February 19, 2020

Colorado Springs Becoming the Hub for Directing Traffic in Space (Source: The Gazette)
Colorado Springs doesn't build rockets or satellites, but in the booming new space economy, startups have picked the Pikes Peak region for a new and important job: Traffic cop. At the Catalyst Campus incubator and in anonymous office parks around town, quickly-growing firms are working out how to avoid crashes in space amid plans from firms including Elon Musk's SpaceX to put thousands of new satellites into orbit.

It's a role the military once played, but has grown too large for even the Space Force that calls Colorado Springs home. But those military skills are what's drawing businesses here like miners to the Cripple Creek Gold Rush. "I think it is pretty clear to say that no matter how this shakes out, Colorado Springs will remain the hub," said Todd Brost, who heads special programs for Numerica Corp., one of the new space traffic management companies that has come to Colorado Springs.

The status of Colorado Springs was on display in December, with a war-game style training session that drew dozens of companies to Catalyst Campus off Pikes Peak Avenue and drew international competitors from as far away as Australia to try out new tools for "space situational awareness," the industry term for tracking what's in orbit. It was one in a series of planned events here, with another coming in April as Space Force and the Department of Commerce figure out how to better understand how best to track the growing commercial use of low-Earth orbit. (2/18)

UAE Sees Earth-bound Purposes in Outer Space (Source: Asia Times)
With the failure of Iran’s Zafar 1 satellite launch last week, global attention was drawn to a lesser-known aspect of the region’s current rivalries: the Gulf’s very own space race. While sanctions-hit Tehran has been pursuing a program of satellites sent into space by domestically-built rockets, its neighbor on the other side of the waterway — the United Arab Emirates — has taken a fast-tracked approach, collaborating with Eastern and Western allies to set up a space program of its own.

Harnessing recent developments in space technology, the privatization and commercialization of the global space sector, and the eager contracting of various space agencies, corporations, and academic institutes, the UAE has become a front-runner amongst smaller nations joining the space race. The UAE Space Agency, founded in 2014, now plans to launch a mission to Mars, the Hope probe, scheduled for July this year. “Our journey into space is ongoing and still in the beginnings,” said Sheikh Mohammed, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE.

Indeed, the Emirates plans to send more astronauts to the ISS in the years to come, and has set is sights on an inhabited colony on Mars by 2117. Driving these sky-high ambitions is an earth-bound incentive: a growing impetus for the UAE to diversify its economy. Still highly dependent on oil and gas revenues, this need to diversify was underscored recently, as oil prices fell in the wake of the coronavirus. London-based Capital Economics estimates the UAE’s economy grew at just 1.5% in 2019. The hope is that investing in high-tech space ventures will help the Emirates develop high-tech industries that can reduce dependency on oil and gas. (2/17)

Cork-Coated Spacecraft to be Chucked Out of the ISS for Re-Entry Test (Source: New Scientist)
A spacecraft designed to study how objects burn up in Earth’s atmosphere is about to be launched from the International Space Station (ISS) – complete with a nose made of cork. Called Qarman (QubeSat for Aerothermodynamic Research and Measurements on Ablation), the shoebox-sized probe will be released from Japan’s Kibo module on the ISS later this week. It will slowly descend towards Earth over several months before it re-enters the atmosphere. The spacecraft is shaped like a shuttlecock to maintain stability within the atmosphere. (2/17)

NASA Should Step Up Earth’s Defense Against Asteroids (Source: Post and Courier)
Last Saturday, a kilometer-wide rock whizzed by at 34,000 mph, causing a momentary media sensation. It missed us by about 3.6 million miles, about 15 times the distance between Earth and the moon. A small change in direction, however, would have sent it hurtling our way with the potential for damage so catastrophic that a British expert said it would have put us “back into the Middle Ages.”

Smaller rocks regularly rain down on Earth and burn up in the atmosphere, creating meteor showers. NASA has done a good job of tracking the big ones; in the past two months alone, it identified seven large asteroids capable of doing large-scale damage to Earth. The agency found 34 of them in the past year. But NASA has been slower to test ways to protect Earth, and that’s a problem that should become a higher priority.

Last summer, a poll found that two-thirds of Americans favored a NASA focus on asteroids and comets that could threaten Earth, compared to only 27 percent who favored a manned mission to Mars. The Trump administration, which wants NASA to focus on Mars, shortsightedly canceled the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) that would have tested the potential for robot spacecraft to deflect the path of hazardous asteroids. (2/18)

DARPA Shift in Launch Challenge Rules Favor Alaska Spaceport Over Virginia's (Source: Space News)
Officials with the DARPA Launch Challenge said that Astra will perform both launches required by the competition from Alaska's Pacific Spaceport Complex, although from two separate pads about 300 meters apart from each other. When DARPA announced the competition in 2018, the intent was for competitors to perform two launches from two separate sites. In addition, the choice of launch sites would be revealed to competitors just weeks in advance, in order to emphasize the flexible and responsive characteristics of launch systems DARPA believes are needed for future military applications.

Astra had already started the process of preparing for a potential launch from Virginia by filing a license application. However, DARPA informed Astra Feb. 17 that the company would be able to do its second launch from Alaska. He argued that decision was intended to allow Astra to focus on the launch itself, and not licensing or logistical issues. “Whether we moved 5,000 miles or 1,000 feet, the technical challenges associated with it and the benefit of what we were trying to demonstrate remained the same.”

DARPA's Todd Master said that DARPA had already decided that the launches would take place from Kodiak or Wallops, a choice made a couple months earlier to minimize the work in licensing and flight safety analyses. He added, though, that the lack of a launch record for Astra — the upcoming launch from Kodiak will be the first orbital launch attempt by the company — was also a factor in the decision to use Kodiak for both attempts. Astra has an FAA license for up to three launches from Alaska. (2/18)

Eutelsat Hosted Payload Supports Galileo Navsat System (Source: GSA)
A hosted payload on Eutelsat’s hobbled Eutelsat 5 West B satellite has entered service. The European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency (GSA) said its GEO-3 hosted payload is now active, sharpening signals from GPS and Galileo satellites for safety of life navigation services to aviation, maritime and land-based users. The GSA feared its payload could be lost when power issues with Eutelsat's satellite surfaced shortly after its October launch. Eutelsat 5 West B has an unusable solar array due to a component failure, costing 55% of the satellite’s capacity. (2/18)

Dawn Aerospace Offers Free Ride on Suborbital Flight (Source: Dawn Aerospace)
Launch startup Dawn Aerospace, which plans to conduct its first suborbital flight in November, is offering a free ride to the winner of a competition to design the paint scheme for its spaceplane. The winning person or team will receive a payload slot valued at $50,000 on a flight that will pass 100 kilometers — the altitude typically associated with the beginning of space. Dawn Aerospace says its Mark 2 suborbital vehicle will initially be able to carry 3U payloads weighing up to 4 kilograms for 180 seconds of microgravity. Those parameters will increase as the vehicle's performance and flight altitude improve, the company said. Dawn Aerospace’s paint competition closes March 31. (2/18)

Intelsat to Lease Instead of Buy for Failed Satellite Replacement (Source: Space News)
Intelsat will not order a replacement for the failed Intelsat-29e satellite. The company instead will rely instead on leased capacity, a borrowed satellite and the newly ordered Intelsat-40e spacecraft to fill a coverage gap over North and South America created when Intelsat-29e failed last April. That satellite suffered a catastrophic fuel leak Intelsat still believes was caused by a micrometeoroid impact or an ill-timed electrostatic discharge triggered by unfavorable solar weather. Intelsat is also preparing to order the first in a series of software-defined satellites that will mark the beginning of its second-generation Epic network, with that satellite order expected later this year. (2/17)

Environmentalists Oppose Scottish Spaceport (Source: The Scotsman)
Environmental activists say they oppose developing a spaceport in northern Scotland. Members of the Extinction Rebellion group say the spaceport near Sutherland, Scotland, could harm Flow Country, the largest area of boggy peatland in the world and an important carbon sink. The launch site, first announced in 2018 by the British government, would host small launch vehicles. Proponents of the spaceport say the project has undergone extensive environmental reviews in order to both protect existing peatland and restore other areas damaged by past activities. (2/17)

Russia Putting Angara-A5 Upp;er Stage on Soyuz-5 Rocket (Source: TASS)
Russia plans to use an upper stage developed for the Angara-A5 rocket on the upcoming Soyuz-5 vehicle. That upper stage, created by RSC Energia, is based on the Block DM upper stage used on versions of the Proton. The Soyuz-5 is a medium-class vehicle not expected to enter service until the mid-2020s. (2/17)

Australia Opens Space Robotics Center (Source: 7 News Australia)
Australia is opening a space robotics center, with an eye towards working with NASA on lunar exploration. The Australian Remote Operations for Space and Earth (AROSE) center in Perth will work to adapt technologies currently used for remote mining operations in Australia for use in space. The center has funding support from the government of Western Australia as well as universities and several companies. (2/17)

US Negotiating to Buy One or Two Seats on Soyuz (Source: Sputnik)
The United States is negotiating to buy one or two seats on upcoming Russian Soyuz flights to the International Space Station (ISS) to ensure the continued presence of US astronauts on it, a NASA official said. "NASA intends to purchase one or two additional Soyuz seats to ensure continuous US presence aboard the International Space Station," NASA Johnson Space Centre Public Affairs Officer Dan Huot said on Friday. "Negotiations are ongoing." The negotiated deal meets recommendations of US advisory committees, including the Government Accountability Office, and aims to provide additional back-up capability in case US crew flights are delayed. (2/17)

Satellites Reveal Decline of China's Wetlands (Source: Space Daily)
Using archives of satellite imaging data, a study in Frontiers in Earth Science has conducted the most in-depth study of China's intertidal wetlands to date and found a 37.62% decrease in area between 1970 and 2015. Intertidal wetlands significantly contribute to China's environmental and ecological diversity, but are facing unprecedented pressures from anthropogenic development, as well as the threat of future sea level rise.

Despite the ecological and economic significance of China's vast areas of intertidal wetlands, such as storm protection, pollution purification and carbon sequestration, their distribution and variation over time have not been well documented. This study highlights the urgency for conservation measures of these valuable habitats by showing the scale of their decline for the first time. (2/17)

Escaping the Tyranny of the Rocket Equation (Source: Scientific American)
The Saturn V rocket that took astronauts to the moon was 85 percent propellant by mass on the launchpad, nearly identical to the space shuttle. And the amount of payload mass hardly ever exceeds 4 percent of that of the entire rocket. Thus, all launch vehicles suffer from Earth’s gravity with equal effect. While new discoveries in materials science are yielding tremendous advances in the structural integrity of spacecraft, only marginal improvements in the cargo-to-weight ratios have been found. The more one does the math, the less advantageous Earth-based launch becomes.

Consider this: Despite the generations of probes and robotic missions to Mars, some 34 million miles from Earth at its perigee, humans have never transited more than 1 percent of that distance in space. And yet, back in the 1960s, Wernher von Braun had dreamed of, and designed, spacecraft to accomplish that feat by the 1980s. Unfortunately, rather than continue to improve upon the Saturn V, American political will atrophied and the nation receded from its spacefaring ambitions. The subsequent years found our reach limited to a short shuttle trip 250 miles upward. Click here. (2/18)

Michigan Airport Selected for Spaceport Launch Facility (Source: WLUC)
The former Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda Township has been preliminarily selected as the site for Michigan's new spaceport launch facility, the Michigan Aerospace Manufacturing Association announced Tuesday. Sawyer International Airport in Marquette County and Chippewa County International Airport were not selected for the horizontal launch site. If plans for the Oscoda site are approved by state and federal regulators, it would be used for small and mid-sized low earth orbit satellites, most likely using horizontal take-offs.

"There is much opportunity and growth potential in the aerospace industry and we are pleased to see that Michigan Aerospace Manufactures Association and Michigan is pursuing this endeavor." The selection means about 1,000 new jobs and an investment of between $8.3 billion and $12 billion over 10 years. (2/19)

The Future Of Ordinary People In Space (Source: WMFE)
Companies like Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are on the brink of launching a new class of astronauts into space — ordinary people. The experiences promise to give space tourists a new perspective on the world and experience the feeling of weightlessness. How will space tourism change the way we think about space and our planet?

We’ll chat with Alan Ladwig — former NASA official and author of the new book “See You in Orbit” about the history of civilians in space and the prospect of ordinary citizens leaving this planet. Then, NASA has its sights set on the moon — the south pole of the moon, specifically — because of the evidence of water. But just how much water is there at the poles of the moon? And how do we know? We’ll ask our panel of expert scientists this week. Click here. (2/19)