May 7, 2021

NASA Reboots its Role in Fighting Climate Change (Source: Nature)
NASA is best known for exploring other worlds, whether that’s sending astronauts to the Moon or flying helicopters on Mars. But under US President Joe Biden, the space agency intends to boost its reputation as a major player in studying Earth — especially with an eye towards fighting climate change. “Biden made clear that climate is a priority,” says Waleed Abdalati, director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences in Boulder, Colorado. “There’s a clear role for NASA to play in that,” he says, given all the Earth-science research it funds and the Earth-observing satellites it launches.

In recent months, NASA has signalled its intention to reinvigorate its role in informing US climate policy, by appointing its first climate adviser and ramping up work on key missions to study how Earth’s climate is changing. The work is particularly crucial as climate change accelerates, agency officials say. “The demand for actionable information is going to increase pretty dramatically over the next decade or two,” says Karen St. Germain, head of NASA’s Earth-science division in Washington DC. (5/7)

Mission Extension Vehicles Succeed as Northrop Grumman Works on Future Servicing/Debris Clean-Up Craft (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
With the successful docking of Mission Extension Vehicle 2, or MEV-2, to the Intelsat 10-02 satellite last month, Northrop Grumman not only repeated the task of successfully attaching one of their MEV spacecraft to a functioning satellite but also successfully proved the ability to grab a still-transmitting telecommunications satellite without disrupting service. Meanwhile, Northrop Grumman has already begun work on the next generations of remote, on-orbit servicing and debris clean-up vehicles.

“Our approach is to start doing refueling with satellites that are prepared for refueling.  We’re developing refueling interfaces that we would like to make an open industry standard.  Then our vision here is that by 2025, every new satellite that is launched is prepared for servicing in some way.” This third generation of vehicle would not just be able to perform refueling operations but also robotic servicing as well using robotic arm technology to repair elements on the exterior, or even interior, of satellites — including an ability to remove and replace solar arrays.

“Designing solar arrays so they can be taken off or put back on or add additional solar arrays to it… absolutely, that’s on the roadmap,” enthused Anderson.  “That really gets to the next step of our roadmap, actually.  Beyond satellites prepared for servicing is in-space manufacturing, in-space assembly of spacecraft... There’ll be a lot of development and incremental capabilities of that over this decade, but we think it really starts to become a capability that we can utilize in the 2030s and beyond.” (5/7)

China Launches Spy Satellites (Source: Xinhua)
China launched a set of imaging satellites Thursday. A Long March 2C rocket lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 2:11 p.m. Eastern Thursday and placed a trio of Yaogan-30 imaging satellites into orbit. The launch also carried a secondary payload, Tianqi-12, for an internet-of-things constellation. (5/7)

Intelsat and SES Expect Incentive Payments for Meeting C-Band Deadline (Source: Space News)
Satellite operators Intelsat and SES say they're on schedule to clear C-band spectrum in time to receive billions of dollars in incentive payments. Intelsat and SES will get $1.2 billion and $1 billion, respectively, if they meet the Dec. 5 deadline for clearing the first 120 megahertz of C-band spectrum the FCC began auctioning off late last year for terrestrial 5G services. The companies said this week they're on track to meet that milestone. The companies will get a total of $9 billion combined by clearing all 300 megahertz of C-band spectrum by 2023. The two companies, though, are still in a legal dispute as SES seeks at least $1.8 billion in damages following Intelsat's withdrawal from their C-Band Alliance partnership. It's uncertain if that suit will affect Intelsat's plans to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. (5/7)

NASA and Boeing to Kick Off Safety Audit (Source: Space News)
The July Starliner test flight, required after the original OFT mission failed to reach the station because of technical problems, has been delayed by work to correct those problems as well as a busy launch manifest on the Eastern Range and schedule of visiting vehicles to the station. NASA and Boeing will also soon start a long-delayed safety audit of the company, something NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel has been pushing the agency to conduct before flying people on the spacecraft. (5/7)

Northrop Grumman Wins DARPA Work for PNT Blackjack Payloads (Source: Space News)
Northrop Grumman won a DARPA contract to provide positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) payloads for Blackjack satellites. The $13.3 million contract covers two payloads that broadcast a new signal that is not dependent on the Global Positioning System. This is Northrop Grumman's first award for the Blackjack program, which will demonstrate the military utility of small satellites in low Earth orbit to provide communications, missile warning and PNT services. (5/7)

Space Force Wants Digital Saavy Workforce (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Space Force wants its military and civilian workforce to focus on digital skills. The Space Force's "Vision for a Digital Service" document, released Thursday, says the service will need people who are digitally minded and technology savvy. Gen. John Raymond, head of the Space Force, said this is to ensure the Space Force can defend satellites from high-tech weapons such as electronic jammers and lasers, and also create new weapons systems and business processes. Service members get training in information technology today, and the Space Force also wants its members to learn programming languages, machine learning and data analysis. (5/7)
 
Volcanoes on Mars Could be Active (Source: Space Daily)
Evidence of recent volcanic activity on Mars shows that eruptions could have taken place within the past 50,000 years, a paper by Planetary Science Institute Research Scientist David Horvath says. Most volcanism on the red planet occurred between 3 and 4 billion years ago, with smaller eruptions in isolated locales continuing perhaps as recently as 3 million years ago. But, until now, there was no evidence to indicate whether Mars could still be volcanically active. Using data from satellites orbiting Mars, the research team found evidence of an eruption in a region called Elysium Planitia that would be the youngest known volcanic eruption on Mars.

The site of the recent eruption is about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from NASA's InSight lander, which has been studying tectonic activity on Mars since 2018. Two Marsquakes have been localized to the region around the Cerberus Fossae and recent work has suggested the possibility that these could be due to the movement of magma at depth. "The young age of this deposit absolutely raises the possibility that there could still be volcanic activity on Mars and it is intriguing that recent Marsquakes detected by the InSight mission are sourced from the Cerberus Fossae," Horvath said. (5/7)

Virgin Orbit Plans June Launch for Multiple Cubesats (Source: Space News)
Virgin Orbit has scheduled its next LauncherOne mission for June. The company said Thursday the air-launched rocket will place cubesats into orbit for the Defense Department, Dutch air force and SatRevolution, a Polish company developing a constellation of imaging satellites. This will be the first LauncherOne launch since its successful Launch Demo 2 flight in January. Virgin Orbit is naming this mission "Tubular Bells, Part One," after the first track on the first album released by Virgin Records. (5/7)

Isar Wins German Launcher Competition (Source: Space News)
Isar Aerospace won a three-way German competition for small launch vehicle development. Isar Aerospace beat out Rocket Factory Augsburg and HyImpulse Technologies to win an endorsement from the German space agency DLR that clears the way for it to secure 11 million euros ($13 million) from ESA's Boost! program for microlauchers. In return for the funding, Isar Aerospace will be required to launch two 150-kilogram payloads of the German government's choosing over two flights. Isar Aerospace's Spectrum rocket is scheduled to make its first launch in mid-2022. (5/7)

Ingenuity Mars Flights Enter Next Phase (Source: NASA)
NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter will make its next flight today. Ingenuity will fly at 3:26 p.m. Eastern, with data from the 110-second flight returned four hours later. The helicopter will fly 129 meters downrange at an altitude of five meters, then climb to 10 meters to take images before landing at a new landing zone, completing its first one-way trip. The flight is the first of a new phase of the project announced last week to demonstrate its ability to work alongside the Perseverance rover. (5/7)

UBS Warns Virgin Galactic Faling Behind Blue Origin in Space Tourism Race (Source: CNBC)
Financial firm UBS warns that Virgin Galactic is falling behind Blue Origin in the suborbital space tourism market. UBS said Thursday that Virgin Galactic may lose its first-mover advantage now that Blue Origin is auctioning off a seat on a New Shepard flight in July. Shares in Virgin Galactic fell nearly 4% Thursday. The company will release its first quarter earnings next week, which may provide it the opportunity to update its SpaceShipTwo test flight plans. (5/7)

Sierra Nevada to Advertise Space Unit During Musk SNL Promos (Source: Space News)
Sierra Nevada Corp. is taking a novel approach to advertising its space spinoff: ads linked to Elon Musk's appearance on "Saturday Night Live." The company has purchased "pre-roll" ads that will appear before clips of this weekend's show, with Musk as guest host, on YouTube. The ads for Sierra Space highlight its work on the Dream Chaser vehicle and proposals for commercial space stations. Sierra Space will complete its spinoff from Sierra Nevada Corp. in June. (5/7)

NASA Suborbital Launch Tests Energy Transfer in Space Plasmas (Source: NASA)
NASA is launching a sounding rocket launch from Virginia. The Black Brant 12 rocket will launch from Wallops Flight Facility at 8:02 p.m. Eastern and release barium vapor in the upper atmosphere to study energy transfer in space plasmas. The launch may be visible from much of the eastern United States. (5/7)

Family Sues SpaceX After Crash Kills Man Near South Texas Launch Site (Source: KRGV)
While SpaceX has its share of supporters, it also has critics; one of them is suing the company over safety concerns on the road, not in the air. Six months before the first Starship launch, a tragic accident left one man dead. Carlos Venegas and his family left Boca Chica Beach one early June morning after rising water tides cut their camping trip short. What should have been a simple drive home ended with the family smashing into the back of a delivery truck in front of the SpaceX build site.

Now, Venegas’ wife is suing the space exploration company for $20M. According to federal court filings, attorneys for the Venegas family claim SpaceX failed to maintain safe access points to its facility, specifically failing to install lights on the dark highway by the build and launch facilities to and from the beach. In the filings, the SpaceX legal team denied responsibility for the accident, saying the company can show that any damages from the accident were caused by the negligence of Venegas, stating that he failed to use ordinary care and caution. (5/5)

Australia’s Space Race Held Back Due to Under-Skilled Graduates (Source: Brisbane Times)
Australia’s multibillion-dollar space race was being held back, the Queensland government argued, because young people were not aware of careers in the industry and were not getting the training they needed. The claims were made by Queensland’s State Development Department as part of a federal inquiry into developing Australia’s space industry. In a submission, the department said a “beyond STEM” program was needed because careers in the space sector were sometimes less visible and not understood, and not considered for course creation by universities.

“The space industry often describes these skill shortages as being in between the graduate and highly experienced level (mid-career),” it said. “Key capabilities in demand are in engineering, design, manufacturing, technical trades, program management, logistics, and support services such as information and communication technologies.” The department said graduates working at space companies sometimes required “significant upskilling” as they had academic prowess but limited practical on-the-job experience. (5/6)

Micrometeorites: Constant Barrage (Source: Cosmos)
Ann Hodges was chilling on her couch in Alabama, US, one afternoon in 1954 when a meteorite burst through the roof and slammed into her side, leaving an enormous bruise. It’s exceedingly rare to be hit by a big space rock – the one that hit Hodges weighed about four kilograms. But scientists have found the Earth is under constant bombardment by thousands of tonnes of micrometeorites. The “cosmic dust”, though, is so fine someone might never realise it had rained down upon them.

A new study, “The micrometeorite flux at Dome C (Antarctica), monitoring the accretion of extraterrestrial dust on Earth”, has been published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters. Researchers have melted snow from Antarctica (where it’s exceedingly pure) and studied the hundreds of micrometeorites found in various layers, dating back to the 1990s. They concluded about 5200 tonnes of space dust hit the Earth every year, from comets and asteroids. (5/6)

How the Space Fantasy Became Banal (Source: The Atlantic)
The show For All Mankind—the title is deeply ironized—has little optimism. Yes, the show is awed, sometimes, by space. (Its title sequence features shimmering images across a sprawling darkness, set against an orchestral score.) Mostly, though, the series is curt about what might happen when human brains, with their capacity for selfishness, for suspicion, for war, navigate new worlds. Again and again in this show, people and nations try to work together; again and again, they fail. And the failures escalate, and compound.

Both more tragic and more hopeful than For All Mankind is the Netflix movie Stowaway. A retelling, of sorts, of Tom Godwin’s 1954 short story “The Cold Equations,” the film follows a crewed mission to Mars that is wrestling with an unforeseen complication. A ground engineer, Michael (Shamier Anderson), injured during liftoff, ends up as a passenger on the spaceship. The accident that led to Michael’s unplanned joining of the three-member crew also damaged a device that clears carbon dioxide from the air. This leads the astronauts to a horrifying realization: The ship cannot support all four people. Unless one of them dies, all of them will. (5/5)

Japanese Startup to Carry UAE Lunar Rover to the Moon in 2022 (Source: Japan Times)
Japanese startup ispace Inc. will deliver a lunar rover under development by the United Arab Emirates to the Moon next year in what will be the Arab world’s first lunar mission. Under the contract recently announced by the Tokyo-based space company and the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre, Dubai’s governmental space agency, ispace will also provide communications and power during the journey to the moon and on its surface.

The UAE’s rover will be loaded onto a lunar lander that ispace plans to launch from Florida in the United States using a rocket made by SpaceX. The Rashid rover, weighing 10 kilograms and measuring about 50 centimeters in length and width and 70 cm in height, will be transported in ispace’s lander currently under development. The project will mark ispace’s first space mission since its establishment in 2010. (5/6)