A sampling of recent articles, press releases, etc. related to student and amateur CubeSat / SmallSat projects and programs (find previous smallsat roundups here):
** Indian rocket orbits Duchifat-3 CubeSat built by Israeli high school students:
Duchifat 3 is the third in the series of Israeli student-made satellites.
Jointly built by Herzliya Science Center and Sha’ar HaNegev High School students, the satellite is designed to serve children from across the country to “observe the Earth”.
“It is a photo satellite used for ecological research of Earth from space. The size of the satellite is 10x10x30 cm (3U) and it weighs 2.3 kg. The students worked for almost two and a half years to build it. The satellite will be of good help to agriculturists,” one of the donors for the project and head of ICA Foundation Zeev Miller told PTI.
Bolsonaro also said in his tweet that besides the CBERS-4A, nano-satellite Floripast (cubeSat) would also be launched, a project developed by students of bachelor, master and doctorate courses in Electrical Engineering, Automation and Mechanical Engineering of the Federal University of Santa Catarina, in partnership with the Uniespaço programme of the Brazilian Space Agency.
In 2013, Alfeeli moved to the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science, where he has worked ever since. Orbital Space takes up his evenings and weekends, as he manages several initiatives in parallel. He has set up a basic ground station called Um Alaish 4, after its predecessor, to receive signals from CubeSats. Orbital Space is also involved in building the country’s first CubeSat, with a group of around 15 Kuwaiti volunteers. The Kuwaiti engineer initiated the CubeSat project as a tool to attract space enthusiasts.
“The idea is to create a platform to bring together a community of space enthusiasts in Kuwait. There is interest from the young generation, but there is no project that engages them to create that critical mass. I figured we needed a hub where people can come together and do that. So Orbital Space has now created that opportunity and is open to anyone who wants to join us to promote space in Kuwait,” Alfeeli says.
By creating greater awareness through public talks on the history of the ground station in Kuwait and hands-on workshops on CubeSats for kids, he hopes to plant the seeds of a space programme in Kuwait. In addition to all the other initiatives, Orbital Space has also launched a competition for high-school students and undergraduate students in partnership with US-headquartered space commercialisation company Nanoracks, with the winning experiment to be sent to the International Space Station (ISS).
A sampling of recent articles, videos, and images dealing with space transport (find previous roundups here):
** Several orbital launches are taking place this week:
**** SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 this evening with the JCSAT 18/Kacific 1 comm-sat from Cape Canaveral. The first stage booster successfully landed on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship. SpaceX’s two fairing recovery vessels, “Ms. Tree” and “Ms. Chief,” did not capture the fairings in their nets but did grab them from the water:
Ms. Tree and Ms. Chief narrowly missed catching the fairing halves—team is working to recover them for potential use on a future flight
This was the third flight of this booster, which flew in May and July of this year. Turn-around times are getting shorter. This was also the 47th successful recovery of a Falcon booster counting the side boosters for the three Falcon Heavy flights.
The COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation satellite for the Italian Space Agency and Minister of Defence will be the primary passenger of this flight, along with the Characterising Exoplanet Satellite (CHEOPS) on behalf of the European Space Agency (ESA). Three auxiliary payloads also will be on board: ANGELS and EyeSat for the French CNES space agency; and OPS-SAT for Tyvak (on behalf of ESA).
Liftoff is set for 3:54:20 am (8:54:20 GMT). See also:
**** Boeing and ULA plan to launch an uncrewed Starliner spacecraft to the ISS this Friday, Dec. 20th at 6:36 am EST ( 1136 GMT) from Cape Canaveral on an Atlas V rocket. This will be the first space flight of a Starliner, one of the two Commercial Crew vehicles sponsored by NASA along with the SpaceX Crew Dragon. The Atlas V for the first time will include a Centaur upper stage outfitted with two RL-10 LOX/Liquid Hydrogen engines rather than the usual single engine configuration. (Two engine Centaurs have flown before on other rockets.)
“A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, topped by the Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, stand on Space Launch Complex 41 at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Dec. 4, 2019. The vehicle was in place on the launch pad for Boeing’s wet dress rehearsal ahead of the upcoming Orbital Flight Test, an uncrewed mission to the International Space Station for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.” – NASA
**** China launched two Beidou navigation satellites on Monday on a Long March 3B and plans to launch a Long March 4B rocket on Friday with the CBERS 4A (China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite) remote sensing spacecraft.
We’re currently testing the newest member of the BE-3 family, BE-3U (upper stage), a variant of the BE-3PM propelling New Shepard. With a back-to-back turbine assembly and a larger nozzle, BE-3U is optimized to operate in the vacuum of space and generates 710 kN (160,000 lbf) thrust in vacuum. Two BE-3U engines power New Glenn’s restartable upper stage, enabling the full range of customer missions including direct injection to geostationary orbit. Building on years of operational experience and rigorous testing, BE-3U will be one of the best understood rocket engines when it launches into space.
A Long March 5 rocket is expected to blast off from a site in southern China this month carrying not only a next-generation communications satellite, but the hope that the mission will restore pride in the programme after a series of setbacks.
One of the sources who confirmed the plan said that the atmosphere at Wenchang Space Launch Centre on the northern tip of Hainan Island was “so tense there seems to be a shortage of oxygen”.
The Long March 5 – also known as the CZ-5 – is the largest launch vehicle in China’s space fleet. It can carry 25 tonnes into low Earth orbit, typically 645-1,610km (400-1,000 miles) from the surface.
There doesn’t appear to be any funding involved; just general cooperation and support:
While the development of rockets has not been in the realm of the Australian space sector in the past, Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, Karen Andrews, highlighted how recent investments broadens the Australian space industry.
“This new partnership shows the breadth of capabilities being developed in Australia, supporting our mission to develop and grow the Australian space industry over the next ten years,” said Andrews.
Gilmour is developing the
ERIS launch vehicles [which] will deliver up to 450 kg to LEO, with ERIS-S (up to 200 kg to 500 km SSO) followed by ERIS-L (450 kg to 180-500 km SSO).
The propulsion systems for the ERIS vehicles are based on ” Gilmour’s new and proprietary hybrid rocket engine”.
… is a two-stage launch vehicle that is specifically designed for satellite constellation deployment. Payload capabilities of up to 1’000kg to low-earth orbit and a multi-ignition second stage engine enable flexible access to space for major satellite systems. Spectrum is designed to handle the most challenging mission parameters and offers engine-out capability on the first stage for highest mission success.
From the SpaceWatch.Global article:
Over the past year, Isar Aerospace has been developing its Spectrum rocket at unmatched speed. The development is fully on track for first launch in late 2021 while key milestones such as propulsion system hotfire testing and agreements for launch site access have been achieved. “At Airbus Ventures we’re proud to add Isar Aerospace to our global portfolio of innovative launch systems,” remarks Airbus Ventures Financial Officer and EMEA team member Claas Carsten Kohl. Mathieu Costes, Airbus Ventures Partner adds “We’re pleased to entrust Daniel and his outstanding team, bringing impressive new technologies and approaches to the challenges of Low Earth Orbit, to represent our first deal in Germany. Together with our investment round co-leader Earlybird and under the continuing guidance of Bulent Altan we’re pleased to help draw together the ecosystems of new space excellence in both Germany and in the wider Airbus universe.”
Since the turn of the century, space exploration has changed dramatically thanks to the unprecedented rise of commercial aerospace (aka. NewSpace). With the goal of leveraging new technologies and lowering the costs of launching payloads into space, some truly innovative and novel ideas are being put forth. This includes the idea of using balloons to carry rockets to very high-altitudes, then firing the payloads to their desired orbits.
Also known as “Rockoons”, this concept has informed Leo Aerospace‘s fully-autonomous and fully-reusable launch system – which consists of a high-altitude aerostat (balloon) and a rocket launch platform. With the first commercial launches slated for next year, the company plans to use this system to provide regular launch services to the microsatellite (aka. CubeSat) market in the coming years.
Small launch vehicle company Vector filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Dec. 13 as part of an agreement that could see some of its satellite technology assets sold to Lockheed Martin.
…
Vector had been one of the leading companies in the small launch vehicle market until August, when the company said that a “significant change in financing” led it to pause operations and lay off nearly all of its more than 150 employees. Jim Cantrell, Vector’s chief executive, also left the company at the time. That announcement came just two days after the company won an Air Force launch contract.
According to industry sources familiar with the company, the August layoffs were triggered when one of the company’s major investors, venture fund Sequoia, withdrew its support for the company because of concerns about how the company was managed. That came as Vector was working on a new funding round, and Sequoia’s decision had a domino effect, causing other investors to back out. Sequoia didn’t respond to a request for comment in August about any role it played in Vector’s problems.
** Update on second Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo rocketplane:
We’ve completed the installation of the feather onto the next spaceship in @VirginGalactic’s fleet. The feather gives SpaceShipTwo the ability to change shape in space, ensuring a safe, aerodynamically controlled re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. https://t.co/X3gIoHFEUvpic.twitter.com/XaGqJyqYQX
** The secretive Astra launch company plans a test flight of the company’s rocket sometime between mid-February and the end of March: OET Special Temporary Authority Report
SpaceX’s McGregor test facility is about to open two new test stands to accommodate increased Raptor engine production and a busy Falcon 9 manifest in 2020. Recent aerial images of the McGregor Texas-based facility show that both of the test stands are nearly ready for activation – with the first firings expected to occur this month.
Kepler announced today that it has selected SpaceX as launch partner to deliver a portion of its first Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellation into space onboard SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 launch vehicle.
Kepler has procured 400 kg of launch capacity from SpaceX for the deployment of multiple satellites. These spacecraft incorporate both a high-capacity Ku-band communications system and a narrowband payload, for both high-speed data transfers and for low-power direct-to-satellite IoT connectivity.
This will be the first time the two companies are partnering for a LEO deployment, and it will be a historical event as it marks Kepler’s first use of SpaceX’s new SmallSat Rideshare Program, which will see the launch of multiple small spacecraft into sun-synchronous orbit (SSO).
**** The team at www.USLaunchReport.com watches the booster recovered from the latest Starlink launch transported from Port Canaveral to the hangar to prepare for another launch:
**** Starship
****** Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut, discusses the issue of a Starship abort system:
****** SpaceX Boca Chica Launch Control Center – December 15, 2019 – NASASpaceflight.com
As SpaceX’s Boca Chica steel machine keeps pumping out monolithic rings for Starship Mk3, groundwork is being laid for SpaceX’s Launch Control Center (LCC). Footage and photos from Mary (@bocachicagal) for NSF.
****** SpaceX Boca Chica – Foundations of a Starship Production Factory – Dec. 14, 2019 – NASASpaceflight.com
As the gutting of Mk1’s remains is ongoing, workers are working on foundations for what will be a number of buildings that will be producing sections for a fleet of Starships and Super Heavy boosters. Footage and photos from Mary (@bocachicagal) for NSF. Edited by Brady Kenniston (@TheFavoritist)
A sampling of links to recent space policy, politics, and government (US and international) related space news and resource items that I found of interest (find previous space policy roundups here):
This weeks SpaceQ podcast is a live recording from the Canadian Space Summit. The speaker is Rob Postma, Vice President and Head of Governmental Export, Space Systems, Airbus. As you’ll hear Postma say, this talk, titled, Airbus 50 years pioneering progress, is meant to provide a picture of what Airbus has accomplished but more importantly what it’s planning. Postma’s talk followed an Airbus industry day held the day before the summit started. It was an opportunity to engage further with other Canadian organizations as Airbus looks to grow its share of the market in Canada.
Taken with the HAWK-I instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in the Chilean Atacama Desert, this stunning image shows the Milky Way’s central region with an angular resolution of 0.2 arcseconds. This means the level of detail picked up by HAWK-I is roughly equivalent to seeing a football (soccer ball) in Zurich from Munich, where ESO’s headquarters are located. The image combines observations in three different wavelength bands. The team used the broadband filters J (centred at 1250 nanometres, in blue), H (centred at 1635 nanometres, in green), and Ks (centred at 2150 nanometres, in red), to cover the near infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. By observing in this range of wavelengths, HAWK-I can peer through the dust, allowing it to see certain stars in the central region of our galaxy that would otherwise be hidden.
ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has observed the central part of the Milky Way with spectacular resolution and uncovered new details about the history of star birth in our galaxy. Thanks to the new observations, astronomers have found evidence for a dramatic event in the life of the Milky Way: a burst of star formation so intense that it resulted in over a hundred thousand supernova explosions.
“Our unprecedented survey of a large part of the Galactic centre has given us detailed insights into the formation process of stars in this region of the Milky Way,”
says Rainer Schödel from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia in Granada, Spain, who led the observations.
“Contrary to what had been accepted up to now, we found that the formation of stars has not been continuous,”
adds Francisco Nogueras-Lara, who led two new studies of the Milky Way central region while at the same institute in Granada.
Caption: ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has observed the central part of the Milky Way with spectacular resolution and uncovered new details about the history of star birth in our galaxy. Watch this video summary to find out more about the stunning image captured with the HAWK-I instrument on the VLT and the discoveries made about star formation in the central region of our galaxy.
In the study, published today in Nature Astronomy, the team found that about 80% of the stars in the Milky Way central region formed in the earliest years of our galaxy, between eight and 13.5 billion years ago. This initial period of star formation was followed by about six billion years during which very few stars were born. This was brought to an end by an intense burst of star formation around one billion years ago when, over a period of less than 100 million years, stars with a combined mass possibly as high as a few tens of million Suns formed in this central region.
“The conditions in the studied region during this burst of activity must have resembled those in ‘starburst’ galaxies, which form stars at rates of more than 100 solar masses per year,”
says Nogueras-Lara, who is now based at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany. At present, the whole Milky Way is forming stars at a rate of about one or two solar masses per year.
“This burst of activity, which must have resulted in the explosion of more than a hundred thousand supernovae, was probably one of the most energetic events in the whole history of the Milky Way,”
he adds. During a starburst, many massive stars are created; since they have shorter lifespans than lower-mass stars, they reach the end of their lives much faster, dying in violent supernova explosions.
Caption: This video compares a visible light wide-field view (part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2) of the Milky Way’s central regions with a new near-infrared image taken with the HAWK-I instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The video starts by showing a visible light image of the Milky Way central regions, filled with vast numbers of stars. A moving slider then reveals that far more stars, hidden behind clouds of dust, are revealed when this region is observed in the near-infrared.
This research was possible thanks to observations of the Galactic central region done with ESO’s HAWK-I instrument on the VLT in the Chilean Atacama Desert. This infrared-sensitive camera peered through the dust to give us a remarkably detailed image of the Milky Way’s central region, published in October in Astronomy & Astrophysics by Nogueras-Lara and a team of astronomers from Spain, the US, Japan and Germany. The stunning image shows the galaxy’s densest region of stars, gas and dust, which also hosts a supermassive black hole, with an angular resolution of 0.2 arcseconds. This means the level of detail picked up by HAWK-I is roughly equivalent to seeing a football (soccer ball) in Zurich from Munich, where ESO’s headquarters are located.
Caption: This video compares a view of the Galactic centre captured with the VISTA infrared survey telescope, as part of the Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) ESO public survey, and a new, sharper view of the same region obtained with the HAWK-I instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope.
This image is the first release of the GALACTICNUCLEUS survey. This programme relied on the large field of view and high angular resolution of HAWK-I on ESO’s VLT to produce a beautifully sharp image of the central region of our galaxy. The survey studied over three million stars, covering an area corresponding to more than 60 000 square light-years at the distance of the Galactic centre (one light-year is about 9.5 trillion kilometres).
Caption: This video pans across the central regions of the Milky Way, newly observed with the HAWK-I instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in the Chilean Atacama Desert. This stunning view shows the Milky Way’s central region with an angular resolution of 0.2 arcseconds.
This beautiful image of the Milky Way’s central region, taken with the HAWK-I instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, shows interesting features of this part of our galaxy. This image highlights the Nuclear Star Cluster (NSC) right in the centre and the Arches Cluster, the densest cluster of stars in the Milky Way. Other features include the Quintuplet cluster, which contains five prominent stars, and a region of ionised hydrogen gas (HII).
1. Monday, Dec. 16, 2019; 2 pm PST (4 pm CST; 5 pm EST): No special show today.
2. Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2019; 7-8:30 pm PST (9-10:30 pm CST, 10-11:30 pm EST): We welcome back Dr. Jim Logan on human spaceflight medical information updates and more.
3. Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2019: Pre-recorded Hotel Mars Program with John Batchelor. See Upcoming Show on The Space Show website for details.
4. Thursday, Dec. 19, 2019; 7-8:30 pm PST (9-10:30 pm CST, 10-11:30 pm EST): No special program today.
5. Friday, Dec. 20, 2019; 9:30-11 am PST (11:30 am-1 pm CST, 12:30-2 pm EST): We welcome Dylan Taylor back to the show for commercial space investing, progress, fundamentals, news and more.
6. Sunday, Dec. 22, 2019; 12-1:30 pm PST (3-4:30 pm EST, 2-3:30 pm CST): We welcome back Michael Listner, Atty, to discuss policy and legal news for space in 2019 and going forward for space for 2020.
.
