Archive for the ‘Space Book Reviews’ Category
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February 18th, 2025
NASA’s Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute (S3VI) has released the 2024 State-of-the-Art Small Spacecraft Technology report.
This informative and detailed 2024 edition reflects updates in several areas, including formation flying and rendezvous and proximity operations, additive manufacturing, free space optical communications and hosted orbital services.
Invaluable insights
The document provides invaluable insights in numerous areas, including power, in-space propulsion, guidance, navigation, and control, as well as thermal control, smallsat avionics and deorbit systems.
The S3VI is located at the NASA Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. The S3VI is sponsored by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD).
Image credit: S3VI
Improved capabilities
“Technology maturation and miniaturization continues to expand small spacecraft capabilities with the rise in complex SmallSat mission designs. These improved capabilities have broadened the common SmallSat platform resulting in larger CubeSats and smaller SmallSats,” the report notes.
The NASA Small Spacecraft Technology State-of-the-art report is updated annually to capture new information on publicly available small spacecraft systems from NASA and other sources.
Image credit: S3VI
Mass categories
SmallSats are generally grouped according to their mass, and this report adopts the following five small spacecraft mass categories:
- minisatellites are spacecraft with a total mass of 100 – 180 kg;
- microsatellites have a total spacecraft mass of 10-100 kg;
- nanosatellites have a total mass of 1 – 10 kg;
- picosatellites have a mass of 1 – 0.01 kg; and
- femtosatellites have a total spacecraft mass 0.01 – 0.09 kg.
Bridging technology gaps
“While updates in all chapters reflect this growth in the small spacecraft market,” the report points out, “a focused effort was made to update areas with recent technology developments that may ultimately bridge existing technology gaps.”
To access a copy of this report, go to:
https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/soa-2024.pdf?emrc=0945a0
Also, be sure to check out the resource-rich Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute website at:
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Uncertainty exists associated with operating in cislunar space, as well as on and around the Moon – so much so that a “security dilemma” between countries can evolve.
There is need to provide an opportunity for transparency, coordination, cooperation, and collaboration a new report suggests. It calls for inclusive engagement and decision-making concerning cislunar space, including the development of improved rules and best practices.
The Outer Space Institute has published a report on cislunar security: New Moon: A Cislunar Security Workshop Report.
The Outer Space Institute (OSI) is based at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and is a network of world-leading space experts.
Earth’s Moon and cis-lunar space are new destinations for numbers of nations. To what extent is that presence demand or promote a military presence?
Image credit: Inside Outer Space
Military buildup
Defined in the report is that a security dilemma occurs “when a state, lacking clear information about whether a potential adversary is engaged in a military buildup, faces a choice between building up its own military, or doing nothing and risk being overwhelmed.”
Indeed, voices within U.S. national security circles have voiced support that the U.S. Space Force should have a cislunar military presence, strengthening the ability to guard commercial interests as a “cislunar economy” evolves.
One major issue identified in the report is lunar surface traffic management. It involves ensuring that one actor does not impede another actor – or imperil its personnel, equipment or installations – by approaching too closely or causing dust lofting or radio interference of some kind. “But what is a reasonable distance,” the report adds, “and who gets to decide?”
Carving up near-moon locales: How strategic could this be for military interests? (Image credit: Aerospace Corporation)
China’s lunar program
Given China’s growing progress in Moon exploration, via robots and eventual human treks to emplace an International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), there has been little effort by Western experts to analyze documents on cislunar space from China or, indeed, to engage with Chinese experts.
“Unfortunately, this only increases the risk of one or more security dilemmas,” the report observes.
Image courtesy U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in its “2022 Challenges to Security in Space” report.
To access the full report — New Moon: A Cislunar Security Workshop Report — and its recommendations and conclusions, go to:
A signal is detected from other star folks. But what happens now?
The International Academy of Astronautics has outlined protocols for what to do if we discover extraterrestrials. The major points of the protocol fall into three areas:
- The detection of alien life should be carefully verified by repeated observations.
- The discovery should be publicized.
- No response should be sent without international consultation.
The late Frank Drake with cosmic equation to gauge the presence of intelligent life in the cosmos. The Drake Equation identifies specific factors believed to play a role in the development of civilizations in our galaxy.
Image credit: SETI Institute
Next-gen SETI
That factoid is one among many in Next-Gen SETI: Pioneering the Search for ET.
If you’re curious about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, download a free eBook produced by the SETI Institute.
Learn about:
- The Allen Telescope Array and China’s FAST facility used to detect potential extraterrestrial signals.
- Different approaches like radio and optical methods that expand our search.
- Key scientific concepts and theories, including the Drake Equation and the Fermi Paradox.
- Societal implications and protocols for responding to extraterrestrial discoveries.
Download your free eBook at:
https://www.seti.org/sites/default/files/2025-01/SETI%20ebook%20%20final.7.9.24.pdf
The Center for Security and Emerging Technology within Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service has issued a new report: Shaping the U.S. Space Launch Market
Key Takeaways from the document are:
The United States finds itself in the position of world leader in launch, with a relatively consolidated
market. The United States conducts 50% more launches than it did at the peak of the space race—
but more than five out of every six U.S. launches come from SpaceX.
While evaluating the American launch market’s ability to meet critical U.S. national security and
foreign policy needs, this paper found the following challenges and opportunities exist in the
market:
Opportunities
• The United States leads the world in space launch by nearly every measure: number of
launches, total mass to orbit, satellite count, and more.
• SpaceX’s emergence has provided regular, reliable, and relatively affordable launches to
commercial and national security customers.
• Alongside SpaceX is a small group of technically viable alternatives. This variety offers the
country a measure of resilience in the face of national security threats.
Challenges
• Today’s market consolidation coupled with the capital requirements necessary to develop
rockets make it difficult for new competitors to break in.
• China has shown the ability and willingness to invest the level of capital needed to create
international competitors to the American leaders.
Image credit: Center for Security and Emerging Technology
Source: Dates via Crunchbase and company websites
Recommendations
1. The U.S. Department of Defense and NASA should:
a. Conduct research and strategic investment toward in-space transportation technologies.
b. Execute small satellite missions and expand purchases of small launch vehicle services to cheaply test technology and encourage a competitive future launch market.
c. Expand launch infrastructure capacity, dispersion, and resilience to improve U.S. launch capacity in peacetime and safeguard it in case of conflict.
2. The federal government should promote competition in the commercial space launch industry by continuing to allocate launches among multiple competitive vendors to ensure resilience and innovation.
Given the national security implications of the launch market, the United States must continue to encourage innovation and progress. Technologies such as reusability have provided a window of time for U.S. advantage. Continued innovation will be necessary to advance and sustain that advantage.
To download full report, go to:
https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/shaping-the-u-s-space-launch-market/
Book Review: Lunar: A History of the Moon in Myths, Maps, and Matter, Edited by Matthew Shindell; The University of Chicago Press; Hardcover/Cloth, 256 pages; $65.00.
This is a unique, beautiful, inspiring, and vital volume – a book to help the reader prepare for humankind’s reintroduction to on-location Moon exploration. As noted author Dava Sobel writes in her foreword, you will be consumed by how the Moon is portrayed here, “a black-and-white world rendered in a riot of gorgeous colours.”
Central to the book are superb cartographical charts of the Moon, coupled with masterful text that highlights our celestial neighbor’s role in popular myth, culture and science.
Between 1962 and 1974, US Geological Survey illustrator-cartographers painstakingly and systematically mapped the Moon, laying out a visual welcome mat for early, pioneering robotic craft and then followed by human explorers.
National Air and Space Museum curator Matthew Shindell has pulled together an impressive, fabulous volume, touching on the significance of the Moon from the Stone Age to today. The book contains well-written contributions from scholars that cover a wide array of over 30 topics, such as: “The Moon in Ancient Egyptian Creation Myths,” “Understanding the Phases of the Moon,” to “‘Moonstruck’ – Lunacy and the Full Moon” and “The Feminine Symbolism of the Moon,” as well as “The Moon in Silent Cinema, and “‘Selling’ the Moon in the 1950s.”
In Shindell’s introduction, he writes that the book demonstrates that “the Moon has been and remains connected to almost every facet of human life. While it is impossible to predict precisely what is to come in the long relationship between humans and the Moon, what is clear is that the Moon will forever live in the human heart.”
There are 500 color plates within the pages of this large format — 10-1/2 x 14-3/8 – book that includes a set of endnotes, a glossary, sources of illustrations and a further reading list.
Again, this is a treasure of a book and the reader will find this volume a prized resource as humanity returns to and “reboots” the Moon!
For more information on this book, go to:
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/L/bo240063025.html
On December 18, 2024, the U.S. Department of Defense publicly released its annual report, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
This annual report to Congress features a number of space-related activities underway by China, from use of space for military purposes, reusable rocketry and space planes, to deep space exploration.
This report covers security and military developments involving the PRC through early 2024.
The report can be found here at:
First the book…then the movie!
Just coming off that post-Thanksgiving spin?
Think about off-Earth alcohol consumption in space.
Yes, even in space you can hear the sound of a swizzle stick!
On October 11th, the Alcohol in Space movie had its premiere at the Explorers Club in New York City to a standing-room-only audience. Based on the book authored by Chris Carberry, Culture in Space Productions (CiSP) has released its first full-length documentary film now available on Amazon Prime.
Attending the Explorers Club premiere was Greg Olsen, the 3rd private civilian in space, a self-funded rocket sojourn in October 2005 to the International Space Station via a Russian Soyuz.
“The increased population of both non-orbital and orbital flyers will make this an ongoing experiment since many of them will have no crew duties and would be free to sample a drink or two,” Olsen explains. “Alcohol in Space is an interesting movie that discusses not only the possibility of it having already been used in space, but also what the effects of weightlessness might be on people who would consume it.”
The film features Kim Stanley Robinson (Novelist, Futurist), Jeffrey Manber (Founder and Chairman, Nanoracks), Samuel Coniglio (Space Futurist; Author, Creature Comforts in Space), Joe Cassady (Executive Vice President, Explore Mars; Space propulsion professional), as well as distilling and brewing specialists.
The film is directed by the creative Sam Burbank of Culture in Space Productions (CiSP). Next up is a movie based on Carberry’s book, The Music of Space: Scoring the Cosmos in Film and Television currently in preproduction.
Alcohol in Space is the first CiSP film that focuses on the expansion of human culture in space. CiSP has been established to tell the stories of the next wave of astronauts, innovators, and dreamers pushing to expand human culture into space.
As noted in a CiSP media statement, Alcohol in Space is the first of many films that will examine the expansion of human culture in space. CiSP will tell the stories of the next wave of astronauts, innovators, and dreamers pushing to expand human culture into space.
“While rockets and spaceships are essential to get there, a viable human civilization beyond Earth will require all human culture. This includes art, labor, literature, culinary arts, friendships, families, and of course a healthy dose of ‘sex, drugs, and rock and roll.’”
The release of the full-length documentary film, Alcohol in Space, is available on Amazon Prime. For more information, go to:
https://www.amazon.com/Alcohol-Space-Movie-Sam-Burbank/dp/B0DJQZGLG2
Also, go to the Culture in Space website to view a movie trailer at:
FLIR
Credit: DOD/U.S. Navy/Inside Outer Space screengrab
A release today of the Department of Defense annual report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) comes one day after a witness-based Congressional hearing on the topic.
The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office’s Annual Report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena is required by the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2022, as amended by the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2023.
“Analyzing and understanding the potential threats posed by UAP is an ongoing collaborative effort involving many departments and agencies,” said a DoD statement.
“The safety of our service personnel, our bases and installations, and the protection of U.S. operations security on land, in the skies, seas, and space are paramount. We take reports of incursions into our designated space, land, sea, or airspaces seriously and examine each one,” adds the DoD.
Credit: DOD/U.S. Navy/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Rigorous scientific framework
The All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office is leading DOD’s efforts with others to document, analyze, and when possible, resolve UAP reports using a rigorous scientific framework and a data-driven approach.
This year’s UAP report covers UAP reports from May 1, 2023, to June 1, 2024, as well as any UAP report from previous time periods that were not included in an earlier report.
This brought the total cases that AARO has been reviewing to over 1,600 as of June 1, 2024.
According to the AARO report itself, to date, AARO has no indication or confirmation that these activities are attributable to foreign adversaries.”
Image credit: AARO
Wanted: timely, actionable sensor data
AARO is continuing to coordinate with the Intelligence Community (IC) to identify whether these activities may be the result of foreign adversarial activities.
However, AARO’s ability to resolve cases “remains constrained by a lack of timely and actionable sensor data.”
To that end, AARO has begun collections using a prototype sensor system, GREMLIN, for detecting, tracking, and characterizing UAP.
The just-issued report explains that GREMLIN demonstrated functionality and successfully collected data during a test event in March of 2024.
“The next step for GREMLIN is a 90-day pattern of life collection at a site of national security,” the AARO report states.
Image credit: Statista
Partnerships
The AARO report notes that the group continues to address this challenge by working with military and technical partners to optimize sensor requirements, information-sharing processes, and the content of UAP reporting.
“AARO is also expanding engagement with foreign partners to share information and collaborate on best practices for resolving UAP cases,” the report concludes. “AARO will continue to develop partnerships across the USG [US Government], academia, and commercial communities. Through these partnerships, AARO will expand its sensor technology capabilities, analytic tool suites, and the UAP-related sciences spanning the space, air, and maritime domains.”
To dive into the full report — The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office’s Annual Report on Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena – go to:
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has identified three technologies in science, technology, and engineering that are trending toward maturity: Gene editing, Biodegradable bioplastics, and guess what – Space-based manufacturing of semiconductor crystals.
Space-based manufacturing of semiconductor crystals, may enable the production of high-quality semiconductors, the GAO reports.
“The unique conditions of space—such as microgravity, a natural vacuum, and reduced contamination—could enable the production of semiconductor crystals with fewer defects and greater purity than those manufactured on Earth,” the report explains.
Of what on-Earth use?
“These semiconductors could lead to more powerful computers, faster communication systems, and improved consumer electronics,” notes the GAO document.
As for the implications, GAO spotlights the dependency on foreign supply chains for raw materials, and safeguarding the spacecraft needed for enabling such manufacturing.
“A potential consideration for policymakers is whether a comprehensive licensing framework for investment, development, and intellectual property protection would benefit the development of these technologies,” concludes the GAO study.
GAO developed this report focused on technologies approximately 10 years on the horizon. “The goal is to provide foresight into developing technologies that could have significant impacts on Americans,” the report explains.
Go to the full GAO report at:
Image credit: CSIS Aerospace Security Project
“There is a lot of promise—and hype—around the future of humankind in cislunar space. But there are also hard realities,” explains a report by the Aerospace Security Project, a study arm of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Salmon Swimming Upstream – charting a course in cislunar space points out that “only the United States and China are positioned to develop and launch crewed spacecraft to the Moon.”
The report’s title was prompted by Apollo 11 moonwalker, Neil Armstrong, the first person on the Moon: “I think we’re going to the Moon because it’s in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It’s by the nature of his deep inner soul . . . we’re required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream.”
Common ground
A key comment by the report’s principal author, Clayton Swope, and contributing author, Louis Gleason is that cislunar space and beyond is probably the best environment—maybe the only environment today—where the United States and China, as well as many other nations, can find common ground on shared interests.
Image credit: CSIS Aerospace Security Project
“The United States should seize this opportunity, both for U.S. national interests and for humankind more broadly,” the report concludes.
Policies and activities
This informative report features:
- National Cislunar Policies and Activities
- International Space Governance Frameworks
- Non-space International Frameworks with Analogues to Space Governance
- Cislunar Governance and Policy Challenges
- Cislunar Operational and Infrastructure Challenges
- Key Considerations for Next Steps
To access the report — Salmon Swimming Upstream – charting a course in cislunar space – go to:
