6)
NewSpace, satcom, and heavy rocketsby Aditya Chaturvedi Monday, January 8, 2024
India’s NSIL selected SpaceX’s Falcon 9, seen here launching a commercial satellite last week, for its GSAT-20 satellite launching later this year. (credit: SpaceX)New Space India Limited (NSIL), ISRO’s commercial wing, has signed a contract with SpaceX for the launch of a communication satellite, GSAT-20, in mid-2024, aboard a Falcon 9. The satellite weighs around 4,700 kilograms, exceeding the 4,000-kilogram capability of ISRO’s GSLV Mark 3. It aims to boost connectivity across India.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4719/17)
India’s mission for understanding the dynamics of the Sunby Ajey Lele Monday, January 8, 2024
The Aditya-L1 spacecraft before its launch last September. (credit: ISRO)On January 6, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully completed halo-orbit insertion of its solar observatory spacecraft, Aditya-L1. (In Sanskrit, Aditya means Sun.) It took 127 days for this craft to reach its final destination, the Lagrangian point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system, around 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth. That is now where this spacecraft will operate for around five years, with an uninterrupted view of the Sun.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4720/18 )
Success and setbacksby Jeff Foust Monday, January 8, 2024
The first Vulcan Centaur lifts off early Monday carrying Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander. (credit: ULA)The first launch of a new rocket is a risky endeavor, with historical success rates on the order of 50%. Last year, for example, saw the first flights of ABL Space Systems’ RS1 and Relativity Space’s Terran 1 fail to reach orbit; the first integrated test flight of SpaceX’s Starship failed spectacularly as well. Lunar landers are also risky, with a historical success rate of less than 50%. Last year India succeeded with its Chandrayaan-3 lander but Japanese company ispace failed with its HAKUTO-R M1 mission.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4721/12/I 2024 [9-12]9)
Review: The Little Book of Aliensby Jeff Foust Monday, January 15, 2024
The Little Book of Aliensby Adam Frank
Harper, 2023
hardcover, 240 pp.
ISBN 978-0-06-327973-5
US$27.99
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0063279738/spaceviewsThe search for evidence of life beyond Earth has followed several, often intertwined, paths. One involves the search for biosignatures, from microfossils on Mars to excess concentrations of oxygen on distant exoplanets, that are evidence of past or present life. That field of astrobiology has grown significantly in the last few decades and is now arguably driving projects like the Habitable Worlds Observatory, a multibillion-dollar next-generation space telescope.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4722/110)
A unified theory of suborbital docking and refuelingby Francis Chastaing Monday, January 15, 2024
Combining concepts proposed for Black Horse (above) with another proposed spaceplane offers insights into suborbital docking and refueling. (credit: USAF)In 1994, Mitchell Burnside Clapp briefly considered suborbital refueling as part of the development of the Black Horse, calling it “a speculative idea.” In 2004 and 2005, Allan Goff wrote two papers related to suborbital docking, proposing FLOC, for Fleet Launched Orbital Craft.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4723/111)
How we’re searching for alien life at previously unexplored frequenciesby Owen Johnson Monday, January 15, 2024
The LOFAR radio telescope at Birr, Ireland, used for a SETI survey at low frequencies. (credit: Wikipedia)Is there life beyond Earth? The question has turned out to be one of the hardest to answer in science. Despite the seemingly boundless expanse of the universe, which implies there’s potential for abundant life, the vast distances between stars render the search akin to locating a needle in a cosmic haystack.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4724/112)
Twenty years of chasing the Moonby Jeff Foust Monday, January 15, 2024
Twenty years after President George W. Bush set a goal of a human lunar return by 2020, NASA has yet to return to the lunar surface, but is making progress. (credit: NASA)On January 14, 2004, President George W. Bush went to NASA Headquarters and delivered a speech outlining what would become known as the Vision for Space Exploration. That strategy called for retiring the Space Shuttle after it completed assembly of the International Space Station at the end of the decade, restarting robotic exploration of the Moon by 2008, and returning astronauts to the lunar surface as soon as 2015, and no later than 2020 (see “Looking beyond vision”, The Space Review, January 19, 2004).
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4725/13/I 2024 [13-16]13)
Review: Things That Go Bump in the Universeby Jeff Foust Monday, January 22, 2024
Things That Go Bump in the Universe: How Astronomers Decode Cosmic Chaos
by C. Renée James
Johns Hopkins University Press
hardcover, 304 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-4214-4693-6
US$29.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1421446936/spaceviewsAstronomers have, over the last several years, shown a growing interest in a topic known professionally as time domain and multimessenger astrophysics, or TDAMM. The topic has emerged as astronomers grapple with a universe that is far more dynamic than once thought.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4726/114)
What do Australians think about space?by Tristan Moss, Aleksandar Deejay, Cassandra Steer, and Kathryn Robison Hasani Monday, January 22, 2024
Australia is increasing its space activities, including work on a lunar rover, but many in the Australian public aren’t aware of those efforts. (credit: Australian Space Agency)If someone were to ask you how space technologies impact your daily life, or how much Australia should invest in space, would you have an immediate answer or would you wonder why these questions were even being asked?
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4727/115)
Turnover and retention: an unspoken cost center affecting space companiesby Joseph Horvath Monday, January 22, 2024
As space companies scale up, they are often chasing the same small number of “unicorn” workers while missing out on talent in adjacent industries. (credit: SpaceX)The space industry has two major pain points, and they are not related to systems, capabilities, or public excitement about the future. The biggest hurdles facing companies today are workforce availability and capital resources. While slightly different challenges, they are related in how they impact a space company’s ability to grow and remain competitive.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4728/116)
The phases of lunar lander successby Jeff Foust Monday, January 22, 2024
JAXA’s SLIM spacecraft did land on the Moon last week, but likely not the orientation depicted in this illustration. (credit: JAXA)The launch industry has gotten comfortable with—or at least grudgingly accepted—the concept of partial success and the importance of setting expectations. It acknowledges there is a gray area between total mission success and failure, like on last month’s launch of an Alpha rocket by Firefly Aerospace that placed its payload into orbit, but not the desired orbit because of an upper stage malfunction.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4729/14/I 2024 [17-20]17)
Review: Good Luck Have Funby Jeff Foust Monday, January 29, 2024
Good Luck Have Fun: Relativity’s Journey to Launch the First 3D Printed Rocket to Spaceby Relativity Space
Relativity Space, 2024
paperback, 224 pp., illus.
ISBN 979-8-9895039-0-2
US$50
https://store.relativityspace.com/collections/all/products/good-luck-have-fun-the-bookSince the beginning of last year, several rockets have made their first launches. Some have been unquestionably successful, like Vulcan Centaur’s debut earlier this month; others, not so much. Somewhere in between was the first launch of Relativity Space’s Terran 1 rocket last March.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4730/118)
Space-related incidents during Taiwan’s electionsby Ajey Lele Monday, January 29, 2024
A Chinese launch of a science spacecraft days before Taiwan’s elections prompted missile warnings on the island because of the rocket’s flight path. (credit: Xinhua)On January 13, 2024, Taiwan held elections for its presidency. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate William Lai won these elections. His party is not known to be a pro-China party. During the entire process of the elections, there was an intense debate about the possibility of China influencing them through various tactics.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4731/119)
The ingenuity of technology demosby Jeff Foust Monday, January 29, 2024
The Ingenuity helicopter, intended to make no more than five flights, instead flew 72 times, racking up more than two hours in the air and covering 17 kilometers. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)On a Friday morning last month, a small ceremony took place at the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in northern Virginia. In one corner of the museum, in the shadow of one of the museum’s most famous artifacts—the shuttle Discovery—a much smaller flying machine sat on a table.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4732/120)
The sacred Moon: Navigating diverse cultural beliefs in lunar missionsby Deana L. Weibel Monday, January 29, 2024
The presence of payloads on the Peregrine carrying cremated remains prompted criticism from the Navajo Nation. (credit: ULA)On January 8, 2024, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket successfully lifted off into space. Among its payloads was the Peregrine lunar lander, a spacecraft built by Astrobotic Technology. This was to be the first lunar landing not sponsored by a government agency, although the lander did carry some NASA payloads (Wall 2019) as well as a number of commercial payloads.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4733/15/II 2024 [21-24]21)
Review: NASA’s Discovery Programby Jeff Foust Monday, February 5, 2024
NASA’s Discovery Program: The First Twenty Years of Competitive Planetary Explorationby Susan M. Niebur with David W. Brown, Editor
NASA, 2023
ebook, 444 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-62683-076-9
Free
https://www.nasa.gov/history/nasas-discovery-program-book/At last week’s meeting of NASA’s Small Bodies Assessment Group, a group devoted to issues of exploration of asteroids, comets, and other small solar system bodies, a question came up: when will NASA issue its next call for proposals for missions in the Discovery program?
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4734/122)
The case for a fleet of Martian helicoptersby Ari Allyn-Feuer Monday, February 5, 2024
While NASA is studying sending one or two helicopters on a Mars Sample Return lander, a fleet of such craft could conduct new kinds of sciece. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)The riotous success of the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars suggests the potential for an entirely new kind of Mars exploration mission: a swarm of hundreds or thousands of similar small helicopters landing and exploring all over Mars, all at once.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4735/123)
The Missing Link: Foundby Dwayne A. Day Monday, February 5, 2024
The large radio telescope at Jodrell Bank in England was built to observe the universe, but during the Cold War it was occasionally used to detect signals from Soviet spacecraft. According to a new podcast, the United States’ National Security Agency used it to detect a secret signal known as “the missing link” used by the Soviets to send video images to the ground. (credit: Mike Peel; Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, University of Manchester, Wikimedia Commons.)Jodrell Bank Observatory is a research facility south of Liverpool in the center of England. It was first established after World War II and gradually expanded to include a number of radio telescopes, the most prominent being a 76-meter (250-foot) dish, the third largest steerable radio telescope in the world.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4736/124)
Did a NASA study pull the plug on space solar power?by Jeff Foust Monday, February 5, 2024
A NASA illustration of two kinds of space-based solar power systems it studied, comparing their cost and environmental impact with alternative energy sources. (credit: NASA)For more than a year and a half, the small community of researchers studying, and enthusiasts supporting, space-based solar power had been eagerly anticipating a report NASA was preparing on the subject. The study, announced at the International Space Development Conference in May 2022, was intended to reexamine the economics of SBSP based on technological advances and declining launch costs. It was the first study of SBSP sponsored by NASA in more than a decade.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4737/16/II 2024 [25-28]25)
Review: Dark Starby Jeff Foust Monday, February 12, 2024
Dark Star: A New History of the Space Shuttle
by Matthew H. Hersch
The MIT Press, 2023
paperback, 328 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-262-54672-0
US$45.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262546728/spaceviewsIn a chamber at NASA’s Neil Armstrong Test Facility west of Cleveland, a spaceplane is being tested ahead of its first launch. Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser is a lifting body that will launch inside the payload fairing of a ULA Vulcan Centaur rocket later this year, but will glide back to a runway landing after completing a mission to the International Space Station.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4738/126)
Lunar science is entering a new active phase with commercial launches of landersby Jack Burns Monday, February 12, 2024
The IM-1 lander, scheduled to land on the Moon on February 22 if it launches this week, is carrying several NASA science and technology demonstration payloads. (credit: Intuitive Machines)For the first time since 1972, NASA is putting science experiments on the Moon in 2024. And thanks to new technologies and public-private partnerships, these projects will open up new realms of scientific possibility. As parts of several projects launching this year, teams of scientists, including myself, will conduct radio astronomy from the south pole and the far side of the Moon.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4739/127)
Nuclear Transit: nuclear-powered navigation satellites in the early 1960sby Dwayne A. Day Monday, February 12, 2024
Launch of the first Transit 5BN satellite on September 28, 1963 at Vandenberg Air Force Base. This was the first nuclear-powered satellite, although it had solar panels to power a backup transmitter. Although it successfully reached orbit, it deployed upside down, with its transmitters pointing toward space, and was only partially successful. (credit: Peter Hunter Collection)Technology goes through phases of acceptance. What starts out as interesting, novel, unique, and amazing eventually becomes ubiquitous, boring, accepted, even ignored and invisible. Two decades ago, when GPS navigation was first appearing in cars, the people who used it were surprised, and although very few people who used it probably understood how it worked, most of them probably knew that it was made possible by satellites.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4740/1Zwolnienia w JPL (ok. 500 osób).
Misja MSR zagrożona.
Powołano komisję do zbadania alternatywnych opcji (tańszych) MSR.
Obciążenie kadr obowiązkami było wysokie, więc jeśli nie dojdzie do powrotu pracowników do pracy, to trudno wyobrazić sobie realizację dotychczasowych zadań.28)
MSR at serious riskby Jeff Foust Monday, February 12, 2024
Uncertainty about the funding for MSR and how the program wil be restructured is raising new questions about the program’s future. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)Last Tuesday’s announcement was shocking yet not entirely unexpected. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced it would lay off 530 employees, or about 8% of its total workforce, along with 40 contractors. Employees were notified Wednesday, after virtual meetings with managers (most employees were told to work from home “so everyone can be in a safe, comfortable environment on a stressful day”) if they were among the unlucky ones. The layoffs took effect immediately for most, but affected employees will receive pay and benefits for 60 days. (...)
A couple months later, the IRB report made clear that Mars Sample Return, as currently designed, had no chance of fitting into that cost cap. The report, released in September, concluded MSR had “a near zero probability” of launching a sample retrieval lander and Earth return orbiter by 2028 as currently planned. It also estimated the total cost of the program at between $8 billion and $11 billion. (...)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4741/1