January 23, 2024

Small Solar Sails Could Be the Next 'Giant Leap' for Interplanetary Space Exploration (Source: Space Daily)
Nearly 70 years after the launch of the first satellite, we still have more questions than answers about space. But a team of Berkeley researchers is on a mission to change this with a proposal to build a fleet of low-cost, autonomous spacecraft, each weighing only 10 grams and propelled by nothing more than the pressure of solar radiation. These miniaturized solar sails could potentially visit thousands of near-Earth asteroids and comets, capturing high-resolution images and collecting samples. (1/23)

Colorado-Built Weather Satellite Makes its Way to Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: Axios)
A satellite that will soon help deliver weather forecasts to your phone started its voyage from Aurora to Florida's Kennedy Space Center on Monday. Driving the news: The GOES-U, which will provide weather monitoring, including pinpointing and tracking where wildfires start, was built on Lockheed Martin's Littleton campus in conjunction with NOAA. (1/22)

Worker Shortages Plague Defense Industrial Base (Source: Forbes)
Defense expert Loren Thompson reviews the National Defense Industrial Strategy, highlighting ongoing workforce shortages. The U.S. is facing significant challenges in its defense industrial base, including workforce shortages and a fragile domestic supply chain, as evidenced by the slow pace of submarine production at the nation's nuclear shipyards and the existence of only one domestic smelter producing high-purity aluminum for military aircraft. (1/22)

Sierra Space Inflatable Module Passes Pressure Test (Source: Space News)
Sierra Space has successfully conducted a burst test on a full-scale version of its Large Integrated Flexible Environment module, an inflatable module designed for commercial space stations, at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. The test, which involved inflating the module and increasing internal pressure until it burst, showed that it could withstand pressures significantly exceeding NASA's safety requirements. (1/22)

Space Force Sees Heightened Role in US Defense (Source: Space News)
As the US Space Force is navigating an environment of increasing threats to national space assets due to international tension and changing technologies, according to Space Force chief Gen. Chance Saltzman. He emphasized the need for guardians to understand the link between space systems and terrestrial warfare, and to innovate in response to potential threats like Chinese and Russian space weapons. (1/22)

Bill Would Take DOD Contracting Practices Government-Wide (Source: NextGov)
The recently introduced Conforming Procedures for Federal Task and Delivery Order Contracts Act aims to streamline the federal contracting process by reducing complex requirements and expediting proposal evaluations, thereby enabling more small businesses to compete. The proposed legislation focuses on minimizing redundant documentation, applying Defense Department contracting practices to all federal agencies, and accelerating the award process. (1/22)

Albedo Raises $35 Million for Imagery Satellite (Source: Space News)
Albedo raised $35 million to build and launch its first high-resolution Earth-imagery satellite. The company announced a Series A-1 round Tuesday led by Standard Investments. The funding round will allow Albedo to accelerate work on its very low Earth orbit (VLEO) constellation, capable of producing optical images with a resolution of 10 centimeters and thermal imagery at a resolution of two meters. Albedo expects to launch its first satellite in 2025. (1/23)

France's Aldoria Raises $11 Million for SSA (Source: Space News)
Aldoria, a French space situational awareness (SSA) startup, has raised $10.9 million. The company announced its Series A round Tuesday involving several French and European investors. Aldoria, previously known as Share My Space, operates a network of optical telescopes to track space objects. The company will use the funding to expand that network and enhance its ability to process data from that network and other sources. (1/23)

Report Recommends Greater Use of AI for Satellite Data Analysis (Source: Space News)
A new report calls for greater use of artificial intelligence to analyze satellite data. The report, released last week by the World Economic Forum and Deloitte, found a burgeoning demand for data related to climate and sustainability, precision agriculture and ESG reporting requirements. That data is available in many cases from existing Earth observation satellites, but the report found that advances an AI may enable new applications involving such data to make it accessible to a wider range of customers. An Earth observation market panel at the recent WEF forum concluded that there has to be continued dialogue between data suppliers, users and financiers, as these groups may not typically talk to one another. (1/23)

China Launches Five Satellites on Kinetica-1 Solid-Fuel Rocket (Source: Xinhua)
A Chinese commercial rocket launched five satellites Monday night. The Lijian-1, or Kinetica-1, solid-fuel rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 11:03 p.m. Eastern. The rocket successfully placed five Taijing remote sensing satellites into orbit. (1/23)

India Plans Privatization of LVM3 Rocket Production (Source: IANS)
India is planning to privatize production of its largest launch vehicle. The Indian space agency ISRO and its commercial arm, NewSpace India Ltd. (NSIL), have started the process to set up a public private partnership to produce the LVM3 rocket, also known as the GSLV Mark 3. The LVM3 is capable of placing up to eight tons into low Earth orbit and four tons into geostationary transfer orbit. ISRO and NSIL have previously adopted similar approaches to hand over production of the smaller SSLV and PSLV rockets to the private sector. (1/23)

Space Salads Susceptible to Salmonella (Source: University of Delaware)
Salads may not be as healthy for you in space as once thought. NASA has worked to grow lettuce and other vegetables in space to provide future long-duration missions with fresh food. However, a study found that lettuce grown in microgravity may be more susceptible to Salmonella infections that could sicken astronauts who eat the lettuce. That's a particular concern in a confined habitat like the International Space Station, where disease-causing microbes can thrive. (1/23)

Big Bang Scientist Passes (Source: New York Times)
A scientist who discovered key evidence supporting the Big Bang model of the universe has died. Arno A. Penzias was working at Bell Labs in the early 1960s when he and fellow physicist Robert Wilson noticed a persistent hum from a radio dish. After ruling out terrestrial sources of interference, including bird droppings inside the antenna, they concluded that they had detected a cosmic microwave background signal, a signature of the Big Bang predicted by astronomers. Penzias and Wilson shared part of the 1978 Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery. Penzias was 90. (1/23)

ESA Advances Satellite Testing Capabilities at Europe's Largest Thermal Vacuum Facility (Source: Space Daily)
In the realm of space exploration, testing equipment under conditions that mimic the unforgiving environment of space is critical. At the forefront of this endeavor is the European Space Agency's (ESA) Large Space Simulator (LSS), located at the ESTEC Test Centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. This mammoth facility, known for its capability to simulate the vacuum, temperature, and solar radiation conditions of space, has been a cornerstone for testing satellites for major missions like Rosetta, Juice, and Plato. (1/19)

UAE to Begin Second Mars Simulation Mission (Source: The National)
The UAE will this week begin its participation in a key NASA simulation aimed at replicating the conditions of a Mars mission to boost international efforts to travel deep into space. The project involves analogue astronauts - crew who take part in simulated missions on Earth - to test the effects of spaceflight on the human body and mind.

It is the second simulation mission in which the Emirates has been involved, after Saleh Al Ameri completed an eight-month mission in Russia in 2022. The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC) will take part in the Human Exploration Research Analogue (HERA) project by sending an Emirati crew to live in a habitat in Houston, Texas. (1/22)

Fauna Bio Researcher Awarded NASA Early-Stage Grant to Study Hibernation in Space (Source: Fauna Bio)
Fauna Bio, a biotechnology company that leverages animal genomics to improve human health, announces Senior Research Physiologist Ryan Sprenger, Ph.D., has been awarded a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) grant. “This project will address critical gaps in our understanding of hibernation in space and its impact on bone and muscle loss. We look forward to developing STASH, a pioneering microgravity hibernation laboratory intended for use aboard the space station in the future.” (1/22)

What Happens When an Astronaut in Orbit Says He’s Not Coming Back? (Source: Ars Technica)
In April 1985, Taylor Wang was deeply despondent. He had quite literally felt on top of the world by becoming the first Chinese-born person to fly into space. But now, orbiting Earth on board the Space Shuttle, all of his hopes and dreams, everything he had worked on for the better part of a decade as an American scientist at NASA JPL had come crashing down around him.

Wang was the principal investigator of an experiment called the Drop Dynamics Module, which aimed to uncover the fundamental physical behavior of liquid drops in microgravity. He had largely built the experiment, and he then effectively won a lottery ticket when NASA selected him to fly on the 17th flight of the Space Shuttle program. On the second day of the mission, Wang floated over to his experiment and sought to activate the Drop Dynamics Module. But it didn't work. He asked the NASA flight controllers on the ground if he could take some time to try to troubleshoot the problem and maybe fix the experiment.

But on any Shuttle mission, time is precious. Every crew member has a detailed timeline, with a long list of tasks during waking hours. The flight controllers were reluctant. After initially being told no, Wang pressed a bit further. "Listen, I know my system very well," he said. "Give me a shot." Still, the flight controllers demurred. Wang grew desperate. So he said something that chilled the nerves of those in Houston watching over the safety of the crew and the Shuttle mission. "Hey, if you guys don't give me a chance to repair my instrument, I'm not going back," Wang said. Click here. (1/22)

Is NASA Too Down on Space-Based Solar Power? (Source: Science)
This month, NASA cast a shadow on one of the most visionary prospects for freeing the world from fossil fuels: collecting solar energy in space and beaming it to Earth. An agency report found the scheme is feasible by 2050 but would cost between 12 and 80 times as much as ground-based renewable energy sources. Undaunted, many government agencies and companies are pushing ahead with demonstration plans. Some researchers say NASA’s analysis is too pessimistic.

“There are assumptions that are just wrong and others that are incredibly conservative,” says Martin Soltau, co-CEO of Space Solar, a development company funded by the U.K. government and industry. “There’s no imagination.” He and others note that NASA itself says slightly rosier assumptions—including a drop in launch costs that many think is within reach—would suddenly make the technology competitive with ground-based renewable energy. (1/22)

New Era Begins as Australian Bogong Thruster Proves Successful (Source: Cosmos)
The Bogong thruster has flown. It has proven the material behind mothballs can provide a kick in orbit. But not without a bit of flap. And a lot of waiting. Canberra-based Boswell Technologies and the Australian National University’s Space Plasma Power and Propulsion Group are basking in the glow of success – after embarking on a fast-tracked design, development and testing program on somewhat more than a wing and a prayer. The Bogong thruster is built to exploit the chemical properties of naphthalene. It’s inherently safe. It shifts rapidly from a solid to a gas. And it has a low vapor pressure. (1/23)

Your Satellite Needs a Tow? Call the Semi Trucks of Space (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Need a lift from one swath of the final frontier to another? Efforts to build rockets designed to blast cargo or crews into space often grab the spotlight. But a number of companies are also working to develop vehicles to fill another need they see coming: moving those satellites and other payloads around in space. Click here. (1/22)

The White House Versus the Private Sector in Space (Source: Space News)
Based on their actions (not their words) it is becoming ever clearer that there is a faction in our national government that does not want our private citizens to open the High Frontier of space. The most recent example is the White House National Space Council’s “Novel Space Activities Authorization and Supervision Framework.” Ostensibly created to “create an agile framework that can respond to changing needs as we scale to the future,” the December 2023 document is more a leash than a catalyst for the creative economic expansion of the newspace revolution now underway.

Clearly born out of the United States government response to international pressures to control what those crazy American disruptors might do in space, just look at the title for the tell. “Novel?” The document defines this term as referring to anything “not directly regulated under the current U.S. regulatory regime.” It may be true that American citizen space activities are considered “novel” from the global bureaucracy’s perspective. However, it is a poor choice of words for our own government to adopt this language. Words have meaning, and coming out the gate, labeling the space equivalent of the diverse and dynamic American private sector economy as “novel” is a bad sign. Click here. (1/22)

An Impossibly Huge Ring of Galaxies Might Lead Us to New Physics (Source: Space.com)
An intergalactic ring-shaped superstructure of galaxies and galaxy clusters —  so large it defies explanation — has been discovered. This is a structure that lives so deep in the universe that we see it as it was some 9.2 billion years ago. The huge superstructure, nicknamed the "Big Ring," spans 1.3 billion light-years in diameter and has a circumference of about 4 billion light-years. It is also close to another immense superstructure, the "Giant Arc in the Sky," which is actually even larger with a diameter of 3.3 billion light-years. Click here. (1/22)

China's New Dark Matter Lab is Biggest and Deepest Yet (Source: Nature)
Some 2,400 meters below China's Jinping Mountains, the world’s deepest and largest underground laboratory has just opened. The enormous space is home to scientists hunting down dark matter. The China Jinping Underground Laboratory (CJPL) opened in 2010 and, after three years of construction, its second phase, CJPL-II, became operational in December 2023.

With a sprawling capacity of 330,000 cubic meters, it now surpasses the Gran Sasso National Laboratory (LNGS) in L’aquila, Italy, the previous record-holder for both depth and volume. The extra space has allowed experiments such as the Particle and Astrophysical Xenon Experiments (PandaX) and the China Dark Matter Experiment (CDEX) to upgrade. “It’s amazing what they’ve been able to do in a decade,” says Juan Collar, a physicist at the University of Chicago in Illinois. (1/22)

Space Rescue! Watch a Satellite Being Saved From a Wire Snag (Source: Space.com)
A satellite got all tangled up last year after its launch into space. Engineers had to quickly pivot after the California Institute of Technology's Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD-1) got stuck during what was supposed to be a slow unfurling of a modular spacecraft experiment: The Deployable On-Orbit Ultralight Composite Experiment, or DOLCE.

A new video shows the team's fix that allowed DOLCE to finally deploy; it had a wire so snagged that it damaged the connection between the satellite boom and the satellite structure. At first, engineers got the tangle moving a little after helping the satellite warm through sunlight, but new problems arose soon after. Click here. (1/22)

Prepare for a ‘Gray Swan’ Climate (Source: The Atlantic)
From a climate perspective, 2024 is beginning in uncharted territory. Temperatures last year broke records not by small intervals but by big leaps; 2023 was the hottest year ever recorded, and each month in the second half of the year was the hottest—the hottest June, the hottest July, all the way through to December. Experts predict that 2024 is likely to be even hotter. But these heat records, although important milestones, won’t hold their title for long. “Getting too excited about any given year is a bit of a fool’s game, because we’re on an escalator that’s going up,” says Jason Smerdon. “We’re going to be doing this every year.”

Instead, the way to think about climate change now is through two interlinked concepts. The first is nonlinearity, the idea that change will happen by factors of multiplication, rather than addition. The second is the idea of “gray swan” events, which are both predictable and unprecedented. Together, these two ideas explain how we will face a rush of extremes, all scientifically imaginable but utterly new to human experience. (1/23)

LambdaVision Aims to Refine Process for In-Space Manufacturing of Artificial Retinas on ISS (Source: CASIS)
Approximately 1.5 million people worldwide are affected by retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic disorder that causes vision loss. Currently there is no cure, but researchers from LambdaVision are turning to the ISS National Laboratory to look for solutions. Through the microgravity environment of the orbiting laboratory, they aim to manufacture artificial retinas that will restore significant vision in patients with the disorder. LambdaVision will launch its ninth investigation to the space station on Northrop Grumman’s 20th Commercial Resupply Services (NG-20) mission. (1/22)

The Phases of Lunar Lander Success (Source: Space Review)
On Friday, Japan landed its SLIM spacecraft on the Moon, a day after Astrobotic bid farewell to its Peregrine lander. Jeff Foust reports on how the two missions have measured varying degrees of success amid problems they encountered. Click here. (1/22)
 
Turnover and Retention: an Unspoken Cost Center Affecting Space Companies (Source: Space Review)
Many space companies struggle to fill open positions as the best workers seek new opportunities. Joseph Horvath argues that companies should instead look to other industries to find new employees. Click here. (1/22)
 
What Do Australians Think About Space? (Source: Space Review)
Australia has established a space agency and is working to build up a space industry in the country, but what does the public there think about space? Four researchers describe the results of the first-of-its-kind opinion survey on space in Australia. Click here. (1/22)

Gen. Michael Guetlein: Space Force Eyes Commerce’s Collected Data to Improve Space Domain Awareness (Source: Executive Gov)
Gen. Michael Guetlein, vice chief of space operations, said the U.S. Space Force is considering using data collected by the Department of Commerce to improve its initiative to enhance space domain awareness, or SDA. DOC is working on a new space tracking system designed to help commercial satellite operators address the risk of on-orbit smashups.

“I can’t comment on what the Department of Commerce is doing, that’s kind of out outside of my lane. But under space domain awareness … we are really trying to take advantage of all data. So, if the Department of Commerce or any other agency or international partner, whatever, has data that we think has value, we want that data,” Guetlein said. (1/22)

Space Isn’t the Final Frontier (Source: Foreign Policy)
Advocates for space settlement persist in pushing theories of the American West founded more in myth than history. Chief among them is the so-called Turner thesis—a grand theory of the American West that has been out of the academic mainstream for decades. Here’s the basic idea: The American frontier was a line of expansion ever-moving westward, where European men could get access to cheap land. By claiming and taming that land, and by organizing to fight its former inhabitants, they gained a number of good social qualities—strength, rugged individualism, and a democratic spirit. Those values filtered back to the effete East Coast while unifying diverse European traditions into glorious Americanism.

And, like any good theory of human nature, it includes a fall from grace. As Turner lamented in his 1893 speech, according to the census of 1890, the frontier line had finally closed, meaning that there were no longer wide connected swaths of unsettled territory. The frontier days were over, putting all those old frontier values at risk—bottling up American dynamism and shutting down the engine of American greatness. This is appealing stuff for space settlement fans. Frontiers aren’t just a place to go—they’re a place we ought to go to, to become  tough and rugged and democratic and unified.

Robert Zubrin, a modern space advocate who explicitly endorses Turner’s framework, has said that the 19th-century USA was “an improvisational theater big enough to welcome all comers with no parts assigned.” But as Patricia Limerick wrote, “American democracy came from thinkers on the East Coast, not from humble settlements in the interior.” And in any case, the West was always connected to the rest of the country—by the need for massive financing for development. Not just in the form of highly discounted land, but also the physical presence of the U.S. military, which at times kept 90 percent of its forces west, fighting the genocidal so-called Indian Wars. Click here. (1/21)

Rare Heads-Up Issued Before Asteroid Hit Earth's Atmosphere Above Germany (Source: IFL Science)
The hunt is on to find meteorites from an object that hit the Earth’s atmosphere 100 kilometers west of Berlin over the weekend. Although bits of rock would be most prized, scientists are also keen to collect as many photographs of the descent of the meteor 2024BX1 as possible. The 2024BX1 meteor was seen from eastern Germany, Poland, and Czechia.

Like last year’s event, the prediction came from prolific minor planet hunter Krisztián Sárneczky, who noticed the flicker in his images. Sárneczky’s alert, shared to a wider audience by the International Meteor Organization and NASA Asteroid Watch gave a 75-minute warning for those who were awake and online. The IMO even provided anyone too far away to view the event themselves with links to webcams, some of which turned out to be pointed appropriately. (1/22)

Why is Soraya Satellite Launch Major a Space Breakthrough for Iran? (Source: PressTV)
The launch by a three-stage Qaem-100 carrier rocket lasted 11 minutes and was carried out from the Shahrud Site, a rocket base in the Semnan province of central Iran. Iran's Minister of Communications and Information Technology (ICT) Issa Zarepour said the Soraya satellite carries a payload of 50 kilograms and, therefore falls into the category of lightweight satellites.

"With the launch of the Soraya research satellite, many subsystems developed by the ISRC are also placed in orbital testing conditions and the way for the rapid development of Iran's domestic space industry becomes smoother," the ISRC said. Since 2020, in parallel with the civilian Iranian Space Agency (ISA), the IRGC has been developing its own space program with solid-fueled carrier rockets and the Shahrud Rocket Site as its base. (1/22)

French Launch Startup Latitude Raises $30 Million (Source: European Spaceflight)
Latitude announced it had closed a $30 million funding round to support the development of its Zephyr launch vehicle. Zephyr is a two-stage rocket that is designed to deploy payloads of up to 100 kilograms into low Earth orbit. The company has, however, recently announced that it is already working on an upgraded version of the vehicle that will be capable of doubling its initial payload capacity. The maiden flight of Zephyr is expected to be launched in 2025, with the first flight of the upgraded variant targeted for 2028. (1/22)