January 8, 2019

SpaceX Demo Flight a Month Away, Will Be “Especially Dangerous,” Musk Says (Source: Ars Technica)
SpaceX is about a month away from launching its first commercial crew mission, the company's founder, Elon Musk, tweeted this weekend. This will be a demonstration flight, without humans on board.

Officially, NASA had been holding to a January 17 launch date, but that has become untenable due to ongoing work to resolve technical issues, two sources said, as well as the partial government shutdown. More than 90 percent of the space agency's employees are presently furloughed during the shutdown, which is affecting the agency's ability to make final approvals for the launch. Some key government officials are continuing to work on the program without pay.

This is a critical flight for both the company and NASA. Success with this uncrewed demonstration flight would put SpaceX on track toward becoming the first private company to launch humans into space. For NASA, it would return the capability to put its own astronauts into orbit and aboard the International Space Station. It is also a risky mission, as this rocket and spacecraft have never flown together before in this configuration. (1/7)

New Habitable Kepler World –“Human Eyes Found It Hidden in the Data” (Source: Daily Galaxy)
NASA’s Kepler Mission K2 team announced the discovery of another new world today, two months after the Kepler spacecraft ran out of fuel on Oct. 30th, and ended its mission after nine years, during which it discovered 2,600 confirmed planets around other stars – the bulk of those now known – along with thousands of additional candidates astronomers are working to confirm.

While NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite is the newest space-based planet hunter, this new finding shows that more discoveries await scientists in Kepler data. Citizen scientists using data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope, discovered a planet roughly twice the size of Earth located within its star’s habitable zone, the range of orbital distances where liquid water may exist on the planet’s surface. The new world, known as K2-288Bb, could be rocky or could be a gas-rich planet similar to Neptune. Its size is rare among exoplanets – planets beyond our solar system. (1/7)

Report Questions Space Force Benefits (Source: Space News)
A new report cautions that there's no guarantee that any model for developing a Space Force will help improve national security space. A study by the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), mandated by Congress, recommended creating a department from existing portions of the Air Force, Army, Navy and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, along with centralized procurement of commercial space products.

It also recommended the transfer of National Reconnaissance Office activities to the Space Force, but added "further coordination" with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence would be necessary. CNA, though, cautioned that even with its recommended structure for a Space Force, "we cannot definitively know before it is implemented that any design will produce the expected benefits." (1/8)

TESS Mission Extension Considered (Source: Space News)
NASA's TESS spacecraft could operate long past its two-year prime mission. At a briefing Monday during the American Astronomical Society conference in Seattle, scientists said they have already discovered several small exoplanets in just the first few months of data from the mission, which started science operations last July. Project officials are already preparing a proposal for an extended mission that would start when its two-year primary mission ends in mid-2020, keeping the spacecraft operating through late 2022. The spacecraft could operate for far longer, with the mission projecting additional extended missions through at least the late 2020s to support other missions to study exoplanets. (1/8)

Air Force Wants Better Space Weather Forecasting (Source: Space News)
The U.S. military is seeking to improve its space weather forecasting capabilities, but finds progress is slow. Ralph Stoffler, Air Force weather director, said Monday modernization of space weather observational and forecasting resources is moving at a glacial pace because of the limited number of people in industry and elsewhere working on the issue. The service is moving forward with efforts to equip Air Force satellites with energetic charged particle sensors to collect additional space weather data, and is considering buying space weather data commercially. (1/8)

China's Moon Rover Takes Nap (Source: Space News)
China's Yutu 2 rover is taking a "noon nap" on the moon. The hiatus in operations, just days after the Chang'e-4 landing last week, is intended as a precaution to avoid overheating during the peak of the lunar day. Activities will resume by Thursday, with the rover moving to image the front side of the lander and then beginning a series of scientific projects. (1/8)

ESA Adds Cubesats to Asteroid Effort (Source: ESA)
ESA is adding cubesats to an upcoming asteroid mission. The two 6U cubesats, called APEX and Juventas, will accompany the Hera spacecraft to the near Earth asteroid Didymos, performing scientific measurements of the asteroid and a small moon orbiting it. Hera is a follow-up mission to NASA's DART spacecraft, which will impact the moon of Didymos in 2022 as a test of planetary defense techniques. ESA selected APEX and Juventas from several proposals submitted to the agency, although a final decision on flying the overall mission won't be made until a ministerial meeting late this year. (1/8)

Chinese Commercial Launchers Advance Testing (Source: GB Times)
Two Chinese startup companies have performed key tests of engine and reusable rocket systems. Landspace tested last week the gas generator for its Tianque-12 engine, powered by methane and liquid oxygen. The company plans to use the engine in its Zhuque-2 medium-class launch vehicle under development. Linkspace performed a tethered hover test of its RLV-T5 technology demonstrator, part of the company's efforts to develop a reusable launch vehicle. Linkspace plans to perform a suborbital launch of its RLV-T6 test vehicle later this year. (1/8)

Alabama Airbus A220 Incentives: Mobile, County in for $8 Million Plus Aabatements (Source: AL.com)
Details have begun to emerge on the incentives that will be offered to Airbus as it builds a new jet assembly line in Mobile, including $4 million in cash from the city and an equal amount from Mobile County. That $8 million, plus an unknown value in tax abatements and fee waivers, is spelled out in a project agreement on Tuesday's Mobile City Council agenda. While the council will have the option of immediate action, normal procedure will be for it to lay the measure over for a week's consideration before voting.

Meanwhile, a county spokesperson confirmed that the Mobile County Commission will consider its approval of the measure at its discussion meeting this Thursday for a presumed vote at its regular meeting on Jan. 14. Airbus already has an assembly line for its A320 family jets at the Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley. It produces four of the jets per month and has delivered more than 100 of them since going into operation. The company plans to break ground in the near future for an assembly line building the smaller, newer A220 family of passenger jets.

The agreement calls for the city to support an abatement of noneducational construction related sales and use taxes “until the entire A220 Project has been placed in service,” and “the noneducational portion of all ad valorem taxes for a period of ten (10) years.” The estimated value of that abatement is not spelled out in the agreement. County commitments in the agreement include a similar provision for $4 million in reimbursement over 10 years. (1/8)

Firefly Investor Noosphere Ventures Eyes Satellite Manufacturing Sector (Source: Space News)
Noosphere Ventures, two years after providing a lifeline investment in small-launcher company Firefly, is gearing up to make another space investment, this time in the small-satellite manufacturing sector. Officials from Noosphere said they are willing to pull another company back from the brink, if necessary, as they build a portfolio of space companies that enables SpaceX-like vertical integration.

“We believe long term that consolidation and [merger and acquisition activity] will happen in the sector,” Max Polyakov, managing partner at Noosphere Ventures, said in an interview. “Industry will shift toward vertical integration where you control the full range from the launch, to satellite, data analytics, communications and the ground stations. We should all remember the end dollar we collect from the ground — the customer who pays for the imagery, the analytics, or communications.”

Polyakov said Noosphere is specifically interested in a manufacturing capability for satellites between 50 and 500 kilograms. Such a company could also help build technologies of interest such as orbital transfer vehicles for deploying satellites, space tugs and debris removal systems, Polyakov said. Component suppliers for small satellites are also of interest given what Noosphere views as a thinning distinction between them and full manufacturers, he said. (1/8)