In honor of May the Fourth be with You, we asked our Aerospace engineers and scientists about their favorites. — Happy May the Fourth*, Space Enthusiasts! With this unofficial Aerospace holiday approaching, we reached out to the most knowledgeable people we know — our own engineers and scientists—to ask what we can believe from our favorite movies and TV shows about space. The responses were impressive! Read on to learn…

The SPARTA framework offers space professionals a taxonomy of potential cyber threats to spacecraft and space missions. v1.3 delivers significant updates. — Authors: Brandon Bailey, Brad Roeher; Updated on May 9, 2023, with v1.3.1 A Brief History of SPARTA Releases: SPARTA version 1.0 was released on October 19th, 2022, during the Value of Space Summit hosted by the Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC).

Our Expert’s Insights on the Intersection of AI, Simulation Tools, and Space Technology — AI uses massive amounts of data to help us explain, predict, and optimize; modeling and simulation tools leverage data to gather evidence and test different scenarios. Integration of these two fields holds promising implications for space systems innovation. Currently, these capabilities are used in space for more traditional purposes, e.g…

SPARTA’s mission is to ensure space system engineers are informed about countermeasures available to aid in mitigation. — Authors: Brandon Bailey, Tim Dafoe Educating the space community on spacecraft tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) is one goal of SPARTA, but equally important is ensuring space system engineers are informed about countermeasures available to aid in mitigation. While TTPs are important to understand a threat actor’s “why” and “how,”…

Electric propulsion offers low thrust with high fuel efficiency, making it well-suited for longer missions. The new Aerospace EP3 vacuum chamber is the largest in the world for testing these devices. — The need for increased agility in the space environment has prompted research into forms of propulsion that are capable of meeting the objectives of increasingly ambitious missions. While electric propulsion has previously been used mainly for the station-keeping of satellites (keeping a spacecraft at a fixed distance from another spacecraft…

Aerospace is identifying opportunities to improve wildfire detection and monitoring capabilities, efforts that could ultimately protect biodiversity, infrastructure, and human life, as well as mitigate wildfires’ financially damaging effect. — In 2021, more than 2.5 million acres burned due to California’s wildfires. The estimated economic loss was between $70 billion and $90 billion in the United States, with over half of that attributed to a California wildfire season aggravated by drought and intensified temperatures. Boosting space surveillance abilities helps to…

Future human missions to the moon and Mars require understanding the space environment to ensure crew members are prepared. Analog missions — field tests that mimic space-like conditions — are some of the closest ways we gain critical knowledge of what working in and inhabiting space is like. — To anticipate the needs of future space missions and sustainable operations in cislunar and Martian environments, The Aerospace Corporation sponsored a two-week analog mission at The Mars Society’s Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in remote Hanksville, Utah, beginning Nov. 27.

SPARTA, released in October 2022, provides space professionals with a taxonomy of potential cyber threats to spacecraft and space missions. v1.2 delivers some significant updates. — Authors: Brandon Bailey, Brad Roeher SPARTA version 1.0 was released on October 19th, 2022 during the Value of Space Summit hosted by the Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC). Subsequently, on October 28th, 2022, v1.1 was released containing some User Interface (UI) enhancements and a significant amount of updated…

Ever wonder what aerospace engineers think are the best STEM toys? We did too, so we asked some of our employees to weigh in. — With so many great STEM toys for kids, we decided to ask our employees at Aerospace for their recommendations this holiday season. We wanted to know what toys they loved, what their kids love, and what toys they wish they had growing up. The responses were overwhelming. From building sets…