February 4, 2021

FTC Wants Early May Merger Trial, Lockheed Wants Later (Source: Law360)
The Federal Trade Commission and Lockheed Martin Corp. told a D.C. federal judge Tuesday that there's still daylight between them on when to schedule a multiday preliminary injunction hearing in the agency challenge to the defense giant's $4.4 billion proposed Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc. purchase, although an agreement appeared possible. (2/2)

Defense Industry's Health Given Failing Grade Amid COVID-19 (Source: Law360)
A defense contracting industry group gave the health of the defense industrial base a failing grade in a report Wednesday, pointing to issues such as a large drop in productive capacity as the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The National Defense Industrial Association scored the perceived health of the defense industrial base at 69 out of 100. (2/2)

Puffy Planets Lose Atmospheres, Become Super Earths (Source: NASA)
Exoplanets come in shapes and sizes that are not found in our solar system. These include small gaseous planets called mini-Neptunes and rocky planets several times Earth's mass called super-Earths. Now, astronomers have identified two different cases of "mini-Neptune" planets that are losing their puffy atmospheres and likely transforming into super-Earths. Radiation from the planets' stars is stripping away their atmospheres, driving the hot gas to escape like steam from a pot of boiling water.

The new findings help paint a picture of how exotic worlds like these form and evolve, and help explain a curious gap in the size distribution of planets found around other stars. Mini-Neptunes are smaller, denser versions of the planet Neptune in our solar system, and are thought to consist of large rocky cores surrounded by thick blankets of gas. In the new studies, a team of astronomers looked at two mini-Neptunes orbiting HD 63433, a star located 73 light-years away. And they studied one of two mini-Neptune planets in the star system called TOI 560, located 103 light-years away.

Their results show that atmospheric gas is escaping from the innermost mini-Neptune in TOI 560, called TOI 560.01 (also known as HD 73583b), and from the outermost mini-Neptune in HD 63433, called HD 63433c. This suggests that they could be turning into super-Earths. (2/3)

The Falcon 9 May Now Be the Safest Rocket Ever Launched (Source: Ars Technica)
Since the year 2020, the Falcon 9 has been the most experienced, active rocket in the United States, when it surpassed the Atlas V rocket in total launches. Globally, the still-flying Russian Soyuz and Proton rockets have more experience than the Falcon 9 fleet. The Soyuz, of course, remains the king of all rockets. It has more than 1,900 launches across about a dozen variants of the booster dating back to 1957, with more than 100 failures.

The Falcon 9 reached a notable US milestone in January, equaling and then exceeding the tally of space shuttle launches. During its more than three decades in service, NASA's space shuttle launched 135 times, with 133 successes. To put the Falcon 9's flight rate into perspective, it surpassed the larger shuttle in flights in about one-third of the time. (2/3)

Space & Sustainability: Monitoring Changes on Earth from Space (Source: First Mode)
Of the four main ways that space and sustainability intersect, perhaps the most literal is that space is a location from which to observe the Earth. Space is a powerful vantage point for monitoring the interplay between human activity and environmental health: On-the-ground sensor networks can be difficult to deploy and maintain, and spacecraft can target a variety of temporal and spatial scales. The breadth of satellite capability is illustrated by those that monitor changes in weather, climate, and Earth’s surface.

Their data allows people to make a wide range of decisions on how humans interact with nature, ideally with the goal of sustainability in mind. The common thread through each of these examples—monitoring of Earth’s weather, climate, and surface—is that data collected from space allows people on Earth to make well-informed decisions regarding sustainability. The Biden Administration recognizes this, with 2022 U.S. budget increases for federal agencies that fund climate research such as NASA, NOAA, and the USGS. By deepening our understanding of humanity’s impacts to Earth, policymakers have the proper context in which to change laws and fund solutions, such as in clean technologies that decrease emissions. (2/3)

2022 Off to Strong Start for Space Coast (Source: Florida Today)
The space industry showing a strong start to 2022 from new startup companies with small rockets to the large Artemis rocket that will once again put humans on the moon. This weekend Astra is scheduled to have its first launch from Cape Canaveral. It's a smaller rocket that will be cheaper to launch and can turn around quickly.

Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica. “The fact that Florida is seeing all this commercial activity. Obviously, SpaceX has been launching there for years. But you have the development of launch sites for Blue Origin for Relativity Space and for Astra,” Berger said. The Falcon 9 now has more consecutive successful missions, 111, than any other orbital rocket ever before," Berger said. (2/3)

Do We Create Space-Time? A New Perspective on the Fabric of Reality (Source: New Scientist)
For the first time, it is possible to see the quantum world from multiple points of view at once. This hints at something very strange – that reality only takes shape when we interact with each other.

When quantum theory arrived a few years later, things got even weirder. It seemed to show that by measuring things, we play a part in determining their properties. But in the quantum world, unlike with relativity, there has never been a way to reconcile different perspectives and glimpse the objective reality beneath. A century later, many physicists question whether a single objective reality, shared by all observers, exists at all.

Now, two emerging sets of ideas are changing this story. For the first time, we can jump from one quantum perspective to another. This is already helping us solve tricky practical problems with high-speed communications. It also sheds light on whether any shared reality exists at the quantum level. Intriguingly, the answer seems to be no – until we start talking to each other. Click here. (2/3)

Earth Blox Unveils No-Code Solution to Access Satellite Data (Source: AstroAgency)
In partnership with Google, Earth Blox demonstrated its ability to provide near-instantaneous cloud powered access and analysis of satellite imagery in a no-code user interface (UI), opening access to Earth observation (EO) data to non-experts of every sector like never before. Earth Blox seeks to make “EO data accessible to all those that work, live and breathe sustainability”, said CEO Genevieve Patenaude.

This ambition is in good shape as the company secured a partnership with Planet in early 2022, adding high-quality, daily refresh to its available data sets. Earth Blox has shattered multiple barriers to entry for new users by removing the need for expensive software, lengthy training, as well as the download and processing times for the petabytes of data involved in EO. Building on the ubiquity of global cloud services, Earth Blox makes EO data accessible from the web browser of any tablet or laptop.

The web-based software is designed to help customers make better, faster decisions in critical situations with bespoke analysis and action-oriented information visualisation. Earth Blox’s simple yet powerful toolkit empowers users with no coding experience to meet their informational needs, using a drag-and-drop system of re-arrangeable, pre-programmed commands, represented as blocks, to design workflows with specific data sets, analyses and output visualisation parameters. This unique blend of customizability and ease of use is unprecedented in the downstream EO market thanks to Earth Blox’s elegant solution. (2/3)

SpaceX Launches Next Batch of Skylink Satellites From Florida, Recovers Booster Off Bahamas (Sources: Spaceflight Insider, SPACErePORT)
SpaceX launched its third Falcon 9 rocket this week, this time to send dozens more Starlink satellites into orbit for the company’s internet constellation. Using a southerly trajectory, this flight sent 49 Starlink spacecraft into orbit. Overall, this was the 35th operational Starlink mission for SpaceX, increasing the number of orbiting satellites for the company’s internet constellation to 2091, of which some 1923 remain in orbit after today’s launch. The first stage performed its sixth flight after a 54-day turnaround, and landed on SpaceX’s drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas” located approximately 400 miles downrange east of the Bahamas.

Additionally, the two fairing halves that encapsulated the 49 Starlink satellites are expected to be recovered by SpaceX’s support ship Doug. This was the third of three SpaceX launches within about 67 hours between the company’s three launch pads — two in Florida and one in California. The typical trajectories for Starlink launches from Florida follow a northeasterly path, but this one flew to the southeast with upper-stage overflight of the Dominican Republic. (2/3)