Year: 2024

NASA denies press reports that Sunita Williams on ISS has health issues

9:12 am

After the Daily Mail in the UK reported that it appeared that Sunita Williams on ISS appeared “gaunt” in recent pictures and might have health issues due to her unexpectedly long stay in space, NASA today issued a denial, stating unequivocally that she “is in good health.”

The pictures used to suggest she is “gaunt” are mostly based on the shape of her face, but this means nothing. Weightlessness shifts things about. The Daily Mail report used the analysis of those photos by a doctor in Seattle.

While the two have put on a positive front in their public comments and interviews, a recent photo tells a different story, according to Dr Vinay Gupta, a pulmonologist and veteran in Seattle. Dr Gupta told DailyMail.com: “What you’re seeing there in that picture is somebody that I think is experiencing the natural stresses of living at a very high altitude, even in a pressurized cabin, for extended periods. Her cheeks appear a bit sunken – and usually it happens when you’ve had sort of total body weight loss,” Dr Gupta added.

“I think what I can discern by her face and her cheeks being sunken in is that [she] has probably been at a significant [calorie] deficit for a while.”

As a general rule, it is considered to be unethical for a doctor to make any diagnosis from a distance based on press reports. Gupta might be right, but more likely he is basing these opinions on very incomplete data. In this case I would generally trust NASA’s denial, especially becauase Williams is a very experienced astronaut who has done previous long missions on ISS.

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Vast signs astronaut agreement with Czech government

8:57 am

The space station startup Vast has announced it has now signed an agreement with the Czech government to possibly fly one of its astronauts to the company’s Haven space stations, either the smaller Haven-1 or the full size Haven-2 to follow.

Any future mission with Vast could see Aleš Svoboda, one of 12 reserve astronauts selected by the European Space Agency in November 2022, become the second Czech astronaut. Svoboda has been a focal point for the Czech government’s efforts to stimulate growth in the Czech space industry and inspire the country’s young people to pursue STEM careers, crystallized by the launch of the Czech Journey to Space project in June 2024.

In September 2024 the Czech government had signed a similar agreement with Axiom. Under that agreement, Svoboda would fly to ISS. This new deal opens the possibility he will fly elsewhere.

It is very possible the Czechs want to do both, and are covering their bets by signing both agreements. In either case, no mission dates have been set.

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SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites

4:27 pm

SpaceX today launched 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its third flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

109 SpaceX
49 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 127 to 75, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 109 to 93.

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November 7, 2024 Quick space links

2:07 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

Posting today will continue to be light. I am wearing bandaging on one wrist that makes typing very slow and extremely difficult. All will go back to normal tomorrow.

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Next Starship/Superheavy test flight now targeting November 18th

12:19 pm

SpaceX today announced its plan to fly the next and sixth orbital test flight of its Starship/Superheavy rocket on November 18th, less than two weeks from today.

The next Starship flight test aims to expand the envelope on ship and booster capabilities and get closer to bringing reuse of the entire system online. Objectives include the booster once again returning to the launch site for catch, reigniting a ship Raptor engine while in space, and testing a suite of heatshield experiments and maneuvering changes for ship reentry and descent over the Indian Ocean.

The success of the first catch attempt demonstrated the design feasibility while providing valuable data to continue improving hardware and software performance. Hardware upgrades for this flight add additional redundancy to booster propulsion systems, increase structural strength at key areas, and shorten the timeline to offload propellants from the booster following a successful catch. Mission designers also updated software controls and commit criteria for the booster’s launch and return.

As noted earlier, the FAA has made it clear that no new license is required since this flight plan is essentially the same as the fifth flight.

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November 6, 2024 Quick space links

3:32 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

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Freedom: What Trump’s election will mean for America’s space policy

2:24 pm

The resounding landslide victory by Donald Trump and the Republicans yesterday is going have enormous consequences across the entire federal government. As a space historian and journalist who has been following, studying, and reporting on space policy for decades, this essay will be my attempt to elucidate what that landslide will mean for NASA, its Artemis program, and the entire American aerospace industry.

The cost of SLS
The absurd cost of each SLS launch

The Artemis Program

Since 2011 I have said over and over that the government-designed and owned SLS, Orion, and later proposed Lunar Gateway space station were all badly conceived. They all cost too much and don’t do the job. Fitting them together to create a long term presence in space is difficult at best and mostly impractical. Their cost and cumbersome design has meant the program to get back to the Moon, as first proposed by George Bush Jr. in 2004, is now more than a decade behind schedule and many billions over budget. Worse, under the present program as currently contrived that manned lunar landing will likely be delayed five more years, at a minimum.

For example, at present SLS is underpowered. It can’t get astronauts to and from the Moon, as the Saturn-5 rocket did in the 1960s. For the first manned lunar landing mission, Artemis-4, SLS will simply launch four astronauts in Orion to lunar orbit, where Orion will rendezvous and dock with the lunar lander version of Starship. That Starship in turn will require refueling in Earth orbit, using a proposed fuel depot that has been filled by multiple earlier Starship launches.

Once Starship is docked to Orion the crew will transfer to Starship to get up and down from the Moon, and then return to Earth in Orion.

You think that’s complicated? » Read more

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Ghana approves a government space policy

9:55 am

In a process that began in 2018, Ghana has finally approved a new government space policy that shifts bureaucratic control from a government agency not specifically focused on space to a new Ghana Space Agency.

Though Ghana officials repeatedly claim this is to encourage a commercial industry, all this policy decision has done is to create a new government agency to run things. It also appears that to make this change took years of negotiation among all the various government agencies involved, so that everyone could protect their own interests.

Don’t expect much from Ghana in the near future. All this policy does is concentrate power within its government.

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FCC issues first deep space communications license to private asteroid mining company

9:44 am

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on October 18, 2024 issued the first deep space communications license to the private asteroid mining startup company Astroforge for its planned Odin mission to an asteroid.

Asteroid prospecting company AstroForge has been awarded the first-ever commercial license for operating and communicating with a spacecraft in deep space, ahead of its Odin mission that’s set to launch and rendezvous with a near-Earth asteroid in early 2025.

The license, granted by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Oct. 18, pertains specifically to setting up a communication network with radio ground stations on Earth, to enable commands to be sent up to Odin and data to be transmitted back to Earth. In this case, deep space is defined by the International Telecommunications Union as being farther than 2 million kilometers (1.2 million miles) from Earth.

Other private companies have sent missions to the Moon, but this will be the first to go beyond. Odin will orbit and map the asteroid — not yet chosen — in advance of a larger AstroForge spacecraft, dubbed Vestri, that will land on the asteroid.

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