November 6, 2019

SpaceX Connects Brownsville to a New World of Space Enthusiasts (Source: Houston Chronicle)
SpaceX moved into the Brownsville area with a promise to create jobs and spur the local economy. Those benefits have come slowly, but billionaire Elon Musk’s commercial space company has provided other rewards by connecting local residents to a global community beyond their South Texas hometown — a community united around a vision for the space-faring future.

It’s a message Musk emphasized during a recent event in Boca Chica, where he unveiled the Starship Mk1 prototype that will be launched about 12 miles into the sky in the near future. Later iterations of the spaceship would be launched into orbit and ultimately paired with the Super Heavy Rocket to help make humans a multi-planetary species. “There are many troubles in the world,” Musk said. “And these are important and we need to solve them, but we also need things that make us excited to be alive. That make us glad to wake up in the morning and be fired up about the future.”

The excitement has even affected Maria Pointer, who is fighting SpaceX over the impact its plans have had on her property and the amount the company has offered to buy her home of 16 years. Pointer admitted that she can’t help but marvel at the activities next door, where both the Starship Mk1 and its predecessor the Starhopper were assembled. She’s dubbed the facility the Boca Chica Rocket Shipyard. (11/5)

China’s Bold Sspace Program Flourishing (Source: Asia Times)
On October 1, 2019 China celebrated the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. President Xi Jinping took the opportunity to proclaim that “no force will stop or shake China or its people from achieving its goals” of becoming the primary global power. Outer space is an integral part of Xi’s China dream of broadcasting Chinese power and influence, and a critical component of his Civil-Military Integration Strategy. Consequently, by October 1, 2049, when China celebrates its 100th year of existence, outer space presence and military space capacity will play a key role.

First, build space capacity for cost effective launch and access. Second, launch its own permanent space station. Third, create capacity to dominate cislunar space. Fourth, once cislunar is secured, develop the capacity for sustainable presence on the moon, to include in-space manufacturing as well as mature space-based solar power technology to power its lunar base and sustain human presence. Finally, once that is accomplished, develop capacity for deep space exploration and resource extraction from asteroids. (11/5)

China to Meet Challenges of Exploring Asteroid, Comet (Source: Xinhua)
Chinese space engineers are tackling the key technologies needed to explore a near-Earth asteroid and a main-belt comet with one space probe. The proposed mission is to send a probe around an asteroid named 2016HO3 and then land on it to collect samples, Huang Jiangchuan, a researcher from the China Academy of Space Technology, recently told the first China Space Science Assembly in Xiamen, east China's Fujian Province.

The probe will then fly back to the proximity of Earth, and release a capsule to return the samples. After that, the probe will continue its journey. With the assistance of the gravity of Earth and Mars, it will finally arrive at the main asteroid belt and orbit comet 133P, Huang said. Asteroid 2016HO3 has a very close relationship with Earth and is known as a "mini moon" or a quasi satellite. It has a diameter of about 40 to 100 meters and a density of about 2.7 grams per cubic centimeter, said Huang. (11/6)

Do We Need a Special Language to Talk to Aliens? (Source: WIRED)
This custom symbolic system begins by introducing ET to numerals, and then progresses to more complex topics like human biology and the planets in our solar system. An earlier version of the language was first sent into space in 1999 and again in 2003 as part of the Cosmic Call messages—a crowd-sourced interstellar messaging project that marked the first serious attempt at interstellar communication since Carl Sagan and Frank Drake sent the Arecibo message into space 25 years earlier.

All of these formal messaging attempts have taken basically the same approach: Teach numerals and basic arithmetic first. But as some recent insights in neurolinguistics suggest, it might not be the best way to greet our alien neighbors. The world’s first interstellar communication system, the lingua cosmica, or Lincos, set the tone for all subsequent attempts by placing basic math at its core. Designed by the Dutch mathematician Hans Freudenthal in 1960, Lincos inspired several other mathematicians and scientists to try their hand at designing extraterrestrial languages. Each system is ultimately an attempt at solving a remarkably complex problem: How do you communicate with an intelligent entity you know nothing about?

The question gets at the nature of intelligence itself. Humans are the only species on Earth endowed with advanced mathematical ability and a fully fledged faculty of language, but are these hallmarks of intelligence or human idiosyncrasies? Is there an aspect of intelligence that is truly universal? Scientists and mathematicians have grappled with these questions for centuries. As the Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner once observed, mathematics is “unreasonably effective” at describing the natural universe, which has led a significant contingent of mathematicians to conclude that math is baked into the fabric of reality. (11/5)

Discovering Extraterrestrial Life Would Be Slow and Uncertain (Source: Space.com)
Scientists have spent long enough looking for proof of alien life that the little buggers, if they do exist, probably aren't going to be easy to identify. Instead, experts thinking about how to spot life beyond Earth are realizing that they may put humanity in an uncomfortable place of uncertainty. Initial data may raise eyebrows and prompt speculation of alien life, but it likely won't be definitive enough to settle the matter on its own.

"It's probably something that's going to be a slow discovery, not like the little green humanoids arriving here on Earth scaring everybody," Sara Seager, an astronomer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who focuses on detecting exoplanets, said during a panel held last month at the International Astronautical Congress in Washington. "It's probably going to take a long time." Seager added that she thinks that a slow discovery could make it easier for people to process it, and its significance. (11/5)

Boeing Offers SLS-Launched Lunar Lander to NASA (Source: Space News)
Boeing announced Nov. 5 that it has submitted a proposal to NASA to develop a lunar lander that could be launched in a single piece on a Space Launch System rocket. The company said its “Fewest Steps to the Moon” proposal, submitted for NASA’s Human Landing Services program, minimized the number of launches and other “mission critical events” needed to get astronauts to the surface of the moon.

“Using the lift capability of NASA’s Space Launch System Block 1B, we have developed a ‘Fewest Steps to the Moon’ approach that minimizes mission complexity, while offering the safest and most direct path to the lunar surface,” Jim Chilton, senior vice president for space and launch at Boeing Defense, Space and Security, said in a company statement. (11/5)

New Study Says that Dark Energy Could be Growing in Strength (Source: Astronomy)
Dark energy, the mysterious and hypothetical force that scientists think is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate, may actually be growing over time, according to one new study. About 20 years ago, scientists discovered dark energy by measuring the light coming from exploding stars, known as supernovas. Dark energy is thought to permeate all of space and, by continuing to study the light coming from supernovas, scientists have observed the effects of dark energy at great distances in the cosmos. Up until now, researchers have been able to track dark energy’s effects up to about 9 billion years ago. (11/5)

Why Are Parachutes Such a Problem for Space Travel? (Source: Quartz)
The United States is developing more spacecraft to carry people into space than any time in history. You might think the whole rocket full of explosive propellant is the biggest engineering challenge, but right now, it’s the soft landing that’s tricky—because designing parachutes, it turns out, isn’t so easy. The issue, as you might imagine, is physics.

When a parachute is deployed to generate resistance in the atmosphere and slow a falling body, the flow of gas against and around its structure is complex and turbulent, especially at supersonic speeds. The study of that kind of turbulence is one of the most difficult phenomena for physicists to characterize and predict. There is even a $1 million prize available for solving one of its defining equations.

It was certainly a challenge for the Apollo program. “A major difficulty in design and development was the lack of adequate analytical methods for properly predicting dynamic behavior, loads and stresses,” a 1968 NASA paper on the Apollo parachutes concluded. “Development of these prediction methods must precede any major improvements…of future spacecraft systems.” (11/5)

SpaceX Readies for Starlink Launch at Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: Space News)
SpaceX tested a Falcon 9 Tuesday that will launch the next batch of Starlink satellites next week. The static-fire test of the Falcon 9's first stage engines confirmed that the rocket is ready for a launch next Monday from Cape Canaveral carrying the second set of satellites for the company's broadband satellite constellation. The launch will be the fourth flight of that particular Falcon 9 first stage, and will reuse a payload fairing recovered from a Falcon Heavy launch in April. The launch will be the first for SpaceX in more than three months. [Spaceflight Now]

Musk Surprises at USAF Space Pitch Day (Source: Space News)
Elon Musk used a surprise appearance at an Air Force event Tuesday to emphasize the importance of reusable rockets. Musk, appearing at the Air Force Space Pitch Day in San Francisco, said a fully reusable rocket, like the Starship/Super Heavy system SpaceX is developing, is the "holy grail" of the space industry. Once that vehicle is operational, Musk estimated it would cost the company about $2 million for a single launch that could place 100 to 150 tons into low Earth orbit. (11/6)

Air Force Awards Millions During Space Pitch Day (Source: Space News)
Companies received $9 million yesterday at that Space Pitch Day event. Twelve companies each received $750,000 on the spot during the event organized by the Air Force and Starburst Aerospace, an aerospace startup accelerator. Each team competing for the $750,000 Small Business Innovation Research phase two awards also explained how it would carry its concepts further with an additional $1.5 million or $3 million in Air Force funding. (11/6)

Air Force Considers Using Commercial Broadband Constellations (Source: Space News)
The Air Force is enthusiastic about the potential use of commercial satellite broadband constellations. A program known as Defense Experimentation Using the Commercial Space Internet, or DEUCSI, recently tried out SpaceX's Starlink satellite broadband services and demonstrated download speeds of 610 megabits per second into an aircraft cockpit. An Air Force official said Tuesday that Starlink and similar systems could offer much higher throughput than existing systems for its aircraft. In addition to SpaceX, the Air Force is working with Iridium, O3b, OneWeb and Telesat. (11/6)

UK Spaceport Gets $9.5 Million for Infrastructure (Source: Space News)
The U.K. Space Agency will provide £7.35 million ($9.5 million) to fund improvements at a British airport that seeks to host Virgin Orbit launches. The funding is part of a package of nearly £20 million for infrastructure and other services at Cornwall Airport Newquay, also known as Spaceport Cornwall, for supporting flights of Virgin Orbit's air-launched system. Virgin Orbit said that, pending the status of those upgrades to the airport and regulatory approvals in both the United States and Britain, it could perform its first launches from Cornwall as soon as late 2021. (11/6)

Galileo Outage "Unacceptable" (Source: GPS World)
A European Commission official said the outage of the Galileo navigation satellite system earlier this year was "unacceptable." Pierre Delsaux, deputy director-general of the European Commission, said the week-long outage of the system can't be allowed to happen again. An investigation concluded that human error, compounded by a backup system being out of service, brought down Galileo's position, navigation and timing system. He rejected criticism, though, that the EC was not transparent about the outage, saying a "reasonable amount" of information was provided at the time. (11/6)

Analyst: Virgin Galactic Stock Undervalued (Source: CNBC)
A stock analyst argues that Virgin Galactic's share are undervalued. Vertical Research Partners, the first firm to start covering the stock since it began public trading last week, issued a "buy" rating on the stock, concluding that the company's SpaceShipTwo suborbital system was not as risky as the market apparently believes. Vertical stated that SpaceShipTwo should be as least as safe as the X-15, which had one fatal accident in 199 flights more than a half-century ago. (The program also had a second accident that damaged a vehicle and injured its pilot.) Shares in Virgin Galactic, which had tumbled 20% since last Monday, rose 3.5% in trading Tuesday. (11/6)

New Zealand Hosts Methane Monitor Satellite Program (Source: Reuters)
New Zealand will be the home for a methane-monitoring satellite program. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) will partner with the New Zealand Space Agency to locate the control center for the MethaneSAT mission in New Zealand. The satellite, being developed by the EDF for launch in 2022, will track emissions of methane from oil and gas facilities to monitor the release of that greenhouse gas. The New Zealand Space Agency will spend $16.6 million on that mission control center and study how data from MethaneSAT could also be used to track agricultural sources of methane emissions. (11/6)

Iridium Refinances Debt for Second-Gen Satellites (Source: Iridium)
Iridium completed a $1.45 billion refinancing to pay off loans it acquired to purchase its second-generation constellation, which is now in orbit. Iridium borrowed $1.45 billion Nov. 4, which it used, along with cash, to pay back $1.55 billion in export credit loans through Bpifrance Assurance Export. The new loan is due in 2026, and includes a $100 million five-year revolving credit line. "This transaction simplifies Iridium's capital structure and adds financial flexibility to benefit our shareholders," Tom Fitzpatrick, Iridium’s chief financial officer, said. Iridium said the refinancing gives it room to consider “shareholder-friendly activities,” such as share buybacks, dividends and strategic investments, as the company seeks to reduce its overall debt. (11/6)