General Atomics selected to build satellite for AFRL cislunar mission - SpaceNews
The Oracle spacecraft will carry an optical payload made by Leidos and AFRL’s green propellant experiment for a two-year demonstration
WASHINGTON — General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems won a contract from Advanced Space to build a satellite that the Air Force Research Laboratory plans to launch to deep space in 2025.
General Atomics, based in San Diego, California, announced Jan. 5 it will produce an ESPA-class satellite bus, integrate and test payloads for Advanced Space, the prime contractor for AFRL’s Oracle experiment.
AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate in November awarded Advanced Space
a $72 million contract to develop a spacecraft for the Oracle mission,
intended to monitor deep space, far beyond Earth’s orbit.
✓ Oracle will seek to detect objects and demonstrate spacecraft positioning and navigation techniques far beyond geosynchronous Earth orbit, in the vicinity of Earth-moon Lagrange Point 1, about 200,000 miles from Earth. The GEO belt is about 22,000 miles above Earth.
Scott Forney, president of GA-EMS, said the platform selected for Oracle, the ESPA Grande, is a modular ring shaped bus that the company also is using to build a weather imaging satellite for the U.S. Space Force.
“The AFRL Oracle spacecraft program is intended to demonstrate advanced techniques to detect and track objects in the region near the Moon that cannot be viewed optically from the Earth or from satellites in traditional orbits,” he said in a statement.
Gregg Burgess, vice president of GA-EMS space systems, said the cislunar region “continues to be a strategic area of focus for us.” The company in 2021 won a $22 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to design a small nuclear reactor for a demonstration of nuclear thermal propulsion in cislunar space.
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China looks to build space partnerships with Gulf nations - SpaceNews
Andrew Jones
5 - 6 minutes
An image of the Earth taken in 2018 by Saudi Arabian optical payload on the Longjiang-2 microsatellite in lunar orbit. Credit: Harbin Institute of Technology/KACST
HELSINKI — China is aiming to grow cooperation with emerging space nations including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Space was named as one of a number of priority areas for the next three to five years during the first China-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit held in Riyadh earlier this month.
“China stands ready to work with GCC countries on remote sensing and communications satellite, space utilization, aerospace infrastructure, and the selection and training of astronauts,” according to the text of the keynote speech made by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the summit, Dec. 9.
The GCC intergovernmental group comprises Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.
“China welcomes GCC astronauts to its space station for joint missions and space science experiments with their Chinese colleagues. China welcomes GCC countries’ participation in payloads cooperation in its aerospace missions, and will consider establishing a China-GCC joint center for lunar and deep space exploration,” the text continued.
While broad in apparent scope and ambition, the words indicate only an initial expression of interest in establishing cooperation in these areas, with no indication of a commitment in terms of funding or practicalities at this point.
The speech illustrates that China’s Tiangong space station—which became operational this month with its first crew handover—will be used in engaging countries around the world.
China has spoken frequently of its openness to training astronauts from other countries and sought interest from aboard for international astronauts flying to Tiangong.
The practical elements of how Chinese international astronaut cooperation, such as any requisite language training, will proceed have not been revealed. China launched its first crewed flight in 2003 and its 10th, the six-month-long Shenzhou-15 mission, launched late November.
An official with the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) recently stated that China is considering expanding the three-module Tiangong station. This would provide greater capacity for hosting astronauts. CAST is also developing a new generation crew spacecraft which will be able to carry up to six astronauts to low Earth orbit.
Lunar exploration is another area in which China is seeking partners, particularly for its vision for an International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). Notably, of the six GCC countries, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are already signatories to the U.S.-led Artemis Accords.
In a more concrete related development from the summit, Origin Space, a Shenzhen-based space resource utilization firm, announced it will establish a subsidiary, a research and development center and an exhibition center within the China-UAE Industrial Capacity Cooperation Demonstration Zone, a joint project under the Belt and Road Initiative.
Origin Space has its sights set on asteroid mining and already has other international branches in Luxembourg and Singapore. . .' READ MORE
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