The Space Review

[Orionid]

Are space movie studios sci-fi fantasies?
by Jeff Foust Monday, February 7, 2022


Space Entertainment Enterprise said last month it is working with Axiom Space on a spherical module that could be added to Axiom’s future commercial ISS module as an entertainment studio. (credit: SEE)

Remember all the excitement a couple years ago when Hollywood media reported that Tom Cruise planned to film a movie in space? The NASA administrator at the time, Jim Bridenstine, confirmed that NASA was in talks with the famous actor for filming some kind of movie—no one was really sure what it would be about—on the International Space Station, but there’s been little overt progress since then. Cruise remains grounded for the foreseeable future: given the schedule of missions to the ISS, the soonest he could go is early 2023.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4325/1

[Orionid]

What to really worry about when a rocket stage crashes on the Moon
by David Rothery Monday, February 7, 2022


The Falcon 9 that launched the DSCOVR mission in 2015. The upper stage of that rocket will crash into the Moon next month. (credit: SpaceX)

It’s not often that the sudden appearance of a new impact crater on the Moon can be predicted, but it’s going to happen on March 4, when a derelict SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will crash into it.

The rocket launched in 2015, carrying NASA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) probe into a position 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth, facing the Sun. But the expended upper stage of the rocket had insufficient speed to escape into an independent orbit around the Sun and was abandoned without an option to steer back into the Earth’s atmosphere. That would be normal practice, allowing stages to burn up on reentry, thus reducing the clutter in near-Earth space caused by dangerous junk.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4326/1

[Orionid]

FROG: The Film Read Out GAMBIT program
by Dwayne Day Monday, February 7, 2022


Launch of a GAMBIT-3 high-resolution reconnaissance satellite in 1971, around the same time that the Film Read Out GAMBIT (FROG) program was approved. FROG would have used the same optics system as the GAMBIT-3, but would have scanned the film in orbit and relayed it to the ground. (credit: Peter Hunter Collection)

In September of 2021, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) declassified thousands of pages of documents on the development of the first near-real-time electro-optical satellite, the KH-11 KENNEN. The KENNEN was probably the most famous top secret satellite ever, the result of an embarrassing incident soon after it entered service in 1976 when a CIA employee sold a document to the KGB that contained technical details of the satellite. But included in the NRO’s 2021 release was significant information on an obscure and never-flown satellite proposal. KENNEN means “to know” in old English (and German). This other satellite had a less-weighty name: FROG.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4327/1

[Orionid]

Defining European space ambitions
by Jeff Foust Monday, February 7, 2022


ESA is looking to the upcoming space summit to win political support for initiative that include a new human space exploration program. (credit: ESA)

On February 16, European space leaders will gather in Toulouse, France, for what organizers call a “space summit” to discuss potential future space initiatives. It’s a one-day meeting that reflects both Europe’s ambitions in space, but also the complexities in trying to realize those ambitions.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4328/1

[Orionid]

Review: Picturing the Space Shuttle: The Early Years
by Jeff Foust Monday, February 14, 2022



Picturing the Space Shuttle: The Early Years
by John Bisney and J.L. Pickering
Univ. of Florida Press, 2021
hardcover, 288 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-1-68340-205-3
US$45.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1683402057/spaceviews

Fifty years ago last month, President Richard Nixon gave his formal approval for the Space Shuttle program. That decision set in motion a program whose effects continue to be belt to this day, more than a decade after the final shuttle mission ended. Shuttle-era hardware is currently in the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center, this time in the form of the first Space Launch System rocket set to lift off—hopefully—some time this spring.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4329/1

[Orionid]

America’s moral obligation to develop astroelectricity
by Mike Snead Monday, February 14, 2022


Providing people with freedom from want can be a reason to develop astroelectricity.

Over the last two centuries, non-renewable energy-powered industrialism has created a prosperous American middle class. While not extravagantly rich, these Americans live comfortably through earnings from their talents and labors. This path to middle class prosperity through industrialization has been widely embraced worldwide and is now considered to be an inalienable human right.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4330/1

[Orionid]

Nuclear thermal propulsion is key to keeping peace in space
by Alex Gilbert Monday, February 14, 2022


DARPA is pursuing a nuclear thermal propulsion project called DRACO that could be ready for tests in cislunar space as soon as 2025. (credit: DARPA)

In mid-January, the Mitchell Institute released a landmark report on the “strategic mandate for nuclear propulsion” of US satellites and space-based assets to evade the growing threat from Russia and China’s anti-satellite weapons. The report’s analysis and conclusions are sound and timely, but nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) has broader applicability in space, including commercial and “soft power” uses. The US should pursue a concerted, sustained whole-of-government approach to it. Beyond achieving a first-mover advantage, this will allow the US to develop norms and solidify rules of the road espoused by the UN last fall, rules aimed at preventing war in the heavens.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4331/1

[Orionid]

Starship status check
by Jeff Foust Monday, February 14, 2022


A fully stacked Starship vehicle stands on the pad next to its launch tower at Boca Chica, Texas, last week. Flying in the background are two jets affiliated with Jared Isaacman, who announced February 14 he is flying a series of missions with SpaceX that includes the first crewed Starship launch. (credit: John Kraus/Polaris Program)

The series of updates by SpaceX founder Elon Musk about the development of what would become known as Starship has become something of a cultural phenomenon in the space community. When Musk spoke at the 2016 International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, SpaceX fans lined up hours in advance and rushed in as soon as the doors opening, peppering Musk in a later Q&A session with questions and requests that were, well, unusual. Musk returned to the IAC the following year in Adelaide, Australia, where organizers learned the lessons from that event and strictly controlled access—and also didn’t include any Q&A.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4332/1

[Orionid]

Building Musk’s path to Mars
by John K. Strickland Monday, February 21, 2022

What have Elon and his team built and what will they be able to do with it?


A Mars development base showing a fuel production area with direct excavation of shallow water ice and conversion to propellants. Cryogenic tanks are inside a covered depot for shade. (credit: Anna Nesterova)

This path is supported by a mixture of pure determination, massive cooperation and support, and the solid mathematics of significantly improving designs and increasing production rate of vehicles. The numbers are like bacteria multiplying in a Petri dish: in a few days the individually invisible cells become a visible colony, overwhelming some others in sheer numbers.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4333/1

[Orionid]

Smallsat launch and the real world
by Jeff Foust Monday, February 21, 2022


Astra’s Rocker 3.3 lifts off February 10 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The rocket failed to reach orbit when its upper stage tumbled out fo control immediately after stage separation. (credit: Astra Space/NASASpaceFlight.com)

Most conference panels are fairly anodyne affairs. Participants, even competitors in the same field, stick to their talking points and, at most, only politely disagree with one another. It often requires prodding from the panel’s moderator, or audience questions, to bring differences among the panelists into sharper focus.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4334/1

[Orionid]

Front line on the TELINT Cold War


An RB-47E(TT) Tell Two signals intelligence aircraft during the 1960s. The large antennas on either side of the fuselage were used to intercept Soviet missile and satellite telemetry. They were later replaced with smaller antennas. (credit: Robert S. Hopkins III)

In March 1965, Alexei Leonov made the first spacewalk, exiting his Voskhod spacecraft for twelve minutes to achieve a historic first. Far below Voskhod 2, a specially equipped United States Air Force B-47 aircraft was gathering signals from his craft, using its antennas and electronic equipment to collect and record the telemetry the spacecraft was sending to a Soviet ground station. The aircraft was part of the highly secretive “Tell Two” program. Now, due to the diligent work of a retired military pilot and historian, Tell Two is becoming less mysterious.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4335/1

[Orionid]

Arms control in outer space won’t work
by Brian Britt Monday, February 21, 2022


A simulation of the intercept of the Cosmos 1408 satellite by a Russian ASAT missile in a November 15, 2021 test. (credit: COMSPOC)

It was early evening in Washington on January 11, 2007, when an SC-19 ballistic missile took off from the Sichuan province in the People's Republic of China.[1] The missile climbed 860 kilometers before releasing a 600-kilogram payload that slammed into the defunct Chinese FengYun 1C weather satellite.[2] The test generated an estimated 35,000 pieces of orbital debris spanning 3,540 vertical kilometers, the largest debris-creating event to date that would threaten private, civil, and international assets in space, including the International Space Station.[3]
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4336/1

[Orionid]

Review: Discovering Mars
by Jeff Foust Monday, February 28, 2022



Discovering Mars: A History of Observation and Exploration of the Red Planet
by William Sheehan and Jim Bell
Univ. of Arizona Press, 2021
hardcover, 744 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-8165-3210-0
US$30.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0816532109/spaceviews

Earlier this month, NASA marked the first anniversary of the successful landing of the Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars. Since that landing the rover has explored part of the floor of Jezero Crater, collecting several samples intended to be returned to Earth on future missions, and is heading towards the remains of a river delta. The Ingenuity helicopter, a technology demonstration that NASA planned to fly up to five times last spring just completed its 20th flight, having become an aerial scout for the rover.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4337/1

[Orionid]

The Starlink-China Space Station near-collision: Questions, solutions, and an opportunity
by Chen Lan Monday, February 28, 2022


China claimed it had to move its new space station twice last year to avoid close approaches by SpaceX Starlink satellites. (credit: CMSA)

Last December, China filed a note verbale to the UN claiming that two SpaceX Starlink satellites made close encounters to the China Space Station (CSS) and the latter had to perform emergency maneuvers to avoid a catastrophic collision. Now, the US side has finally responded with another note verbale to the UN, as reported by SpaceNews on February 15.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4338/1

[Orionid]

Prophets of the High Frontier
by Dwayne Day Monday, February 28, 2022


Advocates have promoted space-based solar power for half a century, with little progress. (credit: NASA)

How long is long enough to wait for a vision to come true?

Gerard K. O’Neill, although no longer in the wider public consciousness, was at one time the most well-known advocate for a human future in space. In the 1970s, O’Neill’s vision of giant cities in space was briefly in the zeitgeist. He made television appearances and gave talks and even spawned a pro-space movement with the formation of the L-5 Society. O’Neill’s vision was tied to the concept of space-based solar power, an idea that was even evaluated by NASA and big aerospace companies around the same time. And yet here we are, half a century later, and these visions of cities in space and giant space solar power stations have not become reality. Does that mean they are false, or just premature? Is there even a way to distinguish false prophecies and those that simply have not come true?
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4339/1