October 15, 2017

Atlas V Rocket Launches Another Secret US Spy Satellite, From Florida (Source: Space.com)
The United States has launched its second secret spy satellite in less than three weeks. The NROL-52 satellite soared into orbit on Oct. 15 atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket, which lifted off at 3:28 a.m. EDT from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport.The launch came after more than a week of delays due to weather and a suspect telemetry transmitter that had to be replaced. (10/15)

Regulatory Filings Suggest SpaceX Plans November Launch with Mystery Payload (Source: Spaceflight Now)
Information found in federal regulatory filings suggests SpaceX plans to conduct a Falcon 9 rocket launch as soon as mid-November with an unidentified payload that has so far escaped public disclosure.

It is unusual for such a mission to remain secret so close to launch, and there has been no public claim of ownership for the payload — codenamed Zuma — from any government or commercial institution. SpaceX did not respond to questions on the mission Saturday, but an application submitted by the launch company to the Federal Communications Commission says the flight will use a Falcon 9 booster launched from pad 39A at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. (10/15)

Donald Trump Should Stop Obsessing Over the Moon (Source: Slate)
Donald Trump wants to go to the moon. Since being elected president, both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have offered vague but repeated hints that the administration was interested in sending American astronauts back to it, and finally, at the inaugural meeting of the newly resurrected National Space Council on Oct. 5, they made this desire explicit.

You can’t say the devil is in the details, because there are no details. As Casey Dreier, the director of space policy at the Planetary Society, the nonprofit dedicated to advancing space exploration and research, put it: “At this point, I just have more questions than opinions, because there’s not much to form an opinion off of. My biggest question is, to what end are we going to the moon? What is the purpose?”

There’s no clear answer to that. Despite Pence’s stepping-stone comment, going back to the moon does very little to help strengthen the human journey to Mars and worlds beyond. It’s doubtful the government could properly fund such a venture. All of Trump and Pence’s moon talk may sound exciting, but they are sorely mistaken if they believe returning to the moon is easy. (10/13)

It's Time for America to Stop Staring at the Pavement and Aim for the Stars Again (Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch)
Since Apollo, human space flight has been limited to within Earth’s orbit. When the space shuttle program ended in 2011, so did America’s manned space flights. Nowadays our astronauts bum rides from Russia to get back and forth from the International Space Station.

So, it was exciting to hear Vice President Pence address a recently resurrected National Space Council. He told the gathered that the U.S. would regain its leadership role in space exploration by returning to the moon as early as next year and eventually sending a manned mission to Mars. With a sense of urgency, he warned of the advances China and Russia have made in space technology and said the U.S. needed to address these emerging threats.

We applaud the administration’s goals to return to space. Exploring the unknown is part of who we are as humans. And the advancements by China and Russia add a new sense of urgency to our renewed commitment to space research. Yes, there will always be ample reasons to spend money elsewhere. But no matter how much we spend, there will always be a need for more. Reaching for the stars with one hand is just as important as extending the other to help our fellow humans. (10/13)

Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop Taking the Long View to the Stars (Source: SpaceFlight Insider)
While NASA and commercial operators plan to send human beings beyond low-Earth orbit, the participants of the Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop (TVIW) spent this past week contemplating something incomparably more ambitious: seeking practical ways to travel to the stars.

The TVIW Chairman Les Johnson is a NASA physicist by day and a science fiction writer and interstellar visionary in his free time. Given that the exploration of the Solar System will be the work of generations, if not centuries, might TVIW not be getting a little ahead of themselves? Johnson told Spaceflight Insider: “Not at all. We’re providing the long-term vision… Can we do it today? No. Can we begin developing the technologies needed? Yes. Can we think about flying precursor missions today? Yes.”

The practical question Johnson and the other approximately 150 TVIW attendees asked was, “What can be done now?” They realize that launching even a tiny payload to the nearest star—Alpha Centauri, 4.3 light-years away—requires considerable development and expense. (10/13)

Time’s Up for Spaceport America (Source: NM Politics)
One of the cruelest manifestations of illogical thinking is the sunk-cost fallacy. The irrational belief that a bad investment will, one day, pay off, if we just hold on a little longer, has led to plenty of sorrow in the private sector. In the public sector, though, it’s taxpayers who are victimized when bureaucrats and elected officials refuse to walk away from failed projects once hailed as “economic development.” “Spaceport America” is probably New Mexico’s worst example of the sunk-cost fallacy.

The facility broke ground in June 2009 and “opened” in October 2011. Its “anchor tenant” is Virgin Galactic. Owned by U.K. mega-mogul Richard Branson (net worth, according to Forbes: $5.1 billion), the company aims to send tourists on brief, suborbital trips into space. Virgin Galactic once hoped to launch their first customers as soon as 2008. Almost a decade later, no tourists have soared into the wild black yonder from New Mexico. And despite regular promises that other firms will soon make use of the spaceport, activity there remains essentially nil.

The facility’s dismal performance is a bitter pill for the Land of Enchantment’s taxpayers. It was built with hundreds of millions of dollars in borrowing, made possible by the state’s severance tax and a special gross receipts tax imposed on Doña Ana and Sierra counties. Of nearly $12 million in expenses in the 2016 fiscal year, less than 19 percent was covered by rent and user fees. (10/14)

Elon Musk Explains How Big rocket’s Short Hops Will Lead to Giant Leaps (Source: GeekWire)
SpaceX CEO says he “chickened out” and made the design for the monster spaceship he’s planning to send to Mars a little less monstrous — in order to make the concept a lot more realistic. He also confirmed that testing for the BFR, euphemistically known as the “Big Falcon Rocket,” would begin with suborbital short-hop tests on Earth.

Musk says the BFR would be used not only to send settlers to Mars starting in the 2020s, but also to go on trips to the moon and other interplanetary destinations, deploy and retrieve satellites in Earth orbit, and take passengers on suborbital space trips anywhere on Earth in an hour or less. In short, for any space mission that SpaceX has in mind. Click here.

Editor's Note: SpaceX's emerging plan for BFR suborbital hops means more momentum for high-speed point-to-point transport industry, mixing a vertical launch/landing concept with the growing number of supersonic horizontal launch/landing craft now planned. There's a LinkedIn Group following this stuff here. (10/14)

SpaceX Seeks FCC Approval to Test Satellite Communications System in Seattle Area (Source: GeekWire)
SpaceX has filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission to begin ground testing of a satellite communications system between its facilities in Redmond, Wash., as early as this month.

Redmond is the base of operations for SpaceX’s multibillion-dollar effort to create a 4,425-satellite constellation in low Earth orbit for global broadband internet access and remote imaging. This week’s filing suggests that the company is getting closer to deploying its first prototype satellites. (10/15)

Virgin Galactic Could Still Be With Us By The End Of 2018 (Source: OneNews Page)
Branson, the multi-billionaire entrepreneur who has turned Virgin to just about everything over the years – air travel, cola, video games, credit cards, gambling sites – has always intended to bring space tourism to the masses, and it seems that his mooted Virgin Galactic plans are set to do just that. In fact, Branson himself plans to leave Earth through such technology sooner than many may have expected. Branson hopes to be up in the stratosphere and beyond within six months – and that Virgin Galactic itself is still on target to see launch by the end of 2018.

He’s remained hugely optimistic, advising that his ‘love of space’ is spurring the project on. Branson is confident about Virgin Galactic but an exact timeframe for launch will remain to be seen. A-List stars such as Brad Pitt who have signed up for the maiden voyage have reportedly paid somewhere in the region of $250,000 to go beyond Earth and into the stars themselves – but really – can you blame them? Stay tuned for more news on space tourism as we know it! (10/13)

Will SpaceX, Boeing See More Delays In ISS Launch Schedules? (Source: Nasdaq)
In 2014, NASA awarded contracts to Boeing and SpaceX to develop American vehicles for astronauts. NASA had originally envisioned both companies competing in test flights and being certificated for manned missions by the end of 2017. But the scheduled for unmanned and manned tests has slipped, and most recently Boeing's unmanned test was pushed back to August 2018 from June 2018, and its crewed test was delayed to November 2018 from August 2018.

SpaceX's uncrewed mission was delayed to April 2018 from February 2018 and its manned test from to August 2018 from June 2018. But even the delayed timeline is starting to look ambitious. "I think we have a shot at 2018" for the flights with crew, said NASA's Kathryn Lueders. "There's a lot of things that have to go exactly right. I think the big challenge is to make sure that we give them the time ... if everything doesn't go exactly right, to be able to fix any problems that we have." (10/13)

Canadian Spaceport Not ‘Pie in the Sky’ (Source: The Chronicle Herald)
“We’re doing the best we can,” Stephen Matier, president of Maritime Launch Services, said Thursday. “That’s all I can tell you.” Matier’s big dream is to build a spaceport just outside Canso from which Ukrainian-built rockets would carry satellites into orbit.

The March announcement took the entire country by surprise, as it would be Canada’s first spaceport since the Churchill Research Range closed in Manitoba in 1984. That site only launched suborbital rockets. Maritime Launch’s proposal would allow companies to put satellites into a desirable sun-synchronous orbit using Cyclone 4M rockets.

While northern Nova Scotia is well accustomed to sizing up the big plans of the oil and gas, pulp and paper and shipping industries, the business of launching satellites is beyond most people’s field of understanding. (10/13)

Richard Branson Won't Fly in Space in 6 Months, Virgin Galactic President Says (Source: Space.com)
Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson most likely won't be going to space in the next six months, despite his recent statement that he'd be "very disappointed" otherwise.

Mike Moses, president of Virgin Galactic, said yesterday (Oct. 12) that while the company plans to have one of its SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicles reach altitudes of more than 50 miles (80 kilometers) above Earth's surface within the next three months, it's unlikely that passengers — including Branson — will be on board in less than half a year. (10/13)

Space Radiation Won't Stop NASA's Human Exploration (Source: NASA JSC)
While it's true that space radiation is one of the biggest challenges for a human journey to Mars, it's also true that NASA is developing technologies and countermeasures to ensure a safe and successful journey to the red planet.

"Some people think that radiation will keep NASA from sending people to Mars, but that's not the current situation," said, Pat Troutman, NASA Human Exploration Strategic Analysis Lead. "When we add the various mitigation techniques up, we are optimistic it will lead to a successful Mars mission with a healthy crew that will live a very long and productive life after they return to Earth."

Space radiation is quite different and more dangerous than radiation on Earth. Even though the International Space Station sits just within Earth's protective magnetic field, astronauts receive over ten times the radiation than what's naturally occurring on Earth. Outside the magnetic field there are galactic cosmic rays (GCRs), solar particle events (SPEs) and the Van Allen Belts, which contain trapped space radiation. (10/13)

A Gamma Ray Burst Observed in Unprecedented Detail (Source: IAC)
Gamma ray bursts are among the most energetic and explosive events in the universe. They are so fleeting, lasting from a few milliseconds to about a minute that to observe them accurately has been, until now, a difficult task. Using several ground-based and satellite telescopes, among them the robotic telescope MASTER-IAC, researchers have observed one of these explosions with unprecedented detail.

The event, named GRB160625B, revealed key details about the initial phase of the gamma ray explosion and the evolution of the huge jets of matter and energy which form as a result of it. In a matter of seconds the burst can emit as much energy as the sun during its whole lifetime. For that reason we are very interested to know how these phenomena occur.

The observations revealed some of the unknown details about the process in which a gamma ray explosion evolves while a dying star collapses and turns into a black hole. In the first place the data suggest that the black hole produces a strong magnetic field, which at the beginning controls the jets in which energy is emitted. Then when the magnetic field decays the matter takes control and starts to dominate the jets. (10/13)

NASA Studying Potential Cooperation on Russian Lunar Science Mission (Source: Space News)
NASA is in discussions about potential roles it could play on an upcoming series of Russian robotic lunar missions, including landers and sample return spacecraft. Jim Green, director of NASA’s planetary science division, told attendees of the annual meeting of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) here Oct. 11 that he recently returned from a trip to Russia that included talks about cooperation on those future Russian lunar missions. (10/13)

Australia and America: A Partnership for the Space Age (Source: Space.com)
Exotic though it may be, and romanticized though it often is, Australia is more than a distant country and a faraway continent. It is in fact a land of technological innovation, international diversity and urban sophistication. It is as relevant, economically and culturally, to Asia as it is to America, with top research universities, distinguished doctors, professors and scientists, in addition to a nationwide interest in space-based research.

Today, all of Australia is aglow with interest in space-based research. Australians and Americans have an opportunity to go beyond symbolic (albeit powerful) gestures; together, we can enlighten the minds and expand the horizons of teachers and students from Adelaide to Austin, from Melbourne to Miami, from Sydney to San Francisco, from Perth to Portland, Oregon, and Portland, Maine. (10/13)

Russian Progress Cargo Ship Blasts Off on Regular-Speed Trip to ISS (Source: CBS)
A Russian Progress cargo ship blasted off from Kazakhstan Saturday and set off after the International Space Station (ISS) to deliver 2.9 tons of propellant, water and crew supplies. The launch was originally planned for Thursday, but a last-second glitch prevented main engine ignition and the flight was aborted pending a review. The problem was quickly corrected and the booster was cleared for a second try Saturday.

Because of the launch delay, plans to test an accelerated two-orbit rendezvous were put on hold, ruled out for Saturday's flight due to the changing position of the station in its orbit. (10/14)

Spaceflight Federation Welcomes New Board Leadership and Member Companies (Source: CSF)
The Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) has elected new Officers for the 2017-2018 year and approved two new Associate member companies. Dr. Alan Stern of Southwest Research Institute was elected for a second term as the Chairman of the Board of Directors. George Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company was elected as the board’s Vice-Chair, and Karina Drees, CEO and General Manager of Mojave Air & Space Port, was elected as the CSF Treasurer.

Todd Lindner of Jacksonville Aviation Authority, Tim Hughes of SpaceX, and Taber MacCallum of World View Enterprises were re-elected as Officers of the Board. Bob Richards of Moon Express was elected to serve as a new Officer on the Board. CSF also voted to accept two new Associate members: the University of Colorado Boulder Smead Aerospace, and OneWeb Corporation. (10/12)

NASA Fueling Tests Underway at KSC Ahead of Space Launch System Debut (Source: Florida Today)
Testing of two massive propellant storage spheres is underway at Kennedy Space Center ahead of the planned 2019 liftoff of the agency's Space Launch System rocket. Several trucks arrived at KSC in early October to offload liquid oxygen into a cryogenic sphere at pad 39B and chill it down in preparation of propellant storage. Over the next several months, trucks will continue to load about 40,000 gallons of liquid oxygen two days a week into the 900,000 gallon capacity sphere.

The nearby liquid hydrogen storage sphere, meanwhile, will play host to the same operations beginning in November. When both tanks are filled to the halfway mark, teams in the Launch Control Center, which is attached to the Vehicle Assembly Building, will perform pressurization tests. Fuels will remain in the tanks for additional testing in mid-2018. (10/13)

Out-of-This-World Halloween Party Coming to Kennedy Space Center (Source: Florida Today)
A spooky fusion of space themes and Halloween will take over a conference center at Kennedy Space Center next week. Guests can dress up in costumes, dance and enter into contests during the Saturday, Oct. 21 Celebrate Space party hosted by the National Space Club Florida Committee. Light snacks and a cash bar will be available for the 8 to 11 p.m. event at the Debus Conference Center and Rocket Garden, which is located on Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex property. Tickets are available for $20 per person. Click here. (10/13)