December 30, 2020

NASA-Canadian Agreement Demonstrates How Artemis is an International Moonshot (Source: The Hill)
By returning astronauts to the moon and asking for international participation in the undertaking, the United States seeks to establish itself as a world leader in space exploration. America also expects to garner a great deal of international good will by inviting other countries to participate in Artemis, which will include their nationals walking on the moon alongside Americans.

Artemis will demonstrate to China, which also has lunar ambitions, that the country that landed men on the moon 50 years ago still has what it takes to do the same thing now. Now as then, the United States is the world leader for space exploration. China, because of its implacable hostility to the United States and the rest of the western world, is in no way a candidate for a space exploration partnership.

The third purpose of the Artemis international partnerships is to keep the incoming Biden administration from cancelling the project. By lining up international partners for Artemis, the Trump administration hopes to make a Biden cancellation of the project impossible. Team Biden has made a big issue of Trump’s withdrawal from international agreements, such as the Paris Climate Accords and the Iran Nuclear Agreement. It wouldn’t be a good look, given that rhetoric, if the future Biden were to break the agreements, including the Artemis Accords, which seek to define what constitutes good behavior in space. (12/27)

EU Space Policy: It’s Not All About Rocket Science (Source: The Parliament)
Although space technology actually ‘is’ rocket science - and often feel like it’s only accessible to scientists – it’s actually a lot closer to us than we think. We rely on space technology several times every single day: for car navigation systems, satellite TV, mobile phones and even for withdrawing money. We also have satellites that provide speedy data when forest fires, earthquakes or floods strike.

The space industry creates almost ten percent of the European Union’s GDP and it is worth between €46-54bn to our economy. It also provides more than 230,000 jobs in fields like space operations, downstream services and manufacturing. Space technology also contributes to the EU’s flagship programs, such as helping to deliver on the European Green Deal’s goals through services and data provided for Earth observation and global positioning. (12/28)

The Space News We’ll Be Watching in 2021 (Source: Gizmodo)
Blast off to adventure in the amazing year 2021! No doubt, we’re expecting a ton of cool and exciting space-related happenings next year, with these stories being among the most highly anticipated. Click here. (12/29)

Presidential Transition, Weak Funding Put 2024 Moon Landing Goal in Doubt (Source: UPI)
The handoff from Donald Trump's administration to that of Joe Biden, and a lack of congressional funding, have cast doubt on NASA's goal for a lunar landing by 2024 -- a date that already had been seen as unlikely. "We can say, really, it's impossible at this point to meet that 2024 goal," said Casey Dreier, chief advocate for The Planetary Society, which says it is the largest nonprofit in the world to support space exploration.

"The issue is funding for NASA in general. Even the Trump White House cut NASA's funding in the first couple of years," said Dreier. "I'd say it's unlikely that the Biden Administration will stick with the goal of 2024, given the funding issues," Dreier said. He added: "That doesn't mean the moon will fall out of favor. The Democratic Party platform endorses a moon to Mars program. It will just take a little longer." (12/28)

2020: At Least It Was Good For Space Exploration? (Source: NPR)
Between the pandemic, protests, the recession — the list goes on — there was big space news in 2020. And there was a lot of it! SpaceX Crew Dragon launch, the first time in decades that NASA has launched astronauts to space in a new spaceship. China's Chang'e-5 lunar mission, which brought lunar rocks back to earth for the first time in over 40 years. A Japanese space capsule returned from a six-year mission to retrieve samples from asteroid Ryugu. The five-gram sample is the largest ever returned from an asteroid. Click here. (12/28)

What We Learned in 2020 From Space Station Science (Source: NASA)
Dozens of experiments are going on at any given time aboard the International Space Station. Research conducted in 2020 is advancing our understanding in areas of study from Parkinson’s disease to combustion. Space station research results published this year came from experiments performed and data collected during the past 20 years of continuous human habitation aboard the orbiting laboratory. Between October 1, 2019, and October 1, 2020, the station’s Program Research Office identified more than 300 scientific publications based on space station research. Click here. (12/28)

Puerto Rico Governor Allocates $8 Million to Rebuild Arecibo (Source: El Nuevo Dia)
Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced announced on Monday the allocation of $ 8 million for the reconstruction and eventual operation of the Arecibo Observatory. By executive order, the governor assigned the money and also declared the area where the observatory was located as a historical zone. The executive order establishes that the reconstruction of the observatory is part of the public policy of the government of Puerto Rico.

"The government of Puerto Rico is convinced that the collapse of the radio telescope brings a great opportunity to redesign it, taking into account the lessons learned and the recommendations of the scientific community to make it relevant for decades," Vázquez Garced said. He specified that the budget should cover the removal and disposal of the rubble and the design of the new radio telescope. On December 3, the National Science Foundation did not rule out a possible reconstruction , although at that time it was established that it was too early for final decisions. It was not specified how much a rebuild would cost. (12/29)

Kleos Opens U.S. Engineering Office in Denver Colorado (Source: Space Daily)
Kleos Space S.A. will establish its principal US engineering presence in Denver, Colorado. Kleos has engaged with Denver Economic Development and Opportunity and selected Denver, Colorado as an ideal location to grow its U.S. engineering presence and to further draw on the region's engineering and aerospace support services. Colorado is creating the foundation to become "Aerospace Alley" and build on its position as an aerospace leader, and to recruit ambassadors and industry officials to support the demand for talent in the state.

"When conducting our U.S. engineering base search, we were struck by Colorado's wealth of aerospace talent and innovation," said Kleos CEO, Andy Bowyer. "We're thrilled to start building our U.S. team in such a dynamic and collaborative space community." ... "Colorado is home to the second largest space economy in the U.S., and we know Kleos will thrive here because of our talent pool and rich business ecosystem," said Eric Hiraga, Executive Director for Denver Economic Development and Opportunity.

Colorado's overall private aerospace employment of 30,020 is second only to California's and is the country's highest per capita, according to a report by the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation. There are nearly 280 aerospace businesses in Colorado and more than 500 companies and suppliers providing space-related products and services with 57,830 private and military workers in the aerospace sector. (12/29)

Inhofe: Ligado Investors Should Be Scared For Its Future (Source: Defense News)
By now it shouldn’t be any surprise that I oppose the decision by the Federal Communications Commission to approve Ligado Networks’ application to repurpose low-band spectrum for a terrestrial commercial network that will interfere with GPS and satellite communications signals. What is surprising, however, is that after my push to dispel the Ligado lies, Ligado still has investors willing to bet big on them.

In October, the Wall Street Journal reported that Ligado, which went bankrupt in 2012 after a failed effort to repurpose its spectrum, needed to refinance $4 billion in debt to prevent bankruptcy, and gave plum offerings and high returns to hedge fund investors to do so. Having survived one bankruptcy, Ligado will do anything to make sure its Wall Street hedge fund and private equity investors make money — even when it would jeopardize the signals supporting our national and economic security that Americans rely on every day.

Ligado has an agenda — and it’s a scary one. Just think about what activities GPS and satellite communications signals support across the nation. Our troops rely on them for equipment used on the battlefield, farmers rely on them to harvest their crops, and truckers and airlines rely on them to move supplies and people safely; the list goes on and on. (12/28)

Biden Has an Opportunity to Bolster How We View Earth From Space (Source: MIT Technology Review)
When Joe Biden takes over the US presidency on January 20, 2021, he intends to make climate change a centerpiece of his administration. As well as rejoining the Paris agreement, reinforcing the Clean Air Act, and restoring the Clean Power Plan, he will also have an opportunity to strengthen climate research. One way he can do that is by bolstering Earth observation (EO) programs—the orbital satellites that support much of the world’s climate science.

NASA and NOAA operate more than a dozen Earth observation missions from orbit, several of them in collaboration with other countries. Many, like the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) program, directly observe changes in the weather to help in forecasting. Others, like the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) satellite, measure rising sea levels caused by glacier melt. Still others are less focused on studying climate specifically but yield imagery that scientists use to observe more understated effects of climate change, like the increase in natural disasters or the changes in land use that have occurred in response to wildfires and drought.

Trump did his best to weaken US participation in climate-related Earth observation. The White House placed three upcoming NASA missions on the chopping block in annual budget proposals: the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (OCO-3); the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem (PACE); and the Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO). (12/28)

How Dead Rockets Could Save An Aging International Space Station (Source: Observer)
It’s been more than 70 years since the first rocket blasted off into space and 20 years since the first human lived on the International Space Station. Today, the ISS is rapidly aging, while the number of rocket missions is soaring, an exciting development that is nonetheless creating a growing trail of space debris. According to Nanoracks, a private space company regularly delivering payloads to the ISS, one problem might just be the solution to the other.

“Right now, a rocket launch can cost anywhere from $50 million to $70 million. If we can show that you can extend missions, then you are leveraging existing assets and not paying for a full launch,” Jeff Manber, founder and CEO of Nanoracks, explained to Observer. For the past few years, Nanoracks has been working on a program called Outpost, which aims to modify a rocket’s upper stage after it’s done with its primary mission. It then becomes a miniature space station for scientific research, fuel resupply and even space tourism. Click here. (12/28)

Current Spacesuits Won’t Cut It on the Moon So NASA Made New Ones (Source: MIT Technology Review)
A spacesuit is more like a miniature spacecraft you wear around your body than an item of clothing. It’s pressurized, it’s decked out with life support systems, and it’s likely to look pretty cool. But should the suit fail, you’re toast. No one has ever died because of a faulty spacesuit, but that doesn’t mean current models are perfect. Whether it’s for launch into space or reentry back to Earth, or for an extravehicular activity (EVA, colloquially known as a spacewalk), astronauts have never been completely satisfied with the gear they are forced to put on for missions.

Fortunately, though, the flurry of new activity in space has meant we’re seeing more innovation in spacesuit design and performance than ever before. The suits look better, too. The emergence of new private vehicles like SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Boeing’s Starliner means NASA astronauts going to the International Space Station are wearing new spacesuits that are extremely sleek and chic. In place of the baggy orange Advanced Crew Escape Suit (affectionately nicknamed the "pumpkin suit”) that space shuttle crews used to wear when launching into orbit, SpaceX and Boeing have designed something that is much more form-fitting and half the mass.

Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, the astronauts who went up on the Crew Dragon to the ISS in May, remarked that they were extremely comfortable and easy to get on and off. Suits that are worn during takeoff and reentry are designed to protect astronauts from fire, and they plug into seat umbilicals that carry oxygen and cool air in case the cabin depressurizes for some reason. The most interesting work, however, has to do with NASA’s next-generation spacesuit for astronauts going to the moon—the eXploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or xEMU. Click here. (12/29)