September 2, 2019

SpaceX Starlink Satellite Nearly Collides with European Satellite (Source: CNET)
The European Space Agency said Monday that it had to fire the thrusters on its Aeolus satellite to avoid colliding with a satellite in the SpaceX Starlink constellation. "Experts in our Space Debris team calculated the risk of collision between these two active satellites, determining the safest option for Aeolus would be to increase its altitude and pass over the SpaceX satellite," the agency tweeted. "The manoeuvre took place about 1/2 an orbit before the potential collision. Not long after the collision was expected, Aeolus called home as usual to send back its science data – proving the manoeuvre was successful and a collision was indeed avoided."

Editor's Note: The CEO or Iridium, another commercial constellation currently in orbit, tweeted the following in response to this news: "Hmmm.  We move our satellites on average once a week and don't put out a press release to say who we maneuvered around..." Another commenter tweeted:  "Collision avoidance is completely routine and is a fundamental part of operating one or ten or a thousand satellites." (9/2)

SpaceX Planning Four More Falcon 9-Launched Starlink Missions This Year (Source: Teslarati)
According to a suite of eight FCC Special Temporary Authority licenses SpaceX filed for on August 30th, the company has plans for as many as four additional Starlink satellite launches in 2019, on top of Starlink’s May 23rd launch debut.

Additionally, SpaceX simultaneously requested that the FCC modify its current Starlink application to permit a slight change in orbital characteristics that would drastically improve the broadband satellite constellation’s coverage in its early stages. Combined, SpaceX appears to be extremely confident about the status and near-future progress to be made by its prospective Starlink constellation, confidence presumably inspired by the performance of the first 60 “v0.9” satellites launched three months ago.

Over the last three months, 50 of the 60 Starlink satellites launched on May 23rd have made their way to their final ~550 km (340 mi) circular orbits. As observed by astronomer Jonathan McDowell and partially confirmed by SpaceX’s own official statements, the company remains in contact with and – more or less – in control of all but three of the 60 Starlink prototypes. SpaceX did confirm in late June that two functioning satellites were being intentionally deorbited to test procedures and performance, while another three satellites had partially failed and were to “passively deorbit”. (9/1)

Von Braun Space Station Would Include Wheel of 24 Inflatable Modules, with Dream Chasers for Escape Vehicles (Source: Daily Mail)
Designs for the first commercial space hotel that will be like a 'cruise ship' have been unveiled and they are truly out of this world. The Von Braun Space Station is being designed by the Gateway Foundation's Tim Alatorre and will have gravity,  full-working kitchens, bars and natural feeling interiors. It is expected to be 'operational by 2025 with 100 tourists visiting the station per week,' according to the senior design architect for the project.

A 190-meter-diameter wheel will rotate to create a gravitational force similar to the one felt on the moon. Twenty-four individual modules are situated around the wheel and are filled with sleeping accommodations. Alatorre added: "There will also be many of the things you see on cruise ships: restaurants, bars, musical concerts, movie screenings, and educational seminars." The architect expects the station to house around 400. Some of the modules on the station will be sold as private residences while government and science agencies will be able to rent the others. Click here. (8/31)

NASA Team to Decide if Bigelow's Inflatable Modules Will Support Gateway Project for Artemis (Source: KLAS)
Four dozen engineers and space scientists from NASA are in Southern Nevada this week to check out some technology that could take us back to the moon, and maybe to Mars. The project is called Gateway. NASA wants to have an orbital station above the moon by 2024, and one of the four companies being considered for that station is Bigelow Aerospace in North Las Vegas.

Sounds odd to say this but one of the biggest problems with space is that there isn’t enough space up there — space to live and work, that is. It took close to 45 launches to assemble all of the pieces that make up the International Space Station, at a cost of tens of billions of dollars. What if you could create a larger, safer habitat around the moon with only one or two launches? Checking out an expandable spacecraft is one reason such a large team from NASA is in the Las Vegas valley right now.

This craft could work as an orbital station above the moon, or as habitats on the lunar surface. “This is a stand-alone spacecraft. It doesn’t really depend on anything else. and it can orbit the moon, or it can be in LEO (low Earth orbit) or it could actually be used on the way to Mars. It’s tremendously versatile,” Kelleher said. (8/29)

The International Space Station Is More Valuable Than Many People Realize (Source: Scientific American)
In 1984 when President Reagan directed NASA to build a space station, no one could have predicted the critical role it would play in human space exploration nearly four decades later. The ISS took 12 years to build with support from 16 nations and has been populated continuously since Nov. 2000. A colossal achievement by any measure—the station weighs a million pounds and is the single most expensive object ever built. And it should be. The ISS gave the U.S. and its partners an operational outpost in the most austere environment ever known.

Over its lifespan, more than 2,400 experiments have been conducted by more than 230 visitors from 18 countries. The station's crew have logged over 1,300 EVA hours on more than 217 spacewalks. Over their lifetime, teenagers have seen a constant revolution in technology, some of it exclusively the result of space access and research. And no one should take for granted the colossal task of maintaining this orbital toehold.

With ISS as its point of departure, NASA's recently announced Lunar Gateway program will be the platform to prepare and propel humans to Mars. To paraphrase James Bridenstine, Gateway will be the permanent lunar command module. And in 2024 Gateway will facilitate the mission objective of Artemis 1 to land astronauts near the Lunar South Pole. But we can't get there from here—not without the ISS. Editor's Note: Will ISS be the "point of departure" for Gateway? Can we really not get the the moon or the Gateway without the ISS? (8/30)

Do We Need More Space Stations? (Source: BBC)
The Lunar Gateway could help humans get back to the Moon, and perhaps one day to Mars, for hopefully reduced costs – but funding missions beyond our planet still isn’t going to be cheap. Why might we need deep space-based infrastructure, and how could it help humanity back here on Earth? Click here. (8/31)

China Is Winning the Solar Space  (Source: Foreign Policy)
If any U.S. president in the last five decades had had the foresight to take space-based solar power technology seriously, the incoming man-made climate disaster could already have been averted with a clean, constant, and limitless power source that costs less than burning fossil fuels—and the U.S. could be leading the field. Today, if reports are accurate, China is at the forefront of the technology, which is basically solar power as you know it, except on steroids:
It can collect energy 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. And instead of taking up millions of acres of land on the ground, space solar farms would be located in geosynchronous orbit, about 22,000 miles above sea level—far above pesky things like clouds, rain, and the cycle of day and night that make peak terrestrial solar power so intermittent. China plans on putting a commercial-scale solar power station in orbit by 2050, an accomplishment that would give it bragging rights as the first nation to harness the sun’s energy in space and beam power down to Earth.

And that’s where things start to get prickly. First, China’s space program is partly a military program. The army oversees China’s space activities, with “most of China’s ostensibly civilian space activities [having] dual-use applications.” Second, China’s space ambitions are all about the money—and an integral part of the country’s national economic rejuvenation and development goals. So if the space-based solar power demonstrator the Chinese Communist Party plans to have online as soon as next year is successful, more countries could potentially be enticed into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature foreign-policy venture, the Belt and Road Initiative. (6/16)