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Who Owns Outer Space? – International Law, Astrophysics, and the Sustainable Development of Space by Michael Byers and Aaron Boley; Cambridge University Press/Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law (2023); 428 pages; Available by Open Access.

This highly acclaimed book melds space activities, international law, and global governance to underscore major, now-looming, environmental, safety, and security challenges now on full-boil.

Authors Byers and Boley are from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and this incredibly rich, information-packed book should give the reader pause in how to grapple with perplexing issues of today. The volume offers proposed “actionable solutions” to those challenges.

“Social scientists and lawyers are needed to ensure that solutions are politically feasible, and to carry them forward into lasting rules and institutions. Engineers are needed to develop technologies that can be used in beneficial ways, with environmental scientists guiding us forward by identifying what is beneficial, and what might not be,” they write in the volume’s introduction.

The book is divided into 9 solid chapters: Space Tourism, Mega-constellations, Mega-constellations and International Law, Abandoned Rocket Bodies, as well as sections on Space Mining, Planetary Defense, Space Security, Anti-satellite Weapons and International Law, and ending with a conclusion chapter – Where to from Here?

That’s a diverse suite of subject topics. But this very readable, fully-referenced book launches a warning flare that space activities of today and tomorrow can be endangered, and just how those undertakings — and space itself — should be sustainably governed.

Who Owns Outer Space? – International Law, Astrophysics, and the Sustainable Development of Space reviews existing international treaties and state practices, but also details limitations in those treaties and practices.

Ideally, by strengthening those elements the hope is to short-circuit calamitous incidents. “War in space has no good outcomes,” they write, while observing that “long-term solutions to grand challenges in space require approaches that integrate multiple disciplines.”

On May 8 of this year, this book won the prestigious 2023 Donner Prize.

Go to this video capturing the views of Byers and Boley at:

https://youtu.be/clDNKUa2-Vs

For more information about this book, and to gain free access to its contents, go to:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/who-owns-outer-space/960CCB0464744F845B09434D932699EC

In a wait-a-minute moment, pre-launch imagery of China’s Chang’e-6 shows some sort of a mini-rover with four wheels.

But so far, as far as I know, there’s been no official word from the China National Space Agency (CNSA) regarding the rover.

A glimmer of information has come from a story via China’s Science Network (news.sciencenet.cn). It does note the presence of a Chang’e-6 lunar rover.

Imaging spectrometer

According to the article, the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (later referred to as Shanghai Institute of Ceramics) undertook the development of a number of key materials.

“The large-sized tellurium dioxide crystal developed by the Shanghai Silicate Institute has excellent acoustic and optical properties and is a key material to achieve a large field of view, high spatial and spectral resolution, and is used in the infrared imaging spectrometer of the Chang’e-6 lunar rover,” the story explains.

Shutter speak

“The ultrasonic motor is the ‘helper’ that presses the shutter for the ‘Chang’e Family’ lunar rover’s infrared imaging spectrometer. Piezoelectric ceramics are the core material of the ultrasonic motor,” the story continues. “Following Chang’e-3, 4 and 5, the wide temperature range and highly stable piezoelectric excitation element developed by Shanghai Silicate Institute was successfully used in the Chang’e-6 ultrasonic motor.”

So there you have it, all of it so far. But surely more is to come given a successful far side touchdown of the Chang’e-6 sample return mission. If the rover is deployed and in good shape, perhaps looks at lunar sampling operations may be in the offing.

Then there’s the prospect of a view of the Chang’e-6’s ascender craft departing the area, loaded with its precious cargo of collected Moon goodies.

Rover comparisons

On the other hand, the Chang’e-6 rover machinery is clearly different than the earlier Yutu-1 and Yutu-2 rovers, each with six wheels, both loaded to their solar panels with lots of equipment.

 

The Chang’e-3 Moon lander let loose Yutu-1 in Mare Imbrium after its December 2013 arrival on the Moon.  

Yutu-2’s home turf since deployed by the Chang’e-4 lander in January 2019 is Von Kármán crater within the Moon’s south pole-Aitken basin. It is reportedly alive and well and still on the move.

 

Lastly, as a prelude to the launch of Chang’e-6, a communication test between China’s recently lofted Queqiao-2 relay satellite was carried out, one aspect of which was linking up with Chang’e-4 far side lander/rover hardware.

Hopefully, more details about the Chang’e-6 rover duties are forthcoming, once rolling about the landing zone.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is on the move at Gale Crater.

Abigail Fraeman, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, reports on recent activities of the robot.

“We planned quite a drive on Wednesday, with lots of twists and turns over very bumpy terrain, Fraeman says.

The team was gratified to learn everything completed as planned given data from a recent downlink from Curiosity.

 

Big decision

“The successful drive means Curiosity is now parked on the south side of Pinnacle Ridge, the final area of upper Gediz Vallis ridge that we planned to investigate before we cross Gediz Vallis channel,” Fraeman reports. “We visited the north side of Pinnacle Ridge last week and collected all sorts of data that tell us a lot about the composition and textures of the rocks that form the ridge.” 

Fraeman adds that a recent big decision was at hand.

Now that Mars researchers can see that the south side of Pinnacle Ridge is traversable, should the robot drive onto it to get additional contact science data on the Gediz Vallis ridge rocks? Or should Curiosity continue to drive along Gediz Vallis channel towards a planned channel crossing spot?

“Driving onto Pinnacle Ridge at this location could give us an opportunity to learn more about the materials that make up the ridge and the role of water in this area,” Fraeman points out. “But it could also take several sols and not tell us much more than what we already learned from our investigation on the north face of Pinnacle Ridge.”

As the on-duty Long Term Planner, Fraeman spearheaded discussion of the pros and cons of this decision, dialogue that promoted team agreement.

Consensus decision

“We talked a lot about how the rocks we could see from our current location compared with the rocks we already investigated on the north side, and ultimately the roughly 25 scientists who were on the tactical operations planning group today came to a consensus decision,” Fraeman explains.

“We’d rather move on then spend more time here,” was the call.

Curiosity is to collect Mastcam observations and then continue to make its way up and along the channel, heading some 75 feet (23 meters) to the southwest.

Contact science 

“Before driving away we’ll also take the opportunity to do some contact science on the rocks at our feet,” Fraeman says, with the rover using its Dust Removal Tool (DRT) followed by Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) observations on the target named “Boyden Cave.”

Also on tap, APXS and MAHLI observations on a nearby (dusty) target named “Royal Arches,” and finally a MAHLI-only target of a nearby rock named “Quarry Peak.” 

Additionally, on the plan is collection of two Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam)/Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) observations of “Otter Lake,” a target very close to Royal Arches, and another nearby rock named “Nevada Falls.”  A suite of environmental monitoring observations will round out the plan. 

New Martian vista

“I really love operations days like today,” Fraeman reports. “We came in this morning with a completely new Martian vista to admire, and then we had to work together as a team to make a quick decision about what to do next.”

“I think the pace of this decision making, the ability to talk through tough choices with a group of really smart, passionate people, and the realization that these decisions are guiding the course of a one-ton vehicle on an entirely different planet is one of the coolest ways to spend a morning,” Fraeman concludes.

New research casts a spotlight onto those dark, sunlight shy cold traps on the Moon – spots where water could be lurking as a valuable, exploitable resource.

Volatiles like water may exist in the shadows at the bottom of craters near the poles of the Moon.

However, the Moon has been on the receiving end of intense bombardment by high-velocity meteorites, and the subsequent bombardment by the rocks meteorite impacts kick up, a new research paper explains. “Crater-forming bombardment controls both the production and destruction of craters where volatiles may be safe.”

The research offers a model of how long volatile-harboring cold traps last on the Moon. That modeling suggests that small cold traps are extremely ephemeral, while large cold traps could last for geologic time.

The work — “The Age and Evolution of Lunar Micro Cold Traps at the Scale of Surface Exploration” – is authored by Emily Costello and Paul Lucey at the Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of Hawai’i at Manoa in Honolulu, HI.

Production and destruction

“From our model, we can reason that 100 meter [nearly 330 feet] cold traps which formed 1 billion years ago may still be present today and may have captured the last 1 billion years of lunar volatile history,” the paper explains.

Those lunar micro cold traps that are less than 1 meter are extremely transient and last only thousands of years.

“Our model thus constrains the production and destruction timescales of cold traps,” the paper observes, “and can be used to develop expectations concerning the discoverability and history of lunar volatiles at exploration scales relevant to landers, rovers, and humans.”

Testable exploration

Given the future “re-booting” of the Moon and the projected zones for NASA Artemis expeditions to explore, cold traps can represent candidates for investigating both the origins and distributions of volatiles, while older — greater than 100 meter to 1 kilometer craters — may have been cold traps for geologic timescales, the paper notes.

The punch line: Larger cold traps persevere against the threat of obliteration longer than smaller cold traps.

If volatiles are discovered within sub-meter micro cold traps, Costello and Lucey add, the volatiles must have arrived over less than thousands of years timescales.

 

The research team notes that the central conclusions of their work “hold and are both relevant to and testable by the landers, robots, and humans, who will explore the South Polar regions of the Moon.”

The research paper — “The Age and Evolution of Lunar Micro Cold Traps at the Scale of Surface Exploration” – published in AGU’s Geophysical Researcher Letters can be found at:

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL105369

China’s new Moon lander mission is undertaking a multi-step program involving the four components of the spacecraft: an ascender, a lander, a returner and an orbiter.

“Therefore every step of the Chang’e-6 mission is interlinked and crucial,” said Hu Zhenyu, head of the engineering and technical team of the launch site of the Chang’e-6 mission project, an endeavor that includes international experiments.

“Change’-6 carries four international payloads – a radon measuring instrument from France to detect radon isotopes in the lunar environment, a lunar surface negative ion analyzer developed by the European Space Agency (ESA)/Sweden to detect negative ions and study the interaction between plasma and the lunar surface, a cube-satellite from Pakistan to carry out in-orbit imaging tasks,” Hu added.

Also manifested is a laser retro-reflector developed by Italy, as a control point for positioning on the far side of the Moon to conduct joint positioning and distance measurement assistance with other lunar exploration missions, said Hu.

ICUBE-Q

Meanwhile, data gleaned by the Chang’e-6’s deployed Pakistan cube satellite is being heralded during a ceremony held today in Beijing.

The cube satellite, ICUBE-Q, was developed by Pakistan’s Institute of Space Technology and China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University – the result of the first lunar exploration cooperation project between China and Pakistan. ICUBE-Q separated from the Chang’e-6 orbiter on May 8 to carry out exploration activities such as capturing images of the moon.

Image credit: CGTN/CNSA/Inside Outer Space screengrab

Next step

For the next step, the now-circling lunar probe is spending some 20 days to find the best position for a soft landing on the far side of the Moon by the lander/ascender components.

Within 48 hours after touchdown, a robotic arm will be extended to scoop rocks and soil from the lunar surface and a drill will bore into the lunar topside.

Those lunar collectibles will be placed within the ascender for departure from the Moon and docking with the orbiter/returner in lunar orbit.

After completing all tasks, the Chang’e-6 mission will start its homeward-bound leg. After roughly five days of flight, a returner capsule is to re-enter the atmosphere and land in the Siziwang Banner of north China’s Inner Mongolia.

From launch on May 3 to the Moon and return to Earth of the capsule-contained Moon specimens adds up to a projected 53-day mission.

For an informative video on the international payloads aboard the Chang’e-6 mission, go to:

https://youtu.be/TCoKK8yK7bY?si=AbTBwHWRX5G-aVu6

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is preparing an Environmental Impact Statement in regards to the SpaceX Starship-Super Heavy Project at Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A in Florida.

That EIS is tied to issuing a commercial launch Vehicle Operator License for proposed SpaceX Starship operations at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Public scoping meetings

The SpaceX proposal includes constructing the necessary infrastructure to support up to 44 launches per year from Launch Complex-39A with Super Heavy booster and Starship vehicle recovery landings at LC-39A or on a droneship, or expending them in the ocean.

According to a statement released today from the FAA, two in-person public scoping meetings on June 12 and a third on June 13 are being held. In addition, one virtual public scoping meeting will be held on June 17.

Public comments can be submitted from May 10 to June 24, 2024.

For more information, go to:

https://www.faa.gov/space/stakeholder_engagement/spacex_starship_ksc

 

Another chunk of space junk appears to have fallen on Saskatchewan farmland in western Canada.

Found on farmland on April 28, the recovered debris appears to be leftovers from the “trunk” of a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.

 

A re-tracing of the ground track of the suspected SpaceX leftover goes right through Saskatchewan, above the Ituna-situated farm area, reports Harvard re-entry specialist Jonathan McDowell, as reported by Canada’s CTV broadcasting network.

 

 

 

 

Down under debris

Similarly, in July 2022, bits from an unpressurized trunk of a Dragon spacecraft – discarded prior to spacecraft re-entry – were found in Australian outback.

The Australian Space Agency later confirmed the space debris found in southern New South Wales was SpaceX trunk junk.

Go this CTV reporting at:

https://regina.ctvnews.ca/from-outer-space-sask-farmers-baffled-after-discovering-strange-wreckage-in-field-1.6880353

China’s Chang’e-6 Moon sampling probe has performed a braking maneuver and is now in circumlunar orbit, reports the China National Space Administration (CNSA).

Meanwhile, the ICUBE-Q mini-satellite has been released by Chang’e-6. ICUBE-Q was developed by the Intelligent Satellite Technology Center at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Pakistan Institute of Space Technology.

Chang’e-6 entered a large elliptical lunar orbit of roughly 124 miles (200 kilometers) × 5,344 miles (8,600 kilometers), swinging around the Moon every 12 hours, from which it released the ICUBE-Q cubesat.

Also on duty, China’s Queqiao-2 relay satellite will assist in Chang’e-6 operations, such as adjusting the altitude and inclination of the spacecraft’s orbit around the Moon, and also be engaged in the separation of the orbiter-returner combination and the lander-ascender combination.

The lander-ascender combination is targeting a soft landing on the South Pole-Aitken Basin, performing — for the first time — sampling and return of lunar specimens from the far side of the Moon.

Orbit control accuracy

The entire flight of Chang’e-6 is expected to last about 53 days, during which the spacecraft will experience 11 flight stages, such as: launch, orbit insertion, lunar transfer, among others.

“At present, the reaction control of Chang’e-6 probe is stable, the orbit control accuracy is very high and the working condition is very good,” Peng Deyun, a member of the Beijing Aerospace Control Center told China Central Television (CCTV).

“We will continue to adjust the altitude and inclination of the orbit. It will carry out separation at the proper time and conduct a soft landing on the far side of the Moon,” Peng said. “Then, it will carry out scientific exploration and collect samples from the lunar surface. Following this, it will take off, execute a series of maneuvers, complete rendezvous and dock in the lunar orbit before finally returning to Earth.”

High scientific significance

According to Lu Yuntong, an engineer of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation:

“Globally, more than ten missions collecting and returning samples have been conducted from the near side of the Moon. However, there may exist even more ancient lunar soil on the far side. Thus, whatever samples we collect from the Moon’s far side hold high scientific significance.”

The huge SPA Basin is the result of an impact hit on the Moon over four billion years ago. Samples derived from that area may provide the earliest information about the Moon.

“Our spacecraft depends on solar illumination for power generation, and this illumination varies with latitude. For this mission, we have selected a landing site in a region with moderate latitude,” Lu told CCTV. “We chose the South Pole-Aitken Basin due to its adequate solar illumination and reliable communication signals, meeting the engineering standards.”

Go to this informative video on the Chang’e-6 braking at the Moon at:

https://fb.watch/rXxRN5vLqe/

Over the last number of years, our planet has become encircled by Starlink, OneWeb, and other “megaconstellation” satellites.

Yes, the emergence of those megaconstellations offers great benefit for humanity. But in a wait-a-minute pause, there are also substantial costs, including the imposition on humankind’s ongoing and growing thirst for astronomical peering into the surrounding universe.

That’s the view of David Koplow, the Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.

“We are just beginning to appreciate how bad the disruption can be for land-based and space-based telescopes, and as more and more satellite overflights occur, the problems will only intensify,” Koplow told Inside Outer Space.

Legal rights

Koplow’s concerns have been voiced in several scholarly works, the titles of which underscore his qualms, such as: “Large Constellations of Small Satellites: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly and the Illegal,” as well as “Blinded by the Light: Resolving the Conflict Between Satellite Megaconstellations and Astronomy.”

 “The world has mostly been assuming that the relevant international law basically allows the satellite companies to do whatever they want in space, while forcing the observatories to adapt as well as they can,” Koplow advised. 

But in reality, Koplow continues, the legal regime is not so one-sided. “Astronomers also have legal rights to free use of space, and they need not stand by idly while their profession is damaged.”

Hair on fire

Koplow points out that in 2019 the world of optical and radio astronomy changed abruptly and massively when the first SpaceX batch of 60 Starlink satellites was lofted.

“Jolted by the sudden brightness of those spacecraft, and alarmed by the prospect of their legions of successors, observatories scrambled to respond,” Koplow observes.

They did so by studying and documenting the true dimensions of the problem, beginning to invent or conceptualize mitigation measures, and entering into discussions with SpaceX and other companies.

“Some astronomers see this as a true ‘hair on fire’ emergency, heralding irretrievable losses to space science; others present a more sanguine face, depicting this as yet another challenge to be surmounted in surveying a decreasingly pristine sky,” Koplow remarks.

Incipient clash

That said, the astronomical community has related that the time and the financial costs of conducting effective astronomy will rise considerably, Koplow says, “and that some important data will simply be irretrievable, with concomitant losses for science and the future exploration and use of space.”

In his “Blinded by the Light” treatise, Koplow describes the incipient clash between satellite megaconstellations and astronomy, assesses the relevant international and domestic legal authorities, and proposes compromise solutions to mitigate the damage.

“Overall, the thesis is that a better balance must be struck between these competing types of space activities,” Koplow adds, “without ceding to either a comprehensive right to proceed in disregard of the key functions of the other.”

Voluntary measures

Koplow acknowledges that some satellite companies have voluntarily invested considerable corporate talent and money in efforts to mitigate their interference with astronomy. 

“But these voluntary measures are not adequate to solve the problem, they are not durable and reliable, and they have not been adopted by all the companies,” Koplow suggests.

“A stronger response is necessary,” Koplow concludes.

To gain access to “Blinded by the Light: Resolving the Conflict Between Satellite Megaconstellations and Astronomy” go to: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4346299

To review the paper “Three Things I Hate About Large Constellations of Small Satellites” go to: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4503593

 

NASA’s forward thinking Innovative Advanced Concepts program (NIAC) has selected six visionary concept studies for additional funding and development.

And the winners are:

Fluidic Telescope (FLUTE): Enabling the Next Generation of Large Space Observatories

Pulsed Plasma Rocket: Shielded, Fast Transits for Humans to Mars is an innovative propulsion system

The Great Observatory for Long Wavelengths (GO-LoW)

Radioisotope Thermoradiative Cell Power Generator

FLOAT: Flexible Levitation on a Track

ScienceCraft for Outer Planet Exploration

The NIAC Phase II conceptual studies will receive up to $600,000 to continue working over the next two years to address key remaining technical and budget hurdles and pave their development path forward.

For more detail, go to:

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/stmd/nasa-doubles-down-advances-six-innovative-tech-concepts-to-new-phase/