WASHINGTON — NASA is considering cutting the budget of two of its biggest space telescopes as it faces broader spending reductions for its astrophysics programs.
In an Oct. 13 presentation to the National Academies’ Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics, Mark Clampin, director of NASA’s astrophysics division, said he was studying unspecified cuts in the operating budgets of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope to preserve funding for other priorities in the division.
“We’re working with the expectation that FY24 budgets stay at the ’23 levels,” he said. “That means that we have decided to reduce the budget for missions in extended operations, and that is Chandra and Hubble.”
Clampin declined to say how much the budgets of those two observatories would be cut, or specific impacts on them because of the cuts. He indicated the proposed cuts are still being studied, noting that he was able to make a “positive adjustment” for Chandra just in the last week.
Chandra and Hubble are the two most expensive NASA astrophysics missions to operate after the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA requested $93.3 million for Hubble and $68.7 million for Chandra in its fiscal year 2024 budget proposal, in line with past years’ budgets. Combined, they represent a little more than 10% of the fiscal year 2024 budget request for NASA astrophysics.
They are also among the two oldest NASA missions, with Hubble launched in 1990 and Chandra in 1999. Clampin suggested that was a reason for reducing their budgets. “Chandra has a number of issues right now. It’s becoming increasing difficult to operate,” he said. Insulation on the spacecraft’s exterior is degrading, warming the spacecraft and making operations increasing difficult.
“While Hubble doesn’t have those issues,” he added, “it has been operating for a long time and it is a large piece of the astrophysics budget.”
Clampin said he was planning two “mini senior reviews” for Chandra and Hubble, likely in May 2024 after the release of the fiscal year 2025 budget proposal. NASA conducts senior reviews to decide whether and how to extend science spacecraft that have completed their primary missions.
In the last astrophysics senior review in 2022, Chandra and Hubble were effectively exempted, with separate panels studying each mission to look for efficiencies and other improvements rather that examining if the mission itself should be extended.
“Hubble and Chandra occupy the top tier given their immense, broad impact on astronomy,” the final report of the 2022 senior review stated. “Both missions are operating at extremely high efficiency, and although they are increasingly showing signs of age, both are likely to continue to generate world-class science throughout the next half decade, operating in concert with JWST as it begins its flagship role.”
Clampin said any savings from Chandra and Hubble would go to other astrophysics priorities. “What we are trying to do, though, is protect future missions and developing missions and international partnerships,” he said. That includes the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, smaller Explorer-class astrophysics missions, and NASA’s role on missions led by other nations, such as ESA’s LISA gravitational-wave observatory and the Israeli Ultrasat ultraviolet observatory.
He said he also wanted to protect early work on the Habitable Worlds Observatory, the next flagship astrophysics mission after Roman slated to launch in the 2040s. “It’s absolutely fundamental to keep moving Habitable Worlds Observatory forward,” he said. That includes the first call for proposals to develop key technologies for that large space telescope and funding teams studying science and technology topics for it.
He added that NASA is also considering “small reductions” to other operating missions, which he did not identify, as well as reductions in technology development spending.
All those plans, he said, were to protect against potential sharp cuts in astrophysics. A Senate version of a commerce, justice and science (CJS) spending bill for fiscal year 2024 would give NASA astrophysics $1.544 billion, short of the request but still above the $1.51 billion it received in 2023. House appropriators have yet to publicly release details about its CJS spending bill.
“It’s entirely possible when we get an appropriation, given what you see on the news every day, we could be even well below the ’23 level,” he warned the committee. “It’s not a happy outlook out there.”
Charlie Hurley spent most of his career in college athletics. Before applying for a Spaceport America public information officer job, the former New Mexico State assistant athletics director considered the idea carefully.
“It was an intimidation factor for me. I didn’t have any knowledge base in aerospace, zero,” Hurley said.
Still, he recognized the potential.
“We’ve all seen the projections of space as a $1.2 trillion or $1.3 trillion industry by 2040,” Hurley said.
Public and private organizations in New Mexico are undertaking a concerted campaign to ensure citizens know of opportunities to work in the burgeoning space economy.
Starting in elementary school and continuing through early careers, companies and government agencies are developing curriculum, mentoring and career services to encourage students and young professionals to opt for space-related jobs. They call the concept Pathways to the Stars.
Casey DeRaad, CEO of NewSpace Nexus, an Albuquerque-based nonprofit with a mission to “unite and ignite” the space industry nationally, tells companies, “You can’t just think about the workforce when you’re doing job placement.” She urges executives to fund robotics clubs and rocket programs, provide internships and serve as mentors.
Nationwide demand
Expanding the space workforce is a challenge nationwide. The number of U.S. students working toward engineering degrees has declined annually since 2019. According to the National Student Clearinghouse spring 2023 report, community colleges and vocational schools show similar trends.
Manufacturing jobs, meanwhile, are becoming harder to fill.
“Largely this is due to phenomena where we are seeing the United States increase its manufacturing base writ large,” said Tom Roeder, Space Foundation senior data analyst. “From microchips to automobiles, a lot more things are being built in the United States, largely due to supply chain problems that we experienced during COVID.”
“The space industry is growing by leaps and bounds, but the workforce is not keeping pace with that,” Steve Isakowitz, Aerospace Corp. president and CEO, said in September at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco.
Middle school students carry the model rocket they launched while participating in an AFRL STEM program in New Mexico. Credit: AFRL
Many efforts to expand the space workforce focus in part on attracting women, people of color and employees from other industries. Through Space Workforce 2030, for example, 30 companies have joined forces “to build a stronger, more vibrant and inclusive workforce essential to the future success of our industry. Instead of competing for talent, we are growing talent,” Isakowitz said.
Pathways to the stars
In the United States, Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida and Texas have vibrant space economies, partly thanks to the presence of government and prime contractor facilities and the startups they attract. Arizona, Michigan, New York, Virginia and Washington are among the states making concerted efforts to support existing space businesses and attract new ones.
What’s happening in New Mexico is unusual because of its breadth. Schools and companies are working with local and state agencies and nonprofits like NewSpace Nexus to establish Pathways to the Stars.
New Mexico, with about 2.1 million residents in a state roughly the size of Germany, has the nation’s highest concentration of aerospace jobs per capita, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. As a result, aerospace is of greater relative importance for a state that ranks 36th in population than in states with larger populations and more diverse economies.
“Where we see the biggest challenge is the educational profile of the industry,” said Sarita Nair, cabinet secretary for New Mexico’s Department of Workforce Solutions.
About 27,000 people, or 3.2 percent of the workforce, are tied to New Mexico’s aerospace industry. In July 2023, there were 3,720 advertised job openings for aerospace workers across the state, Nair said.
Most of the openings were research and development related and required highly skilled workers with advanced degrees. But New Mexico colleges and universities only awarded 68 aerospace engineering bachelor’s degrees, two master’s degrees and one doctorate in 2021 and 2022.
“Now, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t people with a broader educational profile that could end up working in the industry,” Nair said. “But it speaks to the strength of the Pathways to the Stars approach. We want people thinking about these careers as they go from middle school to high school, thinking about the classes they want, and as they go from high school to picking a college and picking a major.”
“We need to be exciting people about aerospace because we are now at the place where there’s legitimate demand,” Nair said. “This is no longer, ‘Hey, little 6-year-old, maybe by the time you Right: Middle school students carry the model rocket they launched while participating in an AFRL STEM program in New Mexico. graduate college, there will be a job for you.’ It’s ‘Hey, college sophomore, maybe take these two extra courses because we have a job waiting for you tomorrow.’”
Space Valley
New Mexico has a wealth of military space-related assets at Kirtland Air Force Base, including the Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles and Directed Energy Directorates, the Space Systems Command’s Prototyping and Innovation Directorate and the Space Rapid Capabilities Office.
On the commercial side is Spaceport America. There, anchor tenant Virgin Galactic’s VMS Eve mothership aircraft takes off to send private astronaut customers on suborbital spaceflights in the VSS Unity spaceplane.
“It’s been the hope and strategy of the state for many years to figure out how to take the strengths in the various disciplines and translate them into commercial opportunities,” said Randy Trask, New Mexico Trade Alliance president. “All of a sudden now, space, an area where we have a huge competitive advantage just happens to be aligned with a sector that could potentially grow into the largest sector we’ve ever seen.”
As a result, the state is looking at ways to help the space sector grow through education, investment and workforce development.
“Workforce is a challenge, unfortunately, right now, through all industry sectors,” Trask said. “It will take regional organization to start making investments in strategic areas where we think workforce is going to be needed. That’s not astrophysicists. That’s a blue-collar workforce that’s trained for when space technologies move into mass production.”
The Space Valley Coalition, which Trask leads as principal investigator, is one of 16 finalists competing for $160 million in National Science Foundation funding over 10 years to expand the region’s commercial space economy. Winners of the NSF Regional Innovations Engines Competition will be selected by the end of the year.
Space Valley stretches from southern New Mexico north to Colorado Springs, home of U.S. Space Command.
“We have an insane amount of assets spread out between Colorado and New Mexico that are all doing very important things,” Trask said. “The goal of the Space Valley Coalition is regional coordination to make them work better together, towards a collective vision.”
Feedback cycle
Space companies often come to New Mexico for government work.
Virginia-based Blue Halo established its first manufacturing facility in Albuquerque “because of the proximity to our customers and the innovative work done here,” Mary Clum, BlueHalo sector general manager and corporate executive vice president, said by email. “And as more industry partners like us choose New Mexico, more federal dollars and resources flow to the state. This synergy has created a feedback cycle driving even more research, investment and resources in the state – as witnessed by the growth of the U.S. Space Force presence in Albuquerque and the potential STARCOM announcement on the horizon.”
The U.S. Air Force named Kirtland Air Force Base as the preferred location for Space Delta 11, the Space Training and Readiness Command unit — STARCOM —in charge of training ranges and squadrons to serve as enemy units for wargames and exercises. A final decision is expected later this year.
BlackSky, based in Herndon, Virginia, has offices in Albuquerque, Denver and Seattle.“We have employees now in 28 states,” said Peter Wegner, BlackSky chief technology officer. “We’ve got to hire the talent wherever we can find it. It’s a very difficult war for talent. And it’s going to get worse in the next five years as the baby boomers hit the peak of retirement.”
As a result, Wegner is building relationships with universities, including schools like New Mexico State University, that help students obtain security clearances while performing national security research projects.
“Then when they graduate, they’re ready to hit the ground running,” Wegner said.
Center of gravity
Ever since Los Alamos was given a lead role in the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb, New Mexico has been a hub for national security work. The focus on space is a more recent development.
With the AFRL and Space Force organizations, “you have a natural center of gravity for space science and technology, research and development,” said Stanley Straight, technical director for the Space Systems Command Innovation and Prototyping Acquisition Delta. “In my personal opinion, I think you’ll find that New Mexico is going to become more important within the Space Force activity and to the nation as we build systems that are resilient and ready to protect and defend our national interest.”
Richard Scott Erwin, chief scientist for AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate, agreed.
“It’s definitely been building over time,” said Erwin, who moved to New Mexico in 1997. “Between the level of commercial space activity and the buildup of more government-focused organizations, we’re really starting to see a nice ecosystem here for high-tech advanced space capabilities.”
This article originally appeared in the October 2023 issue of SpaceNews magazine.
Shelli Brunswick is the chief operating officer of the Space Foundation, Colorado Springs, Colorado.
It was only a matter of time and effort before the world woke up to the reality of India’s space ascendancy. When the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) Vikram lander made history by softly touching down on the Moon’s south pole, it was a defining moment not just for India but for all of humanity, and in the public square, there is today a broader awareness that India is a formidable space leader.
For those who have followed India’s space journey to this point, the success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission was not particularly surprising. As I wrote in 2021, the nation’s space ecosystem has been approaching an inflection point, wherein decades of investment, research, sweat and tears brought India to its current space maturity. The Chandrayaan-3 mission is a perfect example of India crossing the threshold to a new era of space activity. While the August 2023 Moon landing is a shining star on India’s space lapel, Chandrayaan-3 is just one part of a larger Indian space ecosystem that is growing rapidly.
Indeed, the Moon landing was not the culmination of India’s space journey. It was simply the next step, and we should expect more activity, accomplishments and access to opportunity as India marches forward in space. To understand what is changing and why it is important for India’s trajectory, consider some of the vital ingredients in India’s space recipe that are helping it realize its grand space ambitions.
Government Demand and Space Policy
A core challenge for any spacefaring nation is connecting government demand with private sector offerings. When businesses can directly satisfy the needs of government agencies, they have a reliable revenue stream that allows them to simultaneously develop intellectual property (IP) and look for other customers in the domestic and global space markets. This has been a stubborn hurdle for India’s private space sector. As Satsearch COO Dr. Narayan Prasad told me in 2021, the two opportunities for India to break through this logjam are opening up government end users directly to the private sector and developing a procurement mechanism for acquiring private sector services and solutions.
Enter: Indian Space Policy 2023. The strategic approach is clear: “Indian consumers of space technology or services (such as communication, remote sensing, data services, launch services, etc.), whether from public or private sectors, shall be free to directly procure them from any source, whether private or public.”
The policy moves toward opening up government demand in part by standing up and defining three stakeholder organizations instrumental in connecting the dots. ISRO’s mandate is to focus on R&D and developing new technologies. NewSpace India Limited, a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU), is absorbing the operational components of ISRO’s activities, including launch vehicle assembly and integration. And the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe) serves as the interface between ISRO and non-governmental organizations. Together, these three organizations provide entry points and advocates for the Indian private space sector, in turn unlocking IP, revenue, and the potential for companies to compete in the marketplace.
To be sure, change is hard, and a new space policy does not on its own resolve the challenge.
“What I keep hearing from space startups, especially younger startups, is that IN-SPACe is dominated by leaders from the traditional contractors,” said Arpit Chaturvedi, CEO of Global Policy Insights. “The leaders don’t hear the concerns of the new startups. What happens is most startups are still working on delivering on demands for the government via ISRO.”
Still, the new space policy and delineation of responsibilities across three coordinated organizations shows that India is on a path that can open private sector opportunity to satisfy government demand.
Launch Capabilities
India does not have just one indigenous launch vehicle; it has five operational with a sixth on the way. The PSLV and GSLV are reliable workhorses that have been sending items to orbit for years. A somewhat newer system, the Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM3), is showing its capabilities, including sending Chandrayaan-3 on its way to the Moon.
There is an interesting development with the fourth launch system developed by ISRO, the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV). Designed to lift small satellites into orbit at a lower cost compared to using one of the other systems, SSLV had its first successful flight and payload deployment in February this year. And almost as soon as it was ready, the announcement came that the SSLV would be transferred to private sector control.
In addition to these systems, there are Indian companies developing private launch systems, and two in particular are ahead of the pack. Agnikul Cosmos is developing a single-stage, 3D-printed launch system, and in 2022, it opened India’s first private space launch facility. Skyroot Aerospace, meanwhile, is operating India’s first privately made launch system, the Vikram-1.
“Right now, we are the only player who had a launch, and there is one more player who may launch soon [in the Indian launch market],” said Pawan Chandana, cofounder and CEO of Skyroot. “SSLV is being transferred to a private consortium, which is a two-year process. This would lead to there being three private players and amp up the competition. This is good for all. There will be a push to enable more launches and to develop infrastructure used by everyone. There are more pros than cons.”
Ultimately, when it comes to accessing space, India’s options are many, and while an indigenous launch system is not necessarily a prerequisite for a country to lead in the global space ecosystem, the fact that India has so much lift capacity bodes well for ambitious missions and launch cadence.
National Security
Economic issues are national security issues. Because space today is appropriately viewed as critical infrastructure enabling core elements of the modern economy (e.g., telecommunications, Earth observation for agriculture), disruption to space access and operations is an economic concern and, thus, a national security priority. This is true for all spacefaring nations, but with India, the competition is close to home.
India is bordered by regional geopolitical competitors, with Pakistan to the northwest and China to the northeast. While Pakistan’s space capabilities are at best nascent, China is rapidly maturing as a space power. In 2007, much to the world’s dismay, China tested an anti-satellite weapon (ASAT) and destroyed one of its weather satellites, which resulted in debris speeding dangerously in Earth’s orbit. In 2019, India’s Mission Shakti tested an anti-satellite weapon, joining the small club of nations with the capability (also including the United States and Russia).
“India definitely is joining the Quad in space,” said Chaturvedi, referring to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which includes the United States, Australia, Japan and India. ”Once you look at areas of defense that might seem peripheral right now, such as space or artificial intelligence, there India finds a lot of collaboration with the United States, Australia and Japan, for two reasons. First, they have capabilities, and Russia does not have those capabilities. Second, all of these nations seem to be on the opposite side from China, and that’s really what drives what India is doing. You can shroud it in the words of common values, but a lot of it is finding your friends now because this space will grow. Even the Artemis Accords favor the early birds, and India’s idea is to join that early bird club.”
The insight is that India, like its peers, is approaching space as a potentially contested, warfighting domain, as well as critical infrastructure that must be protected like any other infrastructure. India’s Defence Space Agency was created in 2018 to run national security space operations, and a recently announced initiative holds the potential to connect government needs with private sector innovation. India’s Mission Defence Space is an initiative to develop offensive and defensive space capabilities for the Indian military branches by presenting the private sector with 75 challenges for innovative solutions that satisfy defense requirements. The opportunity could be significant for growing businesses, whether because government military acquisitions are lucrative or because the resulting IP can be used to create commercial products.
Pride and Inspiration
Few things are as inspirational as bold space missions. The final moments of the Chandrayaan-3 mission were watched live by millions of people worldwide. After the success, celebration erupted across India as people took to the streets to cheer and revel in the nation’s accomplishment. The Indian Prime Minister spoke at length to the country. ISRO leaders were surrounded by reporters. Indian expats published congratulatory op-eds in news outlets globally, while world leaders released statements congratulating India and promising ongoing collaboration.
It was a moment Indians will remember, particularly the young people and students who, full of pride and confidence in opportunity, contemplate their own future in the global space community. In the moments before and after the landing, untold numbers of young Indian minds were ignited with the idea that science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects and space accomplishments are exciting and available to them. One small roll for the Vikram lander yielded a giant leap in the passion and fascination that can lead someone on a lifelong journey of learning and participation in the space community. This pride and wonder will serve India as it develops the space workforce that can sustain and drive its space ambition.
“With our deep competence with high cost-efficiency, there is great potential,” said Chandana. “The temperament in India is going to grow with more missions. It is a great sense of pride that in one of the hardest sectors, space, we are among the top nations. There is a lot of inspiration that flows from the fact that we have the capability to be one of the top players in a deep technology industry, like space. It will inspire kids and attract more people into STEM fields, which will help the whole sector.”
Just 10 days after the historic lunar landing, India launched the Aditya-L1 mission to study the sun. The scientific spacecraft is currently on its way to Lagrange point L1, nearly 1 million miles from Earth. Looking ahead, there is a planned IRSO science mission to Venus that could depart in late 2024. And there is growing momentum to send a crewed spacecraft into orbit as soon as 2025. These are the ambitions of an ascendant space power, and India has crossed its inflection point. Considering space policy, launch capacity, national security interests, and pride of country, India has the ingredients to pursue its space journey for the betterment of the country and people the world over.
LOS ANGELES – In spite of its name, the Asteroid Mining Corp. is not banking on the space resources market materializing anytime soon.
“We are a robotics company with asteroid-mining aspirations,” Mitch Hunter-Scullion, Asteroid Mining Corp. CEO and founder, said Oct. 11 at the Space Economy Summit here. “Space resources is a very exciting industry. But it’s one which, let’s be honest, isn’t currently existing fully into its mature sense.”
In the near term, the London-based startup will offer services with an six-legged, 20-kilogram robot called Space Capable Asteroid Robotic-Explorer. SCAR-E, unveiled onstage at the Summit, lifted legs individually to perform what Hunter-Scullion, a Scottish techno-futurist, called “a wee dance.”
“We are coming for you Boston Dynamics,” Hunter-Scullion said. “You have four legs. We have six. Our go-to-market strategy is to go to the industrial inspection market and go to places which four legged robots cannot.”
SCAR-E’s Future
Once six-finger grippers are attached to its feet, SCAR-E will be able to scale walls and inspect ship hulls among other tasks. For future applications like lunar crater exploration and asteroid prospecting, SCAR-E’s mechanical and electronic components will be tightly encased to keep out regolith.
Wheeled rovers have proven useful on the moon or Mars. But they may have trouble with steep slopes.
“If you wanted to go into the Shackleton crater on the moon, you’re not going to be to get there with wheels,” Hunter-Scullion said.
Asteroid Mining Corp. will offer services with an six-legged, 20-kilogram robot called Space Capable Asteroid Robotic-Explorer (SCAR-E). Credit: SpaceNews/Debra Werner
The privately funded Asteroid Mining Corp., established in 2016, calls itself the UK’s first space mining company. In addition to its London headquarters, Asteroid Mining Corp. has a research laboratory in Sendai, Japan, and a U.S. division in Atlanta.
While offering SCAR-E for commercial industrial applications, Asteroid Mining Corp. will develop Alchemist-1, a materials-processing satellite.
“We are looking for International Space Station and lunar applications for this very robot in about 2026, 2027,” Hunter-Scullion said. “Beyond that, we’d be looking to validate target selection for an expedition-class mission. Then, towards the end of this decade, if not the early 2030s, we’d be looking to send this very robot or its son up to the asteroids in order to start exploring the resources so the humanity can take advantage of our celestial backyard.”
WASHINGTON — NASA’s plans to buy future launches of the Space Launch System as a service are unlikely to achieve hoped-for cost savings, the agency’s inspector general concluded, recommending NASA keep its options open for alternative launch vehicles.
In an Oct. 12 report, NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) concluded a 50% reduction in SLS launch costs projected by NASA by moving to a services contract is “highly unrealistic,” with the vehicle’s cost likely to remain above $2 billion for the foreseeable future.
NASA announced in July 2022 its intent to move to a services contract, called Exploration Production and Operations Contract (EPOC), for missions starting with Artemis 5 at the end of the 2020s. That contract would be with Deep Space Transport, a joint venture of Boeing and Northrop Grumman, the two major contractors for elements of the rocket.
NASA previously said it was seeking “a substantial savings of 50% or more off of the current industry baseline per flight cost” of SLS by shifting to EPOC. It would also open the door to using SLS for missions other than Artemis lunar exploration flights, including non-NASA customers.
The OIG report concluded both reduced costs and additional customers for SLS were unlikely. That report estimates the Block 1B version of SLS, to be used starting with Artemis 4, will initially cost $2.5 billion per flight. A 50% cost reduction under EPOC would mean the SLS costs would be reduced to $1.25 billion each.
However, NASA officials acknowledged that the 50% cost reduction goal was “aspirational and not based on actual analysis,” and OIG was skeptical it could be achieved. “While Boeing officials told us they believe the 50 percent cost reduction goal under EPOC is achievable, based on our audit we find such a goal infeasible.”
That skepticism came from assessments of ongoing efforts to reduce costs that have not achieved expected savings, such as on assembly of core stages for SLS and the restart of production of the RS-25 engine. A lack of competition, the report added, will make it difficult for NASA to negotiate cost reductions, contrasting it to competition in other launch services and commercial crew.
OIG concluded that, based on its assessment of existing contracts and affordability initiatives, the cost of the SLS will remain at more than $2 billion per vehicle through the first 10 launches under the EPOC contract. It added that the extent of cost savings may also depend on the use of fixed-price versus cost-plus approaches for EPOC.
Part of that cost-reduction strategy is finding additional customers for SLS that can increase the vehicle’s flight rate and reduce per-vehicle costs. However, the report noted that efforts to find other users of the SLS, including the Defense Department, have been unsuccessful, with those potential users instead opting for existing or new vehicles under development by Blue Origin, SpaceX and United Launch Alliance.
The OIG report suggested that while SLS is currently the only vehicle capable of launching the Orion spacecraft, that may not always be the case. “However, in the next 3 to 5 years other human-rated commercial alternatives may become available,” it stated. “In our judgment, the Agency should continue to monitor the commercial development of heavy-lift space flight systems and begin discussions of whether it makes financial and strategic sense to consider these options as part of the Agency’s longer-term plans to support its ambitious space exploration goals.”
The OIG report was the second in as many months critical of the costs of SLS, a key element of NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration architecture. A Sept. 7 report by the Government Accountability Office criticized NASA for a lack of transparency on SLS costs as those costs grow under existing contracts.
“Senior agency officials have told us that at current cost levels the SLS program is unsustainable and exceeds what NASA officials believe will be available for its Artemis missions,” the GAO report stated. It acknowledged efforts like EPOC to reduce SLS costs, but noted it was too early to evaluate how effective they could be.
HELSINKI — A Chinese satellite manufacturer and operator has conducted satellite-to-ground laser tests that will improve its ability to get remote sensing data to Earth.
Changguang Satellite Technology (CGST) carried out the test with its Jilin-1 MF02A04 remote sensing satellite and a vehicle-mounted laser communication ground station Oct. 5.
“The communication bandwidth of this satellite-to-ground laser image transmission test reached 10Gbps, which is more than 10 times the traditional microwave data transmission bandwidth,” Wang Xingxing, technical director of CGST laser communication ground station, said in a statement.
“In the future, Changguang Satellite plans to expand this bandwidth to 40Gbps ~100Gbps.” The new ground stations will be deployed in numerous locations across China to greatly improve the Jilin-1 remote sensing image data acquisition, the statement read.
CGST is based in Changchun, capital of northeastern Jilin province, for which the constellation is named. The firm is an offshoot from the state-owned Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics (CIOMP) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
Established in 2014, CGST has more than 100 satellites in orbit. A number of Jilin-1 Gaofen (“high resolution”) satellites return panchromatic images with a resolution of 0.75 meters.
The company announced last year that it intends to expand its Jilin-1 constellation from a planned 138 satellites to 300 satellites by 2025. The expansion of the Jilin-1 constellation follows concerns raised by China over the use of U.S. commercial satellite constellations in the Ukraine conflict, including communications via SpaceX’s Starlink satellites but also imagery from companies such as Maxar.
CGST conducted an earlier laser data transmission test in June this year in cooperation with CAS’s Aerospace Information Research Institute (AIR). CGST began work on the test in March 2020, resulting in the high-bandwidth, miniaturized laser communications terminal.
Chinese state media touted the breakthrough with the vehicle-mounted ground station as China’s first successful test of a domestically developed, commercial satellite-based high-speed laser image transmission.
CGST has already begun adding laser terminals to some of its satellites launched this year. It is also working on inter-satellite links, which will help China get around a relative lack of global ground station access.
Satellite ground segment providers around the globe are looking at the viability of satellite-to-ground optical communications, noting both challenges and opportunities.
A recent AFP report states that CGST sold, via intermediaries, two 75-centimeter-resolution satellites to Russia’s private paramilitary organization Wagner Group, according to a contract seen by the news agency.
“The satellite images were also used to assist Wagner’s operations in Africa and even its failed mutiny in June which has led now to the de-facto break up of the group followed by the death of Prigozhin and other key figures in an air crash in August, a European security source told AFP,” the report read.The U.S. earlier this year placed sanctions on Spacety, another CAS spinoff, for alleged supply of synthetic aperture radar imagery of locations in Ukraine to Wagner Group.
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A new study of the microbial ecosystem in sourdough finds that using different types of flour fosters distinct bacterial communities, and that these differences contribute to the variation of sourdough aromas and flavors.
“People bake sourdough all over the world, and our previous research shed light on the tremendous variation in the types of microbes found in sourdough starters, and how those microbes influence the aroma of sourdough and how quickly it rises,” says Erin McKenney, corresponding author of the study and an assistant professor of applied ecology at North Carolina State University.
“Our new work focuses on the role that different types of flour play in shaping those microbial ecosystems. As it turns out, the flour bakers use to ‘feed’ their starters plays a significant role in determining which types of bacteria thrive. And that, in turn, strongly influences the aroma that these sourdoughs produce.
“In other words, our findings show that bakers can influence the aroma of their sourdough by using different flours, because those flours will foster different communities of bacteria.”
For the study, researchers developed a protocol designed to reproduce what bakers actually do in their kitchens. The researchers created four sourdough starters using 10 different flours, for a total of 40 starters. The researchers used five flours that included gluten: unbleached all-purpose flour, red turkey wheat, emmer, rye, and einkorn; and five gluten-free flours: teff, millet, sorghum, buckwheat, and amaranth. The 40 starters were kept in the same growing environment and were fed once a day for 14 days.
The researchers collected data from each starter daily. This included measuring pH and height, as well as recording the aromas produced by each starter. The researchers also took samples of the starters for DNA sequencing to determine the diversity and abundance of bacteria in each sample.
“We found that the starters started out being fairly similar to each other, but that changed substantially over time,” McKenney says. “Over the course of the 14 days, we found that each type of flour formed increasingly distinct microbial communities. Essentially, it appears that different types of bacteria are able to make the most of the nutritional compounds found in different types of flour.”
And when you have different bacterial communities thriving on different nutritional inputs, you get a wide variety of metabolic outputs. In other words, different bacteria produce different smells.
“For example, the bacterial community in amaranth sourdough produces an aroma that smells almost exactly like ham,” McKenney says. “I’ve never smelled a sourdough that had such a meaty aroma. Rye produces a fruity aroma, buckwheat has an earthy smell, and so on. There’s a tremendous amount of variation.”
There were also a couple surprises.
“One surprise was that rye flour fostered a much wider diversity of bacteria than any other type of flour,” McKenney says. “We found more than 30 types of bacteria in the rye starters at maturity. The next highest was buckwheat, which had 22 types of bacteria. All of the other flours had between three and 14.”
The researchers also found that seven of the 10 flours produced starters that included high levels of bacteria which produce acetic acid. Only starters made using teff, amaranth, and buckwheat were lacking the acetic acid bacteria.
“These acetic acid-producing bacteria made up between 12.6% and 45.8% of the bacteria in the starters from those seven flours,” McKenney says. “So it’s playing a significant role in those microbial ecosystems. This is surprising because we didn’t even know this type of bacteria was found in sourdough until 2020. Our previous work found that it was not uncommon, but to see it at such high levels, across so many types of flour, was definitely interesting.”
And while all of this is scientifically compelling, it also offers some practical insights for sourdough bakers.
“This study offers insights into how bakers can modify the flour they’re using in their starters to get the aromas and flavors they’re looking for,” McKenney says. “We also found that the starters took 10 days to become ‘functionally mature,’ or ready for baking. And that’s useful for bakers to know, too.”
The paper appears in the journal PeerJ. Coauthors are from NC State; the University of West Florida; The Exploris School; Moore Square Middle School; River Bend Middle School; and Ligon Middle School.
The research had support from the National Science Foundation.
TAMPA, Fla. — SES has found its next CEO from outside the space sector with the appointment of Adel Al-Saleh, head of German telco Deutsche Telekom’s IT services subsidiary who will lead the multi-orbit operator from February.
Al-Saleh is replacing Guy Pinto, the operator’s former chief technology officer who stepped into the role just weeks after Steve Collar announced his surprise resignation in June.
Pinto will remain a member of the Luxembourg-based company’s executive team until June 2024, when he will assume the position of strategic advisor to the CEO.
Milton Torres, who succeeded Pinto as chief technology officer on an interim basis, is staying in the role.
Al-Saleh has been CEO of Deutsche Telekom’s T-Systems International since 2018, helping digitize communications infrastructure to transform the company into a more integrated IT services provider.
He has also spent nearly two decades in multiple senior leadership roles with IBM, culminating in 2006 as vice president and general manager of sales and industries for the IBM Northeast Europe Integrated Operating Team.
In 2007, he joined healthcare-focused IT firm IMS Health (now IQVIA) as president for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and was later named its president for the United States.
In 2011, he was made CEO of Northgate Information Solutions to help reshape the human resources-focused IT provider’s strategy following its sale to private equity firm KKR.
A citizen of the United States and the United Kingdom, Al-Saleh earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Boston University, and he received his Master of Business Administration from Florida Atlantic University.
SES’s decision to appoint a CEO from outside the space industry follows Eutelsat’s move nearly two years ago to bring in Eva Berneke, formerly head of Danish IT and software company KMD, to lead the French satellite operator.
Both SES and Eutelsat are keen to integrate more of their space businesses with terrestrial telecoms infrastructure in a fast-evolving satellite communications market.
Karim Michel Sabbagh, who led SES from April 2014 to April 2018 when he was replaced by Collar, also joined the operator from outside the space sector, having most recently served as a senior partner for consultancy firm Booz Allen.
Al-Saleh’s appointment comes at an important juncture for SES, which is looking for ways to boost its fleet across geostationary and medium Earth orbit as around $3 billion is coming its way from successfully clearing C-band spectrum.
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The need for quick and “real-time” forecasting of tropical cyclones is more necessary than ever given the impact of climate change on rainfall amounts, say researchers.
Two climate scientists take this idea further by suggesting a storyline case study of Hurricane Ian in 2022 can be used as a blueprint for rapid operational climate change attribution statements about extreme storms. Their premise appears in a paper in the journal Environmental Research: Climate.
Coauthors Kevin A. Reed, a professor and associate dean of research in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, and Michael F. Wehner of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, note that tropical cyclones such as Hurricane Ian are devastating events worldwide, endangering lives and causing damage costing billions of dollars to repair. Therefore, the public, media, and governmental leaders affected by such extreme storms turn to scientists to understand more about the weather event and how climate change may have affected it.
In the paper, the authors point out that previously it has taken months or even years after extreme storms for scientific studies to supply results on how such storms were impacted by climate change. Their work shifts this paradigm by providing a tropical cyclone rainfall rapid attribution methodology designed for use by operational climate change attribution centers.
Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida on September 22, 2022. While the storm was still over Florida, Reed and Wehner used social media to alert the public that climate change increased Ian’s total rainfall by at least 10%. They also further informed the public and officials of this phenomenon, along with the media, via their quick scientific work during and in the immediate aftermath of the storm.
Their initial statement was a deliberately conservative lower bound given the brief period of time available for analysis. Subsequent analysis supports the published “best estimate” of the precipitation increase due to human induced climate of 18%.
Using a previously developed and tested hindcast attribution methodology in near real-time, the researchers demonstrated that Ian storyline rapid assessments of tropical cyclones can be completed during extreme storms. The authors state that “such rapid assessment offers scientists a useful tool in answering questions about the climate change effect on individual extreme weather events as they unfold.”
“Hurricane Ian was an ideal candidate for this type of imposed global warming framework as we were able to complete our simulations and analysis of it because its path was fairly predictable,” Reed explains. “This is not always the case as simulated paths of certain storms, such as Superstorm Sandy, are extremely sensitive to weather perturbations. But regardless, we need more attribution statements on how extreme storms are being affected by climate change and provide them to the public quickly.”
The authors further point out that storyline attribution methods can be useful when traditional event attribution methods are not tractable. This is particularly the case in developing nations where the high-quality, long-time weather observations necessary for traditional climate change attribution may not be available but weather forecasts demonstrate adequate skill. This capability can then inform decision makers in future loss and damage negotiations.
The research leading to this paper had support in part from the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science and from the Stony Brook Foundation’s Minghua Zhang Early Career Faculty Innovation Fund.
High-performance computing support was provided by the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Computational and Information Systems Laboratory, sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Work at Berkeley Lab was supported by the director, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research of the US Department of Energy under the Regional and Global Model Analysis (RGMA) program.
At the rally in support of Israel that took place on Boston Common on Monday, I saw a man in an orange T-shirt with the words “Jews don’t deport Jews” on it. It appeared to be a vintage protest T-shirt from the time that many Israelis—and in particular many in the religious Zionist community—opposed the evacuation of Jewish settlements in the Gaza strip in 2005.
I overheard him telling someone that the evacuation of Gush Katif—a section of Israeli settlements in southern Gaza that were evacuated in 2005—led directly to this moment. Putting aside the accuracy of that assessment, it seems likely that many in the community will be drawing similar conclusions.
After the Oslo Accords in 1993, the disengagement from Gaza was the main event that led to the alienation of many religious Zionists from the government and provided an impetus for new theologies that helped to produce the extreme fringes of the religious right. Though I hope it will not be the case, it seems possible that this moment will further empower the sometimes violent extremism of those fringe movements.
At the same time, there are religious Zionist groups who are holding on to the more compassionate teachings of leaders like the late Rabbi Yehuda Amital. In the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War of 1973, Rabbi Amital gave a remarkable speech in which he urged the religious Zionist community to engage in internal introspection about the causes for the war rather than rushing to point the finger of blame elsewhere. He also wrote about the religious meaning of the war and the State of Israel, while taking care to avoid the kind of dogmatic messianism of those who claim to know the precise ways of God’s working in the world.
I think this kind of ethos still motivates many in the religious Zionist community today. I can’t say they are the most vocal or numerous segment of the community, but they exist and have an important voice.
