August 26, 2017

After Years of Delays, Virgin Galactic Prepares for Spaceflights from New Mexico (Source: NMPolitics.net)
Virgin Galactic stopped providing public estimates of when it will begin taking passengers into space for years while it worked to fix the design flaw and complete SpaceShipTwo. With lives at stake, its reputation on the line, and facing criticism of its business model and plans, the company is focused on getting it right, Pete Nickolenko said.

The company has 21 employees in Las Cruces and says it will move 85-90 more to southern New Mexico from California once testing on its spaceship is complete. The company's Las Cruces office is the most tangible sign in Las Cruces of the vision voters embraced a decade ago when they helped fund Spaceport America’s construction with a tax increase – a vision that has yet to become reality. (8/25)

SpaceX to Build Dragon Facility, Test Stand at Cape Canaveral's Landing Zone 1 (Source: Florida Today)
SpaceX has received regulatory approval to make changes to its landing zone at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport in anticipation of increased activities related to its Dragon spacecraft. The St. Johns River Water Management District granted SpaceX permission to move ahead with changes to Landing Zone 1, formerly known as Launch Complex 13 when it was built in the late 1950s. SpaceX and the Air Force, which owns the land, submitted the environmental permit for stormwater infrastructure on July 31.

Landing Zone 1 will play host to a temporary Dragon processing and refurbishment facility until a permanent location is found. And a "static test fire" stand near the new Dragon facility will be built to test the spacecraft's launch abort system, which is designed to quickly transport the vehicle and astronauts away from the rocket in the event of an emergency.

SpaceX was granted permission in April 2017 to begin constructing a second landing pad to the north of the first, which will be used to host simultaneous landings of two first stages after the company's three-core, 27-engine Falcon Heavy rocket lifts off from Kennedy Space Center's pad 39A, tentatively planned for November. Its two side stages will land at the Cape, while its center core will target a drone ship landing. (8/25)

NASA Watches the Sun Put a Stop to its Own Eruption (Source: TechiWire)
On Sept. 30, 2014, multiple NASA observatories watched what appeared to be the beginnings of a solar eruption. A filament—a serpentine structure consisting of dense solar material and often associated with solar eruptions—rose from the surface, gaining energy and speed as it soared. But instead of erupting from the Sun, the filament collapsed, shredded to pieces by invisible magnetic forces. Because scientists had so many instruments observing the event, they were able to track the entire event from beginning to end, and explain for the first time how the Sun’s magnetic landscape terminated a solar eruption. (8/12)

Minotaur Rocket Roars From Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: Florida Today)
A rocket powered by remnants of a Cold War nuclear missile bolted from Cape Canaveral early Saturday with an Air Force satellite that will track threats to military spacecraft orbiting high overhead. Orbital ATK’s Minotaur IV, making its first flight from Florida, shot from long-dormant Launch Complex 46 at 2:04 a.m., catapulted by 500,000 pounds of thrust generated by the first of three decommissioned Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic missile motors.

Within a half-hour, the five-stage, solid-fueled rocket dropped off SensorSat, a coffee table-sized satellite, about 370 miles over the equator.  From that vantage point, the $87.5 million mission will survey a region 22,000 miles higher up known as geostationary orbit or the “GEO belt,” home to critical national security satellites providing intelligence, communications, missile warning and weather data. (8/26)

Taiwan to Build Space Industry on its World-Class Semiconductor Capabilities (Source: Nikkei)
Senior Taiwanese officials said on Friday that the island was hoping to bolster efforts in building its own space industry, hours after U.S. entrepreneur Elon Musk's SpaceX helped successfully launch the island's first self-developed satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

"Space is now a field that Taiwan can participate in and we hope we can become internationally competitive in the future," Chen Liang-gee, Taiwanese minister of science and technology, told reporters. "We will try to commercialize our space technology, and help local component makers to enter the industry." (8/26)

Forget Mars—There’s Money on the Moon (Source: Barron's)
Mars gets all the attention, but it turns out the moon may be cheaper and more beneficial to humanity. The moon is now more accessible, as space companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX compete against each other, and in doing so, lower the price tag for putting payloads into Earth’s orbit. That means humans can launch more than just satellites into space, with opportunities ranging from extracting helium to expanding alternative energy production. Click here. (8/25)