January 16, 2021

No DoD Farewell for Trump (Source: Midiaite)
The Pentagon, in a break with recent tradition, will not host an Armed Forces Farewell tribute to President Donald Trump. For the last 40 years, the Pentagon has seen each president out the door with a farewell tribute. In 2017 that included a salute from a military band, a review of troops, and a long line of military leaders stepping forward to praise President Obama. (1/16)

Jupiter Mission by China Could Include Callisto Landing (Source: Planetary Society)
China opened the 2020s by bringing samples back from the Moon and sending its first mission to Mars. The country’s space agency hopes to end the decade by launching a spacecraft to Jupiter that could include a lander bound for the moon Callisto. China has hinted before that it would like to send missions to the outer planets. Chinese scientists, working with European collaborators, are now solidifying plans for two distinct Jupiter mission concepts, one of which will likely move forward. Both seek to unravel mysteries behind the planet’s origins and workings using a main spacecraft and one or more smaller vehicles.

The competing missions are called the Jupiter Callisto Orbiter and the Jupiter System Observer, or JCO and JSO, respectively. Both would launch in 2029 and arrive in 2035 after one Venus flyby and two Earth flybys. JCO and JSO would study the size, mass, and composition of Jupiter’s irregular satellites—those captured by Jupiter rather than formed in orbit, and often in distant, elliptical and even retrograde orbits—complementing science conducted by NASA’s Europa Clipper and Lucy missions, as well as the European Space Agency’s JUICE mission. (1/15)

UK Spaceport Names Interim Head (Source: Business Cornwall)
Spaceport Cornwall has announced the appointment of a new interim head, following the departure of Miles Carden. Melissa Thorpe’s promotion makes her one of the first female leaders of a spaceport in the world. An economist with a background in aerospace and aviation, Thorpe has been head of engagement at Spaceport Cornwall since its inception in 2014. She will be supported in this interim position by interim commercial director John Paffett and operations manager Luke Winfield. (1/15)

Maine Aerospace Company’s Commercial Rocket Launch Next week Will Be a Historic First (Source: Bangor Daily News)
The small team at Brunswick-based bluShift Aerospace will come one step closer to its dream of reaching the Alpha Centauri star system when it launches the Stardust 1.0 rocket at Limestone’s former Loring Air Force base next week. The launch will mark two historic firsts — the first commercial launch of a rocket powered by bio-derived fuel in the world, and the first commercial rocket launch in Maine. The crew were on the Loring runway on Jan. 15, braving the cold temperatures and fully expecting a successful launch, but cloudy skies prevented the workers from getting the go-ahead from the FAA. They have since tentatively rescheduled the launch for Wednesday, Jan. 20. (1/15)

How Star Trek Helped NASA Dream Big (Source: Air & Space)
On the afternoon of January 27, 1967, the three crew members of the first Apollo mission left the transfer van that took them to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. There, astronauts Roger Chaffee, Gus Grissom, and Ed White entered the command module and began a “plugs out” test (that is, with the spacecraft detached from all umbilicals and external power sources) of the launch vehicle and spacecraft designed to carry them on their mission.

At 6:31 p.m., a spark ignited in the lower equipment bay of the spacecraft. The atmosphere inside was 100 percent oxygen. The astronauts didn’t have a chance. The evening before the fire that claimed the lives of these three men, loyal viewers had tuned in for “Tomorrow Is Yesterday,” the 19th episode of a four-month-old TV show called Star Trek.

Set in the 23rd century, the groundbreaking series had attracted a loyal following of viewers who relished its serious approach to the genre of science fiction. Among the subset of fans who most valued this element of the show were some of the key people working in America’s space program, who saw the Starship Enterprise and its crew of high-minded explorers as the future embodiment of what they hoped to achieve. Click here. (1/15)

Is NASA About to Get its First Female Leader? (Source: Space.com)
NASA may be on the verge of a big — and long overdue — inclusion milestone. The incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris may very well make history with their choice to lead the 62-year-old U.S. space agency, said Jack Burns, a professor of astrophysics and planetary science at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

"Well, this is one place where there are some pretty good rumors," Burns said on Thursday (Jan. 14) during a panel discussion at the 237th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), which was held virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic. "I think the Biden-Harris administration would very much like to name — from everything I understand here — the first woman NASA administrator, and that would be very exciting, long overdue," he said. "And some of the names that have been put forward are extremely well qualified." (1/15)

Boeing’s Other Big Problem: Fixing Its Space Program (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Boeing Co.’s engineering failures didn’t begin or end with the 737 MAX. Its once-dominant space program, which helped put Americans on the moon five decades ago, has also struggled. The company’s biggest space initiatives have been dogged by faulty designs, software errors and chronic cost overruns. It has lost out on recent contracts with NASA to return science experiments and astronauts to the moon, amid low rankings on price and technical merit.

Boeing needs revenues from its defense and space arm, which makes everything from military jets to satellites, as a safety net as it navigates through the MAX crisis and slowed demand for new commercial jets in the pandemic. Its space ambitions will soon face a major test with another attempt to launch a capsule called the Starliner. In the first launch, just over a year ago without astronauts on board, a software error sent the Starliner into the wrong orbit, and then another threatened a catastrophic end to the mission. A successful launch, which could come as soon as March, would help restore the company’s reputation for reliability and engineering prowess.

The problems pose a serious challenge for Chief Executive David Calhoun one year into his tenure as he charts a new course in the face of uncertainties wrought by the pandemic. After making record profit of $10.5 billion in 2018, Boeing has since lost nearly half that amount as of Sept. 30, largely due to a sharp drop in commercial aircraft deliveries and MAX-related charges. Defense and space revenue of $19.5 billion in the first nine months of last year eclipsed its commercial unit’s $11.4 billion in sales. Jefferies analysts estimate Boeing brought in more than $6 billion in space revenue for all of last year. (1/15)

Trump's Space Legacy (Source: Politico)
Trump’s space achievements will perhaps be the most unblemished part of his legacy. Even many who don’t agree with his administration’s broader politics can’t dispute that the top-level focus he put on space has advanced the nation’s goals. “Space will be one of the most important things we’ve ever done,” Trump said in May when he attended the first crewed launch from American soil in more than a decade. “I put it up there with 280 federal judges, two supreme court judges.” (1/15)

The Space Industry Must Reckon with America's Politics (Source: The Hill)
Amid protests against racial injustice and police brutality in 2020, the United States witnessed the return of its crewed launch capability with the SpaceX Demo-2 launch. But as some reflected on the historic launch, space leaders recognized that such an event itself was not a relief for those affected by racial injustice and inequality. In the days following the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots, some space professionals were relieved at being able to return their focus to their everyday work and to look forward to positive developments in space expected for 2021.

Similar to the Demo-2 launch during the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests, the space industry cannot pin its hopes on technological advances and engineering feats while ignoring the erosion of American democracy. Many in the space industry argue that space programs receive such strong bipartisan support between Democrats and Republicans because of the ability of agencies, such as NASA, to remain nonpartisan. Unfortunately, this mistaken thinking has been adopted and promoted throughout the space community. Nonpartisan does not mean apolitical.

Space professionals must resist taking solace and comfort in their labs and offices while ignoring the political happenings around them. In order to support a future based on values, equity and ethics as found in the science fiction works that inspired so many, the space industry must collectively speak and take a position against the dangerous elements that contributed to the Capitol Hill attacks and which continue to undermine the legitimacy of America’s political system. (1/14)

How Joe Biden Can Galvanize Space Diplomacy (Source: Politico)
The potential for future conflicts to originate in outer space, or for terrestrial conflicts to extend there, has grown as various governments are developing an array of counterspace weapons. The explosion of commercial space activity has also raised the risk of damaging incidents in space. These developments have renewed interest in the role that international norms of responsible behavior could play in enhancing safety and security in the space domain.

Those norms can range from informal "rules of the road" that evolve from practice to international political agreements or even legally-binding measures. But previous efforts to establish norms have had limited results. The Biden administration has an opportunity, working with like-minded allies and partners, to galvanize nascent international efforts.

Although norms are imperfect and not enforceable, previous RAND analysis and wargaming suggests that norms of space behavior could help build confidence among space-faring nations and enhance crisis stability and deterrence by creating rules of the road and thresholds that would be clear warnings of hostile intent. Working with allies and partners to advance international norms can enhance space resilience and deterrence. (1/15)

Super Magnetic Neutron Star Spins Faster Than Any Discovered Before (Source: Ditigal Trends)
There’s a strange type of neutron star called a magnetar; rarely spotted and only vaguely understood. To date, only 30 of these objects have been discovered, but recently a 31st was identified — and it turns out to be even more unusual than its brethren.

A neutron star is incredibly dense, similar to a black hole, and is created when an enormous star collapses and dies. There are several thousand known neutron stars in our galaxy, and they are often used to study distant galaxies as well. But there is a special, rare type of neutron star called a magnetar that has a tremendously powerful magnetic field.

Magnetic field strength is measure in a unit called Gauss, where Earth’s magnetic field is around one Gauss. Magnetars, on the other hand, have a magnetic field strength of around a million billion Gauss. For reference, NASA says that’s a field strong enough to wipe every credit card on Earth from around 40,000 miles away. That means magnetars have the strongest magnetic fields in the known universe. (1/13)

Colorado Cries Foul Over Space Command Decision (Source: Politico)
Colorado leaders cried foul over the Air Force’s decision to move Space Command’s headquarters Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Ala., and members of the state’s congressional delegation asked Biden to overturn the decision. Claims the move was politically driven are fueled by reports that Trump demanded the headquarters be relocated to the heavily Republican state to win the support of Alabama's senators during a new impeachment trial.

Colorado Springs will keep the command through 2026 so the Pentagon can conduct environmental assessments and prepare a new site. So there’s ample time to rehash the selection process, which was already scrapped and restarted once because of a push for more transparency in the evaluation criteria. Maybe the third time's the charm? Alabama is also likely to have some regional help defending the decision. Tennessee’s senators, Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, issued a statement on Thursday extolling the benefits of the move to the wider Tennessee Valley. (1/15)

Who Will Lead the House Space Subcommittee? (Source: Politico)
A big open question about who will shape space policy in Congress is who will lead the House Science Committee’s space panel, which was chaired by former Rep. Kendra Horn (D-OK), who lost her reelection bid. Reps. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) and Don Beyer (D-VA) both chair other committees and are prevented by the rules from wielding two gavels. Ami Bera (D-CA), meanwhile, has said he does not plan to seek the position.

The first step to naming a chair is filing the committee. Nearly two weeks into the 117th Congress, the space subcommittee only has two members, committee spokesperson Rebekah Eskandani told us, adding she is “unsure” when the rest will be selected. (1/15)

Maine's bluShift to Test Biofuel Launcher (Sources: Politico, Space.com)
The first commercial space launch powered by biofuel was expected to lift off Friday from the northern tip of Maine. The rocket, from space startup bluShift, has been under development since the company was founded in 2014, CEO Sascha Deri said. The launch was called off due to thick cloud cover and bad weather. The next launch attempt could occur on Wednesday, Jan. 20.

While the exact makeup of the solid fuel is proprietary, Deri tells us it’s a “blend of substances that can be had from any farm across America.” It’s also non-toxic. “My two young daughters could eat the fuel and no harm would come to them with the exception of constipation maybe,” as he put it.

The suborbital test flight will launch from a portable trailer about one mile up, Desi said. Three payloads are onboard: a cubesat prototype built by students at Falmouth High School, a metal alloy designed to lessen vibrations developed by Kellogg’s Research Labs, and a cubesat from software company Rocket Insights packed with Dutch wafer cookies to pay homage to its Amsterdam-based parent company. If all goes to plan, it will then parachute back down to Earth. (1/15)

Biden to Elevate Science, Names Team (Source: Biden-Harris Transition)
Dr. Eric Lander, the Presidential Science Advisor-designate and nominee for Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, will be tasked to work broadly and transparently with the diverse scientific leadership of American society and make recommendations on how the new administration can harness science and technology on behalf of the American people. The role of the Presidential Science Advisor is raised to Cabinet level for the first time.

Dr. Frances H. Arnold and Dr. Maria Zuber will serve as the external Co-Chairs of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). An expert in protein engineering, Dr. Arnold is the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Dr. Zuber, an expert in geophysics and planetary science, is the first woman to lead a NASA spacecraft mission and has chaired the National Science Board. They are the first women to serve as co-chairs of PCAST.

Narda Jones, who will serve as OSTP Legislative Affairs Director, was Senior Technology Policy Advisor and Counsel for the Democratic staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. [No announcement yet about the NASA Administrator.] (1/15)

DOD Aims to Bring Industrial Base Back to U.S., Allies (Source: Defense.gov)
While the defense industrial base is healthy, there are single points of failure and dependencies on overseas suppliers that must be addressed, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment said. "Over a period of years, we have offshored many, many sources of supply," Ellen M. Lord said during an online discussion Thursday with the Hudson Institute. "It's not for one reason; it's for a variety of reasons, whether it be regulations, whether it be labor costs, whether it be government support of different industries."

The deindustrialization of the U.S. over the last 50 years, the end of the Cold War and the focus it gave the U.S. on defeating the Soviet Union, digital technology and the rise of China have all created challenges to national defense. Development of a modern manufacturing and engineering workforce along with a more robust research and development base is also critical. Declines in U.S. science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and industrial jobs hurt the ability of the defense industrial base to innovate, Lord said. (1/15)

“Pro-Space” Lawmakers on Wrong Side of History after Capitol Riot (Source: Space News)
The uncomfortable truth now facing the space community, in the days after the horrific events at the Capitol Jan. 6, is that some of the most prominent Republican supporters of space in Congress are on the wrong side of history. In the days leading up to the formal, and usually only ceremonial, certification of the Electoral College results, members like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Reps. Brian Babin (R-TX) and Mo Brooks (R-AL) announced their intent to challenge several states’ electors, citing baseless claims of voter fraud.

Those actions helped fuel a protest, which became a riot. Afterward, those members disavowed the violence, but were hardly repentant. When the Senate reconvened later that evening, Cruz continued his challenge of Arizona’s electors, and later backed a challenge of Pennsylvania’s electors. In the coming weeks, Congress will move on from the inauguration of Joe Biden and the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump, and start to take up more mundane issues, like space. That may include another attempt at a NASA authorization bill.

In December, the Senate passed a NASA authorization bill with bipartisan support that its lead sponsor hoped would serve as the basis for a similar bill that could pass Congress in early 2021. The problem is that lead sponsor: Ted Cruz. Will Democrats in Congress be willing to support a similar bill if it’s reintroduced by Cruz? Should they? It’s not hard to imagine them taking a stand, refusing to cooperate with members that backed the protests, either by declining to co-sponsor legislation or opposing the bills entirely. (1/15)

Space Florida Receives FAA Operator License for SLF "Reentry Site" (Source: Space Florida)
The FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) issued Space Florida a Reentry Site Operator License for operations at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF). The landing facility was the first purpose-built landing site for an orbiter returning from space. Now, it becomes the first commercially licensed reentry site. This landmark license expands the capabilities of this historic runway, and is a key part in transforming the Cape.

The license allows the SLF to support multiple orbital return vehicles such as Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser spaceplane. Dream Chaser has the potential to land at any FAA licensed landing site that has a suitable 10,000-foot runway capable of handling a typical commercial jet. Editor's Note: The SLF is also used by Starfighters Aerospace for space, defense, and aeronautical projects, including potentially for future air-launch satellite missions. (1/15)

$3 Million Martian ‘Drone With Claws’ Set For Red Planet (Source: Forbes)
NASA is about to land a helicopter on Mars—and is already planning its clawed successor. On Thursday, February 18, 2021, NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover will land in Jezero crater, which is thought to be an ancient river bed on the red planet. Strapped to its belly is a small drone called “Ingenuity” that’s destined to take several short, powered flights. It will become the first vehicle to fly on another planet. (1/14)

Blue Origin Aims to Fly First Passengers on its Space Tourism Rocket as Early as April (Source: CNBC)
Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin on Thursday completed the fourteenth test flight of its New Shepard rocket booster and capsule. CNBC has learned that NS-14 also marked one of the last remaining steps before Blue Origin flies its first crew to space, with Thursday’s flight the first of two “stable configuration” tests. Blue Origin aims to launch the second test flight within six weeks, or by late February, and the first crewed flight six weeks after that, or by early April. (1/14)

SpaceX Starlink Internet Ready to be Adopted by Over 50% of Americans (Source: Teslarati)
A recent survey has determined that over half of Americans are ready to switch to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service. This was despite only 5% of internet subscribers in the United States being connected via satellite today. The study asked respondents whether they would consider getting on board with Starlink once the satellite internet service is fully set up. As it turns out, over half of those surveyed stated that they’d be signing up for the Starlink Beta program, despite the $499 cost of the satellite dish and the service’s current $99 per month fee. (1/14)

GAO: NASA's Reported Environmental Financial Liabilities Have Grown (Source: SpaceRef)
NASA estimated cleanup and restoration across the agency would cost $1.9 billion as of fiscal year 2020, up from $1.7 billion in fiscal year 2019. This reflects an increase of $724 million, or 61 percent, from 2014. NASA identified contamination at 14 centers around the country, as of 2019. Five of the 14 centers decreased their environmental liabilities from 2014 to 2019, but liability growth at the other centers offset those decreases and contributed to the net increase in environmental liabilities. (1/15)