November 5, 2018

Viasat Shrinks MEO Constellation Plans (Source: Space News)
As the U.S. Federal Communications Commission prepares to vote on satellite constellations from four companies in mid-November, another satellite operator is reducing the size of its proposed constellation. Viasat of Carlsbad, California, modified its design for a medium-Earth-orbit constellation that would consist of 20 telecom satellites instead of 24 as originally envisioned. The smaller constellation would orbit in four orbital pathways in 8,200-kilometer orbits, with five satellites per pathway. The constellation would otherwise stay largely the same as first described to regulators two years ago, according to Viasat. (11/5)

Women-Only Team is Pioneering Kyrgyzstan's Space Program (Source: Tech2)
There are thirteen countries in the world that have built and launched satellites into space. Over 70 countries have space agencies of their own. In under two years, Kyrgyzstan could join the ranks and become a country with stakes in space, with its first official space program powered by a team of young women. With fundraising underway, the girls are currently three months into a training program in basic electronics, physics and 3D printing.

The 'Kyrgyz Space program' (unrelated to the brilliant Kerbal Space Program) is unique in many ways, and is gathering international praise for the multiple norms it is out to shatter. Driven by a motivated team of women aged between 17-25 years, the space programme is completely crowd-funded. Meeting twice a week in a training course, the group has decided to set its eyes on building the country’s first CubeSat and send it to orbit by 2020. The program is part of a satellite-building course hosted by Kloop Media Foundation. Kloop is a media, journalism and training organisation in Kyrgyzstan with a reputation for being vocal and one of the most feminist-friendly, LGBT-friendly media agencies in Asia. (11/4)

Craig Technologies Wins ISS-Deployed Satellite Integration and Operations Contract (Source: Craig Technologies)
Based in Cape Canaveral on Florida's Space Coast, Craig Technologies Aerospace Solutions has been awarded a contract to provide payload integration and operations support to NASA and other federal agencies. In addition to government agencies, the company will provide satellite launch support to commercial customers both nationally and globally. Craig will provide turnkey services to manage and perform the work for the successful integration and on-orbit operations of payloads using the Space Stations Kinetic Launcher for Orbital Payload Systems (SSKLOPS or "Cyclops") or other research platforms.

The Cyclops is a mechanism used to robotically deploy satellites from the International Space Station (ISS) and is designed to provide a method to transfer internally stowed satellites to the external environment. The Cyclops is designed to provide a common payload interface and to accommodate payloads up to 150kg. Cyclops fills the payload deployment gap between small CubeSat launchers and major payloads enabling a whole new range of payload possibilities. Craig's capabilities include operation, engineering, and manufacturing to provide full lifecycle payload support. (11/5)

NASA To Begin Quiet Supersonic Research Flights In Texas (Source: Aviation Week)
NASA will begin quiet supersonic research flights at Galveston, Texas, on Nov. 5 as it prepares for the X-59 QueSST low-boom flight demonstrator now under development by Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works. Over a two-week period, the flights will focus on gathering community feedback on the reduced sonic booms, to test the survey methods the agency plans to use to assess public acceptance when it begins flying the X-59 over U.S. cities and other locations in 2022. (11/2)

Luxembourg Likely to Continue Space Focus After Election Results (Source: Space News)
The Luxembourg government will likely continue its commercial space initiatives even amid uncertainty about last month's national elections there. No party won a majority of seats in the country's Chamber of Deputies in an election last month, and negotiations are in process for a coalition government involving the same parties as the previous government. A government official, speaking at a conference Sunday, said he expected the country's SpaceResources.lu effort to continue regardless of who is in charge given the momentum it has built up. That initiative has invested in several companies, although it recently sold its stake in an early investment, Planetary Resources, shortly before that company was acquired last week. (11/4)

NASA And Partners Eye International Operability Standards For Space (Source: Aviation Week)
What began as an idea for bridging incompatible spacecraft docking systems and facilitating in-space emergency rescue operations is providing a way for a new generation of vehicles to visit the International Space Station (ISS). Now, NASA and its ISS partners are working to parlay the criteria for docking systems into seven more interoperability standards covering avionics, communications, environmental control and life support (ECLSS), power, robotics, rendezvous operations and thermal issues. (11/5)

NASA Advisory Council Elevates Education Committee Status (Source: NASA Watch)
"Elevating the Status of the Ad Hoc Task Force on STEM Education. Recommendation: The Council recommends that the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) Ad Hoc Task Force on STEM Education should become a regular committee of the NAC. Major Reasons for the Recommendation: A regular committee of the NAC that focuses on STEM engagement, and is made up of representatives from key stakeholder groups, will provide a set of diverse perspectives from difference constituent groups about trends and current events in the national STEM movement.

Consequences of No Action on This Recommendation: a) The institutional knowledge developed by the current NAC Ad Hoc Task Force on STEM Education over the last 43 months will be lost.; and b) The Terms of Reference for the NAC Ad Hoc Task Force on STEM Education indicate that with no extension or formalization, the Task Force dissolves in November 2018." (11/1)

Russia Plans to End 2018 with 17 Launches (Source: Space Daily)
Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos will carry out 17 space launches in 2018 and over 35 launches in 2019, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin told Sputnik. "If this year we have only 17 launches, then next [year] we have over 35, and 10 of them are heavy rockets," Rogozin said, adding that nine heavy rockets will be Protons and one will be Angara. (11/5)

Skyrora Joins Forces with Acclaimed Engineer as it Works Toward UK's First Private Space Launch (Source: Insider UK)
Scottish space firm Skyrora is working with an acclaimed Oxford-based engineer to create the first totally private space launch in the UK. Edinburgh-based Skyrora has completed the acquisition of the FARISpace project, led by Richard M Brown, which has been reconfigured to carry a larger payload under the name SkyHy.

SkyHy already has a two-stage hydrogen peroxide hybrid rocket build and ready to launch. Should the vehicle blast off from UK soil it would be the highest commercial launch to take place, building on the success of Skyrora's inaugural test launch last summer. “The chance to acquire this ingenious technology was ideal for us, as it blends seamlessly into our overall strategy as the fastest and most cost effective way to gain practical experience of suborbital launches with a non-guided rocket, while testing the peroxide propellant that we're already distilling here in the UK." (11/5)

LANL Shoots for the Moon in Search for Life on Europa (Source: LANL)
Extremely cold and bombarded by intense radiation, Jupiter’s moon Europa seems like one of the last places in the solar system to look for life. But Europa could hold organic material yet undiscovered and an ocean hiding deep below its thick, frozen crust.

To help NASA with its interplanetary research, Los Alamos National Laboratory is designing a prototype instrument capable of withstanding the extreme conditions on Europa. It is proposed for an upcoming mission to Jupiter’s moon. The goal is to deepen understanding of this tantalizing world and extend the search for life in the solar system.

Los Alamos scientists have plenty of history helping NASA explore another world for evidence of habitability and ultimately of life. In the early 2000s the first neutron spectrometer — developed by the laboratory — orbited Mars, discovering and mapping its vast water resources. More recently they designed ChemCam, a combination of lasers, spectrometers, a telescope, and a camera that piggybacked on the Mars Curiosity rover to study Martian rocks and helped find evidence for a habitable Mars in the past. (9/9)

SpaceX’s Helipad-Equipped Boat Will Bring Astronauts Safely Home (Source: The Verge)
A freshly upgraded SpaceX ship and its crew just went through dramatic dress rehearsals, running through how they’d rescue injured astronauts after they return to Earth. When SpaceX starts ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station next year, the company’s ocean vessel Go Searcher will be tasked with recovering SpaceX’s crewed Dragon capsules that splash down in the Atlantic Ocean. The ship is now equipped for a worst-case-scenario with medical treatment facilities and a helipad, in case returning astronauts need to be evacuated quickly to a hospital. (11/5)

Attorney Drops Out of Buzz Aldrin's Case Against Family (Source: Florida Today)
Citing “irreconcilable differences,” an attorney has formally quit the legal team representing Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin in a civil lawsuit against his children and family foundation. In a brief hearing in Viera on Friday, Brevard County Circuit Court Judge Charles Roberts approved Jupiter-based attorney Steven Selz’ motion to withdraw from the suit. Selz had a filed notice of his intent to withdraw on Oct. 1. Gainesville-based attorney Robert Bauer, who had represented Aldrin earlier, filed a similar notice on Oct. 4, court records show. Both have declined to comment. (11/2)

Musk Says He 'Likes the Idea' of Trump's Space Force (Source: FOX)
"Well, this may be a little controversial, but I actually like the idea. I think it’s cool," Musk told Swisher. "You know, like, when the Air Force was formed, there was a lot of like pooh-poohing, and like, “Oh, how silly to have an Air Force!” You know, because the aircraft in World War II were managed by the Army."

He continued: "And so you had the Army and the Navy and the Coast Guard and the Marines, and then ... it became pretty obvious that you really needed a specialized division to manage aircraft. And so the Air Force was created. And people today may not realize back then it was wildly panned as a ridiculous thing to create the Air Force, but now everyone’s like, 'Obviously, you should have an Air Force.' And I think it’s gonna become obvious that we should have a Space Force, too." (11/2)

Ethiopia to Launch First Satellite Next Year (Source: All Africa)
Ethiopia is set to launch its first earth observatory satellite in September 2019, joining a list of few African countries that have put the devices into orbit. "The satellite will be launched from China while the control and command station will be in Ethiopia," said Dr Solomon Belay Tessema, the director general of the Ethiopian Space Science and Technology Institute at the Addis Ababa University. China has provided training and $6 million for the project, according to Dr Solomon. (11/3)

EGS Plan for the Pad: Processing EM-1 Hardware for Launch (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
The first integrated Orion and Space Launch System (SLS) vehicle that will launch Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) will be put through a series of tests at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) by NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) processing teams beyond typical launch processing checkouts. Structural testing will be performed as major EM-1 hardware are joined for the first time in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and on the move out to Launch Pad 39B.

The EM-1 vehicle with its Mobile Launcher platform and umbilical tower will also make two trips to the pad, the first to run through a dress rehearsal of the launch countdown and perform first-time checkouts of the vehicle at the pad. After returning to the VAB for inspections, late stow work, and final configurations, the vehicle will return to the pad for its first launch. Click here. (11/2)

Tiny Lakes Once Pooled on Ancient Mars, Only to Fade Away (Source: Space.com)
Before Mars became a forbiddingly cold and dry world, water once came and went smoothly on the planet's surface, just as it does here on Earth. Now, scientists have identified the traces of three different sets of these ancient lakes — some nearly 50 miles (77 kilometers) across.

Those three sets of water bodies on Mars were likely each formed differently, the scientists behind the new research wrote. One class was formed directly by precipitation, one was fed by water moving through the Martian soil, and one was fed by rivers transporting water across the surface. All the studied lake beds are located in a region dubbed Hellas Planitia, the basin left behind by an ancient, massive impact. (11/2)

China's World’s Largest Radio Telescope Faces Difficulty Recruiting Researchers (Source: Sputnik)
China's 500-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), the world's largest single-dish telescope, is having difficulty recruiting resident researchers. With an annual salary of 100,000 yuan ($14,380), recruiting resident researchers who will be based in the relatively remote FAST site in Pingtang county, Southwest China's Guizhou Province is far from ideal.

The salary is still higher than Pingtang county's average annual salary of 66,279 yuan in 2016, and the national average salary for science researchers of 96,638 yuan, according to data provided by a Beijing Times article on Monday. The recent round of recruitment offered 24 research posts for data processing, data center management and communications maintenance, the report said. Aside from poor publicity for such recruitment, Zhang also cited the bad recruitment results to the working conditions as many would find the site isolated. (11/3)