January 25, 2019

If Space is ‘the Province of Mankind’, Who Owns its Resources? (Source: ORF)
Half a century after the first United Nations Conference on the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, the current debates are focused on new sets of challenges such as space mining, which used to belong only to the realm of science fiction. This paper analyzes the rationale for extraterrestrial mining, as well as the efforts and responses of various countries—i.e, USA, Luxembourg, Russia, China and India.

In examining the legal and governance basis for States and commercial players, this paper appreciates the economic benefits of space mining but argues against the national legislations legalizing extraterrestrial appropriation of resources due to inconsistency with international treaties and customary international law.

It further argues that the concept of “common heritage of mankind” is defeated in the light of such legal frameworks. The paper ponders the global governance challenges brought about by space mining activities and suggests legal, policy and global frameworks for realizing the benefits of commercial mining without creating disparity between nations and disrupting dynamics of the world economy. Click here. (1/24)

Boeing Warns That a Prolonged Government Shutdown Could Hurt its Business (Source: CNBC)
The partial U.S. government shutdown hasn’t had much of an impact on Boeing yet, but the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer is calling on Washington to reach a deal quickly before the impasse starts taking a toll on the industry.

"We are concerned about the short term effects on our friends, families and neighbors in the communities we operate in as well as the long term effects that may begin to weigh on our operational efficiency, pose other challenges for our business and the aviation sector in general. We urge the Administration and Congress to reach a solution to this funding impasse quickly to fully reopen the government and preserve U.S. economic growth." (1/23)

NASA's Annual 'Day of Remembrance' Postponed Due to Shutdown (Source: SpaceFlight Insider)
Each year around the end of January, NASA takes a day to remember those that have given their lives for space exploration. Because of the ongoing partial U.S. government shutdown, this year’s events have been delayed. In a statement via Twitter, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said the events scheduled for Jan. 31, 2019, would have to be postponed.

“NASA’s annual Day of Remembrance reminds us to reflect on not just the sacrifices that have been made by our fallen family, friends, and co-workers, but also to remind us of our core values of safety, integrity, and teamwork as we carry out our history-making missions,” Bridenstine said. “Unfortunately, most of our NASA family are on furlough and we recognize that participation in many of the Day of Remembrance activities would be a challenge. As a result, we have decided to delay our observance until the NASA family is able to come together to remember our fallen astronauts and those who have given their life in pursuit of exploration.”

According to Bridenstine, a new date for the commemoration has not been selected. However, he said selecting a date will be a priority as soon as the shutdown is over and NASA employees are back to work. The Day of Remembrance primarily focuses on the astronauts who died during the Apollo 1 fire during a “plugs out test” on Jan. 27, 1967, the STS-51L Challenger launch breakup on Jan. 28, 1986, and the STS-107 Columbia re-entry breakup on Feb. 1, 2003. (1/24)

Branson Expects Commercial SpaceShipTwo Flights to Begin in Mid-2019 (Source: Space News)
The founder of Virgin Galactic says he now expects to fly on the company’s SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle around the middle of this year after a series of test flights starting in the next several weeks. Richard Branson reiterated his plans to fly into space later this year on the first commercial SpaceShipTwo flight. “I will hope to go up in the middle of this year myself,” Branson said. “We’ve got another test flight in a handful of weeks taking place from Mojave, then we’ll have another one a few weeks later, then another one. And then, we move everything to New Mexico where we have a beautiful spaceport.” (1/24)

Planetary Collision That Formed the Moon Made life Possible on Earth (Source: Space Daily)
Most of Earth's essential elements for life - including most of the carbon and nitrogen in you - probably came from another planet. Earth most likely received the bulk of its carbon, nitrogen and other life-essential volatile elements from the planetary collision that created the Moon more than 4.4 billion years ago, according to a new study by Rice University petrologists in the journal Science Advances.

"From the study of primitive meteorites, scientists have long known that Earth and other rocky planets in the inner solar system are volatile-depleted," said study co-author Rajdeep Dasgupta. "But the timing and mechanism of volatile delivery has been hotly debated. Ours is the first scenario that can explain the timing and delivery in a way that is consistent with all of the geochemical evidence." (1/24)

How Realistic are China's Plans to Build a Research Station on the Moon? (Source: Space Daily)
The world is still celebrating the historic landing of China's Chang'e-4 on the far side of the moon on January 3. This week, China announced its plans to follow up with three more lunar missions, laying the groundwork for a lunar base. Colonising the Moon, and beyond, has always being a human aspiration. Technological advancements, and the discovery of a considerable source of water close to the lunar poles, has made this idea even more appealing.

But how close is China to actually achieving this goal? If we focus on the technology currently available, China could start building a base on the Moon today. The first lunar base would likely be an unmanned facility run by automated robotics - similar to Amazon warehouses - to ensure that the necessary infrastructures and support systems are fully operational before people arrive. Click here. (1/24)

UAE Announces Launch Date of Mars Probe (Source: Khaleej Times)
The UAE's unmanned spacecraft to Mars will be launched during a tight window between July 14 to August 3, 2020, the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) has announced. The spacecraft, called Hope, has to be launched during that short time frame as there cannot be any unwanted interstellar conditions or objects interfering with the probe's seven-month long journey to Mars. If the dates are missed, it could be another two to two and half-year wait for another launch opportunity. It will take off from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan.

The launch date aims to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the UAE. The UAE's mission to Mars, which falls under MBRSC's Emirates Mars Mission programme (EMM), aims to study what caused water on the red planet to disappear in efforts to learn more about Earth's past and future. The spacecraft is currently undergoing an "intense testing phase" as the manufacturing stage has already been completed. (1/24)

Space Debris Poses Threat to UK and French Air Force Operations (Source: Flight Global)
Modern armed forces could cope with the loss of some space-based capabilities, but disabling orbiting assets would be a "game-changer" in the areas of imaging, positioning and ballistic missiles.

Relatively small militaries, such as France or the UK, would be at a disproportionate disadvantage compared with China, Russia or the USA, which boast vastly greater air and space resources. That is the preliminary conclusion of a study on "space Armageddon" by two French army officers, Maj Alexandre Dubreucq and Maj Francois Lamothe, who presented their study at the Royal United Services Institute in London on 16 January, during a conference called: "Is space the new cyber? UK dependencies and vulnerabilities". (1/23)

2019 is the Year That Space Tourism Finally Becomes a Reality. No, Really (Source: WIRED)
Space tourism has experienced many false dawns. Companies have come and gone that have offered everything from trips to the Moon to a new home on Mars. But after broken promise after broken promise, things might be about to change.

Seven people have paid to go to space before, with American multimillionaire Dennis Tito becoming the first space tourist in 2001, flying to the International Space Station (ISS) on a Soyuz capsule to the tune of $20 million. Six more space tourists would follow in his footsteps, but despite hopes otherwise, little else followed. No space tourist has flown since 2009.

This year, however, we are expecting several private companies in the US to start taking humans to space, most for the first time. And, if all goes to plan, this could be a vital step towards making space more accessible – where paid trips and privately funded astronauts become the norm. “2019 does feel like the year that’s going to be the culmination of two decades of development work that have gone into space tourism,” says industry analyst Caleb Williams. (1/24)

Will Hollywood Ever Film a Blockbuster in Space? (Source: Thrillist)
As First Man's screenwriter Josh Singer explained when the movie was released back in October, the moon sequence was shot in a quarry in Atlanta, the low-gravity effects achieved using wires and balloons. Pure Hollywood hokum. The film earned strong reviews from critics and appreciative words from Armstrong's sons ahead of its debut. But First Man underperformed at the box office, grossing less than $50 million domestically, and it failed to receive any Oscar nominations in non-technical categories.

Spurred by the success of blockbusters like Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity, Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, and Ridley Scott's The Martian, the "auteur space movie" has become a reliable sub-genre for studios, but it's an increasingly crowded field. This year, A24 will unleash Claire Denis' sexually-charged arthouse space-thriller High Life, and 20th Century Fox will fire up James Gray's father-son space epic Ad Astra, starring Brad Pitt; streaming services have also gotten in on the action with shows like Hulu's (now canceled) Mars drama The First and Apple's upcoming For All Mankind which imagines an alternate history where the space race never ended.

That never-ending quest for outer space authenticity often drives filmmakers to extremes, but the results can transport you to the humming interior of a shuttle or the unnerving stillness of floating in the dark void. After seeing Stanley Kubrick's meticulously designed 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968, Soviet astronaut Alexey Leonov, who became the first human to walk in space in 1965, famously declared, "Now I feel I’ve been in space twice." Click here. (1/23)

When a Harvard Professor Talks About Aliens (Source: The Atlantic)
Astrophysicists usually don’t get chased by reporters, but that’s what happened to Avi Loeb last November. They bombarded Loeb’s phone lines. They showed up at his office with television crews. One of them even followed him home and confronted him at the front door, demanding Loeb answer a question. “Do you believe that extraterrestrial intelligence exists?”

Days earlier, Loeb had published a new research paper in an astrophysics journal. Scientists publish thousands of research papers every year in journals big and small, prestigious and obscure. Usually, aside from some basic coverage by science journalists, these papers attract little public attention. But Loeb’s latest work covered a topic that is historically very attention-getting: aliens. The subject of the paper was a mysterious space rock known as ‘Oumuamua.

The leading hypothesis among astronomers is that ‘Oumuamua is an odd-looking comet, a remnant of another solar system that was kicked out by natural forces and sent barreling through the cosmos. Loeb offered a different explanation: ‘Oumuamua could be a probe that was deliberately sent to the solar system by an alien civilization. But there’s another reason the paper was so widely covered: Loeb is a tenured Harvard professor. (1/23)

Virgin Galactic Unveils Under Armour As Exclusive Technical Spacewear Partner (Source: Virgin Galactic)
Virgin Galactic is proud to announce Under Armour as its Exclusive Technical Spacewear Partner to create a next generation of spacewear and astronaut performance programs. The US brand, famed for performance through technical innovation, is designing and fabricating space suits for Virgin Galactic passengers and pilots, representing a unique commission that demanded personal performance enhancement through a complex blend of safety, utility, comfort and style.

The partnership will also see Under Armour create uniforms for Virgin Galactic’s world-class team at Spaceport America in New Mexico. Whether engineers, astronaut trainers and hosts, or mission control operatives, each member of the Virgin Galactic team will be wearing Under Armour apparel specifically chosen to enhance performance and to provide a tangible sense of shared purpose. (1/25)

Russian Space Chief Told to Drop Grandiose Talk, Get More Done (Source: Ars Technica)
The Russian space program is in crisis, with recent failures of its Soyuz launch system, declining orders for its commercial services, and funding problems. These problems certainly did not begin under the leader of the Russian Space Corporation, Dmitry Rogozin, but they appear to have worsened since he took office in May, 2018.

On Wednesday, the prime minister of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, expressed his displeasure with the situation. During a meeting in Moscow with senior Roscosmos officials, Medvedev made sharply critical remarks that were reported by several Russian news organizations. “This is a blunt and direct assertion: We need to quit projecting future plans, stop talking about where our missions will land in 2030, get to work, talk less, and do more," Medvedev said. "We need to be more active in commercializing our space industry and increase Russia’s international market share of commercial launches." (1/24)

Blue Origin Flies Again at Texas Site (With UCF and UF Experiments) (Source: Space News)
Blue Origin successfully launched its New Shepard suborbital vehicle on its latest test flight Wednesday. The vehicle lifted off from the company's West Texas launch site at 10:05 a.m. Eastern, with the propulsion module making a powered vertical landing about seven and a half minutes later, followed three minutes later by the crew capsule. The flight, the tenth in the overall New Shepard program, carried eight experiments for NASA's Flight Opportunities program. The company said it's on track to start flying people on the vehicle by the end of this year. (1/24)

Griffin to Lead Pentagon Space Development Agency (Source: Space News)
The new Space Development Agency in the Pentagon will be placed under the authority of Mike Griffin. Acting Secretary of State Patrick Shanahan, in a memo last week, directed Griffin, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, to submit a plan by March 1 to establish the agency, which should be operational by March 29. The agency, which could later become a part of the Space Force, would be responsible for working on broad architectures for space systems and systems engineering for them, but that could create friction with existing work on space programs, particularly in the Air Force. (1/24)

Europe Funds Earth Observation (Source: Space News)
The European Commission is adding more than $100 million to its budget for the Copernicus Earth-observation program. The additional $109 million, announced at a conference this week, will go to ESA over the next two years for additional work on the program, including developing the Sentinel-6 mission and the new European Copernicus Data Access and Information Services. European space industry executives welcomed the additional funding, but are still hoping for further increases in the 2020s above the commission's original proposal. (1/24)

Republican Space Force Opponent Serves Key Position on HASC Subcommittee (Source: Space Policy Online)
A congressman who has been opposed to past concepts for a Space Force will be the top Republican on a key subcommittee. Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) was named Wednesday as the ranking member of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, whose oversight includes military space matters. Turner previously voted against proposals to establish a Space Corps within the Air Force, one of the few Republicans to do so. Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), a supporter of the Space Corps concept who was ranking member of the subcommittee in the last Congress, will chair the subcommittee this Congress. (1/24)

Shutdown Increasingly Hurting Space Agencies and Industry (Source: Space News)
As it nears the five-week mark, the partial government shutdown is taking an increasing toll on agencies as well as companies that work with them on space issues. The shutdown has furloughed most of the staff at NASA and other agencies involved with civil and commercial space activities. Contractors who were forward-funded initially and could continue are running out of money, leading to additional problems. Moreover, a growing number of companies report that because of the shutdown they can't get launch licenses from the FAA or satellite communications approvals from the FCC. The Senate is scheduled to vote today on two spending bill proposals, including a continuing resolution that would reopen government agencies through Feb. 8, but it's not clear either can muster the 60 votes needed for passage. (1/24)

European Commission Wants Strategic Space Investment (Source: Space News)
The European Commission says it needs a space investment strategy to avoid losing startups to the United States. The commission is calling for the creation of a strategy that would include a dedicated fund for investing in space startups and a joint program with the European Space Agency to fund in-orbit technology demonstrations. The strategy is meant to combat the perception that European investors still view space companies as too risky, despite the greater success many have attracting capital overseas. (1/24)

Iran Intends to Continue with Launcher Plans (Source: IRNA)
An Iranian official said the country will press ahead with a second launch in the near future despite the failure of the first. Hossein Mokhtari of the Sharif University of Technology said the Doosti satellite will launch in the "coming few weeks" on an Iranian rocket. The launch of the Payam satellite on a Simorgh rocket last week failed because of a problem with the rocket's upper stage that kept the satellite from achieving orbit. (1/24)

We're Finally Figuring Out How Uranus Ended Up on its Side (Source: Popular Science)
Uranus is arguably the most mysterious planet in the solar system. The most obvious odd thing about this ice giant is the fact that it is spinning on its side. Unlike all the other planets, which spin roughly “upright” with their spin axes at close to right angles to their orbits around the sun, Uranus is tilted by almost a right angle. So in its summer, the north pole points almost directly towards the sun. And unlike Saturn, Jupiter and Neptune, which have horizontal sets of rings around them, Uranus has vertical rings and moons that orbit around its tilted equator.

The ice giant also has a surprisingly cold temperature and a messy and off-centre magnetic field, unlike the neat bar-magnet shape of most other planets like Earth or Jupiter. Scientists therefore suspect that Uranus was once similar to the other planets in the solar system but was suddenly flipped over. So what happened? Our new research offers a clue. Most researchers believe that Uranus’ spin is the consequence of a dramatic collision. We set out to uncover how it could have happened.

Our simulations show that a body at least twice as massive as the Earth could readily create the strange spin Uranus has today by slamming into and merging with a young planet. For more grazing collisions, the impacting body’s material would probably end up spread out in a thin, hot shell near the edge of Uranus’ ice layer, underneath the hydrogen and helium atmosphere. This could inhibit the mixing of material inside Uranus, trapping the heat from its formation deep inside. Excitingly, this idea seems to fit with the observation that Uranus’ exterior is so cold today. (1/25)