The next 10 years in space

On January 7, The Orbital Index (a Moon Monday sponsor) published a sweeping overview of what to expect and track over the next 10 years in space globally. The last section aptly captures the point that our pursuit of space should not and cannot be mutually exclusive with caring for Earth:

Space and Earth: the decade ahead. The next decade is vanishingly small on the timescale of planets, but it is likely to be a critical one for humanity, with space playing its own crucial role. And while the current US administration is pushing to cut Earth Science programs, personnel, and missions (both in development and operational; c.f. recent NCAR shutdown news), that doesn’t change the fact that modern climate science emerged in part from the truly global vantage point provided by our ability to put people, cameras, and sensors in orbit. While budgets are under fire at NASA/NOAA/USGS/etc, much of the rest of the world seems to understand that this work remains existential. ESA has more Earth Science missions in development and operation than ever before (we’re particularly excited for FORUM, Copernicus CO2M, and FLEX), JAXA is staying the course on its own small set of missions (ISS-hosted MOLI and PMM), China is beginning to add its version of Earth Science missions (TanSat-2 and DQ-2), and multiple smaller nations have missions in progress (Canada’s WildFireSat, Norway’s AOS-P, and South Korea’s recently launched KOMPSAT-7). These missions and the data they’ll produce are critical, as humanity is blowing past its +1.5 ºC warming limit after a decade of record average global temperatures and mounting climate-induced disasters. These realities firmly place us in uncharted territory; we don’t know how quickly or how drastically climate patterns will shift as a result, particularly given our limited understanding of climate tipping points that will likely accelerate warming (if you like board games, Daybreak is fun and our favorite that includes tipping points). Our ability to mitigate atmospheric methane and its sources (leaks, flaring, etc.); understand cloud behavior at particle, single-cloud, and weather system scale; measure carbon cycle components like biomass; and, monitor resilience metrics like surface temperature, moisture levels, and wildfires will only grow in importance as humanity comes face-to-face with its most daunting self-inflicted problem to date (AI may very well be next). As we’ve shared before (c.f. Issue № 48), here at Orbital Index we’re unabashedly in support of treating climate change as the massive problem and opportunity that it is and of focusing humanity’s substantial ability to produce, problem-solve, and build on securing a livable and pleasant future—one where we can turn our focus toward the stars without ignoring existential threats at home.

Edition #350 was also The Orbital Index’s last one.

Some of my readers know that Moon Monday was partly inspired by The Orbital Index, a fact I’m proud of because the Index has been a unique resource to track global space activities and not just US ones. In a world where neither traditional media nor social media channels tend to provide linked citations—much less external or even canonical ones—the Index being link-heavy made it one of the few of such archival value. And, to produce the lengthy editions for seven whole years is remarkable. I know firsthand how hard it is to consistently show up every Monday with something useful and thoughtful for thousands in the industry. Kudos and thank you to Andrew Cantino⁩ and ⁨Ben Lachman⁩—as well as contributors like Sarajane—for pulling it off all this while to provide a quality, free resource to Earth. Even as their last edition links to several space sources to follow, it’s a fact that the specific value provided by the Index is now a vacuum.