May 29, 2019

Trump Admin Really, Really Doesn’t Want You to See This Climate Science (Source: Mashable)
The head of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) ordered the agency's researchers to only project climate change impacts through 2040, as opposed to the end of the century. What's more, The Times reported that the Trump administration might not include future high carbon emission scenarios (which are quite likely) in forthcoming climate reports, including the congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment — a major report closely reviewed by The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. These actions boil down to withholding climate modeling research that's being done at advanced research centers, universities, and government agencies around the nation. (5/29)

Navy to Transfer Future Satellite Communications Responsibilities to Air Force (Source: Space News)
The Navy has agreed to turn over the management of future narrowband communications satellites to the Air Force. “It is our intent to transfer responsibility for future narrowband capability, beyond the Mobile User Objective System, from the Department of the Navy to the Department of the Air Force,” Navy Secretary Richard Spencer and Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson wrote. Although the Air Force oversees most DoD satellite acquisitions, the Navy is responsible for military Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) narrowband satellite communications. Narrowband satellites provide global connectivity to dismounted soldiers, ground vehicles, ships and aircraft. (5/29)

Features That Could Be Used to Detect Life-Friendly Climates on Other Worlds (Source: Space Daily)
Since we don't have the ability to travel to exoplanets due to their enormous distances, we are limited to analyzing the light from them to search for a signal that the climate might be habitable. By separating this light into its component colors, or spectrum, scientists can identify the constituents of an exoplanet's atmosphere, since different compounds emit and absorb distinct wavelengths of light. An exoplanet's spectrum resembles a wavy line with peaks where the colors are bright and valleys where colors are dim.

The researchers simulated an exoplanet's emitted infrared spectrum and found that the appearance of the spectrum changes in distinct, signature ways for each climate state. "Different climate states - cold, warm and 'runaway greenhouse' which is very warm - have different amount of water-vapor in the atmosphere," said Ravi Kopparapu.

In the simulations, exoplanets much colder than Earth can still be habitable because they have small amounts of liquid water when these planets orbit close to the star. An ideal habitable exoplanet case is "temperate" with temperatures about the same as our Earth, and has elevated amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere compared to a cold exoplanet. The runaway greenhouse state has even more atmospheric water vapor. (5/29)

RUAG Growing Commercial Space on the Space Coast (Source: Space Coast Business)
RUAG is a Swiss-owned technology company headquartered in Bern, Switzerland. The company focuses on the aerospace and defense business, with goods and services in both the military and civilian sectors, along with the development of international growth markets. The RUAG Space division was founded in 2009 through acquisitions of like-minded entities and RUAG international growth efforts. The organization operates internationally with production sites in Switzerland, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Austria and the United States.

The rapidly growing RUAG Space division elected to create a business sector in the Titusville area to support the OneWeb satellite program. OneWeb is a company working to put a 600- plus satellite constellation into space, currently being built out through the 2020’s. Once in place, it is intended to provide Internet broadband services anywhere in the world, much like GPS. Click here. (5/29) 

Judge Won't Stop Florida Cabinet From Meeting in Israel (Source: WESH)
A judge in Florida denied an emergency motion from the First Amendment Foundation seeking to prevent Gov. Ron DeSantis from convening a Cabinet meeting during a trip to Jerusalem. The judge said he couldn't stop the Wednesday morning meeting because attorneys for DeSantis and Cabinet officials had not been served with court papers. Foundation President Barbara Petersen says an emergency motion for reconsideration has been filed. A coalition of media organizations says the meeting is in violation of Florida's open government laws, which require Cabinet meetings to be accessible to the public. (5/29)

China Has a Head Start in the New Space Race (Source: The Diplomat)
On January 3, 2019, when China landed the Chang’e 4 probe on the Lunar South Pole, a first for humanity, the discourse on outer space shifted forever. For nearly 50 years, since July 20, 1969, we have lived in the Age of Apollo, which enabled humanity’s first steps on the moon. When dawn broke out on January 3, 2019, we entered the Age of Chang’e, focused on long-term settlement of the lunar poles.

Like NASA’s Apollo missions, named for the Greek god, China’s Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP) is named after a mythical figure: Chang’e, a Chinese moon goddess. Unlike Apollo, however, China’s Chang’e lunar mission is not a “flags and footprints” enterprise. Instead, like its mythical namesake Chang’e, who made the moon her home, the CLEP is aimed at establishing a permanent presence on the lunar surface by 2036, with an aim to utilize lunar resources like titanium and uranium, as well as iron-ore and water ice for rocket construction and propellant.

This in-space manufacturing capability is a vital step to achieve China’s plans for deep space exploitation, to include asteroid mining and build solar power stations in geo-synchronous orbit by 2050. Rapidly, mining for lunar resources has become an uppermost priority for the United States as well. The NASA Swamp Works in Florida is prototyping robots like the Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot that can extract, mold, and analyze lunar soil for resources. (5/29)

After Chinese Launch Failure, Debris Falls on Laos and Cambodia (Source: Space Daily)
Authorities in Stung Treng have called in experts to investigate an explosion and metal debris which fell from the sky along the Cambodia-Lao border on Thursday. Major General Mao Dara, chief of provincial police, said authorities had not yet figured out what the debris is. "We can't make any conclusion about the debris," he told Thmey Thmey Friday.

"We've already notified and requested higher authorities to send experts to investigate," he said. The governor said debris had been gathered and was being kept for further study. Sources said the mysterious explosion was witnessed by people in Ou Svay Commune in Thala Boriwat District. "It was a Chinese satellite," a source in the neighbouring Lao province of Champassak said. The source, who asked not to be named, said the satellite crashed at Boeng Ngam, about three kilometers upstream from Veun Kham, a Cambodian-Lao border crossing on the Mekong River. (5/27)

‘Look at That Thing’: Footage Shows Pilots Spotting Unknown Object (Source: New York Times)
Videos filmed by Navy pilots show two encounters with flying objects. One was captured by a plane’s camera off the coast of Jacksonville, Fla., on Jan. 20, 2015. That footage, published previously but with little context, shows an object tilting like a spinning top moving against the wind. A pilot refers to a fleet of objects, but no imagery of a fleet was released. The second video was taken a few weeks later. Click here. (5/26)

‘Wow, What Is That?’ Navy Pilots Report Unexplained Flying Objects (Source: New York Times)
The strange objects, one of them like a spinning top moving against the wind, appeared almost daily from the summer of 2014 to March 2015, high in the skies over the East Coast. Navy pilots reported to their superiors that the objects had no visible engine or infrared exhaust plumes, but that they could reach 30,000 feet and hypersonic speeds.

“These things would be out there all day,” said Lt. Ryan Graves, an F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot who has been with the Navy for 10 years, and who reported his sightings to the Pentagon and Congress. “Keeping an aircraft in the air requires a significant amount of energy. With the speeds we observed, 12 hours in the air is 11 hours longer than we’d expect.”

In late 2014, a Super Hornet pilot had a near collision with one of the objects, and an official mishap report was filed. Some of the incidents were videotaped, including one taken by a plane’s camera in early 2015 that shows an object zooming over the ocean waves as pilots question what they are watching. (5/26)

Trump Administration Hardens Its Attack on Climate Science (Source: New York Times)
President Trump has rolled back environmental regulations, pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord, brushed aside dire predictions about the effects of climate change, and turned the term “global warming” into a punch line rather than a prognosis. Now, after two years spent unraveling the policies of his predecessors, Mr. Trump and his political appointees are launching a new assault.

In the next few months, the White House will complete the rollback of the most significant federal effort to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, initiated during the Obama administration. It will expand its efforts to impose Mr. Trump’s hard-line views on other nations, building on his retreat from the Paris accord and his recent refusal to sign a communiqué to protect the rapidly melting Arctic region unless it was stripped of any references to climate change.

And, in what could be Mr. Trump’s most consequential action yet, his administration will seek to undermine the very science on which climate change policy rests. The administration’s prime target has been the National Climate Assessment, produced by an interagency task force roughly every four years since 2000.From now on, officials said, such worst-case scenario projections will not automatically be included in the National Climate Assessment or in some other scientific reports produced by the government. (5/27)

Scientists Cook Up a New Way to Make Breathable Oxygen on Mars (Source: Space.com)
By studying comets, scientists have found a new way that future Mars explorers could potentially generate their own oxygen. If a comet's orbit brings it close to the sun, heat begins pushing cometary ice off into space. One already-known method is through kinetic energy. A sublimating comet is a busy environment, where the solar wind can push floating water molecules into the comet's surface at high speed. If there are oxygen-containing compounds on the surface, careening water molecules can rip oxygen atoms off and produce molecular oxygen.

Molecular oxygen can also be produced through carbon dioxide reactions, the team found. They simulated this reaction by crashing carbon dioxide into gold foil. Since gold foil cannot be oxidized, by itself it should not produce any molecular oxygen. But when carbon dioxide careens into the foil at high speed, the gold surface emits molecular oxygen. When they smashed the carbon dioxide molecules into gold foil, they electrically charged the individual carbon dioxide molecules and then accelerated them using an electric field.

However, the reaction could take place at a slower speed as well, which could account for why there is some oxygen floating high in the Martian atmosphere. The reactor they used is very low-yield, generating only one or two oxygen molecules for every 100 carbon dioxide molecules careening through the accelerator. However, perhaps this reactor could be modified one day to create breathable air for astronauts on Mars. (5/28)

Space Race: How Russia (Yes, Russia) Plans to Land Cosmonauts on the Moon by 2030 (Source: Ars Technica)
Dmitry Rogozin described activities happening now at Roscosmos and what may happen in the future, including a potential lunar landing. An independent lunar landing featuring cosmonauts would occur by 2030. Taken at face value—which probably is not wise, given the big question of how Russia would fund such an enterprise—a Russian attempt to land humans on the Moon a decade from now would set up an extraordinary race among that country, NASA's Artemis Program, and China's lunar ambitions.

Under the plan outlined by Rogozin, the country will initially develop a new "Super Heavy" booster with a capacity of 103 metric tons to low Earth orbit and 27 metric tons to Lunar polar orbit. This is roughly equivalent to an upgraded version of NASA's Space Launch System, known as Block 1B. The plan includes the development of the "Federation" spacecraft by 2022, with its first flight to the International Space Station by 2023. Deep-space flights of this spacecraft would follow in the mid-2020s, along with a return of lunar soil to Earth using the Luna-Grunt probe in 2027.

Finally, in 2029, crew flights to lunar orbit would begin, along with flight testing of a lunar lander and an inflatable lunar base module. The crew landing would take place in 2030, although Rogozin said he would like to move those dates earlier if possible. In terms of strategy, Rogozin said he did not believe there is much potential for industrial utilization of the Moon, a theme that has been a key component of US and commercial plans to send humans back to the Moon. Rather, one strategic reason Rogozin cited was the role of a lunar station in defense against comets and asteroids. (5/28)

Mars May Become a Socialist Nation of Strong-Boned Ship-Dwellers (Source: Inverse)
One of the most ambitious plans for this new era is the plan to try to establish a city on Mars. Unlike the moon landing, whose astronauts were quickly returned to Earth, in these future Mars cities, humans will stay there for decades or even the rest of their lives. The duration of these visits will transform them profoundly, both in terms of their literal genetics, but also by freeing them to be able to pursue new economic and political systems in the blazing red desert.

Around 100 years after the first city takes shape, things will start to get really interesting. This is the point where humans may start to diverge from their original genes. With high levels of radioactivity, genetic mutations could appear at a higher rate, accelerating the evolution process. Martians will likely develop a new skin tone to protect against the hard radioactivity, and may even lose their immune system due to the sterile environment — a change that could make sex and other contact with Earth-bound humans deadly.

This next generation will likely be the one to form societies. As the population swells into the six-digit figure territory, the colony will start to split into sub-groups depending on their labor or interests. They may start to craft an identity for themselves, separate from their former Earth-human providers, as the colony grows more self-sufficient. They will tell stories to their children about how this place came to life, and develop family histories and mythologies of their own. (5/25)

Efficient Aircraft Rerouting During Commercial Space Launches (Source: New Space)
Currently, during a commercial space launch, the Federal Aviation Administration prohibits air traffic within a large column of airspace around the launch trajectory. The prohibited airspace is often active for hours at a time, resulting in hundreds of rerouted flights. Recent research has focused on making the prohibited airspace dynamic throughout the commercial space launch and limiting the geographical extent. This article uses a Markov decision process to model the problem and dynamic programming to solve for an optimal rerouting policy. Click here. (5/28)

Nelson Appointed to NASA Advisory Council (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
A former senator is joining the NASA Advisory Council. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced Tuesday that Bill Nelson will formally join the council next week. Nelson served three terms in the Senate before losing reelection to a fourth term last year, and was a key figure in space policy during his time in Congress. Nelson notably led opposition to Bridenstine's nomination to be administrator in 2017, citing Bridenstine's lack of experience, but took a more favorable view of him after confirmation. (5/29)

SpaceX Readies for More Starhopper Tether Tests at Texas Site (Source: Brownsville Herald)
SpaceX is expected to resume testing of its Starship prototype in Texas next week. Road closures announced by local officials Tuesday said that SpaceX plans to conduct testing at its site near Brownsville, Texas, on June 3, with backup dates of June 4 and 5. Those tests are expected to involve the "Starhopper" prototype under development there, which made brief tethered tests this spring. The upcoming tests may be the first untethered flights of the vehicle, albeit at very low altitudes. (5/29)

Europe's Space Council Reconvenes After Eight Years (Source: Space News)
The European Union and European Space Agency held the first meeting of their joint Space Council in eight years Tuesday. European officials at a news conference Tuesday in Brussels avoided discussing why the Space Council, which started in 2004, had such a long lapse in meetings, but said the council would meet yearly going forward. One likely factor driving the need for greater cooperation between the two organizations is the growing size of the European Union's space budget, which projects spending $17.9 billion from 2021 through 2027 on programs like Galileo and Copernicus. (5/28)

Avanti Secures $55 Million Credit Line (Source: Space News)
Satellite operator Avanti has obtained a $55 million credit line as it hopes new satellites will drive revenue growth. The company plans to use the two-year line of credit to fund capital expenditures and meet working capital needs. After experiencing revenue declines since 2015, Avanti said it expects a swing to growth in 2019 thanks to customers on the new Hylas-4 satellite launched last year. A hosted payload called Hylas-3 is scheduled to launch in July on ESA's European Data Relay Satellite C. (5/29)

U.S. and Japan Will Cooperate on Lunar Exploration (Source: Space News)
The United States and Japan will cooperate on lunar exploration, although the details about that effort remain unclear. At a joint news conference in Tokyo Monday with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, President Donald Trump mentioned cooperation in space exploration as one outcome of their discussions, saying they had agreed to "dramatically expand" cooperation in human spaceflight. Details of that agreement were not disclosed, although it's expected to include Japanese participation in the lunar Gateway, likely in exchange for flying Japanese astronauts on future lunar landings. (5/29)

NASA's Lunar Lander Contracting Follows Different Path (Source: Space News)
Development of lunar landers for future human missions may depart from conventional contracting approaches. In statements since NASA was directed to land humans on the moon by 2024, agency officials have talked about "buying a service" to transport astronauts to the lunar surface and back, rather than a NASA-led approach that uses standard government contracts. The service approach would also give companies more flexibility in coming up with designs for lunar lander systems, rather than developing individual elements of the lander that NASA would integrate. As part of its $1.6 billion budget amendment for fiscal year 2020, NASA is seeking $1 billion to work on an "integrated commercial lunar lander." (5/28)