December 1, 2019

Why Go To Mars? (Source: Christian Post)
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has renewed his vow to put astronauts on Mars by as early as 2035. The head of America’s space program says we’ll start by going back to the moon, where we can test the technology necessary to make a much longer voyage to the Red Planet. But the whole project to put boots on another planet—something incredibly expensive, dangerous, and time-consuming—raises an interesting question: Why should we do this?

Back in the sixties, the obvious answer for why we should go to the moon was to beat the Soviets. The space race, like the nuclear arms race, carried enormous military implications. And then there was the symbolic victory, which was won when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted the Stars and Stripes on the lunar surface. But there was a third reason for space exploration back then—which, unlike the other two reasons, still applies now.

In last year’s movie, “First Man,” Neil Armstrong, played by Ryan Gosling, finds himself forced to justify the space program to the public and to public officials, not to mention his own family, as accidents accumulate and the cost in lost lives mounts. Pointing beyond practical things like military supremacy, Armstrong, in the film, argues that the ultimate reason for going to space is that it is a worthy undertaking—something human beings were made to do. “It allows us to see things,” he says, “that maybe we should have seen a long time ago, but just haven’t been able to until now.” (11/30)

Securing the High Ground in Outer Space (Source: National Interest)
The economic opportunity of space development beckons, with profound changes in transportation, information, energy, and manufacturing promised in the next couple of decades. For example, space solar energy could deliver an unlimited supply of clean energy. If mastering “big data” is the key to the fourth industrial revolution, mastering space will be the key to the fifth. That could bring military advantage and existential risk. Finally, the opportunities for scientific knowledge and discovery remain abundant. But if the United States is to ensure it enjoys these benefits, then it will have to step up its activities with a realistic strategy in tandem with like-minded partners.

Just as the United States has long supported freedom of the seas, it also seeks open access to outer space. However, freedom of navigation in space is in jeopardy. States like China and Russia have a track-record of restricting others’ access to the global commons in both the maritime domain and cyberspace.  They are developing anti-space systems that they can use to deny states access to the global commons in space.  Meanwhile, it lacks the rules, standards, and enforcement mechanisms necessary to encourage states to exercise restraint and to clarify which actions are proportionate. As more players enter it, including non-state actors, the risk of a party disrupting open access to space will only increase.

In particular, the mounting competition to control cis-lunar space (the region between Earth and the Moon) is one that the United States cannot afford to lose. Both economic and security vital interests depend on it. The 2020s will see an unprecedented number of actors vying for advantage as they establish a permanent presence in Earth’s adjacent realm of space. Losing control of this region would prevent the United States and others from maintaining satellite networks, conducting experiments in orbit and on the moon, and developing new commercial services, like SpaceX's Starlink internet service and Blue Origin’s space tourism service. (11/30)

India's Second Spaceport, for New SSLV Rocket, to Come up in Tamil Nadu (Source: The Wire)
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has commenced land acquisition for its second launchpad in Kulasekarapattinam, a town in the Thoothukudi (Tuticorin) district of Tamil Nadu. News of this launchpad has been doing the rounds for a year or so but a confirmation of the scale of activities planned in the chosen area was hard to come by. Thoothukudi district collector Sandeep Nanduri said the total land requirement will be 2,300 acres.

ISRO’s first and only spaceport, the Satish Dhawan Space Center (SDSC), is located in Sriharikota, about 100 km north of Chennai, in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The organisation launches its PSLV and GSLV rockets from here. The SDSC, setup in 1971, currently has two active launchpads. Its first launchpad was decommissioned once the Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle program ended in 1994. The first of the two active pads mostly services the PSLV and the second, the GSLV, and which ISRO is currently modifying to accommodate crewed vehicle missions as part of its upcoming human spaceflight project, Gaganyaan. A third launchpad in the same premises is also in the works.

The second spaceport at Kulasekarapattinam is expected to provide an important advantage to ISRO’s upcoming Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV), a smaller counterpart of the PSLV that the organisation has developed to launch small-satellites more frequently. The PSLV is designed to launch satellites into pole-to-pole, or polar, orbits around Earth. However, it can’t enter into such an orbit straightaway after launch because its trajectory needs to avoid flying over Sri Lanka. (12/1)

India's PSLV Gearing Up for 50th Flight (Source: The Hindu)
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is preparing for the 50th flight of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), popularly dubbed the the space agency’s trusted workhorse. The PSLV-C48 mission is scheduled for lift-off on December 11. By all rights, the PSLV-C47 mission that flew on November 27 this year should have been logged as the 50th flight had the ISRO stuck to the natural progression of numbers. After the PSLV-C12 flight on April 20, 2009, the space agency nimbly leap-frogged to the C14 mission. ISRO lore goes that the number 13 was bypassed allegedly due to its association with ill luck! (12/1)

Korean Lunar Orbiter Project in Danger of Being Scrapped Altogether Due to Frequent Revisions (Source: Hankyoreh)
Ever since the South Korean Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) announced this past September that it would be changing the orbit of a planned lunar orbiter from circular to elliptical, NASA, MSIT’s key partner in the project, has reportedly indicated that this change of plans is “unacceptable.” The government is planning to send a probe into orbit around the moon in 2022 for a year in order to collect various data, including photographs of the surface. But the latest developments are prompting concerns that the orbiter project, which has been repeatedly revised since work began in 2016, is in danger of being scrapped altogether. (12/1)

Canadian Space Agency Funds New Space Station Health Studies (Source: SpaceQ)
The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) announced this week that it had awarded $2.2 million for three new health studies to be conducted on the International Space Station. The studies selected are specific to the effects of space flight on the human body and were selected from NASA’s 2017 Human Exploration Research Opportunities program. (11/29)

How a Meteorite Ruined an Alabama Woman's Afternoon 65 Years Ago (Source: Space.com)
Sixty-five years ago, a few days after Thanksgiving, Ann Hodges was snuggled up on the sofa in her Alabama home when a 4.5-billion-year-old meteorite crashed through the ceiling and struck the left side of her body. Not the best interruption to the holiday season. The cosmic event, which took place on Nov. 30, 1954, was the first known reported instance of a human being struck by a meteorite and suffering an injury. The softball-size space rock, weighing about 8.5 lbs. (3.8 kilograms), burst through the roof of Hodges' house in Sylacauga at 2:46 p.m. local time, bouncing off a large radio console before striking her and leaving a large, dark bruise. (11/30)

Asia-Pacific Nations Agree to Share Satellite Data (Source: NHK)
Representatives of space agencies in the Asia-Pacific region have agreed to create a system to share observational data of Earth in order to make plans for agriculture and disaster prevention. Officials from more than 30 countries and regions took part in the 4-day meeting of the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum in the central city of Nagoya, which closed on Friday. Participants discussed inter-agency cooperation. More and more member countries are starting to operate satellites to observe Earth.

They agreed to create a multi-national framework to exchange satellite data. This would include such data as the growth of crops, damage from natural disasters and environmental changes in nature. Japan, Thailand, India, and Vietnam and others operate satellites. (11/29)

That Time a Monkey Flew to the Edge of Space and Then Smashed Into a Destroyer (Source: Ars Technica)
Back in December 1959, NASA was 18 months away from Alan Shepard’s flight into space. The agency still had rockets and spacecraft to test. And scientists knew almost nothing about the effect of weightlessness on humans or how to keep them alive. More immediately, they wondered about the safety of a new launch-abort system, needed to get the crew capsule quickly away from the rocket in case of an accident. Rockets blew up a lot back then.

So when NASA's young engineers at Langley Research Center in Virginia began testing their new Mercury capsule in flight, they wanted to see whether the accelerations experienced during the abort of a Mercury flight shortly after launch were survivable. Enter Sam, an eight-pound rhesus monkey. It was up to Thompson to recover Sam, or what remained of him, after the test flight. An original member of NASA’s Space Task Group, Thompson had been brought in a year earlier to head up landing and recovery operations for NASA and coordinate with the US Navy. Rough seas had scuttled attempts to launch Sam earlier in the week. But finally, by December 4, the seas had calmed—a little. Click here. (12/1)

Iconic Space Observatory in Puerto Rico Recovers After Hurricane Maria (Source: Space Daily)
The world's most powerful radio space telescope, which was damaged by Hurricane Maria two years ago, is being repaired slowly under new management determined to maintain it as a hub of interstellar discovery. The iconic Arecibo Observatory, famous for its appearance in movies such as 1995's GoldenEye and Species, and 1997's Contact, has brought two scientists Nobel Prizes and achieved worldwide acclaim for its research efforts.

For decades, Arecibo has had a key role in detecting dangerous near-Earth asteroids that could destroy civilization should they hit the planet, and NASA awarded the facility $19 million for that program in August. "We have a plan to revive Arecibo, and it includes building our science team, providing better access for visitors and seeking a new, more reliable power source for the region and for the observatory," said Ramon Lugo, director at the University of Central Florida's space institute in Orlando. The university is the new manager. (11/30)

Governor Requests $7 Million for Florida Space Financing Projects (Source: EOG)
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has released a $91.4 billion proposed 202o budget for the state, a 0.5 increase over 2019. Included for the coming year is $7 million for Space Florida's aerospace financing program ($1 million more than was appropriated in 2019). The budget includes the following justification for the funds: "to help provide targeted growth, retention, and diversification of Florida's space and aerospace industry. The space and aerospace industry has experienced a transformation into a commercial business model, which attracts private, at-risk capital into the industry."

"The recommended funds provide financing tools such as conduit financing which are necessary in attracting and securing private capital investment.  This serves to maintain employment for space and aerospace employees that were employed by the federal government and contractors and to revitalize Florida's space assets at the Kennedy Space Center." (11/27)

NASA Rethinks Space Through Partnerships With Private Space Companies (Source: CNBC)
Companies are increasingly looking to space as a place of business, and NASA has been changing in several different ways, especially by partnering with corporations to develop new technologies. Earlier this year NASA announced it would open the International Space Station to private astronauts, with short missions beginning as soon as 2020. Additionally, NASA said it would allow companies to bid for new activities on the space station, as the agency unveiled a directive to “enable commercial manufacturing and production” in space.

The space station has been touted as a stepping-stone toward creating an ecosystem of business in orbit around the Earth, so companies can manufacture, experiment, advertise and even host tourists. After NASA’s announcement, agency CFO Jeff DeWit spoke to CNBC about how more companies involved in the space station will “lower the cost and lower the risk” of doing business in outer space. (11/30)

Sending Europeans to the Moon: ESA Announces Record Budget for Ambitious Space Missions (Source: EuroNews)
The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced its biggest-ever budget, as it set out an ambitious programme of future missions including sending the first Europeans to the moon. The five-year budget is now €14.4 billion, while the previous one agreed by a council of ministers two years ago was around €10.3 billion. The agency said it was looking to reinforce its relationship with the European Union, which is a separate legal entity.

Space ministers and representatives from member states and partners gathered in Seville, Spain for the ministerial council which takes place every few years. Here, countries negotiate and horse-trade over contracts which can provide a boost to industries back home. The United Kingdom, which is seeking an exit from the EU, reconfirmed its commitment to ESA, maintaining its place as one of the big four funders alongside Italy, Germany and France. (11/28)

Gov’t Would Spend 10 Billion HUF on Hungarian Space Project (Source: Hungary Today)
Responding to the question from Hungarian television channel RTL, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Péter Szijjártó said that the government will spend HUF 10 billion over the next three years to be able to launch a Hungarian astronaut to space in 2024. Szijjártó announced earlier this week at a European Space Agency ministerial conference in Seville that Hungary plans to send an astronaut to space in 2024 in cooperation with Russia.

According to the plans, the launch of the Hungarian astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS) will only be one of the pillars of the Hungarian space strategy. Hungary also aims to send an independent satellite to orbit the Earth. Additionally, in cooperation with Russia, Hungarian scientific and measuring devices will be sent to the ISS and a space weather mission is in a preparatory phase, involving building a micro-satellite fleet. (11/29)

Why Cloud Constellation Turned Down $100 Million (Source: Space News)
In December, Cloud Constellation was finalizing receipt of a $100 million investment that would help the startup deploy a ring of secure data-storage satellites in low Earth orbit. By spring, Cloud Constellation had walked away from the deal, citing a review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, as one of the reasons. Cliff Beek, CEO of Cloud Constellation, said that the funds — roughly a third of what the company estimates it needs to build and launch its satellite constellation — were too difficult to accept because they came from a Chinese company. (11/29)

Italy Satisfied With Outcome of ESA Ministerial (Source: Space News)
Italy, one of the largest contributors to the European Space Agency, is pleased with the outcome of the recent ministerial meeting that provided funding for a number of its priorities, including a reusable spacecraft. In a finally tally of contributions provided by ESA at the end of the Space19+ ministerial meeting here Nov. 28, Italy ranked third among ESA’s 22 member states, contributing 2.28 billion euros ($2.51 billion) or 15.9% of the 14.4 billion in funding provided by ESA members overall at the meeting. Only Germany, at 3.29 billion euros, and France, at 2.66 billion euros, offered more funding. The Italian funding commitment is nearly one billion euros higher than what it provided at the previous ministerial in 2016. (11/29)

Italy Doubles Funding for ESA (Source: ANSA)
Italy has doubled its funding for the European Space Agency (ESA), cabinet secretary with the space brief Riccardo Fraccaro said Thursday. "The space sector is the engine for development, innovation and competitiveness of the country-system," he said. "Buoyed by the results achieved in terms of economic return on investments and greater efficiency of the institutions, Italy is doubling the funds earmarked for ESA's programs. (11/28)