November 5, 2024

'Interstellar' Fireballs Likely Came From Within Our Solar System (Source: Space.com)
An "interstellar fireball" claimed by some scientists may not be from out of this solar system after all. The 2014 fireball had a measured velocity of 44.8 kilometers per second, higher than the sun's escape velocity, suggesting that the object was from out of the solar system. A reanalysis of that data shows that the errors on the velocity are large enough to make it unlikely that the object came from outside the solar system. Researchers added that even if the object was traveling that fast, it would have burned up completely upon entering the Earth's atmosphere, contrary to claims by scientists like Harvard's Avi Loeb who said they scooped up fragments of that object from the ocean floor. (11/5)

Satellite Reconnaissance and the Falklands War (Source: Space Review)
Only in the last decade has the extent of US support for Great Britain in the Falklands War of 1982 emerged. Dwayne Day examines new evidence of that support in the form of reconnaissance satellite imagery of the Falklands as the war neared its conclusion. Click here. (11/4)
 
NASA’s Infrastructure Crossroads (Source: Space Review)
Regardless of the outcome of the election, the next administration will have to deal with a NASA whose ability to carry out various missions is being degraded by aging infrastructure. Jeff Foust reports on a recent study on those problems and an ongoing effort by the agency to deal with that among other challenges. Click here. (11/4)
 
Comparing Harris and Trump on Space Policy (Source: Space Review)
Some have argued that Vice President Kamala Harris has not done enough in space policy in her role as chair of the National Space Council. Jonathan Coopersmith argues that Harris sets herself apart from Trump on the topic in several ways. Click here. (11/4)
 
The Case for Space Policy Stability in the Next Administration (Source: Space Review)
There may be vast differences in policies in the next administration in many areas depending on who wins Tuesday’s presidential election. Thomas G. Roberts explains why, in the area of space, one should expect stability and continuity regardless of who wins. Click here. (11/4)

Russia Launches 50 Satellites on Soyuz From Vostochny (Source: TASS)
A Soyuz rocket launched more than 50 satellites Monday. A Soyuz-2.1b rocket launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia's Far East at 6:18 p.m. Eastern. The primary payload for the launch was a pair of Ionosfera-M heliophysics satellites. The rocket also carried 53 secondary payloads, including 28 smallsats by Russian company Sputnix for ship tracking and other applications and two satellites from Iran. (11/5)

NASA VIPER Decision in Early 2025 (Source: Space News)
NASA expects to determine next steps for the canceled VIPER rover mission by early next year. At a conference last week, officials said they received 11 responses to a request for information about potential partnerships through which a company or organization would take over the lunar rover mission, and is currently evaluating them to see which may be worth pursuing. NASA announced in July it was canceling VIPER because of cost and schedule overruns, even though the rover is now complete. VIPER has since completed environmental testing with flying colors. (11/5)

Rocket Lab to Offer Neutron in Upcoming Space Force On-Ramp (Source: Space News)
Rocket Lab plans to offer its Neutron rocket to the Space Force in an upcoming contract on-ramp. Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck said in an interview that the company will respond to a request for proposals released last week by the Space Force for the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 3 Lane 1 program, which currently has contracts with Blue Origin, SpaceX and United Launch Alliance.

The Space Force offers annual on-ramps for new providers, and the current call for proposals is open to companies that will be ready for a first launch by December 2025. Beck said he expects Rocket Lab to have Neutron ready by that deadline. Lane 1 is designed for missions that can accept higher risks and is intended to facilitate faster launches of less sensitive payloads. (11/5)

Rocket Lab Launches Electron Mission From New Zealand (Source: Space News)
Rocket Lab carried out an Electron launch this morning for a confidential customer. The Electron lifted off at 5:54 a.m. Eastern from the company's Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand, and Rocket Lab declared success about an hour later. The "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" carried a payload for an undisclosed commercial customer, with Rocket Lab adding the mission to the manifest just last month. Rocket Lab did not disclose any details about the payload or customer. One potential customer for the mission is E-Space, which filed for an authorization to launch a payload in September according to New Zealand government documents. (11/5)

SpaceX Launches ISS Cargo Mission at Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: Space News)
SpaceX launched a Dragon cargo spacecraft Monday night. A Falcon 9 lifted off from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A at 9:29 p.m. Eastern and deployed the Dragon into orbit nine and a half minutes later. The Dragon, flying the CRS-31 cargo mission, is scheduled to dock with the International Space Station at about 10:15 a.m. Eastern this morning and deliver 2,762 kilograms of supplies and experiments.

Later this week NASA will use the Dragon to conduct a reboost maneuver for the station, the first time a Dragon has been used for that purpose. NASA and SpaceX said that maneuver is a test to expand the capabilities of visiting vehicles like Dragon and give SpaceX experience for the Dragon-derived U.S. Deorbit Vehicle it is building for NASA to deorbit the ISS at the end of its life. (11/5)

Is There a Hidden Planet in Our Solar System? Astronomers Say the Moment of Truth is Near (Source: CNN)
Because objects in the Kuiper Belt are so far away from the sun, however, they are difficult to spot. For more than a decade, astronomers have been searching that area for a hidden planet that has never been observed, but its presence is inferred by the behavior of other nearby objects. It’s often called Planet X or Planet Nine. Soon, the debate could be settled, once a new telescope capable of surveying the entire available sky every few nights comes online in late 2025. Until then, a team of researchers believes it has found the most compelling evidence yet that the hidden planet is real.

Amid controversies and diverging opinions, all of the researchers agree on one thing. A new wide-angle telescope currently under construction could soon put the debate to rest, once the US National Science Foundation and Stanford University researchers start scientific operations in late 2025. Called the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, it has the largest digital camera ever built and sits atop an 8,800-foot mountain in northern Chile. (11/5)

Boeing Workers OK Offer, Ending Costly Strike (Source: CNN)
Boeing workers represented by the International Association of Machinists have voted to accept a contract offer, ending a strike that began in September and has been the costliest in the US in more than 25 years at a time when the aircraft manufacturer also faces other challenges. The agreement includes a 13% immediate raise, a 9% raise in the next two years, a 7% raise in the fourth year, and a $12,000 ratification bonus. (11/5)

Niger Inks Deal with Russia for Three Satellites (Source: Space Daily)
Niger signed a deal Friday with Glavkosmos, a subsidiary of Russia's Roscosmos space agency, to buy three satellites to boost security in the Sahel nation and its neighbors, all battling jihadist attacks. Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, all under military rule following a string of coups since 2020, joined together in September 2023 under the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), after severing ties with former colonial ruler France and pivoting towards Russia. The neighbors are all battling jihadist violence that erupted in northern Mali in 2012 and spread to Niger and Burkina Faso in 2015. (11/1)

Japan's Wooden Satellite Launches From Florida (Source: New York Times)
A SpaceX rocket launched Monday night in Florida carried the world’s first satellite model with wooden components, marking a potential shift in space engineering that marries cutting-edge technology with traditional craftsmanship. It was delivered to the ISS carrying an array of electronics. The plan is to put it into orbit in early December, according to Koji Murata, a professor of forest and biomaterials science at Kyoto University in Japan who worked on the satellite.

If successful, the invention, named LignoSat after the Latin word for wood, lignum, could open the door to other uses for wood in space. The idea originated in 2017 from a question posed by Takao Doi, a Japanese engineer and former NASA astronaut: Could a human society living in space grow trees as renewable building material?

“We were trying to think about how to build something on the moon with wood,” Mr. Murata said in an interview. But they needed to verify whether wood could be used in space. The following year, Mr. Doi began talking about how, about a hundred years ago, airplanes had been built with wood. “So why not make a satellite with wood, too?” Mr. Murata said. (11/5)

How Superman Helped Launch the Hubble Space Telescope (Source: Scientific American)
Action Comics No. 419, the issue published in 1972 with an iconic cover showing the Man of Steel hurtling into the sky, has another claim to fame. Within its pages, Superman became involved in one of the most significant chapters in the history of space science. “I’m in orbit with NASA’s Large Space Telescope, the LST. Here, well above the haze of our atmosphere, astronomers will get a crystal-clear view of the stars and planets,” Clark Kent says in the comic.

Right there on the page was a dead ringer for the real-life Hubble Space Telescope. I was baffled: How did the cartoon version of a space telescope that launched in 1990 get into a comic published in 1972? There was a clue in the story’s credits. Pete Simmons, then director of space astronomy at Grumman Aerospace Corporation (now Northrop Grumman), is credited with “technical assistance.” This was enough information for a Google search, which turned up a documentary clip from 1997.

What I learned amazed me. The Large Space Telescope was Hubble. While the project was named after astronomer Edwin Hubble in 1983, NASA had been developing plans for what it called a Large Space Telescope since the late 1960s. The agency had successfully launched its first successful space telescope, the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory 2 (OAO-2), in 1968, and by 1971 it had begun to conduct feasibility studies for a larger instrument to peer deeper into the cosmos. (11/1)