October 29, 2023

Starlink Launch From Florida Planned Sunday Night (Source: Florida Today)
The SpaceX Starlink 6-25 mission launch window has been rescheduled for 7:45 p.m. EDT Sunday, the company just announced. If needed, seven backup launch opportunities are available between 8:17 and 10:47 p.m. EDT Sunday. (10/28)

A Life Less Earthly (Source: The Economist)
In our first episode, The Economist contributor Jessica Camille Aguirre contemplates living on the moon. Talking to space architects and scientists, real astronauts and secret wannabes, she sets out to discover the blueprint for a possible moon base—and what she found was a vision for the evolution of humanity. Click here. (10/28)

NASA Improves GIANT Optical Navigation Technology for Future Missions (Source: NASA)
Goddard's GIANT optical navigation software helped guide the OSIRIS-REx mission to the Asteroid Bennu. Today its developers continue to add functionality and streamline useability for future missions. The optical navigation team served as a backup navigation resource for the OSIRIS-REx mission. They double-checked the primary navigation team’s work and proved the viability of navigation by visual cues. (10/27)

Israel Will Fight Musk's Effort to Supply Starlink in Gaza (Source: Business Insider)
Internet and cellular services in the Gaza Strip went down after Israel bombarded the territory. It then began its first ground incursions into Gaza. The emergency 101 telephone number wasn't working, meaning that ambulances could not be called. Many journalists and aid workers in the Gaza Strip were also out of contact. Israel's communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, said Israel would fight against the SpaceX CEO's effort to offer Starlink to Gaza. "Israel will use all means at its disposal to fight this," Karhi said in the post. (10/28)

One Million Craters on the Moon, and Sofia is Mapping Them All (Source: Cosmos)
“If we’ve taken sensor readings and decided that there is water located at this particular spot, but we’re 10km off on where we actually are … that could completely ruin where we chose to set up a future base camp on the moon,” says University of Adelaide doctoral candidate Sofia McLeod. “It could be 10km away from its water source. That would be terrible”.

McLeod works at the Australian Institute for Machine Learning and is focussed on research and application of Computer Vision for spacecraft guidance and navigation. McLeod is in Japan working on a way to accurately position future geological survey data of the Moon’s surface. These surveys could locate crucial resources such as minerals and water. (10/29)

New Map of Ice on Mars Could Help NASA Decide Where to Send Astronauts (Source: Space.com)
The NASA-funded Subsurface Water Ice Mapping (SWIM) project released its fourth and most recent map of where on Mars we might find, as you might expect, subsurface water ice. NASA officials say this map will help mission planners decide where on Mars to actually send the first humans to traverse the planet.

Since 2017, SWIM — led by the Planetary Science Institute and managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory — has collated data from multiple NASA Mars missions in order to stitch together a map of how likely it is that a given part of Mars overlays water. (10/29)

SpaceX Launches 22 Starlink Satellites From California (Source: Space.com)
SpaceX launched 22 Starlink internet satellites to orbit from California on Sunday (Oct. 29), on the first of two planned missions for the day. A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base on Sunday at 5 a.m. EDT. (10/29)

'Slowly Being Eroded': Environmentalists Worry About SpaceX's Expansion on Florida Wildlife Preserve (Source: Fox35)
SpaceX wants to expand its operations at Kennedy Space Center, but environmentalists are worried about too much growth on federally protected land. Companies like SpaceX are competing for land on the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge. Environmental experts are asking for low impact -- a development that won’t hurt the land. 

SpaceX is leading the way in commercial space developments. The company broke a record last week, with its 58th rocket launch off Florida’s coast. Now, it wants to expand even more at KSC. On Roberts Road, SpaceX wants to develop 100 acres and make a new 1.5 million square foot facility to centralize operations at the space center.  

"It’s going to be a whole lot bigger than HangarX, so where is that stormwater going to go? Where is that highly treated water going to go? Are they going to run it down the Roberts Road canal and into Oyster Prong, too?" (10/27)

Get Serious, America, Says Former NASA Administrator (Source: AL.com)
Former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin closed this year’s Von Braun Space Exploration Symposium in Huntsville Friday with some tough love for his old agency and a cold shower for a new generation on why he thinks the agency exists. “NASA is a national security program,” Griffin said in Huntsville. Every aspect of the public space program “is about the standing of the United States in the global arena. That is what it is about.

“If we can do some useful things in conjunction with that, I think that’s great,” Griffin said. “I worked on Hubble and am proud of that. But sorry, scientists, Hubble is a national security program. It’s about, ‘We’re better than you.’ And if that sounds jingoistic, I don’t care.” (10/27)

These 5 Aerospace Firms Want to Launch Their Own Space Stations by 2033 (Source: Robb Report)
At the end of the decade, after over a quarter-century in orbit, the ISS is planned to be decommissioned by NASA in order for the agency to focus on deep-space exploration, lunar flights, and journeys to Mars. That leaves low-Earth orbit, the layer 250 miles above the atmosphere, as the next frontier in commercial space enterprises. NASA seems all for it, supporting private developers via grants that promise to set off a gold rush of scientific research—and tourism. Click here. (10/28)

Four-Nation Space Project Involving UAE Could Aid Climate Change Fight (Source: The National)
The future of the fight against climate change and food security could be out of this world: the UAE, the US, India and Israel are teaming up on a new space-based project that will shape the way the world responds to these and other pressing issues. “This project will be grounded in the principle of open access to scientific data for the benefit of all humanity,” explained Jose Fernandez, US Undersecretary of State, adding that the I2U2 partners have established a working-level group on the project that is set to meet soon to discuss priorities.

“This group will advance multi-regional co-operation and investment opportunities, forging partnerships to tackle some of the region's most pressing issues, including managing the energy crisis and addressing food insecurity.” In July of last year, the UAE, the US, India and Israel established an international partnership – I2U2 – focused on economic co-operation across seven sectors: food security, water, energy, transport, health, technology and space. (10/26)

Vikram Lander Created Ejecta Halo at Lunar Landing (Source: First Post)
When the Vikram lander of the Chandrayaan-3 mission made a soft landing on the moon it raised a lot of dust that led to creation of a bright patch, called as the ejecta halo, around the spacecraft. Scientists at ISRO used the Orbiter High Resolution Camera (OHRC) onboard the Chandrayaan-2. “During the action of descent stage thrusters and the consequent landing, a significant amount of lunar surficial epiregolith material got ejected, resulting in a reflectance anomaly or ‘ejecta halo’,” scientists at the National Remote Sensing Center (NRSC) said. (10/28)

New Joint Force Space Doctrine Clarifies Space Command’s ‘Offensive’, ‘Defensive’ Ops (Source: Breaking Defense)
The latest revision to the doctrine guiding Joint Force operations in space, obtained by Breaking Defense, is a major overhaul — codifying US Space Command’s scope of action as well as clarifying US military space missions and how they are to be undertaken. This includes more clearly establishing the fact that SPACECOM and the other combatant commands will conduct “offensive and defensive space operations” during conflict, using “direct or enabling” capabilities against adversary space assets — that is, spacecraft on orbit, terrestrial control stations and/or the data links between them. (10/27)

Dark Matter Lab in VIC Gold Mine Detects First ‘Muons’ (Source: Cosmos)
Researchers at the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory (SUPL) in Victoria have detected the first transmissions from a muon detector inside the mine within the first few days of operating. The muon detector recorded about five detections per day, far lower than the millions of interactions that would be expected above ground. (10/27)

Musk Says SpaceX Will Support Starlink in Gaza for International Aid Groups (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Elon Musk said Saturday that his company would try to help international aid groups in Gaza communicate with Starlink internet terminals after an intense wave of Israeli airstrikes severed almost all internet and cellular communications in the territory. “SpaceX will support communication links with internationally recognized aid organizations,” he wrote on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter. It is unlikely there are any Starlink terminals inside Gaza, where the entry of goods faced severe restrictions before Israel imposed a full blockade. (10/28)