April 12, 2018

South Florida Rocketry Teams Prepare for National Competition (Source: NBC 6 Miami)
The next generation of NASA astronauts and SpaceX engineers might be training right now at two Broward County high schools. The rocketeers at Plantation High School and the team at Western High in Davie have each blasted off into the Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC), sort of the national finals for rocketry, which will be held in Virginia next month.

“Oh my goodness, this is incredible, they have put so much work, we all have put in so much work,” said Magda Murphy-Bozkurt, the physics teacher who sponsors the rocketry club at Western High. The TARC is the culmination of an entire school year of preparation. “We have a full year for the competition but we need almost every single weekend to practice, to get ready, get our qualification flights,” said Dylan Ogrodowski, the president of Western’s rocket club. The students have to design and program their rockets to fly exactly 800 feet up and then land within 43 seconds, and oh yeah, two eggs inside the rocket must be intact when it returns to earth.

The rocketry teams work during school, after school, on weekends, it’s a sky-high commitment to perfect their rockets. Making it to the national finals is a major honor. Of the 800 schools that apply, 100 are selected to compete. Plantation has been there 15 years in a row. Western is on a four-year streak. So failure is not an option, or is it? (4/11)

Reaction Engines Receives $37.6 Million Investment (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Reaction Engines has received a large investment by Boeing HorizonX and two other companies. Boeing joined Rolls-Royce and defense company BAE Systems in a $37.6 million fundraising round for U.K.-based propulsion company Reaction Engines. This is both the second foreign investment and the second space investment for Boeing HorizonX Ventures, which contributed to the $15 million funding round for Australian satellite company Myriota last month.

Reaction Engines’ advanced propulsion “could change the future of air and space travel,” according to Boeing HorizonX vice president Steve Nordlund. “We expect to leverage their revolutionary technology to support Boeing’s pursuit of hypersonic flight,” Nordlund said in a statement.

Reaction Engines, which has now raised more than $140 million over the last three years, is developing a hybrid jet and rocket engine. In theory, the company’s SABRE engine will be capable of operating as a jet at take-off and transitioning to a rocket at higher altitudes. (4/11)

SpaceX: We’ll Be Able to Take a Rocket to Shanghai — or Mars — ‘Within a Decade’ (Source: Recode)
Last year, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk got a lot of attention for a video proposing city-to-city travel — on Earth — using a rocket that’s designed for outer space. Today, speaking at the TED Conference in Vancouver, SpaceX president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell reiterated the company’s plans, pledging that the technology will be ready and operational “within a decade, for sure.”

“It’s definitely going to happen,” she said, interviewed onstage by TED’s Chris Anderson. The company also hopes to fly to Mars by then. A lot can (and probably will) change in a decade. But the idea is that a very large rocket, capable of carrying about 100 people, could fly like an aircraft and do point-to-point travel on Earth much faster than a plane — halfway across the globe in about 30 to 40 minutes, Shotwell said, landing on a pad 5 to 10 kilometers outside of a city center.

Shotwell estimated the ticket cost would be somewhere between economy and business class on a plane — so, likely in the thousands of dollars for transoceanic travel. “But you do it in an hour.” “I’m personally invested in this one,” she said, “because I travel a lot, and I do not love to travel. And I would love to get to see my customers in Riyadh, leave in the morning and be back in time to make dinner.” (4/11)

India Launches Navigation Satellite (Source: PTI)
India successfully launched a navigation satellite Wednesday. The PSLV rocket lifted off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at 6:34 p.m. Eastern and placed the IRNSS-1I satellite into its planned orbit. The satellite is intended to replace an earlier satellite whose onboard atomic clocks have malfunctioned. The satellite was also the second Indian navigation satellite built by private industry; the first, IRNSS-1H, was lost in a PSLV launch failure last August. (4/12)

Analysts: Space Weapons Proliferating, There is More Congestion and Competition (Source: Space News)
It is becoming harder to tell the difference between peaceful research projects and potential space weapons, a new study warns. The report by the Secure World Foundation, an open-source assessment of counterspace capabilities around the world, noted that the technologies to disrupt or damage space systems are not new, "but the circumstances surrounding them are." The report called for a "more open and public debate" on the potential development of counterspace capabilities and the implications to society and the economy if they were used. (4/12)

Proton Medium Variant Could Launch Constellations From Baikonur (Source: Space News)
A variant of the Proton rocket could be well-suited for launching satellite constellations. The Proton Medium is a version of the Proton that omits one stage, and thus eliminates a drop zone for launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. That opens up trajectories for launches to polar orbits, which could be used for the deployment of broadband satellite constellations planning global coverage. International Launch Services, which markets the Proton, says the first Proton Medium launch is scheduled for 2019. (4/12)

Suborbital Test Launches Delayed at New Mexico and Alaska Spaceports (Source: Space News)
Two companies planning suborbital launches last week suffered delays. Astra Space's suborbital test flight of its small launch vehicle from Kodiak Island, Alaska, was scrubbed Friday, but neither the company nor spaceport operator Alaska Aerospace disclosed details about the delay or when the launch might be rescheduled. Exos Aerospace had previously announced plans to do a launch of its SARGE reusable sounding rocket from Spaceport America in New Mexico Saturday, but postponed that launch because of weather conditions and a technical issue. The company has rescheduled that launch for May 5. (4/12)

Strong Opinions Expressed at Georgia Spaceport Public Meeting (Source: Brunswick News)
A public hearing on a spaceport environmental study generated strong reactions both in favor of and opposed to the launch site. The public hearing in Camden County, Georgia, Wednesday night discussed a draft environmental impact study for a launch site proposed in the county. Some people, including those who own property near the site, raised concerns about the risks of launches there, while others backed the spaceport and its potential economic benefits.

Opponents such as Steve Weinkle said the environmental impact statement was flawed and fell far short of what is required by law. Dick Parker, a property owner on Little Cumberland Island said the study misstated the facts about failure rates for rocket launches, which are anywhere from 2.5 percent to 6 percent. Parker also questioned why residents, campers and National Park Service staff who live or stay in the launch safety zone are designated “authorized” people who can stay on the island during a launch.

David Kyler, director for the Center for a Sustainable Coast, said he was very disturbed by the environmental impact statement, which he said was filled with “lots of errors” and superficial analysis. “This has got to be one of the worst ones I’ve ever seen,” he said. Atlanta lawyer Kevin Lang, whose family owns property on Little Cumberland Island, said the study doesn’t address the risks or impacts of a failed launch. (4/12)

Inconsistent Licensing Regulations for Small Satellites (Source: IEEE Spectrum)
The FCC has been inconsistent in evaluating the risks posed by smallsats, satellite developers complain. While the FCC refused to issue a license for four SpaceBee satellites, each one-quarter the size of a cubesat, because of orbital debris concerns, it has awarded licenses for other very small satellites. The developer of "Sprite" satellites, each weighing just 5 grams, was able to get an FCC license for a first, but unsuccessful mission, but was blocked by the FCC when he sought a license for a second similar mission, despite an assessment by NASA that found no orbital debris concerns. (4/12)

China's Lunar Lander May Carry Greenhouse (Source: Xinhua)
China's next lunar lander may carry a tiny greenhouse. The Chang'e-4 lander, scheduled to launch late this year to perform the first landing on the far side of the moon, will carry a "lunar mini biosphere" developed by 28 Chinese universities. The biosphere will carry seeds of potato and arabidopsis, a small flowering plant, and attempt to grow them while on the moon. (4/12)

Glacier Melting at Fastest Pace in Centuries (Source: USA Today)
One of the USA's tallest glaciers is melting at the fastest pace in 400 years, a new study reports. The study said melting on Mount Hunter in Alaska’s Denali National Park can be linked mainly to rising summer temperatures in the region. "We have not seen snow melt like this in at least four centuries,” said study lead author Dominic Winski, a glaciologist at Dartmouth College.

New ice cores taken from the top of Mt. Hunter show summers there now are least 2 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than they were during the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. Specifically, the ice core record shows 60 times more snow melt occurs today than did 150 years ago. (4/11)