UK Space Agency Expands with New
Offices, New HQ (Source: BBC)
The U.K. Space Agency is opening new offices across the country. The
agency said Monday it will open a new headquarters in June at the
Harwell Science Campus as well as regional offices in Cardiff,
Edinburgh and Leicester. The new offices are intended to help the
agency better work with companies across the country. (3/25)
China's Comms Relay Satellite Enters
Lunar Orbit (Source: Space News)
China's Queqiao-2 communications relay satellite entered lunar orbit on
Sunday. Queqiao-2 began a 19-minute-long braking burn at 12:46 p.m.
Eastern , allowing the spacecraft to be captured by the moon's gravity,
the China National Space Administration announced early Monday. The
spacecraft will maneuver into an elliptical orbit of 200 by 16,000
kilometers to provide relay services for missions like the Chang'e-6
farside lunar sample return mission, expected to launch in May. (3/25)
Astronauts from US, Russia, Belarus
Launch From Kazakhstan Days After Aborted Attempt (Source: Space
News)
A Soyuz spacecraft is on its way to the ISS after launch Saturday. A
Soyuz-2.1a rocket lifted off at 8:36 a.m. Eastern and placed the Soyuz
MS-25 spacecraft into orbit. The spacecraft carried a crew from
Russia, the U.S. and Belarus. The original launch attempt Thursday was scrubbed
by a low-voltage reading in the rocket's first stage. Saturday's launch
took place a little more than an hour after a Dragon cargo spacecraft,
launched Thursday, docked with the station. (3/25)
SpaceX Launches Starlink Satellites
From Florida, Ties Booster Reuse Record (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
A Falcon 9 launched a set of Starlink satellites Saturday night. The
Falcon 9 lifted off at 11:09 p.m. Eastern after a one-day delay caused
by poor weather at Cape Canaveral, deploying 23 Starlink satellites.
The Falcon 9 booster used for the flight completed its 19th launch,
becoming the second active booster, and third overall, to reach that
milestone, a record for the company. (3/25)
Advanced Space Revolutionizes Moon
Navigation with AI-Powered CAPSTONE Experiment (Source: Space
Daily)
Advanced Space, LLC has successfully deploying machine learning tools
for space navigation technology in cislunar space. The CAPSTONE
spacecraft embarked on pioneering software tests, establishing a
foundational shift towards autonomous orbital navigation. This
advancement, known as SigmaZero, employs a Neural Network (NN) to
identify and address navigational challenges, such as detecting subtle
accelerations that could otherwise disrupt the spacecraft's course.
(3/22)
New Strategies for Astronaut Helmet
Safety and Fire Suppression (Source: Space Daily)
The NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) has made significant
strides in ensuring astronaut safety. One critical area of focus has
been on mitigating water hazards in astronaut helmets during EVAs. The
discovery of water accumulation in helmets, posing a significant risk
to astronauts, prompted the NESC to engage in comprehensive research
and development efforts. By simulating two-phase flow behaviors in
microgravity and testing mitigation hardware, the team successfully
devised strategies to prevent liquid water formation in helmets,
incorporating absorbent materials and enhancing helmet designs for
safer spacewalks.
Another significant achievement is the evaluation of terrestrial
portable fire extinguishers (PFEs) for use in microgravity
environments. Through analytical modeling and custom-designed testing
stands, the NESC identified the potential challenges and benefits of
utilizing these PFEs in space, marking a crucial step in enhancing fire
safety aboard spacecraft. (3/22)
Artemis II's Orion Spacecraft to
Undergo Critical Manual Handling Test (Source: Space Daily)
Astronauts aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft will engage in a
first-of-its-kind test drive during Artemis II, assessing manual
control capabilities critical for future expeditions. A major segment
of this mission involves the proximity operations demonstration, where
astronauts will manually maneuver Orion in space, using the SLS
rocket's upper stage as a reference point. (3/22)
W. Brian Keegan, Chief Engineer of
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Dies at 83 (Source:
Baltimore Sun)
W. Brian Keegan, a chief engineer at NASA, died of cardiac arrest March
12 at Keswick Multi-Care Center in Baltimore. He was 83. William Brian
Keegan was born in the Irvington neighborhood of West Baltimore to
William and Madellyne Keegan. Mr. Keegan’s father was an engineer with
Westinghouse, and his mother was an administrative staffer for a
surgical practice. (3/25)
Gen. Howell Estes—NORAD, Space Command
Chief—Dies at 82 (Source: Air and Space Forces)
Gen. Howell M. Estes III, who served as the triple-hatted
commander-in-chief of NORAD, U.S. Space Command, and Air Force Space
Command in the late 1990s, died March 18. Estes held a number of key
jobs in the Air Force and the Department of Defense, notably as the
Director of Operations for the Joint Staff and deputy chief of staff
for Strategic Air Command during the 1991 Gulf War. He was also one of
the first commanders of the 4450th Tactical Group, which flew the
highly secret F-117 attack jet in the years before the stealth aircraft
was publicly revealed. (3/22)
This Giant, Solar-Powered Sail Can
travel Forever, and it’s the Future of Space Exploration
(Source: Fast Company)
Over the last two decades, Les Johnson and his team of engineers have
quietly been pushing NASA into a new era of space exploration while
nobody was paying attention. As an engineer at the legendary Marshall
Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama—the birthplace of the Saturn
V rocket that first took humans to the Moon—Johnson led the complex
design of a 17,780-square-foot sail that will push spaceships across
the solar system without using a single ounce of fuel.
Called a “solar sail,” the silvery sheet of fabric is 32 times thinner
than a human hair and stretches the size of three basketball courts.
Over a recent Zoom call, Johnson says the sheet of fabric works much
like a sail used for boats—if a boat sail were designed for high-speed
space travel. “Just as a sailboat uses the wind to push it through the
water, solar sails use the pressure of sunlight to push them through
space,” Johnson says.
This seemingly impossible feat is, in fact, not impossible at all. Avi
Loeb, an astrophysicist and Director of the Institute for Theory and
Computation at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University, says
solar sails represent one of the most promising technologies for future
space exploration. They offer a sustainable and efficient way to
navigate the cosmos, with the potential to propel spacecraft to
unprecedented speeds and distances. (3/25)
The Tricky Quest to Create an
Artificial Solar Eclipse (Source: Washington Post)
For scientists, a total eclipse is also a brief, once-in-awhile quirk
of orbital mechanics that lets them view of one of the most
consequential parts of our star: the atmospheric layer called the
corona. This dim outer region is mysteriously hotter than the solar
surface, generating a long-standing scientific puzzle. It’s also
churning with activity that can have major effects on Earth, disrupting
radio communications or even knocking out the power grid.
To better understand the solar corona, scientists have been simulating
eclipses for nearly a century using specialized instruments called
coronagraphs. These devices are outfitted with black “occulting disks”
and specialized optics to blot out the sun’s brightest light. Only then
does the wispy corona come into view. Their occulting disk, made on a
3D printer, was suspended about two and a half feet in front of the
telescope on thin, carbon-fiber rods. They were trying the setup on the
day of an annular eclipse, when the moon would already be doing much of
the work by mostly covering the sun. (3/22)
Launching a Dedicated MicroGEO
Communications Satellite for Argentina (Source: Astranis)
Astranis announced a partnership with Orbith, a fast-growing, Latin
American Internet Service Provider, to provide a dedicated MicroGEO
communications satellite for Argentina. This deal is an exciting
opportunity in a country that has proven its openness to disruptive
technologies and ideas. This new partnership with Orbith is a great
opportunity to expand our services to another fast-growing market, and
to work with a local partner who deeply understands the communications
needs of the Argentinian people. (3/18)
Airbus Continues to Collaborate with
NASA to Monitor Climate Change From Space (Source: Airbus)
Airbus has been awarded a contract to design and build the GRACE-C twin
spacecraft by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory JPL (Pasadena,
California). This new mission of NASA and the German Space Agency at
the German Aerospace Center (DLR) will strengthen the more than 20 year
long partnership between the USA and Germany to ensure uninterrupted
measurement of the Earth's gravity field, which started in 2002 with
GRACE and continues with GRACE Follow-On, launched in 2018. (3/19)
Billionaires Going to Space to
Industrialize the Moon, Asteroids, and Mars. It's Time to Set Some
Ground Rules (Source: Business Insider)
Elon Musk has said he plans to fly 1,000 Starships to build and
populate a city on Mars. Bezos envisions a trillion people living in
giant space stations across the solar system. Other space startups have
ambitions including asteroid mining, in vitro fertilization (IVF) in
space, and space hotels.
What's to stop companies from putting giant advertisements on the face
of the moon? Or industrializing craters that scientists want to use for
telescopes? Or mining a single asteroid for $100 quintillion worth of
precious metals, bringing it back to Earth for sale, and destabilizing
the global economy? What will keep the budding deep-space industry in
check?
So far, the US government has deliberately avoided regulating the
emerging space economy, for fear of suffocating it before it takes off.
The FAA is quite active in regulating passenger safety on airplanes,
for example, but has no rules for spaceflight passenger safety, even as
Blue Origin, SpaceX, and Virgin Galactic fly tourists to the edge of
space or around the planet. Click here.
(3/23)
Antenna Work Delays NISAR Launch
(Source: Space News)
Modifications to a large deployable antenna on a joint U.S.-Indian
radar spacecraft will delay its launch, likely to the second half of
the year. In a March 22 statement, NASA said a new launch date for the
NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission will be set at the
end of April because of work to protect the spacecraft’s reflector, an
antenna that is 12 meters across when fully deployed, from temperatures
when in its stowed configuration. (3/24)
Casey Honniball: Finding Her Space in
Lunar Science (Source: NASA)
Lunar scientist Casey Honniball conducts lunar observations and field
work near volcanoes to investigate how astronauts could use instruments
during moonwalks. Click here. (3/19)
Astronomers and Megaconstellations
Learn to Get Along (Source: Space News)
The problem of satellite interference on astronomy has not been solved,
astronomers made clear at the AAS meeting. “There’s some not-so-good
news and some good news,” said Connie Walker, co-director of the
International Astronomical Union’s Centre for the Protection of the
Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference, or CPS.
The not-so-good news, she said, was that the number of satellites “is
increasing exponentially.”
“The good news is that companies are increasingly aware of the
situation,” she continued. “Some of these companies are willing to take
mitigation approaches to minimizing down below seventh magnitude.” That
brightness makes satellites invisible to the naked eye and reduces
their impacts on sensitive astronomical instruments. (3/23)
Blue Origin Passes Key Pee Milestone
for NASA Contract (Source: Business Insider)
On Wednesday, NASA reported that Orbital Reef passed four key
milestones for some of its most crucial technology, including a system
to recycle future astronauts' and tourists' urine. "These milestones
are critical to ensuring that a commercial destination can support
human life," Angela Hart, manager of NASA's Commercial Low Earth Orbit
Development Program, said in NASA's announcement.
The milestones involved passing a series of tests on Orbital Reef's
regenerative system. This system will provide clean air and water for
humans to breathe and drink while on the space station. (3/22)
Private Satellite Operators Make Case
for Helping Military Track Ground Targets (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Air Force and the Space Force are working with the NRO to
develop a dedicated constellation of sensor satellites specifically
designed for Ground Moving Target Indication (GMTI). This technology
would replace the large radar surveillance aircraft like JSTARS
previously used by the Air Force to track the movement of troops and
vehicles on the ground.
At the same time, hundreds of commercial remote sensing satellites are
orbiting the Earth, leading industry executives to question whether the
military should leverage these commercial systems for GMTI. They
pointed out that while military systems optimized for persistent
custody of specific targets will still be required, regularly updated
commercial imagery could potentially handle general monitoring of areas
of interest and tracking of slower-moving targets and patterns of life.
(3/23)
NASA Conducts Full-Duration Artemis
Moon Rocket Engine Test (Source: NASA)
NASA continued a key RS-25 engine test series for future Artemis
flights of the agency’s powerful SLS (Space Launch System) rocket March
22 with a hot fire on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space
Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. It marked the 10th hot fire in
a 12-test series to certify production of new RS-25 engines by lead
contractor Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3 Harris Technologies company. (3/22)
Largest Map of the Universe Includes
1,300 Supermassive Black Holes (Source: Cosmos)
Astronomers have created a new map of the universe which includes 1.3
million supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the center of galaxies.
SMBHs have a mass between 100,000 and 10 billion times that of our own
Sun. (3/19)
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