October 12, 2016

Fresh Set of SETI Claims Stirs Up Criticism (Source: GeekWire)
Two astronomers have generated a debate by claiming that they may have found the spectral signature of messages from an extraterrestrial civilization – but the debate is mostly over whether the claims are worth publishing. The claims are contained in a research paper that was written by Ermanno Borra and Eric Trottier of Quebec’s Laval University.

Borra and Trottier combed through 2.5 million readings from distant stars that were recorded by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, looking for periodic variations in the spectral characteristics of the starlight. In 234 cases, they found a periodic variation in the spectral pattern, mostly in the light coming from sunlike stars.

The astronomers said the variations “have exactly the shape” of light pulses that could have been produced by extraterrestrial intelligence, or ETI. In previously published research, Borra predicted that such pulses might constitute evidence of alien signals. (10/11)

China's Commercial Space Sector Isn't What It's Made Out to Be (Source: RealSpace Strategy)
One thing I get a kick out of (and find very annoying), is how articles in the mainstream press, even those magazines and journals that profess to be “science” journals don’t bother to do their homework on their statements and information. One key area is that of an article I saw recently on Popular Science online entitled: “China’s Private Space Industry Prepares to Compete with SpaceX and Blue Origin.”

What’s frustrating to me is that the article paints the Chinese companies as if they are some lone, wealthy Chinese citizens who want to push out into space on their own dime and with the freedom to do so. Yet, if you look in between the lines or even in the info they provide, one can see that its not the same as the United States private sector.

Beijing keeps a tight grip on what businesses in China are allowed to do and aren’t allowed to do. They even have control over who is CEO in each company and if any one CEO acquires more power than makes the CCP comfortable, they are replaced. Each CEO has a red phone (not kidding) at their desk so if Xi Jinping or other members of the senior leadership of the CCP need to check in, they can. Click here. (10/11)

China’s Ambition in Global Satellite Operations May Be Coming Into View (Source: Space News)
China’s presumed ambition to snatch up satellite spectrum by purchasing struggling satellite operators around the world was one of the hottest topics at this years APSCC conference, despite the absence of the Chinese government.

Industry officials said that, whatever the U.S. government’s future policy toward China — the current policy can be summarized as, ‘We wish China’s space program would go away’ — a Chinese foothold among established Middle Eastern, European, Latin American and Asian operators is a likely part of the industry’s landscape within a decade.

Aside from an increased role in East Asia’s satellite market, notably through fleet operator APT Satellite Holdings of Hong Kong, these officials said indications are that China has identified satellite telecommunications as a strategic value far beyond assuring China’s formidable domestic needs. (10/11)

Vandenberg Satellite Launch Delayed Again (Source: Pacific Coast Times)
DigitalGlobe, which owns the WorldView-4 earth imaging satellite sitting atop an Atlas V rocket at Vandenberg Air Force Base, said launch of the satellite will now probably take place sometime in late October and early November. Originally scheduled for Sept. 16, the launch was initially delayed at the last minute because of a minor leak in one of the ground propellant tanks.

ULA initially delayed the launch for just two days but later scrubbed launch plans indefinitely because of two wildfires that started on the base. ULA hoped to launch the rocket on Sep. 26, but those plans were later pushed back to early October. DigitalGlobe said now the launch will be delayed further because of infrastructure and testing equipment damaged during the wildfires. (10/10)

NASA to Move Ahead With Adding Private Modules, Capabilities to Space Station (Source: Parabolic Arc)
NASA will move ahead with an initiative that will allow private companies to attach commercial modules and other technologies to the International Space Station, officials announced today. In a post on the NASA and White House websites, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and Presidential Science Advisor John Holdren said the private sector had responded strongly to a space agency request for information (RFI) issued earlier this year offering the station for a variety of commercial uses. (10/11)

Storm Delays Virginia Antares Launch (Source: NASA)
NASA and its partner Orbital ATK have postponed the launch of the company’s next commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station to no earlier than Sunday, Oct. 16, as the agency prepares for Tropical Storm Nicole at its tracking site in Bermuda. A Sunday launch would occur at 8:03 p.m. EDT from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, with a five-minute window. (10/11)

Spaceflight to Launch Terra Bella Satellites on Falcon 9 Mission (Source: Space News)
Spaceflight Industries will launch multiple imaging satellites for Google-owned Terra Bella in 2017 as part of a “dedicated rideshare” Falcon 9 mission Spaceflight purchased from SpaceX last year. Spaceflight said Oct. 11 that Terra Bella will be the “co-lead” on that mission, designated SSO-A, scheduled for late 2017 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Spaceflight has signed up more than 20 payloads from various other customers that will launch on that flight. (10/11)

NASA’s Newest Deep Space Network Antenna is Operational (Source: NASA)
NASA’s newest Deep Space Network (DSN) antenna began communicating with Mars Odyssey and MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) on October 1 and is now an officially operational addition to the network.

Deep Space Station - 36 (DSS-36) in Canberra, Australia, is one of four 34 meter (111 foot) Beam Waveguide (BWG) antennas to be built as part of the DSN Aperture Enhancement Project. When completed, the new set of antennas will provide the same, if not higher, sensitivity and received signal power as one of the 70 meter (230 foot) antennas that have been operating for over 50 years. (10/11)

Pluto Gets a Buddy: A New Dwarf Planet is Discovered in Our Solar System (Source: Washington Post)
Out beyond Neptune, past Pluto, through the chaos of the Kuiper belt to a point some 8.5 billion miles from the sun, a new dwarf planet has just joined our solar system. The Iowa-sized object, which is about half as big as Pluto and twice as distant, was described Tuesday in the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Electronic Circulator.

It joins a growing list of dwarf planets known to populate the solar system: Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, Eris and — most famous of all — Pluto. It's suspected there could be at least 100 more. The “trans-Neptunian object,” known for now as 2014 UZ224, was discovered by University of Michigan astrophysicist David Gerdes with the help of a team of undergraduate researchers. (10/11)

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Weigh In on U.S. Space Policy (Source: Space News)
For good or ill, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton haven’t said much about U.S. space policy during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. SpaceNews put nine identical questions to the Clinton and Trump camps. Here’s what they had to say. Click here. (10/10)

6 Private Deep Space Habitat Concepts That May Pave the Way to Mars (Source: Space.com)
To bring astronauts to Mars by the 2030s, NASA has selected six private companies to design and develop deep space habitats under the second Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) Broad Agency Announcement. NextSTEP-2 focuses on developing deep space habitation concepts through partnerships between the public and private sectors. Here are the new prototypes they created. Click here. (10/11)

Forget Matthew, It's Nicole Delaying the Return to Flight of Antares (Source: Space Policy Online)
Orbital ATK's return to flight of the Antares rocket has been delayed again. The new launch date is Sunday, October 16, at 8:03 pm ET.  Last week's concerns that Hurricane Matthew might impact the launch site at Wallops Island have given way to new worries that Tropical Storm Nicole will affect a critical tracking site on Bermuda. Nicole is expected to reach hurricane status by the time it arrives there.  Ironically, a hurricane also delayed the last Antares launch, which failed two years ago this month. (10/11)

Boeing Sees Costs From Delayed Space Taxi (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Boeing said Tuesday that it has delayed the first manned flight of its new space taxi for the second time this year and could take a financial charge against the program as early as its third-quarter results. The company has pushed back the first crewed flight of its CST-100 Starliner capsule by another six months to mid-2018 because of supplier and technical issues and said there were cost implications to the move. (10/11)

Rocket Science as Political Sport (Source: ATR)
Politicizing the recent failure of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket isn’t just politics as usual. It actually risks setting back America’s growing free-market space industry. A group of representatives sent a letter to the Air Force and the FAA putting into question SpaceX’s certification to be awarded military contracts. The Air Force and the FAA carefully vet launch providers and ensure compliance with safety regulations and vehicle reliability.

Simply put, why would SpaceX lose its certifications before the investigation is complete? The easy answer is to make SpaceX’s competition (ULA) the only game in town when it comes to military launches. Of course, limiting America’s options for launching important payload into space may hamper national security, but crony capitalism can be lucrative to established players.

In a letter signed by Rep. Bill Flores (R-FL) and a bipartisan group of 23 other United States Congressmen, the FAA, Air Force, and NASA were asked to continue the normal process of investigation. They are reminded that “due to strong safety procedures… the mishap resulted in no loss of life, no injuries, and no damages to third party property.” In other words, the system worked. (10/11)

China’s Ambition in Global Satellite Operations may be Coming Into View (Source: Space News)
China’s presumed ambition to snatch up satellite spectrum by purchasing struggling satellite operators around the world was one of the hottest topics at this years APSCC conference, despite the absence of the Chinese government.

Industry officials said that, whatever the U.S. government’s future policy toward China — the current policy can be summarized as, ‘We wish China’s space program would go away’ — a Chinese foothold among established Middle Eastern, European, Latin American and Asian operators is a likely part of the industry’s landscape within a decade.

Aside from an increased role in East Asia’s satellite market, notably through fleet operator APT Satellite Holdings of Hong Kong, these officials said indications are that China has identified satellite telecommunications as a strategic value far beyond assuring China’s formidable domestic needs. (10/11)

Obama: NASA Will Land on Mars in the 2030s (Source: Seeker)
In a patriotic and emotional op-ed for CNN Tuesday morning, President Barack Obama reaffirmed NASA's aim to land and return astronauts on the Martian surface by the 2030s, "with the ultimate ambition to one day remain there for an extended time."

To take this next giant leap into interplanetary space, Obama added, NASA will partner with private companies to make this vision a possibility. "Getting to Mars will require continued cooperation between government and private innovators, and we're already well on our way," he writes. "Within the next two years, private companies will for the first time send astronauts to the International Space Station."

"I'm excited to announce that we are working with our commercial partners to build new habitats that can sustain and transport astronauts on long-duration missions in deep space," he writes. "These missions will teach us how humans can live far from Earth -- something we'll need for the long journey to Mars." (10/11)

Should We Launch a Kid to Space? (Source: Space.com)
On Aug. 6, 1961, cosmonaut Gherman Titov became the second person ever to orbit the Earth. He zipped around the planet 17 times aboard the Soviet Union's Vostok 2 spacecraft and then touched down on Aug. 7. Titov was 25 at the time. About 550 other people have slipped Earth's surly bonds since Titov's trip, but not one of them has been younger. Indeed, NASA has never even launched a 20-something; the youngest American astronaut, Sally Ride, was 32 when she lifted off on her first space shuttle mission, in June 1983.

Mike Mongo wants this record book to be rewritten, and soon. Mongo, author of the children's book "The Astronaut Instruction Manual" is pushing for NASA (or some other organization) to launch a kid to space in the near future. Though the first child astronaut surely would get a lot of media attention, Mongo thinks his or her mission would be much more than a publicity stunt.

"By letting a kid go to space, we will inspire an entire generation of space explorers," Mongo said late last month at the Dent:Space conference in San Francisco. "If we solve space for kids, they will solve the future for us." When the children learn that only grown-ups have been to space so far, the common response is "outrage," Mongo said. (10/11)

Hurricane Matthew Challenged Latest Prediction Tech (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
As Hurricane Matthew barreled toward the Space Coast last week, forecast models ranged from having the storm move past Florida up the east coast to one prediction that showed Matthew could loop around and take aim at South Florida a second time. Prediction models saw an unexpected, late shift to the east. "They were off a little bit more than I have seen over the years," said meteorologist Glenn Richards.

Meteorologists translate satellite-gathered data into path predictions. Storm predictions should improve when the GOES-R satellite heads into space, because it can gather more data, said Steven Lazarus, a professor of meteorology at Florida Institute of Technology. The satellite and its ground systems were sold to NOAA by Melbourne-based Harris Corp. and Lockheed Martin, which has a significant presence in Central Florida. (10/12)