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FINALLY! Starship’s Next Giant Leap

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SpaceX may have just dropped its biggest hint yet about what comes after Starship Flight 13. Indeed, FINALLY! Starship’s Next Giant Leap may be here as the new filings point toward an Orbital Return Demo that could mark the next major milestone on the road to full reusability. With that work continues at Starbase on Pads 1 and 2, the Gigabay, and future launch infrastructure. Elsewhere this week, we cover Falcon 9 launches carrying BlueBird satellites, Starlink, and another classified NRO mission, Cargo Dragon’s return from the International Space Station, Astrobotic’s Griffin lunar lander preparing for launch, Ariane 6’s impressive upgraded debut with its heaviest payload yet, and the dramatic demolition of historic structures at Space Launch Complex 6.

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Is extracting oxygen from lunar soil the future of space exploration?

A new race to the moon is emerging between the United States and China. Unlike fifty years ago, the goal is no longer just about landing and leaving, but establishing a base that allows for a sustainable presence and extended stays on the surface of our natural satellite. The objective is now to use the moon as a testing ground for technologies that will enable us to travel further, particularly to Mars.

One of these key technologies is in-situ resource utilization (ISRU), which involves using available resources on-site to produce the consumables necessary for human activities: oxygen, water, rocket fuels, or construction materials. By producing these essentials directly on the moon, it will be possible to significantly reduce the mass of cargo sent from Earth, thereby reducing the logistical and financial costs of space exploration. Instead of importing these resources from Earth, the goal is to learn how to live on the moon.

Breaking down lunar dust to extract oxygen At the dawn of humanity’s sustainable return to the moon, ISRU is emerging as a strategic pivot. One of the major challenges is producing oxygen from regolith, the layer of soil covering the moon, primarily composed of small rock fragments and dust. The composition of regolith is complex, mainly consisting of several minerals (plagioclase, pyroxene, olivine) themselves made up of a mixture of metal oxides—chemical compounds that combine oxygen with another element such as silicon, iron, or calcium.

Russian satellites linked to mysterious GPS disruptions across several countries

Since 2019, GPS signals across Europe, Greenland and Canada have experienced a huge spike in sudden, widespread signal blackouts. These have resulted in disruptions and degraded performance in navigation systems that airplanes and ships rely on to travel safely.

Some causes are known, such as military jamming on the ground, but others have been a total mystery. A new paper published on the arXiv preprint server points an accusatory finger at Russia, claiming that a constellation of Russian satellites is likely responsible for many of these interference events, which have been blasting out waves of radio static from space.

The study focuses on how these events affected the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) that GPS relies on. The researchers studied 75 separate days on which at least one major interference event occurred.

Satellites reveal cities’ ‘urban pulse,’ tracking neighborhood growth in near real time

For over a century, doctors have used electrocardiograms (EKGs) to render the invisible electrical activity of the human heart visible, using the pulse to diagnose disease before it becomes fatal. Now, scientists have invented a way to do the exact same thing for the places where most of humanity lives: cities.

In a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers introduced the concept of the “Urban Pulse.” By using dense, high-frequency satellite imagery, the team successfully tracked the dynamic, real-time metabolic activity of urban environments, effectively measuring the heartbeat of a city.

Zhe Zhu, director of the Global Environmental Remote Sensing (GERS) Laboratory and associate professor of natural resources and the environment in the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources (CAHNR), was the first author. He worked in close collaboration with senior author Karen C. Seto, the Frederick C. Hixon Professor of Geography and Urbanization Science at the Yale School of the Environment, alongside Michail Fragkias of Boise State University and a multi-institutional team of researchers.

NASA just proved spacecraft can switch between multiple satellite networks

NASA’s PExT terminal has shown that spacecraft can seamlessly communicate through multiple government and commercial networks, a major step beyond traditional single-network systems. The mission is now expanding to test new capabilities that could help create a more flexible, reliable communications infrastructure for future space missions.

New propulsion system could make tiny satellites both fast and fuel-efficient

MIT engineers are testing a new propulsion system that combines the power and speed of conventional chemical thrusters with the precision and fuel-efficiency of electrical thrusters.

The system could enable the design of nimbler, more flexible small satellites, which could perform both fast, powerful maneuvers and slower, precise adjustments, depending on the mission and moment at hand.

The key to the new system is a special propellant that can power both chemical and electrical thrusters, which traditionally have required separate, bulky fuel sources.

Rare observations reveal an X9 solar flare before it erupts

Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation from the sun’s surface, which can wreak havoc on Earth’s power grids, damage orbiting satellites, and pose serious radiation risks to astronauts. Yet despite decades of study, the processes that trigger these eruptions remain poorly understood.

In a new preprint on arXiv, a team led by Louis Seyfritz at the New Jersey Institute of Technology has captured rare observations of a large flare in the hours before it erupted, offering new clues about what sets these events in motion.

NASA’s AWE instrument completes mission to study Earth’s effect on space weather

On May 21, ground controllers powered down NASA’s AWE (Atmospheric Waves Experiment) instrument, bringing the data collection phase of the mission to a successful and scheduled end, surpassing its planned two-year mission.

Installed on the exterior of the International Space Station since November 2023, AWE studied atmospheric gravity waves, which are giant ripples in the atmosphere caused by strong winds flowing over tall mountains or by violent weather events, such as tornadoes, thunderstorms, and hurricanes.

The AWE instrument looked for these waves in colorful bands of light in Earth’s atmosphere, called airglow. AWE investigated how atmospheric gravity waves propagate upward to space and contribute to space weather—conditions in space that can disrupt satellites, as well as navigation and communications signals.

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