October 21, 2020

NASA's Big Plans to Explore Small Bodies (Source: NASA)
Not all asteroids are the same. But scientists believe that asteroids similar to Bennu could have seeded Earth with water and organic compounds, and may be potentially rich in those resources and precious metals that could be valuable to humanity in the future to help power exploration of the solar system by robots and humans. Scientists are also eager to find more potentially hazardous asteroids, to learn more about their orbits and physical characteristics, and to develop potential protective measures to mitigate dangers posed to Earth.

In the next few years NASA will be launching several ambitious missions to study unique asteroids to fill in more pieces of the cosmic puzzle. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) and Lucy missions will launch in July and October 2021, respectively. The Psyche mission follows closely with a 2022 launch date. And while New Horizons continues to investigate the Kuiper Belt following its rewarding flybys of Pluto and Arrokoth, the latest asteroid-bound mission, Janus, is in development. OSIRIS-REx is scheduled to begin its journey back to Earth in 2021 with return in 2023. (10/19)

Lockheed Martin Optimistic for ULA Launch Pricing (Source: Space News)
One of United Launch Alliance's corporate owners says the company can now offer a "compelling" price for launch customers. Ken Possenriede, chief financial officer of Lockheed Martin, said in an earnings call Tuesday that ULA's pricing should ensure that it will get "its fair share of awards over SpaceX." Both ULA and SpaceX won national security launch contracts in August, with ULA 60% of future launches to SpaceX's 40%. Lockheed Martin, which owns 50% of ULA, is bullish about its space business overall, which accounts for about $12 billion of its $65 billion in annual sales. (10/21)

Space Force Gets House Caucus (Source: Space News)
The Space Force is also getting a House caucus. The Space Force Caucus will be chaired by Reps. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) and Kendra Horn (D-OK), and will serve as "the chief advocate for our nation's exciting new service" in the House, Lamborn said. A group of senators established a similar caucus there last month. (10/21)

Momentus to Launch Kepler Satellites (Source: Space News)
Momentus will launch two satellites for Kepler Communications. The cubesats will fly as part of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare mission and placed into their final orbit by a Momentus Vigoride tug. Kepler is starting the deployment of a constellation that will provide store-and-forward and internet-of-things services, launching the first two operational satellites for that system last month. Monetus has signed up dozens of customers for Vigoride, which is scheduled to make its orbital debut later this year. (10/21)

TriSept to Launch Army Cubesat with Rocket Lab (Source: Space News)
TriSept will fly a U.S. Army cubesat on an Electron rocket. TriSept will act as the launch broker and integration manager for a three-unit cubesat technology demonstration mission called Gunsmoke-J, scheduled to launch in February 2021 on an Electron from New Zealand. The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command is developing Gunsmoke-J to test technologies "relevant to U.S. Army warfighter needs" that could be used on future satellites. (10/21)

NASA and Dept. of Energy Renew R&D Ties for Space Nuclear Power (Source: Space News)
NASA and the Department of Energy have signed a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) regarding cooperation. The MOU, announced Tuesday, establishes an executive committee of officials from NASA and the Department of Energy who will study potential cooperation in space nuclear power for the moon and Mars, as well as other technologies. The two agencies have discussed expanding cooperation that has traditionally been limited to nuclear power systems flown on NASA missions, while the Department of Energy has been working to expand its presence in the space field in general. (10/21)

Nanoracks' Bishop Airlock Cycles Pre-Purchased by NASA and ESA (Source: Space Daily)
Nanoracks says both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have pre-purchased Bishop Airlock Cycles for agency and third-party use. The Nanoracks Bishop Airlock, launching this Fall to the International Space Station (ISS), is the first-ever commercially built, owned, and operated airlock on the ISS and provides five times the existing payload volume currently available on station. ESA has pre-purchased five airlock cycles, and NASA six, with an option for four additional cycles at a discounted rate. (10/21)

Artemis: What it Means for Luxembourg (Source: US Embassy in Luxembourg)
First and foremost, it not only recognizes the role of commercial and sustained lunar exploration and resource development – it makes that a priority.  Second, the Artemis program mandates NASA work to make humanity’s return to the moon a global one. This is at the heart of how Luxembourg became a key player in this program: NASA is looking at Luxembourg’s new and successful model of a space agency which aspires to foster commercial opportunities and partnerships.

Space exploration used to be an exclusive province of a handful of Government space agencies solely reliant on public funding to achieve national objectives.  That is rapidly changing.  Increasingly, commercial enterprises are defining the goals for the use of outer space.  The commercial sector will be a critical component of Artemis, ensuring a sustainable presence on the Moon.

Amid the growth of the commercial space sector, Luxembourg has been closely watching, and several years ago identified this nascent industry as a potential and significant contributor to its national economy, putting it on the vanguard of countries involved in this next chapter of space exploration. (10/21)

Mynaric to Provide Laser Link Terminals for Blackjack Satellites (Source: Mynaric)
Mynaric has been selected by Telesat to supply multiple units of its flagship CONDOR optical inter-satellite link terminals to DARPA’s Blackjack Track B program, in a deal demonstrating continued success for Mynaric in accessing the U.S. government market. The terminals are scheduled to be delivered in mid-2021 to DARPA’s Blackjack System Integrator with satellites scheduled to launch in the latter part of 2021. (10/21)

Former Danish Rocketeer Captured After Prison Escape (Source: Washington Post)
Peter Madsen, a Danish man serving a life sentence for the 2017 murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall, was apprehended Tuesday after he briefly escaped from prison. Authorities received word of an escape from Herstedvester prison in Denmark, and within minutes, they surrounded and handcuffed a fugitive, who turned out to be Madsen, 49. Editor's Note: Madsen in 2008 co-founded Copenhagen Suborbitals, which endeavored to build and launch rockets from a floating platform in the North Sea. (10/20)

A Busted Toilet Kicked Off a Seriously Crappy Night on the ISS (Source: Gizmodo)
It was another long night aboard the International Space Station, as the crew had to deal with a series of minor problems, in what is starting to sound like a broken record. They’re more of an annoyance, but annoyances on the ISS seem to be in an abundance these days. The first problem to emerge last night was a broken toilet located in the Russian segment.

Ground controllers suspect the issue is an air bubble that formed in the system. An update from AFP suggests the toilet problem has since been fixed. Had it not been fixed, however, the cosmonauts could have relieved themselves in a toilet located in their Soyuz-MS-16 spacecraft, which is currently docked to the ISS. Failing that, they could’ve politely asked NASA for access to its fancy new $23 million toilet, the Universal Waste Management System, which arrived at the ISS earlier this month. If those options were somehow out, the crew could’ve just worn diapers normally used during spacewalks. (10/20)

Spaceplane Catalyst (Source: Aerospace America)
No one without the right clearance knows exactly what the U.S. Air Force’s X-37B spaceplanes do in orbit, but it must be a lot given the cumulative years they’ve spent up there. The vehicles are sparking a resurgence of interest in spaceplanes as a necessary ingredient for expanding society to space. The vehicles are serving as an advertisement for the type of spaceplane likely to play an increasingly important role as entrepreneurs, Fortune 500 companies and NASA managers seek to extend the Earthly economy, and someday possibly even our society, into orbit.

“You can count on spaceplanes flying people and cargo to the edge of space or to low-Earth orbit and back very soon,” predicts Bobby Braun, a former NASA chief technologist and now director for planetary science for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. “Spaceplanes are here, and they’re here to stay.”

Not everyone considers X-37B, SpaceShipTwo and Dream Chaser spaceplanes. Some preserve the term for single-stage-to-orbit vehicles that take off from a runway, travel to orbit and return to a runway. Others include air-launched spacecraft as long as they have wings to maneuver and glide through Earth’s atmosphere on the way back from orbit to a runway. If vehicles that fit those definitions are eventually built and flown hundreds of times with minimal repair and maintenance between flights, they could slash the cost of space transportation and speed point-to-point travel on Earth. (10/21)

Musk Thinks There Could be Alien Life in These Two Spots (Source: Fox Business)
Life may not have found life outside of Earth just yet, but if it exists, SpaceX's Elon Musk thinks there are two likely spots for it. Musk said that Jupiter's moon Europa or under the surface of Mars are the two most likely spots. (10/19)

New Voyager Data: Space Much Denser Outside Solar System (Source: Futurism)
Voyager 2, a space probe launched in 1977 that finally made its way out of our solar system in 2018, is recording some weird data out in interstellar space. As it passed the boundary of our solar system, Voyager 2 picked up on an increase rather than a decrease in the particle density in its surroundings, according to ScienceAlert. Based on the assumption that it’s, well, the void of space, astronomers expected the density of interstellar space to drop — but now Voyager 2 is confirming similar reports from Voyager 1 years prior. (10/20)

A New Day for Oklahoma's Spaceport? (Source: The Oklahoman)
The Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority has had little to show for itself since its creation by the Legislature in 1999. Might that be about to change? Those now involved with the authority believe the answer is yes, as they are setting out on a new course intended to make the state’s spaceport more than simply a massive landing strip in western Oklahoma.

The authority’s executive director, Craig Smith, whose background is in communications and public affairs, said he believes OSIDA’s future is bright. He and his colleagues, Smith told Denwalt, are “just waiting for our friends, the manufacturers, our space partners, to recognize the capability that we have.” If that happens, it will have been a long, long time in coming. (10/21)

Netflix Cancels ‘Away’ After One Season (Source: Variety)
Netflix is not renewing science fiction drama series “Away” for a second season, Variety has confirmed. The cancellation comes just six weeks after the show’s first season was released on Sep. 4. “Away” stars Hilary Swank as astronaut Emma Green, who leads the first crewed expedition to Mars aboard the spaceship “Atlas,” called the Mars Joint Initiative. (10/19)

NASA Grabs Asteroid Sample in Agency First (Source: Space News)
NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully touched down on the surface of asteroid Bennu Tuesday. The spacecraft briefly touched the surface at 6:12 p.m. Eastern, its sample collection system making contact for a handful of seconds before the spacecraft pulled away as planned. The touch-and-go, or TAG, maneuver, appeared to go as expected, but project officials said it will be several days before they know exactly how much material the spacecraft collected during that attempt. OSIRIS-REx has a goal of collecting at least 60 grams of asteroid material for return to Earth, but is capable of gathering up far more. (10/21)

Microsoft Supporting SpaceX Missile Tracking Satellite Project (Source: Space News)
SpaceX is working with Microsoft on a Space Development Agency (SDA) contract. SpaceX said Tuesday that Microsoft is a subcontractor on its $149 million SDA contract to build four missile-tracking satellites. The companies did not discuss what specific role Microsoft will play in the SDA program, but SpaceX was reportedly interested in a digital environment developed by the Microsoft Azure cloud computing division that allows the user to visualize an entire satellite architecture and test satellite designs and artificial intelligence algorithms. (10/21)

Firefly Signs New Customer Ahead of First Launch From California (Source: Firefly)
Firefly Aerospace has signed a Launch Services Agreement (LSA) with Spire Global (Spire) for the launch of Lemur spacecraft on the Alpha launch vehicle. The LSA will provide for the launch of Spire spacecraft on multiple Alpha missions over the contract period. Firefly has also executed an LSA with Geometric Space Corporation for the full payload capacity of an Alpha launch vehicle. Firefly also announced the successful acceptance test of the first stage of its Alpha launch vehicle for its inaugural flight later this year, at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California (10/20)

Self Sufficiency is the Acid Test for Mars Settlement (Source: The Independent)
Elon Musk believes a Mars settlement needs to be complete before a cataclysmic event takes place on Earth. “Civilization’s not looking super strong, it’s looking a little rickety right now," he says. Establishing self sufficiency would therefore be the ultimate benchmark of success for any colonisation of Mars. “It’s helpful to have as the objective the creation of a self-sustaining city on Mars… Not simply a few people or a base, but a self-sustaining city,” he said. "The acid test really is, if the ships from Earth stop coming for any reason, does Mars die out? If it does, then we’re not in a secure place.” (10/20)

SpaceX, SES to Provide Broadband for Microsoft’s Azure Space Mobile Data Centers (Source: Space News)
Microsoft on Oct. 20 announced it is expanding its cloud computing services for the space industry. The company will offer mobile cloud computing data centers that can be deployed anywhere in the world and connect to SpaceX’s Starlink and SES’ O3b internet satellites. The service is part of Microsoft’s space-focused cloud business called Azure Space.

Azure is aimed at private industries and government agencies that use data collected by satellites but don’t want to invest in the ground infrastructure to process and analyze the data. Azure Space has emerged as a direct competitor to Amazon Web Services’ space data business. SpaceX joining forces with Microsoft adds another twist to the rivalry between space billionaires Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Azure’s mobile cloud computing unit called a “modular data center” is aimed at customers like military forces or industries such as agriculture and energy who operate in “challenging environments” where there is no infrastructure, said Microsoft's Tom Keane. SpaceX and SES will provide point-to-point connectivity. “You don’t need fiber, you basically talk to the satellites that we have in orbit, the satellites will talk to each other and get that data to the other point on Earth where it’s needed,” said SpaceX's Gwynne Shotwell. (10/20)

Astrobotic Unveils New Headquarters in Pittsburgh (Source: Astrobotic)
Astrobotic officially opened its new headquarters in Pittsburgh on Monday. The 47,000 square foot complex is the largest private facility in the world dedicated to lunar logistics. Astrobotic’s Peregrine and Griffin lunar landers will be built on-site, with Peregrine set to become the first commercial mission to the Moon, and the first American lander on the Moon since the Apollo missions.

Monday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony was attended by a wide range of prominent federal, state, and local officials, including U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, U.S. Congressman Conor Lamb, Pennsylvania Governor’s Action Team SW Director Eric Bitar, Allegheny Country Executive Rich Fitzgerald, and Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto. (10/20)

L3Harris Aids Businesses Negatively Affected by Pandemic (Source: Space Coast Daily)
L3Harris has given more than $450 million in accelerated payments to suppliers nationwide to support the US aerospace and defense supply chain during the ongoing coronavirus crisis. In addition, the L3Harris Foundation has made donations to groups in 19 states that provide a variety of services, including veteran assistance, STEM student mentorships and small business financial opportunities. (10/15)

Intelsat: SES Misled FCC by Presenting Study that FCC Used to Apportion C-Band Incentive Payments (Source: Space Intel Report)
Fleet operator Intelsat said competitor SES knowingly misled U.S. regulators by distorting a study of the two companies’ U.S. C-band satellite operations to win a greater slice of government-approved C-band clearing compensation payments. According to Intelsat, the tactic worked: Without any other measure available, the FCC relied on the mislabeled SES-provided market-share data in apportioning C-band clearing incentive payments among the satellite operators. (10/20)

Draper Signs Agreement to Provide Software for Stratolaunch's Hypersonic Vehicle (Source: Space Daily)
Precision guidance and navigation is critical to success and safety in spaceflight. Today, as Stratolaunch builds its next generation vehicle for hypersonic flight test, it will be guided by flight software developed by Draper. "As with Draper's past contributions to the U.S. space program, Draper's engineers are proud to develop a key component of Stratolaunch's hypersonic vehicle-guidance, navigation and control (GN&C) software," said Neil Adams, Draper's principal director of space systems. (10/16)

Three Tissue Engineering Projects for ISS Experiments Awarded (Source: Space Daily)
The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced three flight projects that were selected as part of a joint solicitation focused on leveraging the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory to further knowledge in the fields of tissue engineering and mechanobiology.

Through this collaboration, CASIS, manager of the ISS National Lab, will facilitate hardware implementation, in-orbit access, and astronaut crew time on the orbiting laboratory. NSF invested $1.2 million in the selected projects, which are seeking to advance fundamental science and engineering knowledge for the benefit of life on Earth.

This is the third collaborative research opportunity between CASIS and NSF focused on tissue engineering. Fundamental science is a major line of business for the ISS National Lab, and by conducting research in the persistent microgravity environment offered by the orbiting laboratory, NSF and the ISS National Lab will drive new advances that will bring value to our nation and spur future inquiries in low Earth orbit. Microgravity affects organisms-from viruses and bacteria to humans, inducing changes such as altered gene expression and DNA regulation, changes in cellular function and physiology, and 3D aggregation of cells. (10/20)