#PARIS — SpaceX fired back at the Federal Aviation Administration over the agency’s proposed fines for launch license violations, blaming the #FAA for dragging its heels on what the company considered minor changes.

SpaceX released Sept. 19 a letter it sent to the leadership of the House Science Committee and the Senate Commerce Committee, the two committees with oversight of the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, or AST.

The four-page letter offered the company’s detailed response to the FAA’s proposed $633,000 in fines for license violations announced Sept. 17 from two launches in mid-2023. In one Falcon 9 launch, the FAA said that SpaceX used a new launch control center without approval and skipped a required poll of controllers two hours before launch. In a later Falcon Heavy launch, SpaceX used a new propellant tank farm without approval from the FAA.

“With respect to these matters, it is notable that in each instance, SpaceX provided AST with sufficient notice of these relatively minor license updates, which had no bearing on public safety,” #SpaceX stated in the letter. “The fact that AST was unable to timely process these minor updates underscores systemic challenges at AST.”

For the Falcon 9 launch, SpaceX said it sent a modified communications plan to the FAA for its approval on May 2, 2023, that included the new location of the launch control center, but did not get any feedback until June 13, when the agency told SpaceX there were “too many” changes in the plan for it to review and approve it in time for the June 18 launch.

#HELSINKI — The #Chinese Academy of Sciences is aiming to accelerate its progress in space science with a newly developed medium- and long-term roadmap for future missions.

The plan will see China’s space science efforts—marked in recent years by successful dark matter, quantum and space physics missions—transitioning into an accelerated development phase. The long-term plan aims to solidify the country’s role in global space science.

The development is outlined in a paper recently published in the Chinese Journal of Space Sciences, authored by Wang Chi, director of the National Space Sciences Center (NSSC) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). It states that CAS instructed the Chinese space science community to create a national medium and long-term plan for space science. The release of the plan is stated to be imminent.

As part of the plan, five main scientific themes have been identified for future breakthroughs. These are the extreme universe, space-time ripples, the panoramic view of the Sun and Earth, habitable planets, and biological and physical space science.

These are summarized as “One Black, Two Dark, Three Origins and Five Characterizations.” These refer respectively to the study of dense celestial bodies such as black holes, the study of dark matter and dark energy, the origin of the universe, the solar system and life, and characterizing the near-Earth system, Earth-moon system, the solar system, and the extra-solar system, and the laws governing matter and life in the space environment.

#TAMPA, Fla. — Executives discussing emerging space-based computing capabilities Sept. 20 called for stronger collaboration between policymakers and technology leaders to accelerate artificial intelligence’s societal benefits.

Rika Nakazawa, chief of commercial innovation at Japanese telecoms giant #NTT, proposed tech providers use private forums to educate policymakers and industry players about AI advancements.

This approach, she said during World Satellite Business Week in Paris, would avoid stirring up the misconceptions that often arise in public discussions about AI.

Industry players engaged in these talks could provide real-time insights on key issues and platforms, according to Nakazawa, helping emerging AI gain better access to funding.

“So thinking about this as a system design is critical,” she added, “and having forums where industry, policy and technology are all sitting at the table is also really key for us.”

She also highlighted the transformative role AI could play in addressing global challenges such as climate change, which demands real-time processing of data that can only be gained from the vantage of space.

AI’s expanding space role

Clint Crosier, director of aerospace and satellite at Amazon Web Services, told the conference how the cloud computing behemoth partnered with French geospatial analytics company Alteia in November to assess global infrastructure from space for the World Bank.

Using AI-based prediction capabilities, he said the companies were able to provide the World Bank with a set of areas that need to be targeted for infrastructure improvements, particularly in underdeveloped nations, to help grow their economies.

“The examples are just numerous about how you can use this technology in ways that we didn’t even really think of two or three years ago,” Crosier said, “and we’ll see we’ll be using it ways two or three years from now that we didn’t envision today.”

AWS set up a space-focused team last year to explore ways to use generative AI, a major evolution using deep-learning models to answer questions and create content based on patterns detected in massive datasets.

“We are at the cusp of understanding the power of generative AI,” according to Crosier.

Adding more capability to orbit

Crosier said the increasing demand for advanced AI and machine learning (ML) tools across sectors such as environmental management, agriculture, healthcare, insurance and energy is driving a need for more computing power in orbit.

“We’re going to be bringing down so much data,” he said, “it will be physically impossible for us as humans to organize the data,” analyze, disseminate and “make real-time insights of the data without the use of AI ML.”

While the space industry once prioritized increasing image resolution from orbit, he said the focus has shifted to minimizing latency and enhancing real-time data processing capabilities.

In a recent experiment using AWS cloud services and computing technology from Sweden’s Unibap, he said a satellite from D-Orbit of Italy almost doubled available bandwidth by using AI to only send relevant hyperspectral data from orbit back to Earth.

Boeing to demonstrate air-space sensor fusion for U.S. military operations .

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — #Boeing plans to demonstrate sensor fusion technology that could enhance military situational awareness by combining data from airborne and space-based sensors, a senior executive said.

This fusion of sensor data could be delivered to operators on the ground or in cockpits, said Kay Sears, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space, Intelligence & Weapon Systems.

The plan is to leverage data from the E-7 command-and-control aircraft that Boeing makes for the U.S. Air Force and data from missile-tracking satellites being developed by Boeing’s subsidiary, Millennium Space, for the U.S. Space Force. This air-space fusion aims to address a longstanding challenge faced by the military: delivering timely and relevant data to operational units, Sears said Sept. 16 at the Air Space & Cyber conference.

“We need to make sure those lightning strikes actually exist,” Sears said, using military briefing slide imagery as a metaphor for the urgency of delivering real-time, actionable data to warfighters.

Satellites in LEO, MEO?

#Boeing’s sensor fusion effort involves two satellite programs awarded to Millennium Space. One of these programs is the “Foo Fighter” network, a $414 million low Earth orbit (LEO) missile-tracking satellite constellation being developed for the U.S. Space Development Agency. These satellites are equipped with electro-optical and infrared sensors to detect and track advanced missile threats, including hypersonic missiles.

The company also aims to integrate medium Earth orbit (MEO) missile-warning satellites that Millennium is building under a $500 million contract with the U.S. Space Force. This, combined with the E-7 Wedgetail’s electronically scanned array radar, will provide a multi-domain operational picture, said Sears.

“We’re going to connect the E-7 to the Foo Fighter network and the MEO missile warning and tracking layer,” she said. “We want to show what kind of operational picture we can deliver when we combine all those sensors.”

The E-7 Wedgetail, in use by multiple militaries, tracks moving airborne and maritime targets simultaneously. The integration of space-based data could significantly extend its capabilities, allowing for real-time tracking of missile threats across greater distances.

This type for sensor fusion aligns with the Department of Defense’s broader initiative to integrate siloed technologies. However, Sears noted that the DoD’s organizational structure has made such integration challenging.

https://spacenews.com/guetlein-outlines-u-s-space-force-vision-for-allied-by-design-space-systems/

#WASHINGTON — Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner will return from the International #Space Station in September without the two astronauts on board who launched on it in June after NASA concluded thruster problems posed too much risk.

NASA announced Aug. 24 that Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the NASA astronauts who flew to the ISS on Starliner’s Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission in June, will remain on the station until next February, with Starliner returning to Earth in early September uncrewed.

Agency officials said at a briefing they reached that decision after concluding they did not understand well enough the performance of reaction control system thrusters that malfunctioned during Starliner’s approach to the station in June. NASA and Boeing have worked since then to determine what caused the drop in performance of the thrusters to see if it would reoccur during Starliner’s undocking and return to Earth.

However, they said they could not resolve all the uncertainties about the thrusters to their satisfaction. “That uncertainty remains in our understanding in the physics going on in the thrusters,” said Jim Free, NASA associate administrator.

Testing of the thrusters at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico was able to duplicate the loss of performance in the thrusters, with inspections revealing a Teflon seal had heated and expanded, constraining the flow of oxidizer to the thruster. But officials said they didn’t know enough about how that was happening to be confident that there would not be problems during time-critical burns during Starliner’s departure from the station and its deorbit burn.

“There was just too much uncertainty in the prediction of the thrusters,” said Steve Stich, #NASA commercial crew program manager. “There was just too much risk for the crew, and so we decided to pursue the uncrewed test flight.”

The Progress MS-28 cargo #spacecraft, which was launched from the Baikonur spaceport on Thursday, has docked the Zvezda module of the Russian segment of the International Space Station (ISS), according to a Roscosmos broadcast.

The cargo #spacecraft docked the station in automatic mode. The process was controlled by specialists of the Mission Control Center and by Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko (TASS special correspondent), Nikolay Chub and Alexander Grebenkin.

The Progress MS-28 cargo spacecraft delivered 2,621 kilograms of cargo to the ISS, including 950 kilograms of fuel, 420 liters of drinking water, 50 kilograms of compressed nitrogen in cylinders, as well as about 1,201 kilograms of various equipment and materials in the cargo hold: food for the crew, clothing items and kits for scientific experiments.

In particular, Progress arrived with the SPIN-X1-MVN X-ray spectrometer, which the cosmonauts will install outside the Zvezda module during extravehicular activities. It will allow scientists to periodically conduct an almost complete survey of the celestial sphere in the X-ray range. In addition, the spacecraft also brought stowages for new scientific experiments.

Andrey Vedernikov, a senior research fellow responsible for nutrition, told TASS that fresh oranges, grapefruits and onions arrived on the cargo ship to the station. The Progress MS-28 spacecraft also delivered coffee with and without sugar to the cosmonauts.

Two #Chinese spacecraft appear to have successfully reached their intended lunar orbits despite an initial launch issue that left them stranded in low Earth orbit.

A slide attributed to the Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization (CSU) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), recently posted on the Tieba Baidu social networking platform, indicates that the DRO-A and DRO-B spacecraft have successfully entered distant retrograde orbits around the Moon. The DRO missions are part of a pilot project run by CAS.

“[DRO] #Satellites A, B, and L have been powered on and are operating stably in orbit, with their working status normal,” the slide reads.

The mission is not critical to China’s immediate lunar plans. However, this successful recovery, if confirmed, would bolster the country’s deep space capabilities and demonstrate resilience in overcoming in-orbit challenges. China has yet to provide an update on the mission following a short report of a launch anomaly back in March.

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.