January 10, 2019

Ocean Temps Spiking Upward, With Dire Implications for Climate Change (Source: New York Times)
Scientists say the warming of the world’s oceans is accelerating more quickly than previously thought, a finding with dire implications for climate change given that almost all of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases ends up stored there. A new analysis, published Thursday in the journal Science, found that the oceans are heating up 40 percent faster on average than a United Nations panel estimated five years ago. The researchers also concluded that ocean temperatures have broken records for several straight years.

“2018 is going to be the warmest year on record for the Earth’s oceans,” said Zeke Hausfather. “As 2017 was the warmest year, and 2016 was the warmest year.” As the planet has warmed, the oceans have provided a critical buffer, slowing the effects of climate change by absorbing 93 percent of the heat trapped by human greenhouse gas emissions. But the escalating water temperatures are already killing off marine ecosystems, raising sea levels and making hurricanes more destructive.

As the oceans continue to heat up, those effects will become more catastrophic. Coral reefs, whose fish provide key sources of protein to millions of people, will come under increasing stress; a fifth of them have already died in the last three years. More powerful storms like Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and Hurricane Florence in 2018 will become more common, and coastlines around the world will flood more frequently. (1/10)

Repeated Radio Signals Coming From Galaxy 1.5 Billion Light Years Away (Source: Independent)
Scientists have spotted repeated blasts of radio signals coming from deep in space. The breakthrough is only the second time scientists have seen such a repeating radio burst. It both deepens the mystery and offers a potential opportunity to finally understand what might be throwing out the burst from a galaxy billions of light years away.

Fast radio bursts have been speculated to be the result of everything from exploding stars to transmissions from aliens. But they have remained entirely mysterious, with little evidence at all of where they might be coming from. The flashes only last for a milisecond but they are flung out with the same amount of energy the sun takes 12 months to produce.

Probably most exciting of the new bursts is one that scientists saw repeat six times, apparently from the same location. Of the more than 60 fast radio bursts detected so far, only one of them has ever repeated. (1/10)

Boom's XB-1 to Take Flight This Year (Source: Independent)
An aircraft worthy of the title “Son of Concorde” has moved one stage closer. Boom Supersonic has obtained funding of $100m (£79m) for the next stage of its project to create a commercial aircraft, known as Overture, planned to fly at more than twice the speed of sound, with a range of 5,180 miles. A half-size prototype, known as XB-1, is set to fly later in 2019.

The firm claims it is “history’s first independently developed supersonic jet and the fastest civil aircraft ever built”. The project to build a viable supersonic transport (SST) is aiming for a cabin barely half the size of Concorde: just 55 seats, compared with 100 on the Anglo-French jet. But the three-engine Boom aircraft will fly further, more economically and less noisily, with a sonic boom “at least 30 times quieter” than Concorde. (1/10)

India’s First Human Space fFlight Likely to Have Woman On Board (Source: Indian Express)
India’s first human space flight, scheduled to be launched sometime in the second half of 2021, will, most likely, have at least one woman astronaut on board. Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) K Sivan told The Indian Express that women candidates would be actively considered, although he would not like to pre-judge the selection process which was still to start.

“We, of course, would like to have women also to be there (on the space flight). You would remember our Prime Minister had mentioned son or daughter while announcing the human space flight. It would be very good if a woman is part of the first flight. But these things are still to be discussed and finalised. The selection process (for choosing the astronauts) has not started yet,” Sivan said. (1/10)

Stratolaunch Airplane Nears First Flight (Source: Space News)
The latest taxi test of the giant aircraft being developed by Stratolaunch for its air-launch system is a sign the plane’s first flight may take place soon. The company announced Jan. 9 that its airplane, the largest in the world by wingspan, performed its fastest taxi test to date at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, reaching a top speed of 219 kilometers per hour.

The test also featured a “rotation authority maneuver” that briefly lifted the plane’s nose gear off the ground. This was the latest in a series of taxi tests, where the airplane goes down the runway under its own power but does not take off. That test program started in late 2017, with subsequent tests at increasing speeds. (1/10)

NASA Employee Starts GoFundMe for Hurting Federal Workers (Source: Houston Chronicle)
A safety engineer at NASA's Johnson Space Center is raising money online for federal employees struggling to pay their bills ahead of their first missed paycheck Friday. Johanna Petrocelli, who has worked at the Houston center since 2014, started her GoFundMe page Monday. She had raised $1,302 as of Thursday morning, surpassing her goal of $1,000.

"I'm a federal employee in Houston, TX and I just want to help my fellow community," Petrocelli wrote. "So I set up this GoFundMe as a means to help anyone (affected) by the furlough pay specifically for medical/child care/animal care bills." Petrocelli's online fundraising comes as the federal government shutdown approaches the three-week mark. Just 200 of the 3,055 federal employees at Johnson are still working -- primarily to keep the three astronauts aboard the space station alive -- because of the shutdown that started Dec. 22. (1/10)

Flex Satellite Will Map Earth's Plant Glow (Source: BBC News)
The European Space Agency is going to build a spacecraft to map the red glow emitted by Earth's plants. Known as Flex, the mission was approved by member states on Thursday and will likely launch by 2022. The satellite will carry a spectrometer to catch the subtle but telltale fluorescence that organisms produce when they engage in photosynthesis. Scientists say this signal can be used to monitor the condition of croplands and forests. (1/10)

SpaceX Demo-1 Launch Shifts to February (Source: NASA)
NASA and SpaceX are continuing to work on the activities leading toward the Demo-1, uncrewed flight test to the International Space Station. NASA and SpaceX are now targeting no earlier than February for the launch of Demo-1 to complete hardware testing and joint reviews. NASA and SpaceX will confirm a new target date after coordination with the Eastern Range and the International Space Station Program. (1/10)

Government Shutdown Starting to Burn Aerospace Firms  -"A Self-Imposed Crisis" (Source: Washington Post)
The partial government shutdown, now in its 19th day, is already the longest in at least two decades. And its economic effect on greater Washington’s government-centric business community is starting to extend beyond the smallest, most vulnerable companies to include multibillion-dollar companies.

Executives from the government services giant Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) said the shutdown is costing the company tens of millions of dollars as it approaches the end of its fiscal year. And representatives from the Aerospace Industries Association trade group said it could hurt U.S. exporters by holding up already-cumbersome export control paperwork.

Eric Fanning, president and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association, is publicly pressing for an end to the partial government shutdown, now in its third week. In a statement to the press, Fanning characterizes the shutdown as a "self-imposed crisis," noting each day of the shutdown "the impacts grow and become more difficult and more expensive to fix." (1/10)

China Pulling Away From DOD in Space Arena, Officials Say (Source: UPI)
The US is playing catch-up with China when it comes to military space activities, top officials say. "China had 39 launches [in 2018], the US had 31, Russia had 20, Europe had eight, and [China] landed a robotic mission on the dark side of the moon -- a first," says Chris Shank, director of the Defense Department's Strategic Capabilities Office. (1/9)

Shutdown Could Make it Harder for Government to Attract Tech Workers (Source: Fifth Domain)
The long federal government partial shutdown is stoking concerns that agencies will be further challenged when it comes to recruiting tech talent. "How can we ever hope to recruit or maintain IT talent when hardworking government workers are told: 'Sorry, you aren't getting paid, but you still need to come to work' or 'Sorry, but no paycheck this week because of politics'?" Rep. Robin Kelly, D-IL., says. (1/9)

Space Council Considers 'Nexus' of Space Science and Human Exploration (Source: Space News)
The advisory group of the National Space Council is looking at how NASA's human space exploration plans can also support space science. During a session at an astronomy conference Wednesday, two members of the Users' Advisory Group said their committee has been asked by the council to "explore the nexus" between space science and human space exploration. One example of that is using the proposed lunar Gateway as a facility for assembling and repairing future space telescopes. The committee members also acknowledged that the group could benefit if it had more scientists. (1/10)

NASA Contractors Struggle Without Pay During Shutdown — and May Never See the Money (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
They filled nearly every seat in the room, a sea of union T-shirts, baseball caps and calloused hands. Where else were unionized Kennedy Space Center workers — the people who fixed the power grid or ran safety checks for launches — supposed to go on a Tuesday afternoon while a government shutdown persisted into its 18th day, keeping them from a paycheck and fraying their resistance?

Nearly 60 people had turned out for the meeting of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 2061 in Cape Canaveral seeking answers about how to endure the stalemate between President Trump and Congress over a border wall with Mexico. About 1,200 employees at KSC whose jobs have been deemed “non-essential” — 600 of them represented by this union — have been at home since Dec. 22. To bridge the gap, many are using paid vacation days, burning through their savings accounts, cutting back on expenses and trying to get extensions on their home and auto payments.

“Our rent and our mortgages don’t stop, the electric doesn’t stop, our phones don’t stop. These are all putting people in a predicament that if they live week to week, it’s going to be catastrophic,” said Steve Ching, a high voltage electrician with engineering firm AECOM. “They are holding the employees hostage over this political debate.” (1/10)

Government MECO Delays RS-25 Testing Following Premature Shutdown (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
NASA is yet to release any information as to why the latest RS-25 test in December aborted just seconds into what was set to be a full duration firing. The lack of information partly relates to NASA employees being out of work during the current government shutdown, which has also impacted on the test schedule. However, prime contractor Aerojet Rocketdyne notes they can accommodate a “temporary” delay.

The RS-25 will be the main engine on NASA’s next flagship rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), which is using tried and tested heritage hardware from the Space Shuttle era. The engine involved with the latest test was the Development Engine 0525 (E0525). (1/10)

SOFIA Observatory Grounded by Shutdown (Source: Space News)
NASA's SOFIA airborne observatory is grounded because of the government  shutdown. SOFIA, a Boeing 747 with a telescope mounted in its fuselage, can't carry out flights during the shutdown, which project scientists said has resulted in lost opportunities for astronomers to carry out research programs. Once the shutdown ends it will take about a week to prepare the aircraft and instruments before flights can resume. SOFIA is also in the midst of two reviews, one focused on operations and the other on science, that NASA has requested in lieu of including the program in the next senior review of astrophysics missions. (1/10)

GPS-3 Ground System Delays Force Upgrades to Existing System (Source: Space News)
The Air Force is investing in upgrades to the current GPS ground control system because of delays in a next-generation system. The Air Force awarded a contract last month valued at $462 million to Lockheed Martin to continue the modernization of the GPS ground control system that the company has been maintaining since 2013. That modernization will allow the system to control new GPS 3 satellites through 2025. A new system, called OCX, is being developed for the GPS 3 satellites but is years behind schedule. (1/10)

Soyuz Leak Investigation Nearing Completion (Source: TASS)
The investigation regarding a hole found in a Soyuz spacecraft last August should be completed soon. Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin, in an interview published Thursday, said he expected the results of the investigation will be presented to Russian leadership "in the next few weeks." The hole, found in the orbital module of the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft docked to the station in August, was studied during a Russian spacewalk in December before the spacecraft returned to Earth later that month. (1/10)

CYGNSS Wind Monitoring Satelites Also Monitor Flooding (Source: Space News)
A constellation of smallsats launched to study hurricanes has also proved useful monitoring flooding. NASA's Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System, or CYGNSS, spacecraft were launched in 2016 to track winds at the core of tropical cyclones. Scientists say that the CYGNSS observations are also proving useful in measuring soil moisture and flooding, including providing data that was better than what another NASA mission devoted to soil moisture observations could do. (1/10)

Canadian Telescope Finds New Radio Burst Source (Source: GeekWire)
A new Canadian telescope has discovered a second unusual source of repeating radio bursts. The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) radio observatory in British Columbia discovered a repeating fast radio burst during commissioning last summer. About 60 such bursts have been detected to date, but only two have been found to repeat. The cause of such bursts remains unknown, but some astronomers speculate they could be linked to rapidly spinning neutron stars with intense magnetic fields. (1/10)