Artemis II crew hails ‘golden age of space travel’
The crew of Artemis II are set to return to Earth today.
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Hello, and welcome to this week’s edition of The View from Space.
🧑🚀 The crew of Artemis II said they hoped their mission would inspire the next generation and hailed ‘the golden age of space travel’, the Guardian reports:
‘Speaking from on board the Artemis II on Thursday evening, the crew fielded questions from members of Congress as they prepared for their return to Earth.
The mood of Thursday’s press conference was jubilant as politicians from both sides of the aisle congratulated the astronauts on their trip while asking questions about their experiences and its ability to inspire others.
The record-breaking nature of the mission was also on the minds of several crew members. “It is unbelievable to think that we could build an international team led by the United States of America and set our sights out on a sustained presence on the moon and onto Mars and then we can go and achieve it,” said Commander Reid Wiseman, calling the mission “incredible”. “There is nothing this nation cannot do when it has a vision.” …
Artemis II crew members have already begun repacking for their re-entry to Earth following their lunar expedition. Earlier on Thursday, Nasa leaders described the precise logistics needed to get the crew home.
The return will see the Orion capsule traveling at nearly 24,000mph before making a final splashdown several miles off the coast of San Diego. The operation requires multiple teams and careful coordination to safely extract the crew from the spacecraft.
Speaking at a press conference, Nasa’s associate administrator Amit Kshatriya said: “To every engineer, every technician that’s touched this machine, tomorrow belongs to you. The crew has done their part. Now we have to do ours.”’
🤝 SpaceNews reports that defence-tech company Shield Space and satellite manufacturer EnduroSat have teamed up to deploy space systems in orbit rapidly for NATO and its allies, particularly to counter mounting threats:
‘The companies announced a partnership April 8 that they say will initially enable defense customers to move from contract signature to in-orbit operations in as little as nine months, compared with several years for traditional programs, by bundling software, spacecraft and services.
The partnership combines EnduroSat’s standardized satellite platform architecture with Shield Space’s autonomous rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) software, which was originally developed for drones used in Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“Cheap autonomous drones have changed the tempo of warfare in Ukraine,” said Shield Space cofounder and CEO Graeme Ritchie, a former defense technology specialist for the U.K.’s Royal Air Force who has also founded a consultancy focused on drone operations.
“Space will experience the same acceleration, where machines must sense, decide and maneuver faster than human command chains allow,” Ritchie continued. “Our partnership brings together the spacecraft, autonomy and mission architecture needed to make that possible.”’
🛰️ Banks have been using satellite data to get a better understanding of how the production and shipment of energy commodities are being affected by the Iran war. The Banker spoke to Antoine Halff of Kayrros and Florian Thaler of Energy Aspects, which recently agreed to acquire Kayrros:
‘Satellites are not a “crystal ball”, but the imagery and analytics they provide can punch through the “proverbial fog of war” to provide “as much clarity as we can get”, says Antoine Halff, co-founder of Kayrros, which uses AI and machine learning to transform raw data from more than 20 satellite constellations into insights for firms working in energy markets and other sectors.
Halff says the war with Iran has sparked even greater interest from banks and hedge funds in satellite images to help test economic and pricing assumptions with a “reality check from the sky”.
Using earth observation satellites and remote sensing, overlaid with data analytics, firms like Kayrros and market intelligence provider Energy Aspects, which recently agreed to acquire Halff’s company, have built a “digital twin” of global oil supply chains. They say this gives banks and oil traders an “unbiased view” of what is happening from “well to wheel” — from inland oil wells, to what gets transported to a port and refinery, then exported out into the market to meet global demand.
From day one of the war with Iran, Florian Thaler, head of the OilX satellite data business at Energy Aspects, says banks used such models to assess the damage on the ground to vital oil and gas production facilities across the Gulf. “If something gets hit or a refinery gets attacked, they want to know what’s the impact of the disruption, and what has changed versus yesterday,” he explains.’
🇪🇺 In Defense Opinion, FibreCoat’s Robert Brüll warned that Europe is still too dependent on U.S. technology, and that alliances ‘are strongest when they rest on joint ability’:
‘For many decades, Europe has been able to rely on its muscular American ally for support. American power and American political backing have formed the backbone of European defense. …
But the problem is twofold.
First, the transatlantic alliance rested on the assumption that broadly speaking, the U.S. and Europe would be aligned politically. At the very least, they would share a similar outlook about geopolitics. That isn’t the case any longer. NATO spending, the Ukraine war, the Greenland crisis, Iran – all revealed fault lines between the current U.S. administration and its counterparts in Europe.
The second problem, related to the first, is that if the U.S. disagrees with European action, and European technology is full of American components, then in theory, that technology could be rendered unusable. This is not paranoid thinking, but a basic principle that underpins modern technology supply chains.’
📈 Global conflict has sent demand for satellite data ‘stratospheric’, reports The Observer.
‘Satellite data businesses say the demand from customers ranges from modelling physical risks, such as floods and wildfires, for sectors including insurance and banking, to tracking flows of ship-borne commodities for traders and government clients. …
The capacity to process satellite data is also projected to expand owing to the adoption of generative AI.
Antoine Rostand, chief executive of Kayrros, a French company providing satellite analytics, says: “Two years ago, if you had a question like ‘Can you track a rice crop?’, you would need a couple of months to calibrate the algorithm.
“Now, when you have created the foundational model that has understood the world by itself, you can ask these questions and answering them is several orders of magnitude faster and cheaper.”’
🚀 As SpaceX gears up for for an IPO, America should avoid becoming over-reliant on Elon Musk’s company, argue the editorial board at the FT:
‘If SpaceX’s breathtaking IPO goes off as planned, Musk will have the resources to entrench his company deeper into markets it already dominates. That includes seeing its giant Starship rocket through to full commercial operations, further increasing its launch cost advantage over rivals, and overlaying the Starlink communications network with a third generation of more powerful satellites.
A heavy reliance on SpaceX already makes the US — and some other governments — queasy. Musk himself underlined the danger during his falling out with US President Donald Trump last year by threatening to decommission his company’s Dragon spacecraft, which the US relies on to get astronauts to the International Space Station. In a sign of Starlink’s national security clout, in 2022 he denied Ukrainian forces access to the network where they sought to push into Russian-controlled territory.
Competition in the launch market should soon be at hand, in the form of a new generation of powerful rockets from companies like Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, Rocket Lab and Relativity Space. Nasa and the Pentagon need to actively support newer competitors, even if they cannot match SpaceX’s cost advantage in their early years.’
📽️ And you can watch the latest Artemis II presser here: