March 14, 2018

Key Technologies the Commercial Satellite Constellations Need are on the Horizon (Source: Space News)
If satellite constellations are to fulfill their promise of offering global communications services, they will need key technologies including low-cost antennas and laser cross-links. “You’ve got to have ground antennas that are agile, affordable and can be produced in quantity,” said Erwin Hudson of Telesat Canada. Those antennas are on the horizon, he added, thanks in part to the investment of terrestrial communications companies in 5G networks. (3/13)

Spaceflight Raises $150 Million for BlackSky Constellation (Source: Space News)
Spaceflight Industries has raised $150 million to fund development of the next phase of its BlackSky Earth imaging constellation, with Thales Alenia Space and Telespazio taking minority stakes. Seattle-based Spaceflight said the Series C round will fund development of the next set of 20 BlackSky satellites, part of an ultimate constellation of 60 satellites intended to provide high-resolution images with rapid revisit times. (3/13)

SoftBank says GEO Operators Besides Intelsat Can Sell OneWeb Capacity (Source: Space News)
OneWeb’s largest investor SoftBank expects to bring in several partners to help sell OneWeb capacity, including potentially other geostationary satellite operators.

SoftBank, through its $1 billion investment in OneWeb, has rights to all the capacity on the operator’s planned low Earth orbit megaconstellation. Fleet operator Intelsat, in trying to combine with OneWeb last year, failed to close the merger but retained distribution rights for OneWeb capacity to several end-user customer groups. (3/13)

LEO and MEO Broadband Constellations Mega Source of Consternation (Source: Space News)
The world’s biggest, best established satellite operators talk of broadband as an enormously lucrative opportunity. But in truth, nothing is causing them more frustration. Demand for ever-faster broadband internet connections is maxing out today’s satellites, setting off an industry-wide stampede toward increasingly powerful high-throughput satellites (HTS).

While that might sound like a good thing, the rush to HTS is driving down bandwidth prices so fast that some fairly low-mileage satellites are struggling to keep up. Seasoned operators, determined to stay ahead of the curve, are thinking twice before investing $200 million or more in a geostationary broadband satellite designed to operate at least 15 years. (3/13)

Satellite Co. Seeks OK Of $1M ICC Award Against Korea's KT (Source: Law360)
Bermuda-registered satellite operator ABS is seeking to enshrine its recent $1 million arbitration victory against South Korea’s KT Corp. stemming from a politically fraught satellite transaction, asking a New York federal court Tuesday to confirm an award resolving the remaining issues in its favor. Asia Broadcast Satellite Global Ltd. and Asia Broadcast Satellite Holdings Ltd., referred to collectively as ABS, filed a petition to confirm a “final award” that was issued by an International Chamber of Commerce tribunal on March 9. (3/14)

NASA's Next Mars Spacecraft Will Launch From California, Not Florida (Source: The Verge)
InSight will be the first interplanetary mission to ever take off from the West Coast. So far, every US mission to another planet or distant moon in our Solar System has launched from Florida. Rockets that fly to the east from Florida get an extra speed boost, but InSight is fairly small It doesn’t need the boost as much as heavier spacecraft do. And since Florida is a busy place for rockets launches, NASA plans to launch this vehicle on May 5th, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Southern California, which is usually pretty open. (3/13)

Trump: U.S. Should Have a ‘Space Force’ (Source: Space News)
“We have the Air Force. We'll have the Space Force," Trump said in a speech to U.S. Marines in San Diego. An idea that the Pentagon has long opposed — creating a separate military service dedicated to space warfare — suddenly is back in the headlines after President Trump endorsed it in a speech on Tuesday. Addressing a military audience in San Diego, Trump boasted about his plans to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal, develop hypersonic weapons, and the possibility that the U.S. will need a “space force” to fight enemies that threaten U.S. access to space.

But the president may not have been aware that the idea of a military branch dedicated to space is not new. In fact it has been championed for a long time by members of the House Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces subcommittee. And it’s one of the few issues in the House that gets bipartisan support. A provision in the House version of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act required the Air Force to spin off a separate department focused on space.

The bill passed the House but didn’t have enough votes in the Senate. And it was fiercely opposed by the Air Force and the Pentagon. The law directed the Defense Department to hire an independent think tank to study the issue. The Air Force manages most of the military’s space programs and has come under criticism from lawmakers for short-changing space programs. (3/13)

Stephen Hawking, Science's Brightest Star, Dies Aged 76 (Source: The Guardian)
Stephen Hawking, the brightest star in the firmament of science, whose insights shaped modern cosmology and inspired global audiences in the millions, has died aged 76. His family released a statement in the early hours of Wednesday morning confirming his death at his home in Cambridge. (3/14)

Biomedical Findings from NASA’s Project Mercury: a Case Series (Source: Nature)
The U.S. first sent humans into space during six flights of Project Mercury from May 1961 to May 1963. These flights were brief, with durations ranging from about 15 min to just over 34 h. A primary purpose of the project was to determine if humans could perform meaningful tasks while in space. This was supported by a series of biomedical measurements on each astronaut before, during (when feasible), and after flight to document the effects of exposure to the spaceflight environment.

While almost all of the data presented here have been published in technical reports, this is the first integrated summary of the main results. One unexpected finding emerges: the major physiological changes associated with these short-term spaceflights are correlated more strongly with time spent by the astronaut in a spacesuit than with time spent in space per se. Thus, exposure to the direct stressors of short-duration (up to 34 h) spaceflight was not the dominant factor influencing human health and performance. (3/13)

15 New Planets Confirmed Around Cool Dwarf Stars (Source: Science Magazine)
Scientists report the existence of 15 new planets — including one 'super-Earth' that could harbor liquid water — orbiting small, cool stars near our solar system. These stars, known as red dwarfs, are of enormous interest for studies of planetary formation and evolution. A research team led by Teruyuki Hirano of Tokyo Institute of Technology's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences has validated 15 exoplanets orbiting red dwarf systems.

One of the brightest red dwarfs, K2-155 that is around 200 light years away from Earth, has three transiting super-Earths, which are slightly bigger than our own planet. Of those three super-Earths, the outermost planet, K2-155d, with a radius 1.6 times that of Earth, could be within the host star's habitable zone. (3/13)

NASA Wants to Change the Way We Think About the Habitable Zone (Source: Engadget)
"There are great possibilities in expanding the habitable zone beyond our traditional blinders on that vision where it's Earth or nothing."

That's Cynthia Phillips, a planetary geologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She's currently working on a mission to study Europa, one of Jupiter's icy moons with a subsurface ocean. Jupiter -- and, by association, Europa -- is well outside the "habitable zone," the gauge astronomers have used for years to determine whether a planet can sustain liquid water, a major precursor for life. But in Phillips' view, being outside of this zone doesn't automatically mean the moon or planet is devoid of life. (3/13)

Britain Hopes to Keep Stars Aligned with EU's Space Projects (Source: Space Daily)
While the Union Jacks on the wall indicate they are firmly on British soil, at an Airbus cleanroom in Portsmouth, the Eutelsat Quantum satellite is very much a European endeavour. Parts for the European Space Agency-led venture come from Spain, it is built in Britain and will be taken to France for testing ahead of next year's launch.

"The thing about space is that in order to succeed and achieve, really, you have to be part of international partnerships and cooperation," said UK Astronaut Tim Peake. The agency is not part of the European Union -- it has 22 members plus cooperating states -- but they are closely aligned and Brexit has cast doubt on Britain's role in regional collaboration. (3/7)

A Submarine for Titan’s Seas (Source: Air & Space)
For some time now, scientists have thought Titan may be a cradle of life, because it seems to contain all the necessary ingredients. This is especially true at the bottom of its lakes and seas, where heated hydrothermal water is thought to be in direct contact with a frigid nitrogen-rich hydrocarbon mixture. How could we ever explore such a place? In a submarine, of course.

The first step in making that technology a reality has now been taken by Ian Richardson and his colleagues from Washington State University, working with NASA. They recreated the pressure and temperature conditions of Titan’s seas of ethane and methane in their cryogenic laboratory to see how a submersible vehicle might fare in such a hostile environment. Check out this video. (3/13)

Satellite Internet Being Built to Span the Oceans (Source: The Economist)
Single undwerwater cables now carry as much as 160 terabits across the Atlantic every second. Oceanographers have mapped and drilled into the ocean floor around the world. But these capabilities have not come together. It is now very easy to get vast amounts of data from one side of an ocean to another; but it is hard to get even modest amounts of data out from the ocean itself. A new infrastructure is needed to enable sensors at sea to transfer their data back to land. Click here. (3/13)

Update on Investment in Commercial Space Ventures (Source: Bryce)
Start-up space ventures have attracted over $18.4 billion of investment, including $6.3 billion in early and late stage venture capital, $2.3 billion in seed financing, and $4.5 billion in debt financing, since 2000. More than 180 angel- and venture-backed space companies have been founded and funded since 2000. Eighteen of these companies have been acquired, at a total value of $3.6 billion. Most investment activity has occurred recently, particularly since 2015, with investment between $2 and $3 billion in each of the last three years: $2.4 billion in 2015, $3 billion in 2016, and $2.5 billion in 2017 (excluding debt financing). (3/13)

Bezos Says He'll Spend `Amazon Lottery Winnings' on Space Travel (Source: Bloomberg)
Jeff Bezos wants to make space travel as dynamic and entrepreneurial as the internet. “The price of admission to space is very high,” Bezos said while accepting the Buzz Aldrin Space Exploration Award at the Explorers Club Annual Dinner. “I’m in the process of converting my Amazon lottery winnings into a much lower price of admission so we can go explore the solar system.”

Bezos later declined to clarify just how much of his fortune he’ll spend on space travel. But Paulsen, at the next table, said Bezos could spend it all, “if he leaves enough to take care of his mother." Bezos is definitely not leaving mom behind. She said she’s going into space. She’s already been on an ocean voyage to recover F-1 rocket engines, a trip where the crew made accommodations for her, as Bezos recounted from the stage. (3/13)

Who's Running NASA? (Source: The Atlantic)
There was only one witness at a congressional hearing about nasa’s budget last week, and he wasn’t even supposed to be there. The witness, Robert Lightfoot, has worked at nasa for years. He arrived at the Marshall Spaceflight Center in 1989 as a test engineer. By 2009, he was running the whole place as director, and a few years later, he was number three at nasa headquarters. When President Obama left the White House, taking all his appointees with him, Lightfoot took over as nasa’s acting administrator. He would step down as soon as the Senate confirmed a successor, handpicked by President Trump.

More than 13 months later, that still hasn’t happened. With each passing day, nasa sets a new record for the longest the agency has gone without a permanent chief between two administrations. So it was Lightfoot who was summoned to Capitol Hill to face lawmakers and field questions about the future of a government agency he was never supposed to run for this long.

“Is it time to have somebody who’s permanent in that position?,” Ed Perlmutter, a Democratic congressman from Colorado, asked Lightfoot at the hearing, held by the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. “Is it hard as an acting administrator to move the agency forward?” (3/13)

Griffin Likely To Take A Hard Look At Military's Space Launch Plans (Source: Forbes)
Michael D. Griffin, the new Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, may be the most intellectually gifted public servant in the entire Trump Administration. He holds seven academic degrees in applied physics, aerospace engineering, electrical engineering and other demanding fields. When he was selected to head NASA in 2005, he was working on an eighth degree in computer science. He has occupied senior positions at some of the world's most respected aerospace research organizations.

You could probably plug Griffin into any technical job in the government and get good results. But the area where he is best known is space. How well known? A 2010 survey by the Space Foundation ranked him as one of the nation's most popular space heroes. You usually have to be an astronaut to achieve that kind of honor. And there's one other thing about Mike Griffin -- he's not the kind of team player who will go along with a bad plan for the sake of unity. When he sees something he doesn't like, he asks a lot of hard questions.

Which is why the Air Force officials overseeing the Pentagon's space program better be scrubbing their PowerPoint presentations for when the new Under Secretary comes calling. If there's a problem in their plans, Griffin is likely to find it, and fast. I'm betting that it won't take long for him to start probing how the Air Force backed into its current, high-risk strategy for assuring access to space when it already is using launch vehicles with perfect performance records that can reach every national-security reference orbit. (3/13)

Bezos Has a Crazy Plan for How to Spend $1 Billion a Year of His Own Money (Source: Money)
Jeff Bezos wants to make space travel as dynamic and entrepreneurial as the internet. “The price of admission to space is very high,” Bezos said Saturday night in New York, accepting the Buzz Aldrin Space Exploration Award at the Explorers Club Annual Dinner. “I’m in the process of converting my Amazon lottery winnings into a much lower price of admission so we can go explore the solar system.”

Bezos previously said he’s funding rocket company Blue Origin LLC to the tune of $1 billion a year through the sale of Amazon stock. His comments at the event suggest that may be only the start of his financial commitment to the project, which is developing reusable rockets. His net worth is $131 billion, with $125 billion of that in Amazon stock—and that “keeps on going up,” his mom, Jackie Bezos, said during the cocktail hour. His fortune has grown more than any other on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index this year. (3/13)

Japan/Luxembourg's iSpace Aims for the Moon (Source: iSpace)
At ispace, we’ve turned our attention to the Moon. By taking advantage of lunar water resources, we can develop the space infrastructure needed to enrich our daily lives on earth—as well as expand our living sphere into space. Also, by making the Earth and Moon one system, a new economy with space infrastructure at its core will support human life, making sustainability a reality. This result is our ultimate goal, and our search for water on the Moon is the first step to achieving that goal. Click here. (3/10)