June 13, 2013

What Would Happen if All Satellites Stopped Working? (Source: BBC)
We may not always realise it, but we depend on space technology orbiting the Earth. So what would happen if it all stopped working? At a recent international conference on “space hazards”, I listened to a series of speakers outline doomsday scenarios. These included a massive solar storm disrupting satellite communications, a cyber attack partially disabling the GPS system, and debris knocking out Earth-monitoring satellites.

Threats to this space infrastructure are real, and governments around the world are beginning to think seriously about improving the resilience of the systems we rely on. To focus their thoughts, and with a nod to that pioneer of threats from space, Orson Welles, here is what might happen if we suddenly encountered a day without satellites. Click here. (6/13)

Ashton Kutcher Pals With Branson, Plans Space Ride (Source: National Enquirer)
Insiders say that “Two and a Half Men” star Ashton Kutcher has struck up a cozy new bromance with British billionaire Richard Branson. Ashton, 35, recently put down a whopping $250,000 deposit to reserve a spot on Branson’s Virgin Galactic suborbital spacecraft. And now, the hunky actor and adventuresome entrepreneur are said to be best buddies. (6/10)

Shenzhou-10: Capsule Docks with Space Lab (Source: Independent)
Three Chinese astronauts are getting ready to enter their home for the next week after their capsule docked with an orbiting state station. State media reported that automated controls guided the Shenzhou 10 space capsule in its successful docking with the Tiangong-1 space lab Thursday.

The astronauts will later enter the module to conduct experiments. During the mission the astronauts will also conduct a manual docking between the space capsule and the lab. They will also deliver a series of science lectures from the Tiangong — part of an outreach to increase the space program's popularity among younger Chinese. (6/13)

This Is an Actual Photo of a Planet in Another Solar System (Source: Smithsonian)
See that little blue smudge? That’s another planet. It’s named HD95086 b, and it’s orbiting a star 300 light years away. This is one of the first times in human history that we’ve ever laid eyes on a planet in another solar system, a planet that isn’t orbiting the Sun. Click here. (6/13)

Air Force SMC Investigates New Potential GPS Satellite Launch Option (Source: GPS World)
The U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center has signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with SpaceX as part of the company’s effort to certify its Falcon 9 v1.1 Launch System for National Security Space (NSS) missions. This cooperative agreement facilitates data exchanges and protects proprietary and export-controlled data. The CRADA will be in effect until all certification activities are complete.

Currently, ULA’s Delta IV and Atlas V are the only certified launch vehicles capable of lifting NSS payloads -— such as the GPS satellites -— into orbit. The addition of multiple certified launch vehicle providers bolsters assured access to space by providing more options for the warfighter to place needed capabilities on orbit. While certification does not guarantee a contract award, it does enable a company to compete for launch contracts. Those contracts could be awarded as early as Fiscal Year 2015 with launch services provided as early as Fiscal Year 2017. (6/12)

Vintage futures: Next Stop Mars, 1952 (Source: Boing Boing)
"It will probably be some 50 years before any safe space flight from Earth to another planet and back is made, but there seems now to be very little doubt that the dreams of Roger Bacon in AD 1249 and Albertus Magnus in 1280 have left the realm of Wellsian imaginings and become a practical proposition." Click here. (6/12)

Is Earth's Orbit Scarily Close to Venus's Sultry Zone? (Source: New Scientist)
It used to be called Earth's twin. With much the same size, mass and composition as our home, Venus was a lush jungle planet in the popular imagination of the early 20th century. Muggier than Earth, perhaps, but otherwise not so very different. That, of course, turned out to be entirely incorrect. Venus's surface is sweltering and its atmosphere suffocating: its being closer to the sun made a dramatic, not an incremental, difference to its fate.

That realization has all but extinguished hopes of finding a twin for any earthly environment in our solar system. (Iced-over oceans on moons of the gas giants are almost our last hope.) So the search for Earth's twin has moved much further afield: to the families of other stars. Work to identify the "habitable zones" in which such planets might exist has turned up some startling insights – not just about them, but also our own planet (see "Goodbye, Goldilocks: is life on Earth heading for an earlier demise?").

If the latest models are accurate, Earth and Venus really might have been twins, had the orbit of one been just a tiny bit different. But rather than two clement Earths, there might have been two infernal Venuses. That's a doubly humbling thought. (6/13)

NASA Visitor Centers Launch New "Passport" for Space Tourists (Source: CollectSpace)
Earth-bound space tourists hitting the road this summer to tour NASA's historic launch pads and mission controls, as well as see the retired space shuttles on display, now have their own passport.

The "Passport to Explore Space" is now being offered by the official visitor centers for NASA's nationwide facilities and the museums that display the space agency's former orbiter fleet. Guests to the 14 locations in nine states can get the passports stamped with commemorative markers representing each of the centers, earning them offers and discounts in the process. (6/13)

ULA Completes PDR on Dual-Engine Centaur for Commercial Crew Program (Source: Parabolic Arc)
United Launch Alliance (ULA) successfully completed the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) and initial round of development testing for the Dual Engine Centaur in support of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

Under Independent Research and Development (IRAD) funding, ULA is re-establishing the Dual Engine Centaur (DEC) configuration for performance and human space flight safety. Atlas V is capable of flying both a single and dual engine on the Centaur second stage, but most satellite missions require only a single engine due to the powerful capability of the Atlas V booster to loft the payload into orbit. (6/13)

Europe’s Proba-V Satellite Tracks Aircraft in Flight (Source: Space News)
Europe’s Proba-V satellite, launched May 7, has successfully demonstrated that it can capture data on aircraft speed, position and altitude, the German and European space agencies announced. Flying in a polar low Earth orbit 820 kilometers in altitude, Proba-V on May 23 switched on its Automatic Dependent Broadcast-Surveillance (ADS-B) receiver and within two hours had harvested more than 12,000 ADS-B messages being emitted by aircraft flying below, the two agencies said. (6/13)

FTC Opens Antitrust Probe of United Launch Alliance (Source: Reuters)
U.S. regulators have opened a probe into whether a Lockheed-Boeing joint venture that launches U.S. government satellites into space has flouted antitrust laws. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating whether United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co, violated federal antitrust laws by "monopolizing" or restraining competition through an exclusivity agreement with the maker of the engines used in its rockets.

RD Amross, a joint venture of Russia's NPO Energomash and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a unit of United Technologies Corp, provides RD-180 engines for ULA rockets. Industry sources say ULA is preventing RD Amross from selling the engines to other rocket makers, including Orbital Sciences Corp, which is trying to break into the lucrative market for government rocket launches. Jessica Rye, spokeswoman for ULA, confirmed the investigation and said the company was cooperating with antitrust regulators.

"ULA's contracts to purchase the RD-180 engine are lawful, pro-competitive and designed to provide the most reliable launch vehicle possible for critical U.S. government missions," Rye said. Industry sources said the FTC investigation follows repeated unsuccessful efforts by Orbital to buy the RD-180 engines for its new medium-lift Antares rocket, which was developed in partnership with NASA to haul cargo to the International Space Station. The first Antares rocket was launched from a new commercial spaceport in Virginia in April. (6/13)

RD AMROSS Led by Former KSC Director (Source: SPACErePORT)
RD AMROSS was formed as a joint venture of Pratt & Whitney (in West Palm Beach) and Russia's NPO Energomash to provide Russian-made RD-180 rocket engines for the ULA Atlas-5 launch vehicle. The joint venture is led by former NASA KSC Director Bill Parsons with offices in Cocoa Beach. RD AMROSS also offers Russian-built RD-120, RD-151, RD-171, and other engines. This Space Coast office will surely have some role or stake in the ongoing FTC antitrust probe. The probe involves the inability of RD AMROSS to sell RD-180 engines to ULA competitors like Orbital Sciences Corp.

Orbital's Antares rocket uses Russian-built NK-33 engines, originally developed by Kuznetsov and provided to Orbital under an arrangement with Aerojet -- in competition against RD-AMROSS. Aerojet has modified the NK-33 design, redesignating it as the AJ-26. Orbital has reportedly had some issues in testing with the AJ-26, rumored to stem from their use of decades-old NK-33 engines from a dusty Russian inventory. With the NK-33 no longer in production, Orbital remains interested in the RD-180 as a long-term replacement.

While the RD-180 engines also come from a Russian inventory, the Air Force originally was requiring Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney to establish a U.S.-based (West Palm Beach) production line for the Atlas-5 engines, to mitigate the EELV program's reliance on Russia as a critical-path provider of USAF launch vehicle hardware. This U.S. production line was never developed, probably due to Russia's reluctance to transfer the engine technology to the U.S. In lieu of U.S.-based production, Lockheed (and ULA) were allowed to stockpile a large inventory of the engines. (6/13)

Canadian Aerospace Responsible for $42 Billion in Revenue, 170,000 Jobs (Source: Parabolic Arc)
The Aerospace Industries Association of Canada (AIAC), in partnership with Industry Canada, today released The State of the Aerospace Industry: 2013 Report, which contains updated data and analytics for the Canadian aerospace industry as of 2012. The report highlighted the economic significance of the sector, which is responsible for $42 billion of revenue and 170,000 jobs across industries in Canada, its leadership in research and development (R&D) and productivity, and its potential for growth in coming years. (6/12)

Planetary Resources Announces Kickstarter Extended Goal: Hunting for Planets (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Alien planets are out there and Planetary Resources needs your help to find them! That’s right, the same high-powered telescope technology being used by Planetary Resources to identify near-Earth asteroids can also be used to hunt for what scientists call extrasolar planets or “exoplanets” – which are very much alien worlds. For the first-time ever, this capability will be placed directly into the hands of students, researchers and citizen scientists. (6/11)

An Urgent Plea for Help in Keeping Crewed Spaceships Off the U.S. Munitions List (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Some new rules are being proposed by the US State Department on export controls for manned suborbital space vehicles designed for commercial spaceflight. At the end of May, the Department of State published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) Rule 78 FR 31 444 – that did a great thing. The DoS proposed a move of commercial satellites from the US Department of Defense (DoD) Munitions List to the Department of Commerce’s commerce control list (CCL). 

This is a great step for the industry. Unfortunately, there were some “not so good” inclusions in the Department of State NPRM … it has explicitly proposed to put manned commercial space flight vehicles on the Department of Defense Munitions List. This is the same backward path provided to the US satellite manufacturing and launch community two decades ago that almost decimated that industry. So even before we can achieve a meaningful sized global market, and dominate it with US companies, there is the real possibility that we will be hampered before the market is fully opened.

The benefits that have a real potential of not being realized are high tech job creation in rural, underserved, and hard hit regions of our country (by necessity, these vehicles are flown in remote areas); creation of a global, suborbital research and personal spaceflight industry led by US companies; and the influence that these operations will have on our children through enhanced STEM opportunities. We will be turning over the lead to non-US companies. Let’s push together to move the rules in a better direction. Write to the State Department before July 8 and tell them to move suborbital manned vehicles to the Commerce Control List. Click here. (6/11)

Angara's Twisted Path to First Launch (Source: SPACErePORT)
Back in the mid 1990s, after the U.S. resolved to develop next-generation EELV rockets to upgrade its aging Atlas and Delta fleet, Russia responded by committing to the development of its own next-generation launch vehicle, the Angara. Like the new Delta and Atlas EELV rockets, Angara was to feature a common main stage booster that could launch in a single configuration, or with multiple stages strapped together for heavier payloads.

But while the Atlas-5 and Delta-4 both entered service in 2002, the Angara remained a paper rocket for about a decade while competing designs and alternative rockets came and went, presumably jockeying for scarce Kremlin space funding. The Angara launch site has also been an issue of contention, with Plesetsk, Baikonur and Vostochny named as sites for new (and expensive) Angara launch infrastructure. The first launch of an Angara 1.2 "light" vehicle is planned at Plesetsk in coming weeks. (6/12)

First Angara Rocket Shipped to Plesetsk (Source: Parabolic Arc)
The Khrunichev Space Center has shipped the first flight model of light-weight Angara 1.2 PP (PP is the Russian for “Maiden Launch”) to the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. In accordance with the Angara 1.2 Maiden Launch Master Schedule, the train carrying the Angara 1.2 PP hardware departed for Plesetsk in the early hours of May 28.

Angara family is a new generation of environmentally friendly launchers now under development at the Khrunichev Space Center on the basis of the URM-1 Common Core Booster (CCB), using oxygen/kerosene engine. The Angara product line includes lightweight to heavy-lift launchers featuring LEO payload capabilities of 3.8 MT to 35 MT (Angara A7). One CCB is used by the light-weight Angara 1.2 LV. The maximum number of CCBs is seven (Angara А7). (6/8)

NASA Launches Research Balloon From Sweden (Source: NASA)
A NASA scientific balloon carrying the SUNRISE solar telescope was successfully launched at 1:37 a.m. EDT June 12 from the Esrange Space Center in Northern Sweden. The telescope, SUNRISE, is a high-resolution stratospheric solar observatory that is aiming to fully understand the structure and dynamics of the solar magnetic field. This will be done through a time series of ultraviolet images and magnetograms. This is the second flight of the SUNRISE payload. (6/12)

New Commander Takes Stage at 45th Space Wing (Sources: Florida Today, USAF)
Lt. Gen. Susan Helms, commander of the 14th Air Force, has officiated command of the 45th Space Wing in Central Florida to Brig. Gen. Nina Armagno. “Armagno is the first person to command both the 30th Space Wing Hawks at Vandenberg Air Force Base...and the 45th Space Wing Sharks... She will do an outstanding job here," said Helms.

As commander of the 45th Space Wing, Armagno is director of the Eastern Range and responsible for processing and launching government and commercial satellites from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. She will preside over a base that generates an estimated $1.2 billion and has a population and workforce of nearly 15,000 civilian and military personnel and their families.

Armagno, who last served as commander of the 30th Space Wing and Western Range at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, assumed command Wednesday morning from outgoing commander Brig. Gen. Anthony Cotton, who heads to a new assignment at the National Reconnaissance Office. (6/13)

Cash-Strapped Space Tourists May Find Friend in PayPal (Source: Wall Street Journal)
EBay's PayPal unit is shooting for the stars. The payments company is set announce a payment program for space tourists later this month, known as PayPal Galactic. PayPal has been working with NASA, the Space Tourism Society and the SETI Institute, whose mission is to search for extraterrestrial intelligence, on the program, said a person familiar with the details.

PayPal will likely announce the framework of the program on June 27, according to a media alert sent out today. A spokesman declined to comment on the program. Space tourism has largely been a rich man’s game. Virgin Galactic LLC, for instance, is accepting $250,000 down-payments for seats on possible future flights; the company says over 600 have paid. Billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are also building space craft in their spare time. (6/13)

Midland Texas Council Buys Land for XCOR Spaceport Project (Source: Midland Reporter-Telegram)
The Midland City Council approved the nearly $4 million purchase of land by the Midland Development Corp. for land for north of Midland International Airport, a move expected to aid the city as it tries to obtain a spaceport designation. The 374 acres is located north of the airport near Farm-to-Market Road 1788 between Highways 191 and 158. The deal is not to exceed $4.01 million.

At Tuesday’s council meeting, city officials said the land will be along the a route leading to and from Midland International and that it was in the city’s best interest to maintain a certain density requirement. Marv Esterly, director of airports for the city of Midland, said the deal wasn’t just about XCOR but other future airport development. Proposed development outside the airport, he said, should be compatible with future development of the airport and spaceport. (6/12)