NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

Dec 23, 2023

A December Summer Night

Colours of a serene evening sky are captured in this 8 minute exposure, made near this December's solstice from New Zealand, southern hemisphere, planet Earth. Looking south, star trails form the short concentric arcs around the rotating planet's south celestial pole positioned just off the top of the frame. At top and left of center are trails of the Southern Cross stars and a dark smudge from the Milky Way's Coalsack Nebula. Alpha and Beta Centauri make the brighter yellow and blue tinted trails, reflected below in the waters of Hoopers Inlet in the Pacific coast of the South Island's Otago Peninsula. On that short December summer night, aurora australis also gave luminous, green and reddish hues to the sky above the hills. An upper atmospheric glow distinct from the aurora excited by collisions with energetic particles, pale greenish bands of airglow caused by a cascade of chemical reactions excited by sunlight can be traced in diagonal bands near the top left.

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

Russia Space Agency Official Held Over Multi-Million-Euro Fraud

Dec 23, 2023

Police on Friday detained the deputy director of Russia's space agency Roscosmos over the suspected embezzlement of 4.3 million euros ($4.7 million) from the crisis-hit sector.

Oleg Frolov and two other suspects are accused of a "large-scale fraud," said a statement from the Russian investigative committee, which handles major criminal investigations.

"Frolov, using his official position, took part in a criminal conspiracy with two other co-conspirators," said the statement.

"In the course of the execution of the contract, they stole budgeted funds during the purchase of equipment."

Frolov would be held in custody pending his trial, the statement added.

Roscosmos, once a source of national pride, has for years been suffering financial problems and has been hit by a series of corruption scandals and embarrassing technical failures such as the loss in August of the Luna-25 probe.

Russia is nevertheless still planning its own space station, to replace its aging section of the International Space Station (ISS), and a revival of its moon program.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/12/22/russian-man-detained-for-setting-fire-to-special-military-operation-museum-door-a83543

>>20119471

It somehow switched the link on me!

Huh.

Thanks for that.

SpaceX Starlink Mission

DECEMBER 23, 2023

On Saturday, December 23 at 12:33 a.m. ET, Falcon 9 launched 23 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

This was the 19th flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched Crew Demo-2, ANASIS-11, CRS-21, Transporter-1, Transporter-3, and now 14 Starlink missions.

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=sl-6-32

>>20116670 PB

>>20116893

Firefly Alpha upper stage malfunction puts payload into wrong orbit

December 23, 2023

A problem with the upper stage of a Firefly Aerospace Alpha rocket placed a Lockheed Martin technology demonstration satellite into the wrong orbit on a Dec. 22 launch.

The Alpha rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 12:32 p.m. Eastern on a mission called “Fly the Lightning” by Firefly. The launch was originally scheduled for Dec. 20 but postponed two days because of weather.

The rocket’s ascent appeared to go as planned, and launch controllers reported that the upper stage had achieved a nominal transfer orbit. Firefly then said a second burn of the upper stage was planned to take place about 40 minutes later to circularize the orbit, followed by payload separation.

However, Firefly did not provide an update about the status of the launch for several hours. In the meantime, tracking data from the U.S. Space Force showed two objects in elliptical orbits of 215 by 523 kilometers from the launch. That suggested the upper stage malfunctioned during the circularization burn.

Firefly confirmed in a statement 12 hours after launch that the second stage malfunctioned. “Alpha’s scheduled stage 2 engine relight did not deliver the payload to its precise target orbit,” the company said. “We will work with our customer and government partners to investigate the stage 2 performance and determine the root cause.”

The payload on the mission was a small satellite developed and funded by Lockheed Martin. The spacecraft, using a Nebula bus from Terran Orbital, was intended to demonstrate an electronically steerable antenna that could be used on future broadband satellites. The company planned to use the satellite to show the antenna could be quickly calibrated and put into service.

Firefly said in its statement that communications had been established with the satellite “and mission operations are now underway.” However, the low perigee of the spacecraft’s orbit indicates it is likely to reenter within several weeks.

This was the fourth launch of the Alpha, three months after it successfully launched the Victus Nox responsive space demonstration for the U.S. Space Force. A launch in October 2022 also reached orbit, but the smallsat payloads it carried reentered days after launch after being placed in an elliptical orbit rather than a higher circular orbit. Firefly claimed the launch was a success despite the early satellite reentries, saying the performance of both stages met requirements.

The first Alpha launch, in September 2021, failed to reach orbit when one of its first stage engines shut down shortly after liftoff. The first stages on subsequent launches have performed as expected.

Firefly had planned to increase the Alpha flight rate, with at least four missions scheduled for 2024 and six planned for 2025, Bill Weber, chief executive of Firefly, said in an interview in November. The company is working on new production facilities capable of building up to 24 Alphas a year.

Firefly is balancing that work on Alpha with development of a first stage for a new version of Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket, the Antares 330, that will also be used on a new launch vehicle called MLV. Weber said the company hopes to have the Antares 330 ready to enter service in mid-2025 and the MLV in late 2025.

https://spacenews.com/firefly-alpha-upper-stage-malfunction-puts-payload-into-wrong-orbit/

France to establish NewSpace hubs in Denver and Houston

December 20, 2023

A delegation from the French Space Agency CNES visited Colorado and Texas last week to expand ties between French and American aerospace companies.

The officials, who jokingly refer to themselves as France’s NewSpace Musketeers, plan to establish virtual hubs in Denver and Houston for Connect by CNES, a government initiative to spur space-related innovation.

“We want to create jobs in the U.S. and jobs in France,” Francois Alter, CNES deputy chief strategy officer, told SpaceNews. “We want to be the wedding planner to support this growing ecosystem with strong partnerships between U.S. and French companies.”

France and the United States have longstanding civil and military space ties, which have deepened in recent years. In addition, France’s vibrant NewSpace sector is growing with an average of one startup established per week.

Government support for the NewSpace ecosystem is strong. The national investment plan France 2030 directs 1.5 billion euros ($1.64 billion) towards investment in space technologies over five years.

“We have ammunition to make this ecosystem go,” said Emmanuel de Lipkowski, CNES senior advisor and a French Space Command Reserve officer.

Connect by CNES was established in 2018 to provide startups with technical expertise, funding, software, incubators, accelerators and introductions to prime contractors and government space agencies. With many French startups maturing, Connect by CNES is looking for international partners, beginning in the United States.

To help French startups establish ties in the U.S., a French delegation met in Denver Dec. 11 and 12 with representatives of Colorado companies, government agencies and academic institutions. The visit paves the way for some 30 to 40 French entrepreneurs to meet with potential partners in April during the National Space Foundation’s 39th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs.

“There is already a lot of collaboration between French and U.S. companies,” Alter said. “We met companies that already have French suppliers, French partners or French customers. Some of them want to make more business in Europe.”

Connect by CNES can help U.S. companies by serving as the “point of entrance to the European ecosystem,” Alter said.

Business France, which has seven offices in the United States, also helps U.S. companies “understand the French market and identify French and European market incentives,” said Nicolas Maubert, CNES representative and space attaché for the French Embassy in Washington.

Through international partnerships, CNES seeks to improve the resiliency of its space sector.

“We have to make our supply chain much more resilient,” Lipkowski said, citing geopolitical tensions.

The French Air and Space Force and French Space Command “have excellent collaboration with the U.S. military,” Lipowski said. “The collaboration is growing. We are here to make it better and to find better opportunities.”

Partnerships also help space companies keep up with the rapid pace of innovation, Alter said. “In this NewSpace era, you need to move fast. That means that you must find the best suppliers, the best off-the-shelf components and the best equipment.”

Connect by CNES’ Houston hub will be oriented toward human spaceflight and moon programs including Artemis. The Denver hub will focus on military space, cybersecurity, space medicine and educational exchanges.

https://spacenews.com/france-to-establish-newspace-hubs-in-denver-and-houston/