NASA is looking into using lasers for communication with the Lunar gateway and future lunar surface assets.
"Enshittification truly is how platforms die"-Cory DoctorowAs noted, we’ve already demonstrated laser communications for deep-space missions, although that didn’t use Starlink. Instead, it transmitted to a ground receiver.
According to SpaceX, Starlink satellites have maintained links as far as 8,000 km, which would be more than sufficient for spacecraft in low and medium Earth orbits. I have no idea what their maximum range is.
We already know of plans, or at least concepts, to create similar constellations around the Moon and Mars so that astronauts - and perhaps colonists, some day - can maintain constant communication with each other and with Earth.
Edit: Something I meant to say but didn't — there are two rough classes of space-to-Earth communication. Most satellites in Earth orbit use direct links to ground stations. These receive and transmit signals within a broad range of altitudes from low Earth orbit to geostationary orbit. Also involved are NASA's Tracking and Data Relay System (TDRS) satellites, which are in geostationary orbit. Starlink's laser arrays are meant to replace or complement these methods.
However, deep-space vehicles, such as those headed to the Moon or Mars, use the Deep Space Network: a global array of radio dish antennas capable of sending and receiving signals to spacecraft as far away as the Voyager probes. Starlink's lasers aren't going to replace these. Rather, we'll need a new class of satellite that nobody has launched yet.
The major problems with both existing satellite ground stations and the DSN are that they are expensive to build and bandwidth-limited. The secondary problem is that they aren't really global: they lack coverage over many regions, particularly the oceans. Piggybacking on Starlink solves both problems.
Edited by Fighteer on Mar 25th 2024 at 9:17:55 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Forgot to post a link to the second attempt
at the Soyuz MS-25 mission. It lifted off successfully at 12:36 UTC this morning and is on course to dock on Monday at 15:09 UTC. That's interesting; it normally uses a short trajectory of only a few hours. (Edit: The low-voltage reading on the first attempt was traced to a battery that needed to be replaced.)
SpaceX CRS-30 arrived at the space station earlier today, docking at 11:20 UTC.
Upcoming notable launch activity this week (other than the usual pile of Starlink launches):
- The final ULA Delta IV Heavy rocket
is scheduled to lift off on March 28 at 17:40 UTC, carrying a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. It's the end of an era for this legendary vehicle, which for a long time was the most powerful uncrewed rocket that the United States had available. Vulcan Centaur is expected to take its place.
- SpaceX is launching Eutelsat 36D
on March 30 at midnight UTC — I guess that's technically March 31 — to geostationary transfer orbit.
Edited by Fighteer on Mar 23rd 2024 at 12:01:20 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Here's a pile of news to start the week.
Europe's Private Launch Industry
European Spaceflight: France Expected to Commit €400M to Support Four Launch Startups
In a continued effort to diversity Europe's launch industry, France has committed €400 million in subsidies to four companies for the inaugural flights of their respective rockets: HyPrSpace, Latitude, Sirius Space Services, and MaiaSpace. These flights would need to be completed between 2026 and 2028, and the awards would occur upon meeting those milestones. That means they'll have to raise capital on their own.
It's a start(up, ha!) but I continue to worry that Europe is skating to where the puck is, not to where it's going. Or rather, to where the puck was five years ago.
Odysseus Moon Lander
Intuitive Machines posted over the weekend
that its Odysseus Moon lander, which fell over after a hard touchdown, has not "woken up" after the lunar night. Attempts to detect its signals have failed, indicating that its battery chemistry broke down during that deep freeze.
It was not expected to wake up, but there was always a possibility.
Astronomers and Megaconstellations
SpaceNews: Astronomers and megaconstellations learn to get along
The American Astronomical Society (AAS) has been working closely over the last four years with SpaceX and other industry partners on reducing the light pollution of megaconstellations. They report that there is a lot of progress being made but challenges remain.
- SpaceX is launching its latest Starlink satellites with dielectric mirror coatings meant to reflect sunlight away from Earth. The company has offered to sell the coatings at cost to other companies.
- Amazon is reportedly adopting the learning from SpaceX in its plans to deploy Project Kuiper satellites. One of two prototypes launched in October has a dielectric coating to test its effectiveness, while the other is unmodified.
The International Astronomical Union’s Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference, or CPS, is pleased with the efforts of these companies, while expressing concern about others. In particular, China has declared plans to launch up to 25,000 satellites for its own LEO megaconstellations, and has not provided any information about brightness mitigation, demisability, or other sustainability efforts.
Astronomers are also concerned with AST SpaceMobile's BlueWalker 3 demonstration direct-to-cell satellite, which deployed a large phased-array antenna that increased its brightness to magnitude 0, over 600 times brighter than the CPS's declared goal of 7. The company intends to launch more of these with even larger antennas.
Ultimately, they acknowledge that there's little they can do if industry refuses to cooperate.
Polaris Dawn
Jared Isaacman reports
continued progress towards the Polaris Dawn mission. The long tail item for this is the SpaceX-designed EVA suits, which underwent acceptance testing last week. Isaacman suggested that there may be an unveiling "in a month or so" and is confident that the mission will be ready for launch in summer 2024.
Starship in Florida
Observers at Kennedy Space Center noticed something odd
: SpaceX appears to be tearing down some of the giant concrete columns that form the base of the planned launch mount for Starship at LC-39A. It is unknown why this is being done; there could be defects in the workmanship or it could indicate a redesign of the structure.
Chandra X-Ray Observatory
Space.com: The Chandra X-ray spacecraft may soon go dark, threatening a great deal of astronomy
The FY2025 US federal budget proposal for NASA includes the sad news that the venerable Chandra X-Ray Observatory is on the chopping block. Launched in 1999 aboard the Space Shuttle, it remains one of the most powerful tools we have for looking into the most energetic phenomena of our universe, such as black holes and supernovae. There is no replacement currently under development, although there are several proposals, none of which are less than ten years out.
Chandra has become more expensive to operate in recent years as its instruments deteriorate, and the proposed reduction from $41M in 2025 to $27M in 2026 would effectively force the teams to abandon it. There have even been discussions of crowdfunding the telescope. Here's hoping a solution can be found.
Solar Eclipse on April 8
Ars Technica: Here’s our comprehensive, in-depth guide to viewing the total solar eclipse
If you live in Mexico or the continental United States you may be treated to a total solar eclipse on April 8. Get your eclipse glasses ready and read this guide so you will know what to do.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"The Event Horizon Telescope team has unveiled images
of Sagittarius A* showing the polarization lines of its accretion disc. These lines prove that the black hole has a strong magnetic field, and in combination with similar observations of M87*, suggest that all black holes may have such fields.
The magnetic fields create structure within the accretion disc and are responsible for generating relativistic jets of material from the poles. Astronomers are now looking for previously undetected jets from Sagittarius A*.
The article notes that the EHT had a great deal of difficulty imaging it, since it is so much smaller and thus rotates faster than M87*.
Don't get too worked up in anticipation of the final Delta IV Heavy launch tomorrow from Florida. Weather is not favorable
with a 70 percent chance of violating constraints.
Edited by Fighteer on Mar 28th 2024 at 2:28:48 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"SLIM
According to JAXA
(X post, translated), the SLIM lander woke up a second time yesterday after receiving sunlight at the start of another lunar day. Engineers report that its electronics are overheated and several systems appear to have suffered damage from the cold, but they were still able to capture images from the surface.
It's an amazing little lander, honestly. Not many survive that hellish night.
United Launch Alliance | Delta IV Heavy | NROL-70
It's launch day for ULA. As I've mentioned several times, the final Delta IV Heavy rocket that will ever fly is poised for liftoff today at 18:45 UTC from SLC-37B at Cape Canaveral, weather permitting. The mission is NROL-70
, a classified payload for the US National Reconnaissance Office. Live coverage will be broadcast by ULA
, along with several unofficial streams.
Weather's not looking great, so a scrub is likely.
The Delta rocket family has an enormous legacy going back to the 1960s. Delta IV is the latest iteration of that program, debuting in 2002. It flew 29 times with a 100% success rate; the last was in 2019. Delta IV Heavy is a three-booster version of the rocket that first launched in 2004. It is 14 for 15, with a partial failure on its first flight.
It is best known for its iconic orange color , which is due to the insulating foam covering its liquid hydrogen tanks. Just before liftoff, spark igniters burn off excess hydrogen vented from its engine chill lines, resulting in a fireball. It is the rocket that lights itself on fire.
Each core uses a single RS-68A hydrolox engine. The RS-68A is, to date, the largest hydrogen-fueled engine ever flown, with a higher thrust than the RS-25 (aka the Space Shuttle Main Engine). The RS-68A is ablatively cooled. The erosion of the lining of the exhaust nozzle is what gives its flames their characteristic orange color, whereas hydrogen normally burns a nearly transparent blue.
After this final mission, Delta IV Heavy's role will be replaced by Vulcan Centaur. SpaceX plans to acquire SLC-37 and convert it into a Starship launch facility.
Edited by Fighteer on Mar 28th 2024 at 2:56:00 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"The NROL-70 mission is live. The L-7 minutes readiness poll is going on as I write this. Ground winds are the primary concern for launch, with a 70% probability of violating criteria.
As expected, they're in a hold.
It now looks like they may be detanking for a 24-hour recycle. Confirmed.
To satisfy our rocket itch, there's a Starlink mission coming up at 02:30 UTC tonight. I'll link the next ULA attempt once a livestream is posted.
Edited by Fighteer on Mar 28th 2024 at 2:48:54 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"The Delta IV Heavy NROL-70 mission is postponed to Monday
to give ULA time to fix an issue with a nitrogen pump. It's always GSE. Last night's Starlink mission was also scrubbed for weather and is now set for tonight.
The next major launch is therefore Eutelsat 36D
, at 21:52 UTC on Saturday from KSC. It'll be streamed on X, most likely.
Launch update: SpaceX is lined up for a trifecta of missions this evening.
- Eutelsat 36D
from LC-39A in Florida at 21:52 UTC using B1076-12. X broadcast
- Starlink Group 6-45
from SLC-40 in Florida at 01:02 UTC using B1067-18. X broadcast
- Starlink Group 7-18
from SLC-4E in California at 02:30 UTC using B1071-15. X broadcast
The exact times may vary depending on weather conditions. If all of them get off the ground, it'll obliterate SpaceX's previous record for the shortest interval between three launches. All three missions are going for drone ship landings, which I believe is also a record.
We know about Starlink, of course. Quoting from Next Spaceflight:
Eutelsat 36D is a planned new generation multi-mission geostationary telecommunications satellite for Eutelsat, replacing and enhance capacity at 36° East, a key orbital slot for Eutelsat for TV broadcasting (DTH) and government services over Africa, Russia, and Europe.
Some more statistics: Eutelsat 36D will be the 300th landing attempt for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy boosters. Today is also the 7th anniversary of the first reflight of a Falcon 9 booster.
Edited by Fighteer on Mar 30th 2024 at 6:01:36 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Plainly Difficult goes over the 2003 Colombia Disaster
The TL;DR? NASA was having the exact same issues that led up to the Challenger disaster, trying to do too much with too little in order to make them look like they were doing important stuff to keep the US Congress from cutting the purse strings.
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."It’s fairly well known that the Columbia disaster was caused by a foam strike on the wing but not fully appreciated that the deterioration of NASA’s safety culture was due to budgetary pressure from Congress. Unfortunately, that body doesn’t seem to have learned any lessons and continues to strangle NASA’s budget to pay for its pet programs, like SLS and Orion. Those certainly didn’t get cut in the 2025 request!
SpaceX was unable to complete its trifecta yesterday thanks to California weather not cooperating. That Starlink launch is now tomorrow (Monday). Even so, the company hit a new record with 12 launches in a single calendar month.
Meanwhile, NROL-70 has been rescheduled for April 8, right during the solar eclipse. Some photographers have suggested they might attempt transit shots, which would be amazing. The stated reason for the delay is that NASA needs time to repair gaseous nitrogen supply lines that run out to the launch pads.
Edited by Fighteer on Mar 31st 2024 at 9:30:11 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Here's a fascinating video I came across recently: one about the Boötes Void. A great region of outer space that is simultaneously both something and nothing. It looks like black holes aren't the only things in the Universe that can play around with the laws of physics and get away with it.
Cosmic voids are interesting phenomena because they are statistical anomalies. They're too large to fit the generally accepted model of the homogeneity of the universe at the largest scales. There are overdensities too, such as the Great Attractor.
Rocket watching
SpaceX put on another show for people on the US west coast tonight, as a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink satellites lifted off from Vandenberg. The hashtag #SpaceX
is trending on X as dozens of people (if not more) post photos and videos of the twilight effect. One such is below.
This is the second twilight launch in a week. One would expect folks in that area to be used to this by now, at least enough not to flood news stations and emergency lines with reports of UFOs, but it's still spectacular to see.
Orbital debris
Ars Technica: Trash from the International Space Station may have hit a house in Florida
A cargo pallet of depleted batteries, weighing over 2.6 metric tons, was jettisoned from the ISS in 2021 to make an uncontrolled reentry. It was expected to burn up in the atmosphere, but it seems likely that some of it survived. A homeowner in Naples, Florida was startled to discover that something hit his house at 2:34 PM local time on March 8, crashing through the roof and both floors. The timing coincides with the US Space Command's recording of the reentry of that pallet.
NASA has collected the object for analysis. If it is determined that it is the suspect battery, liability laws could be tested. This is because NASA owned the batteries but JAXA launched them. The pallets, part of a program to replace the station's batteries, were sent up on HTV cargo craft and the spent ones were supposed to return on them as well. However, the failure of the Soyuz MS-10 mission in 2018 prevented that from happening as intended.
NASA stated at the time that it anticipated the complete destruction of the pallet upon reentry, but this was not agreed up on by all parties. It is by far the largest object to be "tossed overboard" from the ISS.
Orbital debris has caused injuries and property damage in the past, but no recorded fatalities. Rocket parts have caused fatalities, particularly in China, where many of its rockets overfly land and drop spent boosters into populated areas. (While Russian launches from Kazakhstan overfly land as well, it's unpopulated.) Russia famously paid 3 million CAD to settle claims after a nuclear-powered satellite reentered over northern Canada. Perhaps the best known uncontrolled reentry event was Skylab in 1979, pieces of which landed in Western Australia.
Edited by Fighteer on Apr 1st 2024 at 11:27:50 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I know I normally chain-post about launches, but this was too cool to pass up. The science education channel Smarter Every Day just published a video: Watch a REAL Spacesuit Pressure Test (I Swam With Astronauts Underwater) - Smarter Every Day 296
This hour-long mini-documentary shows a day in the life of NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Lab, where astronauts train to perform zero- and reduced-gravity operations while wearing spacesuits. Dustin observed testing of various pressurization levels in the EMU suits that are intended to keep astronauts alive on the Moon during the Artemis missions.
The technical details are fascinating, but I'll leave those to the video itself. To summarize:
- We learn how the suits are weighed and balanced to provide perfectly neutral stability in the water. This prevents them from trying to flip over or right themselves, something that would not happen in space.
- We learn why it's unintuitively difficult to walk on the Moon, since you have one-sixth the weight but all of your normal inertia, meaning you have much less "grip" on the surface.
- We learn about why spacesuits operate at lower pressure, requiring astronauts to gradually decompress before going on spacewalks. As noted above, the test performed in the video is about mobility and effort at higher suit pressures, which would require less preparation time.
- We learn about the role of the dive team and how they train.
Most fascinating for me, personally, is that they're training with a mockup of the HLS airlock and elevator. SpaceX is contracted to land astronauts on the Moon aboard a specially configured Starship. The NBL has a low-fidelity version of the relevant parts of the ship. In it, we can see that HLS Starship will have an "airlock deck" that astronauts enter from above. This deck will be depressurized and will egress onto the elevator.
Just how big HLS is compared to previous landers is hard to appreciate until you see it here. That single deck has more volume than the Apollo and Orion capsules, and there's an entire living space above it. It also demonstrates, much to the chagrin of certain very loud people, that SpaceX is actively developing all of these systems in parallel with the rest of the Starship program.
Edited by Fighteer on Apr 2nd 2024 at 1:36:31 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Another interesting video.
In 1973, there was a solar eclipse over the Sahara. Some scientists decided to take a Concorde and chase it down so they can observe the eclipse for as long as possible. They were about 45 minutes in the totality.
Fjón þvæ ég af mér fjanda minna rán og reiði ríkra manna.Reuters: Exclusive: White House directs NASA to create time standard for the moon
The White House asked NASA to come up with a Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC) by 2026. One of the challenges is that, because of the difference in gravity, there is going to be a difference in time flow. Having a time standard for the Moon is important as it enables communications and navigation. The White House official quoted in the article said that atomic clocks may need to be installed on the Moon.
"Enshittification truly is how platforms die"-Cory DoctorowLots of people reported sightings of a reentry event last night at around 1:40 AM PDT over the California region. According to Jonathan McDowell
, whom I strongly recommend anyone interested in this stuff follow, it was the orbital module of China's Shenzhou 15 crew rotation mission to the Tiangong space station.
Shenzhou 15
lifted off on Nov 29, 2022 and returned in May, 2023. As is standard for this type of mission, the service module (also known as the orbital module) was jettisoned before the deorbit burn. These modules may spend several months in that low-altitude regime before being dragged down and burning up in uncontrolled reentries. Debris from them rarely reaches the ground.
Soyuz and Dragon do roughly the same thing. Discarded rocket stages and spacecraft modules at such low altitudes are not a threat to other satellites, but do occasionally require COLA (Collision On Launch Avoidance) holds for rocket launches.
Edited by Fighteer on Apr 2nd 2024 at 4:24:05 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"So how did we get two comets with almost similar names: Halley’s and Hale-Bopp?
Come on! Let's bless them all until we get fershnickered!In most cases, it's because they were named after the astronomer who originally discovered them, or astronomers in case of a tie.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Space Law
Politico: Space is the new ‘Wild West.’ The EU is dying to step in and regulate.
I'm bring this article up because it has generated a non-trivial amount of arguments online. Some of that is undoubtedly due to the clickbait nature of the headline. Here's the lede:
Not content with regulating fertilizers, cars and cheeses, Brussels is looking to create an EU Space Label it could soon slap on rockets and satellites as part of efforts to force companies to use orbit responsibly.
“With each passing day, space is becoming more like the Wild West, and it's time to have European rules,” said Christophe Grudler, a member of the European Parliament from France who is leading legislative work on IRIS2, the EU's answer to SpaceX's Starlink satellite communications system.
When you read beneath the headlines, the proposed ideas seem fairly reasonable. Satellite constellations should minimize light pollution, rocket launches should minimize greenhouse gas emissions and pollution, and orbital debris should be mitigated. Despite decades of talking about these issues, there are no comprehensive international agreements governing how the space environment should be managed, and precious few national regulations.
This legislation would create an "EU Space Label" that could be granted to sustainable companies, much like "eco labels" on home appliances. It differs from the Artemis Accords put forth by the United States in that the latter mainly talk about resource access and safe zones around interplanetary outposts. China apparently has its own space sustainability proposal, but I don't know any of the details.
The gorilla in the room when discussing such things is always SpaceX. As noted above, one of the legislators is involved in a Starlink competitor, and given the problems Europe is currently having with its own launch industry, it would be easy to read the proposal as sour grapes. If we can't beat our competition, handicap it.
SpaceX is already aggressively working towards those declared goals, with reusable rockets, satellites that minimize light pollution, active debris avoidance software, and planned demisability. It would be illustrative to see if the company would meet the standards for this EU Space Label.
Of course, it may just be that the EU wants to get out ahead of other companies and nations seeking to launch megaconstellations, such as Amazon's Project Kuiper, the EU's own IRIS2, and particularly China's plans. China is not a signatory to any international space agreements and does not launch Western payloads. It is therefore unclear to me how an EU regulation would affect it.
Edited by Fighteer on Apr 3rd 2024 at 2:31:58 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"


What's the maximum range of the Starlink lasers? Could they be used from, say, the Moon or Mars? Or if not this specific hardware, but others built on the same technology? I'd guess it would be problematic orienting them with enough precision.
Fjón þvæ ég af mér fjanda minna rán og reiði ríkra manna.