February 28, 2020

Boeing Provides Update, Path Forward for Starliner (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
Just over two months after the truncated Orbital Flight Test of their Starliner crew capsule, Boeing officials have provided an in-depth overview of the issues faced on the flight. The update, held on Friday, 28 February, also provided information on the path forward for Starliner, including the on-going software audit, closing progress escapes and software testing gaps, as well as work with NASA to determine the future flight schedule.

NASA will ultimately be the one to decide what kind of flight Starliner will fly next and when that next flight will occur, but John Mulholland, Vice President and Program Manager for Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program, confirmed there is room on United Launch Alliance’s busy Atlas V schedule this year for another Starliner flight.

However, Mr. Mulholland advised cautioned on pinning down exactly when Starliner’s next flight will happen, saying that until the final recommendations from the Independent Review Team are received (next week), until Boeing’s internal audit of the software and processes that lead to the in-flight issues not being discovered prior to flight are completed, and until Boeing can implement new requirements and rules for software verification and validation, there cannot be a realistic discussion of when Starliner will return to flight. (2/28)

Brownsville Aiming to Become “Space City” by 2030 (Source: KVEO)
The effort continues to name Brownsville the next “space city”. Currently two cities  in the U.S. have that title, Houston and Cape Canaveral. Now Brownsville wants in. It is a title that exists only by name, but with SpaceX getting ready a for launch in 2020, the community excitement and interest are expected to grow. The South Texas Astronomical Society hosting a panel to begin discussions on what it means to have a space program in our back yards.

Richard Camuccio, Cristina V. Torres Memorial Observatory, Assistant Director, “There’s this interest that is there that needs to be tapped. I see it that it will happen. It’s an inevitability. It’s not if but when.” It’s not the first time the idea has been floated around. In 2019 staff from NASA spoke about Brownsville’s potential to become a space city. Referring to the creations of new industry jobs, both directly and assisting with space travel. Academic focus on the sciences and engineering. (2/27)

Musk's Rocket, and the Grand Scheme that Tore Apart Boca Chica (Source: Esquire)
At the end of September, when tensions were at their peak, the residents of Boca Chica Village received a message from SpaceX. The private space company was publicly unveiling its new spacecraft here, at the southeastern tip of Texas, and they were invited. The gesture came as a surprise. Earlier that month, homeowners in this tiny community of independent-minded retirees had received another letter from SpaceX, via FedEx. “Expansion of spaceflight activities,” it read, “will make it increasingly more challenging to minimize disruption.”

Given the company’s ambitions—massive and, as the residents had come to learn, always shifting—SpaceX wanted to buy their homes. As an incentive, it had offered three times the properties’ assessed values. As an incentive of a different kind, the letter had declared that the offer, which was final, would expire in two weeks. That deadline passed three days before the rocket unveiling. Of the residents who planned to attend, not one had accepted SpaceX’s offer. Click here. (2/27) https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a30709877/elon-musk-space-x-boca-chica-residents/

Northrop Grumman’s OmegA Rocket is On Track for 2021 Flight (Source: Defense News)
Northrop Grumman conducted a static test of their new OmegA rocket at their facility in Promontory, Utah, Feb. 27, keeping it on track for a certification flight in spring 2021. The OmegA rocket is Northrop Grumman’s entrant in the Space Force’s competition to select the next generation of vehicles for the National Security Space Launch program, at least partly to end dependence on Russia’a RD-180 engine.

Two companies are expected to be chosen and they will be awarded all of the launch contracts over a five year period. Those contracts are expected to follow a 60/40 split, with the launches scheduled to lift off between 2022 and 2026. Along with Northrop Grumman, Blue Origin, SpaceX, and United Launch Alliance (a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing that has provided the majority of national security launches since it formed in 2006) are competing for what could be a lucrative and stable source of income from the government. The Space Force is expected to announce its decision this summer. (2/27)

Michigan Spaceport Site Makes First Cut, Advancing to Next Phase of Spaceport Ambitions (Source: Oscoda Press)
As part of its new branding efforts, Oscoda Township has adopted the slogan, “Take Flight.” These two words could be taking on a whole new meaning, given an announcement on Feb. 18 by the Michigan Aerospace Manufacturers Association (MAMA). The results of MAMA’s Michigan Launch Initiative (MLI) site-selection process reveal that Oscoda-Wurtsmith Airport (OWA) has been named a top candidate for horizontal launches of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. This generated plenty of buzz, with word quickly spreading throughout the town – and beyond. (2/25)

Washington’s State's Future in “Final Frontier” Economy (Source: The Lens)
State lawmakers in recent years have monitored the emerging private space economy developing in Washington state, and while previous proposals have struggled to take flight, a new House bill appears to be getting off the ground. HB 2596 sponsored by Rep. Matt Boehnke (R-8) tasks the state Department of Commerce with creating an advisory committee as well as studying the best path to foster a strong business climate for the industry. The bill, which is currently in the Senate Financial Institutions, Economic Development & Trade Committee, cleared the House on Feb. 19 with a 94-3 vote – and the requisite Star Trek and Buzz Lightyear references.

Boehnke said his bill is about “space, the final frontier, to boldly go where no man or woman has gone before.” The industry employs 6,200 people and contributes $1.8 billion to the state economy. Other private space companies in the state include manufacturer Blue Origin funded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bozos, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Spaceflight Industries and SpaceX owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. There is also LeoStella, a satellite manufacturer. (2/27)

UK Sutherland Spaceport Wins Support From Business body – But Not Billionaire Landowner (Source: Press and Journal)
Multi-million pound plans to build Europe’s first rocket-launching spaceport in Sutherland were handed a massive boost yesterday with firm backing from a powerful business body. But a company with land on a neighbouring estate – owned by Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen – has lodged a “holding objection” to the plan.

Highlands and Islands Enterprise’s (HIE) contentious £17.3 project – which they claim will create 250 jobs across the region – has won support from the Scottish Council for Development and Industry (SCDI). SCDI’s Inverness-based regional director Fraser Grieve said: “Planning proposals that can have such a lasting positive impact do not come along often and I hope that we will grasp this opportunity.” (2/28)

Biggest Bang Since the Big Bang (Source: Cosmos)
Scientists studying a distant galaxy cluster say they have discovered the biggest explosion seen in the Universe since the Big Bang. It came from a supermassive black hole at the center of the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster, about 390 million light-years from Earth, and released five times more energy than the previous record holder. It was so powerful, the authors say, that it punched a cavity in the cluster plasma – the super-hot gas surrounding the black hole. (2/28)

SpaceX Planning More Launches (Including Polar Ones) From Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: Space News)
SpaceX is expecting a major increase in the number of launches it conducts from its Florida launch sites, according to an environmental assessment published Thursday. That report, prepared as part of new and modified launch licenses for the company, projects 38 Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches in 2020, increasing to 70 by 2023. The report doesn't disclose the customers for those missions, although up to 10 per year will carry Dragon cargo and crew spacecraft.

The company will start performing launches to polar orbit from Florida, accounting for up to 10% of those launches, with the first such launch scheduled for late March. The document also disclosed details about a mobile service tower the company is planning to construct at LC-39A to enable vertical payload integration, a requirement of some national security missions. (2/28)

Air Force Personnel Not Required to Join Space Force (Source: Space News)
Air Force personnel will not be required to transfer to the Space Force, a top general said Thursday. Lt. Gen. David "DT" Thompson, vice commander of the Space Force, said that Air Force personnel will be asked to volunteer to transfer to the Space Force, and that no one will be required to transfer if they do not want to. Thompson predicted the Space Force will have no trouble attracting transferees and newcomers, and that the new service will instead  face an oversupply of candidates. (2/28)

Air Force Academy Graduates Can Directly Join Space Force (Source: Space News)
U.S. Air Force Academy graduates will be able to directly join the Space Force this year. Thompson said from a graduating class of about 1,000, as many as 62 or 63 second lieutenants will go to the Space Force. The process by which Air Force Academy cadets decide whether to go to the Air Force or the Space Force will be the same as how midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy decide if they'll join the Navy or the Marine Corps. (2/28)

India Ramps Up Satellite Launches (Source: Space News)
A new report describes India's plans for satellite launches and other space projects for the coming year. The report states that India's space agency ISRO is gearing up to launch 10 Earth observation satellites during the next financial year, starting April, as well as three communication satellites, two navigation satellites and a space docking experiment. India will also work on its Gaganyaan human spaceflight program, with an uncrewed flight of the spacecraft scheduled for December. A new small satellite launcher, which was to make its first launch last year, is now expected to make two demo flights in the coming fiscal year. (2/28)

NASA Planning Artemis Adjustments (Source: Ars Technica)
A draft report that makes major changes to NASA's Artemis program is not the plan the agency is pursuing, officials said Thursday. The plan called for launching an integrated lunar lander on an SLS launch immediately before an Orion launch of the astronauts who would fly that lander to the lunar surface, rather than use commercial launches to assemble the lander at the lunar Gateway. That plan would require two SLS launches two months apart in 2024, but delay the next human mission to the moon until 2026. NASA officials, including administrator Jim Bridenstine, said the plan laid out in that report is not the one they are pursuing, but the agency has yet to announce what revisions, if any, it is making to its existing Artemis plan. (2/28)

University Professor Arrested for Undisclosed Chinese Collaboration (Source: Quartz)
A professor at the University of Tennessee was arrested on charges of not disclosing an affiliation with a Chinese university while being funded by NASA. Anming Hu, an engineering professor at the university, received a NASA contract to develop technology for a future Mars sample return mission. Hu did not disclose that he also holds a position as a professor at the Beijing University of Technology, which would have made him ineligible for the NASA funding under the so-called "Wolf amendment" that restricts NASA-China cooperation. Hu is charged with three counts of wire fraud and three counts of making false statements. (2/28)

Betelgeuse Brightening Again (Source: Nature)
Betelgeuse, the red giant star whose recent dimming led to speculation it may be about to go supernova, has started to brighten again. The star, whose brightness declined by two-thirds over the course of four months, has recently brightened by 10%. What caused the star to dim remains unknown, and astronomers have speculated it could be caused by an unusually large and cool convection cell on its surface or a dust cloud moving between the star and Earth. (2/28)

Large Exoplanet Could Have the Right Conditions for Life (Source: Space Daily)
Astronomers have found an exoplanet more than twice the size of Earth to be potentially habitable, opening the search for life to planets significantly larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. A team from the University of Cambridge used the mass, radius, and atmospheric data of the exoplanet K2-18b and determined that it's possible for the planet to host liquid water at habitable conditions beneath its hydrogen-rich atmosphere.

The exoplanet K2-18b, 124 light-years away, is 2.6 times the radius and 8.6 times the mass of Earth, and orbits its star within the habitable zone, where temperatures could allow liquid water to exist. The planet was the subject of significant media coverage in the autumn of 2019, as two different teams reported detection of water vapour in its hydrogen-rich atmosphere. However, the extent of the atmosphere and the conditions of the interior underneath remained unknown. (2/28)

OceanGate Working with NASA to Develop New Carbon Fiber Pressure Vessels (Source: Space Daily)
NASA and OceanGate have entered into an agreement to collaborate in the development, manufacturing and testing of new carbon fiber pressure vessels. The resulting pressure vessel will be used for the deep-sea submersibles. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will serve as the facility where the development and manufacturing of a new aerospace-grade hull is completed. This design effort is key to OceanGate completing its latest Cyclops-class submersible that is intended to dive to 6,000 meters (19,800 feet) with five crew-members on board. (2/28)

Gov't Fires Back At SpaceX Over $2.2B Launch Deal Rejection (Sources: Law360, LA Times)
The U.S. government has sharply criticized SpaceX's objections to contracts awarded for the creation of new spacecraft, telling a California federal court the Air Force properly assigned $2.2 billion in deals that excluded Elon Musk's company. After the contract awards were announced, SpaceX sued the Air Force in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in May, alleging the agency wrongly ignored its qualifications.

The awards were the product of “prejudicial unequal treatment” of SpaceX by the Air Force, the lawsuit alleges, including the application of criteria that were not part of the original contract plan and on which SpaceX was marked down. SpaceX alleges it was penalized for its approach to missions not even scheduled until late 2025, despite its claimed superiority in capability and cost over its rivals for the more frequent space flights scheduled for the near term. The company is asking the court to block the awards to ULA, Northrop Grumman and Blue Origin and to reevaluate the bids. (2/27)

SpaceX Targeting Next Week for Space Coast's Next Rocket Launch (Source: Florida Today)
SpaceX is targeting next week for the Space Coast's next rocket launch, a mission slated to deliver thousands of pounds of cargo and science experiments to the International Space Station. Teams at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40 are looking at no earlier than 11:50 p.m. Friday for Falcon 9's liftoff with a Dragon capsule. The launch window is instantaneous, meaning it has to launch at 11:50 p.m. or delay to another day.

This will mark the final flight of Dragon 1, which has been flying to the ISS since 2012. Moving forward, SpaceX will start flying to the space station with Dragon 2, a platform being used for cargo-only trips as well as crewed missions with astronauts. (2/28)

UK’s Black Arrow Startup Pursues Seaborne Satellite Launches (Source: Parabolic Arc)
On the 50th Anniversary of the first successful British rocket launch, the Black Arrow name is reinvigorated as Black Arrow Space Technologies starts up in business. Black Arrow Space Technologies is a new British company developing spaceflight technologies designed to launch satellites into orbit. Black Arrow unique offer is their seaborne launch system – commercial rockets launched from their own Space Ship! This will enable Britain to offer a global service unavailable elsewhere in the world, bypassing many of the issues faced by land launches.

Initially, the company aims to launch payloads of up to 500Kg into Polar Low Earth Orbit or 300Kg into Sun Synchronous Orbit. This will support a growing niche in the space market, currently under-served by the international ‘access to space’ sector. In time, the concept will be developed to enable much larger payloads to be launched to higher altitudes and more trajectories. Black Arrow Space Technologies has negotiated an agreement with a major investor to fully fund the company development activities, up to the completion of the test launch phase of the project, which is anticipated to take between two and three years. (2/28)

Spains PLD Tests Rocket Engine (Source: Space Daily)
In May 2019 PLD Space suffered a catastrophic engine failure, which provoked material damage, including the loss of the first flight version of the TEPREL-B liquid rocket engine, developed by PLD Space for MIURA 1 launch vehicle. Therefore, the company decided to pause the qualification process and analyse the root causes of the failure to solve the problems found. After eight months of hard work, PLD Space successfully achieved a full mission duration hot test of the flight engine. This allowed the company to validate the nominal engine performance during the full mission duration burn of two minutes, the necessary time to boost MIURA 1 launch vehicle into space. (2/27)

At New California HQ Relativity Space Can Begin Building first 3D-Printed Rockets to Launch From Florida (Source: Click Orlando)
Ahead of its first rocket launch next year, Relativity Space is moving into new, bigger digs in Long Beach, California where it will build the first fully 3D printed rockets to launch from Cape Canaveral. Bursting at the seams at its current industrial headquarters not far from the Los Angeles International Airport the new sprawling 120,000-square-foot space in Long Beach will allow the five-year-old company to really spread out and begin assembling its Terran 1 rockets.

Terran means of this Earth because the rockets are 3D printed with materials found on our planet. Using its robotic 3D printer, called Stargate, Relativity is able to make rockets faster and using fewer parts. A Terran 1 starts at $10 million and can be ready to launch in under two months, according to the company. "With no fixed tooling, Relativity has enabled a massive part count reduction, increased iteration speed and created an entirely new value chain,” Relativity Space CEO and co-founder Tim Ellis. “I’m confident our autonomous factory will become the future technology stack for the entire aerospace industry.” (2/28)

FCC Approves $9.7 Billion Package to Speed C-Band Clearing (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Feb. 28 voted to auction a large portion of C-band in December under a plan that includes $9.7 billion in incentives to expedite relocating satellite operators out of the spectrum to make way for high-speed 5G networks. The agency’s five commissioners voted three to two in favor of the plan, released three weeks ago, despite worries that the plan will trigger litigation from disaffected companies or a rebuke from Congress where lawmakers had sought to legislatively prescribe the auction rules.

Central to the debate was whether the $9.7 billion in payments to encourage satellite operators to fully vacate the spectrum two years faster — in 2023 instead of 2025 — was appropriate, or legal. (2/28)

Chinese Rover Discovers It's Sitting on 39 Feet of Moon Dust (Source: Futurism)
Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing have started analyzing data collected by the country’s Yutu-2 Moon rover’s ground-penetrating radar. The instrument peered 40 meters below the lunar surface — and found it was sitting on top of a mountain of fine dust. China’s Chang’e 4 lander touched down on the far side of the Moon in January 2019, becoming the first man-made object to do so. Shortly after, it deployed the rover Yutu-2 from its belly. The rover has been exploring the South Pole-Aitken basin, the largest and oldest crater on the Moon, ever since.

Using high-frequency radar to look beneath the surface, it found that it was sitting on top of 12 meters of fine Moon dust. The fine particles were likely the result of many small meteorite collisions and a ton of solar radiation. Below the dust, between 12 and 24 meters, the rover spotted larger rocks, likely what’s left of larger asteroid and meteorite impacts. Further below that, the rover detected alternating layers of fine and coarser soil. Most noteworthy is the striking difference between the new readings and the ones taken at Chang’e 4’s landing site, where measurements suggested it landed on top of a dense lava layer buried below the surface, the remains of a volcanic event. (2/27)

Can a Rogue Star Kick Earth Out of the Solar System? (Source: Space.com)
As a star nears the solar system, it can start to change the orbit of the Earth. When the Earth and the interloper are near, our planet can get a little bit of energy, a gentle gravitational tug-of-the-leash from the foreign visitor. This may not amount to much, but if this happens year after year, the Earth can steadily gain energy, moving its position farther away from the sun, out of the "habitable zone," the band of orbits around the sun that aren't too close for surface water to vaporize or too far for it to turn to ice.

And with enough tugs, the Earth could potentially gain so much energy that it achieves escape velocity from the sun, leaving the solar system in the blink of a cosmic eye. Thankfully, this scenario hasn't happened in the past four billion years (obviously, because we're still here), but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen in our future. (2/26)

Firefly Aerospace Execs Deny Involvement in Shady Dating Sites. Let’s Look at the Facts (Source: Snopes)
On Feb. 12, 2020, Snopes published a two-year investigation into apparent links between a network of nearly 200 deceptive dating websites and the Texas-based space startup Firefly Aerospace. These sites — with names like Fatty Chaser, Moms Get Naughty, I Want Asian, and Shag Together — use fake profiles to encourage recurring and hard-to-cancel credit card subscriptions.

The affiliate marketing platform that promotes them, we documented, has incentivized the pollution of Facebook, Instagram, and dating apps with misogynistic memes or predatory “porn bots” designed to direct traffic to these sites. The dating sites themselves are generally owned or maintained by anonymous companies registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) or Malta.

Our reporting linked Firefly Co-Founder and Board Member Max Polyakov and Firefly Co-Founder and one-time Acting Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Mark Watt to both offshore and U.S.-registered companies that are associated with these dating websites. In doing so, we demonstrated that many, if not most, of these deceptive dating websites, or the companies that maintain them, are contained in the portfolio of Noosphere Ventures. Noosphere is a venture capital firm that purchased and is the majority owner of Firefly Aerospace. Its two principle partners are Polyakov and Watt. Click here. (2/27)

NASA Planning Document May Offer Clues to Changes in Artemis Program (Source: Ars Technica)
NASA is close to finalizing a plan to land humans on the Moon in 2024 and is expected to publicly discuss it next month. While the space agency has not released its revised strategy publicly, a recently updated "mission manifest" for the Space Launch System rocket may provide some clues about the new Artemis Program.

According to a planning document circulated at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center this week, titled "Moon 2024 Mission Manifest," the space agency has set target launch dates for its first 10 Artemis Moon missions. In doing so, the agency has shaken up the order of launches and emphasized the use of NASA's Space Launch System in the lunar return. The document confirms an earlier report that the first Artemis mission to test the SLS rocket will take place no earlier than April 2021. It also adds an additional Artemis mission in the run-up to the first human landing at the South Pole in late 2024. Click here. (2/27)

Branson’s Wealth Falls to Earth as Virgin Galactic Sputters (Source: Yahoo Finance)
Wearing a black suit and harness, Richard Branson once leaped from the roof of a Las Vegas casino to launch one of his ventures. His fortune headed in the same direction this week. The value of the British billionaire’s stake in Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. has fallen about $1.1 billion since the company reported widening losses in the fourth quarter from a year earlier. The firm’s shares tumbled 24% to close at $21.97 in New York and have plunged 35% since Tuesday. (2/27)

No Deal for Trump After India Trade Trip (Source: Foreign Policy)
Trump’s 36-hour visit to India was mostly about optics. On Tuesday, he delivered remarks with Modi in New Delhi, telling the prime minister, “This has been a very special visit—unforgettable, extraordinary.” Neither leader took questions. (Modi, in fact, has never fronted a press conference in his time as prime minister.) But the careful optics were damaged when reports of deadly clashes over religious freedom begin to overshadow the public narrative.

Later, at a solo press conference with reporters, Trump responded to a question about whether he broached the issue with his counterpart: He described Modi’s explanation as “incredible”—in a good way, one presumes—but he didn’t share any details. Delhi deals? Despite years of high-level negotiations, India and the United States did not announce a trade deal—even a so-called mini-deal—despite Trump’s hints during the visit that an “incredible” agreement was in the works.

Both sides are holding out for better terms on items such as agricultural products, medical devices, and motorbikes—but it’s difficult to imagine momentum in an election year in the United States and with the impetus of a state visit already squandered. (2/26)

Readying for Air Force Contract, Northrop Grumman OmegA 2nd Stage Tested at Utah Facility (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
Northrop Grumman’s OmegA finished another step toward its first flight next year when it was test-fired for 140 seconds (2 minutes 20 seconds) on Thursday at the NGC solid rocket motor factory and test site in Promontory, Utah. The test-firing, which started at 1:05 pm Mountain, was made as to the second and last qualification firing before the OmegA’s first test flight in the spring of 2021.

As per Charlie Precourt, an initial look was good and there were no “observations” like what was seen during the CBS-600 firing last year. He did mention that the test might have lasted a second longer than planned, but said that could have been a good result. The OmegA CBS-600 is the first stage of the baseline OmegA launch vehicle and the CBS-300 is the second stage of both the baseline and the heavy OmegA vehicles. (2/27)

Readying for Air Force Contract, SpaceX Envisions Launch Pad Rocket Enclosure for Military Launches (Source: Teslarati)
SpaceX has designed a massive tower designed to fully enclose a Falcon Heavy rocket, giving the US military access to certain prized satellite payloads even when the vehicle is vertical at the launch pad. The Mobile Service Tower (MST) stretches some 70 m tall and 12.2 m wide. Prior to this, SpaceX used the concept of horizontal integration, meaning that its Falcon rockets can be entirely integrated and prepared for flight before going vertical for launch.

This approach has ensured easy, cheap access to the entire rocket and payload up until the last few days of static fire and launch operations, lowering the cost of launch. Now, once vertical, SpaceX’s new tower would slowly crawl about 40m (130 ft) to fully encompass a given Falcon Heavy or Falcon 9 rocket. Once safely inside the MST, 11 different levels would give SpaceX and customer technicians access to the vast majority of the rocket. Most importantly, the tower would allow SpaceX technicians to crane certain US military payloads – encapsulated inside a Falcon payload fairing – onto the top of the rocket.

At the end of the day, that’s really the only reason SpaceX needs such a tower – certain customers (the US military and, to a lesser extent, NASA) have certain payloads that they either can’t or won’t tweak to allow for horizontal integration. (2/27)