June 16, 2018

First Hot Firing for Europe's Newest Rocket Engine (Source: ESA)
Yesterday’s complex hot fire test of an engine technology demonstrator was the first in a series of planned tests guiding Europe’s next-generation upper-stage rocket engine design. By the end of the year, the Expander-cycle Technology Integrated Demonstrator, or ETID, based at the DLR German Aerospace Center test facility in Lampoldshausen, will be ignited 20 times with each firing lasting up to 120 seconds on a test stand that provides a near-vacuum environment similar to space.

Engineers will use the results from the test campaign to determine the hardware characteristics, including a precise thrust measurement to determine its “specific impulse” – indicating the exact performance of the engine design. Following four rounds of tests the configuration will be changed for further tests with different igniters and different hardware designs and materials. The aim is to bring them all to a technology readiness high enough to transfer them at minimum cost and risk to any subsequent development project for flight. (6/15)

Georgia Spaceport Tied to Jobs, But Some See a Threat to Way of Life (Source: Atlanta Journal Constitution)
For Steve Howard, developing a commercial rocket launchpad could mean hundreds of jobs for Camden County residents searching for good-paying employment in an exciting industry. “The spaceport is the catalyst,” said Howard, who serves as the county’s administrator and Spaceport Camden project lead. “What you want is everything else — tourism, manufacturing. It’s giving people hope and opportunity and building for the future.”

But developing new industry on the coast often conflicts with homeowners who are used to a tranquil way of life. The spaceport project is no different. Property owners and environmentalists say they are concerned by the prospect of rockets launching over their homes and the Cumberland Island National Seashore.

“That’s why we are acting so vigorously in defending our rights to enjoy peace on Little Cumberland Island without rockets flying over our heads,” said Deby Glidden, an Atlanta resident who has owned property on the nearby barrier island for more than 40 years. If the FAA approves a site operator license for Camden County, rockets would be launched over portions of Cumberland Island and Little Cumberland Island. Homeowners hope that doesn’t happen. (6/15)

Want to Take a 10-Day Trip to the Space Station? It'll Cost You $55 Million (Source: Space.com)
You can now sign up for a 10-day mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS) — if you've got $55 million to spare. That's the price just announced by Axiom Space, a Houston-based company that's organizing expeditions to the ISS and working to build the first commercial space station. The $55 million covers the orbital stay, transportation to and from the ISS, and a 15-week astronaut-training program.

Axiom Space aims to launch its first customers in 2020, company representatives said. Axiom Space is also developing its own station, the modules of which will launch toward, and link up with, the ISS. The Axiom station will be ready to accommodate paying passengers by 2022 if all goes according to plan, company representatives have said.

The commercial outpost will still be attached to the ISS at that point. When the huge, $100 billion orbital outpost is ready to be deorbited, the Axiom station will detach and begin flying freely. (Exactly when this will happen is unclear; the ISS is currently funded through 2024, but it's possible that operations could be extended beyond that date.) (6/15)

Elon Musk and the Failure of Our Imagination in Space (Source: The New Yorker)
Of the more than five hundred people who’ve so far made the journey, only sixty-one have been women (of these, forty-seven were American). The dawning era of private spaceflight is not proving to be especially inclusive, either. In February, Elon Musk’s aerospace company, SpaceX, tested its Falcon Heavy rocket, the company’s biggest to date, which is designed to carry massive payloads and have reusable parts.

Afterward, in a column for the San Diego Tribune, the astrophysicist Alison Coil wrote about how disheartening it was to look at the cheering crowd of SpaceX employees and notice that it was a “sea of almost entirely white men.” “The exclusion of women and racial minorities from the pioneering astronauts corps of the 1950s and 1960s was a deliberate gesture,” De Witt Douglas Kilgore argues in his book “Astrofuturism: Science, Race, and Visions of Utopia in Space,” from 2003.

Musk and his fellow “astropreneurs” talk about democratizing space travel; Branson has said that his company’s goal is to make space accessible, because “by doing that we can truly bring positive change to life on Earth.” In this view, the fastest way to get more women into space is by backing space-tourism startups, trusting that they will open the cosmos to the masses (once the super-wealthy have had their fun). (6/15)

The Doors are Open for More Women and Diversity in Space Industry (Source: Florida Today)
America is on its way to Mars — powered by an amazing team of people from all across the country, including here in Florida where work is already underway on critical upgrades at the Kennedy Space Center to handle the deep space missions. It’s the culmination of a new day for American space travel that is reflected across the workforce in Boeing, where I am a rocket structural engineer helping build NASA’s Space Launch System rocket to power deep space missions like the trip to Mars.

Boeing’s space team is increasingly diverse, a huge leap forward from the days when only certain kinds of people were thought to have the right stuff. While my classmates scrambled for recess, I chose math and the playground of my mind.

A supportive middle school science teacher taught me how the things we learned in class connected to the real world and urged all of us to develop our creativity and imagination. As we enter this new American space age, every student should have that kind of mentor, especially girls who sometimes get cut down when they step out of traditional lanes. (6/14)

Lawmakers Scold NASA for Cost Overruns (Source: The Hill)
Lawmakers at a hearing on Thursday scolded NASA officials over a recent report that found the space agency's major projects are running over-budget and over-schedule. “Unfortunately, NASA has been plagued for years with contract management issues which have resulted in substantial cost overruns and schedule slips,” said Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX), chairman of the House Science Subcommittee on Space, at his panel's hearing.

The report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that four of NASA's highest-profile programs — the Space Launch System, the Orion Spacecraft, the Commercial Crew Program and the James Webb Space Telescope — face significant cost and deadline problems. The Webb telescope, which is intended to be a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, recently delayed its launch by 19 months and will cost more than $8 billion.

The average launch delay for NASA increased from 7 months in 2017 to 12 months in 2018—the highest GAO has reported to date. Lawmakers weighed solutions to address NASA's issues, including the creation of a contractor watchlist, which would highlight underperforming contractors who would not be eligible for work for a period of time. The contractor watchlist is one proposal in the 2018 NASA Authorization Act. (6/14)

Female Applicants Fail to Qualify for Russia’s Cosmonaut Team (Source: Tass)
Female applicants have failed to qualify for a group of 13 candidates, from whom new members of Russia’s national cosmonaut team will be selected, said a source in the domestic space industry. "Thirteen persons have been cleared by the main medical commission and the final stage will involve selection at the inter-departmental commission, which will be held in late June," the source said, specifying that "there are no females among the thirteen candidates who have been cleared for the final selection stage."

Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos and the Cosmonaut Training Center declined to comment on this information. The inter-departmental commission recommends individuals for the beginning of general space training with further employment at the Cosmonaut Training Center and their inclusion in the team of candidate cosmonauts. (6/15)