Tag: space

China plans to build enormous solar array in space — and it could collect more energy in a year than ‘all the oil on Earth’

Chinese scientists have announced a plan to build an enormous, 0.6 mile (1 kilometer) wide solar power station in space that will beam continuous energy back to Earth via microwaves.

The project, which will see its components lofted to a geostationary orbit above Earth using super-heavy rockets, has been dubbed “another Three Gorges Dam project above the Earth.”

The Three Gorges Dam, located in the middle of the Yangtze river in central China, is the world’s largest hydropower project and generates 100 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. According to one NASA scientist, the dam is so large that, if completely filled, the mass of the water contained within would lengthen Earth’s days by 0.06 microseconds.

The new project, according to lead scientist Long Lehao, the chief designer of China’s Long March rockets, would be “as significant as moving the Three Gorges Dam to a geostationary orbit 36,000km (22,370 miles) above the Earth.”

“This is an incredible project to look forward to,” Long added during a lecture in October hosted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), as reported by the South China Morning Post. “The energy collected in one year would be equivalent to the total amount of oil that can be extracted from the Earth.”

Despite recent advances in the cheapness and efficiency of solar power, the technology still faces some fundamental limitations — such as intermittent cloud cover and most of the atmosphere absorbing solar radiation before it hits the ground.

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Russia Warns of Response if Weapons Are Launched Into Space

Russia will react if some country launches weapons into space and it has such developments, Russian state space corporation Roscosmos head Yuri Borisov said on Friday.

“Russia has always been adamant and consistent in its position of not launching any weapons into space. Well, let’s say that the probability that they might appear there depends on the balance of power. And, in principle, if some country risks using outer space as an arena for military operations and launches some type of weapon into space, then Russia, of course, will have to respond to this in an adequate manner,” Borisov told Solovyov Live, adding that “Russia has such developments.”

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In a rare disclosure, the Pentagon provides an update on the X-37B spaceplane

After more than nine months in an unusual, highly elliptical orbit, the US military’s X-37B spaceplane will soon begin dipping its wings into Earth’s atmosphere to lower its altitude before eventually coming back to Earth for a runway landing, the Space Force said Thursday.

The aerobraking maneuvers will use a series of passes through the uppermost fringes of the atmosphere to gradually reduce its speed with aerodynamic drag while expending minimal fuel. In orbital mechanics, this reduction in velocity will bring the apogee, or high point, of the X-37B’s orbit closer to Earth.

Bleeding energy

The Space Force called the aerobraking a “novel space maneuver” and said its purpose was to allow the X-37B to “safely dispose of its service module components in accordance with recognized standards for space debris mitigation.”

While the reusable Boeing-built X-37B spaceplane is designed to land like an aircraft on a runway, the service module, mounted to the rear of the vehicle, carries additional payloads. At the end of the mission, the X-37B jettisons the disposable service module before reentry. The Space Force doesn’t want this section of the spacecraft to remain in its current high-altitude orbit and become a piece of space junk.

“Once the aerobrake maneuver is complete, the X-37B will resume its test and experimentation objectives until they are accomplished, at which time the vehicle will deorbit and execute a safe return as it has during its six previous missions,” the Space Force said.

The Space Force has identified mobility in orbit as a key focus for its next-generation space missions. This would allow satellites to more freely move between altitudes and orbital inclinations than they can today. Commanders don’t want a spacecraft’s movements to be constrained by the amount of fuel it carries, allowing satellites to “maneuver without regret.”

Space Force leaders have discussed in-orbit refueling, more efficient propulsion technologies, and other ways to achieve this end. Aerobraking is another way to lower a spacecraft’s orbit without using precious propellant.

“This first-of-a-kind maneuver from the X-37B is an incredibly important milestone for the United States Space Force as we seek to expand our aptitude and ability to perform in this challenging domain,” said Gen. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force’s chief of space operations.

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Industry ‘hamstrung’ by Space Force-intel community’s turf war

The space industry is waiting for the Space Force and intelligence community to come to an agreement over buying commercial satellite imagery and related analysis—a fight, some say, that is preventing troops from making the fullest use of orbital capabilities. 

Currently, the National Reconnaissance Office is in charge of buying intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance imagery from commercial space providers, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in charge of purchasing analytic products. But in the five years since the Space Force was created, the young service has increasingly pushed for funds and leeway to work directly with commercial firms, arguing that it can more quickly get important information to combatant commands.

Earlier this year, Space Force launched a $40 million pilot program to show just how fast it could move information and insights from orbiting sensors to troops on ground. It began soliciting bids for “tactical surveillance, reconnaissance and tracking,” or TacSRT, through a “marketplace,” Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman told reporters last month. 

“What TacSRT is doing with this pilot in particular is: we simply ask a question into the marketplace: ‘Hey, what generally does it look like around Air Base 201? Are there any items of interest, trucks, that are massing? Is there a huge parking lot? Do we see people milling around?’ We simply ask the question. And commercial industry provides us products that try to help us answer the question,” he said.

Saltzman has emphasized that the pilot program buys analysis based on imagery but not images themselves, carefully skirting NRO’s territory.  

Executives with commercial space companies that have participated in the pilot’s marketplace call it revolutionary. Some jobs have moved from a work statement announcement to the start of a mission in as little as 24 to 72 hours. 

But these executives say that unless TacSRT gets more funding, and the intel community gives more leeway to the Space Force, commercial companies and combatant commands could suffer. 

Under the current NGA-centric process, it can take weeks for military analysts in a relatively quiet command—i.e., anywhere that’s not China, Ukraine, or the Middle East—to hear back on a request for satellite imagery, said Joe Morrison, the vice president of remote sensing at Umbra, which operates a synthetic aperture radar constellation and provides data to analytics firms in the TacSRT program. 

Morrison said the current system was designed to manage requests for a scarce number of very-high-quality, very-much-in-demand “national assets”—not to draw efficiently on commercial offerings to make sure all needs are met in timely fashion. He said this has discouraged analysts from even putting in a request for imagery or insights, which has artificially depressed apparent demand for them and has “hamstrung” Umbra’s ability to demonstrate its utility.

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Elon Musk Says First Starship Mars Mission In Two Years; Make America Healthy Again To Ensure Space-Bearing Civilization

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said via X on Saturday evening that the Starship mega rocket will begin flying Mars missions in two years when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens. The mission will be uncrewed and aim to test the rocket’s ability to land intact on Mars, as Musk’s dreams of occupying the Red Planet could become a reality within the next two decades. 

“The first Starships to Mars will launch in 2 years when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens,” Musk wrote on X. 

He explained, “These will be uncrewed to test the reliability of landing intact on Mars. If those landings go well, then the first crewed flights to Mars will be in 4 years,” adding, “Flight rate will grow exponentially from there, with the goal of building a self-sustaining city in about 20 years. Being multiplanetary will vastly increase the probable lifespan of consciousness, as we will no longer have all our eggs, literally and metabolically, on one planet.” 

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U.S. To Track Moving Air And Ground Targets Via Space By 2030, But Aircraft Will Still Play A Part

The U.S. Space Force second-in-command has provided updates on plans for the service’s introduction of space-based ground moving-target indicator and air moving-target indicator (GMTI/AMTI) capabilities. Also discussed was the U.S. military’s need for a layered surveillance network, including to deal with the expanding breadth of enemy ‘kill webs,’ something which TWZ has discussed in the depth in the past.

Speaking today at the annual Defense News Conference in Arlington, Virginia, Gen. Michael A. Guetlein, the Vice Chief of Space Operations, U.S. Space Force (USSF), said that the first parts of a satellite-based GMTI/AMTI capability should start coming online in “probably the early 2030s.”

Importantly, however, Gen. Guetlein said that he expects the U.S. military’s future surveillance network to involve multiple assets, both in the atmosphere and in space. “I see it always being a layered set of capabilities to increase survivability, first and foremost,” he said.

While a layered surveillance network — one including space-based assets, alongside crewed aircraft, drones, and potentially other platforms — has been discussed for some time now, it was only last month that the design baseline for Space Force’s new satellite system was certified, meaning that it can now progress into the formal development phase.

In the past there have also been repeated suggestions that space-based surveillance assets would increasingly take over from the aircraft that have traditionally undertaken surveillance of targets on the ground, at sea, and in the air. In particular, satellite-based surveillance assets offer the advantages of greater persistence and — at least in the past — enhanced survivability. It is also worth noting that the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is reportedly acquiring a constellation of hundreds of intelligence-gathering satellites from SpaceX, with a specific focus on tracking targets down below in support of ground operations. Its relationship to the USSF program is unclear, but there is certainly some crossover regarding capabilities.

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Donald Trump promises to create a Space Force National Guard if elected president

Donald Trump has promised to create a Space Force National Guard if elected president.

The Republican nominee told the National Guard Association of the United States in Detroit that a reserve force is critical for defense in outer space.

Fears of Russia developing nuclear weapons to use specifically in space have ramped up in recent months.

Space is also becoming a vital area of national security as adversaries develop their celestial military capabilities. 

Trump set up Space Force in December 2019 to form the first new branch of the military since 1947, when the Air Force became its own entity.

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NASA Citizen Scientists Spot Unidentified Speeding Object Racing Through Space at 1 Million MPH

A group of citizen scientists participating in NASA’s Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project have discovered a mysterious object zipping through space at a staggering 1 million miles per hour.

“I can’t describe the level of excitement,” Kabatnik, a citizen scientist from Nuremberg, Germany, said in a NASA press release. “When I first saw how fast it was moving, I was convinced it must have been reported already.” 

The discovery has left astronomers baffled but excited, as they are now working to determine the identity of this rapid traveler. The breakthrough also underscores the invaluable contributions of citizen scientists to modern space exploration. 

The Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 is a NASA-funded science initiative that invites volunteers worldwide to assist professional astronomers in scanning vast amounts of astronomical data for signs of new celestial objects. 

These volunteers, often called “citizen scientists,” play a crucial role in the discovery process by analyzing images taken by telescopes and satellites, looking for anything unusual that automated systems might have missed.

The initiative was launched in 2017 to enlist the public’s help in scanning the Solar System for smaller, faint celestial objects, including potentially locating an elusive hypothesized ninth planet of our Solar System, often called “Planet Nine.” 

While Backyard Worlds: Planet 9’s main goal is to locate a potential ninth planet in the distant reaches of our Solar System, the project has also led to the discovery of other significant objects, such as brown dwarfs, planetary bodies, and high-velocity stars.

Accessible through the popular citizen-science research portal, the Zooniverse, participants in the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project are given access to a vast archive of data, including infrared images captured by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope. 

These images span several years, allowing volunteers to search for moving objects—indications of previously undiscovered celestial bodies. By comparing images taken at different times, volunteers can spot objects that shift position, suggesting they are closer to Earth than distant stars or galaxies.

The recently discovered object, dubbed “CWISE J1249,” was identified by volunteers sifting through NASA data in search of new planetary bodies or other celestial phenomena. 

One of the most remarkable features of CWISE J1249 is its astonishing speed of 1 million miles per hour. For comparison, the fastest man-made object in space is the Parker Solar Probe, which, at its closest approach to the Sun, reaches speeds of 430,000 mph. 

At its current velocity, CWISE J1249 surpasses most known objects in our Solar System and is fast enough to escape the Milky Way’s gravitational pull, propelling it into intergalactic space. 

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Life on Venus? New Discovery Deepens Controversy Over Possible Signs of Life in Planet’s Atmosphere

Recent observations of Venus have yielded new evidence of a compound in its atmosphere that could indicate the presence of life, according to findings that potentially lend weight to controversial past discoveries.

Phosphine, a toxic gas that astrobiologists have proposed could be associated with the presence of life on rocky planets, was initially detected in Venus’s atmosphere in a surprise discovery four years ago. Now, new observations potentially strengthen those past findings, hinting at the presence of biosignatures that, if confirmed, could mean life forms are able to thrive in the planet’s harsh environment.

A Controversial Discovery on Venus

The initial detection of phosphine in Venus’s oxidized atmosphere was reported in September 2020, when a team of scientists led by Jane Greaves of Cardiff University said they had found evidence of the toxic molecule. The discovery initially led to debate over the possibility that life could exist on Venus, since phosphine is normally associated with organisms that thrive in low-oxygen environments.

The team’s announcement received considerable media attention, and also led to controversy that culminated in rebukes from some in the scientific community. Arguably, the sharpest criticism was leveled by the organizing committee of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Commission F3 on Astrobiology, who even questioned the ethics of Greaves and her team over the manner in which the discovery was revealed.

“It is an ethical duty for any scientist to communicate with the media and the public with great scientific rigour and to be careful not to overstate any interpretation which will be irretrievably picked up by the press,” the commission wrote in an official statement released at the time.

The commission added it “would like to remind the relevant researchers that we need to understand how the press and the media behave before communicating with them.”

Initial follow-up attempts to detect the compound again were unsuccessful. However, last year, Greaves and her team succeeded in detecting phosphine in deeper portions of the planet’s atmosphere during observations made with the James Clark Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) at Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii. Additional detections with NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) also suggested the presence of phosphine, which may originate either within or from below the clouds on Venus.

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MORPHEUS SPACE LAUNCHING FIRST-EVER MASS PRODUCTION FACILITY FOR FIELD EMISSION ELECTRIC PROPULSION SYSTEMS

German propulsion company Morpheus Space has officially opened the world’s first-ever facility designed to mass produce its second-generation field emission electric propulsion (FEEP) system, the GO-2. Dubbed “Reoladed,” the Dresden-based facility will immediately begin production of 100 units of the GO-2, a potentially breakthrough system that uses liquid metal as a propellant.

In an email to The Debrief, company executives explained the growing need for a facility like Reloaded that can quickly and efficiently produce systems like the GO-2, which would provide satellite operators with extended mobility throughout the entire mission.

“One of the biggest problems satellite operators face today is the limited supply of available propulsion systems. We intend to sufficiently scale production of GO-2 to match this growing demand,” explained Morpheus Space President Kevin Lausten. “By offering a more affordable and readily available propulsion system able to facilitate all necessary maneuvers from initial orbit to de-orbit, the GO-2 marks an important leap for the industry.”

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