August 31, 2017

SpaceX Rocket Upgrade Targets 24-Hour Turnaround, No-Refurbishment Reuse (Source: Next Big Future)
The “Block 5” Falcon upgrade will have a reusable thermal protection that won’t burn up the heat shielding. It will also have retractable legs that will only come out during landing. The Falcon 9 Block 5 will have a 24-hour turnaround and be much cheaper and is expected to be flying by the end of 2017. With a cheaper design comes a few tradeoffs. The Block 5 has a single Merlin engine on it, although it’s a fairly sophisticated version of the engine. It uses some of the same tech — like the guidance computer — from the Falcon 9 (which has 9 Merlin engines), though.

A recent analysis posted on reddit of Spacex costs with ten reuses suggests a maintained profit margin with costs that are about 40-50% of a non-usable Spacex flight. Click here. (8/29)

From Laid Off to Lockheed in 2 Weeks: Why Manufacturers in Texas are Snapping Up Job Seekers (Source: Dallas Morning News)
Less than two weeks ago, he was laid off from his job at Bell Helicopter. On Tuesday, Michael Lawrence, a clean-cut 25-year-old without a college degree, walked out of a hotel in downtown Fort Worth with a letter of intent for a job at Lockheed Martin. “I didn’t wait in a single line,” he said with a sheepish grin. This is an example of a shifting reality for Texas’ high-tech manufacturers: They're in a candidate’s market with a widening gap between new jobs and people with the right skills to fill them.

As President Donald Trump continues to push big companies to make their products in the U.S., blaming other countries for what he’s described as a decline in American manufacturing, the Texas companies building some of the nation’s most complex (and expensive) exports are actually hiring. A lot. As of July, Texas had added 29,800 manufacturing jobs in the past year — a growth rate of 3.5 percent. Lockheed officials expected about 1,000 candidates to apply for some of the 1,800 jobs the aerospace giant expects to add to its F-35 fighter jet program by the end of 2018. (8/30)

Why Going to Outer Space Is Actually Easier Than Summiting Mount Everest (Source: Big Think)
Would you rather blast off into the cold emptiness of space in a fallible rocket, or drag yourself past 200 dead bodies to the inhospitable summit of Mount Everest? Former astronaut Scott Parazynski is the only person on Earth who has conquered both these extreme feats, and it turns out that the challenge closer to home is the one that made his heart race the most.

Once you survive the rocket launch, space is rather tranquil, with beautiful views, and you're well looked after by the smartest support team of scientists in the country, Parazynski points out. On your way up the tallest mountain on Earth, however, the threat of death looms with every step. You cannot eat enough or breathe enough to nourish your body, and once you reach your goal -- guess what? You're only halfway. (8/30)

Military Space Race? Why Some Say Now's the Time for an Upgraded Treaty (Source: CSM)
“I have to say,” said President Trump in an April video call with astronauts aboard the International Space Station that was broadcast to schoolchildren nationwide, “there’s tremendous military application in space.” The U.S. has long worked on that assumption, to the extent that much of its military prowess now depends upon a vast network of satellites orbiting the planet.

Other nations have come to understand that dependence – both Russia and China have reportedly tested anti-satellite missiles in recent years – which in turn has led to a growing clamor from politicians and influential thinkers for the US to improve its satellite warfare capabilities.

"There are trends that might be stabilizing or might be destabilizing depending on how we create rules about how we use them.” Ratified 50 years ago, the Outer Space Treaty binds its signatories to use ”celestial bodies” – the moon, asteroids, and planets, but not artificial satellites – for “peaceful purposes” and prohibits the deployment of nuclear weapons in space. Click here. (8/29)

Lockheed Won’t Protest Now Two-Way Race to Replace U.S. ICBMs (Source: Space News)
Lockheed Martin Strategic and Missile Defense Systems will not protest the U.S. Air Force’s decision to move ahead with teams led by Boeing and Northrop Grumman for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) program to replace Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

The Air Force on Aug. 21 awarded Boeing Space and Missile Systems of Huntsville, Alabama, a $349.2 million contract and Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. of Redondo Beach, California, a $328.6 million contract for three-year parallel efforts to mature technology and reduce risk for prototyping and developing flight, command and control, and launch systems for the Minuteman 3 replacement missiles. (8/30)

Astronaut Peggy Whitson Set to Break Another US Record (Source: Observer)
On September 2, NASA Astronaut Peggy Whitson will return to Earth from the International Space Station, bringing her total time spent in space to 665 days—accumulated over three separate missions. Upon landing, Whitson will break the United States record for most time spent in space. The World record currently belongs to Russian Astronaut Sergei Krikalev, who has spent just over 803 days in space over the span of six missions.

On November 17, 2016, Whiston launched to the International Space Station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. She will land back in Kazakhstan at 9:22 p.m. EST (7:22 a.m. Kazakhstan time on Sept. 3).

Whitson already holds the record as the woman who has spent the longest time in orbit during a single flight. That mission clocked in at 288 days. She is also the record holder for the most spacewalks and the most time accrued spacewalking for a female astronaut. She was the second woman to command the International Space Station, and the first to command it on two different missions. Of these milestones, however, she told CBS earlier this year, “it’ll be a real mark when we don’t have to talk about it.” (8/30)

Angola Enacts Its First Space Strategy for 2016-2025 (Source: SpaceWatch)
Angola published its first space strategy in May 2017 containing highly ambitious measures to make use of space technologies, services, and products for the social and economic development of the country and reinforce Angola’s regional and international positioning.

Angola’s space strategy establishes the main pillars and measures for state activities in the space sector, as well as guides their development in a central and convergent manner so as to ensure their sustainability and the stability of space investment in the country. (8/30)

Spaceflight’s BlackSky Wins $16.4M Air Force Contract for Geospatial Data Platform (Source: GeekWire)
BlackSky, a division of Seattle-based Spaceflight Industries, has been awarded a two-year, $16.4 million cost-plus prime contract with the Air Force Research Laboratory to deliver a cloud-based platform that can provide geospatial intelligence to government agencies. The platform will provide on-demand analytics, collection and information services from global data sources, including satellite imagery, Spaceflight Industries said. (8/29)

Alien-Hunting 'Breakthrough Listen' Project Tracks Strange Series of 15 Radio Bursts (Source: GeekWire)
Breakthrough Listen, a $100 million initiative aimed at stepping up the search for alien signals, says it’s picked up an intriguing series of 15 fast radio bursts emanating from a dwarf galaxy 3 billion light-years away.

It’s way too early to claim that the signals from the galaxy, which hosts a radio source known as FRB 121102, constitute the kind of evidence sought for decades by researchers specializing in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI. But Breakthrough Listen’s researchers say that possibility can’t yet be ruled out.

Twelve of the blips were recorded during the first scan, and three more came during the second scan. The eight subsequent scans turned up nothing further. The results were reported Monday evening on The Astronomer’s Telegram. In a news release, Breakthrough Listen said the findings also will be laid out in an upcoming scientific paper. (8/30)

Dream Chaser Conducts 'Phase Two' Captive Carry Test #1 (Source: America Space)
The engineering test article for Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Dream Chaser ‘spaceplane’ took to the skies today (Aug 30, 2017) over NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, located at Edwards Air Force Base, CA, conducting a “Captive Carry” test while attached to a Columbia Helicopters Model 234-UT Chinook helicopter.

“We are very pleased with results from the Captive Carry test, and everything we have seen points to a successful test with useful data for the next round of testing,” said Lee Archambault. SNC holds a multi-billion dollar Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-2) program contract with NASA to resupply the International Space Station from 2019-2024, but a lot of work still needs to be done before it can make its inaugural launch atop a ULA Atlas-V rocket from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport in two years.

Today’s test saw the Chinook carry Dream Chaser to the same altitude and flight conditions it will experience before being released on an upcoming Free Flight test, which is expected later this year (after a second Captive Carry test is conducted). (8/30)

Casting Light on Mystery of a Star That Vanished After 14 Days (Source: New York Times)
Nearly six centuries ago, Korean astronomers scanning the night sky for omens of the future spotted a new star in the cluster of stars they called Wei, and what today’s star watchers consider the tail of the Scorpius constellation. Fourteen nights later, it vanished.

Astronomers have now identified the source of that brief brightening — a binary star system a couple of thousand light-years away. “Now, about 25 years later, we’ve finally come up with it,” Dr. Shara said. The researchers report their findings Wednesday in the journal Nature.

In these systems, one of the stars is a white dwarf, the burned out but still hot remnant of a star. The powerful gravity of the white dwarf pulls hydrogen away from its companion star and onto its surface. “You accumulate about a Pacific Ocean’s worth of hydrogen,” Dr. Shara said. (8/30)