August 23, 2019

NASA-JPL Names 'Rolling Stones Rock' on Mars (Source: NASA)
For decades, the music of The Rolling Stones has had a global reach here on Earth. Now, the band's influence extends all the way to Mars. The team behind NASA's InSight lander has named a Martian rock after the band: 'Rolling Stones Rock.' The Rolling Stones — Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood — were delighted with the news and commented, "What a wonderful way to celebrate the 'Stones No Filter' tour arriving in Pasadena. This is definitely a milestone in our long and eventful history. A huge thank you to everyone at NASA for making it happen." (8/23)

ULA Launches GPS Satellite on Final Delta-4 Medium Rocket (Source: Space News)
The Delta 4 Medium rocket retired with a perfect record after launching a GPS 3 satellite Thursday. The Delta 4 Medium-Plus (4,2) rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 9:06 a.m. Eastern and deployed the GPS 3 SV02 satellite nearly two hours later. The launch was the 29th and final mission for the "single-stick" version of the Delta 4, with United Launch Alliance shifting payloads that would have flown on the rocket to the Atlas 5 and its future Vulcan Centaur rocket. The spacecraft launched by the final Delta 4 Medium mission is the second GPS 3 satellite, with the third scheduled to launch early next year on a Falcon 9. (8/23)

Japan's Ispace Accelerates Lunar Lander Plans (Source: Space News)
A Japanese lunar lander company has updated its mission plans as it signs up new sponsors. Tokyo-based ispace said Thursday that it is dropping plans to do an initial orbital mission, which was to launch in 2020 as a secondary payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9. Instead, its first mission will be a lander in 2021, also flying as a Falcon 9 secondary payload. The company said "dramatic market acceleration and increasing demand for lunar exploration around the world" led it to skip the orbiter mission, which was solely a technology demonstration. The announcement comes after another commercial lunar lander company, Astrobotic, announced earlier this week it will fly its first lander in 2021 on the first flight of ULA's Vulcan Centaur. (8/23)

HP to Develop Supercomputer for Artemis (Source: TechCrunch)
Hewlett Packard Enterprise will work with NASA to develop a new supercomputer to support work to return astronauts to the moon. The Aitken supercomputer, located at the Ames Research Center, will have a speed of 3.69 petaflops, or 3,690 trillion floating point operations per second. NASA will use the supercomputer to simulate spacecraft landings on the moon. (8/23)

Asteroid Visited by Japanese Probe Shows Rock But No Dust (Source: New Scientist)
A small asteroid visited by a Japanese spacecraft appears to lack dust on its surface. Images of the surface of Ryugu, taken by a small lander deployed from Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft, shows the asteroid's rocky surface lacks a layer of regolith seen on other asteroids. Scientists speculate that the dust may have become charged by exposure to solar radiation and then removed by electrical forces, or that outgassing may have blown the dust away. (8/23)

Japanese Asteroid Samples Will Land on Earth in Australia (Source: Australian Space Agency)
Samples that Hayabusa2 collected at Ryugu will land in Australia. The Australian Space Agency said this week the government is in discussions with Japan's space agency, JAXA, to coordinate the arrival of the Hayabusa2 sample canister in December 2020, including licensing requirements for the spacecraft's landing. JAXA's Hayabusa spacecraft, which returned samples from another asteroid, Itokawa, landed in Australia in 2010. (8/23)

Space Coast Faces Housing Crisis, Thanks In-Part to Aerospace Job Growth (Source: Florida Today)
Brevard's low-income families are struggling to keep up with rising rents and some are losing their place to live. That's a side effect of our prosperity as we welcome high-income residents who are driving up prices. This shouldn't come as a surprise. Nonprofits and advocates for the homeless have been sounding the alarm for years, with stories of families living out of their cars or couch surfing after suddenly being displaced by skyrocketing rents. (8/23)

Why Build Big Rockets at All? It’s Time for Orbital Refueling (Source: Universe Today)
On Tuesday, July 30th, NASA announced 19 different partnerships with 13 different companies to use their expertise to help them develop space technologies, from advanced communications systems to new methods of entry, descent and landing. Instead of contracting out specific projects, NASA will make its employees, facilities, hardware and software available to these companies, for free.

One of the most notable of these partnerships will be with SpaceX and NASA’s Glenn and Marshall Centers to help advance the technology of transferring propellant in orbit. In other words, NASA is going to help SpaceX figure out how to refuel a spacecraft while it’s in space. And if they can figure this out, it could completely change the way missions are launched and flown. (8/16)

Florida Grants Awarded for Military Support in Key Communities (Source: EOG)
Florida has awarded $725,000 in grants through the Florida Defense Support Task Force (FDSTF) Grant Program to six projects to protect military installations across the state. Awards were given to the Clay County Development Authority, Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast and the Military Child Education Coalition in Duval, Hillsborough, and Okaloosa Counties. Florida’s military and defense industry contributes more than $84.9 billion in economic impact and supports more than 801,747 jobs, which is the second largest economic sector in the state.

On the Space Coast,$125,000 was awarded to the Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast, the home of the 45th Space Wing which includes 27 mission partners plus tenants at Patrick Air Force Base (PAFB) and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS). The base is home to approximately 13,000 military, Department of Defense civilian and defense contractor personnel. PAFB and CCAFS serve a unique role as it serves to enhance space operations capability for the United States.

This grant supports mission growth by identifying opportunities and resources by producing a detailed assessment of the conditions of critical infrastructure supporting Eastern Range space operations. “This grant is both an investment in our nation’s military assets and Brevard County’s local community,” said Lynda Weatherman, President and CEO of the Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast. “We are pleased the FDSTF members recognize the value of our military installations and the significance of this project.” (8/23)

If NASA Wants to Land the 1st Woman on the Moon, Her Spacesuit Better Fit (Source: Space.com)
As NASA aims to land the first woman on the moon, the agency will have to consider how prepared it may be for supporting a more diverse astronaut crew. The National Space Council (NSC) convened for the sixth time this morning (Aug. 20). In a conversation led by Saralyn Mark, founder and president of iGIANT and SolaMed Solutions LLC, the panel addressed how NASA might handle the increasing inclusion of women and overall diversity in future crewed flights.

"It's more than spacesuits not fitting female astronauts," Mark said, referencing the canceled would-be all-female spacewalk from earlier this year. "We see the impact from the shoes and clothing we wear, the electronic devices we use, the cars we drive in and even the medications we take. Modifying appearances, or the 'pink it, shrink it' approach for gendered innovation will never work in any environment including space, battlefields, hot zones and in our homes."

Previously, Mark has spoken about diversifying astronaut crews with regard to missions to Mars. She has said, which she referenced during the NSC meeting, that while more diverse crews may need to put in more effort initially to understand each other's differences, in the long run, groups diverse in gender, race, ethnicity, culture and more operate better. With a wider range of backgrounds, diverse groups have a larger frame of reference that allows them to develop solutions to problems from different angles. (8/21)

How NASA is Becoming More Business Friendly (Source: Phys.org)
A new case study demonstrates the steps being taken by NASA to make it easier for small businesses and entrepreneurs to understand its needs and do business with it. The detailed case study provides insights on the design, results, and lessons learned from these efforts. It describes the three core initiatives of the effort to make NASA more open to collaboration with small businesses.

These included developing an annual Request for Information (RFI), which offered an opportunity for businesses to provide input and submit ideas. A second initiative was the establishment of Industry Day, an annual small business-NASA event that provided a forum in which small business customers and NASA subject matter experts could convene, to increase the likelihood for commercialization of innovations and successful uptake of new technologies by NASA. Lastly, NASA prioritized the modernization of its Electronic Handbook, an IT system used to manage the solicitation of proposals and awards process. (8/19)

Here Come the Space Tugs, Ready to Tidy Up Earth's Orbits (Source: WIRED)
Although rideshares on big rockets don't necessarily set the pocketbook on fire, they also don’t always send your satellite where you want it to go. After all, they have tens or dozens of other customers to please. Mikhail Kokorich, founder of a space company called Momentus, likens it to being told, "You can fly from San Francisco to Atlanta, but you cannot fly to Charlotte.”

So Kokorich, along with others, is trying to engineer connecting flights, using vehicles called space tugs. These vehicles can, among other things, ferry satellites from the busy hub where they got dropped off to the less-popular orbits they want to occupy. That way, they can ride whatever cheap rocket to whatever generic spot and then just wave goodbye when the space tug arrives.

The various tugs on the drawing boards and in the engineering labs of Earth could—in addition to acting as puddle-jumpers—also cut down on space junk, by tugging satellites out of orbit, and keep useful satellites up longer, by boosting them to higher orbits. But because they don't quite exist yet, no one is sure how much demand there is for them. Momentus will be one of the first to find out: The company announced today that its tug will launch aboard SpaceX’s first SmallSat Rideshare mission, sending a few customers to the Charlottes of space. (8/22)

Embry-Riddle Welcomes Largest Incoming Classes in University History (Source: ERAU)
As classes commence on Monday, Aug. 26, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s residential campuses in Arizona and Florida will welcome their largest incoming classes and highest total enrollment numbers in university history. For the sixth year in a row, the Daytona Beach Campus will welcome its largest freshmen class, of more than 1,950 students, boosting total enrollment to about 7,000 Eagles.

This class represents an increase of nearly 300 students, or 18 percent, from the campus’s 2018 class, and boasts the highest academic profile in campus history, as well (average GPA of 3.79 and average SAT of 1236). Students at the Daytona Beach Campus also come from all 50 states and 110 different countries. Additionally, many degree programs will be at record levels this fall, particularly the flight program and Aerospace Engineering. (8/23)

Quantum Weirdness Isn't Real – We've Just Got Space and Time All Wrong (Source: New Scientist)
Quantum mechanics is often called a theory of the very small. In reality, it explains phenomena on a vast range of scales – from elementary particles and their interactions, through atoms and molecules, all the way to neutron stars and the supernovae that spawn them. So far, essentially all its predictions have been confirmed by experiments. It is the most successful theory of material reality we have ever had. So why have so many physicists, from Albert Einstein onwards, taken the view that quantum theory is wrong?

The reasons lie in its mysterious nature, in the phenomena it doesn’t explain and the answers it doesn’t give. That is reason enough to seek what might lie beyond it. I believe we already have the outline of what this deeper answer looks like. We are only at the start of this work, but by digging down into the fundamental principles that underlie reality, and weeding out what is right and what is wrong about our current ideas, we can see glimpses of a truly unifying picture of physics. It comes at a price: to go beyond quantum, we must totally upend long-held ideas of how the universe hangs together. (8/22)

China's Satellite Tests Pulsar Navigation for Future Deep Space Exploration (Source: Space Daily)
Chinese scientists have conducted experiments on pulsar navigation with an X-ray space telescope, and the technology could be used in future deep space exploration and interplanetary or interstellar travel. The experiments were conducted on the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT), dubbed Insight, which was sent into space on June 15, 2017, to observe black holes, pulsars and gamma-ray bursts, by scientists from the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The positioning accuracy in the experiments reached 10 km, further verifying the feasibility of autonomous navigation of spacecraft by using pulsars, which lays a foundation for future practical application in deep space exploration, said scientists. Insight carries several detectors including a high energy X-ray telescope (HE), a medium energy X-ray telescope (ME) and a low energy X-ray telescope (LE). (8/23)