November 11, 2018

Trump Ally Dana Rohrabacher Loses to Democratic Challenger Harley Rouda (Source: Washington Examiner)
The Associated Press has declared Democrat Harley Rouda to be the winner in his House race against Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., a few hours after Rouda declared victory. In its announcement Saturday evening, the AP said the updated vote count showed Rousa with 52 percent of the vote and around a 8,500-vote lead over Rohrabacher. Rohrabacher, a 30-year incumbent and staunch Trump ally, has yet to concede the race. Hours earlier, Rouda claimed the race after breaking away with the lead. (11/10)

Rocket Lab Aces First Commercial Launch (Source: Space.com)
The spaceflight startup's Electron rocket aced its first commercial flight tonight (Nov. 10), lofting six small satellites and a technology demonstrator to low-Earth orbit, about 310 miles (500 kilometers) above our planet. The mission, which Rocket Lab called "It's Business Time," lifted off from the company's New Zealand launch site. The two-stage Electron first delivered its payloads to an elliptical parking orbit; a "kick stage" that separated from the rocket's upper stage then circularized the orbits of the satellites, which were deployed about 54 minutes after liftoff, Rocket Lab representatives said. (11/10)

Cape Canaveral Can Now Launch Commercial Spaceplanes (Source: Popular Mechanics)
Cape Canaveral Spaceport is made of more than launchpads. The famed space coast site also has a 15,000-foot runway, a veteran of more than 130 Space Shuttle landings. Those landings came to an end in 2011, though, but now, seven years later, that runway is open for commercial business. Yesterday, Florida's spaceport authority reported that the FAA issued a launch license for operations at the site.

The runway, for now still called the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF), is a symbol of where spaceflight has been—now it's becoming a key hub of the future. Since 2015 the runway, tower, and other pieces have been operated by Space Florida, the state's spaceport development authority. Space Florida has been working on this license since December 2015 and just submitted the more than 120-page application in February. On Thursday the FAA approved the paperwork, which allows the Cape Canaveral Spaceport to support operations of aircraft that carry air-launched rockets.

SLF Airfield Manager James Mofitt said that direct-to-orbit spaceplanes—those that take off from a runway and cruise directly into suborbital space without using a carrier—are covered by the license. The best-known company offering this type of spacecraft was XCOR, which folded earlier this year, but the spaceport wants to be ready for future developments. The license cost “a couple million dollars” but that amount includes work being done to credential a secondary site. Spaceports are often accused of a build-it-and-they-will-come strategy, but Mofitt points to the plethora of space launch companies that are coming online. “Did we get this license on spec? Sure. But it’s safe to say this will pay off,” he says. (11/9)

If Everyone Left the International Space Station (Source: The Atlantic)
It’s important to note that the ISS doesn’t depend on the presence of a crew to fly. Mission controllers on the ground can operate the station as it coasts through space, traveling at an average speed of 17,500 miles an hour. ISS systems are built to be redundant; a failure of one of several identical systems doesn’t signal a major catastrophe. If necessary, Russia can also deliver uncrewed Progress capsules to dock to the ISS and, as has been done in the past, fire their thrusters to elevate the station, keeping it in its usual orbit.

After the Soyuz launch failure, NASA spent several weeks preparing for the possibility of leaving the ISS unoccupied. The space agency has a “de-crew” document for this scenario, which instructs the departing astronauts to make sure systems are running fine, install backups, and top off science experiments. But NASA’s protocols don’t specify exactly how long the ISS could theoretically operate without a crew. Although the station can be operated remotely, there’s no substitute for having people on board. Astronauts conduct repairs inside and outside the station, replace aging hardware, and perform regular checks of life-support systems. (11/9)

NASA’s Europa Lander in Jeopardy After Midterms -- and Some are Fine Seeing it Go (Source: The Verge)
Now that Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) is about to leave public office, the Europa lander will no longer have its champion, making its future at NASA uncertain. NASA never formally requested a lander for Europa, and the president’s latest budget request noted that the administration had no intention of funding such a program. No other lawmaker seems to be as passionate about the project, nor in the same position to keep the program alive.

Plus, there are some in the science community who wouldn’t be upset to see the mission go. In fact, a few experts are concerned that sending a lander to Europa right now is premature, as we don’t know enough about the moon’s surface to successfully touch down on it. And there’s frustration over the fact that the lander was born from a politician rather than scientific consensus. “The Europa lander was always Culberson’s,” Emily Lakdawalla, the senior editor at The Planetary Society, tells The Verge. “It’s a mission that came out of Congress as opposed to a mission that came out of the [science community].” (11/10)

NASA and Yuri Milner Working Together on Life-Hunting Mission to Enceladus (Source: Gizmodo)
It looks like NASA will offer billionaire entrepreneur and physicist Yuri Milner help on the first private deep-space mission: a journey designed to detect life, if it exists, on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, according to documents acquired by New Scientist. New Scientist’s Mark Harris reports:

"Agreements signed by NASA and Milner’s non-profit Breakthrough Starshot Foundation in September show that the organisations are working on scientific, technical and financial plans for the ambitious mission. NASA has committed over $70,000 to help produce a concept study for a flyby mission. The funds won’t be paid to Breakthrough but represent the agency’s own staffing costs on the project." (11/8)

Camden Spaceport Won't Live Up to Expectations (Source: Brunswick News)
Not only was Nov. 6 Election Day, but it was the ignoble third anniversary of the announcement in the Federal Register that Camden County was going to spend a rocket-load of money on its spaceport odyssey. Six million dollars and three years later, the spaceport Environmental Impact Statement is now officially paused. Camden Commission chair Jimmy Starline says it’s the FAA “process,” but the FAA states it’s due to “project sponsor factors.” Whatever.

The public’s input and participation has temporarily stopped this ill-advised project that would have severe consequences for Camden and Glynn. We were promised by Camden’s spaceport consultant that rockets were 99.01 percent safe. But the Draft EIS had to admit a failure rate of up to 6 percent, which the FAA figures up to 93 percent for new rockets. That’s one launch failure every 17 months. Shockingly, the EIS failed to study the consequence of a rocket crash on Cumberland, Jekyll, or St. Andrews Sound although the National Environmental Protection Act requires it.

Meanwhile, Vector Space, the company that launched an amateur rocket from Camden in 2017 and promised us a rocket factory, hasn’t launched anything since. But Vector promised Virginia and Alaska rocket launches to orbit in 2018. The first won’t happen until next year, if then. Neither will the promised Florida rocket factory. We just re-elected the politicians that continue to waste money on the spaceport that will never launch a rocket. Are they tell us they don’t have better uses for our taxes? (11/10)

Two More Mysterious Rogue Planets Found (Source: Popular Mechanics)
Rogue planets wander through space without orbiting a star, and now scientists have found two more of these free-floating worlds. For centuries, the very existence of rogue planets was hypothetical. Because they're not close to a star that lights them up, they're tremendously difficult to spot. Then a technique known as gravitational microlensing came around.

Using gravitational microlensing, scientists find planets by noting when a rogue planet interrupts a star's light from our point of view. The planet suddenly acts as a lens for the star's light, curving it as it would be seen from Earth. The bigger the planet, the bigger the interruption. While humanity has proven great at finding exoplanets attached to stars, scientists have only identified a dozen or so rogues. That's what makes adding two more to the pile such a big deal. The planets are officially called OGLE-2017-BLG-0560 and OGLE-2012-BLG-1323, respectively, and there's a lot we don't know about them. (11/9)

SpaceX Wants to Fly Some Internet Satellites Closer to Earth to Cut Down on Space Trash (Source: The Verge)
SpaceX is revising its satellite internet initiative, Starlink, and it now hopes to operate some of its spacecraft at a lower altitude than originally planned. In a new filing to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), SpaceX is asking the agency to modify its license so that more than 1,500 Starlink satellites can operate at an altitude 600 kilometers lower than the company originally requested.

SpaceX argues that this change will make the space environment safer, as it will be easier to get rid of these satellites at this new altitude when they run low on fuel or can no longer function properly in orbit. This update could also explain the unexpected behavior of two of SpaceX’s test satellites for Starlink, which have remained in lower orbits than expected.

Back in March, the FCC approved SpaceX’s license for the first phase of its ambitious Starlink initiative — the company’s long-term plan to launch nearly 12,000 satellites into orbit to beam internet coverage down to Earth. Initially, SpaceX asked the FCC for permission to launch 4,425 satellites into orbits ranging between 1,110 to 1,325 kilometers high. But with this new filing, SpaceX is requesting that 1,584 of those satellites, which were supposed to operate at 1,110 kilometers, be allowed to operate at 550 kilometers instead. (11/9)