July 26, 2020

"Sneaky" Georgia Spaceport Amendment Fails (Source: Brunswick News)
A proposed amendment that could make it easier for Camden County to get approval for a spaceport fizzled after it failed to make it out of committee. The proposal by U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-1, would have changed the National Environmental Policy Act to “evaluate only those launch or reentry site locations proposed by the applicant and a no-action alternative.” Kevin Lang, a lawyer and Little Cumberland Island resident, said the amendment was part of a 1,000-page transportation bill that was later eliminated. He described the attempt as “really sneaky.”

If the amendment had made it unnoticed and been signed into law, it would have eliminated some of the environmental concerns that would make it easier for the Federal Aviation Administration to approve a license, Lang said. “They know they have substantive issues with the National Environmental Protection Act,” he said. “They have to follow the law.” Lang said he is concerned political pressure could compel the FAA to grant a license. An estimated $9 million has been spent by Camden County for a spaceport, which critics say is a waste of taxpayer money.

Lang said he is concerned what will happen if a license is approved for small rocket launches from the site. “When you drop back to small-launch vehicles, a successful launch is the exception, not the rule,” Lang said. Steve Weinkle, a Camden County resident who lives less than 10 miles from the proposed spaceport, described Carter’s attempt to add the amendment as “an attempt to circumvent the process.” ... “Nothing in the world can make this economically viable in Camden County,” he said. “The economics of a spaceport are less than zero in Camden County. They require subsidies.” (7/23)

The Doctor From Nazi Germany and the Search for Life on Mars (Source: New York Times)
When Penelope Boston was a student at the University of Colorado in the 1980s, she wanted to create a miniature Mars and see how some living things fared on it. Fundless, she amassed parts from labs around campus and bootstrapped a basic version of what scientists sometimes call a Mars Jar: a sealed container whose insides resemble the red planet, used to test the survival of biological beings. Dr. Boston had read about Carl Sagan’s use of Mars Jars and had assumed, as many did, that he’d invented them.

In fact, a man named Dr. Hubertus Strughold, a professor of space medicine at the Air Force’s School of Aviation Medicine, oversaw the experiments. And he’d done them years before Sagan popularized the jars. In 2018, a young scholar, Jordan Bimm, visited her NASA office. He was working on a history of Mars Jars. He was diving into Dr. Strughold’s work on astronaut physiology and aviation medicine in the U.S. — work he had started in Nazi Germany for the Luftwaffe, and which was tangled up in inhumane experiments.

Dr. Strughold didn’t do these experiments himself, and he wasn’t a member of the Nazi party. But on his watch, researchers locked prisoners at the Dachau concentration camp in low-pressure chambers, to show what might happen to fliers at high altitude, and dressed them in fighter-pilot uniforms only to submerge them in freezing water. (7/24)

NASA Video: A Growing Market at Gravity’s Edge (Source: NASA)
The commercialization of low-Earth orbit is enabling a new market in space, while aiding NASA in its mission of exploration and discovery. Click here. (7/25) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr_nt1nc_Jo&feature=youtu.be

Spaceflight, Inc. Chooses Tethers Unlimited’s Terminator Tape for Deorbit of OTV (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Tethers Unlimited, Inc. (TUI) is pleased to announce that Spaceflight Inc. has selected TUI’s NanoSat Terminator Tape Deorbit System for end-of life disposal of its new Sherpa-FX orbit transfer vehicle. As part of an upcoming mission, Spaceflight will test the deorbit process with the Terminator Tape. When the orbit transfer vehicle’s mission is completed, a timer release system will deploy the Terminator Tape to rapidly deorbit the Sherpa-FX vehicle so that it does not contribute to the growth of the space debris problem. (7/25)

Ariane 5 Launch Postponed (Source: Parabolic Arc)
To enable additional technical checks required under the fairing and the Ariane dual launch system (SYLDA), the final phase of launch preparation operations for the 253rd Ariane flight (VA253) has not been initiated by Arianespace. The soonest possible launch date for this mission is now Friday, July 31. (7/25)

Officials Push U.S.-China Relations Toward Point of No Return (Source: New York Times)
Step by step, blow by blow, the United States and China are dismantling decades of political, economic and social engagement, setting the stage for a new era of confrontation shaped by the views of the most hawkish voices on both sides. With President Trump trailing badly in the polls as the election nears, his national security officials have intensified their attack on China in recent weeks, targeting its officials, diplomats and executives. While the strategy has reinforced a key campaign message, some American officials, worried Mr. Trump will lose, are also trying to engineer irreversible changes, according to people familiar with the thinking.

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has inflamed the fight, brushing aside international concern about the country’s rising authoritarianism to consolidate his own political power and to crack down on basic freedoms, from Xinjiang to Hong Kong. By doing so, he has hardened attitudes in Washington, fueling a clash that at least some in China believe could be dangerous to the country’s interests. The combined effect could prove to be Mr. Trump’s most consequential foreign policy legacy, even if it’s not one he has consistently pursued: the entrenchment of a fundamental strategic and ideological confrontation between the world’s two largest economies. (7/25)

Aerojet Rocketdyne Completes Propulsion for Artemis II Mission (Source: Aerojet Rocketdyne)
Aerojet Rocketdyne recently completed all of its propulsion hardware for the first crewed flight of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft. The engines and motors, which Aerojet Rocketdyne produces at its major space operations sites across the country, will support NASA’s Artemis II mission. The Artemis II mission is the second flight of SLS and Orion and the first to send an astronaut crew to fly around the Moon. (7/20)

Pandemic Won't Stop Smallsat Market Takeoff to Average 1,000 Smallsats to be Launched Per Year Over 2020s (Source: Euroconsult)
In the 6th edition of its latest research titled “Prospects for the Small Satellite Market”, Euroconsult forecasts that two mega-constellations will account for half of the smallsats to be launched between 2020 and 2029, yet only account for one fifth of the total smallsat market value due to economies of scale, mass manufacturing and batch launches. The report also addresses the impact of COVID-19 on the small satellite industry and provides updated analysis of the ongoing uncertainties related to the pandemic, smallsat constellations and the OneWeb bankruptcy, despite its recent acquisition.

The 2020s are predicted to be the decade of small satellites with an annual average of 1,000 smallsats to be launched. By comparison, 2019 had the highest number of smallsats to date, with 385 smallsats launched. These spacecraft generated $2.8 billion of market value in 2019, of which 70 percent for manufacturing and 30 percent for launch. From 2020 to 2029, the smallsat market value is projected to reach $51 billion, of which $33 billion for manufacturing and $18 billion for launch. This is more than four times the market size of the previous decade. (7/23)

Rocket Lab Launches Apprenticeship Program (Source: New Zealand Herald)
Rocket Lab is launching New Zealand's first aerospace engineering apprenticeship - fulfilling founder Peter Beck's long-held desire to help a "lost generation" of New Zealanders who have had scant trades-training opportunities. The company says it's offering "the chance to gain a formal qualification while working hands-on with our Electron launch vehicle, one of the world's most frequently launched rockets."

"A qualification like this didn't exist in New Zealand, so we created one and worked with Service IQ, our partners and specialists in aviation industry training, to develop the [NZQA] unit standards to enable NZ's incredibly talented, world-leading space hardware technicians to have their experience formally recognised." (7/23)

Where Do Space Force and Space Command Fit Into the Pentagon’s Cyber Plans? (Source: C4ISRNet)
The Pentagon is trying to determine how its two newest space entities - Space Command and Space Force - will fit into the Department of Defense’s cyber architecture. There are no plans - or subsequent authorities - for Space Force to provide personnel to the cyber mission force, which feeds up to U.S. Cyber Command, a Space Force spokesperson said. The way the cyber force is staffed within the Defense Department is that each of the services are responsible for providing a set number of teams – offensive, defensive and intelligence/support teams – to the joint cyber mission force.

In turn, these teams are led by a Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber, which are headed by each of the service cyber component commanders, who then plan, synchronize and conduct operations for the combatant commands they’re assigned to. But Space Force will not be totally without cyber forces. As Air Force Magazine previously reported Space Force is considering transitioning about 130 cyber officers and around 1,000 enlisted personnel for cyber. A Space Force spokesperson told C4ISRNET these staffers will be Air Force cyber personnel transitioning in fiscal year 2021. (7/24)

Roar of the Bumper: Remembering the Cape's First Launch, 70 Years On (Source: AmericaSpace)
For decades, we have grown used to watching launches from Cape Canaveral. But until the arrival of the rockets and the rocketeers, the Cape was a sleepy place, characterized by dense thickets of cane vegetation and home to scattered farming and fishing communities, as well as alligators, racoons, scorpions and ubiquitous mosquitoes.

When the first military personnel arrived here to set up the Army’s Long Range Proving Ground in early 1950, a joke soon made the rounds that the security detail would bed down in their tents each night, only to awaken the next morning to the most unwelcome of bedfellows: a bunch of fearsome rattlesnakes. It is hard to imagine, seeing what we see today, what a different world this place once was. And on 24 July 1950—70 years ago today—the Cape observed its very first rocket launch with the flight of Bumper 8. Click here. (7/24)

Space War: US To Meet With Russia; Rolls Out Warfighting Doctrine (Source: Breaking Defense)
A US delegation, including DoD officials, on July 27 in Vienna, Austria will hold a first Space Security Exchange (SSE) with Russia. It’s the first formal bilateral meeting on space security since 2013, says Chris Ford, assistant secretary of State for International Security and Non-Proliferation.

The purpose is to “help advance the cause of setting responsible norms of behavior in that vital domain,” Ford told reporters in a phone briefing today. In addition, he said, the US hopes to open a regular bilateral communications channel in order to avoid misperceptions and miscalculations about on-orbit activities. Yet at the same time, the US military has just finalized a new warfighting doctrine defining how it will fight in space, said Gen. Jay Raymond, who currently heads both the Space Force and Space Command. (7/24)