March 1, 2019

Maxar Technologies Slashing 200-Plus Jobs After Recent Satellite Failure (Source: Denver Post)
Maxar Technologies will be laying off more than 200 workers across its family of companies as part of a restructuring effort. The cuts will include a number of positions in Colorado, according to officials, though Maxar did not disclose how many. Maxar, which moved to Colorado from Canada last year shortly after acquiring DigitalGlobe and its collection of high-resolution imagining satellites for $2.4 billion, released its 2018 year-end financials Thursday.

Despite consolidated revenues of more than $2.14 billion, the company’s net losses for the year exceeded $1.26 billion, including nearly $1.1 billion in impairment losses. “These decisions are always difficult. We realize that we have to make Maxar a leaner, more efficient, more effective business,” president and CEO Dan Jablonsky said.

Jablonsky, previously president of DigitalGlobe, was named Maxar’s CEO less than two months ago following a 55 percent drop in the company’s stock price triggered in part by DigitalGlobe’s loss of the company’s WorldView4 satellite. Jablonsky indicated the specific brand names within Maxar will go away as the company focuses on operating as one entity. (3/1)

Astronomers Aim to Improve Diversity & Inclusion in Graduate Education (Source: SpaceRef)
After a two-year study, the American Astronomical Society (AAS) has recommended more than a dozen steps that colleges and universities can take to increase the number of students from underrepresented groups who earn graduate degrees in the astronomical sciences.

At present only about 6% of astronomy PhDs go to students from racial or ethnic minorities, whereas these groups account for some 30% of the US population. The AAS wants the professional astronomical community to reflect the diversity of society not only racially and ethnically, but also in terms of gender identity, sexual orientation, neurodiversity, and disability status. Getting there will require proactive efforts by degree-granting institutions to recruit and retain a more diverse pool of graduate students by, for example, ensuring that their admissions criteria are free of bias and that students receive adequate mentoring throughout their studies. (3/1)

SpaceX and NASA Fly "Smartie" on Crew Dragon Test (Source: GeekWire)
Don't call it a dummy. SpaceX has placed a spacesuit-wearing, sensor-laden mannequin in one of the Dragon’s seats, to gather data about how rigorous the ride will be for actual astronauts later this year. Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX’s vice president of build and flight reliability, shied away from calling the test device a dummy. “We call it a ‘smartie,’ and her name is Ripley,” Koenigsmann told reporters.

The name pays tribute to the spaceflying character played by Sigourney Weaver in the “Alien” series of sci-fi movies. It also brings a bit of anthropomorphic gender balance to SpaceX’s test mannequins: For last year’s maiden launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, the test payload included a Tesla Roadster with a dummy nicknamed “Starman” in the driver’s seat. (3/1)

The Marriage of SpaceX and NASA Hasn’t Been Easy—But it’s Been Fruitful (Source: Ars Technica)
For SpaceX, funding from NASA allowed the company to accelerate development of its world-class Falcon 9 rocket from a single-engine booster. Perhaps more importantly, sustained funding for cargo missions to the station (16 have flown so far) has provided the operational breathing room to continue to improve the Falcon 9 rocket, practice landing it, and make reusable rocketry a reality. Now, with crewed missions nearing, SpaceX may soon become the first private company to ever launch humans into orbit.

NASA, in turn, has gotten a good deal. SpaceX has consistently offered services to the space agency—for cargo, crew, and science experiments—that cost less than competitors and for far less than it would have cost NASA to develop those capabilities independently. "If we did this the NASA way, we’d do it the classic old way, we would base it on our pedigree and our other activities," the space agency's chief of human spaceflight, Bill Gerstenmaier, said recently regarding the commercial crew program. "This way, they’re pushing us, and they’re forcing us to look at things in a new way, and I think that’s really cool." Click here. (3/1)

Why Florida is Still Dominating the Space Launch Game (Source: CNN)
There are about two dozen launch sites along Florida's coast that have been abandoned for years. And the future of this area looked bleak when NASA's Space Shuttle program ended in 2011. But times are changing. Sleek, modern buildings are going up all over the Cape, the area on Florida's coastline east of Orlando that includes Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The Cape Canaveral Spaceport has long been NASA's launch destination of choice, and it's hosted some of the most famous missions in US history dating back to the Apollo moon landings. The new structures brandish the names of new-age rocket companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin. Soon, even younger startups like Relativity Space and Firefly Aerospace will move in. It's a sign that even as the spaceflight industry undergoes drastic changes, Florida is still a top launch destination.

"Everybody thought the Cape had just been padlocked with the retirement of the Shuttle," Dale Ketcham, vice president of government affairs for state-funded development group Space Florida, told CNN Business. "Now we're storming back and clearly leading the nation, if not the world, as the most active and successful spaceport." Click here. (2/28)

Maxar to Restructure GEO Satellite Business (Source: Space News)
Maxar has decided not to sell or shut down its GEO satellite business, but will instead restructure it. The company said Thursday that after considering strategic options that included selling Space Systems Loral or even winding down the business, it will instead focus it more on smaller satellites and government customers. That restructuring will involve reducing its use of leased office space and laying off three percent of its workforce. The company sees opportunities with its Legion class of smaller spacecraft, being developed for the WorldView Legion remote sensing constellation but with other applications that include small GEO satellites. (3/1)

Canada Joins NASA's Lunar Gateway Program (Source: Space News)
The Canadian government said Thursday it plans to participate in the NASA-led lunar Gateway program. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in a speech at the Canadian Space Agency headquarters, said Canada would provide a "Canadarm3" robotic arm for the Gateway. Canada plans to spend $1.5 billion over 24 years on the Gateway, including more than $110 million for a new Lunar Exploration Accelerator Program to help small and medium-sized businesses develop new technologies to be used and tested in lunar orbit and on the moon's surface. While several countries have expressed interest in participating in the Gateway, Canada is the first country to formally announce its intent to do so. (2/28)

DOD Delivers Space Force Plan to Congress (Source: Space News)
The Pentagon has delivered to Congress its legislative proposal for establishing the Space Force. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan sent the proposal, along with a "strategic overview," to the key staff on House and Senate committees on Wednesday. That proposal may face criticism, such as that expressed by senators at a hearing Tuesday, that a Space Force may not be needed if there will also be a U.S. Space Command.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he supported Space Command but that he was "very dubious about the need to create an entire new bureaucracy of a separate service and all that entails." The Defense Department expects to formally establish Space Command in 60 to 90 days, although it will first seek a "technical revision" to the 2019 defense authorization bill to ensure its plan for Space Command is in line with the language in the law. (2/28)

Israeli Lunar Lander Overcomes Computer Glitch En Route to Moon (Source: Space News)
SpaceIL's lunar lander performed an orbit-raising maneuver Thursday after overcoming a computer glitch. The four-minute thruster burn raised the apogee of the spacecraft's orbit to 131,000 kilometers, and SpaceIL said the maneuver went as expected. That maneuver was originally scheduled for Monday but postponed after an onboard computer suffered an unexpected reset. That problem was not a hardware issue with the spacecraft, officials said. The maneuver keeps the lander on track to attempt a landing on the moon in April. (2/28)

Air Force Studies Use of Commercial Megaconstellations (Source: Space News)
The Air Force is beginning to study how it can make use of commercial broadband megaconstellations. The Air Force Strategic Development Planning and Experimentation office in December awarded SpaceX a $28 million contract to test over the next three years different ways in which the military might use the company's Starlink broadband services. That has included tests with two experimental satellites, Tintin A and B, that SpaceX launched last year. The Air Force is talking with other constellation developers as part of a program called Global Lightning to see how the service can make use of those systems. (2/28)

Pegasus Problems Persist, Delaying ICON to Second Quarter (Source: Space News)
Issues with the Pegasus rocket continue to delay a NASA space science mission. The ICON spacecraft was originally scheduled for launch in 2017, but a series of problems with the Pegasus XL rocket, including "off-nominal" data from it while attached to its L-1011 carrier aircraft in flight, have delayed the mission. NASA now expects the launch to take place no earlier than the second quarter while Northrop Grumman continues to study the problem. Another long-delayed NASA space science payload, part of the Air Force's Space Test Program 2 mission on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, has been pushed back to June. (2/28)

World View Changes Leadership to Focus on Stratollite 'Productization' (Source: Space News)
World View has hired a new CEO with a mission of moving the company's stratospheric balloons into production. Ryan Hartman, former head of Boeing-owned drone company Insitu, was brought in by the company's board to focus on the "productization" of its Stratollite, a high-altitude balloon able to maneuver and stay aloft for extended periods. Hartman replaces Jane Poynter, a co-founder of World View who will remain with the company as an adviser and member of the board. (2/28)

Carbon Monitoring System Survives Trump Opposition (Source: Eos)
A NASA carbon monitoring program targeted for cancellation has been restored. The Carbon Monitoring System was not explicitly funded in the final 2018 spending bill, after which the Trump administration moved to cancel the program. The 2019 spending bill signed into law in February did set aside $10 million for it, and the agency has since released a call for proposals. The program provides grants to scientists to analyze data from spacecraft and other sources to study sources and sinks of greenhouse gases. (2/28)

Vero Beach-Based Piper Marks 2018 as 'Exceptional Year' (Source: AIN)
Central Florida's Piper Aircraft closed out 2018 with deliveries reaching a 10-year high and billings topping $263 million, a nearly 38 percent increase from 2017, the manufacturer announced today. Higher billings and deliveries were driven by demand from the Vero Beach, Florida airframer’s trainer and M-class product lines. Billings for its single-engine piston Archer rose nearly 50 percent year-over-year, Piper said, while its Seminole twin deliveries increased by 117 percent. The combined billings of its piston M350 and single-engine turboprop M500 and M600 grew by 36 percent from 2017, Piper said.

In addition to the gains in billings and deliveries, Piper added three new dealers last year, took its largest trainer order in company history, and expanded its backlog to nearly 700 airplanes going into 2019. It also increased its workforce 14 percent, to more than 1,000 employees. (2/28)

NASA RS-25 SLS Engine Tested at Highest Level (Source: NASA)
NASA tested an RS-25 engine Thursday at its highest power level for an extended period of time. The 500-second test was conducted on the A-1 Test Stand at Stennis Space Center (SSC) in south Mississippi. For the fourth time, NASA powered the engine to 113 percent of its original thrust design, this time for more than 430 seconds, about four times longer than any previous hot fire at that thrust level. The hot fire concluded a series of nine tests that began last August, using RS-25 developmental engine No. 0525.

As with previous tests in the series, the Feb. 28 hot fire featured an RS-25 flight engine controller that will be used on a Space Launch System mission. The controller is the "brain" and a key component of engine modifications made to help power SLS, being built as the world’s most-powerful rocket to carry humans deeper into space than ever. The RS-25, originally used in the Space Shuttle, is being modified for SLS. Four RS-25s will provie 2 million pounds of thrust during SLS's launch and ascent.  (2/28)

NASA Rover Finds Strange Bacteria on Test Drive in Atacama Desert (Source: ResearchGate)
What should we be looking for when we’re looking for life on Mars? Given the harsh environment that includes radiation, extreme temperatures and drought, life might look quite different from what it looks like here on earth. Some spots on our planet come close to Mars-like conditions, though. The Atacama Desert in Chile is one of them. Stephen Pointing and his team sent a NASA rover on a test run in this desert. They describe the strange bacteria they found strewn beneath the desert surface in patches, and what it tells us about life in space. These scattered and salt-resistant bacteria tell us what to look for when hunting for life in space. (2/28)

Flyby Data Reveals a Baffling Amount of Missing Objects at The Fringe of The Solar System (Source: ScienceAlert)
In the dimly lit spaces of our Solar System beyond Neptune's orbit lies the Kuiper Belt. This a region between about 35 and 50 times further from the sun than the Earth, populated by icy bodies so sparsely distributed that they never had the chance to collide and merge into planet sized objects. Most of the objects of that size or smaller are too faint to be spotted by telescopes. So it will be difficult to ever work out how many small but unseen bodies there actually are in the Kuiper belt. Now a new paper has used an ingenious method to help us find out.

Instead of counting the small Kuiper belt objects directly, the researchers behind the new study counted the craters made by the random sample of objects that have impacted the surfaces of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon. There, craters 13 kilometres (8 miles) across would have been made by objects only 1 to 2 kilometres (0.6 to 1.2 miles) in size.

The researchers' analysis shows that for craters of 13 kilometers or larger, on both Pluto and Charon, the frequency of impacts of various sizes seems to match with what would be expected from the known size distribution for Kuiper belt objects. However, for smaller craters the abundance falls off dramatically, and so by implication must the abundance of the Kuiper Belt objects capable of making those craters. The same does not happen for the well-documented asteroids that collide with the bodies in the region of Jupiter, Mars and Earth, nor is it consistent with theoretical models. (3/1)