June 26, 2019

Tournear to Lead Pentagon's SDA (Source: Space News)
One of Mike Griffin’s deputies has been named the new head of the Pentagon's Space Development Agency (SDA). Derek Tournear, assistant director for space at the office of Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, will take over leadership of the SDA on an acting basis. He succeeds Fred Kennedy, who resigned unexpectedly last week. Like Kennedy, Tournear previously worked at DARPA's Tactical Technology Office and Strategic Technology Office. (6/25)

LeoLabs Takes On Space Situational Awareness Role for New Zealand (Source: Space News)
LeoLabs announced an agreement Tuesday with the New Zealand Space Agency to provide space situational awareness services. The cloud-based Space Regulatory and Sustainability Platform relies on information from LeoLabs' network of phased-array radars to track satellites in low Earth orbit. The mapping and software platform then analyzes the data to ensure satellites launched from New Zealand are complying with licensing rules. LeoLabs said the platform is the first of its kind, but expects other national agencies to seek similar services. (6/25)

Israel's SpaceIL Nixes Another Moon Landing Attempt, Considers More Ambitious Goal (Source: Globes)
SpaceIL has abandoned plans to make a second lunar landing attempt. The organization, a former competitor in the Google Lunar X Prize, said days after its Beresheet spacecraft crashed while attempting to land on the moon in April that it would start work on a second such mission. But in a tweet Tuesday, SpaceIL said attempting another lunar landing "would not set the required threshold for a breakthrough mission" that it desired. The organization instead will pursue "a more significant challenge," but didn't specify what that would be. (6/25)

Megaconstellation Ventures Cautious About Deployment Milestones (Source: Space News)
Companies developing broadband megaconstellations want to avoid strict deployment milestones sought by regulators. Such milestones, being considered by the ITU, are intended to prevent companies from "hogging" spectrum by deploying just a single satellite to meet ITU's so-called bring into use rules. Telesat and LeoSat, two companies working with manufacturing partners to finalize low Earth orbit broadband constellation designs, say milestones that are too strict could have the unwanted effect of stymieing businesses that are genuinely striving to launch satellites. (6/25)

Bechtel to Build Second SLS Mobile Launch Platform at KSC (Source: NASA)
NASA awarded a contract Tuesday for construction of a second Space Launch System launch platform. Bechtel National, Inc. won the $383 million contract for Mobile Launcher 2, a 44-month project scheduled to begin next month. The platform will be designed for the larger Block 1B version of the SLS, whose first launch won't be until at least the mid-2020s. Congress provided funding to build Mobile Launcher 2 rather than modify the existing mobile launch platform, which is designed for the Block 1 SLS. (6/25)

Musk's Wealth Increasingly Tied to SpaceX (Source: Bloomberg)
Elon Musk's wealth is increasingly tied to SpaceX, not Tesla. Musk has a net worth of $22.4 billion, of which $14.6 billion is his stake in SpaceX, given the company's current estimated valuation of $34 billion. His shares in electric car manufacturer Tesla are worth $7.6 billion. Musk's Tesla stake was the primary source of his wealth in the past, but the growth in SpaceX's valuation and the decline in Tesla's stock price reversed that. Musk's overall net worth makes him the 41st richest person in the world. (6/25)

SpaceRyde Wants to Make Access to Space More Available and More Affordable (Source: Tech Crunch)
Life can be tough for a small satellite operator – it may be relatively cheap and easy to build small sats (or CubeSats, as they’re sometimes called), but arranging transportation for those satellites to get to orbit is still a big challenge. That’s why SpaceRyde is pursuing a novel way of launching light payloads, that could help small sat companies skip the line, and save some cash in the process.

SpaceRyde’s co-founders, wife and husband team Saharnaz Safari and Sohrab Haghighat, saw the opportunity to address this growing customer base by making launches easier by reducing the impact of one of the biggest complicating factors of getting stuff into space: Earth’s atmosphere.

Safari explained that SpaceRyde’s technology works by making it possible to use a relatively tiny rocket rather than a huge one by attaching it to a stratospheric balloon and launching from much closer to orbit. Because of the size of the rocket and the lift limitations of the balloons, SpaceRyde ends up carrying much smaller payloads than say, SpaceX  or Rocket Lab, but on the upside, clients don’t have to share rides like they do with the big rocket providers. (6/23)

Elon Musk is Building a Fleet of Reusable Rockets (Source: Quartz)
SpaceX flies two kinds of rockets: the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy, which both use nine-engine first-stage boosters—the much-larger Heavy uses three. After most flights, the boosters fly back to Earth, arriving at landing sites or autonomous droneships at sea. Since 2017, SpaceX has flown new boosters 29 times, and has launched re-used, or “flight proven,” boosters 24 times. In the same period, it has only failed to recover three boosters.

SpaceX is likely to use reusable boosters more often in the years ahead. Musk says his newest rockets can be flown as many as 10 times, though none has yet been flown more than three times. The savings provided by reusability, versus the expendable rockets used by competitors such as ULA or Arianespace, remains unknown and hotly debated within the industry. The vehicles do require some refurbishment between launches, and the infrastructure for retrieving the rockets must be included in the final breakdown—most rocket-makers do not maintain a fleet of ocean-going vessels.

Still, industry sources suspect that reusability likely saves SpaceX tens of millions of dollars compared building an entirely new booster. Musk has said he wants to fly the same rocket twice in 24 hours, no word yet on how that’s coming. The company also laid off one in 10 workers earlier this year. This was possible, in part, because the company is manufacturing fewer boosters to fly the same number of missions. (6/24)

SpaceX Successfully Catches First Falcon Fairing in Net (Source: Teslarati)
After more than 18 months of concerted effort, SpaceX has successfully caught a Falcon fairing in Mr. Steven’s (now GO Ms. Tree) net for the first time ever, a massive milestone along the road to payload fairing reusability. This recovery attempt was a last-second surprise, coming on the heels of Mr. Steven being renamed to GO Ms. Tree, itself on the heels of a major refit with entirely new arms, booms, and a net.

With this first fairing catch, SpaceX can begin properly analyzing the condition of a truly flight-proven, salt water-free fairing half, hopefully allowing the company to conclude that they can be reused with relative ease. True fairing recovery and reuse would ultimately be a boon for all SpaceX missions, but would particularly benefit the company’s own Starlink launches, cutting the cost of a new fairing from each internal mission’s marginal cost. Given that Mr. Steven (GO Ms. Tree) was able to catch this fairing half under moonlight, it bodes quite well for future daytime recoveries. (6/25)

German Court Halts Hamster Space Experiments (Source: BBC)
A major German university must halt experiments on hamsters due to be conducted as part of a European space project over welfare concerns. A district court in Giessen in the state of Hesse said Marburg University must address "unanswered questions about the ethics of the animal tests" it was planning to run on 36 dwarf hamsters, the Hessischer Rundfunk public broadcaster reports.

The tests, part of a larger European Space Agency project, were to investigate what causes the "sleep-like state" of torpor in winter white dwarf hamsters - a "naturally occurring energy-saving mode that allows the animals to survive cold spells and lack of food," German radio elaborates. The aim was to investigate whether the phenomenon could also be used in space travel.But, once the tests were over, all the hamsters would have been killed. (6/24)

Masten Space Systems Gets NASA Funding for Lunar Research (Source: Parabolic Arc)
NASA has selected Mojave’s Masten Space Systems for two SBIR Phase I awards for work focused on helping the space agency return astronauts to the moon. The awards are worth up to $125,000 apiece. Under one contract, Masten will work with Penn State University on developing metal oxidation warming systems (MOWS) that will allow spacecraft to survive the cold lunar nights. MOWS generate heat by oxidizing metals such as lithium, aluminum, and magnesium. Under the other contract, Masten will work on developing reliable, high-fidelity models of the regolith thrown up as landing vehicles touch down on the moon. The models will be crucial for safe operations on the surface. (6/25)

Florida Rep.'s Amendment Adds $8M to FAA Space Office Budget (Source: Space Policy Online)
The FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) got a budget boost today during House consideration of its FY2020 funding bill. An amendment by Rep. Ross Spano (R-FL) was adopted adding $8 million to FAA/AST’s FY2020 budget, bringing the total to $33 million. It is just one step in the appropriations process, but may be an indicator of growing congressional interest in commercial space launch issues.

FAA/AST facilitates, regulates and promotes the commercial space launch and reentry business. The office’s leadership has been trying to get budget increases for the past several years to allow hiring more staff to process the ever-growing number of license and permit applications and provide other services to the burgeoning space launch sector. For FY2020, the Trump Administration requested $25,598,000 for FAA/AST. The House Appropriations Committee approved $24,949,000, $649,000 less than the request and the same amount that was appropriated for FY2019. (6/24)