December 30, 2019

Monaco’s Own Space Program Aims Skywards with High Tech NanoSatellites (Source: Hello Monaco)
Two vast frontiers stretch almost beyond our reach, the oceans and outer space. Prince Albert I was instrumental in bringing science to bear on the oceans, pioneering environmental projects in advance of today’s scientists and on which they can now benefit. During Prince Albert II’s reign, Monaco is currently venturing in the exploration of the last and arguably the most exciting frontier – space. Monaco is already the leading European country to engage with NASA via Axiom, an organization partnering NASA on Space travel.

Monaco has seeds planted in a new fast growing area of applied science – the use of nanosatellites (ultra small and light satellites) to explore near space and gather important data that helps us understand more about our changing climate and telecommunications. (12/29)

2020 is the Year of the $1 Trillion Space Economy (Source: Quartz)
The first time I can find “space economy” and “trillion dollars” in the same sentence is in 1984, when then-congressman Robert Walker told the Associated Press that a space station in low-Earth orbit could “lead to a half-trillion-dollar economy in space by the turn of the century.” Some 35 years later, we’ve fallen short of the mark. The best estimates of the money made from space—which these days mostly come from building and operating rockets and satellites, and using them to provide services back on Earth—is about $400 billion. To be fair to Walker, now a lobbyist who served on US president Donald Trump’s NASA transition team, the space station under discussion didn’t begin operations until 2000.

The turn of the century was a hard time for the space economy, as tech bubble-driven dreams of internet satellites and venture-backed moon missions fizzled out alongside the stock market. But a lot has changed since then, and the dream of a trillion dollar space economy is now cited by everyone from government officials and space entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 executives and Wall Street investment banks. Analysts at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs have predicted that economic activity in space will become a multi-trillion-dollar market in the coming decades, and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis has launched a new initiative to measure it. (12/30)

It’s a Meteor… It’s a Missile… It’s Rocket Debris… (Source: Saipan Tribune)
A bright object streaking across the Marianas skies and breaking into pieces before plunging into the sea late Friday night provoked much speculation on social media whether it was a meteor or a missile after video footage of the event surfaced minutes after the incident, which was seen both on Saipan and in Guam. The CNMI Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency now says it may have been debris from a test rocket launched from China.

Video footage surfaced on many social media sites of what appeared to be a bright, meteor-like object entering the Marianas atmosphere at around 11pm on Friday before disappearing into the ocean. The National Weather Service in Tiyan, Guam, issued a public post at 11:57pm on Friday stating that, based on the videos, it was possibly a meteorite breaking up in the sky as it entered the Marianas’ atmosphere. However, another possibility is that it could be debris from an earlier Chinese rocket or booster test. (12/30)

SLS Core Stage, KSC Ground Systems Look Ahead to Critical Year (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
The Space Launch System rocket, or SLS, is entering a critical year, with 2020 to see the completion and full-duration test firing of the Core Stage as well as the convergence of all flight elements for the Artemis 1 mission into the Kennedy Space Center. Exactly when the first SLS mission will launch is still ambiguous.  What is clear is there has been about a month of schedule loss in the last half of 2018, and that a Spring 2021 launch of Artemis 1 is “realistic.” However, most of spring 2021 would result in night launches – which could push the mission into May for daylight launch considerations/needs. Click here. (12/30)

With Fat Five Chinese say, ‘Mars, Here We Come’ (Source: Asia Times)
China Friday launched one of the world’s most powerful rockets in a major step forward for its planned mission to Mars in 2020. The heavy lift Long March 5 rocket carrying a Shijian 20 test satellite payload blasted off from the Wenchang launch site on the southern island of Hainan at 8:45 pm (1245 GMT), a livestream from state broadcaster CCTV showed. “After more than 2,000 seconds, the Shijian 20 satellite was sent into its predetermined orbit,” the official Xinhua news agency reported.

More than a million people watched an online livestream of the launch and crowds gathered near the island launch site cheered as the rocket blasted off into the night sky, videos posted on social media showed. “Fat Five,” the rocket’s nickname, was a trending topic on the Twitter-like Weibo social media platform. Friday’s success gets the space program back on track after a previous attempt in July 2017 failed mid-launch. (12/28)

Humanity's Space Travel Plans, 2020–2030 (Source: Salon)
The 2010s were troubled times politically, but in terms of space exploration this was a red-letter decade. In the 2010s, Humanity detected marsquakes for the first time, and watched massive dust storms on Titan. Astronomers assembled a catalogue of 1,822 potential stars where Earth-like planets could exist, bringing us closer to the dream of discovering extraterrestrial life. A Japanese probe explored an asteroid up close, giving us a better understanding of our own solar system, and an interstellar asteroid that was more bizarre than anyone imagined slingshotted through the solar system.

We saw Pluto in detail for the first time ever, and astrophysicists started to suspect that there was an enormous ninth planet in our solar system so distant and so dark that we have merely failed to spot it (but hopefully will soon). The decade ended with the announcement of a new mission back to the moon, which is just one of the many missions that are planned to make history this next decade. Here is what humanity has to look forward to. (12/30)

Musk Details SpaceX Progress on Latest Starship Spacecraft Build and Flight Timelines (Source: Tech Crunch)
Elon Musk shared video of the SpaceX team working on producing the curved dome that will sit atop the completed Starship SN1 (likely stands for “serial number 1,” a move to a more iterative naming system and away from the “Mark” nomenclature used for the original prototype), a part he called “the most difficult” in terms of the main components of the new spacecraft. He added that each new SN version of the rocket SpaceX builds will have minor improvements “at least” through the first 20 or so versions, so it’s clear they expect to iterate and test these quickly.

As for when it might actually fly, Musk said that he hopes this Starship will take off sometime around “2 to 3 months” from now, which is still within range of the projections for a first Starship high-altitude test flight given by the CEO earlier this year at the unveiling of the Starship Mk1 prototype. That prototype was originally positioned as the one that would fly for the high-altitude test, but it blew its top during testing in November and Musk said they’d be moving on to a new design rather than repair or rebuild the Mk1.

Musk also shared new details about the construction process for Starship, including that SpaceX will move its build process for future spacecraft to an enclosed building starting with Starship “SN2” in January — though mostly to block out the winds experienced in Boca Chica, as Musk says that welding for stainless steel (the primary material for the Starship fuselage) is much less sensitive to dust and debris than aluminum. In another tweet, Musk detailed another change from SpaceX’s previous operating model in developing Starship: The future spacecraft’s development is being focused at Boca Chica currently, he said, while SpaceX’s Cape Canaveral teams are “focused on Falcon/Dragon.” (12/30)

NASA Mars 2020 Rover Passes Driving Test (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
As 2019 draws to close, NASA’s Mars 2020 rover has reached an important milestone in preparation for a launch currently set to take place in the summer of 2020. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) recently put the rover through its first driving test. The Mars 2020 mission has been designed to search for evidence of past microbial life on Mars, study the planet’s geology and climate, collect and store samples for return to Earth by a future mission and test new technologies that may be used in the human exploration of Mars. (12/27)

Space Coast Airport Seeks FAA Spaceport Designation (Source: Space News)
A Florida airport is making progress on a long-running effort to get a commercial spaceport license. The FAA released a draft version of an environmental assessment for spaceport operations at Space Coast Regional Airport, just west of the Kennedy Space Center. The report found no significant impacts from proposed launches and landings by suborbital reusable launch vehicles there. The authority that operates the airport has been working on obtaining a spaceport license for years, but acknowledges that it currently has no companies seeking to launch from the airport even if its does obtain an FAA license. (12/30)

Work Continues at Pensacola Port on Blue Origin Ship (Source: WUWF)
Work continues to convert a cargo ship into a landing pad for Blue Origin. Workers at the Port of Pensacola in Florida have finished removing steel from a cargo ship and are starting to install a landing deck on it. The ship will serve as a landing pad for first stages of Blue Origin's New Glenn launch vehicle. Port officials said they expect Blue Origin to convert a second ship for New Glenn landings there and use the port to refurbish the ships between launches. (12/30)

Astronomers Curious as Betelgeuse Dims (Source: Washington Post)
Astronomers are monitoring the dimming of one of the brightest stars in the night sky. Betelgeuse, a red supergiant in the constellation of Orion, has dimmed significantly in recent weeks. While Betelgeuse has varied in brightness in the past, it has rarely dimmed so sharply as it has now. That has led to speculation that Betelgeuse may be on the verge of going supernova, although some astronomers say the dimming could be explained by other phenomena, such as convection within the star or dust clouds surrounding it. (12/30)

Maxar Sells Canadian Subsidiary (Source: Space News)
Maxar Technologies is selling its Canadian subsidiary for $765 million. Maxar announced Monday it will sell MDA to a consortium of private equity firms led by Northern Private Capital, turning MDA into a standalone Canadian company. The deal is pending regulatory approvals in the United States and Canada. The sale will help Maxar reduce its heavy debt load, and the company says the reduced revenues and earnings resulting from selling MDA will be partially offset by growth in other parts of the company as well as by reduced interest payments on its debt. MDA was founded 50 years ago as a Canadian company, but earlier this decade became a much larger American company through the acquisition of SSL and merger with DigitalGlobe, creating Maxar. (12/30)

Boeing Starliner in Good Shape After Landing (Source: Space News)
Boeing says its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew spacecraft is in good shape after its abbreviated test flight earlier this month. In a statement over the weekend, Boeing reported that technicians found the spacecraft to be in good condition after its two-day test flight, with "little scorching" from reentry and a cabin that looked identical to its condition prior to launch. The company didn't provide any updates on the timer glitch that canceled a planned docking at the International Space Station and shortened the flight to two days. (12/30)

Astronaut Sets Record for Female Spaceflight (Source: CBS)
NASA astronaut Christina Koch set a spaceflight record over the weekend. Koch eclipsed the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman on Saturday with her 289th day in space. Koch is scheduled to spend 328 days in space, returning in early February. Koch broke the record that had been set by Peggy Whitson, who still has the record for cumulative time in space by a woman at nearly 666 days. (12/30)

Now Entering Orbit: Tiny Lego-like Modular Satellites (Source: WIRED)
Just about a year ago, SpaceX sent the rocketry equivalent of a clown car to space: A rocket crowded with more than 60 small satellites. Inside one of them, Excite, were even more. It was actually a satellite made of other satellites, all clones of each other, all capable of joining together and working together. It was one of the first in-space tests of such a contraption—but in the coming years, this modular approach is likely to show up on more and more missions.

Excite was flung into space courtesy of a company called NovaWurks, which makes “satlets.” The suffix—like that of “piglets”—implies littleness, and indeed these 14 satlets are smaller than a standard piece of paper and only a few inches thick. Even at that size, they supply everything a satellite needs—a way to communicate with Earth, a way to move in space, a way to process data, and a source of power. You just hook your camera, radiation sensor, or computer circuit in before launch and then send the whole package to space. Each satlet, which NovaWurks calls a HISat, can also physically join up with others, forming one larger unit that shares resources. (12/29)

Patrick Air Force Base Gets Space Force Designation, Which Could Lead to Name Change (Source: WESH)
A Central Florida Air Force Base will be a part of the newly created U.S. Space Force. "The law states that Air Force Space Command will be re-designated the United States Space Force, that will happen immediately," said Gen. John Raymond, the commander of US Space Command and Air Force Space Command.

Raymond said that the 16,000 active duty airmen and civilians currently in the Air Force Space Command will be assigned to the new United States Space Force, though officials made clear those personnel will not actually become members of the Space Force and will remain in the Air Force for the time being. He named Peterson Air Force Base, Buckley Air Force Base, Schriever Air Force Base, Vandenberg Air Force Base and Patrick Air Force Base, which is located in Brevard County.

Reporter: Do you have any plans to maybe rename some of the Air Force bases that are currently space-focused? Raymond: We do have a plan to rename the -- the principal Air Force bases that -- that house space units to be space bases. That will occur in -- in the months ahead and we'll plan that appropriately. Reporter: So they'll be called, like, Patrick Space Base now? Raymond: Could be. We'll work it out. Okay. (12/24)

Used Ro/Ro Will Become Blue Origin's Rocket Landing Pad (Source: Maritime Executive)
In order to host its own at-sea landings, Blue Origin bought the ro/ro cargo vessel Stena Freighter in August. The ship arrived at the Port of Pensacola, Florida and she is scheduled for drydock upgrades before her delivery. Early reports indicated that the Freighter would be used for the pre-launch transport of rocket components, but Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith recently confirmed that she will become a landing pad. Blue Origin plans to launch its first New Glenn orbital-class rocket from Cape Canaveral in 2021, giving time for shipyard conversion work. (12/30)

2020 Shaping Up To Be a Promising Year for Space Coast Rocket Launches (Source: Florida Today)
Predicting the number of launches for an upcoming year is tricky business. Case in point: the Space Coast in 2019 was slated to host many more liftoffs than the 16 it actually saw, according to Air Force estimates established early in the year. The culprits, which are typically unique to launch vehicles and missions, ranged from mishaps to slow-crawling hurricanes to general delays.

But 2020 should still be a banner year for the Eastern Range, which encompasses Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Not only are advancements expected to push astronauts even closer to — and hopefully onboard — the International Space Station, but the continued need for on-orbit supplies, expansion of communications networks, and drive for scientific discovery will keep teams and spectators plenty busy. Click here. (12/30)