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A mission next year will attempt to service a military satellite in geostationary orbit. The mission, overseen by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), will use the Mission Robotics Vehicle being developed by Northrop Grumman's subsidiary SpaceLogistics. That spacecraft will approach a military satellite and use robotic arms to install a camera built by Katalyst Space Technologies on the satellite's launch adapter ring. The mission is part of DIU's Modularity for Space Systems project, an effort to match commercial technologies with military needs for in-orbit services. [SpaceNews]
China launched another military weather satellite late Tuesday. A Long March 6A rocket lifted off from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center at 6:51 p.m. Eastern and deployed the Yunhai-3 (02) satellite. The Yunhai series are assessed to be military meteorological satellites by some Western analysts. [SpaceNews]
Startup In Orbit Aerospace has won an AFWERX contract to develop spacecraft docking technologies. The electrostatic adhesion technology being developing under the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) contract, in cooperation with the University of Colorado, will enable In Orbit's vehicles to dock with one another and could also be used for docking with other cooperative or uncooperative objects for refueling, debris removal or other services. In Orbit was founded in 2020 to offer third-party logistics and infrastructure for in-space manufacturing and research, and has plans to develop vehicles for transporting cargo to and from future commercial space stations. [SpaceNews]
Astrobotic has hired several industry veterans to help the company as it develops a second, larger lunar lander. The company announced it hired Steve Clarke, a former NASA official, as its vice president of landers and spacecraft and Frank Peri, former head of the safety and mission assurance office at NASA Langley, as director of engineering. Two former NASA associate administrators for space technology, Mike Gazarik and Jim Reuter, will serve as advisers. Astrobotic says it expects to wrap up the investigation into its Peregrine lander mission in a matter of weeks and will apply lessons learned from that for its larger Griffin lander, which will carry NASA's VIPER lunar rover. [SpaceNews]
Chinese scientists want more missions to asteroids, including those that can return samples. In a recently published journal paper, the scientists advocated for "low-cost, high-frequency sample return missions" and better coordination among missions. China is scheduled to launch its first asteroid sample return mission in 2025. The Tianwen-2 mission will target near-Earth object (NEO) 469219 Kamoสปoalewa, collecting samples and returning to Earth around 2.5 years after launch. Scientists, though, argue that asteroid missions don't get the same level of support as China's lunar exploration program. [SpaceNews]
| | Footprints on the Moon Begin with L3Harris
For six decades, L3Harris has teamed with NASA to develop technology that's been critical to the evolution of human spaceflight. In fact, our technology has been part of every crewed NASA mission: from Project Mercury to Apollo to the Space Shuttle to the International Space Station era and now beyond – as part of NASA's Artemis campaign. L3Harris' contributions to NASA's Artemis missions include propulsion, communications and launch avionics for NASA's Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft and Gateway lunar space station. Learn more. | | Other News
A NASA official was optimistic that a computer problem with the Voyager 1 spacecraft can be fixed. Speaking at a National Academies committee meeting last week, Joseph Westlake, director of NASA's heliophysics division, said he believed the project was on "a path now to resolution" regarding the faulty flight data system (FDS) computer on the nearly 50-year-old spacecraft. A problem with the FDS has caused Voyager 1 to transmit unusable data since last November. Westlake said engineers have concluded a memory unit on the spacecraft has failed, and engineers are working to move flight software in that section of memory to another part of the computer. He did not estimate how long that would take. [SpaceNews]
The governor of Texas has named members of a new space commission. Gov. Greg Abbott announced the members of the new Texas Space Commission Tuesday at NASA's Johnson Space Center. The members are executives with several established and emerging space companies as well as representatives from other businesses and from academia. The state legislature established the commission last year and provided it with $350 million in funding, $200 million of which will go to a new research and training center to be created by Texas A&M University. Commission members will study how to use the funding to support businesses and provide workforce training. [Houston Chronicle]
The launch of a NOAA weather satellite has been rescheduled for late June. NASA and NOAA announced Tuesday that the Falcon Heavy launch of the GOES-U geostationary orbit weather satellite is planned for June 25. The launch had been scheduled for late April but was postponed after SpaceX found a liquid oxygen leak in the rocket's center core booster. GOES-U is the fourth and final satellite in the GOES-R program. [NOAA]
NASA has selected three instruments to be flown on future Artemis lunar landing missions. NASA announced Tuesday it will fund development of a seismometer suite, a crop growth experiment and regolith instrument that would be deployed by astronauts on the Artemis 3 mission, although NASA said that final decisions about when the instruments would be manifested for flight will be made later. NASA said the instruments are the first step in the agency's response to a report on high-priority science that should be conducted on Artemis 3. [NASA]
A Japanese astronaut is retiring after more than three decades of service. Koichi Wakata will retire from JAXA at the end of the month, which also marks the end of the current Japanese government fiscal year. He was selected by Japan as an astronaut in 1992 and has flown to space five times, including three long-duration missions to the International Space Station. He most recently was on the Crew-5 Crew Dragon mission in 2022-23; his previous flights were on the shuttle and Soyuz. [NHK]
| | Long Live the '70s
"I don't think I have anything around my house that still works from the '70s, so kudos to the Voyager team for building something amazing."
– Joseph Westlake, director of NASA's heliophysics division, discussing the Voyager 1 spacecraft during a meeting of the National Academies' Committee on Solar and Space Physics last week.
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