NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

Feb 14, 2024

Rosette Deep Field

Can you find the Rosette Nebula? The large, red, and flowery-looking nebula on the upper left may seem the obvious choice, but that is actually just diffuse hydrogen emission surrounding the Cone and Fox Fur Nebulas. The famous Rosette Nebula is really located on the lower right and connected to the other nebulas by irregular filaments. Because the featured image of Rosetta's field is so wide and deep, it seems to contain other flowers. Designated NGC 2237, the center of the Rosette nebula is populated by the bright blue stars of open cluster NGC 2244, whose winds and energetic light are evacuating the nebula's center. The Rosette Nebula is about 5,000 light years distant and, just by itself, spans about three times the diameter of a full moon. This flowery field can be found toward the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros).

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

Spiral Galaxy NGC 4254’s Dazzling Swirls

FEB 13, 2024

NGC 4254, a spiral galaxy, is resplendent in orange and blue in this Jan. 29, 2024, image from the James Webb Space Telescope. This is one of 19 nearby spiral galaxies recently imaged by the telescope as part of the long-standing Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) program supported by more than 150 astronomers worldwide.

Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera captured millions of stars in these images, which sparkle in blue tones, while the telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument data highlights glowing dust, showing us where it exists around and between stars.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/spiral-galaxy-ngc-4254s-dazzling-swirls/

The U.S. Space Force Is Celebrating Valentine's Day By Launching A Mysterious Classified Mission Into Orbit

February 14, 2024

Love is in the air, and soon, so will be a classified payload the United States Space Force plans to launch on a secretive national security operation this Valentine’s Day.

The mission to low-Earth orbit, USSF-124, is a classified project being undertaken by the Space Force about which few details have been made available.

If all goes according to plan, the mission will launch at 5:30 p.m. aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) in Florida.

Currently, what few details have been released indicate that the mission will be carrying a pair of satellites into orbit as part of the launch of the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) mission for the US Missile Defense Agency.

HBTSS satellites are designed with enhanced capabilities for detecting and tracking hypersonic threats, which produce less obvious signatures than traditional ballistic missiles. Along with continuous tracking, HBTSS satellites also help to facilitate handoff for targeting after hypersonic weapons are detected.

Hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs) present a range of new challenges when compared with ballistic missiles. Capable of speeds greater than 3000 miles per hour and rapid changes in trajectory, altitude, and speed, all of which allow them to evade traditional missile defense systems.

Compared with contemporary radar systems, a constellation of tracking satellites allows continuous monitoring capabilities against hypersonic threats regardless of their position, and allows detection and tracking from the time of their launch until their reentry from space.

Paired with ground-based radar systems, HBTSS satellites also allow holes in viewing that past early warning detection systems to be secured.

According to the Missile Defense Agency, HBTSS satellites like those that are expected to launch today will complement advanced radar systems on land and at sea, as well as tracking satellites previously deployed by the U.S. Space Force, which ultimately will provide potentially crucial data for targeting and interception of hypersonic craft.

In addition to the pair of HBTSS satellites that will launch today–one built by one by Northrop Grumman, the other by L3Harris–four SDA Tranche 0 Tracking Layer missile warning satellites produced by L3Harris are also scheduled to be launched aboard USSF-124. Previously scheduled for launch on SDA Tranche OB, production delays reportedly led to their removal.

The 313th SpaceX mission and its 13th of 2024, today’s Valentine’s Day launch will be the seventh involving the first stage booster SpaceX is employing to launch the mission, also used for launches of the Crew-6, SES O3b mPOWER, and several recent Starlink missions.

Should any issues arise, the next launch window will occur on Thursday at the same time, which SpaceX will be streaming live beginning 15 minutes before launch.

https://thedebrief.org/the-u-s-space-force-is-celebrating-valentines-day-by-launching-a-mysterious-classified-mission-into-orbit/

SpaceX to deorbit 100 older Starlink satellites

February 13, 2024

SpaceX plans to remove from orbit about 100 of its older Starlink satellites because of a design flaw that could cause them to fail.

In a statement Feb. 12, SpaceX said it would perform controlled descents of about 100 “early-version 1” Starlink satellites out of concerns that the spacecraft could fail in orbit and no longer be maneuver.

“These satellites are currently maneuverable and serving users effectively, but the Starlink team identified a common issue in this small population of satellites that could increase the probability of failure in the future,” SpaceX stated. The company did not elaborate on that issue or identify the specific satellites affected.

According to statistics maintained by Jonathan McDowell, SpaceX has 5,438 Starlink satellites in orbit, out of 5,828 launched to date. The oldest still in orbit are from an initial group of version 1 satellites launched in 2019 and 2020 that lacked visors added to later satellites intended to reduce the amount of sunlight they reflect, reducing their brightness. Of those 420 satellites, 337 remain in orbit.

SpaceX said the satellites being deorbited will lower their orbits gradually over about six months. “All satellites will maintain maneuverability and collision avoidance capabilities during the descent,” the company stated. “Additionally, these deorbiting satellites will take maneuver responsibility for any high-risk conjunctions consistent with space safety and sustainability best practices.”

The growth of the Starlink constellation, by far the largest in orbit, has triggered debate about space traffic management and space sustainability. There has been a push for new regulations to govern the growth of satellites and debris and ensure satellites are promptly deorbited at the end of their lives.

During a panel discussion at a space debris conference organized by the Saudi Space Agency Feb. 12, Ernst Pfeiffer, chief executive of German space component company HPS, called for new rules for deorbiting satellites within five years of their end of their lives, versus the 25 years previously endorsed by organizations like the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee, or IADC.

“This can be introduced tomorrow, a five-year deorbit time,” he said, after which more complex rules can be developed. “This is urgently needed and, amazingly, Elon Musk is introducing it already with SpaceX.”

Such regulations are likely to come at the national level, rather than through an international treaty, although non-binding guidelines from the IADC and the long-term sustainability guidelines adopted by the U.N.’s Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space can be helpful.

“Non-binding does not mean non-legal in the sense that states can choose to implement these voluntary non-binding guidelines in their national regulatory frameworks,” said Peter Martinez, executive director of the Secure World Foundation, on another conference panel. “The benefit of having international consensus guidelines is that there is an agreed minimum international standard that, if widely implemented, helps to avoid the risk of divergent or fragmented regulations across jurisdictions.”

SpaceX added in its statement that the loss of the older satellites will not affect Starlink broadband services. “Starlink’s customer experience will not be impacted” by the deorbiting of the older satellites, the company said. “SpaceX has the capacity to build up to 55 satellites per week and launch more than 200 satellites per month, which allows us to continually improve our system and make it more resilient.”

https://spacenews.com/spacex-to-deorbit-100-older-starlink-satellites/

Saltzman outlines plan to reoptimize Space Force for Great Power Competition

Feb. 13, 2024

https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3675520/saltzman-outlines-plan-to-reoptimize-space-force-for-great-power-competition/

Remarks by CSO Gen. Chance Saltzman at the Air and Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium

Feb. 13, 2024

https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3675984/remarks-by-cso-gen-chance-saltzman-at-the-air-and-space-forces-association-warf/

BAE Systems wins approval for Ball Aerospace acquisition

February 14, 2024

BAE Systems will complete its $5.5 billion acquisition of Ball Aerospace in days after securing regulatory approvals for the deal.

The companies announced Feb. 14 that they had all the approvals in place from regulators to complete the deal, announced in August. All that remains are the “customary steps at the end of a transaction,” said Tom Arseneault, president and chief executive of BAE Systems Inc., in an interview. “We’re hoping to complete that in the coming days.”

The Department of Justice had issued a second request for information to the companies about the proposed acquisition in November. “The approval that we received today is an early termination of that second request on the basis of their examination of the portfolios,” he said, concluding “there was not an antitrust concern.”

The companies previously received a “standard approval” for the acquisition from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, as BAE Systems is based in the United Kingdom. “We received that in the typical timeframe,” Arseneault said.

Once the deal closes, Ball Aerospace will become a fourth operating sector of BAE Systems Inc., called Space & Mission Systems. It will incorporate Ball Aerospace’s more than 5,200 employees and its Colorado manufacturing facility.

It will continue its existing work in civil and national security space programs, ranging from the Weather System Follow-on – Microwave (WSF-M) weather satellite for the U.S. Space Force that Ball is preparing for launch in late March to NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, the agency’s next flagship space telescope.

Dave Kaufman, president of Ball Aerospace who will lead the Space & Mission Systems unit, said that being part of BAE will allow it to go after larger programs. “BAE has different expertise than we do,” he said, such as electronics and other subsystems. “It gives us the ability to move up the food chain and be contributing in bigger ways.”

Arseneault highlighted the buying power the combined company will have, allowing the Space and Mission Systems sector “to tap into our global supply agreements and thereby reduce their materials costs and generate some synergy through that.”

Kaufman said the deal opens up new possibilities for Ball Aerospace’s employees. “They see the possibility that we can move into new areas, engage with new customers, even internationally, as we work to grow our business,” he said. “It means that there are career advancement possibilities that we never had before.”

Both companies are pressing ahead despite uncertainty about final budgets for fiscal year 2024 from the federal government, their largest customer. Agencies continue to operate on a continuing resolution that funds programs at 2023 levels until early March.

“The entire industry is watching that and is concerned,” Arseneault said. “As long as things resolve in the near term, the impact will be manageable, but it is something we are continuing to watch.”

“Our situation is similar,” Kaufman said. “We’re all in the same boat in the whole industry, watching the budget and hoping we come to a resolution.”

https://spacenews.com/bae-systems-wins-approval-for-ball-aerospace-acquisition/

Fueling issue delays Intuitive Machines lunar lander launch

February 14, 2024

SpaceX postponed the launch of an Intuitive Machines lunar lander by a day after encountering a problem fueling the spacecraft on the launch pad.

SpaceX announced about 90 minutes before the scheduled 12:57 a.m. Eastern Feb. 14 launch of the IM-1 mission that it was delaying the launch by a day. The launch has been rescheduled for 1:05 a.m. Eastern Feb. 15.

“Standing down from tonight’s attempt due to off-nominal methane temperatures prior to stepping into methane load,” the company said in its announcement of the delay, but provided no additional details.

A unique aspect of the mission is that the Nova-C lander is loaded with liquid oxygen and methane propellants while on the launch pad. That fueling is intended to start a few hours before launch. SpaceX modified both the launch pad and the rocket to enable the lander to be fueled while inside the payload fairing at the pad.

That requires more coordination between the payload and the launch vehicle during the countdown than for a typical launch, said Bill Gerstenmaier, vice president of build and flight reliability at SpaceX, during a Feb. 13 briefing. “It’s a little more intense for us and a little bit longer timeline than we typically have,” he said.

SpaceX and Intuitive Machines conducted two wet dress rehearsals of the fueling process last week. Trent Martin, vice president of space systems at Intuitive Machines, said in a Feb. 12 interview that the company tweaked some of the parameters of the fueling process after each test but that both had gone well. “On both days we did the wet dress, we would have been go for launch,” he said.

Lunar landers have traditionally used storable propellants and are fueled well in advance of being installed on the rocket. The use of cryogenic propellants by the Nova-C lander requires it to be fueled as close to launch as possible to limit loss of propellants from boiling off.

“It allows us the opportunity to have a very large rocket engine,” Martin said at the Feb. 13 briefing. That allows a quick transit to the moon, with a landing scheduled for about a week after liftoff. “It allows us to operate very quickly.”

He said using those propellants opens the door for future capabilities, including the potential for getting liquid oxygen from lunar resources. That creates “the potential for a reusable rocket using in-situ resources.”

The modifications by SpaceX to support IM-1 will be used by future Intuitive Machines landers, but Gerstenmaier said they could also be used by other customers. “We see this as a way of essentially advancing what kind of services that we can provide to future users.”

Despite the delay, the landing, near the Malapert A crater in the south polar regions of the moon, remains scheduled for Feb. 22. One final launch opportunity is available Feb. 16, after which Intuitive Machines would have to wait until March to try again.

The lander is carry six NASA payloads through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program under an award valued at about $118 million. It is also carrying six non-NASA payloads from customers ranging from artist Jeff Koons to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

https://spacenews.com/fueling-issue-delays-intuitive-machines-lunar-lander-launch/