Yonhap News reports that South Korea is planning to develop a new large booster. Assemblyman Cho Seung-rae, secretary of the Democratic Party of the National Assembly’s Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee, said at a briefing after discussing with the party, “From next year, we have decided to start developing a reusable, high-performance liquid engine rocket with an output of 100 tons.” Rep. Cho explained, “In order to […]

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — On Monday Moscow Standard Time, the International Space Station (ISS) Flight Control team was notified of indications of a satellite breakup that may create sufficient debris to pose a conjunction threat to the station. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson released the following statement about the incident:

“Earlier today, due to the debris generated by the destructive Russian Anti-Satellite (ASAT) test, ISS astronauts and cosmonauts undertook emergency procedures for safety.

“Like Secretary Blinken, I’m outraged by this irresponsible and destabilizing action. With its long and storied history in human spaceflight, it is unthinkable that Russia would endanger not only the American and international partner astronauts on the ISS, but also their own cosmonauts. Their actions are reckless and dangerous, threatening as well the Chinese space station and the taikonauts on board.

Updated on Nov. 15 at 4:35 PST with comments by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

The United States has condemned a Russian anti-satellite test that destroyed a non-functioning 39-Soviet-era satellite that added more dangerous debris to Earth orbit.

“Earlier today, the Russian Federation recklessly conducted a destructive satellite test of a direct-ascent anti-satellite missile against one of its own satellites,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said. “The test has so far generated over 1,500 pieces of trackable orbital debris and hundreds of thousands of pieces of smaller orbital debris that now threaten the interests of all nations.

WASHINGTON (FAA Update) — The FAA has three updates related to the SpaceX Starship / Super Heavy environmental review. First, the transcripts from the Oct. 18 and Oct. 20 public hearings are now posted and available in English and Spanish. Second, during the public comment period, the FAA received more than 17,000 written comments. The agency also received 121 verbal comments during the two public hearings. Finally, the project is now posted […]

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

A new report from NASA’s Office of Inspector General says the agency’s plan to land two astronauts on the surface of the moon could be delayed by several years beyond the recently abandoned 2024 goal due to continuing problems in the Artemis program.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) is looking for information about industry teams capable of conducting research into specific space industry segments.

FAA AST issued a request for information (RFI) for university teams to “conduct research activities of historical event data collection and analysis (including single-case and cross-case studies)” for the following segments:

• orbital launch vehicles for high payload masses (including human orbital transportation)
• on-orbit capsules
• on-orbit habitats.

Eleven space stakeholders have pledged themselves to avoiding the future generation of space debris and remediating the junk that is already clogging up Earth orbit by signing the Net Zero Space Declaration last week.

HOUSTON (NASA PR) — Two NASA astronauts will venture outside the International Space Station on Tuesday, Nov. 30, for a spacewalk to replace a faulty antenna system. NASA officials will describe the upcoming spacewalk during a news conference on Wednesday, Nov. 17.

NASA will provide live coverage of the news conference and spacewalk on NASA Television, the agency’s website, and the NASA app.

• At the UN climate conference COP26 in Glasgow, the world community advises on measures against climate change.
• The impact of humans on climate change is clear, according to the World Climate Report.
• As coordinating lead author, Prof. Veronika Eyring from DLR is jointly responsible for the report.
• Her research evaluates different climate models with observational data from space travel and improves the models with AI.

COLOGNE, Germany (DLR PR) — The models for predicting climate change are becoming more and more accurate. They process huge amounts of data, evaluate information and combine them into an overall picture. The World Climate Report has shown what that looks like. “It is clear that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, the ocean and the land,” the report notes. The extent of the changes in the entire climate system is therefore unprecedented for many centuries to millennia. 

SILVER SPRING, Md. (NOAA PR) — On November 10, 2021, NOAA released a Request for Information (RFI) soliciting information on existing or planned commercial space-based space weather data and related capabilities that will be available in the timeframe of 2022 through 2027.  This solicitation is being issued pursuant to direction in the Promoting Research and Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow (PROSWIFT) Act (Public Law 116-181). In addition, […]

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA has awarded $90,000 each to seven entrepreneurial startup companies under its Entrepreneur’s Challenge program. The awards will advance new technology concepts ranging from novel materials with properties not found in nature to innovative technologies that will enable small satellite (SmallSat) science missions.  

TURIN, Italy (ASI PR) — The incubator linked to space supported by ESA and ASI and born from the synergy between the Incubator of the Polytechnic of Turin I3P, the Polytechnic of Turin and the LINKS Foundation, inaugurates in Turin the new node of the European network, the ESA Business Incubation Center Turin, with the aim of supporting innovative companies in the space sector.

The start-up and technological and business development of new innovative companies in the Space Economy sector is the main purpose of the ESA Business Incubation Center Turin (ESA BIC Turin), which officially inaugurates the works with an opening ceremony at the Politecnico di Turin and with the launch of the first call dedicated to the most promising startups in the space sector who want to receive support from this new incubation center and become part of its ecosystem.