August 6, 2019

Upcoming Atlas 5 Mission Will Launch Air Force Cubesat Before it Releases Main Payload (Source: Space News)
A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket scheduled to launch a $1.1 billion military communications satellite on Thursday will carry an experimental cubesat as a rideshare payload on the back of the Centaur, the Atlas’ upper stage. The main payload is the fifth Lockheed Martin-built Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite, or AEHF-5. For this mission, the Air Force integrated a 12U cubesat on the Centaur’s aft bulkhead carrier. The rideshare payload will be separating before the primary payload separates, said Col. Shane Clark, AEHF-5 mission director at the Air Force Space and Missile Systems’ Center Launch Enterprise Systems Directorate. (8/6)

Eastern Range Ready for Back-to-Back Launches (Source: Space News)
SpaceX and ULA launches back to back If all goes as planned, the AEHF-5 launch would come less than two days after the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch of the Israeli communications satellite Amos-17 from Space Launch Complex 40. Brig. Gen. Doug Schiess, commander of the 45th Space Wing and director of the Eastern Range, told reporters on Monday that the wing is prepared to support two big launches on short turnaround. AEHF-5 is the ninth launch at the Cape this year. Schiess’ goal is to “make sure that we have the capacity to launch over 48 rockets at Cape Canaveral every year.” Because these two missions are so close, if SpaceX doesn’t launch Tuesday night as scheduled, it will not get a backup opportunity the next day. (8/6)

NG-11 Cygnus Released to Begin Multi-Month Post-ISS Mission (Source: SpaceFlight Insider)
Northrop Grumman’s NG-11 Cygnus departed the International Space Station following its 3.5-month stay aboard the orbiting laboratory, beginning a multi-month free-flying secondary mission. Using the robotic Canadarm2, the NG-11 Cygnus was unberthed Aug 6, 2019, from the Earth-facing port of the Unity module and positioned about 10 meters below the Destiny laboratory module. It was the fourth visiting vehicle coming or going in the last 10 days after the arrivals of CRS-18 Dragon and Progress MS-12 on July 27 and 31, and the departure of Progress MS-11 on July 29. (8/6)

Spaceflight Purchases First Commercial Flight of New Indian Small Launcher (Source: Space News)
Spaceflight announced Aug. 6 that it will purchase the first commercial launch a new Indian vehicle scheduled to make its debut later this year. Spaceflight said it will launch payloads for an undisclosed U.S. satellite constellation customer on a flight of the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV), a derivative of the existing, larger Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). The launch is scheduled for later this year and will be the second for the SSLV after a demonstration launch expected no earlier than September.

While the companies didn’t announce the customer for the mission, a July 25 filing with the Federal Communications Commission by Earth imaging company BlackSky Global sought a license for four of its satellites it said would launch on the SSLV in November 2019. The applications said the satellites would be deployed into two orbital planes, consistent with Spaceflight’s announcement. Spaceflight, which provides rideshare services on a wide range of launch vehicles, believes the SSLV will be an ideal fit for many of its customers based on the vehicle’s performance and its cost. (8/6)

LeoLabs Unveils Commercial Satellite Tracking Service for Small Satellites (Source: Space News)
LeoLabs, a space situational awareness company, unveiled a small satellite tracking service called LeoTrack. LeoTrack, which LeoLabs sells through web-based subscriptions, provides small satellite and cubesat operators with a range of services and information including spacecraft tracking, orbital state vectors, predictive radar availability, scheduled passes and visualization tools.

One thing that makes the service unique is its precision, Mike Nicolls, Leolabs co-founder and chief technology officer, told SpaceNews. LeoTrack can pinpoint the location of satellites to within something “on the order of a hundred meters,” and provide customers with “validated solutions and validated uncertainties on all of our objects we track,” he added. (8/6)

How Federal Agencies are Increasingly Using the Space Station (Source: Politico)
More federal agencies are lining up to conduct experiments on the International Space Station, according to a top official for the orbiting habitat's laboratory, signaling the government is likely to play a major role even after NASA funding is set to dry up and the station seeks private support. The National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and Department of Defense are already conducting experiments ranging from space medicine to treating post-traumatic stress disorder, says Michael Roberts, the deputy chief scientist for the International Space Station’s national laboratory.

“There has also always been a steady but low-level interest from agencies in addition to NASA who have sought to use the space environment,” said Roberts, who previously worked on NASA’s Advanced Life Support program. “We’re seeing that increase quite a bit," he added, citing "new opportunities for investment by other federal agencies." NASA funding for the International Space Station is set to end in 2024, with the hope that private companies will keep the habitat afloat. Some in Congress, however, are trying to extend federal funding for the station through 2030. (8/2)

NASA Starts Buying Long Lead Parts for Third Orion ESM, SLS Core Stage (Source: Discover)
NASA will need another set of Orion and Space Launch System (SLS) vehicle hardware for its Artemis Program goal of returning Americans to the surface of the Moon by the end of 2024, but the contracts to buy all the parts and put them together aren’t completely in place. The civilian space agency is now moving to start building a new set of the critical path “long lead” items for the elements that took the longest to build for the first joint Orion/SLS mission now expected to fly in 2021.

Development and production of the initial flight units of the SLS Core Stage and the Orion European Service Module (ESM) were for a long time the pacing items in the schedule for their first flight together, now called Artemis 1. NASA recently started authorizing orders for the long lead parts for a third Core Stage and ESM, with a joint NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) agreement announced to start building a third ESM for Orion. (8/5)

SpaceX Clips Dragon's Wings After Investigation (Source: Hackaday)
When the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft reached orbit for the first time in 2010, it was a historic achievement. But to qualify for NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, the capsule also needed to demonstrate that it could return safely to Earth. Its predecessor, the Space Shuttle, had wings that let it glide home and land like a plane. But in returning to the classic capsule design of earlier spacecraft, SpaceX was forced to rely on a technique not used by American spacecraft since the 1970s: parachutes and an ocean splashdown.

The Dragon’s descent under parachute, splashdown, and subsequent successful recovery paved the way for SpaceX to begin a series of resupply missions to the International Space Station that continue to this day. But not everyone at SpaceX was satisfied with their 21st century spacecraft having to perform such an anachronistic landing. At a post-mission press conference, CEO Elon Musk told those in attendance that eventually the Dragon would be able to make a pinpoint touchdown using thrusters and deployable landing gear.

But just shy of a decade later, the violent explosion of the first space worthy Crew Dragon has become the final nail in the coffin for Elon’s dream of manned space capsules landing like helicopters. In truth, the future of this particular capability was already looking quite dim given NASA’s preference for a more pragmatic approach to returning their astronauts from space. But Crew Dragon design changes slated to be implemented in light of findings made during the accident report will all but completely remove the possibility of Dragon ever performing a propulsive landing. (8/5)

The Stars Are Far: Getting There Requires Time, Tech And Public Advocacy (Source: Forbes)
Anyone following headline space news stories is aware that space telescopes like Kepler and TESS have confirmed the suspicions of Carl Sagan and other visionaries, that our galaxy is swarming with billions of exoplanets. While detecting or possibly even visualizing distant worldsis within the realms of science, travel to those distant world’s presents such enormous challenges that it is usually dismissed as science fantasy. Building a workable interstellar propulsion system presents technical obstacles that make NASA’s ambitious Artemis moon program seem easy. Click here. (8/5)

SpaceX Unveils Plan for Dedicated Rideshare Missions for Small Satellites (Source: Ars Technica)
SpaceX announced a new, low-cost program to launch small satellites into a Sun-synchronous orbit. The company is offering rideshare opportunities for satellites weighing up to 150kg at the price of $2.25 million. The rideshare-only missions, flying aboard the company's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, will launch at regularly scheduled intervals.

"SpaceX is committed to serving the commercial market as it grows and changes," a spokesperson for the company said. "And we believe we can address the needs of small satellite operators by offering reliable, cost-effective access to orbit through regularly scheduled, dedicated rideshare missions." The company has previously flown rideshare missions using its Falcon 9 rocket, but those flights were organized and integrated by a third-party provider, Spaceflight Industries. Now SpaceX will do all of that work directly for customers. (8/5)

Arianespace Plans Rideshare Mission for Small Satellites (Source: Space News)
Arianespace announced it will perform a dedicated rideshare mission directly to geostationary orbit in the first half of 2022 on an Ariane 64. That mission, called GO-1, will be able to place 4,500 kilograms of payload into GEO about six hours after launch from French Guiana. The direct injection will allow the GO-1 mission to drop off its payloads into GEO about six hours after launch. That is much faster than traditional launches that place satellites into geostationary transfer orbit, from which satellites spend anywhere from a few weeks to six months raising their orbit to GEO. (8/5)

Astronomers Have Found a Record-Breaking Star That's Nearly as Old as The Universe (Source: Science Alert)
Another ancient star has been found lurking in the Milky Way. Around 35,000 light-years away, a red giant star named SMSS J160540.18–144323.1 was found to have the lowest iron levels of any star yet analysed in the galaxy. This means that it's one of the oldest stars in the Universe, probably belonging to the second generation of stars after the Universe burst into existence 13.8 billion years ago.

"This incredibly anaemic star, which likely formed just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, has iron levels 1.5 million times lower than that of the Sun," explained astronomer Thomas Nordlander. "That's like one drop of water in an Olympic swimming pool." And that's how we can tell how old the star is, because the very early Universe had no metals at all. The first stars were made up primarily of hydrogen and helium, and were thought to be very massive, very hot, and very short-lived. These stars are called Population III, and we've never seen them. (8/5)