August 24, 2023

Codependent Space Transport (Source: Quartz)
Private contractors have always been at the business end of spacecraft-building, but the government once took the lead on designing the vehicles. That hasn’t been cheap or efficient. The most recent rocket and human-rated spacecraft to follow this model, NASA’s Space Launch System and Orion space capsule, cost $50 billion to develop and has flown once. SpaceX has earned about $13.5 billion from NASA in the last two decades, flying dozens of missions. (8/24)

North Korea Fails With Satellite Launch Attempt (Source: Space News)
For the second time in three months, a North Korean spy satellite has failed to reach orbit. A Chollima-1 rocket lifted off from a launch site in Tongchang-ri, North Korea, at 2:40 p.m. Eastern Wednesday. However, North Korea's news agency said the launch failed because of an "error in the emergency blasting system" in the rocket's third stage. Debris from the rocket fell into the ocean east of the Philippines. The rocket was carrying a military reconnaissance satellite called Malligyong-1. A similar launch at the end of May also failed, but in an earlier phase of the rocket's flight. (8/24)

Rocket Lab Launches Radar Satellite with Reused Rocket Engine (Source: Space News)
Rocket Lab launched a radar imaging satellite Wednesday night and made another step towards reusability. An Electron rocket lifted off at 7:45 p.m. Eastern from the company's New Zealand launch site and deployed the first Acadia satellite for Capella Space. That satellite has an updated synthetic aperture radar payload for better image resolution and quality. The launch used a recoverable version of the Electron booster that, for the first time, included an engine that had previously flown on an Electron launch last year. The reused engine had "perfect performance" and brings the company closer to reusing the entire Electron first stage. (8/24)

Indian Lunar Lander Deploys Rover (Source: PTI)
ISRO says it has deployed a small rover from its Chandrayaan-3 lander. The Pragyan rover rolled off the lander and "took a walk on the moon," but did not disclose details about the rover's initial drive. The 26-kilogram rover carries instruments to study the chemical composition of lunar rocks and regolith. ISRO has provided few updates about the status of the mission since its landing Wednesday morning, including just a single post-landing image. (8/24)

Australia's HEO Offers Orbital Object Imaging, Raises $8 Million (Source: Space News)
HEO, an Australian company that offers imaging of space objects, has raised $8 million. The startup, previously known as HEO Robotics, raised the Series A round from several investors led by Airtree Ventures, an Australian venture capital firm. HEO leases time on partner companies' imaging satellites and can task them to take pictures in order to characterize a space object. Those partners include Axelspace and Satellogic. (8/24)

National Academies Readies Decadal Survey for Space Biological and Physical Sciences (Source: Space News)
A decadal survey for space biological and physical sciences research is set for release next month. The National Academies said it will release on Sept. 12 the decadal for biological and physical sciences research in space, a document that will highlight priorities for research in those areas done primarily on the ISS.

In a recent interview, the head of the NASA division overseeing such research said she hopes the decadal provides "very targeted" research priorities to guide NASA funding in those areas, as well as guidance for what to cut if funding falls short of expectations. NASA also hopes the decadal provides guidance on how to transfer ISS research to commercial space stations as well as research to be done beyond Earth orbit. (8/24)

Exo-Space Acquisition A Success for Crowdfunding Platform (Source: Space News)
The acquisition of space computing startup Exo-Space was the first exit for a space crowdfunding platform. Exo-Space raised more than $200,000 through Spaced Ventures before it was acquired this week by Sidus Space. The deal is a "vindication" of the crowdfunding platform, said Space Ventures CEO Aaron Burnett. The platform helps angel investors identify and review startups seeking funding. (8/24)

Starship Moved to Texas Pad for Tests (Source: NSF)
A Starship booster is back on the pad for more tests. SpaceX rolled out the Super Heavy booster, known as Booster 9, to the launch pad at Boca Chica, Texas, on Tuesday. The company is expected to perform another static-fire test of the booster after one earlier this month that was cut short after the shutdown of four engines. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted Wednesday that the next Starship launch would be "soon" but the company still has to complete testing and get FAA approvals, a process that could take weeks. (8/24)

Japan Readies Next Lunar Mission (Source: Quartz)
The next lunar visitor is ready for launch. Japan’s space agency expects to launch its own lunar lander, SLIM or Smart Lander for Investigation Moon, on Aug. 26. The vehicle will attempt to demonstrate techniques for landing precisely on the surface, and deploy a handful of scientific sensors. (8/24)

Midwest Sees Aerospace, Defense Grow (Source: Airport Technology)
The aerospace and defense industry in the Midwest is positioned for robust growth, part of a broad increase in exports nationally between 2020 and 2021, generating $391 billion, according to Aerospace Industries Association data. Missouri, in particular, is emerging as an advanced manufacturing hub, with over 100 aerospace manufacturing companies established and incentives for manufacturers to create employment opportunities. (8/23)

Support for Ukraine Creating Jobs at Home (Source: Air Force Technology)
Military support for Ukraine by the US and its allies is fueling growth in the defense sector, with US companies accounting for most defense and aerospace job growth globally. France and Germany follow the US as leaders in defense and aerospace hiring. (8/23)

How Space Pride is Campaigning for Change in the Space Sector (Source: Physics World)
Milan is a city synonymous with fashion, where designers and haute couture descend every September for its annual fashion week. Shortly after next year’s event, however, Milan will host another cultural milestone – the first Space Pride Fashion Gala. Running from 14 to 18 October 2024, the event promises to be “an out-of-this-world Pride parade” that builds on the latest advances in “technofabrics” – material that incorporate technology or functionality into a traditional textile.

By staging the Space Pride Fashion Gala during the 75th annual congress of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), which is also being held next October in Milan, the charity aims to pose “a joyful protest” on behalf of the LGBTQIA+ community working in the space industry, whose needs – or even existence – are not always well recognized. (8/24)

What Does Hollywood’s Future in Space Look Like? (Source: Smithsonian)
Movies set in space are nothing new. Classics, like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Barbarella, and, more recently, blockbusters like Interstellar and Gravity have all won over audiences. But with no hope of filming on location, directors have long relied on other approaches, like recreating spaceships with computer-generated imagery and simulating zero gravity with parabolic flights.

But thanks to the rise of the commercial space industry—and a new flock of next-generation space stations set to launch sometime around the turn of the decade—filming in low-Earth orbit is no longer a far-fetched idea. As the cost of rocket launches continues to fall, producers are already sketching out dramas, sporting events and even reality television shows that, at the very least, could involve components that are shot in space. Click here. (8/23)

Moon Landing Done, ISRO Now Sets Eyes On Mars (Source: NDTV)
ISRO Chairman S Somanath on Wednesday toasted the success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission, crediting it to the “pain and agony” of all the scientists who persevered on it and expressed confidence that the space agency would similarly land a spacecraft on Mars in the coming years. Acknowledging the contribution of a generation of leadership by the scientists of the country's space agency for the Chandrayaan-3 mission's success, he said this is an "incremental progress" and "definitely a huge one”. (8/23)

How a Harvard Professor Became the World’s Leading Alien Hunter (Source: New York Times)
Avi Loeb, a theoretical astrophysicist at Harvard University, followed the news about Oumuamua for months. Then one morning in the fall of 2018, he had an idea. For Oumuamua to accelerate as it did, something had to have given it a push. What if that thing was sunlight? For years, scientists have theorized that sunlight, properly captured in the vacuum of space, could exert enough force to boost an object to incredible speeds. Nature doesn’t make anything that harnesses light quite so well, but Loeb thought he might have the answer. “One possibility,” he and a postdoctoral researcher wrote in a paper, “is that Oumuamua is a light sail.”

Loeb was known in the scientific community for his openness to unconventional ideas, but he was an establishment figure who had published hundreds of papers over three decades on traditional astronomical subjects. He had a reputation for finding creative ways to subject hard-to-study phenomena to the rigors of the scientific method. By the time Loeb published his Oumuamua hypothesis, he had collected a stack of impressive titles at Harvard: chairman of the astronomy department, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation, director of the Black Hole Initiative. Loeb could not have been any more mainstream or credentialed.

Since then, Loeb has made extraterrestrial life his primary research focus. In thousands of news media appearances and near-daily online essays, he has called for scientists to seriously consider the possibility that aliens, or hardware they built, have visited our planet. He says scientists have a responsibility to investigate astronomical oddities like Oumuamua as well as reported sightings of UFOs. Dismissing their questions as unworthy of consideration, he argues, is not a good way to earn back the trust of an American public that has become skeptical of science and scientists. (8/24)

DARPA Wants to Build a 'Thriving Commercial Economy' on the Moon in 10 Years (Source: Space.com)
DARPA is seeking rapid develop of technologies to support the foundation for an integrated lunar infrastructure. The 10-Year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) capability study will attempt to unite what the agency sees as isolated efforts within the scientific community in order to produce a diverse technological framework to facilitate activities in space around and on the surface of the moon in the coming decades. The DARPA study is scheduled to last seven months, and will include lunar service providers and users, according to a statement on the agency's website published Aug. 15. (8/24)

Stanford and UC Berkeley Collaborate to Produce Superior Graphene Aerogel in Space (Source: CASIS)
Graphene aerogel is a remarkable lightweight material that is both thermally insulating and electrically conductive. This makes it appealing for use in a wide variety of applications—from improved energy storage in batteries to better oil spill cleanup methods to next-generation space suits. A team of researchers from Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley are leveraging the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory to produce higher-quality graphene aerogel than is possible on Earth. (8/24)