Image (Credit): The Moon as seen from the International Space Station. (NASA)
“No one, and no religion, owns the moon, and, were the beliefs of the world’s multitude of religions considered, it’s quite likely that no missions would ever be approved…Simply, we do not and never have let religious beliefs dictate humanity’s space efforts — there is not and should not be a religious test.”
-Statement by Celestis CEO and co-founder Charles Chafer in an email to Space.com regarding Native American concerns about a NASA -funded rocket taking human remains to the Moon next week. A second company, Elysium Space, will also be placing human remains on the Moon as part of this same mission. NASA separately noted in response to the Native American concerns, “We don’t have the framework for telling [private companies] what they can and can’t fly.”
If you were the operator of an airline yet you refused to share the planned destination of your planes, I can assure you that the Federal Aviation Administration would have issues. Yet AstroForge is planning to do just that – set off into the wild blue (or black) yonder in a spacecraft named Odin towards an asteroid that it refuses to name. Needless to say, but I will say it, some people are not very happy.
The New York Times had a story on this adventure, which quoted Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts:
I’m very much not in favor of having stuff swirling around the inner solar system without anyone knowing where it is…It seems like a bad precedent to set.
The Odin spacecraft’s goal is to observe the satellite(s) in question so that AstroForge can identify those worth revisiting as part of a mining mission. Here is the plan in the words of AstroForge:
…get to deep space, perform a flyby of the asteroid target, and take high resolution images of the surface. It’s important to note that meeting just one of these objectives would be a groundbreaking achievement not just for AstroForge but for commercial space at-large.
While asteroid visits are not new, nor the idea of mining them, AstroForge would be the first commercial company to do so. The economics of such ventures are still being determined, but the company appears to have enough believers to fund such missions for now.
No specific date for the Odin launch has been set, but it is expected to occur in 2024.
Image (Credit): Chart showing the planned travel of the JUICE spacecraft. (ESA, work performed by ATG under contract to ESA)
I wanted to start out the new year by first remembering all of the great missions from 2023. I also decided to group this work rather than focus on single missions.
NASA Asteroid Missions: Asteroids were the big news this year, with Lucy encountering a surprise pair of asteroids, OSIRIS-REx bringing back a sample from the asteroid Bennu, and NASA launching the Psyche mission.
JWST Discoveries: This year we celebrated the anniversary of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which has been better than ever imaged. It is helping to change our understanding of the origin of the universe while poking and prodding at exoplanets to review their secrets.
ESA Missions: The European Space Agency (ESA) has also been very busy in 2023. For instance, the launch of the Euclid mission to study dark matter and dark energy, as well as the JUICE mission to study Jupiter and its moons, will assist with our understanding of the big picture as well as our own neighborhood.
That’s an impressive record, and I look forward to even more great news in 2024.
Image (Credit): ULA’s new Vulcan Centaur rocket. (ULA)
United Launch Alliance (ULA), a space rocket partnership between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, is now being offered for sale. Both Blue Origin and Cerberus are showing interest, which could upset the space business as Blue Origin takes a big step forward or Cerberus gets into the space business.
ULA, formed in 2006, has both a wealth of experience as well as the confidence of the US military, even though SpaceX has been eating into that business. ULA also has ready commercial customers, including a partnership with Amazon to launch 47 rockets to bring the Kuiper broadband constellation into orbit.
The ties to Mr. Bezos, owner of Amazon, go even deeper than that. The ULA’s new rocket, the Vulcan Centaur, will use engines built by Blue Origin, another one of Mr. Bezos’ companies. This may make a Blue Origin a natural new owner to ULA.
The potential buyers may want to wait until the test launch of the Vulcan on January 8th. At that time, the Vulcan rocket will be used to launch the Astrobotic Peregrine commercial lunar lander, the first of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative designed to deliver science and technology experiments to the lunar surface.
None of this means Boeing or Lockheed Martin are moving away from space altogether. Boeing is still working on its Starliner to bring individuals and cargo to low-Earth orbit as well as its Space Launch System, which serves as the backbone of the Artemis program. Lockheed Martin will be busy as well with its Orion capsule and human landing system (with Blue Origin and Boeing as well), additional key components of the Artemis program.
Any reshuffling is okay as long as it adds to the array of commercial options for NASA. A new player like Cerberus might be welcome, but I also see some value to pushing an experienced and involved Blue Origin to the top of its game a little quicker so it can go head-to-head with SpaceX.
Image (Credit): The introduction of the Artemis II crew, just one of many items highlighted in NASA’s new video summarizing 2023. (NASA)
This is the time of year for lists, so I wanted to highlight one of the more important lists, at least in the opinion of this writer. That’s right, we need to remember the important space milestones from this year.
Fortunately, NASA recently summed up its successes in 2023 with a new video titled NASA 2023: Nothing is Beyond Our Reach. The video highlights many of the Agency’s accomplishments this year, including the launch of the Psyche mission, the announcement of a crew for the Artemis II mission, and the OSIRIS-REx capsule retrieval.
It is quite a list. Luckily, NASA provided a list of links so you can read more about the various efforts:
Our Awesome Universe 