February 23, 2019

US Air Force Reviews Boosting Military Space Capabilities at New Mexico Base (Source: Space Daily)
The US Air Force is preparing to expand facilities for its space rapid response military operations at a base in the state of New Mexico, two senators said. "[Today], US Senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich announced that the US Air Force has submitted a three phase plan to construct secure workspace at Kirk that will support the expanded mission of the Space Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO)", the release from Senator Martin Heinrich's office said.

According to the plan, the Air Force will establish provisional workspaces at the installation to function as a secure compartmentalized information facility (SCF), the release explained. The expanded facilities will "increase cooperation and collaboration with the commercial space sector, ultimately improving our rapid launch capabilities and growing New Mexico's space economy," Udall said. (2/18)

NASA Set to Demonstrate X-Ray Communications in Space (Source: Space Daily)
A new experimental type of deep space communications technology is scheduled to be demonstrated on the International Space Station this spring. Currently, NASA relies on radio waves to send information between spacecraft and Earth. Emerging laser communications technology offers higher data rates that let spacecraft transmit more data at a time. This demonstration involves X-ray communications, or XCOM, which offers even more advantages.

X-rays have much shorter wavelengths than both infrared and radio. This means that, in principle, XCOM can send more data for the same amount of transmission power. The X-rays can broadcast in tighter beams, thus using less energy when communicating over vast distances. If successful, the experiment could increase interest in the communications technology, which could permit more efficient gigabits-per-second data rates for deep space missions. Gigabits per second is a data transfer rate equivalent to one billion bits, or simple binary units, per second. (2/20)

NASA Renames Facility in Honor of ‘Hidden Figure’ Katherine Johnson (Source: NASA)
NASA has redesignated its Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Facility in Fairmont, West Virginia, as the Katherine Johnson Independent Verification and Validation Facility, in honor of the West Virginia native and NASA 'hidden figure.' “I am thrilled we are honoring Katherine Johnson in this way as she is a true American icon who overcame incredible obstacles and inspired so many,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “It’s a fitting tribute to name the facility that carries on her legacy of mission-critical computations in her honor.”

President Donald Trump signed into law in December an act of Congress calling for the redesignation. The facility’s program contributes to the safety and success of NASA’s highest-profile missions by assuring that mission software performs correctly. IV&V now is in the process of planning a rededication ceremony. (2/22)

Florida Tech Assisting in Manufacturing Optimization (Source: Florida Tech)
As more operations expand on the Space Coast, their ability to keep on deadline is vital – and Florida Tech is helping to ensure the manufacturing process is optimized for efficiency and success. Beshoy Morkos, associate professor of mechanical and civil engineering, received a grant from an aerospace manufacturer and spaceflight services company located near Kennedy Space Center to conduct a manufacturing optimization and simulation analysis.

The grant, worth nearly $130,000, called for the analysis of how the company can use resources, such as space in its facility, number of employees, and size and quantity of machines, in the most efficient ways possible. The study uses various optimization and event simulation models to determine peak capacity and optimum scheduling – a capability that will allow executives justification for making resource-related decisions.

By developing various models, the team’s research is focused on providing valuable information companies can use to maximize productivity and increase revenue. “Regardless of the company, whether they are making rockets or pencil sharpeners, it’s about how do we take information about the design and manufacturing process and use that to help us to make tools that are informative to engineers,” Morkos said. (2/22)

Pentagon Wants to Know How a Border Wall Will Improve Troops’ ‘Effectiveness’ Before it Contributes DoD Dollars (Source: Military Times)
The Pentagon has asked Department of Homeland Security to identify locations where border wall construction would improve the “effectiveness" of military troops deployed there, a key justification required to redirect military construction spending that would otherwise go to local base projects.

In a memo, dated Feb. 18, DoD asked DHS to identify “priorities for potential construction,” a U.S. official familiar with the memo’s contents told Military Times. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan is asking for a priority list, as well as the data used to generate that priority list, to help him determine “what projects we support” and what could be delayed, the official said.

The Pentagon is looking at how it could spend military construction funds, or MILCON, to comply with President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency last week. Shanahan has not received a response yet from DHS, the official said. The use of military construction funds is a political hot button. Most of those projects are the result of military communities’ elected officials lobbying — sometimes for years — for new buildings, gyms and housing that are viewed as critical quality-of-life projects. (2/21)

Moon Mania: Companies See Ripe Opportunity In NASA Lunar Missions (Source: Forbes)
Fifty years after Neil Armstrong made the first bootprint on the moon, NASA plans to land again soon with a fleet of robotic landers and rovers. Analysts say the agency's push to send a mission as early as this year demonstrates that the United States will go back to the moon to stay. Late Thursday (Feb. 21), NASA selected 12 science and technology demonstration experiments that will fly aboard some commercial lander as early as 2019.

There are nine companies across the country competing for rocket slots, and experimenters will have plenty of chances to get on board. In fact, there will be opportunities every year to send in experiment ideas, NASA promises. "The innovation of America’s aerospace companies, wedded with our big goals in science and human exploration, are going to help us achieve amazing things on the moon and feed forward to Mars," said NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine in a statement.

"NASA is shifting its model by purchasing more hardware and services from the private sector. By soliciting lunar payloads and landers from commercial companies, NASA may be able to build up a lunar infrastructure and return humans to the moon less expensively and more sustainably," said Laura Seward Forczyk, owner of space consulting firm Astralytical. (2/21)

Following Delays, Generation Orbit Expected To Be First Cecil Spaceport Launch Customer (Source: WJCT)
Cecil Spaceport in Jacksonville has its first commercial launch date on the calendar, a year later than originally planned. The launch is planned for either December of this year or January 2020. Cecil Spaceport Director Todd Lindner described the planned launch on Friday’s Florida Roundup.

“What we do here in Jacksonville is horizontal launch activities. The vehicle [that] takes off looks very similar to an aircraft that you see out there flying around today. And it will either have a space vehicle that's attached to it or a payload that will be ejected and it will go into orbit,” said Lindner.

The first customer to launch is expected to be a company called Generation Orbit, which is based in Atlanta. Lindner said Generation Orbit is working with a governmental customer, who he declined to name. He said the Cecil Spaceport also has two more launches planned for shortly after the first one. (2/22)

Why Japan’s Mission to Bring Space Rocks to Earth is so Incredible (Source: The Next Web)
A spacecraft launched by JAXA in 2014 successfully touched down on a speeding near-Earth asteroid, and has collected samples to bring back for scientists to study. For the space aficionado in me, this is a goosebumps-raising achievement because the asteroid Ryugu is a tiny rock, floating in space about 300 million km away from our planet. It took the Hayabusa2 spacecraft almost four years to reach the asteroid, and it’s only the second time humans have been able to collect samples from an astroid like this.

Getting samples like these back to Earth excites me because they represent both a huge challenge for space exploration, and a grand achievement. To achieve this momentous feat, Hayabusa2 had to maintain an orbit around the diamond shaped Ryugu for more than six months after reaching it. During this time, the JAXA team had to study the asteroid closely and plan a way for the probe to safely land on it. From its orbit, Hayabusa2 sent two hopping rovers Rover-1A (HIBOU) and Rover1B (OWL) to survey the asteroid’s terrain for a landing spot.

The saga got more intense when the hoppers found the asteroid’s surface to be challenging for the mother ship to land on. While JAXA scientists originally thought Ryugu’s surface was a “powdery fine regolith,” the hopping rovers dropped by the spacecraft found the terrain to be made of larger-than-expected gravel. In fact, the probes could move around the asteroid only by hopping across Ryugu’s low gravitational field using the torque that was generated by rotating masses within the rovers. This was completely different from the kind of wheeled rovers we have sent for exploration on the moon and Mars. (2/22)