February 21, 2024

SpaceX Falcon-9 Launches Indonesian Satellite From Florida Spaceport (Source: CBS)
A Falcon 9 launched an Indonesian communications satellite Tuesday. The rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 3:11 p.m. Eastern and placed the Merah Putih 2 satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit. The satellite, built by Thales Alenia Space and previously known as Telkomsat HTS 113BT, will provide C- and Ku-band services from 113 degrees east in GEO for Indonesian operator Telkomsat. (2/21)

SpaceX Receives $1.8 Billion Classified US Contract (Source: Wall Street Journal)
SpaceX is making greater inroads into the intelligence community. The company received a $1.8 billion classified contract from an unidentified U.S. government customer in 2021, according to company documents. The company has not released any details about the work covered under that contract or its Starshield business line, where it offers satellites for national security applications.

SpaceX hired a retired Air Force general, Terrence O'Shaughnessy, as a company vice president with a key role in Starshield. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said last year that while she could not discuss publicly the company's classified work, there was "very good collaboration" between SpaceX and the intelligence community. (2/21)

Software Blamed for Firefly's December Payload Delivery Anomaly (Source: Space News)
A software glitch caused a Firefly Aerospace Alpha rocket to strand its payload in a low orbit on a December launch. The company said Tuesday that its investigation concluded that the Alpha's second stage failed to properly complete a second burn on a Dec. 22 launch because of an error in the vehicle's guidance, navigation and control software. That left the payload, a Lockheed Martin technology demonstration satellite, in an orbit with a perigee of only about 215 kilometers. The spacecraft was able to complete most of its planned mission before reentering earlier this month. Firefly said it expects to resume Alpha launches in the "coming months" but did not offer a more specific timeframe. (2/21)

Unseenlabs to Launch Two Maritime Surveillance Satellites on Next SpaceX Transporter Mission (Source: Space News)
Unseenlabs says it will launch its next two maritime surveillance satellites next month. The French company said Tuesday its BRO-12 and BRO-13 satellites will be on the Transporter-10 rideshare mission by SpaceX, scheduled to launch in early March. The company's current network of 11 satellites can currently monitor and track signals from ships across the world's oceans every four to six hours. Unseenlabs plans to launch six satellites in 2024 as it works towards ultimately operating 25 satellites. (2/21)

China's 'Space Circling' Raises $14 Million for Rocket Engine Development (Source: Space News)
Chinese launch firm Space Circling has raised about $14 million in funding for engine development. The startup raised the Series A round in December and announced it this week. The funding will mainly go towards construction of an industrial base for the company's rocket engines and mass production of them. Space Circling is developing engines fueled by liquid oxygen and kerosene that it plans to offer to other companies as well as for its own planned reusable launch vehicle. (2/21)

Rocket Lab Plans March 9 Launch for Japanese Satellite in New Zealand (Source: Rocket Lab)
Rocket Lab's next launch will deploy another Japanese radar imaging satellite. Rocket Lab said Tuesday an Electron will launch a StriX-3 radar imaging satellite for Japanese company Synspective no earlier than March 9 from New Zealand. The launch will be Rocket Lab's fourth mission for Synspective after launches in 2020 and 2022. (2/21)

Rocket Lab Plans NET March 20 for NRO Launch From Virginia Spaceport (Source: Rocket Lab)
Rocket Lab announced Wednesday a launch for the NRO from Wallops Island, Virginia, on the NROL-123 mission. That launch is scheduled for no earlier than March 20. (2/21)

India's CE20 Engine is Human Rated (Source: PTI)
The Indian space agency ISRO has completed human-rating testing of a rocket engine as part of its Gaganyaan program. ISRO said it had human-rated the CE20 engine used in the upper stage of the LVM3 rocket after the last in a series of seven tests of the engine earlier this month. The testing comes ahead of uncrewed test flights of the LMV3 and Gaganyaan capsule this year, with a first crewed flight planned for no earlier than 2025. (2/21)

Russian Bill Would Help Roscosmos Evade Sanctions (Source: Ars Technica)
Russian lawmakers are advancing a bill that could make it easier for Roscosmos to evade Western sanctions. The legislation, approved earlier this month by the lower house of the Duma, would require Roscosmos to use a closed bidding process for future procurements. That is seen as a way to make it easier for Roscosmos to obtain components currently banned from import because of sanctions by working with shell companies in countries like Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. A closed bidding process could also increase corruption. (2/21)

Kratos Space Division Revenue Up 17% in 2023, but Expected Growth Ramp is Complicated by US Budget Impasse (Source: Space Intel Report)
Kratos Defense and Security Solutions Inc.’s space and cyber division reported a 17.8% in 2023 revenue, to $423 million, and should logically accelerate in 2024 and 2025 based on the scheduled production ramp of already-won U.S. government contracts. But the threat of another government budget stalemate remains a live option that would freeze contracts at their current state and prevent the production ramp. Kratos shares this problem with hundreds of other U.S. government contractors. (2/20)

Build Your Own Moon Base and Explore the Lunar Surface in 'Moonshot' (Source: Space.com)
Poland-based video game designers Bearded Brothers are putting the finishing touches on their upcoming lunar simulation game, "Moonshot," a reality-centered release due out in 2025 to perfectly time with NASA's Artemis 2 liftoff. This simulation-based adventure showcases the very latest developments in aerospace design and applicable hardware involved in NASA taking four astronauts to the moon and back. (2/19)

Surging Rocket Motor Demand Drives Pentagon to Buy From Upstart Ursa Major (Source: Reuters)
Desperate to address surging demand for solid fuel rocket engines, the Pentagon is close to giving a contract for new motors to the untested, privately held startup Ursa Major, according to two sources familiar with the situation. While rocket motors themselves are relatively inexpensive, they play a vital role in propelling billions of dollars of missiles and rockets on order to supply the war efforts in Ukraine and Israel, and to re-stock dwindling U.S. inventories.

The contract - expected to be small and to fall under the Pentagon's development programs - would be a big vote of confidence in the upstart defense contractor as officials seek more suppliers beyond the two dominant rocket engine makers - Northrop Grumman and L3 Harris Technologies. There are other recent entrants including X-Bow Systems. (2/20)

Dark Matter Comes Into Focus With Groundbreaking Antarctic Research (Source: SciTech Daily)
For more than five years, scientists at the South Pole Telescope in Antarctica have been observing the sky with an upgraded camera. The extended gaze toward the cosmos is picking up remnant light from the universe’s early formation. Now researchers have analyzed an initial batch of data. The results from this limited dataset hint at even more powerful future insights about the nature of our universe. Located at the National Science Foundation’s Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, the telescope received a new camera in 2017 known as SPT-3G.

“We found that the observed lensing patterns in this study are well explained by general relativity,” Pan said. ​“This suggests that our current understanding of gravity holds true for these large scales. The results also strengthen our existing understanding of how structures of matter formed in our universe.” SPT-3G lensing maps from additional years of data will also help in probing cosmic inflation, or the idea that the early universe underwent a fast exponential expansion. (2/18)

New Ultra-Short-Period Exoplanet Discovered (Source: Phys.org)
Using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), astronomers have detected a new ultra-short-period exoplanet. The newly found alien world is nearly two times larger than the Earth and orbits its host star in less than one Earth day. TOI-1437 b has a radius of about 1.8 Earth radii and is some 11.1 times more massive than our planet, which yields a bulk density at a level of 9.9 g/cm3. It takes the planet approximately 20 hours and 20 minutes to orbit the parent star. The astronomers estimate that TOI-1437 b has an equilibrium temperature of around 1,400 K as it orbits its host at a distance of some 4.43 solar radii from it. (2/20)

New App Always Points to the Center of Our Galaxy (Source: Ars Technica)
On Thursday, designer Matt Webb unveiled a new iPhone app called Galactic Compass, which always points to the center of the Milky Way galaxy—no matter where Earth is positioned on our journey through the stars. The app is free and available now on the App Store. (2/19)

Before Snagging a Chunk of Space Junk, Astroscale Must First Catch Up to One (Source: Ars Technica)
Astroscale, a well-capitalized Japanese startup, is preparing a small satellite to do something that has never been done in space. Over the next few months, the satellite will try to move within arm's reach of a defunct rocket, taking pictures and performing complicated maneuvers around the bus-size H-IIA upper stage. These maneuvers are complex, but they're nothing new for spacecraft visiting the ISS.

Military satellites from the United States, Russia, and China also have capabilities for rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO), but as far as we know, these spacecraft have only maneuvered in ultra-close range around so-called "cooperative" objects designed to receive them. The difference here is the H-IIA rocket is uncontrolled, likely spinning and in a slow tumble, and was never designed to accommodate any visitors. Japan left it in orbit in January 2009 following the launch of a climate monitoring satellite and didn't look back. (2/20)

America's Next Space Station Will Be Twice as Big Thanks to SpaceX (Source: Motley Fool)
here are currently at least four separate teams of companies working with NASA to replace the ISS with one or more new, privately owned and operated space stations: Vast Space and Axiom Space both have plans to build separate, independent space stations in Low Earth Orbit. Blue Origin, Sierra Space, Boeing, and Redwire have teamed up to build an "Orbital Reef" space station. And Voyager Space is cooperating with multiple companies and space agencies, including Airbus, Northrop Grumman, and -- intriguingly -- Hilton Hotels to build a "Starlab" space station.

The Starlab team hired SpaceX to launch its entire station (or at least the first module of it; there may be more) to LEO on a single Starship-Heavy rocket in 2028. Furthermore, "Starlab will ... be fully outfitted on the ground, and ready to permanently host four crew members in LEO to conduct microgravity research and advanced scientific discovery," say the companies. As SpaceX senior VP for commercial business Tom Ochinero explains, ""Starlab's single-launch solution [will] demonstrate not only what is possible, but how the future of commercial space is happening now." (2/19)

NASA's Voyager 1 Probe Could Soon Go Silent Forever (Source: Salon)
A space probe nearing its 50th birthday has stopped contacting Earth and soon communications could be ceased entirely. Launched by NASA in 1977, Voyager 1 is one of the longest continually-running spacecraft in human history and the first human-made objects to escape our Solar System. It is still zipping away from us, approximately 15.1 billion miles away. On November 14, 2023, NASA engineers reported that Voyager 1 has stopped talking to us thanks to a pesky computer glitch. As the timeline lengthens from when Voyager 1 ghosted us, NASA engineers are also planning for a somber goodbye. (2/19)

Massive Underground Laboratory in China Joins the Quest to Find Dark Matter (Source: Space.com)
The China Jinping Underground Laboratory (CJPL) — crowned the world's largest and deepest underground facility after its upgraded phase — promises to take scientists a step further. It became operational in early December of last year. Built inside repurposed tunnels running through the Jinping Mountains in China's Sichuan Province, the lab is buried beneath 2,400 meters (1.49 miles) of rock. The reason for its deep, lonely location is that so much rock can reduce background noise found in dark matter data, typically induced by things like cosmic rays (another space mystery for another time.) (2/19)

How SpaceX Was Boosted in Indonesia by a Chinese Rocket Failure (Source: Reuters)
When a Chinese rocket malfunctioned shortly after launch in April 2020, destroying Indonesia's $220 million Nusantara-2 satellite, it was a blow to the archipelago's efforts to strengthen its communication networks. But it presented an opportunity for SpaceX. Elon Musk's company seized on the failure to prevail over state-owned China Great Wall Industry Corp (CGWIC) as Jakarta's company of choice for putting satellites into space.

The Chinese contractor had courted Indonesia - Southeast Asia's largest economy and a key space growth market - with cheap financing, promises of broad support for its space ambitions and the geopolitical heft of Beijing. A senior government official and two industry officials in Jakarta familiar with the matter told Reuters the malfunction marked a turning point for Indonesia to move away from Chinese space contractors in favour of companies owned by Musk. (2/20)

Is Kennedy Space Center Ready to Withstand the Power of Starship? (Source: New Atlas)
To put it directly, Starship is the largest, most powerful rocket ever to fly. The fully stacked first and second stages stand 394 ft where the Apollo Saturn V was only 363 ft. Moreover, Starship's 33 Raptor engines punch out over 16 million pounds of thrust, or twice that of the Saturn V. It even towers over NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), which stands at 371 ft and still has twice the thrust. Another difference is that Starship is designed for frequent, repeated flights, where the SLS only flies once every two years or so.

Imagine a replay of the Apollo 11 liftoff every couple of weeks. When SpaceX made its first orbital launch attempt from the company's facility in Texas, the effect on the ground was spectacular and more than a bit destructive. SpaceX engineers had under-designed the launch pad to a frightening degree. The launch pads for the Saturn V were massive affairs with heavy concrete structures, steel blast channels, and systems to flood everything with sprays of water to protect them. Starship's was pretty basic, which resulted in slabs of concrete being torn up, wildfires ignited, cars demolished far from the pad, and a huge cloud of dust.

The US Space Force proposes to take over LC-37, currently being used by ULA's Delta 4 Heavy, which will be retired later this year. LC-37 would be partly demolished and rebuilt for Starship. Another complex, called SLC-50, could be constructed as an alternative. The Air Force and the Space Force have been looking at Starship as a possible military transport for cargo and troops. There have also been suggestions that the Space Force wants to purchase or lease Starship rockets that it would operate without SpaceX participation. Securing and constructing such massive launch complexes demonstrates that the future of commercial launches will be very different from those of the Space Race. (2/18)

Above: Orbital to Conduct Experiments and Materials Tests on the ISS (Source: Above: Orbital)
Above: Orbital will be testing the performance and durability of its proprietary materials in low orbit, aboard the ISS as part of the upcoming MISSE-19 mission scheduled for March flown by A SpaceX Dragon resupply mission. Above: Orbital is developing adaptable, space-based microgravity platforms for government and commercial customers. (2/20)

Can Astronomers Use Radar to Spot a Cataclysmic Asteroid? (Source: Space Daily)
Ground based astronomical radar systems will have a "unique role" to play in planetary defense.
There is currently only one system in the world concentrating on these efforts, NASA's Goldstone Solar System Radar, part of the Deep Space Network (DSN). However, a new instrument concept from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) called the next generation RADAR (ngRADAR) system will use the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and other current and future facilities to expand on these capabilities. (2/20)

NASA Invests in Research to Secure the Future of Space and Lunar Operations (Source: Space Daily)
NASA's Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy (OTPS) has launched a significant funding initiative aimed at advancing the sustainability of activities in Earth's orbit and on the lunar surface. This new effort seeks to address the critical social, economic, and policy dimensions essential for fostering sustainable practices in space exploration and utilization.

With up to $300,000 allocated for projects focused on orbital sustainability and $200,000 dedicated to lunar surface sustainability, OTPS is targeting a broad spectrum of research proposals. The agency aims to support between one to three projects in each category, underscoring its commitment to tackling the complex challenges of space sustainability. (2/20)