The Space Resource Newsletter - June 2020
An artist illustration of the Astrobotic Griffin lander with the NASA VIPER as payload. Credit: Astrobotic.
Welcome to The Space Resource monthly newsletter for June 2020. Astrobotic secured NASA funding to land VIPER on the Moon, Made In Space has new owners, and exciting science across the field continues to make asteroids shatter.
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🚨🚨 Want to learn more about space resources? Checkout The Space Resource Report! We highlighted the major developments surrounding space resources in 2019, covering the science, technology, business, and policy developments that will invigorate humanity’s expansion into space.
Asteroids
Asteroids Ryugu and Bennu may have formed from the debris of the same disrupted body. Intensive simulations on supercomputers have determined that multiple aspects of Ryugu and Bennu have the potential of being linked. Each has many similarities, including size, shape, and composition. Analysis shows that for every 100 km sized asteroid disrupted, ten to hundreds of thousands of smaller km sized bodies will form into objects resembling rubble pile asteroids, like Ryugu and Bennu. While Ryugu and Bennu have different hydration levels (amount of water within minerals), simulations show that the heat generated across the parent astroid during its shattering process will cause some areas to become dehydrated compared to others. Once recombined into small objects, this hydration difference will cause the objects to have differing hydration levels, similar to what we see with Ryugu and Bennu. The final link to verify this hypothesis will be from the samples returned from JAXA’s Hayabusa2 (late 2020) and NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (late 2023). Knowing asteroid historical processes is critical providing insight into the millions of asteroids across the Solar System, saving us the work of surveying each and every object before sending a processing spacecraft to it. Link.
Chicxulub Impact Crater hosted a long lived hydrothermal system. Analysis of rock cores drilled from the “peak ring” of the Chicxulub crater in the Gulf of Mexico revealed an extensive and long-lasting hydrothermal system. This crater formed when an asteroid 11 to 81 kilometers wide impacted the Earth 66 million years ago, wiping out the dinosaurs. This cataclysmic impact fractured 140,000 cubic kilometers of Earth’s crust, which is an order of magnitude larger than the volume of the Yellowstone Caldera. The latent heat from impact slowly cooled, leaving this hydrothermal system in a “Goldilocks zone” of temperature for thermophilic microbes for between 150,000 to 2 million years. While this may seem unrelated to space, the hydrothermal system created from this event provides an Earth analog for non-terrestrial bodies, including ancient Mars. NASA’s soon-to-be-launched Perseverance rover will be landing in Jezero crater, which formed by an asteroid impact at a time when Mars had extensive surface water. Understanding hydrothermal systems from asteroid impacts has far-reaching implications in understanding habitable environments and searching for life (past or present) on other worlds. Link.
MarS
Launch of NASA’s Perseverance rover delayed to after July 30. NASA and ULA have reported that a problem was discovered during the Wet Dress Rehearsal on June 22, and additional time is needed for inspection and evaluation. The launch window has been extended to Aug 15. The launch window to Mars is based on the orbits of Earth and Mars being at their closest, with the next launch window in late 2022. A delay to 2022 is not expected, though. Link.
Long March 5 arrives at Wenchang launch center. This carrier rocket is scheduled to launch the Chinese Tianwen-1 rover to Mars in late July (although a specific date has not been announced). Tianwen-1 comprises an orbiter and rover. The orbiter will serve as a communications relay and orbital observation platform. The rover is about 240 kg (slightly larger than the NASA Opportunity rover) and includes a suite of scientific instruments. While the spacecraft itself is important, the logistics and technology framework required to support such a mission is substantial, with China investing heavily for this capacity. If successful, this will be China’s first interplanetary mission and China will become the second country to have ever landed and operated a rover on the Martian surface. Link.
Moon
Astrobotic awarded $199.5 million by NASA to deliver VIPER to the Moon. As part of NASA’s Commercial lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, Astrobotic is responsible for integrating VIPER with their Griffin lander, launching it from Earth, and landing it at the Moon’s south pole in late 2023. Griffin is a SUV-sized lander able to carry 475 kg of payload and land with 100 m accuracy. It is the larger of Astrobotic’s two landers, with Peregrine being the smaller sibling. VIPER is a 453 kg rover that is able to drive several miles away from the lander, using four instruments to test lunar regolith conditions. It will provide in-situ measurements of mineral distributions, including possible detection of ice. Link.
Global map of lunar rockfalls published, providing insight into surface conditions. Researchers at ETH Zurich and the Max Planck Institute have analyzed over two million images of the lunar surface, searching for boulder tracks. Between the northern and southern latitudes of 80 degrees, 136,610 rockfalls over 2.5 meters were identified. Using this large pool of cases, the researchers identified that more than 80% of all observed rockfalls are caused by asteroid impacts. This is counter to the previous assumption of lunar quakes being responsible for boulder movement. Understanding lunar surface conditions is critical for operating vehicles and systems on the Moon’s surface. This is especially important when operating near slopes where many permanently shadowed regions are that should contain water ice. Paper.
Terrestrial
Made In Space acquired by Redwire, a new firm pooling small space companies. Made In Space is a leader in in-space manufacturing and assembly technologies. They currently have a 3D printer aboard the International Space Station and are working on a NASA contract to demonstrate in-space assembly of solar arrays (Archinaut). Redwire was established by AE Industrial Partners, a private equity firm. It is too early to say how the acquisition will impact the long term in-space manufacturing work being done by Made In Space, yet hopefully it continues unabated. Link.
Astroscale pushing for geostationary satellite servicing market. Astroscale acquired the intellectual property of a satellite servicing vehicle called Space Drone from Effective Space Solutions. While this vehicle has not been deployed, Astroscale says it plans to merge Space Drone’s technologies into its own servicing platform. This move will put Astroscale in direct competition with Northrop Grumman’s Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV), a geostationary satellite servicing architecture that is actively being tested in-orbit to great success so far. Astroscale has traditionally focused on debris removal, but a more complete life-cycle servicing package of orbital assets may provide a good business case. They are planning an on-orbit demonstration of their technology later this year. Link.
Russia is getting back into the space tourism business. Roscosmos is working with US based Space Adventures, a space tourism company. Two wealthy space tourists will take a Soyuz flight to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2023, and one will perform a spacewalk with an experienced Russian cosmonaut - a first in space tourism. This announcement follows an announcement last year that two different space tourists would fly to the ISS on a Soyuz in 2021. Expanding tourism to space is good for providing demand for space technologies and services. Ultimately, this demand will aid the business of future space resource firms. Link.
SpaceX performs its first Smallsat Rideshare mission. Only 6 months after signing an agreement with Planet, an Earth observation (EO) firm with the largest fleet of EO satellites, SpaceX launched 3 SkySat imaging satellites (in addition to 58 of SpaceX’s own Starlink satellites) as their first Smallsat Rideshare Program. "This is the result of SpaceX dramatically cutting the cost of access to launch," said Mike Safyan, Vice President of launch at Planet. "It's significant. They cut the price so much we could not believe what we were looking at." Lower costs to orbit provides firms across the aerospace industry opportunities to iterate products quicker and cheaper, hopefully advancing technologies quicker than possible before. Link.
