October 3, 2019

Soyuz Capsule Returns Three From ISS (Source: NASA)
A Soyuz spacecraft carrying three people form the International Space Station landed safely in Kazakhstan this morning. The Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft landed at 6:59 a.m. Eastern, nearly three and a half hours after undocking from the ISS. On board the Soyuz were Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin and American astronaut Nick Hague, who spent 203 days in space. The third person on the Soyuz was Emirati astronaut Hazzaa Ali Almansoori, who launched to the station last week for a brief visit. Almansoori is the first person from the United Arab Emirates to go to space. The ISS is back to its usual six-person crew, now commanded by European astronaut Luca Parmitano. (10/3)

Blue Origin 'Taps Brakes' on Human Launch Debut (Source: Space News)
Blue Origin may not fly people in space before the end of the year as the company previously planned. Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith, speaking at a conference Wednesday, said the company "tapped the brakes" on its New Shepard suborbital vehicle as it works to verify that the vehicle is safe enough to carry people. While Smith didn't rule out flying people on the vehicle before the end of the year, he said it wasn't likely. Smith said Blue Origin will conduct at least two more uncrewed test flights, the first of which is scheduled for no earlier than Nov. 1 based on an FCC license application. The company also hasn't started selling tickets for New Shepard flights, although Smith said the ticket price will be "in the hundreds of thousands of dollars." (10/3)

DARPA Considers Direct-Buy of Small Launcher Service (Source: Space News)
DARPA is seeking information from small launch vehicle developers for a potential future mission. The agency is asking for information on small launchers in preparation for a 2022 launch of a payload that "may be classified and may include sight sensitive components," according to a request for information released this week. The agency has relied on the U.S. Air Force to arrange the launch of many of its satellite experiments but DARPA is now eyeing the possibility of buying launch services directly from suppliers. (10/3)

Japanese Rover Descending on Ryugu Asteroid (Source: AP)
A Japanese spacecraft released a small rover that will explore the surface of an asteroid. The Hayabusa-2 spacecraft released Minerva-II2, which will descend slowly to the surface of the asteroid Ryugu over the next several days.The deployment is one of the last major activities at the asteroid for Hayabusa-2, which will depart from the vicinity of Ryugu later this year to return the samples it collected to Earth. (10/3)

L3Harris Eyes Bigger Role in Satellite Communications (Source: Space News)
L3Harris wants to expand its capabilities in the satellite communications market. The company, formed by the merger of L3 Technologies and Harris Corporation, says it will be able to fill in gaps in its combined product offerings, such as in protected communications. The company also expects a shift to electronically steerable antenna technology that will increase the Defense Department's adoption rate of low Earth orbit satellite communications services. (10/3)

India Plans In-Space Docking Test (Source: Times of India)
India will conduct a test next year of satellite docking technologies. The head of the Indian space agency ISRO, K. Sivan, said two experimental modules will be flown on a PSLV rocket next year and, once in orbit, will test docking with each other. Sivan said that technology demonstration could support the eventual development of an Indian space station, a long-term goal of its human spaceflight program. (10/3)

World View Sets Record With Stratollite (Source: Space.com)
World View has set a new record for its stratospheric balloon platform. The Arizona company said this week that one of its "stratollites" spent 32 days aloft, taking off Aug. 27 from Arizona and landing Sept. 28 in Iowa. During the flight the balloon demonstrated the ability to station keep for several days, remaining within a few dozen kilometers of a target location. The company says that the stratollite can carry out communications and imaging missions that normally require satellites. (10/3)

Intuitive Machines Wins Court Case Against Moon Express, Announces SpaceX Ride to the Moon (Source: Quartz)
Intuitive Machines (IM), a Houston-based space autonomous systems startup, won a long-simmering lawsuit against Moon Express, another startup that had hired IM to work on a lunar lander but didn’t pay for the job. Now, an appeals court decision confirmed that Moon Express should pay IM almost $2 million in cash and $2.25 million in stock as a penalty. IM also announced that it had tapped SpaceX to launch a lander called Nova C to the moon in 2021, part of NASA’s program to hire private firms to do lunar scientific research. (10/2)

Pentagon Wants to Extend the Life of Satellites and Refuel on Orbit (Source: C4ISRnet)
Northrop Grumman is on the verge of launching a new satellite servicing vehicle that could extend the life of satellites by years, and the Pentagon is interested in becoming a customer. The lifespan of satellites is often limited by their allotment of fuel, which they use to remain in their assigned orbit or to move to a new one. While the satellite might be fully operational for years to come, if it runs out of fuel then it’s the end of the road. So even though the technology already in orbit is still useful to a client, a satellite provider has to launch an entirely new space vehicle with enough fuel to replace the doomed satellite.

While the launch of MEV-1 was delayed from Sep. 30, SpaceLogistics (a Northrop Grumman subsidiary) expect their initial satellite servicing vehicle to launch in the coming weeks. The first client satellite is Intelsat 901, a communications satellite, said SpaceLogistics. Following the launch, it will take MEV-1 about three months to meet up with Intelsat 901 in geostationary orbit. At that point, the Intelsat satellite will propel itself upward into the geosynchronous graveyard, an area above geosynchronous orbit typically used to dispose of satellites to prevent them from becoming orbital space debris. There, the space vehicle will approach the satellite and capture the client satellite.

Once attached, the mission extension vehicle takes control of Intelsat 901, using its electric propulsion to return the satellite to its geostationary orbit. The vehicle will remain docked for the next five years, extending Intelsat 901’s service life, before eventually taking it out to the GEO graveyard to dispose of it. Since MEV-1 has a 15 year design life, it can actually extend Intelsat 901’s service life longer or move onto another satellite to provide the same services. It’s not immediately clear how prolonged operations as a life extension tool affect the mission extension vehicles lifespan. (10/2)

ABL Space Systems Changes Lease Near Georgia Spaceport (Source: Spaceport Facts)
In September 2018, ABL Space Systems entered into a lease agreement with Camden County for the use of former airport property, including an aircraft hangar, for development of a "simple, low cost and highly reliable" small satellite launch vehicle. “ABL has made a substantial commitment to Camden County and we look forward to working with them to expand our partnership once we receive a launch site operator’s license from the Federal Aviation Administration,” said County Commissioner Jimmy Starline.

Now, accoding to a county development director James Coughlin, "Effective December 31, 2019, ABL will discontinue its lease of the former St. Marys airport. They will continue to lease the hangar adjacent to the airport and their lease will be adjusted accordingly." Mr. Coughlin did not indicate when ABL Space would actually move into the rented building or hire Camden workers. (10/1)

With Commercial Crew Delays, NASA Looking to Buy More Russian Rides to Space Station (Source: Sputnik)
A Roscosmos official says NASA is in talks about buying more Soyuz seats. Maxim Kharlamov, first deputy head of the Cosmonaut Training Center, said NASA wants to purchase additional Soyuz seats after the spring of 2020 because of continued delays in the commercial crew program. He didn't disclose details about the number of seats or price, or how such a deal would affect Russia's own presence on the station. (10/2)

ULA Gets $98.5M for Three Atlas-5 Launches (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Air Force has awarded United Launch Alliance a "completion contract" for three Atlas 5 launches next year. The $98.5 million contract covers the completion and launch of three previously procured Atlas 5 launches of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency-6, Air Force Space Command-7 and NROL-101 missions. Those launches were purchased under the old EELV Phase 1 block buy contract that expired last month, requiring the new contract to cover the cost of the launches that slipped beyond the original period of performance. (10/2)

Amazon Still Designing Kuiper Constellation (Source: GeekWire)
New FCC filings show Amazon is still in the early phases of its Project Kuiper broadband constellation. In the filings, the company said that its "constellation design and implementation plan are well-developed," but has yet to finalize the design of the satellites or set a schedule for building and launching them. Among the design decisions Amazon has yet to make is what propulsion system it will use on the satellites to raise their orbits after launch and then deorbit them at the end of their lives. (10/2)

Russia Retiring Rockot Small Launcher Next Month (Source: TASS)
Russia plans to retire the Rockot small launch vehicle after a final launch next month. The Nov. 29 launch from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome will place three Gonets communications satellites into low Earth orbit, although officials said the launch could slip to late December. The Rockot is a converted SS-19 ICBM that will be retired as Russia shifts to other vehicles, like the Angara. (10/2)

New Chinese Commercial Rocket Firms Move Toward Maiden Launches (Source: Space News)
China commercial launch companies are making progress toward first launches of their vehicles. Beijing Xinghe Dongli Space Technology Co. Ltd., also known as Galactic Energy, last week carried out a successful 74-second hot fire test of the second stage for its first launch vehicle. The company previously stated that they aim to carry out the first launch of the solid propellant Ceres-1 in March 2020. Beijing Xingtu Exploration Technology Co., Ltd., also known as Space Trek, has announced that it will soon perform a test flight of a suborbital rocket from a site in northwest China, possibly later this month. The company recently raised a seed round of funding from Chinese investors estimated to be in the millions of dollars. (10/1)

Boeing Closing In On Starliner Pad Abort Test (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
The CST-100 Starliner vehicle will test its abort system at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico in an uncrewed test. That test will take place before the uncrewed orbital flight test of the spacecraft, now expected for later this year on an Atlas 5 from Cape Canaveral. While no formal launch date has been announced for the orbital flight test, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a recent interview he said it was likely "months" away.
(10/1)

How NASA Works With Elon Musk (Source: The Atlantic)
As Musk prepared this weekend to unveil the latest details about SpaceX’s Starship, a solo effort intended to send people to the moon and Mars, Bridenstine tweeted: “NASA expects to see the same level of enthusiasm focused on the investments of the American taxpayer.” Musk responded by saying that most of SpaceX’s resources go toward the Commercial Crew program and that the company is going “as fast as we can.”

He even joked about NASA’s own effort to build a rocket to reach the moon, which is also years behind schedule. It’s practically in the job description for NASA administrators to tell contractors to meet deadlines, but the public back-and-forth felt unprecedented; how many contractors also have a Mars spaceship project on the side? Click here. (10/1)

Trump Said 'Billions of Dollars’ Would Be Saved on Military Contracts. Then the Pentagon Fired the Official Doing That (Source: Yahoo News)
Trump’s interest in negotiating better prices for the government made it seem like Shay Assad’s work would get White House attention. A 2016 Politico profile described Assad, known for his dogged campaigns to force defense industry companies to justify their costs, as “the most hated man in the Pentagon.” Yet within two years of Trump’s entrance into the White House, Assad would find himself removed from his job, and his efforts to save money and recover hundreds of millions of dollars in potentially fraudulent spending tabled.

His treatment, he contends, was the direct result of his attempts to save the Pentagon money and identify potential contract fraud, which brought him into conflict with the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer. It was a conflict that ended dramatically, he says, when shortly after he emailed senior Pentagon officials about potential fraud, details about his travel records and his demotion were published in the press. (10/1)

First Florida Launch From Relativity Space Gets Green Light with New Round of Funding (Source: Click Orlando)
Relativity Space has the green light to get to orbit after receiving a new round of funding. The Los Angeles-area space start-up is currently targeting 2021 to launch its fully 3D-printed Terran 1 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport's Launch Complex 16, currently under construction. On Tuesday, Relativity Space announced it had closed on a $140 million Series C funding round led by Bond and Tribe Capital.

The biggest takeaway from this new round of funding, Relativity co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Jordan Noone said, is that this sets Terran 1 up for its first flight. Noone said this separates Relativity "from the rest of the pack of smaller launch companies out there." Terran 1 is also going to have double the volume capability after some design changes to the rocket nose cone, with a larger 3-meter fairing. (10/1)

NASA Issues its Fast-Track Plan to Get Two Commercial Lunar Landers for 2024-2025 (Source: GeekWire)
After two preliminary rounds, NASA published its final call for industry proposals to have the first two landers capable of putting astronauts on the moon ready for 2024 and 2025. NASA’s broad agency announcement, known as NextSTEP-2 Appendix H, makes clear that two different companies would be chosen to build human-capable landers. One of them would be used for the Artemis 3 mission, which aims to send two astronauts to and from the lunar surface in 2024. The other would be used for a demonstration mission in 2025.

Those two missions would set the stage for putting an upgraded lander on the moon in 2026 to demonstrate a “sustainable” approach to lunar exploration. That follow-up demonstration mission would serve as a “precursor to procuring lunar landing services as commercial services beginning in 2028,” NASA said. And here’s the kicker: The proposals for the first two landers are due in a month. (10/1)

NASA, Boeing, SpaceX Closing In on Return to Human Spaceflight for US (Source: Space Daily)
America's public and private space endeavors may soon regain the nation's role as the global leader in human space exploration, but they are years behind schedule. At stake is not only United States dominance, but also scientific advances to be gained from space exploration. More than $20 billion has been spent to develop new capsules - NASA's Orion, SpaceX's Crew Dragon and Boeing's Starliner.

Boeing and SpaceX are more than two years late in sending astronauts back to space from U.S. soil compared to their original contract schedules. They've dealt with delays caused by such problems as parachute failure and a capsule exploding during a test firing. NASA's own SLS rocket and Orion capsule also have been delayed for years, having started in design phase under the Constellation program that was defunded in the 2011 federal budget. NASA has accelerated plans for returning to the moon, but there are no guarantees of funding to do that within a five-year window set by Vice President Mike Pence in March. (10/2)

SpaceX is Building Starship’s East Coast Launch Site at a Breakneck Pace (Source: Teslarati)
After breaking ground on September 21st, SpaceX and construction contractors are working at a breakneck pace to complete the modifications necessary for the existing Launch Complex 39A pad to support East Coast Starship and Super Heavy launches. SpaceX is simultaneously preparing two launch sites and two orbital-class Starship prototypes – Mk1 (Boca Chica, Texas) and Mk2 (Cocoa, Florida) – for their inaugural flight tests. Both pads and flight hardware appear to feature unique design choices and clearly have different strategic value, but one thing remains entirely consistent: SpaceX is not wasting time at either site.

Less than five days after SpaceX received its final construction permit and broke ground at Pad 39A, the company and its contractors have made quick work of clear the ground. Major earthmoving is well underway, concrete deliveries have already begun, and piles are being driven in a bid to quickly secure the proposed Starship launch mount’s foundation. Once complete, Pad 39A will be able to simultaneously support both Falcon 9/Heavy and Starship/Super Heavy launches. (10/1)

How Can NASA Return to the Moon? By Making Everything Reusable, Chief Says (Source: Ars Technica)
One thing new NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has shown is that he appreciates space policy history. In his first public speech last May after taking the reins of NASA, when discussing the Trump administration's preference to return to the Moon, Bridenstine cited a number of past human exploration programs proposed by Republican and Democratic presidents that fell by the wayside. "Times have changed," Bridenstine said. "This will not be Lucy and the football again."

He believes reusability—from rockets to lunar landers—is the game-changing technology that enables deep-space exploration. "We want the entire architecture between here and the Moon to all be reusable," Bridenstine said. When the space program can reuse its rockets, spacecraft, deep-space stations, and landers, it makes the program sustainable. What the White House does not want, he said, would be a program that spends a lot of money and sends humans to the Moon a handful of times before retreating back into low-Earth orbit. (10/1)

Virgin Galactic to Fly Italian Experiments on SpaceShipTwo (Source: Virgin Galactic)
Virgin Galactic has announced a contract with the Italian Air Force for a research flihgt aboard SpaceShipTwo during which Italian researchers will conduct experiments while they are in space. The project will include three Italian payload specialists and a rack of research payloads. This marks the first time a government department has funded a human-tended research flight on a commercial space vehicle. The mission will take place as early as 2020. (10/2)