September 1, 2020

Angara Heavy Readies for Final Assembly and Tests (Source: TASS)
MV Khrunicheva plans to deliver in November from Omsk to Moscow, the third heavy Angara-A5, which will be launched for the first time with the Perseus upper stage in 2021. According to the Director General of the Center, in Moscow Angara will undergo final tests and assembly. Six months after that, the company plans to deliver the rocket to the Plesetsk cosmodrome.

Angara is a family of Russian launch vehicles ranging from light to heavy classes. The new family uses environmentally friendly fuel components. So far, only two launches have been carried out, both from the Plesetsk cosmodrome: the light Angara-1.2PP was launched in July 2014, the heavy Angara-A5 in December 2014. The next launch of the heavy Angara is scheduled for November 2020. (9/1)

Lockheed Martin and York Space Systems Picked by SDA for DoD Constellation (Source: Space News)
Lockheed Martin and York Space Systems have won contracts for an initial series of satellites for the Space Development Agency (SDA). Lockheed Martin received a $187.5 million contract and York Space Systems a $94 million contract for the SDA's constellation of communications satellites known as Transport Layer Tranche 0. Each company will build 10 satellites, with all of them launched by September 2022. The satellites will have optical crosslinks to communicate with other satellites in the same orbital plane or in other orbits. Derek Tournear, director of SDA, said the two companies offered "an outstanding technical solution, with a good focus on schedule" when asked why Lockheed's contract was twice as large as York's. (8/31)

Intelsat to Acquire Gogo (Source: Intelsat)
Intelsat announced Monday it is buying Gogo's commercial aviation connectivity line of business. Intelsat will pay $400 million in cash for the business, which provides internet access to commercial aircraft. Intelsat argues that the deal allows it access a market still anticipated to grow in the long run despite the depressed demand for such services during the pandemic. Intelsat will pay for the deal using existing debtor-in-possession financing, and secured approval Monday from a bankruptcy court that is handling Intelsat's Chapter 11 reorganization. (9/1)

ULA Investigates Cause of Delta Heavy Abort (Source: Space News)
United Launch Alliance is still investigating the cause of a last-second abort of a Delta 4 Heavy launch over the weekend. A company spokesperson said Monday that the investigation into the abort, just three seconds before the scheduled liftoff early Saturday, is still in progress, and the company has not yet announced a new launch date. The focus of the investigation is on an unspecified ground system. One of the three main engines of the vehicle ignited briefly when the abort was triggered. The rocket is carrying a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. (8/31)

SpaceX Making (Slower) Progress with Starship (Source: Space News)
Elon Musk says that SpaceX is making "good progress" on its Starship vehicle despite delays in flight tests of the next-generation launch system. Musk emphasized the work the company had done building up a production system for the vehicle at Boca Chica, Texas, claiming that effort was harder than building prototypes. The company has fallen short of an ambitious schedule Musk announced nearly a year ago, which at the time predicted a first orbital flight of Starship is about six months. Musk said the first orbital flight of the system will now take place "probably next year." (9/1)

Coleman to Lead DARPA (Source: Space News)
A former technology executive is the new director of DARPA. The Pentagon announced Monday that Victoria Coleman will take over as director of the agency later this month. Coleman has been a senior advisor at the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society and previously the CEO of Atlas AI, a public benefit corporation that applies artificial intelligence solutions to sustainable development. Coleman succeeds Steven Walker, who stepped down in January. DARPA deputy director Peter Highnam has served as acting director since Walker's departure. (9/1)

Spain's PLD Space Completes Rocket Tests (Source: Space News)
Spanish launch startup PLD Space has completed a series of tests of its Teprel-B rocket engine. The company completed the thrust vector control testing of the engine at its propulsion test facility in August. The test, the company said, brings the company closer to qualifying the engine for flight on its Miura 1 sounding rocket, designed to send up to 100 kilograms to an altitude of 150 kilometers. (9/1)

SOFIA Aerial Observatory Flies Again (Source: NASA)
NASA's SOFIA airborne observatory has returned to flight after a five-month hiatus. NASA suspended flights of SOFIA, a Boeing 747 with a 2.5-meter infrared telescope, in March because of the pandemic. NASA said Monday it resumed those flights in mid-August to test new procedures, and will soon return to a regular schedule of four flights per week. That pause in flights forced the project to cancel a planned deployment of the aircraft to New Zealand to carry out observations of objects visible only from the Southern Hemisphere. (8/31)

Blue Origin Plans Artwork for New Shepard Exterior (Source: GeekWire)
Future flights of Blue Origin's New Shepard vehicle will carry artwork on its exterior. Blue Origin is working with Uplift Aerospace to fly artwork on panels mounted on the exterior of the suborbital vehicle. The artists working on the project expect that the art will be altered by the flight, creating "a unique and indelible mark" on it. Neither Blue Origin nor Uplift Aerospace stated when the artwork will fly. Blue Origin last flew New Shepard in December. (9/1)

NASA Plans to Keep SpaceX, Boeing Crew Capsules Busy (Source: Space.com)
Capabilities provided by the Boeing CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX Crew Dragon will help the ISS increase research and development, according to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. These commercial crew vehicles will increase the frequency of NASA trips to ISS. "We're going to have more people on the International Space Station than we've had in a long time, and [research and development] throughput is actually going to increase," Bridenstine said.

Bridenstine was referring to a new era of human spaceflight that opened on May 30, when SpaceX launched its first-ever crewed mission, the Demo-2 test flight. Demo-2 sent NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the ISS for two months, ending on Aug. 2 when SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule made the first American ocean splashdown from orbit since 1975.

Crew Dragon and Boeing's delayed (but forthcoming) CST-100 Starliner capsule will carry four astronauts apiece on their operational ISS missions for NASA. (Both companies won multibillion contracts from NASA's Commercial Crew Program in 2014.) This boost over the Soyuz crew size will expand crew research time during long missions to 70 hours a week, NASA ISS program manager Joel Montalbano said. (8/31)

Pick an Agency, Any Agency (Source: The Space Review)
Space Policy Directive 3 gave the Commerce Department responsibilities for civil space traffic management in 2018, but congressional disagreements have kept the agency from making much progress. Jeff Foust reports on a new report, requested by Congress, that affirms the administration’s decision. Click here. (8/31)
 
Outer Space Needs Private Law (Source: The Space Review)
NASA’s proposed Artemis Accords, a means to enforce good behavior among partners in the Artemis program, has attracted controversy. Alexander William Salter describes an alternative to space governance that doesn’t require governments. Click here. (8/31)
 
Collaboration is the Cornerstone of Space Exploration (Source: The Space Review)
While competition drove the original Space Race, there’s a growing emphasis now on cooperation in space exploration. Dylan Taylor discusses how cooperation can be leveraged to enable the exploration of Mars and much more. Click here. (8/31)
 
From SSA to Space Recon: Setting the Conditions to Prevail in Astrodynamic Combat (Source: The Space Review)
The US military has shifted from discussing “space situational awareness” to “space domain awareness” recently, reflecting growing concerns about threats to military assets in orbit. James Kirby argues that a “space reconnaissance” mindset is now needed in order to properly react to those threats. Click here. (8/31)

Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals (Source: OBAP)
Founded in 1976, the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the encouragement and advancement of minorities in all aviation and aerospace careers.  OBAP members encourage diversity in the industry by supporting aspiring aviation professionals through Project Aerospace, a series of scholarships, mentoring, training, and youth-focused education programs.  OBAP has more than 3,000 members internationally

Today, we draw on the strength of our founders to harness our collective power, influence, and the voice of our membership to champion changes that will benefit our industry, our communities, and this nation. We mourn with you, for the senseless loss of lives, and stand boldly to ensure that justice is served and equity comes through legitimate and transformative change. (6/4)

Travelling Through a Wormhole Without Dying May Actually Be Possible (Source: New Scientist)
Physicists have worked out a way that it might be feasible to send someone through a wormhole. Wormholes are tunnels between two black holes that connect distant regions of space-time, and normally it would be impossible to pass something through them, but factoring in an extra dimension might make it possible. Under Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which describes the behaviour of gravity and space-time, most wormholes would either close whenever something falls in or be extremely small and disappear immediately. Click here. (8/31)