March 20, 2022

More Starlink Satellites Lofted by SpaceX During Late Night Florida Launch (Source: SpaceFlight Insider)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 left Florida’s Space Coast early on March 19 delivering another round of satellites to the company’s Starlink internet constellation. This was the 11th launch to the fourth shell of the Starlink constellation. It was also the 12th flight for Falcon 9 first stage core B1051 after a 90-day turnaround from its previous mission. SpaceX retrieved the first stage successfully some 400 miles downrange aboard the drone ship “Just Read the Instructions.” The company is also attempting to rescue the twin fairings for the mission. (3/19)

All-Russian Soyuz Crew Docks with International Space Station (Source: SpaceFlight Insider)
For the first time, a Soyuz spacecraft with only Russian cosmonaut International Space Station crew members launched and docked to the orbiting outpost. Aboard Soyuz MS-21 were Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov. They launched atop a Soyuz rocket on March 18 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The fresh trio is planning to stay at the ISS for about six months. They are replacing Shkaplerov, Dubrov and Vande Hei, who are returning to Earth in Soyuz MS-19 on March 30. (3/18)

A Message to Ukraine? Cosmonauts Wear Yellow and Blue Flight Suits (Source: Space.com)
The fashion choices of three cosmonauts who just arrived at the International Space Station are raising some eyebrows. Everything went according to plan, but the hatch opening was still surprising, because it revealed that Artemyev, Matveev and Korsakov were wearing bright yellow flight suits with blue highlights — the colors of Ukraine.

Artemyev, the Soyuz commander, was asked about the colors during a hatch-opening ceremony webcast by Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos. He responded (in Russian) that there was a surplus of yellow fabric in the warehouse. Not everybody's buying this answer, however. Some folks with knowledge of spaceflight procedures seem to think it could be a show of support for Ukraine, which Russia invaded on Feb. 24. (3/18)

South Korea, France Hold Working-Level Defense Talks on Space Security Cooperation (Source: Yonhap)
South Korea and France held their first working-level talks on space security in Paris this week as a follow-up to their defense ministerial talks last month, Seoul's defense ministry said Friday. Cho Yong-kun, director-general of North Korea policy at the ministry, and his French counterpart, Bertrand Le Meur, and other officials joined the session held on Thursday and Friday.

They discussed ways to bolster bilateral space security cooperation while sharing the need for exchanges of space professionals between the two sides, according to the ministry. Last month, Defense Minister Suh Wook and his French counterpart, Florence Parly, vowed to enhance cooperation in space, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and other areas during their talks in Paris. (3/18)

Here’s the Space Force’s Plan to Ditch Annual Fitness Testing (Source: Air Force Times)
The Space Force is boldly going where no U.S. military branch has gone before: dumping the annual fitness test. The Pentagon’s newest branch wants its members to focus on managing their daily health to feel their best, rather than on how fast they can run a mile or complete pushups once a year. “It is time we implement a data-driven, research-informed, holistic health and fitness approach to increase the wellness and readiness of the force,” Space Force personnel boss Patricia Mulcahy said in a March 16 memo to guardians. (3/18)

The Bizarre Acoustics of Mars (Source: Cosmos)
Shortly after NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover landed and unlimbered its instruments, scientists turned on one of the more unusual of them – a microphone system – and for the first time listened in on an alien world: first to the wind, then to the sounds of the rover driving, and later yet to the Ingenuity helicopter on one of its early flights.

It was captivating. But it also seemed to be of limited scientific value – the type of thing you’d do because today’s microphones are so lightweight that there’s no real cost to including a couple on the rover (and being able to listen to it might help diagnose mechanical problems if they arose). But it turns out there are a lot of other things you can do with microphones, once you have them.

The simplest is to measure the speed of sound. On Earth, says Baptiste Chide, a postdoctoral researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, US, that’s about 340 meters per second. In the thin Martian air, it was expected to be more like 240 m/s. Sounds on Mars were also expected to be about 20 decibels lower than on Earth, Chide said. The difference, he adds, is particularly pronounced at higher frequencies – something borne out by the muted sounds first released by NASA. (3/19)

Another Startup Joins Race to Provide High-Speed Lunar Communications (Source: Space News)
Aquarian Space said March 17 it has raised seed funding to deploy a high-speed communications network for the moon to meet anticipated demand from government and commercial lunar missions. Silicon Valley venture capital firm Draper Associates, an early SpaceX investor, has injected $650,000 in Aquarian Space to support plans to deploy its first lunar satellite in the first quarter of 2024. The satellite is part of a constellation Aquarian Space is planning to improve communications above Earth’s orbit that John Rotondo, the startup’s chief technology officer, says is unequipped to handle a growing number of proposed missions to the moon.

Rotondo said the startup has plans to deploy a second satellite in 2025 to provide “continuous South Pole coverage,” but has yet to secure a launch agreement for either satellite. European startup Plus Ultra Space Outposts signed a launch agreement late October with Rocket Factory Augsburg, an early-stage launch company based in Germany, to deploy its first communications satellite for the moon in the final quarter of 2023. Plus Ultra also has a deal to launch additional satellites for its planned constellation as soon as 2024 with ispace, the Japanese lunar transportation venture selling accommodations on its moon-bound landers. (3/18)