May 30, 2019

FAA Extends Comment Period on Commercial Launch Regulations (Source: Space News)
The FAA is extending a comment period on an overhaul of commercial launch regulations as some in industry seek more discussions with the agency on the proposed revisions. In a speech at a May 30 meeting of the FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) here, Wayne Monteith, FAA associate administrator for commercial space transportation, said the agency was extending a deadline for public comment from June 14 to July 30.

That move comes after requests by many, but not all, companies in the commercial launch industry and related organizations, who had argued the original 60-day comment period for the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on streamlining launch regulations wasn’t sufficient to thoroughly review draft regulations nearly 580 pages long, along with other FAA circulars incorporated by reference. (5/30)

Nozzle Anomaly After Northrop Grumman Successfully Test Fires Omega Rocket in Utah (Source: Florida Today, Northrop Grumman)
A first-stage solid rocket motor for OmegA completed a full-duration hot fire test on Thursday. Northrop Grumman reported the test was a success despite an "observation" near the end of the test, associated with the engine nozzle. The nozzle appeared to explode or break apart. Northrop Grumman's OmegA rocket is being primarily designed for national security satellites and will share KSC's pad 39B with NASA's Space Launch System rocket. It will also be vertically stacked in the KSC Vehicle Assembly Building prior to liftoff. (5/30)

NASA to Shut Down Spitzer Space Telescope Early Next Year (Source: SpaceFlightNow)
After a search for an outside funding source turned up empty, NASA plans to end observations with the Spitzer Space Telescope in January to conclude a 16-year mission that discovered exoplanets, studied galaxies in the ancient universe, and peered at planets and asteroids in our own solar system. NASA quietly announced the plan to end Spitzer’s observations in a blog post earlier this month. Astronomers hoped to keep Spitzer going until after the launch of JWST, but JWST is now scheduled for launch in early 2021, and continues to dominate the budget for NASA’s astrophysics division. (5/30)

Musk Wants to Use Starships as Hypersonic Spaceliners (Source: Teslarati)
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk indicates that the company is analyzing the use of single-stage Starship spacecraft as a potential pillar of its rapid Earth-to-Earth transport ambitions, meant to realize hypersonic mass-transit at “business-class” prices. The consequences of such a move are varied but the gist is fairly simple: by cutting down on the complexity of the hardware and infrastructure involved, Earth-based transport via reusable rockets immediately becomes a far more intriguing (and plausible) proposition.

Huge challenges remain, but many of those challenges could potentially become identical to those that Starship must already face to achieve SpaceX’s ultimate goal of Mars colonization. Using extremely large rockets to quickly, reliably, and safely transport humans around the Earth sounds great on paper but runs into a huge number of brick walls after just a cursory analysis. The single most important aspect of any high-volume form of mass transit is passenger safety – if a method consistently demonstrates that it is likely to kill passengers, it will die a very quick death to public opinion and regulatory fury.

From a statistical standpoint, rockets are thousands of times less safe than passenger aircraft, in large part due to their complexity and cost. As it turns out, an almost invariably foolproof method of improving the safety of a given thing is reducing its complexity (within moderation, of course). The fewer the parts there are, the fewer the parts that can fail and the easier (and cheaper) gathering data and evidence will be. Click here. (5/30)

"Easy to Win" Trade War With China Risks Rare Earth Metals Shortage - Pentagon Seeks to Reduce U.S. Reliance (Source: Reuters)
The U.S. Defense Department is seeking new federal funds to bolster domestic production of rare earth minerals and reduce dependence on China, the Pentagon said on Wednesday, amid mounting concern in Washington about Beijing’s role as a supplier. The Pentagon’s request was outlined in a report that has been sent to the White House and briefed to Congress, said Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Mike Andrews, a Pentagon spokesman.

Rare earths are a group of 17 chemical elements used in both consumer products, from iPhones to electric car motors, and critical military applications including jet engines, satellites and lasers. Rising tensions between the United States and China have sparked concerns that Beijing could use its dominant position as a supplier of rare earths for leverage in the trade war between the world’s top two economic powers. While China has so far not explicitly said it would restrict rare earths sales to the United States, Chinese media has strongly implied this will happen. (5/29)

Beyond Earth: Could Australia Lead the Race to Mine the Moon [For Rare Earth Minerals]? (Source: Mining-Technology)
With enough mineral wealth among the stars to theoretically give everyone on Earth $100bn each, outer space mining is an attractive prospect for the world’s most opportunistic miners. However, the technology first needs to be proven to be effective, with basic issues such as funding missions and securing fuel sources key early challenges. Professor Andrew Dempster of the University of New South Wales is leading a team that is aiming to extract water from the Moon, to demonstrate the feasibility of some of these ambitious plans.

Humanity’s need for resources is growing. The Earth’s mineral reserves are needed to fuel the planet’s expanding populations, advancing technologies and expanding industries, with everything from coal and oil to rare earth minerals in high demand. But deposits are finite, and there are fears that the world could run out of resources just as the need for them peaks. In 2017, world coal production fell to 7.6 billion tonnes (bnt), just above global coal consumption of 7.4bnt, the first time the latter figure had increased in three years.

Yet as technology improves, particularly in the fields of automation and artificial intelligence, lofty goals such as mining bodies in outer space become more realistic. Reaching these deposits, let alone recovering them, requires considerable technological and logistical effort, so interested parties are looking closer to home for potential initial mining projects. The Moon has emerged as a candidate for future mineral extraction, with a team from the University of New South Wales (UNSW), led by Professor Andrew Dempster, targeting water extraction on the Moon as a source of fuel for future missions, and a proof of concept for sceptical mining companies. (5/29)

Companies Jostle for $1 Trillion Market (Source: Houston Chronicle)
Fifty years after the first men walked on the moon, a new space race is underway, this one for a piece of what Wall Street analysts say could become a $1 trillion global space market. Around the world, companies such as Made In Space are launching — often literally — new products and services, building satellites to provide broadband internet, spaceships to take tourists on zero-gravity rendezvous, and mining equipment to extract minerals from asteroids.

The commercial space transition has gained momentum with assistance from deep-pocketed space enthusiasts, increasingly sophisticated yet compact technologies, and new government policies that position NASA to become one of many customers rather than the sole driver of the industry. The idea is to leave routine space activities, such as taking people and cargo to the International Space Station, to commercial companies while NASA musters resources for the most ambitious projects, such as putting humans on Mars. Click here. (5/30)

ISS Doesn’t Have To Be an FFRDC; It Has to Be Done Right (Source: Space News)
Few terms in space policy — save maybe “commercial” and “innovation” — are used with quite so much zest and abandon as the term “FFRDC,” or Federally Funded Research and Development Center. An FFRDC is a specific kind of independent research entity formed as public-private partnership with the federal government. There are currently 43 FFRDCs in operation and they are governed by Part 35.017 of the Federal Acquisitions Regulations. FFRDCs have re-entered the space policy conversation once again, this time in connection to the International Space Station.

One idea gaining traction is the creation of a National Microgravity Research Laboratory to manage, among other things, operations of assets like the U.S. orbital segment of the ISS. Creating some sort of organization to help the United States in the in-situ exploitation of microgravity — turning it from a challenge into a kind of “resource” — is an excellent idea. If the space environment itself yields a way to generate value, rather than just creating costs and difficulties, then maintaining a national presence in space becomes much simpler and cost effective.

Under Section 504 of the 2010 NASA Authorization Act, the U.S. orbital segment (aka ISS National Lab) is to be managed by a nonprofit organization, a role that is filled today by CASIS. However, a particularly restrictive part of this law, Section 504 (a)(3), forbids the organization managing the ISS National Lab from having any sort of other priorities. A particularly strict reading of that section could be read as forbidding the managing organization from having any broader goals, like the development of a robust economy in low-Earth orbit or helping NASA manage its shift in focus to deep space exploration. Both of which have been identified as priorities in recent NASA budget requests. Click here. (5/28) 

NASA Closer to Discovering What Lies Beneath Airless Planets (Source: NASA)
NASA is a step closer to eventually discovering what lies up to 32 feet or 10 meters beneath the surfaces of Mars, the Moon or any airless body in the solar system. Scientists are using NASA technology-development funding to mature the Space Exploration Synthetic Aperture Radar, or SESAR. It would be capable of gathering meter-scale images of ice deposits, lava flows, caves, natural resources, and fluvial channels that lie buried between beneath the surfaces of planets, moons, and other small bodies.

Current NASA instruments can probe the surface or tens to hundreds of miles inside the interior. However, near-surface regions targeted by SESAR remain hidden from view with current spaceflight instruments, said Rincon, who, along with Carter, created the instrument concept. “Our instrument will bridge the gap in these observations,” Rincon said. “In fact, synthetic aperture radar technology, which we employ in our instrument, is the only remote-sensing technique capable of penetrating meters into the surface while still providing high-resolution images.” (5/21)

30 'Homeless' Binary Stars Spotted Drifting in the Void Outside Any Known Galaxy (Source: Live Science)
Binary star systems do everything together. They orbit around each other, pool their gases together and sometimes even come back from the dead together. It's a beautiful thing — but it's not always good times. Sometimes, one member of a binary duo can be punished for its partner's toxic behavior. Take the 30-or-so binary star systems recently detected near a galaxy cluster 62 million light-years from Earth.

According to a study published May 2, these lonesome pairs got kicked out of their home galaxies when one member of the partnership suddenly went off the rails, collapsed into a neutron star and created a blast so powerful that it sent both binary partners careening into interstellar space. Scientists discovered these stellar exiles while studying 15 years of X-ray emission data collected by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (a powerful X-ray telescope mounted on a satellite). (5/30)

'Fettuccine' May Be Most Obvious Sign of Life on Mars (Source: Phys.org)
A rover scanning the surface of Mars for evidence of life might want to check for rocks that look like pasta, researchers report in the journal Astrobiology. The bacterium that controls the formation of such rocks on Earth is ancient and thrives in harsh environments that are similar to conditions on Mars, said University of Illinois geology professor Bruce Fouke, who led the new, NASA-funded study.

The bacterium belongs to a lineage that evolved prior to the oxygenation of Earth roughly 2.35 billion years ago, Fouke said. It can survive in extremely hot, fast-flowing water bubbling up from underground hot springs. It can withstand exposure to ultraviolet light and survives only in environments with extremely low oxygen levels, using sulfur and carbon dioxide as energy sources. (5/29)

Discovery in Ethiopian Volcano Shows How Life Could Have Thrived on Mars (Source: The Independent)
Ultra-small microbes found for the first time in an Ethiopian volcano show how life could have once thrived on Mars. Researchers found a strain of bacteria living in temperatures of 89C and extreme acidity of pH 0.25 – conditions similar to those found on the red planet when it first formed. Samples were collected from around Dallol volcano and Danakil Depression in northern Ethiopia, which is one of the hottest and most inhospitable places on Earth.

They were analyzed using electron microscopy, chemical analysis and DNA sequencing. The team found tiny, spherical structures within the salt samples were tiny microbes (Nanohaloarchaeles) living in compact colonies. Each microbe was 20 times smaller than the average bacteria. The Dallol volcano lies 125 meters below sea level and hydrothermal activity is fuelled by water that has been heated by the shallow magma reserve beneath the volcano. (5/27)

Without a Champion, Europa Lander Falls to NASA’s Back Burner (Source: Science)
After years of being pushed by the U.S. Congress to follow the Europa Clipper, a spacecraft that will survey Jupiter’s frozen moon, with a lander, NASA has begun to push back. The agency disclosed today that the lander mission, if it happens, will now come no earlier than 2030, 5 years later than Congress mandated. And the agency will be challenged to meet the 2023 launch date set for the Clipper. (5/29)

SpaceX Readying Crew Dragon Capsule for Possible Piloted Test Flight by End of Year (Source: SpaceFlightNow)
In parallel with an on-going failure investigation, SpaceX is readying downstream Crew Dragon spacecraft for flight in hopes that corrective actions can be implemented in time to launch two astronauts to the International Space Station before the end of the year, a senior NASA manager said. SpaceX successfully launched an unpiloted Crew Dragon to the station in March on a mission known as Demo 1 and was gearing up to launch that same vehicle on another unpiloted mission in June to test its emergency abort system.

That test was intended to clear the way for an initial test flight — Demo 2 — with astronauts on board later this summer. But on April 20, the Crew Dragon slated for the in-flight abort test exploded on a test stand at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station an instant before a planned static firing of the capsule’s eight Super Draco abort engines. No one was injured, but the Demo 1 capsule was destroyed.

Speaking to the NASA Advisory Council, Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, said the capsule originally intended to carry the first astronauts will now be used for the in-flight abort test and another downstream capsule, originally planned for the first operational Crew Dragon flight to the ISS, will serve as the Demo 2 vehicle. (5/29)

Concorde 2.0: Can An American Start-Up Bring Back Supersonic Passenger Flight? (Source: Esquire)
As an airliner, Concorde was revolutionary, capable of carrying 100 passengers at Mach 2 (1,535mph), or twice the speed of sound, and around two-and-a-half times the speed of conventional commercial planes. It was foremost an exercise in engineering, its cramped and noisy passenger cabin a lesser priority. This high performance required a lot of fuel, leading to high running costs and high-ticket prices; as much as £15,100 for a London to New York return flight in today’s money.

Scholl, Founder and CEO of Boom, chose Denver as a base because “to do something this hard you have to have a dream team and if you want to build a dream team you have to choose a place where great people want to live”. There’s the skiing, the hiking, the horse riding, the 300 days of sunshine, the legalised marijuana and the chance to be remembered for being on the team that relaunched supersonic air travel.

One-hundred-and-thirty people work here; two years ago it was half that. About 80 per cent of the team moved to Denver to join Boom. The kind of people who’ve been in charge of the wing on the Airbus A380 (the largest airliner wing ever built); who ran the upper stage of the Falcon 9 rocket at SpaceX; and the propulsion engineer responsible for the Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird” Mach 3 stealth jet at NASA. Click here. (5/28)

Two Female Monkeys Went to Space 60 Years Ago. One Became the Poster Child for Astronaut Masculinity (Source: Space.com)
Sixty years ago today, a pair of female monkeys made history when they went to space and landed safely — but their story was only just beginning to get weird. Able and Baker took flight on May 28, 1959, soaring 300 miles (480 kilometers) up during a 15-minute flight. At the time, they were humble female laboratory animals, barely given names for the project before they were stuffed into a Jupiter Missile. By the time the first American human followed them, just two years later, Able was dead, the picture of machismo and sacrifice, while Baker was living in retirement, married off and put on display.

Earlier, Gen. Joseph McNinch, who headed the Army's medical research unit, misspoke at a news conference, using "he" to answer a question about Able. A journalist corrected him and all seemed to be well — but the slip of the tongue began to gain traction. A cartoon was published four days after the flight depicted Able in astronaut garb returning to a harried midcentury monkey wife and baby, the very picture of a jetsetting businessman and absentee father.

The same day that the cartoon was published, Able died. Caretakers noticed an electrode implanted in her skin seemed infected and prepared to remove it, but when doctors sprayed routine anesthetic in her cage in preparation for the surgery, she stopped breathing. The medical team spent 2 hours attempting to revive her — even performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation — but failed. After her death, Able was eulogized in obituaries, several of which listed her as male. Her skin was stuffed and sent to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, where she was displayed encased in spaceflight equipment like Han Solo frozen in carbonite. (5/29)

Should Earthlings Colonize the Final Frontier? Ethicists Weigh In (Source: Clemson University News and Stories)
On one side of the continuum, some people argue that humans have no business in space until and unless they prove they can manage the Earth responsibly. They believe that public opinion concerning colonies is driven by a largely uncritical acceptance of ideologies of conquest and domination, which should have no place in the debate.   They also point to humanity’s abysmal environmental record on Earth and ask if we have the right to subject another world to our destructive presence.

Others counter that colonies in space may be the best long-term chance to save humanity, and non-human species as well, from ultimate disaster. If we have moral obligations to do anything, this group says, we have a strong obligation to preserve humans – the only beings known to be capable of moral reasoning. Click here. (5/28)

Elon Musk's Multibillion Dollar Mars Rocket, Explained (Source: Tech Insider)
SpaceX is racing to build a multibillion-dollar rocket capable of traveling to the Moon and Mars called StarShip. Elon Musk's company is currently testing the engines and ideas behind the spacecraft in Texas. Here's everything we know about it so far. Click here. (5/29)

Profanity-Laden Broadcasts Landed NASA in Hot Water 50 Years Ago (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Apollo 11′s astronauts were in the midst of a tight, grueling training schedule in May 1969. Just one slip-up could delay their July launch and derail the goal of landing on the moon before the end of the 1960s. But in addition to learning how to control the command service module, fly the lunar module and operate other systems, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins had to learn to watch their language. That was because of their profanity-spewing Apollo mission predecessors – the Apollo 10 crew of Thomas Stafford, John Young and Gene Cernan.

Indeed, a brief scan of NASA's publicly available transcripts reveals a veritable cornucopia of curse words, with the word 's***' appearing 157 times and various iterations of 'damn' cropping up 60. Many of the declarations come during moments of pressure or excitement, like when the astronauts realize they're reaching their destination: lunar orbit. 'Okay, nothing between now and when acquire. God damn, can you see the moon? We're here,' says Cernan as the astronauts break out into laughter. (5/28)

Building a Rocket in a Garage to Take On SpaceX and Blue Origin (Source: CNet)
Along Australia's northeastern edge, the Pacific Ocean laps at sparkling yellow sands. This pristine 35 miles of shoreline is known as the Gold Coast, and over 13 million people visit every year. It's full of postcard-perfect beaches and home to the southern hemisphere's biggest collection of theme parks. Drive 30 minutes north, towards the quiet suburban town of Pimpama, and you might as well be on another planet. Once covered in strawberry fields, Pimpama lies just off the motorway and is now dotted by spacious, modern houses.

Not the kind of place you'd expect to find the country's most powerful hybrid rocket. But that's exactly what hides within the headquarters of Gilmour Space Technologies. In one corner of the company's makeshift hangar, a nine-meter-long rocket, shaped like a bullet and covered in cling wrap and tape, rests on a set of rollers.

The test rocket is the culmination of four years of research, one previous test launch and five successful ground tests of the company's own bleeding-edge rocket engine. The team has dubbed it "One Vision," a nod to the timeless Queen song, and its first flight, originally scheduled for liftoff in April but delayed multiple times, has one goal: getting Gilmour to space. (5/30)

Inmarsat Orders Satellites From Airbus (Source: BBC)
Inmarsat has ordered three new Global Xpress satellites from Airbus. The contract, announced early Thursday, covers the production of satellites GX 7, 8 and 9 for launch starting in the first half of 2023. The satellites are based on an Airbus concept called OneSat that incorporates all-electric propulsion, modular designs and software-defined payloads. Inmarsat plans to use the satellites in different locations in geostationary orbit, moving them around as needed to adjust to changing demand. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. (5/30)

2020 Launch Still Possible for SLS (Source: Space News)
NASA believes it may still be possible to launch the first SLS mission by the end of 2020 even if retains a key test. NASA has yet to formally decide whether to retain a "green run" static-fire test of the SLS core stage, although outside advisers have recommended that NASA do so. NASA had proposed doing away with the test to cut several months from the vehicle's development schedule. A NASA official said this week that it can "optimize" that green run test, allowing the core stage to be delivered to the Kennedy Space Center by June 2020. That could still allow a first SLS launch by the end of 2020, although "everything has to go perfectly" to keep that 2020 launch date. (5/30)

Cosmonauts Conduct ISS Spacewalk (Source: CBS)
Two Russian cosmonauts carried out a six-hour spacewalk outside the International Space Station Wednesday. Oleg Kononenko and Alexey Ovchinin started the spacewalk at 11:42 a.m. Eastern, performing a variety of maintenance tasks ranging from cleaning windows to removing unneeded hardware, which they tossed away from the station. The two also honored Russian cosmonaut Alexey Leonov, the first person to walk in space in March 1965. Leonov turns 85 on Thursday. (5/30)

China On Track for Mars Mission Next Year (Source: Space News)
China's first Mars mission remains on track for launch in 2020. Wang Chi, director of the National Space Science Center, said that hardware for the mission, which includes an orbiter and a rover, is being integrated. The spacecraft will carry 13 instruments, ranging from a high-resolution camera on the orbiter to a ground-penetrating radar and spectrometer on the rover. Scientists have identified two possible landing sites for the mission, including one in the same region as NASA's Viking 1 and Mars Pathfinder missions. The mission has a narrow launch window in the middle of 2020 on a Long March 5 rocket. (5/30)

NASA Scientist Released From Turkish Prison (Source: Reuters)
A Turkish-American scientist who had been working for NASA was suddenly released Wednesday from a Turkish prison after being jailed for nearly three years. Serkan Golge was visiting family in Turkey in 2016 when he was arrested after a failed coup attempt, and later sentenced to seven and a half years in prison on charges of aiding a terrorist association. His release came hours after a call between President Trump and Turkish President Erdogan, although Golge's case was not mentioned in a readout of the call. Golge was released under "judicial control," which prevents him from leaving Turkey for the time being. (5/30)

India Proceeds with Astronaut Selection (Source: IANS)
India's air force will work with its space agency on selecting the crew of the country's first human spaceflight. The Indian space agency ISRO announced the agreement Wednesday with the Indian Air Force involving crew selection and training for the Gaganyaan mission, slated for launch by 2022. That training will take place at ISRO's Human Space Flight Centre, which opened earlier this year. (5/30)

Breakthrough Starshot Faces Technological Challenges (Source: Space.com)
A proposal for an interstellar mission using tiny spacecraft is still grappling with its numerous technological challenges. The Breakthrough Prize Foundation announced in 2016 the Breakthrough Starshot project, which proposed sending tiny spacecraft, propelled by lasers to 20 percent the speed of light, to nearby stars. Avi Loeb, chair of the project's advisory board and a Harvard University astronomer, said earlier this month that the project has identified about 25 potentially significant technological issues for the proposed mission, from the design of the spacecraft and their laser lightsails to how the spacecraft, weighing one gram, will be able to communicate back to Earth. He noted, though, that the project is still in its early phases of a 30-year plan for the mission. (5/30)