December 24, 2018

Spy Satellite Launch on Soyuz Rocket Begins Refresh of French Military Space Capabilities (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
Launching for the 20th time from the jungle of South America, a Russian-built Soyuz booster rocketed into orbit Wednesday with a new eye in the sky for the French military, the first in a series of upgrades planned for the country’s defense satellites over the next five years. Running a day late after a delay caused by unfavorable high-altitude winds over the spaceport in French Guiana, the Soyuz ST-A rocket fired its liquid-fueled engines, throttled up to full power, and climbed into a partly cloudy sky with France’s CSO 1 military observation satellite. (12/21)

Entering a Crowded Market, Japan’s New Rocket Scores an Early Win (Source: Ars Technica)
Japan's largest rocket company, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), has received a vote of confidence as it seeks to compete for commercial launches in an increasingly crowded market. Earlier this month, the company announced an agreement with satellite operator Inmarsat for a launch in 2022 or later. Significantly, the flight will take place on Mitsubishi's new H3 rocket, which was designed and developed to fly at a lower cost in order to attract more commercial business.

It was the first commercial contract for the rocket, which is set to debut in 2020 by launching a satellite payload for Japan's space agency, JAXA. JAXA and MHI want to increase the country's number of orbital launches annually from the current average of four to about eight. The only realistic way to do this is to increase launch orders from commercial companies. And as MHI has sought to do this, it seems to have found a good partner in Inmarsat. Already, in September 2017, Inmarsat selected MHI's H-2A rocket for the launch of its Inmarsat-6 F1 satellite in 2020.

And now, the company has returned to MHI for a second consecutive order. This is a big win for the Japanese firm, as Inmarsat could have picked almost any number of competitors. Since it began launching satellites in 1990, the London-based satellite operator has flown on US Delta, Atlas, and Falcon 9 rockets, multiple variations of Europe's Ariane launcher, and Russia's Proton and Ukraine's Zenit vehicles. (12/21)

Quiet Rocket Startup That Doesn't Want To Be The New SpaceX (Source: Forbes)
You’ve probably never heard of Orbex, but if all goes to plan, this company might just make history. They want to launch the UK's first rocket in more than four decades, and they’re steadily making progress towards doing just that. But despite those lofty ambitions, they're keeping their feet firmly on the ground.

“People often tout little companies like Orbex as being the new SpaceX,” Chris Larmour, the company’s CEO, tells me in an interview. “I don’t personally see that. We don’t have those ambitions. And I’m certainly not Elon Musk.” Orbex is a UK-based rocket launch company that quietly came out of stealth mode in July 2018. “Quiet” is most certainly the word here, because while Orbex hopes to start launching rockets by 2021 at the earliest, it’s doing so on its own terms and at its own pace. (12/21)

NASA Official at Virginia Spaceport Guilty of Receiving Illegal Gifts (Source: WTKR)
A NASA official pleaded guilty to receiving gratuities in exchange for official acts performed in his capacity as a government official, and to stealing funds from a government contract. According to court documents, Steven Eric Kremer, 53, was the Chief of the Range and Mission Management Office at the NASA's Wallops Flight Facility (WFF). Kremer was responsible for administering the Range Operations Contract (ROC) – a multi-year government contract intended to provide services at test facilities and launch control centers.

Kremer was provided the free use of a vacation home for a one-week period located on the Eastern Shore of Virginia during each of the summers between 2008 and 2015. The home was owned by an employee of a ROC subcontractor. Kremer facilitated the selection of the subcontractor’s firm to supply interior design services and office furniture for WFF in exchange for time in the vacation home. ROC funds were used by Kremer to purchase gift cards for his personal use, and to obtain a piece of personalized art. (12/22)

Science Committee Democrats Expect Action on Commercial Space Issues in New Congress (Source: SpacePolicyOnline.com)
Following the defeat of the Space Frontier Act in the House yesterday, Democratic staff of the House Science, Space, and Technology (SS&T) committee said today that the issues are important and expect the committee to be active on them in the 116th Congress, which begins in less than two weeks.  During floor debate on the bill, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), criticized the process used to bring the bill to the floor, arguing that she did not think many of the issues had been vetted sufficiently. She is expected to chair the committee next year. (12/22)

Tucson Tech: Paragon Teams with Moon Express to Bid on NASA Moon-Delivery Contracts (Source: Arizona Daily Star)
Tucson-based Paragon Space Development Corp. is part of a team that will be eligible to bid on up to $2.9 billion worth of contracts to deliver payloads to the surface of the moon. NASA recently announced nine U.S. companies eligible to bid on NASA delivery services to the lunar surface through Commercial Lunar Payload Services contracts, calling it “one of the first steps toward long-term scientific study and human exploration of the moon and eventually Mars.”

Paragon is teaming up with one of the chosen nine, Moon Express, a Florida-based startup initially formed by a group of Silicon Valley and space entrepreneurs with the goal winning the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize for the first private venture to land a robotic spacecraft on the moon. A longtime NASA contractor for life-support systems and environmental controls, Paragon is currently working on about $9 million worth of NASA development contracts. (12/22)

Women are Finally Getting Equal Access to the Hubble Space Telescope (Source: New Scientist)
The Hubble Space Telescope has a gender problem. For at least the past 16 years, female researchers have had their requests to use the world’s most important telescope accepted at significantly lower rates than their male colleagues. But a switch to reviewing anonymized proposals is changing that, showing that selection processes can be biased against women. Every year, astronomers around the world respond to an open call for proposals for time using Hubble. There can be up to 1000 proposals. (12/21)

Massive Star Is So Big It Gives Birth to a Tiny Twin (Source: Space.com)
A close-up look at the birth of a star has revealed a surprise: Not one new stellar body, but two. In 2017, scientists using a new array of radio telescopes in the Chilean desert were observing a massive young star named MM 1a in an active star-forming region of the galaxy more than 10,000 light-years away. As they analyzed the data, they realized that MM 1a was accompanied by a second, fainter object, which they dubbed MM 1b. This, they found, was the first star's smaller sibling, formed from the spray of dust and gases it holds in its gravitational pull. In a solar system like Earth's, this "disc" can coalesce into planets. (12/24)

50 Years Ago, Earthrise Gave Us the View of a Lifetime (Source: WIRED)
Half a century ago, astronauts aboard NASA's Apollo 8 mission become the first humans to leave low Earth orbit, traverse the 240,000 miles separating our planet from its moon, and loop around that natural satellite to look upon its forever-hidden far side (not dark side) with their own eyes. The first crewed voyage to orbit the moon, the astronauts aboard were afforded a unique opportunity: A chance to photograph our planet rising above the lunar horizon.

The most famous of the images they captured—a color photograph, now known as Earthrise, snapped by astronaut Bill Anders with a modified Hasselblad 500 EL medium-format camera—was taken 50 years ago today, on December 24, 1968. The photograph is notable for embodying two seemingly contrasting themes: Humanity's tremendous achievement at sending its first ambassadors around the moon and back; and the smallness of our species in the vastness of the universe. (12/24)

NASA Facility Renamed to Honor Katherine Johnson (Source: Fresno Bee)
A NASA facility is West Virginia has been renamed to honor mathematician Katherine Johnson, whose calculations helped astronauts return to Earth. The structure in Fairmont is now known as the Katherine Johnson Independent Verification and Validation Facility. News outlets report Congress passed a bill allowing the name change and President Donald Trump signed it into law on Dec. 11. (12/24)

David Beckham Isn’t Actually Going Into Space (Source: Metro)
David Beckham may have previously played for LA Galaxy, but that’s as close to space as he’ll be getting for a while. The 43-year-old has dashed reports claiming he will be the first footballer in space, which is both entirely expected and quite disappointing at the same time. It was alleged that David had been approached by a number of major space travel firms – they exist now, because it’s 2018 – including Virgin Atlantic’s fleet Virgin Galactic to go into space, and that the star had talked about it ‘for quite a while’. (12/21)

India Gears Up for a Busy 2019 in Space (Source: Business Standard)
The year 2019 will be the busiest yet for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), with double the number of launches compared to 2018 — 32 to this year’s 17. The missions scheduled include a third-generation remote sensing satellite, a third-generation ocean satellite and a couple of communication satellites. The most complex would be Chandrayaan-2, the country’s second lunar exploration mission after Chandrayaan-1. January 3 seems the likely date.

Another important mission would be launch of the two-satellite Indian Data Relay Satellite System (IDRSS), of which one will be launched in 2019. In launch vehicles, Isro expects to fly its first small rocket with a carrying capacity of 500-700 kg next year. Today, ISRO has two operational launchers, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV). The next variant of GSLV is GSLV Mk-III, with indigenous high-thrust cryogenic engines and stage, having the capability of launching the four-tonne class of communication satellites. (12/24)

Orion Aces Another Test at NASA Plum Brook (Source: Sandusky Register)
NASA officials labeled a recent noise-related test at their Erie County-based Plum Brook Station a resounding success. In their continued quest to perfect testing articles for Orion — the initiative aiming to carry astronauts into deep space and possibly land on Mars — engineers successfully completed work on what’s called a Universal Stage Adapter for the Space Launch System’s rocket. What this means: The adapter, which connects the rocket to Orion’s spacecraft, must provide enough power to ascend the actual flight article into low-Earth orbit and beyond. (12/24)

Good Economic Reports as 2018 Nears End (Source: Florida Today)
Homes prices and jobs continue to rise on the Space Coast, while unemployment stays low. That pretty much summed up 2018 and it was reflected in two year-ending economic reports. Many Realtors expect to see growth in 2019 on the Space Coast but maybe not as highly-charged as 2018. Prices will continue to rise but the rate of increase might slow. "I think we'll see things leveling off," said Barbara Zapotocky, broker owner at  REMAX Aerospace Realty. "We'll still be seeing growth and prices increasing but it might not be as fast-paced as in the past," she said.

Zapotocky said the two new REMAX Aerospace Realty offices she opened acknowledge the expected growth in the space programs which are making the northern parts of Brevard more attractive to home buyers. From Florida's Department of Economic Opportunity: November data shows that Brevard's labor force grew by 2.4 percent to 272,532 over the year while the jobless rate fell to 3 percent from 3.9 percent a  year earlier. The number of people working in jobs in that period grew by 3.3 percent to 264,225. (12/24)

Investigators to Question Russia Cosmonauts Amid ISS 'Hole' Probe (Source: Space Daily)
Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Oleg Artemyev will be questioned by the investigators as witnesses in the probe into a microfracture which was found on the body of the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft, while it was docked to the International Space Station (ISS), a source in the aerospace industry told Sputnik on Friday.

Prokopyev returned to the Earth on the Soyuz on Thursday. On the same day, a source said that both cosmonauts would be questioned in the case. Artemyev returned from the ISS in October. "Investigators will collect witness testimonies from the cosmonauts," the source said. Both Prokopyev and Artemyev were at the space station when the ISS crew experienced an air leakage caused by the microfracture in the orbital module of the Soyuz MS-09 in late August. (12/24)

Musk Lauds Brilliant Russian Rocket Engine RD-180 in Core of US' Atlas V (Source: Sputnik)
The reliable and relatively cheap RD-180 engine is designed by a Russian research and development company especially for the US Atlas carrier rockets, but there are reportedly plans to put them to use in the production of Russian super-heavy rockets. The head of SpaceX Elon Musk has praised the RD-180's engine, designed and manufactured by Russia's NPO Energomash and used on the American booster Atlas V, noting though that the need to exploit it is "embarrassing:"

The Russian-designed liquid-fuel rocket engine RD-180 powers the first stage of the American rocket carrier Atlas V. As many as 85 flights of rockets powered by the engine have been conducted to date. After US-Russia relations deteriorated over the Crimean issue in 2014, US lawmakers slapped limits on would-be RD-180 purchases, passing a law that required the US to phase out the Russian-made engines in favour of domestically produced next-generation rocket propulsion systems. (12/24)

Over Six Months Without Word From Opportunity (Source: Space Daily)
Mars atmospheric opacity (tau) over the rover site remains at a storm-free range around 1.0. No signal from Opportunity has been heard since Sol 5111 (June 10, 2018). Opportunity likely experienced a low-power fault, a mission clock fault and an up-loss timer fault. Since the loss of signal, the team has been listening for the rover over a broad range of times, frequencies and polarizations using the Deep Space Network (DSN) Radio Science Receiver.

They have been commanding "sweep and beeps" throughout each daily DSN pass with both right-hand and left-hand circular polarization to address a possible complexity with certain conditions within mission clock fault on the rover. The team has expanded the breath of sweep and beep commanding covering more times of day on Mars. Mars is now in the seasonal period of past dust clearing events for the rover. Since loss of signal, 456 recovery commands have been radiated to the rover. (12/24)