September 23, 2020

Space Force Creation Warrants Revisiting Defense Unification (Source: WOTR)
The Space Force underwent less scrutiny than the U.S. Navy or Marine Corps had undergone in the 1940s, when bitter conflicts between the Navy and Air Force mission were at their peak and the very existence of the Navy was in question. Suggestions and concerns raised across the defense community about the future of the Space Force were placated with offers of jointness. This ignored the fact that that organizational culture defines the environment in which thought can occur and that jointness should not be used to placate constructive criticism and feedback, nor manipulated to further single service agendas.

Often, suggestions by naval thinkers were rejected and argued under the auspices that the Space Force needs a blank slate. Blank slates rarely exist or become possible when they are set within an existing organization that has already rejected ideas and set bounds and limits. Those who promote blank slates for the Space Force will presumably be the first to support removing the Space Force from the Department of the Air Force, enhancing the spacepower doctrine by protecting it from developing an ideological service bias. (9/22)

SpaceX’s Next Two Falcon 9 Launch Dates Set in Late September (Source: Teslarati)
SpaceX has rescheduled Starlink-12 to launch no earlier than 10:43 am EDT on Sep. 27. Originally expected to launch on Sep. 17, a sequential pair of hurricanes forced SpaceX to delay the launch indefinitely until ocean conditions in the booster recovery zone improved. The Sep. 30 launch target for SpaceX’s third US military GPS III mission has remained firmly in place for more than a month. Unexpectedly, satellite manufacturer Lockheed Martin revealed that SpaceX and the US military have actually moved the launch 24 hours forward. GPS III SV04 is now scheduled to lift off as early as 9:55 pm EDT  on Sept. 29, less than two days after Starlink. (9/22)

Users Are Starting to Report Internet Speeds From SpaceX’s Starlink (Source: Vice)
Starlink relies on lower-orbit satellite constellations capable of providing faster speeds at lower latency than the dumpster fire that is traditional satellite broadband. Whereas traditional satellite is “laggy,” slow, expensive, and usage-capped, Starlink (and similar efforts by companies like  Amazon) promise faster, lower latency broadband almost anywhere in the continental U.S.

Early speed test results linked to Starlink IP addresses are promising. Speed tests from those participating in the Starlink beta show peak download speeds upwards of 114 Mbps, with upload speeds topping out at around 40 Mbps. That’s notably faster than many DSL lines, and on par with many mid-tier cable broadband offerings. Average speeds are notably slower, but still a big improvement for rural Americans struggling with traditional satellite or DSL lines that haven't been upgraded in years.

Starlink will be particularly welcome news to the 42 million Americans currently out of range of broadband, a problem that’s been highlighted by pandemic lockdowns forcing some kids to huddle in the dirt outside of Taco Bell just to get online. But while Starlink will certainly help bridge this “digital divide”, Elon Musk has acknowledged the service won’t have the capacity to seriously disrupt regional U.S. telecom monopolies like AT&T, Verizon, Spectrum, and Comcast. (9/22)

OneWeb’s Creditors Drop Dispute, Support Plan Under Settlement (Source: Bloomberg)
OneWeb Global Ltd.'s unsecured creditors said they will drop a $1.6 billion dispute and support the bankrupt satellite operator as part of a mediated global settlement. OneWeb asked Tuesday for court permission to modify its disclosures and plan to reflect the settlement, which includes the company’s sponsor, lenders, secured note holders, and the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors. Under the settlement, unsecured creditors will share at least $9.3 million, up from $6.1 million offered in earlier plan versions, the committee said. Creditors stand to recover as much as 16.8% of their investment. (9/22)

Blue Origin Considering Orbital Habitat (Source: Space News)
Blue Origin is considering getting into the commercial space station business. The company recently posted a job opening for a "Orbital Habitat Formulation Lead," whose responsibilities include leading technical and marketing work for commercial stations in low Earth orbit. The opening places a particular emphasis on working with NASA, which has announced plans to support development of commercial stations as part of an eventual transition from the ISS. Separately, Blue Origin announced Tuesday it will conduct its next New Shepard suborbital flight on Thursday, carrying a dozen science and technology payloads for NASA and others. The flight will be the first for New Shepard in more than nine months. (9/23)

Our Seas are Capturing More Carbon Than Expected (Source: ESA)
Earth’s oceans help to slow global warming by absorbing carbon from our atmosphere – but fully observing this crucial process in the upper ocean and lower atmosphere is difficult, as measurements are taken not where it occurs, the sea surface, but several metres below. New research uses data from ESA, NASA and NOAA satellites to rectify this, and finds that far more carbon is absorbed by the oceans than previously thought.

“Previous studies have ignored the small temperature differences between the surface of the ocean and the sampling depth, but we know that this has a significant impact on how carbon is held by the oceans in terms of salinity, solubility, stability, and so on,” adds Andrew. “But satellites can measure the temperature more or less exactly at the ocean surface – and when we do this, we find it makes a big difference.”

By applying satellite corrections to SOCAT data from 1992 to 2018 to account for temperature differences between the surface and at a few metres’ depth, the researchers find a substantially higher ocean uptake of carbon dioxide than previously thought. They were able to do this thanks to data from a suite of satellites. (9/22)

People Accuse SpaceX of Displacing Texas Residents, Destroying Wildlife in New Documentary (Source: The Hill)
“It’s a very, very unique beautiful area, [it’s] not for everyone because it’s very remote — 20 miles away from Brownsville — but that’s what I loved about it was the remoteness, the quietness, the unpopulated area and the wildlife,” Garcia said. Musk arrived in Boca Chica after founding SpaceX in 2002 with plans to build a prototype village for a settlement on Mars. Neighbors have accused him of disrupting the area with rocket tests and attempting to force them out. The documentary, which premiered on Sept. 21, investigates their claims, and the claims of SpaceX, which says Musk is bringing jobs and diversifying the economy of one of the poorest counties in the United States. (9/22)

China Attacked Indian Satellite Communications (Source: Times of India)
"Computer network attack against Indian satellite communicatons in 2017” is one among a slew of counter-space activities carried out by China since 2007, listed in a new report by US-based China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI), which provides China’s space narrative among other things. Isro, while conceding that cyber-attacks are a constant threat, maintains that its systems has not been compromised so far. (9/22)

Russia Seeks Space Weapons Treaty (Source: TASS)
Russia is again pushing for a treaty banning the placement of weapons in space. Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned the accord in a speech Tuesday at a United National General Assembly session, which appeared to be similar to past proposals by Russia and China for treaties to ban weapons in space. The United States and other Western nations have previously opposed similar proposals since they do not address such issues as direct ascent anti-satellite weapons launched from the ground. (9/23)

Debris Threat Causes Short-Notice Evasive Maneuver for ISS (Source: Space News)
The International Space Station had to maneuver on short notice Tuesday to avoid a piece of space debris. NASA said that controllers determined that an unknown piece of debris would come close enough to the station to warrant a maneuver to keep the station clear of the object. That object turned out to be debris from a Japanese H-2A rocket that broke up in orbit early last year. This was the third time this year the station had maneuvered to avoid a close approach by debris. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, in a tweet after the debris had safely passed the station, used the incident to advocate for funding for the Office of Space Commerce, which is seeking $15 million in fiscal year 2021 for civil space traffic management work. (9/23)

Space Force Plans Unified Buying Office (Source: Space News)
Agencies involved in national security space are working together to coordinate acquisitions. A "program integration council" led by the Space Force's Space and Missile Systems Center includes representatives from the Air Force, Missile Defense Agency, Space Development Agency and National Reconnaissance Office. The council will seek to ensure coordination among programs so that, for example, they use common standards so satellites are compatible with the ground infrastructure and can share data with other military systems. One area of focus will be on missile warning satellite programs underway by several agencies. (9/23)

Russia Plans ISS Film Shoots (Source: Roscosmos)
Roscosmos wants to get into the space movie business. The agency said Tuesday it was working with Russian broadcaster Channel One and studio Yellow, Black and White on a film that will be shot on the ISS. Dmity Rogozin, the head of Roscosmos, will be a producer on the film with the working title of "Vyzom" or "Challenge." The lead actor, to be selected in an "open contest," will fly to the station on a Soyuz mission next fall. The movie would compete with a project that involves actor Tom Cruise that seeks to film on the station as soon as next fall, although those plans have yet to be confirmed. (9/23)

Tom Cruise is Officially Going to Space for His Next Movie (Source: NME)
Plans for Tom Cruise’s outer space film with Elon Musk have been finalised, with the trip now scheduled for 2021. The pioneering movie was announced earlier this year, confirming that Cruise had teamed up with Musk and NASA to film a new movie in outer space, set to be directed by Edge of Tomorrow‘s Doug Liman. The project is now firmly on its way. The Axiom Space Station, piloted by Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria, will set off on a tourist mission in October 2021 with Cruise and Liman on board.

The film, still untitled, was pitched to Universal via an “exuberant Zoom call” with Cruise, Liman, Christopher McQuarrie and PJ van Sandwijk. Liman is in the process of writing the film’s script, and the budget is estimated to be around $200 million. McQuarrie, who is the writer/director on the Mission: Impossible films, will act as story advisor and producer, alongside Cruise, Liman and van Sandwijk as producers. (9/22)

UAE Maps a New Frontier in Space Training (Source: Gulf Today)
The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC) and NASA inked an accord to train Emirati astronauts in the space agency. Under the agreement, four Emirati astronauts will be provided advanced training. Emirati astronauts Hazzaa Al Mansoori and Sultan Al Neyadi are currently taking part in the training as part of the strategic partnership between the two organizations. Two astronauts to be selected from the second batch of the UAE Astronaut Program will also join the 2021 NASA Astronaut Candidate Class, in which they will receive the training that NASA astronauts undergo. (9/22)

Why Now is the Most Exciting Time in Space in 50 Years (Source: Fast Company)
The essential parts of an economy are intertwined by their very nature. There’s no point in having a food market if there are no farmers to supply food. But there’s no point in growing food until there are markets where you can sell it. And what is the right moment to go into the “food transportation” business, carting the freshly harvested produce from the field to the store? We’ve seen this in our own era: What was the point in creating high-speed internet service if there was no content online that required such speeds? Why bother creating YouTube if no one has the bandwidth to watch and upload videos easily?

This is exactly the moment we’re in with human space travel. Why bother creating the technology to launch people into space when there’s nowhere in particular to go? But why create destinations in space when there’s no affordable way to get to them? Yet it’s precisely because of this moment that now is the most exciting time in space in 50 years—stretching back to the moment when we were landing on the Moon. (9/22)

NASA, U.S. Space Force Sign MOU to Deepen Cooperation (Source: Parabolic Arc)
While advancing plans for unprecedented lunar exploration under the Artemis program, NASA also is building on a longstanding partnership with the Department of Defense with a new memorandum of understanding announced today by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and U.S. Space Force (USSF) Chief of Space Operations Gen. John “Jay” Raymond. The agreement commits the two organizations to broad collaboration in areas including human spaceflight, U.S. space policy, space transportation, standards and best practices for safe operations in space, scientific research, and planetary defense. (9/22)

Iceye Raises $87 Million in Series C Investment Round (Source: Space News)
Radar satellite operator Iceye raised $87 million in a Series C round, boosting the Finnish startup’s total investment tally to $152 million. With the Series C round completed, Iceye is preparing to launch four small synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites in 2020 and “at least eight” in 2021. In addition, Iceye US has begun looking for a U.S. manufacturing site. In February, Iceye opened a U.S. office in the San Francisco Bay Area led by Matossian, who managed a series of aerospace programs at Google including the Earth-imaging venture Terra Bella. (9/22)

AFRL Mulls Experimental Navigation Satellite Follow-On Production (Source: Aviation Week)
Additional production units of an experimental satellite system focused on future precision navigation and timing technology (PNT) could be purchased by the Air Force Research Laboratory in a year. The potential follow-on order is one of three options under consideration for the Navigation Technology Satellite Program (NTS)-3, said Col. Eric Felt. 

The NTS-3 program seeks to deploy satellites with a software-defined radio antenna that can broadcast a PNT signal to military systems within the Earth’s atmosphere. The signals would augment the PNT data already provided by the GPS constellation, but the NTS-3’s software defined antenna should be more resistant to attempts by enemies to jam or spoof the comparatively weak and nonsecure GPS signal. Other options for following up the NTS-3 program include augmenting future GPS satellites or other spacecraft with software-defined radios. (9/18)

Made In Space is Sending the First Ceramic Manufacturing Facility in Space to the ISS Next Week (Source: Tech Crunch)
In-space manufacturing company Made In Space is pushing the envelope on what can, well, be made in space with its next mission – which is set to launch aboard a Northrop Grumman  International Space Station (ISS) resupply mission set for next Tuesday. Aboard that launch will be Made In Space’s Turbine Ceramic Manufacturing Module (aka CMM), a commercial ceramic turbine blisk manufacturing device that uses 3D-printing technology to produce detailed parts the require a high degree of production accuracy.

A turbine blisk is a combo rotor disk/blade array that is used primarily in engines used in the aerospace industry. Making them involves using additive manufacturing to craft them as a single component, and the purpose of this mission is to provide a proof-of-concept about the viability of doing that in a microgravity environment. Gravity can actually introduce defects into ceramic blisks manufactured on Earth, because of the way that material can settle, leading to sedimentation, for instance. Producing them in microgravity could mean lower error rates overall, and a higher possible degree of precision for making finely detailed designs. (9/22)

How Relativity Space Plans to Win the Pentagon’s Launch Contracts (Source: C4ISR)
Relativity Space wants to be the first company to launch an entirely 3D-printed rocket into orbit and it wants the Pentagon as a customer. A growing number of companies are looking to provide small and medium launch services to the U.S. government. The establishment of the U.S. Space Force, Space Development Agency and U.S. Space Command in 2019 signaled the Pentagon’s ambitious plans for launching more payloads into space, and providing a vehicle for just a portion of those launches would prove lucrative to any company.

For Vice President of Business Development and Government Affairs Josh Brost, Relativity Space stands out from the competition, bringing disruptive 3D printing technology to bear on the small launch sector. Prior to joining Relativity, he worked at SpaceX for nine years, where he was responsible for the company’s government sales. "With the 3D printing, we’re gonna be able to go from raw materials flight in just 60 days, where normally it would take something like 18 months to two years to build a small launch vehicle," says Brost.

Working toward the launch of its first Terran One rocket in fall 2021, Relativity announced it had secured a deal with Iridium Communications for six dedicated launches to low Earth orbit. That same month, Relativity also announced a Right of Entry Agreement with the 30th Space Wing for development of launch facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base. "It’s $12 million for the full capability of Terran One. And that vehicle can take a little over 1250 kilograms to low Earth orbit. So that puts us at just under $10,000 per pound to orbit. In the small launch space, most or basically all of the other launch vehicles that are out there have lower capacity than us and most of them charge the same or more per mission." (9/22)

The Elusive Peril of Space Junk (Source: New Yorker)
ISS evasive maneuvers around space junk have been performed more than two dozen times, and can be executed without much trouble if Houston has five and a half hours’ notice. But, when Cooney called the Air Force, he learned that Object No. 36912 would make its closest approach in about four hours. “I had them repeat the information to make sure I was doing the math right,” he recalled. Never before had the ISS faced such a high probability of collision on such short notice. Moving the station was out of the question.

Since 1957, humanity has placed nearly ten thousand satellites into the sky. All but twenty-seven hundred are now defunct or destroyed. Collectively, they cost billions of dollars, but they were launched with the understanding that they were cheaper to abandon than to sustain. Some, like Sputnik, have burned up. Thousands, like Vanguard, will stay in orbit for decades or centuries, careering around the planet as ballistic garbage: a hazard to astronauts and unmanned spacecraft alike.

These satellites are joined by thousands of spent rocket bodies and countless smaller items—space flotsam created by wear or collision or explosions: things like bolts and other bits of metal. There are odder specimens, too. Object No. 43205 is a functional Tesla Roadster (with a mannequin driver) that Elon Musk launched in 2018. A company called Celestis fires capsules loaded with human remains into orbit, where they will stay for nearly two and a half centuries. (9/22)