April 26, 2018

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)