October 25, 2019

Congress Considers CR as Military Funding Suffers (Sources: Defense News, Air Force Magazine)
As Congress contemplates a continuing resolution to prevent a government shutdown, concern grows over the fate of Pentagon appropriations. "I think the most important thing we can do is for Congress to put aside the squabbling and fund the military for the rest of the year," said Representative Mac Thornberry, R-TX. Some 88 spending initiatives would be impacted by a six- or 12-month CR. (10/25)

Eutelsat Satellite Having Problems in Orbit (Source: Space News)
A Eutelsat communications satellite launched earlier this month has a solar array problem. Eutelsat said Thursday it is investigating an "incident" with one of two solar arrays on the Eutelsat 5 West B satellite, launched on a Proton two weeks ago. The company did not disclose additional details about the problem, including its severity and impact on the satellite's operations. The satellite is insured for 173 million euros ($192 million). (10/25)

HASC Troubled By Single Bidder ICBM (Source: Space News)
The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee says it's "troubling" only one company is bidding on a new ICBM program. Northrop Grumman is the only remaining bidder for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, a program to replace the Minuteman 3 ICBMs, after Boeing dropped out of the competition. Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said at least part of the blame for Boeing's decision should go toward the Air Force's procurement processes, which he also criticized for perceived bias in the ongoing National Security Space Launch competition. (10/25)

Virgin Orbit Considers Three State Rocket for Interplanetary Missions (Source: Space News)
Virgin Orbit is considering a three-stage version of its LauncherOne rocket for interplanetary missions. John Fuller, Virgin Orbit advanced concepts director, said the company is deciding between three "highly energetic third stage" options for LauncherOne that would enable the rocket to launch up to 50 kilograms to Mars or 70 kilograms to Venus. The company expects to make a decision in a month or two. The first launch of the existing two-stage version of the rocket is expected to take place later this year. (10/25)

Bruno: National Security Launch Market Only Big Enough for Two (Source: Space Policy Online)
United Launch Alliance (ULA) President Tory Bruno insisted today that the foreseeable national security launch market is only big enough to support two launch service providers, not three as some are advocating. Expanding the pool to three would be a “giant mistake” imperiling the financial viability of all of them. ULA is bidding on the Air Force Phase 2 contract as it gets ready to introduce its new Vulcan rocket in 2021, while flying out Atlas V and Delta IV by 2024.

Bruno told reporters today that the company will be flying both Atlas V and Vulcan off of the same pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station during the three year transition.  That necessitates a number of changes to Launch Complex 41 to accommodate the two quite different rockets, including building tanks to store the liquified natural gas (methane) for Vulcan’s BE-4 engines. (10/23)

How Long Will It Take to Find Proof of Alien Life? (Source: Space.com)
How long until we find evidence of life beyond Earth? If a panel of experts is on track with their estimates, it may be sooner than you think. That's according to presenters at the International Astronautical Congress taking place here this week. During a discussion Tuesday Oct. 22), half a dozen people who spend their time focused on questions related to the search for life beyond Earth each offered their educated guesses — and their whimsical wishes — for when humanity might first gather conclusive evidence for extraterrestrial life.

That conversation got serious fast, with panel coordinator Claire Webb, a doctoral student in the history of science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She co-opted the answer of one of the most venerable figures in the search for intelligent life, Frank Drake, who conceptualized the factors at play in finding intelligent life into what is known as the Drake Equation. "He said 2024," Webb said. "I think he's a pretty good authority, so I'm going to go with that." (10/24)

Russia Customising Soyuz for Tourist Trips (Source: Sputnik)
A soyuz spaceship will be customised for a tourist trip to the International Space Station (ISS) so that one person may pilot it rather than a three-person crew, Sergei Krikalev, executive director for human spaceflight at Russia's space agency Roscosmos, said.

"A ship for a specialized mission is being customised so that it will be easier for one person to pilot it, and some modes will not be duplicated as they are supposed to be. These are interface tweaks, to make it more convenient for a one-person crew", Krikalev said. The Roscosmos executive added that no contracts with someone to fly the spaceship had been signed, but it would have to be an experienced cosmonaut/astronaut. The spaceship might even be modified to fly without docking with the ISS. (10/24)

Humans May Be the Only Intelligent Life in the Universe, If Evolution Has Anything to Say (Source: Space.com)
Are we alone in the universe? It comes down to whether intelligence is a probable outcome of natural selection, or an improbable fluke. By definition, probable events occur frequently, improbable events occur rarely — or once. Our evolutionary history shows that many key adaptations — not just intelligence, but complex animals, complex cells, photosynthesis, and life itself — were unique, one-off events, and therefore highly improbable. Our evolution may have been like winning the lottery … only far less likely.

The universe is astonishingly vast. The Milky Way has more than 100 billion stars, and there are over a trillion galaxies in the visible universe, the tiny fraction of the universe we can see. Even if habitable worlds are rare, their sheer number — there are as many planets as stars, maybe more — suggests lots of life is out there. So where is everyone? This is the Fermi paradox. The universe is large, and old, with time and room for intelligence to evolve, but there's no evidence of it. (10/24)

India, Russia Discussing Supply of Russian Systems for Indian Manned Space Program (Source: Interfax)
A delegation of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) will visit Russia next week for talks on the supply of Russian weapons for the Indian manned space program, Glavkosmos General Director Dmitry Loskutov told Interfax. "A delegation of the Indian Space Agency will be in Moscow this week. Talks involving the rocket and space corporation Energia and NPO Zvezda on the contract for the supply of individual systems for the Indian manned program will be held at Glavkosmos," Loskutov said at the International Aeronautical Congress held in Washington.

He said he cannot disclose the details of the agreement before it is signed. "The contract has not been signed yet, I am not ready to comment, but I can say that substantive dialogue is taking place concerning some systems of the spacecraft," Loskutov said. Russia also plans cooperation with India on other areas of cosmonautics, but it is now too early to speak about them, he said. (10/24)

Virgin Galactic Merger Wins Shareholder Approval (Source: Space News)
Virgin Galactic will go public next week after shareholders in a holding company approved a merger with the suborbital spaceflight firm Oct. 23. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Social Capital Hedosophia (SCH), the special-purpose acquisition company that announced plans to merge with Virgin Galactic in July, reported that shareholders overwhelmingly approved the merger.

The merger proposal won more than 95% of the 61.35 million votes cast during an “extraordinary general meeting” of SCH shareholders Oct. 23. Other aspects of the proposed merger, including incorporating the merged company in Delaware and selecting a slate of directors, won approval by similar margins. (10/24)

We Should Just Build Giant Telescopes ... in Space (Source: WIRED)
In 2021, a rocket is scheduled to lift off from French Guiana carrying the largest space telescope ever made. Known as the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers will use this beast of an observatory to study everything from habitable exoplanets to the formation of the first galaxies. JWST is the first megatelescope of its kind to launch into space—and it may also be the last. The next behemoth might instead get assembled in space, with the help of robots.

The beauty of that approach is it would allow a space agency to launch a telescope in pieces, lowering the risks of the project significantly. Perhaps more important, it would remove the cap on the size of telescopes that can be sent into space. Preassembled telescopes are limited by the size of the rocket. Assembly in space would allow for instruments and exploration that so far haven’t been possible. This is the conclusion of a recent NASA study that attempted to answer a question that has long plagued the astronomical community: Is building a telescope in space worth it?

From a risk-reduction perspective the answer is a definite yes, says Nick Siegler, the chief technologist of NASA's exoplanet exploration program and a coauthor of the study. With a monster of a telescope like JWST, a mishap as dramatic as a rocket explosion or as slight as a glitch in unfolding the telescope’s mirror could easily turn the telescope into a $10 billion piece of space junk. But if the telescope is launched in pieces and assembled by robot, errors become less devastating. If something goes wrong, you can just send up a replacement part on the next rocket heading out. (10/24)

NASA Sets Launch Date for Starliner Mission to Space Station (Source: Ars Technica)
On Thursday, NASA invited media to the launch of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The news release included a launch date for the mission: December 17. This uncrewed test flight will validate the in-flight capabilities of the Starliner vehicle and the Atlas V rocket that will launch it into orbit. This mission is a precursor to human flights on Starliner, which NASA has paid Boeing to develop for astronaut transport to the International Space Station. (10/24)

FTC Investigates Northrop (Source: Breaking Defense)
The Federal Trade Commission appears to be investigating whether Northrop Grumman acted in restraint of trade and violated an order requiring the company to sell its solid motor rocket engines on “a non-discriminatory basis to all competitors for missile contracts.

” Northrop disclosed the investigation today in its quarterly report: “In October 2019, the company received a civil investigative demand from the FTC requesting certain information relating to a potential issue of the company’s compliance with the Order in connection with a pending strategic missile competition. The company is working to respond to the request. We believe the company has been and continues to be in full compliance with the Order, but we cannot predict any potential impact on the pending competition.” (10/24)

Firefly/Aerojet Collaboration Goes Beyond AR1 (Source: Space News)
Firefly Aerospace's agreement to work with Aerojet Rocketdyne goes beyond the potential use of the AR1. Firefly said this week it's taking advantage of Aerojet's expertise in additive manufacturing to produce components for the Reaver engines it's developing for the Alpha rocket. Qualification tests of the Alpha first stage, with four Reaver engines, are planned for mid-November, with a first launch in early 2020. Firefly is considering using Aerojet's AR1 in the Beta rocket so that vehicle can place up to eight metric tons in orbit, a size it considers the "sweet spot" in the medium-class launch market. (10/25)

Small Launchers Continue to Proliferate (Source: Space News)
The number of small launchers like Alpha and LauncherOne continues to grow. In a presentation at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) this week, Carlos Niederstrasser of Northrop Grumman says he's identified 148 small launchers, of which 40 "are likely dead" based on publicly available information. He said he's starting to see "attrition" as ventures that proposed small launchers a few years ago run into difficulties. Still, he said, "Every time I kill off one [launch vehicle], two more show up." (10/25)

New Zealand Develoing Space Strategy (Source: Space News)
The New Zealand Space Agency is developing a comprehensive strategy reflecting key priorities. That strategy, Peter Crabtree, head of the three-year-old agency, said at IAC this week, includes a focus on sustainability, agility and collaboration. As part of its sustainability campaign, the space agency is working with LeoLabs, the Silicon Valley space mapping startup that has set up a radar in the country to track objects. (10/25)

NSLComm Taking Lessons Learned for Next Satellites (Source: Space News)
NSLComm says its first cubesat achieved most of its goals in demonstrating broadband communications. Raz Itzhaki, NSLComm CEO and co-founder, said its NSLSat-1 cubesat launched in July was "more than 90%" successful, including communicating in a wide range of bands, from UHF to Ka-band, with a deployable antenna. Based on lessons learned from NSLSat-1, NSLComm is modifying the design for its next two satellites, including NSLSat-2, which the company plans to launch in six months. (10/25)

Japan's Ispace On Track for 2021 Lunar Landing (Source: Space News)
Japanese lunar lander company ispace says it's on track to launch its first mission in 2021. The company said at IAC this week it expects to start assembly next year of the lander for its M1 lander mission launching in 2021, with a second mission, M2, to follow in 2023. The company is partnered with Draper on NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, and expects to see a new task order competition for that program in the near future. The company used the IAC to donate a rover it developed for the former Google Lunar X Prize competition to the National Air and Space Museum, where it will go on display in a new gallery focused on the future of spaceflight. (10/25)

Spacebit Partners with Latin American (Source: Space News)
Spacebit is partnering with Latin American organizations on a lunar rover. Spacebit announced plans at IAC to form a partnership with the International Astronautical Federation Regional Group for Latin America and the Caribbean, including working with the Ecuadorian Civilian Space Agency and Dereum Labs to "enhance" robotic technology on a small, four-legged rover it will fly on an Astrobotic lander mission in 2021. Spacebit also is developing a follow-on mission to send a rover to the moon’s surface that would carry and then deploy additional four-legged rovers. (10/25)

MILO Institute Seeks to Fund Space Science Missions (Source: Space News)
The nonprofit MILO Institute is beginning to reveal some of the universities and government agencies involved in its space exploration plans. The premise of the organization, announced a year ago, is that many worthwhile space science missions don't receive the government backing they need to reach orbit. If organizations pool their resources, more missions could fly and more engineers, scientists and students would have opportunities to participate, the organization believes. Those concepts range from payloads flown on commercial lunar landers to a mission to the asteroid Apophis, which will make a close flyby of Earth in 2029. (10/25)

German Space Agency and Teledyne Brown Leverage ISS for Hyperspectral Imaging (Source: Space News)
The German space agency DLR and Teledyne Brown Engineering have started operation of a jointly funded hyperspectral imager on the International Space Station. The DLR Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer, DESIS, is fully functional after a year of testing and calibration. DLR is using DESIS for science, while Teledyne will offer commercial access to the imagery. Flying DESIS on ISS reduced its cost to a third of a free-flying satellite mission. (10/25)

Plum Brook Could Be Renamed in Honor of Armstrong (Source: Sandusky Register)
Two House members have introduced legislation to rename NASA's Plum Brook Station in Ohio after Neil Armstrong. Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) and Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH) introduced the bill this week to rename the facility after the Ohio-born moonwalker. Ohio's two senators introduced a similar bill in the Senate this summer. Plum Brook, run by the Glenn Research Center, hosts testing facilities like thermal vacuum chambers for spacecraft. (10/25)