Short Takes – 9-5-24 – Space Geek Edition

Boeing Starliner Set to Leave Space Station Without Its Crew. NYTimes.com article. Pull quote: “However, that would come at considerable cost for Boeing. The $4.2 billion contract that Boeing signed with NASA in 2014 set fixed amounts for meeting milestones like certification, and the company does not receive payment until it meets those benchmarks. Unlike many traditional so-called cost-plus contracts, Boeing is responsible for picking up the cost of overruns and delays under the agreement with the agency.”

NASA's newly unfurled solar sail has started 'tumbling' end-over-end in orbit, surprising observations show. LiveScience.com article. Pull quote: “On Sunday (Sept. 1), Langbroek, who is currently a lecturer in space situational awareness at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, shared video footage of ACS3 repeatedly dimming and brightening as it passed over a satellite tracking station near Leiden. In an associated blog post, the researcher explained that the object went from being as bright as some of the brightest stars in the sky to being barely visible.”

Polaris’s dawn. TheSpaceReview.com article. Pull quote: “SpaceX has not announced a new launch date, with this Friday [September 6^th] now the earliest it could fly. (The launch time remains the same each day, with opportunities between about 3:30 and 7 am EDT.) Isaacman posted over the Labor Day weekend that the crew remains in quarantine in Florida, doing training like proficiency flights to stay ready when the weather cooperates.”

To guard against cyberattacks in space, researchers ask “what if?” TheSpaceReview.com article. High-level overview of cybersecurity issues. Pull quote: “Because space is so remote and hard to access, if someone wanted to attack a space system, they would likely need to do it through a cyberattack. Space systems are particularly attractive targets because their hardware cannot be easily upgraded once launched, and this insecurity worsens over time. As complex systems, they can have long supply chains, and more links in the chain increase the chance of vulnerabilities. Major space projects are also challenged to keep up with best practices over the decade or more needed to build them.”

Huge SpaceX rocket explosion shredded the upper atmosphere. Nature.com article. Pull quote: “The team examined publicly available data from more than 2,500 ground stations across North America and the Caribbean that receive satellite navigation signals. They found that the Starship explosions produced shock waves that travelled faster than the speed of sound, turning the ionosphere into a region of neutral atmosphere — a “hole” — for nearly an hour over a region stretching from Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula to the southeastern United States. Rocket exhaust can trigger chemical reactions that produce temporary holes in the ionosphere even in the absence of an explosion, but in this case the shockwaves themselves had by far the larger effect, Yasyukevich says.” Journal article.

FrankenVega Confirmed for Sentinel 2C Launch. EuropeanSpaceFlight.com article. Pull quote: “While the stage will incorporate elements of an AVUM+ upper stage, it must retain a significant portion of its original design to avoid the need for requalification by ESA. However, given the unique situation and the untested nature of these components being combined into a single stage, ESA appears to be accepting additional risk for the launch of an important payload.”