April 5, 2018

Farmers Wanted for Life on Mars (Source: Growing Produce)
Living in Florida has its perks, sure: the temperate weather, an abundance of beautiful beaches, exotic wildlife, Grapefruit League baseball, amusement parks galore, and a bounty of fresh produce available year-round — to name a few.

Another chamber of commerce highlight would be the ability to have a front-row seat for cutting-edge space exploration. Florida’s Space Coast has seen a resurgence lately thanks in large part to SpaceX and its CEO Elon Musk. Also the leader of Tesla Motors, the multibazillionaire tech geek with a soft spot for sustainability has far-reaching aspirations with SpaceX. Some of those dreams have played out for the world to see, capturing the imagination and attention of millions.

In recent years, there have been multiple projects experimenting with different ways to grow food in outer space. Astronauts on the International Space Station have successfully used agriculture technology to produce several lettuce crops for interstellar consumption. Did you know the University of Florida has a Space Plants Lab? For nearly two decades, its team leaders have experimented and collaborated on missions with NASA and yes, SpaceX. (4/3)

XPRIZE Foundation Seeks to Continue Lunar Prize Without Google (Source: XPRIZE)
Thanks to the concluded Google Lunar XPRIZE, at least five private companies have solidified launch contracts and are hoping to land on the surface of the Moon within the next two years. Because of this tremendous progress, XPRIZE has decided to re-launch a Lunar-focused XPRIZE competition with new parameters that will complete our original mission of making the impossible possible. XPRIZE is seeking a Title Sponsor for the new Lunar XPRIZE, taking over for the support provided by Google. (4/5)

UrtheCast On the Edge (Source: SpaceQ)
It’s been rough start to the year for UrtheCast as it tries to move forward with its plan to build its UrtheDaily Constellation. A confluence of events though has the company on the edge of a precipice. The UrtheDaily Constellation would include eight medium-resolution optical satellites that would be built U.K. based Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. The Constellation would provide global coverage, excluding Antartica, of high-quality multispectral imagery at 5 meter Ground Sampling Distance (GSD).

UrtheCast has made progress on building the the ground segment of the Constellation infrastructure, but to move forward with the expensive build phase of the space segment, the satellites themselves, is where UrtheCast has run into issues, funding issues to be specific. The inability to close the financing for the UrtheDaily Constellation and significantly lower Earth Observation revenue with depleting cash reserves, is why UrtheCast finds itself in serious trouble. (4/3)

DNI: Several Countries are Challenging U.S. Space Dominance (Source: Space News)
The Director of National Intelligence warned that several countries are challenging U.S. dominance in outer space. In a meeting with reporters Wednesday, Dan Coats said he was "fully aware" of efforts by countries like China and Russia to develop anti-satellite capabilities. The U.S., he said, needs to "up our game" to response to those and other threats. "We have to become much more agile, more innovative, more creative." (4/4)

India Plans Navsat Launch (Source: Times of India)
India's space agency plans to launch a navigation satellite next week despite continued problems with a newly launched communications satellite. K. Sivan, chairman of ISRO, said that the launch of the IRNSS-1I satellite on a PSLV rocket is still scheduled for April 12. That satellite will replace an older satellite whose onboard atomic clocks have failed. Sivan said efforts continue to restore contact with the GSAT-6A satellite, which stopped communicating with controllers after a second orbit-raising maneuver last weekend. (4/4)

NOAA Plans to Reduce Remote-Sensing Licensing Time (Source: Space News)
The NOAA office that licenses commercial remote-sensing systems has significantly reduced review times for license applications. At a meeting this week of an advisory committee, officials with the Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs office said the average review time for license applications has dropped from 210 days in 2015 to 91 last year. That decrease was due in part to an improved interagency review process. The office is set to be combined with the Office of Space Commerce and be moved from NOAA to the office of the Secretary of Commerce as part of broader reforms announced at the National Space Council meeting in February. (4/4)

Thousands of Black Holes at Our Galaxy's Core (Source: Space.com)
The center of our galaxy could be home to thousands of black holes. Astronomers analyzing data from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory said they have discovered a dozen X-ray binaries in the heart of the Milky Way, which feature a black hole with a companion star. The discovery supports models that predict that as many as 10,000 black holes could exist in the center of the galaxy, in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole several million times the mass of the sun. (4/4)

Alaska Spaceport Seeks to More Than Double its Annual Launch Capacity (Source: AP)
An Alaska spaceport is considering amending its FAA license to be able to support more launches. The Alaska Aerospace Corp. said it's planing a new environmental impact study to identify any issues involved with hosting up to 24 launches a year at Pacific Spaceport Complex-Alaska. That spaceport, on Kodiak Island, is currently licensed for up to nine launches a year, but Alaska Aerospace sees growing demand from small launch vehicle developers interested in using the facility. (4/5)

NASA Selects Lockheed Martin to Build Low Boom Flight Demonstrator (Source: UPI)
NASA has tapped Lockheed Martin to build a quiet supersonic demonstrator aircraft, seen as key technology in lifting the US ban on commercial supersonic flight. The low-boom flight demonstrator should take flight in 2021. (4/3)

UK Family Killed in Violent Crash After Watching SpaceX Launch (Source: Florida Today)
Four family members who were killed in a Titusville crash Tuesday after a trip to Kennedy Space Center have been identified by city officials. The tourists from Bristol, England, died when their Mitsubishi sedan collided with a Ford pickup truck.

The Stephenson family had just left the Kennedy Space Center and was on the way back to a rental house in Orlando when the fatal crash happened. Prior to the crash, they had watched SpaceX launch a Falcon 9 rocket with supplies to the International Space Station from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. (4/3)

SpaceX Reaches the Promised Land of Launching Every Two Weeks (Source: Ars Technica)
SpaceX has long talked a good game about increasing its launch cadence, but the company now appears to be delivering in a big way. After two launches in four days, the California-based company has now flown seven rockets in 2018—six Falcon 9 missions and one Falcon Heavy. That breaks down to one launch every 13 days this year.

This is a significant number because it brings the company within its longstanding goal of launching a rocket every two weeks. Indeed, at this pace, SpaceX will launch a total of 27 rockets in 2018, which is consistent with expectations set by the company's president and chief operating officer, Gwynne Shotwell.

At the end of 2017, when the company was in the midst of shattering all of its previous launch records by flying 18 missions, Shotwell said SpaceX would aim for more in the coming year. “We will increase our cadence next year about 50 percent,” Shotwell told Space News. “We’ll fly more next year than this year, knock on wood, and I think we will probably level out at about that rate, 30 to 40 per year.” (4/4)

From KFC To The Pentagon: Stratollite Gains Favor With U.S. Military (Source: Aviation Week)
The company that lifted a Kentucky Fried Chicken Zinger burger into the stratosphere is now landing contracts with the U.S. Defense Department for remote-sensing and communications projects. From a 700-ft. launchpad in Tucson, Arizona, World View Enterprises’ Stratollite Flight Services has begun carving out a niche market carrying commercial and military payloads to the edge of space, with plans to be fully operational with a multimonth lighter-than-air platform in 2019.

Using technology initially developed for Google executive Alan Eustace’s record-breaking (and briefly supersonic) freefall jump from 135,908 ft. on Oct. 24, 2014, World View’s newly developed, helium-filled balloons have captured the imagination of the U.S. military, including the Missile Defense Agency and U.S. Southern Command. It is also capturing new sponsors, as World View on March 29 named Tom Ingersoll, former Skybox Imaging CEO, as its new executive chairman while unveiling a $26.5 million Series C round of financing led by Silicon Valley investor Accel. (3/30)

NASA Taps FSU Researcher to Study Space Radiation, Astronaut Health (Source: FSU)
For astronauts soaring through the limitless expanse of deep space, cosmic rays pose a major problem. The powerful radiation that pulses just above Earth’s atmosphere can have devastating effects on human beings, imperiling any crewed mission beyond the safety of the planet’s magnetic field.

Now, Florida State University researcher Michael Delp is part of a new team working to surmount this critical obstacle to human exploration of space. As part of a $17.7 million NASA research initiative, he and a group of scientists from around the country are set to explore questions of astronaut health and performance during extended missions outside of low-Earth orbit.

Delp, the Betty M. Watts Professor and dean of the College of Human Sciences, will examine the apparent link between deep space radiation exposure and cardiovascular disease and evaluate countermeasures that could help mitigate the harm radiation inflicts on the cardiovascular system. (4/3)

Aerospace Tech Startups Get a Chance to Pitch at JPL (Source: Space Daily)
Fifteen startup companies in the aerospace sector descended on NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, on March 15 to pitch their ideas to a packed von Karman auditorium filled with JPL technologists, corporate and government agency leaders, and potential investors.

The event, co-hosted by JPL and Starburst Accelerator, gave each presenter about 15 minutes to pitch their products and business plans in the hopes of bending the ears of investors, and raising awareness of the emergent business sector in the process. For JPL, the occasion was a chance for technology leaders and program offices across the Lab to get an up-close look at some of the innovative concepts coming from aerospace startups. (4/3)

Storm Hunter Launched to International Space Station (Source: Space Daily)
ESA's observatory to monitor electrical discharges in the upper atmosphere is on its way to the International Space Station. The Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor is riding in the Dragon cargo vehicle that lifted off at 20:30 GMT (16:40 local time) from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA.

A suite of instruments will search for high-altitude electrical discharges associated with stormy weather conditions. It is the first time that such a set of sensitive cameras, light sensors and X- and gamma-ray detectors are flying together to study the inner anatomy of luminous phenomena in Earth's upper atmosphere and the link with bursts of high-energy radiation. (4/3)

Intergalactic Fashion Is Trending on the Runways, But It Has Nothing on the Real Thing (Source: Vogue)
“We would really like to focus on the terrestrial market, which is much larger than the space market,” says Ted Southern earnestly. The issue of getting earthbound human beings into one’s garments tends to be pretty cut and dry for most fashion companies, but Final Frontier Design is not most fashion companies. As their brand name might tell you, Southern and his partner Nikolay Moiseev specialize in clothing for outer space, namely intravehicular (IVA) for inside a ship, and extravehicular (EVA) for outside, space suits. Click here. (4/3)

Study Suggests Widespread Presence of Water on the Moon (Source: NAU)
NAU researchers analyzed remote-sensing data from two lunar missions and concluded that water appears to be evenly spread across the surface of the moon, not confined to a particular region or type of terrain as previously thought. Although the water is not believed to be readily accessible, the findings of this study could help researchers understand the origin of the moon’s water and determine its feasibility as a future resource for space exploration. (4/3)

Artificial Intelligence Helps to Predict Likelihood of Life on Other Worlds (Source: EWASS)
Developments in artificial intelligence may help us to predict the probability of life on other planets, according to new work by a team based at Plymouth University. The study uses artificial neural networks (ANNs) to classify planets into five types, estimating a probability of life in each case, which could be used in future interstellar exploration missions.

The team, based at Plymouth University, have trained their network to classify planets into five different types, based on whether they are most like the present-day Earth, the early Earth, Mars, Venus or Saturn’s moon Titan. All five of these objects are rocky bodies known to have atmospheres, and are among the most potentially habitable objects in our Solar System. (4/3)

Supporting America’s Plan to Lead on the Moon (Source: Space News)
It’s striking that the global leader in space exploration went from safely landing and returning astronauts from the lunar surface to lacking the national capability to land even the smallest of payloads on the lunar surface for nearly 50 years. During this gap, our international competitors have pressed on. Most recently, Chinese landers and rovers have accessed the lunar surface, while numerous others have outlined their own near-term lunar plans. Where America once undeniably led in lunar science and exploration, other countries have stepped in to demonstrate new leadership on the moon.

Fortunately, over the last decade, a number of American companies have been working with NASA to develop robotic lunar lander systems with an eye towards capturing the emerging global market of small payloads. Governments, academia and the private sector have all demonstrated demand for affordable access to the surface of the moon through small lander services. As we prepare to mark the 50th anniversary of the first Apollo lunar landings, we’re on the cusp of an exciting return to our nearest planetary neighbor with the administration’s 2019 proposed budget for NASA. Click here. (4/4)