Welcome to Quartz’s newsletter on the economic potential of the extraterrestrial sphere. Please promote widely and let me know what you think. This week: We look at a moon launch, the Falcon Heavy gains another payload, and what’s really going on behind these James Webb Space Telescope images. After 18 years of work, NASA is finally ready to show how it will lead the next group of humans to the lunar surface. The US space agency plans to launch an uncrewed mission into orbit around the Moon as early as August 29. The launch, known as Artemis 1, will begin a multi-year campaign to explore the Moon. While much is known about Earth’s nearest neighbor, Apollo visits in the 1970s avoided the most interesting locations for safety reasons. Since then, robotic exploration has detected water ice on the Moon, which could allow for longer stays and more science there. Artemis 1 will be the first launch of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, among the most powerful vehicles ever built, that will carry the Orion spacecraft. After leaving the planet, the Orion spacecraft (with test dummies Helga, Zohar and commander Moonikin Campos) will autonomously orbit the Moon, demonstrating its ability to safely transport humans into deep space – and bring them back. The most important goal, according to Mike Sarafin, the NASA official in charge of the mission, will be to test the Lockheed Martin-made heat shield that protects Orion as it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere. Returning from the Moon, the vehicle will do 24,500 mph, or about 32 times the speed of sound, and hitting the atmosphere at that speed will generate about half the heat of the sun. There is no way to reproduce these conditions on Earth. The four- to six-week mission is also expected to prove that the launch vehicle and spacecraft are performing well in general and that the deep space environment, particularly with its higher levels of cosmic radiation, will not affect Orion. It’s also a chance for the agency to practice recovering spacecraft after a crash and launch some additional science payloads. If all goes according to plan, it will make a manned lunar orbit, perhaps in 2025. Warning: Launch dates tend to move, especially during hurricane season in Florida. However, NASA moving toward specific dates is an important step after SLS’s pre-launch rehearsals ran into more problems than expected. The success of this mission will be a step toward the realization of NASA’s as-yet-formless plans for the Moon. This does not mean that everything is moving at speed. This week, we heard bad news about two companies hired by NASA to send scientific payloads to the surface of the Moon before humans arrive. NASA’s VIPER rover, originally expected to lift off on a mission by Astrobotic next year, has now been delayed until 2024. The space agency will pay the company an additional $70 million to perform more lander tests to make sure it works when the chips are down. This stress is not a good sign, but additional tests are not unusual when NASA hires a private company as a service provider – we saw similar actions with SpaceX’s Dragon capsule. Meanwhile, Masten Space, another company with a NASA landing contract, appears to be on the brink of failure after laying off employees while searching in vain for new investors. Parabolic Arc reports that the company backed NASA because executives believed the mission could also carry a private payload, but the high-profile clients apparently backed out. It is not yet clear what will happen to Masten or his mission in 2023. However, there are eight other companies contracted for these missions, with Astrobotic’s first mission still scheduled for later this year. The reality is that NASA chose this model—hiring private companies rather than building these rovers themselves—to take a higher-risk, higher-reward approach to exploration. That includes those Commercial Lunar Payload Services missions, as well as the pioneering satellite launched into a unique orbit between the Earth and the Moon last month. These faster, cheaper missions are helping NASA fill in the gaps in its plans as the agency’s heavy Moon rocket prepares for its first launch. But the real fun is just getting started: Before the first woman or person of color lands on the Moon, NASA will also need spacesuits and a lander built by private companies. The James Webb Space Telescope has produced some fascinating images, but this is the most disturbing – an analysis showing the impact of a meteorite that struck the telescope’s giant primary mirror. This image shows the expected operation of the mirror on the left and the current results on the right, with a white spot indicating the location of the damage. Image copyright: NASA Scientists knew that space debris would hit the mirror and had ways to realign it to minimize problems, but the size of this hit has raised concerns that the telescope’s expected 20-year life could be shortened.
SPACE FENCES
Why not Mars? Relativity Space says it’s partnering with Impulse Space (I ASK the founders to stop putting a space in the company name) to launch a private mission to Mars. It’s unclear who would send payloads, but both could hope to attract scientific customers. Getting to Mars on the cheap has long been a dream in commercial spaceflight. Can this team realize it? Why not Nancy? NASA awarded SpaceX a $255 million contract to launch the Rome Nancy Grace Space Telescope in 2026. This drew attention because last year, SpaceX won a $178 million contract to launch a probe to Jupiter’s moon Europa in 2024. additional costs could be explained by specific NASA requirements for the mission—or by a price increase due to the lack of other competing rockets capable of flying the large telescope. What about those who capture the JWST images. The images we see from space telescopes are, in fact, data visualizations based on a complex combination of science, design, and history. Russia’s volatile space leader is out of a job. Dmitry Rogozin, a key figure in Russia’s space program since 2011, was replaced by member of parliament Yuri Borisov. Known for his outlandish rhetoric and penchant for hurling insults, Rogozin may not be missed by his counterparts around the world — but he may miss his old job, given rumors he’ll play a new role in the invasion of Russia in Ukraine. Starlink growing pains. As SpaceX rushes to add subscribers to Starlink thanks to its new approval for mobile users, residential users are complaining of increasing network congestion at peak times—perhaps growing pains in the still-unfinished network, but which could signal more difficulties ahead. The Pentagon isn’t done investing in space. The US military has approved a $1.3 billion contract to buy 28 prototype satellites to be used for early warning and tracking of hypersonic weapons. Your friend, Hon This was issue 143 of our newsletter. Hope your week is out of this world! Send your Artemis 1 launch predictions, Starlink lag experiences, tips and updated opinions to [email protected]
