Civil
Stories about US and international civil space missions, including those led by NASA and ESA.
France Signs Artemis Accords
France has signed the Artemis Accords, joining 19 other signatories in an agreement to maintain safe and cooperative operations in space. About the accords: In 2020, NASA kickstarted an initiative to foster international cooperation and set some ground rules for spacefaring before humans returned to the moon. Nations who sign the Artemis Accords agree to…
NASA Awards Commercial Spacesuit Contracts
NASA has named the long-awaited designers who will build the next generation of spacesuits. Axiom Space and a team led by Collins Aerospace have won the agency’s Exploration Extravehicular Activity Services (xEVAS) contract, and will dress the next astronauts to return to the lunar surface. The background: NASA’s astronauts need new clothes for a new…
Regulating Orbital Debris, Part Two
This is the second installment of our deep dive on orbital debris. Read Part One here. – Plenty of ink is spilled on the notion that the space industry is at an inflection point, driven by lowering launch costs and barriers to entry. In the coming decade, tens of thousands of satellites are poised to…
Quad Leaders Reach Maritime Monitoring Agreement
On Tuesday, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue—better known as the Quad—met in Tokyo to discuss how to best deter China. Among other things, Pres. Biden and the leaders of Japan, India, and Australia agreed to launch a satellite tracking initiative to fight back against illegal fishing and trading in the Indo-Pacific region. The Quad: The security…
Nelson Testifies Cost-Plus Contracts have been a “Plague” on NASA
Yesterday, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson delivered testimony, no holds barred, to the Senate Appropriations Committee. Nelson was on the hill to discuss the US space agency’s budget request for FY2023. ICYMI: NASA has requested $26B from Congress for the upcoming year, a $2B increase over FY22 enacted levels. The new budget includes the highest planetary…
NASA and DLR Terminate SOFIA
It’s official: NASA and German space agency DLR have agreed to end operations on the expensive airplane-mounted infrared observatory this year. NASA has been trying to cut the line item from its budget for a few years now, but for the past two years, Congress has restored the observatory’s funding in the agency’s federal budget.…
NASA Awards Communication Services Project Contracts
NASA has awarded six contracts to LEO broadband operators to support the development and demonstration of near-Earth communications technology. The contracts have a combined total value of $278.5M, with each company expected to “match or exceed” NASA’s investment over the next five years. The awardees: SpaceX, receiving $69.95M to develop Starlink, its LEO broadband constellation.…
National Academies Release 2022 Planetary Science Decadal Survey
Once every blue moon ten years, NASA tasks the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine with determining the highest-priority planetary science missions for the next decade. The Academies published the fruits of their labor– “Origins, Worlds, and Life: A Decadal Strategy for Planetary Science and Astrobiology 2023-2032”—yesterday, revealing a new ranked menu of deep-space…
White House Bans US Direct-Ascent ASAT Weapons Testing
The White House is instituting a self-imposed ban on direct-ascent ASAT, or anti-satellite, tests, VP Kamala Harris announced yesterday on a visit to the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The administration is hoping that other nations will agree to adopt the same ban in an effort to reduce orbital debris creation (and protect national…
Colorado & Texas Lawmakers Push to Keep Space Assets within State
Two states that are among the biggest movers and shakers in the US space economy are fighting back against federal decision-making, albeit in very different ways. Colorado Senators Michael Bennet (D) and John Hickenlooper (D) and Reps Doug Lamborn (R) and Jason Crow (D) released a joint statement Monday: “We have said before that the…
White House Releases FY23 Budget Request
Less than a month after the budget for FY22 was finally approved, President Biden has released his budget request for FY23. NASA funding: The budget proposes $26B for NASA in 2023, $2B (~8%) increase over FY22 enacted levels. Here’s how that breaks down, taking the broad view: $7.5B for Deep Space Exploration Systems $4.3B for…
Geek Out: Quantum Communication
NASA dreams of a future network in which superfast, globally distributed quantum computers transmit data back and forth from space nearly instantaneously, without any packet loss. Enter SEAQUE. The Space Entanglement and Annealing QUantum Experiment (SEAQUE), developed by JPL along with a team of researchers from across the world, is the next step in making…
NASA Solicits New Human Landing System Concepts
NASA announced yesterday that it plans to issue a call for concepts for another human lunar lander, aiming to give its original awardee, SpaceX, some competition on the Moon. New lander concept NASA plans to release a draft solicitation soon and award a second Human Landing System (HLS) contract in the new year. The new…
