July 5, 2018

Florida Conference Focuses on Aerospace Business Matchmaking (Source: ERAU)
The International Aerospace Series: Florida Conference (IAS:FC) is a business-to-business matchmaking event connecting companies, local governments and universities to promote the development of the aviation and space industries.  It connects international companies with Florida OEMs, suppliers and R&D facilities, expanding their businesses to support these growing industries. This International Aerospace Series: Florida Conference will be Thursday, November 14th and Thursday, November 15th at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University-Daytona Beach campus. Click here. (7/5)

The App Promising to Make Anyone an Astronaut (Source: Engadget)
Under current projections, SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic will start taking space tourists on trips next year, perhaps even earlier. Naturally, seats on these craft are reserved for the wealthy right now, but there could be another way. Space Nation is a company that's promising anyone can become an astronaut, irrespective of how deep their pockets are. And all you need to do to become a viable candidate is to play a bunch of mobile minigames.

The company plans to recruit a pipeline of everyday astronauts through its Space Nation Navigator app, available for free on Android and iOS. The app's range of minigames, quizzes and other challenges function as a sort of test -- how you perform will decide whether you have what it takes to make it to the next stage. Space Nation intends to run its first selection process as early as October this year. (7/2)

Cancer Cluster? 20 Cases in Satellite High School Graduates (Source: Florida Today)
The diagnosis was devastating: colon cancer at age 30. It came as a complete shock to Julie Greenwalt, a Satellite Beach native and radiation oncologist in Jacksonville, who knows only too well that such cancer rarely strikes people under 40. Making it worse, the news arrived just 10 months after her best friend, a fellow Satellite High graduate, lost her battle with breast cancer. Then Greenwalt heard of other SHS alumni — at least 20 —  all young, predominantly female, having been diagnosed with cancer within a few years of each other.

The usual suspect is Patrick Air Force Base (home to the 45th Space Wing) and a concoction of chemicals used there over decades that may now be lurking underground in water tables or in the very lagoon where they played and fished as children. But new science makes it unclear if the base or some other yet-to-be-found factors are at play. This is a story of an urgent struggle between peoples' need for answers and the slow and uncertain pace of scientific research and government response. For decades, small pockets of people have suspected the base's radar facilities or chemicals and materiel that got dumped or buried in the ground were making them sick.

Builders unearthed airplane parts, vehicle batteries and crushed barrels of petroleum during construction in South Patrick Shores. Now what appears to be the latest outbreak of cancers in the shadow of Patrick's control tower has focused attention again on what role, if any, the base has played. The latest suspect: fire extinguishing foams used on the base could have infiltrated the local water table. The Environmental Protection Agency recently worked to bury a federal health study highlighting those risks, after an unnamed Trump administration aide warned in emails obtained it might trigger a "public relations nightmare." (6/22)

India Flight-Tests Crew Escape System (Source: ISRO)
ISRO carried out a major technology demonstration today (July 05, 2018), the first in a series of tests to qualify a Crew Escape System, which is a critical technology relevant for human spaceflight. The Crew Escape System is an emergency escape measure designed to quickly pull the crew module along with the astronauts to a safe distance from the launch vehicle in the event of a launch abort. The first test (Pad Abort Test) demonstrated the safe recovery of the crew module in case of any exigency at the launch pad. (7/5)

Solntsev Departs Russia's RSC Energia (Source: Tass)
The head of Russian space company RSC Energia is resigning. Vladimir Solntsev, who has been director general of Energia for nearly four years, will step down from the post on Aug. 3. The announcement didn't give a reason for his departure. The company will select a new director general at an emergency meeting of shareholders later in August, according to one source. (7/4)

UAE Narrows Astronaut Field to 18 (Source: The National)
The United Arab Emirates has narrowed the pool of applicants for its first class of astronauts to 18 finalists. More than 4,000 Emiratis applied, with the government's space agency narrowing those candidates down to a pool of 95 and then 39 before this group of 18. Those 18 will go through a "final interview stage" before the agency selects four to be members of the country's astronaut corps. One of those four is expected to fly to space on a 10-day Soyuz mission to the International Space Station next April. (7/5)

Opportunity Remains Silent After Huge Martian Storm (Source: Space.com)
NASA's Opportunity Mars rover remains silent nearly a month after a dust storm cut off contact with the spacecraft. Regular listening sessions by NASA's Deep Space Network have yet to detect a signal from the rover, which went into a low-power "sleep" mode in early June as a dust storm blocked sunlight, depriving the rover of power. The dust storm has turned into a major global event, but there are signs the storm may have peaked and may soon subside. (7/5)

UK Spaceport Site Announcement May Come This Month (Source: Cornwall Live)
An announcement on the site of a British spaceport could come this month. Supporters of one spaceport site in Cornwall said they're expecting the government to announce the site at the Farnborough International Airshow the week of July 16. Local officials said they were "anticipating a positive announcement at Farnborough" but declined to offer more details. [CornwallLive]

Russian Space Agency Skips Farnborough (Source: Tass)
Roscosmos has decided not to participate at Farnborough. The state space corporation, which had only a "minimal" presence at the 2016 show, said it won't be at this month's show at all, but did not explain why. Russian aircraft companies have said it's doubtful they will exhibit at the event, citing instructions from the British government that prevent them from displaying military aircraft to comply with a European Union embargo on arms sales with Russia. (7/4)

We Should Bypass Europa for Enceladus in Search for Life (Source: Ars Technica)
In its quest to find extant life in the Solar System, NASA has focused its gaze on the Jovian moon Europa, home to what is likely the largest ocean known to humans. Over the next decade, the space agency is slated to launch not one, but two multi-billion dollar missions to the ice-encrusted world in hopes of finding signs of life.

Europa certainly has its champions in the scientific community, which conducts surveys every decade to establish top priorities. The exploration of this moon ranks atop the list of most desirable missions alongside returning some rocky material from Mars for study on Earth. But there is another world even deeper out in the Solar System that some scientists think may provide an even juicer target, Saturn’s moon Enceladus. This is a tiny world, measuring barely 500km across, with a surface gravity just one percent of that on Earth. But Enceladus also has a subsurface ocean. (7/5)

Inside the All-American Voyage to the Last World in the Solar System (Source: Ars Technica)
Today, we can hardly think about Pluto and its moons without conjuring in our minds the iconic image of the reddish, brownish world that resembles nothing so much as a heart. The reality, however, is that we almost didn't get these images of Sputnik Planitia or Pluto's ghostly atmosphere. Rather, it seems a miracle that we did.

NASA could have spied Pluto decades ago with the most iconic planetary science missions of all time, the Voyagers. Although the trajectory of Voyager 2 did not bring it near Pluto’s orbit, the Voyager 1 spacecraft could have reached the tiny world five years after its 1980 flyby of Saturn.

Mission scientists faced a dilemma: visit Titan or Pluto. They could either execute a maneuver immediately after passing Saturn that would bring the spacecraft near Titan; or they could skip a close Titan flyby, maneuver toward Pluto, and roll their dice on Voyager surviving for five more years. Ultimately Titan, with its tantalizingly thick atmosphere, won out. Few regret that decision today. (7/3)

Private-Sector Space Activities rRequire Government Regulation, Says US Report (Source: Physics World)
Congress must introduce legislation to regulate the activities of private companies operating in space, according to a new report by the National Academies of Sciences. The need for reform has been heightened by the “burgeoning” commercial space sector in the US. The report – Review and Assessment of Planetary Protection Policy Development Process –  states that no regulatory agency within the US government has the authority to “authorize and continually supervise” non-governmental space exploration as obligated by the international Outer Space Treaty.

To remedy the private-sector gap, the report recommends that Congress pass legislation that “grants jurisdiction to an appropriate federal regulatory agency” to authorize and supervise private-sector space activities that raise planetary-protection issues. While the US has the FAA, it only authorizes launch and re-entry to Earth with its main concern being to protect the public.  Also, private missions are independent from NASA. “The expertise in the federal government for planetary protection almost exclusively lies within NASA’s capabilities, but NASA is a mission agency and not a regulatory agency,” said committee member Scott Hubbard.

He is optimistic that government will act quickly to introduce legislation to address the regulatory gap. “I have always found space to be not only bipartisan but often nonpartisan — it creates high-tech jobs, it is national prestige and it is great for scientific discovery,” says Hubbard. “I would hope that a bipartisan solution can be found and can be found rather quickly.” (7/4)

Crew Dragon Undergoes More Tests as it Progresses to Operational Readiness (Source: SpaceFlight Insider)
After recently being subjected to electromagnetic interference (EMI) testing, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon inches closer to operational readiness with the completion of two key tests. In one test, Crew Dragon was subjected to conditions like those it will encounter in space. This was done so as to ensure that the spacecraft can operate in a high-altitude environment. The vehicle is the same one that has been tapped to fly on the company’s first, uncrewed flight — designated Demonstration Mission 1 — in the second half of this year (2018) To help accomplish this, the spacecraft was placed in a vacuum testing chamber at NASA’s Plum Brook Station in Ohio. (7/3)