August 21, 2024

SpaceX Launches Starlink Mission at Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
SpaceX used a Starlink launch to break in a new Falcon 9 booster. The rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 9:20 a.m. Eastern Tuesday and placed 22 Starlink satellites into orbit. The launch was the first for the booster, designated B1085. SpaceX had originally planned to fly the Crew-9 mission on the booster's first launch, but a one-month delay in that mission as well as a desire to confirm that a moisture intrusion issue in the booster's propellant tanks had been resolved led SpaceX to use a Starlink mission for the rocket's first flight. (8/21)

NASA StarFOX Mission Demonstrates Satellite Swarming (Source: Space News)
A NASA experiment has shown the potential for autonomous navigation of satellite swarms. The agency tested its Starling Formation-Flying Optical Experiment, or StarFOX, using its four Starling cubesats launched last year. The satellites were able to calculate their orbits using images from their star trackers, exchanging data with each other through intersatellite links. Because the technology does not rely on GPS, it could be used for missions orbiting the moon or other planets, researchers noted. (8/21)

JUICE Completes Earth/Moon Fly-By (Source: ESA)
ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) mission has completed a dual flyby of the Earth and moon. The spacecraft passed about 750 kilometers above the moon on Monday, followed 24 hours later by a flyby 6,840 kilometers above the Earth. The flyby, the first time a spacecraft has made gravity-assist swingbys of the moon and Earth, puts JUICE on course for a Venus flyby next August. That will be followed by two more Earth flybys in 2026 and 2029 before the mission arrives at its destination, Jupiter, in 2031. (8/21)

Study Concludes Life is Rare in the Universe (Source: Space.com)
A new study suggests that we may be relatively alone in the universe. The analysis is based on the premise that, given a group of similar Earth-like planets, life should arise on nearly all of them or none of them given the lack of differences that would cause life to arise on some of them. That would mean that intelligent, technological life should also either be very common or very rare. The lack of evidence so far, from decades of SETI projects, to detect signals from other civilizations then led scientists to conclude that such life may therefore be rare, for any number of reasons. (8/21)

FCC Approves Starlink Upgrade (Source: Space News)
The FCC has approved a SpaceX plan to upgrade its first-generation Starlink satellites. The commission approved a license modification requested by SpaceX for its 4,408 Gen1 satellites, allowing SpaceX to deploy upgraded Starlinks under the Gen1 license with technology developed for the company's second-generation constellation. That upgraded technology includes upgraded beam-forming and digital processing equipment, enabling SpaceX to provide broadband with narrower beams and increase network capacity. (8/21)

Astroscale and JAXA Finalize Debris Removal Contract (Source: Space News)
Astroscale has finalized a contract with the Japanese space agency JAXA for a debris removal mission. The company announced this week it signed the contract, valued at 12 billion yen ($82 million) for the ADRAS-J2 mission. That spacecraft will fly to the same H-2A upper stage in low Earth orbit being inspected now by the company's ADRAS-J spacecraft and deorbit it. Astroscale said in an presentation this week that it is projecting a sharp increase in revenue from that contract and other projects, and expects to reach breakeven on an operating profit basis in its 2026 fiscal year. (8/21)

AstroForge Raises $40 Million for Third Asteroid Rendezvous Mission (Source: Space News)
AstroForge, an asteroid mining startup, has raised $40 million as it races to complete its second mission. Those funds will enable a third mission, called Vestri, scheduled for launch late next year that will rendezvous with and touch down on an M-class asteroid that may have high concentrations of metals. The company is working to complete its second mission, Odin, scheduled to launch at the end of this year as a secondary payload on the Intuitive Machines IM-2 lunar lander mission to fly by that asteroid. AstroForge took work on Odin in house earlier this year after problems with the development of the spacecraft by an outside vendor. (8/21)

TrustPoint Wins Space Force Contracts for Ground Control Departure From GPS (Source: Space News)
TrustPoint, a startup developing a next-generation global navigation satellite system, has won a pair of U.S. Space Force contracts. The company announced Wednesday it won contracts from SpaceWERX, the innovation arm of the Space Force, worth $3.8 million to demonstrate a ground control segment that does not rely on GPS and an advanced position, navigation and timing (PNT) security application. TrustPoint plans to establish a C-band constellation in low Earth orbit to provide commercial PNT services, and has launched two satellites to date. (8/21)

Ensemble Space Labs Enters Space Weather Business (Source: Space News)
A government contracting firm has spun out a new venture focused on space weather forecasting. The digital services contractor Ensemble Consultancy announced last week that its space weather business would be spun off as an independent startup, Ensemble Space Labs. The company is developing advanced forecasting tools to predict solar storms and their impacts on Earth. Ensemble Space is using its expertise in data science and machine learning to build a platform to take in space weather data from various sources to provide more tailored insights for commercial and government customers. The new venture is partially funded by U.S. government small business contracts and plans to seek venture capital in the coming months. (8/21)

Planets Hold More Water in Their Interiors Than Previously Believed (Source: Space Daily)
For years, scientists have modeled planets based on Earth's structure-an iron core, a silicate mantle, and surface water. This model has often been applied to exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system. However, "it is only in recent years that we have begun to realize that planets are more complex than we had thought," explains Caroline Dorn, Professor for Exoplanets at ETH Zurich. Exoplanets, especially those close to their stars, are typically hot with surfaces dominated by molten magma rather than solid rock. In these conditions, water can dissolve into the magma, unlike gases such as carbon dioxide, which tend to escape into the atmosphere. (8/21)

Study Suggests What Could Be on the Other Side of a Black Hole (Source: GOOD)
Some theories link black holes to the concepts of time and gravity, suggesting that time may behave differently within these cosmic phenomena. One idea even posits that a black hole could contain distant regions of the universe that remain invisible to us. Some theories suggest that entering a black hole could lead to a wormhole, transporting you to an unknown part of space. The intense gravity of a black hole can warp space-time, making this possible. (8/19)

Sierra Space's Dream Chaser Spaceplane to Use Space Prep Facility (Source: Florida Today)
Early next year, crews should break ground on a half-million-square-foot spacecraft processing facility within Kennedy Space Center that will prep Sierra Space's uncrewed Dream Chaser space plane before and after takeoff into orbit. All Points Logistics announced the partnership with Sierra Space to accommodate Dream Chaser pre-launch payload integration, checkout, launch vehicle integration and other ground-based services. All Points hopes to build and open its 150-foot-tall Space Prep spacecraft complex in 2026 on 60 acres south of NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building.

Kevin Brown said his company is in negotiations with more companies to provide spacecraft processing services within Space Prep. Environmental studies remain ongoing for the 60-acre campus south of the VAB. "It's fairly widely known that the existing infrastructure at most of the U.S. spaceports is inadequate to handle the coming demand and launch cadence," he said. (8/19)

Doritos Launches Safe-for-Space ‘Zero Gravity’ Chips to Go on Polaris Dawn Mission (Source: New York Post)
Doritos is living up to its “for the bold” tagline. It’s one small step for snack-kind: PepsiCo is launching a special pack of “Zero Gravity” Doritos that are designed to be eaten in space, thereby allowing astronauts to snack amongst the stars. Dubbed the Cool Ranch Zero Gravity Doritos, this veritable Sputnick of snacks “swaps out the chips’ classic powdered topping for an oil-based coating” to keep the dust from floating about the cabin. (8/19)

SpaceX is About to Send Four People on a Wild — and Risky — Mission Into the Radiation Belts (Source: CNN)
Isaacman, Menon, Gillis and Poteet will spend five days aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule that will soar to altitudes higher than any human has traveled since NASA’s Apollo program ended in the 1970s. Their orbital path will extend high enough to plunge the vehicle and crew into a radiation belt, adding another element of peril to the already treacherous experience of spaceflight.

This crew of private citizens will also open the hatch of their spacecraft and expose themselves to the vacuum of space, marking the first time such a feat has been attempted by non-government astronauts. During this endeavor, the astronauts will be protected solely by brand-new Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) suits, which SpaceX designed and developed in just two and a half years.

The end goal of the Polaris Program is to take the first steps toward validating technology that SpaceX will one day need if it carries humans deeper into the cosmos — including spacesuits, EVA and life-support technologies. The crew will travel into an oval-shaped orbit that extends as high as 870 miles from Earth. That’s well into the inner band of Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts, which begin at around 600 miles in altitude. The belts are areas where concentrations of high-energy particles that come from the sun and interact with Earth’s atmosphere are trapped, creating two dangerous bands of radiation. (8/19)

Something Is Wrong with Dark Energy, Physicists Say (Source: Scientific American)
For the first time since the discovery of dark energy—the mysterious force that is accelerating our cosmic fireworks show—cosmologists think we may be on the cusp of something new. Two prominent dark energy surveys seeking to measure the nature of this force found evidence that dark energy seems to have weakened over time. “If it is true, it is a big deal,” says Licia Verde.

Dark energy was assumed to be a constant force in the universe, as unchanging and reliable as the forward march of time. If the new results are right, it is changeable after all. “It’s mega important,” says Paul J. Steinhardt. The news is based on a combination of two dark energy studies, called the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), with a third set of preexisting data. (8/19)