March 2, 2022

Russia Requests UK Divestment in OneWeb, and No Military Use - Soyuz Launch Now Seems Unlikely (Source: BBC)
This week's Soyuz launch of OneWeb satellites is in doubt after Russia made new demands on the company. Just after the Soyuz rocket carrying 36 satellites rolled out to the pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin said the launch would proceed only if the company guaranteed its satellites would not be used for military purposes and that the British government divest its stake in the company, demands the company is unlikely to accept. The company and the British government were already feeling pressure from members of parliament to call off the launch in order not to support Russian ventures. (3/2)

ULA Atlas 5 Launches GOES-T Weather Satellite From Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: Space News)
An Atlas 5 successfully launched a weather satellite Tuesday. The Atlas 5 lifted off on schedule from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 4:38 p.m. Eastern and, after three burns of its Centaur upper stage, deployed the GOES-T satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit three and a half hours later. GOES-T, which will be renamed GOES-18 once it reaches geostationary orbit, will replace GOES-17 at the GOES-West orbital slot early next year once it completes several months of on-orbit checkouts. (3/2)

Artemis Plan, Schedule, and Budget Questioned. $4.1B Cost Per Mission (Source: Space News)
Members of Congress pressed NASA for more details about the schedule, budget and overall plan for Artemis. During a hearing Tuesday, members warned of challenges facing Artemis such as delays, cost increases and concerns about its management structure. A NASA Office of Inspector General report last November that estimated the production cost of a single Artemis mission at $4.1 billion. Witnesses doubted NASA's current schedule of an Artemis 3 lunar landing mission in 2025. NASA said it's created a new "Artemis campaign development division" to provide centralized oversight of Artemis missions and will provide a more detailed Artemis plan by the end of the year. (3/2)

Finally, We Know Production Costs for SLS and Orion, and They’re Wild (Source: Ars Technica)
NASA Inspector General Paul Martin serves as an independent watchdog for the space agency's myriad activities. For nearly the entirety of his time as inspector general, since his appointment in 2009, Martin has tracked NASA's development of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. Although his office has issued a dozen reports or so on various aspects of these programs, he has never succinctly stated his thoughts about the programs—until Tuesday.

Martin revealed the operational costs of the big rocket and spacecraft for the first time. Moreover, he took aim at NASA and particularly its large aerospace contractors for their "very poor" performance in developing these vehicles. Martin said that the operational costs alone for a single Artemis launch—for just the rocket, Orion spacecraft, and ground systems—will total $4.1 billion. This is, he said, "a price tag that strikes us as unsustainable." With this comment, Martin essentially threw down his gauntlet and said NASA cannot have a meaningful exploration program based around SLS and Orion at this cost.

Martin broke down the costs per flight, which will apply to at least the first four launches: $2.2 billion to build a single SLS rocket, $568 million for ground systems, $1 billion for an Orion spacecraft, and $300 million to ESA for Orion's Service Module. What is striking about these costs is that they do not include the tens of billions of dollars that NASA has already spent developing the Orion spacecraft since 2005 and the SLS rocket since 2011. If one were to amortize development costs over 10 flights of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, the $4.1 billion figure would easily double. (3/1)

NASA OIG Statement on Artemis Schedule Risks (Source: NASA OIG)
“Apart from its cost, NASA’s initial three Artemis missions face varying degrees of technical risks that will push launch schedules from months to years past the Agency’s current goals.” – NASA Inspector General Paul Martin during his testimony to Congress. (3/1)

Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman Select Payload Providers for Space Force Missile-Warning Satellites (Source: Space News)
The companies have selected partners to provide the payloads for missile warning satellites they are producing. Lockheed picked Raytheon to provide a second payload for the Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next Gen OPIR) geosynchronous satellites. The company in 2020 selected Raytheon and a Northrop Grumman/Ball Aerospace team to design competing sensor payloads for Next Gen OPIR satellites, with each providing one payload; Raytheon will build a second to complete the three-satellite system. Northrop Grumman also announced that both Next Gen OPIR polar satellites will carry payloads made by the Northrop-Ball Aerospace team. (3/2)

General Atomics and Orion Space Solutions Win Space Force Contracts for Weather Satellites (Source: Space News)
General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems and Orion Space Solutions each won contracts to develop demonstration weather satellites for the Space Force. Orion Space, previously known as Atmospheric & Space Technology Research Associates, will launch a cubesat in late 2022 for a one-year demonstration. General Atomics will develop a 400-kilogram satellite projected to launch in 2024 or 2025 for a three-year demonstration. Both demonstration satellites will be launched into a low polar orbit to collect weather imaging and cloud characterization data. (3/2)

Lockheed Martin Considers UK Satellite Manufacturing (Source: Space News)
Lockheed Martin is considering establishing a satellite manufacturing factory in the U.K. The plans, announced Tuesday, are still in the "fact-finding and feasibility" stage, the company said, but could include building entire satellites, their parts or ground networks for government and commercial customers. Lockheed Martin outlined intentions to create up to 2,300 jobs at a new facility in the northeast of England it said would represent an investment of more than £50 million ($67 million). (3/2)

Russia Looks to China for Space Support (Source: Space News)
Russia hopes China will assist its space program as it faces growing isolation. Russian space agency head Dmitry Rogozin told Russian media that sanctions imposed by Western countries would hit supplies of microelectronics necessary for spacecraft but that Russia's "excellent relations with China" could solve those problems. Russia previously turned to Chinese state-owned aerospace companies for alternatives following sanctions imposed in 2014 in response to the Russian annexation of Crimea. However, China does not seem to be helping Russia avoid sanctions from the Ukraine invasion, and those sanctions could imperil Russia's role in the Chinese-Russia joint International Lunar Research Station. (3/2)

Russia Seeks Compensation From European Partners for Sanction-Driven Satellite Instrument Shut-Off (Source: TASS)
Roscosmos said it will seek compensation from European partners who turned off an instrument on a Russian spacecraft after the invasion. Germany placed an instrument on the Spektr-RG high-energy astrophysics satellite into safe mode to comply with European sanctions on Russia after the invasion. Roscosmos said that "the damage will be estimated and a bill presented to the European side." (3/2)

Boeing Using 3D Printing for WGS Satellite (Source: Space News)
Boeing is making greater use of 3D printing on the next WGS military communications satellite. More than a thousand parts of the WGS-11+ satellite are being built with additive manufacturing, which the company says helps it cut the production schedule for the spacecraft from the traditional 7 to 10 years to 5 years. The parts that are being 3D-printed for WGS include structures and mechanisms, thermal control subsystems, dynamic isolation systems and passive microwave devices. (3/2)

Romania Joins Artemis Accords (Source: Space News)
Romania is the latest country to sign the Artemis Accords. The country's space agency signed the NASA-led Accords on safe and sustainable lunar exploration Tuesday, saying it was attracted by the "spirit of collaboration" and helping younger generations get interested in science and exploration. Romania is the 16th country to sign the accords since they were rolled out in 2020. (3/2)

Astronomers Mistaken About Black Hole (Source: The Guardian)
Oops: an object astronomers thought was the closest black hole to the Earth isn't a black hole after all. Astronomers announced in 2020 that the HR 6819 star system, 1,000 light-years away, contains a black hole, the closest yet found to Earth. The existence of the black hole was inferred by the orbits of the two stars seen. However, new observations indicate that there is no black hole, and the star system is an example of a "vampire star" where one star stripped material from the other. The new result, one researcher said, is "even more exciting than the black hole" since it reveals the inner structure of the stripped star. (3/2)

Rogozin Shifting Roscosmos Priorities, Aims at Independence and More Military Dual-Purpose Work (Source: Roscosmos)
Dmitry Rogozin tweeted this: "In the context of the announced sanctions, Roscosmos will reconsider its priorities and focus on achieving full import independence in matters of space instrumentation. The main design, technological and financial resources released from joint ventures with the US and the EU international research projects, will now be directed to the creation of space systems exclusively for defense and dual purposes." (3/2)

Steve Wozniak's New Venture Takes Aim at Space Junk (Source: CNN)
Steve Wozniak has a new — and potentially lucrative — passion: Space junk. But the money, according to Wozniak's co-founder in this new venture, couldn't be further from the point. "I don't think Steve gives a damn about making another 10 cents, and I really couldn't care less," Alex Fielding, a longtime business acquaintance of Wozniak's who will serve as CEO of the new venture, called Privateer, told CNN Business. Privateer's mission is to develop better tracking of objects in space, and to use this data to help avert disastrous collisions. Click here. (3/1)

NASA Funds Development of Small Robots to Explore Martian Caves (Source: Parabolic Arc)
NASA is funding research into small, agile systems known as ReachBots designed to explore the caves beneath the surface of Mars. ReachBot is a mobility and mobile manipulation platform that leverages lightweight extendable booms to achieve large reach with a small footprint, giving it unique access to steep, vertical, and overhanging surfaces in Martian caves. The space agency awarded a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) grant to Marco Pavone of Stanford University to continue development of ReachBot. The phase II grant is worth $600,000 for a two-year study; he earlier received a phase I grant worth $175,000. (3/2)

LEGO Rolls Out Artemis Toy Sets Ahead of New NASA Moon Missions (Source: CollectSpace)
LEGO rolled out its version of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) on Tuesday (March 1), two weeks before the space agency was scheduled to do the same with the real moon-bound rocket. The toy company released the SLS and three other sets inspired by NASA's Artemis program as part of an expansion to its long-running City line. The new kits are based on the major components of NASA's return to the moon, from the SLS ("Rocket Launch Center") to the Gateway ("Lunar Space Station"), moon base ("Lunar Research Base") and habitable mobility platform ("Lunar Roving Vehicle"). (3/2)

China's Golden Bauhinia Constellation Moving Forward (Source: Space Daily)
HKATG has successfully launched five satellites for its "Golden Bauhinia Constellation" in 2021. In January 2022, HKST announced that 25 satellites are planned to be launched in 2022 for the constellation, and the further launch of satellites this year. The whole project plans to launch 112 satellites. The satellites will provide users with overall solutions for smart cities, helping cities to refine city management, promote infrastructure development, innovation, and technology industries, agricultural monitoring, disaster prevention, and mitigation, as well as comprehensive urban management and watershed control. (3/2)

China Establishes Deep Space Exploration Laboratory (Source: Space Daily)
China's deep space exploration laboratory has been officially inaugurated, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA). Co-established by the CNSA, Anhui Province and the University of Science and Technology of China, the laboratory is headquartered in Hefei. It will carry out science and technology research focusing on major national projects in the field of deep space exploration, and it will promote the transformation of research achievements, according to the CNSA.

The CNSA will support the lab to join the construction of major engineering projects, including the fourth phase of the lunar exploration program, the planetary exploration program, the international lunar scientific research station and the asteroid defense system, according to CNSA head Zhang Kejian. It will also support the lab to develop large-scale basic scientific research facilities in the field of deep space exploration, and foster international scientific programs and international cooperation projects such as the lunar research station, Zhang said. (3/1)

New Astrobiology Research Predicts Life 'as We Don't Know It' (Source: Space Daily)
The search for alien life has been restricted to using life on Earth as the reference, essentially looking for "life as we know it" beyond Earth. For astrobiologists looking for life on other planets, there are simply no tools for predicting the features of "life as we don't know it." In new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a team of scientists has tackled this restriction by identifying universal patterns in the chemistry of life that do not appear to depend on specific molecules.

These findings provide a new opportunity for predicting features of alien life with different biochemistry to Earth life. "We want to have new tools for identifying and even predicting features of life as we don't know it," says co-author Sara Imari Walker of Arizona State University. "To do so, we are aiming to identify the universal laws that should apply to any biochemical system. This includes developing quantitative theory for the origins of life, and using theory and statistics to guide our search for life on other planets." (3/2)

Budget Roadblock Delaying Pentagon Satellite Program to Track Hypersonic Missiles (Source: Breaking Defense)
The Space Development Agency’s plans to develop a first set of operational missile warning/tracking satellites to keep tabs on both ballistic and hypersonic missiles remain in limbo due to the continued fiscal 2022 spending stalemate on Capitol Hill. If the DoD 2022 budget isn’t passed within the next few weeks, he told the Defense Writers Group Monday, the agency may need to postpone the bid process for what it calls the “Tracking Layer Tranche 1” effort. That constellation would comprise some 28 satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) optimized for use by Indo-Pacific Command to monitor Chinese and North Korean missile launches. (3/1)