September 30, 2019

Starships are Meant to Fly (Source: Space Review)
On Saturday night, Elon Musk gave what has now become his annual update on development of the company’s giant next-generation launch vehicle, now called Starship and Super Heavy. Jeff Foust reports on the event in South Texas, including both SpaceX’s technical achievements and potential looming obstacles. Click here. (9/30)
 
The Highest Glass Ceiling (Source: Space Review)
NASA repeatedly states that its Artemis program will land not just the next man, but also the first woman, on the Moon. Eric Hedman examines some of the implications of that effort to have women join the exclusive club of moonwalkers. Click here. (9/30)

Maxar CTO Walter Scott Thinks Now is the Time to Address the Orbital Traffic Boom (Source: Tech Crunch)
The number of objects in orbit around Earth has been growing, and growing fast. Before 1957, of course, there were a total of zero human-made objects in the orbital region of outer space just beyond Earth’s atmosphere. There were 4,987 satellites orbiting the globe at the start of this year, according to the U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs, which is up nearly three percent from the year before. 2017 was a record year for orbital object launches, but with ambitious new satellite constellations planned by SpaceX and others, that’s a record that’s likely to be beat in relatively short order.

Nor are all of those satellites equipped with modern technology: All told, 8,378 objects have been launched to orbit according to the UNOOSA records, and a sizeable percentage of those spacecraft are more than a few years old. In fact, earlier this month, Bigelow Airspace was informed by the U.S. Air Force that there’s a 5.6 percent chance that one of its satellites could collide with a Russian ‘zombie’ satellite no longer in operation, and one of Starlink’s satellites had a near-miss with one operated by the European Space Agency.

I spoke with Walter Scott, the Chief Technical Officer of publically-traded space tech company Maxar Technologies, about the new initiative, in which longtime space operator Maxar is a founding member, and why now is the right time for the satellite industry to self-regulate when it comes to sharing low-Earth orbital space. “The best time to solve a problem is before it’s a crisis, even though that doesn’t seem to be normal human behavior,” he said. (9/30)

SpaceX Expects Texas Site to Launch Humans to the Moon and Mars (Source: Dallas Morning News)
Musk plans to make Texas one of the focal points of the new commercial space race, pledging to test a prototype rocket in one to two months and potentially send humans to space next year. The Rio Grande Valley site will soon become one of two major manufacturing centers for rockets and boosters along with the company's other major location in Florida. "I think there will be a lot more buildings (in Boca Chica) and a lot more stuff," Musk said when asked how the South Texas site might look different in 10 years.

Local governments and economic officials across Texas and the U.S. have been pushing for commercial spaceports for more than a decade, waiting for a future when privately funded rocket takeoffs are so common and safe they can be done outside the NASA safe zone, said Olga Bannova, director of the University of Houston's space architecture program. "If they can get everyone to agree to launch in Texas, it would save a lot of money," Bannova said. "But Kennedy Space Center already has the infrastructure."

There are some hurdles. There is a small community of 25 homes nearby in a neighborhood called Boca Chica Beach. That neighborhood could have to endure evacuations during every rocket launch or put up with ear-piercing rocket tests at nearby facilities. But Musk dismissed the worries and said SpaceX is planning to buy out homeowners. If all goes to plan with Musk's lofty predictions, there would also be a rocket fuel facility in Boca Chica joined by a handful of rocket manufacturing buildings and commercial launch and testing sites. (9/30)

UAE Official: “We Don’t Regulate Space Activity for the Sake of Regulation” (Source: Gulf News)
The leadership at the UAE space agency decided at the outset that we would not be regulating for the sake of regulation, so essentially the framework for our policies would need to be an enabler, with two drivers, which are to maximise the benefits from space activity, with R&D for instance seeking the best ways to use space telecommunications back here on earth. The team also constantly poses the question on why the UAE is involved in space, reason being that as long as the team had an answer to the question, it meant we were maximizing our benefits from space activities.

The other is to keep the growth of the space sector sustainable and consistent, doing something good one time is great, to do it time and again is an achievement. We would like to develop an innovative, competitive and commercial space sector, not relying just on support from the government but also within the industry, through the culture of entrepreneurship and privatization. (9/30)

Branson Set to Pocket £178m From Virgin Galactic's Listing on the New York Stock Exchange (Source: This Is Money)
Sir Richard Branson will pick up a £178 million windfall when his space tourism firm Virgin Galactic becomes a public company. The billionaire entrepreneur behind Virgin Group is believed to have invested around $880 million (£716 million) in Virgin Galactic since founding the firm in 2007, alongside around $200 million of additional investment from Mubadala, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund. Documents filed in the US last week show Branson will cash in some of his investment when Virgin Galactic floats on the New York stock exchange later this year.

When the $1.5 billion deal completes, Branson and Mubadala will split a $274 million payment to ‘existing investors’. Branson’s share will be around $219million (£178 million), with the Abu Dhabi firm receiving around $55 million. The payout will reduce Branson’s stake in the space company which he founded to realize his dream of ‘the dawn of a new space age’. Branson will continue to retain majority control of the merged firm, which will be the first publicly-traded commercial spaceflight company. (9/30)