October 21, 2022

Civilian Space Tracking Program Key for Sector Growth (Source: National Defense)
In keeping with the pace of the commercial space sector, the Biden administration is advancing a long-anticipated policy initiative to transfer responsibility for tracking objects in Earth’s orbit from the U.S. military to the civilian National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. To make this move happen, the president proposed an increase in fiscal year 2023 of $78 million to develop a publicly available database that companies and countries can use to avoid collisions in space. Recently, Congressional appropriations committees passed bills largely supportive of this budget request. (10/21)

Space Force’s ‘Front Door’ Now Fully Operational (Source: Breaking Defense)
The Space Force’s one-stop-shop for industry engagement — the Space Systems Command Front Door — is now fully staffed, and ready to help companies new to Pentagon contracting figure out who to talk to within the sprawling space acquisition bureaucracy, according to SSC’s Col. Joseph Roth. “We have a team that can answer the email, and we have operators standing by, which has been a problem in the past,” he told the Space Industry Days conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday. (10/20)

Why We Should Think About Earth’s Orbit as an Ecosystem (Source: Slate)
Moriba Jah is an astrodynamicist (?) and “space environmentalist” (?!) at the University of Texas who, according to the MacArthur Foundation, is “envisioning transparent and collaborative solutions for creating a circular space economy that improves oversight of earth’s orbital spheres.” I asked Jah to please explain what that means, but to pretend—just pretend!—that I am a dummy. The result was a fascinating, moving chat about space junk, what “environmentalism” means, and the deep spirituality of the dark sky. Our conversation has been edited and condensed. Click here. (10/19)

Dark Matter and Dark Energy Composition of Universe Calculated With the Highest Precision Yet (Source: Cosmos)
Astrophysicists have completed the most accurate calculations of the amount of dark matter and dark energy in the universe to date. The powerful analysis, called Pantheon+, provides the most precise limits yet on the composition and evolution of the universe, but also heightens some discrepancies. A paper on the Pantheon+ study finds that the universe is about two-thirds (66.2%) dark energy and one-third (33.8%) matter. Of that matter, most is dark matter, with ‘ordinary matter’ – that we can see and touch – making up less than five percent of the cosmos. The universe has been expanding at an accelerating pace over the last several billion years according to the study. (10/21)

New 3,200-Megapixel Camera Has Astronomers Salivating (Source: WIRED)
The world's biggest digital camera is finally coming into focus. While a very powerful personal camera might have megapixel resolution, astronomers have constructed a device that will image the distant universe with 3.2 gigapixel resolution. (A gigapixel is equivalent to 1,000 megapixels.) That camera will be the workhorse for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s telescope, which has been in the works for about two decades but is nearly complete. At the end of September, scientists and technicians working in an enormous clean room at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California, finished assembling the sensitive camera’s mechanical components, and they are now moving ahead to its final pre-installation tests. (10/20)

Japan's Geotail Mission Nears End as Components Fail (Source: Space.com)
A 30-year-old U.S-Japanese space science mission may be near its end. NASA said this week that the last working data recorder on the Geotail spacecraft had failed, preventing the satellite from storing data it collects on Earth's magnetosphere. NASA says it will work with the Japanese space agency JAXA on how to best proceed with the mission, launched in 1992 to study the tail region of the Earth's magnetic field. (10/21)

India Launches OneWeb Satellites. More to Come (Source: Space News)
A launch of OneWeb satellites this weekend shows India's growing role in the commercial launch market. A GSLV Mark 3 rocket is scheduled to launch Saturday carrying 36 OneWeb satellites, the first of two such launches OneWeb procured after terminating its contract for Soyuz launches in March. NewSpace India Ltd. (NSIL), the commercial arm of the Indian space agency ISRO, sees the launch as a first step for greater commercial use for the rocket, which has flown only Indian government missions to date. With limited supply of other commercial vehicles, NSIL is studying increasing the production rate of the GSLV Mark 3 to four to five per year. (10/21)

Electron Booster Arrives in Virginia for Rocket Lab's 1st-Ever US Launch (Source: Space.com)
A Rocket Lab Electron rocket has arrived at a launch complex in Virginia ahead of the company's first liftoff from U.S. soil later this year. The Electron rocket arrived at Launch Complex 2 at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia, on Oct. 12. Rocket Lab is now working on final preparations for the rocket, which is expected to launch in December and deploy satellites for radio frequency geospatial analytics provider HawkEye 360. (10/20)

Space Force Tries to Turn Over a New Leaf in Satellite Procurement (Source: Space News)
The Space Force is planning to apply lessons from the Space Development Agency as it seeks bids for new missile-warning satellites. The Space Systems Command next year will request industry bids for as many as four infrared sensing satellites in medium Earth orbit (MEO) for missile warning and tracking, but will not follow the traditional processes used in legacy satellite acquisitions. Instead, the MEO constellation will follow the playbook of the Space Development Agency, which buys satellites in increments, or tranches, every two years. Doing so, the service believes, will allow it to add new capabilities into the system on a regular basis. (10/21)

ESA Prepares Request for More Funding From Member States (Source: Space News)
ESA is putting the finishing touches on the package of programs it will seek funding for next month from its member states. At a briefing Thursday, officials said they had wrapped up most of the "programmatic documents" for its various proposals that will be formally offered to member states at the ministerial council meeting in a month. They said they were optimistic about the prospects of securing support for those programs despite multiple crises facing Europe, from the war in Ukraine to skyrocketing inflation. The overall package requests more than $18 billion over three years for ESA. (10/21)

China Considers Retrograde Orbit for GEO Ring Monitoring (Source: Space News)
China has studied putting a satellite into a retrograde geosynchronous orbit to monitor other satellites there. The concept, published in a paper, examined the feasibility of launching a satellite around the moon to allow it to go into a retrograde orbit at GEO altitudes. That would give the satellite the ability to pass by every other GEO satellite every 12 hours. Such a satellite, though, could pose a hazard to other GEO satellites, with one expert comparing it to driving the wrong way on a freeway. (10/21)

France's Grasp SAS Acquires AirPhoton, Plans Cubesat Constellation (Source: Space News)
French startup Grasp SAS has acquired an American company, AirPhoton, to help create a cubesat Earth observation constellation. Grasp, which stands for Generalized Retrieval of Atmosphere and Surface Properties, was founded in 2015 to provide software primarily to the European Space Agency and Eumetsat. AirPhoton, founded in 2012 by scientists who met at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, specializes in instruments to measure particulates and satellite payloads. The combined company, now called Grasp Global, will be based in the United States and eligible to compete for NASA and NOAA contracts. To demonstrate its capabilities, Grasp Global plans to establish an Earth-observation constellation to provide frequent observations of atmospheric aerosols and surface properties. (10/21)

National Security Review for Starlink and Other SpaceX Projects (Source: Bloomberg)
The Biden administration is reportedly considering national security reviews of Starlink and other projects associated with Elon Musk. Administration officials, uncomfortable with recent threats by Musk to stop offering Starlink services at no charge to Ukraine, are looking at what tools they can use to review various Musk ventures. That could include a Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) review of Musk's acquisition of Twitter, which involves foreign investors. It's unclear what review would apply to Starlink, owned by SpaceX and which already has contracts with the Defense Department for demonstrations of the constellation's services. (10/21)

Iridium Reports Record Earnings (Source: Iridium)
Iridium reported record earnings in the third quarter. The company announced this week an 8% increase in operational EBITDA in the quarter to $107.8 million, a record for the company, on revenue of $184.1 million. The company updated its full-year outlook, projecting operational EBITDA of $420 million, at the high end of earlier projections, and 8-9% growth in revenue. (10/21)

Seeds Launching to the Moon in 2025 Will Test Plant Resilience (Source: Space.com)
The moon is a lifeless rock, but despite no living thing ever having been found on its desolate surface, some forms of Earth life might be able to make it. In collaboration with start-up Lunaria One, scientists from the Australian National University (ANU) want to grow plants on the moon by 2025. The Australian Lunar Experiment Promoting Horticulture (ALEPH-1) payload will launch aboard SpaceIL's Beresheet 2 lander, a project Israel announced shortly after its first moon mission failed in 2020. China carried a similar experiment on its Chang'e 4 lander that successfully sprouted cotton seeds.

Nothing has ever been grown directly on the moon before. While the ALEPH-1 plants and seeds will be contained in a protective chamber, they will still face plenty of challenges. On the moon, water will be unimaginably valuable, gravity will be weaker, day and night will each last seven Earth days and no atmosphere will protect the surface from harmful solar radiation. (10/20)

Chinese Scientists Detect Brightest Gamma-Ray Burst To Date (Source: Xinhua)
Chinese scientists have detected the brightest gamma-ray burst (GRB) to date through combined observations from both Earth and space, according to the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The combined observations were made on Oct. 9, 2022, by China's Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO), the High Energy Burst Searcher (HEBS) -- an all-sky monitor for gamma-ray transients -- as well as China's X-ray astronomy satellite Insight-HXMT (Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope), achieving multi-spectral measurements of the gamma-ray burst, coded as GRB 221009A. (10/19)

Blast-Off for Britain's Ambitious Space Program (Source: The National News)
On a bright, clear day on the northernmost tip of the British Isles, the UK will next summer launch its first rocket into space. Blasting off from a Shetland Islands peninsula pointing into the Norwegian Sea, the pencil-shaped projectile, half the length of a jumbo jet, will power upwards, climbing 18,000 meters in just 60 seconds. The rocket will then curve over the Arctic before entering space where its in-built spacecraft will place 10 satellites in low-Earth orbit.

If successful, the lift-off from the Saxavord spaceport will be the start of Britain’s ambition to become an international space center, with 30 rockets a year powering into its skies from Shetland. The UK plans to capture 10 percent of the global satellite market. The new site in Scotland will fire the country’s first vertical-launched rocket. This will transform Britain’s burgeoning space industry, providing a perfect platform for the hundreds of satellites built in the UK, Saxavord Spaceport’s operations director told The National.

“It'll be transformational because at the moment everybody talks about access to space, they want access to it, but this will give the UK true access,” Scott Hammond said. Despite Wednesday's test launch of the Skyrora L rocket going awry from a site in Iceland, the operations director said it was "a great learning opportunity for Skyrora" and he "remains confident" that the program was on track for take-off next year. (10/14)

NASA Orders Three More Orion Spacecraft From Lockheed Martin (Source: SpaceRef)
Lockheed Martin is now under contract to deliver three Orion spacecraft to NASA for its Artemis VI-VIII missions, continuing the delivery of exploration vehicles to the agency to carry astronauts into deep space and around the Moon supporting the Artemis program. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor to NASA for the Orion program and has completed two Orion vehicles—EFT-1 which flew in 2014, and Artemis I, which is weeks away from its launch to the Moon—and is actively building vehicles for the Artemis II-V missions.

“Lockheed Martin is honored to partner with NASA to deliver Orion spacecraft for NASA’s Artemis missions. This order includes spacecraft, mission planning and support, and takes us into the 2030s,” said Lisa Callahan, vice president and general manager for Commercial Civil Space, Lockheed Martin. “We’re on the eve of a historic launch kicking off the Artemis era and this contract shows NASA is making long-term plans toward living and working on the Moon, while also having a forward focus on getting humans to Mars.”

This order marks the second three missions under the agency’s Orion Production and Operations Contract (OPOC), an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract for up to 12 vehicles. Under OPOC, Lockheed Martin and NASA have reduced the costs on Orion by 50% per vehicle on Artemis III through Artemis V, compared to vehicles built during the design and development phase. The vehicles built for Artemis VI, VII and VIII will see an additional 30% cost reduction. (10/20)

Interstellar Object 'Oumuamua Still Puzzling Scientists 5 Years After Discovery (Source: Space.com)
Five years after spotting the first known object from beyond our solar system passing through, scientists are still figuring out what the strange object says about planetary systems. Marauding ice giant planets like Neptune could be flinging many trillions of small bodies into interstellar space, some of which visit our solar system, as 'Oumuamua notably did in 2017. If true, then the population of such rogue objects moving between the stars could be in the hundreds of trillions of trillions (that's a digit followed by some 26 zeroes).

'Oumuamua was discovered on Oct. 19, 2017, having arrived from interstellar space, where it is headed once more after swinging through our solar system. And the existence of small bodies visiting from interstellar space wasn't a surprise. In fact, interstellar interlopers such as 'Oumuamua and Borisov, the only two discovered so far, had been predicted long before. Click here. (10/19)

Russia Launches Three Satellite Deployment Missions in One Week (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
All three of Russia’s major rockets — the Soyuz, Proton, and Angara — launched last week on missions to deploy a Russian navigation satellite, an Angolan communications spacecraft, and a top secret military spy payload. The busy week of launches kicked off Oct. 10 with the liftoff of a Soyuz rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome carrying a Russian Glonass navigation satellite.

A Russian Proton rocket launched Oct. 12 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying Angola’s Angosat 2 communications satellite. The mission marked the first flight of a Proton rocket this year. And Russia’s newest satellite launcher, the Angara 1.2, lifted off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on Oct. 15 with a Russian military satellite. The launch marked the second orbital flight of an Angara 1.2 rocket, a light-class launcher designed to haul Russian military and civilian satellites to space. (10/20)

Philippine Space Program Advances (Source: Gov.PH)
President Ferdinand R. Marcos on Tuesday presided over a meeting with the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) to discuss the national space program. Based on a photo uploaded on Marcos’ official Facebook page, PhilSA Director General Joel Joseph Marciano Jr. was giving the President an overview of the agency’s mandate and its space program.

State-run Radio Television Malacañang (RTVM), in a separate Facebook post, said the meeting between Marcos and PhilSA officials was held at Malacañan Palace’s State Dining Room. Apart from Marciano, Science and Technology Secretary Renato Solidum Jr. and Department of National Defense Officer-in-Charge (OIC) Senior Undersecretary Jose Faustino Jr. were also present during the meeting, RTVM said. (10/18)

SpaceX Launched its 100th Falcon 9 Mission From Cape Canaveral Spaceport's LC-40 (Source: Florida Today)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station accompanied the cool crisp fall-like weather Thursday morning on the Space Coast. At 10:50 a.m. EDT, the 230-foot rocket vaulted away from pad 40 carrying 54 more of the company's Starlink internet-beaming satellites to orbit. A short time after liftoff the 162-foot Falcon 9 first stage booster somersaulted for a landing on the A Shortfall of Gravitas drone ship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

Thursday's launch marked the 63rd dedicated Starlink mission for the company and brought the total amount of Starlink satellites launched to over 3,500. It was also SpaceX's 100th overall mission from Launch Complex 40 in Florida. Thursday's Starlink mission marked the 46th launch from the spaceport this year. The Eastern Range is on pace to support a total of 66 launches by year's end, according to the Space Force. (10/20)