November 10, 2018

Moon Express Pays Intuitive Machines (Source: Space News)
Commercial lunar transportation firm Moon Express delivered 590,710 shares of stock worth an estimated $2.25 million to Intuitive Machines LLC, a firm with autonomous systems expertise, as ordered Oct. 15 by a federal judge in Delaware. “I recently received the shares per the judge’s order,” Steve Altemus, Intuitive Machines president, said. The dispute between the two companies is not settled, though. Moon Express is preparing to appeal the judgment. Intuitive is asking the Delaware court to convert the Moon Express equity awarded into cash. (11/9)

Rocket Lab's Third Launch Could Be The Start Of Something Big (Source: Forbes)
The US-based company Rocket Lab is gearing up for its third-ever launch tomorrow, its first fully commercial flight and a key milestone as it aims to prove the viability of smaller rockets. Their Electron rocket, given the nickname “It’s Business Time”, is set to lift off from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island this weekend.

The rocket has a nine-day launch window, with the first launch opportunity coming on Saturday 10 November at 10pm Eastern time. On board will be seven payloads, including a demonstration drag sail to practice de-orbiting space junk and a student-led experiment. If all goes to plan, the rocket will place these payloads into an orbit 500 kilometers (310 miles) above Earth. (11/9)

Australia’s Space Future: Where To Next on the Final Frontier? (Source: ASPI)
With the establishment of the Australian Space Agency on 1 July this year and the growth of Australia’s space industry, the future has arrived for many Australian space advocates. A critical mass of participants, initiatives and developments are riding a wave of government enthusiasm and private-sector support. It’s a good time to be involved in space in this country. It’s also a good time to look forward, and consider where we might head over the next decade in space.

The starting point has to be with the Australian Space Agency, which released its charter setting out its purpose, values, roles, responsibilities, approach to governance, and reporting arrangements at the end of October. The agency’s purpose is to ‘transform and grow a globally respected Australian space industry that lifts the broader economy, inspires and improves the lives of Australians—underpinned by strong international and national engagement’. Click here. (11/9)

Mars Demands Component, Packaging and Design Trifecta (Source: EE Times)
Tried and true is the battle cry of military and aerospace organizations determined to study Mars. Although emerging technologies could facilitate the journey, heritage devices with a proven track record remain the best path forward for systems that can withstand unexpected events, intense radiation, and the harsh conditions of the Red Planet. Click here. (11/8)

SpaceX Targeting Next Week for Falcon 9 Mission; First Daytime Launch in 6 Months (Source: Florida Today)
If schedules hold, SpaceX next week will vault a Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport into the day's last light, signaling a break from the Space Coast's streak of late-night launches. Teams next Thursday have a launch window at pad 39A that opens in the afternoon and closes around sunset. It will also mark SpaceX's first launch from the historic Apollo and space shuttle-era pad since May.

The rocket's first stage is expected to perform an automated descent toward the Of Course I Still Love You drone ship shortly after liftoff, so Space Coast residents and visitors should not anticipate the usual triple sonic booms that are heard when the booster returns. It should sail into Port Canaveral before the end of the weekend. On board: Es'hail-2, a Qatari communications satellite for operator Es'hailSat that will cover the Middle East and North Africa region from a geostationary orbit.

SpaceX's following launch is also scheduled for a daytime liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Dec. 4. That mission, the company's 16th resupply of the International Space Station, has an instantaneous 1:38 p.m. launch window and will ferry thousands of pounds of cargo, science experiments and supplies. (11/10)

Antares Rocket to Launch from Virginia Thursday (Source: Virginian-Pilot)
Stardust, protein crystals, virtual reality, cement, recycled plastics – these are key components of a few of the science experiments set to launch from Virginia’s spaceport to the International Space Station next Thursday. The idea behind these experiments is to advance our understanding of how the universe formed from stardust, the pathology of Parkinson’s disease, making and using concrete on celestial bodies, and the sustainable fabrication and repair of plastic materials on lengthy space missions.

The rocket is set to lift off at 4:49 a.m. on Nov. 15 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA Wallops Flight Facility. It will boost an unmanned Cygnus cargo craft bearing 7,500 pounds of groceries, hardware and research to space station crew. Weather permitting, Antares launches are visible throughout the mid-Atlantic, with Hampton Roads residents treated to front-row seats. (11/8)

The Republican Space Fans Exiting the House (Source: The Atlantic)
After eight years in power, Republicans in the House of Representatives will soon hand over the gavel to Democrats. When the new Congress convenes in January, the chamber will contain dozens fewer Republicans—and fewer Republican supporters of space exploration. The outcome of Tuesday’s elections will sweep several longtime champions of NASA out of the House. Some have held office for many years, and their interest in space exploration has led to hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for ambitious projects. Plenty of ardent NASA advocates remain in the chamber, but the departure of these well-known faces could lead to a shift in legislative priorities.

Perhaps the most significant loss occurred in Texas’s Seventh Congressional District, home to thousands of the employees at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. A political newcomer, Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, defeated the incumbent John Culberson, who has served in the House since 2001. Culberson, an attorney, doesn’t have a science background. Culberson has fiercely supported one mission in particular: a journey to one of Jupiter’s moons, the icy Europa. (11/8)

NASA Awards $7 Million to University to Search for Extraterrestrial Life (Source: The Hoya)
NASA awarded a $7 million grant to Georgetown University biology professor Sarah Johnson and a team of researchers to work on a project in search of extraterrestrial life. The Laboratory for Agnostic Biosignatures led by Johnson and her team is working to pioneer a new way of approaching the search for life outside of planet Earth, focusing on Mars and on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. The NASA funding is set to continue for the next five years. LAB is a collaborative effort of 15 members from universities and scientific research institutions from around the world. (11/9)

Trump's Space Force Faces an Uncertain Fate (Source: The Atlantic)
For the past several months, Donald Trump’s administration has explored the creation of a new military branch to protect national interests in outer space. Perhaps no one is as excited about this effort as President Trump, who came up with the idea. “He only asks me about the Space Force every week,” Mike Pence joked at a meeting of the National Space Council last month, where members formulated plans to bring the Space Force to life.

But the outcome of the midterm elections has derailed their efforts. The Trump administration cannot establish the Space Force on its own. It needs Congress. It needs individual lawmakers to support the proposal, and then translate that support into legislation that provides funding and empowers government officials. And, in an ideal world, those lawmakers would be in the majority. (11/9)

McClain Ready for Flight to ISS Next Month (Source: Houston Chronicle)
Two major mishaps in the Russian space program have made the last three months tumultuous for NASA astronaut Anne McClain, raising questions about whether her planned December flight to the International Space Station would ever take off. First, a hole that caused an air leak was discovered in August in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft attached to the space station, but was later patched. Then last month, the launch of a different Soyuz headed to the space station was aborted because of a rocket booster failure, grounding American astronauts who depend on Russia to ferry them into space until the cause was determined.

But on Friday -- with her launch date moved up to Dec. 3 and her training regimen adjusted -- McClain said she is more confident than ever to strap into a Soyuz and rocket out of Earth's atmosphere. This will be McClain's first spaceflight since being selected as an astronaut in 2013. She, along with Russia's Oleg Kononenko and Canadian Space Agency's David Saint-Jacques initially were supposed to launch from Kazakhstan on Dec. 20. (11/9)

UCF Researcher Will Use Blue Origin Rocket to Study Dust Clouds in Low-Gravity Environment (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
A UCF researcher’s experiment will hitch a ride into areas of space with low gravity on a Blue Origin rocket. Julie Brisset, an associate scientist at the school’s Florida Space Institute, recently landed a $250,000 NASA grant to study how microgravity affects dust clouds. The research could eventually help scientists learn more about the birth of stars or research smog in major cities. (11/6)

We Need to Change the Way We Talk About Space Exploration (Source: National Geographic)
To ensure that humanity’s future off-world is less harmful and open to all, many of the people involved are revising the problematic ways in which space exploration is framed. Numerous conversations are taking place about the importance of using inclusive language, with scholars focusing on decolonizing humanity’s next journeys into space, as well as science in general. “Language matters, and it’s so important to be inclusive,” NASA astronaut Leland Melvin said recently during a talk at the University of Virginia.

The language we use automatically frames how we envision the things we talk about. So, with space exploration, we have to consider how we are using that language, and what it carries from the history of exploration on Earth. Even if words like “colonization” have a different context off-world, on somewhere like Mars, it’s still not OK to use those narratives, because it erases the history of colonization here on our own planet. There’s this dual effect where it both frames our future and, in some sense, edits the past. (11/9)