December 24, 2019

Environmental Concerns Delay UK's Sutherland Spaceport Plans (Source: The Times)
Proposals to create Britain’s first vertical launch spaceport have gone back to the drawing board after residents in the Highlands raised concerns. Part of the £17.3 million scheme in Sutherland is to be re-designed. Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) is leading the Space Hub Sutherland project and had been holding consultations with local communities. It confirmed that a planning application would not be submitted by the end of the year. (12/24)

SpaceX Wraps Up a Decade of Reusable Rocketry with Fastest Booster Recovery Yet (Source: Teslarati)
SpaceX has completed its 13th and final launch and landing of the year and decade, marked by a Falcon 9 booster’s successful return to Port Canaveral and subsequent processing to prepare it for another orbital-class mission.

Over the course of that recovery, SpaceX broke the record for the fastest Falcon 9 processing by several hours, a small but significant step towards the company’s ultimate goal of launching and landing the same Falcon 9 booster in less than 24 hours. Additionally, SpaceX appears to have finished processing booster B1056 on December 21st, the 4th anniversary of Falcon 9’s first successful landing after an orbital-class launch. (12/23)

Revamped SpaceX Crew Dragon Parachute Aces 10th Test in a Row (Source: Space.com)
SpaceX has taken a big step on the road to human spaceflight. The revamped "Mark 3" parachute system for SpaceX's Crew Dragon astronaut taxi just passed its 10th test in a row, company representatives announced via Twitter Monday (Dec. 23). SpaceX is developing Crew Dragon to get NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS). The capsule's previous parachute design, the Mark 2, had suffered some issues during recent drop tests, so the company decided to switch to the upgraded Mark 3. (12/24)

Thousands of Fake Stars Could Pollute Arizona's Dark Skies. Don't Let This Happen (Source: Arizona Central)
The SpaceX company has a visionary plan to provide global high-speed internet service using a network of orbiting satellites. But this lofty new communications enterprise known as Starlink may impose some heavy costs on Arizona residents and visitors. Blessed with clear weather and favorable topography, Arizona has been a magnet for amateur and professional astronomers for more than a century. Home to top flight observatories, our state has long reaped the many benefits of proactive stewardship efforts to preserve valuable dark sky sites.

With 16 officially designated dark sky communities, parks and other locations, no place in the world matches the Arizona commitment to safeguarding the superb conditions that are essential for all levels of stargazing. The coming swarm of Starlink satellites required to achieve the goal of global communications might be numerous and luminous enough to alter the appearance of the starry night sky. Should this risk become reality, the specially protected dark sky sites of Arizona will be the most severely impacted. (12/24)

Here's What the Space Force Will Actually Do (Source: NPR)
"This is not a farce. This is nationally critical," Gen. John Raymond, who will lead the Space Force, told reporters on Friday. "We are elevating space commensurate with its importance to our national security and the security of our allies and partners...It's going to take some time to grow this, but we are moving out with due diligence to make sure that we do this right," he said. About 16,000 Air Force active duty and civilian personnel are being assigned to the Space Force. There's still a lot to figure out, including the force's uniform, logo, and even its official song.

The Space Force will fall within the Department of the Air Force, but after one year it will have its own representation on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That makes it similar in structure to the Marine Corps, which is a part of the Department of the Navy but has its own seat on the Joint Chiefs. The new service branch essentially repackages and elevates existing military missions in space from the Air Force, Army and Navy, said Todd Harrison. "It will create a centralized, unified chain of command that is responsible for space, because ultimately when responsibility is fragmented, no one's responsible," he added.

It's worth pointing out a few things the Space Force will not do. "It's not about putting military service members in space, it has nothing to do with NASA, it's not about protecting Earth from asteroids or aliens," said Harrison. Joan Johnson-Freese said she's concerned that the way Trump described space – as a war-fighting domain – could be provocative to those countries. "Personally, I don't believe that we ought to couch it in those terms because when the United States starts chest-thumping, all that does is prompt others to do the same, and to bolster their capabilities, which in the long run can be counterproductive to the United States." (12/21)

Roscosmos Approves Preliminary Design of Super Heavy-Lift Launch Vehicle (Source: Sputnik)
Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos has approved a preliminary design of a super heavy-lift launch vehicle and also appointed the head of the project, Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin said. "Last week, we approved a preliminary design of a super heavy-lift launch vehicle ... Roscosmos has decided on the manager of the super heavy-lift launch vehicle project, it will be my deputy, Alexander Lopatin," Rogozin said during a press conference at the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency.

Earlier in December, sources in the Russian space industry said that Roscosmos was working on the Yenisei super heavy-lift launch vehicle and its Don version with better carrying capacity. Such rockets will be used to launch to the Moon the Orel transport spacecraft, with a lunar descent-ascent module, and parts of a lunar base. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on developing a super heavy-lift launch vehicle in early 2018. The vehicle's first launch is planned for 2028. (12/24)

Patrick Air Force Base Designated a Space Force Base (Source: Florida Today)
President Trump signed the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act into law Friday establishing the U.S. Space Force as the sixth armed service of the United States alongside the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Coast Guard. “Effective immediately, consider yourselves airmen assigned to the United States Space Force” Chief Master Sgt. Scott J. King, Command Chief of the 45th Space Wing said in a video statement soon after the president signed the service into law.

The personnel of the 45th Space Wing overseeing space operations at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station are among 16,000 active-duty airmen and civilians now assigned to the U.S. Space Force. Patrick Air Force Base, and with it the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, is now designated as a Space Force base and could see a name change in the coming months. Other re-designated bases are Peterson, Schriever, and Buckley Air Force Bases in Colorado and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. (12/23)

Scotland Leads Sustainable Space Commerce Revolution (Source: The Herald)
Scotland is spearheading a sustainable space revolution as global commercial ventures are in position to overtake government space agencies for the first time in the race towards new boundaries. Professor Massimiliano Vasile, the director of the Aerospace Center of Excellence at Strathclyde University, is at the forefront of space exploration development that almost sounds like science fiction.

Some of the Strathclyde Space Institute students are designing a Moon base with the European Space Agency, while the potential uses of quantum are also being unravelled within the campus space cluster that has close links with large organizations and powerhouses like Airbus who are leading the push as well working with a constellation of small and medium-sized enterprises across Scotland. (12/23)

ULA Picked to Launch GOES-T Satellite (Source: SpaceFlight Insider)
NASA has selected a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket to ferry the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-T to orbit for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “ULA and its heritage vehicles have a long history with the GOES Program and have launched all 17 operational missions to date,” said Tory Bruno. If everything goes as it currently envisioned, GOES-T should be launch in December of 2021 from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. (12/23)

NASA Eyes Wild Radio Science Projects on the Lunar Farside (Source: Space.com)
NASA's quest to return humans to the moon could boost a field of research that might not seem particularly lunar in nature: cosmology. But the far side of the moon could be a powerful place to answer some of the most compelling questions about the universe — and NASA's push to bring humans back to the moon could cut the prices enough to make this science a reality. Even a scientist leading the push for NASA to investigate these missions admits it wasn't the most intuitive idea when he first heard about it.

"The lunar farside is such a rare environment," Jack Burns said. "It's the only really quiet place in the entire inner solar system to conduct observations at very low radio frequencies, which, as it turns out today, is really the last unopened window to the electromagnetic spectrum." So Burns and his colleagues have produced a report about each of two far-side radio-science concepts for NASA, which is looking for scientific research that could piggyback on the Artemis program. (12/23)

Astrobotic On Track for 2021 Moon Landing (Source: Pittsburgh Business Times)
Pittsburgh-based aerospace robotics company Astrobotic Technology Inc. made huge steps in 2019 toward its mission to the moon, planned for summer 2021. In May, NASA chose Astrobotic as one of three companies to deliver its first commercial payloads to the moon as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. Aerospace tech companies Intuitive Machines and Orbit Beyond Inc. were also chosen, but in July, Orbit Beyond terminated its $97 million contract. Astrobotic will take 14 NASA payloads, along with 14 other payloads, to the lunar surface via its Peregrine Lander.

The 10-year CLPS program will give a total of $2.6 billion in payload contracts to its list of eligible companies, which in November grew from a pool of nine to 14. The expanded list now includes Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. A NASA spokesperson said the organization plans to award its VIPER Lunar Rover task order to one of the eligible companies in early 2020. (12/23)