October 24, 2022

Firehawk Aerospace Plans Engine Testing Near Midland TX Spaceport (Source: KOSA)
The Midland Development Corporation signed a lease agreement with Firehawk Aerospace allowing Firehawk to test hybrid rocket engines outside of Midland city limits. Firehawk’s engines have the efficiency and power of a liquid bi-propellant engine but are simpler, safer, and less costly. Stephen Lowery, MDC Chairman, said about the agreement, “We’re thrilled to bring Firehawk Aerospace to Midland to join our growing aerospace community. Midland has a unique spirit and confidence enabling innovation and problem-solving. These characteristics provide an environment for companies like Firehawk to flourish.”

Will Edwards, CEO of Firehawk, said: “There are many reasons why Midland is a great place for Firehawk to stand up our test operations, but the most important one is the community. The city of Midland immediately embraced our mission, and we can tell they are investing the resources to turn them into the next great aerospace town!” Firehawk has previously performed engine burn tests at NASA’s Stennis Space Center. The tests will occur on land owned by the MDC west of Midland. (10/21)

Apex Raises $7.5 Million for Satellite Mass Production (Source: Space News)
A startup has raised a seed round of funding as a first step in its plans to mass-produce small satellites. Apex announced Monday it raised $7.5 million from several investors led by Andreessen Horowitz. The company is developing a smallsat bus called Aries, designed to be produced in large volumes but customized, like cars, for various applications. The company believes it can offer an effective alternative to other smallsat manufacturers and companies that build their satellites in-house. The seed round will support development of an initial demonstration satellite to be completed next year. (10/24)

France's Preligens Expands to US (Source: Space News)
French geospatial data analysis startup Preligens is expanding in the United States. The company founded a U.S. subsidiary three years ago and is expanding that office to work with the Defense Department. Preligens makes software for geospatial data analysis and won a $237 million contract from the French military earlier this month for that software. (10/24)

Russia Launches Six Satellites on Two Rockets (Sources: Space.com, SpaceFlight Now)
One Soyuz rocket launched a pair of classified satellites Friday. The Soyuz-2.1v rocket lifted off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia at 3:20 p.m. Eastern after several days of delays. The purpose of the classified payloads is unknown, but there is speculation they could be experimental spacecraft for testing satellite inspection techniques.

Another Soyuz lifted off Saturday carrying four communications satellites. The Soyuz launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia's far east at 3:57 p.m. Eastern. The rocket carried three Gonets satellites for a low Earth orbit communications system, as well as a fourth satellite, Skif-D, intended to serve as a prototype for Russia's proposed Sphere broadband constellation. (10/24)

Russian Cargo Craft Undocks From ISS (Source: TASS)
A Progress cargo spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station on Sunday. The Progress MS-19 spacecraft undocked from the station's Poisk module at 6:45 p.m. Eastern and reentered over the South Pacific about three and a half hours later. The spacecraft's departure frees up a docking port for the next Progress cargo spacecraft, scheduled to launch Tuesday evening. (10/24)

Scientists in China Discover Rare Moon Crystal that Could Power Earth (Source: Discovery)
The lunar crystal is made of material previously unknown to the scientific community and contains a key ingredient for the nuclear fusion process, a form of power generation that harnesses the same forces that fuel the Sun and other stars in the galaxy. The crystal was found in lunar basalt particles collected from the moon in 2020 and makes China the third country to discover a new lunar mineral, behind the US and the former Soviet Union.

The Chinese moon mission landed in Oceanus Procellarum in December 2020 and was the first lunar sample return mission since the 1970s. The Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology has named the phosphate mineral Changesite-(Y), after the mythological Chinese goddess of the moon, Chang’e. The crystal is transparent and roughly the width of a single human hair. It formed in a region of the moon that was volcanically active around 1.2 billion years ago.

One of the primary ingredients found in this crystal is helium-3, which scientists believe may provide a stable fuel source for nuclear fusion reactors. The element is incredibly rare on Earth, but it seems to be fairly prevalent on the moon. China’s next moon mission is expected to be Chang’e 6 in 2024, which will attempt to collect the first samples from the far side of the moon – which never faces the Earth. (10/24)

Russia, US, Japan & Australia Race To Master Next-Gen Propulsion System (Source: Eurasia Times)
Stealth technology, space rocketry, and hypersonics might be a thing of the past if a new, emerging techno-military race between the United States and Russia is considered. The countries’ defense technology developers have identified next-generation propulsion systems that might power future drones, sixth-generation aircraft, missiles, or even entire aircraft.

General Atomics (GA) announced a “completely disruptive” “hybrid electric propulsion” for its concept MQ-Next drone on October 4. This was preceded by Russia’s United Engine Corporation (UEC) declaring in July last year research and development (R&D) efforts in “combined electric technology.” And in July this year, DARPA revealed a high-speed missile program called ‘Gambit,’ powered by a potentially revolutionary Rotation Detonation Engine (RDE).

RDEs use the ‘detonation’ (and not ‘combustion’) of fuel following its mixture with compressed air as a thrust. This allows more thrust with the same amount of fuel, using the detonation’ shockwaves,’ which travel in a circular pathway, and fuel and oxidizers are added periodically. ‘Hybrid-Electric Propulsion’ and ‘Rotation Detonation Engines (RDE)’ might revolutionize how aerial operations are planned and conducted if their expected range, thrust, and speed advantages are realized. (10/10)

Blue Origin Streamlines Procedure Execution with Epsilon3 (Source: Epsilon3)
Epsilon3’s web-based procedure platform enables Blue Origin technicians, operators, responsible engineers, and management to instantly access information around current status of operations, release history, and historical reference of procedural content. It also helps Blue Origin ensure safety and quality around all of their integration, testing, and operations activities. Traditionally, procedural content has been written in Word, PDF, Excel, Confluence, etc. Epsilon3 simplifies all the actions around procedures and controls by providing turn-key solutions, easy onboarding, and little to no IT management from in-house personnel. (10/20)

Soyuz Rocket Launches with Demo Satellite for Russian Internet Constellation (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
A Russian Soyuz rocket launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome at 3:57 p.m. EDT Saturday with three Gonets data relay payloads and a demonstrator spacecraft for a proposed constellation of Russian broadband internet satellites. The three-stage Soyuz-2.1b rocket, topped by a Fregat upper stage, took off at 4:57 a.m. local time from Vostochny, Russia’s newest spaceport near the country’s border with China in the far eastern Amur Oblast.

The rocket shed its first stage boosters about two minutes after liftoff, then jettisoned its payload fairing and core stage. A third stage engine fired several minutes before releasing the Fregat upper stage to begin maneuvers before deploying the four satellite payloads. The Soyuz headed north from the remote spaceport to target a near-polar orbit, using its Fregat upper stage to place the three Gonets-M data relay satellites into an orbit about 932 miles above Earth.

The three 617-pound Gonets-M satellites will separate first from the Fregat upper stage, which will then reignite multiple times to inject Russia’s 352-pound Skif-D tech demo satellite into a much higher orbit about 5,014 miles above Earth. The entire launch sequence will take about four hours from liftoff until separation of the final satellite. Russian government ministries and civilian authorities use the Gonets-M satellites to relay secure messages between mobile terminals and fixed operators. (10/22)

Beaming Clean Energy From Space (Source: CalTech)
Once considered science fiction, technology capable of collecting solar power in space and beaming it to Earth to provide a global supply of clean and affordable energy is moving closer to reality. Through the Space-based Solar Power Project (SSPP), a team of Caltech researchers is working to deploy a constellation of modular spacecraft that collect sunlight, transform it into electricity, then wirelessly transmit that electricity wherever it is needed—including to places that currently have no access to reliable power.

"This is an extraordinary and unprecedented project," says Harry Atwater, an SSPP researcher and Otis Booth Leadership Chair of Caltech's Division of Engineering and Applied Science. "It exemplifies the boldness and ambition needed to address one of the most significant challenges of our time, providing clean and affordable energy to the world."

The project is led jointly by Atwater, who is also the Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science, and two other researchers: Ali Hajimiri, Bren Professor of Electrical Engineering and co-director of SSPP; and Sergio Pellegrino, Joyce and Kent Kresa Professor of Aerospace and Civil Engineering, co-director of SSPP, and a senior research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). (10/17)

Cooling Technique Developed for Space Use Makes Charging Electric Cars on Earth Quicker and Easier (Source: NASA)
Numerous future NASA space missions will involve complex systems that must maintain specific temperatures to operate. These systems—including nuclear fission power systems for missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond; vapor compression heat pumps to support Lunar and Martian habitats; and systems to provide thermal control and advanced life support onboard spacecraft—will require advanced heat transfer capabilities to execute the thermal control required.

A team sponsored by NASA’s Biological and Physical Sciences Division is developing a new technology that will not only achieve orders-of-magnitude improvement in heat transfer to enable these systems to maintain proper temperatures in space, but will also enable significant reductions in size and weight of the hardware. What’s more, this same technology may make owning an electric-powered car here on Earth easier and more feasible.

A team led by led by Issam Mudawar, Purdue University’s Betty Ruth and Milton B. Hollander Family Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has developed the Flow Boiling and Condensation Experiment (FBCE) to enable two-phase fluid flow and heat transfer experiments to be conducted in the long-duration microgravity environment on the International Space Station. (10/4)

As Elon Musk Expands His Reach, Washington Worries (Source: Washington Post)
Between launching four astronauts and 54 satellites into orbit, unveiling an electric freight truck and closing in on taking over Twitter this month, Elon Musk made time to offer unsolicited peace plans for Taiwan and Ukraine, antagonizing those countries’ leaders and irking Washington, too. Musk, the richest man in the world, then irritated some Pentagon officials by announcing he didn’t want to keep paying for his private satellite service in Ukraine, before later walking back the threat.

As Musk, 51, inserts himself into volatile geopolitical issues, many Washington policymakers worry from the sidelines as he bypasses them. A two-decade partnership between Musk and the federal government helped the United States return to global dominance in space and shift to electric cars, and made the tech geek an internationally famous CEO. But many in Washington, even as they praise his work in areas of national security, now see Musk as too powerful and too reckless.

Citing Musk’s public ridicule of those who snub him — the billionaire has called President Biden a “damp sock puppet” and said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) reminds him of “my friend’s angry mom” — many of the two dozen top government officials interviewed for this article would only speak about Musk on the condition of anonymity. But nearly all described him as being as erratic and arrogant as he is brilliant. “Elon, The Everywhere” is what one White House official called him. “He believes he is such a gift to mankind that he doesn’t need any guardrails, that he knows best.” (10/22)

Spanish Balloon Company to Take Space Tourists 25 Miles Into Space for £74,000 From 2025 (Source: Yahoo! News)
Spanish space tourism company HALO space will take passengers on balloon rides to the edge of space - and will take off with a first test flight this December. The Madrid-based company will take tourists to the edge of space in a capsule attached to a balloon - with prices from £87,000 to £174,000 (100,000 to 200,000 Euros).

The final capsule design will have capacity for 8 passengers and a pilot and feature panoramic windows which allow 360-degree views of the Earth at an altitude of up to 25 miles. The company will conduct the test in the third week of December, which will take off from the Balloon Facility of the prestigious Tata Institute for Fundamental Research (TIFR) in India. A second test flight is already planned for the end of the first quarter of 2023 in Spain. (10/21)

China's Deep Space Exploration Laboratory Recruits Young Talent (Source: Xinhua)
China's deep space exploration laboratory launched campus recruitment, aiming to attract more young talents to devote themselves to the country's deep space exploration, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA). Co-established by the CNSA, Anhui Province, and the University of Science and Technology of China, the laboratory is headquartered in Hefei, the capital city of Anhui. It started operation in June this year.

The recruitment is mainly for graduates of 2023. A total of 36 posts in computing, automation, aircraft, and artificial intelligence are open for majors such as space science, aerospace science and technology, aircraft design, computing, artificial intelligence and automation, among others. Since its establishment, the laboratory has carried out science and technology research focusing on major national projects in deep space exploration, including lunar and Mars exploration. (10/22)

'Spooky Action at a Distance' Can Lead to a Multiverse. Here's How (Source: Space.com)
Some interpretations of quantum mechanics propose that our entire universe is described by a single universal wave function that constantly splits and multiplies, producing a new reality for every possible quantum interaction. One of the earliest realizations in the history of quantum mechanics is that matter has a wave-like property. The first to propose this was French physicist Louis de Broglie, who argued that every subatomic particle has a wave associated with it, just like light can behave like both a particle and a wave.

Other physicists confirmed this radical idea, especially in experiments where electrons scattered off a thin foil before landing on a target. The way the electrons scattered was more characteristic of a wave than a particle. But then, a question came up: What, exactly, is a wave of matter? What does it look like? The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics suggests the wave function — the name physicists give to the wave-like property of matter — doesn't really exist. Instead, it's a mathematical convenience that we use to describe a cloud of quantum mechanical probabilities for where we might find a subatomic particle the next time we go looking for it.

When we retrace all the steps of a measurement, what comes out is a series of entanglements from overlapping wave functions. The electron entangles with the atoms in the screen, which entangle with the electrons in the wire, and so on. Even the particles in our brains entangle with Earth, with all the light coming and going from our planet, all the way up to every particle in the universe entangling with every other particle in the universe. With every new entanglement, you have a single wave function that describes all of the combined particles. So the obvious conclusion from making the wave function real is that there is a single wave function that describes the entire universe. Click here. (10/23)

Cosmonautics Boosts Development of Related Economic Sectors — Russia’s Deputy PM (Source: TASS)
The development of Russia’s cosmonautics helps boost related sectors of the economy, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov said on Sunday. "Development of related economic sectors is also boosted through the active development of outer space," Manturov said after the launch of the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle from the Vostochny cosmodrome. According to the Deputy Prime Minister, the funds set by the federal budget and the attention to this sphere show that cosmonautics is one of Russia’s main priority areas. (10/23)

Major Space Players and Diverging Strategies in the Race to Connect Your Smartphone Via Satellites (Source: CNBC)
The race to provide high-speed internet from satellites is well underway – but another, more ambitious competition, to connect directly from space to devices like smartphones, began in earnest earlier this year.

The potential untapped market — which hinges on, but extends beyond, sending a text via space — is spurring a tale of two strategies: Those putting specialized antennae in phones, versus those putting high-powered antennae on the satellites themselves. For some companies, it means billions spent on what could end up being a losing approach.

“The satellite industry is really niche and – if they can tap into connecting billions of smartphones – they can start talking about market sizes that are way greater than they’ve ever been able to address before. Everything before has been in the millions,” Caleb Henry, senior analyst at boutique research firm Quilty Analytics, told CNBC. (10/23)