Electron

• Global energy storage platform provider Powin LLC and Galp, Portugal’s leading integrated energy company, have partnered to install a utility-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) at one of Galp’s solar power plants near Alcoutim , a small village in the country’s sunny southern region of the Algarve, where Galp operates several projects with a combined capacity of 144 MW.
• The batteries will allow Galp to store the solar energy produced in periods of high generation, and to deploy it during periods of high demand, maximizing the energy’s value.
• Alcoutim is Powin’s inaugural project in Europe, which is poised to be a pivotal growth market for energy storage.
• Europe is expected to deploy over 90 GWh of utility-scale battery energy storage projects by 2030, and we are well positioned to support this demand along with the wider EMEA region’s rapid energy storage growth,” said Powin CEO, Jeff Waters.

• And thanks to new technologies and public-private partnerships, these projects will open up new realms of scientific possibility.
• NASA’s commercial lunar payload services program, or CLPS, will use uncrewed landers to conduct NASA’s first science experiments from the Moon in over 50 years.
• Rather than NASA building the landers and operating the program, commercial companies will do so in a public-private partnership.

CLPS launches

• The first two CLPS payloads are scheduled to launch during the first two months of 2024.
• There’s the Astrobotics payload, which launched Jan. 8 before experiencing a fuel issue that cut its journey to the Moon short.
• Next, there’s the Intuitive Machines payload, with a launch scheduled for mid-February.

Radio telescopes on the Moon

• The Moon – particularly the far side of the Moon – is an ideal place to do radio astronomy and study signals from extraterrestrial objects such as the Sun and the Milky Way galaxy.
• On Earth, the ionosphere, which contains Earth’s magnetic field, distorts and absorbs radio signals below the FM band.
• The Moon has no ionosphere, and with about 2,000 miles of rock between the Earth and the far side of the Moon, there’s no interference.
• The same kind of discharge happens on the Moon from the charged gas, but it’s potentially more harmful to astronauts.

Solar and exoplanet radio emissions

• The Sun’s surface releases shock waves that send out highly energetic particles and low radio frequency emissions.
• We’ll use the radio telescopes to measure these emissions and to see bursts of low-frequency radio waves from shock waves within the solar wind.
• If we detect the same kind of radio emissions that come from Earth, this will tell us that the planet has a magnetic field.

Cosmology on the Moon

• The Lunar Surface Electromagnetic Experiment at Night, or LuSEE-Night, will fly in early 2026 to the far side of the Moon.
• LuSEE-Night marks scientists’ first attempt to do cosmology on the Moon.
• Since the far side of the Moon is uniquely radio quiet, it’s the best place to do cosmological observations.
• That process is going to start in 2026 with the LuSEE-Night mission, which is both a fundamental physics experiment and a cosmology experiment.

Jack Burns receives funding from NASA.

• (Photo: Business Wire)
  The ‘Four Of A Kind’ mission for Spire’s customer NorthStar successfully launched from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand at 19:34 NZDT / 06:34 UTC.
• The mission was Rocket Lab’s 43rd Electron launch overall, bringing the Company’s record of successfully deployed satellites to 176.
• The mission was the first of a busy launch year for Rocket Lab, with the Company scheduled to launch more in 2024 than any previous year since the Company began missions in 2017.
• Rocket Lab has three launch pads at two launch sites, including two launch pads at a private orbital launch site located in New Zealand and a third launch pad in Virginia.

• OTTAWA, ON, Jan. 30, 2024 /CNW/ - On January 29, 2024, the Canadian Gas Association (CGA) sent a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, emphasizing the significance of the natural gas energy option for Canadians, a need underscored by the recent severe weather conditions in Western Canada.
• But to suggest that the electric system could ever meet the energy delivered by natural gas over the gas delivery system is simply unrealistic.
• We have to stop talking about eliminating the choice of energy options like natural gas, and relying exclusively on one energy delivery system, like electricity.
• Prime Minister, when it comes to energy – in supply options, and in delivery systems – diversity truly is our strength in Canada.