Molten lunar regolith heats up space colonization dreams
A study proposes that the Moon’s dusty topsoil, also known as regolith, can produce thermal energy.
The paper [PDF], which was written by researchers at the University of Waterloo, Canada, discusses the practical problems of settling or even building a base on the Moon. The key problem is getting necessary supplies to the Moon, which is hostile to life and doesn’t have the same kind of resources as Earth.
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Biden admin fuels up Rocket Lab with $24M for space-grade solar cell chip shop
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The US Commerce Department announced the preliminary agreement this morning, saying that the deal will boost Rocket Lab’s ability to manufacture compound semiconductors used in space-grade solar cells by 50 percent over the next three years.
Rocket Lab is one of only two companies in the United States – and three outside of Russia and China, it pointed out – that make such chips.
“Solar cells are important for keeping our communication and space technology powered and operational, and this proposed award would help our military, NASA, and our commercial space industry have access to the specialty semiconductors they need,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said.
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Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity bows out to make way for Delta Class successor
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[CEO] Colglazier told investors that Delta ships would have 50 percent more seats than Unity, and he expected $2.7 million to $3.6 million in revenue per flight. In an investor call in May 2024, Colglazier said he expected “roughly $450 million in annualized revenue within the first 12 months following entry into commercial service.”
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According to the company’s financial results for the first quarter of 2024, it had $867 million in cash and equivalents. However, its revenue of $2 million was dwarfed by a net loss of $102 million. Hence, getting the Delta Class ships flying is necessary before the cash runs out.
The company expects to make $3.5 million in revenue for the second quarter of 2024. Its stock price currently stands at $0.85, down from nearly $60 in June 2021.
Okay, now I’m tempted to buy a couple of shares so I can add “space entrepreneur” to my CV.
Created by a member of the NASA heliophysics communications team, here is a Pride flag with every color band represented by a NASA image.
White is Earth clouds, pink is aurora, blue is the Sun in a specific wavelength, brown is Jupiter clouds, black is the Hubble deep field, red is the top of sprites, orange is a Mars crater, yellow is the surface of Io, green is a lake with algae, blue is Neptune, and purple is the Crab Nebula in a specific wavelength.
US Space Force wanted $77M to reinforce GPS – and Congress shot it down
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The US Department of Defense’s overall proposed $833 billion budget for 2025, which is now being pulled apart and scrutinized by the House Appropriations Committee, included the aforementioned request for the USSF’s Resilient GPS (R-GPS) project, initial work for which began this year.
Don’t confuse R-GPS with a technical concept - it’s not a new type of signal or something like that - and it looks more like the Space Force just wants to lob mini-satellites into orbit to augment the GPS constellation and make it more robust to spoofing. The $77 million being asked for is less than the purchase cost of a single F-35 fighter.
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NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is back in action and conducting normal science operations for the first time since the veteran probe began spouting gibberish at the end of 2023.
All four of the spacecraft’s remaining operational instruments are now returning usable data to Earth, according to NASA.
Some additional work is needed to tidy up the effects of the issue. Engineers need to resynchronize the timekeeping software of Voyager 1’s three onboard computers to ensure that commands are executed at the correct times. Maintenance will also be performed on the digital tape recorder, which records some data from the plasma instrument for a six-monthly downlink to Earth.
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Virgin Galactic celebrates flight hiatus with a reverse stock split
Virgin Galactic has confirmed a reverse stock split in an effort to stop the company from tumbling out of the New York Stock Exchange.
The stock took a sharp dive on the announcement, which was at the top end of a proposal put to shareholders ahead of the company’s June 12, 2024, annual meeting.
The proposal gave a range of 1-for-2 through 1-for-20 reverse stock splits. The board of directors opted for the latter, and the markets were swift to punish the company. Shares fell to $0.73 at the time of writing, a drop from $0.92 shortly before the announcement was made.
In the heady days of early 2021, Virgin Galactic’s shares sat above the $50 mark but have fallen in the years since as the commercial realities of regularly flying humans on sub-orbital lobs have become all too clear.
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About 18 months ago a new engineer working at my company jumped ship after just a couple weeks on the job to pursue an offering from Virgin Galactic. (I guess he had interviewed with both companies and they were his first choice.) I don’t know what they were paying, but it really struck me as a weird time to join that company because, at least to a lot of outside observers, it seemed clear that they had not figured out a path to a profitable business model and were unlikely to do so.
Saw he was active on LinkedIn a few months ago after a big round of layoffs…
Beans and LEO have that effect on me too.
Even Richard Branson realised it’s a hot potato and passed it on…
On the other hand, I hear SpaceX is constantly on the lookout for new hires to keep the ranks filled.
that’s pretty cool!
( bonus points, of course, that they’ve solved the mysterious origins of pastry )
Within this perhaps croissant-shaped region, the sun’s charged particles, known as solar wind, shield the planets from galactic radiation and the extreme weather of outer space.
For giggles I plotted arcs from Fort Drum to Pyonyang and Tehran. Fort Drum isnt in a terrible place to put a counter-missile battery for east-coast defense
Putting a battery there might give the base some purpose. Why else would you need a military base so close to the Canadian border?
I spent over a year at Fort Drum with the 10th Mountain division. Not many pleasant memories
