SAN FRANCISCO – A NASA formation-flying experiment shows the promise of autonomous navigation for #satellite swarms.

The four cubesats in the Starling Formation-Flying Optical Experiment, or StarFOX, calculate their orbits by combining visual images from star trackers with robotics algorithms.

“Such a visual-navigation system on a swarm of satellite can be used to navigate around Earth,” Simone D’Amico, Stanford University associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics and founding director of Stanford’s Space Rendezvous Lab, told SpaceNews. “Since we don’t use GPS, it can be used to fly around the moon or around Mars with an increased level of autonomy.”

Mission operators communicate with Starling, a swarm of four cubesats launched on a Rocket Lab Electron in July 2023, as a single entity. StarFOX is one of four experiments testing communications, navigation and autonomy technologies for future swarms.

The U.S. military has begun to recognize the utility of small satellites, with programs like the Space Development Agency’s Proliferated #Warfighter Space Architecture leveraging smallsats for missile tracking and communications. However, a new report argues that the U.S. Space Force has yet to fully commit the resources to capitalize on this technology at scale.

“The Space Force, Congress, and the industrial base must adjust old paradigms built around large, legacy space systems with long and costly development timelines and move toward a hybrid approach that includes both smallsats and large, exquisite satellite systems,” says a report released July 25 by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

The report calls on the U.S. military to fully leverage the innovations in small satellite technology to enhance its space capabilities and maintain superiority in a contested domain.
Smallsats have become increasingly popular in both commercial and military applications due to their lower cost, faster production times, and ability to be deployed in large numbers. This proliferation allows for greater resilience and redundancy in space operations, the report says, arguing that proliferation is crucial to maintaining what the military terms “space superiority” — the ability to operate freely in space while denying adversaries the same capability.

#Smallsats, typically weighing less than 1,200 kg, have gained significant traction in recent years. Commercial players like SpaceX and Planet have demonstrated the power of large constellations of small satellites for various applications, from global internet coverage to Earth observation.

Charles Galbreath, lead author of the report, says the Space Force must embrace the smallsat revolution or risk losing the high ground in space. “Our adversaries, particularly China and Russia, are developing sophisticated counterspace weapons aimed at our legacy satellite systems. SmallSats offer a way to enhance our resilience and operational capabilities in this new environment.”

The report recommends the Department of Defense boost production rates, strengthen supply chains, and increase funding to support large-scale smallsat deployment.

#Spacenews.

A new kind of #space politics .

On July 16 2024, #Elon #Musk shouted from the proverbial rooftops that he will move SpaceX out of California to Boca Chica, Texas. By his own admission, he is not moving only for corporate advantage, value, or profitability, but also for politics. (He is also moving X, aka Twitter, from San Francisco to Austin, likewise for political reasons; he originally bought Twitter for ideological reasons.)

Ironically, Musk’s announcement came the day after another Musk company, Tesla, reversed a large number of recent California layoffs in Fremont, CA. Likewise, only two years after moving Tesla’s management to Texas with great fanfare, he brought the global engineering team back to Palo Alto, CA.

While #Elon Musk’s resources may permit him to do whatever he wants, I suspect the SpaceX story will end up looking a lot like Tesla’s. If so, in a few years, SpaceX management might in a few years be right back where they started.

It is very easy to say you are moving a company.

It is only a little bit harder to actually move a company of programmers and office workers. Aside from employees who may not want to go, the barriers to doing so are relatively low.

Moving a #manufacturing operation like that of the #Falcon 9 is a whole different kettle of fish. You’re not just moving computers and monitors and people to another already furnished office. You’re moving multiple entire factories, including jigs, tooling and heavy machines.

#SpaceX cleared to launch Falcon 9 rocket after rare failure

#Russia to launch five Earth imaging satellites by yearend — #Roscosmos. The space vehicles slated for launch include two Aist-2T stereoscopic imaging satellites, a Kondor-FKA remote sensing satellite, a Resurs-P observation satellite and an Obzor-R multipurpose observation #satellite

#India to build first phase of its own space station by 2028
We have completed or rather engineered the detailed #design, which is capable of being launched by the LVM3, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chairman Sreedhara Panicker Somanath said

On several occasions, debris from trunk sections of Dragon spacecraft, which are jettisoned from the capsule before the capsule performs a deorbit burn, have been found on land. They include debris from the Crew-1 Crew Dragon trunk, found in Australia in 2022; the Ax-3 Crew Dragon, which fell in Saskatchewan in February; and the Crew-7 trunk, fragments of which were found in May in North Carolina.

In August 2022, shortly after the Crew-1 debris was found in Australia, a SpaceX official downplayed the incident as an isolated case. “This was all within the expected analyzed space of what can happen,” said Benji Reed, senior director of human spaceflight programs at SpaceX, at a NASA briefing. “Nonetheless, just like we do for launches and any return, we look very closely at the data, we learn everything that we can and we always look for ways we can improve things.”

After the more recent debris sightings, NASA and SpaceX now acknowledge that improvements are needed. The agency recently stated that initial studies expected the trunk to burn up fully upon reentry. “NASA and SpaceX will continue exploring additional solutions as we learn from the discovered debris,” NASA stated.

“We did analysis back before Demo-2 and clearly the models don’t deal with the trunk very well,” Steve Stich, NASA commercial crew program manager, said in an interview after a Starliner briefing ahead of that mission’s June 6 launch. He said it’s likely because of the composite materials used in the trunk. “It’s almost like a thermal protection system.”

HELSINKI — China’s main space contractor has carried out a successful static fire test of a rocket first stage designed to take astronauts to the moon.

A Long March 10 first stage test article was fired in Fengtai district of Beijing, Friday, June 14. The stage started normally, operated steadily, and shut down on schedule, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) stated via its WeChat channel.

The test was conducted by the Institute 101 of the Sixth Academy of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the country’s main space contractor.

The successful test is a step towards China’s goal of putting astronauts on the moon before 2030. NASA currently aims to land humans on the moon once more with Artemis III no earlier than 2026.

The test article had three YF-100K kerosene-liquid oxygen engines installed across its 5.0-meter diameter. The full Long March 10 first stage will be powered by seven such engines. The rocket’s center stage will have two similar stages attached to it.

The engines may have been limited to three due to the capacity of the test stand. The static fire was however deemed a complete success, with simultaneous firing of the three engines.

“The test is basically a comprehensive verification of our first-stage,” Xu Hongping, an engineer with CASC, told CCTV. “It was a complete success, laying a solid foundation for our subsequent research and development and the realization of our entire manned lunar exploration program,”

LOS ANGELES — Redwire announced a contract June 17 to serve as prime mission integrator for a DARPA satellite with a novel propulsion system for very low Earth orbit (VLEO).

SabreSat, Redwire’s VLEO satellite for government intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, will house “air-breathing” electric propulsion systems being developed through DARPA’s Otter program.

Phantom, another VLEO platform, is being developed by Redwire’s European office for the European Space Agency’s Skimsat mission.

“We are taking an innovative approach to developing a new breed of spacecraft that bridge the gap between air and space,” Spence Wise, Redwire senior vice president for missions and platforms, told SpaceNews by email. “DARPA Otter is the first major win for our SabreSat VLEO platform, and it extends our leadership as a prime integrator and international pioneer in VLEO.”

Redwire did not disclose the value of the multi-year DARPA Otter contract, which includes pricing for design through on-orbit operations.