Part of your world (6/21/22)

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In today's newsletter:🌀 UK-led exoplanet mission🎙️ Pathfinder #0004🗓️ The week ahead 🔁 On the move

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Ask 'Em My Questions, And Get Some Answers

The UK has announced that it has committed £30M ($36.9M) to ESA’s Ariel exoplanet telescope.

What is it? The Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey (Ariel) telescope will be the first mission dedicated to measuring the chemical composition and atmospheric thermal properties of exoplanets. To do this, the telescope will study ~1,000 known exoplanets in visible and infrared wavelengths simultaneously over an initial four-year mission.

• Exoplanets = planets that orbit stars outside of our solar system.

• Findings could shape scientists’ understanding of how exoplanets form and how the type of host star drives the evolution of a planet.

“By investing £30 million and taking the helm of the entire Ariel consortium – the first time in a decade that we have secured leadership for a mission of this magnitude – we are putting the UK at the heart of international space research, providing new opportunities for space businesses and academics across the country,” said UK Science Minister George Freeman.

The investment will see the UK take responsibility for the delivery of Ariel’s payload module, cryogenic cooler, and optical ground support equipment, as well as data processing and science operations.

The £30M in funding for Ariel will be provided through the UK Space Agency’s National Space Science Programme. The agency has already committed £6M to support UK teams during the mission’s study phase.

Breaking down the science

Weighing in at 1,500 kg (~3,300 lbs), Ariel will boast a meter-class primary mirror utilized to collect visible and infrared light from distant star systems. This light will then be spread into a “rainbow” by an infrared spectrometer, allowing the spacecraft to extract the chemical signature of gases in a planet’s atmosphere, signatures that become embedded in starlight when a planet passes behind or in front of a star.

A photometer, a spectrometer, and the guidance system will collect data on the presence of clouds in a planet’s atmosphere and allow the spacecraft to precisely target a star while maintaining stable long-term monitoring of between 10 hours and three days per planet.

Mission history

An international consortium of nearly 50 institutes from 12 countries began work on Ariel in 2015.

• In March 2018, the ESA Science Program Committee selected Ariel from three candidate missions to be the agency’s next medium-class science mission.

• By Nov. 2020, Ariel had cleared a rigorous set of reviews to prove technical feasibility and scientific necessity. At this point, ESA member states officially adopted the mission.

• In Dec. 2021, ESA inked a deal with Airbus to design and construct the mission’s spacecraft.

The Ariel payload will be designed and built by the Ariel consortium, led by the UK and including contributions from NASA and JAXA.

Journey to the launchpad

The Ariel payload design review will be completed later this year. The design is then expected to be finalized by 2025, with a flight acceptance review completed in early 2029 ahead of the launch later that year.

Ariel is expected to launch aboard an Ariane 62, with ESA’s Comet Interceptor mission riding shotgun. Once launched, Ariel will begin its journey to its observation point at the L2 Lagrange point, one million miles from Earth (and where JWST currently resides). The Ariel consortium picked this location for its highly stable thermal environment, which is required to observe exoplanets.

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Pathfinder #0004: American Dynamism with a16z’s Katherine Boyle

On Pathfinder 0004, we sit down with Katherine Boyle, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (or a16z, for short).

Pathfinder is brought to you by SpiderOak Mission Systems. Check out the company’s space cybersecurity white paper here.

Resume, in brief

Katherine heads up a16z’s American Dynamism practice, where she invests in companies involved in national security, aerospace and defense (A&D), public safety, housing, education, and industrials.

• Katherine recently led a16z’s investment in Hadrian.

• Before a16z, she worked at General Catalyst, and before investing, worked as a general-assignment reporter at the Washington Post.

Katherine is a prolific writer and deep thinker on A&D, dual-use technology, and more. As you’ll soon hear, Ryan and Katherine had a wide-ranging conversation on Pathfinder 0004.

Topics include…

• Transitioning from journalism to full-time investing

• The culture shock of Silicon Valley

• Defining the American Dynamism thesis

• Exporting VC, company-building playbooks, and American Dynamism across the country

• Building in digital and physical worlds

• Dual-use technology investing

• The role of storytelling in startups’ and the space sector’s success

• Selling to the government and working with the DoD

• a16z’s investment in Hadrian

• Family conversations on leaving Earth…

• Does a16z have a full-time chief meme officer yet?

…and much more! Thanks to Katherine for coming on Pathfinder, and for being our second video interview. The video upload is still processing, so if you want to watch the conversation, you’ll have to wait just a wee bit longer.

🎧 Get Listening 🎧

For all the audiophiles out there, here’s how to listen to Pathfinder 0004 right now:

🔊 Listen on Spotify 🍏 Get it on Apple Podcasts💻 Play it on your web browser

In Other News

• Leaked internal documents from NASA obtained by Ars Technica reveal that the agency is considering two alternate timelines for the Artemis program—both of which show undisclosed mission delays.

• SpaceX aced a launch/landing trifecta within 36 hours over the weekend.

• NASA made its next attempt at a wet dress rehearsal for SLS. The countdown clock paused at T-29 seconds.

• US military planners have mulled a proposal to use Starships to deliver quick reaction forces to hotspots, The Intercept reports. Related: point-to-point rocket cargo delivery.

• South Korea launched its domestically-built KSLV-2 rocket.

• Starlink is catchinh flak in China due to the satellite internet service’s role in the Russia-Ukraine war, the FT reports.

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