The Space Hour

Dec 05 2024 106 ep. 17 mins 29
The Space Hour Podcast artwork

A deep look at the commercial space industry from both the public and private sector. We discuss topics pertaining to the aerospace community with current and former members of the federal government, academics with in-depth knowledge, along with industry leaders, all of whom are paving the way to advance the U.S. space field.

  Technology  Business  Science
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Army Reserve Officer and Astronaut recognized for achievements in both arenas

Dec 05 2024 14 mins  
Recently, Major Kate Rubins became the first Army Reserve officer to receive the Basic Aviation Badge with Astronaut Device and Space Badge. Just tack it on as another accomplishment for her. As a microbiologist and NASA astronaut who also serves in the Army Reserve, I thought I would use this show as a good excuse to get the chance to meet her and hear her story, and that's just w

The next step in on-orbit refueling in space

Dec 05 2024 11 mins  
With space equipment staying up there longer and longer, where's a good place to stop for gas? Well one company is looking to solve that problem. Orion Space Solutions an Arcfield company, has been awarded a recent contract from the U.S. Space Force to support the Tetra 6 mission. The mission looks to take the next step in on-orbit refueling. Orion's Tetra-6 SmallSat prototype spac

Another avenue for the government to purchase Starlink technology

Dec 05 2024 12 mins  
The company MetTel has completed agreements making it an Authorized Starlink Reseller for both government and commercial enterprises. Starlink as most of you know is a service provided by SpaceX that mostly provides internet in hard to reach places, such as space. MetTel is now able to provide SD-WAN broadband services via Starlink technology. To find out what some of the potential

Guardians now have their own version of ChatGPT

Dec 05 2024 11 mins  
With so much equipment in geostationary orbit conducting monitoring and measuring operations, that means a lot of data for those who have to analyze the findings. Naturally this can take a lot of time and manpower, so what could help with that? You guessed it, this is another area where AI could potentially make things easier. One of the companies looking to help the Space Force ou

How the U.S. Space Force can modernize at a smarter pace

Nov 04 2024 9 mins  
Modernizing space programs while maintaining operations is one of the most challenging things, and rings true for the U.S. Space Force. It's key though to keeping up with near peer competitors in the space front. Joining us earlier to discuss this issue, Dan Laubach, Senior Director of Programs for the technology consulting firm Raft. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcast

NASA Establishes New Class of Astrophysics Missions, Selects Studies

Nov 04 2024 16 mins  
Starting today with NASA where two proposals for missions to observe X-ray and far-infrared wavelengths of light from space were selected by the agency for additional review. Each proposal will be studied for a year and then a concept will be selected in 2026, to hopefully launch in 2032. The resulting mission will become the first in a new class of NASA astrophysics missions withi

A challenge to recreate how the International Space Station was built

Nov 04 2024 12 mins  
A new challenge looks to digitally recreate the planning of each module of the International Space Station. It's being put on by the organization Students for the Exploration and Development of Space or SEDS. "The Ambitious Machine Challenge" will be a year long contest where participants will compete in an array of categories while simultaneously collaborating to document the buil

Legislation now calling for spacecraft manufacturers to create cybersecurity plan when working with NASA

Oct 09 2024 13 mins  
The Spacecraft Cybersecurity Act was recently introduced in the House this past summer. The legislation would require NASA to secure a cybersecurity protection plan from manufacturers applying to use federal dollars to build NASA spacecrafts. The introduction comes after thousands of cyberattacks from malicious actors, including China and Russia, have been launched against NASA, th

Measuring the safety of nuclear space launches

Oct 09 2024 34 mins  
Space Nuclear Systems are being utilized more and more these days. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that adding the word nuclear to anything mean safety needs to be of the utmost importance. To help with that, the government enacted the National Security Presidential Memorandum or NSPM, 20 a few years ago. To learn how the process works, I had the pleasure of listening to

Commercial space companies now able to churn out satellites

Oct 09 2024 15 mins  
The firm Aerospacelab, Inc. recently opened up a brand new satellite manufacturing facility in Torrance, California. The company plans on being to put out, on average, two satellites per week on a single shift schedule. Increased satellite production is now becoming the standard now in the space hardware industry. I wanted to learn more about that and how it got so easy to make you