Private equity is predatory capitalism with a long trail of destruction

Prem Sikka
5 April, 2024
LEFT FOOT FORWARD


There won’t be enough money to contain the tsunami caused by private equity collapse. Yet there is no move to shackle private equity.



Prem Sikka is an Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex and the University of Sheffield, a Labour member of the House of Lords, and Contributing Editor at Left Foot Forward.

Private equity is part of predatory capitalism that is swallowing everything from accountancy firms and airports to supermarkets and more. Some see it as a saviour of distressed companies and jobs, but it has no long-term interest in companies. It only buys to sell, and has left a long trail destruction which the rest of society has to mop-up.

The UK economy is yet to fully recover from the 2007-08 banking crash, but the path to the next crash is being laid by private equity which is unregulated. It controls assets of £6.3 trillion and in 2022 invested around £47bn in UK companies.

Private equity is effectively a consortium in which sovereign-wealth funds, banks, pension funds, hedge funds, insurance companies, financial technology firms, mutual funds, clearing houses, money market funds, private credit funds, trusts and wealthy individuals pool resources to buy a variety of business entities and generate high returns by selling them, often by breaking them.

Private equity operates through complex corporate structures and key components are almost always located in low/no tax jurisdictions with little or no transparency. High leverage, low wages, low investment, asset-stripping, strategic bankruptcies, profits shifting, tax avoidance and financial engineering are key tools for extracting profits.

It loads the acquired entity with secured debt because interest payments qualify for tax relief, which lowers the cost of capital and helps to increase returns. The secured creditor status enables private equity to drastically reduce or eliminate the losses which might arise from bankruptcies because it has to be paid before all other creditors.

Some may refer to Benson for Beds and B&M as examples of the private equity success story, but overall its focus on the short-term is destructive. Private equity controlled businesses are 10 times more likely to go bankrupt than those who aren’t. More often than not, it is deliberate to increase returns. Its UK victims include Bernard Matthews, Byron Burger, Casual Dining Group, Cath Kidson, Comet, Debenhams, Flybe, Four Seasons Health Care, HMV, TM Lewin, Maplin, Monarch Airlines, Paperchase, Planet Organic, Poundworld, Southern Cross, Toys R Us and many more. Thousands of jobs have been lost and town centres have been turned into economic deserts. Tax bills are not paid. Too many SMEs in the supply-chain have been wiped out as they could not recover the amounts owed to them.

Bernard Matthews was a well-known poultry business and fell upon hard times after its founder’s death. It was sold to a private equity consortium which loaded it with secured debt. Within the next three years, its private equity owners sold-off parts of the business and then deliberately placed it into bankruptcy. They refused to sell the whole business because that would have required the new owner to buy liabilities and pension scheme deficit, in return for a lower price. Instead, they only sold the tangible assets because that maximised the profits for private equity. Unsecured creditors and pension scheme deficit was dumped. This pattern has been repeated across numerous collapses.

In 2021, Debenhams closed its doors after 242 years, with the loss of 12,000 jobs. It was destroyed by private equity which increased debt from £128m to £1.6bn, and paid itself dividends of £1.3bn. The company was strangled by debt which left no wiggle room for investment and collapsed owing £616m to its suppliers.

Private equity has its tentacles in England’s water companies. Thames, Yorkshire and Southern Water are all inflicted by private equity and have higher leverage than other water companies. Profits are made by dumping sewage in rivers, not plugging leaks and low investment. Since 2020, Thames Water is has dumped 72bn litres of sewage into rivers and has not built any new reservoirs since 1989. It is now struggling for survival and has hiked customer bills by 12.1%, well above the rate of inflation.

Private equity has moved bought GP surgeries, nursing homes, hospitals, opticians, dermatology, and ophthalmology providers. Accessing GPs is becoming harder and doctors are being replaced with less qualified staff. A 2023 research study concluded that private equity ownership was “most consistently associated with increases in costs to patients or payers” and “associated with mixed to harmful impacts on quality.” It could identify “no consistently beneficial impacts of PE ownership.”

Some 75% of children’s care homes are private, and eight of the 10 largest UK private providers are private equity owned homes. Local councils are charged more than £30,000 per week or £1m per year for placements for children with significant care needs. Some 30%-40% of all public money handed to private equity controlled care homes vanishes in profits. Profiteering and neglect is never far away.

Care home workers are some of the lowest paid, a key factor in high vacancies, high staff turnover and low quality of care. Executive pay has rocketed. Highly paid executives focused on profit extraction have not delivered high quality of service. Numerous private equity controlled care homes attract “inadequate” and “requires improvement” quality ratings from regulators but they still pay high dividends. For example, HC-One, the UK’s largest care home service provider for more than 14,000 residents in 321 homes pays dividends even when the company makes losses. Research studies have concluded that for-profit homes provide lower quality of service than not-for-profit homes, and “private equity financing and independent for-profit ownership are associated with lower quality”.

A House of Commons report noted that around 16% of the fees paid to care homes vanish in interest payments to service high levels of leverage. Companies dodge taxes through the use of “tax havens, complex related party transactions and other artificial arrangements. It further added that there is “no transparency over ownership”, “no rules to stop or discourage financially risky behaviour”, and “providers bear no responsibility for the continuity of care if they suddenly leave the market or change ownership”.

Private equity has moved into supermarkets. In 2021, Morrisons wasacquired by private equity for about £7bn, which was loaded on to the company as debt. With rising interest rates, it soon hit the buffers. Asset stripping began with the sale of 337 petrol forecourts for £2.5bn. It is raising finance through sale and leaseback of stores. It may sell its manufacturing arm, which includes abattoirs, vegetable packing houses and fish processing plants, to raise cash to repay debt. It is goodbye to the benefits of integrated business synergies. Worker’s pay has been cut and employer pension contributions reduced. Customers complain of less choice, higher prices, a less-rewarding loyalty scheme, fewer staff, increasingly tatty stores and more self-checkouts.

In 2021, Issa Brothers in collaboration with private equity consortium TDR Capital bought Asda, and loaded it with £6.8bn debt. Through a complex corporate structure, Asda is controlled by a company registered in the tax haven of Jersey. Issa Brothers deny that the offshore vehicle will facilitate tax avoidance, but there is little other use of it. Soon after the debt-laded acquisition, the company announced job losses and 5% pay cut for about 7,000 workers. In February 2024, it was reported that one of the Issa Brothers is considering selling part of his stake in Asda.

The Bank of England has expressed concerns about the debt pile of private equity and its vulnerability to higher interest rates. Any major collapse would infect the whole economy. After the 2007-8 banking crash the state provided £1,162bn of support (£133bn cash and £1,029bn of guarantees) to bailout ailing banks and £895bn of quantitative easing to support capital markets. There won’t be enough money to contain the tsunami caused by private equity collapse. Yet there is no move to shackle private equity.

For starters, tax relief on interest payments should be abolished. Whether an investment is funded with debt or equity makes no difference to the systemic risk but tax relief facilitates high returns for the dealmakers and encourages high leverage. That subsidy must end. All prudential rules applied to banks, such as capital adequacy; need to be applied to private equity. The Competition and Market Authority should not permit takeovers where the buyer has consistently abused its powers. The gains made by private equity dealmakers are their incomes and must to be taxed at the marginal rates between 20%-45% instead of capital gains currently taxed at rates between 10% and 28%. Insolvency law needs to be changed to prevent private equity masquerading as a secured creditor from walking away with almost all of the proceeds from the sale of business assets. At least 50% must be ring-fenced for the benefit of unsecured creditors, and enable innocent SMEs caught up in the private equity games to survive and flourish.

Image credit: Marc Barrot – Creative Commons

SPACE

Two toppled moon landers go dormant for a lunar night they may not survive

Japan's SLIM spacecraft and Intuitive Machines' Odysseus sent their last transmissions home before the two-week-long night.

Cheyenne MacDonald
·Weekend Editor
Sat, March 2, 2024 

Intuitive Machines


Lunar night has come around again, presenting yet another test for the two landers that recently arrived on the moon’s surface. Both Japan’s SLIM spacecraft and Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus have gone to sleep for the two-week-long stretch of darkness, the two teams confirmed at the end of this week. There’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to resume operations afterward, but they’ll try to reestablish contact when the time comes.

While the solar powered landers weren’t built to withstand the frigid lunar night, SLIM — which has been on the moon since January 19 — has already beaten the odds beforeto pull through last month. It’ll be the first lunar night for Odysseus, which landed on February 22.

The missions, though successful in that the spacecraft survived their respective descents to the surface, stand as further examples of how challenging it is to land on the moon; both landers fell over, leaving them stuck in non-ideal positions.SLIM face-planted, andOdysseus broke a leg and tipped onto its side.

SLIM has been able to capture a few images from the surface, and the team shared another look at the Shioli crater from its perspective on Thursday before it powered down. Odysseus has sent home some pictures too from its wide-angle camera, including one last transmission before lunar night that shows a portion of the lander and the surface of the moon, with a tiny crescent Earth in the distance. But the world has eagerly been awaiting third-person POV pictures from the EagleCam made by students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, which hitched a ride with Odysseus. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem likely to happen at this point.

The camera wasn’t deployed as originally planned before the moment of touchdown, and while Intuitive Machinessaid this weekthat the team was able to power it up and eject it after Odysseus reached the surface, communications with the camera so far aren’t working. “The Embry‑Riddle team is working on that and wrestling with that to see if there’s anything they can do,” Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus said on Wednesday. The onset of lunar night isn’t going to help those odds.

Lunar update

Odysseus was able to transmit data despite a bumpy lunar landing. - Intuitive Machines

Odysseus, the first US-made vehicle to make a soft landing on the moon in five decades, had a busy week after a hair-raising descent and touchdown near the lunar south pole on February 22.

Despite a bumpy landing that left Odie on its side — a setback captured in striking images — data has been transmitted from all six NASA instruments on board as well as commercial payloads, officials confirmed Wednesday.

Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 lander now faces another test: surviving lunar night, a dangerous situation as the swing into ultra-freezing temperatures during this period could cause damage to Odie’s hardware.

Elsewhere in our solar system, space scientists have spotted three faint and tiny moons orbiting the outermost planets in the Milky Way: Uranus and Neptune.
Curiosities

Explore these mind-expanding stories:

— Archaeologists have unearthed a 2,000-year-old clay head that once belonged to a figurine of a god. The rare find provides new context about life in Roman Britain.

— A dead star that feasted on a planet once in its orbit could foretell the eventual fate of our own solar system.

— Scientists have identified one reason why invasive Jorō spiders are spreading throughout United States.

Like what you’ve read? Oh, but there’s more. Sign up here to receive in your inbox the next edition of Wonder Theory, brought to you by CNN Space and Science writers Ashley Strickland and Katie Hunt. They find wonder in planets beyond our solar system and discoveries from the ancient world.

Japan's SLIM moon lander powers down as long lunar night falls (again)

Elizabeth Howell
Fri, March 1, 2024 

Two pictures of a big hill on the moon and rocks in front, in black and white.

As a Japanese moon lander again went dormant, controllers bid farewell.

The sun stopped shining above SLIM, short for "Smart Lander for Investigating Moon," as of 5 p.m. EST (2200 GMT) on Thursday (Feb. 29), officials with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced on X, formerly Twitter. SLIM landed upside down on the moon on Jan. 19, which means its solar panels are crooked but can still receive a bit of power.

"Although the probability of failure will increase due to repeated severe temperature cycles, SLIM plans to try operation again the next time the sun shines (in late March)," the update from JAXA read, automatically translated from Japanese to English by Google.

Related:  Japan's SLIM moon lander photographed on the lunar surface — on its nose (image)

The lander woke up on Feb. 26 during extremely hot temperatures of 212 Fahrenheit (100 Celsius) in its region and has been making contact here and there with Earth in the days since. Most recently, SLIM attempted observations with its multiband spectroscopic camera (MBC) attempted scientific observation, but "it did not work properly," JAXA officials wrote.

"This seems to be due to the effects of overnight," the update continued, referring to the frigid two-week-long lunar night that SLIM experienced before the sun shone near Shioli crater again. "But we will continue to investigate based on the data we have obtained for the next opportunity."

RELATED STORIES:

— 'We proved that you can land wherever you want.' Japan's SLIM moon probe nailed precise lunar landing, JAXA says

— Why Chandrayaan-3 landed near the moon's south pole — and why everyone else wants to get there too

— Not dead yet: Japan prepares for possible recovery of SLIM moon lander

SLIM has only operated for brief bursts of activity, including a short observation schedule after landing upside-down Jan. 19 due to engine trouble. Then it had roughly two days of operations after reviving nearly 10 days later on Jan. 29, and then the itinerant work since Feb. 26.

Despite all, SLIM has met both main and extended mission objectives: Landing precisely on the moon, deploying two tiny rovers and conducting science with its navigation camera and its spectroscopic camera, particularly searching for signs of olivine on the surface.

Japan is only the fifth country to soft-land on the moon, following the Soviet Union, the United States, China and India. The U.S. made its own historic moon landing as well recently; the Intuitive Machines IM-1 Odysseus lander touched down softly on Feb. 22 to achieve the first American landing in 52 years, since Apollo 17. Odysseus went offline Thursday (Feb. 29) and may have completed its mission, operators said

First US Moon lander in 50 years finally gives up on lunar surface

Andrew Griffin
Fri, March 1, 2024

Moon Landing (ASSOCIATED PRESS)


The first US spacecraft to land on the Moon in 50 years has finally given up, and is no longer speaking to its engineers.

The Odysseus lander, made by private company Intuitive Machines, landed on the Moon on 22 February. But that landing went slightly awry, and it broke a leg and fell onto its side.

That left it unable to gather power as expected, and led to difficulties communicating with the Earth. Nonetheless, Odysseus continued to communicate with controllers for longer than expected.

On Thursday, however, the spacecraft went silent. It sent one last photo and switched into its standby mode.

But it might not be the end. The standby mode was triggered in the hope that Odysseus is able to come back online in a few weeks, if it is able to survive the cold of the lunar night.

Intuitive Machines spokesman Josh Marshall said these final steps drained the lander’s batteries and put Odysseus “down for a long nap.”

“Good night, Odie. We hope to hear from you again,” the company said via X, formerly Twitter.

The lander was originally intended to last about a week at the moon.

Houston-based Intuitive Machines became the first private business to land a spacecraft on the moon without crashing when Odysseus touched down Feb. 22. Only five countries had achieved that since the 1960s, including Japan, which made a sideways landing last month.

Odysseus carried six experiments for Nasa, which paid $118 million for the ride. The first company to take part in Nasa’s program for commercial lunar deliveries never made it to the moon; its lander came crashing back to Earth in January.

Nasa views these private landers as scouts that will pave the way for astronauts due to arrive in another few years.

Until Odysseus, the last U.S. moon landing was by Apollo 17's Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt in 1972.

Watch this private Varda Space capsule's blistering return to Earth in amazing onboard video

Mike Wall
Sat, March 2, 2024 

Varda Space Industries' first off-Earth manufacturing capsule captured this fiery view during its reentry to Earth's atmosphere on Feb. 21, 2024.


A pioneering private space capsule captured spectacular footage of its fiery homecoming last month.

Varda Space's first-ever mission, called W-1, wrapped up on Feb. 21 with the successful recovery of the California's startup's off-Earth manufacturing capsule.

That conical, 3-foot-wide (0.9 meters) capsule touched down softly under parachute at the Utah Test and Training Range west of Salt Lake City, carrying space-grown crystals of the antiviral drug Ritonavir.

But much of its journey through Earth's atmosphere was quite harrowing, as shown by the video, which Varda posted to its YouTube channel on Feb. 28. The craft slammed into our planet's thick air at more than 25 times the speed of sound, generating a cataract of colorful, cascading sparks.

Related: See Varda Space's private in-space manufacturing capsule's historic return to Earth in photos

Varda aims to become a major player in the nascent in-space manufacturing industry, which takes advantage of the unique microgravity environment of low Earth orbit to make high-value products like pharmaceuticals.

Such work has been done on the International Space Station already with the help of astronauts. But Varda offers customers an all-in-one autonomous option — a capsule that serves as both a minifactory and a return vehicle, taking pricey humans out of the orbital loop.

W-1 was Varda's first in-space test. The mission launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket in June 2023, one of more than 70 payloads on SpaceX's Transporter-8 rideshare mission. Varda's capsule was integrated into a Rocket Lab Photon spacecraft, which provided power, propulsion and other vital services.

a cone-shaped capsule lies on the desert floor under cloudy skies

About a week after liftoff, Varda announced that crystals of Ritonavir — a drug used to treat HIV and hepatitis C — had grown successfully aboard the capsule as planned.

The company wanted to bring those crystals down shortly thereafter but ran into difficulties securing the required reentry and landing approvals. That permission came last month, paving the way for W-1's historic touchdown.

Varda transported the capsule from Utah to its Los Angeles facilities for inspection and analysis.

"The Ritonavir vials onboard the spacecraft will be shipped to our collaborators Improved Pharma for post-flight characterization," Varda wrote in an update shortly after landing on Feb. 21. "Additionally, data collected throughout the entirety of the capsule's flight — including a portion where we reached hypersonic speeds — will be shared with the Air Force and NASA under a contract Varda has with those agencies."

This is what it looks like to reenter Earth’s atmosphere from a space capsule’s POV

Varda Space Industries stuck a camera on its 

W-1 capsule to capture its first reentry mission.

Ceyne MacDonald
Weekend Editor
Sat, Mar 2, 2024,

Varda Space Industries

Incredible footage released by Varda Space Industries gives us a first-person view of a space capsule’s return trip to Earth, from the moment it separates from its carrier satellite in orbit all the way through its fiery reentry and bumpy arrival at the surface. Varda’s W-1 capsule landed at the Utah Test and Training Range, a military site, on February 21 in a first for a commercial company. It spent roughly eight months leading up to that in low Earth orbit, stuck in regulatory limbo while the company waited for the government approvals it needed to land on US soil, according to Ars Technica.

“Here's a video of our capsule ripping through the atmosphere at mach 25, no renders, raw footage,” the company posted on X alongside clips from reentry. Varda also shared a 28-minute video of W-1’s full journey home from LEO on YouTube.

Varda, which worked with Rocket Lab for the mission, is trying to develop mini-labs that can produce pharmaceuticals in orbit — in this case, the HIV drug ritonavir. Its W-1 capsule was attached to Rocket Lab’s Photon satellite “bus,” which the company said ahead of launch would provide power, communications and altitude control for the capsule. Photon successfully brought the capsule to where it needed to be for last week’s reentry, then itself burned up in Earth’s atmosphere, SpaceNews reported. Now that the capsule has returned, Ars Technica reports that the ritonavir crystals grown in orbit will be analyzed by the Indiana-based pharmaceutical company, Improved Pharma.

SpaceX launch taking crew to ISS delayed again by weather

AFP
Sat, March 2, 2024 

A SpaceX Crew Dragon named Endeavour carrying the four is scheduled to blast off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida (-)

A planned launch on Saturday of a mission to take three American astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut to the International Space Station was scrubbed due to poor weather.

SpaceX announced that the launch was delayed, and NASA said the agency would now target Sunday at 10:53 pm (0353 GMT Monday) for liftoff.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon named Endeavour is to carry the four atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Hours before Saturday night's scheduled launch, SpaceX posted on X that "elevated winds" forced the delay.

It was the latest postponement for the launch, which initially was slated for February 22.

Elon Musk's SpaceX has been providing astronaut launch services for NASA since 2020 under NASA's Commercial Crew Program, while a rival program by Boeing has yet to get going.

Matthew Dominick, who leads the "Crew-8" mission, is making his first spaceflight, as is fellow American Jeanette Epps. It will also be the first time for Russian Alexander Grebenkin.

Michael Barratt, a physician, is making his third visit to the ISS. His first two were aboard space shuttles, which were discontinued in 2011.

Space remains a rare area of cooperation between the United States and Russia in the wake of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The US last month imposed fresh sanctions on 500 Russian targets, seeking also to exact a cost for the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a Siberian prison.

The crew will carry out experiments including using stem cells to create organoids (artificially grown masses of cells resembling organs) to study degenerative diseases, taking advantage of the microgravity environment to enable three-dimensional cell growth not possible on Earth.

Joel Montalbano, NASA's International Space Station program manager, told reporters that the US was keeping a close eye on a "small leak" on the Russian side of the research platform, the latest of several recent issues on the Russian side.

A hatch is currently closed to isolate the leak from the rest of the ISS.

ia/bbk/tjj/acb

NASA to discontinue $2 billion satellite servicing project on higher costs, schedule delays

Reuters
Fri, March 1, 2024 


Astronauts arrive before launch to the International Space Station, in Cape Canaveral


(Reuters) - NASA said on Friday it is shutting down a more than $2 billion project to test satellite servicing like fueling in space, citing higher costs and schedule delays.

The space agency said in October that the On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing 1 (OSAM-1) project continues to face an increase in costs and is expected to exceed its $2.05 billion price tag and the December 2026 launch date.

For its decision to discontinue the project, NASA on Friday cited "continued technical, cost, and schedule challenges, and a broader community evolution away from refueling unprepared spacecraft, which has led to a lack of a committed partner".


Much of the project's cost growth and scheduling delays could be attributed to the "poor" performance of contractor Maxar, NASA said in October.

Maxar was previously contracted by NASA in 2019 to help build its Gateway platform in lunar orbit, a crucial outpost for America's first mission to relay astronauts to the moon.

(Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese and Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)


A dead Russian spacecraft almost collided with a NASA satellite. The crash could have sent 7,500 bits of debris rocketing around Earth.

Morgan McFall-Johnsen,Ellyn Lapointe
Updated Sat, March 2, 2024 



NASA's TIMED satellite narrowly avoided colliding with a dead Russian spacecraft this week.


In the worst-case scenario, the collision could have ejected up to 7,500 bits of debris into orbit.


Satellite collisions are becoming more likely as the amount of space junk in low-Earth orbit grows.

Two satellites nearly collided in space on Wednesday in a harrowing encounter that LeoLabs, a satellite-tracking company, called "too close for comfort."

NASA's Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics, or TIMED, satellite passed by Russia's inoperative Cosmos 2221 spacecraft with less than 65 feet of clearance. That's shorter than the length of a tennis court.

These satellites are non-maneuverable, meaning neither the US nor Russia have control over where they go.

If they had collided, it could have decimated both satellites, blasting up to 7,500 fragments of space junk into Earth's orbit that would now be zooming around our planet at thousands of miles an hour, faster than bullets.

The fragments wouldn't have posed a danger to life on Earth because any debris that penetrated our atmosphere would have burned up during free fall.

But it would have threatened future spaceflight and astronaut lives since the resulting debris could have made navigating low-Earth orbit far more treacherous.

"There are 'bad neighborhoods' where these massive derelicts are accumulating preferentially," Darren McKnight, LeoLabs' senior technical fellow, told Business Insider in an email.

Avoiding collisions in these congested areas is becoming increasingly difficult as the number of objects in Earth's orbit grows yearly.
Earth's orbit is getting overcrowded

This graph shows the spatial density of non-operational objects in low-Earth orbit. The spikes correspond to altitudes most congested with space junk.LeoLabs

Near collisions between large space objects like this are rare, but it only takes one to completely change the landscape of Earth's orbit and endanger countless other satellites, space telescopes, and even the International Space Station, or ISS.

Two satellite collisions in 2007 and 2009 increased the concentration of large debris in low-Earth orbit by roughly 70%.

And with the advent of mega-constellations of internet satellites, such as SpaceX's Starlink and Amazon's Kuiper, the number of objects in low-Earth orbit is growing more and more each year, increasing the risk of collisions.

Left to right: Low-Earth orbit is the most concentrated area for orbital debris but the total object population of Earth's orbit extends far beyond this inner region.NASA ODPO

In 2007, scientists estimated there were about 10,000 low-Earth objects. By 2021, that number had doubled. And most of it isn't even useful — it's space junk.

Roughly 70% of low-Earth objects are pieces of debris from damaged or defunct rockets, satellites, and nonoperational payloads, according to LeoLabs.

That's just what's cataloged, though.

The European Space Agency estimates that nearly 1 million bits of debris measuring between one and 10 centimeters are circling Earth, with another 130 million bits even smaller than that.

Space junk is so pervasive the ISS sometimes has to navigate around it.

Space debris hit the space shuttle Endeavour's radiator, creating this hole found after one of its missions. The entry hole is about 0.25 inches wide, and the exit hole is twice as large.NASA

In March 2023, the ISS dodged objects twice in one month, once to avoid a collision with a satellite and again to maneuver around debris a few days later.

Even the tiniest pieces of debris can damage the space station and endanger astronauts, though no astronaut has lost their life due to space debris — yet.
The race to clean up space

The consequences of space debris are very real, so much so that the worst-case scenario has a name: Kessler syndrome.

In this scenario, a collision sets off a chain reaction, generating a catastrophic domino effect that produces so much space debris that no spacecraft can safely leave Earth for hundreds or thousands of years.

An artist's illustration of space junk circling in low-Earth orbit.dottedhippo / Getty Images

But preventing collisions today can offset a possible Kessler-syndrome scenario in the future. And some governments and private companies have begun to address the problem.

New space-industry norms and policies in some countries are prompting satellite operators to design their spacecraft to self-destruct when they die by pushing themselves into a free fall that causes them to burn up in the atmosphere.

Last year, the FCC — the US agency that regulates most communications satellites — took its first-ever enforcement action related to space debris when it fined Dish Network $150,000 for failing to properly dispose of a retired satellite.

Some governments seem less concerned. Both India and Russia have tested anti-satellite missiles by destroying their own satellites in orbit, creating new clouds of debris.

As for old, inoperable spacecraft roaming loose in orbit, such as Cosmos 2221, NASA is outsourcing research and development to private companies to collect them.

In September 2023, the space agency awarded $850,000 to TransAstra for their concept of "FlyTrap" space-debris capture bags — basically, giant high-tech trash bags to scoop up a lot of space junk.

TransAstra's capture bags could help solve Earth's space-debris problem.TransAstra

Outside the US, other companies are coming up with their own innovative disposal solutions. The Japanese company Astroscale designed a spacecraft with a magnetic plate that can attach to dead satellites and pull them into free fall.

But these space clean-up technologies are still in testing. The European Space Agency plans to be the first to remove a piece of debris from Earth's orbit with its ClearSpace-1 mission, scheduled to launch in 2026.

Meanwhile, LeoLabs hopes that its precision data on objects in orbit will help satellite operators foresee and avoid near collisions like the one that happened Wednesday.

Read the original article on Business Insider

A new space race has begun – if we don’t act now, it could trigger a war worse than WWII

AC Grayling
Sat, March 2, 2024 

The Surprising Adventures of Baron Münchausen – 19th century engraving by Gustave Doré - Culture Club/Getty


For millennia, the Moon has been an object of wondrous speculation: deified as a goddess, hymned in poetry and blamed for madness. Today such speculation has ended and a quite different kind – speculation in the commercial sense – has begun.

We no longer tell tales of the man in the Moon, or of how it’s made from cheese. Now we look at it as land to mine. Lunar deposits of basalt, iron, quartz and silicon – not to mention the strong possibility of chlorine, lithium, beryllium, zirconium, uranium, thorium, and “rare-earth” metals – all whet commercial appetites, since some of these, needed for new technologies on Earth, are in short supply here.

Significantly, the Moon also has ice. Water might sustain human settlement of the lunar surface, and can be separated into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen to make rocket fuel to power further exploration of Mars and the solar system.

This explains the increase in lunar missions in recent years. Plans to put human feet back on the Moon – not visited by astronauts since 1972 – are well advanced; Nasa hopes to achieve it in late 2026. Last week, the Odysseus lander, designed by Houston-based Intuitive Machines and launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, became the first private spacecraft ever to reach the Moon.

For this mission, Intuitive Machines was hired by Nasa (to the tune of $118 million) to deliver research instruments to the lunar surface, including a stereo camera and radio receiver. Other cargo included a set of 125 mini Moon sculptures by the artist Jeff Koons. The lander was wrapped in a metallic jacket manufactured by Columbia Sportswear.

Odysseus is the US’s first Moon landing in more than half a century. But it is a sign, too, of how it is no longer just state enterprise – which drove the space race of the previous century – that is involved. Private companies are investing billions in the Moon’s potential.

Jeff Bezos has spoken of his hope to move “heavy industry and all polluting industry off of Earth and operate it in space”. And the Amazon billionaire – whose Blue Origin company was awarded a $3.4 billion contract by Nasa last year to build a spacecraft to transport astronauts to the Moon – is not wrong. Meanwhile, Musk has spoken of his ambition to establish a human presence on Mars, because “we don’t want to be one of those single planet species, we want to be a multi-planet species”. And he is not entirely wrong either.

Jeff Bezos has spoken of his hope to move 'heavy industry and all polluting industry off of Earth and operate it in space' - Geopix / Alamy Stock Photo

Mining on the Moon is preferable to mining on Earth, already poisoned by industrial activity. And new frontiers bring many benefits to humanity: they are a spur to knowledge and technological innovation, expanding the borders of human imagination and ingenuity.

But history shows that the hunger to conquer and exploit also brings risks. Competition can turn into conflict when billions of dollars are at stake and rivalries to be first or get most are fierce in an unregulated domain. And when it comes to the imminent major leap in humanity’s activity in space, compelled by the search for profit and control of valuable resources, we have scarcely any plans in place. The Moon is a new Wild West, completely open to adventurers with the means to claim it. The fact that the lead is being taken by well-endowed private enterprise, driven by the ambitions of major entrepreneurs like Bezos and Musk, rather than states, brings into view a reprise of the “Great Man” version of history, in which individual ambition is the driving force.

There is just one outdated provision in place for regulating the gold rush that has already begun. This is the United Nations’ Outer Space Treaty, adopted in 1967. At that time the idea of commercial activity on the Moon, of human settlement and mining operations, verged on science fiction. The Treaty did not envisage it, but instead focused on what was a pressing question of the day: the prospect of nuclear weapons being tested there. It stipulates that the Moon should not be used for military purposes, but leaves other activity unmentioned.

Fundamentally the 1967 Treaty was a US-USSR arrangement to limit the spread of Cold War risks. The first satellite put into orbit, the USSR’s Sputnik in 1957, and Yuri Gagarin’s space flight around Earth in April 1961, had galvanised the US into competitive endeavour. They were the prompt for John F. Kennedy’s initiation of the Nasa programme to put men on the Moon by the end of the 1960s. It was a macho technological race, with military implications; these latter underlay the need for some degree of restraint.

The 1967 treaty specifically characterises the Moon as terra nullius, open to anyone who can get there to do what they like other than place weapons on it. But military technology has now advanced into the creation of equally if not more devastating weapons systems, these already deployed in the congested orbital zone around Earth, where constellations of satellites vital to communications, surveillance, military control systems, and much more, are both guarded and threatened by ASATS (anti-satellite weapons) including space- and Earth-based lasers and sophisticated hacking techniques.

'Last week, Odysseus landed on the lunar surface in a jacket by Columbia Sportswear' - Zuma Press / Alamy Stock Photo

The race for profit and power is a path to disaster. The Scramble for Africa in the late 19th century shows how destabilising such lust can be. The European powers partitioned between them an entire continent of 10 million square miles, behaving as if it were empty land although it was inhabited by 110 million people, whom the colonists treated as if they were not there in any political or moral sense. This era of colonial competition was a major causative factor in precipitating the First World War. Within decades of dismembering Africa the major players were killing one another in trenches in France and Flanders. That, in turn, led to the Second World War, which led to the Cold War, all of which accelerated the development of military technologies; to say nothing of the legacies of empire and the revival of historical antipathies around the world. It is a dismaying and troubling picture.

Nor does legal history provide much in the way of comfort. The Antarctic Treaty System, effective since 1961, which protects that continent from military activity and economic exploitation (the only permitted activity being carefully-controlled science) is the most celebrated example of an international agreement successfully, so far, restraining despoliation of a region.

But the Treaty sends loud warning signs. One example suffices. China acceded to the Treaty in 1983. Today, its five research stations in Antarctica have satellite facilities – a boost to its military intelligence powers. In a move further threatening the Treaty, China has made a virtual sovereignty claim to territory by asserting its rights to control a large “Specially Managed Area” around its Kunlun station. China now invests more than any other Antarctic participant and has full land, sea and air capability there. Why this flurry of activity? Perhaps because in 2048 the moratorium on mining in the Antarctic comes to an end, and China wishes to be ready.

Along with Russia, China has repeatedly resisted efforts by the other Antarctic parties to extend protections of wildlife on the continent. If this Treaty, held up as the most progressive ever attained by humanity, is in an increasingly frayed state, what hope is there for the Outer Space Treaty, weak as it is; and therefore what hope for the Moon?

Optimists will say that because there are no people and no wildlife on the Moon, no natural environment to be disturbed or destroyed, there is no need to worry – apart from anxieties about pollution (Nasa’s Apollo astronauts all left their nappies on the Moon). But this misses the point. The point is what competition leads to. Private agencies investing billions of dollars in exploiting the Moon’s resources, and determined to get a significant return from that investment, will not be amenable to interference or disruptive rivalry from others with the same objective. States will not hesitate to support their citizens and corporations who are interfered with by citizens and corporations of other states. If actual fighting breaks out as a result, it will not be restricted to space.

AC Grayling, author of Who Owns the Moon? - Oneworld

It would be wrong to overlook the benefits of the exploration and settlement of space, which could bring an entirely new dimension to human history. Colonies on the Moon and Mars might one day become independent new states, as past colonies on Earth have done. If Earth itself becomes uninhabitable because of climate change or devastating nuclear war, humanity might owe its survival to the great adventure of space travel – Musk argued something similar, when he said, “If there’s a Third World War we want to make sure there’s enough of a seed of human civilisation somewhere else to bring it back and shorten the length of the Dark Age”.

But the truth is, a Scramble for the Moon also prickles with the potential for trouble, and the existing legislation is inadequate to prevent it or manage it if – it is more realistic to say when – it happens.

A new and extremely robust treaty is needed, one that will be better than the Antarctic Treaty in preventing bad-faith actors from circumventing it to steal a march on others, one that will dampen the recklessness which the profit-imperative so often encourages, as every example of the “Scramble” phenomenon shows. Treaties are never watertight; they will be observed only as long as it is in the self-interest of participating parties to abide by them, and history abundantly demonstrates that when self-interest dictates that more profit is to be had from reneging on them, then that is what will happen.

Even so, treaties are our only hope. The lust for money and power has been as destructive in human history as the opposition between religions, so we have to continue efforts to agree ways of limiting the harm they cause. Perhaps in time human nature will mature to the point of making self-restraint and concern for others a more powerful force than self-interest. But we are not there yet.

Now we are on the brink of exporting not just our genius and creativity but our rivalries and jealousies into space – our appetite for riches and control, our too-frequent propensity to fall out with one another and kill each other as a result. Could we not, instead, see this as an opportunity to do things differently? A new frontier to cross into cooperative activity, a new world – a new universe – to be better in? Until we do, we need a new Outer Space Treaty.

It’s time to make clear that if the question is, who owns the Moon?, the answer must be: we all do.

Who Owns the Moon? by AC Grayling (Oneworld, £16.99) is published on Thursday

Perseverance rover spots Ingenuity helicopter's snapped-off rotor blade on Mars (photos)

Elizabeth Howell
Fri, March 1, 2024 

A blurry helicopter visible on the surface of mars. an inset image shows a blade on the sand.


The blade was broken — and, still unforged, it's been found on Mars.

Space fans scouring the raw images from NASA's Perseverance rover recently spotted the broken helicopter blade from Ingenuity lying on the sands of Mars. Ingenuity is permanently grounded as a result of the blade-snapping incident, a hard landing that occurred at the end of its Jan. 18 flight.

"Nestled in the vibrant red Martian sand, a lonely blade from NASA's Ingenuity helicopter lies about 15 meters [50 feet] from the aircraft's final resting place," the nonprofit Planetary Society wrote Tuesday (Feb. 27) on X, formerly Twitter.


Related: Ingenuity Mars helicopter snapped rotor blade during hard landing last month (video, photo)

Geovisual design student Simeon Schmauß also processed the Perserverance imagery, captured by the rover's powerful SuperCam instrument, into a composite view that shows both the helicopter and its now distant blade. Schmauß shared the results on X, visible below as well.

Ingenuity's flying days ended after 72 flights — 67 more than the five originally planned for its technology-demonstrating mission. The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) drone was the first vehicle ever to take flight on Mars after landing with Perseverance in February 2021, and kept going for nearly three years.

Perseverance imagery downloaded from Mars on Sunday (Feb. 25) showed the broken-off Ingenuity blade. But hidden in shadow in some of the raw imagery was the blade itself, barely visible in Martian dunes.

a broken helicopter blade lying on beige sand. the picture includes a circle drawn to show where the blade is

NASA's Perseverance rover captured the broken-off blade of Ingenuity on Mars on Feb. 25, 2024 using its SuperCam imager. This image has been enhanced to make the blade more visible on the sand. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/edited by Josh Dinner)

RELATED STORIES:

— NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity takes off on historic 1st powered flight on another world

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— Nuclear-powered Dragonfly mission to Saturn moon Titan delayed until 2028, NASA says

The helicopter, operating in Mars' Jezero Crater, demonstrated flight was not only possible but could be done regularly in the Red Planet's thin atmosphere.

After its initial five hops, Ingenuity shifted to a long extended mission in which it was scouting ahead for Perseverance, which is collecting samples for a possible eventual return to Earth (pending funding and technology development for the Mars sample return campaign, whose budget has been under discussion in Congress lately).

What finally downed Ingenuity was a sandy patch of terrain that did not have rocks or other navigation aids to help the helicopter to find its way. As Ingenuity came in for landing, the blade snapped as it hit the ground. But the helicopter, managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), had already cemented its legacy as a spaceflight pioneer, agency officials said.

"The NASA JPL team didn't just demonstrate the technology," Tiffany Morgan, deputy director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, said during a Jan. 31 webcast tribute to Ingenuity. "They demonstrated an approach that if we use in the future will really help us to explore other planets and be as awe-inspiring, as amazing, as Ingenuity has been."

SPACE

INSAT 3DS mission successful; naughty boy is now an obedient boy, says ISRO

 17 Feb 2024, 

On the launch of INSAT-3DS meteorological satellite, ISRO chairman S Somanath says “I am very happy to announce the successful accomplishment of the mission GSLV-F14 INSAT-3DS…”

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) posted this photo on their X account as preparations underway for the launch of ISRO’s GSLV-F14/INSAT-3DS mission that is to be scheduled at 5.35 p.m on Feb 17, at the Satish Dhawan Space Station, in Sriharikota on Friday. (ISRO twitter)

The GSLV-F14 vehicle successfully placed the INSAT-3DS satellite into intended orbit, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said on Saturday. A Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle carrying a third generation meteorological satellite lifted-off from the spaceport in Andhra Pradesh's Sriharikota on Saturday.

"GSLV-F14/INSAT-3DS Mission: The vehicle has successfully placed the satellite into the intended geosynchronous transfer orbit," the ISRO tweeted.

The INSAT-3DS Satellite is a follow-on mission of Third Generation Meteorological Satellite from Geostationary Orbit. This is the second mission for the ISRO in 2024 after the successful launch of PSLV-C58/EXPOSAT mission on January 1.

On the launch of INSAT-3DS meteorological satellite, ISRO chairman S Somanath said, "I am very happy to announce the successful accomplishment of the mission GSLV-F14 INSAT-3DS. The spacecraft has been injected into a very good orbit. We also noted that the vehicle has performed very well. Congratulations to everyone who has been a part of the team..."

Meanwhile, INSAT-3DS Mission Director Tomy Joseph said, “…naughty boy (ISRO’s GSLV-F14 rocket) has now become a mature, disciplined and obedient boy."

"I congratulate and salute all the ISRO ‘family’ members for this achievement. This is GSLV’s tenth mission, and the payload has been increased by almost 50 kilograms this time. I am grateful to higher management and ISRO chairman for the opportunity (of leading the mission)," Joseph said.

ALSO READ:  ISRO set to launch satellite INSAT-3DS today; 5 things to know about this 2024 space mission

The 51.7 metre tall GSLV-F14 soared majestically from the second launch pad at the spaceport, leaving behind thick fumes on its tail and soared towards the sky. It saw thunderous applause from spectators who had gathered at the gallery here since afternoon.

The satellite weighing 2,274 kg would serve various departments under the Ministry of Earth Sciences including the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), ISRO said.

INSAT-3DS satellite: Aim and objective

Somnath said INSAT 3DS is the next generation weather satellite with improved capability over the existing INSAT series which is there in orbit. "This will augment the capability of various atmospheric parameters that leads to information related to weather and climate," he added.

The new satellite, equipped with cutting-edge payloads and top-notch data collection, will aid in monitoring land and ocean surfaces for near-precise weather forecasting and disaster warnings.

The primary objectives of the mission are to monitor Earth's surface, carry out oceanic observations and its environment in various spectral channels of meteorological importance -- to provide the vertical profile of various meteorological parameters of the Atmosphere.

Among others, it will provide the Data Collection and Data Dissemination capabilities from the Data Collection Platforms (DCPs), and to provide Satellite Aided Search and Rescue services.

"This particular satellite will be doing a lot of advanced research and helping for the weather forecast of our country...," said Debanik Roy, senior Scientist and Group Head, Division of Remote Handling and Robotics, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Department of Atomic Energy, Mumbai.

NASA has more than twice the asteroid Bennu samples it could have hoped for from OSIRIS-REx probe

By Josh Dinner 

The once inaccessible sample container has been fully opened, and NASA has released the numbers

View of the OSIRIS-REx Touch-and-Go-Sample-Acquisition-Mechanism (TAGSAM) head with lid removed, unveiling the bulk of asteroid Bennu sample inside. 

(Image credit: NASA/Erika Blumenfeld/Joseph Aebersold)

We now know exactly how much material OSIRIS-REx captured from its target asteroid Bennu — and, it's a lot.

In addition to the 2.48 ounces (70.3 grams) of sample already collected from the outside of the canister, NASA has finally managed to fully open OSIRIS-REx's sample container to find another 1.81 ounces (51.2 grams) of asteroid Bennu within. In all, the probe collected more than twice what scientists had hoped for.

OSIRIS-REx completed its asteroid sample return mission when the probe parachuted a tightly-sealed container back to Earth on Sep. 24 before embarking on a secondary mission dubbed OSIRIS-APEX, named for its next space rock target, the asteroid Apophis.

With this container came the first pieces of an asteroid NASA has ever captured and returned for further study. The mission launched in 2016, and the safe recovery of the capsule last year was the ceremonious end to an epic seven-year journey through space. However, once NASA technicians got a hold of the sample container, they stumbled upon some complications — it was too difficult to open.

Related: Asteroid Bennu may 'a fragment of an ancient ocean world,' samples suggest

OSIRIS-REx's original mission goal was to collect up to 2.12 ounces (60 grams) of material, which was actually met with even just bits of Bennu spotted across the container's exterior. However, the team knew there had to be much more inside.

So, in order to access the entirety of the Bennu sample, NASA teams started designing a new tool to open the sealed container.

To talk specifics, the container was actually secured inside a larger enclosure, built for protection during the probe's arduous journey. As OSIRIS-REx collected its asteroid samples in space, a portion of the material wound up inside this protective enclosure but outside the designated sample container, gifting scientists some of the Bennu sample before the main canister was unlocked.

Far exceeding their expectations, mission operators managed to collect 2.48 ounces (70.3 grams) before ever opening the inaccessible part of the OSIRIS-REx return capsule. Still, scientists and space enthusiasts everywhere remained waiting to see what OSIRIS-REx's grand sample total would be. And now, the new tool having been derived, scientists have access to all of the probe's asteroid sample, and the results are in.

Combined with the samples already collected, OSIRIS-REx returned a total of 4.29 ounces (121.6 grams) of material from asteroid Bennu — that's more than double the mission's goal and the largest asteroid sample ever collected, according to a recent NASA release. For comparison, the Japanese Aerospace Agency's Hayabusa2 mission only brought back about 0.18 ounces (5 grams) of material from its asteroid target, Ryugu, in Dec. 2020.

 —  At last! NASA finally frees lid of asteroid Bennu sample capsule after battling stuck fasteners

 — OSIRIS-APEX prepares for 1st close solar encounter on way to asteroid Apophis

— NASA's OSIRIS-REx lands samples of asteroid Bennu to Earth after historic 4-billion-mile journey

Examination of the samples has already begun, and scientists are finding "a whole realm of material" previously inaccessible using samples collected from meteorites, according to Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx. Bennu is believed to be a remnant of the early solar system, and scientists think studying these samples could help unravel some mysteries of early planetary development.

About a quarter of the Bennu sample will remain with researchers on the OSIRIS-REx research team. NASA also plans to preserve at least 70 percent of the sample for study by scientists worldwide, as well as for future generations of researchers.

An astronomer's lament: SpaceX 'megaconstellations' are ruining space exploration for everyone

News
By Samantha Lawler

published about 19 hours ago
THE CONVERSATION

Private companies like SpaceX are crowding Earth's atmosphere with ever-increasing numbers of satellite 'megaconstellations'. For astronomers, the toll of these bright, ubiquitous objects is already painfully clear.

Telescopes have to contend with light pollution from satellites.

I used to love rocket launches when I was younger. During every launch, I imagined what it would feel like to be an astronaut sitting in the spacecraft, listening to that final countdown and then feeling multiple gees push me up through the atmosphere and away from our blue marble.

But as I learned more about the severe limitations of human spaceflight, I turned my attention to the oldest and most accessible form of space exploration: the science of astronomy.

Since 2019, I've watched my unencumbered enthusiasm for rocket launches soften to tepid interest, and finally sour to outright dread. The corporate space race, led by SpaceX, is entirely responsible for this transformation in my mindset.

I am worried by the complete shift to the move-fast-and-break-things attitude that comes from the tech sector instead of government scientific agencies. I am put off by the colonialist language and billionaire-worship of private corporations. I am increasingly furious at the nonexistent public education and lack of transparency offered by these companies.

Crowded orbits

The corporate space race is well underway, with private companies flooding Low Earth Orbit with thousands of mass-produced satellites. In previous decades, the prohibitively high cost of launch kept the rate of increase and total number of satellites from growing too rapidly. But launches have been getting steadily cheaper for years.

SpaceX has launched thousands of their own Starlink communication satellites, as well as hundreds of satellites for their direct competitors. Half of all launches worldwide in 2023 were SpaceX rockets.

As an astronomer, I'm painfully aware of what these thousands of new satellites have done to the night sky worldwide. They reflect sunlight long after the sky has grown dark, looking like moving stars.

Starlink satellites are the most numerous and occupy some of the lowest orbits, so they make up the majority of the satellites seen in the sky.

 

Last year, SpaceX launched one of the brightest objects in the sky on behalf of another company: BlueWalker 3, a satellite with the same sky-footprint as a small house. They plan to operate a fleet of dozens, each as bright as the brightest stars in the sky.
Lost information and knowledge

These satellites are now increasingly obstructing telescopic space exploration, both on the ground and in space. Astronomers are the canaries in the coal mine for this rapidly expanding experiment in orbit: we see these satellites increasingly affecting our research every day.

I have watched over the past five years as satellite streaks in my own research images from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope have changed from an unusual occurrence to lost data in nearly every image.

Astronomy is the only way to learn about the universe, the overwhelming majority of which can never be explored by humans. The farthest human-made object from Earth is the Voyager 1 probe, now eight times farther from the sun than Neptune after 46 years continuously travelling significantly faster than a speeding bullet.


A composite of 29 individual exposures from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Maunakea, taken in August 2022. The horizontal and diagonal white lines are bright satellites that unexpectedly flew through the field of view during observations, covering any objects behind them. (P. Cowan/W. Fraser/S. Lawler/CLASSY Survey Team/CFHT)

But even if Voyager 1 was pointed directly toward our nearest neighbouring star, Proxima Centauri (it's not), it would take over 100,000 years to get there. We are light-years away from having technology that can robotically explore even our neighbouring solar systems on a human timescale, let alone bring humans out to the stars.

The vast majority of astronomy research is carried out by telescopes on Earth: large optical telescopes on remote mountaintops, large radio telescopes in radio-quiet zones that are meticulously maintained, as well as smaller telescopes scattered around the world.

There are a handful of telescopes in Low Earth Orbit that also have to contend with light pollution from Starlink and other megaconstellations. There are also a handful of telescopes outside Earth orbit which can only operate for a few years, unlike ground-based facilities that can be maintained and enhanced with new technologies for decades.
Government regulation needed

The Canada-Hawaii-France telescope, located on the summit of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano located on the island of Hawaii. 

Space exploration using Earth-based telescopes is growing increasingly less effective as more bright and radio-loud satellites are placed between Earth and the stars. But there are much worse problems ahead if corporations continue launching satellites: atmospheric pollution on launch and re-entry, ground casualty risks from re-entries, and the very real possibility of a runaway collisional cascade in orbit, referred to as the Kessler Syndrome.

Satellites are an incredibly useful part of our lives, but there are limits to how many can safely orbit Earth. Current regulations on launches and orbital operations by governments are very weak, and are not set up for the current regime of thousands of new satellites per year.

Regulation on the number of satellites in orbit would force corporations toward technology improvements and service models that use fewer satellites, keeping orbit usable for future generations.

Ask your government representatives to support satellite regulation, and expansion of rural broadband. Get out and enjoy your dark skies, before they change.

RELATED STORIES

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With proper regulation, our oldest form of space exploration can continue. I desperately hope we never reach a point where the natural patterns in the sky are drowned out by anthropogenic ones, but without regulation, corporations will get us there soon.

This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

UK Space Agency on red alert for doomed satellite crashing back down to Earth

Scientists from the UK Space Agency are on high alert as doomed satellite is set to come crashing down to Earth – and boffins say they have no idea where it will land

By Lizzie McAllister

Senior News Reporter

17 FEB 2024

The satellite could come crashing down to Earth next week (Image: ESA/SWNS)

The UK Space Agency is on high alert as a doomed satellite is set to crash back to Earth next week.

Scientists have no idea where the out-of-control European Remote Sensing 2 satellite (ERS-2) will land. The European Space Agency reckons it could re-enter the atmosphere on Wednesday (February 21) at 2.34am, but this prediction could be off by up to 31 hours either way

The UK Space Agency, which operates the country's re-entry warning service, has tasked its sensors to monitor ERS-2's re-entry. This government service scans for incoming threats and can issue a warning if an emergency situation arises.

READ MORE: Brits to have ashes blasted into space to orbit Earth before falling as snowflakes

Scientists have no idea where the doomed satellite will land (Image: ESA/SWNS)

The agency uses state-of-the-art modelling to track re-entering objects and issues warnings if a UK-licensed object is re-entering, or if the UK or our overseas territories or crown dependencies might be affected. These warnings are sent to civil protection authorities in the UK and to overseas government departments.

The re-entry service, along with the in-orbit collision and fragmentation service (known as the Space Surveillance and Tracking service), operates 365 days a year. Angus Stewart, the boss of Space Surveillance and Tracking at the UK Space Agency, said: "There are thousands of operational and defunct satellites in orbit around the Earth, and the ability to operate safely in space and bring the benefits back to Earth is growing increasingly challenging."

ERS-2's final image captured above Rome, Italy, in 2011 (Image: ESA/SWNS)

Talking about data from a partnership with satellite tracking company HEO, Mr Stewart said: "As well as capturing these images as part of our work with HEO, the UK Space Agency operates the UK's re-entry warning service and has tasked our UK sensors to observe the re-entry of ERS-2."

"We share data with ESA and other international partners through the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) and other forums to support satellite re-entries."

The European Space Agency is now monitoring ERS-2's path down to Earth

 (Image: ESA/SWNS)

Moon Race 2.0: Why so many nations and private companies are aiming for lunar landings

By Sue Nelson

Features correspondent

Getty Images

Five decades on from the last of the Apollo missions, the Moon is once again a target for space exploration. But Nasa no longer has lunar exploration to itself.

The number of astronauts who walked on the Moon hasn't changed in over 50 years.

Only 12 human beings have had this privilege – all Americans – but that will soon increase. The historical two-nation competition between the US and Soviet space agencies for lunar exploration has become a global pursuit. Launching missions to either orbit the Moon, or land on its surface, is now carried out by governments and commercial companies from Europe and the Middle East to the South Pacific.

Despite the success of the US Apollo missions between 1969-72, to date only five nations have landed on the Moon. China is one of the most ambitious of the nations with the Moon in its sights.

After two successful orbital missions in 2007 and 2010, China landed the unmanned Chang'e 3 in 2013. Six years later Chang'e 4 became the first mission to land on the far side of the Moon. The robotic Chang'e 5 returned lunar samples back to Earth in 2020 and Chang'e 6, which launches in May this year, will bring back the first samples from the Moon's far side.

The country's ambitions don't stop there. "China is openly aiming to put a pair of its astronauts on the Moon before 2030," says space journalist Andrew Jones, who focusses on China's space industry.

"There is demonstrable progress in a number of areas needed to perform such a mission, including developing a new human-rated launch vehicle, a new-generation crew spacecraft, a lunar lander and expanding ground stations," says Jones. "It is a tremendous undertaking, but China has demonstrated that it can plan and execute long-term lunar and human spaceflight endeavours."

After being delayed four times, the first Artemis mission lifted off in November 2022 – but Nasa has many rivals for a return to the Moon

 (Credit: Getty Images)

Not surprisingly, recently announced delays to US space agency Nasa's own Moon programme Artemis, which has pushed back plans to land astronauts on the lunar surface to September 2026 at the earliest, has produced the phrase "Moon Race" between the US and China.

"I think that China has a very aggressive plan," Nasa chief Bill Nelson told a media teleconference about the amended Artemis timescale. "I think they would like to land before us, because that might give them some PR coup. But the fact is, I don't think they will."

China, of course, may also experience slips in its launch schedule. "China needs a super heavy-lift launcher to start putting large pieces of infrastructure on the Moon," says Jones. "Its Long March 9 rocket project has undergone changes, so this may delay first missions from 2030 into the early or mid 2030s."

India became the fourth nation to land on the Moon with the unmanned Chandrayaan-3 in August 2023, which touched down close to the lunar south pole. After its success, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced it aims to send astronauts to the Moon by 2040. (Find out more about the mysteries of the lunar south pole and why so many nations want to land there in this feature by Jonathan O'Callaghan.)
In such a crowded field, the big question is who will become the next major global player in the next phase of lunar exploration

Meanwhile, Japan's Slim (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) mission recently placed its Moon Sniper lander on lunar soil to become the fifth nation on our nearest neighbour. The Japanese space agency, Jaxa, is also nearing the end of negotiations to put a Japanese astronaut on the Moon as part of the US Artemis programme.

Other countries – such as Israel, South Korea and numerous member states of the European Space Agency (Esa) – have also placed robotic spacecraft into lunar orbit. Nasa recently announced that the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) would provide an airlock for Gateway, its planned lunar orbiting space station for the Artemis missions.

The reasons for going vary: from scientific knowledge and technological advances to the prospect of accessing potentially useful lunar resources and political or economic value. The UK space industry, for instance, was extremely robust during the recession.

But in such a crowded field, the big question is who will become the next major global player in the next phase of lunar exploration. It will no longer be the sole preserve of national space agencies; commercial companies also want a piece of the lunar action.

India's lander Chandrayaan-3 touched down on the Moon's surface in August 2023, and India has vowed to send astronauts there in future missions 

Although China launched the first commercial mission to the Moon in 2014, the small privately funded Manfred Memorial Moon Mission was a microsatellite (61cm x 26cm x10cm) for a lunar flyby built by LuxSpace in Luxembourg. America's first planned commercial lunar mission, however, was much more ambitious.

In January this year, Astrobotic, a company based in Pittsburgh, launched Peregrine Mission 1. It was to be the first US spacecraft to land on the lunar surface since Apollo 17 in 1972. Unfortunately, a "critical loss of propellant" shortly after launch meant that it had to return home without landing and burned up in the Earth's atmosphere above a remote part of the South Pacific Ocean.

As a result, the upcoming US commercial mission, Intuitive Machines IM-1, which launched on 15 February and intends to place its Nova-C lander on the Moon, has been bumped up from second to potentially first place.
We are seeing that [space launch] economy start to catch up because the prospect of landing on the Moon exists - Steve Altemus

"As partners in advancing lunar exploration, we understand and share the collective disappointment of unforeseen challenges," says president and CEO of Intuitive Machines, Steve Altemus. "It is a testament to the resilience of the space community that we continue to push the boundaries of our understanding, embracing the inherent risks in our pursuit of opening access to the Moon for the progress of humanity."

The US declared the Moon a strategic interest in 2018. Does Altemus see his commercial mission as the beginning of a lunar economy? "At the time, no lunar landers or lunar programs existed in the United States," he says. "Today, over a dozen companies are building landers, which is a new market. In turn, we've seen an increase in payloads, science instruments, and engineering systems being built for the Moon. We are seeing that economy start to catch up because the prospect of landing on the Moon exists. Space is an enormous human endeavour and it will always contain a government component because they have a strategic need to be in space. But there's room now, for the first time in history, for commercial companies to be there."

In recent years India has also seen a boom in space start-ups such as Pixel, Dhruva Space, Bellatrix Aerospace and Hyderabad's Skyroot Aerospace, which launched India's first private rocket in 2022.

It has been more than 50 years since the last Apollo astronauts walked on the lunar surface (Credit: Nasa)

In October 2023 an Australian private company, Hex20, announced a collaboration with Skyroot Aerospace and Japan's ispace, which will attempt its second robotic lunar landing at the end of this year. The collaboration aims to stimulate demand for affordable lunar satellite missions.

But when it comes to the Moon, footprints and flags on the ground still generate the biggest headlines. The four astronauts who will go into lunar orbit on Artemis II – Nasa's Christina Hammock Koch, Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover plus Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen – all feature in London's immersive Moonwalkers show.

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Written by British filmmaker Chris Riley and actor Tom Hanks (who famously played astronaut Jim Lovell in the Apollo 13 movie), it highlights the collective Nasa effort required to put astronauts on the Moon and looks ahead to Artemis doing the same.

I recently watched the show sat alongside an upcoming guest on the Space Boffins podcast: former Nasa Apollo flight director, Gerry Griffin. Afterwards he described the Artemis programme as "wonderful".

"I'm worried about the funding," he says. "It's going to always be a problem."

But Griffin is optimistic and full of confidence in its astronauts. "We got the best. They are really, really good. But we've got to get going. It's time we get back."

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Scientists Detect Water on the Surface of Asteroids for the First Time Ever

Using data from a retired NASA mission, researchers identified unique signs of water molecules on two space rocks, unlocking new insight into how water may have arrived on Earth

Catherine Duncan
Staff Contributor

SMITHSONIAN

February 16, 2024 

Data from the retired Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a joint venture between NASA and the German Space Agency, led scientists to their discovery. NASA / Carla Thomas / SwRI


In a cosmic first, scientists have discovered water on the surface of two asteroids. The findings, published Monday in The Planetary Science Journal, chart new territory in understanding how the life-sustaining molecule is distributed throughout the solar system—and hint at how it ended up on Earth.

Scientists at the Southwest Research Institute detected the water molecules using data collected by the now-defunct Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a Boeing airplane modified to carry a telescope that made its final flight in 2022.

Previously, other researchers used an instrument on SOFIA to examine particular wavelengths of light, called spectral signatures, emitted by molecules on the moon. In 2020, they spotted a specific wavelength unique to water molecules, revealing enough water on the moon’s sunlit surface to fill a 12-ounce bottle.

Inspired by this research, “we thought we could use SOFIA to find this spectral signature on other bodies,” says Anicia Arredondo, lead author of the new study and an asteroid researcher at the Southwest Research Institute, in a statement.

The scientists studied SOFIA’s observations of four asteroids rich in silicate, or minerals containing silicon and oxygen. Two of the asteroids, named Iris and Massalia, were found to emit the unique wavelength that “unambiguously” indicated the presence of water molecules, Arredondo says in the statement.

Iris and Massalia, which measure 124 miles and 84 miles in diameter, respectively, formed relatively close to the sun. According to the study, their water could be stored in multiple ways: The molecules could be trapped in beads of silicate glass or stuck to the silicates’ surface. Or, in a manner similar to the moon’s sunlit surface, where the molecular water was found within lunar soil, the asteroids’ water may be bound to minerals.

Though scientists have discovered water on asteroid samples brought to Earth through return missions, water molecules had never before been identified on asteroids still floating in space, writes Space.com’s Samantha Mathewson. Finding molecular water on Iris and Massalia, in particular, suggests liquid water can exist for eons on space rocks in the inner solar system—contrary to previous assumptions that any water would have evaporated from these asteroids under the heat of the sun.

“Asteroids are leftovers from the planetary formation process, so their compositions vary depending on where they formed in the solar nebula,” says Arredondo in the statement. “Of particular interest is the distribution of water on asteroids, because that can shed light on how water was delivered to Earth.”

The finding bolsters support for the popular theory that water did not originate on Earth, but rather crashed onto the planet through an asteroid impact.

“Asteroids, comets and their associated dust and debris are continually being nudged around by the gravity of the planets—changing the paths they follow through space,” Jonti Horner, an astrophysicist at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia, tells Newsweek’s Jess Thomson.

Knowledge of the composition of asteroids helps explain how materials within the inner solar system are distributed, according to the study. Understanding where water is located within our solar system could provide insight into how the substance is distributed in others.

“Because water is necessary for all life on Earth, [it] will drive where to look for potential life, both in our solar system and beyond,” according to the statement.

While the researchers found signs of water on Iris and Massalia, the other two asteroids they examined gave inconclusive results. Next, the team plans to use the James Webb Space Telescope to take a higher-resolution look at these bodies, then expand their search to even more asteroids.

“We have another proposal in for the next cycle to look at another 30 targets [with Webb],” adds Arredondo in the statement. “These studies will increase our understanding of the distribution of water in the solar system.”


Catherine Duncan is an intern with Smithsonian magazine.