April 23, 2018

No Way Out? Aliens on 'Super-Earth' Planets May Be Trapped by Gravity (Source: Space.com)
"Super-Earth" planets are giant-size versions of Earth, and some research has suggested that they're more likely to be habitable than Earth-size worlds. But a new study reveals how difficult it would be for any aliens on these exoplanets to explore space. To launch the equivalent of an Apollo moon mission, a rocket on a super-Earth would need to have a mass of about 440,000 tons (400,000 metric tons), due to fuel requirements, the study said. That's on the order of the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.

"On more-massive planets, spaceflight would be exponentially more expensive," said study author Michael Hippke, an independent researcher affiliated with the Sonneberg Observatory in Germany. "Such civilizations would not have satellite TV, a moon mission or a Hubble Space Telescope." (4/23)

Russia Wants Lunar Gateway To Be Global Project (Source: Aviation Week)
The International Space Station (ISS) partnership should take on the development and operation of NASA’s planned Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway as part of an expanded, multilateral approach to space exploration and development, said Sergei Krikalev, director of human spaceflight for the Russian space agency Roscosmos. NASA intends to build the gateway beginning with the 2022 launch of a power and propulsion module. The outpost is intended to serve as a staging platform for human sorties to the lunar surface and a base to assemble spacecraft for eventual journeys to Mars.

Roscosmos proposes to add a research module to the gateway and fly crews there using a superheavy-lift rocket and manned spaceship. “We see this new international initiative as a sequel of the International Space Station program to be built under the same principles ... as an international project without the primacy or the priority of one of the participating partners,” Krikalev said. (4/18)

NASA Scientists Rank The Best And Worst Space Movies (Source: ValueWalk)
If there’s one organization that has a lot to say about space, it would be NASA. While their focus is primarily on expanding our reaches into the rest of our galaxy, NASA’s female scientists also have some pretty strong opinions on the best and worst space movies around. Click here. (4/22) https://www.valuewalk.com/2018/04/nasa-ranks-best-and-worst-space-movies/

The Bridenstine Era Begins at NASA (Source: Space Review)
On Monday, Jim Bridenstine will be formally sworn in as NASA’s next administrator. Jeff Foust describes the end of the long, contentious confirmation process for Bridenstine, and what it means for the agency now that he’s finally running it. Click here. (4/23)
 
Engineering Mars Commercial Rocket Propellant Production for the Big Falcon Rocket (Source: Space Review)
SpaceX’s plans for round-trip missions to and from Mars using its BFR will require the use of propellants made on Mars for the trip home. In the first of a three-part article, Steve Hoeser discusses potential ways to manufacture methane and oxygen using Martian resources. Click here. (4/23)
 
The Challenge of Agile Launch (Source: Space Review)
Small launch vehicles are proliferating, but can they meet military needs for launching payloads on short notice? Jeff Foust reports on a new competition announced by DARPA to promote responsive launch systems, provided they can overcome regulatory hurdles. Click here. (4/23)

NASA Ice Survey Generates Weird Images (Source: Huffington Post)
NASA scientists are working to solve a mystery in the Arctic ice. Operation IceBridge is a project that sends flights over both polar regions to photograph and map land and sea ice. And images that were taken during a flight on April 14 over the Beaufort Sea, 50 miles northwest of the Mackenzie River Delta, showed a series of unusual shapes in the sea ice.

“We saw these sorta-circular features only for a few minutes today,” mission scientist John Sonntag wrote from the field, per NASA. “I don’t recall seeing this sort of thing elsewhere.” NASA also released an image with the main features labeled. Click here. (4/23)

Boeing, Lockheed, ULA Big Winners in Federal Space Contracting (Source: Space News)
Boeing, Lockheed Martin and United Launch Alliance were the big winners in winning federal contracts for space projects. A report by Govini concluded that the companies combined won more than half of the $83 billion in contract obligations for space platforms and hypersonic technologies between 2011 and 2017. SpaceX was in fourth place because of its ISS cargo and commercial crew work. Former astronaut Terry Virts, who worked on the report, said he sees "creative and non-traditional opportunities for partnerships" between companies and government agencies, like the Defense Department, in space. (4/23)

Payload Matchmaking by Lockheed Martin (Source: Space News)
A Lockheed Martin subsidiary says it's getting a lot of interest for its payload matchmaking effort. Lon Levin, president and CEO of GEOShare, says the venture has become "the Match.com of the satellite world" by matching customers with payloads they would like to fly with those with orbital slots they need to use. GEOShare then creates "condosats" with several payloads sharing the cost of launch, insurance and the LM 2100 satellite bus. Levin said the company was in "active, advanced" discussions with potential customers for the first GEOShare mission. (4/23)

Air Force Wants More Fast Prototyping for Space Systems (Source: Space News)
The Air Force wants to use more "fast prototyping" for future space systems. Lt. Gen. John Thompson, commander of the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, said last week that the service plans to make more use of other transaction authorities to allow for rapid development of prototype systems instead of "automatically defaulting to very large exquisite programs of record." That approach will be used for the development of new ground-control and data-processing software for the SBIRS missile warning satellite system. (4/23)

Scotland Becoming a Center for Smallsats (Source: Sky News)
Glasgow has become a new center for satellite manufacturing, thanks to smallsats. The Scottish city is home to Clyde Space, Alba Orbital and Spire, who build more satellites there than in any other city outside of the United States. Those companies specialize in low-cost cubesats either for their own use or for various customers. The concentration of smallsat activity there is an example of the "quiet success story" of Britain's space industry, according to science minister Sam Gyimah. (4/23)

Russia Offers to Replace Lost Angolan Satellite (Source: TASS)
Russia has offered to build a replacement communications satellite for Angola after the apparent failure of AngoSat-1. An Angolan government minister said this weekend that his government will accept an offer to build AngoSat-2 from Roscosmos. The new satellite, with "better technical possibilities," will be ready for launch within 18 months. AngoSat-1 launched last December but malfunctioned shortly after reaching orbit. (4/23)

Cosmonaut Passes Away (Source: CollectSpace)
A former Soviet cosmonaut who flew to three different space stations has passed away. Vladimir Lyakhov flew on missions to Salyut 6 in 1979, Salyut 7 in 1983 and Mir in 1988, spending 333 days in space over those missions. He later served as the deputy director for cosmonaut training and deputy commander of the cosmonaut corps. Lyakhov died Thursday at the age of 76. (4/23)

NASA’s Realigning Dual Mobile Launcher Plan Targets Extra SLS Block 1 Missions (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
Space Launch System (SLS) managers are now planning for the utilization of two Mobile Launchers (MLs), allowing for additional use of the rocket on both crewed and cargo-only missions. The first major cargo-only flight is being focused on the Europa Clipper mission now set to ride on a Block 1 SLS, a variant which may now fly four times – instead of just once – before the more-powerful Block 1B variant is ready and launched off the new ML-2 in the middle of the 2020s.

Somewhat hamstrung by the instructions in political Authorization Act requirements, the early missions of the Space Launch System (SLS) called for the Block 1 version to be focused on test flight use only. Originally, Exploration Mission -1 (EM-1) and Exploration Mission -2 (EM-2) were near-mirrors of each other, with an uncrewed Orion sent on a test flight “around” the Moon before the mission was repeated with a crewed Orion.

Refinements to that plan have been numerous, even including an evaluation into launching a crew on the first SLS mission (EM-1), which would have been the first time a crew would have rode on a rocket’s maiden flight since John Young and Bob Crippen launched with Columbia on STS-1 in 1981. With the crewed EM-1 plan rejected, managers then looked into bringing the more powerful Block 1B rocket online sooner, as early as EM-2. The major change to the rocket between Block 1 and Block 1B is the upper stage, with Block 1 using the tried and tested DCSS (Delta Cryogenic Second Stage) and the Block 1B utilizing the new Exploration Upper Stage (EUS). (4/23)