2023
OSIRIS-REx delivers asteroid sample after seven years in space
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft returned a sample from the asteroid Bennu, which could help scientists better understand the formation of the solar system. After more than a decade of planning and seven years of space flight traversing more than 1 billion miles, a sample from the asteroid Bennu safely landed on Earth.
Crew-7 Arrives on ISS following NASA, SpaceX launch
SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station — each representing a different agency. The Dragon capsule carried NASA astronaut and mission commander Jasmin Moghbeli, ESA astronaut and pilot Andreas Mogensen, JAXA astronaut and mission specialist Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut and mission specialist Konstantin Borisov.
India P.M. calls safe landing of lunar probe ‘Dawn of a New Era’
Space workers in India celebrated the landing of their Chandrayaan-3 probe, making it the fourth nation to safely land a spacecraft on the Moon, and had their efforts lauded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “India is on the Moon,” Modi boomed in a broadcast to India’s 1.4 billion residents.
As Russia, India reach for Moon, NASA supporters work to stop budget cuts
As India and Russia race to land spacecraft on the Moon’s south pole, America’s space agency is staring down proposed budget cuts. India’s Chandrayaan-3 is poised to make a soft lunar landing, which would make the nation one of only four spacefaring powers to ever place a payload safely on the lunar surface.
S-Network Space Index vs. Benchmark Indexes, H1 2023
In the first half of 2023, the S-Network Space Index (SNET SPACE) underperformed other benchmark indexes, declining 0.6%. This compares to a 17% increase for the S-Network U.S. Equity 3000 Index (SNET 3000), which tracks the 3,000 largest (by market capitalization) U.S. stocks.
Space Force Tracked Rocket Bodies in Orbit, June 2023
The accidental detonation of a rocket in space caused the biggest debris event of NASA’s early efforts, with a Thor Ablestar upper stage exploding into more than 300 pieces in 1961. The danger of debris dawned on NASA after the explosion.
Space Force Tracked Spacecraft and Debris, June 2023
If LEO is the wild West, Victor Gardner, president of the space situational awareness firm LeoLabs Federal, is the new sheriff in town, and he’s packing a global network of radar stations rather than a six-shooter.
Space Force Tracked Debris in Orbit, June 2023
The Russians started it with pieces of Sputnik in 1957. America followed suit, and China is catching up in congesting low Earth orbit with clouds of debris that whiz around the planet at nearly 18,000 mph. Now, as low Earth orbit grows as a destination for massive constellations of satellites to deliver services from weather forecasts to phone calls, along with crewed commercial space stations, nations are racing to ban space-based littering and invent methods to take out the orbiting trash.
Launches by Nation, 2014-2023
The second half of 2023 began with the launch of the European Space Agency’s Euclid telescope, designed to probe the universe’s dark matter. And several groundbreaking civil space missions remain on tap for the year.
Midyear Launch by Type, 2014-2023
The failures pale in comparison to the successes, with a record 55 commercial launches through the midyear point. The first half of 2023 also set a midyear mark for military launches with 19 worldwide, exceeding the record of 17 set in the first half of 2018. Civil government launches were down slightly, with 23 launches in the first half of 2023, compared to 26 in the first half of 2022.