October 6, 2023

'Hyperspace Challenge' Aims to Pair Mature Space Tech with DOD, Space Force (Source: NextGov)
For the first time, the Space Force Rapid Capabilities Office is partnering with the 2023 Hyperspace Challenge accelerator in an effort to identify companies with existing, mature space technology solutions and potentially link them up with the DoD and Space Force. This year’s Hyperspace Challenge marks the sixth iteration of the business accelerator, which seeks to build relationships between emerging industry players and the U.S. government to drive innovation for the growing space domain. 

The current challenge is designed to develop products to increase space visibility to reduce the risks posed by objects in orbit, advancing space vehicle autonomy to reduce ground-operator workload and increasing the lifespan and maneuverability of space-based vehicles. The three-month accelerator program — a partnership between the Air Force Research Laboratory,  Space Force RCO, the economic development arm of Central New Mexico Community College and the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology — culminates with an in-person event to be held Nov. 1-3. (10/4)

NASA Expands Purchase of Commercial Earth-Observation Data with Latest Award (Source: Space News)
In a dramatic expansion of the Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Program, NASA announced Oct. 2 that seven companies will compete for contracts with a maximum value of $476 million over five years. Airbus DS Geo, Capella Space, GHGSat, Maxar, PlanetiQ, Spire Global and Umbra were selected under the fixed-price, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract to provide Earth observation data and services. The contract includes an option to extend services for an additional six months.

NASA established a Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition pilot program in 2017 to see whether commercial observations could augment or complement government datasets. Once the space agency realized the datasets were valuable, contracting mechanisms and licensing agreements were established to ensure ongoing access. (10/5)

SpaceX Sued by Engineer Claiming Underpayment of Women, Minorities (Source: Reuters)
SpaceX has been sued by a female former employee who claims the rocket and satellite company pays and promotes women and minorities less than white men. Former SpaceX engineer Ashley Foltz filed the proposed class action in California state court on Tuesday, saying the company paid her $92,000 per year while men with similar duties and qualifications were paid up to $115,000.

California law prohibits employers from paying workers less than colleagues who perform "substantially similar work" based on their sex, race or ethnicity. Foltz said she discovered the discrepancy when SpaceX posted job openings for engineering positions with a salary range of $95,000 to $115,000. A California "pay transparency" law took effect this year requiring employers to post salary ranges in job listings. (10/5)

Puzzling Objects Found Far Beyond Neptune Hint at Second Kuiper Belt (Source: Science)
There just doesn’t seem to be enough of the Solar System. Beyond Neptune’s orbit lie thousands of small icy objects in the Kuiper belt, with Pluto its most famous resident. But after 50 astronomical units (AU)—50 times the distance between Earth and the Sun—the belt ends suddenly and the number of objects drops to zero. Meanwhile, in other solar systems, similar belts stretch outward across hundreds of AU. It’s disquieting, says Wesley Fraser, an astronomer at the National Research Council Canada. “One odd thing about the known Solar System is just how bloody small we are.”

A new discovery is challenging that picture. While using ground-based telescopes to hunt for fresh targets for NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, now past Pluto on a course out of the Solar System, Fraser and his colleagues have made a tantalizing, though preliminary, discovery: about a dozen objects that lie beyond 60 AU—nearly as far from Pluto as Pluto is from the Sun. The finding, if real, could suggest that the Kuiper belt either extends much farther than once thought or—given the seeming 10-AU gap between these bodies and the known Kuiper belt—that a “second” belt exists. (10/3)

Japan's Pale Blue Raises $7.5 Million for Small Satellite Thrusters (Source: Space News)
Japanese small satellite thruster developer Pale Blue has raised $7.5 million. The funding will go towards mass production of its thrusters, which use water as propellant. Pale Blue said it successfully demonstrated its Resistojet thruster for the first time in March on a Sony Corp. Star Sphere satellite, a 6U cubesat launched in January. Setting up a mass production facility would enable Pale Blue to reduce costs and accelerate manufacturing for potential customers it sees in the United States, Europe, and Asia. (10/6)

Indian Space Policy Reforms Aimed at Building Industry, Atrracting Capital (Source: Space News)
The Indian government hopes a series of reforms will help build the company's space industry and attract capital. The Indian government approved the Indian Space Policy 2023 in April this year. It has removed almost all restrictions on the private sector to participate in the space sector in India, which was earlier almost inaccessible. Government officials said at IAC on Thursday that the new policy and other reforms, including liberalizing rules on foreign direct investment, will help grow the space industry take a larger share of the global space economy. (10/6)

China Proposes Lunar Satellite Constellation For Comms, Navigation (Source: Space News)
China has proposed developing a satellite constellation to support lunar and deep-space missions. The Queqiao constellation, presented this week at IAC, would consist of spacecraft stationed in circumlunar space and Earth-moon Lagrange points, providing communications and navigation services for lunar missions. Later versions of the constellation would expand to Mars and Venus. China currently operates a Queqiao satellite at the Earth-moon L-2 point to support the Chang'e-4 lunar farside mission, and a second will launch next May to support upcoming missions to the lunar south pole. (10/6)

Cesium Astro Demonstrates Phased Array Ground Terminal (Source: Space News)
CesiumAstro demonstrated its latest Ka-band active phased array terminal in partnership with Hughes and SES. In the test, the phased-array antenna, mounted on a moving truck, used a Hughes modem to communicate with the SES AMC-15 satellite in geostationary orbit. The demonstration was an important milestone on the way to qualifying terminals for commercial and military aircraft, CesiumAstro said. (10/6)

Space Foerce Releases NSSL RFP, Confirming Expanded Capacity (Source: Space News)
The Space Force issued a final call for proposals for the next phase of the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program. NSSL Phase 3 is a multibillion-dollar procurement of launch services projected for 2025 through 2034. The final solicitation retains the two-lane approach from earlier drafts, with Lane 1 for lower-risk missions to lower orbits open to a wide range of launch providers and Lane 2 for more demanding missions that are limited to providers certified by the Space Force. The Space Force said it still plans to select three providers for Lane 2, a change made in earlier drafts to address a "constrained market" for launches. (10/6)

Stoke Raises $100 Million for Reusable Launcher (Source: Space News0
Stoke Space has raised $100 million to continue work on a fully reusable launch vehicle. The company announced its Series B round Thursday, led by venture capital firm Industrious Ventures. The funding will support continued development of a two-stage vehicle where both the lower and upper stages are reused. The company recently tested a prototype of the reusable upper stage in a brief "hop" test flight in Washington state. Stoke Space also disclosed the name of that launch vehicle: Nova. (10/6)

Musk Says Starship Satellite Launches are a Year Away (Source: Space News)
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says the company is still about a year away from launching satellites on its Starship vehicle. Speaking at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) Thursday, Musk said the first launches of Starlink satellites on Starship are "roughly" a year away as the company continues its test campaign. Musk offered few new details on Starship's development, but noted that satellite launches could begin before the company has mastered the recovery and reuse of the vehicle's booster and upper stage. (10/6)

Air Force Picks LMI's RAPTR for Space Simulations (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Air Force awarded the Logistics Management Institute (LMI) a contract for modeling and simulation software to analyze warfighting missions in space. Under the $98 million award, the company will provide its modeling and simulation toolkit known as RAPTR, short for Rapid Analysis and Prototyping Toolkit for Resiliency. The software will be used by the the Space Security and Defense Program, a joint defense and intelligence community program focused on national security threats to space, and Space Warfighting Analysis Center, which models and analyzes alternative options for building future space systems and architectures. (10/6)

SpaceX Requests Special Approval for Gen2 Starlink (Source: The Street)
Faced with ongoing barriers to the second, much-anticipated test flight of SpaceX's Starship project, the world's leading private space company is looking to make good on a slightly different experiment. SpaceX, according to documentation, has requested a "Special Temporary Authority" from the Federal Communications Commission to launch its Starlink Gen2 satellites.

The goal, according to the filing, is to "launch and test its non-geostationary orbit NGSO second generation Gen2 satellites with direct-to-cellular communications payloads to connect unmodified cellular phones directly to SpaceX Gen2 satellites." The effort, made in conjunction with T-Mobile, is meant eventually to entirely eliminate cellular "dead zones," ensuring 100% cellular connectivity through Starlink, all the time. (10/4)

Black Swans From Mars? (Source: The Bulletin)
A mission to study samples from the red planet is unlikely to bring anything alive [and dangerous] back to Earth. But nobody can put the risks at zero. Click here. (10/5)

Starlink Carbon Footprint up to 30 Times Size of Land-Based Internet (Source: New Scientist)
The space race that is seeing SpaceX, Eutelsat and Amazon launch thousands of satellites capable of providing internet service will probably carry a significant environmental cost. That is what the first attempt to calculate the carbon footprints associated with each company’s operations has concluded. The analysis, conducted by researchers in the US and UK, found that the carbon footprint of each satellite constellation is potentially 14 to 21 times higher per internet subscriber than the emissions associated with  land-based providers. (10/4)

Zambia Gets Starlink (Source: Business Insider)
SpaceX has launched its Starlink satellite internet service in Zambia, making it the sixth country in Africa to receive the high-speed, uncapped service. Starlink is particularly well-suited for rural and underserved areas where traditional internet infrastructure is often lacking. The launch of Starlink in Zambia could bridge the digital divide and provide millions of Zambians with access to high-speed internet for the first time. (10/5)

DoD Supports New York Consortium for Space Tech Innovation (Source: Cornell University)
Cornell is spearheading the New York Consortium for Space Technology Innovation and Development – a new initiative aimed at bolstering U.S. space technology research and manufacturing capabilities by uniting industry, academic and government partners across New York state. Funded with a $5 million grant from the Defense Manufacturing Community Support Program run by DoD and $1.8 million from Cornell, the consortium is a collaborative effort led by Cornell’s Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in partnership with the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) and the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR). (10/5)

Musk’s SpaceX’s Surprise New Investor? Italy’s Biggest Bank (Source: Bloomberg)
Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo SpA has made a surprise investment in Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. as the lender looks to the aerospace industry as a key driver of global growth. Innovation will be a key pillar of the 2022-2025 business plan, Italy’s largest domestic bank said in a Friday statement, without disclosing the scale of the new investment. (10/6)

Call for Transparency Over Rocket Lab Payloads (Source: Gisborbe Herald)
The Green Party wants more transparency and more public knowledge about Rocket Lab operations at Māhia. MP Teanau Tuiono says the party has concerns about what payloads American military, security and intelligence agencies may be putting into space, and what responsibility might flow on to New Zealand. (10/6)

Professor Proposes Howard University's Place in Space Law (Source: The Dig)
There are only two law schools that currently offer an LLM, or Master of Laws, degree that specialized in space law: the University of Mississippi School of Law and the University of Nebraska College of Law. With the lack of options and access to space law as a field of study for J.D. students, and legal professionals seeking an LLM, it’s no wonder that the space law community is lacking anything close to adequate representation of Black folks in the profession. 

When I received my LLM in space law from the University of Mississippi, I became one of the handful of Black people in the world with that degree. Since then, I have met other Black space law professionals. However, not all of them have space law degrees or academic backgrounds. A lot of Black space law professionals have found their way into the field following interesting paths. Very few of us specifically studied and trained space law professionals. That is unacceptable.

Black people need to be part of the growing space sector, not just in STEM-related areas. There is a growing recognition that Black people must be included in the space community. This is where HUSL needs to fill a vital role for aspiring Black space lawyers. HUSL is now one of the few US law schools that offers a space law club and a space law course to its students, and it is the only HBCU to do so at this time. I am honored to be an adjunct professor at HUSL and to be teaching the first space law class offered at an HBCU law school. It is important that we give students the opportunity not only to learn about space law, but to develop a passion for it. (10/4)

Japan is Studying a Reusable Rocket, But it Won’t Fly Before 2030 (Source: Ars Technica)
Officials in the Japanese government are already plotting the replacement for the H3 rocket, which had a goal of cutting in half the cost per launch of the H-2A launcher, a workhorse for Japan's space program. But the H3 is based on a single-use expendable design, like nearly all legacy rockets. The H3 design aims to achieve these cost savings through modernized manufacturing techniques and commonality in hardware with Japan's smaller Epsilon rocket family.

There's no design yet for this still-unnamed rocket. Engineers haven't settled on a fuel. It could be cryogenic methane, the fuel favored by most companies developing new reusable launch rockets, or Japan could stick with liquid hydrogen, the super-cold fuel used on the H-2A and H3 rockets. Japanese policymakers wrote that the new rocket, replacing the H3, would start flying in the 2030s. (10/4)

Russia Talks a Big Future in Space While its Overall Budget is Quietly Cut (Source: Ars Technica)
The leader of Russia's space corporation, Yuri Borisov, discussed his country's future ambitions in space on Tuesday at the International Astronautical Congress. He spoke expansively about Russia's plans to build a new space station in low-Earth orbit, the Russian Orbital Station, as well as other initiatives. This space station will reside in a polar orbit, Borisov added, allowing it to observe the entire planet's surface. Its purpose will be to test new materials, new technologies, and new medicines. “It will be like a permanently functioning laboratory,” he said.

Borisov added that Russia is also hard at work on the "Sfera" megaconstellation to satisfy the country's large demand for communications. This constellation would include the capacity to provide direct-to-cell communications, which necessarily means that some of these satellites will be very large. Such projects cost billions of dollars at a minimum to get off the ground. Roscosmos also advertised other, even grander visions, including a nuclear-powered deep space transport vehicle called "Nuklon" and two "prospective" launch vehicles named Amur-LNG and Korona.

However, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia has struggled to build new hardware for spaceflight activities. Both its Nauka space station module and Luna 25 spacecraft that recently crashed into the Moon were essentially mothballed projects largely constructed decades ago. The idea that Russia will build a new space station and launch it within the next four years at a reduced budget is especially difficult to comprehend in the current situation. Resources for the space program are likely to be reduced rather than increased. (10/4)

Ozone Hole Goes Large Again (Source: ESA)
Measurements from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite show that this year’s ozone hole over Antarctica is one of the biggest on record. The hole, which is what scientists call an ‘ozone depleting area,’ reached a size of 26 million sq km on 16 September 2023. This is roughly three times the size of Brazil. (10/4)

ESA and Swatch: a Stellar Partnership (Source: ESA)
A new collaboration between ESA and Swiss watchmaker Swatch allows space fans to design their own space-themed watch using stunning images from space telescopes. (10/4)

WVU Engineer Developing Laser System to Defend Space Assets From Debris in Earth’s Orbit (Source: WVU Today)
If West Virginia University research pays off, debris that litters the planet’s orbit and poses a threat to spacecraft and satellites could get nudged off potential collision courses by a coordinated network of space lasers. Hang Woon Lee is a 2023 recipient of NASA’s prestigious Early Career Faculty award for potentially breakthrough research. NASA is supporting Lee’s rapid-response debris removal study.

His research team is verifying the algorithms they propose developing to run the system of lasers would be a valid, cost-effective solution. But the long-distance vision is of “multiple space-based lasers actively performing orbital maneuvers and collaboratively addressing orbital debris,” Lee said. This could lead to just-in-time collision avoidance with high-value space assets. (10/4)

Iran Celebrating World Space Week (Source: Tehran Times)
To promote and develop space knowledge, the Iranian Space Agency has named the days of the week as "Space Technology, Propulsion Industry", "Space and Development of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems", "Space, Future Economy", "Overflow of Space Technology and Entrepreneurship", and "Space and Entrepreneurial Opportunities". (10/4)