.png)
In this episode I'll explain preparations being made for the first ever civilian EVA. I'll also deliver big news for companies working towards space situational awareness and orbital transfer capabilities. All this and more. Welcome to the Undiscovered Country.
5. Polaris Crew Preps for First Ever Civilian Spacewalk
The crew of the Polaris Dawn mission, which is
scheduled to launch no earlier than March 2023, underwent crucial tests before
its first-ever private Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) also known as a
spacewalk. This mission is part of the
Polaris Program which is a series of three crewed launches and was announced by
billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman on February 14, 2022 in partnership
with SpaceX. The first mission of this program will see a team of four
astronauts climb to the highest-ever low-Earth orbit (LEO) and spend five days
conducting science experiments.
In
preparation for the Polaris Dawn mission’s planned spacewalk, the crew
participated in a decompression sickness risk characterization study in the 20
Foot Chamber at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
The
Dawn crew will attempt the world's first commercial spacewalk at an altitude of
approximately 700 km from Earth after being launched aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9
rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It would also mark the
first instance when the team will don the brand new SpaceX-designed spacesuit
and test Starlink laser-based communications in space.
Interestingly,
the third and final mission of the Program would see a new crew launch aboard
Starship, SpaceX's full-reusable mega rocket designed to carry crew and cargo
to the LEO, the Moon and even Mars.
https://www.republicworld.com/science/space/spacexs-polaris-dawn-team-aces-major-test-before-worlds-1st-private-spacewalk-in-2023-articleshow.html
4. Airbus Joins
Efforts for Commercial Space Station
Airbus Defense and Space is joining a commercial space
station project led by Voyager Space, a move that could potentially make it
easier for European governments to use the station after the retirement of the
International Space Station.
Denver-based Voyager Space
announced Jan. 4 a partnership with Airbus on its Starlab commercial space
station project. Airbus will provide
“technical design support and expertise” for Starlab, the companies said, but
did not disclose additional details about the partnership or financial terms.
Voyager Space announced plans
for Starlab in October 2021 working with Lockheed Martin. Starlab, as described at the time, would
feature an inflatable module, docking node and bus, capable of hosting up to
four astronauts at a time.
Dylan Taylor, chairman and
chief executive of Voyager Space, said in the announcement that “Working with
Airbus we will expand Starlab’s ecosystem to serve the European Space Agency
(ESA) and its member state space agencies to continue their microgravity
research in LEO."
Jean-Marc Nasr, executive vice
president of space systems at Airbus Defense and Space, said in the same
statement that “This collaboration is an important step in making Starlab a
reality, providing a foundation for long-lasting European and American leadership
in space."
https://spacenews.com/airbus-joins-starlab-commercial-space-station-project/
3. An Active Time for
Io
Since last summer, Jupiter’s third largest moon, Io,
has been lighting up the Jovian system with a major burst of volcanic activity.
As the Solar System’s most volcanically
active world, Io is no stranger to such outbursts, but this year’s display has
been unusually energetic.
Researcher
Jeff Morgenthaler, who has been observing Io’s volcanism since 2017, says this
is the largest volcanic outburst he’s seen yet. Morgenthaler’s observations are taken with the
Planetary Science Institute’s small-scale Io Input/Output observatory (IoIO).
Io
goes through phases of volcanic activity on an almost yearly basis. The eccentricity of its orbit and close
proximity to the strong gravity of Jupiter causes the moon to bulge and
compress continuously, adding energy to the world in a process known as tidal
heating. This same process is
responsible for the liquid subsurface oceans within nearby moon Europa – but Io
is closer to its planet and has a rockier composition, resulting in extensive
lava flows, eruptions, and violent crust upheavals.
These
extreme volcanic conditions affect more than just the moon’s surface. Io surface gravity is low enough (just
slightly stronger than the gravity on Earth’s moon) that some of the gasses and
light materials from Io’s volcanoes can escape into orbit around Jupiter. Largely consisting of ionized sulfur, this
material forms a donut-shaped ring around Jupiter known as the Io plasma torus.
https://www.universetoday.com/159466/io-is-having-a-major-volcanic-outburst/
2. NorthStar Raises
Funding for SSA
Canada’s NorthStar Earth and Space said Jan. 5 it has
raised $35 million ahead of plans to deploy its first three satellites this
year for tracking objects in orbit.
NorthStar aims to use proceeds
to accelerate plans for a constellation of 24 Space Situational Awareness (SSA)
satellites, which would scan out from low Earth orbit (LEO) to track other
satellites and debris.
The company hopes to track
objects as small as one centimeter in LEO, about seven centimeters in medium
Earth orbit (MEO) and “somewhere between 50 and 40” centimeters even farther
out in geostationary orbit (GEO).
NorthStar CEO Stewart Bain said
a U.S. government pilot project that picked NorthStar and five other commercial
firms in December to prototype space traffic data platforms helped highlight
commercial SSA opportunities and attract business.
“It’s not like we weren’t
already contacting both government and private sector operators. But that
really got people to wake up and say, wow, here we go.”
Luxembourg-based satellite
operator SES last year announced plans to use NorthStar’s data to help manage
its fleet of satellites in GEO and MEO.
Bain said a space development
fund supported by SES and Luxembourg’s government participated in NorthStar’s
Series C funding round.
Other investors included the
government of Quebec and a family-owned Canadian technology fund called
Telesystem Space.
https://spacenews.com/northstar-raises-35-million-for-debris-tracking-satellites/
1. Impulse Announces
Orbital Transfer Mission
Impulse Space said its LEO Express-1 mission, using a
transfer vehicle it is developing called Mira, is manifested for launch on
SpaceX’s Transporter-9 rideshare mission currently scheduled for launch in the
fourth quarter of 2023.
Barry Matsumori, chief
operating officer of Impulse Space, said that the mission profile is still
being finalized, but he said the vehicle, after making some initial
deployments, may raise its orbit, then lower it to demonstrate operations in
what’s known as very low Earth orbit, around 300 kilometers.
The performance of Mira depends
on how much payload it is carrying, but he estimated that the vehicle can
provide about 1,000 meters per second of delta-v, or change in velocity, with a
payload of 300 kilograms. Its propulsion system, using storable propellants,
has been extensively tested, with more than 1,000 seconds of runtime, while
other elements of the vehicle are in various stages of design and
manufacturing.
Matsumori said the company is
seeing growing demand for in-space transportation services. “The market for
customers for either LEO transfers or other orbit transfers is developing at
about the same pace as the in-space transportation capabilities are developing. In the last three months, we’ve seen many
more customers than we did in the prior six months.”
https://spacenews.com/impulse-space-announces-first-orbital-transfer-vehicle-mission/
Comments
Post a Comment