August 10, 2023

Long-Overdue GPS Ground Stations Delayed by Pandemic, Chinese Hardware (Source: Defense One)
Raytheon Technologies’ long-troubled ground stations that will control the Pentagon’s constellation of GPS satellites won’t be ready till next year—seven years behind schedule. The Space Force is replacing its current ground stations through a program called GPS Next Generation Operational Control Segment, or OCX. Back in 2016, when OCX was supposed to be ready, it was already being called the “most troubled program” in the Air Force. Now lawmakers are angry.

Some of the delay stems from efforts to replace hardware whose manufacturer has been sold to China, says Barbara Baker, deputy program executive officer for Space Systems Command’s Military Communications & Positioning, Navigation, and Timing. The Pentagon found the program was at risk of Chinese hacking because hardware supplier IBM sold the server product line to Lenovo, a Chinese corporation. In March 2020, the program modified the contract with Raytheon and chose HP to replace the IBM hardware. (8/8)

Rocket Lab Results Match Wall Street Estimates, Company Adds Contracts for 10 Launches (Source: CNBC)
Rocket Lab reported second-quarter results that largely met Wall Street’s expectations, and the company said it added contracts for 10 more launches in 2023 and 2024. The company reported a net loss of $45.9 million, or 10 cents per share, compared with a loss of 9 cents a share expected, according to analysts surveyed by Refinitiv. That was wider than the loss of 8 cents a share in the same quarter a year earlier. Revenue grew 12% year over year in the second quarter to $62 million, versus $61.8 million expected by analysts. (8/8)

Europe’s Space Chief Confirms Rocket Rival to Musk’s SpaceX Won’t Launch This Year (Source: Politico)
The maiden launch of Europe’s next generation Ariane 6 rocket system now definitely won’t happen until 2024 at the earliest, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher said. Aschbacher said that the ESA, French space agency CNES and rocket developers Arianespace and Ariane Group “confirm that the inaugural launch is now targeted for 2024.” ESA had wanted to get the heavy launcher system ready for use this year, with full commercial operations then starting in 2024. The rocket had been scheduled to first launch back in 2020. (8/8)

Planetary Defense Test Deflected an Asteroid but Unleashed a Boulder Swarm (Source: UCLA)
In September 2022, NASA deliberately slammed a spacecraft into the asteroid Dimorphos to knock it slightly off course. NASA’s objective was to evaluate whether the strategy could be used to protect Earth in the event that an asteroid was headed toward our planet. A new study led by UCLA astronomer David Jewitt found that the collision had an unintended consequence: It launched a cloud of boulders from its surface. And, as the paper notes, smaller rocks flying off into space could create their own problems. (8/4)

Rogue Planets May Be More Numerous Than Stars in Our Galaxy (Source: Ars Technica)
Planets that go rogue orbit no star. They wander the vacuum of space alone, having been kicked out of their star systems by gravitational interactions with other planets and stars. Nobody really knows how many rogue planets could be out there, but that may change in a few years. Researchers used gravitational microlensing to estimate the number of rogue planets that could be revealed in the heart of the Milky Way. They analyzed data from the Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics (MOA) survey that searched for gravitational microlensing events from 2006 to 2014 to figure out how many more of these events we could expect to find with NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. (8/8)

China’s Rapid Space Launch Advantage, and How the US Can Try to Counter It (Source: Breaking Defense)
In recent years, US officials have emphasized a desire for “tactically responsive” space launch (TSRL). In a new analysis, Sam Bresnick of at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), warns that the US’s main competitor already has a leg up in that race. The US space industry, including members of the private and public sectors, have traditionally focused on payload capacity, reliability, and efficiency, or launching as many satellites as possible at a time. Such a strategy has led to the construction of large, liquid-fuel rockets.

Such an approach, however, has its downsides. Launching these rockets takes a significant amount of time, as positioning and safely fueling them are complex processes requiring extensive ground support equipment. In short, these rockets are not ideal for conducting responsive launches. China has also developed a suite of large, liquid-fuel rockets capable of carrying many satellites, but it has concurrently built a series of mobile, solid-fuel rockets that do not depend on complex launch infrastructure. These rockets require little ground support equipment, and most of them can be launched from transporter-erector-launchers (TELs), specialized vehicles that support mobile launches.

These mobile rockets, which are generally smaller than their liquid-fuel counterparts, cannot carry as many satellites as larger ones. They can, however, be speedily transported to remote locations and launched, making them ideal options for quickly replacing space systems damaged or destroyed in a conflict. Beijing has poured resources into improving the durability of its growing space architecture, both by designing systems that are resilient to attack and by deterring attacks against its satellites. (8/8)

Blue Origin Plots Launch of Its Mega Rocket. Next Year. Maybe (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Near an empty Florida beach, Jeff Bezos’ space company built a launch pad designed to withstand the flames and roar of powerful rocket engines at liftoff. There is hardly a scratch on it. The company plans to launch the first New Glenn mission next year—provided the vehicle meets its exacting standards. “I think everybody wants New Glenn to fly at the earliest time possible. Everybody does,” Bob Smith, chief executive at Blue Origin, said in an interview. “We're not going to sacrifice doing it right.” (9/9)

Boeing Says County Incentives Needed to Compete for Pentagon Programs (Source: St. Louis Business Journal)
A Boeing executive told St. Louis County lawmakers on Tuesday that a $1.8 billion expansion project would allow the aerospace giant to compete for the “next franchise programs” from the Pentagon. Boeing is seeking a 50% real property tax abatement over 10 years for each building included in the project and a personal property tax abatement for the same percentage and number of years.

Under the legislation the County Council will consider, Arlington, Virginia-based Boeing will be required to have at least 12,100 full-time jobs and to create 500 full-time jobs with an average salary of $90,000. If it does not, there would be a reduction in the amount of the tax abatement, said Mark Grimm, chairman of the GilmoreBell law firm in St. Louis and bond counsel on the project. The current headcount at Boeing’s facilities in the St. Louis area is about 16,000, the company says. (8/8)

Humanity's Return to the Moon and the Prospect of South Pole Moon Bases (Source: Hackaday)
The last time that a human set foot on the Moon, it was December 1972 — when the crew of the Apollo 17 mission spent a few days on the surface before returning to Earth. Since then only unmanned probes have either touched down on the lunar surface or entered orbit to take snapshots and perform measurements. But after years of false starts, there are finally new plans on the table which would see humans return to the Moon. Not just to visit, but with the goal of establishing a permanent presence on the lunar surface. What exactly has changed that the world went from space fever in the 1960s to tepid interest in anything beyond LEO for the past fifty years, to the renewed interest today? Click here. (8/9)

Northrop Grumman and Firefly's Antares 330 and MLV Plans Take Shape (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com)
The successor to the Antares 230+ launch vehicle is taking shape in the facilities of Northrop Grumman and Firefly Aerospace. The Antares 330/Medium Launch Vehicle (MLV), scheduled for its first flight in mid-2025, is being developed to conduct ISS cargo flights from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia. Its development started after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 crippled the existing Antares supply chain.

Antares 230+ and its predecessors used Russian engines and a Ukrainian-built first stage. The Russian engines are unavailable after Western nations, including the United States, applied sanctions, while the Ukrainian factory responsible for the first stage has been attacked by Russian forces. The Antares 330, based on a brand new first stage with seven Firefly Miranda engines using kerosene and liquid oxygen, is designed to use the existing launch and processing facilities that supported most of Northrop's Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract flights.

Like earlier versions of Antares, the 330 will fly from Launch Pad 0A at Wallops. The facilities at Wallops that supported the original Antares launches are being modified to support the Antares 330 and MLV rockets. The pad is being upgraded to accommodate the wider first stage, the transporter erector is being reinforced to handle heavier loads, and the horizontal integration facility is being lengthened to accommodate the longer launch vehicles. (8/9)

Astronomer Claims 'Direct Evidence' of Gravity Breaking Down (Source: Vice)
A scientist has observed a “gravitational anomaly” in certain star systems that could potentially upend a fundamental assumption about the universe, according to a new study. The anomaly arises when loosely orbiting stars, known as wide binaries, seem to move in ways that defy established models of gravity, which are based on the ideas of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. The mind-bending discovery hints at a possible alternate theory of physics that does not depend on the existence of weird unidentified phenomena, such as dark matter, to explain the phenomena we see in space.

Kyu-Hyun Chae, an astronomer at Sejong University, has now put these models to the test by analyzing the accelerations of stars in 26,500 wide binaries located within about 650 light years of Earth using imagery captured by the European Space Agency’s Gaia observatory. Scientists have previously searched for signs of modified gravity in these systems, but Chae took the next step by developing a new code that could account for special details, like the occurrence rate of so-called “nested” binaries in which the loosely orbiting stars also have close stellar companions.

The new data suggests that when the gravitational accelerations of these stars slip below one nanometer per second squared, they begin to move in ways that are more aligned with MOND models than by the standard model. Chae said the findings offer “direct evidence for the breakdown of standard gravity at weak acceleration” and reveal “an immovable anomaly of gravity in favor of MOND-based modified gravity,” according to a recent study. (8/9)

Chinese Startup Launches 7th Ceres-1 Rocket, Preps for First Sea Launch (Source: Space News)
Chinese commercial firm Galactic Energy achieved its seventh launch success from seven attempts early Thursday and is now set for a first sea-based mission. The seventh Ceres-1 solid rocket lifted off using a transporter erector launcher at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert at 12:03 a.m. Eastern, Aug. 10 (0403 UTC). Aboard were seven satellites for a variety of customers. The Beijing-based commercial firm is now preparing to make the first attempt by a Chinese commercial rocket company to launch from a mobile sea platform. (8/10)

Viasat Not Ready to Declare Viasat-3 Americas a Total Loss (Source: Space News)
Viasat is holding off on a contingency plan for ViaSat-3 Americas in the hope it could still get some capacity from the broadband satellite despite its defective antenna, the operator’s chair and CEO Mark Dankberg said Aug. 9. Engineers have been able to get end-to-end measurements showing the rest of the satellite is operating as expected or better, Dankberg said during the company’s earnings call. (8/9)

Japan’s Interstellar Aims for Orbital Launch in 2025 (Source: Space News)
Japanese launch startup Interstellar Technologies is preparing for a static fire test later this year that could pave the way for orbital launch of its Zero rocket in 2025. Zero, a vehicle designed to send nearly one metric ton to low-Earth orbit, will help meet demand for small satellite launch capacity “not only in Japan, but in the world,” said Keiji Atsuta. The 25-meter Zero with a 1.7-meter diameter is similar in size to the Rocket Lab Electron. Zero will launch from Japan’s Hokkaido Spaceport. (8/9)

The Smallsat Show-Me Era (Source: Space News)
Borne out of low-cost launch, the cubesat standard, and a more permissive attitude toward risk, today’s smallsat revolution started just over a decade ago. In 2013, my team organized the space sector’s first-ever venture conference. There were barely enough startups to fill the room, but the entrepreneurial spirit was strong, and visionary investors saw that the space industry was onto something big. Fast forward to the first-half 2023, and Quilty Space’s market monitor recorded 64 venture space equity financings in six months – more than half related to the smallsat ecosystem. Click here. (8/9)

From Customization to Standardization: NewSpace Requires a Radical Change for Payload Integration (Source: Space News)
Satellite operators and suppliers may have to radically change the satellite production process to achieve these required cost efficiencies. The traditional approach is geared toward customizing the platform to match the payload. This approach must be inverted if we want to reduce manufacturing costs. For most missions, customizing the satellite platform to suit the payload takes too much time and money to be continued. Satellite operators must weigh the cost and production time difference between customized satellite production and standard, off-the-shelf satellite platforms with standardized manufacturing.

Smallsat manufacturers and operators must design their products with scalability in mind. Otherwise, they risk a similar fate as Globalstar, ICO, Odyssey and Teledesic that in the 1990s had to scale back or cancel their intended constellations because of high costs and limited demand. Analysts have been skeptical about LEO constellations ever since. Today the economics have changed. There’s more capital to invest, demand for Earth observation services and connectivity has increased, technologies and revenue sources have evolved, and costs have decreased.

Satellite manufacturers need to make sure their products are replicable. Changing the design and components often to fit the payload won’t be profitable. This “satellite-as-a-product” approach would follow the footsteps of other industries trying to keep a strong return on investment and grow quickly. Sometimes standards compliance turned into a deciding factor for buyers.n (8/9)

Cosmic Gold Factory: Single Kilonova Produced 1,000x the Mass of the Earth in Very Heavy Elements (Source: SciTech Daily)
An unusually powerful gamma-ray burst (GRB 211211A), detected from a nearby galaxy, has been linked to a neutron star merger. This burst, notable for its excess of infrared light, was shown to originate from a kilonova, an event thought to occur when neutron stars collide. “We found that this one event produced about 1,000 times the mass of the Earth in very heavy elements. This supports the idea that these kilonovae are the main factories of gold in the Universe,” Matt Nicholl  said. (8/8)

Future Wars Will Turn on Space-Cyber-Special Operations Triad (Source: Defense One)
Commercial space communications, cyber effects, and influence operations are key to preventing or winning conflicts, Lt. Gen. John Braga, who leads U.S. Army Special Operations Command, said Tuesday. The United States must continue to develop each of those capabilities—and joint concepts for deploying them together—a concept modeled partially off of Ukraine, he said. With news of high casualties emerging from areas like the Donbas, another statistic has escaped public attention, Braga said.

“Sixteen thousand Russian soldiers have deserted. Sixteen thousand have been taken off the battlefield without having to expend kinetic rounds. That's probably a combination of effects," he said during the Space Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama. "I would suggest that have been assisted by space capability, cyber capability, human capability, and just old-school information operations there.” (8/8)

New Focus Needed On ‘Missile Defeat,’ U.S. Army Official Says (Source: Aviation Week)
The Pentagon needs a new way to coordinate and advocate for “missile defeat”—the ability to take out enemy missiles and launchers before launch—to reduce the requirement on active missile defenses, and U.S. Space Command should be in charge, the U.S. Army’s top missile defense official says. While there is extensive focus on missile defense—the ability to detect, track and kill a long-range missile from launch—there is much less coordination on what is done “left of launch,” says Lt. Gen. Daniel Karbler, commander of Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC). There needs to be a singular official in charge of how to deny, disrupt or destroy an enemy’s capability before launch, he said. (8/8)

KSAT Unveils Automated Ka-Band Network (Source: Space News)
Kongsberg Satellite Services announced Aug. 8 an automated ground network for small satellite constellations that includes Ka-band. Historically, only KSAT provided Ka-band antennas at ground sites for specific customers and their missions. Meanwhile, KSATlite, the company’s standard product for small satellite operators, was limited to S-band and X-band. After surveying customers, KSAT determined it was time to add Ka-band to the KSATlite network. (8/8)

BlackSky Purchases Five Rocket Lab Launches (Source: Space News)
BlackSky has purchased five Rocket Lab Electron launches for its next-generation imaging satellites. The contract covers five launches of Gen-3 satellites, which are designed to provide higher-resolution imagery than existing Gen-2 satellites, starting in 2024. The contract coincided with the release of Rocket Lab's second quarter financial results where it reported revenues of $62 million, in line with expectations. Rocket Lab says it still expects to carry out 15 Electron launches this year, and that improvements in the most recent Electron booster to be recovered worked "exceptionally well." (8/10)

DoD Agencies to Provide Threat Information to Commercial Satellite Operators (Source: Space News)
The NRO, NGA and U.S. Space Command signed an agreement to help provide threat information to commercial satellite operators. The agencies last month signed a Commercial Space Protection Tri-Seal Strategic Framework that an NRO official said is intended to help protect commercial remote sensing satellite systems. The framework is designed to ensure NRO-contracted commercial imagery providers are informed of emerging and imminent threats to their space assets. Companies working with the NRO would be obligated to inform the government if they notice any nefarious activities such as electronic jamming or cyber intrusions. (8/10)

Germany's Vyoma Orders Satellites From Bulgaria's EnduroSat (Source: Space News)
German startup Vyoma has ordered two prototype satellites for its proposed space debris-monitoring constellation from Bulgarian manufacturer EnduroSat. The microsatellites will launch around the end of 2024 into low Earth orbit and carry optical telescopes to track and catalog LEO objects larger than 10 centimeters. The satellites are the first of a planned constellation of 12 spacecraft. (8/10)

Lynk Global Starts Direct-to-Device Messaging in Cook Islands (Source: Space News)
Lynk Global has started direct-to-device messaging services in the Cook Islands. Phones on mobile operator Vodafone Cook Islands' network can now periodically send and receive text messages via Lynk's satellites around Manuae, an uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean popular with tourists. With just three satellites currently in low Earth orbit, Lynk's initial service enables texting as spacecraft pass over the region a few times a day. (8/10)

Dish Network Seeks Spectrum Access (Source: Space News)
Dish Network has asked the FCC for permission to use a spectrum band for fixed wireless services after other satellite operators blocked its use for mobile services. Dish said it believes using the 12-gigahertz band for fixed wireless services will make it easier to avoid interference with other users. Dish had sought to use the band for 5G mobile services but OneWeb, SpaceX and DirecTV said that would interfere with their satellite broadband and television services. The FCC ultimately sided with those satellite operators and denied the Dish proposal. (8/10)

DCubed Reveals In-Space Manufacturing Demonstration (Source: Space News)
DCubed, a German startup specializing in deployable satellite structures, plans to conduct an in-space manufacturing demonstration later this year. DCubed signed an agreement with D-Orbit this week to launch the demonstration payload in the fourth quarter of 2023. Once in space, DCubed plans to use an extrusion process to manufacture a 30-centimeter-long truss structure. If successful, it could allow future smallsat missions to manufacture deployable structures for solar arrays or other applications. (8/10)

Scout Space, Stanford University Win Space Force Contract Extension (Source: Space News)
Scout Space and Stanford University won a $1.5 million Space Force contract to help characterize spacecraft and debris objects. Scout Space is developing technologies for on-orbit navigation and tracking in partnership with the Stanford University Space Rendezvous Laboratory. The project, funded by the Space Force's technology arm, SpaceWERX, will help advance technologies for in-space servicing, assembly, and manufacturing. (8/10)

3D Printing Residue May Have Role in Lunar Flashlight Cubesat Failure (Source: Space News)
Residue from an additive manufacturing process may have contributed to the failure of a lunar cubesat's propulsion system. NASA's Lunar Flashlight mission, launched last December, was unable to carry out maneuvers to enter lunar orbit because of problems with its thrusters. Engineers said at the Small Satellite Conference this week that they believe the fuel lines for the thrusters were clogged with foreign object debris, blocking the flow of propellant to them. That debris may have come from the the process used to additively manufacture titanium components of the propulsion system, leaving behind particles inside the lines that came loose from vibrations during launch. Despite the propulsion problems, NASA said Lunar Flashlight was able to test other key technologies. (8/10)

NASA Earth Science Cuts Concern Scientists (Source: Science)
Cuts to a future NASA Earth science mission have scientists concerned. As part of efforts to reduce the costs of a planned mission called Atmosphere Observing System, a review panel recommended that NASA replace an advanced lidar instrument with a simpler one and remove a cloud-sensing radar band from another instrument. NASA is moving ahead with those recommendations even though the panel said the agency should first consult with outside experts. Scientists said that the reduced instrument suite could affect the continuity of some cloud and aerosol observations and put the U.S. behind Europe and Japan in such measurements. (8/10)

Impulse Space secures $45M in Series A Funding Round (Source: Space Daily)
Impulse Space has secured $45 million in its Series A funding round. "Impulse Space continues on the path toward its mission to provide agile, economic logistics services in any orbit," says Impulse Space Founder and CEO Tom Mueller. "It speaks volumes that a leading investment firm is confident in the future of Impulse Space and its trailblazing technology." This funding will support the development of Impulse's largest vehicle yet, called Helios. The Helios kick stage enables direct to Geostationary Equatorial Orbit missions, thus bypassing the need for a Geostationary Transfer Orbit. (8/9)

Communications Achieved for NASA’s Four Starling CubeSats (Source: NASA)
Mission managers have established command communications with all four of NASA’s Starling CubeSats! The spacecraft are progressing through payload and propulsion tests, the final stage of a pre-operations checklist called commissioning. The Starling spacecraft – which project team members nicknamed Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde – are part of an ambitious test to develop self-coordinating robotic swarms for space research and exploration.

Progress so far has been as expected for three of the four spacecraft – Pinky, Inky, and Clyde. An initial communication issue with Blinky was addressed by updating estimates of its orbital position and instructing the satellite to better align its antennas with ground station receivers. Operators have achieved operational two-way communications with all Starling units and are still investigating the root cause of the issue. (8/9)

Science in Space to Cure Disease on Earth—the ISS National Lab and NASA Announce New Funding Opportunity (Source: CASIS)
The ISS National Laboratory is collaborating with NASA on a funding opportunity to advance research on cancer and other diseases. ISS National Lab Research Announcement (NLRA) 2023-10: Igniting Innovation: Science in Space to Cure Disease on Earth will offer resource allocation and up to $5 million in total funding for an expected two to four awards for multiflight projects that leverage the unique space-based environment of the orbiting laboratory. Apply for funding by submitting a Step 1: Concept Summary by end of day on Sep. 26, 2023. Click here. (8/9)