July 20, 2018

Senate Making a Big Mistake as it Drags its Feet Over EXIM Bank Confirmations (Source: CNBC)
The U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM) provides critical financing for American [aerospace] companies selling goods and services abroad. Because the bank has lacked a board quorum since July 2015, it can’t approve any transaction over $10 million, causing U.S. companies large and small to forfeit sales to foreign competitors and lose U.S. jobs. This is a self-inflicted wound on American workers. But it can be healed if the Senate acts now to confirm nominees for the board. (7/18)

NASA Plots a Return to the Moon Within a Decade — But This Time Astronauts Will Stay There (Source: USA Today)
Under new direction from the Trump administration, NASA plans to partner with companies like Moon Express to fly small, robotic landers carrying scientific instruments to the moon, as soon as next year. It’s a modest start to public-private partnerships that aim to help companies develop increasingly capable landers quicker and at lower cost than NASA could on its own. A first medium-size lander could fly a demonstration mission as soon as 2022, helping to inform the design of a larger, human-class lander.

Paul Spudis advocates for an incremental return that does not resemble the sortie missions lasting a few days flown by Apollo crews. “This return to the moon should be different,” he said. “What we should do is concentrate on placing permanent assets and infrastructure at the moon's polar regions, and begin to establish a permanent presence. So the emphasis should be on resource prospecting, cislunar transportation and habitation.” With fuel depots and reusable spacecraft, missions could  move to and from the moon regularly to a wide variety of orbits, as compared to the single-purpose missions completed under Apollo.

“A big part of our problem is that unrealistic expectations are out there, both in terms of what can be done and how much it’s going to cost to actually accomplish it,” said AIAA's Dan Dumbacher, who previously had a leadership role in NASA's under-funded Constellation program. The lack of a driving goal as clear as Apollo’s — to beat the Russians — may continue to prove a challenge. “This return to the moon is for practical purposes, scientific, economic and national security goals,” said Spudis. “It’s much harder to justify that, so it’s easy to get distracted and get off track." (7/19)

Blue Origin a Step Closer to Space Travel (Source: Money Control)
The New Shepard capsule made it to its highest elevation ever by 50,000 feet (15,240 meters) on Tuesday, reaching 74 miles (119 kilometres). New Shepard is designed to launch, land and be reused. The booster flown on Tuesday has been launched twice previously. Cornell, during the launch webcast, said launching humans could begin "hopefully after a couple more tests." (7/19)

Blue Collar Space and the Omnipresence of Risk (Source: Ground Based Space Matters)
Even with the FAA’s involvement as a regulator, there is more room for innovation and risk taking on the commercial side, and Congress tries to impose limits on regulatory agencies such as the FAA. Congress requires the FAA to engage in cost-benefit analyses before imposing safety requirements. The FAA may not unduly burden small businesses. It has to seek public comment before finalizing rules. It’s a different culture. It’s constraining, too, but not in the same way. And if a private person is willing to risk his or her life to go to the red planet, NASA shouldn’t have the ability to tell that person to stay in orbit. Click here. (7/18)

KSC Visitor Complex Announces Lockheed Martin as the Title Sponsor of New Astronaut Training Experience (Source: KSCVC)
Lockheed Martin has signed on to become the title sponsor for the Astronaut Training Experience® (ATX), the newest attraction at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. The ATX center uses immersive simulation technology to transport participants to Mars, train them to live and work in the harshest environments and teach them what it’s like to travel to the Red Planet, using real NASA science to address engineering challenges. The announcement was made by Therrin Protze, chief operating officer of Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

“The ATX Center gives participants a chance to train like an astronaut, perform real NASA science experiments, and contribute to data that will be used in the field,” said Protze. “Lockheed Martin is the perfect partner because of its mission to enable the future by solving the great problems of modern times. It is fitting that this experience at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is supported by a company with a rich history of space exploration and technological innovation.” (7/19)

China Developing In-Orbit Satellite Transport Vehicle (Source: Xinhua)
China is developing a space vehicle to help transport orbiting satellites that have run out of fuel. Fuel is a key factor limiting the life of satellites. Most satellites function for years after entering orbit, but eventually, they have to end their missions and burn up into the atmosphere due to fuel exhaustion.

The vehicle is being developed by an academy affiliated to the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp. The carrier, instead of refueling the satellite, will use a robotic arm to dock with it, and will then carry the satellite to maintain its original orbit. The vehicle will take about two years to complete.

On June 19 last year, China's communications satellite Zhongxing-9A failed to enter the preset orbit after launch. The satellite then took two weeks to conduct ten orbit adjustments to reach its correct orbit, resulting in large fuel consumption and a shortened working life. Hu's team has listed Zhongxing-9A as a potential satellite on which to apply the new technology. (7/19)

NASA, French Aerospace Lab to Collaborate on Sonic Boom Prediction Research (Source: NASA)
NASA and France’s Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aerospatiales (ONERA), the French national aerospace research center, signed a research agreement Wednesday that could make supersonic passenger flights over land practical, dramatically reducing travel time in the United States or anywhere in the world. NASA and ONERA agreed to collaborate on research predicting where sonic booms will be heard as supersonic aircraft fly overhead. This could lead to alleviating the effects of the loud noise caused by sonic booms. (7/19)

Ex-Im Bank Nominee Gets Senate Hearing (Source: Space News)
The White House's new nominee to lead the Export-Import Bank sailed through a confirmation hearing Thursday. Kimberly Reed faced few questions during the Senate Banking Committee hearing as senators focused their attention on another, unrelated nominee. The previous nominee to chair the bank, Scott Garrett, was rejected by the committee last year. Three other nominees for the bank's board, previously approved by the committee, await a vote by the full Senate. A lack of a quorum on the five-person board of the Ex-Im Bank means it cannot approve deals larger than $10 million, including financing of commercial satellites or launches. (7/19)

Morhard Nomination Praised by Some for His Senate Experience (Source: Space News)
While reaction to the nomination of James Morhard to be NASA deputy administrator has been muted, some supporters are speaking out. The White House formally submitted his nomination earlier this week after announcing it last Thursday. There's been little reaction to the nomination by senators or space industry organizations, in part because Morhard was a somewhat unexpected choice for the position given his lack of space experience. Backers of the nomination, though, argue his broader experience as a Senate appropriations staffer makes him well-suited to dealing with budget and management issues he will face at the agency. (7/19)

USAF JSpOC Now CSpOC (Source: US Air Force)
The Air Force's Joint Space Operations Center became the Combined Space Operations Center this week. A ceremony at Vandenberg Air Force Base marked the transition, which was first announced last year. The center, now known as CSpOC, will expand cooperation with allied governments and companies on space situational awareness, among other areas. (7/19)

Astronaut Joins Board of Australia's Gilmour Space (Source: Defence Connect)
An Australian space company has signed up a former NASA astronaut and deputy administrator as advisers. Gilmour Space Technologies said that former NASA astronaut Pam Melroy and former NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman are joining the company's board of advisers. Gilmour is developing suborbital and small orbital launch vehicles using hybrid engines. (7/19)

What Drives Aviation and Aerospace in Florida? (Source: FPL)
Florida’s aviation and aerospace sector is expected to grow by 6.9 percent by 2023, far exceeding the U.S. growth projections for this sector of 1.9 percent. In 2017, Florida added more than 12,000 aviation & aerospace jobs, the most of any other state in the southeastern U.S. With 30 public-use and 20 commercial airports, plus two spaceports, Florida’s aerospace infrastructure is built to last. Click here. (7/20)

Printing the Next Generation of Rocket Engines (Source: Space News)
“We realized there was this gap in the industry,” he said. “They were printing components for their systems, but we saw that a lot of the components they were printing actually could still be traditionally manufactured.”

That led him, along with another former UCSD student, Kyle Adriany, to establish ARC to build engines in a very different way using additive manufacturing. “We set out to take a conventional bi-propellant rocket engine and perfect it,” Kieatiwong said. “Essentially, we boiled it down to its core functionality of moving fluid and moving heat, and we said, ‘What do we need to do to make it the most optimized thruster we can?’”

ARC combines additive manufacturing with a tool called generative design, where computer algorithms develop thousands of different designs that meet a set of constraints and then iterate on them to find the optimal solution. That can result in designs that are not possible to produce without 3D printing and can even be beyond the imagination of conventionally trained engineers. (7/19)

Japanese Probe Gets Closeup of Asteroid (Source: Asahi Shimbun)
The first closeup images of an asteroid by a Japanese spacecraft show a surface full of large boulders. Scientists said the boulders seen on the surface of Ryugu by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft are between 8 and 130 meters across, and are too big to be fragments from collisions of smaller bodies with the asteroid. Instead, they believe the boulders are evidence that Ryugu, about one kilometer in diameter, was formed by the accretion of debris from other asteroid collisions. (7/19)

NASA Could Have People Living on the Moon in 8 Years. And That's Just the Beginning (Source: TIME)
 For the first time in five decades, the U.S.–along with private-industry and international partners–has committed itself to returning to the moon, and to doing it on a defined timeline. In December 2017, President Trump signed the first of three Space Policy Directives, putting manned lunar exploration back at the top of the NASA agenda. With that, plans that had been in development for a long time took on new urgency. And they are plans that are very different from the way Americans got to the moon the first time.

Rather than the so-called flags-and-footprints model of lunar exploration–with short-term crews in throwaway vehicles landing on the surface, working for a few days at most and heading straight home–the U.S. now hopes to establish a long-term presence on and around the moon. The centerpiece of the new system will be what NASA calls the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, a mouthful of a name that hides a relatively simple idea. Gateway, as NASA sees it, will be a sort of mini space station in lunar orbit.

Like the giant, 450-ton International Space Station, this one would be built with the help of more than a dozen other nations. Unlike the existing station, which consists of 15 habitable modules and a vast array of solar panels, Gateway will be comparatively small–a 75-ton assembly, consisting of just one or two habitable modules, each roughly the size of a school bus, plus a snap-on module for power and propulsion and two others that would serve as an air lock for spacewalking astronauts and a docking port for incoming vehicles. (7/19)

5 Years After Blowing the Whistle on Cyber Problems, NASA's Jerry Davis Has No Regrets (Source: FNR)
Jerry Davis took a big risk when he publicly called out the Veterans Affairs Department in 2013 for major cybersecurity shortcomings. Five years later as the NASA Ames chief information officer leaves federal service, Davis said that decision was part of the reason why he became a senior executive service member. “At the end of the day, there was no way I could look myself in the mirror if some major issue had happen if I hadn’t taken the steps to bring attention to this issue,” he said. (7/20)

NASA, UAE Space Agency Sign Space Cooperation Agreement at Farnborough (Source: Trade Arabia)
NASA and the UAE Space Agency signed a space cooperation agreement at the Farnborough Airshow. "The formation of close partnerships with leading space agencies and organizations around the world continues to contribute to the strengthening of our international standing within the global space sector," said Mohammed Al Ahbabi, director general of the UAE Space Agency. (7/19)

Russian Aerospace Workers Suspected of Passing Hypersonic Tech to 'Western Intelligence Agencies' (Source: The Times)
Employees at two Russian rocket research institutes are suspected of committing treason by passing top-secret information on hypersonic technology to western spies. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) seized documents during raids this morning at TsNIIMash, the main research institute of Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, and the United Rocket and Space Corporation. Dozens of people are being investigated on suspicion of passing secrets on the development of classified hypersonic technologies — able to reach speeds more than five times the speed of sound — to western intelligence agencies. (7/20)

Scorn at Claim Sutherland Chosen for Spaceport Because it is Close to Tory Seats (Source: Press & Journal)
A Labour frontbencher has claimed that north Sutherland was chosen to host the UK’s first spaceport because it is “close” to Tory seats – despite the nearest being 100-miles away. Shadow Science Minister Chi Onwurah – who also suggested the site near Tongue was too far from the equator – faced a backlash last night as she was mocked for her “utterly bizarre” remarks. The Conservatives have never won a Holyrood constituency in the Highlands and islands, have had no MPs in the region since the 1980s, and the nearest current Tory-held seat to the spaceport site is more than 100 miles away in Moray. (7/19)

Small Sat Space Race Goes Global (Source: Ars Technica)
Right now, there are more spaceports around the world that want to launch small satellites than there are companies with launch vehicles. That may change in five years, but for now it seems to be a buyer's market for launch companies. In addition to the Scotland-based vertical launch site, Cornwall, in Southwestern Britain, intends to host horizontally launched rockets. The Independent reports that Virgin Orbit and Cornwall Spaceport have signed a strategic partnership that may lead to Cosmic Girl taking off from the spaceport and sending its LauncherOne into space.

The scope of China's commercial industry is bigger than you think. The China Global Television Network reports that about 10 private rocket firms have formed in China during the last three years. The two most well-known companies, i-Space and OneSpace Technology, have made it clear that they have no intention of grabbing government-funded missions from state-owned space giants. Rather, they aspire to meet the demand of small satellite companies.

According to local reports, Vector has begun to test ground systems at a launch site in southern Alaska. Among those tests were telemetry checks between the booster and the command center and fueling exercises. The company also moved the rocket around the facility. (7/20)

As the SpaceX Steamroller Surges, European Rocket Industry Vows to Resist (Source: Ars Technica)
From French Guiana, Europe has established a long but largely unheralded history in the global rocket industry. Nearly three decades ago, it became the first provider of commercial launch services. If your company or country had a satellite and enough money, Europe would fly it into space for you. Remarkably, more than half of all telecom satellites in service today were launched from this sprawling spaceport.

But times change. Like the rest of the aerospace world—including the Russians and traditional US companies like Boeing, Aerojet, and Lockheed Martin—Europe must now confront titanic changes in the global launch industry. By aggressively pushing low-cost, reusable launch technologies, SpaceX has bashed down the traditional order. Blue Origin, too, promises more of the same within a few years for larger satellites.

Unlike the desert in Kazakhstan or the swamp in Florida, jungle defines the CSG in Kourou. Traveling around the spaceport and its facilities, with monkeys and capybaras skittering to and fro, one feels as though the jungle waits to reclaim its lost territory. Many of the buildings, built in the early 1990s to support the Ariane 5 rocket, look twice as old due to the depredations of the year-round tropical climate. Things break down more quickly here. Paint fades. Metal rusts. And the jungle must be constantly beaten back. Click here. (7/20)