April 16, 2019

How Much Will the Moon Plan Cost? We Should Know in Two Weeks (Source: Ars Technica)
A little more than three weeks have passed since Vice President Mike Pence tasked NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine with returning humans to the Moon by 2024. Since then, the Oklahoman has been hotfooting around the country to build support—testifying before Congress, huddling with White House budget officials, speaking at major space conferences, and, this past weekend, visiting his alma mater, Rice University.

Bridenstine is working to build political momentum to fund the plan. This involves developing an amendment to President Trump's Budget Request for fiscal year 2020, which will seek additional funding for the accelerated Moon program. Realistically, Bridenstine said, this amendment will be ready "by the end of the month."

This is a critical document, as the White House will only really have one chance to get this request right if NASA is to have a realistic chance of making the 2024 goal. To begin funding lunar lander development, design new spacesuits, and make related plans, this new funding must arrive at the start of the fiscal year on October 1, and Bridenstine realizes this will only happen with a broad political consensus. Click here. (4/16)

Making the Case for a Space Force--and How it Will Fight (Source: Defense News)
At the Space Symposium in Colorado, acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan and other Pentagon leaders discussed why a Space Force is necessary. "Both China and Russia have weaponized space with the intent to hold American space capabilities at risk," he said. Click here. (4/15)

Debris: The Plastic of the Sky (Source: Via Satellite)
Much like plastic in our seas, debris in space has been steadily growing over recent years. While many of these objects have either transited out of Earth orbit or re-entered Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrated, nearly 23,000 trackable objects currently remain in orbit. Given the significantly reduced atmospheric drag in higher Earth orbits, many objects will stay in space for decades, and in Geosynchronous Orbits (GEO) objects could remain in space for hundreds of years or more.

As well as focusing on removing debris from orbit, we need to work on preventing the cause of further debris. This comes down to ensuring all satellite operators adhere to certain best practices. Firstly, we need to be avoiding debris-generating collisions. The only way to do that is to have effective and accurate space traffic management solutions in place. The best way of ensuring that right now is by joining and feeding data into the Space Data Association which is able to warn of close approaches. (4/15)

Russia Developing Launch Vehicles Similar to Falcon Heavy (Source: Sputnik)
The launch of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy heavy-lift vehicle is a major success for the US space industry but Russia is also developing its own launch vehicles with reusable elements, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov said. "Of course, we are working on it [projects on launch vehicles with reusable boosters]... And as for our [US] colleagues, we can only be happy for them, it is a great success," Borisov told reporters when asked about progress in the Russian project aimed at building the same kind of spacecraft.

On Thursday, SpaceX launched Falcon Heavy with a Saudi Arabsat-6A satellite on board and successfully landed the rocket's side boosters and central core back on Earth. It has become the first commercial launch and the second ever flight for Falcon Heavy, including the test launch that took place in February 2018. In its turn, Russian Rocket and Space Corporation Energia announced plans to develop a super-heavy-lift launch vehicle using existing components back in 2016. The project is called Yenisei, and its first flight is scheduled for 2028, with Moon landings starting in 2030. (4/15)

Bridgestone Joins International Space Exploration Mission with JAXA and Toyota (Source: Space Daily)
Bridgestone Corporation has announced that it will take part in an international space exploration mission together with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Toyota Motor Corporation. Recently announced by JAXA and Toyota, the goals of this mission are to expand the domain of human activity and develop intellectual property on space exploration. Bridgestone's mission assignment is to research the performance needs of tires for use on manned, pressurized rovers*1 in order to help these rovers make better contact with the surface of the moon.

Bridgestone has partnered with both organizations to research this next phase of human exploration, building on a joint research partnership with JAXA in the 2000s to examine the contact patch between rovers and the lunar surface, and serve as a technical partner for the Toyota rover project. (4/12)

UAE Mulls Buying Soyuz Spacecraft to Send Astronauts to ISS (Source: Sputnik)
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is planning to buy a Soyuz spacecraft and launch services from Russia to send two domestic astronauts to orbit on one mission. The flight will be possible in two years, Sergey Krikalev, director of manned spaceflight at Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos, said. According to Krikalev, if the UAE signs a contract with Roscosmos, an additional Soyuz spacecraft will be manufactured, as it cannot be part of the Russian manned program for delivering Russian cosmonauts to the International Space Station. (4/12)

NASA Twins Study Finds Spaceflight Affects Gut Bacteria (Source: Space Daily)
Research from NASA's landmark Twins Study found that extended spaceflight affects the human gut microbiome. During his yearlong stay on the International Space Station (ISS), astronaut Scott Kelly experienced a shift in the ratio of two major categories of bacteria in his gut microbiome. The diversity of bacteria in his microbiome, however, did not change during spaceflight, which the Northwestern University-led research team found encouraging. Gut health affects digestion, metabolism and immunity; and, more recently, changes in the microbiome have been linked to changes in bones, muscles and the brain. (4/12)

New Model Accurately Predicts Harmful Space Weather (Source: Space Daily)
A new, first-of-its-kind space weather model reliably predicts space storms of high-energy particles that are harmful to many satellites and spacecraft orbiting in the Earth's outer radiation belt. A new paper details how the model can accurately give a one-day warning prior to a space storm of ultra-high-speed electrons, often referred to as "killer" electrons because of the damage they can do to spacecraft such as navigation, communications, and weather monitoring satellites. This is the first time researchers have successfully predicted those killer electrons across the whole outer belt region. (4/10)

Deloitte Study Suggests AI, Blockchain and Augmented Reality Can Be Multipliers for Space Tech (Source: Space News)
A consulting company says emerging digital technologies and innovative operating models will expand the role of space in multiple economic sectors. The report by Deloitte, released Monday, concluded that technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchain and augmented reality can improve space technologies in various ways. One example cited in the report is the use of intelligent interfaces, like computer vision and augmented reality, to speed data delivery, minimize training costs and enhancing mission assurance. The company argues that "space is drawing from backgrounds that are increasingly diverse and cross-functional." (4/16)

Pepsico Won't Advertise With Space Venture (Source: Space News)
A major soft drink company says that, contrary to an earlier report, it won't advertise its products in space using a Russian startup. A report Saturday quoted a spokesperson for PepsiCo's Russian subsidiary who said the company was partnering with StartRocket to advertise an energy drink using satellites designed to fly in formation, displaying logos visible in the night sky to people on the ground.

A spokesperson for PepsiCo's headquarters in the U.S., though, said Monday that after a one-time experiment testing the technology with high-altitude balloons, "we have no further plans to test or commercially use this technology at this time." Space advertising designed to be visible from the ground is not a new idea, and has attracted controversy in the past as well as prohibitions against it in U.S. federal law. (4/16)

NASA's TESS Finds Earth-Sized Exoplanet (Source: NASA)
NASA's TESS spacecraft has discovered its first Earth-sized exoplanet. Astronomers said Monday that they observed a planet about 90 percent the diameter of Earth orbiting the star HD 21749, 53 light-years away. The planet orbits very close to its star and is likely too hot to be habitable. TESS, or Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, was launched a year ago to look for planets around stars as they pass in front of, or transit, those stars, dimming the starlight. (4/16)

Skylab/Shuttle Astronaut Owen Garriott Passes (Source: CollectSpace)
Former astronaut Owen Garriott died Monday at the age of 88. Garriott was selected to the NASA astronaut corps in 1965 as part of a scientist-astronaut class, and first flew to space on the second Skylab mission in 1973, spending 59 days in space, a record at the time. Garriott flew again on the STS-9 shuttle mission in 1983 and became the first person to use an amateur radio in space, communicating with an estimated 250 ham radio operators on the ground. His son Richard flew to space in 2008 as a commercial astronaut on a Soyuz mission to the International Space Station. (4/15)

Fossilized Bacteria in Meteorite From Mars is Proof of Life, Study Claims (Source: Sputnik)
Similar claims have been made before, with NASA announcing in 1996 that it had found signs of life on Mars in another space rock, known as ALH 84001, also citing the appearance of the strands and filaments. A second Martian meteorite which shows 'signs of microbial life' has been found, Hungarian researchers say in their report on the latest study, published in Open Astronomy, reigniting 'bacterial' fossils claims made 20 years ago by NASA.

The meteorite, officially known as ALH-77005, is claimed to contain 'biosignatures', which researchers describe as textures and features left behind by organisms. Experts resorted to advanced imaging techniques that they say revealed microfilaments created by fossilised Martian microbes. The Hungarian researchers also examined minerals and other material embedded in the stone, and conducted isotope tests to check for the chemical components essential for life. The studies led them to conclude that the microscopic filaments inside could point to the presence of bacteria which survive by eating iron rust. (4/16)

Space Coast Satellite Antenna Developer Launches With Cubesat Constellation (Source: HCT)
Helical Communictions Technology (HCT), a Space Coast-based developer of deployable space-based and ground station antennas, recently achieved a milestone when their custom-built Quadrifilar Helical Antennas were launched as part of Hiber’s nano-satellite constellation. The first two antennas were launched at the end of 2018 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and the Satish Dhawan Space Center in India.

Hiber, based in Amsterdam, contracted for HCT's antennas for their cubesat-based internet-of-things (IoT) network, intended to cover 90% of the world which currently lacks network access. The company expects to launch more of the satellites within the next year to meet customer demand. HCT designed and manufactured the innovative antennas at their Rockledge-based facility.

For remote regions and developing countries worldwide, Hiber subscribers purchase a low-cost modem which they can integrate with existing connected technology devices, allowing them to connect to Hiber’s IoT network. The goal is to have a constellation of dozens of satellites which will enable customers to send SMS-sized messages in real time from IoT-devices, such as sensors on fishing vessels or monitoring remote devices in places like Antarctica. (4/16)

Astronomers Have Found Potential Life-Supporting Conditions on The Nearest Exoplanet (Source: Science Alert)
In August of 2016, astronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced the discovery of an exoplanet in the neighboring system of Proxima Centauri. The news was greeted with considerable excitement, as this was the closest rocky planet to our Solar System that also orbited within its star's habitable zone.

Since then, multiple studies have been conducted to determine if this planet could actually support life. Unfortunately, most of the research so far has indicated that the likelihood of habitability are not good. Between Proxima Centauri's variability and the planet being tidally-locked with its star, life would have a hard time surviving there. (4/16)

Harvard Physicist: Wormhole Travel Is Possible, But It's Not Fast (Source: Futurism)
Now, Harvard physicist Daniel Jafferis has a dose of good news and bad news for fans of the sci-fi staple: wormholes exist, but they’re unlikely to serve as galactic shortcuts. “It takes longer to get through these wormholes than to go directly, so they are not very useful for space travel,” Jafferis said. He and his co-authors used quantum field theory tools to show that wormholes could exist and that wormhole travel is possible — but rather than being a shortcut, it’d be a longer path between two points.

Still, while Jafferis’ wormholes couldn’t help us zip around the universe, he does think his theory could be useful in another way. “The real import of this work is in relation to the black hole information problem and the connections between gravity and quantum mechanics,” Jafferis said, later adding, “I think it will teach us deep things about the gauge/gravity correspondence, quantum gravity, and even perhaps a new way to formulate quantum mechanics.” (4/15)

Tax Day 2019 Reaches Astronauts in Space, Too (Source: Space.com)
For U.S. citizens, there's no escaping Tax Day — not even if you've left planet Earth. Millions of Americans are expected to have filed their taxes for 2018 by midnight tonight today, and the three NASA astronauts currently living and working at the International Space Station are no exception — even if they are orbiting 250 miles (400 kilometers) from the nearest H&R Block.

NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Anne McClain and Christina Koch make up half of the six-person Expedition 59 crew. McClain launched to the space station in the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft in December, while Hague and Koch arrived on the Soyuz MS-12 in March. Because McClain left for space before the end of 2018, she couldn't have finished filing her taxes for the year beforehand and may have had some help from her husband down on Earth. Hague and Koch, on the other hand, had three months to do their taxes on Earth before they launched. (4/16)

This is Not the Time to Abandon NASA's Space Launch System (Source: The Hill)
It’s an audacious goal and a laudable one. And its achievement will require creative thinking and a departure from “business as usual.” But using this challenge as an excuse to abandon technologies that are already close to fruition will unreasonably increase risk, both to our astronauts and to the investment in our future in space.

NASA’s heavy lift Space Launch System (SLS) is the cornerstone of America’s strategy for returning to the moon. SLS has been unfairly derided because of its complexity and cost. It’s also behind schedule. Meanwhile, SpaceX has been capturing headlines with its second successful Falcon Heavy launch, this time putting a communications satellite into Earth orbit. Critics point to Falcon Heavy as the best option for reaching the moon now, but its payload capacity is about half that of the smallest SLS configuration. (4/16)

Why NASA Wants You to Point Your Smartphone at Trees (Source: The Verge)
NASA would like you to take a picture of a tree, please. The space agency’s ICESat-2 satellite estimates the height of trees from space, and NASA has created a new tool for citizen scientists that can help check those measurements from the ground. All it takes is a smartphone, the app, an optional tape measure, and a tree.

Launched in September 2018, the ICESat-2 satellite carries an instrument called ATLAS that shoots 60,000 pulses of light at the Earth’s surface every second it orbits the planet. “It’s basically a laser in space,” says Tom Neumann, the project scientist for ICESat-2 at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. By measuring the satellite’s position, the angle, and how long it takes for those laser beams to bounce back from the surface, scientists can measure the elevation of sea ice, land ice, the ocean, inland water, and trees. Knowing how tall trees are can help researchers estimate the health of the world’s forests and the amount of carbon dioxide they can soak up.

But Neumann says that a big open question is how good those measurements from space actually are. That’s where the citizen science comes in — to help verify them. Some are more challenging than others. “You can’t really ask a bunch of school kids in Pennsylvania to go to Antarctica to measure the ice sheet height for you for a calibration,” he says. But you can ask them to take their smartphones outside, which is exactly what NASA is doing with its GLOBE Observer app. (4/15)

Educating The Next Generation Of Commercial Space Leaders: Is That You? (Source: Forbes)
I’m excited to be teaching a course in Space Entrepreneurship for the new ISU Center for Space Entrepreneurship at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center Vistor Complex this summer. Being out at KSC with the Florida Tech and International Space University team behind the endevour got me thinking about the growing need for the sort of students that ISU produces and what an amazing impact they have had on my favorite industry.

Commercial space startups are now far and away the fastest growing sector of the aerospace industry.  Space Angels reports that over $3 billion was invested in 2018 alone and cumulative commercial space investment is now at $18 billion.  Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Deloitte and Bank of America all project a space economy in the trillions. The array of innovative technologies and creative business plans is quite literally astronomical.  But if any principle in the investment community can be called “axiomatic”, it is that investors place their bets on the people, not on technologies or business plans. Technologies-market fit is notoriously difficult to get right and business plans are just always wrong the first time.

Only a great team can overcome these unavoidable problems and save an investment from catastrophe. In popular investment categories like smartphone apps (actually a far smaller market than the space business today), our universities pour out thousands of talented engineers and business graduates. Space is harder. There are, of course, many great aerospace schools including the one at my university, and they produce well educated engineers ready to take seats in existing companies. However, finding well rounded business leaders with a broad understanding of the space domain is entirely another matter. Click here. (4/15) 

Falcon Heavy Core Booster Lost in Rough Seas After Drone Ship Landing (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
The core booster from the Falcon Heavy rocket that launched Thursday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida tipped over in rough seas after landing on an offshore drone ship, SpaceX officials said. The Falcon Heavy’s core booster touched down around 10 minutes after the Falcon Heavy blasted off from Florida’s Space Coast, and moments after the rocket’s two side boosters returned to landing onshore at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The on-target landings marked the first time SpaceX landed all three Falcon Heavy boosters on the same mission. The core stage crashed at sea near the drone ship after running out of igniter fluid on the Falcon Heavy’s inaugural flight in February 2018. But ocean swells rocking the drone ship, which SpaceX has named “Of Course I Still Love You,” caused the rocket to topple before recovery crews could secure the booster to the vessel. (4/15)

Scientists Discover Comet Fragment Inside a Meteorite From a Primordial Asteroid (Source: Newsweek)
A fragment of a cometary building block has been found inside a meteorite that broke away from an asteroid. The rare discovery provides a critical insight into the formation of the solar system over 4.5 billion years ago, and how it evolved into what we see today. When the sun first formed, it is believed to have had a cloud of gas and dust. Gravitational forces clumped much of this together to form the planets. The rest made up the moons, dwarf planets, asteroids and comets.

The difference between the latter two relates to composition—asteroids tend to be made of metal and rock while comets are made up of ice, dust and rocky material. Comets are normally found farther away from the sun, in the colder parts of the solar system. Meteorites are bits of asteroid that have broken apart from their parent body during collisions in space, which then survive the journey through the Earth’s atmosphere and smash into the planet’s surface. Because meteorites are largely unchanged since their formation, studying them allows scientists to understand what these early conditions were like when the solar system was created.

Scientists were analyzing a meteorite called LaPaz Icefield 02342, which was found in Antarctica in 2002. It is a type of primitive "carbonaceous chondrite" meteorite that formed about 3.5 million years ago, just beyond Jupiter. The team was examining the meteorite when it found a tiny section that appeared to be a comet's building block. This would mean a bit of space dust that originated from comets forming at the edges of the solar system somehow got captured and encased by an asteroid. (4/15)

Meteor Showers Dig Up Water on the Moon (Source: Science News)
Meteor showers bring moon geysers. A lunar orbiter spotted extra water around the moon when the moon passed through streams of cosmic dust that can cause meteor showers on Earth. The water was probably released from lunar soil by tiny meteorite impacts, planetary scientist Mehdi Benna of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and colleagues report April 15 in in Nature Geoscience. Those random impacts suggest water is buried all over the moon, rather than isolated in freezing dark craters — and that the moon has been wet for billions of years. (4/15)

Mars Colony: A City on Mars Could Descend Into Cabin Fever and Nationalism (Source: Inverse)
Astrosociologist Jim Pass is working on solutions for Mars colonization. His main concern, at least so far? The threat of social order breaking down and new movements forming from the remains. In his view, Mars need more input from the field of astrosociology before these missions could ever start. One of the biggest issues with these hypothetical dwellings is the heightened risk of isolation. “You can’t just throw a group of people in an isolated environment without any kind of structure,” Pass says. “Otherwise, you’re going to have chaos, a heightened amount of deviance, and dangerous behavior.”

The early inhabitants of, say, 10 people, could probably simply follow a command structure similar to NASA. But over time, a growing population would require the inhabitants to divide labor similar to villages on Earth. “In a small group, people know each other pretty well, but then as a group grows, then it becomes a situation where people start to form their own social groups and relationships, and they tend to isolate themselves into those kinds of structures.”

For this reason, Pass is worried that some concepts for future Mars settlements don’t contain enough socializing spaces. A central dome would enable greater interaction, perhaps with a park or other amenities. “In the beginning, they’re going to be highly dependent on Earth for supplies and so on,” Pass says. “So I think that’s going to be a situation where there might be some resentment over time and they still need assistance from Earth, but the more that they can become independent, that’s when things start to change.” Click here. (4/15)

Delayed Takeoff (Source: Space Review)
On Saturday, Stratolaunch’s giant aircraft, developed to serve as an air-launch system, finally took flight in California. Jeff Foust examines the long road that venture has faced to get to its first flight, and its uncertain future. Click here. (4/15)

It’s Time to Speak Out About India’s Reckless Anti-Satellite Test (Source: Space Review)
India’s anti-satellite test last month has gotten little in the way of reaction from other governments. Jessica West argues that countries need to speak up in order to preserve the space environment from other tests that could be even more destructive. Click here. (4/15)

If at First You Don’t Succeed… (Source: Space Review)
Israel hoped to become the fourth country to soft-land a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon last week, but its Beresheet lander crashed after suffering technical problems. Jeff Foust reports on the landing attempt and SpaceIL’s future plans. Click here. (4/15)

Rationale for a National “Astroelectricity” Program (Source: Space Review)
How can the United States meet growing energy demand while also reducing its greenhouse gas emissions? Mike Snead describes how “astroelectricity”, better known as space-based solar power, can achieve that as part of a long-term national program. Click here. (4/15)

Saturn's Moon Titan May Have 'Phantom Lakes' and Caves (Source: Space.com)
Picture a world where rain falls, gathers in lakes and ponds, seeps into the surrounding rock, and evaporates away, only to fall again. There's just one catch: The world is Saturn's moon, Titan, where the rain isn't water; it's liquid methane. Two new papers explore how this eerily familiar, waterless "water cycle" manifests on Titan's surface. To do so, two separate research teams turned to data from the Cassini mission, which ended its stay at the Saturn system in September 2017. The spacecraft flew past the massive moon more than 100 times, gathering crucial observations of this strange world as it did so.

Some of those observations showed scientists something truly extraordinary: their first glimpse of liquid currently on the landscape, rather than mere ghosts of such liquid features. "Titan is the only world outside the Earth where we see bodies of liquid on the surface," Rosaly Lopes, a planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who worked on the Cassini mission but wasn't involved in either of the new papers. "Some of us like to call Titan the Earth of the outer solar system." (4/15)