February 20, 2024

Australia's Gilmour Gains $36 Million for Eris Rocket (Source: Space News)
Australian launch vehicle startup Gilmour Space has raised $36 million ahead of its first launch. The company announced Monday the Series D round, led by Queensland Investment Corporation with participation from several other investors. The company last raised $46 million in 2021. Gilmour Space is working on a small launch vehicle called Eris designed to place more than 200 kilograms into orbit. A first launch of Eris from a site in northern Queensland is planned for the "coming months" pending approval from Australian regulators. (2/20)

UK Picks Lockheed Martin and Rhea Group for ISTARI Satellite Control (Source: Space News)
The United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence has selected two companies to develop satellite control systems. Lockheed Martin and Rhea Group each won awards valued at $2.5 million for the ISTARI project, a next-generation constellation of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites in low Earth orbit. The companies will develop competing mission systems to control ISTARI satellites and to manage and process data. The U.K. government in 2022 announced plans to invest about $1 billion in the ISTARI program over 10 years, with the satellites projected to launch between 2026 and 2031. (2/20)

Airbus Earnings Take $650 Million Hit From Space Programs in 2023 (Source: Space News)
Airbus took 600 million euros ($650 million) in charges on its space programs in 2023. The company disclosed the charges as part of its annual earnings report last week. Airbus did not disclose specific programs and issues that caused the charges, but acknowledged that problems with its OneSat line of software-defined GEO communications satellites contributed "big time" to the losses. Airbus also said it is still studying whether and how to replace two Pléiades Neo high-resolution imaging satellites lost in a December 2022 Vega-C launch failure. (2/20)

GPS Vulnerabilities Drive Alternative Tech Development by DoD (Source: Space News)
Concerns about the vulnerability of GPS to spoofing and jamming are spurring efforts to develop alternatives. The Pentagon is now scoping a burgeoning commercial market promising innovative options to reduce GPS dependence for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT). These range from terrestrial networks that leverage existing cellular infrastructure to new constellations of low-orbiting small satellites broadcasting PNT signals. Extensive use of GPS jammers in Russia's invasion of Ukraine has helped raise awareness of the potential problem, officials said. (2/20)

NOAA Has Commitment Issues With Commercial Weather Satellites (Source: Space News)
Companies wanting to provide commercial weather data to NOAA say the agency has commitment issues. Those companies claim that while commercial customers are willing to sign long-term contracts lasting for three to five years, NOAA instead uses short-term contracts typically lasting six to eight months. That makes it difficult for companies to invest in new capabilities, they argue, since investors do not see a firm return on investment. NOAA says its approach is intended to get the best value and that issuing long-term contracts would deter new companies from entering the market. (2/20)

UN Committee to Focus on Astronmical Interference From Constellations (Source: Space News)
A United Nations committee has agreed to take up the issue of interference to astronomical observations caused by satellite constellations. At a meeting this month, a subcommittee of the U.N.'s Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) agreed to add an agenda item on "dark and quiet skies" to meetings from 2025 through 2029. That will allow formal discussions about how constellations can interfere with radio and optical astronomy and to discuss ways to mitigate that interference.

Getting COPUOS to take up the topic had been difficult in the past since the committee operates by consensus, allowing just one of its more than 100 member states to block consideration of the issue. The ITU also agreed to take up radio interference issues in astronomy involving satellites for the next World Radiocommnuication Conference in 2027. (2/20)

Northwood Space Raises $6 Million for Ground Stations (Source: CNBC)
A startup led by a former Disney Channel star has raised a seed round of funding to mass produce ground stations. Northwood Space has raised $6 million from several investors to allow it to advance development of ground stations that can be built quickly to increase capacity at teleports for satellite operators. The CEO of Northwood is Bridgit Mendler, who once starred on several Disney Channel shows and later studied at Harvard and MIT. (2/20)

India Considers Mars Helicopter (Source: India Today)
India is studying adding a helicopter to a future Mars mission. An ISRO scientist said in a recent webinar that the agency is exploring a concept called the Mars Boundary Layer Explorer, or Marble, a helicopter similar to NASA's Ingenuity. Marble would fly to altitudes of up to 100 meters to make a vertical profile of the atmosphere. Marble would be included on a future Indian Mars lander mission, although there is no formal schedule yet for that mission. (2/20)

Quazar is Super Bright (Source: AP)
The universe's brightest object is a black hole that devours a sun a day. Astronomers announced Monday the discovery of the distant quasar, 12 billion light-years away, after earlier surveys miscategorized the object as a star. The object is 500 trillion times brighter than the sun and is fueled by a supermassive black hole 17 billion times the mass of the sun. The astronomer who led the study that identified the object as a quasar called it "the most violent place that we know in the universe." (2/20)

Delivering a Business Case for Rocket Cargo (Source: Space Review)
Some in the space industry have long believed that reusable rockets could tap a large market for high-speed point-to-point transportation. Jeff Foust reports on how the US military is exploring a “Rocket Cargo” program that could do just that, if it can overcome technical and other obstacles. Click here. (2/19)
 
From Southwest Regional Spaceport to Spaceport America (Source: Space Review)
New Mexico’s Spaceport America is facing a lull in activity when Virgin Galactic stops VSS Unity flights later this year while developing a new line of suborbital spaceplanes. Thomas Matula argues this shows the flaws in the approach the state took to develop the spaceport as compared to the original visions for the site. Click here. (2/19)
 
The Evolution of India’s Weather Satellite Programs (Source: Space Review)
On Saturday, India launched its latest geosynchronous orbit weather satellite. Ajey Lele describes the evolution of India’s weather satellites over the last several decades and whether the country’s current capabilities are sufficient. Click here. (2/19)

Cosmic Dust May Have Been Crucial to the Beginnings of Life on Earth (Source: New Scientist)
Cosmic dust may have delivered elements crucial for life to early Earth. Our planet is relatively poor in several elements that are necessary for the chemistry of life, but the dust that constantly drifts down from space has more, and it could have collected in glacial areas when Earth was young. Cosmic dust tends to be rich in elements such as phosphorus and sulphur that are relatively unavailable on Earth, and it falls constantly in a thin layer all around the world. (2/19)

Our Universe May Be Mrging with 'Baby Universes', Causing it to Expand (Source: Space.com)
Our universe is expanding at an ever-accelerating rate — a phenomenon that all theories of cosmology agree upon but none can fully explain. Now, a new theoretical study offers an intriguing solution: Perhaps our universe is expanding because it keeps colliding with and absorbing "baby" parallel universes.

Studies of the cosmic microwave background, the afterglow of the Big Bang, have revealed that our universe is experiencing accelerated expansion. For this observation to fit with  the main theory of cosmic evolution — called the Standard Cosmological Model — physicists assume that the universe is filled with an enigmatic substance dubbed dark energy that drives the expansion. (2/18)

Leonardo Kicks Off Space Cloud Project for Italy's Armed Forces (Source:Reuters)
Italy's state-owned Leonardo (LDOF.MI), opens new tab said on Monday that the Ministry of Defence had asked it to study the development of its military space cloud architecture project, the first in Europe. The project, dubbed MILSCA, will provide Italy's government and armed forces with a system of high-performing computing, cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) and storage capacity directly in space, the statement said. (2/19)

Data Services Feature Florida Aboard Moon Lander (Source: Space Florida)
Space Florida and Florida-based Lonestar Data Holdings announced the successful launch, storage, and transmission of sample data to and from Intuitive Machine’s Nova-C lunar lander in flight to the Moon. This successful transmission of data is the key technical milestone of the viability of disaster recovery data storage, developed and tested in Florida leveraging the Moon. Working closely with Space Florida and the State of Florida’s Geographic Information Office, Lonestar’s Independence Mission is the first venture to explore digitally storing data on the Moon. 

Establishing data centers on the Moon has the potential to transcend the limitations of terrestrial storage methods, mitigating the risks of data loss from earthly damage such as natural disasters or human-made catastrophes. The data stored onboard the lander is a list of Florida state parks, the Florida Constitution, and the founding documents of Space Florida. The data transmitted to and from the lander in flight is a copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and Bill of Rights. A successful test includes digital storage, refresh, and restore -- all critical for the next steps in global disaster recovery from the Moon. (2/19)

Gilmour Space: The Gold Coast’s Answer to SpaceX is Now Worth $605m (Source: Financial Review)
Gold Coast space rocket technology company Gilmour Space has soared to a $605 million valuation, after raising $55 million in a funding round aimed at fuelling its first four attempts to launch an Australian-made rocket into orbit. The latest funding round values the business at $605 million and was led by existing investors QIC. Local venture capital firms Blackbird and Main Sequence and Australian superannuation funds HostPlus and HESTA also doubled down on their earlier investments in the company. (2/19)

PLD Space Gets Even More Boost! (Source: ESA)
ESA signed a first Boost! contract with PLD Space supporting the development of the company’s Miura 5 launch service. Spain’s PLD Space launched the Miura 1 suborbital mission from southern Spain last year, and it is already working on a larger, orbital class launch vehicle, the Miura 5. In October 2023 PLD Space inaugurated the suborbital launch vehicle Miura1 from the El Arenosillo Test Center in Spain.

The rocket is designed to send up to 100 kg up to heights of 150 km above Earth, offering short periods of weightlessness for researchers and other customers. The contract signed today by ESA and PLD Space supports the Miura 5 launch service development by co-funding to the value of €1.3 million to develop a modular, customisable, payload accommodation system. (2/19)

Kazakhstan: Methane Mega-Leak Went On for Months (Source: BBC)
One of the worst methane leaks ever recorded took place last year at a remote well in Kazakhstan, new analysis shared with BBC Verify has shown. It is estimated that 127,000 tonnes of the gas escaped when a blowout started a fire that raged for over six months. Methane is much more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Buzachi Neft, the company that owns the well, denies a "substantial amount" of methane was leaked. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency's Greenhouse Gas Equivalency Calculator, the environmental impact of such a leak is comparable to that of driving more than 717,000 petrol cars for a year. (2/15)

Russia Working on Superlight Reusable Launch Vehicle, Says Roscosmos Chief (Source: TASS)
Russia’s leading space research institute is working on a new superlight reusable carrier rocket capable of lifting off not only from cosmodromes, Roscosmos Chief Yury Borisov said. Both the future superlight launch vehicle and the advanced Amur-LNG methane-fueled rocket currently under development will feature reusable stages. Both launch vehicles will be based at the Vostochny space center in the Russian Far East, the Roscosmos chief said. The superlight carrier rocket "will be capable of blasting off not only from cosmodromes," Borisov pointed out. (2/19)

Electron Launches Astroscale Inspection Satellite From New Zealand (Source: Space News)
A Rocket Lab Electron launched an Astroscale spacecraft that will rendezvous with and inspect a spent upper stage in low Earth orbit as a precursor to removing it. The Electron lifted off from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand at 9:52 a.m. Eastern Feb. 18. The launch was the second this year for the company after the Jan. 31 launch of four satellites for space situational awareness company NorthStar Earth and Space. The sole payload for this launch was the Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan (ADRAS-J) spacecraft. The 150-kilogram satellite was released into an orbit of about 600 kilometers 64 minutes after liftoff. (2/18)