December 23, 2020

The Race to Launch Small Satellites Is On For Firefly Aerospace (Source: Seeker)
Alpha is designed to lift up to 1 metric ton of cargo into low-Earth orbit, which may put it at an advantage over other small rocket companies. And Firefly’s goal is to make these launches as affordable as they can, which in the space industry means about $15 million dollars. But because this first mission is a test flight, Alpha won’t be carrying the usual expensive payloads -- like a massive telecommunications satellite. It will be carrying something a bit more inspirational.

Called Dedicated Research and Education Accelerator Mission or DREAM, the payload will carry seven projects from groups who typically wouldn’t have the financial resources to get a ride into space. The rocket was originally scheduled to launch in early 2020, but then the pandemic happened, delaying supply shipments and adding social distancing measures. But after months of tests, their work is finally paying off. Click here. (12/19)

Kennedy Space Center Expands as Launch Complex 48 Opens for Operations (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
After planning began in 2016 for a small, multi-user launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Launch Complex 48 is now ready to support small to medium lift launch vehicles. The complex is the first new launch pad built at Kennedy since the 1960s when the much larger LC-39A and B pads, which have hosted the Apollo Saturn IB and V rockets, Space Shuttles, Ares I-X, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavies, were constructed.

The 10-acre complex is situated about one mile southeast of LC-39A, and one mile northwest of SLC-41, home of United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket. Pad 48 is what’s known as a “clean pad” design, meaning it gives multiple users, all with different launch systems, the ability to launch from the complex. This is part of NASA’s ongoing effort of encouraging commercial spaceflight development. (12/22)

Space Exploration Leaders Top 100 (2021) (Source: Richtopia)
Whether you’re a would-be astrophysicist or have spent decades in space-exploration, you could be worse-off than to read the short biographies of people who have been through the journey before. So we’ve compiled a list of top people in space-exploration, particularly those who are pro-actively contributing through thought-leadership on social media. Click here. (12/22)

GAO: FAA Should Examine a Range of Options to Support U.S. Launch Infrastructure (Source: GAO)
Demand for commercial space launches is expected to increase. Twelve launch sites held operator licenses in Aug. 2020, and 11 more were seeking licenses from the FAA. Congress asked the FAA to recommend ways to facilitate and promote investments in space transportation infrastructure. The FAA told us that its response would focus on 2 existing FAA grant programs. But we recommended that the FAA examine more options to maximize the effect of federal investments. Other options might include tax incentives or additional investments in technologies to allow for more launches at existing facilities. Click here. (12/22)

How to Set Up the First Extraterrestrial Government (Source: Independent)
The moment when the first human sets foot on Mars is becoming ever-closer. The 140 million mile distance between Earth and the Red Planet is set to be breached within the next two decades, Nasa predicts. Just recently, the space agency announced its plans for its Artemis moon missions – aiming to take place in 2024 – which could establish a lunar base on the Moon as a stepping-stone before the first planetary spacewalk. For some, however, simply taking the first step on an alien planet is not looking far enough into the future. Once a community is set up on Mars, discussions will need to be had about exactly how it is governed and functions. Click here. (12/23)

Trump Vetoes Key Defense Bill, Calling It ‘Gift’ to China (Sources: Bloomberg, HuffPost)
President Donald Trump on Wednesday vetoed the $740.5 billion U.S. defense policy bill after Congress refused to include language that would abolish liability protections for technology companies, including Facebook. and Twitter. “Unfortunately, the Act fails to include critical national security measures, includes provisions that fail to respect our veterans and our military’s history, and contradicts efforts by my Administration to put America first in our national security and foreign policy actions,” Trump said in a statement.

The bill, which would provide raises to all military personnel, also would rename bases currently honoring Confederate leaders who committed treason by taking up arms against the US to protect slavery. Trump also threatened a veto if the base renaming provision was not removed. The Republican-controlled Senate on Dec. 11 by a wide margin passed the measure, which provides for, among many other things, military pay raises and extra pay for troops assigned to dangerous missions. The vote was 84-13, which if sustained would be more than enough to hand Trump the first veto override of his presidency. So was the House vote earlier that week: 335 to 78. (12/23)

Satellites Can Reveal Risk of Forced Labor in the World's Fishing Fleet (Source: Space Daily)
Vessels known to have crew that are subject to forced labor behave in systematically different ways to the rest of the global fishing fleet, reveals a new paper. The discovery was used to build a first-of-its-kind model to identify and predict vessels at high risk of engaging in these abuses. Looking at annual behavior across the 16,000 vessels from 2012-2018, the model correctly predicted forced labor in more than 90 percent of reported high-risk activity and discovered as many as 4,200 new high-risk vessels.

The study found that up to 26 percent of the approximately 16,000 industrial fishing vessels analyzed were at high risk of using forced labor, a type of modern slavery. Machine learning techniques were applied to a database of approximately 16,000 longline, squid jigger and trawler vessels to build the predictive model that can discriminate between high and low risk vessels. The database includes 22 vessels that have previously been publicly identified by news agencies and NGOs to have labor abuses on board.

The study assessed the reported vessels against risk indicators defined by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and determined they were highly likely to have engaged in forced labor. The study found the most important indicators for distinguishing high-risk vessels include traveling farther from ports, higher engine power, more fishing hours per day, more time spent fishing on the high seas, and fewer fishing voyages in a given year than other boats. (12/22)

Paper on Creation of Canada's Space Agency Wins Sacknoff Prize (Source: Space 3.0 Foundation)
Shannon Brown, a doctoral candidate at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada, has been named the winner of the 2020 Sacknoff Prize for Space History for her paper, “Enacting NASA North: The Uses of Science Policy and the Creation of the Canadian Space Agency.” Established in 2011, the annual prize, named after commercial space consultant and entrepreneur, Scott Sacknoff, is designed to encourage university students to perform original research and submit papers with history of spaceflight themes. The winner receives a $500 cash prize, publication in the peer-reviewed journal, Quest: The History of Spaceflight, and an invitation to present at the annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology. (12/23)

Raymond Points to Space Force Momentum Into Year Two (Source: Space Daily)
"We were up and running 'Day One.' And we have not let our foot off the accelerator ever since," Gen. Raymond said. "We've been focused on five key areas that I think an independent service needs to focus on," he said, listing them as "developing our people," formulating an official warfighting doctrine, writing the service's first budget, "designing" the blueprint for how the force is organized and deployed, and finally, presenting those forces to combatant commanders.

"The progress we have made far surpasses anything that I would have expected," he said. The list of achievements is lengthy. A partial inventory shows that over the past year, about 2,400 Airmen have officially transferred to the Space Force. Most are crucially important space operators. The first "Space Force Detachment" was formed at the Air Force Academy and established a new minor in space warfighting. The "leadership team" was "built," comprised of a four-star Vice Chief of Space Operations and four, three-star generals who were nominated and confirmed by the Senate. The Space Force also added a Senior Enlisted Advisor.

The Space Force's first space warfighting doctrine was written and published. That blueprint emphasized speed, a heavy use of digital tools and joint operations. Raymond designed a new field command structure that eliminated two layers of command to increase "decision speed." That step embracing the doctrine's outlook and priorities. In a clear move from a "paper force" to one with people on the ground and in operation, the Space Force successfully transferred all space missions and capabilities from the Air Force. Also completed was a study on how best to transfer space missions and capabilities from the Army, Navy, and other Department of Defense components. (12/22)

Congress Adds $1.3B to Missile Defense Agency's Budget in Spending Bill (Source: UPI)
Congress has added $1.3 billion into the Missile Defense Agency's fiscal 2021 budget, in excess of what the agency asked for in February. The agency had requested $9.13 billion, a $1.27 billion decrease from last year's budget, but also submitted a list of unfunded requirements that totaled nearly $1 billion. In the bill, lawmakers describe a "concerning" disconnect between the MDA's budget and the 2017 National Security Strategy, the 2018 National Defense Strategy and the 2019 Missile Defense Review. (12/22)

Theirs to Lose: Colorado Concerned That Politics Will Steer Space Command HQ Elsewhere (Source: Politico)
The Air Force is closing in on the decision on where it will permanently locate the headquarters of the revived U.S. Space Command. And the political slugfest among the six locations still in the running is getting fiercer as it gets down to the wire. Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, where the command is now, is competing with Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, Patrick Space Force Base in Florida, Port San Antonio in Texas and Redstone Army Airfield in Alabama. Colorado’s boosters are apparently concerned. “I think they are worried that this is going to become a political plum for someone else,” an official said.

A new argument put forward by Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado, one of the biggest proponents of keeping it in Colorado Springs, is that moving it from Colorado Springs would be unnecessarily costly. It would take six years to do all the environmental assessments and construct new facilities if Space Command gets a new home. “Taxpayers have invested billions of dollars into Colorado Springs, much of which would be squandered if USSPACECOM is uprooted, Lamborn wrote.

Colorado is clearly pulling out all the stops. Gov. Jared Polis and Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera also weighed in this week in the Colorado Springs Gazette, arguing that the growing presence of the nascent Space Force in the region is reason to keep the headquarters where it is. When will there be a decision? “Expect early 2021, but Covid has a vote,” Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek tells us. But a well-placed government official says the political powers-that-be want to settle on a decision by the end of the Trump administration. The Air and Space Force leadership, meanwhile, want to keep Space Command in Colorado to avoid the big bill of moving it, the source said. (12/22)

Aerojet Acquisition May Position Lockheed Martin to Better Compete Against SpaceX, Blue Origin in Launch Business (Source: Politico)
With the surprise announcement that Lockheed Martin is acquiring Aerojet Rocketdyne, some suggest the move is really about competing with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, CNBC reports. “We have seen SpaceX as an emerging threat [and] they are more than an emerging threat right now,” Lockheed Martin CFO Ken Possenriede said on the company’s third quarter earnings conference call in October. The deal is widely expected to go through, much like Northrop Grumman’s acquisition of Orbital ATK two years ago. (12/22)

Viasat Suggests Starlink Move Creates Space Debris Problems (Source: Politico)
Viasat on Tuesday appealed to the Federal Communications Commission to review SpaceX’s plans to reposition to a lower orbit some 3,000 satellites from its Starlink constellation. Citing the National Environmental Policy Act, Viasat said it is concerned that the “proposed modification is likely to worsen the space-debris crisis.” (12/22)

China Moves Lunar Spacecraft to Lagrangian Point (Source: Space Daily)
Having finished its primary mission, the part of China's Chang'e-5 spacecraft that remained in space has departed for a new mission: exploring an unusual area of space known as a Lagrangian point. In every two-body system, there are five points where the gravitational force of the two objects is equal, making it possible for other objects to exist there with minimal influence from the two others. They've proven to be valuable for research, with China placing the Queqiao communications satellite at the Earth-moon L2 Lagrangian point to provide a link to missions on that side of the moon such as the Chang'e-4 mission in 2019. (12/22)

China's Next Lunar Mission Aims for Pole or Far Side Sampling (Source: Space Daily)
China plans to use its next moon mission, Chang'e 6, to collect samples from the moon's south pole or possibly the celestial body's far side, according to a key figure in the nation's lunar exploration program. Wu Yanhua, deputy head of China National Space Administration, told China Daily on Thursday after a news conference in Beijing that project managers' current plans call for the Chang'e 6 robotic probe to land on the lunar south pole. (12/18)

China Plans Four Crewed Missions Over Next Two Years (Source: Space Daily)
China plans to launch four manned spacecraft as part of its space station construction program in the next two years. China's manned space program will be very busy in 2021 and 2022, said Wu Yanhua, vice administrator of the CNSA, at a press conference on China's Chang'e-5 lunar mission. Wu said a total of 11 missions to build China's space station are planned for the next two years, including the construction of the core module that is scheduled to be launched in the first half of next year, two lab capsules, as well as four manned craft and four cargo craft. (12/21)

China Ponders International Moon Base Project (Source: Sputnik)
The China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced it will analyse whether it can build a permanent base on the moon, media reports revealed on Thursday. CNSA said it would invite other agencies and foreign partners to work jointly on the project if possible, with the next lunar mission likely to take place in the next five years. The effort would kick off with the Chang'e-8 lunar mission, which would also test emerging 3D printing capabilities to construct the base. (12/23)

Martian Samples Roundtrip Requires Marvelous Tubes (Source: Space Daily)
Marvels of engineering, the rover's sample tubes must be tough enough to safely bring Red Planet samples on the long journey back to Earth in immaculate condition. The tubes carried in the belly of NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover are destined to carry the first samples in history from another planet back to Earth.

Future scientists will use these carefully selected representatives of Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust) to look for evidence of potential microbial life present in Mars' ancient past and to answer other key questions about Mars and its history. Perseverance will land at Mars' Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021. About the size and shape of a standard lab test tube, the 43 sample tubes headed to Mars must be lightweight and hardy enough to survive the demands of the round trip, and so clean that future scientists will be confident that what they're analyzing is 100% Mars. (12/22)

FAA Begins Scoping Period for Environmental Review at SpaceX Launch Site (Source: Space Daily)
The FAA is holding a public scoping period for the draft Environmental Assessment (EA) allowing SpaceX to apply for licenses for suborbital and orbital launches of its Starship/Super Heavy project at Boca Chica, Texas. The scoping period will help the FAA in determine the issues for analysis in the draft EA. The FAA requests public comments on potential alternatives and impacts, and identification of any relevant information, studies, or analyses of any kind concerning impacts affecting the quality of the human environment. The FAA also invites comments on its consideration of preparing a Programmatic EA for this effort. The deadline to submit comments is January 22, 2021.

Editor's Note: My question, which may be outside the FAA's authority to answer, is what impacts or approvals are being considered by Mexico. For smaller Falcon rockets, the hazard and overflight areas appear to encroach Mexican property across the Rio Grande, and Mexican territorial waters in the Gulf of Mexico. I imagine the Starship has a much larger hazard area, and US agencies have no authority to establish or enforce safety regulations in Mexico. (12/23)

Midwest Universities Form Alliance to Lure Space Command, Beat Out Florida’s Patrick Space Force Base (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Four Midwestern universities have formed a space-oriented academic and research alliance aimed at luring the U.S. Space Command headquarters to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. University of Nebraska President Ted Carter said the partnership with the University of North Dakota, Kansas State University and Purdue would develop new degree programs and research initiatives, the Omaha World-Herald reported.

Offutt is among the six finalists to become the headquarters for the new Space Command, which was reactivated as a separate combatant command last year after 17 years as part of the Offutt-based U.S. Strategic Command. Other finalists are the newly renamed Patrick Space Force Base in Brevard County, Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, Redstone Army Airfield in Alabama and the former Kelly Air Force Base in Texas. (12/21)

NASA Receives $23.271 Billion in Fiscal Year 2021 Omnibus Spending Bill (Source: Space News)
Congress will provide NASA with nearly $23.3 billion in the final fiscal year 2021 omnibus spending bill, restoring several science programs but falling far short of the funding sought for a lunar lander program.

Congress released the omnibus spending bill Dec. 21, a day after congressional leaders announced they had reached an agreement on a companion coronavirus relief package. The omnibus spending bill, a compromise between House and Senate bills, had been completed days earlier but its release was delayed until a deal was struck on the relief package.

The bill provides $23.271 billion for NASA in fiscal year 2021, $642 million more than what it received in 2020 but nearly $2 billion less than the agency’s request of $25.246 billion. A House spending bill passed in July kept NASA funded at 2020 levels, while a Senate bill introduced in November offered $23.495 billion. Click here. (12/21)

NASA Honing Plans for its Mars Ice Mapper Mission (Source: Space.com)
When President Donald Trump's administration submitted its NASA budget request for this fiscal year in February, the documents contained a surprise for planetary scientists: the announcement of a new mission dubbed Mars Ice Mapper.

But budget request documents aren't brimming with mission details and NASA has kept quiet about the new project, so understanding the story of Mars Ice Mapper has been difficult. Details remain scarce, but NASA officials offered a little more insight into the mission's origins and goals during a meeting held last month, calling Mars Ice Mapper an attempt to take advantage of a specific and unexpected opportunity with implications for a host of NASA priorities. (12/20)

2020 Space Year in Review: Resilient and Robust Despite Pandemic (Source: Saraphim)
Despite disruptions and economic headwinds from COVID-19, the space industry has been resilient and even made tremendous progress in 2020. While no one could have predicted what happened in 2020, the key trends we outlined back in 2019 still hold and we believe they will continue to play out in the New Year. These trends include the growing importance of national security for commercial space and the continued growth of low-earth orbit (LEO) constellations.

Startups SpaceX and Rocket Labs made launch more affordable and available, opening the door for more smallsats collecting more frequent and diverse data from space. At the same time, Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and debris have become more pressing issues as space becomes a more crowded and contested domain. Click here. (12/21)

DoD SDA Reevaluating Missile Tracking Proposals After Protests (Source: Space News)
The Space Development Agency is reevaluating proposals for missile tracking satellites following a series of protests. The agency said Tuesday it is "expeditiously implementing" a corrective action plan for the Tracking Tranche 0 competition after Airbus and Raytheon protested awards made in October to L3Harris and SpaceX. SDA said it would reevaluate those proposals in response to the protests, but Raytheon has since filed two additional protests challenging that plan. It's not clear how the protests will affect the schedule for the program, which had a goal of launching the satellites in late 2022. (12/23)

Space Force Gets Dedicated Budget in Omnibus Spending Bill (Source: Space News)
With the fiscal year 2021 omnibus spending bill, the Space Force has its first dedicated budget. The bill includes $15.2 billion for Space Force operations and maintenance, procurement as well as research, development, testing and evaluation (RDT&E). Funding for Space Force military and civilian personnel remains in the Air Force budget. Compared to the Pentagon's budget request, Congress slightly reduced Space Force procurement from $2.4 billion to $2.3 billion but increased RDT&E from $10.3 billion to $10.5 billion. (12/23)

Voyager Space Holdings to Acquire Nanoracks (Source: CNBC)
Voyager Space Holdings’ fourth acquisition in a little over a year since it was established is a majority stake in the parent company of Nanoracks, a space services and hardware specialist that has sent more than 1,000 missions to the International Space Station. “Nanoracks is a game changer for us in terms of adding some pretty significant capability in space,” said Voyager Space Holdings CEO Dylan Taylor.

Voyager intends to take a majority stake in X.O. Markets, the holding company of Nanoracks, in a deal expected to close in the first quarter of 2021. While Voyager Space Holdings did not disclose the financial details of the deal — with Taylor only noting that “we’re infusing quite a bit of cash in the business” to help it grow — people familiar with the transaction told CNBC that Voyager plans to invest more than $50 million in Nanoracks over the coming year. (12/23)

Raytheon Completes Blue Canyon Acquisition (Source: Space News)
Raytheon has completed its acquisition of smallsat manufacturer Blue Canyon Technologies. Boulder, Colorado-based Blue Canyon will now be part of Raytheon Intelligence & Space, a business unit of Raytheon Technologies based in Arlington, Virginia. Raytheon announced the acquisition in November, expected it to close by early 2021. Blue Canyon has a commercial satellite business but has been growing its defense sales, with more than 90 satellites in production for U.S. government agencies. (12/23)

SLS Upper Stage Completes Design Review (Source: Space News)
An upgraded upper stage for the Space Launch System has passed a key review. Boeing said this week that the Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) completed its critical design review with NASA, allowing the company to start producing hardware. The EUS will be used on the Block 1B version of SLS, increasing its payload performance. The first SLS Block 1B launch is not likely before the mid-2020s. The omnibus spending bill passed this week directs NASA to spend at least $400 million on EUS development in 2021, even though the agency's budget proposal sought to defer final design work so that NASA could focus on completing the Block 1 version of SLS. (12/23)

ESA Clean Space Initiative Works to Improve Satellite Design for Space Sustainability (Source: Space News)
A European Space Agency initiative is working to improve the safe disposal of satellites, one component at a time. The ESA Clean Space initiative was launched in 2012 to consider the environmental impact of the agency's missions across their entire life cycle, with a focus on developing satellite components that can safely break up on reentry. That has included lab testing of satellite components and even a complete cubesat, placing them in a plasma wind chamber to simulate reentry. In addition to promoting space debris mitigation, the ESA Clean Space initiative is also exploring green satellite design, in-orbit servicing and active debris removal solutions. (12/23)

Astroscale Debris Removal Payload Ships to Baikonur for March Launch (Source: Astroscale)
Astroscale has shipped a debris removal technology demonstration satellite for launch next year. The End-of-Life Services by Astroscale demonstration (ELSA-d) satellite was shipped from the company's Tokyo headquarters to the Baikonur Cosmodrome for launch in March. Astroscale will use ELSA-d to test active debris removal technologies that the company plans to offer commercially. (12/23)

With Axiom, Houston Spaceport Gets Commercial Space Station Tenant (Source: Houston Chronicle)
Axiom Space will build a new headquarters and production facility for its commercial space station at Spaceport Houston. Axiom announced Tuesday it reached an agreement with the Houston Airport System to build a 14-acre campus at the spaceport, also known as Ellington Airport. That will serve as the company's headquarters as well as where it produces components of its planned commercial space station and trains people who will fly there. Terms of the deal, including any financial support from the city, are still being worked out, but construction could begin in 2021 and the headquarters opened in 2023. (12/23)

The International Space Station Can’t Stay Up There Forever. Will Privately Run, Commercial Replacements Be ReadTy In Time? (Source: Washington Post)
NASA is confident Congress and its international partners will agree to extend the station’s life beyond 2024, when it is currently set to expire. On Friday, the Senate passed a NASA authorization bill that would extend it to 2030. But space is harsh, the station is aging and at some point it will have to come down. What comes next, though, isn’t certain.

Under President Trump, NASA has been scrambling to return astronauts to the moon under an accelerated timeline. But the first big test the incoming Biden administration will face in space could very well be the future of the space station. If it’s retired without a backup, NASA would face an “existential challenge,” as one top space agency official put it, with no place for its astronauts to go. There are several companies working to develop a commercial space station, looking at a range of options that vary: a modern version of the ISS, a station with modules that inflate like balloons, and one that would refurbish discarded rocket stages that are floating around in orbit.

But while those options show promise, they are still unproven and years from hitting the market. As a result, NASA has been increasingly concerned it could have a gap in low Earth orbit that would be even more consequential than the ignominious period after the space shuttle fleet was retired that left the space agency with no way to launch its astronauts to space from U.S. soil. Instead, NASA was forced to rely on the Russians for rides to space, at a price that grew to as much as $90 million a seat, before Elon Musk’s SpaceX restored human spaceflight for NASA earlier this year. (12/23)

Russian Space Agency Unhappy With US Export Block (Source: Ars Technica)
Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, is not happy about a U.S. decision to effectively block exports of sensitive technologies to Russian companies. The Commerce Department said Monday it was placing 43 Russia companies, along with 58 Chinese ones, on a list of "military end users," requiring U.S. companies to get an export license before shipping technologies to them. Among the companies listed is Progress Rocket Space Center, which produces the Soyuz rocket. Rogozin criticized the move, sugesting it could threaten the ability of NASA to launch any astronauts on Soyuz vehicles in the future. (12/23)

Newman Returns to Senior MIT Position (Source: Boston Globe)
A former NASA deputy administrator will be the next director of the MIT Media Lab. The university said Tuesday it selected Dava Newman to be the next director of the center, effective in July. Newman served as NASA deputy administrator from 2015 to 2017, taking leave from her post as a professor in MIT's aeronautics and astronautics department. The Media Lab works on a wide range of projects, including some related to space, but has been mired in controversy because its former director had close ties with, and accepted donations from, Jeffrey Epstein. (12/23)