January 24, 2024

Company That Manufactures Satellite Parts Plans Uruguay Facility (Source: Teledoce)
Space AI, a company that manufactures satellite parts that function as a data center in space has decided to establish itself in Uruguay, which will involve an investment of $5 million. This week, President Luis Lacalle Pou received a representative of the company, who informed him about the project. “It is a laboratory as part of our development capacity for software, hardware, and satellite integration,” said Diego Favaloro, member of Space AI. (1/19)

Embry‑Riddle Researchers Work to Improve Astronauts’ Ocular Health (Source: ERAU)
Astronauts commonly suffer eye damage after spaceflight, with 70% of them affected by a condition called neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS). In order to better understand the correlation between microgravity and intraocular pressure, Dr. Christine Walck, assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering and director of Embry‑Riddle Aeronautical University’s Biomechanical Analysis Lab (ERBAL), located in the MicaPlex at the Daytona Beach Campus, has begun preliminary research using microgravity simulation systems. (1/10)

ISS Crew Assists Ax-3 on Advanced Space Research (Source: NASA)
The Expedition 70 crew spent Tuesday on a host of research activities and spacesuit maintenance while assisting their Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3) guests. The four Ax-3 crew members had their hands full as they explored cancer research, space botany, and robotics for Earth and space benefits. Astronauts Andreas Mogensen, Loral O’Hara, and Satoshi Furukawa dedicated part of their schedule on Tuesday to the Ax-3 mission. The trio helped the four private astronauts get up to speed with life on orbit as well as conduct advanced microgravity science. (1/23)

SpaceX Working on "Factory Model" of Operation for Continuous Rocket Launches (Source: Drive Tesla Canada)
SpaceX is working on a “factory model” of operation that will ensure continued operation of rocket launch equipment. Efforts are aimed at achieving 144 launches planned for 2024. SpaceX’s Vice President of Launch, Kiko Dontchev, said the company is working on a new operating model. SpaceX is focused on scaling launch speed, so it strives to ensure that launch equipment is always running, excluding time for scheduled or unscheduled maintenance. (1/23)

Elon Musk's Texas Takeover (Source: Mother Jones)
Not only did it seem that Elon Musk and SpaceX were forgoing basic safety precautions, evading environmental regulations, and obstructing their beach rights as he pursued his quest for interplanetary space travel, but Texans were subsidizing him in the process. A decade earlier, wearing a dark suit and fiddling with his microphone, Musk had appeared before the state legislature’s House Committee on Appropriations to ask for “any support Texas can offer” to bring a SpaceX facility to their state. And he implied he might take his business elsewhere if the financial perks weren’t enticing enough. “We are looking at other ­potential launch locations,” he said.

The playbook that Jeff Bezos, Musk, and others have relied on isn’t new. More than a century ago, the railroad tycoons of the Gilded Age enticed towns to hand them favorable deals in exchange for laying lines that passed through their communities. The supposed benefits of these projects rarely materialized: Many of the promised tracks were never completed, or the routes were discontinued soon after their construction. Worse yet, the towns often had to impose steep new taxes to offset the incentives, triggering a wave of municipal defaults. Click here. (1/23)

What Could the Extremely Large Telescope See at Proxima Centauri's Planet? (Source: Universe Today)
The problem is that reflected starlight from a planet is tiny compared to the radiance of the star itself. Detecting the reflected light of a planet is like capturing the light of a firefly flittering near the edge of a spotlight. So astronomers have used masks to block the central brilliance of a star and see its family of planets. We have done this to directly observe large gas planets orbiting stars, but not Earth-sized worlds.

Scientists suggested the High Angular Resolution Monolithic Optical and Near-infrared Integral field spectrograph (HARMONI) might be able to capture high-resolution spectra and simulated observations of Proxima Centauri using the masking effect to capture the light of its exoplanet. Is it possible for HARMONI to capture enough high-resolution data to discover biogenic molecules? They found that the answer is no. In its current proposed configuration, the mask configuration is too large and will block most of the light from the exoplanet. (1/23)

SpaceX Launches From California Spaceport (Source: KABC)
After a series of delays, SpaceX launched 22 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit Tuesday from a California base. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket was 4:35 p.m. from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County. (1/23)

Blue Origin Joins 2 Stages of New Glenn Rocket for the 1st Time (Source: Space.com)
Blue Origin's powerful new rocket is starting to come together. The company announced on Monday that it has mated the two stages of its New Glenn heavy lifter for the first time. The milestone, which occurred at Launch Complex 36 (LC-36), will enable Blue Origin "to exercise our tooling and stage interfaces in preparation for our first launch later this year," the company wrote on Monday. (1/23)

Orbit Fab and ClearSpace Partner on In-Space Refueling and Servicing (Source: Space News)
Orbit Fab and ClearSpace announced a partnership for in-space refueling and servicing. The two companies said Wednesday they will work together initially to pair an Orbit Fab fuel depot with a ClearSpace shuttle, allowing the shuttle to transport propellant to client spacecraft. The companies did not disclose financial details of the partnership. Over the long term, Orbit Fab and ClearSpace executives see additional opportunities to work together on mission extension, transportation and other mobility and logistics services. (1/24)

Satellite Spectrum Clashes Anticipated (Source: Space News)
Satellite-related spectrum clashes will be a growing issue at future international meetings, a State Department official says. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Steve Lang, who led the U.S. delegation to the 2023 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-23) that concluded last month, said the U.S. made it a priority to support emerging broadband constellations like Starlink and Project Kuiper, only to see a "lot of resistance" and an "unfortunate bias" against them from other countries. Despite those problems, he said the U.S. did see progress in areas it prioritized. (1/24)

European Launch Initiative Picks Five Companies for Contracts (Source: Space News)
Five companies have won contracts for a new European launch initiative. The European Flight Ticket Initiative, a joint effort of the European Commission and ESA, has awarded contracts to Arianespace, Isar Aerospace, Orbex, PLD Space and Rocket Factory Augsburg. The contracts allow the companies to compete for future task orders to launch European technology demonstration and validation missions. The potential value of the contracts was not disclosed. The contract is a step towards greater cooperation between ESA and the EU in launch as the EU seeks take a bigger role in shaping European launch policy. (1/24)

Belgium Joins Artemis Accords (Source: Space News)
Belgium is the latest country to sign the Artemis Accords. Belgian government ministers signed the Accords in a ceremony Tuesday on the sidelines of the European Space Conference in Brussels, citing the value of the document in establishing norms for responsible and sustainable behavior in space. Joining the Accords, they added, offered them the opportunity to participate in future elements of the Artemis lunar exploration effort. Belgium is the 34th country to sign the Accords and the 12th ESA member to do so. (1/24)

JWST Images Now on Postage Stamps (Source: NASA)
Images from the James Webb Space Telescope are gracing a new set of postage stamps. The U.S. Postal Service released a set of Priority Mail stamps this week that feature JWST images of the "Cosmic Cliffs" of the Carina Nebula and the "Pillars of Creation" within the Eagle Nebula. Fitting for a $10 billion space telescope, the stamps aren't cheap, with values of $9.85 and $30.45. (1/24)

"Spaghettification": How Black Holes Stretch Objects Into Oblivion (Source: Big Think)
Much has been written about what happens to someone who falls into the event horizon of a black hole, but what is less known is the claim that as you fall into a black hole, you will be ripped apart by the gravitational force of the hole in a process called “spaghettification.” If you fall feet-first into a black hole, your feet will be pulled harder than your head, resulting in you being stretched out like a long piece of spaghetti. So, is spaghettification real? Will any object get stretched as it falls into a black hole?

Yes, spaghettification is real — but several parameters determine whether it will happen in any specific situation. For example, a very small object will not experience spaghettification. This is because the force that pulls apart any object isn’t the gravity itself — it’s the difference in the gravitational force between the ends of the object. For a human, that would be the feet and the head. The name of this kind of force is called a tidal force: It’s the same phenomenon that gives Earth its twice-daily tides, as the force of gravity from the Sun on one side of the Earth differs from the other. (1/23)

NASA Shares Newest Results of Moon to Mars Architecture Concept Review (Source: NASA)
NASA released on Tuesday the outcomes of its 2023 Moon to Mars Architecture Concept Review, the agency’s process to build a roadmap for exploration of the solar system for the benefit of humanity. The Moon to Mars architecture approach incorporates feedback from U.S. industry, academia, international partners, and the NASA workforce. Click here. (1/23)

Black Hole Link Between Stars Discovered In Massive First (Source: GFR)
Astronomers were able to observe supernova SN 2022jli in a nearby galaxy (hey, in astronomy, 75 million light years is nearby) NGC 157. Excited researchers used their telescopes to study this process, which led to a pleasant surprise: instead of the light curve fading as it always does, it brightened and then went dim again every 12.4 days as researchers studied it for 200 days.

Astrophysicist Ping Chen discovered that this star most likely had a binary companion that remained in orbit with its exploded counterpart, and their interactions caused the brightness. Specifically, that brightness was caused because the ejected core of the star keeps passing through the atmosphere and picking up hydrogen, which then burns bright when the hydrogen comes into contact with the cosmic remains. (1/23)

Equatorial Launch Australia Unveils Advanced Horizontal Integration Facility (Source: Space Daily)
Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA) has unveiled the completed designs for its Horizontal Integration Facility (HIF) buildings at the Arnhem Space Centre (ASC). These state-of-the-art facilities are tailored to meet the sophisticated demands of up to seven rocket launch companies, solidifying ELA's commitment to supporting a broad spectrum of space missions. The newly designed HIF buildings, with dimensions of 40m in length, 26m in width, and 12m in height, are not just expansive but also incorporate advanced features specific to space missions. (1/24)

Virgin Galactic Plans Next Suborbital Mission Before February (Source: Space.com)
Virgin Galactic's sixth commercial spaceflight may be just around the corner. The launch window for the crewed suborbital mission, known as Galactic 06, opens on Jan. 26. Galactic 06 will be one of Unity's final spaceflights, if all goes according to plan; Virgin Galactic intends to ground the vehicle to focus on developing its "Delta class" of space plane. Each Delta vehicle will be capable of flying up to twice per week, company representatives have said. (1/23)

NASA's IXPE Awarded Prestigious Prize in High-Energy Astronomy (Source: NASA)
NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) team has been awarded a top prize in high-energy astronomy. The High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) has awarded the 2024 Bruno Rossi Prize to retired NASA astrophysicist Martin Weisskopf, Italian Space Agency principal investigator Paolo Soffitta, and their team for development of IXPE. (1/23)

Booz Allen Ventures Makes its First Space Investment (Source: Space News)
Booz Allen’s venture capital arm chose remote-sensing startup Albedo as its first investment in a space company because of its potential to transform intelligence gathering. Albedo on Tuesday announced it raised $35 million to build and launch a network of ultra-high resolution Earth imaging satellites. Several venture firms participated in the funding round, including Booz Allen Ventures. Booz Allen, a large consulting firm known for its work with the U.S. government and military, launched its corporate venture arm in 2022 and manages a fund of about $100 million. (1/23)

France's Latitude Raises $30 Million for Small Launch Vehicle Development (Source: Space News)
Latitude, a French company developing a small launch vehicle, has raised $30 million to produce its first rockets as it seeks to increase their capabilities. The company announced Jan. 22 it raised $30 million in a Series B round, increasing the total amount raised to date to $55 million. Existing investors, including Crédit Mutuel Innovation, Expansion, the French government’s Deeptech 2030 fund and UI Investissement, participated in the round, along with Blast.club, Kima Ventures and an individual investor, Vincent Luciani. (1/23)

Internet From Space: U.S. Air Force Bets on Commercial Networks (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Air Force is funding a new round of experiments with satellite internet providers in an effort to bring connectivity to military aircraft and ground vehicles. AFRL in 2023 awarded $250 million worth of contracts to commercial satellite operators and defense contractors for various experiments. These projects are part of the Defense Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet, or DEUCSI, an AFRL program launched in 2017 to explore the capabilities of commercial space internet constellations — in geosynchronous, medium and low Earth orbits — to connect military platforms with user terminals that can talk to multiple space broadband providers. Click here. (1/23) https://spacenews.com/internet-from-space-u-s-air-force-bets-on-commercial-networks/

ISS National Lab-Sponsored Experiments Propel Spaceborne Computer Toward New Frontiers in Space Computing (Source: CASIS)
Expanding its venture into space computing, Hewlett Packard will launch an updated HPE Spaceborne Computer-2 to the ISS. The commercial off-the-shelf supercomputer, based on HPE EdgeLine and ProLiant servers, aims to reshape the trajectory of high-performance computing in space. HPE Spaceborne Computer aims to improve ongoing research on the orbiting laboratory, including quicker processing of Earth observations from station and more efficient monitoring of astronaut health. (1/23)

Astrophysicists Offer Theoretical Proof of Traversable Wormholes in the Expanding Universe (Source: Phys.org)
The expansion of the universe at some stage of evolution is well described by the Friedmann model. It was derived from general relativity a hundred years ago, but it is still considered one of the most important and relevant cosmological models. RUDN University astrophysicists have now proven the theoretical possibility of the existence of traversable wormholes in the Friedmann universe.

The astrophysicists investigated a generalized form of the famous Lemaître–Tolman–Bondi solution, which describes the evolution of spherically symmetric distributions of electrically neutral dust in general relativity. The researchers generalized it to the case of when there is an external source of an electric or magnetic field and a non-zero cosmological constant. They aimed to find mathematical conditions under which traversable wormholes could exist in such a setting, and then give a cosmological explanation for this.

The researchers obtained numerical solutions that describe the movement of photons through wormholes connecting different Friedmann universes or different parts of the same universe. Whether it will be possible to pass through a wormhole depends on the parameters of its "entrance" and the initial conditions. The physicists generalized the case of one universe to the case of multiple universes. In this case, the "mother" universe has several "entrances" to wormholes that connect it with the "daughter" universe. (1/22)

NASA Illuminates India’s Moon Lander with Laser (Source: IFL Science)
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter successfully shot a laser toward India's Vikram lander on the Moon. The laser traveled about 100 kilometers from orbit to the surface of the Moon, hitting a target just 5 centimeters wide. It was the first time a laser was shot from around the Moon to a target on its surface. The tiny Oreo-sized target, a Laser Retroreflector Array, was situated on India's Vikram lander. “We’ve shown that we can locate our retroreflector on the surface from the Moon’s orbit,” said NASA's Xiaoli Sun. “The next step is to improve the technique so that it can become routine for missions that want to use these retroreflectors in the future.” (1/22)