February 1, 2025

China’s DeepSeek AI Signals Faster Path to Space Autonomy (Source: Space News)
The emergence of China’s DeepSeek has shaken up the artificial intelligence sector, promising new opportunities for space companies beginning to explore ways to leverage AI in space. AI is seen as key to unlocking true autonomy in orbit and managing an increasingly congested space domain. Yet, while satellite operators like Loft Orbital are making strides to integrate AI into their operations, widespread adoption across the industry remains in its early stages.

Enter DeepSeek, which claims to achieve high performance with significantly lower computational demands than other generative AI — a category of deep-learning models that analyze vast datasets to generate content, answer questions and infer likely outcomes based on learned patterns. This efficiency is a critical advantage for space applications, where bandwidth and onboard processing power are limited. Notably, DeepSeek is open source, positioning it as a potential catalyst for broader AI innovation. (1/30)

Vodafone Makes ‘World’s First’ Satellite Video Call From a Regular Phone Ahead of 2025 Rollout (Source: The Verge)
Vodafone has made what it calls “the world’s first” satellite video call using a standard smartphone, in a test of a system it says will provide mobile broadband service to 4G and 5G phones without dedicated satellite hardware. The service, using satellites from SpaceX rival AST SpaceMobile, is expected to launch in Europe before the end of 2025. (1/30)

Bezos vs. Bezos: Amazon Sues WA State Over Washington Post Tequest for Kuiper Records (Source: GeekWire)
The company that Jeff Bezos founded has gone to court to keep the newspaper he owns from finding out too much about the inner workings of its business. Amazon is suing Washington state to limit the release of public records to The Washington Post from a series of state Department of Labor and Industries investigations of an Amazon Project Kuiper satellite facility in the Seattle area. (1/29)

European 'Swarm' Satellites Detect Electric Currents From the Ocean's Tides (Source: Space.com)
Satellites have managed to detect faint electromagnetic signals generated by ocean tides, suggesting that space-born sensors could be used to obtain insights into the motion of other liquid masses on Earth, including magma below the planet's surface. The observations were made by the European Space Agency's (ESA) Swarm constellation, which consists of three satellites circling the planet in low Earth orbit at altitudes between 287 and 318 miles. (1/31)

ESA Navigates its Uncertain Future with NASA (Source: Space News)
Donald Trump didn’t wait to return to the White House before he started to shake up foreign policy. In the weeks leading up to his second inauguration, Trump proposed reclaiming the Panama Canal, acquiring Greenland and making Canada the 51st state, ideas soundly rejected by the leaders of Canada, Panama and Denmark, which owns Greenland.

Whether these proposals should be taken literally or seriously, or dismissed as distractions, it’s clear that foreign relations in the incoming Trump administration will be different from the Biden administration and possibly even the first Trump administration. That may have trickle-down effects on space policy, including how NASA works with its international partners. (1/30)

Could Gravitational Waves be the Key to Cosmic Communication? (Source: Phys.org)
When astronomers detected the first long-predicted gravitational waves in 2015, it opened a whole new window into the universe. Before that, astronomy depended on observations of light in all its wavelengths. We also use light to communicate, mostly radio waves. Could we use gravitational waves to communicate? The idea is intriguing, though beyond our capabilities right now. Still, there's value in exploring the hypothetical, as the future has a way of arriving sooner than we sometimes think.

Traditional electromagnetic communications have definite drawbacks and limitations. Signals get weaker with distance, which restricts range. Atmospheric effects can interfere with radio communications and diffuse and distort them. There are also line-of-sight restrictions, and solar weather and space activity can also interfere. What's promising about gravitational wave communication (GWC) is that it could overcome these challenges. GWC is robust in extreme environments and loses minimal energy over extremely long distances. It also overcomes problems that plague electromagnetic communication (EMC), like diffusion, distortion, and reflection. (1/30)

NASA's New SPHEREx Space Telescope to Launch in February (Source: Space.com)
In late February, if all goes to plan, a new character will enter NASA's space telescope epic. It's an eggshell white, conical probe named SPHEREx, which (get ready for a mouthful) stands for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer. And, because it works with infrared light, SPHEREx is meant to reveal things even the trailblazing James Webb Space Telescope cannot.

SPHEREx won't rival the JWST's ability to observe highly localized regions of the universe that are confined to the infrared section of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, unlike the JWST, it is an all-sky survey. Whereas the $10 billion JWST is great at observing things like specific nebulas and relatively narrow but tremendously dimensional deep fields, SPHEREx is intended to image the entire sky as seen from Earth. (1/31)

Caltech’s Lightsail Experiment Brings Interstellar Travel Closer to Reality (Source: Gizmodo)
A team of researchers at the California Institute of Technology devised a means of measuring the thin membranes of a lightsail, helping prove out a futuristic travel concept first imagined by Johannes Kepler over 400 years ago. The team’s research, published this month in Nature Photonics, describes a miniature lightsail in a laboratory setting. The researchers measured radiation pressure on the sail from a laser beam, revealing how the material reacted to the laser beam. (1/31)

Space Companies Can Dock Satellites in Orbit, But Can They Navigate the Pentagon? (Source: Space News)
Commercial space companies are revolutionizing the global economy with groundbreaking technologies, from autonomous satellite docking to cutting-edge data services. Yet, despite their innovation prowess, companies face significant challenges navigating the labyrinthine corridors of military space acquisition. For many, understanding the United States government’s sprawling and fragmented procurement system remains a daunting task.

Consider Lee Rosen, co-founder and CEO of space infrastructure startup ThinkOrbital. He encapsulated this frustration at last month’s Spacepower conference in Orlando, Florida. A retired U.S. Air Force officer with more than two decades of experience in military acquisitions and space operations, Rosen described his difficulty navigating the military’s procurement system as “absolutely crazy.” If someone with his pedigree finds the process confounding, what hope is there for startups with zero institutional knowledge? (1/31)

Twisted Magnetic Fields in Space Sculpt the Jets of Black Holes and Baby Stars (Source: Space.com)
At first glimpse, it may seem like infant stars and supermassive black holes have very little in common. Infant stars, or "protostars," haven't yet gathered enough mass to trigger the nuclear fusion of hydrogen to helium in their cores, the process which defines what a main sequence star is. Supermassive black holes, on the other hand, have masses equivalent to millions, or even billions, of suns crammed into a space no more than a few billion miles wide. For context, the solar system is estimated to be 18.6 trillion miles wide.

Yet, protostars and supermassive black holes do have at least one thing in common: They both launch high-speed astrophysical jets from their poles while gathering mass to increase in size. And new research suggests the mechanism creating these jets may be the same for these objects at opposite ends of the astrophysical spectrum. (1/30)

Ligado Faces Opposition Over Bankruptcy Loan Fees (Source: Reuters)
Satellite communications company Ligado Networks is trying to finance its bankruptcy with a high-fee loan that would eat up $100 million that could otherwise be used to repay creditors, according to an objection filed by fellow satellite company Inmarsat. Inmarsat said in a Wednesday court filing in Delaware that the company's existing lenders are only providing $115 million in new money to Ligado, while the rest of the bankruptcy loan merely refinances its existing debts. The loan adds nearly $100 million in new fees, almost entirely “eating up” the new money and reducing the chance that Ligado’s other creditors, including Inmarsat, will be paid, according to the objection. (1/30)

The Last Dragon (Source: CNBC)
Buried in the space conversation this week – kicked off by Musk and Trump’s bizarre, politically charged declarations to bring back Butch and Suni as soon as possible – is SpaceX’s looming shutdown of the Dragon capsule production line. SpaceX leadership said three years ago the company was ending production after its fourth Crew Dragon entered the fleet, before it decided to build a fifth. While SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said late last year that SpaceX expects to keep flying Dragon for “six to eight more years,” the company confirmed a month ago that it finished building “our fifth and final Dragon crew spacecraft.”

I’ll be honest: The “final” here is incredibly striking to me. I don’t think it’s up for debate that Dragon is the most advanced and successful crew spacecraft this century. It debuted less than five years ago and has flown 54 people to orbit across 15 flights. And yet it’s getting intentionally shut down. I understand the rationale behind the decision: The goal is to replace Dragon with Starship. And I’m sure SpaceX wants to get even more of its workforce focused on that goal. But, as many respected folks in the industry tell me, human-rated vehicle production lines are not just something you can spool back up again if need be. So this decision effectively puts a hard cap on when Starship needs to be considered safe enough to fly people. (1/30)

Someone Is Trying to Erase NASA’s Directives (Source: NASA Watch)
I just went to NASA’s NODIS [NASA Online Directives Information System] website to dig up some policy directives [including DEI stuff] and, well, it is offline. According to the Wayback Machine it was online as late as the evening of 20 Jan 2025 – but was gone on 21 Jan 2025. Click here. (1/26)

Array Labs, Raytheon, Umbra Form Partnership Focused on 3D Mapping From Space (Source: Space News)
Defense contractor Raytheon is partnering with satellite imaging startups Array Labs and Umbra Space to develop advanced three-dimensional Earth observation technologies for the commercial and government markets. The companies announced Jan. 27 they will jointly offer a new product called Site3D, which combines synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technology with specialized mapping algorithms to create detailed 3D models of the Earth’s surface. (1/30)

China’s Lunar Agenda – a Heightened Warning (Source: Space News)
The new Trump administration and Congress need to prioritize space program initiatives that fundamentally advance U.S. human spaceflight and enduring space presence objectives. These would include privatizing low Earth orbit (LEO) outposts, encouraging development of the cislunar infrastructure, occupying a permanent presence on the moon and, finally, getting ready for long-duration missions both to the moon and to Mars. Our limited national resources need to be focused and dedicated toward these needs.

Frankly, getting the government out of its own way can do much to get what we need up into space faster and cheaper. Generally, reducing barriers and incentivizing cutting-edge technology developers to engage with the government will be key. And, much of this shouldn’t be partisan, as it would contribute to the economic growth of both blue and red states and would be good for the nation generally. (1/27)

Ending the Dream (Source: Space News)
Dreams should end and ultimately be subordinate to reality. The threat we face at this time is essentially the same totalitarianism threatening to wreck civilization a century ago. Except this time, as a species, we may not survive to pick up the pieces and start over. We only get so many chances and our narrow window of opportunity to expand off-world and avoid extinction may be closing. Oligarchy is the proven path to fascism and then destruction.

The oligarch does not combine with others for the common good. Wealth concentrates upward to fewer and fewer until inevitably a very few own everything and everyone. There is no truth, no justice, no community; only oligarchs telling us only they can save us and, if we do not let them do what they will, then the world will end. No travel to other stars guaranteeing our generations will survive and, eventually, our world really ending — in extinction. (1/30)

Push to Move NASA HQ to Florida Still a Buzz Among Space Community (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
The idea floated earlier this month by Gov. Ron DeSantis that NASA might consider moving its headquarters from Washington to Florida remains a topic of interest in space circles. During a panel discussion about public-private partnerships during the SpaceCom event in Orlando, the top-voted question during a Q&A portion was idea of moving NASA headquarters to Kennedy Space Center. While there was laughter among the crowd, it still prompted an evenhanded answer from Jonathan Baker, chief of spaceport development at KSC.

“We’re focused on exploration and innovation, and so we want to enable that in whatever way possible, right? So however the agency deems best to accomplish that here at KSC, we’re ready and on board to support that,” Baker said. “Whether that means a move for headquarters or not. We are ready to support whatever the agency needs to move forward.” Rob Long, CEO of Space Florida, the state’s aerospace finance and development authority, smiled and chimed in as well. “I mean, it would make a lot of sense to move NASA headquarters to Kennedy Space Center,” Long said. “Just saying.”

While the back-and-forth was made with some levity the idea isn’t completely unrealistic, especially in an era under President Trump’s second administration married with SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk’s push to cut government spending as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Trump’s cost-cutting initiative known as DOGE. (1/31)

Artemis Team Leaders Say Major Changes Under Trump Could Mean More Delays (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
NASA’s commercial partners mounted a vigorous defense of the Artemis moon mission plans this week amid the specter of changes from the new Trump administration. In a Wednesday panel discussion at the SpaceCom conference in Orlando, representatives from Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Amentum joined NASA officials to lay out progress toward Artemis II, the next flight in the agency’s plans to return to the moon. (1/30)

Analysis: DOD Must Improve Commercial Space Integration (Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies)
The Department of Defense is making efforts to integrate commercial space services, but challenges remain in operationalizing these services on a larger scale, according to a white paper from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The military lacks a formal process to validate and accept commercial services for operational use, unlike commercial products. This gap could hinder the full potential of commercial space in national security operations. (1/30)

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