September 1, 2023

SpaceX Launches Starlink Satellites From Florida, Scrubs California DoD Launch (Source: NSF)
One Falcon 9 launched Thursday while another was postponed by a technical problem. A Falcon 9 lifted off at 10:21 p.m. Eastern from Cape Canaveral, Florida, placing 22 Starlink V2 mini satellites into orbit on the Group 6-13 mission. SpaceX waited out poor weather from the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia that delayed the launch from earlier in the evening. However, SpaceX scrubbed a Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California Thursday morning, citing an issue with one of the rocket's engines. The launch, carrying a second set of Tranche 0 satellites for the Space Development Agency, has been rescheduled for 10:26 a.m. Eastern Friday. (9/1)

NASA Delays Crew Departure From ISS Due to Stormy Seas (Source: NASA)
NASA has again delayed the departure of Crew-6 from the International Space Station. NASA said early Friday that it postponed the undocking of the Crew Dragon spacecraft Endeavour from the ISS that was scheduled for Saturday morning, citing unfavorable conditions in splashdown locations off the Florida coast. The next undocking opportunity is Sunday at 7:05 a.m. Eastern, setting up a splashdown around 12:07 a.m. Eastern Monday, pending favorable weather. (9/1)

Globalstar Picks SpaceX to Launch Satellites (Source: Space News)
Globalstar has selected SpaceX to launch a set of replacement satellites. The company said in a regulatory filing that it will pay SpaceX $64 million to launch the first set of satellites it ordered last year from MDA and Rocket Lab. While Globalstar did not give further details about the launch agreement, its $327 million contract with MDA covered 17 satellites for deliveries anticipated in 2025, with options for up to nine more satellites. Apple has agreed to reimburse Globalstar for 95% of the constellation, and in return Apple would use 85% of the new network's capacity to upgrade satellite services launched last year for its latest iPhone. Globalstar would use the rest of the capacity for its legacy services, including connectivity for specialized satellite phones and for connecting monitoring and tracking devices. (9/1)

Shareholder Lawsuit Alleges Bad Faith in Kuiper Launcher Selection (Source: Space News)
A shareholder lawsuit alleges Amazon's board of directors "acted in bad faith" when they approved Project Kuiper launch contracts for Blue Origin and other companies. The suit, filed in a Delaware court this week by a pension fund that owns Amazon stock, claims that the board and its audit committee spent "barely an hour" reviewing proposed Kuiper launch contracts with Arianespace, Blue Origin and ULA before approving them, even though Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also owns Blue Origin.

During that process, Amazon also failed to consider SpaceX as a launch option even though it potentially could offer lower prices. The suit describes the Kuiper launch contracts, formally announced in April 2022, as Amazon's second-largest capital expense in its history after its purchase of Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. Amazon has spent $1.7 billion to date on those contracts, without a single launch. An Amazon spokesperson called the suit "completely without merit." (9/1)

Intuitive Machines Raises $20 Million (Source: Space News)
Intuitive Machines announced Thursday it raised $20 million through a sale of shares. The company said an unnamed institutional investor purchased the shares, with the proceeds going towards general corporate purposes. Intuitive Machines is completing its first lunar lander, IM-1, for launch as soon as mid-November, and is also preparing to start work on a NASA engineering services contract. The company said it raised the money "to strengthen our balance sheet defensively" for those efforts. (9/1)

TSS Improves Perceptions of China's Space Efforts (Source: Space News)
A new report argues China's Tiangong space station could alter perceptions of Chinese space efforts internationally. The report published this week by the Department of the Air Force's China Aerospace Studies Institute said that Chinese plans to fly astronauts from other countries on Tiangong "seems very likely to improve the PRC standing at least in its joint program with the United Nations, if not also with existing astronaut programs." The report also highlighted Chinese commercialization efforts, such as a recent call for proposals for commercial resupply services for Tiangong. (9/1)

Ingenuity Flies 56th Flight on Mars (Source: UPI
The Ingenuity Mars helicopter has completed its 56th flight. JPL said the helicopter flew for 410 meters in the Aug. 25 flight at an altitude of 12 meters. The flight was intended to reposition Ingenuity to keep pace with the Perseverance rover as it travels across the Martian surface. (9/1)

Loeb's Meteorite Clames Disputed (Source: Science)
Scientists are skeptical of claims that fragments of an interstellar meteorite have been found on the bottom on the ocean. In a preprint posted this week, a team led by Harvard University astronomer Avi Loeb said a dredging effort on the floor of the Pacific, in the vicinity of a 2014 meteor, found several spherules with unusually high concentrations of beryllium, lanthanum and uranium. Such abundances have not been seen in other meteorites, leading Loeb's group to conclude that as evidence the spherules are fragments of a meteor that originated outside the solar system. Other scientists, though, are not convinced, noting that there are other explanations for the spherules and raised doubts that the meteor had interstellar origins. (9/1)

Japanese Astronaut to Test Cosmetic Products on ISS (Source: CNN)
Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui will look his best when he goes to the International Space Station next year. Japanese cosmetic company POLA and ANA Holdings announced a skincare line of products called "Cosmology" they developed for the Japanese space agency JAXA, which was looking for products to address the dry conditions on the station. They include a face wash and lotion that Yui will use during his mission. The companies also plan to sell the Cosmology products to the public starting this fall. (9/1)

NASA, Partners Study Ancient life in Australia to Inform Mars Search (Source: Space Daily)
NASA is working with its international partners to study the ancient Earth as it relates to Mars. In June 2023, NASA's Mars Exploration Program leaders joined their counterparts from the Australian Space Agency, ESA (European Space Agency), and the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) on a field expedition to visit some of the oldest convincing evidence of life on Earth. (8/25)

3 Up-and-Coming Space Stocks to Put on Your Must-Buy List (Source: Investor Place)
Some saw the space stock heyday as long over, but these three have emerged as clear winners. Rocket Lab (RKLB): This smaller company is racking up win after win and its on a glidepath to more success. Intuitive Machines (LUNR): This company’s upcoming lunar lander mission could make it go stratospheric. L3Harris Technologies Inc (LHX): Its recent Aerojet Rocketdyne acquisition could push it into the space. (8/30)

Underpaid Scientists Made India Moon Landing Possible (Source: Washington Post)
India needs more heroes like Sreedhara Somanath than it needs entrepreneurs like Satya Nadella. Did I hear you say, “Who?” No offense to Nadella, the otherwise brilliant Hyderabad-born chief executive of Microsoft. But it’s the low-key Somanath, under whose leadership India achieved its historic moon landing, who should be a role model for Indians. He represents a generation of gifted scientists who chose not to emigrate — and achieved just as much, if not more, in challenging circumstances.

Somanath will never own a cricket team or show up on any Fortune or Forbes lists. He will probably never be called to dine at the White House. And he earns a fraction of what Indian Americans such as Nadella do. But spending just 30 percent more than Nadella’s annual salary, he took India to the moon. At $74 million, India’s moon landing was an extraordinarily frugal project. It was cheaper than film projects such as “Barbie,” and less than half of Russia’s South Pole Project (which crashed into the moon on Aug. 21)... and less than a quarter of the projected cost of NASA’s own planned VIPER rover mission. (8/31)

Green Seas: Wind-Propelled Shipping Meets Spaceport Supply Chain (Source: TradeWinds)
Wind propulsion is not rocket science, but it is about to help reduce the carbon emissions of the supply chain required to put rockets into space. A hybrid vessel propelled by four wingsails and two diesel engines is about to begin its first wind-propelled voyages under a 15-year contract carrying space launcher parts from Europe to French Guiana. After construction of the 1,000-lane-metre Canopee was completed in December, the ro-ro vessel has now been outfitted with four Oceanwings sails built by AYRO. (8/30)

Demand Remains Unclear for Phone-to-Satellite Services (Source: Light Reading)
Many companies are rushing to connect smartphones to satellites. But so far, there doesn't seem to be much demand for the technology. Interest in the satellite-based emergency calling service on Apple's iPhone 14 is "surprisingly dormant," according to analyst Cliff Maldonado with BayStreet Research, a firm that closely tracks smartphone sales trends in the US market. "It is not on the radar."

Among everyday consumers, Maldonado described the addition of satellite calling services to Apple's iPhone as a "non event." Meaning, the technology doesn't seem to be enticing shoppers to buy the gadget. "I think it's a value, but it's not driving the purchase decision at all," Maldonado said. He isn't alone in his assessment. "So far satellite D2D [direct to device] hasn't been a game changer for smartphone sales," wrote analyst Tim Farrar, with TMF Associates, on social media earlier this month.

Others are still bullish about the technology. Abel Avellan, the CEO of AST SpaceMobile, told Light Reading that the satellite-based emergency calling services on the new iPhone represent the first of many offerings in the sector. AST SpaceMobile is building a satellite constellation that Avellan suggested will eventually support broadband services across wide portions of the globe. Indeed, the company recently conducted a test connection that reached 10 Mbit/s. (8/31)

NASA's LRO Observes Crater Likely from Luna 25 Impact (Source: NASA)
Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, published an estimate of the impact point on Aug. 21. The LROC (short for LRO Camera) team and the LRO Mission Operations team were able to design and send commands to the LRO spacecraft on Aug. 22 to capture images of the site. The LROC team compared images taken prior to the impact time and the sequence taken after and found a small new crater. (8/31)

SatixFy Sells Satellite Payload Subsidiary to MDA (Source: Space News)
Israeli satcoms equipment maker SatixFy announced plans Aug. 31 to sell its satellite payload subsidiary to MDA as part of a $60 million strategic transaction with the Canadian space hardware specialist. MDA is spending $40 million to buy SatixFy Space Systems UK Ltd, a British developer of satellite payload systems and subsystems, including digital beam-forming antennas and onboard processors. (8/31)

Telescope Reveals New Detail in Famous Supernova (Source: BBC)
It's like a celestial pearl necklace. This is an image of a supernova - an exploded star - taken by the new super space telescope James Webb (JWST). SN1987A, as it's known, is one of the most famous and studied objects in the southern hemisphere sky. When the star went boom in 1987, it was the nearest, brightest supernova to be seen from Earth in almost 400 years. And now the $10bn (£8bn) Webb observatory is showing us details never revealed before. Click here. (8/31)

U.S. Space Force Looks to Boost Allied Tracking of North Korea Missiles (Source: Reuters)
The U.S. and South Korean militaries want to more closely integrate their systems for tracking North Korean missile launches, an effort that may soon see more cooperation with Japan as well, U.S. Space Force officials said on Wednesday. Led by a small contingent of U.S. Space Force personnel - the branch's first official component set up overseas - the allies see closer space integration as key to better tracking North Korean threats and responding to a conflict. (8/30)

Why Did SpaceX Give Up on “Catching” Falling Fairings? (Source: Ars Technica)
Several years ago, SpaceX founder Elon Musk challenged his employees to go catch the fairings. "You have six million bucks falling from the sky," Musk famously said. But how to do it? Originally, the company's engineering team reasoned that they had to catch them with a net before hitting the ocean, said Kiko Dontchev. The concern among the engineers was that exposing the fairing and its delicate electronics to seawater would cause significant corrosion. So the SpaceX engineering team developed a complex recovery process, and the company caught its first fairing in January 2020.

"You basically had this really awesome algorithm, this crazy automation," Dontchev said. "The fairing had a parafoil and it would steer itself, and then the boat would have this automated control that would basically turn and follow. And the two would close. And that's how you would capture them. It worked. We did it." Except it didn't work with regularity, as weather out in the Atlantic Ocean was a major factor.

"The reality is, most of the time, it's a choppy hot mess with 7- to 9-foot waves, a super short period, and a ton of wind," Dontchev said. "So even though we caught it once, our actual success rate for bringing fairings home was quite low. It was under 50 percent, 40 percent. Our ability to get fairings ready to fly was choking our launch rate." (8/30)

What Is the Next Space Challenge? (Source: The Recursive)
In the vast expanse of the universe, there are those who dream, and then there are those who turn these dreams into reality. Enter Dr. S. Pete Worden and Pete Klupar. Worden, the former Director of NASA’s Ames Research Center and now the Executive Director of Breakthrough Initiatives, has been at the forefront of space exploration, with over 150 scientific papers under his belt and a reputation for fostering international partnerships. Klupar, with a penchant for high-tech, low-cost space missions, has launched over 50 spacecraft missions and has been a pivotal figure in reshaping the economics of space exploration. Click here. (8/31)

Buddhists Do Not Want Space Junk to Fall on Your Head (Source: E-IR)
Recent environmental ethics research undertaken among Buddhists helps us to see space-related moral issues more clearly. Additionally, this research overcomes some obstacles to our development of space travel morality. Along with a control data set from the general public, American Buddhists from across all three major sects of Theravāda, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna completed a space ethics survey, and the results of this survey, when combined with traditional Buddhist teachings, provide innovative new directions for resolving ethical problems in space.

The fraught problem of space debris, which I have mentioned, offers a nice window into the types of ethical contributions engendered by this Buddhist ethic of non-harm-in-interconnection. Since the 1950s we have sent massive amounts of hardware into space, yet not one bit has been cleaned up. What this means is that we currently suffer from a thick layer of space debris that orbits our planet at high speeds.

Buddhists from the field offer us our most complete response to date to these challenges spawned by space debris. They do so specifically by relying on the nonharm-in-interconnection ethic.  Crucially, Buddhist informants insist that humans must take responsibility for the space junk that they have created. This sense of responsibility greatly contrasts with the foot dragging and finger pointing that to date have doomed other campaigns to confront space debris. Additionally, these Buddhists demand that moral concern be extended not just to human beings who may suffer negative consequences from debris but also to nonhuman beings, such as the whales and sea turtles who have their lairs ruined by poorly managed space hardware. (8/31)