September 23, 2019

It Looks Like NASA is Getting Serious About Finding Hazardous Asteroids (Source: Ars Technica)
On Monday, NASA's science chief committed to funding a space-based telescope to find the vast majority of near-Earth asteroids that may one day threaten Earth. During an advisory committee meeting at NASA's headquarters in Washington, DC, the agency's associate administrator for science, Thomas Zurbuchen, said the agency was moving forward with the NEO Surveillance Mission, which would be ready to launch no earlier than 2025, at cost of less than $600 million.

"This is a priority for us," Zurbuchen said. He has been negotiating with the White House and Congress to obtain funding for the mission, which will be paid for out of the agency's planetary defense budget. NASA currently spends about $150 million a year to track and characterize hazardous objects, but that amount will need to increase in future years. The new surveillance mission's launch date will depend on funding allocated for the project. (9/23)

Homeowners Reject SpaceX Buyout Offer (Source: Valley Morning Star)
Some homeowners at Boca Chica Village insist they have no intention of accepting a recent offer from SpaceX to purchase their properties. Unlike most of their neighbors, Terry and Bonnie Heaton, originally from Michigan, live year-round in the unincorporated hamlet with about 35 houses near Boca Chica Beach. They’ve lived there 18 years. During the winter when the neighborhood fills up, it’s a real community where everyone helps each other, Terry said.

“It’s almost like we’ve got an extended family here, because of the closeness of this neighborhood,” he said. “We’ve got a tight bond.” Although SpaceX is offering the Heatons three times the appraised value of their home, they say the offer isn’t close to what they’d need to sell. The appraisal conducted by SpaceX is several thousand dollars less than an appraisal the Heatons got through their bank five years ago, Terry said.

“I sent them an email the day after we got this letter, not being sarcastic or anything else,” he said. “I just told them the facts, that (their) appraisal is extremely low.” SpaceX said the offers are not negotiable and gave the homeowners two weeks from the date of the letter to respond. “It’s just big money bullying little people,” Terry said. “That’s really what it is.” (9/22)

One Problem with 2024 Moon Landing: Where’s the Rocket? (Source: Florida Politics)
President Donald Trump has reenergized enthusiasm for NASA and its human space exploration program with his plan to put Americans back on the moon by 2024 but that ambitious timetable is looking increasingly problematic. First, development of the monster rocket needed to do so, the “Space Launch System”, the SLS, is way behind schedule, over budget, and almost not in sight. Development of the new crew capsule, the “Orion”, likewise is behind schedule and over budget. There is no lunar lander or “Gateway” moon base plan yet.

Ground systems — Florida’s part in all of this — also are well behind schedule, though, ironically, NASA believes the other systems’ delays are giving those Kennedy Space Center systems the chance to catch up. And development of even seemingly simple things like new space suits appears to be riding the edge of probability to be ready on time.

Last week in a congressional hearing, Republican U.S. Rep. Bill Posey of Rockledge pressed Kenneth Bowersox, NASA’s acting associate administrator for human exploration and operations, for a point-blank answer on the odds that America would meet the 2024 goal. The official gave an unconfident reply. The ramifications for Florida may be limited to potential delays in returning to the excitement level generated by launches of humans to the moon. Politically, however, confidence may erode in NASA’s new moon mission, which is intended to be America’s first step in a Mars mission in the 2030s. (9/23)

Air Force Sees ‘Viable’ Contenders in Contest for Space Launches (Source: Bloomberg)
The four companies competing for the second phase of U.S. national security space launches all offer rockets with “viable technologies,” according to the Air Force’s top space acquisition commander. “We are in the middle of evaluating” plans submitted last month in response to a request for proposals for National Security Space Launch competitions through 2027, Lieutenant General John Thompson, commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center, said in an interview.

While the Air Force and Thompson haven’t confirmed the four competitors, the companies identified themselves: Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and longer-established defense contractors -- Northrop Grumman and the United Launch Alliance of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. The Air Force intends to pick two of the four by mid-June. Thompson cited “the technical maturity of all of the offerers’ rockets” and said they are “on track to meet our requirements.” (9/23)

Venus Was Likely Habitable for 3B years. Then Something Mysterious Happened (Source: Fox News)
Although it's possible Mars once supported life, Earth is the only planet in the solar system currently known to do so. However, a new study notes that Venus may have been habitable for a few billion years — until something mysterious happened. The research notes that Venus potentially had stable temperatures and was home to "liquid water" for 2 to 3 billion years, until a "dramatic transformation" started happening more than 700 million years ago that completely reshaped the planet and resurfaced approximately 80% of it. (9/22)

Keeping Satellites From Going Bump in the Night (Source: Space Review)
In early September, an ESA satellite maneuvered to avoid a potential collision with a SpaceX Starlink satellite, triggering a new debate on space traffic management. Jeff Foust reports on the lessons from that event and planning for a future with many more satellites in orbit. Click here. (9/23)
 
“The Slaughter of the Innocents” Redux (Source: Space Review)
Decades ago, cost overruns with the shuttle led to cuts in space science programs. Roger Handberg fears history could repat itself as NASA seeks funding to keep a human lunar landing in 2024 on track. Click here. (9/23)
 
America’s Incoherent Moon Strategy is Weakening its Space Leadership (Source: Space Review)
President Trump has given mixed signals about the importance of returning humans to the Moon versus a long-term plan for sending people to Mars. Namrata Goswami argues that confusion weakens America’s global position in spaceflight, particularly against China. Click here. (9/23)
 
The Long Night: Project Van Winkle Comes to an End (Source: Space Review)
Historians have benefitted from records and even hardware from Cold War-era reconnaissance satellite programs that the government has declassified in recent years. Dwayne Day describes the forethought more than a half-century ago that made some of that possible. Click here. (9/23)

NASA Awards Lockheed Martin Contract for Six Orion Spacecraft (Source: SpaceRef)
NASA and Lockheed Martin have finalized a contract for the production and operations of six Orion spacecraft missions and the ability to order up to 12 in total. Orion is NASA's deep space exploration spaceship that will carry astronauts from Earth to the Moon and bring them safely home. Lockheed Martin has been the prime contractor during the development phase of the Orion program.

The agency's Orion Production and Operations Contract (OPOC) is an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contact for NASA to issue both cost-plus-incentive fee and firm-fixed-price orders. Initially, NASA has ordered three Orion spacecraft for Artemis missions III-V for $2.7 billion. Then in fiscal year 2022, the agency plans to order three additional Orion spacecraft for Artemis missions VI-VIII for $1.9 billion.

OPOC will realize substantial savings compared to the costs of vehicles built during the design, development, test and evaluation (DDT&E) phase. Up to six additional Orion spacecraft may be ordered under the IDIQ contract through Sept. 30, 2030, leveraging spacecraft production cost data from the previous six missions to enable the lowest possible unit prices. (9/23)

Bizarre Magnetic Pulses Found on Mars: It 'Raises Interesting Questions' (Source: Fox News)
Scientists have discovered bizarre bursts of magnetic pulses on Mars that are raising "interesting questions." The paper, presented at the European Planetary Science Congress annual meeting earlier this month, notes that the Mars InSight lander has detected these magnetic pulses during the nighttime, a phenomenon that can't yet be explained.

"The nighttime continuous pulsations found by IFG [InSight FluxGate] are unexpected because they are distinct from what are typically observed on the Earth’s surface at the same local time," the researchers wrote. "On the other hand, we have not found the Mars counterparts for many types of geomagnetic pulsations well known in Earth studies." According to National Geographic, the pulses were 20 times stronger than those that were previously recorded.

“We’re getting an insight into Mars’ magnetic history in a way we’ve never had before,” Paul Byrne, a planetary geologist at North Carolina State University, told the news outlet. "We speculate that the observed magnetic pulsations by InSight to date are associated with fluctuations in the induced magnetotail and on the magnetospheric boundary," the researchers added in the study. "Under this scenario, the distinct field and plasma environment at Mars raises interesting questions about how these oscillations propagate through the magnetosphere and ionosphere and reach the surface." (9/23)

Space Station Hotel 'Just Like Going on a Cruise, or Going to Disney World,’ Aims To Be Open 2025 (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
A group looking to build the world’s first space station hotel has plans to have it up and running by 2025, according to a report in the architecture magazine Dezeen. The Von Braun Space Station is the dream of the Gateway Foundation, that looks to build the structure in low earth orbit similar to the International Space Station and use the SpaceX Starship to get the pieces to space to put it all together.

Gateway’s senior design architect for the Von Braun, Tim Alatorre, gave an interview with Dezeen, in which he said the the group’s goal was to have it operational by 2025, able to support 100 visiting tourists every week. The company’s website said the rotating space station will simulate gravity that is more geared to comfortable long-term stays, based on designs by aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun, the same man who as part of NASA helped design the Saturn V rockets that send humans to the moon. (9/18)

Navy Confirms Videos Were UFOs (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Videos that look like UFOs taken by the Navy and released to the public are indeed UFOs, according to a statement by Navy officials to The Black Vault, a website that deals in revealing declassified government documents. UFOs, though, or unidentified flying objects, remain just that, and not necessarily alien in nature. The Navy calls them “unexplained aerial phenomena” or UAPs.

Two of the three videos, were released by the Pentagon in 2017 to the New York Times and other media outlets, and a third in 2018 to private media research firm To The Stars Academy Of Arts And Science. The videos were from incidents involving naval aviator encounters in 2004 off the coast of California, and in 2015 off the coast of Virginia Beach and Jacksonville. (9/18)

Space Hero Stafford Deserves Medal of Freedom (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
September 17 marked the birthday of a true American hero. Back in the day when I had the high honor to work for former senator Bob Dole, he and I once discussed the word “hero.” He felt that the traditional distinction of the word was being devalued somewhat as it was often liberally and randomly assigned in today’s world, with sports stars regularly having the word attached to their names. Central Florida resident and retired Air Force Gen. Thomas Stafford is the very personification of the word..

Stafford would run as far and as fast from the title of “hero” as possible. That said, his life’s work says otherwise. As it turns out, I have been told that the general’s name has been inserted into the pipeline for a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Now, while any objective review of the general’s resume would conclude he is one of the most deserving candidates ever, sometimes, pipelines do get clogged or redirected. As the name suggests, the medal is given out solely at the discretion of the president of the United States.

During his eight years in office, President Barack Obama gave out 113 Medals of Freedom. To this date, President Donald J. Trump has given out 12. Of those, seven have been highly acclaimed and record-setting sports stars. As a former professional football team owner and avid golfer, President Trump does recognize and appreciate achievement in sports and the goodwill it often spreads. That said, he has also proven himself to be a president who deeply respects and appreciates our military and the role it plays in protecting and inspiring us all. (9/20)

Heavy-Metal Space Volcanoes May Have Forged Gem-Studded Meteorites (Source: National Geographic)
Some of the solar system’s primordial worlds may have had volcanoes that oozed molten iron and nickel, an eruptive process that might account for the formation of pallasites, some of the most beautiful and enigmatic meteorites yet known. The model might also help explain some of the bizarre characteristics of 16 Psyche, a 173-mile-wide asteroid with a uniquely metallic surface. Within this decade, the study’s ideas will be put to the test. In 2022, NASA will launch Psyche, an orbiter that will rendezvous with its namesake asteroid in 2026 and map it in detail. (9/18)

First German in Space Dies (Source: Asgardia)
The first German cosmonaut, Lieutenant Colonel of the GDR Air Force Sigmund Werner Paul Jähn, died on September 21 at the age of 82. This was announced by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), where they stressed that Jähn always built bridges between the East and West and personified dedication to the principles of peaceful use of space.

Sigmund Jähn was dubbed the ‘German Gagarin’. As part of the Intercosmos program, he went into orbit on August 26, 1978, together with the Soviet cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky, aboard the Soyuz-31 spacecraft. The astronauts spent almost eight days at the Salut-6 station and returned to Earth aboard the Soyuz-29. Upon his return, Ian was awarded the titles of Hero of the Soviet Union and Hero of the GDR. (9/22)

Comet Gateway Discovered to Inner Solar System, May Alter Fundamental Understanding of Comet Evolution (Source: UCF)
A new study led by a University of Central Florida researcher may fundamentally alter our understanding of how comets arrive from the outskirts of the solar system and are funneled to the inner solar system coming closer to Earth. Scientist Gal Sarid and co-authors describe the discovery of an orbital “gateway” through which many comets pass before they approach our sun. The gateway was uncovered as part of a simulation of centaurs, small icy bodies traveling on chaotic orbits between Jupiter and Neptune.

 The study team modeled the evolution of bodies from beyond Neptune’s orbit, through the giant planet’s region, and inside Jupiter’s orbit. These icy bodies are considered nearly pristine remnants of material from the birth of our solar system. For a long time, the pathway of comets from their original formation location inward toward the sun has been debated. “How do new comets, controlled by Jupiter’s influence, replace those that are lost? Where is the transition between residing in the outer solar system, as small dormant bodies, and becoming active inner solar system bodies, exhibiting a widespread gas and dust coma and tail?” asks Sarid, the lead scientist for the study.

“What we discovered, the gateway model as a ‘cradle of comets,’ will change the way we think about the history of icy bodies,” he says. “More than one in five centaurs that we tracked were found to enter an orbit similar to that of SW1 at some point in their lifetime,” said Maria Womack, a Florida Space Institute scientist and co-author of the study. “Rather than being a peculiar outlier, SW1 is a centaur caught in the act of dynamically evolving into a Jupiter Family Comet.” (9/19)

Falcon Heavy is USAF Certifiied, But Not for All Missions (Source: Space News)
The Air Force says that while SpaceX's Falcon Heavy is "fully certified" for national security missions, there is still more work to do on the vehicle to perform certain missions. Lt. Gen. John Thompson, commander of the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, said in an interview that the vehicle is now fully certified after successfully performing its third launch, of the STP-2 mission for the Defense Department's Space Test Program, in June. However, Thompson said the vehicle is not cleared to fly "all of our most stressing national security space orbits," and that the Air Force is working with SpaceX to "mature" the vehicle's design to be able to fly to those unspecified orbits. (9/23)

China Launches Navigation Satellites (Source: Xinhua)
China launched a pair of Beidou navigation satellites Sunday. The Long March 3B rocket lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 5:10 p.m. Eastern and placed the two satellites into medium Earth orbits. The satellites, Chinese media reported, contain upgraded technologies, including improved clocks and new processors. (9/23)

Orbiting Rocket Parts a Significant Debris Threat (Source: Space News)
Clusters of rocket bodies already in orbit may pose a greater orbital debris threat than proposed constellations. In a presentation at the AMOS conference Friday, one expert said that the hundreds of primarily Russian upper stages, clustered in three distinct orbits, pose a serious risk of collisions with themselves or other objects, which, given their size, could create large amounts of debris. Those clusters of objects illustrate the need to consider not just space traffic management but also "space environment management" to avoid such collisions. (9/23)

Satellite Operators Fail to DeOrbit When Required (Source: Space News)
Many satellite operators are failing to abide by guidelines to deorbit satellites, suggesting new incentives or regulations may be needed. One ESA report found that only 15–25% of satellites are being deorbited within 25 years of the end of their lives, a rate the agency said is "not sustainable" for future space operations. A panel at the AMOS conference recommended incentives, such as insurance discounts for operators who take measures to deorbit satellites, but said requirements of some kind are inevitable. (9/23)

Space Situational Awareness Data Key to Traffic Management (Source: Space News)
Sharing space situational awareness data will become a key element of improved space traffic management (STM). As the Commerce Department starts the process of taking over civil STM work, it is creating an "open architecture data repository" that will include both space situational awareness data from the Defense Department as well as from other sources. The department envisions that repository becoming a "marketplace" for new providers to demonstrate their capabilities and provide value-added services. (9/23)

India Shifts Focus to Human Spaceflight (Source: PTI)
With the Chandrayaan-2 lander dead, India is looking ahead to its human spaceflight program. K. Sivan, head of the Indian space agency ISRO, said that the failure of the Vikram lander will not affect its Gaganyaan program to launch humans into orbit. Sivan said ISRO expects to perform the first launch by December 2021. (9/23)

Scottish Spaceport Faces Opposition (Source: Aberdeen Press and Journal)
A proposed spaceport in the Outer Hebrides is facing stiff opposition. Nearly 600 objections have been filed with local officials about the "Spaceport 1" project on the island of North Uist because of concerns about its impact on the environment. Backers of the project, who say it could boost the local economy, said they were aware of the objections but didn't discuss how they would address them. (9/23)