May 17, 2021

Broadband Constellations Pursue Cloud Partnerships (Source: Space News)
Battle lines are being drawn as satellite and cloud networks increasingly come together. Starlink siding with Google Cloud is perhaps not too surprising given the search engine behemoth has already financially invested in SpaceX. Amazon’s AWS will get a boost when Project Kuiper comes online, and other cloud giants including Microsoft are making headway with incoming broadband constellations.

Intelsat, SES, Inmarsat, Viasat and other established satellite operators have also been striking strategic partnerships with cloud providers in recent years. Space and ground operators can lower costs and increase processing performance by drawing on increasingly sophisticated virtualization tools. In return, cloud providers can expand their reach with satellites to remote locations beyond cell towers — while adding a layer of security. Cybersecurity issues are a growing threat for an increasingly interconnected world, as the hack of a key U.S. fuel pipeline recently showed. (5/17)

Japan Moves Toward Point-To-Point Suborbital Transport (Source: The Mainichi)
The Japanese government wants to develop point-to-point suborbital transportation. A plan released last week by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology called for developing vehicles capable of carrying people around the world within two hours by the early 2040s. That effort will start by introducing reusability into the new H3 rocket, followed by a next-generation launch vehicle that will enter service by 2030. The plan did not disclose budgets for those efforts, but noted it expected the private sector to lead development of those suborbital passenger vehicles. (5/17)

Chinese Space Sector Continues World-Leading Post-Covid Rebound (Source: Euroconsult)
The Chinese space sector has seen rapid commercialization over the past 7 years, with well over 100 companies established and around ¥40B (US$6.5B) raised by commercial space organizations. While still only representing a small percentage of the US$35B in annual revenues of the country’s state-owned space industry giants, the figures are rising and support for commercialisation is accelerating in the Middle Kingdom.

ies emerging on a regular basis. The new report format is ideally suited to the fast-paced Chinese space ecosystem. As well as key market updates, the report includes enhanced coverage of the investment conditions, such as regulatory environment, and the roles of provincial and national government and the big tech industry.”

Euroconsult’s report pinpoints key developments in a country that is now home to more than 15 commercial launch companies, accounting for around half of funding received in the last 7 years. During the same time period, earth observation activity and satellite manufacturing have each benefitted from nearly 20% of total funding. The latter has been boosted this decade with China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) adding satellite internet to its “New Infrastructures” list, providing increased support. (5/17)

With Bill Nelson, NASA Stays Course on Commercial Growth and Artemis Program (Source: Florida Today)
Officials and experts alike have often lamented NASA's position as an agency prone to turbulence when new presidential administrations take charge, especially since its most significant objectives can take decades to materialize and require long-term planning. President Biden's nomination of former U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and his unanimous confirmation earlier this month, however, appear to have brought some consistency to the agency's outlook.

NASA's most high-profile goals — putting American astronauts back on the moon, supporting the commercial space marketplace, setting up a future for the International Space Station, and more — appear to be safe with Nelson, a one-time space shuttle astronaut himself. "My vision for NASA is to explore the heavens with humans and machines," Nelson told Florida Today during a one-on-one interview. "And don't forget the first 'A' in NASA – aeronautics. When you do all of that together, it brings in everything we're going to try to put emphasis on." (5/17)

Parsons Wins Space Force IT and Engineering Contract (Source: Space News)
Parsons has won a $185 million U.S. Space Force contract for information technology and engineering services. The company said the five-year contract from the Space and Missile Systems Center Special Programs Directorate expands an existing contract supporting "integrated solutions for situational awareness" for government users. It includes services in space domain awareness, software development, astrophysics, intelligence and data analytics, space vehicle launch characterization, orbit determination, space asset tasking, modeling and simulation of satellite breakup. (5/17)

Details on Starship Super Heavy Launch Test to Hawaii (Source: Space News)
SpaceX disclosed details about what the first orbital test flight of its Starship vehicle will look like. In a filing last week with the FCC, SpaceX said the orbital launch will take place from its Boca Chica, Texas, test site, using a Starship vehicle and Super Heavy booster. The booster will land in the Gulf of Mexico 32 kilometers offshore, while Starship will go into orbit but reenter after less than one orbit, splashing down 100 kilometers off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Kauai. SpaceX said it would perform a "soft ocean landing" to mitigate any risk of Starship breaking up on reentry. SpaceX has not scheduled that launch, and the FAA first needs to complete an environmental assessment before issuing a license. (5/17)

NASA Suborbital Rocket Launches From Virginia Spaceport (Source: NPR)
A NASA sounding rocket finally launched Sunday night after more than a week of delays. The Black Brant 12 rocket launched from the Wallops Flight Facility at 8:44 p.m. Eastern, carrying a payload to study space physics in the upper atmosphere. Weather both at Wallops and in Bermuda, where observations of the rocket's payload would take place, delayed the launch by more than a week, and Sunday was the last night in the launch window. (5/17)

Automated Workflow for South Africa's Space Agency (Source: Space Daily)
CATALYST, a PCI Geomatics brand, has delivered an automated workflow for the South African National Space Agency's (SANSA) Earth Observation Department to convert decades of SPOT satellite imagery to CARD4L Analysis Ready Data (ARD). The scalable workflow enables SANSA to prepare its entire SPOT archive for immediate analysis using the Open Data Cube, machine learning, and AI models. CATALYST's ARD workflow automatically converts optical satellite imagery into ARD measurements by performing a series of image preprocessing operations. (5/17)

Nearly a Fifth of Earth's Surface Transformed Since 1960 (Source: Space Daily)
Whether it's turning forests into cropland or savannah into pastures, humanity has repurposed land over the last 60 years equivalent in area to Africa and Europe combined, researchers said Tuesday. If you count all such transitions since 1960, it adds up to about 43 million square kilometers (16.5 square miles), four times more than previous estimates, according to a study in Nature Communications.

International Cutting-Edge SWOT Satellite to Survey the World's Water (Source: Space Daily)
How much water sloshes around in Earth's lakes, rivers, and oceans? And how does that figure change over time? The upcoming Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission plans to find out. Targeting a late-2022 launch date, this SUV-size satellite will measure the height of Earth's water. SWOT will help researchers understand and track the volume and location of water - a finite resource - around the world, making NASA's first truly global survey of the planet's surface water.

The data will help to monitor changes in floodplains and wetlands, measure how much fresh water flows into and out of Earth's lakes and rivers and back to the ocean, and track regional shifts in sea level at scales never seen before. It will provide information on small-scale ocean currents that will support real-time marine operations affected by tides, currents, storm surge, sediment transport, and water quality issues. And the information that SWOT collects will also provide, for the first time, global observational evidence of how circular currents, called eddies, contribute to changes in the ocean, such as to its energy and heat storage, as well as to how carbon moves through the marine environment. (5/7)

Project Examines How to Water Plants in Space (Source: Space Daily)
Ensuring that plants receive the nourishment they need through proper irrigation is an age-old challenge for farmers here on Earth. It is also a challenge in space. NASA is one step closer to determining the most effective way to provide adequate hydration and aeration for plants to grow in space after completing NASA Glenn's Plant Water Management (PWM) project. This project is part of ongoing NASA research to learn how to feed astronaut crews during long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars, as they spend weeks, months, and even years in space. (5/17)