June 28, 2019

FCC Battles Meteorologists Again Over Plan to Help Wireless Industry (Source: Ars Technica)
Meteorologists and other experts are urging the Federal Communications Commission to drop a spectrum-sharing plan that they say could interfere with transmissions of weather-satellite imagery. The dispute is over the 1675-1680MHz frequencies and is separate from the other FCC/weather controversy we've been covering, which involves the 24GHz band and has pitted the FCC against NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the US Navy.

The American Geophysical Union (AGU), American Meteorological Society (AMS), and National Weather Association (NWA) told the FCC in a filing last week that its plan for 1675-1680MHz should be scrapped because of the "likelihood of interference with the reception of weather satellite imagery and relayed environmental data to receive-only antennas that members of America's weather, water, and climate enterprise use."

The 1675-1680MHz band is used today by NOAA for government-owned satellites that transmit data to antennas on the ground, but the Ajit Pai-led FCC has proposed rules that would force federal government users to share the spectrum with wireless broadband services. The FCC is targeting the 1675-1680MHz band in part because it is adjacent to 1670-1675MHz, which is already allocated for wireless services. (6/26)

Air Force Stands Firm on Launch Procurement Plan (Source: Space News)
The Air Force says it remains opposed to changes in its latest launch procurement. The House Armed Services Committee's version of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act directs the Air Force to create more opportunities for new entrants to compete in the Phase 2 Launch Service Procurement beyond the two companies the Air Force plans to select. In an interview, an Air Force official insisted that having more than two launch contractors in Phase 2 puts missions at risk because of the time and cost of integrating new providers.

The Air Force is also opposed to a provision in the bill that would give SpaceX $500 million for facility development if selected in Phase 2 because it believes that, as written, it could also make other companies eligible for similar funding. (6/27)

The Best People - With Pentagon Shakeups Could Griffin Be Next? (Source: Breaking Defense)
A series of departures in the Pentagon have led some to wonder if Mike Griffin is in danger of also losing his job. Griffin, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, had disputes with both Fred Kennedy, his hand-picked choice to lead the new Space Development Agency, and Chris Shank, head of the Strategic Capabilities Office; both those officials resigned. One Pentagon source claimed "rumors are flying" Griffin could step down, or be asked to resign, because of those departures and other concerns about his management. (6/27)

GapSat Plans Small Satellite for Niche Customers (Source: Space News)
GapSat hopes to fill a gap in the satellite communications market with a small GEO satellite. The company's GapSat-1 spacecraft will weigh just 250 kilograms and is scheduled for launch in 2020. The company will offer the satellite to operators who need some extra capacity but don't want to buy or lease an entire large satellite. GapSat CEO Gregg Daffner said at a conference this week the company plans to have more than one satellite, but wants to keep the mass of any additional satellites below about 1,000 kilograms. (6/27)

PSN Plans Large Satellite for Expanded Fleet (Source: Space News)
An Indonesian satellite operator is planning to add a very large, powerful communications satellite to its fleet. Pasifik Satelit Nusantara (PSN) plans to continue its ongoing fleet expansion with a new satellite carrying 300 gigabits per second of capacity by 2023. PSN wants to have significantly more capacity on it than any of its previous satellites. PSN launched a 12 Gbps communications satellite from Maxar Technologies in February aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and one with 10 Gbps of capacity is under construction by China Great Wall Industry Corp. for a launch in April 2020. (6/27)

Japan Readies for Second Asteroid Landing (Source: NHK)
Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft will attempt a second landing on the asteroid Ryugu next month. The Japanese space agency JAXA announced that the spacecraft will attempt a landing July 11 in a crater that the spacecraft created with an impactor in April. Hayabusa2 will collect samples excavated by that impact during the touch-and-go landing for later return to Earth, joining samples collected elsewhere on the asteroid earlier this year. Project officials said the scientific benefits the new samples would provide outweighed the risks something could go wrong during the landing attempt. (6/27)

Beware Space Memorabilia Fakes (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Space memorabilia experts say they're seeing a surge of forgeries in the run-up to the Apollo 11 50th anniversary. One person said the number of fake items he's seen on marketplaces like eBay is double the usual level. Those who are trying to sell authentic items are running into a related problem: people trying to buy them with fake wire transfers. (6/27)

Does the World Need a 3D-Printed Rocket? (Source: MIT Technology Review)
The once pristine white floors featured in Relativity Space’s PR photos are now scuffed and coated with the residue of a typical machine shop. Inside its warehouse on the outskirts of Los Angeles, three robot arms hang imposingly next to a container filled with a coil of metal wire. The container’s lid has a jagged hole as if someone punched through it on a bad day; duct tape has been slapped on to cover the sharp edges. This is a machine that’s been pushed to its limits, in service of a lofty goal. Led by its founders, Tim Ellis and Jordan Noone, Relativity is attempting to create 95% of its rocket, Terran 1, using 3D printing, in just 60 days.

You read that right: the plan is to go from raw material to a launch-ready rocket in two months. If it sounds audacious, that’s because it is. Hugely. 3D printing is having a moment in the spaceflight industry—everyone from SpaceX to Blue Origin to lesser-known startups and old-guard rocket shops are tinkering with the technology, and some have gone so far as to print their own engines from scratch. But even engineers on the cutting edge of 3D-printed rocketry don’t know what to make of Ellis and Noone’s upstart firm. And more than one think they’re just crazy. Click here. (6/27)

The World’s Smallest Big Rocket Company (Source: MIT Technology Review)
Dave Masten stared at his computer monitor over a jumble of screwdrivers, tea packets, and dog-eared physics textbooks that cluttered his desk. “Anybody want to watch this?” he called out to no reply. It was about noon on Thursday, April 11. He scanned his office, a scrubby quadruple--wide trailer at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Southern California’s high desert, but found he was alone.

That isn’t uncommon. The entire team at Masten Space Systems, the rocket company that Masten founded in 2004, numbers 15 people. The seven based in Mojave—mostly young men who wear T-shirts emblazoned with sayings like “I need my space”—spend some time at their desks, working through equations or crafting proposals for clients like NASA. But they are more often found in the converted military garage across the dusty parking lot, tinkering with rocketry. Click here. (6/26)

Why Falcon Heavy’s Core Booster Missed its Landing (Source: BGR)
Musk explained that the booster was likely damaged early in its descent back to Earth, and that this damage ultimately caused a failure and prevented the booster from being able to control itself enough to make a safe landing. "High entry force & heat breached engine bay & center engine TVC failed," Musk tweeted.

If the booster was indeed damaged as it began to head back towards Earth, it’s actually rather impressive that it managed to make it as close to the drone ship as it did. At one point it appeared that it might come down perfectly, only to drift off to the side at the very last moment. SpaceX has now failed to successfully recover the core booster in all three of its Falcon Heavy launches. It’s not the end of the world, but securing that component could save the company a lot of cash in the long run and they’d like to be able to pull off the landing consistently. (6/26)

Deeper Search For Moon Ice Draws Support (Source: Aviation Week)
While NASA embarks on an accelerated return to the Moon’s surface in 2024, perspective partners hope to encourage a deeper search and perhaps even prospect for ice on the lunar surface. The ice could serve as a potential resource for human life support needs, as well as for liquid oxygen and hydrogen rocket propellants. If present in quantities hinted at by prior missions dating back to the mid-1990s, the resource could be extracted using technologies largely already matured by today's mining industries, including some that have been improved upon with NASA support. (6/24)

NASA, Homeland Security Receive D- Grades on IT Issues (Source: The Hill)
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and NASA were both awarded D- grades on their information technology management efforts in a biannual scorecard of federal agencies. The House Oversight government operations subcommittee released version 8.0 of the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) scorecard in a hearing on Wednesday.

The scorecard gave IT scores to two dozen agencies, as well as individual scores for each agency in areas such as cybersecurity, the modernization of technology and transparency and risk management. Most agencies appeared to struggle most in cybersecurity, with only the National Science Foundation receiving an A in that category. (6/26)