July 24, 2023

Safran Offers $1.8B for Collins' Flight-Control Unit (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Safran has announced plans to acquire the actuation and flight-control business from RTX's Collins Aerospace unit. The cash offer values the target at $1.8 billion, including debt. "The transaction would enable us to deliver a comprehensive offering to our clients and position us extremely well for next-generation platforms as the segments move toward increased electrification," said Safran CEO Olivier Andries. (7/21)

Boeing Plans $1.8 Billion Expansion Project, Adding 500 Jobs, Incentives Sought (Source: St. Louis Business Journal)
Dubbed Project Voyager, and described as supporting “new aerospace programs,” plans call for construction of multiple buildings totaling one million square feet with a capital investment of $1.8 billion, according to documents released Friday. The Boeing project is estimated to create 500 new jobs over several years. The investment would consist of $1.3 billion of real property investment and $500 million of personal property investment.

Boeing is seeking a 50% real property tax abatement over 10 years for each building included in the project and and a personal property tax abatement for the same percentage and number of years. A sales-tax exemption for construction materials is also being sought. The tax abatement is for net new investment, and no existing taxes are to be reduced to the taxing districts, according to the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership. The project is estimated to generate about $108.4 million in lieu of taxes over the 10 years of the abatement, according to a memo from St. Louis County Executive Sam Page to the county council in which he urges approval. (7/21)

Shortage of Aerospace Workers a Global Challenge (Source: National Defense)
The aerospace and defense industries are facing a talent crisis, with a wave of retirements and a struggle to attract skilled personnel, according to McKinsey & Company. There is a global deficit of highly skilled engineers and trade workers, and the transition from hardware to software in these sectors is increasing the demand for software engineers. (7/24)

China Launches Four Satellites on Long March 2D (Source: Xinhua)
A Long March 2D rocket launched four satellites late Saturday. The rocket lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center at 10:50 p.m. Eastern and placed the four satellites into their planned orbits. Chinese media said that three of the satellites will be used for remote sensing and the fourth to test satellite communications technologies. (7/24)

SpaceX Launches Starlink Satellites From Florida Spaceport (Source: Florida Today)
SpaceX launched another set of second-generation Starlink satellites Sunday night after a one-day delay. A Falcon 9 launched from Cape Canaveral at 8:50 p.m. Eastern and placed 22 "V2 mini" Starlink satellites into orbit on the Group 6-6 mission. The launch was scheduled for Saturday but scrubbed because of weather. (7/24)

Nelson Heads to South America for Space Talks (Source: NASA)
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson is heading to South America this week for talks on space cooperation. Nelson will meet with officials in Brazil, Argentina and Colombia during the trip, including Argentinian President Alberto Fernández, to discuss cooperation in various areas, with a special emphasis on Earth science. Brazil and Colombia have previously signed the Artemis Accords. (7/24)

NASA Funds 3 Citizen Science Projects to Study 2024 US Solar Eclipse (Source: Space Daily)
NASA has awarded funding for three science teams to conduct citizen science investigations as a total solar eclipse sweeps across North America on April 8, 2024. In these experiments, volunteers will help study the Sun and its ethereal outer atmosphere, called the corona, which is revealed when the Moon completely covers the Sun's bright disk. (7/21)

Scientists Propose Geoarchaeology Can Aid in Preserving Space Heritage (Source: Space Daily)
Two researchers from the Kansas Geological Survey at the University of Kansas and their colleagues have proposed a new scientific subfield: planetary geoarchaeology, the study of how cultural and natural processes on Earth's moon, on Mars and across the solar system may be altering, preserving or destroying the material record of space exploration. Applying geoarchaeological tools and methods to the movement of people into space and the solar system is a natural extension of the study of human migration on Earth, the focus of the ODYSSEY Archaeological Research Program. (7/21)

India, Russia, Japan and the US have Launched the Next Phase of Lunar Exploration (Source: The Hill)
Recently, India launched the Chandrayaan-3 lunar probe. If all goes well, it will land on the moon’s south pole in late August. The mission comes after the failure of Chandrayaan-2 to land on the lunar surface. If successful, it will not only buttress India as a major space power but will begin the next phase of lunar exploration with as many as six moon shots from four countries scheduled for the remainder of 2023, according to Arts Technica.

Russia’s Luna 25 is due to launch in August. It is the first Russian mission to the moon in 47 years, after the successful voyage of Luna 24 that returned a sample of lunar soil in 1976. Luna 25 is less ambitious, designed to land a 30-kilogram package of scientific instruments in the south polar region of the moon. Click here. (7/22)

Sanctions Lead Russian Scientists to Collaborate with China (Source: South China Morning Post)
Maxim Ostras’ quantum sensor can detect brain signals with record-high sensitivity. Backed by the largest bank in Russia, he plans to take the sensor to commercial production and enter the Chinese market. Alexey Akimov is intrigued by some anomalies in the periodic table that he believes could lead to the discovery of new materials. He gave up a tenure position in the US and returned to Russia to pursue his dream of a quantum simulator, in which some critical components were sourced from China.

Alexey Fedorov was commissioned to build a new generation quantum laboratory in Russia 10 years ago, when he was a fourth-year university student. Now, as a research group leader with the Russian Quantum Centre and the youngest full professor in the history of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Fedorov is working closely with some Chinese researchers on quantum algorithms and cryptography. Sanctions led by the US have created a new bond between scientists in Russia and China. But just like the quantum entanglement in physics, the quantum collaboration between Russia and other countries, especially China, can be complex, challenging and sometimes fragile due to external disturbance. (7/22)

Phobos, The 'Doomed' Moon, Is Going To Crash Into Mars (Source: IFL Science)
NASA's Perseverance Rover captured a gorgeous view of Phobos eclipsing the Sun, from the surface of Mars. From the point of view of any Martian microbes lurking out there, the eclipse may have seemed more ominous (yeah ok, there might not be living organisms up there, let alone ones sentient enough to grasp the concept of an eclipse) as the moon is destined by physics to one day slam into the red planet.

Phobos – the closest of Mars' two moons – is set to get ever closer to the planet, before its final descent, while Deimos will drift ever outwards until it leaves Mars' orbit. "Phobos is nearing Mars at a rate of six feet every hundred years; at that rate, it will either crash into Mars in 50 million years or break up into a ring." says NASA. (7/22)