October 22, 2023

SpaceX Launches Record-Breaking Mission From Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: Florida Today)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket provided a record-breaking 58th orbital launch from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport on Saturday night. The rocket carried a batch of Starlink satellites. Its first-stage booster landed on a drone ship near the Bahamas. The spaceport hosted 31 orbital launches in 2021, followed by 57 in 2022. (10/22)

China & Australia Maneuver to Avoid Collision (Source: Final Frontier Flash)
It appears both a Chinese and an Australian satellite operating in low Earth orbit (LEO) maneuvered to avoid a potential collision on 9 Oct 2023. Post-event analysis conducted by LeoLabs shows both satellites were predicted to have an "miss" distance of just 100 meters, 24 hours before the anticipated "conjunction." Analysts believe the Chinese satellite involved was the Yaogan-37, launched in January 2023. The Australian satellite was one of eight Skykraft satellites, all of which were launched in March 2023. (10/22)

NASA Starts Reassessment of Mars Sample Return Architecture (Source: Space News)
NASA has started work to revise its approach to returning samples from Mars after an independent review concluded the current Mars Sample Return (MSR) architecture has an “unrealistic” budget and schedule. Sandra Connelly, NASA deputy associate administrator for science, said that the agency has convened a team to address the recommendations made by an independent review board (IRB) in September.

That independent review found a “near zero” probability that the next major elements of MSR, a sample retrieval lander and Earth return orbiter, would be ready for launch as currently planned in 2027 and 2028. It also estimated MSR costs to be in the range of $8 billion to $11 billion, far higher than previous NASA projections. (10/21)

Upgraded Star Trackers Could Give More Satellites a Debris-Monitoring Role (Source: Space News)
New star-tracking sensors in the works would enable all manner of satellites to keep an eye out for hazardous orbital debris too small to detect from the ground. Star trackers use the known position of stars to help keep satellites properly oriented and pointing in the right direction. Belgian spacecraft component specialist Arcsec is working with Portuguese space traffic management venture NeuraSpace on a debris-spotting star tracker they expect to demo in space by 2025. (10/20)

How Amazon Became the First Tech Giant in Space (Source: Quartz)
Apple, Meta, and Google have all mulled businesses based on satellites orbiting the Earth, but last week Amazon became the first tech giant to actually begin operating computers in space. The first tech luminary to get interested in satellite internet was Bill Gates. As chairman of Microsoft in the 1990s, he backed a company called Teledesic that intended to provide internet connectivity from space. But after launching one satellite, the company foundered.

A decade later, new tech giants began thinking about putting computers in space once again. Meta and Google—both software companies, not hardware makers—measured their future prospects on the number of users they could add to their platforms. Strategists at both companies saw expanding access to the internet itself as vital, and looked to space investments as a way to expand their customer base.

Facebook leased capacity from a Eutelsat spacecraft to provide internet access over Africa. But the satellite was destroyed in 2016 when a SpaceX rocket exploded during pre-launch testing. Later, a Facebook subsidiary worked to develop an internet satellite called Athena that used a unique radio system, but it was never able to get permission from the FCC to demonstrate the technology in space. Click here. (10/20)

Quantum Breakthrough: Record-Breaking Quantum Teleportation Achieved Over Metropolitan Range (Source: Sci-Tech Daily)
A team of scientists, led by Prof. Guangcan Guo and Prof. Qiang Zhou from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) cooperating with Prof. Lixing You from the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, have improved the teleportation rate to 7.1 qubits per second for the first time based on the “No. 1 Metropolitan Quantum Internet of UESTC”.

This presents a new record for the quantum teleportation system over metropolitan range. “Demonstrating high-speed quantum teleportation outside of a laboratory involves a whole set of challenges. This experiment shows how these challenges can be overcome and hence it establishes an important milestone towards the future quantum internet,” said Prof. Qiang Zhou, who is the corresponding author of this work. The main experimental challenge in a real-world quantum teleportation system is performing the Bell state measurement (BSM).

In order to ensure the successful quantum teleportation and improve the efficiency of BSM, Alice’s and Bob’s photons need to be indistinguishable at Charlie after long-distance transmission in fiber. The team developed a fully running feedback system, which realized the fast stabilization of the path length difference and polarization of the photons. (10/19)

US Government Inefficiency Offers Opportunity for China Lunar Program (Source: South China Morning Post)
China may get ahead in the new moon race, a US Senate subcommittee has been warned, due to inefficient government regulations in America slowing the development of the SpaceX Starship super heavy rocket. "SpaceX is under contract with NASA to use Starship to land American astronauts on the moon before China does,” Bill Gerstenmaier told a US Senate Subcommittee. (10/20)

Taking on SpaceX: Why Germany is Building a Floating Spaceport (Source: DW)
Germany is hoping its construction of a new spaceport, expected to launch its first rockets in April, can better its position in the space sector. Germany's new facility will not be land-based, like the Cape Canaveral space station in the United States or Baikonur in Kazakhstan. Instead, the spaceport will launch from a platform in the North Sea. To start, Dutch company T-Minus will launch a rocket from the German-Offshore Spaceport Alliance (GOSA) mobile platform.

The launch pad will be built some 350 kilometers from the coast in the remotest corner of Germany's Exclusive Economic Zone. The Federation of German Industries (BDI) announced the location at a space congress in Berlin. Each launch will be supervised by a control ship and a new multifunctional Mission Control Center in Bremen, Germany. The ship's home port will be located in Bremerhaven, a port city located next to Bremen. (10/20)

India Launches Uncrewed Test Flight (Source: NDTV)
ISRO today successfully launched its uncrewed test flight for its first human spaceflight mission - 'Gaganyaan' - in the second attempt after the lift-off was briefly put on hold. The ISRO Chief said that the purpose of the mission was to demonstrate the crew escape system. "The vehicle went slightly above the speed of sound, before it initiated the crew escape system," he said. "The escape system took the crew module away from the vehicle and subsequent operations including the touch-down at the sea have been very well accomplished," he added. (10/21)

National Defence Minister Blair – 100% Committed to Canada’s Space Capabilities (Source: SpaceQ)
“The speed of government needs to adapt to the speed of innovation. That’s my job. This is the moment. So let me be very clear: As the Minister of National Defence (DND), I will remain 100% committed to advancing, enhancing, and expanding Canada’s space capabilities.” That was the promise delivered by DND Minister Bill Blair at the Spacebound 2023 conference. (10/20)

Pakistan Joins China’s ILRS Moon Project (Source: Space News)
Pakistan officially joined China’s International Lunar Research Station, the China National Space Administration announced Friday. Zhang Kejian, CNSA administrator, and Moin ul Haque, the ambassador of Pakistan to China, signed an understanding between China National Space Administration and the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) Oct. 18 on cooperation on the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), according to the CNSA statement Oct. 20. (10/20)