December 13, 2018

Virgin Galactic Touches Space — and a UCF Experiment was Onboard for the Ride (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic completed a monumental test flight Thursday — and the University of Central Florida got a slice of the glory. Its experiment was one of four NASA-supported technologies part of the flight to space. Virgin’s WhiteKnightTwo supersonic plane deployed SpaceShipTwo, a rocket carrying two test pilots, Thursday morning. It rose about 51.4 miles, just beyond what the U.S. Air Force deems the boundary of space.

Onboard was UCF’s Collisions Into Dust Experiment, COLLIDE for short, which tests how dust particles as big as 2 centimeters behave in microgravity. The experiment involves shooting another object into a simulated asteroid surface slowly in micrgravity and seeing what happens, said Joshua Colwell. Branson told CNN in late November that he planned to send astronauts to space by Christmas. (12/13)

France Outlines Plans for Space Cooperation with China (Source: CNES)
Jean-Yves Le Gall, President of CNES, spoke in Beijing as part of the preparation of the joint scientific and technological committee Franco -Chinese and presented the space cooperation between France and China. He also had the opportunity to speak with Wang Zhigang, Minister of Science and Technology, Zhang Kejian, CNSA Administrator, and Wang Zhenyu, head of the CNSA’s Office of International Cooperation. Chinese Academy of Sciences. (12/12)

Incoming House HASC Chair Opposed to Space Force (Source: Space News)
The next chairman of the House Armed Services Committee says he's opposed to establishing a Space Force as a new branch of the military. Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) told reporters Wednesday that there's "bipartisan concern" a Space Force is the wrong approach to dealing with space security issues. Smith said he believed the military needed to put a greater emphasis on space, though, and that the Air Force was not as good in this areas as they should. He said he had not seen a legislative proposal being developed by the White House that reportedly would place a Space Force with a new Department of the Air and Space Force, an approach that could be less expensive than if the Space Force was its own department. (12/12)

C-Band Alliance Pledges to Buy U.S. Satellites (Source: Space News)
Companies offering to hand over C-band satellite spectrum in the U.S. have promised to procure any needed replacement satellites from American manufacturers. The four operators who comprise the C-Band Alliance, which has proposed transferring some C-band spectrum for 5G uses and be compensated for the costs of moving customers to other bands, said that they would invest in new satellites, all built by U.S. companies, as part of the transition. The alliance made that pledge in comments submitted to the FCC in response to its notice of proposed rulemaking on a potential C-band transition. (12/12)

Air Force Takes Lead in Commercial Satellite Capacity (Source: Space News)
Air Force Space Command has officially taken over as the main buyer of commercial satellite capacity for the Pentagon. The Air Force announced the transition Wednesday, a year to the day after the signing of a defense authorization bill that called for the change. The Defense Information Systems Agency had previously been responsible for buying capacity on commercial communications satellites, but industry was not happy with the agency's model of only leasing capacity, rather than pursuing other methods of acquiring communications. (12/12)

NASA Moving Forward on Earth Science Decadal Recommendations (Source: Space News)
NASA is busy implementing nearly all the recommendations of the latest Earth science decadal survey. At a town hall meeting this week, Mike Freilich, director of the Earth science division at NASA Headquarters, said NASA was working on implementing those recommendations, which call for a mix of larger and smaller missions and greater use of competition. NASA is also busy flying out its current set of Earth science missions under development, with 20 scheduled for launch though 2023. Freilich, who is retiring in February, received the NASA Distinguished Service Medal at the meeting to recognize his 12-year tenure as head of the division. (12/12)

Nick Hague Awaits Another Flight Opportunity (Source: Houston Chronicle)
NASA astronaut Nick Hague said he's looking forward to a second chance to go to the station. Hague was on the Soyuz MS-10 launch that was aborted in October, and was recently assigned to the crew of the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft launching in late February. He said at a press conference Wednesday he and his family were "extremely thankful to the engineers that put the effort into designing that system" that allowed the spacecraft to safely escape its damaged booster, bringing him and Alexey Ovchinin back to the ground uninjured. Hague added one positive aspect of the abort is that he's been able to share his experience with Boeing and SpaceX as they develop their commercial crew vehicles. (12/12)

Harris Cubesat Working Well (Source: Space News)
Harris Corporation's first cubesat is working well in orbit. The company, best known for producing satellite components like sensors and antennas, built the six-unit HSAT cubesat that launched on an Indian PSLV last month. The technology demonstration satellite is giving the company insights on how to develop future smallsats. A company executive said Harris is working on "several small satellite missions" for customers, but declined to discuss specifics. (12/12)

Intelsat Sees Government as In-Flight Broadband Customer (Source: Space News)
Intelsat is offering a new in-flight broadband service aimed at military and government aircraft. The company developed FlexAir after a year-long market study of military and government aircraft operators, who wanted guaranteed coverage even on "nonstandard" aircraft routes. The service is compatible with some of the fuselage and tail-mounted antennas that are already in place aboard military-operated Gulfstream business jets and large cargo planes, using Ku-band capacity on Intelsat satellites. (12/12)

India Plans to Repurpose PSLV Upper Stage for Experiments (Source: Times of India)
The Indian space agency ISRO plans to use the upper stage from an upcoming launch for in-space experiments. Once the upper stage from a PSLV launch in January deploys its payload, the stage will serve as a platform for experiments, equipped with batteries and a solar panel. The stage could operate for up to six months, and if this test is successful ISRO may offer payload space on future upper stages to students or researchers. (12/12)

Parker Probe Sends Data From Solar Approach (Source: Science News)
NASA's Parker Solar Probe is returning data from its first close approach to the sun. The spacecraft, launched in August, made that first close approach last month, coming within 24 million kilometers of the sun. Parker started transmitting data it collected during the encounter last week, once the Earth was back in view of the spacecraft. Scientists are just starting to analyze the data, much of which won't be returned until next spring. (12/12)

Curry Was Joking About Moon Landing Doubt (Source: ESPN)
Relax, everybody: Steph Curry says he was joking about thinking the Apollo moon landings were faked. Curry, the star of the NBA's Golden State Warriors, said in a podcast Monday that he thought the landings were faked, as did several other players on the same show. Curry said in an interview Wednesday he was "one thousand percent” joking when he made those comments, but didn't clarify it earlier because he was "silently protesting how stupid it was that people actually took that quote" at face value.

Curry did say he would accept NASA's offer to tour the Johnson Space Center, where the lunar samples collected by the Apollo missions are archived. "I am going to educate myself firsthand on everything that NASA has done and shine a light on their tremendous work over the years." (12/12)

Lawmakers Await Official Word on Trump Defense Budget (Source: Defense News)
A reported shift by President Donald Trump toward higher defense spending in 2020 is expected to have support in the House, with 70 lawmakers signing a letter opposing cuts. Following lobbying by congressional Republicans and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Trump reportedly committed to a fiscal 2020 national defense budget of at least $750 billion, a nearly 5 percent defense spending increase instead of the announced plan for $700 billion, which would have been a 2 percent cut.

The $700 billion plan was a downgrade from a $733 billion top line the Pentagon had been planning around. Key Democrats on Tuesday were laughing off reports that President Donald Trump reversed course on his defense spending plans and now wants a dramatic boost in the military budget next fiscal year. “Until it comes here, it’s irrelevant,” Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., and the soon-to-be chair of the House Appropriations Committee, told Defense News at the Capitol on Tuesday. “When they sit and negotiate with us, then we can talk about it.” (12/11)

Pentagon Claims Nearly $4.4 Billion in Savings Last Year. Can it Top it for FY19? (Source: Defense News)
The Pentagon’s hunt for efficiencies found $4.372 billion in savings during fiscal 2018, and has already found nearly $2 billion in savings for FY19. Lisa Hershman, acting chief management officer for the Defense Department, said the FY18 savings were the result of 114 potential projects identified by the CMO’s office as areas where work could net fiscal savings. While those figures are still being vetted officially by the comptroller’s office, Hershman expressed confidence they would be confirmed.

The Pentagon has been charged by the Office of Management and Budget to find $46 billion in savings between FY19 and FY23; the department had previously tacked on the more specific goals of finding $4 billion in savings in FY18 and $6 billion in FY19. In many cases, the money came from small projects able to collectively provide big savings, Hershman said. “We were purchasing things like batteries and light bulbs that we would buy and we would store. So we looked at: Do we really need to do that, is there something we can move to the open market and not have to worry about inventory levels because things are readily available?” (12/11)

FCC Approves U.S. Use of Galileo Satnav (Source: GSA)
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), at a meeting on November 15, granted in part a request from the European Commission for a waiver of the FCC rules so that devices in the United States may access specific signals transmitted from the Galileo Global Navigation Satellite System. Following this decision, consumers and industry in the U.S. will be permitted to access certain satellite signals from the Galileo system to be used in combination with the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), allowing them to benefit from improved availability, reliability, and resiliency of these position, navigation, and timing services, the FCC said in a statement. (11/16)

Freshman Florida Congressman Stresses Space Issues (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
When Michael Waltz is sworn into Congress in January, he’ll be one of the few freshmen with counterterrorism experience in the White House and Pentagon and one of a growing number who’ve served in the military. But as a Republican, he’ll be in the minority in the House. Even so, the 44-year-old from St. Augustine said he can work with Democrats on issues ranging from transportation and infrastructure to bringing more space and aeronautics jobs to his district, which includes Volusia County, Flagler County and parts of Lake and St Johns counties.

The commercial spaceflight industry, he added, is “set to explode” from a few launches a month to a few a day in the next two decades. “I want Florida to have a big piece of that,’’ he said. “Embry-Riddle [Aeronautical Univerity in Daytona Beach] should be front and center in the middle of that, we shouldn’t be bringing in engineers from California or from Massachusetts and MIT when we’re training them right here in Florida.” As for the Space Force announced by President Trump earlier this year, “A lot of people make a lot of jokes. I get it. But it’s actually an idea that emanated in the Congress, [and] President Trump has then magnified it and given guidance to the Pentagon.” (12/12)

Science Agency Never Briefed Trump on Climate (Source: E&E News)
President Trump has never had a briefing about climate change by the nation's leading science agency, the acting NOAA administrator said yesterday. Nor has the White House requested one. Timothy Gallaudet, a retired Navy rear admiral and oceanographer who is leading NOAA, was asked at a major science conference whether he had spoken with Trump about the rising dangers of global warming or if he had ever been invited to. "The simple answer is no," he said.

The revelation follows a series of recent comments by the president that contradict scientists' assertions that humans are raising temperatures on Earth by burning fossil fuels. It also comes as scientists express increasingly stark warnings about the effects of climate change. Gallaudet was attending the American Geophysical Union's annual conference yesterday to help unveil an Arctic report card that warns of accelerating transformations to the region and its species. (12/12)

Four NASA-Sponsored Experiments (Two From Florida) Set to Launch on Virgin Galactic Spacecraft (Source: Parabolic Arc)
A winged spacecraft will soon take off with four NASA-supported technology experiments onboard. Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo will separate from the WhiteKnightTwo twin-fuselage carrier aircraft and continue its rocket-powered test flight. The flight, scheduled for no earlier than Dec. 13, is Virgin Galactic’s first mission for NASA. The agency’s Flight Opportunities program helped the four experiments hitch a ride on SpaceShipTwo. The program purchased flight services, the accommodation and ride, from Virgin Galactic for the payloads.

During the flight, the payloads will collect valuable data needed to mature the technologies for use on future missions. The planned technology demonstrations onboard SpaceShipTwo could prove useful for exploration missions. For Principal Investigator Josh Colwell at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, the Virgin Galactic flight will help further refine the Collisions Into Dust Experiment (COLLIDE). The experiment aims to map the behavior of dust particles on planetary surfaces.

Also aboard will be NASA JSC's Microgravity Multi-Phase Flow Experiment for Suborbital Testing; the University of Florida's  Validating Telemetric Imaging Hardware for Crew-Assisted and Crew-Autonomous Biological Imaging in Suborbital Applications; and Controlled Dynamics Inc.'s Vibration Isolation Platform. Click here. (12/12)

Spire Taps Galileo for Space-Based Weather Data (Source: Spire)
Spire Global's most recently launched satellites are the first satellites in the world to use Galileo GNSS signals to measure radio occultation (GNSS-RO) profiles in a production capacity for the weather community. This industry first will now be offered to the entire audience of Spire’s global user base as a new tier of data for advanced weather prediction. These satellites are also part of a larger collaborative European Space Agency (ESA) program called ARTES Pioneer 'Space As A Service'. The new satellite deployments represent the first Spire satellites launched through the Pioneer program for ESA, which is supported by the UK Space Agency. (12/11)

Getting Vulcan Up to Speed (Source: Ars Technica)
After a long career in the development of space and missile programs, Salvatore T. "Tory" Bruno was named chief executive of United Launch Alliance in August 2014. In this new position, Bruno has faced enormous challenges. Over the last half-decade, SpaceX has emerged as a viable competitor, begun to fly its Falcon 9 rocket more frequently, and competed successfully for lucrative military launch contracts.

Meanwhile, ULA faced a mandate from the US government to end its reliance on the Russian-made RD-180 engine for its workhorse rocket, the Atlas V booster. In response to these challenges, Bruno has sought to cut costs (through layoffs and other restructuring) and increase the commercial competitiveness of ULA, while also developing the brand-new Vulcan rocket with US-made components at the same time. Click here. (12/11)

Five Existential Challenges Facing Elon Musk's SpaceX (Source: Forbes)
In the 16 years since Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corporation – SpaceX – was founded, the company has transformed the commercial space market. It has proven that launch services can be provided at far less cost than previously thought. It has demonstrated that rocket stages can be successfully reused. And it has repeatedly accomplished feats no commercial company would have contemplated in the past.

No doubt about it, SpaceX is a pioneer. But pioneers do not always come to a good end. The life of Nikola Tesla, the inventor and futurist for whom Musk’s other great enterprise is named, offers an example of how even geniuses can lose their way in the jungle-like landscape of infant industries. SpaceX has changed the world, but the jury is still out on whether it has a sustainable business model.

That may be one of the reasons why Musk has not taken SpaceX public – even though analysts estimate its value as high as $28 billion. The publicly stated reason is that Musk doesn’t want outsiders mucking around in his plans to send astronauts to Mars, as a prelude to establishing a permanent colony there. It’s an inspiring vision, but public or private, there are some serious challenges that the company will need to overcome first. Click here. (12/12)

SpaceX May Be New Barrier for Trump’s Border Wall (Source: New York Times)
The rural tract of land that was supposed to be home to a commercial spaceport now stands in the path of Mr. Trump’s border wall. Mr. Musk is just one of the potentially hundreds of private landowners in Texas who would be disrupted by the president’s desire to build a “big, beautiful” wall.

The new wall in the Rio Grande Valley could potentially encroach on hundreds of landowners, farmers and companies near the border. For example, the six miles of wall near the Texas border city of McAllen is slated to cut through a 100-acre butterfly refuge, blocking access to the wildlife sanctuary and, effectively, shutting it down.

And then there’s SpaceX. Its launch site is still under construction in Boca Chica Village, a small community wedged between the border town of Brownsville and the Gulf Coast. In an email, James Gleeson, a SpaceX spokesman said Customs and Border Protection and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, recently asked to conduct a survey on the property. “At this time, SpaceX is evaluating the request and is in communication with D.H.S. to further understand their plans,” Mr. Gleeson said. (12/12)

Mankind Needs Ted Cruz to Step Up for NASA (Source: Houston Chronicle)
NASA will need strong congressional support to continue building the Lunar Gateway space station, which it wants to place in orbit around the moon by 2026. The space platform will provide a base for astronauts farther from Earth than the International Space Station, which is overseen by NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. President Donald Trump wants to turn NASA over to private managers, but both Cruz and Nelson have objected. Cruz, while a champion of the private space industry, is right to be protective of NASA.

NASA is also building its Orion spacecraft, which will use the moon as the staging base for a manned flight to Mars sometime in the 2030s. Propulsion systems for the Orion’s journey are being tested at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, with a six-day test flight to the moon scheduled to lift off from the Kennedy Space Center by 2023. Also planned: A test mission to an asteroid by 2025.

NASA’s continued investment in private partnerships may determine the future of the Johnson Space Center, which has been the locus for human space flight ever since the original Mercury Seven astronauts were welcomed to Houston in 1959. Given how important NASA is to this state, members of Congress from Texas, and especially chairman Cruz, should help guide the space agency’s steps toward Mars and beyond. (12/12)