May 5, 2019

Rocket Lab Launches Three Research Satellites for US Air Force (Source: Space Daily)
A Rocket Lab Electron launch vehicle successfully lifted off from Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand's Mahia Peninsula at 06:00 UTC, Sunday 5 May 2019 (18:00 NZST). The STP-27RD mission launched three research and development satellites for the DoD Space Test Program that will demonstrate advanced space technologies, including a satellite to evaluate new ways of tracking space debris.

The mission is Rocket Lab's second for 2019 and took the total number of satellites deployed to orbit by the company to 28. The DoD Space Test Program, under Air Force Space Command's Space and Missile Systems Center, procured the STP-27RD mission in partnership with Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) as part of the Rapid Agile Launch Initiative. (5/5)

Japanese First Private Rocket MOMO Launched (Source: Sputnik)
Japanese space company Interstellar Technologies successfully launched the country's first private rocket dubbed MOMO-3, the NHK broadcaster reported on Saturday. The previous two launches, in July 2017 and in June 2018, failed. The rocket safely reached an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 miles), which was the aim of the launch, the broadcaster said. The length of MOMO is 10 meters (32.8 feet), diameter is 50 centimeters (19.7 inches). It can carry surveillance devices weighing up to 20 kilograms (4 pounds). However, MOMO cannot put satellites into orbit, but the company plans to create a rocket capable of launching satellites and conduct the first launch by 2023. (5/5)

SpaceX Launches 17th Supply Mission to ISS From Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
After multiple delays threatened to push SpaceX’s 17th resupply mission to the International Space Station later this month, Elon Musk’s rocket company was able to pull off a launch in the wee hours of Saturday morning. The mission took off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s launch complex 40 at 2:48 a.m. carrying about 5,500 pounds of crew supplies, hardware and experiments that ranged from a high school student project studying how microgravity affects the mechanisms of DNA repair to a set of bioengineered devices that simulate human organs.

SpaceX only had one shot to launch the rocket to line up with the ISS on Saturday. That instantaneous launch time led SpaceX to have to scrub its mission Friday morning when several issues cropped up. The rocket company planned to land its rocket booster on its drone ship, “Of Course I Still Love You,” just offshore on the Space Coast, but shortly before launch Friday teams had to stand down because of an electricity issue. The drone ship was unable to maintain power, so SpaceX opted to scrub the launch and try again on Saturday.

The ship uses generators that power its onboard thrusters and help it maintain its position for landing. The generators were powered up Friday, SpaceX said, but the company was seeing intermittent issues. And because the ship was so close to shore, instead of far out at sea, it gave SpaceX time to bring “Of Course I Still Love You” back and fix the issue before trying again. The call to scrub based on a landing issue, not a launch issue, is made on a case-by-case basis as SpaceX moves toward full reusability of its boosters, said Hans Koenigsmann, the company’s vice president of build and flight reliability at a post-launch news conference. (5/4)

NASA Honors Two Former Florida Space Reporters (Source: Florida Today)
For nearly two decades, Florida Today featured a space team anchored by the dynamic duo of Todd Halvorson and Jim Banke. Because of their work, Halvorson and Banke were among four people honored Friday morning at the Kennedy Space Center press site where their names were added to “The Chroniclers,” a list of retired journalists, broadcasters, authors and public relations representatives who have excelled at telling the story of America’s evolving space program. (5/3)

NanoRacks Announces European Company, Hires Veronica La Regina as Director (Source: Nanoracks)
NanoRacks is pleased to announce Veronica La Regina as the Director of Global Engagement (Europe) and will be directing NanoRacks Space Outpost S.r.l, an Italian company, co-located at ALTEC in Torino. She will be moving to Torino along with NanoRacks Head of European Operations, Peter Bak. NanoRacks Space Outpost S.r.l. officially opened its doors for business on April 1, 2019. NanoRacks Space Outpost S.r.l, along with NanoRacks, DreamUp, and soon to be announced companies, are all under the parent company XO Markets, the Holding Company of Space. (5/2)

Why India’s ASAT Test Was Reckless (Source: The Diplomat)
India conducted its first successful anti-satellite (ASAT) test, dubbed “Mission Shakti,” on March 27, 2019. Using a so-called PDV Mark II missile, a modified version of India’s Prithvi Defense Vehicle (PDV) anti-ballistic-missile interceptor, India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) destroyed the Microsat-r satellite orbiting at 285 kilometers in altitude. Microsat-r (COSPAR designation 2019-006A) was a 740 kilogram satellite launched by India two months earlier to serve as a target for the test.

In the aftermath of the test, accusations quickly emerged — including from NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine — that the debris generated by the test endangered other satellites. India was quick to claim it had acted “responsibly.” The Indian government pointed out that the test was performed at low altitude, below 300 km, in order to avoid creating debris at the altitudes of operational satellites in Low Earth Orbit (many of which orbit at altitudes between 400 and 1200 km). Click here. (4/30)

Rocket Lab's Second Launch of 2019 Delayed (Source: Stuff)
Rocket Lab has delayed its second rocket launch of 2019. The launch of the 18m tall Electron rocket was scheduled to happen at 6pm on Saturday from the company's Launch Complex 1 on the Mahia Peninsula. However, the company now says the launch will take place at 6pm on Sunday. It tweeted: "Standing down from today's launch to conduct additional payload checks." (5/3)

Blue Origin is a Step Closer to Taking Space Tourists After it Landed its Rocket Again (Source: MIT Technology Review)
The uncrewed flight took off from a facility in west Texas on May 2, 2019. It’s the 11th test flight and the fifth time this specific reusable rocket has flown to space and back. It flew 38 payloads, including science experiments for schools, universities, and government agencies. Blue Origin plans to eventually take tourists into space.

Specifically, it will take them 62 miles (100 kilometers) up, where they can experience a few minutes of zero gravity before returning to Earth. Blue Origin hopes to start taking humans into space by the end of 2019. It’s likely that the first to try out the service will be Blue Origin employees, but it hopes paying passengers will follow. We still don’t know how much a ticket will cost, but reports say it’s likely to be around the $200,000 mark. (5/3)

SpinLaunch to Break Ground at Spaceport America (Source: New Mexico Business Journal)
SpinLaunch, an aerospace company vying to spin satellites so fast it can launch them into orbit, is set to break ground on a new Spaceport America facility Tuesday. The California-based company signed a multi-year lease for acreage at the spaceport in January, and its facility is set to house at least 20 people, spokeswoman Diane Murphy said.

SpinLaunch will invest $7 million in construction and $1 million in infrastructure development. The deal is important for the $220 million taxpayer-subsidized Spaceport, which has struggled in the past to secure tenants. SpinLaunch was founded in 2015 and is gunning to create a kinetic energy launch system not dependent on fossil fuels. The technology would spin spacecraft at high speeds on the ground and use that energy to catapult them into the atmosphere.

The company has been tight-lipped on how exactly it will work, but Bloomberg Businessweek reported the company had a working prototype last year. If successful, SpinLaunch's technology could provide a low-cost launch service for the rapidly growing small satellite industry, which Allied Market Research estimated to be worth $7.17 billion by 2022. (5/3)

Meet the Big-Thinking Space Startups that Want to Transform the Universe with Tiny Satellites (Source: Fast Company)
Getting a satellite into space is traditionally a daunting proposition, costing tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to finance an operation that is planned and carried out over a period measured in years rather than months.

But as the miniaturization of surveillance and communications hardware continues, those numbers are starting to come down–radically. Recent advances are bringing space within reach of a much wider range of companies and other organizations, in a way that is about to change how we think about access to orbit and the kinds of innovations that are possible there.

While commercial operations are providing many of these new capabilities, the change is also being driven by the needs of the U.S. military, and a new willingness to move fast that can be found in some corners of the Pentagon. In May, Rocket Lab USA, a launch company based in Southern California and New Zealand, is scheduled to take three R&D satellites into orbit for the U.S. Air Force as part of its Rapid Agile Launch Initiative. Click here. (5/4)

Japanese Venture Firm's Successful Rocket Launch (Source: NHK)
A small rocket developed by a Japanese startup company was successfully launched on Saturday morning. Interstellar Technologies, based in Japan's northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido, developed and produced the 10-meter-long rocket with a diameter of 50 centimeters. The company said the rocket successfully rose to an altitude of 100 kilometers. It is the first private firm in Japan to launch a rocket into space. The development of rocketry in Japan has been led by JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which is a government organization. (5/3)

The Government Shutdown Killed an Artist's Space Sculpture (Source: WIRED)
Last December SpaceX set a company record when it delivered a staggering 64 small satellites to space aboard a single Falcon 9 rocket. Included in this orbital “clown car” was the Orbital Reflector, a satellite designed by artist Trevor Paglen to deploy a massive, inflatable balloon coated with a reflective paint once it was in orbit. The idea was to turn the sky into a cosmic art gallery for a few months by allowing Earthlings to ponder the light reflected by the balloon as it passed overhead.

Paglen’s space sculpture was both praised for its creativity and maligned by astronomers, who grumbled about the art project disrupting observations. The astro community’s hand wringing about the responsible use of outer space turned out to be for nothing, however. As detailed in a press release released on Wednesday by the Nevada Museum of Art, which partnered with Paglen to create the Orbital Reflector, the government shutdown killed the project.

Eighteen days after Orbital Reflector was deployed into orbit, US President Donald Trump initiated what would become the longest government shutdown in the country’s history. For just over a month, 800,000 federal employees ranging from NASA scientists to air traffic controllers were on full or partial leave. This left many federal agencies scrambling to fulfill their duties, while others, like the Federal Communications Commission, shuttered almost all of their operations. (5/3)

FAA Commercial Space Office Reorganization Focuses on Efficiency (Source: Space News)
The FAA office charged with overseeing commercial space transportation is planning a reorganization that will seek the make the office more efficient, but could mean the end of some of its work promoting the industry. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao announced the planned restructuring of the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, or AST, in an April 24 speech in Florida. Chao, though, offered few details about what that reorganization will entail. The FAA and Transportation Department’s press offices, when contacted about those plans, provided only a copy of Chao’s remarks.

Kelvin Coleman, FAA deputy associate administrator for commercial space transportation, said that restructuring is intended to improve the efficiency of the office as it deals with a growing number of license applications from industry but whose workforce that has increased more slowly. The goal is to create a “21st century licensing regime” that incorporates industry developments like reusability. That includes an emphasis on “performance-based” regulations that give companies more flexibility in how to achieve a specific safety requirement, rather than prescribing a specific approach.

Another change to AST is the creation of an Office of Spaceports. “It will seek to remove barriers to competitiveness and help ensure that the U.S. leads the world in space infrastructure,” Chao said in her speech. The FAA was directed to create the office in a reauthorization bill for the agency last year. “We want to look at resiliency, how to make the spaceports more competitive,” Coleman said. The office will be focused primarily on policy issues regarding spaceports, he said, but linked to the part of AST that handles spaceport licensing. (5/3)
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Air Force Requests Bids for Launch Services, Will Select Two Companies in 2020 (Source: Space News)
The Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center on Friday released the final request for proposals for the purpose of competitively awarding contracts in 2020 to two domestic launch service providers. Proposals are due August 1. The National Security Space Launch Phase 2 Launch Service Procurement (LSP) is the second phase of the program previously known as the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle and recently renamed National Security Space Launch. Overseen by the Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office, the NSSL program will consider both reusable and expendable launch vehicles.

Two vendors will be selected in 2020 from a field that is expected to include current national security launch providers United Launch Alliance and SpaceX, was well as new entrants Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman. The LSP covers launch service procurements starting in fiscal year 2020 through 2024 for missions that will be launch through 2027. The five-year deal will include approximately 25 missions. One of the winners will get 60 percent, the other 40 percent.

The final request for proposals (RFP) is being issued following three rounds of draft RFPs since December. In the weeks leading up to Friday’s release, the launch procurement program was caught in a political fight as congressional supporters of launch providers pushed for the Air Force to make revisions to the competition schedule and the selection criteria. (5/3)

SpaceX Carries ESA Experiment Aimed at Ageing (Source: ESA)
Wrinkles, muscle pain, high blood pressure and a clumsy brain are all natural consequences of getting old. As our cells rust over time, a key to fighting chronic disease may be in tiny, smartly designed particles that have the potential to become an anti-ageing supplement. A European experiment seeking innovative antioxidants is on its way to space. SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft lifted off today from Cape Canaveral, in the United States, destined for the International Space Station. Among its cargo are living cells and ceramic particles that will coexist for six days in an incubator.

The samples travel cozy and warm, stored at a temperature of about 30°C, to meet the stresses of life in space. Weightlessness, artificial gravity and radiation will impact the culture, and researchers on Earth are eager to know how. The Nano Antioxidants experiment looks for novel ways to stimulate cells in the battle against muscle loss, heart failure, diabetes or Parkinson’s disease. Going down to the genetic level, scientists hope to find a tailored solution that will stop the detrimental effects of long stays in Earth orbit and in deep space. (5/4)