March 16, 2024

Space Force Looks to Ramp Up Space Mobility, Logistics Research in FY-25 (Source: Defense Scoop)
The Space Force wants to kick-start funding in fiscal 2025 for two space mobility and logistics projects — including R&D of on-orbit refueling capabilities and an effort to use rockets to carry supplies across the world. The two initiatives fall under the service’s space access, mobility and logistics (SAML) portfolio, which in total is requesting $20 million in research, development, test and evaluation funds in FY ’25.

According to the Space Force’s budget justification documents, the focus of the program through 2026 will be to “establish the foundational capability areas through RDT&E, technology demonstrations, operational integration and fielding of Point to Point Delivery (P2PD) services and on-orbit mobility services, to include refueling.” The service wants $16 million for work on in-orbit servicing and refueling technology, budget documents show. (3/15)

Air Force, Space Force Budgets Fall Far Short of Need (Source: Air and Space Forces)
Last month, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall warned attendees at AFA’s Warfare Symposium: “We are out of time. We are out of time. We are out of time…For at least two decades, China has been building a military that is … purpose-built to deter and defeat the United States if we intervene in the western Pacific.” 

Echoing similar themes, President Joe Biden began last week’s State of the Union address warning of the severe threats to America’s security abroad, quoting President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the eve of World War II: “I address you at a moment unprecedented in the history of the Union.” Kendall and Biden are correct. China, Russia, Iran, and others pose a dire threat to our nation. Yet the fiscal 2025 budget they submitted to Congress is woefully inadequate to confront those challenges—especially for the Department of the Air Force. (3/14)

Space Force Guardians Just Got Their Own Service-Specific Physical Training Uniforms (Source: Yahoo!)
Space Force Guardians have finally received their own physical training uniforms that will distinguish their identity while working out and while at basic military training. On March 8, trainees at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland's Guardian boot camp were the first to receive the new uniforms. (3/11)

SpaceX is Building Spy Satellite Network for US Intelligence Agency, Sources Say (Source: Reuters)
SpaceX is building a network of hundreds of spy satellites under a classified contract with a U.S. intelligence agency, five sources familiar with the program said, demonstrating deepening ties between billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's space company and national security agencies. The network is being built by SpaceX's Starshield business unit under a $1.8 billion contract signed in 2021 with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), sources said.

The contract is for a powerful new spy system with hundreds of satellites bearing Earth-imaging capabilities that can operate as a swarm in low orbits, and that the spy agency that Musk's company is working with is the NRO. Reuters was unable to determine when the new network of satellites would come online and could not establish what other companies are part of the program with their own contracts.. If successful, the sources said the program would significantly advance the ability of the U.S. government and military to quickly spot potential targets almost anywhere on the globe.  (3/16)

Scepticism Surrounds Russian Space Nuke Allegations (Source: EU Observer)
If there is one point of agreement between the US intelligence community and the space policy community, it's the seemingly low confidence in recent warnings about Russia readying a nuclear weapon for orbit. At the very least it would violate the UN's 1967 Outer Space Treaty, one of the few agreements that keeps nuclear weapons in check. At most, it would be impractical and dangerous.

Pooling publicly available data, the best guess that a network of researchers have come up with is not a space-based platform for a nuclear weapon, but one with a nuclear power source. That is something Russia has real-world experience with, and it is not an explicit violation of the Outer Space Treaty. (3/14)

Leaked SpaceX Documents Show Company Forbids Employees to Sell Stock if it Deems They’ve Misbehaved (Source: Tech Crunch)
SpaceX requires employees to agree to some unusual terms related to their stock awards, which have a chilling effect on staff, according to sources and internal documents. That includes a provision that allows SpaceX the right to purchase back vested shares within a six-month period following an employee leaving the company for any reason.

SpaceX also gives itself the right to ban past and present employees from participating in tender offers if they are deemed to have committed “an act of dishonesty against the company” or to have violated written company policies, among other reasons. Employees often aren’t aware of the “dishonesty” condition when they initially sign up on the equity compensation management platform, one former employee said.

If SpaceX bars an employee from selling stock in the tender offers, the person would have to wait until SpaceX goes public to realize cash from the shares — and it’s unclear when that will happen, if it ever does. Also, at SpaceX, if an employee was fired “for cause,” the company stated it can repurchase their stock for a price of $0 per share. These terms “keep everyone under their control, even if they have left the company,” one former employee said. (3/15)

Starship is Already the Most Revolutionary Rocket Ever Built  (Source: Ars Technica)
Starlink terminals on the ship were sending signals to satellites in low-Earth orbit, which then sent them back to Earth. This is not a new idea. For the last 40 years, NASA has used a small constellation of Tracking and Data Relay Satellites to communicate with spacecraft, beginning with the Space Shuttle. Starship was able to communicate with these satellites upon its reentry, but it was only at a low data rate, and it dropped out as the plasma thickened. The Starlink connection remained longer and is what enabled the stunning video of reentry.

What Thursday's revelatory reentry footage promises is a world in which launch is cheap and abundant. No longer will we need to worry so much about mass or volume, which have been tyrannical overlords to mission planners since the inception of spaceflight nearly seven decades ago. But even with those caveats, Starship is already the most revolutionary rocket ever built. Because of a relentless focus on costs and cheap building materials, such as stainless steel, SpaceX can likely build and launch a fully expendable version of Starship for about $100 million.

Once Super Heavy becomes reusable, you can probably cut manufacturing costs down to about $30 million per launch. This means that, within a year or so, SpaceX will have a rocket that costs about $30 million and lifts 100 to 150 metric tons to low-Earth orbit. We could compare that to some existing rockets. NASA's SLS, for example, can lift up to 95 tons to LEO. That's nearly as much as Starship. But it costs $2.2 billion per launch, plus additional ground system costs. So it's almost a factor of 100 times more expensive for less throw weight. Also, the SLS rocket can fly once per year at most. (3/15)

Why Didn't the SNP Help Scotland's First Spaceport Get Off the Ground? (Source: Daily Mail)
A steady stream of UK Government ministers and representatives have made the trip to Shetland in recent years and, clearly, were impressed with what they saw. A £10million investment in SaxaVord was announced in Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Budget earlier this month.

But Scottish Government backing for this home-grown success? Not so much. Indeed, Mr Strang tells the Mail, it has ‘ignored’ and, at times, even ‘briefed against’ his spaceport from the beginning. The SaxaVord operation is now the clear leader in the race towards Europe’s first orbital launch of a satellite-carrying rocket – but this is in spite, not because, of Scottish Government activities, says Mr Strang. (3/15)

How the 'NASA Nazis' Helped Transform Sleepy Alabama Farming Town Into America's 'Rocket City' (Source: Daily Mail)
Around 1,600 scientists were brought to the US through Operation Paperclip, which was approved by President Harry Truman. Foremost among the scientists was Wernher von Braun, a Nazi and member of the SS. Von Braun was complicit in war crimes and played a leading role in the development of the V-2 rocket, which was built using slave labor and used by the Nazi regime to kill thousands of civilians.

Von Braun and a team of his specialists were brought to the US in 1945 and initially based at Fort Bliss, Texas, where they worked on missile systems. Historians have said about half of von Braun’s team of around 118 men were members of the Nazi party. Critics say bringing these men to the US was an inexcusable decision - compounded by the fact their Nazi backgrounds go largely unmentioned in lessons about America's space history. The arrival of the Nazis was also difficult for their Jewish colleagues at NASA.

Another central figure to NASA's early achievements was Kurt Heinrich Debus, another former SS member who was recruited through Operation Paperclip. In Nazi Germany, Debus also played a central role in the development of the V missiles. He went on to become the first director of NASA's Launch Operations Center, which would later become the Kennedy Space Center. Debus's biography notes that during his time as a scientist in Germany, he once reported a colleague, Richard Crämer, 'for criticizing Hitler and the Nazi Party, resulting in the Crämer’s conviction under the Treachery Law'. (3/16)

Massive Volcano “Hiding in Plain Sight” on Mars (Source: Cosmos)
A giant volcano has been ‘hiding’  on the surface of Mars – but scientists have only just identified the behemoth, as well as possible glacier ice beneath its surface. The volcano has been provisionally given the title “Noctis volcano” pending an official name. Noctis volcano has been imaged repeatedly since 1971. But it has been eroded almost beyond recognition. (3/15)

Jacksonville's Redwire Looks to Larger Deals and New Markets to Fuel Growth (Source: Space News)
Space infrastructure company Redwire plans to continue its growth and its push to profitability by seeking larger contracts for its lines of components while moving up the value chain, including a new satellite design. In financial results released after the markets closed March 14, Redwire reported revenue of $243.8 million in 2023, a 51.9% increase over 2022.

Redwire’s plans for future growth involve both increased demand for its current products and movement into new markets. That includes “winning and delivering on increasingly larger orders,” such as a $142 million contract it announced it won in the fourth quarter to provide its Roll-Out Solar Array (ROSA) systems for an undisclosed satellite manufacturer. The company announced it was forecasting $300 million in revenue in 2024. (3/15)

Aethero Wants to Become the Space Industry’s Intel or Nvidia (Source: Tech Crunch)
Satellite sensors collect an incredible amount of raw data, but on-orbit compute limitations mean that operators have little way to process this data in space. Aethero, a startup founded 13 months ago, wants to change that. The startup is developing radiation-hardened edge computers for on-orbit data processing and eventually even autonomous decision-making. (3/14)

ISS National Lab-Sponsored Study Tests a Novel Gene Therapy for Vision Loss (Source: CASIS)
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of blindness in older adults, affecting more than 200 million people globally. Patients in the intermediate stage of the disease currently lack an effective treatment to improve vision or slow disease progression. Now, a new gene therapy from biotech innovator Oculogenex, Inc. may change that narrative by preventing and even reversing symptoms of this pervasive condition. (3/14)

Colliding Neutron Stars Hint at New Physics That Could Explain Dark Matter (Source: Space.com)
The collision of two neutron stars around 130 million light-years from Earth, and the unique physics this merger created, may have shed new light on dark matter. New research suggests the neutron star merger, detected here on Earth as the gravitational wave signal GW170817, could help place constraints on hypothetical particles called "axions," one of the leading candidates for dark matter. (3/15)

New NASA Astronauts Celebrate Moon Missions, Private Space Stations as They Get Ready for Liftoff (Source: Space.com)
Jack Hathaway and 11 other astronaut candidates — 10 from NASA and two from the United Arab Emirates — finished 2.5 years of basic training this month and are eligible for future missions. They have a rich array of spaceflight possibilities to enjoy: possible moon or lunar space station flights for the Artemis program, months-long missions on the International Space Station (ISS) and missions to future commercial space stations that are in development. Click here. (3/15)

SpaceX Launches 6,000th Starlink Satellite on Friday Night From Florida Spaceport (Source: Space.com)
SpaceX tied its rocket-reuse record on Friday while placing its 6,000th Starlink internet satellite into Earth orbit. A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 23 more of the company's Starlink satellites launched at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. It was the 19th liftoff for this Falcon 9's first stage, according to a SpaceX mission description. That tied a mark set this past December and matched for the first time last month. (3/15)

Debris From Burning Satellites Could be Affecting Earth's Magnetic Field (Source: Space.com)
The environmental impacts of spaceflight are becoming increasingly clear as more and more spacecraft are launched into Earth's orbit. The growing number of satellites burning up in Earth's atmosphere has concerned scientists for years, and now a new paper explores how the emerging shell of "conductive dust" around the planet that results from satellite re-entries may affect Earth's protective magnetic field.

The problem of increasing concentrations of metallic dust (or "plasma dust") in Earth's upper atmosphere arises from interactions of the fragile ionized gas that makes up Earth's upper atmosphere and the microscopic ash particles left behind from the burn-up of meteors that strike the planet as well as from satellites that spiral back after running out of fuel at the end of their missions. The concern is that at some point in the future, this conductive dust could create some perturbations in the magnetosphere. (3/15)

NASA Delivers Science Instrument to JAXA’s Martian Moons Mission (Source: NASA)
NASA’s Mars-moon Exploration with Gamma Ray and Neutrons (MEGANE) instrument, developed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in collaboration with colleagues from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, will play a major role in the MMX mission, which aims to characterize and determine the origin of Mars’ moons Phobos and Deimos and deliver a sample from Phobos to Earth. The instrument team received the green light to ship MEGANE, marking the end of a demanding 6-year design and development process. (3/15)

Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff Participates in Women in Space Roundtable (Source: NASA)
The National Space Council hosted the Women in Space Roundtable on March 12, and Deputy Center Director Laurie Grindle from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, was there to welcome Second Gentleman Mr. Douglas Emhoff and moderate a panel discussion. The discussion included a wide range of topics related to women in space. The event was hosted by the South Bay Workforce Investment Board in Hawthorne, California. (3/15)

Jeff Bezos’s Rocket Company Could Race SpaceX to the Moon (Source: New York Times)
At first glance, SpaceX seems to have a huge head start. A variation of Starship is scheduled to take NASA astronauts to the surface of the moon as soon as September 2026. By contrast, Blue Origin has yet to launch anything into orbit, and its contract with NASA for a lunar lander for astronauts is for a mission that is launching in 2030. But Blue Origin might still get there first. SpaceX faces major challenges with Starship, which is as tall as 16-story building, while Blue Origin plans to send a smaller cargo lander to the moon by the end of next year. (3/14)

Scientists May Have Just Caught 7 Exotic 'Ghost Particles' as they Pierced Through Earth (Source: Space.com)
Astronomers using the IceCube observatory, which is buried deep within the ice of the south pole, have detected seven elusive and exotic "ghost particle" candidates as they streamed through Earth. The signals suggest these particles are astrophysical tau neutrinos; they act as important messengers between powerful, high-energy celestial events and us. (3/14)

New Research Suggests Our Universe Has No Dark Matter (Source: Phys.org)
Rajendra Gupta used a combination of the covarying coupling constants (CCC) and "tired light" (TL) theories (the CCC+TL model) to reach this conclusion. This model combines two ideas—about how the forces of nature decrease over cosmic time and about light losing energy when it travels a long distance. It's been tested and has been shown to match up with several observations, such as about how galaxies are spread out and how light from the early universe has evolved.

This discovery challenges the prevailing understanding of the universe, which suggests that roughly 27% of it is composed of dark matter and less than 5% of ordinary matter, remaining being the dark energy. "The study's findings confirm that our previous work ("JWST early universe observations and ΛCDM cosmology") about the age of the universe being 26.7 billion years has allowed us to discover that the universe does not require dark matter to exist," explains Gupta. (3/15)

KULR Announces Contract with Nanoracks for Advanced Space Battery Development (Source: KULR)
KULR Technology Group announced it has been awarded a contract exceeding $865,000 from Nanoracks (now part of Voyager Space’s Exploration Segment). For Voyager, it brings KULR's cutting-edge, safe, and innovative battery designs to the forefront of space technology, under an expedited schedule. (3/14)

NASA Collaborates with Industry to Advance Space Communications (Source: Space Daily)
The Communications Services Project (CSP) is leading NASA's efforts to usher in a new era of space communications. Through strategic partnerships with the commercial sector, CSP is focused on delivering commercial space relay communications services for NASA missions operating near Earth. With an ambitious target to integrate these services into the Near Space Network by 2030, CSP has allocated $278.5 million to six domestic companies for the development and demonstration of advanced space relay communication capabilities. (3/13)

NASA Artemis Mission Progresses with SpaceX Starship Test Flight (Source: Space Daily)
SpaceX's Starship test launch was an important milestone toward providing NASA with a Starship HLS for its Artemis missions. The ability to test key systems and processes in flight scenarios like these integrated tests allows both NASA and SpaceX to gather crucial data needed for the continued development of Starship HLS," said Lisa Watson-Morgan. This test accomplished several important firsts that will contribute to the development of Starship for Artemis lunar landing missions.

One objective closely tied to future Artemis operations is the transfer of thousands of pounds of cryogenic propellant between internal tanks during the spacecraft's coast phase as part of NASA's Space Technology Missions Directorate 2020 Tipping Point awards. This Tipping Point technology demonstration is one of more than 20 development activities NASA is undertaking to solve the challenges of using cryogenic fluids during future missions. As a key step toward understanding how super-cooled propellant sloshes within the tanks when the engines shut down, and how that movement affects Starship's stability while in orbit. (3/15)

Planet Labs Enhances Agricultural Data with Daily Global PlanetScope Insights (Source: Space Daily)
Planet Labs announced enhancements to its Crop Biomass Planetary Variable by incorporating daily global PlanetScope data. This enhancement aims to provide agronomists and farmers with cloud-free, analysis-ready data for a comprehensive view of agricultural fields. By merging radar and optical signals, this tool facilitates a deeper understanding of crop health and operational status. (3/14)