Tag: Astronautical engineering

Axiom Space’s Private Astronaut Mission Edges Closer to Liftoff

Aviation Week reports that preparations for Axiom Space’s “second four-person private astronaut mission to the International Space Station (ISS) cleared its May 15 flight readiness review and remains on track for a liftoff early next week from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.” The launch is currently scheduled for Sunday evening at 5:37 p.m. EST.
Full Story (Aviation Week)

Rocket Lab Launches NASA Hurricane Hunter Satellites

SPACE reports that the first two satellites “in NASA’s new hurricane-hunting constellation have taken to the skies.” The two cubesats, the “founding members of the agency’s TROPICS network, launched today (May 7) atop a Rocket Lab Electron rocket, which lifted off from the company’s New Zealand site at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 GMT and 1 p.m. on May 8 local New Zealand time).” The TROPICS constellation (short for “Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation Structure and Storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats”) “will consist of four cubesats in low Earth orbit.” Rocket Lab will “launch the other two satellites about two weeks from now, if all goes according to plan.”
Full Story (SPACE);  Watch launch (Rocket Lab’s YouTube channel).

Czech Republic Signs Artemis Accords

SPACE reports that a ceremony held at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday “the Czech Republic’s Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský signed the Artemis Accords on behalf of the nation alongside NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.” The Czech Republic now “becomes the 24th country to sign on to the international agreement that lays out principles for responsible exploration and development of the moon and space.” Lipavsky said during the ceremony, “I believe that the Artemis Accords will enable closer cooperation and coordination between like-minded nations. We believe that the signature will kickstart the development of an institutional and industrial cooperation within the Artemis community.”
Full Story (SPACE)

SpaceX’s Starship to Launch Private Moon Rover in 2026

SPACE reported that Astrolab has secured an agreement with SpaceX to launch its Flexible Logistics and Exploration (FLEX) rover on one of SpaceX’s Starship moon missions. The mission could occur as early as 2026. FLEX would be the largest rover ever to operate on the moon’s surface. The rover would be able to carry two astronauts and could alternately be remote-controlled. Astrolab built FLEX “within NASA’s requirements for the agency’s Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) specifications, and hopes to have an entire FLEX fleet roving the moon’s surface as part of the Artemis program.”
Full Story (SPACE)

Study: Hubble Telescope Images Increasingly Spoiled by Commercial Satellites

The New York Times reports a study published Thursday by the journal Nature Astronomy “reveals an increase in the percentage of images recorded by the Hubble that are spoiled by passing satellites” as of data through 2021. Thousands more satellites “have been launched since then by SpaceX and other companies, and many more are expected to go to orbit in the years ahead, affecting the Hubble and potentially other telescopes in space.” Their results show “that the chance of seeing a satellite in a Hubble image from 2009 to 2020 is only 3.7 percent,” rising to 5.9 percent in 2021, which the researchers say corresponds to SpaceX’s Starlink satellites.
Full Story (New York Times – Subscription publication)

Space Florida Will Continue to Enjoy Explosive Growth in Years to Come

The Orlando (FL) Sentinel reported that Florida’s burgeoning aerospace industry “will grow at a juggernaut pace in the coming years, adding more jobs and other financial benefits to the state, according to the agency whose job it is to attract such enterprises.” Frank DiBello, President and CEO of Space Florida, which is Florida’s aerospace economic development agency, said in a quarterly call with reporters, “We expect in the next five years to be making an economic impact on average of over a billion dollars a year to the state’s economy.” About 6,000 jobs “across 15 companies were added to the economy in 2022, including at least some of announced workforce additions of 250 jobs by OneWeb Satellites, 1,800 from Northrop Grumman, 52 from SIMCOM Aviation and an undisclosed number of new employees at SpaceX and other companies.” With 150 projects “across an array of space-related industries in the works, DiBello said 2023 should see many more new jobs in the years ahead, noting that the state used to reach agreement on about six to eight projects, in general, a year.”
Full Story (Orlando Sentinel)

SpaceX Prepares Starship for Test Flight

The Hill reports that the first launch “of SpaceX’s massive rocket, called Starship, could be coming soon.” The company shared “a series of photos highlighting the vehicle’s progress ahead of its highly anticipated test flight.” Starship consists “of two major components: a massive first-stage booster called the ‘Super Heavy’ and an upper stage known as ‘Starship.’” In typical SpaceX fashion, “both aspects of the craft are designed to be fully reusable.” The company has been “working its way towards the program’s first orbital test flight, which CEO Elon Musk says is coming soon, and could take place as soon as the end of February.”
Full Story (The Hill)

NASA’s InSight Rover Prepares for Final Transmission

The Guardian (UK) reports that NASA’s InSight lander “has delivered what could be its final message from Mars, where it has been on a history-making mission to reveal the secrets of the Red Planet’s interior.” In November, the space agency “warned the lander’s time may [be coming] to an end as dust continued to thicken and choke out the InSight’s power.” A message shared on the NASA InSight Twitter account on Monday read: “My power’s really low, so this may be the last image I can send. Don’t worry about me though: my time here has been both productive and serene. If I can keep talking to my mission team, I will – but I’ll be signing off here soon. Thanks for staying with me.” The robotic geologist, “armed with a hammer and quake monitor, first touched down on the barren expanse of Elysium Planitia in November 2018.”
Full Story (The Guardian – UK)

Japan Outlines NASA Gateway Plans

Aviation Week reported that Japan has outlined “its planned contributions to NASA’s Gateway lunar-orbiting station and become the first of the four major International Space Station (ISS) partners to join with the U.S. in committing to formally extending operations of the seven-person orbital laboratory for 2024-30.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)