January 4, 2021

GAO: NASA Needs to Improve Artemis Management as New Schedule Delays Likely (Source: Parabolic Arc)
NASA needs to strengthen its management oversight of the lunar landing program to minimize delays and cost overruns as the space agency moves beyond the Artemis I flight test scheduled for November 2021, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). GAO’s program review also found that schedule for the maiden flight of the Space Launch System and second Orion spacecraft does not account for delays resulting from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“Due in part to COVID-19, manufacturing delays, and remaining risks, there is already risk that this new launch date will not be met. NASA has successfully completed some key test events to evaluate readiness to support the first uncrewed test flight, but complex SLS core stage testing, integration of the SLS and Orion spacecraft, and final integrated testing remain to be completed prior to the Artemis I launch,” the report stated. GAO’s report and recommendations to NASA are largely focused on improving program beyond the Artemis I mission, which is focused on a lengthy automated flight of the Orion crew vehicle. (1/4)

The Surface of the Moon is a Galactic Time Capsule (Source: Space.com)
You wouldn't know it by looking at it, but the moon is a time capsule. Its surface has been completely exposed to vacuum for almost 4.5 billion years; meanwhile, it has been soaked by particles from the sun and beyond the solar system. Those particles remain, buried under the lunar surface, providing a detailed record of the history of our solar system and even our entire galaxy. It's all right there. We just need to dig it up.

Back when the moon was molten it may have sported a temporary magnetic field, but that's in the distant past. For all these billions of years, the moon has been steadily soaking up solar wind particles, absorbing them into its regolith. Faced with that nonstop onslaught, the regolith has changed. The high-energy particles may have disrupted the chemical composition of the lunar surface. Elements like potassium, which should be found in abundance, seem to have been turned into other elements, which then floated away.

The lunar dust has also been sunburnt: Even though each individual particle is super tiny, the moon has no atmosphere and so no erosion, leaving the same dirt to face the sun again and again. Each little solar particle tears a microscopic hole in the dirt, so by studying the  structure of the regolith, we can see a record of the sun's glare. (12/31)

SpaceX May Try to Catch a Falling Rocket With a Launch Tower (Source: Ars Technica)
If SpaceX can design a launch tower arm, or pair of arms, to grab the Super Heavy booster, it might be moved rather quickly back onto the launch mount. Such a rocket might then—and this would require years of refinement and experimentation—be rapidly inspected, refueled, and launched again. Perhaps even within an hour, Musk said.

It is unclear whether this is even possible. But in theory, a Super Heavy booster could descend under the power of a subset of its 28 engines, come very nearly to a hover, and arms from the launch tower could extend to grab the booster. This does sound like a rather crazy maneuver, but a few years ago so did dispatching an autonomous drone ship into the Atlantic Ocean to catch falling rockets.

Whether this all works out remains to be seen. SpaceX has tried many things in the past in regard to rockets only to discard these ideas. This is one of the keys to success for Musk and his leadership style. He asks his employees to do nearly impossible things—such as building a fully reusable orbital launch system. And then he gives them the freedom to experiment and, sometimes, to fail. (1/4)

How the Biden Administration Can Make DoD an Innovation Powerhouse (Source: FNN)
DoD needs to seriously dig into its efforts to harness innovation, instead of just dipping in a toe, if it wants to continue to stay ahead of China and Russia. To do that, DoD has to start taking software seriously, put bigger bets on contracting unconventional technologies with nontraditional defense businesses and work on changing the culture of the Pentagon from relying on legacy systems and old-guard defense companies.

“You have to squint hard to see something that isn’t a legacy in DoD’s acquisition plans. I’m not suggesting they’re all wrong, I’m asking where are the new things that will get us ahead. That’s the innovation dilemma of DoD. They’re still operating under the McNamara era in 1960s: contained cost, lifecycle management, etc.”

“We need to hold more competitions for the best technology and actually reward the winners of those competitions,” Stephens said. “If you say, ‘We’re going to have a competition for some new piece of technology, and here are like three exercises that we’re going to hold.’ At the end of those three exercises, if you don’t give out a meaningful contract, then people are going to start losing trust in your willingness to actually reward people’s work. That’s highly problematic.” (1/1)

Preparing for “Earth to Earth” Space Travel and a Competition with Supersonic Airliners (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
Commercial spaceflight companies are preparing to enter a new market: suborbital flights from one place to another on Earth. Aiming for fast transportation for passengers and cargo, these systems are being developed by a combination of established companies, such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, and new ones like Astra. Technical and business challenges lie ahead for this new frontier, and an important piece is the coming wave of supersonic aircraft which could offer safer but slower alternatives to spaceflight. These two different approaches could face off in the 2020s to be the future of transportation on Earth. Click here. (12/26)

SpinLaunch to Expand at Spaceport America (Source: Albuquerque Journal)
California-based SpinLaunch Inc. is expanding its operations at Spaceport America in southern New Mexico, where it plans to test new technology to literally fling rockets into space. The company already built a $7 million, 10,000-square-foot facility at the Spaceport after announcing plans last year to conduct all testing there on its new technology. Now, the company is doubling down, with plans to hire an additional 59 people and invest another $46 million over 10 years.

The state Economic Development Department will support the expansion with $4 million in Local Economic Development Act funding, said EDD Secretary Alicia J. Keyes. “SpinLaunch is part of a growing community of businesses creating jobs and innovating new technologies at New Mexico’s Spaceport America,” Keyes said in a statement. “We see the state’s space cluster as an important economic driver to diversify the economy with higher-paying jobs in southern New Mexico.”

SpinLaunch is headquartered in Long Beach, Califonia, where it operates a 140,000-square-foot test and manufacturing facility. The company, which launched in 2014, has raised about $80 million in venture investment to date, including a $35 million round of funding in January 2020. SpinLaunch is developing a unique centrifuge system that rapidly spins a rocket around on the ground until it reaches hypersonic speeds. It then releases the vehicle like a catapult to hurl it to the edge of space. (12/15)

Ten Companies Bid for NASA Small Launch Vehicle Contract (Source: Space News)
A NASA small launch vehicle competition attracted bids from 10 companies, but half of them were effectively disqualified because of deficiencies or other problems. NASA announced Dec. 11 it was awarding contracts to Astra Space, Firefly Aerospace, and Relativity Space for its Venture Class Launch Services (VCLS) Demo 2 program. The contracts, with a combined value of $16.7 million, include one launch by each company carrying clusters of cubesats as part of a NASA effort to help demonstrate new small launch vehicles. NASA did not disclose the number of bidders for the VCLS Demo 2 competition at the time of the contract award.

It did, though, release a source selection statement Dec. 23 that outlined the agency’s assessment of the proposals it received and why it selected the three companies for contracts. Under terms of the VCLS Demo 2 solicitation, companies had to submit proposals for one of two distinct missions. “Mission One” would be a dedicated launch of 30 kilograms of cubesats to a 500-kilometer mid-inclination orbit. “Mission Two” called for launching 95 kilograms of cubesats as a primary payload, with 75 kilograms of cubesats going to one sun-synchronous orbit at 550 kilometers and the other 20 kilograms to a similar orbit but in a plane at least 10 degrees apart.

Seven companies submitted proposals for Mission One: Aevum, Astra, Gloyer-Taylor Laboratories, Interorbital Systems, Phantom Space Corporation, Phoenix Launch Systems and Relativity. Two submitted proposals for Mission Two: Firefly Black, the government services arm of Firefly Aerospace, and Momentus. A tenth bidder was Wagner Star Industries, a startup that, according to its LinkedIn page, is developing a “spaceplane drone.” (1/3)

A New Frontier is Opening in the Search for Extraterrestrial Life (Source: Washington Post)
On Dec. 18, the world learned that Breakthrough Listen, a privately funded search for extraterrestrial intelligence, had found its first official candidate signal. The signal’s existence lit up the Internet. Was BLC-1, as it’s called, finally our moment of contact? Breakthrough Listen scientists, now hard at work on a paper about their findings, were quick to explain that the answer was probably “no”: Given the wealth of human-made radio signal interference out there, BLC-1 will probably turn out to be of human origin.

Their preliminary conclusion, however, does not defuse the excitement of BLC-1. The fact that there’s a candidate at all is cause for celebration. That’s because something remarkable is happening in the science of life and intelligence beyond Earth. The age of “technosignatures” is dawning. NASA has been an essential part of this recognition: At the behest of Congress, the space agency convened its first meeting on what is now called “Technosignatures Science" in 2018. In 2019, my colleagues and I were awarded NASA’s first-ever research grant to study atmospheric technosignatures, and this year, NASA funded two other technosignature studies. (12/31)
 
Solar Ring Mission Proposal: A New Concept of Space Exploration (Source: SciTech Daily)
This concept for the first time proposes to deploy six spacecraft, grouped in three pairs, in three elliptical orbits between the earth and Venus around the Sun to observe and study the Sun and the inner heliosphere in a full 360-degree perspective. The separation angle between two spacecraft in each group is about 30 degrees, and that between every two groups is about 120 degrees. Through this configuration, the mission will be able to image the vast area from the photosphere to the inner heliosphere with high resolution, and perform the in situ measurements.

Three unprecedented capabilities will be established: (1) determine the photospheric vector magnetic field with unambiguity, (2) provide 360-degree maps of the Sun and the inner heliosphere routinely, and (3) resolve the solar wind structures at multiple scales and multiple longitudes. With these capabilities, the Solar Ring mission aims to address the origin of solar cycle, the origin of solar eruptions, the origin of solar wind transients and the origin of severe space weather events. (6/2/20)

Pace Steps Down From Space Council (Source: Space News)
The executive secretary of the National Space Council, which led development of that strategy and other space policies, has stepped down. Scott Pace announced Thursday he was leaving government to return to George Washington University, where he previously led its Space Policy Institute. Pace's departure, while expected, comes as the future of the council itself remains uncertain. The incoming Biden administration has not stated if it will retain the council, which the Trump administration reestablished in 2017 after a hiatus of nearly a quarter-century. Some in the space community recommend that the Biden administration keep the council to continue the work it did to coordinate national space policy. (1/3)

Quasars Rip Across Galaxies Like Tsunamis (Source: SciTech Daily)
Using the unique capabilities of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers has 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. Using the unique capabilities of 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. (1/1)

Does The Expanding Universe Break The Speed Of Light? (Source: Forbes)
If you have no mass and you’re traveling through completely empty space, there’s no other speed you’re allowed to move at; you must move at the speed of light. And yet, if you think about how big the observable Universe is, we know it’s grown to 92 billion light-years in diameter in just 13.8 billion years. Moreover, by the time just one second elapsed since the Big Bang, the Universe was already multiple light-years across! How is this possible without breaking the laws of physics?

If you want to understand what’s going on, you’re going to have to bend your brain a little bit, because both things are simultaneously true: the Universe really does grow in this fashion, and yet nothing can travel faster than light. Let’s unpack how this happens. Click here. (1/2)

Supercomputer Simulation Re-enacts the Birth of the Moon (Source: TNW)
The formation of the Moon billions of years ago is cloaked in mystery. Most astronomers believe the young Earth, still cooling off from its formation, was struck by a mars-sized body called Theia, roughly 4.5 billion years ago. As the proto-Moon orbited Earth, it cooled, and gathered debris from the surrounding region of space. At the time, the Moon was much closer to Earth than it is today. Over billions of years, gravitational forces between the Earth and the Moon resulted in our planetary companion moving further away from our home world.

Researchers at Durham University developed supercomputer simulations, showing how this ancient collision may have unfolded. The velocity of Theia and the angle of impact affected the collision, as did the rotational rate of the body. The team of investigators examined a wide range of possible conditions, ranging from no spin to a quick rotation, and from glancing blows to more direct impacts. Interestingly, when simulations tested the effect of a non-spinning version of Theia, the impact resulted in a satellite with roughly 80 percent of the mass of the Moon. Adding just a small amount of spin resulted in a second Moon in orbit around Earth. (1/3)