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Axios Space

Detailed images of the battlefield in Ukraine taken from space and satellite internet beamed to the war's front lines have shaped the year-long conflict — and how the public understands it.

Why it matters: Space-based technologies have been essential to warfighting for decades, but their use in the conflict in Ukraine has demonstrated how they can give citizens a clear view of war.

What's happening: Planet, Maxar and other companies are using satellite images beamed back from orbit to reveal details of what's happening on the ground. 

In April 2022, satellite photos disproved claims by Russia that images of bodies in the streets of Bucha were staged by Ukrainian forces. Photos from Maxar showed bodies in the streets before Russian forces pulled out of the city.

SpaceX's Starlink has also been key to Ukraine's efforts, allowing people on the ground to access the internet and aiding in situational awareness on the battlefield.

The big picture: In an interview with the BBC last year, the head of the Space Force General Jay Raymond said the war in Ukraine is the "first war where commercial space capabilities have really played a significant role."

Many of these companies are also regularly sending these types of photos to media outlets.

"[T]he worldwide attention to the event has been much larger, much wider, and our imagery has been used to help tell a critical story going on at this point," Maxar CEO Dan Jablonsky tells Axios.

Through the release of images of the war in Ukraine, both Maxar and Planet say they aim to increase transparency and accountability.

"As the saying goes, 'Sunlight is the best disinfectant for democracies,' and we feel that advances in commercial imagery are helping to provide that sunlight and shepherd in a new era of shared awareness at a scale that we really haven’t seen before in past conflicts," Planet Federal's Robert Cardillo tells Axios. 

Between the lines: These companies could also be putting their assets at risk through their efforts.

SpaceX's Elon Musk said in May 2022 that Russia's cyberattacks on Starlink have ramped up.

A Russian official said in October that commercial satellites could be considered "legitimate" targets for retaliation.

The intrigue: Using commercial assets in wartime also allows private companies to make decisions about what's acceptable use and what isn't.

SpaceX this month limited Starlink capabilities in Ukraine after the nation's military used the satellite constellation to operate drones targeting Russian troops.

Starlink "was never intended to be weaponized, but the Ukrainians have leveraged it in ways that were unintentional and not part of any agreement," SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell said on Feb. 9.

What to watch: These uses of space technology could have far-reaching consequences in the future.

Planet and Microsoft collaborated to create a building damage assessment tool for Ukraine. "This is something that normally would have taken months to complete, but given the urgency, was delivered in a matter of weeks," Cardillo said.

Government agencies have already been partnering with these companies to buy imagery for years, but the uses of the data during the war in Ukraine could further entrench those partnerships.

Space brings transparency to the war in Ukraine

Commercial space companies are bringing the war down to Earth.

Illustration of a satellite made of the flags of Russia and Ukraine.

Ukraine

A look at the scientific breakthroughs changing the world, explorations in space and in worlds beyond our own and the threats posed to us by our own planet, both out of our control and of our own making.

Science

China is becoming the most formidable rival America has faced, and the risk of confrontation with Russia, North Korea or Iran still looms. Authoritarians are rising, the chaotic Afghanistan exit revealed the limits of U.S. power, and the pandemic, climate change and other critical challenges continue to pose grave threats.

World

The Federal Aviation Administration announced Friday that it is moving to fine SpaceX $175,000 for failing to submit key data on a Falcon 9 rocket's trajectory ahead of a launch last August.

Why it matters: Thousands of objects are tracked in orbit today, including functional satellites, space junk and spent rocket bodies. Understanding a rocket's trajectory helps keep the rocket and spacecraft in orbit safe.

Driving the news: According to the FAA, SpaceX failed to submit data for an Aug. 19, 2022, Starlink launch that helps evaluate the probability that the rocket might crash into objects tracked in orbit.

That data was required to be submitted to the FAA at least seven days before the first launch attempt.

SpaceX now has 30 days to respond to the FAA. 

The Elon Musk-founded company didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. 

How it works: The FAA is responsible for licensing rocket launches around the United States. 

Part of that licensing process involves reviewing the proposal for risks posed to people on the ground, other spacecraft in orbit, national security and other concerns.

The big picture: Last year, SpaceX launched 61 times, marking a new record for the company.

SpaceX also operates the largest constellation of satellites in orbit today, with Starlink clocking in at more than 3,000 spacecraft so far. 

The company's Crew Dragon spacecraft delivers astronauts to and from the International Space Station, and eventually, a version of SpaceX's Starship is expected to help land NASA astronauts back on the surface of the Moon.

The FAA moves to fine SpaceX $175,000

The fine is due to failure to submit key data for an August 2022 launch.

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying Starlink satellites lifts off in Florida into a blue sky. A streak of flame is visible from the rocket.

The Aug. 19, 2922, SpaceX launch of a clutch of Starlink satellites from Florida. Photo: SpaceX

SpaceX

Scientists using the James Webb Space Telescope have found a galaxy that may look like a young version of our Milky Way.

Why it matters: By studying this galaxy and its potential growth, researchers may be able to learn more about our own galaxy and its early evolution.

What they found: The galaxy, called The Sparkler, appears to be surrounded by satellite galaxies and globular clusters, according to the study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

As the galaxy grows, it swallows those objects surrounding it, giving it the potential to grow into a galaxy like our own, the study suggests. The Milky Way is home to about 200 globular clusters.

"We appear to be witnessing, first hand, the assembly of this galaxy as it builds up its mass — in the form of a dwarf galaxy and several globular clusters," Duncan Forbes, one of the authors of the study, said in a statement.

"We are excited by this unique opportunity to study both the formation of globular clusters, and an infant Milky Way, at a time when the Universe was only 1/3 of its present age."

How it works: The Sparkler was seen by JWST as it looked through space and back 9 billion years, thanks to a lucky alignment of a dense cluster of galaxies that bent and magnified the light emitted by the more distant galaxy, allowing it to be seen.

JWST spots an infant galaxy like our own in the early universe

Artist's illustration of The Sparkler galaxy

Artist's illustration of The Sparkler. Image: James Josephides, Swinburne University

Telescopes

Axios Science

Data from space is being used to try to fight climate change by optimizing shipping lanes, adjusting rail schedules and pinpointing greenhouse gas emissions.

Why it matters: Satellite data has been used to monitor how human activities are changing Earth's climate. Now it's being used to attempt to alter those activities and take action against that change.

"Pixels are great but nobody really wants pixels except as a step to answering their questions about how the world is changing and how that should assess and inform their decisionmaking," Steven Brumby, CEO and co-founder of Impact Observatory, which uses AI to create maps from satellite data, tells Axios in an email.

What's happening: Several satellite companies are beginning to use their capabilities to guide on-the-ground actions that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions cuts.

UK-based satellite company Inmarsat, which provides telecommunications to the shipping and agriculture industries, is working with Brazilian railway operator Rumo to optimize train trips — and reduce fuel use.

Maritime shipping, which relies on heavy fuel oil, is another sector where satellites could help to reduce emissions by routing ships more efficiently and prevent communications-caused delays, says Inmarsat's CEO Rajeev Suri. The industry contributes 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Carbon capture, innovations in steel and cement production and other inventions are important for addressing climate change, Suri says. But using satellites is "potentially low-hanging fruit because these technologies are already available."

Other satellites are also tracking emissions of methane — a strong greenhouse gas — from landfills and oil and gas production.

"It's a needle in a haystack problem. There are literally millions of potential leak points all over the world," says Stéphane Germain, founder and CEO of GHGSat, which monitors methane emissions from its six satellites in orbit.

A satellite dedicated to honing in on carbon dioxide emissions is due to launch later this year.

Between the lines: Emissions data from satellites has been used by advocates to "name and shame" emitters into action, but some companies are taking a different tack.

GHGSat, for example, chooses to partner with companies and governments to try to address their emissions usage without shaming them publicly.

"Our single biggest success came through diplomatic channels working with three different ambassadors in one country to work with that government to decide to reduce some emissions," Germain says, declining to provide more details.

"That never would have happened if we'd gone and splashed our name all over the front of a newspaper somewhere."

Yes, but: The business models for many of the companies working to track climate change from space are still being developed as they find niches to complement and incorporate publicly available data.

What to watch: Satellites are just beginning to be talked about in settings like the UN climate conference COP as tools for monitoring and reducing emissions.

Companies also have to find ways to communicate what they can do with their technology to the public and potential customers, the Secure World Foundation's Krystal Azelton tells Axios.

The key question, she says: "Who is it going to be used by and how are they going to educate?"

Data from satellites is starting to spur climate action

Satellites might aid in the fight against climate change.

Illustration of a magnifying glass magnifying part of blurring earth

Satellites

Machine learning could aid in the search for signs of intelligent alien life in the universe, according to a study published Monday.

Why it matters: Searching for radio signals emitted by technologically advanced extraterrestrial societies requires scanning large portions of the sky with powerful radio telescopes, producing a lot of data scientists need to parse through.

Machine learning tools could make that job easier.

Driving the news: A new study published in Nature Astronomy this week details the use of an algorithm that helped researchers sift through data previously analyzed in 2017.

The machine learning tool was trained to differentiate radio signals that might originate in distant star systems from human-created sources like cell phones and satellites.

The tool turned up eight new radio signals of interest — possible signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life — within the dataset. Those signals came from five different stars that are 30 to 90 light-years away.

But, but, but: Those signals don't mean they found aliens.

Brief follow-up observations didn't turn up a repeat signal, and it's still possible these eight targets of interest were created by chance, not emitted by alien civilizations.

More observations and analysis are now being conducted, according to a press release from the University of Toronto. 

The big picture:  Scientists may need machine learning for these types of searches in the future.

"With our new technique, combined with the next generation of telescopes, we hope that machine learning can take us from searching hundreds of stars, to searching millions," one of the authors of the study Peter Ma, of the University of Toronto, said in the press release.

Machine learning to find learned aliens

Searching the skies for signals from intelligent alien life creates a lot of data.

Illustration of a small spotlight lighting an empty area, a small alien is off to the side of the light.

Astronomy

Look to the sky for a chance to witness space history this week: A green comet is expected to be at its closest point to Earth this week since the Stone Age.

Driving the news: Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), which was discovered March 2, 2022, reaches its closest point to our planet on Wednesday and Thursday, according to EarthSky.

It’ll still be around 27 million miles away at closest approach, or more than 100 times the distance from Earth to the Moon, EarthSky reports.

How bright a comet appears to be depends on a few factors, according to NASA, including how close it is to the Earth, how close it is to the Sun and how much gas and dust it is giving off. 

NASA predicts it’ll be brightest between Wednesday and Thursday morning.

If the comet is visible to the naked eye, it will look like a fuzzy green object about 5 degrees below Polaris, National Weather Service forecaster Dustin Guy told Axios Seattle.

Set your alarms for early morning, during the less than 1 hour between moonset local time and when dawn begins. That small window of time should be when the comet is at its brightest, according to NASA.

Our thought bubble: When this comet passed by Earth 50,000 years ago, Neanderthals roamed our planet and the last ice age was still going strong, Axios Space author Miriam Kramer explains.

Light pollution's existential threat to astronomy

The JWST is already upending our understanding of the early universe

How to see the historic green comet this week

The comet this week is expected to be the closest to Earth it has been since the Stone Age.

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was visible above Mojave National Preserve in California's San Bernadino County on Jan. 31. Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Aerospace

Traditionally Earth-bound companies, industries and investors are now looking to space as a place to do business, compete and invest.

Why it matters: The space economy's continued growth hinges on space companies proving their worth to non-space entities, and moving beyond established industry partnerships and government contract money.

The space economy is "going to grow by regular companies thinking about regular ways that they can solve regular problems through and with space," McKinsey partner Jesse Klempner tells Axios.

That may now be happening. "I think that folks are starting to wake up to the fact that we are really at the emergence of a massive space economy and a lot of growth," McKinsey senior partner Ryan Brukardt tells Axios.

What's happening: 2021 was a high-water mark for investing in the space industry, with $14.5 billion raised through private investment, according to data from Space Capital.

Last year saw a major downturn in investment, but the space economy still grew and reached $424 billion in 2022, according to a report from Euroconsult.

Investors and companies outside of the space industry are looking to space to add value to their own companies.

They're building and using analytics products that integrate Earth observation data and using space for communications tools like tracking ships at sea.

Harvard Business Review highlighted the need for all companies to develop a "space strategy" late last year.

The intrigue: The ways space companies sell themselves to potential business partners and investors have also changed in the last 10 years and continue to evolve.

Instead of focusing on the number of satellites in orbit, companies are able to talk about how their data — provided by satellites — and unique analytics can transform a business or sector.

Between the lines: The space industry is also being seen as a source of competition with terrestrial companies in some sectors, BryceTech's Carissa Christensen tells Axios.

Starlink with its internet coverage around the world, for example, is a major competitor for communications companies of all kinds.

Manufacturing could also face competition from space companies focused on new ways of building rockets in the future.

The big picture: Entrepreneurial attention from success stories like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson has also brought more interest from outside of the space industry, Christensen says.

"I've had VCs tell me that seeing some of the most successful entrepreneurs ever — like Elon Musk, or Jeff Bezos or Richard Branson — pursue space deals makes them more open to space deal flow," Christensen adds.

"The participation of those very wealthy, very successful entrepreneurs and their companies kind of legitimizes the field."

What to watch: Venture funding for space companies started to surge in 2015, according to Christensen, so now is about the time when the space efforts funded then will start to prove they are viable — or begin to fail.

"You're going to see some successes and you're going to see some mortality," Christensen said.

Space is attracting new business

The space economy has grown a lot in the last 10 years.

Stars

The James Webb Space Telescope has been fully operational for less than a year, but its data is already hinting the early universe may have more galaxies — and more complicated galaxies — than many models have predicted.

Why it matters: A longstanding question in astronomy and astrophysics has centered on how the first generations of galaxies formed and evolved after the Big Bang. 

The JWST was built, in part, to answer those questions. 

"I think we're really seeing the ultimate origins of humanity," astronomer Steven Finkelstein, of the University of Texas at Austin, tells Axios. "These early galaxies are the sites where the earliest stars formed. They formed the first heavy metals in the universe. Those heavy metals eventually became our Earth and our bodies."

What's happening: One study submitted to the Astrophysical Journal looked at 850 galaxies that formed between 11 billion and 13 billion years ago, grouping them according to type — spiral, elliptical, irregular or a combination. 

The team found the proportion of galaxies by type was nearly the same as what they see in the nearby universe today. This could mean these galaxies were relatively far along in their evolution, despite the universe's young age.

Another study published in the Astrophysical Journal in December found 87 galaxies that may have been around just 200 million to 400 million years after the Big Bang. This would be far more galaxies than scientists expected to see at this point in cosmic time.

Even if only a relatively small number of those galaxies turn out to be real, astronomer Haojing Yan, one of the authors of the study said during a press conference last week, “then our previously-favored picture of galaxy formation in the early universe must be revised.”

The intrigue: The evidence there may be more galaxies in the early universe doesn't necessarily mean there's something wrong with the prevailing model of how the universe works that predicts how many early galaxies astronomers should see, Finkelstein says. 

But it does mean there's likely something about these early galaxies that needs to be re-examined.

It could be that galaxies in these early eras of the universe were just brighter than initially expected, making it easier for scientists to see them in the data available now, Finkelstein says.

Or, the stars forming in these galaxies might be hotter and brighter than expected, forming from metal-poor gas, which allows them to grow to massive sizes — and get hotter and brighter.

How it works: The truly revolutionary part of the JWST's technology is the telescope's ability to take a "spectrum" — effectively a chemical fingerprint of a galaxy's makeup — for even the most distant galaxies.

That instrumentation allows scientists to see how much oxygen, hydrogen and other elements there are in any given galaxy, painting a picture of what may have been happening at that point in cosmic history.

Chemical compositions of galaxies can also tell scientists how primitive galaxies might be, and a clutch of chemically primitive galaxies were recently found in data from the JWST. 

"All galaxies start with dark matter, hydrogen and helium, and then stars form," NASA's Sangeeta Malhotra tells Axios. "When stars do their nuclear powered thing, they form oxygen and other elements. ... Having very little — or the littlest — quantity of oxygen tells us that this is a pretty young galaxy."

What to watch: As the JWST gathers more spectra and takes more images of distant galaxies, scientists will likely be able to start to resolve a true picture of what the universe was like billions of years before our Milky Way was born.

"I think that in the next year or two, we're going to see a lot of further clarity on what the early galaxy population looks like," NASA's James Rhoads says. 

The telescope has already found more early galaxies than expected.

Photo illustration of a black and whtie galaxy with a spotlight revealing a brightly colored area. 

Photo illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Photo: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

NASA

The James Webb Space Telescope has confirmed its first planet orbiting a distant star, and it's a rocky world just about the same size as Earth.

Why it matters: Part of the scientific value of the JWST is its ability to characterize alien planets. This finding opens the door to learning more about what the atmosphere of this planet could be.

What they found: Researchers turned the JWST's powerful eye on a star system suspected to have a planet about 41 light-years away. 

NASA's TESS spacecraft first hinted at the world's existence, but the JWST's new observations confirmed the planet — named LHS 475 b.

The planet orbits its star — which is smaller and cooler than the Sun — every two days, and the data suggests the world is hundreds of degrees warmer than the Earth.

While the planet has an incredibly close orbit, because the star is smaller and cooler, the planet could still have an atmosphere, according to NASA. 

The intrigue: Figuring what — if any — atmosphere envelopes LHS 475 b is going to take a bit longer for scientists to piece together.

"The telescope is so sensitive that it can easily detect a range of molecules, but we can’t yet make any definitive conclusions about the planet’s atmosphere,"  Erin May, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, who worked on these results, said in a statement.

The research team has been able to rule out a few different atmospheric compositions. They think LHS 475 b doesn't have an atmosphere that's thick and methane-rich, like Saturn's moon Titan, but it's possible the planet has an atmosphere that is entirely made of carbon dioxide.

The team should get more information with followup observations this summer.

How it works: The JWST found the planet by watching the change in its star's light created when the world passed in front of its star from the telescope's perspective. 

Those dips in starlight can tell scientists about the orbit, size and other characteristics of a faraway planet.

Transits like these can also help scientists piece together a world's atmosphere by seeing how light scatters when it passes through that atmosphere, giving them a sense for what molecules might be present within it.

JWST confirms its first alien planet, and it's the size of Earth

The world is located 41 light-years away.

Artist's illustration of a planet rising with its bright, red star in the background

Artist's illustration of the planet LHS 475 b. Source: NASA/ESA/CSA/Leah Hustak (STScI)

NASA's successful launch this week of its Moon rocket ushers in a new age of lunar exploration.

Why it matters: NASA's Artemis program may help spark the inspiration that a major human spaceflight endeavor — like the Apollo program — can bring to new generations.

NASA's plans for Mars also hinge on the Artemis program, which will use the Moon as a proving ground for sending crewed missions to the Red Planet.

"There's an underestimation about the importance of Artemis," the Planetary Society's Casey Dreier tells Axios. "This is the first time in 50 years that we've had hardware designed to do this."

Catch up quick: The Space Launch System took flight from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, lofting an uncrewed Orion capsule on a journey around the Moon.

After multiple delays over the past few months, including weathering a hurricane on the launch pad, fuel leaks and other issues, the rocket performed flawlessly. 

"We rise together, back to the Moon and beyond," NASA launch commentator and spokesperson Derrol Nail said just after liftoff.

The SLS is the most powerful rocket ever built, capable of sending people and payloads to deep space destinations.

Orion is now on a trip through space and should splash down back on Earth in December after testing its systems in space. 

The big picture: Apollo was a race between two nations, but NASA says Artemis is built on the premise that countries around the world should cooperate to create a sustainable presence on the Moon. 

To NASA, it's not about leaving flags and footprints now. It's about establishing a long-lived presence on the lunar surface that can be used to test the tech needed for more ambitious missions.

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