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Tag: space shuttle

  • NASA’s New Chief Finds Loophole for Texas Shuttle Switcheroo

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    For months, Texas senators have made a controversial push to move NASA’s iconic Space Shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian to Houston’s Johnson Space Center, a risky effort that could cost up to $150 million.

    Like any NASA leader worth his salt, newly-confirmed Administrator Jared Isaacman has come up with a contingency plan.

    In an interview with CNBC on December 23, Isaacman said relocating Discovery would depend on whether it could be done without damaging the space shuttle and within budget. If not, he suggested sending Houston a different spacecraft, such as an Orion capsule.

    “If we can’t do that, you know what, we have spacecraft going around the Moon with Artemis 2, 3, 4 and 5,” Isaacman said. “One way or another, we’re going to make sure Johnson Space Center gets its historic spacecraft right where it belongs.”

    Houston’s fight for a space shuttle

    In April, Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced legislation to “bring Discovery home to Texas.” The core provisions of that bill were ultimately included in H.R. 1, the budget reconciliation bill signed into law on July 4.

    Unlike Cornyn and Cruz’s original bill, these provisions do not specifically name Discovery or Johnson Space Center. Rather, H.R. 1 includes $85 million for a “space vehicle transfer” of a crewed spacecraft to a NASA center involved in the agency’s commercial crew program and directs NASA to select a spacecraft to be transferred within 30 days of enactment.

    The bill also states that the selected vehicle must have flown to space, carried astronauts, and must be selected with the approval of a third party chosen by the NASA administrator. Discovery, the most-flown shuttle during its 27 years in operation, fits that bill, but it’s not the only option.

    In August, NASA said then-Acting Administrator Sean Duffy selected a vehicle, but the agency declined to say which one. Sen. Cornyn’s office later claimed the choice was a retired space shuttle bound for Johnson Space Center—without specifying which shuttle.

    Despite the uncertainty, the very prospect of moving Discovery from its home at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum has spurred efforts to block the transfer. Senate Democrats, grassroots organizers, and the Smithsonian—which technically owns Discovery—have all voiced concerns about the costly and risky disassembly the move would require.

    Discovery drama

    In a letter addressed to the relevant Congressional committees in early October, the Smithsonian said both the museum and NASA agree that Discovery will have to undergo “significant disassembly” to be moved, risking the destruction of the historic vehicle.

    The letter also estimated that the minimal cost to move Discovery is in the range of $120 million to $150 million, not including the cost of building a new facility to house the shuttle in Houston.

    Cornyn and Cruz disputed those claims, going so far as to call for a Department of Justice investigation into the Smithsonian’s “illegal lobbying” against Discovery’s move. The DOJ has yet to launch any such investigation.

    Whether NASA and the Smithsonian move forward with Discovery’s transfer remains to be seen, but a decision to give Houston an Orion capsule would likely be a much easier—and cheaper—alternative. Those spacecraft are significantly smaller than the space shuttles and can be transported by truck.

    With Isaacman taking the helm of NASA in the midst of this space shuttle saga, it’s clear he wants to find a solution that will appease both the powerful senators and the spaceflight community. In the interview, he stressed that preserving Discovery and conserving NASA’s budget are his top priorities.

    “My job now is to make sure we can undertake such a transportation within the budget dollars we have available and, of course, most importantly, ensuring the safety of the vehicle,” he said.

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    Ellyn Lapointe

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  • International Space Station Fast Facts | CNN

    International Space Station Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the International Space Station (ISS), a spacecraft built by a partnership of 16 nations: United States, Canada, Japan, Russia, Brazil, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

    Information on ISS crews and expeditions can be found here.

    The ISS includes three main modules connected by nodes: the US Laboratory Module Destiny, the European Research Laboratory Columbus, and the Japanese Experiment Module Kibo (Hope). Each was launched separately and connected in space by astronauts.

    Mass: 925,335 pounds (419,725 kilograms)

    Habitable Volume: 13,696 cubic feet (388 cubic meters)

    Solar Array Length: 239 feet (75 meters)

    The ISS orbits Earth 16 times a day.

    As of June 22, 2023, 266 spacewalks have been conducted for station assembly and maintenance.

    November 1998 – A Russian Proton rocket places the first piece, the Zarya module, in orbit.

    December 1998 – The space shuttle Endeavour crew, on the STS-88 mission, attaches the Unity module to Zarya initiating the first ISS assembly sequence.

    June 1999 – The space shuttle Discovery crew, on mission STS-96, supplies two modules with tools and cranes.

    July 2000 – Zvezda, the fifth flight, docks with the ISS to become the third major component of the station.

    November 2000 – The first permanent crew, Expedition One, arrives at the station.

    November/December 2000 – The space shuttle Endeavour crew, on mission STS-97, installs the first set of US solar arrays on the station and visits Expedition One.

    February 2001 – Mission STS-98 delivers the US Destiny Laboratory Module.

    March 2001 – STS-102 delivers Expedition Two to the station and brings Expedition One home. The crew also brings Leonardo, the first Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, to the station.

    September 16, 2001 – The Russian Docking Compartment, Pirs, arrives at the ISS.

    June 2002 – STS-111 delivers the Expedition Five crew and brings the Expedition Four crew home. The crew also brings the Mobile Base System to the orbital outpost.

    December 2002 – STS-113 delivers the Expedition Six crew and the P1 Truss.

    May 3, 2003 – Expedition Six crew return to Earth on Soyuz TMA-1. Crew members Kenneth Bowersox and Don Pettit are the first American astronauts ever to land in a Soyuz spacecraft.

    July 29, 2003 – Marks the 1,000th consecutive day of people living and working aboard the ISS (this is a record for the station, but not for space).

    August 10, 2003 – Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko marries his fiancée Ekaterina Dmitriev from space. The bride and groom exchange vows over a hotline set up for the event. Dmitriev stands next to a life-sized picture of Malenchenko.

    April 22, 2004 – The second of four gyroscopes that stabilize the orbiting outpost of the ISS fails. NASA officials say this does not pose an immediate threat to the crew. An extra spacewalk will have to be conducted to the fix the electrical component box thought to be at fault.

    November 2, 2005 – Fifth anniversary of continuous human presence in space on the ISS.

    February 3, 2006 – SuitSat-1, an unmanned space suit containing a radio transmitter is deployed as a part of an ISS spacewalk. The suit is supposed to transmit recorded messages in six languages to school children and amateur radio operators for several days before reentering Earth’s atmosphere and burning up, but it goes silent shortly after its deployment.

    March 31, 2006 – Arriving with the crew of Expedition Thirteen is Marcos Pontes, the first Brazilian astronaut. Staying eight days, Pontes conducts scientific experiments before returning to Earth with the crew of Expedition Twelve.

    July 7, 2006 – The arrival of Thomas Reiter of Germany via the Space Shuttle Discovery returns the station’s long-duration crew to three for the first time since May 2003 and the Columbia shuttle disaster. Reiter is the first non-US and non-Russian long-duration station crewmember, and he remains onboard during the first part of Expedition Fourteen.

    September 9, 2006 – Space Shuttle Atlantis docks with the ISS, delivering the P3/P4 truss and its solar wings before undocking September 21 and returning to Earth.

    September 20, 2006 – Arriving with the crew of Expedition Fourteen is Anousheh Ansari, an American businesswoman. She spends about eight days conducting experiments and blogging about her experiences before returning to Earth with two of the three members of Expedition Thirteen.

    December 2006 – Arrival of Flight Engineer Sunita Williams via space shuttle mission STS-116. Williams replaces Reiter, who returns to Earth with the crew of STS-116.

    April 7, 2007 – Charles Simonyi becomes the fifth space tourist when he accompanies the Expedition Fifteen crew to the ISS. He spends 12 days aboard the space station before returning to Earth with the crew of Expedition Fourteen.

    June 10, 2007 – Space Shuttle Atlantis docks with the the ISS to install a new segment and solar panel on the space station and retrieve astronaut Williams, who has been at the space station since December. Williams is replaced by Flight Engineer Clayton Anderson, who will return to earth aboard Discovery on Mission STS-120.

    June 15, 2007 – Four days after ISS’s computers crash, two Russian cosmonauts bring them back online. The computers control the station’s orientation as well as oxygen production. The crew used Atlantis’ thrusters to help maintain the station’s position while its computers were down.

    October 25, 2007 – Space Shuttle Discovery docks with the ISS. In the days while docked with the ISS, the Discovery crew delivers and connects Harmony to the ISS, a living and working compartment that will also serve as the docking port for Japanese and European Union laboratories. Discovery and ISS crew also move an ISS solar array to prepare for future ISS expansion, planning a special spacewalk to repair damage to the solar array that occurred during its unfurling.

    November 14, 2007 – ISS crew move the Harmony node from its temporary location on the Unity node to its permanent location attached to Destiny.

    February 9, 2008 – Space Shuttle Atlantis arrives. Its crew delivers the European-made Columbus laboratory, a 23-foot long module that will be home to a variety of science experiments. Atlantis remains docked with the ISS for just under nine days.

    March 9, 2008 – “Jules Verne,” the first of a series of European space vessels designed to deliver supplies to the ISS, launches from the Ariane Launch Complex in Kourou, French Guiana. The vessels, called Automated Transfer Vehicles (ATV), are propelled into space atop an Ariane 5 rocket, and are designed to dock with the ISS with no human assistance. The Jules Verne will wait to dock with the ISS until after Space Shuttle Endeavour’s March mission is completed.

    March 12, 2008 – Space Shuttle Endeavour docks with the ISS.

    March 24, 2008 – Endeavour detaches from the ISS. While docked, crew members make five spacewalks to deliver and assemble the Dextre Robotics System, deliver and attach the Kibo logistics module, attach science experiments to the exterior of the ISS, and perform other inspection and maintenance tasks.

    April 3, 2008 – The unmanned European cargo ship Jules Verne successfully docks with the ISS. Able to carry more than three times the volume of the Russian-built Progress resupply vehicles, the Jules Verne contains fuel, water, oxygen and other supplies.

    April 10, 2008 – Two members of Expedition 17 crew arrive at the ISS via a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Travelling with them is Yi So-yeon, a space flight participant and South Korea’s first astronaut. Yi later returns to Earth aboard an older Soyuz spacecraft along with members of the Expedition 16 crew.

    June 2, 2008 – Space Shuttle Discovery docks with the ISS. Discovery is carrying Japan’s Kibo lab, a replacement pump for the station’s toilet, and astronaut Gregory Chamitoff, who is replacing Garrett Reisman as part of the station’s crew.

    June 11, 2008 – Discovery undocks with the ISS after its crew successfully delivers and installs the Japanese-built Kibo lab, delivers parts to repair the ISS’s malfunctioning toilet, collects debris samples from the station’s faulty solar power wing, and retrieves an inspection boom left behind during a previous shuttle mission. Station crewmember Reisman departs with Discovery.

    October 12, 2008 – The Soyuz TMA-13 capsule carrying two Americans – flight commander Michael Fincke and computer game millionaire Richard Garriott, and Russian flight engineer Yuri Lonchakov – lifts off from Kazakhstan. It docks with the ISS on October 14.

    March 12, 2009 – Orbital debris from a prior space shuttle mission forces the crew of Expedition 18 to temporarily retreat to its Soyuz capsule.

    August 24, 2011 – Russian emergency officials report that an unmanned Russian cargo craft, the Progress-M12M that was to deliver 3.85 tons of food and supplies to the ISS, crashed in a remote area of Siberia.

    May 19, 2012 – SpaceX’s launch of the Falcon 9 rocket, the first private spacecraft bound for the ISS, is aborted a half a second before liftoff. SpaceX engineers trace the problem to a faulty rocket engine valve.

    May 22, 2012 – The unmanned SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The rocket carries the Dragon spacecraft, which is filled with food, supplies and science experiments and bound for the ISS.

    May 25, 2012 – The unmanned SpaceX Dragon spacecraft connects to the International Space Station, the first private spacecraft to successfully reach an orbiting space station.

    October 7, 2012 – SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, with its Dragon capsule carrying 1,000 pounds of supplies bound for the ISS, launches from Florida’s Cape Canaveral. It is the first of a dozen NASA-contracted flights to resupply the International Space Station, at a total cost of $1.6 billion.

    May 9, 2013 – The crew discovers that the ISS is leaking ammonia. The crew performs a spacewalk and corrects the leak two days later.

    November 9, 2013 – Russian cosmonauts perform the first ever spacewalk of the Olympic Torch ahead of the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.

    December 11, 2013 – A pump on one of the station’s two external cooling loops shuts down after hitting a temperature limit, according to NASA. The malfunctioning loop had been producing too much ammonia, possibly the result of a malfunctioning valve.

    December 24, 2013 – Astronauts complete a repair job to replace the problematic pump. Their spacewalk lasts seven and a half hours, and is the second ever spacewalk on Christmas Eve. The first was in 1999 for a Hubble Repair Mission.

    March 10, 2014 – After five and a half months aboard the ISS, Expedition 38 astronauts return to earth aboard the Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft.

    September 16, 2014 – NASA announces that Boeing and Space X have been awarded contracts to build vehicles that will shuttle astronauts to and from the space station.

    December 15, 2015 – Astronaut Tim Peake is the first British European Space Agency astronaut to arrive at the ISS.

    March 2, 2016 – NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko land in the Kazakhstan desert after a nearly yearlong mission on the ISS.

    August 3, 2018 – NASA selects nine astronauts, seven men and two women, for missions in spacecraft developed by Boeing and SpaceX. The flights, scheduled for 2019, will be the first launches to space from US soil since the Space Shuttle program was retired in 2011, and the first in capsules developed and built by the private sector.

    June 2019 – NASA announces the ISS is opening for commercial use. The newest NASA directive is intended to allow “commercial manufacturing and production and allow both NASA and private astronauts to conduct new commercial activities aboard the orbiting laboratory.”

    October 18, 2019 – NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch conduct the first all-female spacewalk outside of the ISS. The spacewalk last seven hours and 17 minutes.

    May 30, 2020 – SpaceX and NASA’s Falcon 9, bound for the ISS, launches. This is the first crewed spaceflight to launch from US soil since 2011. The astronauts spend two months working on the ISS, then return to Earth on August 2.

    November 16, 2020 – The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft with four astronauts on board safely docks with the ISS. The spacecraft launched from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on November 15 and marks the first fully operational crewed mission for SpaceX.

    April 21, 2021 – Russia announces that it is ready to start building its own space station with the aim of launching it into orbit by 2030, according to Interfax news agency. The project will mark a new chapter for Russian space exploration. Russia, which signed a memorandum of understanding in March to explore establishing a joint lunar base with China, will notify its ISS partners regarding its departure from ISS at a future date.

    June 16, 2021 – NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet conduct a spacewalk to install solar arrays on the space station. After technical delays, the work is completed four days later. The arrays are rolled up like carpet and are 750 pounds (340 kilograms) and 10 feet (three meters) wide. They will provide a power boost to the space station.

    January 31, 2022 – NASA reveals it intends to keep operating the ISS until the end of 2030, after which the ISS will be crashed into a remote part of the Pacific Ocean known as Point Nemo.

    April 9, 2022 – The first crew entirely comprised of private citizens reaches the ISS.

    July 26, 2022 – Russia announces it is planning to pull out of the ISS after 2024, ending its decades-long partnership with NASA at the orbiting outpost.

    October 6, 2022 – A SpaceX capsule carrying a multinational crew of astronauts docks with the ISS after a 29-hour trek. The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12 p.m. ET on October 5. The four crew members included astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada of NASA, astronaut Koichi Wakata of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and cosmonaut Anna Kikina of Roscosmos, the first Russian to travel on a SpaceX spaceflight.

    October 24, 2022 – According to NASA, the ISS fires its thrusters to maneuver out of the way of a piece of oncoming Russian space junk.

    December 22, 2022 – Two NASA astronauts carry out a spacewalk to install a new solar panel on the ISS. The spacewalk lasts about seven hours.

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  • Exclusive: Musk’s SpaceX says it can no longer pay for critical satellite services in Ukraine, asks Pentagon to pick up the tab | CNN Politics

    Exclusive: Musk’s SpaceX says it can no longer pay for critical satellite services in Ukraine, asks Pentagon to pick up the tab | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Since they first started arriving in Ukraine last spring, the Starlink satellite internet terminals made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX have been a vital source of communication for Ukraine’s military, allowing it to fight and stay connected even as cellular phone and internet networks have been destroyed in its war with Russia.

    So far roughly 20,000 Starlink satellite units have been donated to Ukraine, with Musk tweeting on Friday the “operation has cost SpaceX $80 million and will exceed $100 million by the end of the year.”

    But those charitable contributions could be coming to an end, as SpaceX has warned the Pentagon that it may stop funding the service in Ukraine unless the US military kicks in tens of millions of dollars per month.

    Documents obtained by CNN show that last month Musk’s SpaceX sent a letter to the Pentagon saying it can no longer continue to fund the Starlink service as it has. The letter also requested that the Pentagon take over funding for Ukraine’s government and military use of Starlink, which SpaceX claims would cost more than $120 million for the rest of the year and could cost close to $400 million for the next 12 months.

    “We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time,” SpaceX’s director of government sales wrote to the Pentagon in the September letter.

    Among the SpaceX documents sent to the Pentagon and seen by CNN is a previously unreported direct request made to Musk in July by the Ukrainian military’s commanding general, General Valerii Zaluzhniy, for almost 8,000 more Starlink terminals.

    In a separate cover letter to the Pentagon, an outside consultant working for SpaceX wrote, “SpaceX faces terribly difficult decisions here. I do not think they have the financial ability to provide any additional terminals or service as requested by General Zaluzhniy.”

    The documents, which have not been previously reported, provide a rare breakdown of SpaceX’s own internal numbers on Starlink, detailing the costs and payments associated with the thousands of terminals in Ukraine. They also shed new light on behind-the-scenes negotiations that have provided millions of dollars in communications hardware and services to Ukraine at little cost to Kyiv.

    The letters come amid recent reports of wide-ranging Starlink outages as Ukrainian troops attempt to retake ground occupied by Russia in the eastern and southern parts of the country.

    Sources familiar with the outages said they suddenly affected the entire frontline as it stood on September 30. “That has affected every effort of the Ukrainians to push past that front,” said one person familiar with the outages who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations. “Starlink is the main way units on the battlefield have to communicate.”

    There was no warning to Ukrainian forces, a second person said, adding that now when Ukraine liberates an area a request has to be made for Starlink services to be turned on.

    The Financial Times first reported the outages which resulted in a “catastrophic” loss of communication, a senior Ukrainian official said. In a tweet responding to the article, Musk didn’t dispute the outage, saying that what is happening on the battlefield is classified.

    SpaceX’s suggestion it will stop funding Starlink also comes amid rising concern in Ukraine over Musk’s allegiance. Musk recently tweeted a controversial peace plan that would have Ukraine give up Crimea and control over the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

    After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky raised the question of who Musk sides with, he responded that he “still very much support[s] Ukraine” but fears “massive escalation.”

    Musk also argued privately last month that Ukraine doesn’t want peace negotiations right now and that if they went along with his plan, “Russia would accept those terms,” according to a person who heard them.

    “Ukraine knows that its current government and wartime efforts are totally dependent on Starlink,” the person familiar with the discussions said. “The decision to keep Starlink running or not rests entirely in the hands of one man. That’s Elon Musk. He hasn’t been elected, no one decided to give him that power. He has it because of the technology and the company he built.”

    On Tuesday Musk denied a report he has spoken to Putin directly about Ukraine. On Thursday, when a Ukrainian minister tweeted that Starlink is essential to Ukraine’s infrastructure, Musk replied: “You’re most welcome. Glad to support Ukraine.”

    More than seven months into the war, it’s hard to overstate the impact Starlink has had in Ukraine. The government in Kyiv, Ukrainian troops as well and NGOs and civilians have relied on the nimble, compact and easy-to-use units created by SpaceX. It’s not only used for voice and electronic communication but to help fly drones and send back video to correct artillery fire.

    CNN has seen it used at numerous Ukrainian bases.

    Elon Musk pauses and looks down as he speaks during a press conference at SpaceX's Starbase facility near Boca Chica Village in South Texas on February 10, 2022.

    “Starlink has been absolutely essential because the Russians have targeted the Ukrainian communications infrastructure,” said Dimitri Alperovitch, co-founder of the Silverado Policy Accelerator, a think tank. “Without that they’d be really operating in the blind in many cases.”

    Though Musk has received widespread acclaim and thanks for responding to requests for Starlink service to Ukraine right as the war was starting, in reality, the vast majority of the 20,000 terminals have received full or partial funding from outside sources, including the US government, the UK and Poland, according to the SpaceX letter to the Pentagon.

    SpaceX’s request that the US military foot the bill has rankled top brass at the Pentagon, with one senior defense official telling CNN that SpaceX has “the gall to look like heroes” while having others pay so much and now presenting them with a bill for tens of millions per month.

    According to the SpaceX figures shared with the Pentagon, about 85% of the 20,000 terminals in Ukraine were paid – or partially paid – for by countries like the US and Poland or other entities. Those entities also paid for about 30% of the internet connectivity, which SpaceX says costs $4,500 each month per unit for the most advanced service. (Over the weekend, Musk tweeted there are around 25,000 terminals in Ukraine.)

    In his July letter to Musk, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Gen. Zaluzhniy, praised the Starlink units’ “exceptional utility” and said some 4,000 terminals had been deployed by the military. However, around 500 terminals per month are destroyed in the fighting, Zaluzhniy said, before asking for 6,200 more terminals for the Ukrainian military and intelligence services and 500 per month going forward to offset the losses.

    SpaceX said they responded by asking Zaluzhniy to instead take up his request to the Department of Defense.

    On September 8 the senior director of government sales for SpaceX wrote the Pentagon saying the costs have gotten too high, approaching $100 million. The official asked the Department of Defense to pick up Ukraine’s new request as well as ongoing service costs, totaling $124 million for the remainder of 2022.

    Those costs, according to the senior defense official, would reach almost $380 million for a full year.

    SpaceX declined repeated requests for comment on both the outages and their recent request to the Pentagon. A lawyer for Musk did not reply to a request for comment. Defense Department spokesman Bob Ditchey told CNN, “The Department continues to work with industry to explore solutions for Ukraine’s armed forces as they repel Russia’s brutal and unprovoked aggression. We do not have anything else to add at this time.”

    Early US support for Starlink came via the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) which according to the Washington Post spent roughly $3 million on hardware and services in Ukraine. The largest single contributor of terminals, according to the newly obtained documents, is Poland with payment for almost 9,000 individual terminals.

    US Pentagon in Washington DC building looking down aerial view from above

    The US has provided almost 1,700 terminals. Other contributors include the UK, NGOs and crowdfunding.

    The far more expensive part, however, is the ongoing connectivity. SpaceX says it has paid for about 70% of the service provided to Ukraine and claims to have offered that highest level – $4,500 a month – to all terminals in Ukraine despite the majority only having signed on for the cheaper $500 per month service.

    The terminals themselves cost $1500 and $2500 for the two models sent to Ukraine, the documents say, while consumer models on Starlink’s website are far cheaper and service in Ukraine is just $60 per month.

    That’s just 1.3% of the service rate SpaceX says it needs the Pentagon to start paying.

    “You could say he’s trying to get money from the government or just trying to say ‘I don’t want to be part of this anymore,’” said the person familiar with Ukraine’s requests for Starlink. Given the recent outages and Musk’s reputation for being unpredictable, “Feelings are running really high on the Ukrainian side,” this person said.

    Musk is the biggest shareholder of the privately-held SpaceX. In May, SpaceX disclosed that its valuation had risen to $127 billion and it has raised $2 billion this year, CNBC reported.

    Last week, Musk faced a barrage of criticism on Twitter – including from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – after presenting in a series of tweets his peace plan to end the war. It would include giving Crimea to Russia and re-do referenda, supervised by the United Nations this time, in the four regions Russia recently illegally annexed.

    It echoed comments he’d made last month at an exclusive closed-door conference in Aspen, Colorado called “The Weekend,” at which Musk told a room full of attendees that Ukraine should seek peace now because they’ve had recent victories.

    “This is the time to do it. They don’t want to do it, that’s for sure. But this is the time to do it,” he said, according to a person in the room. “Everyone wants to seek peace when they’re losing but they don’t want to seek peace when they’re winning. For now.”

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  • SpaceX, NASA to launch 3 astronauts and 1 cosmonaut to the ISS. Here’s everything you need to know | CNN

    SpaceX, NASA to launch 3 astronauts and 1 cosmonaut to the ISS. Here’s everything you need to know | CNN

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    Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.



    CNN
     — 

    SpaceX and NASA are set to launch a crew of astronauts who hail from all over the world on a trip to the International Space Station.

    The mission, which will include some historic firsts, is moving forward even as rising geopolitical tensions brew on the ground.

    The four crew members — astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada of NASA, astronaut Koichi Wakata of JAXA, or Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and cosmonaut Anna Kikina of Roscosmos — are on track to launch aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft at 12 p.m. ET Wednesday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. If bad weather or other issues interfere, the teams could try again Thursday at 11:38 a.m. ET.

    A live broadcast on NASA’s website kicked off just after 8:30 a.m. ET Wednesday. NASA will also stream a post-event briefing, tentatively scheduled for 1:30 p.m. ET, to discuss the launch.

    Dubbed Crew-5, the mission is the sixth astronaut flight launched as a joint endeavor between NASA and SpaceX, a privately held aerospace company, to the space station.

    The upcoming spaceflight marks a historic moment, as Mann will not only become the first Native American woman ever to travel to space. She’ll also serve as mission commander, making her the first woman ever to take on such a role for a SpaceX mission.

    What’s more, Kikina will be the first Russian to join a SpaceX mission as part of a ride-sharing deal NASA and Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, inked in July. Her participation in the flight is the latest clear signal that, despite mounting tensions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the decades-long US-Russia partnership in space will persist — at least for now.

    After the anticipated launch on Wednesday, the Crew Dragon spacecraft will separate from the SpaceX rocket that boosts it to orbit and begin a slow, precise trek to the ISS, which orbits about 200 miles (322 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface. The spacecraft is aiming to dock with the space station on Thursday around 5 p.m. ET.

    Launching NASA astronauts to the space station aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft is nothing new. The space agency collaborated with SpaceX for years to transition the task of shuttling people to and from the space station after NASA retired its Space Shuttle Program in 2011.

    With the return of astronaut launches from US soil, SpaceX has offered a stage for several historic firsts. The Crew-4 Dragon mission, for example, carried NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins, the first Black woman ever to join the ISS crew.

    On this flight, Mann, a registered member of the Wailacki tribe of the Round Valley Reservation, will become the first Native American woman ever to travel to orbit.

    “I am very proud to represent Native Americans and my heritage,” Mann said. “I think it’s important to celebrate our diversity and also realize how important it is when we collaborate and unite, the incredible accomplishments that we can have.”

    In her role as commander, Mann will be responsible for ensuring the spacecraft is on track from the time it launches until it docks with the ISS and again when it returns home with the four Crew-5 astronauts next year. Never before has a woman taken on the commander role on a SpaceX mission, though a couple of women served in that position during the Space Shuttle Program.

    Kikina, the Roscosmos cosmonaut, will become the first Russian ever to launch on a SpaceX vehicle at a time when US-Russian relations are hitting near fever pitch over the Ukraine war.

    But officials at NASA have said repeatedly that joint operations with Russia on the ISS, where the two countries are the primary operators, will remain isolated from the fray. Kikina’s flight comes just weeks after NASA’s Dr. Frank Rubio launched to the ISS aboard a Roscosmos Soyuz capsule.

    “I really love my crewmates,” Kikina told reporters after she arrived at the Florida launch site on Saturday. “I really feel good, comfortable. … We will do our job the best way: happy.”

    READ MORE: Meet the space trailblazers of color who empowered others to dream

    Mann and her fellow NASA astronaut Josh Cassada, who grew up in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, both joined NASA in 2013. Cassada has described Mann as one of his “closest friends on the planet.”

    As with Mann, this mission will be the first trip to space for Cassada and Kikina.

    For veteran astronaut Wakata, who has previously flown on both NASA’s space shuttle and Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft, this trip marks his fifth spaceflight mission.

    “I still remember when I first flew and saw our beautiful home planet,” he recalled during an August press conference. “It was so wonderful, such a beautiful planet, then I felt very lucky to be able to call this planet our home.”

    After reaching the ISS, the crew will join the seven astronauts already aboard the ISS — including four NASA astronauts, a European Space Agency astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts.

    There will be a handover period, where the current ISS crew will help the newly arrived astronauts settle in before a separate Crew Dragon spacecraft brings the four astronauts who were part of SpaceX’s Crew-4 mission back home.

    Then the Crew-5 astronauts will set to work conducting spacewalks, during which astronauts exit the ISS, to maintain the space station’s exterior, as well as performing more than 200 science experiments.

    “Experiments will include studies on printing human organs in space, understanding fuel systems operating on the Moon, and better understanding heart disease,” according to NASA.

    Crew-5 is slated to return from space in about five months.

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  • Out-of-service satellites must be removed within 5 years, FCC says | CNN Business

    Out-of-service satellites must be removed within 5 years, FCC says | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN Business
     — 

    Satellites that are no longer in service must get out of the sky far more quickly under a new rule adopted by US federal regulators Thursday — and it’s all in the name of combating the garbage in Earth’s orbit.

    Unused satellites in low-Earth orbit, which is the area already most congested with satellites, must be dragged out of orbit “as soon as practicable, and no more than five years following the end of their mission,” according to the new Federal Communications Commission rule.

    That’s far less time than the long-standing rule of 25 years that has been criticized as too lax. Even NASA advised years ago that the 25-year timeline should be reduced to five years.

    “Twenty-five years is a long time. There is no reason to wait that long anymore, especially in low-Earth orbit,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said at Thursday’s meeting. The FCC rule passed unanimously.

    The goal of this rule is prevent the dangerous proliferation of junk and debris in space. Already, there’s estimated to be more than 100 million pieces of space junk traveling uncontrolled through orbit, ranging in size from a penny to an entire rocket booster. Much of that debris, experts say, is too small to track.

    Collisions in space have happened before. And each collision can span thousands of new pieces of debris, each of which risk setting off even more collisions. One well-known theory, called “Kessler Syndrome,” warns that it’s possible for spaceborne garbage to set of disastrous chain reactions, potentially causing Earth’s orbit to become so cluttered with junk that it could render future space exploration and satellite launches impractical and even impossible.

    More than half of the roughly 10,000 satellites the world has sent into orbit since the 1950s are now obsolete and considered “space junk,” Rosenworcel said, adding that the debris poses risks to communication and safety.

    The FCC plan had been questioned by some US lawmakers who have said the rules could create “conflicting guidance” and without clear congressional authority. But Thursday’s vote moved forward nonetheless.

    “At risk is more than the $279 billion-a-year satellite and launch industries and the jobs that depend on them,” according to an FCC document released earlier this month. “Left unchecked, orbital debris could block all of these benefits and reduce opportunities across nearly every sector of our economy.”

    The number of satellites in low-Earth orbit, which is the sphere of orbit extending about 2,000 km or 1,200 miles out, has grown exponentially in recent years, thanks in large part to massive, new “megaconstellations” of small satellites pouring into space, largely by commercial companies. Most notably, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has launched about 3,000 satellites to space for its space-based internet service, Starlink.

    There’s also plans to put tens of thousands of new satellites in low-Earth orbit in years to come, FCC commissioner Nathan Simington noted during Thursday’s meeting.

    Commercial companies have routinely promised to take the debris issue seriously, and SpaceX had already agreed to comply with the recommended five-year rule for getting defunct satellites out of orbit.

    But there has long been a broader push within the space community to codify new regulations. So the FCC announced plans in early September to at least vote on updates to US regulations.

    The FCC also specified that it will apply the rule not only to the US satellite operators it oversees but also to “non-US-licensed satellites and systems seeking US market access.”

    “A veritable Cambrian explosion of commercial space operations is just over the horizon, and we had better be ready when it arrives,” said Simington.

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