January 12, 2018

Images From JAXA’s Daichi Satellites to be Free (Source: Japan Times)
The government plans to allow the private sector to use satellite images and observation data held by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) for free, according to sources. The move is intended to encourage companies and other entities to take advantage of such data to develop new products and technologies. The government aims to start preparing a system to manage the massive amount of data this spring, and launch its operation within fiscal 2018. (1/10)

Dreams of Orbital Factories May Get Real Via 3-D Metal Printing (Source: Bloomberg)
Sending metal parts up to orbiting satellites and rockets is a slow and expensive process. So why not put the factory in orbit too? It’s not as outlandish as it might sound. Made In Space plans to use 3-D printing to manufacture metal parts in space. The technology is already used here on Earth by companies such as General Electric and Siemens to build components for everything from jet engines to rockets. Cosmic applications are expected to gain traction as space travel expands. Click here. (1/10)

NOAA Could Slash Future Communications Costs if Commercial Services Pan Out (Source: Space News)
NOAA may be able to slash the cost of transmitting data from its next generation of weather satellites by turning to commercial communications services. That was one of the takeaways of the NOAA Satellite Observing System Architecture (NSOSA) study, an extensive analysis of spacecraft the agency will need once it completes its Joint Polar Satellite System and Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) programs. (1/10)

Will We Be Ready to Put a Human Footprint on Mars in 15 Years? (Source: Guardian)
If you ever wanted to visit Mars, 2018 would be a really great time to go. In July this year, the Earth and Mars will come closer than at any other point in the last 15 years. They will be in perihelic opposition, meaning Mars will reach the nearest point in its elliptical orbit while the Earth simultaneously passes directly between Mars and the sun.

Separated by 35m miles – immense by Earthly standards, modest on the scale of interplanetary travel – one could, in theory, make the one-way journey in a little over 200 days (compared to 250 days when the planets are further apart). Unfortunately, we are not ready to send humans to Mars in 2018. Dennis Tito’s Inspiration Mars project at one time chose 2018 as the year to send a married couple on a “fly-by” around Mars, but the challenges proved too great and the mission was canceled. Click here. (1/11)

SETI Project Homes In on Strange ‘Fast Radio Bursts’ (Source: UC Berkeley)
Recent observations of a mysterious and distant object that emits intermittent bursts of radio waves so bright that they’re visible across the universe provide new data about the source but fail to clear up the mystery of what causes them.

The observations by the Breakthrough Listen team at UC Berkeley using the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia show that the fast radio bursts from this object, called FRB 121102, are nearly 100 percent linearly polarized, an indication that the source of the bursts is embedded in strong magnetic fields like those around a massive black hole. The measurements confirm observations by another team of astronomers from the Netherlands. (1/10)

Less Michelin Man, More Barbarella: Space Suits Get Stylish (Source: Wall Street Journal)
In “Star Trek,” Lieutenant Uhura wore a miniskirt and go-go boots. Astronauts in “2001: A Space Odyssey” floated in snug orange, yellow and blue space suits. Jane Fonda’s interstellar Barbarella sported a see-through top. Real astronaut Neil Armstrong wore a bulky Michelin Man moon suit, and from 1995 space shuttle astronauts launching into orbit wore orange outfits known as “pumpkin suits.” Scientists today on the international space station bounce around in frat-house fashion staples, including cargo shorts. Click here. (1/10)

Scientists Discover Clean Water Ice Just Below Mars' Surface (Source: WIRED)
Locked away beneath the surface of Mars are vast quantities of water ice. But the properties of that ice—how pure it is, how deep it goes, what shape it takes—remain a mystery to planetary geologists. Those things matter to mission planners, too: Future visitors to Mars, be they short-term sojourners or long-term settlers, will need to understand the planet's subsurface ice reserves if they want to mine it for drinking, growing crops, or converting into hydrogen for fuel.

Locate a spot of land laid bare by time, and you have a direct line of sight on Mars' subterranean layers—and any ice deposited there. Now, scientists have discovered such a site. In fact, with the help of HiRISE, a powerful camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, they've found several.

It’s not just the volume of water they found (it's no mystery that Mars harbors a lot of ice in these particular regions), it’s how mineable it promises to be. The deposits begin at depths as shallow as one meter and extend upwards of 100 meters into the planet. (1/11)

NASA's Next Exoplanet Hunting Mission (Source: Axios)
Almost 4,000 planets have been discovered outside of our solar system — some of which might be habitable. A series of upcoming missions could add tens of thousands more planets to that list, starting “a whole new era of exoplanet opportunities,” according to MIT astronomer Sara Seagar, who spoke on the topic at the winter meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

The mission: The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, is set to launch into orbit around Earth in March. Its wide-angle cameras will, over the course of two years, photograph almost 85% of the sky in order to detect the brief dips of light caused by a planet passing in front of a star. The database it creates will guide missions for decades to come. (1/11)

Cosmic Cocktails and Galactic Moonshine (Source: Room)
Astronauts may currently be prohibited from drinking alcohol in space but Chris Carberry argues that as humanity establishes permanent colonies in orbit and settlements on other planets, the consumption and production of alcoholic beverages is inevitable. After all, with evidence of deliberate fermentation of alcohol going back more than 9,000 years, drinking for pleasure and ceremonial purposes has long been a staple of human culture. Click here. (1/11)

New Jobs on the Way? Stennis Space Center Adding Technology Corridor (Source: Times Picayune)
The Stennis Space Center near the Mississippi Gulf Coast, a major regional employer, could be adding even more jobs in the future. NASA, which runs the space center, recently put out notice that it is seeking interested "non-federal'' partners to help develop a 1,100-acre technology corridor at the facility to be called "Enterprise Park.''

The park will seek businesses involved in space exploration, technology and other uses to support existing companies at Sennis, the largest rocket engine test facility in the U.S., NASA said. "Companies that are more or less in alignment with NASA's mission and with the companies already on our site,'' said Don Beckmeyer, manager of strategic business development at Stennis. Currently, Stennis is the site of testing for the engines for NASA's new deep-space rocket, the Space Launch System.

Stennis Space Center sits on 13,800-acre site just across the Louisiana-Mississippi state line near Bay St. Louis. It opened in 1961 to test the rocket engines for the Apollo Program and has been the site of engine testing for all 135 space shuttle missions, NASA said. (1/10)

How Lockheed Martin's Silicon Valley Arm Get Space Tech Into The Mainstream (Source: Forbes)
Imagine this: Light years away, the molten ball of energy we call the sun is having an internal battle, different magnetic forces colliding with each other. This energy gets released in a solar storm, which spits out magnetic and electrical charges to earth. The high level of magnetic energy is strong enough to affect some (or all) of the thousands of satellites orbiting the earth, the knock-on effect being chaos on the ground.  

As a result, billions of dollars disappear into the ether, planes get grounded, and people get lost in the wilderness. “Most people don't realize how fully dependent they are to space,” says Scott Fouse, Vice President of Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto. In this example, it’s his job to figure out a fix for this and get everything online again.

At Lockheed Martin, there’s been a significant push to explore technologies that have both a national security and commercial element. Scott Fouse’s Palo Alto lab is at the forefront of this, piggybacking off Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial bent to innovate, iterate and expand their footprint. Click here. (1/10)

Colorado Engineers are Helping Us Return to the Moon, and Beyond (Source: Denver Post)
Originally founded in California in 1981, SEAKR Engineering moved to Colorado in 1995. The company employs 440 people across multiple facilities in Centennial and Superior. Its main contribution to Orion is electronics for the spacecraft’s vision processing unit. The work of SEAKR engineers plays an integral role in saving images taken in deep space and sending them back to Earth.

“You’re not just building some box. You’re not just building some computer board,” Mann told SEAKR employees. “You’re building a part that’s critical to space travel.” A preview of Centennial’s mark on the Orion mission is seen in a video from the spacecraft’s December 2014 test flight. About five hours in, the video reveals gorgeous views of Earth’s oceans dappled by clouds — recorded in space and transmitted back to Earth, courtesy of Colorado engineers. (1/9)

OneWeb is a Step Closer to Bringing its Global, Satellite-Based Internet Services to Earth (Source: Tech Crunch)
OneWeb, the company aiming to bring the internet to the 31% of the world’s population who don’t have access to 3G connectivity, is moving one step closer to bringing its satellite services back to Earth. The billionaire-backed corporation, which has raised over $1.7 billion from Virgin Group, SoftBank, Coca Cola, Bharti Group, Qualcomm and Airbus; just announced an exclusive $190 million contract with Echostar subsidiary Hughes Network Systems to provide some of the terrestrial infrastructure necessary to distribute its internet services.

Through the deal, Hughes Network Systems will manufacture a ground network system to support OneWeb’s low earth orbit satellites. The contract is an extension of an earlier agreement the companies signed in June 2015 and leaves OneWeb on track to deliver its first connectivity services by 2019. Through the deal, Hughes Network Systems will produce gateway sites with several access points for satellite tracking to smooth the handoff of high-speed user traffic between satellites. In all, the deal brings the total contract between OneWeb and the Echostar subsidiary to roughly $300 million. (1/10)

Was the Air Force's Hypersonic Test Vehicle Photographed at Florida Pratt & Whitney Facility (Source: Daily Star)
Lockheed Martin is understood to be working on a state-of-the-art spy plane for the US Air Force, which could reach over 4,600mph. Google Earth images have now surfaced of an object bearing a startling similarity to artist’s impressions of the plane. The silvery shape was spotted at the end of a runway in the swamplands of Florida.

According to Tyler Glockner – who uploaded the clip to his YouTube channel secureteam10 – the area belongs to Pratt & Whitney. More than 390,000 people have seen the clip and were quick to offer their suggestions. “Definitely seems to match the images of that fast jet, but why would they leave it in the open?” one asked. Another wrote: “These look like powerboats, could be something else but there is a massive lake not far away.” Click here. (1/11)

NASA is Going Back to the Moon — if it Can Figure Out How to Get There (Source: Washington Post)
NASA acting administrator Robert Lightfoot said the agency will partner with other countries in the return to the moon, but he did not say which ones. He said the moon plan will be a public-private partnership, but did not name any companies that might be involved. Details will emerge with the president’s annual budget request to Congress, he said. He provided no specifics about the architecture of a moon program.

“We have no idea yet,” Lightfoot said. NASA is trying to do this without additional funding or a permanent administrator — another top science position that hasn’t been filled in the Trump administration. NASA’s ongoing challenge in recent years has been reconciling the orders of politicians with the hard realities of flat budgets and the immutable laws of physics. This is the third time this century that NASA has been ordered to make a major shift in the focus of its human spaceflight program. Click here. (1/9)

Lockheed Martin Stock Will Continue To Rise (Source: Seeking Alpha)
There is nothing that can stop Lockheed Martin from growing long-term shareholder value. This company employs 97,000 people with operations in all 50 states, which creates political pressure to continue funding Lockheed Martin Projects through good and bad times. The fundamentals and shareholder friendly history of this company creates appeal for dividend growth investors. Lockheed Martin has excellent fundamentals in a booming Sector. (1/10)

One Small Spaceport, A Giant Leap For Georgia (Source: GPB News)
SpaceX continues to make headlines, sending its Falcon rockets into space and if Georgia has its way, those rockets could soon blast off from Camden County. A public report on Camden County’s bid for a spaceport came out recently. Laura Forczyk is an author of it, and the owner of Astralytical. The Atlanta-based consulting firm is working on Camden County’s plans for a launch site. Click here. (1/10) 

Want Faster Data and a Cleaner Planet? Start Mining Asteroids (Source: Aeon)
Mining asteroids might seem like the stuff of science fiction, but there are companies and a few governments already working hard to make it real. This should not be surprising: compared with the breathtaking bridges that engineers build on Earth, asteroid-mining is a simple, small-scale operation requiring only modest technological advances. If anything is lacking, it is the imagination to see how plausible it has become. I am afraid only that it might not arrive soon enough to address the urgent resource challenges that the world is facing right now.

As an academic researcher, I work with several asteroid-mining companies to address that urgency. I depend on their funding, so there are trade secrets I cannot share. However, I can reveal the core reasons why I am optimistic about the business case for asteroid-mining, and what it will mean for our future. Click here. (1/10) 

Spire Expanding to 180 Satellites for Persistent Earth View (Source: Space News)
Spire seeks to expand its smallsat constellation to provide a persistent view of the Earth. The company currently operates 48 satellites that collect GPS radio occultation data, which can be used to improve weather forecasts. Alexander "Sandy" MacDonald, Spire’s global validation model director, said at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) this week that by expanding the constellation to 150 satellites, the company would be able to continuously observe about 97 percent of the Earth. (1/11)

Stars' Metal Content Bring Planets Closer (Source: Sky & Telescope)
Stars with high metal content have planets in closer orbits. Observations of stars where NASA's Kepler mission has discovered planets found that stars with larger amounts of iron tend to have planets in orbits very close to the stars, while those with lower iron abundances tend to have more distant planets. Astronomers suspect larger amounts of iron in protoplanetary disks makes those disks flatter, and thus easier for planets that form within them to migrate inward towards the star. (1/11)

Congress Gets Briefed on Zuma (Source: Bloomberg)
Members of Congress will receive classified briefings about the apparent failure of the Zuma spacecraft after its launch Sunday night. Neither government agencies nor Zuma prime contractor Northrop Grumman have publicly commented on the status of Zuma, which some sources claim reentered shortly after launch. SpaceX, which launched Zuma on a Falcon 9, said its rocket performed as planned. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), one of the lawmakers receiving the briefings, said there's nothing so far to suggest that other SpaceX missions, including NASA cargo missions and future commercial crew missions, should be affected by this. (1/11)

Congress Concerned About China's Growing Space Capabilities (Source: Space News)
Members of Congress are concerned about China's growing space capabilities. At a hearing this week of the House Armed Services emerging threats and capabilities subcommittee, witnesses testified that China is producing more satellites, and doing so at lower costs than Western competitors. China is also putting more emphasis into smallsats, believing they "potentially constitute revolutionary capabilities," according to one witness. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), chair of the subcommittee, also used the hearing to make the argument that the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, a post former NASA administrator Mike Griffin has been nominated for, "needs to be the prime mover to drive change and foster innovation within the department." (1/11)

China Losing Space Chief (Source: GB Times)
The head of China's space agency is leaving after just half a year on the job. Tang Dengjie, appointed administrator of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) in June, has stepped down to become acting governor of Fujian Province in the eastern part of the country. Previous leaders of CNSA have also left for high-level political posts, including Tang's predecessor, Xu Dazhe, who became governor of Hunan Province in September 2016. Tang's departure is not expected to have a major effect on China's space program, as CNSA is primarily an office for interactions with other countries' space programs. (1/11)

India Gets New Space Chief (Source: IANS)
India's space program is also getting a new chairman. K. Sivan will succeed A. S. Kiran Kumar as chairman of ISRO for a three-year term, the government's Appointment Committee of Cabinet announced Wednesday. Sivan is currently director of ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Center, responsible for launch vehicle development. (1/11)

Spain's PLD Gets Funds for Small Launcher (Source: Space News)
A Spanish startup has received a $2.4 million grant to support work on small launch vehicles. PLD Space announced Wednesday that it won a grant from the European Commission's Horizon 2020 program to assist its development of the Arion 1 sounding rocket and the Arion 2 orbital rocket. Arion 2, scheduled for a first launch in 2021, is designed to place up to 150 kilograms into low Earth orbit. The company said it is also in the process of closing an "A2" investment round, valued at nearly $10 million. (1/11)

SpaceX Delays Commercial Crew Test Flights to Latter Half of 2018 (Source: Space News)
SpaceX has delayed its two commercial crew test flights by four months, according to a new NASA schedule released Jan. 11, raising questions about whether it or Boeing will be able to send astronauts to the International Space Station by the end of the year as previously planned.

The updated schedule, which NASA said represents “the most recent publicly releasable dates” for the two companies, lists an uncrewed test flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft in August 2018, followed by a crewed test flight in December. The previous schedule released by NASA, in October 2017, stated those flights would take place in April and August 2018, respectively. (1/11)