Saturday, September 30, 2023
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Security Dimensions Of Space Economics And Finance
 Chinese and Russian space efforts may be supported by private equity and other financing from Western sources, particularly Europe. |
Security dimensions of space economics and finance
by Jana Robinson
Monday, September 25, 2023
As of May 2023, there were more than 5,400 active satellites on orbit, and almost 3,000 of those are commercial. Some experts predict over 100,000 active satellites by 2030.[1] This, together with a significantly greater number of public and private actors in space, will lead to much greater pressure to keep the space environment viable and safe for commercial, civilian, and military activities.
| China and Russia long ago grasped the strategic potential represented by the merits of seeking to control the space sectors of foreign partners as a means of growing their global influence. |
Future space leadership will require an ability to forge durable partnerships, both between the public and private sectors as well as among nations. Indeed, space partnerships have gained greater prominence in the operational, political, and strategic competition presently underway among the major space powers.
In the US, private investors, such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson, have boosted interest in commercial space opportunities on the part of venture capital and private equity investors, who are now seemingly more willing to absorb the sizeable risks related to space activities. Europe has adopted a number of measures to support new investment in startups, as well as early and mature space companies, such as via the European Investment Fund and the European Space Fund.
China and Russia long ago grasped the strategic potential represented by the merits of seeking to control the space sectors of foreign partners as a means of growing their global influence. China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Made in China 2025, and China Standards 2035, as well as Russia’s regional and global outreach through its space sector, have served to multiply their power and influence abroad and, often times, ended up limiting the freedom of action of the countries targeted by vertically-integrated “partnerships” scheme. Pursuant to extensive research, PSSI has identified Chinese and Russian partnership arrangements with more than 80 countries.[2]
Building space infrastructure internationally with their technologies, equipment, and services is a substantive component of both China’s and Russia’s “ground-based space race.” The preferred vehicles for attracting space aspirants into their infrastructure fold are business transactions concluded with their state-controlled enterprises. To advance their strategic goals, however, China and Russia repeatedly circumvent or outright violate internationally accepted norms. China has, for example, routinely been accused of industrial espionage,[3] intellectual property theft,[4] extortionary practices, and heavily subsidized pricing and financing.
From a security perspective, China and Russia represent the greatest threat to Europe and its allies. Accordingly, it seems logical to also scrutinize the economic and financial (E&F) dimensions of their international activities. As referenced above, China uses its command economy to seek to manipulate the global financial system to serve its funding, lobbying, and other strategic needs. Of special interest to our Institute is the external sources of funding for these companies beyond the heavy subsidies and other financial support provided internally by the Chinese Communist Party and the country’s state banks (e.g., China Construction Bank, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, etc.)
In short, there are a number of publicly traded Chinese space companies that are raising funds and trading on mainland exchanges (notably Shanghai and Shenzhen) as well as overseas capital markets, including those of the US and Europe (e.g., Beijing BD Star Navigation Company, Beijing Aerospace Changfeng Co. Ltd., etc.) However, Chinese space companies in search of capital are not limited to the issuance of publicly traded equities and bonds.
Not only do Chinese companies invest hundreds of billions of dollars into Western companies via Chinese state-backed investors,[5] but Western private equity investments also play a pivotal role across various stages of development of Chinese space companies through venture capital, growth equity, buyout funds, and more.
To provide a sense of scale, the private equity industry has grown over the past three decades from a niche financial services sector to an asset class of some $12 trillion as of June 2022.[6] Its rapid growth has turned it into an important—and less transparent—conduit for global capital flows, which China has seized on. The Chinese government views private equity as an attractive alternative to public equity offerings that dilute shareholder value and potentially undermine complete corporate control. Beijing may see such private equity deals as less likely to attract unwanted US and allied governments’ attention when compared with high-profile public offerings.
| The bottom line is that tens of millions of European investors are, albeit unwittingly, funding these malign Chinese and Russian space companies with their retirement and investment euros. |
Accordingly, the missing regulatory piece of this puzzle has to do with the funding side of Chinese and Russian space companies and commerce. In the US, there have been two presidential executive orders which state that US investors holding the securities (stocks and bonds) of Chinese Military Industrial Companies (CMICs) constitutes a “national emergency”.[7] That would include virtually all Chinese space companies, given that the entire space sector is under the control of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). It means that in the US, all such companies could be subject to American capital market sanctions, including delisting, deregistration, and outlawing the holding by American persons of these companies' securities. This issue needs to be urgently addressed in Europe as well or risk serious negative consequences for our own space sectors and those of prospective foreign partners.
This is not only relevant from the “investor protection” perspective, but also from a national security and human rights perspective, as Article 7 of China’s National Intelligence Law requires, on demand of the CCP, the weaponization of Chinese companies for espionage, military activities, and other strategic purposes.
The bottom line is that tens of millions of European investors are, albeit unwittingly, funding these malign Chinese and Russian space companies with their retirement and investment euros, often the same companies that will soon be—or are already—competing with European firms in emerging global space markets. If we in Europe fail to address this issue now, for fear of estranging China and/or not wishing to legitimate this new security risk category in the public and private equities markets, it could mean the loss of Europe’s competitiveness in a number of strategic space activities, foreign space sectors and other commercial markets.
Endnotes
- Irene Klotz, “Burgeoning Satellite Industry Paving way to $1 Trillion Space Economy.” Aviation Week, Aug 24, 2021.
- Robinson, Jana & al. “Strategic Competition for International Space Partnerships and Key Principles for a Sustainable Global Space Economy.” Prague Security Studies Institute, January 2022.
- Wu, Chu. “Tensions Mount over China's Industrial Espionage in US.” Voice of America, 2022.
- Wray, Christopher. “Responding Effectively to the Chinese Economic Espionage Threat.” FBI. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2020.
- Agnew, Harriet. “Asset Management: China Cosies Up To Private Equity.” Financial Times, June 4, 2023.
- McKinsey & Company, “McKinsey’s Private Markets Annual Review,” McKinsey & Company, accessed March 22, 2023.
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Honoring And Dishonoring The Dead In Outer Space
 Customers on a Virgin Galactic flight float in the cabin. Among them is Timothy Nash, who brought with him hominid fossils. (credit: Virgin Galactic) |
Honoring and dishonoring the dead in outer space
How a Virgin Galactic spaceflight sparked a scandal in anthropology
by Deana L. Weibel
Monday, September 25, 2023
On September 8, Timothy Nash, a South African billionaire, flew to the edge of space in a Virgin Galactic suborbital spacecraft, the VSS Unity. Virgin Galactic began operating tourist flights in earnest this past summer and Nash participated in the company’s most recent excursion. Nash’s flight was not without scandal, however. Accompanying him on his extraordinary journey were two fragments that were biologically and historically significant. One of them was the thumb bone of a Homo naledi. The other was a collarbone fragment of an Australopithecus sediba. Both specimens have been considered as potential ancestor species to modern humans, Homo sapiens, with Homo naledi living approximately 300,000 years ago and Australopithecus sediba living closer to 1.5 million years ago.
| Hominin fossils were new, but the desire to take significant objects into space was very familiar. |
The fossil specimens had been chosen by Dr. Lee Berger, a “flamboyant” paleoanthropologist (Horn 2023) well known for his enjoyment of attention and pursuit of publicity. The first Homo naledi specimens were found during the Rising Star Expedition, led by Berger in 2013. Although the first examples of Australopithecus were found much earlier, in 1974, Berger discovered a specific subtype, Australopithecus sediba in a 2008 expedition. His son Matthew is actually credited with finding the first of these fossils, the very collarbone fragment taken into space by Nash. The elder Berger approved taking these hominin specimens into space (hominin refers to us humans as well as all of our evolutionary ancestors who walked bipedally), but in wider anthropological circles, when the unusual spaceflight became public, it struck many anthropologists as disrespectful, distasteful, and ethically suspect.
 A miniature Torah that traveled in space with astronaut Jeff Hoffman at Congregation Or Ami in Houston. (credit: Deana Weibel) |
Of ethics and objects
This distaste did not surprise me. Although I am not a paleoanthropologist, as an anthropologist in a “four-field” department that includes archaeology, physical anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and my own subfield, cultural anthropology, I am familiar with the work undertaken by my colleagues and the kinds of ethical considerations involved. My first reaction personally, however, was not to be shocked by the ethical considerations, but instead to wonder what on Earth had motivated Nash or Berger to take hominin fossils into space in the first place. I am an anthropologist of religion who studies the religious understandings of outer space and have talked to astronauts about the personal items they take into space. Hominin fossils were new, but the desire to take significant objects into space was very familiar.
I have studied pilgrimage for many decades and it’s always interesting to see what objects people bring with them to sacred places. Sometimes a holy place was thought to add a layer of meaning or even infuse an object with a kind of energy. Some pilgrims would rest a keepsake against a sacred statue to let it “absorb” that sacredness, and I knew of a family in Chimayó, New Mexico, who left an heirloom crucifix at the local shrine for weeks. Outer space may or may not be sacred, but many astronauts follow the pilgrimage pattern, taking personal items, including religious jewelry or other objects with them: once an object is “space flown” it seems to gain particular significance. One of the astronauts I interviewed took a series of crucifix necklaces into space and drew a comparison between space-flown objects and objects that have been blessed. Congregation Or Ami in Houston displays a miniature Torah that traveled in space with astronaut Jeff Hoffman (Tenorio et al. 2016). The way the object looks or feels obviously doesn’t change, but the meaning of the object, its history, is somehow transformed.
 Skeletal fossil specimens of Homo naledi. (credit: By Lee Roger Berger research team - http://elifesciences.org/content/4/e09560) |
Fossils as symbols
While I don't approve of significant and irreplaceable scientific specimens being taken into outer space, what I understand from my research about the different meanings involved in taking personal objects on space missions or pilgrimages makes me more understanding. When Nash and Berger decided to bring the fossils on the VSS Unity flight there may have been motivations beyond mere publicity. It is not unusual to take an object with existing significance and overlay it ritualistically with additional significance by bringing it to a sacred site. Pilgrims (and astronauts) do this all the time with family keepsakes, wedding rings, rosaries, and other objects already infused with meaning. There is something wondrous about being able to bring the collarbone of an ancient human ancestor up into space, a symbolic fusion of the past and the future that does not have scientific bearing but at least follows a certain spiritual logic.
Interestingly, this symbolic significance appears to have been enough for Berger to have been granted a permit by the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA) to allow Nash to take the hominin remains into space. In his proposal description, Berger writes, “This would make these fossils the first extinct humans into space and act as a sign of respect by humanity to our African ancestors who gave us the technology, skills and mind that allows this perhaps greatest expression of human technological achievement—the exploration of space” (“Heritage Cases” 2023). Despite Berger’s statement, it is a stretch to refer to fossilized bones from Homo naledi and Australopithecus sediba as “humans”: the species were not human but are theorized to have been possible ancestral species to humans.
 Attendees of a Celestis memorial ceremony at Spaceport America. (credit: Deana Weibel) |
Spaceflight as a mortuary ritual
It may also seem strange to refer to pieces of individuals, such as part of a thumb or collarbone, as “humans.” I’ve done research, however, indicating that even a few ounces of a person’s cremated remains become a “human” under the right circumstances, specifically in the little-studied mortuary practice of sending human remains on rocket launches. I undertook a recent ethnographic field study, in November 2022, to Las Cruces, New Mexico, for a memorial service in preparation for such a spaceflight. The planned mission would take 118 “passengers” (small metal containers holding between one and eight ounces of a person’s cremated remains) into space and return them again to Earth via a suborbital flight from Spaceport America. Organizing this space trip was a company called Celestis, a business that conducts memorials for the dead that involve sending “symbolic portions” of them into outer space, sometimes on a suborbital flight (the ashes are returned to family or friends afterward), sometimes into orbit (your loved one’s ashes can be tracked from your cell phone), and sometimes into deep space, on an endless journey into infinity. Celestis doesn’t use its own dedicated rockets but purchases payload space on rockets of various types and sizes that are scheduled to be launched for other reasons.
| Several grams of a person’s ashes could somehow retain that person’s identity and essence, at least in the loving imaginations of their friends and families. |
Although the particular launch I had intended to watch was ultimately canceled and its “passengers” re-booked onto other flights, the language used in the memorial and the leadup to the scheduled launch was fascinating. The memorial service, which was also livestreamed, was more complicated than many funerals, with a poetry reading, live music (including a rendition of “Amazing Grace” on bagpipes), heartfelt speeches by Celestis executives, a eulogy by a retired astronaut (the astronaut at one point told the mourners that he believed those who loved outer space would be able to explore the universe after death), and tearful statements by family members who celebrated their deceased loved ones and explained that sending their ashes into space was fulfilling a promise, accomplishing a life goal, or was otherwise meaningful.
A slideshow played during the service, displaying a picture of each “passenger” and a phrase or quotation that had been chosen by the deceased person (many had arranged beforehand to be flown after their deaths) or by the family. Examples included “Enjoy the views nana,” “Man’s role is to take flight into the universe,” “My Search For The Ethereal World Continues,” “Your wish has come true!” and “Climbing The Stairway To Heaven.”
Three things were clear about the memorial service. One, outer space was frequently presented in an otherworldly, quasi-supernatural way, similar to the concept of “heaven.” Two, going into space had been a dream held by many of the “passengers,” one that could still be fulfilled after death. Three, several grams of a person’s ashes could somehow retain that person’s identity and essence, at least in the loving imaginations of their friends and families.
The most striking example of the last phenomenon was when a woman came up to the dais to speak about a family member who had loved space, but who had had a significant disability that would not have allowed him to ever fly. She talked of his love of space, passion for NASA, and enthusiasm for learning more about the solar system and universe. When his slide came up in the rotation, it referred to him as the first astronaut with his particular disability to ever fly in space. I was struck by this because it implied that this “passenger’s” cremated remains were still a person, would be considered an “astronaut” when they went into space, and that they somehow retained the person’s disability. If the “passenger” was disabled in life, and this disability was a significant part of his identity, then the several ounces of his cremated remains to be sent into space would continue to hold that identity.
 The author at Spaceport America. (credit: Deana Weibel) |
Human remains remaining human
The idea that a person’s remains can still retain their “humanness,” including some sense of conscious awareness, is not uncommon in mortuary rituals and customs for interacting socially with the dead. An article by Pamela Roberts on American cremation practices gives several examples of cremated remains being kept by loved ones and made to act almost as a living person. For instance, she writes, “In the first year after his death, another participant’s husband’s ashes were on the living room shelf, but she would bring them down for special occasions; for the Super Bowl, she dressed the ashes in a baby t-shirt from his favorite football team and she and her brother talked to him throughout the game” (Roberts 2011). If cremated remains can be imagined to watch the Super Bowl, they can certainly be imagined to appreciate spaceflight. And if an entire company is based on sending the remains of contemporary Homo sapiens into outer space, is it so strange if Homo naledi and Australopithecus sediba are sent into space as well?
An idea that the hominin remains functioned to some degree as living people seems to be part of why they were taken into space. Kristina Killgrove describes the motivations of Nash and Berger, writing, “Lee Berger…noted that ‘the journey of these fossils into space represents humankind's appreciation of the contribution of all of humanity's ancestors and our ancient relatives,’ while Matthew Berger speculated that these hominins ‘never could have dreamed while alive of taking such an incredible journey as ambassadors of all of humankind's ancestors.’” The men’s statements echo the ideas presented in Celestis memorial services, reinforcing the notions that going into space is somehow a transcendental experience, that remains of dead persons are somehow aware of what is happening when they do go into space, and that going into space is ultimately transformative, conveying honor in some way on those once-living beings whose bodies contained that thumb bone and that collar bone once upon a time in our planet’s distant prehistory.
Anthropology’s troubled history with the dead
While Celestis customers can confidently speak for their dead, however, we have no way of knowing what members of the Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi species would have thought about space. We know something about their bodies, but we know nothing about their minds. They are nearly as alien to us as an extraterrestrial being would be. True respect for the prehistoric dead involves the recognition that their ideas and ways of life aren’t available to contemporary researchers and that it is best to err on the side of caution.
| The “journey” may have been intended as a show of respect, but it made unwarranted assumptions about what our “ancestors and our ancient relatives” would have consented to (while simultaneously exposing these important fossils to potential destruction without a scientific rationale to do so.) |
Anthropology is still learning this lesson. There is a long history of anthropologists (and others) misappropriating the dead. While the graveyards of European settler communities in the United States have largely remained undisturbed, many universities and museums until very recently considered burials of indigenous populations to be legitimate sites to excavate and research. Scholars would often carry away, study, store, and display human remains and important ritual objects with little thought to what would have been the preferences of the dead. In 1990, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was passed to prohibit these practices and return mortuary items and remains to their rightful heirs. The process of repatriating human bones and other objects has taken decades and is still underway (for a good overview, see Nash and Colwell 2020). Other countries with colonial heritage, handle similar situations on their own terms. Australia, for instance, has a repatriation plan (Indigenous Repatriation 2019), while South African activists appear to be initiating a similar approach (Wild 2019).
Most anthropologists have become sensitive to the damage caused by the discipline’s history, and while fossils of ancient hominin species like Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi are not covered by repatriation laws, a growing disciplinary respect for the dead has developed in recent decades. This is perhaps why Nash’s decision to take the hominin remains into space, and (especially) paleoanthropologist Berger’s role in this plan, were met with such a backlash among anthropologists (see, for instance this X (formerly Twitter) thread by physical anthropologist Alessio Vaneziano). Berger, at least, might have known better.
Nevertheless, in a statement published by the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Berger justified the act, writing, “The journey of these fossils into space represents humankind’s appreciation of the contribution of all of humanity’s ancestors and our ancient relatives. Without their invention of technologies such as fire and tools, and their contribution to the evolution of the contemporary human mind, such extraordinary endeavors as spaceflight would not have happened” (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2023). The “journey” may have been intended as a show of respect, but it made unwarranted assumptions about what our “ancestors and our ancient relatives” would have consented to (while simultaneously exposing these important fossils to potential destruction without a scientific rationale to do so.)
 A NASA mission shows a different way to honor an ancestor of humanity. (credit: NASA) |
A more enlightened approach
There are perhaps better ways to honor our distant ancestors as we explore space. In 1974, paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson and his student Tom Gray found skeletal remains in Hadar, Ethiopia, and soon realized they had uncovered a previously unknown hominin species. The female skeleton they found was an Australopithecus afarensis, nicknamed “Lucy” after the Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” She walked upright, and although her species has not been proven to be ancestral to Homo sapiens, “Lucy” has taken a symbolic role as a mother figure for all humankind.
| Lucy’s mission patch includes a graphic representation of its namesake hominin’s skeletal remains, bringing the name and image of this ancient being into outer space, while leaving her remains safely on Earth. |
While the idea to take fossilized remains of a different Australopithecus species into space this summer may have seemed innovative to Berger and Nash, the Australopithecus “Lucy” has already been honored in space exploration, not by taking any of her priceless bones into space, but by giving her name to a NASA spacecraft. The space probe known as “Lucy” is currently enroute to our solar system’s asteroid belt on a mission to better understand both main belt asteroids and Jupiter trojan asteroids. It was named both for the spacecraft’s Thermal Emission Spectrometer, which contains diamonds, and for a flight path that will take it past an asteroid named for Australopithecus afarensis discoverer, Donald Johanson (Dunn 2021).
The scientific value and innovation of the Lucy mission is unquestionable and deeply valuable, as it will exponentially increase our species’ understanding of asteroids. Its organizers honored our species’ symbolic mother figure while remaining ethical: Lucy’s mission patch includes a graphic representation of its namesake hominin’s skeletal remains, bringing the name and image of this ancient being into outer space, while leaving her remains safely on Earth and in her home territory, preserved and protected in the National Museum of Ethiopia.
Works Cited
AHEADmeeting. “Why Does Sending Hominin Specimens into Space Raise so Much Indignation? A Short Thread with Some of the Reasons That Appear from Reading People’s Opinions. (1/5)Read and Comment to Add Your Thoughts!#humanevolution #paleoanth #bioanth #BioArch #hominins #ahead23 Pic.Twitter.Com/GpzklSoyLm.” Twitter, September 11, 2023.
Devitt, Terry. “Homo naledi: Fossil Trove Adds a New Limb to Human Family Tree.” Homo naledi: Fossil Trove Adds a New Limb to Human Family Tree. Accessed September 16, 2023.
Dunn, Marcia. “NASA’s Asteroid Hunter Lucy Soars into the Sky - with Diamonds.” Associated Press (via Los Angeles Times), October 16, 2021.
“Heritage Cases.” SAHRA. Accessed September 22, 2023.
Horn, Jan. “Homo naledi: Who Are These Strange Star Children?” Vrye Weekblad, June 9, 2023.
“Indigenous Repatriation.” Indigenous Repatriation | Office for the Arts, December 20, 2019.
Killgrove, Kristina. “‘I Am Horrified’: Archaeologists Are Fuming over Ancient Human Relative Remains Sent to Edge of Space.” LiveScience, September 12, 2023.
“Lucy’s Story.” Institute of Human Origins. Accessed September 16, 2023.
Nash, Stephen E., and Chip Colwell. “Nagpra at 30: The Effects of Repatriation.” Annual Review of Anthropology 49, no. 1 (2020): 225–39.
Roberts, Pamela. “What Now? Cremation without Tradition.” OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying 62, no. 1 (2011): 1–30.
Tenorio, Rich, Lazar Berman, Luke Tress, David Horovitz, Emanuel Fabian, ToI Staff, Ron Kampeas, et al. “Space Torah: When the Creation Story Flew Back into the Firmament.” The Times of Israel, December 30, 2016.
The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. “First Fossils of Ancient Human Relatives Journey to Space.” University of the Witwatersrand. Accessed September 22, 2023.
Wild, Sarah. “In South Africa, a Return of Stolen Indigenous Remains.” Undark Magazine, December 10, 2019.
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Tuesday, September 26, 2023
A Capsule's Fall Marks The Start Of Asteroid Autumn
 The OSIRIS-REx capsule and its parachute shortly after landing at the Utah Test and Training Range on Sunday. (credit: NASA/Keegan Barber) |
A capsule’s fall marks the start of Asteroid Autumn
by Jeff Foust
Monday, September 25, 2023
Most scientists leading planetary science missions attend the launch of their spacecraft, seeing them off on journeys across the solar system. Few scientists, though, are present for those missions’ landings.
| “I wanted to personally be out there to greet these pieces of Bennu to our home planet, welcome them to the curation facility at Johnson Space Center and get them ready for the adventure we’re about to put them on,” said Lauretta. |
Dante Lauretta was the exception. The principal investigator for NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (whose full name, rarely used, is Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer), Lauretta was in Florida for the launch of the spacecraft in September 2016 and, seven years later, in Utah when a capsule from the spacecraft returned from the near Earth asteroid Bennu to land on a military test range southwest of Salt Lake City.
“I wanted to personally be out there to greet these pieces of Bennu to our home planet, welcome them to the curation facility at Johnson Space Center and get them ready for the adventure we’re about to put them on,” he explained at a briefing a few weeks before the September 24 landing.
And, about an hour after the capsule touched down—and after others confirmed there were no hazards from the spacecraft itself or from potential unexploded ordnance in the range—Lauretta and a couple others approached the capsule, inspecting it. “It was like meeting an old friend that I hadn’t seen for a long time,” he said later in the day, adding he resisted the urge to hug it. It was, after all, covered in soot from its reentry.
The landing concluded a successful mission to bring back samples from Bennu for analysis in laboratories around the world. Lauretta and others on the mission estimate that the capsule contains 250 grams of material from Bennu, far more than the mission’s requirement of 60 grams.
There was, though, a little bit of drama during the capsule’s landing. NASA has stated that the capsule should land at 8:55 a.m. local time, 13 minutes after it started reentry near the California coast. Yet the capsule touched down three minutes early, and NASA later said that that the main parachute opened at a higher altitude than expected: about 6,000 meters versus the planned 1,500.
At a post-landing briefing, it was unclear how well a drogue parachute, set to open at a higher altitude, had performed. There was no visual confirmation, including from high-altitude aircraft used for tracking the reentry, that the drogue had deployed, but project officials later said that they assume the drogue had deployed since that was a requirement for the main parachute to deploy.
Whatever happened, though, did not affect a safe landing: the capsule touched down upright, having made only a very small depression in the ground. “Something in our sequence may or may not have behaved itself exactly the way we expected it to, but the subsequent things in the sequence made up for it,” said Tim Priser, chief engineer for deep space exploration at Lockheed Martin, which built the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.
The capsule landed about eight kilometers east of the target, but well within a landing ellipse of 12 by 30 kilometers. Mike Moreau, deputy project manager for the mission at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said that appeared to be based on atmospheric conditions and was predicted in advance of reentry, and not linked to any issues with the parachute.
The landing was a relief for Lauretta, who was on a helicopter during reentry. The callouts of the capsule’s altitude didn’t seem right, he recalled, but he wasn’t sure if that was an issue with the capsule or simply the limited communications available in the helicopter. “I was mentally preparing myself for the worst-case scenario,” he said.
Then came the call that the main parachute had opened. “That’s when I just emotionally let it go,” he said, knowing that, with the parachute open, the capsule was headed to a nominal landing. “Tears were streaming down my eyes. That was the only thing I needed to hear.”
| “The samples waited for more than four billion years for humans to study it, and if it takes us a little longer, I think we’ll be okay,” Glaze said of the effects of a government shutdown on processing Bennu samples. |
Shortly after Lauretta made his personal inspection of the capsule, it was transported to a temporary clean room at the Dugway Proving Ground to remove elements like the backshell and heat shield. The canister containing the samples was scheduled to fly to the Johnson Space Center the next day, going into a dedicated curation facility not far from where the Apollo lunar samples are stored, where the canister will be opened and analysis of its contents begins.
 Members of the OSIRIS-REx recovery team, including mission principal investigator Dante Lauretta (right), study the capsule after landing. (credit: NASA/Keegan Barber) |
The landing, just a couple days after the autumnal equinox, kicked off what NASA has dubbed “Asteroid Autumn.” The OSIRIS-REx samples are one of three events related to new or ongoing asteroid missions that the agency is highlighting through November.
The next is scheduled for October 5, when a Falcon Heavy rocket is scheduled to lift off from the Kennedy Space Center carrying Psyche, another asteroid mission that will travel to the metallic main belt asteroid of the same name. On November 1, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft, launched in October 2021 will fly by another main belt asteroid, Dinkinesh, on its way to the Trojan asteroids that lead and follow Jupiter in its orbit around the Sun.
Psyche was scheduled to launch in August 2022, but was delayed because of issues testing the spacecraft’s flight software, a symptom of more fundamental issues with the management of programs at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory uncovered by an independent review board (IRB) last fall.
The problems with both Psyche and JPL have been resolved. “The IRB believes the response to our Psyche project and JPL institution findings and recommendations to be excellent,” Tom Young, who chaired that committee, said in June. “We believe that Psyche is on a positive course for an October 2023 launch.”
The biggest threat to Psyche now is something outside of NASA’s hands: the threat of a government shutdown. The new fiscal year starts October 1 and Congress so far has failed to pass a stopgap spending bill, called a continuing resolution (CR), to keep the government running while it hammers out full-year spending bills. Several efforts to pass spending bills in the House last week failed, victims of internecine Republican strife.
NASA is continuing preparations for the Psyche launch, but it’s unclear how a government shutdown just days before the launch—at the start of a three-week launch window—would affect those plans. “In the past, NASA has been prepared to request a waiver for operations, essential mission and launch personnel to ensure that missions can meet their launch period, and we are certainly prepared to follow that same path here,” Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s planetary science division, said during a briefing about the mission in early September.
In past shutdowns, ongoing operations of missions have continued but those not yet launched have been stopped unless there is testing or other work that, if halted, would threaten hardware or public safety. Even if the launch does proceed, much of the publicity surrounding it might be halted.
A shutdown could also affect processing of the samples returned by OSIRIS-REx at that JSC curation facility. Glaze said last week that initial work on those samples, which NASA has been planning to show off at an October 11 event, could be suspended in the event of a shutdown.
In that scenario, she said, would ensure the samples “remain protected and safe” during the shutdown. “The samples waited for more than four billion years for humans to study it, and if it takes us a little longer, I think we’ll be okay.”
NASA’s planetary science program could use the good news provided by as asteroid sample return mission as it grapples with the challenges of Mars sample return. NASA released last week the final report of an independent review it commissioned this summer to look at the Mars Sample Return (MSR) program, and the results were grim.
“MSR was established with unrealistic budget and schedule expectations from the beginning,” the report stated. “As a result, there is currently no credible, congruent technical, nor properly margined schedule, cost, and technical baseline that can be accomplished with the likely available funding.”
| The report urged NASA to provide “a consistent and unified message to Congress, the scientific community, and to the public regarding MSR’s scientific and strategic importance to the nation.” |
The report found a “near zero probability” that the two MSR spacecraft, a NASA-led sample retrieval lander and ESA-led Earth return orbiter, could be ready in time for launches in 2027 and 2028 as currently scheduled. The earliest they could launch is 2030, with a total cost of $8–9.6 billion. That would require, though, spending more than $1 billion a year on MSR from 2025 through 2028, an amount that could knock the entire planetary program at NASA out of balance.
The report offered several alternatives, including shifting from one lander to two that could leverage the “skycrane” technology used on past missions, and delaying their launches to as late as the mid-2030s. Those would not change the total cost much, with the report estimating costs of $8–11 billion, but could decrease the peak spending to no more than $850 million a year in some scenarios.
The report did not recommend NASA give up on MSR, instead doubling down on the importance of returning samples, including those stored on the Perseverance rover itself. The cache of 10 samples left in a region called Three Forks, a contingency in case something happens to Perseverance, “is not an optimal sample set because it does not represent the full diversity of geologic environments along the rover’s traverse that could preserve signs of life,” the report concluded.
The report also urged NASA to provide “a consistent and unified message to Congress, the scientific community, and to the public regarding MSR’s scientific and strategic importance to the nation,” which includes, it noted, the soft power benefits of such a mission as China plans its own Mars sample return mission some time around 2030.
NASA responded by announcing it would delay a confirmation review for MSR, which would set formal cost and schedule goals for the program, that had been scheduled for this fall. The agency will instead review the independent report and develop recommendations for a path forward early next year.
Assuming MSR does go forward, that mission will likely conclude with a sample return capsule landing at the same Utah test range as OSIRIS-REx. Lauretta noted at the post-landing briefing that the landing was the culmination not just of seven years of flight operations but efforts dating back more than two decades, when Lockheed Martin and the University of Arizona decided to work together on an asteroid sample return mission that came OSIRIS-REx.
“I was there when it was nothing but a PowerPoint slide in a proposal that we were submitting to NASA,” he recalled. “We pulled it off, as incredible as it seemed all those years ago.”
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The Manned Orbiting Laboratory-The Space Station That Never Launched
 MOL carried a high-resolution camera whose film could be returned to Earth on the attached Gemini, but the NRO also studied ways to transmit images using film-readout systems. (credit: NRO) |
Live, from orbit: the Manned Orbiting Laboratory’s top-secret film-readout system
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, September 18, 2023
What good is warning of enemy attack that arrives after the attack has occurred? That was one of the dilemmas facing the operators of American intelligence satellites during the 1960s. The satellites used film, which had to be returned to Earth, processed, and analyzed, which could often be a week or more after the photograph was taken. Some members of the satellite reconnaissance community sought to reduce that time, to get the images to the ground faster. This was the subject of a subsystem for the expensive and complicated Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) of the 1960s, but this aspect of the program has been overlooked since MOL was declassified eight years ago.
 Mockup of the interior of the MOL pressurized compartment where the astronauts would have operated the camera and other systems. Although this was not the final configuration, it shows the limited volume for the astronauts. The film developing and scanning system would have been mounted in here. (credit: NRO) |
MOL/DORIAN
The Manned Orbiting Laboratory was started by the Air Force in late 1963, and for most of 1964 and into 1965 the Air Force sought to determine what role military astronauts could play in space. Eventually, along with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), they evolved MOL into a reconnaissance satellite carrying a powerful camera system code-named DORIAN. In mid-1965 the program was formally approved by President Lyndon Johnson and the NRO began development, with Air Force support.
| MOL’s 30-day mission was a long time to wait for such expensive photographs, and from the beginning of the program, managers sought methods of returning some of the imagery to Earth before the mission was over. |
MOL/DORIAN would be launched atop a Titan IIIM rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California into a polar orbit. At the top of the payload would be a Gemini capsule carrying two astronauts. Upon reaching orbit, they would leave their Gemini via a long tube and enter the laboratory module. For thirty days they would operate the DORIAN camera system, taking photographs of targets primarily in the Soviet Union.
The photographs would be high-resolution, capable of seeing objects on the ground the size of a baseball. The photographs would provide “technical intelligence,” meaning data on the technical capabilities of weapons systems. Whereas lower resolution satellites could spot missile silos and aircraft on airfields, DORIAN’s photographs would be so good that analysts could determine, for example, the thickness of a missile silo’s walls, or the control surfaces and fuel capacity of a strategic bomber. The downside of this very high resolution was that the camera’s field of view—the area it could see on the ground—was very small. If a target was outside that field of view, it could not be photographed.
 The large primary mirror for the DORIAN optical system in the Manned Orbiting Laboratory was the state of the art at the time. It was very precise and lightweight. It was designed to provide high-resolution images of the ground. (credit: NRO) |
Technical intelligence did not have to be timely intelligence. Analysts determining the range of a ballistic missile could make their assessments over time and did not have to do so immediately. But MOL’s 30-day mission was a long time to wait for such expensive photographs, and from the beginning of the program, managers sought methods of returning some of the imagery to Earth before the mission was over.
The DORIAN camera exposed wide-format film that was located inside the pressurized laboratory module. The astronauts could remove the film from the camera. There were three options for returning the imagery to Earth. The first was to store the film inside the Gemini spacecraft in one of three locations established for that purpose. The amount of film that could be carried in the Gemini was limited by mass, but probably also by volume.
The second option was to place the film in a reentry vehicle that could then be jettisoned and returned to Earth. This “data return vehicle” was based upon the proven design used for the CORONA and GAMBIT reconnaissance satellites. According to one document, designers considered including up to two of these return vehicles in the MOL. The reentry vehicle could carry 27 kilograms (60 pounds) of film, and the Gemini could return 109 kilograms (240 pounds).[1]
The third option was initially proposed in 1964 but was apparently only included in the baseline MOL vehicle later, possibly by early 1966. That involved developing the film in orbit and scanning it using a laser scanning device that converted the light and dark parts of the film into electrical impulses that could then be transmitted via radio to the ground. By March 1966, Eastman-Kodak and General Electric had been contracted to conduct preliminary studies of the performance and the detailed design of a readout system, but program officials concluded that the contractors were not progressing fast enough.[2]
 There were three planned methods for returning images to the ground. Storing the exposed film in the Gemini B spacecraft was the primary method. The other options were a small reentry vehicle and the film-readout system. (credit: NRO) |
Film-scanning and MOL
Film-scanning technology had been developed decades earlier for the newspaper industry to enable photographs to be transmitted over telephone lines, and it had been incorporated into the Air Force’s first reconnaissance satellite, Samos. It was later adapted for use by NASA in the Lunar Orbiter program. Although the available bandwidth limited how many images could be sent to the ground, the MOL astronauts could select only the most important photographs for transmission and the system could be useful for crisis reconnaissance.
Starting around 1965 and continuing through 1966, work had been underway to develop a readout version of the GAMBIT-3 reconnaissance satellite known as FROG. CBS Laboratories was developing a test system to work with the GAMBIT-3 optics. But late in 1966 that work was ordered to be discontinued by February 1967 because the NRO’s Executive Committee concluded that the FROG system was unaffordable and unnecessary considering the other reconnaissance systems in use by the United States. The NRO Director did make the technology available to the Air Force for possible use in reconnaissance aircraft such as the RF-4C Phantom. Although this never transpired, it was used for a ground-based system for scanning and transmitting aerial reconnaissance photos.[3,4]
The CBS Laboratories readout system being developed for FROG, along with plans for the ground processing system, then became part of the baseline for the MOL, replacing the earlier systems being studied by Eastman Kodak and General Electric (see “FROG: The Film Read Out GAMBIT program,” The Space Review, February 7, 2022.)
Both the film-readout system and the film-return system were included in the baseline MOL design, although there was increasing uncertainty about whether both were necessary. In November 1966, an internal NRO evaluation concluded that CBS Laboratories had made considerable progress at developing a readout transmission system. More work remained to be done, but the technology was maturing rapidly.[5]
| Both the film-readout system and the film-return system were included in the baseline MOL design, although there was increasing uncertainty about whether both were necessary. |
The DORIAN camera used film 23 centimeters wide. Each 23-centimeter (9-inch) diameter image on the film had a ground diameter of 2,750 meters (9,000 feet). The readout system was not equipped to transmit an entire frame from the DORIAN camera. Rather, the astronauts would examine the developed film in orbit using a microscope, and then cut out the most important part of the image. This “chip” would then be scanned for transmission to the ground. The system capability was to be up to 160 frame “chips” per day of 5-by-15-centimeter (2-by-6-inch) film-readout, roughly equivalent to 610 by 1,830 meters (2,000 feet by 6,000 feet) on the ground. A 30-day MOL mission could produce up to 5,364 meters of exposed film, although the amount that would be transmitted to the ground would be relatively small.[6]
 In order to scan the film for transmission of they imagery to the ground, the astronauts would cut out part of a single image. That film "chip" would then be fed through the scanner. (credit: NRO) |
For the surveillance mission the system would provide for target reprogramming, camera performance analysis, and provide time-urgent reconnaissance information. For a technical intelligence mission, it would provide for target reprogramming and camera performance analysis. Compared to the data return vehicle, it could provide daily data return vs. only once or twice for the return vehicle, although it is not clear how much crew time this would require.[7]
One of the requirements for the film-readout system was to transmit the maximum resolution of the photography. Because DORIAN was intended to produce ten-centimeter (four-inch) resolution images, the readout system had to be able to transmit ten-centimeter resolution images. This was necessary for evaluating camera performance.[8]
 The DORIAN camera system imaged a relatively small area on the ground, about 2,750 meters in diameter. This limited its value for crisis warning, because it could not see events that were spread out over a large territory, such as an invading army. This illustration shows how limited it was for photographing the large Soviet launch facility at Baikonur. (credit: NRO) |
Budget pressure
By February 1967, the MOL program came under major budget pressure. After carefully negotiating contracts with multiple contractors, it became clear that the program would not have enough budget to fund them. The MOL program leadership determined that the contract schedules would have to be renegotiated to stay within the available budget line. This also put pressure on management to eliminate systems that were not considered essential to the MOL mission, such as the readout and data return vehicle systems.[9]
In addition, Eastman-Kodak had encountered a problem with the DORIAN system’s fused silica optical components, which due to thermal issues would likely not be capable of achieving the system’s resolution goal for the first two missions. This too may have increased pressure to cancel non-essential equipment.
There were, however, arguments in favor of keeping readout. MOL management was feeling pressure to justify having astronauts on MOL. They realized this as soon as they had been ordered a year earlier to create an unmanned MOL: if the system could operate without astronauts, then why fly astronauts at all? However, the readout system was designed to be operated by astronauts, and there was no way that an automatic MOL could select which images to scan and transmit to the ground or could transmit the massive amount of data in a full-size MOL image.[10]
The MOL program managers increasingly favored the readout system over the data return vehicle. The data return vehicle had a retrorocket and pyrotechnics that posed a risk to the crew, something that became a bigger concern after the January 1967 Apollo 1 fire.
In March 1967, Major General Harry Evans, the deputy director for the MOL program, recommended to the NRO Director that the readout system for MOL be continued and the data recovery capsule be eliminated. Evans argued that the safety and engineering problems of the capsule were serious. He also stated the readout system was superior to the capsule. However, most of his justifications for including the readout system were for engineering testing purposes rather than due to its value as an operational intelligence collection system.[11]
| MOL management was feeling pressure to justify having astronauts on MOL. They realized this as soon as they had been ordered a year earlier to create an unmanned MOL: if the system could operate without astronauts, then why fly astronauts at all? |
On March 20, Colonel Lee Battle wrote a cable to NRO Director Alexander Flax stating that he had decided to cancel the data recovery vehicle and continue the readout system.[12] However, for reasons that are not completely clear based upon available records, Flax did not approve this decision. According to an April 1967 status report, both the readout system and data return vehicle were deleted from the baseline MOL development program.[13] The mass and volume requirements for both systems were still included in the MOL baseline design in the event that the systems were added back to the vehicle.
According to one source, the readout system was canceled in fall 1967, but it may have had sufficient contract funding to carry it a few months beyond April.[14] A General Electric engineer who worked on the reentry vehicle system indicated that it was always on the verge of cancellation, but did not get canceled before the end of the program. It is possible that it also may have continued at a low level of effort using existing funds. Eliminating the reentry vehicle meant that the total film returned would have been limited by the amount that could be carried in the Gemini, even if more could have been carried to orbit.
 Frame grab from a declassified National Reconnaissance Office video showing a technician pointing to a General Electric reentry vehicle for the Manned Orbiting Laboratory. This reentry vehicle would have been loaded with film by the astronauts on MOL, and returned to Earth sometime before the end of the thirty-day mission. MOL program managers preferred the film-readout system to this "data return vehicle" because this vehicle included pyrotechnics that posed a risk to the astronauts. (credit: NRO) |
Reviving film-scanning
In October 1968, General Electric began study of a “poor man’s” wide-band readout system. The new study sought to determine if the data could be relayed through an IDCSP or DCS Phase II communications satellite—the former was already in operation and the latter was scheduled for launch in the early 1970s. Using a relay satellite would dramatically increase the time available to transmit the imagery, from only 500 seconds per day using a single ground station to over 38,000 seconds per day using a satellite in geostationary orbit. More transmission time meant more imagery could be transmitted, although it is unclear how adding this relay capability would have lowered costs.[15]
General Electric provided a report on the capabilities of a readout system by December 1968. The project had often been abbreviated as “R/O” in previous years, and the program decided that in unclassified communications the system would be referred to by the Greek letter “Rho,” although a clever KGB officer might have been able to make the connection.[16]
By May 1969, the plan was to fly four manned MOL vehicles: in July 1972, January and July 1973, and January 1974. If MOL was continued to a Phase II, or Block II configuration, flights could continue on this schedule through January 1976. The Block II MOL could have enhanced capabilities including infrared and multispectral sensors, ultraviolet astronomy, and scene recording and transmission from the tracking scope and the main optics. The mission duration could be extended from the baseline 30 days to 45 days.
| The NRO was undertaking two large imagery satellite development programs at the same time, MOL and an area surveillance satellite named HEXAGON. Both cost roughly the same amount, and national leaders determined that HEXAGON was more valuable, particularly for arms control monitoring. |
One possible upgrade was adding a film-readout capability. The May 1969 report on the Block II vehicle listed several new missions that could be enabled by the availability of readout. These included: crisis management, event warning (including missile tests, launch site or downrange activity, satellite launches, nuclear testing, and ABM site activity), targets of opportunity, and request support.[17] As the report noted, without readout, the mission data was unavailable until the end of the mission, and extending it from 30 days to 45 days increased the delay until people on the ground could see the photographs. For the technical intelligence mission this was not a problem, but for event warning and crisis management, the photographs could be useless by the time they reached the ground.[18]
The communication system for the readout system would require the addition of a 61-centimeter (two-foot) dish that would be deployed from inside the laboratory. It would be located behind a blow-out door and have a boom that would permit viewing the entire hemisphere.
 A film-readout system was in development for MOL from approximately 1966-1967 and under study until the MOL program was canceled in June 1969. (credit: NRO) |
Later days
MOL was canceled in June 1969 for budgetary reasons. The NRO was undertaking two large imagery satellite development programs at the same time, MOL and an area surveillance satellite named HEXAGON. Both cost roughly the same amount, and national leaders determined that HEXAGON was more valuable, particularly for arms control monitoring, a priority of the new Nixon Administration. HEXAGON could photograph large amounts of territory during every mission at resolution sufficient to identify Soviet weapons systems. MOL was only capable of photographing small amounts of territory, and relatively few targets, at very high resolution. If a primary goal for satellite reconnaissance was counting weapons, then MOL was practically useless, although its technical intelligence capabilities could be useful for assessing weapon performance.
When MOL was canceled, the NRO continued studies of very-high-resolution satellites to fulfill the MOL mission. However, soon the NRO’s interests turned to returning imagery from space on a near-real-time basis, and at a much higher rate and longer duration than MOL’s film-readout system could ever provide. One of the systems considered for this purpose was FROG, which was revived for study in 1970 and briefly approved for active development before finally being rejected in November 1971. Instead, the National Reconnaissance Office began development of the KH-11 KENNEN reconnaissance satellite which used an entirely different approach to sending images down from orbit. Film-readout technology never made it back to space on an American spacecraft.
Endnotes- S.M. Tenant, “MOL Engineering Baseline Description Briefing to Generals Stewart and Bleymaier and Others,” April 6, 1967, p. 10.
- Colonel Lewis S. Norman, Memorandum for General Evans, “Status of MOL Readout,” March 9, 1966.
- Lieutenant General Joseph R. Holzapple, Deputy Chief of Staff, Research and Development, U.S. Air Force, “Photographic Readout System for Use in Reconnaissance Aircraft,” February 9, 1967, with attached: Director of National Reconnaissance Alexander M. Flax, Memorandum for Lieutenant General Holzapple, AFRD, “Photographic Readout System for Use in Reconnaissance Aircraft,” February 9, 1967. Also attached: “Work Statement: Photographic Film Readout System for Aircraft Applications, Columbia Broadcasting System Laboratories.”
- Major General Harry L. Evans, Vice Director, MOL Program, Memorandum for Record, “January 5, 1967 MOL Management Meeting,” Jan 16, 1967.
- Captain R.A. Koch, U.S. Navy, Memorandum for Dr. Flax, “Recommended Budget Requirements for Readout and Ocean Surveillance Programs,” November 30, 1966.
- The film had a width of 9.5 inches with the exposed portion having a diameter of 9 inches. Major General Harry L. Evans, Memorandum for Deputy Director, MOL Program, “Employment of the MOL Photographic Product,” November 29, 1966, with attached: Major General Harry L. Evans, Memorandum for General Stewart, “Employment of the MOL Photographic Product,” November 7, 1966.
- Alexander H. Flax, Assistant Secretary Research and Development, Memorandum for Director, Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) Program, “Authorization to proceed with the engineering development phase of the MOL Program,” January 13, 1967, with attached: “Agenda for MOL Management Meeting, January 5, 1967.”
- For the Block II missions, the NRO was also considering “Fly-low” missions to increase resolution. A report on this had been conducted in mid-1968 and concluded that it could be obtained for one or two revolutions before heating became a problem. It was possible that this low orbit, along with modifications to the hardware, could enable higher resolution photos to be obtained for up to eight revolutions. “Final Report of the Data Acquisition Potential of the ‘Enhanced’ MOL/DORIAN Baseline System During the Block II (July ’74 – July ’76) Time Period,” May 9, 1969, p. 1-4.
- General James Ferguson, Director, MOL Program, Memorandum for the Secretary of the Air Force, “Manned Orbiting Laboratory Monthly Status Report,” March 6, 1967.
- “Comments on TWX on provisions of DRV [data return vehicle] and WBDL [wide-band down-link] in MOL.”
- Major General Harry L. Evans, Vice Director, MOL Program, Memorandum for Director, National Reconnaissance Office, “Recommendation on Readout in the MOL Program,” March 13, 1967.
- Colonel Lee Battle to A.H. Flax, March 20, 1967.
- “Schedule Reprogramming and Technical Status To Dr. Flax, 14, April 1967,” April 21, 1967. (page 39); General James Ferguson, Director, MOL Program, Memorandum for the Secretary of the Air Force, “Manned Orbiting Laboratory Monthly Status Report,” May 5, 1967.
- “Wide Band Data Read Out,” February 1969, p. 2.
- Ibid.
- T.C. Aepli, “Initial Capability Readout System For Early Implementation Into the MOL/DORIAN System,” December 31, 1968, p. 1-2.
- “Final Report of the Data Acquisition Potential of the ‘Enhanced’ MOL/DORIAN Baseline System During the Block II (July ’74 – July ’76) Time Period,” May 9, 1969, p. 3-2.
- Ibid., p. 1-8.