June 26, 2018

NASA, Defense Department Support Giving Space Traffic Management Role to Commerce  (Source: Space News)
As the House prepares to take up a bill giving the Commerce Department new authorities for space traffic management, the leaders of NASA and U.S. Strategic Command offered their support for such a move. At a rare joint hearing of the strategic forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee and space subcommittee of the House Science Committee June 22, officials said they backed the plan.

In earlier studies of moving space traffic management responsibilities from the Department of Defense, the likely destination was the Department of Transportation, specifically the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation. While both Bridenstine, as a member of Congress, and Hyten had previously supported moving that work to the FAA, they said they were satisfied with the direction in SPD-3 giving Commerce that responsibility.

“A couple of years ago, when I drafted that bill, my thought was we’ll put it at FAA, and we’ll take everything and put it at FAA,” Bridenstine said, referring to the American Space Renaissance Act that he drafted as a member of Congress in 2016. “It appears now that the right course of action, given the consensus that has been come to, is that it be at Commerce, and I fully support that. The key is, it needs to be done.” (6/25)

Russia’s New Spaceport to Switch to Monthly Launches No Sooner Than 2020 (Source: Tass)
The Vostochny spaceport in the Russian Far East will be able to switch to monthly launches no sooner than 2020, if a larger number of assembly and testing facilities is built there, Alexander Zheleznyakov said. CEO of Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin earlier said in an interview with RT TV Channel that the corporation planned to switch to monthly launches from the Vostochny cosmodrome instead of making two launches a year as was the case now. (6/24)

The Dangerous Militarization of Outer Space (Source: The Quint)
America has hardly ever disguised its view of space as an extension of military power. The US already has an Air Force Space Command, created by Ronald Reagan in 1982, which is dedicated to using space-based assets to aid its flights, fights, and to win in air, space and cyberspace. Reagan also introduced the “Star Wars” program and George W. Bush unsuccessfully tried to resurrect it through the Son of Star Wars project.

Both were touted as futuristic space-based ballistic missile interceptor programmes. But aside from the fact that they were technically impossible at the time, they also constituted a frontal assault on a previous anti-ballistic missile treaty between the US and the Soviet Union. Trump’s most recent vision is actually a rehash of existing programs. The idea of creating a new branch of the military called the “Space Corp” was already in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, which emerged from discussions long predating the current administration. But in the end the plans were dropped because congressional negotiators refused to fund them. (6/25)

How To Build A Garbage Truck In Space (Source: Forbes)
Recently the RemoveDEBRIS mission was launched to study four ways we might clean up some of our orbital trash. It contains two cubesats. One will try to image debris to see how it might best be captured. Another will launch a small balloon simulating debris, then try to capture the balloon with a net. A third experiment will fire a harpoon at a target to see if it could capture larger debris objects.

Finally, RemoveDEBRIS will deploy a drag sail to slow itself down. This should cause the satellite to enter Earth's atmosphere and burn up. This is only an early experiment. It will take a lot more research to solve all the problems with debris capture. But it's a problem we have to solve. Otherwise our orbital trash will prevent us from ever reaching the stars. (6/25)

The Quest to Make Super-cold Quantum Blobs in Space (Source: WIRED)
Last January in northern Sweden, a German-led team of physicists loaded a curious machine onto an unmanned rocket. The payload, about as tall as a single-story apartment, was essentially a custom-made freezer—a vacuum chamber, with a small chip and lasers within, that could cool single atoms near absolute zero. They launched the rocket about 90 miles past the atmosphere's boundary of outer space, and watched as the freezer plummeted back down to Earth, landing via parachute on snowy ground 40 miles from the launch site.

The freezer that the Germans launched has the ability to make atoms clump together in a cloud-like blob called a Bose-Einstein condensate—a phase of matter that exhibits some truly bizarre properties. It’s delicate enough to respond to tiny fluctuations in gravity and electromagnetic fields, which means it could someday make for a super-precise sensor in space. But down on Earth, it tends to collapse in a matter of milliseconds because of gravity. So the blobs had to go to space. Robert Thompson of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is leading a US effort to do similar experiments. Last month, his team installed a new experimental setup on the International Space Station. (6/25)

NASA Created the Ultimate Space Freezer (Source: SyFy)
It might sound like something Dr. Evil would hang out in, but this is no spy-fi movie. NASA’s Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) might be around the size a suitcase, but what will go on inside is extraordinary. The space agency intends to use this device aboard the ISS to expose atoms to a temperature that hovers a billionth of a degree above absolute zero. If you think the vacuum of space is cold, the CAL is ten billion times colder, and what it could tell us about how atoms and subatomic particles behave in these glacial conditions could reveal things about quantum physics that scientists have only dreamed of.

The CAL will use a vacuum chamber, along with lasers and an electromagnetic knife instrument, to slow down gas particles until they are nearly motionless by cancelling out their energy, initiating a deep freeze. “As you cool atoms colder and colder, they become more quantum,” said Robert Thompson, a CAL project scientist at NASA JPL. A quantum physics takeover happens when they form what is known as a Bose-Einstein condensate, a strange superfluid state of matter that behaves more like waves than particles, defying the laws of physics as we know them.

Studying atoms in this state could unravel quantum mysteries such as why the same particle can exist in two places simultaneously, but Earth’s gravity has presented serious obstacles to observing a Bose-Einstein condensate for any more than fractions of a millisecond—until now. Microgravity allows atoms to stay in superfluid waves for longer periods of time (as in five to ten seconds). (6/25)

National Quilt Museum Hosts Lunar Landing Exhibit (Source: CollectSpace)
An art exhibit now open at the National Quilt Museum features a soft-ware approach to the hardware that took the first astronauts to the moon. "Fly Me to the Moon," now on display at the Paducah, Kentucky museum, features fabric quilts that celebrate humanity's fascination with Earth's natural satellite and honor the Apollo missions that lifted astronauts to the moon nearly 50 years ago.

"Take a trip to the moon and beyond without the time and rigors of space training," said Susanne Jones, the exhibit's curator, in a statement released by the National Quilt Museum. "Take a walk down memory lane or learn the story of the missions for the first time." The exhibition, which opened on June 15 and runs through Sept. 4, includes quilts that depict scenes directly from space history and others that use the medium to comment on the Apollo era. (6/22)

NASA Asks: Will We Know Life When We See It? (Source: SpaceRef)
In the last decade, we have discovered thousands of planets outside our solar system and have learned that rocky, temperate worlds are numerous in our galaxy. The next step will involve asking even bigger questions. Could some of these planets host life? And if so, will we be able to recognize life elsewhere if we see it? A group of leading researchers in astronomy, biology and geology has come together under NASA's Nexus for Exoplanet System Science, or NExSS, to take stock of our knowledge in the search for life on distant planets and to lay the groundwork for moving the related sciences forward.

"We're moving from theorizing about life elsewhere in our galaxy to a robust science that will eventually give us the answer we seek to that profound question: Are we alone?" said Martin Still, an exoplanet scientist at NASA. In a set of five review papers published last week, NExSS scientists took an inventory of the most promising signs of life, called biosignatures. The paper authors include four scientists from NASA JPL. They considered how to interpret the presence of biosignatures, should we detect them on distant worlds. A primary concern is ensuring the science is strong enough to distinguish a living world from a barren planet masquerading as one. (6/26)

Water May Not Be the Only Sign of Alien Life (Source: Space.com)
When it comes to looking for alien life, scientists mostly focus on where there is water. Now researchers suggest that looking at "bioessential" elements such as phosphorus and molybdenum could help judge a world's potential for life. There is life virtually wherever there is water on Earth, from clouds high above the surface to the deepest layer of Earth's crust. As such, the search for life outside Earth typically concentrates on worlds that are "habitable," possessing temperatures conducive to hosting liquid water on its surface.

For example, although the surface of Venus is currently hot enough to melt lead, a 2016 study suggested it may have been habitable until as recently as 715 million years ago. Scientists have even conjectured that if life once existed on Venus, it still might survive within its clouds. Click here. (6/25)

Russia Folded Its Space Force Into Its Air Force (Source: Defense News)
As the White House seeks to separate space activities from the Air Force, Russia is moving in the opposite direction. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia created a special military branch called the Space Forces that dealt with space launches and related activities. However, in 2015 that branch was folded into the Russian air force, arguing that space capabilities are increasingly integrated in other branches of the military — the same argument used by those critical of the Space Force proposal within the U.S. Defense Department. (6/25)

Reorganizing Air Force Space Procurement (Source: Space News)
The Air Force is moving ahead with plans to reorganize its space programs amid talk of a Space Force. Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch Jr., military deputy at the office of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, said last week that the service was taking steps to speed up the procurement process for space systems, including a rapid capabilities office. He said a lack of suppliers in industry in some areas makes it difficult to compete programs and lower costs. As for the potential formation of a Space Force, as directed by President Trump but requiring congressional approval, he said, "We'll go through the process. We will let the deliberative process play out." (6/25)

Space Traffic Management Bill Moving in House (Source: Space News)
The House is scheduled to mark up a civil space traffic management bill this week. The House Science Committee will take up the bill, titled the "American Space Situational Awareness and Framework for Entity Management Act," on Wednesday, giving the Commerce Department the responsibility for civil space traffic management services. The White House, in Space Policy Directive 3 published last week,directed Commerce to take on those roles. At a hearing Friday, both NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and Air Force Gen. John Hyten said they supported giving Commerce that role. (6/25)

Commerce Dept. Prepping for Expanded Space Role (Source: Space News)
The Commerce Department is moving ahead with other new commercial space responsibilities. At meetings last week, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and other officials said they were developing revised commercial remote sensing licensing regulations soon to be published as a notice of proposed rulemaking. The department has also selected Kevin O'Connell to be the next director of the Office of Space Commerce. Another issue the department will soon be taking on is export control reform, although there may be differences between what some in government expect that to involve and what others in industry are hoping for. (6/25)

Company Plans Another Launch Attempt at Alaska Spaceport (Source: AP)
A secretive startup will be making another launch attempt from Alaska next month. Alaska Aerospace Corporation says a launch from its Pacific Spaceport Complex on Alaska's Kodiak Island is scheduled for July 14-20. Alaska Aerospace didn't disclose the company performing the launch, but said it made two prior attempts that were postponed. Astra Space, a California company developing a small launch vehicle, was linked to those earlier launch attempts. (6/25)

Spacecom Delays Satellite Payment (Source: Calcalist)
Spacecom has postponed a down payment on a satellite it ordered earlier this year. The Israeli company said in a filing with the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange that it agreed with Space Systems Loral to delay that initial payment for the Amos-8 satellite until Sept. 25. Spacecom ordered the satellite in March and was due to make the down payment in 60 days, a deadline it pushed back a month before this latest delay. Spacecom didn't give a reason for the delayed payment. (6/25)

China's Moom Lander Still Functioning After 4.5 Years (Source: GB Times)
China's Chang'e-3 lander continues to operate on the moon four and a half years after landing. Amateur radio observers detected signals from the lander this weekend after it resumed operations following the end of the two-week lunar night. As of last year, the only instrument still working on the lander was an ultraviolet telescope, which was continuing to return astronomical images. (6/25)

Managing Space Traffic Expectations (Source: Space Review)
As expected, the president signed a new space policy directive last week regarding space traffic management. Jeff Foust reports on what the policy covers, and what the next steps are in the administration and in Congress to implement it. Click here. (6/25) 
 
Space Guardians (Source: Space Review)
While the president seeks the formation of a Space Force and others a Space Corps within the Air Force, there is another option. Anna Gunn-Golkin describes how a “Space Guard” could carry out many functions analogous to the Coast Guard, providing services that go beyond defense. Click here. (6/25)
 
American Dominance in Space and the Space Force (Source: Space Review)
Last week, President Trump directed the Pentagon to establish a Space Force as a separate branch, even though such an effort requires an act of Congress. Vidvuds Beldavs says the move may spark new worries about the weaponization of space. Click here. (6/25)
 
The Populists Versus the (Rocket) Billionaires (Source: Space Review)
Commercial spaceflight has benefited from the roles taken, and investment provided, by a handful of billionaires. However, A.J. Mackenzie uses a recent essay to warn of the the potential of a backlash to their efforts. Click here. (6/25)

Russian Lunar Lander Facing Technical Issues (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com)
Russia's Luna-Glob mission is facing technical and other issues that may significantly delay its launch. The Luna-Glob spacecraft is scheduled to launch late next year and land at the moon's south pole, but a problem with an inertial measurement unit on the lander will likely delay its launch until no earlier than February 2020. However, the performance of the spacecraft's engine limits the windows in which it can make a landing, with the next window with a "comfortable margin" for landing not opening until May 2021. (6/26)

Asgardians Will Live in Space (Source: Reuters)
The "space nation" of Asgardia claims its citizens will be able to live in space in a quarter-century. At an event Monday in Vienna where its first "head of nation," Igor Ashurbeyli, was formally inaugurated, Ashurbeyli said Asgardia will have "space arks" in 10-15 years and permanent settlement on the moon in 25 years. He didn't disclose how these would be developed. Asgardia claims to have 200,000 "citizens" who pay an annual membership fee of 100 euros. (6/26)

ISS Gets Death Wish Coffee (Source: CollectSpace)
Astronauts on the International Space Station will soon have a death wish — in the form of a brand of coffee. The next Dragon cargo mission to the station will carry packets of Death Wish Coffee, a brand that says it has 200 percent more caffeine than typical coffee. The coffee is in the form of freeze-drized packets, "an easy-to-make blend that will keep them on their feet, so to speak," said Death Wish Coffee founder Mike Brown. (6/26)

Viasat to Lease Hylas-4 Capacity (Source: Space News)
Viasat will lease capacity on the Hylas-4 satellite. Viasat said Monday it acquired a quarter of the steerable capacity on the satellite, launched in early April, for $10 million over two years. The deal gives Viasat additional Ka-band capacity for regions from the Americas to the Middle East. (6/26)

Eutelsat Considering Bid to Buy Inmarsat (Source: Space News)
Eutelsat announced Monday is considering making a bid to buy Inmarsat. In a statement, the company confirmed recent speculation that "it is currently evaluating a possible offer for Inmarsat" but added there was no guarantee it would actually do so. The announcement comes less than three weeks after Inmarsat rejected an unsolicited takeover bid from EchoStar. (6/26)

Aerojet Modifies Air Force AR1 Engine Contract to Include RL-10 Engine Work (Source: Space News)
Aerojet Rocketdyne has modified an existing agreement with the Air Force to include work on the RL10 engine. The company said Monday that the Air Force agreed to the modification to its Rocket Propulsion System agreement to incorporate work on the RL10C-X, a new version of the RL10 that incorporates technologies like 3D printing to lower costs. The original agreement covered work on the AR1 engine, and the company said work on that engine continues. The award modification is valued at $69.8 million, but the company did not disclose how much of that additional funding will go to RL10 work versus the AR1, or if it made other changes to the agreement. (6/26)

Planet Joins with Airbus on Imagery Satellites (Source: Space News)
Planet and Airbus announced an agreement Monday to work together developing new imagery projects. The joint initiative will include the medium-resolution images of the entire planet that Planet's Dove satellites collect daily with high-resolution images from Airbus satellites. Executives with the two companies said the project will enable products and services that the companies could not provide individually. The companies will announce the first customers for the joint effort in the coming weeks. (6/26)

Spaceflight Picks Virgin Orbit for LauncherOne Mission (Source: Space News)
Spaceflight has signed an agreement with Virgin Orbit for a LauncherOne mission next year. Spaceflight said it signed the agreement with Virgin Orbit, yet to be converted into a full contract, because of growing interest by its customers for launches to low- and mid-inclination orbits. Spaceflight is best known for brokering rideshare opportunities, most of which go to sun-synchronous or geostationary transfer orbits. Spaceflight also signed a deal with Rocket Lab earlier this month for the "vast majority" of capacity on three Electron launches starting late this year. (6/26)

Angara to Replace Proton in Russian Rocket Fleet (Source: Space News)
Russia is reportedly planning to end production of the Proton rocket. New Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin said in an interview with a Russian publication that production of the Proton would end, but didn't set a specific date for doing so. Russia has long planned on replacing the Proton with the Angara. An executive with International Launch Services, which markets the Proton commercially, said at a conference Monday that four to five more Angara test launches are planned, and only then would it eventually replace the Proton for Russian government missions. (6/26)

Amid Departures, Planetary Resources is Holding Out Hope for an Asteroid Mining Comeback (Source: GeekWire)
It’s been months since Planetary Resources had to scale back its asteroid aspirations because a fundraising campaign came up short — and the quest for cash is continuing as space industry leaders converge on the Seattle area this week for the Space Frontier Foundation’s annual NewSpace conference. So how long will the quest continue?

“I don’t think there’s a definitive answer to that,” Chris Lewicki, the Redmond, Wash.-based venture’s CEO, president and chief asteroid miner, told GeekWire today. But Lewicki said Planetary Resources, which has raised more than $50 million in investments and successfully sent two satellites into orbit over the course of six years, isn’t swerving from its goal of mining near-Earth asteroids to build a trillion-dollar industry.

For a time, the company shifted its focus to Earth observation, but Lewicki said he and his teammates “made a risky and aggressive choice to double down on asteroid exploration” last year. They were emboldened by a number of positive developments, including a close partnership with Luxembourg’s government and business leaders. They also identified a number of new investors, including a mining company that was in line to lead a fresh funding round. Unfortunately, the round failed to come together, and “we didn’t have the funding coming in to support continued technological development,” Lewicki said. (6/25)

Hey Space Force, We Found Your Uniform! (Source: Military.com)
President Trump's Space Force went from tossed-off idea to hard and fast United States policy this morning and everyone at the Pentagon is scrambling to figure out how to crank up the sixth branch of the United States Armed Forces. Everyone knows that uniforms are a key tool for each branch's recruiting strategy. You never get a second chance to make a first impression, and rocket ships aside, the United States Space Force is going to need a badass uniform to convince the kids to sign up. Click here. (6/25)

Dubai to Get Its First NASA Space Camp (Source: TimeOut Dubai)
Ever dreamed of blasting off into space – or think you have the perfect design for a base on Mars? If you’re a UAE student, your chance to train like an astronaut has finally arrived. From Sunday July 15 to Thursday August 23, Dubai will have a NASA Space and Rocketry Summer Camp for kids to participate in. The camp is open to youngsters aged nine to 18 and will be led by NASA experienced space experts from North America and Europe. Using NASA’s and the UAE’s space curriculum, space projects and astronaut training, campers will get to learn what it’s like to live and work in space. Lucky little ones. (6/25)

Canadian University Rocketry Teams Steal the Show at Spaceport America Cup (Source: SpaceQ)
Canadian university teams win five major awards  - Rocketry teams from Canada once again won many awards at Spaceport America Cup including the McGill University rocketry team, which won the Genesis Cup as the best overall team. The second best overall team was Concordia University. There were 124 teams in the competition. It seems Montreal are leading the way in university rocketry in Canada. (6/26)

Space Florida and Israeli Partner Pick Winners for Innovation Grants (Source: Space Florida)
Space Florida and the Israel Innovation Authority announced the fifth-round winners of grants under Space Florida-Israel Innovation Partnership Program. 14 joint proposals were submitted by teams of for-profit companies in Florida and Israel, and four teams have been selected for the fifth round awards ranging from $240K to $300K each. The winners include companies in Orlando, Gainesville, Jacksonville, and Oviedo, each teamed with companies in Israel to pursue technology projects. Click here. (6/26) 

Gubernatorial Candidate Chris King Pledges Workforce Development for Space Industry (Source: Florida Politics)
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris King allowed that a new wind of success and hope has breathed new life into Florida’s space industry on the Space Coast in the last few years of Republican Gov. Rick Scott‘s administration. So what’s a Democrat to do? Plenty, King said Monday after touring space industry sites and meeting with a group of Florida aerospace leaders organized by the Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast.

King expressed strong support for what he called “the privatization of space” underway. He also laid out his vision that sees the burgeoning space vessel manufacturing and launch industry as one in desperate need of more workforce development, mainly through strategies that can underserved populations of workers, providing diversity that the rocket companies want.

“One, two, and three I would argue is workforce development, workforce, and workforce,” King said. “What I believe I would [address] and which they elaborated more forcefully, is: the constraint to their growth, constraint to the growth of their companies, like Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed was workforce, a competent workforce. So largely that was the conversation.” (6/26)

Space Center Houston Certified to Accommodate Guests with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Source: KHOU)
Space Center Houston continues to work to ensure that it is an accessible and accepting destination and now can accommodate guests with autism spectrum disorder. The science and space exploration learning center is the first of its kind to be designated as a Certified Autism Center by the International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards. "Science, technology, engineering and mathematics education is for everyone," said William T. Harris, the center's president and CEO. "This certification highlights our dedication to be inclusive and to inspire the next generation of problem solvers." (6/26)

Falcon-9 CRS Launch Shows Progress on Quick Re-Use Turnaround (Source: Teslarati)
SpaceX is days away from effectively bringing to a close an era of moderately reusable Falcon 9s that paved the way for the company’s Block 5 rocket upgrade, designed to dramatically improve reliability and reusability. As if foreshadowing the future its culmination will ring in, the CRS-15 mission will beat SpaceX’s previous record for back-to-back Falcon 9 booster launches by nearly a factor of two.

Scheduled to launch at 5:42 am EDT June 29, the CRS-15 Cargo Dragon mission will be SpaceX’s fourth launch of an orbital, flight-proven spacecraft, and will also cut almost two months off of the Falcon 9 booster refurbishment process. The particular booster, number B1045, launched just two months ago on April 18 before landing aboard SpaceX’s Atlantic drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY). After returning to shore, the rocket was transported by road the short few miles from Port Canaveral to Kennedy Space Center and SpaceX’s LC-39A integration facilities, where it is believed to have spent the last nine weeks undergoing moderate repairs, part replacements, and checkouts.

Just yesterday, the once-flown booster took to Launch Complex 40 (LC-40) for the second time to complete a preflight static fire, intended to ensure that the rocket is healthy before launch. In reality, the actual time available for B1045’s refurbishment was thus several days less than two months – the only other routinely reusable rocket, the Space Shuttle, lays claim to a fairly staggering record of just 26 days of actual refurbishment, although it’s worth considering the fact that a single one of the Shuttle’s 3 RS-25 rocket engines have been estimated to cost as much as $60 million, considerably more than two thirds of the price of an entire SpaceX mission for NASA. (6/26)

Dutch Design Lab is Exploring Creative Uses for Space Trash (Source: Quartz)
As the dream of regular commercial space travel comes closer to reality, Space Waste Lab, a new design lab in the Netherlands, is already investigating what to do with the debris generated from extraterrestrial traffic. Wayward space debris poses an immediate threat to us on Earth. Orbital flotsam and jetsam threatens the 2,000 communications satellites used by private companies and governments for for TV, phone, radio, internet, and military operations.

“No more internet, no more online banking, no more Facebook…” warns designer Daan Roosegaarde, whose studio is working with the European Space Agency, NASA, and the Kunstlinie Almere Flevoland cultural center in Almere, the Netherlands, where the lab is located. Roosegaarde tells Quartz that his studio’s success with its Smog Free Tower project has inspired the firm to dream bigger. Over the last few years, Studio Roosegaarde has installed several building-size air purifiers around the world, turning toxic black carbon into rings and cufflinks as a kind of memento mori.

The Space Waste Lab aspires to translate Smog Free Tower’s premise to a galactic level, turning pernicious elements into beautiful objects, while cleaning the environment in the process. Space debris, Roosegaarde says, is “the smog of the universe.” Later this year, Space Waste Lab will unveil its first project: an immersive outdoor light projection to demonstrate how enormous the problem is. It’s also planning a museum exhibit showcasing real debris collected from space and an education symposium, hoping to attract new partners, experts, and supporters to the issue. (6/25)

How Big Will The Space Industry Get? (Source: Aviation Week)
When it comes to investing in space-related businesses, companies often have been reluctant to pursue what they perceive to be big risks. But the organizers of a new study on the size of the space market think change is coming. “We know that there is a tipping point coming where the industry is going to get a whole lot bigger and more exciting than it has ever been before,” said Jeff Fiegey, chairman of the board of the Space Frontier Foundation (SFF). “We have a feeling that is somewhere soon, but we don’t know where that is.”

The Space Frontier Foundation (SFF) and Deloitte are kicking off a six-month study of the size of the space market at the New Space 2018 conference in Seattle, with the results due to be released in late December or early 2019. SFF has led the New Space conference for 13 years. The study, which was to have its first closed meeting June 25 and will have its first public outbrief June 26, is the one study leaders have been waiting for since the 1994 Commercial Space Transportation Study by NASA and six aerospace companies—Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed, Martin Marietta, McDonnell Douglas and Rockwell. (6/25)