The Washington Post reports that India’s successful moon landing reflecting Russia’s failed moon landing has seemed to be the signal flare that has started a race to divide up the moon and the possibilities that that implies. China and the US are also players in going to the moon – with the US set to launch astronauts on a trip circling the moon in next year’s Artemis II mission, and land people on the moon with its future Artemis III trip in 2025. The budget differentials are staggering, with India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission costing $74 million and NASA’s Artemis program projecting to hit $93 billion. For governments, space exploration “was always in large part about the ability to project power and influence on Earth.” India’s mission “marks a soft-power win for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as New Delhi prepares to host the Group of 20 Summit next week.”
Full Story (The Washington Post)
Tag: engineering
Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Prepare for Hurricane Idalia
Florida Today reports that as Hurricane Idalia “churns off the southwest coast of Florida, the impacts on Brevard’s local space economy are already being felt.” On Monday, “United Launch Alliance teams at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex 41 began the hours-long process of standing down from a launch attempt of an Atlas V rocket originally set for liftoff Tuesday morning.” SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch “set for Thursday from the Cape’s Launch Complex 40 still appeared to be on the Eastern Range’s schedule, though the company hadn’t yet confirmed the Starlink 6-13 mission. … Meanwhile, in space, four members of NASA’s Crew-6 mission, which launched to the space station in March, wait for an opportunity to come home. Initially slated to depart the station five days after the arrival of Crew-7 on Sunday, the quartet will spend at least one extra day in space.”
Full Story (Florida Today)
Prominent Space Luminaries from DLR, ESA, NASA, and More Added to 2023 ASCEND
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 29, 2023 – Reston, Va. – The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) today announced several prominent space luminaries who have been added to the three-day program at 2023 ASCEND, 23–25 October, Caesars Forum, Las Vegas. ASCEND is the world’s premier outcomes-focused, interdisciplinary space event designed to accelerate building our off-world future.
These newly confirmed speakers cut across the international, civil, commercial, and national security space sectors, including:
- Peter Gräf, Director for Applications & Science, DLR
- John M. Grunsfeld, Endless Frontier Associates, LLC; former NASA Associate Administrator, Science Mission Directorate, and former NASA astronaut
- The Honorable Steven J. Isakowitz, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Aerospace Corporation
- Janet Kavandi, President and Chief Science Officer, Sierra Space
- Col. Richard Kniseley, Senior Materiel Leader, Commercial Space Office Lead, U.S. Space Force
- Sandra Magnus, Chief Engineer for the Traffic Coordination System for Space, Office of Space Commerce, Department of Commerce, and former NASA astronaut
- Col. Pamela Melroy, USAF (Ret.), Deputy Administrator, NASA
- Daniel Neuenschwander, Director for Human and Robotic Exploration, ESA
- George T. Whitesides, Partner, Convective Capital, and former CEO, Virgin Galactic
Registration for the 2023 ASCEND event is open now. Journalists from around the world are invited to cover 2023 ASCEND; press passes are available for credentialed media by request.
Media Contact: Rebecca Gray, [email protected], 804-397-5270 cell
About ASCEND
Powered by AIAA, ASCEND promotes the collaborative, interdisciplinary, outcomes-driven community of professionals, students, and enthusiasts around the world who are accelerating humanity’s progress toward our off-world future! For more information, visit ascend.events, or follow ASCEND on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
About AIAA
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the world’s largest aerospace technical society. With nearly 30,000 individual members from 91 countries, and 100 corporate members, AIAA brings together industry, academia, and government to advance engineering and science in aviation, space, and defense. For more information, visit aiaa.org, and follow AIAA on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
Chandrayaan-3 Takes Lunar South Pole Temperature
SPACE reports India’s Chandrayaan-3 has been hard at work since its landmark landing on the lunar South Pole last week. On Sunday, ISRO posted an update on social media “regarding one of Chandrayaan-3’s payloads called the ChaSTE experiment, or Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical Experiment.” The purpose of this experiment “is to use a temperature probe as well as 10 individual temperature sensors to measure temperature profiles of lunar south pole soil.” ISRO says the goal “is for ChaSTE to help scientists understand what the thermal behavior of the moon’s surface is like.”
Full Story (SPACE)
SpaceX Launches Starlink Satellites
UPI reports that SpaceX “launched a Falcon 9 rocket with a payload of 22 Starlink satellites into space early Friday from Florida’s famed Cape Canaveral, after having scrubbed the launch of a separate mission Thursday night.” The rocket “launched at 12:01 a.m. EDT Friday from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.” Up to four backup launch opportunities “were available to SpaceX to launch the nearly two dozen satellites into low-Earth orbit where they will join Starlink’s constellation of orbitals that provide high-speed, low-latency Internet around the globe.” The launch occurred shortly “after SpaceX scrubbed a Flacon Heavy mission that was to liftoff late Thursday.” No reason for “aborting the mission was immediately made public.” The first-stage booster “used in the early Friday launch flew its 15th mission.” After deploying its payload “into space, the launch vehicle returned to Earth where it landed upon the autonomous A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.” The launch “was SpaceX’s 50th of the year and 249th overall.”
Full Story (UPI)
Video
Starlink Mission, 26 August 2023
(SpaceX; YouTube)
IATA Data Shows Strong Air Traffic Recovery to Prepandemic Levels
Aviation Week reported that while IATA data released for June “showed a 31% increase in year-on-year air traffic, taking the global total to 94.2% of pre-pandemic levels,” the good news is relative to the three preceding years, which were the worst in the air travel industry’s history, “disguises a bleaker reality.” First, the air traffic recovery “to almost 2019 levels does not show where passenger numbers would have been in 2023 had the pandemic not occurred.” The gap “between air traffic yearly growth predictions made in 2019 and where the industry now stands remains wide.” Back in 2019, the world’s airlines “carried some 4.5 billion passengers – and were profitable as a collective.” IATA forecast then “that there would be a 4% increase in traffic in 2020, taking passenger numbers to over 4.7 billion.” Had that annual increase trendline “continued through 2022, airlines would be expecting to carry well over 5 billion passengers this year versus the 4.35 billion that IATA currently forecasts.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)
AIAA Statement on the NASA SpaceX Crew-7 Launch
August 26, 2023 – Reston, Va. – The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Executive Director Dan Dumbacher made the following statement:
“On behalf of the 30,000 professional and student members of AIAA, we congratulate the entire NASA SpaceX team on its successful Crew-7 launch. We applaud this mission to the International Space Station (ISS) through NASA’s Commercial Crew program, showing how NASA and private industry are working together to extend the human neighborhood into low Earth orbit and beyond.
This mission also demonstrates the value of international partnership in space exploration, delivering the four-member international crew to the ISS. The scientific research they will conduct onboard the ISS will help prepare us for human exploration to the moon and cislunar space, and on to Mars. The addition of Crew-7 continues maximizing the use of the ISS, where astronauts have been living and working continuously in space for more than 22 years. We are encouraged to see these explorers and innovators work to improve life on Earth and accelerate our off-world future.
We recognize the aerospace industry professionals involved in making this mission a success. We salute NASA, SpaceX, and Crew-7 for helping shape the future of aerospace.”
Media Contact: Rebecca Gray, [email protected], 804-397-5270 cell
About AIAA
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the world’s largest aerospace technical society. With nearly 30,000 individual members from 91 countries, and 100 corporate members, AIAA brings together industry, academia, and government to advance engineering and science in aviation, space, and defense. For more information, visit aiaa.org, and follow AIAA on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
SpaceX, NASA Mission Delayed
CNN reports that a SpaceX and NASA mission that “was set to launch four astronauts – representing four nations and space agencies across the globe – to the International Space Station was abruptly called off Thursday evening.” The delay was announced late Thursday night for reasons that were not immediately clear. The astronauts’ SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft “had been slated to launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 3:50 a.m. ET Friday.” In a social media post, SpaceX “said only that it was delaying the liftoff time to Saturday, August 26 at 3:27 a.m.” because it “provides teams additional time to complete and discuss analysis.” During a livestream, NASA spokesperson Rob Navias said “mission mangers met and elected to postpone the launch of the Crew-7 crew for 24 hours to provide just a bit more time to close out some open paperwork.” The latest forecasts from the US Space Force “projects a 95% chance that the weather will be favorable for the Saturday liftoff.”
Full Story (CNN)
UAS Service Industry Call for FAA Regulatory Framework
Aviation Today reports that uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) service suppliers are requesting for the FAA “to implement a regulatory framework to safely integrate small UAS into airspace at altitudes of 400 feet and below, after years of delays.” The FAA is “working with industry and public stakeholders to develop a UAS traffic management (UTM) system.” The FAA began “collaborating with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 2015 to establish and implement a framework to research, develop and test increasingly complex UTM concepts and capabilities with industry stakeholders.” Aloft Founder and CEO Jon Hegranes said that the FAA and NASA are “sitting on their hands,” waiting to “see what industry does.” The emergence of UAS “has the potential to provide significant social and economic benefits to the United States, according to a January 2021 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.” The FAA in 2020 “forecasted that, by 2024, the small UAS commercial fleet, those operating in connection to a business, would grow from 507,000 to 828,000.”
Full Story (Aviation Today)
AIAA Statement on the Indian Space Research Organisation Chandrayaan-3 Mission
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 24, 2023 – Reston, Va. – The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Executive Director Dan Dumbacher made the following statement:
“Congratulations to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on its successful landing at the south pole of the moon! We were thrilled watching the Chandrayaan-3 mission unfold in real time. We will be eagerly following the progress of the rover, Pragyan, and the ongoing mission in the coming days.
As the professional technical society for aerospace engineers, our members appreciate and understand the difficulty of this mission’s engineering challenges. Safely landing on the moon is a challenge and to reach the lunar south pole is an even greater accomplishment.
The ISRO team’s resilience is admirable. The Chandrayaan team has persevered over time to continue advancing its lunar exploration program. They have reached an historic milestone making India the fourth spacefaring nation to land on the moon. AIAA is honored to support the four AIAA student branches at universities in India and about 400 AIAA members across India.
We applaud India’s commitment to a safe, peaceful, and prosperous future in space, especially as it joined the Artemis Accords earlier this year. We believe the Artemis Accords establish important principles to guide cooperation among nations exploring space, including those participating in NASA’s Artemis program. As we expand the human neighborhood in low Earth orbit and beyond to the surface of the moon and cislunar space, we see the vital need for this type of cooperation among countries and industries.
On behalf of the 30,000 professional and student members of AIAA, we recognize the professionals in the aerospace industry involved in making this mission a success. We salute and applaud the ISRO team for making important contributions to shaping the future of aerospace.”
AIAA Media Contact: Rebecca Gray, [email protected], 804-397-5270 cell
About AIAA
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the world’s largest aerospace technical society. With nearly 30,000 individual members from 91 countries, and 100 corporate members, AIAA brings together industry, academia, and government to advance engineering and science in aviation, space, and defense. For more information, visit aiaa.org, and follow AIAA on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.