SPACE FORCE: The Musical
Artemis 1 launch a success, an interstellar visitor, and S.S. Sally Ride docks with the ISS
Hello Continuum readers and Celestial Citizens,
WE ARE GOING…to talk about Artemis in this newsletter! Like many of you, I stayed up late, anxiously enjoyed the various NASA media segments while waiting for the big show, and then held my breath as I experienced the powerful SLS ignite the sky. It was certainly a sight to see and dare I say it - worth the wait - but the most meaningful realization for me was that we have now entered an entirely new era of spaceflight. The Moon seems closer and closer - despite the fact that it is actually getting further away from us - and we are on the cusp of a return to and sustained presence on another celestial body. We all have our different ideas about what the future of space exploration can and should look like, but this Celestial Citizen is happy to exist in a moonage daydream for the time being and enjoy the simple pleasures of space life - like an Orion selfie with Earth!
But this week wasn’t just my favorite because we launched a super rad mission to orbit the Moon, or because I hope we have finally closed the door on the “Okay, I’ll bite…what does SLS stand for” tweets, but because Space Force has delivered the gift of yet another musical delight. Readers will know that I have a longstanding obsession with everyone’s favorite military branch and the lyrical stylings of its members - in both fact and fiction. And so this Thanksgiving, if I am most thankful for the creative talents of the Space Force, then my Christmas wish is for…
SPACE FORCE: THE MUSICAL
However, this idea might not go over so well with the Air Force since they’ve been strategically “lobbying” for their moment in the spotlight for years.
The guardians have big shoes to fill, but I’m not going to stop believing they can do it.
And now the space beat you came here for…
Top Headlines
We Are Going – If you’ve been living under a (moon) rock, you might have missed the news that Artemis 1 successfully launched early Wednesday morning! After some precarious weather conditions leading up to the launch, a controversial “red team” repair on the launchpad, and a “bad ethernet switch,” SLS and the Orion capsule finally made their way into space, successfully separating and sending Orion on its way to the Moon. And, not to be outdone, CubeSat Capstone has reached the Moon’s orbit on Sunday, the first CubeSat to ever do so. After years of dreaming, we are finally one step closer to bringing humans back to the Moon. (And if you want a deep dive on time-triggered Ethernet in space tech, check out this ArsTechnica article).
The Cygnus That Could – Launch delays can be a workplace hazard in the space industry and that was the case for the S.S. Sally Ride, a Cygnus cargo ship, that underwent its own cavalcade of issues last week. After being delayed due to a fire alarm, the craft successfully launched into space… where only one of its two solar arrays deployed. Although scientists were initially unsure if the craft would have enough power to get to the ISS, Northrup Grumman correctly assessed that Cygnus would make the trip, which it did, successfully docking and delivering the experiments it had onboard. It will remain docked until January, where it will likely be filled with trash and sent back to burn up in the atmosphere.
New Records – Newly discovered black hole Gaia BH1 is now the closest black hole to Earth, at a measly 1,560 light-years from Earth. This stellar-mass black hole is about ten times bigger than our Sun and almost twice as close to us as the previous black hole, per Space.com. The record for first interstellar visitor was also broken – by re-examining recently declassified data, scientists confirmed that a space rock named CNEOS 2014-01-08 that hit Earth in 2014 came from outside the Milky Way. This title was initially held by the asteroid 'Oumuamua', which passed Earth in 2017.
Space Force – Millennium Space and Firefly Space’s contracted Space Force mission got a timeline and a name - Victus Nox. This rapid response mission will see the two companies joining forces to launch a space mission within 24 hours’ notice. They will be launching “a Millennium small-satellite bus carrying a space domain awareness sensor” which will be delivered in late April. For more details on how the different standby and activation phases of this mission will work, check out the SpaceNews writeup here.
X-37B – The highly secretive X-37B space plane finally landed last week, ending its record breaking mission of 908 days in orbit mission. This Boeing built craft, of which it’s believed the Air Force owns two of, have been flying missions since 2010. Maybe next time they’ll shoot for a cool 1,000 days in orbit, and maybe land at a less suspicious time as one Quartz writer notes.
A Piece of History – The History Channel tweeted a clip of their upcoming show, “The Bermuda Triangle: Into Cursed Waters.” In it, the divers appear to have found a piece of the Challenger disaster, which NASA later confirmed was correct. As we make our way back to the Moon, it’s important to take a moment to reflect; despite all of our success among the stars so far, that danger still abounds, and the utmost caution must be exercised especially when it comes to human life.
The JWST Download
The latest image from JWST is a "blazing cosmic hourglass."
How JWST might help us find habitable planets.
The MIRI camera is back online!
Zooming in on the dwarf galaxy 3 million light years away from Earth.
Hubble clouded w/ gas - https://scitechdaily.com/hubble-space-telescope-clouded-vision/
14 micrometeoroids later, JWST is changing its observation strategy.
A Global Space
South Africa – The South African village of Matjiesfontein will be the host of a new ground station! Located in the semi-desert Karoo region, it will join a network of stations from the US and Australia, tracking future NASA missions. It will be operated by The South African National Space Agency (SANSA).
China – A 23-ton piece of space debris from the Long March 5B rocket that brought up the last piece of China’s Tiangong station fell back to Earth “safely” into the Pacific Ocean last week. While China might be working on a reusable rocket design for the Long March 9, their present reality and increasingly more frequent uncontrolled reentry events are more than a bit concerning… But the show must go on it seems, as China just set a new world record with their Tianzhou-5 cargo ship.
The UK – They say sometimes all you need is a hug… and maybe the same could be said about solving the space debris problem? Companies Clearspace and Astroscale are competing for a 2026 UK contract to clean up space debris. Astroscale’s idea is to use a spacecraft with a large robotic arm – while Clearspace is proposing “a spacecraft that looks a little like a giant squid, with multiple arms reaching out to wrap around a target satellite,” calling it “a bear hug.” Also, the Cornwall Spaceport gets the first UK spaceport license ahead of the Virgin Orbit launch later this year.
ESA – Various European space officials spoke to the need for “greater autonomy and sovereign capabilities” at the Space Tech Expo Europe. Gerldine Naja, the European Space Agency’s Director of Commercialization, Industry and Procurement said, “We have to focus on ensuring full European autonomy in space as well as investing more in commercial growth areas.”
India – After successfully launching its first privately developed rocket, the Vikram-S, Friday morning, India is celebrating an important milestone as the country seeks to create a commercial space industry and encourage more public-private partnerships. The rocket was developed by space startup, Skyroot, and is capable of carrying a payload of 83 kg to an altitude of 100 km.
MOONSHOT
If we’re going to get to space, we’re going to need a lot of help. In our Moonshot section, we’ll share highlights from some of the commercial companies that are taking us there:
After a pivot in their rocket development system over the summer, it looks like Astra is looking to cut costs, as they announced last week they would be laying off 16% of their workforce, citing “the challenging macroeconomic environment.” The company hopes to reveal their upgraded Rocket 4.0 in late 2023.
The Department of Defense has signed agreements with Amazon Web Services, Kuiper Government Solutions, Microsoft Azure Space, and SpiderOak Mission Systems to “to help develop a space-based communications network of commercial and military satellites.” This will be part of the DoD’s Hybrid Space Architecture project, which was announced in July, with a handful of other companies already onboard. Once this is all up and running, who’s betting they’ll make the password “0neSm@115tep4m@nkind”?
Rocket Lab successfully launched a Swedish research satellite last week, but was unable to repeat its infamous catching a rocket with a hook on the “Catch Me If You Can” Electron booster.
Richard Branson might be paying a little bit more than he thought for his Unity flight. Last week, a Brooklyn judge ruled that Branson “must face shareholder claims he concealed problems in Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc's spaceship program, and sold hundreds of millions of dollars of stock at inflated prices.”
Gravitics raises a $20 million seed round of funding to develop their StarMax module for use as living and working units in commercial space stations.
Space Reads!
Can’t get enough stellar content? Here are some pieces of space-adjacent news we’ve been reading:
What happens if you need help in space? Right now, you’re on your own! Check out Politico's write up on what a space rescue service might look like.
Nuclear waste is dangerous, so why don’t we just shoot it into space? The YouTube channel Kurzgesagt - In a Nutshell explains why we don’t do that in this video (and check out those birds in hazmat suits!)
This Scientific American piece from Leonard David about the future of space solar power will have you singing “here comes the sun.”
Still can’t decide whether or not to upgrade your iPhone? Imagine upgrading the power system on ISS.
“Clean up, clean up, everybody, everywhere” - how we would summarize this informative WSJ piece on space junk for a kindergarten audience.
This bizarre history of cats and animal testing in space will have you saying Woof!
And that’s a wrap on this edition of Continuum! Did we enjoy everything the space community brought to the table over the last week? That’s like asking if Elon Musk regrets his decision to buy Twitter - almost certainly.
A big thank you to Evan Yee for writing this edition with me and keeping my Space Force infatuation in check. We hope you enjoyed reading Continuum this week and will share it with your friends. And if you really, really like us, then consider becoming a paid subscriber or gifting a subscription to a flat Earther so we can keep changing minds and hearts. Until next time…
Keep it celestial people,
Britt
CEO of Celestial Citizen & Creator of Continuum