October 28, 2023

Astronomers Want JWST to Study the Milky Way Core for Hundreds of Hours (Source: Universe Today)
To understand the Universe, we need to understand the extreme processes that shape it and drive its evolution. Things like supermassive black holes (SMBHs,) supernovae, massive reservoirs of dense gas, and crowds of stars both on and off the main sequence. Fortunately there’s a place where these objects dwell in close proximity to one another: the Milky Way’s Galactic Center (GC.)

Astronomers know this, and they’ve studied the GC intensely. There are many unanswered questions in astronomy and astrophysics, and some of the answers are hidden in the densely-packed GC. But while its densely-packed nature make it an area practically begging to be studied, it also makes it difficult to study. Only the most powerful telescopes have the angular resolution to make sense of the Milky Way’s central region and its crowded constituents. (10/25)

Researchers Find Signs of Rivers on Mars, a Potential Indicator of Ancient Life (Source: USA Today)
New research from a team of scientists at Penn State who analyzed Curiosity rover data found that Mars could once have been teeming with flowing water: the bedrock of life. Researchers determined that many of the craters covering Mars could have once been habitable rivers. Findings from NASA's Perseverance rover led researchers to conclude in a July study that organic molecules, a potential indicator of life, were present in rocks where a lake long ago existed on Mars. (10/27)

NASA Tech Breathes Life Into Potentially Game-Changing Antenna Design (Source: NASA)
The Large Balloon Reflector (LBR) is an inflatable device that creates wide collection apertures that weigh a fraction of today’s deployable antennas. Now, with an assist from NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, funded by the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, which supports visionary innovations from diverse sources, Walker’s decades-old vision is coming to fruition. The concept turns part of the inside surface of an inflated sphere into a parabolic antenna. A section comprising about a third of the balloon’s interior surface is aluminized, giving it reflective properties.

With NIAC funding, and a grant from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Christopher Walker was able to develop and demonstrate technologies for a 33-foot-diameter (10 meters) LBR that was carried to the stratosphere by a giant balloon. For comparison, the aperture of NASA’s massive James Webb Space Telescope is over 21 feet in diameter. (10/26)

Space Perspective's Balloon Spaceship to Launch in 2024 (Source: Business Insider)
An interstellar exploration company wants to build a space vessel that takes the uberwealthy cruising high up in the earth's atmosphere — and Mercedes-Maybach is lending its luxury brand name to make it happen. Space Perspective hopes to take travelers up in the air by the end of 2024 in a craft known as Spaceship Neptune, a pressurized capsule with panoramic views. A space balloon will lift Neptune 100,000 feet into the upper stratosphere, where guests can witness the earth's curvature. (10/24)

NASA's Artemis 2 Mobile Rocket Launcher Gets Soaked During Water Deluge Test (Source: Space.com)
The mobile launcher for a big moon mission got all wet in a big test on Tuesday. To get ready for Artemis 2, set to carry astronauts around the moon in late 2024, the mobile launcher that will be used to launch the powerful Space Launch System rocket had a "water flow test." It was the third in an ongoing series at NASA's Kennedy Space Center to "verify the overpressure protection and sound suppression system is ready for launch," NASA officials wrote in a brief statement Thursday. (10/27)

Bezos and Nelson Take Sneak Peek at Blue Origin Moon Lander (Source: GeekWire)
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson today provided a look at Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lunar lander, festooned with a golden feather logo. In a series of posts to X / Twitter and Instagram, Bezos and Nelson showed off a mockup of the nearly three-story-tall Blue Moon MK1 cargo lander, which is taking shape at Blue Origin’s production facility in Huntsville. (10/27)

Search for Intelligent Aliens Explores New Radio-Frequency Realms (Source: Space.com)
A new European search for extraterrestrial radio signals at low, uncharted frequencies is underway, having already listened to over 1.6 million star systems. SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, has traditionally focused on radio frequencies higher than a gigahertz, such as the hydrogen-line frequency at 1.42 GHz. SETI astronomers tend to shy away from lower frequencies because Earth's atmosphere renders observations noisy. However, Europe's Low Frequency Array, or LOFAR for short, is specially designed to conduct radio astronomy at these very frequencies. (10/27)

Air Force and Space Force Raise Max Age for Active-Duty Recruits (Source: Military.com)
Under a new policy change, active-duty Air Force and Space Force applicants can join up to the age of 42 -- meaning the services are now willing to take the oldest recruits out of all the Department of Defense military branches. (10/26)

Russia Hustles to Fill Impending Void Left by the ISS (Source: The Register)
Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved a project to build an Orbital Station following a meeting regarding the development of the country's space industry. Moscow mouthpiece TASS reported the move, and lurking within the grandstanding about space station ambitions was an admission of how much Russia's human spaceflight program still depends on the International Space Station (ISS).

Roscosmos boss Yuri Borisov said the funds have been allocated and the green light given to start work on the project. This is convenient because the prospects for Russian human spaceflight will start to look bleak once the ISS hurtles back to Earth around 2030. (10/27)

NASA’s Incredible New Solid-State Battery Pushes the Boundaries of Energy Storage (Source: TCD)
A new solid-state sulfur selenium battery developed by NASA could revolutionize air travel by powering planes with electricity instead of gas.

Airplanes require a lot of fuel to get and stay in the air. While flying, they release a wide variety of harmful pollutants into the air. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that commercial air travel accounts for 10% of U.S. transportation emissions and 3% of the nation’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Most of today’s electric vehicles use lithium-ion batteries, the same kind of batteries that power most phones and laptops. Lithium-ion batteries have a high power-to-weight ratio and can withstand high temperatures, but they still can’t provide larger airplanes with the energy they need to get off the ground or to go very far.

In addition, lithium-ion batteries are made with flammable materials, posing a risk to aircraft should they malfunction. NASA’s new sulfur selenium prototype battery is not only safer than lithium-ion batteries, but more powerful. As CleanTechnica reports, the prototype has an energy density of 500 watt-hours per kilogram (about 227 watt-hours per pound) — double the energy density of conventional lithium-ion batteries. (10/26)

Review of SpaceX Starship's Water Deluge System Critical to Next Launch (Source: Gizmodo)
In the wake of an explosive debut in April, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is conducting a review of SpaceX’s Starship launch system upgrades, focusing primarily on the new water deluge system and its potential environmental impacts at the south Texas launch site. (10/27)

Ground Stations as-a-Service Struggle to Gain Foothold in Military Market (Source: Space News)
Decades-old military ground stations that track and control satellites are projected to run out of capacity as more spacecraft are launched to orbit. Despite a capacity crunch, industry executives say the military is not taking advantage of ground stations that are now provided as a commercial service. Commercial services could help the Space Force deal with a shortage of capacity at satellite control centers but face an uphill battle for acceptance, executives said. (10/27)

NASA Wants to Fly This Nuclear Dragonfly Drone on Saturn's Moon Titan (Source: Space.com)
Testing is now underway on NASA's Dragonfly rotorcraft, a nuclear-powered, car-sized aerial drone that will look for potential precursors to life on Saturn's moon, Titan. But before Dragonfly can take to the sky, NASA has to make sure it can withstand the moon's unique environment. Equipped with cameras, sensors, and samplers, this vehicle will investigate areas of Titan known to contain organic materials, especially those regions where such materials might have encountered liquid water beneath the moon's icy surface in the past. (10/26)

Intuitive Machines Sets January 2024 for Lunar Lander Launch (Source: Intuitive Machines)
Intuitive Machines announced that in coordination with SpaceX, liftoff of the IM-1 lunar mission is now targeted for a multi-day launch window which opens January 12, 2024. “There are inherent challenges of lunar missions; schedule changes and mission adjustments are a natural consequence of pioneering lunar exploration. Receiving a launch window and the required approvals to fly is a remarkable achievement, and the schedule adjustment is a small price to pay for making history.” (10/27)

USNC Awarded $5M NASA Nuclear Propulsion Contract (Source: USNC)
Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC), a leader in nuclear energy innovation, is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a contract by NASA to develop and mature Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) systems for the advancement of America’s civil science and cislunar capabilities. This contract, which will see NTP move from the paper phase into hardware, is a testament to USNC’s capabilities on the leading edge of advanced reactor design and manufacturing.

Under this contract, USNC will manufacture and test advanced, proprietary fuel the company has developed through significant internal research and development efforts. Simultaneously, the company will collaborate with its commercial partner, Blue Origin, to mature the design of an NTP engine specifically optimized for near-term civil science and cislunar missions. These efforts mark a significant step forward in preparation for long-term applications of NTP systems and will build on the foundation laid by NASA and DARPA’s DRACO demonstration. (10/17)

NSF Awards Up To $21.4M for Design of Next-Gen Telescopes to Capture Earliest Moments of Universe (Source: UChicaco)
The National Science Foundation has awarded $3.7 million to the University of Chicago for the first year of a grant that may provide up to $21.4 million for the final designs for a next-generation set of telescopes to map the light from the earliest moments of the universe—the Cosmic Microwave Background.

Led by the University of Chicago and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the collaboration seeks to build telescopes and infrastructure in both Antarctica and Chile to search for what are known as “primordial” gravitational waves—the vibrations from the Big Bang itself. It would also map the microwave light from the cosmos in incredible detail and reveal how the universe evolved over time, as well as investigate the mystery known as dark matter. (10/26)

Space Industry Progress Demonstrates China's Confidence, Openness (Source: Xinhua)
China on Thursday launched the Shenzhou-17 manned spaceship, and the three astronauts aboard, the country's youngest lineup ever with an average age of about 38, will spend about six months in orbit on a space station mission. The rapid and steady progress China has made in the space industry is a testament to its independent capacity and strength in science and technology. It has also demonstrated the nation's confidence and willingness to open to the world in jointly building a community with a shared future in outer space. (10/26)

Russia Renamed its Ambitious Satellite Program After Putin Misspoke its Name (Source: Ars Technica)
It was always abundantly clear that the leader of the Russian space corporation Roscosmos from 2018 to 2022, Dmitry Rogozin, sought to kowtow to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Now we have an anecdote from Putin himself that highlights how much. The story concerns a satellite constellation now known as Sfera (or Sphere, in English), a modestly ambitious constellation of 264 satellites. The Sphere constellation is intended to provide broadband Internet service from middle-Earth orbit to Russia as well as high-resolution Earth observation satellites.

Prior to 2018, this satellite program was known as Ehfir (Ether), a reference to the invisible substance once thought to fill the universe and the medium through which light waves propagated. However that changed in 2018 when Putin was publicly announcing the program's creation. He recently recalled this in remarks that were recorded by RIA Novosti's Telegram channel. "At first it was called Ehfir," Putin said. "And at one of my public speeches I was talking and said it was Sfera. I arrived at the Kremlin, and the former Roscosmos head greeted me and said, 'Vladimirovich, you said it was project Sfera, Sfera you said. That's what it is, project Sfera.'" (10/27)

With Vertical Shuttle Display Ahead, California Science Center Gets Another $25 Million Gift (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
The California Science Center’s Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center project has received a $25 million donation from aerospace leader Kent Kresa and the Kresa Family Foundation. The gift comes as the science center prepares for the next stage of a complex, multi-phase process of assembling the Space Shuttle Endeavour’s 20-story vertical display. A pair of large solid rocket motors arrived on Oct. 11, and will be lifted into place in early November. In September, the center announced a $25 million gift from Korean Air, and the latest donation means that $350 million has been raised toward the center’s $400 million EndeavourLA Campaign goal. (10/26)