Aviation Week reported that NASA “signed a Space Act Agreement with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to extend work on a zero-emission aircraft propulsion concept that uses liquid hydrogen as both an energy carrier and a cryogen to enable superconductivity to increase efficiency and reduce weight.”
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CNBC reported the US Space Force “plans to buy even more rocket launches from companies in the coming years than previously expected, granting more companies a chance at securing billions in potential contracts.” Amid increasing need to improve “military capabilities in space,” the US plans to “almost triple the number of launches in Phase 3 that it bought in Phase 2 in 2020.”
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The Washington Post reports most Americans believe NASA’s top priority should be monitoring asteroids that could strike the Earth instead of returning astronauts to the Moon, according to a poll released Thursday. For respondents in the Pew Research Center survey, only 12 percent of “adults think returning astronauts to the surface of the moon should be NASA’s top priority.” A human landing on “Mars is even less popular: Only 11 percent said it should be the top priority.” By contrast, 60 percent “said monitoring asteroids should be the agency’s top priority; 50 percent said monitoring climate change should be NASA’s top priority.”
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Space News reports that the European Space Agency “is in the final stages of performing an ‘assisted reentry’ of an Earth science spacecraft, an effort that will attempt to bring the satellite down over the ocean in a little more than a week.” A series of maneuvers “will lower the perigee of the Aeolus spacecraft to enable a reentry, projected over the Atlantic Ocean, on July 28.” The maneuvers “are intended to minimize any chance that debris from the spacecraft that survives reentry would land in populated areas.”
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ExecutiveBiz reports that NASA “has deployed a set of four small satellites to low Earth orbit aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle to test autonomous spacecraft swarm technologies in space.” The 6U-sized CubeSats “lifted off from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand and will demonstrate their ability to conduct maneuver planning, communications networking, relative navigation and autonomous positioning as a group with minimal supervision from ground mission controllers, NASA said Monday.” Funded by NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology, the six-month Starling mission “is expected to pave the way toward advancing autonomous robotic swarms for future space and lunar science and exploration missions.”
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Gizmodo reports that the crew modules for NASA’s Artemis II, III, and IV missions “are currently stationed next to one another at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with the three spacecraft undergoing different stages of production for their upcoming launch dates.” NASA recently “shared a group photo of its Orion crew capsules inside the high bay of the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building, revealing the spacecraft trio coming together ahead of humanity’s return to the Moon.” The Artemis II spacecraft is “designed to carry astronauts on a journey to the Moon and back in late 2024.” NASA technicians recently “installed the heat shield on the Artemis II Orion capsule, which is designed to protect the crew and the spacecraft during its reentry through Earth’s atmosphere.”
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SPACE reports that India’s second attempt “at a daring, homegrown moon landing will kick off this week.” The nation’s Chandrayaan-3 mission, whose name means “moon vehicle” in Sanskrit, is “scheduled to launch toward the moon on Friday (July 14) at 5:05 a.m. EDT (0905 GMT, or 2:35 p.m. local time on July 14) from the island of Sriharikota, on India’s east coast.” A three-stage rocket “called the Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM3) will ferry the robotic moon lander and rover duo that make up the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into an Earth parking orbit, a stable circular path around Earth that allows the mission team to ensure all instruments are working well post launch.” Soon after, the spacecraft “will be placed on a lunar transfer trajectory, beginning its deep-space journey.”
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Spaceflight Now reports that Europe is “facing months without its own independent access to space for large satellites following the retirement of its heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket this week after notching up its 117th and final mission over 27 years of operations.” Ariane 6 is still “undergoing final development and testing.” It is behind schedule “and is unlikely to fly until the very end of this year, with some industry experts suggesting it may not make its maiden flight until later in 2024.” The situation for Europe “is compounded by its smaller vehicle, the Vega-C, remaining out of action following an in-flight failure last December and Russian Soyuz rockets no longer being available for European launches.” An older version of the Vega “is scheduled to fly in September.” European Space Agency (ESA) Director General Josef Aschbacher stated recently “that the continent finds itself in the midst of ‘an acute launcher crisis’ because of the ‘unavailability of home-grown rockets.’”
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Aviation Week reported that “despite delays with United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) new Vulcan Centaur rocket, the U.S. Space Force will require two missions prior to using the booster for national security space (NSSL) missions.”
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Spaceflight Now reports, “NASA engineers are prepping the miniature Mars helicopter Ingenuity for its 53rd flight across the surface of the Red Planet after re-establishing contact following a two-month radio blackout.” The disruption “was due to a Martian hill blocking line-of-sight communications with the Perseverance rover – which acts as a conduit between the helicopter and ground controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)