October 24, 2019

SpaceX Says Starship Mk1 Will Test ‘Skydiver’ Landing Before the End of 2019 (Source: Teslarati)
On October 22nd, SpaceX Senior Director Gary Henry indicated that Starship Mk1’s 20 km (12 mi) flight test debut was now scheduled no earlier than two months from now (December 2019). According to CEO Elon Musk and other SpaceX engineers, that 20 km flight debut is designed to prove that Starship’s radical new approach to flight and landing is viable. Musk has repeatedly described that Starship will in no way be an actual space plane and has stated that its ‘wings’ and ‘canards’ are not intended to be airfoils or wings.

Instead, Starship will reenter Earth’s atmosphere, slow its horizontal velocity to near-zero, and proceed to free-fall straight down, using its fore and aft flaps to control its trajectory in the same way that skydivers use their body and limbs. This bizarre approach will be capped off with an aggressive landing maneuver in which Starship will ignite its engines, wildly thrust-vector and swerve to cancel out the horizontal velocity imparted by that sideways ignition, and land vertically on Earth (or Mars).

In theory, this strategy will radically reduce the amount of fuel Starship needs to land in atmospheres, but it’s far removed from anything SpaceX has attempted with Falcon 9 and Starship Mk1’s first flight will hopefully prove it to be a viable solution. (10/24)

Caterpillar's Autonomous Vehicles May Be Used by NASA to Mine the Moon and Build a Lunar Base (Source: CNBC)
Caterpillar has been synonymous with big, heavy equipment — for farming, construction and mining — since Holt Manufacturing and C. L. Best Tractor merged in 1925 to form the Peoria, Illinois-based company. Over the years, tons of innovation have been built into the iconic yellow products, too, from the Model 20 Track-Type Tractor introduced in 1927 to the ginormous engines that helped power the Apollo 11 mission to the moon 50 years ago.

Coincidentally, one of Cat’s latest breakthroughs is self-driving, or autonomous, and remote-controlled mining equipment, which could very well find itself on the moon when NASA is scheduled to return to the lunar surface in 2024, with plans to build a permanent base near the orb’s south pole, part of the Artemis program. Just as on terrestrial sites, Caterpillar fully or semi-autonomous bulldozers, graders, loaders and dump trucks could be utilized to build roads, housing and other infrastructure. Operator-less drilling and digging machines might mine water, oxygen-rich rocks and moon dust for use in 3-D printing of various materials.

Developing autonomous equipment is part of Caterpillar CEO Jim Umpleby’s goal to continuously improve upon Caterpillar’s legacy of innovation, as well as to generate new revenues in the face of competition and, more recently, the impact of tariffs in the ongoing U.S.–China trade war. Most recently, NASA and Cat collaborated on a research project from 2004 to 2013. “The partnership focused on two technology areas: construction and robotic operations,” said the space agency’s spokesperson Clare Skelly in an email. (10/23)

Musk's Satellite Project Testing Encrypted Internet with Military Planes (Source: Reuters)
The Air Force is using SpaceX’s fledgling satellite network to test encrypted internet services for a number of military planes, the space company’s president said on Tuesday, detailing results for the first customer of Elon Musk’s planned constellation of thousands of broadband-beaming satellites. “We are delivering high bandwidth into the cockpit of Air Force planes,” SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said on Tuesday. “Right now we’re just testing the capability and figuring out how to make it work.”

SpaceX’s so-called Starlink constellation, a planned network of up to 30,000 satellites in low Earth orbit intended to beam broadband internet globally, is crucial to generating the cash to fund development of Musk’s heavy-lift Mars rocket dubbed Starship. The Air Force program, known as Global Lightning, started testing with SpaceX in early 2018 and used Starlink’s first two test satellites to beam to terminals fixed to a C-12 military transport plane in flight, demonstrating internet speeds of 610 megabits per-second. (10/22)

Itty-Bitty Satellites Take On Big-Time Science Missions (Source: NPR)
Tiny satellites are taking on a big-time role in space exploration. CubeSats are small, only about twice the size of a Rubik's Cube. As the name suggests, they're cube-shaped, 4 inches on each side, and weigh in at about 3 pounds. But with the miniaturization of electronics, it's become possible to pack a sophisticated mission into a tiny package.

CubeSats have been around since 1999. Two professors, Jordi Puig-Suari from California Polytechnic State University and Bob Twiggs from Stanford University, wanted to standardize the design specifications of what they termed "picosatellites." That would make it easier for teams of college students anywhere in the world to collaborate. What's more, they were cheap enough that even students could make one. (10/23)

Space Command Deepens Pentagon Ties with Industry (Source: Defense News)
United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno says the new US Space Command is working closely with industry partners. "They're very engaged with all of us, and we are supporting that, and that's a great sign of this attention that's being placed on this big challenge, them getting in front of it and engaging industry," he said. (10/23)

Virgin Galactic is Set to Trade On the NYSE On Monday as the First Space Tourism Stock (Source: CNBC)
Private space tourism is about to go public. Shareholders approved Virgin Galactic’s merger with one of Chamath Palihapitiya’s ventures on Wednesday, according to SEC filings, setting up the space tourism company to list directly on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday. Virgin Galactic will become the first human spaceflight company to trade on public markets. The merger was announced in July, with Palihapitiya’s Social Capital Hedosophia taking a 49% stake in Virgin Galactic. The merger gives the combined company a valuation of $1.5 billion, with Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson retaining a 51% controlling stake. (10/24)

Blue Origin Teases First New Glenn rocket prototype at Blue Moon Lander Event (Source: Teslarati)
In May 2019, Blue Origin unveiled plans to build and launch “Blue Moon” lunar landers. Five months later, founder Jeff Bezos has announced a proposal for NASA’s Artemis Moon lander program that would augment Blue Moon with hardware from aerospace stalwarts Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper to land astronauts on the Moon in the 2020s.

On top of that, Bezos also revealed the first unequivocal confirmation that Blue Origin has begun building full-scale prototype hardware for its ambitious New Glenn orbital launch vehicle – in this case, half of a massive carbon fiber payload fairing. Bezos revealed a video of what is almost certainly the first full-scale prototype hardware of Blue Origin’s reusable New Glenn rocket. In the clip, a massive carbon-composite payload fairing half is moved inside an even larger curing oven located on Blue Origin’s Cape Canaveral campus, offering an incredibly rare glimpse inside the company’s purported New Glenn factory. (10/24)

Maxar/Thales Team Breaks Up in Telesat Constellation Pursuit (Source: Space News)
A team of Maxar Technologies and Thales Alenia Space competing to built Telesat's constellation has broken up. The team has been one of two bidders, alongside Airbus Defence and Space, to build several hundred satellites for Telesat's low Earth orbit constellation, a deal expected to be worth billions of dollars. Maxar and Thales have now broken up and are bidding separately, but declined to comment beyond a Maxar statement that it was "in the best interest of the company and its shareholders at this time given the size, scope and financial metrics of the proposed relationship" with Thales. Telesat had planned to select a prime contractor by the end of this year, and it's unclear if this will affect that schedule. (10/24)

Voyager Space Holdings to Acquire Altius Space Machines (Source: Space News)
Voyager Space Holdings, a company recently established to serve as a holding company and long-term funding source for space startups, has acquired its first company, space technology firm Altius Space Machines. Voyager announced Oct. 23 its intent to acquire Altius, a deal that it said is subject to “customary closing conditions.” Terms of the deal between the two Colorado-based companies were not disclosed.

Engineer and space entrepreneur Jon Goff founded Altius in 2010 after serving as lead propulsion engineer for Masten Space Systems when it won the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge, part of NASA’s Centennial Challenges Program, in 2009. Altius has worked on a variety of spacecraft technologies since its founding. (10/23)

Research Launching to the Space Station Ranges from Radiation Protection to Rover Control (Source: NASA)
Supplies and scientific experiments ride to the Space Station on a Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft (NG-12) scheduled for launch on Nov. 2. The investigations making the trip range from research into human control of robotics in space to reprocessing fibers for 3D printing. Cygnus lifts off on the Antares rocket at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. This is the first mission under Northrop’s Commercial Resupply Services-2 contract with NASA. (10/16)

ULA Offers Atlas as Vulcan Backup, Not Delta (Source: Space News)
United Launch Alliance will offer Atlas, but not Delta, as a backup to its Vulcan rocket in an ongoing Air Force competition. ULA CEO Tory Bruno said the company is offering Vulcan as the primary vehicle and Atlas 5 as a secondary rocket for the so-called Category A/B missions, which are the majority of national security satellite launches. For very large "Category C" missions, ULA will only offer Vulcan, not the Delta 4 Heavy that is today the only vehicle capable of performing these demanding missions. Bruno said ULA is confident that Vulcan will be ready to fly Category C payloads by 2023, approximately one year before the last scheduled flight of the Delta 4 Heavy. (10/24)

SpaceX to Test Astronaut Capsule Next Week, a Critical Milestone After April Explosion (Source: CNBC)
In about a week SpaceX expects to conduct a key test of the capsule it is developing to launch astronauts, as the company looks to show it fixed an issue that caused an empty capsule to explode during testing in April. The capsule, known as Crew Dragon, is SpaceX’s spacecraft to carry as many as seven people to the International Space Station and more. After a successful test flight to the space station and back in March – a mission known as Demo-1 – SpaceX performed a “static fire” of the capsule’s SuperDraco engines, which would be used only in the event of an emergency.

But near the end of the April test there was an anomaly, creating an explosive chain reaction that resulted in the destruction of the Demo-1 capsule. After an investigation alongside the company’s government partners, SpaceX issued a full statement on its website detailing that it discovered a leaking component set off the anomaly. With a new SuperDraco system on a new Crew Dragon capsule, SpaceX is set to conduct its next static fire on Nov. 2 at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. (10/24)

Intuitive Machines Selected to Build Engines for Boeing’s Human Lander System Technology Development (Source: Intuitive Machines)
Houston-based Intuitive Machines was selected to build, test and deliver prototype main stage and reaction control (RCS) engines for Boeing’s Human Lander System (HLS) NextSTEP-2 BAA Appendix E - Architecture Studies and Technology Prototypes contract that support’s NASA’s goal of returning humans to the lunar surface in 2024. (10/24)

Senate Plans Another CR Instead of Normal Funding (Source: Space News)
The Senate's top appropriator says another stopgap funding bill is likely, one that could run through early 2020. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) said it's unlikely the House and Senate will complete work on appropriations bills before the current continuing resolution (CR) funding the government expires Nov. 21. That will require another CR, which Shelby said could run to February or March because impeachment proceedings may dominate Congress in the coming months. An extended CR could jeopardize NASA's plans to move quickly on procurements for elements of the Artemis program, such as lunar landers, needed to return humans to the moon by 2024. (10/24)

Foreign Nationals Denied Entry for US Space Conference (Source: Washington Post)
Visa problems have become an issue at this week's International Astronautical Congress in Washington. The Chinese Foreign Ministry complained that the U.S. "weaponized" the visa process, preventing a number of Chinese officials from getting visas in time to attend the conference. Conference organizers said they had worked for up to two years in advance of the conference to ensure Chinese participants could attend, but China was late in proving names of participants to start the visa process. A small delegation did get visas and planned to arrive at the conference by Wednesday. (10/24)

ESA Ships Solar Probe Early to Avoid Brexit Complications (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
ESA has moved up the shipment of a solar science spacecraft to avoid any complications from Brexit. The Solar Orbiter satellite, built in Great Britain, will be shipped from Germany to the United States for launch preparations at the end of October. The agency moved up the shipment by several weeks to avoid any customs and export control issues that might arise should the U.K. formally exit the European Union at the end of the month, as has been proposed but not yet finalized. (10/24)

Space Command Focuses on Space as Battlefield (Source: Space News)
The new U.S. Space Command will treat space as a theater of war. The command, formally reactivated in August, is still in the process of being fully reestablished, including setting up a 300-person staff at a temporary headquarters in Colorado. The new Space Command is different from the one that existed until 2002, Gen. John Raymond said recently, because of the greater dependence by the U.S. military on satellites and the growing threats to them. "That threat required us to make a change," he said. (10/24)

Israel's IAI Plans Lunar Lander Project (Source: Space.com)
An Israeli company says it will make another attempt to land on the moon. An engineer with Israel Aerospace Industries said his company, which built the Bersheet lander for SpaceIL that crashed on the moon in April, will try again in two to two and a half years. Cost constraints for Beresheet meant that there was little redundancy in spacecraft systems, which may have contributed to the computer error during the landing attempt. It's unclear how that second lander will be developed, although IAI is partnered with Firefly Aerospace to develop the Genesis lander for Firefly's Commercial Lunar Payload Services contract with NASA. (10/24)

50 Years After NASA Discarded the Wet Workshop, a Company Aims to Revive It (Source: Ars Technica)
In the 1960s, as it cast about for ideas about what to do after the Apollo Moon program, NASA considered re-using the spent upper stages of its large rockets as space stations. Ultimately, however, the agency dismissed this "wet workshop" concept and modified an upper stage on the ground for its Skylab program. However, Nanoracks has revised the "wet workshop" concept, hoping to convert the spent upper stages of rockets into in-space habitats. "We are keen on bringing the wet lab back as an architecture,"  said Adrian Mangiuca.

To that end, the company announced this week that it aims to perform a demonstration test in the fourth quarter of 2020. It will fly on a rocket—Mangiuca declined to name the launch provider—as as a secondary customer. After the primary mission, and other customers deploy their payloads, Nanoracks will attempt to heat and then cut three samples of metal used in upper stages. It will have about 30 minutes to an hour to perform these tasks with a robotic arm before the upper stage fires its engine to initiate a de-orbit burn.

The goal, Mangiuca said, is to show the ability to safely cut through an upper stage in space. For this mission, the aim is to show that a robot can cut metal and that it can be done without producing orbital debris. Longer term, Nanoracks anticipates needing to cut through the bulkhead of a spent upper stage in space to access the interior. (10/23)

Stealth Startup Lone Remaining Contender in DARPA Responsive Launch Challenge (Source: Space News)
A three-way launch contest is now down to one unidentified company after two competitors backed out, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said Oct. 22. DARPA said its Tactical Technology Office will continue the challenge early next year even though Vector and Virgin Orbit subsidiary Vox Space reversed course, electing not to participate. DARPA selected those two companies, as well as a “stealth” competitor, in Aprilas finalists from a field of dozens of applicants.

“As indicated in the quickly narrowing field of competitors, responsive and flexible access to space remains a significant challenge,” Todd Master, program manager for the DARPA Launch Challenge, said in an agency news release. “Future warfighting needs will require true space resilience, the ability to put assets into orbit quickly and from a variety of locations. It’s a fundamental shift from a strategic use of exquisite space assets to a more tactical future.”

DARPA said Vox Space, which markets Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne air-launched rocket to military customers, withdrew from the challenge this month so that Virgin Orbit can “focus on its upcoming commercial launches.” Virgin Orbit said it supported the aims of the competition to demonstrate responsive launch. “However, after comparing DARPA’s requested timeline with our commitments to our commercial and government customers, we have elected to withdraw from the competition,” the company said. Company sources, speaking on background, said the decision was a financial one. (10/23)

Nanoracks Forges Agreement with Maritime Launch, Plans Test of Outpost Technology (Source: Space News)
Nanoracks is moving ahead with its plan to turn rocket second stages into Nanoracks Space Outposts thanks to an agreement with Canada’s Maritime Launch Services and an upcoming test of a critical technology. NanoRacks announced an agreement Oct. 23 at the International Astronautical Congress here with Canada’s Maritime Launch Services to work on repurposing a spent C4M upper stage already in orbit after launch from Nova Scotia’s Canso Spaceport.

“We envision populating the solar system with efficient platforms, that can serve as hotels, research parks, fuel depots, storage centers and more,” Nanoracks CEO Jeffrey Manber, said in a statement. “We are proving time and time again that there are new ways to look at how we explore deep space, and that we need to think creatively, but work cost-efficiently. This agreement with Maritime Launch will provide us with the in-orbit test bench second stage articles to do exactly that, and to grow our space industry even further.”

In addition, NanoRacks also announced plans Oct. 22 to conduct a brief but critical test  in orbit. Nanoracks plans to robotically cut a material representative of an upper stage in a self-contained hosted payload. The payload is scheduled to travel to orbit on an ESPA ring attached to an upper stage. Nanoracks declined to reveal the launch provider. (10/23)

South Korean Launch Startup Backed by Samsung (Source: Space News)
A little-known Korean startup backed by Samsung is preparing to launch a small orbital rocket in July 2020. Perigee Aerospace of Daejeong, South Korea, has raised around $12 million from Samsung Venture Investments, LB Investment and others to develop Blue Whale 1, a small launcher capable of carrying 50 kilograms to a 500-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit, CEO Yoon Shin said in an interview.

Shin said Perigee Aerospace has had sufficient funding to develop the very small rocket, allowing the company to operate in stealth mode until getting within a year of launch. “Up to now, we didn’t feel any need to announce our development plans or launch vehicle operations plans,” Shin said. “But I think it’s a great time because we have now almost completed the development of the vehicle.” Samsung Ventures Investment Director Chulhan Lee, said that the cellphone giant invested an undisclosed amount in Perigee Aerospace. (10/23)

Trump Flips Off Female Astronaut? (Source: The Sun)
Donald Trump was accused of flipping a middle finger at a female astronaut after she corrected him on Friday. He dragged his finger across his forehead as NASA's Jessica Meir fact-checked him about women spacewalkers. Trump raised his middle finger and scratched his head in an awkward manner - in view of TV crews and press photographers. The gesture led to furious accusations that Trump was throwing a not-so-subtle insult at NASA hero Meir. (10/23)