Elon Musk wants to put a million satellites to orbit
The contest between Airbus and Lockheed Martin to supply SkyNet 6 programme has become a lightning rod for Whitehall debate.
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Hello, and welcome to this week’s edition of The View from Space.
🛰️ The BBC reports that Elon Musk, everyone’s favourite genius engineer, pantomime villain or both, wants to put a million satellites in space in order to meet the growing demand for artificial intelligence:
‘The application claims “orbital data centres” are the most cost and energy-efficient way to meet the growing demand for AI computing power.
Traditionally, such centres are large warehouses full of powerful computers that process and store data. Musk’s aerospace firm claims processing needs due to the expanding use of AI are already outpacing “terrestrial capabilities”.
It would increase the number of SpaceX satellites in orbit drastically. Its existing Starlink network of nearly 10,000 satellites has already been accused of creating congestion in space, which Musk denies.
The new network could comprise up to one million solar-powered satellites, according to the application filed on Friday with the US Federal Communications Commission - which does not specify a timeline for the plan.’
💰 CesiumAstro has raised $270 million in a Series C investment round led by Trousdale Ventures, and including NewSpace Capital, Toyota growth fund Woven Capital, Janus Henderson Group, Airbus Ventures, the Development Bank of Japan, and MESH Ventures. SpaceNews reports:
‘CesiumAstro was founded in 2017 to produce and sell CesiumAstro software-defined phased-array communications components. In recent years, the company has extended its product line to include integrated phased-array communications payloads as well as Element, a multi-beam active phased-array satellite. With the latest financing, CesiumAstro will begin full-rate production of components and subsystems.
“Engineering is easy. Mass-manufacturing is way harder,” said Phillip Sarofim, Trousdale Ventures founder. “With this round, CesiumAstro goes from a low-rate innovator to a high-capacity industrial powerhouse.”’
⚠ Readers of this newsletter will know what ‘space junk’ is. Still, this piece from The Telegraph, which warns of the dangers of debris, is worth a read:
‘For much of Friday, it was feared the 7.5-tonne upper stage of a Zhuque-3 reusable rocket could land on northern England or Scotland after making an uncontrolled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
On Friday afternoon, the rocket was reported to have landed without incident in the Pacific, splashing down around 1,200 miles south-east of New Zealand.
However, on Thursday night, the UK Government was concerned enough to make sure mobile networks were primed to send out emergency messages warning residents of incoming danger. It would have been the first time such an alarm was issued …
Usually, space debris is too small or fragile to survive re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere and burns up, while larger, hardier fragments often splash down in watery or uninhabited areas.
However, Zhuque-3’s trajectory – 57 degrees relative to the Earth’s equatorial plane – meant it flew over densely populated areas.’
🇸🇬 With global investment in space surging, Singapore has established a national space agency. TechRepublic reports:
‘The government will set its national space agency in motion on Apr. 1, as it looks to ride a wave of investment pouring into the rapidly expanding global space economy.
The announcement was made yesterday (Feb. 2) at the inaugural Space Summit at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre, and officials said the new agency is meant to give the city-state a more coordinated approach to what is becoming one of the world’s fastest-growing technology sectors.
The National Space Agency of Singapore (NSAS) will sit under the Ministry of Trade and Industry, which said the agency will oversee the development and operation of Singapore’s space capabilities while also establishing legislation and regulations to support innovation, safety, and commercial growth in the sector. …
For Singapore, this could be an opportunity to fill a niche by building on its existing strengths. After all, its strengths in advanced manufacturing, aerospace engineering, microelectronics, precision engineering, and AI give it a good chance of competing in high-value parts of the space economy, even without domestic launch facilities.’
🤝 More Elon. SpaceX and xAI will merge to make world’s most valuable private company. Reuters reports:
‘Elon Musk said on Monday that SpaceX has acquired his artificial-intelligence startup xAI in a record-setting deal that unifies Musk’s AI and space ambitions by combining the rocket-and-satellite company with the maker of the Grok chatbot.
The deal, first reported by Reuters last week, represents one of the most ambitious tie-ups in the technology sector yet, combining a space-and-defense contractor with a fast-growing AI developer whose costs are largely driven by chips, data centers and energy.
It could also bolster SpaceX’s data-center ambitions as Musk competes with rivals like Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google, Meta (META.O), opens new tab, Amazon (AMZN.O), opens new tab-backed Anthropic and OpenAI in the AI sector.’
✅ NASA concluded a wet dress rehearsal for the agency’s Artemis II test flight early Tuesday morning, loading cryogenic propellant into the Space Launch System tanks, sending a team out to the launch pad, and safely draining the rocket. In their own words:
‘Engineers pushed through several challenges during the two-day test and met many of the planned objectives. To allow teams to review data and conduct a second wet dress rehearsal, NASA now will target March as the earliest possible launch opportunity for the flight test.
Moving off a February launch window also means the Artemis II astronauts will be released from quarantine, which they entered in Houston on Jan. 21. As a result, they will not travel to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida Tuesday as tentatively planned. Crew will enter quarantine again about two weeks out from the next targeted launch opportunity.
NASA began the approximately 49-hour countdown at 8:13 p.m. EST on Jan. 31. Leading up to, and throughout tanking operations on Feb. 2, engineers monitored how cold weather at Kennedy impacted systems and put procedures in place to keep hardware safe. Cold temperatures caused a late start to tanking operations, as it took time to bring some interfaces to acceptable temperatures before propellant loading operations began.’
🚀 And here is NASA fuelling its SLS rocket: