NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

Nov 26, 2023

A Dust Jet from the Surface of Comet 67P

Where do comet tails come from? There are no obvious places on the nuclei of comets from which the jets that create comet tails emanate. In 2016, though, ESA's Rosetta spacecraft not only imaged a jet emerging from Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, but flew right through it. Featured is a telling picture showing a bright plume emerging from a small circular dip bounded on one side by a 10-meter high wall. Analyses of Rosetta data show that the jet was composed of both dust and water-ice. The rugged but otherwise unremarkable terrain indicates that something likely happened far under the porous surface to create the plume. This image was taken about two months before Rosetta's mission ended with a controlled impact onto Comet 67P's surface.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?

North Korea rocket explodes during spy satellite launch, and meteor hunters caught it on camera: report

Nov 24, 2023

The first stage of a North Korean rocket apparently exploded Tuesday (Nov. 21) during a purported spy satellite launch, a new video suggests.

A camera at South Korea's Yonsei University, usually used for tracking meteors or shooting stars, showed the first stage of the North Korean Chollima-1 rocket appearing to erupt and spread debris, Reuters reported Friday (Nov. 24).

"This time they appear to have detonated the first stage propellant in mid-air," Byun Yong-Ik, an astronomy professor at Yonsei University, told Reuters. "This kind of measure was not seen in the previous launch attempts, and it could have been an effort to prevent South Korean and U.S. authorities from recovering the (rocket), as it is equipped with a new engine."

The activity was classified as unusual by North Korean rocket experts in the report, given that countries typically allow rocket stages to fall naturally into Earth's atmosphere — absent the ability to land the first stage, like SpaceX or Blue Origin does. North Korea has reported an ability to self-destruct rockets on previous launches, too.

The U.S. Space Force has cataloged an object in orbit matching the trajectory of the launch, suggesting the spy satellite is indeed in space, astronomer Jonathan McDowell posted Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter. McDowell, who is based at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, also tracks worldwide space launches, landings and re-entries.

Following North Korea's claims of the successful spy satellite launch on Tuesday, senior U.S. officials and the White House condemned the activity; the American security community has said the technologies used for the rocket are similar to those for the nation's intercontinental ballistic missile program.

For example, officials with the White House released a statement saying the launch on Tuesday was "a brazen violation of multiple UN (United Nations) Security Council resolutions, raises tensions, and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region and beyond."

Previously, senior U.S. officials have also raised concerns of North Korea's closer ties with Russia in recent months, including a joint meeting of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin in September concerning sharing spaceflight and rocket technologies. (North Korea denied Russia provided assistance for Tuesday's launch, however, according to media reports.)

Russia has been cut off from most international space activities since its unsanctioned invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, lessening opportunities for its space companies. North Korea, meanwhile, has been a communist state for 80 years. Its economy is controlled by the state and its citizens are said to lack basic food and services, according to Britannica.

North Korea's nuclear program ambitions in the last decade have drawn concerns from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) that includes the U.S., so much so that the U.S. and South Korea have done collaborative military exercises in the region lately. (South Korea is also a signatory to NASA's Artemis Accords, a coalition of dozens of nations that is in part moon-focused and in part a framework for peaceful international space exploration.)

The launch by North Korea is its third try to send a spy satellite to orbit in recent months. The first two attempts were confirmed failures, and the South Korean government has said it found debris associated with at least one of the launches. South Korea is also searching for debris for Tuesday's launch, Reuters said.

South Korea is said to be planning its own first spy satellite for launch later in November, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

https://www.space.com/north-korea-rocket-stage-spy-satellite-explosion-report

NASA Administrator to Travel to India, UAE; Discuss Space Cooperation

NOV 24, 2023

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson will travel to India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for a series of meetings beginning Monday, Nov. 27, with key government officials.

Nelson also will meet with space officials in both countries to deepen bilateral cooperation across a broad range of innovation and research-related areas, especially in human exploration and Earth science.

The visit to India fulfills a commitment through the United States and India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology spearheaded by President Joe Biden. Nelson will visit several locations in India, including the Bengaluru-based facilities where the NISAR spacecraft, a joint Earth-observing mission between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), is undergoing testing and integration for launch in 2024. NISAR is short for NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar.

As the first satellite mission between NASA and ISRO, NISAR is a revolutionary Earth-observing instrument, the first in the Earth System Observatory, that will measure Earth’s changing ecosystems, dynamic surfaces, and ice masses providing information about biomass, natural hazards, sea level rise, and groundwater, key information to guide efforts related to climate change, hazard mitigation, agriculture, and more.

While in the UAE, Nelson will participate in the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, highlighting NASA’s role as a global leader in providing decisionmakers with critical Earth-science data. It will be the first time a NASA administrator will have attended the conference.

Students in each country also will have the opportunity to meet with Nelson to discuss science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and their roles as members of the Artemis Generation.

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-administrator-to-travel-to-india-uae-discuss-space-cooperation/

Space Force extends Kratos’ contract for satellite ground systems

November 25, 2023

WASHINGTON — Kratos Defense & Security Solutions has received an eight-year extension to a contract it has held since 2002 for technical services in support of U.S. military communications satellites’ ground systems.

The company, based in San Diego, California, was awarded an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract worth up to $579 million, the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command said Nov. 22.

The contract is for a program named C-SAR, short for Command-and-Control System-Consolidated Sustainment and Resiliency. The new agreement with Kratos runs through November 2031.

The company will maintain and develop satellite ground systems for the U.S. Space Force and U.S. Space Command. The satellites covered under the contract include the Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) III, the Milstar Satellite Communications System, the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF), and the Wideband Global Satellite Communications (WGS) systems.

The Command-and-Control System-Consolidated system provides “planning, processing and information assurance measures,” the Space Systems Command said. It is designed to interface with existing constellations and also to support future satellites. As new constellations are deployed, Kratos will be responsible for information technology infrastructure upgrades.

Contract supports 26 satellites

Program director George Gonzales, of the Space Systems Command’s military communications satellite office, said the new contract with Kratos supports command-and-control operations of four constellations and 26 military communication satellites, “as well as the integration of new satellites and future constellations.”

According to a DoD contract announcement Nov. 6, the work will be performed at Schriever Space Force Base, Colorado; Vandenberg Space Force Base, California; and Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado. The C-SAR award was a competitive acquisition but only one offer was received.

https://spacenews.com/space-force-extends-kratos-contract-for-satellite-ground-systems/