July 20, 2024

How AI Improves Operations on NOAA GOES-R Weather and Environmental Satellites (Source: Space News)
NOAA has leveraged new and innovative applications for artificial intelligence and machine learning to extend the mission life of satellites. The GOES-R team has successfully leveraged the power of AI and an application called the Advanced Intelligent Monitoring System (AIMS) to improve both operational efficiency and mission resilience.

Already deployed in space on GOES-R, the AIMS AI tool improves satellite up time through its ability to quickly detect and predict anomalies in satellite systems and allow maintenance teams to take action to address potential issues before they impact system availability. AIMS can identify anomalies in a satellite’s activity and perform root cause analyses and repairs in a matter of minutes or hours where it previously took engineers days. (7/19)

France Funds Small Satellite capture and Inspection Mission (Source: Space News)
France has awarded a Thales Alenia Space-led group a contract to capture and inspect a small satellite in a demonstration mission slated toward the end of the decade. Supported by undisclosed funding from French space agency CNES and state-owned investment bank Bpifrance, the mission would use a pair of spacecraft due to launch before the end of 2028 as part of the European Robotic Orbital Support Services (EROSS) program. (7/19)

ESA Supports Work on Apophis Mission (Source: Space News)
The European Space Agency will allow a proposed mission to the asteroid Apophis to proceed to a next stage of development to keep it on schedule even though it is not yet fully funded. ESA announced July 16 that its space safety program, which includes planetary defense, has given the Ramses mission permission to begin preparatory work for the mission, which is designed to visit Apophis before that asteroid makes a very close flyby of Earth in April 2029. (7/19)

Nelson: 'Space Can Unite a Troubled Country in Troubled Times' (Source: Space.com)
NASA administrator Bill Nelson is calling for unity among both major U.S. political parties amid the 55th anniversary of the first human moon landing on Saturday (July 20). The former Democratic politician's new speech was released on YouTube; in it, he says "historic times, even what feels like divided times" that the United States feels today seems to echo much of the troubled climate of the 1960s, when the Apollo program was at its height. (7/19)

NASA Delays ISS Spacewalks Indefinitely to Investigate Spacesuit Coolant Leak (Source: Space.com)
NASA says its next spacewalk will be delayed indefinitely until engineers understand more about what caused a coolant leak on June 24. Tracy Dyson, a NASA astronaut, had a brief spacesuit leak a month ago while still in the hatch of the ISS. She and Mike Barrett had just opened the door for a 6.5-hour spacewalk for maintenance activities, when showers of ice particles erupted from a spacesuit connection to the ISS. The spacewalk was suspended, but the astronauts were never in any danger, NASA has emphasized. (7/19)

Musk Revived L.A. Aerospace with SpaceX. Will it Thrive Without Him? (Source: LA Times)
SpaceX hasn’t commented on how many jobs will be affected by the relocation, and industry observers say it’s likely the company will maintain significant manufacturing operations in Los Angeles County, where it employed about 6,000 people in 2023. But the relocation is undoubtedly a loss to the region’s revived space industry.

The aerospace industry was pioneered in L.A. County, with the first rockets set off in the Arroyo Seco near Caltech in the 1930s — the humble origins of what was to become the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The massive defense spending cuts after the collapse of the Soviet Union devastated the industry, dropping employment in the county from about 130,000 in 1990 to less than half that a decade later — but with its heritage, talent pool and world-class universities, the region was a logical place for SpaceX to set up shop.

A new, smaller, Southern California aerospace economy has since developed, building on the remaining operations of legacy companies and technological advancements. Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company founded by British billionaire Richard Branson in 2004, is based in Tustin and has its design and manufacturing operations in Mojave, where it also performs test flights. Its commercial operations are in New Mexico. Rocket Lab, a maker of lightweight rockets that launch small satellites, moved its headquarters to Long Beach just three years ago. (7/19)

NATO Puts Space Situational Awareness In The Spotlight (Source: Aviation Week)
More than half of the organization’s 32 member nations recently signed onto a new program dubbed Alliance Persistent Surveillance from Space (APSS) in an effort to improve the collection, dissemination and distribution of the reams of space situational awareness data gathered by member satellite systems. Germany, for example, will contribute imagery from its SAR-Lupe and SARah spacecraft to APSS. (7/19)

I am Artemis: John Campbell (Source: NASA)
How do you move NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket’s massive 212-foot-long core stage across the country? You do it with a 300-foot-long barge. However, NASA’s Pegasus barge isn’t just any barge. It’s a vessel with a history, and John Campbell, a logistics engineer for the agency based at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is one of the few people who get to be a part of its legacy. (7/19)

Huntsville's "Rocket Row" Restored (Source: CollectSpace)
Some cities have skylines. Huntsville, Alabama has a "spaceline." Or so it does again with the restoration of "Rocket Row" at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. On Thursday a ribbon cutting ceremony was held at the center's Rocket Park to mark the first stage of the return of its historic boosters. After being lowered in 2018 to be restored off site, all five historic rockets are standing again. (7/18)