By Dr. Jack Drummond
Air Force Research Laboratory

KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. — On November 29, 2021, an Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Starfire Optical Range (SOR)* telescope on Kirtland Air Force Base near Albuquerque, New Mexico, recorded an image of asteroid (22) Kalliope, and its natural satellite Linus. A confirming image was taken four nights later. What is unique about these observations is the small size of the telescope used, only 1.5 meters in diameter. 

Normally the purview of large 8 to10-m diameter telescopes on mountain tops in Hawaii or Chile, asteroids are faint to begin with — and their satellites even fainter – orbiting very close to their parent. Detecting them requires large telescopes, since faintness limits are proportional to telescope mirror area and resolution is proportional to telescope diameter. In all cases, adaptive optics (AO) is required to defeat the turbulence of the atmosphere by making the point sources (stars) much smaller and brighter.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (NASA PR) — While the sun beat down on the New Mexico desert, inside, a dense fog hung in the air. In a special facility outside Albuquerque, a team of NASA researchers was working with the kind of fog that’s so thick you can’t see three feet in front of you.

A new video looks back on the six-wheeled scientist’s first 10 months on the Red Planet and all that it’s accomplished so far.

PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — NASA’s Perseverance rover has been busy since its harrowing touchdown in Mars’ Jezero Crater this past February.

In the 10 months since, the car-size rover has driven 1.8 miles (2.9 kilometers), set a record for the longest rover drive in a Martian day, taken more than 100,000 images, and collected six samples of Martian rock and atmosphere that could eventually be brought to Earth for further study.

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. (NASA PR) — Join us as we look back at the highlights of 2021 at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley.

1) NASA’s water-hunting Moon rover, the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, made great strides this year. The VIPER team successfully completed practice runs of the full-scale assembly of the Artemis program’s lunar rover in VIPER’s new clean room. Two rounds of egress testing let rover drivers practice exiting the lander and rolling onto the rocky surface of the Moon. NASA also announced the landing site selected for the robotic rover, which will be delivered to the Nobile region of the Moon’s South Pole in late 2023 as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative. NASA also chose eight new VIPER science team members and their proposals to expand and complement VIPER’s already existing science team and planned investigations. This year’s progress contributed to VIPER’s completion of its Critical Design Review, turning the mission’s focus toward construction of the rover beginning in late 2022.

BALTIMORE (NASA PR) — NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope team fully deployed its 21-foot, gold-coated primary mirror, successfully completing the final stage of all major spacecraft deployments to prepare for science operations.

Editor’s Note: This NASA feature from October 2017 describes how engineers aligned the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) mirror segments prior to launch. The telescope completed unfolding and latching its mirrors in space today; engineers will now spend five months aligning the mirrors and calibrating the telescope.

By Eric Villard and Maggie Masetti
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

HOUSTON — Engineers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston used light waves to align the James Webb Space Telescope’s mirror segments to each other, so they act like a single, monolithic mirror in the cryogenic cold of the center’s iconic Chamber A.

MCLEAN, Va., Jan. 5, 2022 (Iridium Communications PR) — Iridium Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: IRDM) today announced that Manjula Sriram has joined the company as Vice President & Chief Information Officer (CIO). Reporting to Chief Financial Officer Tom Fitzpatrick, Sriram is now responsible for leading Iridium’s Information Technology (IT) organization in implementing information systems to support both distributed and centralized business operations.

Sriram joins Iridium with more than twelve years of senior IT management experience.  Previously and for the past four years, Sriram was Vice President in the role of CIO for The Joint Chiropractic where she was responsible for the commercial and enterprise IT infrastructure for the company’s corporate and clinical operations, servicing approximately 700 standalone chiropractic offices. Prior to this, Sriram spent four years as the Director of Customer Implementation & Support for Early Warning Service, a financial systems company, to provide risk management solutions over a diverse network of 2,300 financial institutions, government entities and payment companies.

SAN FRANCISCO & TUKWILA, Wash., January 06, 2022-(Loft Orbital/LeoStella PR) — Loft Orbital Solutions, Inc. (Loft Orbital), a leading space infrastructure-as-a-service provider, and LeoStella, Inc., a specialized satellite constellation design and manufacturing company, have extended their production agreement to secure multiple additional LEO-100 buses from LeoStella. These satellite buses are the latest in a series Loft Orbital has secured from LeoStella.

The satellites are based on LeoStella’s existing product line of ESPA-class buses. LeoStella’s active production line of commercial buses creates an opportunity for customers to acquire high-quality satellites while staying within new-space cost and schedule constraints. This procurement exemplifies Loft Orbital’s novel strategy of utilizing commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) satellite buses to fly any kind of payload in LEO at unparalleled speed to orbit and reliability. This partnership is a crucial enabler for Loft Orbital’s focus on making space simple.

Prestwick, Scotland (Prestwick Spaceport PR) — South Ayrshire Council has started the process of submitting a formal planning application for the Prestwick Spaceport development. The Proposal of Application Notice (POAN) is the first step in the planning process for Prestwick Spaceport and signals the intent to apply for planning permission in early 2022.

The submission of the POAN follows the Council’s submission of an Environmental Impact Assessment Screening Report last year which confirms that Prestwick’s space ambitions will not result in any significant adverse effects to the environment.

James Webb Space Telescope NASA Mission UpdateJan. 7, 2022 Webb’s iconic primary mirror is taking its final shape. Today, the first of two primary mirror wings, or side panels, was deployed and latched successfully. Each side panel holds three primary mirror segments that were engineered to fold back to reduce Webb’s overall profile for flight. The process of deploying the port side mirror wing began at approximately 8:36 a.m. EST. […]

WASHIINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA will provide live coverage and host a media briefing Saturday, Jan. 8, for the conclusion of the James Webb Space Telescope’s major spacecraft deployments.

Beginning no earlier than 9 a.m. EST, NASA will air live coverage of the final hours of Webb’s major deployments. After the live broadcast concludes, at approximately 1:30 p.m., NASA will hold a media briefing. Both the broadcast and media briefing will air live on NASA TV, the NASA app, and the agency’s website.