February 8, 2021

Isotropic Systems Raises $40 Million for Broadband Terminals (Source: Space News)
Broadband terminal developer Isotropic Systems has raised more than $40 million. The company announced the new funding round Monday, a mix of equity investment and British government grants led by SES. The funding will allow Isotropic to continue development of broadband terminals designed to work seamlessly with multiple satellite systems, initially in Ka-band. The company is focused on government, aeronautics and high-end maritime markets for its terminals, which will be commercially available next year. (2/8)

Viasat Evolves Business Development Approach as Competing Constellations Evolve (Source: Space News)
Viasat expects its business strategy will evolve because of low Earth orbit constellations as well as FCC rural broadband subsidies. In an earning call last week, company executives said that with limited capacity and strong demand, it's focused on increasing its per-subscriber revenue. That will change once the ViaSat-3 constellation is in orbit, providing more capacity and giving the company "more maneuvering room" to compete with LEO systems. The launch of the first ViaSat-3 satellite has slipped to the first quarter of 2022, the company said, because of recent supply chain issues caused by the pandemic. (2/8)

DARPA Considers Lunar Structure Development (Source: Space News)
DARPA wants to hear from the space industry about their capabilities to manufacture large structures on the moon. The agency announced Friday a new "Novel Orbital and Moon Manufacturing, Materials and Mass-efficient Design" project to study the ability to produce structures such as solar arrays, antennas and optics. The agency does not intend to issue any contracts now but is doing market research for a future solicitation, and will hold a webinar later this month to discuss the project in more detail. (2/8)
 
China's Mars Spacecraft Sends First Images Home (Source: Reuters)
China has released the first images of Mars taken by its inbound spacecraft. The images released Friday were taken by the Tianwen-1 spacecraft from a distance of 2.2 million kilometers. The spacecraft is scheduled to enter orbit around Mars Wednesday, and in May will attempt to land a rover in the Utopia Planitia region of the planet. (2/8)

NASA Joins With Canada, Italy and Japan on Possible Mars Ice Mapper Mission (Source: Space News)
NASA has signed an agreement with three other space agencies to study a future Mars mission. NASA announced last week it signed a statement of intent with the Canadian Space Agency, Italian space agency ASI and Japanese space agency JAXA for the International Mars Ice Mapper mission. That spacecraft, launching no earlier than 2026, will carry a radar to map subsurface ice deposits that could be targets for future human expeditions. A formal memorandum of understanding among the agencies confirming their participation in the mission is expected by early summer. (2/8)

NOAA Picks L3Harris for Weather Satellite Command & Control (Source: Space News)
NOAA selected L3Harris to provide the command and control system for an upcoming space weather mission. The $43.8 million contract covers work to develop, deploy and operate a command and control system for the Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 observatory, scheduled to launch in 2025. The new command and control system will be an extension of the existing one for the GOES-R series of weather satellites. (2/8)

The Webb Telescope, NASA’s Golden Surfer, Is Almost Ready, Again (Source: New York Times)
Birthing a new space telescope takes a long time and a lot of money and inspiration. Astronomers first began pestering NASA for the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope even before that telescope was launched into orbit in 1990. Back then they thought it could cost less than a billion and be ready in the first decade of the 21st century. Thirty years, $8.8 billion, multiple mishaps and budget crises and a threatened congressional cancellation later, the James Webb Space Telescope is finally ready. NASA now plans to launch it into orbit as early as Oct. 31 aboard an Ariane 5 rocket supplied by the European Space Agency, from a site in French Guiana. (2/2)

$100 Million XPrize for Carbon Removal Funded by Elon Musk (Source: XPrize)
The $100M XPrize Carbon Removal competition is sponsored by Elon Musk and the Musk Foundation.  This four-year global competition invites innovators and teams from anywhere on the planet to create and demonstrate a solution that can pull carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere or oceans and lock it away permanently in an environmentally benign way.  To win the competition, teams must demonstrate a rigorous, validated scale model of their solution at a level of carbon removal of 1 ton of CO2 per day, and further must demonstrate to a team of judges the ability of their solution to economically scale to gigaton levels. 

The objective of this XPRIZE is to inspire and help scale efficient solutions to collectively achieve the 10 gigaton per year carbon removal target by 2050, to help fight climate change and restore the Earth’s carbon balance. “We want to make a truly meaningful impact. Carbon negativity, not neutrality. The ultimate goal is scalable carbon extraction that is measured based on the ‘fully considered cost per ton’ which includes the environmental impact. This is not a theoretical competition; we want teams that will build real systems that can make a measurable impact and scale to a gigaton level. Whatever it takes. Time is of the essence,” said Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. (2/8)

Alabama's Senior Senator (and Florida Space Nemisis) Richard Shelby Wil Not Seek Reelection (Source: SPACErePORT)
Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) the powerful senior Republican senator from Alabama, who wielded enough influence to steer billions of dollars in federal space and defense programs to his state, has announced he will not seek another term in 2022. He is the fourth Republican senator to announce such plans ahead of the mid-term elections.

Shelby was a staunch proponent and defender of Alabama-based aerospace programs, backing Huntsville's leadership role in programs like the Space Launch System. Florida leaders believe they were repeatedly foiled by Shelby in their efforts to attract programs to the Sunshine State, due to Shelby's power over federal funding and policy decisions. (2/8)

Lunar “LILL-E Pad” and POND: Dusting Off…a New Idea! (Source: Leonard David)
Work is underway on a Lunar In-situ Landing/Launch Environment (LILL-E) Pad. Analysis of Apollo mission video footage has shown that rockets will erode lunar regolith beneath landing vehicles by ejecting material at high speeds away from the rocket plume. In the Moon’s vacuum environment, this material will speed away on a ballistic trajectory for great distances. The resulting blast effect can sandblast surfaces of equipment, including the lander itself. Moreover, this issue is expected to be severe with 21st century lunar landing systems due to their larger sizes.

LILL-E Pad is one of the awardees of the 2021 NASA BIG Idea Challenge on Dust Mitigation Technologies for Lunar Applications – a concept of the Colorado School of Mines with Texas-based startup ICON, along with Masten Space Systems and Adherent Technologies Inc. The LILL-E Pad approach addresses landing dust prevention and mitigation on the Moon by developing a binder-regolith reinforced surface (making use of lunar topside material) and a landing/launch pad that’s made out of a carbon fiber fabric barrier anchored to the lunar surface. (2/5)

Lockheed Martin Selects ABL Rocket for Shetland Launches (Source: BBC)
Aerospace giant Lockheed Martin has selected the rocket it will use to kick-start space launches from the island of Unst in Shetland. The vehicle, called the RS1, will be provided by ABL Space Systems of El Segundo, California. If everything comes together, an inaugural flight could occur next year. Lockheed is looking to stimulate the launch business in the UK to take advantage of a rapidly expanding market for small satellites. (2/7)

NASA Introduces New Flight Directors in Class of 2021 (Source: NASA)
NASA has selected four new additions to its cadre of flight directors to oversee operations of the International Space Station. The newest inductees in the class of 2021 are Diane Dailey, Chloe Mehring, Fiona Turett, and Brandon Lloyd. They will work in the Mission Control Center of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to lead teams of flight controllers, engineers, and countless professionals, both agencywide and internationally. Following a rigorous training program that includes both technical knowledge and leadership skills, they will be ready to oversee human spaceflight missions to, from, and aboard the space station, as well as the lunar missions of NASA’s Artemis program. (2/8)

Harvard Astronomer Argues That Alien Vessel Paid Us a Visit (Source: Phys.org)
Discovering there's intelligent life beyond our planet could be the most transformative event in human history— but what if scientists decided to collectively ignore evidence suggesting it already happened? Sound kooky? Avi Loeb says the evidence holds otherwise, and is convinced his peers in the scientific community are so consumed by groupthink they're unwilling to wield Occam's razor. "Thinking that we are unique and special and privileged is arrogant," he said.

"The correct approach is to be modest and say: 'We're nothing special, there are lots of other cultures out there, and we just need to find them.'" Loeb lays out the argument for the alien origins of the object named 'Oumuamua.' In October 2017, astronomers observed an object moving so quickly, it could only have come from another star—the first recorded interstellar interloper. It didn't seem to be an ordinary rock, because after slingshotting around the Sun, it sped up and deviated from the expected trajectory, propelled by a mysterious force. This could be easily explained if it was a comet expelling gas and debris—but there was no visible evidence of this "outgassing."

The traveler also tumbled in a strange way—as inferred by how it got brighter and dimmer in scientists' telescopes, and it was unusually luminous, possibly suggesting it was made from a bright metal. In order to explain what happened, astronomers had to come up with novel theories, such as that it was made of hydrogen ice and would therefore not have visible trails, or that it disintegrated into a dust cloud. "These ideas that came to explain specific properties of 'Oumuamua always involve something that we have never seen before," said Loeb. "If that's the direction we are taking, then why not contemplate an artificial origin?" (2/6)

Dream Chaser Spaceplane Closer to Commercial Runway Landing at Florida Spaceport (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Sierra Nevada Corp. is a step closer to landing the world’s first commercial spaceplane on U.S. soil. The FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) awarded the re-entry site license to Cape Canaveral Spaceport Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at request of Space Florida, making it the first commercially licensed re-entry site. Dream Chaser will service the International Space Station (ISS) under a NASA contract in 2022; the vehicle will return from the ISS to a runway landing for the first time since NASA’s space shuttle program ended in 2011.

Among its many attributes, Dream Chaser has the ability to land at any licensed landing site with a suitable 10,000 ft. runway capable of handling a typical commercial jet. The spaceplane’s low-g entry and runway landing protects sensitive payloads and provides immediate access to payloads upon landing. The first orbital vehicle in SNC’s Dream Chaser fleet will be named the Dream Chaser Tenacity spaceplane. (2/8)

This Could Be the Future of Hypersonic Flight (Source: Air & Space)
Stratolaunch offered a glimpse of the future when, in October, it posted a photo of the prototype upper composite skin of its Talon-A hypersonic research vehicle on Twitter. When completed, it will test hypersonic payloads at speeds up to Mach 6. While Talon-A can take off horizontally, it will primarily be launched by Stratolaunch’s enormous jet carrier aircraft. Originally designed to launch satellites, the company pivoted to providing a test-bed for hypersonic vehicles following the death of founder Paul Allen in 2018 and its acquisition by new investors.

Company spokesperson Art Pettigrue says the carrier offers unique advantages: “We are able to provide a wide hypersonic flight envelope for our customers, with a range of Mach numbers and dynamic pressures, because we are not constrained to a rocket first stage that has a limited flight path due to various location, loading, and environmental constraints.” Stratolaunch expects Talon-A’s first test flight will be in 2022, subject to possible delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (2/4)

Virgin Galactic Going for a New Unity Test Flight After December Failure (Source: AutoEvolution)
We kind of lost track of how many times Richard Branson promised we’ll have tourists going to the edge of space by this or that date. It’s 2021 already, and it would seem turning this dream into reality will take a little while longer. The company tasked with this mission, Virgin Galactic, seems to have been testing the Unity spaceship since forever now. The last attempt took place in December 2020, following several delays caused by health restrictions adopted by the state of New Mexico, from where it operates, and ended in a failure.

According to the information released at the time, “the onboard computer which monitors the propulsion system lost connection, triggering a fail-safe scenario that intentionally halted ignition of the rocket motor.” The two pilots, CJ Sturckow and Dave Mackay, managed to safely return themselves and their ship to Spaceport America. Apparently enough time has passed for the Virgin team to evaluate and fix what went wrong, and get ready to try again. According to a statement released last week, the next window for launch opens on February 13, and lasts until the end of the month. (2/6)

NASA Selects University [Including UCF] Teams to Develop Ways to Deal with Moon Dust (Source: NASA)
NASA asked university students around the country to help solve the pesky problem of lunar dust as the agency plans for sustainable human exploration of the Moon. Through the 2021 competitive Breakthrough, Innovative, and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge and the Space Grant project, NASA has awarded nearly $1 million to seven university teams to develop their innovative lunar dust mitigation solutions.

The University of Central Florida won for their "Lunar Dust Mitigating Electrostatic micro-Textured Overlay" project. It is a bio-inspired materials engineering solution that includes constructing a hair-like surface microstructure that mimics pollinators to decrease the strong interaction between the dust and the exterior of the spacesuit. The team, in collaboration with Morphotonics, will make conductive fabrics that dissipate charges on lunar dust and use origami-based design to improve material longevity. (2/29)

NASA Will Pay $500,000 for Your Innovative Ideas About Food Production in Space (Source: Big Think)
NASA has big plans for the coming decades. The agency's Artemis program has set its sights on returning to the Moon after an absence of nearly 50 years. Once there, the first woman and next man to walk the lunar surface will begin establishing a base camp, laying the foundation for the sustained exploration and economization of Earth's solar sibling. Then it's off to Mars. But a journey to the ruddy planet, a distance of roughly 114 million miles, will require NASA to solve a myriad of logistical and engineering problems. Chief among them is the problem of food.

Although humans have maintained a continuous presence in space for 20 years aboard the ISS, food hasn't proven an issue as the station orbits a mere 220 miles above our terrestrial home. NASA and other space agencies can easily send astronauts care packages containing fresh fruit and veggies alongside shelf staples. It's a problem with no obvious solution. Mars-faring astronauts, however, will not have it so easy. The time and distance required for the expedition will make regular resupply infeasible. Astronauts will need to bring all their food with them, alongside the means of producing that food, and keep those supplies within the volume constraints of the spacecraft.

That's why NASA is challenging entrepreneurs, college students, hobbyist investors, and you, if you're up for it, to help them devise one. NASA is crowdsourcing solutions through its Deep Space Food Challenge. In collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency, NASA is offering a $500,000 prize purse for solutions that add some flavor to extended spaceflight. The agency hopes the winning technologies will also bolster food production on Earth. If a system can offer tasty meals with minimal resources in space, the reasoning goes, then it may be modified for deployment to disaster areas and food-insecure regions, as well. The challenge is open to all U.S. citizens and closes on July 30, 2021. (2/4)

An Unleashed Jeff Bezos Will Seek to Shift Space Venture Blue Origin Into Hyperdrive (Source: Reuters)
With limited revenue streams, Bezos has been liquidating about $1 billion of Amazon stock annually to fund Blue, which he said in 2018 was "the most important work that I'm doing." ... "He is going to kick Blue Origin into a higher gear," said one senior industry source with knowledge of Blue's operations. Bezos already has transplanted Amazon's culture on Blue, down to enforcing similar "leadership principles" and kicking off meetings by reading documents in silence, sources say.

But one industry veteran said Bezos needs to take a hands-on, operational role if he is going to fix a number of problems like bureaucratic processes, missed deadlines, high overhead and engineer turnover which, according to this source, have emerged as Blue Origin seeks to transition from development to production across multiple programs. One person familiar with the matter said that Bezos has no desire to immerse himself completely in daily operations, and instead would prioritize major initiatives and new endeavors. (2/8)

Lunar Lander an Important Target for Bezos and Blue Origin (Source: Reuters)
NASA is expected to winnow the lunar lander contest to just two companies by the end of April, adding pressure as Blue Origin works through problems such as wasting millions of dollars on procurement, and technical and production challenges, the sources said. One of the development struggles Blue has faced is getting the lander light and small enough to fit on a commercially available rocket, two people briefed on the development said. Another source, however, said Blue has modified its design since it was awarded the initial contract last April and that its current design fits on an additional number of available and forthcoming rockets, including Musk's Falcon Heavy and ULA's Vulcan.

The FAA and SpaceX (Source: SpaceX)
It appears that the FAA is licking its wounds from the public admonishments from Congress. Yet rather than focusing on ensuring the safety of commercial airlines it’s engaging in political theater in “virtue signaling” its concern for public safety. It’s doing neither. Regardless of the antics of its CEO, SpaceX and others innovating with speed and urgency need to operate with different rules — ones for innovation. Rules we knew how to apply when we developed rockets and experimental aircraft in the 1950s and 60s. Rules the FAA simply no longer understands nor is capable of managing.

Someone — the White House, the National Security Council — needs to intervene and relieve the FAA of oversight of innovation and experimental programs. And have them focus on repairing their basic functions of ensuring safe commercial aircraft and airspace. And perhaps a new FAA administrator will hang in their hallway the photos of the 346 people killed to remind them what happened when the FAA didn’t do its job. (2/5)