March 30, 2018

SpaceX Launches More Iridium Satellites From California (Source: SPACErePORT)
SpaceX successfully launched another batch of 10 Iridium satellites from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base on Friday. This was the company's fifth launch for Iridium (using only three rockets, as two were re-used). (3/30)

Iridium Pleased With SpaceX Launch Cadence (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
Iridium no longer has to wait for SpaceX’s rockets to be ready. Instead, Iridium’s satellite team is racing to keep pace churning spacecraft off their assembly line. That is a different tune than Iridium was singing as recently as last year, when launch pad bottlenecks and SpaceX’s rocket production schedule were the main drivers in setting launch dates for the company’s upgraded satellite fleet. Matt Desch, Iridium’s CEO, has returned to California’s Central Coast for the fifth launch of the company’s new-generation “Iridium Next” message relay satellites. (3/29)

Astro Litter-Picker Launches to Help Clean Up 7,600 Tonnes of Space Junk (Source: The Telegraph)
The world’s most advanced litter-picker will be launched into space next week to clean up floating debris which is threatening satellites and the International Space Station (ISS). Surrey University has designed a spacecraft which can grab space junk then pull it into Earth’s atmosphere where it is burned up. The little craft, named RemoveDebris, is due to launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral Spaceport on Monday, on board a Falcon 9 rocket. The spaceship will dock at the ISS first and then deploy on its own on a test mission to snare a small satellite using a harpoon and net. (3/29)

NASA to Do 1st Interplanetary Launch From West Coast in May (Source: KABC)
NASA's next trip to Mars is little more than a month away and the scientists at Jet Propulsion Laboratory showed off the technology that will be riding onboard the lander. The mission is dubbed InSight, an acronym for "Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport." The goal is to study the deep interior of the red planet and help scientists better understand how Earth and other rocky planets developed. This will also be NASA's first interplanetary launch from the West Coast. InSight is slated to liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base on May 5 around 4 a.m. (3/29)

New Approaches to Range Safety, Weather Will Expand Florida's Spaceport Throughput (Source: Space News)
The effort to condense gaps between launches is not the only initiative at the Eastern Range to increase its throughput. Other efforts are underway to deal with two of the most common reasons for launch delays: range safety violations and weather. “As we’re going to 48 [launches per year], we can’t have scrubs unnecessarily,” said Col. Z. Walter Jackim. “It’s very important that we preserve our launch opportunities.”

For range safety, that means a shift in what happens when ships or planes enter restricted zones. An example he gave was a when a tugboat with a two-person crew was spotted in restricted waters ahead of a launch. In the past, such a ship would be treated the same as a cruise ship with thousands on board, but now the Air Force is looking at each ship, and the risk to those on board, individually. “We went from measuring the risk of hitting the boat to actually causing some sort of casualty,” he said. In that example, the launch could proceed.

The Air Force is also introducing new weather tools to provide a three-dimensional view of weather conditions. That can help meteorologists and launch controllers better see how close any lightning in the area would be to a rocket’s launch path, compared to the current approach of setting limits on how close any lightning can be to the launch site. (3/27)

EPIC Upgrades Underway at Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: Space News)
Another initiative seeks to modernize the range, from decades-old electronics used for telemetry to scheduling tools that rely on whiteboards. That effort is called the Eastern Range Program for Innovative Change, or EPIC. The goal is to live up to that acronym by making sweeping changes to the range infrastructure. EPIC includes about three dozen different projects, such as mobile telemetry units that can be moved from pad to pad as needed and online databases that allow launch providers to better estimate range costs.

Another part of EPIC is developing a tool dubbed the “Launch Pad”: a collection of apps for a tablet that can handle all key range operations. “I expect in less than a year that you’ll be able to command and control the entire Eastern Range with this tablet,” he said. (3/27)

Can LC-37 Host BFR? (Source: SPACErePORT)
United Launch Alliance plans to phase out the Delta-4 rocket in the early 2020s after the Vulcan rocket comes online. This aligns with ULA's plan to reduce their launch facilities on both coasts, which means LC-37 will be available for other uses. This is a huge launch complex that was designed for two separate launch pads (currently there's only one), and includes a massive Horizontal Integration Facility (HIF) developed by Space Florida under a lease-back deal with ULA.

The Air Force has become a smarter landlord at the Cape, assigning launch pads and other facilities based on maximizing efficiency and capacity, rather than on the whims of contractors and program managers that have other motives. As Delta-4 leaves the stage, LC-37 could become an ideal facility for SpaceX's BFR rocket. And in this case, with the HIF possibly retained as a Space Florida asset, the State of Florida may have some influence too.  Click here to see where LC-37 is situated in relation to other launch facilities and programs at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. (3/30)

Georgia House Passes Resolution Supporting Commercial Space Industry (Source: Atlanta Business Chronicle)
A resolution aimed at boosting Georgia's commercial space industry cleared the state House of Representatives Thursday over the objections a planned spaceport in southeastern Georgia hasn't been fully vetted. (3/29)

Georgia Says Florida Trying to Protect Launch Monopoly (Source: SPACErePORT)
Pointing to the "growing congestion at Cape Canaveral," Georgia spaceport officials said in a series of tweets last week that the increasing demand for launches is a boon for their project. They say Space Florida is trying to "hold on to its monopoly" in the launch industry, and they highlight Space Florida's Dale Ketcham's comments that "Georgia is prepared to offer a commercial launch site that is going to be as attractive as Brownsville was, maybe more so." (3/29)

FCC Gives OK for 4,425-Satellite SpaceX Constellation (Source: Space News)
The FCC formally authorized SpaceX's plans for a broadband satellite constellation, but the company didn't get everything it asked for. The FCC said late Thursday it approved plans by SpaceX to deploy a constellation of 4,425 satellites operating in Ka- and Ku-bands. The FCC will require SpaceX to have at least half its constellation in orbit within six years or its authorization will be limited to the number in orbit at that time. SpaceX sought to relax those rules, saying it can provide service with a smaller number of satellites. The FCC rejected that proposal but said SpaceX could resubmit a waiver request in the future. (3/29)

Russia Launches Military Satellite (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
Russia launched a military satellite Thursday. A Soyuz-2.1v lifted off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome at 1:38 p.m. Eastern carrying a satellite identified only as Cosmos 2525. Few details about the satellite are known, but some speculate it is a demonstration mission for a planned series of imaging satellites. (3/30)

China Launches Navigation Satellites (Source: GB Times)
China launched another pair of navigation satellites Thursday. A Long March 3B lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 1:56 p.m. Eastern and placed two Beidou satellites into medium Earth orbits. The launch was the third Beidou mission so far this year, and the ninth Chinese launch overall in 2018. (3/30)

Study: DOD Should Invest in Smallsat Constellations (Source: Space News)
A report by a defense think tank concludes that the Pentagon should invest more in smallsat constellations. The report by the Center for a New American Security concluded that the U.S. will be at a disadvantage in any future conflict with a "peer competitor" like China without a "resilient intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance architecture." Its recommendations included the development of low Earth orbit smallsat constellations to provide persistent imaging and resilience against attack. It also concluded that low-cost launch systems should be a priority for the Pentagon to help deploy those constellations. (3/30)

Indian Launch Proves New Upper Stage (Source: Times of India)
A successful Indian launch Thursday demonstrated improvements to the vehicle's second-stage engine. The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mark 2 rocket that placed the GSAT-6A satellite into its planned orbit incorporated improvements to the Vikas engine in the second stage that increased its thrust by six percent, increasing its payload capacity, as well as new electromechanical actuators. Those changes will be incorporated for future GSLV launches, including of the Chandrayaan-2 lunar mission now scheduled for October. (3/30)

Without Amos-8, IAI Angling for Government Lifeline in Telecom Satellite Manufacturing (Source: Space News)
Israeli satellite operator Spacecom’s decision to buy its next satellite from U.S. manufacturer Space Systems Loral is  jeopardizing Israel’s domestic comsat manufacturing capability. Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has in the past 16 months lost twice to foreign manufacturers in competitions to build new satellites for Spacecom, its primary comsat customer. Spacecom, after procuring the large multi-payload Amos-6 telecom satellite from IAI in 2012, has since gone to Boeing for Amos-17 and now SSL for Amos-8.

IAI differs from most satellite manufacturers in that it does not have consistent government demand for telecom satellites, usually military in nature, to balance out fluctuations in commercial business. Without government demand to offset an absence of commercial orders, IAI faces the uphill challenge of sustaining its comsat manufacturing capability — a capability IAI ironically keeps because of a desire within Israel to have a domestic satellite manufacturer. (3/29)

Pilots Spot UFOs While Flying Over Arizona (Source: CNN)
Two commercial pilots flying over the Arizona desert claim they saw an unidentified flying object pass overhead, according to a radio broadcast released by the Federal Aviation Administration. A Learjet pilot and an American Airlines pilot saw the object on February 24 and radioed the regional air traffic controller in Albuquerque.

"American 1095, affirmative," the controller said. "We had an aircraft in front of you that reported something pass over him and, uh, we didn't have any targets. So just, uh, let me know if you see anything pass over you." "Alright," the pilot said. Shortly, the pilot radioed traffic control also reporting the mysterious object. "It's American 1095. Yeah, something just passed over us," the pilot said. "I don't know what it was, but at least two-three thousand feet above us. Yeah, it passed right over the top of us." (3/29)

An Insecure Space (Source: AFCEA Signal)
The growing dependence on space for terrestrial systems leaves the United States—-and its allies–-vulnerable. The U.S.’ national security space systems are not only used for combat operations but also for counterterrorism operations and peacetime efforts. So losing dominance in space would not only degrade space capabilities, but also the nation’s traditional terrestrial capabilities in the land, sea and air domains, said Douglas Loverro, former DOD deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy. Click here. (3/28) https://www.afcea.org/content/insecure-space

Kazakhstan to Create Space Monitoring System (Source: Interfax)
The Aerospace Committee of Kazakhstan's Ministry of Defense and Aerospace Industry has started creating and developing infrastructure for space data collection based on the Earth Remote Sensing System (ERS), Kazcosmos said. The national operator of the ERS system and SVSN (the Kazakhstan Garysh Sapary National Company) will offer data analysis services and provide government agencies and organizations access to the geography portal free of charge, according to the statement. (3/29)

World View Launches NASA Payload From Spaceport Tucson (Source: Arizona Daily Star)
World View Enterprises successfully launched one of its stratospheric balloon vehicles carrying a payload for NASA from Spaceport Tucson on Thursday morning. The company also announced a new investment round of $26.5 million led by a prominent Silicon Valley private-equity investment firm. Thursday’s high-altitude mission took off from the spaceport, adjacent to World View’s headquarters south of Tucson International Airport. (3/30)

ARPA-E Joins NASA in Hosting Energy Technology Competition (Source: DOE)
The Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) today joined NASA in launching a new NASA iTech challenge, a competition inviting the nation’s top entrepreneurs and researchers to showcase their ideas for transformative energy concepts. The challenge seeks to identify innovative technologies that can improve energy generation, storage and distribution to the benefit of both space exploration and life on Earth. ARPA-E will support the competition and judging process by providing subject matter expertise across a wide variety of energy technologies. (3/30)

Astronauts Have a Superhuman Ability to Manage Stress (Source: Daily Beast)
It’s physical as well as mental. Astronauts float weightlessly in a fully enclosed spacecraft 248 miles above the ground, orbiting the planet about 16 times a day. Microgravity, while a triumphantly rare and wonderful thing to experience, also wreaks havoc on bodies as every day passes, causing eyes to deteriorate, the heart and muscles to atrophy, and bones to shrink and become brittle—-and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Click here. (3/30)