September 19, 2024

Is Someone Pulling a SpaceX Starship Booster From the Sea? (Source: San Antonio Express-News)
For the past few days, an offshore service ship with a giant crane has been loitering off the coast of Boca Chica Beach near a spot in the Gulf of Mexico where a SpaceX Starship Super Heavy booster landed and sank on June 6. 

The presence of the 79-foot HOS Ridgewind has spawned speculation that Elon Musk’s commercial space company was recovering the 230-foot-long stainless-steel rocket booster that touched down on the water’s surface and fell over before sinking. Known as Booster 11, the massive fuel tank and its 33 engines carried an upper-stage Starship to space during the vehicle’s fourth test flight in June. It was the first booster to not explode before landing. (9/19)

Eutelsat to Launch Multiple Satellites on Japan's H3 Rockets (Source: Space News)
Eutelsat announced Wednesday an agreement for multiple launches of Japan's H3 rocket. The contract covers an unspecified number of launches starting in 2027. The launches will be for Eutelsat geostationary orbit communications satellites, rather than for the next generation of OneWeb satellites. The two-stage H3, built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, successfully launched an Earth observation satellite June 30 for Japan's space agency in its third mission, following another success in February.  (9/19)

Maritime Customers Moving From GEO to LEO Satellites (Source: Space News)
GEO satellites are giving way to LEO systems for serving maritime customers. Despina Theodosiou, co-CEO of service provider Tototheo Global, said SpaceX's Starlink LEO constellation poses a growing challenge for legacy geostationary VSAT services and their resellers. A Starlink terminal can cost as little as $250, 1% the cost of a VSAT terminal, while providing much higher bandwidth. However, GEO networks remain an important component of maritime connectivity, particularly for resiliency and applications where latency is not important. (9/19)

India Approves Lunar and Venus Missions, Plus Space Station and Reusable Launcher Programs (Source: Space News)
The Indian government has approved several new space projects. The union cabinet, chaired by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the Chandrayaan-4 moon sample return mission Wednesday. That mission will use two launches to send a spacecraft to the lunar surface to pick up samples for return to Earth. The cabinet also approved development of the Venus Orbiter Mission, expected to launch in 2028, the first module for the Bharatiya Antariksh Station space station, and the Next Generation Launch Vehicle, a rocket with three times the performance of the existing LVM-3 and featuring reusable components. (9/19)

Small Launcher Programs Pressing Ahead Despite Challenges (Source: Space News)
Companies are pressing ahead with small launch vehicles despite market challenges. Several companies, primarily in Europe, outlined plans to develop small launch vehicles that could be ready for their first launches as soon as 2025. They come into the market despite technical and financial problems faced by other companies in the sector as well as stiff competition from SpaceX rideshare missions. (9/19)

Smallsat Manufacturers Differ on Production Plans (Source: Space News)
While some smallsat manufacturers are developing larger factories, others are thinking small. Several industry executives criticized plans for "megafactories" able to produce hundreds of smallsats a year, citing limited demand. A study this week by Novaspace found that nearly two-thirds of the satellites projected to launch in the next decade will come from four megaconstellations that are building their satellites in-house. Manufacturers instead endorsed smaller "microfactories" that cost far less to build and can be located in customers' home countries. (9/19)

Boeing to Demonstrate "Sensor Fusion" for SSA (Source: Space News)
Boeing plans to demonstrate sensor fusion technology that combines data from air- and space-based sensors. Kay Sears, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space, Intelligence & Weapon Systems, said at the Air Space & Cyber conference this week that such sensor fusion can help improve military situational awareness. In the planned demonstration, Boeing will take data from two satellite constellations being built by subsidiary Millennium Space and combine it with data from an electronically scanned array radar on the E-7 Wedgetail aircraft. (9/19)

China Launches Beidou NavSats (Source: Space News)
China launched the last pair of backup satellites for its Beidou navigation system late Wednesday. A Long March 3B rocket lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 9:14 p.m. Eastern. The rocket's Yuanzheng-1 upper stage deployed two Beidou satellites into medium Earth orbit (MEO). The new pair will join existing Beidou MEO orbital planes as backups. The satellites will also conduct experiments for the future Beidou-4 next-generation navigation satellite technology. They feature improvements over earlier Beidou satellites in areas including autonomous integrity monitoring and atomic clock technology. (9/19)

Rocket Lab Aborts Electron Launch at T-0 Due to GSE Issue (Source: Space.com)
Rocket Lab aborted an Electron launch Wednesday night. Liftoff of Electron was scheduled for 7 p.m. Eastern from the company's New Zealand launch site, but the launch was aborted right at T-0 as the vehicle's engines ignited, causing them to shut down. Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck said the abort was caused by "a piece of ground support equipment not reaching its target in the allocated time." The company has not set a new date for the launch, carrying five Internet of Things satellites for French company Kinéis. (9/19)

Upcoming Vulcan Centaur Won't Result in Immediate DoD Certification (Source: Space News)
A successful second launch of ULA's Vulcan Centaur next month won't mean automatic certification of the rocket. Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, the U.S. Space Force's program executive officer for assured access to space, said Wednesday that the service will take "some time" to review data from the Cert-2 mission, scheduled for as soon as Oct. 4. ULA still expects to be certified in time to perform the first two national security launches of Vulcan by the end of the year. (9/19)

Budget Uncertainty Could Delay Space Force Contracts (Source: Air & Space Forces Magazine)
Budget uncertainty could delay new Space Force launch contracts. The Space Force's Space Systems Command plans to award contracts for the next phase of the National Security Space Launch program by the end of this year. However, officials said those plans could be delayed depending on progress on a fiscal year 2025 appropriations bill. The new fiscal year will start Oct. 1, likely funding the government on a continuing resolution that keeps programs at 2024 levels and keeps new programs from starting. The Space Force plans to make up to three "Lane 2" awards to provide additional competition. (9/19)

BlackSky Wins Contract From Australia's HEO for Satellite Imaging of Other Satellites (Source: Space News)
Satellite imaging company BlackSky has won a contract to take images of other spacecraft. BlackSky said it received a "seven-figure" contract from Australian startup HEO, which uses other companies' satellites for non-Earth imaging of spacecraft for defense, intelligence and commercial use. BlackSky will share with HEO high-resolution imagery from mid-inclination orbits. (9/19)

Hidden Figures Receive Congressional Medals (Source: collectSPACE)
Representatives of NASA's "Hidden Figures" received Congressional Gold Medals on Wednesday. In a ceremony at the U.S. Capitol, the families of Christine Darden, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan accepted the medals, along with a fifth medal for all the women who worked as mathematicians and engineers at NASA and its predecessor NACA from the 1930s to the 1970s. Congress authorized the medals in a 2019 act. (9/19)

Starlink Satellites Could Become an 'Existential Threat' for Astronomers (Source: Quartz)
SpaceX’s ever-increasing network of satellites is still blocking researchers’ ability to view distant galaxies, planets, and stars, according to experts. The Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON), alongside researchers from other institutions, said Wednesday that radiation from the second generation of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites is causing significant interference with their radio telescopes. The satellites emit 32 times more radiation than Starlink’s prior generation, which had already been getting in the way. (9/19)

2nd Kuiper Belt? Our Solar System May Be Much Larger Than Thought (Source: Space.com)
A brand-new group of frozen objects, orbiting the sun out beyond the distant Kuiper Belt, has been spotted by the Subaru telescope, working with NASA's New Horizons mission to find new targets for the spacecraft to investigate.

This new group of objects isn't a mere extension of the Kuiper Belt. There appears to be a gap between 55 AU and 70 AU where no objects have yet been found, and then a second belt — let's call it "Kuiper Belt 2" — between 70 and 90 AU, which is as far out as 13.5 billion kilometers from the sun. (9/18)

Satellite Tracker Photographs Secret Spacecraft (Source: Space.com)
Satellites are tempting targets for amateur astrophotographers. Such is the case for space watcher veteran Felix Schöfbänker in Upper Austria. "My images have certainly revealed a few things that either were not known, or only were speculated before," Schöfbänker said. In the past few months Schöfbänker has caught some classified spy satellites with his 14" Dobsonian telescope, optimized for satellite tracking and imaging from his home. Poring over imagery, he is sharing his results and what those images suggest.

Coming into focus for Schöfbänker, for example, has been a new generation of optical and radar imaging U.S. reconnaissance satellites, hurled into space for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which designs, launches and operates spy satellites on behalf of the U.S. federal government. (9/19)

Musk Accuses FAA Of Fining SpaceX Over 'Nonsense' (Source: Benzinga)
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has publicly criticized the Federal Aviation Administration for imposing a $633,009 fine on SpaceX for regulatory violations, hinting at the agency’s favoritism towards Boeing. He questioned why Boeing was not fined despite NASA deeming their spacecraft unsafe for returning astronauts. (9/18)

Simple Shift Could Make Low Earth Orbit Satellites High Capacity (Source: Space Daily)
Low-orbit satellites could soon offer millions of people worldwide access to high-speed communications, but the satellites' potential has been stymied by a technological limitation - their antenna arrays can only manage one user at a time. The one-to-one ratio means that companies must launch either constellations of many satellites, or large individual satellites with many arrays, to provide wide coverage. Both options are expensive, technically complex, and could lead to overcrowded orbits.

For example, SpaceX went the "constellation" route. Its network, StarLink, currently consists of over 6,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit, over half of which were launched in the past few years. SpaceX aims to launch tens of thousands more in the coming years. Now, researchers at Princeton engineering and at Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Taiwan have invented a technique that enables low-orbit satellite antennas to manage signals for multiple users at once, drastically reducing needed hardware. (9/16)

Trinity Capital Commits $30M in Funding to Slingshot Aerospace (Source: Space Daily)
Trinity Capital has committed $30 million in growth capital to Slingshot Aerospace. Slingshot Aerospace is a key player in AI-driven satellite tracking, space traffic management, and space simulation technologies. Slingshot, headquartered in El Segundo, CA, specializes in building mission-critical tools that support training, operational planning, and real-time space operations. Their platform offers a comprehensive and integrated view of the space environment, enabling government and commercial space operators to improve situational awareness, enhance operational performance, and mitigate orbital risks. (9/16)

Vegetable Seeds From Space Thrive in China, Boosting Yields (Source: Space Daily)
Some vegetable seeds that were sent into space have now been successfully cultivated in Yanggao county, Shanxi province, a key region for vegetable production in China. The seeds, which included tomatoes, okra, eggplant, giant pumpkins, and red peppers, were grown in the greenhouses at the Hualian Agricultural Technology Demonstration Center.

According to Wang Shouming, a technician at the center, these seeds were initially standard vegetable seeds but were subjected to the unique environmental conditions of space, such as weightlessness and reduced oxygen levels. These factors caused mutations in the seeds' internal structures, leading to enhanced growth properties once they returned to Earth. (9/16)

Musk Supports Trump, But His SpaceX Employees Largely Back Harris (Source: Reuters)
Billionaire Elon Musk has endorsed Republican former President Donald Trump in the race for the White House, but employees at his collection of companies are largely donating to Trump's Democratic rival Kamala Harris. Employees at Musk's rocket company SpaceX have donated $34,526 to Harris versus $7,652 to Trump. (9/18)

Russia 'Should Know Better' Than to Put an Anti-Satellite Nuke in Space (Source: Breaking Defense)
A senior US military official said today that it’s “highly concerning” that Russia is apparently considering putting an anti-satellite nuclear weapon in space — a threat that, if realized, “would affect virtually every man, woman and child on Earth.” “Russia is the OG [original gangster] space power. They put up Sputnik, the first man, the first woman in space. They know better; they should know better,” head of US Space Command Gen. Stephen Whiting said. (9/17)

Sierra Space Nails Historic 1st Automated Oxygen Extraction From Moon Soil Simulant (Source: Interesting Engineering)
Sierra Space successfully tested its Carbothermal Oxygen Production Reactor at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, marking the first automated extraction of oxygen from simulated lunar soil in a lunar-like environment. This breakthrough highlights the company’s progress in developing space technologies to support life beyond Earth.

When the technology is expanded, it will be able to generate large amounts of oxygen, which will help NASA achieve one of the main goals of the Artemis program: creating the first permanent human presence on the moon. (9/18)

FCC Commissioner Calls Out Agency for Hypocritical Take on SpaceX Starlink (Source: Teslarati)
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr is calling out the agency for a hypocritical take on SpaceX’s Starlink. Last week, we reported on FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel calling Starlink “a monopoly” and calling for more competition amid the internet provider’s recent milestone of 7,000 satellites in orbit.

Carr brings up an interesting point: The FCC said last year that Starlink was not “reasonably capable of providing high-speed internet.” This was the reason SpaceX was denied a nearly $900 million grant that would help provide more internet coverage for 640,000 homes and businesses. Now, it is saying that Starlink is a “monopoly.” (9/18)

Bellatrix Aerospace is Rising with ISRO (Source: The Print)
Bellatrix Aerospace is one of India’s earliest space startups to have procured a contract from ISRO even before its founders had a college degree. Their core? Manufacturing thrusters — devices that help satellites fly, mostly helping them stay in their orbital path. Their newest product is the shiniest weapon in their arsenal, the nano thrusters. These are the world’s smallest thrusters, less than 5cmx5cm, and cater to nanosatellites. Nanothrusters are small chips, smaller in size than a one-rupee coin. (9/18)