August 10, 2019

Virgin Orbit Plans Quick-Response Missions (Source: Space News)
As Virgin Orbit prepares for its first LauncherOne mission, the company has a long-term vision of responsive launch. At a conference this week, a company official outlined a "responsive launch enterprise" that makes use of the company’s air-launch system to quickly deploy small satellites. Such a system could launch an entire constellation within several hours, using multiple aircraft flying from multiple spaceports. The company emphasized this is a long-term vision, and didn't say how long it would take to implement it and for how much money. (8/8)

What Happened to the Promise of Hosted Payloads? (Source: Space News)
Hosted payloads, once considered a key way for the Air Force to fly experimental payloads, have largely gone away. The Hosted Payload Solutions (HoPS) contract vehicle, announced in 2014, has expired with no plans by the Air Force to renew it. Several factors played a role in the demise of hosted payloads, from the departure of champions of the program within the Defense Department to technical, contracting and cybersecurity challenges related to installing payloads on commercial satellites. (8/8)

Russia Unveils Ambitious Project for Laser Recharging of Satellites in Orbit (Source: Sputnik)
Russian Military Space Academy experts claim the introduction of refuelling satellites holds out the prospect of significantly extending a spacecraft's life, as well as impressive cost-savings. Russia is developing a "space gas station" - a group of robots that will use lasers to recharge satellites in near-Earth orbit, Izvestia learned from experts at the Alexander Mozhaysky Military Space Academy in St. Petersburg. The prototype for the planned spacecraft is a spherical object, with solar panels and photovoltaic modules. (8/8)

InVADER Project to Test Technology for Exploring Ocean Worlds (Source: Space Daily)
Pablo Sobron, a SETI Institute physicist, and Laurie Barge, a NASA JPL research scientist, are the recipients of a NASA Planetary Science and Technology from Analog Research (PSTAR) grant to study underwater hydrothermal systems at Axial Seamount, the largest and most active volcano on the western boundary of the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate.

Their project, known as InVADER (In-situ Vent Analysis Divebot for Exobiology Research), will transform the technological and operational arsenal available for future ocean world exploration. The InVADER team, which consists of scientists and engineers from other institutions in the United States and Great Britain, will broaden the scientific knowledge and techniques available to ocean sciences today. (8/9)

Something Big Just Slammed Into Jupiter (Source: Gizmodo)
An amateur astronomer in Texas captured a rare sight earlier this week when an apparent meteor slammed into Jupiter’s thick upper atmosphere. On Wednesday, amateur astronomer Ethan Chappel was on the lookout for Perseid meteors, reports ScienceAlert. But his telescope was trained on Jupiter with the camera running. Later, after feeding the data into a software program designed to detect impact flashes, Chappel was alerted to the event.

Looking at the footage, Chappel saw a brief but discernible flash along the western portion of Jupiter’s Southern Equatorial Belt, or SEB. The flash appeared at at 4:07 a.m. UTC (12:07 a.m. ET) and lasted no longer than a second and a half. Looking at the flash, the size of the explosion seems small, but it’s important to remember that Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. The meteor had to have been quite big to produce a flash of such prominence. (8/9)

NASA Selects 15 Space Biology Proposals Support Moon, Mars Exploration (Source: NASA)
NASA has awarded 15 grants for new space biology research designed to help the agency achieve its goals under the Artemis lunar exploration program. Teams of investigators will use state-of-the-art genetic and other biological techniques to explore how life adapts and changes during spaceflight, and the results could help support human exploration of the Moon, and ultimately, Mars.

Selected microbiology investigations will study whether changes in bacteria, fungi, and viruses are likely to affect how they interact with crew and material surroundings aboard the International Space Station, with an emphasis on likelihood to cause infections and microbial evolution. Editor's Note: Three of the funded projects are in Florida. One at UF, one at FSU, and one at KSC. Click here. (8/9)

Shakeup at Vector Hints at Financial Trouble (Source: Ars Technica)
Vector, a micro-launch company founded in 2016 to build small rockets for payloads of up to 60kg, may be in financial trouble, multiple industry sources told Ars on Friday. A spokeswoman for Vector did not comment on that. However, she did confirm the company has parted ways with its chief executive: "Jim Cantrell is no longer with Vector effective today. John Garvey has assumed the role of CEO."

The company has been working on developing its Vector-R vehicle and trying to prepare it for a suborbital flight this summer. In an interview in April, Cantrell told Ars that he hoped to fly an upgraded version, Vector-R B1003, on an orbital flight from the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Alaska before the end of this year. The financial difficulties have reportedly arisen just after Vector received some good news in the form of a launch contract from the US Air Force.

The current setback comes as other companies are also racing to develop smallsat launchers—although few were quite as small as the Vector-R, which was powered by three LP-1 engines that produced a thrust of about 20,000 pounds and appeared to have a viable niche. It is widely expected that the dozens of competitors seeking to develop smaller rockets will see a funding crunch as some make it to the launch pad, and others do not. Of these new space companies, only one, Rocket Lab, has successfully begun commercial operations. (8/9)

Viasat Starts ViaSat-4 Development, Mulls Hybrid GEO-LEO-Terrestrial Connections (Source: Space News)
Fleet operator Viasat, already in the middle of building a trio of high-capacity broadband satellites, has started work on a next-generation constellation, CEO Mark Dankberg said. A ViaSat-4 series is in early development, extensively leveraging research and development on the 1-terabit-per-second or more ViaSat-3 satellites, Dankberg said during an earnings call.

Viasat plans to launch its first ViaSat-3 satellite over the Americas in early 2021, Dankberg said, with the second launching about six months later to cover Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The third should launch over the Asia-Pacific before the end of 2022, he said. (8/9)

Hawaii Telescope Protest Continues (Source: Nature)
There's no sign of progress in ending a protest that has closed off access to observatories on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Hundreds of protesters continue to block the road leading to the mountain's summit to prevent construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) from starting. They fear the observatory will disturb what native Hawaiians consider a sacred location. A wide majority of Hawaiians, including native Hawaiians, do support building TMT. The protests have closed the other observatories on the mountain since mid-July. (8/8)