August 10, 2020

Embry-Riddle’s Economic Impact in Florida, Arizona Surpasses $2.3 Billion (Source: ERAU)
The overall economic impacts of premier aviation and aerospace institution Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida and Arizona now surpasses $2.3 billion – up 44% since 2016, the independent Washington Economics Group (WEG) has reported. Embry-Riddle further supports nearly 18,000 jobs in Florida and Arizona – up from just under 14,000 jobs in 2016, making the university “a leading creator of high-wage employment in both state economies,” according to the new WEG report.

Embry-Riddle’s Research Park, opened on the Daytona Beach Campus in 2017, has generated more than $90 million in economic impact in Florida and directly or indirectly created 500 jobs, many of which are high-wage. With residential campuses in Prescott, Arizona, and Daytona Beach, Florida, Embry-Riddle’s overall activities – including the thriving Research Park, the added earning power of Embry-Riddle alumni in both states, and revenue generated by approximately 125 Embry-Riddle Worldwide campuses – currently amount to $2.37 billion, versus $1.65 billion in 2016, WEG estimated. Jobs generated by Embry-Riddle in both states increased from 13,778 to 17,929 over the same time period. (8/6)

How SpaceX and NASA Overcame a Bitter Culture Clash to Bring Back US Astronaut Launches (Source: CNN)
In May, millions of Americans watched as Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley, two veteran NASA astronauts, strapped into a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule and took a 17,000 mile per hour ride to the International Space Station. It was the first time NASA astronauts launched from US soil since 2011 — and the first time in history that a privately owned vehicle carried humans into Earth's orbit.

The astronauts returned safely home last weekend, and once again, NASA and SpaceX employees cheered together, celebrating their coordinated accomplishment. That moment of solidarity, however, came after years of infighting, politicking and mutual distrust, according to current and former employees from NASA and SpaceX. NASA officials admitted earlier this month that they had turned a more scrutinizing eye toward SpaceX and its unorthodox ways, while issues with Boeing's Starliner slipped through the cracks.

"To see NASA step up and say, 'We should have trusted SpaceX more' — If you would have played that clip about eight years ago, I would have been flabbergasted," Reisman said. "It would have been pure science fiction." When SpaceX was selected as a COTS program competitor in 2006, it was a four-year-old company with fewer than 100 employees, mostly young engineers, that were trying to launch cheap rockets off the tiny island of Omelek, about 2,300 miles west of Hawaii. (8/9)

Air Force to Phase Out Developmental Agreements with Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman (Source: Space News)
The Air Force plans to end agreements with the two companies that lost the NSSL Phase 2 competition. Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition Will Roper said Friday that despite political pressure to continue the Launch Service Agreements, the Air Force will wind down those agreements it awarded in 2018 to Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman. Roper said the Air Force plans to continue to support U.S. industry as it prepares for a Phase 3 competition starting in 2024, but the specifics have yet to be worked out. The Pentagon will also have to await possible protests by the losing companies. (8/10)

Space Force Getting New Chief Space Operator (Source: Space News)
The vice commander of the U.S. Space Force has been nominated to be promoted to general. President Trump nominated Lt. Gen. David D. Thompson on Friday for promotion to four-star general. If confirmed, he would become vice chief of space operations of the Space Force. Gen. John "Jay" Raymond, current head of the Space Force, said that after Thompson's confirmation, as well as recent promotions of other Space Force officers to lieutenant general, "we'll have the whole leadership team in place." (8/10)

Astra Launch Attempts Stymied During Six-Day Window at Alaska Spaceport (Source: Astra)
Astra is regrouping after its launch window closed Friday night. High upper-level winds scrubbed a launch attempt from the Pacific Spaceport Complex — Alaska Friday night, the last day in a six-day launch window for the company's Rocket 3.1 rocket. Previous attempts were postponed by weather or technical issues. The company said late Friday it would have an update "soon" on its next launch attempt. (8/10)

OSIRIS-REx Performs Well in Dress Rehearsal for Asteroid Sample Capture (Source: NASA)
NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will perform this week a dress rehearsal of a maneuver to capture samples from the surface of an asteroid. The spacecraft will fly as close as 40 meters from the surface of Bennu in a "Matchpoint" maneuver Tuesday designed to test the approach the spacecraft will make to the asteroid. The test, if successful, will allow the mission to proceed with a sampling attempt in October, where a robotic arm will touch the surface briefly to collect samples before moving away. (8/10)

Michigan Spaceport Idea Not Popular With Everyone (Source: Detroit Free Press)
Not everyone in Michigan is enthralled with the idea of building a spaceport in the state. Last month, an industry group announced a site on the shores of Lake Superior near Marquette was their preferred location for a vertical launch site. A petition opposing the spaceport on environmental grounds has attracted more than 20,000 signatures online, while a pro-spaceport petition has racked up about 1,600 signatures. Local officials note that the spaceport is still in the very early stages of planning, and completing it would take years. (8/10)

Russia Wants to Return to Venus, Build Reusable Rocket (Source: Space Daily)
The head of Russia's space agency said Friday that Roscosmos wants to return to Venus and bring back soil samples and build spacecraft that will surpass Elon Musk's rockets. "We are making a methane rocket to replace the Soyuz-2," Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said. He said it will be a reusable space complex, noting that it will be possible to use its first stage at least 100 times. "Of course we are looking at what our American colleagues are doing," said Rogozin. "But our engineers are trying to take a shortcut -- not to repeat what our SpaceX colleagues are doing but surpass them."

Rogozin said he was not impressed with the SpaceX spacecraft, saying its landing was "rather rough." "It's not designed for ground landing -- that's exactly why American colleagues chose to land on the water the way it was done 45 years ago," Rogozin said. Russia had for many years enjoyed a monopoly as the only country able to ferry astronauts, and the SpaceX launch meant the loss of a sizeable income. A seat in the Soyuz costs NASA around $80 million.

Rogozin said he also wanted Russia to return to Venus. "It was always a 'Russian planet,'" he said. The Soviet Union was the only nation to have landed probes on the surface of Venus. "I believe that Venus is more interesting than Mars," Rogozin said, adding that studying Venus could help scientists understand how to deal with climate change on Earth. Venus, whose atmosphere is made up nearly completely of carbon dioxide, is considered to be the hottest planet in the solar system. "If we don't study what is happening on Venus then we won't understand how to prevent a similar scenario from happening on our planet." He said he wanted Russians -- in cooperation with Americans or by themselves -- to bring back the surface materials of Venus. (8/10)

Climate Change: Satellites Record History of Antarctic Melting (Source: BBC)
Twenty-five years of satellite observations have been used to reconstruct a detailed history of Antarctica's ice shelves. These ice platforms are the floating protrusions of glaciers flowing off the land, and ring the entire continent. The European Space Agency data-set confirms the shelves' melting trend. As a whole, they've shed close to 4,000 gigatons since 1994 - an amount of meltwater that could all but fill America's Grand Canyon.

But the innovation here is not so much the fact that the shelves are losing mass - we already knew that; relatively warm ocean water is eating their undersides. Rather, it's the finessed statements that can now be made about exactly where and when the wastage has been occurring, and where also the meltwater has been going.

Some of this cold, fresh water has been entering the deep sea around Antarctica where it is undoubtedly influencing ocean circulation. And this could have implications for the climate far beyond the polar south. "For example, there've been a couple of studies that showed that including the effect of Antarctic ice melt into models slows global ocean temperature rise, and that can actually lead to an increase in precipitation in the US," explained Susheel Adusumilli from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. (8/10)

Astronomers May Have Identified The Biggest Impact Structure in Our Solar System (Source: Science Alert)
Jupiter's moon Ganymede is a pretty special chunk of rock. It's the largest and most massive moon in the Solar System. It's the only Solar System moon that generates its own magnetic field. It has the most liquid water of any Solar System body. And now, scientists have discovered, it may have the largest impact structure ever identified.

Astronomers have found that the tectonic troughs known as furrows, thought to be the oldest geological features on Ganymede, form a series of concentric rings up to 7,800 kilometres (4,847 miles) across, as though something had slammed into the moon. This has yet to be confirmed with more observations, but if the rings were indeed formed by an impact, it will vastly outstrip all other confirmed impact structures in the Solar System. (8/10)

How a Vibration Problem in a Rocket Could Cut the Cost of Off-Shore Wind Power (Source: NASA)
When we run into a snag designing a new space vehicle, it can be frustrating for the engineers, scientists, and technologists who have spent months and years getting to that point – but it’s also an opportunity for the team to spring into action and innovate a solution. That’s just what happened with the Ares I, a previous rocket development effort for destinations including the Moon. Though NASA ultimately decided not to continue Ares development, a revolutionary device created to fix a vibration challenge in the rocket is still going strong, and its latest version is set to make offshore wind power more efficient and affordable.

Any rocket is going to vibrate during launch. But if it hits what’s called a resonant mode, those vibrations can be excessive. Tried and true solutions for reducing or preventing undesirable resonant vibrations can require massive redesigns and can be very heavy. Adding more weight is not ideal on a rocket, where every added ounce must be accounted for, so engineers working on the Ares solid rocket booster had to think of something new to keep vibrations within a safe range for the astronauts that might ride along.

Engineers found a way to take advantage of something already on the rocket that had a lot of mass: the liquid fuel stored for the second-stage rocket. A small device loaded into the liquid was able to knock out 50 to 100 times more of the vibrations than they expected it to. They realized the device, which expands and contracts at a specified frequency, moves the fluid in time with the device instead of along with the spacecraft vibration. Essentially, the fluid acts as if it’s no longer part of the spacecraft, which changed the overall resonant response of the rocket. (8/7)