Xplore is a private space company in Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 2017 by Lisa Rich who is the Chief Operation Officer and Jeff Rich who is Chief Executive Officer. The two are also managing partners of Hemisphere Ventures in Seattle. HV has invested in over two hundred companies including such space ventures as SpaceX, Vector Launch and Axiom Space. Up to the present, Xplore has been supported by private funds but Lisa Rich said that, now we’re at the point that we’re raising a seed round.”
     Xplore recently announced that it is collaborating with Nanoracks a private space company located in Houston, Texas. They are going to create an inexpensive rideshare service for payloads heading for the Moon, Mars or other destinations beyond Earth orbit. Their partnership is taking advantage of a new commercial approach to deep-space exploration being established at NASA by Jim Bridenstine, Administrator of NASA. Lisa Rich is the Chief Operation Officer and co-founder of Xplore said, “We’re the perfect fit for Bridenstine goal of NASA being one partner of many partners.”  
      Nanoracks will interact directly with customers in the provision of payload design, preparation and integration on Xplore’s missions. This could begin with Moon Expeditions which is a lunar mission that Xplore is planning to launch at the end of 2021. The collaboration capitalizes on Nanoracks experience in working with payload and hardware for the International Space Station.
      Jeffrey Manber is the CEO of Nanoracks. In a press release, he said, “Xplore paves the way for commercial utilization and services to the moon, Mars and beyond. We are truly excited at Nanoracks to be working with Xplore to bring our commercial knowledge from low Earth orbit into deep-space exploration.” 
     The basis of Xplore’s business model is their Xcraft. It is a spacecraft intended to be mounted on a standard payload adapter called an ESPA ring. The Xcraft will be capable of carrying between sixty-six and one hundred and fifty-four pounds in a volume of less than two cubic feet. Cubesats units are four-inch cubes. The Xcraft will be able to carry fifty units of cubesats.
     Lisa Rich says “Traditionally, when you look at the size of a spacecraft, maybe only 10 to 15 percent of the mass is the payload bay. Our elegant engineering and design have allowed for 40 percent of the mass to be payload. It’s one-twentieth of the cost of existing missions to deep-space destinations.” Xplore has not provided information about who will be contracted to construct hardware for them. Rich said, “We are currently considering a state-of-the-art facility that is appropriate for building Xcraft.”
     Xplore’s business model depends on getting space for secondary payloads on other peoples’ launch vehicles. Rich says that the Xcraft conforms to the ESPA standards and this should make it easier for Xcraft of acquire excess space in other peoples payloads. Most current launch vehicles including SpaceX’s Falcon 9, United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rockets and NASA’s Space Launch System are able to accept ESPA-class spacecraft.
    Rich says that they Xcraft will be able to carry a variety of payloads ranging from images and life science experiments to technology demonstrations and deployable nanosatellites.
    Xplore has already signed a contract with the Arch Mission Foundation to launch miniaturized libraries into deep space. They have also struck a deal with Celestis to carry cremated remains and DNA samples out into deep space beyond the Moon. Rich says that Xplore is in discussions with potential payload providers but is not ready to share details. She said, “The unique capability is that we’re providing ‘space as a service,’ so that all they have to care about is their instrument and getting their data back, which we provide for them. “Even though we’re a new company, we have an exceptional team that’s been working with NASA for decades,” she said, “so they can trust us.”

    The big NASA missions get a lot of press but there is a NASA program for smaller projects called the Discovery program. The program invites scientists and engineers to gather a team to design interesting and sharply focused planetary exploration missions to add to our knowledge of the solar system. The goal of the Discovery program is to achieve significant results by the launch of a lot of smaller missions that require fewer resources and shorter development times than the big NASA missions.
     Discovery missions explore planets, moons and smaller bodies such as asteroids and comets. Some previous Discovery missions have carried out ground-breaking science missions. Each Discover mission takes a unique approach to the exploration of space. They accomplish tasks that have never been attempted before. They can also result in new technologies that may have terrestrial uses. Some previous Discovery missions include:
     The Kepler space telescope was launched in order to monitor one hundred and fifty thousand stars for signs of solar transits that would suggest the existence of planets around those stars. It was launched in winter of 2009. A technical problem put the telescope out of commission in 2014. A second Kepler telescope was launched to continue the mission and was retired in fall of 2018. In total the Kepler telescopes observed over five hundred thousand stars and found two thousand, six hundred and sixty two extrasolar planets.
     The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was a Discovery mission that launched in the middle of 2009. The purpose of the LRO robotic spacecraft was to map the lunar surface. After the first year of the mission, a unique set of scientific objectives was added to the mission profile. Important data was collected on the Moon during the mission.
    The Mars Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport mission was launched in the spring of 2018 with the purpose of carrying out a thorough examination of Mars. It studied the crust, mantle and core of  the planet. It also measured tectonic activity and asteroid impacts.
     The Discovery program at NASA has announced the selection of four proposed interplanetary missions which will receive three million dollars each. Next year one or two of them will receive additional funding for further development.
   The Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging Plus is intended to send a spherical probe through the Venusian atmosphere to study the makeup of the atmosphere all the way down to the surface.
    The Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography and Spectroscopy mission is intended to map Venus with synthetic radar and an infrared imager.
     The Io Volcano Observer is intended to execute a series of close flybys of Io, a moon of Jupiter. Io is volcanically active.
     The Trident mission is intended to carry out a flyby of Triton, a moon of Neptune. It is speculated that Triton may have an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy surface.
     There are two further Discovery missions that are being developed to carry out missions to two asteroids, Lucy and Psyche. The Lucy mission will launch in late 2021 to visit six trojan asteroids that travel in the orbit of Jupiter in order to unravel the formation of the solar system. The Psyche mission will launch in 2023 to visit a metal containing asteroid about three times as far from the Sun as the Earth to study planetary formation.

Part 2 of 2 Parts
     In 1998, hackers grabbed control of a German and U.S. ROSAT X-ray satellite. This was achieved by first hacking into the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. The hackers then sent commands to the satellite to aim its solar panels directly at the Sun. This destroyed the batteries on the satellite and ended its operational life. The dead satellite fell back to Earth in 2011. It is also possible for hackers to take control of a satellite and hold it hostage. This happened to the SkyNet satellites in the U.K. in 1999.
     As time has passed, the potential threat of cyberattacks on satellites has increased. In 2008, it was been reported that hackers who may have been in China at the time took over control of two NASA satellites. One satellite was under their control for two minutes and the other satellite was under their control for nine minutes. In 2018, Chinese hackers backed by the Chinese government reportedly launched a very sophisticated hacking campaign which was aimed at satellite operators and defense contractors. Iranian hacking groups have been accused to trying the same sort of hacks.
    The U.S. Department of Defense and National Security Agency have made attempt to address the problem of space cybersecurity. However, critics have said that the government is moving too slowly. There are no cybersecurity standards for satellites. Even if they did exist, there is no governing body to regulate and ensure their implementation. Currently this results in the responsibility for satellite cybersecurity being borne by the companies that build and operate satellites.
     Some critics of the current situation have called for stronger involvement of the federal government in the development, implementation and regulation of cybersecurity standards for satellites and other space assets. One approach would be to have Congress work on the development of a comprehensive regulatory framework for the private space industry. They could write and pass legislation that would require satellite manufacturers to develop a common cybersecurity architecture.
    Congress could also require all owners and operators of satellites to report every single cybersecurity breach for any of their satellites. It is also important and necessary to identify which satellite systems and constellations are critical to the security of the U.S. There must be clear legal guidance on who should shoulder responsibility for cyberattacks on satellites. This will help ensure that those parties who have been identified as responsible take the required measures to secure these critical satellites.
     It can be very difficult to motivate Congress to deal with important national issues. It may be necessary to involve multiple stakeholders in public-private cooperation to move forward on cybersecurity standards. Whatever actions are ultimately taken by government or the private space industry, something must be done as soon as possible. Analysts say that it would be a huge mistake to wait until hackers seize control of a commercial satellite and use that control to threaten life, limb or property before any action is taken to prevent such circumstance for coming to pass.
      One thing is certain. If hackers cause major problems with satellites, there will be immediate calls for actions to prevent future occurrences. There will also be demands for explanations of why such actions were not taken before disaster struck. I believe that there will be no good excuse offered for why such a problem was ignored before it was too late.

Part 1 of 2 Parts
    SpaceX became the operator of the biggest active satellite constellation in the world last month. As of the first of February, SpaceX had launched two hundred and forty-two communication satellites. They plan to launch forty-two thousand more communication satellites in the next ten years. The reason for launching these thousands of satellites is to create low or no cost Internet access for the whole world. Amazon, OneWeb and other companies are working hard to place their own thousands of communication satellites in Earth orbit.
     It is hoped that all these new satellites will revolutionize many facets of everyday life. These include bringing Internet access to every corner of the globe, detailed monitoring of the environment across the entire globe, and the improvement of the systems used for global navigation. However laudable these motives are, there is a serious danger that has not been given sufficient attention. The U.S. and other nations have not developed critical cybersecurity standards and regulations for commercial satellites. Commercial satellite constellations are terribly vulnerable to cyberattacks because of this lack of standards, the complex supply chains that are needed by the private space industry and the many stockholders of the private companies.
    There could be very serious consequences if hackers gain control of commercial satellites. The least serious problem is having hacking shut down satellites which would deprive users of the services supplied by the satellite. Hackers could also jam or alter signals being sent by satellites which could interfere with and damage critical infrastructure with catastrophic consequences. It is even conceivable that hackers could change the orbits of the satellites causing them to crash into other satellites or even the International Space Station.
     Companies who construct satellites, especially small CubeSats, use commercially available off-the-shelf components in order to reduce costs. The fact that these components are widely available makes it easy for hackers to analyze such components for their built-in vulnerabilities. Added to that is the fact that many of these commercial satellite components are based on open-source technology. This means that hackers could corrupt the open-source code of the satellite’s software. They could install back doors and other vulnerabilities in the open source code which would then be installed on the satellites.
     Satellites are very complex devices. There are many manufacturers involved in the creation of the components needed. The launching of satellites is also a complex process that involved multiple companies. Many of the satellites currently in orbit around the Earth are being managed on an outsource basis. With every additional vendor in the supply chain for a particular satellite, the chances for hackers to insert themselves into the process increase.
     Hacking some satellites may be as easy as waiting for them to pass overhead and transmitting malicious signals from specialized antennas. Satellites are controlled from ground stations. These ground stations operate computers that may also be vulnerable to hackers.
Please read Part 2 next

    The human race has been fascinated by the lights in the sky for thousands of years. Mars was called the God of War because of its red color. With the development of high quantity telescopes in the Nineteenth century, observations of Mars revealed a network of lines that Schaperelli called “channels.” That was translated into “canals” in English. Stories began to circulate about a dying civilization on Mars that was using a network of canals to move the remaining water around. Percival Lowell built an observatory specifically to study Mars.
     As the decades passed and telescopes got better and better, we came to understand that Mars was a barren wasteland with a thin atmosphere and sub zero temperatures. The famous canals were just optical illusions. Satellites and rovers have brought us a flood of information about Mars and now governments and private companies are working on vessels to take human beings to Mars. Current rocket technology would get us to Mars in about six months. This brings a host of problems involving radiation, fuel, life support, etc.
     Now NASA scientists are working on a propulsion system that would use light to accelerate a spacecraft to high velocity. With this new system, it would be possible for humans to get to Mars in a few days which would make the exploration of Mars much more realistic.
      NASA scientist Professor Phillip Lubin and his team are working on the Directed Propulsion for Interstellar Exploration or DEEP IN program. The idea is to use photon propulsion to accelerate payloads to velocities near the speed of light. Lubin has presented a report on his research at the last NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Symposium. Lubin said “We know how to get to relativistic speeds in the lab, we do it all the time. There are recent advances that take this from science fiction to science reality. There’s no known reason why we cannot do this.”
     The theory behind DEEP IN photonic propulsion is fairly simple. Photons of light do not have mass but they do have energy and momentum which can push against solid objects and accelerate them. We can use the thrust of photon from a super powerful laser as a propulsion system for spacecraft. Recent estimates suggest that this system could propel a one hundred kilogram robotic craft to Mars in 3 days.
     Lubin says, “When they reflect off an object, that momentum is transferred into a little push. With a large, reflective sail, it’s possible to generate enough momentum to gradually accelerate a spacecraft.” Current rocket technology requires volatile fuels to launch and travel in space. The fuel adds mass so a great deal of fuel is burned just to move the fuel. Photonic propulsion utilizes a stream of photons which do not add mass to the spacecraft. The laser that drives the propulsion system could also be used to deflect hazardous debris that populates Earth orbits. The Lubin paper said, “These systems can be propelled to speeds currently unimaginable with existing propulsion technologies. To do so requires a fundamental change in our thinking of both propulsion and in many cases what a spacecraft is.”
     These photonic propulsion systems would not be used for manned flights. Lubin said at the NIAC Symposium,  “We are not proposing systems to send humans to interstellar distances. Humans are extremely fragile and require a lot of support. Robotic missions are much better suited for interstellar exploration in the future. Within about 25 light-years of the Earth, there are actually quite a few potential exoplanets and habitable things to visit.”
    “There are many targets to choose from. Exploring the nearest stars and exoplanets would be a profound voyage for humanity, one whose nonscientific implications would be enormous. It is time to begin this inevitable journey beyond our home.”

  The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is a federal agency that does futuristic research for the government. They are active across a wide range of sciences and technologies. They are not a U.S. space agency, but they do have a space projects umbrella called PE 0603287E. The budget for 2021 was one hundred and ninety million dollars. The budget request for 2021 is about one hundred and sixty million dollars.
   One task for 2021 is to finish the DARPA Launch Challenge competition intended to demonstrate the ability of the U.S. to quickly launch small payloads into Earth orbit. DARPA will also end the Experimental Space Plane competition after there is a final critical design review.
   The only remaining competitor in the DARPA Launch Challenge is the Astra company based in California. Astra will attempt its first launch between February 25th and March 1st of 2021 from Kodiak Island in Alaska. It will then have to launch again between March 18th and April 1st. There were originally three companies competing in the Challenge but Virgin orbit dropped out of the competition and Vector Launch went bankrupt leaving only Astra. The first Astra launch will carry three small satellites into Earth orbit. The mission will include a Department of Defense experimental cubesat called Prometheus which will test rapid data transmission to users on Earth.
   The Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites project was allocated forty-six million dollars. It is dedicated to creating the capability for a variety of robotic services for satellites in GEO such as repairing or refueling satellites. The DARPA plan is to hand the RSGS project over to a commercial partner who will provide a satellite to carry the robotic payload to orbit and operate it. Last year, DARPA’s commercial partner in the RSGS project withdrew from the project. DARPA is now considering a 2022 launch date. Part of the RSGS project is the Consortium For Execution of Rendezvous and Servicing which was created to bring private sector and government experts together to help develop voluntary standards for on-orbit operations that involve satellites that are capable of maneuvering after they reach orbit.
   The Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations project budget was raised from ten million dollars in 2020 to twenty-one million in 2021. DRACO “will develop and demonstrate a High-Assay Low Enriched Uranium nuclear thermal propulsion system.” NASA is also working on similar nuclear thermal propulsion rockets using low-enriched uranium with five percent to twenty percent U-235. The new type rocket would allow the U.S. military to effectively operate spacecraft in cislunar space. DARPA documents refer to cislunar space as being the new “high-ground” that could be controlled by an adversary unless the U.S. can develop the new nuclear rockets. DARPA wants to move from feasibility studies to demonstrations of the DRACO program in 2021.
    The Planar Imager project budget request for 2021 was raised to twelve million dollars from five million dollars in 2020. “The Planar Imager program seeks to disrupt the state-of-the-art in optical sensors by developing a lightweight, compact, affordable optical payload that can be integrated into a ride-share compatible satellite bus with equivalent imaging performance to current commercial conventional optical imaging satellites. This technology will significantly lower the size, weight, power, and cost of high-resolution intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance satellites enabling persistent coverage by an affordable satellite constellation and with a rapid reconstitution ability.”
     These small sensors could be carried on small satellites that could be simultaneously sent into orbit by a single launch vehicle which will reduce the cost. DARPA plans on eventually handing this project over to the U.S. Air Force.

   Most of the writing I do on this blog deals with conventional launch vehicles utilizing standard propellants. There other ideas for how to get payloads into orbit. Amazon just patented a system to whip small payload into space.   
Gur Kimchi is the Amazon Prime Air Vice President. According to their website, Amazon Prime Air is “a future delivery system from Amazon designed to safely get packages to customers in 30 minutes or less using unmanned aerial vehicles, also called drones. Prime Air has great potential to enhance the services we already provide to millions of customers by providing rapid parcel delivery that will also increase the overall safety and efficiency of the transportation system.”    
Kimchi and Amazon inventor Louis LeRoi LeGrand III filed a patent application in 2017 for a launch system that would use a miles-long whip controlled by a swarm of drones to launch payloads into low Earth orbit. Then orbiting platforms would use tethers to transfer the payloads to higher orbits. More mundane applications were mentioned in the patent such as using small versions of the system to launch drones or other aerial vehicles from ships at sea or from planes in the air. Packages could be thrown to an airship that would serve as a flying fulfillment center. The whip launch patented was published this week.   
Amazon has filed a number of bizarre patents which were never actually turned into hardware and this may prove to be the case with the whip launch system. An Amazon spokesman said, “Patents take multiple years to receive and do not necessarily reflect our current product roadmap. Like many companies, we file a number of forward-looking patent applications that explore the full possibilities of new technology.”    
Kimchi and LeGrand said in their patent application, “Existing methods of launching aerial vehicles generally rely on energy-inefficient processes. For example, in order to launch a payload at high speed, conventional processes utilize fuel, e.g., rocket fuel, to launch aerial vehicles. In addition, the fuel must be carried by the aerial vehicle that is being launched, thereby increasing the weight of the aerial vehicle and requiring correspondingly more energy to complete such a launch. Accordingly, it may be desirous to launch aerial vehicles and/or their payloads at high speed using energy-efficient, controlled and repeatable processes.”    
Based on the description in the application, Amazon could use the whip launch system to send thousands of satellites into orbit for its Project Kuiper broadband data constellation. Project Kuiper will take as much as a decade to deploy three thousand two hundred and thirty six satellites in order for the full constellation to bring the Internet to “tens of millions of people who lack basic access to broadband internet.” The inventors considered a lot of space-based applications. They discussed such topics as low Earth orbit versus geostationary Earth orbits, orbital inclination, Hohmann transfer orbits and ways to control tethers on platforms used to change the orbit of satellites.    
One of the main features of the whip launch system involves the use of aerial vehicles attached along the length of the whip. These vehicles could be quadcopters that draw current from the whip or they could be heavier duty aircraft. The system would use swarm intelligence to control the attached aerial vehicles to differentially impart speed to different parts of the whip. The result would be that payloads at the end of the whip were accelerated to supersonic velocities. The aerial vehicles could reposition themselves along the whip as needed to launch a whole sequence of payloads. The whips could be up to five hundred miles long.    
There is a space startup called Spinlaunch that is developing a giant catapult to fling payloads into orbit. Outside experts have studied the specifications for the Spinlaunch system and say that it could work. However, the payloads would have to have their own conventional rockets to increase their velocity.

    Boeing has been in the news a lot lately. Unfortunately, a lot of the media coverage has been about problems at the company with respect to space projects. Boeing unexpectedly pulled out of a DARPA spaceplane project without any explanation. Very recently, the failure of the test for a manned launch vehicle was attributed to software. Boeing does continue to be involved in developing hardware related to launch vehicles and satellites.
     Boeing HorizonX Ventures is an investment company that identifies and invests in startups from anywhere in the world which are developing revolutionary concepts and businesses related to Boeing business activities. These include advanced manufacturing, virtual reality, aerospace vehicles, autonomous flight and artificial intelligence.  Recently, they collaborated with Shasta Ventures to lead an eleven-million-dollar Series B investment Round for Accion. Accion is a pioneer in the development of miniature ion propulsion systems to allow small satellites to maneuver in orbit. It was spun off from research at MIT in 2014.
     Boeing and Shasta have invested in Accion before. Shasta led a Series A round of investment for seven and a half million dollars in 2016. Boeing also led a three-million-dollar investment round in 2018. Accion has collected a total of thirty-six million dollars since 2014. This includes fourteen-million-dollar in Department of Defense and NASA contracts. They intend to use the new capital to increase Accion production capabilities and add more personnel.
     Accion’s new ionic engine is called the Tiled Ionic Liquid Electrospray. It is intended to increase the lifespan and the maneuverability of satellites. The TILE engine utilizes electric fields which accelerate a non-toxic, ionic liquid propellant through tiny thrusters.
    Natalya Bailey is the CEO of Accion. She said, “At the size of a postage stamp, our propulsion system is rewriting the rules of small-sat navigation and maneuverability. We’re excited to ramp up production and offer our clients benefits such as extending mission lifetime, station-keeping and deorbiting capabilities.”
    The Accion TILE system is scheduled to be employed on a few experimental nanosatellites which will be launched in 2020. Accion was one of only fourteen companies to be awarded “Tipping Point” funding from NASA last year. This program was initiated to help develop technologies for missions to the Moon and Mars. Accion received three million nine hundred thousand dollars for work with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on an ion propulsions system for use of small satellites.
     HorizonX has a portfolio that includes twenty companies. Some of these are also space-related ventures including Isotropic Systems Ltd, BridgeSat and Myriota. Isotropic Systems Ltd is working on the first multi-service, high-bandwidth, low power, fully integrated line of high throughput terminals to support the satellite industry. BridgSat’s mission is the increase the speed of adoption of optical communication systems by the development of a solution that connects satellites and high-altitude unmanned space vehicles to ground stations. Myriota is pioneering low-cost, low-power, secure direct-to-orbit connectivity for the Internet of Things. In 2018, Boeing purchased Millennium Space Systems which focuses on building small satellites for national security missions.

     The cost of launching things into orbit is about ten thousand dollars per pound. It takes complex heavy equipment and fuel to get anything to orbit. This means that making payloads as light as possible is important. NASA has used a variety of techniques to reduce the weight that has to be thrown into orbit in order to be useful. They have launched inflatable systems into orbit that can be inflated to make light habitats. They have launched systems of light weight rods that can be reconfigured into complex structures. Now, NASA scientists have created a foldable fabric that has three capabilities that will be very useful in orbit.
     Researchers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have spent two years working on a metallic fabric that is composed of interlocking stainless steel squares. In appearance, the new material looks like chain mail. It is not made by connecting lots of little piece of metal by hand but rather it is 3-D printed. The printer extrudes stainless steel as a continuous sheet with different properties of the top and the bottom. The top of the fabric consists of small squares that reflect heat and light well. On the bottom of the material, interlocking loops helps the fabric absorb heat. The material also acts as a very strong shield to protect astronauts and spacecraft from fragments of space junk in orbit.
    NASA already has materials that individually have the properties of the new fabric, but the new material combines all three of these important capabilities into one package. Raul Polit Casillas is a system engineer at JPL who worked on the new fabric. He said, “We wanted to see if a structure could do something beyond being a static piece of material.”
     NASA was able to combine these different properties into the new fabric employing what is being called 4-D printing. This new manufacturing technique uses a 3-D printer to create individual layers which are combined into one structure. Skyar Tibbits is the MIT researcher who coined the term “4-D printing”. He created materials which could change their shape or self-assemble using the new technique. With this manufacturing method, engineers could program a piece of metal that could unfold at a certain temperature or design a plastic that could respond to the environment by expanding or contracting.
    Unlike a normal piece of metal, the new metal fabric can bend and fold easily while maintaining its strength. This property will make it useful on a spacecraft that is full of stiff materials and hard objects. NASA is just beginning to work with the 4-D printing system. Casillas hopes that his team will be able to create materials with even more advanced capabilities. They could develop fabrics that conduct electricity and heat as well as change their shape. He says that the point of his work is to “increase the science we can do per kilogram.”

     I live in Seattle, Washington. While this blog is not restricted geographically, I am especially sensitive to space industry news that involves Boeing, a major local industry. Today, problems with a Boeing satellite which is   no longer functioning.
     It was recently revealed that a big broadcast satellite named Spaceway-1 which is owned by DirecTV, built by Boeing and operated by Intelsat experienced major damage to its batteries last December. The company said that the satellite batteries suffered “irreversible” thermal damage. Boeing fears that the batteries may burst when they are called upon to supply power while solar power is not available. DirecTV just made a special request to the Federal Communication Commission this week for permission to bring Spaceway-1 down from its current orbit because if it explodes in that orbit, it may injure operating satellites in that orbit.    
     In the special request to the FCC, DirecTV wrote, “Spaceway-1 suffered a major anomaly that resulted in significant and irreversible thermal damage to its batteries. There is a significant risk that these battery cells could burst.” The satellite was launched in 2005. It is a Boeing 702-Model satellite that was intended to function for twelve years.
     Boeing made a statement to CNBC which said, “The battery malfunction occurred in the course of beyond-contract-life operation after a collection of events that have a very low likelihood of occurring on other satellites.”
    The Spaceway-1 has been orbiting in what is known as geosynchronous orbit twenty-two thousand miles above the surface of the Earth. Satellites in this orbit hover above a single location on Earth.
     It appears that DirecTV is facing a time constraint in dealing with this situation. Boeing reviewed data from the satellite and said that batteries of Spaceway-1 “cannot be guaranteed to withstand the pressures needed to support safe operation of the spacecraft in eclipse operations.” Spaceway-1 is currently operating on solar power but it will pass into the shadow of the Earth on February which will cut off solar power. DirecTV said in the FCC filing that Spaceway-1 must be removed from orbit and decommissioned before then. “Use of the batteries during eclipse is unavoidable and there is no ability to isolate damaged battery cells,” DirecTV wrote in its FCC filing. “The risk of a catastrophic battery failure makes it urgent that Spaceway-1 be fully de-orbited and decommissioned prior to the February 25th start of eclipse season.” In addition, the satellite must get rid of its remaining fuel in order to reduce the possibility of an accidental explosion.
    AT&T has told CNBC that it intends to replace Spaceway-1with another satellite from its fleet of satellites. In their statement, they said, “We do not anticipate any impacts on consumer service as we retire it.”
    Until December, the Spaceway-1 served as a back-up to provide television coverages to its customers in Alaska. Boeing says that it intends to lower risks for other 702-Model communication satellites. It will supply “affected customers with a minor update to operating procedures that will allow them to avoid a similar malfunction going forward.”