August 15, 2018

Saalex Solutions and ELVIS 3 Team Supported Parker Solar Probe Satellite Launch (Source: Saalex)
Saalex Solutions is a teammate to a.i. solutions, Inc. on the Expendable Launch Vehicle Integrated Support 3 (ELVIS 3) contract at Kennedy Space Center. The ELVIS 3 team supported the launch of the Parker Solar Probe satellite on Aug. 12 from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport in Florida. Parker launched on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV Heavy rocket, NASA’s first launch on a Delta IV Heavy. (8/15)

HP Mars Home Planet Premieres Virtual Reality Experience (Source: Design World)
HP Inc. and a global community of creators unveiled a virtual reality (VR) simulation of what life on Mars could look like for a human population of one million people. The HP Mars Home Planet program, led by HP and NVIDIA, is the culmination of a year-long engagement with the creative community to simulate life on the Red Planet. The program attracted more than 90,000 creative professionals, architects, engineers and students spanning more than 150 countries. The most innovative ideas were brought to life through a VR experience created by Technicolor that premieres this week at SIGGRAPH. Click here. (8/14)

3D Printing in Space With Moon Dust Is the Secret to Your Future Home on Mars (Source: Redshift)
Many sci-fi conceptions of space exploration have envisioned astronauts running experiments on a planetary surface and then returning to a small base composed, principally, of the ship that took them there. But lengthier missions, if they ever happen, will require more extensive infrastructure: habitats, launch and landing pads, blast walls, meteoroid shields, cryogenic fuel and oxidizer storage, and other facilities.

A human mission to Mars would entail astronauts living and working in structures built on the Martian surface. But what would those structures be made of? Because only so much material can be brought from Earth, Mars explorers would have to learn to build using materials found on Mars. That may seem a mundane problem, compared to getting a crew to Mars, but it presents a host of complexities—problems on which NASA scientists and engineers at the agency’s Granular Mechanics and Regolith Operations (GMRO) Lab, at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, are actively working. Click here. (8/14) 

Defense Firms Bullish on ‘Space Force’ (Source: The Hill)
Defense contractors are eagerly awaiting the launch of President Trump’s new “Space Force,” in hopes the Pentagon will go on a space-related shopping spree. One of the driving forces behind creating a new branch of the military dedicated to space is addressing problems with the acquisition process. Supporters of Space Force say the acquisition process for space technology has been a mess without a dedicated military service.

Contractors say if it is organized right, Space Force could be a boon to their businesses. “It’s pretty exciting for all of us in the industry to see the intense level of interest that this administration and our Congress has in space,” United Launch Alliance (ULA) CEO Tory Bruno said recently. “I think there is sort of, at last, an appreciation of how vitally important space is to all of our lives and certainly to our country.” (8/15)

U.S. Worries About Russian Satellite (Source: Space Policy Online)
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Yleem D.S. Poblete delivered a speech at the United Nations Conference on Disarmament (CD) that laid out the U.S. Government’s assessment of Russian counterspace efforts. Threats to U.S. national security space systems posed by Russia and China are frequently cited by Pentagon and White House officials explaining why Congress should provide more money for space security and, more recently, why they believe a U.S. Space Force is needed.

Poblete specifically made the Space Force connection in her speech, quoting from Vice President Pence’s remarks last Thursday.  She called Russia’s pursuit of counterspace capabilities “disturbing given the recent pattern of Russian malign behavior.” Her statement is a continuation of the years-long debate in the CD over a proposed Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space (PPWT) proposed by Russia and China.  The gist of her statement is that Russia is conducting activities that would be prohibited by the draft treaty.

"In October of last year the Russian Ministry of Defense deployed a space object they claimed was a 'space apparatus inspector.' But its behavior on-orbit was inconsistent with anything seen before from on-orbit inspection or space situational awareness capabilities, including other Russian inspection satellite activities. We are concerned with what appears [this satellite's] very abnormal behavior... We don’t know for certain what it is and there is no way to verify it. But Russian intentions [are] a very troubling development – particularly, when considered in concert with statements by Russia’s Space Force Commander who highlighted that 'assimilate[ing] new prototypes of weapons [into] Space Forces’ military units' is a 'main task facing the Aerospace Forces Space Troops.' ” (8/15)

NASA Took Away Jeanette Epps’s Chance to Make History. Now, She’s Focused on Iinspiring the Next Generation (Source: The Lily)
In her blue NASA overalls at Berlin’s Tech Open Air Conference, with a calm and unfussy demeanor, Jeanette Epps looked like she was born to be an astronaut. Epps has dreamed of space travel since she was about 9, when her older brother planted the idea in her head. Epps and her twin sister had showed him their report cards, and he was impressed by their high marks. Their brother told them that they were capable of becoming aerospace engineers or even astronauts one day.

The idea took root. After graduating with a PhD in aerospace engineering, she worked as a research engineer for Ford Motor Company before moving to the CIA, where she gained operational experience in a foreign territory on a mission to Iraq. In 2009, she was accepted to NASA’s astronaut corps. She underwent physically and mentally challenging astronaut training in Houston, Germany, Japan and Russia, where the winter survival, water survival and centrifuge training takes place. For Epps, Russia was particularly difficult because she didn’t know what to expect; both the language and the training were unknown.

After completing her training, Epps was ready to go into space. But when the Russian Soyuz launched this year on June 6, Epps was not on board. In a controversial move, NASA pulled Epps from the mission without providing an explanation. Astronauts have been pulled from flight at the last minute before, but most of these cases have been due to medical issues. Last week, NASA announced the names of nine U.S. astronauts who would be flying to space using commercial spacecraft for the first time. Epps wasn’t on the list. As time goes on, it’s become increasingly likely that she will never get to go to space. Click here. (8/15)

Visionary Investors Should Place Their Bets in the Space Race (Source: Money Week)
Of course, the involvement of private business in the space economy shouldn’t be exaggerated. Governments are still the dominant players, and will be for the foreseeable future. But with that caveat in mind, it’s encouraging that since 2000 more than 180 space start-ups in all have been funded. Most of those came in the last three years or so, with around $2bn-$3bn being raised by the sector each year.

Overall investment since 2000 – including associated debt – now stands at $18.5bn from more than 500 investors, including the likes of Google, Fidelity and SoftBank. The aforementioned SpaceX and Blue Origin – both of which are developing technologies for vertical take-off and landing vehicles – are among a handful of space-related companies to have attracted more than $1bn-worth of investment each. Click here. (8/9)

Martian Dust Storm Is Clearing, but Opportunity Remains Silent (Source: Extreme Tech)
NASA’s Opportunity rover has been rolling around the surface of the red planet for an amazing 14 years. The rover’s expected operational life was a mere 90 sols (about three Earth months), but it just kept on going.  It’s looking increasingly likely that the planet’s global dust storm has ended the improbable run of Opportunity. As the storm begins to clear, there’s still no signal from the rover.

Opportunity uses solar panels to keep its batteries charged, and that’s a problem when the atmosphere is thick with dust. The newer Curiosity rover was also swallowed up by the dust storm, but it has a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) to generate power from a chunk of radioactive material. NASA knew things were going to get rough for Opportunity as soon as the dust storm began morphing into a global event. (8/14)

SpaceX Reveals the Controls of its Dragon Spacecraft for the First Time (Source: Ars Technica)
SpaceX has made remarkable progress on the crewed Dragon. At this point, SpaceX remains the clubhouse leader in the effort to return human launches to US soil and become the first private company to launch people into space next year, with a timeline running a few months ahead of Boeing and its Starliner spacecraft.

The progress seems all the more remarkable because of SpaceX’s startup status. Back in 2011 when the company joined the commercial crew competition, SpaceX had barely flown an orbital rocket. By contrast, Boeing has a century of aerospace experience, playing a major role in nearly all of NASA’s human exploration programs since the dawn of the space age.

SpaceX has also done so for significantly less money than Boeing. Musk’s company offered to finalize development of the Dragon spacecraft and fly six operational missions to the International Space Station for $2.6 billion. For the same service, Boeing sought, and received, $4.2 billion. At such a lower price point, Ars asked, could SpaceX even be profitable? Click here. (8/14)

SpaceX Vows Manned Flight to Space Station is On Track (Source: Channel News Asia)
Tech magnate Elon Musk's SpaceX vowed Monday to send its first astronauts into orbit on schedule next year - part of a drive to restore America's dominance of the space race. Gwynne Shotwell, the aerospace manufacturer's president, told journalists in Los Angeles an unmanned flight to the International Space Station in November would pave the way for a manned mission in April 2019.

"Predicting launch dates could make a liar out of the best of us. I hope I am not proven to be a liar on this one," she said. NASA awarded contracts to SpaceX and Boeing in 2014 as part of its commercial crew program, aimed at helping private industry build spaceships to reach low-Earth orbit. (8/14)

Rovers Descend on Southern Alberta's Mars-Like Badlands (Source: CBC)
If you take away the vegetation and the dinosaur bones, apparently the badlands around Drumheller are a decent stand-in for Mars. That's why teams from Canada, the United States, Poland and Bangladesh were in that part of southern Alberta over the weekend, testing their robotic rovers in a friendly competition. In all, 13 teams were in the Drumheller area performing a number of tasks that simulate what a real Mars rover would have to do.

That includes prospecting and extracting resources and searching for an injured astronaut at night. Of course, acting as a rover on a distant planet, the tasks are hands-off for the human creators. Oregon State University took top prize in the Drumheller Mars Rover Contest, while Team Argo from the Bialystok University of Technology in Poland claimed second and the Carleton Planetary Robotics Team from Carleton University in Ottawa came in third. (8/14)

Lockheed Martin Awarded $2.9 Billion Air Force Contract for Three Missile-Warning Satellites (Source: Space News)
Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $2.9 billion Air Force contract for three missile-warning satellites known as next generation overhead persistent infrared. The Air Force already had released in May a “notice of intent” to award two sole-source contracts to Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman for the next-generation OPIR constellation but the actual amount of the contracts were not revealed.

The announcement on Tuesday confirms that Lockheed Martin Space Systems, in Sunnyvale, California, will be responsible to manufacture three geosynchronous earth orbit space vehicles, to be completed by April 2021. Northrop Grumman was selected to develop the polar orbit satellites. That contract amount has not been announced yet. The next-generation OPIR will succeed the current Space Based Infrared System. The Air Force wants a new missile warning constellation that would be more survivable against counter space weapons being developed by China and Russia. (8/14)

Exos Aerospace Reschedules First Suborbital Launch (Source: Space News)
Exos Aerospace, a Texas company developing a reusable suborbital rocket, now plans to carry out a first flight of its vehicle in late August as it sets its sights on a follow-on orbital vehicle. The company said it’s planning a launch of its Suborbital Autonomous Rocket with GuidancE, or SARGE, rocket Aug. 25 from Spaceport America in New Mexico. The vehicle is a reusable sounding rocket capable of carrying up to 50 kilograms to the edge of space and back, although the company didn’t disclose the payload for this initial “pathfinder” mission. (8/13)

NASA Awards Contract for Construction of New Research Support Building (Source: NASA)
NASA has selected Walsh Construction Company II, LLC of Chicago to build a new Research Support Building (RSB) at the agency’s Glenn Research Center. This firm-fixed-price contract includes a base period that begins Aug. 10, followed by seven options that would extend the period of performance to June 9, 2020. The total potential value of this contract is approximately $32.7 million.

The two-story, 64,000-square-feet RSB will house approximately 164 employees and include open office areas, private offices, conference rooms, collaborative engineering rooms, and a cafeteria with supporting kitchen and dining spaces. (8/13)

How Many Humans Would it Take to Keep Our Species Alive? (Source: NBC)
Could we safeguard our species by sending a space ark to a new home, a la "Battlestar Galactica" or the movie "Passengers?" Frédéric Marin is among those who are doing the hard thinking. The University of Strasbourg astrophysicist has been focusing not on the engineering issues of interstellar travel (which lie beyond current technology) but on the biology side of the question: How many crew members would be needed for an interstellar voyage that might last dozens of generations?

In other words, what is the minimum number of people required to deliver and successfully plant a self-sustaining population of Homo sapiens on another Earth? The number Marin came up with is 98. Just 98 healthy people would be needed to operate the ship over many generations and to set up a healthy (non-inbred) population on another world, he estimates. That number holds even for his test case of a space ark mission lasting more than 6,000 years, although he allows for the population aboard the ark to grow over time — up to about 500, perhaps. (8/13)

Rocket Specialist OneSpace Raises $44 Million, Aims to Catch Up with SpaceX (Source: ECNS)
Chinese commercial rocket firm OneSpace Technology said on Sunday that it completed B round financing of 300 million yuan ($43.8 million). The move is a positive sign, given rumors that there is a shortage of capital in the industry, analysts said. They said the funding will also help advance the domestic commercial rocket sector and boost Chinese companies' confidence to catch up with world leaders such as U.S.-based SpaceX.

The funding was led by CICC Jiatai (Tianjin) Equity Investment Fund and followed by FinTrek Capital while its shareholders like China Merchants Innovation Investment Management Co increased investment, read a press release the firm sent to the Global Times. Founded in August 2015, OneSpace has secured four rounds of financing, raising about 800 million yuan. (8/13)

SpaceX Could Play 'Crucial Role' in Musk's Plan to Take Tesla Private (Source: CNBC)
Morgan Stanley is telling its clients Elon Musk's stake in SpaceX may be leveraged as a source of funding for his plan to take Tesla private. Musk is founder and CEO of SpaceX and Tesla. Tesla shares surged 11 percent last Tuesday after he tweeted that he is considering taking the company private at a $420 per share price. In a blog post later that day, Musk said "the intention is not to merge SpaceX and Tesla."

Despite the comment, Jonas said SpaceX could invest directly in Tesla as part of a strategic partnership. "While we are in no position to dispute this statement on a merging of the two entities, we do not expect Elon Musk to rule out the potential for the involvement of SpaceX as a capital-providing strategic partner or the potential for the value of SpaceX equity held within Mr. Musk's trust to be considered in the financing of a potential Tesla buyout," Jonas said. (8/13)

Why We’re Heading for an Armed Space Race (Source: The National)
As a Trek fan who watched the Trumpian hordes wee their pants in glee at the prospect of Space Force, the comparisons between fiction and reality must be drawn. Trump’s throwaway mumble has effloresced into a sixth special branch of the U.S. military, taking responsibility from the Air Force that currently oversees space operations. The difference illustrates a point of departure from what space exploration has long represented: a peaceful endeavour for the benefit of humanity.

To clarify: I don’t think we should be worried about Space Force. As much as some would love to have astronaut marines conducting zero-gravity laser battles, we’re a long way off yet. Plus, an organization whose logo looks like a toddler’s potato print isn’t something we need to waste our time on. What does concern me is what it represents; what the context of Trump establishing it and the intended message sent by doing so.

The administration has told NASA to get us to Mars – while simultaneously funding a new military body. If space is the ocean, the International Space Station is a pebble on the shore. We’ve barely dipped our toes in, yet we’re watching America wading out in combat boots. This is a dick-swinging contest in space. Space was once the prompt that stretched human creativity and ingenuity beyond the realms of the possible, yet half a century on it’s increasingly becoming the backdrop to displays of force. (8/13)

Space Force ‘Not the Way to Go,’ Says Key Democrat (Source: Defense News)
The White House’s push to create a new armed service for space has a key opponent in Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Although Reed did not say he would block the effort, he could be an obstacle if the administration proposes legislation for 2020 as planned. The Senate and House Armed Services committees and their annual defense policy bill represent a likely avenue for such a sweeping reorganization.

“I think we have to reorganize our space forces because our threats are now in multiple dimensions. But I think creating a separate service with all of the infrastructure and the bureaucracy is not the way to go,” Reed, of Rhode Island, said on “Fox News Sunday.” (8/13)

Researchers Find Source of Strange 'Negative' Gravity (Source: Live Science)
Sound has negative mass, and all around you it's drifting up, up and away — albeit very slowly. That's the conclusion of a paper submitted on July 23 to the preprint journal arXiv, and it shatters the conventional understanding that researchers have long had of sound waves: as massless ripples that zip through matter, giving molecules a shove but ultimately balancing any forward or upward motion with an equal and opposite downward motion.

That's a straightforward model that will explain the behavior of sound in most circumstances, but it's not quite true, the new paper argues. A phonon — a particle-like unit of vibration that can describe sound at very small scales — has a very slight negative mass, and that means sound waves travel upward ever so slightly, said Rafael Krichevsky, a graduate student in physics at Columbia University. (8/10)

Ghana is Looking to Outer Space. It Needs the Law to Match (Source: The Conversation)
African countries are becoming increasingly aware of the potential benefits of space. According to Euroconsult, the space budgets of just five African states amounted to over $900 million between 2009-2012 and the continent’s evolving space sector is reportedly worth $400 billion today.

In 2014 Algeria, Nigeria and South Africa combined spent more than $140 million on non-military space programs. Others expanding their space agenda include Angola, Egypt, Ethiopia and Kenya. Ghana is trying to catch up. The Ghana Space Science & Technology Institute has been established to train specialists in these fields and to convert space research into commercial applications. The government has made a bid to host the African Union’s planned Space Agency. It’s also a participant in the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) radio telescope project. (8/13)

Sierra Nevada Competes Key Step for NASA Space Travel Study (Source: SNC)
Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) completed a NASA study for the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE), which is the first module planned to be launched for NASA’s Gateway in lunar orbit. The study was performed under one of SNC’s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships-2 (NextSTEP-2) contracts. SNC plans to submit a bid to win the NASA contract when the agency issues its formal solicitation for the element later this year.

“Our design provides pressurized volume in addition to the capabilities NASA requires,” said Steve Lindsey, vice president of SNC’s Space Exploration Systems and former NASA space shuttle commander. “We are providing significant mission flexibility for transportation and operations from low-Earth orbit to lunar orbit.”  Lindsey flew on five space shuttle missions for NASA and commanded three assembly and test missions to the International Space Station. He was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2015.

The study included a comprehensive look to determine the operational uses of the PPE, if it fits NASA’s needs, and the opportunity for multiple commercial applications.  SNC was one of five companies selected for the study. (8/9)

Documentarian's Space Vision to Put Apollo 11 Crew Statue at Kennedy Space Center (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
A documentary filmmaker is pushing to bring a statue of the Apollo 11 astronauts to Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in time for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Steven C. Barber has made six documentaries since 2009, and now his focus is on the moon, or specifically the three men who trekked more than 220,000 miles from Earth to make history on July 20, 1969. He wants to bring a $750,000 bronze statue of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins to the Space Coast. Click here. (8/14)

Apollo 11 Medallions Reproduced for Anniversary (Source: CollectSpace)
Medallions flown on Apollo 11 will be recreated for the mission's 50th anniversary. The Robbins Company minted several hundred gold and silver medallions that flew in the crew's personal kits, later becoming gifts for family and friends. Asset Marketing Services, working with the astronauts' families and Sunshine Mint, plan to mint new medallions using dies created from the originals, with modifications to note the 50th anniversary. The new copper and silver medallions went on sale this week at a coin show and will become more widely available for sale next month. (8/14)

NASA Turns to Freelancers to Design Arm for ISS Free-flying Robotic Assistant (Source: Parabolic Arc)
NASA and Freelancer.com announced three of the winners of the ongoing Astrobee Challenges Series, the latest crowdsourcing contest held by NASA via Freelancer.com. In recent years, NASA has used Freelancer.com to hold several crowdsourcing campaigns in order to find innovative solutions to engineering problems they come across. This time the Astrobee Challenges Series encouraged participants to design a robotic arm for a project on the International Space Station (ISS).

NASA sought candidates to design alternatives for an attachment and orientation arm for Astrobee, the flying robotic assistant that will provide support to astronauts on the space station ISS. Three of the winners have already been selected: Nino Wunderlin, from South Africa; Myrdal Manzano, from the Philippines; and Amit Biswas, from India, who entered the competition with his company Triassic Robotics. (8/14)

India Plans Human Spaceflight by 2022 (Source: NDTV)
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced plans Wednesday to carry out the country's first human spaceflight mission by 2022. In a speech marking the country's independence day, Modi announced that "by 2022, when India completes 75 years of independence, or before that, a son or daughter of India will go to space." Such a mission would involve a launch of a capsule on the country's GSLV Mark 3 rocket. The Indian space agency ISRO has been testing some technologies needed for human spaceflight, such as a pad abort test of the capsule's emergency escape system in July, but the country has in the past deferred significant spending on human spaceflight programs. (8/14)

Report: NASA Making Good Planetary Progress, But Needs Mars Mission, Europa Vetting (Source: Space News)
A recent report praised the progress NASA has made on planetary science programs, but raised concerns about several elements of the overall effort. The report by a National Academies committee performing a midterm assessment of the planetary science decadal said that NASA "has made impressive progress" implementing the goals of the decadal survey despite suffering budget cuts early in the decade.

The report, though, recommended that NASA develop a more robust Mars exploration program as there are no official missions on the books after the Mars 2020 rover mission, with initial planning for only a Mars sample return effort. It also recommended that a proposed Europa lander mission, which was not a top priority flagship mission in the decadal survey but is being funded by Congress, "be vetted within the decadal survey process" given its potentially large cost. (8/14)
 
Despite Being Cut Short, SLS Engine Test Declared a Success (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
NASA and Aerojet Rocketdyne considered the latest static fire test of an RS-25 engine a success despite an early ending. The test Tuesday at the Stennis Space Center, witnessed by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, was scheduled to run for 500 seconds, but was aborted after 319 seconds because of what was called a "facility issue" and not a problem with the engine itself. The test was the first of nine to certify a set of upgrades and "affordability changes" to the engine, which will be used on the Space Launch System. (8/14)

Chinese Companies Moving Toward Commercial Launches (Source: Space News)
As one commercial Chinese launch company raises more funding, another is preparing for its next launch. Expace, a subsidiary of the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, announced it will launch its second Kuaizhou-1A solid-fueled rocket before the end of September. The launch will carry the Centispace-1-S1 satellite, about which little is known, into a sun-synchronous orbit. The Kuaizhou-1A made its debut in January 2017 and is capable if placing up to 200 kilograms into sun-synchronous orbits. The announcement comes as Chinese launch company OneSpace raised an additional $43.6 million for its small launch vehicles. (8/14)

NASA Helps Fund Southern Hemisphere Telescopes (Source: Nature)
NASA will help fund the development of two telescopes to help search for near Earth objects. The agency will provide $3.8 million over four years to build two additional Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescopes in the southern hemisphere, augmenting the two existing ATLAS telescopes in Hawaii. The new ATLAS telescopes will provide better coverage of asteroids in southern skies not visible from Hawaii. One of the new ATLAS telescopes will be located in South Africa, but a site has not been announced yet for the second. (8/14)