December 17, 2020

Pair of KSC Employees Chosen for NASA Inventors Hall of Fame (Source: NASA)
Two Kennedy Space Center employees are among four researchers inducted into the NASA Inventors Hall of Fame in 2020. The two men – Bob Youngquist and James Fesmire – both work in the Exploration Research and Technology (ER&T) programs directorate and combined have been at the Florida spaceport for nearly 70 years. Previous recipients of the honor include Wernher von Braun, “father of German rocket science;” Maxime Faget, creator of the space capsule design; George Edward Alcorn, inventor of the x-ray spectrometer; and KSC’s Jackie Quinn, who invented a technology for groundwater remediation.

Bestowing the award is NASA's Technology Transfer program, part of the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, which ensures that innovations developed for space exploration and discovery are broadly available to the public. The program helps entrepreneurs use NASA inventions and discoveries to benefit the nation in the form of new products and services. (12/16)

Record-Breaking Liftoffs: Commercial Space Program Logs a Busy 2020 (Source: Spectrum News 13)
Rocket launches have filled the skies over the Space Coast in 2020. "This all represents a major transformation in the U.S. Space Program," said Dale Ketcham of Space Florida. Thirty rockets took off from Florida, five more in other states. All commercial launches came under the umbrella of the FAA. "The commercial sector is leading the way in providing launch services," said Ketcham. "Not only to the growing commercial market, but even more so they are doing the heavy lifting for NASA and the (Space Force)." (12/17)

US Space Force May Need a Battlestar (Source: Space Daily)
Should the US Space Force be planning a human military presence in space? So far there has been no urgent or justifiable argument for an in-orbit armed "fort." However, a new version of the game of "Hide and Seek" has been evolving in outer space. Earlier this year, Gen. John Raymond, the U.S. Space Force Chief, mentioned that Russian "inspector" satellites are threatening the tenuous stand-off stability between adversarial spacefaring nations.

The U.S. Space Command has been tracking these satellites since 2019. They have apparently been positioned near a U.S. national security satellite. One Russian satellite is known as Cosmos-2542 which ejected a smaller, nested satellite referred to as Cosmos-2543. Analysts have suggested the mission of the sub-satellite is to inspector USA 245, a classified NRO imaging satellite. One conclusion based on these events is that the Russians have been performing dress rehearsals for wartime attacks on U.S and other national space assets if a ground-based war breaks out.

Clearly, space-based assets dedicated to national security are an important part of deterrence to war. However, it is extremely difficult to protect military satellites from warmongering spacefaring adversaries. If a ground-based war starts between major spacefaring nation, in orbit national defense assets could quickly be neutralized. It would appear that evolving in-space technologies may well soon compel major space powers to develop crewed military space stations capable of stalking and neutralizing adversarial in-orbit assets, if needed. (12/17)

China to Open Giant Telescope to International Scientists (Source: Space Daily)
Nestled among the mountains in southwest China, the world's largest radio telescope signals Beijing's ambitions as a global centre for scientific research. The 500-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) -- the only significant instrument of its kind after the collapse of another telescope in Puerto Rico this month -- is about to open its doors for foreign astronomers to use, hoping to attract the world's top scientific talent. The world's second-largest radio telescope, at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, was destroyed when its suspended 900-tonne receiver platform came loose and plunged 140 metres (450 feet) onto the radio dish below. (12/15)

AST&Science Plans SPAC Merger (Source: Space News)
Satellite telephony company AST&Science will go public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The merger, along with investment from several partners, will provide the renamed AST SpaceMobile with $462 million in capital to develop a satellite constellation that will provide mobile phone services. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter in 2021, at which point AST SpaceMobile will be traded on the Nasdaq exchange under the symbol ASTS. AST SpaceMobile is the latest space company to go public through a SPAC, following Virgin Galactic last year and Momentus, which announced a merger with a SPAC in October. (12/17)

DoD Seeks Better Relationship with Space Startups (Source: Space News)
The U.S. military wants to shake its reputation as an unfriendly customer to space startups and other technology companies. Lt. Gen. John Thompson, head of the Space Force's Space and Missile Systems Center, acknowledged at a conference Wednesday that the way the Defense Department does business "has really been daunting to startups and new entrants." He said there are several efforts underway "to try to simplify our interaction" with such companies, citing as one example the Space Enterprise Consortium. (12/17)

ESA Gets New Boss (Source: ESA)
A European Space Agency official will become its next director general. ESA announced Thursday that Josef Aschbacher, director of ESA's Earth observation programs since 2016, has been selected by ESA member states to become director general. He will succeed Jan Woerner, the current director general, when his term ends in June 2021. Aschbacher was considered the front-runner for the job. (12/17)

Italy Orders More Radar Imaging Satellites (Source: Space News)
The Italian government has ordered a second pair of second-generation Cosmo-Skymed radar imaging satellites. Thales Alenia Space won a contract valued at $365 million for the two satellites, scheduled to launch in late 2024 or early 2025 on a Vega C or Soyuz rocket. Telespazio won a contract to upgrade the system's ground segment. Thales Alenia Space and Telespazio said the just-ordered pair of satellites will complete the second-generation Cosmo-SkyMed constellation and allow Italy to retire its first-generation Cosmo-SkyMed satellites. (12/17)

Amazon Plans More Affordable Kuiper Antennas (Source: Space News)
Amazon unveiled a flat-panel antenna that it plans to provide to customers of its Project Kuiper satellite broadband system. The company said the design is intended to be significantly less expensive than existing phased-array Ka-band antennas, but did not give a specific cost. An affordable antenna is essential to Amazon's goal to provide broadband services to tens of millions of customers through the Project Kuiper constellation under development. An Amazon executive also said that the company plans to use multiple launch providers to deploy that constellation of 3,236 satellites, but has yet to announce any launch contracts. (12/17)

AGI Spins Off Space Traffic Management Business (Source: Space News)
A space traffic management center has been spun out of AGI into a standalone company. As part of its acquisition by Ansys announced in October, AGI spun off the Commercial Space Operations Center subsidiary it established in 2014, creating Comspoc Corp. As a separate company, Comspoc operates more like a startup focused on space situational awareness, space domain awareness and space traffic coordination and management, although AGI has provided investment and office space. (12/17)

Capella Offers 50cm Resolution SAR Imagery (Source: Space News)
Capella Space says it now offers the highest resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery. The company released Wednesday satellite images with a resolution of 50 centimeters by 50 centimeters taken by its Sequoia satellite launched in August. That spacecraft has a "spotlight" mode that allows it to dwell over one location for 20 to 60 seconds, producing sharper imagery. While Capella calls its images the highest resolution commercially available, it's difficult to compare SAR imagery because marketing materials often cite resolution in a single dimension rather than range and azimuth. (12/17)

White House Releases Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion Strategy (Source: Space News)
The White House released a strategy Wednesday for the development of space nuclear power and propulsion systems. Space Policy Directive (SPD) 6, titled "National Strategy for Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion," features a road map that outlines plans to develop surface nuclear power systems, nuclear thermal propulsion and other capabilities to support civil and national security space missions. Many of the projects outlined in SPD-6 are already in progress, and a senior administration official said the strategy is designed to "pull together a common operating picture" and also set development priorities. (12/17)

India Launches ComSat (Source: Space News)
India launched a communications satellite early Thursday. A PSLV rocket lifted off at 5:11 a.m. Eastern and released the CMS-01 satellite into a transfer orbit about 20 minutes later. CMS-01 will provide extended C-band services for India and offshore islands, replacing GSAT-12. K. Sivan, head of the Indian space agency ISRO, said after the launch that the next PSLV launch will carry the first Indian commercial satellite whose launch was arranged after space commercialization reforms announced earlier this year. (12/17)

Launch Canada Readies for Epic 2021 with 20 Universities and Over 1,000 Students in Rocket Competition (Source: SpaceQ)
An industry-partnered Canadian student rocket competition series has big plans for 2021. Even amid a difficult pandemic that postponed the first iteration of the competition, 20 Canadian universities and over 1,000 students plan to take part in Launch Canada, which teaches post-secondary students rocketry, space management and other skills to prepare for the fast-growing rocket industry in Canada. (12/17)

Space Force Wraps Up Acquisition Command Design (Source: Breaking Defense)
The Space Force’s new acquisition unit, Space Systems Command (SSC), is expected to stand up early next year, says Gen. Jay Raymond, chief of Space Operations. “I just took a briefing within the last couple days and kind of did the table slap on what the Space Systems Command is going to look like, at least initially as it comes out of the chute. We’ve got to get that to our Secretary of the Air Force here in the coming weeks, and then we’ll start building that. But we’ve got the design down, and I’m really pleased with how it’s turned out.”

But Raymond did not address the burning question of who will have decision authority over the new command: the current head of Air Force and Space Force acquisition, Will Roper; or a new independent Space Force acquisition authority.

Up to now, the Air Force still hasn’t submitted to Congress its long-overdue plan for creating a new civilian acquisition authority for space. The report, due in March, was required by the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. The bill mandates that the Air Force appoint a Senate-confirmed assistant secretary for space acquisition and integration, who “will synchronize with the Air Force Service Acquisition Executive on all space system efforts, and take on service acquisition executive (SAE) responsibilities for space systems and programs effective on October 1, 2022.” (12/15)

Trump Rushes Pentagon Changes, But Biden Can Reverse Them (Source: Politico)
Troop drawdowns. Advisory board firings. Navy budget overhauls. The Trump administration is using its last weeks in office to carry out a slew of changes at the Pentagon. But they all have one thing in common: The new president can cancel them on Day One.The Pentagon has announced plans to draw down troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia, and has elevated the senior civilian overseeing special operations. Then the White House abruptly fired longtime members of the Defense Policy and Defense Business Boards, replacing them with Trump loyalists.

On Thursday, the White House unveiled a sweeping plan to build new Navy ships by drastically cutting Army and Air Force priorities. The same day, the Pentagon said it was considering withdrawing support for all CIA counterterrorism missions early next year. The changes are likely to be short-lived after President-elect Joe Biden arrives in the West Wing. But in the meantime, the moves could hamstring the incoming team. “At best, these distract from an orderly transition and at worst are a deliberate attempt to box in or hobble the incoming administration,” said Mark Jacobson, a former senior Defense official in the Obama administration. (12/11)

Wilbur Ross: Space Commerce is Accelerating (Source: Space News)
As secretary of commerce, I am pleased with the emphasis placed on commercial activities with the National Space Policy. While the Department of Commerce has the lead role for advocating on behalf of the U.S. commercial space industry, many other federal agencies explicitly recognized the importance of a strong commercial space industry to our national and economic security while developing this policy. More importantly, the federal government is already taking bold actions. Perhaps the finest example of this has been NASA’s partnership with SpaceX that resulted in the first launch in nearly a decade of American astronauts in American rockets from American soil. (12/16)

Hispanic Astronaut, Potential Moonwalker, the Son of Immigrant (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Francisco “Frank” Rubio remembers how he always loved physics, math and natural science. What he never thought of was the possibility of becoming an astronaut, let alone going to the moon. Raised by his immigrant mother from El Salvador he says he was always taught to do his best. Rubio thought he fulfilled a dream come true when he graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1998 with a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and was topped when later got his Doctorate of Medicine from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. (12/16)

World’s Space Achievements a Bright Spot in Stressful 2020 (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Astronauts blasted into orbit from the U.S. for the first time in nearly a decade, three countries sent spacecraft hurtling toward Mars, and robotic explorers grabbed rocks from the moon and gravel from an asteroid for return to Earth. Space provided moments of hope and glory in an otherwise difficult, stressful year. Click here. (12/16)

OneWeb Proceeds with Satellite Production, Enabled Within Foreign Trade Zone (Source: Federal Register)
On August 12, 2020, Airbus OneWeb Satellites North America LLC submitted a notification of proposed production activity to the Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ) Board for its facility within FTZ 136, in Merritt Island, Florida. The notification was processed in accordance with the regulations of the FTZ Board (15 CFR part 400), including notice in the Federal Register inviting public comment. On December 10, 2020, the applicant was notified of the FTZ Board's decision that no further review of the activity is warranted at this time. The production activity described in the notification was authorized, subject to the FTZ Act and the FTZ Board's regulations, including Section 400.14. (12/17)

AFTPS Space Test Fundamentals Course Begins In January (Source: Space Daily)
The U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School (AFTPS) will convene the first-ever Space Test Fundamentals course Jan. 4, 2021. "This course is critical to the development of USSF test professionals and will enable them to lead and conduct full spectrum test and evaluation of systems operating across the space domain," said Col. Sebrina Pabon, AFTPS Commandant. This three-month program leverages world-class AFTPS expertise, designed to provide hands-on training in flight test fundamentals, systems test, space science application, advanced space system test and evaluation, and broad exposure to the foremost centers of space operations and testing. (12/15)

MIT to Use the ISS to Test Tmart, Electronic Textiles for Use in Spacesuits and Spacecraft (Source: Space Daily)
Space can be a dangerous place for astronauts and spacecraft, with harsh conditions and orbital debris that travels at incredibly high speeds. However, imagine a warning system that could be stitched into the fibers of spacesuits or integrated into the exterior of spacecraft that could detect debris impacts and send an early hazard alert. This is the goal of a new study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The MIT team will embed sensor fibers into conventional spacesuit materials and expose them to the extreme elements of space outside of the International Space Station (ISS) to evaluate the durability and performance of the fibers. This investigation was awarded through an ISS U.S. National Laboratory solicitation for flight experiments in the field of advanced materials science and engineering and will use the Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE) Flight Facility, an in-orbit platform from Alpha Space Test and Research Alliance deployed externally onboard the ISS. (12/15)

Quasars Rip Across Galaxies Like Tsunamis (Source: NASA)
Using the unique capabilities of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered the most energetic outflows ever witnessed in the universe. They emanate from quasars and tear across interstellar space like tsunamis, wreaking havoc on the galaxies in which the quasars live. A quasar emits exceptionally large amounts of energy generated by a supermassive black hole fueled by infalling matter. Using Hubble, astronomers have discovered that blistering radiation pressure from the vicinity of the black hole pushes material away from the galaxy's center at a fraction of the speed of light. The "quasar winds" are propelling hundreds of solar masses of material each year. This affects the entire galaxy as the material snowplows into surrounding gas and dust. (12/15)

NASA Selects Blue Origin's New Glenn Rocket for Launch Services Catalog (Source: Blue Origin)
Today, NASA awarded Blue Origin a NASA Launch Services II (NLS II) Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to launch planetary, Earth observation, exploration, and scientific satellites for the agency aboard New Glenn, Blue Origin’s orbital reusable launch vehicle. The contract allows Blue Origin to compete for missions through Launch Service Task Orders issued by NASA. Project managers at NASA Centers around the country can now design spacecraft to take advantage of New Glenn’s unique seven-meter fairing and heavy-lift performance for a broad range of missions. (12/16)

How NASA Scrambled to Save OSIRIS-REx From Leaky Disaster (Source: WIRED)
The OSIRIS-REx craft’s proboscis-like “Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism” (Tagsam), an 11-foot-long shock absorber tipped by a round vacuum head and a collection canister, touched down atop a boulder on the asteroid Bennu’s surface—and appeared to smash right through it. Several seconds after impact, the arm had punched more than a foot and a half into the asteroid. It would have kept going too, but for the programmed sequence that burst the arm’s nitrogen gas canister, tripped its vacuum suction, and milliseconds later fired the spacecraft’s reverse thrusters to initiate a hyperbolic escape trajectory. After 17 years and $800 million in funding, the crux of OSIRIS-REx’s smash-and-grab mission was over in 15 seconds. Click here. (12/16)

Supersonic Jet Startup Boom Technology Is Now a Unicorn (Source: Boomberg)
Boom Technology Inc., a Colorado-based startup working on a new supersonic aircraft, is raising a $50 million funding round that will bring the company’s valuation to more than $1 billion, according to Chief Executive Officer Blake Scholl. The investment, led by WRVI Capital’s Michael Marks, brings Boom’s total funding to $210 million, and takes the company one step closer to its objective of broadly accessible high-speed flight.

“Our goal is to make high-speed jets the cheapest option out there,” Scholl said. Much as Tesla Inc. started with luxury automobiles and eventually produced vehicles with price points middle-class consumers could afford, Boom plans to start with fares roughly equal to business class before bringing them down to economy-class levels.

Don’t make travel plans just yet. The plane is still in the design phase, with a scaled-down prototype scheduled to fly next year. Boom plans to break ground on a factory for full-scaled aircraft in 2022. If it can stick to its schedule, it could start a test flights for its first commercial plane by 2026. All that will require more funding, Scholl said. (12/15)

NASA Astrophysics Division Embraces Cubesats and Smallsats (Source: Space News)
Early next year, NASA plans to select a maximum of three Astrophysics Pioneers missions, investigations with a maximum price tag of $20 million, Michel Garcia, NASA Astrophysics Division smallsats lead program scientist, said at the virtual American Geophysical Union fall meeting. NASA created the Astrophysics Pioneers initiative “to do compelling astrophysics science in smaller form factors and at lower costs than traditional Explorers,” Garcia said at a NASA Astrophysics Advisory Committee meeting in March.

Pioneers supports investigations that would exceed the $10 million cost cap for the Astrophysics Research and Analysis program element of Research and Opportunities in Space grant program. Pioneers missions can fly on cubesats larger than six units, cubesat constellations, small satellites, the International Space Station or balloons that remain in the atmosphere for a month or more. The $20 million cost cap for Pioneers missions does not include launch costs. (12/16)

Dotti Kunde, Who Spent More Than 20 Years Cooking for Astronauts, Dies (Source: Florida Today)
They are eating some out-of-the-world chocolate chip cookies in heaven today. Dorothy "Dotti" Kunde, who spent more than two decades cooking for shuttle astronauts in the days prior to their missions, died Monday. Kunde was 95 and lived in Titusville. Her death was confirmed by her son-in-law, Tom Chodorowksi, who said she passed away from complications following a fall on Thanksgiving.

Kunde whipped up everything from vegetarian meals to barbecue during the 24 years she spent feeding astronauts. Most famous, though, were the chocolate chip cookies. While Kunde and her team were ostensibly cooking for astronauts, those cookies had a way of escaping quarantine and making their way throughout Kennedy Space Center. (12/16)

Humans Don’t Have to Set Foot on Mars to Visit It (Source: Washington Post)
A dozen or so years is not much time to solve a long list of currently insuperable scientific and technological problems. The daunting obstacles between us and Mars begin with the simple problem of weight. Mars colonists will also need currently nonexistent lightweight materials to shield them from radiation far more deadly than any that can penetrate Earth’s protective atmosphere and magnetic field. As for farming: another unsolved challenge. Topsoil sampled by Mars rovers reveals that a toxic chemical called calcium perchlorate is nearly ubiquitous; this must be neutralized somehow even before the thin, cold dust can be fortified and coaxed into germinating seeds. Far easier to farm Death Valley.

Because of the great distance involved — Mars at its nearest is about 150 times farther away than the moon — a mission to the Red Planet has no room for error. NASA can’t just send more supplies on the next rocket, as is possible at the nearby space station. Thus, it’s not enough to find theoretical solutions to the problems of human life on Mars. It’s not enough even to find good solutions to these challenges. Perfect solutions are necessary — even if the mission is a one-way trip. To send humans and bring them back to Earth is a far more complex proposition.

But technological trends point to a more plausible Martian future. All of the most difficult challenges around travel to Mars stem from a single fact: The human body can’t survive there. The problems of freight and infrastructure; of food, water and oxygen; of deadly radiation — all of it vanishes once you remove the meat from the equation. The related fields of robotics and haptics are moving rapidly in the direction of hybrid astronauts — machines that can take the human consciousness in real time to another planet. It’s inevitable that the convergence of robots and haptics will produce in the not-too-distant future interplanetary probes that allow humans to visit other worlds, to “touch” and “see” them, via hardware on the surface and software in the ether. (12/15)

OneWeb Optimistic About Raising the Funding Needed to Complete its Constellation (Source: Space News)
The new executive chairman of OneWeb is optimistic the company can raise the billions of dollars of additional funding needed to complete development of the company’s broadband constellation and work on a second generation of the system. Bharti Enterprises, which joined forces with the British government to acquire OneWeb out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, estimated the cost of getting OneWeb’s initial constellation of about 650 satellites into orbit, and establishing the other infrastructure needed for the network, at between $5.5 billion and $7 billion.

OneWeb will need to raise an estimated $2.5 billion to complete the constellation. Half of that, he said, has been arranged between Bharti Enterprises and the U.K. government, who combined own about 85% of the post-bankruptcy company. “I don’t see raising capital for this wonderful project for the balance amount to be any issue,” he said, noting that Bharti Enterprises had raised more than $12 billion in the last 18–24 months for other projects. (12/15)

Arianespace to Launch Next OneWeb Batch from Vostochny Cosmodrome (Source: Space Daily)
Flight ST29, the first commercial mission from Vostochny Cosmodrome performed by Arianespace and its Starsem affiliate, will put 36 of OneWeb's satellites into a near-polar orbit at an altitude of 450 kilometers. After separation, the satellites will raise themselves to their operational orbit. The first six OneWeb satellites were successfully orbited by Arianespace on Soyuz Flight VS21 from French Guiana on February 27, 2019. On February 7, 2020, Arianespace and its Starsem affiliate successfully launched 34 OneWeb satellites from Baikonur Cosmodrome on Soyuz Flight ST27. On March 21, 2020, the team successfully delivered an additional 34 satellites into orbit on Soyuz Flight ST28. (12/15)

DHL Moves From Global to Galactic Forwarding (Source: Space Daily)
DHL Global Forwarding, the air and ocean freight specialist of Deutsche Post DHL Group, normally moves goods that stay in the Earth's atmosphere. Now they have partnered with D-Orbit, a specialized company covering the entire lifecycle of a space mission, including logistics services, for the first time. Together with the company's own innovation team DHL Customer Solutions and Innovation (CSI), the freight forwarding expert set up logistics to help the ION Satellite Carrier in its journey into space.

ION Satellite Carrier is a cargo vehicle for microsatellites, able to transport them into orbit and release them into precise orbital slots, guaranteeing faster deployment, more rapid commissioning, and a more efficient use of their lifespan. Developed and designed by D-Orbit, the satellite carrier will launch from Florida in January 2021. (12/15)

Governments Maintain Firm Financial Commitment to Space During 2020 (Source: Space Daily)
Amid a tumultuous year for the global economy, government space program budgets maintained their growth trajectories for a fifth consecutive year. Following a period of strong budget tensions between 2010 and 2015, government space sector spending reached its highest recorded point in 2020 according to Euroconsult's latest "Government Space Programs: Benchmarks, Profiles and Forecasts to 2029" flagship research. (12/15)

Astra Among NASA's New Venture-Class Launchers (Source: Space News)
Astra was one of three launch vehicle developers that won a combined $16.7 million in NASA funding. Astra, Firefly Aerospace and Relativity Space won contracts through NASA’s Venture Class Launch Services 2 program to launch cubesats for NASA by the end of June 2022. Astra received a $3.9 million contract. Firefly received a $9.8 million contract. Relativity received a $3.0 million contract. None of the companies have yet placed a payload in orbit. (12/15)