May 2, 2024

Pentagon Official Testifies on Russian Anti-Sat Nuke (Source: Space News)
A Russian nuclear anti-satellite weapon could render low Earth orbit unusable for most satellites for a year, a Pentagon official warned. Testifying Wednesday at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee's strategic forces subcommittee, John Plumb, assistant secretary of space policy, suggested that if detonated, a nuclear ASAT could make low Earth orbit unusable for satellites that are not hardened against radiation for a long time, perhaps a year, but added more modeling and simulation of the weapon were needed to better understand its effects. Plumb declined to elaborate on the weapon's launch readiness, suggesting these details be addressed in a classified session, but said it was not "an imminent threat." (5/2)

NASA IG: 100+ Orion Heat Shield Breakaways on Artemis 1 (Source: Space News)
A report by NASA's inspector general disclosed new details about damage to Orion's heat shield on the Artemis 1 mission. In a report released Wednesday, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) said there were more than 100 locations on the heat shield where material broke away unexpectedly during the reentry, the cause of which NASA is still investigating. NASA had said it was studying those issues, which it emphasized were not a safety risk, but had not released those specifics or the images of the heat shield included in the report. The OIG report also discussed other technical issues from the flight, including "unexpected melting and erosion" around separation bolts in the base of the heat shield. (5/2)

BAE Wins $365 Million for Satellite Air Quality Sensor (Source: Space News)
BAE Systems has won a $365 million contract to develop an air quality sensor for future weather satellites. The company's space and mission systems division, the former Ball Aerospace, won the contract Wednesday to develop the Atmospheric Composition instrument, or ACX, for NOAA's GeoXO series of geostationary weather satellites. ACX is a hyperspectral instrument that will provide hourly observations of pollutants emitted by sources including power generation, transportation, oil and gas extraction, volcanoes and wildfires. (5/2)

Nelson Seeks Full Funding for ISS Deorbit Vehicle (Source: Space News)
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson is asking Congress to provide full funding for a space station deorbit vehicle in a supplemental spending bill. While NASA requested $180 million for the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle (USDV) for the ISS in its 2024 budget request last year and $109 million in its 2025 request, Nelson told the House Science Committee this week that NASA wanted the full $1.5 billion for the vehicle as part of a domestic supplemental spending bill proposed last fall by the White House but yet to be taken up by Congress. Funding the USDV should be part of emergency spending, he said, "because we don't know what Vladimir Putin is going to do." He told members at the hearing there was little NASA could do about proposed cuts in various agency programs in the 2025 budget request, citing overall spending caps that remain in place. (5/2)

NRO to Launch Next-Gen Reconnaissance Satellite on May 19 From California (Source: Space News)
The first in a new generation of NRO reconnaissance satellites is scheduled to launch later this month. The agency is targeting a May 19 launch for the mission designated NROL-146 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, said Troy Meink, the NRO's principal deputy director, during a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee's strategic forces subcommittee. The satellites were built under a classified $1.8 billion contract awarded by the NRO in 2021 to SpaceX and Northrop Grumman. The NRO did not disclose how many satellites will be launched on this mission or the overall size of the constellation. (5/2)

DoD Pushes ULA to Hasten Vulcan Certification (Source: Bloomberg)
The Pentagon's top space acquisition official is calling on United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin to step up flights of the Vulcan Centaur rocket. Frank Calvelli, assistant Air Force secretary for space acquisition, said at the House Armed Services Committee's strategic forces subcommittee hearing that he was pushing ULA to perform a second certification flight of Vulcan this year to avoid delays in launches of three national security payloads. He said Blue Origin also needs to scale up production of the BE-4 engines used on Vulcan's first stage. ULA said it will be ready to launch Vulcan in the middle of this year but is waiting on Sierra Space's Dream Chaser, with the launch now scheduled to take place by October. (5/2)

Russia Offers Alternative UN Resolution on Space Weaponization (Source: AP)
After vetoing a United Nations resolution regarding the placement of nuclear weapons in space, Russia says it will offer its own resolution on space weaponization. The draft resolution would call on nations to not deploy weapons of any kind in space, or on Earth intended for use against space objects. Russia and China have previously proposed treaties that would ban the placement of weapons in space, which the United States and some other nations have opposed because of problems with verification. (5/2)

Sidus Space Delivers Hardware for Artemis Mobile Launcher (Source: Sidus Space)
Sidus Space has delivered two electronic LCS cabinets to Bechtel as part of NASA's mobile launcher 2. These cabinets are integral to the Launch Control System, with mobile launcher 2 serving as the crucial ground platform structure for launching Space Launch System (SLS) rockets Block 1B and Block 2 configurations. (5/2)

Alabama Has 6 Teams in the American Rocketry Challenge Finals (Source: Moulton Advertiser)
Six Alabama teams have qualified for the national finals of the American Rocketry Challenge happening May 18 in The Plains, Va. Finalists have placed in the top 100 out of a record 922 teams nationally, competing in the world's largest student rocket contest, which annually draws nearly 5,000 students. (5/1)

Space Force Wants to Put Some Contractors on Notice (Source: Defense News)
The US Space Force's top acquisition official, Frank Calvelli, assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, expressed to lawmakers his desire to expand the authority to blacklist underperforming defense contractors, a power currently limited to the leader of the service's purchasing command. He emphasized the usefulness of the Contractor Responsibility Watch List and advocated for broader authority during a House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee hearing. (5/2)

Canadian Space Agency Looks to Industry to Lease Laboratory (Source: SpaceQ)
The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has issued a Request for Information (RFI) to see whether industry is interested in leasing the historic David Florida Laboratory where much of Canada’s space hardware has been tested before going into space. The DFL is an assembly, integration, and testing laboratory and is scheduled to close by the end of March 2025. CSA in March said: “DFL will be moving towards a wind-down posture over the next several months, allowing the DFL’s clientele and the Canadian space sector to make alternate arrangements for testing services.” (5/1)

Canada's Maritime Launch Services Changes Course to "Airport Model" (Source: Canadian Press)
Due to supply problems caused by the the war in Ukraine, Maritime Launch Services (MLS) says it is pivoting away from sending its own rockets into space and becoming “more of an airport model” for others, says founder and CEO Steve Matier. Matier – who started the spaceport project in 2016 to launch satellites with Ukrainian Cyclone-4M rockets  – said geopolitical realities in Eastern Europe now makes that approach unworkable.

“We can’t get the rockets out of Ukraine,” he said. “So, we’ve pivoted away from a customer-supplier relationship with [them] ... There’s such huge demand for satellites going into orbit that there’s all these [other] rockets in development that don’t have a home. The bottleneck is really the spaceport, and that’s what we’re addressing.”

“Think of Stanfield International, for example, it leases space to Air Canada and WestJet or United. They pay an annual cost for that area and gate access. Stanfield provides fuel, hospitality, lights, power, personnel and all those kinds of things.” He added: “Now, translate that to a spaceport. Launch vehicle developers build their own rockets and pay for them. They work with their own satellite clients to fill up their rockets. We allow them to launch by leasing to them a subset of our facilities to which we provide services, such as control center, payload processing, facility gases, air-space coordination [and] Nav Canada Transport.” (5/1)

NASA Doesn't Know if its Spacecraft Have Adequate Cyber Defenses, GAO Warns (Source: NextGov)
NASA has taken steps in recent years to enhance the cyber requirements included in its contracts but has not issued mandatory security guidance for its spacecraft acquisition policies and standards, the Government Accountability Office warned. The nation’s space agency released cybersecurity-related standards in 2019 that established security requirements for all NASA programs and projects. The watchdog audit noted, however, that the agency “has considered, but not yet implemented” enforceable cyber rules for its purchases of outside spacecraft and related systems. (5/1)

Albuquerque to Host NASA Student Satellite Program (Source: New Mexico Inno)
U.S. Air Force facilities in Albuquerque are set to play host to a group of university students for a summer-long training program focused on a particularly small class of satellites. Florida Atlantic University and seven other U.S. colleges were selected on March 28 to work with NASA and the U.S. military to develop small satellites, with the chance to see technology flown in space. (5/1)

ISRO Study Confirms Water Ice Possibility in Moon’s Polar Craters (Source: New Indian Express)
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), in another study, has enhanced the possibility of water ice in the polar craters of the Moon. Data revealed that the amount of subsurface ice in the first couple of metres is about 5 to 8 times larger than the one at the surface in both poles (North and South). This crucial information will aid drilling on the Moon to sample or excavate that ice on future missions, and the long-term presence of humans. Not only this, based on the depth of the water ice, it can help select future landing and sampling sites for Moon missions. (5/1)

Europe’s Ambitious Satellite Internet Project Appears to be Running Into Trouble (Source: Ars Technica)
It has been 18 months since the European Union announced its intent to develop an independent satellite Internet constellation, and the plans appear to be heading into troubled waters. In that time, a single bid—from a consortium of multinational companies that includes Airbus Defence and Space and Thales Alenia Space—has emerged to build the network of a few hundred satellites. The companies are to build, launch, and deploy the network of satellites, intended as Europe's answer to SpaceX's Starlink satellite Internet service for connectivity and secure communications, by 2027.

However, the European Commission recently delayed the awarding of a contract to this consortium from March to an undetermined date. In April, Europe's Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton, said, “There is an independent committee which is working on the evaluation process. The work is being carried out extremely seriously." He did not say when this work would conclude. (5/1)

Boeing Looks to Overcome Delays, Setbacks with First Crewed Flight of Starliner Spacecraft (Source: Houston Chronicle)
After years of delays, setbacks and failures, Boeing’s Starliner capsule is about to carry astronauts to space for the first time. The mission, set to launch Monday night from Cape Canaveral in Florida, has been more than a decade in the making and comes four years after Boeing’s rival, SpaceX, began ferrying crew to the International Space Station. It also coincides with a period of heightened scrutiny for the 108-year-old company’s sprawling aviation business after a panel blew out of a Boeing 737 Max 9 in January. (5/2)

A Religious Test for Space Exploration? (Source: Space News)
An editorial recently published on SpaceNews took the position that my company’s Luna Memorial Spaceflight service should not be permitted on the Moon because the Navajo Nation views the Moon as sacred. In essence, the author is arguing that lawful space missions should be subject to the religious test of a single culture.

The heart of the argument, however, really comes down to how we see our future and the moon’s role in it. Is the moon a celestial body meant only for science and passive art, as the author says, or is there a more robust future for our nearest neighbor? That future would include human settlements, the use of lunar resources, manufacturing and energy generation – basically enabling us to begin our next step into the solar system. In that future, there is an important role for science, preservation and commerce.

Unless we (and all other nations) forgo human settlement on the Moon – any ban on human remains handling and disposition on the moon would be at most temporary. As we move off planet Earth, we will take all our celebrations, rituals and memorials with us, including our funerals and our memorial services, even as we create new ones. It’s unfathomable that Earth will be the only place that these important customs and celebrations will take place. (5/1)

FY25 Out-Year Budget Plans Can’t Support Space Force Ambitions (Source: Breaking Defense)
The Pentagon’s fiscal 2025 budget request essentially flatlines the Space Force’s coffers at just under $30 billion per year through the next five years — a number that does not support the service’s ambitions to fundamentally remake its current satellite networks to provide more advanced capabilities, according to two veteran space budget analysts.

“Space Force is … no special child and is subject to that same Fiscal Responsibility Act top-line, and we’re starting to see the impact thereof,” Mike Tierney, a long-time space budget guru who is now chief of legislative affairs at the National Security Space Association (NSSA), said on Tuesday during an NSSA webinar.

“This particular fiscal year transition, from ’24 to ’25, … is certainly an inflection point for the Space Force. We are now entering a period, at least it looks as though, of leveling out — focused on sustainment and readiness rather than the kind of year-over-year growth that we had seen that comes naturally with standing up a new force,” he added. (5/1)

2 Astronaut Taxis: Why NASA Wants Both Boeing's Starliner and SpaceX's Dragon (Source: Space.com)
"We are really excited to have this second transportation system up and available to us," Steve Stich, program manager for NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said in a press conference here at the agency's Johnson Space Center on March 22. Stich emphasized that the program had wanted, all along, two very different spacecraft with different procedures and teams to support them, to have a backup in case one ship is sidelined due to a safety or other issue. "We've seen in the past the importance, I think, of having this dissimilar redundancy, [because] it's always tough to fly into space," he said. (5/1)

NASA Selects Commercial Service Studies to Enable Mars Robotic Science (Source: NASA)
Nine companies have been selected to conduct early-stage studies of concepts for commercial services to support lower-cost, higher-frequency missions to the Red Planet. NASA has identified nine U.S. companies to perform a total of 12 concept studies of how commercial services can be applied to enable science missions to Mars.

Each awardee will receive between $200,000 and $300,000 to produce a detailed report on potential services — including payload delivery, communications relay, surface imaging, and payload hosting — that could support future missions to the Red Planet. The companies were selected from among those that responded to a Jan. 29 request for proposals from U.S. industry. Click here. (5/1)

Scientists Explore How to Improve Crop Yields - on Mars (Source: Reuters)
For future human bases or colonies on Mars to be self-sustaining, a reliable source of home-grown food will be a must. It simply would be too costly and risky to rely upon rocket deliveries to meet the food needs of colonists. With this in mind, scientists are exploring ways to optimize space farming. In a controlled greenhouse at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, researchers have now identified a way that shows promise for improving crop yields in simulated Martian soil, with different crops grown together in a method called "intercropping" pioneered by ancient Maya farmers. (5/1)

Harvard Center for Astrophysics Facing Financial Strain Following NASA Budget Cuts (Source: Harvard Crimson)
The Center for Astrophysics — a collaboration with the Smithsonian Museum and one of Harvard’s top research centers — is facing a declining budget following NASA’s proposal to reduce The Chandra X-ray Observatory’s fiscal year 2025 budget.

All operations of the Chandra X-ray Observatory are handled by the Chandra X-ray Center, which is managed by CfA scientists and staff. Currently, the Chandra operates on roughly $70 million per year to recruit top research scientists and service the spacecraft. However, it is facing a $29 million cut, bringing its funding to $41 million for the fiscal year 2025. By 2029, Chandra will have a projected budget of $5 million. (4/30)

Mars' Subsurface is 'Burping' Out Methane and Scientists Aren't Sure Why (Source: Space.com)
Since 2012, NASA's Curiosity rover has repeatedly detected methane on Mars, specifically near its landing site inside the 96-mile-wide (154 kilometers) Gale Crater. But that Mars methane is behaving erratically. It only appears at night, it fluctuates seasonally and it spikes unexpectedly to levels 40 times higher than usual. To make things more puzzling, the gas isn't present in appreciable amounts high in the Martian atmosphere, and it hasn't been detected near the surface in other Red Planet locales. So what's going on at Gale Crater? (4/25)

EU Space Law – Three Reasons Against, Three Reasons in Favor (Source: EJIL)
EU Member States and space operators active in the EU are in anticipation of the EU Space Law and the changes it may bring. During the European Space Conference in January 2024, it was mentioned that the European Commission would release a draft by March 2024. That month, the French Parliament adopted a Resolution supporting the adoption of an EU Space Law. On 9 April, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, speaking at the ITRE Committee of the European Parliament, said that the presentation of the EU Space Law will be delayed, likely until the summer and perhaps until after the EU elections of June 2024. Click here. (4/29)

How India has Slowly But Surely Become a Major Player in Space (Source: New Scientist)
If India seems like a latecomer to space flight, it is only because the country’s space agency has been slowly and steadily growing for decades, catching up with the original major players. When the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft managed the first ever soft landing near the south pole of the moon in 2023, it marked a triumph for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and a sign that the agency’s unique way of operating makes it capable of great things. (4/30)

The Largest Digital Camera In the World Is Ready to Revolutionize Astronomy (Source: Inverse)
Like the family camcorder, the largest digital camera in the world will capture the next 10 years of cosmic life in memorable detail. In mid-May, the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) Digital Camera, now officially called the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, will travel from its current home in California to Cerro Pachón, a mountain in northern Chile.

The camera, the team behind it purports, will take the greatest movie of all time. Observations will begin around January 2025. Trilogy enthusiasts be warned: to watch all the video clips back to back, each packed with a decade’s worth of observations of just one slice of the southern sky, would take a year. That’s without sleeping, too, Rubin Observatory construction director Željko Ivezić tells Inverse. (4/30)

Gateway: Forward Progress on Artemis IV (Source: NASA)
The Artemis IV mission is taking shape with major hardware for Gateway, humanity’s first space station to orbit the Moon, progressing in Turin, Italy. NASA will launch HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost), center of image in background, along with the Power and Propulsion Element (not pictured) to lunar orbit ahead of the Artemis IV mission as the first elements of Gateway, the first space station to be assembled around the Moon. During that mission, astronauts will launch in the Orion spacecraft with the Lunar I-Hab, pieces of which are shown here in the foreground, and deliver it to Gateway.

Lunar I-Hab is provided by ESA (European Space Agency) with significant hardware contributions from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), and is one of four Gateway modules where astronauts will live and work as they orbit the Moon. Thales Alenia Space completed major welding on HALO and began initial fabrication of Lunar I-Hab last year. The company is a subcontractor to Northrop Grumman for HALO, and prime contractor to ESA for Lunar I-Hab. (4/30)

What Do We Know About Exoplanet with Massive Ring System? (Source: Geo TV)
When there’s a discussion about planets with rings, one name pops up in our mind; Saturn, but there are also three other celestial bodies in our solar system that are also surrounded by rings; Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune. By far, in our solar system, Saturn has the most number of rings, but there’s a candidate much bigger than this.

Astronomer Eric Mamajek discovered planet J1407b in 2012 which is 20 times larger than Saturn and has 200 times bigger rings — 180 million kilometers wide — than the gas giant. The giant exoplanet is orbiting a brown dwarf star which is at the distance of 433.8 light years from Earth in the constellation of Centaurus.

When a planet passes in front of its star, it prevents the light from coming. With this calculation, Jupiter could block a mere 1% of the Sun’s light. J1407b blocks 95% of light coming from J1407. Mamajek found that the star J1407 was young and had an estimated age of 16 million years. It is the first exoplanet that has rings equal to that of Venus’s orbit of the Sun. An analysis showed in 2015 that the ring system consists of more than 30 rings, each of them tens of millions of kilometers in diameter. (4/30)

The World's Highest Altitude Space Observatory is Open for Business (Source: NPR)
Located some 18,500 feet above sea level at the summit of Chile's Cerro Chajnanto mountain, Tokyo Atacama Observatory has instruments that can see celestial objects many light years away from Earth. Click here. (5/1)

How Powerful Are Spy Satellite Cameras, And What Can They See? (Source: SlashGear)
Spy satellite cameras have dramatically increased in capability, with most of the specifics kept under wraps. Even the lead agency for the U.S. spy satellite program, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), wasn't acknowledged as an entity until 1992. But what we do know is that the NRO and its contractors such as Albedo have developed spy satellite cameras equipped with electro-optical imaging. These camera systems have resolutions of 10 cm with the capability, according to Winston Tri, Co-Founder and CPO at Albedo, to "count trucks, convertibles, and see details on the vehicles such as sunroofs, racing stripes, and if trucks have anything in their bed." (4/29)

A New Approach to Dark Matter Could Help Us Solve Galactic Anomalies (Source: New Scientist)
Recently, a series of galactic anomalies has sparked a scramble to explore alternative explanations for dark matter. This “complex” dark matter might be as simple as sub-atomic particles that bounce off each other, or as complicated as families of dark particles that form dark atoms, stars and even galaxies. There is a daunting variety of possibilities. But now, observations of anomalies in our galaxy finally promise to help us narrow down the options. Click here. (4/29)

Engineer Says He's Found a Way to Overcome Earth's Gravity (Source: Popular Mechanics)
At NASA, Charles Buhler helped establish the Electrostatics and Surface Physics Laboratory at Kennedy Space Center in Florida—a very important lab that basically ensures rockets don’t explode. Now, as co-founder of the space company Exodus Propulsion Technologies, Buhler told the website The Debrief that they’ve created a drive powered by a “New Force” outside our current known laws of physics, giving the propellant-less drive enough boost to overcome gravity.

“Essentially, what we’ve discovered is that systems that contain an asymmetry in either electrostatic pressure or some kind of electrostatic divergent field can give a system of a center of mass a non-zero force component,” Buhler told The Debrief. “So, what that basically means is that there’s some underlying physics that can essentially place force on an object should those two constraints be met.” (4/29)

China’s Chang’e 6 to Carry Pakistan Payload to Moon (Source: Pakistan Observer)
China is poised to launch a robotic spacecraft, Chang’e 6, in the coming days for a groundbreaking mission to the far side of the moon. This mission will highlight the collaborative efforts of multiple nations in advancing scientific knowledge. The Chang’e 6 mission will carry payloads, including satellites, from Pakistan, France, Italy and Sweden. Meanwhile, according to the Institute of Space Technology of Pakistan, the satellite ICUBE-Q has been designed and developed by IST in collaboration with China’s Shanghai University SJTU and Pakistan’s national space agency SUPARCO. (5/1)

Japan Researchers Make Their Mark in Sweden's Space Exploration City (Source: Kyodo News)
Some Japanese researchers have opted to make Sweden their home base as they seek to take full advantage of the Nordic country's advanced space exploration research programs. The northern city of Kiruna is a key center for space research in Sweden. It sits north of the Arctic Circle and draws researchers from all over the world, who favor the city's geographical location as it gives them frequent opportunities to observe the aurora borealis. Although Japan has a strong scientific relationship with the United States in the field of space exploration, Japanese researchers are expected to work more closely with Sweden in the coming years. (4/30)

The Mysterious 'Great Attractor' Pulling the Milky Way Galaxy Off Course (Source: NPR)
No matter what you're doing right now – sitting, standing, walking – you're moving, in at least four different ways. First, Earth is spinning around on its axis at about 1,000 miles per hour right now. This rotation is the reason we have days. Second, Earth and other planets in our solar system are orbiting the sun. Our planet does that at around 67,000 miles per hour. That's why we have years. And third, you're moving because the sun and the rest of our solar system is orbiting the center of the Milky Way galaxy at over 500,000 miles per hour.

On top of all that, you're moving because the entire universe is expanding outward. All the time. But in the 1970s, astrophysicists noticed that something was off about our galactic neighborhood, or Local Group. The whole clump of neighboring galaxies were being pulled off course at over one million miles per hour, towards something we couldn't see. They called this region the Great Attractor. But their ability to study it was limited. Scientists still don't know exactly why the Milky Way and its neighboring galaxies are off course, but there have been several candidates. Most recently, the prime suspect is the supercluster Laniakea, which is Hawaiian for 'immense heaven' or 'immeasurable heaven.' (5/1)

SES/Intelsat Combination to Counter Starlink (Source: Ars Technica)
SES currently operates 43 GEO satellites, plus 26 broadband spacecraft in MEO. These MEO satellites offer lower latency than GEO networks while still flying high enough to not require hundreds or thousands of spacecraft to blanket the globe. Intelsat has 57 GEO satellites, primarily for television and video-relay services.

The combined company will offer coverage over 99 percent of the world and provide services through a range of communication bands. For now, LEO broadband satellites in the Starlink and OneWeb networks beam signals to user terminals in the Ku-band. The combined networks of SES and Intelsat will span Ka-band, Ku-band, X-band, C-band, UHF, and secure bands tailored for military use.

SES and Intelsat have 13 new satellites on order, including six GEO spacecraft and seven broadband MEO satellites. Intelsat also brings to the table access to OneWeb's LEO constellation. Earlier this year, Intelsat announced it reserved $250 million of capacity on OneWeb's network over the next six years, with an option to purchase double that amount. (4/30)

ATLAS Space Operations to Support Blue Origin’s Blue Ring DarkSky-1 Mission (Source: ATLAS)
Blue Origin has selected ATLAS Space Operations to provide ground segment support for their upcoming Blue Ring mission, DarkSky-1. Blue Ring provides end-to-end services that span hosting, transportation, refueling, data relay, and logistics in medium earth orbits (MEO), geostationary orbits (GEO), lunar orbits, and beyond.

Blue Origin and Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) recently announced DarkSky-1, a mission that will demonstrate flight systems, including space-based processing capabilities, telemetry, tracking and command (TT&C) hardware, and ground-based radiometric tracking. To meet the radio frequency (RF) requirements of this and future cislunar and lunar Blue Ring missions, ATLAS will leverage a number of its highly capable seven-meter antennas across a strategic global footprint. (5/1)