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Odp: The Space Review
« Odpowiedź #420 dnia: Luty 13, 2024, 11:42 »
7/II 2024 [29-32]

29) Review: The Space Race
by Jeff Foust Monday, February 19, 2024



The Space Race: The Untold Story of the First Black Astronauts
Directed by Lisa Cortes and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza
91 minutes, not rated
Streaming on Disney+ and Hulu
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27390817/

Just after midnight Eastern time on March 1, a Crew Dragon spacecraft is set to launch to the International Space Station on the Crew-8 mission. Among the astronauts on board will be Jeanette Epps, a Black woman who was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2009 but is only now making her first flight.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4742/1

30) The evolution of India’s weather satellite programs
by Ajey Lele Monday, February 19, 2024


A GSLV Mark 2 rocket launched the INSAT-3DS weather satellite February 17. (credit: ISRO)

On February 17, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched the GSLV-F14 mission. It was the tenth flight of ISRO’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) with an indigenous cryogenic upper stage and the seventh operational flight of GSLV with such a stage. This launch placed India’s INSAT-3DS satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4743/1

31) From Southwest Regional Spaceport to Spaceport America
by Thomas L. Matula Monday, February 19, 2024


New Mexico’s Spaceport America, developed with Virgin Galactic as the anchor tenant, is far different than what was earlier proposed as the Southwest Regional Spaceport. (credit: Spaceport America)

As a space economist with a long interest in commercial spaceports, I was among hundreds of spectators parked along the tracks of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad in southern New Mexico on May 22, 2021. We came to witness the first crewed flight into suborbital space from Spaceport America.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4744/1

32) Delivering a business case for rocket cargo
by Jeff Foust Monday, February 19, 2024


A notional illustration of the “Rocket Cargo” concept being studied by the US Air Force for the rapid delivery of cargo. SpaceX’s Starship is the most likely vehicle to be able to perform such services in the near term. (credit: USAF)

Even in an era where the landing and reuse of rocket boosters has become commonplace (at least for one company), the idea seems a little, well, out there. Launch a rocket and have it land, 60 or 90 minutes later, halfway around the world, carrying tens of tons of cargo needed for military operations, humanitarian relief, or other purposes where time is of the utmost essence.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4745/1

8/II 2024 [33-36]

33) Review: The Battle Beyond
by Jeff Foust Monday, February 26, 2024



The Battle Beyond: Fighting and Winning the Coming War in Space
by Paul Szymanski and Jerry Drew
Amplify Publishing, 2024
hardcover, 400 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-63755-071-7
US$35.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1637550715/spaceviews

Earlier this month, Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, warned fellow House members of a “serious national security threat” that he called on the White House to declassify. Within hours, various reports indicated that threat came from a Russian anti-satellite weapon of some kind, but details of which were unclear.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4746/1

34) Cybersecurity for satellites is a growing challenge
by Sylvester Kaczmarek Monday, February 26, 2024


Protecting space assets from cyberattacks is becoming an urgent issue.

In today’s interconnected world, space technology forms the backbone of our global communication, navigation, and security systems. Satellites orbiting Earth are pivotal for everything from GPS navigation to international banking transactions, making them indispensable assets in our daily lives and in global infrastructure.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4747/1

35) The middle of No and Where: Johnston Island and the US Air Force’s nuclear anti-satellite weapon
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, February 26, 2024


Johnston Island, located hundreds of kilometers from Hawaii, was the location of an American nuclear-armed anti-satellite program for approximately a decade. The island was small and offered no protection from weather or rocket launch accidents. The island is now abandoned. (credit: USAF)

Recently there was a flurry of media attention about Russia’s reported development of a nuclear-armed anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon. Soon after the space age began in the late 1950s, both the United States and Soviet Union began studying and then developing and deploying ASATs. From 1962 to 1975 the United States Air Force operated the nuclear-armed Program 437 ASAT from a remote location in the Pacific Ocean known as Johnston Island. Johnston was not only remote, it was small.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4748/1

36) The phases of lunar lander success, revisited
by Jeff Foust Monday, February 26, 2024


An image from the Intuitive Machines IM-1 lunar lander mission after the spacecraft entered orbit around the Moon. (credit: Intuitive Machines)

Once again, the space community is grappling with how to characterize something less than undisputed, 100% perfection in a mission. That was the case last year when SpaceX launched its Starship vehicle on its first two test flights, both failing to complete their mission profiles but providing valuable experience for the company ahead of its next test flight, as soon as March (see “Grading on a suborbital curve”, The Space Review, April 24, 2023.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4749/1


9/III 2024 [37-40]

37) Ode to Engle and Truly
by Emily Carney Monday, March 4, 2024


Astronauts Joe H. Engle, left, and Richard H. Truly greet reporters upon their return to Ellington Air Force Base near NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC), from Kennedy Space Center (KSC) after learning their flight (STS-2) has been postponed a week. (credit: NASA)

“Nostalgia—it’s delicate, but potent… It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn’t a spaceship; it’s a time machine. It goes backwards and forwards… it takes us to a place where we ache to go again.” – Don Draper, Mad Men.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4750/1

38) Taking stock of the US space program
by Namrata Goswami Monday, March 4, 2024


The first Vulcan Centaur launched in January, one sign of the strength of the US space program even as it has weaknesses elsewhere. (credit: ULA)

In 2023, a paradigmatic shift occurred regarding government space programs that was perhaps missed by the global space community. Euroconsult’s 2023 Government Space Program report highlighted that shift: defense-related space expenditures ($59 billion) exceeded civil space budgets ($58 billion) in 2023 for the first time.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4751/1

39) Squinting at the universe
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 4, 2024


A notional design for the Habitable Worlds Observatory space telescope presented at a recent meeting. NASA and the science community is only beginning the work to determine the real design of the spacecraft, expected to launch in the 2040s. (credit: NASA)

Last week, many astronomers got bad news about a good thing. The Space Telescope Science Institute, which operates the James Webb Space Telescope, announced the selections for the next round of JWST observations, called Cycle 3 and set to begin this summer. The institute said it selected 253 proposals for 5,500 hours of “prime time” observations from solar system objects to the distant universe.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4752/1

40) A North Korean satellite starts showing signs of life
by Marco Langbroek Monday, March 4, 2024


Kim Jong Un and his daughter visiting a Malligyong assemblage facility in May 2023. A Malligyong satellite (or mock-up thereof) can be seen in the background (credit: KCNA)

Three and a half months ago, on November 21, 2023, North Korea launched its first military reconnaissance satellite, Malligyong 1. A Chollima-1 rocket launched from Sohae inserted Malligyong-1 (international designator: 2023-179A) into a Sun-synchronous orbit of 512 by 493 kilometers and an inclination of 97.4 degrees. Within days of the launch, North Korea claimed that the satellite is taking imagery of targets of interest.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4753/1

10/III 2024 [41-44]

41) Review: The New World on Mars
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 11, 2024



The New World on Mars: What We Can Create on the Red Planet
by Robert Zubrin
Diversion Books, 2024
hardcover, 320 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-63576-880-0
US$28.99
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1635768802/spaceviews

As soon as this Thursday, SpaceX will launch its Starship/Super Heavy vehicle on its third integrated test flight, after launches last April and November. On this flight SpaceX hopes, beyond avoiding the explosive ends of those earlier flights, to test a payload bay door and transfer propellant within Starship, key capabilities needed for that vehicle’s early missions to launch Starlink satellites and land humans on the Moon for NASA.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4754/1

42) The psychological challenges of a long voyage to Mars
by Nick Kanas Monday, March 11, 2024


The four-person crew of NASA’s CHAPEA experiment enter their simulated Mars habitat last summer for a year-long Mars analog mission. (credit: NASA/Josh Valcarcel)

Within the next few decades, NASA aims to land humans on the Moon, set up a lunar base, and use the lessons learned to send people to Mars as part of its Artemis program.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4755/1

43) India unveils its first set of Gaganyaan astronauts
by Jatan Mehta Monday, March 11, 2024


Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets the four Gaganyaan astronauts at a February 27 event. (credit: Press Information Bureau)

After four years of secrecy, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on February 27 the first four astronauts selected to fly on the country’s initial set of human spaceflight missions mid-decade via ISRO’s ambitious Gaganyaan program. The selectees are all test pilots and Group Captains: Prashanth Nair, Angad Prathap, Ajit Krishnan, and Shubhanshu Shukla. They have received extensive training in India and Russia, and at least one of them will receive advanced training in the US at NASA facilities sometime this year. The announcement of Gaganyaan astronauts is a great time to review India’s progress in putting people in space.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4756/1

44) The difficult early life of the Centaur upper stage
by Trevor Williams Monday, March 11, 2024


A Centaur V upper stage being hoisted into position to be integrated with a Vulcan rocket ahead of the Vulcan’s first launch. (credit: ULA)

On January 8, the first Vulcan rocket by United Launch Alliance successfully placed the Peregrine lander on a trajectory bound for the Moon. This lander then experienced propulsion problems that prevented a lunar landing attempt, but the Vulcan had performed its task perfectly. The upper stage of the Vulcan, the Centaur V (V signifying 5, not Vulcan), is a high-energy upper stage that contributes to the Vulcan’s impressive performance for planetary missions and others.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4757/1

11/III 2024 [45-48]

45) Review: Space: The Longest Goodbye
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 18, 2024



Space: The Longest Goodbye
directed by Ido Mizrahy
87 minutes, not rated
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt24082558/

NASA is offering people a chance to go to Mars—or, rather, “Mars.” The agency announced last month they were accepting applications for its second year-long mission in its Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) project.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4758/1

46) “A rose, by any other name”: Proposing a national naming competition for our lunar exploration program (part 1)
by Cody Knipfer Monday, March 18, 2024


NASA has used a variety of naming conventions for both crewed and robotic spacecraft throughout its history. (credit: NASA)

What’s in a name?

For Shakespeare’s Juliet Capulet, it is the embodiment of forbidden love. The last name of her amour, “Montague,” bears significance—in her and Romeo’s case, the tragic implications of a familial rivalry. Much the same, names have weight in the real world, especially so for the real-world explorers of yesteryear and today.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4759/1

47) Texas Space Commissions, from Conestoga to Starship
by Thomas L. Matula Monday, March 18, 2024


Texas hosted the first launch of a privately developed rocket more than 40 years ago but soon lost any first-mover advantage. (credit: Celestis)

The Lone Star State once again has a Texas Space Commission thanks to a bill signed into law on June 14, 2023, by Governor Greg Abbott.[1] The former Texas Aerospace Commission, which ceased operations in 2003, started out as the Texas Space Commission in 1987, spurred on by the launch of the first commercial rocket into space five years before.[2]
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4760/1

Trzeci test odbył się po trajektorii suborbitalnej przy uzyskaniu prędkości orbitalnej.
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/n240301.htm#10
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=5664.msg190176#msg190176

48) Accelerating Starship
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 18, 2024


Starship/Super Heavy lifts off March 14 from SpaceX’s Starship site in South Texas. (credit: SpaceX)

When Starship lifted off Thursday morning from SpaceX’s launch site at Boca Chica, Texas, the one question on most people’s minds was this: how far would it get this time? Its first flight, nearly 11 months earlier, ended four minutes after liftoff when the tumbling Starship/Super Heavy stack was detonated by a flight termination system; the liftoff had, in the process, made a mess of the pad because of the lack of a water deluge system (see “Grading on a suborbital curve”, The Space Review, April 24, 2023).
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4761/1

12/III 2024 [49-52]

49) “For All Mankind”: space drama’s alternate history constructs a better vision of NASA
by Val Nolan Monday, March 25, 2024


Masha Mashkova and Joel Kinnaman in the fourth season of “For All Mankind”. (credit: Apple TV+)

Great art is often difficult to quantify. The Apple TV+ series “For All Mankind” is a case in point, running the risk of being too sci-fi for drama fans (rockets, moon bases, Mars) and having too much naturalistic drama for sci-fi aficionados (jealousy, divorce, institutional politics).
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4762/1

50) Preventing a “Space Pearl Harbor”: Rep. Turner leads the charge
by Brian G. Chow Monday, March 25, 2024


Maneuvers by China’s SJ-21 in GEO, including moving a Beidou satellite out of the belt, is just one of the many Chinese space activities with counterspace implications. (credit: ExoAnalytic Solutions)

Accolades are due to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner and the White House for a quick and amicable settlement of Russia’s developing space threat. It involved a balancing act between the American public’s need to know and the Biden Administration’s need for secrecy.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4763/1

51) “A rose, by any other name”: Proposing a national naming competition for our lunar exploration program (part 2)
by Cody Knipfer Monday, March 25, 2024


A naming contest that went a bit awry led to a treadmill on the International Space Station being named for Stephen Colbert, complete with a custom patch. (credit: NASA)

[Part 1 was published last week.]

“By any other name…”: On naming competitions and outreach

Public consultation can take many forms: invited expert input, advisory committees, informal and formal “requests for information”—and write-in competitions.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4764/1

52) Lessons from the first CLPS lunar landing missions
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 25, 2024


An image of the IM-1 landing, showing one of the lunar lander legs breaking as the spacecraft hit the surface faster than it was designed to. (credit: Intuitive Machines)

The IM-1 lunar lander mission officially came to an end Saturday. As the Sun dipped below the horizon on February 29, nearly a week after landing, flight controllers at Intuitive Machines put the lander, known as Odysseus or “Odie,” into a mode so that, when sunlight returned to the lander in a few weeks, it could wake up and start transmitting—if it managed to survive bitterly cold conditions.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4765/1
« Ostatnia zmiana: Marzec 26, 2024, 18:14 wysłana przez Orionid »

Online Orionid

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Odp: The Space Review
« Odpowiedź #421 dnia: Marzec 20, 2024, 06:09 »
13/IV 2024 [53-56]

53) Review: Our Moon
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 1, 2024



Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are
by Rebecca Boyle
Random House, 2024
hardcover, 336 p., illus.
ISBN 978-0-593-12972-2
US$28.99
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0593129725/spaceviews

Next Monday, all eyes will turn skyward along a path stretching from Mazatlán, Mexico, to Gander, Newfoundland, including a stretch from Texas to Maine, to watch a total solar eclipse (or try to, weather permitting.) NASA, for example, has planned multiple events across the country for the eclipse, all part of a “Heliophysics Big Year” to promote the agency’s work studying the Sun. But, as the agency’s planetary scientists point out, you can’t have a solar eclipse without the Moon.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4766/1

54) Strategic implications of China winning the space rescue race (part 1)
by Benjamin J. Johnis and Peter Garretson Monday, April 1, 2024


A futuristic Space Guard rescue scenario. (credit: James Vaughan, used with permission)

Several times in its history, the United States has proven unprepared for personnel recovery due to outdated policy that failed to anticipate novel personnel recovery challenges. Trend studies demonstrate the United States adjusts its personnel recovery policies after a major crisis or event occurs. The US government must break this reactive personnel recovery policy and investment cycle or America is at risk of losing its leadership role to China in cislunar space. Only a proactive national approach will ensure the United States remains the leader in space.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4767/1

55) Touching space
by Lisa Pettibone Monday, April 1, 2024


The piece “Fingertip Galaxy” was included on the Euclid spacecraft launched last July. (credit: ESA)

In July 2023, I was eagerly awaiting the launch of European Space Agency’s Euclid Mission in Florida. Ten years in development, the Falcon 9 rocket would send a telescope, with one of the most powerful cameras in space and two sensitive instruments, to explore the nature of dark matter and dark energy. But the spacecraft was also dispatching another kind of invaluable instrument.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4768/1

56) A space telescope’s cloudy future
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 1, 2024


Astronomers are concerned proposed budget cuts for the Chandra X-Ray Observatory could lead to its cancellation. (credit: NASA)

NASA has a long-standing process for evaluating whether to continue science missions. About every three years, each of NASA’s science divisions conducts a “senior review” of missions that have reached the end of their prime mission but are still operating. The reviews are intended to examine the performance of the missions and the science they are conducting to determine if NASA should keep funding their operations and what changes may be needed, such as efficiencies that can reduce their costs.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4769/1

14/IV 2024 [57-60]

57) Review: The Music of Space
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 8, 2024



The Music of Space: Scoring the Cosmos in Film and Television
by Chris Carberry
McFarland, 2024
paperback, 304 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-4766-8897-8
US$39.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1476688974/spaceviews

In space, no one may hear you scream, but at least you’ll get a soundtrack. Science fiction movies and television shows, particularly those about space, are known for their distinctive soundtracks, from orchestral to electronic. They set the mood for the shows and can have an impact that goes far beyond the big or small screen, in some cases becoming instantly recognizable cultural artifacts in and of themselves.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4770/1

58) Strategic implications of China winning the space rescue race (part 2)
by Benjamin J. Johnis and Peter Garretson Monday, April 8, 2024

[Part 1 was published last week.]


A futuristic Space Guard rescue scenario. (credit: James Vaughan, used with permission)

Relationships between personnel recovery and policy

Event history analysis of policy changes

Recent conflicts between the United States and China regarding multi-domain strategies are trending towards a “Grey Rhino” event. Most have heard of a “Black Swan” event where high-impact incidents occur that are nearly impossible to predict.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4771/1

59) A North Korean satellite starts showing signs of life (part 2)
by Marco Langbroek Monday, April 8, 2024


Kim Jong Un with a globe, an image evoking Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator”. (credit: KCNA)

In a previous article (see “A North Korean satellite starts showing signs of life”, The Space Review, March 4, 2024), I briefly presented evidence that the new North Korean military reconnaissance satellite Malligyong-1 (2023-179A) had performed a series of small orbit raising maneuvers in late February of 2024. In this follow-up analysis, I will be looking at the specific moments these maneuvers were initiated. They match passes over North Korea, it turns out.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4772/1

60) GAMBIT vs KENNEN: The persistence of film reconnaissance in the digital age
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, April 8, 2024


The GAMBIT satellite program used film to take high resolution images. GAMBIT continued in service until 1984, even though the KENNEN digital imagery satellite entered service in late 1976. GAMBIT still had advantages over KENNEN in the short term. Here a GAMBIT satellite is launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in 1968. (credit: Peter Hunter Collection)

One of the mysteries of the American reconnaissance satellite program during the Cold War was why, after the KENNEN digital near-real-time reconnaissance satellite entered service in late 1976, the United States continued to operate film-return reconnaissance satellites well into the 1980s.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4773/1

15/IV 2024 [61-64]

61) Nukes in space: a bad idea in the 1960s and an even worse one now
by Michael Mulvihill Monday, April 15, 2024


Photograph taken from Honolulu of the aurora created by Starfish Prime. (credit: US government archive)

The US and Japan are sponsoring a resolution for debate by the United Nations Security Council which, if passed, will reaffirm international commitments to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (OST) forbidding the deployment and use of nuclear weapons in space.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4774/1

62) Zero-gravity regulations
by David Gillette and Emma Rohrbach Monday, April 15, 2024


The commercial spaceflight industry has benefited from a limited regulatory regime that offers lessons for other industries. (credit: Virgin Galactic)

Journalists have filled headlines about the “ultrarich” taking costly field trips to outer space. The issue of space tourism, seemingly frivolous to some, provides important insights into US regulations on innovation (see “The normalization of space tourism,” The Space Review, October 18, 2021.) For 20 years, the US government took a laissez-faire approach to regulating space tourism.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4775/1

63) FARRAH, the superstar satellite
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, April 15, 2024


Half-sized model of the FARRAH signals intelligence satellite in the restoration hangar at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles International Airport outside Washington, DC. The first FARRAH satellite was launched in 1982 and used to detect ground, and possibly sea-based radars. The way the satellite appears here is similar to how it would orbit the Earth, with the direction of flight for the rotating satellite to the left. The satellite spun at greater than 50 revolutions per minute, sweeping its antennas across the face of the Earth below. (credit: author’s photo)

The Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, located near Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, DC, has a large viewing gallery overlooking its restoration hangar. Whereas some museum artifacts spend years in the restoration hangar, many others cycle through quickly for a cleaning and minor repair work before returning to storage or display.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4776/1

64) Lunar rover racing
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 15, 2024


The Lunar Dawn rover, proposed by a team led by Lunar Outpost, is among the three selected by NASA for its Lunar Terrain Vehicle program. (credit: Lockheed Martin)

When NASA returns astronauts to the Moon later this decade, they will be hoofing it. On the Artemis 3 and, perhaps, Artemis 4 missions, the astronauts will be limited like the early Apollo missions to terrain they can access on foot. That also means they will be limited in the equipment they can carry, and the samples they can gather, to what they can hold in their hands.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4777/1

16/IV 2024 [65-68]

65) Review: Still As Bright
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 22, 2024



Still As Bright: An Illuminating History of the Moon, from Antiquity to Tomorrow
by Christopher Cokinos
Pegasus Books, 2024
hardcover, 448 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-63936-569-2
US$35
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1639365699/spaceviews

Early in his new book Still As Bright, Christopher Cokinos writes that, like so many boys in the early Space Age, he dreamed of becoming an astronaut after first becoming an Air Force pilot, even joining the Civil Air Patrol. “To this day, I remember Miss Hawk literally pulling me out of advanced algebra, though I don’t know why,” he writes, “and by the next class I was in remedial math, resigned, overnight, to never having wings pinned on a uniform.”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4778/1

66) Tintin, the first man in space and on the Moon
by Anusuya Datta Monday, April 22, 2024



April 12 is a historic day for the space industry. On this day back in 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. Not to be left behind, the United States sent its first man into space in less than a month—Alan Shepard on May 5—thus sparking the famous space race between the two Cold War superpowers.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4779/1

67) NASA’s strategy for space sustainability
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 22, 2024


NASA’s TIMED spacecraft came within ten meters of a defunct Russian satellite in February, narrowly avoiding a collision that would have created thousands of pieces of debris in low Earth orbit. (credit: Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben)

At about 1:30 am EST on February 28, NASA’s Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics Mission (TIMED) spacecraft passed close to a defunct Russian satellite, Cosmos 2221.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4780/1

68) The ongoing triumph of Ingenuity
by William Pomerantz Monday, April 22, 2024


The Ingenuity Mars helicopter performed 72 flights over nearly three years. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU)

This is my love letter to Ingenuity.

I remember when I first heard about the concept of a small helicopter designed to catch a ride with a rover bound for the Martian surface. At the time, my wife worked as part of the “Mars Mafia” at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: a wonderful job that meant she got to bring intriguing ideas and fascinating discoveries home from work regularly.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4781/1

17/IV 2024 [69-72]

69) Review: Who Owns the Moon?
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 29, 2024



Who Owns the Moon?: In Defence of Humanity’s Common Interests in Space
by A. C. Grayling
Oneworld Publications, 2024
hardcover, 224 pp.
ISBN 978-0-86154-725-8
US$26.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/086154725X/spaceviews

The current unfortunate state of space diplomacy was on display last week during a session of the United Nations Security Council. Japan and the United States, with more than 60 nations as co-sponsors, put forward a resolution they billed as the first devoted to space security to be considered by the council.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4782/1

70) China’s interest in the far side of the Moon: scientific, military, or economic?
by Carlos Alatorre Monday, April 29, 2024


An illustration of Chang’e-6 on the surface of the lunar farside. (credit: CNSA)

On January 3, 2019, China achieved the first successful landing on the far side of the Moon with the Chang’e-4 probe. Twelve hours after touching down in the Von Karman Crater near the Moon’s south pole, the accompanying Yutu-2 rover began an exploration of the crater, a region that neither the United States nor the Soviet Union had explored before. This achievement was announced, gaining much fanfare within China as the first nation to deliver a probe to the far side.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4783/1

71) Lazy Cat on a mountaintop
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, April 29, 2024


Cold War era artist impression of a Soviet high-powered laser. In the 1970s, the CIA became concerned that Soviet lasers could attack American satellites. (credit: Defense Intelligence Agency for Soviet Military Power)

In the last days of the rule of the Shah of Iran, the CIA installed a new dome atop a mountain next to a field of equipment used to gather information from inside the Soviet Union. But before the intelligence service could put it into operation in 1978, the Shah fell and the CIA hastily abandoned the site.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4784/1

Ciąg dalszy opowieści o perturbacjach związanych z misją MSR

72) NASA looks for an MSR lifeline
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 29, 2024


A selfie taken by the Perseverance rover showing one of its sample tubes on the ground. NASA is still working to figure out how to get those samples back to Earth effectively. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

For more than half a year, dark clouds have hovered over NASA’s Mars Sample Return (MSR) program. Last September, an independent panel concluded that the current approach to returning samples being collected by the Perseverance rover was behind schedule and far over budget, with cost estimates as high as $11 billion. That prompted an internal NASA reassessment of the MSR program that, coupled with uncertainty about spending levels for the program in 2024, led to slowing work on much of MSR and, in February, laying off 8% of the staff at JPL, the lead center for MSR (see “MSR at serious risk”, The Space Review, February 12, 2024). (...)

The main technical difference was the inclusion of a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) on the lander, which previously was solar powered, to make lander operations more robust. (Including the RTG, the report noted, made little change to its price but it meant there would be no room for helicopters based on Ingenuity; those were intended to fetch samples from a cache on the surface as a backup to getting them directly from Perseverance.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4785/1

18/V 2024 [73-76]

73) Review: The Asteroid Hunter
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 6, 2024



The Asteroid Hunter: A Scientist’s Journey to the Dawn of our Solar System
by Dante S. Lauretta
Grand Central Publishing, 2024
hardcover, 336 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-5387-2294-7
US$30
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1538722941/spaceviews

Many people can identify a particular point where they found their purpose in life. It can be an event of some kind, either celebratory or traumatic; a chance encounter with someone; or maybe a book. For Dante Lauretta, it was an ad in a student newspaper.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4786/1

74) The rising flood of space junk is a risk to us on Earth
by Thomas Cheney Monday, May 6, 2024


The ISS was the source of a piece of debris that hit a Florida home in March. (credit: NASA)

A piece of space junk recently crashed through the roof and floor of a man’s home in Florida. NASA later confirmed that the object had come from unwanted hardware released from the International Space Station.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4787/1

75) Boeing’s Starliner, an important milestone for commercial spaceflight
by Wendy N. Whitman Cobb Monday, May 6, 2024


Starliner is set to launch as soon as Monday night on its first crewed flight. (credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky)

If all goes well late on May 6, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will blast off into space on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. Launching from the Kennedy Space Center, this last crucial test for Starliner will test out the new spacecraft and take the pair to the International Space Station for about a week.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4788/1
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76) Europe looks to end its launcher crisis
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 6, 2024


The first Ariane 6 is taking shape at the spaceport in French Guiana for a launch as soon as this summer. (credit: ESA/ArianeGroup/Arianespace/CNES)

In the early morning hours of April 28, the European Space Agency and European Commission celebrated the launch of the latest two Galileo navigation satellites. But in the announcements of the launch and confirmation that the two satellites were working well in orbit, there was something missing: just how the satellites got into orbit.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4789/1

19/V 2024 [77-80]

77) Review: Alien Earths
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 13, 2024



Alien Earths: The New Science of Planet Hunting in the Cosmos
by Lisa Kaltenegger
St. Martin’s Press, 2024
hardcover, 288 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-250-28363-4
US$30
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1250283639/spaceviews

In a paper published last week, astronomers reported the detection of an atmosphere around a rocky “Earth-like” exoplanet, a first. The problem with the announcement, though, was that the exoplanet in question, 55 Cancri e, didn’t seem much like Earth: a diameter twice the size of Earth and a temperature of more than 1,500 degrees Celsius. (“To describe 55 Cancri e as ‘rocky,’ however, could leave the wrong impression,” a press release stated, noting its surface is likely molten.) Combine that with an atmosphere made of carbon monoxide and/or carbon dioxide, and 55 Cancri e doesn’t appear to be particularly hospitable to life.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4790/1

78) Spaceplanes: why we need them, why they have failed, and how they can succeed
by John Hollaway Monday, May 13, 2024


Despite the failures of dozens of past efforts, companies like Radian Aerospace continue to pursue spaceplanes. (credit: Radian Aerospace)

“Rockets are terribly inefficient and expensive.” This admission can be found here in NASA’s own educational piece on the equation that governs rocket performance, also known as Tsiolkovsky's equation. But what is the alternative?
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4791/1

79) Is it time for space to come out from under the FAA’s wings?
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 13, 2024


The growth of commercial launch and reentry activity had been led by SpaceX, such as with this Falcon 9 launch May 6 from Florida. (credit: SpaceX)

Spaceflight is not routine in the same way as other modes of transportation, but it is becoming more commonplace. Through less than four and a half months of this year, there have been more than 90 orbital launches worldwide. Commercial launches, predominantly by SpaceX, have driven that growth, far offsetting declines by some other countries and companies.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4792/1

80) Russian research on space nukes and alternative counterspace weapons (part 1)
by Bart Hendrickx Monday, May 13, 2024


Computer-simulated views of high-altitude nuclear explosions produced at the Institute of Computer-Aided Design (IAP) in Moscow. (Source)

In February, White House officials asserted that Russia is developing a space-based anti-satellite system that would violate the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits the deployment of weapons of mass destruction in orbit. They later confirmed media speculation that the system in question is a nuclear weapon. Part 1 of this article summarizes what has been revealed about the alleged weapon so far and attempts to chart academic and laboratory research on nuclear explosions in space done in Russia in recent years.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4793/1


20/V 2024 [81-84]

81) Review: Weapons in Space
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 20, 2024



Weapons in Space: Technology, Politics, and the Rise and Fall of the Strategic Defense Initiative
by Aaron Bateman
MIT Press, 2024
paperback, 336 pp.
ISBN 978-0-262-54736-9
US$60.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262547368/spaceviews

One of the most divisive military space programs was the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). To its advocates, SDI offered a way to protect America from nuclear attack and even, in the vision of President Ronald Reagan, render nuclear weapons obsolete. To critics, SDI was derided as “Star Wars,” an effort that was wasteful and ineffective as well as potentially destabilizing.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4794/1

82) Assigning an identification to a satellite
by Charles Phillips Monday, May 20, 2024


Launches of multiple payloads, like this Falcon 9 rideshare mission in April, share a characteristic that links those payloads together. (credit: SpaceX)

This is another article about a useful technique to analyze satellite’s orbits, a technique that should be used to avoid mistakes in tracking these satellites. This technique should be useful to verify that a satellite is the same if it has not been tracked for a year or so, and I think that it has other uses that I am still developing.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4795/1

83) Architecting lunar infrastructure
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 20, 2024


Commercial lunar infrastructure could benefit startups like Interlune, which proposes to harvest helium-3 on the Moon. (credit: Interlune)

You may have heard in recent weeks a two-word phrase whose individual words were very familiar but which, until now, had been rarely combined: lunar railroad. Earlier this month, NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC), the agency program that funds work on early-stage technologies, awarded a Phase 2 grant for a project called Flexible Levitation on a Track (FLOAT) to create a maglev railroad of sorts on the Moon and other planetary bodies. “We want to build the first lunar railway system, which will provide reliable, autonomous, and efficient payload transport on the Moon,” explained Ethan Schaler of JPL, who is leading work on FLOAT.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4796/1
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84) Russian research on space nukes and alternative counterspace weapons (part 2)
by Bart Hendrickx Monday, May 20, 2024


The “Krot” plasma chamber in Nizhniy Novgorod is possibly being used for research on directed-energy counterspace weapons. (Source)

Part 1 summarized recent Russian academic literature on the effects of high-altitude nuclear explosions. The bulk of the research in this field seems to be taking place at Rosatom’s Federal Nuclear Center – All-Russian Scientific Research Institute for Experimental Physics (RFYaTs-VNIIEF) in Sarov and the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Computer-Aided Design (IAP) in Moscow. Both these organizations, as well as several others, also appear to be engaged in research on weapon systems that would mimic some of the effects of nuclear explosions in space without having the same devastating consequences.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4797/1

Note: Because of the Memorial Day holiday, next week’s issue will be published on Tuesday, May 28.


21/V 2024 [85-88]

85) Why planetary protection matters to the future of space exploration
by Dylan Taylor Tuesday, May 28, 2024


Sample tubes cached by the Perseverance Mars rover for later return to Earth, an effort that requires following planetary protection protocols for both forward and backward contamination. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

The hiker’s motto you often hear cited when it comes to dealing with forays into the wilderness is, “leave only footprints, take only memories.” As humanity spreads outward into space we need to try and adopt something similar —perhaps adding, “take only memories, readings, and bring back a few samples.” We are moving outward to study worlds beyond our own. As such, it behooves us to do our best to not alter the very thing that we have gone out to study—if studying these places is why we go there in the first place, which it is.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4798/1

86) Ed Dwight: The first Black astronaut?
by John M. Logsdon Tuesday, May 28, 2024


Ed Dwight emerges from the New Shepard capsule May 19 after his suborbital spaceflight, more than 60 days after he was identified as a potential astronaut. (credit: Blue Origin)

Ninety-year-old Ed Dwight was one of six people aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard vehicle when it made its suborbital trip into space on May 19, 2024. In reporting on this flight, The New York Times identified Dwight as “the first Black astronaut.” Many other news accounts described him, more correctly, as “the first Black astronaut candidate.”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4799/1

87) Columbia retold, and untold
by Dwayne A. Day Tuesday, May 28, 2024


The crew of the Columbia. At the Columbia Accident Investigation Board offices, a large photo of the crew hung in the main meeting room, reminding the board members and investigators of the people who lost their lives, and why finding the causes of the accident was so important. (credit: NASA)

Last month, CNN aired a four-part documentary about the Columbia accident that is the most comprehensive retelling of the events two decades ago that shocked the American public and changed the course of the American space program. Space Shuttle Columbia, the Final Flight was co-produced by BBC and Mindhouse Productions, and aired in Britain several months earlier. But despite its extensive interviews and over three-hour running time, the documentary was also incomplete, and distorted the history of what happened after the tragic accident that took seven lives.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4800/1

88) Starlink’s disruption of the space industry
by Jeff Foust Tuesday, May 28, 2024


A Falcon 9 lifts off May 28 as SpaceX continues a high cadence of missions to deploy Starlink satellites. (credit: SpaceX)

Like many five-year-olds, Starlink celebrated its birthday with a big candle. In its case, it was a Falcon 9 that lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A on May 23, placing 23 Starlink satellites into orbit. That launch took place five years—almost to the minute—after another Falcon 9 lifted off from nearby Space Launch Complex 40 and put 60 Starlink satellites into orbit, the first dedicated launch for the broadband megaconstellation.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4801/1

22/VI 2024 [89-92]

89) Review: USS Hornet Chronological Pictorial History
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, June 3, 2024



USS Hornet Chronological Pictorial History: Volume III and Volume IV
CVA-12 – CVS-12
Keeping the Peace 1953 – 1970
A William Ballenger Collection
Presented by The USS Hornet Sea, Air & Space Museum
Dennis de Freitas
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B094T5KGHV/spaceviews

Recovering astronauts in the middle of the ocean during the 1960s was a complicated, resource-intensive, and expensive operation. The US Navy provided substantial support for Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions, usually an aircraft carrier and other naval vessels. Today, several of the carriers used in these operations—Hornet, Intrepid, and Yorktown—are museum ships, and feature displays about their role in the space program. There are books about the recovery efforts, notably Moon Men Return by Scott Carmichael, and Hornet Plus Three by Bob Fish.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4802/1

90) Space Resources 2024: In search of the Grand Bargain
by Dennis O’Brien Monday, June 3, 2024


Harvesting resources from the Moon or other bodies raises questions about how those activities can and should be governed. (credit: ESA)

The United Nations sponsored two meetings of space resource experts this spring, one in Luxembourg in March and the other in Vienna in April. The meetings were part of public outreach by the new Working Group on the Legal Aspects of Space Resource Activity (Working Group), created by the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS). The experts were selected by the member states of COPUOS. Although there was a wide spectrum of opinion on many topics, the possibility of an agreement still seems within reach, a grand bargain that will support the private sector while protecting essential public policies.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4803/1

91) Power politics transcends space security
by Ajey Lele Monday, June 3, 2024


The UN Security deadlocked in a May 20 debate on a Russian resolution to ban weapons in space, weeks after Russia vetoed a resolution regarding nuclear weapons in space. (credit: UN Photo/Manuel ElĂ­as)

For some years now the mockery of space security has been on display at various international forums, particularly at the United Nations (UN). Recently, the UN Security Council (UNSC) voted against a resolution presented by Russia and China that would ban member states from placing weapons of any kind in outer space. Before this, the US-Japan resolution specifically to ban the deployment of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) was vetoed in the UNSC by Russia.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4804/1
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Cytuj
Załoga przygotowuje się do trzeciej próby startu.
Wyciek (helu) w granicach normy.
Przy okazji wykryto nieoptymalne rozwiązanie konstrukcyjne związane z systemem silników deorbitacyjnych, czemu zaradzono tymczasowo poprzez modyfikację procesu jego działania.

92) Star-crossed liner
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 3, 2024


Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner atop its Atlas 5 rocket before a May 6 launch attempt. NASA astronaut Suni Williams is at right, in the tower near the crew access arm. (credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Sometime in the near future—perhaps as soon as Wednesday morning—an Atlas 5 will finally lift off from Cape Canaveral, carrying Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on board.  (...)

Boeing and NASA concluded that Starliner could fly as-is: the leak was not a major risk, and replacing the seal would have required extensive repair work. “If we were to remove the seal completely,” Nappi said, “the leak rate would not exceed our capability to manage that leak. That made us comfortable that, if this leak were to get worse, it would be acceptable to fly.”

Other work conclude that the damaged seal was not a systemic problem, with no evidence of problems with any other seals in the spacecraft’s propulsion system. “This is really not a safety-of-flight issue for ourselves, and we believe that we have a well-understood condition that we can manage,” Nappi concluded. (...)

As it turned out, there was something to be concerned about. The review turned up what he called a “design vulnerability” with Starliner’s propulsion system that had not been recognized. Starliner’s service module has four areas called “doghouses” spaced 90 degrees apart that host both larger Orbital Maneuvering and Attitude Control (OMAC) thrusters and smaller reaction control system (RCS) thrusters. If two adjacent doghouses failed for some reason, though, it would prevent the spacecraft from doing a deorbit burn even though the spacecraft is designed with multiple ways to carry out the deorbit burn using combinations of OMAC and RCS thrusters.

“It’s a pretty diabolical case,” Stich said of that scenario, which he and Nappi emphasized was rare, occurring in less than one percent of the potential combinations of failures in the propulsion system. “You would lose two helium manifolds in two separate doghouses, and they have to be next to each other.”

NASA and Boeing developed another approach to doing the deorbit burn using four RCS thrusters, splitting the deorbit maneuver into two separate burns. But the late discovery of this design vulnerability prompted questions about why it was found only now, after years of development and scrutiny—particularly since it came two months after the agency and the company made the case their reviews had not missed anything. (...)

NASA had hoped to start flying astronauts to the station on Starliner early next year, a mission designated Starliner-1, alternating missions with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, but it’s not clear now if the certification work can be completed in time to support that schedule. (...)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4805/1

23/VI 2024 [93-96]

93) Prospects for orbital data centers
by Lawrence Furnival Monday, June 10, 2024


A terrestrial data center. The business case for orbital data centers might close witha modest reduction in launch costs. (credit: KKR)

In the near future, orbital data centers could prove to be an important new revenue stream for launch providers and cloud services. As this article describes, if the price of a Falcon 9 was $20 million instead of $67 million, it would make sense to operate data centers in orbit with their current cost and weight. This goal could be moved significantly closer if space optimized data center systems were available—primarily shielding and cooling systems. Moreover, near-future launch costs per kilogram to low Earth orbit for SpaceX’s next rocket are thought to be about 10% of that of the current Falcon 9.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4806/1

94) Challenges for India’s emerging commercial launch industry
by Jatan Mehta Monday, June 10, 2024


Agnikul launched a small suborbital rocket May 30 to test technologies for a future orbital launcher. (credit: Agnikul)

After persevering through four scrubbed launch attempts over a month, Chennai-based space startup Agnikul launched its first rocket demonstrator mission called “Suborbital Tech Demonstrator” (SOrTeD) on May 30. Unlike what many national and international media reports have implied though, and which tweets from the company or ISRO don’t actively clarify against, the single-stage SOrTeD vehicle was not intended to reach space. It was not just a suborbital mission but a squarely sub-space one, unlike competitor Skyroot’s 2022 launch of Prarambh, which achieved an apogee of 89.5 kilometers, versus the less than 10 of SOrTeD.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4807/1

95) Hubble limps along
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 10, 2024


The Hubble Space Telescope at the end of the final shuttle servicing mission to it in May 2009. (credit: NASA)

For months, one of the three remaining working gyroscopes on the Hubble Space Telescope, designated Gyro 3, has been malfunctioning. A problem with the gyro would trigger a safe mode, taking the telescope offline for days while engineers worked to get the gyro working again, allowing observations to resume.

“Gyro 3, to be frank, has always performed a little bit out-of-family on orbit,” said Patrick Crouse, project manager for Hubble at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, during a media telecon last week. “It’s been ongoing work since 2018 on the operations team to learn to live with this gyro and make the best of it.”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4808/1

96) National Reconnaissance Program crisis photography concepts, part 3: Axumite
by Joseph T. Page II Monday, June 10, 2024


A typical F-4 Phantom II. The NRO studied using the fighter jet as an air-launch platform for a crisis reconnaissance system. (credit: National Archives)

On November 3, 1970, the Deputy Director of the NRO, Dr. Fumio Robert “Bob” Naka, gave a series of presentations to the staff of Mr. Ray S. Cline, the Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research at the State Department. The presentations briefed capabilities within the National Reconnaissance Program (NRP) to monitor the Middle East Cease Fire Zone, established during the War of Attrition (1967–1970), with KH-8 Gambit systems and future capabilities such as KH-9 Hexagon. Additionally, Dr. Naka briefed concepts for future crisis reconnaissance systems, based upon the likelihood of further military action with little or no warning.[1]
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4809/1

24/VI 2024 [97-100]

97) Reviews: space documentaries of the past and present
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 17, 2024



Apollo 13: Survival
directed by Peter Middleton
2024, 96 mins.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31852716/

Wild Wild Space
directed by Ross Kauffman
2024, 93 mins.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32258850/

The DC/DOX documentary film festival, held over the weekend in Washington, included two films on space topics. The subjects and filmmaking approaches are very different, but the two perhaps have more similarities than one might think.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4810/1

98) The rush to return humans to the Moon and build lunar bases could threaten opportunities for astronomy
by Martin Elvis Monday, June 17, 2024


The same commercial capabilities enabling new science at the Moon, like the LuSEE-Night radio astronomy experiment, could also jeopardize that research. (credit: NASA/Firefly Aerospace)

The 2020s have already seen many lunar landing attempts, although several of them have crashed or toppled over. With all the excitement surrounding the prospect of humans returning to the Moon, both commercial interests and scientists stand to gain.

The Moon is uniquely suitable for researchers to build telescopes they can’t put on Earth because it doesn’t have as much satellite interference as Earth or a magnetic field blocking out radio waves. But only recently have astronomers like me started thinking about potential conflicts between the desire to expand knowledge of the universe on one side and geopolitical rivalries and commercial gain on the other, and how to balance those interests.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4811/1

99) Artemis Accords lift off
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 17, 2024


Mkhitar Hayrapetyan, Minister of High-Tech Industry of the Republic of Armenia, signs the Artemis Accords June 12 as (from left) Acting Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Jennifer Littlejohn, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, and Ambassador of the Republic of Armenia to the United States Lilit Makunts look on. (credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky)

At the end of 2022, more than two years after the rollout of the Artemis Accords, 23 nations had signed the document outlining best practices for sustainable space exploration. Since eight of the countries had signed the Accords at once at an unveiling event in October 2020, it meant that 15 nations had joined since then.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4812/1

100) Things that almost go boom
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, June 17, 2024


Discoverer One was launched in February 1959, a little over a month after the Discoverer Zero accident. The Air Force announced that it was in orbit, but those involved in the launch concluded that it most likely fell over Antarctica, and the spacecraft was never tracked in orbit. Discoverer suffered a string of failures before achieving success in summer 1960 and making possible the first reconnaissance satellites. (credit: Peter Hunter Collection)

According to the US Air Force, the first military satellite launch attempt at Vandenberg Air Force Base took place on February 28, 1959, with the successful orbiting of Discoverer 1. As usual, the reality is more complicated. Discoverer 1 most likely never made it into orbit, falling to Earth over Antarctica. Discoverer 1 had been preceded over a month earlier by another operation which was not publicly acknowledged and was known to a small community as “Discoverer Zero,” and nearly ended in tragedy.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4813/1

25/VI 2024 [101-104]

101) Review: The People’s Spaceship
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 24, 2024



The People’s Spaceship: NASA, the Shuttle Era, and Public Engagement after Apollo
by Amy Paige Kaminski
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024
hardcover, 336 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-8229-4766-0
US$60.00
https://www.amazon.com/?asc_source=01HEJFKGGQJ5VG7C2WE1AR8Y5M&tag=namespacepl-21

NASA today embeds public outreach in nearly every aspect of its activities. “Slow Your Student’s ‘Summer Slide’ and Beat Boredom With NASA STEM” declares a recent NASA release, explaining how agency resources can keep kids entertained and educated during summer vacation. (“Finally, summer isn’t complete without a sweet treat, so bake some sunspot cookies. Real sunspots are not made of chocolate, but in this recipe, they are!” it states.) People can also register to virtually “attend” for this week’s scheduled launch of the GOES-U weather satellite, giving people access to mission updates as well as “curated mission resources.” The unstated rationale for the mission updates, educational activities, and even cookie recipes is to build and maintain public support for the agency and its programs.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4814/1

102) The mirage at the core of space commerce, space stations, and other options
by Roger Handberg Monday, June 24, 2024


As companies work to develop commercial successors to the ISS, an open question is what markets they will serve. (credit: NASA)

Space commerce is repeatedly described as entering an era of tremendous economic expansion, one where the future is bright. Such assertions are now driven by the explosion in launches carrying humans and satellites into orbit. These satellite constellations and other events demanded a dramatic expansion in the launch capacity from the governments and corporations. SpaceX, with its reliable and less costly launches, is critical for fueling these expansive views of space economics. As other launch vehicles come into service, more launches translate into more satellites entering orbit at lower costs. The problem becomes that these spacecraft may enter a marketplace that is becoming saturated. Whether this situation can be sustainable is the unknown haunting the industry.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4815/1

103) The little rocket that could: Thor in the early days at Vandenberg (part 1)
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, June 24, 2024


The US Air Force developed the Thor launch vehicle from an intermediate range ballistic missile. Throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s, Thor was a workhorse, carrying numerous classified payloads into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. (credit: Douglas Aircraft Company brochure)

In the mid-1950s, as the United States Air Force first began considering how it would launch satellites into orbit, the obvious choice was the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile then under development. Atlas was expected to have the required performance to put a good-sized payload—several thousand kilograms—into low Earth orbit. But Atlas was relatively expensive and difficult to use, and bigger than many missions required. Fortunately, the Air Force had under development a smaller missile that could also loft a payload into orbit, the Thor intermediate range ballistic missile. Thor’s lower cost and easier handling made it a more useful rocket for the Air Force, and by the late 1950s, Thor was assigned to carry an increasing number of satellites to orbit, including the CORONA reconnaissance satellites and growing families of military and civilian satellites. When Thor was withdrawn from its missile role, many vehicles were freed up for conversion to launch satellites. Thor evolved over the next several decades into Thor-Delta and eventually the Delta II rocket, and was referred to by some in the space program as the workhorse rocket of the early American space program.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4816/1

104) Suborbital spaceflight’s crossroads
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 24, 2024


Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity, attached to its VMs Eve mothership aircraft, takes off June 8 on its final commercial suborbital flight. (credit: J. Foust)

If one tried to compile a list of key locations in the history of commercial human spaceflight, launch sites immediately come to mind. They include Mojave Air and Space Port, which hosted SpaceShipOne’s first suborbital spaceflight 20 years ago this month, as well as Blue Origin’s and Virgin Galactic’s commercial spaceports in West Texas and New Mexico, respectively. Then there’s Cape Canaveral, where SpaceX is launching commercial Crew Dragon missions for NASA and private customers.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4817/1

26/VII 2024 [105-108]

105Review: Space Feminisms
by Jeff Foust Monday, July 1, 2024

Space Feminisms: People, Planets, Power
by Marie-Pier Boucher, Claire Webb, Annick Bureaud, and Nahum (eds.)
Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2024
hardcover, 260 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-350-34632-1
US$120
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1350346322/spaceviews



The space community has become more diverse as it has grown in recent years both in the people who are a part of it and the opportunities to do different activities in space. That diversity is welcome, but it is not without conflict. Some want to move faster, seeking to right historical wrongs, while others are puzzled or even threatened by these changes.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4818/1

106) The overlap between the space and longevity industries
by Dylan Taylor Monday, July 1, 2024


Research on the ISS can help both improve the health of astronauts on long-duration missions and extend the lives of people on Earth. (credit: NASA)

As the nascent space sector takes off, commercialization and space tourism are expected to grow increasingly prominent. To prepare for long-term spaceflight, we need to better understand how the human body responds to unusual environments encountered during space travel. The answer to solving these problems may lie at the intersection between space medicine and human medicine—specifically, longevity—back here on Earth.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4819/1

107) The little rocket that could: Thor in the early days at Vandenberg (part 2)
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, July 1, 2024


The Discoverer 3 launch vehicle being prepared for launch in June 1959 at SLC-1 West. Discoverer was the cover story for the CORONA reconnaissance satellite program. This spacecraft carried mice that died before liftoff. (credit: Peter Hunter)

The Thor rocket served as the workhorse for the American military and civil space programs for the first decade of the space age, evolving into the Thor-Delta and finally the venerable Delta II. Many launches were conducted from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the California coast, boosting classified payloads into orbit. Relatively few photographs of these early Vandenberg operations have been seen because national security secrecy suppressed the history. Now, more images of Thor operations at Vandenberg have become available, providing a glimpse of what it was like to prepare the workhorse and launch it into space. (See “The little rocket that could: Thor in the early days at Vandenberg (part 1),” The Space Review, June 24, 2024.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4820/1
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Można odnieść wrażenie, że im mniej informacji, tym bardziej mogą je zastępować spekulacje.
Ciąg dalszy opery, ze Starlinerem w roli głównej.

108) Starliner struggles
by Jeff Foust Monday, July 1, 2024


Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner docked to the International Space Station. Originally planned to spend as little as eight days there, the spacecraft may remain there for more than a month while engineers study thruster and helium leak issues. (credit: NASA)

If you have to repeatedly state that the astronauts you launched to the International Space Station are not “stranded” there, then maybe you have a problem with either your spacecraft or your communications strategy. Or both. (...)

NASA waited nearly a week, until the afternoon of June 28, for another update on Starliner. At that briefing, the agency said it would further delay Starliner’s return so that it could perform ground testing of a Starliner RCS thruster to try to duplicate the conditions seen by the thrusters that malfunctioned during the approach to the station. Those tests, scheduled to start this week, will last at least a couple weeks.

Stich noted that those ground tests will also enable detailed inspections of the thrusters to see what might be causing the issues, something not possible with thrusters in space on Starliner. Those thrusters are in the spacecraft’s service module, which is jettisoned and burns up in the atmosphere, so can’t be studied after the flight.

“This will be the real opportunity to examine the thruster just like we had in space on the ground, with detailed inspections,” he said. (...)

By the end of the call, NASA said it would work to provide more frequent updates about the mission as it tests the thrusters, but didn’t commit to any specifics. “We heard your comments about how we share information and we’ll take them into account. We’ll see what makes sense,” Bowersox said, although he stopped short of more frequent briefings. “I also want to impress upon you that the team is just incredibly busy. It takes a lot of time to prepare for these conferences.” (...)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4821/1

27/VII 2024 [109-112]

109) Remembering Starfish Prime
by Ajey Lele Monday, July 8, 2024


Photograph taken from Honolulu of the aurora created by Starfish Prime. (credit: US government archive)

Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States on July 9, 1962. It was reported that the blast had disabled some satellites (around two dozen satellites were operational at the time), including a British bird called Ariel 1, the first ever satellite launched by the United Kingdom. The nuclear test by the US in outer space had created radioactive particles in space, which impacted the functioning of this satellite. The solar panels of Ariel 1 sustained some damage and the timer system of the satellite got disabled. Luckily, there was no major impact on the functioning of the satellite.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4822/1

110) Welcome to the age of space skepticism and a growing revolt against elites
by Tony Milligan Monday, July 8, 2024


The role of billionaires like Richard Branson (left, with Galactic 07 crew) have created a backlash towards space among some parts of the public. (credit: J. Foust)

Over the past decade, a new form of skepticism about human activities in space has emerged. It seems to be based exclusively in the Western world, and centered around the idea that increasingly ambitious space plans will damage humanity and neglect the Earth.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4823/1

111) The little rocket that could: Thor in the early days at Vandenberg (part 3)
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, July 8, 2024


Hundreds of top secret missions were launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in the 1960s, but very few photos of the vehicles and launches were released. This February 1963 photo shows a CORONA reconnaissance satellite being prepared for launch atop a Thrust-Augmented Thor-Agena rocket. Pad workers are working on the three solid rocket boosters that were added to the Thor to increase performance. (credit: Peter Hunter Collection)

In the late 1990s, Qantas captain Peter Hunter regularly flew a 747 from Sydney to Los Angeles and back. Regulations required that he have several days of rest after landing in the United States before making the return flight in what Hunter called his “office.” But he had a hobby. He drove down to San Diego where he had been given access to a vast corporate trove of photographs of Atlas, Thor, and Delta rockets. The photographs were not public or archived, but Hunter obtained permission to scan them to create collections with the goal of obtaining a photo of every Thor, Delta, and Atlas rocket launched.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4824/1

112) Coping with Starship
by Jeff Foust Monday, July 8, 2024


Ariane 6 on the pad ahead of its inaugural launch. European officials say they remain upbeat about the vehicle’s prospects despite competition from companies like SpaceX. (credit: ESA/L. Bourgeon )

This week, Europe’s Ariane 6 is slated to make its long-awaited inaugural launch, carrying a set of smallsat payloads on a test flight. Europe has pinned its future in space in large part on the rocket, ending a “launcher crisis” that has temporarily deprived Europe of independent access to space (caused in part by years of delays in Ariane 6 itself.) It will provide a means for European government satellites to get to space and serve commercial customers, like Amazon’s Project Kuiper.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4825/1

28/VII 2024 [113-116]

113) The significance of Bulgaria joining the Artemis Accords
by Svetoslav Alexandrov Monday, July 15, 2024


NASA administrator Bill Nelson and Minister of Innovation and Growth for Bulgaria, Milena Stoycheva, as a signing ceremony fot the Artemis Accords in November 2023. (credit: NASA/Keegan Barber)

In November 2023, Bulgaria signed the Artemis Accords, becoming the 32nd country to do so. In this article I will explain why this was important for us and how it helps us break free from nostalgia’s grip, leaving the ghosts of Interkosmos behind.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4826/1

114) Taking the thumb off the scale: Chevron Deference, its repeal, and the effect on regulation of orbital debris
by Michael Listner Monday, July 15, 2024


The Supreme Court ruling striking down “Chevron Deference” could have implications for regulation of commercial space activities. (credit: Joe Ravi, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

The US Supreme Court issued a seminal decision on the power of federal agencies to regulate in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo on June 28, 2024.[1] Loper challenged a regulation by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration that mandated fishers to pay for at-sea monitoring programs via the Magnuson-Stevens Act even though the act is silent on the matter. Loper also challenged whether the holding in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council creates an ambiguity where a statute creates a requirement where the court under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) must defer to an agency’s interpretation of the statute.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4827/1

115) Carriers from space (part 1)
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, July 15, 2024


Possibly the earliest photo of aircraft carriers taken by a reconnaissance satellite. An American CORONA satellite overflew Norfolk, Virginia, the day after Christmas 1963 and imaged the sprawling Navy base, revealing four aircraft carriers there, including the nuclear-powered USS Enterprise and two World War II-era anti-submarine carriers. (credit: NRO via Harry Stranger)

In December 1963, a spy satellite flew high over Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia, the largest US naval facility on the East Coast, and in fact the largest naval facility in the world. Peering through a thin layer of clouds, its camera photographed the base facilities and docks and the ships moored there. One day after Christmas, the satellite hit the jackpot, spotting several of the US Navy’s fleet of aircraft carriers: three of them at Navy piers and a fourth anchored in the broad James River. One ship was the World War II-era USS Intrepid, one of the venerable Essex-class carriers, now converted to anti-submarine duty.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4828/1

116) When a workhorse falters
by Jeff Foust Monday, July 15, 2024


A Falcon 9 launched a Turkish communications satellite last Monday, the last successful flight of the rocket before an upper-stage anomaly on a launch Thursday night. (credit: SpaceX)

Last week was not shaping up to be a great week for launch vehicles even before Thursday night. On Wednesday, a small Chinese commercial rocket, the Hyperbola-1 from iSpace (not to be confused with Japanese lunar lander developer ispace) failed to reach orbit when the fourth stage of the solid-fuel rocket suffered an unidentified anomaly. It was the fourth failure in seven flights for that rocket.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4829/1

29/VII 2024 [117-120]

117) Review: Challenger
by Jeff Foust Monday, July 22, 2024



Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space
by Adam Higginbotham
Simon & Schuster, 2024
hardcover, 576 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-982176-61-7
US$35
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/198217661X/spaceviews

Nearly four decades later, Challenge remains seared in the collective consciousness of the space community, a reminder of all that can go tragically wrong in space. In seconds, the shuttle was enveloped in a fireball that destroyed the vehicle and killed the seven astronauts on board. But while the conflagration was instantaneous, it was the culmination of decades of decisions that created a flawed vehicle and processes that allowed it to fly unsafely.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4830/1

118) The threat from China and Russia’s space-based SIGINT satellites
by Matthew Mowthorpe Monday, July 22, 2024


A 2021 launch of a set of Yaogan-31 satellites believed to be used for naval reconnaissance. (credit: CASC)

China and Russia have extensive space-based sigint capabilities, which can geolocate transmissions from the radars of UK and NATO allies’ navies. This tracking information is then linked to land and naval-based missiles to ensure that they can target the UK and US Navy.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4831/1

119) Staying on course: The vital role of GPS backup systems
by Lauren Miller Monday, July 22, 2024


GPS jamming has become a growing concern in many sectors, including aviation. (credit: US Air Force)

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) refers to the constellations of satellites that provide position, navigation, and timing (PNT) information to users around the globe. The unique characteristics of GNSS have enabled it to be the PNT solution of choice in a wide range of applications, including Critical National Infrastructure (CNI).
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4832/1

120) Snakebit rover
by Jeff Foust Monday, July 22, 2024


NASA’s VIPER rover is all dressed up but now with almost no chance to fly. (credit: NASA)

At NASA’s Johnson Space Center, a robotic lunar rover sits, effectively complete and ready for environmental testing after years of work and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on it. But it may never fly to space.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4833/1

30/VII 2024 [121-125]

121) Review: Creature Comforts in Space
by Jeff Foust Monday, July 29, 2024



Creature Comforts in Space: Designing Enjoyment and Sustainability for Off-World Living
by Samuel M. Coniglio, IV
BookBaby, 2024
Paperback, 162 pp., illus.
ISBN 979-8-21824-640-2
US$33
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0D47TB237/spaceviews

In May, the Space Tourism Conference took place just before the start of the International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles. The one-day event focused less on the technology of space tourism—spacecraft and space stations—than on the experience, with sessions on entertainment, dining, and space “lifestyle brands.” The session offered a very forward-looking view of people traveling to space, and one not that different from might have been presented 10 or 20 years ago, given the slow pace of progress in commercial human spaceflight.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4834/1

122) No more space for the press?
by Brian Harvey Monday, July 29, 2024


The IAC is held around the world, such as in Bremen, Germany, in 2018 (above), but only this year has become more restrictive about the media it accredits. (credit: B. Harvey)

The International Astronautical Federation (IAF) is one of the oldest and best known organizations in the space world, most famous for its annual congresses, which attract up to 10,000 people. It’s also one of the most publicity-hungry, which is why it’s surprising that this year it’s closing the door on the press. Well, some press.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4835/1

123) For the ISS, to be or not to be?
by Ajay Kothari Monday, July 29, 2024


The International Space Station is scheduled to be deorbited around 2030, but some want to instead boost its orbit to preserve it. (credit: Maxar)

An op-ed in SpaceNews by Jean-Jacques Dordain, former ESA director general, and Michael D. Griffin, former NASA administrator, recommends postponing the International Space station deorbit decision for now and to leave it in the hands of future generations. It is not just “passing the buck”. This is the right approach, especially with unknown future technology developments that could make this deorbit decision very shor-sighted. And indeed it is.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4836/1

124) Cleaning up the mess in LEO
by Jeff Foust Monday, July 29, 2024


A model of the Resurs P1 satellite that broke up in low Earth orbit in June. (credit: Vitaly V. Kuzmin CC BY-SA 4.0)

For a moment, many in the space industry feared the worst. U.S. Space Command reported June 27 that a defunct Russian satellite, Resurs P1, had broken up in low Earth orbit the previous day. One company, LeoLabs, reported that its radars had detected at least 180 pieces of debris from the satellite. The event prompted International Space Station controllers to instruct crews to go into the “safe havens” of their docked spacecraft as a precaution; they were able to return to the station after an hour.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4837/1
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Z politycznego i technologicznego punktu widzenia brak współpracy w kosmosie między USA a Chinami wydaje się pożądany.
125) Is the United States doing enough to engage with China on space policy?
by Mariam Kvaratskhelia Monday, July 29, 2024


Chinese astronauts on a recent spacewalk outside the Tiangong space station. Should the US do more to work with China on topics like human spaceflight and exploration? (credit: Xinhua)

While Beijing has accused the United States of turning outer space into “a weapon and a battlefield,”[1] it has no less history of doing the same. China has been interested in counterspace capabilities for years now, developing multiple anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons, such as ground-based directed energy weapons (DEWs), satellite jammers, and ASAT missiles targeting low-Earth orbit satellites. The principal goal of these endeavors remains “…asymmetrically disrupting U.S. space operations,”[2] and matching or surpassing the US capabilities in space, according to the Intelligence Community’s Annual Threat Assessment.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4838/1

Note: The Space Review will not publish next week as part of a reduced publication schedule in August. We will be back on Monday, August 12.

31/VIII 2024 [126-129]

126) The case for an International Space Artifacts Museum
by Madhu Thangavelu Monday, August 12, 2024


The International Space Artifacts Museum at the Earth-Moon L1 Lagrange point would house the decommissioned space stations and observatories, sparing their fiery destruction. (credit: M. Thangavelu)

What to do with the International Space Station (ISS) when the facility is retired is the question hovering over us right now. NASA's report on the rationale for ISS decommissioning suggests that the agency imagination (and budget) seem to be running dry.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4839/1

127) The Military Test Space Station (MTSS)
by Hans Dolfing Monday, August 12, 2024


Figure 1: Space station early 1960s concept [9]

The US Air Force started a series of contractor studies in the late 1950s to look ahead and explore anything related to space. Rockets, rocket planes, short- and long-term stays in space, logistics to supply outposts in space, and weapons; the works. These studies were titled the System Requirement (SR) studies to prepare US Air Force long-range plans. The Air Force made essentially no restrictions on the scope and content of the SR studies. In 1960, ten such studies were active. [2] More than six decades later, the SR studies remain mostly classified and only minimal content is known. [7,11,12]
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4840/1

128) Carriers from space (part 2): Contemporary use of satellite imagery for open source intelligence
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, August 12, 2024


Five American aircraft carriers at Bremerton, Washington, photographed by an American HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite in October 1983. Four of these ships were retired by that time and only USS Constellation was still in service. Hornet became a museum, Oriskany was sunk off the Florida coast, and both Bennington and Bonhomme Richard were scrapped. The United States has more extensive carrier aviation experience than any other country, but China is beginning to build a fleet of aircraft carriers, and its latest one is larger than any other non-American warship. (credit: NRO via Harry Stranger)

During the Cold War, American reconnaissance satellites monitored Soviet aircraft carrier construction at the Mykolaiv shipyard in the Black Sea. By the 1980s, intelligence analysts looking at the photographs back in Washington noted that the Soviet Union was struggling to build large ships, with the fourth vessel of the Kiev-class taking almost twice as long to build as the first. By the 1990s, new Russian ship construction was almost nonexistent. It recovered slowly, but remains problem-plagued.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4841/1

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NG-21 i Starliner - anomalie, a polityka informacyjna.
Decyzja zw. ze Starlinerem ma zostać podjęta w przyszłym tygodniu.

129 Starliner’s uncertain future
by Jeff Foust Monday, August 12, 2024


Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner remains docked to the ISS, more than two months after its arrival, as NASA determines if the spacecraft can safely return with astronauts on board. (credit: NASA)

A spacecraft launched to the International Space Station but experienced thruster problems shortly after reaching orbit. It made it to the station, but questions remained about what exactly happened as the company that built the spacecraft downplayed the incident.

This is, of course, an account of what happened to… the NG-21 Cygnus cargo spacecraft. It launched atop a Falcon 9 August 4 and was deployed as planned 15 minutes after liftoff. Hours passed, though, with no updates from NASA or spacecraft owner Northrop Grumman about the status of the mission, other than communications between mission control and the ISS crew that said the spacecraft had failed to perform its scheduled orbit-raising maneuvers, putting its arrival at the station into question. (...)

Stich acknowledged that the White Sands tests may have raised more questions about thrusters than they answered. “The testing at White Sands and the discovery that the poppet Teflon was extruding after the testing was a bit of a surprise to us,” he said. “That, I would say, upped the level of discomfort.”

That discomfort led NASA to acknowledge at the briefing what had been rumored in recent weeks: it was considering alternative ways of bringing back Williams and Wilmore. Stich said the agency decided to give itself some more time to decide what to do when it announced, a day before the briefing, that it was delaying the launch of the Crew-9 mission to the station on a SpaceX Crew Dragon from August 18 to no earlier than September 24. (...)

That decision of whether Wilmore and Williams will return in the coming weeks on Starliner or early next year on Crew Dragon is coming soon. “I don’t think we’re too far away from making that call,” said Ken Bowersox, NASA associate administrator for space operations, said on the call. Stich said later a decision by mid-August is needed to perform training and other preparations should NASA choose the contingency scenario. (As this article was being prepared for publication August 12, NASA announced the decision on Starliner’s return would be made next week, not later this week.)

That decision could come from the top of the agency. “The administrator ultimately takes responsibility,” Bowersox said. (...)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4842/1
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32/VIII 2024 [130-133]

130) Galactic governance: From the Outer Space Treaty to modern regulations
by Roger Quinland Monday, August 19, 2024


Soviet Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin, UK Ambassador Sir Patrick Dean, US Ambassador Arthur J. Goldberg, US Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and US President Lyndon B. Johnson at the signing of the Outer Space Treaty on January 27, 1967 in Washington. (credit: British Pathé)

Space law, which governs human activities in outer space, has evolved significantly since the Space Age began. As humanity’s presence in space grows, the legal framework has adapted to new challenges and opportunities. This article traces the historical development of space law, starting with the foundational Outer Space Treaty and moving on to modern regulations.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4843/1

131) An alternative Mars Sample Return program
by Dale Skran Monday, August 19, 2024


NASA’s existing architecture for Mars Sample Return is facing cost and schedule pressures, leading for some to argue for a radical rethink of the program. (credit: NASA)

There have been many reports in the news lately about the growth of the Mars Sample Return (MSR) budget in publications like Science and SpaceNews, with widespread fear that either the ballooning MSR budget eviscerates the other NASA planetary programs, or that MSR will eventually be cancelled and the money transferred to Artemis. This situation has resulted in a number of re-dos of the MSR architecture, which appear to have done little to lower costs or create improved results. More recently, NASA has initiated a series of layoffs at JPL that mainly impact MSR, apparently in anticipation of significant budget cuts, leading to further alarm among supporters of space exploration. NASA recently solicited industry input on alternative approaches to MSR under the title “Rapid Mission Design Studies for Mars Sample Return,” selecting several companies in June for short mission concept studies.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4844/1

132) Outgrowing smallsats
by Jeff Foust Monday, August 19, 2024


A fieldhouse at Utah State University was converted into an exhibit hall for the Smallsat conference to accommodate the event’s growth in recent years. (credit: J. Foust)

Nearly four decades ago, a small group of advocates of small satellites started gathering annually in Logan, Utah, on the campus of Utah State University. At the beginning, a single room was sufficient to handle everyone.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4845/1

133) The new Moon race: Assessing Chinese and US strategies
by James Clay Moltz Monday, August 19, 2024


International partnerships, illustrated by the NASA and ESA logos on the Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft, can give the US-led Artemis effort an edge over China. (credit: NASA)

China’s recent advances in cislunar space have spurred US fears. As a report by an influential defense think tank argues, “The contest over cislunar space could dominate the course and outcome of terrestrial conflict as well as control of the Earth-Moon system.” Analysts in influential US military journals have argued that China is “racing ahead” and point to China’s ambitious (and seemingly inevitable) plans to be the first to mine the Moon’s regolith for water ice and rare helium-3, while establishing a so-called International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) by 2035. With slipping deadlines for certain missions and technologies critical to the US-led Artemis Program, many experts and even some officials seem to believe that the United States is losing this important race for 21st-century space power.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4846/1

Note: we are now moderating comments. There will be a delay in posting comments and no guarantee that all submitted comments will be posted.

33/IX 2024 [134-137]

134) Review: Accidental Astronomy
by Jeff Foust Tuesday, September 3, 2024



Accidental Astronomy: How Random Discoveries Shape the Science of Space
by Chris Lintott
Basic Books, 2024
hardcover, 320 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-5416-0541-1
US$30
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1541605411/spaceviews

People are usually taught a very formal, structured approach to science: researchers develop hypotheses based on existing data and then conduct experiments or observations to verify them. Reality, unsurprisingly, is messier: scientists make mistakes, experiments go awry, unexpected findings reshape an entire field. That is particularly true in astronomy, where the universe can throw observers a curveball, from a supernova explosion to an asteroid impact, without warning.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4847/1

135) To guard against cyberattacks in space, researchers ask “what if?”
by Patrick Lin Tuesday, September 3, 2024


Space cybersecurity has traditionally focused on ground stations and intercepting signals, but there is a wide range of potential cyberattack scenarios to consider. (credit: NASA/JPL)

If space systems such as GPS were hacked and knocked offline, much of the world would instantly be returned to the communications and navigation technologies of the 1950s. Yet space cybersecurity is largely invisible to the public at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions.

Cyberattacks on satellites have occurred since the 1980s, but the global wake-up alarm went off only a couple of years ago. An hour before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, its government operatives hacked Viasat’s satellite-internet services to cut off communications and create confusion in Ukraine.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4848/1

136) Measuring the depth of India’s space program
by Namrata Goswami Tuesday, September 3, 2024


One weakness in Indian space capabilities is the lack of a heavy-lift rocket: the LVM-3 (above) can place only about 10 tons into orbit. (credit: ISRO)

India is emerging as a major Asian powerhouse with respect to space capabilities because of its great power ambition and domestic necessity. In 2024, India became the fifth largest economy in the world in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at $3.94 trillion. Towards developing this economy, and aspiring for deeper sustainable growth factors, India has identified several technologies as vital to its path to greatness by 2047, the hundred-year celebration of the establishment of an independent democratic India from nearly two hundred years of British colonial rule. Among those technologies is space, for which Space Vision 2047 has been advanced by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) under the rubric of India’s 2047 Vision. As per its 2047 Vision, India specifies that it aspires to “becoming self-reliant in defence and space sectors and enhancing India’s role in the world”.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4849/1

137) Polaris’s dawn
by Jeff Foust Tuesday, September 3, 2024


The Polaris Dawn crew of (from left) Anna Menon, Kidd Poteet, Jared Isaacman, and Sarah Gillis pose after arriving at the Kennedy Space Center August 19 for final launch preparations. (credit: J. Foust)

A handler boarded the bus at the Kennedy Space Center carrying reporters and photographers with an update: they were 18 miles out and so would be here in just a few minutes.

The “they” in that update was the crew of the Polaris Dawn private astronaut mission, and they reason why they could traverse 30 kilometers in a few minutes is because they were arriving on high-performance jets. Sure enough, a formation of jets soon flew over the former Shuttle Landing Facility runway (now called the Launch and Landing Facility by Space Florida) at KSC. Polaris Dawn had indeed arrived.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4850/1

34/IX 2024 [135-138]

135) Review: The Wrong Stuff
by Jeff Foust Monday, September 9, 2024



The Wrong Stuff: How the Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned
by John Strausbaugh
PublicAffairs, 2024
hardcover, 272 pp.
ISBN 978-1-5417-0334-6
US$30.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1541703340/spaceviews

On Wednesday, a Soyuz rocket is scheduled to lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, sending the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft to the International Space Station. It is a routine crew rotation mission to the station, but the launch itself is not: it will be just the tenth orbital launch so far this year by Russia. China has performed four times as many launches this year and the United States about ten times as many. Russia is on a pace for its lowest launch total in decades this year.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4851/1

136) NASA and safety: more is better
by Roger Handberg Monday, September 9, 2024


Recovery teams work on the Starliner crew capsule after it landed at White Sands, New Mexico, late Friday night without a crew on board. (credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

The ongoing crisis with the Starliner has moved in the direction of making crew safety the prime driver. As an organization, NASA has learned that minimizing risks can be disruptive and resisted by some but after three incidents involving loss of crew—the Apollo 1 pad fire, the Challenger loss during liftoff, and the most recent loss of the Columbia during reentry—the agency is no longer willing to take the chance. The previous losses occurred due to identifiable hazards: the warnings were ignored, never came, or were pushed aside by NASA leadership in pursuit of larger organizational goals. Recovery from those disasters took time and a refocus on crew safety.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4852/1

137) Starliner stranding: commercial space partnerships and international law
by Matthew Ormsbee Monday, September 9, 2024


Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are staying busy on the International Space Station as their stay there is extended until early next year. (credit: NASA)

In low Earth orbit, where human ingenuity first meets the unforgiving vacuum of space, government and commercial actors have created a situation that tests not only technological capabilities but also the legal frameworks governing space exploration. US astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore find themselves in an unprecedented predicament aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Their planned eight-day mission, initially delayed indefinitely due to unexpected technical difficulties with Boeing’s Starliner aircraft, now stretches to an expected eight-month mission aboard the ISS. This scenario is a testament to the inherent risks of space exploration. But it also serves as a critical case study in international space law and the complexities of commercial partnerships in space operations.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4853/1

138) Whither Starliner?
by Jeff Foust Monday, September 9, 2024


The Starliner crew capsule descends under parachutes before landing at White Sands, New Mexico, late Friday night. (credit: NASA)

For some people in northwestern Mexico and parts of southern Arizona and New Mexico, Starliner appeared as a streak in the evening sky Friday, returning to Earth after more than three months in space. For those watching online on the agency’s new streaming service, NASA+ (the decades-old NASA TV channel having recently been retired), Starliner appeared in infrared camera views, descending under its three parachutes to the desert floor at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, touching down at a minute after midnight Eastern time Saturday.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4854/1

35/IX 2024 [139-142]

139) Mercantilism in outer space: discussing a political-economic approach for the Global South
by Aritra Ghosh Monday, September 16, 2024


Emerging space powers in the Global South, like India, need to look after their own interests as more advanced powers take on bigger roles in space. (credit: ISRO)

This essay focusses on the political-economic impact of the utilization of outer space on economically capable Global South states. A frontier that was predominantly accessed by the Global North has since seen the rise of developing countries, such as India, who are taking an active interest in the economic and security concerns on the use of space as they themselves have become spacefaring nations. States, specifically actors from the global south, benefit from taking a mercantilist approach to outer space. While there does exist regulation of activities in space, such as the Outer Space Treaty (OST) of 1967, it can be considered outdated for the advancements made in the economic and military potential of outer space in 21st century and it should be noted that the bodies that govern peaceful cooperation of outer space are part of the United Nations and hence this means that the ultimate decision-making body on matters regarding space are the five permanent members of the UN Security Council who hold veto power. All five are spacefaring nations, and four out of the five (excluding China) are a part of the Global North.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4855/1

140) Framing the success of the Polaris Dawn mission
by Ajey Lele Monday, September 16, 2024


Jared Isaacman emerges from the Crew Dragon hatch on the first commercial spacewalk September 12 during the Polaris Dawn mission. (credit: SpaceX)

Frame one: Spacewalk and commercial success

Walking in space is a dream. It was the Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov who went through a process of “living a dream” for around 12 minutes when he undertook a spacewalk on March 18, 1965. Since then, a few hundred humans have undertaken walks in space, and 12 individuals have also walked on the lunar surface. Almost six decades after the first spacewalk, on September 12, two private astronauts conducted the first-ever commercial spacewalk. This happened during SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission. This mission is a collaboration between SpaceX and Jared Isaacman, an American billionaire entrepreneur. Isaacman performed the spacewalk with Sarah Gillis, an engineer from the SpaceX.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4856/1

141) Still waiting for liftoff in the UK
by Jeff Foust Monday, September 16, 2024


The first stage of the RFA ONE rocket burning in a static-fire test that went awry in August at SaxaVord Spaceport. (credit: RFA)

Tucked away in a corner of one of the sprawling exhibit halls at the Farnborough International Airshow in July was the show’s “Space Zone,” a collection of booths of space companies. That included Lockheed Martin, which showed off its role in space in the United Kingdom with displays that included a scale model of an ABL Space Systems RS1 rocket that featured the logos of both Lockheed Martin and the UK Space Agency.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4857/1
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Australia w obliczu rosnących startów z USA może stać się atrakcyjnym miejscem startów i lądowań kosmicznych.
142) Navigating new frontiers: Assessing the opportunity for US entities to launch and return space missions in Australia
by Brett Loubert, Byron Riessen, Arthur Anglin, and Adrian Young Monday, September 16, 2024


A technology safeguards agreement between the US and Australia provides new opportunities for facilities like Australia’s Arnhem Space Centre to host American launches. (credit: Equatorial Launch Australia)

Spaceflight has never been more common than it is now. If satellite demand remains strong and the frequency of launches continues to accelerate, so too will the need for increased capacity at spaceports. To date, US launch demand has largely been filled by domestic spaceports. Going forward, there may be new options abroad. Similarly, potential increases in payload return operations could also create new opportunities for international spaceports. (...)


Global Orbital Launch Attempts in 2023 by Country. Source: Krebs, Gunter D., “Orbital Launches of 2023”. Gunter’s Space Page. Retrieved August 5, 2024.

(...) Until recently, the regulatory environment between the US and Australia was complex, particularly with respect to maintaining control of technologies like rockets and spacecraft with national security implications. In July 2024, however, the US-Australia Technology Safeguards Agreement (TSA) was fully ratified, establishing a clearer legal framework for US entities seeking to launch or return space assets in Australia. The TSA aims to streamline the regulatory processes and remove barriers while safeguarding sensitive technology. (...)

Some of the potential benefits of international expansion include:

Greater agility enabled by diversified supply chains and redundant infrastructure

Less congestion at existing spaceports (especially those with multiple tenants)

Flexible access to different orbital regimes

Closer proximity to regional demand hubs for launch customers/payloads

Even if these dynamics play out and US firms seek capacity at spaceports abroad, the question arises: why Australia? There are several factors unique to Australia that make it an interesting prospect. The continent offers access to polar, sun-synchronous, equatorial, and a range of mid-inclination orbits. Its geography, characterized by vast, uninhabited landscapes and less air and sea traffic than Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg, opens a broad window of trajectories for launch, reentry, and landing. Furthermore, Australia is a close US partner and ally, and the TSA now makes it more accessible for US companies to conduct launch and return operations in Australia.(...)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4858/1

36/IX 2024 [143-146]

143) What will happen in the first space hostage crisis?
by JD Cole, Marc Feldman, and Hugh Taylor Monday, September 23, 2024


Development of commercial space stations like Orbital Reef (above) could open up new possibilities for “threat actors” to attack and create the first space hostage crisis. (credit: Blue Origin)

Hostage taking for profit is as old as humanity. More than 2,000 years ago, Julius Caesar was kidnapped for ransom by pirates. Now, with plans for hotels in space, space tourism, and space as a corporate work environment, a reasonable person might wonder: what will happen when there is a hostage crisis in space?
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4859/1

144) Isle of Wight aerospace: flying boats, rocket interceptors, hovercraft, and launch vehicles (part 1)
by Trevor Williams Monday, September 23, 2024


The Isle of Wight photographed from the International Space Station. Two key rocketry locations: Saunders-Roe factory in East Cowes, on right-hand side of notch at top center of island; High Down test site, on southern coast at far left. (credit: Chris Hadfield)

The Isle of Wight lies just off the south coast of the English mainland, near the naval port of Portsmouth and the commercial port of Southampton. Cruise ships pass to the north of it, up the Solent strait, on the way to their Southampton terminals. The 390-square-kilometer island, about two-thirds of which is farmland and with a population of around 140,000, has about 90 kilometers of attractive coastline ranging from chalk cliffs to beaches. It became a popular holiday destination in the 19th century following the example of Queen Victoria, who enjoyed holidaying there. In addition, a significant amount of industry has taken place on the Isle of Wight, notably in the field of shipbuilding: over two thousand smaller vessels such as destroyers, frigates, minesweepers, and lifeboats were built there from the 19th century up to the 1960s [1, p. 18]. This then led, via flying boats, to a succession of inventive aerospace designs by the Saunders-Roe company, including the hovercraft and the Black Arrow launch vehicle. Unfortunately, none experienced long-term success, for reasons that will be discussed in this two-part article.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4860/1

145) “Pending regulatory approval”: launch companies struggle with licensing
by Jeff Foust Monday, September 23, 2024


the Starship vehicle for the next test flight is ready for launch, SpaceX says, but the company may need to wait two more months for a launch license. (credit: spaceX)

On Saturday, SpaceX posted phots of a Starship vehicle being installed on top of its Super Heavy booster at the company’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas. “Starship stacked for Flight 5 and ready for launch, pending regulatory approval,” the company stated.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4861/1

146) HEXAGON vs. Kirov: American satellite reconnaissance and the Soviet Union’s most powerful warship
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, September 23, 2024


The Kirov-class battlecruisers that began entering service in 1980 were the most powerful surface warships afloat, equipped with large anti-ship missiles mounted in launch cells below deck, along with anti-aircraft missiles and guns. This is the second ship of the class, Frunze. (credit: DOD)

In early 1974, American reconnaissance satellites spotted something unusual on a large shipway at a Leningrad shipyard—the first signs of a new major surface warship. Over the next several years they photographed the ship as it took shape, noting that it would be the Soviet Union’s first nuclear-powered warship. The ship launched in late 1977, sliding down the ramp into the Neva River, where it was moored for additional work. The US intelligence community designated it BALCOM-1, for Baltic Combatant, and it was the largest surface combatant in the world at that time, bigger than any American cruiser. High-resolution reconnaissance images showed that it had large hatches on its bow covering what were obviously big missiles, and intelligence analysts determined that it was intended to attack American aircraft carriers. Other hatches concealed anti-aircraft missiles. The ship’s pagoda-like superstructure was covered with numerous radar and communications antennas. Eventually, the US intelligence community determined that the ship was named Kirov.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4862/1

37/IX 2024 [147-150]

147) Review: Sharing Space
by Jeff Foust Monday, September 30, 2024



Sharing Space: An Astronaut’s Guide to Mission, Wonder, and Making Change
by Cady Coleman
Penguin Life, 2024
hardcover, 272 pp.
ISBN 978-0-593-49401-1
US$28.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0593494016/spaceviews

To the average person, an astronaut—a professional trained to fly to space—presumably spends much of their time in space. Those in the space community, though, know otherwise. Early in her book Sharing Space, former NASA astronaut Cady Coleman notes her career at NASA spanned exactly 8,888 days, or more than 24 years. She spent just half a year, 180 days, in space, on two shuttle flights in the late 1990s and a long-duration flight on the International Space Station in 2010–11.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4863/1

148) Isle of Wight aerospace: flying boats, rocket interceptors, hovercraft, and launch vehicles (part 2)
by Trevor Williams Monday, September 30, 2024


Successful liftoff of Black Arrow R3 from Woomera, Australia. (credit: GKN Aerospace)

As described in Part 1 of this article, in the 1940s and 1950s the small Saunders-Roe company[1] produced a succession of innovative aerospace vehicles, starting with the largest all-metal flying boat ever built, proceeding to high-speed interceptors powered by a combination of turbojet and rocket engines, and then to the first hovercraft. Unfortunately though, although technically impressive, none of these met with lasting success.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4864/1

149) “Not quite the plan, but here we are”: NASA ritual and the reintegration of the Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts
by Deana L. Weibel Monday, September 30, 2024


Oleg Kononenko shakes hands with Suni Williams during a change of command ceremony on the ISS on September 22. (credit: NASA+)

On September 22, 2024, a strange rupture in the normal activities of the International Space Station (ISS) and its constantly changing crew came to an official close with a traditional “change of command ceremony.” (Dinner 2024) The circumstances leading to this ceremony, however, were anything but traditional. The Expedition 71 crew had arrived on April 6, 2024, and Oleg Kononenko took his place as the ISS commander. Exactly two months later, on June 6, 2024, the Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT) brought veteran astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore to the ISS for what was supposed to be an eight-day mission. When certain issues with the Starliner capsule “Calypso” became apparent, NASA, after some deliberation, decided to send the spacecraft back to Earth without its passengers. This left Williams and Wilmore as unexpected, un-planned-for crew, both part of and apart from, Expedition 71.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4865/1

150) Getting space traffic coordination on track
by Jeff Foust Monday, September 30, 2024


The Traffic Coordination System for Space, or TraCSS, will ultimately take over civil space traffic coordination work from the Defense Department. (credit: Office of Space Commerce)

On Monday morning, a new era in space traffic coordination began with all the pomp and circumstance of… a press release.

The Office of Space Commerce, a small office with NOAA, itself part of the Department of Commerce, announced in a statement it had turned on its long-awaited civil space traffic coordination system, called Traffic Coordination System for Space, or TraCSS (pronounced “tracks.”) The initial “phase 1.0” version of TraCSS was now up and running, just meeting a goal of having it in place by the end of September.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4866/1

38/X 2024 [151-154]

151) Cubesats are changing the way we explore the solar system
by Mustafa Aksoy
Monday, October 7, 2024


ESA’s Hera asteroid mission will deploy two cubesats (right) to help it study the asteroid Didymos and its moon Dimorphos. (credit: ESA)

Most cubesats weigh less than a bowling ball, and some are small enough to hold in your hand. But the impact these instruments are having on space exploration is gigantic. Cubesats—miniature, agile and cheap satellites—are revolutionizing how scientists study the cosmos.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4867/1

152) Sixty-five years since the first lunar farside images
by Trevor Williams Monday, October 7, 2024



On October 4, 1959, the second anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, the Soviet Union launched Luna 3 on a mission to image the far side of the Moon. This was an ambitious goal for so early in the Space Age, requiring numerous technical advances in spacecraft design and operation. For instance, Luna 3 had to spin throughout most of the mission for thermal control but then be three-axis stabilized while taking photos. It had to process the images onboard and then transmit them to the ground when closer to the Earth.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4868/1

153) Cosmonaut exploitation: the CIA and Gherman Titov’s 1962 visit to the United States
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, October 7, 2024


Cosmonaut Gherman Titov, the second person to orbit the Earth, during a visit to the White House in May 1962. A recently declassified document indicates that the CIA cooperated with NASA on the cosmonaut’s “exploitation” during his multi-city visit to the United States. (credit: JFK Library)

In a 1992 episode of the TV show “Northern Exposure,” a semi-retired KGB agent shows up in the sleepy Alaska town of Cicely and seeks out Maurice, the wealthiest resident and former Mercury astronaut, offering to sell him his KGB file. Maurice buys it and learns that a woman he spent a drunken night with in the early 1960s was actually a spy, to whom he divulged secrets about the Atlas missile.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4869/1

154) ULA’s Vulcan Centaur rocket lifts off October 4 on the Cert-2 mission. (credit: ULA)
Gaining confidence in new launch vehicles
by Jeff Foust Monday, October 7, 2024


ULA’s Vulcan Centaur rocket lifts off October 4 on the Cert-2 mission. (credit: ULA)

At a briefing last week, ULA CEO Tory Bruno expressed confidence about the upcoming second flight of his company’s Vulcan Centaur. That confidence, he said, was rooted in the performance of the rocket on its inaugural flight in January, a mission called Cert-1 by ULA.

“I am supremely confident, having had a very clean Cert-1 mission,” he said. That first flight, he said, was the “cleanest first launch” in his career. “So, as I come up on Cert-2, I’m pretty darn confident I’m going to have a good day on Friday, knock on wood.”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4870/1

39/X 2024 [155-158]

155) Review: Reentry
by Jeff Foust Monday, October 14, 2024



Reentry: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets that Launched a Second Space Age
by Eric Berger
BenBella Books, 2024
Hardcover, 400 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-63774-527-4
US$31.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1637745273/spaceviews

SpaceX has had an eventful last few weeks—or even last few days. Its Falcon 9 rocket, the workhorse not just for the company but the Western space industry, was grounded two weeks ago for the second time in less than three months when its upper stage suffered in anomaly on a deorbit burn at the end of the Crew-9 mission. The FAA announced late Friday it would allow all Falco 9 launches to resume (it granted an exemption for one launch of ESA’s Hera mission) after SpaceX resolve the problem, which the company later said was caused when the upper stage’s engine burned a half-second longer than expected.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4871/1

156) Space isn’t all about the “race”: rival superpowers must work together for a better future
by Art Cotterell Monday, October 14, 2024


An illustration of what the proposed China-Russia international lunar research station might one day look like. (credit: CNSA)

In recent years, a new “space race” has intensified between the United States and China. At a recent campaign rally, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump invoked this rivalry when declaring the US will “lead the world in space”, echoing Democratic counterpart Vice President Kamala Harris.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4872/1

157) The trials and tribulations of Hera
by Jeff Foust Monday, October 14, 2024


A Falcon 9 lifts off October 7 carrying ESA’s Hera spacecraft. (credit: SpaceX)

Every major space project goes through its share of problems getting to the launch pad, but those who worked on the Hera mission might feel especially unlucky. They struggled for years to win funding for the mission from the European Space Agency and its member states, only to find they had to work on the mission on a tight schedule just before the pandemic hit. And then, just as they were getting ready to launch, they faced the double whammy of a grounded rocket and a major hurricane.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4873/1
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Inicjatywa SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative), a współczesne wyzwania obrony przeciwrakietowej.

158) Ronald Reagan and a goal far, far away: Star Wars and the Strategic Defense Initiative in Simi Valley
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, October 14, 2024


President Ronald Reagan delivering a speech in March 1983 where he warned of the Soviet defense build-up and proposed his Strategic Defense Initiative, a layered shield to defend the United States against the threat of thousands of Soviet nuclear missile warheads. (credit: Reagan Library)

In April, Iran launched hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles at Israel, which shot most of them out of the sky (with American help), rendering the attack ineffective. Soon afterwards, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed giving credit for the successful defense to President Ronald Reagan, who in 1983 had started the Strategic Defense Initiative, labeled “Star Wars” by its critics, which was intended to defend the continental United States against thousands of nuclear warheads fired from the Soviet Union.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4874/1

40/X 2024 [159-161]

159) Reviews: Spaceflight skeptics
by Jeff Foust Monday, October 21, 2024



Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race
by Mary-Jane Rubenstein
The University of Chicago Press, 2022
hardcover, 224 pp.
ISBN 978-0-226-82112-2
US$24.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226833380/spaceviews

Ground Control: An Argument for the End of Human Space Exploration
by Savannah Mandel
Chicago Review Press, 2024
hardcover, 224 pp.
ISBN 978-1-64160-992-0
US$28.99
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1641609923/spaceviews

Last week was one of the big weeks of the year for spaceflight, or at least discussions about it. The International Astronautical Congress (IAC) attracted a record crowd of more than 11,200 delegates to the convention center in Milan for plenaries, panels, and presentations on a vast array of topics in civil and commercial space development and exploration from dozens of nations (the most notable absence was Russia.) The event was, as the International Astronautical Federation stated with a healthy dose of hyperbole in a release after the conference ended last Friday, “one of the most diverse gatherings of space people in our galaxy.”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4875/1

160) Weighing overall societal benefit: Case studies on deciding when to deorbit satellites (part 1)
by Marissa Herron Monday, October 21, 2024


NASA’s EO-1 is an example of a mission that will not comply with guidelines for deorbiting spacecraft within 25 years of the end of their lives. (credit: NASA)

This paper was inspired by the 2019 Orbital Debris Mitigation Standard Practices (ODMSP) update and, in particular, the enthusiastic debate surrounding the disposal rule. The programmatic and societal perspectives that NASA frequently encounters were not included in the discussions. Programmatic impacts are most simply described as the technical, cost, and schedule impacts, but do not immediately convey the unintended consequences. For example, mandating propulsive capabilities could significantly increase the costs of small satellites and severely challenge the continuation of science programs, or broader societal benefits from a satellite's data could justify an extended lifetime. This paper does not state a recommendation on the disposal rule, but instead seeks to encourage additional perspectives from which to design future disposal rules.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4876/1

161) Britain in the early history of the James Webb Space Telescope
by Harley Thronson Monday, October 21, 2024


Cover of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory’s 75-page Edison 1992 architecture for a large-aperture, radiatively/mechanically cooled IR space observatory. This “proof of concept” was submitted to support a funding proposal to ESA. This artist’s conception shows the observatory in a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth L2 point with its deployed multi-layer radiation shields. These shields were positioned with respect to the solar radiation to keep the observatory in deep shade, thus enabling effective radiative cooling.

The decade from roughly 1985 to 1995 was a notable period in astronomical exploration from space, perhaps most memorably with the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) by NASA in April 1990. Operating at ultraviolet and visible wavelengths, HST even today remains a stunning success, continuing to demonstrate the advantages of astronomy possible only from space.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4877/1

41/X 2024 [162-166]

162) Review: Infinite Cosmos
by Jeff Foust Monday, October 28, 2024



Infinite Cosmos: Visions From the James Webb Space Telescope
by Ethan Siegel
National Geographic, 2024
hardcover, 224 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-4262-2382-2
US50.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/142622382X/spaceviews

Out of sight, out of mind. For more than two decades, development of the James Webb Space Telescope dominated discussions and debate about space-based astronomy and—particularly given its cost and schedule challenges—management of big NASA programs. But with its successful launch at the end of 2021 and beginning of science operations in mid-2022 from its location 1.5 million kilometers away, it has faded somewhat into the background. It is, of course, still delivering tremendous amounts of data and a regular set of public image releases, but with only modest attention and publicity.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4878/1

163) Weighing overall societal benefit: Case studies on deciding when to deorbit satellites (part 2)
by Marissa Herron Monday, October 28, 2024
[Editor’s Note: Part 1 was published last week.]


NASA’s Earth Fleet missions (blue circle) in the 2020 Senior Review (credit: NASA)

NASA’s Senior rReview process

Each of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Division’s pursue a Senior Review process. This process considers whether or not to continue the operations of ongoing missions that have reached the end of their primary mission. The process is done in response to the NASA Authorization Act, which requires biennial reviews of each of SMD’s divisions “to assess the cost and benefits of extending missions that have exceeded their planned operational lives.” The results of the Senior Review are publicly available and describe the parameters considered and the reasoning for the decisions concluded upon.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4879/1

164) Planning for the future of continuous human presence in LEO
by Jeff Foust Monday, October 28, 2024


In its final form, Haven-2 will feature eight modules attached to a larger core module. (credit: Vast)

It is not clear that the sprawling exhibit hall at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) earlier this month in Milan had a center, with exhibitors split into two halls with a tent-like temporary structure connecting the two. But, certainly, one the exhibits at the heart of the hall, based on the activity there, was commercial space station company Vast. The company’s large booth features VR experiences of its proposed station and a model of its “patent-pending signature sleep system” that it says will allow for a better night’s sleep for future astronauts on its station.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4880/1

165) Mysterious MOL concepts
by Hans Dolfing Monday, October 28, 2024

Long forgotten manned military space station ambitions


Figure 1: MOL concept with Gemini B on top of a crew cabin cylinder.

The year 1963 was a year of turmoil in the United States. On the military side, the US Air Force had left the Army and Navy behind with efforts on military manned space flight. In the tug-of-war between civilian and military spaceflight goals, the Military Orbital Space Station (MODS) was cancelled and discussion on a more national space station picked up steam. At the same time, the US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, during his seven years in office, exercised influence to de-emphasize military manned spaceflight in favor of civilian space exploration. On the civilian side, just as NASA and the Apollo program were picking up speed to go to the moon, the visionary John F. Kennedy was murdered and Lyndon B. Johnson took over.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4881/1

166) Vandenberg and the space shuttle (part 1)
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, October 28, 2024


In the 1980s, the Air Force was planning to launch the space shuttle from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Shuttle contractors distributed models painted blue, such as this one given to astronaut Joe Engle. (credit: EAA)

In the early 1980s, excitement was rapidly building at Vandenberg Air Force Base and its surrounding areas on California’s Central Coast as the Air Force began construction of numerous new facilities to support the space shuttle. In addition to major reconstruction of the SLC-6 launch pad, work began on orbiter, booster, and payload processing buildings and other support infrastructure with the expectation that shuttles would regularly be roaring aloft from Vandenberg. But after the January 1986 Challenger accident, plans to launch shuttle from the West Coast were halted, then canceled completely. The decision was a major setback to the local economy and the base.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4882/1

42/XI 2024 [167-170]

167) The case for space policy stability in the next administration
by Thomas G. Roberts Monday, November 4, 2024


President Donald Trump speaking after the launch of the Demo-2 commercial crew mission in May 2020. (credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

The next president of the United States could be the first in that office to accept a phone call from the Moon and hear a woman’s voice on the line. To do so, they’ll first need to make a series of strategic space policy decisions. They’ll also need a little luck.

Enormous government investment supports outer space activities, so the US president has an outsized role in shaping space policy during their time in office.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4883/1

168) Comparing Harris and Trump on space policy
by Jonathan Coopersmith Monday, November 4, 2024


Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a December 2023 meeting of the National Space Council. (credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Space exploration and development will shift very few voters in this week’s presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Space policy has historically been a bipartisan area which presidential campaigns have largely ignored. Indeed, contra the argument recently made by former US Representative Bob Walker, both candidates’ platforms support space commercialization and innovation, returning astronauts to the Moon, and continuing American leadership in space.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4884/1

169) NASA’s infrastructure crossroads
by Jeff Foust Monday, November 4, 2024


An image, circa 2000, of key facilities at the Kennedy Space Center. NASA is grappling with aging infrastructure that hindres its ability to carry out future missions, a recent report concluded. (credit: NASA)

The next administration will have its share of challenges involving NASA to deal with. There may be scrutiny of NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration campaign, including both its technical approach and its schedule. It will have to examine if NASA’s plans to replace the International Space Station with commercial stations are feasible and on a schedule that will permit the ISS’s retirement in 2030. NASA’s science programs are also facing budget challenges, and the next administration could revisit whatever the agency decides in the coming months on a new approach to the Mars Sample Return program.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4885/1
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Interesujący przykład ilustrujący postęp w szybkości dostarczania zobrazowań satelitarnych na Ziemię.
https://x.com/planet/status/1852040614185230466
https://x.com/planet/status/1852758749041312023
https://x.com/NASAEarth/status/1852329874746114343

170) Satellite reconnaissance and the Falklands War
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, November 4, 2024


The Royal Fleet Auxiliaries Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram were attacked by Argentine A-4 Skyhawks on June 8, 1982, during the Falklands War. Both ships were hit, with heavy loss of life on Sir Galahad, which was still burning on June 13 when an American HEXAGON satellite took this photo. The war ended June 14 with the surrender of Argentine forces on the islands. Satellite photo via Harry Stranger.

On June 8, 1982, Lieutenant Carlos Cachon was leading a flight of A-4 Skyhawk jets at low level over the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. Argentine forces had invaded the islands in April, prompting the United Kingdom to send a naval and amphibious force to retake them. The war had gotten bloody in May, with significant troop and ship losses on both sides. Now it was about to get even worse for the British. (...)

On June 13, a HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite overflew the islands. The weather was usually bad for overhead reconnaissance during the war, but on this day portions of the islands were clear. The HEXAGON photographed broad swaths of the islands. The HEXAGON could cover immense amounts of territory in a single image. Five days after the two ships had been successfully attacked, Sir Galahad was still burning, its smoke plume visible in one of the satellite’s images. But the downside of HEXAGON’s impressive capabilities was that it achieved them using film, and that film sat inside the satellite until the reentry vehicle that carried it was ejected on June 15 and recovered over the North Pacific. Then it had to be recovered, transported to Rochester, New York for development, and sent to Washington for imagery interpretation. The war ended on June 14; by the time the film showing the burning Sir Galahad reached an interpreter’s desk on June 24, the war had been over for ten days. (...)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4886/1

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