November 7, 2019

Senators Seek ISS Life Extension (Source: Space News)
A bipartisan group of senators introduced a NASA authorization bill Wednesday that would extend the life of the International Space Station. The bill, whose lead sponsor is Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), would authorize ISS operations to be extended from 2024 to 2030, while directing NASA to assist increased commercial activities in low Earth orbit. The bill also supports the ISS by extending a waiver to sanctions under the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act so that the agency can continue to work with Russia through 2030.

The bill directs NASA to have the Block 1B version of the Space Launch System ready by the third flight of the rocket, a faster timetable than NASA currently plans. The bill authorizes several programs and missions, from NASA's education office to the WFIRST astronomy mission, than NASA has sought to cancel. The Senate Commerce Committee will mark up the bill next Wednesday. (11/7)

OMB: Spending Bill Falls Short of Funding Artemis Goals (Source: Space News)
The White House warned Senate appropriators last month that funding levels in a spending bill then under consideration would keep NASA from returning humans to the moon by 2024. The letter from the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget said that the $1.6 billion allocated for exploration R&D programs, including lunar landers and the lunar Gateway, is far short of the $2.3 billion requested. Full funding of that program, the letter stated, is required "to support the Administration's goal of returning to the Moon by 2024."

The letter also sought relief from language requiring Europa Clipper launch on an SLS, stating that NASA needed all the available SLS rockets for exploration programs and that the agency could save as much as $1.5 billion by launching the mission on a commercial vehicle. (11/7)

Air Force Pitch Day Pitchers Get $22.5 Million (Source: Space News)
The first Air Force Space Pitch Day concluded with the award of $22.5 million in contracts and the potential for additional funding in the future. After awarding $750,000 SBIR phase two awards to 30 companies attending the event, Air Force panels selected 15 companies to submit proposals for an additional $750,000 or $2.25 million. The Air Force is likely to continue to award SBIR phase two money through pitch days, officials said, because they introduce Air Force officers responsible for fielding technology to the companies developing it. (11/7)

Army Seeks Non-GPS Navigation Options (Source: Space News)
The Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) is reviewing proposals for systems that could allow Army troops to navigate without the need for GPS. DIU received 25 proposals for the Dismounted Assured PNT [position, navigation and timing] System (DAPS), where companies offered commercially available handheld products that require minimum or no additional development. Some of the alternatives to GPS proposed include inertial navigation, optical navigation and radiofrequency navigation from communications satellite signals. Under a separate program, the Army is buying devices to be installed in ground vehicles so they can operate in GPS-denied or degraded environments. (11/7)

UN Committee Approves Russian Resolutions to Ban Space Weapons (Source: Interfax)
A United Nations committee approved three resolutions regarding a space "arms race" sponsored by Russia. The resolutions called for a ban on the placement of weapons in outer space and development of transparency and confidence-building measures. The United States voted against the resolutions, as it has in the past, while stating it seeks to keep space free of armed conflict. (11/7)

Apollo Lunar Sample Container Opened (Source: CollectSpace)
Scientists opened a lunar sample this week that had been sealed since the Apollo program. The sample tube, containing lunar rocks and regolith, was collected during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972 but never opened until now. NASA announced plans earlier this year to give scientists access to sealed samples like this so that modern instrumentation could be used to gain new insights about the moon in preparation for future human missions there. (11/7)

Why We’re Helping a Student Satellite Get to Space (Source: Medium)
Getting to space is hard. But that’s where the rubber meets the road. For students to get the full benefit of learning how to build hardware, they have to actually fly it. We’ve been fortunate to see a huge uptick in student groups getting to build cubesats over the past few years, but finding a launch to space is still the missing piece. Funding sources for space launches are few and far between. Even with NASA’s help, many cubesats still are left sitting on the ground.

My co-founder Ryan McLinko and I are enthusiastic about all things space, so it makes sense that we met in 2006 through SEDS — Students for the Exploration and Development of Space. Ryan went on to be chapter president at MIT, just as I’d led the Purdue chapter, and we’ve both stayed deeply involved with the organization ever since. For decades, SEDS has nurtured undergraduate and graduate students’ passion for aerospace engineering at universities around the world, and championed a mission we both firmly believe in — that there’s no better way to learn than just building things. (11/6)

Five Things We’ve Learned Since Voyager 2 Left the Solar System (Source: MIT Technology Review)
Voyager 2 was launched on August 20, 1977—16 days before its twin, Voyager 1, which exited the solar system’s northern hemisphere in 2012 . Voyager 2 was sent on a longer journey that allowed it to make encounters with Uranus and Neptune, and to this day it’s the only spacecraft to have visited these planets up close. The spacecraft was able to analyse the makeup of solar winds, the composition and behavior of plasma particles, the interaction of cosmic rays, the structure and direction of magnetic fields, and other traits that define the edges of the solar system.

1. The bubble is leaking—both ways. Material from the solar bubble was discovered in interstellar space. 2. The boundary of the bubble is more uniform than we thought. 3. The makeup of the heliopause itself can vary by location. 4. The sun’s influence goes beyond the solar system. 5. This was the Voyager program’s final major milestone. (11/4)

SpaceX and Boeing Still Need a Parachute That Always Works (Source: WIRED)
These tests are meant to demonstrate the capsules’ ability to handle a suborbital emergency. If something goes seriously wrong while the astronauts are perched on top of a rocket, the capsules are supposed to jettison them to safety. Passing these tests is a major milestone as the two companies race to be the first to ferry NASA astronauts to space. But getting an astronaut safely off the pad doesn’t count for much if you can’t bring them just as safely back to Earth. And for that you need lots of big parachutes that are guaranteed to work every time—which is trickier than it sounds.

“Parachutes remain a challenging area for both providers,” an Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel report on Boeing and SpaceX’s commercial crew programs noted earlier this year. “Both providers have experienced technical challenges, albeit different ones, related to the deployment and performance of their parachute systems.” Each company is going through a different certification process for their commercial crew program, but the parachutes ultimately face the same fundamental challenges. They have to withstand extreme forces as they slow a 10 ton vehicle from over 100 mph to a running pace.

The parachutes used in Boeing’s Starliner are a scaled-down version of legacy parachute designs developed by NASA nearly 20 years ago as part of the Constellation program. Since the design of Boeing’s parachute system is so similar to NASA’s, the company had to perform fewer tests to demonstrate the system’s safety compared to SpaceX. SpaceX has developed and tested three different canopy designs, relying on special high-strength fabrics and custom stitching patterns to keep the canopy from getting shredded. Its Mark 2 parachute helped successfully bring a Crew Dragon capsule back from its first (uncrewed) orbital mission earlier this year. "The Mark 3 parachutes are possibly 10 times safer," Musk said. (11/5)

How Can Africa Make Better Use of Space Applications? (Source: Space Daily)
'Space-based Solutions for Disaster Management in Africa: Challenges, Applications, Partnerships' is the title of the first conference focusing on 'Space applications in Africa'. It has been organised by the United Nations, the University of Bonn and the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR).

Approximately 100 participants have convened on the UN Campus in Bonn for the conference, which is taking place from 6 to 8 November 2019. It is being hosted by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, (UNOOSA), in particular the United Nations Platform for SPace-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER), the Center for Remote Sensing of Land Surfaces (Zentrum fur Fernerkundung der Landoberflache; ZFL) at the University of Bonn and DLR. (11/7)

Starlink Launch Will Reuse a Falcon Heavy Fairing for the First Time (Source: Teslarati)
SpaceX has announced that a thrice-flown Falcon 9 booster successfully completed a static fire test ahead of the company’s first launch in three months, set to be Starlink’s ‘v1.0’ launch debut. In a twist, SpaceX says that the mission will be the first to reuse a full payload fairing, recovered after Falcon Heavy Block 5’s April 2019 launch debut. Neither of the two fairing halves recovered after Falcon Heavy Block 5’s Arabsat 6A mission were actually caught by fairing recovery ship Ms. Tree (formerly Mr. Steven). Instead, both halves gently landed in the Atlantic Ocean – more than 1000 km (620 mi) off the coast of Florida – and were carefully lifted onto different recovery ships. (11/5)

Beijing Eyes Creating First Earth-Moon Economic Zone (Source: Space Daily)
China has been actively investing in space exploration in recent years, with its latest achievement being the successful launch of a drone that landed on the far side of the Moon and conducted several experiments there. Beijing is already planning future lunar missions, including a manned one. Director of the Science and Technology Commission of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) Bao Weimin has announced that Beijing is considering creating the first Earth-Moon economic zone by 2050.

According to him, China is planning to invest in studies on how much it would cost for the idea to come to fruition, as well as for the deployment of a transportation system linking Earth and its natural satellite. How big is the role that Beijing is hoping to play in the potential trade route between the two cosmic bodies? Industry insiders, asked by the Global Times media outlet, say that such an economic zone could generate around $10 trillion a year. Bao Weimin, in turn, stressed that space exploration has huge economic potential. (11/7)