Space News and Discussions

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SpaceX Debuts 'Mirror Film' to Hide Starlink From Astronomers
The latest batch of 22 satellites has the new reflective coating, but that's a drop in the bucket.
By Ryan Whitwam September 18, 2023

When astronomers train their telescopes at the sky, they might see fewer SpaceX satellites zipping through the frame. After years of complaints from scientists about the high reflectivity of the company's constellation of internet satellites, SpaceX has started using a new "mirror film" that scatters light away from Earth. This could finally end Starlink's interference with ground-based astronomy. But so far, only a handful of the thousands of Starlink nodes have it.

Last week, SpaceX launched 22 new Starlink V2 satellites with a Falcon 9 rocket, showing off the new mirror coating for the first time. In the video below, you can see the highly reflective dielectric mirror film covering the spacecraft. It seems counterintuitive that adding a mirror finish to the satellites would make them less visible from the ground, but that's precisely what Starlink claims.

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https://www.extremetech.com/aerospace/s ... stronomers

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NASA Spacecraft to Return New Asteroid Sample to Earth on Sunday
After scooping material from an asteroid, NASA's OSIRIS-REx is preparing to drop the sample off in Utah before continuing on to more adventures.
By Ryan Whitwam September 22, 2023
https://www.extremetech.com/science/nas ... mple-earth

In just a few days, an important delivery will arrive on our cosmic doorstep. After seven years, NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission will conclude with the arrival of a sample capsule in the Utah desert. Inside, scientists expect to find the largest sample of asteroid regolith ever recovered. Something could still go wrong at the last minute, but we're in the home stretch.

NASA launched OSIRIS-REx in 2016 aboard a ULA Atlas V rocket. It spent two years in cruise mode to reach the asteroid 101955 Bennu. In late 2020, OSIRIS-REx made history when it booped the space rock to collect its sample. Japan's Hayabusa2 mission conducted a similar operation just a year before on the asteroid Ryugu, using dense metal projectiles to blast surface material into the sample container. OSIRIS-REx took a gentler approach with a puff of compressed nitrogen gas. NASA's approach seems to have worked even better than expected. Following the sample collection, the container was so full it didn't seal itself immediately.

The mission's goal was to collect at least 60 grams of material from Bennu, but it may have picked up significantly more. Early estimates have suggested the probe could carry as much as two kilograms of asteroid material. We won't know until the sample container is safely on the ground.

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Giant Magellan Telescope Starts Making its Final Mirror
September 27, 2023 by Brian Wang

The Giant Magellan Telescope begins the four-year process to fabricate and polish its seventh and final primary mirror, the last required to complete the telescope’s 368 square meter light collecting surface.

The Giant Magellan telescope will use adaptive optics to look through the atmosphere with four times the resolution of the James Webb Space Telescope. Once assembled, all seven mirrors will work in together as one monolithic 25.4-meter mirror—a diameter equal to the length of a full-grown blue whale—resulting in up to 200 times the sensitivity and four times the image resolution of today’s most advanced space telescopes. The Giant Magellan Telescope will be the first extremely large telescope to complete its primary mirror array.

Each of the mirrors is 8.4-meters in diameter and weigh about 20 tons each.

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/09/g ... irror.html

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NASA’s New Horizons to Continue Exploring Outer Solar System

Sep 29, 2023

NASA has announced an updated plan to continue New Horizons’ mission of exploration of the outer solar system.

Beginning in fiscal year 2025, New Horizons will focus on gathering unique heliophysics data, which can be readily obtained during an extended, low-activity mode of operations.

While the science community is not currently aware of any reachable Kuiper Belt object, this new path allows for the possibility of using the spacecraft for a future close flyby of such an object, should one be identified. It also will enable the spacecraft to preserve fuel and reduce operational complexity while a search is conducted for a compelling flyby candidate.

“The New Horizons mission has a unique position in our solar system to answer important questions about our heliosphere and provide extraordinary opportunities for multidisciplinary science for NASA and the scientific community,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “The agency decided that it was best to extend operations for New Horizons until the spacecraft exits the Kuiper Belt, which is expected in 2028 through 2029.”

This new, extended mission will be primarily funded by NASA’s Planetary Science Division and jointly managed by NASA’s Heliophysics and Planetary Science Divisions.

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/new-horiz ... 2l9Mre4RyA

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The BlueWalker 3 satellite is officially one of the brightest objects in the sky

By Monisha Ravisetti
published about 4 hours ago

On Monday (Oct. 2), scientists with the International Astronomical Union announced that one of the brightest objects visible in the night sky is not a star or a planet, but rather the BlueWalker 3 prototype satellite.

"It is unacceptably bright for many sky observers around the world," Meredith Rawls, co-author of a paper on the finding and member of the IAU Center for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference (IAU CPS), told Space.com.

Part of an ambitious 5G communications system developed by the company AST SpaceMobile, BlueWalker 3 appears so utterly luminous from our vantage point on Earth because, in addition to a Launch Vehicle Adapter (LVA), it possesses a massive structure known as a phased-array antenna. In fact, BlueWalker 3 is deemed the largest commercial antenna system ever deployed to low-Earth orbit; it was launched there in September of 2022.

That array takes up about 64 square meters (689 square feet) of space — and because those panels are reflective, it's almost like BlueWalker 3 is a giant mirror continuously bouncing sunlight toward our eyes.

And that mirror could soon have company. AST says it envisions about 90 similar satellites roaming the skies in the near future to make what experts call a "satellite constellation," though an AST spokesperson told Space.com that, by contrast, other such constellations are expected to require thousands of satellites to achieve their coverage goals.

https://www.space.com/bluewalker-3-prot ... bjects-sky

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Spain's first private rocket successfully lifts off
https://phys.org/news/2023-10-spain-pri ... fully.html
A Spanish company launched the country’s first private rocket.

A Spanish company launched the country's first private rocket on Saturday in a step towards bringing Spain into the exclusive club of space-faring nations.

The launch of the small MIURA1 rocket took place at 02:19 am (0019 GMT) from a military base in the southern region of Andalusia, according to the company, PLD Space.

The company hailed the launch as "successful" and said it had achieved all its "technical objectives", with the rocket rising 46 kilometers (29 miles) above the Gulf of Cadiz.

After five minutes in flight, it landed in the Atlantic Ocean, where PLD Space said it would send a team to recover it.

The launch was hailed as a "milestone" by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in a posting on social media.

"The launch of Miura 1, the first rocket built 100% with Spanish technology, has been successful, a milestone that positions Spanish research, development and innovation at the forefront of space transport," he wrote on X, formerly Twitter, congratulating PLD Space.

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Amazon launches test satellites for its planned internet service to compete with SpaceX
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-10-ama ... pacex.html
by Marcia Dunn

Amazon launched the first test satellites for its planned internet service on Friday as a rival to SpaceX's broadband network.

United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket blasted off with the pair of test satellites, kicking off a program that aims to improve global internet coverage with an eventual 3,236 satellites around Earth.

Amazon plans to begin offering service by the end of next year.

Elon Musk's SpaceX has a huge head start over Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos, who has his own rocket company, Blue Origin.