January 23, 2018

SpaceX Ship with Massive Claw Arms Designed for Fairing Retrieval (Source: Daily Breeze)
A strange-looking SpaceX ship parked on the Los Angeles waterfront has four articulated arms almost as long as the boat deck itself, reaching upward like a giant claw. “We do see a lot of bizarre stuff (on the waterfront) but that’s gotta be one of the stranger things around here,” said Steve Gilbert, yard foreman for neighboring U.S. Water Taxi & Port Services. “When it first pulled in, it didn’t have the arms and we just thought it was going to carry supplies.”

The 205-foot-long vessel, named Mr. Steven, arrived at the site in late December. It’s now parked behind Marmac 303, a robotic barge — called an “autonomous spaceport drone ship” by SpaceX — used to land and carry the Hawthorne company’s rocket boosters and spacecraft returning from orbital missions. The modified claw-like ship is being used to salvage rocket nose-cones, or fairings, that are guided back to specific locations on Earth after missions.

“Mr. Steven (is) dedicated to recovering the fairing portion of rockets, which protect the spacecraft and reduce drag during flight,” states the report, which was issued when SpaceX requested permission to expand its leased waterfront area. It’s not clear how the fairings will be picked up by the boat. But SpaceX fans speculated on a Reddit.com forum that the arms are used to hold a net that collects and cradles the fairing halves. Click here. (1/22)

Small Rockets are Finally Taking Off, But Will the Market Follow? (Source: Space Review)
Over the weekend, Rocket Lab successfully launched its Electron small rocket for the first time, putting three cubesats into orbit. Jeff Foust reports on that milestone launch that puts the company on the vanguard of a rapidly growing part of the space industry, albeit one where the demand for such vehicles remains uncertain. Click here. (1/22)

Why the Falcon Heavy Should be America’s Next Moon Rocket (Source: Space Review)
As the Falcon Heavy near its first launch, what role can the rocket play in new national policy to return to the Moon? Doug Plata argues that the Falcon Heavy is better suited than the Space Launch System for lunar missions, as part of an architecture that makes use of vehicles from other companies and public private partnerships. Click here. (1/22)

Latin America’s Space Programs: An Update (Source: Space Review)
Over the last several years a number of Latin American countries have built and launched satellites. W. Alejandro Sanchez provides an update to a 2012 article on the developments countries in the region are making in terms of satellites and space policy. Click here. (1/22)

How to Reduce US Space Expenses Through Competitive and Cooperative Approaches (Source: Space Review)
The US seeks to compete with other countries in space in some arenas, and cooperate in others, but how do you decide what approach to take? Takuya Wakimoto offers an analysis of the space policies of the US and other major spacefaring countries to see where the US can benefit best through cooperation. Click here. (1/22) 

A Treatise on the Formation of a US Space Force (Source: Space Review)
Proposals to create an independent “Space Force” within the US military face, among other obstacles, financial challenges. Roger X. Lenard offers a forward-looking approach to the roles of a future Space Force and how they can help support its operations and commercial activities expand beyond Earth orbit. Click here. (1/22)

China’s “Micius” Satellite Demonstrates Intercontinental Quantum Key Distribution (Source: SpaceFlight Insider)
China’s Quantum Science Satellite, nicknamed “Micius” (after a fifth century B.C. Chinese scientist) has performed the first intercontinental quantum key distribution by relaying signals between multiple ground stations located in China and Austria.

The test was conducted by a joint China-Austria team of researchers. In a recent study published in Physical Review Letters on January 19, they reported that a decoy-state quantum key distribution between Micius operating in a low-Earth orbit (LEO) and ground stations located in Xinglong, Nanshan (both in China), and Graz (Austria). (1/22)

SpaceX Gets Good News From the Air Force on the Zuma Mission (Source: Ars Technica)
A little more than two weeks have passed since the apparent loss of the highly classified Zuma mission. Since then, SpaceX has publicly and privately stated that its Falcon 9 rocket performed nominally throughout the flight—with both its first and second stages firing as anticipated.

Now, the US Air Force seems to be backing the rocket company up. "Based on the data available, our team did not identify any information that would change SpaceX's Falcon 9 certification status," said Lieutenant General John Thompson, commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center. This qualified conclusion came after a preliminary review of data from the Zuma launch. That's according to Thompson, who said the Air Force will continue to review data from all launches.

However tentative, this statement buttresses the efforts by SpaceX to say that, from its perspective, the mission was a success. The statement also adds to the concerns of Northrop Grumman, which built the Zuma payload and the adapter that connected it to the Falcon 9 rocket. Northrop Grumman was also responsible for separating after the second stage of the Zuma rocket reached space. The aerospace veteran has yet to publicly comment on specifics of the Zuma mission since the launch. (1/22)