Tag: Space

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Glass beads boost hopes for using the moon’s water

Lunar glass beads
Chinese researchers detected water trapped within beads of glass created by lunar impacts. (Credit: He et al., IGG /CAS)

Beads of glass could become a key source of water for future crewed settlements on the moon, researchers say.

That claim is based on an assessment of the water contained within a sampling of glassy beads that were created over the course of millennia by cosmic impacts on the moon, and ended up being brought back to Earth in 2020 by China’s Chang’e-5 sample return mission.

A spectroscopic analysis determined that the beads contained more water than the researchers expected based on past studies. They surmised that interactions between hydrogen ions in the solar wind and oxygen-bearing materials in lunar soil created H2O molecules that could be trapped within the glass — and then diffused under the right conditions.

Based on an extrapolation of such findings, the research team — headed by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences — estimates that glass beads in lunar soil may contain up to 270 trillion kilograms (595 trillion pounds, or 71 trillion gallons) of water.

“We propose that impact glass beads in lunar soils are a prime water reservoir candidate able to drive the lunar surface water cycle,” the researchers report in Nature Geoscience.

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Blue Origin finds cause of launch failure and vows to fix it

New Shepard ascent
The New Shepard spaceship’s booster flares during its ascent in September 2022. (Blue Origin via YouTube)

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture says a launch anomaly that forced the suspension of its suborbital spaceflights last September was caused by a structural failure of the rocket engine’s nozzle.

Corrective actions are being taken, and flights are expected to resume “soon,” Blue Origin said today. The redesigned New Shepard spaceship will re-fly the payloads that were part of the uncrewed mission that went awry.

No people were aboard New Shepard during last year’s launch from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas. No one was injured on the ground, and there was no damage to ground-based systems. All of the debris was recovered in the designated hazard area.

Flights have been suspended during Blue Origin’s investigation, which was conducted by a team including representatives from NASA and the National Transportation Safety Board with oversight by the Federal Aviation Administration. In an emailed statement, the FAA said the investigation “remains open.”

“The agency is currently reviewing the company’s submission of its mishap report,” it said. “FAA approval is required to close the investigation and for the New Shepard System to return to flight.”

Before the failure of the uncrewed research mission, known as NS-23, Blue Origin had flown 31 customers and special guests (including Bezos and his brother Mark, and Star Trek actor William Shatner) on six crewed suborbital trips. There were also more than a dozen uncrewed flights, many of which carried research payloads.

Blue Origin’s only other New Shepard failure occurred during the first test flight of the suborbital launch system in 2015. As was the case for that earlier failure, last September’s mishap led to the loss of the rocket booster, but the capsule that would have held crew was recovered safely. Blue Origin said if there had been crew members aboard, they would have had a safe but rocky ride.

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Good news, bad news for Relativity’s 3D-printed rocket

Long-exposure photo of Relativity Space Terran 1 rocket's ascent
A long-exposure photo shows Relativity Space's Terran 1 rocket rising from its Florida launch pad. (Relativity Space via Twitter)

More than seven years after it was founded in a Seattle co-working space, Relativity Space launched its first 3D-printed rocket on a test mission that began with a triumphant glow but fell short of complete success.

Relativity’s two-stage, 110-foot-tall Terran 1 rocket rose from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex 16 in Florida for a flight test dubbed “Good Luck, Have Fun,” or GLHF.

The startup’s first-ever launch brought frustration as well as fun.

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NRO partners with hyperspectral imaging companies

Illustration: Xplore satellite in orbit
Xplore is working on its Xcraft satellite platform at its HQ in Redmond, Wash. (Xplore Illustration)

The National Reconnaissance Office awarded study contracts to six companies offering — or planning to offer — satellite images of Earth in multiple wavelengths, including Redmond, Wash.-based Xplore.

Other companies receiving contracts under NRO’s multi-stage Strategic Commercial Enhancements Broad Agency Announcement Framework include BlackSky Technology, which is based in Virginia but traces its corporate roots to Seattle, plus HyperSat, Orbital Sidekick, Pixxel and Planet.

“We are operating the largest, most diverse, most capable overhead constellation in NRO’s history as we face increasingly complex threats in space and on the ground,” NRO Director Chris Scolese said today in a news release. “Through these newest contracts, we are very excited to explore the potential of commercial hyperspectral imagery and what it may be able to contribute to our world-class intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.”

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FCC plans to boost satellite connections to smartphones

Illustration: Lynk satellite coverage footprint in Mongolia
Lynk Global has demonstrated its satellite-to-smartphone network in Mongolia. (Lynk Global Illustration)

The Federal Communications Commission plans to set up a new regulatory framework for facilitate hookups between satellite operators and wireless companies, with the objective of connecting smartphone users in remote or underserved areas of the world.

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, adopted today, follows up on a string of demonstrations and announcements related to satellite-cellular combinations.

A Virginia-based company called Lynk Global has already shown that its satellite-to-smartphone system works, with the FCC’s blessing. Another satellite venture called AST Spacemobile is setting up partnerships with telecom providers around the world. The heavyweights of the telecom industry are in on the idea as well.

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Universe Today

Pluto team updates science from the solar system’s edge

Illustration: Arrokoth and New Horizons probe
An artist's conception shows NASA's New Horizons probe and a Kuiper Belt object called Arrokoth. (Credit: JHUAPL / SwRI)

Nearly eight years after its historic Pluto flyby, NASA’s New Horizons probe is getting ready for another round of observations made from the icy edge of the solar system — and this time, its field of view will range from Uranus and Neptune to the cosmic background far beyond our galaxy.

Scientists on the New Horizons team shared their latest discoveries, and provided a preview of what’s ahead, during this week’s Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas.

It’s been 17 years since the piano-sized New Horizons spacecraft was launched toward Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, The primary mission hit its peak in 2015 when the probe zoomed past Pluto, but the adventure moved on to a second act that focused on a smaller, two-lobed object called Arrokoth — a name derived from the Powhatan/Algonquin word for “sky.”

Scientists are still sifting through the data from the Pluto flyby, and from the Arrokoth flyby on New Year’s Day of 2019, more than 4 billion miles from the sun.

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Amazon shows off antennas for Kuiper satellite network

Dave Limp with Kindle and Kuiper antenna
Amazon’s Dave Limp compares the size of the smallest Kuiper antenna, at right, to a Kindle ebook, at left. (Satellite 2023 via YouTube)

After years of development, Amazon is showing off the antennas it plans to use for its Project Kuiper satellite broadband network — and says it plans to begin offering beta service for large customers next year.

The largest antenna, for enterprise customers, is about the size of a café table. The antenna designed for home use is as big as an LP record’s album sleeve and should cost around $400 to make. The smallest antenna, still under development, is just a little bigger than an ebook reader.

“I’d be remiss if I didn’t contrast it to a Kindle here,” said Dave Limp, Amazon’s senior vice president of devices and services, who helpfully made the comparison today during the big reveal at the Satellite 2023 conference in Washington, D.C.

Amazon hasn’t yet launched any of the 3,236 satellites for the constellation it plans to operate in low Earth orbit — and it’s far behind SpaceX, which says it already has more than a million customers for its Starlink broadband service. But Limp insisted that Amazon was in position to make rapid progress over the next year.

He noted that the first two prototype Kuiper satellites have just been shipped to Florida, in preparation for launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket this spring. And he said multiple satellites should be ready for liftoff by next year. The Kuiper operation is headquartered in Redmond, Wash. — not far from SpaceX’s satellite factory — and Amazon plans to start mass-producing satellites at a factory in Kirkland, Wash., by the end of the year.

Limp said Amazon was on track to launch half of the satellites for the Kuiper constellation by mid-2026, using up to 77 medium- to heavy-lift rockets it’s reserved at ULA as well as at Arianespace and Blue Origin. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns Blue Origin as a separate, privately held space venture.) “For sure we will be beta-testing with large customers in ’24,” Limp said.

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Plans for satellite networks move ahead on multiple fronts

Kymeta team with antennas for OneWeb
Kymeta’s team shows off flat-panel antennas made for OneWeb. (Kymeta Photo via Business Wire)

Redmond, Wash.-based Kymeta Corp. says it has completed its first shipment of electronically steered flat-panel antennas to OneWeb for that company’s satellite-based data network.

In a news release timed to coincide with the Satellite 2023 conference in Washington, D.C., Kymeta said its Hawk u8 terminal will be available for OneWeb’s fixed-location applications, and will soon be available for land-based and sea-based mobile communications. OneWeb is putting the finishing touches on its constellation in low Earth orbit, or LEO, and is planning to ramp up commercial broadband service within a few months.

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Universe Today

Don’t panic over the risk of an asteroid smashup in 2046

Visualization of asteroid 2203 DW in space
A visualization from NASA's "Eyes on Asteroids" app shows asteroid 2023 DW's location in space. (Credit: NASA)

A newly discovered asteroid called 2023 DW has generated quite a buzz over the past week, due to an estimated 1-in-670 chance of impact on Valentine’s Day 2046. But despite a NASA advisory and the resulting scary headlines, there’s no need to put an asteroid doomsday on your day planner for that date.

The risk assessment doesn’t have as much to do with the probabilistic roll of the cosmic dice than it does with the uncertainty that’s associated with a limited set of astronomical observations. If the case of 2023 DW plays out the way all previous asteroid scares have gone over the course of nearly 20 years, further observations will reduce the risk to zero.

Nevertheless, the hubbub over a space rock that could be as wide as 165 feet (50 meters) highlights a couple of trends to watch for: We’re likely to get more of these asteroid alerts in the years to come, and NASA is likely to devote more attention to heading off potentially dangerous near-Earth objects, or NEOs.

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How Washington rates on NASA’s economic report card

Blue Origin HQ
The marquee of Blue Origin's HQ in Kent, Wash. glows on a rainy morning. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture leads the list of NASA’s Washington state contractors in a newly released analysis of the agency’s economic impact.

The analysis came out today when NASA released data showing how many jobs and how many procurement dollars were generated during fiscal year 2021 in each of the 50 states, plus the District of Columbia. NASA said this is the first time it has drafted state-specific fact sheets to complement its Economic Impact Report.

“With the president’s fiscal year 2024 budget announcement this week, NASA will remain an economic engine that supports good-paying American jobs, sustains American innovation and strengthens American competitiveness in the 21st century,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a news release. “Our impressive economic impact just scratches the surface of the agency’s influence around the world, and it makes clear that what is good for NASA is good for communities across the country.”

Nationwide, NASA supported more than 339,600 jobs in fiscal year 2021 (which ran from October 2020 to the end of September 2021), based on a multiplier that accounts for direct and indirect economic effects. The space agency said its activities generated more than $71.2 billion in economic output during the fiscal year. Washington state accounted for 4,622 of the jobs resulting from NASA’s economic impact, $1.06 billion in economic output and $426.6 million in NASA procurements.

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