April 6, 2018

No Space for Partnership: Analyst Predicts Dark Future for ISS Joint Project (Source: Space Daily)
Why the European nations don't cooperate with Russia in the space industry and manned spacecraft is a question which puzzles space industry expert Gerhard Kowalski. He told Sputnik in an interview what consequences the withdrawal of US funding from the ISS project could have.

The US plans to stop funding the International Space Station (ISS), announced recently, came as no surprise, according to space industry analyst and journalist Gerhard Kowalski. The partners earlier decided to jointly manage the ISS till 2024, and he thinks that it's natural that the current program runners want to start their own space projects as the US does. He emphasizes that the shut-down of the ISS is a bad sign. It is an example of how international cooperation works in space, and the politicians should follow the lead. (4/6)

Steps to Launching Wallops Rockets Focus of NASA Presentation April 12 (Source: NASA)
What happens on Wallops Island to prepare for a rocket launch? Learn about the steps required to launch a rocket from Wallops Island during the final installment of the Sounding Rocket Lecture Series at the Wallops Flight Facility Visitor Center at 5:30 p.m., Thursday, April 12.

The final presentation in the series “Part 3 – Launching from Wallops Island” will be given by engineering technicians Dan Walsh and Justin Revell and provide an overview of the sequence of events that occur on Wallops Island during a sounding rocket launch. Click here. (4/4)

The Commercial Space Race (Source: ERAU)
The race to commercialize space is accelerating. For decades, governments — intent upon establishing a national presence in this new frontier — have mostly footed the bill. But now, commercial enterprises are getting into the act in a big way. This new space revenue reality is setting the stage for a wave of pure space commercialization. Click here. (4/6)

FAA Awards $117 Million for Satellite-Supported Air Traffic Management (Source: Washington Technology)
Leidos has won $117 million from the FAA to develop a satellite system to help navigate aircraft in all phases of flight. This order covers the future seventh geostationary earth orbit satellite the FAA uses for its Wide Area Augmentation System that works to help airplanes use GPS throughout the flight, including approaches to airports.

Dubbed "GEO 7," the satellite is scheduled to launch during the first quarter of 2020. A follow-on operational phase over 10 years then starts in 2021. The order has a four-year development phase followed by the operational phase. Intelsat will be the space segment provider, while other technology partners U.S. Electrodynamics and Knight Sky will develop, test and integrate a payload for the new satellite and associated ground uplink stations. Leidos will manage the ground stations in an effort to ensure the satellite sends GPS navigation signals to aircraft. (4/2)

Big Ag Wants Farmers to Buy Into Satellite Imagery (Source: WIRED)
It might not be apparent unless you're driving through the mid-longitudes of Interstate 70, but around 40 percent of the land in the United States is farmland. Understanding what happens on that acreage is complicated—for individual farmers and agricultural conglomerates.

Granular—-a farm software business under the agriculture division of DowDuPont-—penned a deal with Planet. Planet is an aptly named company, with some 200 satellites around Earth, watching it and its goings-on all the time. As part of this multimillion-dollar, three-year gig announced Tuesday, Granular will get access to daily images of the globe, and some of Planet's six-year archive of snapshots.

Farmers have been interested in incorporating new data into their diet. Granular's products help manage 2 million acres of farmland in 36 states and four Canadian provinces. DuPont, the biotech-agriculture-materials science conglomerate, acquired Granular in August 2017—-just a month before it merged with Dow. Some farmers, sensibly, have been unsure about giving too much about their crops away to Big Ag. (3/20)

Is New Zealand the World's Best Launch Site? (Source: The Economist)
The Mahia peninsula, on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island, has been a holidaymakers’ haven for decades. It offers sandy beaches, hot springs and scenic trails. And, for those of a technological mindset, it also offers the world’s first private orbital-rocket-launching base. Launch Complex 1, as this base is known, sits at the tip of the peninsula and thus on the edge of the South Pacific ocean. Beyond it, the waters stretch uninterrupted by land for thousands of kilometers.

Few ships ply the area and few aircraft fly over it. A misfire or rocket stage falling into this wide expanse will thus inconvenience no one. Mahia is farther from the equator than most launch sites (lifting off from an equatorial pad extracts maximum additional velocity from Earth’s spin), but that is also an advantage. The sacrifice of some spin-assisted lift makes it easier to reach certain sorts of useful orbit, such as those that pass over the poles.

The intention is that the location of Launch Complex 1 will give customers a wide range of orbits to launch into. The complex is licensed to dispatch a rocket every 72 hours for the next 30 years. That proposed launch frequency means satellites can be got away quickly. Mr. Beck claims that Rocket Lab’s decision to build Launch Complex 1 is coincidental to his nationality. In his view Mahia really is the best available site. Time will tell if he is right. (4/6)

First-Ever Luxury Space Hotel, Aurora Station, to Offer Authentic Astronaut Experiences (Source: Orion Span)
The first-ever luxury space hotel was introduced today during the Space 2.0 Summit in San Jose, California. Named after the magical light phenomenon that illuminates the Earth's polar skies, Aurora Station is being developed by Orion Span and the company's team of space industry veterans, who have over 140 years of human space experience.

The first fully modular space station to ever debut, Aurora Station will operate as the first luxury hotel in space. The exclusive hotel will host six people at a time – including two crew members. Space travelers will enjoy a completely authentic, once-in-a-lifetime astronaut experience with extraordinary adventure during their 12-day journey, starting at $9.5M per person. Deposits are now being accepted for a future stay on Aurora Station, which is slated to launch in late 2021 and host its first guests in 2022. The fully refundable deposit is $80,000 per person and can be reserved online.

During their stay on Aurora Station, travelers will enjoy the exhilaration of zero gravity and fly freely throughout Aurora Station, gaze at the northern and southern aurora through the many windows, soar over their hometowns, take part in research experiments such as growing food while in orbit (which they can take home with them as the ultimate souvenir), revel in a virtual reality experience on the holodeck, and stay in touch or live stream with their loved ones back home via high-speed wireless Internet access. (4/5)

Ariane 5 Lofts Two Long-Awaited Telecom Satellites (Source: Space News)
Arianespace on April 5 launched two satellites for telecom operators that for separate reasons were both more than a year behind their original launch schedules. An Ariane 5 rocket took off from the European spaceport in French Guiana, delivering Japanese operator Sky Perfect Jsat’s DSN-1/Superbird-8 satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit 28 minutes after liftoff. British fleet operator Avanti’s Hylas-4 satellite separated another six minutes later. (4/5)

Pentagon Eyes `Tiny’ Rockets for Small Reconnaissance Satellites (Source: Bloomberg)
The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) released a draft request for proposal for the Rapid Acquisition of a Small Rocket, or RASR, program to boost “tiny” spy satellites into orbit. The NRO, which ovesees designing, building, launching, and maintaining America’s intelligence satellites, is seeking vendors that can supply rockets with the ability to launch multiple “SmallSats” using commercial dispensers with a mass not to exceed 150 kilograms to an altitude of 500 kilometers, according to the March 9 draft RFP.

The Defense Department agency didn’t describe the missions of the satellites. The so-called “Tiny” launch industry is comprised of companies such Rocket Lab Ltd.,which launched a 17-meter tall Electron rocket from a private facility in New Zealand on Jan 21. Vector Space Systems, launched it’s P-20 sub-orbital test rocket in June 2016 and plans to boost satellites into orbit from Alaska this year. RASR will provide NRO with a way to get its NROL-151 satellites into space.

A final request for proposal will be released on April 23 with responses due May 23, according to slides presented at an industry day held March 20. NRO projects that awards will be finalized by June 25, though winners won’t be made public. That’s because “public announcement of the award or modification of this contract is expressly prohibited,” it said. No cost estimate was provided. (4/5)

Virgin Galactic Completes 1st Powered Test Flight Since Fatal 2014 Crash (Source: Space.com)
Virgin Galactic made a triumphant return to powered flight today (April 5) with a successful test of the company's SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity suborbital vehicle. It was the company's first powered flight in nearly 3.5 years, following the tragic loss of SpaceShipTwo VSS Enterprise on Oct 31, 2014.

VSS Unity was dropped from its WhiteKnightTwo mothership from about 50,000 feet (15,000 meters) over the mountains about 20 miles north of the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. Pilots David Mackay and Mark "Forger" Stucky fired Unity's hybrid engine for 30 seconds, boosting the vehicle to a top speed of Mach 1.87 and a maximum altitude of 84,271 feet before gliding back to the runway at the spaceport. (4/5)

Orbital ATK's Solid Rocket Motor, Previously for Nuclear ICBMs, Finds More Peaceful Life (Source: Popular Mechanics)
Nearly 1,000 people, including busloads of local school kids, have gathered at Orbital ATK’s rocket manufacturing facility in Promontory, Utah. They have come to catch a glimpse of the past and future of rocketry. And to see a big boom. Sitting on a test stand, its exhaust pointed at an empty section of Utah scrubland, is a SR118 solid rocket motor. It was originally built to launch Peacekeeper intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles, a system that the Air Force discontinued in 2002.

Why is Orbital ATK testing a retired rocket engine? These monsters still have their uses. In the case of this March 29 test fire, NASA and Lockheed Martin are using a surplus Peacekeeper motor to loft a rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft in a high-flying test of the capsule’s emergency abort system. Orion is the spacecraft that NASA wants to use for human exploration missions, mounted on the Space Launch System rocket. This test will verify that the 34-year-old rocket can perform as expected during that upcoming test. (4/4)

NASA, Rocket Company Announce First-of-a-Kind Partnership at Stennis Space Center (Source: Times Picayune)
A California rocket company has an agreement with the Stennis Space Center to test engines at the sprawling Hancock County, Mississippi, site, a move NASA officials hope might generate new economic opportunities down the line. Relativity Space said that it had finalized the first-ever Commercial Space Launch Act lease at Stennis and will have exclusive use of the E4 test complex.

Tim Ellis, CEO and co-founder of Relativity Space, said the testing agreement will save the company upwards of $30 million in testing infrastructure costs. Under the Commercial Space Launch Act, NASA seeks to partner with private companies to use "underutilized'' facilities, in this case a testing area that NASA no longer uses, said Don Beckmeyer, manager of strategic business development at Stennis. (4/4)

Scott Kelly Was a Bad Student Who Became an Astronaut. Stop Telling People They Can’t Be Good at Science (Source: TIME)
As a kid, I was distracted and uninterested in science (and pretty much all other subjects as well). I earned terrible grades and barely graduated from high school. Only as a college student did I find the motivation to work hard to turn things around and earn an engineering degree, which led to a career as a test pilot and astronaut.

But that belief — that science is a mysterious endeavor beyond the grasp of all but the most genetically gifted among us — may be keeping thousands of students from pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. And that’s too bad. Because there’s a place in those fields for anyone open to exploring their passion, and willing to put the work in. (4/4)

NASA, Boeing May Evolve Flight Test Strategy (Source: NASA)
NASA has updated its Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract with Boeing, which provides flexibility in its commercial flight tests. Boeing, one of the agency’s two commercial crew partners, approached NASA last year and proposed adding a third crew member on its Crew Flight Test (CFT) to the International Space Station.

The change includes the ability to extend Boeing’s CFT from roughly two weeks to up to six months as well as the training and mission support for a third crew member. Cargo capabilities for the uncrewed and crewed flight tests were also identified.

Exact details of how to best take advantage of the contract modification are under evaluation, but the changes could allow for additional microgravity research, maintenance, and other activities while Starliner is docked to station. Adding a third crew member on Boeing’s flight test could offer NASA an additional opportunity to ensure continued U.S. access to the orbital laboratory. (4/5)

SpaceX Seeks Option To Splash Down In Gulf of Mexico (Source: Aviation Week)
SpaceX is seeking permission from the FAA to land and recover up to six Dragon capsules per year in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a draft environmental assessment. The purpose of the request is to establish an additional landing option for Dragon capsules returning with International Space Station (ISS) crew.

The option to land Dragon capsules in the Gulf of Mexico “ensures that a secondary splashdown option is available to missions planned to splash down in either the Pacific or Atlantic oceans, which would provide the returning crew with a timely and safe return to Earth.” Under the proposal, FAA would issue a reentry license authorizing up to six Dragon landing operations per year in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

“The Gulf of Mexico would act as a contingency landing site in the event of hazardous conditions in either the currently utilized Pacific Ocean landing site or the recently approved Atlantic Ocean landing site,” the report said. (4/5)

Sea Launch Deal Completion Postponed Until Mid-April (Source: Tass)
Completion of the transaction on acquisition of the Sea Launch floating seaport by the S7 Group from RSC Energia is postponed until mid-April due to lengthy execution of many permits, said the Chief Executive Officer of S7 Space. "The process is underway. All the issues have been settled but technical points are in place. The deal cannot be managed to be closed this week. We expect the transaction should be closed by the middle of this month," the top manager said. (4/5)

Astronauts Could 3D Print Tools From Their Own Processed Poop (Source: New Scientist)
Waste not, want not. A new method for turning faeces into plastic could come in handy for people living on Mars. Interplanetary travelers face two big challenges: how to transport all the tools and equipment they need from Earth, and what to do with all their waste. Mayi Arcellana-Panlilio at the University of Calgary and her colleagues wondered if they could find a simple solution to both. They genetically-engineered Escherichia coli bacteria to convert human feces to a type of source material for 3-D printing. (4/5)

Solid Rocket City: Utah Space Center Fighting for Its Life (Source: Popular Mechanics)
Orbital ATK once had a lock on the launch propulsion market that it earned over decades of production. But Orbital ATK took a serious blow in 2009 when the Obama administration cancelled the Constellation program, for which it was building the rocket’s boosters. NASA put more emphasis on the commercial space programs started under the Bush administration, which were focused on liquid fuel and rapid reusability.

Liquid engines have complex, cryogenic plumbing, but offer more control than solid rocket engines, which are hard to make and can’t be shut down once started (though they store well and are very reliable). And yet, Orbital ATK stays busy as the largest vendor of solid rockets in this country. The company says it has developed on average one flight systems every two years for the last two decades and builds 20 rockets annually.

About 14 Orbital ATK space rockets launch each year, including the company’s cargo flights to the International Space Station. They have a slew of programs that aid other spaceflight firms, like side boosters for the Delta IV rockets launched by the United Launch Alliance. They also make motors for the Pentagon, powering targets for missile defense interceptors and providing the engines for Ohio-class submarine-launched nuclear missiles. (4/4)

The UK Space Industry Has a Bright Future, Even After Brexit (Source: Verdict)
The British space industry might become a casualty of the UK’s exit from the European Union in just under a year’s time. A new clause in the EU’s Galileo satellite project – allowing existing contracts for the project to be canceled once the supplier is no longer in an EU member state – effectively made it untenable for British companies to bid for new contracts in the program, as they ran past the date when Britain would leave the EU.

The contracts at state could be worth €400 million to British space companies, and the Financial Times reported that Galileo-related services and applications could be worth €6 billion by 2025. The British government, and companies in the space industry, are fighting to still be involved with included with Europe’s satellite project.

The British space industry is itself worth £14 billion, cornering about 7% of the global space market. Some of this value is likely to be lost if Britain is excluded from Galileo. However, the move would not spell disaster for the industry. "We should take into account that the 90% privately owned £14 billion UK space sector is only fractionally affected by [Galileo]." (4/6)

Space War is Coming — and the U.S. is Not Ready (Source: Politico)
War is coming to outer space, and the Pentagon warns it is not yet ready, following years of underinvesting while the military focused on a host of threats on Earth. Russia and China are years ahead of the United States in developing the means to destroy or disable satellites that the U.S. military depends on for everything from gathering intelligence to guiding precision bombs, missiles and drones.

Now the Pentagon is trying to catch up — pouring billions more dollars into hardening its defenses against anti-satellite weapons, training troops to operate in the event their space lifeline is cut, and honing ways to retaliate against a new form of combat that experts warn could affect millions of people, cause untold collateral damage and spread to battlefields on Earth. (4/6)

Comment Period Extended for Georgia Spaceport (Source: Brunswick News)
The public comment period for the Spaceport Camden Draft Environmental Impact Statement has been extended until June 14 at the request of the Camden County Commission. Commissioners asked for the 90-day extension to ensure public participation in the efforts to obtain a launch site operators license from the Federal Aviation Administration. (4/6)

'Sunshine' Transparency Laws Dim for Spaceport America (Source: KRWG)
Sunshine laws are a key part of holding government accountable and helping democracy function. They require government agencies to make certain work they do available to the public, keeping the sun “shining” on their operations.

To mark Sunshine Week, New Mexico State University hosted a forum regarding newly-passed legislation that exempts aerospace companies operating at Spaceport America from the state’s Inspection of Public Records Act, or IPRA. Spaceport CEO Dan Hicks said the legislation will make the facility a more attractive place for business.

“What it allows us to do is to be more competitive to get space companies come in to New Mexico. At the same time, still being transparent of everything that I do as a state agency,” Hicks said. “So, the discussion today was about that fine balance between protecting taxpayers and the right to know of what happens at a space agency versus protecting companies and their sensitive and operational information."

NASA, Boeing Signal Regular Missions to Space Station to Be Delayed (Source: Wall Street Journal)
NASA and Boeing have agreed to turn the initial test flight of the company’s commercial crewed capsule into an operational mission, one of several recent signs officials are hedging their bets on when U.S. spacecraft will start regularly ferrying astronauts to the space station. The disclosure by NASA suggests a previously planned two-person flight, slated for November 2018,  is now likely to occur in 2019 or 2020 and would likely carry one additional crew member. (4/5)

Could Boeing's 'Starliner' Spacecraft Be a Next Step for Reaching the Moon and Beyond? (Source: Space.com)
Picture this: A team of space travelers blasts off from Earth in a fully automated shuttle that carries them to an outpost orbiting around the moon, where they will embark on a voyage to Mars. Though it sounds like science fiction, this fantastic journey may be closer than you think: An automated spacecraft designed to transport people into low Earth orbit could be ready for its maiden (uncrewed) voyage as early as this summer.

The new spacecraft, called the Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 Starliner, is being developed in partnership with NASA by a private company generally associated with commercial airplanes: Boeing. The Starliner is capable of carrying up to seven passengers as far as the International Space Station (ISS) in low Earth orbit. Starliner is intended to be the world's first commercial space vehicle, a reusable capsule designed for land-based returns. It will also be fully autonomous, to reduce training time for its crews. (4/5)

'Space Force' Idea Isn't Dead, Intel Chief Says (Source: Military.com)
The U.S. is still mulling creation of a "Space Force" as a new branch of the military to counter the growing threat of Russian and Chinese anti-satellite weapons, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said. "The question is: To what level does it rise that it would result in a new command? Whether we add a new command, that decision hasn't been made," he said.

The decision would have to be made by the Defense Department and be "pushed up to the president," Coats said. Last year, the House voted to create a "Space Corps" in its version of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, but the proposal failed to pass in the Senate. At a House Armed Services Committee hearing last month, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson was non-committal on forming a separate Space Force while noting interest in the idea from Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. (4/5)

Evidence for Sticky Dark Matter Comes Unglued (Source: Science)
The nature of dark matter, the mysterious stuff whose gravity presumably binds a galaxy together, is sinking back into the shadows. Three years ago, a team of astronomers reported that dark matter might interact with itself through some force other than gravity, a hint that might help theorists figure out what it is. But new observations rule out such interactions, the same team reports.

Previously, researchers using NASA's orbiting Hubble Space Telescope studied a cluster of galaxies 1.3 billion light-years from Earth called Abell 3827, whose gravity distorts and multiplies the image of a more distant galaxy. From the distortions, researchers deduced the distribution of dark matter in the cluster. One of the four galaxies in its center appeared separated from the clump or halo of dark matter that ought to envelop it. Modeling suggested that the two became separated because the dark matter interacted with itself.

Any such interaction might help theorists figure out what sort of new particles constitute dark matter—something that's hard to do if all they know if that dark matter is massive stuff that produces gravity. But new observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, an array of radio dishes in the Atacama Desert in Chile, reveal that the galaxy hasn't separated from its halo after all. The data are now consistent with the less-than-helpful the idea that dark matter interacts only through gravity. (4/5)

Would You Pay $9.5M to Stay in a Space Hotel? (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Orion Span, a California company, unveiled its ideas for Aurora Station on Thursday – a commercial space station that would house a luxury hotel. It would probably launch from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport, a spokeswoman for the company said, depending on who ultimately is the launch partner.

Whether it sounds far-fetched or not, it would be grossly expensive -- $9.5 million for a 12-day trip. ( You can reserve now with an $80,000 deposit.) The idea is to put the craft in low-earth orbit, about 200 miles up. The plan is to launch in late 2021 and host its first guests in 2022. (4/5)

NASA Has a Plan to Put Robot Bees on Mars (Source: Space.com)
NASA has two teams of researchers working to design a robotic bee that can fly on Mars. The space agency announced the project on March 30. It's in its early stages, but the idea is to replace modern rovers — which are slow, bulky and very expensive — with swarms of sensor-studded, fast-moving micro-bots that can cover much more ground at a relatively low cost.

Literally called Marsbees, the little bots are "flapping wing flyers of a bumblebee size with cicada-sized wings," NASA officials wrote. One reason this idea is at all feasible: Mars' low gravity. The planet has just one-third of Earth's gravitational pull, offering the Marsbees an advantage despite the thin atmosphere. These "bees" will not only map the Martian terrain but also collect samples of the planet's thin air, in hopes of finding methane gas — a possible sign of life. (4/5)

Eutelsat Ditches ViaSat-3 Investment, Buys Half-Terabit Satellite from Thales Alenia Space (Source: Space News)
Global fleet operator Eutelsat, after months of protracted negotiations with partner Viasat, on April 5 said it would go it alone on a powerful new satellite instead of investing in Viasat’s second ViaSat-3 satellite. Thales Alenia Space is instead building a “VHTS” or Very High Throughput Satellite for Eutelsat called Konnect VHTS, bringing 500 Gigabits-per-second of Ka-band capacity to European markets. The European manufacturer is also building the accompanying ground segment. (4/5)

Robot Harpoon and Net System to Attempt Space Cleanup (Source: Space Daily)
Humanity has grown accustomed to autonomous cleaning robots since the Roomba's debut in 2002. Now, we might have an upgrade: scientists have sent a prototype satellite equipped with a net and harpoon to the International Space Station to be tested. If successful, RemoveDEBRIS will lead to technology that will clean up Earth's space junk for us.

It's been 61 years since the first launch of a satellite, Sputnik 1, into Earth's orbit. That's a long time to go without cleaning up after yourself and scientists are raising concerns over the potential repercussions of the human junk floating through space - and crafting solutions, such as RemoveDEBRIS. The project is funded by the European Commission and a number of private partners including Airbus, who supplied the harpoon, and Surrey Satellite Technology Limited, who built the spacecraft. (4/5)

Student Launch Teams Rendezvous in Huntsville for NASA Competition (Source: Space Daily)
The public and media are invited as 54 student teams compete in NASA's 18th annual Student Launch, near the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, on Saturday, April 7. Middle school, high school, college and university teams from 23 states will launch their student-built rockets from Bragg Farms in Toney, Alabama. Each rocket is designed to fly to an altitude of 5,280 feet, or 1 mile, deploy an automated parachute system and safely land. Each rocket will also carry a student-built payload. (4/6)

New Satellite Method Enables Undersea Estimates From Space (Source: Space Daily)
Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences researchers have developed a statistical method to quantify important ocean measurements from satellite data, publishing their findings in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles. Their research remedies a problem that has plagued scientists for decades: ocean-observing satellites are incredibly powerful tools, but they can only "see" the surface layer of the ocean, leaving most of its depths out of reach. (4/6)