October 26, 2023

If Alien Life is Artificially Intelligent, it May Be Stranger Than We Can Imagine (Source: BBC)
It may be only one or two more centuries before humans are overtaken or transcended by inorganic intelligence. If this happens, our species would have been just a brief interlude in Earth's history before the machines take over. That raises a profound question about the wider cosmos: are aliens more likely to be flesh and blood like us, or something more artificial? And if they are more like machines, what would they be like and how might we detect them? Click here. (10/25)

Why Aliens Might Already Know That Humans Exist (Source: BBC)
Would aliens know there is life on Earth? That's a question scientists have had to grapple with in recent years, as we continue to inadvertently broadcast our presence out into the galaxy. "Hold the mirror up to yourself in space, and what would they see of us?" says Jacqueline Faherty, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History in the US. "We're looking. That means other worlds might be looking too."

The best indicator of life on Earth from such observations might be oxygen, nitrogen, and water vapour, says Paul Rimmer, an astrochemist at the University of Cambridge in the UK, which would "be an indication of a stable liquid ocean." Nitrogen dioxide could also provide some clues that our planet was inhabited by an intelligent lifeform. The gas is "basically a byproduct of combustion."

One of the most revealing technosignatures from Earth might not be our atmospheric pollutants or radio signals at all, however, but our city lights. In 2021, Beatty calculated that the sodium emitted from such lights could be detectable in a planet's atmosphere. "It has very sharp spectral features," says Beatty. "You'd never get that through a natural process." (10/24)

China Launches New Crew to TSS (Source: Space News)
A new crew has arrived at China's Tiangong space station after a launch overnight. A Long March 2F rocket lifted off at 11:14 p.m. Eastern from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center and placed the Shenzhou-17 spacecraft into orbit. The spacecraft docked with Tiangong at 5:46 a.m. Eastern. Shenzhou-17 brought to the station Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie and Jiang Xinlin for a six-month stay. They will replace the Shenzhou-16 crew, who will hand over control of the station and depart for Earth Oct. 31. (10/26)

Space Force Plans Satellite-Based Nuclear Command/Control (Source: Space News)
The Space Force is preparing to procure an $8 billion satellite architecture for nuclear command and control. The Space Systems Command expects to issue a request for proposals in early 2024 for the Evolved Strategic Satellite Communications System (ESS) constellation. The satellites will provide "survivable and jam-resistant" satellite communications for nuclear command and control. The ESS satellites are intended to augment and eventually replace the Advanced Extremely High Frequency network of nuclear-hardened satellites, with deployment projected to be complete by 2030. Boeing and Northrop Grumman won contracts in 2020 to develop ESS prototypes and are expected to compete for the ESS contract. (10/26)

Terran Orbital Hosts Meeting for Skeptical Shareholders (Source: Space News)
Terran Orbital is hosting an unusual "town hall" meeting today as the company faces criticism from some shareholders. The virtual event is intended to address a share price that has fallen below $1, CEO Marc Bell said, triggering a delisting warning from the New York Stock Exchange. Bell said he aims to give shareholders more transparency around its Rivada Space Networks satellite manufacturing contract and other large contract wins to improve its standing. Earlier this month, a group of shareholders that account for 8.4% of the company issued a letter calling for leadership changes in addition to a strategic review to improve market credibility. (10/26)

Rocket Lab Ready for Return-to-Flight (Source: Space News)
Rocket Lab said Wednesday it expects to resume Electron launches before the end of the year after a September failure. The company announced it received authorization from the FAA to resume launches although the investigation into the Sep. 19 launch failure is not yet complete. The company has released few details about the cause of the failure but suggested it involved a complex chain of events involving the upper stage. Rocket Lab expects to complete the investigation and resume launches later in the quarter. (10/26)

ABL Readies for Second Launch (Source: Space News)
ABL Space Systems is getting closer to a second launch of its RS1 rocket. The company said it recently completed a dress rehearsal of launch preparations and is preparing to ship the rocket and its ground equipment to the spaceport on Kodiak Island, Alaska, but did not disclose a schedule for the launch. The first RS1 malfunctioned seconds after liftoff in January, crashing back near the pad. An investigation concluded that the design of the launch mount that holds the rocket kept exhaust trapped near the base, and that exhaust damaged the rocket and caused the failure. ABL has redesigned the launch mount while making other modifications to the RS1 rocket. (10/26)

Cosmonauts Inspect ISS Coolant Leak (Source: CBS)
Russian cosmonauts encountered leaking coolant during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station Wednesday. Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub inspected a radiator on the exterior of the Nauka module that suffered a coolant leak earlier this month. They reset valves to isolate the coolant, and in the the process noticed a large blob of coolant on the exterior of the module, prompting flight controllers to tell the cosmonauts to keep their distance from it to avoid contamination. The cosmonauts also installed a radar antenna on Nauka, but one of its panels failed to deploy, and released a student-built smallsat intended to test a solar sail. The sail did not deploy. (10/26)

MDA Picks SpaceX to Launch Imaging Satellites (Source: MDA)
Canadian company MDA has selected SpaceX to launch a two-satellite radar imaging constellation. The company said Wednesday that it signed a contract to launch the Chorus constellation on a Falcon 9 in the fourth quarter of 2025. Chorus will consist of a C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite built by MDA, intended to replace Radarsat-2, and an X-band SAR satellite build by Iceye. The two satellites will operate in mid-inclination orbits. (10/26)

Ariane 6 Wet Dress Rehearsal at Kourou (Source: ESA)
Launch teams carried out a wet dress rehearsal for the Ariane 6 this week. The test at the spaceport in French Guiana involved fueling the rocket and going through a practice countdown while also testing emergency safety procedures. The next major test milestone for the Ariane 6 will be a long-duration static fire of its core stage, currently planned before the end of next month. (10/26)

A Full Wet Dress for SpaceX’s Starship (Source; Gizmodo)
SpaceX unexpectedly performed a wet dress rehearsal of its Starship megarocket on Tuesday. The Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage “were loaded with more than 10 million pounds of propellant today in a flight-like rehearsal ahead of launch,” according to SpaceX. The fuel was subsequently drained, as this was just a test. (10/25)

Mars Core May Be Molten (Source: Nature)
Mars may have a molten layer below its surface. Seismic data collected by NASA's InSight Mars lander from a meteor impact in 2021 found that the planet's liquid core was smaller than previously thought. It also revealed the presence of a layer of molten silicate rock above it. Earlier data suggested the liquid core was larger, but had higher concentrations of light elements difficult to explain in models of planet formation. The existence of the molten layer means the core doesn't need those light elements to explain the data. (10/26)

Terran Orbital Awarded $4.7 Million Contract by European Space Agency (Source: Terran Orbital)
Terran Orbital announced its wholly-owned international subsidiary, Tyvak International s.r.l., has been chosen as a prime contractor under a $4.7 million contract by the European Space Agency (ESA) for a proximity operations and in-orbit servicing mission that will deploy a nanosatellite spacecraft from Space Rider, the European uncrewed robotic laboratory. (10/25)

Navigating the 3rd Wave of the New Space Economy (Source: Space News)
We are seeing the advent of a Third Wave of the New Space economy, characterized by both challenges and opportunities. The drop off in private investment in space since 2021 is in part attributable to global headwinds and corresponding effects in all markets. But the New Space economy is also seeing a qualitative shift as enthusiasm is tempered by realities, including unclear levels of government funding beyond initial demonstrations, abundant competition, and inevitable technical challenges. But the news is not all bad. In fact, the current market presents a number of opportunities to those who know what to look for and where to find it. Click here. (10/25)

Explosion 1 Million Times Brighter Than the Milky Way Creates Rare Elements (Source: CNN)
The James Webb Space Telescope and other observatories witnessed a massive explosion in space that created rare chemical elements, some of which are necessary for life. The explosion, which occurred on March 7, was the second brightest gamma-ray burst ever witnessed by telescopes in more than 50 years of observations, over one million times brighter than the entire Milky Way Galaxy combined. Gamma-ray bursts are short emissions of the most energetic form of light.

This particular burst, called GRB 230307A, was likely created when two neutron stars — the incredibly dense remnants of stars after a supernova — merged in a galaxy about one billion light-years away. In addition to releasing the gamma-ray burst, the merger created a kilonova. (10/25)

Spy Satellite Photos Reveal Hundreds of Long-Lost Roman Forts, Challenging Decades-old Theory (Source: CNN)
Declassified photos captured by United States spy satellites launched during the Cold War have revealed an archaeological treasure trove: hundreds of previously unknown Roman-era forts, in what is now Iraq and Syria. Many of those long-lost structures may be gone forever at this point, destroyed or damaged over recent decades due to agricultural expansion, urban development and war. Nevertheless, the discovery of the forts’ existence challenges a popular hypothesis established in the 1930s about the role of such fortifications along the ancient Roman Empire’s eastern border. (10/25)

NASA's First Two-way End-to-End Laser Communications System (Source: Space Daily)
NASA is demonstrating laser communications on multiple missions - showcasing the benefits infrared light can have for science and exploration missions transmitting terabytes of important data. The International Space Station is getting a "flashy" technology demonstration this November. The ILLUMA-T (Integrated Laser Communications Relay Demonstration Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal) payload is launching to the International Space Station to demonstrate how missions in low Earth orbit can benefit from laser communications. (10/26)

Commercial Human Spaceflight Options Take Pressure Off NASA for ISS Visits (Source: Quartz)
While there’s still a limited amount of space for people onboard the ISS, a private option to get there is taking some pressure off NASA. More seats for foreign astronauts lets the US focus on flying its own astronauts. It also allows the agency to avoid potential controversies around passengers like the two astronauts from Saudi Arabia. And it offers some of the same prestige and soft power that the Soviets were seeking when they flew other countries’ astronauts into space—and perhaps even more, if foreign space agencies can have more control over the particulars of a private mission. (10/26)

ULA Targets Christmas Eve for Inaugural Vulcan Launch (Source: CNBC)
United Launch Alliance plans to launch the inaugural flight of its Vulcan rocket on Christmas Eve, CEO Tory Bruno told CNBC’s Morgan Brennan on Tuesday. Bruno, speaking at the CNBC Technology Executive Council Summit, said the target window for Vulcan’s first launch runs between Dec. 24 and Dec. 26. The rocket will lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. (10/24)

Rocket Launch Company ULA Is Ready-Made for a Buy, CEO Says (Source: Bloomberg)
United Launch Alliance LLC’s chief executive officer views his firm as an attractive acquisition target given its deep backlog, reliable profits and a new rocket poised to challenge SpaceX. “If I were buying a space business, I’d go look at ULA,” CEO Tory Bruno said in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York. “It’s already had all the hard work done through the transformation. You’re not buying a Victorian with bad plumbing. It’s all been done. You’re coming in at the end of the remodel, so you can focus on your future.” (10/25)

Spire Global Awarded Subcontract for Space Domain Awareness Program (Source: Spire)
Spire Global was awarded a subcontract by Riverside Research, an advanced research nonprofit, to provide star tracker imagery as part of the Data Exploitation and Enhanced Processing for Space Domain Awareness (DEEP-SDA) project on behalf of the US Space Force. The DEEP-SDA project aims to address the critical issue of space domain awareness by harnessing the power of existing star trackers and data to enable the USSF to characterize and detect objects in orbit. Spire will be the leading provider of star tracker imagery, and all data will be used in direct support of the Joint Task Force-Space Defense Commercial Operations Cell (JCO). (10/24)

Denver Startup Aims to be the SpaceX of the Stratosphere, Raises Nearly $10M (Source: Colorado Inno)
A Denver-based startup mapping the planet from a balloon raised $9.75 million. Rather than capturing images of the Earth from a drone or satellite, Urban Sky operates in the middle ground, technically called the stratosphere. The startup gathers data about the Earth by capturing images from a reusable micro balloon that operates above commercial airspace in the stratosphere, typically at an altitude between 55,000 feet and 75,000 feet.

Attached to the micro balloon is an imaging payload designed and built by Urban Sky. The imaging payload weighs less than 6 pounds and can capture 10-centimeter resolution images. Urban Sky CEO and co-founder Andrew Antonio said the company operates in the middle ground physically and from a cost standpoint. Rather than paying to contract with a satellite company to gather images and data about the Earth, Urban Sky’s balloon offers a more affordable solution. (10/24)

Ohio Defense Contractor to Add 200 Jobs in Colorado Springs as Part of New Space Facility (Source: The Gazette)
An Ohio-based defense contractor said Tuesday it will develop a $15 million, state-of-the-art facility in Colorado Springs that will support space operations for the military and the space community, while it also will add 200 jobs at six-figure salaries to complement its existing 60-person workforce in the city.

The expansion announcement by Frontier Technology Inc., headquartered in the Dayton area and which provides engineering, information technology services and software products for the Department of Defense, federal agencies and commercial customers, is the latest in a series of economic development victories for Colorado Springs. (10/24)

Ted Cruz Comes to the Defense of SpaceX Against the Regulators (Source: Washington Examiner)
Recently, the Senate Subcommittee on Space and Science held a hearing about human commercial space flights. During the hearing, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Bill Gerstenmaier, formerly at NASA and now vice president of build and flight reliability for SpaceX, had an exchange concerning the regulatory delays that are holding up the second test launch of the Starship. Gerstenmaier and Cruz chafed at the idea that government paperwork is standing in the way of building the mightiest, largest rocket ship ever conceived. (10/24)

The Final Ethical Frontier (Source: Aeon)
For many in the space industry it is not obvious that there is any real ethics to discuss. In 2016, the astrophysicist Erika Nesvold asked the CEO of a (now-defunct) California space-mining company how he planned to address the danger that his proposed lunar mining equipment might contaminate the moon in ways detrimental to its scientific study. He told her: ‘We’ll worry about that later.’ Click here. (10/24)

Mice Can Survive in Extreme Mars-Like Environments (Source: Cosmos)
American mountaineer-researchers have demonstrated mice are capable of survival in “Mars-like” extremes akin to outer space. The authors Professor Jay Storz from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and fellow mountaineer-researcher Mario Pérez Mamani found mummified and living mice at the summits of volcanos above 6000 meters in altitude. The team captured living proof – a live specimen of leaf-eared mouse (Phyllis vaccarum) – from the peak of the Llullaillaco volcano in the Puna de Atacama region on the border of Chile and Argentina.

Apart from the mice, no other mammal has ever been found surviving at such extreme altitudes. “Even at the base of the volcanoes, the mice are living in an extreme, Martian environment,” he says. “And then, on the summits of the volcanoes, it’s even more so. It feels like outer space. It just boggles the mind that any kind of animal, let alone a warm-blooded mammal, could be surviving and functioning in that environment.” (10/24)

Inside NASA’s Bid to Make Spacecraft as Small as Possible (Source: MIT Technology Review)
With its MarCO mission, NASA and the community of planetary science researchers caught a glimpse of a future long sought: a pathway to much more affordable space exploration. Each MarCO was the smallest, cheapest spacecraft ever to fly beyond the Earth-Moon system. The pair cost less than $20 million to construct, launch, and operate. If engineers could build more such spacecraft—and make them even more capable in the process—they’d be an attractive alternative to multibillion-dollar flagships that launched only every 20 years or so, or even near-billion-dollar probes like InSight.

The Wall Street Journal championed MarCO as the vanguard of a new era of “swarms of tiny probes prowling the solar system.” But there was a catch—one that NASA soon had to grapple with: miniaturization can only go so far before it comes to a crashing halt against some very fundamental laws of physics. Click here. (10/24)

Why New Zealand Invested $29m in a Methane Detection Satellite (Source: 1News)
It was 2018 when US non-profit Environmental Defence Fund (EDF) approached the New Zealand government to invest in its MethaneSAT project, which aims to detect and shut down rogue methane emissions spewing from oil and gas activities. If successful, it could make a rapid dent in global heating. EDF was looking for funding and practical involvement from an international partner. New Zealand was looking for a space mission to take part in.

Peter Beck was hoping Rocket Lab would win the contract to launch the satellite from Māhia, on the remote East Coast of the North Island. Two of those things happened, one didn't. Rocket Lab didn't win the contract - the satellite grew too big for it to launch, and ended up going to US-based SpaceX. But New Zealand pitched in $29.3 million, and as a result won the right to host the mission control. Rocket Lab got the contract to establish that, and will later hand control of it to the University of Auckland. (10/24)

Space Trash is Complicating the Future of the Planet (Source: Washington Examiner)
A growing amount of space junk threatens to jeopardize all future space travel, and the problem is only set to worsen. The FAA, which has jurisdiction over space, recently proposed its first rule regarding space junk, aiming to limit the growth of new orbital debris. The rule would require space companies to dispose of space debris through five different methods: by conducting a controlled reentry, moving the upper stage to a less congested storage or graveyard orbit, sending the upper stage on an Earth-escape orbit, retrieving the upper stage within five years, or performing an uncontrolled atmospheric disposal. (10/24)