Medvedev: Russia Must Do Everything to
Keep its Status of Space Power (Source: Tass)
Russia values its status of a space power and must do everything
possible to keep it, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday.
The Russian premier made this statement at a meeting on preparations
for building facilities of the 2nd stage of the Vostochny spaceport in
the Far East. "We appreciate this status and would like to do
everything to ensure that our country keeps this status," Medvedev
said. (10/19)
Space Florida Seeks FDOT Approval to
Help SpaceX (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Space Florida is looking to help SpaceX pay to update its launch pad.
The agency will ask Florida Department of Transportation for $5 million
to contribute to infrastructure improvements on Spaceport Launch
Complex 39A, which SpaceX hopes will one day be the site of rocket
launches that send humans to Mars. The move will be discussed during an
online-only board meeting next Wednesday.
According to meeting documents, "project match funding" from FDOT would
be used for "infrastructure improvements by SpaceX." The move would
authorize Space Florida to enter into an agreement with SpaceX. (10/18)
Sea Level Rise Threatens Air Force
Tracking Station (Source: AP)
Another Air Force space tracking system could be threatened by climate
change. The Air Force is building the Space Fence radar at Kwajalein
Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. Scientists say the atoll is vulnerable to
flooding as climate change causes sea levels to rise, and could be
submerged by storms at least once a year within a few decades. The Air
Force and Lockheed Martin, the Space Fence contractor, said that they
do not believe rising sea levels pose a risk during the 25-year
lifetime of the Space Fence, and that they can build seawalls if
necessary to deal with any flooding risks. (10/18)
Clouds Above Pluto (Source: The
Guardian)
Data from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft suggests Pluto's tenuous
atmosphere may have clouds. Observations by the spacecraft during its
2015 flyby are "quite suggestive" of clouds at dusk and dawn on the
planet, although scientists cautioned that the presence of the clouds
can't be confirmed since they form close to the surface, beyond the
resolution of the spacecraft's instruments. The last of the data
collected during that July 2015 flyby will be transmitted back to Earth
on Sunday. (10/18)
Opinion: How To Colonize Mars
(Source: Aviation Week)
Within a month, the aspiration to send humans to Mars seems to have
reached a new level of media exposure. First Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin
disclosed its plan to build the New Glenn, a rocket with the potential
to send humans into space. Then SpaceX CEO Elon Musk presented his
vision of how we could shuttle to and from Mars within a couple of
decades. And two weeks later, President Obama wrote an op-ed calling
for America to set its sights on sending humans to Mars by the 2030s
with the ambition of remaining there for an extended time.
While coming from different angles, both Musk and Obama emphasized the
need for a public-private partnership to achieve these ambitious goals.
Musk’s main objective is to make the trip to Mars affordable for as
many people as possible. His hypothesis is that if one can bring the
cost down to the median cost of a house in the U.S.—$200,000—then there
will be a critical mass of people who can afford and are willing to go.
In order to reach that affordability threshold, he believes government
money will be needed along the way, hence the need for a public-private
partnership. Click here.
(10/19)
Soyuz Launches to Space Station With
New Crew (Source: Space.com)
A Soyuz spacecraft is on its way to the space station after a launch
early this morning. A Soyuz rocket lifted off from the Baikonur
Cosmodrome at 4:05 a.m. Eastern and placed the Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft
into orbit. On board the spacecraft are Russian cosmonauts Sergey
Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko and American astronaut Shane Kimbrough.
The Soyuz spacecraft will dock with the station early Friday. (10/18)
FAA and Pentagon Foresee Gradual
Transition of Space Traffic Management (Source: Space News)
Should the federal government decide to shift responsibility for at
least some space traffic management activities from the Defense
Department to the Federal Aviation Administration, officials with both
agencies expect a gradual transition, starting with a pilot program.
In presentations Oct. 12, the head of the FAA’s commercial space
transportation office and a U.S. Strategic Command general both
endorsed a “crawl, walk, run” approach to handing over responsibility
for providing safety-related space situational awareness data, like
warnings of potential collisions between satellites and other objects
in orbit, to non-military satellite operators.
“It would be very feasible to do that,” said George Nield, FAA
associate administrator for commercial space transportation, in his
ISPCS speech. “We want to accomplish that transition as soon as
possible, but to do that in a ‘crawl, walk, run’ manner so that all of
the key stakeholders are comfortable with the approaches being used,
the progress being made, and the products and services that are
provided.” (10/18)
Space is Full of Gigantic Holes That
are Bigger than We Expected (Source: New Scientist)
Since 1981, when astronomers found a vacant expanse called the Boötes
void, we’ve also known that the universe has holes of cold, dark,
lonely nothing that are larger than anyone expected. To truly
understand the universe, we may have to gaze into the abyss.
This is no statistical accident. At very large scales, the universe is
often described as a cosmic web, with strands of invisible dark matter
undergirding the universe’s luminous structure. It might be better here
to think of it as cosmic foam, like soap bubbles in a bathtub. Just as
it’s sudsy where bubbles intersect, galaxy clusters concentrate in
walls, filaments and intersections. In between is mostly void. (10/18)
Will NASA Ever Work With China?
(Source: Popular Mechanics)
It's been a banner year for China's spacefaring ambitions. The country
launched satellites to test quantum communications and search for dark
matter, built the world's largest radio telescope, and launched a new
space station into orbit (though its old one is about to come crashing
back to Earth). It seems that the country is well on its way to
becoming the "space giant" its president envisioned in a speech earlier
this year.
Things got really chilly between American and Chinese space operations
in 1998, when a congressional commission led by Christopher Cox found
that technical information American space companies had given to China
for use in commercial satellites wound up in improved Chinese
intercontinental ballistic missiles. This effectively led to an embargo
on U.S.-Chinese cooperation in space throughout the 2000s, an
isolationist program reaffirmed in 2010 when former congressman Frank
Wolf sponsored a bill that prohibited any sort of cooperation between
NASA or the U.S. Office of Science and Technology and Chinese nationals.
"NASA was banned from bilateral relations with China as though that was
somehow going to thwart or slow down Chinese plans for space," said
Johnson-Freese. "In fact, if anything, it has given them an impetus to
work faster and more broadly." To Johnson-Freese, the U.S. missed a big
opportunity here. "Working with China, I think we would have had an
opportunity to shape their space agenda. But now China has developed a
very aggressive, across-the-board space program on their own and we
ended up with less control, not more control." (10/18)
The Low-Tech Way to Colonize Mars
(Source: The Atlantic)
Philip Metzger has been playing with mud. Experimenting, you could say,
as he’s a planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida and
co-founder of NASA’s Swamp Works lab. In any case, his lab has been
stuffing Martian clay into cupcake decorating bags and extruding it
into what Metzger himself admits sometimes look like an “animal
dropping.”
But one man’s cupcake decorating with mud is another man’s prototyping
of 3D-printing on Mars. And 3D-printing could solve the single biggest
hurdle to a crewed Mars expedition: the cost of transporting everything
humans need to survive on the red planet.
It’s a mass problem. The more mass you have to take, the more expensive
it is to escape Earth’s gravity and get to Mars. And some of the
heaviest cargo will be material to shelter astronauts from the
radiation zipping through Mars’ thin atmosphere. With 3D-printing, you
don’t need to bring shelter. You build it out of dirt or ice already on
Mars. Click here.
(10/18)
Shenzhou-11 Astronauts Enter
Tiangong-2 Space Lab (Source: Xinhua)
Two Chinese astronauts Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong have entered the
space lab Tiangong-2. The two astronauts onboard the Shenzhou-11
spacecraft entered the space lab Tiangong-2 Wednesday morning. The two
astronauts extended greetings to all the people of the nation in the
space lab, and checked the status of the space complex formed by
Shenzhou-11 and Tiangong-2.
Before entering the space lab, the two astronauts entered Shenzhou-11's
orbital compartment and removed their intravehicular mobility unit
spacesuits to change into blue jumpsuits. They will live in the space
lab for 30 days before returning to Earth. Shenzhou-11 was launched on
Monday morning from northwest China's Gobi Desert. (10/19)
DOD Has Potential For Private
Partnerships, Officials Say (Source: Law360)
Building off of success with public private partnerships in military
housing, defense experts and officials said Tuesday there are more
opportunities for the U.S. Department of Defense to encourage private
investment, even as policy decisions like housing allowance reductions
or base closures form “clouds on the horizon."
Editor's Note:
There is much potential for adjusting the Air Force's role at the Cape
Canaveral Spaceport, allowing a spaceport authority to play a more
central role in land use allocations and planning while the Air Force
(and Navy) become tenants. Space Florida is supporting an ongoing study
of alternatives for management of the increasingly commercial
spaceport. (10/18)
Air Force's GPS System Report Lacks
Key Details, GAO Says (Source: Law360)
The U.S. Air Force's quarterly report on its GPS modernization
programs, including the development of its next-generation satellite
control system, provided "important information" on some program
aspects but also included gaps and inconsistencies, according to a U.S.
Government Accountability Office report issued Monday. (10/18)
SpaceX Welder Seeks $8M As Sex
Harassment Trial Launches (Source: Law360)
The attorney for a former SpaceX welder who claims the company allowed
a senior welder to repeatedly sexually harass her asked a California
jury during Tuesday opening statements for $8 million in damages, while
the aerospace company countered that the woman's story is a
"fabrication." (10/18)
Air Force Launches Space Consortium
That Puts Startups to Work On Prototypes (Source: Defense News)
The Air Force is looking for a company to lead a new space consortium
formed to help broaden participation in space acquisition programs to
startups and small businesses. During an Air Force Innovation Forum,
Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James on Monday announced that the
service had issued a request for information for a not-for-profit
manager of the Space Enterprise Consortium.
Companies that take part in the consortium will be eligible to compete
for rapid prototyping projects and — if successful — spin them off into
programs of record. Although both large and small businesses and
traditional and nontraditional firms will be chosen for the group, the
service especially wants to see increased participation from startups
and other vendors that are pioneering innovative space capabilities but
don’t necessarily work regularly with the Defense Department, James
said. (10/18)
Is Planet Nine Tilting The Sun?
(Source: SpaceRef)
Planet Nine, the undiscovered planet at the edge of the solar system
that was predicted by the work of Caltech's Konstantin Batygin and Mike
Brown in January 2016, appears to be responsible for the unusual tilt
of the Sun, according to a new study. The large and distant planet may
be adding a wobble to the solar system, giving the appearance that the
Sun is tilted slightly.
All of the planets orbit in a flat plane with respect to the Sun,
roughly within a couple degrees of each other. That plane, however,
rotates at a six-degree tilt with respect to the Sun -- giving the
appearance that the Sun itself is cocked off at an angle. Until now, no
one had found a compelling explanation to produce such an effect. "It's
such a deep-rooted mystery and so difficult to explain that people just
don't talk about it," says Brown, the Richard and Barbara Rosenberg
Professor of Planetary Astronomy. (10/19)
Continued Space Investment Growth Not
Guaranteed, Investors Caution (Source: Space News)
Despite an influx of money being invested in space companies in recent
years, investors and analysts warned that there is no guarantee this
growth will continue in the coming years. “We’re in a great spot right
now in terms of the way investment dollars are flowing. I don’t think
anybody I talk to in this sector takes that for granted,” said Will
Porteous, general partner and chief operating officer of investment
firm RRE Ventures, during a panel at the 32nd Space Symposium here
April 13.
Porteous cautioned that the investment climate can change quickly
depending on the overall economic picture as well as industry-specific
events. He didn’t name any specific threats, but his comments come
among recent concerns that there is a “bubble” of investment in
technology firms in general that could soon burst. (10/19)
DARPA Hands Over Space Tracking
Telescope to the Air Force (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has transferred
operations of a telescope designed to track objects in Earth orbit to
the U.S. Air Force, ahead of a move of that telescope to Australia. In
a ceremony in New Mexico Oct. 18, DARPA formally handed over operations
of the Space Surveillance Telescope (SST) to Air Force Space Command.
The transfer comes after several years of testing and operations of the
3.5-meter telescope by DARPA on a mountaintop at the White Sands
Missile Range.
DARPA developed the telescope to be able to scan large regions of the
sky, particularly in the geostationary arc. “SST is focused on tracking
and identifying debris and satellites about 36,000 kilometers the
Earth,” said Lindsay Millard, the telescope’s program manager at DARPA,
in a conference call with reporters. “It can survey its entire GEO belt
in its field of view, which is about one-quarter of the sky above New
Mexico, multiple times in one night.”
Millard said DARPA developed several key technologies for the
telescope. They include the telescope itself, with a steeply curved
primary mirror to enable a large field of view. DARPA also developed
the first curved charge-coupled device detector for the telescope’s
camera, enabling it to take images from the telescope without
distortion. A high-speed shutter allows it to take thousands of images
a night. Those capabilities allow SST to see more, and smaller, objects
than existing systems, like the network of optical telescopes known as
the Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance (GEODSS).
(10/19)
Mars May Have Claimed Another
Spacecraft (Source: Ars Technica)
As of the latest update from the ESA, there's no indication of any
post-landing communication. Operators are planning on analyzing the
signals they have to determine whether the lander was on the expected
trajectory during descent, and expect to have more news tomorrow
morning. The outlook is not terribly promising. Meanwhile, the in-space
component of the ExoMars mission, the Trace Gas Orbiter, successfully
reached orbit after a two-hour burn of its engine. This spacecraft will
look for methane and other trace gases in the Martian atmosphere.
(10/19)
Orbital ATK Looks Deeper Into Space
Following Successful Launch (Source: Washington Business Journal)
Orbital ATK is no doubt celebrating — and breathing a sigh of relief —
following its first successful launch of its Antares rocket since that
same brand of rocket exploded seconds after takeoff two years ago. But
Orbital ATK isn’t viewing this as moment of redemption, but rather as
an opportunity to position its signature space vehicles for future
deep-space missions.
Following these commercial cargo launches, Orbital ATK wants to sell
NASA on its cislunar space habitats. These space habitats would
essentially be modified Cygnus vehicles that go beyond its current
mission of delivering cargo in low-earth orbit — about 250 miles out —
to the International Space Station, all the way out into cislunar space
— the region comprising the moon’s orbit. (10/19)
Trump’s Space Policy Reaches for Mars
and the Stars (Source: Space News)
Despite its importance in our economic and security calculations, space
policy is uncoordinated within the federal government. A Trump
administration would end the lack of proper coordination by
reinstituting a national space policy council headed by the vice
president. The mission of this council would be to assure that each
space sector is playing its proper role in advancing U.S. interests.
Key goals would be to would create lower costs through greater
efficiencies. As just one example, a Trump administration will insist
that space products developed for one sector, but applicable to
another, be fully shared. It makes little sense for numerous launch
vehicles to be developed at taxpayer cost, all with essentially the
same technology and payload capacity. Coordinated policy would end such
duplication of effort and quickly determine where there are private
sector solutions that do not necessarily require government investment.
Public-private partnerships should be the foundation of our space
efforts. Such partnerships offer not only the benefit of reduced costs,
but the benefit of partners capable of thinking outside of bureaucratic
structures and regulations. Click here.
Editor's Note:
So VP Pence would head a renewed National Space Council, like VP Dan
Quayle did for President George H.W. Bush. President Obama had also
pledged to do this when campaigning for his first term, but it didn't
happen. (10/19)
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