March 5, 2022

NASA Studies ‘New’ 50-Year-Old Lunar Sample to Prep for Return to Moon (Source: NASA)
People say good things come to those who wait. NASA thinks 50 years is the right amount of time as it begins tapping into one of the last unopened, Apollo-era lunar samples to learn more about the Moon and prepare for a return to its surface. The sample is being opened at NASA’s Johnson Space Center and is being led by the Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis Program (ANGSA), a science team who aim to learn more about the sample and the lunar surface in advance of the upcoming Artemis missions to the Moon’s South Pole.

The ANGSA 73001 sample is part of an Apollo 17 drive tube sample collected by astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison “Jack” Schmitt in December of 1972. Scientists are focusing attention on the sealed, lower segment of the core. The temperature at the bottom of the core was incredibly cold when it was collected, which means that volatiles (substances that evaporate at normal temperatures, like water ice and carbon dioxide) might have been present. (3/4)

‘We Are Not Space Tourists’: Axiom Space a Month Out From Civilian Flight to ISS on SpaceX Dragon (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Axiom Space officials may be taking three civilians up to the International Space Station at $55 million a seat along with their own employee, but they’d prefer not to be known as a space tourism company. “They’re not up to the paste their nose on the window,” said company president and CEO Michael Suffredini during a press conference Monday. “They really are going up there to do meaningful research and make a difference, each in their own way.”

Hitching a ride with SpaceX on a launch from Kennedy Space Center targeting March 30, the AX-1 mission is the first of four contracted flights using the Crew Dragon to bring civilians to the space station. Previous civilian visitors to the ISS have all come from Russian Soyuz flights. The crew include paying customers Larry Connor, Mark Pathy and Eytan Stibbe along with commander Michael López-Alegría, a veteran of three space shuttle flights and a 215-day stint on the space station. (2/28)

US Space Force Plans to Start Patrolling the Area Around the Moon (Source: Ars Technica)
This week, the US Air Force Research Laboratory released a video on YouTube that didn't get much attention. But it made an announcement that is fairly significant—the US military plans to extend its space awareness capabilities beyond geostationary orbit, all the way to the Moon. "Until now, the United States space mission extended 22,000 miles above Earth," a narrator says in the video. "That was then, this is now. The Air Force Research Laboratory is extending that range by 10 times and the operations area of the United States by 1,000 times, taking our reach to the far side of the Moon into cislunar space."

The US military had previously talked about extending its operational domain, but now it is taking action. It plans to launch a satellite, likely equipped with a powerful telescope, into cislunar space. According to the video, the satellite will be called the Cislunar Highway Patrol System or, you guessed it, CHPS. The research laboratory plans to issue a "request for prototype proposals" for the CHPS satellite on March 21 and announce the contract award in July. The CHPS program will be managed by Michael Lopez, from the lab's Space Vehicles Directorate. (3/3)

British Rocket Startup's Staff Helping Defend Dnipro, Ukraine's Space City (Source: Space.com)
Ukrainian employees of the U.K.-headquartered rocket company Skyrora are helping to defend the space city of Dnipro as it braces for air strikes, while the company's Ukraine-born CEO admits that "there is nothing we can realistically do for them right now." Volodymyr Levykin, a Ukraine-born tech entrepreneur, spoke to Space.com on Wednesday (March 2), the seventh day of the intensifying aggression by Russia.

The visibly shaken Levykin said it was "family first, country second and company third" for Skyrora  employees who live in Dnipro, who are doing what they can to defend their city. The stakes are high for Dnipro, a major space center dating back to the Soviet era and a home of large-scale rocket research and manufacturing facilities that Russia aims to take control of. (3/3)

Judge to Hear Arguments if Voters Should Decide on Georgia Spaceport (Source: WTOC)
The future of the proposed space port in Camden County is in the balance Thursday in Glynn County Superior Court. A judge is hearing arguments about whether voters should be able to decide what happens with the project. Back in January, Superior Court Judge Stephen Scarlett denied a request that would have stopped Camden County from buying the land where the spaceport would go. A group of citizens wanted that purchase put on hold until a referendum let voters decide what to do about it.

Judge Scarlett said back then that those trying to prevent the land deal waited too long to file their court paperwork. Now, Judge Scarlett is again taking the topic of the future of the spaceport up for consideration. This time he’s listening to Camden County’s argument on why they believe the referendum should not happen at all. (3/3)

Spaceport America Having a Free Open House (Source: KRQE)
Spaceport America is welcoming guests for an open house. The open house will be held on April 10, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and is free to attend, but you must register in advance. There will be food vendors on site and visitors will be able to explore the facility and interact with a number of different aerospace and STEAM-related organizations. Some of the participating agencies include Virgin Galactic, SpinLaunch, NMSU’s Physical Science Lab, System’s Go, and the New Mexico Space History Museum. (3/3)

Americans Locked in NASA Moscow Capsule ‘Have No Idea About Ukraine War’ (Source: New York Post)
Two Americans currently based in Russia may have no idea about the war unfolding in neighboring Ukraine because of a bizarre experiment being conducted by NASA. They are locked inside a sealed capsule in Moscow for eight months as part of a space mission simulation, known as SIRIUS 21. The Americans — William Brown, 36, and Ashley Kowalski, 32 — have been inside the capsule since last November along with three Russians and one Emirati.

The experiment, according to NASA, “will include almost 70 different studies that will help scientists learn more about the effects of isolation and confinement on human psychology, physiology and team dynamics.” The group were selected by NASA and IMBP, Russia’s State Scientific Research center, which is helping to oversee the operation. (3/3)

Turmoil Over Ukraine Could Debilitate Russia's Space Program (Source: WIRED)
While space activities might seem literally above the fray, that’s not truly the case. As the Ukraine war continues, the escalating tensions between Europe, the US, and Russia are having consequences for space agencies: In addition to getting into disputes about the future of the ISS, Russia is withdrawing from ESA's spaceport and delaying its ExoMars program. With the country’s budgets and revenue getting squeezed, Russia’s own space program now appears poised to decline. At the same time, US-based private space companies have seen their role in the conflict grow, which risks turning commercial spacecraft into military targets.

“By halting all these international cooperative efforts, Russia’s isolating itself. They’re cutting themselves off really badly,” says Victoria Samson, the Washington office director for the Secure World Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank based in Broomfield, Colorado. It wasn’t always like this. The Soviet Union was a dominant space power at the beginning of the space race six decades ago. After the USSR collapsed, Roscosmos continued to play a major role, working with NASA and the ESA, even though most of the latter’s member countries are also part of NATO. (3/4)

World’s Largest Green Hydrogen Project Unveiled in Texas, with Plan to Produce Clean Rocket Fuel for Elon Musk (Source: Recharge)
US start-up Green Hydrogen International (GHI) has announced a 60GW renewable H2 project in a sparsely populated area of South Texas, to be powered by wind and solar, with its own salt cavern for storage and a plan to produce clean rocket fuel for Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The project in Duval County — a sparsely populated Democratic stronghold about 145km (90 miles) west of Corpus Christi — would produce more than 2.5 million tonnes of green hydrogen a year upon completion, equivalent to roughly 3.5% of global grey hydrogen production today.

It will be centred around a hydrogen storage facility in the Piedras Pintas Salt Dome, with pipelines to the port cities of Corpus Christi and Brownsville on the Mexico border, where SpaceX’s Starbase is located. “The company is looking at combining hydrogen with CO2 at the Port of Brownsville to create a green methane rocket fuel for launch operations in South Texas,” GHI said in a statement. (3/3)

Where Would We Be Without Elon Musk? (Source: SPACErePORT)
Russia's attack on Ukraine has caused ripples of instability and uncertainty for international space projects. Russia's substantial involvement in various multilateral space endeavors could soon evaporate, including their provision of launch services, rocket engine hardware, ISS operational support, and exploration/science payloads. Meanwhile, NASA's Artemis plans are being increasingly scrutinized for their cost growth and schedule delays.

With his typical bluster Roscosmos chief Dmitri Rogozin is threatening to pull out of several collaborations with non-Russian companies and governments, even suggesting that US launch companies can use their "broomsticks" to ride into space, as Russian rocket engines will no longer be provided. As one US observer noted: "All roads seemingly lead back to SpaceX. Early investments in them by the US government may turn out to be the best government investment of the century when all is said and done."

I agree. SpaceX has had an extraordinary positive impact on US space capabilities. Without SpaceX's advances we would not have a domestic human spaceflight capability, we would not lead in the commercial launch marketplace, and the industry's current US-led innovations in LEO satellite constellations, reusable launch technology, and spaceport/range technologies may not have happened. Rogozin's threats would carry much more weight if SpaceX were not a player in the industry. (3/4)