July 16, 2022

Skyrora Opens UK's Largest Rocket Engine Manufacturing Facility (Source: Space Daily)
UK rocket company Skyrora has taken another important stride towards achieving a sovereign orbital launch from British soil by opening a new manufacturing and production facility, the largest of its kind in the UK. After recently opening its engine test facility in Midlothian, this new facility in Cumbernauld allows the company to concentrate its launch development practices in custom-built domestic facilities, further strengthening Skyrora's status as the leader in the UK space race.

The production of two Skyrora vehicles has already commenced at the Cumbernauld site, which will increase up to 16 per year once mass production begins. The site boasts unique capabilities for space infrastructure in the UK, as certain tests that would typically be outsourced to facilities in other countries can now be conducted domestically. (7/14)

ESA, Partners Debate Future of Space Transportation (Source: Spacce Daily)
How can Europe exploit its technical, industrial and financial strengths to ensure it remains a leader in space transportation in the 2030s and beyond? How can ESA, Europe's national space agencies and institutions, and both established and new industrial partners better co-ordinate their efforts to meet global competition that demands innovation and cost-reduction? These were just a few of the questions discussed during an ESA-hosted roundtable called "Shared Vision for the Future of Space Transportation in Europe."

More than 100 representatives of Europe's space sector discuss the technical and political challenges shaping the space transportation market. Participants underlined that ESA should act as an "anchor customer"; that is, to shift its focus towards services. But while some favour such a shift away from buying specific technologies or creating products, others want ESA to continue to play a more product-focused role. That is, to use its technical and financial strength to actively "de-risk" technologies which are expected to become critical enablers of institutional requirements but which cannot enter the market quickly.

Another concern focused on the limited size of the European launch market. Some participants fear too much intra-European competition risks impoverishing the installed infrastructure and expertise which has been built up over by agencies and industry. Here, one theme arising from the Palermo meeting was that ESA should trigger more commercial investment by initiating "competitive procurements" in new activities. (7/12)

Scottish Space Companies Focus on Farnborough (Source: AstroAgency)
Exhibiting at Space Scotland’s stand, thirteen of Scotland’s leading space companies are set to collaborate at the Farnborough International Airshow to promote the country’s space heritage and newspace activity. Included are all five of Scotland’s developing spaceport, a working group that seeks to become Europe’s leading spaceflight nation and a global hub for the launch of small satellites.

Formerly known as the Scottish Space Leadership Council, Space Scotland is an industry-led group of over fifty space companies. Participants will showcase Space Scotland’s collaborative approach, including the group’s strong bonds with academia and both Scottish Government and UK governmental bodies such as the UK Space Agency, while seeking new international partners and inward investment. (7/14)

NASA Test Confirms Joby Air Taxi Doesn't Make Much Noise (Source: eVTOL)
NASA and Joby Aviation are touting the results of a 2021 noise study of the company's prototype air taxi. "Since the very beginning we've known that the key to connecting communities is to operate closer and in a way that's friendly and fosters community acceptance. Noise is a huge part of that," said Eric Allison, head of product at Joby Aviation. (7/14)

Rocket Lab Team Helps Advance Mandrake-2 (Source: Air Force Technology)
Rocket Lab's acquisition of Advanced Solutions last year is benefitting the Mandrake-2 mission, a joint effort by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Space Development Agency. An Advanced Solutions team has delivered testing solutions for Mandrake-2, a mission that has demonstrated the feasibility of on-orbit optical inter-satellite links. (7/14)

Location of Land on a Planet Can Affect its Habitability (Source: Space Daily)
New climate models have found that the amount and location of land on a planet's surface can significantly impact its habitability. Astronomers have identified substantial differences in surface temperature, sea ice and water vapour across a planet's surface for different land configurations. The work will be presented on Monday 11 July at the National Astronomy Meeting (NAM 2022) by Evelyn Macdonald, a graduate student at the University of Toronto, Canada.

Many planets are tidally locked to their stars such that one side of the planet is always facing away (much like how the far side of the Moon always faces away from the Earth). This creates permanent day and night sides of the planet where the all energy received from the star is focused on the dayside. In order for a planet to support life, the climate must be somewhat regulated across the surface: the atmosphere and oceans need to redistribute some of the energy received from the star to the nightside of the planet. (7/12)

Can FAST Detect Auroras on Brown Dwarfs? (Source: Space Daily)
Brown dwarfs are known as "failed stars", owing to the lack of central hydrogen burning. They bridge the gap between planets and stars. Some brown dwarfs are found to maintain kilogauss magnetic fields and produce flaring radio emissions, similar to aurora on magnetized planets in solar system, arousing astronomers' curiosities about their field properties and dynamos.

Radio emissions from brown dwarfs reflect their magnetic activities. For solar-type stars, radio, optical and X-ray emissions are all used as magnetic indicators, while for brown dwarfs, optical and X-ray decrease dramatically, and radio becomes the most efficient probe. Dr. TANG Jing and her colleagues from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) carried out a statistical analysis of radio-flaring brown dwarf population, which helped quantify the potential of finding such objects in FAST surveys. (7/12)

To Search for Alien Life, Astronomers Will Look for Clues in the Atmospheres of Distant Planets (Source: Space Daily)
The ingredients for life are spread throughout the universe. While Earth is the only known place in the universe with life, detecting life beyond Earth is a major goal of modern astronomy and planetary science. We are two scientists who study exoplanets and astrobiology. Thanks in large part to next-generation telescopes like James Webb, researchers like us will soon be able to measure the chemical makeup of atmospheres of planets around other stars. The hope is that one or more of these planets will have a chemical signature of life.

Life might exist in the solar system where there is liquid water - like the subsurface aquifers on Mars or in the oceans of Jupiter's moon Europa. However, searching for life in these places is incredibly difficult, as they are hard to reach and detecting life would require sending a probe to return physical samples. Many astronomers believe there's a good chance that life exists on planets orbiting other stars, and it's possible that's where life will first be found. (7/15)

Space Rocket Junk Could Have Deadly Consequences Unless Governments Act (Source: Space Daily)
The re-entry of abandoned stages of rockets left in orbit from space launches have a six to 10% chance of severely injuring or killing a human being in the next decade, according to a new study. Researchers say governments need to take collective action and mandate that rocket stages are guided safely back to Earth after their use, which could increase the cost of a launch, but potentially save lives. When objects such as satellites are launched into space, they use rockets, parts of which are often left in orbit. If these leftover rocket stages have a low enough orbit they can re-enter the atmosphere in an uncontrolled way, potentially lethal pieces can still hurtle towards the ground.

Using two different methods, they found that current practices have a six to 10 per cent chance of one or more casualties over the next decade if each re-entry spreads, on average, dangerous debris over an area of 10 metres squared. While the calculations consider the probability of one or more casualties for people on the ground, Dr. Byers says they do not take into account worst case scenarios, such as a piece of debris striking an airplane in flight.

In addition, they found the risk is borne disproportionately by the global south, despite major space-faring nations being located in the north, with rocket bodies being approximately three times more likely to land at the latitudes of Jakarta, Dhaka and Lagos than those of New York, Beijing or Moscow. This is due to the distribution of orbits used when launching satellites. (7/13)