October 8, 2020

Titusville-Based Lockheed Unit Gets $498 Million for More Trident Missiles and Related Support (Source: Military & Aerospace Electronics)
Strategic weapons experts at Lockheed Martin Corp. will build additional UGM-133A Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic nuclear missiles and support deployed D5 nuclear weapons under terms of a half-billion-dollar order announced last week. Officials of the U.S. Navy Strategic Systems Programs (SSP) office in Washington are awarding a $498.4 million contract modification to the Lockheed Martin Space Systems segment in Titusville, Fla., to provide for Trident II (D5) missile production and deployed systems support.

The Trident II D5 is one of the most advanced long-range submarine-launched nuclear missiles in the world. It is the primary U.S. sea-based nuclear ballistic missile, and is deployed aboard U.S. Navy Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines. The U.S. Navy operates 14 of these ballistic missile submarines, each of which can carry as many as 24 Trident II missiles. (10/7)

Greenpro Intends to Incubate a Satellite Communication Venture (Source: Greenpro)
Greenpro Capital Corp. announced that it intends to incubate a Low Earth Orbit satellite communication venture based in Malaysia to cover the ASEAN region. This new company will provide internet connectivity via satellite for the South East Asia region. The vision is to provide internet access to areas and places where traditional internet connectivity is scarce with no fiber or 5G available.

Borneo and other such remote islands would benefit tremendously with this service with our future Low Earth Orbit, "LEO" satellite connectivity.  The company has been incubating many ventures and will incubate this project along with SEATech Ventures Corp, an OTC quoted company. GRNQ and the group of companies own 40 million shares of SEATech Ventures Corp out of 92.5 million shares issued. (10/5)

IBM Open-Sources AI for Optimizing Satellite Communications and Predicting Space Debris Trajectories (Source: Venture Beat)
IBM today announced two new open source projects that aim to solve the technical challenges around cube satellites, a type of miniaturized satellite for space research, and space situational awareness. Both were built by the company’s Space Tech Hub team and are available as containerized deployments on IBM’s Red Hat OpenShift platform.

The Space Tech Hub team, led by IBM distinguished engineer and space tech CTO Naeem Altaf, often collaborates with state agencies, universities, and space technology companies to pioneer solutions for spacecraft and satellites. Today the team unveiled KubeSat, an autonomous framework designed for small satellites that supports the optimization of communications. They also unveiled the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) system, which is based on a set of algorithms that determine where human-constructed objects orbiting the Earth are located and might drift to in the future. (10/1)

Clyde Space to Acquire Hyperion Technologies (Source: AAC Clyde Space)
AAC Clyde Space has reached an agreement to acquire 100 % of the shares in Hyperion Technologies BV, in a shares and cash deal. The current owners of Hyperion Technologies will receive 7,755,000 new shares in AAC, equivalent to approximately 21.7 MSEK calculated at 2.80 SEK per share and 0.1 MEUR in cash, subject to approval by the AAC EGM.

Hyperion Technologies is based in Delft, the Netherlands, and the company specializes in high performance, components for small spacecraft, being particularly renowned for its attitude and orbit control technologies, among others. The company was founded in 2013 and has built a global market presence, supplying a range of customers to some of the world's largest space companies and different institutions like universities. The company is part of a Dutch consortium to develop technology for optical satellite communications, a key technology for future satellites. (10/7)

Space Development Agency Seeks Bids for Launch Services for 28 Satellites (Source: Space News)
The Space Development Agency is requesting bids for launch services for its first batch of 28 satellites. Bids are due Nov. 5, according to a request for proposals issued Oct. 6. The 28 satellites are a mix of small and medium spacecraft of different sizes — 20 are for a Transport Layer of data-relay satellites and the other eight are for a missile-warning Tracking Layer. The SDA manifest will be divided into two planes of 14 spacecraft each in two circular near-polar orbits at an altitude of 950 kilometers. (10/7)

Space is Becoming Too Crowded, Rocket Lab CEO Warns (Source: CNN)
Last week, the CEO of Rocket Lab, a launch startup, said the company is already beginning to experience the effect of growing congestion in outer space. Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck said that the sheer number of objects in space right now — a number that is growing quickly thanks in part to SpaceX's satellite internet constellation, Starlink — is making it more difficult to find a clear path for rockets to launch new satellites.

"This has a massive impact on the launch side," he told CNN Business. Rockets "have to try and weave their way up in between these [satellite] constellations." Part of the problem is that outer space remains largely unregulated. The last widely agreed upon international treaty hasn't been updated in five decades, and that's mostly left the commercial space industry to police itself. (10/8)

NASA Student Launch Program Selects 46 Teams (Source: Space Daily)
On Oct. 1, NASA announced the 46 teams, representing 20 states and Puerto Rico, selected to compete in the 2021 NASA Student Launch - one of seven Artemis Student Challenges. The eight-month challenge, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, provides a realistic experience for middle school, high school, and college students to follow the engineering design process NASA and industry engineers use when developing and operating new hardware.

The student teams are required to design, build, test, and fly a payload and high-powered amateur rocket to an altitude between 3,500 and 5,500 feet. Teams also must meet multiple documentation and presentation milestones with NASA experts as they develop their rocket. The reports often total hundreds of pages of work by the end of the competition year. (10/8)

Momentus Takes Unusual Route (Like Virgin Galactic) to Non-Traditional IPO (Source: Space News)
Momentus plans to close its merger with a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) by early next year. Mikhail Kokorich, Momentus founder and CEO, said the company would trade on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker symbol MNTS once the merger with Stable Road Acquisition Corp. closes. The deal could mark the start of a new wave of space companies going public through SPACs, giving them access to large amounts of capital without having to go through a traditional initial public offering. Virgin Galactic used a merger with a SPAC to go public last year, and since then the number of SPACs has grown significantly. (10/8)

Kayhan Space Raises Seed Funding for Space Situational Awareness (Source: Space News)
A startup has raised funding to support a system it believes can make it easier for satellite operators to assess and respond to potential collisions. Kayhan Space raised $600,000 in a pre-seed round this week, allowing it to further development of an automated system that assesses data from the Defense Department and other sources about potential conjunctions and gives operators better recommendations about whether to perform maneuvers to avoid them. The company currently has two customers for its service and says it is in talks with a large satellite operator. (10/8)

Telescope Group Worried About Constellation Interference (Source: BBC)
A planned radio telescope array is worried about satellite interference. The Square Kilometer Array will ultimately have thousands of radio dishes in South Africa and Australia to detect faint radio signals from distant parts of the universe, but astronomers are concerned those cosmic signals could be swamped by transmissions from broadband satellite constellations in a neighboring spectrum band. A report found that a constellation of 6,400 such satellites could require astronomers to increase observation times by 70% to compensate for the interference, resulting in reduced scientific output. (10/8)

Why So Much Gold? (Source: Space.com)
The universe has a problem: too much gold. Astronomers concluded in a new study that mechanisms previously proposed for producing gold, such as neutron star collisions or supernova explosions, aren't frequent enough to explain the abundance of gold seen on Earth. That study was able to explain the production of elements ranging from carbon to uranium, but the abundance of gold remains a puzzle. [Space.com]

New Fellowship Program for Black Students Pursuing Aerospace Careers (Source: Patti Grace Smith Fellowship)
A new fellowship program offers jobs and mentorships for Black students seeking to go into the aerospace industry. The Patti Grace Smith Fellowship program, announced Wednesday, will offer Black undergrads interested in aerospace industry careers summer internships, mentors and cash awards. The program is named after the late Patti Grace Smith, who was associate administrator for commercial space transportation at the FAA. (10/8)

Astronaut Ferguson Cites Family Reasons for Starliner Mission Decision (Source: CBS)
"I'm taking on a new mission, one that keeps my feet planted here firmly on Earth and prioritizes my most important crew — my family," Ferguson tweeted. "I'll still be working hard with the #Starliner team and the @NASA_Astronauts on our crew." Ferguson, 59 and a father of three, called his decision to step down "difficult and personal."

Ferguson's departure from the crew comes amid turmoil at Boeing in the wake of a problem-plagued unpiloted test flight of the Starliner capsule last December, leaving Mann, a Marine Corps F/A-18 fighter pilot and rookie astronaut, as the only original crew member on the Crew Flight Test, or CFT, mission.

Following the December flight, Boeing managers decided to launch a repeat mission late this year or early next to verify the performance of required software upgrades and other changes. That has pushed the first piloted Starliner flight to the summer 2021 timeframe, a full two years later than expected when the initial crew assignments were announced. (10/7)

SpaceX Makes 'Final' Attempt to Buy Out Remaining Boca Chica Residents to Build Private Resort for Starship Program (Source: Daily Mail)
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is said to be making its final attempt to buy out the remaining residents of Boca Chica Village to build a private resort to launch rockets into orbit – but the last 10 inhabitants of the Texas hamlet are refusing to budge. Negotiations are said to have reached a crucial moment, with the company hinting that it may ‘pursue alternative approaches’ to advance with its ambitious plans for the area, according to Business Insider.

Musk began buying up homes and land in the area in 2015 to expand his SpaceX empire and build a test site for his Starship-Super Heavy program, a 394-foot-tall reusable rocket system. When complete, the Starship could slash the cost of reaching space a hundredfold, while also enabling frequent and relatively affordable access to orbit, the moon, and Mars, as well as hypersonic travel around Earth. But that dream, in addition to building a ‘resort’ for employees and important guests around the launch site, recently hit a major stumbling block.

The project’s future may now rest solely on persuading all who still live in the tiny town - most of whom are elderly or retired - to leave. And for them, Musk’s mission to Mars comes at a heavy cost for their once tranquil life on Earth. (10/8)