August 19, 2023

Russia's Luna-25 Spacecraft Suffers Technical Glitch (Source: Reuters)
An "abnormal situation" occurred at Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft on Saturday as it was preparing to transfer to its pre-landing orbit, Roskosmos said. The Russian spacecraft is scheduled to land on the south pole of the moon on Monday, part of a big power race to explore a part of the moon which scientists think may hold frozen water and precious elements. "During the operation, an abnormal situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the manoeuvre to be performed with the specified parameters," Roskosmos said in a short statement. Specialists are analysing the situation, it said, without providing further details. (8/19)

NASA Spacecraft Spots Stunning Flow of Ice on Mars (Source: Mashable)
NASA's Mars-orbiting satellite, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, carries a powerful camera called the High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) that captures rich imagery of the Red Planet's surface (it's the "most powerful camera ever sent to another planet," the HiRISE team explains). Recently, planetary scientists used HiRISE to snap an image of a glacier-like "icy flow," taken from 184 miles above Mars' surface. Frozen ice doesn't only exist in the frigid Martian poles.

"The surface of Mars is littered with examples of glacier-like landforms," Mike Mellon, a Mars geologist and co–investigator of the HiRISE project, explained online. "While surface ice deposits are mostly limited to the polar caps, patterns of slow, viscous flow abound in many non-polar regions of Mars." (8/19)

SpaceX Shows Off Newly Modified Starship Super Heavy Booster (Source: Space.com)
SpaceX has added some new hardware to its latest Starship rocket prototype, which is being prepped for a test flight in the near future. Starship, SpaceX's next-gen deep-space transportation system, consists of two fully reusable elements — a huge first-stage booster known as Super Heavy and a 165-foot-tall (50 meters) upper-stage spacecraft called Starship. Click here. (8/18)

U.S. Government Warns of Foreign Intelligence Threats to the Space Industry (Source: Space News)
Companies in the U.S. space industry are being increasingly targeted by foreign intelligence operations, U.S. intelligence agencies warn. It’s generally known that China and Russia are among the leading foreign intelligence threats to the U.S. space industry, but other nations are also targeting this sector, a U.S. counterintelligence official said. Some countries see U.S. space-related innovation and assets as potential threats as well as valuable opportunities to acquire vital technologies and expertise, the bulletin warned. (8/18)

SpaceX News Sends Cryptocurrency Tumbling (Source: Investor's Business Daily)
Bitcoin plunged Thursday night on news that Elon Musk's SpaceX has sold all its holdings of the cryptocurrency. Other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum and Dogecoin also sold off while Bitcoin-related stocks such as Coinbase (COIN), Marathon Digital (MARA) and Riot Platforms (RIOT) retreated. SpaceX documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal show that the private space company has sold all its Bitcoin, after writing down the value of its holdings in 2021 and 2022. (8/18)

What Russia's and India's Lunar Missions Mean for the Future of Space Exploration (Source: Slate)
The lunar south pole appears to be the stage of the next space race. For practical and scientific reasons, as well as for geopolitical and astropolitical ones, this race is different from the Soviet–U.S. one of the 1960s. And although the U.S. isn’t directly involved in either of the current south pole missions, these missions will galvanize future moon exploration and habitation. They also set the stage for a future in which, once again, the world’s space-faring powers will have a choice between competition and collaboration.

As Russia looks to walk away from collaborations at the ISS, it’s shaking hands with countries like China, which is not an ISS partner. Roscosmos said that after it finishes three other pending lunar missions, it will embark on “the next phase—a manned mission and the construction of a lunar base with our colleagues from China.” The director general also said he “expect[s] many countries to join” the lunar base program it intends to create with China.

Although it’s unclear who India’s space allies might be for future missions, the country should be considered a major player in the next chapter of space exploration. All of these countries possess fierce military might, including nuclear weapons, which raises the stakes of these lunar missions. Soon, the moon’s south pole will be another venue for competition—or for collaboration. (8/18)

Russia and India Are Racing to Put Landers on the Moon (Source: WIRED)
Move over, USA and China: Humankind is about to witness robotic moon landing attempts by Russia and India within a few days of each other. Russia’s Luna-25 lander could touch down as soon as Monday, August 21. It’s the country’s first lunar mission in nearly half a century, and the first in the post-Soviet era. Two days later, on August 23, Chandrayaan-3 could become India’s first successful lunar lander. (Its predecessor failed in 2019.)

Both missions are aiming for the moon’s south pole region, a site of increasing international interest because of the presence of water ice that could be extracted for oxygen or rocket propellant. It also includes critical spots known as “peaks of eternal light,” which receive near-constant solar illumination that could power future missions and moon bases.

The 20th-century space race between the United States and the former Soviet Union has given way to a more crowded lunar competition. “I think what we are seeing now is a race for the moon, which is again political and power-based as well as technological. The difference, of course, is that today’s geopolitical reality includes many more countries and players and also commercial entities,” says Cassandra Steer, an expert on space law and space security at the Australian National University in Canberra. “India has caught up with Russia at a fraction of the cost in a fraction of the time.” (8/17)

OneWeb Demonstrates LEO Offerings to Humanitarian Organizations (Source: Via Satellite)
OneWeb had demonstrated how its satellites and services can make a real impact in the humanitarian community. The company announced Aug. 17 that it took part in a successful demonstration of Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite capabilities last month at the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, Switzerland. OneWeb, successfully streamed 4K video feeds, ran Microsoft Teams and GoogleEarth applications at up to 150 Mbps download speeds; up to 29 Mbps upload speeds; and latency levels as low as 70 ms. (8/17)

Latest China Satellite to Survey One-Third of Earth in High-Orbit SAR Breakthrough (Source: SCMP)
China will have a permanent view of nearly one-third of the Earth’s surface, with the launch of the world’s first geosynchronous orbit synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite. The civilian-use Ludi Tance 4-01 left the Xichang launch centre on board a Long March 3B rocket at 1.26am Beijing time on Sunday, according to its developer, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC). (8/16)