January 6, 2023

Space 2023: Major Test of NASA’s Commercial Moon Program as Armada of Landers Head for Lunar Surface (Source: Parabolic Arc)
In April 2018, NASA announced that it would no longer build robotic moon landers, but that it would pay private companies to deliver instruments to the surface under its new Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. Companies would supplement relatively meager NASA funding by selling the remaining payload space to other parties. NASA said CLPS would take “shots on goal,” with some failures expected.

Five years later, the program faces a major test with the launch of as many as three CLPs missions in 2023. These spacecraft will be part of a group of seven lunar landers launched this year, including one built by a private Japanese company and three others constructed by the Japanese, Indian and Russian space agencies. Click here. (1/6)

Satcom Providers Feast on Soaring Maritime Demand for Broadband (Source: Maritime Executive)
Most of us take connectivity for granted. With few exceptions, high-speed broadband is cheap and ubiquitous in every population center in the industrialized world. Universal 5G/LTE coverage has made all kinds of new efficiencies possible – from Google Maps to IoT asset tracking. The same revolution is now arriving on the high seas. Demand for broadband on board is rising fast, driven by the needs of crews and ship managers, and new companies are entering the market to compete for a piece of the growing pie.

Demand for satellite connectivity has soared over the past three years. Vessel operators have realized its value in enhancing crew welfare, especially in a tight labor market, and more seafarers than ever have access to the Internet while under way. FaceTime calls with family back home are a great boost for morale and retention, but they require real bandwidth. (1/5)

Fast Take: Chris Cassidy, Space Exploration and the US Military (Source: Stars and Stripes)
From the depths of the ocean to beyond the atmosphere, retired Navy SEAL and astronaut Chris Cassidy knows a thing or two about being in stressful situations, as he revealed in last week’s episode of Military Matters. In this Fast Take, co-hosts Rod Rodriguez and Jack Murphy revisit Rodriguez’s conversation with Cassidy and take a look at how space exploration and the military are linked.

“People sometimes look at it now, like, why are we bothering going into space? Why are we sending all these little probes to Mars and stuff?” Murphy said. “But it's like, those are the early, upfront investments that we have to make as a species today, so that one day we can have space stations out in the middle of nowhere, and we're mining comets and we're colonizing Mars and stuff like that.” Rodriguez pointed out how technology used for space exploration could end up helping the U.S. military back on Earth. Click here. (1/5)

Artemis Will Make Great Strides, Name First Crew in 2023 (Source: UPI)
The highly anticipated launch of NASA's Artemis I mission late last year grabbed headlines around the world as the US prepared to return humans to the moon again after held a decade. Astrophiles watching the Artemis program have high expectations for NASA, even though the space agency has faced criticism for the program's delays and rising budget. Last May, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that the space agency has to be "brutally realistic" about some slow progress in the program while addressing a budget request from the administration of President Joe Biden that seek $24.8 billion for NASA.

In November 2021, NASA's Office of the Inspector General released a report estimating that the Artemis program would cost nearly $93 billion through 2025, with the first four flights estimated to cost around $4.1 billion each. Still, Amit Kshatriya, NASA's assistant deputy associate administrator for exploration systems, told UPI that managers expect to achieve many milestones in the Artemis program during 2023, including preparation for Artemis II mission and naming the crew.

Kshatriya said that although the Artemis II mission is not expected to be launched until at least 2024, the space agency will conduct significant work toward space exploration throughout next year, including testing the Orion capsule and analyzing data from the Artemis I mission. "The [Artemis II] flight itself is going to be amazing. All the work we're going to do over the next 1 1/2 to two years is going to make sure of that." Kshatriya noted that Artemis "is not just these flights" and is generally about sustainable lunar exploration. (1/6)

Space 2023: Commercial Missions to ISS, Private Spacewalk & Suborbital Tourism Flights (Source: Parabolic Arc)
The privatization of human spaceflight is set to accelerate this year with an increase in the number of commercial launches to the International Space Station (ISS) and the long-delayed start of suborbital space tourism flights by Virgin Galactic. Professional astronauts will continue to rotate to and from ISS and China’s Tiangong space station. Click here. (1/5)

Europe, India and Japan Faced Launch Delays & Setbacks in 2022 (Source: Parabolic Arc)
The U.S. and China set new launch records in 2022. While lagged far behind in third place, Russia could take pride in the fact that all its launches were successful. The year didn’t go quite as well for three other major launching powers, however. Japan and Europe each suffered a launch failure while watching the maiden flights of new boosters slip into 2023. (For Japan, the failure was the nation’s only launch of 2022.)

India’s launch cadence recovered from a COVID-induced trough, but the nation saw its new small satellite launcher fail on its inaugural flight. Results were better for a pair of other nations that don’t launch very often. South Korea not only launched the nation’s first domestically manufactured rocket but placed its first orbiter around the moon. Iran launched a small satellite after a pair of failures in 2021. Click here. (12/31)

Space SPAC Index: Falcon 9 Launches 47 Payloads for SPAC Companies on Rideshare Mission (Source: Parabolic Arc)
SpaceX started off the year with a boom on Tuesday with the launch of its Transporter-6 rideshare mission from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The Falcon 9 first stage booster touched down on land instead of an off-shore drone ship, sending a sonic boom echoing across the Sunshine State. The launch had 114 payloads on it. SpaceX has now launched 550 payloads into sun synchronous orbit on five Transporter missions since January 2021. The company has plans for three additional Transporter missions this year as it attempts to launch 100 times. Click here. (1/3)

This Small Box Could Be the Future of Building in Outer Space (Source: Washington Post)
Astronauts for decades have faced challenges building things in space. Now, researchers are trying to change that. Backed by MIT’s Space Exploration Initiative, astronauts on board the International Space Station on Friday completed a roughly 45-day experiment using a small microwave-sized box that injects resin into silicone skins to build parts, such as nuts and bolts.

Now, after the parts travel back to Earth this weekend, scientists will evaluate the test pieces to examine whether they were made successfully — a process that could take weeks. If so, it paves the way for astronauts to build huge parts that would be nearly impossible on Earth thanks to gravity and could upgrade space construction. It lets you build and modify space stations “quicker, cheaper and with less complexity,” said Ariel Ekblaw, the founder of the Space Exploration Initiative. “It starts to unlock more opportunities for exploration.”

Ekblaw and her team at MIT have several projects in the works to upgrade space construction. The current project, studying a process called extrusion, is the most experimental, Ekblaw said. Another initiative aims to create individual tiles that can self-assemble in space. The third revolves around origami-shaped connected tiles that unfold on their own. (1/6)

EOSDA Launches First Satellite on Transporter-6 Mission (Source: Space Daily)
On January 3, 2023, EOS SAT-1, the initial satellite of EOS SAT, the first agri-focused satellite constellation launched by a remote sensing company, was successfully delivered into a low Earth orbit by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport in Florida.

EOS SAT is a constellation consisting of seven small optical satellites created by EOS Data Analytics, a global provider of AI-powered satellite imagery analytics founded by Dr. Max Polyakov, to support the implementation of sustainable agriculture methods and environmental monitoring of forestlands by providing high-quality data for analysis. (1/6)

Webb Reveals Milky Way-Like Galaxies in Early Universe (Source: Space Daily)
New images from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal for the first time galaxies with stellar bars - elongated features of stars stretching from the centers of galaxies into their outer disks - at a time when the universe was a mere 25% of its present age. The finding of so-called barred galaxies, similar to our Milky Way, this early in the universe will require astrophysicists to refine their theories of galaxy evolution.

Prior to JWST, images from the Hubble Space Telescope had never detected bars at such young epochs. In a Hubble image, one galaxy, EGS-23205, is little more than a disk-shaped smudge, but in the corresponding JWST image taken this past summer, it's a beautiful spiral galaxy with a clear stellar bar. (1/6)

Physicists Confirm Effective Wave Growth Theory in Space (Source: Space Daily)
A team from Nagoya University in Japan has observed, for the first time, the energy transferring from resonant electrons to whistler-mode waves in space. Their findings offer direct evidence of previously theorized efficient growth, as predicted by the non-linear growth theory of waves. This should improve our understanding of not only space plasma physics but also space weather, a phenomenon that affects satellites. Click here. (1/6)

SwRI Delivers Innovative Instrument for NASA's Europa Clipper Mission (Source: Space Daily)
A groundbreaking new mass spectrometer designed and built by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has been delivered for integration onto NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft. Scheduled to launch in 2024 and arrive in the Jovian system by 2030, Europa Clipper will conduct a detailed science investigation of the moon Europa and study whether it could harbor conditions suitable for life.

The MAss Spectrometer for Planetary EXploration (MASPEX) instrument will be one of nine science instruments in the mission payload, which also includes Europa-UVS, an SwRI-developed Ultraviolet Spectrograph, the latest in a series of spacecraft instruments. MASPEX will analyze the gases near Europa to understand the chemistry of Europa's surface, atmosphere and suspected subsurface ocean. MASPEX will study how Jupiter's radiation alters Europa's surface compounds and how its icy surface and subsurface ocean exchange material. (1/6)

KSAT to support NOAA's Deep Space Solar Observatory (Source: Space Daily)
KBR has selected KSAT to provide all Outside the Continental United States (OCONUS) SWFO Antenna Network (SAN) services. The KBR and KSAT team are developing a blended network including U.S. government ground station sites with KSAT-owned capabilities delivered as a service. Increased solar activity in recent weeks has provided opportunities for many in the Northern Hemisphere to view the aurora borealis at latitudes where it typically is not visible. (1/6)

NASA Considers Changes to Earth Science Mission (Source: Space News)
NASA is weighing changes to a major Earth science mission just beginning development because of cost growth. An independent review completed in the fall concluded that the Atmosphere Observing System (AOS) mission, projected by NASA to cost $1.9 billion, will instead cost at least $2.4 billion. That review raised concerns about the technical maturity of two instruments, a radar and lidar, planned for AOS.

NASA said it will use the upcoming Phase A of AOS to study whether to replace those instruments with less expensive, but also less capable, versions, or if industry can provide alternative instruments to meet the science goals while reducing costs. AOS is part of the Earth System Observatory, a line of missions NASA is developing to implement recommendations from the Earth science decadal survey. (1/6)

Earth Science Missions Face Budget Pressures (Source: Space News)
Existing Earth science missions are facing budget pressures. NASA said at a town hall meeting at a conference last month it will allow three aging missions — Aqua, Aura and Terra — to participate in an upcoming senior review of extended Earth sciences missions. The three spacecraft, launched between 1999 and 2004, continue to operate, but are drifting out of their original orbits as they run out of fuel. Agency officials warned that with projected budgets, it won't be able to fund every mission seeking an extension at the senior review, and will ask reviewers to look for trades among the missions or ways for them to reduce their operating costs. (1/6)

Date Confirmed for First Orbital Launch From UK Soil (Source: Sky News)
A historic rocket launch that will blast satellites into space from the UK's southwest coast will take place on Monday. So long as the weather cooperates, the initial window for the Start Me Up mission will open at 10.16pm, when the LauncherOne system will be carried skyward from Spaceport Cornwall. It will be nestled under the wing of a converted Boeing 747 nicknamed Cosmic Girl, and with it a payload of satellites, including a prototype orbiting factory for making high-value alloys and semiconductors. (1/6)

Astronomers Witness Unprecedented Corona Formation, Evolution Around Black Hole (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
With help from NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescopic Array (NuSTAR) X-ray telescope, a group of researchers recently bore unusually close witness to the formation and evolution of an unexpected corona around a supermassive black hole as it destroyed a star that had passed too close to it.

The event, located 250 million light years from Earth, is only the fifth-closest observation of a star being destroyed by a black hole. This type of cosmic event is known as a tidal disruption, and they occur when stars wander too close to a supermassive black hole where the intense gravity and tidal forces then stretch and elongate the stars in a destructive process called spaghettification. (1/5)

First Low-Orbit Space Station Is Coming, and This Hypersonic Aircraft Will Shuttle You There (Source: Robb Report)
More than half a century after man landed on the moon, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is teaming up with Sierra Space, several Amazon divisions and a half-dozen other companies and universities to launch the first commercial economy in space—a “mixed-use business park” called Orbital Reef with a hotel, restaurant and R&D outposts for companies testing products in microgravity.

The early colonizers of Low Earth Orbit—that’s the layer between Earth’s atmosphere and Deep Space—are slated to arrive on the Dream Chaser, a supersonic spaceplane developed by Colorado-based aerospace company Sierra Space. Together, Blue Origin and Sierra Space plan to open Orbital Reef in 2027, aspiring to become the largest real estate developer in space.

The three-way “billionaire space race” among Branson’s Virgin Galactic, Musk’s Space X and Bezos’ Blue Origin is accelerating civilian space travel with the goal of gradually decreasing costs, but there’s still a distance to go. “We first have to get good at building commercial economies in low earth orbit,” said Vice. “Then we’ll move to the lunar surface, 250,000 miles away, before we can figure out how to live on a planet that’s 35 million miles away.”  (12/29)

Sierra Space Advancing Toward 2023 Dream Chaser Mission (Source: Robb Report)
Last year, NASA awarded Sierra Space a $3 billion contract to supply the International Space Station with cargo and crew. The first of seven missions is scheduled to launch on a Vulcan Centaur rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral in 2023. Dream Chaser’s first manned mission is scheduled to depart three years later.

Dream Chaser, which can be re-used roughly 15 times, can carry up to 12,000 pounds of cargo, or a dozen passengers. It’s compact, with a short wingspan and total length of 30 feet. By comparison, the NASA space shuttle retired in 2011 measures four times longer.

Its small stature belies its most striking feature: LIFE (Large Integrated Flexible Environment) habitat, an inflatable structure that attaches to the back of the spaceplane and expands in orbit into globular living quarters measuring 27 feet in diameter, the equivalent of a three-story building. The soft material can deflect the impact of meteors and other space debris better than titanium or Kevlar. (12/29)

NASA And Sierra Space Tenacity Teams Train For ISS Mission (Source: Aviation Week)
As part of preparations for the Tenacity test flight to the International Space Station this year, Sierra Space and NASA engineers and managers are conducting joint simulations at mission control centers in Houston and at Sierra’s recently completed Dream Chaser Mission Control Center in Louisville Colorado. (1/6)

NorthStar Earth & Space Closes $35M Series C (Source: SpaceQ)
NorthStar Earth & Space, a commercial space-based situational awareness startup based in Montreal, announced it had closed its Series C round of funding having raised $US$35M from an international group of investors.  The investment comes as NorthStar prepares for the launch of its first satellites this year.

A representative of NorthStar said that a mid-year launch of their three 16U microsatellites is on track. The representative would not give a firmer date as the decision on where the satellites will be launched from is still to be decided. While Spire is building the satellites for NorthStar, Spire’s partner Virgin Orbit will launch them. While Virgin Orbit has operated all its launches from California, they are now preparing to launch their first mission from the UK. (1/6)

NASA Chief Says 2023 Will Be a 'Game-Changing' Year for Space and Aeronautics (Source: Space.com)
NASA closed out 2022 with a bang. The completion of the space agency's Artemis 1 mission, the successful first launch of its new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the return of the uncrewed Orion capsule after its trip around the moon, put a nice bow on the end of NASA's year in 2022.

Former Senator and current NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said as much in a recent video released by NASA at the start of the new year. "'22 will go down in the history books as one of the most accomplished years [in] all of NASA's history," Nelson says, adding that last year has kicked off a "golden age of space exploration." (1/5)

Solar-Sailing Probes May Soon Get their Moment in the Sun (Source: Space.com)
Solar sailing can be a relatively slow-motion affair, but progress in the nascent field is quickly gaining steam. The idea is not to use conventional "gas guzzling" propulsion but rather to employ ever-present and energetic solar photons to travel through space. Over time, this steady thrust from sunlight can accelerate a spacecraft to very high speeds.

Harnessing this technology, which is now being pursued by multiple nations, could allow probes to efficiently explore the outer solar system and even interstellar space, advocates say. But the technology has been a work in progress for many years — and it hasn't always been smooth sailing. (1/5)

General Atomics Selected to Build Satellite for AFRL Cislunar Mission (Source: Space News)
General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems won a contract from Advanced Space to build a satellite that the Air Force Research Laboratory plans to launch to deep space in 2025. General Atomics, based in San Diego, California, announced Jan. 5 it will produce an ESPA-class satellite bus, integrate and test payloads for Advanced Space, the prime contractor for AFRL’s Oracle experiment.

AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate in November awarded Advanced Space a $72 million contract to develop a spacecraft for the Oracle mission, intended to monitor deep space, far beyond Earth’s orbit. The Oracle spacecraft will carry an optical payload made by Leidos and AFRL’s green propellant experiment for a two-year demonstration. (1/5)

SpaceX Readies for Jan. 12 Falcon Heavy Launch for DoD (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
SpaceX is gearing up for a Falcon Heavy launch next week. The company is targeting as soon as Jan. 12 for the USSF-67 mission for the Space Force from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. The launch will carry a military communications satellite and a rideshare payload. The Falcon Heavy's two side boosters will return to land at Cape Canaveral while the center booster will be expended. The launch will be the second in two and a half months for the Falcon Heavy after a hiatus of more than three years. (1/6)

Intuitive Machines to Send Japanese Rover to Moon (Source: Intuitive Machines)
Intuitive Machines will fly a Japanese rover on its second lunar lander mission. The company said Thursday its IM-2 mission, currently scheduled for launch in the second half of the year, will fly a small rover called Yaoki built by Japanese robotics company Dymon. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but Intuitive Machines said the deal included both transporting the rover to the moon and providing communications services for it. (1/6)

South Korea's Lunar Orbiter Returns Images (Source: Space.com)
South Korea's first lunar orbiter is returning images of the moon and Earth. The Danuri spacecraft, launched in August, entered orbit around the moon last month and has since completed a series of maneuvers to enter its science orbit 100 kilometers above the surface. As part of the commissioning process, the spacecraft has started to take images, including an "Earthrise" image of the Earth above the lunar horizon. (1/6)

NASA And SpaceX Consider Daring Plan To ‘Reboost’ The Hubble Space Telescope (Source: Forbes)
Can NASA and SpaceX help save the Hubble Space Telescope? Hubble’s orbit is decaying and if it degrades badly it will unavoidably burn-up in Earth’s atmosphere. NASA has two options. Accept that this scenario is inevitable and, someday soon (possibly as early as 2026, though more likely the end of the decade) guide Hubble to break-up over the Pacific Ocean.

That may necessitate some kind of mission to dock with it in orbit and guide it back in a controlled way. Or it could send a spacecraft to dock with it and boost it farther from Earth, thus extending its life. On Sep. 22, 2022 NASA and SpaceX announced that they were investigating the possibility of using a Dragon spacecraft—of the kind used to ferry NASA astronauts to the International Space Station—to go visit Hubble. On Dec. 22 NASA issued a request for other commercial space companies to get involved.

A general servicing would be crucial because whether or not Hubble avoids re-entry this decade it is getting old. Launched in 1990 and last serviced by a space shuttle crew in 2009, it’s beginning to have technical problems. The latest was in July 2021 when it spent a month out of action because its payload computer failed before the problem was fixed. However, from a science point of view an upgrade to its optics would be a game-changer. The reflecting telescope has a 2.4 meter mirror that can’t be upgraded, but its cameras could be. (1/6)

Polaris Dawn's Second Mission Could Focus on Hubble (Source: Forbes)
Its first mission, Polaris Dawn, is targeted for no earlier than the fourth quarter of 2023 and will see the Dragon spacecraft containing four astronauts (Isaacman, Scott Poteet, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon) fly 870 miles above Earth—the highest since the Apollo missions to the Moon. The third mission is scheduled to be the first flight of SpaceX’s Starship with humans on board.

So it’s the second mission that just might involve a visit to Hubble. However, NASA’s invitation for the wider private space companies to get involved suggests that SpaceX and the Polaris Program aren’t totally convinced. For its part NASA says it just wants to “understand the commercial possibilities.”

The feasibility study will take up to six months, with data from Hubble and the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft being used to help determine whether it would be possible to safely rendezvous, dock and move the telescope into a more stable orbit. If the feasibility studies suggests it’s a go-er it would be the sixth time Hubble has been visited since its launch from Space Shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990. (1/6)

The Year Ahead in Spaceflight (Source: Gizmodo)
Over a dozen lunar missions are planned for the coming year, some public and some private, in what will be a dramatic showcase of our increasing competency and interest in space. Highlights will include NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer orbiter, an entire army of various rovers (including a transforming rover built by a Japanese toy company and a spider-like robot that could eventually explore lunar caves), India’s second attempt at a soft landing, private landers from Astrobotic Technology and Japan’s ispace, among other missions to our natural satellite. Click here. (1/5)

How the James Webb Space Telescope Changed Astronomy in its First Year (Source: The Verge)
Despite the debates over the telescope’s naming and history, one thing has become abundantly clear this year — the scientific ability of JWST is remarkable. Beginning its science operations in July 2022, it has already allowed astronomers to get new views and uncover mysteries about a huge range of space topics. The most pressing aim of JWST is one of the most ambitious projects in the recent history of astronomy: to look back at some of the first galaxies, which formed when the universe was brand new. Click here. (1/2)

Wild Space 'Ferry' Concept Uses Paragliders to Return Satellites and Science to Earth (Source: Space.com)
Dropping in twice from a dozen miles high in the stratosphere, a paraglider safely touched down on Earth in a key milestone aimed at removing space debris. The high-altitude tests in April 2022 were the flying start to Outpost Technologies' vision: to gently return used space hardware back to Earth for reflight or examination. That hardware could be satellites low on fuel, or used-up science experiments on the ISS. (12/27)

Qualcomm to Roll Out Satellite Connectivity for Android Devices Later This Year (Source: Gizmodo)
Qualcomm is working with Iridium, a satellite network provider, to bring satellite connectivity to future Android devices. The technology is only capable of two-way messaging. However, Qualcomm also has Garmin’s Response service on board for emergencies since it already uses Iridium’s satellite network.

Unlike Apple’s Emergency SOS via satellite, Qualcomm’s is not fully baked. The company took us out to the middle of the Nevada desert to see the action, but it was only through non-descript test devices—I wasn’t even able to go hands-on with the ability like I did when I tested Apple’s last year. Regardless, the announcement is great news for the Android platform, which doesn’t currently offer any satellite connectivity, not even in case of emergency. (1/5)

Massive, Months-Long Volcanic Eruption Roils Jupiter's Moon Io (Source: Space.com)
A massive volcanic eruption has been spotted emerging from Jupiter's moon Io. The eruption was observed in the Fall of 2022 using the Io Input/Output observatory (IoIO) by Planetary Science Institute (PSI) senior scientist Jeff Morgenthaler.

One of Jupiter's largest moons, Io is considered to be the solar system's most volcanic body with its extreme conditions and yearly outbursts of volcanism caused by the tremendous gravitational influence of its parent planet. The gravity of Jupiter, the solar system's most massive planet, and that of two of the other large Jovian moons create powerful tidal forces within Io. This stretches and squeezes Io, the innermost of the four large Jovian moons, giving rise to violent volcanic activity. (1/5)

Gravitational Wave Hunters Will Get an Ultracool New Tool in 2023 (Source: New Scientist)
A new kind of gravitational wave hunter is set to start up in 2023, and it could also help in the search for dark matter. Gravitational waves are ripples in space-time created by events such as black holes colliding. They were first predicted by Albert Einstein in 1916 and first detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the US in 2015, almost a century later. Now, we have seen more than 100 gravitational waves.

The Matter-wave Laser Interferometric Gravitation Antenna (MIGA) in France is designed to spot low-frequency gravitational waves that existing detectors cannot. MIGA will use ultracold atoms to spot ripples in space-time at lower frequencies than ever before. Click here. (1/5)

Brace Yourself for the E3 Comet's Closest Approach to Earth (Source: Gizmodo)
Get excited, space enthusiasts. A long-period comet discovered in March 2022 has recently brightened in the night sky, just in time for its closest approach to Earth in a few weeks. Once it passes us by, it won’t return again for tens of thousands of years.

The comet is named C/2022 E3 (ZTF), a name derived from when and how it was first observed (by a camera at the Zwicky Transient Facility). It is still too dim to see without a telescope, according to NASA. But that may change as the amalgam of ice, rock, and dust whips through our cosmic backyard. (1/4)

Earth Reaches its Closest Point to the Sun — Just in Time to be Slammed by a Solar Storm (Source: LiveScience)
On Jan. 4, Earth will reach its closest point to the sun all year in an annual event called perihelion. The precise distance varies from year to year, but perihelion 2023 will see our planet orbiting 91.4 million miles from the sun — or roughly 3 million miles closer than Earth's aphelion, its farthest point from the sun, which will occur on July 6.

Our home star has apparently decided to mark the occasion with a bang. On Jan. 4 and 5, a slow-moving glob of solar particles called a coronal mass ejection (CME) will slam into Earth's magnetic field. The collision is expected to trigger a minor G1-class geomagnetic storm that could briefly frazzle power grids, cause radio blackouts and push colorful auroras much farther south than usual — possibly as far south as Michigan and Maine in the United States, according to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. (1/4)

Engineers Are Racing to Salvage a Cubesat That Launched With NASA's Moon Mission (Source: Gizmodo)
A mission to measure lunar water-ice on the Moon is in jeopardy after the cubesat failed to fire its engines shortly after launch. Time is now running out, as the team has until mid-January to fix the spacecraft’s thrusters and give it a second chance to enter lunar orbit.

Data collected so far suggests that a valve within the spacecraft’s thrusters is partially stuck. Engineers are attempting to use heaters in the propulsion system to free the valve. Should the spacecraft miss its second shot at entering lunar orbit, the mission team will consider sending LunaH-Map towards a near-Earth asteroid. (1/5)

New Space Missions Will Launch to the Moon, Jupiter and a Metal World in 2023 (Source: CNN)
This year promises to be out of this world when it comes to space missions, launches and the next steps in cosmic exploration. In 2023, NASA will kick off a trek to a metal world, a spacecraft will drop off unprecedented asteroid samples on Earth, a historic moon mission will get its crew, and several new commercial rockets could make their launch debut. Click here. (1/5)

Space Florida Announces Space Transportation Call for Projects (Source: Space Florida)
Space Florida announced its annual call for projects to further develop Florida’s spaceport system. This year, commercial space companies are invited to submit applications for Space Florida’s Space Transportation Infrastructure Matching Fund – requiring a private match of 50% or greater­­ – to help meet current and future commercial and public sector space transportation needs. Last year’s call for projects for the Space Transportation Infrastructure Matching Fund was valued at $48.2 million. Applications are due Wednesday, March 15, 2023. Click here. (1/5)