January 4, 2025

EPA Plans to Phase Out Two Common Solvents, One That Helped in the Space Race (Source: Florida Today)
"Trike" and "perc" helped purify our way to space, cleansing rocket parts to maximize performance and safety. Now the federal government plans to ban the two common solvents: both used by NASA, and one primarily to dry clean our most-coveted clothes. Long-term exposure to the two toxic solvents, trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene — called "trike" and "perc" for short — can be deadly. But the former, in particular, has fueled cancer and other chronic health concerns on the Space Coast and in other aerospace and military towns for decades.

While the two solvents get phased out, cleaning up their toxic legacy on the Space Coast and elsewhere will take decades. Some who live near Patrick Space Force Base have for decades feared the dangers from trike, chlorobenzene (used in DDT production during and after World War II) and other commonly used solvents from past military and aerospace activities. More than 300 homes lie within a 52-acre area south of Patrick Space Force Base currently targeted for cleanup.

NASA's Kennedy Space Center had been finding trike and related compounds in the groundwater for decades. TCE dominates a combined two square miles of chemicals that have plumed out on KSC's grounds, a 2011 analysis found. More than a decade ago, NASA estimated it would cost $96 million over 30 years at KSC to clean up trike and other chemical plumes. Around the same time, the Air Force said it could take another $50 million to get the rest of its cleanups that were expected to be underway at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. (1/3)

OneWeb Outage Caused by Leap Year (Source: Aviation Week)
Eutelsat’s OneWeb constellation went down for 48 hr. after its ground segment, maintained by Hughes Network Systems, was not programmed so that 2024 was a 366-day-long leap year. The calendar error caused the “manual calculation for the GPS to UTC offset,” Eutelsat said on Jan. 3. (1/4)

Does Colorado's Cheyenne Mountain Have a Modern-Day Military Use? (Source: Denver Post)
The U.S. military’s mountain bunker along Colorado’s Front Range, built during the Cold War to survive a Soviet nuclear attack, now must withstand scrutiny by lawmakers who see it as a costly relic. They question the need for a not-so-secret command post cocooned in 2,000 feet of granite. It sits inside Cheyenne Mountain, where North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) crews in front of a large map can scan skies and track missile and satellite launches around the planet, along with potentially disruptive space junk.

“It is not a museum piece, not something sitting here mothballed, waiting for a new purpose or a new life. It is being used daily.” NORAD and U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) post skeleton crews in the mountain to keep the place ready for training exercises and occasional conflict simulations to test readiness. More than a dozen other federal agencies also are using the mountain. U.S. Space Force officials declined to discuss their activities. (1/3)

FBI Investigating ‘Possible Bomb Threats’ Against SpaceX at Boca Chica (Source: myRGV)
The FBI is investigating “possible bomb threats” in South Texas. And the San Antonio Express-News reported Friday that those threats have been aimed at SpaceX’s Starbase facility at Boca Chica Beach after the FBI received a report that several people threatened to blow up a Starship rocket. The FBI does not confirm or deny the existence of any specific investigation. However, in a statement to MyRGV.com, the agency did confirm that it had been provided information related to possible bomb threats in the recent weeks. (1/3)

As the US and China Race to the Moon, These Loopholes in Space Law Could Cause Conflict (Source: The Conversation)
Both countries aim to set up long-term research stations on the lunar surface, a bit like there are now in Antarctica. But could disputes between these two countries – and potentially others, such as Russia or India – arise over where to locate bases on the lunar surface? And could the same happen over claims to the Moon’s resources, such as the water ice located in craters at the lunar poles?

Countries will want to extract this ice because it can be turned into rocket fuel for onward journeys and for life support at their lunar bases. Indeed, the prospect of “space water wars” is actually nearer, timewise, than the prospect of providing clean drinking water to everyone in the developing world. But the legal arguments around rights to space water and other resources are complex. Laws are also in place to ensure countries don’t pollute bodies such as the Moon while they are exploring them. Click here. (1/3)

Money, Musk and Mission Creep: How Trump Could Shape DOD’s Space Drift (Source: Defense News)
Since 2020, the service’s budget has doubled to around $30 billion in fiscal 2025, and today’s leaders have called for even more resources in the coming years to strengthen the military’s defenses against adversaries in space, build an arsenal of offensive-capable systems and take on new missions. “That budget is going to need to double or triple over time to be able to fund the things we’re actually going to need to have,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said.

The path to a larger Space Force budget isn’t clear — even as former President Donald Trump, who oversaw the creation of the service, prepares to begin his second term in the coming weeks. Despite his administration’s past emphasis on space policy, analysts and former defense officials told Defense News Trump’s enthusiasm for space doesn’t necessarily portend a larger budget for the Space Force. “When it comes down to actually proposing big increases in the Space Force’s budget, I’d say what matters more is the Secretary of Defense.”

In the House, the chances of a seeing larger defense budget in the near term are “not good,” Harrison said, especially as the House Freedom Caucus — a small group of budget hawks with outsize influence due to the Republican party’s narrow majority — proposes aggressive cuts to government spending. “They are pushing for such a high level of spending cuts that there’s no way to get what they want without at least capping defense, if not cutting,” he said. Loverro also predicted a “decreased stomach” for major budget increases, particularly the tripling proposed by Kendall. (1/3)

Bellatrix Aerospace Achieves Another Milestone with Successful Green Propulsion Test in Space (Source: New Indian Express)
Bellatrix Aerospace, a Bengaluru-based space tech start-up, announced on Thursday that it had achieved another milestone with the successful firing of its green mono-propellant propulsion package for the second time in space. This achievement was part of the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) C60 PSLV Orbital Experimental Module (POEM)-4 mission. (1/4)

Musk: “We’re Going Straight to Mars. The Moon is a Distraction.” (Source: Ars Technica)
Although SpaceX founder Elon Musk is known for outspokenness and controversial comments on his social media site X, he has been relatively restrained when it comes to US space policy in recent years. For example, he has rarely criticized NASA or its overall goal to return humans to the Moon through the Artemis Program. Rather, Musk, who has long preferred Mars as a destination for humans, has more or less been a team player when it comes to the space agency's lunar-focused plans.

This is understandable from a financial perspective, as SpaceX has contracts worth billions of dollars to not only build a Human Landing System as part of NASA's Artemis Program but also to supply food, cargo, and other logistics services to a planned Lunar Gateway in orbit around the Moon. But privately, Musk has been critical of NASA's plans, suggesting that the Artemis Program has been moving too slowly and is too reliant on contractors who seek cost-plus government contracts and are less interested in delivering results.

During the last 10 days, Musk has begun airing some of these private thoughts publicly. On Christmas Day, for example, Musk wrote on X, "The Artemis architecture is extremely inefficient, as it is a jobs-maximizing program, not a results-maximizing program. Something entirely new is needed." Then, on Thursday evening, he added this: "No, we’re going straight to Mars. The Moon is a distraction." (1/3)

India to Launch 100th Mission on GSLV in January (Source: WION)
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has announced the launch of its 100th mission from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota in January 2025. According to Chairman S Somanath, ISRO will use its Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV) to launch the second-generation navigation satellite NVS-02. This milestone follows the successful launch of PSLV-C60 mission on December 30, 2024. (1/3)

Satellite for UAE-Based Space42 Launches Into Orbit From Florida (Source: The National)
Space42, the Abu Dhabi-based Space technology company, successfully launched its Thuraya 4 telecoms satellite into orbit, the company said on Saturday. The satellite was aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. It will take several months until Thuraya 4 reaches its operational geostationary orbit, about 36,000 kilometers above Earth, Space42 said. The satellite will provide mobile communications services throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa. (1/4)

From Commercial Moon Landers to Asteroid Investigations, The Year Ahead (Source: Space Daily)
In 2024, space exploration dazzled the world. NASA's Europa Clipper began its journey to study Jupiter's moon Europa. SpaceX's Starship achieved its first successful landing, a critical milestone for future deep space missions. China made From new commercial Moon landers to asteroid investigations, expect a slate of exciting space missions in 2025s with the Chang'e 6 mission, which successfully returned samples from the far side of the Moon. Meanwhile, the International Space Station continued to host international crews, including private missions like Axiom Mission 3. Click here. (12/28)

OneWeb Outage Underscores Value of Multi-Orbit Connectivity (Source: Runway Girl)
On 31 December 2024, Eutelsat experienced a “temporary, 48-hour outage” of its Eutelsat OneWeb Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite service, the Paris-headquartered satellite operator reports this morning. “The root cause was identified as a software issue within the ground segment,” Eutelsat says in a statement. “Eutelsat was fully mobilized and worked with the vendor to restore full service, while maintaining a constant dialogue with affected customers. The constellation is operating nominally once again.” (1/2)

UAE to Launch New Monitoring Satellite on SpaceX Rocket (Source: ARN)
The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) announced the MBZ satellite will be launched this month from the United States on a SpaceX Falcon rocket. The satellite was reportedly entirely built by Emirati engineers and is characterized by its high capacity for accurate imaging and data transfer compared to its counterpart, the Khalifa-SAT. (1/3)

Public Meetings to Discuss SpaceX Proposal for 25 Starship Launches Per Year in Texas (Source: KRGV)
The public will soon have the opportunity to give their opinion on SpaceX’s proposal to launch their Starship vehicle 25 times a year from their Boca Chica location. The public meetings are part of the Federal Aviation Administration’s permit review process. The permit review is based on an environmental report that came out in November that included details on the impacts of the launches. (1/2)

How a Small NASA Facility in East Texas Builds the Largest Balloons in the Country (Source; Longview News Journal)
Longview’s brand is synonymous with hot air balloons. The city hosts the Great Texas Balloon Race, and for one week in the summer, the skies of Gregg County are filled with wicker baskets bobbing under hot air balloons of almost every size, shape, and color. But Longview is not where you’ll find the largest or highest flying (hot) aircraft in East Texas. Seventy miles southwest in Palestine, mammoth siblings to Longview’s hobby and race balloons are assembled at a NASA complex.

These balloons can inflate to the size of a football stadium and rise to altitudes where the sky turns black — the Earth 130,000 feet below as well as 98% of the planet’s atmosphere. Dangling from each one is a scientific payload that can be as large as a truck; think telescopes, cosmic ray detectors or instruments measuring stratospheric winds. The Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine was constructed in the early 1960s to help experiments studying the atmosphere take flight. (1/2)

Ohio Researchers on Team for New NASA Telescope Concept (Source: Toledo Blade)
The late Carl Sagan once famously said that we’re all made of star stuff. But that didn’t happen overnight. “The Earth wasn’t just ejected from the star,” said University of Toledo graduate student Cory Whitcomb. “It had to go through a bunch of different phases in order to go from the star to the interstellar medium to a protostar cloud and then now eventually into the Earth and things that we can see and feel.” Working under faculty member J.D. Smith, Mr. Whitcomb is part of a science working group on dust and metals for a potential future space observatory called PRIMA.

The PRobe far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics is one of two concepts selected by NASA for further study. After evaluation at the end of 2025, one of the proposals will proceed to construction in 2026 with a $1 billion budget and would launch into orbit in 2032. The selected observatory would be the first in a new class of missions within NASA's Explorers Program. (1/3)

India's Space Ambitions to Soar in 2025, ISRO Eyes Big-Ticket Missions (Source: India Today)
India's space ambitions are set to soar in 2025 as the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) prepares for a robust series of launches. The lineup includes four GSLV Mk II flights and a commercial mission using the powerful LVM3. Among the highlights is the G1 mission, the first uncrewed test flight under the Gaganyaan program, utilizing the advanced Human-rated LVM3 (HRLV3). Three PSLV missions are planned for 2025. They will carry groundbreaking payloads, including an electric propulsion system. ISRO will also launch the recently inducted SSLV. (1/3)

Luxembourg Leads Way in European Space Funding (Source: Luxembourg Times)
Luxembourg is the European country which invests the most in space exploration efforts, according to data from the continent’s space agency. The Grand Duchy invested just over 0.13% of GDP in space exploration in 2023, according to the European Space Agency’s December 2024 space economy report. Luxembourg came out on top for investment levels among the agency’s 22 member countries, which vary widely.

France is the second-highest investor on the continent, followed by Italy and Belgium. On average Europe invests 0.06% of its GDP into the space sector, through public and private channels. Luxembourg’s space investment as measured as a percentage of total government spending represents an even bigger 0.281% - a metric where it also leads the curve ahead of the average 0.12% government spend across ESA member states. Globally, Luxembourg’s investment in space is third, behind the USA (0.262% of GDP) and Russia (0.169%). (1/3)

Why India Should Get Behind Space Mining (Source: NDTV)
Japan's Space Capable Asteroid Robotic Explorer is a first-of-its-kind climbing robot with potential asteroid mining applications developed through a partnership between Japan's Tohoku University and the Asteroid Mining Corporation. Besides Japan, the US has been a leader in asteroid mining initiatives, driven by NASA and private companies like SpaceX, Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries. ISRO has expressed interest in asteroid mining but is currently focused on lunar and Mars exploration. However, it has a strong foundation to explore asteroid mining.

But should India jump onto the asteroid exploration bandwagon? The counter question is, why should any country mine asteroids? Several nations with big economies are eyeing asteroid mining as a solution to both economic and environmental challenges, particularly as Earth's finite resources face growing pressure. (1/3)

SpaceX Signals Expansion in Singapore (Source: Business Times)
SpaceX is expanding its presence in Singapore, establishing accounting and finance teams to support its satellite Internet provider unit, Starlink. The company is recruiting for treasury and tax roles to bolster Starlink’s Asia-Pacific (Apac) operations, as seen in multiple job listings. On LinkedIn, a recently hired, Singapore-based director of financial operations at SpaceX stated in her profile that she is “building accounting and tax teams from (the) ground up”. (1/3)

SpaceX's Starship to Deploy Mock Satellites in Next Test (Source: Reuters)
Elon Musk's SpaceX said on Friday its upcoming Starship test flight would include the rocket's first attempt to deploy payloads in space by releasing 10 model Starlink satellites, a key demonstration for Starship's potential in the satellite launch market. "While in space, Starship will deploy 10 Starlink simulators, similar in size and weight to next-generation Starlink satellites as the first exercise of a satellite deploy mission," SpaceX said. (1/3)

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