June 7, 2019

Trump Tweet Throws Space Policy Into Chaos (Source: Space News)
President Donald Trump disrupted months of civil space policy development in a single tweet June 7, suggesting that NASA should not return humans 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 wrote. “They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!”

Trump’s tweet came shortly after a segment on the television network Fox Business where Jeff DeWit, NASA’s chief financial officer, was interviewed by host Neil Cavuto shortly after the agency rolled out its low Earth orbit commercialization plans. That included a discussion of the policy, announced by Vice President Mike Pence in March, to land humans on the moon within five years. “I thought we would advance beyond that,” Cavuto says. “I thought either we would target Mars or… Why this? Why now?” (6/7)

RDIF and Middle East Partners Invest in Upgrading Baikonur Cosmodrome (Source: GS Launch Services)
The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), a Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, in partnership with Middle East investors, GK Launch Services company and with the support of Roscosmos State Corporation, announces an investment of $87 million in upgrading the infrastructure of the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The relevant documents have been signed today at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

The project intends to upgrade Launch Site 1 (Gagarin’s Start) of the Cosmodrome with its following operation for Soyuz-2 rocket launches. The investments of RDIF and partners will allow renovating of the ground infrastructure of the largest spaceport in the world, increasing the competitiveness of the Russian space industry in the global launch services market, and commercializing the best domestic space technologies. (6/6)

STPI Questions $1 Trillion Space Economy Claims (Source: Space Policy Online)
A new analysis by the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI) calls into question claims about the size of the “space economy” today and projections for the future. Trump Administration officials routinely cite forecasts of a “trillion dollar space economy” that are supported by reports from well known financial institutions, but STPI concludes they involve methodological mistakes or misunderstandings about the space business that result in overstating the value of commercial space activities.

The STPI analysis by Bhavya Lal, Keith Crane and Evan Linck was presented to a Department of Commerce (DOC) advisory committee yesterday.  That committee provides advice on commercial remote sensing regulation, the segment of the commercial space industry regulated by DOC today.

The Trump Administration plans to greatly expand DOC’s role in commercial space, however, putting it in charge of regulating all space activities not already under the oversight of the Department of Transportation (commercial launch and reentry services) or the Federal Communications Commission (spectrum). It would also become the interface between the Air Force and non-military satellite operators for space situational awareness and space traffic management. (6/5)

Virgin Orbit Sues OneWeb Over Canceled Launch Contract (Source: Space News)
Virgin Orbit has filed suit against OneWeb over failing to pay a termination fee for canceled launch contracts. According to a complaint Virgin Orbit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, OneWeb quietly canceled 35 of a planned 39 launches last June, triggering a $70 million termination fee. Virgin Orbit says OneWeb still owes $46.32 million. According to the complaint, OneWeb maintains that it doesn't owe Virgin Orbit any money for canceling 35 launches, but the company declined to comment on the suit. (6/7)

European Groups Fund IOT Constellation Effort (Source: Space News)
Three European companies have raised more than $11 million to start development of an Internet of Things constellation. Lithuanian cubesat builder NanoAvionics, Norwegian ground station operator KSAT and Belgian satellite hardware specialist Antwerp Space announced the funding Thursday, which came from the European Commission, ESA and private investors. The funds will go toward a constellation of 20-70 satellites for connecting sensors and other Internet of Things devices, with the system operated by a service provider yet to be identified. (6/7)

Bezos: Constellation "Good Business" for Amazon (Source: Bloomberg)
Jeff Bezos says that developing a satellite constellation will be a "very good business" for Amazon. Speaking at the company's re: MARS conference Thursday, Bezos said the Amazon has the billions of dollars needed for Project Kuiper, a broadband constellation of more than 3,200 satellites. Bezos said the system can serve the "underbandwidthed" in rural and other remote areas. The project's size is important to the company's future, he argued, since Amazon is large enough now that is needs to be doing large-scale projects that "can actually move the needle" of future growth. (6/6)

Aerospace Corp. Demonstrates Multi-Spectral Nighttime Imagery with Cubesat (Source: Space News)
The Aerospace Corporation has demonstrated it can do nighttime imagery of the Earth with a cubesat. The CubeSat Multispectral Observing System (CUMULOS) launched in 2017, taking up less than a third of the 3U Integrated Solar Array and Reflectarray Antenna cubesat mission. CUMULOS features visible, shortwave infrared and thermal infrared cameras with a resolution of 130 meters. CUMULOS has shown promise for studying major metropolitan areas, wildfire, gas flares, volcanic eruptions and weather. (6/7)

Spire to Launch Eight More Constellation Satellites on Soyuz (Source: Space News)
Spire will launch eight satellites on a Soyuz in July. The satellites will be among the 35 secondary payloads on the Soyuz launch of a weather satellite from the Vostochny Cosmodrome arranged by German launch services provider Exolaunch. Spire launched its 100th satellite in April to supply weather data in addition to tracking ships and aircraft. (6/7)

Hayabusa Readies Another Asteroid Touch-And-Go (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft is preparing for another possible touch-and-go sampling attempt of the asteroid Ryugu. The spacecraft approached within 10 meters of the asteroid last week and successfully dropped a target marker near where it deployed an explosive impactor in April, creating a small crater. That marker would guide the spacecraft on a later approach where it would come down to the surface to collect material for later return to Earth. Mission managers have yet to approve that sampling attempt, though, since it does pose some risk to the spacecraft, which collected samples from elsewhere on the asteroid earlier this year. (6/7)

What Are the Benefits of Commercial Space? (Source: C4ISRnet)
The commercial sector continues to grow its presence in space, and defense organizations are taking a hard look at how to take advantage of private sector capabilities and where they can cede ground to contractors. “Overall, the last 10 years, what I would argue is commercial has taken over in terms of investment, in terms of innovation,” said SES's Pete Hoene.

“Space started out as a domain for nation-states, and for security considerations we look at it from a nation-state perspective," said Victoria Samson, Washington office director of the Secure World Foundation. “But who is launching all these new constellations and satellites? It’s not governments; it’s the commercial sector. Space is becoming and will become a commercial domain almost entirely, and national security will be a very small part of that in terms of the number of satellites.”

Faced with the inevitability of space as a primarily commercial domain, the onus is on the government to discover where for-profit enterprises can compliment government missions and where government should contract with industry to provide capacity. The National Reconnaissance Office took a stab at this question earlier this week when it announced that it was taking steps toward purchasing more commercial imagery through three study contracts with commercial companies. (6/6)

NASA Picks Companies for Planning (Source: NASA)
NASA has selected four companies to provide real property master planning (RPMP) for the agency, as needed for all 10 NASA centers. The companies are: HB&A – The Schreifer Group Joint Venture of Colorado Springs, Colo.; The Urban Collaborative of Eugene, Oregon; Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. of Atlanta; and Michael Baker International Inc. of Moon Township, Pa. The maximum potential value of this contract will not exceed $24 million for work that starts June 15, 2019, and extends for five years, with three one-year options.

Work under the contract will be in the form of any of the following RPMP products: center vision plan, area development plans, sustainability component plans, center design guide, center development plan, master plan digest, master plan website, area development execution plans, center special study or agency special study. (6/6)

NASA Opens ISS for Business, Including Private Astronaut Missions with SpaceX and Boeing (Source: CNBC)
NASA is opening the International Space Station (ISS) for more business, laying out its plan to do so at the Nasdaq stock exchange on Friday. Companies will be allowed to bid for new activities on the ISS, as NASA unveiled a new directive to “enable commercial manufacturing and production and allow both NASA and private astronauts to conduct new commercial activities aboard the orbiting laboratory,” the agency said in a press release.

NASA is also opening up the ISS for “private astronaut missions of up to 30 days,” it said, “with the first mission as early as 2020.” As Boeing and SpaceX are developing capsules to carry humans to the ISS, the agency said the two companies will handle these private tourists and any services related to them. NASA will start with two private astronaut flights a year, with each trip lasting 30 days maximum each. Each trip will likely cost over $50 million, with NASA getting $35,000 for each night a private astronaut spends on the International Space Station. (6/7)