¶Jared Isaacman nominated as NASA Administrator. NASA outsider Jared Isaacman, the billionaire founder of payments processor Shift4 and funder and commander of two private-astronaut SpaceX missions (Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn), was nominated by Donald Trump to become the next NASA Administrator. On Polaris Dawn, Isaacman, a self-declared “moderate,” also completed the first spacewalk by a commercial astronaut—demonstrating his passion for space and aviation. He has also previously offered to boost the Hubble Space Telescope into a higher orbit via a future Polaris mission. If confirmed by the Senate, Isaacman’s administration will likely promote commercial space and commercial human spaceflight. It seems reasonably likely that SLS will be canceled under Trump and Isaacman, but Artemis, which was originally launched during Trump’s first term, is very likely to continue. Some are also (reasonably) worried that given his strong ties to Elon and history with SpaceX, NASA under Isaacman might strongly favor SpaceX over competitors, but how this plays out remains to be seen (he’s also said supportive things about Blue Origin recently). The Planetary Society has an interesting analysis. |
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¶NASA Delays Artemis II to 2026. Blaming Orion’s heat shield (whose ablative material was not porous enough to vent gas buildup) and its intense “skip” reentry maneuver, NASA has now formally delayed the Artemis II crewed lunar orbit until April 2026. The crewed lunar landing of Artemis III is now targeting 2027. Artemis II will fly with the current heat shield design but with a reduced skip maneuver, and Artemis III will fly an upgraded heat shield. This decision is not without its dissenters, some of which argue that flying astronauts without an upgraded heat shield is a politically-driven, instead of safety-conscious, choice. Either way, these delays will surprise no one. |
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 | A toasty heat shield. |
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¶Italy plans to revive its own equatorial launch center. Italy announced plans last month to reopen its Luigi Broglio Space Center in Kenya for offshore launches. The facility’s near-equatorial location (2° S), relative proximity to Italy, and the expanse of the Indian Ocean to the east make it close to ideal for the agency’s uses. The Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) would ideally like to launch Vega from this location so that Italy no longer has to pay France to use its equatorial French Guiana facility. The Luigi Broglio Space Center, named after the father of Italian space, was initially constructed in the 60s from an oil platform (donated to the fledgling agency by NASA) along with two smaller platforms. The main launch platform is named San Marco, after the Venetian patron saint and the country’s first satellite, an ionospheric probe called San Marco 1, which launched from NASA’s Wallops Island facility in preparation for its namesake platform to come online. The Broglio Space Center hosted launches from 1967 to 1988, with a total of 27 missions, mostly sounding rockets, taking off from the platform. It also hosted a number of orbital launches on US-provided Scout solid rockets, delivering several satellites to LEO, including Uhuru, the first X-ray telescope. However, getting the long-neglected platform into shape to launch a modern liquid-fueled rocket like Vega will be a significant undertaking. |
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 | The San Marco platform in 2018, looking quite disheveled. Credit: Helodriver |
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¶China inflates a module. The China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) revealed that they quietly tested their first small inflatable space module on-orbit aboard the recent Shijian-19 mission. The module was inflated during the mission’s two weeks in orbit. Shijian-19 itself was a step forward for CNSA, a new self-returning space test platform with downmass capabilities of ~500 kg. The Chinese Space Station (CSS) suffers from limited downmass capabilities (currently only what can fit in the Shenzhou reentry capsule during astronaut return), making the new Shijian platform a new and highly useful tool for Chinese in-space manufacturing, microgravity research, and technology demonstrations. The module may have been returned for ground-based testing, although information, as always, is exceptionally scarce. Also missing was the volume of the module, its intended use (we assume eventual CSS expansion), and whether this mission was significantly delayed, given that Shijian-20, 21, 22, and 23 have all launched over the past several years. CAST suggested in 2018 that it would launch 15 missions with a “returnable satellite” by 2025, but as this is the first launch so far, it makes us think this program is much delayed. Also onboard the mission was agricultural material, another foray in China’s ongoing effort to develop new, higher-yielding, or hardier crops by exposing seeds to radiation. |
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 | CAST’s inflatable mini-module, attached to the side of the new Shijian-19 self-returnable satellite architecture. |
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| ¶News in brief. An Indian four-stage PSLV-XL launched ESA’s Proba-3 (c.f. Issue 279), consisting of a space telescope and a free-flying occulter/starshade spacecraft that will position themselves 150 m apart with millimeter precision to selectively block and study the Sun’s oddly hot corona ● China launched a SAR imaging satellite, a new communications test satellite (likely for military use), and a third batch of ‘Thousand Sails’ internet satellites ● London-based startup SatVu secured $25M to launch their next two thermal imaging satellites ● Iran launched their heaviest-ever payload to LEO on the domestically-built Simorgh carrier rocket ● Varda Space won a $48M Air Force contract to use their reentry capsules to test military payloads at hypersonic speeds (assumedly they won’t have licensing difficulty for these tests) ● Pixxel raised a $24M extension to its Series B and will continue building their hyperspectral imaging constellation ● SpinLaunch raised $11.5M (out of a planned $25M) to continue building their kinetic yeeting system… and a 1,190 comsat constellation it will ostensibly launch ● Two Europe space startups (Germany’s ATMOS Space Cargo and France’s Space Cargo Unlimited) joined together with the plan to conduct seven free-flying orbital research missions that will test various customer payloads in LEO and return them to Earth ● Thales Alenia Space unveiled the Carb-Chaser project, France’s first satellite constellation for monitoring CO2 emissions ● Vega-C successfully returned to flight, after a failure two-years ago, to launch ESA’s third Copernicus satellite, Sentinel-1C (cf. Issue № 295). |
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 | Vega-C launching from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana |
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¶Etc.- A NYTimes piece all about Russia's in-development orbital ASAT / orbit denial nuclear weapon system.
- A video from SpinLaunch on how to make a yeetable cubesat that can withstand the 10,000 g required to hurl it toward LEO with a centrifuge. Surprisingly, it’s somewhat more straightforward than one might have expected once you figure out how to make your batteries stop turning into their component bits at around 7,500 g.
- Ukrainian small launcher Promin Aerospace moved to Maine
- A very unpleasant but important topic: "No one knows how many people have died from the catastrophic hunger sweeping [Sudan]. But graves, counted from the sky, offer a clue to the devastation."
- An interview with a remote sensing scientist showcasing how satellite imagery was used to locate what could be the largest tree in the Amazon (at over 50 m tall and a crown diameter of 60 m).
- Even under stringent contamination control measures, terrestrial microbes managed to colonize samples returned from Ryugu (paper). “Transported to Earth in a hermetically sealed chamber, the sample was opened in nitrogen in a class 10,000 clean room to prevent contamination. Individual particles were picked with sterilized tools and stored under nitrogen in airtight containers. Before analysis, the sample underwent Nano-X-ray computed tomography and was embedded in an epoxy resin block for scanning electron microscopy. Rods and filaments of organic matter, interpreted as filamentous microorganisms, were observed on the sample's surface. Variations in size and morphology of these structures resembled known terrestrial microbes.” The researchers recommend further enhancing contamination control procedures for future missions. Life finds a way.
- Where was your house on Earth at any point in geologic time?
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