INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Space is becoming a major area of startup and commercial investment, and so I&ve decided to start providing a weekly round-up of the biggest
news in aerospace, space science and space-related technologies
Let me know if you appreciate this or have suggestions, and I&ll make sure it evolves as needed to be useful resource.
This week, there was
an abundance of spacesuit news, and signs from multiple operators that there going to be an orbital traffic boom in the immediate future
Also, we&re heading into the annual International Astronautical Congress (IAC) this coming week, so expect a lot more news starting
NASA unveils its Artemis-generation spacesuits
NASA showed off a brand new generation of spacesuit, including the one that the first
American woman and next American man to set foot on the Moon will don for that historic moment
The new Artemis suits are designed to scale from essentially the smallest to the largest possible adult human frame, which NASA touts as a
way to make the astronaut program more accessible to a wider range of Americans
The agency should be going out of its way to fix that, because of what happened that led to item #2 this week.
For the first time, NASA is
looking to outsource the full production of these Artemis-generation spacesuits (including the Orion survival suit, which was also revealed
today and will be worn only during flight aboard the Orion capsule)
To that end, it has put out a request for input from industry about their design and development ahead of setting up a proper RFP.
2
NASA astronauts Christina H
Koch and Jessica Meir complete historic first all-woman spacewalk
NASA astronauts Christina H
Koch and Jessica Meir
As I alluded above, there was a very good reason that NASA really emphasized how inclusive its Artemis suit designs
are: The agency had to cancel a first all-woman spacewalk earlier this year because it didn''t have the right amount of properly sized
spacesuitson board the International Space Station
It sent one up in June, however, and that historic moment happened this past week, with Koch and Meir performing a roughly seven-hour
spacewalk to repair a power controller.
3
SpaceX applies for permission to launch 30,000 more Starlink satellites
That on top of the 12,000 it already had cleared, which makes for a
total potential constellation size of 42,000
That about 8x the number of satellites currently in orbit, across all orbital zones
It a move that is definitely raising the ire of both industry and space researchers, because it&ll make it a lot more complicated to ensure
orbital spacecraft avoid collisions, and it could potentially obscure the view of the stars from Earth
SpaceX says it has taken steps to ensure it can avoid both problems, but not everyone is convinced.
4
Swarm gets the ‘OK& for its 150-satellite constellation
Meanwhile, startup Swarm has been granted FCC approval to deploy its own,
much-smaller constellation of 150 satellites
Swarm isn''t competing directly with SpaceX Starlink & it wants to provide low-bandwidth IoT connectivity
And while it isn''t looking to put up a huge volume of spacecraft, there was some concern that its toaster-sized satellites might be too
small to track and present a risk that way.
5
Rocket Lab swap launch is a success
New Zealand-born and lately United States -headquartered Rocket Lab was successful in launching its
fifth Electron rocket this year
The startup success was more a proof point for its business model than its technology, however, since the payload that flew aboard this
mission was actually one that wasn''t slated to go up until much later in the queue
Rocket Lab original client for this one had to drop out due to unfortunate circumstances, and Rocket Lab was able to get client Astro
This kind of late-stage payload swap has not typically been a strength of the established commercial space launch industry.
6
Under Armour built some fancy tracksuits for space
Richard Branson Virgin Galactic will begin ferrying wealthy paying tourists to the very
edge of space next year, if all goes to plan, and now we know what they&ll be wearing when they do: Under Armour
The sportswear company and Branson space enterprise unveiled the new suits at a flashy special event featuring the first tourists who have
reserved $250,000 tickets aboard Virgin Galactic atmosphere-skimming spacecraft.
7
How Lockheed Martin Venture arm spends its $200 million in available funding
Lockheed Martin has been in the commercial space business
since there has been a commercial space business to be in, and around a decade ago it established a corporate venture fund to make strategic
I sat down with the fund GM and Executive Director J
Christopher Moran to talk about what the fund looks for in startups & and the industry giant is a lot more interested in early stage
companies that you might have thought
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