July 2, 2018

Restoration Begins on NASA's Last Flight-Configured Saturn IB Rocket (Source: CollectSpace)
An extensive effort is underway to save NASA's last remaining flight-configured rocket of the same type that launched the first Apollo astronauts 50 years ago. The surviving, mostly-intact Saturn IB booster, which for decades has laid on its side, spanning the length of the Rocket Garden at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, is now receiving a much-needed restoration. The 220-foot-long (68-meter) artifact was never used, but briefly stood ready for a launch.

"It is getting completely refurbished, inside and out," said Therrin Protze, the chief operating officer at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. "We want to make sure it is preserved properly." In total, NASA launched nine Saturn IB rockets between 1966 and 1975, out of the 14 such vehicles that were at least partially assembled. Today, parts from only two of the unused rockets still exist. (The stages of Saturn IB SA-211 are on display in Alabama; the upper stage at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center and the lower stage at the Ardmore Welcome Center.) (7/2)

China Aims to Outlift NASA with Super-Powerful Rocket (Source: Space Daily)
China is working on a super-powerful rocket that would be capable of delivering heavier payloads into low orbit than NASA, a leading Chinese space expert was quoted as saying Monday. By 2030, the Long March-9 rocket under development will be able to carry 140 tonnes into low-Earth orbit, said Long Lehao, a senior official from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

This compares to the 20 tonnes deliverable by Europe's Ariane 5 rocket or the 64 tonnes by Elon Musk's Falcon Heavy, which in February catapulted one of the US entrepreneur's red Tesla Roadster cars towards Mars. It would also outstrip the 130 tonnes of NASA's Space Launch System, which is due to become operational in 2020. China's Long March-9 would have a core stage measuring 10 meters in diameter and boast four powerful boosters, each with a diameter of five meters. (7/2)

China Rising as Major Space Power (Source: Space Daily)
China is fast becoming a major space power as both its technology and launching frequency of satellites are improving at a rapid rate. China became the world's fifth country to send a satellite into space in 1970. So far, a total of 400 satellites have been launched and over 200 are currently in service. A large family of satellites has been formed in China, covering the fields of communication, meteorology, navigation and space science. For instance, the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) now offers high-accuracy positioning services in the Asia-Pacific region, and 18 Beidou satellites will be launched this year. Click here. (7/2)

Report Recommends NASA Revise its Planetary Protection Policies (Source: Space News)
NASA’s approaches to planetary protection are outdated in an era of more ambitious missions and emergence of private space exploration ventures and thus need to be revised, a new report concludes. The report, prepared by a committee of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine at the request of NASA and published July 2, found that existing policies developed for the Apollo lunar landings and the Viking missions to Mars decades ago don’t fit more advanced missions under development, including Mars sample return and exploration of “ocean worlds” in the outer solar system.

Those policies are intended in part to comply with Article 9 of the Outer Space Treaty, which requires countries to avoid “harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter.” NASA developed policies to avoid contamination of potentially habitable worlds by its spacecraft, and to avoid contaminating the Earth’s environment with any materials those spacecraft return.

The committee concluded that while the central tenets of planetary protection policy, including its basis in the Outer Space Treaty and use of international cooperation, remain viable today, “the current planetary protection policy development process is inadequate to respond to progressively more complex solar system exploration missions, especially in an environment of significant programmatic constraints.” (7/2)

St. Louis Startup Hopes to Compete for Commercial Space Flight Business (Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
When he was 5 or 6 years old, Brian Stofiel helped his father and grandfather fire a hobby rocket in Carondelet Park in south St. Louis. Now, more than three decades later, Stofiel heads a small startup company that aspires to carve a niche for itself in the developing field of commercial space flight. Stofiel’s idea is to use mobile, balloon-launched rockets to propel small satellites carrying made-to-order, relatively small payloads for business, research and governmental clients.

Now, he says, such organizations must wait four to seven years to get secondary space on satellites launched with larger rockets by major companies. Among potential users, he said, are companies and universities wanting to do space-based scientific and engineering experiments. Other users could include organizations needing images of Earth from the perspective of space.

The small satellites, he said, also could be employed by governmental agencies and others coping with natural disasters, or the shipping and mining industries. He said he’d float the balloons from just about any location for which he could get Federal Aviation Administration approval. “As long as the FAA gives me permission, I’ll launch it from your parking lot,” he said. “Our unofficial slogan is to give us a payload by Monday and we’ll have it in orbit by Friday.” (7/2)

Sirangelo Leaves Sierra Nevada (Source: NASA Watch)
"I wanted to let you know of decision that I have made. After reflecting on my commercial space journey over the past 17 years and after significant consideration I have concluded that it is time for me to make a change and end my executive role leading Sierra Nevada Corporation's Space Systems. This decision is being made from a positive personal place and as a friendly transition from SNC with the knowledge that the SNC space business is stable and strong." (6/30)

Veteran NASA Astronaut Dan Burbank Leaves NASA (Source: SpaceFlight Insider)
After being tapped by the agency to be an astronaut in 1996 and spending some 188 days on orbit, Dan Burbank has decided it’s time to hang up his spacesuit. Burbank’s last day with the space agency was Friday, June 29. It marked the close of a career that spanned some 22 years and included three trips to the International Space Station. (7/2)

Suni Williams Wore New Boeing and SpaceX Spacesuits. Here's What She Thinks (Source: Business Insider)
There's no such thing as one-size-fits-all spacesuit. Some, like the extravehicular mobility unit, are big, bulky, and used only when astronauts are building or making repairs to the International Space Station. Hypothetical spacesuits for Mars might one day have spider legs to crawl across the red planet's moons. One thing is constant in the world of spacesuits, though: Every crewed launch vehicle has its own lightweight flight suit. "They have to all do the same thing," Williams said. "They all have to be able to protect you."

Williams said Russia's Sokol flight suit, which she and other astronauts wear aboard the Soyuz spacecraft, "is an awesome suit." But she noted that the new SpaceX and Boeing designs "look a little bit better" and are more comfortable, thanks to newer materials. Typical space shuttle suits weighed about 33 lbs (15 kilograms), while Boeing's new suit weighs about 12 lbs (5.4 kilograms). "The blue suit that Boeing has, it has a zipper in the front that'll accommodate a straighter posture," Williams said.

SpaceX's suit is also easier to move around in than all other spacesuits Williams has worn, she said. "The SpaceX one has like a motorcycle helmet that comes down and in clips in easy," she said. "An outer cover layer makes the suit look a little bit more slim-lined." "They're both different, and they're both better than suits that we've had in the past," she said. "It's gonna be fun to put a new spacesuit on." (7/2)

Dragon Arrives at ISS (Source: NASA)
A Dragon cargo spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station this morning. The station's robotic arm grappled the Dragon at 6:54 a.m. Eastern, three days after the spacecraft's launch on a Falcon 9. The Dragon will be berthed to the Harmony node of the ISS later this morning. The Dragon is carrying about 2,700 kilograms of supplies, equipment and experiments for the station, and will remain there for a month. (7/1)

FAA Grants Launch License to Virgin Orbit (Source: Space News)
Virgin Orbit has received an FAA license for its first LauncherOne launch. The FAA awarded the license Friday for the inaugural mission of the air-launched rocket, which will carry a mass simulator and cubesat, according to the license documentation. The company is gearing up for what it says will be a campaign of captive carry flights of a LauncherOne test article on its Boeing 747, culminating in a drop test. The company plans to perform the first launch by the end of the summer. (7/1)

Satcomm Companies Deal with Chinese Regulatory Challenges (Source: Space News)
Satellite communications companies are willing to partner with Chinese firms to gain access to China's growing market. Such partnerships are essential to win Chinese business in what one executive called "a somewhat frustrating market" given regulatory challenges to operating in the country. Chinese companies are also becoming a competitor by offering turnkey satellite systems to countries like Algeria, Laos and Cambodia. (7/1)

ESA Pitching Asteroid Alternatives (Source: Space News)
The European Space Agency is taking a different approach in winning approval for a planetary defense mission. ESA's Asteroid Impact Mission (AIM) failed to win funding at a 2016 ministerial meeting, forcing the agency to regroup. Hera, the concept to emerge from that replanning, is technically similar to AIM, but ESA Director General Jan Woerner said that the agency is making a greater effort to make member states aware of the threat posed by asteroids in order to secure support ahead of the next ministerial meeting in late 2019.

AIM was to arrive at the asteroid Didymos in conjunction with a NASA mission, DART, that will collide with a moon orbiting that asteroid. Hera would go to the same asteroid, but arrive several years later to observe the effects of the collision. (7/1)

Caltech Retains Role at JPL (Source: NASA)
Caltech will continue to operate the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA under a new contract announced Friday. The contract, with a maximum value of $30 billion, includes a five-year base period and five one-year options. Caltech operates JPL for NASA as the agency's only major federally funded research and development center, a model NASA is now studying for use for some of its other field centers. (6/30)

First Batch of Emirati Space Astronauts to Be Finalized This Week (Source: Al Arabiya)
The International Space Station (ISS) is set to conduct the final interviews for the first batch of shortlisted Emirati astronauts on July 3, a top official said. Thirty-nine of 95 Emirati astronauts passed the initial physical and psychological tests to qualify for the preliminary list of the UAE Astronaut Programme.

The 39 candidates will undergo the final assessment, where they will participate in scientific missions in space. The evaluation phase, conducted by the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC), is aimed to evaluate each candidate according to global standards. (7/1)

NASA Searching for Meteorites That Splashed Down Into the Pacific Ocean. Here's Why. (Source: Mashable)
On March 7, 2018, NASA planetary scientist Marc Fries watched on a weather radar as meteorites plunged into the Pacific Ocean. Four months later, on July 2, Fries and a group of marine researchers plan to pull these meteorites — chunks of primordial space rocks — out of the sea. No one has ever retrieved a meteorite from the ocean before, he said. But the effort is well worth it. These particular space rocks, he noted, are different.

These particular space rocks, he noted, are different. "This one is special," said Fries, in an interview. "This one is tougher than your typical meteor." The meteorite fall — one of the largest Fries has observed on weather radar going back to the '90s — involved space rocks that didn't break, crack, and burn apart in the atmosphere as much as meteorites usually do. But understanding exactly what they are — and where they came from — means visiting the sea floor, where the heavy space rocks invariably sank.

Fortunately for NASA, an exploration vessel called the Nautilus, operated by the Ocean Exploration Trust, happens to be probing the ocean depths around this very area this summer, off the Washington coast. On Friday, Fries headed out to meet scientists aboard the Nautilus. "The goal is to find whatever we can," said Nicole Raineault, a marine scientist and Ocean Exploration Trust expedition leader on the Nautilus. (7/1)

Asteroid Mining Could Be the Next Big Thing in Space - But We're Not Ready (Source: TNW)
While countries like the US and Luxembourg have passed bills giving companies the rights to resources they extract from asteroids or other celestial bodies, no international consensus has been arrived at in this regard. Many international space and legal experts are against the notion of individual nations holding the power to permit private organizations to mine in space.

To plug this gap between treaty obligations in space resource rights, and the policies adopted in individual countries, The Hague International Space Resources Governance Working Group was formed by the International Institute of Air and Space Law in December 2014. The aim of the Working Group is to recommend a stringent space policy to the UN that takes into account space mining.

In September last year, the Working Group began circulating a preliminary draft of the policy titled “Draft Building Blocks for the Development of an International Framework on Space Resource Activities”. The draft mainly calls for a sharing of benefits arising out of the utilization of space resources, and the establishment of an international fund for space mining. But it also states that monetary benefit-sharing is not compulsory, and adds that operators should be encouraged, but not required to share benefits. (6/30)

Raytheon Chief Upbeat on Defense Spending Growth (Source: Aviation Week)
Tom Kennedy joined Raytheon in 1983 during the Reagan defense buildup. Now as chairman and chief executive officer, as well as the 2018 chairman of the Aerospace Industries Association, he suggests those days may pale in comparison. “We think it’s the best time we’ve ever seen—or in a long time for the defense industry in the terms of the outlook—and we’re very optimistic,” Kennedy says. (7/2)