August 20, 2023

New Mexico Taxpayers Question Economic Future of Spaceport America (Source: KRWG)
Jeff Dukatt, a business owner in T or C, said that the Spaceport hasn’t lived up to his expectations. “A lot of people felt that we were ignored. We end up paying the highest sales tax to support [Spaceport America,] but we get the least benefit from it,” he said. “Unless you’re coming down from Albuquerque, you don’t go through T or C or near it. And that’s pretty much what’s happened here. We were supposed to have a welcome center that really hasn’t materialized yet, and that’s all I could basically say about it. It’s kind of a big letdown other than they’re finally flying out of there after, what, 23 years?”

Spaceport America was initially built with nearly $220 million in public funds, with $142.1 million allocated by the State of New Mexico, and $76.4 million generated by local spaceport gross receipt tax from Doña Ana and Sierra County. (8/18)

Rocket Lab Pushes Toward a Neutron Debut in 2024, but Acknowledges Challenges (Source: Ars Technica)
Asked about Neutron's snappy new design, Beck quipped, "The lesson we’ve learned here is that people take our renders far more seriously than we take our renders," he said. However, with that said, the changes highlight some important aspects about Neutron. Wider landing legs
One notable difference is that the rocket's landing legs are now more widely splayed from the bottom. This is because the company now anticipates landing the vehicle down range, on a barge, more often than originally intended.

"In a utopian state, you would always return to the launch site because you don't have the challenge of landing on a barge or the transit time back," Beck said. "So that was where we focused our efforts at. But people really want to use that extra capacity." Beck said Rocket Lab will soon begin qualification tests of the upper-stage tank at its facilities in New Zealand, followed by a destructive test. The goal is to complete these tests this year and provide the team confidence in its design—or force a rethink by the developers.

Another big development project is the closed-cycle Archimedes rocket engine. Nine of these will provide 1.53 million pounds of thrust at liftoff (6,800 kN) with a vacuum-optimized version of Archimedes in the upper stage. This is a significantly larger engine than Rocket Lab has built before, but Beck said that for the industry, it is modestly sized, and rather than aiming for high performance, the design team has pushed for robustness and reliability to support 10 to 20 first-stage flights. (8/18)

With NASA’s Mobile Launcher on the Move, Here’s a Roadmap to Artemis II (Source: Ars Technica)
NASA's repaired and upgraded mobile launch platform moved back to its launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center this week. This marks a transition from refurbishment after the launch of the Artemis I mission last year into preparations for Artemis II—the Moon program's first flight with astronauts. The giant structure sustained more damage than expected during the first launch of NASA's Space Launch System rocket last November. The 380-foot-tall launch tower has been parked just north of the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building since January, undergoing repairs and modifications to prepare it for its next use on Artemis II. Click here. (8/18)

'Bo' Bobko, Astronaut Who Flew 3 Shuttle Missions, Dies at 85 (Source: CollectSpace)
Karol "Bo" Bobko, who was the only NASA astronaut to fly on the first launch of two space shuttle orbiters, has died at the age of 85. Bobko's death on Thursday (Aug. 17) was confirmed by the Association of Space Explorers, a professional organization for the world's astronauts and cosmonauts. A distinguished member, Bobko previously served as president of the U.S. chapter of the association. (8/18)

India Needs Bigger Rockets (Source: Business Today)
India's Mars mission might have incurred a cost lower than that of certain Hollywood films, however, the era characterized by resourcefulness and economic engineering in the nation will eventually need to pave the way for increased funding and larger rocket systems, as highlighted by K Sivan, the former chief of ISRO. Sivan remarked, "We need bigger rockets and bigger systems. We cannot live with frugal engineering alone. We must embrace high-thrust rockets and cutting-edge technology. In this regard, the government's decision to involve private industries in space activities is a positive step." (8/19)

Cyberattack Shutters Major NSF-Funded Telescopes for More Than 2 Weeks (Source: Science)
A mysterious “cyber incident” at a National Science Foundation (NSF) center coordinating international astronomy efforts has knocked out of commission major telescopes in Hawaii and Chile since the beginning of August. Officials have halted all operations at 10 telescopes, and at a few others only in-person observations can be conducted. (8/18)

Flagship Chinese Space Telescope to Orbit with Space Station (Source: Xinhua)
China is currently developing a large-scale space-survey telescope that is expected to bring pioneering scientific results after it is placed in orbit alongside the country's space station, a spokesperson of the China Manned Space Agency said. Lin Xiqiang, also deputy director of the agency, said the Chinese Survey Space Telescope, also known as the Chinese Space Station Telescope (CSST) and Xuntian Space Telescope, is expected to make breakthroughs in cosmology, dark matter and dark energy, galaxies and active galactic nuclei, Milky Way and neighboring galaxies, star formation and evolution, and exoplanets.

He said that the telescope, an important part of China's space station, can obtain high-definition panoramic views of the universe. It has roughly the same spatial resolution as the Hubble Space Telescope, but its field of view is more than 300 times larger than Hubble's. The telescope will stay in the same orbit as the space station for long-term independent flight and observations, and will dock with the space station temporally for supply, maintenance and upgrading, Lin added. (8/18)