September 8, 2022

Newly Discovered Planet 40% Larger Than Earth May Be Suitable for Life (Source: NPR)
An international team of scientists says it has discovered two new "super-Earth" type planets about 100 light-years away, one of which may be suitable for life. Unlike any of the planets in our solar system, the nearly 1,600 known super-Earths are larger than Earth, but lighter than icy planets like Uranus and Neptune.

Researchers at Belgium's University of Liège announced Wednesday that they found another one while using Earth-based telescopes to confirm the existence of a different planet initially discovered by a NASA satellite in the same solar system. NASA's satellite found planet LP 890-9b, which is about 30% larger than Earth and orbits its sun in just 2.7 days. ULiège researchers used their SPECULOOS (Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars) telescopes in Chile and Spain to take a closer look at the planet with high-precision cameras.

That's when the stargazers discovered another planet, LP 890-9c (renamed SPECULOOS-2c by the ULiège researchers), which is 40% larger than Earth and takes 8.5 days to orbit its sun. Francisco Pozuelos said the planet could be suitable to life despite being a mere 3.7 million miles from its sun. Earth, by comparison, is located over 93 million miles away from our sun. (9/7)

Ukraine Invasion Led to Significant Reduction in Russian Orbital Launches, Left Nation’s Space Program Isolated (Source: Parabolic Arc)
While the US and China have combined for 94 of the 114 orbital launches conducted through Wednesday, Russia finds itself a distant third with only 12 launches with fewer than four months left in the year. It’s a humbling experience for a country that once led the world in launches.

While aging boosters, launch failures and strong foreign competition have been the main causes of the Russian launch industry’s decade-long decline, the nation’s invasion of Ukraine in February has put a serious dent in this year’s launch total. Seven launches for European customers were canceled, including a joint mission to land a rover on Mars. A program with Europe’s Arianespace to launch Soyuz boosters on commercial missions was suspended indefinitely.

Relations with Europe, United States, Japan and Canada — Russia’s partners on the International Space Station (ISS) — have been badly damaged by the invasion. Russia finds itself more isolated than it has been since the end of the Cold War 30 years ago. The nation’s space program has turned to a rising China for cooperation on future programs. (9/7)

Companies Looking at Using Rockets to Blast Cargo Across the Planet (Source: CNN)
The companies so far tapped to join the military in exploring ways to bring that idea to fruition include Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, and, most recently, Rocket Lab. Two other startups, Colorado-based Sierra Space Corporation and the Richard Branson-backed company Virgin Orbit, have also signed deals. Essentially, the lineup is a who’s-who of the commercial “new space” sector — relatively young rocket companies that are already shaking up the business of getting satellites to orbit at cheaper price points.

But these deals with the military are something different. Rather than rockets leaving their freight in Earth’s orbit, this program aims to use them to get weapons, supplies or perhaps even people from one country to another at speeds far surpassing that of other types of transportation. And that’s because rockets have a speed advantage over airplanes. Rockets that can shoot into the high atmosphere have much less air to cut through as they zoom over the planet. With less air dragging them back, they can go much faster than something that needs air to move, like a jet. The tradeoff, however, is that rockets tend to be far more expensive than aircraft. (9/7)

Space Launch From Australia to Use Satellite Tracking From Inmarsat (Source: Space Daily)
Inmarsat, the world leader in global, mobile satellite communications has signed an agreement with Gilmour Space Technologies to support space launches from Australia using Inmarsat's InRange system. Gilmour Space is Australia's leading launch services company that is developing orbital-class launch vehicles and satellite platforms.

InRange from Inmarsat provides rapid, responsive and cost-effective launch telemetry from space, removing the need to construct and maintain costly terrestrial launch infrastructure of down range ground stations to maintain telemetry coverage. Space launch is a new focus and priority in Australia and Inmarsat is building on more than 30 years of partnership and presence in-country to support this new capability. (9/8)

Surrey Satellite Opens New Australian Office (Source: Space Daily)
SSTL will open an office in Australia in Adelaide. The announcement follows the meeting on Friday 2nd September between the Rt. Hon Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP (UK Secretary of State for Trade) and Senator The Hon Don Farrell (Australian Minister For Trade and Tourism) during which they discussed ways of strengthening the United Kingdom - Australia economic trade partnership. UK Company SSTL committing to open an office in South Australia was cited as a timely example of the already growing economic partnership between the two countries. (9/8)

Ariane 5 Launches Eutelsat Comsat (Source: Space News)
An Ariane 5 launched a high-throughput communications satellite for Eutelsat Wednesday evening. The Ariane 5 lifted off from Kourou, French Guiana, at 5:45 p.m. Eastern after a one-day delay because of weather. The rocket's upper stage deployed the Eutelsat Konnect VHTS satellite into a transfer orbit 28 minutes later. The spacecraft, weighing 6.5 tons, was built by Thales Alenia Space using its all-electric Spacebus NEO platform and is the largest satellite it has built. Eutelsat will use the spacecraft to provide Ka-band broadband services in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. With this launch, only three more Ariane 5 missions remain, with the final launch expected next year. (9/8)

GAO: Agencies Should Make More Use of Commercial Satellite Imagery (Source: Space News)
U.S. defense and intelligence agencies are not taking full advantage of available commercial satellite imagery despite growing demand, the Government Accountability Office warned. In a report Wednesday, the GAO said slow and cumbersome procurement methods are keeping those agencies from making greater use of commercial imagery. There is also a lack of coordination between the Defense Department and intelligence community on imagery requirements, resulting in overlapping wish lists and procurements. The GAO recommended they lay down clear roles and responsibilities for acquiring commercial satellite imagery and develop ways to procure such imagery promptly. (9/8)

New iPhones to Feature Satellite "Emergency SOS" Messaging (Source: Space News)
Apple announced Wednesday its long-anticipated satellite connectivity feature for new iPhones using Globalstar's network. Apple said its new iPhone 14 models will offer an "Emergency SOS" messaging service that will connect via satellites in places with no terrestrial coverage. Apple did not disclose what satellites that service will use, but Globalstar confirmed that it is working with Apple on the service under agreements dating back to 2020. Globalstar will provide 85% of its network capacity to Apple but will continue to offer other services, like internet-of-things connectivity, using the remaining 15%. (9/8)

SWOT Satellite Switches Rides to Vandenberg (Source: Space News)
A U.S.-French Earth science satellite is ready to ship for launch later this year after overcoming a transportation challenge. Thales Alenia Space said this week it's in final preparations to ship the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite, a joint project of NASA and the French space agency CNES, from its factory in France to Vandenberg Space Force Base in California for launch. Original plans called for SWOT to ship on an Antonov aircraft, but those planes are largely out of service since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. NASA arranged for a U.S. Air Force C-5 cargo plane to instead ship SWOT to California, resulting in a minor delay in the mission's launch on a Falcon 9 from November to early December. (9/8)

Near Space Labs Offers 10-Centimeter Resolution Imagery (Source: Space News)
Near Space Labs will offer free high-resolution imagery to researchers and nonprofit organizations. The company said Wednesday it will share 10-centimeter-resolution imagery of the most populous U.S. cities over a period of 12 months through its Community Resilience & Innovation Earth Imagery Grant program. The company collects that imagery with high-altitude balloons rather than satellites. (9/8)

Launch Manifest at Vandenberg SFB Will Be Busy in Coming Weeks (Source: Noozhawk)
Late summer and fall are shaping up to be busy with critical launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base, along with a unique satellite’s rendezvous with an asteroid months after arriving in orbit due to a Central Coast liftoff. The National Reconnaissance Office recently released the planned launch date for the final Delta IV Heavy rocket from the West Coast.

This month's activity may start as soon as this week with a missile test reportedly planned from Vandenberg late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning. Also this month, Firefly Aerospace has announced its planned return-to-flight following last year’s inaugural liftoff that ended dramatically. The next demonstration launch, Flight 2, will aim for liftoff during a window opening at 3 p.m. Sep. 11. Firefly’s Alpha rockets fly from Space Launch Complex-2, the former Delta II rocket facility. (9/5)

CR Planned to Keep Government in Operation Through December (Source: Roll Call)
Congress is preparing a stopgap funding bill to keep the federal government funded through mid-December. Top senators said they support plans previously announced by House Democrats for a continuing resolution that would run from Oct. 1, when the 2023 fiscal year starts, to Dec. 16, giving appropriators more time to work on full-year spending bills. They still have to negotiate any supplemental funding, such as for Ukraine aid or COVID relief, to include in the bill. (9/8)

Russia Delays Lunar Lander Mission Again (Source: TASS)
Roscosmos says a lunar lander mission will not launch this year. Yuri Borisov, head of Roscosmos, said Wednesday that the long-delayed Luna-25 lander mission would not launch in October as previously planned but instead would slip to some time in 2023. Russian industry sources reported in July that problems with a landing sensor would likely push back the mission. (9/8)

Ingenuity Helicopter Makes Another Mars Flight (Source: NASA)
The Ingenuity Mars helicopter made its 31st flight this week. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory said the small helicopter flew on Tuesday, traveling 97.2 meters in 55.6 seconds in the direction of the former river delta in Jezero crater. This was the first long-distance flight by Ingenuity since June as the limited sunlight and cold temperatures during Martian winter restricted flight operations. (9/8)

New DoD Space Policy Avoids Politically Loaded Language, Echoes Obama Era (Source: Breaking Defense)
The Pentagon’s new directive on space policy moves away from the aggressive language of Trump-era space policy documents — in particular avoiding the term “space superiority,” which has been used by Russia and China to claim US intent to weaponize space. The directive also officially codifies the responsibilities of the Space Force, Space Command and the assistant secretary for space policy, as well as formalizing the “tenets” of responsible behavior for the military laid out by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a memo last year.

The new document, “DoD Directive 3100.10 Space Policy,” is an internal Pentagon document, replacing the 2012 version that was last updated in 2016. It was signed on Aug. 30 by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, and made public Monday. It also reflects the agreement signed last year by SPACECOM and the National Reconnaissance Office regarding their roles in defense of the spy agency’s own satellites. (9/7)

What a Rocket Startup That Helped Create the ‘New Space’ Wave Leaves Behind (Source: Bloomberg)
In May 2010 a crude-looking rocket caught Elon Musk’s attention. Called Xombie, it could fly high into the air, cut its engine midflight, restart, and then land gently back on the ground. It was the kind of technology that Musk’s own rocket company, SpaceX, aspired to create, and he marveled that the five-person team behind Xombie had pulled off such a feat.

Xombie had been constructed by a group of rocket renegades working at a startup called Masten Space Systems. Founded in 2004, the tiny company operating out of the Mojave Desert was known as a place where young engineers could try out bold ideas. After Xombie came other vehicles—Xoie, Xaero, Xodiac, and finally the XL-1, a spacecraft meant to land on the moon for NASA as part of a $75.9 million contract.

Dave Masten, who bounced around Silicon Valley in technical roles before Cisco bought a startup he held a stake in, used his earnings to chase his childhood rocketry dreams. Masten decamped to the desert, setting up shop inside a maintenance building at the Mojave Air & Space Port in Mojave, Calif. His singular, pioneering goal was to change the economics of the industry by shifting from single-use rockets to spacecraft that could be flown time and time again. Click here. (9/7)

SpaceCom Announces Commercial Space Week in Orlando This February (Source: SpaceCom)
SpaceCom has named the week of Feb. 20, 2023 as Commercial Space Week. With the recently announced co-location of Space Mobility – an inaugural event produced in coordination with the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command – the week-long lineup of events will include SpaceCom, Space Congress, the Global Spaceport Alliance Spaceport Summit, and now, Space Mobility.
 
 The U.S. Space Force's Space Systems Command joins the Canaveral Council of Technical Societies, in partnership with NASA Kennedy Space Center, and the Global Spaceport Alliance as contributing organizations to Commercial Space Week. With three conference programs, a dynamic expo, receptions, an industry night on the town, and more, Commercial Space Week will be the global resource for the space industry to collaborate, provide unique perspectives, and share mission-critical insights that will propel each sector’s initiatives forward. (9/8)

The 1,000 Chinese SpaceX Engineers That Only Existed on LinkedIn (Source: MIT Technology Review)
If you were just looking at his LinkedIn page, you’d certainly think Mai Linzheng was a top-notch engineer. With a bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua, China’s top university, and a master’s degree in semiconductor manufacturing from UCLA, Mai began his career at Intel and KBR, a space tech company, before ending up at SpaceX in 2013. Except all is not as it seems. Upon closer inspection, there are plenty of red flags. In fact, none of the information on this page is true.

The profile of “Mai Linzheng” is actually one of the millions of fraudulent pages set up on LinkedIn to lure users into scams, often involving cryptocurrency investments and targeting people of Chinese descent all over the world. Scammers like Mai claim affiliation with prestigious schools and companies to boost their credibility before connecting with other users, building a relationship, and laying a financial trap. Since last year, such activities have been steadily on the rise on LinkedIn, following years of proliferation on other social media platformsand dating apps.

At one point in July, there were over 1,000 LinkedIn profiles for individuals who, like “Mai Linzheng,” claimed to have graduated from Tsinghua University and to work at SpaceX. The eye-popping number even triggered patriotic Chinese influencers to lament the brain drain and accuse Chinese university graduates of disloyalty to their country. This caught the attention of Jeff Li, who confirmed on July 11 that he could find 1,004 Tsinghua graduates by searching for SpaceX employees on LinkedIn. Many accounts he saw claimed the exact same education and work experiences—suggesting that someone was mass-generating fake profiles. (9/7)

UK Readies Prometheus 2 Cubesats Ahead of Launch Via Virgin Orbit (Sources: Flight Global, Airbus)
Airbus Defence & Space and its design partner In-Space Missions have moved a step closer to delivering two small research satellites developed for the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) for launch before year-end. The Prometheus 2 cubesats are owned by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) on behalf of the Ministry of Defence (MOD). The two cereal box sized cubesats will operate in low Earth orbit, at around 550km and will provide a test platform for sophisticated imaging, and monitoring radio signals including GPS. (9/7)

Pregnancy in Space: Studying Stem Cells in Zero Gravity May Determine Whether it’s Safe (Source: The Conversation)
Space is a hostile, extreme environment. It’s only a matter of time before ordinary people are exposed to this environment, either by engaging in space tourism or by joining self-sustaining colonies far away from Earth. To this end, there needs to be a much better understanding of how the environmental dangers of space will affect the biology of our cells, tissues, organs, and cognition. Crucially for future space colonies, we need to know whether we can easily reproduce in environments other than those found on Earth.

The effects of radiation on our cells, producing DNA damage, are well documented. What’s less clear is how lower levels of gravity, what scientists call microgravity, will affect the mechanisms and rhythms taking place within our cells. Scientists are only just beginning to investigate how activity in our cells might be affected by exposure to microgravity. Crucially, experiments on embryonic stem cells, and models of how embryos develop in their first few weeks in space, will help us determine whether it’s possible for humans to produce offspring in the extraplanetary colonies of the future. (9/6)

China Performs Two Launches Inside Two Hours (Source: Space News)
China conducted its 36th and 37th orbital launches of 2022 within a couple of hours of each other starting late Monday, using the Jiuquan and Xichang spaceports. A Kuaizhou-1A solid rocket lifted off into clear skies from a transport erector launcher at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert on Sep. 5. One hour and 55 minutes later, at Xichang in southwest China, a Long March 2D lifted off from Xichang, delivering a fifth batch of Yaogan-35 triplets into a predetermined orbit. (9/6)

Maritime Launch Services Wants to Help Canada Win the Satellite Space Race (Source: Winnipeg Sun)
Gone are the days when space was solely the domain of national governments and militaries. Now, any company with enough funding can shoot a satellite up into space. Take Halifax-based Maritime Launch Services Inc. (MLS). It’s building a $200-million commercial satellite launch site called Spaceport Nova Scotia that will allow clients to place their satellites into low-Earth orbit. The commercial spaceport, the first of its kind in Canada, reflects the increasing investment of the private sector in space technology.

The company plans to use rockets developed by Yuzhnoye State Design Office, a design company, and state-owned aerospace manufacturer PA Pivdenmash (formerly PA Yuzhmash), both of which are based in Dnipro, Ukraine. Few companies have their own launch sites, and need to rely on government ranges that offer “little flexibility of prioritization,” the company said in a pitch deck for investors. “We intend to deliver the solution our customers need — safe, reliable, affordable and strategically located space launch on their schedule.” (9/6)

NASA Taps Axiom Space for First Artemis Moonwalking Spacesuits (Source: NASA)
NASA has selected Axiom Space to deliver a moonwalking system for the Artemis III mission, which will land Americans on the surface of the Moon for the first time in over 50 years. This award – the first one under a competitive spacesuits contract – is for a task order to develop a next generation Artemis spacesuit and supporting systems, and to demonstrate their use on the lunar surface during Artemis III.

With this award, NASA has put in place another cornerstone of returning astronauts to the Moon under Artemis to support continued scientific breakthroughs, benefiting humanity back on Earth. As part of its planned human lunar spaceflight missions, NASA will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon. After reviewing proposals from its two eligible spacesuit vendors, NASA selected Axiom Space for the task order, which has a base value of $228.5 million. A future task order will be competed for recurring spacesuit services to support subsequent Artemis missions. (9/7)

BAE Systems Muscles In on Satellite Space with Defense Cluster (Source: City A.M.)
British aerospace and defence giant BAE Systems unveiled a satellite cluster made up of four satellites, focused on earth observation, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. It will be rented out to businesses and allied governments alike. This follows the acquisition of British satellite manufacturer In-Space last year and is the “culmination” of the firm’s expertise in security. (9/7)

Albedo Raises $48 Million (Source: Payload Space)
Albedo has announced a $48M Series A raise, in a round co-led by Bill Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Silicon Valley-based Shield Capital. The Austin- and Denver-HQ’d satellite startup has now raised $58M, less than two years since its founding. Albedo aims to collect high-fidelity 10 cm resolution optical imagery while co-collecting 2 m thermal infrared imagery from a small constellation of satellites. (9/7)

This House is Designed for Life on Mars (But it’s in England) (Source: Fast Company)
“How do you think we should live on Mars?” That’s the (very open-ended) question that was recently posed to more than 200 people in England. The answer has just landed in a public square in Bristol, UK—and it’s a two-story, solar-powered dwelling with a kitchenette, a hydroponic garden, and a “Martian toilet.”

Dubbed the Martian House, the structure will open to the public next week and host a series of talks and workshops about sustainable living. Unlike the flurry of farfetched renderings of Mars colonies populating the internet, the Martian House is a tangible object that’s designed to get people to think less about actually colonizing space and more about living with scarce resources, and within your means in a constrained environment that isn’t driven by consumerism. (8/28)