June 9, 2018

Thank the Moon for Earth's Lengthening Day (Source: Space Daily)
For anyone who has ever wished there were more hours in the day, geoscientists have some good news: Days on Earth are getting longer. A new study that reconstructs the deep history of our planet's relationship to the moon shows that 1.4 billion years ago, a day on Earth lasted just over 18 hours. This is at least in part because the moon was closer and changed the way the Earth spun around its axis. (6/6)

New Horizons Exits Hibernation to Prepare for KBO Flyby (Source: SpaceFlight Insider)
NASA’s New Horizons probe has been awakened from nearly six months in hibernation to enable the mission team to start preparations for its flyby of Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) Ultima Thule (also known as 2014 MU69) in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day 2019.

At 2:12 AM EDT on Tuesday, June 5, mission headquarters received radio signals sent from the spacecraft via NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) confirming it carried out the appropriate computer commands to exit hibernation mode, which it had been in since December 21, 2017. Now close to 3.8 billion miles (6.1 billion km) from Earth, the spacecraft is in good health, and all its systems are back online, according to Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman of JHUAPL. Traveling at the universal speed of light, radio signals take five hours and 40 minutes each way from Earth to the spacecraft and back. (6/9)

NASA Accepts Research Proposals for Space Technologies to Flight Test (Source: NASA)
NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate’s Flight Opportunities program has accepted research proposals for promising space technologies that benefit future NASA space exploration missions. Selected technologies from industry and academia will be flight-tested on commercial suborbital launch vehicles, reduced gravity aircraft and high-altitude balloon flights.

The Flight Opportunities program strategically invests in the growth of the commercial spaceflight market while helping advance technologies that will enable future missions for science and exploration. The program is investing in flight tests that take technologies from the laboratory to a relevant flight environment, which facilitates technology maturation, validates feasibility and reduces technical risks.

These investments enable infusion of key exploration technologies into multiple future space missions. The proposer’s organization will directly purchase the proposed flight(s) from flight providers on currently available U.S. commercial platforms of the proposer’s choice. Proposals were due on or before June 8, 2018, and selections will be announced in November 2018 (target). (4/25)

Parabolic Flights Advance Space Technologies for Gesture Control, Propellant Gauging, and Mars Sample Return Capabilities (Source: NASA)
A recent series of parabolic flights onboard Zero Gravity Corporation’s G-FORCE ONE aircraft demonstrated a variety of technologies selected by NASA’s Flight Opportunities program. The flight campaign consisted of two successful flights on March 21, 2018, lifting off from Orlando Sanford International Airport in Florida.

Each of the principal investigators (PIs) for the payloads flown received a SpaceTech-REDDI grant, enabling them to select an appropriate commercial flight provider for demonstrating their payloads. During these parabolic flights, researchers experienced up to 25 parabolas with intervals of microgravity that enabled them to evaluate the performance of their experiments in a relevant, space-like environment. (6/5)

The Rich Are Planning to Leave This Wretched Planet (Source: New York Times)
In an era in which privileged individuals search constantly for the next experience to obsess over and post about on social media, space truly remains the final frontier, a luxury that only the one percent of the one percent can afford. Brad Pitt and Katy Perry are among those who have reportedly plunked down $250,000 for a ride on one of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic spaceships, undaunted by a 2014 test flight that crashed and killed one pilot.

Now a company called Axiom Space is giving those with piles of money and an adventuresome spirit something new to lust after: the prospect of an eight-day trip to space that is plush, if not entirely comfortable, and with a bit of the luster of NASA as well. Circumambulating the floor of his gray carpeted office on a recent Wednesday, Mike Suffredini — NASA veteran, Houston native and the chief executive officer of Axiom Space — stopped in front of a cardboard compartment about as big as a telephone booth.

“It’s no New York hotel room,” he said with a shrug, as if apologizing for its size. “It pretty much is, actually!” said Gabrielle Rein, Axiom’s marketing director. “It” was an early mock-up of a cabin that will reside inside a commercial space station, among the first of its kind, that Axiom is building: a mash-up of boutique hotel, adult space camp, and NASA-grade research facility designed to hover approximately 250 miles above the earth. Axiom hired Philippe Starck, the French designer who has lent panache to everything from high-end hotel rooms to mass-market baby monitors, to outfit the interior of its cabins. (6/9)

Senate Appropriations Bill Increases FAA Space Funding, Seeks Regulatory Reform (Source: Space News)
Senate appropriators offered a budget increase to the Federal Aviation Administration office that licenses commercial launches, while also calling on the office to streamline its regulatory processes. The Senate Appropriations Committee approved June 7 a spending bill for the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. The appropriations subcommittee responsible for the bill favorably reported it without dissent at a markup two days earlier.

The bill provides $24.981 million for the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, or AST. That is an increase of nearly $2.4 million over what AST received in fiscal year 2018, and $3.4 million above the administration’s request. The House offered $24.917 million for AST in a bill approved by the House Appropriations Committee May 23.

The report added that the office “must fully and effectively execute its statutory missions before allocating resources to non-statutory interests,” activities it did not identify. The report would require AST to brief House and Senate appropriators within 60 days of the enactment of the final version of the bill on employment levels and job functions in the office. (6/8)

Scientists Find New Solar Systems with Planets the Same Size as Ours (Source: The Independent)
Two new solar systems, filled with their own worlds, have been found relatively close to our own. One of them is just 160 light years from Earth and includes three planets that are remarkably similar in size to our own. One of the three is exactly the same size as our own world, and the others are only ever so slightly bigger.

Otherwise, the planets are probably inhospitable: they are very close to their star and therefore very warm. But as yet another discovery of rocket planets that seem to show they are common throughout the universe, they are another sign that it could be more hospitable than we'd thought. The other system has two much larger planets. Those worlds – which like the first system, orbit a red dwarf – are known as super Earths. (6/9)

VT Mobile Aerospace Engineering Creates 400 Jobs, Opens New Hangar at Pensacola International Airport (Source: EFI)
VT Mobile Aerospace Engineering has completed a new hangar at the Pensacola International Airport. This brand new maintenance and engineering facility will add 400 new job opportunities for local families. The Florida Department of Transportation provided $23.8 million in grants to support this project.

Design and construction of this project was made possible through a combination of funds from the State of Florida/Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), the City of Pensacola, Escambia County, VT Mobile Aerospace Engineering, and the Industry Recruitment, Retention and Expansion Fund. (6/8)

Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems Aims for One Year or More On-Orbit Cygnus Lifetime (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
With Northrop Grumman’s acquisition of Orbital ATK complete, the newly-formed Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems will now be the division within Northrop Grumman responsible for all Cygnus missions to the International Space Station as well as the execution of the extended CRS1 and the upcoming CRS2 contracts.  As part of those contracts, the company will continue its focus on offering Cygnus as a testbed for new technology demonstrations, just as past Cygnus missions have done.

“And we’re also looking to the future.  In future Cygnus vehicles, future missions, in the not too distant future, we’ll have the capability to stay on orbit for much longer periods of time, up to a year or even more, which we think is gonna offer the commercial community as well as NASA and other government agencies the ability to fly all sorts of rideshare and hosted payloads on Cygnus.” (6/8)

Nonprofit Group Offers $1 Million College Space Prize (Source: Ars Technica)
A group called Base 11 announced this week that it will award $1 million to the first student-led university team to design, build, and launch a liquid-propelled, single-stage rocket to an altitude of 100km by the end of 2021. The prize seeks to increase minority participation in the aerospace industry. The announcement was made at Tomorrow's Aerospace Museum in Compton, California. We've noticed a recent uptick in activity by colleges engaged in rocket building. Some of them are seeking to develop suborbital launchers like this, and the Base 11 prize seems likely to spur those activities further. (6/8)

NASA Chief Sort Of Endorses SLS (Source: Ars Technica)
In a meeting with reporters Wednesday, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine addressed a number of questions, including the agency's development of the Space Launch System rocket. Bridenstine said the SLS offers NASA a unique capability but that he would be open to revisiting the agency's support for it if commercial vehicles with similar capabilities enter service in the future. “If there comes a day when someone else can deliver that, then we need to think differently," he said. "It's always evolving."

Be smart about this... Reasonable people have been saying this for a while. If Falcon Heavy continues to fly, if New Glenn flies, if BFR testing begins, the conversation about SLS will change unless the vehicle does not become significantly more affordable. The thing is, no senior leader at NASA has ever said that publicly. In this sense, Bridenstine's comments seem significant.

Editor's Note: Other reasonable people think that Bridentstine's Senate confirmation to lead NASA hinged on his commitment to a certain Alabama senator that the SLS program will continue. (6/8)

Iceye Seeks a Provider for 18 Small Satellite Launches (Source: Ars Technica)
Iceye, which seeks to deliver synthetic aperture radar coverage around the globe, previously launched a test satellite on India's PSLV rocket in January. Iceye wants to launch 18 satellites weighing 85kg each to a Sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 400 to 600km. The company has released an RFI. Once again, for providers of small satellite launch vehicles, getting to the launchpad sooner rather than later is critical. (6/8)

Orbital ATK Lobbying for the Omega Rocket (Source: Ars Technica)
Orbital ATK Vice President Mike Laidley wrrote that, by "leveraging facilities and capabilities used by other Government programs, the increased business base generated by Omega will save taxpayers $600 million over the next 10 years." The heavy version of the proposed Omega rocket will have the capacity to lift as much as 10 tons to geostationary transfer orbit.

Later, Laidley writes that "very soon, the Air Force will announce three launch-service agreements to support further development of EELV class launch systems." This, of course, is the key line. With the LSA awards, the Air Force will fund three launch systems. If Orbital ATK wins, Omega will proceed. If not, well, probably not. Not surprisingly there is an abundance of intrigue surrounding the LSA decision. (6/8)

Defense Authorization Bill Requires DOD Space Warfighting Policy (Source: Space Policy Online)
The FY2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) would direct the Secretary of Defense to develop a Space Warfighting Policy by March 29, 2019. By the same date, he must complete a review of U.S. space capabilities. The bill stipulates a lengthy list of topics that must be assessed such as the resiliency of the national security space enterprise with respect to a conflict, the ability to attribute an attack on a space system in a timely manner, the ability to resolve a conflict in space, and many more. (6/6)

Defense Authorization Bill Renames EELV Program (Source: Space Policy Online)
The FY2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) would rename the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program the National Security Space Launch Program and directs the Secretary of Defense to pursue a strategy that includes fully or partially reusable space launch systems. (6/6)

Rumor: Shiloh Area Being Given to Elon Musk (Source: Hometown News)
Lately I have been receiving communications from some of the good folks down Oak Hill way. These notes all go to a single point – what’s going on with Shiloh Marsh? Perhaps you have heard the famous inventor, financier and engineer Elon Musk is planning to build a private spaceport that would compete with the Cape. One of the places he is considering is Shiloh Marsh.

Mr. Musk tells us he intends to build a busy space port there. In the works is a manned mission to Mars by 2024 and by 2040 he expects to have thousands of people living on the red planet. Oak Hill people who have contacted me are concerned of the dangers involved with living in such proximity to so many rocket launches. That is bound to be a legitimate concern as is the added traffic in Southern Volusia and Northern Brevard Counties.

My main concern is that all that land (and surrounding water) will be turned over to Mr. Musk without restriction. The man’s imagination obviously knows no bounds as does his resources. What will he want to do there in the future? Will his projects create a type of pollution yet unknown? No one can say (Elon Musk included). Before the politicians give away the farm, intensive studies should be done on both the area and SpaceX. Editor's Note: I'm not sure where this is coming from but it is not true. Space Florida continues to support the ongoing permitting studies for a Shiloh launch site, but they say the process is about half finished. (5/31)

Legislator Champions Apprenticeships for Florida Space Workforce (Source: EFSC)
A day after Florida awarded a grant to Eastern Florida State College and Daytona State College for aerospace workforce development, Florida Rep. Robert Asencio visited with the Space Coast Consortium apprenticeship committee and toured participating companies Airbus OneWeb Satellites, Blue Origin, and RUAG Space. Rep. Asencio saw the advanced manufacturing technologies and skillsets required, and learned more about the Consortium plans to grow the talent pipeline locally through apprenticeships.

“These truly are the jobs of the future and we as a state must do all we can to prepare the workforce," said Rep. Asencio. "That is why apprenticeships are so critical, and why I’ve fought so hard in the legislature to get them funded, not only in the Space Coast but also across the state of Florida. Seeing the facilities and meeting with the leaders has only reinforced my stance for apprenticeships.”

The Consortium is currently registering the program with the Florida Department of Education and has selected five advanced manufacturing occupational apprenticeship standards. These occupations are Advanced CNC Machine Operator, Mechatronics Technician, Industrial Mechanic, Electronic Technician for Aviation Systems, and Mechanic for Plastic/Rubber Processing specializing in Fiber Composites. The Consortium will operate as an autonomous sub-committee of SpaceTEC, which will provide the general administration and fiscal transparency required of the program through its 501c3 status. (6/6)