August 14, 2020

Georgia Spaceport Proposes Drone Surveillance of Downrange Homes (Source: WABE)
Nearly eight years into its quest to build a spaceport in coastal Georgia, Camden County, In its revised FAA license application, is proposing the use of drones and aerial surveillance on launch days, as part of a plan to monitor the number of people on private property and in a national park, which lie beneath its proposed rocket trajectories. Landowners say they were not consulted about the plans. It exacerbates an already-fraught relationship between the county and, in particular, some private landowners on Little Cumberland over the project.

Edward Ellegood, a space policy analyst who helped found and develop what is now Space Florida at Cape Canaveral, said there’s no precedent that he’s aware of in the US for surveillance of private property during launches, nor any American precedent for homes beneath rocket trajectories. “Maybe the best corollary would be what China’s doing,” he said. “At their Xichang spaceport, entire villages are located downrange. Their spent rocket stages routinely fall near populated areas, sometimes destroying homes and private property.”

Ellegood said Camden’s proposal would create a difficult situation for both residents and launch operators. He pointed to Astra, a California startup that’s struggled recently to hold its first successful launch at Pacific Spaceport Complex in Alaska. “They’ve had problem after problem trying to overcome technical issues, weather issues, issues with the range and issues with the spaceport infrastructure itself,” he said. “Imagine if there were homes downrange and the repeated restrictions that would be put on those homes, and then imagine how people not obeying those restrictions might impact the launch operation,” he said. Click here. (8/13)

The Reason We're Shooting Laser Beams Between Earth and the Moon (Source: CNN)
For the first time ever, scientists received a signal after sending laser beams from Earth to a reflector on NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter around the moon. The successful signal was received after multiple attempts over the last decade, and the results of the study could complement future laser experiments used to study space. A laser station in Grasse, France, sent the laser beams toward the NASA orbiter, some 240,000 miles away. The beams had to travel that distance to hit a reflector on the orbiter that was only about the size of a paperback novel.

The orbiter has been observing the moon since 2009, and its reflector is a smaller version of reflector panels placed on the lunar surface during the Apollo 11, 14 and 15 landings on the moon. Soviet lunar robotic landers sent in 1970 and 1973 also carried smaller reflectors. Together, these reflectors are the last working science experiment from the Apollo era, according to NASA. Each one contains cubes created from the corners of glass cubes that act like mirrors reflecting back light in a multidirectional way. But the older, larger reflectors on the lunar surface are sending weak signals, returning only about a tenth of what they expected.

Scientists believe that it may be due to dust that has collected on the five panels. Dust could not only block light from the mirrors, but actually act as an insulating layer that causes the reflectors to overheat. Testing the signal strength of the pristine reflector on the orbiter can help scientists determine what's happening with the reflectors on the surface. So far, the science team isn't sure if it's dust. But this successful signal is a start to learning what's happening on the moon's reflectors. (8/13)

Pentagon to Launch Task Force to Investigate UFO Sightings (Source: CNN)
The Pentagon is forming a new task force to investigate UFOs that have been observed by US military aircraft, according to two defense officials. Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist will help oversee the task force, which is expected to be officially unveiled in the next few days, according to the officials. Previous efforts to look into what the Pentagon dubs unidentified aerial phenomena were led by the US Navy as many of the documented encounters involved their aircraft.

The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Members of Congress and Pentagon officials have long expressed concerns about the appearance of the unidentified aircraft that have flown over US military bases, posing a risk to military jets. There is no consensus on their origin with some believing they may be drones potentially operated by earthly adversaries seeking to gather intelligence rather than extraterrestrials. (8/13)

Northrop Grumman Tests New Booster for ULA’s Vulcan Rockets (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Just because Northrop Grumman lost out to United Launch Alliance and SpaceX in the recent Space Force contract for military launches for the next seven years doesn’t mean it can’t play nice. The company already partners with ULA to provide boosters for Delta and Atlas rockets, and it just completed the first ground fire of the new booster to be used on ULA’s forthcoming Vulcan Centaur rocket. The GEM 63XL booster, named because it is the company’s 63-inch-diameter Graphite Epoxy Motor, fired up for a qualification test at the company’s facility in Promontory, Utah on Thursday. (8/14)

Hubble Spies the Culprit Behind Betelgeuse Star's Dimming. And it May Be Happening Again (Source: CNN)
The Hubble Space Telescope may have solved the mystery of the curiously dimming star Betelgeuse, according to new research. Betelgeuse is a nearby, aging red supergiant star in the Orion constellation about 725 light-years away. It's one of the brightest stars in our sky. As the star burns through fuel in its core, it has swollen to massive proportions. If it were at the center of our solar system, instead of the sun, the star's outer surface would go beyond Jupiter's orbit.

Betelgeuse caught the attention of astronomers around the world in the fall of 2019 when it began to dim unexpectedly and continued through February. But then, its brightness dipped by two-thirds and the change was visible to the naked eye. It was the faintest the star had been since measurements of it began 150 years ago. The Hubble Space Telescope observed Betelgeuse in ultraviolet light beginning in January 2019, so it was able to contribute information for the star's time line leading up to its dimming event. Astronomers looking through the Hubble data saw dense material that had been heated moving through the star's atmosphere in fall 2019, from September to November.

Hubble clocked the material moving at 200,000 miles per hour. In December, observations provided by ground-based telescopes revealed the star experienced a particular dip in brightness concentrated in its southern hemisphere. The superheated plasma was released from the star through a large convection cell, like hot bubbles rising in boiling water -- except hundreds of times the size of our sun. When the star ejected this large amount of hot material comprised of gases, the material cooled as it reached the star's outer layers and formed a dust cloud that blocked starlight from about a quarter of the star's surface. (8/14)

Space Workers: ‘Run Toward Difficult Problems’ (Source: ERAU)
For husband-and-wife duo Kathy and Dillon Rice, the latest guests to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Aviation Outlook webinar series, success is not a state of being. It’s something that is earned – through hard work, intentional growth and even a little discomfort. “One of the things that good mentors do is push you out of your comfort zone and push you toward difficult things, so that you can grow and achieve great things by dealing with great problems,” said Dillon Rice, who serves as the launch conductor for United Launch Alliance. Click here. (8/12) 

NASA Begins Installing Orion Adapter for First Artemis Moon Flight (Source: NASA)
Technicians at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida are working to install an adapter that will connect the Orion spacecraft to its rocket for the Artemis I mission around the Moon. This is one of the final major hardware operations for Orion inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building prior to integration with the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.

The spacecraft adapter cone (seen at the bottom of the stack pictured above) connects to the bottom of Orion’s service module and will later join another adapter connected to the top of the rocket’s interim cryogenic propulsion stage (ICPS). During the process to install the cone on Orion, the spacecraft is lifted out of the Final Assembly and Systems Testing, or FAST, cell and placed into the Super Station support fixture. (8/13)

X-37B Spaceplane Wins Collier Trophy (Source: USSF)
The Department of the Air Force’s X-37B spaceplane, a reusable, multi-purpose, system that operates without an onboard crew, won the prestigious Robert J. Collier Trophy Aug. 13 for advancing technology that pushes “the boundaries of flight and space exploration.” In announcing the award, Jim Albaugh, chairman of The National Aeronautic Association which sponsors the competition, praised the X-37B, “As the world’s only autonomous, reusable spaceplane, it continues to contribute to our understanding of both space and air flight.”

The Collier Trophy has been awarded annually since 1911 and is one of the most prominent accolades in aviation. Previous winners include Orville Wright, Howard Hughes, as well as the Apollo 11 lunar landing team, Apollo 8, Mercury 7 and more recently, the International Space Station. Also earning the distinction are the B-52, the Boeing 747, and the F-22, among others. (8/13)

Will Launchers Survive 2020’s ‘Gloom and Doom’ Climate? (Source: Via Satellite)
It is fair to say 2020 has been widely chaotic, and that is no different for the space launch industry. The industry is facing a pandemic that affects the global aerospace workforce, a spiral of launch delays and supply chain issues, and a string of launch failures from established and new launch providers alike. One of the biggest unanswered questions is the extent of impact of this seemingly disastrous year on the launch sector, which is solely responsible for our access to space. However, uncertainty around business case viability is nothing new to this high-risk and adaptable sector — so is the situation as dire as we think, or are we needlessly catastrophizing as an industry?

NSR’s Global Satellite Manufacturing and Launch Markets, 10th Edition report examines the satellite industry for the next decade through the lens of changing industry dynamics and COVID-19 impact, forecasting over 12,000 satellites of all mass ranges to be launched over the next 10 years, generating a cumulative opportunity of $131.2 billion in launch revenues alone. The demand for satellites and satellite services continues its growth, leading to further market expansion. How does this growth fit the overall picture, especially when everything in 2020 seems so doom and gloom?

There have been six launch failures so far in 2020 – three from China, two from the United States and one from Iran. This is already a high number of failures for the year, compared to that of previous years: five failures in 2019 and three failures in 2018. However, four of the six failures have been the result of inaugural launches of new rockets, including the failure of Virgin Orbit’s maiden flight, and one failure was from a vehicle that had failed multiple times previously (Iran’s Simorgh). (8/13)