In Today’s Deep Space Extra… NASA offers an updated plan for transitioning ISS activities to commercial stations. Now that it has overcome a pebble obstruction, the Perseverance rover is once again drilling for rock samples.
Human Space Exploration
NASA details transition of International Space Station to commercial operations
CNET (2/1): In a report requested by Congress, NASA provides an update for its plans to transition operation of activities carried out aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to the commercial sector by 2030. A feature of the strategy is for the ISS to operate in tandem with commercial free flying space stations for two years. NASA says it has verified the structural operability of the ISS’ U.S. segment through 2030. The Russian space agency has formally completed extension analyses through 2024 and will begin efforts to assess an extension through 2030. NASA considers ISS research crucial to its plans to transition its human exploration focus to deep space. The agency intends to be one of multiple customers conducting research activities aboard commercial space stations. NASA’s latest estimates call for a deorbit of the ISS in January 2031.
Relativity and SpaceX bid on NASA commercial space station competition
Coalition Members in the News – Nanoracks, Northrop Grumman
SpaceNews.com (2/1): At the time that NASA awarded its Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations, or CLD, program awards, the agency would only say that it received 11 proposals, but did not disclose who all the bidders were, announcing only the winners. The chosen companies were announced in December. On January 27, however, NASA released the source selection statement for the program, identifying all companies that submitted proposals, including the ones that were not picked. The winning proposals were those led by Blue Origin, Nanoracks, and Northrop Grumman. The three companies will get more than $400 million combined through 2025 to mature the designs of commercial space stations that could succeed the International Space Station (ISS) by the end of the decade.
Space Science
Mars rover Perseverance collects new sample after clearing pebble clog
Space.com (2/1): After spending much of January disposing of small pebbles that prevented it from coring its sixth sample from the rocky terrain of Jezero Crater on Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover returned to the source of the trouble, a rock called Issole. Earlier this week, the rover successfully gathered a sample, possibly one of the oldest gathered from Mars so far on its still-unfolding agenda. Perseverance, which landed on Mars in February 2021, is to gather at least 20 and as many as 38 samples cored from rocks and cached for eventual return to Earth.
NASA’s asteroid detector was upgraded to scan the entire sky every day
Gizmodo (2/1): The University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy, which since 2017 has operated a pair of telescopes, has added two more observatories in South Africa and Chile enabling its astronomers to study the night sky when Hawaii is in daylight. All are part of a NASA funded asteroid detection system. The name of the observatory network is the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS, which is part of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office. “An important part of planetary defense is finding asteroids before they find us, so if necessary, we can get them before they get us,” according to Kelly Fast, NASA’s near-Earth object observations program manager.
Earth has a second known ‘Trojan asteroid’ that shares its orbit
Sciencenews.org (2/1): The Earth has a second Trojan asteroid following along as the planet orbits the sun. A little more than a half mile wide, 2020 XL5 was discovered in December 2020, according to findings led by researchers from the University of Barcelona and published in the journal Nature Communications. There may be more Trojans lurking in gravitationally stable regions between the Earth and Sun.
Other News
GOES-T launch preparations underway
Coalition Members in the News – L3Harris, United Launch Alliance
SpaceNews.com (2/2): At a February 1 briefing organized by NOAA, representatives of several agencies and companies said they were on track for a March 1 launch of the GOES-T weather satellite on an Atlas V from Cape Canaveral. The spacecraft, the third of four in the GOES-R series, will replace GOES-17 at the GOES-West orbital location in geostationary orbit at 137 degrees west. Scott Messer, program manager for NASA launch services at United Launch Alliance (ULA), said the company had started stacking the Atlas V that will launch GOES-T. L3Harris manufactures the satellite’s Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), its main instrument.
U.K. announces $2 billion in new funding for military space programs
SpaceNews.com (2/1): The U.K. released a military space strategy on Tuesday that includes plans to invest $1.9 billion in low Earth orbit satellites and other technologies over the next decade to bolster national security and the economy by turning to the commercial sector to develop new capabilities. Much of the funding will go towards initiatives called Istari and Minerva which are to fund an advanced laser communications technology for high-speed delivery of data from space to Earth with a network of satellites.
Europe launches fund to invest in space startups
SpaceNews.com (1/31): The European Commission, European Investment Bank and European Investment Fund are rolling out a new five-year, $1 billion euro ($1.12 billion, U.S.) early-stage incentive plan to keep European space startups from leaving the continent. The Cassini initiative is especially aimed at keeping space startups from moving to the U.S., both in the search for investors and a place to grow. Currently, many European startups cannot attract the funding they need domestically.
How ISRO is charting a new course
Indiatoday.com (1/31): S. Somanath, new chair of the India Space Research Organization (ISRO), is preparing to forge ahead on three fronts: aggressive launch operations that will include the country’s first smallsat mission; partnering with the commercial sector and helping startups enter the space domain; and establishing a demand rather than availability driven environment to progress.