THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA Seeks to Solve the Problem of Food in Long-Duration Space Exploration. “Since 2021, NASA has been conducting the Deep Space Food Challenge, which has called on private enterprise and university departments to help develop new ways to grow and cultivate food in space. This week, NASA announced the winners of $1.25 million in grants to help develop food production techniques for the new frontier.”
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THE NEW SPACE RACE: Chinese spacecraft appear to reach lunar orbit despite launch setback.
RUMORS OF A DESPERATE MANPOWER SHORTAGE ARE JUST PROPAGANDA: Russian Space Force Deployed Against Ukraine in Kursk. “So what is the VKS up to these days? Developing and launching hunter-killer satellites into orbit? Searching for extraterrestrials? Perhaps some of them are, but not all of them. In fact, a bunch of them have now been deployed to the Kursk Oblast to fight off Ukraine’s surprisingly persistent incursion. Russia is claiming that the temporary transfer was required to deal with an unexpected manpower shortage in the region. Even some of the servicemen previously assigned to a Russian spaceport have been transferred to the front and put on infantry duty.”
THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX’s Polaris crew set for first private spacewalking mission next week.
A four-person crew for SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission arrived in Florida on Monday ahead of their Aug. 26 launch to space for a mission that includes the first privately managed spacewalk, a risky endeavor only government astronauts have done in the past.
The crew – a billionaire entrepreneur, a retired military fighter pilot and two SpaceX employees – neared the end of more than two years of training for the mission, in which they will venture out of their Crew Dragon capsule in Earth’s orbit for a tethered spacewalk.
The mission will be a major first test of SpaceX’s new astronaut spacesuits and marks the latest risky, high-stakes commercial milestone that Elon Musk’s space company is looking to clinch on the billionaire’s path to eventually building colonies on Mars.
“Whatever risk associated with it, it is worth it,” said mission commander Jared Isaacman, the CEO of electronic payment company Shift4 who is also the head of the SpaceX-affiliated Polaris program.
Godspeed…
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Orbex working towards 2025 first launch.
WOEING: Space Suit Designs Could Stall Boeing Starliner Astronauts’ Return From the International Space Station. “Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the two astronauts Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft ferried into space in June, face an interesting conundrum about how they finally get home. Their ride back to Earth is in question thanks to issues with Starliner, and NASA is poised to make critical decisions on the issue soon. One of the toughest questions about their return trip from space has nothing to do with rockets. Instead, the latest issue centers around space suit sockets and seats. . . . The problem is simple: Should Butch and Suni need to fly back aboard SpaceX’s vehicle, their suits won’t fit in Dragon’s seats.”
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Rocket Report: ULA is losing engineers; SpaceX is launching every two days.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Russia’s launch rate has plummeted.
A Progress cargo supply spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early on Thursday, local time. The mission was successful, and Russia has launched hundreds of these spacecraft before. So it wasn’t all that big of a deal, except for one small detail: This was just Russia’s ninth orbital launch of the year, Ars reports. At this pace, it appears that the country’s space program is on pace for the fewest number of Russian or Soviet space launches in a year since 1961. That was when Yuri Gagarin went to space at the dawn of the human spaceflight era.
Thanks, Putin … There are myriad reasons for this, including a decision by Western space powers to distance themselves from the Russian space corporation, Roscosmos, after the invasion of Ukraine. This has had disastrous effects on the Russian space program, but only recently have we gotten any insight into how deep those impacts have cut. In a recent interview with Russian state-owned media, Andrei Yelchaninov, the first deputy director of Roscosmos, said the contract cancellations by “unfriendly contacts”—a presumed reference to former US and European customers—has cost Russia’s space program 180 billion rubles, or about $2.1 billion.
SpaceX has launched more rockets in the last three weeks than Russia has this year.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: First RFA launch in a “matter of weeks.”
SPACE POLICY: Make Space Great Again. Actually, one of the few policy bright spots in this administration is how much continuity there has been. In fact, the Obama/Trump/Biden space policy has been surprisingly consistent, and good.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Long March 4B launches experimental Yaogan-43 satellite group.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Long March 4B launches experimental Yaogan-43 satellite group.
SPACEX TO THE RESCUE LOOKS MORE LIKELY, ALTHOUGH NASA WON’T ADMIT IT: NASA Delays Starliner Decision AGAIN.
THIS HAS ONLY GOTTEN TRUER ON BOTH ENDS SINCE: 2021 Flashback: Boeing’s Spaceship Problems Show Just How Amazing Musk’s SpaceX Is.
SOME PARTS OF AMERICA STILL WORK: SpaceX Ties Another World Record Set by… Yeah, SpaceX.
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: U.S. Army gears up for space warfare, drawing lessons from Ukraine.
NEWS FROM THE AMERICA THAT STILL WORKS: SpaceX launches 21 satellites from Florida; another one set Sunday.
BAD NEIGHBORS: China’s Long March 6A rocket is making a mess in low-Earth orbit.
US Space Command, which tracks objects in orbit with a network of radars and optical sensors, confirmed the rocket breakup Thursday. Space Command initially said the event created more than 300 pieces of trackable debris. The military’s ground-based radars are capable of tracking objects larger than 10 centimeters (4 inches).
Later Thursday, LeoLabs, a commercial space situational awareness company, said its radars detected at least 700 objects attributed to the Chinese rocket. The number of debris fragments could rise to more than 900, LeoLabs said.
The culprit is the second stage of China’s Long March 6A rocket, which lifted off Tuesday with the first batch of 18 satellites for a planned Chinese megaconstellation that could eventually number thousands of spacecraft. The Long March 6A’s second stage apparently disintegrated after placing its payload of 18 satellites into a polar orbit.
Space Command said in a statement it has “observed no immediate threats” and “continues to conduct routine conjunction assessments to support the safety and sustainability of the space domain.” According to LeoLabs, radar data indicated the rocket broke apart at an altitude of 503 miles (810 kilometers) at approximately 4:10 pm EDT (20:10 UTC) on Tuesday, around 13-and-a-half hours after it lifted off from northern China.
At this altitude, it will take decades or centuries for the wispy effect of aerodynamic drag to pull the debris back into the atmosphere. As the objects drift lower, their orbits will cross paths with SpaceX’s Starlink Internet satellites, the International Space Station and other crew spacecraft, and thousands more pieces of orbital debris, putting commercial and government satellites at risk of collision.
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The launch Tuesday began the deployment of China’s “Thousand Sails” Internet network, which will initially consist of 1,296 satellites, with the possibility to expand to more than 14,000 spacecraft. This will require numerous launches, some of which will presumably use the Long March 6A.
Long March 6A seems to be a problem but China doesn’t seem to care. That’s strange because orbital debris is everyone’s problem.
GODSPEED: SpaceX targeting Aug. 26 for historic Polaris Dawn astronaut mission. “Polaris Dawn will take the quartet to Earth orbit, on a free-flying mission that does not link up with the International Space Station (ISS). The planned private spacewalk(s) aren’t the only way it will make history: Polaris Dawn will circle our planet at an altitude of about 435 miles (700 kilometers), taking the crew farther from Earth than any mission since the Apollo era.”
Polaris Dawn reminds me a bit of Mercury and Gemini — projects for earning the technology, experience, and skills needed for a much grander project.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Chang’e-5 Mission Discovers Significant Water-Rich Mineral in Moon Soil.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: China launches first satellites for Thousand Sails megaconstellation. “The Thousand Sails constellation aims to provide global internet access. It is one of two planned Chinese systems to challenge U.S. projects including Starlink. Thousand Sails is also intended to secure finite orbital slots and frequencies, and provide national internet coverage and data security.”