February 16, 2021

National Security Impacts for U.S. Space Command (Source: KOAA)
The announcement made in the final days of the Trump administration to move U.S. Space Command from Colorado to Alabama has led to Colorado elected officials calling for investigations and changes. Among the arguments to move the headquarters is national security, which can include a wide range of issues. Something Retired General Ralph "Ed" Eberhart knows all too well, he served as the final commander of U.S. Space Command before it dissolved in 2002.

As Space becomes more of a point of conversation in Washington and beyond, the announcement of moving the headquarters is something Eberhart says should be looked over again. "When you talk about national security you don't just talk about military operations, it's much broader than that," Eberhart said. One aspect of national security when it comes to Space Command- the economy, Eberhart says a move would play a role in that. He believes it's in the best interest to keep U.S. Space Command in Colorado.

Colorado Springs has a long history of being home to U.S. Space Command, one aspect Eberhart says should play a part in the decision. "I do think it's a mistake to move it it's in our genes, it's in our blood- I like to think that possession is 9/10ths of the law," Eberhart said, "I do think it's important that we try to re-compete this." With all of the conversations surrounding the move, Eberhart says he doesn't think disparaging other locations is the answer. "The amount of time and energy and money that will be spent that could otherwise be spent obviously just continuing on the vector and the trajectory we're on now- it would be better spent. Why go build another building?," Eberhart said. (2/15)

Krispy Kreme Unveils Mars Doughnut (Source: Krispy Kreme)
NASA’s Perseverance Rover makes it’s epic landing on Mars Thursday, February 18th. For Krispy Kreme fans, that won’t be the only monumental landing of the day! In celebration of this out-of-this-world occasion, a delicious Mars doughnut will land in Krispy Kreme shops on 2/18, for one day only! While Supplies Last. It is a Chocolate Kreme-filled doughnut dipped in caramel icing with a red planet swirl and sprinkled with chocolate cookie crumbs. This limited-edition doughnut is available in shops and online for one day only on 2/18! (2/16)

Space Mining Among New Programs This Fall at Colorado School of Mines (Source: KUSA)
Space mining sounds like something out of science fiction novels, but it's coming closer to reality for Colorado School of Mines students. The university in Golden, which focuses on science and engineering, announced Monday that it will add one undergraduate degree program and three minors next fall, including a minor in space mining. Engineers who specialize in space mining can help with the mining of raw materials found in space for manufacturing, fuels and other uses. This would be critical for future exploration missions in space, the university said in its announcement. (2/15)

SpaceX Built a True Commercial Space Line for Fun, Profit and a Good Cause (Source: The Hill)
The purpose of the Commercial Crew Program, started under President Barack Obama, was to provide a means to get astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) cheaper than had been the case with the space shuttle system. So far, the program has succeeded with that goal brilliantly with the advent of the SpaceX Crew Dragon. The commercial spacecraft has already conducted two flights to the ISS with astronauts on board. The first, Commercial Crew Demo-2, took two astronauts to the space station in May 2020.

The second, Crew-1, began regular crew rotations to the ISS in November 2020. SpaceX plans more contracted NASA flights to the space station in 2021. The other, almost unstated goal of the Commercial Crew Program was to enable a truly commercial space transportation industry, one in which private customers would travel to and from low Earth orbit. The goal has started to be met thanks to a number of flights that have been recently announced.

Axiom Space, a company developing a private space station, recently announced a commercial space flight to the ISS. “The proposed historic Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) will consist of: former NASA astronaut and Axiom vice president Michael López-Alegría as commander; American entrepreneur and non-profit activist investor Larry Connor as pilot; Canadian investor and philanthropist Mark Pathy; and impact investor and philanthropist Eytan Stibbe of Israel.” (2/14)

Bezos vs Musk: Who Will Win the New Space Race? (Source: The Spectator)
Although their ideas for space travel often read like the pages of an Arthur C Clark novel, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have done little to disguise the colonising instincts of their space projects. Both have outlined competing intentions to mine the moon and put humans on Mars. And, with Bezos stepping down from Amazon to devote more time to his space venture Blue Origin, we could be witnessing the beginnings of a galactic power struggle - executed not by States but by corporations.

That's not to say that nations have given up on putting skin in the game. Indeed, Boris Johnson purportedly wants to make the UK's space sector a key part of his industrial strategy for post Brexit Britain. The government has somewhat controversially invested £405 million in OneWeb - a satellite project to provide nationwide broadband that it hopes will rival the EU's Galileo project. It's also backing plans to launch rockets from the Shetlands as soon as next year.

And yet these government backed efforts are rapidly being eclipsed by nimbler private ventures. Bezos's spending on Blue Origin ($1 billion a year) now matches that of India - a fast-rising player in the space race, with a reputation for affordability. Prime Minister Modi recently quipped that India's successful Mars probe cost less than the budget for Hollywood space blockbuster Gravity. Nevertheless, the idea that a corporation could outspend a country on space exploration would have been inconceivable a generation ago. (2/15)

SpaceX in Talks for Philippines Venture (Source: The Phnom Pen Post)
US tech billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX is in talks to bring broadband satellite services to the Philippines through a partnership with fiber internet tycoon Dennis Anthony H Uy of Pampanga. Representatives from SpaceX and Uy’s Converge ICT Solutions Inc met on multiple occasions to discuss a potential venture. The talks come amid SpaceX’s ongoing deployment of Starlink satellites, which orbit the planet at lower altitudes, promising more stable internet. Starlink is SpaceX’s massive project to build a constellation of broadband satellites delivering reliable high-speed internet services around the world.

Converge, one of the country’s largest fiber internet providers, sees satellite internet as a complementary business. While focused on the fiber internet segment, Uy previously told the Inquirer that the group operates an earth station to serve a limited number of business clients in remote locations where fiber is unavailable. Earth stations are used to communicate with satellites and are an essential part of a satellite network’s ground segment. (2/15)

Luxembourg Space Program to Work with NASA on Moon Mining (Source: Financial Times)
Luxembourg first emerged as a potential space power five years ago. In February 2016, the Grand Duchy launched its Space Resources programme, a project to prepare for the future use of extraterrestrial minerals, water and gases to provide energy and materials for human activities beyond Earth. Initially the international media presented a vision of little Luxembourg setting out to mine asteroids, in a tone somewhere between awe and scepticism — encouraged by talk of partnerships between the Grand Duchy and two US asteroid mining ventures.

Since then, the prospect of asteroid mining has receded, while the moon looms larger as a destination. "There was perhaps a little misconception about asteroid mining at the beginning,” says Marc Serres, of the Luxembourg Space Agency. “Today the international enthusiasm for sending people back to the moon presents a fantastic opportunity for space resources.” Luxembourg aims to play a part, providing the inhabitants of Artemis Base Camp with the ability to search for resources and process them into materials such as oxygen and fuel, which will be required for long-term human habitation on the moon. (2/15)

India Plans to Have Sustained Human Presence in Space (Source: The Tribune)
India plans to have a sustained human presence in space and is coming out with a policy framework and a long-term roadmap. The Department of Space (DoS) has envisaged a national effort to meet the goal of successful demonstration of human spaceflight capability and to achieve the vision of sustained human presence in space.

In her Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said the first unmanned launch is slated for December this year. The DoS has now put up for public consultation on the website of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), which comes under the former, the draft "Humans in Space Policy for India -- 2021" and guidelines and procedures for its implementation. (2/15)

Space Business Blasts Off in the Texas/New Mexico/Mexico Borderland (Source: KFOX)
On Feb.13, a new launch window opened at Spaceport America north of Las Cruces for Virgin Galactic's next test flight. It could move billionaire Richard Branson a lot closer to his dream of launching a space tourism industry. It comes just a month after another billionaire interested in space tourism, Jeff Bezos, saw one of his rockets launch from the West Texas desert north of Van Horn. Bezos' Blue Origin company successfully completed its 14th mission when it launched a reusable rocket from the company's test site, north of Van Horn.

SpinLaunch is developing a massive centrifuge at Spaceport America. Instead of using a chemical rocket to blast satellites into space, the company wants to catapult its payload to the edge of Earth's atmosphere at 5,000 miles per hour, using a concept called a "kinetic launch." The company told Wired magazine, it thinks it could launch up to five small satellites a day from Spaceport America and reduce launch costs by a factor of nearly 20.

All of these companies developing new space technology have chosen to conduct their research in Southern New Mexico and West Texas because of all the restricted airspace created by the military installations across our region, especially at White Sands Missile Range, where many military and NASA rockets are developed. "It's still exciting for UTEP and NMSU and UNM," McLaughlin said, "I mean if you think about it, our younger students in aerospace or any of the technologies or fields these companies need, they now have places to go to that they never could have gone to just 10 years ago." (2/16)

Biotech Fit for the Red Planet (Source: Frontiers)
Astronauts on Mars will need oxygen, water, food, and other consumables. These will need to be sourced from Mars, because importing them from Earth would be impractical in the long term. In Frontiers in Microbiology, scientists show for the first time that Anabaena cyanobacteria can be grown with only local gases, water, and other nutrients and at low pressure. This makes it easier to develop sustainable biological life support systems.

“Here we show that cyanobacteria can use gases available in the Martian atmosphere, at a low total pressure, as their source of carbon and nitrogen. Under these conditions, cyanobacteria kept their ability to grow in water containing only Mars-like dust and could still be used for feeding other microbes. This could help make long-term missions to Mars sustainable,” says lead author Dr Cyprien Verseux, an astrobiologist who heads the Laboratory of Applied Space Microbiology at the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) of the University of Bremen, Germany. (2/16)

How to Handle the Growing China Space Threat (Source: National Review)
With the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) announcing plans to conduct over 40 orbital launches in 2021 with “the [Communist] Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core,” will the U.S. finally take the growing space threat from China as seriously as it should? China aims to land on the moon and build a base there by the decade’s end. If its recent success at landing a rover on the moon’s far side is any indication, it’s advancing at a much quicker pace than we are.

In fact, at the end of last year, the country planted the People’s Republic flag on the lunar surface and became the first country to execute robotic docking in lunar orbit. These developments are troubling. The Pentagon has warned that China is building up an arsenal of space weaponry, and it is doing it quickly, putting American space infrastructure at a great disadvantage. The People’s Republic of China is explicitly looking to supersede America, and it seems willing to do anything it can to make that happen.

Past congressional bodies have recognized the unique danger that China poses to our space program. It thus passed restrictions disallowing cooperation between the two nations’ space programs without special congressional approval. Now the threat from the communist regime has grown stronger than ever before, and Congress needs to do more to protect the nation from its abuses. Former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine made it clear that China is increasingly looking to undermine our space investments, including through conducting espionage that could aid the Chinese military. (2/15)

New Zealand's Satellite Tracking System Taking Off (Source: Stuff)
At the end of an unassuming gravel road, off State Highway 1, white domes rise like UFOs from the surrounding paddocks. These domes house antennas which, together with the team who operate them, bring more than $1.7 million to Southland's economy annually. And with commercial space operations growing exponentially, the Awarua Satellite Ground Station is positioning itself to take full advantage of the future.

The ground station has outgrown the space it occupies and is looking to lease additional land in the coming year as it’s signed contracts for four new antennas. The antennas – the one's covered by protective domes – are owned by international companies, who pay McNeill and his team to maintain them, supply them with power, monitor them, and upgrade them. (2/14)

SpaceX Loses Booster at Sea After Launching Batch of Starlink Satellites From Florida (Source: Space News)
A Falcon 9 launched another set of Starlink satellites Monday, but the first stage failed to land for the first time in nearly a year. The Falcon 9 lifted off at 10:59 p.m. Eastern from Cape Canaveral and deployed 60 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit 65 minutes later. The first stage, making its sixth flight, did not land on a droneship in the Atlantic as expected. SpaceX did not disclose what caused the failure, which broke a streak of 24 consecutive launches with a successful landing. It's unclear if the failure will delay another Falcon 9 launch scheduled for as soon as shortly after midnight tonight. SpaceX, meanwhile, is expanding beta tests of its Starlink broadband system, even as it faces criticism from some who argue the system isn't proven enough to merit FCC rural broadband subsidies. (2/16)

U.S. Army Satellite Launching on Rocket Lab Mission (Source: Space News)
A U.S. Army satellite launching next month will test the use of dedicated satellites for battlefield surveillance. Gunsmoke-J is one of seven payloads on a Rocket Lab Electron launching in mid-March. The Army Space and Missile Defense Command has been working on Gunsmoke-J for several years as part of a larger Army effort to demonstrate overhead data collection in direct support of combat operations. The evaluation will be conducted by units assigned to U.S. Pacific Command. (2/16)

Private Dragon Mission Fundraising Missing Target (Source: Space News)
A contest this month to raffle off a seat on a Crew Dragon flight has raised only a small fraction of its goal. The Inspiration4 mission announced at the beginning of the month a sweepstakes to raise money for St Jude Children's Research Hospital, selling entries in a contest whose winner would fly on the mission late this year. The sweepstakes ends Feb. 28, but has so far only raised about $9 million toward its goal of at least $100 million. The fundraising effort will continue even after the contest ends, project officials said, and does not affect the flight itself, which billionaire Jared Isaacman has already paid for. (2/16)

Axiom the Latest Space Unicorn (Source: CNBC)
Houston-based Axiom Space is going full tilt into scaling production of private space stations, while also flying paying passengers on trip to orbit. The company raised $130 million in a new round of funding which was led by C5 Capital. Axiom declined to comment specifically on its valuation, but CEO Michael Suffredini said it is now “well past the point” of becoming a unicorn – putting Axiom among the top 10 most valuable private U.S. space companies. (2/16)

Frontier Aerospace to Propel Astrobiotic Lunar Landers (Source: Space News)
Frontier Aerospace has won contracts to provide propulsion systems for Astrobotic's lunar landers. Frontier Aerospace was already building 150-pound and 10-pound thrusters for Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander when it won a contract in January to build 700-pound-thrust axial engines for the larger Griffin lunar lander Astrobotic is building. The Griffin lander will rely on the Frontier Aerospace engines to maneuver, enter lunar orbit and descend toward the lunar surface. Frontier, which also has a contract with Masten Space Systems to make thrusters for its XL-1 lunar lander, has confirmed contracts valued at around $15 million. (2/16)

Two Falcon Heavies to Launch From Cape Canaveral Spaceport in 2021 (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
Two Falcon Heavy launches of military payloads are scheduled for this year. The two missions, designated USSF-44 and USSF-52, are scheduled for launch in July and no earlier than October, respectively, although the Space Force has disclosed few details about the satellites flying on those missions. A SpaceX Falcon 9 will launch a GPS satellite this year, while United Launch Alliance has four national security missions on its manifest for 2021, including one Delta 4 Heavy and three Atlas 5 launches. (2/16)

India to Launch Educational Payload on Feb. 28 (Source: Hindustan Times)
A privately developed satellite launching on an Indian rocket late this month has an unusual payload. The Satish Dhawan Satellite, one of the payloads on a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket launching Feb. 28, was developed by SpaceKidz India, an organization promoting space education in the country. Besides three scientific payloads, the satellite is carrying a photo of the country's prime minister, Narendra Modi, as well as a copy of the Bhagavad Gita. The satellite is one of three privately developed Indian spacecraft flying on the mission as part of a space commercialization effort by the Indian government. (2/16)

A Weaker Case for Planet Nine (Source: Science)
New research has weakened the case for "Planet Nine." Earlier studies suggested the presence of an unseen planet in the outer solar system based on the clustering of smaller bodies that astronomers argued was created by the gravitational interaction with that planet. The new study, though, argues that the clustering may in fact not be real, but instead a selection bias based on where telescopes were observing. A more uniform distribution of orbits can also explain the observations, that study concluded, which would rule out the presence of an additional planet. (2/16)

Mars Rover's Landing Site Offers Golden Opportunity to Find Evidence of Past Life (Source: CBS)
NASA's Perseverance rover is on course to plunge into the atmosphere of Mars Thursday for a nail-biting descent onto the surface of the red planet. Its landing zone is the floor of a 28-mile-wide crater where a body of water the size of Lake Tahoe once sparkled in the light of a distant sun. Eons ago, the ancient lake, hundreds of feet deep, was fed by a cascading river that carved a channel through the towering rim of Jezero Crater, depositing sediments that fanned out in a broad delta across the bowl-like floor.

The lake is long gone, but the rocky remnants of the river channel and delta are clearly visible from Mars orbit today, tangible reminders of an age 3 to 4 billion years ago when the red planet was a warmer, wetter and much more hospitable world. The question is, did life ever arise on Mars, however briefly, before the planet lost its magnetic field and most of its atmosphere, before liquid water vanished and the planet became the frigid, dry desert seen today, one inhospitable to life as it's known on Earth.

Jezero Crater represents a golden opportunity to find out. And what scientists learn from it could shed new light on one of humanity's most profound questions: Are we alone? Or did life, however primitive, arise on at least one other planet and, by extension, might it exist on other planets across the cosmos? If microbial life did, in fact, flourish on Mars some 3.5 billion years ago, when life on Earth was gaining a foothold and water was flowing into Jezero, telltale "biosignatures" may have been dispersed across the lake, settling to the bottom where they could be preserved in layered deposits. (2/16)

Researchers See Link Between Space Radiation and Cardiovascular Health (Source: Space Daily)
Space is incredibly inhospitable. Outside of low earth orbit, astronauts are bombarded with radiation, including galactic cosmic rays, and 'proton storms' released by the sun. This radiation is harmful for the human body, damaging proteins and DNA, and is one of the major reasons that we haven't yet been able to send anyone to Mars, or beyond. "If we want to see human long distance space travel, we need to understand the impact of space-induced disease and how to protect our bodies from it," said Dr. Jesper Hjortnaes. However, Hjortnaes has an interest in a specific aspect of space radiation: its cardiovascular effects.

You may be surprised to learn that aside from the illnesses we typically associate with radiation, such as cancer, it can also have serious effects on the cardiovascular system. Suffering from cardiovascular illness would be catastrophic for crew members on long-haul space missions, and so it's important to identify what the risks are, and how to reduce them. Hjortnaes and colleagues reviewed the evidence to establish what we know about the cardiovascular risks of space radiation.

Much of what we know comes from studying people who have received radiation therapy for cancer, where cardiovascular disease is a common side-effect, or from mouse studies of radiation exposure. So, what are the effects? Radiation can cause myocardial remodeling, where the structure of the heart begins to change, and tough, fibrous tissue grows to replace healthy muscle, potentially leading to heart failure. Other effects include atherosclerosis in blood vessels, which can cause stroke or heart attack. Radiation exerts its effects by causing inflammation, oxidative stress, cell death and DNA damage. (2/15)

Planetary Society Gives NASA Recommendations to Biden-Harris Administration (Source: Space Daily)
The Planetary Society released a paper outlining 5 recommendations the Biden administration can use for NASA to support science, grow the nation's economy, and protect the planet. The recommendations are to: 1) Deepen our commitment to NASA's science programs; 2) Continue human spaceflight on the path from the Moon to Mars; 3) Take active steps to protect the planet from dangerous asteroids and comets; 4) Use NASA as a tool to grow our economy, enhance our manufacturing base, nurture our skilled workforce, and strengthen international alliances; and 5) Implement the "5 over 5" plan: annual 5% increases to NASA's budget over the next five years. (2/11)

Momentus and Qomosys Plan Singaporean Lunar Mission (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Momentus and Qosmosys, a new space venture founded in Singapore last year, announced today a service agreement to deliver two cubesats to low lunar orbit as early as 2024 via Momentus’ inaugural lunar mission. The new contract builds and expands on the agreement announced in January 2021 for delivery of up to four cubesats in low Earth orbit by Momentus’ Vigoride service vehicle, starting in 2022. Qosmosys will expand its novel business ideas to the Moon using a specific bus named Zeus-MS, a version of its Zeus platform it has been developing in cooperation with NuSpace from Singapore, and made specific for lunar missions. (2/16)

He Was the Fifth Man on the Moon, But That Wasn’t His Most Famous Flight (Source: Air & Space)
Of the original seven astronauts chosen by NASA in 1959, only one, Alan Shepard, made it to the moon. And he almost didn’t. More than two years after his pioneering Mercury-Redstone flight in May 1961, Shepard was in training to command the first two-man Gemini mission. Progress to the moon was planned in three steps: Mercury to prove that space travel was feasible, Gemini to demonstrate rendezvous and long-term spaceflight, and Apollo to go all the way. In 1963, Shepard was a fair bet to fly all three.

Then an obscure inner ear condition knocked him off flight status for almost six years, during which time he was given a desk job running NASA’s astronaut office. For a man of Shepard’s ego and drive, it was purgatory. Years later, he confessed to interviewer David Frost: “I was probably harder on the astronauts than I should have been…. It was frustrating to go down to the Cape, pat these guys on the back and watch them fly like I wanted to. It was a very difficult period for me.” (2/16)