September 3, 2018

NASA Selects 15 New Potential Space Technologies for Flight Tests (Source: NASA)
NASA’s Flight Opportunities program has selected 15 promising space technologies to be tested on commercial low-gravity simulating aircraft, high-altitude balloons and suborbital rockets. These flights will help advance technologies for future spaceflight, taking them from the laboratory to a relevant flight environment.

During an Aug. 28 visit to NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, where the Flight Opportunities program is managed, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said the agency will focus on funding more of these payload flights in the future.

“Flight Opportunities gives researchers and universities the opportunity to get involved with NASA,” said Bridenstine. “By increasing funding for payload integration and flights, we will continue to support and advance the commercial suborbital flight market.” The latest selections will demonstrate technologies of interest to NASA that are capable of supporting future exploration and science missions. Click here. (8/29)

How an LWO and His Team Guided a Minotaur IV Rocket Out of the Labyrinth (Source: USAF 45SW)
The preparation, problem-solving and teamwork, which led to the launch on Aug. 26, 2017 of Orbital Alliant Techsystems’s Minotaur IV rocket, was an effort harnessed by all Airmen of the 45th Space Wing. However, no group of people may have been feeling the pressure more than that seven-man team of civilian, enlisted and officer Airmen from the 45th Weather Squadron.

The launch date grew closer and the threat of harsh weather and lightning conditions loomed as Craft and his team prepared to weather the storm. “In July and August, we had daily lightning activity,” said Craft. “In order to launch, we needed zero percent probability of lightning. On the day of launch, we not only had typical lightning conditions for Florida in August, but we had a tropical disturbance over the state that was only looking to intensify in the hours leading up to the launch.”

The launch customer, Orbital ATK, asked to be provided with at least a three-hour window of zero percent lightning conditions – a request that Craft explained was almost impossible. “Knowing the launch customer was new on the Eastern Range, I gave them an alternative, and we worked it together as a team,” Craft said. “We knew for a fact that we weren't going to sacrifice the safety of our range, our team or the customer. Even though I understood the customer's need to launch, the best alternative I could offer at that point was an hour of fair weather at a time." (8/29)

Is There a Mysterious Planet Nine Lurking in Our Solar System Beyond Neptune? (Source: Washington Post)
Many astronomers remain convinced a once-in-a-generation discovery is in the offing — one that would rewrite textbooks down to the elementary school level. “Every time we take a picture,” said Surhud More, an astronomer at the University of Tokyo, “there is this possibility that Planet Nine exists in the shot.”

Circumstantial evidence continues to accumulate for the existence of Planet Nine, the hypothetical body thought to be lurking in our solar system far beyond Neptune. But no telescope has been able to spot it. Michael Brown says he feels “eternally optimistic” that someone will soon find it, but there’s reason to believe that Planet Nine, if it exists, might be essentially invisible to existing observatories.

The first evidence for Planet Nine surfaced in 2014, when the discovery of a planetoid revealed that a handful of mini ice-worlds in the outermost reaches of the solar system followed suspiciously similar paths around the sun. “If things are in the same orbit, then something’s pushing them,” said Scott Sheppard. Brown and his colleague Konstantin Batygin made a specific prediction two years later: The “perturber,” as they call it, should weigh between five and 20 Earth masses and follow an elliptical orbit hundreds or even 1,000 times more distant from the sun than Earth. (9/2)

Trump's 'Space Force' Could Propel Southern California's Aerospace Industry (Source: LA Times)
One of the big winners from President Trump’s push for a new military service called “space force” may be one of his least favorite places — California. Once the launchpad of the nation’s aerospace industry, Southern California stands to see a surge in government and industry jobs and billions of dollars in contracts for satellites and other technology if Congress approves the space force when it takes up the proposal next year, industry experts and former military officials said.

“You can’t just go out in the middle of Iowa and try to create a center for space,” said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), a retired Air Force officer. “So Southern California is very well situated” to get substantial benefits... “Southern California remains the largest concentration of space technology, including military space technology, in the United States,” said Loren Thompson, aerospace analyst with the Lexington Institute think tank, which receives money from major industry players, including Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. (8/31)

Celebrate the 100th Ariane Launch (Source: Arianespace)
Ariane rockets have provided us with lots of innovations to help us in our daily lives. We want to celebrate this important milestone with you by giving you a chance to win a trip to the Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. Watch it live, or actually be there? To celebrate its 100th launch, Ariane is offering you a chance to win a round-trip to visit the Kourou Space Center, in French Guiana! Share your photos on Twitter using the hashtag #withariane and you could be standing right next to Ariane 5! Click here. (9/2)

FOX Show Criticizes Armstrong Movie's Flag Decision (Source: Huffington Post)
“Fox & Friends” hosts called actor Ryan Gosling an “idiot” during their Friday program and compared his remarks about the moon landing being a “human achievement” to NFL players kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice and police brutality.

In Gosling’s new movie, a biopic about Neil Armstrong called “First Man,” filmmakers decided that the moon landing would be featured without the famous planting of the American flag. Of the omission, Gosling told The Telegraph that it was excluded in an effort to show Armstrong’s humility.

“I think this was widely regarded in the end as a human achievement [and] that’s how we chose to view it. I also think Neil was extremely humble, as were many of these astronauts, and time and time again he deferred the focus from himself to the 400,000 people who made the mission possible,” he said. (8/31)

Khrunichev Space Center Signed Contracts For 12 Angara Rockets (Source: SpaceWatch Global)
The Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center has signed contracts for the production of 12 Angara-A5 heavy-lift launch vehicles. They are to be produced at the Center’s Production Association Polyot enterprise in the city of Omsk. According to Nikolai Sevastyanov, Khrunichev Space Center Chairman, Board of Directors, 12 launch vehicles have been confirmed so far, but about 27 Angara-A5 launches will be necessary to update the Russian orbit group until 2027.

According to Sevastyanov, the company needs to complete the establishment of the closed-loop serial production of the universal rocket modules for the Angara rocket at the Production Association Polyot by 2023. In this case, it will be possible to launch up to eight Angara-A5 rockets and up to two small-lift Angara-1.2 launch vehicles per year after 2024 from the Plesetsk and Vostochny cosmodromes. (9/2)

U.S. Mint Honors ‘Pristine’ Cumberland Island as Feds Consider Allowing New Houses, Rockets Overhead (Source: Saporta Report)
Even as the U.S. Mint releases a new quarter to honor the “primitive, undeveloped character” of Cumberland Island, two other federal entities are considering proposals to shoot space rockets over Georgia’s coastal island and to develop houses there. This situation illustrates the internal inconsistencies in some of the clashes over development that have roiled for decades on Georgia’s environmentally fragile coastline.

Here, the National Parks Service has intervened in the proposal to build up to 25 houses on privately owned land on Cumberland Island. The Brunswick News reported in January that a possible agreement may allow the residential construction. No further formal word has been issued by the parks service, which is a bureau under the U.S. Department of the Interior.

In regards shooting rockers over the island, the Federal Aviation Authority is considering the proposed Camden Spaceport. The proposed spaceport and residential developments are the latest skirmishes – and may end up in litigation, according to David Kyler, executive director of Center for a Sustainable Coast, on St. Simons Island. (9/2)

How Quantum Materials May Soon Make Star Trek Technology Reality (Source: Universal-Sci)
If you think technologies from Star Trek seem far-fetched, think again. Many of the devices from the acclaimed television series are slowly becoming a reality. While we may not be teleporting people from starships to a planet’s surface anytime soon, we are getting closer to developing other tools essential for future space travel endeavors Click here. (9/1)