The Space Hour

Venus, Earth’s sister planet, perplexes scientists with its contrasting evolution. Devoid of active plate tectonics and enveloped in a thick atmosphere causing a runaway greenhouse effect, it stands as an enigma. One scientist has recently tackled the question as to why Venus followed a drastically different evolutionary path. To learn more about what he found out, I had the chance to chat with Ma...

A contract from the Space Force's Space Systems Command looks to further develop technology that's able to detect GPS jamming and spoofing activities more precisely. The awardee, Slingshot Aerospace, says that it's AI model Agatha, which typically helps identify anomalous spacecraft within large satellite constellations, can be utilized here to snuff out GPS disruptors. To find out just how it wor...

Earlier this year, Odysseus became the first U.S. venture to land on the moon in 50 years since the Apollo missions of the 1970s. Software companies worked with NASA to build, launch, and land a spacecraft near the south pole of the moon. A DevSecOps approach using GitLab made it possible to build the spacecraft in just five years, with the ability to patch code 250,000 miles away. Technologies ha...

Earlier this year, Odysseus became the first U.S. venture to land on the moon in 50 years since the Apollo missions of the 1970s. Software companies worked with NASA to build, launch, and land a spacecraft near the south pole of the moon. A DevSecOps approach using GitLab made it possible to build the spacecraft in just five years, with the ability to patch code 250,000 miles away. Technologies ha...

Space is growing more crowded with the risk of collisions growing exponentially. Data shows a 17% year-over-year rise in conjunctions or close approaches between satellites in the past year alone. The NOAA Office of Space Commerce is tackling this challenge with advanced space traffic coordination through TraCSS, or the Traffic Coordination System for Space, taking over the role from the DOD. To f...

Space is growing more crowded with the risk of collisions growing exponentially. Data shows a 17% year-over-year rise in conjunctions or close approaches between satellites in the past year alone. The NOAA Office of Space Commerce is tackling this challenge with advanced space traffic coordination through TraCSS, or the Traffic Coordination System for Space, taking over the role from the DOD. To f...

In the Spring of last year, the AFCEA Space Coast chapter was formed to help give industry partners and government representatives an avenue to get to know one another. So how's it going? We got an update from who is the chapter's president to discuss some of the recent developments, as well as learn more about a major event coming up this week. https://www.spacecomexpo.com/ See Privacy Policy at...

A new partnership between the U.S. Space Force and the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, looks to enhance Space Force service members' health and performance. For it's part, the ACLM will lifestyle medicine education, training and certification to the Space Force's Guardian Resilience Team. Front and center in this project will be Dr. Regan Stiegmann, who is Senior Advisor for Military and V...

Facilitators play an important role in all aspects of government research and business. That is definitely the case in the commercial space sector. One of those facilitators is FedTech, a company that convenes entrepreneurs, technologists, and innovators from the private sector to leverage government technologies and resources to solve pressing challenges. To hear more about this mission, I had th...

A new research facility is being built right in the Johnson Space Center's backyard. Ground was recently broken for the new Texas A&M University Space Institute. It's a $200 million facility that will have some unique features, including landscapes that mimic the surfaces of the moon and Mars, each of which will be the size of the university's football stadium. To find out more about this proj...

Recently, Major Kate Rubins became the first Army Reserve officer to receive the Basic Aviation Badge with Astronaut Device and Space Badge. Just tack it on as another accomplishment for her. As a microbiologist and NASA astronaut who also serves in the Army Reserve, I thought I would use this show as a good excuse to get the chance to meet her and hear her story, and that's just what I did. My fi...

With space equipment staying up there longer and longer, where's a good place to stop for gas? Well one company is looking to solve that problem. Orion Space Solutions an Arcfield company,has been awarded a recent contract from the U.S. Space Force to support the Tetra 6 mission. The mission looks to take the next step in on-orbit refueling. Orion's Tetra-6 SmallSat prototype spacecraft is already...

The company MetTel has completed agreements making it an Authorized Starlink Reseller for both government and commercial enterprises. Starlink as most of you know is a service provided by SpaceX that mostly provides internet in hard to reach places, such as space. MetTel is now able to provide SD-WAN broadband services via Starlink technology. To find out what some of the potential use cases are f...

With so much equipment in geostationary orbit conducting monitoring and measuring operations, that means a lot of data for those who have to analyze the findings. Naturally this can take a lot of time and manpower, so what could help with that? You guessed it, this is another area where AI could potentially make things easier. One of the companies looking to help the Space Force out in particular...

Starting today with NASA where two proposals for missions to observe X-ray and far-infrared wavelengths of light from space were selected by the agency for additional review. Each proposal will be studied for a year and then a concept will be selected in 2026, to hopefully launch in 2032. The resulting mission will become the first in a new class of NASA astrophysics missions within the agency’s l...

A new challenge looks to digitally recreate the planning of each module of the International Space Station. It's being put on by the organization Students for the Exploration and Development of Space or SEDS. "The Ambitious Machine Challenge" will be a year long contest where participants will compete in an array of categories while simultaneously collaborating to document the build of one of huma...

Modernizing space programs while maintaining operations is one of the most challenging things, and rings true for the U.S. Space Force. It's key though to keeping up with near peer competitors in the space front. Joining us earlier to discuss this issue, Dan Laubach, Senior Director of Programs for the technology consulting firm Raft. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California...

The Spacecraft Cybersecurity Act was recently introduced in the House this past summer. The legislation would require NASA to secure a cybersecurity protection plan from manufacturers applying to use federal dollars to build NASA spacecrafts. The introduction comes after thousands of cyberattacks from malicious actors, including China and Russia, have been launched against NASA, threatening the sa...

Space Nuclear Systems are being utilized more and more these days. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that adding the word nuclear to anything mean safety needs to be of the utmost importance. To help with that, the government enacted the National Security Presidential Memorandum or NSPM, 20 a few years ago. To learn how the process works, I had the pleasure of listening to remarks from Jo...

The firm Aerospacelab, Inc. recently opened up a brand new satellite manufacturing facility in Torrance, California. The company plans on being to put out, on average, two satellites per week on a single shift schedule. Increased satellite production is now becoming the standard now in the space hardware industry. I wanted to learn more about that and how it got so easy to make your own satellites...

Don't know if you realize it but there's a presidential election coming up in the next few weeks. Whoever does end up in the White House will have a lot decisions to make when it comes to U.S. space security. The National Security Space Association’s Moorman Center for Space Studies recently launched a series of papers to discuss space issues that need to be considered during the presidential tran...

Space technology company Umbra has recently launched a new business line aiming to deliver high-resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites. Through the mechanisms of how the company is structured, it's been able to bring down the cost of those satellites. To learn more about how they do that, I got the chance to speak with Jason Mallare, Vice President of Umbra.  See Privacy Policy at ht...

Next month, the Association of Commercial Space Professionals will be hosting the Space Nuclear Policy Summit in Washington D.C. It aims to get the two sides together, both nuclear and space, to help with some lingering questions. The future of space travel is going to require the aid of nuclear power, beyond the technical requirements for that are the regulatory and fiscal matters to deal with fi...

The company KBR may not be the most well know commercial space company for those outside the business, but it's one of the larger firms that does a ton of work with NASA. Which is how it ended up being selected as NASA’s Agency-Level Large Business Prime Contractor of the Year. To find out more about the firm and what this award means for it, I spoke to Todd May, Senior Vice President of KBR’s Sci...

Starting things off today with the folks at DARPA and their very low earth orbit satellites, known as VeeLEOs, which have become important in a variety of surveillance and imaging applications. Trouble is, they're so low, they don't stay up very long without propulsion to keep them up. Eventually they run out of fuel. That's a problem the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is trying to solv...