November 29, 2024

NASA Mars Rover Exploring Spiderweb-Like Patterns on Mars (Source: Futurism)
There's no shortage of cool features of mysterious origins to be found on the surface of Mars, but the next one that NASA scientists have in their crosshairs is definitely one to keep your eyes peeled for. Last week, the space agency announced that its seasoned Curiosity rover will embark on a lengthy journey to the foothills of Mount Sharp, where rising from the landscape is a sprawling, miles-long formation of spiderweb-like patterns, the likes of which has never been witnessed at such a scale on Earth. (11/26)

What Happens When a Gravitational Wave Meets a Black Hole? (Source: Big Think)
When black holes merge, the energetic signals that they generate primarily take the form of gravitational waves, or ripples in the fabric of space itself. Although these waves propagate at the speed of light, they’re compelled to propagate through space itself, which contains a huge variety of massive objects, including black holes themselves. Will a gravitational wave simply pass through a black hole, undisturbed? Will it be absorbed by the black hole, adding to its mass? Or will something else happen entirely?

Observationally, there isn’t that much direct evidence for the properties of gravitational waves, however. We can look at the orbits of binary pulsars, for example, and conclude how much energy is being radiated away in the form of gravitational waves, and get a prediction that matches up extremely well with the observed orbital changes of that binary pulsar system.

The ripples of the gravitational waves — just like anything else that falls into a black hole — must get imprinted onto the surface of the black hole, conserving information, while the energy and angular momentum get absorbed into the black hole, conserving those quantities as well. Every time one of these “ripples in spacetime” passes across a black hole, a small fraction of its energy gets absorbed. (11/28)

Namibia Orders Starlink to Cease all Operations in the Country (Source: Bloomberg)
Namibia ordered Starlink Inc. to immediately cease all operations in the south-west African country, saying the satellite-internet service owned by billionaire Elon Musk is operating without the required telecommunications license. “The public is hereby advised not to purchase Starlink terminal equipment or subscribe to its services, as such activities are illegal,” the Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia said. “Investigators have already confiscated illegal terminals from consumers and have opened criminal cases with the Namibian police in this regard.” (11/28

Blue Origin Forced to Delete Female Astronaut's Footage After Online Trolls Attack (Source: Unilad)
A female astronaut has said she won’t back down to ‘small men’ after a video of her in space had to be taken down. Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin were happy to make history when they sent American engineer Emily Calandrelli into space, marking her as the 100th woman to do so. Calandrelli was among the six 'space tourists' who set out on the ninth human test flight for Blue Origin's New Shepherd spacecraft.

However, the company was forced to delete a social media post showing a video of the MIT engineer from its page due to comments. While there were plenty comments congratulating Calandrelli, it didn’t take long for the trolls to come out and for there to be very ‘sexualized’ replies making jokes and jabs at women in space. (11/29)

The Urgent Need for a National GPS Jamming Detection System (Source: Space News)
Escalating conflicts around the world are undermining GPS reliability as a surge of interference attacks continues to impact vast areas of Europe and the Middle East, causing significant disruptions for civilians. At the same time, more criminals increasingly use jammers for drug trafficking, cargo truck thefts and other criminal operations in North America. Sporadic GPS jamming and spoofing incidents have disrupted key American airports in recent years. Even everyday American citizens are now purchasing low-cost retail jammers as privacy fears and anti-government conspiracy theories spread.

America urgently needs an automated national detection system that can pinpoint GPS interference the moment it occurs and provide accurate real-time maps of where the impact is actually occurring. (11/27)

Space Command should stay in Colorado (Source: Washington Examiner)
Let’s be clear: the reason why Rogers wanted Space Command in Alabama is not because it’s the best operational location for Space Command. It’s because such a basing location will bring jobs and investment to Alabama. That’s a legitimate rationale to support a basing decision, of course. It’s also legitimate for Rogers to point out an Air Force assessment that suggested relocating Space Command to Huntsville would accrue the benefit of lower living costs.

Still, Trump’s first responsibility will be to put national security before economic interests. On that basis, the evidence plainly supports Space Command’s sustainment in Colorado (for full disclosure, it should be noted that the Washington Examiner is owned by the Anschutz Corporation, which is based and has business interests in Colorado). (11/27)

Space Force Looks to Bulk Up Against Anti-Satellite Weapons (Source: The Hill)
The 5-year-old U.S. Space Force is moving quickly to confront what is becoming its priority challenge: the threat of anti-satellite weapons (ASATs) from foreign adversaries, including Russia and China. The Space Force is building up its space defense architecture to help modernize the Space Surveillance Network (SSN), which monitors objects and potential threats in space. It comes as the military branch has struggled to close gaps in space domain awareness. (11/28)

Design of Russia's Super-Heavy Rocket to be Finalized Based on New Technologies (Source: TASS)
The approved preliminary design of a super-heavy class space rocket, which Russia plans to use for manned flights to the Moon, will be finalized during the technical design stage, the press service of Roscosmos said. A Roscosmos official said that Russia’s crewed flights to the Moon were being postponed due to the lack of funds for creating a launch vehicle. Earlier, plans for sending Russian cosmonauts to the Moon between 2031 and 2040 were mentioned.

"The development of a super-heavy class rocket exposed a need for introducing innovative solutions, including new materials and engines. It was decided to finalize the previously approved preliminary project at the stage of technical design," the press service said. (11/28)

Life on Mars Could Be Surviving in an Area Deep Underground (Source: New Scientist)
A specific area on Mars has been identified as a potential location for current life – with the organisms living far beneath the surface. Andrea Butturini at the University of Barcelona and his colleagues investigated possible locations on Mars that could host living organisms, focusing on areas that might have the right amounts of water, heat and energy necessary for life to exist. (11/29)

Global Earth Observation Market to Cross $8 Billion by 2033, Says Novaspace (Source; Reuters)
The global Earth Observation (EO) market is on track to exceed $8 billion in valuation by 2033 from $5 billion currently, according to a new report from Novaspace, the merger of Euroconsult and SpaceTec Partners. The rapid growth is largely attributed to the surge in large-scale defense contracts and increasing availability of high-resolution imaging and 3D capabilities, which are enhancing the scope and quality of Earth monitoring, the report said.

EO technology, which provides critical data for industries ranging from agriculture to environmental monitoring and defense, is one of the most lucrative sectors in the commercialization of space technology. North America remains the dominant player in the market, contributing 44% of global revenue in 2023. Europe follows with a 22% share, Novaspace said. However, the most significant growth is expected to come from Asia, according to the report. (11/29)

SpaceX Direct-to-Cell License is a Negative Development for AST (Source: TipRanks)
Scotiabank views the Federal Communications Commission granting SpaceX a supplemental coverage from space license before AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) as a negative for AST. The development erodes the possibility of AST having a first-mover advantage, “but it doesn’t catch the company off guard,” the analyst tells investors in a research note. (11/28)

Mexico to Put a Command and Information Management System in Space (Source: Mexico Now)
The Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transport (SICT) through the Mexican Space Agency (AEM) announced with the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) about a new breakthrough of its own technology developed for satellites, which will go into space in 2025. The general director of the AEM negotiated an agreement for a new Mexican Command and Management Information System (SCMI) for Nanosatellites to be launched on the GuaraniSat-2 of the Paraguayan Space Agency (AEP).

He specified that this Mexican device, developed by members of the Laboratory of Electronic Instrumentation of Space Systems (LIESE) of the School of Engineering (FI-UNAM) and the AEM, was successfully tested at the University of the Republic of Uruguay, in Montevideo, in March 2024. (11/28)

NASA's Webb: What We Think We Know About the Universe is Very Wrong (Source: Earth.com)
Determining the expansion rate of the universe, a number called the “Hubble constant,” shapes our entire understanding of the cosmos, its age, and its ultimate fate. Unfortunately, though many brilliant minds have dedicated their lives to finding the answer to this riddle, all who have tried thus far have failed, running repeatedly into a brick wall that has come to be known as the “Hubble tension.”

Adam Riess, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, has been at the forefront of this debate. “With measurement errors negated, what remains is the real and exciting possibility that we have misunderstood the universe,” Riess admitted.  The Hubble and Webb telescopes confirm one universe expansion rate, based on observations of the local universe. Meanwhile, observations from the early universe, like those from the Planck satellite’s mapping of the cosmic microwave background radiation, suggest another. (11/29)

Physicists Propose New Approach That Could Unlock Barriers to Global Scale Quantum Network (Source: Phys.org)
Interference (excess noise) to quantum signals from sunlight has slowed down the creation of a global scale quantum communications network, but now physicists at Heriot-Watt University have proposed a way to tackle this "daylight noise"' issue, paving the way for all-day satellite transmission. They have proposed that using time and phase encoding could extend and enhance operations by three or four hours each day, which is significant.

Early simulations indicate that time and phase encoding unlocks the capability to filter in polarization, yielding a reduction in detected daylight and allowing SatQKD to be performed at dawn and dusk due to the daylight noise being partially polarized. The team will leverage their involvement in two missions (Quantum Communication hub's Space Platform for Optical Quantum Communication (SPOQC) and Quantum Encryption and Science Satellite (QEYSSAT) being launched in 2025, to demonstrate their simulations experimentally. (11/29)

Warm Up This Holiday Season with NASA's New SLS Rocket Engine Fireplace (Source: Space.com)
NASA is inviting you to sit by a homey, rocket-powered hearth this holiday season. The space agency created a virtual fireplace lit by the engines of its huge Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which sent the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission to the moon in November 2022. "Technically, this fireplace packs the heat of FOUR RS-25 rocket engines and a pair of solid rocket boosters — just enough to get you to the moon! (And get through the holidays with your in-laws.)" the agency wrote. Click here. (11/28)

Trump’s NASA Redesign: Examining the Case for Slashing Space Waste (Source: Interesting Engineering)
NASA is likely to be downsized by DOGE. While some argue there’s a conflict of interest with Musk leading the charge, others believe NASA has been oversized for too long. Even within NASA, the SLS program has faced great criticism for its cost overruns. In an interview with Interesting Engineering shortly before the launch of Artemis I, former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver explained, “If everything goes perfectly for SLS, we’ll only launch two or three times in five years. That is not progress.”

“Even I could not have imagined how late and how over budget it would be. And then when it was supposed to be launching back in 2016, and for less than half of what it has cost. It has cost $23 billion and the [Orion] capsule another $20 billion on top of that.” Today, SLS is estimated to cost $4.1 billion per launch.

Garver said “by working with the private sector, we could do this more efficiently and save the NASA funds for the really exquisite, unique science missions where there isn’t a market.” Forces within NASA have long pushed for more outsourcing to private industry. Some may see this as a case of being careful about what you wish for. Others will believe NASA is long overdue for an overhaul. (11/27)

2 Space Telescope Designs Will Battle To Become NASA's Next Cosmic Imager (Source: Space.com)
The teams behind two potential new space telescopes have embarked on their final design studies as they go head-to-head to see which will be the first of NASA’s new "Probe" class of mission. PRIMA, the Probe far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics, will study the universe at the longest of infrared wavelengths, bridging the gap between what the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can see in the near- and mid-infrared, and what radio telescopes observe.

The mission PRIMA is going up against is AXIS, the Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite. Led by Chris Reynolds of the University of Maryland, AXIS would be designed to study black holes within distant galaxies in the early universe discovered by the JWST, and probe how active black holes and bursts of supernova explosions can affect the galaxies around them. (11/28)

XRISM Mission Looks Deeply Into 'Hidden' Stellar System (Source: Space Daily)
The Japan-led XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) observatory has captured the most detailed portrait yet of gases flowing within Cygnus X-3, one of the most studied sources in the X-ray sky. Cygnus X-3 is a binary that pairs a rare type of high-mass star with a compact companion - likely a black hole. (11/26)

Kacific Introduces SatPack for Portable and Reliable Satellite Internet in Remote Regions (Source: Space Daily)
Kacific Broadband Satellites Group has unveiled SatPack, a portable satellite internet solution designed for rapid deployment in challenging environments across the Asia-Pacific. Building on the success of previous innovations like the CommsBox and CommsBox Ultra, Kacific's SatPack combines portability, reliability, and cost-effectiveness for users requiring immediate connectivity in remote or high-demand locations. (11/27)

Atomic-6 Receives $3.8M to Advance Space Armor Shielding (Source: Space Daily)
Atomic-6 has secured a Tactical Funding Increase (TACFI) of $3.8 million to enhance the development of its innovative Space Armor shielding tiles. This funding will support qualification testing and preparation for the technology's first flight deployment. Space Armor is engineered to address critical challenges in shielding mass, stowage efficiency, post-impact debris, and mission risks. This advanced shielding solution is designed to protect space assets from orbital debris and kinetic energy threats, with optional radio frequency permeability for added functionality. It offers a vital resource for bolstering U.S. competitiveness in space operations, a priority recognized by Pentagon leaders and lawmakers. (11/27)

New Images Show Where Super-Polluters are Venting an Invisible, Planet-Warming Gas Into the Atmosphere (Source: CNN)
High above Earth, a cutting-edge satellite is zooming around the planet 15 times a day. It is hunting for leaks of methane — an invisible, super-polluting gas that is dramatically warming the planet. Its measurements are precise enough to plot heatmaps of the biggest offenders, lighting up all the places they are venting the gas into the atmosphere at a staggering rate, unbeknownst to regulators, as the planet careens toward what scientists warn could be irreversible climate change impacts.

MethaneSAT’s early findings are that the oil and gas industry is belching the gas at a rate three to five times higher on average than what the Environmental Protection Agency has estimated, and way beyond the rate the industry itself agreed to in 2023. (11/27)

Stranded Boeing Astronauts to Enjoy Thanksgiving in Space (Source: New York Post)
The two astronauts stranded at the International Space Station will enjoy a Thanksgiving feast together Thursday — as they mark 176 days in zero gravity. The Post has learned that the ISS, where Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have been holed up, has a variety of traditional Thanksgiving-themed food, like smoked turkey, cranberries and veggie sides. “We have a bunch of food that we’ve packed away that is Thanksgiving-ish,” Williams said. (11/27)