August 25, 2020

How Do We Get There From Here? With Suborbital Flight Testing (Source: NASA)
Facilitated by the Flight Opportunities program, part of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, suborbital flights on commercial vehicles ranging from high-altitude balloons to parabolic aircraft to rockets are valuable testing resources for NASA. They are also helping to identify key innovations that could be essential for lunar or Martian missions. “These suborbital flights enable researchers to quickly and iteratively test technologies with the opportunity to make adjustments between flights,” said Christopher Baker.

Several technologies selected for use on lunar landers developed under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative have leveraged suborbital flights for testing. They offer capabilities that address challenges of safely getting to the Moon and establishing a sustainable human presence there. Baker pointed out that technologies tested on these suborbital platforms are valuable not only to NASA missions. Many are also licensed by industry or funded for additional development.

Flight Opportunities is currently selecting the next batch of promising space technologies to receive grants or cooperative agreements through NASA’s Tech Flights solicitation. Those selected will work with a commercial flight provider to test their technologies, learn from the initial tests to make necessary adjustments, and potentially fly them again. The ultimate destination for many of these innovations? The Moon. It’s about 240,000 miles away but within reach thanks to the proving ground of suborbital flight testing. (8/24)

China's iSpace Raises $173 Million for Launcher (Source: Space News)
Chinese launch company iSpace has raised $173 million in new funding. The Series B round, announced Tuesday, was led by several Chinese investment firms as well as existing shareholders. The company will use the funding for development of the Hyperbola series of launch vehicles, reusable liquid oxygen methane engines, and infrastructure and training. It was the first private company in China to place a satellite in orbit when its Hyperbola-1 rocket launched a small satellite in July 2019. The larger Hyperbola-2 rocket, with a reusable first stage, will begin tests next year with a goal of an orbital flight by the end of 2021. (8/25)

Orbcomm, Clyde, and Saab Collaborate on Maritime Satcomm (Source: Space News)
Three companies are joining forces to develop an experimental maritime communications cubesat that could be the basis for a future constellation. Satellite operator Orbcomm, smallsat builder AAC Clyde Space and Swedish aerospace contractor Saab said they'll cooperate on a three-unit cubesat to test a very-high-frequency data exchange system, or VDES, payload for two-way communications between ships and land. VDES offers 32 times the bandwidth of Automatic Identification System transmitters, but currently its use is limited to terrestrial stations that cover only shorelines. If the demonstration cubesat is successful, the companies will consider a constellation of as many as 100 satellites to extend coverage across oceans. (8/25)

Industry Panel Backs Commerce Dept. Lead on Space Traffic Management (Source: Space News)
Industry backs the conclusions of a report recommending the Commerce Department take on civil space traffic management (STM) work, but say it's more important for the federal government to pick an agency and move ahead. A report last week by the National Academy of Public Administration found that the Office of Space Commerce within the Commerce Department was a better agency to handle STM than NASA, the FAA or Defense Department. An industry panel at a conference Monday said they agreed with that conclusion, but also argued that the choice of what agency was less important than simply deciding on an agency and allocating funding. Commerce Department officials previously said they hope the report convinces Congress to support its request of $15 million for the office, primarily for STM activities. (8/25)

NASA Funded Researcher Failed to Disclose China Ties (Source: Axios)
The Justice Department has charged another scientist who does NASA-funded research for failing to disclose ties to China. Zhengdong Cheng, a professor at Texas A&M University, received NASA funding for research on colloidal systems in microgravity, including work done on the International Space Station. Cheng did not disclose in his grant applications or other documentation his affiliations with a Chinese university and Chinese company, in violation of federal law. Another professor at the University of Arkansas was arrested on similar charges in May. (8/25)

Carbon Foam Could Support Interstellar Spacecraft (Source: Space.com)
Future interstellar spacecraft could be made of carbon foam. A new study proposed making spacecraft out of a material known as aerographite, a carbon foam 15,000 times lighter than aluminum. A sphere one meter across, made of a microscopic layer of aerographite and containing a one-gram payload, could be deployed near the sun, where sunlight would accelerate the spacecraft to high speeds, enabling it to reach the nearby star Proxima Centauri in less than 200 years. The concept is an alternative to laser-propelled chip-sized spacecraft being studied by the Breakthrough Starshot project. (8/25)

The Moon's Lava Tubes Might Fit Entire Cities (Source: Newser)
Looks like Mars and the moon contain huge lava tubes that offer protection from solar radiation and meteors—which makes them possible homes for future explorers. A new paper says Martian tunnels appear to range from 130 to 1,300 feet in diameter, while the moon's are 1,600 to 3,000 feet and reach such heights that the world's tallest building, Dubai's 2,720-foot Burj Khalifa, could fit inside. "Tubes as wide as these can be longer than 40 kilometers, making the moon an extraordinary target for subsurface exploration and potential settlement in the wide protected and stable environments of lava tubes," Riccardo Pozzobon says.

The lava-tube sizes are estimates based on 3D laser scans of similar tubes on Earth as compared to satellite images of lunar and Martian tubes. The Martian ones have more likely collapsed, researchers say, but many lunar tunnels should still be standing. So how to go spelunking on the moon? Such rovers don't exist yet, but the European Space Agency is training astronauts in cave hiking and soliciting ideas for lunar-cave exploration. "Space agencies are now interested in planetary caves and lava tubes, as they represent a first step towards future explorations of the lunar surface and towards finding life (past or present) in Mars' subsurface," says Francesco Sauro. (8/15)

A Mysterious Radio Burst From Space is Back, Right on Schedule (Source: C/Net)
In June this year, astronomers found a fast radio burst (FRB), FRB 121102, repeating in a regular pattern, from somewhere in deep space. It was only the second time a radio burst with a discernible, repeating pattern was discovered. The first was discovered back in February this year. FRBs are transient radio pulses that vary in length between a fraction of a millisecond and a few milliseconds. We're still not sure why they exist or what they are. The source of this particular FRB is a dwarf galaxy more than 3 billion light years away.

Back in June a study theorized FRB 121102 repeated every 157 days based on data they'd accumulated over a five-year period. The team predicted they'd pick up another signal in July or August of this year. And they did: Right on cue, FRB 121102 kicked off. "Based on the short durations and the high luminosities of the bursts themselves, a good guess would be a neutron star with a very high magnetic field that is orbiting a companion object," he said. (8/24)