August 10, 2021

Hacking Space on the Horizon for 2023 (Source: README)
U.S. Space Force is working on a plan for security researchers to attempt to pwn a live satellite orbiting earth in Hack-A-Sat 4. At this year’s DEF CON, hundreds of hackers were given access to a satellite, able to manipulate its systems in a way that could render it useless or potentially cause it crash land on the earth. But thankfully they weren’t tinkering with the real thing. Instead, they were controlling a “flat sat” — the hardware components of an actual satellite stacked on an adjacent workbench.

But just letting hackers at components on the ground isn’t good enough for the U.S. Space Force. It wants to test the defenses of satellites while they are orbiting earth — although with some key safeguards in place (more about that below). The newest U.S. military service is working on staging a “capture the flag” type contest where teams will be invited to try and break into a satellite while it is actually orbiting thousands of miles above the earth’s surface, Space Force officials told README.

If all goes as planned, the live satellite hacking contest will be the fourth iteration of the so-called “Hack-A-Sat” competition, which is designed to test — and ultimately improve — space cyber defenses. The first contest took place during the virtual DEF CON Safe Mode last year. The next one is scheduled to happen Dec. 11–12, 2021, and eight teams from Poland, Germany and Romania — as well all across the United States — will race to compromise adversary satellite systems while protecting their own. (8/8)

Simplified Services Key to Continued Space Industry Growth (Source: Space News)
The space industry needs to significantly simplify the services it offers customers to enter its next growth phase, according to executives. In a discussion at the Small Satellite Conference Monday, companies said "space-as-a-service" business models have vastly expanded the market, offering more customers the benefits of space infrastructure without having to operate their own satellites. Many of those customers are still technically sophisticated, though, so space-as-a-service companies need to simplify their services to attract customers with less expertise about space, in much the same way cloud computing companies have done. (8/10)

M-Code Helps Keep GPS Less Vulnerable (Source: Space News)
The U.S. military remains committed to the Global Positioning System despite its documented vulnerabilities. U.S. Space Force Gen. John Raymond and other officials say they're aware of threats such as jamming and spoofing of GPS signals, but outside experts argue the military has not done enough to invest in alternative positioning, navigation and timing systems. The Defense Department is counting on improvements to GPS like M-code, a more powerful signal that is resistant to jamming, but most U.S. military forces still can't take advantage of it because they lack compatible receivers. (8/10)

Thailand Gets National Space Law (Source: Space News)
Thailand is enacting a national space law. The Thai Cabinet approved a draft version of the Space Activities Act last month. The bill would establish a new state body committed to drawing space policies and lay the groundwork for promoting the country’s space-related economy and technologies. (8/10)

Taiwan Gets New Space Chief (Source: Space News)
Taiwan's space agency has a new leader. Wu Jong-shinn took over as director-general of Taiwan’s national space agency, the National Space Organization, last week. He is an engineer who earned a doctorate from the University of Michigan and previously was a distinguished professor of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. Wu said a priority is to build a "more comprehensive infrastructure for space technology" in Taiwan and develop its space industry. (8/10)

India's Tata Group Plans Satellite Broadband with Telesat (Source: SiliconIndia)
Indian conglomerate Tata Group plans to partner with Telesat to offer broadband services in India. Nelco, a company within Tata Group, is in discussions with Telesat to provide services using Telesat's Lightspeed constellation under development. Tata will be competing with another Indian company, Bharti, which owns a major stake in OneWeb. (8/10)

Advanced Space Passes Preparatory Test for Pathfinder Mission to the Moon (Source: Space Daily)
Advanced Space LLC., a leading commercial space solutions company, is overseeing the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, or CAPSTONE, a NASA-supported mission to orbit the Moon. CAPSTONE is a small satellite, or CubeSat, that will be the first spacecraft to test a unique, elliptical lunar orbit that will support NASA's Moon missions under Artemis.

Advanced Space is preparing for CAPSTONE's launch by performing several Operations Readiness Tests (ORTs) that function as real-time mission simulations. The second ORT was successfully completed last week and demonstrated the unique capabilities of Advance Space to operate the mission as it targets its Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO), an important and innovative lunar orbit planned for NASA's Gateway lunar orbiting outpost. (8/10)

Skykraft to Begin Launch of Space-Based Air Traffic Management Constellation (Source: Space Daily)
Skykraft will launch a 300kg satellite on SpaceX's upcoming Transporter-5 mission according to a recently signed launch contract. The 300kg satellite is a carrier for multiple early-phase Skykraft Air Traffic Management satellites that will form a global constellation of 210 satellites. Skykraft is building a Space-based Air Traffic Management constellation to improve the safety and efficiency of global air travel.

Skykraft is also offering the opportunity for small hosted payloads to ride along on this and following launches to help advance for scientific, technology development and education endeavours. (8/10)

Victory! Guinea Pig Spared Space Flight After PETA Steps In (Source: PETA)
Great news! After receiving a letter from PETA and PETA Switzerland urging him to prohibit the use of animals in his experiments, Jean-Patrice Keka—the founder of the Congolese company Développement Tous Azimuts (DTA) and dubbed the “African Einstein” by the media—said that he won’t send the guinea pig Galaxionaut into space as previously planned but instead will immediately free him.

Keka added that the capsule for the Troposphere 6 rocket in DTA’s upcoming launch “will be fitted with various sensors which is an alternative method, to achieve the same result without the use of animals.” He also announced “a total ban on the use of animals in DTA’s space experiments.” In recognition of his compassionate and progressive decision, we’re honoring him with a PETA Lifesaver Award. (8/10)

How Starlink’s Satellite Internet Stacks Up Against HughesNet and Viasat Around the Globe (Source: Speedtest)
Given that satellite internet is often the only solution for folks with little to no fixed broadband access, the Speedtest® results we saw coming from HughesNet, Starlink and Viasat during Q2 2021 were encouraging. However, Starlink was the only satellite internet provider in the United States with fixed-broadband-like latency figures, and median download speeds fast enough to handle most of the needs of modern online life at 97.23 Mbps during Q2 2021 (up from 65.72 Mbps in Q1 2021).

HughesNet was a distant second at 19.73 Mbps (15.07 Mbps in Q1 2021) and Viasat third at 18.13 Mbps (17.67 Mbps in Q1 2021). None of these are as fast as the 115.22 Mbps median download speed for all fixed broadband providers in the U.S. during Q2 2021, but it beats digging twenty miles (or more) of trench to hook up to local infrastructure. (8/4)

Space Force Awards Launch Contract On Ramp to ABL Space Systems, Astra Space, and Relativity Space (Source: USSF)
The U.S. Space Force’s Rocket Systems Launch Program Office has awarded the first on ramp of the Orbital Services Program (OSP)-4 Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to ABL Space Systems Corp, Astra Space, Inc., and Relativity Space, Inc.

OSP-4 allows for the rapid acquisition of launch services to meet mission requirements for payloads greater than 400 pounds, enabling launch to any orbit within 12-24 months from task order award.  The RSLP will compete each mission among the IDIQ awardees. The addition of these emerging providers’ preserves, stimulates, and enhances the small launch industrial base and yields the Space Force a diverse vendor pool in support of the nation’s defense.

“We use this IDIQ contract to continue to introduce speed, agility, and flexibility into the launch enterprise and continue to cultivate a resilient and affordable launch market.” The SMC Launch Enterprise initially awarded the OSP-4 contract in 2019 to Aevum, Firefly Black, Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems, Rocket Lab USA, SpaceX, ULA, VOX Space, and X-Bow Launch Systems. This on-ramp will add additional emerging launch providers to the group eligible to compete for future USSF OSP-4 Task Order awards. (8/9)

Space Force Developing “Freight Train to Space” for Smallsats (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Space Force plans to demonstrate later this year two approaches to provide rides to space for small satellites and hosted payloads, including a version of a common adapter equipped with a propulsion system. The Space Test Program 3 mission, scheduled to launch later this year on an Atlas 5, will carry the first Long Duration Propulsive ESPA (LDPE) payload. LDPE uses the EELV Secondary Payload Adapter (ESPA), a ring-shaped adapter for secondary smallsat payloads, as a bus equipped with power and propulsion systems to maneuver after launch and carry payloads to their final orbits.

The Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) sees LDPE as a pathfinder for a series of future missions to enable frequent launches of smallsats and hosted payloads. “We call the LDPE our ‘freight train to space,’” said Col. Heather Bogstie, senior materiel leader of the rapid development division at SMC, in a video presentation at the Small Satellite Conference. “The general concept is we hope to launch these once a year, funding permitting, and get capabilities on orbit in a rapid fashion.”

LDPE uses Northrop Grumman’s ESPAStar bus, which is optimized for use in geostationary orbits but can also be used for low and medium Earth orbit. It can accommodate 1,920 kilograms of payload in its six docking ports for smallsats or hosted payloads, and its propulsion system provides more than 400 meters per second of delta-V. (8/9)

Space ISAC Invites Firms to Join Small Satellite Community of Interest (Source: Space News)
 The Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center, or Space ISAC, is eager to share information about cyber threats and other potential security vulnerabilities with the small satellite industry. In April, the Space ISAC established a Small Satellite Community of Interest “to develop and deliver risk-mitigation strategies to members and government partners to better protect this sector of the larger space industry,” Erin Miller, Space ISAC executive director, said.

The small satellite community of interest will “work as a virtual forum of Space ISAC staff and commercial and government experts, collaborating to identify, analyze and develop mitigation strategies for the small satellite industry,” Miller added. (8/9)

In-Space Missions Wins Contract for British Military Smallsat (Source: Space News)
British smallsat developer In-Space Missions has won a contract from the U.K. Ministry of Defense to build a satellite to test optical communications. The Ministry of Defense and the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) announced Aug. 9 that it awarded In-Space Missions a contract valued at $13.2 million for the Titania Operational Concept Demonstrator. The small satellite will test space-to-ground laser communications, which offers the potential for transferring data at rates of several gigabits per second. (8/9)

NASA’s New Telescope Will Show Us the Infancy of the Universe (Source: New Yorker)
The JWST telescope will have been twenty-five years and ten billion dollars in the making. Thousands of scientists and engineers from fourteen countries will have worked on it. After launch, the telescope will slowly unfurl five silvery winglike layered sheets of Kapton foil, about as large as a tennis court. These sheets, each thinner than notebook paper, will function as a gigantic parasol, protecting the body of the telescope from the light and the heat of the sun, moon, and Earth.

In this way, the JWST will be kept nearly as dark and as cold as outer space, to insure that distant signals aren’t washed out. Then eighteen hexagons of gold-coated beryllium mirror will open out, like an enormous, night-blooming flower. The mirrors will form a reflecting surface as tall and as wide as a house, and they will capture light that has been travelling for more than thirteen billion years.

“It will have many capacities, but the two big ones are ‘Very Far Away’ and ‘Very Close,’ ” Helfand said. The Very Far Away component will look back about 13.5 billion years, to when the universe was some quarter of a billion years old. “If you compare the universe’s life to that of a human, that’s like seeing the universe at, well, we’d have to calculate it, but it’s seeing the universe as a baby,” he said. After the big bang, the universe was a nearly uniform soup of matter and radiation. “The Very Close capacity is in some ways the most exciting,” Helfand said. “It’s about looking at planets that are not too different from Earth.” (8/9)