Plus: Vast backs NASA's commercial space station pivot
By Dan Robitzski
One of the TRACERS satellites is back from the dead.
NASA said Sept. 11 it reestablished contact with SV1, one of two identical Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites, which experienced power problems just two days after its launch in late July.
TRACERS measures how the solar wind couples with the Earth's magnetic field and is designed to study how that coupling changes in space and time. The two spacecraft were expected to pass through the same region of space between 10 and 120 seconds apart. That gives NASA two closely spaced measurements to learn if something is accelerating, going down, moving around, turning on or turning off.
Initially, SV1 appeared to work only when its solar arrays were in direct sunlight, so NASA decided to hold off on attempting to restore contact and scientific operations until August when it was better aligned with the sun.
Now, NASA said its teams pulled the feat off. Here's what SpaceNews senior staff writer Jeff Foust wrote.
In its Sept. 11 statement to SpaceNews, NASA said mission partners and manufacturer NovaWurks had confirmed the spacecraft's location and were working to restore communications. "The team is also working to determine the cause of the initial missed signal acquisition and any factors that may have contributed to the delayed communication downlinks," the agency said.
You can read the full story here.
NASA selected TRACERS for development in 2019. The mission has a total cost of $170 million.
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SIGNIFICANT DIGIT
| $3.6T | The high end of the projected cost for the Golden Dome missile defense system over 20 years, according to a study by the American Enterprise Institute. Are you getting our biweekly Mission Brief: Golden Dome email updates? Sign up here to get the first four parts, and then new emails as they're sent. | | |
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SPACE STATION STRATEGIES
| NASA recently pivoted with its commercial space station strategy, moving away from earlier plans to maintain a continuous human presence in space in favor of shorter missions — specifically 30-day demonstration missions with crews of four. And commercial space station developer Vast is on board. Speaking Sept. 11 at the Global Aerospace Summit, Max Haot endorsed NASA's new strategy, arguing that any insistence on immediately maintaining a continuous crew presence in the new generation of commercial space stations, as it's maintained on the International Space Station, is unrealistic.
"If you say, 'I want permanent presence on day one,' all you do is you delay when you see that," Haot said.
NASA's new strategy aligns nicely with Vast's existing model. Here's what Jeff wrote on Haot's speech.
Some in industry argue Vast benefits from the change, since it is developing Haven-1, a single-module station designed for four-person crews on several missions totaling about 40 days. Haot said the company is not altering its plans, which already included a larger Haven-2 station intended to support NASA. He emphasized Vast's commitment to long-term human presence.
"We think it's critical to stay in low Earth orbit, not to cede it to China," he said. "What are we selling? The number one thing we're selling is missions on orbit, seats and time in a space station. Of course we are incentivized and we want to sell the U.S. government full-year occupancy instead of 30 days."
Read the full article here.
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| | York Space Systems' delivery of 21 satellites for the U.S. military marks the company's largest batch to date, a milestone its chief executive says reflects years of investment in scaling up production for constellation-level programs.
| | | China conducted a 320-second hot fire test of a shortened Long March 10 rocket in the latest step in the country's plans to land astronauts on the moon.
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| | EchoStar is looking for ways to expand its communications business as an "asset-light growth company," CEO Hamid Akhavan said Sept. 15, after regulatory pressure prompted a series of spectrum sales in what he called a "forced pivot" away from its plans to deploy a low Earth orbit direct-to-device constellation.
| | | | Firefly Aerospace is pitching its rockets and orbital platforms for the Pentagon's Golden Dome missile defense initiative, a program intended to shield the U.S. from next-generation missile threats.
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