The Space Review

[Orionid]

The little satellite that could (part 2): from Triana to DSCOVR to orbit
by Dwayne A. Day Monday, August 30, 2021


The DSCOVR satellite in October 2008 after spending seven years in storage. Originally named Triana, the satellite was renamed the Deep Space Climate Observatory in 2003. (credit: Phil Horzempa)

Triana had been dreamed up by Vice President Al Gore in 1998 and gone through a contentious development process. The original goal had been to launch it into orbit on a space shuttle mission in 2001. But by 2001, with Republican President George W. Bush in the White House, the program was grounded; funding was suspended a little over a week after the inauguration. Officially, NASA indicated that the space agency would eventually launch the spacecraft, which was intended for a unique orbit at the Lagrange 1 point where it would be able to view both the Earth and the Sun. But for the next eight years, NASA did not announce any launch plans, and what little news did emerge about the spacecraft was always followed with longer periods of silence and inactivity. Triana risked becoming what pilots often refer to as a “hangar queen,” sitting in storage, cannibalized for spare parts (see “The little satellite that could (part 1)”, The Space Review, August 16, 2021.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4236/1

Note:Because of the Labor Day holiday, next week’s issue will be published on Tuesday, September 7.

[Orionid]

Review: The Red Planet
by Jeff Foust Tuesday, September 7, 2021



The Red Planet: A Natural History of Mars
by Simon Morden
Elliott & Thompson, 2021
hardcover, 240 pp.
ISBN 978-1-78396-561-4
US$20.64
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1783965614/spaceviews

Three rovers are traversing the rocky, red surface of Mars today. NASA’s Perseverance rover, which arrived in February, has collected its first sample, NASA announced late Monday, after an initial sampling attempt with another rock a month ago went awry when the rock turned to powder before it could be placed in a sample tube. Curiosity continues its ascent up Mount Sharp in Gale Crater, its instruments probing the changes in the terrain as is goes across different layers and different geological eras. China’s Zhurong rover, meanwhile, continues to explore its landing site after exceeding its planned three-month mission, although Chinese scientists have not offered many details about the rover’s scientific output so far.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4237/1

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The privatized frontier: the ethical implications and role of private companies in space exploration
by Maanas Sharma Tuesday, September 7, 2021


NASA is relying on SpaceX to transport astronauts to the space station, one sign of a growing role for the private sector in spaceflight. (credit: SpaceX)

In recent years, private companies have taken on a larger role in the space exploration system. With lower costs and faster production times, they have displaced some functions of government space agencies. Though many have levied criticism against privatized space exploration, it also allows room for more altruistic actions by government space agencies and the benefits from increased space exploration as a whole. Thus, we should encourage this development, as the process is net ethical in the end. Especially if performed in conjunction with adequate government action on the topic, private space exploration can overcome possible shortcomings in its risky and capitalistic nature and ensure a positive contribution to the general public on Earth.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4238/1

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Wizards redux: revisiting the P-11 signals intelligence satellites
by Dwayne A. Day Tuesday, September 7, 2021


One of the URSULA small signals intelligence satellites of the 1970s. A proposed upgrade was named “DRACULA,” for “Direct ReAdout URSULA,” but the name was rejected because a senior Air Force officer did not want to go to Washington and face jokes about “another blood-sucking program.” (credit: NRO)

September 2021 is the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). For the 50th anniversary, the NRO declassified two major Cold War era photo-reconnaissance satellites named HEXAGON and GAMBIT. Will the NRO do something similar this time? Those who follow the NRO’s history have heard rumors that they might declassify the KH-11 KENNEN near-real-time reconnaissance satellite that first flew in 1976, although that might be a bit of wishful thinking. (See “Intersections in real time: the decision to build the KH-11 KENNEN reconnaissance satellite,” The Space Review, September 9, 2019.) One small step the NRO could take is to finish the declassification of the P-11 signals intelligence satellites that were built and launched from 1963 to 1992.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4239/1

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The making of an Enterprise: How NASA, the Smithsonian and the aerospace industry helped create Star Trek
by Glen E. Swanson Tuesday, September 7, 2021


The cast and production crew from Star Trek toured NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, California on April 13, 1967. Shown left to right are: Unknown NASA; actor James “Jimmy” Montgomery Doohan who played chief engineer Montgomery Scott or “Scotty;” Walter Matthew “Matt” Jefferies, Jr., art director and production designer for the series; Herbert Schlosser, who at that time, was head of NBC’s programming and oversaw Star Trek’s development during the network’s production of the series; Star’s Trek’s creator Gene Roddenberry; assistant director, production manager and associate producer Gregg Peters; series director Marc Daniels; assistant director and producer Robert “Bob” Harris Justman; actor Jackson DeForest Kelley who played chief medical officer Leonard “Bones” McCoy; director Joseph “Joe” Pevney; and unknown. Shown behind the cast is NASA’s HL-10 experimental lifting body. (credit: NASA)

This month marks the 55th anniversary of the premiere of Star Trek. On Thursday evening, September 8, 1966, beginning at 8:30 pm Eastern, households in the US tuned in to a new type of television show called Star Trek that featured the adventures of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and the crew of the Starship U.S.S. Enterprise as they traveled throughout the galaxy.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4240/1

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Small launch vehicles face their biggest test
by Jeff Foust Tuesday, September 7, 2021


An explosion destroys Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha launch vehicle two and a half minutes into its first launch September 2. (credit: J. Foust)

Astrobiology has a concept known as the “Great Filter.” It is an attempt to explain why, despite the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy, there is currently no evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth. It argues that, somewhere in the progression of factors laid out in the Drake Equation six decades ago from the number of stars to the number of intelligent civilizations, there is a factor that greatly diminishes the prospects of intelligent life to exist.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4241/1

[Orionid]

Review: Asteroids
by Jeff Foust Monday, September 13, 2021



Asteroids: How Love, Fear, and Greed Will Determine Our Future in Space
by Martin Elvis
Yale University Press, 2021
hardcover, 312 pp., illus.
ISBN 978-0-300-23192-2
US$30.00
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/030023192X/spaceviews

It’s been nearly a decade since the first great asteroid mining boom. Planetary Resources announced its plans to prospect and eventually extract resources from asteroids in 2012, followed months later by Deep Space Industries with similar ambitions. The companies raised millions of dollars from sources as diverse as Silicon Valley billionaires and the government of Luxembourg, and stimulated new laws in the United States and elsewhere to ensure they would have the right to own the resources they extracted. But, by the beginning of 2019 both were effectively out of business: Planetary Resources was acquired by a blockchain company, Consensys, which later shut it down, while Deep Space Industries, having pivoted to smallsat development, was acquired by Bradford Space.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4242/1

[Orionid]

Thor the lifesaver?
by Ajay Kothari Monday, September 13, 2021


A model of a molten salt reactor which could use thorium to generate power, offering an alternative to space-based solar power.

Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP) is being touted as a solution to the climate change problem that is currently engaging humanity worldwide, and is apt to occupy this administration even more so in the future. While developing that technology, one should also bear in mind another potential solution that may be simpler, cheaper, and faster to implement, something that could be quicker to take advantage of while we wait for other solutions such as SBSP and controlled fusion. It may also have applications as a distributed power source on the lunar surface and later on Mars. Its potential application to rocket propulsion should also be determined, though is not the focus of this commentary.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4243/1

[Orionid]

The problem with space cowboys
by Layla Martin Monday, September 13, 2021


Jeff Bezos, wearing a cowboy hat, walks across a platform to board the New Shepard suborbital vehicle on his July flight. (credit: Blue Origin)

The “space race” is a good thing. Why? Private-sector competition spurs innovation creating new jobs, substantial price cuts, and progress. Yes, but who is competing? The promise of new jobs to achieve what and based upon whose vision?
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4244/1

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Paradigmatic shifts in space?
by Namrata Goswami Monday, September 13, 2021

Space policies of China and India: priorities, long-term focuses, and differences


China is developing new launch vehicles, spacecraft, and space stations to demonstrate it is a leading nation. (credit: Xinhua)

Space has animated both China and India since ancient times, with mythology and folklore about what lay up there amongst the stars. Chinese mythology has given us folktales like that of Chang’e the Moon goddess, Tianwen or heavenly questions, and the Yuegong-1 or heavenly palace. For India, the mythology of space can be inferred from such ancient mythical invocations like the Navagraha (nine planets), the folklore around eclipses and the invisible planets, and Rahu and Ketu (astrological connotations), which by 499 AD resulted in mathematical calculations by Aryabhatta, and his study of solar and lunar eclipses. Aryabhatta correctly attributed the brightness of the Moon and planets as reflected sunlight. India’s first satellite that was launched in 1975 was named after him. The seven main stars of the cup shaped Ursa Major were viewed as the seven sages (सप्तर्षि-Saptarishi or saptarṣī) in Indian mythology. In Indian epics like Mahabharata (written on events about 5,000 to 3,000 years ago), topics ranging from philosophy, cosmology, statecraft, and ethics were discussed. Steven R. Weisman, writing in The New York Times on “Many Faces of the Mahabharatha”, specified:

Modern India is a country in which a lawyer and teacher will tell you with certainty that references to the cosmic weapons used by a hero in the Mahabharata intentionally prefigured the space-based Strategic Defense Initiative of President Reagan.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4245/1

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The great space company sale
by Jeff Foust Monday, September 13, 2021


The Satellite 2021 exhibit hall included a wide range of companies, from major operators and manufacturers to small component suppliers. One CEO predicted the wave of newly public space companies will seek to acquire many of those suppliers. (credit: J. Foust)

The exhibit hall at last week’s Satellite 2021 conference in the suburbs of Washington, DC, was a little quiet. Some companies that normally exhibit at the show, one of the major conferences in the commercial space industry, elected to reduce their presence or not exhibit at all, either because of the timing of the conference—it normally takes place in the spring—or because of ongoing pandemic travel restrictions. There was, though, still an assortment of satellite operators, manufacturers, and suppliers of components and related services.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4246/1

[Orionid]

Review: The Wonderful
by Jeff Foust Monday, September 20, 2021



The Wonderful: Stories from the Space Station
directed by Clare Lewins
2021, 127 mins., not rated
https://www.thewonderfulfilm.com/

The International Space Station, over its more than two decades of continuous occupation, has become something of an institution. Having shifted a decade ago from assembly to full-fledged operations, discussions about the station have focused on getting people to and from the station, the research that goes on there, its upkeep, and, most recently, what its long-term future will be (see “What is the future of the International Space Station?”, The Space Review, this issue.)
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4247/1

[Orionid]

Astrofeminism as a theory of change: save our planet, not escape from it
by Layla Martin Monday, September 20, 2021


JAstrofeminism offers a different perspective for looking at spaceflight through different priorities and different participants.

Do you have a $55 million slush fund for a joyride up to the International Space Station (ISS)? Does a settler’s ticket to Mars include a fridge stocked with groceries and someone to feed the dog and help with homework for my family here on Earth? The macho space invasion is seriously lacking a critical assessment and careful consideration of implications. As in, what are some of the costs? Not the price but the cost.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4248/1

[Orionid]

What is the future of the International Space Station?
by Roger Handberg Monday, September 20, 2021


Commercial space station modules and standalong space stations, like what Axiom Space is proposing to develop, may represent the future after the ISS, but that transition remains uncertain. (credit: Axiom Space)

Time is not a friend for the International Space Station. American efforts to extend its closing until 2030 possibly beyond are dependent upon evaluations of its continued safety and integrity. Materials in space age under the stresses of the space environment and deteriorate over time. Yet, evaluating the possible future for the ISS will not be strictly based upon technical factors. The states participating in the ISS all pursue various agendas. For most, being on the ISS is only part of their space portfolio, albeit a large one in many cases. So, ending the ISS and deorbiting the structure is a dramatic shift in direction for them, especially if terminated earlier than projected. What would replace that endeavor remains unclear.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4249/1

[Orionid]

An inspiration for private human spaceflight
by Jeff Foust Monday, September 20, 2021


The Crew Dragon spacecraft Resilience moments before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean to complete the Inspiration4 mission. (credit: SpaceX)

The “billionaire space race” this summer was billed as a competition between Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos and Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson for who would be the first to go to space in their companies’ suborbital vehicles. Branson won that race, going to the fringes of space on SpaceShipTwo nine days before Bezos on New Shepard. But the real winner of the billionaire space race, though, might be someone most people in the space industry hadn't heard of before February of this year.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4250/1