July 18, 2018

Bridenstine Continues European Outreach for Exploration (Source: Space News)
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said he's had good conversations with other space agencies about cooperation on NASA's exploration plans. Bridenstine, attending the Farnborough International Airshow this week, said meetings with the head of ESA and other national space agencies, as well as with American and European companies, showed "a lot of support" for NASA's plans for returning humans to the moon. He said more details about those plans could be unveiled as soon as September. (7/18)

Lockheed Martin Undecided on UK Rocket (Source: Space News)
Lockheed Martin has yet to formally select the rocket it plans to fly from a new spaceport in the United Kingdom. The company, which received $31 million from the U.K. Space Agency Monday to establish launch operations at the spaceport in northern Scotland, did not disclose the identity of that small launch vehicle in its announcement or at a briefing at Farnborough Tuesday. There's widespread belief that the vehicle is the Electron from Rocket Lab, a company Lockheed made a strategic investment in, but Lockheed executives said only that that vehicle is where they're focusing their attention at the moment. In a separate statement, Rocket Lab said it's "excited" about the possibility of launching from Scotland, but added it's still reviewing the opportunity. (7/18)

UK Military Eyes On-Demand Space Launch from New Spaceport (Source: Defense News)
The creation of a new spaceport in Scotland has the British military eyeing the ability to get national security payloads into space in as little as 72 hours. The Malness spaceport is scheduled to have its first launch in 2023, with a Lockheed Martin-led team delivering six cubesats into orbit focused on a weather-monitoring project. But if Air Vice-Marshal Simon Rochelle, chief of staff for capability and force development with the Royal Air Force, has his way, military launches will start soon after.

“It may be beneficial to have as smallsat, a cube or something to be launched over a humanitarian disaster area, and you just happen to have one good to go and you can put it in the right place,” Rochelle said. “Then in a time of contested [activities], what you want to have is resilience. ... It just might need to be replacing a few as things happen and occur. It’s that ability. We think it’s important to be responsive.” (7/18)

UK Spaceport Could Support "Responsive" Military Launches (Source: Space News)
Officials from the United States and the United Kindgom see opportunities for cooperation in responsive space. Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force, said at Farnborough Tuesday that he planned to visit the U.K. military's rapid capabilities office this week, with space being one potential area of partnership. The British military is considering using the country's new spaceport in Scotland to support responsive launch activities, such as launching small satellites on 72 hours' notice, and is interested in cooperating with the U.S. and other close allies on such efforts. Lockheed Martin's Rick Ambrose said the two countries have "very similar strategies" for faster and cheaper access to space. (7/18)

Russia Plans Angara Production by 2023 (Source: TASS)
Russia is preparing to ramp up production of its Angara rocket. Dmitry Rogozin, new head of the Russian state space corporation Roscosmos, said that "serial production" of the rocket should begin by 2022 or 2023 at a factory in the city of Omsk. Rogozin said that he expected the Proton launch vehicle to end service by 2025, citing "restrictions" posed on the use of one of the toxic propellants used by that rocket. (7/18)

Russian ISS Modules Could Orbit Moon with Gateway (Source: Sputnik)
Russia is considering repurposing modules intended to be added to the International Space Station for NASA's Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway. A Russian space industry source said modules still on the ground that Russia had planned to the ISS may instead become part of the Gateway, citing an expectation that ISS operations will end in the mid-2020s. The modules in question include a docking node and a science and power module. (7/18)

China Focuses on Moon Base While NASA Stays in Orbit (Source: Ars Technica)
A Chinese official reportedly took a dim view of NASA's Gateway plans. Pei Zhaoyu, deputy director of the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration, spoke this week at a workshop in Amsterdam on cooperation between China and Europe on lunar science missions. According to one attendee's account of his talk, Pei said that the Gateway would likely have "low cost-effectivness" and that while NASA and its partners focused on the Gateway, China planned to devote its attention to a "scientific research station" on the lunar surface. (7/18)

Access Roadway Nearing Completion at Spaceport America (Source: Las Cruces Sun-News)
A long-awaited upgrade for a road to New Mexico's Spaceport America is finally nearly complete. Local officials said the "southern road" linking the spaceport to Interstate 25 to the south has been paved, and final work on the road should be completed in August. The highway was previously a dirt road that was impassable for many cars, particularly after rains. The paved road will reduce travel times to the spaceport from southern New Mexico cities like Las Cruces by about 45 minutes. (7/18)

Ten New Moons Found Orbiting Jupiter (Source: Science)
Astronomers announced Tuesday the discovery of 10 more moons orbiting Jupiter. The moons, all just a few kilometers in diameter, were found using an upgraded telescope in Chile as part of a search for a hypothetical planet in the outer solar system. One of the new moons, dubbed Valetudo, stood out because it is orbiting in the opposite direction of other nearby moons and is likely to collide with one of those other moons at some point in the future. The discovery brings the total number of moons known to orbit Jupiter to 79. (7/18)

Rocket Launches Cost Airlines Money and Travelers Precious Time (Source: CNN)
When temporary no-fly zones appear above US rocket launch sites, airlines end up paying huge fuel costs to fly around them, while passengers have to spend more of their precious time in the air. In fact, a new study by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University calculates that all the extra fuel required to avoid restricted airspace during rocket launches costs airlines cumulatively between $10,000 and $30,000 per liftoff.

One launch can create a ripple affecting thousands of airline passengers. Last February's SpaceX launch of its Falcon Heavy rocket delayed 563 airline flights resulting in 62 extra miles added to flights across the southeastern United States, according to a report by the Air Line Pilots Association. Each flight was delayed an average of eight minutes. (7/18)

New Space Companies Confident About Future of Small Satellites (Source: Space News)
Executives around the “spacezone” section of the Farnborough Airshow reacted enthusiastically to the news on Monday that the United Kingdom will invest in domestic spaceports where commercial rockets and aircraft will be able to lift small satellites into orbit.

The start of what U.K. officials call a “new space age” is especially good news for the burgeoning global industry that makes tiny satellites and can quickly deliver data services. More launch sites and more vehicle choices means it will be possible to set up new constellations in months, not years, said Borge Witthoft, chief commercial officer of GomSpace, a Danish company  that manufactures small satellites. (7/17)

Colorado Space Startup Races To Make Its Mark Ahead Of NASA Moon Missions (Source: KUNC)
Bradley Cheetham runs a company called Advanced Space. He started it with three friends in 2011 as a graduate student at the University of Colorado Boulder. The company’s first headquarters was the upstairs loft of his apartment at the time. Since then, it has grown into a promising force within Colorado’s booming aerospace industry.

A team of 15 employees works at the company’s modern office in Boulder, building and selling its space mission services. They range from launch targeting to program development and navigation design. Right now, he’s focused on touting the company’s new spacecraft navigation technology, the cislunar autonomous positioning system, or CAPS. Think of it as the GPS on your phone or car, but for rockets and satellites to talk to each other.

Today’s spacecraft depend exclusively on communication with contacts on Earth to move through the galaxy safely. These systems are tightly scheduled and in high demand, Cheetham said. (7/17)

What NASA Did Next: From ‘Space Force’ to the Moon and Mars (Source: TechRadar)
President Trump's recent promise to create a 'space force' as the sixth branch of the United States Armed Forces comes at a time when NASA is already having to rethink its space exploration priorities. Does Trump care about space? “Right now, we have bigger problems … we’ve got to fix our potholes,” said Trump during the presidential campaign in 2016.

However, he also promised to “free NASA from the restriction of serving primarily as a logistics agency for low-Earth orbit activity,” which suggests he wants NASA to leave the International Space Station to companies like SpaceX, Orbital ATK and Boeing, and focus on the Moon and Mars. There are others who think he has no clue about space exploration. In April 2017, during a phone call with a US astronaut on the ISS, Trump declared that NASA should get humans to Mars during his first term. NASA thinks 10-15 years is more realistic.

"Trump doesn't have space as his highest priority, but no US president has ever set space as their highest priority, not even John F. Kennedy," says Laura Forczyk, space consultant at Astralytical. "He doesn’t seem to care about space, but he does pay attention to his Vice President Mike Pence, who is chairman of the National Space Council (NSpC).” (7/17)

The Military is Building a Space Plane. Now it Looks to Have an Engine Up To the Task (Source: LA Times)
As nations develop technology to disable or shoot down satellites, the U.S. military has started to look at ways to rapidly and cheaply launch smaller crafts into space. One option: a reusable space plane that could launch small satellites 10 times in 10 days, spearheaded by a Pentagon research agency and aerospace giant Boeing Co.

The vehicle’s first test flight is set for 2021, which hints at the Defense Department’s growing interest in reusable rocket technology, particularly its potential to drive down launch costs and speed up turnaround time. In recent weeks, the space plane’s rocket engine, known as the AR-22, completed 10 test fires in 240 hours without need for refurbishments or major repairs. (7/16)

See Sean Penn Take to the Skies in Hulu’s Astronaut Drama, The First (Source: Vanity Fair)
After a strong showing at the 2018 Emmy nominations, Hulu is back with its next high-profile project after The Handmaid’s Tale and The Looming Tower: The First, a straight-to-series drama that will debut September 14. In it, Natascha McElhone channels an Elon Musk/Jeff Bezos captain-of-industry type as Laz Ingram, the C.E.O. of space-travel company Vista who’s on a mission to send a team of astronauts to colonize Mars.

She’ll star opposite two-time Oscar winner Sean Penn, in his first major TV role after funny guest spots on comedies including Friends, The Larry Sanders Show, and Two and a Half Men. Penn plays key astronaut Tom Haggerty, the one who helps get Laz funding for the ambitious mission. The series’s creator and show-runner, Beau Willimon (House of Cards), avoided the traps of the powerful-woman archetype—rather than being perfectly poised, Laz is awkward and off-center, and a far cry from someone like Cards’ icy Claire Underwood. (7/16)

Harris Corp. to Provide Astronaut Audio System for NASA’s First Human Deep-Space Exploration Mission (Source: Harris)
Harris Corp. will provide the crucial audio communication system for NASA’s first human deep-space exploration mission, scheduled to launch in 2022 onboard the Orion spacecraft. Orion is NASA’s first spacecraft designed for long-duration, deep-space exploration by humans. Harris was selected by Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for Orion, to deliver the audio system for Exploration Mission-2, the first crewed flight for the Orion spacecraft.

The system, which will enable astronauts to communicate with each other and NASA, will feature audio control units (ACU), audio interface units (AIU) and a speaker unit (SPU). The ACU provides central audio control and signal processing; the AIU is the push to talk interface clipped to the spacesuit or shirt sleeve; and the SPU transmits voice communications, as well as caution and warning alarm tones, in the cabin. (7/17)