Space, in brief

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried 21 data-relay satellites for the US Space Development Agency into low orbit on 10 October. [1][2]

The Space Development Agency is a US military office set up seven years ago to put up satellites faster than the decades-long programmes before it. [1]

This was the first batch built by Northrop Grumman, a large US defence company. [1][2] It takes the agency's relay satellites in orbit to 84, from three builders. [1]

The network is meant to pass data around the world all day and night. [1] Its jobs are warning of missiles, tracking them, linking troops and aiming weapons at targets over the horizon. [1]

Connecting the satellites and putting them to work is taking longer than expected, Aviation Week reports. [1]

The agency's director, Gurpartap Sandhoo, says the problem is not physics but getting the parts to work together. [1]

Each builder was allowed slightly different designs for the system that commands its satellites. [1] That is now slowing the move of control from the builders to government centres in North Dakota and Alabama. [1]

Lockheed Martin's batch also launched with fewer laser links between satellites than designed. [1] The agency has faced years of supply delays for those parts. [1]

By 4 October only four of the 21 Lockheed Martin satellites in one batch had been handed to government operators. [1] Sandhoo said they are moved one or two at a time to avoid problems. [1]

The first working satellites of this round, called Tranche 1, are launching more than a year later than first planned. [1]

Two more relay launches and four launches of missile-warning satellites built by L3Harris are still to come. [1] The agency expects the first usable network in 2027. [1]

The 10 October launch had been stopped by the rocket's own computers just before liftoff on 5 October, then delayed twice more. [1][2]

Why it matters. Watch how many more of the 84 satellites pass to government operators over the six months Sandhoo has given for linking them, because that count, not the number in orbit, says when the network starts working. [1]

The first full production units of the US Space Force's remote modular terminals roll off the line within four weeks, their maker said on 13 October. [3] They are ground-based jammers built to block enemy communications that pass through satellites. [3] A first order of 24, from a 2022 contract of about $22 million, arrived within two years. [3] A former head of the buying office said it meant to get at least 160. [3] Lt Gen Gregory Gagnon, who heads the Space Force's combat forces, told The Wall Street Journal they are used in combat around the world. [3]

Why it matters. A US Space Force general has now said on the record that these jammers are used in real fighting. [3] Their locations are kept secret to protect them from attack, so nobody outside the US military can say whose links they are blocking. [3]

Robert Ferl, a space biologist, published an essay in the journal npj Microgravity on 15 October about flying to space to run his own experiment. [4] He flew on New Shepard flight NS-26, a short up-and-down trip on a Blue Origin rocket, paid for by NASA's Flight Opportunities Program. [4] On the space station, career astronauts usually run scientists' experiments, and many scientists cannot even train them in person. [4] During his flight he watched how well a preservative covered his samples and moved the tubes to fix them faster. [4]

Why it matters. Short commercial flights give a few minutes of weightlessness, and Ferl argues they let a scientist see an experiment's first minutes in space for themselves. [4] That matters most for studies of how living things change in the moment they leave Earth.

A team including researchers named Zhong, Tian and Fan made graphite from carbon dioxide, borate and water, the journal Nature Chemical Engineering reported on 16 October. [5] All three ingredients are plentiful on Mars. [5] The process ran at 220 C and 5.0 megapascals, about 50 times the air pressure at sea level on Earth. [5] About 79% of the converted carbon ended up as graphite, and the graphite was 93% pure carbon. [5] It worked as one end of a zinc battery, and the process also made pure hydrogen. [5]

Why it matters. Anything a Mars base needs must otherwise be flown from Earth, so making battery material from the planet's own air and water would mean carrying less. The work describes a laboratory process, not a test on Mars. [5]

Researchers in Hong Kong are developing building blocks for Mars that could be printed by machine from materials found there, Euronews reported on 17 October. [6] The idea came from freeze-dried fruit. [6] The mix is sand, gelatine and a yeast changed so that it makes sticky proteins, which hold the blocks together. [6] The team is testing the blocks in conditions made to copy Mars. [6]

Why it matters. Building with local sand would spare a Mars mission from carrying bricks from Earth. Moving the equipment there and supplying enough energy are still major obstacles. [6]

Cosmos-2612, a Russian military satellite, has changed its orbit several times to move close to ICEYE-X36, The Hindu reported on 18 October. [7] ICEYE-X36 is a commercial satellite that takes pictures of the ground using radar. [7] It is registered in the US, and its operator supplies radar data to Ukraine. [7] Both circle about 550 km above Earth. [7] Late on 17 October Marco Langbroek, an astronomer at TU Delft, a Dutch university, estimated they were 1 to 2 km apart and could come within metres if their paths held. [7]

Why it matters. No attack had been seen by the morning of 18 October, and what Cosmos-2612 can do is not known. [7] It carries the war in Ukraine into orbit, next to a satellite whose pictures help Ukraine's side. [7]

Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Saturday that the speed limit on Starlink in Ukraine is a planned operation. [8] Starlink, SpaceX's satellite internet, still cuts out there above 160 km/h, which stops some Ukrainian drones from catching Russia's fast Shahed attack drones, he said. [8] He said Ukraine drove vehicles carrying Starlink through EU countries at over 180 km/h, and the service kept working. [8] Nobody, SpaceX included, was answering Ukraine's military or defence ministry, he added. [8]

Why it matters. Zelenskyy's point is that a limit that works only over Ukraine was set for Ukraine. [8] The EU's own planned satellite network, IRIS2, is not expected before 2030, so Ukraine has no quick replacement. [8]

The UK Space Agency has asked the public to name its mission to remove two dead satellites, The Register reported on 17 October. [9] Earlier that week the agency picked ClearSpace UK to grab two British satellites in low orbit from 2029, backed by more than 60 million pounds. [9] The craft will drop each one into a lower orbit to burn up in the air, then climb back for its next job, and it can be refuelled. [9] It is due to launch from SaxaVord, a spaceport in Scotland, and finish by 2032. [9]

Why it matters. Dead satellites crowd low orbit, and removing them is becoming more important, The Register notes. [9] ClearSpace was also chosen in 2019 for a European Space Agency clean-up mission then set to launch in 2025. [9]