August 24, 2024

EarthDaily Analytics Secures $1.7M Contract with Malaysia's MySpatial for Advanced Geospatial Solutions (Source; Space Daily)
EarthDaily Analytics ("EDA") has entered into a $1.7 million contract with MySpatial, a prominent geospatial mapping company in Malaysia that serves both government and private sectors. The agreement, which started in July 2024 and spans an initial term of four years, will grant MySpatial and its clients access to EDA's data and analytics capabilities. These resources will support various applications, including Civil Government, Agriculture, Environmental Monitoring, Natural Resources, Urban Development, Coastal Monitoring, Defense, Maritime Intelligence, and Enterprise sectors. (8/22)

Finland's Kuva Space Launches First Commercial Hyperspectral Satellite Hyperfield-1 (Source: Space Daily)
Finnish company Kuva Space has successfully launched its first commercial microsatellite, Hyperfield-1, aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 smallsat rideshare mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The satellite has established initial contact, marking the beginning of Kuva Space's expansive constellation plan. This network is set to deliver daily Earth observation by 2027 and achieve uninterrupted subdaily global monitoring with 100 satellites by 2030. (8/22)

Potential Seen for US-China Space Relations (Source: Space Daily)
China's recent retrieval of the first-ever samples from the far side of the moon has renewed talks about the possibilities of the United States and China joining in space-based research programs aimed at addressing global challenges, particularly climate change. "The US and China each have very innovative space programs, and one area, for example, where the US and China could work together today would be space-based solar," Daniel Kammen said.

Space-based solar power, a concept involving the collection of solar energy in outer space via satellites and its distribution to Earth, has been gaining traction globally. As countries worldwide invest in research and development for the technology, international organizations are simultaneously pushing for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. (8/22)

TrustPoint Secures $3.8M in SpaceWERX Direct-to-Phase II Contracts (Source: Space Daily)
TrustPoint has been awarded two Direct-to-Phase II contracts by SpaceWERX, valued at a combined $3.8 million. These contracts are aimed at advancing the company's GPS-independent ground control segment and developing an advanced position, navigation, and timing (PNT) security application to address critical challenges within the Department of the Air Force (DAF).

The Air Force Research Laboratory and SpaceWERX, the innovation arm of the U.S. Space Force and a unique division within AFWERX, have collaborated to expedite the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) processes. Their efforts include accelerating proposal-to-award timelines, broadening opportunities for small businesses, and reducing bureaucratic hurdles through ongoing improvements in contract execution. (8/22)

How The Space Force Must Lead: Forget ‘The Valley Of Death’ (Source: Forbes)
The Pentagon will never be able to adapt as modern technology companies must do to survive. The necessary decision-making to develop and deploy innovative technology into the marketplace today occurs on a timeline of weeks and months, while the Pentagon must lock in decisions for five years at a time. Perhaps in the 1960s these timelines were sufficient, when technology was not yet software led and paced by Moore’s Law. But today, these timelines leave the country’s defense, and the commercial industries essential to support it, in a death spiral.

The Pentagon’s 23,000 employee bureaucracy was never supposed to innovate technology though; it exists to support the civilian leaders to make wise, calculated, policy and budgetary decisions that best enable the country’s defense. But for all the valuable advice they and their hired consultants routinely accomplish, one thing has become glaringly obvious: the Pentagon will never be able to design a profitable company, build a functioning satellite, or produce a working rocket. What they can (and must urgently) do is redesign the bureaucracy itself to advance the commercial space economy by buying from it rather than continuing to attempt to command it. If they cannot, the $43 billion already invested in space ventures will be for naught, and so too will American leadership in space. (8/23)

Northrop Grumman Awarded $200M Deal for Deep-Space Radar That Will be Hosted in Wales (Source: Defense Scoop)
The Space Force has awarded Northrop Grumman a $200 million contract to build its second Deep-space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) that will be stationed in the United Kingdom, the Defense Department announced Friday.

Under development by Northrop Grumman, DARC is an all-weather, ground-based radar system designed to detect and track objects moving through geosynchronous orbit — over 22,000 miles above the Earth’s equator. Expected to serve as a key capability for the U.S. military’s space domain awareness mission, the service plans to position three radars around the world as part of the AUKUS alliance between the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. (8/23)

UF Scientist Prepares to Launch Into Space Thursday, Aug. 29 (Source: UF)
As a crew member on board the Blue Origin New Shepard rocket, UF/IFAS researcher Rob Ferl will conduct his own study on plants in space
What does the adaptation process look like for plants in space? That’s the question the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) hopes to answer with a novel space-based experiment happening Thursday at 9 a.m. EST when a UF/IFAS horticultural sciences researcher launches with his experiment into suborbital space on a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket.

Rob Ferl, Ph.D., the University of Florida Astraeus Space Institute director, will fly in the Blue Origin craft and perform the experiment himself. The experiment builds on prior research that showed a type of plant – Arabidopsis thaliana – can detect that it is in space and then change how its genes are expressed. (8/23)

In Fiji: What is the Point of Space Exploration? (Source: Fiji Times)
The Starlink satellite constellation provides high-speed internet access even in the most remote regions, including isolated areas of Fiji. By bridging the digital divide, Starlink empowers grassroots communities with reliable connectivity, enabling access to education, healthcare, and economic opportunities that were previously out of reach.

For many rural Fijians, this means having access to all the information on the web and the ability to learn and even compete globally in spaces such as tech and business. This has also provided employment in Fiji and increased the number of businesses that have now popped up as Starlink resellers, acting as third-party vendors for Starlink and providing both the hardware and installation for Fijians who may not be as well versed in the technology. (8/23)

Former Lockheed Martin CFO Joins Rocket Lab Board (Source: Rocket Lab)
Rocket Lab announced that Kenneth Possenriede has been appointed to the Company’s Board of Directors. A seasoned executive with strong business and financial acumen, Mr. Possenriede joins Rocket Lab after a 35-year career at Lockheed Martin Corporation in financial leadership positions, including serving as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). (8/22)

Without Funds, Indian Space Innovators are Grounded (Source: Times of India)
On National Space Day today, India marks the historic landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon exactly a year ago on Aug 23. It was a milestone that not only catapulted India into an elite group of lunar-landing nations but also reignited public enthusiasm for space exploration. The journey to the Moon has a history of over six decades. While ISRO has long been lauded for its capacity to carry out intricate missions with budgets incomparable with top space-faring nations, given the competitive landscape that is Space, GOI will have to revisit its criteria for annual budgetary allocations. (8/23)

Plans for Spaceport at New Zealand's Kaitorete Spit in Strife as Government Rejects Further Funding (Source: RNZ)
Work on setting up an international spaceport at New Zealand's best site for launching rockets is in strife. The government is pulling back at Kaitorete Spit, south of Christchurch, without signing up a single international customer and despite its high aerospace ambitions.

Facing east in largely empty skies, Kaitorete is the jewel in the crown of launch sites, even by world standards. But the fledgling national aerospace centre Tāwhaki has failed in early efforts to attract international investors, has underspent its $4 million a year budget and is not making enough return on investment. (8/23)

JAXA Forms Special Team to Protect Earth from Asteroids (Source: Japan-Forward)
Asteroids drifting through space occasionally strike Earth. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has intensified its efforts to prevent a potentially catastrophic event. In April, JAXA established a planetary defense team for the early detection and avoidance of hazardous asteroids.

A European spacecraft equipped with devices from this team is scheduled to launch in October. It aims to participate in an on-site investigation of a collision experiment conducted in 2022. With the asteroid Apophis set to pass near the geostationary orbit in five years, JAXA is rapidly developing a system to rival those of the United States and Europe. (8/21)

NASA Provides Asteroid Samples to JAXA for Further Research (Source: NHK)
The US space agency has provided its Japanese counterpart with a portion of the geological samples that its spacecraft collected from an asteroid. Last September, NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission brought back a capsule containing sand and other samples taken from Bennu, an asteroid located between the orbits of Earth and Mars. The samples weighed 121.6 grams in total. NASA handed over roughly 0.6 grams of them to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, on Thursday in accordance with a bilateral deal. (8/22)

AI Powered Moonbase Concept by India Mirrors Russian Controversy (Source: NewsNine)
The Vikram Sarabhai Space Center (VSSC) that works closely with ISRO released a video on humanity's fascination with the Moon. We get a glimpse of India's future moonbase in the form of a cringeworthy AI generated image. The AI chose to depict the Moon shining brightly over India's base... on the Moon. During launch programming for the Luna 25 mission, Roscosmos courted similar controversy by using AI generated images to depict its planned moonbase. It too depicted the Moon in the skies of the Moon. (8/23)

Polaris Dawn: Another Small Step to Mars? (Source: DW)
If it succeeds, Polaris Dawn will be the first non-government mission to perform a spacewalk. But not only that — it'll do that about 700 kilometers (435 miles) above Earth. The highest ever. To compare: the ISS orbits Earth at about 400 kilometers, where the radiation is less intense. It will also orbit Earth through regions of a highly-charged belt of radiation. There are two of these "Van Allen Belts", an inner and an outer one. Astronauts tend to avoid the hazardous Van Allen Belts, but they will have to travel through them if humans want to fly to Mars and survive. This privately-funded mission could be a first step toward that goal. (8/23)

India Celebrates First National Space Day (Source: Outlook)
India celebrates its first National Space Day on August 23 with the theme, "Touching lives while touching the Moon: India's space saga". The day commemorates the one-year anniversary of the successful moon landing of ISRO's Vikram Lander from Chandrayaan-3. India made history on August 23, 2023 by becoming the fourth nation to successfully land on the Moon and the first to reach its southern polar region. To commemorate this monumental achievement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared August 23 as "National Space Day." (8/23)