TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
Nov 13, 2023
Andromeda over the Alps
Have you ever seen the Andromeda galaxy? Although M31 appears as a faint and fuzzy blob to the unaided eye, the light you see will be over two million years old, making it likely the oldest light you ever will see directly. The featured image captured Andromeda just before it set behind the Swiss Alps early last year. As cool as it may be to see this neighboring galaxy to our Milky Way with your own eyes, long duration camera exposures can pick up many faint and breathtaking details. The image is composite of foreground and background images taken consecutively with the same camera and from the same location. Recent data indicate that our Milky Way Galaxy will collide and coalesce with Andromeda galaxy in a few billion years.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?
SpaceX SES O3B MPOWER MISSON
On Sunday, November 12 at 4:08 p.m. ET, SpaceX launched the SES O3b mPOWER mission to medium-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
This was the ninth flight of the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched CRS-26, OneWeb Launch 16, Intelsat IS-40e, and five Starlink missions.
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=mpower-c
Saber Astronautics gets Space Force contract for data visualization software
November 12, 2023
The U.S. Space Force awarded Saber Astronautics a $1.2 million contract to develop data visualization software focused on the cislunar region of space, between Earth and the moon’s orbit.
The contract, announced Nov. 10, is a Small Business Technology Transfer Phase 2 award that increases the Space Force’s investment in Saber Astronautics’ “Space Cockpit” visualization platform that the company started developing in 2019.
Headquartered in Australia with U.S. operations in Boulder, Colorado, Saber Astronautics developed Space Cockpit based on a commercial version of the system used by Australia’s space agency and private-sector satellite operators to monitor, fly and diagnose problems in spacecraft.
During the 15-month project, Saber Astronautics will work with Purdue University’s astrodynamics experts on technologies to track and predict the trajectories of satellites traveling in the space between Earth and moon’s orbit.
The vast distance between Earth and the moon, about 238,900 miles, means the region is far less understood than near-Earth orbits that extend out to 24,000 miles above Earth’s surface and where most satellites are deployed.
“The cislunar region is gaining attention from both military and commercial organizations,” said Saber Astronautics’ CEO Jason Held.
“We are delivering a sandbox for modeling cislunar orbits, so operators can plan and analyze trajectories easily between Earth and the moon,” he said. This will be a new feature of the Space Cockpit software.
The Space Cockpit currently has about 2,000 users, said Held. That includes U.S. and allied military space operators and Saber’s mission control centers that fly commercial satellites.
“Anyone with a Space Cockpit license and a data feed will be able to use the cislunar tool,” he said.
These users will have access to a “sandbox environment where they can model threats and plan maneuvers in non-standard orbits,” Held said.
The Space Cockpit system, he explained, ingests data from multiple government and commercial sources. “Naturally we cannot comment on the U.S. Space Force sensors and their capabilities. At this stage the software has algorithms able to analyze non-standard Keplerian orbits.”
https://spacenews.com/saber-astronautics-gets-space-force-contract-for-data-visualization-software/
Astronauts accidentally drop toolbox during space walk - and you could see it from Earth
Sunday 12 November 2023 17:31, UK
Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O'Hara spent six hours and 42 minutes outside the ISS as they carried out maintenance work.
But a satchel-sized bag floated away and is now orbiting the Earth, several minutes ahead of the space station.
It was even captured on camera by the pair's Japanese colleague Satoshi Furukawa, who accidentally photographed the bag while taking a shot of Mount Fuji.
NASA said the tools were not needed for the remainder of the spacewalk.
Mission Control analysed the bag's trajectory and determined the risk of recontacting the station was low, and that the onboard crew and space station were safe.
The bag has been classified as space junk and is expected to re-enter the Earth's orbit in the coming months, but will likely burn up as it does so.
EarthSky said some people should be able to see it floating around with just a pair of binoculars.
"It's surprisingly bright (for a tool bag), shining just below the limit of visibility to the unaided eye," its website said.
There are believed to be around 100,000 items of orbital debris currently circling the earth.
This isn't the first time an astronaut has lost a toolbox - in November 2008, Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper was performing a similar repair when the same thing happened.
In 2006, spacewalker Piers Sellers sheepishly reported that he lost a spatula.
And in 1965, the first American spacewalker, Ed White, lost a spare glove when he went outside for the first time.
https://news.sky.com/story/astronauts-accidentally-drop-toolbox-during-space-walk-and-you-could-see-it-from-earth-13006280
Cell & Gene Therapy Space Gears Up for First CRISPR Approval
Nov 13, 2023
Halloween brings to mind pumpkins and trick or treat, but for the 100,000 Americans suffering from sickle cell disease, this past October 31 had a different meaning when an FDA advisory panel deemed the first potentially curative SCD therapy safe enough for clinical use, bolstering hopes of an FDA approval in December. It would also be the first-ever approval for CRISPR, the genetic modification technique that won its discoverers the Nobel Prize in 2020 for their 2012 breakthrough.
Approval of the treatment, called exa-cel and pioneered jointly by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Swiss biotech CRISPR Therapeutics, could signal a new era for the field of cell and gene therapy, said Stephen Majors, global head of communications at the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM). “This is a crucial time for the sector,” Majors told BioSpace. “The advisory panel’s approval paves the way for the first FDA approvals of this type anywhere, in a rare disease that predominantly affects an underserved community, many of whom are patients in the Medicaid program. This all combines to make it the biggest moment for cell and gene therapy so far.”
The Oct. 31 vote by the FDA’s Cellular, Tissue, and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee is also welcome news for the many other trials underway using CRISPR technology to treat everything from rare blood diseases to eye diseases to cancers.
Exa-cel is currently targeted toward the 20,000 sickle cell sufferers who have the most severe form of the disease (as well as transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia, another rare disease characterized by inadequate hemoglobin). Exa-cel works by disabling the gene that silences the fetal hemoglobin gene, allowing a normally quiet gene for fetal hemoglobin to switch on. Fetal hemoglobin binds more strongly to oxygen, and natural history studies show that having fetal hemoglobin levels greater than 20% can be protective and ameliorate signs and symptoms of diseases.
And more potential gene and cell therapy approvals are coming up right behind exa-cel. A second SCD gene therapy, bluebird bio’s lovo-cel, has an FDA action date of December 20, and a novel cell therapy for metastatic melanoma—Iovance’s lifileucel—is awaiting an FDA decision by February 24, 2024. Meanwhile, Rocket Pharmaceuticals expects a March 2024 decision for its gene therapy to treat Leukocyte Adhesion Deficiency-I, a rare immune disorder that can lead to fatal infections.
https://www.biospace.com/article/cell-and-gene-therapy-space-anticipates-first-crispr-approval-as-fda-prepares-for-more-/