May 1, 2018

NASA: Cracked Mars 2020 Heat Shield Won't Jeopardize Schedule (Source: Space News)
The heat shield for NASA's Mars 2020 mission cracked in recent testing, but the agency said that the problem should not jeopardize its launch. The project said late last week that a composite structure in the heat shield was fractured during testing earlier this month at a Lockheed Martin facility. The fracture will be repaired, but NASA plans to build a new heat shield for use on the mission itself. The mission remains on schedule for a mid-2020 launch, but NASA didn't disclose any cost impact of the incident. Mars 2020 will collect samples of Martian soil and rock for later return to Earth. NASA and ESA signed an agreement last week to study how the agencies could cooperate on those later phases of the sample return effort. (4/30)

China Plans Reusable First Stage for Long March 8 (Source: Xinhua)
China is taking a page from the SpaceX and Blue Origin playbook for a proposed reusable rocket. The Long March 8 rocket, set to make its debut in 2021, will feature a first stage intended to make a vertical landing. A Chinese official said the rocket will use technologies different from SpaceX to recover and reuse the booster, but offered no specifics. (4/30)

NASA Green Lights Self-Assembling Space Telescope (Source: Cornell Chronicle)
Sure, it sounds kind of far out: a modular space telescope, nearly 100 feet across, composed of individual units launched as ancillary payloads on space missions over a period of months and years, units that will navigate autonomously to a pre-determined point in space and self-assemble. But “far out” is exactly what Dmitry Savransky ’04, M.Eng. ’05, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and 15 other scientists from across the U.S. have been asked to give NASA for Phase I of its 2018 NIAC (NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts) program. (4/30)

Space Commerce Traffic Management (Source: Space Review)
Changes in space policy are giving more powers to a small office within the Department of Commerce, the Office of Space Commerce. Jeff Foust reports on how those policy changes are taking shape even as the administration seeks to give space traffic management responsibilities to that office. Click here. (4/30)
 
Engineering Mars Commercial Rocket Propellant Production for the Big Falcon Rocket (Source: Space Review)
In the second part of his engineering study, Steve Hoeser examines various approaches to producing oxygen and methane propellant on Mars and their power requirements. Click here. (4/30)
 
A New Era of Planetary Protection (Source: Space Review)
NASA has long had a “planetary protection officer,” but the agency recently hired a new one as part of a reorganization of that office. Jeff Foust reports on what the new planetary protection officer sees as key issues facing both agency missions to potentially habitable worlds and those by private ventures. Click here. (4/30)
 
Space Law 2018: Nationalists Versus Internationalists (Source: Space Review)
The recent Space Symposium conference included sessions on space law. Dennis O’Brien describes how those sessions illustrated a divide between development of domestic space laws versus implementation of international treaties. Click here. (4/30)

Croatia Hopes ESA Collaboration Leads to Membership, Growth (Source: Space News)
Croatian companies hope that an agreement with the European Space Agency will lead to more orders. The government of Croatia signed a cooperation agreement with ESA last February and is working to establish a national space strategy as it works towards becoming a full member of ESA. Companies in the small Croatian space sector, including one that develops satellite monitoring and control software, hope the agreement paves the way to orders from European as well as American customers. (5/1)

Boeing Takes Aim at SpaceX with Pro-SLS Site (Source: Ars Technica)
Boeing is taking aim at SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket. Boeing's "Watch U.S. Fly" site, intended to advocate on various issues, includes a section that argues that the Falcon Heavy is too small to support NASA's exploration needs. That argument is based on comments made in March by NASA's Bill Gerstenmaier, who said that NASA needed the SLS for launching "large-volume, monolithic" elements for future exploration missions. However, he said at the same meeting that vehicles like Falcon Heavy can also play a role in supporting the agency's exploration plans. (4/30)

Firefly Makes Moves Toward Vandenberg for California Launches (Source: SpaceRef)
Firefly Aerospace, Inc. (Firefly), a developer of orbital launch vehicles for the small to medium satellite market, announced today that the United States Air Force (USAF) has issued a "Statement of Support for the Firefly Aerospace Program, Alpha and Beta Launch Vehicles" to utilize Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) Space Launch Complex 2 West (SLC-2W) for future launches of the Firefly Alpha and Beta launch vehicles.

"Firefly Aerospace is greatly appreciative that NASA and the USAF support the transition of SLC-2W to a commercial launch site dedicated to the launch of Firefly vehicles," said Firefly CEO Dr. Tom Markusic. "SLC-2W has been an incredible asset for US space missions for over 50 years. We are humbled and honored that Firefly Alpha and Beta launch vehicles will be adding many successful missions to the already storied history of SLC-2W." (5/1)

Orion Abort Test Launch From Space Florida's Pad a Year Away (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com)
NASA is about a year away from an Orion abort test. In that test, designated Ascent Abort 2, a modified Peacekeeper missile will launch a boilerplate Orion spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, flying it to an altitude of nearly 10 kilometers and speed of Mach 1.3, where the capsule's launch abort system will fire. The test is intended to demonstrate that the abort system can pull the Orion away from the SLS in an emergency, and won't test other aspects of the spacecraft, like parachutes.

The test will launch from Space Florida's Launch Complex 46 (LC-46) at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida. An Orbital ATK SR 118 rocket motor is the booster for the test. Its original purpose was as the first stage of the Peacekeeper Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). The Peacekeeper program was deactivated in 2002 and today the motors in the inventory are used for commercial purposes such as space launches.

The abort will be triggered when the vehicle is traveling at approximately Mach 1.3 at an altitude of around 31,000 feet. After liftoff, the booster takes the vehicle up to the abort condition and then signals the crew module. (4/30)

"Space Command" More Likely Than "Space Corps" (Source: Space News)
With an independent Space Corps on hold for now, House members are pushing for an alternative approach to give space forces more autonomy. A provision in the House's version of a defense authorization bill would establish a U.S. Space Command as a "subordinate unified command for space" responsible for joint space warfighting operations. The proposed Space Command would be similar to the existing Cyber Command. That proposal, and other language in the authorization bill, suggest that legislators are "trying to make space 'special' within the Air Force," according to one former Defense Department official. (4/30)

Draper Awarded Patent for Cross Polarizing Star Tracker (Source: Draper)
A new method for navigating without GPS has caught the attention of the U.S. Patent Office and earned its inventors a patent. The invention, called “Cross Polarizing Star Tracker” uses polarized sensors, rather than imaging optics, resulting in a package that is flat and much lighter than a star tracker with conventional optics. Now, whenever GPS signals are spotty or altogether unavailable, the Cross Polarizing Star Tracker promises an alternate way to navigate—which is good news for aircraft, spacecraft, ships at sea and even ground vehicles. (4/30)

UCF Planetary Physicist Crowned Space Engineering Rock Star (Source: UCF)
UCF planetary physicist Philip Metzger has been crowned one of space engineering’s rock stars by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Metzger, who is an associate in planetary science research at UCF’s Florida Space Institute in Central Florida Research Park, was honored with ASCE’s Outstanding Technical Contribution Award this month. The award is given to someone who has “contributed substantially to advancing the state of the art in aerospace engineering, sciences and technology, and space exploration and construction with application to civil engineering.” (4/30)

Space Council Seeking to Protect Satellite Spectrum (Source: Space News)
Protecting satellite spectrum from terrestrial interference is a priority for the National Space Council, its executive secretary said Monday. In a speech, Scott Pace said the council is studying how to better coordinate activities among government agencies "to ensure the protection and stewardship of spectrum necessary for space commerce." There is increasing interest among terrestrial wireless companies in accessing spectrum traditionally reserved for satellite services in order to provide 5G broadband services. Pace said protecting satellite services should be an issue at next year's World Radiocommunication Conference and that "a global approach is necessary to protect U.S. space commerce." [SpaceNews]

Culberson Urges NASA Contractors to Press Forward (Source: Houston Chronicle)
The head of the House appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA said he was concerned about delays in the agency's exploration programs. Speaking in Houston Monday, Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) said it was "critical" that the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft be flying as soon as possible. The first SLS launch is scheduled for the end of 2019, but is widely expected to slip into the first half of 2020. "Every delay is a concern and a worry," he said, telling a Orion program manager at Lockheed Martin to "put the cattle prod" to its various suppliers to keep them on track. (4/30)

NASA May Send a Drone to Titan in 2025 (Source: Air & Space)
Johns Hopkins researcher Elizabeth “Zibi” Turtle already had the coolest name in planetary science. Now she has the coolest mission, too. Almost has, we should say. Today NASA picked her Dragonfly Titan lander as one of two projects with a chance to launch under the agency’s New Horizons program in 2025 (the competition is a sample return mission to the same comet Rosetta visited in 2014). Only one of these concepts will be selected for funding in 2019 (with a cost cap of $850 million), but I can tell you which one I’d choose, even before the detailed tradeoffs are done.

I’d go to Saturn’s moon Titan, which is on anyone’s short list of the most interesting places in the solar system, both for its astrobiological potential (lots of organic material) and its weird geology (lakes of liquid methane, come on!). Mission planners once envisioned a fixed-wing aircraft to explore Titan, but a dual quadcopter would have the advantage of being able to make repeated soft landings and visit multiple sites, spaced as much as hundreds of miles apart. The air on Titan is four times as dense as it is on Earth, and gravity is one-seventh as strong, both of which make flying very practical on this otherwise alien world. (4/30)

Northrop Grumman Sees Big Future in Space (Source: Space News)
As industry consultant James McAleese of McAleese & Associates put it: Investors are watching Northrop’s performance in the Air Force B-21 bomber, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Meanwhile, CEO Wes Bush “hungrily eyes new cash-cow franchises” in the space sector: One is the $63 billion ground-based strategic deterrent (a new intercontinental ballistic missile to replace Minuteman 3). Another is a new Air Force “Overhead Persistent Infrared Imaging” constellation that will replace the SBIRS missile warning system.

Northrop appears ready to challenge Lockheed for the SBIRS follow-on, but chose to stay out of the $10 billion GPS 3 satellite competition. It was a “clear decision to preserve ‘maximum pricing firepower’ for upcoming competitions,” McAleese said in an email to clients. The company will focus on programs it knows it can win, and will bid aggressively to beat Boeing for the GBSD contract and Lockheed in the missile warning satellite competition.

CEO Bush is positioning Northrop to dominate in programs associated with “existential” threats,” says McAleese, in reference to strategic deterrence, contested-space and missile defense. That is reflected in the fact that 28 percent of its portfolio is classified. Northrop is “seething over poor program execution on NASA James Webb Space Telescope” but is hopeful that once the Orbital ATK deal closes it will propel its stock prices and catapult its “win-rates” in military space (future SBIRS would be Northrop payloads on Orbital buses.) The nearly $9 billion Orbital ATK acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of 2018. (5/1)