Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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December 15th, 2022
TransAstra’s Mini Bee is an in-space capture spacecraft.
Image credit: TransAstra
Innovative technologies for space debris removal and upgrading the ability to detect and track previously unfound moving spacecraft and other objects have been funded.
California-based TransAstra has been awarded contracts to develop critical emerging technologies in removing space junk and in space domain awareness beyond low Earth orbit for planetary defense and space surveillance purposes.
Capture bag
In a Phase 1 award from NASA’s Ignite program, the Small Business Innovation Research funding to TransAstra calls for design development of a deployable, inflatable capture bag which is capable of fully enclosing small spacecraft and debris for repositioning and de-orbiting.
TransAstra’s Mini Bee Capture Bag is initially designed to do away with debris of 10 centimeters diameter or greater. The bag can readily scale to 10 meters diameter or more.
The technology includes a robotic zipper that yields a nearly hermetic seal and prevents micro debris or liquid from leaking into space.
The capture bag also has the potential to arrest spacecraft that are in an uncontrolled orbit — whether due to fuel depletion or other cause — and safely remove the object.
TransAstra’s Sutter telescope system uses specialized Optimized Matched Filter Tracking (OMFT) software.
Image credit: TransAstra
Space surveillance
Under the second award from the Department of Defense, TransAstra will modify its Sutter technology to enable imaging of very small, faint, fast-moving objects in cislunar and deep space with 100 times greater strength and accuracy than standard imaging techniques, at a fraction of the cost.
Sutter technology makes use of TransAstra’s proprietary Optimized Matched Filter Tracking (OMFT) software. While TransAstra is currently operating its Sutter technology in ground-based systems, the Defense Department award will help fund development of an in-space solution.
“This space domain awareness advancement is necessary to report where objects are in space, understand why they are there, and match mounting threats from near-peer adversaries like China and Russia,” said Joel Sercel, CEO of TransAstra.
“Our technology allows the Space Force to find, fix, and track spacecraft and space debris to mitigate any potential threat throughout cislunar space,” Sercel said in a TransAstra statement.
For more information on TransAstra, go to:
Posted in 
Will humankind feel motivated to seed lifeless planets with tough terrestrial organisms or synthetic forms crafted to live long and prosper on a targeted planet?
That question is explored in a new research paper that looks to comets as possible “biological delivery vehicles.”
This intriguing paper – “Directed Panspermia Using Interstellar Comets” – appears in a special issue of the Astrobiology journal dedicated to Interstellar Objects in Our Solar System.
Biochemical signatures
“It may be that habitable planets are common but life is rare. If future advances in telescopes increasingly suggest this is so, humankind might feel motivated to seed lifeless planets with resilient terrestrial organisms or synthetic forms designed to thrive on the target planet,” the paper suggests.
Authored by space specialists, Christopher McKay, Paul Davies and Simon Worden, they note it is conceivable that terrestrial life was deliberately seeded in this matter. That hypothesis could be tested if we found evidence for life on other solar system bodies that displayed common basic biochemical signatures.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Scenario assessment
In their scenario assessment, the paper adds, “raises a number of ethical and technological challenges that need to be addressed.” Chief among them is whether humans have the right to modify the environments of other astronomical bodies.
If they do, how much control would humankind have over the far downstream impact? “Safeguards that fall under the general category of ‘planetary protection’ need to be carefully assessed and protocols established for any future projects of this sort,” the researchers explain.
“Until recently, the idea that humans could literally sow the seeds of a cosmic transformation having multi-million-year downstream consequences would have been regarded as absurd,” the paper states. “But the discovery of interstellar comets has changed all that.”
Credit: Johns Hopkins/APL
Life suitably constructed
Harnessing comets as biological delivery vehicles is a capability not technically achievable today, but the paper adds that “there is no difficulty in understanding what is needed to do so and in refining the strategy to achieve the goal of seeding the galaxy with life suitably constructed to thrive in a variety of exoplanetary environments.”
The paper concludes: “Whether it is desirable to do so must rest with future generations.”
To access the research paper – “Directed Panspermia Using Interstellar Comets” – go to:
Wait a minute!
NASA is trying to get its lunar act together, mustering up what’s needed early for human exploration of the Moon via the ongoing and evolving Artemis program.
But later comes the hard part: to harness the skills for a sustained and “live off the land” approach for a lunar base encampment.
Image credit: NASA
Working definition
But the term “sustainable” seems to be up for grabs.
For instance, the April release of the National Academies Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey 2023-2032 noted that NASA has used the word to describe one goal for human lunar exploration under the auspices of Artemis.
But sustainable has not yet been defined in this context, the Academies survey states. For that report, a working definition was crafted “that there are widely accepted reasons to continue human lunar exploration that justify the continued investment, commitment, and risk beyond a few missions.”
Artist’s view of two Artemis astronauts at work on the lunar surface.
Image credit: NASA
No mincing words
Meanwhile, the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) just published their findings from the group’s 2022 meeting. LEAG was established in 2004 to support NASA in providing analysis of scientific, technical, commercial, and operational issues in support of lunar exploration.
LEAG doesn’t mince words, but does so in a polite way.
“LEAG encourages NASA to clearly convey its plan for sustainable post-Artemis III exploration to the community forthwith and include specifically how it will result in an increase in the flight rate and extended human surface durations (i.e., Artemis Base Camp).”
Artistic depiction of NASA astronauts at the lunar south pole carrying out early work to establish an Artemis Base Camp.
Image credit: NASA
Single location
The LEAG report cautions that Artemis will not be truly sustainable “unless it includes a robust surface infrastructure and development strategy at a single location on the Moon to catalyze and enable commercial and exploration activities.”
Furthermore, while progress to date on the Artemis III mission is encouraging, adds the LEAG report, details of the “sustained” phase of the Artemis campaign “are nebulous to the broader community.”
Credit: NASA
Annual cadence
NASA’s current lunar outlook suggests a roughly annual cadence of missions of short (less than 30 days) duration on the surface of the Moon with an emphasis on future mobility (i.e., not for Artemis III), but this does not adequately address the goals set forth in the Lunar Exploration Roadmap, the LEAG findings note.
“Accordingly, LEAG urges NASA to articulate plans to enable the construction of the Artemis Base Camp and establishment of large-scale resource production by 2030, thereby supporting a permanent human presence on the lunar surface and growth of a vigorous cislunar economy.”
Read the LEAG report here: https://www.lpi.usra.edu/leag/reports/LEAG2022AnnualMeetingFindings_FINAL.pdf
A leading forecasting group anticipates than more 2,500 satellites will be launched by average every year over 2022-2031. That represents by average every day about 7 satellites or 3 tons lofted into orbit over this period.
Euroconsult collects, updates and assesses on a yearly basis detailed market, industry, policy, program and financial information in the international space sector.
According to the group, a handful of Non-Geo-Stationary Orbit (NGSO) broadband constellations concentrate the demand in satellite but not in manufacturing and launch revenues – that is still led by legacy customers, both governments and commercial operators.
Credit: SpaceX/StarLink
Largest market driver
In number of satellites, NGSO constellations are the largest market driver as 83% of all satellites to be launched over 2022-2031, are expected to be part of constellations whilst only accounting for 30% of the manufacturing and launch value.
On the commercial demand, for the first time, the emerging NGSO constellation broadband operators will account for half of the commercial demand in manufacturing and launch value: i.e $5.3 billion on a yearly average whilst GEO comsat will average $3.2 billion.
For more details on the Euroconsult assessment, go to:
https://digital-platform.euroconsult-ec.com/product/satellites-to-be-built-launched-new/
Illustration of Artwork of Ingenuity helicopter.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter on Mars looks to have made flight 36 on December 10th.
A pre-flight projection of the airborne vehicle’s flight this time, as noted by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory:
Flight number: 36
— Date of flight: No Earlier Than Dec. 10
— Flight duration: 60.82 seconds
— Horizontal flight distance: 361 feet (110 meters)
— Flight speed (horizontal): 12.3 mph (5.5 mps)
— Max flight altitude: 33 feet (10 meters)
— Flight goal: Reposition helicopter
New imagery
A new set of images from the flight have been posted, taken by the helicopter’s Navigation Camera mounted in the mini-craft’s fuselage and pointed directly downward to track the ground during flight. Images were acquired on Dec. 10, 2022 (Sol 642 of the Perseverance rover mission).
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Credit: GLOBALink/Inside Outer Space screengrab
What’s up with China’s multi-faceted space agenda?
I was pleased to discuss this issue with fellow space journalists Rod Pyle and Space.com’s Tariq Malik for an informative This Week In Space podcast. We discuss new developments in the Chinese space program, its trajectory moving ahead, and what that might mean for a rejuvenated human spaceflight program in the United States. Are we in a new space race?
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Go to this podcast at:
Image credit: ESA
The European Space Agency is looking for an observational assist.
An asteroid is approaching Earth, and to celebrate the release of ESA’s new asteroid toolkit they are calling on amateur astronomers to find the space rock.
No worries here. This Christmas asteroid, 2015 RN35, poses no threat, but like many middle-sized space rocks out there, trackers just don’t know that much about it.
According to an ESA statement, 2015 RN35 will make a safe close approach of Earth at 08:12 UTC (09:12 CET) on December 15, zooming past our planet at 679,800 kilometers – that’s just 1.8 lunar distances measured from Earth.
Observers in the Southern hemisphere will get the best view during close approach, but Europe will get a chance over the following days until about December 19.
Telescopes 30 centimeters and larger should be able to detect this Christmas asteroid and ESA is looking forward to seeing any observations from well-equipped skywatchers.
Use the hashtag #ESAChristmasAsteroid on social media to share your results, which will be shared at @esaoperations channel.
Apollo 17 landing site.
Image credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State
A fascinating collection of featured Moon sites is available, based on some of the most requested images snagged by the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s LROC super-powerful imaging system.
Available for viewing are newly discovered lunar features to the closest images of the Apollo landing sites since astronauts departed the scene in 1972.
The impressive website features:
— 21st Century Spacecraft Impacts
— 21st Century Landing Sites
— New Impacts
— Apollo Landing Sites
— Apollo S-IVB Impact Sites
— Surveyor Landing Sites
— Ranger Impact Sites
— Luna Landing Sites
— Lunokhod Rover Sites
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
Special thanks to Mark Robinson and colleagues at Arizona State University ‘s School of Earth and Space Exploration. Robinson is the principal investigator for the LROC imaging system.
Take a look at:
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/featured_sites
Artist’s view of two Artemis astronauts at work on the lunar surface. What new tools are necessary to maximize exploration output?
Image credit: NASA
When it comes to the NASA Artemis “rebooting” of the Moon plans, it’s not simply a 20th century rekindling of lunar remembrances. Work is in progress to develop a new tool kit for investigating Earth’s companion in gravitational lock.
While the tried-and-true geologist’s hammer remains on tap, fresh capabilities are being appraised to sharpen our next lunar look-see with first-time equipment.
Apollo moonwalker unfurls the American flag. In returning to the moon, this time to stay, what is the Artemis flag strategy?
Image credit: NASA
Experts are digging into gear that surmount challenges seen during Apollo, yet are user-friendly to future moonwalkers.
For more information, go to my new Space.com story – “NASA drawing on Apollo to design Artemis moonwalkers’ tools – Apollo’s considerable legacy is coming in handy” – at:
https://www.space.com/nasa-artemis-moon-tools-apollo-lessons
Image credit: Lockheed Martin
That LunIR CubeSat deployed by NASA’s Space Launch System is lost to space. The radio signal received from the hitchhiking LunIR spacecraft was weaker than expected.
Ground control teams were able to downlink some data to help analyze the CubeSat’s issues.
However, as time passed, the ability to accurately predict the spacecraft’s location grew more challenging. Furthermore, there’s limited bandwidth available from deep space communications and networking resources – and the many missions that depend on those assets.
“So while we remain hopeful that a station will catch a signal from LunIR again one day, we are no longer conducting an active, dedicated search for the spacecraft,” said Lauren Duda, a spokesperson for Lockheed Martin.
Novel infrared camera
LunIR stands for Lunar InfraRed Imaging. It was a technology demonstration mission with a goal to prove out a novel type of infrared camera. The shoebox-sized spacecraft was built and integrated by Terran Orbital of Irvine, California. The CubeSat’s first-of-its-kind infrared sensor and unique micro-cryocooler were both developed by Lockheed Martin.
Image credit: Lockheed Martin
Once deployed, the small satellite, LunIR was to perform a lunar flyby taking images of the Moon’s surface and its environment. It would have performed observations to help address Strategic Knowledge Gaps about the Moon, related to surface characterization, remote sensing, and site selection observations.
Learning experience
“While we are disappointed LunIR was unable to complete its mission, we’ve learned so much through its unique design and development. Lockheed Martin will continue to build on lessons in sensors and cryocooler technology and their applications for our exploration of the Moon, and we look forward to future opportunities to continue supporting NASA on tech demonstrations,” Duda said.
Lockheed Martin has posted this Twitter thread about what was learned in developing the CubeSat mission.
Go to:
https://twitter.com/LMSpace/status/1600926003232182280?s=20&t=6Ad9eZ0kzCtpj5yBCivmFw
