Link here. Prompted by the launch last week of Ghana’s first satellite from ISS, this article take a look at what other African countries are doing to become players in the new colonial movement, noting efforts being done by Nigeria, South Africa, Ethopia, Angola, and Kenya.
Overall, no African country is doing very much in space. The fact that this African-centered news outlet feels compelled to note this, however, suggests that the competitive urge might be stirring there.
Space engineers who need to simulate the surface of planets, moons, and asteroids in order to test their rovers, drills, and landers for future missions are demanding better alien dirt.
James Carpenter just needed some fake Moon dirt. Carpenter, a lunar-exploration expert at the European Space Agency (ESA) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, works on a drill designed to hunt for buried ice on the Moon. His team recently ordered half a tonne of powdery material to replicate the lunar surface from a commercial supplier in the United States. But what showed up was not what the team was expecting. “The physical properties were visibly different,” says Carpenter.
His experience underscores a longstanding problem with artificial space soils, known as simulants: how to make them consistently and reliably. But now there is a fresh effort to bring the field into line. Last month, NASA established a team of scientists from eight of its research centres to analyse the physical properties and availability of existing simulants. And, for the first time, an asteroid-mining company in Florida is making scientifically accurate powders meant to represent the surfaces of four classes of asteroid. It delivered its second batch to NASA on 28 June.
The article is worth reading in its entirety, as it describes an engineering problem that I am sure most space geeks, including myself, never thought even existed.
Capitalism in space: The layoffs at XCOR this week that essentially shut the company down were the due to ULA cancelling its upper stage engine contract with the company.
The primary impetus for the layoffs, Acting CEO and XCOR Board member Michael Blum told me, is the loss of a contract for engine development that the company had with United Launch Alliance. “The proceeds should have been enough to fund the prototype of Lynx [the company’s planned spacecraft], but ULA decided they’re not going to continue funding the contract. So we find ourselves in a difficult financial situation where we need to raise money or find joint developments to continue.” ULA declined to comment.
An evening pause: It is quite surprising how this process is still almost entirely done by hand.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
I sure could use more engineering type evening pause suggestions like this. You all like them, so you must know how to find them. If you have a suggestion, let me know in a comment here. Don’t give the link, I will email you for it.
Capitalism in space: Team Indus, one of five remaining competitors for the Google Lunar X-Prize, announced today that they are now looking for the last half of the total $80 million they need to fly their mission by December.
While hardware and technology aspects have been met, Team Indus is discussing raising finances of roughly ₹120-130 crore ($15-20 million) to meet its total mission costs of around ₹520 crore ($80 million), co-founder Rahul Narayan said on Wednesday. The startup is also offering branding opportunities for their products and services on what will be the first Indian private Moon mission, he told journalists.
Team Indus is part of aerospace innovations company Axiom Research Labs, Bengaluru. It is the lone Indian entry in the global contest, the Google Lunar XPrize worth over $20 million.
It appears that they have so far raised $40 million, and need at least $40 million more to fly the mission. It also appears that if they raise only $20 million they will fly anyway with the hope that they win the $20 million prize to make up the difference.
It is very late in the game to raise this money, which means their success remains a very touch-and-go prospect. What improves their chances however is how they are now selling themselves, not as a Google X-Prize contestant, which is nothing more than a publicity stunt, but as a smallsat construction company that can build satellites for anyone at a low cost. This is very smart.
The new colonial movement: India and Israel have inked three new development agreements between their different government space agencies.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s historic visit to Israel has deepened cooperation in space technology between the two countries as the two sides on Wednesday signed three agreements relating to space. The first memorandum of understanding was between Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) and Israel Space Agency for cooperation in electric propulsion for small satellites, second was on cooperation in GEO-LEO optical links and third pact was on cooperation in atomic clocks (which are satellite components meant to provide precise locational data).
The third agreement is especially interesting. It indicates that India no longer wants to work with the German company that built its most recent GPS satellites because that company’s atomic clocks all had problems. Unlike the ESA, India has decided that such failures should not be rewarded with more work.
Capitalism in space: XCOR, the company that was going to fly tourists on the Lynx reusable suborbital plane by 2013, has laid off its last remaining employees.
Though years ago I predicted this failure accurately, I do not celebrate it. I would have much preferred to have been dead wrong, and to have seen Lynx built and flying, making money from space tourism. At the same time, I am also utterly realistic about the realities of capitalism. To have big successes you need to also have sad failures. XCOR unfortunately belongs to the latter.
Capitalism in space: On its third try SpaceX today successfully placed an Intelsat communications satellite into orbit.
This was SpaceX’s tenth launch of the year, putting them well ahead of any other company or nation (other than the U.S., of which they are a part).
Capitalism in space: The Air Force has announced that it will be soliciting bids from SpaceX and ULA for a 5-satellite launch contract.
Claire Leon, director of the Launch Enterprise Directorate at the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center, told reporters that grouping launches together was an effort to streamline and speed the acquisition process at a time when the national security sector is demanding ever-increasing access to space. “By doing five at once, it makes our acquisition more efficient and it allows the contractors to put in one proposal,” she said.
This grouping however might make it impossible for SpaceX to win the contract, as the company’s Falcon 9 rocket might not be capable of launching all five satellites, and its Falcon Heavy has not yet flown the three times necessary before the Air Force will consider using it.
The new colonial movement: The United Kingdom’s proposed space industry bill has now been introduced in the House of Lords, the first step to making it law.
I have not had a chance to read it, but the claim is that this bill will establish a regulatory framework, under the Outer Space Treaty, to attract private commercial space to Great Britain.
The recent blockade imposed against Qatar by other Middle East countries, supposedly because of its support of terrorism, threatens the world’s supply of helium.
Qatar is the world’s largest exporter of helium and its second-largest producer, accounting for 25% of global demand (see ‘Helium supplies’). So the blockade will inevitably cause shortfalls over the next few months, says Phil Kornbluth, a consultant based in Bridgewater, New Jersey, who specializes in the helium industry.
Countries likely to be most affected are those closest to Qatar. But Asian countries such as India, China, Japan, Taiwan and Singapore are also at risk. “But none of us are immune,” adds William Halperin, a researcher in low-temperature physics at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
The U.S. is the world’s largest producer of helium, producing about twice as much as Qatar. That production is for our local markets, while Qatar exports it worldwide.
For reasons that are not clear, SES’s AMC-9 satellite, launched in 2003 and nearing the end of its 15 year design life, appeared on June 17 to suddenly break into at least two pieces.
The video at the link requires patience to watch, but it shows the satellite go from one bright spot to about two at around two minutes. These two spots then slowly drift apart.
