May 12, 2019

Virginia Rockets Ahead (Source: Roanoke Times)
Virginia is rocketing into the upper echelons of one high-growth field. Last month, a rocket blasted off from Wallops Island on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, carrying nearly 4 tons of supplies for the Space Station, 40 live mice who were probably wondering what in the world was happening to them, and a bunch of other science experiments. In a larger sense, though, the rocket — launched by Northrop Grumman — was carrying part of Virginia’s future economy, as well.

The resupply missions to the space station are a recent development, but they build on a long history of Virginia as a spaceport. Not surprisingly, Florida and California are home to a lot of aerospace industries. But Virginia is home to 280 aerospace companies — and about 28,000 aerospace employees. It would also like to see more. And that’s where we come back to that “bunch of other science experiments” we talked about earlier. They included 64 small — very small — satellites that represent both a breakthrough in technology and an investment in Virginia’s future aerospace workforce. ThinSats, as they’re called, are about the size of a slice of bread.

“A whole bunch of space companies are headquartered in the commonwealth and they all need to hire people, so the state is trying to encourage people to get interested in that, so they can get relevant college degrees and experience and build the workforce.” Relevant example: OneWeb, which wants to create a space-based internet network, is headquartered in Arlington. But its factory for building the satellites is in Florida. Maybe that makes sense now, given Florida’s long history with space, but why couldn’t Virginia compete for future aerospace manufacturing facilities? Having a workforce with more aerospace skills would help. (5/12)

Virgin Galactic Moving Operations From Mojave To Spaceport America (Source: KRWG)
Virgin Galactic is not setting a launch date yet for its first commercial space tourism flight as it begins moving 100 personnel, a rocket ship and launch-support vehicle to a spaceport facility in New Mexico. Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides said Friday that an interior cabin is being tested for commercial operations and that a small, undisclosed number of test flights are pending.

Pilots are among the personnel moving from California to begin acclimating to flying conditions above the high desert in southern New Mexico. Whitesides says the company is in the "home stretch" toward its first commercial space flight and declined to specify deadlines. He joined Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson in thanking New Mexico politicians and residents for their patience and taxpayer investments in the Spaceport America hangar and launch facility. (5/11)

NASA Okay With Thrice-Flown Falcon-9s (Source: Ars Technica)
NASA considering using same Falcon 9 three times. Early Friday morning, SpaceX scrubbed the launch of a supply mission to the International Space Station. The stated reason was not a problem with the rocket but with the recovery drone ship. After the fact, NASA's Kenny Todd said the agency was OK with the delay because of a back-up launch window the next day.

"In the end, SpaceX had to make the call," Todd said. "But I think one of our senior engineers who's watched an incredible number of these missions said, 'You know, sometimes the universe is talking to you, and sometimes you need to listen to it.' And the reality is, when we went through all of that yesterday it seemed like the universe was talking to us. So in the end, I thought it was an OK trade." NASA also had a vested interest, as it planned to use this rocket for the next ISS supply mission (CRS-18) and possibly CRS-19 as well, Todd said. This would be the first time NASA has agreed to use the same Falcon 9 three times. (5/11)

SpaceX Demonstrates Falcon Post-Landing Leg Folding (Source: Ars Technica)
SpaceX getting better at stowing Falcon 9 legs. In the past, it has taken as much as several days for SpaceX employees to retract the landing legs on its Block 5 variant of the Falcon 9 booster. But as Teslarati reports, after the CRS-17 resupply mission to the International Space Station launched on Saturday, the company was able to retract the four legs in a matter of an hour or two after a droneship brought the rocket into port.

These details matter ...this was not so much an issue of cost, but time. The original retraction method added days to the time needed to turn around a Falcon 9 rocket for another flight. If the company is to ever reach Elon Musk's goal of re-flying a Falcon 9 rocket within 24 hours, details like this matter. So it's nice to see that SpaceX continues to strive to work through every issue confronting rapid reusability. (5/11)

Blue Moon Brewery Capitalizes on Bezos News with Lunar Lander Keg (Source: Tech Crunch)
Every so often, a big corporation manages to play the news cycle just right. Generally such things aren’t recommended and can fairly easily backfire, but the MillerCoors-owned Blue Moon Brewery would have been silly not to have capitalized on yesterday’s big announcement from Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin. The company fired off a silly tweet yesterday and is doubling down with the announcement of a limited edition keg “inspired” by the newly announced Blue Moon lunar lander. It’s set for a release in July, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. (5/10)