October 30, 2019

Alien Life Could Be Hiding Out on Far Fewer Planets Than We Thought (Source: Discover)
Where is complex alien life hanging out in the universe? Likely not on planets stewing in toxic gases, according to a new study that dramatically reduces the number of worlds where scientists will have the best luck finding ET. In the past, researchers defined the "habitable zone" based on the distance between the planet and its star; planets that, like Earth, orbit at just the right distance to accommodate temperatures in which liquid water could exist on the planetary surface would be considered "habitable."

But while this definition works for basic, single-celled microbes, it doesn't work for complex creatures, such as animals ranging from sponges to humans, the researchers said. When these extra parameters — needed for complex creatures to exist — are taken into account, this habitable zone shrinks substantially, the researchers said. For instance, planets with high levels of toxic gases, such as carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, would drop off the master list. "This is the first time the physiological limits of life on Earth have been considered to predict the distribution of complex life elsewhere in the universe," study co-researcher Timothy Lyons said. (10/30)

JWST Schedule Margin Shrinks (Source: Space News)
While NASA achieves milestone assembling and testing the James Webb Space Telescope, a key manager said the mission only has a few months of schedule reserve left ahead of a March 2021 launch. In a presentation to NASA’s Astrophysics Advisory Committee Oct. 29, Greg Robinson, program director for JWST at NASA Headquarters, said the agency and prime contractor Northrop Grumman are making progress with the integration and testing of the telescope at a Northrop facility in Southern California. (10/29)

Who Will Be First on the Moon? NASA (Bezos) or SpaceX? (Source: The Hill)
Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon.com and an aerospace company called Blue Origin, recently announced his plan to return humans to the moon at the International Astronautical Conference. Blue Origin would serve as the prime contractor, leading a coalition of old-line aerospace companies, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper Industries, to develop a three-stage lunar lander. The proposal constitutes Blue Origin’s bid for a lander contract for NASA’s Artemis return-to-the-moon program.

Later, at the same conference, SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell revealed her company’s plan to return to the moon. SpaceX’s plans revolve around the Starship rocket, a massive spacecraft being built both at the company’s facility in Boca Chica, south Texas, and at the Kennedy Space Center. Shotwell laid out an aggressive timeline that included the first orbital flight within a year, an un-crewed landing on the lunar surface in 2022, a trip around the moon in 2023 and a crewed lunar landing in 2024. Ironically, the 2024 date is the same as NASA’s plan to land the first woman and the next man on the lunar surface. SpaceX considers the dates “aspirational.”

Both proposals constitute separate approaches to returning humans to the moon. Blue Origin is aligning its idea to NASA’s stated needs in an effort to garner a space agency contract. The lander it is developing would be divided into transfer, descent and ascent stages that would use the Lunar Orbit Gateway, a space station NASA proposes to build near the moon, as a staging point. (10/30)

Vector’s Lost Contract Gives Wings to Startup Aevum (Source: Space News)
Aevum, an Alabama startup designing a drone-launched rocket in a former textile mill, went from winning a $50,000 study grant to landing a $4.9 million U.S. Air Force launch contract in the span of three weeks. About a month later, on Oct. 10, Aevum then became one of eight launch service providers qualified by the Air Force to compete for $986 million worth of small- and medium-sized launch missions over nine years.

Before this spate of wins, Aevum was largely unknown, claiming to have hardware built and software written, but lacking the funds to conduct a first launch. The three-year-old startup hoped the $50,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) study contract it received in early August would serve as a springboard to larger awards. Turns out it didn’t have to wait long.

When small launch startup Vector abruptly suspended operations in early August despite just winning a $3.4 million contract for the Agile Small Launch Operational Normalizer (ASLON)-45 mission, the Air Force transferred the contract to Aevum just two week later. The Air Force could have gone with a more established vehicle like Northrop Grumman’s air-launched Pegasus, but the military specifically wants to use the ASLON-45 contract to cultivate new launchers. Click here. (10/29)

NASA Shares Details of Lunar Surface Missions—and They’re Pretty Cool (Source: Ars Technica)
There are a lot of reasons to be skeptical that NASA will actually enact the Artemis Moon program to land astronauts on the Moon by 2024—Congress may not fund it, NASA's large, costly rocket remains far behind schedule, and history has been unkind to deep-space exploration programs since Apollo. However, should lunar landing missions occur during the next decade, they have the potential to go far beyond what NASA accomplished with the Apollo program half a century ago.

NASA scientists John Connolly and Niki Werkheiser spoke Wednesday at the annual meeting of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group, and they provided more details about the agency's plan for human missions in the 2020s. The first mission to the Moon's surface, consisting of two crew members, will remain on the surface for 6.5 days—this is double the longest period of time any of the Apollo missions spent on the surface. The two astronauts will conduct up to four spacewalks on the surface of the Moon, performing a variety of scientific observations, including sampling water ice. "We will have a very robust science program from the very beginning," Connolly said. Click here. (10/30)

York Space Systems Expands Facility to Speed Up Spacecraft (Source: Space News)
York Space Systems announced plans Oct. 29 to expand production facilities for its S-Class satellites. The Denver-based company that currently produces ten to 12 satellites per year will be able to produce 50 satellites in 2020 and hundreds of satellites annually in the future, York Executive Chairman Chuck Beames told SpaceNews.

York’s first satellite, sent into orbit in May on a Rocket Lab Electron rocket, is working well, Beames said, which could explain why customers are signing contracts to purchase more. “Flight heritage is a big risk reducer,” added the retired U.S. Air Force colonel. By expanding its facility, York will also speed up production. Currently the company  delivers satellites to launch pads less than one year after contracts are signed, Beames said. In the future, the wait could be reduced to less than four months, he added. (10/29)

FTC Investigating Northrop Grumman Amid ICBM Spat with Boeing (Source: Military.com)
The Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether Northrop Grumman Corp. has unfairly discriminated against Boeing Co. over an Air Force project to replace the service's aging intercontinental ballistic missiles, according to a regulatory filing disclosed by Northrop. The agency is probing whether Northrop violated the terms of an agreement it made to acquire Orbital ATK. Officials say it could be related to how Northrop bid for the ICBM project known as the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program (GBSD), estimated to cost the Pentagon $85 billion.

Boeing announced in July it would withdraw from the next phase of the competition, citing partiality toward Northrop. In 2018, Northrop paid $7.8 billion and assumed $1.4 billion in debt to acquire Orbital, which creates solid rocket motors and launch vehicles. The FTC allowed the deal to go through on the condition that Northrop provide "for solid rocket motors to be available on a non-discriminatory basis under certain circumstances and processes," according to an October filing. (10/29)

Who Will Build the First Commercial Space Station? (Source: Houston Magazine)
When Michael Suffredini decided to retire from the Johnson Space Center in 2015, he knew he wasn’t actually done with space. “I was just looking for the right opportunity to use everything I’d learned,” he says. “By the time I started thinking about retiring from the JSC, I knew that the ISS was not going to last forever, and I knew that in order for the government to do exploration, they were going to have to get out from under the ISS, because it costs NASA between $3 and $4 billion per year,” Suffredini explains.

One day he mentioned his plan to Kam Ghaffarian, a longtime government contractor who’d started his own business back in 1994: Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies, Inc., which trains all astronauts and everyone who works on ISS operations. Suffredini was shocked when, the very next day, Ghaffarian called him up and suggested that the two build a commercial space station together.

By 2016 they had founded Axiom Space. And if everything goes according to plan, starting in 2021 they are going to be sending what they call “space participants” and professional foreign astronauts to the ISS for 10-day stays, who will orbit the planet alongside NASA astronauts, for $55 million per person. They’re also aiming to attach their own module to a port on the ISS—the start of what will eventually become a freestanding commercial space station—if they win a contract to do so. (10/28)