August 16, 2018

UCF-Managed Arecibo Telescope Gets Antenna to Help Search for Aliens (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
A multimillion-dollar upgrade may be just what the world’s largest operational radio telescope needs to search for alien intelligence. Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory, which is managed by a University of Central Florida-led consortium, won a $5.8 million award for a new super-sensitive antenna that will enhance the telescope’s observation capabilities by 500 percent, UCF announced this week.

The National Science Foundation awarded the money to a group of scientists who will design and mount the antenna on the observatory’s 1,000-foot-diameter dish. The team will be led by Brigham Young University engineering professors Brian Jeffs and Karl Warnick, and will include collaborators from UCF and Cornell University, UCF said. (8/16)

Space Coast Games to Challenge Industry Teams at Spaceport (Source: SPACErePORT)
Boeing is sponsoring an effort on the Space Coast inspired by the recent Aerospace Summer Games in Southern California. The Space Coast Games will be a family-friendly competitive event among companies with ties to NASA and the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. Events will include fun activities like tug-o-war, volleyball, kickball, watermelon eating, etc. The date for this event is November 3 and the location is the KARS Park facility on Merritt Island. Click here for information. (8/16)

Mattis Sees Future US Space Opportunities with Brazil (Source: Jane's 360)
US Secretary of Defense James Mattis sees future opportunities for advanced research with Brazil, particularly in space, he told an audience at Brazil’s war college on 14 August. Pentagon spokesperson Commander Sarah Higgins said on 15 August that the Department of Defense (DoD) has a strong science and technology (S&T) relationship with Brazil.

She said the two nations signed a space situational awareness (SSA) agreement that will allow them to share information about more than 23,000 objects in orbit, including Brazil’s satellites. Cdr Higgins said Brazil has revitalised its space program since a tragic accident more than a decade ago. A rocket exploding at the Alcantara Launch Center (ALC) in northeast Brazil in 2003 caused numerous fatalities. (8/15)

Ariane 6 is Nearing Completion, but Europe’s Work is Far From Over (Source: Space News)
In 2014, when the European Space Agency settled on a six-year roadmap for the development of two next-generation rockets — Ariane 6 and Vega C — Europe’s main launch service provider Arianespace was still in the driver’s seat. International Launch Services was recovering from another Proton failure. Sea Launch was in drydock. SpaceX had just begun to crack the commercial market.

The competitive landscape was shifting but Arianespace still sat firmly on top with its Ariane 5, Soyuz and Vega rockets. Responding to the threat SpaceX’s lowpriced Falcon 9 posed to Europe’s launch sector dominance, ESA and its industrial partners ArianeGroup and Avio made cost control a defining requirement of Europe’s future launch vehicles.

Arianespace’s competitive landscape isn’t getting any easier. In the U.S., SpaceX, Blue Origin, ULA and Northrop Grumman are developing Ariane 6 competitors, Russia is building Angara, India is gaining traction with GSLV, Japan is building the H3 and China is aiming its Long March family at markets further beyond its borders. In the midst of these changes, ESA is pushing European industry to continue innovating and finding efficiencies even after Vega C’s introduction in 2019 and Ariane 6’s debut in 2020. (8/15)

'Facility Issue' Cuts NASA Engine Test Short (Source: Space News)
NASA confirmed Wednesday that an unspecified "facility issue" cut short an RS-25 engine test Tuesday, although the test was still a success. An agency spokesperson said that the test, scheduled to run for more than eight minutes, ended three minutes early because of that issue, but didn't provide more details about what specifically went wrong. A NASA statement released earlier Wednesday made no mention of the problem or even the planned and actual duration of the test. Both NASA and Aerojet Rocketdyne, which builds the RS-25, said the test was a success nonetheless. Eight more tests of the engine are planned through early next year as part of the overall Space Launch System effort. (8/15)

Descartes Partners with Airbus on Global Imagery (Source: Space News)
Geospatial analytics company Descartes Labs announced a partnership with Airbus Wednesday. Under the agreement, Descartes will add Airbus' OneAtlas global basemap image catalog to its existing library of Landsat and Sentinel data. Descartes uses technology to extract insights from image data, and announced Wednesday that it has also added weather data to its image library. (8/15)

ISRO Surprised by Human Spaceflight Announcement (Source: The Telegraph)
The head of the Indian space agency ISRO said he was surprised by Prime Minister Modi's announcement Wednesday of a 2022 goal for the country's first human mission. K. Sivan, chairman of ISRO, said in an interview that Modi's announcement of that specific date for the first crewed mission was "a surprise for us," but added that he felt that ISRO was confident it could meet the deadline based on development of key technologies. Two uncrewed test flights would take place before the first crewed mission, Sivan said, with an estimated cost of the overall program of nearly $1.5 billion. (8/15)

Russia to Develop Super-Heavy Rocket as Reusable Spacecraft (Source: TASS)
Russia’s super-heavy carrier rocket scheduled to blast off for the first time from the Vostochny spaceport in the Russian Far East in 2028 will be a reusable spacecraft, State Space Corporation Roscosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin said. The multiple-use principle "will be formulated as a task during the work on the super-heavy rocket," Rogozin stressed. According to designers’ plans, the Russian super-heavy carrier rocket should be able to deliver over 70 tonnes of cargo into low near-Earth orbit at the first stage. It will be developed to provide for deep space flights, specifically, to the Moon and Mars.

The construction of the infrastructure for the new carrier rocket at the Vostochny cosmodrome is scheduled to begin in 2026 and its first launch will take place in 2028. The concept of creating a super-heavy carrier rocket envisages maximally utilizing the accumulated potential. Also, basic elements and technologies of the Soyuz-5 medium-class rocket currently under development will be used to create the super-heavy launch vehicle. According to Roscosmos’s estimates, the creation of the super-heavy carrier rocket and the construction of the corresponding infrastructure will cost 1.5 trillion rubles ($22.5 billion). (8/16)

Angara Launch Pad Years Away at Vostochny (Source: TASS)
It could take nearly four years to build a second launch pad at Russia's new Vostochny Cosmodrome. In an interview, Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin said a contract for building the second pad, intended for use for the Angara launch vehicle, will take 45 months to complete once a contract to construct it is signed. That contract should be awarded in the near future. (8/15)

Tennessee Middle-Schoolers Complete Space Experiment (Source: Knoxville News Sentinel)
Five boys have worked over the summer at a Tennessee middle school to complete a science experiment on the effects of space travel on tooth decay after their sample tooth returned from the International Space Station. The team competed with others around the world to have their experiment chosen by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education. (8/13)

SpaceX's Starlink Constellation Could Have a Military Customer (Source: Teslarati)
In FCC regulatory documents, SpaceX states that it is “working with a manufacturer of conformal antennas for tactical aircraft” to design and build “a custom installation kit consisting of mechanical plates for the low-profile antennas and fairings reducing wind drag”, seemingly indicating that SpaceX itself intends to supply the phased array antennas itself.

Normally, this sort of testing would be fairly mundane and expected for any global satellite network, as one of the largest markets for satellite internet connectivity happens to be commercial aviation, particularly airlines and passenger entertainment. Most tellingly, SpaceX wrote it “will perform a series of tests with the integrated airborne prototype terminal … varying motion for representative roll and pitch rates of a high-performance aircraft“, later also describing a request for permission for “additional test activities undertaken with the federal government.”

It just so happens that the US Air Force’s Research Laboratory (AFRL) spoke with Aviation Week earlier this year (just weeks after SpaceX’s first prototype satellites had launched, in fact) about a nascent program exploring the potential utility of a spate of commercial Low Earth Orbit satellite internet constellations proposed for launch in recent years. (8/15)

Student Experiments Soar with Early Morning Launch from Wallops (Source: Space Daily)
Approximately 100 undergraduate university and community college students from across the United States were on hand to witness the launch of their experiments and technology demonstration projects on a NASA suborbital rocket at 6:13 a.m., Aug. 14, from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility.

The Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket launched as the sun was rising over the horizon and carried the student projects to an altitude of 98.5 miles. After a brief ride into space, the payload carrying the students' projects descended by parachute and landed in the Atlantic Ocean approximately 64 miles from the launch site. After recovery, the experiments will be returned to the students later in the day. (8/15)

ASTERIA Wins Small Satellite Mission of the Year Award (Source: Space Daily)
The ASTERIA mission has earned the Small Satellite Mission of the Year award from the Small Satellite Technical Committee of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). The award is given to a mission that has "demonstrated a significant improvement in the capability of small satellites," according to the award description.

The mission is a collaboration between NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, and the Massachusets Institute of Technology, Cambridge. The award was presented at this month's annual Small Satellite Conference in Logan, Utah, hosted by AIAA and Utah State University. Finalists for the award are selected by committee, and the winner is chosen through a public vote. (8/15)

New Pentagon Report Names Russia, China as Threats to US Space Capabilities (Source: Space Daily)
A new space report by the Pentagon has named Russia and China as key threats to US space capabilities, according to a document released on Thursday. "The United States faces rapidly growing threats to our space capabilities. China and Russia, our strategic competitors, are explicitly pursuing space warfighting capabilities to neutralize US space capabilities during a time of conflict," the report said.

"Other potential adversaries are also pursuing counter-space capabilities such as jamming, dazzling, and cyber-attacks." The report specified that the US Space Command's capability development efforts would focus on global surveillance for missile targeting and other priorities. "Department capability development efforts will focus on... Persistent Global Surveillance for advanced missile targeting," the report said.

The paper stated that the command will also focus on developing its deterrent capability and nuclear command, control and communications. In addition to this, artificial intelligence-enabled global surveillance and near-real-time space situational awareness will be priorities, it added. At the same time, the Pentagon outlined in the report the US Space Command's major priorities. "US Space Command priorities will include: designing and executing a full range of joint space training and exercises, with focused support to the Asia Pacific Security Initiative and the European Deterrence Initiative," the report said. (8/10)

US Working Hard to Cease Reliance on Russian Rocket Engines (Source: Sputnik)
The U.S. is working hard to halt its dependence on Russia's RD-180 rocket engines, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said. Earlier in August, the US administration announced new sanctions against Russia in response to Moscow's alleged use of chemical weapons against Russian ex-intelligence officer Sergei Skripal in the UK city of Salisbury in March. The Russian upper house's budget committee head, Sergei Ryabukhin, has told Sputnik that Russia's options for retaliation against the new US sanctions may include affecting deliveries of the RD-180 engines to the United States.

Bridenstine emphasized that NASA did not want to be dependent on Russia, but wanted to maintain good relations with Moscow. Russia is supplying the RD-180 engines to the United States under the 1997 contract. The US space program relies on the Russian-built engines to power the first stage of the Atlas V rocket, used for sending heavy payloads into space. In late July, Igor Arbuzov, the head of Russia's major rocket engine manufacturer JSC NPO Energomash, said his company had signed a new agreement with the United Launch Alliance on the delivery of six RD-180 rocket engines for Atlas V rockets in 2020. (8/14)

Earth Mini-Moons: Potential for Exciting Scientific and Commercial Opportunities (Source: Space Daily)
The detection of "mini-moons" - small asteroids temporarily captured in orbit around Earth - will vastly improve our scientific understanding of asteroids and the Earth-Moon system, says a new review published in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Science. These small and fast-moving visitors have so-far evaded detection by existing technology, with only one confirmed mini-moon discovery to date. The advent of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will verify their existence and track their paths around our planet, presenting exciting scientific and commercial opportunities.

"Mini-moons can provide interesting science and technology testbeds in near-Earth space. These asteroids are delivered towards Earth from the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter via gravitational interactions with the Sun and planets in our solar system," reports Dr Robert Jedicke, lead author, based at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, USA. "The challenge lies in finding these small objects, despite their close proximity." (8/14)

Wearable 'Microbrewery' Saves Human Body from Radiation Damage (Source: Space Daily)
The same way that yeast yields beer and bread can help hospital lab workers better track their daily radiation exposure, enabling a faster assessment of tissue damage that could lead to cancer. But rather than building portable cellars or ovens, Purdue University researchers have engineered yeast "microbreweries" within disposable badges made of freezer paper, aluminum and tape. Simply adding a drop of water activates the yeast to show radiation exposure as read by an electronic device.

On a commercial level, the readout device could one day be a tablet or phone. The badge could also be adapted in the future for nuclear power plant workers and victims of nuclear disasters. Radiology workers are regularly exposed to low doses of radiation when they obtain patient imagery, such as X-rays. While protective gear largely keeps workers within a safe range of radiation exposure, absorbing a little bit is still inevitable. Radiation doses creeping above regulated guidelines pose risk for developing conditions such as cancer, cataracts, skin irritation or thyroid disease. (8/10)

Mystery Russian Satellite's Behavior Raises Alarm in US (Source: BBC)
A mysterious Russian satellite displaying "very abnormal behavior" has raised alarm in the US, according to a State Department official. "We don't know for certain what it is and there is no way to verify it," said assistant secretary Yleem Poblete at a conference in Switzerland on 14 August. She voiced fears that it was impossible to say if the object may be a weapon.

Russia has dismissed the comments as "unfounded, slanderous accusations based on suspicions." The satellite in question was launched in October last year. Alexander Deyneko, a senior Russian diplomat, told the Reuters news agency that the comments were "the same unfounded, slanderous accusations based on suspicions, on suppositions and so on." He called on the US to contribute to a Russian-Chinese treaty that seeks to prevent an arms race in space.

Ms Poblete's comments were particularly interesting in light of President Donald Trump's decision to launch a sixth branch of the US armed forces named Space Force, added Ms Stickings. "The narrative coming from the US is, 'space was really peaceful, now look at what the Russians and Chinese are doing' - ignoring the fact that the US has developed its own capabilities." (8/15)

Two Companies Team Up to Send 3D Bioprinter to the Space Station (Source: IEEE Spectrum)
When our reality catches up with sci-fi, there will be lots of reasons to have bioprinters in space. For example, an astronaut on the long-haul voyage to Mars might get a terrible burn while futzing around with chemicals, and would be grateful for the ability to print out a new patch of skin. Or, looking even further into the future, a Martian colonist might suffer from liver failure but be saved by doctors who could print out a replacement organ.

Those scenarios are far off both in terms of humanity’s spaceflight capabilities and the state of 3D bioprinting—a rapidly advancing technique in which specialized 3D printers squeeze out biomaterials and cells to build up pieces of tissue, layer by layer. But a new partnership between the bioprinter company Allevi and Made in Space, a company with two 3D printers aboard the International Space Station (ISS), represents the first step toward those scenes of sci-fi medicine. (8/10)

Can Humans Live in Space Without Going Crazy? (Source: Discover)
What impact does being in space have on the human psyche? And for those future Mars astronauts, how would the human mind hold up as Mother Earth fades away to a dot? Surprisingly, it wasn’t until Mars missions became feasible that NASA considered the full breadth of the psychological needs of astronauts. Click here. (8/15)

NASA Rocket Carries Student Experiments into Space from Wallops (Source: DelMarVa Now)
A suborbital sounding rocket carrying student experiments from across the U.S. blasted off from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Tuesday morning. The 44-foot tall, two-stage Terrier-Improved Malemute rocket took off at 6:13 a.m. carrying the student projects to an altitude of 98.5 miles. Officials had to briefly delay liftoff after a boat entered the area. Approximately 100 undergraduate university and community college students from across the United States were on hand to witness the launch. (8/15)

State Grant Funds New Facilities at Cecil Spaceport in Jacksonville (Source: Jax Daily Record)
The Jacksonville Aviation Authority board of directors accepted a $1.8 million matching grant from Space Florida to design and build a space operations control center, a payload preparation facility and a rocket motor testing facility at the Cecil Spaceport. (8/15)

Hanging Out With the Guy Who Launched the Fastest Manmade Object in History (Source: Medium)
The fastest manmade object ever was just launched from Florida, and it’s possible you didn’t hear much about it. I had the honor of meeting Tory Bruno, Chief Executive Officer of United Launch Alliance on the Mobile Service Tower for rollback prior to the Parker Solar Probe Delta IV Heavy launch. He showed up without media or an entourage…. which I thought was awesome. I also captured a candid moment between him and his wife. Click here. (8/13)

Lockheed ‘Seizes High Ground’ With Second Hypersonics Deal (Source: Breaking Defense)
 It’s not over until it’s over,, but Lockheed Martin is certainly showing early promise in the eye-wateringly difficult technical field of building a useful hypersonic weapon. The Air Force announced last night that it was awarding the world’s biggest defense company a $480 million contract to develop a prototype for the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW). (8/14)

Russian Cosmonauts to Spend Almost 7 Hours Outside ISS on Wednesday (Source: Sputnik)
Russian cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Sergei Prokopyev will spent almost seven hours in the open space on Wednesday on a mission to install an antenna as part of a birds monitoring the experiment. On the same mission, Artemyev and Prokopyev launched four nanosatellites into orbit and picked up bacteria samples from the International Space Station's (ISS) external surface.

So far, 19 space dust samples have been delivered to the Earth since the experiment began in 2010. The scientists found DNA of bacteria from the upper level of the World Ocean, the dust with a strong concentration of holmium, normally typical of Przybylski's Star in the constellation of Centaurus.

Editor's Note: So here's another reference to Russia's dubious claims of harvesting extraterrestrial bacterial DNA in low Earth orbit, by wiping it off the exterior of the International Space Station. It would be nice to hear NASA's opionion on this. (8/15)

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