August 7, 2018

Aerospace Corp. Lays Out ‘Launch Unit’ Standard for Medium Small Satellites (Source: GeekWire)
Tiny satellites have their own 4-inch CubeSat standard size, and bigger satellites have a size standard as well. But there’s an awkward gap where no one can agree on exactly how big a satellite should be. Until now.

Today The Aerospace Corp. took the wraps off a proposed size and weight standard it calls the “Launch Unit.” According the standard, a Launch-U satellite and its separation system would fill a volume of 45 by 45 by 60 centimeters (1.5 by 1.5 by 2 feet), or about the size of an end table or two carry-on pieces of luggage strapped together. (Or, for that matter, a pirate chest.)

The mass could range from 60 to 80 kilograms (132 to 176 pounds), with a roughly balanced center of gravity, according to a technical paper issued to coincide with the SmallSat Conference here in Logan. For vibration purposes, the payload’s fundamental frequency would have to be above 50 Hz in any direction. (8/7)

FAA Mulls Recommendations For Planned GPS Interference (Source: Aviation Week)
The FAA says it is studying the recommendations a special committee issued earlier this year to better notify aircraft operators of planned GPS signal interference events caused by Defense Department testing. Loss or degradation of GPS signal reception because of interference could affect pilots’ use of GPS-based required navigation performance (RNP) procedures, disable terrain awareness and warning systems and degrade pitch and roll accuracy of GPS-aided attitude and heading reference systems, among other issues.

Loss of GPS in an aircraft equipped to report its position by automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) “Out,” a capability the FAA requires by 2020, causes that aircraft to be lost as a target for onboard ADS-B “In” systems, affects aircraft depending on satellite-based augmentation systems for precision approaches and presents a problem for the FAA’s strategy to decommission some secondary surveillance radars (SSR) as ADS-B becomes its primary means of surveillance. (8/1)

DOD Bans Geolocation Features on Tech Devices Due to Security Risk (Source: ABC News)
The Department of Defense is prohibiting personnel from using geolocation features on their devices while serving in certain locations after concerns that the information transmitted from such devices was jeopardizing the security of American forces around the world, including those deployed in classified or sensitive areas.

The new policy, which is effective immediately, follows reports from earlier this year that some wearable electronic devices, like the popular Fitbit, can convey users' GPS coordinates in the form of publicly available online maps that display the most frequently trafficked routes of users who allowed their location to be shared. (8/7)

DOD Considers "Space Development Agency" to Improve Procurement (Source: Space News)
One proposal that has been floated by DoD is to create an entirely new procurement organization like a Space Development Agency to take over satellites and launch vehicle programs. “There’s people at DoD that want to do a fundamental new start,” said Charles Miller, president of NexGen Space and a longtime space entrepreneur. In space, the culture has to change. “They need to set up a new agency with new values, optimized for partnering with commercial space ventures,” Miller said. “If they don’t it will fail.” (8/7)

NASA as a Brand (Source: Space Review)
The NASA logo, in both the “meatball” and “worm” variations, is showing up on everything from cheap t-shirts to designer apparel. Dwayne Day examines why the NASA brand has become so popular in recent years. Click here. (8/7)
 
The Robotic Space Station (Source: Space Review)
Space stations have been associated with crewed facilities since the early days of the Space Age, but can a station carry out missions without people on board? Gordon Roesler argues that advances in robotics technologies enable the creation of uncrewed space stations that can support new missions, and new markets, in Earth orbit and beyond. Click here. (8/7) 
 
The Search for Life in Congress (Source: Space Review)
A Senate committee held a hearing last week about NASA’s efforts to search for life beyond Earth. Jeff Foust reports that the hearing covered a lot more ground than just the state of astrobiology research at the agency. Click here. (8/7)
 
Anywhere But in the Water (Source: Space Review)
During the early Space Age, capsules carrying astronauts splashed down in the ocean. However, John Charles notes there was consideration of using the a version of the mid-air capture system used for retrieving film canisters returned from space as a way of recovering astronauts. Click here. (8/7)

NASA Announces Initiative to Boost Small Science Satellite Efforts (Source: Parabolic Arc)
The head of NASA’s science programs unveiled an $100 million per year initiative on Monday focused on the use of small scuebce satellites that includes data buys from three spacecraft constellation operators.

Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said the funding would go to targeted space science, technology and educational projects. He made the announcement during a keynote address at the annual Small Satellite Conference in Logan, Utah.

A key element of the initiative is the purchase of Earth science data from companies with satellite constellations in Earth orbit. Zurbuchen announced that the first purchases will be made from DigitalGlobe, Planet and Spire. He did not disclose the amounts of the awards. (8/7)

SSL Strategy Chief Says Small Satellites will Enhance Work of Huge Government Spacecraft (Source: Space News)
In the coming years, defense and intelligence agencies will rely on small satellites to enhance the capabilities of large government-owned and -operated spacecraft, said Rob Zitz, senior vice president and chief strategy officer for SSL Government Systems, a subsidiary of Maxar Technologies.

“There will be a period of time where you will have both the exquisite capabilities and the enhancement layer,” said Zitz, who spent more than 30 years working for U.S. intelligence agencies. “I don’t think that’s inappropriate. When you’ve made serious investments in amazing capabilities, you are going to want to wring as much out of those as you can.” (8/7)

NASA Created a Rare, Exotic State of Matter in Space (Source: FOX News)
NASA has cooled a cloud of rubidium atoms to ten-millionth of a degree above absolute zero, producing the fifth, exotic state of matter in space. The experiment also now holds the record for the coldest object we know of in space, though it isn't yet the coldest thing humanity has ever created. (That record still belongs to a laboratory at MIT.)

The Cold Atom Lab (CAL) is a compact quantum physics machine, a device built to work in the confines of the International Space Station (ISS) that launched into space in May. Now, according to a statement from NASA, the device has produced its first Bose-Einstein condensates, the strange conglomerations of atoms that scientists use to see quantum effects play out at large scales. (8/6)

7,000 Small Satellites to be Launched Over Coming Decade (Source: Space Daily)
According to Euroconsult's latest report, Prospects for the Small Satellite Market, a significant expansion is underway in the smallsat market, both in terms of demand and systems' capabilities. About 7,000 smallsats are due to be launched over the next ten years, i.e. a six-fold increase from the 1,200 units launched over the past decade. About 50 constellations, two of which are mega constellations, account for over 80% of the smallsat count.

"By 2022, an average of 580 smallsats will be launched every year as a result of initial constellation deployment. This compares to an annual average of 190 satellites launched over the past five years. The average will then jump to 850 satellites per year on subsequent years up to 2027 because of the deployment of one mega constellation," said Maxime Puteaux, Senior Consultant at Euroconsult and editor of the report. (8/7)

ÅAC Clyde Seeks Further Acquisitions (Source: Space News)
A smallsat company formed from the merger of two companies is planning further acquisitions. ÅAC Clyde, the company being formed by Sweden's ÅAC Microtec and Scotland's Clyde Space, expects to acquire more companies in order to build up its capabilities to handle a forecast wave of cubesat orders. ÅAC Microtec CEO Alfonso Barreiro said the company is also looking to establish a presence in the United States to better access demand there for smallsats. (8/7)

Ursa Major Aims to Disrupt Launcher Vertical Integration Trend (Source: Space News)
Colorado startup Ursa Major Technologies is building a line of rocket engines that it hopes smallsat launch companies will choose over building their own engines in-house. Ursa Major shipped its first product, a 5,000-pound-force liquid oxygen and kerosene engine called Hadley, to customer Generation Orbit this spring and has begun serial production of the engines while also working on a larger variant.

Founded in 2015, Ursa Major raised $8 million last fall with participation from the Space Angels Network, a syndicate of early-stage investors who have also backed NanoRacks, Made In Space, Planet and other prominent space startups. The company counts former U.S. Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James and former Northrop Grumman CEO Ronald Sugar as advisers. (8/7)

NASA's TESS Spots Comet Prior to Planet Search (Source: NASA/GSFC)
Before NASA's TESS spacecraft started searching for planets around other stars, it spotted a comet orbiting our own sun. During commissioning tests last month, TESS observed comet C/2018 N1, which was discovered in June by another NASA mission, NEOWISE. In a series of images over 17 hours, the comet passed through the spacecraft's field of view. TESS formally started science observations in late July to look for planets orbiting nearby, bright stars. (8/7)

SpaceX Launches Indonesian Satellite From Florida, Lands Block-5 Booster on Drone Ship (Source: Space News)
SpaceX successfully launched an Indonesian communications satellite overnight on a reflown Falcon 9. The rocket lifted off at 1:18 a.m. Eastern Tuesday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and deployed the Merah Putih satellite 32 minutes later. The satellite, built by SSL for Telkom Indonesia, carries 60 C-band transponders and will operate at 108 degrees east. The launch was the first time that a Block 5 Falcon 9 first stage was reflown, with the stage making a successful landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. (8/7)

Goldman, Lockheed Martin Back Company That Makes Tiny Satellites (Source: Bloomberg)
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Lockheed Martin Corp. are backing a company that makes tiny satellites. The two firms took part in a $36 million funding round for Terran Orbital Corp. The company, which has worked with the Pentagon and NASA, manufactures nanosatellites, some of which are small enough to fit in your hand.

With the new cash, Terran Orbital said it will hire staff and buy more equipment for a 40,000-square-foot design and production facility. Satellites have become cheaper and smaller in recent years, and launch costs have fallen, sparking an explosion of new uses. The changes are upending the industry, and Terran is trying to take advantage. (8/6)

Terran Orbital Raises $36 Million (Source: Space News)
Smallsat developer Terran Orbital announced Monday it has raised $36 million. The Series B round included Lockheed Martin, Beach Point Capital managed funds and Goldman Sachs as investors. Terran Orbital, which owns smallsat manufacturer Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, will use the funding to complete a new facility in Irvine, California, that will be able to produce up to 150 satellites a year. (8/7)

Rocket Lab Schedules Delayed Launch in November (Source: Space News)
Rocket Lab plans to resume Electron launches in November after making changes to a problematic component. The company said it's rescheduled a launch, originally scheduled for April and then delayed to late June, for early November, and will follow it in December with another launch carrying a set of smallsats under a NASA contract. Company CEO Peter Beck said Rocket Lab decided to modify a motor controller that caused the problems, and work to make those changes and perform testing pushed the next launch opportunity to November. Beck added that the company plans to select a U.S. launch site for Electron "very shortly." (8/7)

SpaceX Convenes Mars Mission Workshop (Source: Ars Technica)
SpaceX is convening an invitation-only meeting to discuss its plans for Mars missions. The company is hosting a two-day "Mars Workshop" at the University of Colorado Boulder Tuesday and Wednesday with several dozen scientists and engineers, including officials from NASA's Mars exploration program, expected to attend. The workshop is intended to discuss how people will be able to live and work on Mars to enable SpaceX's vision of a multiplanetary species. (8/7)

Loft Plans "Condosat" Mission with 21 Partners (Source: Space News)
Loft Orbital announced a team of 21 partners to support its goal of operating "condosat" missions. The partners will cover satellite manufacturing, launch, ground services, payloads and data analytics. Loft Orbital raised $3.2 million last year to develop small satellites that carry multiple payloads for customers that don't want to operate their own spacecraft. (8/7)

Spain's PLD Expands for Engine Testing (Source: Space News)
Spanish launch startup PLD Space has signed a new long-term lease for its engine testing facility. The 25-year lease at Teruel Airport in Spain will allow the company to expand the size of its test facility there to support work on its launch vehicles under development. The company's first launcher, the reusable suborbital Arion 1, is slated to make its first launch next year. (8/7)

Sorry Elon Musk, But it's Now Clear That Colonizing Mars is Unlikely (Source: Space Daily)
Space X and Tesla founder Elon Musk has a vision for colonising Mars, based on a big rocket, nuclear explosions and an infrastructure to transport millions of people there. This was seen as highly ambitious but technically challenging in several ways. Planetary protection rules and the difficulties of terraforming (making the planet hospitable by, for example, warming it up) and dealing with the harsh radiation were quoted as severe obstacles.

Undeterred, Musk took a first step towards his aim in February this year with the launch of a Tesla roadster car into an orbit travelling beyond Mars on the first Falcon Heavy rocket. This dramatically illustrated the increasing launch capability for future missions made available by partnerships between commercial and government agencies. But six months later, the plans have started to look more like fantasy. We have since learned that there could be life beneath Mars' surface and that it may be impossible to terraform its surface. (8/6)

Why Goodyear and Delta Faucet are Doing Research in Space (Source: CNN)
Delta Faucet and Goodyear Tire want to give you a better shower and a smoother car ride here on Earth by experimenting with their products in space. Goodyear and Delta Faucet are among a small but growing list of corporations that are investing in spaceborne research, where the microgravity environment offers researchers a unique opportunity to conduct boundary-pushing experiments.

The companies announced last week they will send experiments to the International Space Station later this year, which makes them some of the latest commercial firms to take advantage of the orbiting laboratory and hefty financial assistance that NASA is currently offering. Once on board, astronauts on the space station will carry out the research, which is aimed at creating better eco-friendly shower heads for Delta Faucet and more fuel-efficient tires for Goodyear. Click here. (8/5)

Copenhagen Suborbitals Launches Nexø II Rocket (Source: HobbySpace)
The non-profit, all-volunteer group Copenhagen Suborbitals today successfully launched their Nexø II rocket from a floating platform in the Baltic Sea. The liquid fueled propulsion system appeared to work well and the rocket returned via parachute for a soft splashdown. Here is a video. (8/4)

Florida Congressman Posey Focuses on Bridge to Spaceport (Source: Rep. Posey)
Even as we succeed in attaining our vision of a 21st Century Spaceport, we must keep our attention on the infrastructure essential to the viability of the Kennedy Space Center and the strength of our national security assets at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Journeys to space depend on being able to bring supplies critical to our space missions across a bridge over the Indian River Lagoon. New industries and jobs continue to come to Exploration Park. Many activities at the Space Center and the Park are critical to our national defense.

Unfortunately, an engineering study warned that the NASA-owned Route 405 bridge over the Lagoon might not be able to support spacecraft transporters and other heavy freight as soon as 2021. We simply cannot allow that to happen. I worked hard with my colleagues to include language in the FY2019 National Defense Authorization Act that will empower the Secretary of Defense and NASA to construct a new bridge. This provision will ensure that we have modernized infrastructure to support the growing space industry at KSC and Exploration Park, and will also serve as an alternate route to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, as well as incidentally improve hurricane evacuation from the area. (8/6)
 
Posey Legislation Enables Space Support Vehicles (Source: Rep. Posey)
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) oversees the growth of the commercial space sector, however the FAA has not kept pace with innovative space vehicle designs or vehicles intended for training or research, including simulating launch, reentry, or space flight conditions. With strong bipartisan support, the House of Representatives passed my legislation to utilize these new vehicles. In an encouraging legislative move, the House passed this legislation twice, in two separate bills: the FAA reauthorization bill and another bill advanced by the House Science Committee. Doing this increases the odds of these common sense reforms passing the Senate and getting signed into law by the President. (8/6)

Asgardia: The Problems in Building a Space Society (Source: BBC)
As of today, I’m an official citizen of two nations. One is the US, which has 325 million citizens and an area of almost 10 million sq km. The other is Asgardia, which has some 246,000 citizens, but physically exists for now only in the form of a 6lb (2.7kg) bread-box-size satellite floating in low-Earth orbit since November 2017. One day, Asgardia plans to have an enormous “space ark” orbiting our home world, a colony on the Moon, and perhaps even further in the future on other “celestial bodies”, according to the constitution.

The nation’s ‘leader’, Igor Raufovich Ashurbeyli, isn’t joking around. On 25 June in Vienna, Austria, he became Asgardia’s first “Head of Nation”. His face is on the official Asgardia commemorative coin that guests received at the post-inauguration gala dinner. The inauguration ceremony this night in Vienna’s magnificent baroque Hofburg Palace includes trumpet fanfares, a girl choir singing the new Asgardia national anthem, and a pre-recorded message from a Russian astronaut on the International Space Station.

But if you look at the the constitution, the head of nation holds the power to disband parliament. Jeremy Saget is one of 146 members of Asgardia’s parliament. The French medical doctor, long interested in space travel and space medicine, says the “kingdom” identity was troubling at first, but he believes in the concept of a constitutional monarchy. “What’s important is someone to set the right tone”, says the MP, who once applied to be an astronaut for the European Union. (8/3)

NASA Study Raises Jobs Concerns at Wallops Island (Source: WBOC)
An ongoing NASA study seeking efficiencies at the Wallops Flight Facility has some worried about potential job cuts there. NASA Goddard, which operates the facility, said it's performing a 90-day study on ways to improve the "synergistic relationship" between Wallops and the main Goddard campus that is scheduled to be completed in October. That has local officials concerned that the results of the study could lead to job cuts at Wallops and deter companies from expanding there. (8/5)

UK Company Plans MEO Constellation (Source: Space News)
A British startup is planning a medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellite system that will offer "high density" services for selected regions. Methera Global Communications is developing a 16-satellite constellation that will provide broadband services for extremely specific locations, targeting a small number of high-value customers. The company is working on studies of both the satellites and ground terminals, and says it needs $500 million to develop the full system, which could enter service in 2022. (8/5)

SpaceX Rideshare Launch to Carry 70+ Satellites (Source: Space News)
Spaceflight Inc. says it will launch its "dedicated rideshare" mission of more than 70 satellites on a Falcon 9 this fall. The company announced Monday it was moving into final preparations for the launch, starting to integrate the 71 smallsats that will fly on the SSO-A mission. The launch is scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Among the customers for the launch is Planet, which will launch two SkySat high-resolution and several Dove medium-resolution satellites, along with several other companies and government and university customers. (8/5)

German Astronaut Eager to Step Onto China's Space Station (Source: China Plus)
"China's Space Station is the place I want to go the most and I want to work with different countries' astronauts on China's Space Station in the future," said Matthias Maurer, a German astronaut. The 48-year-old Maurer has spent 6 years learning Chinese in order to work aboard China's Space Station. As part of his preparation, he trained in a maritime-rescue training program organized by Shangdong Province last summer.

This program includes maritime-survival training, maritime-search training, and maritime-rescue by helicopter training, which was designed to prepare astronauts with the skills needed to rescue themselves during the sea landing. During the training program, Maurer worked with a female Italian astronaut and they learned Chinese together. He even gave himself a Chinese name, "Ma Fei". "Fei" means "fly" in Chinese, which indicates his resolution to fly high into space. (7/30)

Syrian Rocket Scientist Apparently Killed by Israeli Agents (Source: New York Times)
Aziz Asbar was one of Syria’s most important rocket scientists, bent on amassing an arsenal of precision-guided missiles that could be launched with pinpoint accuracy against Israeli cities hundreds of miles away. He had free access to the highest levels of the Syrian and Iranian governments, and his own security detail. He led a top-secret weapons-development unit called Sector 4 and was hard at work building an underground weapons factory to replace one destroyed by Israel last year. On Saturday, he was killed by a car bomb — apparently planted by Mossad, the Israeli spy agency. (8/6)