November 21, 2019

Cornwall Council to Decide Whether it Will Give £10m for Spaceport (Source: Cornwall Live)
Cornwall Council will make a decision on whether to provide more than £10million towards Spaceport Cornwall next week. Tuesday's meeting of the full council will see councillors vote on whether to support the decision of the Cabinet to provide funding for the project. The £10.32m of capital funding would be used for "airport infrastructure upgrades, launch support infrastructure and launch service activities".

In a 48-page report to councillors it is set out that council officers believe that the project could have big benefits for Cornwall in terms of the economy and employment. The report states that Spaceport Cornwall would create 150 jobs by 2025 and says that these are 2.6 times more productive than the UK average. It states that the project would add £200m Gross Value Added (GVA) to the economy. (11/19)

Space Agency Leaders Discuss Ever-Expanding Roles for AI (Source: Space News)
A European Earth observation cubesat scheduled to launch in 2020 will demonstrate an important space application for artificial intelligence. One of the two six-unit cubesats that comprises the FSSCat mission will rely on artificial intelligence to determine which images to send from the satellite to ground stations. “For instance if you have clouds, it makes no sense to send normal pictures,” Jan Woerner, European Space Agency director general, said Nov. 19 at the Space Tech Expo here.

Polytechnic University of Catalonia and Estonian start-up Golbriak Space OÜ won ESA support for the FSSCat mission during the 2017 Copernicus Masters Competition. FSSCat, which stands for Federated Satellite System 6U tandem mission for sea ice and soil moisture monitoring, also won the 2017 Sentinel Small Satellite Challenge for its plan to gather data for the Copernicus Land and Marine Environment services program with two microwave instruments and a multispectral sensor on each satellite. (11/19)

How Vandenberg Air Force Base Could be a Launch Pad for America’s New Space Age (Source: The Tribune)
As we enter a new era of space exploration — from the United States’ highly-anticipated return to the moon to commercial space exploration and new missions that could lead to the eventual colonization of Mars — the final frontier is closer to humanity’s fingertips than it has been in decades. And Vandenberg could play an integral part in all of that. If its high-profile launches continue — paired with a potentially epochal push to have it house the new Space Command — Vandenberg Air Force Base seems poised at the precipice of a new Space Age. (11/19)

Could Amazon Founder Launch Space Tourists Next Year? (Source: Forbes)
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ rocket will likely delay launching tourists until at least 2020, according to reports. This confirms rumors that Blue Origin was planning to delay on its 2019 launch date, which it was holding to as late as May. “By the end of the year, we are going to be flying humans on top of this rocket,” Ariane Cornell, director of astronaut and orbital Sales for Blue Origin, said in a livestream that month.

New Shepard’s spacecraft is designed to bring people into space for a few minutes at a time to let them glimpse the blackness of space and the curve of the blue Earth. But Blue Origin wants a few more test flights to ensure the rocket is safe enough for people. Tickets for these first flights are expected to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per person at the beginning, then come down to something more affordable in the coming years. (11/19)

How the Seattle Area Became a Hotspot for Satellite Builders (Source: GeekWire)
Seattle may not be the best place to put a launch pad, but the region is turning into one of the most prolific satellite production centers in the United States. “How many of you know that Washington state is actually one of the world’s leading satellite manufacturers?” Roger Myers, a longtime aerospace executive who is currently president-elect of the Washington State Academy of Sciences, asked during a session of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region’s Economic Leadership Forum.

In terms of sheer mass and revenue, Colorado-based Lockheed Martin and Boeing’s satellite operation in California still have bragging rights. But when you tally up how many satellites have been launched in the past couple of years, it’s hard to beat SpaceX’s satellite development and manufacturing facility in Redmond, Washington. Last week, SpaceX added another 60 satellites to its nascent Starlink broadband constellation, bringing Redmond’s count to 122. That includes the 60 satellites launched in May, plus two prototypes sent to orbit last year.

Next, add in the satellites built at LeoStella’s factory in Tukwila, south of Seattle. Four Seattle-built Global satellites are already in orbit for BlackSky’s Earth observation constellation, and LeoStella is due to build at least a dozen more. Finally, consider Amazon’s plans to put thousands of Project Kuiper satellites into orbit for its own broadband mega-constellation. (11/19)

Water Vapor Found on Jupiter's Moon Europa, Fueling Hopes in Search for Life Beyond Earth (Source: CBS News)
Astronomers have long suspected that Jupiter's moon Europa holds a salty ocean beneath its thick icy crust that could support life. Now, NASA has confirmed the detection of water erupting from large geysers on the moon's surface. An international research team led by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center confirmed the presence of water vapor on Europa. While scientists had previously detected giant geysers bursting into space, they couldn't prove they had water in them — until now. (11/19)

NIST’s Light-Sensing Camera May Help Detect Extraterrestrial Life, Dark Matter (Source: NIST)
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have made one of the highest-performance cameras ever composed of sensors that count single photons, or particles of light. With more than 1,000 sensors, or pixels, NIST’s camera may be useful in future space-based telescopes searching for chemical signs of life on other planets, and in new instruments designed to search for the elusive “dark matter” believed to constitute most of the “stuff” in the universe.

The camera consists of sensors made from superconducting nanowires, which can detect single photons. They are among the best photon counters in terms of speed, efficiency, and range of color sensitivity. A NIST team used these detectors to demonstrate Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance,” for example. The nanowire detectors also have the lowest dark count rates of any type of photon sensor, meaning they don’t count false signals caused by noise rather than photons. This feature is especially useful for dark-matter searches and space-based astronomy. (11/19)

SpaceX Offering Starship to NASA for Lunar Landing Missions (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
SpaceX is eligible to propose using its next-generation Starship vehicle to carry NASA robotic science payloads to the lunar surface, the U.S. space agency announced Monday, on missions that could precede future Starship flights with people on-board. SpaceX is one of five companies NASA selected Monday to join a roster of commercial transportation providers to deliver scientific instruments and technology demonstration packages to the moon through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, program.

“For CLPS, we offered the Starship and Super Heavy launch capability,” said Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer. “That capability far exceeds the mass that CLPS was looking for, but we think that brings pretty extraordinary capability to NASA, both for the CLPS program and others. We can bring about 100 metric tons to the moon, and certainly return more.” NASA requires the CLPS providers to be capable of delivering at least 22 pounds, or 10 kilograms, of payload mass to the moon. (11/19)

SpaceX Starship Suffers Testing Setback at Texas Site (Source: Space News)
The first prototype of SpaceX’s next-generation launch system was damaged Nov. 20 during a tanking test, a setback the company claimed would not serious affect their development plans. Video from several observers in the vicinity of SpaceX’s test site in Boca Chica, Texas, near Brownsville, showed a white plume erupt from the top of the Starship Mark 1 vehicle undergoing a pressurization test there at about 4:30 p.m. Eastern.

That eruption blew off part of the bulkhead from that section of the vehicle, which could be seen falling back to the ground several seconds later. The vehicle, not fully assembled at the time, was undergoing a series of tests that, at the time, most believed would lead to an initial suborbital flight of the vehicle in the near future. The vehicle remained standing and the extent of the damage, beyond the ejected bulkhead, was not immediately known. (11/20)

Texas Locals Concerned About SpaceX Site Safety (Sources: Brownsville Voice, El Rrun Rrun)
"The video ... clearly shows the cap blowing off and coming back to earth.  What happens when part of a rocket comes down at the port?  So long as the money flows [County Commissioner] Sofie Benavides turns a blind eye to dangers. Is it any wonder outsiders see Cameron County and Brownsville being run by corruption. I may not like some of their policy objectives, but I certainly see the need for outsiders to expose the truth about what is happening."

"The chemicals in the cryogenic liquid spilled over the surrounding atmosphere and were carried by strong winds (17 to 23 mph) across the wetlands and the nearby Laguna Madre which is a nursery for all kinds of marine and shore species, including shrimp, redfish, and endangered birds and turtles. These are not pretty clouds drifting out across the landscape. They are very dangerous chemicals drenching the wetlands. What have we done to the once pristine public Boca Chica Beach?" (11/21)