August 27, 2018

Florida Tech Successfully Launches Space Policy Partnership (Source: Florida Tech)
Florida Tech students and faculty have returned from the inaugural Sino-U.S. Space Policy Research Center summer study program in Beijing with a better understanding of how space policy touches a variety of academic disciplines. Aldrin Space Institute Director Andy Aldrin led the trip that included clinical psychology doctoral candidate Emily Birch, aviation human factors and safety master’s student Alex Coultrup, global management and finance undergraduate Tereza Sedlakova and aviation sciences doctoral candidate Shayan Shirshekar.

The program, which ran July 30 to Aug. 3, was just the start of ongoing collaboration between Florida Tech and the host institution, Beijing Institute of Technology. “This summer experience was an important first step in our space policy partnership,” said Florida Tech President Dwayne McCay. “We look forward to future collaborations.” One of the proposed areas of future partnership would involve student workshops alternating between campuses. Next summer, students from BIT and other campuses in Beijing will send a group of 10-15 students to Florida Tech for a space policy workshop lasting up to 10 days. (8/27)

NorthStar Announces $13 Million in Financing from Government of Quebec (Source: Parabolic Arc)
NorthStar, a Montreal-based information services company developing the world’s most advanced environmental and near-space monitoring system, is pleased to announce the closing of C$13 million [US$10 million] in financing from the Government of Quebec. As part of an overall $52 million [US$40.1 million] first round of financing, NorthStar will align with Quebec and other strategic partners to create a global environmental information platform that will empower humanity to preserve our planet. (8/27)

Space Florida and Israel Innovation Authority Announce Sixth Joint Call for Projects (Source: Space Florida)
Space Florida and the Israel Innovation Authority (OCS) have issued a new joint call for project proposals valued at $2 million in research and development funding. This is the sixth year that Space Florida and the Israel Innovation Authority (OCS) are conducting the competition. In October 2013, Florida and Israel initiated an annually recurring $2 million joint program to support research, development and commercialization of aerospace and related technology projects that benefit both Israel and the State of Florida.

The projects approved to date encompass a wide range of promising research, including the development of next generation 3D printed circuit systems, unmanned aerial systems (UAS), innovative radiation shielding technology, next-generation capacitors to power spacecraft, and identifying specific changes in human muscle and immune cells to model disease in reduced gravity environments. Israeli and Florida-based for-profit companies are asked to present cooperative proposals, which will be vetted for feasibility. Funding will be awarded to those companies demonstrating promising partnerships and near-term potential for commercialization and economic benefit to both states. (8/27)

Hidden Figure Gets Statue for 100th Birthday (Source: AP)
A NASA mathematician made famous in Hidden Figures was honored with a statue on her 100th birthday. The statue of Katherine Johnson on the campus of West Virginia University, where she graduated in 1937, was unveiled this weekend by six of her grandchildren. Johnson, who performed key calculations for some of NASA's key early missions, turned 100 years old Sunday. (8/27)

Clyde Wins Cubesat Contract (Source: Space News)
Smallsat developer ÅAC Clyde has won a contract to build a cubesat for a Canadian company. Kepler Communications will purchase a 6U cubesat called TARS from ÅAC Clyde to serve as a prototype of a planned 10-satellite constellation for machine-to-machine communications that will eventually grow to as many as 140 satellites. ÅAC Clyde also built two earlier prototype satellites for Kepler, one launched early this year and a second scheduled for launch later this year. (8/27)

For the First Time in 50 Years, a NASA Astronaut Candidate Has Resigned (Source: Ars Technica)
A little more than a year ago, NASA introduced its newest class of 12 astronaut candidates. These talented men and women were chosen from a deep pool of 18,300 applicants, and after two years of training they were to join the space agency's corps for possible assignment on missions to the International Space Station, lunar orbit, or possibly the surface of the Moon.

However, one of those 12 astronauts, Robb Kulin, will not be among them. On Monday, NASA spokeswoman Brandi Dean confirmed to Ars that Kulin had resigned his employment at NASA, effective August 31, "for personal reasons." Sources described Kulin as a "family man," confident in his abilities. A native of Anchorage, Alaska, Kulin was a mechanical engineer who came to NASA from the rocket company SpaceX, where he had been a senior manager for flight reliability. (8/27)

Russia Restores Defunct Soviet Network to Monitor Near-Earth Objects (Source: Space Daily)
Russia has restored a global network of mothballed Soviet observatories to monitor near-Earth objects, according to a report by a state research institute. The document, obtained by Sputnik from Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, said observatories had been brought out of mothballs in former Soviet member states, Bolivia and Switzerland. Additional eight outposts were set up in Russia's east, Moldova and Mexico to cover the entire geostationary orbit above Earth's equator. (8/27)

A Timescale for the Origin and Evolution of All of Life on Earth (Source: Space Daily)
A new study led by scientists from the University of Bristol has used a combination of genomic and fossil data to explain the history of life on Earth, from its origin to the present day. Palaeontologists have long sought to understand ancient life and the shared evolutionary history of life as a whole. However, the fossil record of early life is extremely fragmented, and its quality significantly deteriorates further back in time towards the Archaean period, more than 2.5 billion years ago, when the Earth's crust had cooled enough to allow the formation of continents and the only life forms were microbes.

The researchers wer able to derive a timescale for the history of life on Earth that did not rely on the ever-changing age of the oldest accepted fossil evidence of life. "We were able to show that the Last Universal Common Ancestor all cellular life forms, 'LUCA', existed very early in Earth's history, almost 4.5 Billion years ago --not long after Earth was impacted by the planet Theia, the event which sterilized Earth and led to the formation of the Moon. "This is significantly earlier than the currently accepted oldest fossil evidence would suggest." (8/24)

NASA Map Reveals How This Week’s Natural Disasters Affect Aerosol Velocity (Source: Inverse)
Earth experienced several wildfires, hurricanes, and other natural disasters last week. As scientists continue to monitor and respond to these volatile climate conditions, NASA offered a glimpse at how such events affect even the tiniest, often-unseen specks of matter that are ubiquitous in the air. On Friday, NASA published a map of the Earth that showcased the current ebbs and flows of aerosols, which are solid particles or liquid droplets suspended in air.

Using a model called the Goddard Earth Observing System Forward Processing, or GEOS FP, the space agency was able to enhance the colorization of each particle type to reflect aerosol velocity and presence as it was recorded on Thursday, August 23. Rather than using satellite data, the GEOS FP is a weather and climate model that uses mathematical equations to represent physical processes and calculate what was happening in the atmosphere that day. However, NASA’s Earth Observatory did use some satellite input from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors to track fire radiative power and simulate real-time conditions.

The map displays black carbon particles in red, which NASA describes as aerosols released by fires or from vehicle and factory emissions. Thus, the red and orange swirls in North America reflect the wildfires that continue to rage across the west coast of the US and Canada. Meanwhile, hurricanes and tropical storms, like those affecting Hawaii, South Korea, and Japan, launch aerosols through sea spray, as evident in the concentrated swirls of light blue. Click here. (8/27)

SpaceX Wants to Use the First Mars-Bound BFR Spaceships as Martian Habitats (Source: Teslarati)
Speaking at the 2018 Mars Society Convention, SpaceX’s Principal Mars Development Engineer Paul Wooster briefly presented on the company’s BFR and Mars colony ambitions. While the majority of the 30-minute talk rehashed CEO Elon Musk’s 2017 BFR update and subsequent Reddit AMA, it also happened to contain a handful of new details and slides, including a suggestion that the first BFR spaceships to land on Mars will stay on the Red Planet as temporary habitats or tools for early colonists.

The senior engineer reiterated the company’s aspirational Martian launch targets, featuring two uncrewed cargo BFRs in 2022 and four total BFRs in 2024, two crewed and two uncrewed. Whether or not the lack of change in those dates (provided by Wooster nearly a year after CEO Elon Musk’s identical date reveal in September 2017) asserts that SpaceX’s BFR and Mars research and development remains on track, it almost certainly confirms that the company’s incredibly aggressive targets are here to stay. (8/27)

Why Mining the Water on the Moon Could Open Up Space Exploration (Source: The Verge)
Perhaps the biggest and most immediate application for lunar water is making rocket propellant. The main components of water — hydrogen and oxygen — are two of the biggest materials that are used to power rockets right now. And making rocket propellant out of the water on the Moon could drastically cut down on the cost of doing ambitious missions in space. Right now, rockets leaving Earth must carry all the propellant they need with them. But by leveraging lunar ice, rockets could potentially refuel once they get to space, allowing them to reach distant locations for less money.

“The idea would be to get a sort of supply chain started outside of Earth for certain products — in particular, for water as a propellant — so that it could be much easier to navigate to space from one body to another,” Julie Brisset, a research associate at the Florida Space Institute, tells The Verge. (8/23)

Donald Trump’s New Space Force is Wrong Response to US Concerns About China and Russia (Source: South China Morning Post)
Sustained Space Force talk is likely to spur US adversaries, including China and Russia, to accelerate their own efforts to explore creative uses of space to gain an advantage in a future armed conflict. This point has been cited by some proponents of a dedicated US space branch. But there’s nothing about China and Russia that would require the US to overhaul its military bureaucracy. American intelligence agencies are clear on the parallel and ongoing development of a range of weapons that make use of space.

“We assess that, if a future conflict were to occur involving Russia or China, either country would justify attacks against US and allied satellites as necessary to offset any perceived US military advantage derived from military, civil or commercial space systems,” said a report by the US director of national intelligence, Dan Coats. “Of particular concern, Russia and China continue to launch ‘experimental’ satellites that conduct sophisticated on-orbit activities, at least some of which are intended to advance counterspace capabilities,” it continued.

If the United States is concerned about counterspace capabilities in Russia and China – as it should be – the answer is not to create a Space Force, but to pursue arms control creatively with Moscow and Beijing. The United States today is the world’s foremost space superpower; US intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities rely on the largest military satellite network and – make no mistake – US war planners would have the most to lose from the proliferation of counterspace weapons in the Russian and Chinese arsenals. (8/25)

Humanity Would Be Better off Saving Earth, Rather Than Colonizing Mars (Source: National Interest)
Recently, SpaceX held a top-secret “ Mars Workshop” in Boulder, Colorado, to discuss what it would take to colonize Mars. Although the deliberations of the workshop were kept quiet, in the past SpaceX founder Elon Musk and other prominent figures, including renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, have stressed the importance of establishing a sustainable outpost of human civilization on the Red Planet. “If there’s a third world war we want to make sure there’s enough of a seed of human civilization somewhere else to bring it back and shorten the length of the dark ages,” according to Musk.

The mission to colonize Mars runs into three major challenges. First, likening a colony on Mars to life insurance is misleading. If the earth does overheat to the point that we all fry or becomes so polluted that we all choke, there will be no way to move the world’s population to Mars. Not even one child per family. Rather, the idea is that the survival of the human species will be ensured; the select few that go to Mars will survive, procreate, and gradually build a new population.

If the colonization of Mars moves beyond the subject of workshops and cocktail party chit-chat into a major project, it brings with it an unavoidable subtext of despair. Despite the fact that what Musk, Hawking, and others propose it as a backup plan, it suggests that we may well fail to save Mother Earth and that it is time to search for another planetary home, to save the species, even if not mankind. But what the droughts, the fires, the hot summers, and the melting glaciers call for is not an escape from Earth, but a redoubling of the efforts to save it. (8/25)

NASA: Space Force Needed to Protect Energy Grid from 'Existential Threat' (Source: Washington Examiner)
President Trump’s “Space Force” proposal would help prevent the U.S. energy grid from going dark in an emergency or an attack, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said. Bridenstine argued that a disruption of America’s satellite assets would pose an “existential threat” to the grid, meaning that a Space Force is needed more than ever.

He compared the threat to those facing the banking system today. Both Wall Street and the electricity sector are dependent on the same Global Positioning System, or GPS, signals from space to operate, he explained. “Every banking transaction requires a timing signal from GPS,” he says. “In other words, if there is no GPS, there is no banking in the United States. Everything shuts down.”

“It becomes an existential threat,” Bridenstine added. Likewise, the situation would be similar for the electric grid, if a foreign adversary targeted U.S. assets in space, he said. (8/26)

Exos Aerospace Launches SARGE Suborbital Rocket at Spaceport America (Source: Space News)
Exos Aerospace performed what it called a “very successful” test launch of a reusable suborbital sounding rocket from New Mexico Aug. 25. The company’s first Suborbital Autonomous Rocket with GuidancE, or SARGE, rocket lifted off from Spaceport America in New Mexico. After reaching an unspecified peak altitude, the rocket descended under parachute, landing about 15 minutes later a short distance from the pad. The rocket’s nose cone, descending under a ballute, landed several minutes earlier.

The company didn’t immediately disclose technical details about the flight, such as the peak altitude, but in a live webcast of the launch appeared to be satisfied with the vehicle’s performance, despite the vehicle appearing to veer from its vertical trajectory briefly after liftoff. “This was a very successful test for us,” said John Quinn, chief operating officer of Exos, on the webcast. “We’re very excited that we had all of our recovery systems operational.” (8/25)

Astronomers Say This Reflective Space Sculpture Will Cause Unneeded Light Pollution - the Artist Argues Otherwise (Source: Smithsonian)
Come fall, a new celestial body will join the stars, planets and miscellaneous debris scattered across the night sky, orbiting Earth roughly every 90 minutes and emitting a steady glow on par with the stars in the Big Dipper. Unlike the majority of man-made items littered throughout space, this 100-foot long, diamond-shaped balloon—a pseudo-satellite dubbed “Orbital Reflector”—has no apparent purpose.

It can’t track the weather and climate back on Earth, transmit radio signals or even observe other astronomical bodies; instead, its job is to inspire wonder as a purely artistic structure.

Trevor Paglen, the mastermind behind “Orbital Reflector,” believes his creation will encourage “all of us to look up at the night sky with a renewed sense of wonder, to consider our place in the universe, and to reimagine how we live together on this planet.” Others disagree, arguing that such artistic endeavors produce unnecessary light pollution that interferes with astronomical investigations. Click here. (8/24)

Why Private Space Labs Should Start on the International Space Station (Source: Politico)
False battle lines have been drawn between the ISS and a commercial space station alternative. In reality, the problems of creating a habitable and sustainable commercial space station are so vast that they really can’t be achieved without the two working together.

A habitable, free-flying space station requires monumental engineering work, from recreating all of NASA’s life support technologies in a more compressed form (the ISS has 388 cubic meters of habitable space – 5x larger than the Space Shuttle and a staggering 60x larger than the Apollo command module). It also means sending up separate crew and cargo spaceships since moving a spacecraft from one station to another is far more complex than movies like Gravity make it seem.

The costs and engineering of a commercial space station become exponentially easier as a module attached to an ISS port. That commercial cabin could use up delivery space on existing crew and cargo flights, and it could rely on the ISS’s oxygen, nitrogen, electrical power, and water. For that matter, they could even borrow the toilet and the espresso machine (it’s called the ISSpresso and yes, the Italians designed it). Click here. (8/24)

Theresa May Orders Space Race After Brexit With Sat-Nav System to Rival EU's Galileo (Source: The Telegraph)
Theresa May has ordered officials to start work on a British satellite-navigation system to rival the EU’s Galileo, in a show of strength as Brussels threatens to block the UK from its project. The Telegraph understands that Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, has signed off funding amounting to as much as £100 million to "map out" plans for a post-Brexit UK satellite system, with an official announcement due this week. The disclosure comes after European Commission claimed that to allow continued UK involvement in Galileo after Brexit would threaten the EU's security. (8/26)

Inside the High-Stakes Business of Tracking Space Junk (Source: CNN)
In a nondescript office building in the suburbs of Philadelphia, a software company is watching thousands of pieces of junk floating around in space. One mission of Analytical Graphics Inc., or AGI, is to ensure that none of that garbage comes close to colliding with the dozens of billion-dollar communications satellites orbiting Earth.

Debris in space is a serious issue. Millions of pieces are already whirling around, the result of 50 years of space travel and few regulations to keep space clean. The junk includes defunct satellites, discarded rocket boosters, and tiny pieces of garbage from a prior collision. At orbital speeds, something as small as a ping pong ball could blow a hole in a critical satellite. Click here. (8/25)

Next Stop Space: Researchers to Carry Out 'Cosmic Elevator' Experiment (Source: The Mainichi)
A team made up of researchers at Shizuoka University and other institutions is set to conduct an experiment in September for a project to develop a "space elevator" connecting Earth and a space station by cable -- attracting attention as a possible dream vehicle for space travel and cargo shipments in the future.

The experiment will be the first of its kind ever to be conducted in space. However, a number of challenges, including the development of special, high-strength cables, await researchers before they can bring a cosmic elevator into reality.

In the experiment, two ultra-small cubic satellites, which were developed by Shizuoka University Faculty of Engineering, will be used. Each satellite measures 10 centimeters each side, and a roughly 10-meter-long steel cable will be employed to connect the twin satellites. The pair of satellites will be released from the International Space Station (ISS), and a container acting like an elevator car will be moved on a cable connecting the satellites using a motor. A camera attached to the satellites will record the movements of the container in space. Click here. (8/26)

Meet Mr. Steven, SpaceX's Rocket Nose-Cone-Catching Boat (Source: Space.com)
The vessel, which is 205 feet long by 34 feet wide (62 by 10 meters), joined SpaceX's recovery fleet in 2017. The aerospace company is predominantly known for its fleet of rockets and how it changed the rocket game by proving that a rocket's first-stage booster — which, historically, has been a one-time use component — could, in fact, be flown multiple times. And not too far from its massive rocket-building facility in Hawthorne, California, SpaceX is working diligently on a strategy to reuse even more of its rockets — specifically, the payload fairing, which is also known as the nose cone.

If you know where to look, Mr. Steven, a former offshore supply vessel, is easy to spot. Its four large arms shoot out from its deck, supporting a newly upgraded, bright-yellow net stretched in between. The new net spans nearly 40,000 square feet (3,700 square meters) — four times larger than its first iteration — and lets Mr. Steven essentially act as a mobile catcher's mitt. Click here. (8/26)

Congress—Not Trump—Will Decide Whether to Create a Space Force (Source: National Interest)
“The constitutional framework appears to contemplate that the role of establishing, organizing, regulating, and providing resources for the Armed Forces belongs to Congress, while the President is in charge of commanding the forces Congress has established using the funds Congress has provided,” CRS concluded. (8/24)

Space Race 2.0: A Low-Down on the Great Flight (Source: Economic Times)
Six decades after the erstwhile Soviet Union stole a lead in the space race by launching the Soyuz rocket ahead of the US, a fresh round of jousting seems to have reached critical mass. Even as the Trump Administration plans a contentious Space Force and Nasa looks to intensify its efforts to explore Mars and deep space, PM Narendra Modi has announced a human space mission by 2022. Space race 2.0 also has private players looking beyond the skies. Here is a low-down on the great flight. (8/25)

China Built the World's Largest Telescope. Then Came the Tourists (Source: WIRED)
China spent $180 million to create the telescope, which officials have repeatedly said will make the country the global leader in radio astronomy. But the local government also spent several times that on this nearby Astronomy Town—hotels, housing, a vineyard, a museum, a playground, classy restaurants, all those themed light fixtures. The government hopes that promoting their scope in this way will encourage tourists and new residents to gravitate to the historically poor Guizhou province.

It is, in some sense, an experiment into whether this type of science and economic development can coexist. Which is strange, because normally, they purposefully don’t. FAST’s site used to be remote. The country even forcibly relocated thousands of villagers who lived nearby, so their modern trappings wouldn’t interfere with the new prized instrument. But then, paradoxically, the government built—just a few miles from the displaced villagers’ demolished houses—this astronomy town. It also plans to increase the permanent population by hundreds of thousands. That’s a lot of cell phones, each of which persistently emits radio waves with around 1 watt of power. (8/26)

China Breaks Record with Beidou Launch (Source: Space News)
China’s launch of a pair of Beidou navigation satellites late Friday saw the country set a new annual launch record as its space activities ramp up. A Long March 3B with a Yuanzheng-1 upper stage lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China at 7:52 p.m. Eastern Friday (11:52 UTC) sending two Beidou satellites directly into medium Earth orbits at around 22,000 kilometers altitude.

Friday’s launch was China’s 23rd of 2018, surpassing the national record 22 set during 2016. CASC is aiming to carry out around 35 launches in total this year, indicating a large jump in activity. Emerging commercial companies Landspace, OneSpace and Expace expected to further contribute to Chinese launches this year. The increased launch cadence underlines China’s intent to pursue a full range of space capabilities and technologies, but also indicates that the country has a long way to go to catch up with other powers. (8/25)

Louisiana Seeks Incentive Refund From Aerospace Manufacturer (Source: KFLY)
Bell Helicopters is shutting down its operation at the Lafayette Regional Airport. Louisiana Economic Development (LED), which provided a $26 million incentive to the manufacturer, said the state’s contract with Bell was being terminated due to underperformance. The facility was initially supposed to be the final assembly line for the Bell 505 Jet Ranger X but later transitioned to the 525 cabin subassembly facility. Part of the agreement was that Bell would create 115 new direct jobs.

Bell renegotiated the contract last year to bring that number down to 95. But Bell currently employs 22 full-time workers at the site. The work done in Lafayette will be done now in Amarillo, Texas. LED is seeking to be repaid $16 million. LED said the state ended its contract with Bell because of four years of underperformance. Governor John Bel Edwards says, "At this point in time we have an obligation to the taxpayer, to protect them. The contract required them to perform, they did not meet their obligations."

The state funded the $26 million project back in 2013, during Governor Bobby Jindal's administration, under the impression there would be an economic boost. There was not. Now, the state is hoping to recover a large portion of the initial investment. "There are provisions in the contract where we should be able to get back a significant portion of our investment so that we can make that investment again in what will be a productive and successful venture", the governor said. (8/23)

Space is Hard: Tough Testing for 3D Printed Parts (Source: Parabolic Arc)
3D-printed metal parts produced through a Europe-wide collaboration of high-performance industrial sectors have undergone extensive testing for space use – tested to destruction in many cases – by ESA’s specialist advanced manufacturing lab in the UK.

ESA’s Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory based in Harwell, UK, took delivery of the sample parts, produced as an output of the four-year AMAZE program, harnessing metal 3D printing to produce lighter, cheaper, better products. "Space is an extremely challenging environment, so our lab had to perform a wide range of testing,” explains Lab member Maximilian Sprengel.

“The parts were pulled to failure and fatigue tested, where they were repeatedly subjected to heavy loads until breaking. They also underwent cryogenic and high-temperature testing to establish their resistance to the wide temperature fluctuations encountered in orbit: do they shrink, swell or hold their shape?” (8/26)