non-Toxic, was first flown on NASA’s Green Propellant Infusion Mission, Cavender was the assistant chief engineer for the NASA Technology Demonstration Missions program office overseeing the program. Cavender was also the project manager for the ASCENT-fueled propulsion system on NASA’s Lunar Flashlight, a cubesat designed to observe water ice deposits on the moon that failed to reach lunar orbit.

Will ASCENT ever replace hydrazine? No, I don’t believe it will. It is an alternative. We encourage everyone to look at their mission trades and do what is important for them. We know payload safety review panels look more favorably on lower hazard technologies. For some people ASCENT may be the difference between being able to get a ride-share opportunity. For others it may be about heritage or known high reliability. Good engineering must come first. (5/8)

Virgin Galactic Plans Return to Space This Month (Source: Flying)
Ninety minutes of weightlessness, exhilaration, and panoramic views of the Earth for the price of $450,000 a head—that’s the vision Virgin Galactic wants to turn into reality next month. On Monday, the firm announced its return to space with a test flight later this month, which could finally clear the way for a commercial launch in June. Last month, the firm finally got back in the air with an in-orbit test flight, the Unity 24 mission. But this month’s scheduled launch, Unity 25, would send VSS Unity into space for just the fifth time. The test flight will serve as a “final assessment” of the company’s core offering, an hour-and-a-half-long jaunt to the edge of the atmosphere. (5/8)

Las Cruces Native Announced as Part of Virgin Galactic’s Next Space Flight (Source: KVIA)
Virgin Galactic is blasting off from southern New Mexico once again. The Unity 25 crew will include Chief Astronaut Instructor Beth Moses, Instructor Luke Mays, and Mission Specialists Christopher Huie and Jamila Gilbert will all be on board. Gilbert is a Las Cruces native. The company says Spaceport America is just one hour from her hometown. Virgin Galactic says she will be among the first 100 women to reach space. She has Purépechan-Mexican roots. (5/8)

Stonehouse: Deep Space Listening in the High Desert (Source: Space Review)
During the 1960s and 1970s, the National Security Agency had a listening post in Ethiopia with a very specific mission: eavesdrop on communications from Soviet deep space missions. Dwayne Day examines the history of the site and what American intelligence learned from those transmissions. Click here. (5/8)
 
Strategizing Planetary Defense (Source: Space Review)
The success of NASA's DART mission to deflect a small asteroid was a major milestone for planetary defense, but not the end of efforts to protect the planet from potential impacts. Jeff Foust reports on new strategies released last month by NASA and the White House to improve efforts to discover and, if necessary, deal with potentially hazardous asteroids. Click here. (5/8)
 
How Government and Industry Should Reshape the Business of Space (Source: Space Review)
Developing new space capabilities, from satellite servicing to space traffic management, requires coordination between the public and private sectors. Adam Routh and Brett Loubert offer some proposals to government and industry to improve cooperation in those and related fields. Click here. (5/8)

Ethics in Outer Space: Can We Make Interplanetary Exploration Just? (Source: Nature)
Because of all the terrible behaviour that came out of the colonization model here on Earth. People talk about space as the final frontier — there’s always references to the Wild West. But living on the frontier in the Wild West was not an ideal experience for most, including Indigenous people, women and Black people. We can’t just pick and choose the nice shiny parts of history and apply them to space. We have to also look at what was harmful about those times and how we can avoid that in the future. Click here. (5/8)

Viasat's Proposed Acquisition of Inmarsat Receives Unconditional Clearance From UK's Competition and Markets Authority (Source: Viasat)
Viasat is pleased that the UK's Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) has today announced the conclusion of its Phase II review, which confirmed its provisional findings that the transaction does not raise competition concerns, and allows Viasat's proposed acquisition of Inmarsat to proceed without remedies. The companies will continue to work through other regulatory approvals and update on transaction close timing as those processes continue. (5/9)

Team Continues to Troubleshoot Propulsion for NASA's Lunar Flashlight (Source: Space Daily)
NASA's Lunar Flashlight operations team continues to work on remedying the CubeSat's underperforming propulsion system. They developed a method to get one of the CubeSat's four thrusters to deliver more thrust; however, the small spacecraft will need additional, more consistent thrust in the next few days to reach its revised target orbit.

Devised by team members at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, Georgia Tech, and the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, the new method involves trying to clear the thruster fuel lines of suspected obstructions by increasing fuel pump pressure far beyond the system's operational limit while opening and closing the system's valves. After some improvement with one spacecraft thruster, the team is now attempting this method on the other three thrusters. This has resulted in limited success, with the remaining thrusters inconsistently producing some increased levels of thrust. (5/9)

Phantom Space and Quub sign Multiple Launch Agreement (Source: Space Daily)
Phantom Space has signed a launch services agreement with Quub for three dedicated launch missions. Each dedicated launch will place upwards of 80 satellites into a tailored low earth orbit. Launches will occur from Phantom's launch sites in Florida, California, Alaska, and/or Australia. Phantom will work with Quub's team to design and optimize launch profiles to best meet Quub's mission objectives. Phantom will also provide launch preparation services to Quub, as necessary, to address regulatory, technical, insurance, and schedule needs. (5/9)

Ambitious Arab Mission to Explore Seven Asteroids, Including a Very Red One (Source: Ars Technica)
About a year and a half ago, the United Arab Emirates announced an ambitious deep space mission to explore the asteroid belt, with the aim of visiting seven different asteroids. The Arab country, working with the University of Colorado Boulder, aimed to launch the mission as soon as 2028. After making gravity-assist flybys of Venus, Earth, and Mars, the spacecraft will visit seven main-belt asteroids, with six of these being high-speed encounters before ultimately a rendezvous with the asteroid 269 Justitia. (5/9)

Virginia Tech, George Mason to Develop Networking for Satellite Constellations (Source: Space Daily)
The race is on to provide high speed satellite internet to the Earth's most remote areas. New tech companies such as Starlink, One Web, and Amazon's Kuiper are competing with traditional, established "satcomm" companies such as Thuraya and Inmarsat to provide global high speed, low latency satellite internet across the globe. These new mega-constellations rely on tens of thousands of small low earth orbit satellites flying at a few hundred miles altitude. Network interconnectivity is a basic building block for providing the fastest, more reliable coverage to end users. While all these mega-constellations are driven to provide high quality of service, they do not currently connect to or interact with one another. (5/9)