The More the Merrier
China offers its lunar samples to the world, a rideshare mission delivers satellite “firsts” for two nations, and all the other ways the space world showed there’s plenty to go around.
Hello Celestial Citizens and Continuum readers,
Welcome to another cosmic news cycle, the 49th Friday of 2023, and coincidentally my 133rd day protesting ‘Elf on the Shelf’ — because parents are busy enough, people. Martian parents would never…
And I can’t believe I’m saying this, readers – but we’ll talk to you next year. That’s right, the holidays are upon us and our team will be closing up the Continuum shop until 2024. We look forward to seeing what the space world gets up to over the holiday season. Will the Vulcan launch on Christmas Eve? Will there be reindeer sightings from a Falcon 9? We’ll get back to you in January.
And now, the space beat you came here for...
Top Headlines
Lunar Lag – Released on November 30th, a Government Accountability Office report took NASA’s 2025 estimate for the Artemis 3 crewed mission and pushed it – by two years. By applying the average timelines of past NASA missions to the current status of the SpaceX-led Human Landing System (HLS) and the Axiom-developed space suits, the GAO assessed that Artemis 3 is far more realistic for 2027. One of the key HLS milestones is an in-space cryogenic propellant transfer, which is still outstanding from SpaceX after two Starship test launches, although the company may attempt a transfer demonstration in their next test launch. Plus, while the Prada buzz might have distracted the public last month, the GAO did not forget that Axiom owed NASA a preliminary space suit design review in November. The report also anticipates probable supply chain delays as Axiom transitions to procuring and assembling their suit. It’s hard to imagine the mission making up for lost time when the cargo is as precious as the Artemis crew, but we’ll be tracking the progress.
The Times They Are a-Chang’e-5-ing – NASA researchers might be bridging the gap with China, having wrangled approval from Congress to apply for access to China’s lunar samples. Sourced from 1,731 total grams of material collected by China’s 2020 Chang’e-5 mission, these samples are nothing new to NASA, who had previously considered – and then abandoned – a bilateral agreement with the nation back in 2021. This time around, after CNSA opened the samples to all internationally-led groups, NASA worked around the “Wolf Amendment” – which significantly restricts NASA’s collaboration with the People’s Republic of China – in order to apply. Perhaps, this is the Artemis pressure rearing its head, as the samples could offer the U.S. agency invaluable “insight on the geological history of the Moon.”
Frenemies – In a collaboration we never thought would happen, competitors Amazon and SpaceX shook hands last week with a Project Kuiper launch deal. Our question is: hasn’t Bezos seen Sleeping With The Enemy? Has Julia Roberts taught him nothing? In all seriousness, it seems clear that the move was a last resort. The contract – which will see three Falcon 9 rockets carry an unspecified number of Amazon’s satellites to orbit – comes after a pension fund filed a lawsuit against the company for not considering SpaceX in its lineup of launch providers. Apparently in order to compete with a 5,500-satellite strong constellation like Starlink, you have to borrow some of their tools – in this case, their incredibly reliable rockets. Amazon will maintain their additional standing launch contracts with ULA, Arianespace and Blue Origin to launch over 3,200 Project Kuiper satellites in the coming years, and hopefully those riding aboard a Falcon 9 don’t get, uhm, lost in space.
Making Progress – On December 1st, Baikonur Cosmodrome hosted a successful cargo launch of a Roscosmos Progress 86 spacecraft destined for the International Space Station. With nearly three tons of food and supplies to deliver, the spacecraft was a welcome care package for ISS cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, who ended up having to remotely control the rendezvous after the craft’s automatic docking failed. The success story came just in time for the station’s 25th birthday, celebrated this past Wednesday with a live stream of a microgravity experiment – and hopefully some forever-floating confetti!
Secret Mission Alert — The Space Force has entrusted SpaceX with a (mostly) classified mission. Set to lift off this weekend — December 10th — a powerhouse Falcon Heavy will deliver the military’s robotic space plane X-37B to orbit. This is the seventh X-37B to fly, the first five missions riding atop Atlas V rockets from ULA, and the sixth using a Falcon 9 rocket. While we may not know much about the flight’s total duration or the classified experiments on board, there are a few research projects flying with X-37B that can be disclosed. For instance, NASA will send up Seeds-2, a project to test how space radiation affects – well, seeds. BRB, applying for a space gardener job on LinkedIn real quick.
The JWST Download
The JWST is taking a page from Dickens’ book this week with a ghost of galaxies past – in this case, an ancient, dust-shrouded and barely visible galaxy called AzTECC71.
Clearly obsessed with the early universe, the Webb may have also proven – thanks to its nifty spectrograph and the “gas-phase metallicity” parameter – that ancient galaxies contained more oxygen than astronomers initially thought.
Good news for artists young and old: submissions are open for NASA’s #UnfoldTheUniverse challenge, inviting the public to imagine what fantastical visuals are still to come from the wizardly JWST.
Could the Hubble be the guinea pig for advanced in-orbit repairs of the future? A recent glitch might be the catalyst of an experimental servicing mission.
If the Webb one-upped Hubble, then the alien-hunting Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is about to blow us all out of the (potentially life-containing) water.
A Global Space
Iran – According to the IRNA news agency, Iran launched a “crewed” capsule into orbit this week – only, the crew in question walk on all fours. That’s right, Iran is test-running their 500 kilogram (1,000 pound) astronaut capsule with animal passengers, and we can only assume they walk on all fours because Telecommunications Manager Isa Zarepour did not disclose what kind(s) of animals were “participating” in this mission. Wishing the paw-nauts a safe return. It feels as good a time as any to take a moment of silence for Laika – lest we forget, the ill-fated Russian astro-dog. RIP.
China – In a move similar to that of Beijing back in September, Shanghai just published a notice announcing its commitment to growing its commercial space industry. With the “Shanghai Action Plan to Promote Commercial Aerospace Development and Create a Space Information Industry Highland (2023-2025),” the coastal city endeavors to produce commercial products at a cadence of 50 rockets and 600 satellites per year. Beyond building a fleet of medium and large launch vehicles, specific focuses of the initiative include intelligent terminals, navigation and remote sensing systems, as well as methane-liquid oxygen and reusability technologies. Aiming for a 200 billion yuan ($27.9 billion) industry by 2025 might seem like a tall order, but the Yangtze river delta region – which Shanghai calls home – is an industrial hub for China with enormous potential. In fact, private launch firm (and national treasure) LandSpace has a facility within the region, along with their headquarters in Beijing. Known for their Zhuque-2 rocket, which in July achieved the milestone of becoming the first methane launch vehicle to reach orbit, LandSpace will soon launch their next iteration of the rocket with satellites onboard.
U.S., U.K., Australia (AUKUS) – Three nations announced a military satellite network partnership on December 2nd. The Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) will include three ground-based radars to “leverage the geography of the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom to further enhance our collective space domain awareness,” according to U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy. Currently, the sensor is bankrolled by the U.S. Space Force and in development at Northrop Grumman, and is destined for Australia first by 2026. DARC’s all-weather celestial stalking observation should be up and running at all three sites by 2030.
Canada – Speaking of international military collaborations, Canada just scored access to a U.S. Space Force GEO network known as the U.S. Mobile User Objective System (MUOS). Originally developed by the Navy for reliable voice and data transfer, the Space Force acquired the narrowband network in March of this year. This agreement to share access with Canada certainly didn’t happen overnight; a foreign military sales agreement got started four years ago. A recent demonstration made Canada the very first international partner to use the U.S. network. We love to see a shared resource between friends.
Angola – On November 30th, a White House meeting between Angola President João Lourenço and U.S. President Joe Biden led to the thirty-third member of the Artemis Accords. Angola is the third African nation to sign the Accords, and is a prominent player in the continent’s space presence, their ANGOSAT-2 satellite providing free connectivity in areas where there were previously gaps.
ESA* – Oh Vega. With all of the Arianespace rocket’s successes in the past, it can’t seem to escape the drama. Recently verified, two of the Vega’s four propellant tanks went missing some months ago. When they were later found, they were crushed and unusable – two huge assets, lost. With the next Vega launch being the last of its kind, production lines are no longer active, leaving manufacturer Avio limited options to source new tanks. Two routes being considered are using the tanks from Vega’s qualification phase or modifying the entire upper stage to work with the later developed Vega C elements. The risk these experimental solutions pose to the €280 million payload – the European Space Agency’s Sentinel 2C Earth observation satellite – means a slower approval process, likely delaying the final Vega flight to later in 2024.
South Korea – A SpaceX rideshare mission delivered South Korea’s first spy satellite to orbit on the first of the month, in the wake of North Korea’s claim to have launched their own reconnaissance spacecraft on November 21st. South Korea plans to follow this EO/IO with four additional satellites, which they’re developing with Thales Alenia Space. While the nation certainly doesn’t shy from taking advantage of a tried and true rocket like the Falcon 9, they also forged ahead with their own solid fuel rocket only days later, successfully launching yet another Earth observation satellite from Hanwha Systems. Clearly, South Korea is able to move swiftly, and does not take lightly to the North’s bubbling nuclear threats.
Ireland – Also on SpaceX’s recent rideshare mission from Vandenberg was Ireland's first satellite, a 2U CubeSat dubbed EIRSAT-1 for “Educational Irish Research Satellite.” Supported by the ESA, the cubesat was built and will be operated by students and faculty at the University College in Dublin. Wishing Ireland the best of luck with their inaugural satellite – not that they’ll need it. We know, maybe an Irish luck joke hangs too low on the proverbial fruit tree.
India — Arbitrary as the calendar may be, 2023 is coming to a close, and like a Sunday, we are forced to think about the week ahead. But for India, it’s not a case of the Sunday scaries; in fact, Isro is looking forward to 12 momentous projects in 2024. One of those missions is the world’s first dual-band radar imaging satellite, on which they are collaborating with NASA. The earth observation satellite – dubbed NASA-Isro Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) – will be accompanied by other observational missions like sea-watching Oceansat-3A and a new addition to the Indian National Satellite System, which supports the nation’s meteorology and disaster management. We may even see some Gaganyaan flight testing next year, as India gears up for human spaceflight.
Japan – Also looking ahead, JAXA anticipates that their lunar lander SLIM – which launched in September – will soft land on the moon on January 19th. After a few months of smooth operation, the agency has high hopes the spacecraft can achieve such a precise landing, and avenge the rash of ispace’s Hakuto-R mission. Here’s wishing SLIM a safe holiday season, and we’ll be back in January to check in on its progress.
Space Reads!
Calling all goat cheese girlies: new models show Pluto’s near-twin – dwarf planet Eris – as having a “soft cheese”-like consistency.
Is the Space Reads section becoming a fears-about-the-power-of-the-sun section? Maybe. And so be it, because as of December 2nd, there’s a new coronal hole in the sun spewing fierce solar wind at the Earth.
If you tune into Ground Control – our biweekly listicle of only the coolest space podcast episodes – you may know that the dynamic robotic duo Perseverance and Ingenuity were enjoying a two-week vacay while Mars was in conjunction. Now, the robots are back in action, with Ingenuity completing its 67th flight over the weekend.
As Falcon 9 launches become more and more frequent, so too do “SpaceX aurorae,” or a glowing sky effect caused by the rockets’ second stages deorbit burns.
Sometimes, to understand space we have to understand our home planet, first. Read about a new study which found that living stars on Earth “outnumber stars in the universe.”
And that’s a wrap on this week in space news! Keep an eye out this coming Monday for MOONSHOT, our paid subscriber newsletter covering the commercial space sector. A big thank you to Tess Ryan for writing this edition with me and for keeping up with the cosmos! 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 so we can keep putting out more space content.
Happy holidays,
Britt
CEO of Celestial Citizen & Creator of Continuum
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Vega is Italian, not French 😉
*Update 12/11/23: The global headline regarding Vega’s missing propellant tanks has been updated to clarify that while the rocket is operated by French company Arianespace, the rocket itself should not have been described as a “French” rocket, as it was developed by the Italian Space Agency and the European Space Agency, with manufacturing led by Italian company Avio.