October 19, 2020

Jeff Bezos’ Company Is Carrying Scientific Cargo to Space. It’s Not Amazon. (Source: New York Times)
West Texas is not quite like the moon. But it can serve as a handy stand-in. Last week Blue Origin launched — and landed — its small New Shepard rocket and capsule for the 13th time as part of tests to verify safety before any passengers climb aboard. One day, this will be New Shepard’s main business: flying well-to-do people above the 62-mile altitude generally considered the beginning of outer space where they will experience a few minutes of weightlessness as the capsule arcs.

Blue Origin is not a new company — Mr. Bezos founded it in 2000 — but for most of its existence, it operated in secret without generating much revenue. Three years ago, Mr. Bezos said he was selling a billion dollars a year in Amazon stock to finance Blue Origin’s research and development. And he has declared broad ambitions for its business, such as competing with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and others in the orbital launch business, building a moon lander for NASA astronauts and eventually making it possible for millions of people to live and work in space.

But the cargo of Tuesday’s launch from a test site near Van Horn, Texas, shows that the company is finding a more modest business in the short term: turning the reusable New Shepard rocket and capsule into an effective, and profitable, platform for testing new technologies and performing scientific experiments. Tucked under the collar at the top of the booster on Tuesday’s launch were prototypes of sensors that could help NASA astronauts safely reach the lunar surface in a few years. It is part of NASA’s Tipping Point program, which seeks to push innovative technologies. (10/19)

Applied Witchcraft: American Communications Intelligence Satellites During the 1960s (Source: Space Review)
Starting in the early 1960s, the National Reconnaissance Office flew a series of missions to perform what’s known as communications intelligence, seeking to understand patterns of communications within the Soviet Union. Dwayne Day examines what’s known about those early missions. Click here. (10/19)
 
TAG, Bennu, You’re It (Source: Space Review)
On Tuesday, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will attempt to touch down on the surface of asteroid Bennu and collect samples for return to Earth. Jeff Foust reports on how this effort, already technically challenging, has turned out to be even more difficult than originally expected. Click here. (10/19)
 
Rock-Solid (Blue) Cube: Galileo and the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake (Source: Space Review)
Thirty-one years ago, the Loma Prieta earthquake shook the San Francisco Bay Area, including a military space control center. Joseph Page II recounts how that facility still managed to remain operational to support a shuttle launch the next day. Click here. (10/19)
 
Is the New Zealand Commercial Space Success Story a Model for Other Countries? (Source: Space Review)
New Zealand has in recent years developed a small but growing space industry in fields from Earth observation to launch. Marçal Sanmartí explores if the factors that supported that growth can be replicated in other countries. Click here. (10/19)

NASA Taps Raytheon for Prototype Land Imaging Calibration Prototype (Source: Executive Biz)
Raytheon Technologies’ intelligence and space business has received a grant from NASA to develop and test a calibration system prototype as part of an effort to improve the quality of the agency’s land imaging data. Raytheon said Thursday the three-year agreement covers design, development and testing of the proposed Improved Radiometric Calibration of Land Imaging Systems on behalf of the NASA  Earth Science Technology Office.

The grant additionally includes funding for specialized IRIS components such as focal plane elements. The system's architecture and weight will be 30 percent smaller and lighter than conventional calibrated imagers. IRIS will also have features designed to handle the blue to thermal infrared light spectrum, according to Raytheon. (10/16)

Lockheed Picks Relativity’s 3D-Printed Rocket for Experimental NASA Mission (Source: Tech Crunch)
Relativity Space  has bagged its first public government contract, and with a major defense contractor at that. The launch startup’s 3D-printed rockets are a great match for a particularly complex mission Lockheed is undertaking for NASA’s Tipping Point program. The mission is a test of a dozen different cryogenic fluid management systems, including liquid hydrogen, which is a very difficult substance to work with indeed. The tests will take place on a single craft in orbit, which means it will be a particularly complicated one to design and accommodate.

The payload itself and its cryogenic systems will be designed and built by Lockheed and their partners at NASA,  of course, but the company will need to work closely with its launch provider during development and especially in the leadup to the actual launch. Relativity founder and CEO Tim Ellis explained that the company’s approach of 3D printing the entire rocket top to bottom is especially well suited for this. “We’re building a custom payload fairing that has specific payload loading interfaces they need, custom fittings and adapters,” he said. “It still needs to be smooth, of course — to a lay person it will look like a normal rocket,” he added. (10/19)

SpaceX Keeps Winning US Military Contracts — Here's Why, According to an Aerospace Expert (Source: Business Insider)
SpaceX has secured three military contracts in as many months — and one aerospace expert believes the deals won't end there. The DoD increasingly wants to transport supplies faster, according to Steve Nutt at the University of Southern California. SpaceX can fulfill that need at a time when the US military is "retooling" because of growing global political tensions, Nutt told Business Insider.

"The rockets that SpaceX has been asked to supply would address that need — delivering hardware and support supplies rapidly to anywhere in the world," Nutt said. Traditional contractors have proven to be "so stodgy, slow, and expensive that SpaceX is the only alternative," he said. In August, SpaceX won a slice of a billion-dollar agreement to launch new rockets for the Space Force. Two months later, it secured a $149 million Pentagon contract to make satellites that can track missiles.

Then, less than a week later, on October 8, the US military said it was teaming up with SpaceX to build a rocket capable of delivering weapons around the world at 7,500 mph. A 7,652-mile journey from Florida to Afghanistan could be completed within about an hour with such a high-speed rocket. The DoD's need for speed is increasingly important. "The days of heavily armored tanks and lumbering trucks are fading," Nutt said, as they are "too easy to target and destroy." Theoretically, the military can quickly get in and out before enemy forces attack, reducing the risk of casualties and damage, he said. "Unfortunately, I think we're entering another arms race." (10/19)

Inter-Satellite Laser Links Improving Starlink Performance (Source: SpaceFlight Insider)
SpaceX Senior Program Reliability Engineer Kate Tice confirmed that there had been tests conducted using two satellites which featured ‘space lasers’. “Recently as the Starlink team completed a test of two satellites …that are equipped with our inter-satellite links which we call called space lasers,” she said, “With these space lasers, the Starlink satellites were able to transfer hundreds of gigabytes of data.”

Continued testing and optimization of the inter-satellite communications through the “Space-Laser” feature will be an important component and benchmark to follow as SpaceX’s Starlink network data improves overall transfer rates, allowing latency rates to decrease and out-perform competing communications options. The company plans to mass-enable these inter-satellite links: “Once these space lasers are fully deployed, Starlink will be one of the fastest options to transmit data all over the world,” Tice stated. (10/18)

Orion Spacecraft Ready to Return Humans to Deep Space (Source: Space Daily)
The anticipated return to deep space in 2024 for the first time in nearly 50 years brings a unique set of challenges that only one spacecraft on the planet currently can meet, officials with Lockheed Martin said at a global space event this week. Life support and radiation shielding systems on NASA's Orion spacecraft, built by Lockheed, make it qualified for deep space missions -- those beyond low-Earth orbit where the International Space Station is situated, said Shelby Hopkins, senior systems engineer for Lockheed's Orion program. (10/16)

Air Leak Rate at Russia's ISS Zvezda Module Halves After Crack Sealed with Tape (Source: Sputnik)
The air leak rate in the Russian Zvezda module of the International Space Station has halved after the crack in the intermediate compartment was sealed with tape, according to the crew's communication with Earth, broadcast by NASA. On Friday, cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin informed the Moscow-based Mission Control Centre that the pressure in the compartment had declined by 52 mm Hg to 681 mm Hg over 11.5 hours, while the leak rate had fallen to 4 mm per hour from 7-9 mm per hour. The cosmonaut noted that the pressure continued to fall, but at a slower pace. He also suggested trying US patches to seal the crack. (10/19)

Twenty Years of Human Presence on Space Station (Source: Space Daily)
Join us for the most out-of-this-world work out as NASA celebrates 20 years of continuous human presence on the International Space Station. Lace up your running shoes and get outside, hop on the treadmill or work out however you envision a 91 minute and 12 second workout. The space station orbits Earth every 91 minutes and 12 seconds. Think your workout can beat one station orbit? Just for fun and to participate in the virtual race - simply track your start time and workout for 91 minutes and 12 seconds - to "beat" the space station by completing the workout before the station makes one orbit.

Just for fun and to participate in the virtual race - simply track your start time and workout for 91 minutes and 12 seconds - to "beat" the space station by completing the workout before the station makes one orbit. "Considering our ties to the orbiting laboratory, we want to celebrate 20 years of human presence on the space station," said Dwight Mosby, Payload Mission Operations Division Manager. "We want to encourage folks to pause and consider all the research that has gone on for 20 years and the benefits to each of us on Earth."

For almost 20 years, since the Expedition 1 crew arrived Nov. 2, 2000, humans have lived and worked continuously aboard the space station. This orbiting laboratory has advanced capabilities in long-duration human space operations and in conducting scientific research and technology development in space. Sweatin' with the Station honors the many accomplishments of 20 years of human presence aboard the space station. The station remains the sole, space-based proving ground, greatly enabling NASA to go forward to the Moon and Mars. (10/19)

UK Space: Consultation on Draft Insurance and Liabilities Requirements to Implement the Space Industry Act 2018 (Source: Space Daily)
UK Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Rachel Maclean MP released 13 October 2020 a statement on the draft insurance, liabilities and charging requirements to implement the Space Industry Act 2018. This consultation seeks views on the operability and effectiveness of the proposed liabilities, insurance and charging requirements to implement the Space Industry Act 2018, including the use of licence conditions to cover insurance requirements. It also seeks views on the Draft Space Industry (Liabilities) Regulations and the associated guidance documents, as well as to gather new evidence and test the assumptions in the consultation-stage impact assessment.

The UK's space sector is a unique national asset, and this government is committed to growing this exciting industry. Our regulatory framework for spaceflight will support safe and sustainable activities that will drive research, innovation and entrepreneurship in this vital sector, exploiting the unique environment of space, and providing a catalyst for growth across the space sector. Harnessing the opportunities provided by commercial spaceflight will also feed into our emerging National Space Strategy, the government's agenda to level-up the UK, and global Britain. Government and industry have set a target to grow the UK's share of the global market to 10% by 2030. (10/15)

Chinese Startups Eye Rocket and Satellite Markets (Source: Space Daily)
As China moves progressively toward its goal of becoming a major power in the global space arena that can rival the United States, space startups and local governments are also racing to tap into the boom in rockets and satellites. Over the past two months, about 2.4 billion yuan ($357 million) of investment was raised by two major private rocket companies in Beijing. In September alone, two massive manufacturing complexes-one for satellites and another for rockets-started construction in Hebei province's Tangshan and Shandong province's Haiyang.

Now, the southern coastal province of Guangdong, one of China's economic powerhouses, is determined to catch up and has chosen to start by building carrier rockets. Last week, Guangzhou, the provincial capital, began construction in cooperation with CAS Space, a Beijing-based startup virtually controlled by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, on the country's southernmost production facility for carrier rockets. The 40 hectare complex in Guangzhou's Nansha district will have an initial annual production capacity of 30 rockets upon the completion of the project's first phase around 2022, CAS Space said in a statement sent to China Daily on Friday. (10/13)

Risk Cost SpaceX Its Slot On $2.2B Air Force Deal, Judge Says (Source: Law360)
A California federal judge in a newly unsealed decision ruled that the U.S. Air Force reasonably excluded SpaceX from $2.2 billion in space launch prototype deals after deciding the company's rivals better met its needs. The Air Force had rationally decided that the technical advantages of SpaceX's proposed rockets didn't overcome the risk and cost of the company's proposal, the judge ruled. (10/16)