TOP NEWS
Watch NASA Light A Fire On A Spaceship On Purpose. You Know, For Science.
A fiery experiment deliberately lit in a cargo spacecraft last month monitored larger and more dynamic flames than most previous efforts to learn how fire works in space have.
The Spacecraft Fire Safety Experiment-V (Saffire-V), which occurred after a Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft departed the International Space Station on Jan. 6, is the latest in a series of fire studies to protect astronauts on long-term missions.
Saffire-V lasted 26 hours, then the Cygnus spacecraft, which was filled with trash, burned up safely in Earth’s atmosphere as planned.
Read more at: Space.com
ESA And UNOOSA Illustrate Space Debris Problem
To raise awareness about this growing problem, ESA and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) have created a series of nine infographics and podcast episodes that tell the story of space debris, explain the risks and illustrate the solutions available to ensure future space exploration remains sustainable.
Read more at: ESA
Indian Space Startup Fires World’s First Fully 3D Printed Rocket Engine As Others Play Catch Up
Rocket engines are tough to build, and they’re even tougher to 3D print because all the details have to be ‘just right’ for the rocket to work successfully. But, an Indian space startup based out of Chennai has pulled off this mammothian task.
Agnikul Cosmos has successfully fired its higher stage semi-cryogenic rocket engine called Agnilet. “This entire engine, Agnilet, is just one piece of hardware from start to finish and has zero assembled parts,” said co-founder and CEO Srinath Ravichandran.
Read more at: Business insider
SPACE HAZARDS AND STM
A Russian ‘Space Truck’ Just Burst Into Flames On Purpose And The Photo Is Amazing
A Russian “space truck” has met its fiery doom on its way home to Earth.
The cargo ship Progress MS-15 from Roscosmos, the Russian Space Agency, broke apart as it burned up in Earth’s atmosphere after undocking from the International Space Station yesterday (Feb. 8). The astronauts living on the space station watched the craft’s fiery demise from above and shared the experience on social media.
“Farewell, Progress 76P MS-15! #Russian cargo spacecraft undocked from #ISS, and successfully burned up,” JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi tweeted along with a photo taken from the space station, showing the cargo craft burning up in Earth’s atmosphere below.
Read more at: Space.com
NASA Wants to Set a New Radiation Limit for Astronauts
Now that the Biden administration has signaled its support for NASA’s Artemis mission to the moon, maybe we should think about the risks astronauts will face when they get there, and what might happen during a longer trip to Mars.
Of all the things to worry about while traveling in space—equipment malfunctions, the weird effects of weightlessness, collisions with space debris, and just being far away—one the most difficult to deal with is the health effects of radiation from the sun or cosmic events.
Read more at: Wired
Annual Space Horizons Conference Discusses Sustainability In Space
Scientists, researchers and space enthusiasts convened at Brown’s annual Space Horizons conference from Feb. 8-12, where they attempted to answer some of the most pressing questions in space exploration and research: How can we ecologically sustain human activity on the moon? How do you maintain a cooperative international society beyond Earth? And how do you convince the public that a space exploration program is even necessary?
Speakers from across the globe with expertise ranging from ecology to public policy to theology gathered virtually at the event, titled “Making Space Sustainable,” said Adjunct Associate Professor of Engineering and co-organizer of the event Rick Fleeter ’76 PhD ’81.
Read more at: Brown daily herald
How Safe Are We From Falling Satellites Or Space Junk?
Over the coming years the number of space debris, sometimes referred to “space junk” is set to grow rapidly (Wang, X. & Liu, J. 2019). When satellites reach the end of their life cycle, the large majority of these satellites end up floating around stuck in their space orbits for a long period. These redundant satellites increase the hazard of other satellites colliding with them or a future scenario of a satellite falling back to earth onto populated area. In a space debris incident in 2007, the Chinese weather satellite Fungyun FY-1C was destroyed by a missile test creating space debris, which caused much international criticism (BBC News 2020a).
Read more at: esignals
NEW SPACE/COMMERCIAL
Lockheed Martin Selects ABL Rocket For Shetland Launches
Aerospace giant Lockheed Martin has selected the rocket it will use to kick-start space launches from the island of Unst in Shetland.
The vehicle, called the RS1, will be provided by ABL Space Systems of El Segundo, California.
If everything comes together, an inaugural flight could occur next year.
Lockheed is looking to stimulate the launch business in the UK to take advantage of a rapidly expanding market for small satellites.
Read more at: BBC
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