Chinas Cislunar Playbook - SpaceNews This Week

Top stories of the week from SpaceNews

Welcome to our weekly roundup of the top SpaceNews stories of the week, brought to you every Friday! This week, China announces plans for cislunar infrastructure, Vast announces space for in-orbit experiments on its space station, new Mars Sample Return proposals, and more. Our Top Story Chinese scientists outline major cislunar space infrastructure project By Andrew Jones, July 30, 2024 Chinese scientists are proposing cislunar space infrastructure to support lunar exploration, enhance the nation's space industry and promote international collaboration.   The proposed infrastructure includes a comprehensive system providing data communication, positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT), as well as space situational monitoring services for ground-based, near-Earth, cislunar, lunar surface, and deep space users.   The article, titled Orbit Design Method of Near-Lunar Space Constellation, was published in the journal Chinese Space Science and Technology in June, lays out conceptual framework and development plans for a phased constellation to support various human activities in cislunar space. Other News From the Week CIVIL GHGSat gains NASA approval for methane-emissions data Montreal-based GHGSat announced July 31 that the company's data completed NASA's evaluation process. Now that the quality has been verified, GHGSat data will soon be available for scientific and other noncommercial applications through NASA's Earthdata portal. Companies describe studies to revise Mars Sample Return NASA selected seven companies in June for 90-day studies, valued at up to $1.5 million each, to examine different concepts that could reduce the cost or improve the schedule for MSR. The studies, which got underway earlier in July, are scheduled to be delivered to NASA in October. Space industry considers implications of Harris as presidential candidate Those in industry have mixed perceptions of Harris and her work on the space council. Some note the efforts she led to push for a "mission authorization" regime to end uncertainty about how emerging space applications will be regulated, although those efforts have stalled in Congress. NASA to soon resume awards of lunar lander missions During a panel discussion at the AIAA ASCEND conference Aug. 1, Chris Culbert, manager of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, said the agency was "very close" to awarding a task order known as CP-22 for a lander to the south pole of the moon. COMMERCIAL Vast offers microgravity lab space on Haven-1 station Vast announced Aug. 1 plans for its Haven-1 Lab, a research facility that will be part of its Haven-1 commercial station. The Haven-1 Lab will host 10 middeck locker equivalents, a standard payload accommodation used on the International Space Station. Each of those 10 slots can host payloads weighing up to 30 kilograms and using up to 100 watts of power.  Boeing takes additional $125 million loss on Starliner In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission July 31 about the company's second quarter financial results, Boeing cited delays in completing the ongoing Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission. Boeing has taken about $1.6 billion in charges on Starliner throughout the program, mostly since a flawed initial uncrewed test flight in late 2019. Dawn unveils docking and refueling port Dawn Aerospace unveiled a Docking and Fluid Transfer port for the company's SatDrive propulsion systems. The port will help Dawn customers gain access to future in-space refueling services. The port replaces standard manual fill and drain valves used for propellant loading on the ground. LAUNCH China's Space Pioneer pushes towards launch despite static-fire debacle Space Pioneer suffered a serious setback in its plans to debut the Tianlong-3 kerosene-liquid oxygen rocket later this year following a static-fire test anomaly June 30. That test saw the first stage escape its test bench and climb into the sky before falling to the ground and exploding. China launches second secretive high orbit internet satellite China launched the second of a new series of geostationary communications satellites Thursday, though its purposes remain unclear. A Long March 3B rocket lifted off at 9:14 a.m. Eastern Aug. 1 (1314 UTC) from Xichang Satellite Launch Center, southwest China. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) declared the launch was a complete success. United Launch Alliance and SpaceX get $1.8 billion boost in Space Force contracts The U.S. Space Force has increased the value of its launch contracts with ULA and SpaceX by nearly $1.8 billion, citing a significant growth in projected missions under the five-year agreements awarded in 2020. This boost comes as a result of a surge in demand for launches under the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 2 program. ULA's Atlas 5 launches its final national security mission A classified U.S. Space Force mission flew to geostationary Earth orbit July 30 aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. The rocket lifted off at 6:45 a.m. Eastern from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. AI ASCEND panel cites AI challenges and promise Speakers at the AIAA ASCEND described how space organizations are finding new AI use cases, such as NASA's work aggregating datasets from various Earth-observation sensors, and called for better workforce training with AI. Booz Allen deploys advanced language model in space The generative AI large language model (LLM) has been in operation on the Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Spaceborne Computer-2 since mid-July as part of an experiment, Booz Allen announced Aug. 1. The LLM at the space station is intended to help astronauts address queries and resolve issues.  OPINION A new kind of space politics By Donald F. Robertson, July 29, 2024 On July 16 2024, Elon Musk shouted from the proverbial rooftops that he will move SpaceX out of California to Boca Chica, Texas. By his own admission, he is not moving only for corporate advantage, value, or profitability, but also for politics. (He is also moving X, aka Twitter, from San Francisco to Austin, likewise for political reasons; he originally bought Twitter for ideological reasons.)  Ironically, Musk's announcement came the day after another Musk company, Tesla, reversed a large number of recent California layoffs in Fremont, CA. Likewise, only two years after moving Tesla's management to Texas with great fanfare, he brought the global engineering team back to Palo Alto, CA.  While Elon Musk's resources may permit him to do whatever he wants, I suspect the SpaceX story will end up looking a lot like Tesla's. If so, in a few years, SpaceX management might in a few years be right back where they started. SpaceNews is committed to publishing our community's diverse perspectives. Whether you're an academic, executive, engineer or even just a concerned citizen of the cosmos, send your arguments and viewpoints to opinion@spacenews.com to be considered for publication online or in our next magazine. Copyright (C) 2024 Multiverse Media Inc.. All rights reserved. You signed up to receive this newsletter on Spacenews.com. At times you may receive marketing material. Our mailing address is: Multiverse Media Inc. 100 Fillmore St. 5th Floor Denver, CO 80206 USA Want to change how you receive these emails? 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