October 5, 2024

Starlink Rival AST SpaceMobile Starts to Unfold Its Massive Satellites (Source: PC Magazine)
AST SpaceMobile is now unfurling its first batch of commercial satellites in Earth’s orbit amid heightened competition with SpaceX’s cellular Starlink tech. On Friday morning, AST SpaceMobile CEO Abel Avellan tweeted the news alongside an image taken from one of the company’s “BlueBird” satellites. “The first BlueBird is getting ready to operate,” he wrote. Last month, the Texas-based company successfully launched all five BlueBird satellites into space, with the goal of delivering high-speed internet to unmodified smartphones on the ground. (10/4)

SpaceX Slams AST SpaceMobile as a 'Meme Stock' Out to Stop Cellular Starlink (Source: PC Magazine)
SpaceX is bashing a key competitor, AST SpaceMobile, for allegedly spreading misinformation aimed at stopping the launch of SpaceX's cellular Starlink system.

“AST and its investors continue their scorched-Earth campaign to hamstring competing direct-to-cellular operations,” the company told the FCC on Wednesday.  In a letter, SpaceX derided AST SpaceMobile as a “meme stock” driven by investors and foreign partners out to slow progress on SpaceX’s cellular Starlink technology, which is aiming to launch a beta test with T-Mobile this fall. (10/3)

Buttigieg Pushes Back on Musk Tweets About Starlink Deliveries in North Carolina (Source: PC Magazine)
The ongoing effort to ship Starlink dishes to hurricane-ravaged areas in the US has also sparked accusations from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk that the federal government, including FEMA, is blocking the deliveries. It prompted a response from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who reportedly spoke with Musk today to refute some of the accusations.

The back-and-forth started earlier today when Musk posted a text exchange he had with an unnamed SpaceX engineer working to deliver Starlink dishes to areas of North Carolina hit hard by Hurricane Helene. "The big issue is FEMA is actively blocking shipments and seizing goods and services locally and locking them away to state they are their own,” the engineer apparently told Musk. In response, Musk tweeted: “The level of belligerent government incompetence is staggering!!”

Secretary Buttigieg tweeted back to deny that the federal government is preventing Starlink deliveries. “No one is shutting down the airspace and FAA doesn’t block legitimate rescue and recovery flights. If you’re encountering a problem give me a call,” Buttigieg wrote. Editor's Note: From other reports I understand the FAA has been concerned about the large number of private aircraft crowding the local airspace creating hazardous conditions. (10/4)

Two New Tactically Responsive Space Missions to Demo Maneuver in Orbit (Source: Air & Space Forces)
The Space Force’s “Victus” series, aimed at showing the service can respond to new developments in orbit on tactically relevant timelines, gained steam Oct. 4 with the announcement of two new missions in 2026. Victus Surgo and Victus Salo, as the new missions are called, will offer new wrinkles to the “Tactically Responsive Space” (TacRS) effort by testing a new system for maneuvering in orbit and aiming not just at low-Earth orbit but geosynchronous orbit as well.

Both missions will be focused on space domain awareness. Space Systems Command announced it inked a $34.5 million contract with Impulse Space, a startup founded by one of the first employees of SpaceX, for the two missions. (10/4)

The Unraveling of Space-Time (Source: Quanta)
Many physicists suspect we are in for a radical reunderstanding of reality, as big as the one Albert Einstein orchestrated more than a century ago.
The patent clerk, with his theory of relativity, united space and time into a single, malleable substance — space-time. In doing so, he transformed the inert nothingness behind the world into a dynamic fabric of the world, one with folds that we experience as the force of gravity.

Now it’s Einstein’s fabric that needs unraveling. A belief has come to dominate theoretical physics that even nothingness ought to come from something — that space-time must break up into more primitive building blocks that don’t themselves inhabit space or time. Click here. (10/4)

How SpaceX Hit the World Record for Rocket Launches (Source: Independent)
SpaceX is one lift-off away from breaking its own record for the number of orbital rocket launches in a single year – however two of its rockets are currently grounded. The launch from Cape Canaveral Space Center in Florida of a Crew Dragon spacecraft atop a Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday equaled the previous milestone of 96 launches set in 2023.

The latest launch is part of a rescue mission to return two astronauts stranded aboard the ISS, however the Falcon 9’s second stage encountered a problem when returning to Earth. Among the missions currently on hold include Nasa’s Europa Clipper mission, as well as launches to deliver SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites into low-Earth orbit. Click here. (10/3)

Indian Startup Plans to Build Ultra-Low Orbit Satellite (Source: Spectrum IEEE)
Satellites with extremely low-orbits could lower launch costs and improve sensing and communication capabilities. Indian start-up Bellatrix Aerospace has unveiled plans for a spacecraft that will orbit at altitudes below 200 kilometers, and the company says it aims to launch its first satellite by 2026.

Anything below 1,200 kilometers is considered a low Earth orbit (LEO), but satellites that can fly even closer to Earth’s surface have a host of benefits, says Rohan Ganapathy, CEO of Bengaluru-based Bellatrix. For starters, ultra-LEO satellites can achieve comparatively higher resolution imaging for Earth observation applications such as climate modeling, agriculture, and mapping. (10/3)

Why Rocket Lab USA Stock Soared 55.2% Higher in September (Source: Motley Fool)
Shares of Rocket Lab USA increased 55.2% higher in September, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. During the month, it brought in an industry veteran to help it scale up its manufacturing to meet the growing demand for space launches; it also made its 11th launch of the year in September.

In September, Rocket Lab USA hired Frank Klein as its new chief operations officer. Klein has worked in the automotive industry for three decades, the last 27 of which were at Daimler AG (now Mercedes-Benz Group). He has held many roles, but most recently, he was the vice president of Mercedes-Benz Vans Operations. Rocket Lab brought on Klein to help it scale the manufacturing of its spacecraft, launch vehicles, and spacecraft components to meet growing customer demand and help Rocket Lab work through its backlog of customer orders. (10/3)

Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp is Bringing Urgency and ‘Decisiveness’ to Jeff Bezos’ Space Company (Source: CNBC)
Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp told CNBC that he only had one question for Jeff Bezos when he interviewed for the top job last year: Is the space company “a hobby or a business?” “Jeff felt that [Blue Origin] needed manufacturing expertise; it needed decisiveness; it need a little bit of energy,” Limp said. Limp is confident that the long-awaited debut of the towering New Glenn rocket will happen before the end of the year, one of his top goals as he leads Blue Origin “to scale to be a world class manufacturer.” (10/5)

Russia Has Lost Access to CERN in a Sign That its War in Ukraine is Causing a Major Scientific Brain Drain (Source: Business Insider)
CERN is about to revoke access for about 500 scientists affiliated with Russian institutions, cutting Russia's researchers off from its state-of-the-art facilities. The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN — home to the world's only Large Hadron Collider — announced the number of affected scientists on Monday, Reuters reported, finalizing a pledge first made after the outbreak of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The move is a major break for the institution in Geneva. Russia isn't a CERN member state but has held observer status since the height of the Cold War — a partnership that reflected CERN's postwar founding mission of "science for peace." (10/3)

NASA Starliner Astronauts Complete Move to SpaceX Crew-9 Spacecraft (Source: SciTech Daily)
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are preparing for their return journey on the Crew-9 Dragon spacecraft after initially arriving via the Boeing Starliner. They, along with newcomers Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov, completed essential suit and seat checks, setting the stage for their return to Earth scheduled for February 2025. (10/3)

Jets From Supermassive Black Holes Create New Stars Along Their Trajectory (Source: Universe Today)
Since the 1970s, astronomers have observed that supermassive black holes (SMBHs) reside at the centers of most massive galaxies. In some cases, these black holes accelerate gas and dust from their poles, forming relativistic jets that can extend for thousands of light-years. Using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers observed the jet emanating from the center of M87, the supermassive galaxy located 53.5 million light-years away. To their surprise, the team observed nova erupting along the jet’s trajectory, twice as many as they observed in M87 itself. (10/2)

Nuclear Rockets Could Travel to Mars in Half the Time − but Designing Their Reactors Isn’t Easy (Source: Georgia Tech)
An alternative technology to the chemically propelled rockets NASA develops now is called nuclear thermal propulsion, which uses nuclear fission and could one day power a rocket that makes the trip in just half the time. Nuclear fission involves harvesting the incredible amount of energy released when an atom is split by a neutron.

This reaction is known as a fission reaction. Fission technology is well established in power generation and nuclear-powered submarines, and its application to drive or power a rocket could one day give NASA a faster, more powerful alternative to chemically driven rockets. NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are jointly developing NTP technology. They plan to deploy and demonstrate the capabilities of a prototype system in space in 2027 – potentially making it one of the first of its kind to be built and operated by the U.S.

Nuclear thermal propulsion could also one day power maneuverable space platforms that would protect American satellites in and beyond Earth’s orbit. But the technology is still in development. (10/4)