November 12, 2019

WFIRST Passes Design Review, But Costs a Continued Concern (Source: Space News)
NASA's WFIRST space telescope passed its preliminary design review amid uncertainty about its budget. The mission completed the review at the beginning of the month, and NASA officials say that development of the infrared space telescope is on track for a launch in 2025. NASA's fiscal year 2020 budget included no funding for WFIRST, but both House and Senate versions of appropriations bills do fund the mission. One complication is that the lower amount of funding for WFIRST in the Senate bill could force NASA to replan the mission and potentially delay its launch. (11/12)

Putin Complains of Continued Corruption at Vostochny Spaceport (Source: TASS)
Russian President Vladimir Putin complained about corruption in the construction of the Vostochny Cosmodrome. Putin said Monday that even convictions have failed to stop companies from embezzling the government. "However, things have not been put in order there the way it should have been done," he said. Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, responded by saying that those who were responsible for that corruption "have long been removed from the construction site and are serving their prison terms." A government report estimates that, of the $1.4 billion allocated for spaceport construction, $169 million was stolen by companies involved in that work, with only $53.8 million recovered to date. (11/12)

Japanese Asteroid Probe Ready to Return Home, With Samples (Source: Asahi Shimbun)
Japan's Hayabusa 2 spacecraft will begin its journey back to Earth this week. Project officials said Tuesday that the spacecraft will use its electric propulsion system to depart the vicinity of the asteroid Ryugu this week, beginning a journey back to Earth that will take about a year. The spacecraft is returning samples it collected from the surface of the asteroid earlier this year. (11/12)

Brit Poll Sees Pessimism on Earth's Future (Source: Press Association)
A new poll claims more than a third of Britons expect humans will have to live in space because of deteriorating conditions on Earth. The British poll, published Monday, said that 37% concluded that humans will have to move off the planet because it will become uninhabitable. The poll also found that 29% of people would pay to go to space "if it were easily accessible to the general public" but that only 18% would use their savings to do so. The poll was commissioned by Asgardia, the quixotic Earth-based "space nation." (11/12)

We May Finally Understand the Moments Before the Big Bang (Source: Live Science)
There's a hole in the story of how our universe came to be. First, the universe inflated rapidly, like a balloon. Then, everything went boom. But how those two periods are connected has eluded physicists. Now, a new study suggests a way to link the two epochs. In the first period,  the universe grew from an almost infinitely small point to nearly an octillion (that's a 1 followed by 27 zeros) times that in size in less than a trillionth of a second.

This inflation period was followed by a more gradual, but violent, period of expansion we know as the Big Bang. During the Big Bang, an incredibly hot fireball of fundamental particles — such as protons, neutrons and electrons — expanded and cooled to form the atoms, stars and galaxies we see today. The Big Bang theory, which describes cosmic inflation, remains the most widely supported explanation of how our universe began, yet scientists are still perplexed by how these wholly different periods of expansion are connected. To solve this cosmic conundrum, a team of researchers simulated the critical transition between cosmic inflation and the Big Bang — a period they call "reheating."

When the universe expanded in a flash of a second during cosmic inflation, all the existing matter was spread out, leaving the universe a cold and empty place, devoid of the hot soup of particles needed to ignite the Big Bang. During the reheating period, the energy propelling inflation is believed to decay into particles, said Rachel Nguyen. "Once those particles are produced, they bounce around and knock into each other, transferring momentum and energy," Nguyen told Live Science. "And that's what thermalizes and reheats the universe to set the initial conditions for the Big Bang." (11/11)

Combining Satellites, Radar Provides Path for Better Forecasts (Source: Space Daily)
Every minute counts when it comes to predicting severe weather. Combing data from cutting-edge geostationary satellites and traditional weather radar created a path toward earlier, more accurate warnings, according to researchers who studied supercell thuderstorms in the Midwest. "We know satellites have an advantage in producing forecasts earlier, and radar has more confidence in where clouds should be and where thunderstorms will be moving. The question was whether these two types of observations would complement each other if combined together. We found, for at least one severe weather event, assimilating satellite and radar simultaneously leads to the best forecasts." (11/12)

Sizing NASA’s Future Spacesuits (Source: Aviation Week)
Advanced digital modeling of the human form that incorporates 3D and motion body scans holds great promise for the design and development of new generations of spacesuits, according to Bonnie Dunbar, a retired five-time NASA space shuttle astronaut Dunbar leads an effort she describes as “a bit science fiction” to improve the fit and mobility of the garments at the Texas A&M University Aerospace Human Systems Laboratory (AHSL). (11/11)

SpaceX Faces Competitors in Race to Build Internet-Satellite Constellation (Source: Space Daily)
SpaceX's new batch of satellites brings the Starlink constellation population to 120. As part of its satellite Internet operation, SpaceX plans to launch some 12,000 satellites over the next half-decade. SpaceX isn't the only company trying to build a satellite constellation capable of providing global Internet coverage. Last winter, OneWeb launched six small satellites. Tests confirmed the mini constellation produces a serviceable signal, and the company expects to launch another 60 satellites in early 2020.

OneWeb, which is targeting an initial constellation population of 650, and later 2,000, expects to begin offering service in the Arctic by the end of 2020 and global coverage in 2021. There's more competition on the way. Richard Branson's Virgin Group, Boeing, Amazon and LeoSat Enterprises, a Washington, D.C., company are all in the early stages of pursuing satellite Internet constellations. As the newest space race heats up, some veterans of the communications industry may be experiencing deja vu.

"There were around a dozen constellations that were launched in the 1990s. Some of these are still around, but most went bankrupt or folded." Most of the early ventures failed because ground-based systems grew quickly and efficiently, meeting the needs of most consumers in the United States and other developed economies. Over the last twenty years, tremendous gains have been made both in satellite and communications technologies. The innovations of terrestrial communications systems, specifically cellular communications technologies, have yielded smaller, cheaper and more efficient components -- antennas, dishes, transmitters -- which have been rather easily adapted for use in space. (11/11)

Near-Earth Space Governance is All About the Money (Source: Space Review)
The growth of commercial space activities is placing new pressures on existing governance regimes in space on topics ranging from space traffic management to export control. Adam Routh argues that the solution is not new treaties but rather a growing network of bilateral agreements that address those concerns. Click here. (11/11)
 
Commercial Cargo’s Next Phase (Source: Space Review)
The launch of a Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station earlier this month marked the start of a new round of NASA contracts to support the ISS. Jeff Foust reports on the changes existing companies are making to their cargo vehicles as well as one new entrant. Click here. (11/11)
 
China’s Earth-Moon Space Economic Zone Venture (Source: Space Review)
Chinese officials recently discussed a long-term vision of an economic zone spanning from the Earth to the Moon and Mars that they believe could be worth $10 trillion by 2050. Ajey Lele examines if that concept seems credible for the Chinese to achieve. Click here. (11/11)

Lunar Cubesat Mission Could Locate Ice to Sustain Human Presence (Source: Space Daily)
As we venture forward to the Moon and establish a sustained lunar presence, finding and understanding water on the lunar surface becomes increasingly important. Lunar water is largely in the form of, but not necessarily limited to, water ice. Astronauts on the Moon could use this ice for various crew needs, potentially including rocket fuel.

The Lunar IceCube mission, led by Morehead State University in Morehead, Kentucky, will study water distribution and interaction on the Moon. The mission will carry a NASA instrument called Broadband InfraRed Compact High-Resolution Exploration Spectrometer (BIRCHES) to investigate the distribution of water and other organic volatiles. NASA scientists will use this data to understand where the water is on the Moon, its origins and how we can use it. (11/11)

Advanced Electric Propulsion Tthruster for NASA's Gateway Achieves Full Power Demonstration (Source: Space Daily)
Aerojet Rocketdyne and NASA recently demonstrated an Advanced Electric Propulsion System (AEPS) thruster at full power for the first time, achieving an important program milestone. Aerojet Rocketdyne-developed AEPS thrusters are slated to be used on the Power and Propulsion Element of NASA's Gateway, the agency's orbiting lunar outpost for robotic and human exploration operations in deep space.

The state-of-the-art AEPS Hall thruster operated at 12.5 kilowatts (kW) as part of its final conditioning sequence during testing at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The thruster demonstrated stable operation at power levels ranging from 4.2 kW to 12.5 kW. Full electric propulsion thruster string integration will take place early next year. (11/11)

The Growing Problem of Space Debris (Source: Interesting Engineering)
In 1958, the Space Age officially began with the launch of humanity's first artificial satellite - known as Sputnik 1. Constructed and orbited by the Soviet Union, this satellite was a simple technology demonstrator designed to emit radio pulses. However, the impact its deployment had was much more far-reaching than that. Not only was this a pivotal moment in the history of human spaceflight, and a big scare for the West, it was also the first of thousands of satellites to be launched from Earth.

Today, roughly sixty years later, some 8,950 satellites have been launched by more than 40 nations into orbit. Based on the most recent estimates, about 5,000 of these satellites remain in orbit, though most have reached the end of their lifespan. Only around 1,950 of these satellites remain operational while the rest have become space debris. These now-defunct satellites are joined by thousands of bits of debris, which are collectively referred to as "space junk".

Given the situation, there are those who have advocated for a "No New Launches" policy. However, a 2005 study conducted by the NASA Orbital Debris Program Office (ODPO) found that even if no future launches occurred, collisions between existing objects would still increase the debris population at a rate faster than atmospheric drag would remove objects. This scenario highlights the need for an active debris removal (ADR) program. This would need to consist of mitigation strategies being adopted at the earliest phases of mission planning, and remediation strategies that call for the deorbiting of debris. (11/2)