February 19, 2024

Eutelsat Scales Back OneWeb Second Generation (Source: Space News)
Eutelsat is scaling back its plans for a second-generation OneWeb constellation. Eutelsat said it is holding off from deploying significantly upgraded satellites for its Gen 2 system to instead focus on adding continuity of service capacity for customers with long-term contracts. Eutelsat that approach will reduce the costs of the Gen 2 system, previously projected at $4 billion, by nearly one third. Eutelsat is talking with export credit agencies in India, the United Kingdom and France to support the majority of Gen 2 costs, which would also be funded by revenues from the first-generation constellation. (2/19)

Lockheed Martin Sees Growing Smallsat Demand (Source: Space News)
Lockheed Martin is seeing growing demand for small satellites. The company has a backlog of 100 satellites from Defense Department and intelligence customers, a Lockheed executive said at the AFA Warfare Conference last week. The company opened a smallsat assembly facility last year that can produce 180 satellites a year, mostly using buses from Terran Orbital. The company has flown several smallsat tech demos with another, Pony Express 2, scheduled to launch next month to test a Ka-band mesh network. (2/19)

Astroscale Inspection Satellite Aims for H-2A Upper Stage (Source: Space News)
An Astroscale inspection satellite is in orbit after a launch on a Rocket Lab Electron Sunday. The Electron lifted off from the company's New Zealand launch site at 9:52 a.m. Eastern and deployed the ADRAS-J satellite into orbit a little more than an hour later. ADRAS-J, or Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan, will approach and inspect an H-2A upper stage left in orbit after a 2009 launch. The mission is a precursor to a potential future mission to attempt to deorbit the stage. (2/19)

IM-1 Mission in Good Condition En Route to Moon (Source: Space News)
Intuitive Machines' first lunar lander is in good condition on its way to the moon. The company said Friday that the Nova-C lander fired its engine for the first time in space in a "commissioning maneuver" designed to test the engine, which will later be used for trajectory correction maneuvers, entering lunar orbit and the landing itself. The IM-1 mission is scheduled to enter lunar orbit on Wednesday with a landing scheduled for Thursday afternoon. (2/19)

Viasat Upgrading Navy Broadband (Source: Space News)
Viasat has started work to upgrade satellite broadband services for the U.S. Navy. The company said it completed the first upgrade of a Military Sealift Command ship recently, replacing a Ku-band antenna with Global Xpress Ka-band and the ELERA L-band systems. The work is being done under a $578 million contract that Inmarsat won in 2022 before it was acquired by Viasat. The company expects to complete the upgrades of 105 ships over the next year. (2/19)

Russia Docks Cargo Craft to ISS (Source: NASA)
A Progress cargo spacecraft docked with the International Space Station early Saturday. The Progress MS-26 spacecraft, designated Progress 87 by NASA, docked with the station's Zvezda module at 1:06 a.m. Eastern, a little more than two days after the spacecraft's launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The spacecraft delivered about three tons of fuel, food and supplies to the station. (2/19)

EpiSci Gets $1.6 Million SBIR From SDA for Missile Tracking Software (Source: Space News)
A company has won a Space Development Agency (SDA) contract to develop a software tool for tracking missiles in flight using satellite data. California-based EpiSci received a $1.6 million Small Business Innovation Research Phase 2 contract from SDA earlier this month. The company says the funding will go towards development of AI-powered software able to track and identify hypersonic missiles in data from SDA satellites. Raytheon, an investor in EpiSci, is collaborating on the project. (2/19)

New or Retooled Cape Canaveral Launch Pads Considered for SpaceX Starship (Sources: Space News, Orlando Sentinel)
The Space Force is preparing to start environmental studies of potential Starship launch sites at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. The studies, which will begin with a series of public scoping meetings next month, will examine converting SLC-37, the launch pad currently used by the Delta 4, as well as building a new pad, SLC-50, just to the north of SLC-37. The environmental study is projected to take about a year and a half to complete. SpaceX currently has one Starship launch pad at its South Texas site and is building a second there, and is also building a Starship pad at Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A. (2/19)

Thales Alenia to Provide Comms Equipment for NASA NEO (Source: Space News)
Thales Alenia Space will provide communications equipment for NASA's NEO Surveyor mission. The company announced last week it won a contract from Ball Aerospace, now part of BAE Systems, to provide transponders and other equipment for the spacecraft. NEO Surveyor will operate at the Earth-sun L-1 Lagrange point, 1.5 million kilometers away, to search for near Earth objects using an infrared telescope. The mission is scheduled for launch no earlier than the fall of 2027. (2/19)

NASA Invites Volunteers on New Mars Analog Mission (Source: NASA)
NASA is looking for volunteers who want to spend a year on "Mars". NASA says it is seeking applications from people aged 30 to 55 willing to work and live in a simulated Mars habitat at the Johnson Space Center starting in the spring of 2025. The first such simulated mission, part of NASA's Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) program, started last June and will conclude this summer. NASA said it will follow criteria used for its astronaut selection process for picking the CHAPEA crew. The application deadline is April 2. (2/19)

Florida Workforce Groups Meet to Sharpen Aerospace Focus (Source: CareerSource)
Never has workforce development been as important to the success of businesses and regional economic prosperity as it is today. CareerSource Brevard, CareerSource Flagler Volusia, and CareerSource Research Coast invite you to join your peers and learn what is being done to meet the talent pipeline challenges across our region and in these key industries. The upcoming Florida Atlantic Workforce Alliance Consortium meeting brings together workforce development, education, economic development, and businesses across six counties on the east coast of Florida, to meet the growing demand for skilled talent in Aerospace/Aviation, Advanced Manufacturing, and Cyber Security/IT industries. Click here. (2/19)

NASA Recognizes RS&H for Infrastructure Contributions to the Artemis I Mission (Source: RS&H)
As the world watched NASA’s successful Artemis I launch to the moon, the launchpad complex left behind is a testament to the infrastructure engineering and design that enable the future of lunar settlement and deep space exploration. Our team of professionals has accomplished architectural and engineering feats to enable the processing, rollout, and launch of this incredible vehicle. On January 26, 2024, RS&H was recognized by NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) Management for outstanding service and launch infrastructure expertise in the Artemis I Mission. (2/16)

Blue Origin's New Glenn Rocket Simulator Seen on Florida Launchpad From Space (Source: Space.com)
Blue Origin's next generation launch vehicle has learned to stand upright. Satellite images captured the rocket company's New Glenn booster standing tall on the launchpad during Valentine's Day (Feb. 14), its towering height visible all the way from space. The booster simulator  —  a physical stand-in for a flight-ready rocket  was recently hoisted vertical at Blue Origin's Launch Complex 36, located at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base, in Florida.

When fully stacked, the two-stage New Glenn rocket stands over 320 feet (98 meters), and will be capable of launching 45 metric tons to low Earth orbit (LEO), according to the company's website. New Glenn's first stage is designed to be reusable, and is powered by seven powerful, Blue Origin-built BE-4 rocket engines. Two BE-4s also power the first stage of United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur rocket, which launched for the first time last month. (2/17)

Why The U.S. Space Industry Is The Envy Of The World (Source: Aviation Week)
It is hard to imagine Elon Musk’s antics lasting more than a day in the People’s Republic of China, where a verbal infraction can get you a visit from the word police and a several-year prison sentence. The brash billionaire picks fights with, insults and ridicules everyone—including U.S. President Joe Biden, the man who effectively underwrites Musk’s world-topping wealth by signing government spending bills containing NASA and U.S. Space Force budgets as well as electric car subsidies.

No matter your opinion of Musk, his ability to think differently—and sometimes irreverently—clearly powers his companies’ innovation streak. The fact that the U.S. government and an iconoclastic innovator such as Musk work together also underpins the strength of the country’s space industry. America’s high tolerance for failure, unorthodox ideas and unusual personalities allows it to run many different experiments at once, creating a rate of technological innovation that even China, with a population of 1.4 billion, cannot match.

With China dominating the battery, electric car and solar panel industries, it is easy to forget or dismiss America’s strength in space. China has made very real strides in its space industry in recent years, including launching dozens of rockets, satellites, a space station and a robotic lunar lander. Its ability to marshal resources for projects of great national priority, such as hypersonic missiles, should not be forgotten. But leaders in Beijing seem unable to match the sheer novelty in the U.S. space industry. (2/16)

NASA Readies Orion Capsule for Artemis 2 at KSC (Source: Space.com)
The interior of Orion's crew cabin is being finalized at NASA's Kennedy Space Center  in Florida. Teams are also "installing protective backshell panels and insulation on the exterior, and preparing Orion for vacuum testing this spring," NASA officials stated on Tuesday (Feb. 13). The four Artemis 2 astronauts are NASA commander Reid Wiseman, NASA pilot Victor Glover (who will become the first Black person to leave low Earth orbit, or LEO), NASA mission specialist Christina Koch (the first woman to go beyond LEO) and Canadian Space Agency mission specialist Jeremy Hansen (the first non-American). (2/17)

Webb Telescope Makes Unexpected Find in Outskirts of Our Solar System (Source: Mashable)
In our solar system's proverbial "no man's land," a deep space realm beyond the planets, scientists detected unexpected activity. Astronomers pointed the powerful James Webb Space Telescope at some of these icy objects, and found evidence that they're not so dead after all. The scientists trained the Webb telescope, which orbits 1 million miles from Earth, on the two largest-known Kuiper Belt objects — Eris and Makemake. This instrument is fitted with specialized cameras that can detect different types of elements or molecules (like water or carbon dioxide) on distant worlds.

What they found was a surprise: The icy orbs and objects of the Kuiper Belt are thought to be preserved, primordial relics of the early solar system. But the frozen methane identified on the surfaces of Eris and Makemake (respectively located, on average, well over 6 and 4 billion miles away) show these molecules were more recently "cooked up," Glein explained. This suggests hot interiors beneath these icy crusts, capable of propelling liquid or gas onto the surface. (2/17)

NASA’s Solar Sail Is So Close to Harnessing Sunlight for Propulsion (Source: Popular Mechanics)
Deep space missions are many things, but “cheap” is not one of them. It takes a lot of money to get a spacecraft (along with a lifetime supply of fuel) beyond Earth’s orbit. Luckily, NASA (along with its space subcontractor, Redwire) have developed a solution that’ll help lighten the load and the cost—a solar sail.

On January 30, 2024, Redwire officially deployed one quadrant of its solar sail at its Colorado-based facility, proving that the technology is now ready for space missions. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center led the solar sail team, with the Alabama-based NeXolve and Redwire designing the sail’s deployment mechanism once in space. The polymer material coated in aluminum successfully deployed along a 100-foot-long boom, and when all four quadrants deploy in space, it’ll fill up 17,780 square feet and will power light-payload space missions. (2/17)

Starlink Gets Tough with Apple/Globalstar (Source: Advanced Television)
Currently SpaceX’s Starlink system dominates satellite-based broadband and the potential for ‘direct-to-device’ (MSS: Mobile Satellite Service) communications. However, Globalstar is rolling out its smaller constellation and has Apple helping finance its expansion. The initial problem is that both outfits use the same frequencies (as does Dish Network). SpaceX formally complained to the FCC on February 5th that it is time for the FCC to update its sharing rules. Globalstar wants to launch up to 3,080 satellites into low Earth orbit.

But there might also be a third active player in the shape of Kepler Communications which also filed a letter to the FCC on February 6th asking the FCC “to dismiss or deny” Globalstar’s application to modify its existing MSS licence. Canada-based Kepler is building shoebox sized satellites for Internet of Things and other usage. It already has 18 active small satellites in orbit. (2/8)

Record-Breaking Quasar Identified (Source: HobbySpace)
Using the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have characterised a bright quasar, finding it to be not only the brightest of its kind, but also the most luminous object ever observed. Quasars are the bright cores of distant galaxies and they are powered by supermassive black holes. The black hole in this record-breaking quasar is growing in mass by the equivalent of one Sun per day, making it the fastest-growing black hole to date. (2/19)

How a New Space Race Could be Harming the Earth’s Atmosphere (Source: PBS)
Rocket exhaust has black carbon in it, and scientists are very concerned that black carbon, which is black, will absorbs the sun's radiation and heat the atmosphere. Specifically, they're worried that it's going to heat the stratosphere. We care about the stratosphere tremendously because it is home to the ozone layer, which protects us from the sun's harmful radiation. So if we're increasing the number of rocket launches, we could actually increase the risk of skin cancer, cataracts, and immune disorders here on ground because we have harmed the ozone layer. (2/17)

South Korea, NASA to Kick Off Joint Air quality Research Across Asia (Source: Yonhap)
South Korea and the United States will kick off a research campaign to uncover the cause of air pollution across Asia during the winter season as part of efforts to better address air quality challenges and come up with policies designed to improve air quality. The ASIA-AQ, a joint effort by South Korea's National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER) and NASA, aims to collect detailed air quality data over several locations in Asia using aircraft, satellites, and ground sites. (2/18)

Kam Ghaffarian’s Moonshots (Source: New York Times)
Much of the American space program is run out of nondescript offices in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. That’s where Kam Ghaffarian, the billionaire space entrepreneur, could be found on an auspicious day. Exactly 47 years before, he had immigrated to the United States from Iran. Mr. Ghaffarian, 66, sat at a table made of gently glowing white onyx, also from Iran.

Mr. Ghaffarian said he imported the stone because of its unique translucence when lit and because of the energy (spiritual, not physical) that the billion-year-old mineral emits. He is a big believer in the importance of meditating to connect with the energy in the universe, which he has done on a daily basis for decades. And while bombastic billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have captured attention for their efforts to launch futuristic reusable rockets, the lower-profile Mr. Ghaffarian’s companies have helped answer the question of what to do with them

This is becoming crucial in the increasingly close partnership between NASA and private industry. SpaceX’s key innovation has been building rockets that have brought down the cost of going to space. Mr. Ghaffarian’s firms are using those cheap rockets to commercialize space activity in ways that Mr. Musk’s SpaceX hasn’t pursued, while Mr. Bezos’ Blue Origin has yet to reach orbit. Click here. (2/18)

Cathedral Rermite Mounds Inspire UArizona-Designed Lunar Structures (Source: UArizona)
NASA has big plans for its Artemis program – to return Americans to the moon for the first time since 1972 and establish a lunar base for humans by the end of the decade. With NASA funding, a team of University of Arizona engineers is using robot networks to create termite-inspired structures that will help astronauts survive the moon's harsh environment.

Associate professor Jekan Thanga and his students in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, in the College of Engineering, have developed prototypes of their lunar sandbag structures and the underlying concept for a network of robots that can build them. The structures contain sensors that aid in construction, then alert astronauts to changes in environmental conditions. (2/13)

Singapore's ESS Plans to Launch From Australian Spaceport (Source: ELA)
Spaceport operator and launch technology infrastructure company, Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA) has today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Singaporean rocket company Equatorial Space Systems (ESS) for a series of launches of the Dorado family of suborbital rockets at the Arnhem Space Center, planned for late 2024.

ESS has plans for an expansive family of rockets up to and including orbital rockets and this MOU paves the way for a comprehensive Spaceport Services Agreement which could see ESS possibly become a resident launcher at the spaceport in the future, conducting orbital launches for satellite clients with their Volans rocket featuring up to 500kg payload capacity. (2/16)

Don’t Do Business With China In Space, U.S. Space Force Warns (Source: Aviation Week)
The international community should avoid doing commercial space business with China because it will support further growth of the nation’s burgeoning military space operations, a senior U.S. Space Force intelligence chief cautions. The warning comes as commercial space launch activity is growing dramatically in China, partially at the expense of Russia, which has seen its international space launch business collapse in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine and the actions of Russian space agency Roscosmos under its former chief Dmitry Rogozin. (2/16)

Amazon and SpaceX are Quietly Trying to Demolish US Labor Law (Source: Tech Crunch)
Amazon alleged in a legal filing published Friday morning that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is unconstitutional. SpaceX and Trader Joe’s — companies that, like Amazon, have repeatedly faced labor law violations from the federal agency — have recently made similar attacks that threaten national worker protections.

This is just Amazon’s latest attempt to block union organizing in its fulfillment centers. But this time, these companies aren’t just limiting the rights of their own workers. If these threats against the NLRB keep moving forward, American workers could lose workplace protections that they’ve had for almost a century. (2/16)