The Space Resource Newsletter - November 2020
Artist graphic of the SOM designed semi-inflatable Moon Village habitat, which would require a heavy lift vehicle for delivery to the Moon. Credit: SOM.
Welcome to The Space Resource monthly newsletter for November 2020. China launches lunar sample return, SpaceX launches first operation crew flight, and Arecibo Observatory will be decommissioned. Also, on-orbit servicing is heating up with Orbit Fab fuel depot demo planned for a 2021 flight, SpaceX expressing space tug interest, and Spaceflight developing transfer vehicle for a mid-2021 test.
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Asteroids
Asteroid Orus observed in an occultation event. Orus is one of four L4 Trojan asteroids that the NASA Lucy mission will visit in 2028. The L4 Trojan asteroids are a group of asteroids that orbit about 60 degrees ahead of Jupiter. The occultation event occurred when Orus orbited between Earth and a star, casting a shadow on Earth. The occultation was observed by a few telescopes over a swath of land from Massachusetts to Texas. Observations from multiple telescopes provided information about Orus’ 3D shape, aiding Lucy mission planners as they prepare for the upcoming rendezvous. Knowledge of the Trojan asteroids is important for understanding planetesimal formation theory, especially in regard to how asteroids change over time.
Small asteroid 2020 VT4 passed less than 400 km above Earth. Occurring around 17:20 UTC on November 13th above the South Pacific, the 5 to 10 meter asteroid was one of the closest observed asteroids to have flown by Earth. The asteroid was not known until the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) survey at the Mauna Loa Observatory reported it about 15 hours after its closest approach. The close approach altered the trajectory of 2020 VT4 from a 549 day to a 315 day orbit around the sun. This also changed its classification from an Apollo to Aten asteroid. This close encounter illustrates how we still don’t fully know all the asteroids around Earth, along with the fact that useful asteroids do come close to Earth every so often. Link.
JAXA’s Hayabusa 2 approaching Earth for a Dec 6 landing. After spending six years in space, traveling to asteroid Ryugu, collecting two samples, and travelling back to Earth, Hayabusa 2 will soon land the sample-return capsule in the Woomera Prohibited Area in Australia. While full analysis of the samples will take years (and decades), any initial findings will dramatically help researchers understand how to better model and simulate carbonaceous asteroids.
Joel Sercel talks about asteroid mining and space ethics in a Planetary Society talk. Listen here.
CISLUNAR
Spaceflight Inc. announces Sherpa-LTE orbital transfer vehicle, with mid-2021 flight. This spacecraft will be equipped with a Hall effect thruster built by Apollo Fusion, which should provide a delta-V of more than 6 km/s. This capability is enough to move small satellites from LEO to GEO, cislunar space, or Earth-escape trajectories. The orbital transfer vehicles will expand Spaceflight’s business beyond dedicated rideshare, providing more valuable solutions to their rideshare customers. Link.
Orbit Fab preparing orbital fuel depot demo for 2021 launch. Called the Tanker-001 Tenzing, this proof of concept mission will demonstrate storing a green propellant in LEO. Tanker-001 will be housed within an Astro Digital satellite (a mission-as-a-service offering) and launched on a Spaceflight Sherpa-FX vehicle via a SpaceX Falcon 9. Orbit Fab aims to support the US Air Force and Space Force with on-orbit servicing. Link.
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell says they have looked at “space tug” applications for Starship. Starship will provide a new dynamic to launch, where a single launch can deliver hundreds of small satellites to orbit at a single time, or a few very large spacecraft with less concern about mass. By leveraging their position in the launch market, SpaceX can feasibly provide unique capabilities for on-orbit transportation. While other firms like Momentus are focusing on this market, too, SpaceX has unique capabilities no other firm has. Only time will tell whether Spacex actually pursues this. Link.
The European Space Agency signs a 82 million Euro contract to deorbit space debris. Contracting with ClearSpace SA, a Swiss startup, a 112 kg Vespa payload adapter will be deorbited in a 2025 mission. A net will be used to capture and entrap the adapter before being deorbited. While the contract seems expensive to remove a single item, this technology has never been proven in orbit before. Follow-on debris removal work should cost much less.
Bio mining experiment performed on ISS with promising results. The test utilized a biomining reactor the size of a matchbox to study how basalt pieces were impacted by bacterial solutions while in microgravity. The results demonstrate that bacteria could enhance the removal of rare Earth elements from basalt by up to 400 percent. While the use of bacteria for industrial processing has a large planetary contamination risk, it promises unique capabilities that other techniques are not able to match. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19276-w
Moon
Simulation predicts that the oldest PSRs likely contain large amounts of pure ice at depth, covered by thin layers with less ice. A stratigraphy simulation was used, taking into account ice delivery, ejecta emplacement, and ice loss. Most of the PSR ice was likely deposited early in their history, causing the oldest PSRs to hold the most amount of ice. This ice is likely dozens to hundreds of meters below the surface. Drilling deeper than 10 meters into an ice-bearing PSR would increase our confidence and understanding of these unique environments. DOI: 10.1029/2020GL088920
Chinese Space Agency launches a lunar sample return mission. On November 23, a Long March 5 rocket carrying the Chang’e 5 spacecraft launched from the Wenchang launch center in Hainan. The payload contained a small lunar lander, sample collection instruments, ascent module, and Earth re-entry module. The spacecraft successfully entered Lunar orbit on November 28th. It will perform a series of orbit-lowering maneuvers ahead of landing operations on December 1st. The mission will have less than one lunar day (about 14 Earth days) on the Moon’s surface since it lacks a way to survive the lunar night. A two meter drill will collect up to 2 kg of samples, transfer them into the ascender, launch the ascender into lunar orbit before docking with the service capsule and returning to Earth. If successful, Chang’e 5 will return the first Lunar samples to Earth since the Russian Luna 24 mission in 1976. Link.
Architectural firm SOM designs lunar habitat for ESA’s Moon Village. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is a world renowned architectural firm known for designing many of the world’s largest skyscrapers. SOM proposed to ESA a semi-inflatable shell structure that could be deployed on the rim of Shackleton crater beside the lunar South Pole. The four story habitat would house a four person crew for up to 300 days. Some of the main challenges SOM contended with included the radiation environment, the thermal environment at the lunar poles, and the 58 ton mass, which would dictate launch aboard Starship or SLS. Link.
NASA Lunar Deliver Challenge open to all, with a top prize of $10,000. This challenge seeks concepts for systems that can unload payloads from landers to the Moon’s surface. Three mass categories are specified, ranging from under two metric tons to 12 metric tons. NASA is hoping for ideas that are fully autonomous and can operate for years without intervention. The challenge launched on October 29,2020 and will close January 19, 2020. Feel free to submit your idea here.
Canadian Space Agency awards contracts to develop lunar rovers and scientific payloads. Multiple firms were awarded funds to develop payloads, ranging from spectrometers to particle telescopes to a 360-degree camera for the lunar surface. The Canadian Space Agency is working on a small rover, with a mass of 30 kg and the ability to carry two payloads. The rover would likely launch in 2025. Link.
Terrestrial
A cable at the Arecibo Observatory failed; NSF to dismantle it. The Arecibo Observatory is the world’s largest radar astronomy telescope, where it has been able to transmit radar signals to objects ranging from Mercury to Saturn, and receive the radar reflections. This allowed the rare ability to build 3D models of asteroids. While the Chinese FAST dish is larger, it can only receive signals and not transmit them. The Arecibo Observatory has had a tough past few years, having been damaged by Hurricane Maria, experiencing two earthquakes in 2019 and 2020, being underfunded, and having had a cable pull out of its socket back in August. This recent cable failure is the final nail in the coffin for the observatory, with the National Science Foundation (NSF) announcing that the telescope will be decommissioned and dismantled. The loss of Arecibo Observatory is a large loss to planetary defense and asteroid science. The Goldstone Observatory will soon take the reigns of largest radar observatory, albeit with less capabilities. Link.
SpaceX launched four astronauts to the ISS. Known as SpaceX Crew-1, this is the first operational crewed flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the first crewed flight since the final Space Shuttle flight in 2010. Three NASA astronauts and one JAXA astronaut were aboard the craft, called Resilience. The mission will last about 180 days. Just as Commercial Launch dramatically lowered launch costs, it is expected that Commercial Crew (which this mission is a part of) will drastically lower launch of astronauts. Hopefully Crew Dragon launches will soon become routine.
Starlink opens public beta with rates between 50 to 150 mbps. While the Starlink constellation is still being deployed, with fewer than 1,000 satellites out of the potential 30,000 satellites launched, users have reported decent experiences with the service. A successful deployment of Starlink is critical for SpaceX’s Starship development process because Starlink can provide billions of dollars in funding to accelerate Starship deployment. Starship promises to revolutionize rapid, heavy launch to orbit, which will be a boon for Musk’s Mars ambitions, as well as for space resource technology development.
Space consolidations continue, with Voyager Space Holdings acquiring The Launch Company. Voyager Space Holdings now owns Altius Space Machines and Pioneer Astronautics, both of which have previously received NASA contracts. The Launch Company develops the ground infrastructure needed for small rocket launches, allowing companies to lease time on launch pads. Voyager Space Holdings isn’t the only firm acquiring other space firms. Redwire Space’s CEO, Peter Cannito, mentioned at the AIAA ASCEND conference that Redwire has a few acquisitions in the pipeline right now, with their plan of building an vertically integrated space infrastructure firm.
Rocket Lab performs a successful demonstration returning booster via parachute. Peter Beck has stated that they will attempt to reuse some components of the booster. Their next mission will attempt to catch the booster with a helicopter. Link.
ispace, the Japanese lunar lander firm, opens Denver office. This will be ispace’s first US office, which should help the firm win NASA contracts (being US based is usually a requirement for NASA contracts), as its executives have stated. The Denver office’s first task is to design a larger version of ispace’s existing lander. If you are in the US and are looking to join this new team, check out ispace’s Denver openings here.
Japan’s ruling party approves a bill allowing private firms to own space resources. The bill states that resources would be owned by those who collect them, assuming the collection is part of exploration plans submitted in advance to the prime minister. This bill will need to be approved by the other parties before it becomes full law, however. Link.
