May 4, 2018

Former 45th Space Wing Commander Enlisted to Support Georgia Spaceport Steering Committee (Sources: Brunswick News, Spaceport Camden)
Bob Dickman had his sights set on flying Air Force jets when he attended college as an ROTC student, but his vision wasn’t good enough to qualify for the training. As it turned out, the sky was not the limit for Dickman. He graduated with a degree in physics and was assigned to the Air Force’s fledgling space program. He is now retired and currently resides in St. Marys, Camden County, Georgia.

"Having overseen the Eastern Range for the United States Air Force and been involved with commercial space for the past decade I can attest to the growing launch demand in the commercial space sector. A dedicated, commercial, vertical launch facility on the east coast is a valuable asset for Coastal Georgia and for the space launch industry."

Editor's Note: From a spaceport opponent:  Dickman made supportive comments during the Draft EIS hearings last month. He was unable, however, to respond to a speaker who challenged his claim the Cape "had a perfect safety record." He was reminded that launches are postponed if a human enters the exclusion zone downrange. Spaceport Camden will not launch over property controlled by the spaceport or any government. Resident population, private property (more than 100 parcels) and 2 dozen National Seashore Wilderness campers are within 4 to 10 miles downrange under every possible trajectory. (5/4)

Pratt & Whitney Avoids Class Action Lawsuit Seeking $1 Billion for Residents Near Florida Rocket Engine Plant (Sources: Law360, Leagle)
Pratt & Whitney scored a big win Wednesday when a Florida federal judge denied a bid to certify a class of property owners claiming $1 billion in damages from contamination from the company's rocket and aerospace testing and manufacturing plant in western Palm Beach County. U.S. District Judge Kenneth A. Marra said the proposed 60-square-mile class area in a Palm Beach County residential community was over-inclusive, because none of the property owners' experts had connected the boundaries of the proposed class area.

The plaintiffs include Bethany Cotromano, who noticed that her six month old daughter seemed to be moving her eyes involuntarily. Testing revealed an inoperable optic nerve glioma located in the optic chiasm. The child underwent chemotherapy for the purpose of stabilizing the tumor and is now legally blind. The plaintiffs allege that the tumor was caused by exposure to contamination from the Pratt & Whitney facility, particularly ionizing radiation.

Back in 2010, when the local "cancer cluster" was first identified, studies of population and cancer data from the area found brain and central nervous system cancers at more than quadruple expected rates among people under 19, even after adjusting the area's population estimates upward to reflect the area's rapid growth. The rocket engine facility at West Palm Beach is now owned and operated by Aerojet Rocketdyne for RL-10 engine testing and component manufacturing, including for future Orion and CST-100 Starliner flights. (5/4)

China Launches Communications Satellite (Source: Space News)
A Long March rocket launched a communications satellite for APT Satellite Thursday. The Long March 3B rocket lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 12:06 p.m. Eastern Thursday and deployed the Apstar-6C satellite into a transfer orbit. The satellite, built by the China Academy of Space Technology, carries 45 C-, Ka- and Ku-band transponders and will replace the existing Apstar-6 satellite. (5/4)

Fire Damages Indian Satellite Facility (Source: India Today)
A fire Thursday damaged an Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) facility used for testing satellite antennas. No one was hurt in the fire at the Space Applications Centre in Ahmedabad, and there was no damage to satellite payloads there. However, some equipment used to test antennas was damaged. The local fire department said that the fire could have been triggered by a short circuit, but didn't rule out the possibility of foul play. (5/4)

Space Fence Tests Planned This Summer (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Air Force's Space Fence will start tests of its ability to track objects in orbit this summer. The facility, on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, is nearing completion, and full testing of the radar facility will be underway by July. Initial operations of the Space Fence will begin in 2019 to provide enhanced tracking of satellites and debris. Lockheed Martin, the contractor for the Space Fence, is scouting locations in Western Australia for a second site, but the Air Force has yet to allocate funding for it. (5/4)

Artificial Intelligence Could Speed Satellite Reconnaissance (Source: Space News)
The next big step for geospatial intelligence is satellites that analyze the images they take before downloading them. The growing amount of satellite imagery and other data is leading many to examine the use of artificial intelligence to more effectively analyze the data. While that is done on the ground after the data is transmitted back to Earth, one company, Slingshot Aerospace, has the goal of embedding that capability on spacecraft themselves, allowing them to transmit only the key elements rather than larger volumes of raw data. (5/4)

Space Nuclear Reactor Could Get Moon Test (Source: Space News)
NASA is considering a flight demonstration of a space-rated nuclear reactor, possibly on the moon. At a press conference this week, NASA and the Department of Energy announced the successful conclusion of a series of tests at the Nevada Test Site of the Kilopower reactor system. That technology is designed to produce up to 10 kilowatts of power in a simple, safe system that could be used on future lunar and Martian missions. NASA said the next step for validating the technology would be to fly a Kilopower reactor, possibly on a lunar lander mission in the mid-2020s, but there are no firm plans, or funding, to do so yet. (5/4)

Cosmonaut Could Fly on Early Orion Mission (Source: Sputnik)
A Russian cosmonaut could fly on an early NASA Orion mission to help build the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway. A Russian industry source said that the Russian cosmonaut could be included on the Orion mission that carries an airlock to add to the Gateway, an outpost in cislunar space to support future human missions to the moon and Mars. The source said that Russian company RSC Energia would build the airlock module, but there have been no formal announcements by NASA or Roscosmos about doing so. (5/4)

High School Girls Hacked During NASA Competition (Source: Washington Post)
A team from a Washington, D.C., high school participating in a NASA competition will get an award from the city after hackers tried to sabotage the team's chances of winning. The team, consisting of three black girls, was one of the finalists in the NASA Optimus Prime Spinoff Promotion and Research Challenge. Hackers attempted to manipulate the vote to prevent the team from winning, causing NASA to end public voting. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Thursday she would award $4,000 to the team to support their efforts, the same amount the competition's winning team would receive. (5/4)
FCC Considering Stance on Micro-Satellites (Source: Advanced Television)
In January, a new company, US-based Swarm Technologies, launched 4 tiny satellites (‘Space Bees’) each barely larger than a slice of bread.  The FCC told Swarm in December last year that they could not launch the satellites from the US until such time that the company had coordinated their transmission frequencies, and specifically that the satellites were so small that the USA’s Space Surveillance Network could have difficulties in detecting their presence in space.

Swarm bypassed the FCC and used an Indian rocket to launch the satellites. The FCC has now wrapped up its investigation into Swarm’s action and has reportedly referred the case to its enforcement bureau. The FCC’s concerns are that these small satellites – in essence unlicensed – could interfere with ‘legitimate’ craft, both in terms of transmissions and from the potential risk of collision. The worries also extend to the degree of control – or absence of control – that the owners have once the satellites are in orbit.

The FCC is not ignoring the popularity of these low-cost satellites, and says that they could be built with unique transponders to help with their identification whilst in space. But with the likely popularity of low orbit space tourism, and potentially dozens – or even hundreds – of these micro-satellites in orbit, the risks are huge. Editor's Note: Not hundreds. Try thousands. (5/3)

China to Build Hypersonic Engine Plant (Source: AutoEvolution)
China is currently drawing up plans to build a manufacturing facility for the mass production of hypersonic aircraft engines. The facility is to be built in Hefei, eastern China, by the Institute of Mechanics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing (IMECH).

IMECH describes itself as a comprehensive and multidisciplinary national mechanics research center. Unofficially, it is probably China’s biggest developer of hypersonic weapons. No date for the completion of the facility was announced, nor is it clear what type of hypersonic engines will be made there. According to the source, the unit will likely be a rocket-based combined cycle system similar to the one currently being tested by IMECH. (5/3)

NASA Completes Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Wallops Island Programs (Source: NASA)
NASA has completed Draft Site-wide Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement that evaluates the environmental consequences of constructing and operating new facilities and infrastructure at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, to support a growing mission base in the areas of civil, commercial, defense, and academic aerospace while also preserving NASA's ability to safely conduct its historical baseline of operations. Among the future opportunities considered in the document: the potential for Liquid Fueled Intermediate Class (LFIC) launch vehicles (LVs) and Solid Fueled Heavy Class (SFHC) LVs; and consideration of commercial human spaceflight missions from WFF. Click here. (5/3)

Funding Provides Major Boost to UK Space Industry (Source: Business Matters)
A consortium of UK universities and agencies has been awarded nearly £5M from the Research England in order to fund major national initiatives to enhance research and innovation in the UK space industry. The Universities of Leicester, Southampton, Surrey, Edinburgh and the Open University, which together form part of the Space Research and Innovation Network for Technology (SPRINT), have received the £4.8M Connecting Capability Fund (CCF) grant in order to support SMEs engaging with Higher Education institutions, providing them with unprecedented access to university expertise and facilities. (4/29)

JWST Suffers New Problem During Spacecraft Testing  (Source: Space News)
As an independent review of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope continues, the project is dealing with a new problem discovered in recent testing of the spacecraft. In a presentation at a meeting of the National Academies’ Space Studies Board here May 3, Greg Robinson, the JWST program director at NASA Headquarters, said some “screws and washers” appear to have come off the spacecraft during recent environmental testing at a Northrop Grumman facility in Southern California.

Technicians found the items after the spacecraft element of JWST, which includes the bus and sunshield but not its optics and instruments, was moved last weekend from one chamber for acoustics tests to another to prepare for vibration testing. “Right now we believe that all of this hardware — we’re talking screws and washers here — come from the sunshield cover,” he said. “We’re looking at what this really means and what is the recovery plan.” (5/3)

NASA Science to Return to Earth Aboard SpaceX Dragon Spacecraft (Source: Parabolic Arc)
SpaceX’s Dragon cargo spacecraft is scheduled to splash down in the Pacific Ocean on Saturday, May 5, west of Baja California, with more than 4,000 pounds of NASA cargo, science and technology demonstration samples from the International Space Station. The Dragon spacecraft will be taken by ship to Long Beach, where some cargo will be removed immediately for return to NASA. Dragon then will be prepared for a return trip to SpaceX’s test facility in McGregor, Texas, for final processing. Click here. (5/3)

Why Plants Are So Sensitive to Gravity (Source: Space Daily)
If you tilt a plant, it will alter its growth to bend back upwards. But how does it detect the inclination? With cellular clinometers: cells filled with microscopic grains of starch called statoliths. In each of these cells, the pile of statoliths settles to the bottom. This provides a point of reference to guide growth - by modifying the distribution of a growth hormone - so that the plant may return to an upright position. The mystery of plants is what makes them so extremely responsive to gravity, at even the tiniest deviation from the vertical. Click here. (5/3)

Creating Star Stuff on Earth is Aim of New $7 Million Project (Source: Space Daily)
Astrophysicists will conduct experiments designed to re-create the physical environment inside stars, with a new $7 million grant that the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) has awarded to The University of Texas at Austin. This work could help astronomers reduce uncertainties about the sizes and ages of super-dense objects known as white dwarf stars.

The DOE/NNSA grant, distributed over a five-year period, will allow the university to establish a new Center for Astrophysical Plasma Properties (CAPP), which aims to advance astronomy through experimental science.

Researchers from the center will conduct "at-parameter" experiments, meaning experiments conducted under the same extreme temperatures and densities found inside stars. Using the Z-machine, the world's most powerful X-ray source, based at Sandia National Laboratories, the team will replicate the extreme temperatures and densities of plasma, the stuff inside stars. (4/20)

NASA Robotic Mining Competition Coming Again to KSC This Month (Source: NASA)
On May 14-18 NASA's Robotic Mining Competition will welcome 50 college teams and over 500 of their best and brightest students and autonomous mining robots to dig in our chaotic Martian regolith at the KSC Visitor Complex. The teams will compete their robots to extract those resources that are required to colonize other worlds. They will show us how they chose the design they built with their systems engineering papers.

Their outreach projects will show us the impact they are making in their community with STEM outreach and mentoring to those who desire but cannot access those resources. They will show us the innovative blades, buckets, bits, wheels, tracks and feet they have designed and built to deal with those remote and harsh off-world locations and conditions that exist in the reaches of space, and they will be mighty. Their spinoff technologies will have impacts we cannot imagine. The Competition challenge is to mine the precious icy regolith (gravel). This water ice will provide oxygen, water and fuel for future off-world colonists. Click here. (5/4)

SpaceX Launching of Bangabandhu Satellite Once Again Deferred (Source: Daily Star)
The launch of Bangabandhu-1, Bangladesh's first commercial satellite, has been deferred once again on technical grounds, said officials related with the process. The satellite was supposed to be launched in December of last year and the date was changed a number of times since then. The government had set the latest date on May 7, but this one has also been delayed.

However, a group of journalists from different media houses and some government officials have already left Dhaka for the USA to cover the launching program. The main government delegation was scheduled to leave Dhaka on May 4, but it has been suspended and is to be re-scheduled soon. “It was scheduled to launch its final test run yesterday, but that has not been done,” Mustafa Jabbar, telecom minister, told The Daily Star. (5/3)