Since the USSR launched Sputnik in 1957, the number of satellites in LEO has grown leading to an increasing threat of collisions. The Space Safety Coalition, a confederation of voluntary participants, has established a set of guidelines to mitigate the risk of interruption of vital space services that could arise if collisions occur. The SSC published the Best Practices for the Sustainability of Space Operations in September 2019 with 42 recommendations affecting not only the design of spacecraft but on-orbit procedures to ensure long term safety and sustainability.
Space Tango on cutting edge of orbital manufacturing research
The startup’s customers are studying zero-G materials processing, medical devices, flow chemistry and other processes through their plug and play systems on the ISS. But the company’s long term goal is scalable manufacturing leveraging the microgravity environment to add value through their planned orbiting platform called ST-42, which will operate autonomously from the ISS.
Additive manufacturing starting to impact multiple space sectors
Satellite manufacturers and launch companies are leveraging 3D printing to reduce costs enabling cheaper access to space
Small sat news
The latest from SatSure on the rise of Newspace over the last decade, productizing geospatial analytics, investment strategies and more
What’s missing from space exploration?
“Manufacturing” says Made in Space CEO Andrew Rush as quoted in the Jacksonville Daily Record. “You need a reason to go. Every frontier we’ve ever opened as a people was because there was an economic reason for us to go and live and work in that place … That’s what we think is the missing piece in space exploration, . . . that economically-focused motivator to go and innovate and do new things.”
Axiom partners with SpaceX to launch private tourists to the ISS
In what is sure to be a historic flight next year, Axiom has inked a deal with SpaceX to be the first space tourism company to arrange for three private astronauts to be ferried to the ISS on a Crew Dragon. A fourth space flight participant will be a SpaceX trained astronaut. Axiom has plans for a permanent replacement of the ISS to provide a permanent habitat, scientific and industrial facility in LEO
The motivation for space settlement
Here is why we have such a positive view and faith in humanity’s future in space.
Living off the “land” in space
Building blocks for governance of space resource activities
The Hague International Space Resources Governance Working Group announces adoption of the Building Blocks of an International Framework on Space Resource activities
At last: a plan for demonstration of space solar power technology
Stars and Stripes reports that the Air Force Research Laboratory in partnership with Northrop Grumman is planning a Space Solar Power Incremental Demonstration. No word on when flight hardware will be ready, but this is the first initiative of which I am aware that actual space technology demonstration is in the works.
Although the project’s primary objectives are intended to augment military operations with beamed power from space to remote bases, the technology has potential commercial applications as a power source for isolated communities worldwide.