September 7, 2018

New Hotel Near Spaceport to Feature Launch Viewing Lounge (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Listen up rocket-launch enthusiasts, this new Space Coast hotel is for you. A Hyatt Place hotel breaking ground next month near the causeway that leads to Kennedy Space Center will boast a standout feature: A launch viewing lounge. The 118-room hotel, expected to open in fall 2019, will be the closest lodging to the Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, about a 10-minute drive away, placing hotel guests in a prime location to catch views of a launch.

And there will be a lot to see: The frequency of launches — already more than a dozen this year — is only expected to increase. About 48 annual launches could take off from the Space Coast in 2021, according to the Air Force. “It’s going to be a tremendous attraction to the visitors at KSC and the business people that are coming to this marketplace,” said Michael Gaich, whose firm, the Michael Gaich company, sold the 6.5 acres the hotel will sit on. (9/6)

China Launches Ocean Survey Satellite (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
China launched an ocean survey satellite Thursday night. A Long March 2C rocket lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center at 11:15 p.m. Eastern and placed the Haiyang-1C satellite into a sun-synchronous orbit. The satellite, weighing about 440 kilograms, is the third in a series of spacecraft to collect scientific data on the oceans and coastal regions. A similar satellite, Haiyang-1D, is also scheduled for launch later this year. (9/7)

China's OneSpace Launches Second Suborbital Rocket (Source: GB Times)
Chinese company OneSpace launched its second suborbital rocket Friday. The company's OS-X1, or Liangjiang Star, rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 12:10 a.m. Eastern Friday. The rocket reached a peak altitude of about 35 kilometers on the flight. The launch came two days after another Chinese startup, iSpace, performed its own suborbital launch from the same spaceport. (9/7)

France's Exotrail Raises $4M for Electric Propulsion (Source: Space News)
A French company has raised more than $4 million to develop electric propulsion for smallsats. Exotrail raised $4.1 million in a round led by European venture capital firm 360 Capital Partners, accompanied by Irdi Soridec Gestion, Bpifrance and a number of angel investors. Exotrail, located near Paris, is working on Hall Effect thrusters designed for satellites weighing from 10 to 100 kilograms, and plans a first flight test in late 2019. (9/7)

GPS Receiver Glitch Blamed for Low Exos Altitude (Source: Space News)
A glitch with a GPS receiver kept Exos Aerospace from reaching its planned altitude on its first suborbital launch last month. The company's SARGE rocket lifted off from Spaceport America on a flight expected to reach a peak altitude of 80 kilometers. However, the rocket automatically shut down its engine part way through the flight when the GPS receiver stopped providing data. The rocket instead flew to 28 kilometers before parachuting back to Earth. Despite the glitch, the company considered the launch a success, and is looking for payloads for a second flight in the coming months. (9/7)

Former XCOR Official Making Little Headway in DOD Cost Cutting (Source: Wall Street Journal)
A former space company CEO may be on his way out at the Pentagon. Jay Gibson was confirmed by the Senate last year as the Defense Department's chief management officer with the goal of reorganizing the Pentagon and cutting costs. However, Secretary of Defense James Mattis is reportedly planning to fire him for a "lack of performance" and has cut back on his duties while seeking a replacement. Gibson was previously CEO of XCOR Aerospace, a suborbital spaceplane developer that went out of business late last year.

Editor's Note: With sustained Congressional and Administration pressure to expand defense spending, and Space Force and other big-ticket budget items gaining prominence within DOD, Mr. Gibson's task to cut costs and reorganize must be very difficult indeed. (9/7)

India Urges More Industry Investment in Space (Source: IANS)
The head of the Indian space agency ISRO wants the country's businesses to invest more in space. K. Sivan, speaking at the Bengaluru Space Expo this week, said that ISRO was "not satisfied with the current level of participation" by Indian industry in space. Companies, he said, need to shift from being merely vendors to ISRO to partnering with the agency in areas like launch vehicle production, allowing ISRO to focus on topics like human spaceflight. (9/7)

Alaska Aerospace To Host Open House And Town Hall Meeting In Kodiak (Source: Space Daily)
Alaska Aerospace is hosting an Open House at the Pacific Spaceport Complex - Alaska (PSCA) on Wednesday, September 12, 2018 from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm to celebrate twenty years of launch activities. The public is invited to visit the site, where Alaska Aerospace staff will be providing tours of the spaceport facilities.

"In commemoration of twenty years of launch activity from our spaceport in Kodiak, we are excited about this opportunity to showcase our facilities to the public," said Craig Campbell, Alaska Aerospace President and CEO. "With our expanded business plan of providing launch services to the new small launch vehicle market, we want people to see the changes we have made at the site and learn about our future plans to provide greater economic benefit to the community," Campbell stated. (9/6)

Bahrain in Talks With Russia to Send Astronauts Into Space (Source: Space Daily)
The Bahrain Space Science Agency (NSSA) is engaged in talks with Russia on sending its astronauts to space, but no specific agreements have been reached yet, the Russian embassy in Manama told Sputnik on Wednesday. The NSSA was launched in 2014. Last July, the agency announced the launch of its Space Team program which seeks to recruit 10 people who would become Bahrain's first group of space science and technology specialists. The group is set to undergo 24-month training, which will be held both on the kingdom's territory and abroad. (9/6)

Asteroid-Deflection Mission Passes Key Development Milestone (Source: Space Daily)
The first-ever mission to demonstrate an asteroid deflection technique for planetary defense has moved into the final design and assembly phase, following NASA's approval on Aug. 16. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), being designed, built and managed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, will test what's known as the kinetic impactor technique - striking an asteroid to shift its orbit - and take a critical step in demonstrating how to protect our planet from a potential impact.

DART's target is the asteroid Didymos, a binary system that consists of Didymos A, about one-half mile in size, and a smaller asteroid orbiting it called Didymos B, about 530 feet across. (9/6)

Air Leak Hole in Soyuz Spacecraft Likely Made During Construction (Source: Space Daily)
The special commission formed by the Russian Energia Rocket and Space Corporation believes that the hole in the Soyuz spacecraft docked to the ISS was made during the spacecraft's construction in the city of Korlyov, not at the Baikonur spacecraft or in the space, sources in the space and rocket industry told Sputnik. (9/6)

Northrop Grumman Completes First Live Motor Cast for OmegA Rocket (Source: Northrop Grumman)
Northrop Grumman has successfully completed casting, or filling with propellant, the first live motor segment for its new OmegA rocket. The segment, developed as a part of the company’s Common Boost Segment (CBS) program, is specifically designed to support the needs of this new intermediate - to heavy-lift rocket. OmegA supports Northrop Grumman’s initiative to develop a rocket in compliance with the U.S. Air Force Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) competition. As a key initiative for the company, Northrop Grumman is committed to ensuring the OmegA program meets major milestones, such as this cast.

The first static test for the program is a C600, consisting of a forward and an aft segment mated together, and the second is a C300, which is a single segment motor. Planned for 2019, these two tests will verify the first and second stage performance for OmegA’s intermediate vehicle configuration, which will make up the majority of the anticipated flights beginning in 2021. (9/5)

NASA Says it’s Building a Gateway to the Moon—Critics Say it’s Just a Gate (Source: Ars Technica)
“I think about it as a port in space, a dry dock for activities that come and go,” said Jason Crusan, a senior NASA official from headquarters overseeing development of the Gateway. Over the last three years, Crusan and other leaders of human exploration at NASA have quietly refined plans for the Gateway and, perhaps more importantly, crafted a rationale to build the outpost near the Moon. So far, their plan has worked. Vice President Mike Pence has endorsed the Gateway, as has the new NASA administrator, Jim Bridenstine.

NASA, too, has won over the lion’s share of aerospace contractors and their vast lobbying armies by offering contracts for six different designs for the Gateway’s habitat module. Moreover, agency officials have repeatedly said they would invite commercial companies like SpaceX to deliver cargo and provide other services for the station. Almost everyone stands a reasonable chance of getting a piece of the Gateway action. This has not left much oxygen in the room for dissenters—publicly, at least. However, a few critics persist, and they raise valid questions about the lunar Gateway.

“It is the next giant leap into quicksand,” Bob Zubrin argued. Zubrin and others argue that the Gateway exists not to smooth NASA’s way to the Moon or Mars, but rather to provide a destination for the agency’s expensive rocket, the Space Launch System, and Orion spacecraft. “Let’s be honest about this,” Zubrin said of NASA's human exploration plans. “This is not a purpose-driven program, this is a vendor-driven program. Imagine running your business to please your vendors.” A lunar Gateway will cost at a minimum $10 billion and almost certainly many multiples of that. Click here. (9/6)

South Korea Unveils Space Rocket Engine for Test-Launch (Source: Yonhap)
South Korea's aerospace institute showcased its locally developed booster engine on Thursday, part of a long-term effort to produce the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-2 (KSLV-2), a three-stage indigenous rocket. The rocket, carrying a locally made 75-ton engine, is set to be launched on Oct. 25 from the Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Jeolla Province, the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) said.

If successful, four of the indigenous thrust engines will be used on the first stage and one on the second stage of the KSLV-2, KARI said. The whole rocket is scheduled to blast into space in 2021. "A successful test-launch next month will help the development of the KSLV-2 and researchers will gain confidence in the process," said Ok Ho-nam, a KARI official in charge of the launch. The KSLV-2 rocket is to be South Korea's first locally designed and built space vehicle. It will be used to place unmanned satellites into Earth orbit and for other commercial purposes, KARI said. (9/6)