April 3, 2019

In Curious Move, NASA Lays Blame on ULA for Latest Starliner Delay (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
In what has largely been an open secret for several weeks, NASA and Boeing announced a delay for Starliner’s upcoming uncrewed Orbital Flight Test (OFT) from this month to NET August. But the most curious part of the announcement was placing the blame for this delay on Starliner’s launch provider, ULA. NASA pointed to “limited launch opportunities in April and May" and a critical USAF national security Atlas launch. This is a curious statement given that the OFT Starliner mission NET April launch target has been known by all parties for months.

At face value, the statement would seem to indicate an ever-present desire for various companies to work with one another to give certain missions priority on the launch schedule and the Eastern Range. However, when taken into context for the amount of time it would take ULA to stack an Atlas V rocket, integrate Starliner, and for Boeing and ULA to perform all of the needed integration tests between the crew vehicle and the rocket, this statement makes little sense. Click here.

Editor's Note: It's a sad fact that busy launch schedules on the Eastern Range are an easy scapegoat for delays actually caused by payload problems. This conceit allows other competing states to inaccurately claim that Florida and the Cape Canaveral Spaceport is too busy for new users. (4/3)

Astronaut Scott Kelly Weighs In on the Bezos-Musk Race to Space (Source: New Zealand Finance)
The billionaire space race is on, and Elon Musk is winning, according to a former NASA astronaut. The Tesla and SpaceX chief is locked in a race of sorts with Amazon and Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos to be the first to dominate space services — which ranges from sending satellites into orbit to space tourism — and retired astronaut Scott Kelly told Yahoo Finance’s The Final Round that his money was on Musk.

“If I was to pick one over the other, I think Elon is clearly further along now,” said Kelly. The astronaut, who recently spent 340 days living in space on the International Space Station on a NASA mission to understand how the human body responded to long-duration spaceflights, also added that he has been to both companies’ facilities and has no allegiance to either billionaire. Click here. (4/3)

UK Space Firms Preparing SAR Satellite Tech Demonstrator (Source: Aviation Week)
British space technology firms Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) and Oxford Space Systems (OSS) have been awarded government funding to develop a stowage-efficient Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payload for use in low Earth orbit. The funding, from the UK Space Agency’s National Space Technology Program, will support the development of a stowage-efficient deployable antenna developed by OSS, while the high-bandwidth radar and radio frequency system will be produced by SSTL, the two companies announced on April 2. (4/3)

MIT and NASA Created a Futuristic Ultra-Flexible Airplane Wing (Source: Business Insider)
Researchers from MIT and NASA have developed an airplane wing that can change shape and increase the efficiency of aircraft flight, production, and maintenance. On a traditional airplane wing, only parts of the wing, such as flaps and ailerons, can move to change the plane's direction. The wing designed by the MIT and NASA researchers would be able to move in its entirety. Since the wing could adjust to the particular characteristics of each stage of flight (takeoff, landing, steering, etc.), it could perform better than traditional wings. (4/2)

The View of Lightning from Outer Space (Source: Florida Tech)
When Florida Tech Ph.D. candidate Levi Boggs’ paper, “Thunderstorm charge structures producing gigantic jets,” was published last December, it was key research in efforts to better predict gigantic jet lightning strikes, which is a rare type of lightning that exits the top of the thunderstorm and connects with outer space. Boggs’ newest research furthers the possibility of predicting these exotic lightning strikes – with a decidedly different vantage point.

The Florida Tech researcher and his team, consisting of researchers from Florida Tech, the University of New Hampshire, and Los Alamos National Laboratory, have analyzed gigantic jet lightning from 20,000 miles high utilizing NASA’s Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM). The GLM is a satellite-borne single channel, near-infrared optical transient detector on the GOES-16 satellite, allowing for the first ever lightning detection recorded from geostationary orbit.

Boggs hopes the space-based observations allow him to identify better locations for placing ground-based high-speed cameras, which will allow detailed study of the unique upward gigantic jet lightning. Using the GLM has already proven to be successful for Boggs and his team. When Tropical Storm Harvey passed south of Puerto Rico in 2017, an amateur photographer captured multiple gigantic jets with a ground-based camera. Boggs and his team used those ground-based video images to locate the gigantic jets in data from the GLM, and they discovered the gigantic jets had distinguishable signatures from ordinary lightning. (4/2)

Space Coast College Teams with Lockheed Martin, ASRC on Orion Program Apprenticeships (Source: EFSC)
NASA plans to resume launching astronauts to the International Space Station from Kennedy Space Center this summer aboard U.S. rockets, the first time crews will fly from American soil since the Space Shuttle fleet retired in 2011. That will set the stage for dramatic missions back to the moon – and eventually Mars – with KSC as the launch site.

Eastern Florida State College is playing a role in the historic undertaking through a partnership with Lockheed Martin and ASRC Federal to build NASA’s flagship Orion spacecraft for the human exploration of deep space. Students studying for their Associate in Science Degree in Aerospace Technology are serving apprenticeships with Lockheed Martin and ASRC Federal on the Orion project, giving them a gateway to exciting careers and providing the companies a pipeline of highly skilled workers.

House Committee Questions NASA's Accelerated Moon Landing Plans (Source: Space News)
Members of the House Science Committee questioned why NASA should accelerate its plans to land humans on the moon. At a hearing Tuesday on NASA's budget request, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), chairwoman of the committee, said she was skeptical of the need for a "crash program" to get humans to the moon by 2024, unswayed by statements last week by Vice President Mike Pence that the U.S. was in a new space race. During the hearing, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said the agency was working on an amendment to its budget request to address the costs of the accelerated program, which he said should be ready around the middle of the month. (4/3)

Military Microsatellites Remain Unidentified After SpaceX Launch (Source: The Verge)
Four months after launch, many of the satellites placed into orbit on a Falcon 9 mission remain unidentified. The SSO-A mission in December placed 64 satellites into orbit, but 19 of them remain unidentified in the catalog maintained by the U.S. Air Force. That has caused headaches for satellite operators who don't know which of the satellites are theirs so they can communicate with them. The event highlights the challenges that rideshare missions pose for spacecraft tracking systems that were not designed to deal with large numbers of small satellites deployed on a single launch. (4/3)

First Mode Formed by Former Planetary Resources Employees (Source: GeekWire)
Former employees of asteroid mining venture Planetary Resources have started a new company. First Mode, whose staff includes 11 former Planetary Resources employees, is working on a range of engineering projects for both space and terrestrial applications. The company, founded last year as Synchronous, is already profitable and has no plans to raise outside investment.(4/3)

Atlantic City Considers Spaceport Status for Airport (Source: Press of Atlantic City)
Atlantic City may take a gamble on a spaceport. A bill introduced earlier this year in the New Jersey Legislature would establish a commission to look at the feasibility of pursuing a spaceport license for Atlantic City International Airport. Chris Brown, the state senator who co-sponsored the bill, said "it just makes sense" to examine the feasibility of linking growing interest in space tourism with the city's own tourism industry. It's unclear if any companies developing launch vehicles have any interest in operating from the airport.

Editor's Note: In other spaceport/airport news, Texas' Ellington Airport, near Houston, has completed a new $12.4 million tower project which will serve as a 'mission control' facility for future spaceport flights. (4/3)

Sites Scouted for Michigan Spaceport (Source: Iosco County News-Herald)
Organizers seeking to build a spaceport somewhere in Michigan will be visiting the Oscoda-Wurtsmith Airport (OWA), one of the possible site locations, of the Michigan Launch Initiative (MLI). The initiative was unveiled last year at a symposium organized by the Michigan Aerospace Manufacturers Association (MAMA). Executive Director Gavin Brown said the idea is to launch satellites into low earth orbit from a northern location, or a longitudinal orbit of satellites. (4/2)

UK Spaceport a 'Fantastic Boost' for Far North (Source: John O'Groat Journal)
A plan to build the UK's first vertical launch spaceport in the far north is "a fantastic confidence boost" for the area and could be a catalyst for other developments, local trade unionists have been told. June Love, of Space Hub Sutherland, also suggested the project could benefit the tourism industry. She said the spaceport at Moine, between Tongue and Durness, is the only one to receive grant funding for a vertical launch site. It is expected to create 40 local jobs with a further 400 in the wider region. The aim is to have small commercial and research satellites in sub-orbital flight by the early 2020s. (4/3)

Musk Says Crew Dragon Reusability a "Major Improvement" (Source: Teslarati)
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that the company’s next-generation Crew Dragon spacecraft is a “major improvement” over its Cargo Dragon predecessors after successfully demonstrating a number of reusability-focused upgrades during the vehicle’s launch and splashdown debut. Even as SpaceX’s longer-term development groups aim to make the company’s Dragon spacecraft all but redundant with Starship and Super Heavy, the apparent success of Crew Dragon’s upgrades will be valuable for years to come.

Ultimately, “major” improvements in reusability will allow SpaceX to reuse Dragon 2 far more efficiently, improving availability for both its Crew and Cargo programs and potentially cutting the operating cost and longevity of each spacecraft as the company begins to transition its workforce to BFR. The fact that the Dragon 2 concept was almost immediately demonstrated with propulsive land-landing capabilities speaks to just how annoying a problem it was to try to keep an orbital spacecraft easily reusable while still relying upon water landing for recovery.

As it turns out, many of the engineering solutions best known to ensure structural and thermal integrity of a spacecraft on-orbit are often at ends with the separate task of ensuring that the same spacecraft remains thoroughly water-proof through launch, reentry, and splashdown. Sealing the spacecraft from the elements – both before and after launch – is just one of many challenges for safe operations and efficient reusability. Up next, as Musk notes, is protecting Crew Dragon’s 16 Draco maneuvering thrusters and 8 SuperDraco abort thrusters from water damage, as well as sealing off vulnerable avionics for reuse. (4/3)

Sierra Nevada Builds Lunar Gateway Prototype in Colorado (Source: CBS4)
Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC) in Colorado built two prototypes for NASA’s lunar outpost, the Gateway. The Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) provides all the power, cooling and communications to the Gateway. Attached to the PPE is their second prototype – the large inflatable fabric environment or LIFE. The inflatable space habitat can accommodate four astronauts for 30 days. They can exercise, sleep, conduct experiments and grow food inside the living quarters. It’s 27 feet in diameter, but it’s the only habitat that inflates, making it lightweight and compact enough to go up in any rocket. (4/2)

NASA Amending $21 Billion Budget Request to Speed Moon Mission (Source: WMFE)
Congress is asking NASA to provide an updated budget request for the next fiscal year. The ask comes after Vice President Mike Pence charged the agency with landing humans on the moon in 2024 — four years sooner than planned. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine says the agency has what it needs to put humans on the moon. That includes a new rocket, crew capsule, launch pad and plans for a space-station around the moon.

“All of those elements are on the agenda for 2028. In order to achieve 20204, we need to take some of those elements and move them forward to achieve that objective,” Bridenstine said at a House Science, Space and Technology Committee meeting Tuesday. The Trump Administration submitted a budget request of $21 billion last month — back when the plan was to land on the moon by 2028. Bridenstine says the agency is still calculating how to expedite a faster moon landing.

“What we’re working right now at NASA is compiling the data necessary to come back to this committee, come back to Congress, to amend our budget request.” It’s unclear how NASA will speed up the mission or how much additional funding it will request. Committee leaders have asked for the amendment by April 15. (4/3)

China, Arab States Eye Closer Cooperation on Satellite Navigation to Build "Space Silk Road" (Source: Space Daily)
Chinese and Arab officials and experts on Monday envisioned building a "Space Silk Road" through closer cooperation on wider application of China's indigenously made BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) in the Middle East. Speaking at the second China-Arab States BDS Cooperation Forum held in the Tunisian capital Tunis, the officials and experts agreed that increased application of the BDS in the region could elevate the China-Arab strategic cooperation to a higher level to benefit both sides. (4/3)

Boeing Pushes Test Flight of Starliner Spacecraft to August (Source: Space News)
Boeing will delay the first launch of its Starliner spacecraft until August "to avoid unnecessary schedule pressure," company officials confirmed. The first test flight of the commercial astronaut capsule to the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral was slated for this month but will now happen no earlier than August. Starliner’s test flight on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will not have a crew. Pending the outcome of that flight, a second test flight will include NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Mike Fincke and Boeing test pilot Chris Ferguson, a former NASA astronaut.

"We have only a two-day launch window available in May before we must clear the launch pad to allow for an on-time launch of the U.S. Air Force’s AEHF-5 mission,” a statement from Boeing said. ULA will launch the Air Force's fifth Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite later this summer from Space Launch Complex 41, the same pad Starliner will liftoff from.

“In order to avoid unnecessary schedule pressure, not interfere with a critical national security payload, and allow appropriate schedule margin to ensure the Boeing, United Launch Alliance and NASA teams are able to perform a successful first launch of Starliner, we made the most responsible decision available to us and will be ready for the next launch pad availability in August, while still allowing for a Crew Flight Test later this year," the statement from Boeing said. (4/2)

Apollo Astronauts Left Their Poop on the Moon (Source: Vox)
It’s been nearly 50 years since the Apollo 11 moon landing. Neil Armstrong’s iconic footprint is still there, undisturbed; there’s no atmosphere, no wind on the moon to blow it away. But the bigger human footprint on the moon is, arguably, the 96 bags of human waste left behind by the six Apollo missions that landed there. Yes, our brave astronauts took dumps on their way to the moon, perhaps even on the moon, and they left behind their diapers in baggies, on humanity’s doorstep to the greater cosmos.

The bags have lingered there, and no one knows what has become of them. Now scientists want to go back, and answer a question that has profound implications for our future explorations of Mars: Is anything alive in them? Human feces can be disgusting, but they’re also teeming with life. Around 50 percent of their mass is made up of bacteria, representing some of the 1,000-plus species of microbes that live in your gut. In a piece of poop lives a whole wondrous ecosystem. Click here. (4/2)

NASA Chief Says a Falcon Heavy Rocket Could Fly Humans to the Moon (Source: Ars Technica)
Bridenstine laid out one scenario that has huge implications, not for a 2020 launch, but one later on. Until now, it was thought that only NASA's Space Launch System could directly inject the Orion spacecraft into a lunar orbit, which made it the preferred option for getting astronauts to the Moon for any potential landing by 2024. However, Bridenstine said there was another option: a Falcon Heavy rocket with an Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage built by United Launch Alliance. "Talk about strange bedfellows," he mused about the two rocket rivals.

This plan has the ability to put humans on the Moon by 2024, Bridenstine said. He then emphasized—twice—that NASA's chief of human spaceflight, William Gerstenmaier, has yet to bless this approach due to a number of technical details. His reservations include the challenge of integrating the Falcon Heavy rocket in a horizontal position and then loading Orion with fuel in a vertical configuration on the launchpad. The Falcon Heavy would also require a larger payload fairing than it normally flies with. This would place uncertain stress on the rocket's side-mounted boosters. (4/1)

Beijing’s Fight for the Final Frontier (Source: Foreign Policy)
Beijing has been quietly establishing a beachhead in America’s booming commercial space sector. Chinese attempts to steal U.S. space tech go back to the space shuttle, but their systematic efforts to infiltrate California’s commercial space firms beat anything I’ve seen in my 17 years of researching the new space industries. Attending a recent launch, I asked a highly regarded new-space executive if he had noticed China’s predatory behavior. He looked straight at me and said, “Absolutely. We could lose this industry in 18 to 36 months.”

This industry leader and others have shared their fear that the United States is handing another promising industry and its latest technological jewel over to its most dangerous global adversary. They have done so privately and asked for anonymity because they are afraid of being identified by venture capital firms they believe are increasingly beholden to Chinese partners. If this continues, tens of thousands of space careers may go the way of American PC, semiconductor, telecom, and solar manufacturing jobs. Click here. (3/2)

The Winnowing of Small Satellite Launchers May Be Pretty Brutal (Source: Ars Technica)
It's not clear what small launch companies will reach operational status next and offer a challenge to Rocket Lab. Vector, Firefly, and Virgin Orbit have all talked about flying their rockets to space this year, and there are other, more-secretive companies such as Astra Space also nearing that threshold as well. Chinese startup OneSpace, one of several semi-private efforts in that country talking about orbit in 2019, saw its first orbital attempt fail in March.

By contrast, Rocket Lab has a big lead, with five launches now and a potential cadence of about one commercial flight a month for the rest of 2019. As he watches his competitors, Beck says he can get a good idea of how far the companies are coming along. "If they're making a big song-and-dance about engine tests, you know they’re miles away," he said. Even full stage tests, he says, is an indication that they're a long way away. There's just so much work—and after reaching orbit, he would argue, the hard work of transformation has just begun. (4/2)

Aireon Activates Service, Begins Flight-Tracking Trials (Source: Space News)
Aircraft tracking company Aireon initiated service with its space-based sensor network April 2, starting global monitoring of aircraft location and velocity on a near real-time basis. “Today is when we start generating revenue,” Aireon CEO Don Thoma said. Air traffic regulators from Canada and the U.K. have started trials with Aireon’s service, Thoma said, focusing on flight paths across the North Atlantic Ocean. Aireon’s sensor network rides on the Iridium Next constellation, which consists of 66 operational satellites, nine orbiting spares and six ground spares all equipped with Aireon sensors. NAV Canada and the U.K.’s NATS are both investors and customers for Aireon. (4/2)