November 12, 2022

X-37B Military Spaceplane Lands at Cape Canaveral Spaceport After 908 Days in Space (Sources: Boeing, Space Florida)
The Air Force's X-37B autonomous orbital test vehicle spent 908 days on orbit before landing at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport on Saturday morning. This mission marks the first time the vehicle hosted a service module, which successfully carried experiments for Naval Research Laboratory, U.S. Air Force Academy and other partners.

“Space Florida congratulates our U.S. military on another successful return of the X-37B, its third landing at our Launch and Landing Facility," said Space Florida President Frank DiBello. "This return further underscores the capabilities of Space Florida’s Launch and Landing Facility that are ideal for both Department of Defense and commercial missions alike. We are deeply committed to our national defense and our continued work with the X-37B program.”

This mission also hosted multiple NASA experiments including the Materials Exposure and Technology Innovation in Space (METIS-2), which evaluated the effects of space exposure on various materials to validate and improve the precision of space environment models. This was the second flight for this type of experiment. Mission 6 also hosted a NASA experiment to evaluate the effects of long-duration space exposure on seeds. This experiment informs research aimed at future interplanetary missions and the establishment of permanent bases in space. (11/12)

SpaceX Launches More Intelsat Satellites from Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: Click Orlando)
SpaceX successfully launched two more Intelsat communications satellites with a Falcon 9 rocket Saturday morning from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The Intelsat G-31/G-32 mission took off from Space Launch Complex 40 at the beginning of a two-hour launch window that opened at 11:06 a.m.

The Galaxy 31 and Galaxy 32 communications satellites join their beeping brethren in geostationary orbit, following a previous SpaceX launch that carried the Galaxy 33 and Galaxy 34 units away from terra in October after a helium leak was fixed. According to Intelsat, these two latest units are the third and fourth in a total of seven new Galaxy satellites to launch in the next six months. (11/12)

Tulsa Air and Space Force Office Facing Recruiting Shortage (Source: KJRH)
Military officials say they're having trouble recruiting talent in Tulsa to join the Air and Space Force. Recruiters say it’s been especially challenging to get inside some of the schools to educate students. “We were doing school visits yesterday and we were literally stopped at the door and not allowed into a school," said Master Sergeant Jamie Murphy. "This was a scheduled meeting.” It's frustrating when he says it happens frequently, and their jobs are to educate. (11/11)

NASA Says its SLS Rocket is Good to Go for a Launch Attempt Next Wednesday (Source: Ars Technica)
NASA said on Friday that its Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft appear to have survived their encounter with Hurricane Nicole this week without incurring any significant damage. "Right now there’s nothing preventing us from getting to the 16th," said Jim Free, the engineer who leads the development of exploration systems for NASA. To that end, the space agency is working toward a launch at 1:04 am ET (06:04 UTC) on Wednesday.

The early weather forecast for a launch attempt on the morning of November 16 in Florida is positive. Winds are forecast to be light, with partly to mostly clear skies. If there are technical issues that preclude the launch—this will be the third attempt to launch Artemis I in the last three months—NASA has another opportunity on Saturday, November 19. The agency has a final chance to launch this month on November 25, the day after the Thanksgiving holiday in the US. (11/11)

NASA Has a Theory for Why We Might Be Alone in the Universe (Source: Daily Beast)
More and more astronomers are coming around to the idea that we’re not alone in the universe. To them, it’s a matter of math, and humility. With potentially trillions of life-supporting planets out there, why would ours be the only one to evolve a high-tech civilization? Now a team based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California is revisiting an old theory to explain why. The “Great Filter” theory posits that other civilizations, potentially many, have existed during the history of the universe, but they all wiped themselves out before they got a chance to make contact with us.

Even more chillingly, we’re on track to “filter” ourselves out of existence as well, so to speak. In that sense, understanding why we haven’t met other civilizations—that is, what aliens may have done to destroy themselves—could hold the key to saving our own civilization. “The key to humanity successfully traversing such a universal filter is… identifying those attributes in ourselves and neutralizing them in advance,” JPL astrophysicist Jonathan Jiang and his coauthors wrote in a new study that appeared online on Oct. 23 and has not yet been peer-reviewed.

Not everyone in the sciences buys the idea of the Great Filter. “It feels overly deterministic, as if the Great Filter is a physical law or a single looming force that confronts every rising technological civilization,” Wade Roush, a science lecturer and author of Extraterrestrials, told The Daily Beast. “We have no direct evidence of such a force.” (11/12)

First Upcycled Socks Worn in Space Inspire Astronaut's New Footwear (Source: CollectSpace)
Now you can dress like an astronaut — or at least your feet can — with limited edition socks of the same style worn on the International Space Station. Osom Brand, an apparel company devoted to making high-quality products from discarded clothing, has launched Doug Hurley Orbit Space Socks based on the first upcycled socks worn in space.

Hurley, now a former NASA astronaut, wore identical socks when he led the first crewed flight of SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft in 2020. "'Orbit' socks — just like the ones I wore in space — created by a patented process that uses ZERO water, ZERO dyes and NO harsh chemicals," wrote Hurley on Twitter on Friday (Nov. 11). "Mission: create quality clothing from Earth waste." (11/11)

Space Force Orders New Weather Satellite From Ball Aerospace (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Space Force has ordered a second environmental satellite known as the Weather System Follow-on Microwave, or WSF-M, made by Ball Aerospace. The first one was purchased in 2018 and is projected to launch in 2024. The Space Force announced Nov. 9 it awarded the company a $78.2 million contract modification, exercising an option to acquire a second WSF-M satellite that would launch in 2028.

Since the Air Force selected the company in 2017, Ball Aerospace has received awards worth about $417.3 million for WSF-M. According to the contract terms, the Space Force had to exercise the option for the second satellite by November 2022 or be subject to renegotiation. Each satellite is estimated to cost $511 million, according to the Department of the Air Force. They were designed to replace the most critical capabilities of the U.S. military’s Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), an aging constellation that is expected to run out of service life in the near future. (11/11)

Next Batch of Data-Transport Satellites Will Amount to ‘250-ish’ (Source: Air Force Magazine)
The Space Development Agency’s warfighter council will set requirements in March for the second large batch of satellites to join the Transport Layer of the agency’s National Defense Space Architecture, a planned constellation in low Earth orbit. A solicitation will then go out in the “late spring of 2023,” SDA director Derek M. Tournear said Nov. 10.

While the agency is still waiting to hear from the council before it finalizes the minimum viable product and exact force design structure for the Tranche 2 Transport Layer, Tournear indicated that the tranche will include “250-ish” satellites for data transport. That’s about twice the number of satellites included in the Tranche 1 Transport Layer. SDA awarded contracts for that tranche’s 126 satellites in February. The number would also well exceed how many satellites the Space Force currently has in orbit. (11/10)