September 16, 2023

Pentagon to Build Space Weapons, New Strategy Reveals (Source: Washington Times)
The Pentagon will develop and deploy new space weapons to battle Chinese and Russian space forces in a future conflict, according to a new strategy report. The unclassified version of the strategy, made public on Thursday, provides no details on the types of weapons being developed. The strategy also places a major emphasis on passive measures, such as building replacement satellites that can be used after orbiting systems are blown up or incinerated during a conflict with an adversary such as China or Russia. (9/15)

Air Force Research Laboratory Delays Lunar Experiment (Source: Space News)
An experiment the Air Force Research Laboratory planned to launch in 2025 to monitor deep space is being delayed after program officials concluded that the original schedule was too ambitious. The experiment, led by AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate, was previously known as the Cislunar Highway Patrol System (CHPS) and was renamed Oracle. (9/15)

SpaceX Calls on Federal Court to Toss Out DOJ Suit on Hiring Bias (Source: Bloomberg)
SpaceX fired back at the Justice Department for accusing it of discriminating against refugees looking for jobs at the rocket company, arguing it must be tossed out because it flouts the US constitution. SpaceX asked a judge in federal court in Texas Friday to dismiss the Justice Department’s complaint, filed in August with the agency’s administrative judge, describing it as illegal and “factually and legally insupportable.” (9/15)

ISS Crew Launches From Kazakhstan (Source: NASA)
NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub are safely in orbit on the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft after launching Friday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The spacecraft docked to the ISS a few hours later while the station was traveling 260 miles over eastern Kazakhstan. (9/15)

Florida Tech Research: Nomadic Planets and the Interstellar Zoo (Source: Florida Tech)
Researchers previously thought the space between the stars was empty. In fact, the opposite turns out to be true – it is populated with debris of all sizes, including planet-sized nomadic worlds that might host life. New research from a Florida Tech astrobiologist and colleagues examines this broad class of objects that are not gravitationally bound to any stars. They studied the movement of nomadic planets through our solar system. What they concluded is that there may be hundreds of planets in the interstellar space between the solar system and the nearest star.

Much of the paper investigated what types of propulsion systems could get us to these nomadic worlds, the interstellar visitors from myriad locations in the galaxy. The authors found that chemical propulsion is ineffective at reaching these worlds. In contrast, several existing alternative propulsion systems, such as electric propulsion, may be able to survey smaller objects (with sizes of 100 miles) in a timescale of 50 years, which is about the same amount of time that the Voyager spacecraft have been operating. (9/15)

Embry-Riddle Research: Students Gain Real-World Experience Pitching Space Innovation to NASA (Source: ERAU)
A group of students from across Embry‑Riddle Aeronautical University’s three campuses was recently chosen as one of only 15 teams from around the world to present space innovations at NASA’s annual Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts – Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) competition. There, they presented a design for a spacecraft that can perform repair-related tasks, such as refueling, as well as provide short-term space habitats. (8/21)

Challenge Seeks Ideas for Sustaining Human Presence on the Moon (Source: Jacobs)
To compete in this challenge, submit an idea that will assist NASA with sustaining a human presence to, from, and around the Moon by helping to overcome the challenges posed by such a difficult environment, including lunar dust, extreme temperatures, lunar resource mining, resource reusability, energy harvesting and management, surface transportation, in-space manufacturing, communications, etc. Click here. (9/15)

Artemis 2 and a New Era of Lunar Science (Source: America Space)
Lunar scientists have lofty dreams for the Artemis program. The Apollo missions visited just six sites on a world with a surface area equivalent to the continent of Africa. They were unable to access the majority of the Moon’s most fascinating locales due to engineering constraints and a lack of high-resolution orbital imagery. Click here. (9/15)

Stoke Space Performs a Static Fire on its Hopper2 Test Vehicle (Source: Space Explored)
Washington-based Stoke Space recently transported its reusable second-stage prototype, known as the Hopper Test Vehicle, to its testing facility in Moses Lake, Washington. This new iteration, named Hopper2, is the focus of an intensive series of system tests. These include wet dress rehearsals, countdown automation, and static stage hotfire exercises culminating in a vertical takeoff and vertical landing flight test.

Stoke Space has secured multiple investments from In-Q-Tel in 2023, a strategic investor with ties to the U.S. intelligence and defense community. Stoke Space also received approval in the Spring of 2023 from the Space Force to take over Launch Complex 14 at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. (9/15)

SpaceX Launches Starlink Satellites From Florida on Near-Polar Trajectory, Recovers Booster Downrange (Source: Florida Today)
After standing down from a first attempt Thursday night, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 22 Starlink satellites Friday night from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. Following a southeastern trajectory, the rocket threaded between Florida and the Bahamas. The first-stage booster landed on a drone ship. (9/15)

Dawn Aerospace Aims to Launch Satellites Multiple Times Per Day (Source: Parabolic Arc)
The vehicle [Mk-II Aurora] is about four and a half meters long, about 2.4 meters wingspan, it’s about 250 kg at takeoff in its current configuration. It’s got a pump-fed peroxide-kerosene engine, about two and a half kiloNewtons of thrust. Throttleable, it can also fly in mono-prop mode, so that’s at about 1,700 Newtons of thrust. It has these two operational modes. We take off from a conventional runway about 800 meters long in Glentanner in New Zealand.

We actually think we can get the Mk-II to be commercially viable as well. Getting to space twice in a day and being able to access it for a really low cost – this is not millions of dollars per flight. Mk-II has a small payload of about 5 kg. Just suborbitally; that’s not getting anything into orbit. The point of the Mk-II is really to be a technology demonstrator. This is not a rocket with wings. This is very much an aircraft with the performance of a rocket. So, it needs to fly from an airport. It needs to be certifiable as an aircraft. Click here. (9/15)

Nonprofit Supporting European Startups Expands Rapidly (Source: Space News)
The rapid growth of European space startups is reflected in Young European Enterprises Syndicate for Space (YEESS), a nonprofit formed in 2021. In two years, YEESS has grown from six to 15 companies with combined employment of more than 1,000 people, said Juan Tomás Hernani. Member companies are based in Toulouse, France, Bilbao, Spain, Charleroi, Belgium and “all over Europe,” Hernani said. Most of the startups have facilities in more than one country. (9/15)

China to Launch Solar Probe to Unexplored L5 Point in 2026 (Source: Xinhua)
China is planning to launch a solar exploration satellite to a previously unexplored orbit between the Earth and the sun in order to carry out solar probe and space weather monitoring. The appraisal work of Xihe-2 solar exploration mission to the Sun-Earth L5 Lagrangian Point are in the pipeline, said Fang Cheng, one of the satellite's designers. The Chinese team is working hard to launch the solar probe into planned orbit around 2026, according to the appraisal plan. (9/15)

Why is Neptune's Moon Triton So Weird? (Source: Space.com)
Neptune has 14 known moons. With the exception of Triton, all of Neptune's moons are very small, and they come in two general flavors: regular and irregular. The regular ones orbit close to the planet, and the irregular ones are generally farther from Neptune, with all sorts of crazy orbits. And then there's Triton.

Triton is big. It's the seventh-largest moon in the solar system, and it's over 200 times bigger than all of the other moons of Neptune combined. Second, Triton orbits backward relative to Neptune's spin, and its orbit is inclined at a stunning 67 degrees — almost perpendicular to its parent planet. Despite its irregularity, Triton's orbit is surprisingly circular — in fact, one of the most perfectly circular orbits out of all the objects in the solar system. Click here. (9/15)

JWST Could Detect Life on Earth From Across the Galaxy (Source: Space.com)
Researchers have shown that if the James Webb Space Telescope was pointed at Earth from a distant star, it could detect the signatures of intelligent life in our planet's atmosphere. (9/15)

High-Energy Electrons in Earth's Magnetic Tail May Form Water on the Moon (Source: Space.com)
High-energy electrons located in a tail of plasma around the Earth are weathering the moon and, more excitingly, seem to have given rise to water across the lunar surface. The new findings could also explain how water gathers in  pockets across the moon that never see  sunlight called permanently shaded regions (PSRs). (9/15)