The Space Review

[Orionid]

Boldly insure where no one has gone
by Christopher McKeon, Ann Satovich, McKay Simmons, Christopher O’Connor and Brad Barger Monday, November 8, 2021


The growth of satellite constellations and other commercial space activities create new opportunities, and new risks, for insurers. (credit: OneWeb)

Space today has become big business that will only expand thanks to the excitement and focus driven by the likes of Bezos, Branson, and Musk.

In the last decade, the space sector has seen more than 50% growth in commercial space initiatives. The commercial portion of the space ecosystem saw $200 billion of investment in 1,500 companies.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4280/1

[Orionid]

Review: Bright Galaxies, Dark Matter, and Beyond
by Jeff Foust Monday, November 15, 2021



Bright Galaxies, Dark Matter, and Beyond: The Life of Astronomer Vera Rubin
by Ashley Jean Yeager
MIT Press, 2021
hardcover, 256pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-262-04612-1
US$24.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262046121/spaceviews

For several years a major new observatory has been taking shape on a mountaintop in Chile. The 8.4-meter telescope is designed to survey the entire sky visible from the site every few nights, collecting images with a 3.2-gigapixel camera. For much of its development, the observatory was known by the descriptive, if inelegant, name of Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, or LSST. Two years ago, though, an act of Congress renamed the telescope the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4281/1

[Orionid]

An assessment of EU decarbonization options including astroelectricity
by Mike Snead
Monday, November 15, 2021


The recent COP26 climate change conference saw numerous pledges to decarbonize energy systems, but how feasible are they with current alternative energy sources? (credit: UN)

The European Union (EU), comprised of 27 countries with a total 2019 population of 446.4 million people, is ambitiously hoping to become a climate neutral continent by 2050. From an energy security perspective, decarbonization—meaning the general end of the use of fossil carbon fuels—is a wise policy given the likely end of middle-class affordable fossil carbon fuel supplies in the coming decades. (I first wrote about this in 2008 in The End of Easy Energy and What to Do About It.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4282/1

[Orionid]

Musk versus Bezos: a real rivalry or a fake feud?
by Ben Little
Monday, November 15, 2021


Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are viewed as heated rivals in space, but how much of that public posturing is real? (credit: Blue Origin (left) and NASA/Bill Ingalls (right))

Flick through a news feed on your phone and you are likely to scroll across an article discussing the heated rivalries of the new space race. Forget the geopolitical struggles of a cold war. This time, it’s Tesla CEO Elon Musk versus Amazon founder Jeff Bezos: the two richest men in the world duking it out over whether SpaceX or Blue Origin, their respective companies, will be the dominant force in the new industry of private spaceflight.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4283/1

[Orionid]

Resetting Artemis
by Jeff Foust Monday, November 15, 2021


NASA and SpaceX can move ahead with their HLS contract after a half year of legal delays that NASA said contributed to tis decision to push back the Artemis 3 mission to no earlier than 2025. (credit: SpaceX)

There are rarely slow weeks at SpaceX, but last week was certainly was not one of them. The company started the week bringing back a Crew Dragon spacecraft from the International Space Station with four astronauts on board who spent more than six months in space. Less than 48 hours after that Crew Dragon splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, another Crew Dragon launched on a Falcon 9 from the Kennedy Space Center, delivering a new group of four astronauts to the station within 24 hours of liftoff. Early Saturday, a Falcon 9 lifted off from a nearby pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, placing 53 Starlink satellites in orbit. And, amid all that activity in Florida, the company performed a brief static fire of the six Raptor engines in its first orbital Starship vehicle at Boca Chica, Texas, another step towards a launch some time next year.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4284/1

[Orionid]

Review: The Greatest Adventure
by Jeff Foust Monday, November 22, 2021



The Greatest Adventure: A History of Human Space Exploration
by Colin Burgess
Reaktion Books, 2021
hardcover, 368 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-78914-460-4
US$40.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1789144604/spaceviews

There is no shortage of books about human spaceflight. Many dive deep into details about specific programs or missions, or offer biographies (or autobiographies) of those who have flown in space and others than enabled such flights. Nonetheless, there is still a place for an overall history of the subject, one that spans decades of activity to both provide an introduction to newcomers and to put such activities into a broader context.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4285/1

[Orionid]

Risk, teamwork, and opportunity: the tale of a Soyuz abort
by Jeff Foust Monday, November 22, 2021


NASA’s Nick Hague (left) and Roscosmos’s Alexey Ovchinin discuss their Soyuz MS-10 abort at the International Astronautical Congress in Dubai October 27. (credit: J. Foust)

The annual International Astronautical Congress (IAC) is a sprawling event, often with dozens of parallel tracks of technical paper presentations or panel discussions. With so much going on over the course of a week and a sometimes confusion alphanumeric notation system for tracks—is this session A2.7 or A7.2?—it’s easy to miss out on some interesting presentations.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4286/1

[Orionid]

Tracking unknown satellites
by Charles Phillips and Mykola Kulichenko Monday, November 22, 2021


Some satellites appear in one catalog but not in another, while the identity of others is unknown. (credit: ESA)

Tracking satellites used to be something that only large organizations could do, but today enthusiastic amateurs track many satellites. But to track many of the more interesting satellites it helps to have an observatory with professional support. This is the story of how some people are doing just that, and the contribution to safety in space that they are making.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4287/1

[Orionid]

After another ASAT test, will governments finally take action?
by Jeff Foust Monday, November 22, 2021


A simulation of the intercept of the Cosmos 1408 satellite by a Russian ASAT missile in the November 15 test. (credit: COMSPOC)

On November 12, a group of companies and organizations announced an initiative to address the growing population of satellites and debris in orbit, unaware that their efforts were just days away from being undone.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4288/1

[Orionid]

Review: To Boldly Go
by Jeff Foust Monday, November 29, 2021



To Boldly Go: Leadership, Strategy, and Conflict in the 21st Century and Beyond
by Jonathan Klug and Steven Leonard (eds.)
Casemate, 2021
hardcover, 304 pp.
ISBN 978-1-63624-062-6
US$34.95
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1636240623/spaceviews

Science fiction’s role in shaping the Space Age has long been appreciated. Countless scientists and engineers have cited the inspiration provided by science fiction novels, movies, and TV shows to pursue careers in the industry and work on spacecraft, launch vehicles, and other technologies linked to those accounts. But besides that inspiration—and, of course, entertainment—is there anything else science fiction can offer?
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4289/1

[Orionid]

Space law hasn’t been changed since 1967, but the UN aims to update laws and keep space peaceful
by Michelle L.D. Hanlon and Greg Autry Monday, November 29, 2021


A simulation of the intercept of the Cosmos 1408 satellite by a Russian ASAT missile in the November 15 test. (credit: COMSPOC)

On November 15, Russia destroyed one of its own old satellites using a missile launched from the surface of the Earth, creating a massive debris cloud that threatens many space assets, including astronauts onboard the International Space Station (see “After another ASAT test, will governments finally take action?”, The Space Review, November 22, 2021). This happened only two weeks after the United Nations General Assembly First Committee formally recognized the vital role that space and space assets play in international efforts to better the human experience – and the risks military activities in space pose to those goals.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4290/1

[Orionid]

How America wins the future
by Frank Slazer Monday, November 29, 2021


Vice President Kamala Harris, seen here speaking at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center November 5, will lead the administration’s first National Space Council meeting this week. (credit: NASA/Taylor Mickal)

On December 1, Vice President Kamala Harris will convene the Biden Administration’s first meeting of the National Space Council in Washington. The gathering will provide an opportunity for Harris to refine the Biden Administration’s priorities for space, especially for NASA.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4291/1

[Orionid]

A new approach to flagship space telescopes
by Jeff Foust Monday, November 29, 2021


The astrophysics decadal survey recommended a scaled-down version of a space telescope concept called LUVOIR as the first in a line of flagship space observatories to be developed over the next few decades. (credit: NASA/GSFC

For much of this year, the biggest puzzle for astrophysicists had nothing to do with dark matter, dark energy, or discrepancies in the value of the Hubble Constant. Instead, the question at the top of their minds was: when was Astro2020 coming out?
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4292/1

[Orionid]

Space at Expo 2020
by Jeff Foust Monday, December 6, 2021


A full-sized replica of a Falcon 9 first stage stands next to the US pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai. (credit: J. Foust)

For some people, trapped in a pandemic-induced time warp, it’s seemed like it’s been 2020 since last March. Sometimes, though, it’s still officially 2020, like the Summer Olympics in Tokyo that were still officially called the 2020 Games even though they were delayed a year. Likewise, Expo 2020 Dubai, the modern-day version of the world’s fair, retained the 2020 name even though its opening was delayed a year to the start of this October.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4293/1

[Orionid]

A new era of planetary exploration: what we discovered on the far side of the Moon
by Iraklis Giannakis Monday, December 6, 2021


Data from China’s Yutu-2 rover is helping scientists understand the structure below the surface of the Moon. (credit: CLEP)

Seven months after it was launched, the US robotic rover Perseverance successfully landed on Mars on February 18. The landing was part of the Mars 2020 mission and was viewed live by millions of people worldwide, reflecting the renewed global interest in space exploration. It was soon followed by China’s Tianwen-1, an interplanetary Mars mission consisting of an orbiter, lander and rover called Zhurong.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4294/1