December 23, 2023

Astronomers Detect Seismic Ripples in Ancient Galactic Disk (Source: Phys.org)
A new snapshot of an ancient, far-off galaxy could help scientists understand how it formed and the origins of our own Milky Way. At more than 12 billion years old, BRI 1335-0417 is the oldest and furthest known spiral galaxy in our universe. The researchers were able to not only capture the motion of the gas around BRI 1335-0417, but also reveal a seismic wave forming—a first in this type of early galaxy. The study has been published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. (12/21)

NASA Outlines Future Strategy for Post-ISS Microgravity Research Labs in LEO (Source: Space Daily)
NASA is actively developing a strategy for establishing the next generation of microgravity national labs in a commercial space station environment. This move comes in response to a directive from the National Space Council in September 2022, tasking NASA with crafting a plan for this new era in space research. Led by the Space Operations Mission Directorate and the Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy, NASA's initiative is part of a broader effort to adapt to the evolving landscape of low-Earth orbit (LEO) operations post-ISS. (12/21)

NASA Enhances Aerospace Innovation with 10 New SBIR Ignite Phase I Awards, Two in Florida (Source: Space Daily)
NASA has recently announced the second round of Phase I awards under its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Ignite program. This initiative reflects NASA's commitment to fostering innovation and supporting American small businesses in advancing aerospace technologies. A total of ten small businesses have been selected for these awards, each receiving up to $150,000. This funding is aimed at helping these companies establish the merit and feasibility of their proposed innovations within a six-month period, paralleling the program's main SBIR Phase I awards.

Editor's Note: Two of the 10 are from Florida, including Miami's Channel-Logistics LLC, doing business as Space-Eyes, developing Fire Watch, an AI/ML-based system for predicting and detecting wildfires. in DeLeon Springs, VerdeGo Aero is developing a VH-3 Hybrid Electric Powerplant. (12/21)

NASA's 3D-printed Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine Test a Success (Source: Space Daily)
NASA has achieved a new benchmark in developing an innovative propulsion system called the Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE). Engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville successfully tested a novel, 3D-printed RDRE for longer than four minutes, producing more than 5,800 pounds of thrust. That kind of sustained burn emulates typical requirements for a lander touchdown or a deep-space burn that could set a spacecraft on course from the Moon to Mars, said Marshall combustion devices engineer Thomas Teasley, who leads the RDRE test effort at the center. (12/21)

Dragon Undocks with Scientific Cargo, Splashes Down Off Florida Coast (Source: Space.com)
A SpaceX cargo ship laden with science has returned to Earth. SpaceX's robotic Dragon spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday (Dec. 21) at 5:05 p.m. EST (2205 GMT), as the two spacecraft were flying over the southwest coast of Chile. Dragon then splashed down off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, around 12:30 p.m. EST on Friday (Dec. 22) as planned. (12/22)

Spain’s New Space Agency is a Bigger Deal than it Seems (Source: Space News)
Back in March, Spain became the latest country to get its own space agency, when the nation’s government passed Royal Decree 158/2023, approving the bylaws of the Spanish Space Agency, or Agencia Espacial Española (AEE). This important milestone marked Spain’s entry into the long list of countries that play a central role for managing, coordinating and, most importantly, promoting and driving forward their own national space efforts. Given the advantages that having such a structure brings to countries, the Spanish industrial community in particular had been advocating for the establishment of a federal space agency for quite some time. (12/18)

Kennedy Space Center Looks Ahead to Busy 2024 (Source: NASA)
Another jam-packed year is in store for NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as the momentum of a busy 2023 is carried forward into the new year. On the horizon are missions to the Moon, more crew and cargo flights to the International Space Station, and several upgrade projects across the spaceport. Click here. (12/21)

NASA Glenn, Langley Award Administrative Support Contract (Source: NASA)
NASA has awarded the Glenn-Langley Administrative Support Services (GLASS) contract to PBG FedSync JV LLC of McLean, Virginia, to provide administrative support services to various organizations, programs, and projects at the agency’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The total award value is $41.4 million over a five-year potential performance period. (12/20)

Astronomers Discover Strangely Missing Stars in Galaxies Near Milky Way (Source: Space.com)
A newfound population of stars in nearby dwarf galaxies represents the long-sought progenitors of a specific type of stellar death, or supernova, according to new research. Theories have shown that, for every three massive stars, one is stripped of its outer hydrogen layers across hundreds, or even thousands, of years such that its scorching hot helium core — about 10 times hotter than the sun's surface — gets exposed. So, when these stars die in explosive supernovas, they leave behind hydrogen-poor environments different from other types of supernova events. (12/21)

Should We Send Humans to Titan? (Source: Universe Today)
Titan could be a feasible location for sending humans sometime in the future. Titan lacks the searing temperatures and crushing pressures of Venus along with the harsh radiation experienced on Europa. So, should we send humans to Titan? Click here. (12/21)

Green Hydrogen for Ariane 6 (Source: ESA)
Ariane 6 uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as fuel for its main and upper stages. Hydrogen in its gaseous form (H2) is rarely found on Earth, and so is currently produced in French Guiana from steam reforming of methanol (CH3OH). Other processes are far more sustainable and so ESA and France’s space agency CNES wish to switch to solar-powered electrolysis of water which can reduce by five the amount of carbon dioxide emitted for hydrogen production.

ESA and CNES are determined to reduce the footprint of rocket launches and ground operations at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, and are aiming to deliver low-carbon hydrogen generated by solar-powered electrolysis of water by 2026. (12/21)

Steve Wozniak's Start-Up Privateer Develops Ride-Sharing Spacecraft to Reduce Orbital Clutter (Source: Space.com)
Space start-up Privateer, co-founded by the famed Apple technologist Steve Wozniak, will begin orbital tests of its ride-sharing orbital module Pono in January. The module, which launched on Dec. 1 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, was developed to encourage space users to share assets in order to reduce the growing amount of satellites and other orbital clutter around Earth. (12/21)

Shenzhou-17 Astronauts Conduct First Spacewalk to Repair TSS Solar Array (Source: Space News)
China’s Shenzhou-17 astronauts embarked on their first extravehicular activity Thursday to address minor damage to a Tiangong space station solar array. Mission commander Tang Hongbo and Tang Shengjie began a roughly 7.5-hour extravehicular activity (EVA), or spacewalk, Thursday. The pair reentered Tiangong through the Wentian science module’s EVA hatch for tasks including a repair test on one of the Tianhe core module’s solar arrays. The system was earlier found to have suffered minor damage through micrometeoroid hits. (12/22)

Researchers Study a Million Galaxies to Find Out How the Universe Began (Source: Phys.org)
A team of researchers has analyzed more than 1 million galaxies to explore the origin of the present-day cosmic structures. Until today, precise observations and analyses of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and large-scale structure (LSS) have led to the establishment of the standard framework of the universe, the so-called ΛCDM model, where cold dark matter (CDM) and dark energy (the cosmological constant, Λ) are significant characteristics.

This model suggests that primordial fluctuations were generated at the beginning of the universe, or in the early universe, which acted as triggers, leading to the creation of all things in the universe including stars, galaxies, galaxy clusters, and their spatial distribution throughout space. (12/22)

Chinese Startup LandSpace Poised to Begin Reusable Rocket Landing Tests (Source: Space.com)
Chinese launch startup Landspace appears ready to test launching and landing rockets. The company launched its third Zhuque-2 methane-fueled rocket on Dec. 8, successfully sending two satellites into orbit. It also revealed plans following the launch for a large stainless steel Zhuque-3 reusable rocket that it aims to launch for orbit for the first time in 2025. Landspace has prepared an 11-foot-diameter test article that it will launch to around 328 feet and attempt to land it using variable thrust engines and landing legs, much like the SpaceX Falcon 9. (12/22)

It’s Time for UFO Whistleblowers to Show Their Cards (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Last week on the Senate floor two senators rose to express disappointment with the House of Representatives. This was by itself routine enough, but the senators, Mike Rounds, R-SD, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, were complaining that the House was impeding transparency on UFOs. The National Defense Authorization Act, on Schumer’s instigation, included provisions to establish a presidential commission with the power to declassify a broad swath of records related to UAPs, modeled on the panel that did similar work with President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

But this disclosure effort was watered down by some House Republicans, making it more of a collection effort by the National Archives, with a weaker mandate to declassify and release. My personal hope, as someone fascinated and frustrated by this business ever since the military first started acknowledging that its pilots have seen some weird things in the skies, is that we are nearing a point of real clarity — not necessarily about what UAPs are but about whether some faction in the government really knows much more about the mystery than what’s in the public record. (12/16)

North America Seemingly Targeted with Signals by China’s Spaceplane. But Why? (Source: SCMP)
China’s space plane could be sending signals to a hidden ground station or a ship near North America’s west coast, according to an amateur astronomer who has been tracking the craft since it entered Earth’s orbit last week. Strong emissions were detected at the frequency of 2280 megahertz while the uncrewed reusable plane was flying over British Columbia, Canada, where Scott Tilley is based. “I’m seeing a pattern in its radio emissions while over me and it appears to favour low-elevation western passes,” said Tilley, who helped NASA find its long-lost IMAGE satellite in 2018. (12/21)

Most Precise Measurement Of The Higgs Boson's Mass Defines Universe's Parameters (Source: IFLScience)
CERN’s ATLAS Collaboration has released a new measurement of the mass of the Higgs boson with a precision of 0.09 percent. Since the Higgs' mass is one of the fundamental parameters that defines many aspects of the universe, this sort of precision can improve our understanding of many other particle interactions. (12/21)

Jupiter 3 Satellite Pushes SpaceX Rival Closer to Starlink Internet Speeds (Source: Gizmodo)
Following the launch of its next-generation satellite, Hughes Network Systems is now starting to offer faster internet speeds to compete with its main industry rival SpaceX. The Maryland-based company has launched new high-speed satellite internet plans for its customers in the Americas, with download speeds up to 100 megabits per second (Mbps), Hughes announced this week. This brings it a little bit closer to SpaceX’s Starlink internet speeds, which ranges between 25 to 220 Mbps. (12/21)

Pinhole Propulsion for Satellites (Source: ESA)
A palm-sized propulsion option for future space missions: each one of these seven emitter arrays etched onto this silicon wafer using micro- and nano-technology possesses more than 500 pinhole-sized emitters that spray out ions, accelerated via an electrostatic field to maximise thrust. Inherently scalable, this ‘electrospray’ technology is being developed as a cost- and mass-effective method of propelling CubeSats and other small satellites. For the first time in Europe, this ionic-liquid based electrospray propulsion system has achieved more than 400 hours of continuous operation. (12/20)

What 2024 Has in Store for Space Force Acquisition (Source: Defense One)
Next year, Frank Calvelli expects the Space Force to finally deliver on a few “problem children” programs, including a space command-and-control system, called ATLAS for Advanced Tracking and Launch Analysis System; and new ground stations to control the Pentagon’s constellation of GPS satellites, called GPS Next Generation Operational Control Segment, or OCX. These programs have faced delays because “big software developments fail,” Calvelli said in November. “We've seen failures in big software and OCX just fits right into that mold. It's a very large complex software system that's had its challenges.” (12/20)

Fermi Mission Creates 14-Year Time-Lapse of the Gamma-Ray Sky (Source: Phys.org)
The cosmos comes alive in an all-sky time-lapse movie made from 14 years of data acquired by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Our sun, occasionally flaring into prominence, serenely traces a path through the sky against the backdrop of high-energy sources within our galaxy and beyond. "The bright, steady gamma-ray glow of the Milky Way is punctuated by intense, days-long flares of near-light-speed jets powered by supermassive black holes in the cores of distant galaxies," said Seth Digel. "These dramatic eruptions, which can appear anywhere in the sky, occurred millions to billions of years ago, and their light is just reaching Fermi as we watch." Click here. (12/20)

Lawrence Livermore National Lab Simulates ‘Armageddon’-Style Nuclear Asteroid Deflection (Source: Tech Crunch)
At Lawrence Livermore National Lab, a team led by Mary Burkey presented a paper that moves the ball forward on what is in reality a fairly active area of research. As they point out, using a satellite as a missile isn’t always practical, and in fact detonating a nuclear explosive device as close as possible to the incoming object is potentially our best move.

The problem is that a nuclear deflection would need to be done in a very precise way or else it could lead (as it did in “Armageddon”) to chunks of the asteroid hitting Earth anyway. This could result in the widespread devastation scenario envisioned in the 1998 space disaster film “Deep Impact.” (12/21)

SpaceX Launch of Axiom Space's 3rd Private Astronaut Mission Delayed to Jan. 17 (Source: Space.com)
SpaceX's next private astronaut launch has been delayed until mid-January. The company had been planning to launch Axiom Space's Ax-3 mission to the International Space Station on Jan. 9. However, the timeline has slipped by a little over a week, to Jan. 17. The delay is "due to recent unfavorable weather conditions and changes in SpaceX’s launch manifest," NASA officials said. (12/21)

SpaceX to Just Miss Goal of 100 Falcon Launches in 2023 (Source: Space News)
SpaceX will likely fall just short of its goal of 100 Falcon launches this year. Early December's gap of almost 11 days between launches is the longest for the company this year. SpaceX has averaged about four days between launches in 2023. Several factors contributed to the gap in launches. The company is expected to reach a total of 97 for the year. (12/19)

To Win the New Space Race, NASA and the DoD Need to Shift Their Collaboration into High Gear (Source: Space News)
We are in a new Space Race, where one key event is being the first to establish an occupied lunar camp. The Chinese and Russians have invited international partners to participate in their lunar base, which has an ambitious timeline. They expect to see site selection by 2025, a decade of construction, and then full operation after 2036. Counter this with the lethargic and slipping timeline of the U.S.’s effort to return a person to the Moon by 2024. This is not a race that the Western world can lose.

The country that arrives first will get to lead the discussion on the norms of interplanetary life—consider how the internet would be different if China had established initial norms. If the research already accomplished by the DoD on remote basing planning, opening, and sustaining could be applied to the lunar basing research, and the different teams aligned to jointly focus on new challenges, the U.S. might have a chance to catch up. As in Kennedy’s Space Race, the DoD does not need to take the lead. But without increased collaboration and prioritization across the federal government, the U.S. will not see the same success in this Space Race as it did against the Soviet Union. Click here. (12/22)

SpaceX Falcon 9 Launches Saturday; Booster Logs 19th Landing (Source: Florida Today)
After its target launch time pushed back past midnight, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocketed into low-Earth orbit early Saturday morning amid a moderate risk of upper-level wind shear. The SpaceX Starlink 6-32 mission lifted off from Launch Complex 40 at 12:33 a.m. at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. The launch occurred on the heels of the eight-year anniversary of SpaceX successfully landing a Falcon 9 rocket booster for the first time on Dec. 21, 2015, at the Cape. It marked the fleet-leading 19th flight for the Falcon 9's first-stage booster, which landed atop the drone ship Just Read the Instructions on the Atlantic Ocean after stage separation. (12/23)