August 20, 2019

NASA Awards Contract for Exploration Ground Systems Program Services at Florida Spaceport (Source: NASA)
NASA has selected ARES Technical Services Corporation in Burlingame, California, to provide support services to the Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) Program at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The cost-plus fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract begins Oct. 1 with a one-year base period, followed by a two-year option and four one-year options that, if exercised, will extend to Sept. 30, 2026. The total contract value including options is approximately $115.3 million.

Under the contract, ARES will provide engineering and technical services, program and business management support services and administrative support services to the EGS Program. The contract also includes support for ground systems and spaceflight systems planning and design; project management and integration; operations integration and analysis; technical requirements development, management, and compliance; cost, risk, information and configuration management; and schedule integration and analysis. (8/13)

Space Telescope Offers Rare Glimpse of Earth-sized Rocky Exoplanet (Source: Reuters)
Direct observations from a NASA space telescope have for the first time revealed the atmospheric void of a rocky, Earth-sized world beyond our own solar system orbiting the most common type of star in the galaxy. The research also shows the distant planet's surface is likely to resemble the barren exterior of the Earth's moon or Mercury, possibly covered in dark volcanic rock. The planet lies about 48.6 light years from Earth and is one of more than 4,000 so-called exoplanets identified over the past two decades circling distant stars in our home galaxy, the Milky Way. (8/19)

Atlas, Delta Rocket Factory Begins Transition to Vulcan Centaur (Source: Space News)
A booster prototype representative of the first stage of the Vulcan Centaur rocket will roll out of a United Launch Alliance sprawling factory in early September and make the short trip across the parking lot to a test facility run by ULA’s subcontractor Dynetics. The structural test booster will be attached to electronic actuators that will simulate loads in excess of those expected in flight. The results of the tests — expected to continue into next year — will be used to validate the integrity of the design and will mark a key step as ULA prepares to build the booster that will power Vulcan in its first flight projected for 2021.

Vulcan is a new class of space launch vehicles ULA is building at the factory that Boeing opened in 1998 to make Delta rockets. After ULA was formed in 2006 as a joint Boeing-Lockheed Martin venture, the Atlas line moved to Decatur. Over the next several years, the production of both legacy vehicles will be scaled back and more resources will be shifted to Vulcan. (8/19)

India Enters Lunar Orbit (Source: AP)
India's Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft entered orbit around the moon overnight. The spacecraft fired its main engine for half an hour, completing the burn just after midnight Eastern time and placing the spacecraft into an elliptical orbit of 114 by 18,072 kilometers around the moon. The successful orbital insertion will be followed by maneuvers in the coming days to enter a circular orbit about 100 kilometers above the moon, ahead of a landing attempt Sept. 6. Chandrayaan-2 is India's second lunar orbiter, but will be the country's first attempt to land on the moon. (8/20)

Chinese Satellite Suffers Unspecified Problem (Source: Xinhua)
A Chinese communications satellite launched Monday is suffering "abnormalities," according to state media. A Long March 3B rocket launched the Chinasat-18 satellite at 8:02 a.m. Eastern Monday. The launch appeared to go as planned, placing the spacecraft into a geostationary transfer orbit, but a lack of updates from Chinese officials led to speculation something had gone wrong. State media reported Tuesday that the satellite "is now working abnormally," but didn't elaborate on the problem or the chances of correcting it. (8/20)

Commercial Crew Test Flights Still Planned This Year (Source: Space News)
Both Boeing and SpaceX say they're planning for commercial crew test flights this fall. During a conference panel Monday, Boeing said it's expecting to fly an uncrewed test flight of its CST-100 Starliner in October, with a pad abort test to follow shortly thereafter. SpaceX says an in-flight abort test, delayed from this summer after a Crew Dragon spacecraft was lost in a test mishap, is now expected for October or November, followed by a crewed flight test "hopefully this year." (8/20)

NASA's Space Launch System Could Fly in Early 2021 (Source: Space News)
Companies working on NASA's Space Launch System now expect the vehicle to make its first flight in early 2021. At a conference Monday, executives with contractors working on the rocket said the SLS core stage being completed right now will likely undergo a "Green Run" static-fire test in the second or third quarter of 2020, arriving at the Kennedy Space Center late next year for launch preparations. That would push out the Artemis 1 launch to "most likely early in 2021," said one. NASA hasn't formally updated the schedule for the mission since replacing two top officials in its exploration program last month. (8/20)

FAA Space Office Plans Reorganization (Source: Space News)
The FAA's commercial space office says it will seek to reorganize to deal with the growing demand for licenses before trying to expand the office. Wayne Monteith, FAA associate administrator for commercial space transportation, said that the office does want to hire more people, but must complete the reorganization before charting any significant expansion. The office hopes to complete that reorganization by the end of the year. The office is also reviewing comments on proposed revisions for the launch licensing process, the deadline for which closed Monday. (8/20)

China Rocket Maker Promises Rapid Response Capability (Source: Space News)
The company that launched a small Chinese rocket over the weekend is promising rapid production and launch. China Rocket, a commercial arm of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, said its Jielong-1 solid-fuel rocket can be built in six months and readied at the launch site in 24 hours. The company is also working on a Tenglong series of larger liquid-fuel rockets that may also incorporate reusability. (8/20)

Microgravity Changes Brain Connectivity (Source: Space Daily)
An international team of Russian and Belgian researchers, including scientists from HSE University, has found out that space travel has a significant impact on the brain: they discovered that cosmonauts demonstrate changes in brain connectivity related to perception and movement. Some areas, such as regions in the insular and parietal cortices, work more synchronously with other brain areas after the space flight. On the other hand, connectivity of some other regions, such as the cerebellum and vestibular nuclei, decreases. The results of the study were published in Frontiers in Physiology.

The researchers performed brain fMRIs on the cosmonauts before and after space missions lasting on average six months and then compared their data to those of healthy volunteers who had stayed on Earth. The researchers were looking for changes in connectivity between brain areas underlying sensorimotor functions such as movement and perception of body position. These brain areas were activated using gait-imitating plantar stimulation. Researchers discovered changes in the cosmonauts' brain connections. To compensate for the lack of information from the organs of balance, which cannot provide reliable information in micrograviry, the brain develops an auxiliary system of somatosensory control, with increased reliance on visual and tactile feedback instead of vestibular input. (8/20)

Data Rate Increase on the International Space Station Supports Future Exploration (Source: Space Daily)
NASA recently doubled the rate at which data from the ISS returns to Earth, paving the way for similar future upgrades on Gateway, NASA's upcoming outpost in lunar orbit, and other exploration missions. This new data rate will enable the space station to send back more science data faster than ever before. NASA's missions, both near and far, rely on quick and effective communications to relay critical mission data to control centers and scientists here on Earth.

The station now supports a 600 megabit-per-second (Mbps) connection, doubling the amount of data that the station can transmit and receive at a time. The space station communicates with Earth through radio frequency signals using a system of Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS) and ground-based antennas called the Space Network. The TDRS are placed in a high orbit above the Earth, over various strategic locations so that they can relay data to the ground from anywhere in orbit.

"This project demonstrated that advanced radio frequency waveforms can be used efficiently to increase data rates and improve performance for high-rate communication services," said Risha George, the upgrade project lead for the Space Network. The circuits and bandwidth of the terrestrial data lines between the various Earth-based components were also upgraded. The team then performed extensive testing to ensure the upgrades worked correctly. All of this was done while still providing real-time support to the more than 40 missions the network regularly supports. (8/20)

Japan Steps In to Supply Key Component to Russia's Space Program (Source: Sputnik)
A UK firm refused to export carbon fiber to Russia for use in the construction of its only space radio telescope, Spektr-M (Millimetron), after the company was bought out by a US citizen, Deputy Director of the Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences Larisa Likhacheva said. "We have worked with the UK firm since 2012 and it used to sell [the Russian Academy of Sciences] carbon fiber for panels on the Spektr-M observatory's antenna. However, the company was bought out by Americans, who have been writing us 'warm' letters over the past year", Likhacheva said, implying that the new US owners were not open to export its materials to Russia. (8/20)

A Look Back at Delta IV Medium’s Spectacular 17 Year Career (Source: America Space)
As United Launch Alliance (ULA) counts down to the planned 9 a.m. EDT Thursday launch of its final Delta IV Medium booster, this week offers an opportune moment to reflect on the career of a vehicle which has delivered a smorgasbord of military, civilian and scientific payloads into Earth orbit and beyond over the course of a spectacular 17-year career.

And although the Medium’s big brother—the Delta IV Heavy—will remain operational, in the words of ULA, “as long as it is required by our customers”, the swansong of this familiar orange-and-white rocket brings the curtain down on an impressive 100-percent mission success rate. In spite of an upper-stage anomaly experienced back in October 2012, the Delta IV has never failed to deliver its primary payload to the correct orbit. Click here. (8/20)

SpaceX, NASA Practice Astronaut Recovery Ahead of Crew Dragon’s Crewed Launch Debut (Source: Teslarati)
SpaceX and NASA teams continue to prepare for Crew Dragon’s inaugural crewed launch (Demo-2) to the International Space Station (ISS) slated to possibly – but not likely – occur by year’s end. On Tuesday, an official NASA Twitter account published images of teams from SpaceX and the space agency performing a full rehearsal of crew recovery and extraction procedures, including the duo of NASA astronauts scheduled to fly first on SpaceX’s next-generation spacecraft. (8/18)

SpaceX Starman Roadster Completes its First Orbit Around the Sun (Source: Engadget)
Starman and his Tesla Roadster are now regular denizens of space. According to data from Where is Roadster, the cosmic driver has completed his first orbit around the Sun, taking 557 days since the first Falcon Heavy launch to circle our home star. Its path has taken it over 762 million miles since then, or enough to exceed its original 36,000-mile warranty over 21,000 times.

You aren't about to see Starman drifting through the night sky, unfortunately. Earth is currently on the opposite side of the Sun, and the EV won't get vaguely close to Earth again until November 5th, 2020, when it'll be about 0.346AU (just under 32.2 million miles) away. It'll get much closer to Mars before then at 'just' 0.05AU (about 4.6 million miles) on October 7th of that year. After that, it could get quite lonely for Starman -- estimates suggest he might not get particularly close to home until 2047. (8/19)