May 23, 2024

SpaceX Launches Wednesday Starlink Mission From Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
SpaceX launched more Starlink satellites Wednesday night. A Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 10:35 p.m. Eastern and deployed 23 Starlink satellites. SpaceX revealed earlier this week that it now has more than three million users of its broadband constellation. (5/23)

Space Force Picks Companies for EM Training Range (Source: Space News)
The Space Force has picked six companies to develop proposals for a electromagnetic warfare training range designed to simulate space combat scenarios. Nou Systems, ExoAnalytic Solutions, TMC Design, HII Mission Technologies, Parsons Government Services and Lockheed Martin received six-month study contracts earlier this year to develop concepts for the training range, part of the service's Operational Test and Training Infrastructure program. It will be used to train Space Force guardians to defend critical satellites and other spacecraft from electronic attacks. (5/23)

NASA Study Finds 'Post-Mission Disposal' Planning Would Mitigate Orbital Debris Problem (Source: Space News)
Reducing the post-mission lifetime of satellites could be one of the most cost-effective approaches to dealing with orbital debris. A report this week by NASA conducted cost-benefit analyses of various approaches to remove orbital debris, limit its creation and track it. The report found one of the most effective approaches was to reduce the post-mission disposal timeframe from 25 years to 15 years or less, creating up to $6 billion in net benefits over 30 years. "Just in time" concepts to prevent debris collisions are also effective, the report concluded. (5/23)

Beames to Lead TrustPoint Board (Source: Space News)
Charles Beames is the new executive chairman of the board for space navigation startup TrustPoint. That company is developing a global navigation satellite constellation to complement GPS. Beames, a former U.S. Air Force officer and chairman of the SmallSat Alliance, said he believed companies like TrustPoint could provide "quicker-paced tech innovation" needed for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) services. (5/23)

Space Weather Warnings to Support Artemis Astronaut Safety (Source: Space News)
NASA will be counting on space weather warnings to protect astronauts on Artemis missions. While spacecraft like Orion will be designed to protect astronauts from solar storms, scientists said NASA will need improved space weather forecasts in order to plan spacewalks and other activities that might leave astronauts exposed. NASA says it it still drafting flight rules for missions to deal with solar events. (5/23)

ESA Astronauts Assigned to ISS Missions (Source: ESA)
Two of ESA's newest astronauts now have flight assignments. ESA announced Wednesday that Sophie Adenot and Raphaël Liégeois will fly on separate missions to the ISS, with Adenot flying in early 2026 and Liégeois later that year. Adenot and Liégeois are two of five members of ESA's newest astronaut class, which graduated from basic training last month. ESA said that it expects all five to fly to the ISS before the station's scheduled 2030 retirement. (5/23)

US to Send Indian Astronaut To ISS by Year-End (Source: NDTV)
US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti has said America will send an Indian astronaut to the International Space Station by the end of this year.
The NISAR project, a joint Earth-observing mission between US space agency NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), is also likely to be launched by the end of the year, Garcetti said on Wednesday. (5/23)

HASC Approves NDAA with Space Provisions (Source: Space News)
The House Armed Services Committee has advanced a defense policy bill with several key space provisions. The committee approved its version of the National Defense Authorization Act late Wednesday on a 57-1 vote, sending it to the full House. The debate by the committee on the bill included one amendment from Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) that would require state governors to approve any transfers of Air National Guard units in their states to the Space Force, a move that could affect the Space Force's plans to develop a new hybrid structure of full-time and part-time workforce.

The committee also approved an amendment that directs the Pentagon to assess the impact on intelligence sources of leaked classified information about Russia's development of an anti-satellite nuclear weapon. Another amendment directs the Air Force to brief Congress on implementation of its commercial space strategy. (5/23)

Space Force Projects $1.7 Billion Spending for SatComm (Source: Space News)
The Space Force projects awarding $1.7 billion in contracts in the next year for satellite communications. The forecast by the Commercial Satellite Communications Office identifies 10 upcoming contract opportunities, which it warns are subject to change. The largest potential deal, worth nearly $900 million over seven years, is for secure satellite communications services for U.S. government aircraft that transport the nation's highest-ranking officials and military leaders. The forecast also includes a potential $495 million to $505 million contract over seven years for commercial satellite services for the Marine Corps. (5/23)

ESA Picks Companies for Cargo Vehicle Design (Source: Space News)
ESA has selected two companies to begin work on designs for commercial cargo vehicles that could be precursors for crewed spacecraft. ESA announced Wednesday it awarded contracts worth 25 million euros each to Thales Alenia Space and The Exploration Company for the first phase of a low Earth orbit cargo return service program. The contracts will allow the companies to advance their designs, with work to build and demonstrate the vehicles to be funded by a second phase pending support from ESA members at a 2025 ministerial meeting. ESA hopes to have at least one vehicle ready by 2028 to transport cargo to the International Space Station and commercial space stations. (5/23)

Viasat to Purchase LEO Capacity (Source: Space News)
Viasat says it is in talks with several operators of low Earth orbit broadband constellations to purchase capacity. Viasat recently announced it was buying OneWeb capacity for a multi-orbit maritime broadband service. Viasat CEO Mark Dankberg said this week he expects similar agreements for planes and other enterprise markets, which his company will be "mixing and matching as appropriate based on the deals." One obstacle is that OneWeb and Starlink, the two operational broadband constellations, use Ku-band while Viasat is planning Ka-band for the GEO portion of its multi-orbit service. Viasat has no plans to deploy its own LEO constellation, executives said. (5/23)

Airbus Wins Vigil Contract From ESA (Source: Space News)
Airbus has won a contract to build a space science satellite. ESA and Airbus formally signed Wednesday the $369 million contract for the Vigil mission. The spacecraft, scheduled for launch in 2031, will monitor the sun from the Earth-sun L-5 Lagrange point, trailing the Earth. That will allow the spacecraft to provide advance notice of solar storms before they rotate into view of the Earth. Airbus will build the spacecraft in the United Kingdom with instruments from Europe and the United States. (5/23)

Boeing's Starliner Launch NET June 1 (Source: NASA)
NASA now says Boeing's CST-100 Starliner vehicle will launch no earlier than June 1. The agency said late Wednesday that the Crew Flight Test mission has been rescheduled for that day after announcing Tuesday it had been delayed from its earlier May 25 launch date. Backup launch opportunities are available June 2, 5 and 6. Boeing has been working to resolve a helium leak in a spacecraft thruster that has led to a series of launch delays. NASA plans to hold a briefing Friday to provide more details on the status of the spacecraft. (5/23)

Space Force Prioritizes Responsive Launch Capability (Source: Defense News)
The US Space Force plans to maintain an annual cadence of Tactically Responsive Space missions, with the goal of establishing a threat response capability. "The idea is agility and speed," said Lt. Gen. Phillip Garrant. (5/22)

US Assesses New Zealand's Ability to Qquickly Launch Satellites (Source: RNZ)
The United States has been assessing New Zealand's capability to help with rapid rocket and satellite launches if war breaks out in space. US Space Command has also asked New Zealand to join an international operation to deter space-enabled attack, focused on China and Russia. The US is spending billions on a shift from a focus on peacetime operations to develop full "warfighting capabilities" in space by 2027, American generals say.

They say it must catch up with China, whose space arsenal had grown rapidly to encompass anti-satellite missiles, satellites with arms to grapple with enemy satellites in orbit, laser weapons and jammers. (5/23)

San Antonio Works to Lure Space Force Cyber Unit HQ (Source: San Antonio Express-News)
The U.S. Space Force is planning to create its own cyber warfare headquarters, it confirmed this week, and some San Antonio leaders are vying to land the unit here. San Antonio — already known as Military City USA and Cyber City USA — may seem a natural fit for the new organization but the military’s basing process is slow and complicated by special interests and political motives. The city learned those lessons the hard way when it failed to lure Space Command two years ago. But at least some say they’re ready to take another shot. (5/22)

FAA: SpaceX Requests Launch During Ongoing Mishap Investigation (Source; ValleyCentral)
SpaceX has made a request that would allow for another Starship launch while previous mishap investigations are still open. The FAA is currently investigating the third Starship test flight, similarly to the investigations that were launched after the first two tests.

The FAA stated that on April 5, SpaceX requested the FAA make a “public safety determination” as part of the Starship flight test mishap. “If the FAA agrees no public safety issues were involved in the mishap, the operator may return to flight while the mishap investigation remains open, provided all other license requirements are met.” (5/22)

SpaceX Starlink Connects Video Call On Unmodified Cellphone (Source: Aviation Week)
SpaceX has demonstrated an unmodified smartphone making a video call using a connection to its Starlink low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite constellation. The company said the cellphone used a video call program that is part of its X social media platform. (5/22)

Redwire Selected to Conduct Mars Surface-Imaging Study For NASA (Source: Redwire)
Jacksonville-based Redwire has been awarded a NASA/JPL contract to conduct a study to conceptualize a Redwire-led commercial Mars spacecraft, which will utilize Redwire’s heritage spacecraft technology to provide surface imagery to industry and government customers. The study could be used to support future Mars exploration missions. (5/21)

European Space Agency Aims for Own Version of SpaceX (Source: Dawn Digest)
The Exploration Company, a Franco-German start-up founded just three years ago, and Thales Alenia Space, a Franco-Italian space systems supplier will each receive initial funding of €25 million to create a commercially viable service to low Earth orbit by 2028. A subsequent funding round, expected to be in the hundreds of thousands of euros, will be decided at the next ESA ministerial meeting in 2025.

This initiative marks ESA's first concrete move to emulate the strategy pioneered by NASA nearly two decades ago. NASA's approach of awarding development funds followed by fixed-price service contracts was instrumental in the success of Elon Musk's SpaceX, now a leading provider of launch, cargo, and crew services to the ISS. (5/22)

As Pace of Launches Explodes, USSF Eyes Upgrades and Expansion for Spaceports (Source: Air and Space Forces)
As the commercial and military space sectors continue their rapid growth, the Space Force is planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade its launch facilities—and will consider expanding to other locations, a top general said May 21. Such moves are necessary because the U.S. military’s launch infrastructure and workforce has not kept pace with the increasing number of launches themselves, Space Systems Command boss Lt. Gen. Philip A. Garrant said during a Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event.

Space Systems Command oversees the service’s acquisition and launches. In 2024, the Space Force’s two launch deltas—Space Launch Delta 30 and Space Launch Delta 45—will host 174 launches from its two “ranges” at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla., and Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., Garrant said. Yet, “the launch deltas are manned at a 2017 manning rate based on a 2017 launch assessment. We’re launching a lot more missions seven years later, yet we’re still manned as if we were doing dozens, not hundreds.”

Staffing isn’t the only issue. Garrant said the infrastructure and technology at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg are old and need investment to bring the facilities up to modern standards, to say nothing of future capabilities. “The [Office of Management and Budget] gave us $1.3 billion in the 2024 budget to get after that infrastructure,” Garrant said. “It’s going to be over 130 projects, managed in partnership with [Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center], with the Civil Engineering Center, and the Army Corps of Engineers over the Future Years Defense Plan. (5/22)

Space Force Training HQ Gets Official Nod to Come to Space Coast (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
The decision has been a year in the making, but the Space Coast will officially become the home of STARCOM, the training headquarters for Space Force. Patrick Space Force Base and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, both former Air Force facilities, were named in May 2023 the presumptive home for STARCOM, which stands for Space Training and Readiness Command. It’s one of three Space Force field command units, similar to an Air Force air command. The Space Coast lost out on getting the Department of Defense’s U.S. Space Command headquarters in 2022, but STARCOM would bring a major addition to Space Force’s already sizable presence as the launch capital of the world. (5/22)

Groundbreaking Measurement Reveals a Black Hole Spinning at a Quarter the Speed of Light (Source: Gizmodo)
A team of astronomers has managed to calculate the speed of a distant supermassive black hole’s spin thanks to the object’s chance meeting with a star—which it promptly destroyed. All black holes have spin, which they develop through their interactions with other matter in space. When black holes grow by accreting matter, they can spin to greater speeds; when they grow through mergers with other massive objects, they tend to slow down.

In its recent work, the team managed to deduce a supermassive black hole’s spin by measuring the wobble of its accretion disk after a star has been disrupted—a polite word for torn up—by the gigantic object. They found the black hole’s spin was less than 25% the speed of light—slow, at least for a black hole. The team’s research was published today in Nature. (5/21)

Russia Denies US Charge That it Put Anti-Satellite Weapon in Space (Source: Voice of America)
Russia's top arms control diplomat dismissed as "fake news" on Wednesday an assertion by the United States that Russia had launched a weapon into low-Earth orbit that was capable of inspecting and attacking other satellites. The Kremlin has flatly denied assertions by U.S. officials that Moscow is developing a space-based anti-satellite nuclear weapon. (5/22)

Space Debris Could be Dealt with More Cheaply Than Previously Thought, New NASA Report Suggests (Source: Space.com)
A new report by NASA outlines the most promising approaches to keeping the space around Earth safe and usable for future generations and finds that the solution could be more cost-effective than previously thought. From expensive actions such as dedicated space debris removal missions to better shielding of new satellites and improved tracking of the smallest space debris fragments, there are many ways to protect the space environment from the potentially devastating effects of the growing amount of space junk orbiting our planet.

The new report, called Cost and Benefit Analysis of Mitigating, Tracking and Remediating Orbital Debris, compares the cost-effectiveness of more than 10 different strategies that could be used to reduce the risk of collisions between satellites and orbital debris. The team plans to follow up the study with additional estimates of the cost-effectiveness of combining different ways of mitigating space debris risks. (5/22)

Sierra Space Taps Buckley for Expandable Space Station Technology Role (Source: Sierra Space)
Sierra Space has promoted Shawn Buckley to Vice President of the company's in-space destinations development. In his new role, Buckley will oversee all products in Sierra Space's space station technology portfolio and in-space infrastructure, most notably the company’s development of the enabling technology for the world's first commercial space station. (5/22)

Meet Tenacity: The Space Plane is a New Resident at Kennedy Space Center (Source: WESH)
There’s a new resident at the Kennedy Space Center, a Dream Chaser space plane named “Tenacity.” It arrived Saturday and is undergoing the last round of testing and proving ahead of its inaugural mission that manufacturer Sierra Space said will be later in the year. The 30-foot-long craft might look a bit familiar according to Dr. Don Platt of Florida Tech.

“It is essentially a mini-Shuttle. It’s a winged space vehicle or what we call a space plane," Platt said. "That provides them the ability, much like any other airplane, to sort of glide though the atmosphere come back and land on a runway.” (5/21)

Space Officials Outline Key Investments Needed to Ensure U.S. Maintains Edge (Source: DoD)
In testimony before a Senate Armed Services subcommittee, John D. Hill, deputy assistant secretary of defense for space and missile defense, outlined key investments in DOD's budget request for fiscal year 2025 needed to keep pace with challengers to the U.S. in the space-warfare domain. Click here. (5/21)

UK Chief Hails Test-Firing of Rockets at Scottish Spaceport as ‘Big Moment’ (Source: STV)
The successful test-firing of a rocket on the Shetland Islands is a “big moment” ahead of the first space launch due later this year, the head of the UK Space Agency has said. Dr Paul Bate praised the “hot test” of a German rocket’s first stage at SaxaVord Spaceport last week, saying the UK could become the leading country in Europe for small satellite launches.

Dr Bate also said there should be no “race to the bottom” in regulation of the industry, after concerns were voiced that there is too much red tape involved in launching from the UK. Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) test-fired four Helix engines from the first stage of their rocket, One, sitting atop a 12-meter high launch stool. (5/22)

Nova Explosion Visible to the Naked Eye Expected Any Day Now (Source: Ars Technica)
When you look at the northern sky, you can follow the arm of the Big Dipper as it arcs around toward the bright star called Arcturus. Roughly in the middle of that arc, you'll find the Northern Crown constellation, which looks a bit like a smiley face. Sometime between now and September, if you look to the left-hand side of the Northern Crown, what will look like a new star will shine for five days or so.

This star system is called T. Coronae Borealis, also known as the Blaze Star, and most of the time, it is way too dim to be visible to the naked eye. But once roughly every 80 years, a violent thermonuclear explosion makes it over 10,000 times brighter. The last time it happened was in 1946, so now it’s our turn to see it. (5/21)

Yes, Militarize Space (Source: National Review)
‘The stars will never be won by little minds,” observed the great science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein. If we aren’t careful, though, they just might be won by the scheming minds of governments hostile to the United States. A notable New York Times piece the other day reported that the “Pentagon is rushing to expand its capacity to wage war in space, convinced that rapid advances by China and Russia in space-based operations pose a growing threat to U.S. troops and other military assets on the ground and American satellites in orbit.”

Even if we wanted to keep space weapons-free, space is already a domain central to modern military operations. (5/21)