January 13, 2023

2022 Was a Record Year for Space Launches (Source: Nature)
2022 was a record year for space with 180 successful rocket launches to orbit — the most ever, and 44 more than in 2021. The launches were dominated by rockets from US company SpaceX and from the Chinese government and businesses. “Space traffic is shooting up, pun intended,” says Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who maintains space-flight databases and this month published his analysis of launches in 2022. (1/11)

Tesla Giga Shanghai Planned Expansion Sees Delay Due to Starlink (Source: Teslarati)
A recent report has alleged that Tesla’s planned expansion for Giga Shanghai has been delayed. The reason for the delay is reportedly something not related to Tesla not all — instead, it is reportedly connected to Elon Musk’s satellite internet system, Starlink. After it broke ground in 2019, Giga Shanghai has rapidly grown into one of the company’s most important facilities. Today, Gigafactory Shanghai is Tesla’s largest factory by vehicle production volume, and it also serves as the company’s primary export hub.

Citing people reportedly familiar with the matter — who asked to be anonymous because they were not authorized to speak about the topic — Bloomberg News claimed that some officials from China’s central government had expressed concerns about a US company with connections to Elon Musk’s Starlink having such a large presence in the country. It should be noted that Tesla’s electric vehicles are not equipped with Starlink satellite internet systems. Despite this, Bloomberg News claimed that Beijing has become increasingly concerned about data security and social stability as Starlink might allow users to bypass the country’s Great Firewall. (1/12)

SimX Awarded US Space Force Contract to Adapt VR Medical Simulation Training for Astronaut Applications (Source: Space Daily)
The Virtual Advancement of Learning for Operational Readiness (VALOR) program at SimX, Inc. has been awarded a multi-year program by the U.S. Space Force (USSF) to develop a novel VR medical simulation training capability for the astronaut recovery and space launch missions. This program seeks to enhance the unique, mission-critical clinical training provided to U.S. Air Force (USAF) Pararescue Specialist, Combat Rescue Officers, and flight surgeons enabling them to identify and treat a variety of medical conditions not seen in other contexts.

The initial $1.7M program commitment will focus on adapting the existing SimX Virtual Reality Medical Simulation System (VRMSS) to include space-specific components as well as unique medical scenarios outlined by the existing Pre-Hospital Space Medicine Care Course (PHSMCC). These will be developed in collaboration with and tested by the USAF 24th Special Operations Wing as well as the 1st Air Force, Detachment 3, Human Space Flight Support Operations. (1/13)

Momentus to Deliver FOSSA Systems Satellites to Orbit (Source: Space Daily)
Momentus has signed a contract with FOSSA Systems ("FOSSA"), a Spanish company that offers global low-power Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity and in-space services through its satellite constellation, to place its latest generation of satellites, FOSSASat FEROX, into low-Earth orbit on two Vigoride Orbital Service Vehicle missions starting in 2023.

The first group of FOSSA's next-generation satellites is slated to launch on a Vigoride Orbital Service Vehicle on the SpaceX Transporter-8 mission no earlier than June 2023. This mission will demonstrate the satellites' new design features and act as a demonstration for a second batch of satellites expected to launch onboard a follow-on Vigoride vehicle on a later SpaceX Transporter mission, kicking off the deployment of a new constellation of FOSSA satellites. (1/13)

Lunar Flashlight Team Assessing Spacecraft's Propulsion System (Source: Space Daily)
NASA's Lunar Flashlight mission successfully launched on Dec. 11, 2022, to begin its four-month journey to the Moon, where the small satellite, or SmallSat, will test several new technologies with a goal of looking for hidden surface ice at the lunar South Pole. While the SmallSat is largely healthy and communicating with NASA's Deep Space Network, the mission operations team has discovered that three of its four thrusters are underperforming.

The mission team, which first observed the reduced thrust three days after launch, is working to analyze the issue and provide possible solutions. During its cruise, Lunar Flashlight's propulsion system has operated for short-duration pulses of up to a couple seconds at a time. Based on ground testing, the team thinks that the underperformance might be caused by obstructions in the fuel lines that may be limiting the propellant flow to the thrusters.

The team plans to soon operate the thrusters for much longer durations, hoping to clear out any potential thruster fuel line obstructions while carrying out trajectory correction maneuvers that will keep the SmallSat on course to reach its planned orbit around the Moon. In case the propulsion system can't be restored to full performance, the mission team is drawing up alternative plans to accomplish those maneuvers using the propulsion system with its current reduced-thrust capability. Lunar Flashlight will need to perform daily trajectory correction maneuvers starting in early February to reach lunar orbit about four months from now. (1/13)

NASA, DOD Seek Universities to Develop Cubesats for Launch (Source: Space Daily)
NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) is collaborating with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force to solicit applicants for a set of hands-on learning engagements that will help higher education institutions, faculty, and students elevate efforts to build small satellites and enhance the potential to be selected for flight opportunities. Teams selected for the University Nanosatellite Program (UNP) Mission Concept-1: 2023 Summer Series, will receive systems engineering training that prepares students for the industrial workforce while developing small satellite expertise at U.S. universities. (1/13)

Update on Virgin Orbit Anomaly (Source: Space Daily)
After successfully proceeding through pre-launch operations and taking off as planned from the runway at Spaceport Cornwall, Virgin Orbit's carrier aircraft traveled to the bespoke drop zone selected for this mission and successfully released the rocket. The rocket then ignited its first stage engine, quickly going hypersonic and successfully completing the stage one burn. Initial data assessments indicate that the first stage of the rocket performed as expected, that the rocket reached space altitudes, and that stage separation, ignition of the upper stage, and fairing separation similarly occurred per the planned mission timeline.

Later in the mission, at an altitude of approximately 180 km, the upper stage experienced an anomaly. This anomaly prematurely ended the first burn of the upper stage. This event ended the mission, with the rocket components and payload falling back to Earth within the approved safety corridor without ever achieving orbit. Virgin Orbit's carrier aircraft and its crew returned safely to Spaceport Cornwall. (1/13)

First Steps Toward the Space Station of the Future (Source: Space Daily)
Airbus Defence and Space is teaming up with Voyager Space to help design the next space station for NASA, ESA and other customers. The space station of the future, Starlab, could be launched as early as 2028 to ensure a sustained human presence in low-Earth orbit. Designed and architected to provide 100 percent of the International Space Station's payload capacity with the ability to conduct over 400 experiments or technical investigations per year, Starlab could provide a foundation for continued international cooperation in space, with the goal of accelerating a sustainable ecosystem in space. (1/13)

TSS Taikonauts Enjoy Ping Pong, Tai Chi in Space (Source: Futurism)
Ping-pong in space? Sounds awesome. But footage shared by Chinese media of astronaut Deng Qingming whacking a ball around in the country's Tiangong is frankly very puzzling. The ball always returns to Deng's paddle, but he doesn't seem to be bouncing it off a flat surface, and it wobbles mysteriously as it moves through the air, leaving us with far more questions than answers. Click here. (1/6)

This Tiny Japanese Lunar Rover is No Toy (Source: Hackaday)
When you think of Tomy — more properly, Takara Tomy — you think of toys and models from Japan. After all, they have made models and toys as iconic as Transformers, Thomas, Jenga, Boggle, and Furby. They also made figures associated with Thunderbirds and Tron, two favorites in our circles. However, their recent design for SORA-Q is no toy. It is a tiny lunar rover designed at the request of JAXA, the Japanese space agency. The New Yorker recently posted about how this little rover came about.

The SORA-Q looks a bit like a modern Star Wars drone or — if it could fly — a training drone from some of the older movies. The rover caught a lift from a SpaceX Falcon 9 towards the moon with the Hakuto-R M1 lander. Another SORA-Q is scheduled to touch down later this year. Click here. (1/11)

SpaceX Delays California Starlink Launch to Sunday for “Constellation Optimization" (Source: Teslarati)
SpaceX has revealed a new and mysterious reason to delay its own rocket launch: something called “constellation optimization.” Known as Starlink 2-4, the mission is now scheduled to launch a batch of 51 Starlink V1.5 satellites to a semi-polar Earth orbit no earlier than (NET) 8:15 am PST (16:15 UTC) on Sunday, January 15th. That represents a big shift in launch timing, as more recent attempts were aiming to lift off around 7-8 pm. A significant time change often implies that a launch is targeting a completely different destination, but data provided by SpaceX suggests that that’s not the case, raising more questions. (1/12)

Gaia Helps Discover Directly Imaged Planet Undergoing Nuclear Fusion (Source: Space Daily)
Scientists have used the subtle movements of a distant star to help discover a new exoplanet - which is displaying signs of undergoing nuclear fusion in its core. An international team of scientists, led by Professor Sasha Hinkley at the University of Exeter, have detected a new exoplanet orbiting the star HD206893 - found around 750 trillion miles from Earth, and about 30% larger than our own sun.

The researchers confirmed the distant planet using the Very Large Telescope's GRAVITY instrument - which works by using optical interferometry to synchronize the VLT's four main telescopes in order to perform as one much larger telescope. This technique allows GRAVITY to measure the position of the planet in its orbit extremely precisely, as well as measure the spectrum of light being emitted from the planet's atmosphere - further allowing astrophysicists to characterize its atmosphere. (1/11)

Will Pluto Finally Answer, 'Are We Alone?' (Source: Universe Today)
Triton isn’t the only place on the edge of the solar system which garners interest for finding life beyond Earth, as one of the most familiar and well-known (former) planets also exhibits evidence of recent geological activity and crater-less surface features. This is everyone’s favorite dwarf planet, Pluto, which like Triton has only been visited by one spacecraft, this one being NASA’s New Horizons, in 2015. But even with only one visitation, we discovered so much about Pluto, and what it might be hiding, as well.

“Pluto’s huge nitrogen-ice-filled basin, Sputnik Planitia, is a dominant feature on the dwarf planet,” said Dr. Anne Verbiscer, who is a research professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Virginia, along with being the Deputy Project Scientist and a Co-Investigator on NASA’s New Horizons. “It’s the brightest (most reflective) area, with unique composition, and holds clues to the possible existence of a sub-surface ocean. And our current ‘recipe’ for life as we know it, includes liquid water. So, the possibility of liquid water beneath the surface of Pluto makes it intriguing for astrobiology and finding life beyond Earth.” (1/11)

Planet and NASA Harvest Launch Commercial Partnership to Advance Food Security (Source: Space Daily)
Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL), a leading provider of daily data and insights about Earth, and NASA Harvest, the federal space agency's Global Food Security and Agriculture Program, has announced a partnership to further support the joint Food Security and Agricultural Monitoring Solution. The offering aims to deliver policy-grade agricultural monitoring and assessments of potential threats to global food security.

The offering will combine Planet's satellite data and other publicly-available datasets with the analytics expertise of the combined NASA Harvest team, facilitated by the University of Maryland and University of Strasbourg - creating an assessment tool that could play a key role in anticipating and averting food shortages and famines.

This work was first piloted to monitor fields in Ukraine in 2022 to track frontline agricultural activity and assess the impact of war on crop production. Replicating that process, and building on existing NASA Harvest expertise in the public sector and Planet's commercial offerings, the work is now being scaled to conduct regional and global assessments. The solution will be offered to national governments, multilateral institutions, NGOs and other interested parties around the world. (1/13)

Planet Accelerates Deployment of Forest Carbon Monitoring System (Source: Planet)
Planet’s founding mission is to use space to help life on Earth, and we’re excited to advance that goal by announcing our acquisition of Salo Sciences! Salo is a climate technology company that builds cutting-edge forest monitoring systems to measure Earth’s constantly changing ecosystems using artificial intelligence and multi-sensor Earth observation data. Planet plans to leverage Salo’s technologies to further develop our Planetary Variables offerings and help customers globally quantify and verify carbon stocks, monitor forest change, and mitigate climate risks. (1/12)

Space Force Must Invest in Updated Training Capabilities (Source: Space News)
The problems exposed in Russia's military during its invasion of Ukraine are a warning to the U.S. Space Force, its top general said. Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations, said the war showed that focusing on weapon systems alone is insufficient, as Russia experienced problems with command and control, training and sustainment. The lesson he said he took from that is that the Space Force needs not only the systems to carry out its missions but also training and validated tactics. Space Force units will need to practice electronic warfare, operations against GPS jamming and how to maneuver satellites, he said. Most of the current training infrastructure was inherited from the Air Force, and the Space Force has to invest in updated capabilities. (1/13)

SpiderOak Raises $16.4 Million for Satellite Cybersecurity (Source: Space News)
SpiderOak, a cybersecurity company specializing in space, has raised $16.4 million. Empyrean Technology Solutions, a space technology platform affiliated with Madison Dearborn Partners, a Chicago-based private equity firm, led the Series C round announced Thursday. SpiderOak has developed OrbitSecure, an off-the-shelf product designed to enhance satellite and constellation cybersecurity, and has won U.S. Air Force SBIR contracts. SpiderOak plans to use the Series C funding to complete on-orbit testing and obtain flight heritage for its second-generation space product, OrbitSecure 2.0. (1/13)

Starship Orbital Launch Attempt May Be Weeks Away (Source: Space News)
SpaceX said it's getting close to its Starship vehicle's long-awaited first orbital launch attempt. The company stacked a Starship vehicle atop its Super Heavy booster earlier this week at its Boca Chica, Texas, test site and said Thursday it plans to conduct a launch attempt in the "coming weeks" after a final series of tests. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said it could occur in late February or March, although the company has missed several earlier predicted launch dates. The company still needs an FAA launch license, which requires implementing many, but not necessarily all, of the more than 75 environmental mitigations identified by the FAA in an environmental review in June. (1/13)

NSF Working with SpaceX to Mitigate Starlink Impacts on Astronomy (Source: Space News)
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has reached an agreement with SpaceX to mitigate the impacts of the company's Starlink constellation on astronomy. The agreement addresses the effects of the Starlink Gen2 constellation, whose partial deployment was approved by the FCC last month. SpaceX agreed to work to reduce the brightness of its satellites and also not transmit directly over several radio observatories. NSF funds operations of several major optical and radio observatories. However, another group, the International Dark-Sky Association, has filed suit in federal court to overturn the FCC license, arguing that the agency did not comply with environmental law. (1/13)

SpaceX Activating Starlink Service in South Korea (Source: Yonhap)
SpaceX is gearing up to begin Starlink service in South Korea. SpaceX plans to set up a subsidiary in the country that will apply to the government to offer broadband services there. SpaceX, on its Starlink website, has stated it expects to begin service in the country in the second quarter of this year. (1/13)

China Launches Communications Satellite (Source: Xinhua)
China launched a small GEO communications satellite Thursday. A Long March 2C lifted off at 1:10 p.m. Eastern from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center and placed the Apstar-6E satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit. The spacecraft, weighing less than two metric tons, will use electric propulsion to reach GEO and provide service for APT Satellite. A Long March 2D lifted off at 2 a.m. Eastern Friday from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center and placed into orbit Yaogan-37, Shiyan-22A and Shiyan-22B. Chinese state media state that the satellites will be used for in-orbit technology validation, but likely have military applications. (1/13)

ESPA Ring Evolves to Satellite Bus (Source: Space News)
A secondary payload adapter had evolved into a satellite bus for national security missions. The U.S. Air Force developed the ring-shaped EELV Secondary Payload Adapter (ESPA) more than a decade ago to host secondary payloads on some Atlas and Delta launches. The ESPA ring now serves as the bus for Northrop Grumman's Long Duration Propulsive ESPA (LDPE) satellite bus, with power, propulsion and avionics. The first two LDPE vehicles successfully deployed payloads into geostationary orbit, the Space Force said, and the third will fly on the USSF-67 Falcon Heavy launch this weekend. A more advanced version of the ring is in the works under a $22 million contract announced last July. (1/13)

Space Force May Take Control of Retired NOAA Weather Satellite (Source: Space News)
The Space Force is in talks with NOAA about taking over a second weather satellite. The Space Force took over operations of the retired GOES-13 satellite in 2020, moving it to the Indian Ocean region to provide weather imagery for U.S. Central Command as Electro-Optical Infrared Weather System-Geostationary 1 (EWS-G1). At a conference this week, a Space Force official said that the service is in discussions with NOAA about a second GOES satellite that could succeed EWS-G1. While those discussions continue, efforts are underway to update other elements of the military weather satellite fleet, including tests of a prototype cubesat launched last week. (1/13)

Iyer Departs Virgin Galactic After Shakeup (Source: Space News)
A senior executive has left Virgin Galactic as the company restructures its leadership. Virgin Galactic announced Thursday that Swami Iyer, president of aerospace systems at the company since early 2021, stepped down from that position effective immediately but would stay on as an adviser through early March. The company said it was creating a "streamlined" management structure as it prepares to begin commercial operations of SpaceShipTwo in the second quarter. Those plans remain on track, with ground tests of the refurbished WhiteKnightTwo aircraft, VMS Eve, set to begin next week in California. (1/13)

Netflix to Produce 'The Three-Body Problem' (Source: GQ)
The Three-Body Problem, with a release date yet to be announced on the streamer, will be adapted from what David Benioff and D.B. Weiss call “the most ambition science-fiction series we've read,” written by Chinese author Liu Cixin, and centering on humanity's first contact with a distant alien race. Unfortunately, it seems the E.T.'s aren't coming in peace: the three books in the Three-Body trilogy eventually come to tell the story of an inter-species conflict between humankind and the aliens, spanning from the Chinese cultural revolution in the ‘60s through to the “end of time,” per Benioff and Weiss. (1/12)

What Space Does to Your Body: Swollen Heads, Shrunken Legs, Round Hearts (Source: Washington Post)
After the astronaut Scott Kelly spent a year on the International Space Station, he returned to Earth shorter, more nearsighted, lighter and with new symptoms of heart disease that his identical twin brother did not share. (Mark Kelly, now a U.S. senator, also spent a brief time in space.) Even their DNA diverged, as nearly 1,000 of Scott Kelly’s genes and chromosomes worked differently. (On the upside, he aged about 9 milliseconds less that year, thanks to how fast the space station circled the Earth.)

Most of these effects cleared up within a few months, but not all — underscoring the potential health hazards of space travel, many of which are unknown. These will ratchet up during ambitious future trips, such as NASA’s planned Artemis mission to the moon and later travel to Mars. Even a partial list of the likely physical and emotional consequences of deep space travel is daunting. Click here. (1/12)

CU Boulder Joins Academic Partnership with U.S. Space Command (Source: UC Boulder)
The University of Colorado Boulder has been selected as a United States Space Command Academic Engagement Enterprise member. The new national program is designed to expand collaboration and academic exchanges between universities and U.S. Space Command. “They’re engaging with top universities in the country to have two-way communication; how Space Command can help us and how we can benefit them,” said Marcus Holzinger, an associate professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences. “It’s about educational best practices.” (1/11)

How This UK Airport Was Transformed Into a Spaceport (Source: CNN)
The Virgin Orbit rocket went hypersonic and reached space, but failed to make it into orbit. Virgin blamed an "anomaly ending the mission prematurely," but has yet to say what exactly that was. But there was one clear success of the night: the transformation of this rural English airport into a spaceport. Cornwall Airport Newquay, to give it its official title, is the 29th busiest airport in the UK (out of the country's 40 largest), according to Civil Aviation Authority statistics from 2021.

Until now, perhaps its biggest plaudit was being judged the UK's fastest growing airport in 2017. It was best known for its beauty -- planes sweep off the runway above green fields full of unbothered sheep, and out over Cornwall's spectacular Atlantic coastline. The airplanes landing here are narrow-body short-haul aircraft at most. There are also prop planes for UK domestic destinations, and tiny puddle-jumpers flying to the Scilly Isles, off the Cornish coast.

"When the RAF (Royal Air Force) were about to close down the airport, the council decided to take it over on the understanding that in order to attract economic investment into Cornwall, it needed to be connected -- because of the distance that Cornwall is from pretty much everywhere else," says Sam O'Dwyer, managing director of the airport. With its 422 miles of coastline, Cornwall is one of the most popular vacation destinations in the UK -- but a slow train network and no motorway (freeway) means that it is relatively remote. (1/11)

ABL Rocket Damages Alaska Launch Pad (Source: KTOO)
ABL Space Systems confirmed that its RS-1 rocket experienced an anomaly during liftoff from the Kodiak Pacific Spaceport. All nine of the rocket’s engines shut down prematurely and it did not reach orbit. The rocket then “impacted the pad and was destroyed,” the company said on Twitter.

A black plume of smoke was visible from the city of Kodiak, rising from the area near the spaceport complex on Narrow Cape around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, shortly after the rocket’s planned takeoff time of 2:27 p.m. A spokesperson for ABL said via email that all personnel on the ground at the complex were safe, although there is damage to the launch facility. As of 9 p.m. Tuesday, the company said via Twitter that “fires have subsided” at the complex. (1/11)

Why NASA and Federal Agencies are Declaring 2013 the Year of Open Science (Source: Nature)
I’m thrilled to be the Transform to Open Science lead for NASA, which has a 60-year legacy of pushing the limits of how science is used to understand the Universe, planetary systems and life on Earth. Much of NASA’s success can be attributed to a culture of openness for the public good. Since the 1990s, the agency has been a leading advocate for full and open access to data and algorithms.

That culture is needed now more than ever. Humanity is facing many intersecting challenges, from the COVID-19 pandemic to climate change and food and water insecurity. To combat them, we must find breakthroughs faster, increase interdisciplinary expertise and improve how we translate research findings into action. This will require a fundamental shift: from simply sharing results in journal articles to collaborating openly, publishing reproducible results and implementing full inclusivity and transparency.

To catalyse this shift, on 11 January the US White House — joined by 10 federal agencies, a coalition of more than 85 universities, and other organizations — declared 2023 to be the Federal Year of Open Science. We set four goals for each agency involved in the Year of Open Science: to develop a strategic plan for open science; improve the transparency and equity of reviews; account for open-science activities in evaluations; and engage under-represented communities in the advancement of open science. (1/11)