June 8, 2023

Schools, Museums, Libraries Can Apply to Receive Artifacts from NASA (Source: Space Daily)
NASA is giving STEM programs across the country the opportunity to receive historical objects from the agency to be used for educational purposes.
The space agency opened applications for the NASA Artifacts Program Wednesday. Schools, universities, libraries and planetariums can apply to receive artifacts for their STEM programs through June 30. According to NASA, there are thousands of items to be distributed, including items related to achievements, technological advancements and key figures in the fields of space exploration. Some of the artifacts also have been to space. (6/7)

Ohio Wants Space Command HQ (Source: AP)
Members of Congress from Ohio say their state should be considered as an alternative headquarters for Space Command. In a letter Wednesday, eight members of the state's congressional delegation told President Biden that Ohio should be considered if the administration decides to reopen the competition for hosting the command's permanent headquarters. They cited the presence of Air Force and NASA facilities in the state as a reason Ohio should be considered. The White House and Pentagon have given no indication they plan to reopen the competition amid a heated debate about whether to keep the command at its temporary Colorado Springs headquarters or move it to Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. (6/8)

Solar Probe Reveals Solar Plasma Streams (Source: Science News)
Scientists say observations by NASA's Parker Solar Probe have helped pin down the source of one type of solar wind. In a paper published this week, researchers said data from the spacecraft, which passes within several million kilometers of the sun, revealed narrow plasma streams guided by magnetic fields linked to relatively cool regions known as coronal holes. Those plasma streams may be the source of the "fast" solar wind, which travels at more than 10 times the velocity of its slower counterpart. (6/8)

Nuview Raises ~$15 Million for Lidar Satellites (Source: Space News)
A startup planning a network of lidar satellites has lined up investors that include actor Leonardo DiCaprio. Nuview said it has raised funds from DiCaprio and several funds; it did not disclose the amount but other reports suggest it has brought in $15 million. The company plans a constellation of satellites that will use light detection and ranging, or lidar, technologies to provide 3D mapping of the Earth. Nuview's first satellite, a technology demonstrator, will launch in about two years. The company says it has more than $1 billion in "early adopter agreements" but has not disclosed how much of that is in the form of firm contracts. (6/8)

ESA Project Helps Identify Organic Cotton Cultivation (Source: Space News)
An ESA project will use artificial technology to analyze satellite data of cotton farms. The project aims to train software from German technology firm Marple to use imagery from ESA satellites, mainly two polar-orbiting Sentinel-2 spacecraft, to detect cotton fields across India and automatically classify them by their cultivation method. That would allow an independent certification of farms that use organic techniques, preventing fraud. (6/8)

Boeing, Northrop Face Obstacles in Commercializing Flagship US Rocket  (Source: Reuters)
NASA's plans to turn over its flagship rocket to contractors Boeing and Northrop Grumman to find more buyers and bring down costs faces steep hurdles thanks to meager demand even from the Pentagon and a sprawling supplier network. NASA is pushing ahead with plans to hand ownership of the Space Launch System (SLS) to a Boeing-Northrup joint venture in the next few years, with a goal of cutting in half the rocket's price tag - estimated at $2 billion. But finding a market for a giant and costly rocket promises to be difficult, with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) - seen as a potential customer - signaling little interest.

"It's a capability right now that we, the DoD, don't need," Colonel Douglas Pentecost, a senior rocket acquisition official with the U.S. military's Space Force, said in an interview. "We have the capability that we need at the affordability price that we have, so we're not that interested in some partnership with NASA on the SLS system." As a commercial venture, the SLS could face other challenges including competition from cheaper and reusable rockets such as Starship from Elon Musk's SpaceX and New Glenn from fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin. The SLS is not reusable.

The SLS is an impressive sight, resembling an immense dart as it towers as tall as a 32-story building on the launch pad. But it has only ever served NASA. Its first and only use so far was last November when it was successfully launched from Florida as part of NASA's Artemis program that aims to return astronauts to the surface of the moon as early as 2025. "I don't see the cost going down at this point to be competitive, just given the history and how challenging of a rocket it is to build," said Cristina Chaplain, former assistant director of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress. (6/7)

ULA Performs Launch-Pad Hot Fire Test of Blue Origin Engines on Vulcan (Source: Space News)
United Launch Alliance performed a static-fire test of its Vulcan rocket Wednesday night, one of the final steps before its first launch. The rocket fired its two BE-4 engines in the six-second test at Cape Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 41 at 9:05 p.m. Eastern. The firing was a "nominal run," ULA CEO Tory Bruno said. The test, called a Flight Readiness Firing, was billed as the last major milestone before the rocket's inaugural launch. ULA, though, must also conclude an investigation into a Centaur test anomaly in March before setting a date for the launch. (6/8)

Colorado GOP to Biden: Don’t Let Abortion Influence Space Command Decision (Source: The Hill)
The Colorado Republican Party is urging President Biden not to take abortion access into consideration if he decides to base the Space Command headquarters in Colorado Springs — a move that would reverse former President Trump’s selection of Huntsville, Ala., as the prime location. Instead, Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams wrote in a letter shared with The Hill, Biden should make that decision based on merit.

“As a political organization that is unwavering in its support for the pro-life movement, the Colorado Republican Party, and its leaders, implore you to ensure that the decision to keep Space Command in Colorado Springs be made solely on merit, rather than being entangled with the issue of abortion access,” Williams wrote. (6/7)

Space Command Plans Efficiency Improvements for Missile Tracking (Source: Space News)
U.S. Space Command says it will make more efficient use of missile-tracking sensors it is now responsible for. The command recently took on new missile defense responsibilities as part of a planned realignment of responsibilities. Space Command officials said that change is significant since it puts the command in charge of both missile-tracking sensors and those used for monitoring other threats in outer space. Under the new arrangement, Space Command is the overall sensor manager, which allows it to prioritize assets so they can also be used to track space debris and rival nations’ satellites. That will, an official said, enable "better integration and fused data for better characterization of threats." (6/8)

NASA Concerned That Starship Delays Could Impact Artemis (Source: Space News)
NASA is concerned that issues with the development of SpaceX's Starship could delay the Artemis 3 mission. Speaking to two National Academies committees Wednesday, Jim Free, associate administrator for exploration systems development, said he had growing concerns that Artemis 3 will slip beyond December 2025 because of the large amount of work ahead of SpaceX on demonstrating the lunar lander version of Starship. That includes getting the Starship/Super Heavy vehicle flying again after its first integrated launch in April that ended prematurely. He noted, though, that NASA is protected from cost overruns from any Starship delays because of its fixed-price contract. (6/8)

Hydrosat Acquiring IrriWatch (Source: Space News)
Hydrosat is acquiring a Dutch agricultural information company. Hydrosat announced Thursday it is acquiring IrriWatch for an undisclosed sum. Hydrosat plans to begin gathering thermal and multispectral infrared data via satellite next year, and will incorporate that into IrriWatch's platform that provides daily climate, crop, soil and irrigation updates to farmers in 62 countries. Hydrosat announced $20 million in investments and government grants in April. (6/8)

Albedo Expanding in Colorado (Source: Space News)
Earth observation startup Albedo is expanding its staff and facilities in Colorado. The company announced Thursday it has opened a facility in Colorado that can enable it to build three or four satellites simultaneously. Albedo is working to deploy a constellation in very low Earth orbit capable of taking imagery with a resolution of 10 centimeters per pixel. The company, which raised $48 million last year, plans to launch its first satellite in 2025. (6/8)

He’s 14, Just Graduated Santa Clara University and About to Join SpaceX (Source: Mercury News)
Like thousands of 14-year-olds, Kairan Quazi graduates this month — but not from middle school. He’ll be getting his bachelor’s degree at Santa Clara University as the youngest graduate in the institution’s history, and then heading to SpaceX to become a software engineer. “I’m really excited for this new chapter of my life,” said Kairan, who will be moving from Pleasanton to Washington state with his mom, Jullia, in July to join SpaceX’s Starlink team. (6/7)

African Space Tech? Don't Rule It Out, Says Nigeria's Startup King (Source: Space Daily)
Iyinoluwa Aboyeji might not have the personal wealth of Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, but his level of success as an African entrepreneur bears comparison with any Silicon Valley tech titan. While still in his twenties, the Nigerian co-founded two "unicorns", an industry term for companies that achieve a valuation of more than $1 billion. By most counts, Africa has produced only seven unicorns compared with more than 700 in the United States.

Aboyeji, who has many of the trappings of a global tech boss -- he is often known simply as "E" and he wants to build a city devoted to tech -- says African entrepreneurs should have big ambitions. For example, African entrepreneurs can legitimately think about space travel, he said, especially if their ideas can help communications in the way that Musk's StarLink mini-satellites have. "Never say never," he said. "But we're not going to do space exploration or space tourism. (6/8)

Rwanda Leaps Forward in its Journey to Build a Robust and Vibrant Space Innovation Ecosystem (Source: Space Daily)
The Research Institute for Innovation and Sustainability (RIIS) and the Rwanda Space Agency (RSA) recently hosted a multi-stakeholder workshop in Rwanda in support of the space agency's drive to harness emerging space opportunities and support Rwanda's socio-economic development goals by building a vibrant and robust space innovation ecosystem. The project to develop this ecosystem is funded by the United Kingdom Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (UKFCDO) under the Research Innovations Systems Africa (RISA) program. (6/8)

How Activity in Outer Space Will Affect Regional Inequalities in the Future (Source: Space Daily)
Science fiction has always been a tool for processing life on Earth. Norwegian sci-fi expert Karl Kristian Swane Bambini has said that the space-bound genre is well placed to "interrogate and reimagine real-world economic disparities". He gives the examples of, among other things, the 2013 blockbuster Elysium, wherein healthcare is only accessible off-world, to people with spaceships, and Kim Stanley Robinson's 1990s Mars trilogy of novels, which opposes the egalitarianism of a Martian society to Earth's capitalist dystopia.

Regional development is about tackling spatial injustice - that is, regional inequalities. Doing so, though, isn't just about measuring the difference between today's haves and have-nots to determine whether that gap might narrow or widen. Our idea of what is fair changes over time. Circumstances change, too. New inequalities emerge. The workshop brought together government, academia, industry, incubators and accelerators to co-create interventions intended to grow the space innovation ecosystem in the country. "The workshop served as a catalyst to enable innovation, co-creation, and collaboration through a design thinking approach," says Imraan Saloojee of RIIS. (6/7)

Astronomers Have Discovered Over 32,000 Near-Earth Asteroids (Source: BGR)
NASA and other agencies are working on various planetary defense systems, including those like the DART spacecraft, which crashed into an asteroid late last year. However, being able to protect against asteroids is only half the job. We also have to know about all the possible asteroids that could come close to Earth. Now, NASA has shared an update on the number of near-Earth asteroids discovered up to June of 2023, and it’s pretty insane.

According to a new infographic that NASA released this month, the space agency (along with astronomers worldwide) has discovered over 32,000 near-Earth objects. The exact number here is 32,103 objects, according to the space agency. Of those 32,000, more than 10,000 are estimated to be over 140 meters in diameter. (6/5)

Final Virgin Galactic Test Flight Paves Way for Operations to Start (Source: Aerospace Testing Internationl)
Virgin Galactic plans to fly its first commercial mission later this month after flying its final crewed flight test. The company’s 25th test flight took off from Spaceport America in New Mexico at 9:15am. The Unity spacecraft reached an altitude of 54.2 miles (87km) and a top speed of Mach 2.94 after being released by carrier aircraft VMS Eve and then landed at the Spaceport at 10:37.

The “Unity 25” mission was Virgin Galactic’s fifth spaceflight and the first since the July 2021. VSS Unity was piloted by Mike Masucci and CJ Sturckow, while VMS Eve was flown by Jameel Janjua and Nicola Pecile. Also onboard Unity were chief astronaut instructor Beth Moses, astronaut instructor Luke Mays, senior engineering manager Christopher Huie and senior manager of internal communications Jamila Gilbert. (6/6)

How Bedrest and Cycling in Artificial Gravity is Being Tested to Aid Human Spaceflight (Source: NSF)
For two months, 12 people from France will be put into a “compulsory reclined lifestyle” to study the impacts that microgravity has on astronauts and whether cycling in artificial gravity could combat the negative effects human spaceflight has on the body. The Bedrest with Artificial Gravity and Cycling Exercise (BRACE) is led by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the French Space Agency (CNES) and will mark the first bedrest study involving cycling in Europe.

The project racked up 3,000 expressions of interest from volunteers in France, but after an extensive selection process, 12 people were selected and are currently gearing up for 60 days in bed, with one shoulder always touching the mattress, tilted six degrees below the horizontal line with their feet up, in the name of science.

The participants who have been assigned to use the bicycle without the artificial gravity centrifuge will be taken out of their bed once a day and cycle for 30 minutes on a wall-mounted device. The participants assigned to the artificial gravity will be taken out of bed to lie down in the centrifuge and cycle for 30 minutes, while being spun around to drive the blood toward their feet, doubling the force of gravity. (6/7)

"Silent Barker": US Spy Satellite To Counter Russia, China Threats (Source: NDTV)
The US Space Force is set to launch a constellation of satellites this summer to track Chinese or Russian space vehicles that can potentially disable or damage orbiting objects, the latest step in the burgeoning extra-terrestrial contest between superpowers. Dubbed "Silent Barker," the network would be the first of its kind to complement ground-based sensors and low-earth orbit satellites, according to the Space Force and analysts. The satellites will be placed about 22,000 miles (35,400 kilometers) above the Earth and at the same speed it rotates, known as geosynchronous orbit. (6/7)

Space Force Seeks Dedicated Commercial Space Funding Line (Source: Breaking Defense)
The Space Force’s primary acquisition command is seeking to establish a new, consolidated budget basket for commercial tech and services to underpin its multi-pronged effort to more rapidly and effectively take advantage of industry innovation, according to senior officials responsible for the effort.

“Right now, in the 2024 budget, I’m hoping to work to get [congressional] language to establish a commercial space budget line,” Col. Rich Kniseley, who heads Space Systems Command’s (SSC) recently established Commercial Space Office, said today. “So, the goal is to try and establish a 2024 line, and then work to get budget [money] hopefully in the 2025 timeframe.” (6/6)

Space Force Takes Holistic Approach to Guardian Fitness (Source: FNN)
The Space Force wants potential recruits to know they don’t have to be models of strength and fitness to be Guardians — they just need a healthy lifestyle. A new fitness monitoring program offers guardians an alternative to traditional military physical fitness testing. The need for brains over brawn drives the calculus behind the fitness program. The Space Force leaders want to open the door to recruits who might otherwise be reluctant to join the military. Guardians have an opportunity to volunteer for the two-year test program that takes a holistic approach to fitness as an alternative to testing in the form of activities like pushups and running. (6/6)

Chinese Commercial Rocket Firm Launches 26 Satellites, Sets National Record (Source: Space News)
A Chinese commercial launch firm conducted its second orbital mission Wednesday, sending a reported record 26 satellites into orbit. The second Lijian-1 solid rocket developed by CAS Space lifted off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on June 7. Aboard were the Shiyan-24A and Shiyan-24B experimental satellites. The other payloads were described as technological demonstrations and commercial remote-sensing by Chinese state media reports. The 26 payloads aboard the flight surpass the previous national record of 22 satellites launched by the much larger Long March 8 rocket in February 2022. (6/7)

US Urged to Reveal UFO Evidence After Claim That it Has Intact Alien Vehicles (Source: The Guardian)
The US has been urged to disclose evidence of UFOs after a whistleblower former intelligence official said the government has possession of “intact and partially intact” alien vehicles. The former intelligence official David Grusch, who led analysis of unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAP) within a US Department of Defense agency, has alleged that the US has craft of non-human origin. Jonathan Grey, a current US intelligence official at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, confirmed the existence of “exotic materials” to the Debrief, adding: “We are not alone.”

“It’s one thing to have stories on the conspiracy blogs, but this takes it to the next level, with genuine insiders coming forward,” Pope said. “When these people make these formal complaints, they do so on the understanding that if they’ve knowingly made a false statement, they are liable to a fairly hefty fine, and/or prison. (6/6)

NASA Website Flaw Jeopardizes Astrobiology Fans (Source: CyberNews)
A flaw in NASA’s website dedicated to astrobiology could have tricked users into visiting malicious websites by disguising a dangerous URL with NASA’s name. Space travel is undoubtedly dangerous. And, apparently, so is visiting NASA’s legitimate websites. The Cybernews research team independently discovered an open redirect vulnerability plaguing NASA’s Astrobiology website. After finding the flaw, we discovered that an open bug bounty program researcher had already discovered it a couple of months earlier, on January 14th, 2023, but it was not addressed and fixed by the agency. (6/7)

New PowerDrop Malware Targeting U.S. Aerospace Industry (Source: Hacker News)
An unknown threat actor has been observed targeting the U.S. aerospace industry with a new PowerShell-based malware called PowerDrop. "PowerDrop uses advanced techniques to evade detection such as deception, encoding, and encryption," according to Adlumin, which found the malware implanted in an unnamed domestic aerospace defense contractor in May 2023.

"The name is derived from the tool, Windows PowerShell, used to concoct the script, and 'Drop' from the DROP (DRP) string used in the code for padding." PowerDrop is also a post-exploitation tool, meaning it's designed to gather information from victim networks after obtaining initial access through other means. (6/7)

Boeing Sued for Allegedly Stealing IP, Counterfeiting Tools Used on NASA Projects (Source: CNBC)
Wilson Aerospace, a small family-run tools company based in Colorado, is suing Boeing for a wide range of claims concerning allegedly stolen intellectual property over the last two decades. The company’s lawsuit centers around multiple custom-designed tools that Wilson says it created for Boeing. Boeing, in turn, “rewarded Wilson’s efforts by brazenly stealing” the IP related to multiple devices, the complaint says. Wilson filed suit in a Washington federal court Wednesday.

The scope of the damages is “hard to quantify,” according to one of the company’s lawyers, Pete Flowers. Still, Boeing’s actions have hurt Wilson to the tune of “hundreds of millions of dollars,” he told CNBC. Wilson’s complaint alleges that its tools — used for NASA projects including the International Space Station and its Space Launch Systems moon rocket — helped Boeing win billions in contract awards and fees from the government. Wilson also alleges that the counterfeit version of the tools that Boeing made led to leaks on the ISS and the SLS — and “put lives at risk,” including the lives of astronauts. (6/7)