November 18, 2024

Exploration Company Raises $160 Million for Cargo Spacecraft (Source: Space News)
The Exploration Company has raised $160 million to further development of a cargo spacecraft. The company announced Monday the Series B round led by European VC firms Balderton Capital and Plural. The funding brings the total raised by The Exploration Company to nearly $230 million. It will use the funding to advance development of Nyx, a spacecraft designed to transport cargo to and from future commercial space stations, with potential later applications in cislunar space. The company is working on a subscale demonstrator called Mission Possible it plans to launch next year on a three-hour orbital flight, with a test mission to the ISS proposed for as soon as 2028, pending additional support from ESA. (11/18)

Optimum Wins Space Force Contract for Optical Sensor (Source: Space News)
Optimum Technologies has won a Space Force contract to provide an optical sensor for a future responsive space mission. The company, also known as OpTech, said it received a $4.5 million award to develop an optical imaging payload for a mission called Victus Surgo scheduled to fly in 2026 on an Impulse Space vehicle. The contract covers a telescope, high-resolution camera, advanced processing electronics and proprietary software to inspect and characterize threats like anti-satellite weapons in orbit. (11/18)

China Launches Cargo Craft to TSS (Source: Space News)
A Chinese cargo spacecraft launched to the Tiangong space station Friday. A Long March 7 rocket lifted off at 10:13 a.m. Eastern Friday from the Wenchang spaceport on the island of Hainan and placed the Tianzhou-8 spacecraft into orbit. That spacecraft docked with Tiangong at 1:32 p.m. Eastern Friday. The spacecraft is carrying around 6,000 kilograms of supplies to support the current Shenzhou-19 crew at the station and the future Shenzhou-20 crew. (11/18)

SpaceX Launches California and Florida Missions Within Eight Hours (Source: Spaceflight Now)
SpaceX launched two Falcon 9 missions less than eight hours apart this weekend. A Falcon 9 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 5:28 p.m. Eastern Sunday carrying a payload identified only as Optus-X or TD7. The payload is believed to be a GEO communications satellite for Australian operator Optus, potentially for military applications. Another Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 12:53 a.m. Eastern Monday. It deployed a set of 20 Starlink satellites, 13 with direct-to-cell payloads. (11/18)

Carr to Lead FCC (Source: AP)
Brendan Carr will be the next head of the FCC. The incoming Trump administration announced Sunday that Carr, currently one of five FCC commissioners, will take over as chairman when Trump takes office in January. Among other issues, Carr has been publicly critical of the FCC's decision to revoke rural broadband subsidies from SpaceX after the commission concluded in 2023 that the service did not meet its broadband standards. (11/18)

China's CASC Gears Up for First Launches of New Rockets (Source: Space Daily)
China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), the country's primary space contractor, is preparing for the inaugural flights of two new carrier rocket models in the coming months. Ma Tao, deputy head of spacecraft operations at CASC, announced that the first launch of the Long March 8A is planned for January 2025 at the Hainan International Commercial Aerospace Launch Center in Wenchang, Hainan province. The Long March 12 is also expected to make its debut at the same facility within weeks. These initial flights will signify the start of operations at the newly established launch complex, Ma emphasized. (11/16)

China Advances Crewed Lunar Rover Development (Source: Space Daily)
The China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) announced that its prototype lunar rover, developed for upcoming manned lunar missions, has advanced to the initial phase of development. The rover, designed with a modular, foldable structure, is capable of carrying two astronauts for surface operations. A released concept image depicts the vehicle as an open-top off-road model, inspired by the design of ancient Chinese chariots.

CAST credited contributions from auto manufacturer GAC Group, Tsinghua University, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Harbin Institute of Technology, and Hong Kong Polytechnic University in shaping the design of the rover. Simultaneously, the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST) is conducting a parallel development program for its version of the lunar rover. (11/16)

NASA Receives 14th Straight 'Clean' Financial Audit Result (Source: Space Daily)
For the 14th consecutive year, NASA has earned an unmodified, or "clean," audit opinion on its fiscal year 2024 financial statements from an independent external auditor. This top-tier audit result indicates that NASA's financial statements align with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles for federal agencies and accurately represent the agency's financial status. The result underscores NASA's dedication to maintaining transparency in managing taxpayer funds. (11/16)

NASA Aims to Cut Costs, Speed Mars Sample Return (Source: Aviation Week)
NASA is reviewing 11 proposals to reduce costs and accelerate the Mars Sample Return mission, aiming for decisions by year-end. The proposals include studies by Aerojet Rocketdyne, Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman, Rocket Lab and others. (11/18)

Barnard’s Star Finally Has a Planet, and Possibly More (Source: New York Times)
In 1963, long before the search for exoplanets became a respectable endeavor, Peter van de Kamp, a Dutch astronomer at Swarthmore College’s Sproul Observatory in Pennsylvania, announced that Barnard’s Star had a planet. Astrometric measurements, he said, showed that the star wobbled in its path across the sky. Dr. van de Kamp attributed the wobble to the gravitational tug of a planet with the mass of Jupiter.

The claim made headlines, but nobody else could replicate the finding. The wobble was eventually traced not to a planet but to anomalies in the 24-inch telescope. But as Paul Butler, an astronomer with the Carnegie Institution for Science, told The Washington Post, Barnard’s Star is “the great white whale” of exoplanet hunts.

Dr. Butler was part of a team in 2018 that announced having found a much smaller planet orbiting Barnard’s Star, as part of what they called the Red Dots campaign. Barnard Star b, as the entity was designated, was about three times as massive as Earth and circled the star every 233 days — but at too great a distance to be warmed sufficiently to support life. (11/18)

Japan Confirms US Space Force to Launch Unit in Tokyo in December (Source: The Mainichi)
Japan and the United States have confirmed that the U.S. Space Force will launch a unit in Tokyo in December as planned, the Defense Ministry said, with the aim of strengthening bilateral deterrence capabilities. The Japanese ministry said the arrangement was reaffirmed by Defense Minister Gen Nakatani and his U.S. counterpart Lloyd Austin during their meeting on Sunday in Darwin, the capital of Australia's Northern Territory. (11/18)

A Six-Step Plan for Keeping Space Command in Colorado (Source: The Gazette)
Trump wants to reward his Alabama buddies, Rep. Mike Rogers and Sen. Tommy Tuberville. Trump reportedly promised Tuberville he would move Space Command in exchange for Tuberville refusing to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. Tuberville was one of only eight senators who would not certify. But Colorado is not going to let the command go without a fight. Click here. (11/17)

SpaceX Domination of U.S. Launch Contracts is Poised to Grow (Source: Washington Post)
Musk’s prowess in space comes as he has formed a close relationship with Trump, the president-elect, who has invited him to participate in calls with foreign leaders and appointed him to lead a commission to shrink the federal government. Musk’s role in the new administration, alongside his status as the leader of a prominent government contractor, has led to questions about how he would handle potential conflicts stemming from his dual roles.

The company’s reusable Falcon 9 rocket has become the launch vehicle of choice for NASA, the Defense Department and the intelligence community. Out of 67 launches that were wholly or partially funded by the U.S. government since the beginning of 2022, 47 went to SpaceX, according to Harrison’s database.

And it is continuing to win federal contracts that will fund launches in the coming years. SpaceX was recently awarded an eight-launch $733 million contract by the Space Force. It is also a prime contractor on the Space Force’s National Security Space Launch program. The Wall Street Journal reported that it holds a $1.8 billion national security contract. SpaceX has handled 19 out of 24 government-sponsored launches so far this year. (11/17)

How Likely is it That Colorado Loses Space Command Under Trump? (Source: The Colorado Sun)
Colorado’s fight to keep Space Command will be an “uphill battle,” said former Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers, who alongside the state’s top political leaders vowed last week to push back on any effort by President-elect Donald Trump to move its headquarters from Colorado Springs to Alabama.

The yearslong tug-of-war over the military base appeared to be far from over after a Republican Alabama congressman, Mike Rogers, told a Mobile radio station last week that Trump committed on the campaign trail to reverse President Joe Biden’s decision to permanently place the headquarters in Colorado Springs and that he was confident Trump would follow through on the promise within his first week of office. (11/17)

An Elon Musk-Inspired Pivot to Mars Would be a Mistake (Source: The Hill)
Elon Musk is one of the biggest winners of the 2024 presidential election, next to President-elect Donald Trump. He went all in to reelect Trump, spending millions of dollars and even personally campaigning in the pivotal state of Pennsylvania. Musk will have an outsized influence in the coming second Trump administration, particularly regarding space policy.

One of the major effects that Musk could have on a Trump space program may be in the Artemis program. That effect may be concerning as it involves Musk’s Mars ambitions. The last thing Trump would want would be for China to steal a march on the United States and get back to the moon first while NASA is bogged down trying to get to Mars. That kind of legacy seems too much like losing. Trump does not like to lose. Firming up plans to go to Mars would be fine, so long as it is not done at the expense of returning to the moon. (11/17)

New Study Reveals Starship’s True Sound Levels (Source: NSF)
A team of scientists from Brigham Young University traveled to Starbase for Starship’s fifth flight test to collect sound data from launch and booster landing. The team is back at Starbase for Flight 6. Their results show that some sound metrics agree with those presented in the FAA’s most recent Environmental Assessment (EA) from 2024, while some predictions made by the EA are off. Moreover, the team compared Starship’s launch and landing noise levels to those of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) and SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rockets.

They were able to identify the four most significant acoustic and pressure events during the launch and landing sequence: launch, Super Heavy’s sonic boom, the noise produced by Super Heavy’s engines during the landing burn, and the sonic boom produced by the hot stage ring during its landing in the Gulf of Mexico. Additionally, the team noted that the intense crackle noise produced by Super Heavy’s Raptors during launch and landing led to the production of shocklike waveform characteristics.

The most important conclusions from their data is the differences between Starship’s launch noise levels and those of SLS and Falcon 9. The team found that Starship produces significantly more noise at liftoff than both SLS and Falcon 9. When compared to Falcon 9, the noise produced by a single Starship launch is equivalent to, at a minimum, 10 Falcon 9 launches. Despite SLS producing more than half of Starship’s overall thrust at liftoff, Starship is substantially louder than SLS. (11/17)

'Lunik Heist:' A Real-Life CIA Rocket Kidnapping Goes to Hollywood (Source: Space.com)
Now in the works is a retro look back in time at a bizarre Cold War caper by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) thanks to a forthcoming, star-studded comedy/drama movie called "Lunik Heist." The film is based on a real-life incident that saw CIA operatives plot to disassemble and inspect one of the Soviet Union spacecraft overnight while on exhibit during a 1959 expo in Mexico City. (11/18)

Space-Flown Choctaw Nation Seeds to be Planted on Earth for STEM Experiment (Source: Space.com)
Seeds flown to space last year will be planted on Earth this spring as part of a cultural and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) study. Five varieties of heirloom seeds from the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma — including Isito (Choctaw Sweet Potato Squash), Tobi (Smith Peas), Tanchi Tohbi (Flour Corn), Tvnishi (Lambsquarter), and Chukfi Peas — were flown to the ISS in November 2023. (11/17)