October 18, 2021

Making a Movie Is Hard. Making One in Space Is Insane (Source: Daily Beast)
On Oct. 5, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft flew into space with three people on board and docked with the International Space Station a few hours later. The crew’s mission: principal photography on the first fictional feature film shot in space. That’s right—the point of this trip was not to enable new scientific research or a cutting edge demo of new technologies, as astronauts normally do in space. Along with cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, the Russian crew included movie director Klim Shipenko and actress Yulia Peresild.

The latter two will spend a total of 12 days aboard ISS gathering footage for The Challenge, a movie about a surgeon sent to the space station to treat a cosmonaut in orbit. It’s the first time in history scenes are being shot for a feature film in space. And it certainly won’t be the last time. The entertainment industry has finally made it to space, and it plans to stay—despite all the challenges to space travel. In May of last year news broke that Tom Cruise was in talks with NASA and SpaceX to film a feature aboard ISS.

A new space race had begun—not to land on the Moon, but to bring space to the silver screen. Russia’s space agency rose to the challenge, in an effort to remind the world they are still a powerful force in global space operations. The race for the first feature film shot in space is over before most of us realized it had begun, but it’s only the latest step in a growing relationship between space exploration and entertainment. Low-earth orbit has been the setting for YouTube videos, press briefings, social media posts from orbiting astronauts, IMAX movies—and at least one viral music video. Click here. (10/16)

Chinese Shiyan-10 Satellite Raises its Orbit After Initial Problems (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
After initial reports that the Chinese Shiyan-10 satellite failed after a nominal launch of the rocket, it is now confirmed that the satellite was reactivated and is raising its orbit from the initial deployment height. China launched the Shiyan-10 satellite on a Long March 3B/E rocket on Sep. 27, lifting off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. The name and purpose of the payload were not confirmed before the launch, however, an object was cataloged in orbit a few hours after the launch, confirming it reached orbit. (10/17)

An Exploration of Earth’s Defences Will Launch Next Month (Source: Economist)
The departure of Lucy, on October 16th, if all goes well, is not the only forthcoming mission with asteroids as its destination. On November 24th dart should follow. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test, though, has a more practical purpose than Lucy. It will assess the feasibility of changing an asteroid’s path, should one be discovered that threatens to collide with Earth.

Dart, a probe weighing 600kg, is intended to crash, in September 2022, into Dimorphos, a tiny asteroid in orbit around a larger one, Didymos, at a velocity of 6.2km per second. The intention is to alter the speed of Dimorphos’s orbit by about half a millimeter a second, thus shortening its orbital period, now 11.9 hours, by about ten minutes. (10/13)

Solar Panel Issue After Lucy Launch (Source: Space News)
NASA says it's investigating a potential issue with one of the solar arrays on the newly launched Lucy spacecraft. NASA announced Sunday that one of the two circular arrays may not be fully latched after its deployment shortly after launch early Saturday. The two arrays are each 7.3 meters in diameter and combined will generate 500 watts of power when the spacecraft is as far from the sun as Jupiter. The spacecraft is otherwise in good condition. Lucy launched early Saturday on an Atlas 5 on a 12-year mission that will take it out to two swarms of asteroids called the Trojans. Scientists believe those asteroids may be relics from the formation of the solar system. The spacecraft will fly by seven of the asteroids from 2027 to 2033. (10/18)

Soyuz Returns Russian ISS Film Crew to Earth (Source: Space News)
A Soyuz spacecraft returned a cosmonaut and a film crew to Earth early Sunday. The Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft landed in Kazakhstan at 12:35 a.m. Eastern, a little more than three hours after undocking from the International Space Station. On board the Soyuz were Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, who spent more than six months in space, and spaceflight participants Yulia Peresild and Klim Shipenko, who were on the station for 12 days to shoot scenes for a Russian movie. NASA and Roscosmos, meanwhile, are investigating what caused the spacecraft's thrusters to fire longer than expected during a test early Friday, causing the station to briefly lose attitude control. (10/18)

Boeing Delays Starliner Test to August 2022 (Source: Space News)
Boeing officials say a Starliner test flight delayed in August because of stuck propellant valves might slip to the middle of next year. In an interview last week, executives said they're continuing to investigate the root cause of the stuck valves, methodically going through a fault tree of potential causes. A key issue is why the problem was seen on this spacecraft and not on the previous uncrewed test flight as well as ground tests. The OFT-2 uncrewed test flight has not been rescheduled yet, but officials said that "there's a chance we could fly before mid-2022" depending on the outcome of the investigation and the work required to correct the problem, but "that's yet to be determined." (10/18)

NASA Stacking Orion Atop SLS Soon (Source: Space News)
As NASA prepares to install the Orion spacecraft on the first Space Launch System rocket, program leaders are playing down any impacts of vaccine mandates. The Orion spacecraft is scheduled to move to the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center this week and be installed on top of the SLS. NASA has not set a target launch date for the Artemis 1 uncrewed mission, but agency officials said at a conference last week a date will likely come after a wet dress rehearsal of the vehicle on the pad. Those officials said they're not expecting any major impacts of vaccine mandates for federal employees or contractors, as most of the workforce is already vaccinated. (10/18)

PlanetIQ Plans Cubesat Constellation to Monitor SatNav Signal Occultation (Source: Space News)
PlanetIQ is raising money for a constellation of radio occultation cubesats. The company launched its GNOMES-2 satellite in June, and company executives said the weather data it is collecting by monitoring occultations of satellite navigation signals is better than expected. Based on the performance of that satellite, PlanetIQ is raising money to accelerate development of a 20-satellite constellation that it hopes to have in orbit by 2024. (10/18)
 
TrustPoint Raises $2 Million for SatNav System (Source: Space News)
A startup has raised a seed round of funding for a private satellite navigation system. TrustPoint raised $2 million from venture capital firm DCVC to expand its engineering team and continue developing core technologies. The company wants to develop a satellite navigation system that will provide improved accuracy and resilience to jamming than GPS and other existing systems. (10/18)

SpaceX Postpones Vandenberg Starlink Launch (Source: Noozhawk)
SpaceX quietly postponed a Falcon 9 launch of Starlink satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base. While the company had not made a public announcement of its launch plans, it had been gearing up for a launch Sunday morning from Vandenberg. However, by Friday marine warnings of the launch had been cancelled and the droneship to be used for the landing was returning to port. The company did not disclose the reasons for the delay or when the launch may be rescheduled. (10/18)

Japan's Maezawa Training for Soyuz Flight to ISS (Source: Reuters)
A Japanese billionaire is continuing his training for a flight to the ISS in December. Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant, Yozo Hirano, will fly on a dedicated Soyuz mission to the station along with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin for a 12-day stay. At a press conference in Moscow last week, Maezawa said a zero-gravity flight felt "awkward" at first, but that after he got used to it, "it was very pleasant." (10/18)

Monaco Establishes Space Agency (Source: Embassy of Monaco)
Monaco is the latest country to establish a space agency. Prince Albert II formally approved last week the creation of an Office of Space Affairs that will serve as a "one-stop-shop" for the country's nascent space industry. The office will also represent Monaco in international organizations. The office will hold a meeting this month with stakeholders in the industry to develop plans to address their needs. (10/18)

AAC Clyde Space to Supply Core avionics to Arctic Weather Satellite (Source: Space Daily)
AAC Clyde Space, a leading New space company, has been selected by OHB Sweden to deliver core avionics worth approx. 797 kEUR (approx. 8.2 MSEK) to ESA's Arctic Weather Satellite. The order has been preceded by a tightening of the original requirements of the systems. OHB Sweden is the mission prime contractor for the Arctic Weather Satellite, providing the satellite platform and system integration. AAC Clyde Space has been contracted to deliver the Starbuck power system, with mission specific customization. An engineering model is to be delivered in Q1, 2022 and a flight model in Q4, 2022.

UK Research to Boost Astronaut Health for Future Space Missions (Source: Space Daily)
New research backed by the UK Space Agency will look to solve challenges such as muscle loss and isolation stress that astronauts face during long missions. The research, which uses the low gravity (microgravity) environment of the International Space Station and other facilities that provide similar conditions to space, could also potentially benefit people who suffer from conditions such as muscle degeneration or back pain. (10/18)