October 25, 2020

UCF Knights Beat Tulane in 'Space Game' (Source: Click Orlando)
Did a little rocket fuel help propel the University of Central Florida Knights football team to win the annual Space Game? It didn’t hurt that’s for sure. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket could be seen soaring over the UCF Bounce House stadium late Saturday morning just hours before the Knights host Tulane University for its Space Game. A little rocket power might have helped UCF’s top-ranked offense roll in a 51-34 victory over Tulane on Saturday.

But Saturday’s game wasn’t just any. With UCF’s strong ties to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and as a leader in planetary and space sciences the university dedicates its homecoming game every year to the subject with all the fanfare space deserves. Knights have specially-designed uniforms that are truly out of this world and players will be sporting some cleats worthy of walking on the moon. (10/25)

The Elysium Effect: The Coming Backlash to the Billionaire 'NewSpace' Revolution (Source: Space.com)
In the 2013 film "Elysium," Earth's wealthiest 0.01% move to the ultimate gated community, a luxurious orbiting space colony, leaving a poverty-stricken humanity to fend for themselves on a ravaged planet. Interestingly, it is indeed some of today's 0.1% who are leading the way into space to build communities beyond Earth. However, quite the opposite of the movie, their goals are of the highest order, from democratizing access to space by lowering costs, to creating new products and ideas, to helping save the planet and opening space to future generations.

Yet, given the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, social justice and green movements, even as entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson spend billions to support a human breakout into space, there is a backlash building that holds these projects as icons of extravagance — even as their work may help save the Earth. This is the "Elysium effect."

Prodded by the tears in our social fabric revealed by the coronavirus pandemic and the social justice movement now underway, the Elysium effect will escalate dramatically after the 2020 presidential election, as a rising "green generation" of socially active post millennials begins a long needed cultural shift towards planetary stewardship. The mood will become increasingly anti-waste, anti-greed and anti-corporate, as social agendas blend with environmental goals. Click here. (10/24)

With New Shepard Launch, UF Space Researchers Become Space Customers (Source: Space Daily)
The University of Florida is helping to launch a new era in space research with a plant experiment aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket that blasted off from the company's West Texas site Tuesday morning. Rob Ferl and Anna-Lisa Paul have been studying how plants respond to stressful environments for decades, placing their genetically engineered mustard plants on high-flying planes, on the space shuttle and on the International Space Station.

But the Blue Origin project is the first time UF has worked directly with a commercial launch provider, marking an important shift in how universities conduct space-related research, Ferl said. "This is one of the first wave of projects where a university is contracting directly with a commercial space flight provider to launch science experiments," he said. "Previously, NASA handled all of the arrangements." (10/20)

Isar Aerospace Prepares to Launch its Rockets From Guyana Spaceport (Source: Space Daily)
Isar Aerospace has signed an agreement with the French Space Agency CNES to launch its orbital rockets from the Centre Spatial Guyanais (CSG) in French Guyana. The company has also hired Alexandre Dalloneau as Head of Mission and Launch Operations. He joins from Arianespace, where he was responsible for seven Vega rocket launches and three multi-GTO Ariane 5 missions.

With its proximity to the equator, CSG allows Isar Aerospace to launch its Spectrum rockets into any orbit from the same pad. Its latitude of 5 3' also boosts performance for equatorial and medium-inclined orbits by about 20 percent compared to high-latitude launch sites. CNES is welcoming and supporting Isar Aerospace as a commercial launch provider in CSG. Isar Aerospace is developing launch vehicles to transport small and medium-sized satellites into the Earth's orbit as early as 2021. Among other missions, these first-generation Spectrum rockets are also suitable for satellite constellations. (10/16)

Raymond Building Culture of Urgency Into New Space Force (Source: The Gazette)
Gen. Jay Raymond has talked about it for years and now he’s emblazoning as the one-word mantra for the 10-month old Space Force he leads. Speed. As Chief Space Officer, Raymond is building speed into the very culture of the new service and ensuring its new recruits get the message in basic training. America will win in orbit only if it can make faster decisions, rapidly develop new spacecraft and new tactics, and have troops who understand the urgency required in the future, he says.

“One of the things we want to get after is speed,” Raymond told the Gazette. Raymond, who now works at the Pentagon atop the Space Force, spent much of the past year commuting between Washington D.C. and Colorado Springs as he led the Air Force's space efforts amid the transition to a new service. He said Air Force Space Command, which he led before it was transitioned to the Space Force, gave him a solid legacy to build on. (10/23)

Colorado's Case to House U.S. Space Command Grows Even Stronger (Source: The Gazette)
The operational piece of the Space Force was established here Wednesday and it may offer the strongest argument yet for why  U.S. Space Command should stay in town. ​The Space Operations Command, or SPOC, provides most of the troops U.S. Space Command needs to ​defend America's space assets and fight wars in orbit if called. U.S. Space Command was established by Congress last year to oversee warfare in orbit; it was provisionally housed in Colorado amid a lengthy process to decide where it will land permanently.

Scores of cities are vying for the command, which brings billions in contracting dollars and 1,200 troops. With troops at Buckley, Schriever and Peterson Air Force bases, the operations command controls the nation's military satellites, spots incoming enemy missiles and monitors what other nations are doing in space. While other places want U.S. Space Command, the troops and contractors it needs to get the job done are already here. And with the Space Force firmly tying its operational troops to Colorado, the people that U.S. Space Command needs won't be found elsewhere.

​Other things the command requires include high quality of life. Colorado is home to four of the nation's five most desirable cities according to a recent study, with Denver Boulder, Fort Collins and Colorado Springs ​getting high marks. It's no wonder that Colorado was the military's top choice to house U.S. Space Command before the process became mired in congressional politics and Pentagon bureaucracy. But Colorado brings even more to the table. Multiple nearby universities means U.S. Space Command has an easy pipeline here for the bright minds it will need in the future. (10/23)

With its New Space Centre, NATO Seeks the Ultimate High Ground (Source: CBC)
It's not the Space Force you may have heard about. Still, NATO's newly announced space centre boldly takes the seven-decade-old institution where no international military alliance has gone before. Most of its leading members and adversaries have sought individual advantage in the final frontier over the decades. And while the European Space Agency is a collective body, its civilian mission and its politics are inarguably different from those of NATO.

That difference was on display this week as NATO defence ministers, meeting online, put the final pieces in place for the new centre, which has been in the works for a couple of years. "The space environment has fundamentally changed in the last decade," said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. "Some nations, including Russia and China, are developing anti-satellite systems that could blind, disable or shoot down satellites and create dangerous debris in orbit." (10/24)

SpaceX Launches Another Batch of Starlink Satellites on 100th Successful Mission (Sources: SpaceX, SpaceFlight Now)
SpaceX on Saturday morning launched 60 Starlink satellites to orbit from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. The rocket's first stage, which landed successfully downrange on the “Just Read the Instructions” droneship, previously supported the GPS III Space Vehicle 03 mission in June 2020 and a Starlink mission in September 2020.

This mission also marked the 100th successful flight of a Falcon rocket since Falcon 1 first flew to orbit in 2008. SpaceX has landed a Falcon first stage rocket booster 63 times and re-flown boosters 45 times. This year, SpaceX twice accomplished the sixth flight of an orbital rocket booster. And, in the ten years since its demonstration mission, Falcon 9 has become the most-flown operational rocket in the United States, overtaking expendable rockets that have been launching for decades.

SpaceX did not try to catch the Falcon 9’s two-piece payload fairing as they fell back to Earth under parachutes. A nose cone structure damaged a net on one of SpaceX’s fairing recovery vessels on the company’s most recent launch Oct. 18. Instead, SpaceX dispatched one of the boats from its fleet to retrieve the fairing structures from the Atlantic Ocean for inspections, refurbishment, and potential use on a future flight. (10/24)

Resting Places for Boeing’s Moon Rovers Win Washington State Landmark Status (Source: GeekWire)
Three spots on the moon are now official Washington state historic landmarks, thanks to a unanimous vote by a state commission. The thumbs-up, delivered on Friday during a virtual public hearing organized by the Washington State Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, provided state landmark status to the rovers that Boeing built during the 1960s at its facilities in Kent, Wash., and that NASA sent to the moon for the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions.

King County awarded similar status more than a year ago, but the state commission’s 9-0 vote — delayed for several months due to the coronavirus outbreak — literally takes the landmarks to the next level. The rover sites are now eligible for listing in the Washington Heritage Register. (10/24)

New Hummer EV was GM's 'Moonshot,' Features Nods to Apollo 11 (Source: CollectSpace)
General Motors may not have designed its first all-electric pickup truck to drive on the moon, but the first edition of its new GMC Hummer EV has a definite lunar look. The Edition 1, set to be available in the fall of 2021, also comes with what General Motors (GM) calls "a unique Lunar Horizon interior." Each Hummer EV Edition 1 truck will have a white exterior and an interior color palette that features black, grey and gold details that are evocative of the Apollo lunar module and lunar roving vehicle (General Motors' Defense Research Laboratories provided the wheels, motors, and suspension for the NASA rover).

The metal speaker grills for the Hummer EV's sound system are overlaid with a topographical map of the moon's Mare Tranquillitatis, or Sea of Tranquility, the site where Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made their historic lunar landing in July 1969. The design even includes a boot print styled after the treads that were left behind by the two moonwalkers. The same lunar surface pattern is repeated on the rubber floor mats and on the lining of a pass through compartment in the center console. (The Apollo boot print was included on an early version of the driver's foot rest but was omitted from the final design.)

The space exploration theme also extends to the dashboard displays, which feature graphics depicting the Hummer EV driving over lunar and Martian terrains. In launch control mode, or what GM calls "Watts to Freedom," the propulsion system channels its power into acceleration bursts, including a 0-60 mph boost in approximately 3 seconds. (10/24)

Too Much Caught: Bunnu Samples Leaking From OSIRIS Probe (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
The sampling mechanism on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is stuffed with specimens captured from asteroid Bennu earlier this week — so full that some of the rocks are floating out into space. Officials said Friday they will stow the samples inside the mission’s Earth return capsule sooner than planned to minimize the loss of asteroid material.

“We had a successful sample collection attempt, almost too successful,” said Dante Lauretta, the mission’s principal investigator from the University of Arizona. “Material is escaping, and we’re expediting stow as a result of that.” NASA’s $1 billion Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer aims to become the first U.S. spacecraft to complete a round-trip journey to an asteroid. (10/23)

NASA Just Picked a Winner in its Space-Toilet Competition (Source: Business Insider)
Before NASA can fly astronauts to the moon, it must design a toilet for the crew. The agency's "Lunar Loo" contest offered $20,000 for a space toilet design that would work both in microgravity and on the lunar surface. The space agency announced the contest winner this week, as well as the designs that took second and third place.

All submissions had to work for male and female astronauts of varying heights and weights, and weigh less than 33 lbs (15 kg) in Earth's gravity. "Bonus points will be awarded to designs that can capture vomit without requiring the crew member to put his/her head in the toilet," NASA's guidelines said. The contest received over 2,000 entries from around the world.

On Thursday, NASA announced the winners. First place went to a team that designed a toilet they call the Translunar Hypercritical Repository 1 (THRONE). The team, led by Washington-based engineer Boone Davidson, based its design on advice from former astronaut Susan Helms. That toilet won $20,000 in prize money, and the two runners up also got cash prizes. (10/24)