August 21, 2020

China Seeks Partners for International Lunar Station (Source: Space News)
China has developed a vision for an international lunar research station and is seeking international involvement in the project. The project, named the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), is to be situated in the lunar south pole region. It will be developed through a number of upcoming robotic Chang’e missions across the 2020s and expanded through the 2030s. The ILRS envisions the Chang’e-,6, -7 and -8 missions and potential international missions as forming the basic setup. In the early 2030s an expanded ILRS will involve long-term robotic and potentially short-term crewed missions. A long-term human presence at the lunar south pole is the goal for 2036-2045. (8/21)

Report: Commerce Department Best Suited to Space Traffic Management Role (Source: Space News)
A report released Thursday concluded that the Commerce Department is the best agency to host civil space traffic management (STM) responsibilities. The report by the National Academy of Public Administration was requested by Congress in the fiscal year 2020 spending bill amid skepticism that the department, assigned civil STM work by Space Policy Directive 3 in 2018, was really the best agency for the job. The study compared the department's Office of Space Commerce with NASA, the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation and the Defense Department and concluded Commerce was best suited for the job based on its "flexibility and creativity" and willingness to work with other agencies and companies. Commerce Department officials said they hope the report will free up the funding they need to take on that STM work. (8/21)

Esper Warns of Threats to US Satellites (Source: Space News)
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper used a Space Command ceremony to warn of threats to American satellites. Esper presided over the change-of-command ceremony Thursday in Colorado Springs where Army Gen. James Dickinson took over Space Command. In remarks at the event, Esper warned that "competitors are seeking new ways to exploit our systems and undermine our military advantage" in space. Just like air, land and sea, "space power will be essential to any future conflict," he said. (8/21)

OneWeb Seeks India Role in User Terminal Development (Source: Space News)
One of the new owners of OneWeb will seek help from the Indian space agency ISRO in producing user terminals. Sunil Mittal, the billionaire chairman of Bharti Enterprises, said during a webinar Thursday hosted by ISRO that he would like to see the agency support work on user terminals "which cater to the needs of Indian requirements." Bharti partnered with the British government to acquire OneWeb, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March. Mittal didn't state when launches of OneWeb satellites would resume but said the company wants to start offering services by early 2022. (8/21)

ISS Crew Seeks Source of Air Leak (Source: Space News)
The crew of the International Space Station will spend this weekend confined to a single module in an effort to track down a small air leak. The three-person crew will remain in the Zvezda module in the station's Russian segment all weekend, with hatches separating the station's modules from each other all closed. The effort is designed to identify the source of a small but persistent air leak first noticed nearly a year ago. NASA noted the air loss remains within specifications for the station's modules and does not pose a threat to the crew. [SpaceNews]

Personnel Reforms to Attract Talent to Space Force (Source: Space News)
The Space Force is considering personnel reforms in a big to attract top technology talent. In remarks Thursday, Lt. Gen. David T. Thompson, vice commander of the Space Force, said the new service wants to go beyond the "traditional sorts of persons and personalities who you find in military services." Thompson did not specify how the Space Force intends to attract skilled tech workers who would typically not want to serve in the military or may not qualify, but said a team in Colorado Springs is working on proposed personnel reforms. (8/21)
 
DoD Studies Cislunar Role (Source: Space News)
The U.S. military is studying the role it may play protecting U.S. access to cislunar space. One concern for the Pentagon is the possibility that China establishes a presence on the moon before the United States and tries to set the international rules of behavior in space, said Brig. Gen. Steven Butow, director of the space portfolio at the Defense Innovation Unit, during a panel discussion this week. Other panelists said any cislunar development is likely to be a "hybrid" effort, with government supporting commercial endeavors and creating a logistics infrastructure. (8/21)

Spaceflight to Launch Sherpa OTVs (Source: Space News)
Rideshare company Spaceflight is preparing to launch a series of progressively upgraded Sherpa orbital transfer vehicles. The company's first vehicle, designated Sherpa-FX, is scheduled to launch no earlier than December on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare mission, carrying 16 spacecraft. The company has at least three more Sherpa vehicles planned for launch next year. The December Sherpa will stay in low Earth orbit, but future vehicles could carry satellites to the geostationary arc, the moon, or even interplanetary space. (8/21)

Wildfires Threaten Observatory in California (Source: UCSC)
California wildfires threatened a historic observatory. A fire known as the SCU Lightning Complex Fire approached Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton, east of San Jose, Wednesday night. Firefighters stationed at the observatory kept the fire from damaging any of the telescopes there, although one residence was destroyed and some other were damaged by the fire. The observatory started operations in the 1880s and remains an active research facility. (8/21)

Right Stuff Remake on Disney+ in October (Source: CollectSpace)
A remake of "The Right Stuff" is coming to Disney+ in October. The streaming service will host episodes of the series, produced by National Geographic, starting Oct. 9. The series, like the book and movie of the same name, will dramatize the early space program and the Mercury 7 astronauts. By contrast, Showtime has picked up a series about astronauts who may not have the right stuff. "Moonbase 8" is a comedy series about three "subpar" astronauts assigned to a simulated lunar base in the Arizona desert, training for a future mission to the moon. Showtime plans to air the show this fall. (8/21)

SpaceX Tells FCC That Amazon's Satellite Plan Is Too Rigid (Source: Law360)
SpaceX has come out swinging against an Amazon proposal that would make it harder for certain low-Earth orbit satellites to upgrade their tech without losing access to spectrum, a change that the Elon Musk-headed company says would mostly only benefit Amazon. SpaceX made its case in a comment to the FCC, warning against the "false choise presented by Amazon between innovation and access to spectrum." (8/20)

Amazon's Kuiper Constellation Receives FCC Nod (Source: Space.com)
The Federal Communications Commission has approved Amazon's plan to deploy thousands of satellites for its planned Kuiper broadband constellation. The FCC cited the fact that the system is "designed to increase the availability of high-speed broadband service to consumers, government and businesses." (8/20)

Early Starlink Speed Tests Show Latency (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Results from early speed tests of the system recently posted on Reddit showed that the time it takes to upload and download on the Starlink network is still far off the lighting speeds Musk has promised and considerably slower than traditional internet providers. Participants of the Starlink testing are required to sign non-disclosure agreements, and the Reddit posts were based off anonymously reported results.

Download speeds ranged from 11 to 60 Megabits per second, compared to average download speeds in the U.S. of about 96.25 Mbps. The ultimate goal of the system is to get download speeds as high as 1Gbps, or 1000 Mbps. Internet that fast would allow users to download, for example, one episode of a television show in just 3 seconds.

However, the beta tests were conducted with another 600 satellites still needed to be deployed to provide blanket coverage for North America. And the speeds from initial testing could still be a game-changer for rural and remote areas of the country, where Starlink is expected to be a big seller. SpaceX in an FCC filing last month said there has already been an “extraordinary demand” from potential Starlink customers, prompting the company to up the number of terminals it’s allowed to sell — the devices customers would purchase to connect to the satellite internet network — from 1 million to 5 million. (8/18)