Omnibus includes budget increases for Office of Space Commerce and FAA commercial space office
Original Publication Date: 2022-12-21 12:21
The omnibus spending bill includes $70 million for the Office of Space Commerce. The administration requested $87 million for the office in its budget request in March. Another part of the omnibus includes $37.854 million for the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation. The FAA sought the increase for the office in order to hire more staff.
Virgin Orbit receives license for U.K. launch
Original Publication Date: 2022-12-21 13:00
British regulators issue launch and range licenses to Virgin Orbit for its "Start Me Up" Mission. Virgin Orbit now has all the regulatory approvals needed for its first launch from the U.K. The launch will carry seven satellites for commercial and government customers. The company has not announced a specific launch date.
Terran Orbital delivers 10 satellite buses to Lockheed Martin for U.S. military constellation
Original Publication Date: 2022-12-22 11:00
Lockheed Martin is buying buses from Terran Orbital for the Space Development Agency’s Transport Layer. The Tranche 0 constellation will provide secure high-bandwidth, low-latency data links for military users. Terran Orbital announced it would abandon plans to build a constellation of 96 synthetic aperture radar satellites.
Saturn finalizing funds for $500 million small GEO satellite program
Original Publication Date: 2022-12-22 00:46
Saturn Satellite Networks is close to securing funds for its small geostationary satellite business. Equity investors have promised to fund nearly half of its $500 million Space BroadbandNetworks-1 program. The project aims to put Saturn back on track following setbacks five years ago.
Laser links are great for satellite relay, but challenges abound for taking it to ground
Original Publication Date: 2022-12-21 19:29
Experts cite challenges and opportunities for optical communications. Satellite ground segment providers tend to be skeptical of ground-based optical communications. Optical signals travel in a narrow beam of light, making them harder to intercept or jam than radio frequency signals. Optical links also can speed up transmission of the massive amounts of Earth observation data.
NASA declares end of InSight Mars mission
Original Publication Date: 2022-12-21 18:00
NASA has officially ended the mission of the InSight Mars lander. Power levels on the spacecraft dropped to the point where it could no longer communicate with Earth. NASA announced Dec. 21 that InSight had missed two consecutive communications sessions. The lack of communications, engineers concluded, came after the spacecraft’s batteries were drained.
Two Pléiades Neo Earth-imaging satellites lost in failure of Europe’s Vega C rocket – Spaceflight Now
Original Publication Date: 2022-12-21 00:00
The Vega C rocket’s launch operator, Arianespace, confirmed the mission failed to place the two Pléiades Neo optical imaging satellites into orbit. The Vega C’s powerful solid-fueled P120C first stage booster burned nearly two-and-a-half minutes, producing a million pounds of thrust. Arianespace officials said the rocket ran into trouble soon after the start of the Zefiro 40 motor firing.
NASASpaceFlight.com
India launches a new ocean monitoring satellite on Saturday morning. The PSLV rocket lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at 11:56 local time (06:26 UTC) The EOS-06 spacecraft will be placed into a low Earth orbit. The mission, PSLV C54, was launched by the Indian space agency.
Commercial Archives
Relativity Space is preparing for its first-ever launch from Florida. The company is also testing hardware for its next rocket, the larger and fully reusable Terran R. The first fully integrated static fire test of the Terran 1 rocket is expected any day now as the company prepares for its maiden flight.
International Archives
Arianespace's Vega-Consolidation has suffered a launch failure. Vega-C was set to carry the Pléiades Neo 5 and 6 Earth-observation satellites to a Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) The launch failure occurred during stage 2 flight.
ISS Updates – Spaceflight101 – International Space Station
A veteran NASA spacewalker and an EVA rookie from Japan ended their week with nearly six hours of work outside the International Space Station. The restoration of the Station’s Mobile Servicing System started last year and continued in January to provide Canadarm2 with a new pair of grappling hands.
Featured – Spaceflight101
SpaceX Falcon 9 takes to the skies over Florida’s Cape Canaveral Monday afternoon. The flight-proven Dragon spacecraft will deliver science gear, supplies and maintenance hardware to the International Space Station. It is the first of at least six cargo ships inbound to the U.S. Segment of ISS this year.
News – Spaceflight101
Russia's Rockot booster set to blast off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome at 17:57 UTC with the Sentinel-3B multi-function satellite. Europe's Copernicus satellite fleet is gearing up for the arrival of its next addition on Wednesday with a Russian Rockot booster.
Re-Entry: Long March 11 Rocket Body – Spaceflight101
The CZ-11 fourth stage used leftover propellant for a partial de-orbit maneuver, lowering its perigee to 120 Kilometers to significantly accelerate its orbital decay. It is reportedly built around a YF-50 main engine and conducts the orbital circularization after the three CZ-11 stages finish their job.
NASA Retires InSight Mars Lander Mission After Years of Science
InSight's solar-powered batteries have run out of energy. NASA had previously decided to declare the mission over if the lander missed two communication attempts. The agency will continue to listen for a signal from the lander, just in case, but hearing from it is considered unlikely.
NASA’s Perseverance Rover Deposits First Sample on Mars Surface
NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has placed a titanium tube on the Red Planet's surface. Over the next two months, the rover will deposit a total of 10 tubes at the location, called “Three Forks. The depot marks a historic early step in the Mars Sample Return campaign.
Assembly Begins on NASA’s Next Tool to Study Exoplanets
The Coronagraph Instrument is being tested on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The science instrument will block the light from each distant star it observes so that scientists can better see the planets around the star. It will demonstrate technologies needed to eventually study potentially habitable planets with future missions.
NASA Gets Unusually Close Glimpse of Black Hole Snacking on Star
The event was first spotted on March 1, 2021, by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), located at the Palomar Observatory in Southern California. It was subsequently studied by NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) telescope. Then, around 300 days after the event was first spotted, NASA’s NuSTAR began observing the system. Scientists were surprised when NuSTAR detected a corona – a cloud of hot plasma, or gas atoms with their electrons stripped away.
NASA Awards Launch Services Contract for Sentinel-6B Mission
Sentinel-6B will continue the long-term global sea level data record begun in 1992 by Topex/Poseidon. The Sentinel-6B mission currently is targeted to launch November 2025, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
40-Year Study Finds Mysterious Patterns in Temperatures at Jupiter
Scientists have completed the longest-ever study tracking temperatures in Jupiter’s upper troposphere. The study is a major step toward a better understanding of what drives weather at our solar system’s largest planet. The work was conducted over four decades by stitching together data from NASA spacecraft and ground-based telescope observations.
NASA’s Perseverance Rover to Begin Building Martian Sample Depot
Perseverance’s prime mission will conclude on Jan. 6, 2023 – one Mars year (about 687 Earth days) after its Feb. 18, 2021, landing. Called the Delta Top Campaign, this new science phase will begin when Perseverance finishes its ascent of the delta’s steep embankment.