May 5, 2023

Florida Space Scientist Sam Durrance Passes at 79 (Source: CollectSpace, SPACErePORT)
Astronaut/astrophysicist Sam Durrance passed away Friday at 79. He served as a mission specialist on two Space Shuttle missions in 1990 and 1995, operating the Astro 1 and Astro 2 Spacelab telescopes. In 2001 he became the executive director of the Florida Space Research Institute (where he was my boss and friend), leading the development of space-related research and educational programs for the state. He later taught and led research at the Florida Institute of Technology, focusing on planetary science and human space exploration.

According to the Astro Restoration Project, Sam was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2021 and passed away after complications from a fall. He also was battling Parkinson's disease. Among the projects sponsored by FSRI (and continued at Florida Tech) were lines of research into the causes and potential cures for Alzheimer's. While at Florida Tech, Sam co-authored with Shaohua Xu (another FSRI alum who joined Florida Tech's faculty) multiple publications on Amyloid protein fibers and their role in Alzheimer's onset. Their research included the use of microgravity to study the protein. Click here. (5/5)

Farmboy Astronaut Who Became KSC Director Headed to Hall of Fame (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
The U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame is set to induct a man who flew only one NASA mission, but retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Roy D Bridges Jr. is the only pilot to ever take a space shuttle to orbit after it lost one of its engines. That experience and his roles later as the head of Kennedy Space Center and the aftermath of the Columbia disaster, though, helped shape NASA’s renewed safety culture today.

Bridges, 79, flew on Space Shuttle Challenger on STS-51F, which launched from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A on July 29, 1985. He will join former NASA astronaut and current U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) as the two new faces to join the hall of fame during a ceremony at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex at 11 a.m. Saturday. They become the 106th and 107th inductees into the hall, located at the visitor center, that had its first members declared in 1993. (5/5)

Prep in the Pool for Europe's Next Astronauts (Source: Space Daily)
A new cohort of astronauts at the European Space Agency's training centre in Cologne, Germany, can expect to see time in both the pool and the classroom as they get ready to head into orbit. Trainees dive into the water to emulate the experience of working in zero gravity, as well as studying a variety of subjects from medicine to geology. The aim of the curriculum is to prepare the group for service on the International Space Station (ISS) and later on a potential mission to the moon. (5/4)

Africa Eyes Potential Bounty From Space (Source: Space Daily)
After decades on the sidelines, African countries are venturing into the space industry, hoping to reap rewards in agriculture, disaster prevention and security. Ivory Coast, which recently hosted a "NewSpace Africa" conference organized by the African Union, has announced the creation of a space agency and plans to build the country's first nanosatellite by 2024. In April, Kenya's first working satellite was put into orbit by a SpaceX rocket launched from the United States.

The two countries follow African pioneers South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria and Egypt -- a trailblazer which owned the first African satellite sent into space in 1998. About 15 African countries have a space agency. The AU in 2018 fostered the African Space Agency, whose headquarters will be in Cairo alongside the Egyptian Space Agency, to promote coordination among AU members. (5/4)

Orbex Breaks Ground on Sutherland Spaceport as UK Prepares to Enter Domestic Launch Market (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
United Kingdom (UK) based spaceflight company Orbex has begun construction at the Sutherland Spaceport in Scotland. Set to host launches of Orbex’s Prime rocket, Sutherland is the UK mainland’s first vertical launch site. With another vertical-launch site at SaxaVord Spaceport in the Shetlands, and Spaceport Cornwall’s horizontal-launch options, the UK is finally ramping up its domestic spaceflight ambitions after decades in the wilderness. Formerly known as Space Hub Sutherland, the Scottish site will boast the first vertical-launch spaceport to be built on the UK mainland. (5/4)

This is How Space Food will Thrive on Mars (Source: WIRED)
The feasibility of producing food in space is something that is occupying the minds of a diverse group of organizations. As space exploration becomes increasingly commercialized, entrepreneurs, startups and government agencies are seeking to answer the question of how to survive for long periods of time in the further reaches of our solar system. If a manned base is to be built on the Moon, or even on Mars, resupply from Earth will be impractical. Crop production for long-duration missions will therefore have to be carried out inside protected, controlled environments that use technology and data to maintain ideal growing conditions. Click here. (5/4) https://wired.me/technology/how-space-food-will-thrive-on-mars/

Houston Company Recovers Ashes of NASA Astronaut After Funeral Rocket Fails (Source: Houston Chronicle)
The cremated remains of a late NASA astronaut, and others, have been recovered after a rocket carrying the ashes for a space memorial service exploded seconds after launching over the New Mexico desert on Monday. The small suborbital rocket by Colorado-based company UP Aerospace launched around 11:45 a.m. CT on Monday from Spaceport America, but was destroyed in flight after suffering an anomaly about three seconds after ignition.

The rocket was packed with 13 payloads, including student science and technology experiments from NASA's TechRise Student Challenge. Per a report from Gizmodo, it also carried the cremated human remains of various people for the Aurora Flight mission for Celestis, a Houston-based company that specializes in space memorial services. This includes the remains of astronaut Philip K. Chapman, who died in April 2021. Chapman, an aural/radio physicist, served as mission scientist for NASA's 1971 Apollo 14 mission to the Moon. The cremated remains of chemist Louise Ann O'Deen were also aboard. (5/4)

`Space Waves' Offer New Clues to Space Weather, Embry-Riddle Researchers Report (Source: ERAU)
More accurate space-weather predictions and safer satellite navigation through radiation belts could someday result from new insights into “space waves,” researchers at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University reported. The group’s latest research shows that seasonal and daily variations in the Earth’s magnetic tilt, toward or away from the Sun, can trigger changes in large-wavelength space waves. These breaking waves, known as Kelvin-Helmholtz waves, occur at the boundary between the solar wind and the Earth’s magnetic shield. The waves happen much more frequently around the spring and fall seasons, researchers reported, while wave activity is poor around summer and winter. (5/4)

Scientists Confirm the Moon Has a Solid Iron 'Heart' Just Like Earth (Source: Space.com)
After more than 50 years, scientists have finally uncovered the moon's interior structure, showing that our closest celestial companion has a fluid outer core and a solid inner core, similar to Earth's. Astronomers have puzzled over the moon's structure since well before any probes landed there. A hot debate raged in the first half of the 20th century as to whether the moon was a "primitive" rocky world, like Mars's moons Phobos and Deimos, or whether it had a rich inner geology. Scientists were only recently able to sort through the massive data sets from the Apollo missions and other lunar probes to get a clearer picture of the moon's insides.

In 2011, research from NASA suggested that the moon's outer core was made of fluid iron, and created a distinct partially melted layer where it met the mantle. The study also hinted that the moon might have an iron-based inner core. Now, the new study has confirmed that this dense inner core exists. Using a detailed computer model built on geological data from the Apollo program and NASA's GRAIL mission — which used a pair of probes to monitor the moon's gravitational field for more than a year — the researchers determined that the inner core is about 310 miles (500 km) in diameter, or only 15% of the Moon's width. (5/5)

Debate Rages About Future of New Horizons (Source: Space News)
NASA and the science team for a spacecraft in the outer reaches of the solar system are locked in a dispute about the future of that mission and the science it can perform. The uncertainty about the future of the New Horizons mission started last year when NASA reviewed a proposal from the mission’s science team for a second extended mission. The spacecraft, launched in 2006, flew by Pluto in 2015 and the Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth in early 2019, and will continue to traverse the Kuiper Belt through 2028. (5/4)

Space Force Hopes to Recoup Costs of Commercial Launches (Source: Defense One)
The US Space Force wants to increase what commercial providers pay for using military launch facilities, updating decades-old policies from a time when most launches were conducted by the military. "If we were going to be able to meet the commercial sector with the growth that they forecast, we're going to need to make some more additional investments in our launch range," Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David Thompson told lawmakers.

After working on the legislation for a few years, the Space Force is “actively engaged” with congressional staffers who may include enabling language in this year’s defense policy bill, according to the Space Force. The service is also a part of the National Spaceport Interagency Working Group, set up by the Federal Aviation Administration, to establish a network of launch facilities and to consider models for a “port authority”—essentially an intermediate agency to run federal spaceports.

Lawmakers are concerned with launch capacity. Rep. Mike Waltz, R-FL, said he’s talked to “folks at Boca Chica”—a SpaceX launch location in Texas—and “they're wondering why am I reimbursing the Space Force for commercial launch when I can be reimbursing and dealing with commercial companies that can help us move faster.” (5/4)

Lockheed Martin Reorganizing Space Units to Focus on National Security Business (Source: Space News)
Lockheed Martin announced Thursday that it is reorganizing its space business with a new focus on national security space. The company said it is consolidating several businesses focused on space into three sectors: commercial civil space, national security space and strategic and missile defense. The national security space sector will be a new line of business including classified and defense portfolios in support of the U.S. military and special programs. The company is also creating a new product center devoted to "driving affordability and marketability" of space products for internal and external customers. (5/5)

SES Readies Launch of More O3b Satellites (Source: Space News)
SES expects to launch the next pair of O3b mPower satellites in early June. The company said the next two Boeing-built satellites would ship to Florida this month for a launch in early June on a Falcon 9. They will join four other satellites already in orbit, giving SES enough satellites to provide initial services by the end of September. Bringing O3b mPower to market is one of two main priorities for the operator this year, SES CEO Steve Collar said, with the other completing the clearing of C-band spectrum in the U.S. by a Dec. 5 deadline, providing $3 billion for the company. (5/5)

BlackSky Seeks Lower Orbits (Source: Space News)
BlackSky is requesting permission from the FCC to operate two of its imaging satellites in lower orbits as they run out of propellant. The company filed a request with the FCC last week to allow it to operate the Global 7 and 8 satellites in orbits below the currently authorized minimum altitude of 385 kilometers down to 340 kilometers. Much of the publicly available request was redacted, including the section on the "emergency" prompting the request, but the document suggested that the satellites are running out of propellant needed to maintain their orbits. The two spacecraft launched as rideshare payloads on a Falcon 9 Starlink launch in August 2020 and have a three-year design life. (5/5)

Debate Ongoing Over New Horizons Mission Extension (Source: Space News)
NASA and the project team for the New Horizons spacecraft are at loggerheads over the future of the mission. The spacecraft, which flew by Pluto in 2015 and the Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth in 2019, is currently in an extended mission in the Kuiper Belt conducting astrophysics, heliophysics and planetary science work.

NASA last year agreed to only a two-year extended mission for New Horizons, versus the three years the project requested, and told the project to seek funding through the heliophysics division for operations after 2024. The project has rejected that request, they said at a meeting this week, because that would likely require disbanding the current science team. A NASA official said this week that they are in a "quandary" about the mission's future but emphasized there are no plans to turn off the spacecraft after 2024. The mission costs NASA about $10 million a year to operate. (5/5)

Senators Reintroduce Satellite Cybersecurity Legislation (Source: Space Policy Online)
Two senators have reintroduced satellite cybersecurity legislation. The Satellite Cybersecurity Act, introduced by Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI) and John Cornyn (R-TX), would direct the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency to provide improved resources regarding satellite cybersecurity for commercial operators. It also calls for a strategy for government-wide coordination of efforts to address satellite cybersecurity threats. The senators introduced a similar bill last year but it was not taken up by the full Senate after clearing the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee. (5/5)

Solar Activity Increasing (Source: Sky & Telescope)
Solar activity is increasing but staying within predictions. The number of sunspots, a measure of solar activity, has increased significantly over the last year, although there has been a drop in the last few months. The chair of the Solar Cycle Prediction Panel, an international group of experts that study solar activity, said that the uptick in sunspots and solar storms is consistent with their earlier forecast that predicted a relatively weak cycle similar to, or only slightly stronger than, the previous 11-year cycle. Another group, which predicted a more active cycle, also claims the data matches their predictions, although they noted recent activity had been a little low. (5/5)

Uranus Moons May Have Liquid Water Oceans (Source: NASA)
Four moons of Uranus could have liquid water oceans beneath their surfaces. A reanalysis of data from the Voyager 2 flyby of Uranus and improved computer modeling led a team of scientists to conclude that four of the planet's largest moons — Ariel, Oberon, Titania and Umbriel — could have layers of liquid water well below their surface. For the larger moons of Oberon and Titania, the oceans could be warm enough to be habitable. A fifth, smaller moon, Miranda, shows evidence of once having a liquid water ocean that is now likely frozen. (5/5)

Momentus Signs Contract to Carry Hosted Payload for Hello Space (Source: Space Daily)
Momentus has signed an agreement with Hello Space, an internet of things (IoT) through satellite tech company, to carry a hosted payload of a demo deployer carrying four pocketqube satellites on the Vigoride-7 mission targeted to launch on the SpaceX Transporter-9 mission no earlier than October 2023. Hello Space is a satellite IoT service provider company capable of creating hardware and software for 'pocketqube' satellites that measure 10cm x 5cm x 5cm in size. The company is already a part of the Lora-Alliance network, a global alliance working toward creating a global standard for low-power, long-range, very wide-area IoT networks. (5/4)

What Will the Artemis Moon Base Look Like? (Source: Space Daily)
The next time NASA goes to the Moon, it intends to stay. Under the Artemis program, the US space agency plans to maintain a human presence, for the very first time, on a celestial body other than Earth. But building a lunar base is no small feat. It will need power generators, vehicles and habitats, and the space industry is racing to meet the technological challenges. Click here. (5/4)

It’s No Surprise SpaceX Blows Up Rockets in Texas. That’s Why It Came Here (Source: Texas Monthly)
Even setting aside the direct effects of its launches, SpaceX has brought light and sound pollution and greater vehicular traffic to this once quiet beach and the nature preserves that surround it. SpaceX being free to do as it wished to Boca Chica Beach was essentially what Texas promised the company. Governor Rick Perry, who worked with the legislature to rewrite beach access laws so that public beaches could be shut down during launches and offered more than $15 million in incentives to woo SpaceX, hailed Texas’s willingness to tolerate risky engineering.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced in February that Boca Chica is “where we will try out new designs and new versions of the rocket . . . I think Kennedy will be our sort of main operational launch site.” So, for all the early talk of South Texas becoming the gateway to Mars, that no longer looks to be true. Boca Chica Beach is just the place where SpaceX blows stuff up. If the environmental lawsuit gains traction, the company will likely retreat further to its launchpad in Florida, where there are no public beaches nearby to worry about and the environmental issues are long settled. (5/4)

SpaceX's Limited Options for Starship (Source: Quartz)
Whenever China launches a rocket and drops dangerous debris in a populated area, Western observers tend to feel superior because US and European launch sites are meant to adhere to stricter safety regulations and a bias toward public opinion. This is helpful context for the debate over SpaceX’s Starship launch site in Boca Chica, Texas. If China had flown a Long March 5 rocket from a new launch pad and covered towns miles away in a coating of dust and pulverized concrete, would you say it’s business as usual, or amateur hour?

The challenge for SpaceX is that there really may not be other options for a test site. The most suitable alternative is Cape Canaveral, Florida, where SpaceX launches most of its rockets and expects to operate Starship in the future. But NASA doesn’t want to risk explosive test anomalies near the pads where it launches astronauts. That means if this lawsuit succeeds (or if the FAA isn’t satisfied with SpaceX’s post-mission analyses) SpaceX will be stuck doing the environmental work it arguably should have done years ago, when this vehicle was first conceived.

Federal regulators are typically given fairly wide latitude by the courts, but SpaceX has another card up its sleeve: The US military, intelligence community, and NASA all depend on the company to get into space (and go to the Moon). Those concerns may override legal protections on the environment in Texas, just as similar concerns led the Federal Trade Commission to okay a monopolistic merger of Boeing and Lockheed Martin’s launch businesses in 2006, over Musk’s objections. (5/4)

SpaceX Starship’s Huge Debris Plume Highlights ‘Unsolved Physics’ of Historic Launch (Source: Houston Chronicle)
Sharon Almaguer walked to her Honda Fit covered in sand-colored specs. The mystery material had fallen from the sky shortly after SpaceX launched the world’s most powerful rocket in Boca Chica, more than 6 miles from her Port Isabel home. Almaguer worried about breathing in the material, not knowing if it was toxic. She got in the car and drove nearly 20 miles before turning on the air conditioner.

Chunks of concrete and sheets of stainless steel flew thousands of feet, some creating a six-story-high splash in the water. Scientists are researching what fell from the sky and whether it was harmful to breathe. They’re documenting how this flight test affected wildlife in nearby state parks and National Wildlife Refuge lands. Federal regulators are investigating what went wrong and determining how SpaceX can prevent these specific issues in the future (though another explosion is not off the table). Musk pledged adjustments that would prevent the launch pad from shooting debris across South Texas.

UCF's Phil Metzger is an expert in how rocket engines blow soil when spacecraft land on the moon or Mars. Now, he’s digging into a physics phenomenon here on Earth. Three people from South Texas are shipping him material collected from vehicles and outdoor furniture after the SpaceX launch. Metzger plans to measure the shape and size of these particles and then conduct a chemical analysis. He said it’s possible the rocket’s engines cracked the launch pad, and gas got trapped between the sand and concrete pad. Pressure built up until it erupted upward with more force than the rocket’s engines were pushing downward. (5/3)

Innovative NASA Alloy Used for 3D Printed Rocket (Source: Space Daily)
Created at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland under the agency's Game Changing Development program, this family of copper-based alloys known as Glenn Research Copper, or GRCop, are designed for use in combustion chambers of high performance rocket engines. A combination of copper, chromium, and niobium, GRCop is optimized for high strength, high thermal conductivity, high creep resistance - which allows more stress and strain in high temperature applications - and good low cycle fatigue - which prevents material failures -above 900 degrees Farenheit.

They tolerate temperatures up to 40% higher than traditional copper alloys, which leads to higher performance components and reusability. NASA found that the GRCop alloys pair very well with the latest additive manufacturing methods. Modern manufacturing methods such as laser powder bed fusion and directed energy deposition are two approaches that can be used to build GRCop parts for many aerospace applications, such as Relativity's Terran 1 rocket engines. (5/3)

A Fiery End? How the ISS Will End its Life in Orbit (Source: BBC)
Working out how exactly to deorbit the station is a mammoth undertaking. Many large objects have burned up in the Earth's atmosphere, most notably Russia's Mir space station in 2001 and NASA's Skylab space station in 1979. The ISS represents a whole new problem, however, being more than three times the size of Mir. Events will begin in 2026, when the orbit of the ISS will be allowed to naturally decay under atmospheric drag, dropping from 400km to about 320km in mid-2030.

At this point a final crew will be sent to the station, likely ensuring any remaining equipment or items of historical significance that have yet to be removed are done so, also reducing the weight of the station. Once the final crew has left, the station's altitude will drop further to 280km, deemed the point of no return – where the station could no longer be boosted back above the drag caused by our planet's thickening atmosphere – a process that will take several months. Here, Russian Progress spacecraft are earmarked to then give the station a final push back into the planet's atmosphere.

Recent problems with some Progress vehicles (and the worsening political situation with Russia) has led to NASA investigating its space tug alternative. Whatever spacecraft is used, after this final push, the station will reach an altitude of 120km, where it will hit the Earth's thicker atmosphere at some 18,000 mph, beginning re-entry in earnest. First, the solar panels will be torn from the structure at an altitude of about 100km. Then at around 80km the modules themselves start to be ripped apart from each other before they are set ablaze by re-entry temperatures, causing them to melt and disintegrate. Several sonic booms will be heard as the wreckage streaks across the sky. (5/4)

Control, Cooperation, Classification Remain Focuses of DOD's Space Policy (Source: DoD)
Critical for success in space is breaking down the barriers that prevent the efficient sharing of critical intelligence gathered from space — including within the DOD, within the U.S. intelligence community, and among partners and allies. "The department is working at the highest levels to remove barriers to sharing information with our allies and to strengthen our ability to communicate really with ourselves across the U.S. government," John Plumb said.

Plumb said challenges involving cooperation with allies often comes down to the ability to share classified information with them, and that this is something the department must work on more closely. "A lot of classified information is not actually DOD-originated; it often originates from different parts of the intelligence community," he said. "We need to be able to collaborate very closely with our partners in the IC to kind of break down these legacy barriers... and find a way to be able to share those portions of those types of classified information that are needed for combined space operations." (5/3)