New Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rules say astronaut hopefuls must be part of the flight crew and make contributions to space flight safety.

That means Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson may not yet be astronauts in the eyes of the US government.

These are the first changes since the FAA wings programme began in 2004.

The Commercial Astronaut Wings programme updates were announced on Tuesday – the same day that Amazon’s Mr Bezos flew aboard a Blue Origin rocket to the edge of space.

To qualify as commercial astronauts, space-goers must travel 50 miles (80km) above the Earth’s surface, which both Mr Bezos and Mr Branson accomplished.

But altitude aside, the agency says would-be astronauts must have also “demonstrated activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to human space flight safety”.

What exactly counts as such is determined by FAA officials.

In a statement, the FAA said that these changes brought the wings scheme more in line with its role to protect public safety during commercial space flights.

On 11 July, Sir Richard flew on-board Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo to the edge of space as a test before allowing customers aboard next year.

Mr Bezos and the three other crew members who flew on Blue Origin’s spacecraft may have less claim to the coveted title. Ahead of the launch, Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith said that “there’s really nothing for a crew member to do” on the autonomous vehicle.

[…]

Source: Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson may not be astronauts, US says – BBC News

This looks childish to me – they went to space, they are definitely pioneers. And it’s not like there are going to be very many of them.

You can find the order here (pdf) and see that they added 5 c

Note FAA Part 460 human spaceflight requirements is also interesting in this discussion regarding human space flight participants

The rocket ship launched the 70-year-old and his crew from Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert.

Tropical storms had delayed the launch before setting off at around 3.30pm.

Branson – known as ‘Astronaut 001’ – soared into space in his blue spacesuit aboard Virgin Space Ship Unity, a 62ft rocket-powered space plane nestled between the twin hulls of Mother Ship Eve, which propelled them to an altitude of around 55 miles.

Source: Virgin Galactic space launch LIVE – Richard Branson WINS battle with Elon Musk to become first billionaire in space

Link contains a good summary video. Nice to see Richard beat out Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos – what an achievement!

Virgin Orbit had a successful first commercial launch, meaning there’s now officially another small satellite launch provider in operation with a track record of delivering payloads to space. Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket took off from its carrier aircraft at around 11:45 AM EDT today, and the spacecraft had a successful series of engine fires and stage separations to make the trip to low Earth orbit.

On board, Virgin Orbit carried seven payloads, including the first-ever defense satellite for the Netherlands, as well as cubsats developed by the U.S. Department of Defense for its Rapid Agile Launch initiative. The initiative is seeking to test the viability of flying small spacecraft to space on relatively short notice on launch platforms with increased flexibility, which Virgin Orbit’s provides thanks to its ability to take off horizontally from more or less conventional runways.

Virgin Orbit also carried two Earth observation satellites for Polish startup SatRevolution, and it will be delivering more in future flights to help build out that company’s planned 14-spacecraft constellation.

Source: Virgin Orbit successfully launches its first commercial payloads to space | TechCrunch

China has launched three astronauts into orbit to begin occupation of the country’s new space station.

The three men – Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo – are to spend three months aboard the Tianhe module some 380km (236 miles) above the Earth.

It will be China’s longest crewed space mission to date and the first in nearly five years.

The crew successfully docked with the space station just over seven hours after the launch.

The moment of contact was met with applause from mission control in China.

Their Shenzhou-12 capsule took off atop its Long March 2F rocket on Thursday.

Lift-off from the Jiuquan satellite launch centre in the Gobi desert was at 09:22 Beijing time (01:22 GMT).

The launch and subsequent mission are another demonstration of China’s growing confidence and capability in the space domain.

In the past six months, the country has returned rock and soil samples to Earth from the surface of the Moon, and landed a six-wheeled robot on Mars – both highly complex and challenging endeavours.

[…]

This 16.6m-long, 4.2m-wide Tianhe cylinder was launched in April.

It is the first and core component in what will eventually be a near 70-tonne orbiting outpost, comprising living quarters, science labs and even a Hubble-class telescope to view the cosmos.

[…]

It has poured significant funding into its space efforts, and in 2019 became the first country to send an un-crewed rover to the far side of the Moon.

But it’s had to go at it alone in developing a space station, in part because it has been excluded from the International Space Station project.

The US, which leads that partnership (with Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan) will not co-operate with the Asian nation in orbit.

For its part, China says it is open to foreign involvement on its station. In the first instance, this means hosted scientific experiments. For example, the Shenzhou-12 crew will conduct cancer investigations that are led from Norway. And on the outside of the station, there is an Indian-developed telescopic spectrograph to study ultraviolet emissions coming from deep space, from the likes of exploded stars.

But, long term, there probably also will be visits to the station by non-Chinese nationals.

Source: China space station: Shenzhou-12 delivers first crew to Tianhe module – BBC News

[..]

To promote space resilience and operational effectiveness, the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) is pleased to announce that we have teamed up with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) Space Programme to launch the Space to Innovate Campaign.

[…]

The first challenge drop, called the “Alpha challenge drop” in the Space to Innovate Campaign is now open for proposals! This challenge drop focuses on two challenges:

• Challenge 1: Visualisation tools to enable space operators to exploit information gathered from multiple data sources
• Challenge 2: Novel methods for characterising objects in space and their intent

Think you have the solution?

Check out the full competition document and submit your idea.

When does the Alpha challenge drop begin and how much funding is available?

The Alpha challenge drop is now open and closes for proposals on 4 August 2021. The value of individual contracts offered throughout the entire Space to Innovate Campaign will be from £125k to £400k, with durations of the contracts expected to be from 6 months to 18 months. The amount of funding available for the entire Space to Innovate Campaign is expected to be £2m, with the campaign ending on 31 March 2023.

The second Bravo challenge drop will address challenges focusing on ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) and SSA (Space Situational Awareness).

[…]

Alpha drop challenges

Challenge 1: Visualisation tools to enable space operators to exploit information gathered from multiple data sources

For challenge 1, DASA is looking for novel solutions that could help to address issues such as:

• enhancing the situational awareness around an object
• understanding and monitoring manoeuvres and changes of objects in orbit
• streamlining ingestion issues with multiple data sources and different naming conventions
• using machine learning to enhance our understanding and interrogation of the data presented & make sense of results
• visualising uncertainty in data

Challenge 2: Novel methods for characterising objects in space and their intent

For challenge 2, DASA is looking for novel solutions that could help to address issues such as:

• detecting changes of state and predicting future changes
• exploiting non-traditional sensor configurations including bi- or multi-static configurations and the repurposing of existing facilities
• technologies that allow resolution of individual features on an observed satellite, inferring information regarding payloads
• observing the interaction and cooperation between satellites in formation in low Earth orbit (LEO) or geostationary Earth orbit (GEO)
• satellite overflight warning of Earth observation missions primarily in LEO
• asset protection for high value satellites operating in GEO

Source: Finding next-gen space tech: DASA launches the Space to Innovate Campaign – GOV.UK

The inevitable has occurred. A piece of space debris too small to be tracked has hit and damaged part of the International Space Station – namely, the Canadarm2 robotic arm.

The instrument is still operational, but the object punctured the thermal blanket and damaged the boom beneath. It’s a sobering reminder that the low-Earth orbit’s space junk problem is a ticking time bomb.

Obviously space agencies around the world are aware of the space debris problem. Over 23,000 pieces are being tracked in low-Earth orbit to help satellites and the ISS avoid collisions – but they’re all about the size of a softball or larger.

Anything below that size is too small to track, but travelling at orbital velocities can still do some significant damage, including punching right through metal plates.

An impact hole left in the Hubble Space Telescope antenna in 1997. (NASA)

Canadarm2 – formally known as the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS), designed by the Canadian Space Agency – has been a fixture on the space station for 20 years. It’s a multi-jointed titanium robotic arm that can assist with maneuvering objects outside the ISS, including cargo shuttles, and performing station maintenance.

It’s unclear exactly when the impact occurred. The damage was first noticed on 12 May, during a routine inspection. NASA and the CSA worked together to take detailed images of and assess the damage.

“Despite the impact, results of the ongoing analysis indicate that the arm’s performance remains unaffected,” the CSA wrote in a blog post. “The damage is limited to a small section of the arm boom and thermal blanket. Canadarm2 is continuing to conduct its planned operations.”

Although the ISS seems to have gotten lucky this time, the space debris problem does seem to be increasing. Last year, the ISS had to perform emergency maneuvers three times in order to avoid collisions with space debris at its altitude of around 400 kilometers (250 miles).

[…]

Source: Space Debris Has Hit And Damaged The International Space Station

Virgin Galactic’s rocket-powered plane, carrying two pilots, soared into the upper atmosphere on its third mission to reach space Saturday morning.

The success cues up Virgin Galactic to begin launching paying customers within the next year as the company works to finish its testing campaign at its new headquarters in New Mexico.

Spaceplane VSS Unity reached an altitude of 55.45 miles, according to the company. The US government recognizes the 50-mile mark as the edge of space. The company tweeted Saturday morning that the spaceflight carried technology experiments for NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program.

[…]

Recently, the company installed a new CEO, former Disney executive Michael Colglazier, and has been pledging to slowly ramp up to commercial operations over the next year or so. It’s also focused on constructing a new line of planes, called SpaceShipIII, and is angling to one day fly about 400 flights each year from its New Mexico spaceport.

Source: Virgin Galactic test flight successful – CNN

The Tianwen-1 mission, China’s first interplanetary endeavor, reached the surface of the Red Planet Friday (May 14) at approximately 7:11 p.m. EDT (2311 GMT), though Chinese space officials have not yet confirmed the exact time and location of touchdown. Tianwen-1 (which translates to “Heavenly Questions”) arrived in Mars’ orbit in February after launching to the Red Planet on a Long March 5 rocket in July 2020.

After circling the Red Planet for more than three months, the Tianwen-1 lander, with the rover attached, separated from the orbiter to begin its plunge toward the planet’s surface. Once the lander and rover entered Mars’ atmosphere, the spacecraft endured a similar procedure to the “seven minutes of terror” that NASA’s Mars rovers have experienced when attempting soft landings on Mars.

Video: See China’s ‘Zhurong’ rover land on Mars in animation
Related: China’s Tianwen-1 Mars mission in photos

A heat shield protected the spacecraft during the fiery descent, after which the mission safely parachuted down to the Utopia Planitia region, a plain inside of an enormous impact basin in the planet’s northern hemisphere. Much like during NASA’s Perseverance rover landing, Tianwen-1’s landing platform fired some small, downward-facing rocket engines to slow down during the last few seconds of its descent.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) has not yet officially confirmed the successful landing, but it has been announced on social media by the state-run China Global Television Network (CGTN) and by researchers at Macau University of Science and Technology in China.

Succesful landing of #Tianwen1, on #Mars! Landing point: 109.7 E, 25.1 N, less than 40 km from target location in Utopia Planitia. More details expected later! pic.twitter.com/bMSvziscjiMay 15, 2021

See more

China’s Mars rover, called Zhurong after an ancient fire god in Chinese mythology, will part ways with the lander by driving down a foldable ramp. Once it has deployed, the rover is expected to spend at least 90 Mars days (or about 93 Earth days; a day on Mars lasts about 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth) roving around on Mars to study the planet’s composition and look for signs of water ice. Utopia Planitia is believed to contain vast amounts of water ice beneath the surface. It’s also where NASA’s Viking 2 mission touched down in 1976.

The six-wheeled rover, which is about the size of NASA’s twin Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, carries six scientific instruments on board, including two panoramic cameras, a ground-penetrating radar and a magnetic field detector. It also has a laser that it can use to zap rocks and study their composition, as well as a meteorological instrument to study the climate and weather on Mars.

Zhurong will work in tandem with the Tianwen-1 orbiter to study the Red Planet, and the orbiter will serve as a data relay station for communications between Zhurong and mission controllers on Earth. The orbiter is designed to last for at least one Mars year, or about 687 Earth days.

[…]

Source: China’s 1st Mars rover ‘Zhurong’ lands on the Red Planet | Space

OSIRIS-REx, a NASA spacecraft tasked with collecting rocks and dust from a nearby asteroid named Bennu, is coming back home after almost five years away. The spacecraft, officially named Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer, officially fired its engines to begin its Earthward journey on May 10. Its return trip will take two and half years.

Bennu, the asteroid the spacecraft accosted, is a 1,600-foot-wide (500-meter) hunk of rock and ice located 200 million miles (321 million kilometers) from Earth. OSIRIS-REx snagged a handful of dust last October after a fairly dramatic encounter with the desolate little world. NASA was concerned that OSIRIS-REx wouldn’t be able to bring back a full sample due to leaks in the collection system. Thankfully, the samples now are headed to Earth, where they will be carefully examined by researchers.

[…]

 

Source: NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Is Racing Back to Earth With a Scoop of Asteroid

China today launched the main module of its new space station into low Earth orbit. The ambitious project is set to be China’s answer to the International Space Station, which has never included China in its membership.

The 55-foot core module is called Tianhe, or Harmony of the Heavens. It blasted off from the Wenchang Launch Center in Hainan in the wee hours of Thursday morning, late Wednesday night for the United States. It launched aboard a 190-foot-tall Long March-5b Rocket, which has been the flagship launcher of the program since 2016. This is the first of 11 launches planned to see the finished product of the Chinese Space Station in operation by late 2022.

Should all go according to plan, Tianhe is the section of the station that will actually house Chinese astronauts, for stints of up to half a year. The next launches will send up two experimental modules, which will attach to either side of Tianhe, four cargo shipments, and four crewed missions, the first of which is slated for June. Tianhe has a total of five docking ports, which could be expanded to six.

The core module is the largest spacecraft yet developed by China, according to Chinese state media. The total station weight will be around 66 tons. While a far cry from the over 450 tons the ISS was at its completion in 1998, the main goals of the space station—conducting experiments in space and exploring how properties of space affect the results—doesn’t really require a ton of room.

[…]

Source: China’s Space Station Is Closer to Reality With Launch of Core Module

Humans have explored and exploited near-earth space for more than six decades. More recently, the past two decades have seen the start of a New Space Era, characterized by more spacefaring nations and companies and a growing risk of collisions and conflict. Yet the basic treaties and mechanisms that were crafted 50 years ago to govern space activities have only marginally changed.

The calls for more progress on space governance and responsible space behavior are growing louder and coming from a larger group. To help address the gap between current space governance and future needs, the authors of this Perspective summarize the development of space governance and key problem areas, identify challenges and barriers to further progress, and, most importantly, offer recommended first steps on a trajectory toward responsible space behavior norms appropriate for the New Space Era. The authors used a review of relevant literature and official documents, expert workshops, and subject-matter expert interviews and discussions to identify these challenges, barriers, and potential solutions.

Source: Responsible Space Behavior for the New Space Era: Preserving the Province of Humanity | RAND

In 2008 there were 10k objects circling our planet. Now we have 20k. Especially with mr Musk sending up huge amounts of only partially working satellites in his Starlink program we need better agreements on how we use this incredibly congested area above us. For a visualisation of how bad it is, take a look at stuffin.space.

A band of dust that follows Venus along its entire orbital path has finally been viewed in full, thanks to a series of fortuitous maneuvers involving NASA’s Parker Solar Probe.

Astronomers suspected it was there, but now we know it’s real: a band of particles distributed along Venus’s orbital path around the Sun.

[…]

A paper detailing this discovery now appears in The Astrophysical Journal.

To date, the Parker Solar Probe has completed seven orbits around the Sun. Equipped with its Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe (WISPR)—a pair of visible light telescopes—the spacecraft has been analyzing the Sun’s corona and solar wind. That’s the probe’s primary focus, but mission planners had also planned on using WISPR to study the presumed dust ring.

[…]

, the dust within this circumsolar ring is approximately 10% denser than the dust in outlying areas. The tiny particles that make up this ring are likely leftovers from the formation of the solar system and/or debris from colliding asteroids and disintegrating comets,

[…]

Source: Parker Solar Probe Captures View of Venus’s Orbital Dust Ring

Stuff in Space is a realtime 3D map of objects in Earth orbit, visualized using WebGL.

The website updates daily with orbit data from Space-Track.org and uses the excellent satellite.js Javascript library to calculate satellite positions.

About the author

Contact: info@stuffin.space

See Stuff in Space on GitHub

Source: Stuff in Space

In recent days, NASA published three aerial photos taken by Ingenuity. These aren’t the first photos taken by the rover. It has previously sent back images of its shadows taken with its downward-facing navigation camera. And let’s not forget its watchful and proud surrogate parent, the Perseverance rover, which snaps magnificent photos of the helicopter in action. However, this latest set of images is special because they’re the first color photos of Mars taken by an aerial vehicle while it’s in the air.

Ingenuity’s First Aerial Color Image of Mars

This is the first color image taken by Ingenuity, which is equipped with a high-resolution color camera that contains a 4208 x 3120-pixel sensor, on its April 22 test flight. According to NASA, Ingenuity was 17 feet (5.2 meters) above the surface. It was also moving its field of view upward as it prepared to move sideways for its 51.9-second flight.

Read More

In Third Mars Flight, Ingenuity Goes Beyond All Tests Done on Earth

NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter Just Completed Its Second Flight on Mars

NASA Generates Oxygen on Mars, Setting Stage for Crewed Missions

“The image, as well as the inset showing a closeup of a portion of the tracks [of] the Perseverance Mars rover and Mars surface features, demonstrates the utility of scouting Martian terrain from an aerial perspective,” NASA explained in the photo’s description.

Speaking of Perseverance, you can check out the six-wheeled rover’s tracks in the winding parallel discolorations on the surface. Apparently, Perseverance itself isn’t too far away, but rather top center and unfortunately out of frame.

“Wright Brothers Field,” which is what NASA has named Ingenuity’s official launch zone, is in the vicinity of the helicopter’s shadow at the bottom center, the space agency said, and its point of takeoff is just below the image. Meanwhile, the black objects on the sides of the photo are Ingenuity’s landing pads. And in case this photo couldn’t get any better, you can see a small part of the horizon on the upper left and right corners.

Ingenuity’s Second Aerial Color Image of Mars

Besides stating that this photo was also taken at an altitude of 17 feet (5.2 meters), NASA didn’t have much to say. Nonetheless, the space agency noted that you could see tracks made by Perseverance here as well.

Ingenuity’s Third Aerial Color Image of Mars

NASA was short on words for this photo, too, but helpfully reminded us that Perseverance’s tracks can be seen in this case if you’re looking. (I was). I see the tracks at the bottom of the photo, but the rest of the picture is a lot more captivating to me.

Source: These Are Ingenuity’s First Color In-Flight Photos of Mars

The drone, called Ingenuity, was airborne for less than a minute, but Nasa is celebrating what represents the first powered, controlled flight by an aircraft on another world.

Confirmation came via a satellite at Mars which relayed the chopper’s data back to Earth.

The space agency is promising more adventurous flights in the days ahead.

Ingenuity will be commanded to fly higher and further as engineers seek to test the limits of the technology.

The rotorcraft was carried to Mars in the belly of Nasa’s Perseverance Rover, which touched down in Jezero Crater on the Red Planet in February.

• Ingenuity Mars helicopter set for historic flight
• Nasa shows dramatic video of Mars rover’s landing
• Will Nasa’s next rover discover life on Mars?

“We can now say that human beings have flown a rotorcraft on another planet,” said a delighted MiMi Aung, project manager for Ingenuity at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

[…]

Ingenuity even carries a small swatch of fabric from one of the wings of Flyer 1, the aircraft that made that historic flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, more than 117 years ago.

image copyrightNASA/JPL-CALTECH

[…]

The demonstration saw the Mars-copter rise to about 3m, hover, swivel and then land. In all, it managed almost 40 seconds of flight, from take-off to landing.

Getting airborne on the Red Planet is not easy. The atmosphere is very thin, just 1% of the density here at Earth. This gives the blades on a rotorcraft very little to bite into to gain lift.

There’s help from the lower gravity at Mars, but still – it takes a lot of work to get up off the ground

Ingenuity was therefore made extremely light and given the power (a peak power of 350 watts) to turn those blades extremely fast – at over 2,500 revolutions per minute for this particular flight.

Control was autonomous. The distance to Mars – currently just under 300 million km – means radio signals take minutes to traverse the intervening space. Flying by joystick is simply out of the question.

[…]

Ingenuity has two cameras onboard. A black-and-white camera that points down to the ground, which is used for navigation, and a high-resolution colour camera that looks out to the horizon.

A sample navigation image sent back to Earth revealed the helicopter’s shadow on the floor of the crater as it came back in to land. Satellites will send home more pictures of the flight over the next day. There was only sufficient bandwidth in the orbiters’ first overflight to return a short snatch of video from Perseverance, which was watching and snapping away from a distance of 65m. Longer sequences should become available in due course.

image copyrightNasa

Nasa has announced that the “airstrip” in Jezero where Perseverance dropped off Ingenuity for its demonstration will henceforth be known as the “Wright Brothers Field”.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) – the United Nations’ civil aviation agency – has also presented the Nasa and the US Federal Aviation Administration with an official ICAO designator: IGY, call-sign INGENUITY.

A successful maiden outing means that a further four flights will be attempted over the coming days, each one taking the helicopter further afield.

Source: Nasa successfully flies small helicopter on Mars – BBC News

Two satellites from the fast-growing constellations of OneWeb and SpaceX’s Starlink dodged a dangerously close approach with one another in orbit last weekend, representatives from the US Space Force and OneWeb said. It’s the first known collision avoidance event for the two rival companies as they race to expand their new broadband-beaming networks in space.

On March 30th, five days after OneWeb launched its latest batch of 36 satellites from Russia, the company received several “red alerts” from the US Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron warning of a possible collision with a Starlink satellite. Because OneWeb’s constellation operates in higher orbits around Earth, the company’s satellites must pass through SpaceX’s mesh of Starlink satellites, which orbit at an altitude of roughly 550 km.

One Space Force alert indicated a collision probability of 1.3 percent, with the two satellites coming as close as 190 feet — a dangerously close proximity for satellites in orbit. If satellites collide in orbit, it could cause a cascading disaster that could generate hundreds of pieces of debris and send them on crash courses with other satellites nearby.

Currently, there’s no national or global authority that would force satellite operators to take action on predicted collisions. Space Force’s urgent alerts sent OneWeb engineers scrambling to email SpaceX’s Starlink team to coordinate maneuvers that would put the two satellites at safer distances from one another.

While coordinating with OneWeb, SpaceX disabled its automated AI-powered collision avoidance system to allow OneWeb to steer its satellite out of the way, according to OneWeb’s government affairs chief Chris McLaughlin. It was unclear why exactly SpaceX disabled the system. SpaceX, which rarely responds to reporters, did not return multiple requests for comment for this story, nor did David Goldman, the company’s director of satellite policy.

SpaceX’s automated system for avoiding satellite collisions has sparked controversy, raising concerns from other satellite operators who say they have no way of knowing which way the system will move a Starlink satellite in the event of a close approach. “Coordination is the issue,” McLaughlin says. “It is not sufficient to say ‘I’ve got an automated system,’ because the other guy may not have, and won’t understand what yours is trying to do.”

[…]

the sharp increase of satellites in orbit, mainly driven by SpaceX’s Starlink venture, has moved faster than any authority can regulate the industry for safety. McKissock says SpaceX has made efforts to increase its transparency in orbit; the company currently provides location data of its satellites to other operators. But its automated system for avoiding collisions is a closed book where openness and coordination are needed the most, analysts and operators say.

“What is the point of having it if you have to turn it off when there’s going to be a potential collision?” Victoria Samson of the Secure World Foundation says, adding that the void of any clear international framework for managing active objects in space makes it largely unclear who would be held responsible if a collision actually occurred.

[…]

Source: OneWeb, SpaceX satellites dodged a potential collision in orbit – The Verge

[…]

NASA has chosen Elon Musk‘s SpaceX to build the spacecraft that take the first woman and next man to the moon.

The American space agency made the official announcement Friday, which includes SpaceX’s  $2.9 billion contract to build the lunar lander that is reportedly much lower than what competitors bid.

The Washington Post shared the news hours before saying the Musk-owned firm beat out Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Dynetics.

Bezos owns the Post, which branded Musk’s win a ‘stunning victory’ over his Amazon tycoon’s rival effort.

[…]

Source: Elon Musk’s SpaceX ‘will bring first woman to the Moon after signing rocket deal with NASA’ | Daily Mail Online

[…]

To speed up the pace of NTP tech development, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected a trio of companies to build and demonstrate a nuclear-based propulsion system on a spacecraft above low-Earth orbit by 2025. The prime contractors include Jeff Bezos’ private space project Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, and General Atomics.

Over the next 18 months, phase 1 of the DRACO (Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations) program will see the companies split across two tracks to develop a craft that has the ability to rapidly maneuver in cislunar space (between the Earth and the moon). The award win marks a new national security contract for Blue Origin, according to CNBC, while its DRACO counterparts are regulars on the defense circuit.

Bezos’ company and Lockheed Martin — granted $2.5 million and $2.9 million, respectively — will now work on competing designs for an operational spacecraft powered by an NTP system. DARPA awarded General Atomics $22 million to develop the nuclear reactor.

[…]

Source: DARPA picks Lockheed Martin and Blue Origin to build nuclear spacecraft | Engadget

Blue Origin has successfully completed a test launch and landing of its reuseable New Shepard rocket with an advanced capsule design, bringing the outfit one step closer to eventually sending up paying passengers.

The test flight, codenamed NS-15 as it’s the 15th to date, was conducted at 1651 UTC (1151 CDT) at a Blue Origin site near Van Horn, Texas, on Wednesday. Two Blue Origin employees climbed up the launch tower, entered the capsule, and were strapped into their seats, and followed final procedures to prepare for a fake take off. Just before the New Shepard was due to fly, however, they left the capsule, with just Mannequin Skywalker, the instrument-stuffed dummy Blue Origin uses, to make the short journey.

The flight was the first test of the new capsule design that’ll be more comfortable for people paying six-figure sums to go into space. New acoustic and temperature controls were tested, as well an improved radio and control systems. NASA wants to see all is right before putting humans on it.

You can watch the whole thing again here. Skip to 1:53:39 to get to the countdown.

NS-15 was completed in just over ten minutes, according to the mission’s broadcast. First, the capsule separated from the booster at about three minutes into the flight. After the booster reached its highest point – about 350,000 feet or 106.7 kilometres – it slowed down and reentered the atmosphere.

It was guided back onto is landing pad and performed a rocket burn to slow its speed down to five miles per hour at seven minutes into the flight for a soft landing. The capsule touched down around three minutes later.

[…]

Source: Blue Origin sends Mannequin Skywalker aloft again, testing out comfier capsule for future space tourists • The Register

Intelsat’s IS-10-02 communications satellite was running low on fuel — it’s been in orbit since 2004, after all, and has already exceeded its original mission lifespan by five years. Thanks to Northrop Grumman’s Mission Extension Vehicle-2 (MEV-2), however, it gained another five years of life and will stay operational instead of being decommissioned. MEV-2 launched in August and has been making its way to the satellite in geosynchronous orbit since then. On Monday, it caught up to its target and clamped onto it to provide the IS-10-02 with more fuel.

According to TechCrunch, a representative described the robotic spacecraft as a “jetpack for the 10-02 satellite.” The spokesperson explained the docking process as follows:

“The MEV-2 docking system consists of a probe that we insert into the liquid apogee engine on the aft end of a satellite. Nearly 80% of satellites in orbit have this featuring, allowing the MEV service a variety of customers. The liquid apogee engine acts as a “cone to capture” to help guide the probe which once it passes through the throat of the engine, expands to capture the client satellite. The probe is then retracted pulling three stanchions, or feet, up against the launch adaptor ring, securely clamping the two vehicles together.”

This marks the first time a life-extension services vehicle was able to dock with an active satellite in its operational GEO orbital location. MEV-2’s predecessor, the MEV-1, clamped onto Intelsat’s IS-901 last year. That satellite was already out of fuel and was docked out of its original orbit at the time, though. As TechCrunch notes, Northrop Grumman had to ensure that MEV-2’s approach wouldn’t disrupt its target’s operation and orbit. By successfully doing so, the aerospace corporation proved that it’s possible to service active satellites, which means companies can potentially save millions by extending the life of their older space objects.

MEV-2 will stay with IS-10-02 before moving on to extend the life of another satellite. In addition to the MEV, the company is working on robotic vehicles that can do in-orbit repair, augmentation, assembly and inspection. Those vehicles will also be used to deliver life-extending pods to satellites to extend their mission lifespan without the need to remain docked with their targets. Northrop Grumman is hoping to launch both those technologies by 2024.

Source: Northrop’s servicing robot extends the life of an orbiting satellite by five years | Engadget

Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) has unveiled plans for an enormous inflatable space station tended by cargo and crew carrying versions of its Dream Chaser spaceplane.

“There is no scalable space travel industry without a spaceplane,” said SNC chair and owner Eren Ozmen.

That’s handy, because with the retirement of the Space Shuttle, the Dream Chaser is nearasdammit the last spaceplane standing. NASA, however, disagreed and selected Boeing’s Calamity Capsule and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon for transportation purposes to and from the International Space Station (ISS).

The space agency did, however, pop SNC into the second round of ISS Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-2), meaning the reusable cargo version of the spaceplane will see orbital action once assembly is complete (due this summer with launch expected late in 2022), but the crew version was not to be troubling the old Space Shuttle runway at Kennedy Space Center.

SNC’s proposal for a space station as an alternative for the ageing ISS is the LIFE habitat: a 27-foot-long, three-storey inflatable module that launches on a conventional rocket and inflates once in orbit. A full-sized prototype is currently being transferred from Johnson Space Center in Texas to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The crewed version of the Dream Chaser has also been resurrected and is planned to be used to both “shuttle” private astronauts (we see what you did there, SNC) as well as “rescuing astronauts from space destinations and returning them to Earth via a safe and speedy runway landing.”

[…]

Source: Sierra Nevada Corporation resurrects plans for crewed Dream Chaser spaceplane • The Register

Virgin Galactic took to YouTube to reveal, briefly, its first SpaceShip III, which will start ground tests and “glide flights” later this year. It’s an eye-catching vessel, channeling that Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Naboo starship look in a wonderful way. It’s finished with a mirror-like material that’s meant to reflect its surroundings, whether that’s the blackness of space or the blueness of Earth’s atmosphere. It’s not all about aesthetics: it also offers thermal protection.

Source: Virgin Galactic’s VSS Imagine is its shiny, next-gen spaceship | Engadget

SpaceX continued its rich tradition of destroying Starship prototypes with SN11 succumbing to an explosive end during a high-altitude flight test.

Originally planned for 29 March, the test flight from the company’s facility in Boca Chica, Texas, had been postponed until this morning because a Federal Aviation Administrator (FAA) had been unable reach the site in time to observe the test.

The inspector was present today to witness another demonstration of Tesla Technoking Elon Musk’s prowess at blowing up big, shiny rockets.

The test was a repeat of the Serial Number 10 prototype vehicle flight earlier in March. SN10 broke the heart of SpaceX fanbois around the globe by coming so close to complete success. That vehicle managed to return from its high-altitude test in one piece, landing upright. However, seconds later it exploded spectacularly, leaving the way clear (except for some bits of twisted metal) for SN11.

With SN10 almost succeeding, hopes were high for SN11.

The silver rocket, obscured by mist, launched on time. The three Raptor engines appeared to burn normally during the flight, with one shutting down just after the two-minute mark as planned. A second engine was then shut down before the vehicle reached the desired 10km point and the last engine was cut off.

Despite spotty video, the signature “belly flop” of the vehicle was visible as SN11 flipped over for its return to Earth. As it passed through 1km in altitude (according to the SpaceX announcer) the Raptors could be seen gimballing into position and at least one igniting.

And then the video froze again.

However, the audio continued for a few more seconds before a very audible bang was heard. Shortly after, SpaceX’s announcer returned to the air to confirm “another exciting test.”

Starship SN11 came down hard. Debris came flying past the @NASASpaceflight camera near the pad and even appeared to knock it a bit. pic.twitter.com/Wo9T4Im5ug

— Michael Baylor (@nextspaceflight) March 30, 2021

Exciting for those on the ground, perhaps, as the rocket exploded in the mist.

[…]

 

Source: Another successful flight for SpaceX’s Starship apart from the landing-in-one-piece thing • The Register

Oh dear mr Musk. I’m not going up on that

[…]

Whereas Earth has always been a terrestrial, rocky world, GJ 1132 b began its life as a gaseous, Neptune-like planet. But as new research shows, a nearby red dwarf obliterated its original hydrogen- and helium-rich atmosphere with powerful radiation, so GJ 1132 b, having been stripped down to its rocky core, is now technically a terrestrial planet. The new paper will appear in an upcoming issue of the Astronomical Journal, but a preprint is available at the arXiv.

The authors of the paper reached these conclusions based on direct observations of the exoplanet and theoretical modeling. The telescope of choice was the Hubble Space Telescope, which allowed the team to spot the “secondary atmosphere,” which consists of molecular hydrogen, hydrogen cyanide, methane, and an aerosol haze resembling smog on Earth.

“It’s super exciting because we believe the atmosphere that we see now was regenerated, so it could be a secondary atmosphere,” Raissa Estrela, a co-author of the study and a planetary scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, explained in a statement. “We first thought that these highly irradiated planets could be pretty boring because we believed that they lost their atmospheres. But we looked at existing observations of this planet with Hubble and said, ‘Oh no, there is an atmosphere there.’

In terms of an explanation, the authors say much of the planet’s current hydrogen was retained from before, having been absorbed into the molten magma mantle. Volcanic processes are now causing this stored hydrogen to leak out from below, refueling the new atmosphere, according to the research.

[…]

Source: Having Lost Its Original Atmosphere, This Freaky Planet Is Now Growing a New One

SpaceX rocket prototype, known as SN10, soared over South Texas during test flight Wednesday before swooping down to a pinpoint landing near its launch site. Approximately three minutes after landing, however, multiple independent video feeds showed the rocket exploding on its landing pad.

SpaceX’s SN10, an early prototype of the company’s Starship Mars rocket, took off around 5:15 pm CT and climbed about six miles over the coastal landscape, mimicking two previous test flights SpaceX has conducted that ended in an explosive crash. Wednesday marked the first successful landing for a Starship prototype.

“We’ve had a successful soft touch down on the landing pad,” SpaceX engineer John Insprucker said during a livestream of the event. “That’s capping a beautiful test flight of Starship 10.”

It was unclear what caused the rocket to explode after landing, and the SpaceX livestream cut out before the conflagration.

[…]

Source: SpaceX aborts Mars prototype rocket nails landing for the first time – CNN

No wonder that Japanese businessman is trying to give away his tickets to space on Musk’s explody rides