August 20, 2018

Talent Gap Jeopardizes Space Business, National Security (Source: Space News)
The space race is back, inspiring innovators, investors and consumers alike, at a scale and scope unseen since the moon landing. But, do we have the talent to win? Americans have proved time and time again that they have the intelligence, fortitude and determination to succeed. However, this depends upon having the right people with the right qualifications at the right time – and it is increasingly clear that we do not. A growing talent gap is one of the biggest economic, cultural, and security risk this nation faces in the critical next two decades.

At present, highly skilled graduates are clamoring for the coolest jobs in emerging space companies with world changing visions. But, just as with computing and the internet, the industry needs a workforce formidable enough to fuel potentially hundreds of new space companies and thousands of new jobs. Labor is scarce. The right labor, even more so. Unemployment is so low and the skills gap so vast that we’re already looking at widespread overemployment among the general population. Los Angeles, for example, is facing at a 42-percent shortage of “midskilled” workers over the next five years.

There are currently 6.3 million U.S. job openings. By 2020, there will be up to 2 million unfilled manufacturing jobs, according to Manpower. According to Addeco, 92 percent of business leaders think American workers aren’t as skilled as they need to be. We’re making this challenge hard on ourselves. Space companies and high-tech firms are fighting for the same workforce skilled in software, hardware, data science, engineering, artificial intelligence and manufacturing. From a strategic point of view, we could take six major steps to staff up to help win this new space race. Click here. (8/20)

385 Feet of Crazy: The Most Audacious Flying Machine Ever (Source: WIRED)
The twin-fuselage, catamaran-style aircraft would be a flying launchpad, its purpose to heave a half-million-pound rocket ship to cruising altitude and then drop it, whereupon the rocket would ignite its engines for a fiery ascent into space. Allen’s hope was that this extraordinary bird would be able to do quick laps between the ground and the stratosphere, making access to space no more exotic than a New York–to–Boston commuter flight.

Three years past that target date, the plane finally exists, and as Rutan promised, it is one big mama. As I discovered, nothing—not even a Rutan-approved scale model—can prepare you for an encounter with it. Everything about Stratolaunch is supersized. It has six screaming Pratt & Whitney turbofan jet engines, salvaged from three 747s. Its maximum takeoff weight is 1.3 million pounds. It’s got more than 80 miles of wiring. Most astounding is its 385-foot wingspan, the spec that puts Stratolaunch in the history books.

Though the two fuselages look identical, only the right one has a cockpit, largely preserved from one of the 747s, with a throttle, foot pedal, and even some analog displays that a commercial pilot working in the 1970s might find familiar. One of the seats is covered by a sheepskin-like cushion of the type often found in New York City taxis. Looking out the window, the second fuselage is so far away that it looks like a plane sitting on an adjacent runway. Click here. (8/20)

CASIS & Teledyne Brown Engineering Announce Remote Sensing Challenge (Source: Parabolic Arc)
The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) and Teledyne Brown Engineering (TBE) today announced a sponsored program up to $4.5 million, offering researchers the ability to propose flight project concepts for the International Space Station (ISS) focused on remote sensing and Earth observation. Within this opportunity, up to $1 million will be available for researchers to support sensor development. Prospective awardees will utilize the Multi-User System for Earth Sensing (MUSES) platform, developed and managed by TBE. This funding opportunity will run through December 7, 2018. (8/20)

One-Third of Known Planets May Be Enormous Ocean Worlds (Source: Astronomy)
Water is a key ingredient for life — and new research suggests we might find it all over the galaxy. Scientists looked at the mass of super-Earths, a kind of planet common across the cosmos but not present in our own solar system. These rocky worlds are several times larger than Earth, but the team’s analysis of known super-Earths reveals something astounding: Many of them may be literal water worlds.

According to the research, many of these planets may be half water. By comparison, water is just a tiny fraction of Earth’s mass. But that doesn’t mean these super-Earths are friendly places to live. The Harvard-led team determined that those planets with 1.5 times Earth’s radius or below would be terrestrial, or rocky. Based on the team’s modeling, up to 35 percent of known planets might be water worlds. That could mean the coming years will lead to the discovery of a whole lot of exo-oceans — and a whole host of new questions. (8/20)

Billion-Dollar Telescopes Could End Up Beyond the Reach of US Astronomers (Source: Nature)
Every ten years, US astronomers set research priorities for the following decade. The latest cycle to pick projects for the 2020s has just started. In July, the US National Academy of Sciences launched the seventh Astronomical Decadal Survey (Astro2020) with a call for proposals for future telescopes and space missions. Over the coming year, these will be collected, assessed and discussed in open meetings. A ranked list of priority projects will be released in 2021. Funding permitting, those at the top will be built over the next decades.

But large facilities that can explore these frontiers cost billions of dollars and take decades to design, build and operate. ALMA was proposed in 1990 and became operational in 2013. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was approved in 2000 and will be launched in 2021. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, recommended in 2010 and under construction in Chile, will begin to map the sky in 2023. The fruits of the 2020 Decadal Survey won’t see light until the 2030s.

The US community faces a daunting task. Each generation of facilities is getting more expensive and harder to build. Operational costs are mounting. Meanwhile, the research budgets of the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA have remained more or less flat since the 1990s. Hard decisions have been made to close old but still-productive telescopes, which has proved insufficient to pay for new ones. And these pressures will only get worse as more big projects come online. (8/20)

The Moon’s Role in the New U.S. Space Force (Source: Air & Space)
Scenarios for anti-satellite warfare have mostly focused on low Earth orbit (200-500 km) and geosynchronous orbit (36,000 km), where most of our satellites are stationed. Typically in these scenarios, interceptors launched from the ground either collide with an enemy satellite or explode near it. But now that we are planning a return to the Moon, the entire volume of cislunar space (a radius of 400,000 km) becomes a potential battleground.

In 1998, a launch malfunction resulted in a very valuable Hughes communications satellite being stranded in a useless orbit. Hughes engineers ingeniously used the spacecraft’s reserve attitude control fuel to gradually swing the satellite around the Moon and bring it back down to its correct orbit. The maneuver resulted in the satellite approaching Earth from an unusual, “stealthy” direction—downwards from the Moon rather than up from the ground, the way we typically think of missile launches by aggressor nations.

This “oops” event turned into an eye-opening realization for military space experts: It’s very difficult to conduct surveillance on the entire volume of space beyond low Earth orbit. China also understood the implications of cislunar orbits, and in 2010 flew its Chang’E-2 scientific spacecraft to the Moon, orbited it for a year, then moved the spacecraft to a halo orbit around the Earth-Moon L-2 libration point. After loitering there for eight months, Chang’E-2 then took off for a flyby interception of the asteroid Toutatis. In a single mission, China demonstrated “space control,” or the ability to place any kind of satellite—friendly or unfriendly—virtually anywhere in cislunar space. (8/20)

SAIC Touts $255M DOD Space Win But Says Little Else (Source: Aviation Week)
Science Applications International Corp. has won a $255 million contract with an unidentified customer for systems engineering and technical assurance services to support space activities inside the U.S. And while very little else was disclosed in SAIC’s release Thursday, this appears to give the company an added footprint in a space market that is growing both in size and also in relative secrecy. The Defense Department’s unclassified national security space request sought a 9-percent increase for the 2019 fiscal year. (8/20)

White House Stands Up For STP-4 Launch Funds (Source: Aviation Week)
The White House says it “strongly objects” to a provision in the Senate’s fiscal 2019 defense appropriations legislation that would eliminate $209 million in launch funding for the Space Test Program-4 (STP-4) mission, citing the importance of its satellite servicing demonstration. (8/16)

Startup Relativity Space Banks on Military Launches (Source: Space News)
Relativity Space will be one of the few domestic players in a segment of the market dominated by foreign firms. This could put the company, which is focused on building 3D printed rockets, in an advantageous position to compete for military contracts. A launch site in the United States will be selected later this year. The company expects to fly its Terran 1 rocket by late 2020, with a goal to start commercial launches in 2021. Terran’s 3D printed engine, named Aeon 1, is being tested at NASA’s Stennis Space Center, Miss., where the company signed a 20-year lease. (7/1)

Veteran Aerospace Executive Joins Relativity Space (Source: Space News)
Relativity Space, the startup developing a small launch vehicle making extensive use of 3D-printing technologies, has brought on board a former SpaceX and Virgin Orbit executive to help grow the company. Relativity announced Aug. 20 that Tim Buzza was joining the company as an advisor, spending several days a week at the Los Angeles-based company to support its work in a wide range of areas, from technology to regulations. (8/20)

The Pentagon Has a Plan to Arm Satellites With Lasers to Shoot Down Missiles. It’s Insane. (Source: Daily Beast)
Under pressure from Congress and the Trump administration to bolster its military presence in space, the U.S. Defense Department is once again studying ways of mounting missile or lasers onto satellites in order to shoot down ballistic missiles before they can strike U.S. soil. But experts say there's no way to build an effective orbital missile shield that doesn't cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

"It’s not against the laws of physics,’ said one expert, ‘but might as well be in terms of difficulty and possibility of success." And even if Congress somehow found the money, there's no guarantee space-based missile defenses would work when it matters most—when a North Korean or Iranian rocket is arcing toward an American city. (8/20)

Space Force Could Become a Black Hole for Defense Dollars (Source: Space News)
There are growing worries that standing up a separate Space Force could divert funding from other military priorities.  Vice President Mike Pence said the administration would ask Congress for $8 billion over the next five years to get the Space Force off the ground, but it's not clear if this funding would be taken from other Pentagon programs or be new money. Some outside experts worry the overhead costs of setting up the Space Force as an independent military branch could be significant. "There's going to be an overhead bill that you're not currently paying. How do we ensure that this ends up being more space capability?" asked Wesley Hallman, senior vice president for policy at the National Defense Industrial Association. (8/20)

Crew Access Arms Readied on SpaceX, ULA Launch Pads (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
The walkway that will be used by astronauts boarding Crew Dragon spacecraft has arrived at its launch site. The crew access arm arrived at the base of Launch Complex 39A late last week, although it had yet to be hoisted into place on the launch tower itself. The access arm will allow astronauts to board the Crew Dragon spacecraft on the launch pad. A similar acecss arm, and supporting structure, is already in place at Space Launch Complex 41 for Atlas 5 launches of Boeing's CST-100 Starliner. (8/20)

Energia Officials Arrested in Russia for 'Fraud' (Source: Space Daily)
Three top executives of the Russian space company Energia, which designs and manufactures the Soyuz and Progress spacecrafts, have been arrested for alleged fraud, investigators said on Sunday. "Energia's deputy director Alexei Beloborodov and two of his subordinates were arrested and charged with attempted fraud," the Investigative Committee of Russia said in a statement. The arrests come as part of a probe conducted "with the active assistance" of the main Russian intelligence agency, the FSB, the statement added.

At the end of July, the FSB carried out several searches targeting the Russian space industry as part of an investigation into "high treason", according to Russian media. According to the Russian daily Kommersant, a dozen Russian space industry employees are suspected of having sent classified information about Russian hypersonic weapon projects to Western security services. (8/20)

Liquid Battery Promises Safe Energy-Dense Power For Electric Aircraft (Source: Aviation Week)
Imagine an electric aircraft that can be refueled like any other, not with aviation gasoline or kerosene, but with energy-storing fluids that can be recharged after each flight. The fluids are immune to thermal runaway and the risk of fire that comes with lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. That is the promise of an early-stage rechargeable liquid battery technology under investigation by NASA.

The agency is researching the integration of nano-electrofuel (NEF) flow batteries with rim-driven electric motors to produce a safe, clean and quiet propulsion system for aircraft. The nonexplosive energy storage technology has been incubated by NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center under the Aqueous Quick-Charging Battery Integration for Flight Research (Aquifer) project. NASA Glenn Research Center is co-principal investigator.

In an NEF battery, positively and negatively charged fluids are pumped through a flow cell. Inside the cell, the water-based fluids flow on opposite sides of an ion-exchange membrane, producing an electric current in the same way a fuel cell does. Energy storage capacity is limited by tank volume, not cell size, and power is a function of the membrane area. (8/14)

A Galaxy 11.3 Billion Light-Years Away Appears Filled with Dark Matter (Source: Science News)
A distant galaxy appears filled with dark matter. The outermost stars in the Cosmic Seagull, a galaxy 11.3 billion light-years away, race too fast to be propelled by the gravity of the galaxy’s gas and stars alone. Instead, they move as if urged on by an invisible force, indicating the hidden presence of dark matter, astrophysicist Verónica Motta of the University of Valparaíso in Chile and her colleagues report August 8 at arXiv.org.

“In our nearby universe, you see these halos of dark matter around galaxies like ours,” Motta says. “So we should expect that in the past, that halo was there, too.” They found that the galaxy’s stars speed up as they get farther from the galaxy’s center. That’s a strange setup for most orbiting objects — when planets orbit a star, for instance, the most distant planets move slowest. But it can be explained if the galaxy’s far reaches are dominated by dark matter that speeds things along. (8/17)

Russian to Spend Decade, $25 Billion on Super Heavy Launch Vehicle (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Russia is moving ahead with a decade-long, $25 billion (1.6 trillion ruble) program to create new super-heavy launch vehicles capable of lifting up to 100 metric tons into low Earth orbit (LEO). The new boosters, known as Energia-3 and Energia-5, will incorporate technologies and elements of the Soyuz-5 medium-class rocket, which is now under development.

Soyuz-5 is designed to launch Russia’s new crewed spacecraft, Federatsiya (Federation), into Earth orbit. The Energia rockets will be used for lunar missions. RSC Energia, which is developing the boosters, plans to test the Soyuz-5 rocket from 2022-25. The super-heavy booster would then be tested from 2028-2035 from the Vostochny Cosmodrome. The initial tests will involve the Energia-3 rocket, which will be capable of lifting about 70 metric tons into LEO. The Energia-5 will be capable of launching 100 metric tons into Earth orbit and 20.5 metric tons into lunar orbit. (8/19)

Colorado’s Defense Sector Generates $36.6B Economic Impact (Source: Colorado Springs Business Journal)
Department of Defense and related activities produce a $36.6 billion economic impact on Colorado’s economy, according to a news release issued today by the Colorado Springs Chamber & EDC. The results of a new study show the impacts are much higher and farther reaching than initially understood and represent more than 7 percent of the state’s total economy in terms of employment, earnings and state tax revenues. (8/16)

The First Air-Launched Satellite Attempts (Source: Drew ExMachina)
At the dawn of the Space Age, the United State space program looked very different from today’s and was dominated by the Department of Defense. And like the other branches of the US military during this time, the Navy’s “space program” actually consisted of several, largely independent space projects run by different internal bureaus and laboratories.

While the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) ran the Vanguard program under the watchful gaze of the public (see “Vanguard 1: The Little Satellite that Could”), the Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS) at China Lake, California was secretly conducting an independent military satellite program whose existence was not acknowledged until 1994.

NOTS , under the direction of the Navy’s Bureau of Ordnance (BuOrd), had been responsible for the development rocket-based weapons for the Navy since its inception in 1943. During the years leading up to the Space Age, engineers and scientists at NOTS were already busy performing research on suborbital and satellite ocean surveillance systems. With the launch of Sputnik, a NOTS team proposed an all-solid-fuel launch vehicle based on the motors in the Army’s Sergeant missile. Click here. (7/25)

Russia is Down to a Single Female Cosmonaut, and She May Never Fly (Source: Ars Technica)
The Russian space program gets a lot of credit for flying the first woman in space. In fact, the Soviet Union flew the first two women: Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982. NASA waited until the space shuttle era before selecting female astronauts, and Sally Ride did not become the first American woman in space until 1983.

However, since Ride broke the US space gender barrier 35 years ago, 50 other American women have flown into space. By contrast, just two other women from Russia have flown into space since then, Yelena Kondakova (1994 and 1997) and Yelena Serova (2014). Two women from China, Japan, and Canada have also flown into space, as well as one woman each from the countries France, India, Italy, South Korea, and the United Kingdom.

This disparity seems likely to only widen in the future. Of NASA's last two astronaut classes, in 2013 and 2017, nine of the 20 chosen candidates were women. Of Russia's last two classes in 2012 and 2018, just a single woman, Anna Kikina, was picked. Selected in 2012, Kikina was subsequently expelled from the cosmonaut corps in 2014 for unspecified reasons. After a public outcry, Kikina was reinstated, but it is not clear whether she will ever fly. (8/17)

Falcon-9 Crew Walkway Aarrives at Launch Pad 39A in Florida (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
The access arm astronauts will transit when boarding SpaceX’s Crew Dragon commercial capsule has arrived at launch pad 39A at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport in Florida. SpaceX will raise it to an attach point on the launch pad’s fixed service structure at the correct height to give astronauts and ground crews access to the Crew Dragon spacecraft sitting atop a Falcon 9 rocket.

At the end of the arm, a white room will connect to the hatch entry way of the Crew Dragon spaceship, allowing astronauts to crawl aboard a few hours before liftoff on missions to the International Space Station. A crew access arm similar in function — but different in appearance — has been installed at United Launch Alliance’s nearby Atlas 5 launch pad at Cape Canaveral, where Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew craft will lift off with astronauts on-board. (8/17)

Trump Backed 'Space Force' After Months of Lobbying by Officials with Ties to Aerospace Industry (Source: LA Times)
When President Trump spoke to Marines at Air Station Miramar in San Diego on March 13, he threw out an idea that he suggested had just come to him. "You know, I was saying it the other day, because we're doing a tremendous amount of work in space — I said maybe we need a new force. We'll call it the ‘space force,’" he told the crowd. "And I was not really serious. And then I said what a great idea — maybe we'll have to do that."

The origin of the space force wasn’t that simple. The concept had been pushed unsuccessfully since 2016 by a small group of current and former government officials, some with deep financial ties to the aerospace industry. Defense contractors involved in space “were complaining to us about how impossible it was to deal with the Air Force,” Rogers said. “They kept describing this bureaucratic morass in Air Force procurement, where nobody had decision-making authority.”

Rogers, who was first elected to Congress by a razor-thin margin in 2002, has solidified control of his rural district, with a campaign war chest swelled with money from the aerospace industry. Defense industry firms have contributed $395,000 to his campaign committee and leadership PAC since 2017, becoming by far his largest industry donor, according to Open Secrets, a campaign spending database. (8/18)

India Announces Plans for Manned Space Flights (Source: US News)
India is a country carrying increasing expectations. With a population of 1.3 billion that's expected to grow and outnumber China's by 2022, the South Asian giant is a market targeted by great powers such as the United States and China, and boasts an economy that's growing fast while still battling high inequality. Now, as its influence has expanded in several industrial sectors, the government has emphasized that the country's ambitions transcend this world and aim toward the heavens.

Addressing the nation during the Aug. 15 celebrations for India's independence from the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed the country's plans to have one astronaut in space by 2022 as part of Gaganyaan, India's ambitious human space flight plan. “We have decided that by 2022, when India completes 75 years of independence, or before that, a son or daughter of India will go to space with a tricolor (India's national flag) in their hands,” Modi said. (8/18)

Hey Artists, Stop Putting Shiny Crap Into Space (Source: Gizmodo)
As if there isn’t already enough junk in space, an artist is planning to launch a reflective, inflatable sculpture to low Earth orbit in October. The art piece is meant to instill a sense of wonder and alter humanity’s impression of itself, but in reality it’s an empty gesture that’ll only serve to infuriate astronomers.

It’s called the Orbital Reflector, and it’s the brainchild of U.S. artist Trevor Paglen. Once it’s unfurled and fully erect, the space-based sculpture will be visible in the night sky, appearing as a fast-moving bright star. Paglen’s installation will stay in low Earth orbit for a minimum of 60 days (though it could be longer), after which time it will, mercifully, re-enter the atmosphere and burn to a crisp. Click here. (8/16)

Spinning Heat Shield Concept Could Provide a Lightweight Way to Survive Atmospheric Re-entry (Source: Technology.org)
One of the more challenging aspects of space exploration and spacecraft design is planning for re-entry. Even in the case of thinly-atmosphered planets like Mars, entering a planet’s atmosphere is known to cause a great deal of heat and friction. For this reason, spacecraft have always been equipped with heat shields to absorb this energy and ensure that the spacecraft do not crash or burn up during re-entry.

Unfortunately, current spacecraft must rely on huge inflatable or mechanically deployed shields, which are often heavy and complicated to use. To address this, a PhD student from the University of Manchester has developed a prototype for a heat shield that would rely on centrifugal forces to stiffen flexible, lightweight materials. This prototype, which is the first of its kind, could reduce the cost of space travel and facilitate future missions to Mars. (8/15)

NASA Picks Florida Company for STTR Phase-2 Funding (Source: NASA)
NASA has selected 20 research and technology proposals -- valued at $15 million -- from 19 American small businesses. Each is partnering with research institutions for Phase II of NASA’s competitive Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program. Among the projects selected is one by Streamline Numerics of Gainesville, Florida. Streamline Numerics partnered with Stanford University to develop a "High Performance Simulation Tool for Multiphysics Propulsion Using Fidelity-Adaptive Combustion Modeling." (8/7)

Get an Inside Look at SpaceX's Astronaut Training Sims (Source: WIRED)
SpaceX’s new cockpit design will take more onboarding than you think. NASA’s astronauts are used to the space shuttle’s vast array of more than 1,000 buttons and switches, but the crew will control the Dragon with the help of just three touch screen control panels and two rows of buttons. Touch screens in space, you say? Yes, really: The astronauts’ new spacesuits, a one-piece design that’s more wetsuit than pumpkin suit, also comes with conductive leather gloves that will allow them to control the screens.

The displays will both provide the crew with orbital flight tracking and give them control over the craft. Though the vehicle is designed to be autonomous, crews will have the ability to manually fly the Dragon and fire thrusters for minor course corrections. After astronauts select commands on the touch screen, the analog buttons, shielded by a clear covering, will execute them. The buttons are also used to handle emergencies: One button under the far left panel extinguishes a fire, while a large pull-and-twist handle, located under the center screen and marked “EJECT,” arms the vehicle’s launch escape system.

Learning the control panel is just the beginning. While Dragon will have both autonomous systems and a ground crew as backup, its first crews will still have to be prepared for any scenario. That’s where SpaceX’s full-scale simulator comes into play. The replica located upstairs in the astronaut training area at the Hawthorne facility comes outfitted with seats, control panels, flight software, and life-support systems, allowing SpaceX crew trainers to put the astronauts through increasingly complex failures—who knows, maybe even their own version of the Kobayashi Maru. Click here. (8/17)