The Space Review

[Orionid]

What would FDR do?
by Robert G. Oler Monday, February 28, 2022


The time may have come to reconsider the International Space Station partnership. (credit: NASA)

Imagine it’s the start of World War II in Europe and the US and The Third Reich have a mutual science base. We are not in active combat, but the Third Reich is gobbling up Poland. Would then President Franklin D. Roosevelt have kept that association?
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4340/1

[Orionid]

The ending of an era in international space cooperation
by Jeff Foust Monday, February 28, 2022


A Soyuz rocket on the launch pad in French Guiana. Russia said February 26 it is suspending cooperation on future Soyuz launches there in response to European sanctions, but the facility’s long-term future was already uncertain. (credit: ESA - S. Corvaja)

Three decades ago, the collapse of the Soviet Union promised to usher in a new era of cooperation between the West, particularly the United States, and Russia. With the Cold War in the rearview mirror, the combination of American resources and Russian expertise promised new opportunities in space, from the International Space Station to rockets powered by Russian engines.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4341/1

[Orionid]

Review: Impact
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 7, 2022



Impact: How Rocks from Space Led to Life, Culture, and Donkey Kong
by Greg Brennecka
William Morrow, 2022
hardcover, 304 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-06-307892-5
US$28.99
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0063078929/spaceviews

The threat posed by asteroids to the Earth has gotten plenty of attention in recent years, possibly to the point of being overhyped: harmless flybys of asteroids a few million kilometers from the Earth now become fodder for clickbait articles in tabloids. Yet space rocks—tiny ones—hit the Earth every day. Rather that pose a threat to humanity, these meteorites provide a wealth of knowledge about the solar system to scientists, and occasionally wealth to the meteorite hunters who find, buy, and sell them.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4342/1

[Orionid]

Guarding Gateway’s goodness: protecting a steppingstone’s genuine utility
by Bob Mahoney Monday, March 7, 2022


NASA’s Gateway Architecture as originally envisioned. (credit: NASA)

Whisper the word “Gateway” to any random spaceflight fan passing on the sidewalk and you’ll likely receive one of three reactions: unbridled enthusiasm, abject disdain, or disengaged disinterest. (At least all can quietly rejoice at the name’s vernacular pruning.)[1]

Putting aside (for now) those not interested, count me among the enthusiastic, despite my harboring a profoundly serious concern.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4343/1

[Orionid]

A FAB approach to Mars exploration
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 7, 2022


A quarter-century after Mars Pathfinder demonstrated the potential for low-cost Mars landers, scientists and engineers are proposing a new line of such missions that can use new technologies and new commercial partnerships. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

This week, many planetary scientists are focused on the annual Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference (LPSC), a hybrid event taking place both in the Houston suburbs and online to discuss the latest findings across the solar system. Lurking in the background, though, is perhaps a bigger event: the upcoming release of the planetary science decadal survey, expected to be public by the middle of April. (Original plans projected the release of the survey at LPSC, but not even reports are immune to schedule slips, especially during a pandemic.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4344/1

[Orionid]

The moral equivalent of war: a new metaphor for space resource utilization
by Jack Reid Monday, March 7, 2022


For all the discussion about the importance of using space resources, there’s been little action. Is a better argument needed? (credit: ESA)

While science fiction and the popular consciousness about space often focus on human exploration and settlement of outer space (see Elon Musk’s goal of settling Mars), the exploitation and utilization of space resources in order to benefit those living on Earth are hardly lacking boosters at the moment.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4345/1

[Orionid]

1/ III 2022

Review: Imaging Our Solar System
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 14, 2022



Imaging Our Solar System: The Evolution of Space Mission Cameras and Instruments
by Bernard Henin
Springer, 2022
paperback, 293 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-3-030-90498-2
US$37.99
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3030904989/spaceviews

It is easy to take for granted the torrent of images that come from planetary probes. Long-lived orbiters and rovers can generate huge volumes of images over the years to the delight of scientists as well as hobbyists, who are encouraged to do their own analysis and remixing of images from those publicly funded missions.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4346/1

[Orionid]

Red Heaven: China sets its sights on the stars (part 1)
by Jason Szeftel Monday, March 14, 2022


SpaceX’s development of Starship may render many other launch vehicles obsolete, and has led China to revamp its own approach to launch vehicle development and exploration. (credit: John Kraus/Polaris Program)

At a conference in Hong Kong on July 24, 2021, China revealed an overhauled design for its most important future rocket: the Long March 9. Earlier images of this upcoming super-heavy-lift rocket showed a launch vehicle with a few engines at the bottom and four solid rockets strapped to its side. But Chinese rocket scientists were now showing off a very different rocket. The new Long March 9 design envisioned one larger, taller rocket with a single cluster of 16 engines at the base. With little fanfare China had just unveiled a complete transformation of its most powerful and advanced rocket, the country's key to the heavens and to competing with the United States.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4347/1

Regulatory issues for a growing launch industry
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 14, 2022


A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifts off on one of 13 FAA-licensed commercial launches so far this year as of March 14. (credit: SpaceX)

Nearly every presentation about the commercial launch industry today mentions the just how much more active it is than a decade ago. In 2012, the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, or AST, licensed seven commercial launches. At the time of publication of this article, there had been 13 FAA-licensed commercial launches so far this calendar year, mostly by SpaceX but also including Astra, Rocket Lab, and Virgin Orbit.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4348/1

Missions to Mercury: From Mariner to MESSENGER
by Dwayne Day Monday, March 14, 2022


If all goes to plan, the European Space Agency’s BepiColombo spacecraft will arrive at Mercury in December 2025. BepiColombo consists of two spacecraft that will circle the planet, one focusing on Mercury’s surface and the other, supplied by Japan, studying its magnetosphere. The spacecraft is named after Giuseppe “Bepi” Colombo, an Italian scientist, mathematician, and engineer at the University of Padua in Italy who calculated how to get a spacecraft into a resonant orbit with Mercury enabling multiple flybys. His technique was used for the successful NASA Mariner 10 mission that flew past Mercury in 1975.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4349/1

[Orionid]

2/ III 2022

Reviews: Space films at SXSW
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 21, 2022


SXSW attendees line up to attend a screening of Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood in Austin, Texas, March 13. (credit: J. Foust)

Space has had a growing presence in recent years at South by Southwest (SXSW), the annual film, music, and technology festival in Austin, Texas. That presence has largely been limited to the technology conference sessions, with panels on topics from space commercialization to the search for life beyond Earth. This year’s SXSW earlier this month—the first in-person festival since 2019 because of the pandemic—included a two-day “Space Rush Summit” with two tracks of panel discussions, as well as some other scattered space-related events.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4350/1

Financing space-derived data as commodities
by Lucien and Paul Rapp Monday, March 21, 2022


The growth of commercial satellite systems raises questions about how to finance them, and what to do with the assets when a company defaults. (credit: OneWeb)

The once-exclusive place—still dominant today—of states in civil and military space activities has for a long time concealed the difficulties of their financing. The opening to competition of a real market of space activities, whose economic operators are no longer only public or para-public entities, highlights them today.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4351/1

Red Heaven: China sets its sights on the stars (part 2)
by Jason Szeftel
Monday, March 21, 2022 Part 1 was published last week.


China has fostered the development of dozens of space launch startups like LandSpace. (credit: LandSpace)

Spaceflight China: Imitation is the highest form of praise

Five years after NASA issued the first commercial spaceflight contracts, China decided to cultivate its own private rocket industry. In 2014, it designated space a domain for civil innovation, prompting companies across the country to get to work on new engines, rockets, and other systems for its space sector. By the end of 2020 China had more than 160 commercial space companies, at least 25 of which were actively developing new launch vehicles. Only the United States has seen anything close to this level of activity.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4352/1

SLS crawls towards its first launch
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 21, 2022


The SLS emerges from the fog March 18 at Launch Complex 39B, hours after completing its rollout to the pad for a countdown test. (credit: J. Foust)

For the Space Launch System, even the photo ops are delayed.

NASA advised media to show up at the Kennedy Space Center press site between 6:45 and 7 am Friday morning for an opportunity to see the first SLS on the pad at Launch Complex 39B. But when journalists showed up, it was clear that was not going to happen on schedule because it was not clear: fog had rolled in, making it impossible to see the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) across the street, let alone the launch pad several kilometers away.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4353/1

3/ III 2022

Launch failures: fairings
by Wayne Eleazer Monday, March 28, 2022


One of the most infamous payload fairing failures involved the docking target for the Gemini 9 mission, creating the “Angry Alligator.” (credit: NASA)

An Astra launch failed on February 10 when the payload fairing failed to separate, preventing proper deployment of the second stage. Fairing-related mission failures don’t occur very often, although they are unusual in that they are among the few that have repeated the exact same failure mode with the same type of vehicle.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4354/1

Red Heaven: China sets its sights on the stars (part 3)
by Jason Szeftel Monday, March 28, 2022

Part 2 was published last week.

Starship: The state of the art


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

As it stands China is two generations behind SpaceX, and therefore the United States, in terms of launch technology. To catch up, China is trying to emulate American advances in both its old state organizations as well as in its new private, or at least quasi-private, companies. On the state side, it plans to catch up with the Falcon 9 by making its new Long March 8 rocket reusable. The aspirational date for this achievement is 2025. This is an optimistic but not entirely unreasonable timeline. Rocket landings already feel routine and by 2025 the reusable Falcon 9 will be a decade old. That is more than enough time to copy and imitate its systems.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4355/1

The launch market squeeze
by Jeff Foust Monday, March 28, 2022


A Soyuz rocket launches a batch of OneWeb satellites in late 2021. With Soyuz no longer available, OneWeb has had to turn to a competitor, SpaceX, to launch its satellites. (credit: Arianespace)

If politics makes strange bedfellows, then geopolitics makes strange business relationships, as OneWeb and SpaceX revealed last week.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4356/1

Dark clouds: The secret meteorological satellite program (part 1)
by Dwayne Day Monday, March 28, 2022

The RAND Corporation and cloud reconnaissance


This Lockheed illustration from 1959 shows the possible uses of a photographic satellite. Although the reproduction is poor, it illustrates that in addition to military reconnaissance, such a satellite could also be used for monitoring crops and forests, and weather prediction. (credit: Lockheed via the NRO)

Amrom Katz was a short, energetic, outspoken physicist who worked for the RAND Corporation in the 1950s. RAND was located in the Los Angeles oceanside suburb of Santa Monica, California. It was a “think tank” where engineers, scientists, and policy experts studied advanced technologies and ideas for the US Air Force. At lunch, RAND’s thinkers would sip margaritas at a beachside bar and then return to their offices to think about nuclear war, earning the moniker “wizards of Armageddon.”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4357/1

[Orionid]

1/ IV 2022

Review: Voyager: Photographs from Humanity’s Greatest Journey
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 4, 2022



Voyager: Photographs from Humanity’s Greatest Journey
by Jens Bezemer, Joel Meter, Simon Phillipson, Delano Steenmeijer, and Ted Stryk
teNeues, 2020
hardcover, 304 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-3-96171-291-5
US$65.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3961712913/spaceviews

The new documentary It’s Quieter in the Twilight examines the Voyager missions as they approach their end, tended to by a small group of employees, some of whom have been working on the spacecraft for decades. At this point, the mission is almost forgotten, and when most of the documentary was filmed in 2019 and 2020, the Voyager team was exiled to an office building off the campus from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (see “Reviews: Space films at SXSW”, The Space Review, March 21, 2022).
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4358/1

Effective altruism, corporate responsibility, and space sustainability
by Layla Martin Monday, April 4, 2022


Effective space sustainability requires thinking differently from the approaches that led to the climate crisis. (credit: ESA/Spacejunk3D, LLC)

The maxim, or general rule, is that we pick and choose which ethical rules to follow. Culture, religion, law, and the desire to stay out of prison, inform our preferences. While I may want to get into trouble at an epic party in Phuket, steering clear of the Bangkok Hilton overrides my fleeting preference to test the effectiveness of Thai law enforcement.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4359/1

Keep space dialogue going, astronautics federation says
by Philippe Cosyn Monday, April 4, 2022


IAF President Pascale Ehrenfreund said that despite the “current tragedy unfolding in Ukraine” she hopes the organization could continue to be a forum for space cooperation. (credit: IAF)

At the 70th anniversary celebration of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), held in Paris March 26, leaders of the world’s foremost space organizations called for a “continued dialogue” among the world’s space actors in the wake of the “tragic events unfolding in Ukraine.”
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4360/1

Space travelers by any other name
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 4, 2022


The Ax-1 crew of (from left) Mark Pathy, Larry Connor, Michael López-Alegría, and Eytan Stibbe. Connor says he consideres his crew private astronauts, a distinction separate from suborbital space tourists. (credit: Axiom Space)

The space industry has struggled to come up with a common term for people who fly to space on commercial vehicles who are not part of the flight crew. There’s space tourists, private astronauts, and spaceflight participants, the last option having the advantage of being the term used in federal law and regulations (but the disadvantage that is sounds, well, bureaucratic.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4361/1

Dark clouds: The secret meteorological satellite program (part 2)
The Radio Corporation of America and the Army’s reconnaissance satellite
by Dwayne Day Monday, April 4, 2022


The Tiros weather satellite evolved from a rejected proposal by the Radio Corporation of America to the Air Force for a reconnaissance satellite. RCA pitched the idea to the Army, which was not allowed to develop a reconnaissance satellite and instead decided to develop a weather satellite. Tiros was transferred to NASA in 1958 and launched in 1960. (credit: NASA)

In late 1955, following the RAND Corporation’s Feed Back report, the US Air Force conducted a competition to select a contractor to build a television-based reconnaissance satellite. Three companies submitted proposals: Lockheed Aircraft, the Radio Corporation of America, and the Glenn L. Martin Company. Air Force officials considered the Martin proposal to be poor. The Air Force officers evaluating the other two proposals considered both of them to be impressive. Indeed, some felt that technically, the RCA proposal was the better of the two. But according to one participant, RCA’s presentation of its proposal was a disaster: the person who delivered it was unprepared and nobody from RCA’s senior management was there to state that the company valued such a relatively small contract.[1]
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4362/1

2/ IV 2022

Review: NASA Missions to Mars
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 11, 2022



NASA Missions to Mars: A Visual History of Our Quest to Explore the Red Planet
by Piers Bizony
Motorbooks, 2022
hardcover, 196 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-7603-7314-9
US$50
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0760373140/spaceviews

As NASA publicizes milestones in its Artemis program to return humans to the Moon—the rollout and testing of the Space Launch System rocket ahead of its first launch, an upcoming competition to select a second company to develop a crewed lunar lander—agency officials emphasize their long-term goal remains on Mars.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4363/1

Review: Return to Space
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 11, 2022


Return to Space
directed by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
128 minutes, rated TV-MA
streaming on Netflix
https://www.netflix.com/pl/title/81111324

Last Friday, a Falcon 9 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center and placed into orbit a Crew Dragon spacecraft called Endeavour. The spacecraft docked to the International Space Station less than 24 hours later, delivering four private astronauts on the Ax-1 mission for Axiom Space. Shortly after Endeavour returns from its ten-day mission, another Crew Dragon, named Freedom, will launch on the Crew-4 mission for NASA, delivering American and European astronauts for a five-month stay.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4364/1

What is China doing at the lunar distant retrograde orbit?
by Kristin Burke Monday, April 11, 2022


An illustration of the Chang’e-5 orbiter and sample return capsule hearing back to Earth from the Moon in 2020. The orbiter is now in a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon, perhaps to prepare for the next phase of China’s lunar exploration plans. (credit: CNSA)

China’s Chang’e 5 (CE-5) orbiter, which as of January 2022 has likely moved to the lunar distant retrograde orbit (DRO), is probably conducting enabling telemetry, tracking and control and Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) tests to support Chinese preparations for the next stage of China’s Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP), according to Chinese government information and Chinese academics.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4365/1

Red and black: The secretive National Reconnaissance Office finally faces the budgeteers
by Dwayne Day Monday, April 11, 2022


Jimmie Hill, front center, was the Deputy Director of the National Reconnaissance Office from 1982 to 1996. A few months before assuming that position, he gave a classified and very candid interview where he discussed his relationship with the Office of Management and Budget and increased oversight of the NRO. Here Hill is accompanied by members of the NRO Staff, which oversaw the secret organization's operations in the Pentagon. Hill was not a fan of the OMB. (credit: NRO)

When it was created in the early 1960s, the National Reconnaissance Office was so secretive that even its name was classified. There was no nameplate on its door in the Pentagon, and those who worked for it would never mention the acronym “NRO” outside of secure rooms that had been swept for eavesdropping devices.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4366/1

A megaconstellation megadeal
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 11, 2022


The Amazon deal includes 38 launches of Vulcan Centaur rockets, more than all the previous orders for the vehicle combined. (credit: ULA)

Megaconstellations need mega rockets. Or, rather, mega amounts of rockets.

Last week, Amazon outlined its launch plans for a broadband constellation called Project Kuiper. The company received an FCC license in July 2020 for the system, which will place 3,236 satellites into low Earth orbit.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4367/1

3/ IV 2022

Review: Never Panic Early
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 18, 2022



Never Panic Early: An Apollo 13 Astronaut’s Journey
by Fred Haise with Bill Moore
Smithsonian Books, 2022
hardcover, 216pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-58834-713-8
US$29.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1588347133/spaceviews

Fifty-two years ago yesterday, Apollo 13 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, safely returning three astronauts after an explosion on their way to the Moon crippled their spacecraft and put their lives in jeopardy. The story of the mission has been told many times, as well as the life of its commander, Jim Lovell. The mission’s command module pilot, Jack Swigert, died of cancer in 1982 before he could tell his life story. One would think surely that the mission’s lunar module pilot, Fred Haise, alive and well today at age 88, would have written about his life, like so many other astronauts.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4368/1

How solar storms can destroy satellites with ease
by Piyush Mehta Monday, April 18, 2022


A Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) image of the Sun showing an active region near the limb. (credit: NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams)

On February 4, SpaceX launched 49 Starlink satellites, most of which burned up in the atmosphere days later. The cause of this more than US$50 million failure was a geomagnetic storm caused by the Sun.

Geomagnetic storms occur when space weather hits and interacts with the Earth. Space weather is caused by fluctuations within the Sun that blast electrons, protons, and other particles into space. I study the hazards space weather poses to space-based assets and how scientists can improve the models and prediction of space weather to protect against these hazards.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4369/1

Investing in these innovations will get us to Mars and beyond
by Dylan Taylor Monday, April 18, 2022


A NASA experiment called LOFTID will test an inflatable heat shield, a technology that could enable heat shields much larger than what can fit inside rockets today. (credit: NASA)

Last year was historic for Mars exploration. While humans have been exploring the planet in some capacity for 50 years, 2021 marked several firsts in space exploration, including the first time probes from three countries arrived at the Red Planet.

Progress is partially due to the convergence of many exciting trends that are helping to advance space innovations within the sector. Startups have flocked to the space industry to bring sophisticated technologies like quantum computing, phased array radar, artificial intelligence, cubesats, and other services. Along with NASA, the NewSpace sector is working to transform innovations that can help us reach and settle Mars.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4370/1

A second chance at the Moon
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 18, 2022


In the original HLS competition, a “National Team” led by Blue Origin proposed a lunar lander. The new competition may feature both a different design for the lander and different partners for Blue Origin. (credit: Blue Origin)

Companies rarely get second chances at competitions they lose. Unless a contract is overturned by a protest or other legal action, bidders who lose out on government contracts have to lick their wounds and try again on a future program.

But for the companies that lost out in the Human Landing System (HLS) competition to SpaceX last year, an effort that prompted both unsuccessful protests with the Government Accountability Office and a lawsuit rejected in federal court, there will be a second chance to offer landers capable of taking astronauts to and from the lunar surface. That second chance, though, doesn’t mean a repeat of the same teams offering the same landers.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4371/1

4/ IV 2022

Review: The End of Astronauts
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 25, 2022


The End of Astronauts: Why Robots Are the Future of Exploration
by Donald Goldsmith and Martin Rees
Belknap Press, 2022
hardcover, 192 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-674-25772-6
US$25.95
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4372/1

Last week, a committee of the National Academies released the decadal survey for planetary science and astrobiology, the once-per-decade report outlining priorities for planetary science missions for NASA to pursue. The latest report recommended NASA continue its Mars Sample Return campaign and also two new flagship missions, one to the planet Uranus and another to orbit and land on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, which has a subsurface ocean that is potentially habitable.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4372/1

Space blocs: The future of international cooperation in space is splitting along lines of power on Earth
by Svetla Ben-Itzhak Monday, April 25, 2022


Representatives of the governments of Singapore and the United States, including NASA deputy administrator Pam Melroy (second from right) at a ceremony March 28 where Singapore signed the Artemis Accords, becoming the 18th nation to join. (credit: Ministry of Communications and Information, Singapore)

Even during times of conflict on the ground, space has historically been an arena of collaboration among nations. But trends in the past decade suggest that the nature of cooperation in space is shifting, and fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has highlighted these changes.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4373/1

A small ban of ASATs, a giant leap for space security?
by Jeff Foust Monday, April 25, 2022


Vice President Kamala Harris announced the ban on ASAT testing in an April 18 speech at Vandenberg Space Force Base. (credit: US Space Force photo by Michael Peterson)

When the office of Vice President Kamala Harris announced earlier this month she would visit Vandenberg Space Force Base in California and given remarks there, it appeared at first to be a routine visit, an opportunity to visit the base while in her home state. It might also be a reminder of her role as chair of the National Space Council, which has kept a low profile in the current administration since a public meeting in early December (see “A Biden space policy takes shape”, The Space Review, December 6, 2021).
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4374/1

War at sea, seen from above
by Dwayne Day Monday, April 25, 2022


Photo of the guided missile cruiser Moskva burning, taken by a sailor on one of the vessels that went to its assistance. The cruiser was struck amidships by two Neptune missiles and was still burning the next day. A fire boat is behind the Moskva spraying water. The ship's life rafts are missing.

Less than two weeks ago, the world was stunned when a Russian warship, the guided missile cruiser Moskva, was struck by two Ukrainian missiles and sent to the bottom of the Black Sea—the largest warship sunk in combat since World War II. For some, it evoked memories of an event almost exactly 40 years earlier, when an Argentine cruiser was sunk by a British submarine. That conflict had a space component that is only slowly—very slowly—being revealed. It poses an interesting contrast to how much has changed when it comes to space assets and war at sea.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4375/1

[Orionid]

Maj rozpoczynają 4 artykuły powiązane z załogowymi lotami kosmicznymi: od przeszłości ku przeszłości. Pierwsza część opracowania poświęcona jest w dużej mierze japońskiej polityce lotów załogowych. Mimo rosnących wydatków JAXA na załogową astronautykę, tak jak w przypadku innych agencji kosmicznych, możliwości aktywności na wielu polach są ograniczone przez znaczące wydatki na ISS.

1/ V 2022

Review: The Sky Above
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 2, 2022



The Sky Above: An Astronaut’s Memoir of Adventure, Persistence, and Faith
by John Casper
Purdue University Press, 2022
hardcover, 306 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-61249-716-7
US$27.99
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1612497160/spaceviews

In retrospect, the 1990s were something of a golden age for the shuttle program. At the beginning of the decade, the shuttle was getting back up to speed after recovering from the Challenger accident. By the end of the decade, it was flying regularly, having demonstrated the key capabilities needed for assembling the International Space Station, along the way doing research missions while also deploying and servicing the Hubble Space Telescope.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4376/1

Raising the flag on the Moon and Mars: future human space exploration in Japan (part 1)
by Makusu Tsuizaki Monday, May 2, 2022


A Japanese HTV cargo spacecraft departing the International Space Station, an example of the capabilities Japan has developed that could support future human exploration programs. (credit: NASA)

Japan has progressed in the development and utilization of space over the past 50 years. During this time, space activity has grown from academic research and technology interests to civil and industrial interests. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has been the single national organization for aerospace and space research, technology development, and performing launch of satellites, resulting from the 2003 merger of three previously independent organizations.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4377/1

Act now on contingencies for Russian non-participation in ISS
by Srikanth Raviprasad and Steve Hoeser Monday, May 2, 2022


NASA needs to develop and share plans to keep the ISS operational even if Russia exits the partnership. (credit: NASA)

The International Space Station (ISS) has for decades been a pinnacle of human scientific, technological and political achievement. It remains the sole example of how an international team can productively and successfully cooperate over the course of decades in space.[1] Yet recent demands from Russia threaten the safety of ISS, people on Earth, and the cooperative mission objectives, including the transition to commercial space facility operations.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4378/1

Lessons from a new era of destinations
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 2, 2022


A Crww Dragon spacecraft splashes down off the Florida coast April 25 to end the Ax-1 private astronaut mission to the ISS. (credit: SpaceX)

A delayed flight home is usually a bad thing—unless, perhaps, you’re in space.

The four private astronauts on Axiom Space’s Ax-1 mission arrived at the International Space Station April 9 on a Crew Dragon spacecraft for what was supposed to be an eight-day stay. Instead, the four remained on the station for more than 15 days before departing late April 24, safely splashing down the next day off the coast from Jacksonville, Florida.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4379/1

2/ V 2022

Review: The Universe: A Biography
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 9, 2022



The Universe: A Biography
by Paul Murdin
Thames & Hudson, 2022
hardcover, 304 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-500-02464-5
US$34.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0500024642/spaceviews

There’s no shortage of biographies in the space field. There are biographies of astronauts and cosmonauts, of engineers and administrators, and of scientists and businesspeople. But none, by definition, can be as expansive as a biography as the universe.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4380/1

Raising the flag on the Moon and Mars: future human space exploration in Japan (part 2)
by Makusu Tsuizaki Monday, May 9, 2022 [Editor’s note: Part 1 was published last week.]


Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) is one of several Moon and Mars exploration initiatives underway by the country. (credit: JAXA)

International cooperation
1) Lessons learned from ISS

In terms of human space exploration, five states have coordinated ISS development and utilization for about 30 years. These states have managed sharing costs based on an international cooperation agreement. It has been suggested that such an “international cooperation” scheme also functioned as motivation for gaining and keeping domestic budgets in some cooperating countries.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4381/1

Anti-satellite weapons: the US has sworn off tests, and Australia should follow suit
by Cassandra Steer Monday, May 9, 2022


Australia’s military recently established a Space Command, which has led to media speculation about its plans in space. (credit: Royal Australian Air Force)

When United States Vice President Kamala Harris was at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California last month, she said the US would not conduct tests of destructive, direct-ascent anti-satellite missiles (see “A small ban of ASATs, a giant leap for space security?”, The Space Review, April 25, 2022).
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4382/1

The future of Mars science missions
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 9, 2022


A concept of a sample retrieval lander that would take samples cached by the Perseverance rover and launch them into orbit for return to Earth. (credit: NASA)

The first, and inevitable, reaction to the planetary science decadal survey were jokes, or dread about the inevitable jokes. Not only was the decadal recommending that NASA send a mission to Uranus, it was endorsing a Uranus orbiter and probe.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4383/1

3/ V 2022

Kosmos 482: questions around a failed Venera lander from 1972 still orbiting Earth (but not for long)
by Marco Langbroek Monday, May 16, 2022


A museum replica of the Venera 8 descent craft that is in a decaying orbit around the Earth. (credit: NASA)

Fifty years ago, on March 31, 1972, just days after the launch of Venera 8, the Soviet Union made an attempt to launch yet another Venera probe. While it was meant to fly to Venus, something went wrong and it got stuck in Earth orbit instead. It subsequently was post-designated Kosmos 482 by the Soviets. Half a century later, one object associated to this launch is still on orbit, but it won’t be for long anymore. This object is 1972-023E, the Kosmos 482 Descent Craft, ostensibly the landing module of the Venera in its approximately one-meter protective shell.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4384/1

All the myriad worlds
by Dwayne Day Monday, May 16, 2022


Triton’s surface is relatively smooth, with few craters. This indicates that it has been resurfaced and is geologically young. Before Voyager 2 flew past it in the late 1980s, conventional models of the solar system predicted that these outer moons should have been geologically uninteresting rocks. Not worlds with wind, ice, geysers, and possibly subsurface oceans. (credit: NASA)

The other day I was having dinner with a prominent planetary scientist when I mentioned that I had a list of my five favorite moons. You do? He asked, surprised. Sure. Don’t you? He studies Venus, and Venus, like Vulcan, has no moon, so he didn’t have his own list of favorite moons but asked me to name mine.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4385/1

“Times are changing”: NASA looks to move beyond the traditional contract
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 16, 2022


NASA administrator Bill Nelson told Senate appropriators May 3 that traditional cost-plus contracts were a “plague” for the agency. (credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

When NASA administrator Bill Nelson appeared before Senate appropriators May 3 to discuss the agency’s fiscal year 2023 budget proposal, most expected him to explain and defend the agency’s request for nearly $26 billion released in late March. That request included nearly $1.5 billion for the Human Landing System program, days after the agency announced its intent to hold a competition to select a second company to develop a lander alongside the existing award to SpaceX (see “A second chance at the Moon”, The Space Review, April 18, 2022).
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4386/1

Chinese military thinking on orbits beyond GEO
by Kristin Burke Monday, May 16, 2022


Chinese literature on missions like Chang’e-5 helps reveal military thinking about activities beyond GEO. (credit: CNSA)

“We already regard space, out to at least GEO, as part of our legitimate military theater of operations. Strategic vision compels us to continually expand our perspective. We will soon need to consider all of cislunar space, and we should begin to think about operations throughout the inner solar system.[1]”
–The Fairchild Papers, USAF, 2002

“A base on the Moon can fulfil not only scientific and military tasks. Since science and physics are developing rapidly, new goals appear and we can only contemplate them today… a base can be used for constant monitoring of the Earth's surface.”[2]
–Russian Academician Boris Chertok, 2007
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4387/1

4/ V 2022

Review: Space Forces
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 23, 2022



Space Forces: A Critical History of Life in Outer Space
by Fred Scharmen
Verso, 2021
hardcover, 272 pp.
ISBN 978-1-78663
US$26.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1786637359/spaceviews

Later this week, space enthusiasts will gather in Crystal City, Virginia—a mystical name for a mundane neighborhood of commercial and residential high-rises near Washington’s Reagan National Airport—for the National Space Society’s International Space Development Conference (ISDC), the first in-person edition of the conference since 2019. As in past years, this year’s ISDC will have a track on space settlement, along with a student space settlement competition and a new “Rothblatt Space Settlement in Our Lifetime Prize Business Plan Competition.” (The conference also includes tracks on space elevators and space solar power, completing the holy trinity of unrealized but unwavering dreams of space advocates.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4388/1

How the India and France Space Strategic Dialogue can address multi-dimensional concerns in 2020s
by Harini Madhusudan Monday, May 23, 2022


French President Emmanuel Macron (left) and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during their May 4 meeting in Paris. (credit: Indian Embassy to France)

On May 4, during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Paris, France and India decided to create a strategic dialogue to address challenges related to outer space. This dialogue aims to bring together experts from defense agencies, space agencies, specialized space ecosystems, and their respective administration to discuss political, economic, and security challenges; revisit principles and norms; and bring forth newer areas of cooperation applicable to outer space.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4389/1

Barnstorming the Moon: the LEM Reconnaissance Module
by Philip Horzempa Monday, May 23, 2022


Early in the Apollo program, NASA considered converting the Lunar Module into a reconnaissance spacecraft to scout landing sites. (credit: NASA)

The Recon LEM mission was designed to scout landing sites for Project Apollo. At that time, nothing was known of the small-scale characteristics of the Moon’s surface. We had no idea if there would be areas smooth enough to allow a landing by Apollo’s Lunar Module. Gaining that information was just as critical as building the machines that would land a pair of astronauts on the Moon. This was the first time that humanity needed to get serious about certifying landing zones on an alien world. But, how to do that?
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4390/1

For Starliner, better late than never
by Jeff Foust Monday, May 23, 2022


ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti took this image of Starliner approaching the station just before its docking May 20. (credit: ESA/NASA)

Two and a half year ago, Boeing and NASA were excited about the first uncrewed test flight of the company’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle. The company pulled out all the stops for the Orbital Flight Test (OFT) mission for media at the Kennedy Space Center, erecting a large tent at the press site for briefings and other events in the days leading up to the launch and even showing off its “AstroVan II” it developed with Airstream to transport astronauts to the launch pad for later crewed flights.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4391/1

Note: Because of the Memorial Day holiday, we will publish next week’s issue on Tuesday, May 31.

5/ V 2022

Boeing’s commercial crew vehicle is finally (almost) ready for crew
by Jeff FoustvTuesday, May 31, 2022


Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner descends under parachutes, its landing airbags inflated, just before touching down at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico May 25. (credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

During a press conference a few hours after Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner touched down in the New Mexico desert Wednesday, a reporter asked Mark Nappi, Boeing’s commercial crew program manager, to rate the just-completed Orbital Flight Test (OFT) 2 mission on a scale of one to ten.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4392/1

How Ukraine could help Europe boost its space sector
by Viktor Serbin Tuesday, May 31, 2022


SETS, which makes electric propulsion systems, is among the Ukrainian space companies that could help support European space ambitions. (credit: SETS)

While Ukraine is paying a high price for its independence and recognition, Ukrainian industries, the space industry among them, are under a heavy toll. Many of the core space facilities and companies are in the areas that were or are still actively being bombed by the Russian air forces. But it seems the ongoing war in Ukraine can offer new opportunities for the space industry, especially considering the high chances for Ukraine of joining the EU.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4393/1

National Reconnaissance Program crisis photography concepts, part 1: A six-pack of Corona
by Joseph T. Page IIvTuesday, May 31, 2022


Six-Pack Corona Orbital Vehicle Concept. (credit: NRO)

In the latter half of the 20th Century, one of the most terrifying political crises brought the world to the brink of nuclear war in the span of 13 days. During the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 15–28, 1962), however, the ability of National Reconnaissance Program (NRP) imagery satellites to pivot to a short-term (“crisis”) mode—with either a rapid launch or film return—was near zero.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4394/1

Cubesats to the Moon
by Jeff Foust Tuesday, May 31, 2022


CAPSTONE, a cubesat weighing 25 kilograms at launch, will test the stability of the near-rectilinear halo orbit NASA plans to use for Artemis missions, while also demonstrating autonomous positioning technologies. (credit: NASA/Daniel Rutter)

On the evening of Monday, June 13, in New Zealand, a Rocket Lab Electron rocket is scheduled to lift off from the company’s Launch Complex 1. That launch will look like many others by the company except for a prominent white NASA “worm” logo on the side of the booster, an indication that the launch is being performed for the space agency. (As this article was being prepared for publication, NASA announced the launch had slipped to June 13 from June 6 in order to provide more time for final readiness checks.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4395/1

[Orionid]

Pierwsze artykuły z czerwca.
Warto zapoznać się z recenzją książki o badaniach przyrodniczych prowadzonych w warunkach mikrograwitacji w okresie
1980-2004, również o tych które pozostały tylko w sferze planowania. Wg mnie marne są niestety perspektywy zainteresowania się książką polskiego wydawcy.
https://4kidsbooks.indielite.org/book/9781683402602

A co z Rosalind Franklin ? Może dopiero w 2028 łazik zostanie wyniesiony w kierunku Marsa.

1/VI 2022/47

Review: Life in Space
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 6, 2022



Life in Space: NASA Life Sciences Research during the Late Twentieth Century
by Maura Phillips Mackowski
Univ. of Florida Press, 2022
hardcover, 392 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-68340-260-2
US$35
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/168340260X/spaceviews

In an upcoming launch from the Kennedy Space Center, a Falcon 9 will send a cargo Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station. The spacecraft will be carrying its usual variety of research payloads, some of which the agency discussed at a briefing last week. They include experiments to study wound healing in microgravity, aging of the immune system and behavior of soil microbes.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4396/1

What the Voyager space probes can teach humanity about immortality and legacy
by James Edward Huchingson Monday, June 6, 2022


The Voyager spacecraft and their Golden Records might outlast humanity, providing us with a sense of immortality. (credit: NASA)

Voyager 1 is the farthest human-made object from Earth. After sweeping by Jupiter, Saturn, and the outer solar system, it is now almost 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth in interstellar space. Both Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, carry little pieces of humanity in the form of their Golden Records. These messages in a bottle include spoken greetings in 55 languages, sounds and images from nature, an album of recordings and images from numerous cultures, and a written message of welcome from Jimmy Carter, who was US president when the spacecraft left Earth in 1977.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4397/1

Our Mars rover mission was suspended because of the Ukraine war: here’s what we’re hoping for next
by Andrew Coates Monday, June 6, 2022


The Rosalind Franklin rover was weeks away from being shipped to the launch site when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led ESA to call off the launch. Its next chance to launch may not come until 2028. (credit: ESA)

Just a few months ago, we were confidently expecting to launch our rover, Rosalind Franklin, to Mars in September as part of the ExoMars mission, a collaboration between Europe and Russia. The landing was planned for June 2023. Everything was ready: the rover, the operations team, and the eager scientists.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4398/1

Will the economy deflect the trajectory of space startups?
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 6, 2022


SpaceX launched dozens of smallsat payloads on the Transporter-5 rideshare mission last month, heling further the growth of the space industry despite the potential for a downturn. (credit: SpaceX)

For the last few years, it had been something of a space industry parlor game to predict when there would be a shakeout among the growing number of startups. After all, there were far too many companies working on small launch vehicles, each needing to raise tens to hundreds of millions of dollars, than most reasonable forecasts of the market could support. Then there were the LEO constellations, needing in some cases billions of dollars, for demand that might be filled by only a couple such systems.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4399/1

2/VI 2022

Review: Far Side of the Moon
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 13, 2022



Far Side of the Moon: Apollo 8 Commander Frank Borman and the Woman Who Gave Him Wings
by Liisa Jorgensen
Chicago Review Press, 2021
hardcover, 336 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-64160-606-6
US$30.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1641606061/spaceviews

The personal toll that the Apollo program had on the families of the astronauts went to the Moon, kept out of public view during the program itself, has increasingly come to light through memoirs and other accounts. As Liisa Jorgensen notes in the opening pages of her book Far Side of the Moon, of the 29 Apollo astronauts who flew, 19 of them had marriages than ended in divorce.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4400/1

The Russian space threat and a defense against it with guardian satellites
by Matthew Mowthorpe Monday, June 13, 2022


A bodyguard satellite could detect potential attacks against the satellites its protecting and defend against them

Russia has a long history of developing space weapons. It has demonstrated a capability to kinetically intercept satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) from space and more recently from the ground in late 2021. Additionally, it can use ground-based lasers to dazzle satellites in LEO. Russia can conduct radiofrequency (RF) jamming from mobile platforms against communication satellites in LEO. This article examines Russia’s ASAT concepts and places them in the context of military space doctrine that threatens both US and NATO allies’ satellites. The increasing threat to satellites has led to the development of the concept of a bodyguard satellite.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4401/1

Learning to let go of space missions
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 13, 2022


Dust accumulating on InSight’s sollar arrays has drastically reduced the power they can produce, meaning the mission will likely end in a matter of months. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

The end of InSight is in sight.

At a press conference last month, NASA officials acknowledged what had long been feared: dust accumulating on the solar panels of the lander was diminishing their output to the point where, soon, the spacecraft will not generate enough power to operate its instruments. And, by late this year, the panels won’t generate enough power to keep the spacecraft alive at all.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4402/1

Dark Clouds: The secret meteorological satellite program (part 3)

The National Reconnaissance Office finally builds top secret weather satellites
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, June 13, 2022


Artist illustration of the top secret Program 35/Program 417 weather satellite. Smaller than NASA’s Tiros satellite, it had only one vidicon camera compared to Tiros’ two cameras. Visible near the bottom of the satellite are the wires holding de-spin weights used to reduce the satellite’s rotation rate upon reaching orbit. (credit: NRO)

On Vandenberg Space Force Base, a couple of kilometers up from the cragged coast of the Pacific Ocean along the dusty Delphy Road—named for a Navy destroyer that sank just offshore in 1923—is a flat patch of compressed ground. The buildings, infrastructure, and cabling are all gone, and there’s no longer any indication that this used to be Space Launch Complex 5, the site of several highly classified rocket launches. SLC-5—or “Slick-5” as it was called—used to be a Scout rocket launch site, and in the early 1960s, Air Force officers watched the long, skinny Scouts rise up from this location, arc out over the water, and far too often splash their top secret payloads into the Pacific Ocean. Some of the early rockets launched from that site carried highly classified weather satellites designed to support other equally secret reconnaissance satellites launched from locations just a few kilometers north of SLC-5. Putting the satellites in orbit proved to be difficult to accomplish in those early days, and the Air Force officers responsible for the Scout’s secret payloads cursed the NASA rocket they were forced to use, vowing to find a better alternative. But they also persevered in their mission to orbit weather satellites that they considered vital to collecting intelligence on the Soviet Union.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4403/1

3/VI 2022

Review: The Sky Is for Everyone
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 20, 2022



The Sky Is for Everyone: Women Astronomers in Their Own Words
by Virginia Trimble and David A. Weintraub (eds.)
Princeton Univ. Press, 2022
hardcover, 504 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-691-20710-0
US$29.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691207100/spaceviews

Last week, the American Astronomical Society (AAS) held its first in-person meeting since January 2020. The organization, which holds conferences twice a year, had three meetings turned into virtual events because of the pandemic while the fourth, planned to be an in-person event in Salt Lake City in January of this year, was canceled on short notice because of the omicron surge of the COVID pandemic. (The bags and badge lanyards produced for that conference were instead used for last week’s conference, creating a bit of confusion and amusement.) While technically a hybrid event, with the ability to participate remotely, most registrants traveled to Pasadena, California, to be there in person.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4404/1

Gaia mission: five insights astronomers could glean from its latest data
by Adam McMaster and Andrew Norton Monday, June 20, 2022


The latest release of data from ESA’s Gaia spacecraft could support research ranging from the expansion of the universe to the discovery of moons of asteroids. (credit: ESA)

The European Space Agency’s Gaia mission has just released new data. The Gaia satellite was launched in 2013, with the aim of measuring the precise positions of a billion stars. In addition to measuring the stars’ positions, speeds, and brightness, the satellite has collected data on a huge range of other objects.

There’s a lot to make astronomers excited. Here are five of our favorite insights that the data might provide.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4405/1

NASA to launch three rockets from Northern Territory in boost for Australian space efforts
by Melissa de Zwart Monday, June 20, 2022


Australia’s Arnhem Space Centre will host three launches of NASA sounding rockets over the next month, a sign of the growth of the country’s space industry. (credit: ESA)

Over the next month, NASA will launch three rockets from the Arnhem Space Centre in the Northern Territory (NT) on the Dhupuma Plateau, near Nhulunbuy. The rockets are 13-meter sounding rockets that will not reach orbit but will take scientific observations.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4406/1

A step closer for Starship
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 20, 2022


An FAA environmental review cleared launches of SpaceX’s Starship/Super Heavy vehicle from Boca Chica, but with dozens of mitigations, large and small, required. (credit: SpaceX)

For months, Starship advocates, opponents, and those simply interested in SpaceX’s heavy-lift launch vehicle have been circling dates on their calendars, only to cross them off.

Last fall, the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation projected it would complete the environmental assessment for Starship/Super Heavy launches from SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas, test site—aka Starbase—by the end of the year. But in late December, the agency said it was moving the completion date to the end of February, citing work needed to review some 18,000 public comments and coordinate with other agencies.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4407/1

4/VI 2022

Every single contribution counts
by Timo Pesonen Monday, June 27, 2022


The aerospace and defense industries in Europe are paying more attention to diversity in its workforce. (credit: Airbus)

We need more diversity in the aerospace and defense workforce.

The sector has a high percentage of highly skilled and specialized professionals but the gender gap is considerable: only around 20% of employees are women. This is similar to other tech sectors in Europe, whose talent pool consists mainly of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduates. It nevertheless causes shortages and mismatches, affecting the smooth functioning of its supply chains and its worldwide competitiveness.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4408/1

Why the space industry needs a space college
by Dylan Taylor and Keith Cowing Monday, June 27, 2022


Attendees of the latest summer session of the International Space University. While that university has offered space-related programs for decades, it’s not sufficient to meet the growing demands of the space industry. (credit: ISU)

According to the Space Foundation's annual report, the global space economy netted $447 billion in 2020. Commercial space activity alone rose to nearly $357 billion, representing 80% of the total space economy. Launch attempts, which totaled 145, were the highest in history.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4409/1

Escaping Gravity and the struggle to reshape NASA
by Rand Simberg Monday, June 27, 2022


Bill Nelson, at the time a US senator, and Lori Garver, at the time NASA’s deputy administrator, at a 2012 event for the Orion spacecraft. Garver recalls in her new book a difficult working relationship with Nelson, then a critic of commercial crew. (credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett)

On September 16, 2021, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket ascended into space with a crew capsule atop it, carrying four private citizens—two men and two women. It was the first orbital spaceflight in history without a government employee aboard. More recently, in April of 2022, another milestone was achieved, with the first fully private flight to the International Space Station, in which the four-man crew performed research there for more than two weeks before returning to Earth.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4410/1

NASA rents the runway for its new spacesuits
by Jeff Foust Monday, June 27, 2022


An illustration of the spacesuit that Collins Aerospace plans to develop for NASA Artemis missions under a services contract NASA awarded nearly a month ago. (credit: Collins Aerospace)

On March 23, NASA astronaut Raja Chari and ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer conducted a spacewalk outside the International Space Station, spending nearly seven hours outside the station to conduct routine maintenance work. The two were able to complete all their major objectives, although some secondary tasks were put off for a future spacewalk.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4411/1

Dark Clouds: The secret meteorological satellite program (part 4)
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, June 27, 2022

The Air Force finally gets its weather satellite


The first Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Block 5D-1 satellite was launched in September 1976. It was far larger and more complex than its predecessor, and also two years behind schedule. (credit: Peter Hunter Collection

On the evening of July 14, 1980, a Thor-Burner rocket lifted off from its pad only a few hundred meters from the rocky Pacific coast at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It arced out over the ocean, heading south. As it climbed, at least for awhile, all looked fine. Soon its first stage shut down and the second stage started to separate.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4412/1

[Orionid]

1/VII 2022/48

Rosja opracowuje naziemne systemy laserowe do oślepiania satelitów, co może mieć zastosowanie przeciwko wojskowym satelitom rozpoznawczym jak i komercyjnym satelitom obrazowania optycznego.

Review: The Elephant in the Universe
by Jeff Foust Tuesday, July 5, 2022



The Elephant in the Universe: Our Hundred-Year Search for Dark Matter
by Govert Schilling
Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press, 2022
hardcover, 376 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-674-24899-1
US$29.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674248996/spaceviews

Astronomy has made great strides in improving our understanding of the universe, particularly in the last century. We now know our galaxy of a few hundred billion stars is just one of billions of galaxies in a universe that started some 13.7 billion years ago in the Big Bang. It is a universe populated with exotica like pulsars and neutrons stars, but also countless planets, some of which might be hospitable to life, like Earth.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4413/1

Boozy Chimps in Orbit and intoxicating Saturns: Where space pop meets Tiki culture
by Deana L. Weibel Tuesday, July 5, 2022


“Sloshed in Space” by Thor (Tom Thordarson), an example of space-themed “Tiki” items. Photo used with permission of artist.

In July 2018, a year before the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 flight, I began looking for Tiki mugs that had some connection to astronauts, spaceflight, or the Moon. According to Tiki expert Sven Kirstin, Tikis—“idols of wood and stone” based on the Polynesian depiction of the first man, a “demigod named Tiki”—were a sensation in the United States of the 20th century and by the 1950s “became the pop-culture icon of this America yearning for an earthly paradise” (2014, 11). My husband and I were getting increasingly interested the kitschy appeal of the playful, nostalgic, and deeply unrealistic world of Tiki while I, at the same time, had begun focusing my anthropological research on religious aspects of space exploration. Glen and I both enjoyed space history (he is a former chief historian at the Johnson Space Center) and had a fondness for pop culture depictions of space from the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. A space-themed Tiki mug seemed just the thing.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4414/1

The perils of planetary rideshares
by Jeff Foust Tuesday, July 5, 2022


The Janus smallsat mission to study binary asteroids was to fly as a rideshare on the Falcon Heavy launching Psyche, but is now on hold after Psyche missed its launch window this year. (credit: Lockheed Martin)

Smallsat developers have long known the benefits and challenges of rideshare launch opportunities. Such opportunities can offer a much cheaper ride to space than a dedicated launch. However, it requires finding a suitable launch to hitch a ride on, and being subject to the whims of the primary payload that drives the launch schedule and other mission parameters.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4415/1

Kalina: a Russian ground-based laser to dazzle imaging satellites
by Bart Hendrickx Tuesday, July 5, 2022


Kalina’s laser telescope. (Source)

There is strong evidence that a space surveillance complex in Russia’s northern Caucasus is being outfitted with a new laser system called Kalina that will target optical systems of foreign imaging satellites flying over Russian territory. Initiated in 2011, the project has suffered numerous delays, but recent Google Earth imagery shows that construction is now well underway. Kalina will complement a mobile laser dazzler known as Peresvet that has been operational since late 2019.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4416/1


2/VII 2022/

Review: Escaping Gravity
by Jeff Foust Monday, July 11, 2022



Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age
by Lori Garver
Diversion Books, 2022
hardcover, 304 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-63576-770-4
US$28.99
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1635767709/spaceviews

There is no shortage of memoirs and biographies about NASA astronauts. Many of them want to tell the story of their dreams to fly in space and how they realized them after years of effort while overcoming various setbacks along the way. There are far fewer such books, though, about the people who led the agency: administrators, deputy administrators, and other senior officials. These people, after all, helped shape the programs that allowed those astronauts to fly to space and decided who would on them.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4417/1

Space and America’s future
by Frank Slazer Monday, July 11, 2022


More funding for NASA could enable the agency to increase the rate of Artemis missions to the Moon, with benefits for both NASA and the country. (credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky)

In about three years, NASA plans to land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon as part of its Artemis program. The agency is also exploring technologies that could eventually allow humans to travel to Mars, and beyond, in future missions.

These efforts are encouraging. But they could be too bold to accomplish, given NASA’s meager budget. Of the $6.6 trillion the federal government spent in 2020, just 0.3% went to NASA.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4418/1

An ICAO for the Moon: It’s time for an International Civil Lunar Organization
by Peter Garretson Monday, July 11, 2022


As more countries and companies lay out plans to go to the Moon, an ICAO-like organization would be best suited to establishing standards and best practices for enable such activities to continue safely. (credit: ESA)

The United States has an opportunity to lead in the responsible, peaceful, and sustainable exploration and use of outer space through the opportunity to lead centers around the projected increase in activity on and near the Moon. According to the State of the Space Industrial Base 2021, a variety of nations and their companies are planning more than 100 missions to the Moon in the next decade, and noted that more than 140 companies have “lunar” or “cislunar” in their business plans. More recently, Citigroup has estimated that by 2040, Moon mining could be worth $12 billion in annual sales. As noted by the recent World Economic Forum report, the space sector has reached an inflection point where commercialization is beginning to outpace governance.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4419/1

JWST and the future of large space telescopes
by Jeff Foust Monday, July 11, 2022


With JWST now operational, some astronomers want to push ahead with a new generation of large space telescopes that will one day succeed it. (credit: NASA/Adriana Manrique Gutierrez)

On Tuesday, NASA and its Canadian and European partners will unveil a set of images and data that represent the early release observations of the James Webb Space Telescope. While not the first images from the telescope—NASA has been releasing engineering images from the telescope and its various instruments over the last several months as part of the commissioning process—these represent the first science-quality observations from the telescope, demonstrating its various capabilities. (One of the images, it turns out, was released Monday at a White House event, a development announced late Sunday.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4420/1


3/VII 2022

Review: Apollo 11 Flight Plan: Relaunched
by Jeff Foust Monday, July 18, 2022



Apollo 11 Flight Plan: Relaunched
relaunch.space, 2022
hardcover, 400 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-6678-4082-6
US$59.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1667840827/spaceviews

This week marks the 53rd anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. It is a milestone that is not particularly round (it’s prime, in fact) so it will not get much fanfare beyond some events linked with a new International Moon Day on and around July 20. It comes at the tail end of the celebrations of the overall 50th anniversary of the Apollo program, with that anniversary of the final Moon landing mission, Apollo 17, coming up in December.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4421/1

ASATs and space law: quo vadis?
by Leia-Maria Lupu and Maira Sophie Müller Monday, July 18, 2022


A simulation of the intercept of the Cosmos 1408 satellite by a Russian ASAT missile in the November 2021 test. (credit: COMSPOC)

On June 17, 2022, the International Space Station had to maneuver to avoid an imminent collision with space debris caused by an ASAT mission conducted by Russia in 2021. This calls attention to the overall safety of ASAT missions in light of the growing risk of space debris.

Antisatellite (ASAT) weapons are space weapons created to destroy other satellites such as through a shoot-down mechanism, with the explosion of the targeted satellite producing tons of space debris ranging from one millimeter to ten centimeters in size. Currently, there are two types of ASATs: co-orbital and direct-ascent. While the former is a weapon sent into orbit to destroy a target satellite in close proximity, the latter is a missile launched from the surface of the Earth targeting a satellite in orbit.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4422/1

Not necessarily for the NRP: Final thoughts on the Casa Grande crosses
by Joseph T. Page II Monday, July 18, 2022


Present-day Concrete Cross. Courtesy of Google Maps.

After the publication of the previous article on the Casa Grande concrete crosses (see “Candy CORN: analyzing the CORONA concrete crosses myth,” The Space Review, December 21, 2020), and the heap of TLDR (too long, didn’t read) comments on Reddit and other online forums that still insisted the Arizona concrete crosses were somehow linked to the Corona photo-reconnaissance satellites, I made one final push into the research realm for a definitive answer to either prove or refute any connection to the National Reconnaissance Program (NRP).
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4423/1

The transformation of JWST
by Jeff Foust Monday, July 18, 2022


An image of the Carina Nebula taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, part of the early release observations published last week. (credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI)

For all the anticipation about the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope, and the expectation that those images would be both aesthetically and scientifically stunning, the last thing you think you would need to get people hyped about the release of those images is a pep rally.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4424/1


4/VII 2022

Will NASA rename the James Webb Space Telescope?
A space expert explains the Lavender Scare controversy
by Alice Gorman Monday, July 25, 2022


NASA Administrator James Webb with John F. Kennedy at Cape Canaveral in 1963. The agency’s decision two decades ago to name a space telescope after Webb is controversial today because of allegations he participated in the “Lavender Scare” in the 1950s. (credit: NASA)

The first images from the James Webb Space Telescope are astounding. With its deep infrared eyes, the telescope is illuminating regions of the Universe with never-before-possible clarity.

The telescope is a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. More than 300 universities, companies, space agencies and organizations are involved.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4425/1

Advanced Gambit and VHR
by Philip Horzempa Monday, July 25, 2022


Advanced Gambit Option A with 2 SRV capsules. (credit: NRO)

Newly declassified documents from the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) have revealed a previously unknown member of the Gambit reconnaissance satellite family. This was referred to as the Advanced Gambit-3 (AG3), though it is quite different from the standard Gambit-3 vehicles. It is so different from previous models that it could, and should, be referred to as Gambit-4. The AG3 included a camera that resembled the KH-10 from the Dorian Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4426/1

The rebirth of NASA
by Roger Handberg Monday, July 25, 2022


NASA is finally near the first flight of the Space Launch System, the rocket the agency says it needs to return humans to the Moon, but its development suggests NASA may be better off handing launch operations over to the private sector. (credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky)

NASA is amid a rebirth: a return to the agency’s origins as a research and development agency rather than as an operator of systems. This change positions NASA to have a continuing impact on US and, by extension, global space programs. Two ongoing events herald this impending change: the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Space Launch System (SLS), both are at critical stages in the arc of their development and operation. Both struggled with delays and funding issues created by the slowness of progress toward operational status.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4427/1

Billionaires and backlash: suborbital spaceflight a year after Branson and Bezos
by Jeff Foust Monday, July 25, 2022


Blue Origin’s New Shepard lifts off on a June mission, just the fourth to carry people since company founder Jeff Bezos flew to space a year ago. (credit: Blue Origin)

A year ago, the space community watched a marathon end with a sprint. After many years of development, and many years of delays, both Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic finally flew their founders to space days apart. Richard Branson went on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo nine days before Jeff Bezos went on the first crewed flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard. It marked the end the lengthy development phase of commercial human suborbital spaceflight and the promise of a new era of operational flights that would give many more people a chance to briefly experience expansive views and microgravity (see “Will suborbital space tourism take a suborbital trajectory?”, The Space Review, July 26, 2021).
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4428/1

[Orionid]

1/VIII 2022/49

Why the molten salt reactor should be our next big step for terrestrial and off-planet needs
by Ajay Kothari Monday, August 1, 2022


A new type of nuclear reactor could help advance efforts to develop space nuclear propulsion and power systems (credit: NASA)

Addressing climate change, especially reducing carbon dioxide emissions while at the same time producing needed energy, is engaging humanity worldwide, and is apt to occupy the Biden Administration and its successors ever more so. While developing various technologies, one should also bear in mind another potential solution that is much simpler, cheaper, and faster to implement, while we wait for other solutions such as controlled fusion. Within the past year France and some countries in the EU announced their intention to pursue nuclear for their energy needs. China also prepared to test a thorium-fueled nuclear reactor in September 2021, although no test results information has been available since.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4429/1

What is space development?
by John K. Strickland Monday, August 1, 2022


NASA and others need to carefully define what is considered “space development” to enable efforts like bases on Mars. (credit: SpaceX)

The current NASA program of space “exploration” consists primarily of developing its own heavy-lift transport system, using commercial providers for its existing launch needs, operating a scientific space station in low Earth orbit, and designing, building and operating a large variety of robotic spacecraft throughout the solar system and beyond. It is planning to land payloads on the Moon in the near future, along with an occasional short human visit to cislunar space and the Moon. Eventually there are hopes (but no concrete plans) to establish a lunar base and visit Mars in the more distant future. Space development activities, though, can only occur at permanents bases and facilities. Current NASA plans would only start this phase sometime in the mid-2030’s.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4430/1

A review of Chinese counterspace activities
by Matthew Mowthorpe and Markos Trichas Monday, August 1, 2022


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)

China has a long history of developing space weapons. It has demonstrated a capability to kinetically intercept satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) from the ground. Earlier this year China demonstrated a new capability to hide in the “graveyard” beyond geostationary orbit (GEO) and re-emerge to grapple a satellite in GEO. Additionally, it has the ability to use ground-based lasers to dazzle satellites in LEO. China has the ability to conduct radiofrequency (RF) jamming from mobile platforms against communication satellites in LEO. This article examines China’s ASAT concepts and places them in the context of their respective military space doctrines which threatens both US and NATO allies’ satellites.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4431/1

ISS in the balance
by Jeff Foust Monday, August 1, 2022


NASA wants to keep the ISS operational to 2030 before shifting to commercial space stations, but those plans face several challenges. (credit: NASA)

Last Tuesday, hundreds of people gathered for the first International Space Station Research and Development Conference to take place in person in three years, having gone virtual in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic. But just as they were settling into their seats in a ballroom at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, coffee and pastries in hand for the opening plenary, came word that the ISS might soon be ending.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4432/1

Note: The Space Review is on a reduced publication schedule this month and will not publish the week of August 8. We will be back on Monday, August 15.


2/VIII 2022/49

Review: A History of Near-Earth Objects Research
by Jeff Foust Monday, August 15, 2022



A History of Near-Earth Objects Research
by Erik M. Conway, Donald K. Yeomans, and Meg Rosenburg
NASA, 2022
ebook, 394 pp., illus.
free
https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/history-of-neo-research.html

Six weeks from today, Earth strikes back against the asteroids. At 7:14 pm EDT on September 26, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft will collide with the small asteroid Dimorphos, which orbits a larger asteroid, Didymos. The impact will change the period of Dimorphos’ orbit as a test of one technique to deflect the trajectory of a potentially hazardous asteroid.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4433/1

Roe v. Wade: the space case
by Vanessa Farsadaki Monday, August 15, 2022


Long-duration missions, like trips to Mars, present new challenges for reproductive rights. (credit: NASA)

Roe v. Wade was a landmark case that posited that it is a woman’s right to choose, as protected under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. With the recent overturn of that legal precedent by the US Supreme Court, the entire country is considering the implications for this controversial issue. As an expert in space medicine and a future astronaut, I find myself asking similar questions regarding the implications of this change to the future of human spaceflight. How should the law evolve once we leave the boundaries of Earth? How will nations manage a woman’s right to choose or what can and cannot happen with a woman’s body when that person is living and working in space? And how should the ethics be shaped when this issue surfaces in relation to mission assurance for space flights?
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4434/1

Small launchers struggle to reach orbit
by Jeff Foust Monday, August 15, 2022


India’s Small Satellite Launch Vehicle lifts off August 7 on its inaugural, but unsuccessful, flight. (credit: ISRO)

On the morning of August 7, a crowd gathered in the control room at India’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre, the country’s main launch site. They were there to see the long-awaited inaugural launch of the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV), a rocket designed to place up to 500 kilograms into low Earth orbit. It was the newest of a dizzying array of new small launchers being developed worldwide to serve the burgeoning smallsat market.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4435/1

Chief communicator: How Star Trek’s Lieutenant Uhura helped NASA
by Glen E. Swanson Monday, August 15, 2022


Nichelle Nichols is shown in NASA’s Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in March 1977. (credit: NASA)

With the recent death of Nichelle Nichols, the number of surviving principal cast members of Gene Roddenberry’s original Star Trek television series shrank again. There now remain only three regular crew members of the Starship Enterprise: Ensign Chekov (Walter Koenig), Lieutenant Sulu (George Takei) and Captain Kirk (William Shatner) to help remind us of the pioneering television series that originally aired on NBC from 1966 to 1969.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4436/1


3/VIII 2022/49

Review: A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman
by Jeff Foust Monday, August 22, 2022



A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman: A Memoir
by Lindy Elkins-Tanton
William Morrow, 2022
hardcover, 272 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-06-308690-6
US$29.99
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0063086905/spaceviews

Had everything gone according to plan, Lindy Elkins-Tanton would be celebrating a launch this month. Elkins-Tanton is principal investigator for NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, a Discovery-class mission to the metallic main-belt asteroid of the same name. By early May, the spacecraft was at Cape Canaveral for final preparations for a launch on a Falcon Heavy scheduled for early August that would have the spacecraft arrive at Psyche in 2026.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4437/1

War in Ukraine highlights the growing strategic importance of private satellite companies, especially in times of conflict
by Mariel Borowitz Monday, August 22, 2022


High-resolution imaging satellites, like the Skysat series operated by Planet, have had a major effect on the war in Ukraine. (credit: Maxar)

Satellites owned by private companies have played an unexpectedly important role in the war in Ukraine. For example, in early August 2022, images from the private satellite company Planet Labs showed that a recent attack on a Russian military base in Crimea caused more damage than Russia had suggested in public reports. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy highlighted the losses as evidence of Ukraine’s progress in the war.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4438/1

The time has finally come for Artemis 1
by Jeff Foust Monday, August 22, 2022


NASA’s Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft on the pad for the Artemis 1 launch, scheduled for the morning of August 29. (credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky)

For more than a decade, the Space Launch System has been in something of a liminal state. It was a very real program, with real hardware being built and tested around the country, and consuming more than $2 billion a year for much of that time. But, as a rocket itself, it was still theoretical, years behind schedule and yet to even attempt to lift off. Until it rolled out to the pad for the first time in March, NASA could only offer illustrations of the rocket, in liveries that changed over the years, and animations of it blasting off from Launch Complex 39B.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4439/1

The origins and evolution of the Defense Support Program (part 1)
Infrared for missile warning
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, August 22, 2022


The fourth Defense Support Program satellite on the cover of Aviation Week and Space Technology in 1985. This satellite was launched in 1973. Due to classification, few photos and illustrations of the spacecraft were released for the first two decades of operations.

In January 2020, American forces in the Middle East were on high alert, expecting an attack from Iran in response to an American attack that killed a senior Iranian general. Intelligence information indicated that a missile attack was likely, and so the United States Space Force used its Space Based Infrared Satellites (SBIRS) to monitor Iran’s missile launch sites. Staring sensors on the satellites in geosynchronous and highly elliptical orbits were focused on the launch locations, and when they spotted the infrared signatures of missiles, they were able to precisely track them and predict their targets, providing that information to American forces in Iraq with enough warning time for them to take cover.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4440/1

Note: The Space Review is on a reduced publication schedule this month and will not publish the week of August 29. We will be back on Tuesday, September 6, after the Labor Day weekend.

[Orionid]

1/IX 2022/50

Review: The Milky Way
by Jeff Foust Tuesday, September 6, 2022



The Milky Way: An Autobiography of Our Galaxy
by Moiya McTier
Grand Central Publishing, 2022
hardcover, 256 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-5387-5415-3
US$27
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1538754150/spaceviews

If galaxies could talk, what would they say? It’s a strange question, to be certain. However, it’s also an interesting thought exercise, particularly as science writers try to find new ways to discuss topics, like astrophysics, to broader audiences. How would a galaxy tell its story of its birth, development, and eventual demise?
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4441/1

Frank Drake has passed away but his equation for alien intelligence is more important than ever
by David Rothery Tuesday, September 6, 2022


Frank Drake with the equation he developed to estimate the number of detectable civilizations in the galaxy. (credit: The SETI Institute)

How many intelligent civilizations should there be in our galaxy right now? In 1961, the US astrophysicist Frank Drake, who passed away on September 2 at the age of 92, came up with an equation to estimate this. The Drake equation, dating from a stage in his career when he was “too naive to be nervous” (as he later put it), has become famous and bears his name.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4442/1

The origins and evolution of the Defense Support Program (part 2)
DSP gets an upgrade
by Dwayne A. Day Tuesday, September 6, 2022


DSP Flight 5 was launched in December 1975 and was the first of the Phase II satellites with upgrades to be placed in orbit. “F-5”, as it was known, was actually the seventh satellite built. But a few days after reaching orbit it suffered a failure and spun out of control and was lost. (credit: USAF)

The first Defense Support Program (DSP) satellite was launched in 1971, and by June 30, 1973, the four barrel-shaped spinning DSP satellites in orbit had detected a total of 1,014 missile launches as their large infrared telescopes swept the face of the Earth every ten seconds.[1] They had proven quite successful in their mission and had relieved some of the tension that was always present during the Cold War by dramatically reducing the chances of a Soviet surprise attack. (See “The origins and evolution of the Defense Support Program (part 1): Infrared for missile warning”, The Space Review, August 22, 2022.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4443/1

Of hydrogen and humility
by Jeff Foust Tuesday, September 6, 2022


The Space Launch System during its second attempt to launch on the Artemis 1 mission September 3, which was scrubbed by a liquid hydrogen leak. (credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky)

NASA went into the first attempts to launch the Space Launch System last week with a high level of confidence in the vehicle. One needed only to look at the preparations the agency made for that first launch attempt August 29. NASA’s televised coverage of the launch was to include celebrities like Jack Black and Chris Evans, with Josh Groban and Herbie Hancock performing the national anthem. Vice President Kamala Harris would fly in to watch the launch, then tour the Kennedy Space Center and give a speech on US leadership in space.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4444/1


2/IX 2022/50

Unwinding a conflict of treaties
by Paul Costello Monday, September 12, 2022


A legal precedent much older than the Outer Space Treaty could support property rights claims for future Moon and Mars settlements. (credit: SpaceX)

Contrary to long held beliefs misguidedly premised upon 1967’s Outer Space Treaty (OST), answers to questions like “who owns the Moon,” or, for that matter, Mars, will be decided under much older legal precedence, called Doctrines of Capture and Conquest. The latter, Doctrine of Conquest, is the focus of this essay.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4445/1

Lunar mining, Moon land claims, and avoiding conflict and damage to spacecraft
by Michelle L.D. Hanlon Monday, September 12, 2022


Future lunar landers, like SpaceX’s giant Starship, could kick up large amounts of dust that could post hazards to other operations on the lunar surface. (credit: SpaceX)

It’s been 50 years since humans last visited the Moon, and even robotic missions have been few and far between. But the Earth’s only natural satellite is about to get crowded.

At least six countries and a flurry of private companies have publicly announced more than 250 missions to the Moon to occur within the next decade. Many of these missions include plans for permanent lunar bases and are motivated in large part by ambitions to assess and begin utilizing the Moon’s natural resources. In the short term, resources would be used to support lunar missions, but in the long term, the Moon and its resources will be a critical gateway for missions to the broader riches of the solar system.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4446/1

A substantive National Space Council meeting
by Jeff Foust Monday, September 12, 2022


Vice President Kamala Harris (center) chaired the September 9 National Space Council meeting, with participants that included Alondra Nelson (left) of OSTP and NASA administrator Bill Nelson. (credit: NASA)

Most meetings of the National Space Council since it was revived five years ago have paid at least some attention to optics and visuals. The first, in October 2017, was held at the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center, with the nose of the shuttle Discovery as the backdrop. (The council returned there nearly two years later, this time at the other end of the orbiter.) Many others have used space hardware of some kind as background, a visual reminder that this is the National Space Council.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4447/1

A darker shade of blue: The unknown Air Force manned space program
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, September 12, 2022


The Air Force was prohibited from having a man-in-space program competing with NASA’s Mercury program in the early 1960s. Air Force officials became interested in the Gemini spacecraft as a means of gaining early human spaceflight experience. (credit: NASA)

In 1958, before the creation of NASA and the start of the Mercury program, the Air Force sponsored a project named Man-In-Space-Soonest, or MISS. As part of MISS, aerospace contractor Lockheed proposed a spacecraft five feet (1.5 meters) diameter to carry a single astronaut into orbit. The proposed spacecraft was the same diameter as the Agena upper stage spacecraft. Lockheed’s manned spacecraft would have been smaller than Mercury and would have ridden atop an Atlas-Agena launch vehicle.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4448/1


3/IX 2022/50

Harpoons, robots, and lasers: how to capture defunct satellites and other space junk and bring it back to Earth
by Ralph Cooney Monday, September 19, 2022


A Swiss company, ClearSpace, will attempt to grapple and remove a launch vehicle payload adapter from orbit in 2025 on an ESA-funded mission. (credit: ClearSpace)

More than half of the thousands of satellites in orbit are now defunct, and this accumulation of floating space debris has been described as a “fatal problem” for current and future space missions and human space travel.

An estimated 130 million objects smaller than one centimeter and 34,000 larger than ten centinmeters are travelling in orbit at speeds of thousands of kilometers per hour, according to the European Space Agency (ESA). A report presented at this year’s European conference on space debris suggests the amount of space junk could increase fifty-fold by 2100.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4449/1

Return to panic: How two iconic NASA astronauts survived the 1970s and beyond
by Emily Carney Monday, September 19, 2022


Astronaut Fred W. Haise Jr., lunar module pilot of the Apollo 13 lunar landing mission, participates in water egress training in a water tank in Building 260 at the Manned Spacecraft Center (credit: NASA)

“Songs are as sad as the listener,” author Jonathan Safran Foer wrote in the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Indeed, perspective—and time—are things that color one’s thoughts, particularly when times get tough. Two NASA astronauts who perhaps had the most challenging times of all during the 1970s were Buzz Aldrin, Gemini 12 veteran and Apollo 11 moonwalker, and Fred Haise, who just missed the Moon during 1970’s Apollo 13. Within two years of triumphantly becoming one of the first humans ever to walk upon the lunar surface, Aldrin graduated from being feted by world leaders to being hospitalized for worsening clinical depression and alcoholism. Within three years of surviving Apollo 13’s oxygen tank explosion and tumultuous return, Haise was entangled in yet another fight for his life—this one somehow magnitudes worse than weathering numerous technical failures in deep space.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4450/1

Europe seeks to stay in the space race
by Jeff Foust Monday, September 19, 2022


A model of an Ariane 6 greets visitors to the International Astronautical Congress in Paris this week. Keeping that vehicle on track is one of the priorities of the upcoming ESA ministerial council meeting that will fund agency programs for the next three years. (credit: J. Foust)

The 73rd International Astronautical Congress (IAC) started in Paris not on a Monday, as is traditionally the case, but instead on Sunday. The shift was reportedly a scheduling issue: the pandemic that delayed the 2020 IAC in Dubai to 2021 also delayed the 2021 IAC in Paris to 2022, and the only dates available at the convention center that straddles the Boulevard Périphérique, several kilometers from the heart of Paris, required the event to start over the weekend.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4451/1


4/IX 2022/50

Review: First Dawn
by Jeff Foust Monday, September 26, 2022



First Dawn: From the Big Bang to Our Future in Space
by Roberto Battiston, translated by Bonnie McClellan-Broussard
MIT Press, 2022
hardcover, 216 pp.
ISBN 978-0-262-04721-0
US$29.99
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262047217/spaceviews

In contrast to astronauts, many of whom have written memoirs, few space agency leaders write books about their time in office or other topics, like former NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver in Escaping Gravity. An exception to this is Roberto Battiston, a physicist who spent four years as the president of the Italian space agency ASI and has written numerous essays and books on space and science topics. The latest, First Dawn, is now available in English.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4452/1

An analysis of Chinese remote sensing satellites
by Henk H.F. Smid Monday, September 26, 2022


A Long March 2D rocket launched a Yunhai-1 military weather satellite September 21. (credit: Xinhua)

As was to be expected, the answer from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to the political visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a Democratic congressional delegation to Taiwan in August was in the form of threatening military operations and drills executed against Taiwan. The maneuvers took place in the waters and skies near Taiwan and included the live-firing of ballistic missiles in the Taiwan Strait. Undoubtedly, the use of the formidable Chinese satellite remote sensing assets made clear to the American military involved that the ability to deploy warships or aircraft with impunity, and even to operate safely from bases in the region, was no longer the case as it was during the mid-1990s. At that time a crisis erupted over Taiwan’s president visiting the US, prompting an angry reaction from Beijing. Reacting, the US Navy sent warships through the Taiwan Strait and there was nothing the PRC could do about it. Now, the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier group just remained in the region to “monitor the situation.” The greatly improved Chinese satellite surveillance capabilities and inherent intelligence of the last two decades made the difference for the most part.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4453/1

Space for (mostly) all
by Jeff Foust Monday, September 26, 2022


Leaders of five space agencies—NASA, ESA, CSA, JAXA and ISRO—participate in a panel at the International Astronautical Congress in Paris September 18. Officials from China and Russia, previously announced to also be on the panel, were absent. (credit: IAF)

The theme of last week’s International Astronautical Congress (IAC) was “Space for All”, or, as written, “Space for @ll”, the at-sign an apparent nod to a digital component that was largely absent at a conference that required one to be there in person to see all of the major sessions. But plenty of people did show up in person: when the IAC closed on Thursday, the International Astronautical Federation said more than 9,300 people registered—a record—from 110 countries.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4454/1

Aiming too high: the Advent military communications satellite
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, September 26, 2022


Engineering test vehicle for the Advent communications satellite under construction at a General Electric facility, probably in early 1962. Advent was a large three-axis stabilized satellite intended for geosynchronous orbit. It fell behind schedule and went over budget before being canceled. It was not until 1974 that a three-axis stabilized geosynchronous communications satellite was demonstrated in space. (credit: San Diego Air and Space Museum)

Over the seven decades of the space age, a common theme has been spacecraft programs that are so ambitious that they fall victim to cost overruns, schedule delays, requirements creep, and often outright cancellation. There are numerous civilian and military examples, including current, ongoing efforts. But this phenomenon is in no ways new and has existed since the earliest days of the space program. An example is the long-forgotten US Army/Air Force Advent communications satellite, which experienced many of those problems before it was canceled in 1962. Although a victim of its own ambition, Advent also suffered from being a little too soon, locked into a technology that was quickly obsolete. Despite its name, Advent proved to be a dead-end in terms of technology, goals, and ambitions for military satellite communications.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4455/1