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According to a statement by the parliament, the agreement signed on 24 January aims to implement African policies and strategies in space, utilizing space technologies to accelerate economic and sustainable development processes.
The statement added that the agreement will also play a significant role in boosting Egypt's national economy by energizing small industries relating to space technology.
The statement also noted that the satellite data collected by the African Space Agency can help achieve the sustainable development goals and Africa's Agenda 2063.
To infinity and beyond
Founded by the African Union in 2016, AfSA aims to promote, advise, and coordinate the development and use of space science and technology in Africa, fostering cooperation within Africa and beyond for the benefit of Africa and the world.
In February 2019, Egypt won the bid to host the African Space Agency and allocated $10 million for its operations.
According to Islam Abo El-Magd, advisor for African affairs at the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, hosting the agency will establish Egypt as a leading country in the field among the 55 member states of the AU, as he told Al-Ahram.
Short link: | Space Technology |
GEORGE TOWN – Penang’s reputation as the “Silicon Valley of the East” has been reinforced following the launch of a mini-telecommunications satellite named PG-1 after the state into outer space recently.
With it, Penang now has its own satellite feed orbiting outer space with the capacity to provide faster internet connectivity to the broadband networks here.
It will also bridge the digital access gap between rural and urban localities.
Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow witnessed the historic launching of the satellite with the countdown broadcasted live from the launch site in Russia to Dewan Persidangan at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM).
USM will host PG-1’s earth station through a proficient team of designers, ICT specialists, academicians, and space engineering students.
PG-1 can also monitor the state’s landscape and in the future may offer warnings of natural calamities in the event of how severe the weather patterns have become due to climate change.
PG-1 was designed solely by Malaysians under the management of Angkasa-X.
The homegrown satellite – officially named Seansat- PG1 – propels space technology development in Malaysia and Southeast Asia.
Chow spoke of how important this milestone is to Penang’s quest to be a global-class intelligent city by 2030 in line with its Vision 2030.
The launch was broadcasted live across four locations in Malaysia – USM in Penang, Malaysian Space Agency (Mysa) headquarters and GreenPro Capital office in Kuala Lumpur, as well as Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation Bhd in Kuching, Sarawak.
The live broadcast was streamed from the Russian Vostochny Cosmodrome – witnessed by Chow and Mysa director-general Azlikamil Napiah.
In a statement, Angkasa-X said that the team leading this maiden satellite launch are group executive director and chief operating officer William Lim and group chief technology officer Norhizam Hamzah along with the engineering team.
With the launch of the PG-1 satellite, Angkasa-X will leverage its technological know-how to lead the way as part of its innovative satellite-as-a-service (SaaS) offering to create constellations of low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellites along the equator, designed in Malaysia by locals.
These LEO satellites will work together to achieve the company’s visionary initiatives by providing affordable remote-sensing services and revolutionising internet-connectivity services to millions in the region, particularly within the rural areas in Asia and bridging the digital divide.
“The launch of PG-1 or Penang-1 satellite is a momentous occasion for Malaysia, propelling us towards a new era of technological advancement and establishing our position in the global SpaceTech ecosystem.
“I’m pleased to say that Malaysia is the first country in Southeast Asia to design, assemble and launch homegrown LEO satellites,” said Chow.
Meanwhile, Angkasa-X group executive chairman and chief executive officer Sean Seah said, “It marks an extraordinary milestone for Angkasa X and our dedicated team of Malaysian engineers.
“It exemplifies the incredible talent and their brilliant engineering skills coupled with their relentless pursuit of innovation to propel the space economy in the Asean context.”
He further emphasised the importance of this maiden launch, stating, “Connectivity is a necessity for the betterment of mankind.
Chow also lauded the collaborative efforts between Angkasa-X, USM, the Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology, state and federal government agencies, academia, and industry partners in realising the project.
Among the dignitaries present were state executive councillors Zairil Khir Johari, Datuk Abdul Halim Hussein and USM vice-chancellor Datuk Abdul Rahman Mohamed. – The Vibes, June 29, 2023 | Space Technology |
A weird asteroid has just gotten a little weirder.
We have known for a while that asteroid 3200 Phaethon acts like a comet. It brightens and forms a tail when it’s near the Sun, and it is the source of the annual Geminid meteor shower, even though comets are responsible for most meteor showers. Scientists had blamed Phaethon’s comet-like behavior on dust escaping from the asteroid as it’s scorched by the Sun. However, a new study using two NASA solar observatories reveals that Phaethon’s tail is not dusty at all but is actually made of sodium gas.
“Our analysis shows that Phaethon’s comet-like activity cannot be explained by any kind of dust,” said California Institute of Technology PhD student Qicheng Zhang, who is the lead author of a paper published in the Planetary Science Journal reporting the results.
Asteroids, which are mostly rocky, do not usually form tails when they approach the Sun. Comets, however, are a mix of ice and rock, and typically do form tails as the Sun vaporizes their ice, blasting material off their surfaces and leaving a trail along their orbits. When Earth passes through a debris trail, those cometary bits burn up in our atmosphere and produce a swarm of shooting stars – a meteor shower.
After astronomers discovered Phaethon in 1983, they realized that the asteroid’s orbit matched that of the Geminid meteors. This pointed to Phaethon as the source of the annual meteor shower, even though Phaethon was an asteroid and not a comet.
In 2009, NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spotted a short tail extending from Phaethon as the asteroid reached its closest point to the Sun (or “perihelion”) along its 524-day orbit. Regular telescopes hadn’t seen the tail before because it only forms when Phaethon is too close to the Sun to observe, except with solar observatories. STEREO also saw Phaethon’s tail develop on later solar approaches in 2012 and 2016. The tail’s appearance supported the idea that dust was escaping the asteroid’s surface when heated by the Sun.
However, in 2018, another solar mission imaged part of the Geminid debris trail and found a surprise. Observations from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe showed that the trail contained far more material than Phaethon could possibly shed during its close approaches to the Sun.
Zhang’s team wondered whether something else, other than dust, was behind Phaethon’s comet-like behavior. “Comets often glow brilliantly by sodium emission when very near the Sun, so we suspected sodium could likewise serve a key role in Phaethon’s brightening,” Zhang said.
An earlier study, based on models and lab tests, suggested that the Sun’s intense heat during Phaethon’s close solar approaches could indeed vaporize sodium within the asteroid and drive comet-like activity.
Hoping to find out what the tail is really made of, Zhang looked for it again during Phaethon’s latest perihelion in 2022. He used the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft — a joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) – which has color filters that can detect sodium and dust. Zhang’s team also searched archival images from STEREO and SOHO, finding the tail during 18 of Phaethon’s close solar approaches between 1997 and 2022.
In SOHO’s observations, the asteroid’s tail appeared bright in the filter that detects sodium, but it did not appear in the filter that detects dust. In addition, the shape of the tail and the way it brightened as Phaethon passed the Sun matched exactly what scientists would expect if it were made of sodium, but not if it were made of dust.
This evidence indicates that Phaethon’s tail is made of sodium, not dust.
“Not only do we have a really cool result that kind of upends 14 years of thinking about a well-scrutinized object,” said team member Karl Battams of the Naval Research Laboratory, “but we also did this using data from two heliophysics spacecraft – SOHO and STEREO – that were not at all intended to study phenomena like this.”
“A lot of those other sunskirting ‘comets’ may also not be ‘comets’ in the usual, icy body sense, but may instead be rocky asteroids like Phaethon heated up by the Sun,” Zhang explained.
Still, one important question remains: If Phaethon doesn’t shed much dust, how does the asteroid supply the material for the Geminid meteor shower we see each December?
Zhang’s team suspects that some sort of disruptive event a few thousand years ago – perhaps a piece of the asteroid breaking apart under the stresses of Phaethon’s rotation – caused Phaethon to eject the billion tons of material estimated to make up the Geminid debris stream. But what that event was remains a mystery.
More answers may come from an upcoming Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission called DESTINY+ (short for Demonstration and Experiment of Space Technology for Interplanetary voyage Phaethon fLyby and dUst Science). Later this decade, the DESTINY+ spacecraft is expected to fly past Phaethon, imaging its rocky surface and studying any dust that might exist around this enigmatic asteroid.
Journal
The Planetary Science Journal
Method of Research
Observational study
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Sodium Brightening of (3200) Phaethon near Perihelion
Article Publication Date
25-Apr-2023 | Space Technology |
NASA has a new plan for its troubled tiny lunar probe, which is struggling to reach the moon.
The spacecraft, called Lunar Flashlight, launched in December 2022 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, on a mission to search for water ice on the moon. The cubesat aimed to test a new "green" propellant during its four-month journey to lunar orbit, but, after battling thruster glitches, it will not make lunar orbit after all, NASA officials said (opens in new tab) in an update on Wednesday (Feb. 8).
The Lunar Flashlight team will instead redirect the cubesat to do monthly lunar flybys, if possible, starting with one in June. If that works out, Lunar Flashlight will still deliver valuable science, as it will swing by the south pole of the moon, where NASA's Artemis program aims to land astronauts as soon as 2025, agency officials emphasized.
"Technology demonstrations are high-risk, high-reward endeavors intended to push the frontiers of space technology," NASA officials wrote in the update. "The lessons learned from these challenges will help to inform future missions that further advance this technology."
Lunar Flashlight's Dec. 11 launch was flawless. The tiny probe soared to space alongside a private Japanese moon lander carrying the Rashid lunar rover, which was built by the United Arab Emirates. (That lunar landing mission, led by Tokyo company ispace, remains on track for a touchdown in April.)
The NASA cubesat, however, ran into trouble. Engineers noticed propulsion problems three days after launch, discovering that Lunar Flashlight was not delivering as much thrust as expected. They determined that three of the cubesat's four thrusters weren't functioning properly.
One of Lunar Flashlight's goals was to reach a near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) ahead of that path's planned use by NASA's Gateway space station, a key piece of Artemis infrastructure. The orbit's closest lunar approach brings it over the lunar south pole, where NASA wants to deliver astronauts, before zinging out far into space. (Fortunately, another tiny testbed moon mission called CAPSTONE is currently operating just fine in a lunar NRHO.)
Shortly after the thruster problems first cropped up, NASA and mission partners at the Georgia Institute of Technology estimated that Lunar Flashlight might still be able to reach its NRHO destination using a series of single-thruster firings. In January, the team spun the spacecraft at one revolution per minute and fired the thruster for several 10-minute periods. At first, engineers thought they could reach the correct orbit in 20 days. But the lone thruster began underperforming, NASA officials wrote, and "it became clear that the thrust being delivered was not enough to make it to the planned orbit."(opens in new tab)
Despite the problematic thrusters, Lunar Flashlight's other systems remain healthy, and there remains another option to bring it close to the moon. Now, NASA and Georgia Tech plan to squeeze "any remaining thrust the propulsion system can deliver" to bring the spacecraft into a high Earth orbit instead — a path that will allow flybys of the moon's lunar pole about once per month.
Maneuvers will begin Thursday (Feb. 9), with the hope of getting the probe on track to conduct its first flyby of the moon in June. Should the cubesat get there, all systems are go for the water ice hunt.
NASA officials added that the key instrument to search for water, called a four-laser reflectometer, is working well in testing. "This mini-instrument is the first of its kind and is designed and calibrated to seek out surface ice inside the permanently shadowed craters at the moon's south pole," they wrote.
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of "Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?" (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book about space medicine. Follow her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab). | Space Technology |
NASA’s ILLUMA-T payload is set to launch to the ISS, aiming to demonstrate the potential of laser communications for faster data transmission. This collaboration with LCRD could revolutionize how data is relayed from space, offering rapid transfer rates.
NASA is demonstrating laser communications on multiple missions – showcasing the benefits infrared light can have for science and exploration missions transmitting terabytes of important data.
The International Space Station (ISS) is getting a “flashy” technology demonstration this November. The ILLUMA-T (Integrated Laser Communications Relay Demonstration Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal) payload is launching to the International Space Station to demonstrate how missions in low Earth orbit can benefit from laser communications.
Laser communications uses invisible infrared light to send and receive information at higher data rates, providing spacecraft with the capability to send more data back to Earth in a single transmission and expediting discoveries for researchers.
Partnership and Demonstrations
Managed by NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program, ILLUMA-T is completing NASA’s first bi-directional, end-to-end laser communications relay by working with the agency’s LCRD (Laser Communications Relay Demonstration). LCRD launched in December 2021 and is currently demonstrating the benefits of laser communications from geosynchronous orbit by transmitting data between two ground stations on Earth in a series of experiments.
Some of LCRD’s experiments include studying atmospheric impact on laser signals, confirming LCRD’s ability to work with multiple users, testing network capabilities like delay/disruption tolerant networking (DTN) over laser links, and investigating improved navigation capabilities.
Once ILLUMA-T is installed on the space station’s exterior, the payload will complete NASA’s first in-space demonstration of two-way laser relay capabilities.
How It Works
ILLUMA-T’s optical module is comprised of a telescope and two-axis gimbal which allows pointing and tracking of LCRD in geosynchronous orbit. The optical module is about the size of a microwave and the payload itself is comparable to a standard refrigerator.
ILLUMA-T will relay data from the space station to LCRD at 1.2 gigabits-per-second, then LCRD will send the data down to optical ground stations in California or Hawaii. Once the data reaches these ground stations, it will be sent to the LCRD Mission Operations Center located at NASA’s White Sands Complex in Las Cruces, New Mexico. After this, the data will be sent to the ILLUMA-T ground operations teams at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. There, engineers will determine if the data sent through this end-to-end relay process is accurate and of high-quality.
Collaborative Efforts and Impact
“NASA Goddard’s primary role is to ensure successful laser communications and payload operations with LCRD and the space station,” said ILLUMA-T Deputy Project Manager Matt Magsamen. “With LCRD actively conducting experiments that test and refine laser systems, we are looking forward to taking space communications capabilities to the next step and watching the success of this collaboration between the two payloads unfold.”
Once ILLUMA-T transmits its first beam of laser light through its optical telescope to LCRD, the end-to-end laser communications experiment begins. After its experimental phase with LCRD, ILLUMA-T could become an operational part of the space station and substantially increase the amount of data NASA can send to and from the orbiting laboratory.
Transmitting data to relay satellites is no new feat for the space station. Since its completion in 1998 the orbiting laboratory has relied on the fleet of radio frequency relay satellites known as NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellites, which are part of the agency’s Near Space Network. Relay satellites provide missions with constant contact with Earth because they can see the spacecraft and a ground antenna at the same time.
Laser communications could be a game-changer for researchers on Earth with science and technology investigations aboard the space station. Astronauts conduct research in areas like biological and physical sciences, technology, Earth observations, and more in the orbiting laboratory for the benefit of humanity. ILLUMA-T could provide enhanced data rates for these experiments and send more data back to Earth at once. In fact, at 1.2 Gbps, ILLUMA-T can transfer the amount of data equivalent to an average movie in under a minute.
The ILLUMA-T / LCRD end-to-end laser communications relay system is one small step for NASA, but one giant leap for space communications capabilities. Together with previous and future demonstrations, NASA is showcasing the benefits laser communications systems can have for both near-Earth and deep space exploration.
About ILLUMA-T and LCRD
The ILLUMA-T payload is funded by the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. ILLUMA-T is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Partners include the International Space Station program office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts.
LCRD is led by Goddard and in partnership with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and the MIT Lincoln Laboratory. LCRD is funded through NASA’s Technology Demonstration Missions program, part of the Space Technology Mission Directorate, and the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. | Space Technology |
Taipei, Nov. 23 (CNA) Taiwan is seeking to build cooperation with Germany and France on space technology, according to the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), which has sent a delegation to Europe to explore that possibility.The delegation, led by NSTC Minister Wu Tsung-tsong (吳政忠), has already met with aerospace leaders in France and Germany to discuss the latest developments in the field and the future priorities of the two European countries, the NSTC said in a press release Tuesday.In Germany, Wu talked with Anke Kaysser-Pyzalla, CEO of the German Aerospace Center, about the possibility of tapping into Taiwan's renowned semiconductor industry to develop satellite components, the NSTC said.Wu also said that Taiwan's space industry is working to develop high-resolution remote sensing satellites and low-earth orbit communication satellites, among other craft.The NTSC delegation, which is in Europe Nov. 15-25, also visited Arianespace SA in France, the world's first commercial launch service provider, to check on the progress of the launch preparations for Taiwan's first indigenous weather satellite, according to the statement.Satellite Triton, as it is called, is currently in the testing stage ahead of its planned launch on March 10, 2023, via a Vega-C rocket built by Arianespace at the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana, the NSTC said.Also called "Wind Hunter" (獵風者) in Chinese, the satellite will be used primarily for sea surface observation, which is expected to boost Taiwan's weather and climate forecasting capabilities, according to the NSTC. | Space Technology |
Hundreds of small aerospace businesses will receive grant funding from NASA to accelerate their technologies, as part of a wider government program to seed cutting-edge American enterprises.
A total of 249 small businesses and 39 research institutions received Phase I grants under the space agency’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, NASA said Monday. Each award includes $150,000 for a total investment of $45 million.
Among the awardees are a handful of space startups that have also pursued venture capital to fund their businesses. Those include Starfish Space, who received SBIR grant funding to develop its Nautilus in-space docking and capture mechanism, and Argo Space Corporation, for its small reusable spacecraft transfer vehicle called the Argonaut.
NASA issues solicitations for SBIR and STTR proposals annually, with a focus on choosing technologies that align with the agency’s mission requirements. While the grants are relatively small, the SBIR/STTR programs are an important part of the overall space startup ecosystem, Carissa Christensen, CEO and founder of analytics firm BryceTech, explained in a recent interview.
“Winning an SBIR grant, in addition to the resources that it brings in, can connect the company to an agency like NASA, [which] builds relationships, provides access to experts and insight,” she said. The award also acts as a signal that NASA is potentially interested in purchasing this technology in the future, she said, though it’s no guarantee of a contract.
“It’s a demand signal that I think is relevant and that I think investors value.”
Among the businesses highlighted in NASA’s own press release on the news are Huntsville, Alabama-based Nou Systems Inc, which is developing a technology to monitor the microbial environment in spacecraft, and HyBird Space Systems, a two-person company developing a retrobraking propulsion system for deorbiting space junk in low Earth orbit and other applications.
The government has provided critical funding to many of the most profitable space companies today. The world’s most successful space company, SpaceX, received millions in government funding to develop its core technologies including the Raptor rocket engines, Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket – technologies on which NASA now depends for astronaut transportation, launch and other services.
“NASA has a key role to play in growing the aerospace ecosystem in our country,” Jenn Gustetic, director of early stage innovation and partnerships for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, said in the press release. “Through these early-stage small business awards, we are inviting more innovators into this growing arena and helping them mature their technologies for not only NASA’s use, but for commercial impact.”
Based on their progress during Phase I, companies have the option to apply for an $850,000 Phase II grant and subsequent Phase III and beyond opportunities. | Space Technology |
1 of 12 Northrop Grumman James Webb Space Telescope More stars. More galaxies. More data on exoplanets. Deeper into the history of the universe. The James Webb Space Telescope rocked astronomy with its first major image release on July 11, 2022. Comparisons between Hubble Space Telescope and Webb views of the same cosmic targets show just have far we've come.Webb launched over three decades after Hubble and represents the advancements in space telescope technology that have happened over that time. Webb is not here to steal Hubble's thunder. It's here to see the universe in a new way. This is what the James Webb Space Telescope looked like during a test deployment of its primary mirror in March 2020. We don't have any glorious space shots of Webb out in orbit. This mirror selfie will have to suffice. The telescope -- the subject of a controversy over its name -- uses a collection of gold-plated hexagonal mirrors and sees the universe in infrared light. 2 of 12 NASA Hubble Space Telescope NASA has specifically called Webb the "successor" to Hubble and not its replacement. The Hubble Space Telescope launched in 1990 and has been operating in the challenging conditions of space for over 30 years, a remarkable lifespan. Hubble mainly sees in optical (visible) and ultraviolet wavelengths, so its "eyes" work differently from Webb, which sees in infrared. Infrared helps Webb gaze through dusty regions of space that Hubble can't penetrate.Webb's mirror is also much bigger than Hubble's. "This larger light collecting area means that Webb can peer farther back into time than Hubble is capable of doing," said NASA. 3 of 12 NASA, ESA, R. Ellis (Caltech), and the HUDF 2012 Team Hubble Deep Field 2012 In 2012, a decade before Webb's first images came out, the Hubble team delivered the deepest view of space we'd ever seen, known as the eXtreme Deep Field (XDF). It was a new version of part of the telescope's older Ultra Deep Field image. The XDF showed about 5,000 galaxies with some of them reaching back to 13.2 billion years ago. NASA and the European Space Agency released a series of Hubble Deep Fields over the years. They're still beautiful, but they also highlight just how powerful Webb is by comparison. 4 of 12 NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI Webb's Deep Field The first major Webb image arrived with much fanfare on July 11, 2022. It represents the deepest infrared view of our universe yet. The area in the view is called SMAC 0723 and it's home to a huge galaxy cluster. The pointed objects are stars, while everything else is a galaxy. The image is called Webb's First Deep Field, which hints at much more to come. "Webb's image covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm's length by someone on the ground -- and reveals thousands of galaxies in a tiny sliver of vast universe," said NASA.The clarity is astounding. It's like a time machine, showing SMAC 0723 as it looked 4.6 billion years ago.Check out a full breakdown on the first Webb images here. 5 of 12 NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Hubble's Cosmic Cliffs View This Hubble view of the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula was released in 2008. This area of the nebula is nicknamed the Cosmic Cliffs. It's quite a sight to behold, but it's also less clear than Webb's view. Webb's infrared eyes help reveal previously invisible areas of star birth that Hubble couldn't capture. 6 of 12 NASA Webb Snaps Carina Nebula's 'Cosmic Cliffs' Hello, new computer wallpaper. One of the most eye-catching new James Webb Space Telescope images is this mounding mass of star birth in the Carina Nebula. "The blistering, ultraviolet radiation from the young stars is sculpting the nebula's wall by slowly eroding it away. Dramatic pillars tower above the glowing wall of gas, resisting this radiation," said ESA.Take note of how many stars you can see in this image. The entire landscape almost looks like it's in 3D. 7 of 12 NASA/The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA/NASA) Hubble Sees the Southern Ring The Southern Ring Nebula is also known as the Eight Burst Nebula thanks to its figure-8 appearance as seen by some telescopes. Hubble's 1998 look at the nebula is lovely, showing diffuse shades of blue, yellow and brownish-red. It has a bit of a blob-like, milky look to it. Buckle up for Webb's version next. 8 of 12 NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI Webb Sees the Southern Ring Holy details, Batman. Webb's view of the Southern Ring Nebula (formally known as NGC 3132) revealed new information about it. "The dimmer star at the center of this scene has been sending out rings of gas and dust for thousands of years in all directions, and NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has revealed for the first time that this star is cloaked in dust," said NASA.It shows just how beautiful dying stars can be. 9 of 12 NASA Southern Ring Side-By-Side NASA shared two different Webb perspectives on the Southern Ring Nebula. "The stars -- and their layers of light -- are prominent in the image from Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on the left, while the image from Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on the right shows for the first time that the second star is surrounded by dust," said NASA. 10 of 12 NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team Hubble Eyes Stephan's Quintet Stephan's Quintet -- formally known as Hickson Compact Group 92 (HCG 92) -- is a group of five galaxies, four of which are busy interacting with each other. The group is in the constellation Pegasus. The lighter-colored galaxy to the left is actually closer to us and isn't a part of the in-crowd of the other four. Hubble's vision of the quintet from 2009 is plenty ethereal. Webb took a fresh look in 2022. 11 of 12 NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI Stephan's Quintet Seen by Webb The James Webb Space Telescope's view of Stephan's Quintet took quite an effort to put together. It's made from nearly 1,000 separate image files. "With its powerful, infrared vision and extremely high spatial resolution, Webb shows never-before-seen details in this galaxy group," said NASA. "Sparkling clusters of millions of young stars and starburst regions of fresh star birth grace the image." 12 of 12 NASA/ESA/STScl Hubble 'First Light' Image Let's wind the clock back to 1990 when the Hubble Space Telescope was still the new kid in the cosmos. To show how advanced Hubble was, NASA released a comparison of stars. The image of stars on the left came from a ground-based telescope in Chile while the image on the right was Hubble's much sharper "first light" view of the same stars. Hubble is now on the other end of the comparison as Webb delivers sparkling new images. It's the natural path of things when it comes to the onward march of space technology. Hubble has weathered many technical glitches over the decades, but NASA expects it will continue to serve the astronomy community for years, not in Webb's shadow, but as a venerated elder that's still delivering quality science. | Space Technology |
That's why the Starlink project captured my attention from the first day. Space, antennas, and a lot of cool electronics. What could be better? I started following the Starlink project by collecting all the available public information. It was pure academic interest. Very quickly the "Starlink research" directory on my PC became huge.I managed to buy my first Starlink terminal (Dishy) back in December 2021. I bought it on eBay and had it delivered to Kyiv, Ukraine, where I live. It may have been the very first terminal in my country.Of course, there was no Starlink service in Ukraine, but I never expected to use this terminal for any specific purpose. I bought it to disassemble my Dishy, to see what's inside, and to figure out how it works. It was an exciting process that took months, but it was worth it. I collected a lot of exciting information. And it helped me to find new interesting people on Twitter.Then came February 24th. I woke up at 5 a.m. to the sound of calls and notifications. The Russian army had crossed the border and attacked Ukrainian cities. We heard an air raid siren for the first time.Support Supercluster on PatreonPatreon logoYour support makes the Astronaut Database and Launch Tracker possible, and keeps all Supercluster content free.SupportThe gray February morning made it feel even more apocalyptic. It was scary. My wife and I started to pack all our documents and necessary stuff, and then decide what to do. We went to an improvised bomb shelter in the basement of our apartment house. By reading the news, I found that many people were leaving Kyiv. They headed west. It's created traffic jams and chaos. We had nowhere to go and didn't want to be stuck somewhere out on the road. I went to a local grocery store to get some food and additional water. We had electricity, warmth, and internet.Then I contacted my colleagues, and we coordinated our next steps. 2020 taught us how to work remotely. This helped to save and continue our work. It was crucial. Some of my colleagues also decided to move west, but I decided to continue my work from home. Honestly, I had no idea how to move my electronic lab and computers — everything I needed for my work and personal projects. That work and my hobbies helped me stay calm and sane in the middle of a war.During the following days, we saw and heard many scary things including cruise missiles and blasts. Enemy forces tried to parachute into Kyiv but were defeated. There were a lot of explosions and shots. We had to visit the bomb shelter multiple times, day and night. And still tried to continue my work.Maintaining an internet connection has been critical. Here we receive all our crucial information from Telegram channels and Twitter. We have official government channels and bots. It's almost real-time information about the war. Telegram channels notify us about air raid alarms even before the actual alarm sounds. We can monitor the situation in the country and cities. Everyone is constantly posting something.Then I saw Musk’s post that the Starlink service is now active in Ukraine — I looked at my disassembled Starlink terminal and decided to give it a shot. I thought it might be a good backup option for internet connectivity if something happened to our primary channels. But first I had to put my terminal back together. It was in pieces, and I had no idea if it still worked. And once I had it up and running, though Dishy appeared to be alive, I couldn't find a connection.Luckily, SpaceX support helped me activate my US-origin terminal in Ukraine. Usually, You install the Starlink terminal outside, under the clear sky. The Dishy has motors that rotate the terminal to the most optimal position. I didn't have all of that. All I had was a half-assembled terminal and the window of my lab.I installed the Dishy just outside my window and finally found a connection. It took only a few minutes to connect with a speed of more than 130 Mbps. It was amazing. I think I might be the first Starlink user in Ukraine. At least as a civilian.I made more experiments and measurements and even shot a short video with a Speedtest record. The video went viral and was even liked by Elon Musk.Next, my private messages on Twitter and Facebook exploded. I received a ton of questions from different people around the world, but most of them were Ukrainians who saw me in the news. Some people had already lost regular internet access — others were afraid that could happen soon. Many people didn't know what Starlink was. They asked where they could get the terminal, how to connect, and so on. I answered the same questions for everyone over the next few days.SubscribeThe Greatest Space Stories, weekly.Then I decided to create a Facebook community, "Starlink in Ukraine,” where I decided to share all my experience and knowledge, without the deep technical details that not every user needs. The group started growing fast. A lot of people were interested and I was able to answer their questions.Our group now has more than 1600 members. It's a strong and active community, and I am proud of what we achieved. I met new people in the Starlink community, and we’re working together on Starlink-related projects to help other users. After the liberation of some territories, ISPs and mobile operators started to rebuild their networks, and Starlink became very useful there as well. Starlink terminals on cell towers helped create channels instead of damaged fiber optics. And Starlink has become critical for the Ukrainian army, using Starlink for high-speed and secure communication in the field and on the front line. Starlink is difficult to jam and track and it's used for everything: drones, video streams, communication with command centers, and even synchronizing attacks.The war has forced the rapid development of Starlink for the field, and manuals have already been written for the safe usage of Starlink on the frontline — many with the help of the Facebook group we started.Now we have more than 10000 active terminals in Ukraine. It's a record.This space technology became a crucial part of life for those of us on Earth during this senseless and cruel war. It also changed my life and helped me to find new friends.For more from Oleg, check out our interview with him on the Supercluster Podcast embedded below. | Space Technology |
Anti-dust tech paves way for self-cleaning surfaces
Dust is a common fact of life, and it's more than just a daily nuisance—it can get into machinery and equipment, causing loss of efficiency or breakdowns.
Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin partnered with North Carolina-based company Smart Material Solutions Inc. to develop a new method to keep dust from sticking to surfaces. The result is the ability to make many types of materials dust resistant, from spacecraft to solar panels to household windows.
The research is published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.
"What we've demonstrated here is a surface that can clean itself," said Chih-Hao Chang, an associate professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering's Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering and a lead author of the study. "Particulates aren't able to stick to the surface, so they come off using just the force of gravity."
In tests, the researchers piled lunar dust on top of their engineered surfaces and then turned each surface on its side. The result: Only about 2% of the surface remained dusty, compared with more than 35% of a similarly smooth surface.
The researchers said the discovery boils down to things the human eye can't detect. In the experiments, the team altered the geometry of flat surfaces to create a tightly packed nanoscale network of pyramid-shaped structures. These sharp, angular structures make it difficult for the dust particles to stick to the material, instead sticking to one another and rolling off the material via gravity.
These structures provide a passive solution, meaning they don't require any extra energy or materials to remove dust. Compare that with more active solutions such as a car windshield that requires the use of windshield wipers and wiper fluid to clean off dust.
The research was funded via a grant from NASA's Small Business Innovation Research program, so the first applications focus on space technology. Space dust is especially pesky because of how high-risk everything becomes in that environment, and the conditions make cleaning off dust challenging. Dust wreaked havoc on the Apollo missions and has caused Mars rovers to fail.
"There's not much you can do about lunar dust in space—it sticks to everything and there's no real way to wipe it off or spray it off," said Samuel Lee, a lead author who was an undergraduate researcher in Chang's group. "Dust on solar panels of Mars rovers can cause them to fail."
This technology also could have tremendous impact on Earth. It could prevent solar panels from collecting dust and losing efficiency over time. It could protect glass windows and someday even digital screens such as phones and TVs.
Anti-dust technology has been around for decades, but it has not gained much traction outside of the lab because of scaling challenges. The researchers used fabrication concepts called nanocoining and nanoimprinting, which prints patterns on objects in a modernized version of the way newspapers and photographs were mass produced during the 1800s.
More information: Samuel S. Lee et al, Engineering large-area anti-dust surfaces by harnessing interparticle forces, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (2023). DOI: 10.1021/acsami.2c19211. pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.2c19211 | Space Technology |
A historic rocket mission has set off from Cornwall as a specially converted Boeing 747 heads out over the Atlantic carrying a payload of nine satellites that it will propel into orbit.Virgin Orbit’s Start Me Up mission is the first launch of satellites from European soil and is being heralded as the start of a new space era for the UK.There was a festival atmosphere at Spaceport Cornwall, near the surfing town of Newquay, as about 2,000 space fans viewed the launch of Cosmic Girl from around the airfield and VIPs toasted the mission with Cornish sparkling wine from the nearby Camel Valley.Matt Archer, the director of commercial spaceflight at the UK Space Agency, said: “There was a space race for this moment, as we wanted to beat Norway and Sweden for the first orbital rocket launch from Europe. The need for speed meant we had to do it in January with the winter weather, but we have shown that if we can do it in January we can do it at any time of the year.”Melissa Thorpe, Head of Spaceport, meets visitors at Spaceport’s inaugural rocket launch from Newquay Airport in Cornwall. Photograph: Jonny Weeks/The GuardianAmong the spectators who watched the launch of the plane was Felix Gatfield, 14, who runs a YouTube channel about space and missed his mock exams – and his usual bedtime – to attend. He said: “It’s a real moment for the UK space industry. It’s amazing being so close.”The British astronaut Tim Peake said: “Today’s mission is a groundbreaking moment for the UK space industry and shows the great strides our nation is making to compete on a global stage.”The launch is seen as a missing link in the UK satellite industry. Until now, the UK has been strong at manufacturing satellites and interpreting the data they yield, but has not been able to launch them.The UK science minister, George Freeman, said: “This is a genuinely historic moment as the UK becomes the first country to launch satellites from Europe, putting the UK at the front of the commercial space race in Europe.A woman takes a selfie with Adrian Grint, dressed as an alien at the inaugural rocket launch from Newquay Airport in Cornwall. Photograph: Jonny Weeks/The Guardian“Tonight marks the dawn of a new era for UK space that will inspire a new generation of space scientists and innovators and lay the foundations for technological leadership, just as the Apollo mission did for the USA in the 1960s.”Josh Western, CEO and founder of the Welsh company Space Forge, which has a satellite on the flight, said: “To be here today is quite moving.”He said the ability to launch from the UK was a huge boost to companies like his. “To get on the M5 and be here in a couple of hours instead of having to fly a team to Florida is important.”Given that the mission is named after a Rolling Stones song, it seemed appropriate that the event had the trappings of a music festival.Special beer available to visitors at Spaceport’s inaugural rocket launch from Newquay Airport in Cornwall. Photograph: Jonny Weeks/The GuardianThere were food stalls and a merchandise stand selling beanies, T-shirts, even a Cornish Spaceport-branded bellyboard. People could take selfies in front of a replica of the LauncherOne rocket that will whiz the satellites into orbit.Spectators watched a big screen to track the mission and there was a marquee with a silent disco, a useful way of staying warm on a chilly night.As clouds cleared and a near-full moon appeared, the silent disco played David Bowie’s Space Oddity, Elton John’s Rocket Man and the Thunderbirds theme.Adrian Grint, 46, an IT worker from St Austell, had turned up in an alien costume and held a sign reading: “Take me home.” He said: “I dress up every now and again. This is massive for Cornwall, very forward-thinking. Everything is based on tourism in Cornwall – this is different.”Families and friends sat in camp chairs next to the wire fence separating the festival area from the runway.Simon and Sam had brought their children, Dominic, four, and Amber, two. Simon said: “We’re from St Austell – Cornish clay country. This is good for Cornwall. With mining gone we don’t have much of an identity any more. This helps put us back on the map.”The plane, flown by RAF test pilot Sqn Ldr Matthew Stannard, took off towards Ireland and the Atlantic.About an hour after takeoff, the rocket is to be detached at 10,700 metres (35,000ft), falling for a few seconds before igniting and shooting southwards, gathering speed and altitude as it passes Portugal and the Canary Islands.In the early hours on Tuesday, Virgin Orbit’s mission controllers – and the crowd – should know whether the rocket has successfully delivered the satellites into orbit.Rory Godfrey, aged 4, holds a Mars Rover-style robot made by Software Cornwall, one of the many examples of space technology on display to visitors at the inaugural rocket launch. Photograph: Jonny Weeks/The GuardianAmong those with satellites onboard are the Ministry of Defence, the sultanate of Oman, the US National Reconnaissance Office and British startups including Space Forge, which is developing reusable satellites.If all goes well, it will be a triumph for Cornwall, an area more associated with beach holidays than space adventure.Melissa Thorpe, the head of Spaceport Cornwall, which is based in a corner of the Cornwall Newquay airport, said: “I hope people will feel some inspiration, some aspiration, and feel proud of how we are representing Cornwall going to the stars.“There’s a lot of doom and gloom out there. It’s exciting, different, it’s also a bit of an underdog story.” | Space Technology |
Canada aims to add more satellites to its flagship Earth observation program "as soon as possible" thanks to a fresh funding infusion, a senior space official said in an exclusive interview.
The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) will receive substantial new government funding to extend the long-standing Radarsat satellite series, a keystone of the country's climate change change strategy and international disaster response, not to mention military surveillance. The agency allocation is $1.012 billion CDN (roughly $740,000 USD) over 15 years, a substantial boost to annual spending.
"We need to engage with industry to define appropriate and feasible timelines, and we will be doing that very soon," Guennadi Kroupnik, the CSA's director general of space utilization, told Space.com Wednesday (Oct. 18), just minutes after the announcement. "We have already started planning a while ago. We're ready to talk to our partners in industry."
At roughly $66 million CDN a year, the new Radarsat+ program will enhance Earth observation in CSA's typical $400-million annual budget for all programs, before special projects. And the money is needed: The Radarsat satellite series is well-regarded and heavily used by government stakeholders including the Canadian military, civil and environmental officials – as well as international space agencies like NASA or the European Space Agency.
Timely and trustworthy Earth observation needs are accelerating along with the effects of climate change and global warming, and the more frequent disasters they are causing. Canada already uses Radarsat data as part of the 17-agency International Disasters Charter contributions of satellite information that activates when major problems arise anywhere in the world.
The current Radarsats, though healthy, are growing old. So the latest funding will do two things.
First, Radarsat+ will add a fourth satellite to the already launched three-machine Radarsat Constellation Mission (RCM) made by MDA, which is expected to last until 2026 without intervention (although in good health, they could go longer.) The fourth satellite, flying as soon as feasible, would extend that timeline by years.
"We are planning to go in a competitive procurement process, engaging with Canadian industry to define parameters of that process to acquire Satellite No. 4," Kroupnik said; the exact launching date is not known yet, but CSA already has preparatory steps ready.
The fourth satellite will be more advanced than the other RCM machines, given it is a decade younger. But like many gaming consoles, the fourth satellite will be backwards-compatible with older technology. As for what's on board: "We have a pretty good grip on what is available technology-wise," Kroupnik said, thanks to a portfolio of projects the CSA already funded since 2021, representing about $10 million CDN ($7.3 million USD) in previous early-stage work.
Secondly, the Radarsat+ program (in its current form) will also fund the definition phase of a successor mission, called a "fourth-generation national sovereign satellite system," aiming to launch in the 2030s. Manufacturing the successor system and launching it will require more money at some point, however.
"It will support current applications that the Radarsat Constellation Mission is enabling, as well as enhance application domains," Kroupnik said of the fourth-generation satellite system. These applications include climate change and disaster response "where we have already demonstrated Canadian leadership," he added.
The Radarsat series, Canada's flagship Earth observation program, is somewhat akin to the United States' long-running Landsat series. Like Landsat, Radarsat's observations track change over decades and are essential for monitoring Canada's lands and shores.
The first Radarsat satellite launched in 1995 following decades of using aircraft-based radar for Canadian Earth observation. Though that satellite is long retired, its successor Radarsat-2 remains healthy (albeit at double its seven-year prime mission) after launching in 2007. The most recent RCM satellite series was next launched in 2019 for that mission's own seven-year prime mission.
Extending RCM has been an ongoing conversation at CSA and its government partners since at least 2017, including discussions with industry. (Canada has a small taxpayer base, so it tends to share responsibilities for large space programs between departments, and to use industry expertise, to make modest space budgets go farther with collaborations.)
The main planning effort for Radarsat's program extension has been the CSA's Earth Observation Service Continuity initiative. Some crucial steps in recent years include:
- Funding for eight companies in 2020 for development and proposal work. After an initial round of analysis, four companies were selected: MDA, Airbus, C-Core and Alpha Insight, "to further develop their concepts," CSA officials stated.
- A request for proposals in 2022 for technology research and development projects "in support of future radar EO (Earth observation) programs" that include the Earth observation continuity work. This led to funding five companies: AstroCom, Calian, C-CORE, EarthDaily Analytics and MDA. (The contract vehicle falls under the CSA's space technology development program, for "innovative technologies with strong commercial potential." Simply put, it's a way of bringing new and promising tech into space with government support.)
Canada's auditor general warned in 2022 that new satellites will be needed quickly. In a report focusing on the Arctic, Karen Hogan's department warned of "incomplete surveillance, insufficient data about vessel traffic in Canada's Arctic waters" and identified a lot of aging hardware that has to be replaced such as satellites, icebreakers and patrol aircraft. At that time, it was expected a new satellite would only be ready in 2035.
The Radarsat series is a central part of Canada's maritime monitoring strategy as the Arctic is so remote. The satellites are used alongside aircraft and ships, the report emphasized. Still, "radar imagery satellites are at — or will reach — the end of their expected service lives long before the planned launch dates of the replacement satellites," warned the report.
"What we're looking for is for the government to have a bit of a contingency plan," Hogan said during a standing committee on national defense meeting on Dec. 8, 2022, in Canada's House of Commons (the equivalent of the U.S. House of Representatives).
"What will happen should these satellites reach the end of their useful lives?" Hogen asked. "Right now, the government either buys information commercially or turns to its allies. We encourage it to have a bit of a contingency plan, in addition to doing that."
While sovereign Earth observation data is a primary consideration for CSA, Kroupnik noted there are other avenues for receiving satellite data through government or industry partners where necessary. In fact, CSA recently stepped up to the plate to help the Europeans when their Sentinel-1B satellite unexpectedly faced an anomaly in 2021 due to a power supply issue.
The satellite data, as much as possible, will be open for community use — which the minister responsible for the Canadian Space Agency pointed out during the livestreamed announcement at the Space Canada annual industry conference in Ottawa early Wednesday (Oct. 18). (A Canadian minister is somewhat analogous to a U.S. cabinet member or secretary.)
Satellite information is not only useful in the government, but also "for the Canadian population generally," minister François-Philippe Champagne said in French (translation provided by Space.com). He added that satellite data will especially be useful when paired with artificial intelligence — a strategic area for Canada's government — to accelerate decision-making.
"I think that this (satellite) information will help us … while at the same time advancing science and knowledge in various areas, including the fight against climate change," Champagne added in French. "I think we are all agreed that if there is an industry that talks about innovation, that's definitely the space industry."
Radarsat+ is not the only big funding project CSA has received in recent years. In 2019 the agency received a bundle of moon-based funding, including for the robotic Canadarm3 to serve NASA's Gateway space station. Canadarm3 essentially underwrites Canada's contributions to the greater NASA-led Artemis program, including a seat for astronaut Jeremy Hansen on the moon-circling Artemis 2 set to fly in 2024.
Another notable announcement came in 2023, with billions promised to extend Canada's participation in the International Space Station until 2030 (alongside most other partners), to support Canadian science on Gateway and to develop a lunar utility vehicle, among other moon programs. | Space Technology |
UFOThe team will announce their findings next year. Mark Stevenson/Stocktrek Images/Stocktrek Images/Getty ImagesA 16-person team — including an astronaut, a space-treaty drafter, a boxer, and several astrobiologists — will soon begin its review of unexplained aerial phenomena (UAP) for NASA.The space agency announced Friday the members of the team, who will labor over the course of nine months starting on Monday to analyze unclassified data on UAPs, peculiar sightings of objects behaving unlike anything we’re familiar with. But until the full report is released to the public in mid-2023, NASA says everything will be kept a secret.UAPs get their classification due to their puzzling behavior in the sky, which doesn’t fit into the known behavior of aircraft or known natural phenomena. NASA will unpack the data to come up with a way to study the unknown.NASA says their work will “lay the groundwork” for future UAP studies. This first phase is a brainstorm, to see how observations that civilian government entities and commercial data have gathered could be analyzed. And then, they’ll look at how future data can be collected.NASA will hold a public meeting after the report is released to discuss the study’s findings, an event that curious onlookers might want to earmark.The space agency says officials are excited to see what the team uncovers. “NASA is going in with an open mind,” the space agency writes in a Frequently Asked Questions webpage devoted to UAPs. “And we expect to find that explanations will apply to some events and different explanations will apply to others. We will not underestimate what the natural world contains, and we believe there is a lot to learn.”Is it aliens? The short answer is, NASA doesn’t know. The space agency chooses to highlight its search for extraterrestrial life when it publishes new information about the new UAP study. But agency officials have also been candid about where the data stands. They explicitly stated back in June that, “there is no evidence UAPs are extra-terrestrial in origin.”Meet the UAP teamDaniel Evans, the assistant deputy associate administrator for research at NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, orchestrated the study.The 16-member team includes:Astrophysicist David Spergel will lead the team. Spergel is a former chair of the Astrophysics department at Princeton University in New Jersey, founding director of the Flatiron Institute for Computational Astrophysics, and currently serves as president of the Simons Foundation in New York.Astrobiologist Anamaria Berea has previously found patterns in data using a range of computational methods. Berea is a research affiliate with the SETI (Search for extraterrestrial intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, California, and an associate professor of Computational and Data Science at George Mason University in Virginia.SETI researcher and astrophysicist Shelley Wright, also specializes in building telescope instruments. Wright is an associate professor at the University of California, San Diego.Former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is an airplane expert and seasoned spacefarer. Kelly has flown supersonic fighter planes, and set a record for total accumulated number of days spent in space on a year-long mission to the International Space Station.Satellite technology leader Walter Scott, the executive vice president and chief technology officer of Maxar technologies. The Colorado-based company says it has partnered with more than 50 countries to monitor changes to Earth’s surface from space.Astrophysicist, data scientist, and boxer Federica Bianco, focuses on using data science to study the universe. Bianco is a joint professor at the University of Delaware, is the principal investigator of Federica Astrostatistics Lab (FASTLab), and coordinates more than 1,500 scientists for the 2023 Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Science Collaboration to discover new galaxies and stars in the southern sky. Bianco is also a boxer who goes by the title “The Mad Scientist.”Astrophysicist David Grinspoon, a frequent advisor to NASA’s space exploration programs. Grinspoon is a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona, and has explored the climate evolution and potential for habitability on exoplanets.Oceanographer Paula Bontempi, who’s researched marine environments for more than 25 years. Bontempi is the dean and professor of the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, and has led NASA ocean biology research.Technology and government industry leader Reggie Brothers, was the former undersecretary for Science and Technology at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research at the Department of Defense. Technology-trend analyst Jen Buss, CEO of the Potomac Institute of Policy Studies in Virginia. Buss has formerly worked with NASA.Artemis Accords leader Mike Gold, also led the negotiation and adoption of the lunar Gateway’s international agreement. Gold is the executive vice president of Civil Space and External Affairs at the space technology company Redwire in Florida.Science journalist Nadia Drake, who specializes in astronomy news. Drake is a regular contributor to National Geographic, and has won several journalism awards.Telescope scientist Matt Mountain works with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. As president of The Association of Universities for Research and Astronomy (AURA), Mountain oversees 44 U.S. universities that help NASA and the National Science Foundation build and operate observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope.Aeronautics expert Karlin Toner, the acting executive director of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Office of Aviation Policy and Plans. Toner has managed threats to civil aviation when she was previously the director of the FAA’s global strategy.Former aerodynamist for the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Air Force, Warren Randolph, the deputy executive director of the FAA’s Accident Investigation and Prevention for Aviation Safety department. Randolph uses data to inform the assessment of future aviation hazards and risks.Ionosphere researcher Joshua Semeter, director of the Center for Space Physics at Boston University. Semeter studies how Earth’s upper atmosphere interacts with the space environment, and he develops sensors and experiments that could take measurements of this celestial border. | Space Technology |
For nearly five months, teams behind NASA’s Lunar Flashlight mission have been trying to get the briefcase-sized satellite to fire up its thrusters and get on the right orbital track around the Moon. There’s now some hope with one of the thrusters showing some improvement as work continues on the remaining three.
The Lunar Flashlight’s operations team has developed a new method to get the satellite’s propulsion system up and running, with the spacecraft needing more thrust within the next few days so that it can reach its revised orbit, NASA wrote in a blogpost on Friday.
Team members at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in southern California, Georgia Tech, and the space agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, are all working together on the new strategy, which involves “increasing fuel pump pressure far beyond the system’s operational limit while opening and closing the system’s valves,” according to NASA. The objective of this method is to attempt to remove any blockages from the thruster’s fuel lines, enabling the spacecraft to produce adequate thrust for carrying out monthly flybys of the Moon’s south polar region.
The mission engineers’ latest attempt focused on one of the cubesat’s thrusters and they are now attempting it on the other three. “This has resulted in limited success, with the remaining thrusters inconsistently producing some increased levels of thrust,” NASA wrote in the blogpost.
Lunar Flashlight launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket alongside Japan’s Hakuto-R lunar lander mission in December 2022. Sadly, the Japanese private lander crashed on the Moon in April, failing to fulfill its mission. Its payload companion, on the other hand, is still trying to carry out its own mission.
Shortly after its launch, Lunar Flashlight ran into some trouble when three of its four thrusters began to underperform on account of those obstructed fuel lines. Lunar Flashlight was supposed to enter a near-rectilinear halo orbit around the Moon, but with the thruster problems, NASA hatched a plan to place the probe in a high Earth orbit instead, allowing it to scan the Moon’s south polar regions once per month, as opposed to the original plan of once per week.
The cubesat is currently more than half a million miles away from Earth and looping its way back toward our planet. Meanwhile, the mission team is trying to nudge the Lunar Flashlight into a “trajectory that will allow it to arrive in the required Earth-Moon orbit,” according to NASA.
The Lunar Flashlight is designed to shine infrared light on some of the Moon’s permanently shadowed regions, scanning the lunar South Pole for reservoirs of ice water hidden away from the Sun’s light. The small spacecraft is using a new kind of propulsion system as a technology demonstration in space, which always carries its own risk for the mission itself.
“Technology demonstrations are high-risk, high-reward endeavors intended to push the frontiers of space technology,” NASA wrote. “The lessons learned from these challenges will help to inform future missions that advance this technology.” | Space Technology |
Construction of the world’s largest radio astronomy observatory, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), has officially begun in Australia after three decades in development.A huge intergovernmental effort, the SKA has been hailed as one of the biggest scientific projects of this century. It will enable scientists to look back to early in the history of the universe when the first stars and galaxies were formed. It will also be used to investigate dark energy and why the universe is expanding, and to potentially search for extraterrestrial life.The SKA will initially involve two telescopes arrays – one on Wajarri country in remote Western Australia, called SKA-Low, comprising 131,072 tree-like antennas.SKA-Low is so named for its sensitivity to low frequency radio signals. It will be eight times as sensitive than existing comparable telescopes and will map the sky 135 times faster.A second array of 197 traditional dishes, SKA-Mid, will be built in South Africa’s Karoo region. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup The Australian minister of industry and science, Ed Husic, and the director general of the SKA Organisation, Prof Philip Diamond, are expected to mark the start of construction of SKA-Low at an on-site event in Western Australia on Monday morning.Dr Sarah Pearce, director of the SKA-Low telescope, said in a statement that the observatory would “define the next fifty years for radio astronomy, charting the birth and death of galaxies, searching for new types of gravitational waves and expanding the boundaries of what we know about the universe”.“The SKA telescopes will be sensitive enough to detect an airport radar on a planet circling a star tens of light years away, so may even answer the biggest question of all: are we alone in the universe?”Artist impression of the SKA-Low telescope in Western Australia. The SKA has been described by scientists as a gamechanger and a major milestone in astronomy research. Photograph: DISR/Supplied by DISRThe SKA has been described by scientists as a gamechanger and a major milestone in astronomy research.Prof Lisa Harvey-Smith, an astronomer at the University of New South Wales, called it a “a momentous day for global astronomy”, adding: “Over a thousand people have worked for 20 years to make this a reality – and each will be feeling proud of this collective achievement today.”Dr Danny Price, a senior postdoctoral fellow at the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy, said the SKA’s sensitivity would allow astronomers to peer back billions of years to the “cosmic dawn”, when the first stars in the universe were forming.“To put the sensitivity of the SKA into perspective, [it] could detect a mobile phone in the pocket of an astronaut on Mars, 225m kilometres away,” Price said in a statement. “More excitingly, if there are intelligent societies on nearby stars with technology similar to ours, the SKA could detect the aggregate ‘leakage’ radiation from their radio and telecommunication networks – the first telescope sensitive enough to achieve this feat.”Prof Alan Duffy, director of the space technology and industry institute at the Swinburne University of Technology, said the SKA would probably be the largest telescope ever constructed, “connecting across continents to create a world-spanning facility allowing us to see essentially across the entire observable universe”.“The science goals are as vast as the telescope itself, from searching for forming planets and signs of alien life, to mapping out the cosmic web of dark matter and the growing of galaxies within those vast universe-spanning filaments,” Duffy said in a statement.“Just as with Hubble, the biggest discoveries by such next-generation telescopes are of things entirely unknown to science today. Astronomers worldwide will be celebrating this groundbreaking [development] for what it will mean for scientists in the decades ahead.”In Australia, the SKA Organisation is collaborating with the CSIRO to build and operate the telescopes. | Space Technology |
SYDNEY, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Rapid advancements in China’s military capabilities pose increasing risks to American supremacy in outer space, the head of the United States military’s space wing said on Monday.Nina Armagno, director of staff of the U.S. Space Force, said Beijing had made significant progress in developing military space technology, including in areas such as satellite communications and re-useable spacecraft, which allow countries to rapidly scale up their space programs.“I think it's entirely possible they could catch up and surpass us, absolutely,” Armagno said at an event in Sydney run by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a research organisation partly funded by the U.S. and Australian governments. “The progress they've made has been stunning, stunningly fast.”Historically lagging in a space race dominated by the United States and Russia, Beijing has made significant advances in recent years that have alarmed Washington and other Western nations.Ye Peijian, the head of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, has likened the moon and Mars to contested islands in the South China Sea that Beijing is attempting to claim.China is also developing experimental technology aimed at mining asteroids and minor planets for natural resources.“[China] is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to achieve that objective,” Armagno said.Along with Russia, China has also conducted “reckless” missile tests that have created dangerous amounts of space debris in recent years, Armagno said.“These debris fields threatened all of our systems in space, and these systems are vital to all nations’ security, economic and scientific interests,” she said.Founded in 2019 in part as an attempt to counter the rising capabilities of China, the Space Force is the fourth branch of the U.S. military, with Armagno serving as its first permanent leader. It is set to launch three astronauts to its new space station on Tuesday.Reporting by Alasdair Pal in Sydney. Editing by Gerry DoyleOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Space Technology |
- A device on NASA's Perseverance Rover converted Mars' thin air into oxygen.
- The pilot project produced enough oxygen for a small dog to breathe for 10 hours.
- The next step is expanding the technology to create oxygen for humans and for rocket fuel.
NASA has a way to produce oxygen out of the air on Mars, and it could be a huge step toward building crewed bases on the Red Planet.
Creating oxygen from the Martian air is no easy feat.
Mars' atmosphere consists of mostly carbon dioxide (95%) and nitrogen (3%). It only has traces of oxygen, meaning it's impossible to breathe on Mars, let alone explore it.
That's where the microwave-sized device named the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, aka MOXIE, comes in.
MOXIE hitched a ride to Mars on NASA's Perseverance Rover in 2021 and has been hard at work ever since.
Over the last 2.5 years, it created 122 grams of oxygen — enough to keep a small dog alive for 10 hours, NASA said in a statement Wednesday.
That may sound like a lot of time and effort for such a small amount, but MOXIE is just a pilot.
Now that scientists know the technology works, they can begin scaling it up to hopefully one day produce enough oxygen for humans to breathe and for fuel to power the rocket back from Mars, NASA said.
"By proving this technology in real-world conditions, we've come one step closer to a future in which astronauts 'live off the land' on the Red Planet," Trudy Kortes, the director of technology demonstrations for the Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA, said in the statement.
MOXIE performed twice as well as expected
The small device was even more successful than researchers had hoped.
In June, scientists pushed MOXIE's limits. At maximum production level, it generated 12 grams of oxygen an hour — twice as much as expected — at 98% purity or better, according to NASA.
It was a risky experiment that could've damaged MOXIE but ultimately proved the technology's impressive capabilities.
"We rolled the dice a little bit," Michael Hecht, MOXIE's principal investigator, told Space.com in June. "It was 'hold your breath and see what happens.'"
How MOXIE makes oxygen on Mars
MOXIE works by separating a single oxygen atom from each molecule of carbon dioxide in Mars' thin atmosphere.
Scientists can use the MOXIE pilot project to inform the next phase of the technology: building out a larger, more developed system that would include an oxygen generator along with a method for liquefying and storing the oxygen it produces, NASA said.
"Developing technologies that let us use resources on the moon and Mars is critical to build a long-term lunar presence, create a robust lunar economy, and allow us to support an initial human exploration campaign to Mars," Pam Melroy, the deputy administrator at NASA, said in the statement. | Space Technology |
Triple the fun — Was the Falcon Heavy a mistake by SpaceX? Enlarge / Falcon Heavy clears the tower during its maiden flight on February 6, 2018.Trevor Mahlmann As early as Tuesday morning, the Falcon Heavy will take flight for the first time since June 2019, ending a long period of inactivity for the world's most powerful, operational rocket. Under the power of 27 Merlin engines in its first stage, the rocket will carry two space technology payloads into orbit for US Space Force.
Ahead of this much-awaited USSF-44 launch, it is natural to ask why it has been more than 40 months since the rocket last flew. And perhaps more importantly, does this suggest that the Falcon Heavy—developed internally at SpaceX, at the company's own expense, for half a billion dollars—was a mistake?
But first, some details about the launch, which is set for 9:41 am ET (13:41) on Tuesday from Kennedy Space Center, in Florida.
Meet me at GEO
This will be SpaceX's first "direct-to-GEO" mission, which means the powerful Falcon Heavy rocket will launch its payload directly into a geostationary orbit nearly 36,000 km above the Earth's surface. Typically such payloads are injected into a transfer orbit, and then the spacecraft's onboard propellant is used to raise the vehicle to a circular geostationary orbit. In this case, however, Falcon Heavy's first and second stages will be doing all the work.
Not much is known about the two spacecraft launching on this mission for Space Force. The primary payload is classified. The secondary payload is a small satellite called Tetra-1, which is a prototype for a kind of satellite the US military hopes to fly one day in geostationary orbit—to do something.
In an emailed news release discussing the launch, Space Force was not particularly helpful with its description of the satellites: "The Long Duration Propulsive EELV Secondary Payload Adapter (LDPE ESPA)-2 and Shepherd Demonstration will carry a variety of payloads that will promote and accelerate the advancement of space technology for the benefit of future Programs of Record." Thanks, guys, that's super clear. Maybe you could mix in a few more inscrutable acronyms next time.
What we do know is that this mission will require the Falcon Heavy's upper stage to operate for a far longer period than usual, with about six hours between the initial firing of its Merlin vacuum engine and a final firing. This will provide a good test of the upper stage's ability to perform for an extended period.
Why so long?
The long gap between flights has not occurred due to a shortage of Falcon Heavy rockets. At its essence, the Falcon Heavy consists of a core stage that is a modified version of a Falcon 9 rocket's first stage, and two side-mounted boosters that are somewhat less modified. There are other structural adaptations, but basically, SpaceX could manufacture (and reuse hardware) for just about as many Falcon Heavy rockets as the market desires.
It's just that, well, there has not been an overwhelming desire. To put the demand for Falcon Heavy into perspective, in the 40 months since the last heavy launch, SpaceX has flown the Falcon 9 rocket 111 times. That does not mean there is 100 times the demand for the Falcon 9, but it suggests that by continuing to improve the performance of the single-core Falcon rocket, SpaceX eroded some of the potential market for Falcon Heavy when it was designed about a decade ago.
However, there is still demand. Of late, the problem has been delayed payloads. The USSF-44 mission was originally scheduled for December 2020. Another Space Force mission on the Falcon Heavy, USSF-52, was originally supposed to fly in October 2021. NASA's Psyche Asteroid mission was supposed to fly in September but was also delayed after the payload was not ready.
In truth, there is a reasonable amount of demand for a large rocket like the Falcon Heavy. On SpaceX's current manifest, there are 10 more Falcon Heavy missions between now and the end of 2024. Some of those may well get pushed back due to payload readiness, but there are customers out there. Who is buying?
The short answer is the government. Including USSF-44, the next 10 most likely missions to fly on the Falcon Heavy include five flights for NASA, three for the US Space Force, and two primarily for commercial satellite customers.
The US military is especially keen to see a proven Falcon Heavy. While the Falcon 9 rocket is powerful, it does not have the ability to hit all nine of the Department of Defense's reference orbits required for its launch providers to hit. So with the Falcon Heavy, SpaceX is at an advantage in terms of bidding on military launch contracts. The only other operational US rocket capable of this is United Launch Alliance's Delta IV Heavy rocket, but it is retiring in two years. Its replacement, Vulcan, has yet to fly.
SpaceX's forthcoming Starship and Super Heavy booster, of course, will be able to reach all nine orbits. Although it is likely years away from a "stable" configuration required by the government, it is nevertheless on the way. Because of this, Falcon Heavy is likely to have a limited shelf life, said Todd Harrison, managing director for Metrea Strategic Insights. "Once SpaceX's new Super Heavy is operational and has a proven track record to assure national security customers, Falcon Heavy will no longer be needed," Harrison said. "So I suspect its useful life is perhaps less than five years and likely only a handful of launches during that time. But it is a beauty to behold when it launches, especially when those side boosters return to land in sync."
Falcon Heavy has also proven popular for some key NASA science missions, including the Psyche spacecraft, Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, and the Europa Clipper. NASA awarded the latter mission to SpaceX about a year ago, for a launch in 2024. This was a huge validation of the Falcon Heavy rocket, as NASA entrusted a spacecraft that cost about $4 billion to the large rocket. Page: 1 2 Next → | Space Technology |
The latest U.S. military budget goes all-in on the notion that resilience will be a core feature of space programs. As evidence, the term surpasses 300 mentions in the Space Force’s 2024 budget documents.
“It’s amazing how many times you see the word resiliency in the budget justification materials,” said analyst Sam Wilson of the Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Space Policy and Strategy.
The emphasis on resilience — or adaptability in the face of attacks — reflects the priorities set by the new chief of space operations Gen. Chance Saltzman. The running theme in the budget is the need to ensure U.S. access to space and shore up capabilities to compete with space powers like China and Russia.
“China, our pacing challenge, is the most immediate threat in, to, and from space for which the Space Force must maintain technological advantage,” Saltzman said in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this year.
“Russia, while less capable, remains an acute threat that is developing asymmetric counter-space systems meant to neutralize American satellites,” said Saltzman.
‘Competitive endurance’
A push for resilience is part of a multifaceted strategy Saltzman rolled out in March called “competitive endurance” to guide Space Force plans to deter and combat adversaries.
Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David “DT” Thompson said the Space Force’s central responsibility is ensuring U.S. military forces and allies have access to satellite services.
And that is why resilience is so critical, he said June 15 at the Defense One Tech Summit.
“Ukraine showed that proliferation works. It leads to resilient architectures,” Thompson said, referring to Russia’s repelled attempts to jam SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellite service used by Ukrainian forces.
The U.S. armed forces and allies today rely on a secure space infrastructure — for communications, early warnings of ballistic missile attacks and other services — that the Space Force provides from a relatively small number of geostationary satellites in harder to reach orbits. “And we have to continue to understand how to defend and protect those against counter-space attacks,” he said.
“I think that’s probably the biggest concern right now,” Thompson said, “ensuring we have enough resilience in both proliferated constellations, and those small numbers of larger systems to be able to defend them.”
A shift to proliferated constellations is already under way.
The Space Development Agency — a procurement organization under the Space Force — is moving forward with a multibillion dollar plan to field a mesh network of satellites in low Earth orbit for missile warning and for data transport. The agency in April launched its first batch of 10 satellites and announced plans to launch its next 13 spacecraft in late July.
Proliferation and redundancy make the loss of a few satellites tolerable, said Thompson, and bolster deterrence because targeting them imposes increased cost on an adversary.
This is how the Space Force plans to deal with China’s threats in the long term, he said. “We are in a long competition with China. They absolutely believe that.”
“We can’t look at a finish line in this competition,” Thompson added. “We have to think what we need to do to compete for the next 10 to 50 years.”
Avoid surprises
Space Force’s competitive endurance strategy has three tenets: avoid operational surprise, deny first-mover advantage, and conduct responsible counter-space campaigns that don’t create long-lasting debris in orbit.
“If we get this right we will deter a crisis or conflict from extending into space,” Lt. Gen. DeAnna Burt, deputy chief of space operations, cyber and nuclear, said in an interview.
“But if needed, we will ensure space access for the joint force in a manner that maintains safety in the space domain for all responsible actors.”
Avoiding unwelcome surprises in space requires continuous awareness of what adversaries are doing in orbit, she said.
The U.S. wants to prevent a Pearl Harbor-style attack in space, which is why the Space Force is turning more attention to space domain awareness, Burt said. “I have to be able to attribute any actions that are nefarious; I have to track and maintain custody of things I consider threats, and provide indications and warnings to other people.”
The second tenet, denying first mover advantage in space, is where resilient architectures play a central role, she explained.
“If the enemy knows that attacking U.S. interests in space will require such a massive effort that it will become impractical or self-defeating, we will be deterring such actions in the first place,” she said. “It would be a case when the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.”
The final tenet, conducting responsible counter-space campaigns, is about the idea that, if American assets were threatened, the U.S. would respond appropriately and would try to minimize the creation of debris in orbit.
“Polluting the domain is not what I want to do,” said Burt. There are ongoing discussions with allies about how operations could be conducted in a responsible manner, she said.
The Space Force has been secretive about what technologies it might be developing to attack adversaries’ satellites without creating significant debris.
“General Saltzman has publicly talked about deliveries that will come in the 2026 timeframe,” Burt said. “And I think that’s when you’re going to see us start to figure out how we’re going to message that.”
Access to space
China and Russia have adopted strategies based on disabling adversaries’ space communications and navigation systems, said Brig. Gen. Anthony Mastalir, commander of U.S. Space Forces Indo-Pacific, a subordinate unit to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
It is stunning how fast China has modernized its space infrastructure to enable military capabilities like precision-guided missiles, Mastalir wrote in a June 14 article published by the Air University’s Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs.
“China has made unprecedented investments in its on-orbit capabilities over the past three years,” Mastalir noted.
The U.S. military has been particularly wary of China’s secretive spaceplane — which has been described as a knockoff of the U.S. Air Force’s X-37B that can remain in orbit for years. China’s spaceplane has flown two long-endurance missions, and conducted proximity and capture maneuvers with a subsatellite, according to data from the commercial space-tracking firm LeoLabs.
Mastalir pointed out that China deployed about 160 satellites in 2022, many of which will support military operations. By some estimates, China plans to launch 200 spacecraft in 2023.
“While many strategists are rightly concerned about China’s and Russia’s fielding of anti-satellite weapons designed to degrade or destroy U.S. satellites in space, it is important to note that much of China’s space investment enables its long-range precision strike capability,” he wrote.
Space Force leaders also worry that a breakdown in U.S.-China communication and an underlying distrust that goes both ways could lead to miscalculations.
China’s lack of transparency about its own space activities makes it difficult to reduce those risks, Burt warned in May at a space policy conference hosted by Arizona State University.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin cautioned June 1 that China’s reluctance to engage with U.S. defense leaders could result in “an incident that could very, very quickly spiral out of control.”
More recently, Lt. Gen. John Shaw, deputy commander of U.S. Space Command, said the “biggest dynamic right now in our relationship with China with regard to space is a lack of communication and virtually zero transparency.”
The absence of dialogue and interaction creates conditions for “miscommunication, misperception, misinterpretation, and then things could go wrong. And that can happen in any domain,” Shaw said June 14 at the Secure World Foundation’s Summit for Space Sustainability.
U.S. Space Command traffic watchers at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California issue warnings of close approaches in orbit or potential collision to satellite operations and national agencies, including the Chinese government. But when warnings are sent to Chinese email addresses, Shaw said, “We never get a response. Never.”
“Even the Russians know how to communicate with us,” Shaw said. “We don’t have anything like that with the Chinese and that’s the biggest hindrance to transparent operations.”
‘Gray zone’ competition
Experts agree that space powers are most likely to attack rival satellites in a conflict through “non kinetic” means.
Still, both China and Russia have demonstrated they can blow up satellites by striking them with kinetic weapons such as ground-based missiles. However, the United States needs to be more concerned about activities that fall below the threshold of an act of war but are damaging nonetheless, said Todd Harrison, aerospace industry analyst and managing director of Metrea Strategic Insights.
Cyber and electronic jamming attacks are in the murky category of “gray zone” provocations that fall somewhere between low-intensity conflict and all-out war.
These non-kinetic attacks could still do lasting damage to satellites and their ground systems. A satellite that can’t see, think or communicate is as good as dead. “It’s probably going to be in the ground segment that you’ve got to be the most worried about, but it could be on the space side as well as there are now lasers that can blind sensors,” Harrison said.
“An adversary like China or others might think that they can get away with using that,” he said, “and could severely hamper our ability to sense and to communicate from space.”
The U.S. military “historically has not really had a good response to gray zone activities” and that should concern the Space Force, said John Klein, a senior fellow and strategist at Falcon Research, and adjunct professor at George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute.
“We kind of let it happen with no repercussions,” Klein said. “It doesn’t have to be a military response. But the U.S. has to make it known it’s unacceptable behavior, and that there will be consequences.”
It is notable, though, that the Space Force is openly talking about deterring China and about the importance of resilience in U.S. space networks, Klein said.
He observed that space resilience is not a new concept, as the Pentagon for decades has studied the issue of how to reduce the vulnerability of U.S. satellites.
“What is new is that the U.S. Space Force more specifically recognizes resilience as part of deterrence. It’s deterrence by denial of benefits,” Klein said. “It’s telling enemies that no matter what you do, it’s not going to matter. You’re not going to stop me.”
U.S. still vulnerable
A move to more diversified constellations is necessary but might still not be enough to deter China, warned Charles Galbreath, senior fellow for space power studies at the Air and Space Forces Association’s Mitchell Institute.
“While the proliferated LEO approach garners a great deal of attention, it is not the only method the Space Force can employ to increase the resiliency of its architecture,” Galbreath, former deputy chief technology and innovation officer of the U.S. Space Force, said June 26 at a Mitchell Institute event.
In a white paper titled “Building U.S. Space Force Counter-Space Capabilities,” Galbreath suggested the Space Force consider the “enduring military practice of deception to confuse adversaries and complicate their ability to target U.S. satellites.”
For example, the U.S. could build satellite payloads or components in ways that would camouflage their functions.
The Space Force also should expand its use of protection measures such as nuclear hardening and anti-jam systems, Galbreath said.
Speaking June 12 at the Mitchell Institute, Thompson, the vice chief of space operations, recognized that deterrence may work in theory but not in practice. And if diplomacy and deterrence fail, the military has to prepare for the worstcase scenario.
“This is where we’ve spent a lot of time working with the other services,” said Thompson, to make sure they understand their dependence on space assets and figure out how to ensure the Army, Navy and Air Force can continue operating if U.S. satellites were targeted.
Other discussions on this subject are taking place with the private sector, as the Space Force tries to figure out contracting options to secure access to commercial space services during conflicts.
Under an initiative known as Commercial Augmentation Space Reserves, the Space Force is looking at establishing agreements with companies to ensure that services like satellite communication and remote sensing are prioritized for U.S. government use during national security emergencies.
The role of the private space sector in national security is significant, said Thompson. “When you think about proliferation and diversity, it’s not just the number of satellites, it’s also allies and commercial partners.”
Need to keep space usable
Even if the U.S. has superior space technology, a vibrant private space sector and more powerful weaponry, the reality is that rival nations have the means today to destroy satellites and create “devastating impacts on the environment that will be harmful to the use of space for decades and perhaps centuries to come,” Thompson said.
“As we look at the proliferation of space capabilities, it will be increasingly difficult to deny some level of use of space to an adversary,” he added.
While preparing for a protracted competition with rival powers, said Thompson, the Space Force has to make sure the U.S. government has accurate intelligence so diplomats and military leaders know what’s happening in the space domain.
“If we’re operationally or strategically surprised, shame on us.”
This article originally appeared in the July 2023 issue of SpaceNews magazine. | Space Technology |
Satellite data is growing evermore crucial to a range of economic sectors, from digitalized industrial production to self-driving vehicles.
This demand is pushing the international space race to take on new dimensions, particularly in the private sector. Companies like SpaceX, with its huge fleet of satellites and rockets, represent dangerous competition for established space-faring countries.
Germany is hoping its construction of a new spaceport, expected to launch its first rockets in April, can better its position.
What will the new spaceport look like?
Instead, the spaceport will launch from a platform in the North Sea.
To start, Dutch company T-Minus will launch a rocket from the German-Offshore Spaceport Alliance (GOSA) mobile platform.
The launch pad will be built some 350 kilometers from the coast in the remotest corner of Germany's Exclusive Economic Zone. The Federation of German Industries (BDI) announced the location at a space congress in Berlin.
Each launch will be supervised by a control ship and a new multifunctional Mission Control Center in Bremen, Germany. The ship's home port will be located in Bremerhaven, a port city located next to Bremen.
What is the spaceport worth?
In the future, the North Sea platform will be used for European microlaunchers — rockets loaded with small satellites — capable of carrying up to one ton into low-Earth orbits.
During a two-week test phase, up to four rockets with a maximum length of seven meters and a flight altitude of up to 50 kilometers will be launched.
The BDI introduced its "NewSpace" initiative four years ago with hopes of seeing Germany profit from the booming commercialization of space travel.
The plans are underpinned by a market worth billions: NewSpace could reduce the high cost of launch vehicles.
According to a new study by BDI and consultant Roland Berger, the market for activities underpinned by space technology will grow by 7.4% annually to €1.25 trillion ($1.32 trillion) by 2040.
Why does Germany need a spaceport?
"It is true for more and more industries: If you are not at the forefront in space, you will not be a technology leader on Earth," BDI President Siegfried Russwurm said.
The platform is intended to meet growing demand in the small commercial satellites market. Germany also needs its own access for defense purposes, he said. Germany has a "dangerous dependency" on others for space infrastructure and access, he added.
"Four times more satellites will be launched in this decade than in the previous one. This leads to bottlenecks in land-based spaceports," Sabine von der Recke, a member of GOSA's management board, said.
Further European launch infrastructure is critical, she added.
This article was adapted from the original German. | Space Technology |
NASA is demonstrating laser communications on multiple missions – showcasing the benefits infrared light can have for science and exploration missions transmitting terabytes of important data.
The International Space Station is getting a “flashy” technology demonstration this November. The ILLUMA-T (Integrated Laser Communications Relay Demonstration Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal) payload is launching to the International Space Station to demonstrate how missions in low Earth orbit can benefit from laser communications.
Laser communications uses invisible infrared light to send and receive information at higher data rates, providing spacecraft with the capability to send more data back to Earth in a single transmission and expediting discoveries for researchers.
Managed by NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program, ILLUMA-T is completing NASA’s first bi-directional, end-to-end laser communications relay by working with the agency’s LCRD (Laser Communications Relay Demonstration). LCRD launched in December 2021 and is currently demonstrating the benefits of laser communications from geosynchronous orbit by transmitting data between two ground stations on Earth in a series of experiments.
Some of LCRD’s experiments include studying atmospheric impact on laser signals, confirming LCRD’s ability to work with multiple users, testing network capabilities like delay/disruption tolerant networking (DTN) over laser links, and investigating improved navigation capabilities.
Once ILLUMA-T is installed on the space station’s exterior, the payload will complete NASA’s first in-space demonstration of two-way laser relay capabilities.
How It Works:
ILLUMA-T’s optical module is comprised of a telescope and two-axis gimbal which allows pointing and tracking of LCRD in geosynchronous orbit. The optical module is about the size of a microwave and the payload itself is comparable to a standard refrigerator.
ILLUMA-T will relay data from the space station to LCRD at 1.2 gigabits-per-second, then LCRD will send the data down to optical ground stations in California or Hawaii. Once the data reaches these ground stations, it will be sent to the LCRD Mission Operations Center located at NASA’s White Sands Complex in Las Cruces, New Mexico. After this, the data will be sent to the ILLUMA-T ground operations teams at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. There, engineers will determine if the data sent through this end-to-end relay process is accurate and of high-quality.
“NASA Goddard’s primary role is to ensure successful laser communications and payload operations with LCRD and the space station,” said ILLUMA-T Deputy Project Manager Matt Magsamen. “With LCRD actively conducting experiments that test and refine laser systems, we are looking forward to taking space communications capabilities to the next step and watching the success of this collaboration between the two payloads unfold.”
Once ILLUMA-T transmits its first beam of laser light through its optical telescope to LCRD, the end-to-end laser communications experiment begins. After its experimental phase with LCRD, ILLUMA-T could become an operational part of the space station and substantially increase the amount of data NASA can send to and from the orbiting laboratory.
Transmitting data to relay satellites is no new feat for the space station. Since its completion in 1998 the orbiting laboratory has relied on the fleet of radio frequency relay satellites known as NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellites, which are part of the agency’s Near Space Network. Relay satellites provide missions with constant contact with Earth because they can see the spacecraft and a ground antenna at the same time.
Laser communications could be a game-changer for researchers on Earth with science and technology investigations aboard the space station. Astronauts conduct research in areas like biological and physical sciences, technology, Earth observations, and more in the orbiting laboratory for the benefit of humanity. ILLUMA-T could provide enhanced data rates for these experiments and send more data back to Earth at once. In fact, at 1.2 Gbps, ILLUMA-T can transfer the amount of data equivalent to an average movie in under a minute.
The ILLUMA-T / LCRD end-to-end laser communications relay system is one small step for NASA, but one giant leap for space communications capabilities. Together with previous and future demonstrations, NASA is showcasing the benefits laser communications systems can have for both near-Earth and deep space exploration.
The goal of these demonstrations is to integrate laser communications as a capability within NASA’s space communications networks: the Near Space Network and Deep Space Network. If you are a mission planner interested in using laser communications, please reach out to [email protected].
The ILLUMA-T payload is funded by the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. ILLUMA-T is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Partners include the International Space Station program office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts.
LCRD is led by Goddard and in partnership with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and the MIT Lincoln Laboratory. LCRD is funded through NASA’s Technology Demonstration Missions program, part of the Space Technology Mission Directorate, and the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
By Kendall Murphy and Katherine Schauer
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD | Space Technology |
China has been ramping up cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean as part of its strategic goal to gain space supremacy.
In a nutshell
- China is rapidly expanding space cooperation with Latin America
- Beijing is attempting to create new structures parallel to those of the U.S.
- Space geopolitics will become increasingly divided
Over the last two decades, China’s relations with Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have evolved beyond their largely extractive character to encompass a growing focus on digital and space technology.
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) first white paper on its relations with LAC, released in 2008, referenced outer space only in passing. “The Chinese side will strengthen cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean in aeronautics and astronautics … and other areas of shared interest,” it read. Eight years later, China’s interest in the sector had grown. Section 9 of its 2016 policy paper on LAC – the latest issued – explicitly addressed space cooperation, with emphasis on remote sensing and communication satellites, satellite data application and aerospace infrastructure. These themes have since been picked up by the CCP’s Global Security Initiative introduced in 2022 and outlined in February 2023.
For China, the pursuit of space cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean advances its wider objective to dominate near-earth space. It also strengthens ties with strategic regional partners, and undercuts Western and American-led alliances and institutions. While some LAC governments share Beijing’s political motives, others are encouraged by the space industry’s economic benefits. All of this suggests that China-LAC space relations are likely to deepen in the years ahead.
History of space cooperation
The first joint space venture between China and the LAC region dates to 1988, when the China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite (CBERS) program was established.
CBERS was a collaboration between the China Academy of Space Technology and Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research. It was created to collaboratively develop satellites and launch them into orbit, with the declared aim of observing and monitoring the earth’s resources and environment. The initiative was meant to allow the two countries to expand their footprint in space without the United States’ or Western involvement. To date, six CBERS satellites have been launched: in 1999, 2003, 2007, 2013, 2014, and most recently in 2019. As of 2002, each country covers 50 percent of the costs; previously 70 percent had been covered by China.
Encouraged by its successful collaboration with Brazil and its space race with the U.S., the CCP has expanded its space-based partnerships throughout the LAC region.
Bilateral space relations
China’s most significant advances in bilateral space cooperation with LAC states have been with populist regimes that share China’s worldview and are often in need of financial assistance and unable to obtain it from the West.
On the heels of its 2003 financial crisis, Argentina signed a framework agreement for space cooperation with Beijing in 2004. Signed between Argentina’s National Space Activities Commission and China’s National Space Agency, it centered around the use of China’s Long March rockets to launch Argentine satellites from the then-newly established national satellite company, Argentina Satellite Solutions Company. In this regard, it also served as a precursor for the development of the Espacio Lejano Station, in Neuquen province, Patagonia.
The station, with its 35-meter-diameter antenna and operations run by the China Satellite Launch and Tracking Control General, a division of the People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force, remains something of an enigma. Agreed to in 2014 by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Chinese President Xi Jinping, and made operational in late 2017, it appears to be a dual-use facility – utilized for Chinese civilian and military purposes. Some analysts suggest it could have been involved in the Chinese spy balloon that appeared in U.S. airspace earlier this year. Yet absent transparency and Argentine oversight, this cannot be confirmed.
The $500 million facility, which is part of the Chinese Deep Space Network, is Beijing’s first deep space earth station outside of the mainland. It is designed to facilitate communication between deep space missions and spacecraft that pass over the southern hemisphere. Chinese state media claimed it “played an important role” in the Chang’e 4’s 2019 landing on the far side of the moon. It is also integral to China’s Mars research and its plans to improve multi-objective tracking, telemetry, and command capabilities (MTTC), which would allow for more coordinated communication in complex missions. Improved MTTC capabilities would also enhance the PLA’s battlefield awareness, navigation, and positioning.
China has also established bilateral space relations with Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Venezuela. To date, all cooperation has centered around the provision of Chinese launch services, satellite components and platforms, mostly financed by loans secured through the China Development Bank. Such capabilities have enabled LAC countries to monitor their natural resource and agricultural activity – including for export to China. It has also allowed them to improve telecommunications and collect geospatial data that could assist with border surveillance and other matters of national security.
For Beijing, bilateral space cooperation with LAC states forms part of its Space Information Corridor, a component of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) intended to enhance space-related cooperation and data sharing among BRI members through the deployment of satellites, ground stations, data centers, other ground application systems and the training of foreign space personnel. LAC countries with bilateral space relations with China are nodes in Beijing’s wider space network, which is being forged to dilute and ultimately supplant its U.S.-led counterpart.
Regional initiatives
China’s Global Security Initiative (GSI) explicitly declares its support for the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in “playing an active role in upholding regional peace and security.” Since 2011, Beijing has demonstrated its preference for working with the LAC region through CELAC, even though the bloc lacks the institutional mechanisms to address matters of either security or space. China’s support for CELAC comes at the expense of the Organization of American States (OAS), the region’s traditional architecture for multilateral engagement. While the U.S. is a member of the OAS, it is not a member of CELAC.
China deliberately seeks to forge new structures for cooperation rather than work within existing ones. This also extends to space. The 2022-2024 China-CELAC Joint Action Plan proposes the establishment of a China-CELAC Space Cooperation Forum through which members would collaborate on satellite technology, remote sensing, and research. The plan also notes Beijing’s aim to leverage the BRI to extend its Beidou satellite system throughout the region as a way to rival the U.S.- operated Global Positioning System.
In 2021, Mexico and Argentina spearheaded the establishment of the Latin American and Caribbean Space Agency (ALCE), headquartered in Mexico. Currently comprising 23 member states (Brazil has not joined), the ALCE is designed to foster regional collaboration on space-based activities, including the development of the LAC region’s own satellite technology. With an initial budget of $100 million, however, it remains to be seen what the initiative will be able to accomplish.
China has openly expressed support for the ALCE. Although to date no formal agreements have been brokered, Beijing’s financial and technological backing of the agency cannot be discounted. Among ALCE member states are those with which Beijing already boasts bilateral space relations, as well as those disposed to closer ties with it. Engagement through the ALCE would provide China with an additional vehicle to expand its space footprint in Latin America, as well as to induce LAC country participation in its own multilateral space initiatives.
LAC states in China’s multilateral space initiatives
In recent years, Beijing has embarked on the creation of new formal and informal multilateral initiatives designed to rival the policy tasks of existing ones. Of these, several center around space. They have become increasingly important to CCP policy – including in its dealings with LAC states. The China-CELAC joint plan, for example, invites CELAC states to “join the International Lunar Research Station”(ILRS) being developed with Russia. In April, Venezuela expressed interest in doing so “as soon as possible.”
Since the China National Space Administration released its initial road map for the ILRS in 2021, it has signed cooperation agreements or letters of intent with Argentina and Brazil, as well as the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization to which Peru belongs. Brazil’s interest in the ILRS is noteworthy, as it could complicate its participation in the U.S.-led Artemis Accords, to which Mexico and Colombia are also signatories. Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has openly voiced his intention to foster closer ties with Beijing to “balance world geopolitics.”
In April, Beijing announced the establishment of the International Lunar Research Station Cooperation Organization (ILRSCO). Unlike the Artemis Accords, which is a nonbinding multilateral agreement, the ILRSCO is to be forged as a formal organization with leadership and bureaucracy, both likely to come from China. Through agreements on principles and subsequent planning led by Beijing, the ILRSCO will pursue lunar missions in coordination with member states. Its creation risks leading to a two-system lunar governance.
More on space geopolitics
For LAC countries, participation in the ILRSCO and other Chinese-led space initiatives might provide access to resources and space-based navigation, positioning and communication infrastructures. For those that share Beijing’s objective of a multilateral world order, it has the added benefit of normalizing and extending Chinese global governance.
This aim underpinned the 2005 founding of the Beijing-based Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (APSCO). Peru is a founding member and Mexico is an observer state. “Past experience shows that during the Cold War years, space policies of superpowers … rested … on rivalry, claiming hegemony in space,” reads APSCO’s founding statement. Article 6 of its convention outlines cooperation in space technology, earth observation, space law, research, and a “central data bank.” Peru is party to several of these activities. It hosts a space observation site for monitoring debris in low-earth orbit; with China, Turkey, and Pakistan it is party to the Joint Small Multi-Mission Satellites Constellation Program; and it has participated in training around APSCO’s data-sharing service platform.
Peruvian involvement in APSCO, like that of other LAC states in Chinese multilateral space initiatives, indicates an evolving space geography beyond the LAC region but one in which its members are increasingly invested beyond the more obvious bilateral engagements. Encouraged by Beijing, LAC member states are becoming increasingly active players in space geopolitics.
Scenarios
The trajectory of Sino-LAC space cooperation appears poised to intensify both through bilateral and multilateral channels, especially among the region’s left-leaning governments. LAC regional space initiatives are likely to remain too embryonic to be credible actors.
Beijing will continue to aggressively pursue this deepening of space relations as it seeks strategic global partners to advance its agenda. For LAC countries, such ties could eventually come at the expense of space cooperation with the U.S. The adoption of the Beidou system, ground stations such as Espacio Lejano, and data-sharing agreements with Beijing are increasingly likely to be perceived as national security threats by the U.S. While for some LAC countries such an ostensible shift away from the U.S. would be welcome, for others it would prompt technological and diplomatic challenges.
In this context, Brazil under President Lula is a country to watch. Brazil and the U.S. have in place, among other initiatives, a Space Situational Awareness sharing agreement that facilitates information exchange on space objects. Should Brazil agree to the ILRSCO, for instance, this and other U.S. space programming could be curtailed. For Brazil and moderating LAC states, then, space policy is becoming a balancing act between established and emergent actors. The financial and technology advantages associated with space cooperation with China make it unlikely that it would be abandoned.
As China deepens space cooperation in the LAC region, it becomes an ever-more capable and multidimensional space actor with the ability to shape space norms. Its engagement in the region also buoys member countries as credible space actors. This will contribute to increasingly multipolar, labyrinthine, and for the West, adversarial space geopolitics. | Space Technology |
The growing momentum behind Earth Observation technology is tipping over into the mainstream, with enormous opportunities for both upstream and downstream businesses.
A year ago, EY was introducing Space Tech to clients as a little-known new concept. By the end of 2022 a real and vibrant industry emerged, with 2023 set to see platforms launched to host applications that solve business problems ranging from asset management to ESG regulatory compliance.
Satellites in orbit are already essential to a range of operations on Earth. Our modern financial system relies on tracking and time-stamping transactions via the global positioning satellite (GPS) system. Next time you tap a credit card for that morning caffeine hit, you can thank this long-running application of Space Tech.
Australia is perfectly positioned in 2023 to take advantage of the Space Tech boom. South Australia has become Mission Control for our Space sector, home to the Australian Space Agency and numerous startups. Up north, Equatorial Launch Australia successfully launched three rockers in 15 days for NASA from the Arnhem Space Centre mid last year. As a nation, Australia’s highly educated workforce, stable political environment and wide open southern skies are all in our favour.
There’s also justifiable excitement around Australia’s scientific contributions to NASA’s Moon to Mars mission and the National Space Mission for Earth Observation’s program to design, build and operate four satellites to give us sovereign capability over that precious data.
Earth Observation (EO) datasets are already being deployed to help make life on Earth better. The many applications include tracking emissions, identifying habitat loss, assessing the impact of natural disasters, flagging threats and mitigation strategies around water and vegetation anomalies, and improving safety and efficiency by monitoring remote critical infrastructure.
In 2022, EY launched a Space Tech Lab and formed a strategic alliance with Swinburne University of Technology. An in-house team of data scientists and astrophysicists partner with those from the Swinburne Space Technology and Industry Institute to understand the potential of Space Tech to help solve some of our clients’ biggest challenges.
When EO data is paired with artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, scalable solutions are unlocked for cross sector needs. The EY Space Tech Lab will launch a platform in Q1 2023 for applications designed to improve business outcomes using these technologies to help boost productivity, efficiency, accuracy, and predictability across multiple sectors: power and water, agriculture, resources and emergency response.
EY data scientists and engineers have worked closely with clients on the pilot projects to make EY Space for Earth solutions scalable across sectors, rather than a bespoke product for a select few. Its immediate value and long-term impact will come from it being widely applicable.
The imperative for 2023 is for those providing Space for Earth technologies to do a better job of communicating the opportunities for mainstream corporate and public sector operations. Those who move beyond demonstration projects to reality will make the biggest difference.
Further forward there are innovations looking for proof-of-concept funding that resemble science fiction now but have potential to be mainstream. These include harvesting solar power from Space, mining on the moon, and manufacturing precision instruments in low-Earth orbit.
Earth Observation applications are already well proven, trusted and surprisingly simple to start deploying to help our businesses and our lives. If 2022 was the year Space Tech entered the mainstream business orbit with pilot programs, 2023 looks like the year it will rocket into purpose as sectors, governments, and citizens around the world learn to truly take advantage of it to improve conditions on Earth.
Anthony Jones is Space Tech leader and Oceania Assurance Innovation leader at EY. | Space Technology |
India launches cut-price mission to land on Moon
India launched a rocket on Friday carrying an unmanned spacecraft to land on the Moon, its second attempt to do so as its cut-price space program seeks to reach new heights.
The heavyweight LVM3-M4 rocket lifted off from Sriharikota in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh carrying the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, as thousands of enthusiasts clapped and cheered.
"Chandrayaan-3... has begun its journey to the Moon. Health of the spacecraft is normal," the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said on Twitter.
The world's most populous nation has a comparatively low-budget aerospace program that is rapidly closing in on the milestones set by global space powers.
Only Russia, the United States and China have previously achieved a controlled landing on the lunar surface.
India's last attempt to do so ended in failure four years ago, when ground control lost contact moments before landing.
"Chandrayaan-3 scripts a new chapter in India's space odyssey," Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted from France, where he was the guest of honor at the Bastille Day parade in Paris.
"It soars high, elevating the dreams and ambitions of every Indian."
If the rest of the current mission goes to plan, the Chandrayaan-3, which means "Mooncraft" in Sanskrit, will safely touch down near the moon's little-explored south pole between August 23 and 24.
Developed by ISRO, Chandrayaan-3 includes a lander module named Vikram, which means "valor" in Sanskrit, and a rover named Pragyan, the Sanskrit word for wisdom.
The mission comes with a price tag of $74.6 million—far smaller than those of other countries', and a testament to India's frugal space engineering.
Experts say India can keep costs low by copying and adapting existing space technology, and thanks to an abundance of highly skilled engineers who earn a fraction of their foreign counterparts' wages.
'A moment of glory'
The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft will take much longer to reach the Moon than the manned Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, which arrived in a matter of days.
The Indian rocket used is much less powerful than the United States' Saturn V and instead the probe will orbit the earth five or six times elliptically to gain speed, before being sent on a month-long lunar trajectory.
If the landing is successful the rover will roll off Vikram and explore the nearby lunar area, gathering images to be sent back to Earth for analysis.
The rover has a mission life of one lunar day or 14 Earth days.
"It is indeed a moment of glory for India. Thank you team ISRO for making India proud," Jitendra Singh, the junior minister for science and technology, told reporters after the launch.
ISRO chief S. Somanath has said his engineers carefully studied data from the last failed mission and tried their best to fix the glitches.
India's space program has grown considerably in size and momentum since it first sent a probe to orbit the moon in 2008.
In 2014, it became the first Asian nation to put a satellite into orbit around Mars, and three years later, the ISRO launched 104 satellites in a single mission.
The ISRO's Gaganyaan ("Skycraft") program is slated to launch a three-day manned mission into Earth's orbit by next year.
India is also working to boost its two percent share of the global commercial space market by sending private payloads into orbit for a fraction of the cost of competitors.
© 2023 AFP | Space Technology |
One of the UK's biggest centres for space technology has secured funding to boost the nation's space industry.
Space Park Leicester will receive £284,000 from the UK Space Agency (UKSA) to fund a cluster development manager for three years.
The person appointed will work with local government and businesses to coordinate space activity and encourage collaboration and investment.
These awards include a grant of £500,000 to the Midland Aerospace Alliance's Pivot into Space R&D programme, which provides support to space businesses across the Midlands.
Professor Martin Barstow, director of strategic partnerships at the facility, said: "In collaboration with the Midlands Aerospace Alliance, the funding will allow us to coordinate the growing cluster activities in the East and West Midlands and bring them together under a single umbrella."
The astrophysicist and space scientist added: "Space Park Leicester has already established a strong cluster in the East of the region and we know there is growing activity in the West.
"Bringing these activities together will increase the strength of the space economy in the region as a whole."
Dr Paul Bate, chief executive of UKSA, said: "Establishing a network of space clusters and high impact projects will accelerate the development of the thriving space ecosystem the UK needs to realise the full economic potential of space across the UK.
"We've been working with the regions to understand their strengths and the needs of their local space economies so that we can back these clusters of excellence to collaborate, grow and thrive." | Space Technology |
An Indian spacecraft blazed its way to the far side of the moon Friday in a follow-up mission to its failed effort nearly four years ago to land a rover softly on the lunar surface, the country's space agency said. From a report: Chandrayaan-3, the word for "moon craft" in Sanskrit, took off from a launch pad in Sriharikota in southern India with an orbiter, a lander and a rover, in a demonstration of India's emerging space technology. The spacecraft is set to embark on a journey lasting slightly over a month before landing on the moon's surface later in August. Applause and cheers swept through mission control at Satish Dhawan Space Center, where the Indian Space Research Organization's engineers and scientists celebrated as they monitored the launch of the spacecraft. Thousands of Indians cheered outside the mission control center and waved the national flag as they watched the spacecraft rise into the sky.
"Congratulations India. Chandrayaan-3 has started its journey towards the moon," ISRO Director Sreedhara Panicker Somanath said shortly after the launch. A successful landing would make India the fourth country -- after the United States, the Soviet Union, and China -- to achieve the feat. The six-wheeled lander and rover module of Chandrayaan-3 is configured with payloads that would provide data to the scientific community on the properties of lunar soil and rocks, including chemical and elemental compositions, said Dr. Jitendra Singh, junior minister for Science and Technology. India's previous attempt to land a robotic spacecraft near the moon's little-explored south pole ended in failure in 2019. It entered the lunar orbit but lost touch with its lander that crashed while making its final descent to deploy a rover to search for signs of water.
"Congratulations India. Chandrayaan-3 has started its journey towards the moon," ISRO Director Sreedhara Panicker Somanath said shortly after the launch. A successful landing would make India the fourth country -- after the United States, the Soviet Union, and China -- to achieve the feat. The six-wheeled lander and rover module of Chandrayaan-3 is configured with payloads that would provide data to the scientific community on the properties of lunar soil and rocks, including chemical and elemental compositions, said Dr. Jitendra Singh, junior minister for Science and Technology. India's previous attempt to land a robotic spacecraft near the moon's little-explored south pole ended in failure in 2019. It entered the lunar orbit but lost touch with its lander that crashed while making its final descent to deploy a rover to search for signs of water. | Space Technology |
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — As much as things change, they stay the same. Space exploration pushes the bounds of technology and innovation. Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt says it always has, and when he looks at the young researchers and engineers working on the Artemis program, he sees their Apollo predecessors. It’s time to return to the moon. “It’s really amazing to me how fast 50 years has gone, and how much has happened in those years,” Schmitt said. Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt visited the U.S. Space and Rocket Center on Wednesday, Dec. 7, the 50th launch anniversary of Apollo 17. He shared memories of his mission and provided insight into NASA’s journey back to the lunar surface. “Going out to the launch pad, in order to move the elevator up into the capsule you have above you, that was an interesting experience,” Schmitt said. “There was no one else out there, except for the white room crew that was going to help us strap into the command module.” The Apollo 17 crew faced a unique navigational challenge: landing the lunar module in the Taurus-Littrow Valley, a hole deeper than the Grand Canyon. “It was of course young people who figured out and met how to do that,” Schmitt said. Schmitt is a professional geologist, the only one to ever step foot on the moon. He was a scientist chosen by NASA to become an astronaut after assisting the crew of Apollo 11 from the ground as the Mission Scientist. Schmitt’s lunar mission placed a heavy emphasis on scientific experiments and research. According to the Lunar and Planetary Institute, the Apollo 17 crew collected more than 700 lunar rock and soil samples. “Samples that were brought back by the Apollo missions continue to be the gift that keeps on giving,” Schmitt said. “There are thousands of researchers, several generations through that time that have benefited through their careers by being able to work on those samples.” As time has passed, Schmitt said technology has improved, providing the opportunity in front of us today, but with that opportunity comes a modern obstacle. The private sector is working to push space technology forward, and NASA has to work to integrate those advancements with Artemis. “I am very confident that the young people working on that today will meet that challenge,” Schmitt said. According to Schmitt, 26 was the average age of the NASA employees who made Apollo 17 a possibility. He said it’s students and young adults, many of who learned in the Rocket City, who are pushing research and development forward today. “Space Camp starts to germinate within them, I think, the enthusiasm and interest, not only in space, but also doing great things with their lives,” Schmitt said. “Whether they go in and do space or not is not so important as stimulating in them the desire to do great things.” NASA has plans to send an Artemis Mission to the south pole of the moon, and Schmitt said the landing will pose different challenges from the spot in which he and his crew landed. “Many things are going to be different,” Schmitt said. “I’ve actually recommended some baby steps before we try to challenge the south pole.” He said he has concerns about the lighting conditions. They are often poor and liable to change quickly. Schmitt cautions restraint, but the Artemis teams are pushing forward. “Every event that it takes to successfully land on the moon represents something that has to go successfully,” Schmitt said. “Apollo learned that. And it’s time, I think, for another generation not only to learn it but to take it on as their challenge.” The Orion Spacecraft is scheduled to return to Earth on Sunday. Splashdown in the Pacific Ocean is set to occur at 10:43 a.m. CST, completing Artemis Phase I. The primary objective of the mission has been to ensure a crew could safely reenter Earth’s atmosphere in the module, descent, splashdown, and be recovered. Artemis I is the first of a series of missions to bring mankind back to the moon and open the door to future Mars exploration. | Space Technology |
NASA awards $150 million to prototype tech for humans on the Moon, and above it
Inflatable heat shields, robot cable layers, and a furnace to burn lunar dust for minerals and oxygen
NASA is distributing $150 million between 11 US organizations developing technology and infrastructure supporting long-term human exploration on the Moon for its Artemis missions and beyond.
Artemis is the space agency's most ambitious programme to date, marking the first return of astronauts to the Moon since the historic Apollo missions ended in 1972. NASA wants to go further than "one small step" with Artemis and has set itself a goal of establishing a permanent human presence on the satellite.
NASA needs to build a self-sustaining environment to help humans survive, work, and communicate with Earth hundreds of thousands of kilometers away. The 11 entities that have received funding as part of the space agency's "Tipping Point" opportunity are:
- Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh, $34.6 million – LunaGrid-Lite: Demonstration of tethered, scalable lunar power transmission;
- Big Metal Additive of Denver, $5.4 million – Improving cost and availability of space habitat structures with additive manufacturing;
- Blue Origin of Kent, Washington, $34.7 million – In-situ resource utilization-based power on the Moon;
- Freedom Photonics of Santa Barbara, California, $1.6 million – Highly efficient Watt-class direct diode lidar for remote sensing;
- Lockheed Martin of Littleton, Colorado, $9.1 million – Joining demonstrations in space;
- Redwire of Jacksonville, Florida, $12.9 million – Infrastructure manufacturing with lunar regolith;
- Protoinnovations of Pittsburgh, $6.2 million – The Mobility Coordinator: An onboard commercial software architecture for sustainable, safe, efficient, and effective lunar surface mobility operations;
- Psionic of Hampton, Virginia, $3.2 million – Validating no-light lunar landing technology that reduces risk, size, weight, power, and cost;
- United Launch Alliance of Centennial, Colorado, $25 million – Vulcan engine reuse scale hypersonic inflatable aerodynamic decelerator technology demonstration;
- Varda Space Industries of El Segundo, California, $1.9 million – Conformal phenolic impregnated carbon ablator tech transfer and commercial production;
- Zeno Power Systems of Washington, $15 million – Universal americium-241 radioisotope power supply for Artemis.
- India's space agency set to launch lunar lander, rover
- Scientists think they may have cracked life support for Martian occupation
- First attempt by Japan's ispace biz to land on Moon ends in awkward silence
- China joins US and Europe in considering 3D-printed Moon bases
The technologies split with five recipients focused on building vital infrastructure for power, transportation, and habitats on the Moon, and six developing technologies for exploring space and monitoring the Earth.
For example, Blue Origin said it aims to provide a demonstration of its molten regolith electrolysis system in 2026. The idea is to process the abundant lunar regolith into iron, silicon, and aluminum for solar cells, and the process also produces oxygen as an added bonus.
"Harnessing the vast resources in space to benefit Earth is part of our mission, and we're inspired and humbled to receive this investment from NASA to advance our innovation," said Pat Remias, vice president, Capabilities Directorate of Space Systems Development at the Bezos-backed space biz, in a statement. "First we return humans to the Moon, then we start to 'live off the land.'"
Also included in such schemes is Astrobotic Technology, which plans to send its CubeRover to lay down a high-voltage power line stretching one kilometer.
Meanwhile, the other five groups developing capabilities to support space exploration are focused on different areas like remote sensing, measurement, and rocketry.
For example, United Launch Alliance has been working on inflatable heat shield technology to help protect rocket components so they can be reused for future flights. It has been awarded $25 million. Zeno Power Systems will get $15 million to build a battery powered by americium-241, a radioactive isotope, for future space missions.
"Our partnerships with industry could be a cornerstone of humanity's return to the Moon under Artemis," said Dr Prasun Desai, acting associate administrator for Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
"By creating new opportunities for streamlined awards, we hope to push crucial technologies over the finish line so they can be used in future missions. These innovative partnerships will help advance capabilities that will enable sustainable exploration on the Moon."
NASA said it will fund a total of $150 million across its 11 partnerships. Each partner, however, is expected to invest at least 10 to 25 percent of the contract into its own project – depending on the size of its business.
"Partnering with the commercial space industry lets us at NASA harness the strength of American innovation and ingenuity," NASA administrator Bill Nelson added. "The technologies that NASA is investing in today have the potential to be the foundation of future exploration." ® | Space Technology |
NASA’s CAPSTONE – short for Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment – is in good health following a communications issue that began in late January, and the mission team is preparing for upcoming technology demonstration tests.
Beginning Jan. 26, CAPSTONE was unable to receive commands from ground operators. The spacecraft remained overall healthy and on-course throughout the issue, sending telemetry data back to Earth. On Feb. 6, an automatic command-loss timer rebooted CAPSTONE, clearing the issue and restoring two-way communication between CAPSTONE and the ground.
The CAPSTONE team, led by Advanced Space, is now preparing for continued testing of the spacecraft’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System, or CAPS, and other technology demonstrations.
CAPS is a navigation technology developed by Advanced Space that uses data between two or more spacecraft to pinpoint a satellite’s location in space. The test will involve two spacecraft: CAPSTONE and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Following interface testing with LRO’s ground systems, the CAPSTONE team attempted to gather crosslink measurements in mid-January. During this test, LRO received a signal from CAPSTONE, but CAPSTONE did not collect crosslink ranging measurements from the returned signal. These results will help improve additional CAPS tests over the coming weeks.
The team is also preparing for the mission’s other technology demonstrations, including a new CAPS data type that will use one-way uplink measurements enabled by the spacecraft’s Chip Scale Atomic Clock.
Since arriving to orbit on Nov. 13, CAPSTONE has completed more than 12 orbits in its near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) – the same orbit for Gateway – surpassing one of the mission’s objectives to achieve at least six orbits. The mission team has performed two orbit maintenance maneuvers in this time. These maneuvers were originally scheduled to happen once per orbit, but the mission team was able to reduce the frequency while maintaining the correct orbit. This reduces risk and complexity for the mission and informs plans for future spacecraft flying in this orbit, like Gateway.
CAPSTONE is owned by Advanced Space and the spacecraft was designed and built by Terran Orbital. Operations are performed jointly by teams at Advanced Space and Terran Orbital. The mission is funded by the Small Spacecraft Technology Program in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. | Space Technology |
The realm of space technology is in a perpetual state of expansion. Our collective endeavour to build Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) models suitable for space applications is steadily gaining momentum, driven by the potential such models have to transform space research. Key among their capabilities is the efficient processing of vast volumes of data collected by satellites, covering topics such as aerial mapping, weather prediction, and deforestation. Rapid events like natural disasters, however, have remained a challenge due to the limitations of current satellite data processing techniques.
A recent breakthrough has seen researchers successfully train ML models in space for the first time, an approach that bypasses the need for Earth-based training. These models, trained using a method called few-shot or active learning, focus on identifying the most critical features necessary for training. This process effectively reduces data dimensions, leading to a significant increase in the speed and effectiveness of the model. As a component of the broader Computer Vision model category, this innovative model zeroes in on detecting the presence of cloud cover, thereby forming a vital part of a more complex classification model.
This model operates in two primary stages. The initial stage involves capturing images and training on Earth, while the secondary stage, which takes place on the satellite, applies a binary classification technique to determine cloud cover presence. Although such training typically requires numerous iterations, or epochs, our compact model completed the process in an astounding one and a half seconds. The model’s flexibility, reflected in its ability to automatically adapt to various data forms, is another noteworthy feature.
Despite these promising advancements, the pursuit of further development continues, as researchers aim to create models capable of managing complex datasets, including hyperspectral satellite images. The model’s performance metrics, such as recall, precision, and F1 score, are impressively high, underlining its potential for broader application.
As the potential of AI in space research becomes increasingly evident, opportunities are opening up not just for near-Earth studies, but also for deep space exploration. Researchers are ready to explore the unknown, armed with the power of AI, signifying a pivotal step towards our understanding of the universe.
Check out the Paper. All Credit For This Research Goes To the Researchers on This Project. | Space Technology |
Oct 26 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday the first segment of Russia's new orbital station, which Moscow sees as the next logical development in space exploration after the International Space Station (ISS), should be put into operation by 2027.
In a meeting with space industry officials, Putin also vowed to proceed with Russia's lunar programme despite the failure in August of its first moonshot in 47 years, Russian news agencies reported.
Putin said Moscow's decision to extend to 2028 its participation in the ISS, now 25 years old, was a temporary measure.
"As the resources of the International Space Station run out, we need not just one segment, but the entire station to be brought into service," Putin was quoted as saying of the new Russian orbital station.
"And in 2027, The first segment should be place in orbit."
He said the development of the station had to proceed "all in good time" or the Russian programme risked falling behind in terms of the development of manned space flight.
The new station, he said, had to "consider all advanced achievements of science and technology and have the potential to take on the tasks of the future".
Yuri Borisov, head of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, endorsed Putin's position as a means of maintaining the country's capabilities in manned space flight.
"The ISS is getting old and will come to an end sometime around 2030," Russian agencies quoted him as telling reporters.
"If we don't start large-scale work on creating a Russian orbital station in 2024 it is quite likely that we will lose our capability because of the time gap. What I mean is the ISS will no longer be there and the Russian station won't be ready." In his remarks, Putin also said he had been informed fully about the technical mishaps that led to the crash landing of the Luna-25 craft in August on the moon's south pole.
"We will of course be working on this. The lunar programme will continue. There are no plans to close it," Putin said.
"Mistakes are mistakes. It is a shame for all of us. This is space exploration and everyone understands that. It is experience that we can use in the future."
Borisov said the next moon launch might be moved forward to 2026 from 2027 as now planned.
Reporting by Ron Popeski; Editing by Sonali Paul
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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On Friday morning, NASA and SpaceX successfully launched a mission that almost didn't happen. The Psyche spacecraft is now en route to an asteroid of the same name, but missteps at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) almost scuttled the mission last year. JPL got it back on track, and now the probe is on its way to study one of the most interesting known asteroids in the solar system.
Psyche left Earth behind at 10:19 a.m. EDT Friday by way of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. This vehicle, composed of three modified Falcon 9 core stages, is the most powerful rocket in SpaceX's current fleet. Shortly after sending Psyche on its way, the side boosters came down and successfully landed. The center stage was expended and not recovered, which is standard for Falcon Heavy flights.
NASA says that the probe is safely in orbit and has established two-way communication via the Deep Space Network complex in Canberra, Australia. Psyche has downshifted to safe mode as it awaits commands from mission controllers on the ground, but all systems are working as intended.
If the rest of the mission goes as smoothly as the launch, Psyche will arrive at 16 Psyche in August 2029. This massive 140-mile (220-kilometer) asteroid is composed almost entirely of metal, which has led some to speculate that it could be the exposed core of a failed protoplanet. Psyche by itself accounts for about 1% of the total mass of the main asteroid belt. The chance to study this object up close, even if it's not a planetary core, is enticing. "I am excited to see the treasure trove of science Psyche will unlock as NASA’s first mission to a metal world," says Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate.
Psyche will travel to the asteroid belt with solar electric propulsion, also known as a Hall-effect thruster. This engine operates at up to 4.5 kW to ionize xenon atoms and propel them out of a nozzle to produce thrust. This extremely efficient system allows Psyche to reach its destination 2.2 billion miles (3.6 billion kilometers) away with just 922 kg of fuel.
During its journey to the asteroid belt, Psyche will also help NASA test a new laser communication system. The first test will take place in about three weeks when Psyche is on the other side of the moon. This will be NASA's first test of high-data-rate laser communication at such great distances. However, this is just a demo technology—all Psyche mission data will arrive at Earth via the Deep Space Network. "Launching with Psyche is an ideal platform to demonstrate NASA’s optical communications goal to get high-bandwidth data into deep space," says Prasun Desai of the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) at NASA.
Psyche is the 14th mission in NASA's Discovery Program, which has included notable spacecraft like the Kepler Space Telescope and the Mars InSight lander. The program is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. | Space Technology |
India's private space sector skyrockets
When Indian entrepreneur Awais Ahmed founded his satellite startup in Bangalore in 2019, his country was still a year away from opening the space industry to the private sector.
"When we started, there was absolutely no support, no momentum," said Ahmed, who was 21 when he founded Pixxel, a company deploying a constellation of Earth imaging satellites.
Since then, the private space sector has taken off in India, joining a rapidly growing global market.
There are now 190 Indian space start-ups, twice as many as a year earlier, with private investments jumping by 77 percent between 2021 and 2022, according to Deloitte consultancy.
"A lot of Indian investors were not willing to look at space technology, because it was too much of a risk earlier," Ahmed said in an interview with AFP.
"Now you can see more and more companies raising more investment in India, and more and more companies have started coming up now," he added.
Pixxel makes hyperspectral imaging satellites—technology that captures a wide spectrum of light to provide details that are invisible to ordinary cameras.
The company says it is on a mission to build "a health monitor for the planet": it can track climate risks such as floods, wildfires or methane leaks.
Pixxel had initially sought to use rockets from the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
"I remember having a conversation with with someone in ISRO. We were trying to book a launch and they said, 'Look, we don't even have a procedure to launch an Indian satellite. But if you were a foreign company, then basically there's a process', which didn't make sense when we started," Ahmed said.
Pixxel ended up having to hire US rocket firm SpaceX to launch its first two satellites.
Pixxel has raised $71 million from investors, including $36 million from Google, which will allow the company to launch six more satellites next year.
The start-up has also won a contract with a US spy agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, to provide hyperspectral images.
Modest budget
Prior to the 2020 opening up of the sector, "all Indian space activity was under the supervision of the ISRO space agency, which managed absolutely everything," said Isabelle Sourbes-Verger, an Indian space sector expert at France's National Scientific Research Centre.
The ISRO budget remains relatively modest at $1.9 billion in 2022, six times smaller than the Chinese space program.
Despite its limited resources, India's space program has made huge strides, culminating with the landing of a rover on the Moon's unexplored south pole in August.
The country also launched a probe towards the Sun at the start of this month and is preparing a three-day crewed mission into Earth's orbit next year.
Before the reform, private companies could only act as suppliers for the agency.
"It was no longer tenable because there is too much to do," Sourbes-Verger said.
India deepened its reform of the sector in April, unveiling a new space policy that limits the ISRO's work to research and development while promoting "greater private sector participation in the entire value chain of the Space Economy".
India says it accounts for two percent of the $386 billion global space economy, a share it hopes to increase to nine percent by 2030. The market is expected to grow to $1 trillion by 2040.
'Some limits'
Indian companies have an edge when it comes to costs as the country boasts a large number of highly qualified engineers with lower salaries than their counterparts abroad.
Other Indian start-ups that have emerged in recent years include Skyroot Aerospace, the first Indian company to launch a private rocket.
Dhruva Space is developing small satellites while Bellatrix Aerospace specializes in propulsion systems for satellites.
"Will this really create a dynamic and profitable industrial fabric? Probably, but undoubtedly with some limits," Sourbes-Verger said.
India is not done reforming the sector. Another law is expected to pass in the coming weeks to open the industry to foreign investments.
© 2023 AFP | Space Technology |
China’s Long March 5B rocket heading to the launch pad on Tuesday. Screenshot: CCTV/CNSAChina rolled out its Long March 5B rocket on Tuesday in anticipation of its upcoming liftoff to place the third and final piece of the Tiangong space station in orbit. It’s all very exciting, but an out-of-control core module will likely result, as was the case on three previous occasions. The heavy-lift rocket was transported to the pad on Tuesday, carrying a 23-ton lab module named Mengtian (which translates to “dreaming of heavens”). It took about three hours for the Long March 5B to make the nearly 2 mile (3 kilometer) journey at the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site, according to China National Space Administration (CNSA).At the pad, the rocket will undergo final checks and fueling in preparation for its launch. The space agency has not confirmed the exact date for launch, but previous statements suggest the rocket will take off on Monday, October 31, according to Space.com. Mengtian will join its sister modules Wentian and Tianhe to form the T-shaped structure of China’s three-module space station named Tiangong (meaning “heavenly place”). China’s space agency will use the Mengtian lab to conduct various microgravity experiments related to fluid physics, combustion science, and space technology, according to China’s state-run Xinhua. Unlike Tianhe, Mengtian does not include living quarters for astronauts. Tiangong is China’s answer to the International Space Station and is scheduled to be fully constructed by the end of the year. The first module of the space station, Tianhe, launched to orbit in April 2021, while Wentian followed more than a year later in July 2022. G/O Media may get a commissionA gift for literally everybody.Gifts under $20, $10, and even $5. It’s Wish, the catch-all shop for all of the above. In June, China sent a crew of three astronauts to the space station where they’ve spent the past several months overseeing the docking of the two modules, in addition to setting them up and running tests. The crew is expected to return to Earth in December, after which point the Shenzhou-15 crew will take over. Similar to previous launches of China’s Long March 5B , the core stage is expected to perform an uncontrolled reentry through Earth’s atmosphere upon its return. Astronomer Jonathan McDowell from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics is “95% certain we will be in exactly the same situation again,” he told Gizmodo in an email. The Long March 5B is notorious for jeopardizing populated areas as it falls back to Earth in a haphazard state. Previous incidents have taken place in 2020 and 2021 in which debris from the 100-foot-long (30-meter) core stage crashed along the western coast of Africa and the Indian Ocean. This past August, debris from the Long March 5B fell across regions in northern Borneo. Mercifully, no one has been hurt, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. China is making huge inroads in space, but its space agency continues to be reckless when it comes to its rockets. Rockets are often built with mechanisms to control their reentry to isolated areas, or slow them down as they make their way back to Earth. If China plans on sending more of its heavy-lift rockets to orbit, it needs to start better equipping them for the ride back.More: Suspected Debris From Chinese Rocket Falls Onto Three Indian Villages | Space Technology |
Transitioning to clean energy is imperative — and Europe is committed to achieving net zero emissions by the year 2050. But relying on existing renewable energy sources alone won’t do the trick. Intermittency of supply, pressures on land use, scalability, and toxic waste limit how quickly and effectively those solutions can be rolled out.
But there’s hope. The European Space Agency (ESA) has been exploring a new technological solution that could overcome all these challenges: solar power delivered wirelessly from space to Earth — also known as space-based solar power (SBSP).
Although this might seem like science-fiction, the concept is more achievable than it sounds. The sun is continuously available, inexhaustible, and sustainable. Harnessing its power from above the Earth would be more efficient compared to weather-dependent terrestrial solar power solutions. In fact, sunlight is on average more than ten times as intense at the top of the atmosphere as it is down at the surface of the Earth.
The question is how do we manage this?
What’s ESA’s vision for SBSP?
According to the agency, Europe can use its expertise in building and launching communications satellites to develop and scale-up to solar power equivalents.
Once completed, these satellites will collect the full power of the sun’s energy 24 hours a day, seven days a week and beam it down wirelessly to Earth to receiver stations. These will then convert it into electricity and feed it to the grid.
Solar satellites will beam the sun’s energy down to Earth. Credit: ESA
But this is no simple undertaking and for this reason ESA has created Solaris, a preparatory program that will help Europe make a final decision in 2025 on the potential full development of space-based solar power.
In collaboration with European industry, the program focuses on studies and technological developments. The aim is to mature the technical feasibility and evaluate advantages, implementation options, business opportunities, and risks of SBSP as a contributor to the decarbonization of earthbound energy.
Challenges, benefits, and viability
According to ESA, space-based solar power will require novel technology developments, but it is overall based on existing technological principles and known physics.
The large size of the structures to be sent to space for the completion of solar satellites — along with the high number of launches this would require — are also no longer a prohibitive factor. The substantial reduction in both launch and space hardware development costs in the past decade make such construction economically feasible, especially as the end-result would be a continuously available source of clean energy.
To put the potential benefit into perspective, a single solar power satellite of the planned scale would generate around 2GW of power. That’s equivalent to a conventional nuclear power station, something able to power more than one million homes. In comparison, it would take more than six million solar panels on the Earth’s surface to generate the same amount of energy.
Overview of the envisioned SBSP system. Credit: ESA
Seeking to assess the feasibility and potential of space-based solar power, the ESA commissioned in early 2022 two independent cost vs. benefits studies from Frazer-Nash in the UK and Roland Berger in Germany.
Taking into consideration future market demands and technological projections, these studies conclude that, when deployed at scale, space-based solar power would provide substantial environmental, economic, and strategic benefits for Europe.
Specifically, by 2040, SBSP could contribute towards sustainable and competitively-priced electricity for European homes and businesses in two different ways.
First off, being a basedload source of power, SBSP can be compared to equivalent fossil-fuel sources (nuclear, carbon, and gas with carbon capture technology), which it could eventually replace, minimizing their environmental footprint.
Secondly, it could complement existing renewables (such as solar PV and wind), which even if they expand to the level required for the Net Zero by 2025 scenario, will still need partial support from baseload power. Adding space-based solar power to the renewable energy mix would not only help to provide stability and reliability to the grid, but also reduce the need for large-scale storage solutions.
Earth-based vs. space-based solar power. Credit: ESA
Still, the studies demonstrate that a significant number of challenging technological developments are needed to increase the feasibility of collecting gigawatts of power in space, and delivering it efficiently and safely back to Earth.
What are the technologies being developed?
As part of the Solaris program, ESA has called the European tech industry to test the feasibility of the various technological developments needed for the implementation of space-based solar power.
Given that SBSP is a vastly interdisciplinary field, there’s a variety of focus points, ranging from photovoltaic array and solar cell improvements, to advanced propulsion systems.
To find out more, we spoke with two companies participating in the project: Belgium-based Space Applications Services and Switzerland-based Astrostrom.
Robotic assembly of hardware
Belgium’s Space Applications Services is looking into the in-space assembly of SBSP stations.
“An SBSP system is typically [extremely large] in comparison to anything ever put in space by humans, having a span of kilometers, whereas the largest systems assembled in space are “no larger” than a football field,” Diego Urbina, Team Lead, Future Projects and Exploration, told TNW.
As it’s impossible to launch all parts in one go, in-space assembly is required.
“Skybeam is a project in which we are studying and simulating the use of a Multi-Arm Robot developed in the ESA MIRROR project (originally intended to assemble a telescope), or in fact, dozens or hundreds of them working collaboratively to build the large station,” Urbina explained.
The idea is a spacecraft will deliver multiple Multi-Arm Robots to the initial stage of the station — followed by separate deliveries of the remaining station modules. These robots will then grab and position the modules one by one until the station is complete.
Both the robots and the station will have the company’s proprietary HOTDOCKS technology, a mating interface that enables the assembly of modular spacecraft.
The HOTDOCK mating interface. Credit: Space Applications Services
As per Urbina, the aim is to “facilitate assembly, repair, and operations in general through this modularity.”
A lunar solar power station
Switzerland’s Astrostrom is pursuing another approach to harnessing the sun’s energy from space: the moon.
“Instead of building massive [solar power] satellites on Earth, which must be highly efficient and expensive and launching them from the surface of Earth at great cost, our proposal is to install the industrial capacity on the Moon to build solar power satellites from mostly lunar materials and to robotically assemble these in orbit,” Arthur Woods, the company’s CEO, told TNW.
The initial aim would be to supply power for lunar operations, and once this proves successful, to scale these operations for building solar power satellites (SPS) that would provide energy supply to Earth.
“While this may sound like something in the far future, the road map and the time frame for developing SBSP from Earth or on the Moon would be about the same once the commitment has been made. Indeed, this development could be done in parallel,” Woods noted.
The so-called GE⊕ Lunar Power Station (GE⊕-LPS) requires the development of various technologies, Astrostrom’s CEO explained. First, comes the need to manufacture the solar power station’ components on the moon: the photovoltaics (PV) and the structural elements.
As the lunar environment doesn’t allow for the production of high-efficiency photovoltaics the same way they’re made on Earth, the company’s looking into more simple PV production processes that could be adapted.
The lunar regolith would also need to be mined and processed to supply the necessary ingredients for PV and the required structural elements.
According to Woods, “This must be a highly automated process than can be controlled or supervised by tele-operations from Earth and only requiring a minimal human crew on the Moon for troubleshooting and some maintenance. Once the operations reach the mass-production level, the automated system should continuously output the elements for transport to lunar orbit.”
Assembly of the GE⊕-LPS in Lunar Orbit. Credit: Astrostrom
Then, a robust transportation system would be needed to transfer the satellites either to the Moon’s orbit for assembly or the Earth’s for power delivery.
Astrostrom wants to avoid the use of launch rockets — which would require large facilities on the Moon to produce rocket fuel from scarce lunar water resources — and is examining the use of a Lunar Space Elevator (LSE) that could be developed with existing materials, and deployed with existing launch systems.
“The LSE would be a 100,000-200,000km cable extending from the surface of the Moon towards the Earth and the payloads would travel by electricity. As such, a LSE would become a very valuable space infrastructure project that could lead to further economic developments in the region of cislunar space,” Woods explained.
How would the implementation of SBSP benefit Europe as a whole?
Solaris could launch a new European space energy industry that will provide enormous opportunities for innovation and economic growth — in space and on Earth.
According to ESA, the proposed technological developments have numerous cross-application benefits and use cases. For example, robotic manufacturing and assembly techniques could be applied to the on-orbit production of various large spacecraft subsystems, which could improve telecoms and Earth observation.
Developments made in wireless power transmission technology (WPT) could contribute to stimulating the terrestrial WPT market, or the use of WPT to enable lunar or Martian exploration activities. Working towards SBSP could also result in high-efficiency solar cells and enhanced photovoltaic and power conversion systems.
Ultimately, the manufacturing and maintenance of space-based solar power has the potential to generate a commercial market that will benefit European businesses and academia by helping companies enter this emerging field of space technology development.
“Some elements of SBSP are still in the very early stage, and therefore need academic research. Meanwhile, some need the ingenuity of startups, some need a good level of experience from space companies, some need the outside perspective and expertise of non-space companies (such as from the energy sector), and some need a system-level overview that can be provided by large system integrators,” said Advenit Makaya, Advanced Manufacturing Engineer at ESA.
But, most importantly, SBSP could be the solution we need to meet our society’s energy needs and save the planet.
“Europe has the need, the technological know-how, and the financial means to become a leader in this field,” Woods said. If indeed Europe moves ahead with this project, it would ensure its strategic position in the international race towards scalable clean energy solutions for mitigating climate change.
And as the international race is heating up — with countries such as the US, China, Japan, South Korea, and Russia also pursuing the technology — the ESA is calling for further investments in technology research and development.
The future of SBSP will be decided in 2025 and, until then, the Solaris project will have hopefully determined whether the European space industry, tech sector, and academia can fully harness the power of the sun to help save our planet. | Space Technology |
The Moon is so hot right now, metaphorically speaking. Several US government agencies, private space ventures, and foreign governments like China are plotting for mankind’s return to the lunar surface over the next decade. Unlike the days of Apollo, the modern-day race to the Moon involves establishing a sustainable presence and a thriving economy on and around Earth’s natural satellite.
In an attempt to guide ongoing efforts in establishing a lunar infrastructure, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) kicked off a seven-month study dedicated to developing an analytical framework for scientific and commercial activity on the Moon. Through the 10-Year Lunar Architecture, or LunA-10, study, DARPA is seeking ideas for technology and infrastructure concepts that could help build a Moon-based economy within the next decade.
“A large paradigm shift is coming in the next 10 years for the lunar economy,” Michael Nayak, program manager at DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office, said in a statement. “To get to a turning point faster, LunA-10 uniquely aims to identify solutions that can enable multi-mission lunar systems – imagine a wireless power station that can also provide comms and navigation in its beam.”
As the Pentagon’s research and development arm, DARPA is collaborating with NASA on the study as a way to compliment the space agency’s Moon to Mars objectives. NASA wants to use the Moon as a test bed for Mars, developing ways through which humans can survive for long periods of time on a surface other than Earth’s. “Opportunities for technology maturation are key for development for lunar capabilities in order to meet the objectives of future lunar architectures,” Niki Werkheiser, director of Technology Maturation at NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, is quoted as saying in DARPA’s statement.
Luna-10 will select a group of companies that have an idea for lunar services, allowing them to work together to develop an integrated system for lunar communication, energy, transmission or other building blocks necessary to create a future economy on the Moon. The participating companies will be announced in October 2023, with the final report due by June 2024.
DARPA, however, will not fund the construction or transportation of any of the concepts developed as part of the study. Instead, the agency will provide its “economic expertise to all LunA-10 teams to help analyze and validate definitions of a critical mass to create a thriving, survivable lunar economy,” DARPA wrote in its statement.
There are more than 400 missions that are anticipated to launch to the Moon between the year 2022 and 2032, according to the European Space Agency. Increased access to the lunar surface for both robotic and crewed missions not only opens up opportunities for scientific research, but also allows for industrial utilization of the Moon by mining mineral resources or establishing lunar tourism. There are concerns regarding the commercialization of the Moon, however, mainly to do with the lack of a proper framework (at least for now) to govern the distribution of resources and to ensure that mankind doesn’t alter the celestial body.
In its statement, DARPA highlights that LunA-10 is grounded in the Outer Space Treaty established in 1967 and that “all developments and involvement by civilian and/or military personnel in this effort pertain to scientific and peaceful purposes.”
This isn’t DARPA’s first attempt to get involved in the growing space economy. Last year, as part of its Space-Based Adaptive Communications Node (Space-BACN) program, the agency brought together a team of experts to standardize communications between the increasing number of satellites in Earth orbit. Earlier in May 2022, DARPA got two satellites to communicate directly with each other using space lasers. DARPA is also seeking to build a constellation of small satellites in low Earth orbit for the purpose of supporting military operations. | Space Technology |
A recent report from British satellite communications company Inmarsat and Argentine consultancy Globant estimates the world could reach net zero up to ten years ahead of the 2050 target date if industries make the most of existing and emerging space-based satellite technology.
The research states that although satellites already save 2.5% of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the technology holds the potential to fast-forward the net-zero transition. The analysis suggests that full adoption of currently available satellite technologies by 2030 would make it possible to achieve a 9% reduction in global emissions. With full adoption of nascent technologies, satellite technologies could cut global emissions by up to 18%.
Energy Monitor caught up with Jat Brainch, Inmarsat’s chief commercial and digital officer, to discuss the research and to find out how space technology can be used to help different industries decarbonise.
Can you elaborate on your estimates that satellite technology could speed up the net-zero transition by ten years?
The impact that this industry has on society and the planet is often taken for granted. I have got solar panels on my house, which helped me offset my astronomical energy bills, but the first solar panels were designed to help the International Space Station operate. You’ve also got GPS technology, which again has a huge impact in terms of routing of assets. Space has impacted how we live in a huge way, and this is the first report the sector has commissioned to think about our impacts on the planet and what more we can do.
Now, if you just took the technologies that satellites currently enable, they alone are delivering 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2 reductions. Then, if technologies like smart meters and route planning – which stop people using energy in an inefficient way – were fully adopted, that would push that 1.5 billion tonnes to 5.5 billion tonnes. That’s where you get the 9% of emissions savings from full use of available technologies. However, you could add another 9% of emissions reductions from new technologies that we know are coming very soon.
Part of the reason we commissioned the report is to say to governments and multilateral organisations, ‘Here’s what’s sitting right in front of you’. One of the objectives we have is to put these things on the table so they become part of the conversation. Because they also improve businesses: they drive down operating costs, they improve yields – all the things that businesses want to do. So, there’s a ready appetite to take them up.
We estimate that with the full adoption of satellite technologies, the world can hit net-zero emissions by 2040 rather than 2050. If you get the full 18% of those emissions reductions, we think a ten-year reduction in the net-zero time frame is doable. And even if you get half of it, that’s a material impact on the speed at which we can address some of these challenges.
Can you explain the methodology behind the research? Why should people believe these figures?
We didn’t play any games here. Globant is a respected independent organisation, and they work in the industry with the likes of the European Space Agency and other publicly accountable bodies that use and work with this data. And because they have that public scrutiny and they have an ongoing obligation to report, Globant has a history of making sure they can go back and prove their thinking. So, it’s not just a one-off set of stats; they have to prove them over time, and we’ve tested all their assumptions.
We’re calling for ongoing monitoring and reporting of all these data points to prove the case. We have a social responsibility mindset here at Inmarsat, which is rooted in our history of being a life-saving safety organisation. That’s how we started; we were non-profit originally, protecting lives at sea, and that’s still in our DNA today, 40 years on.
The report says that widespread adoption of existing satellite technologies by 2030 would lead to a 9% emissions reduction. What technologies fit into that bracket?
The 9% of available technology will be things like how you route across the mobility sector. Take maritime shipping, for example. There are global standards that maritime vessels have to meet to reduce their emissions as they go around the globe delivering goods and services. They need to demonstrate that their route planning is efficient. Now, if you have a satellite, you can track and monitor areas of congestion around ports to make sure you’re not sitting offshore with your engines running. You can also run fuel more efficiently depending on ocean conditions. We can monitor and manage all the tracking technologies that work on land, sea and air.
Another example is using air traffic control in a more sophisticated way via satellite technology to ensure that planes can land without having to circle airports. Scale that up to hundreds of thousands of flights and you can imagine the impact. The next-generation air traffic control systems that we’re developing with the European Space Agency, under the codename Iris, will start driving more efficiency using our global network of satellites. There are an awful lot of businesses globally – land, sea and air – that still don’t track, and the potential is there to be exploited.
We do a lot of industrial IoT (Internet of Things) to monitor crops. For example, we identified an irrigation issue in Brazil. When there was a problem on a farm, the answer would be to send someone out in a truck, for two days, to switch the irrigation system on or off. With advances in AI and the ongoing advances in satellite technology, you can do all that remotely. So, you save the emissions of an individual having to drive out, you reduce crop wastage and improve yield, and you help the nation grow. There’s a clear economic and social benefit, as well as an environmental benefit, that we can deliver through these solutions.
Can you expand on the type of technology that can reduce GHG emissions in the transport sector?
Take shipping: there’s a strong piece around vessel optimisation, which is about where you go, how much weight you carry, when you arrive into port, how long you have your engines on for, and what route is most efficient to get you from A to B. You want to shorten the time you’re doing things that drive up fuel consumption. Satellite technology and AI can help you plan that. Leaving all these small decisions to humans drives marginal inefficiencies.
How can satellite technology help decarbonise the oil and gas sector?
The classic example is reducing methane emissions. These oil and gas assets tend to be remote, very expensive and quite dangerous. So, the more asset management you can do from afar using satellites, the better. Satellites are the answer for a couple of reasons. First, terrestrial telephony has to follow where people are, so it only covers 10% of the Earth’s surface. There’s 90% of the Earth’s surface and space that isn’t covered by the equipment that we normally use for communication. That’s where satellites come in. Our satellites are positioned so high in space that with 14 or 15 operational satellites, we can cover the whole globe.
Now, by virtue of the fact that they're covering 90% of the planet, they'll go to these remote assets where the only other answer would be shipping people out and hoping they've got the skills to fix all the different possible outcomes of a gas leak. In all that time, there's a leak that's getting worse by the minute. With the advances of AI alongside satellite technology, you can send a signal back over the same satellite beam that takes corrective action.
So, it reduces the impact – in real time – reduces the risk to individuals and reduces the risk to the environment. You start getting a degree of efficiency that you could never get without that global coverage. Satellite technologies have already delivered a 10% reduction in methane leaks around the world.
What can be done to realise the full potential of satellite technology? What would you like to see come out of COP28?
The first thing is talking about it and continuing to measure the impact. We're going to measure all the impacts of the things we enable: how many more assets we are putting under remote management, and what that does to the carbon reduction – by business, by geography, by market, by government. With that data, we can go to COP28 and show the impact satellite technology can have on the net-zero transition.
This isn't something industry will push back on because it improves margins, sustainability and yields – all things industry cares about. They will be a willing partner, and then governments can lobby, incentivise and legislate for further adoption. We've already put the satellites up – this is about using them to their full potential. There aren’t many other sectors that can bring around an 18% global emissions reduction. | Space Technology |
The Saudi Space commission was established by a royal decree in late 2018. (Shutterstock) Short Url
https://arab.news/gvym9 The recent establishment of a Higher Council for Space headed by Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman and the subsequent expansion of the Communications and Information Technology Commission to include space highlights its strategic importance to the Kingdom’s future. It builds on prior Saudi-led efforts during its secretariat of the Group of 20 nations, which considered the space sector a significant part of the global economy. It led to the establishment of the Saudi Space Commission by a royal decree in 2018. The space economy is not new and has its genesis in the 1950s when the Soviet Union and the US both launched their respective programs. Today, almost 90 countries are participating in the space economy, which is estimated to generate over $300 billion annually. If this number seems surprising, consider that whenever you order rideshare, such as Uber, space assets provide the GPS signals that guide the vehicle to your door. Likewise, each time you open your phone to check the weather, you are receiving data from weather satellites which represent a $162 billion a year market in the US alone. The Kingdom’s focus on the space sector is, therefore, timely and has the potential to create broad economic and social value for the country, particularly in the context of the diversification and futureproofing of the economy. The development of the Saudi space economy will also accelerate and bolster many other initiatives underway in the country, such as the Saudi Green Initiative, the various supply chain and logistics programs, or the efforts of the government to become a leading information and communication technology-equipped nation and an exporter of digital products and services. Firstly, as the Kingdom increases its self-sufficiency and mitigates global supply chain risks, particularly with food, the ability to deploy remote sensing technologies in space can help farmers plan better. It can provide early warning of pestilence or weather-related challenges or assess the yield of crucial foods or natural resources. Saudi farmers will, in the future, be able to engage in precision agriculture combining internet-enabled sensors that capture measurements of soil characteristics with satellite data to get precise recommendations on fertilizer or techniques to maximize crop yield. As we build more resilient supply chains, space-sourced geospatial data will enable us to assess better global risks, such as identifying chokepoints or providing early warning of capacity constraints in downstream materials. Similarly, this technology can allow Saudi firms to sense global demand, such as observing movements of shipping vessels or predicting weather events, such as hurricanes or droughts that drive demand for Saudi materials or products, such as chemicals used in the manufacture of plastic plumbing or irrigation products. Secondly, space technology will enable pervasive connectivity across the region or globally. It builds on the Kingdom’s current leadership in the deployment of 5G. It allows the country to take even greater advantage of its geographic position to become a significant regional hub for the hosting of data and digital services. Through its space initiatives and academic efforts, the Kingdom can provide the experience, mentorship and collaborations to help build this talent base. Anthony Butler With a large percentage of the world’s population in Central Asia, Africa, Asia, and elsewhere within close geographic proximity to Saudi Arabia, the ability to provide satellite connectivity to remote people alongside significant hosting and cloud capabilities in the country could further accelerate the Kingdom’s ambition to be a global leader in the digital economy. Likewise, as we imagine a more connected world, the need to extend efficient connectivity to those connected objects, such as autonomous vehicles or factory infrastructure, will depend on low energy, pervasive connectivity of the type satellites are well-placed to offer. Thirdly, space infrastructure will also play a significant role as the world deals with sustainability challenges. For example, satellites can give us a unique ability to look around the globe to understand carbon dioxide emissions, the causes and correlations with different activities, and even to identify the leakage or appearance of poisonous or environmentally dangerous gases such as methane. However, deploying sensors all over the country is challenging and prohibitively costly. So, using remote-sensing technologies delivered from space will help nations monitor and manage their sustainability obligations and objectives. Fourth, as the Kingdom is developing its mining industry on earth, a mining industry must be developed in space. Asteroids are believed to be rich in gold, cobalt, palladium, platinum, tungsten and other valuable materials. There is an opportunity to develop and deploy novel techniques for asteroid mining, such as using biological agents such as fungi. Lastly, by pursuing space programs, we know that it can lead to innovations of broad terrestrial applicability. It was the case with prior space programs that gave us innovations such as artificial limbs, insulin pumps, cordless vacuum cleaners, solar cells, invisible braces and even baby formula. Space forces us to confront challenges, such as how to sustain life, manufacture in new ways, power vehicles or robots and much more; a lot of this know-how is readily transferrable to earth-based domains and industries. To realize this, we need to focus on talent development for the space economy. It is not just astronauts but also aerospace engineers, mechanical engineers, computer scientists and software engineers, physicians, biologists and more. It is estimated that today around 400,000 people work in the space economy, which is projected to rise to over 1.5 million soon. Through its space initiatives and academic efforts, the Kingdom can provide the experience, mentorship and collaborations to help build this talent base. In addition, through international partnerships, know-how can be captured locally, leading to the developing of a vibrant space-oriented talent ecosystem. The recent government announcements focusing on this emerging area of the economy are therefore crucial for today and even more critical for the future. Because soon, the efforts launched under the auspices of the space economy will be a force multiplier and accelerator for many of the other pillars of the Kingdom’s vision. • Anthony Butler is chief technology officer at IBM-Middle East & Africa.
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point of view | Space Technology |
FILE - This Tuesday, March 26, 2013 file photo provided by NASA shows the release of the SpaceX Dragon-2 spacecraft from the International Space Station. A delayed supply run to the International Space Station is now set to launch April 14, 2014. The private company SpaceX will be making its fourth trip to the space station from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The launch was postponed twice in March, the last time because of an electrical short on Air Force ground equipment. NASA announced the new launch date on Friday, April 4, 2014. The moon is at background center. (AP Photo/NASA) It was not so long ago that interest in space began to wane. With the “
space race” settled and budgetary cuts restricting activities, there was a period in which space was more of an “out of sight, out of mind” frontier. Then, private industry and visionary entrepreneurs stepped up to breathe new life into space, collaborating with governments and partners not just in the United States but abroad as well. Today, space is a worldwide focal point — for what we are achieving in exploration as well as the advancements that improve life on Earth. In 2022, we saw the largest number of satellite deployments ever, the launch and lunar orbit of NASA
’s Space Launch System, numerous groundbreaking private sector missions, and the “first light” from the long-anticipated James Webb Space Telescope. We’re also experiencing firsthand how our dependence on space technology is impacting everything from precision agriculture and environmental sustainability to medical care and national security
. Quite simply, space is an indispensable critical infrastructure, and it’s time it should be treated as such. When most people think of infrastructure, they think of roads, dams, bridges, and utilities. These types of infrastructure are necessary for society to function and are appropriately treated as “critical” when it comes to policy, budgetary and legal decision-making. Space should be viewed the same way. Today space affords essential data and connectivity that is necessary for every country, industry, and community to be part of the 21st century. It also provides economic opportunities throughout the world, and it is key to national security. While the Department of Homeland Security has 16 defined critical infrastructure sectors, space is not one of them. The reasons are both political and economic. Many still fail to see just how essential space is to everyday life, and if it were designated as critical infrastructure, the government would have to fund it in ways it is not prepared. That must change. The disruption or destruction of space assets and access would have a debilitating effect on national and economic security that would ripple across the globe. As a retired rear admiral, I can’t help but harken back to the earliest days of the Navy to describe the role space plays. In 1794, Congress established the Navy to protect commercial ships from pirates in the Mediterranean and Atlantic waters. This branch of the service operated under maritime law, securing our borders and ensuring safe trade and commerce, as well as facilitating international cooperation. It’s difficult to imagine a world in which the Navy hadn’t performed this role. Like our oceans, no single country owns space. Today, 90 countries operate in space with research, exploration, commerce, and security operations in motion every day. As amazing as this is, it poses significant risks in terms of our assets both “up there” and on Earth as other countries possess and seek to acquire capabilities to adversely affect our national security, global commerce, and more. Failure to exploit space appropriately will be a national and economic security downfall if we do not act strategically. We are at a critical point where the commercial industry is not only using space assets to provide services and compete but also becoming a vital resource in military endeavors. Ukraine is a perfect example. With the help of commercial satellites and space technologies, Ukraine has been able to help fend off Russian aggression for nearly a year. In what many anticipated to be a rout, Ukraine has been able to stand its ground inflicting significant damage on the Russian military and allowing it to retain its sovereignty. Without space, this would have been unimaginable. But just as the oceans needed international guidelines as established by maritime law, we also need them for space. It is how we will cooperate with and support other nations in the future regardless of who is waving a flag for help. The lives of people across our planet increasingly depend on space, and as such, we have a responsibility to one another. At the same time, whoever controls the higher ground of space will be the greatest superpower the world has ever known. With the establishment of the Space Force and the Biden administration’s National Security Strategy, the U.S. government has declared our dependence upon space assets, systems, and networks — and the need to protect them from a range of threats. But those recognitions do not go far enough. Space must be viewed, funded, and resourced as critical infrastructure. To be sure, a formal declaration of critical infrastructure will not on its own mitigate those threats. However, a declaration of space as critical infrastructure from the administration and Congress will allow the mobilization of policy and programmatic structures to better integrate space into the resilience planning and coordination efforts necessary to secure it. Those steps will secure the promise of a growing and enterprising space economy and all the services, resources, and people that depend on it — today and for every generation thereafter. That has always been the intent with every other critical infrastructure, and the same should be true for space. And that time has come. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER Retired Navy Rear Adm. Tom Zelibor is the CEO of Space Foundation, a 501(c)(3) global space advocate headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado. | Space Technology |
India's latest space mission entered the moon's orbit on Saturday ahead of the country's second attempted lunar landing, as its space program seeks to reach new heights.
The world's most populous nation has a comparatively low-budget aerospace program that is rapidly closing in on the milestones set by global space powers.
Only Russia, the United States and China have previously achieved a controlled landing on the lunar surface.
The Indian Space Research Organization confirmed that Chandrayaan-3, which means moon craft in Sanskrit, had been "successfully inserted into the lunar orbit," more than three weeks after its launch.
If the rest of the current mission goes to plan, the mission will safely touch down near the moon's little-explored south pole between Aug. 23 and 24.
India's last attempt to do so ended in failure four years ago, when ground control lost contact moments before landing.
Developed by ISRO, Chandrayaan-3 includes a lander module named Vikram, which means valor in Sanskrit, and a rover named Pragyan, the Sanskrit word for wisdom.
The mission comes with a price tag of $74.6 million, far smaller than those of other countries, and a testament to India's frugal space engineering.
Experts say India can keep costs low by copying and adapting existing space technology. It also has an abundance of highly skilled engineers who earn a fraction of their foreign counterparts' wages.
The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft has taken much longer to reach the moon than the manned Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, which arrived in a matter of days.
The Indian rocket used is much less powerful than the United States' Saturn V. Instead, the probe orbited Earth five or six times elliptically to gain speed, before being sent on a monthlong lunar trajectory.
If the landing is successful, the rover will roll off Vikram and explore the nearby lunar area, gathering images to be sent back to Earth for analysis.
The rover has a mission life of one lunar day or 14 Earth days.
ISRO chief S. Somanath has said his engineers carefully studied data from the last failed mission and have worked to fix the glitches.
India's space program has grown considerably in size and momentum since it first sent a probe to orbit the moon in 2008.
In 2014, it became the first Asian nation to put a satellite into orbit around Mars, and three years later, the ISRO launched 104 satellites in a single mission.
The ISRO's Gaganyaan ("Skycraft") program is slated to launch a three-day manned mission into Earth's orbit by next year.
India is also working to boost its 2% share of the global commercial space market by sending private payloads into orbit for a fraction of the cost of competitors. | Space Technology |
On Saturday, the Russian space program lost the Luna 25 spacecraft, a relatively small vehicle that was due to land on the Moon this week. After a problem with the spacecraft's propulsion system, instead of entering a low orbit around the Moon, it crashed into the lunar surface.
The Russian mission to the Moon was one of several spacecraft that were to attempt a landing on the Moon in the next six months, alongside probes from Japan, India, and the United States. In this sense, Russia is just one of many nations participating in a second space race back to the Moon, alongside nations and private companies alike.
But unlike NASA, China, India, and several companies in the United States and Japan, the Luna 25 effort does not presage the coming of a golden era of exploration for Russia. Rather, it is more properly seen as the last gasp of a dying empire, an attempt by the modern state of Russia, and President Vladimir Putin, to revive old glories.
And now it has failed. Here's why this is such a death knell for Russia's civil space program under Putin's leadership.
The country's space technology dates to Apollo
The first Soyuz spacecraft launched in 1967, two years before the first Apollo Moon landing. The crew vehicle served the Soviet space program through 1991 and since then has been a mainstay for the country's large space corporation, Roscosmos. The Soyuz is a hardy, generally reliable vehicle that NASA counted on for crew transport from 2011 to 2020, after the space shuttle's retirement and before SpaceX's Crew Dragon came into service.
The Soyuz spacecraft, as well as a lot of the country's other satellites, launch into orbit on the Soyuz rocket. This vehicle dates back even a bit further, to 1966. Russian engineers have modified and modernized both the spacecraft and rocket over time, but they remain essentially the same space vehicles.
There's nothing wrong with aging technology that works. However, there have been some issues of late with leaks and other problems that have raised serious questions about quality control and the ability of the Russians to manufacture these vehicles.
But for now, they work. The bigger problem is that there is precious little new hardware in the pipeline. A modern replacement for the Soyuz spacecraft, "Orel," is perpetually five to seven years away from flight, which essentially means never. A replacement space station, ROSS, remains in the vaporware stage of development. And then there is the Soyuz-5 rocket, a three-stage rocket powered by RD-171 engines that will burn kerosene fuel and compete with SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket on price. This vehicle, too, has a future launch date that keeps slipping.
Putin puts his prestige on the line
Before the launch of Luna 25, Putin made it clear that this mission was important for Russia as a signal that the country was returning to great power status. He met with the current head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, on June 30 before the launch to hear more about the lunar mission.
The symbolism of the Russian space program is important to the nation, as achieving "firsts" such as the first satellite, man, and woman in orbit six decades ago marked key geopolitical wins for the Soviet Union during the Cold War against the United States. Since then, Russians have expected their country to be doing important things in space.
Sometimes such strength has been difficult to project, especially since Russia is flying the same vehicles as it did during Leonid Brezhnev's tenure as the Soviet ruler; and has only flown to the International Space Station for a quarter of a century. Desperate for an achievement on the 60th anniversary of Gagarin's flight in 2021, Russia's answer was to film The Challenge, billed as the "first" feature film made in space.
Critically, Luna 25 was to mark the reopening of Russia's interests on the Moon. It was a relatively modest mission, with a mass of about one metric ton, and far smaller than the Luna missions the Soviets sent to the Moon half a century ago. But it was the nation's first trip back to the Moon in 46 years and would at least allow Putin to credibly claim that Russia was back. | Space Technology |
A Long March-7 Y3 carrier rocket carrying the Tianzhou-2 cargo spacecraft blasts off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on May 29, 2021 in Wenchang, Hainan Province of China.Yuan Chen | VCG | Getty ImagesRapid advancements in China's military capabilities pose increasing risks to American supremacy in outer space, the head of the United States military's space wing said on Monday.Nina Armagno, director of staff of the U.S. Space Force, said Beijing had made significant progress in developing military space technology, including in areas such as satellite communications and re-useable spacecraft, which allow countries to rapidly scale up their space programs."I think it's entirely possible they could catch up and surpass us, absolutely," Armagno said at an event in Sydney run by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a research organisation partly funded by the U.S. and Australian governments. "The progress they've made has been stunning, stunningly fast."Historically lagging in a space race dominated by the United States and Russia, Beijing has made significant advances in recent years that have alarmed Washington and other Western nations.Ye Peijian, the head of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, has likened the moon and Mars to contested islands in the South China Sea that Beijing is attempting to claim.China is also developing experimental technology aimed at mining asteroids and minor planets for natural resources."[China] is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to achieve that objective," Armagno said.Along with Russia, China has also conducted "reckless" missile tests that have created dangerous amounts of space debris in recent years, Armagno said."These debris fields threatened all of our systems in space, and these systems are vital to all nations' security, economic and scientific interests," she said.Founded in 2019 in part as an attempt to counter the rising capabilities of China, the Space Force is the fourth branch of the U.S. military, with Armagno serving as its first permanent leader. It is set to launch three astronauts to its new space station on Tuesday. | Space Technology |
Need to get to Mars? This inflatable shield could help Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. CNN — When a large experimental heat shield inflated in space and faced the brutal reentry of Earth’s atmosphere last week, the aeroshell survived — and NASA officials have deemed it a “huge success.” The technology demonstration could be the foundation of landing technology that puts humans on the surface of Mars. The Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator technology demonstration, or LOFTID, hitched a November 10 ride to space as a secondary payload along with the Joint Polar Satellite System-2, a polar weather satellite. After LOFTID separated from the polar satellite and inflated, the aeroshell reentered the atmosphere from low-Earth orbit. Upon reentry, LOFTID faced temperatures that reached 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,649 degrees Celsius) and hit speeds of nearly 18,000 miles per hour (28,968 kilometers per hour) — the ultimate test for the materials used to construct the inflatable structure, which includes a woven ceramic fabric called silicon carbide. The heat shield and backup data recorder splashed down in the Pacific Ocean about two hours after launch, hundreds of miles off the coast of Hawaii, where a team on a boat was stationed to recover the items. Preliminary data helped the team determine if the aeroshell was effective at slowing down and surviving the steep dive from low-Earth orbit to the ocean. The result: “a pretty resounding yes,” said Trudy Kortes, director of technology demonstrations at NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. A full study of LOFTID’s performance is expected to take about a year. The mission aims to test the inflatable heat shield technology that could also land larger robotic missions on Venus or Saturn’s moon Titan or return hefty payloads to Earth. Current aeroshells, or heat shields, in use depend on the size of a rocket’s shroud. But an inflatable aeroshell could circumnavigate that dependency — and open up sending heavier missions to different planets. The LOFTID demonstration measured about 20 feet (6 meters) across. When a spacecraft enters the atmosphere of a planet, it’s hit with aerodynamic forces, which help slow it down. On Mars, where the atmosphere is less than 1% the density of Earth’s atmosphere, extra help is needed to create the drag necessary to slow and safely land a spacecraft. That’s why NASA engineers think a large deployable aeroshell like LOFTID, which inflates and is protected by a flexible heat shield, could put on the brakes while traveling down through the Martian atmosphere. The aeroshell is designed to create more drag in the upper atmosphere to help the spacecraft slow down sooner, which also prevents some of the superintense heating. Currently, NASA can land 1 metric ton (2,205 pounds) on the Martian surface, like the car-size Perseverance rover. But something like LOFTID could land between 20 to 40 metric tons (44,092 to 88,184 pounds) on Mars, said Joe Del Corso, LOFTID project manager at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. When the recovery team hauled the aeroshell out of the ocean, they were surprised to find that the outside “looked absolutely pristine,” said John DiNonno, LOFTID chief engineer at NASA Langley. “You would not have known it had a very intense reentry,” he said. In fact, the inflatable structure is in such good condition, it looks like it could be reused and flown again, DiNonno said, but it needs rigorous testing before making such a determination. There is still a tremendous amount of data to process, including specific temperatures LOFTID faced at different points in its flight. After the full study is complete, scientists could use the findings to work on the next, larger generation of LOFTID. The experiment was designed to fit as a ride-along demo with the polar satellite. Next, LOFTID needs to be scaled up to test how it would perform on a mission to Mars, which might require increasing its overall size by three to four times. The mission, which launched just days before the Artemis I mega moon rocket lifted off on a journey to the moon and back, is a “huge success” that shares a common goal with the Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the moon and eventually land crews on Mars. “In order to put people into space on the moon or send them to Mars, we need stuff — lots of it, which means we need to put a lot of mass into space,” Del Corso said. “We now have the ability to both put heavy payloads into space and to bring them back down. These two successes are huge steps in enabling human access and exploration. We’re going to space and we want to be able to stay there.” | Space Technology |
Fuel-Efficient OrbitsAfter launch, mission navigators will guide the spacecraft way past the Moon. It will then be slowly pulled back by gravity from Earth and the Sun before it settles into a wide, looping, science-gathering orbit. This near-rectilinear halo orbit will take it 42,000 miles (70,000 kilometers) from the Moon at its most distant point and, at its closest approach, the satellite will graze the surface of the Moon, coming within 9 miles (15 kilometers) above the lunar South Pole.SmallSats carry a limited amount of propellent, so fuel-intensive orbits aren’t possible. A near-rectilinear halo orbit requires far less fuel than traditional orbits, and Lunar Flashlight will be only the second NASA mission to use this type of trajectory. The first is NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) mission, which will arrive at its orbit on Nov. 13, making its closest pass over the Moon’s North Pole.“The reason for this orbit is to be able to come in close enough that Lunar Flashlight can shine its lasers and get a good return from the surface, but to also have a stable orbit that consumes little fuel,” said Barbara Cohen, Lunar Flashlight principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.As a technology demonstration, Lunar Flashlight will be the first interplanetary spacecraft to use a new kind of “green” propellant that is safer to transport and store than the commonly used in-space propellants such as hydrazine. This new propellant, developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory and tested on a previous NASA technology demonstration mission, burns via a catalyst, rather than requiring a separate oxidizer. That is why it’s called a monopropellant. The satellite’s propulsion system was developed and built by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, with integration support from Georgia Tech Research Institute in Atlanta.
Lunar Flashlight will also be the first mission to use a four-laser reflectometer to look for water ice on the Moon. The reflectometer works by using near-infrared wavelengths that are readily absorbed by water to identify ice on the surface. Should the lasers hit bare rock, their light will reflect back to the spacecraft, signaling a lack of ice. But if the light is absorbed, it would mean these dark pockets do indeed contain ice. The greater the absorption, the more ice may be at the surface.Lunar Water CycleIt’s thought that molecules of water come from comet and asteroid material impacting the lunar surface, and from solar wind interactions with the lunar regolith. Over time, the molecules may have accumulated as a layer of ice inside “cold traps”.“We are going to make definitive surface water ice measurements in permanently shadowed regions for the first time,” said Cohen. “We will be able to correlate Lunar Flashlight’s observations with other lunar missions to understand how extensive that water is and whether it could be used as a resource by future explorers.”Cohen and her science team hope that the data Lunar Flashlight gathers can be used to understand how volatile molecules, like water, cycle from location to location and where they may accumulate, forming a layer of ice in these cold traps.“This is an exciting time for lunar exploration. The launch of Lunar Flashlight, along with the many small satellite missions aboard Artemis I, may form the foundations for science discoveries as well as support future missions to the Moon’s surface,” said Roger Hunter, Small Spacecraft Technology program manager at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley.More About the MissionIn October, Lunar Flashlight was fueled at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and is scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida between Nov. 9 and 15 with the Japanese Hakuto-R lander and United Arab Emirate’s Rashid 1 rover. The mission worked with Maverick Space Systems to provide launch integration services.NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research program funded component development from small businesses including Plasma Processes Inc. (Rubicon) for thruster development, Flight Works for pump development, and Beehive Aerospace (formerly Volunteer Aerospace) for specific 3D printed components. The Air Force Research Laboratory also contributed financially to the development of the Lunar Flashlight propulsion system.Lunar Flashlight will be operated by Georgia Tech, including graduate and undergraduate students. The mission is funded by the Small Spacecraft Technology program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. | Space Technology |
India's Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft has beamed back its first photo of the moon's surface following its triumphant landing on Wednesday.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) posted the stunning snap taken by the moon lander's imaging camera just over three hours after touchdown.
It shows a 'relatively' flat region on the lunar surface with the lander's leg and accompanying shadow visible in the right-hand corner.
Earlier, ISRO posted four images taken by the moon lander's 'horizontal velocity camera' of the rugged surface during its heroic descent.
With its little dimples and grooves, the moon's rugged surface as pictured from above is made to look like yeast bubbles in bread dough.
Chandrayaan-3 consists of a lander with a smaller rover inside that weighs just 26 kg (57lb) – about the same as three full-sized watermelons.
The lander, which has been in lunar orbit for over two weeks, touched down on the lunar south at 18:02 Indian Standard Time (13:32 BST) on Wednesday.
The rover rolled out of the lander merely hours after touchdown and is now exploring the region, ISRO has confirmed.
Science instruments on both the lander and rover will study the region's surface for roughly one lunar day, or 14 Earth days – a short timespan compared with other space missions.
Both the lander and rover are solar powered, so therefore after one lunar day they'll be plunged into the darkness of the lunar night and will no longer be able to operate.
ISRO said more updates of the mission's progress will be coming soon as it makes its way across what is unchartered ground for humanity.
It marks a momentous 24 hours for India, which was left devastated by the failure of the mission's predecessor, Chandrayaan-2, four years ago.
Although India is the fourth country after the US, Russia and China to safely land a craft on the moon, it's made history as the first to do so on the moon's south pole.
Russia had tried to land its own spacecraft at the lunar south at the weekend, but the mission failed when it spun out of control and smashed.
The rugged southern region of the moon is generating great interest among space agencies in Russia, China and the US largely due to its rich reserves of water, frozen as ice.
Pockets of this water ice, known as 'cold traps', have the potential to exist for thousands of years on 'airless bodies' that don't have an atmosphere, like the moon.
Therefore, these ice pockets could provide a record of microbial life, lunar volcanoes, material that comets and asteroids delivered to Earth or the origin of former oceans.
An abundance of water ice at the south pole is why it's been identified as a possible future location for a human outpost, which is a focus of NASA's upcoming Artemis programme.
Chandrayaan-3 actually left Earth more than a month ago – aboard a rocket from Satish Dhawan Space Centre north of Chennai on July 14.
Chandrayaan-3 has taken much longer to reach the moon than those of the Apollo missions in the 1960s and 1970s, which arrived in a matter of days.
This is because India is using rockets much less powerful than those the US used then, meaning the probe must orbit Earth several times to gain speed before embarking on its month-long lunar trajectory.
India has a comparatively low-budget aerospace programme, but one that has grown considerably in size and momentum since it first sent a probe to orbit the moon in 2008.
The latest mission comes with a price tag of $74.6million – far lower than those of other countries, and a testament to India's frugal space engineering.
Experts say India can keep costs low by copying and adapting existing space technology, and thanks to an abundance of highly skilled engineers who earn a fraction of their foreign counterparts' wages.
In 2014, India became the first Asian nation to put a satellite into orbit around Mars and is slated to launch a three-day manned mission into Earth's orbit by next year.
India is also working with the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) on Chandrayaan-4, which would also land at the moon's south but have a much longer lifespan.
Launch of Chandrayaan-4 is tentatively scheduled for 2025 or 2026. | Space Technology |
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. CNN — Three astronauts lifted off to China’s nearly completed space station on Tuesday, marking the beginning of the country’s long-term presence in space. It’s a major achievement for China’s ambitious space program, which has explored the far side of the moon and Mars. The milestone also means the aging International Space Station’s role as the sole venue for continuous human occupancy in Earth’s orbit is coming to an end. The three astronauts launched aboard the Shenzhou-15 spacecraft at 11:08 p.m. local time (10:08 a.m. ET) on Tuesday from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert, Inner Mongolia. The Shenzhou-15 spacecraft is expected to dock with the Tiangong Space Station about 6.5 hours after launch. The arrival of the three astronauts — Fei Junlong, Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu — will mark the first crew rotation on the space station, with two teams overlapping for five to 10 days before the Shenzhou-14 crew, who landed at the station in June, returns to Earth. The Shenzhou-15 mission will finish the orbital outpost’s construction, expected by the end of December, and launch the first stage of “its application and development,” Ji Qiming, assistant to the China Manned Space Agency director, said at a press conference on Monday, according to state media Xinhua. During the mission, according to state media, the crew will also conduct more than 40 experiments and tests in the fields of space science research, space medicine and space technology, as well as three to four extravehicular activities — performed by astronauts in space suits. Once construction is completed, the space station is expected to last for 15 years. China plans to launch two crewed missions and two cargo missions to the station every year, according to the CMSA. Tiangong, which means heavenly palace, is smaller than the International Space Station but similar in its modular design. The new space station will typically house three rather than six astronauts. Officials at NASA have said it will retire the ISS, which is a collaboration between the US, Russia, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency, in 2030. However, Russia has threatened to quit the ISS starting in 2024, which would make operating the ISS difficult, said Dr. Stefania Paladini, a reader in economics and global security at Birmingham City University in the United Kingdom. “There is no clarity about the future of the ISS after 2024. While the US seems committed to extend its life until 2030, Russia threatened to withdraw its participation after that date, (which would) make it extremely challenging to continue flying the ISS,” said Paladini, author of “The New Frontiers of Space: Economic Implications, Security Issues and Evolving Scenarios.” “The Chinese Space Station may … end up remaining the only human presence in Earth’s orbit for a while.” The new space station is expected to host around 1,000 scientific experiments during its life span. Most of the experiments taking place on board the Tiangong will involve research originating from China, but the country has invited experiments from international researchers, including how cancer tumors react to zero gravity. China’s astronauts have long been excluded from the ISS, due to US political objections and legislative restrictions. However, CMSA astronauts have trained with their counterparts at the European Space Agency. It’s not clear whether China would welcome astronauts from other countries to its space station, but Molly Silk, a doctoral researcher at the University of Manchester in the UK focused on China’s space program, said she thought it very likely that international astronauts would visit in the coming years. “Several European astronauts have been learning Chinese in order to better cooperate with their Chinese counterparts, which suggests that a visit to the CSS could be on the cards. Pakistan has also been trying to coordinate with China to send their first astronaut to space,” she said. “This project demonstrates to the world that China has both the vision and capabilities to pull off such an immensely challenging feat. The CSS will not only allow for China and other nations to conduct experiments in space, but acts as an important checkpoint for China’s planned international research base on the moon.” Earlier this year, the space station’s two laboratory modules — Wentian and Mengtian — docked along the Tianhe core cabin, the main living space for the astronauts. The Mengtian lab was launched by China’s massive Long March 5B rocket, remnants of which made an uncontrolled reentry into Earth’s atmosphere in early November. It was the fourth uncontrolled reentry for a Long March 5B rocket since China’s space agency started flying it two years ago, as the vehicle was designed without the necessary equipment to steer itself to a safe landing. Officials at NASA have slammed China for taking unnecessary risks. However, Tuesday’s launch involved China’s smaller Long March-2F rocket, used for human space flight, which experts have previously said is less likely to produce hazardous debris. CNN’s Beijing bureau contributed to this report. | Space Technology |
Credit: SpaceNews Midjourney illustration Credit: SpaceNews Midjourney illustration
The global space industry is expected to eclipse $1 trillion over the next few decades. And while casual onlookers sometimes express skepticism of this rapid growth — often due to their disdain for the billionaires in the captain’s chair of the industry’s most prominent players — the venture industry is clearly enticed by how space technologies can power the global economy. In that sense, the Kármán line has never been more illustrious for space entrepreneurs and investors.
The space economy’s growth journey has been anything but smooth. It’s been impacted by macroeconomic conditions, causing deal activity to slow down. The third quarter of 2022 was challenging, with venture capitalist investment in space down 44% versus the broader market’s 31% decline. VCs’ risk-off preferences have seen many shy away from this type of deep tech and refocus on enterprise Software as a Service (SaaS).
But we know investors can be irrational and that markets tend to overcorrect. And truthfully, space technology’s potential — with advancements already transforming our daily lives — positions it in a stratosphere well above other tech markets disrupting industries down here on Earth.
TRANSFORMATIVE POTENTIAL WILL KEEP VCs KNOCKING
Look no further than Apple and Globalstar, who recently partnered to provide emergency SOS communications services on the iPhone 14. This step to integrate satcom into mobile devices has significant implications. It will undoubtedly fuel the rise of more innovations in the future, just as Apple’s integration of GPS into the iPhone 3G helped spur the launch of location-based services and multi-billion-dollar companies like Lyft, Uber, and Snap.
Meanwhile, star power like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and entities like OneWeb also draw attention to space. They are providing new energy, engineering talent, and innovation to transform further satellite communications, Earth observation, and ultimately access to orbit. SpaceX’s launch of an Italian Earth-observation satellite last January, for example, is helping governments and commercial entities with global issues like forest and environment protection, natural resources exploration, and defense and security.
Similarly, companies like Spire and Planet are revolutionizing Earth observation through their low-Earth orbit constellations, essentially democratizing access to satellite data.
Indeed, businesses like these are directly moving the needle for Space 3.0 and ringing in a new era where stakeholders, including commercial companies, realize the enormous potential for space technology and space research on Earth.
FUTURE ADVANCEMENTS ALREADY DRIVING INTEREST
In other words, companies developing these critical and often radical innovations will be impervious to capital crises in the long run. Even as VCs become more selective, they’ll choose to invest in founders with deep technical expertise and, as I do, seek out companies transforming industries.
I expect the companies to catch VCs’ attention will operate in a few space technology areas. One is manufacturing in space. It’s back on investors’ radar roughly 50 years after NASA experiments attempted to prove the viability of large-scale manufacturing plants in space. Their experiments failed, but it was very much on the U.S. docket for some time after that. In his 1985 State of the Union speech, Ronald Reagan didn’t hide his excitement when describing how manufacturing in space could enable technological breakthroughs in supercomputers and medicine that “we never thought possible.”
Credit: SpaceNews Midjourney illustration
It still might. Space is ideally suited for manufacturing operations because it offers better gravitational control and an infinitely available vacuum, allowing several manufacturing processes to be carried out with relative ease. And the reason why there’s so much renewed interest in manufacturing in space is cheaper launch costs, smaller satellites, and reusable rockets have made space much more accessible and affordable. As a result, many companies like Varda Space and Rocket Lab are attempting to put factories into orbit. Interestingly, McKinsey found that the number of patents mentioning “microgravity” soared from 21 in 2000 to 155 in 2020.
Other areas that could drive VC interest are deep space explorations and a lunar economy. The ability to land humans and large masses on the lunar surface opens up endless possibilities for scientific exploration. It could also open up markets through the industrial utilization of the moon. The result is a massive opportunity for investors to play a part, given the various innovations needed to make a lunar economy possible, including transportation, lunar data, and in-situ resource utilization.
INVESTING IN BITS AND ATOMS
None of the advancements we’ve seen in space were possible without deep tech. On the same note, deep tech is imperative for pushing the industry further. Yet, its role has been overshadowed by the bigger ticket news items and personalities making headlines.
This shouldn’t deter investors, however. Amidst all the hype the space sector generates, deep tech is having a real impact. Unfortunately, however, VCs with a short-term view often miss this impact. We’re seeing a similar situation in the climate space, where a lot of capital is going towards software that, let’s face it, won’t save us by itself. Just as deep tech is needed to accelerate decarbonization and renewable energy, we need deep tech to achieve our goals in space. And that means investing in deep tech at the intersection of bits and atoms.
We need the person building “picks and shovels” as much as we need the guy launching rockets into orbit. Space-based technologies need unique hardware and software. Early-stage startup Exo-Space illustrates one of those examples. It is developing space-specific edge computing for on-orbit image processing. The Edge Platform (dubbed FeatherEdge) mounts directly onto a satellite and hosts radiation-safe applications for AI, analytics, and communication, enabling complex image analysis on-orbit.
Deep tech will also need to tackle astrodynamics, or propulsion solutions, that guide the motion of satellites and other spacecraft. Kayhan Space is one emerging company in this space. Its analytics platform ingests data from sources like U.S. Space Command’s public space catalog, commercial data providers, and satellite operators’ own GPS positioning signals, and uses AI to simulate scenarios and generate maneuver plans for operators so they can avoid space collisions.
It’s also worth watching out for LeoLabs and Vyoma, both of whom use observation satellites and machine learning to help operators track missions and avoid collisions in low earth orbit. Further use cases for machine learning and neural networks in astrodynamics will include orbit predictions and spacecraft flight modeling. So while the space economy will continue to provide numerous opportunities to invest in atoms, there will also be the opportunity to invest in the bits moving atoms across our skies. Karthee Madasamy is the managing partner at MFV Partners, a Silicon Valley-based venture firm investing in technologies and teams shaping the future of critical industries such as transportation, manufacturing, climate, and more.
This article originally appeared in the January 2023 issue of SpaceNews magazine. | Space Technology |
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India has landed its Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the moon, becoming only the fourth nation ever to accomplish such a feat.
The mission could cement India’s status as a global superpower in space. Previously, only the United States, China and the former Soviet Union have completed soft landings on the lunar surface.
Chandrayaan-3’s landing site is also closer to the moon’s south pole than any other spacecraft in history has ventured. The south pole region is considered an area of key scientific and strategic interest for spacefaring nations, as scientists believe the region to be home to water ice deposits.
The water, frozen in shadowy craters, could be converted into rocket fuel or even drinking water for future crewed missions.
India’s attempt to land its spacecraft near the lunar south pole comes just days after another nation’s failed attempt to do the same. Russia’s Luna 25 spacecraft crashed into the moon on August 19 after its engines misfired, ending the country’s first lunar landing attempt in 47 years.
As Chandrayaan-3 approached the moon, its cameras captured photographs, including one taken on August 20 that India’s space agency shared Tuesday. The image offers a close-up of the moon’s dusty gray terrain.
Chandrayaan-3’s journey
India’s lunar lander consists of three parts: a lander, rover and propulsion module, which so far has provided the spacecraft all the thrust required to traverse the 384,400-kilometer (238,855-mile) void between the moon and Earth.
The lander, called Vikram, completed the precision maneuvers required to make a soft touchdown on the lunar surface after it is ejected from the propulsion module. Tucked inside is Pragyan, a small, six-wheeled rover that will deploy from the lander by rolling down a ramp.
The lander, which weighs about 1,700 kilograms (3,748 pounds), and 26-kilogram (57.3-pound) rover are packed with scientific instruments, prepared to capture data to help researchers analyze the lunar surface and deliver fresh insights into its composition.
Dr. Angela Marusiak, an assistant research professor at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, said she’s particularly excited that the lunar lander includes a seismometer that will attempt to detect quakes within the moon’s interior.
Studying how the moon’s inner layers move could be key information for future endeavors on the lunar surface, Marusiak said.
“You want to make sure that any potential seismic activity wouldn’t endanger any astronauts,” Marusiak said. “Or, if we were to build structures on the moon, that they would be safe from any seismic activity.”
The lander and rover are expected to function for about two weeks on the moon’s surface. The propulsion module will remain in orbit, serving as a relay point for beaming data back to Earth.
A global moon rush
Working alongside allies such as the United States and France, India is part of a second wave of emerging space powers. The country’s space program has become one of the world’s busiest in its development of exploratory space technology.
Chandrayaan-3 has been a point of national pride and widespread interest across India. Crowds gathered at the launchpad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh state, and more than a million people tuned in on YouTube in July to watch the spacecraft take flight.
India’s mission has taken on even greater significance since Russia’s failed Luna 25 landing attempt. If Chandrayaan-3 is successful, India would also become the second country to land a spacecraft on the moon in the 21st century after China, which has put three landers on the lunar surface since 2013 — including the first to touch down on the moon’s far side. (The last US lunar lander, the crewed Apollo 17 mission, touched down in 1972.)
More than a dozen countries have plans for missions to the moon in the coming years, including a mission launched by Japan’s space agency — the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency — that is expected to lift off later this month. The United States also has plans to send three commercial lunar landers to the moon starting as early as this year, while NASA continues to work toward its Artemis III mission, which could put astronauts back on the moon as soon as 2025.
Landing on the moon, however, remains a challenging endeavor. India’s last attempt to land a spacecraft on the moon, during the 2019 Chandrayaan-2 mission, failed. And two commercial spacecraft have crash-landed on the lunar surface in recent times — one from Israel in 2019 and the other from Japan in April.
“There is no doubt that landing on the Moon is a real challenge,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement earlier this week. “But the Moon offers great scientific reward, which is why we’ve seen so many recent attempts to visit the surface again. We’re looking forward to all that we will learn in the future, including from India’s Chandraayan-3 mission.”
India is also a signatory of the United States’ Artemis Accords, a document that outlines proposed rules of the road for future lunar exploration. Russia and China have not signed the accords. | Space Technology |
NASA is partnering with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, to use a nuclear thermal rocket engine in space, according to reports.In a press release on Tuesday, NASA said the nuclear thermal rocket engine could one day be used for NASA crewed missions to Mars. Artist concept of Demonstration for Rocket to Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) spacecraft, which will demonstrate a nuclear thermal rocket engine. Nuclear thermal propulsion technology could be used for future NASA crewed missions to Mars. (DARPA and NASA)Both agencies will collaborate on the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations, or DRACO, program, under a "non-reimbursable agreement."NASA'S ARTEMIS I LAUNCH TO BRING US STEP CLOSER TO ‘SUSTAINABLE HUMAN FOOTPRINT ON THE MOON’The agreement, the release read, is designed to benefit both agencies while outlining roles, responsibilities and processes that could accelerate the program's development."NASA will work with our long-term partner, DARPA, to develop and demonstrate advanced nuclear thermal propulsion technology as soon as 2027," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said. "With the help of this new technology, astronauts could journey to and from deep space faster than ever – a major capability to prepare for crewed missions to Mars. Congratulations to both NASA and DARPA on this exciting investment, as we ignite the future, together."The nuclear thermal rocket would allow transit between the moon and Mars to take less time while also reducing the risk for astronauts. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson speaks during a visit to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center on November 5, 2021 in Greenbelt, Maryland. ((Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images))Longer trips require more supplies, so reducing the transit time would be a key component for human missions to Mars. NASA INSIGHT LANDER RECORDS LARGEST QUAKE ON MARS EVER, SCIENTISTS SAYAdditional benefits include increased science payload capacity and higher power generation for instruments and communications.Nuclear thermal rocket engines have a fission reactor that generates extremely high temperatures. NASA said the engine transfers that heat to a liquid propellant which is exhausted through a nozzle that propels the spacecraft.These types of engines, NASA added, can be three times more efficient than chemical propulsion engines. NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used its dual-camera Mastcam-Z imager to capture this image of "Santa Cruz," a hill within Jezero Crater, on April 29, 2021, the 68th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS)"NASA has a long history of collaborating with DARPA on projects that enable our respective missions, such as in-space servicing," NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said. "Expanding our partnership to nuclear propulsion will help drive forward NASA's goal to send humans to Mars."NASA'S MARS LANDER INSIGHT TRANSMITS POTENTIAL FINAL IMAGE OF THE RED PLANET AS ITS POWER DWINDLESAs part of the agreement, NASA will lead the technical development of the nuclear thermal engine while DARP will function as the contracting authority for the stage and engine, including the reactor.DARPA will also lead the overall program, including rocket system integration, procurement, approvals, security, scheduling, and more.The goal is to be able to demonstrate the rocket in space as early as 2027."DARPA and NASA have a long history of fruitful collaboration in advancing technologies for our respective goals, from the Saturn V rocket that took humans to the Moon for the first time to robotic servicing and refueling of satellites," Dr. Stefanie Tompkins, director, DARPA said. "The space domain is critical to modern commerce, scientific discovery, and national security. The ability to accomplish leap-ahead advances in space technology through the DRACO nuclear thermal rocket program will be essential for more efficiently and quickly transporting material to the Moon and eventually, people to Mars."CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP NASA said the last nuclear thermal rocket engine tests conducted by the U.S. took place more than 50 years ago under NASA’s Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application and Rover projects. Greg Wehner is a breaking news reporter for Fox News Digital. | Space Technology |
China’s Long March 5B rocket heading to the launch pad on Tuesday. Screenshot: CCTV/CNSAChina rolled out its Long March 5B rocket on Tuesday in anticipation of its upcoming liftoff to place the third and final piece of the Tiangong space station in orbit. It’s all very exciting, but an out-of-control core module will likely result, as was the case on three previous occasions. OffEnglishThe heavy-lift rocket was transported to the pad on Tuesday, carrying a 23-ton lab module named Mengtian (which translates to “dreaming of heavens”). It took about three hours for the Long March 5B to make the nearly 2 mile (3 kilometer) journey at the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site, according to China National Space Administration (CNSA).At the pad, the rocket will undergo final checks and fueling in preparation for its launch. The space agency has not confirmed the exact date for launch, but previous statements suggest the rocket will take off on Monday, October 31, according to Space.com. Mengtian will join its sister modules Wentian and Tianhe to form the T-shaped structure of China’s three-module space station named Tiangong (meaning “heavenly place”). China’s space agency will use the Mengtian lab to conduct various microgravity experiments related to fluid physics, combustion science, and space technology, according to China’s state-run Xinhua. Unlike Tianhe, Mengtian does not include living quarters for astronauts. Tiangong is China’s answer to the International Space Station and is scheduled to be fully constructed by the end of the year. The first module of the space station, Tianhe, launched to orbit in April 2021, while Wentian followed more than a year later in July 2022. G/O Media may get a commissionIn June, China sent a crew of three astronauts to the space station where they’ve spent the past several months overseeing the docking of the two modules, in addition to setting them up and running tests. The crew is expected to return to Earth in December, after which point the Shenzhou-15 crew will take over. Similar to previous launches of China’s Long March 5B , the core stage is expected to perform an uncontrolled reentry through Earth’s atmosphere upon its return. Astronomer Jonathan McDowell from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics is “95% certain we will be in exactly the same situation again,” he told Gizmodo in an email. The Long March 5B is notorious for jeopardizing populated areas as it falls back to Earth in a haphazard state. Previous incidents have taken place in 2020 and 2021 in which debris from the 100-foot-long (30-meter) core stage crashed along the western coast of Africa and the Indian Ocean. This past August, debris from the Long March 5B fell across regions in northern Borneo. Mercifully, no one has been hurt, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. China is making huge inroads in space, but its space agency continues to be reckless when it comes to its rockets. Rockets are often built with mechanisms to control their reentry to isolated areas, or slow them down as they make their way back to Earth. If China plans on sending more of its heavy-lift rockets to orbit, it needs to start better equipping them for the ride back.More: Suspected Debris From Chinese Rocket Falls Onto Three Indian Villages | Space Technology |
Bonny Omara (left) works with Edgar Mujuni at Japan's Kyushu Institute of Technology on the satellite that will be used to observe land conditions in Uganda. Bonny Omara hide caption toggle caption Bonny Omara Bonny Omara (left) works with Edgar Mujuni at Japan's Kyushu Institute of Technology on the satellite that will be used to observe land conditions in Uganda. Bonny Omara When Uganda's very first satellite was launched into space last week on Nov. 7, Bonny Omara, the lead engineer on the satellite development team, was filled with emotion. "I was watching it on TV, together with my Honourable Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation," he says. "It was really amazing and we hugged each other! To see my baby takeoff from the ground headed for the International Space Station — it's really a great feeling of my life." The satellite developed by Omara and his team, named PearlAfricaSat-1, was launched aboard a Northrop Grumman Cygnus resupply spacecraft, which lifted off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. In addition, the rocket was also carrying ZimSat-1, Zimbabwe's first satellite. Both satellites were developed through the Joint Global Multi-Nation Birds Project 5, BIRDS-5, in collaboration with the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan. Omara, when asked about collaborating with engineers from Zimbabwe and Japan, says, "I feel really great to work with our neighbors in Africa ... to have a team of engineers and great men joining hands to work together towards attaining a common goal." Uganda and Zimbabwe join an ever growing number of African countries that are building up their space technology capabilities. To date, 52 satellites have been launched by 14 African countries, including the two launched last week. The satellites, which have by now reached the International Space Station, are set to be deployed over the next few weeks, depending upon environmental conditions. It is a historic moment for the two countries, who now hope the data collected by the satellites will help improve life on the ground. Big things come in small packages Many of the modern devices we use every day function because of satellite technology — something that's often taken for granted. Uganda's satellite is small, but packs a punch. It will be able to transmit data that will help Ugandans make the best use of their natural resources. Bonny Omara hide caption toggle caption Bonny Omara Uganda's satellite is small, but packs a punch. It will be able to transmit data that will help Ugandans make the best use of their natural resources. Bonny Omara "Space technologies are essentially the backbone of the modern economy," says Kwaku Sumah, founder of SpaceHubs Africa, a service company that helps stimulate the African space ecosystem. "You sometimes don't even know that you're using them. But for example, if you're using Google Maps ... or even things like Zoom, or broadband communication, that's all powered by satellite services." Sumah and SpaceHubs Africa were not involved in the development of the recently launched satellites. However, Uganda and Zimbabwe's satellites won't be providing wireless services to anyone. Instead, they've been developed for the purposes of earth observation. "[The satellites] have a multispectral camera, which allows the satellite to essentially take pictures of the Earth," says Sumah. Multispectral cameras can take pictures that capture information from wavelengths of light not visible to the human eye. What this does is provide data that can help determine the health of land for the agricultural sector, among other things. Omara says the multispectral camera will be used to "perform analysis of water quality, land use cover, and soil fertility." That information will then be provided to citizens so that they can make the best use of the natural resources in their countries. But there are still possibilities to do even more with the satellites. Sumah says that one of the main purposes of a satellite Ghana launched in 2019 was to "monitor illegal mining that was occurring in the north of Ghana." And all of those capabilities are made possible by a satellite that only measures 10cm in each direction. They're called CubeSats — and their small size and low cost to develop makes them perfect first satellites for nations developing their space technology sectors. But don't let their size fool you. While small – only a bit larger than a Rubik's cube — CubeSats can still pack a big punch. However, there is one downside to CubeSats. Their lifetime of operation is only about 24 to 30 months. So unless Uganda and Zimbabwe commit to building and launching more of these satellites, the benefits will be short-lived. One small step for Africa, but giant leaps still needed The satellites launched by Uganda and Zimbabwe aren't the first satellites launched by African nations, and they won't be the last. According to Sumah, "Ethiopia is looking to launch a new satellite, as well as Nigeria and Ghana," all hopefully within the next year. Despite plans for future launches by African nations, Sumah is a bit hesitant to suggest bigger things are unquestionably on the way. "I'm hoping that these are not just one-off events that are just used for PR, but that there's a sustained momentum that helps lead the charge for Africa to really maximize the use of these new technologies," he says. Ugandan engineers Edgar Mujuni (left), Bonny Omara (center) and Derrick Tebusweke helped launch the country's first satellite. Bonny Omara hide caption toggle caption Bonny Omara Ugandan engineers Edgar Mujuni (left), Bonny Omara (center) and Derrick Tebusweke helped launch the country's first satellite. Bonny Omara At least with respect to Uganda, Omara believes one thing will help make sure this new foray into space will be sustainable. "A couple of countries have launched their first satellite, or even many, by paying money to other institutions who then give them the satellite," he says. "But Uganda is unique in the sense that we participated, we have now got three engineers who are fully grounded in the process of developing satellites." Even though the human capital is there to provide sustainable development of satellites, Omara thinks there's still more political and social investment needed before space technologies in Africa can fully mature. "In the field of science and technology on the African continent, we are still limping," he says. "The reason is very simple — it's because we do not believe in ourselves. I always tell everyone that we can make it, we have every single resource that we need. The only thing is us believing in ourselves." | Space Technology |
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran claimed on Wednesday that it successfully launched an imaging satellite into space, a move that could further ratchet up tensions with Western nations that fear its space technology could be used to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran’s Communication Minister Isa Zarepour said the Noor-3 satellite had been put in an orbit 450 kilometers (280 miles) above the Earth’s surface, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. It was not clear when exactly the launch took place.
There was no immediate acknowledgment from Western officials of the launch or of the satellite being put into orbit. The U.S. military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Iran has had a series of failed launches in recent years.
WATCH: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi addresses the 2023 United Nations General Assembly
The most recent launch was carried out by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which has had more success. Gen. Hossein Salami, the top commander of the Guard, told state TV that the launch had been a “victory” and that the satellite will collect data and images.
Authorities released footage of a rocket taking off from a mobile launcher without saying where the launch occurred. Details in the video corresponded with a Guard base near Shahroud, some 330 kilometers (205 miles) northeast of the capital, Tehran. The base is in Semnan province, which hosts the Imam Khomeini Spaceport from which Iran’s civilian space program operates.
The Guard operates its own space program and military infrastructure parallel to Iran’s regular armed forces and answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
It launched its first satellite into space in April 2020. But the head of the U.S. Space Command later dismissed it as a “tumbling webcam in space” that would not provide vital intelligence. Western sanctions bar Iran from importing advanced spying technology.
The United States has alleged that Iran’s satellite launches defy a U.N. Security Council resolution and has called on Tehran to undertake no activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
The U.S. intelligence community’s 2022 threat assessment claims the development of satellite launch vehicles “shortens the timeline” for Iran to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile because it uses similar technology.
Iran has always denied seeking nuclear weapons, and says its space program, like its nuclear activities, is for purely civilian purposes. U.S. intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Iran abandoned an organized military nuclear program in 2003.
Over the past decade, Iran has sent several short-lived satellites into orbit and in 2013 launched a monkey into space. The program has seen recent troubles, however. There have been five failed launches in a row for the Simorgh program, another satellite-carrying rocket.
A fire at the Imam Khomeini Spaceport in February 2019 killed three researchers, authorities said at the time. A launchpad rocket explosion later that year drew the attention of then-President Donald Trump, who taunted Iran with a tweet showing what appeared to be a U.S. surveillance photo of the site.
READ MORE: A historical timeline of U.S. relations with Iran
Tensions are already high with Western nations over Iran’s nuclear program, which has steadily advanced since Trump five years ago withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers and restored crippling sanctions on Iran.
Efforts to revive the agreement reached an impasse more than a year ago. Since then, the IAEA has said Iran has enough uranium enriched to near-weapons grade levels to build “several” nuclear weapons if it chooses to do so. Iran is also building a new underground nuclear facility that would likely be impervious to U.S. or Israeli airstrikes. Both countries have said they would take military action if necessary to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran has expressed willingness to return to the 2015 nuclear deal, but says the U.S. should first ease the sanctions.
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Sep 18 | Space Technology |
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. CNN — A tiny spacecraft with big implications for lunar exploration is ready to launch. The miniscule satellite, called a CubeSat, is about the size of a microwave oven and weighs just 55 pounds (25 kilograms), but it will be the first to test out a unique, elliptical lunar orbit. The CubeSat will act as a pathfinder for Gateway, an orbiting lunar outpost that will serve as a way station between Earth and the moon for astronauts. The orbit, which is called a near rectilinear halo orbit, is very elongated and provides stability for long-term missions while requiring little energy to maintain – which is exactly what the Gateway will need. The orbit exists at a balanced point in the gravities of the moon and Earth. The mission, called the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, and known as CAPSTONE, is scheduled to lift off the launchpad on Monday, June 7, at 5:50 a.m. ET. The CubeSat will launch aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from the company’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand. Once CAPSTONE launches, it will reach the orbit point within three months and then spend the next six months in orbit. The spacecraft can provide more data about power and propulsion requirements for the Gateway. The CubeSat’s orbit will bring the spacecraft within 1,000 miles (1,609.3 kilometers) of one lunar pole at its closest pass and within 43,500 miles (70,006.5 kilometers) from the other pole every seven days. Using this orbit will be more energy efficient for spacecraft flying to and from the Gateway since it requires less propulsion than more circular orbits. The miniature spacecraft will also be used to test out communication capabilities with Earth from this orbit, which has the advantage of a clear view of Earth while also providing coverage for the lunar south pole – where the first Artemis astronauts are expected to land in 2025. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbit, which has been circling the moon for 13 years, will provide a reference point for CAPSTONE. The two spacecraft will communicate directly with each other, allowing teams on the ground to measure the distance between each one and home in on CAPSTONE’s exact location. The collaboration between the two spacecraft can test CAPSTONE’s autonomous navigation software, called CAPS, or the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System. If this software performs as expected, it could be used by future spacecraft without relying on tracking from Earth. “The CAPSTONE mission is a valuable precursor not just for Gateway, but also for the Orion spacecraft and the Human Landing System,” said Nujoud Merancy, chief of NASA’s Exploration Mission Planning Office at Johnson Space Center in Houston. “Gateway and Orion will use the data from CAPSTONE to validate our model, which will be important for operations and planning for the future mission.” The CAPSTONE mission is a rapid, low-cost demonstration with the intent to help lay a foundation for future small spacecraft, said Christopher Baker, the small spacecraft technology program executive at NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. Small missions that can be put together and launched quickly at lower cost means that they can take chances that larger, more expensive missions can’t. “So often on a flight test, you learn as much, if not more, from failure than you do from success. We can afford to take more risk, knowing that there’s a probability of failure, but that we can accept that failure in order to move into advanced capabilities,” Baker said. “In this case, failure is an option.” The lessons from smaller CubeSat missions can inform larger missions down the line – and CubeSats have already been setting out for more challenging destinations than low-Earth orbit. When NASA’s InSight lander was on its nearly seven-month trip to Mars in 2018, it wasn’t alone. Two suitcase-size spacecraft, called MarCO, followed InSight on its journey. They were the first cube satellites to fly into deep space. During InSight’s entry, descent and landing, the MarCO satellites received and transmitted communication from the lander to let NASA know that InSight was safely on the surface of the red planet. They were nicknamed EVE and WALL-E, for the robots from the 2008 Pixar film. The fact that the tiny satellites made it to Mars, flying behind InSight through space, excited engineers. The CubeSats kept flying beyond Mars after InSight landed, but fell silent by the end of the year. But MarCO was an excellent test of how CubeSats can tag along on bigger missions. These tiny but mighty spacecraft will again serve a supporting role in September, when the DART mission, or the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, will deliberately crash into the moonlet Dimorphos as it orbits near-Earth asteroid Didymos to change the motion of the asteroid in space. The collision will be recorded by LICIACube, or Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids, a companion cube satellite provided by the Italian Space Agency. The briefcase-size CubeSat is traveling on DART, which launched in November 2021, and will be deployed from it prior to impact so it can record what happens. Three minutes after the impact, the CubeSat will fly by Dimorphos to capture images and video. The video of the impact will be streamed back to Earth. The Artemis I mission will also carry three cereal box-size CubeSats that are hitching a ride to deep space. Separately, the tiny satellites will measure hydrogen at the moon’s south pole and map lunar water deposits, conduct a lunar flyby, and study particles and magnetic fields streaming from the sun. The CAPSTONE mission relies on NASA’s partnership with commercial companies like Rocket Lab, Stellar Exploration, Terran Orbital Corporation and Advanced Space. The lunar mission was built using a fixed-price small business innovative research contract – in under three years and for under $30 million. Larger missions can cost billions of dollars. The Perseverance rover, currently exploring on Mars, cost more than $2 billion and the Artemis I mission has an estimated cost of $4.1 billion, according to an audit by the NASA Office of Inspector General. These kinds of contracts can expand the opportunities for small, more affordable missions to the moon and other destinations while creating a framework for commercial support of future lunar operations, Baker said. Baker’s hope is that small spacecraft missions can increase the pace of space exploration and scientific discovery – and CAPSTONE and other CubeSats are just the beginning. | Space Technology |
The notion of capturing sunlight in space and beaming it to Earth has long been the stuff of science fiction. But as Jon Cartwright discovers, governments around the world are now taking “space-based solar power” seriously as a potential solution to our energy needs (Courtesy: Mark Garlick / Science Photo Library) The theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson once imagined an alien civilization that was so advanced that it had surrounded its parent star with a giant, artificial shell. The inner surface of this “Dyson sphere” would capture solar radiation and transfer it towards collection points, where it would be converted into usable energy. Such a notion remains science fiction, but could a similar principle be used at a much smaller scale to harness the power of our own Sun?
After all, beyond the clouds, in the nightless blaze of near-Earth space, there is more uninterrupted solar power than humanity could realistically require for centuries to come. That’s why a group of scientists and engineers has, for more than 50 years, been dreaming up techniques to capture this energy in space and beam it back to ground.
“Space-based solar power”, as it’s known, has two huge benefits over traditional methods for tapping into the Sun and the wind. First, putting a sunlight-capturing satellite in space means we wouldn’t need to cover vast swathes of land on Earth with solar panels and wind farms. Second, we’d have an ample supply of energy even when, despite local weather conditions, it’s overcast or the wind has petered out.
And that’s the trouble with solar energy and wind power here on Earth: they can never meet our energy demands on a consistent basis, even if greatly expanded. Researchers at the University of Nottingham estimated last year that, if the UK were to rely totally on these renewable sources, the country would need to store more than 65 terawatt-hours of energy. That would cost over £170bn, more than twice that of the country’s forthcoming high-speed rail network (Energies 14 8524).
Most efforts to realize space-based solar power have, unfortunately, hit seemingly intractable technical and economic problems. But times are changing. Innovative satellite designs, as well as much lower launch costs, are suddenly making space-based solar power seem like a realistic solution. Japan has written it into law as a national goal, while the European Space Agency has put out a call for ideas. China and the US are both building test facilities.
Meanwhile, a consultation published by the UK government in 2021 concluded that space-based solar power is technically and economically feasible. Tantalizingly, it reckoned that this technological solution could be put into practice 10 years before the 2050 “net zero” goal of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. So is space-based solar power the answer to our climate’s woes? And if so, what’s preventing it from becoming a reality?
Space dreams
The original concept of solar power from space was dreamt up in 1968 by Peter Glaser, a US engineer at the consultancy Arthur D Little. He envisaged placing a huge disc-shaped satellite in geostationary orbit some 36,000 km above the Earth (Science 162 857). The satellite, roughly 6 km in diameter, would be made of photovoltaic panels to collect sunlight and convert it into electrical energy. This energy would then be turned into microwaves using a tube amplifier and beamed to Earth via a 2 km-diameter transmitter.
It’s the only form of green, renewable energy with the potential to provide continuous, baseline electrical power.
Chris Rodenbeck, US Naval Research Laboratory
The beauty of microwaves is they don’t get absorbed by clouds here on Earth and so would pass largely (though not totally) unhindered through our atmosphere. Glaser envisaged them being collected by a fixed antenna 3 km in diameter, where they would be converted into electricity for the grid. “Although the use of satellites for conversion of solar energy may be several decades away,” he wrote, “it is possible to explore several aspects of the required technology as a guide to future developments.”
The initial reaction was positive in at least some quarters, with NASA awarding Glaser’s company, Arthur D Little, a contract for further study. Over the years, however, the conclusions of subsequent studies into space-based solar power have ranged from cautiously positive to outwardly negative.
1 Multi-Rotary Joints Solar Power Satellite (MR-SPS)
(Courtesy: Hou Xinbin) This concept for space-based solar power builds on the original 1968 proposals devised by the US engineer Peter Glaser. Known as the Multi-Rotary Joints Solar Power Satellite (MR-SPS), it was invented in 2015 by Hou Xinbin and others at the China Academy of Space Technology in Beijing. The 10,000-tonne satellite, which is about 12 km wide, would move in a geostationary orbit roughly 36,000 km above the Earth, with sunlight collected by solar panels and converted into microwaves that are beamed to Earth by a central transmitter. To allow power to be transmitted continually to us, the photovoltaic panels can turn to face the Sun relative to the central transmitter, which always faces Earth. The solar panels and transmitter are connected by a singular rectangular scaffold. Unlike rival designs, the MR-SPS concept does not rely on mirrors. In 2015, for example, the technology received no more than a lukewarm verdict in a report from the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) of the US Army War College, which cited “no compelling evidence” that space solar power could be economically competitive with terrestrial power generation. The SSI particularly criticized the “questionable assumptions” made by its proponents regarding getting such a huge orbiting structure into space. Simply put, the report stated that there aren’t enough launch vehicles, and those that are available are too expensive.
But the SSI’s less-than-glowing verdict came before private companies – especially SpaceX – began to transform the space industry. By combining reusable rocket systems with a trial-and-error attitude to research and development, the US firm has, over the last decade, slashed the cost of launch into near-Earth orbit by more than a factor of 10 (per kilo of payload), with plans to reduce it by an order of magnitude further. What the SSI considered a major limitation about launch costs is, in fact, no longer an issue.
Not that the cost of getting a satellite into space has been the only sticking point. Glaser’s original concept was deceptively simple, with many hidden challenges. For starters, as a satellite orbits the Earth, the angle between the Sun, the craft and the point on Earth to which the energy is sent is constantly changing. For example, if a geostationary satellite is trained on Earth, its photovoltaics will be facing the Sun at noon but have their backs to the Sun at midnight. In other words, the satellite would not generate electricity all the time.
The original solution to this problem was to continually rotate the photovoltaic panels relative to the microwave transmitters, which would stay fixed. The photovoltaic panels would then always point towards the Sun, while the transmitters would always face Earth. First put forward in 1979 by NASA as a development of Glaser’s ideas, the solution was extended further in a 2015 proposal by engineers at the China Academy of Space Technology in Beijing, who dubbed it Multi-Rotary Joints Solar Power Satellite, or MR-SPS (figure 1).
Meanwhile, John Mankins, a former NASA engineer, invented a rival solution in 2012. Dubbed SPS Alpha, his idea was to keep the solar panels and transmitter fixed, but install numerous mirrors surrounding the panels (figure 2). Known as heliostats, these mirrors would be able to rotate, continuously redirecting sunlight onto the solar panels and thereby allowing the satellite to supply power to the Earth without a break.
2 SPS-Alpha
(Concept and image courtesy John C Mankins) In the SPS-Alpha concept, invented by former NASA engineer John Mankins in the US, the main body of the satellite – the solar panels and transmitter – is fixed and always faces Earth. Stationed in a geostationary orbit, the 8000-tonne satellite consists of a disc-shaped array of modules that convert sunlight to electricity via photovoltaics, and then transmit that energy as microwaves. Connected to this 1700 m diameter array is a separate, larger, dome-shaped array of mirrors, which independently turn to reflect sunlight to the array, depending on where the Sun is positioned relative to Earth in the geostationary orbit. Neither MR-SPS nor SPS Alpha, however, is satisfactory, according to Ian Cash, director and chief engineer at International Electric Company Limited in Oxfordshire, UK. A former designer of electronic systems in the automotive, aerospace and energy sectors, Cash turned his mind a decade ago to the private development of clean, large-scale sources of energy. Initially lured by the potential of nuclear fusion, he was put off by its “really difficult” problems and quickly alighted on space-based solar power as the most practical option.
For Cash, the problem with both MR-SPS and SPS Alpha is that they have to rotate some parts of the satellite relative to others. Every part would therefore have to be physically connected to another and need an articulated joint that moves. Trouble is, when used on satellites like the International Space Station, such joints can fail due to wear and tear. Omitting articulated joints would make a solar-power satellite more reliable, Cash concluded. “I wanted to find out what it would take to have a solid-state solution that always sees the Sun and Earth,” he says.
By 2017 Cash had figured it out, or so he claims. His CASSIOPeiA concept is a satellite that essentially looks like a spiral staircase, with the photovoltaic panels being the “treads” and the microwave transmitters – rod-shaped dipoles – being the “risers”. Its clever helical geometry means that CASSIOPeiA can receive and transmit solar energy 24 hours a day, with no moving parts (figure 3).
Cash, who intends to profit from CASSIOPeiA by licensing the related intellectual property, claims many other benefits to his concept. His proposed satellite can be built of hundreds (and possibly thousands) of smaller modules linked together, with each module capturing solar energy, converting it electronically to microwaves and then transmitting them to Earth. The beauty of this approach is that if any one module were struck by cosmic rays or space debris, its failure wouldn’t knock out the entire system.
Another advantage of CASSIOPeiA is that the non-photovoltaic components are permanently in shadow, which minimizes heat dissipation – something that’s a problem in the convectionless vacuum of space. Finally, as the satellite is always oriented towards the Sun it can occupy more types of orbit, including those that are highly elliptical. It then would be, at times, closer to Earth than if it were geostationary, which makes it cheaper as you don’t need to scale the design on the basis of such a huge transmitter.
3 CASSIOPeiA
(Courtesy: IOP Publishing) (Courtesy: IOP Publishing) (Courtesy: Ian Cash) a The CASSIOPeiA proposal for space-based solar power, developed by Ian Cash at International Electric Company Limited in the UK, envisages a satellite with a mass up to 2000 tonnes sitting in a geosynchronous or elliptical orbit around Earth. b Sunlight strikes two huge elliptical mirrors (yellow discs), each up to 1700 m in diameter, that lie at 45° to a helical array of as many as 60,000 solar panels (grey). These panels collect the sunlight and turn it into microwaves at a specific frequency, which are then transmitted to a ground station on Earth roughly 5 km in diameter. This station converts the microwaves into electricity for the grid. The advantage of the helical geometry is that the microwaves can be constantly directed towards Earth without needing articulated joints, which often fail in space environments. c The microwaves are instead steered via adjustments to the relative phase of solid-state dipoles. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Cash’s competitors do not agree with his assessment. Mankins, who is now based at Artemis Innovation Management Solutions in California, US, disputes that the articulated heliostats in his SPS-Alpha concept are a problem. Instead, he claims they are “a simple extension of [a] very mature technology” that is already used to concentrate sunlight to heat fluids and drive turbines in “solar towers” here on Earth. He also believes that the dual mirrors required by CASSIOPeiA could be a problem as they must be very precisely built.
“I have high regard for Ian and his work; his more recent CASSIOPeiA concept is one of several that are very similar in character, including SPS-Alpha,” says Mankins. “However, I don’t agree with his expectation that CASSIOPeiA will prove to be superior to SPS-Alpha.” For Mankins, the best approach to space-based solar power will ultimately depend on the results of development projects, with the actual cost per kilowatt-hour of electricity here on Earth being the crucial factor.
Scalable and striking
Interest in space solar power has received an added boost in the wake of the UK government’s 2021 report into the technology, which could scarcely have been more positive about the concept. It was drawn up by engineers at the UK-based consultancy Frazer-Nash, who corresponded with a number of space-engineering and energy experts – including the inventors of SPS Alpha, MR-SPS and CASSIOPeiA.
The report concluded that a 1.7 km-wide CASSIOPeiA satellite in geostationary orbit transmitting solar radiation to a 100 km2 array of microwave receivers (or “rectenna”) located here on Earth would generate 2 GW of continuous power. That’s equivalent to the output from a large conventional power station. It’s also far better than, say, the existing London Array wind farm in the Thames estuary, which is about 25% larger but generates an average power of barely 190 MW.
More striking, however, was the report’s economic analysis. Based on an estimate that a full-sized system would cost £16.3bn to develop and launch, and allowing for a minimum rate of return on investment of 20% year-on-year, it concluded that a space-based solar-power system could, over its roughly 100-year lifetime, generate energy at £50 per MWh.
Frazer-Nash says that’s 14–52% more expensive than current terrestrial wind and solar energy. But, critically, it’s 39–49% cheaper than biomass, nuclear or the most efficient gas energy sources, which are the only ones currently able to offer uninterrupted “base load” power. The report’s authors also said that their conservative estimate for costings “would be expected to reduce as development proceeds”.
“It’s incredibly scalable,” says Martin Soltau of Frazer-Nash, one of the authors. And with the level of sunlight in the space around Earth being far brighter than down below, he reckons every solar module would collect 10 times as much as it would if installed on the ground. The report reckons that the UK would need a total of 15 satellites – each with its own rectenna – to provide a quarter of the country’s energy needs by 2050. Each rectenna could be located alongside or even within an existing wind farm.
If the scheme were scaled up further, it could in principle deliver over 150% of all global electricity demand (although a resilient energy supply would usually dictate a broad mix of sources). Space-based solar power, Soltau adds, would also have a much lower impact on the environment than Earth-based renewable energy sources. The carbon footprint would be small, there would be few demands on rare-earth minerals, and there would, unlike wind turbines, be no noise or tall visible structures.
If that all sounds too good to be true, it might well be. The Frazer-Nash report admits to several “development issues”, notably finding ways to make wireless energy transfer more efficient. Chris Rodenbeck, an electrical engineer from the US Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC, says that large-scale demonstrations of the technology are hard to achieve. They require sustained investments and targeted advances in electronic components, such as high-power rectifier diodes, which are not readily available.
Fortunately, wireless energy transmission has been advancing for decades. In 2021 Rodenbeck’s team sent 1.6 kW of electrical power over a distance of 1 km, with a microwave-to-electricity conversion efficiency of 73%. On the face of it, that’s less impressive than the most powerful demonstration of wireless energy to date, which took place in 1975 when staff at NASA’s Goldstone lab in California converted 10 GHz microwaves to electricity at an efficiency of above 80%. Crucially, however, Rodenbeck used lower-frequency 2.4 GHz microwaves, which would suffer much less atmospheric loss in space.
To counteract the higher diffraction (beam spreading) that naturally occurs at lower frequencies, the researchers exploited the surrounding terrain to “bounce” the microwaves towards the receiver array, thereby improving power density by 70% (IEEE J. Microw. 2 28). “We did [the test] fairly quickly and cheaply during the global pandemic,” says Rodenbeck. “We could have achieved more.”
Initial construction will require a 24/7 factory in space, with an assembly line like a car factory on Earth.
Yang Gao, University of Surrey
Rodenbeck is optimistic about the prospects of space-based solar power. Whereas nuclear fusion is, he claims, “running up against basic problems of physics”, space-based solar power – and wireless power transfer – is merely “running up against dollars”. “[It’s] the only form of green, renewable energy with the potential to provide continuous, baseline electrical power,” Rodenbeck claims. “Barring a technical breakthrough [in] controlled nuclear fusion, it seems highly likely that humanity will harness space solar power for future energy needs.”
A note of caution, though, comes from Yang Gao, a space engineer at the University of Surrey in the UK, who admits that “the sheer scale” of the proposed space system “is quite mind-blowing”. She believes the initial construction might well require “a 24/7 factory in space, with an assembly line like a car factory on Earth”, probably using autonomous robots. As for maintaining the facility, once built, Gao says that would be “demanding”.
For Cash, what’s crucial is the orbit that a space-power satellite would occupy. A geostationary solar-power satellite would be so far from Earth that it would require huge and expensive transmitters and rectennas to transmit energy efficiently. But by taking advantage of multiple satellites on shorter, highly elliptical orbits, says Cash, investors could realize smaller working systems on the CASSIOPeiA concept with a fraction of the capital. SPS Alpha and MR-SPS, in contrast, would have to be full sized from day one.
Is there enough will?
And yet the biggest challenge for space-based solar power may not be economic or technical, but political. In a world where substantial numbers of people believe in conspiracy theories surrounding 5G mobile technology, beaming gigawatts of microwave power from space to Earth could prove a tough sell – despite the maximum beam intensity being barely 250 W/m2, less than a quarter of the maximum solar intensity at the equator.
In fact, the UK report admits that its proponents need to test the public appetite, and to “curate a conversation” around the key ideas. But there are real technical and societal considerations, too. Where will the rectennas be sited? How will the satellites be decommissioned at their end of life without adding to space junk? Will there be space in the microwave spectrum left for anything else? And will the system be vulnerable to attack?
In the wake of its report, the UK government unveiled a £3m fund to help industries develop some of the key technologies, with former business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng saying that space-based solar power “could provide an affordable, clean and reliable source of energy for the whole world”. That pot of cash is unlikely to go far towards an undertaking of this scale, which is why Soltau has helped to set up a business called Space Solar, which hopes to raise an initial £200m from private investors.
Meanwhile, what he calls a “collaboration of the willing”, the Space Energy Initiative, has gathered scientists, engineers and civil servants from over 50 academic institutions, companies and government bodies, who are working pro bono to help bring a working system to fruition. SpaceX is not yet on the list, but Soltau claims to have caught the US company’s attention. “They’re very interested,” he says.
Cash does not doubt that investment will be found. Terrestrial renewables can’t deliver uninterrupted, base-load power without enormously costly battery infrastructure, while nuclear always faces stiff opposition. Space-based solar power, Cash believes, is a vital part of the mix if we’re to hit net-zero, and simply asking people to use less energy is a “dangerous idea”. Most wars have been fought over a perceived lack of resources,” he says. “If we don’t look at how to keep civilization moving forward, the alternative is very scary.” | Space Technology |
Getty Images There are a couple of reasons why 2022’s hurricane season seems a little slower than average. U.S. officials on Tuesday promoted their work with African governments and industry to create space-based “early warning systems” to address the impacts of climate change. The collaboration, touted as President Biden welcomes various African heads of state to Washington, D.C., this week for the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, builds on $33 million in broader funding to help forecast climate threats facing vulnerable global communities that USAID announced in November. It also comes as Rwanda and Nigeria become the first African countries to sign a framework agreement to guide conduct in space. U.S. officials on Tuesday emphasized the importance of U.S.-Africa space collaboration for safeguarding sustainability on earth — something the United Nations has long called for. “Everyone must have early warning systems for their ability to deal with the climate challenge,” Monica Medina, assistant secretary of State for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs, told reporters. The U.S. uses space-based climate monitoring “to help us understand our fire-prone regions, and how to contain damage and save lives and minimize economic losses,” Medina said. “And just last month, Uganda and Zimbabwe … launched their first Earth observation satellites, which will perform analyses of water quality, land use, land cover and soil fertility,” she added. U.S.-developed early warning systems for flash floods now help provide early warnings to more than 3 billion people across nearly 70 countries, USAID reported in November. Rwanda and Nigeria on Tuesday also signed the Artemis Accords, the White House said. The accords seek “to establish a common set of principles to govern the civil exploration and use of outer space,” according to NASA. Twenty-three countries have now joined the accords, which the U.S. and representatives of seven other national space agencies first signed in 2020. The U.S.-Africa collaboration agreement builds on a broader surge of interest in space technology as a means of protecting against the ravages of climate change. It also reinforces the growing importance of Africa to the surging space industry, now worth nearly $470 billion. Several U.S. companies also announced collaborations with African space agencies on Tuesday. For example, San Francisco-based satellite imaging company Planet Labs is investing into remote sensing to help African governments make decisions around “drought risk protection, forest management, and renewable energy,” according to the White House. Kenyan reinsurance company ZEP-RE will use Planet Labs maps to create models to predict the risk of drought in Sub-Saharan Africa — something they say will allow them to expand insurance coverage to 250,000 pastoral farmers in the Horn of Africa. Medina linked the early-warning collaboration to broader international goals. The U.N. wants every person on earth protected by early warning systems that can foresee dangers from climate change and extreme weather, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced in March. Guterres announced $3.1 billion to build such early warning systems at November’s U.N. climate change conference. “Vulnerable communities in climate hotspots are being blindsided by cascading climate disasters without any means of prior alert,” Guterres said. “People in Africa, South Asia, South and Central America, and the inhabitants of small island states are 15 times more likely to die from climate disasters. These disasters displace three times more people than war. And the situation is getting worse,” he added. Guterres noted that even a small amount of warning can make a huge difference — particularly to the half of the world that lacks early warning systems. “Just 24 hour’s notice of an impending hazardous event can cut damage by 30 percent,” he said. Medina also reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to heading off another sustainability threat: the danger to the space economy itself from militarization. “That’s why Vice President Harris announced in April that the United States is committed not to conduct direct-ascent anti-satellite missile tests,” Medina said. “These tests jeopardize the long-term sustainability of outer space by damaging the space environment, and they endanger the use of space by all nations.” | Space Technology |
Saudi Arabia will send its first two astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) during the second quarter of 2023, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Sunday.
Rayyanah Barnawi and Ali al-Qarni will join the crew of the AX-2 space mission in an accomplishment that comes in line with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030. The spaceflight is set to launch from the United States to the ISS.
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The move aims to boost national capabilities in the field of human spaceflight and help the Kingdom benefit from the opportunities provided by the international space industry, SPA said. It also aims at “contributing to scientific research that serves the interests of humans in essential fields such as health, sustainability, and space technology.”
In addition to Barnawi and al-Qarni, astronauts Mariam Fardous and Ali al-Gamdi will also be trained on all the requirements of the mission that is part of the Saudi Space Commission’s spaceflight program.
The program is being carried out in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Sports, the General Authority of Civil Aviation, and King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, in addition to international partners such as Axiom Space.
Eng. Abdullah Bin Amer al-Swaha, the Chairman of the Saudi Space Commission and Saudi Minister of Communication and Information Technology, said on Sunday that the Saudi leadership has given its full support to the program.
ارفع راسك..— الهيئة السعودية للفضاء (@saudispace) February 12, 2023
السعودية #نحو_الفضاء
Raise Your Head..
Saudi Arabia Towards Space. pic.twitter.com/V5Tod5Yfnj
He added that through the program, the Kingdom seeks to strengthen its capabilities to independently conduct its own research, “increase the interest of graduates in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and develop human capital by attracting talents and the necessary skills.”
For his part, the Saudi Space Commission’s CEO Dr. Mohammed Bin Saud al-Tamimi added that embarking on human spaceflights reflects countries’ “superiority and global competitiveness in many fields such as technology, engineering, research, and innovation.”
“This mission is also historic as it will make the Kingdom one of the few countries in the world that brings two astronauts of the same nationality aboard the International Space Station simultaneously,” al-Tamimi said.
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“We are bringing a literal flashlight to the Moon – shining lasers into these dark craters to look for definitive signs of water ice covering the upper layer of lunar regolith,” said Barbara Cohen, Lunar Flashlight principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “I’m excited to see our mission contribute to our scientific understanding of where water ice is on the Moon and how it got to be there.”The spacecraft’s orbit – called a near-rectilinear halo orbit – will take it 43,000 miles (70,000 kilometers) from the Moon at its most distant point; at its closest approach, the satellite will graze the surface of the Moon, coming within 9 miles (15 kilometers) above the lunar South Pole.Small satellites, or SmallSats, carry a limited amount of propellent, so fuel-intensive orbits aren’t possible. A near-rectilinear halo orbit requires far less fuel than traditional orbits, and Lunar Flashlight will be only the second NASA mission to use this type of trajectory. The first is NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) mission, which arrived at its orbit on Nov. 13, making its closest pass over the Moon’s North Pole.
Lunar Flashlight will use a new kind of “green” propellant that is safer to transport and store than the commonly used in-space propellants such as hydrazine. In fact, Lunar Flashlight will be the first interplanetary spacecraft to use this propellant, and one of the mission’s primary goals is to test this technology for future use. The propellant was successfully tested on a previous NASA technology demonstration mission in Earth orbit.The science data collected by Lunar Flashlight will be compared with observations made by other lunar missions to help reveal the distribution of surface water ice on the Moon for potential use by future astronauts.More About the MissionLunar Flashlight will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The mission is managed for NASA by the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California. Lunar Flashlight will be operated by Georgia Tech, including graduate and undergraduate students. The Lunar Flashlight science team is distributed across multiple institutions, including the University of California, Los Angeles; Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory; and the University of Colorado.The SmallSat’s propulsion system was developed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, with integration support from Georgia Tech. NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research program funded component development from small businesses including Plasma Processes Inc. (Rubicon) for thruster development, Flight Works for pump development, and Beehive Industries (formerly Volunteer Aerospace) for specific 3D printed components. The Air Force Research Laboratory also contributed financially to the development of the Lunar Flashlight propulsion system. Lunar Flashlight is funded by the Small Spacecraft Technology program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. | Space Technology |
China To Start “Space Tourism” By 2025, With Tickets Costing About $350,000, Crossing The Kármán Line. Beijing may soon be able to send its first paying customers to the edge of space through space tourism as early as 2025, with tickets costing between 2-3 million yuan ($286,400-$429,600). This is according to China’s leading rocket scientist. The Kármán line, regarded as the aeronautical limit of the earth’s atmosphere, is about 60 miles (around 100 kilometers) above our heads. It is the limit that the Féderation Aéronautique Internationale, which validates and regulates international astronautical records, uses. The FAA and NASA, define everything above 50 miles as space. Crossing the Kármán line was like a dream for many but now this may become reality with this “Space Tourism” plan of China and this can be a lifetime experience. Yang Yiqiang, who founded a government-backed business to look into the commercial usage of rockets, predicts that commercial space travel will be in “full flower” by 2027. In 2018, he held the position of general director for the Long March 11 rocket project. According to Yang, the commercial space industry in China has moved from a 1.0 period of foundational manufacturing and research and development (R&D) to a 2.0 era driven by applications and market pressures. Within ten years, the sector is predicted to catch up to the US in terms of development. Up to seven people could take to the skies and soar above 100 kilometers in the air. During the 10-minute flight, which would take them above the Kármán line, the line dividing the earth’s atmosphere from space, passengers would briefly experience weightlessness, according to SCMP. A contract was struck by the Beijing-based rocket manufacturer CAS Space and the Hong Kong-based China Tourism Group to research and develop the space tourism sector together. It was stated by CAS Space last year that it is developing a single-stage reusable rocket that could carry up to seven passengers on a 10-minute trip above the Kármán line, which is the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space. This line is located at 62 miles (100 kilometers), and it marks the Earth’s atmosphere ends and space begins. Once it crossed the Kármán line, a single-stage rocket would separate and continue to fly through the air due to inertia. While the rocket would re-enter the atmosphere and make a smooth landing using only its engines, the spaceship would return with its parachute. “A space trip for regular people is no longer a pipe dream thanks to space technology. Travelers will have a wholly unique experience in space that they have never had before, “Founder of CAS Space Yang Yiqiang said. The Chinese Academy of Sciences owns a part of the 2018-founded company CAS Space. It is one of the leading recently founded commercial firms. According to reports, the corporation and China Tourism Group, the country’s largest state-owned travel agency, had a collaboration agreement in July, promising to promote commercial space technology and create a new space economy that includes space tourism. Before carrying paying passengers, it will do a series of unmanned test flights starting in the following year. With 370 commercial space firms in 2021, China quickly caught up with the US. Virgin Galactic, meanwhile, had already declared that it will start charging $450,000 for tickets to space travel. Four private tourists were flown into orbit by Elon Musk’s SpaceX last year, marking the first time without experienced astronauts. According to SpaceX, the craft carrying a civilian crew orbited the earth for three days at a height of around 575 kilometers, higher than the current space station orbits. The sixth human space travel mission of Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin was completed in August. The global space tourism market The global space tourism market is exploding, with dozens of companies now taking reservations for everything from zero-pressure balloon trips to astronaut boot camps and simulated zero-gravity flights, less than a year after Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson launched into space within weeks of one another’s last summer. Three billionaire-led rocket companies have received a lot of attention: Bezos’ Blue Origin, whose passengers have included William Shatner of “Star Trek” fame; Branson’s Virgin Galactic, where tickets for suborbital space tourism start at $450,000; and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which launched an all-civilian spaceflight in September with no trained astronauts. The environmental impact of space tourism will increase along with the industry. Even some stratospheric balloon flights, which use thousands of cubic meters of helium, a scarce resource, to power their balloons, have the potential. Future space travelers won’t just go there for the ride, according to space enthusiasts. They’ll wish to stay for a while. The intellectual property rights that China has, a system for developing talent, and support from the central government all contributed to the market size of China’s commercial space industry posting a growth rate of 22.09 percent between 2015 and 20. The US started assisting the space industry’s commercialization in the 1980s, and by the time SpaceX was established in 2002, the business had grown. Comparatively, China started private companies to develop the commercial space tourism industry in 2015. Nevertheless, after seven years of explosive growth in a variety of fields, like rocket launches, the creation of satellite and ground technology, satellite operation, and satellite application, the industry has already started to take shape. A few seats on upcoming Virgin Galactic flights have been sold, according to Joshua Bush, CEO of Avenue Two Travel. He thinks that, like commercial air travel, the demand for space flight will develop along with its exorbitant costs. Like this:Like Loading... | Space Technology |
By Matt WilliamsIt has been said that within the next quarter century, the world’s first trillionaires will emerge. It is also predicted that much of their wealth will stem from asteroid mining, a burgeoning space industry where minerals and volatile compounds will be harvested from Near-Earth Asteroids. This industry promises to flood the market with ample supplies of precious metals like gold, silver and platinum. Image credit: Maxar/ASU/P. Rubin/NASA/JPL-Caltech Beyond Earth, there’s the long-term prospect of the Main Asteroid Belt, which would provide even greater abundance. This is one of the reasons why NASA’s Psyche mission to explore the metal asteroid of the same name in the Main Belt has many people excited. While the exploration of this body could tell us much about the history of the Solar System, it could also be a source of riches someday.What makes Psyche 16 particularly interesting is its almost pure, metallic composition. According to radar observations, the asteroid has been determined to be made up of mostly iron and nickel. This separates it from most other asteroids, which are either primarily composed of silicate minerals (S-type) or carbonaceous compounds (C-type).And while metallic asteroids (M-type) are known to exist, Psyche is the largest of the bunch – measuring about 225 km (140 mi) in diameter. This has led many in the astronomical community to the conclusion that Psyche is actually the remnant core of a planet. Therefore, studying it would reveal a great deal about planet formation during the early Solar System and the magnetic properties of rocky worlds (like Earth).This is why NASA hopes to send a mission to this asteroid in 2022 – which would arrive by 2026 and spend the next 21 months studying it from orbit. But for futurists and the venture capitalists, this asteroid is interesting because it contains an estimated $700 quintillion (that’s 18 zeroes!) worth of precious heavy metals, which includes vast quantities of gold and platinum. Artist’s impression of NASA’s asteroid mission nearing the surface of the Psyche. - Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech As Scott Moore – the CEO of the Toronto-based company EuroSun Mining – recently said about the future of the industry:“The ‘Titans of Gold’ now control hundreds of the best-producing properties around the world, but the 4-5 million ounces of gold they bring to the market every year pales in comparison to the conquests available in space.”Granted, these kinds of missions cannot begin until all the necessary infrastructure is built. That would likely entail the creation of orbital manufacturing facilities, refueling points on or around the Moon, Mars, and in the Asteroid Belt. It would also be wise to build foundaries in the Belt or in orbit so that minerals can be processed before being brought to Earth.For a more detailed summary, there’s Roadmap to Space Settlement(3rd ed. 2018) produced by the National Space Society (NSS). As it states in Part 5: Asteroid Mining and Orbital Space Settlements:“Telescopic observations will initially identify asteroids as Near Earth Objects (NEO’s), Earth threatening NEOs, main belt asteroids and other orbital groupings. Initial robotic missions to NEO asteroids of commercial interest will confirm the size and composition of different types of asteroids as being rocky, metallic or carbonaceous, and identify the actual abundances of minerals on each one.”“The probes will also estimate the structure of the asteroids, as being apparent “rubble piles” of loose fragments, or made of solid, non-fractured rock and metal. Some missions may bring back actual samples of asteroid material for analysis. All this information will assist governments in planning planetary defense against threatening NEOs and will assist mining companies to decide which asteroids to focus on.” Once that is complete, automated mining ships can be dispatched and asteroids harvested. As for how long this would take, there are some thoughts on that as well. As Professor John Zarnecki (the President of the Royal Astronomical Society) explained in a 2018 interview with International Business Times, asteroid mining could be happening within a quarter of a century:“The timeline for space mining is the $64,000 question. My opinion is probably 25 years for a ‘proof of concept’ set-up, and 50 years for a commercial start. But there are so many uncertainties—mostly based around economics and the progress of space technology.”A challenge, to be sure, and one which requires a lot of time and resources. But there is no shortage of nations and private interests looking to stake out a slice of the market – one which is already established. According to estimates by Allied Market Research, the global market for asteroid mining will top $3.8 billion by 2025.Beyond that, asteroid mining is expected to be the focal point of the next industrial “boom”. It won’t begin in the Main Asteroid Belt, but it won’t end there either. All told, this burgeoning market could eventually reach from the inner Solar System to the Kuiper Belt, harvesting everything from metals and volatiles to helium-3 and rare Earth elements. “What we’re doing on the ground now may be impressive, but like everything else, even gold exploration in space is only a matter of infrastructure,” added Moore. “We’ll get to it, eventually… This may be the Holy Grail of space exploration for gold, but it won’t be the first stop on this adventure.”In the meantime, the Psyche mission promises to teach us a great deal about how the rocky planets of our Solar System came to be. Understanding its magnetic properties could also reveal how Earth has managed to hold onto its protective magnetic field while planets like Mercury, Venus, and Mars have not. In Mars’ case, this led to the surface changing from a warmer, wetter environment to the cold, dry and inhospitable place it is today. 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SRIHARIKOTA, India -- An Indian spacecraft blazed its way to the far side of the moon Friday in a follow-up mission to its failed effort nearly four years ago to land a rover softly on the lunar surface, the country’s space agency said.
Chandrayaan-3, the word for “moon craft” in Sanskrit, took off from a launch pad in Sriharikota in southern India with an orbiter, a lander and a rover, in a demonstration of India’s emerging space technology. The spacecraft is set to embark on a journey lasting slightly over a month before landing on the moon’s surface later in August.
Applause and cheers swept through mission control at Satish Dhawan Space Center, where the Indian Space Research Organization’s engineers and scientists celebrated as they monitored the launch of the spacecraft. Thousands of Indians cheered outside the mission control center and waved the national flag as they watched the spacecraft rise into the sky.
“Congratulations India. Chandrayaan-3 has started its journey towards the moon,” ISRO Director Sreedhara Panicker Somanath said shortly after the launch.
A successful landing would make India the fourth country — after the United States, the Soviet Union, and China — to achieve the feat.
The six-wheeled lander and rover module of Chandrayaan-3 is configured with payloads that would provide data to the scientific community on the properties of lunar soil and rocks, including chemical and elemental compositions, said Dr. Jitendra Singh, junior minister for Science and Technology.
India’s previous attempt to land a robotic spacecraft near the moon’s little-explored south pole ended in failure in 2019. It entered the lunar orbit but lost touch with its lander that crashed while making its final descent to deploy a rover to search for signs of water. According to a failure analysis report submitted to the ISRO, the crash was caused by a software glitch.
The $140-million mission in 2019 was intended to study permanently shadowed moon craters that are thought to contain water deposits and were confirmed by India’s Chandrayaan-1 mission in 2008.
Somanath said the main objective of the mission this time was a safe and soft landing on the moon. He said the Indian space agency has perfected the art of reaching up to the moon, “but it is the landing that the agency is working on.”
Numerous countries and private companies are in a race to successfully land a spacecraft on the lunar surface. In April, a Japanese company’s spacecraft apparently crashed while attempting to land on the moon. An Israeli nonprofit tried to achieve a similar feat in 2019, but its spacecraft was destroyed on impact.
With nuclear-armed India emerging as the world’s fifth-largest economy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationalist government is eager to show off the country’s prowess in security and technology.
“Chandrayaan-3 scripts a new chapter in India’s space odyssey. It soars high, elevating the dreams and ambitions of every Indian,” Modi said in a tweet after the launch.
India is using research from space and elsewhere to solve problems at home. Its space program has already helped develop satellite, communication and remote-sensing technologies and has been used to gauge underground water levels and predict weather in the country, which is prone to cycles of drought and flood.
“This is a very critical mission,” said Pallava Bagla, a science writer and co-author of books on India’s space exploration, adding that India will require soft landing technology if it wants to attempt more missions to the moon.
India is also looking forward to its first mission to the International Space Station next year, in collaboration with the United States as part of agreements between Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House last month.
This one-off visit by an Indian astronaut to the International Space Station will not hamper India’s own program, which aims to launch an Indian astronaut from Indian soil on an Indian rocket in late 2024, Bagla said.
As part of its own space program, active since the 1960s, India has launched satellites for itself and other countries, and successfully put one in orbit around Mars in 2014.
Singh said that based on the current trajectory of growth, India’s space sector could be a trillion-dollar economy in the coming years.
As of April, India has launched 424 satellites for 34 countries, including Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. The ISRO has earned approximately 1.1 billion rupees ($13.4 million) in the past five years from the launch of foreign satellites, the minister told India’s Parliament in December.
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Sharma reported from New Delhi. | Space Technology |
- Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen is heading to the moon as part of a NASA-led mission and believes Canada is better off collaborating with NASA. He encouraged the Canadian Space Agency to remain a key partner of NASA rather than to develop its own moon missions.
- Hansen emphasized the importance of meaningful collaboration between Canada’s CSA and the United States’ NASA, emphasizing that a large number of technological advancements that have enabled the Artemis II mission have resulted from Canadian innovation.
- Hansen also said he feels strongly that Canada’s future in space lies in the possibility of increased space technology commercialization, and while space technology development is one area where we've made some ground in Canada, we're behind "with respect to really enabling the commercialization of our technologies and making sure those industries and the jobs of the future do stay in Canada.”
Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen is heading to the moon as part of a NASA-led mission and believes Canada is better off collaborating with NASA than going it alone. When asked about the potential for Canada to have its own Moon landing missions, he encouraged the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to remain a key partner of NASA rather than to develop its own moon missions.
Colonel Jeremy Hansen will be the first Canadian to go on a mission around the Moon as the only non-American on the NASA-led Artemis II mission, which will be the first crewed mission to the Moon since the Apollo missions in 1972. The 10-day-long Artemis II expedition, projected to launch in November 2024, involves launching the state-of-the-art Orion shuttle into deep space, hopefully leading to a lap around Earth and the Moon and maybe even a space walk.
During an interview with The Hub after a presentation at the Ontario Science Centre last week, Hansen said that Canada’s potential in space “is enormous.” He explained that NASA’s leadership allows countries like Canada to shine, utilizing its technical prowess and extraordinary levels of “genius” in many space-related fields to make giant leaps for humanity.
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Hansen emphasized the importance of meaningful collaboration between Canada’s CSA and the United States’ NASA, comparing the benefits of international cooperation on climate science to the challenge of space exploration. Hansen said, “If everybody is trying to solve [climate change] with their own systems and replicate to have their own data, this is not as powerful as everybody contributing to a common system that we all have a stake in and that we all believe in.”
Hansen pointed out that a large number of technological advancements that have enabled the Artemis II mission have resulted from Canadian innovation. He pointed out that Canada is a “world leader in space technology development,” such as the revolutionary Canadarm. A new iteration of Canada’s robotic space arm will be used on the Artemis II mission as Canada’s contribution to the international partnership with NASA.
Given Canada’s high level of space-related expertise, Hansen feels strongly that Canada’s future in space lies in the possibility of increased space technology commercialization. Hansen said that space technology development “is one area where we’ve made some ground in Canada, but we’re behind with respect to really enabling the commercialization of our technologies and making sure those industries and the jobs of the future do stay in Canada.” He affirmed that once Canadians feel that their ideas can “be supported,” and they “can make serious contributions to the world,” Canada will be at the forefront of space commercialization and beyond.
Hansen said that it is doubtful that any Canadian will be on more than one or two of the future Artemis missions. These Artemis missions will aim to result in lunar landings. These missions will, if successful, be reminiscent of the 1961 moon landing when Neil Armstrong and his crew put their boots on the Moon’s surface, which, Hansen commented, is still an incredible feat even when considering the remarkable technological advancements that have been made since then.
The Artemis II is the first step of many that lead to a deeper understanding of the solar system than ever before. NASA plans to deploy lunar landers and rovers, build a space station near the Moon called the Lunar Gateway, and, eventually, use the Moon as a launchpad to go to Mars. It is increasingly likely that Canadians will play a pivotal role in the success of these missions, goals, and operations through the country’s world-class space innovation industry. | Space Technology |
A pair of Shenzhou 14 astronauts outside Tiangong during the mission's third EVA on Nov. 16, 2022. Credit: CMSA HELSINKI — China intends to use its newly-completed Tiangong space station to test key technologies required for space-based polar power, according to a senior space official.
Robotic arms already operating on the outside of Tiangong will be used to test on-orbit assembly of modules for a space-based solar power test system, Yang Hong, chief designer of the Tiangong space station said in a presentation at the ongoing China Space Conference.
The test system will then orbit independently and deploy its solar arrays and other systems. It is likely to test and verify capabilities such as power generation, conversion and transmission.
The test will be designed to “promote breakthroughs in individual technologies, accumulate on-orbit experimental data, and make contributions to the realization of carbon peak and carbon neutrality,” Yang told CCTV.
In 2020 China announced targets of peak carbon emissions by 2030, and carbon neutrality in 2060.
Yang noted that SBSP is one pathway to new, green energy, but that such a project still faces many technical challenges. Work is underway however.
The China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), the country’s main, state-owned spacecraft maker which made the modules for Tiangong, earlier stated that it plans to conduct a “Space high voltage transfer and wireless power transmission experiment” in low Earth orbit in 2028.
This first phase test is to be followed by a second phase experiment conducted in geostationary orbit, requiring accurate energy transmission over a distance of 35,800 kilometers to Earth, according to earlier presentations.
Phases 3 and 4, in 2035 and 2050 respectively will aim for energy generation of 10 MW and 2 gigawatts, requiring leaps in capabilities in power transmission, orbital assembly capabilities, beam steering accuracy and transmission architecture.
Long Lehao, chief designer of China’s Long March rocket series and a SBSP advocate, said in June 2021 that the potential project would use the in-development Long March 9 super heavy-lift rocket to send the requisite infrastructure into geostationary orbit.
China recently apparently scrapped plans for an early, expendable Long March 9 concept, instead looking to transition to a reusable version.
China’s Xidian University in June completed a 75-meter-high steel structure facility which it calls the world’s first full-link and full-system ground test system for SBSP.
In another possibly related development, research into construction of kilometer-scale objects in orbit received funding last year. Such work could help to address the major challenge of assembling the giant arrays needed for solar power collection and transmission arrays.
Space-based solar power faces major challenges including economic feasibility and manufacturing costs, cheap and reliable launch services, and efficient and safe energy transmission. | Space Technology |
Tuesday, November 15th 2022 - 09:45 UTC During the first week of November, a break bulk operation was carried out to unload rocket parts, a cargo that had never been seen in the Port of Santos A South Korean space startup for small launch vehicles, Innospace has signed a commercial contract to launch a Brazilian military payload, a symbolic win for the burgeoning space exploration industry from the Asian country. Under the contract signed with the Brazilian Department of Aerospace Science and Technology (DCTA), Innospace will conduct its first suborbital test flight of HANBIT-TLV to carry an inertial navigation system called SISNAV for the Brazilian Air Force at the Alcantara Launch Center in Brazil in December this year.
Precisely during the first week of November, a break bulk operation was carried out to unload rocket parts, a cargo that had never been seen in the Port of Santos. About 15 professionals from the DP World terminal assisted in the unloading of the cargo, which was hoisted from the ship.
The goods arrived in Brazil on November 3rd on Hyundai Grace, owned by Hyundai, weighing more than 100 tons. It was placed in flat rack containers (specific containers for overweight loads). The freight contained launch pad parts, toolkits, lifting structures, and vehicles.
Asia Shipping was in charge of the operation’s storage management, which, in partnership with the terminal, presented a logistics solution for this operation.
The cargo left the Port of Busan in South Korea and is destined for the launch center in Alcântara, a city neighboring São Luís, the capital of Maranhão.
The Korean company is developing HANBIT, a small satellite launcher powered by its hybrid 15-ton rocket engine. The test launch marks its first suborbital test flight to validate the first stage engine of HANBIT-Nano, a 2-stage small satellite launcher capable of carrying a 50kg payload. The 16.3-meter test rocket weighs 9.5 tons and will be thrust by a single 15-ton engine.
SISNAV is a navigation device that measures the flight position, speed, and attitude of the rocket and the test launch will enable DCTA to verify if the device works properly in takeoff and during the trans-atmospheric flight.
Korea sees a growing list of space rocket and satellite startups in the private sector. NARA Space Technology, a startup dedicated to small satellites, said the company is scheduled to launch its first satellite on Space X Falcon 9 next year | Space Technology |
Nasa has unveiled plans to test nuclear-powered rockets that would fly astronauts to Mars.The agency has partnered with the US government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) to demonstrate a nuclear thermal rocket engine in space as soon as 2027, it announced on Tuesday.The project is intended to develop a pioneering propulsion system for space travel far different from the chemical systems prevalent since the modern era of rocketry dawned almost a century ago.“Using a nuclear thermal rocket allows for faster transit time, reducing risk for astronauts,” Nasa said in a press release.“Reducing transit time is a key component for human missions to Mars, as longer trips require more supplies and more robust systems.”An additional benefit would be increased science payload capacity, and higher power for instrumentation and communication, according to the agency.Nasa, which successfully tested its new-era Artemis spacecraft last year as a springboard back to the moon and on to Mars, has hopes of landing humans on the red planet some time in the 2030s as part of its Moon to Mars program.Using current technology, Nasa says, the 300m mile journey to Mars would take about seven months. Engineers do not yet know how much time could be shaved off using nuclear technology, but Bill Nelson, the Nasa administrator, said it would allow spacecraft, and humans, to travel in deep space at record speed.“With the help of this new technology, astronauts could journey to and from deep space faster than ever - a major capability to prepare for crewed missions to Mars,” Nelson said.Nuclear electric propulsion systems use propellants much more efficiently than chemical rockets but provide a low amount of thrust, the agency says.A reactor generates electricity that positively charges gas propellants like xenon or krypton, pushing the ions out through a thruster, which drives the spacecraft forward.Using low thrust efficiently, nuclear electric propulsion systems accelerate spacecraft for extended periods and can propel a Mars mission for a fraction of the propellant of high thrust systems.In a statement, Darpa director Dr Stefanie Tompkins said the agreement was an extension of existing collaboration between the agencies.“Darpa and Nasa have a long history of fruitful collaboration in advancing technologies for our respective goals, from the Saturn V rocket that took humans to the moon for the first time to robotic servicing and refueling of satellites,” she said.“The space domain is critical to modern commerce, scientific discovery, and national security. The ability to accomplish leap-ahead advances in space technology… will be essential for more efficiently and quickly transporting material to the moon and, eventually, people to Mars.”Nasa’s Artemis 2 mission, which will send humans around the moon for the first time in more than half a century, is scheduled for 2024. The subsequent Artemis 3 mission, which could come the following year, will land astronauts, including the first woman, on the moon’s surface for the first time since 1972. | Space Technology |
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is on its voyage to an asteroid of the same name, a metal-rich world that could tell us more about the formation of rocky planets. Psyche successfully launched 10:19 a.m. EDT Friday aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Integrated onto the spacecraft is the agency’s Deep Space Optical Communications technology demonstration, a test of deep space laser communications that could support future exploration missions by providing more bandwidth to transmit data than traditional radio frequency communications.
“Congratulations to the Psyche team on a successful launch, the first journey to a metal-rich asteroid,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “The Psyche mission could provide humanity with new information about planet formation while testing technology that can be used on future NASA missions. As Asteroid Autumn continues, so does NASA’s commitment to exploring the unknown and inspiring the world through discovery.”
Less than five minutes after liftoff, once the rocket’s second stage climbed to a high-enough altitude, the fairings separated from the rocket and returned to Earth. About an hour after launch, the spacecraft separated from the rocket, and ground controllers waited to acquire a signal from the spacecraft.
Shortly after, the Psyche spacecraft commanded itself into a planned safe mode, in which it completes only minimal engineering activities while awaiting further commands from mission controllers on Earth. Psyche established two-way communication at 11:50 a.m. EDT with NASA’s Deep Space Network complex in Canberra, Australia. Initial telemetry reports show the spacecraft is in good health.
“I am excited to see the treasure trove of science Psyche will unlock as NASA’s first mission to a metal world,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “By studying asteroid Psyche, we hope to better understand our universe and our place in it, especially regarding the mysterious and impossible-to-reach metal core of our own home planet, Earth.”
By August 2029, the spacecraft will begin to orbit the 173-mile-wide (279-kilometer-wide) asteroid – the only metal-class asteroid ever to be explored. Because of Psyche’s high iron-nickel metal content, scientists think it may be the partial core of a planetesimal, a building block of an early planet. The goal is a 26-month science investigation.
“We said ‘goodbye’ to our spacecraft, the center of so many work lives for so many years – thousands of people and a decade,” said Lindy Elkins-Tanton, Psyche principal investigator at Arizona State University in Tempe. “But it’s really not a finish line; it’s a starting line for the next marathon. Our spacecraft is off to meet our asteroid, and we’ll fill another gap in our knowledge – and color in another kind of world in our solar system.”
For its six-year, 2.2-billion-mile (3.6-billion-kilometer) trip to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, Psyche relies on solar electric propulsion. The efficient propulsion system works by expelling charged atoms, or ions, of the neutral gas xenon to create a thrust that gently propels the spacecraft. Along the way, the spacecraft will use Mars’ gravity as a slingshot to speed it along on its journey.
“I’m so proud of the Psyche team, who overcame many challenges on their way to this exciting day,” said Laurie Leshin, the director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California. “Now the real fun begins as we race toward asteroid Psyche to unlock the secrets of how planets form and evolve.”
The first 100 days of the mission are a commissioning phase, called the initial checkout period, to make sure all flight systems are healthy. Key to the checkout is ensuring that the electric thrusters are ready to begin continuously firing over long stretches of the trajectory.
Active checkout of the science instruments – the magnetometer, the gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, and the multispectral imager – starts about six weeks from now. During this period, the imager will take its first images for calibration purposes, targeting standard stars and a star cluster at a variety of exposures, with several different filters. Then the Psyche team will activate an automatic feed of publicly viewable raw images online for the duration of the mission.
The first opportunity to power on the optical communications technology demonstration is expected in about three weeks, when Psyche would be roughly 4.7 million miles (7.5 million kilometers) from Earth. This will be the agency’s first test beyond the Moon of high-data-rate optical, or laser, communications. While the transceiver is hosted by Psyche, the tech demo will not relay Psyche mission data.
“Launching with Psyche is an ideal platform to demonstrate NASA’s optical communications goal to get high-bandwidth data into deep space,” said Dr. Prasun Desai, acting associate administrator, Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) at NASA Headquarters. “It’s exciting to know that, in a few short weeks, Deep Space Optical Communications will begin sending data back to Earth to test this critical capability for the future of space exploration. The insights we learn will help us advance these innovative new technologies and, ultimately, pursue bolder goals in space.”
Arizona State University leads the Psyche mission. A division of Caltech in Pasadena, JPL is responsible for the mission’s overall management, system engineering, integration and test, and mission operations. Maxar Space in Palo Alto, California, provided the high-power solar electric propulsion spacecraft chassis.
JPL manages the Deep Space Optical Communications project for the Technology Demonstration Missions program within STMD and the Space Communications and Navigation Program within the Space Operations Mission Directorate.
NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy Space Center, is responsible for the insight and approval of the launch vehicle and manages the launch service for the Psyche mission. NASA certified the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket for use with the agency’s most complex and highest priority missions in early 2023 at the conclusion of a 2.5-year effort.
Psyche is the 14th mission selected as part of NASA’s Discovery Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
For more information about NASA’s Psyche mission go to:
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Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-6215
[email protected] | Space Technology |
German aerospace company POLARIS Raumflugzeuge is advancing in its ambitions to produce disruptive aerospace technologies with a recent series of test flight demonstrations in advance of the development of AURORA, the company’s next-generation spaceplane concept with a name already familiar to longtime aviation enthusiasts.
Drawing from more than three decades of combined German and European aerospace research, the company’s focus mainly involves the development of reusable space launch capabilities and the production of a versatile hypersonic transport system capable of maintaining the ability to operate like a traditional aircraft.
In recent months, successful test flights involving demonstrator aircraft have allowed POLARIS to validate several crucial technologies, and the company is now approaching the development of a new demonstrator craft that will represent the final test before it begins production of its ambitious next-generation spaceplane.
Aurora: The Spaceplane of Tomorrow
AURORA, an innovative spaceplane design that combines the rocket launch capabilities the company is currently testing with traditional air flight modes, has its origins in early innovations that began at the German Aerospace Center DLR. The result, the company says, is a vehicle with a design unlike any other, which POLARIS says will provide an economical means of access to space in the years ahead.
Among its key benefits, AURORA will offer worldwide space launch capabilities without any need for a launch pad, as the spaceplane’s aircraft-like operation allows it to take off from any traditional runway. Eliminating the need for a launch pad also greatly reduces fuel costs associated with traditional rocket-driven spaceflight.
AURORA will be capable of carrying payloads greater than 2200 pounds (1000 kg) in orbit, and roughly ten times that amount for suborbital/hypersonic flight. In keeping with the company’s objectives to develop sustainable aerospace technologies, AURORA is also designed with close to 100% system reusability.
Defense, Research, and Beyond
With its versatility and sustainable design, POLARIS expects that its spaceplane will be equipped to meet the demands of a variety of markets, enabling satellite and orbital cargo launch operations with relative ease and significantly reducing flight times, enabling swift, economical delivery of payloads across great distances in record time.
However, its defense and research applications are evident, as AURORA will be capable of reaching any orbit inclination and is already being touted as a potential solution for hypersonic reconnaissance and a variety of other defense applications.
While AURORA will be designed to function as an unmanned aircraft, POLARIS says it will offer an optional upgrade of its spaceplane that will facilitate human transport, enabling flights capable of carrying passengers for research and training purposes and a range of other potential spaceflight missions.
The Mystique of the Fabled Aurora
The aircraft’s name seems to be no accident, either. In the 1990s, AURORA had been the alleged name of an aerospace development project aiming to build the successor aircraft to the famous SR-71.
In fact, as early as January 1979, Aviation Week & Space Technology reported rumors about the development of a “Mach 4, 200,000-ft.-altitude aircraft that could be a follow-on to the Lockheed SR-71 strategic reconnaissance vehicle in the 1990s,” which it reported “has been defined by the Air Force Aeronautical Systems Division and Lockheed.”
Efforts to determine whether such a spacecraft had indeed ever been developed continued for years, prompting the Federation of American Scientists to investigate “observations of mysterious aerial phenomena” which began to be “connected with the 1988 reports that Aurora was a Mach 6 stealthy reconnaissance aircraft that was being developed to replace the SR-71.”
Ultimately, it was never determined whether such an unacknowledged aircraft truly existed. Kelly Johnson, who developed both the SR-71 and its predecessor, the U-2, during his time with Lockheed, later said the name “Aurora” had been the code name for funding of an Air Force black program which later leaked during congressional appropriations hearings, prompting the media to presume it involved a secret hypersonic aircraft.
“Although I expect few in the media to believe me,” Johnson later wrote, “there is no code name for the hypersonic plane, because it simply doesn’t exist.”
While Johnson maintained the U.S. had never successfully developed a hypersonic successor to the SR-71, not surprisingly, invocation of the fabled aircraft’s name has been seen again and again by various agencies and aerospace companies in recent years.
Now, perhaps by the end of the decade, POLARIS appears to be the latest company poised to bring its version of AURORA out of the shadows of modern space-age mythology and into reality.
Technology Validation and the Path to Aurora
POLARIS has announced that it expects to begin flight with its light spaceplane by as early as 2026, with a heavy vehicle that will become operational by the early 2030s.
In advance of AURORA’s development, the company has undertaken technology validation with the production of several scaled flight demonstrators.
Earlier this month, POLARIS announced that it had commenced initial tests with its MIRA-Light demonstrator, a smaller version of its full-scale MIRA aircraft, which it plans to begin testing before the end of the year.
At roughly half the size of MIRA, the MIRA-Light vehicle measures roughly 2.5 meters in length, and with the company’s successful flight of its full-scale MIRA demonstrator later this year, the company hopes to showcase its linear aerospike rocket design, a novel variety of engines that boast significant performance capabilities exceeding those of traditional rocket engines.
Study contracts for tests that include in-flight ignition and operation were awarded to the company in April. In August, POLARIS received approval for temporary restricted airspace test flights over the Baltic Sea that are expected to begin in September.
Before it commences production on the spaceplane, in the months ahead, the company will be launching its fifth demonstrator, NOVA, as the final test of its innovative flight capabilities prior to production of AURORA.
Powered by four kerosene-fed jet turbines and a single liquid fuel rocket engine, POLARIS says the focus of the DEMO-5 NOVA flight will be “the demonstration of safe and repeatable rocket-powered supersonic flight capability at high altitudes, while fulfilling the full regulatory framework required for airport-based operation.”
NOVA is expected to be developed and flown sometime next year, with AURORA entering its production stage thereafter in 2026.
The company’s ambitions don’t stop with AURORA, however. By the early 2030s, POLARIS hopes it will be positioned to begin development of the ultimate expression of its current technological vision: a reusable heavy orbital spaceplane, which the company says will be a step toward making fully reusable single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) space vehicles one closer to becoming a reality.
You can learn more about POLARIS and the AURORA spaceplane, in addition to seeing imagery from several recent test flights of its current demonstrator aircraft at the company’s official website. | Space Technology |
How AI can revolutionize health on long-duration spaceflightsArtificial intelligence is already revolutionizing many fields on Earth, but will it also have a significant impact on space exploration?Tejasri Gururaj| Sep 23, 2023 03:46 PM ESTCreated: Sep 23, 2023 03:46 PM EST scienceHow will AI change space exploration?titami29 Get a daily digest of the latest news in tech, science, and technology, delivered right to your mailbox. Subscribe now.By subscribing, you agree to our Terms of Use and Policies You may unsubscribe at any time.Long-duration spaceflights pose a challenge to astronauts due to the strain put on the body by the zero gravity environment. Artificial intelligence (AI) could point to novel solutions to these challenges.Most recently, scientists have suggested using extended reality and AI to help with Spaceflight Associated Neuro-ocular Syndrome (SANS).Long-duration spaceflights have become increasingly common over the past few decades, with astronauts spending upwards of a year in space in low-gravity conditions.However, the toll on the human body, including bone and muscle loss, is a significant challenge to spending extended periods of time in low-gravity conditions.To address these challenges, researchers are exploring various avenues, with some of the most exciting and promising involving the use of artificial intelligence (AI).The use of AI in space exploration is multi-faceted, from controlling rovers remotely to safeguarding the well-being of astronauts. One recent advance involves the expansion of visual assessments for astronauts using AI.Research in this area is being led by Dr. Ethan Waisberg, from the University of Cambridge, and Dr. Joshua Ong, from the University of Michigan.Dr. Ethan Waisberg and Dr. Joshua Ong, with the NASA-funded VR headset.Dr. Ethan Waisberg In this article, we explore their work, along with other fascinating applications of AI in space technology, including the use of personalized and precision medicine pioneered by Dr. Waisberg and Dr. Ong.The role of AI in space explorationCapable of sifting through large amounts of data, performing data analysis, and making real-time decisions, AI has become an integral part of improving the future of space exploration. Spacecraft operations AI could be used to optimize take-off, landing, and gear deployment. SpaceX already uses AI autopilots, like those on Falcon 9, for docking with the International Space Station (ISS). AI can also be used to calculate trajectories, manage fuel, handle navigation, and adjust for atmospheric challenges. For example, IBM's Watson powers robots like CIMON 2, which is designed to aid astronauts in onboard operations.Planetary explorationAI already enables Mars Rovers to navigate autonomously, ensuring safety by avoiding obstacles. NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab also uses AI image recognition on Mars. Rover Perseverance employs AEGIS for rock classification, and AI is also used to evaluate safe landing sites. The European Space Agency (ESA) is also experimenting with AI-driven "hopper" robots for use in lunar exploration.A close-up of a rock taken by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover using AEGIS.NASA Mapping the universeCurrent and future uses for AI include assisting astronomers in mapping the cosmos by recognizing star clusters and distant nebulae. For example, NASA's Kepler telescope uses AI to locate planets through starlight dips while predicting celestial events like supernovae. AI can also detect black holes via gravitational wave ripples from their collisions with neutron stars and assists in SETI's search for extraterrestrial intelligence by analyzing radio telescope data.Biomedical researchBeyond Earth's orbit, AI can be used to monitor astronaut health, aiding in adaptation to space challenges, analyze data, and predict complications before they happen. Management of space debrisAI can also aid in managing space debris and preventing collisions with autonomous systems, including detecting and tracking debris for improved navigation and protection.An artist's interpretation of space trash circling Earth.dottedhippo Challenges to long-duration spaceflightsAI can assist in addressing one of the most pressing concerns of long-duration spaceflight: the health challenges faced by astronauts.Astronauts experience muscle and bone loss, cardiovascular changes, and fluid shifts that can lead to motion sickness and vision problems, as well as longer-term issues. These changes in the body's physiology also make readjusting to Earth's gravity a long process, and it can take months for astronauts to regain full strength.Moreover, cosmic radiation poses a significant health risk on extended missions, and can damage DNA over time. Researchers are exploring strategies to mitigate this risk through improved spacecraft shielding.The mental toll of isolation and separation from loved ones can lead to anxiety and stress for astronauts, further affecting their well-being. Sleep disturbances are common in space, with astronauts typically getting two hours less sleep per night compared to on Earth, compounding feelings of stress.One of the most pressing concerns is Spaceflight Associated Neuro-ocular Syndrome (SANS). This affects around 70% of ISS astronauts, causing swelling of the eyes due to long-term exposure to microgravity. A post-flight MR optic nerve image illustrating potential kinking (arrow) resulting from long-duration spaceflight.Peter Mortensen/NASA Explaining the importance of understanding SANS, Dr. Ong told IE, "Vision is of critical importance for astronaut health and mission performance. SANS is a significant barrier to future spaceflight." "However, the pathogenesis of SANS is still not well understood. AI and extended reality technology may help to characterize the effects of long-duration microgravity on the ophthalmic system."Expanding visual assessmentsThe researchers shared their respective motivations to explore the intersection of ophthalmology and space medicine. Dr. Waisberg told IE, "I've had a long-standing interest in both ophthalmology and space, making this research a compelling opportunity."Dr. Ong added, "My prior work in bioartificial muscle research in space naturally led me to explore space medicine, and this project allowed me to merge my clinical interest in ophthalmology with space medicine seamlessly."Current visual assessments on the ISS include static visual acuity, which checks clarity when viewing stationary objects; use of the Amsler grid to assess central vision for distortions; and self-reported surveys about visual experiences. An astronaut aboard the ISS performing routine tests for visual assessments.NASA These tests are performed at specific intervals during missions to monitor astronauts' visual health, and contrast sensitivity (CS) assessments are also used when necessary.To address the limitations of current visual assessments and enhance our understanding of SANS, Dr. Waisberg, and Dr. Ong suggest the answer lies in the use of AI. With this goal in mind, the team proposes the development of a head-mounted, multi-modal visual assessment system to enhance astronaut vision monitoring during spaceflight.The role of AI in this system is to analyze and interpret the data collected from the various visual assessments.Dr. Ong explained, "We have explored AI frameworks to detect and investigate the pathophysiology of SANS. These frameworks include generative adversarial networks, supervised/unsupervised learning, and transfer learning. We can combine extended reality, like augmented and virtual reality (VR), with AI to provide further insights."Wearable multi-modal visual assessment system design.Lee at. al Additionally, dynamic visual acuity, crucial for astronauts constantly in motion, can be assessed using this system. "Metamorphopsia assessment in VR can replace paper grid-based testing, providing more sensitive tracking of visual distortions.""Our research includes using augmented reality to suppress monocular metamorphopsia," said Dr. Waisberg. In simple terms, by utilizing AI, this system can offer dynamic visual assessments, including the ability to evaluate astronauts' vision when they are in motion or focusing on moving objects. This dynamic assessment is crucial for astronauts constantly on the move during missions.Moreover, the AI-driven system can track visual distortions, such as metamorphopsia, essential for assessing central vision abnormalities. It has the potential to replace the traditional Amsler grid-based testing, providing more sensitive and accurate data on vision changes.The incorporation of AI also allows for real-time analysis of visual data, enabling prompt detection of any visual anomalies. This feature is vital for ensuring astronaut safety during missions.Challenges and ethical considerationsIncorporating AI into space medicine raises intricate ethical concerns, particularly regarding data privacy and accountability in cases of AI misdiagnosis. In a different study, Dr. Waisberg and Dr. Ong shed light on these ethical challenges, emphasizing the need for thoughtful policy changes.One major challenge highlighted is determining responsibility in case of AI misdiagnosis, sparking a debate about the role of AI in the patient-doctor relationship. This dynamic also necessitates a reevaluation of data transmission practices. Dr. Waisberg and Dr. Ong advocate for edge computing to protect data privacy and ensure prompt decision-making.Dr. Waisberg stressed, "AI is still an experimental technology and requires autonomous and informed consent from participating astronauts." He further emphasized, "Additionally, large amounts of astronaut data are necessary to train AI algorithms, and it's vital that sensitive astronaut healthcare data is used responsibly with their full, informed consent."Acknowledging the challenge of limited training data, Dr. Ong added, 'While extended reality is already onboard the ISS, offering many benefits for implementation, it's necessary to further and thoroughly validate the techniques developed by the team."Respecting astronaut autonomy is another crucial aspect. AI in space medicine, though promising, is experimental, requiring informed and voluntary consent from astronauts. Dr. Waisberg and Dr. Ong stress that astronauts' agreement to use their data for AI system improvement is crucial.Dr. Waisberg and Dr. Ong also point out that AI technologies developed for space exploration can alleviate healthcare challenges in remote regions.ConclusionThe integration of AI with space technology presents a number of challenges and calls for thoughtful policy formulation and accountability.However, it also offers remarkable opportunities, as Dr. Waisberg and Dr. Ong's research demonstrates.europeanspaceagency via GIPHYAs we look to the future, the potential of AI in space medicine goes beyond its immediate application. It holds promise as a transformative tool not only for astronaut health but also for global healthcare accessibility.Dr. Waisberg optimistically says, "We see our research not only fitting well as a space innovation to monitor astronaut vision but also as an exciting tool to screen for blindness in developing countries.""In the future, we hope to deploy our technology in low-cost VR headsets in underserved regions to help screen for preventable causes of blindness." This vision exemplifies the broader impact that space innovation can have on improving healthcare worldwide.It is evident that AI has potential in space exploration, especially for understanding SANS, marking a significant step toward safeguarding astronaut health during extended missions beyond our planet. HomeScienceAdd Interesting Engineering to your Google News feed.Add Interesting Engineering to your Google News feed.SHOW COMMENT (1) For You These adorable Japanese robots are being used for elder careBridging the gap between doctors and medical technologyThis nanodevice harnesses Coulomb drag to create electricityThe genius engineering behind 3D-printed rockets Job Board | Space Technology |
HELSINKI — China’s main space contractor has conducted several successful high-altitude parachute deployment tests as part of plans to collect asteroid samples and deliver them safely to Earth.
The Academy of Aerospace Solid Propulsion Technology (AASPT) under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) recently carried out a launch test in the Gobi Desert in Northwest China, CASC announced June 23.
The test payload also carried a sample return device developed by the Beijing Institute of Space Machinery and Electronics (BISME) under the China Academy Of Space Technology (CAST), another major CASC subsidiary.
The tests are for the Tianwen-2 asteroid sample return and comet rendezvous mission which is currently scheduled to lift off on a Long March 3B rocket in May 2025.
The mission will target the near-Earth asteroid 469219 Kamoʻoalewa, collecting samples and returning to Earth around 2.5 years after launch.
The parachute will be used to slow the descent of a return capsule carrying a sample container after reentering the Earth’s atmosphere.
CASC has developed parachutes for reenteries for its human spaceflight program, the Tianwen-1 Mars rover landing, and for the 2020 Chang’e-5 and upcoming Chang’e-6 lunar sample return missions. The country is also working on an unprecedented Mars sample return mission.
Kamoʻoalewa is a quasi-satellite of Earth and roughly 40-100 meters in diameter. It is possibly a chunk of the moon blasted into space following an impact event.
Tianwen-2 will use two techniques to sample the asteroid. These will be the touch-and-go approach used by both NASA’s OSIRIS-REx and JAXA’s Hayabusa2, and an anchor-and-attach system featuring drills at the tips of landing legs.
After delivering samples to Earth the spacecraft will use the approach to the planet for a gravitational slingshot maneuver to send it on its way to the main-belt comet 311P/PANSTARRS. The comet orbits between 1.94 and 2.44 astronomical units from the Sun and the spacecraft is expected to rendezvous with the body in the mid-2030s.
China performed a similar maneuver in 2020 when delivering lunar samples to Earth with Chang’e-5. The service module for that mission used the return to Earth as flyby to embark on an extended mission to Sun-Earth Lagrange point 1.
The Tianwen-2 spacecraft will carry a pair of circular, fan-like solar arrays to generate energy, similar in appearance to those of NASA’s Lucy mission spacecraft. It will also carry eight payloads for its science goals.
China’s Tianwen missions are the country’s flagship deep space exploration missions. Tianwen-1 saw an orbiter and rover reach Mars in 2021, while Tianwen-3 will aim to collect samples from the Red Planet. Tianwen-4 will target the Jupiter system with a separate Uranus flyby.
The latter mission is scheduled to launch around 2030.The Chinese Academy of Sciences is meanwhile considering a proposal to collect samples from E-type asteroid 1989 ML. China is also planning an asteroid deflection test for 2025. | Space Technology |
BAKU, Azerbaijan — China will send new modules to its Tiangong space station in coming years to expand the outpost’s volume and capabilities.
Future plans for Tiangong were presented at the 47th International Astronautical Congress in Baku Oct. 4. Zhang Qiao of the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) presented plans to expand Tiangong from three to six modules.
“We will build a 180 tons, six-module assembly in the future,” Zhang said. Tiangong currently has three modules, each with a mass of around 22 tons.
A multi-functional expansion module with six docking ports will first be launched in the coming years to allow this expansion. This will dock at the forward port of the Tianhe core module. Full size modules can then be added to Tiangong. SpaceNews understands that the timeline for such launches is around four years from now.
An expanded Tiangong would be just over a third of the mass of the roughly 450-metric-ton International Space Station (ISS). The first module for the ISS, Zarya, was launched in 1998. Partners in the program are seeking to maximize the use of the aging station through 2030.
Zhang also stated that expansion interfaces for Tianhe and the Wentian experiment module are being developed to host large external payloads.
Inflatable modules are also being developed. These will serve both as potential habitats and preliminary verification for crewed lunar exploration.
CAST is an arm of China’s state-owned main space contractor, CASC. The academy develops and manufactures spacecraft including the modules for Tiangong and would likely be involved in development of new modules.
The plan for the basic, three-module Tiangong (“Heavenly Palace”) was initially stated to be a lifetime in orbit of no less than 10 years.
A Hubble-class co-orbiting space telescope, named Xuntian, is planned to be launched around 2024. It will be able to dock with Tiangong for maintenance, repairs, refueling and upgrades.
Zhang’s presentation also noted that more spacecraft will “probably fly co-orbitally with CSS [Chinese space station] to receive on-orbit services.”
The CSS will gradually play an important role as a “space home port,” according to Zhang.
Other improvements planned for Tiangong include 3D printers and developing intelligent robots, upgrading connectivity and robotic arms, and developing a space debris observation, detection and warning system. A digital twin of the station will also be constructed.
The expansion of the station would come at a time when China is working on several other expensive and challenging space projects. These plans include sending its first astronauts to the moon before 2030, while also working to construct an International Lunar Research Station in the 2030s. China is also working on a Mars sample return mission. This will be a more simple mission in comparison to the NASA-ESA MSR project, yet will still be incredibly complex. The latter project meanwhile has come under budgetary scrutiny in the U.S.
The growing scope of China’s space activities reflects an apparent increase in resources for the space sector, but may also create potential logistical, technical or budgetary challenges.
Experiments and cooperation
Lyu Congming, deputy chief designer of Space Utilization System of China’s human spaceflight program, told the audience that more than 100 scientific research projects for Tiangong have been initiated. Of these, 65 have been implemented with 48 ongoing.
Lyu added that international cooperation through the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) has been carried out, with a first round of experiments already selected. A new round of calls for proposals is expected soon and periodically after this. Lyu also highlighted cooperation with the European Space Agency.
China’s human spaceflight agency, CMSEO, has been looking at opening Tiangong to various commercial purposes including tourism. It also recently selected four proposals to proceed to a detailed design study phase for developing low-cost supply missions to the space station.
The presentations Wednesday also stated numerous times that China is looking for cooperation of various types with Tiangong. This includes collaboration at the payload, technology and module levels.
CMSEO stated earlier this year that it was about to start selecting international astronauts to travel to the space station. No update on the process was provided. | Space Technology |
By Ray Osorio
NASA recently built and tested an additively-manufactured – or 3D printed – rocket engine nozzle made of aluminum, making it lighter than conventional nozzles and setting the course for deep space flights that can carry more payloads.
Under the agency’s Announcement of Collaborative Opportunity, engineers from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, partnered with Elementum 3D, in Erie, Colorado, to create a weldable type of aluminum that is heat resistant enough for use on rocket engines. Compared to other metals, aluminum is lower density and allows for high-strength, lightweight components.
However, due to its low tolerance to extreme heat and its tendency to crack during welding, aluminum is not typically used for additive manufacturing of rocket engine parts – until now.
Meet NASA’s latest development under the Reactive Additive Manufacturing for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or RAMFIRE, project. Funded under NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), RAMFIRE focuses on advancing lightweight, additively manufactured aluminum rocket nozzles. The nozzles are designed with small internal channels that keep the nozzle cool enough to prevent melting.
With conventional manufacturing methods, a nozzle may require as many as a thousand individually joined parts. The RAMFIRE nozzle is built as a single piece, requiring far fewer bonds and significantly reduced manufacturing time.
NASA and Elementum 3D first developed the novel aluminum variant known as A6061-RAM2 to build the nozzle and modify the powder used with laser powder directed energy deposition (LP-DED) technology. Another commercial partner, RPM Innovations (RPMI) in Rapid City, South Dakota, used the newly invented aluminum and specialized powder to build the RAMFIRE nozzles using their LP-DED process.
“Industry partnerships with specialty manufacturing vendors aid in advancing the supply base and help make additive manufacturing more accessible for NASA missions and the broader commercial and aerospace industry,” Paul Gradl, RAMFIRE principal investigator at NASA Marshall, said.
Paul Gradl
RAMFIRE Principal Investigator
NASA’s Moon to Mars objectives require the capability to send more cargo to deep space destinations. The novel alloy could play an instrumental role in this by enabling the manufacturing of lightweight rocket components capable of withstanding high structural loads.
“Mass is critical for NASA’s future deep space missions,” said John Vickers, principal technologist for STMD advanced manufacturing. “Projects like this mature additive manufacturing along with advanced materials, and will help evolve new propulsion systems, in-space manufacturing, and infrastructure needed for NASA’s ambitious missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.”
Earlier this summer at Marshall’s East Test Area, two RAMFIRE nozzles completed multiple hot-fire tests using liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, as well as liquid oxygen and liquid methane fuel configurations. With pressure chambers in excess of 825 pounds per square inch (psi) – more than anticipated testing pressures – the nozzles successfully accumulated 22 starts and 579 seconds, or nearly 10 minutes, of run time. This event demonstrates the nozzles can operate in the most demanding deep-space environments.
“This test series marks a significant milestone for the nozzle,” Gradl said. “After putting the nozzle through the paces of a demanding hot-fire test series, we’ve demonstrated the nozzle can survive the thermal, structural, and pressure loads for a lunar lander scale engine.”
In addition to successfully building and testing the rocket engine nozzles, the RAMFIRE project has used the RAMFIRE aluminum material and additive manufacturing process to construct other advanced large components for demonstration purposes. These include a 36-inch diameter aerospike nozzle with complex integral coolant channels and a vacuum-jacketed tank for cryogenic fluid applications.
NASA and industry partners are working to share the data and process with commercial stakeholders and academia. Various aerospace companies are evaluating the novel alloy and the LP-DED additive manufacturing process and looking for ways it can be used to make components for satellites and other applications.
Ramon J. Osorio
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034 | Space Technology |
China Space Station
"We cannot speculate on why it has taken so long to get clearance or what the issues are," said Jayant Murthy, a senior Indian astrophysicist and manager of a project dubbed the first-ever space technology collaboration between China and India. It was expected to be the first international payload to go to the China Space Station but it has now hit a roadblock, with the key equipment produced by India for the China Space Station waiting for export clearance from the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) indefinitely.
"As far as we're concerned, we are ready to fly to the China Space Station. Our equipment is ready and we just have to settle on interface issues with the program," Jayant Murthy, a senior professor at the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Astrophysics who oversees the project, told the Global Times in an exclusive interview on Tuesday.
"As you might expect, we will require formal approval from our Indian MEA to send any complex equipment outside India, particularly when it involves a space mission. We have told the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) about our request to the MEA and that we cannot do anything until we get clearance," the professor said.
The project of Spectroscopic Investigations of Nebular Gas, or SING, was one of the first batch of nine international scientific experiments from 17 countries and 23 research bodies that passed extensive evaluation of a team of around 60 experts from the UNOOSA (United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs), the CMSA and the international space community in June 2019.
SING is implemented by two institutions from two countries - The Indian Institute of Astrophysics and the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
An application for the export license for the SING equipment was submitted by a team from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bangalore last year.
Asked if scientists have been notified by the Indian authority on why the export license has been put on hold, Murthy said, "We have no information on the progress of our request for an export license. We have had questions from the MEA and have answered them, stressing that we are a purely scientific mission with no commercial implications."
"We cannot speculate on why it has taken so long to get clearance or what the issues are," Murthy said.
"We do think it is a great opportunity to rise above whatever political issues affect daily relations between the governments and to show that we do have the ability and the will to cooperate in the cause of science," he said.
SING is an imaging spectrograph in the ultraviolet spectrum. "Ultraviolet is not observable from the ground because of the ozone layer and it is essential for us to take observations from space," Murthy said.
The goal is to observe hot gas in the galaxy, which we will be able to identify through observations of emissions from the different parts of the gas. This has to be done from above the Earth's atmosphere, Murthy noted, spelling out the significance of sending the payload to the China Space Station.
After the space station entered the application and development phase at the end of 2022, China repeatedly vowed to adhere to the development concept of openness and sharing, and carry out more and deeper pragmatic cooperation with countries and regions committed to the peaceful utilization of outer space, so that the scientific and technological achievements of China's space station will benefit all mankind.
International collaboration at the China Space Station includes sending international payloads and welcoming astronauts from other countries to enter its space station to conduct experiments, the CMSA has said.
Chinese space watcher and TV commentator Song Zhongping said that as two leading developing countries and members of the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, China and India should enhance cooperation in all fronts, especially in the space domain.
"If Indian authorities set roadblocks for normal scientific exchanges and politicized space collaboration at the China Space Station, it will definitely be a heavy loss for not only individual scientists in the country but also one for India's future space development," Song told the Global Times. | Space Technology |
The Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 spacecraft has reentered Earth’s atmosphere, successfully completing its mission to demonstrate flight by light for small spacecraft. LightSail 2 reentered sometime on Nov. 17, according to orbital predictions.The reentry completes a mission of nearly three-and-a-half years, during which LightSail 2 showed that it could change its orbit using the gentle push of sunlight, a technique known as solar sailing. LightSail 2 demonstrated that small spacecraft can carry, deploy, and utilize relatively large solar sails for propulsion.“LightSail 2 is gone after more than three glorious years in the sky, blazing a trail of lift with light, and proving that we could defy gravity by tacking a sail in space,” said Bill Nye, CEO of The Planetary Society. “The mission was funded by tens of thousands of Planetary Society members and backers, who want to advance space technology. And, take a look at these pictures! With this small spacecraft, we provided citizens of Earth with awe-inspiring overviews of our home world.” LightSail 2's Final Image This image taken by The Planetary Society's LightSail 2 spacecraft on October 24, 2022 was the final image returned from the spacecraft before atmospheric reentry. It shows the central portion of South America centered approximately on Bolivia including the large, white Uyuni Salt Flats. North is approximately at top. This image has been color-adjusted and some distortion from the camera’s 180-degree fisheye lens has been removed.Image: The Planetary SocietyLightSail 2 hitched a ride to space in June 2019 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. It began operations at an altitude of about 720 kilometers (450 miles), where Earth’s atmosphere is still thick enough to create drag and slow down a spacecraft. For reference, the International Space Station orbits at an altitude of roughly 400 kilometers (250 miles).As atmospheric drag slowly pulled LightSail 2 back towards Earth, the spacecraft successfully used solar sailing to lower its decay rate and on occasion overcome drag completely. After 18,000 orbits and 8 million kilometers (5 million miles) traveled, drag finally won out, bringing the mission to a close.“During its extended mission LightSail 2 continued to teach us more about solar sailing and achieved its most effective solar sailing, but that was followed by an increase in atmospheric drag in part from increasing solar activity,” said Bruce Betts, LightSail program manager and chief scientist for The Planetary Society. “The spacecraft is gone, but data analyses and sharing of results will continue.”LightSail 2 launched as a shoebox-sized spacecraft with its sails tucked together like origami. Using four tape measure-like booms,
the spacecraft unfurled a four-section Mylar sail with an area of 32
square meters (244 square feet) – about the size of a boxing ring.Light has no mass, but it has momentum that can be transferred to a
reflective solar sail. The resulting push is small but continuous,
allowing a spacecraft like LightSail 2 to change its orbit. This content is hosted by a third party (youtube.com), which uses marketing cookies. Please accept marketing cookies to watch this video.LightSail 2's views of Earth A compilation of images taken by The Planetary Society's LightSail 2 spacecraft from orbit. It shows the solar sails' deployment as well as many views of Earth.Video: The Planetary SocietyThe LightSail mission team will continue to analyze data collected during the mission, publishing peer-reviewed journal articles, making conference presentations, and conducting public outreach. Images from the mission can be viewed online.Results will continue to be shared with other upcoming solar sail missions such as NASA’s NEA Scout and ACS3. In a fitting bookend to the LightSail 2 mission, NEA Scout launched on Nov. 16 aboard NASA’s Artemis I mission to the Moon. The Planetary Society shares data with the NEA Scout team through a Space Act Agreement.NEA Scout will use an 86-square-meter (926-square-feet) solar sail to leave lunar orbit and perform a slow flyby of asteroid 2020 GE, which measures just 18 meters (60 feet) across. The images NEA Scout captures will be the first up-close pictures of such a small world.LightSail 2 was an entirely crowdfunded mission that aimed to help democratize space exploration. More 50,000 Planetary Society members, Kickstarter backers, private citizens, foundations, and corporate partners funded the mission. A miniature DVD attached to the spacecraft contained selfies from space fans and the names of Planetary Society members and supporters.The Smithsonian Institution displayed two models of LightSail 2 in 2021 and 2022. The mission was named one of TIME’s 100 Best Inventions of 2019, and won a Popular Science Best of What’s New award for 2019.The LightSail program’s roots date back to the mid-1970s, when Planetary Society co-founder Louis Friedman developed a NASA concept for a solar sail that would have visited Halley’s Comet. Society co-founder Carl Sagan showed off a model of the spacecraft on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.The Planetary Society’s member-funded Cosmos 1 solar sail failed to reach orbit in 2005. LightSail 1, a technology demonstration nearly identical to LightSail 2, completed a successful sail deployment test in 2015.While LightSail 2 operations have come to an end, the mission will live on as a new era of solar sailing begins.“We have braved the harbor of Earth and found that a small craft can sail and steer,” said Betts. “Best wishes to those who sail similar craft into the vast ocean of space – we look forward to an exciting future of exploration, proud that we have played a role. Sail on!” LightSail 2's altitude with time LightSail 2’s average altitude with time is shown in black. Its apogee, the highest point in its orbit around the Earth, as shown in blue. Its perigee, the lowest point in its orbit around the Earth, as shown in orange. The right side of the graph shows the rapid descent occurring as it gets lower in the atmosphere. This plot shows data as of Nov. 16, 2022.Image: The Planetary Society LightSail 2’s average daily change in altitude with time LightSail 2’s average daily change in altitude with time is shown in green. The last several weeks show the spacecraft dropping faster and faster due to increasing atmospheric density as it gets lower. This plot shows data as of Nov. 16, 2022.Image: The Planetary SocietyThe Planetary FundYour support powers our mission to explore worlds, find life, and defend Earth. Give today!
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In May 2022, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the Transporter-5 mission into orbit. The mission contained a collection of micro and nanosatellites from both industry and government, including one from MIT Lincoln Laboratory called the Agile MicroSat (AMS). AMS’s primary mission is to test automated maneuvering capabilities in the tumultuous very low-Earth orbit (VLEO) environment, starting at 525 kilometers above the surface and lowering down. VLEO is a challenging location for satellites because the higher air density, coupled with variable space weather, causes increased and unpredictable drag that requires frequent maneuvers to maintain position. Using a commercial off-the-shelf electric-ion propulsion system and custom algorithms, AMS is testing how well it can execute automated navigation and control over an initial mission period of six months. "AMS integrates electric propulsion and autonomous navigation and guidance control algorithms that push a lot of the operation of the thruster onto the spacecraft — somewhat like a self-driving car," says Andrew Stimac, who is the principal investigator for the AMS program and the leader of the laboratory’s Integrated Systems and Concepts Group. Stimac sees AMS as a kind of pathfinder mission for the field of small satellite autonomy. Autonomy is essential to support the growing number of small satellite launches for industry and science because it can reduce the cost and labor needed to maintain them, enable missions that call for quick and impromptu responses, and help to avoid collisions in an already-crowded sky. AMS is the first-ever test of a microsatellite with this type of automated maneuvering capability. AMS uses an electric propulsion thruster that was selected to meet the size and power constraints of a microsatellite while providing enough thrust and endurance to enable multiyear missions that operate in VLEO. The flight software, called the Bus Hosted Onboard Software Suite, was designed to autonomously operate the thruster to change the spacecraft’s orbit. Operators on the ground can give AMS a high-level command, such as to descend to and maintain a 300-kilometer orbit, and the software will schedule thruster burns to achieve that command autonomously, using measurements from the onboard GPS receiver as feedback. This experimental software is separate from the bus flight software, which allows AMS to safely test its novel algorithms without endangering the spacecraft. "One of the enablers for AMS is the way in which we've created this software sandbox onboard the spacecraft," says Robert Legge, who is another member of the AMS team. "We have our own hosted software that's running on the primary flight computer, but it's separate from the critical health and safety avionics software. Basically, you can view this as being a little development environment on the spacecraft where we can test out different algorithms." AMS has two secondary missions called Camera and Beacon. Camera’s mission is to take photos and short video clips of the Earth’s surface while AMS is in different low-Earth orbit positions. "One of the things we're hoping to demonstrate is the ability to respond to current events," says Rebecca Keenan, who helped to prepare the Camera payload. "We could hear about something that happened, like a fire or flood, and then respond pretty quickly to maneuver the satellite to image it." Keenan and the rest of the AMS team are collaborating with the laboratory’s DisasterSat program, which aims to improve satellite image processing pipelines to help relief agencies respond to disasters more quickly. Small satellites that could schedule operations on-demand, rather than planning them months in advance before launch, could be a great asset to disaster response efforts. The other payload, Beacon, is testing new adaptive optics capabilities for tracking fast-moving targets by sending laser light from the moving satellite to a ground station at the laboratory’s Haystack Observatory in Westford, Massachusetts. Enabling precise laser pointing from an agile satellite could aid many different types of space missions, such as communications and tracking space debris. It could also be used for emerging programs such as Breakthrough Starshot, which is developing a satellite that can accelerate to high speeds using a laser-propelled lightsail. "As far as we know, this is the first on-orbit artificial guide star that has launched for a dedicated adaptive optics purpose," says Lulu Liu, who worked on the Beacon payload. "Theoretically, the laser it carries can be maneuvered into position on other spacecraft to support a large number of science missions in different regions of the sky." The team developed Beacon with a strict budget and timeline and hope that its success will shorten the design and test loop of next-generation laser transmitter systems. "The idea is that we could have a number of these flying in the sky at once, and a ground system can point to one of them and get near-real-time feedback on its performance," says Liu. AMS weighs under 12 kilograms with 6U dimensions (23 x 11 x 36 centimeters). The bus was designed by Blue Canyon Technologies and the thruster was designed by Enpulsion GmbH. Legge says that the AMS program was approached as an opportunity for Lincoln Laboratory to showcase its ability to conduct work in the space domain quickly and flexibly. Some major roadblocks to rapid development of new space technology have been long timelines, high costs, and the extremely low risk tolerance associated with traditional space programs. "We wanted to show that we can really do rapid prototyping and testing of space hardware and software on orbit at an affordable cost," Legge says. "AMS shows the value and fast time-to-orbit afforded by teaming with rapid space commercial partners for spacecraft core bus technologies and launch and ground segment operations, while allowing the laboratory to focus on innovative mission concepts, advanced components and payloads, and algorithms and processing software," says Dan Cousins, who is the program manager for AMS. "The AMS team appreciates the support from the laboratory’s Technology Office for allowing us to showcase an effective operating model for rapid space programs." AMS took its first image on June 1, completed its thruster commissioning in July, and has begun to descend toward its target VLEO position. Editor's note: This article has been updated to clarify that, at 12 kilograms, the Agile MicroSat is a microsatellite rather than a nanosatellite, which is 10 kilograms or less. | Space Technology |
Image source, Truro and Penwith CollegeImage caption, The training includes the use of facilities at the £7m Valency centre in TruroApprenticeships and training courses in space technology have begun in Cornwall for people wanting roles in the sector.Cornwall Space and Aerospace Technology Training (CSATT) courses include a Higher National Certificate in space technology and a foundation degree.They include training in satellite technology, physics and astronomy. Course bosses said the training, using state-of-the-art facilities, was preparing people to support the county's growing space industry.Image source, Spaceport CornwallImage caption, Spaceport Cornwall, at Cornwall Airport Newquay, will be launching satellites into space from UK soilThe CSATT training, run by Truro and Penwith College, includes the use of facilities at its £7m specialist technology Valency centre in Truro.The training comes as Spaceport Cornwall, based at Cornwall Airport Newquay, works towards its first launch of satellites into space from UK soil.Cornwall Council said the county's space sector had grown 164% since 2010 and was set to contribute £1bn to the local economy by 2030. One of the apprentices, 17-year-old Sennen, who said he had been learning about satellites and coding, said getting on a course had been helping him with one of his "main dreams", as he had wanted to be an astronaut since he was seven years old. He said: "It's been that sort of dream that has been out of reach for so many years now. I have this entry way into it - it's amazing."Course project manager Dr Heidi Thiemann said: "While we only have a few apprentices on courses at the moment, we know that courses are going to grow and grow as more companies move down to Cornwall and start employing people in the region."Follow BBC News South West on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected] Internet LinksThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | Space Technology |
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Long-time Slashdot reader Amiga Trombone writes: SpaceX will test the limits of its reusable Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday evening when it launches a booster on a record-breaking 16th flight.
The booster, tail number 1058, made its historic debut on May 20, 2020, carrying the first astronauts to ride atop a Falcon 9 aboard the Crew Dragon capsule Endeavour. The first stage is distinctive in the SpaceX fleet as it is the only one to display a red NASA 'worm' logo on its fuselage. It went on to fly 14 more times, including the launches of South Korea's Anasis 2 military communications satellite, a space station cargo delivery run, two Transporter ride-share missions and ten batches of Starlink satellites. With 15 flights already accomplished, it is the joint fleet leader with booster 1060.
Originally, the company hoped to reuse each Falcon 9 first stage 10 times.
'We got to 10 [flights] and the vehicles were still looking really good, so we started the effort to qualify for 15,' Jon Edwards, SpaceX vice president of Falcon launch vehicles and Falcon engineering, told the trade publication Aviation Week & Space Technology in an interview last year.
Long-time Slashdot reader Amiga Trombone writes: SpaceX will test the limits of its reusable Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday evening when it launches a booster on a record-breaking 16th flight.
The booster, tail number 1058, made its historic debut on May 20, 2020, carrying the first astronauts to ride atop a Falcon 9 aboard the Crew Dragon capsule Endeavour. The first stage is distinctive in the SpaceX fleet as it is the only one to display a red NASA 'worm' logo on its fuselage. It went on to fly 14 more times, including the launches of South Korea's Anasis 2 military communications satellite, a space station cargo delivery run, two Transporter ride-share missions and ten batches of Starlink satellites. With 15 flights already accomplished, it is the joint fleet leader with booster 1060.
Originally, the company hoped to reuse each Falcon 9 first stage 10 times.
'We got to 10 [flights] and the vehicles were still looking really good, so we started the effort to qualify for 15,' Jon Edwards, SpaceX vice president of Falcon launch vehicles and Falcon engineering, told the trade publication Aviation Week & Space Technology in an interview last year. | Space Technology |
Indian lunar landing mission enters moon's orbit
India's latest space mission entered the moon's orbit on Saturday ahead of the country's second attempted lunar landing, as its cut-price space program seeks to reach new heights.
The world's most populous nation has a comparatively low-budget aerospace program that is rapidly closing in on the milestones set by global space powers.
Only Russia, the United States and China have previously achieved a controlled landing on the lunar surface.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) confirmed that Chandrayaan-3, which means "Mooncraft" in Sanskrit, had been "successfully inserted into the lunar orbit", more than three weeks after its launch.
If the rest of the current mission goes to plan, the mission will safely touch down near the moon's little-explored south pole between August 23 and 24.
India's last attempt to do so ended in failure four years ago, when ground control lost contact moments before landing.
Developed by ISRO, Chandrayaan-3 includes a lander module named Vikram, which means "valor" in Sanskrit, and a rover named Pragyan, the Sanskrit word for wisdom.
The mission comes with a price tag of $74.6 million—far smaller than those of other countries, and a testament to India's frugal space engineering.
Experts say India can keep costs low by copying and adapting existing space technology, and thanks to an abundance of highly skilled engineers who earn a fraction of their foreign counterparts' wages.
'A moment of glory'
The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft has taken much longer to reach the moon than the manned Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, which arrived in a matter of days.
The Indian rocket used is much less powerful than the United States' Saturn V and instead the probe orbited the earth five or six times elliptically to gain speed, before being sent on a month-long lunar trajectory.
If the landing is successful the rover will roll off Vikram and explore the nearby lunar area, gathering images to be sent back to Earth for analysis.
The rover has a mission life of one lunar day or 14 Earth days.
ISRO chief S. Somanath has said his engineers carefully studied data from the last failed mission and tried their best to fix the glitches.
India's space program has grown considerably in size and momentum since it first sent a probe to orbit the moon in 2008.
In 2014, it became the first Asian nation to put a satellite into orbit around Mars, and three years later, the ISRO launched 104 satellites in a single mission.
The ISRO's Gaganyaan ("Skycraft") program is slated to launch a three-day manned mission into Earth's orbit by next year.
India is also working to boost its two percent share of the global commercial space market by sending private payloads into orbit for a fraction of the cost of competitors.
© 2023 AFP | Space Technology |
TOKYO, April 25 (Reuters) - Japanese startup ispace inc (9348.T) is preparing to land its Hakuto-R Mission 1 (M1) spacecraft on the moon early on Wednesday, in what would be the world's first lunar landing by a private company if it succeeds.
The M1 lander is set to touch down around 1:40 a.m. Japan time (1640 GMT Tuesday) after taking off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a SpaceX rocket in December.
Success would mark a welcome reversal from the recent setbacks Japan has faced in space technology, where it has big ambitions of building a domestic industry, including a goal of sending Japanese astronauts to the moon by the late 2020s.
In one of the biggest blows, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) last month lost its new medium-lift H3 rocket to forced manual destruction after it reached space. That was less than five months since JAXA's solid-fuel Epsilon rocket failed after launch in October.
The 2.3-metre-tall (7.55 ft) M1 will begin an hour-long landing phase from its current position, in the moon's orbit some 100 km (62 miles) above the surface moving at nearly 6,000 km/hour (3,700 mph), Chief Technology Officer Ryo Ujiie told a media briefing on Monday.
Ujiie likened the task of slowing down the lander to the correct speed against the moon's gravitational pull to "stepping on the brakes on a running bicycle at the edge of a ski jumping hill."
Only the United States, the former Soviet Union and China have soft-landed a spacecraft on the moon, with attempts in recent years by India and a private Israeli company ending in failure.
After reaching the landing site at the edge of Mare Frigoris, in the moon's northern hemisphere, the M1 is to deploy a two-wheeled, baseball-sized rover developed by JAXA, Japanese toymaker Tomy Co (7867.T) and Sony Group (6758.T), as well as the United Arab Emirates' four-wheeled "Rashid" Rover.
The M1 is also carrying an experimental solid-state battery made by NGK Spark Plug Co (5334.T), among other objects to gauge how they perform on the moon.
In its second mission scheduled in 2024, the M1 will bring ispace's own rover, while from 2025, it is set to work with U.S. space lab Draper to bring NASA payloads to the moon, targeting building a permanently staffed lunar colony by 2040.
Shares of the Tokyo-based lunar transportation startup had a blistering market debut on the Tokyo Stock Exchange this month as investors bet its lunar development and transportation business will fit in with Japan's national policy of defence and space development.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Space Technology |
Astronauts aboard China's Tiangong space station have been testing out ways to convert heat into electrical power.
A Stirling power converter developed by the Lanzhou Institute of Physics of China Academy of Space Technology was installed in a specialized equipment cabinet for basic tests in the Mengtian lab module of Tiangong, according to CGTN (opens in new tab).
The device was installed by the Shenzhou 15 astronauts currently working through their six-month-long stay aboard Tiangong. The thermoelectric converter performed in a stable manner throughout the entire test and produced better-than-expected performance indicators, according to the report.
Free-piston Stirling thermoelectric converters are lightweight and can efficiently convert thermal energy into electric energy.
The technology has the potential to reduce a spacecraft's dependence on solar energy and could be useful for providing additional energy for future crewed, lunar and deep space exploration missions.
NASA has also investigated Stirling converters. The agency stated in 2020 that a converter at the Stirling Research Laboratory at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Ohio had been operating continuously for 14 years. | Space Technology |
Splitting atoms — None of this will happen quickly. The technology is difficult and unproven. Enlarge / Artist concept of Demonstration for Rocket to Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) spacecraft.DARPA Nearly three years ago, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced its intent to develop a flyable nuclear thermal propulsion system. The goal was to develop more responsive control of spacecraft in Earth orbit, lunar orbit, and everywhere in between, giving the military greater operational freedom in these domains.
The military agency called this program a Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations, or DRACO for short. The program consists of the development of two things: a nuclear fission reactor and a spacecraft to fly it. In 2021, DARPA awarded $22 million to General Atomics for the reactor and gave small grants of $2.9 million to Lockheed Martin and $2.5 million to Blue Origin for the spacecraft system. At the same time, NASA was coming to realize that if it were really serious about sending humans to Mars one day, it would be good to have a faster and more fuel-efficient means of getting there. An influential report published in 2021 concluded that the space agency's only realistic path to putting humans on Mars in the coming decades was using nuclear propulsion.
Nuclear thermal propulsion involves a rocket engine in which a nuclear reactor replaces the combustion chamber and burns liquid hydrogen as a fuel. It requires significantly less fuel than chemical propulsion, often less than 500 metric tons, to reach Mars. That would be helpful for a Mars mission that would include several advance missions to pre-stage cargo on the red planet. So this week, NASA said it is partnering with the military agency and joining the DRACO project.
“NASA will work with our long-term partner DARPA to develop and demonstrate advanced nuclear thermal propulsion technology as soon as 2027," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. "With the help of this new technology, astronauts could journey to and from deep space faster than ever, a major capability to prepare for crewed missions to Mars."
The US space agency will provide no direct funding at this time. However, its Space Technology Mission Directorate will lead the technical development of the nuclear thermal engine, a key component of the spacecraft that will harness energy from the nuclear reactor. DARPA will still lead the overall program development, including rocket systems integration and procurement.
Nuclear thermal propulsion has long been a goal of spaceflight advocates, dating back to the days of German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and NASA's Project NERVA. Those plans were never realized, and the idea has remained on the back burner for decades. Now, this joint project is the most serious US effort to develop the technology since then. It has the added benefit of interest from the US Congress, which has been pushing the space agency to get involved.
None of this will happen fast. The technology is difficult and unproven, and there are of course regulatory issues involved with launching a nuclear reactor into space. The year 2027 seems optimistic for a demonstration, and the technology is unlikely to be used to send humans to Mars before at least the very late 2030s.
But something is finally happening. For now, that's enough. | Space Technology |
The U.S. Space Force, operating under the Department of the Air Force, became the nation’s newest branch of the military after then-President Donald Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act in 2019.
"Now is the time to establish a team, a separate service totally focused on organizing, training and equipping space forces," Barbara Barrett, Secretary of the Air Force, said at a Pentagon press conference at the time.
Under President Joe Biden’s 2024 budget request unveiled last month, funding to the Space Force would increase to $30 billion to “meet evolving threats” and “protect U.S. interests in space,” a Space Force statement said. Maj. Gen. John Olson, mobilization assistant to the chief of space operations for the U.S. Space Force, spoke to ABC News’ Linsey Davis about why the U.S. military is preparing for potential conflict in space.
LINSEY DAVIS: As humanity continues to reach for the stars, the U.S. is trying to keep pace with nations like China and Russia in space. And joining us now for more is Maj. Gen. John Olson, who is the mobilization assistant to the chief of space operations for the U.S. Space Force at the Pentagon. Thank you so much for your time, General Olsen. Appreciate you joining us here.
JOHN OLSON: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you, Linsey.
DAVIS: So let's just start for the viewers at home who are saying, “Why should I care about potential conflict in space?” What's the answer?
OLSON: Well, you know, space is absolutely essential to every part of our life. You know, we wake up in the morning, we check the weather, we drive to work with position navigation and timing, which is GPS. We have all of our banking and transactions done. So it's really pivotal to every part of our life. But it's also critical to the modern way of integrated deterrence and defense and national security. So it's vitally important that we maintain our leadership in space. And so that's really what the Space Force is focused on. It's bringing that sense of stability, security and safety to the environment.
DAVIS: And you mentioned GPS, for example. Obviously, this relies on critical satellites that are there in space. Should we be concerned? Are those under threat?
OLSON: Well, you know, our global positioning system, we’re celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. So it's really a big milestone for us. And as we already mentioned, it's so critical to almost every facet of our life. So we are really focused on a resilient and effective space architecture, not just with the global positioning system, but also with all of our space architectures. And so that's our paradigm that we're pursuing through our investments to transform into a much more resilient and effective space architecture.
DAVIS: You know, when we talk about countries like China and Russia, and they seem to be really trying to fast track their increased space technology. And there are some who fear that the U.S. is losing that race. Would you agree?
OLSON: No, I wouldn't. I think we have had a strong leadership position in space, and that's civil, commercial, national security in international space through our close partners and allies. But we're trying to keep pace, not just with our ground systems, but our launch vehicles and our satellites and on orbit systems, through not just Earth-centric — through geosynchronous orbit, low Earth orbit — but also looking at cislunar and lunar space and further.
DAVIS: What kind of resources would you say that the Space Force needs?
OLSON: Well, the Space Force has been genuinely pretty well blessed. Our president's budget submit is about $30 billion a year, which represents $2.6 billion more than last year. And I think that's a real recognition of the critical importance to not just our nation, but our national security and defense. And so as we look at the funding and investments, I think we've got a huge amount of modernization and development transformation to do and that also ties to our people, the most important facet of what we're doing. We really have three lines of effort: fielding capable and ready combat forces, driving our guardian spirit, and last, it's partnering to win.
DAVIS: And so I think you kind of just answered the question I was about to ask, but I am curious, because there are going to be people who say, “well, look, we have hunger and homelessness down here on this planet. What are you doing with the $30 billion?” Can you kind of give us an applicable way that people would say, “Oh, OK, I guess I understand why that's necessary”?
OLSON: Sure. Absolutely. Well, Earth imaging helps us leverage and use our scarce resources in the most efficient and productive way. It allows us to operate more safely and more securely and more efficiently here on Earth. So that which we spend in space safeguards all the aspects and attributes of our life here on Earth. And it also is an important enabler, because as we look at the, you know, that innate desire to explore and discover, I think the information and new knowledge that we're learning benefits all of humankind.
DAVIS: It feels like a big job. I'm just curious, with all of the wealth of knowledge that you have, is there anything in particular, if there's one thing, that keeps you up at night, what is that?
OLSON: Well, you know, it is a big job. But we've got a great group of people. And, you know, our guardians and airmen across the portfolio are extremely capable, talented and qualified. But the one thing that I think keeps me up at night and that is, as we look at cybersecurity, there is no space without cyber. And so we need to ensure that we’re continually investing and being vigilant and diligent in that domain. And so that's a core part of our broader national security imperatives, and so that's what we're focused on. And I think you should sleep well knowing that our guardians and airmen are hard at work.
DAVIS: All right. Hopefully, we'll all be able to get a little more rest knowing that. General Olson, we thank you so much for your time and insight. Appreciate it.
OLSON: Thank you very much, Linsey. | Space Technology |
What just happened? A milestone in the long-term plan for bases on Mars was passed recently when NASA announced it had generated breathable oxygen from the planet's thin atmosphere. It's not a lot - enough to keep a small dog alive for over ten hours - but the hope is that similar technology could eventually allow astronauts to breathe and provide rocket propellant to get them home.
When the Perseverance rover touched down on Mars in February 2021, one of the instruments it carried was a 40-pound, microwave-sized device called the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, aka MOXIE.
MOXIE has been working over the last 2.5 years to extract the trace amounts of oxygen from Mars' atmosphere, which is mostly carbon dioxide (95%) and nitrogen (3%). On its 16th and final run on August 7, the instrument made 9.8 grams of oxygen, bringing the total to 122 grams. NASA writes that the amount is enough for a small dog to breathe for ten hours. It might not sound like a lot, but it's still an amazing achievement and more than double the amount of oxygen - which is at least 98% pure - that scientists had expected MOXIE to make. When pushed to its limits at maximum production levels, MOXIE generated 12 grams of oxygen per hour.
MOXIE works by pulling in Martian air via a pump and using an electrochemical process that separates one oxygen atom from each molecule of carbon dioxide. As the gases flow through the system, they're analyzed to check the purity and quantity of the oxygen produced.
The aim is to scale up the technology so it can be used for future missions to Mars, enough for humans to breathe and for fuel to make the return journey back to Earth. This would allow astronauts to live off the land, using materials they find on the Red Planet's surface to survive, and make travelling to Mars more feasible as there would be less cargo to carry when making the trip of over 34 million miles.
"When the first astronauts land on Mars, they may have the descendants of a microwave-oven-size device to thank for the air they breathe and the rocket propellant that gets them home," NASA officials wrote. "By proving this technology in real-world conditions, we've come one step closer to a future in which astronauts 'live off the land' on the Red Planet," said Trust Kortes, director of technology demonstrations at NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate.
The next step from the MOXIE pilot program would be to design a more efficient version of the instrument. Rather than MOXIE 2.0, NASA suggests a full-scale system that includes an oxygen generator like MOXIE and a way to liquefy and store that oxygen. | Space Technology |
Engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama conducted a test of a new 3D-printed rocket nozzle designed for deep space.
The test was conducted as part of NASA's Reactive Additive Manufacturing for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or RAMFIRE, project. RAMFIRE seeks to investigate the use of 3D printing and aluminum in order to reduce manufacturing times and weight.
Reducing mass, and therefore takeoff weight, is a crucial goal for laboratories and space agencies developing hardware for future exploration in deep space far beyond low Earth orbit, said John Vickers, principal technologist for the agency's Space Technology Mission Directorate advanced manufacturing, in a statement. "Projects like this mature additive manufacturing along with advanced materials, and will help evolve new propulsion systems, in-space manufacturing, and infrastructure needed for NASA's ambitious missions to the moon, Mars and beyond."
In the past, aluminum has been avoided in spaceflight manufacturing due to its susceptibility to heat and cracking during welding. Additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, gets around these issues by eliminating the need for welding and including small channels inside the metal that allow it to cool, preventing it from melting.
To test these new manufacturing techniques and materials, NASA teamed with two commercial partners, Elementum 3D of Erie, Colorado, and RPM Innovations (RPMI) of Rapid City, South Dakota.
"Industry partnerships with specialty manufacturing vendors aid in advancing the supply base and help make additive manufacturing more accessible for NASA missions and the broader commercial and aerospace industry," Paul Gradl, RAMFIRE principal investigator at NASA Marshall, said in the agency's statement. "We've reduced the steps involved in the manufacturing process, allowing us to make large-scale engine components as a single build in a matter of days."
Gradl added that the hot-fire tests of the RAMFIRE nozzle proved it can withstand the heat and stresses that a "lunar lander scale engine" would experience.
NASA and its commercial partners are now looking into these same manufacturing processes and materials for other applications, including for use in satellite technologies. | Space Technology |
A Florida-based company is gearing up for a demonstration of how a spacecraft can assemble itself while in orbit, and is aiming to launch the capability next year. What You Need To Know NASA Administrator Bill Nelson visited Redwire Space in Jacksonville on Tuesday The company is developing a spacecraft with the ability to manufacture components of itself while in orbit Nelson also stopped by an elementary school in Central Florida on Monday to talk with students about NASA missions On Tuesday, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson stopped by Redwire Space (NYSE: RDW) in Jacksonville to get a firsthand look at the hardware that’s coming together for the On-Orbit Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing 2 (OSAM-2) mission. It will show how a spacecraft can use additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, to create and assemble components in space.
In the case of OSAM-2, otherwise known as Archinaut One, the craft will create a surrogate solar array.
“You could never bring enough material and you could never anticipate exactly what you’re going to need, especially when you get the Moon and subsequently to Mars,” said Peter Cannito, the chairman and CEO of Redwire Space.
The visit was Nelson's second to Redwire Space and the second stop on a 2-day public visit to Florida for the administrator. On Monday, he spent time with elementary school students at Ventura Elementary School in Kissimmee.
To say I’m OVER THE MOON 🌙 is an understatement🚀 Thank you Tigers for giving Administrator @SenBillNelson & Astronaut Dominick a ROARING WELCOME! Thank you to NASA & @RepDarrenSoto ‘s teams💫 I hope today inspired our Tigers to dream BIG & never give up 🚀 🌟#SDOCGoodtoGreat pic.twitter.com/NVH2GITZQZ
— Amanda Soto (@STEMk5) May 9, 2022 Public-private funding
The OSAM-2 mission came about through funding from a NASA initiative called “Tipping Point,” a public-private funding structure that’s part of the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD).
This contract design was introduced in 2015 with the goal of helping to spur private industry into working on advancing technologies that will be beneficial to NASA and other U.S. interests in the long term.
All contracts awarded are firm-fixed priced contracts with milestone payments and require the recipient contribute at least 25% to the total proposed cost. Following his tour of Redwire Space on Tuesday, Nelson emphasized that NASA will be shifting more toward these types of funding structures to best utilize taxpayer money.
“We’re getting serious about cutting down on these exponential cost explosions, simply because it’s not right," Nelson told Spectrum News. "You’ve got to spend the taxpayers’ money in the best way possible, and that’s why I’m insisting on more and more fixed-price contracts.”
NASA defines technologies that would qualify under the “tipping point” umbrella if the launch and demonstration meet the following criteria: It hits a “significant advancement of the technology’s maturation”
There is “a high likelihood for utilization of the technology in a commercially fielded space application”
The applying company can show “a significant improvement in the offerors’ ability to successfully bring the space technology to market" Made In Space, Inc., another company that received "tipping point" funding, was awarded a $73.3 million contract in 2019. The company was acquired by Redwire Space and its former president and CEO, Andrew Rush, became the president and chief operating officer (COO) at Redwire Space.
Manufacturing in space
Part of the capability that Redwire Space is trying to prove is the ability to effectively 3D print structures that will reduce the initial cost of launch, further reducing the barrier to entry for future missions.
The company is using a type of high heat-resistant plastic in the printing called Ultem. On Tuesday, Nelson was shown a sample of how the beams supporting the solar array would be designed and printed. He was also shown how the plastic material would be sent to space: Wound on a spool, slightly larger than the width of a basketball, the material feeds into the printer to manufacture a 50-foot structural beam to support the solar array.
“To survive launch loads, it’s just a filament on a reel, like a fishing reel,” said retired astronaut Dr. John Grunsfeld, who, as the former associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, also joined in Tuesday’s tour.
“When you optimize for that microgravity environment, really all you need to account for are the natural vibrational nodes from the solar thermal environment," said Justin Kugler, the general manager of Redwire Space’s In-Space Manufacturing and Operations division. "So, it doesn’t have to carry weight, it doesn’t have to carry heavy loads. We just need to keep it pointed in the right direction.”
Redwire Space is no stranger to creating innovative solar arrays alongside NASA. The company developed the Roll-Out Solar Arrays (ROSA) over many years of development. The first pair for the International Space Station is currently installed and in use.
For the 3D-printed structure beams, Redwire Space is using an in-house vacuum chamber to help simulate the low Earth orbit environment that these structures will operate in during the demonstration.
Instead of launching two printers as part of this mission, the company is opting to send only one and will use a robotic arm to move it from one part of the spacecraft to another.
Following the demonstration of this capability during the OSAM-2 mission, Rush said that they have big ambitions for this technology and how it can be used.
“We’re looking to inject this into commercial missions and national security missions and into a wide variety of NASA missions,” Rush said.
The undertaking by Redwire Space is similar to the technology that will be demonstrated as part of OSAM-1, which is being developed by Maxar Technologies of Westminster, Colo. That mission will “robotically assemble a communications antenna and manufacture a spacecraft beam in orbit,” according to NASA.
The OSAM-2 mission is set to launch in 2023 aboard a SpaceX rocket. Paul Shestople, the mission’s project manager, said it will be up to SpaceX to decide if it will be a part of a Falcon 9 or a Falcon Heavy launch, but noted that it will be integrated onto a Blue Canyon Technology (a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies) bus to be flown as part of a rideshare mission. | Space Technology |
Saudi Gazette report
RIYADH — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol explored the cutting-edge developments in the Kingdom's digital economy, innovation, and space ecosystem.
Welcomed by the Minister of Communications and Information Technology Abdullah Al-Swaha at the innovation hub "The Garage," Yoon lauded Saudi Arabia's significant progress in research, development, and innovation.
President Yoon's exhibition tour showcased Saudi Arabia's commitment to addressing global challenges and achieving national aspirations through digital initiatives.
He commended the Kingdom's strides in the research sector, highlighting advanced national laboratories and research centers as catalysts for innovation.
Expressing Korea's keen interest in deeper scientific and technical collaboration, Yoon emphasized the Saudi Arabia — Korea Partnership Forum on Key Technologies of the Future.
He identified digitization, clean energy, and space as pivotal areas for cooperation, influencing global industries and driving future growth.
Yoon lauded Saudi Arabia's move towards smart cities, government, and companies through technologies like 5G, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing.
He saw this as an opportunity for collaboration and partnerships between the private sectors of both nations.
Praising the Kingdom's virtual hospital project, President Yoon envisioned reduced medical costs and improved healthcare conditions through collaboration.
He expressed a desire to expand cooperation in space technology, including lunar exploration and satellite development, highlighting the potential for a solid partnership and global impact.
Al-Swaha echoed the sentiment of a strategic partnership extending beyond trade and energy. He emphasized the goal of achieving global leadership in energy technologies and digital innovation, solidifying the enduring bond between the two countries.
During a forum attended by Investment Minister Khalid Al-Falih, Al-Swaha outlined potential collaboration areas, including fifth and sixth-generation technologies, advanced industries, artificial intelligence, and space technologies.
President Yoon actively participated in presentations discussing outcomes of workshops on digital technologies, innovation, clean energy, and space — a testament to the depth of Saudi-Korean collaboration. | Space Technology |
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In this photo released by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-3, the word for "moon craft" in Sanskrit, stands in preparation for its launch in Sriharikota, India.
AP
In this photo released by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-3, the word for "moon craft" in Sanskrit, stands in preparation for its launch in Sriharikota, India.
AP
SRIHARIKOTA, India — An Indian spacecraft blazed its way to the far side of the moon Friday in a follow-up mission to its failed effort nearly four years ago to land a rover softly on the lunar surface, the country's space agency said.
Chandrayaan-3, the word for "moon craft" in Sanskrit, took off from a launch pad in Sriharikota in southern India with an orbiter, a lander and a rover, in a demonstration of India's emerging space technology. The spacecraft is set to embark on a journey lasting slightly over a month before landing on the moon's surface later in August.
Applause and cheers swept through mission control at Satish Dhawan Space Center, where the Indian Space Research Organization's engineers and scientists celebrated as they monitored the launch of the spacecraft. Thousands of Indians cheered outside the mission control center and waved the national flag as they watched the spacecraft rise into the sky.
"Congratulations India. Chandrayaan-3 has started its journey towards the moon," ISRO Director Sreedhara Panicker Somanath said shortly after the launch.
A successful landing would make India the fourth country — after the United States, the Soviet Union, and China — to achieve the feat.
The six-wheeled lander and rover module of Chandrayaan-3 is configured with payloads that would provide data to the scientific community on the properties of lunar soil and rocks, including chemical and elemental compositions, said Dr. Jitendra Singh, junior minister for Science and Technology.
India's previous attempt to land a robotic spacecraft near the moon's little-explored south pole ended in failure in 2019. It entered the lunar orbit but lost touch with its lander that crashed while making its final descent to deploy a rover to search for signs of water. According to a failure analysis report submitted to the ISRO, the crash was caused by a software glitch.
The $140-million mission in 2019 was intended to study permanently shadowed moon craters that are thought to contain water deposits and were confirmed by India's Chandrayaan-1 mission in 2008.
Somanath said the main objective of the mission this time was a safe and soft landing on the moon. He said the Indian space agency has perfected the art of reaching up to the moon, "but it is the landing that the agency is working on."
Numerous countries and private companies are in a race to successfully land a spacecraft on the lunar surface. In April, a Japanese company's spacecraft apparently crashed while attempting to land on the moon. An Israeli nonprofit tried to achieve a similar feat in 2019, but its spacecraft was destroyed on impact.
With nuclear-armed India emerging as the world's fifth-largest economy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's nationalist government is eager to show off the country's prowess in security and technology.
India is using research from space and elsewhere to solve problems at home. Its space program has already helped develop satellite, communication and remote-sensing technologies and has been used to gauge underground water levels and predict weather in the country, which is prone to cycles of drought and flood.
"This is a very critical mission," said Pallava Bagla, a science writer and co-author of books on India's space exploration, adding that India will require soft landing technology if it wants to attempt more missions to the moon.
India is also looking forward to its first mission to the International Space Station next year, in collaboration with the United States as part of agreements between Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House last month.
This one-off visit by an Indian astronaut to the International Space Station will not hamper India's own program, which aims to launch an Indian astronaut from Indian soil on an Indian rocket in late 2024, Bagla said.
As part of its own space program, active since the 1960s, India has launched satellites for itself and other countries, and successfully put one in orbit around Mars in 2014.
Singh said that based on the current trajectory of growth, India's space sector could be a trillion-dollar economy in the coming years.
As of April, India has launched 424 satellites for 34 countries, including Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. The ISRO has earned approximately 1.1 billion rupees ($13.4 million) in the past five years from the launch of foreign satellites, the minister told India's Parliament in December. | Space Technology |
India made history as the first country to land near the south pole of the moon with its Chandrayaan-3 lander on Aug. 23, 2023. This also makes it the first country to land on the moon since China in 2020.
India is one of several countries — including the U.S. with its Artemis program — endeavoring to land on the moon. The south pole of the moon is of particular interest, as its surface, marked by craters, trenches and pockets of ancient ice, hasn’t been visited until now.
The Conversation U.S. asked international affairs expert Mariel Borowitz about this moon landing's implications for both science and the global community.
Why are countries like India looking to go to the moon?
Countries are interested in going to the moon because it can inspire people, test the limits of human technical capabilities and allow us to discover more about our solar system.
The moon has a historical and cultural significance that really seems to resonate with people – anyone in the world can look up at the night sky, see the moon and understand how amazing it is that a spacecraft built by humans is roaming around the surface.
The fact that so many nations – the United States, Russia, China, India, Israel – and even commercial entities are interested in landing on the moon means that there are many opportunities to forge new partnerships.
These partnerships can allow nations to do more in space by pooling resources, and they encourage more peaceful cooperation here on Earth by connecting individual researchers and organizations.
There are some people who also believe that exploration of the moon can provide economic benefits. In the near term, this might include the emergence of startup companies working on space technology and contributing to these missions. India has seen a surge in space startups recently.
Are we seeing new global interest in space?
Over the last few decades, weve seen a significant increase in the number of nations involved in space activity. This is very apparent when it comes to satellites that collect imagery or data about the Earth, for example. More than 60 nations have been involved in these types of satellite missions. Now were seeing this trend expand to space exploration, and particularly the moon.
In some ways, the interest in the moon is driven by similar goals as in the first space race in the 1960s – demonstrating technological capabilities and inspiring young people and the general public. However, this time it’s not just two superpowers competing in a race. Now we have many participants, and while there is still a competitive element, there is also an opportunity for cooperation and forging new international partnerships to explore space.
Also, with all these new actors and the technical advances of the last 60 years, there is the potential to engage in more sustainable exploration. This could include building moon bases, developing ways to use lunar resources and eventually engaging in economic activities on the moon based on natural resources or tourism.
How does India’s mission compare with moon missions in other countries?
Indias accomplishment is the first of its kind and very exciting, but its worth noting that its one of seven missions currently operating on and around the moon.
In addition to Indias Chandrayaan-3 rover near the south pole, there is also South Korea’s Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, which is studying the moons surface to identify future landing sites; the NASA-funded CAPSTONE spacecraft, which was developed by a space startup company; and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The CAPSTONE craft is studying the stability of a unique orbit around the moon, and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is collecting data about the moon and mapping sites for future missions.
Other nations and commercial entities are working to join in. Russia Luna-25 mission crashed into the moon three days before the Chandrayaan-3 landed, but the fact that Russia developed the rover and got so close is still a significant achievement.
Why choose to explore the south pole of the moon?
The south pole of the moon is the area where nations are focused for future exploration. All of NASA 13 candidate landing locations for the Artemis program are located near the south pole.
This area offers the greatest potential to find water ice, which could be used to support astronauts and to make rocket fuel. It also has peaks that are in constant or near-constant sunlight, which creates excellent opportunities for generating power to support lunar activities. | Space Technology |
NASA is funding a concept for a space seaplane that could investigate the chemistry of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.The TitanAir project from Planet Enterprises' Quinn Morley could both soar through Titan's nitrogen-and-methane atmosphere and navigate its oceans. "Flying on Titan would be relatively easy thanks to its low gravity and thick atmosphere. Morley conceived a flying, heavily instrumented boat that would seamlessly transition between soaring through Titan’s atmosphere and sailing its lakes, much like a seaplane on Earth," NASA said, noting that all NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) studies are not considered official agency missions. The NIAC program, within NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, funds early-stage studies to evaluate technologies that could support future missions, with the latest round of awards amounting to $175,000 in grants to 14 visionaries. NASA'S JAMES WEBB TELESCOPE FINDS FIRST EXOPLANET ALMOST EXACTLY THE SAME SIZE AS EARTH Artist’s depiction of TitanAir: Leading-Edge Liquid Collection to Enable Cutting-Edge Science (James Vaughan Photo-Illustration)With a liquid ingestion system, the Titan Flyer concept aims to "drink" in methane condensation and organic material using a permeable section of the leading edge wing skin. "Capillary features on the inside of the wing will collect this ingested material and combine it into a continuous fluid stream, which can then be routed to science instruments inside the flyer. To enable intermittent low altitude flight, the flyer will land on the seas of Titan like a flying boat – except ‘boat’ implies water, and on Titan the lakes are made of methane," Morley explained in a blog post. "We're calling it a ‘flying laker.’"According to a release from the Gig Harbor, Washington-based company, once the liquid is inside the wing, it would be collected into a continuous fluid stream using several competing methods. The NASA Headquarters sign stands on June 26, 2020, in Washington, D.C. ((Photo by Joshua Roberts/Getty Images))NASA'S WEBB FINDS WHAT MAY BE THE MOST CHEMICALLY PRIMITIVE GALAXY IDENTIFIEDOne of those methods uses biomimicry of water-collecting cacti on Earth, another utilizes a flexible membrane and a third uses channels etched into the skin. After it is analyzed with scientific instruments, the data is transmitted back to Earth between flights. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson speaks prior to the launch of an Atlas V rocket carrying Boeing's CST-100 Starliner capsule to the International Space Station in a do-over test flight at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on July 29, 2021. (REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo)"These initial Phase I NIAC studies help NASA determine whether these futuristic ideas could set the stage for future space exploration capabilities and enable amazing new missions," Michael LaPointe, program executive for NIAC at NASA Headquarters, said in a statement.CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP "NASA dares to make the impossible possible. That’s only achievable because of the innovators, thinkers, and doers who are helping us imagine and prepare for the future of space exploration," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson noted. "The NIAC program helps give these forward-thinking scientists and engineers the tools and support they need to spur technology that will enable future NASA missions." Julia Musto is a reporter for Fox News and Fox Business Digital. | Space Technology |
Construction of the world’s largest radio astronomy observatory, the Square Kilometre Array, has officially begun in Australia after three decades in development.A huge intergovernmental effort, the SKA has been hailed as one of the biggest scientific projects of this century. It will enable scientists to look back to early in the history of the universe when the first stars and galaxies were formed. It will also be used to investigate dark energy and why the universe is expanding, and to potentially search for extraterrestrial life.The SKA will initially involve two telescope arrays – one on Wajarri country in remote Western Australia, called SKA-Low, comprising 131,072 tree-like antennas.SKA-Low is so named for its sensitivity to low-frequency radio signals. It will be eight times as sensitive than existing comparable telescopes and will map the sky 135 times faster.A second array of 197 traditional dishes, SKA-Mid, will be built in South Africa’s Karoo region. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup The Australian minister of industry and science, Ed Husic, and the director general of the SKA Organisation, Prof Philip Diamond, are expected to mark the start of construction of SKA-Low at an on-site event in WA on Monday morning.Dr Sarah Pearce, SKA-Low’s director, said the observatory would “define the next fifty years for radio astronomy, charting the birth and death of galaxies, searching for new types of gravitational waves and expanding the boundaries of what we know about the universe”.SKA-Low has been described as a gamechanger and a major milestone in astronomy research. Illustration: Department of Industry, Science and ResourcesShe added: “The SKA telescopes will be sensitive enough to detect an airport radar on a planet circling a star tens of light years away, so may even answer the biggest question of all: are we alone in the universe?”The SKA has been described by scientists as a gamechanger and a major milestone in astronomy research.Prof Lisa Harvey-Smith, an astronomer at the University of New South Wales, called it a “a momentous day for global astronomy”, adding: “Over a thousand people have worked for 20 years to make this a reality – and each will be feeling proud of this collective achievement today.”Dr Danny Price, a senior postdoctoral fellow at the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy, said the SKA’s sensitivity would allow astronomers to peer back billions of years to the “cosmic dawn”, when the first stars in the universe were forming.“To put the sensitivity of the SKA into perspective, [it] could detect a mobile phone in the pocket of an astronaut on Mars, 225m kilometres away,” Price said. “More excitingly, if there are intelligent societies on nearby stars with technology similar to ours, the SKA could detect the aggregate ‘leakage’ radiation from their radio and telecommunication networks – the first telescope sensitive enough to achieve this feat.”Prof Alan Duffy, director of the space technology and industry institute at the Swinburne University of Technology, said the SKA would probably be the largest telescope constructed, “connecting across continents to create a world-spanning facility allowing us to see essentially across the entire observable universe”.“The science goals are as vast as the telescope itself, from searching for forming planets and signs of alien life, to mapping out the cosmic web of dark matter and the growing of galaxies within those vast universe-spanning filaments,” Duffy said.“Just as with Hubble, the biggest discoveries by such next-generation telescopes are of things entirely unknown to science today. Astronomers worldwide will be celebrating this groundbreaking [development] for what it will mean for scientists in the decades ahead.”In Australia, the SKA Organisation is collaborating with the CSIRO to build and operate the telescopes. | Space Technology |
ICON’s vision for Olympus, the multi-purpose ISRU-based lunar construction system. (ICON) AUSTIN: A Texas-based company that aims to 3D-print future moon and Mars bases received $57 million from NASA this week. Austin-based ICON received the five-year contract to build out construction methods to fabricate future roads, landing pads and habitats from lunar or Martian materials. “In order to explore other worlds, we need innovative new technologies adapted to those environments and our exploration needs,” Niki Werkheiser, a director at NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, said in a statement. The grant is a continuation of an existing partnership, in which seeks to develop construction methods that allow infrastructure to be built from lunar or Martian soil, according to NASA. NASA is trying to scale up its base construction technology to “prove it would be feasible to develop a large-scale 3D printer that could build infrastructure on the Moon or Mars,” said Corky Clinton of NASA’s Marshall Space flight center in Huntsville, Ala., when ICON received its first 2020 grant. For the past two years, ICON has worked with NASA to build prototypes for extraterrestrial bases using its proprietary large-scale 3D printing technology — which it is also using to build a 100-home planned community north of Austin. The needs of these new structures will strain the bounds of existing metal and inflatable architecture, according to ICON. That’s because lunar structures will need to protect inhabitants from temperatures that oscillate between 250 and -208 Fahrenheit, as well as DNA-corroding radiation and pummeling from micro-meteorites, per the company. In collaboration with NASA, ICON has 3D-printed a simulated Mars habitat — Mars Dune Alpha — that the space administration will use for simulated missions beginning next year. Project Olympus, ICON’s proposed self-driving 3D printer would be delivered to the Moon — or Mars — by rocket, and would motor to its build site to begin printing structures, according to the company. NASA has billed the Artemis lunar programs as “the testbed for crewed exploration further into the solar system.” The new contract will focus on experimenting with how simulated lunar dirt — regolith — behaves under reduced lunar gravity, NASA representatives told Space.com. Tags 3D printing ICON Mars landing moon bases nasa | Space Technology |
Private Sector, Collaborations, Reforms Driving India’s NewSpace Era: Deloitte-CII Report
India has the potential to increase its share in the global space economy from 2−3% to 9%, the report says.
The Indian space sector is witnessing a renaissance and the country is positioned for leadership as international collaborations and private investments rise in the space industry, according to a report by Deloitte and the Confederation of Indian Industry.
Further, space-as-a-service is set to transform sectors such as agriculture and healthcare, enabling precision farming and telemedicine via satellite technology, the report said.
The global space economy was valued at around $546 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach $1 trillion by 2040. Space technology is impacting aspects of our modern lives, including communication, earth observation, scientific research, navigation systems, weather forecasting, disaster management, agriculture and telemedicine.
The report—NewSpace: India Perspective—delves into the factors driving the growth in the country’s space sector. The report offers an understanding of the Indian space ecosystem and lays out a series of call to actions for expansion and innovation in the industry.
The Shift To NewSpace
According to the report, there has been a shift from conventional space to NewSpace. NewSpace includes democratisation of space with private-sector participation and ownership; a decentralised approach with a focus on commercial viability using innovations in related industries; and enhanced private participation, global collaboration and cross-border partnerships.
India's space industry is also witnessing a surge in startups. More than 420 startups have registered with the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre portal of registered space organisations. Private investments saw an accelerated growth of around 77% in 2021−22. The country has the potential to scale up its share in the global space economy from the current 2−3% to 9% by 2030, the report said.
"India's space sector stands on the brink of a transformative journey, with reforms poised to stimulate supply and demand in the space economy. The emergence of the NewSpace era in India promises to unleash a wave of innovation, entrepreneurship and commercialisation marked by agile startups, flexible business models and a focus on cost-effectiveness," said Sreeram Ananthasayanam, partner, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India.
Reforms, Collaborations Helping Drive Space Ecosystem
A number of policy interventions, including the privatisation of the space sector, are fuelling this growth. The Department of Space's recent release of the Indian Space Policy, 2023, which formally integrated non-governmental entities (including private space enterprises) in various space-related fields, is also serving as a growth driver for the industry. Manufacturing of satellites, launch services, space applications, and research and development are some of these space-related domains.
By encouraging non-governmental entities to engage in end-to-end activities, the policy promotes competition, innovation and growth of the commercial space industry in India. The policy further recognises the importance of international collaboration and cooperation in the sector.
The report highlights that domestic and international stakeholders are keen to collaborate and invest in India’s space ecosystem. It also shows that the sector is stimulating growth in allied industries like telecommunications, agriculture, health, education, infrastructure, navigation and strategic defence by driving technological advancements and innovation.
Call To Actions
The report lays down various measures that can help drive growth and innovation in the space sector. These include fostering public-private partnerships, optimising tax initiatives and policy reforms through schemes such as production-linked incentives and customs exemptions.
Strengthened collaborations with academia and a comprehensive assessment of current space capabilities can further improve India’s self-reliance and competitiveness in the sector. The report also recommends studying how to tap into the downstream potential of the industry, along with standardising market-size estimates and benchmarking global initiatives. | Space Technology |
The Eris rocket developed by Australian company Gilmour Space will be the first Australian system to go into orbit if it successfully launches next year Space 20 November 2022 The Eris rocket under constructionGilmour Space
Australian company Gilmour Space has nearly finished building a rocket that it will attempt to launch into space in April 2023. If successful, it will be Australia’s first homegrown orbital spacecraft.
“Space [technology] is one of the key enablers of society – it’s good for a nation to have access to space capability if it can,” says Adam Gilmour, a long-time space enthusiast who co-founded the company after working in banking for 20 years.
The rocket, called Eris, will stand 23 metres tall and weigh over 30 tonnes. It will be powered by five hybrid engines that contain a solid fuel and a liquid oxidiser.
A final test conducted in early November found that each engine could generate 115 kilonewtons of thrust – “enough to pick up three or four SUVs [sports utility vehicles] each”, says Gilmour.
The company expects to finish building Eris by March and is planning a test launch from a site near Bowen in north Queensland in April.
The rocket will be fitted with a lightweight satellite and aim to enter low Earth orbit.
“We’re confident it will take off the pad, but no first launch vehicle from a new company has ever successfully gone to space on the first try,” says Gilmour. “What generally happens is the second one works, so we’re building two of them so we can learn from the first and succeed with the second,” he says.
If the launch is successful, it will make Australia the 12th country in the world to send one of its own orbital rockets into space, joining the US, UK, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, France, Israel, India and Iran.
Most of the funding for the project has come from venture capital, with the Australian government contributing a small amount.
A test of the rocket engineGilmour Space
Following a successful launch, Gilmour Space plans to build bigger rockets that will be able to carry payloads of up to 1000 kilograms into low orbit. This would allow it to launch satellites for the Australian government and private companies for use in mining, agriculture, communications, defence, Earth observation and other areas.
“We’ve been using other countries’ rockets for the last 50 years, but there are a lot of restrictions,” says Gilmour. “If you’ve got an Australian launch vehicle, then if you’re an Australian company or the government, you’ve basically got unfettered access,” he says.
Aude Vignelles, the chief technology officer of the Australian Space Agency, says that having space capabilities would give a boost to Australia’s national well-being. “Australia’s geographical advantages and political stability [also] make us an attractive destination for launch activities,” she says.
If Eris successfully gets to orbit, it will be the first rocket with hybrid engines to do so, says Vignelles. Most rocket engines contain fuels and oxidisers that are both solids or liquids, since they tend to be more powerful. But several companies are developing hybrid engines that have one component in solid form and the other in liquid form, since they have the potential to be safer, simpler and cheaper.
Gilmour Space also has ambitions to build rockets that can carry astronauts by 2026.
Sign up to our free Launchpad newsletter for a voyage across the galaxy and beyond, every Friday More on these topics: space flight Australia space | Space Technology |
By Jared EvittsBBC NewsImage source, Space ForgeImage caption, The first Welsh satellite was built in a unit where burger vans used to be madeThe first satellite made in Wales is set to be launched into space later this year.Space Forge's satellite was built in a unit in Rumney, Cardiff, that was previously used to make burger vans.It will be a test, with the company aiming to launch a returnable and reusable satellite next year.It is part of a launch by Virgin Orbit, which will deploy multiple satellites into low Earth orbit - usually within 1,000km (620 miles) of Earth. Space Forge has partnered with high-precision space situational awareness company, Lumi Space, in an attempt to create the world's first returnable and reusable satellite platform. This year's satellite, which will be launched from Newquay in Cornwall, will not return to earth, but Space Forge's chief executive, Joshua Western confirmed a return launch had been booked for next year. Mr Western's introduction into the space industry was less than typical.He studied politics at university and started Space Forge in 2018, going full-time in 2020 - the same week the first Covid lockdown was announced.Image source, Space ForgeImage caption, Joshua Western co-founded Space Forge with Andrew BaconHe said: "I was passionate about space as a boy, like most kids, but I wasn't very good at science. "I didn't even know the UK had a space industry until 2014, so I wrote to the CEO of a space company and said 'hello, I'd like a job interview'. Very kindly they gave me an interview and I got a job."There, I met my co-founder Andrew (Bacon), who was the most phenomenal engineer and presented the technologies of space to me."The company is based in Rumney and took over a 7,500 sq ft unit, which was previously used to make burger vans for fairgrounds, last year. Mr Western said: "For 13 months we operated without a building, we were shipping space hardware around Europe to be worked on by our employees. We didn't meet some of them for six or seven months. "In March 2020, we had just two people, now we have 40 full-time, who are all based in Cardiff." Image source, Space ForgeImage caption, Forty full-time staff have been working on the satellite which will launch from Cornwall later this yearThe satellite will be launched from Spaceport Cornwall this summer as part of Virgin Orbit's Cosmic Girl, to test its new return capability. As well as Space Forge's ForgeStar-0, Virgin Orbit will deploy multiple satellites into low Earth orbit. The inaugural mission will see the ForgeStar-0 launched to test future return from space technology, it can be deployed from conventional launchers to provide reliable and rapid results. Lumi Space will also be trialling its laser technology to track the satellite on its descent. Dan Hart, chief executive of Virgin Orbit, said: "Space Forge is joining the growing community of space innovators advancing space technologies for the betterment of our world."Space Forge confirmed there would be a finished satellite by the end of July, which will then be sent Cornwall and integrated to be launched. | Space Technology |
NASA is always looking for new ideas, and it’s just selected the latest projects to fund under its Innovative Advanced Concepts program. Six research teams earned Phase II grants to continue developing their futuristic designs, which include a strategy for destroying Earth-threatening asteroids and a plan to let astronauts produce their own medicines in space.
NASA announced the first phase of the project in January, with 14 recipients earning $175,000 grants. For Phase II, only six were selected for more funding, receiving up to $600,000 over a period of two years to further develop their concepts.
“The concepts selected under NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program will help empower researchers to usher in new technologies that could revolutionize exploration in the heavens and improve daily life here on Earth,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement.
The Phase II grant recipients reflect NASA’s interest in further exploring Earth, protecting our planet from incoming threats, and looking after astronauts’ health in space.
Earth is basically defenseless against impacts from space rocks. In September 2022, NASA’s DART mission successfully deflected a non-threatening asteroid, slightly altering its orbit using kinetic impact in a test of planetary defense.
That’s one way to protect Earth, but a team from the University of California is suggesting another, more violent way. Their approach to planetary defense is to pulverize the incoming asteroid and rely on Earth’s atmosphere as a shield from the resulting fragments.
Their concept is to use an array of small, hypervelocity kinetic penetrators to break up an asteroid into smaller fragments, which would burn up when entering Earth’s atmosphere due to extreme heat and pressure. “Phase II of this project involves greatly expanding upon the above simulation efforts, as well as an exploration of key steps on the roadmap towards an operational planetary defense system,” NASA wrote.
The best spot to place a radio telescope is on the Moon’s far side, away from Earth’s pesky, interfering radio waves. FarView is a concept for a radio observatory installed on the far side of the Moon, made up of 100,000 antennas stretched across 77 square miles (200 square kilometers).
The telescope would be made with local lunar resources, like metals present in the lunar regolith. “For our Phase II proposal, we will advance the FarView Observatory concept through modeling and experimentation with a goal to resolve the major issues regarding both the science performance and the manufacture processes that will enable building FarView on the lunar far side,” the team from Lunar Resources wrote in a statement.
This concept is about the future of aircraft. A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is developing nearly silent electroaerodynamic thrusters that would be used for vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, for both passengers and cargo. One of the main obstacles in delivering this concept has been the noise created by the electric aircraft, which is why the project aims to build a quiet one.
Using their second phase funding, the team members want to design, build, and fly an aircraft propelled by electroaerodynamic thrusters for a few minutes.
During long stints in Earth orbit or in deep space, astronauts won’t have ready access to medicines. This futuristic concept wants to empower astronauts to create their own drugs using bacteria during spaceflight missions.
The Astropharmacy could help treat radiation exposure or sustain astronauts’ bone health, two common risks of space travel.
“These new awards showcase the breadth of how NIAC-supported concepts can change exploration,” Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, said in a statement. “From revolutionary propulsion systems for deep-space missions to advances in aviation to change how we travel here on Earth, these technologies would radically expand our capabilities in air and space.” | Space Technology |
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain The first privately developed Indian rocket lifted off into the upper reaches of the atmosphere on Friday, in another milestone in the country's push to become a major space power. The half-tonne Vikram-S rocket launched before midday local time and travelled in an arc, live footage from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) showed.
It safely splashed down into the sea six minutes later, according to the agency.
The rocket, developed by local startup Skyroot Aerospace, reached a peak altitude of 90 kilometres (55 miles), below the internationally recognised 100-km Karman line that separates Earth from outer space.
"It is indeed a new beginning, a new dawn... in the journey of India's space programme," science minister Jitendra Singh said after the launch to a crowd of cheering technicians at the ISRO's launch facility on the southern island of Sriharikota.
The single-stage, solid-fuel rocket was built with "carbon composite structures and 3D-printed components", the government said Thursday ahead of the first Vikram-S mission, named "Prarambh" ("Start").
India has been bolstering its space programme in recent years, including a crewed mission with Russian backing slated for 2023 or 2024.
Its capabilities and ambitions have grown, highlighted by the success of its rockets and missions beyond Earth.
In 2014, India became the first Asian nation to reach Mars with its Mangalyaan orbiter. Hailed for its low cost, that mission put India in a small club including the United States, Russia and the European Union.
And in 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed India as a "space superpower" after it shot down a low-orbiting satellite, a move prompting criticism for the amount of "space junk" it created.
India is also working to boost its two percent share of the global commercial space market.
In October, ISRO's heaviest rocket yet successfully put 36 broadband satellites in low earth orbit.
Experts say India can keep costs low by copying and adapting existing space technology, and thanks to an abundance of highly skilled engineers who earn a fraction of their foreign counterparts' wages. © 2022 AFP Citation: First privately built Indian space rocket launches (2022, November 18) retrieved 19 November 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-11-privately-built-indian-space-rocket.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only. | Space Technology |
Image source, Martin Giles/BBCImage caption, Rob Adlard, chief executive of Gravitilab, said the opportunities for Norfolk were "immense"An aerospace research company which is bidding to create an offshore spacesport has said opportunities for the UK space industry are "immense".Gravitilab wants to build a vertical launchpad on a floating barge about 10km (6.2 miles) off the Norfolk coast.The company is supporting and working with the Spaceport Cornwall programme, which this month was granted an operating licence to launch satellites.It has applied to the UK Space Agency for funding for a feasibility study.Technical director and chief executive Rob Adlard said the opportunity was "absolutely immense" for Norfolk.The company, based in Coltishall, makes rockets and drones used to carry out tests in microgravity and supports the Spaceport Cornwall programme, which has been granted an operating licence to launch satellites.Gravitilab is now in the process of gaining licensing for airspace from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).Image source, Martin Giles/BBCImage caption, A scale model of the rockets Gravitilab hopes to launch to support UK space researchIt would launch sub-orbital rockets and drones which would collect data to monitor climate change and coastal erosion in a way that cannot be done on the ground."There's a huge opportunity for Norfolk to be world leaders in space technology," Mr Adlard said."There's enormous potential, there is no reason why we shouldn't be leading space technology as well," he added."Who knows what the future will hold for Norfolk - we really don't know what the limits are.Mr Adlard said the county was already home to "amazing" science research institutes, including the University of East Anglia and the John Innes Centre, which, he said, set it in good stead.It is yet to receive any national or regional funding, although Spaceport Cornwall secured £12m of council funding for its Virgin Orbit satellite launch system. Image source, Martin Giles/BBCImage caption, Drone specialist Curtis Reed said the devices could collect data and carry out tests in microgravityMatt Archer, commercial spaceflight director at the UK Space Agency, said developments in Cornwall had made it "an exciting year for the thriving UK space sector"."The UK sector is well-established and globally respected, employing 47,000 people and generating an annual income of £16.5bn," he said."Looking ahead to next year and beyond, we have bold ambitions to continue growing by catalysing investment, delivering missions and capabilities and championing space."Mr Adlard said Gravitilab's proposal was "quite distinct from the other spaceport options," and added other sites could not support rockets or be so remotely located. "Our site would be the only one in England and within a couple of hours travel of the bulk of the UK space sector, so the benefits in terms of sustainability and logistical ease are clear," he said.Image source, Martin Giles/BBCImage caption, Safety engineer Laurène Armer said the programme was just the start of a new space eraLaunch systems safety engineer Laurène Armer said the project was on a much smaller scale than anything NASA would carry out."We're going to be 10km (6.2 miles) away from the coast and we are flying sub-orbital rockets, so it's not the same impact at all," she said."It's just going to be the beginning of a new space era here in the region."A Norfolk County Council spokesman said: "We heard about the ambitions to build a rocket launch pad in the North Sea off the Norfolk coast; this is still at concept stage but has progressed through viability into stage two of the very long process. "As a council, we are proud to support all kinds of innovation to further develop and improve our county."Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected] Internet LinksThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. | Space Technology |
NASA’s Oxygen-Generating Experiment MOXIE Completes Mars Mission; Details Here
This tech could pave the way for future explorers to make their own rocket fuel and breathable air, NASA said.
American space agency NASA on Friday said that MOXIE, an oxygen-producing instrument on Perseverance Mars Rover has successfully completed its Mars mission.
"The tech demo successfully tested converting Martian CO2 into oxygen, which could help pave the way for future human missions to Mars," NASA said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
MOXIE, an oxygen-producing instrument on @NASAPersevere, has successfully completed its Mars mission. The tech demo successfully tested converting Martian CO2 into oxygen, which could help pave the way for future human missions to Mars.— NASA Mars (@NASAMars) September 7, 2023
Learn more: https://t.co/pw5Fud4e4G pic.twitter.com/fPIEnXVUIy
â Itâs mission accomplished for my MOXIE instrument!— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) September 7, 2023
I brought this device to test making oxygen from Marsâ CO2 atmosphere, and it worked great. This tech could pave the way for future explorers to make their own rocket fuel and breathable air. ð
More: https://t.co/BR2GqQtWDs pic.twitter.com/okFg8YyUvy
In a statement, NASA said that when the first astronauts land on Mars, they may have the descendants of a microwave-oven-size device to thank for the air they breathe and the rocket propellant that gets them home.
"That device, called MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment), has generated oxygen for the 16th and final time aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover," NASA said.
After the instrument proved far more successful than its creators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) expected, its operations are concluding, the statement added.
“MOXIE’s impressive performance shows that it is feasible to extract oxygen from Mars’ atmosphere – oxygen that could help supply breathable air or rocket propellant to future astronauts,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy.
“Developing technologies that let us use resources on the Moon and Mars is critical to build a long-term lunar presence, create a robust lunar economy, and allow us to support an initial human exploration campaign to Mars," he added.
NASA said that since Perseverance landed on Mars in 2021, MOXIE has generated a total of 122 grams of oxygen – about what a small dog breathes in 10 hours.
At its most efficient, MOXIE was able to produce 12 grams of oxygen an hour – twice as much as NASA’s original goals for the instrument – at 98% purity or better.
On its 16th run, on August 7, the instrument made 9.8 grams of oxygen. MOXIE successfully completed all of its technical requirements and was operated at a variety of conditions throughout a full Mars year, allowing the instrument’s developers to learn a great deal about the technology.
“We’re proud to have supported a breakthrough technology like MOXIE that could turn local resources into useful products for future exploration missions,” said Trudy Kortes, director of technology demonstrations, Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) at NASA Headquarters in Washington, which funds the MOXIE demonstration.
“By proving this technology in real-world conditions, we’ve come one step closer to a future in which astronauts ‘live off the land’ on the Red Planet.”
MOXIE produces molecular oxygen through an electrochemical process that separates one oxygen atom from each molecule of carbon dioxide pumped in from Mars’ thin atmosphere. As these gases flow through the system, they’re analyzed to check the purity and quantity of the oxygen produced. | Space Technology |
For the first time ever, China has completed in-orbit experiments on liquid metal thermal management on its space station, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) has announced.
During the experiments, the device operated stably, and a series of key technologies of bismuth-based metal, such as controlled melting, expansion and convection heat transfer were verified in microgravity, the CMSA said.
Mounted in the Space Basic Experiment Cabinet on the country’s space lab module Mengtian, the device is one of the space station’s first five experiments on space technology. The objective of these experiments is to obtain knowledge that can support more experimental possibilities and human survival in outer space.
Since the cabinet onboard the lab module was launched last October, it has yielded fruitful results in space technology experiments, including verifying the performance of liquid metals in space.
The liquid metals include alloyed metals, like bismuth-based and gallium-based ones, that can flow at a normal temperature or slightly higher while keeping metallic properties. They change into a solid state when the temperature drops.
Several desirable properties of liquid metals such as good conductivity, high boiling points and good capacity for heat transmission make them promising in the application of future space missions.
The experimental device of liquid metal thermal management operating in orbit was developed by the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It was designed based on bismuth-based metal.
Since the device entered the orbit, several tests and experiments have been conducted, obtaining data on convection heat transfer of liquid metals and their phase change temperature control in microgravity, said the CMSA.It is also the first time that the country has carried out such experiments in space, the CMSA added.
Another result of the experiment cabinet comes from its drawer that is set to evaluate the hazards of chippings produced by a device based on friction between electric brushes and slip rings. The device is widely used for power and signal transfer in a satellite’s electromechanical products, such as solar array drive assembly.
It had been previously unknown how those chippings will affect space work when they float under vacuum, weightlessness and complex electromagnetic effects, and whether such particles will move in a certain direction or cluster in microgravity, said the CMSA.
Earlier this week, the space agency announced that the generation process of such rubbing fragments and their cluster were observed during the five-month experiments.”The finding marks significant progress,” said the CMSA, noting that it has laid a solid foundation for improving the design of slip rings on spacecraft and ensuring the stable operation of such vehicles in orbit.
It is also worth mentioning that the operation of the country’s Stirling thermoelectric convertor, another of the cabinet’s five experiments, realized its in-orbit verification in late March. | Space Technology |
With all the excitement about current Mars missions, one might almost forget that we have a solar system full of fascinating worlds to visit. Take Titan, for example. It is Saturn's largest moon and is the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere, making it a mysterious place. In addition to its unique atmosphere, Titan is also the only body in the solar system (apart from Earth) to have stable lakes and seas. Not filled with water, though, but with liquid ethane and methane.As you can imagine, there are many questions regarding Titan scientists would like to see answered. NASA has a program called the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts, through which it postulated an amazing and unconventional idea for a future sample return mission to Titan where a spacecraft would refuel on location, using Titan's natural resources. In this article, Matt Williams explains what such a mission might look like.By Matt Williams Artist impression of a sea on titan with saturn in the background - Image Credit: StockByM via iStock - HDR tune by Universal-Sci This decade promises to be an exciting time for space exploration! Already, the Perseverance rover landed on Mars and began conducting science operations. Later this year, the next-generation James Webb Space Telescope, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), and Lucy spacecraft (the first mission to Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids) will launch. Before the decade is out, missions will also be sent to Europa and Titan to extend the search for signs of life in our Solar System.Currently, NASA’s plan for exploring Titan (Saturn’s largest moon) is to send a nuclear-powered quadcopter to explore the atmosphere and surface (named Dragonfly). However, another possibility that was presented this year as part of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program is to send a sample-return vehicle with Dragonfly that could fuel up using liquid methane harvested from Titan’s surface.Known as A Titan Sample Return Using In-Situ Propellants, this mission would present some serious advantages over conventional sample-return missions. Ordinarily, missions to distant celestial objects either need to bring along enough propellant for the return trip (which means a lot of added mass and higher costs), or to have a nuclear battery that can provide power for several years. Artist’s Impression of Dragonfly on Titan’s surface. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL The Dragonfly mission, which is scheduled to launch by 2027 (and arrive at Titan by 2036) will spend 2.7 years exploring Titan as part of its primary mission. In order to operate so far from home, it will rely on a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG), where the heat caused by the slow radioactive decay of plutonium generates electricity.Meanwhile, the sample-return concept would provide fuel for its return flight using volatile elements harvested from Titan’s surface. As you can see from the illustration at the top, it would consist of a lander and an ascent vehicle. Once these set down on the surface of Titan, they could assist the Dragonfly mission by receiving samples collected by the quadcopter.Using resources harvested in-situ, the lander could provide liquid methane and liquid oxygen fuel (created from the local ice) for the ascent vehicle. This vehicle would then be loaded up with samples collected by Dragonfly and then carry them back to Earth. By not transporting its own propellant, the sample-return element of the mission would have a lower overall mass and therefore would cost less to launch.On top of that, the sample-return mission would exponentially increase the scientific returns of a Titan mission. For years, scientists have been hoping to get a better look at the moon’s surface to investigate its particular mysteries. These include (but are not limited to) its dense nitrogen-rich atmosphere, its hydrological cycle (but with methane), and the rich organic chemistry and prebiotic conditions on its surface. This artist’s concept of a lake at the north pole of Saturn’s moon Titan illustrates raised rims and rampartlike features such as those seen by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft around the moon’s Winnipeg Lacus. - Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech The concept was developed by a team led by Steven Oleson, the COMPASS Concurrent Spacecraft Design Team leader at NASA’s Glenn Research Center. NASA described this concept, as part of the 2021 NIAC Phase I Fellows announcement, as follows:“A Titan Sample Return Using In-Situ Propellants is a proposed Titan sample return mission using in-situ volatile propellants available on its surface. This approach for Titan is very different from all conventional in-situ resource utilization concepts, and will accomplish a return of great science value toward planetary science, astrobiology, and understanding the origin of life, that is an order of magnitude more difficult (in distance and ?V) than other sample return missions.”The concept is similar to the sample-return mission for Mars currently being developed by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) that would transport samples collected by the Perseverance rover. According to the current mission architecture, this sample-return will also consist of a lander and a two-stage solid-fueled ascent vehicle (developed by NASA) and a rover (developed by ESA) that would collect the samples.This sample-return mission is scheduled to launch in July of 2026 and would land near the Perseverance rover (in the Jezero crater) by August 2028. The NIAC program, which is overseen by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), seeks to engage American innovators and entrepreneurs to foster innovative concepts and breakthroughs that will help transform space exploration. For 2021, STMD selected 16 NAIC proposals to become Phase I Fellows, each of which will receive a grant of up to $125,000 from NASA. Upon the successful completion of an initial 9-month feasibility study, the NIAC Fellows can apply for Phase II awards. As Jenn Gustetic, the director of early-stage innovations and partnerships within NASA STMD, explained in a recent NASA press release:“NIAC Fellows are known to dream big, proposing technologies that may appear to border science fiction and are unlike research being funded by other agency programs. We don’t expect them all to come to fruition but recognize that providing a small amount of seed-funding for early research could benefit NASA greatly in the long run.”This is merely one of several cutting-edge proposals that have been accepted for Phase I development, as part of NASA’s NAIC program for 2021. While only a handful (or none at all) may be fully-realized and go to space in the coming years, the program is leading to inspired ideas that illustrate what the future of humanity in space will look like. To learn more, head on over to the 2021 NAIC Phase I Fellows page now.Sources and further reading:Universe Today Futuristic Space Technology Concepts Selected by NASA for Initial StudyA Titan Sample Return Using In-Situ PropellantsTitanMore interesting articles on the subject of Space & Exploration:Mars colony: how to make breathable air and fuel from brine – new researchCould a human enter a black hole to study it?Scientists claim that planet 9 could actually be a primordial black hole with a diameter of just a few centimetersScientists on the ISS discovered three genetic variants of bacteria that could help grow plants on MarsHow long has the ice on the Martian north pole been there?Is dark matter older than the big bang? | Space Technology |
Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumb trick inspires robotic exploration system for caves on Mars and beyond
House hunting on Mars could soon become a thing, and researchers at the University of Arizona are already in the business of scouting real estate that future astronauts could use as habitats. Researchers in the UArizona College of Engineering have developed technology that would allow a flock of robots to explore subsurface environments on other worlds.
"Lava tubes and caves would make perfect habitats for astronauts because you don't have to build a structure; you are shielded from harmful cosmic radiation, so all you need to do is make it pretty and cozy," said Wolfgang Fink, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at UArizona.
Fink is lead author of a new paper in Advances in Space Research that details a communication network that would link rovers, lake landers and even submersible vehicles through a so-called mesh topology network, allowing the machines to work together as a team, independently from human input. According to Fink and his co-authors, the approach could help address one of NASA's Space Technology Grand Challenges by helping overcome the limited ability of current technology to safely traverse environments on comets, asteroids, moons and planetary bodies. In a nod to the fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel," the researchers named their patent-pending concept the "Breadcrumb-Style Dynamically Deployed Communication Network" paradigm, or DDCN.
A fairy tale inspires the future
"If you remember the book, you know how Hansel and Gretel dropped breadcrumbs to make sure they'd find their way back," said Fink, founder and director of the Visual and Autonomous Exploration Systems Research Laboratory at Caltech and UArizona. "In our scenario, the 'breadcrumbs' are miniaturized sensors that piggyback on the rovers, which deploy the sensors as they traverse a cave or other subsurface environment."
Continuously monitoring their environment and maintaining awareness of where they are in space, the rovers proceed on their own, connected to each other via a wireless data connection, deploying communication nodes along the way. Once a rover senses the signal is fading but still within range, it drops a communication node, regardless of how much distance has actually passed since it placed the last node.
"One of the new aspects is what we call opportunistic deployment—the idea that you deploy the 'breadcrumbs' when you have to and not according to a previously planned schedule," Fink said.
All the while, there is no need for input from the mother rover; each subordinate rover will make that determination on its own, Fink added. The system can work in one of two ways, Fink explained. In one, the mother rover acts as a passive recipient, collecting data transmitted by the rovers doing the exploration. In the other, the mother rover acts as the orchestrator, controlling the rovers' moves like a puppet master.
Machines take over
The new concept dovetails with the tier-scalable reconnaissance paradigm devised by Fink and colleagues in the early 2000s. This idea envisions a team of robots operating at different command levels—for example, an orbiter controlling a blimp, which in turn controls one or more landers or rovers on the ground. Already, space missions have embraced this concept, several with participation by UArizona researchers. For example, on Mars, the Perseverance rover is commanding Ingenuity, a robotic helicopter.
A concept for another mission, which ultimately was not selected for funding, proposed sending an orbiter carrying a balloon and a lake lander to study one of the hydrocarbon seas on Saturn's moon Titan. The breadcrumb approach takes the idea one step further by providing a robust platform allowing robotic explorers to operate underground or even submerged in liquid environments. Such swarms of individual, autonomous robots could also aid in search and rescue efforts in the wake of natural disasters on Earth, Fink said.
Fink said the biggest challenge, apart from getting the rovers inside the subsurface environment in the first place, is to retrieve the data they record underground and bring it back to the surface. The DDCN concept allows a team of rovers to navigate even convoluted underground environments without ever losing contact to their "mother rover" on the surface. Outfitted with a light detection and ranging system, or lidar, they could even map out cave passages in all three dimensions, not unlike the drones that can be seen exploring an alien spacecraft in the movie "Prometheus."
"Once deployed, our sensors automatically establish a nondirected mesh network, which means each node updates itself about each node around it," said Fink, who first detailed the DDCN concept in a proposal to NASA in 2019.
"They can switch between each other and compensate for dead spots and signal blackouts," added Mark Tarbell, paper co-author and senior research scientist in Fink's laboratory. "If some of them die, there still is connectivity through the remaining nodes, so the mother rover never loses connection to the farthest node in the network."
Mission of no return
The robust network of communication nodes ensures all the data collected by the robotic explorers make it back to the mother rover on the surface. Therefore, there is no need to retrieve the robots once they have done their job, said Fink, who published the idea of using groups of expendable mobile robotic surface probes as early as 2014.
"They're designed to be expendable," he said. "Instead of wasting resources to get them into the cave and back out, it makes more sense to have them go as far as they possibly can and leave them behind once they have fulfilled their mission, run out of power or succumbed to a hostile environment."
"The communication network approach introduced in this new paper has the potential to herald a new age of planetary and astrobiological discoveries," said Dirk Schulze-Makuch, president of the German Astrobiological Society and author of many publications on extraterrestrial life. "It finally allows us to explore Martian lava tube caves and the subsurface oceans of the icy moons—places where extraterrestrial life might be present."
The proposed concept "holds magic," according to Victor Baker, a UArizona Regents Professor of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences, Geosciences and Planetary Sciences. "The most amazing discoveries in science come about when advances in technology provide both first-time access to a thing or place and the means of communicating what is thereby discovered to creative minds that are seeking understanding," Baker said.
Exploring hidden ocean worlds
In places that call for submersible robots, the system could consist of a lander—either floating on a lake, as might be the case on Titan, or sitting on the ice atop a subsurface ocean like on Europa—that is connected to the submarine, for example through a long cable. Here the communication nodes would act as repeaters, boosting the signal in regular intervals to prevent it from degrading. Importantly, Fink pointed out, the nodes have the capabilities to gather data themselves—for example measuring pressure, salinity, temperature and other chemical and physical parameters—and to ingest the data into the cable connecting back to the lander.
"Imagine you make it all the way to Europa, you melt your way through miles of ice, make it down to the subsurface ocean, where you find yourself surrounded by alien life, but you have no way of getting data back to the surface," he said. "That's the scenario we need to avoid."
Having developed the rovers and the communication technology, Fink's group is now working on building the actual mechanism by which the rovers would deploy the communication nodes.
"Basically, we're going to teach our 'Hansels' and 'Gretels' how to drop the breadcrumbs so they add up to a functioning mesh communication network," Fink said.
More information: Wolfgang Fink et al, A Hansel & Gretel Breadcrumb-Style Dynamically Deployed Communication Network Paradigm using Mesh Topology for Planetary Subsurface Exploration, Advances in Space Research (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.asr.2023.02.012
Provided by University of Arizona | Space Technology |
ASEAN Beat | Security | Southeast Asia The country is committing significant amounts of resources toward becoming the space hub of Southeast Asia. Is it worth it? Credit: Depositphotos2023 is going to be a year marked by increased competition between states, big and small alike, to advance “territorial claims” in outer space.Japan, for instance, is taking the lead to redefine space operations, which have been traditionally dominated by state enterprises, by allowing private space entities to extract and sell space resources. Meanwhile, China has publicized a vision to become a “fully comprehensive space power” with independent capabilities to develop space infrastructure and a governance system by 2045. This bold yet achievable goal, cemented by the successful completion of the Tiangong space station – completely constructed and operated by China, as opposed to the shared International Space Station – has set off alarm bells in the United States and will no doubt serve as a catalyst for NASA’s Artemis program to build a permanent human presence on the Moon and potentially Mars.Sending people to the Moon is, at this point, obviously unthinkable for middle-sized countries with limited resources like Thailand. Recent developments nonetheless suggest that Thailand is on track to build a comprehensive space strategy and has a role to play in the space domain.In mid-December, amid the excitement and anxiety of Thailand’s approaching general election, the Thai cabinet gave a nod to the 15-year (2023-2037) national space master plan and the drafting of the national communication satellite policy. Then, early this month, the government’s push for the construction of a spaceport on Thai soil came to public attention. Thailand’s proximity to the equator – a perfect location for launching rockets and spacecraft – together with the creation of jobs and investment opportunities were cited as justifications for the scheme.As discussed previously by The Diplomat’s senior columnist Prashanth Parameswaran in these pages, Thailand has long regarded outer space as vital to its survival. The country’s leading space agency, the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA), responsible for providing geo-informatics services and conducting research to prepare Thais for “future needs,” was established in 2000. The National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand formed in 2004 is another important unit.Roughly 19 years after the formation of GISTDA, Thailand embarked on a mission to send the first Thai military satellite named Napa-1, assembled by a Dutch company, into orbit. But much like the Royal Thai Navy’s submarine acquisition, the Napa-1 launch was disrupted by the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic and technical difficulties.Unlike the more complicated and arguably doomed submarine procurement, however, Napa-1 was finally and successfully launched from French Guiana on September 3, 2020. And, in July 2021, Napa-2 followed suit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. In that very same year, the Thai Space Consortium (TSC) project to launch five small and domestically-made satellites into space within six years was announced. The cost of each satellite is estimated to range between 900 million and 3 billion baht. The first satellite tasked with observing the Earth’s natural resources, TSC-Pathfinder, is expected to launch this year whereas the most ambitious final satellite, TSC-2, will attempt to reach the Moon’s orbit in 2027.The costly TSC project has unsurprisingly raised doubts and complaints from many Thai netizens, who argue that taxpayers’ money should be prioritized for poverty and inequality reduction. But investors, scientists and various institutions that serve as the main drivers of Thailand’s future development are all on board with the government’s plan.Based on existing information, it is clear that Thailand’s space dream goes well beyond simply “trying to keep up with the trend” to preserve national security and economic interests. The TSC project along with spaceport talks underscore the Thai government’s determination to showcase Thailand’s technological prowess and rise as a regional center for space travel and research. Indeed, the newly approved national space master plan 2023-2037 is an extension of the 2017-2036 blueprint – Thailand’s first long-term plan for space development – that places a strong emphasis on international cooperation and human capacity building to support Thailand’s goal of becoming a space hub in Southeast Asia.As with electric vehicles, Thailand’s formidable competitor in space activities appears to be Indonesia, which has conducted space research since 1963. Indonesia under Joko Widodo’s leadership has also actively sought to build its own spaceport on the island of Biak off the coast of Papua.The relevance of space is indisputable and expanding, and Thailand’s existing space plans laid out by the Prayut Chan-o-cha government are likely to survive a transfer of power – just as the Biden administration has embraced NASA’s Artemis project greenlighted by the Trump government. Still, considering Thailand’s budget inconsistencies and endless domestic political troubles, it remains to be seen whether Thailand will make substantive progress in a timely manner and rise as a recognized player in the internationally competitive space race. | Space Technology |
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