February 3, 2023

NASA Reports Show Possible 5G Interference Issues (Source: AIN Online)
Beginning last January, U.S. cellular telephone companies began deploying C-band 5G networks that operate on frequencies that could cause interference with radar altimeters installed in aircraft. The FAA is urging aircraft manufacturers to work with avionics suppliers to develop mitigations for the interference such as electronic filters. At least one avionics manufacturer—FreeFlight Systems—is now offering 5G-resistant radar altimeters but it is not a quick process for airlines to replace equipment in large fleets of aircraft.

The FAA also issued Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin AIR-21-18R2 in response to this issue. The FAA is asking pilots and operators to report instances of suspected 5G interference because radar altimeters provide low-level altitude information to many aircraft systems and interference could affect critical equipment such as autothrottles, autopilots, spoilers, anti-lock brakes, head-up displays, and others. (2/1)

SpaceX Rocket Test May Burn Millions of Pounds of Fuel in Leadup to Launch (Source: Valley Central)
Millions of pounds of fuel is being prepared for a monumental burn in Brownsville and preparation for the potential launch of the Super Heavy rocket. SpaceX is planning to conduct its monumental 33 Raptor test at its launch facility. “Half a million pounds of thrust, the world’s most powerful rocket engine. That’s going to produce the world’s most powerful rocket engine test,” Gomez said. If the test burn is successful, SpaceX is expected to launch its Starship in early spring. (2/1)

China Plans Ground Station in Antarctica (Source: Space News)
China plans to build new ground station facilities in Antarctica. The antennas at its Zhongshan research base in Antarctica will assist data acquisition from Chinese satellites that orbit in polar and near-polar orbits. Ground stations in polar regions like Antarctica can communicate with such spacecraft multiple times per day. Geopolitical and geographical barriers mean Chinese access to ground station support is sometimes limited, including a 2020 decision by the Swedish Space Corporation not to renew contracts to assist China with its ground stations. (2/3)

Hydrosat Awarded $1.2 Million USAF Contract (Source: Space News)
Hydrosat won a $1.2 million Air Force contract to investigate uses of thermal infrared data for national security applications. The company said Thursday the contract would allow it to provide thermal infrared remote sensing data produced by future satellites to the National Air and Space Intelligence Center. Hydrosat plans to launch its own constellation of 16 thermal infrared satellites in low Earth orbit but has yet to launch its first satellite, originally scheduled for 2021. (2/3)

Luradour Becomes CEO of Spaceflight Inc. (Source: Space News)
The former president of International Launch Services is the new CEO of Spaceflight Inc. The space transportation services company announced Thursday that it hired Tiphaine Louradour to lead the company in its next growth phase, featuring increased use of its Sherpa line of orbital transfer vehicles. She succeeds Curt Blake, who will consult for the space group at Mitsui and Co., a Japanese company that, with Yamasa Co., acquired Spaceflight Inc. in 2020. The announcement came two days after ILS said that Louradour was stepping down as its president after nearly three years. (2/3)

NASA and Astrobotic Adjust Plans for Lunar Lander (Source: Space News)
NASA and Astrobotic have changed the landing site for the company's Peregrine lunar lander. NASA said Thursday that Peregrine will now attempt a landing in a region near the Gruithuisen Domes, a feature of greater scientific interest to NASA than the lander's original site of Lacus Mortis. The new site will allow NASA instruments on the lander to collect data that will complement a future mission to the Gruithuisen Domes without adding risk to the mission. Peregrine is scheduled to launch in the coming months on the first flight of ULA's Vulcan Centaur. (2/3)

Space Force Behind Schedule in Space Domain Awareness (Source: C4ISRnet)
The Space Force is a year behind schedule in modernizing a space domain awareness capability. The service had planned to retire its Space Defense Operations Center, or SPADOC, at the end of last year, but the Space Force now says that delays in the development of its new Space Command and Control system have pushed back the decommissioning of SPADOC to no earlier than the fourth quarter of this year. The Space Force and the Air Force have struggled for years to replace SPADOC, which dates back to the 1970s. (2/3)

City Funds Efforts to Get a Spaceport in Yuma County, Arizona (Source: KYMA)
An Arizona city is seeking to develop a spaceport. City officials in Yuma, along with the Yuma Economic Development Corporation, are proposing to develop a spaceport outside of the city for hosting orbital launches, and have allocated funding to secure an FAA spaceport license. The spaceport would be a simple concrete slab, with users bringing in their own ground support equipment to host a launch. City officials did not identify any companies that planned to use it or how they would address overflight issues. (2/3)

ChatGPT Not Good at Rocketry (Source: NPR)
ChatGPT and other AI tools are lousy at rocket science. While such tools can offer what appear to be convincing answers to questions about rocket development, and technical illustrations of launch vehicles and engines, human engineers found its output riddled with errors. ChatGPT, for example, failed to accurately describe even the basic rocket equation, while AI-produced images of engines contained bizarre design features, like bellows. (2/3)

NASA’s Joe Acaba to Serve as Agency’s Chief Astronaut (Source: NASA)
NASA has appointed veteran astronaut Joe Acaba as chief of the Astronaut Office at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. A decorated veteran of multiple spaceflights, as well a former U.S. Marine and former educator, Acaba is the first person of Hispanic heritage selected to lead the office. Acaba takes the place of NASA astronaut Drew Feustel, who spent two years as deputy chief and has been acting chief of the office since NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman left the post late last year.

A veteran of three spaceflights, Acaba was born in Inglewood, California. He earned a bachelor's degree in geology at University of California in Santa Barbara, one master’s degree in geology from the University of Arizona, and one in education, curriculum and instruction from Texas Tech University, Lubbock. Before his selection as an astronaut candidate in 2004, Acaba spent time in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves and the Peace Corps, worked as a hydrogeologist, and taught high school and middle school.

Editor's Note: Acaba has Florida roots. He served as a shoreline revegetation coordinator in Vero Beach. He taught one year of science and math in high school and four years at Dunnellon Middle School. He also taught at Melbourne High School on the Space Coast. (2/2)

Allen Named Acting CEO of Coalition for Deep Space Exploration (Source: Florida Today)
Andrew Allen, owner and chief executive officer of Aerodyne Industries, was named the acting president and chief executive officer for the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, or CDSE, replacing Frank Slazer who held the role since the spring of 2021. On Jan. 23, the coalition's board of directors announced Allen would “serve as acting president and CEO while a search is underway for a new coalition leader.” (2/2)

Space Force Chief Calls for Tighter Link Between Satellite Operators and Buyers (Source: C4ISRnet)
As the Space Force invests in simulators and ranges to improve its testing and training enterprise, the service’s top officer wants to ensure that operators have a hand in shaping those capabilities. Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman told reporters he wants the Guardians who operate satellites and ground systems to be more involved in the process of informing requirements for new systems and making sure the training equipment is adequate. (1/31)

Musk Teases Expendable Version of SpaceX’s Reusable Starship Rocket (Source: Teslarati)
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that the company could eventually develop an expendable version of its next-generation Starship rocket. Starship is extraordinarily ambitious. Even before considering the unproven concepts of orbital propellant refilling and full, rapid reusability that are central to the full system, Starship is a beast. The rocket measures 120 meters tall and is theoretically capable of producing up to 7590 tons of thrust at sea level. It’s larger, taller, heavier, and more powerful than any other launch vehicle in history. 33 Raptor 2 engines power Starship’s Super Heavy booster – also more than any other rocket. (2/1)

A Mundane Earth Technology Could Become a Supercharged Moon Exploration Tool (Source: Inverse)
Microwaves are useful for more than just heating up leftovers. They can also make landing pads on other worlds — at least according to research released by a consortium of scientists at the University of Central Florida, Arizona State University, and Cislune, a private company. Their research shows how a combination of sorting the lunar soil and then blasting it with microwaves can create a landing pad for future rockets on the Moon — and save any surrounding buildings from being blasted by 10,000 kilometer-per-hour dust particles.

This system works in large part because certain minerals on the lunar surface are magnetic, and those same minerals are also very susceptible to being heated up by microwaves. In particular, a type of glassy mineral called ilmenite, which makes up about 1 to 2 percent of the Moon’s surface, is highly magnetic. If future explorers wanted to make a landing pad, they could zap this older soil with strong microwaves to sinter it together and create a durable enough surface that would allow a rocket to land on it without sandblasting everything around. That sandblasting would be particularly wicked as there is no air to slow the dust particles down, as it would on Earth. (2/2)

Diesel Fuel Spilled at Space Force Telescope Site in Hawaii (Source: Air Force Times)
The Space Force said about 700 gallons (2,650 liters) of diesel spilled at the site of an advanced space telescope on the summit of Haleakala volcano on Maui, the latest fuel spill involving the U.S. military in Hawaii. A diesel pump for a back-up generator at the Maui Space Surveillance Complex failed to shut off Sunday night, U.S. Space Forces Indo-Pacific said. Maintenance personnel noticed this and deactivated the transfer pump at 8 a.m. the following day.

Haleakala’s summit area is sacred to many Native Hawaiians. Trinette Furtado, a cultural practitioner on Maui, said Native Hawaiians go to the summit area to align one’s body and internal compass. Furtado, who is also Native Hawaiian, said they go there to receive mana or power and receive learning from the gods. Furtado said the spill made her think of how the Navy in 2021 accidentally released jet fuel into a drinking water well near Pearl Harbor and sickened thousands of people on Oahu. (2/1)

NASA Updates Plans for Rocket at Alabama Rest Stop (Source: AL.com)
Once NASA made clear that the Saturn 1B rocket that has greeted travelers on Interstate 65 for more than 40 years would be taken down, it led to a host of other questions. Perhaps foremost among those questions: Once the rocket is horizontally grounded, what then? NASA officials at Marshall Space Flight Center gave some insight Wednesday. “NASA will then deconstruct it into small pieces for safe removal from the site and the metal will be reutilized. It will not go to a landfill. The rocket is beyond repair and restoration. Efforts going forward will focus on future plans for the rest stop, which will be led by state leadership.”

NASA did not elaborate on how the metal will be reutilized. There have also been inquiries into taking ownership of the rocket, including by the small Ohio town of New Concord – the hometown of legendary astronaut and former U.S. Sen. John Glenn. A museum at the former home of Glenn and his wife, Annie, would be the new home of the rocket as envisioned by town officials. NASA officials indicated the poor condition of the rocket makes shifting ownership essentially a moot point. (2/1)

Could Solar Panels in Space Supply Earth with Clean Energy? (Source: Nature)
Space solar power beaming schemes are beginning to look possible, thanks to cheaper hardware and the falling cost of space launches. Teams around the world are working on key parts of space-based solar-power systems, and a prototype built by researchers at the California Institute of Technology should begin experiments in orbit this month.

Space-based solar power would be viable only if it were implemented on a massive scale. Scientists anticipate building kilometres-wide arrays of solar panels that would orbit Earth at a distance of around 36,000 kilometers. China has announced plans to put a megawatt-scale demonstration unit in low-Earth orbit in 2028, before deploying another system to a more distant geosynchronous orbit in 2030. (2/1)

Turning Astronauts Into Moon Explorers (Source: ESA)
ESA’s geology training course PANGAEA has come of age with the publication of a paper that describes the quest for designing the best possible geology training for the next astronauts to walk on the surface of the Moon. Since 2016, PANGAEA has equipped ten astronauts from three space agencies with the foundational knowledge and skills in field geology required for lunar exploration.

“With five editions of the course now under our belt, this is the right time to bring our experiences to the wider space exploration community,” explains Samuel Payler, PANGAEA training coordinator. Future moonwalkers will be in a privileged position to explore the lunar surface but will also feel the pressure of having to make quick and sound scientific decisions. (2/1)

South Korea Opens Military Satellite Tech Center (Source: Yonhap)
South Korea's state arms procurement agency launched a new research center Thursday to develop basic technologies to link and efficiently run a group of military surveillance and reconnaissance satellites. The Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said the center opened at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon, 164 kilometers south of Seoul, under a program to develop defense technologies in cooperation with industries, universities and research institutes. (2/2)

European Startup Gets $44 Million for Space Station Transportation Vehicles (Source: Space Worlds News)
European startup The Exploration Company said Feb. 1 it has raised 40.5 million euros ($44 million) to develop reusable orbital vehicles for flying goods and people to space. The funding will help finance a series of tests and demonstrations the startup hopes to kick off late this year on the inaugural launch of Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket. An Ariane 6 is slated to launch a small reentry demonstrator for the startup called Bikini that is around 40 kilograms and 60 centimeters in diameter.

The Exploration Company hopes to gather data from this mission to test thermal protections, an onboard computer developed in-house, and validate the shape of larger capsules. The startup has booked a SpaceX Falcon 9 mission next year that Huby said will carry a larger 1.6 kilogram, 2.5-meter demonstration capsule. This capsule would have propulsion and a parachute for a more controlled reentry after taking payloads for clients, including European space agencies, on a brief trip in low Earth orbit. (2/2)