February 7, 2018

Falcon Heavy lifts Florida's Space Coast (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
SpaceX paved the way for its goal of human spaceflight to Mars on Tuesday with its launch of the Falcon Heavy — the most powerful rocket in the world — as thousands of spectators turned out on a scale the Space Coast hasn’t seen since the space shuttle era. Many who watched said they were thrilled to see history happen in Florida.

“This is America, this is who we are. It just made history,” said Aida Hart, of Enterprise, watching from her sister-in-law’s lawn. She whooped with excitement as cheers erupted up and down Riverside Drive in Titusville next to the Indian River at liftoff, as the boosters separated and returned to the spaceport like falling torches.

Minutes after liftoff, two rapid-fire twin sonic booms signaled two of the rocket boosters’ approach to Cape Canaveral for landing. They set down vertically in unison. The third rocket booster failed to land on the company’s sea barge as intended, crashing into the ocean at 300 mph. But that did little to affect the joyous mood seen by SpaceX staffers during the launch on the company’s livestream. (2/7)

Tesla Roadster Leaves Earth with 'Easter Eggs' (Source: CollectSpace)
Starman is traveling through the solar system, riding in the driver's seat of a midnight cherry Tesla Roadster with the top down. The improbable, if also surreal scene, captured in a video broadcast back to Earth, unfolded live as a finale to SpaceX's maiden launch of its Falcon Heavy rocket. The car served as a mass simulator, taking the place of a real payload given the risks that the test flight might have failed. But it did not fail.

The video sent back from the Roadster showed the car and its Starman passenger set against an almost full-disc Earth as it climbed to as high as 4,400 miles above the planet. And as if a car in space was not enough of a spectacle, the Roadster carried with it a few subtle and not-so-subtle "easter eggs." The spacesuit worn by the mannequin was not a costume, but rather marked the first in-space use of a garment designed for NASA astronauts to wear on SpaceX's upcoming Dragon spacecraft crewed flights to the ISS.

On the dash screen was a sign with a science fiction-inspired message: "Don't Panic" from Douglas Adams book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Also onboard is an optical data disk with Isaac Asmimov's Foundation Trilogy novels. Then there's a "Made on Earth by humans" inscription on a circuit board, and the names of more than 6,000 of those humans — SpaceX employees — were engraved onto a plaque mounted on the payload attach fitting. Finally, courtesy of Hot Wheels, there's a tiny Roadster with a tiny spaceman mounted on the dashboard. (2/7)

BitcoinLatina and CubeCab To Launch 300 Satellite Network to Support BCL Blockchain (Source: Bitcoin Latina)
Building on the promises of Bitcoin, the BitcoinLatina Foundation announced it is planning on constructing a private satellite constellation dedicated to facilitate the use of uninterrupted distributed applications across its distributed peer-to-peer computer network. The Foundation’s launch provider, CubeCab, will use this constellation to demonstrate a very high launch rate, an achievement long known to be necessary to significantly reduce cost of access to Earth orbit.

The initial constellation of three hundred satellites, to be deployed 2020-2022, will entail three hundred flights of CubeCab’s Cab-3A launch vehicle. The Cab-3A is designed to place individual satellites weighing up to 5 kilograms (CubeSats) into Low Earth Orbit (LEO). (2/7)

Canadian Space Agency Awards $1.5M for Human Spaceflight Technology and Medical Study (Source: SpaceQ)
The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has awarded a total of $1.5 million for two projects related to future human exploration in the vicinity of the moon and Mars. The larger of the two contracts awarded went to Canadensys Aerospace for $1.35M for the Mobility & Environmental Rover Integrated Technology (MERIT), currently envisioned to be used by a rover on the moon, and possibly in conjunction with astronauts in orbit.

The other contract awarded went to Thales Group’s Quebec City location and is valued at $150K before taxes. The RFP for this contract was issued last August and is for a study to “develop specific requirements for the medical conditions to be managed autonomously by the crew on a mission to Mars.” (2/7)

NASA Should Start Funding SETI Again (Source: Scientific American)
In 1992, Sen. Richard Bryan (D–Nev.) introduced a last-minute amendment that ended funding for Project HRMS, the last major Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program funded by NASA. "This hopefully," he quipped, "will be the end of Martian hunting season at the taxpayer's expense." Today, NASA does not have any SETI programs, and does not solicit proposals for SETI projects from astronomers. As a result, the field has atrophied, with only a handful of practitioners left and virtually no pipeline to train more.

Some of us are hopeful change may be around the corner. Congress currently seems not hostile but downright receptive to SETI, and there is no actual statutory prohibition on NASA supporting a SETI program. NASA recently chartered the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to form the ad hoc Committee on Astrobiology Science Strategy for Life in the Universe to evaluate its astrobiology portfolio, and this committee should recommend that NASA embrace SETI as part of its mission. (2/7)

South Korea Announces Plans for Moon Landing in 2030 (Source: Korea Bizwire)
South Korea will launch its first lunar module in 2030, with plans to fund private space projects from 2026. The government will first launch a 550 kilogram lunar orbiter in collaboration with NASA by 2020 as planned, and send a follow-up lunar module in 2030. (2/6)

New Study Shows TRAPPIST-1 Planets are Rocky and Could Have Water (Source: Spaceflight Insider)
A new study has revealed the compositions of the seven TRAPPIST-1 exoplanets in unprecedented detail, showing them to be rocky worlds that could potentially have water. Two of the system’s planets were discovered in 2016 by the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) in Chile.

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope confirmed the presence of these two and found five more in 2017. All the planets orbit the cool star closer than Mercury orbits our Sun and may therefore be tidally locked to the star, with one side permanently facing toward it and the other permanently facing away from it. Based on the planets’ densities, some may have masses that are up to five percent water, which would amount to 250 times the water in Earth’s oceans. (2/7)

SoftBank Considering Other Satellite Ventures (Source: Space News)
SoftBank, a major investor in OneWeb, is considering putting money into other satellite ventures. SoftBank invested $1 billion in OneWeb in late 2016 to help fund development of that company's broadband satellite constellation. Alex Clavel, executive vice president at SoftBank, said his company is "very actively looking at new opportunities for OneWeb" and well as other opportunities involving smallsats and communications. (2/7)

World View Balloon Explosion Caused $200K Damages (Source: Arizona Daily Star)
An explosion during a balloon test in December caused $200,000 in damage to the headquarters of World View. The company, which develops high-altitude balloons to provide remote sensing, communications and other services, was testing a hydrogen-filled balloon on a pad adjacent to its Tucson headquarters when the balloon exploded. Insurers have paid $200,000 in claims for damages to the building, which was built by Pima County and leased to World View. Former NASA shuttle program manager Wayne Hale is leading an independent investigation into the incident. (2/7)

Russia Considers Angara Launches in 2019 & 2020 (Source: Interfax)
Roscosmos is considering ordering two Angara 1.2 launches from Khrunichev. An industry source said Roscosmos is considering buying the launches in 2019 or 2020 to launch six Gonets-M communications satellites in the early 2020s from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. The Angara-1.2 is the smallest version of the Angara family of rockets. (2/7)

National Space Council Will Meet at Kennedy Space Center (Source: WESH)
“It’s our understanding that they are going to be focusing here in Florida on the commercial space side of the U.S. space program and that’s very exciting for us here in Florida,” said Ketcham. “The following meetings which will no doubt be in Alabama, Texas and elsewhere will focus on NASA and national security missions. They’re obviously very important to the U.S. space program, but for them to choose Florida to focus on commercial has us very excited.” (2/7)

Are Smallsats Delivering? (Source: LinkedIn)
Ever since Skybox Imaging and then Planet Labs hit the news headlines, smallsats have been lauded as the future of the space industry, portrayed in the mainstream media as enabling novel applications, making space accessible, and delivering a new paradigm. Perception within the industry has been more mixed, but commercial and government players alike broadly anticipated a net-positive impact from smallsats. A little over 5 years into the smallsat hype, we must ask: is the smallsat market delivering? Click here. (2/6)

NASA Gives Go-Ahead for Dream Chaser Mission to ISS (Source: SNC)
Sierra Nevada received NASA’s Authority to Proceed for the Dream Chaser spacecraft’s first mission, with a launch window for late 2020. The mission will provide cargo resupply to the International Space Station under the Commercial Resupply Services Contract 2 (CRS2). (2/7)