January 29, 2024

The Moon Missions Major Space Programs are Working On Now (Source: Fast Company)
A raft of countries and companies are also plotting moon missions. Success means international scientific and diplomatic accolades and potential domestic political gains. Failure means a very expensive, and public, embarrassment. Here’s a look at high-profile recent and upcoming attempts, and what they might mean. (1/28)

Japan's Rover Resumes Operations (Source: Space News)
Japan's SLIM lunar lander has resumed operations. The Japanese space agency JAXA said Sunday that the spacecraft had started to transmit again, nine days after landing. The spacecraft landed on its nose with its solar panels oriented away from the sun, causing the spacecraft to shut down hours after touchdown. The changing angle of the sun has now illuminated the solar panels, JAXA said, reviving the spacecraft and allowing some scientific operations to resume, including imaging of a nearby rock dubbed "toy poodle". SLIM may be able to operate for only a few days, until the sun sets at its landing site; the spacecraft is not designed to survive the two-week lunar night. (1/29)

Japan’s Moon Landing Sets the Stage for Humanity’s Increasingly Lunar Future (Source: The Hill)
Japan is now the fifth country to successfully land on the moon, after the United States, the Soviet Union, China and, most recently, India. With its participation in the ISS, the Kaguya lunar orbiter and the Hayabusa asteroid mission, among other accomplishments, Japan has established itself as a major space power. The nation is likely to expand its role as a player in space exploration. Late in 2023, the Japan Times reported that NASA and JAXA were negotiating an agreement that would include a Japanese astronaut on a future Artemis lunar surface mission.

Texas-based company Intuitive Machines is gearing up for the launch of its moon lander, the Nova-C, to take place sometime in mid-February. The Intuitive Machines Nova-C is the second attempt at an American moon landing under the Commercial Lunar Payload Systems program after the failed Astrobotic Peregrine mission. To quote former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, the mission is another “shot on goal” to return America to the moon.

The coming arrival of commercial robots to the moon will change humankind’s relationship with our nearest neighbor forever. Pretty soon, human beings will live and work on the moon, engaged in scientific exploration and accessing its resources for the betterment of human civilization. Rebecca Boyle thinks a discussion needs to take place about what we should do on the moon before it’s too late. (1/28)

Back-to-Back Starlink Launches for SpaceX (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
SpaceX conducted two Starlink launches hours apart Sunday night. One Falcon 9 lifted off from Kennedy Space Center at 8:10 p.m. Eastern, placing 23 Starlink satellites into orbit. The booster for that mission completed its 18th flight. A second Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 12:57 a.m. Eastern and put 22 Starlink satellites into orbit. (1/29)

Iran Launches More Satellites (Source: AP)
Iran conducted its second orbital launch in as many weeks Sunday. A Simorgh rocket lifted off from the Imam Khomeini Space Center and placed three small satellites into low Earth orbit, according to Iranian media. One of the satellites, Mahda, is a microsatellite intended for research while the other two, Kayhan-2 and Hatef-1, are cubesats. There had been five consecutive failed launches of the two-stage liquid-fueled Simorgh before this launch. This launch came after a Jan. 20 launch by another Iranian rocket, the Qaem 100. (1/29)

Congress Finalizing (non-CR) Appropriation Bills (Source: Politico)
Congress has moved a step closer to completing long-delayed spending bills for fiscal year 2024. House and Senate appropriators finalized allocations for each of 12 spending bills after previously agreeing on overall spending levels. The allocations, not publicly disclosed, allow appropriators to craft those spending bills. The federal government is operating on a continuing resolution that expires March 1 for some agencies and March 8 for others. (1/29)

ISRO Ends Successful POEM-3 Test (Source: PTI)
The Indian space agency ISRO says it has wrapped up operations of a technology demonstration payload launched at the beginning of the month. ISRO said Saturday that the POEM-3 mission, a set of hosted payloads on the upper stage of a PSLV rocket, had completed all of its objectives since its Jan. 1 launch. POEM-3 tested various technologies, including propulsion and solar panels, and carried several experiments. ISRO said the upper stage should deorbit within 75 days. (1/29)

Canadian Start-up is Sending its Quantum Magnetometer Into Space (Source: Physics World)
SBQuantum is a Canadian company that spun-out of Quebec’s University of Sherbrooke in 2017. It has developed a magnetometer that uses a superposition of quantum states to enhance its sensitivity to magnetic fields. The SBQuantum magnetometer will be launched into space as part of a multimillion-dollar competition to advance how we measure Earth’s magnetic field. (1/28)

Powerful Astrophysical Jet Challenges Existing Theories (Source: SciTech Daily)
The microquasar SS 433 stands out as one of the most intriguing objects within our Milky Way. A pair of oppositely directed beams of plasma (“jets”) spirals away perpendicularly from the binary systems disk’s surface at just over a quarter of the speed of light. The H.E.S.S. observatory in Namibia has now succeeded in detecting very high energy gamma rays from the jets of SS 433, and identifying the exact location within the jets of one of the galaxy’s most effective particle accelerators.

Through comparison of gamma-ray images at different energies, the H.E.S.S. collaboration was able to estimate the speed of the jet far from its launch site for the first time, constraining the mechanism that is accelerating the particles so efficiently. (1/27)

Farmbots, Flavor Pills and Zero-Gravity Beer: Inside the Mission to Grow Food in Space (Source: Guardian)
Problems also arise when people have to eat the same thing, even a small rotation of similar things, over and over again. Studies show that diversity of food is very important for astronauts. Menu fatigue, particularly when you’re living in a metal box floating in existential darkness, can lead to appetite loss, shrinking body mass, nutritional deficiencies and other issues.

To solve this riddle, the University of Melbourne team – which includes Dr Claudia Gonzalez Viejo and Dr Nir Lipovetzky – are using open-source robotic farming machines called farmbots and a combination of digital sensors, AI and facial analysis to measure how food grows in certain conditions, and how microgravity affects our experience of eating it. Click here. (1/27)

Crews Study Eyes, Physics and Prep for Cygnus Cargo Mission (Source: NASA)
Human research and space physics were the dominant science topics aboard the International Space Station on Thursday. The Expedition 70 crew is also preparing for a U.S. cargo mission targeted to launch next week. NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov took turns as crew medical officer on Thursday and performed eye scans of their crewmates using the Ultrasound 2 device. Click here. (1/25)

The Best Neighborhoods for Starting a Life in the Galaxy (Source: Quanta Magazine)
As exoplanet scientists fine-tune their ideas about where to look for alien life, they are now considering the origin of a star and its neighborhood, said Jesper Nielsen, an astronomer at the University of Copenhagen. New simulations, along with observations from satellites that hunt for planets and monitor millions of stars, are painting a picture of how different galactic neighborhoods — and maybe even different galaxies — form planets differently. Click here. (1/24)

Walnut-Sized Chunks Of Meteorite That Exploded Over Germany Have Been Found (Source: IFL Science)
Earlier this week, for only the eighth time ever, an asteroid that actually came with a rare 95-minute warning exploded in the sky over Germany and the hunt began for any potential pieces of meteorite that survived burning up in the atmosphere and fell to Earth. Now, researchers think they have found them. Fragments of asteroid 2024 BX1 about the size of a walnut have been recovered by researchers from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin and colleagues, and will be now examined to confirm they come from the celestial object. 2024 BX1 was only the eighth-ever object predicted to have a 100 percent chance of colliding with Earth. (1/27)

MAGGIE: Inside The Solar-Powered Plane With Which NASA Hopes To Explore Mars (Source: Simple Flying)
NASA is developing MAGGIE, a solar-powered aircraft to explore Mars, capable of flying at an altitude of 1,000 meters and a range of 179 km. The Martian atmosphere poses challenges for flying research aircraft due to its low surface air pressure, but MAGGIE's design overcomes these challenges. MAGGIE is being developed to investigate the Martian core dynamo, methane signals in the Gale crater, and map subsurface water ice. Click here. (1/27)

Florida Space Grant Consortium Releases Fellowship and Research Opportunities (Source: FSGC)
The NASA Florida Space Grant Consortium (FSGC) has released the following 2024-2025 Research and Fellowship programs: Dissertation and Thesis Improvement Fellowship (DTIF); Masters Fellowship Program; Florida Space Research Program; and FSGC/SF-KSC Technology Development Program. Click here. (1/29) 

Shrinking Moon Causing Moonquakes and Faults Near Lunar South Pole (Source: NASA)
As NASA continues to make progress toward sending astronauts to the lunar South Pole region with its Artemis campaign, data from a NASA-funded study is helping scientists better understand this strategic part of the Moon. The study presents evidence that moonquakes and faults generated as the Moon’s interior gradually cools and shrinks are also found near and within some of the areas the agency identified as candidate landing regions for Artemis III, the first Artemis mission planned to have a crewed lunar landing. (1/25)

CNES-Led Consortium Begins Development of Atomic Accelerometers (Source: European Spaceflight)
French space agency CNES announced 16 January that it had kicked off Phase A of its CARIOQA initiative, which aims to develop an atomic accelerometer. An accelerometer is simply a tool that measures the acceleration of a body or object. When flown aboard a spacecraft, these sensors can help us measure Earth’s gravity field. These measurements can then be utilized for all kinds of climate research. (1/22)

Could Space be the Next Platform for War? Hear What NASA Official Thinks (Source: CNN)
CNN's Christiane Amanpour speaks with NASA deputy administrator Pamela Melroy about the potential that space could be the next platform for war between nations. Click here. (1/27)

Nokia to Design Lunar Communications Infrastructure for DARPA’s LunA-10 Program (Source: Space Impulse)
Nokia Bell Labs has been selected by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to participate in the 10-Year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) program. Nokia will collaborate with 13 other companies across various sectors, including energy, transport, and construction, to recommend a reliable, high-performance communications infrastructure for lunar operations. The program’s goal is to deliver a comprehensive blueprint by mid-2024, facilitating the establishment of commercial operations on the lunar surface by 2035. (1/24)

Sex in Space: Why it's Worrying That the Space Tourism Sector Hasn't Considered the Consequences (Source: Phys.org)
My colleagues and I believe that space tourism companies haven't adequately prepared for the consequences of people joining what we could call the "Kármán line club" (referencing the 100km-high boundary between Earth and the rest of the cosmos). Talk of space tourism has always been in terms of the distant future. But sub-orbital space tourism—short flights with only a few minutes of spaceflight and weightlessness—already exists. Tickets range from freebies, to costing millions of dollars. Click here. (1/19)

NASA and Boeing Gear Up for Starliner’s Historic Crewed Flight Test (Source: SciTech Daily)
NASA and Boeing are gearing up for a pivotal flight test scheduled for no earlier than mid-April, aiming to send two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station aboard the Starliner spacecraft. This mission marks a critical step towards operational flights under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Teams have made significant progress in resolving technical issues identified during the agency’s flight certification process.

Following a successful drop test earlier this month in which recent modifications to Starliner’s parachute system were validated, NASA and Boeing are working to perform final analysis of the test data and complete overall system certification ahead of Starliner’s first crewed flight. This standard NASA process is designed to independently verify Starliner’s parachute system meets crew safety requirements and is expected to continue over the next six to eight weeks.

Meanwhile, Boeing completed the removal of P213 tape that may have posed a flammability risk in certain environmental conditions. Boeing removed more than 17 pounds, or roughly 4,300 feet, of the material from the Starliner crew module. For areas in which removal of the tape carried an increased risk to Starliner hardware, Boeing applied tested remediation techniques such as overwrapping the P213 tape with another non-flammable, chafe-resistant tape, and installing fire breaks on wire harnesses. (1/27)

10 Space Startups to Keep an Eye On in 2024 (Source: Interesting Engineering)
The space industry is growing at a dramatic pace, and 2024 promises to be another year full of great moments and major milestones. SpaceX's impressive records in recent years have seemingly galvanized the private space sector, leading to a whole host of innovations. Here is a list of standout startups that we expect to achieve big things in the coming years, ranging from launching satellites to orbit with innovative designs to tackling the space debris problem and much more. Click here. (1/22)

White House Authorization and Supervision Draft Legislation on Collision Course with Hill and Parts of Industry (Source: Courtney Stadd)
The White House draft legislation, coming out an hour before the House committee marked its bill, was viewed by one majority staffer as “really unfortunate as it left no time to analyze the competing versions to see where there was overlap and differences.” In sharp contrast to the White House draft language, which bifurcates the authorities for novel private space activities between the departments of Commerce and Transportation (FAA), House bill (H.R. 6131) establishes a “certification” process for spacecraft not licensed by other agencies, administered by one entity — NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce.

Thus, DoT will have oversight of all crewed missions in orbit while DoC will oversee the authorization of novel space ventures such as in-space servicing. The White House and the House draft bills are on a direct collision course as they propose opposite approaches to licensing novel private space activities.

Meanwhile, yet another bill is being drafted by the Democrat-led Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-CO, has drafted a bill that has been circulating in the space community for a few months and, according to one White House official, may well include some of the White House draft’s provisions. One benefit: It may provide further clarification of some of the terms in the White House draft that have drawn criticism from industry. Click here. (1/24)

Space Start-Ups Struggling to Get Off the Ground (Source: Washington Examiner)
Space companies that have gone public within the past five years are combatting a downward spiral in their profits. Among them is Astra, which went public in 2021. While it has contracts with other companies like SpaceX and NASA, its stock is down nearly 75% at $2.37 a share from last year. At the end of the first day it began trading on the NASDAQ, its shares were more than $232.

Sidus Space went public the same years as Astra but has similarly seen a 99% dip in its share price from $1,163 a share to about $8.91 recently. It has yet to launch its anticipated satellite but has plans for March. The Sidus board hired Richard J. Berman, a man with a 35-year-long career in venture capital, as a director earlier this month.

Momentus is the oldest of the three struggling space companies, having gone public in 2019. Within the last year, its stock has gone down more than 98% to 79 cents a share to date. Like Astra, Momentus has tried at-the-market offerings and a 1-for-50 stock split to help. (1/27)

Is 2024 The Year Of Low Earth Orbit Satellite Services? (Source: Forbes)
You could rightly state that LEO satellite services are becoming a crowded space—pun intended. Amazon has been quickly advancing its Project Kuiper initiative to provide a fixed wireless access service with more than 3,000 LEO satellites to compete with Starlink. It’s promising, especially because it marries satellites to the power of AWS cloud services for resiliency and scale, but the service also requires incremental equipment similar to Starlink’s core offering. Meanwhile, OneWeb, which was one of the first emerging LEO services, has been fraught with starts and stops.

Is the number of LEO satellite service providers unsustainable, and are concerns about cluttering the sky warranted? The answers are yes and yes. I expect next month's Mobile World Congress Barcelona event to continue the drumbeat for many of the companies I have just mentioned. However, in practical terms, leadership in this field has narrowed down to two players that have the potential to truly bridge the global digital divide: Starlink and AST SpaceMobile. Click here. (1/26)

Russia Really Wants to Stop Ukraine Using Elon Musk's Starlink Satellites (Source: Business Insider)
Russia is trying to cut off Ukraine's access to Elon Musk's Starlink satellites, according to space-warfare analysts. Since the start of the war, Russia has been using jamming systems to try to deny Ukrainian forces access to commercial satellites. It has attached jammers to its tanks to interfere with satellite signals and disrupt exploding drones, jammed Ukraine's GPS-guided bombs, and jammed Ukrainian drones, forcing Ukrainian operators to move closer to their targets on the front lines. (1/27)

Why Some Black Holes Scream Through Space at 2.2 Million MPH (Source: Business Insider)
Scientists studying how supernovas explode may have discovered a new process for how certain black holes form. Turns out, some baby black holes hit the ground running at colossal speeds just moments after they take shape. Typically, black holes form from the core of a supermassive star after it explodes in a brilliant burst of light, called a supernova. The speed, shape, and size of the initial explosion varies widely depending on the mass and density of the parent star before it explodes. (1/27)

Spanish Government Awards €40.5M Loan to PLD Space for Miura 5 (Source: European Spaceflight)
PLD Space has won the second and final round of a Spanish government call to develop sovereign launch capabilities. On 30 January 2023, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, through the country’s Center for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI), published a call for the development of a small satellite launcher for which it had made €45 million euros in funding available. The project was financed with European funds from the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan and managed through Spain’s Strategic Project for Aerospace Recovery and Economic Transformation (PERTE). (1/27)

Boryung Corporation, Axiom Space Announce Joint Venture to Revolutionize Space Industry in Korea (Source: Axiom Space)
Boryung Corporation, a pioneer in innovative solutions based in South Korea, and Axiom Space, a leader in commercial human spaceflight and architect of the world’s first commercial space station, are proud to announce the formation of a joint venture. Through the JV, Boryung and Axiom Space will jointly explore business opportunities related to the future Axiom Station.

The newly established JV will conduct all projects that Axiom Space will pursue in collaboration with South Korean companies and government and will have exclusive domestic rights for all operations utilizing Axiom Space’s technology and space station infrastructure in LEO. The joint venture, named BRAX Space Corporation, will be headquartered in South Korea. The collaboration will focus on various businesses, including research and development, new initiatives in the space industry, and joint production efforts. (1/12)

The Moon Could be Perfect for Cutting-Edge Telescopes — But Not if We Don't Protect it (Source: Space.com)
Space scientists are eager to protect the option of doing astronomy from the moon. There are plans in the works to place astronomical hardware on the lunar landscape such as super-cooled infrared telescopes, a swath of gravitational wave detectors, large Arecibo-like radio telescopes, even peek-a-boo instruments tuned up to seek out evidence for "out there" aliens.

Yes, the future of lunar astronomy beckons. But some scientists say there's an urgent need to protect any moon-based astronomical equipment from interference caused by other planned activities on the moon, ensuring they can carry out their mission of probing the surrounding universe. To that end, efforts are ongoing to scope out and create policy in conjunction with the United Nations in the hope of fostering international support for such protections. (1/27)

NASA Reveals How Spacecraft Will Land on Tantalizing Ocean World (Source: Mashable)
NASA is headed to Jupiter's fascinating moon Europa this year. Scientists suspect a deep ocean sloshes beneath the icy world's crust. The looming mission, called Europa Clipper, will launch in October, sending a spacecraft the length of a basketball court to make around 50 flybys by the distant Jovian moon, assessing whether it could harbor conditions suitable for life. It won't, however, land on the ice crust.

Yet the space agency is already preparing an ambitious follow-up mission, aptly named Europa Lander, that will touch down on the moon's surface and dig or drill into the ice. "In this mission concept, a spacecraft would land on Europa and collect and study samples from about 4 inches beneath the surface, looking for signs of life," NASA explains. (1/27)

The Universe Might Be Younger Than We Think, Galaxies' Motion Suggests (Source: Space.com)
The universe could be younger than we think, based on the motions of satellite galaxies that reveal how recently they have fallen into a galaxy grouping. According to measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) by the European Space Agency's Planck mission, the universe is about 13.8 billion years old. This calculation is based on what's known as the Standard Model of cosmology, which describes a flat universe dominated by dark energy and dark matter and which is expanding at an accelerating rate. (1/25)

Iran Launches Three Satellites Amid Rising Tensions with West (Source: France24)
"Three Iranian satellites have been successfully launched into orbit for the first time," state TV reported. The satellites were carried by the two-stage Simorgh (Phoenix) satellite carrier and were launched into a minimum orbit of 450 kilometers, it added. The Mahda satellite, which weighs around 32 kilograms and was developed by Iran's Space Agency, is designed to test advanced satellite subsystems. The other two, Kayhan 2 and Hatef, weigh under 10 kilograms each and are aimed to test space-based positioning technology and narrowband communication. (1/28)