September 17, 2020

NASA Marks Continued Progress on X-59 (Source: NASA)
Assembly of NASA’s X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology aircraft is continuing during 2020 and making good progress, despite challenges such as those imposed by the unexpected global pandemic. NASA plans as early as 2024 to fly the X-59 over select communities on missions to gather information about how the public will react to the level of quiet supersonic flight noise the aircraft is designed to produce – if they hear anything at all. Data collected will be shared with federal and international regulators to help them set new rules that may allow supersonic flight over land and enable a whole new market for commercial faster-than-sound air travel. (9/17)

NASA Missions Spy First Possible ‘Survivor' Planet Hugging a White Dwarf Star (Source: NASA)
An international team of astronomers using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and retired Spitzer Space Telescope has reported what may be the first intact planet found closely orbiting a white dwarf, the dense leftover of a Sun-like star only 40% larger than Earth. The Jupiter-size object, called WD 1856 b, is about seven times larger than the white dwarf, named WD 1856+534. It circles this stellar cinder every 34 hours, more than 60 times faster than Mercury orbits our Sun. (9/14)

Stallmer Joins Voyager (Source: Voyager Space Holdings)
Voyager Space Holdings announced the appointment of Eric Stallmer as executive vice president of government affairs and public policy. Stallmer will lead Voyager's Washington D.C. office and will be responsible for representing the interests of Voyager to key government institutions including Congress, the White House and the many federal agencies that impact the success of Voyager and its subsidiaries. Stallmer formerly served as director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. (9/17)

Northrop Grumman to Develop Jam-Resistant Satellite (Source: Space News)
Northrop Grumman has won a $298 million contract to develop a new jam-resistant military communications satellite. The Evolved Strategic Satcom program is intended to provide survivable, secure and protected communications for high-priority military operations and national command authorities, continuing services provided by the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite system. The satellite to be built under the contract awarded Wednesday by the Space and Missile Systems Center will be completed by May 2025. (9/17)

Space Command Takes Ownership of AEHF Satellite (Source: Space News)
U.S. Space Command will soon take over last AEHF satellite. The AEHF-6 satellite, launched in March, has completed on-orbit tests and will be handed over to Space Command for additional tests before being declared operational. The satellite, built by Lockheed Martin, is the last of six that provide secure communications for the U.S. military and allies, augmenting the older Milstar system. (9/17)

Missile Warning Satellites Get New Ground System (Source: Space News)
Lockheed Martin won a contract to begin migrating missile warning satellites to a new ground system. Lockheed Martin will start the process of migrating a Space-Based Infrared System geosynchronous satellite to the next-generation Enterprise Ground Services, known as EGS, under the $51.5 million contract announced Wednesday. EGS will be a common command-and-control architecture that will be used to fly all military satellites in the future so the Space Force doesn’t have to develop a new ground system every time it introduces a new satellite. (9/17)

NASA and DOE to Coordinate Space Power Efforts (Source: Space News)
NASA and the Department of Energy are increasing cooperation on a range of technologies and research topics. The two agencies have created a "standing coordinating council" that meets regularly to see how they can work together beyond existing cooperation in nuclear power systems to other technologies, such as advanced photovoltaics. That cooperation was also the subject of a roundtable held this week at the University of Tulsa. DOE plans to issue a request for information to ask scientists if detectors the department has developed for astrophysics research could be used at a future lunar base. (9/17)

Scottish Spaceport Sites Join Alliance (Source: The Herald)
Several prospective Scottish spaceports are joining forces. The Spaceports Alliance brings together five vertical and horizontal launch sites proposed in Scotland to jointly promote the space industry there and work on common regulatory and related issues. None of the five spaceports is currently in operation, although a launch site near Sutherland in northern Scotland recently won planning approvals. (9/17)

UK Space Agency Funds Space Debris Projects (Source: BBC)
The U.K. Space Agency is dividing more than 1 million pounds ($1.3 million) between seven firms to mature technologies for spotting and tracking space debris. Many of the projects are still in early development, though one company, D-Orbit, has cameras in orbit on a recently launched spacecraft deployer that it will attempt to use for spotting debris. UKSA considered 26 proposals for the program. The funding announcement coincides with a partnership signing between UKSA and the British Ministry of Defence to collaborate on space domain awareness. (9/16)

Redwire Selects Jacksonville, Florida for its New Corporate Headquarters (Source: Redwire)
Redwire, a new leader in mission critical space solutions and high reliability components for the next generation space economy, has selected Jacksonville, Florida for its corporate headquarters location. Redwire already has a significant existing presence in Florida through its subsidiary Made In Space, Inc. which previously relocated their corporate headquarters to Jacksonville in January. The company will look to expand on the existing operational footprint to align with its multi-year strategic growth plan. (9/15)

Nanoracks Finalizing Space Station Airlock and New Funding Round (Source: Space News)
As Nanoracks puts the finishing touches on an airlock that will be installed on the International Space Station later this year, the company is finalizing a new funding round. The Bishop airlock module is undergoing final preparations at Nanoracks’ headquarters in Houston. The module will be shipped later this month to Florida to be integrated with a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft launching to the ISS in November.

Bishop will ultimately be installed on the Tranquility, or Node 3, module of the ISS. The module can be loaded with satellites to be deployed from the station or other payloads seeking to be exposed to the space environment. Once the payloads are loaded into the airlock, the station’s robotic arm detaches Bishop from Node 3 and reinstalls it once complete.

The company has used the airlock on the Japanese Kibo module on the station for deploying hundreds of cubesats. The limited capacity of that airlock led Nanoracks to pursue a commercial airlock with a volume several times greater. Nanoracks envisions using Bishop for more than satellite deployments. The airlock can host payloads both in the interior of the module and on its exterior. One of the first customers for Bishop is the Japanese robotics company GITAI, which will test a robotic arm in the airlock next year. (9/16)

Surviving the Earth Like an Apollo Astronaut (Source: Supercluster)
Before the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo astronauts could brave the terrible vastness of space, they first had to survive Nevada. There they were taught desert survival techniques by U.S. Air Force instructors, hoping to prepare them for a worst-case scenario landing in the Kalahari or Arabian deserts — wherever they might land, far away from civilization, out of touch with NASA, until a rescue team could reach them. One of the first things a would-be space castaway needs is protection from the punishing, sweltering sun.

The astronauts were taught to quickly transform their parachutes into robes, fashion headgear, and braid cords into rope. Their rucksacks contained some critical pieces to complete the look — NASA issue goggles, metallic sun bonnets, knives, and water pouches. The photos from this period are surreal. Some of the most highly trained test pilots and engineers of their day, soon to explore another world for the first time, caught somewhere between Lawrence of Arabia and Swiss Family Robinson.

Supercluster worked with Gene to reverse engineer replicas from Rucksack 1, as a limited collection of functional art pieces that honor this little known story and the seamstresses and craftsmen who helped make Apollo possible. "The project began with little more than a handful of photos and some early drawings for inspiration. I was constrained to the photos and tools I have. The construction and materials were guided by that. It was a lot of cutting, sewing, cementing. And exploration.” Click here. (9/15)

Georgia Spaceport Opponents Scoff at  Astra's "Success" in Alaska (Source: Spaceport Facts)
Both the Alaska Spaceport CEO and Astra’s CEO have called Astra's third consecutive crash and explosion of its small-class rocket a “success” because Astra will learn something from it’s launch to 11,000 feet. The takeaway from the Alaska spaceport’s acceptance of this as a “success” is that crashes and explosions are business as usual, and putting out fires is just a cost of doing business. They hope that insurance covers it.

Georgia's Camden County has signed an agreement pledging cooperation with Alaska’s spaceport team to help them with “transportable launch support equipment” and range safety support. Alaska has attempted only 4 orbital and 21 sub-orbital launches over 22 years with five known launch explosions and a fueling fire that destroyed an Astra rocket in March.

Astra is Alaska's only commercial customer and operates from a TENT at the launch site. Are these the types of operators that Camden taxpayers expect for their millions? Alaska has invested more than $100 million to host a launch Astra sells for $1 million. Over 22 years of operations, the spaceport has generated revenue covering only 44% of its operating costs but the vast majority of that has come from DoD contracts, not commercial operations. The minutes of Alaska Aerospace's Board of Directors meetings are no longer available from its website but audited financial reports show regular annual operating losses. (9/17)

NASA Astronauts Have a New Task: Make Videos of Estee Lauder Products (Source: CNN)
The International Space Station has served as the world's most unique laboratory for two decades, hosting hundreds of scientific experiments, crews of astronauts and even the occasional slime. But now, NASA, one of the space station's primary operators, is preparing to oversee the largest push of business activity aboard the ISS. Later this month, up to 10 bottles of a new Estée Lauder (EL) skincare serum will arrive at the space station. NASA astronauts are expected to film the items in the microgravity environment of the ISS and the company will be able to use that footage in ad campaigns or other promotional material.

If the footage is used in a commercial, it would not be the first advertisement filmed in space; nor will it be the first time NASA has worked with corporate advertisers. But it will mark one of the most high-profile cases of NASA offering up the American portion of the space station for capturing zero-gravity footage of a product. The Estée Lauder partnership will continue NASA's years-long push to encourage private-sector spending on space projects as the space agency looks to stretch its budget beyond the ISS and focus on taking astronauts back into deep space. Those efforts include allowing the space station to be used for marketing and entertainment purposes.

The Estée Lauder products, a new formula of the company's "Advanced Night Repair" skin serum, are expected to launch aboard a Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft, tucked alongside 8,000 pounds of other cargo, experiments and supplies. NASA astronauts will be tasked with capturing "imagery and video" of the product. (9/17)