Space Resources Company
Co-Founder Sets Sights on Next Wave of Space Startups
(Source: Space News)
A longtime space advocate is stepping away from the space resources
company he helped found more than five years ago and now plans to help
develop the next generation of space startups. Rick Tumlinson said he
was stepping down as chairman of the board of Deep Space Industries
(DSI), a company he helped establish in 2012. He will remain involved
with the company as chairman emeritus but will not be active on a
day-to-day basis with DSI.
Tumlinson said he’s leaving DSI on good terms, and with the company in
good health. “The company is in a great place right now,” he said.
“Things are just looking very bright, so it’s a good time to hand it
off to others.” DSI, based in Silicon Valley, announced April 17
raising a Series A round of more than $3.5 million from a group of
private investors. It has won contracts for Comet, its smallsat
thruster that uses water as propellant. That includes a deal to provide
20 Comet thrusters for the BlackSky constellation of imaging
satellites. (4/25)
Bill Gates-Backed
EarthNow Satellite Firm Will Boost Space Coast Manufacturing
(Source: Orlando Sentinel)
An emerging manufacturing hub for satellites and rockets near Kennedy
Space Center is already getting a boost from a new player called
EarthNow that is planning to build many more satellites there. A
startup based in Seattle, EarthNow says it will use OneWeb’s new plant
on Florida's Space Coast to build a network of several hundred camera
satellites to monitor the Earth “in real time.”
OneWeb, which has yet to start production at the plant, plans to build
at least 900 satellites for its space-based global communication
network. To imagine EarthNow, picture Google maps or similar satellite
photos – but with the ability to see what the world looks like live and
potentially check on whether strange vehicles are parked on your
property or whether any forest fires are breaking out nearby. (4/25)
Former NASA Administrator
Weighs in on New Space Agency Head (Source: EOS)
What are some of the challenges that the new NASA administrator faces?
Eos interviewed Charles Bolden, who was NASA administrator from 2009 to
2017 during the Obama administration. The interview has been condensed
and lightly edited for flow and grammar. Click here.
(4/26)
NASA Will Pay More For
Less ISS Cargo Under New Commercial Contracts (Source:
Space News)
NASA will pay more money for less cargo delivered to the International
Space Station under a set of follow-on commercial cargo contracts
awarded in 2016, according to a report by the agency’s inspector
general. The report, released April 26 by NASA’s Office of Inspector
General (OIG), also flagged a number of issues with all three companies
that received Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) 2 contracts, from one
company’s reliance on a single, unproven spacecraft to use of foreign
hardware by another.
Under the existing CRS contracts awarded in 2008, Orbital ATK and
SpaceX will deliver an estimated 93,800 kilograms of cargo to the ISS
over 31 missions for a total cost of $5.93 billion. With the CRS-2
contracts, those two companies and Sierra Nevada will transport 87,900
kilograms to the station on 21 missions for a projected cost of $6.31
billion. On a per-kilogram basis, cargo transported to the ISS on CRS-2
missions will cost 14 percent more than that under the ongoing CRS
contract.
The report identified several reasons for the increased CRS-2 costs.
One is an increase in per-kilogram costs for SpaceX missions by 50
percent. That increase, the company told OIG, is due to modifications
of the Dragon spacecraft’s interior to accommodate additional cargo,
longer missions and accelerated cargo loading and unloading, including
quicker access to cargo after the spacecraft returns to Earth. (4/26)
United Launch Alliance
Names John Elbon Chief Operating Officer (Source: ULA)
United Launch Alliance has named veteran aerospace industry executive
John Elbon as its next Chief Operating Officer, succeeding Dan Collins,
who retired early this year. Elbon joins ULA from Boeing where he
served as Vice President and General Manager for Space Exploration. He
was responsible for the strategic direction of Boeing's civil space
programs and support of NASA programs such as the International Space
Station (ISS), Commercial Crew Development program and the Space Launch
System. (4/26)
Chinese Long March 11
Rocket Delivers Five Commercial Satellites to Orbit
(Source: SpaceFlight Now)
Five commercial Chinese satellites carrying video and hyperspectral
imaging sensors took off Thursday aboard a Long March 11 booster. The
five small satellites are part of a larger Earth-imaging fleet under
development by Zhuhai Orbita Aerospace Science and Technology Co. based
in southern China’s Guangdong province.
Known as the Zhuhai 1 constellation, the commercial remote sensing
network will survey natural resources, cities, crops and forests, and
other environmental features. Zhuhai aims to deploy 34 video,
hyperspectral, and radar imaging craft over the next few years. (4/26)
The Military Paid for a
Study on Sea Level Rise. The Results Were Scary. (Source:
Washington Post)
More than a thousand low-lying tropical islands risk becoming
“uninhabitable” by the middle of the century — or possibly sooner —
because of rising sea levels, upending the populations of some island
nations and endangering key U.S. military assets, according to new
research published Wednesday.
The threats to the islands are twofold. In the long term, the rising
seas threaten to inundate the islands entirely. More immediately, as
seas rise, the islands will more frequently deal with large waves that
crash farther onto the shore, contaminating their drinkable water
supplies with ocean saltwater, according to the research.
The islands face climate-change-driven threats to their water supplies
“in the very near future,” according to the study, published in the
journal Science Advances. The study focused on a part of the Marshall
Islands in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Hilda Heine, president of the
Marshall Islands, said in an interview that Wednesday’s journal article
“brings home the seriousness” of the predicament facing her island
nation. (4/25)
As Human Spaceflights Get
Closer, the Competition for Launch Contracts Heats Up
(Source: Washington Post)
For a decade, there was only one company for the Pentagon to turn to
for launching its satellites into space: the joint venture of Lockheed
Martin and Boeing known as the United Launch Alliance. A few years ago,
Elon Musk’s SpaceX ended the company’s lucrative monopoly, after suing
for the right to compete for the launches. Now, two more companies are
building rockets that would be capable of vying for the launch
contracts, which can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars each.
Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Jeffrey P. Bezos, and
Orbital ATK, the Dulles-based outfit that already launches cargo to the
International Space Station for NASA and does a lot of Pentagon
business, are eyeing the contracts, company officials said. (Bezos owns
The Washington Post.)
The launch market has gone through a disruption period, led by SpaceX,
in an effort to lower the cost of getting to space. With all that’s
changing, Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith said in a recent interview that, “I
don’t think that the past is a good predictor of the future,” which he
said was true for the commercial satellite market as well. Click here.
(4/25)
ESA and NASA to
Investigate Bringing Mars Soil to Earth (Source: ESA)
ESA and NASA signed a statement of intent today to explore concepts for
missions to bring samples of martian soil to Earth. Spacecraft in orbit
and on Mars’s surface have made many exciting discoveries, transforming
our understanding of the planet and unveiling clues to the formation of
our Solar System, as well as helping us understand our home planet. The
next step is to bring samples to Earth for detailed analysis in
sophisticated laboratories where results can be verified independently
and samples can be reanalysed as laboratory techniques continue to
improve.
Bringing Mars to Earth is no simple undertaking—it would require at
least three missions from Earth and one never-been-done-before rocket
launch from Mars. A first mission, NASA’s 2020 Mars Rover, is set to
collect surface samples in pen-sized canisters as it explores the Red
Planet. Up to 31 canisters will be filled and readied for a later
pickup – geocaching gone interplanetary.
In the same period, ESA’s ExoMars rover, which is also set to land on
Mars in 2021, will be drilling up to two meters below the surface to
search for evidence of life. A second mission with a small fetch rover
would land nearby and retrieve the samples in a martian
search-and-rescue operation. This rover would bring the samples back to
its lander and place them in a Mars Ascent Vehicle – a small rocket to
launch the football-sized container into Mars orbit. (4/26)
Studying DNA Aboard the
International Space Station (Source: NASA)
What do astronauts, microbes and plants all have in common? Each relies
on DNA – essentially a computer code for living things – to grow and
thrive. The microscopic size of DNA, however, can create some big
challenges for studying it aboard the International Space Station.
Click here.
(4/26)
Master Replicas Group
Taps NASA Data to Shape 'Space Terrains' (Source:
CollectSpace)
You can now decorate your desk or wall with the prominent features of
the moon and Mars thanks to NASA spacecraft data and a Smithsonian
partnership. Master Replicas Group has introduced its first two "Space
Terrains," scale models of the moon's Tycho crater and the Olympus Mons
volcano on Mars. Each ten-inch (24.4-cm) cast-resin square is based on
the information from NASA's Lunar or Mars reconnaissance orbiters (LRO
or MRO). (4/26)
Lawmakers Propose
Creating New US Space Command in Defense Policy Bill
(Source: Defense News)
In its portion of the 2019 defense policy bill, the House Armed
Services’ Strategic Forces Subcommittee is proposing a new U.S. Space
Command in lieu of a separate space service. But the fight over a Space
Corps isn’t over just yet. Reps. Mike Rogers, R-AL, and Jim Cooper,
D-TN, the top lawmakers on the committee and leading proponents of
establishing a separate Space Corps, remain convinced an independent
space service is the best course of action.
However, they want to wait for a Defense Department assessment on how
to optimize the military’s space enterprise before charging forward on
a Space Corps, a House Armed Services Committee aide told reporters
during a Wednesday background briefing. President Donald Trump in March
gave remarks at Marine Air Station Miramar in California, during which
he appeared to support the establishment of a space war-fighting
service. (4/26)
NASA Budgeting Reveals
Dim Hopes for Humans Going to Mars (Source: Ars Technica)
When it comes to spaceflight, there are crazy optimistic schedules like
those that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk sometimes tosses about, and then
there's just plain crazy. Some recent comments from the chief executive
of Boeing, an aerospace company that simultaneously holds the most
lucrative contracts in NASA’s exploration, International Space Station,
and commercial crew programs, seem to fall into the latter category.
Speaking at a recent forum about NASA’s plans to send humans to Mars,
Boeing’s Dennis Muilenburg offered his own opinion. "I anticipate that
we will put the first person on Mars in my lifetime,” he said. “I think
in this decade, and the first person that gets there is going to be on
a Boeing rocket."
This is a preposterous statement. NASA may one day send humans to Mars
on a “Boeing rocket”—the Space Launch System—but it will not happen in
this decade or the next. In fact, on the present schedule, and because
the staggering development costs of Boeing’s rocket will measure in the
tens of billions of dollars, NASA seems unlikely to land humans even on
the Moon in the 2020s. Mars remains a distant, evanescent dream. (4/26)
SpaceX: Starlink Internet
to 'Change the World' (Source: Florida Today)
SpaceX is expected to spend billions on its ambitious goal to construct
a massive constellation of internet-beaming satellites that will
"change the world," the company's president and chief operating officer
said during a conference earlier this month.
The project, known as Starlink in federal filings, aims to launch
thousands of satellites on SpaceX rockets to low Earth orbit that can
eventually beam internet connectivity back down, bypassing the need for
complicated ground-based infrastructure. Users, according to the
federal documents, need only have a laptop-sized terminal to gain
connectivity to the constellation of nearly 12,000 minifridge-sized
satellites.
"We actually don't chat very much about this particular project,"
SpaceX's Gwynne Shotwell said during a newly released Technology,
Entertainment, Design discussion, also known as a TED Talk. "This is
probably one of the most challenging – if not the most challenging –
projects we've undertaken." "It'll cost the company about $10 billion
or more to deploy this system," she said. (4/26)
No comments:
Post a Comment