August 5, 2019

SpaceX Eyes Florida for Launch Site for Mars Rocket (Source: Reuters)
SpaceX is expanding its facilities in Florida to make room for the space company’s forthcoming super heavy-lift launch vehicle dubbed Starship, according to a draft of the plans seen by Reuters on Friday. The Starship rocket is expected to launch up to 24 times a year from SpaceX’s current flagship launchpad 39A, the draft of the company’s environmental assessment said. SpaceX did not specify in the report when it would reach that cadence, but Musk said in September 2018 he wanted to be conducting orbital flights with Starship in two to three years.

“They’re moving very fast,” said Dale Ketcham, vice president of government relations at Space Florida, the state’s commercial space development agency. “This is actually getting closer to what Elon got into this business for to begin with. This is fundamental infrastructure to get to Mars, the early stages of it.” SpaceX has also suffered a number of program delays and mishaps over the years on its various space endeavors. In April, one of the company’s Crew Dragon capsules exploded on a test stand, raising fresh scheduling doubts over a flagship NASA astronaut taxi program. (8/2)

Astronomers are Probing Faraway Planets with Greater Sophistication (Source: The Economist)
The proximity of toi-270 to Earth means that it is within range of instruments such as the Hubble Space Telescope, making detailed follow-up studies possible. These will improve estimates of the planets’ sizes and better calculate their masses—information that will show what they are made of. toi-270 is thus, in the words of Maximilian Günther, an astronomer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mit), an “exceptional laboratory” that will help answer some of the biggest questions in the rapidly growing science of exoplanetology.

As astronomers have catalogued planets found by tess and other instruments, they have spotted both patterns and puzzles. There are, for instance, lots of super-Earths and lots of mini-Neptunes. But there is a gap between them. Few planets are known that have between one-and-a-half times and twice the diameter of Earth.

This so-called “Fulton gap”—named after Benjamin Fulton, a phd student who noticed it in 2017—could have several explanations. Possibly, planets on either side of the gap are different sorts of object. Super-Earths might be born from dust and rocks, and be kept small by a lack of suitable material from which to grow, while mini-Neptunes, constructed of commoner materials such as ice, can grow much larger. (8/3)

Bezos Touts a Full-Power Firing of Blue Origin’s Next-Generation BE-4 Rocket Engine (Source: GeekWire)
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos is showing off a picture of his Blue Origin space venture’s BE-4 rocket engine going full blast during a hot-fire test in Texas. “BE-4 continues to rack up time on the test stand,” Bezos said in an Instagram post accompanied by a picture of today’s full-power engine test. Getting the BE-4 into operation is crucial to Blue Origin’s space ambitions.

The rocket engine, which runs on liquefied natural gas and packs 550,000 pounds of thrust at liftoff, is destined for use on Blue Origin’s orbital-class New Glenn rocket. It’s also supposed to power United Launch Alliance’s next-generation, semi-reusable Vulcan rocket. Blue Origin has been testing BE-4 engine components at its West Texas proving ground for more than two years, and the course has not always run smooth. In May 2017, for instance, Bezos acknowledged that a test of the engine’s powerpack went awry, resulting in the loss of hardware.

The fact that he’s sharing a picture of the full-power firing on a summery Friday night suggests that the test program is on track. But it also suggests there are more test firings to go. When the BE-4 gets an honest-to-goodness thumbs-up, that’ll clear the way for engine production to shift from Blue Origin’s headquarters in Kent, Wash., to a 200,000-square-foot factory that’s currently under construction in Huntsville, Ala. That, in turn, will set the stage for New Glenn rocket assembly to move ahead at Blue Origin’s 750,000-square-foot facility in Florida. (8/2)

Is This the Chinese SpaceX? (Source: Yahoo Finance)
At long last, China has its "SpaceX" -- a privately operated Chinese space company with a proven capability to put satellites in orbit. Last week, Beijing Interstellar Glory Space Technology Ltd. (mercifully abbreviated "iSpace") launched its Hyperbola-1 rocket from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert, putting an "amateur radio satellite" and three smaller payloads into Low Earth Orbit. Hyperbola is a 68-foot-tall rocket comprising thee solid rocket stages capped with a liquid-fueled fourth stage. It is not reusable, although iSpace is said to be working on reusable technology as well.

iSpace is one of just a number of small space start-ups that have sprung up in the wake of China's landmark 2014 policy to "encourage private capital's participation in China's construction of civilian space infrastructure." iSpace backers include Beijing-based venture capital firms CDH Investments and Matrix Partners China, as well as tech giant Baidu. Last week's launch was further underwritten by Chinese car company Chang'an Automobile Co, which paid for the mission in exchange for the right to name the launch vehicle. (8/3)

Brazil's Space Chief Fired For Challenging President Over Amazon Deforestation (Japan Times)
The head of Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research said on Friday he would be sacked following a row with President Jair Bolsonaro over deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. Ricardo Galvao had accused far-right Bolsonaro of “cowardice” for publicly questioning satellite data produced by the institute, known by its initials INPE, that showed Amazon rainforest deforestation had increased 88 percent year-on-year in June.

“My words about the president have caused annoyance, so I’m going to be fired,” said Galvao. Two weeks ago, Bolsonaro had told reporters: “With all the devastation that you are accusing us of doing … the Amazon region would already have been extinguished.” The president has previously floated the idea of opening up protected rainforest areas to agriculture, a highly controversial move given the existing level of deforestation.

In his row with Galvao, Bolsonaro suggested the INPE president is “in the service of some NGOs.” A day later, Galvao hit back, blasting Bolsonaro for making “undue accusations against people of the highest level of Brazilian science” and comparing the president’s suspicions to “a joke by a 14-year-old boy.” Bolsonaro upped the ante on Thursday, claiming the INPE figures “don’t correspond to the truth” and were damaging to the institute and the country. (8/3)

6 Asteroids are Headed for Earth This Month (Source: NJ.com)
Scientists at NASA are tracking six asteroids that will be heading in the direction of our planet during the next few weeks, and one of them is larger than the Empire State Building. But, first things first. Take a deep breath. Experts are assuring us there’s no reason to panic. Yes, an asteroid that’s almost 1,900 feet in diameter and zipping at a speed of 10,000 mph is capable of causing massive destruction if it were to make a direct hit on any city on Earth.

However, it will be tracking about 5 million miles away from our planet when it flies past us on Aug. 10. That is a safe distance, although it still warrants monitoring by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office because it is considered a “near-Earth object,” CNN said. To help put the distance into perspective, the moon is about 238,855 miles away from Earth and the sun is about 93 million miles away. (8/4)

When a Mega-Tsunami Drowned Mars, This Spot May Have Been Ground Zero (Source: New York Times)
A new study, published last month in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, suggests that a 75-mile-wide impact scar in the Martian northern lowlands is to the red planet what the Chicxulub crater is to Earth: the mark of a meteor that generated a mega-tsunami when the planet was relatively young. If accurate, the finding adds evidence to the hypothesis that Mars once had an ocean, and would have implications for our search for life there.

Whether Mars was ever warm and wet enough to retain a long-lived liquid water ocean has long been debated by planetary scientists. Several climate models have indicated that it was probably too cold. But other researchers point to ancient river deltas and other geological evidence of a northern ocean some 3.7 billion years ago.

Additional evidence includes hints of mangled, buried coastlines visible from orbit; these suggest that mega-tsunamis with skyscraper-high waves inundated parts of Mars’s northern shores around three billion years ago. On a world believed to have lacked Earthlike plate tectonics, any tsunamis were probably triggered by a meteor slamming into a huge body of water. (8/4)

India Center to Focus on Space Situational Awareness (Source: IANS)
India is building a new center to handle space situational awareness activities. ISRO has established a Directorate of Space Situational Awareness and Management, which will be housed in a center in Bengaluru whose construction formally started Friday. The center will monitor the country's operational satellites to monitor and threats posed to them by other satellites and debris. (8/5)

Russia Denies Permission for OneWeb Operations (Source: BBC)
Russian regulators have denied OneWeb permission to operate in the country. The country's State Commission for Radio Frequencies denied the company permission to provide services using the broadband constellation the company plans to launch over the next two years, primarily using Soyuz rockets. The report didn't state a specific reason for the denial, but some Russian agencies have previously opposed giving OneWeb access, including claims the satellites could be used for espionage. (8/5)

Army Looks at LEO Satellites with SDA (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Army is working with the new Space Development Agency on how the service can use proposed LEO satellite systems. The Army has done its own experiments with LEO satellites, including using the Kestral Eye spacecraft to prove imagery to deployed forces. The question officials are now pondering is how to take the concept further and explore broader use of low-cost satellites for tactical applications, something the Army started discussions about with the SDA earlier this year. Key for the Army is to be able to access satellite networks without having to replace billions of dollars worth of existing user equipment like antennas and receivers. (8/5)

Senate Budget Chairman Troubled by NASA Cost Overruns, Delays (Source: Space News)
The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee said he's "troubled" by cost and schedule problems with NASA programs. In a letter last week to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) said delays and cost overruns "put at risk vital NASA missions and taxpayer dollars." He singled out the James Webb Space Telescope and Space Launch System as programs with serious issues. Bridenstine responded to Enzi over the weekend, assuring the senator he is "working to change this culture" of cost and schedule problems, and agreeing to provide a detailed response to Enzi's questions later this month. (8/5)