September 13, 2017

NOAA Brings Cassini Plummet to Virtual Reality (Source: Colorado Space News)
On September 15, 2017, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will begin its fiery plummet into Saturn’s atmosphere after orbiting the giant ringed planet for 13 years. Now, you can relive Cassini’s historic mission with a new NOAA visualization technology that brings you along for the ride.

Two years after the debut of Science On a Sphere Explorer (SOSx), NOAA’s design team has adapted gaming technology to incorporate Oculus Rift virtual reality goggles into SOSx. The goggles put you in orbit around Saturn, flying along with Cassini as ice and rock particles, large boulders and moonlets float by the doomed spacecraft. (9/13)

NASA Must Learn to Do Moonshots on a Budget (Source: Bloomberg)
America's space scientists are entitled to a period of mourning after the Cassini spacecraft burns up in Saturn's atmosphere on Friday. After all, 20 years after its launch, the most expensive spacecraft ever sent to the outer planets has produced 3,948 science papers (and counting), 453,048 photographs (and counting), and a cohort of young scientists who earned their Ph.D.s and other training thanks to the mission.

Accomplishments like that don't come cheap, and in today's climate of tight budgets and more immediate needs, a proposal with a $3.26 billion price tag like Cassini's almost certainly wouldn't fly. But the U.S. can't afford to lose the long-term economic, diplomatic and prestige benefits that large-scale missions bring. For NASA, that presents a complicated challenge: How does the agency ensure that we have more Cassinis -- for less money?

For decades, NASA's reputation has been defined by human exploration and what the agency calls its "large strategic missions" like Cassini, the Mars Curiosity rover and the Hubble space telescope. Such missions generally require more than a decade to plan, and support and sustain large teams of space scientists and students for years. As a rule, they cost more than $1 billion. Click here. (9/13)

There Is Boron on Mars — Another Sign the Red Planet Could Have Hosted Life (Source: Space.com)
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has discovered boron in Gale Crater — new evidence that the Red Planet may have been able to support life on its surface in the ancient past. Boron is a very interesting element to astrobiologists; on Earth, it's thought to stabilize the sugary molecule ribose. Ribose is a key component of ribonucleic acid (RNA), a molecule that's present in all living cells and drives metabolic processes. But ribose is notoriously unstable, and to form RNA, it is thought that boron is required to stabilize it. When dissolved in water, boron becomes borate, which, in turn, reacts with ribose, making RNA possible. (9/12)

America, We Have a Problem: Helping Houston and the Space Economy (Source: Space News)
With the closure during Hurricane Harvey of the Johnson Space Center, which employs 10,000 people, in addition to the losses suffered by the Houston Independent School District (HISD), which has 283 schools and 213,000 students, and with a population in excess of six million people and a gross domestic product of $503 billion, the shutdown of the country’s fourth largest city offered an unmistakable message to the country from Houston: “America, we have a problem.”

The response to Hurricane Harvey is massive, showcasing the courage of countless Americans and the sacrifices of many whose names we may never know. We stand with the residents of Houston, in principle and practice, because the city is vital to the lifeblood of America.

That means we must also help two of the city’s major research universities, the University of Houston and Rice University. The latter is of particular significance, given the use of its stadium (in 1962) as the venue for the White House’s promise of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth. Click here. (9/12)

NASA Nominee Jim Bridenstine Has Bold Vision for Space, Unclear Intentions for Science (Source: American Institute of Physics)
There is a good chance that Bridenstine’s confirmation hearing will address questions of space policy in some detail, as the congressman has been highly active in the area. However, one area where his intentions remain opaque is toward NASA’s almost $6 billion portfolio for scientific research. While Bridenstine has energetically supported improvements to the U.S.’s space-based infrastructure for weather research and forecasting, he has also introduced legislation that would remove scientific research as one of NASA’s primary objectives.

Bridenstine’s agenda centers around the development of a space-based “architecture” that prioritizes national security needs. His bill therefore attends closely to the development of capabilities for navigation, communications, reconnaissance, and weather forecasting, and it addresses the vulnerability of space-based assets to orbiting debris and attacks by foreign adversaries. Click here. (9/7)

Trump Promised to Hire the Best People. He Keeps Hiring the Worst. NASA is Next (Source: Guardian)
According to 2016 election exit polls, only 38% of voters considered Donald Trump qualified to be president. 17% of those who thought him unqualified voted for Trump anyway, perhaps because he promised that as a wealthy businessman, he would be able to hire the best people to advise him. Unfortunately, Trump has not lived up to this promise. In many cases he’s hired some of the worst people imaginable.

Who worse to lead the EPA than a man whose primary qualification is having sued the agency 14 times on behalf of polluting industries? Who worse to lead the Midwestern states EPA than a woman who the EPA cited for failure to control air pollution in Wisconsin and who deleted all mention of human-caused climate change from her department website? Who worse to lead the Department of Energy than a man who wanted to eliminate the department? Who worse to be the Department of Agriculture’s chief scientist than a right-wing birther radio host with no scientific background?

There are of course exceptions where Trump nominated people who are at least qualified for the job, but in many cases it’s hard to imagine worse choices. And now we can add Trump’s selection to lead NASA to the list - Rep. Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma. He argued that climate policies will damage the American economy, and in 2013 he criticized the Obama administration for spending too much on climate science research. Those comments, and Bridenstine’s beliefs about Nasa’s mission, may very well be the reason Trump nominated Bridenstein to lead the agency. (9/13)

Kennedy Space Center Takes Stock of Irma Storm Damage (Source: Space.com)
NASA's Kennedy Space Center remains closed today (Sep. 13) as a team assesses damage caused by Hurricane Irma. The storm knocked out power and water service to the NASA space center on Sep. 11. Power was restored to the space center yesterd, but the spaceport still lacks running water. KSC and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station host launches of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket as well as United Launch Alliance's Atlas V and Delta IV rockets. (9/13)

Hurricane Irma Damage 'Minor' to ULA Launch Site, SpaceX Still Assessing (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Hurricane Irma caused “minor damage” to United Launch Alliance’s Space Coast facilities, but did not harm important flight hardware, the company said Tuesday. The next launch from the coast is scheduled for Sep. 28, when ULA plans to send an Atlas V rocket into space carrying a top secret payload for the National Reconnaissance Office.

Tropical storm-force winds battered the Space Coast for more than 24 hours overnight Sunday into Monday. Initial reports found minimal damage at SpaceX facilities, but a full assessment has not been done. However, a spokesman said there was “far less” damage seen than from Hurricane Matthew last year. That 2016 storm initially had been forecast to directly hit the Space Coast, but then veered east slightly. SpaceX’s next launch is planned for Oct. 2. (9/13)

Infostellar Aims to Make Satellite Access Less of a Dark Art (Source: Bloomberg)
Telling satellites what to do is expensive, complicated and can only be done a few times a day. Infostellar Inc. is aiming to change that, by getting satellite operators to share their antennas. By connecting dishes around the world to create a single network, everyone from meteorologists and farmers can link up with satellites anytime, anywhere without waiting for one to pass overhead. The Tokyo-based startup, which is assembling a global platform of antennas, just won its first funding round of $7.3 million led by Airbus SE’s venture arm. (9/12)

NMPolitics.net Asks AG to Investigate Spaceport America’s Secrecy (Source: NMPolitics.net)
NMPolitics.net is asking N.M. Attorney General Hector Balderas’ office to look into transparency problems the news organization encountered during its recent investigation of Spaceport America. The investigation found challenges, but also reason for optimism about the spaceport’s future. Among the issues, NMPolitics.net found that the the state agency that runs the spaceport violated transparency laws several times this year in response to requests for documents filed by NMPolitics.net and others. Those violations, in addition to other possible infractions, blocked or delayed public access to information about the spaceport.

Heath Haussamen, NMPolitics.net’s editor and publisher, filed five complaints with the AG on Monday alleging violations and possible violations of the state’s Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) and Open Meetings Act (OMA). In some cases Haussamen is asking the AG to formally declare that the N.M. Spaceport Authority violated transparency laws in its interactions with him. In others he’s seeking legal clarification about what the law intends. (9/13)

Airbus to Reshape Earth Observation Market with its Pléiades Neo Constellation (Source: Airbus)
The production of Airbus’ four new very high resolution satellites, which together will form the Pléiades Neo constellation, is well on schedule for launch in 2020. They will join the already world leading Airbus constellation of optical and radar satellites and will offer enhanced performance and the highest reactivity in the market thanks to their direct access to the data relay communication system, known as the SpaceDataHighway.

This first batch of four optical and very agile satellites will double the number of visits per day anywhere on Earth and offer a re-tasking rate which is five times higher than previous constellations. Each satellite will be adding half a million km² per day at 30cm resolution to Airbus’ offering. These images will be streamed into the OneAtlas on-line platform, allowing customers to have immediate data access, analytics and correlation with Airbus’ unique archive of optical and radar data. (9/12)

Fully Automated Satellite-Assembly Lines? Not Quite Yet (Source: Space News)
While robots began assisting and replacing assembly line workers in automobile and airplane factories years ago, humans still reign supreme in satellite manufacturing. But that’s slowly starting to change. In contrast to the millions of cars and thousands of airplanes produced annually, satellites — and geostationary telecommunications satellites in particular —  are produced in much lower numbers. In a good year, the world’s satellite manufacturers might book a combined commercial 25 orders. That low volume limits the efficiency gained from industrial robots, at least on the ground.

Like Orbital ATK, Space Systems Loral sees limited application for robots, despite averaging more telecom satellites per year. “In our relatively low-volume, high-mix environment, the standard industrial robot doesn’t do you much good,” echoed Paul Estey, SSL’s chief operating officer. “You don’t have very many applications of it.” Even OneWeb’s mega-constellation, whose first satellites are just now being built by the OneWeb-Airbus joint venture OneWeb Satellites in Toulouse, France, doesn’t provide the scale needed to justify the upfront expense of automating assembly. (9/13)

OneWeb Satellites to Keep Toulouse Factory Open for Other Customers (Source: Space News)
The OneWeb-Airbus joint venture tasked with building 900 satellites for OneWeb plans to keep its first production line in France running to build satellites for other operators. OneWeb Satellites is building the first 10 small satellites for OneWeb’s low-Earth orbit broadband constellation in Toulouse, France, before shifting production of the majority of the constellation to a new $85 million factory in Exploration Park, Florida.

But rather than let the infrastructure in France lay idle, OneWeb Satellites wants to repurpose the factory to build more small satellites. Holz said other customers are interested in using OneWeb Satellite’s production volume in Toulouse for constellation projects of their own. He described the market as “very robust.” “I think it’s going to be really exciting when we get into next year,” he said. “You’ll see some other customers coming online soon.” (9/12)

Chinese Cargo Spacecraft Completes Automated Fast-Docking with Space Lab (Source: Xinhua)
China's first cargo spacecraft, Tianzhou-1, completed an automated fast-docking with Tiangong-2 space lab at 11:58 p.m. Tuesday. Controlled from Earth, Tianzhou-1 began to approach Tiangong-2 at 5:24 p.m. Tuesday and it took six and a half hours to complete the fast-docking with the space lab. It was the third docking between the two spacecraft using fast-docking technology. Previously, it took about two days to dock. The experiment tested the cargo spacecraft's capability of fast-docking, laying a foundation for future space station building. (9/12)

US-Russian Crew Arrives Space Station After Quick 6-Hour Trip (Source: Space.com)
Two NASA astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut successfully launched toward the International Space Station (ISS) Tuesday. The Soyuz MS-06 successfully docked at the ISS's Poisk module at 10:55 p.m. EDT after a nearly six-hour flight. NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin blasted off atop a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Packed tightly inside their Soyuz MS-06 space capsule, the trio began their 6-hour trip to the ISS after a flawless launch sequence. (9/12)

Ariane 6 Moves Toward 2020 Test Launch And Wins First Customer (Sources: Aviation Week, Spaceflight Now)
Eumetsat has placed an option to launch a Metop-SG weather satellite aboard an Ariane 6, marking the first time an order, firm or optional, has been signed for the still-in-development European launcher. The rocket cleared a major design review last year, and there are no signs of slowdowns in a multibillion-dollar program that is as much of an exercise in cost-cutting as technical development.

At the same time, engineers are evaluating what it might take to convert the Ariane 6 into a partially reusable rocket, including a new methane-fueled engine that could be plugged into the Ariane 6’s first stage and a booster recovery system to return the engine to the ground for another mission. (9/12)

Virgin Orbit Confirms SpaceBelt Launch Deal (Source: Aviation Week)
Satellite developer Cloud Constellation has formally selected Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket to deploy the first 12 spacecraft forming its initial SpaceBelt constellation of space-based cloud storage data satellites. (9/12)

Virgin Orbit Still Expects to Fly Twice a Month in 2020 Despite Delayed Test Campaign (Source: Space News)
Virgin Orbit says it will perform 24 missions with its LauncherOne small-satellite booster in 2020 despite pushing intitial test flights into 2018. Virgin Orbit, before being spun off from human spaceflight-focused Virgin Galactic in March, had set out to complete around three test flights of LauncherOne before ramping up for commercial operations.

“We’ll get up into flight in the first part of 2018, and then we will be ramping up quickly. We are going into commercial operation next year, and then doubling our launch rate in 2019, and doubling again in 2020,” he said, adding that the company “will have customers on flights number two and three.” (9/12)

Blue Origin Enlarges New Glenn’s Payload Fairing, Preparing to Debut Upgraded New Shepard (Source: Space News)
Blue Origin will likely launch the third iteration of its New Shepard suborbital launch vehicle by year’s end, paving the way for a human-rated version and ironing out the reusability plan for the orbital New Glenn rocket. The company also revealed a large, 7-meter payload fairing for New Glenn, meant for launching more voluminous payloads than the original design.

Clay Mowry, Blue Origin’s vice president of sales, marketing and customer experience, said Sep. 12 that the third New Shepard incorporates lessons learned from the previous model that launched and landed five times before retiring last October. “We have a new upgraded version of New Shepard that has actually been shipped to the launch site, and we’ll be flying again before the end of this year,” Mowry said.

Mowry said Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin’s founder, has invested $2.5 billion in New Glenn, and that the rocket has no funding from the U.S. government. Blue Origin has been working on New Shepard for over a decade. The first vehicle launched in April 2015, reaching the edge of space but failing to land. (9/12)

Arianespace Wins Contracts for O3b and SES-17 Satellites (Source: Space.com)
Satellite operator SES has selected Arianespace to launch a fifth set of O3b satellites as well as a large geostationary orbit communications satellite, the companies announced Sep. 12. SES said that a fifth set of four O3b satellites will launch on a Soyuz rocket from French Guiana in 2019. The first 12 O3b satellites launched on Soyuz rockets in 2013 and 2014, with a fourth set of four due to launch in 2018, also on a Soyuz. Separately, SES announced it will launch the SES-17 geostationary orbit communications satellite on an Ariane 5 in 2021. (9/12)

There’s a Speeding Mass of Space Junk Orbiting Earth, Smashing Into Things (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Earlier this year, a single rocket launched from India flung 104 small satellites into space. A second Indian effort in June put another 30 into orbit, each roughly the size of a coffee can. In July, a Russian rocket scattered 72 more satellites around Earth, like pebbles strewn from a speeding car. These swarms of small satellites—hard to track and hard to dodge—increase the risk of collision for the world’s vital communication, navigation and earth monitoring satellites. (9/12)

To Lead in Space, the United States Must Modernize Satellite Regulations (Source: Space News)
Fifty-five years ago today, U.S. President John F. Kennedy delivered one of the speeches that defined his legacy, a soaring oratory that laid out the vision and rationale for putting a man on the moon. It marked the beginning of an extraordinary era of U.S. leadership in space that spawned an incredible array of technologies and human benefits, from laptop computers and GPS navigation, to telemedicine and advanced artificial limbs.

While the nation’s future plans for human space exploration have rightly stirred a passionate national debate in recent years, another vital space sector tends to fly under the radar: commercial satellite imaging. This is the technology that powers our online maps and location-based apps, keeps deployed U.S. and coalition troops safe, and enables aid workers to respond to natural and man-made disasters with greater speed and efficiency. It also exposes human rights abuses. Click here. (9/12)

Material That Throws Heat into Space Could Soon Reinvent Air-Conditioning (Source: MIT Technology Review)
SkyCool’s panels are essentially high-tech mirrors, designed to cool buildings far more efficiently than traditional air-conditioning systems by exploiting an odd quirk of optics that allows a narrow band of radiation to escape into space. A sliver of emissions in the mid-infrared range (with wavelengths between eight and 13 micrometers, for those keeping score) slips through the atmosphere, escaping through what has been described as a “window into space.”

Materials emitting radiation in that range literally cast it into the cold expanses of space, or at least the cool upper atmosphere, allowing the surfaces themselves to dip below the temperature of the surrounding air. This natural phenomenon is what causes frost to form on surfaces under the open night sky, like car windows and blades of grass, even when temperatures don’t reach freezing. (9/12)

Rogers Still Bullish on Space Corps, Thinks USAF Moves Too Slowly (Source: Space News)
The key congressional supporter for a Space Corps is not backing down. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) said last week that he still believed the Air Force was not suited to handling military space operations, calling the service "as fast as a herd of turtles as far as space is concerned." Rogers helped include language in the House version of a defense authorization bill passed this summer that would create a Space Corps within the Air Force, the first step towards a separate service devoted to space. That proposal, though, was criticized by several former Air Force officials at a recent event, saying it would not fix issues such as acquisition or the development of space professionals. (9/12)

It’s Time to Loosen Planetary Protection Rules for Mars (Source: Air & Space Magazine)
We’re being overprotective of Mars. A new paper extends earlier arguments in which we contended that (1) Mars is likely already contaminated by unsterilized or poorly sterilized spacecraft sent from Earth in the past, or by frequent asteroid exchange, (2) sterilization methods kill only those microorganisms with no chance of surviving on Mars anyway, as they rely on the same stresses such as radiation, and (3) any indigenous life on Mars should be much more adapted to Martian stresses than Earth life is, and would outcompete possible competition. (9/12)

What Could We Lose if a NASA Climate Mission Goes Dark? (Source: New York Times)
NOAA's geostationary and polar-orbiting satellites, crucial tools for monitoring big storms in the Gulf of Mexico, were capturing cloud formations, surface temperatures and barometric pressures, which were then fed into computer models tracking the storm’s strength and intensity. At the same time, NASA was using a group of satellites to keep tabs on soil moisture, flood patterns and power failures all over East Texas. In various ways, this torrent of data was being collected continuously from hundreds (or even thousands) of miles overhead, through radar instruments and spectroradiometer sensors and exquisitely calibrated imaging cameras.

The machines being used aren’t household names — they go by acronyms like GOES-13, Modis and SMAP — but they demonstrate why the popular view of Earth as a big blue planet with only the Moon as its companion could do with some revising. We are also surrounded by a constellation of satellites spinning elliptical webs of environmental observation, day and night.

This array of American satellites, comprising dozens of NOAA and NASA missions, is the product of some 40 years of experimentation and investment on the part of the federal government. They’re joined in their orbit by weather and climate satellites from scientific agencies in Europe and Asia, along with a host of satellite-borne sensors from both the private sector and the military, that measure everything from air pollution to land development to agriculture. (9/12)

A Look at NASA’s Plans to Explore the Moon (Source: Parabolic Arc)
As part of the Agency’s overall strategy to conduct deep space exploration, NASA is also supporting the development of commercial lunar exploration. In 2014, NASA introduced an initiative called Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown (CATALYST). The purpose of the initiative is to encourage the development of U.S. private-sector robotic lunar landers capable of successfully delivering payloads to the lunar surface using U.S. commercial launch capabilities. Click here. (9/12)