Space Intel Report
• Peter B. de Selding
NASA selected the three companies to develop Ka-band relay services compatible with its aging Tracking and Data Relay Satellite fleet. Viasat separately announced a Phase 1 award under the NEXUS initiative, part of the effort to develop services that can support NASA’s communications needs.
NASA
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NASA selected the three companies to develop Ka-band relay services compatible with its aging Tracking and Data Relay Satellite fleet. Viasat separately announced a Phase 1 award under the NEXUS initiative, part of the effort to develop services that can support NASA’s communications needs.
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NASA is recruiting for its 25th astronaut class, with applications due Dec. 3. Applicants need a STEM master’s degree, three years of experience and 20/20 corrected vision; the listed annual salary is $164,395. Recent classes selected roughly one candidate in every 750 to 1,525 applicants.
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Astronomers are using James Webb Space Telescope observations and simulations to probe how the earliest supermassive black holes formed. One study argues that the enigmatic “Little Red Dots” may mark their birthplaces, while another reports the oldest known pair of black hole-powered quasars—objects that challenge expectations about the early universe.
A Senate committee is set to advance nominations for NASA’s chief financial officer and inspector general. The appointments would fill two distinct oversight and management roles at the agency; the available report does not identify the nominees or provide details on the committee’s expected action.
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NASA is starting a new initiative, the Perseverance Sample Retrieval Architecture, to revisit how it could return samples collected on Mars to Earth. The effort renews work on a long-standing planetary science goal: bringing Red Planet material home for study.
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Launched Nov. 11, 1966, with Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin aboard, Gemini XII was the program’s final mission. Despite a failing rendezvous radar and a balky Agena, the flight put docking and spacewalking through a final test, helping set the stage for Apollo’s lunar landing program.
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NASA is taking an “all-hands-on-deck” approach to returning humans to the Moon, describing the pace and nature of its procurements as unprecedented. The shift puts the agency’s acquisition activity at the center of its lunar effort.
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