Short Takes – 4-8-25 – Space Geek Edition

Boeing’s bet: supercharge satellite production. SpaceNews.com interview. Pull quote: “At Millennium, with orders coming in, we’re ramping up capability. And at Spectrolab, [another Boeing subsidiary] we’re investing in automation and increased capacity because we see the demand. Spectrolab had one of their best years ever last year.”

Axiom Space to launch orbital data centers on Kepler satellites. SpaceNews.com article. Pull quote: “Those future [data center] facilities won’t be identical to Axiom’s planned space station. “Data centers don’t need life support and don’t need to be human rated,” he said. “So, they will be a bit simpler, but the foundational building blocks of large-scale infrastructure are common and modular between space stations and orbital data centers.””

Aitech unveils IQSat, a picosatellite for AI applications. SpaceNews.com article. Pull quote: “Aitech has been contacted by customers interested in IQSat for military space, scientific and commercial applications. A proposed commercial application for the one-kilogram satellite bus is monitoring temperature, radiation, micrometeorite impacts and material degradation of space habitats, Shah said.”

Satellite jamming is a real and growing threat. How can we protect our space infrastructure? Space.com article. Pull quote: “Since then [April 2024], eight European countries, including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, Finland and France, filed complaints to the ITU against Russia's interference with European satellite communications systems.”

How rare are inhabited worlds in the universe? The 'LIFE' space telescope fleet could find out. Space.com article. Pull quote: “If LIFE detects no biosignatures on its sample of planets, it cannot conclude that there is no life anywhere, but it can place a maximum limit on how many planets in the galaxy do have life. And, as the sample size increases, if there continues to be no detection, then that maximum number would decrease further. In other words, LIFE could tell us whether inhabited planets are rare or not.”

Space policy: The Moon and Mars simultaneously. TheSpaceReview.com article. Pull quote: “If Congress decides to delay Mars and go to the Moon first, it will be irrelevant because that won’t change SpaceX’s mind, and it is unlikely that government space policy will prevent SpaceX from getting a launch license. In other words, the decisionmakers in DC will be faced with an interesting decision. Will America stand to the side while SpaceX (in partnership with other countries) goes to Mars, or should NASA partner with SpaceX and hence play a role among the nations in this very historic moment? There are few things that the two sides of the aisle agree upon in Washington. But one thing that they agree upon is that our space program is to demonstrate American leadership on the world stage. So, I cannot imagine NASA failing to partner with SpaceX for Mars.”