May 17, 2019

China's Long March-3C Lofts Beidou-2G8 (GEO-8) (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
A new navigation satellite was successfully launched by China on Friday. The launch of Beidou-2G8 (GEO-8) took place from the LC2 Launch Complex of the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, Sichuan province, using the Long March-3C/G2 (Y16) launch vehicle. Launch time was 15:48 UTC. Also designated Beidou-45, the satellite is part of the GEO component of the 2nd phase of the Chinese Beidou (Compass) satellite navigation system, using both geostationary satellites and satellites in intermediate orbits.

The satellites are based on the DFH-3B Bus. This bus has a payload increased to 450 kg and payload power to 4,000 W. The spacecraft feature a phased array antenna for navigation signals and a laser retroreflector and additionally deployable S/L-band and C-band antennas. With a launch mass of 4,600 kg, spacecraft dimensions are noted to be 2.25 by 1.0 by 1.22 meters. (5/17)

NASA Administrator to Speak at Florida Tech Space Event on May 23 (Source: NASA)
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine will deliver remarks and speak to media Thursday, May 23, at Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne. The remarks will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website. Florida Tech is hosting a space technology event to engage students, research faculty, regional institutions and local businesses, and discuss NASA opportunities and America’s plan to land astronauts on the Moon in 2024. See the link in my calendar section below. (5/16)

It Only Took A Few Months For This Satellite To Get Ready For Space (Source: Forbes)
A startup company's new flexible-path spacecraft system is doing well during its first few weeks in orbit. York Space Systems announced May 16 that its S-CLASS spacecraft bus passed initial testing or commissioning. All the more remarkable: the timeline from first hardware to launch site delivery took less than 3.5 months. The S-CLASS is a three-axis stabilized platform that is designed for payloads of 188 pounds or less. York plans to move forward with "rapid production of its platform."

The first paces for the spacecraft all completed smoothly, including communicating with the ground, deploying the solar arrays and connecting with York's secure private network from several in-field mobile locations. The company announced the commissioning success less than two weeks after the satellite's launch May 5 from New Zealand, aboard a Rocket Lab Electron booster.

It's a key first step for a company that is looking to hop on the growing smallsat trend and while making high customization available to customers. The eventual goal is to offer the S-CLASS platform in either a standard configuration, or to allow it to include different platforms or to fly to different orbits as customer needs dictate, the company said. (5/17)

China Develops New-Generation Rockets for Upcoming Missions (Source: Space Daily)
China has developed a number of new-generation carrier rockets to take the country's space industry to the next level. These include the Long March 7, Long March 9, and Long March 11. Click here. (5/17)

Aerospace Workforce Training - A National Mandate for the Future (Source: Space Daily)
As the aerospace workforce ages, technology advances and space operations become more contested it is imperative to continually train engineers and managers to refresh and advance their knowledge base in order to keep the U.S. competitive. This challenge is further complicated by the fact that over the past few years roughly 40% of U.S. skilled tradesman have retired.

Aviation Week recently reported that the average age of an aerospace employee was over 45, and only about 4% of all industry employees were between the ages of 22 and 25. This indicates that the demand for workforce training will remain high for at least the next several decades.

It has also been reported that the size of the aerospace workforce is slowly decreasing, requiring aerospace manufacturers to do more with fewer employees. This means productivity initiatives are even more important to maintain competitiveness. The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) has reported that "Companies will need to become even more efficient to stay competitive. (5/17)

Pentagon’s ‘On-Demand’ Space Launch Challenge Presents Host of Challenges (Source: Politico)
Some of the biggest challenges facing the Pentagon’s effort to enlist companies to demonstrate they can launch satellites on demand may be on Earth -- such as a mountain of licensing paperwork and figuring out logistics with short notice of the launch site. DARPA is interested in developing on-demand launch because it will allow the military to quickly replace satellites that are damaged or destroyed.

"Getting paperwork in to the FAA for five licenses for five different spaceports simultaneously is a herculean task,” says Robert Cleave, the chief revenue officer at Vector, an Arizona-based small launch company founded in 2016. “We have two people dedicated to doing this with support staff of a couple more.” Another big challenge they are facing is transporting the rocket when the companies will only learn the location of their launch site a few weeks ahead of time, added Cleave, who previously worked at Lockheed Martin.

"As we go from a startup to a grownup, we need to instill processes… We don’t want to have the processes of a 50-year-old legacy company because that doesn’t make sense for us. We still need to be nimble. But we want to increase the operational efficiency of the company and processes tend to help if you do them properly. The third is behaving more like … a company that’s expected to make profits for its investors." Click here. (5/17)

Roscosmos Chief to Hold Talks with NASA Official (Source: TASS)
Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin will hold telephone talks with NASA's Associate Administrator of the Human Exploration and Operations William Gerstenmaier in the near future. The parties plan to discuss cooperation on the International Space Station (ISS). Roscomsos earlier received an official letter from NASA, signed by Administrator Jim Bridenstine, saying that NASA had rescinded an invitation to the Roscosmos chief to visit the United States. The visit had been scheduled for February 2019. Bridenstine told the Washington Post that the invitation had been cancelled due to the position of US senators. (5/16)

Japanese Space Startup Wants to Compete with US Rocket Rivals (Source: New York Post)
A Japanese startup that launched a rocket into space earlier this month plans to provide low-cost rocket services and compete with American rivals such as SpaceX. Interstellar Technology Inc. founder Takafumi Horie said a low-cost rocket business in Japan is well-positioned to accommodate scientific and commercial needs in Asia. While Japan’s government-led space programs have demonstrated top-level technology, he said the country has fallen behind commercially due to high costs.

“In Japan, space programs have been largely government-funded and they solely focused on developing rockets using the best and newest technologies, which means they are expensive,” Horie told reporters in Tokyo. “As a private company, we can focus on the minimum level of technology needed to go to space, which is our advantage. We can transport more goods and people to space by slashing costs.” Horie said his company’s low-cost MOMO-3 rocket is the way to create a competitive space business in Japan.

Horie said his company plans to launch its first orbital rocket — the ZERO — within the next few years and then it would technologically be on par with competitors such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and New Zealand engineer Peter Beck’s Rocket Lab. The two-stage ZERO would be twice as long and much heavier than the compact MOMO-3, which is about 10 meters (32 feet) long and 50 centimeters (1.5 feet) in diameter and weighs about 1 ton. It would be able to send satellites into orbit or carry payloads for scientific purposes. (5/16)

Florida Space Coast Bouncing Back with Help From SpaceX, Boeing and Blue Origin (Source: Washington Post)
A host of companies have laid claim to the old government launchpads. Buildings left vacant have been torn down or rebuilt. And the Cape is once again on the verge of sending humans back to space for the first time since 2011, the crescendo of a new, reinvigorated space age that many hope will restore the flag-waving pride of a bygone era.

As new life is being breathed back into this venerable coastline, the resurrection is coming in fits and starts, and in an entirely new form that is far more unstable and unpredictable than the one infused by government cash in the 1960s. Today, the new space age is built on the fortunes of private enterprise, subject to the whims of the economy. And like the next chapter of America’s grand adventure in space, the future of the Space Coast is far from guaranteed.

Having seen the devastation that can come when a town reliant on a single industry buckles, local leaders have gone to great lengths to try to diversify their economy. They’ve put in special taxing districts and offered incentives to woo all sorts of businesses to create a better sense of stability. At the peak of the recession, the unemployment rate in Brevard County, where the Space Coast is largely based, spiked to 12 percent. The real estate market plunged. The median price for single-family homes fell from nearly $250,000 in 2007 to less than $100,000 by 2011. Click here. (5/16)

SpaceX Delays Launch of Starlink Satellites, Its Heaviest-Yet Payload (Sources: Orlando Sentinel, Ars Technica)
SpaceX twice postponed its scheduled launch of 60 Starlink satellites, first for high winds and then because of a technical issue. The technical delay was because it wanted to "update satellite software and triple-check everything again." The next launch opportunity will be in about a week, the company announced.

The 60 satellites on the rocket are the beginning of a constellation of thousands that will provide broadband internet access globally. With a mass of 18.5 tons, this will be the company's heaviest launch to date for either the Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy rocket. The rocket will boost 60 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO). Each satellite weighs 227kg. (5/17)

House Appropriators Take a Pass on NASA Budget Amendment (Source: Space News)
House appropriators released a spending bill Thursday that increases funding for NASA but largely ignores a budget amendment that sought a bigger increase. The commerce, justice and science (CJS) appropriations bill includes $22.32 billion for NASA for fiscal year 2020, nearly $1.3 billion more than what the administration originally requested.

The bill, though, provides little in the way of increases to exploration programs, with much of the additional funding going to the agency's science programs. Neither the bill nor a statement by the House Appropriations Committee mentions the budget amendment released earlier this week that sought $1.6 billion in additional funding to support the agency's 2024 lunar landing goal. The CJS appropriations subcommittee will mark up the bill 9:30 a.m. Eastern this morning. (5/16)

NASA NextSTEP Funds 11 Companies' Lunar Lander Concepts (Source: Space News)
NASA announced Thursday awards to 11 companies for initial studies and prototype development of lunar lander concepts. The awards, part of the NextSTEP program for exploration technology development, have a total value of $45.5 million, with each company required to contribute at least 20 percent of the total cost of each project. The six-month efforts focus on descent stages, transfer vehicle and refueling elements of lunar lander systems. NASA plans to issue a separate solicitation this summer for development of integrated lunar lander systems. (5/16)

Air Force Space Personnel Get Improved Career Track (Source: Space News)
The Air Force may make it easier for officers in the space field to win promotion. Under the proposed system, announced by outgoing Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson Thursday, space officers would only compete against other space officers for promotions. Currently, space officers compete with most other Air Force officers, an approach some have criticized since pilots are promoted at higher rates than other professionals. A final decision on the new promotion system is expected in October. (5/16)

China's LandSpace Completes Engine Assembly (Source: Space News)
Chinese private launch firm LandSpace has completed assembly of a liquid methane-liquid oxygen rocket engine for its new Zhuque-2 launch vehicle. The Tianque-12 engine, designed to produce 80 tons of thrust, will have its first hot fire test by the end of June. The engine will power the Zhuque-2 (Vermillion Bird-2) medium-lift launch vehicle, capable of placing up to 4,000 kilograms into low Earth orbit, with a first launch planned in 2020. The company also announced two agreements with UK-based Open Cosmos and D-Orbit of Italy related to launch services using the Zhuque-2 rocket. (5/16)

Russia's Switch to Angara Seems More Expensive (Source: Interfax)
Roscosmos will pay more money to switch from a Soyuz to an Angara rocket for the launch of a set of communications satellites. Roscosmos said it will launch three Gonets-M store-and-forward communications satellites on an Angara-1.2 rocket in 2021 for about $31 million. Roscosmos will launch two other trios of Gonets-M satellites on Soyuz-2.1b rockets prior to the Angara launch, paying about one-third less for each Soyuz. (5/16)

Oklahoma Spaceport Still Holding Onto Hopes Launched 20 Years Ago (Source: KOCO)
Twenty years after announcing plans for a spaceport, Oklahoma officials remain hopeful about attracting customers. The Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority operates a former air force base in the town of Burns Flat that has an FAA spaceport license. The state, though, struggled to attract companies to launch from the spaceport. Rocketplane Global signed up to fly its suborbital spaceplane from the spaceport, but the venture later filed for bankruptcy. The authority says it remains hopeful about attracting users and notes that the spaceport is self-funded through revenue from aviation users, but local residents are skeptical any launches will ever take place there. (5/16)

Lockheed Martin Breaks Ground on New Alabama Production Facility (Source: AL.com)
Lockhead Martin began construction today on its new 225,000-square-foot missile facility in Pike County, targeting a 2021 opening. Production of the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extended Range (JASSM-ER) should ramp up in the second half of 2022, according to the Alabama Department of Commerce. Alabama Commerce Secretary Greg Canfield attended today’s groundbreaking. The company says the new facility, combined with the current cruise missile production factory, will provide the necessary space to meet the U.S. Air Force’s objectives. (5/16)

As Commercial Spaceflight Takes Off, the Aviation Industry Gets Protective of Airspace (Source: The Verge)
Getting new technology in the hands of the FAA is something that the aviation industry agrees with, too. But aviation lobbyists also want to take things a step further. Right now, commercial space is regulated under Title 51 in the United States Code, which doesn’t require the same regulatory and safety standards as aviation. But the aviation industry wants commercial space to be subjected to the same safety regulations as the airlines —under Title 49 — giving the FAA full authority over rocket licensing and safety as if they were airplanes.

“For the time that commercial space occupies the National Airspace System, we want them to be subject to the full authority of the Federal Aviation Administration to regulate them for safety and efficiency,” said Sharon Pinkerton, senior vice president for legislative and regulatory policy at Airlines for America.

Commercial space advocates say that would be extremely limiting to an industry that has not been around as long as commercial aviation. And the rules and regulations that guide airplanes could conflict with how rockets are developed. “We’re not aviation. We’re commercial space transportation,” Jim Muncy, founder of PoliSpace, a space policy consulting agency, tells The Verge. “If you put us under aviation law, you’re basically saying we have to meet potentially conflicting sets of regulations and conflicting sets of goals.” (5/16)

Florida Breaks Tourism Record (Sources: Florida Trend, Florida Today)
Florida broke an all-time record for visitation during the first quarter of 2019 with 35.7 million people visiting the Sunshine State from January to March. This is a 5.8 percent increase from the first quarter of 2018. VISIT FLORIDA estimates that a record 31.6 million domestic visitors traveled to Florida in Q1 2019, a 6.8 percent increase in domestic visitors over the same period last year.

Following VISIT Florida’s enhanced focus on attracting visitors from Canada through a cutting-edge marketing campaign, 1.4 million Canadian visitors came to Florida in Q1 2019, an increase of 1.3 percent from Q1 2018. Florida saw more than 2.6 million overseas travelers in Q1 2019. Total enplanements at 19 major Florida airports in Q1 2019 increased 6.8 percent over the same period in the previous year, with Orlando International Airport reporting the most enplaned passengers at more than 6.4 million. But the state is losing ground on tourists from out of the country. The state saw a 2.6 percent drop in international tourists.

Space tourism has been a factor. Space Florida’s 2018-19 budget included $1.5 million from the Legislature to market space tourism, as it has since 2013. The KSC Visitor Complex has been the primary beneficiary of that marketing, which helped reverse a drop in attendance after the shuttle stopped flying. The program produced the "We Are Go" website and app to promote launch viewing opportunities. An ad shows "vacationauts" building sand castles, splashing in a pool and meeting a spaceman character. (5/16)

NASA Looking at SLS Certification Schedule Changes in ‘Drive to EM-1’ (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
NASA is looking at deferring some programmatic certification activities until after the Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) flight in addition to its other initiatives to shorten the schedule to the inaugural launch. The goal remains to find ways to move the launch date back into late 2020 from the current Spring 2021 forecast. This would move the full certification of the design into preparations for Exploration Mission-2 (EM-2), which will be the first crewed ESD mission.

With the Space Launch System (SLS) Core Stage Green Run still on the schedule, analysts continue to comb through the work details looking for ways to streamline that and other downstream activities. ESD, which oversees the Exploration Ground Systems (EGS), Orion, and SLS programs and is responsible for cross-program systems integration, is now also looking at moving some design-level certification work of the SLS vehicle that will fly EM-1 until after the test flight. (5/16)