July 6, 2024

Kazakhstan Joins China’s ILRS Moon Base Program (Source: Space News)
The memorandum on cooperation on the China-led ILRS will also explore commercial use of each other’s spaceports. The agreement was signed during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Kazakhstan July 3, which saw the signing of 30 documents between the two sides. The development further bolsters China’s lunar exploration plans. (7/5)

Transferring the International Space Station Into the Future (Source: Space News)
The major objectives of the ISS have been met: International cooperation has been concretely practiced on a daily basis for decades of continuous operations, working through problems encountered in space and on the ground. Scientific and engineering experiments have been continuously pursued both inside and outside the station. People have lived and worked continuously and safely onboard the station, maintaining and repairing it, conducting experiments and recycling resources as much as possible.

We propose instead to preserve the value of the ISS by placing it into a higher orbit for future generations to decide how best to make use of the 450 tons of hardware already in space. We believe that the ISS will provide the cheapest half-kiloton of in-space resources to which the human race will ever have access.

This is not an expensive gift for us to provide to our heirs. For example, to move the ISS from its present 400-kilometer altitude to an 800-kilometer altitude circular orbit requires a boost of about 220 meters per second, about the same as required for precise deorbit control. At the higher altitude, the orbital lifetime would be many decades, providing ample time for future generations to take their own decisions and actions. (7/1)

ESA Council Decisions Set the Stage for More Diverse European Launch Services (Source: ESA)
ESA Council adopted today a resolution on European launch services and on the continuity of European access to space, that sets the way for the ESA-developed Vega launcher to be commercialised by its prime contractor, Avio.The Vega launchers joined the ESA-developed launchers family with its first flight in 2012 and started commercial exploitation in 2015. Vega-C, a more powerful version of Vega with a larger fairing made its debut in 2022. Both variants are built under the responsibility of prime contractor Avio and have been exploited by Arianespace. (7/5)

Former NASA Scientist Believes They Detected Life on Mars in the 1970s But Dismissed It (Source: Good)
NASA’s Viking was the first US spacecraft to land on Mars and return images of craters, huge volcanoes, and gigantic canyons to the surface. In the 1970s, NASA launched two identical robots – Viking 1 and Viking 2, each equipped with landers and orbiters, to set off to the Red Planet. After the mission, NASA reported that they found no traces of life. But one scientist is almost certain that they may have unknowingly stumbled upon extraterrestrial life and dismissed it.

“After landing on the Red Planet in 1976, NASA's Viking landers may have sampled tiny, dry-resistant life forms hiding inside Martian rocks,” astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch suggested. He said he and his fellow scientist, Joop Houtkooper, were rethinking the results of the Viking project. "If these extreme life forms did and continue to exist, the experiments carried out by the landers may have killed them before they were identified, because the tests would have overwhelmed these potential microbes," wrote Schulze-Makuch. (7/5)

Polish Rocket First to Reach Space on New More Eco-Friendly Fuel (Source: Notes From Poland)
A Polish rocket that uses a pioneering type of more environmentally friendly fuel has reached space for the first time. Taking off from the Andoya base in Norway on Wednesday 3 July and travelling at a speed of up to 1.4 km per second, the ILR-33 Ambert 2K rocket passed an altitude of 100km, which marks the boundary of space.

It is the world’s first rocket to use 98% hydrogen peroxide as an oxidizer. That substance is “one of the most ecological propellants” available, says Paweł Stężycki, director of the Institute of Aviation in Warsaw that is behind the Amber rocket project. The institute believes that hydrogen peroxide – which has previously been used in rocket propulsion at lower than 98% concentrations – can replace the hydrazine currently used in the space industry, which has a very high toxicity. (7/5)

'Hole On Mars' Is The Latest Cave For Astronauts To Live In (Source: Forbes)
The pit crater is just a few meters across on the flank of Arsia Mons, one of three large extinct shield volcanoes near the equator on Mars, known as the Tharsis region. According to NASA JPL, Arsia Mons is 270 miles in diameter, almost 12 miles high, and the summit caldera is 72 miles wide. Its caldera alone is larger than many volcanoes on Earth. Pits may reflect geologically recent tectonic or volcanic activity.

It also suggests that if it is the entrance to a cave, it could be a target for future robotic exploration. Noctis Mons is in the same region where in 2022 a relict glacier was discovered—salt that formed on top of a glacier, preserving its shape, even its crevasses—suggesting the possibility that ice may still exist just under the surface of Mars. (7/4)

How to Run on the Moon (Source: WIRED)
In the future I'm sure there will be a city on the moon. We know how to get there, it's super close, and it could be great for further space exploration. However, there's a problem with living on the moon for any length of time: the weak gravitational field, which is just one-sixth of the value on Earth. Low gravity is bad for you. It causes your bones and muscles to atrophy and weakens your heart, since, basically, everything is too easy.

You need exercise to offset these effects, but that's not so simple. You can't go out and jog around the Sea of Tranquility—you'd just start bouncing and floating. But a cool new research paper suggests that lunar residents can simulate the effects of gravity by running around in circles on the vertical walls of a cylinder—you know, sideways, like the classic Wall of Death motorcycle show in carnivals. (7/5)

Watch As A Rocket Punches Stunning "Ionospheric Hole" Mid-Flight (Source: IFL Science)
The Firefly rocket flew into a Sun-synchronous orbit and as it reached the ionosphere, the water vapor in the rocket exhaust punched a glowing red "hole" through it, which is a wonderfully pragmatic way to picture it. What's happening is the oxygen atoms in the ionosphere interact with the exhaust and recombine into oxygen molecules releasing light. Click here. (7/5)

China Fortifies Tiangong Space Station After Russian Satellite Explosion (Source: South China Morning Post)
Two Shenzhou-18 astronauts completed a spacewalk on Wednesday night to fortify China’s space station with extra armour following the explosion of a Russian satellite that generated a burst of space debris last week. “The spacewalk primarily focused on installing protective devices on external cables and pipelines to mitigate risks posed by potential space debris collisions, enhancing the long-term safety and stability of the space station,” said Liu Ming. (7/4)

Early Solar System was Donut-Shaped, Meteorite Study Suggests (Source: Space.com)
You're probably familiar with how the solar system looks today. There are eight officially recognized planets located more or less on the same plane, orbiting the sun. But have you ever given a thought to what it looked like billions of years ago? Things were very different back then.

We used to think the early solar system looked a bit like a dartboard, with concentric rings of material orbiting our sun. But a team of researchers now suggests that the early solar system actually looked more like a donut. They've determined this from a rather unlikely source: iron meteorites. (7/5)

Breadbox Shuttle Made Rockets Heading to Space Look Like School Kids With a Backpack (Source: AutoEvolution)
The shape of a breadbox is not something that comes to mind when thinking about space exploration vehicles. Be they rockets or spacecraft, they are all pointy and streamlined. But a breadbox shape for a space shuttle is something someone really considered back in the day when the program was still young.

The early years of the space program were a hotbed for the creation of interesting designs and concepts. Thanks to modern technology, we've seen several of these ideas come to life, and there is plenty of literature on many of them. However, the Rockwell C-1057 is more mystery than anything else. Click here. (7/5)

Milky Way Really Doesn't Have That Many Stars After All (Source: Greek Reporter)
A group of astronomers have devised a new way of understanding the Milky Way galaxy. They studied red giants and used their findings to create a model. Their research, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, suggests there might be fewer stars in our galaxy than previously believed. They began by conducting a detailed census of red giants, using this data to construct a model that better predicts the shape and size of the Milky Way.

Upon integrating the data into their model, the research team observed that the density of red giants stabilizes around the midpoint between the galaxy’s edges and its bulge. This contrasts with previous models that suggested an exponential increase in density. The researchers said this discovery indicates the bulge of the galaxy is less dense than previously believed. (7/4)

Earth is Crossing an Ocean of Mysterious Dark Matter. Here's How it is Impacting Our Atmosphere (Source: WION)
A new theoretical research has made a stunning revelation that the Earth is currently crossing an ocean of dark matter and this invisible ocean's waves have been slamming against the upper atmosphere of our planet and generating detectable radio waves. As per the research, these detectable radio waves have been helping in finally finding this universe's elusive component.

In the new research, an interaction point - which is very close to Earth - has been discovered by scientists which is our planet's ionosphere. The ionosphere of the Earth is the thin and hot layer of the upper atmosphere and it is filled with a loose collection of ionised (charged) particles — which is a plasma. In this, the waves are sloshing through it and the researchers have found that those waves can interact with hypothetical dark matter waves, which are said to be washing over Earth. (7/4)

Dark Matter May Be Made Up Of Tachyons Traveling Faster Than Light (Source: Twisted Sifter)
A new paper is having some scientists question what dark matter and dark energy, two things that have become widely accepted as real recently, are made up of. The researchers claim that tachyons make up dark matter. If the claim is correct, it would go a long way toward explaining why the expansion of the universe is accelerating rather than slowing down.

The paper explains that with a tachyon-based dark matter, the universe would have initially decelerated and then reversed course and started to accelerate. They describe this process as an inflected expansion. (7/1)

A Concentrated Beam of Particles and Photons Could Push us to Proxima Centauri (Source: Phys.org)
Getting to Proxima Centauri b will take a lot of new technologies, but there are increasingly exciting reasons to do so. Both public and private efforts have started seriously looking at ways to make it happen, but so far, there has been one significant roadblock to the journey—propulsion. To solve that problem, Christopher Limbach, now a professor at the University of Michigan, is working on a novel type of beamed propulsion that utilizes both a particle beam and a laser to overcome that technology's biggest weakness. (7/4)

Weird Form of 'Dangling' Ice Spotted in Space for the First Time (Sources: New Scientist, Astrobiology)
Fluffy ice that could help create the molecular building blocks for life has been spotted in space for the first time, nearly 30 years since researchers first observed it in the lab. Normally, ice has a solid crystal lattice structure, with all of its H2O molecules strongly held together via their hydrogen and oxygen atoms. The ‘dangling OH’ observed by laboratory astrophysicists correspond to water molecules that are not fully bound into the ice, and could trace surfaces and interfaces within the icy grains, or when the water is intimately mixed with other molecular species in the ice. (7/5)

Is Utah the Next Big Thing in the Space Business? (Source: Deseret News)
As it turns out, there’s a whole lot of technology, components and know-how with Utah roots that have ventured, or will venture, beyond the boundaries of our home planet. Aiming to fan the flames of those endeavors in the state, along with the companion industries of aerospace, defense, cybersecurity and advanced manufacturing, is 47G.

47G is a rebrand and reorganization of the former Utah Aerospace and Defense Association that earlier this year also absorbed the Utah Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Initiative. The nonprofit organization partners with government, private industry and academia on a mission it says aims to turn Utah into “the world’s premier ecosystem for aerospace, defense and cyber companies.”

Aaron Starks said Utah is well situated to benefit from a global expansion of space efforts as privately funded newspace industries, along with a growing movement for NASA and other national space agencies to outsource space exploration and research mission development work to private contractors, drive the need for innovation and advancements, and attract investment interest. (7/4)

China Planning to Smash Asteroid in Planetary Defense Test (Source: Futurism)
China is planning to launch a spacecraft with the aim of smashing a nearby asteroid, in an impact designed to test the feasibility of protecting against any Earth-threatening asteroids like the one that killed off the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago. A test mission should happen before 2030 and an asteroid with a diameter of about 30 meters will be the target. Previously, the researchers had proposed a different asteroid dubbed 2019 VL5 as a target for this test mission, but the paper seems to indicate a new target with a similarly unwieldy name of 2015 XF261.

The team say the proposed spacecraft will consist of two parts: an "observer and an impactor," which together are "planned to be launched as a dual-device combination." The observer probe will first arrive at the asteroid and maneuver around it while analyzing it for three to six months. Then an impactor probe will arrive and smash into the space rock while the observer probe studies the impact. (7/4)

Astronomers Have Counted Over 800 Stars That Have Disappeared Without A Trace (Source: Twisted Sifter)
New research may explain over 800 cases that have baffled astronomers. The study’s co-author, Alejandro Vigna-Gomez said “Were one to stand gazing up at a visible star going through a total collapse, it might, just at the right time, be like watching a star suddenly extinguish and disappear from the heavens. The collapse is so complete that no explosion occurs, nothing escapes and one wouldn’t see any bright supernova in the night sky.”

This can happen, they theorize, when massive stars collapse under their own gravity and become black holes, or extremely dense neutron star, immediately. All detectable evidence that this occurred would be captured by the gravity and sucked back in, leaving nothing for us to see. From our perspective, it would look like the star simply disappeared. (7/5)

Europe’s Earth Return Orbiter Reaches Design Maturity (Source: ESA)
ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter, the first spacecraft that will rendezvous and capture an object around another planet, passed a key milestone to bring the first Mars samples back to Earth. The critical design review for the spacecraft's platform was completed today with the involvement of European industry and NASA. (7/5)

'Gravity Hole' in the Indian Ocean That Has Baffled Scientists (Source: Good)
A “gravity hole” pushes away the surrounding material due to lack of gravitational force. When formed in an ocean, a gravity hole pushes away water and creates pockets of air where there should have been water, lowering the sea level. Take the instance of the world’s largest, and deepest gravity hole, discovered in the Indian Ocean. Causing the sea level to dip by 348 feet, the hole perplexed geologists for decades, until 2023, when some researchers gave a potential explanation.

Called the “Indian Ocean geoid low (IOGL),” this gravity hole is located about 750 miles southwest of Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip of the Indian subcontinent. It is a 1.2 million-square-mile circular depression lurking in the ocean’s waters. In 2023, researchers from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, proclaimed that they had found an explanation: the hole was formed as a result of an ancient ocean that no longer exists. They believe that plumes of magma rising from deep inside the planet are responsible for the existence of this gravity hole.

Live Science described this geometrical anomaly behind the geoid low as, “The low is a consequence of our surprisingly squidgy planet, which flattens at the poles, bulges at the equator and undulates between lumps and bumps across its surface.” (7/5)

With its Latest Moon Mission Success, China's Space Program has the US in its Sights (Source: The Conversation)
China has a strategic plan to build a space economy and become the world leader in this field. It intends to explore and extract minerals from asteroids and bodies such as the Moon, and to use water ice and any other useful space resources available in our Solar System.

Will the US land humans on the Moon before the decade is out? I think so. Can China do the same before 2030? I am doubtful – but this is not the point. China’s space program is systematically growing in a consistent and integrated way. Its missions appear not to have experienced the serious technical issues that other ventures have encountered – or perhaps we are just not being told about them. (7/4)