October 18, 2017

Investors Say Orbital Withheld Info On $9.2B Northrop Deal (Source: Law360)
Stockholders of aerospace and defense contractor Orbital ATK Inc. filed a putative class action Monday in Virginia federal court to stop a proposed $9.2 billion sale of the company to Northrop Grumman, saying shareholders have been left in the dark regarding key aspects of the sale. (10/17)

Bigelow and ULA Plan Lunar Orbit Habitat (Source: Space News)
Bigelow Aerospace and United Launch Alliance said Tuesday they have an agreement to jointly develop a habitat around the moon, provided NASA is willing to help pay for it. The companies said their "lunar depot" would use a Bigelow B330 module launched on a ULA Vulcan rocket and placed into a low orbit around the moon by an ACES upper stage as soon as 2022. Bigelow Aerospace President Robert Bigelow said the companies could develop it in partnership with NASA, with the agency providing $2.3 billion in addition to the "hundreds of millions" already being spent on the companies to develop their technologies. Bigelow said the companies had briefed several "key" government officials about the concept and have received a good reaction. (10/17)

Soyuz Suffered Partial Pressure Loss During Crew Re-entry (Source: Space News)
A Soyuz capsule returning to Earth earlier this year suffered a partial loss of pressurization during descent, although not endangering the crew. The incident took place during the deployment of the main parachute on the Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft in April, when a buckle in the parachute system struck a welding seam on the spacecraft. Thomas Stafford, chairman of NASA's ISS Advisory Committee, said at a committee meeting this week that while some air escaped the capsule as a result, the crew was in pressure suits and not threatened by the incident. (10/17)

Satellite Access Needs Policy Attention Too (Source: Space News)
The president of a rideshare company says that U.S. policy needs to support not just the launch industry but the satellite industry as well. In an interview, Curt Blake, president of Spaceflight, said that policy debates have to avoid protecting the U.S. launch industry at the expense of the U.S. small satellite industry, which has often struggled to find rides to orbit. These debates involve access to India's PSLV rocket, which has become a major player in the smallsat secondary payload market, but for which U.S. companies need a regulatory waiver. The company says that the development of dedicated smallsat launchers will be good in the long run, providing additional options for its customers. (10/17)

Culberson Wary of China's Military Space Goals (Source: Huntsville Times)
A key congressman warns that China is building an "unfriendly navy" in space. In a speech earlier this month, Rep. John Culberson (R-TX), chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA, warned against cooperating with China in space. "The Chinese are aggressively building a navy in space, and we need to be aware that it's not friendly," he said. Another congressman at the same event, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), agreed, and also warned of cooperating further with Russia in space. (10/17)

Relativity Space Opens Up on 3-D Printed Rocket Plans (Source: Bloomberg)
A secretive launch startup has offered a first look inside its factory where it plans to make rockets with 3-D printers. Relativity Space is developing large 3-D printers that it claims will be able to built entire launch vehicles at lower costs, and with far fewer moving costs, than existing rockets. The company is planning its first launch of a rocket capable of placing nearly a ton into orbit in 2021. The 14-person company has raised $10 million to date from several investors, including billionaire Mark Cuban. (10/17)

Discovery Plans Space Documentary for NASA Anniversary (Source: RealScreen)
A member of the Kennedy family is producing a documentary about NASA in time for the agency's 60th anniversary. Rory Kennedy, daughter of Ethel and Robert Kennedy, will produce and also narrate Above & Beyond: NASA's Journey to Tomorrow, a documentary looking at both the history of NASA and its future plans. Kennedy, whose previous work includes the Oscar-nominated Last Days of Vietnam, said this film is "more of a personal essay, which allows me and thereby the viewer to jump around some of the extraordinary highlights of NASA." Discovery plans to air the film next June. (10/17)

Here’s Bigelow Plans to Build an Orbiting Space Station for the Moon (Source: Washington Post)
The moon — that cold, gray outpost that NASA last visited 45 years ago — is hot again. The vice president says so. So do Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. And as the Trump administration sets its sights on the lunar surface, a growing number of companies say they are ready for the challenge. The latest is Bigelow Aerospace, the Las Vegas-based maker of inflatable space habitats. 

Bigelow is hoping to send one of its space stations, the B330, to lunar orbit by 2022 in partnership with ULA. If NASA goes for it, the $2.3 billion mission would go something like this: The habitat would launch on ULA’s Vulcan rocket into low Earth orbit, where it would stay for a period of months, receiving supplies and cargo, while it underwent testing to make sure everything was working properly.

Then a space tug would ferry it from Earth orbit to lunar orbit, where it would essentially become a space station for the moon. The Trump administration is looking for a first-term coup, and, Bigelow said, this “can actually be done within one administration.” NASA also needs a destination for the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft it has been developing for years and at great expense, he said. (10/17)

Scott Kelly: Don't Doubt Elon Musk (Source: CNBC)
Elon Musk is racing to land SpaceX on Mars in five years, a vision he unveiled late last month at the 2017 International Astronautical Congress. One man not among Musk's critics is Scott Kelly, a retired astronaut who set the record in 2015 for total accumulated days in space, during the single longest mission by an American.

"When Elon Musk said he was going to launch his rocket and then land the first stage on a barge, I thought he was crazy," Kelly told "Squawk Box" on Tuesday. "And then he did it. I'm not going to ever doubt what he says, ever again." (10/17)

Delivery by Rocket Could Change the Game for UPS, FedEx (Source: CNBC)
Airplanes and Panamax cargo ships redefined the parcel service in the 20th century, but those days may be fading quickly. Morgan Stanley believes the SpaceX plan for the Big Falcon Rocket as a reusable mode of Earth transportation could change the game for United Parcel Services and FedEx.

"The freight transportation business — especially parcel delivery — is on the cusp of transformation from multiple new transportation modalities," a team of Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a note Thursday. "Elon Musk recently announced a new option that could potentially have the biggest impact of all — rockets."

The booster system BFR is a 42-engine rocketcapable of holding around 100 people – and yes, the code name connotes more than just "Falcon" to those inside SpaceX. With a payload capacity of 150 tons, BFR would be nearly 10 times the capacity of the flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket and five times that of the soon-to-be-tested Falcon Heavy rocket. (10/13)

First SLS Flight in Late 2019 (Source: Aviation Week)
The first flight of NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which is slated to put an unmanned Orion capsule into orbit around the Moon for Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1), is now targeted for launch in late 2019, according to a Lockheed Martin program director. (10/17)

Filling the Early Universe with Knots Can Explain Why the World is Three-Dimensional (Source: Space Daily)
The next time you come across a knotted jumble of rope or wire or yarn, ponder this: The natural tendency for things to tangle may help explain the three-dimensional nature of the universe and how it formed. An international team of physicists has developed an out-of-the-box theory which proposes that shortly after it popped into existence 13.8 billion years ago the universe was filled with knots formed from flexible strands of energy called flux tubes that link elementary particles together. (10/17)

Why We Go to the Moon (Source: Air & Space)
First we must consider the activities encompassed by a human return to the Moon, beginning with a transportation system that permits access to and from the Moon for people and cargo. Once on the Moon, we must protect ourselves from the hostile environment with such a degree of utility and comfort as to permit the performance of useful work. This protection includes life support, shielding from radiation, habitation, mobility, maintenance and continuous, daily operations. Finally, we must identify a series of activities that yield long-term societal value and contribute to the enhancement and furtherance of our spacefaring capabilities.

I suggest that all of these activities are summarized in the following mission statement: We go to the Moon to learn how to live and work productively on another world. It is not enough to simply get there—once on the Moon, we must accomplish some significant goals. It is not enough to simply live on the Moon—we must learn the skills and acquire the technologies necessary to support human life indefinitely, making use of local resources to support this effort. Click here. (10/17) 

Will General Dynamics Buy Harris? (Source: Space News)
Speculation has swirled around the industry for a while. General Dynamics has a lot of cash and Harris Corp. is one of the few remaining mid-cap, pure-play defense companies focused on defense electronics and space. Strategically it does make some sense. But financially it doesn’t, at least not now. Harris at this moment is too expensive. GD executives have publicly commented about “not doing dumb deals.” Things could change if Harris’ price drops. (10/17)

GPS Satellites Will Be Prized Targets (Source: Space News)
Dean Cheng predicts GPS satellites will come increasingly under threat. Their billion-dollar price tags and their value to modern society make them attractive targets. The U.S. needs to consider alternatives, he says. “It might be worth looking into this.” For instance, a team of researchers at the University of California has developed a navigation system that exploits signals such as cellular and Wi-Fi, rather than GPS. The technology can be used as a standalone alternative to GPS, or complement current GPS-based systems. (10/17)

No comments: