October 21, 2023

Next Year, SpaceX Aims to Average One Launch Every 2.5 Days (Source: Ars Technica)
Earlier this week, SpaceX launched for the 75th time this year, continuing a flight cadence that should see the company come close to 100 missions by the end of December. SpaceX plans to kick its launch rate into a higher gear in 2024. This will be largely driven by launches of upgraded Starlink satellites with the ability to connect directly with consumer cell phones, a service SpaceX calls "Starlink Direct to Cell," a company official told Ars this week.

The goal next year is 12 launches per month, for a total of 144 Falcon rocket flights. Like this year, most of those missions will be primarily devoted to launching Starlink broadband satellites. So far in 2023, more than 60 percent of SpaceX's launches have delivered the company's own Starlink satellites into orbit. (10/20)

NASA Tests New Kind of Artemis Moon-Rocket Engine in Dramatic 'Hot Fire' Test (Source: Space.com)
NASA kicked off the final certification series for its Artemis moon-rocket engines with a dramatic "hot fire" test this week. NASA will begin using repurposed RS-25 space shuttle engines to fly astronauts to the moon with its Artemis program. Then the new hotfire series, starting Wednesday (Oct. 17), aims to continue certifying an updated RS-25 line of engines that will start flying on the Artemis 5 mission late in the 2020s. Four RS-25s power the core stage of each Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, a key piece of Artemis hardware.

The RS-25 developmental design for engine E0525 passed its first hotfire on Wednesday, kicking off an ambitious series of 12 tests planned through 2024. "The test series will collect data on the performance of several new key engine components, including a nozzle, hydraulic actuators, flex ducts and turbopumps," NASA officials wrote in an Oct. 3 update. (10/19)

How Would We Know Whether There is Life on Earth? This Bold Experiment Found Out (Source: Nature)
High-resolution images of Australia and Antarctica obtained as Galileo flew overhead did not yield signs of civilization. Still, Galileo measured oxygen and methane in Earth’s atmosphere, the latter in ratios that suggested a disequilibrium brought about by living organisms. It spotted a steep cliff in the infrared spectrum of sunlight reflecting off the planet, a distinctive ‘red edge’ that indicates the presence of vegetation. And it picked up radio transmissions coming from the surface that were moderated as if engineered. Click here. (10/16)

Above a Troubled World, Seattle-Built Spy Satellites Deliver Real-Time Intelligence (Source: Seattle Times)
BlackSky, the offshoot of a Seattle spaceflight company, spies on the world from space. Analyzing the images it collects with artificial intelligence, it delivers nearly real-time information to national security teams in the U.S. and other countries. The images are beamed from satellites monitored from BlackSky’s operations office in South Lake Union and built in Tukwila by LeoStella, a joint venture half-owned by BlackSky. (10/20)

Skylo's Network to Spread in 2024 (Source: Space News)
The pieces are falling into place for Silicon Valley startup Skylo’s internet-of-things network. “2023 has been the year of forming and seeding partnerships,” Parth Trivedi, Skylo CEO and co-founder, told SpaceNews. “You will find 2024 is the year when the network really starts to scale.”

In recent months, Skylo has established partnerships with chipset manufacturers, satellite fleet operators and telecommunications providers. “We have partnerships now with every major chipset company,” including MediaTek, Qualcomm, Samsung and Sony Semiconductors, Trivedi said. The company has focused on building the software infrastructure for nonterrestrial-network direct-to-device service. In addition, Skylo built a mobile network operator to connect with terrestrial telecommunications partners including Deutsche Telekom, NTT subsidiary Transatel and Telefónica. (10/20)

Dark Energy May Allow Black Holes to Live in 'Perfect Pair' Binaries (Source: Space.com)
Binary black holes may be more stable than scientists had previously believed, with the action of dark energy accelerating the expansion of the universe and helping black holes in these binaries maintain a safe distance. As black holes move, they create gravitational waves  —  ripples in the fabric of space-time  —  and these waves carry angular momentum away from the system. This causes the black holes to spiral together, with gravity eventually taking over, causing the black holes to collide, merge and form a single, more massive black hole.

Until now, scientists had thought that process was inevitable — meaning binary black holes are ultimately destined to become single solitary objects. The action of dark energy means that black holes sit in an ever-expanding fabric of space-time, leading the team to question if this expansion could help black hole pairings stay separated. They tackled the problem with some complex mathematical models and found that two non-rotating black holes could indeed exist in equilibrium, with the gravitational attraction between them counteracted by expansion. (10/20)

More Than 270 UFO Sightings Reported Over 8 Months, Pentagon Says (Source: CBS)
More than 270 reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena, known as UAPs or UFOs, were made to the U.S. government in a recent eight-month period, the Department of Defense said in a Tuesday report to Congress. Chris Impey, astronomy professor at the University of Arizona, joins CBS News to unpack the findings. (10/20)

SpaceX Fires Up Single Starship 26 Engine in Deorbit Burn Test at Starbase (Source: Space.com)
SpaceX conducted a static fire test of a single Starship 26 engine on Oct. 20, 2023. The test demonstrated "flight-like startup for a Starship deorbit burn," according to SpaceX. (10/20)

Virgin Galactic Sets Date, Announces Crew for 5th Commercial Spaceflight (Source: Space.com)
Virgin Galactic's next trip to the edge of space will include some familiar names. The company announced on Wednesday (Oct. 18) that Galactic 06, its fifth commercial spaceflight, has a flight window that opens on Nov. 2, 2023. The flight will be Virgin Galactic's sixth spaceflight in as many months and will see its reusable space plane VSS Unity reach an altitude of about 54 miles (87 kilometers) above Earth, enough for its passengers to experience weightlessness and see the blackness of space.

Those passengers will include an unnamed private astronaut of Franco-Italian nationality; planetary scientist Alan Stern, the principal investigator of NASA's New Horizons Pluto mission, and Kellie Gerardi, a science communicator and bioastronautics researcher for the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences (IIAS). Both will be conducting research during the flight related to the effects of spaceflight on the human body, while Stern will also "conduct practice activities for an astronomical experiment" set for an upcoming NASA flight, according to a Virgin Galactic statement. (10/19)

Blue Origin Sees Third Executive Departure Amid Restructuring (Source: Reuters)
Blue Origin's senior vice president of operations is leaving "for personal reasons," according to an internal email seen by Reuters, the third executive departure to be disclosed in less than a month at Jeff Bezos' space company. Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith told employees in an email on Friday that Mike Eilola, the company's senior vice president of operations since 2021, "is leaving the company for personal reasons" on Nov. 3 and will have his unit split into two new organizations.

Eilola's departure follows plans announced last month by Bezos to replace Smith, who has been Blue Origin's CEO since 2017, with longtime Amazon executive Dave Limp by the end of the year. And Brent Sherwood, the head of what had been the company's research and development unit, will depart next month. Eilola, a former Honeywell Aerospace executive, oversaw Blue Origin's supply chain, manufacturing apparatus and the company's vast network of facilities across the United States, as the company reaches the late stages of developing its next-generation New Glenn rocket. (10/20)

SDA Taps York for 62 Tranche 2 Transport Layer Data Relay Sats to Provide ‘Global’ Coverage (Source: Breaking Defense)
The Space Force’s Space Development Agency (SDA) this week awarded a contract for 62 data relay satellites in its planned Transport Layer mesh network in low Earth orbit to provide military users high-speed, high-volume data communications world-wide, SDA Derek Tournear said. The satellites will be part of the agency’s Tranche 2 Transport Layer configuration that will provide “global access” to the Transport Layer for warfighters on the ground. (10/20)

Moon Rush: the Launch of a Lunar Economy (Source: Financial Times)
The rush back to the Moon has begun. The US and China are planning permanently crewed bases on the lunar surface. Billions of dollars in contracts are up for grabs as companies are launching ambitious new support projects, from growing food in space to a new lunar internet. Click here. (10/18)

Las Vegas Spaceport Gets Road Approval, Will Offer Jet Rides to Edge of Space, Host Air Races (Source: Las Vegas Spaceport)
Coming Next year: The Las Vegas Spaceport will offer "The Experience of a Life time" as part of our Civilian Space Academy, Fly to the edge of space in a fighter jet. Just $6,500 per flight. Also, Las Vegas Spaceport is teaming with the National Air Racers League (NAR) toward bringing race action to the spaceport site.

Last month, the Las Vegas Spaceport received approval from the BLM to build a five-lane paved access road from Highway 160 to the 240-acre site. Currently, there is a two-lane dirt road connecting the main highway to the 240-acre site. This expansion will provide a 1.25-mile, five-lane paved access road to support the 25k fans expected to attend the Las Vegas Air Races on October 26, 27, and 28, 2024. (10/20)

Stratosphere Littered With Tiny Bits Of Space Junk, New Study Shows (Source: Weather Channel)
The sky more than seven miles above Earth is littered with tiny pieces of metal and other elements from trashed spacecraft burned up during re-entry to the atmosphere, new research has found. The discovery was made while analyzing data collected from a research plane in the stratosphere high above the Arctic, according to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.

Scientists from NOAA and other institutions including Purdue University and England’s University of Leeds discovered aluminum and exotic metals embedded in about 10% of the particles that make up the majority of the stratosphere. "Two of the most surprising elements we saw in these particles were niobium and hafnium,” said Daniel Murphy. “These are both rare elements that are not expected in the stratosphere. It was a mystery as to where these metals are coming from and how they’re ending up there.” (10/17)

Blueprint for an In-Space Community (Source: Space News)
First, we recognize the need for space agencies as the driving customer at the outset — this is a new market, and the government is a proven customer. NASA’s plan is to be one of many customers for the commercial space stations — a formula proven in the decade-long transition from the single-point dependency on the Space Shuttle to today’s commercial launch provider ecosystem, with multiple cargo vehicles and crew services to the ISS.

This pivot to NASA as a customer has been a resounding success for the taxpayer, for industry, and, importantly, for government access to this strategically important region. We all know of Elon Musk’s and Jeff Bezos’ launch companies — but there are dozens of smaller companies offering a range of launch services. The good news is that as the cost of space transportation continues to decrease, the flexibility in delivery options has increased. Just as open markets would predict. Click here. (10/20)

Could Neptune's Largest Moon Swing a Spacecraft Into the Planet's Orbit? (Source: Space.com)
The only spacecraft to visit Neptune was the Voyager 2 probe, which spent just a few precious minutes in the vicinity of this mysterious world during its historic flyby tour of the outer solar system in the 1980s. It's been over 40 years since that mission launched. And while space agencies around the world have developed dozens of probes, landers and rovers in the decades since, none have visited the solar system's outermost planet, let alone orbit it.

One problem with a return mission to Neptune is that a flyby focused solely on that world does not provide significant bang for the buck. Without the lucky alignment available to missions in the 1970s and '80s, we'd have to spend even more fuel to send a probe in that direction, and we wouldn't get that much more science than we did decades ago.

The next logical step after a successful flyby mission is an orbiter, but the extreme distance to Neptune poses significant challenges. We have no clear way to haul a large enough orbiter to the Neptune system, pack enough fuel to allow it to slow down and do it all in a reasonably short amount of time. However, researchers have shared a radical new idea for how to overcome these challenges: Use the thin atmosphere of Triton, Neptune's largest moon, to capture a spacecraft. (10/20)

NASA Finds a Possible Sign of Life on Jupiter's Moon (Source: Times of India)
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has made a groundbreaking discovery on Jupiter's moon, Europa. The telescope's infrared camera captured images of this moon's unique terrain, revealing intriguing traces of life in the form of abundant carbon dioxide. Europa stands out as one of the few celestial bodies in our solar system where scientists believe life could exist. Beneath its thick ice sheet lies an ocean containing twice the amount of water found in Earth's oceans. However, NASA reminds us that the presence of carbon alone is not sufficient for life to thrive; it requires an energy source, such as organic nutrients, and a continuous supply of organic molecules. (10/19)

Whitaker Nomination to FAA Post Advances in Senate (Source: Flying)
The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation has unanimously endorsed Michael Whitaker to lead the Federal Aviation Administration. The bipartisan support suggests that full Senate approval is likely. (10/19)
 
OneWeb’s Satellite Constellation Connects To Terrestrial 5G Network (Source: Aviation Week)
Eutelsat OneWeb says its low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite constellation has connected to a terrestrial 5G mobile network. The demonstration was conducted by the University of Surrey in the UK, it said on Oct. 19. The test was part of the European Space Agency’s Sunrise Partnership Project. (10/19)

Why Declassifying Space Is Such a Struggle, According to the CSO (Source: Air and Space Forces)
An ongoing push to lower the classification levels of military space programs is “easier said than done,” due to a tangle of overlapping policies and laws, Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman said at an Oct. 18 virtual fireside chat with the Center for a New American Security. “What everybody should recognize that is trying to think about this problem is how complex the fabric of security is,” he said. “It is a layering and layering of security rules, guidelines, policies, laws, that make it really hard to say ‘just change the classification of that.’”

For several years, lawmakers and top military leadership have said that overclassification makes it more difficult for the public to understand what the Space Force does, for Guardians to work with other services and partner militaries, and for the U.S. military overall to deter adversaries in space. “If we’re going to be a force that is taken seriously and deters our adversaries, we need to start showing them things to deter them,” then-Space Force director of staff Lt. Gen. Nina M. Armagno said in 2021. “We need to show them what we have.” (10/19)

FAA Flags SpaceX Starlink Satellite Reentry Concerns (Source: WESH)
In a recent report to Congress, the Federal Aviation Administration raised alarm about the potential dangers from SpaceX Starlink mini-satellites when they reenter Earth’s atmosphere. It said that debris could possibly hit people or even flying airplanes, and by 2035, one person could be killed every two years.

“I don’t think that we need to be concerned at that level yet. Even though there are so many Starlink satellites, all of them are supposed to burn up when they come down. And so far, that has been happening,” said Dr. Madhur Tiwari of Florida Tech. There are about 5,000 satellites in the Starlink constellation, and it will continue to grow. But some will fall as their orbit decays; it’s a common action of satellites.

“It’s a new problem. Because we are seeing so many more of these satellites. But to say that Starlink is going to be the problem is something that I don’t understand because they are not that big of satellites,” Tiwari said. SpaceX sent a letter to Congress this month that slammed the FAA study calling it based on flawed analysis, containing errors and incorrect assumptions. Some experts lean toward SpaceX’s response, saying that it’s too early in the game, a brand new game, to be able to calculate the dangers of falling debris in the future. (10/19)

Why Relativity Space is Next-Level SpaceX, According to CEO Tim Ellis (Source: Prestige)
Move over, Elon Musk. Relativity Space CEO Tim Ellis on becoming the next great commercial space-launch company. Imagine waking up one morning and telling your parents you will one day launch the future of humanity in space. Which is perhaps what Elon Musk might have done at some point. And though Musk is currently out there on his own launching rockets for NASA, booking space tourists like Yusaku Maezawa, and thinking about Martian terraforming and beyond, there’s a new kid in the cosmos and his name’s Tim Ellis, CEO of Relativity Space.

Part-backed by Horizon Ventures, the private investment arm of Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, Relativity may yet become the next great commercial space-launch company. As space rapidly fills with infrastructure, demand for such service is outpacing supply. But, where Musk has championed and pioneered the notion of reusable rockets, thus lowering the astronomical costs of space launches and travel, Ellis has gone further.

The rockets that Long Beach, California- based Relativity Space sends up to the ‘black bespoke’ of Space are next-level. Well, 3D-printed level, that is. And bespoke, or customised. 3D printing reduces complexity in terms of manufacture, speeds its way to market faster, and offers customers an any-size-meets-all-capacities capability at the right cost. Disrupting 60 years of aerospace, Relativity offers a simplified supply chain and can build and print a rocket using its own proprietary 3D printing process and exotic materials, with around 1,000 parts (a conventional space rocket ordinarily features 100,000), and do it all in less than 60 days (versus 18 months for a conventional one). (10/20)

You Won’t Hear Much About the Next Chapter of Space Travel (Source: The Atlantic)
Virgin Galactic clocked a first that raised some eyebrows: The company withheld the passenger list from the public before a takeoff last month, divulging the travelers’ names only after they had landed. The company never publicly explained its preflight secrecy. (Virgin Galactic did not respond to a request for comment.) Yesterday, Virgin Galactic announced its next flight, scheduled for November; the company kept one of the three listed passengers anonymous, saying only that the person is “of Franco-Italian nationality.”

Virgin is of course within its rights to withhold passenger names before takeoff. After all, airlines and railroads keep private the names of their customers. But Virgin Galactic’s choice to do so marks a subtle shift—the latest in U.S. spaceflight’s arc from a publicly funded national mission to private tourism. The first passenger rosters were marquee news in 2021, when Branson and Jeff Bezos were racing to be the first to ride their own spacecraft, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX was working to send a quartet of private astronauts with zero spaceflight experience into orbit.

Passenger names aren’t the only details of commercial spaceflight that are becoming more opaque. When SpaceX launched its first set of private astronauts, the company shared significantly less live footage of their experience in orbit than they did when NASA astronauts test-drove the capsule a year earlier. During its last two flights, Virgin Galactic decided not to provide a livestream, giving updates on social media instead. (10/19)

Three Leading Space Companies Agree: No New Regulations on Human Spaceflight (Source: Tech Crunch)
Three leading space companies told Congress this week that the industry needs time to mature before federal regulators introduce new safety guidelines for human spaceflight — but that existing regulatory processes for launch are in dire need of improvement. SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic were all in agreement that the 20-year moratorium on federal regulations for human spaceflight missions — which is due to expire on January 1 — should be substantially extended.

“Congress should pass a multi-year extension for the human spaceflight learning period,” SpaceX’s VP of build and flight reliability Bill Gerstenmaier told lawmakers. “Human spaceflight represents a tiny fraction of all space launches and is properly regulated today under a responsible and balanced framework given the nascent state of the industry.”

Sirisha Bandla, Virgin Galactic’s VP of government affairs and research, echoed these comments in her testimony, noting that there still isn’t substantial data to base regulations on: “There are only three companies currently carrying humans to space, and it would be premature to base occupant safety regulations on this extremely small set of data at this time,” she said. (10/19)

This Startup Wants to Find Out if Humans Can Have Babies in Space (Source: MIT Technology Review)
Egbert Edelbroek was acting as a sperm donor when he first wondered whether it’s possible to have babies in space. Curious about the various ways that donated sperm can be used, Edelbroek, a Dutch entrepreneur, began to speculate on whether in vitro fertilization technology was possible beyond Earth—or could even be improved by the conditions found there. Could the weightlessness of space be better than a flat laboratory petri dish?

Now Edelbroek is CEO of SpaceBorn United, a biotech startup seeking to pioneer the study of human reproduction away from Earth. Next year, he plans to send a mini lab on a rocket into low Earth orbit, where in vitro fertilization, or IVF, will take place. If it succeeds, Edelbroek hopes his work could pave the way for future space settlements. “Humanity needs a backup plan,” he says. “If you want to be a sustainable species, you want to be a multiplanetary species.” (10/20)

Illinois Airport Considers Future Spaceport (Source: WVIK)
The sky might no longer be the limit for the Quad Cities International Airport. The Moline airport is conducting a study to see how much money and work it would take to add a spaceport in the next twenty years. Spokeswoman Ashleigh Davis says it could become a "horizontal launch" site.

"Planes would use the existing ten thousand foot runway that the airport has, they would take off just like a regular commercial aircraft would, however they would have a different system that they'd switch on, a different fueling mechanism, that would allow them to travel into space... At this point, cargo seems to make the most sense, but that certainly doesn't have to be the end of it." (10/19)

Space Force Launches Effort to Harness allied Supply Chain (Source: Breaking Defense)
The Space Force’s primary acquisition command hopes to kick-start a strategic dialogue with allies on how to create a more resilient, collective supply chain at a first-of-its kind meeting next week, according to a senior Space Systems Command (SSC) official.

The SSC “international reverse industry days” will be held on Oct. 25-26, and will involve representatives of eight allied governments and industries from those countries. SSC’s goal is to first survey the landscape of needed space capabilities, and then figure out where countries can help fill each other’s gaps. Once that is done, allied governments have to figure out how to get that “message” about what is needed to “collective” industrial base. (10/19)