Top Stories
The head of U.S. Space Command warned that Russia's military space capabilities remain strong even as it struggles in Ukraine. Gen. Stephen Whiting, speaking Tuesday at the Potomac Officers Club 2024 Space Summit, said that Russia's troubles on the battlefield "should not create a false sense of confidence that Moscow is fading in the space domain." He cited a cyberattack against a commercial satellite network on the eve of Russia's invasion two years ago as well as work on anti-satellite weapons as evidence but did not directly address reports that Russia is developing a space-based nuclear weapon to disable satellites. [SpaceNews]
Satellites are helping restore communications links between Europe and Asia disrupted by severed subsea cables. Four of 15 submarine cables in the Red Sea have been cut in the Red Sea near Yemen, affecting about 25% of the traffic passing from Europe through the Middle East to Asia. Intelsat said that a couple customers who had been using those cables have turned to its satellites as a backup. Subsea cable users with antennas and other equipment already in place to tap into a satellite network backup can get communications restored within 15 minutes, Intelsat said. [SpaceNews]
The Chinese government has taken a positive stance towards using space resources. In a document filed with a U.N. working group examining the legal issues associated with space resource utilization, the Chinese government said it considers those activities as permissible under international law, but added they need to comply with the Outer Space Treaty, such a provision prohibiting countries from making territorial claims on the moon or other celestial bodies. One expert saw the Chinese document as a positive development and one largely aligned with the broader international consensus on the use of space resources. [SpaceNews]
A satellite launched Monday is the Space Force's second attempt to demonstrate weather satellite technologies. The Electro-Optical/Infrared Weather Systems (EWS) demonstration cubesat, built by Orion Space Solutions, launched Monday on the Transporter-10 rideshare mission by SpaceX. Over a planned one-year demonstration, the Space Force wants to assess the capabilities of the cubesat to provide timely weather imagery data from space as the Defense Department looks to avoid a gap in weather coverage with the impending retirement of the decades-old Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellites. A previous EWS cubesat technology demonstration was launched on Transporter-6 rideshare last January but failed to separate properly from the upper stage. [SpaceNews]
Another satellite on Transporter-10 is working well after launch. Apex said Tuesday that its Aries SN1 satellite had completed initial tests after deployment and is working well. The spacecraft is the first built by Apex and serves primarily as a technology demonstration mission, although it does carry several payloads for unnamed customers, including three defense primes. Apex has long-term plans to mass-manufacture Aries and larger satellite buses for customers. [SpaceNews]
| | Other News
NASA's newest astronaut class formally graduated Tuesday as the agency prepares for the next class. The 10 members of the Group 23 class officially became astronauts Tuesday after completing two years of training. They were joined by two Emirati astronauts who also participated in the training. There are now 48 active NASA astronauts, five of whom are currently on the International Space Station. NASA announced Tuesday it was starting recruitment for the next astronaut class, with applications due April 2. [collectSPACE]
Terran Orbital has won a $15 million contract to support U.S. Space Force experiments. The contract was awarded by the defense contractor Axient Corp. on behalf of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). Axient won a contract from AFRL to manage small-satellite military experiments. Terran Orbital will provide Axient with two of the company's Ambassador-class satellite platforms and support equipment, and to integrate payloads for upcoming U.S. Space Force missions. Those satellite buses, to be delivered within 12 months, are similar to those Terran Orbital builds for Lockheed Martin for its Space Development Agency Tranche 1 Transport Layer satellites. [SpaceNews]
Agile Space won a Space Force contract to develop a mobile satellite integration facility. The Space Force's technology arm SpaceWERX awarded the company a Small Business Innovation Research Phase 2 contract for its Mobile Payload Processing Center, which is designed to integrate satellites on-demand and get them ready for launch. Agile Space was one of 19 companies that received SBIR Phase 2 contracts under the so-called Tactically Responsive Space Challenge, a program seeking private-sector technologies to help accelerate space missions. [SpaceNews]
Exotrail has deployed a satellite from its first orbital transfer vehicle. The company said Wednesday that its spacevan-001 tug deployed last week a cubesat built by Endurosat. That cubesat carries an Airbus Defence and Space payload to test technology to "detumble" satellites that have lost attitude control. Exotrail launched spacevan-001 in November on the Transpoter-9 mission and had been performing a step-by-step checkout of the spacecraft before deploying the cubesat. The tug also carries a hosted payload from Veoware, a Belgian startup developing control moment gyros and reaction wheels. [SpaceNews]
India's plans to return samples from the moon may require two launches. The proposed Chandrayaan-4 mission, Indian space officials said, will involve one spacecraft launched on India's LVM3 rocket that will land on the moon, collect samples and launch them into lunar orbit. A second mission, launched on a PSLV rocket, will feature a spacecraft to pick up the samples in lunar orbit and return them to Earth. The Indian space agency ISRO has not disclosed a schedule for the mission, including which of the two spacecraft would launch first. [India Today]
| | Miserable Space
"We're increasing this whole bubble of space exploration, but people aren't going to want to do that if they're just going to be miserable when they get to microgravity and when they return to Earth."
– Taylor Lonner, a graduate student at the University of Colorado Boulder who is studying how virtual reality goggles could help astronauts avid motion sickness when in space and after splashdown. [Space.com]
| | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment