June 13, 2019

HASC Bill Includes Space Corps Creation (Source: Space News)
The House Armed Services Committee approved a proposal to create a Space Corps. During a late-night markup of its National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the committee voted in favor of an amendment that would create a U.S. Space Corps within the Air Force, led by a four-star commandant. The Space Corps will have personnel and assets transferred by the Air Force, but not NRO or NGA. The Air Force would also be able to establish a separate, alternative acquisition system for defense space acquisitions. The language in the House bill will ultimately have to be reconciled with that in the Senate's version of the NDAA that creates a Space Force. (6/13)

Senate's Defense Bill Tinkers With Space Acquisition (Source: Space News)
The Senate's version of the NDAA also reforms Air Force management of space acquisitions. The bill converts the current principal assistant to the secretary of the Air Force for space to a Senate-confirmed post, titled principal assistant to the secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration. It realigns the Air Force space portfolio from the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition to the principal assistant for space acquisition and integration. Those changes reflect the committee's concerns about space procurements being managed in isolation and not coordinated across multiple agencies. (6/13)

GAO Sustains Peraton Protest of SAIC Contract for Satellite Ground Systems (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has sustained a protest of a military satellite ground systems contract. Peraton protested the $655 million Air Force contract award to SAIC in January for satellite ground systems engineering, development, integration and sustainment, a program known as EDIS. The Air Force will now have to decide how to correct the errors identified by the GAO in its decision, which could range from reopening the original competition to conducting a new one altogether. (6/13)

China Flying International Experiments on its Space Station (Source: Space News)
China announced Wednesday it will fly nine international experiments on its upcoming space station. Chinese officials said the experiments, involving 17 nations, will be flown on the station once completed in 2022. Those experiments range from microgravity research to space technology demonstrations. The experiments were selected as part of a competition run by the China Manned Space Agency and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. (6/13)

India Considering Building a Space Station (Source: The Hindu)
India is considering developing its own space station. The head of the Indian space agency ISRO, K. Sivan, said Thursday that the agency is contemplating at least a small space station where crews could do microgravity research. A formal plan on developing the station will wait until after India performs its first human spaceflight mission under the Gaganyaan program, scheduled for launch by 2022. (6/13)

The Moon List (Source: SpaceFund)
 This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first human landing on the Moon. In honor of this event, and in recognition of recently announced plans to return, SpaceFund is proud to present the Moon List. In recent months our SpaceFund Reality (SFR) rating databases have drawn much attention in the field, quickly becoming a standard reference for those interested in the rise of a new space industry. While some of the firms listed below do appear in past SFRs and some will appear in future databases, The Moon List is not an SFR and does not rate the companies listed. Rather, it is intended to provide a database of who is doing what, where, and how – as part of this new effort. Click here. (6/13)

Assets and Talent Make Jacksonville Ideal Destination for Aviation and Aerospace (Source: JaxUSA)
Jacksonville – home to the only licensed commercial spaceport on the East Coast – is a leader in the aviation and aerospace industries, one of the region’s sectors for growth and innovation. From my professional experience, I’ve seen unprecedented growth in these industries throughout Florida, but especially in Jacksonville.

Take a look at Jacksonville International Airport (JAX) – 2018’s fastest-growing airport in North America. In March of this year, more passengers flew though JAX than any month in the airport’s 50-year history. In addition to the record-breaking growth at JAX, another airport in Jacksonville Aviation Authority’s diversified airport system is considered a crown jewel for aeronautical, manufacturing and logistics business – Cecil Airport. Cecil is a former military training facility and Navy Master JetBase.

It is equipped with four runways including Florida’s third-longest runway at 12,500 feet and is home to Cecil Spaceport, one of eight spaceports in the United States approved for horizontal launches. The Cecil Spaceport control center, which will be housed at the airport’s air traffic control tower, will give operators the ability to track and remotely collect data from their spacecraft. Potential operators include Virgin Galactic, Generation Orbit, Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems, among others, with capabilities of long-range flights that would span the other side of the globe in half the time of a typical commercial flight. Click here. (6/12)

Apollo 11 Statue Headed to Kennedy Space Center’s New Moon Tree Garden (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
The Apollo 11 astronauts who made history 50 years ago 250,000 miles away will be standing larger than life at Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Complex this summer. A drive to bring the 7-foot-tall bronze figures of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins has come to fruition with the help of a sponsor, donating the statue to become a centerpiece of the new Moon Tree Garden at the visitor complex Apollo/Saturn V Center.

Rocket Mortgage, which is run by Quicken Loans, commissioned the statue, which was created by Colorado-based sculptors George and Mark Lundeen. The statues will be unveiled by July 16, 50 years since the three astronauts blasted off from Kennedy Space Center on their historic lunar mission. (6/12)

Trump, Who Told NASA To Go To the Moon, Now Wants it to Stop Talking About Going to the Moon (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
President Donald Trump executed a cosmic flip flop in priorities Friday when he tweeted that the United States should not keep talking about going back to the moon, despite his administration’s insistence that the United States should, in fact, go back to the moon. “For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon - We did that 50 years ago" he tweeted.

Just 25 days earlier, Trump had tweeted his support for the lunar return, a mission that his administration placed as the highest priority for NASA when it issued Space Policy Directive 1 in 2017 instructing NASA to get boots back on the lunar surface. On May 13, Trump tweeted, “Under my Administration, we are restoring NASA to greatness and we are going back to the Moon, then Mars. I am updating my budget to include an additional $1.6 billion so that we can return to Space in a BIG WAY!” (6/7)

NASA Prepares to Launch Twin Satellites to Study Signal Disruption From Space (Source: Space Daily)
NASA's twin E-TBEx CubeSats - short for Enhanced Tandem Beacon Experiment - are scheduled to launch in June 2019 aboard the Department of Defense's Space Test Program-2 launch. The launch includes a total of 24 satellites from government and research institutions. They will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The E-TBEx CubeSats focus on how radio signals that pass through Earth's upper atmosphere can be distorted by structured bubbles in this region, called the ionosphere. Especially problematic over the equator, these distortions can interfere with military and airline communications as well as GPS signals. The more we can learn about how these bubbles evolve, the more we can mitigate those problems - but right now, scientists can't predict when these bubbles will form or how they'll change over time. (6/11)

African Space Industry Now Generating Over $7 Billion Annually (Source: Space Daily)
Space in Africa, the authority on news, data, and market analysis for the African space industry, has just released the African Space Industry Report- 2019 Edition. The report covers Africa's journey in space from 1998 through May 2019 and explains how the industry has already reached over USD 7 billion of annual revenues and is projected to grow at a 7.3% compound annual growth rate to exceed USD 10 billion by 2024.

Regional and national space programs and policies in Africa are becoming quite extensive.Already, 19 African countries have national space programmes and there is a booming emergence of commercial companies developing space technologies and offering services in Africa.

"Africa's space industry is currently undergoing a renaissance. All across Africa, governments are investing in elaborate space programmes, revving up the continent's capacity to see beyond pale clouds and harness the inherent power of space technologies. Modern space technologies have the ability to help Africa solve critical problems in agriculture, security, telecommunications and other sectors. Already, some countries have started to benefit. In Mali, satellites are helping nomadic herdsmen find water for their cattle; in Angola and Rwanda, satellites are used to connect rural classrooms to the internet and entertain millions with profitable TV programs across Africa." (6/12)

Students Boosting Technical Skills at NASA Wallops' Rocket Week (Source: Space Daily)
University and community college students will boost their technical skills as rocket scientists building experiments for space flight during Rocket Week June 14-21, 2019, at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Nearly 200 students and instructors from across the country will build and fly experiments on a NASA suborbital sounding rocket through the RockOn! and RockSat-C programs. (6/11)

Blue Origin Official: New Glenn Rocket Set to Launch in 2021 (Source: Spectrum News 13)
Tuesday at the National Space Club Florida luncheon, Blue Origin officials gave attendees an update on their new rocket and when can the Space Coast can expect their first launch. Their launch pad will be completed next year, and the New Glenn rocket is set to launch in 2021, according to Blue Origin. It's been years in the making since making the announcement in 2015, So far $2.5 billion has been invested in the New Glenn rocket. Test and Flight Ops Vice President for Blue Origin Scott Henderson says things look much different at the facility than it did three years ago. Click here. (6/12)

SpaceX Launches Three Canadian Satellites as First Stage Lands at California Spaceport (Source: Daily Mail)
SpaceX has blasted off a payload of three Tesla Roadster-sized satellites for the Canadian government, marking its seventh successful launch this year. Through a thick haze of fog, the white Falcon 9 rocket took flight from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 10:17 am (ET). About ten minutes after launch, the recycled rocket touched down without a hitch back on the landing pad. (6/12)