July 27, 2020

Space Force Structure Includes "Deltas" and "Garrisons" (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Space Force announced plans Friday to reorganize Air Force wings into its new structure of Deltas and Garrisons. Of the Air Force's five space wings, the three that were based in Colorado — the 21st Space Wing at Peterson Air Force Base, the 50th Space Wing at Schriever Air Force Base and the 460th Space Wing at Buckley Air Force Base — have been deactivated and new units have been stood up in their place. Deltas are commanded by colonels and are trained for specific missions and operations, while Garrisons are responsible for providing support functions to Deltas. The announcement is part of a realignment announced in June that created three major commands. Compared to Air Force organizations, the Space Force structure is flatter, eliminating one general officer echelon and one colonel-level echelon of command. (7/27)

Space TV Series Get Comic-Con Preview (Source: CollectSPACE)
Disney and National Geographic offered a first look at their remake of "The Right Stuff" over the weekend. The series, based on the Tom Wolfe book, is being produced by National Geographic and will air on the Disney+ streaming service this fall. The companies previewed the series and held a panel discussion during a session of the Comic-Con conference held online this year. That virtual conference also offered a first look at the second season of "For All Mankind," the AppleTV+ series about an alternative history of the space race. The second season leaps ahead to the 1980s and includes armed astronauts and what appears to be a shuttle flying to the moon. Apple has not announced when the second season will air.  (7/27)

Irregular Disorder and the NASA Budget (Source: Space Review)
The House is scheduled to vote this week on a “minibus” appropriations bill that would provide NASA with the same overall funding in 2021 as 2020. Jeff Foust reports that the bill’s limited funding for lunar lander development puts the goal of returning humans to the Moon by 2024 into question. Click here. (7/27)
 
National Spaceports: the Future (Source: Space Review)
Oversight of the Eastern and Western Ranges will now be a responsibility of the Space Force. Wayne Eleazer argues the new service may finally be able to give spaceports the attention the Air Force never could. Click here. (7/27)
 
Highway to the Danger Zone: The National Reconnaissance Office and a Downed F-14 Tomcat in Iraq (Source: Space Review)
The NRO is usually associated with collecting satellite imagery, but it once helped in the rescue of naval aviators. Dwayne Day recounts the NRO’s role in that rescue during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Click here. (7/27)
 
What You Should Learn From Comet NEOWISE (Source: Space Review)
The passing Comet NEOWISE, on display in the night sky in recent weeks, can seem like little more than a brief diversion from our problems on Earth today. Hariharan Karthikeyan argues it’s a reminder to look up and think big. Click here. (7/27)

Cubesats Get Close: Proximity Operation with Interesting Implications (Source: Space Daily)
With some technical panache, one of The Aerospace Corporation's CubeSats maneuvered itself within 22 meters of its sibling CubeSat and snapped a series of photos while orbiting at 17,000 miles per hour. This incredibly difficult technology demonstration, performed by a satellite the size of a tissue box, paves the way for future inspection or servicing missions.

"AeroCube-10 is by far the smallest spacecraft to have accomplished a rendezvous and proximity operation so close," said Catherine Venturini, an Aerospace Senior Project Leader and team lead for the AeroCube-10 mission. AeroCube-10 is a pair of 1.5U CubeSats (10 x 10 x 15 cm), one carrying a set of 28 deployable atmospheric probes and a laser beacon, and the other a camera and a propulsion system, which enables it to control its movements. (7/23)

Industry Partners Sought for Lunar Energy System (Source: Sputnik)
The prospective reactor must be able to generate an uninterrupted electricity output of at least 10 kilowatts. The US Department of Energy has recently put out a request to the private sector to construct nuclear power plants capable of operating beyond the boundaries of our planet. The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) request for information is aimed at securing "partnership on technologies and approaches to test and validate" the fission surface power systems that could be deployed on the moon and during the missions to Mars. (7/27)

Russian Cosmonauts Could Be Going to the Moon Without a Super-Heavy Launch Vehicle (Source: Sputnik)
Russian space industry giant Energia is involved in the production of everything from rockets and satellites to space stations and ballistic missiles, and is the prime mover behind the current Russian manned spaceflight programs. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia has created and patented a means to fly cosmonauts to the Moon and back without an expensive new heavy-launch rocket.

"The technical result [of the method] is the possibility of transporting crew between a near-Earth orbital station and a base station [on the surface of the Moon] using a reusable manned spacecraft without the use of super-heavy launch vehicles and aerodynamic breaking," the description of the patent published by the Russian Federal Service for Intellectual Property reads. To land cosmonauts on the Moon and bring them back home, the patented system requires one Soyuz-2.1a rocket and three upgraded Angara A5V rockets. (7/27)

China Launches New Earth-Observation Satellite (Source: Space Daily)
China launched an Earth-observation remote-sensing satellite at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in North China's Shanxi province on Saturday, according to authorities in charge of the program. A joint statement from the China National Space Administration and the Ministry of Natural Resources said the Ziyuan 3-03 lifted off at 11:13 am atop a Long March 4B carrier rocket to a sun-synchronous orbit about 500 kilometers above the ground. The launch marked the 341st mission of the Long March rocket fleet. (7/27)

Chinese Low-Orbit Satellites to Enable Internet for All (Source: Space Daily)
News earlier this month that the Chinese company Qingdao Airlines had become the first airline in China to offer high-speed satellite internet marks a watershed moment for Chinese domestic satellite internet. Using what is called a Ka band satellite, passengers on board will be able to enjoy access to high-speed internet in remote locations at up to 100 Mbps. Internet connections use the domestic organization China Satcom to maintain the frequency and connection required. It may soon be a technology that enables not just airline passengers, but countless people living in remote areas access to such services. (7/27)

British Government Finalizing Launch Regulations (Source: Space News)
The British government expects to soon release a comprehensive set of regulations that will enable companies to perform commercial launches from spaceports in the country. During a July 22 webinar by the U.K. Space Agency, part of series of virtual events held in place of the Farnborough International Airshow, government officials said they were finalizing an estimated 900 pages of regulations that will cover licensing and oversight of launch vehicles and launch sites. (7/24)

Dragon Heat Shield Inspection Planned Before ISS Departure and Reentry (Source: Business Insider)
The Dragon crew is now wrapping up its test mission and plans to return to Earth in early August. But before Behnken and Hurley return, NASA and SpaceX will inspect Crew Dragon's heat shield, which protects the spaceship from temperatures of 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit during atmospheric reentry. In the rare event that Crew Dragon's shield has been damaged by micrometeoroids or orbital debris, the two men can stay aboard the ISS until another spaceship arrives to take them home. (7/25)

US, Russia Meet to Discuss Space Policies (Source: Breaking Defense)
A US delegation, including DoD officials, on July 27 in 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. (7/24)

Moons of Uranus Are Fascinating, Deserve a Flagship Mission (Source: Universe Today)
What’s the most interesting fact you know about Uranus? The fact that its rotational axis is completely out of line with every other planet in the solar system?  Or the fact that Uranus’ magnetosphere is asymmetrical, notably tilted relative to its rotational axis, and significantly offset from the center of the planet?  Or the fact that it’s moons are all named after characters from Shakespeare or Alexander Pope?

All of those facts (with the exception of the literary references) have come from a very limited dataset. Some of the best data was collected during a Voyager 2 flyby in 1986. Since then, the only new data has come from Earth-based telescopes.  While they’ve been steadily increasing in resolution, they have only been able to scratch the surface of what may be lurking in the system surrounding the closest Ice Giant.  Hopefully that is about to change, as a team of scientists has published a white paper advocating for a visit from a new Flagship class spacecraft. (7/26)

Looking for Gravitons? Check for the ‘Buzz’ (Source: WIRED)
The world of gravitons only becomes apparent when you zoom in to the fabric of space-time at the smallest possible scales, which requires a device that can harness truly extreme amounts of energy. Unfortunately, any measuring device capable of directly probing down to this “Planck length” would necessarily be so massive that it would collapse into a black hole.

Gravitons are thought to carry the force of gravity in a way that’s similar to how photons carry the electromagnetic force. Just as light rays can be pictured as a well-behaved collection of photons, gravitational waves—ripples in space-time created by violent cosmic processes—are thought to be made up of gravitons. With this in mind, the authors asked whether gravitational wave detectors are, in principle, sensitive enough to see gravitons. “That’s like asking, how can a surfer on a wave tell just from the motion that the wave is made up of droplets of water?” says Parikh.

One quantum state in particular, called a squeezed state, produces a much more pronounced graviton noise. In fact, Parikh, Wilczek, and Zahariade found that the noise increases exponentially the more the gravitons are squeezed. Their theoretical exploration suggested—against prevailing wisdom—that graviton noise is in principle observable. Moreover, detecting this noise would tell physicists about the exotic sources that might create squeezed gravitational waves. (7/26)