February 4, 2020

Astronaut Launches And Moon Rockets: Kennedy Space Center Ready For Busy Year (Source: WMFE)
It’s going to be a busy year at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center — from human launches to the International Space Station to the arrival of the agency’s newest moon rocket. KSC Director Bob Cabana said the center is ready. After a successful flight safety test last month, SpaceX is one step closer to launching astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA, targeting a crewed test launch this spring.

Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana said the center is ready to support crewed missions from Florida once again — a first since the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011. “I do believe that within the first half of this year, we’re going to be flying crews on a U.S. rocket to the International Space Station from here at the Cape,” said Cabana. “Hopefully, maybe even before the middle of the year, we’ll have two partners that can do that.” (2/3)

One Step Closer to Prospecting the Moon (Source: ESA)
The first European device to land on the Moon this decade will be a drill and sample analysis package, and the teams behind it are one step closer to flight as part of Russia's Luna-27 mission. The main goal of the Luna-27 lander is to study the composition of the soil near the lunar south pole. Water is a key target: there may be concentrations of frozen water at or below the surface.

A major European contribution to the mission is Prospect, a robotic drill and a miniature laboratory with a suite of scientific instruments designed to penetrate the Moon's soil to depths of up to one metre, acquire lunar samples, and deliver them to the mini labs hosted by the lander. (2/3)

Space Science Investment Generates UK Income and Creates Jobs (Source: Space Daily)
Every pound invested in the design and development of space science missions like Solar Orbiter results in between 2.50 pounds and 4 pounds in returns, a new report shows. The study found that 523 million pounds of UK Space Agency funding put into the European Space Agency's Space Science Programme (SSP) has generated 1.4 billion pounds of income for UK industry, with a further 1.1 billion pounds from partially attributed and forecast benefits. The investment, between 2000-2018, created 306 jobs. The UK industry regularly secures major ESA contracts to provide mission spacecraft platforms, support mission operations and develop major subsystems. (2/3)

Why It's Time for a 'Triplanetary' Economy (Source: Newsmax)
The Triplanetary project is an idea that recognizes the strategic future of the United States and the western alliance. It's dependent on the dominance of space. The concept envisions activity stretching from the planetary surface, Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO), Cislunar space, the moon, and Mars. The Triplanetary (Earth/the moon/Mars) concept has far-reaching military, political, cultural, and economic consequences that will determine the success or failure of American strategic primacy for the 21st century and beyond.

The term, Triplanetary, is a catch-all phrase integraing  Earth, the moon, and Mars into a single synthesis. It's a good and direct concept regardless of the howls by some that the moon is not a planet; those individuals — at best — miss the point. The United States government must lead the Triplanetary project, but in partnership with American corporations, allied nations, and their corporations. It is the positive and optimistic side of a dark future dominated by authoritarian and totalitarian nations and organizations which are casting a wide net to dominate the same arena. (1/31)

Tethers Unlimited Delivers Space Networking Solution (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Tethers Unlimited, Inc. (TUI) announced the delivery of the first mesh network inter-satellite crosslink solution for small satellites. TUI’s SWIFT-LINQ network is a software ‘app’ that runs on TUI’s SWIFT flight-heritage software defined radios to connect satellite constellations, clusters, and formations together with a resilient, adaptable mesh network. SWIFT-LINQ supports standard TCP/IP protocols to enable seamless, straightforward data transfer between satellites. Satellites connected via SWIFT-LINQ can share resources and data, empowering groups of low-cost small satellites to perform missions that traditionally would have required large, very expensive satellites. (2/3)

Why Nigeria's Space Program is Important (Source: Guardian)
Recently, the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu said the vision to launch Nigeria into space is still on course and will be actualized in no distant time. The Minister made the statement while addressing old students and young students of his alma mater, Izzi High school, in Abakaliki, Ebonyi state. The Minister assured that the Ministry will not relent in its efforts to actualize the dream no matter how long it takes. Such an innocuous and patriotic statement meant to encourage and motivate the young students was later twisted and given a wrong interpretation by some section of the Media.

It is important to put the facts in its proper context so that Nigerians would understand the import of the issue. The Minister was merely appealing to the youngsters to take Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) seriously so as to become successful professionals in the field of Engineering. The allusion made by the Minister to space programme is not out of order, considering that Nigeria, through the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) of the Ministry has made considerable progress in space exploration since its establishment in May 1999. (2/3)

Virgin Orbit Moves Toward First Launch (Source: Virgin Orbit)
The Virgin Orbit team has been firing on all cylinders as we button up our first orbital LauncherOne rocket and make final preparations for our upcoming launch demonstration. This month, we ran through multiple rounds of propellant loading rehearsals, completed fully autosequenced flight simulations from ground ops all the way through to captive carry, upgraded and installed a few bits of hardware on the rocket itself, and much, much more.

All of this forward momentum has pushed us closer than ever to actually lighting this candle. As a reminder, we intend to complete one more taxi test and captive carry flight with the fully loaded rocket. Besides that, we’re planning to hold a short series of wet dress rehearsals. And really, that’s it. (2/3)

Mazar to Demonstrate In-Orbit Assembly for NASA (Source: Space News)
Maxar won a $142 million NASA contract to demonstrate in-space assembly using a robotic arm. The contract, announced Friday, is for a project called Space Infrastructure Dexterous Robot (SPIDER) that will be included on the Restore-L satellite servicing spacecraft Maxar is building for NASA. SPIDER will demonstrate the in-orbit assembly of multiple antenna reflector dishes into one single reflector. The contract also funds a SPIDER demonstration with Tethers Unlimited's MakerSat to build a 10-meter boom in space and attach it to Restore-L. The mission is now scheduled for launch in the mid-2020s. (1/31)

DirecTV Moves Spaceway-1 Satellite to Graveyard Orbit (Source: Space News)
The communications satellite whose batteries are in danger of exploding is starting to move out of the geosynchronous orbit belt. Spaceway-1 began relocating last week, and as of Friday was 100 to 120 kilometers above the GEO belt. Controllers are moving the spacecraft to a "graveyard" orbit 300 kilometers above the GEO belt, seeking to get the spacecraft there by Feb. 25. DirecTV, which owns Spaceway-1, said last month that it needs to relocate the satellite by that date to avoid using the spacecraft's batteries, which the company fears could explode if charged after suffering an anomaly in December. The satellite is currently operating on its solar panels alone, but start "eclipse season" on the 25th, requiring it to use its batteries to maintain power. (2/3)

DoD Study Warns of Satellite Assessment Issues (Source: Space News)
A new Pentagon report concludes that the military today is not able to assess the durability of its satellites if they came under attack. The report by the Defense Department's director of operational test and evaluation said that space-based systems, along with cybersecurity, are among the biggest challenges for his office. The report specifically noted that the Air Force is not able to properly test the resilience of its new GPS 3 satellites against orbital threats. The report states that, overall, the Defense Department has to be able to test satellites against cyber, directed-energy, kinetic and electronic warfare threats, as well as natural hazards. (2/3)

Astra Space to Attempt Another Alaska Launch (Source: Bloomberg)
A secretive launch vehicle developer is planning another launch later this month. The company, known in regulatory filings as Astra Space, is scheduled to perform a launch from Kodiak, Alaska, as soon as Feb. 21. Astra, the three-year-old rocket startup has operated in secret. The company’s founders say they want to be the FedEx Corp. of space. They’re aiming to create small, cheap rockets that can be mass-produced to facilitate daily spaceflights, delivering satellites into low-Earth orbit for as little as $1 million per launch.

If Astra’s planned Kodiak flight succeeds on Feb. 21, it will have put a rocket into orbit at a record-setting pace. Chief Executive Officer Chris Kemp says he’s focused less on this particular launch than on the logistics of creating many more rockets. “We have taken a much broader look at how we scale the business,” he says. Astra is the only finalist still in the running. Virgin Orbit, part of billionaire Richard Branson’s spaceflight empire that’s been working on its rocket for about a decade, has withdrawn from the contest. Vector Launch Inc., the third finalist, filed for bankruptcy in December. (2/3)

Cygnus Departs ISS, Making Way for Cygnus (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com)
A Cygnus cargo spacecraft has left the International Space Station. The Cygnus was unberthed by the station's robotic arm and released at 9:36 a.m. Eastern Friday. Shortly after departing the station, the Cygnus deployed several smallsats. The Cygnus, launched in November on the NG-12 mission, will remain in orbit until the end of February. A new Cygnus spacecraft will launch to the ISS on Sunday. (2/3)

Voyager 2 Engineers Working to Restore Normal Operations (Source: NASA)
Engineers for NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft are working to return the mission to normal operating conditions after one of the spacecraft's autonomous fault protection routines was triggered. Multiple fault protection routines were programmed into both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 in order to allow the spacecraft to automatically take actions to protect themselves if potentially harmful circumstances arise. At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, engineers are still communicating with the spacecraft and receiving telemetry.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are both in interstellar space, making them the most distant human-made objects in the solar system. On Saturday, Jan. 25, Voyager 2 didn't execute a scheduled maneuver in which the spacecraft rotates 360 degrees in order to calibrate its onboard magnetic field instrument. Analysis of the telemetry from the spacecraft indicated that an unexplained delay in the onboard execution of the maneuver commands inadvertently left two systems that consume relatively high levels of power operating at the same time. This caused the spacecraft to overdraw its available power supply.

The fault protection software routine was designed to automatically manage such an event, and by design, it appears to have turned off Voyager 2's science instruments to make up for the power deficit. As of Jan. 28, Voyager engineers have successfully turned off one of the high-power systems and turned the science instruments back on but have not yet resumed taking data. The team is now reviewing the status of the rest of the spacecraft and working on returning it to normal operations. (1/28)

OneWeb Joins the Satellite Internet Gold Rush (Source: Ars Technica)
For the better part of a year, SpaceX has gotten the lion's share of attention when it comes to mega-constellations and satellite Internet. Between May and January, the company launched 240 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit, with more launches coming, and has talked of offering preliminary commercial service later this year.

But it was actually another company, OneWeb, that launched the first six satellites of its mega-constellation back in February, 2019. Initial tests of those satellites went well, the company said last summer. Now OneWeb is preparing for its second launch of 34 satellites on board a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The launch is scheduled for 4:42pm ET on Thursday, February 6. (2/3)

NASA Grants KBR the Right to Train Private Astronauts at NASA Facilities (Source: KBR)
KBR will become the first company to train private astronauts at NASA facilities. The company recently signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA Johnson Space Center allowing it to provide human spaceflight operation services to commercial companies. KBR currently holds the only agreement with NASA to provide these services using the agency’s facilities and capabilities.

Through this agreement, KBR will be able to train private astronauts in a wide variety of spaceflight tasks including operating onboard International Space Station (ISS) systems, integrating into the existing ISS crew, performing routine operational tasks, maintaining health and performance, and responding to emergencies. KBR will also provide medical operations and services prior to, during, and after spaceflights.

From mission planning and training to mission execution, KBR will ensure these private astronauts are prepared to fly to the ISS and beyond. The company currently trains and provides medical support to NASA and ISS international partner astronauts and supports all planning and execution aspects of mission operations. KBR will provide its specialized services utilizing its more than 60 years of experience which includes supporting every astronaut since 1968. (1/30)

Northrop Grumman Breaks Ground for Expanded Satellite Manufacturing Facilities in Arizona (Source: Northrop Grumman)
Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) held a groundbreaking ceremony yesterday to highlight its expansion of the company’s satellite engineering and manufacturing operations in Arizona. The expansion includes a 100,000 square foot addition to its existing satellite manufacturing facility and a new 120,000 square foot administrative and engineering building.

The expansion will double the current production capacity at the satellite manufacturing facility, which is one of the largest and most advanced satellite assembly and test facilities in the United States. The new administrative and engineering building will be a two-story structure complementing an existing office facility built three years ago. (1/31)

Iran Preparing to Launch Satellite in 'Coming Days' (Source: Jerusalem Post)
Iran is preparing to launch a new scientific observation satellite in the "coming days," according to AFP. Development of the "Zafar" (Victory) satellite began three years ago, said Morteza Barari, head of the country's national space agency, on Saturday. The 113-kilogram satellite will be launched by a Simorgh rocket.

Iranian Minister of Information and Communications Technology Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi said that the satellite will be launched before February 11, the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, according to the Iranian Tasnim news agency. Two versions of the satellite have been produced, in case the first launch fails. Information about the satellite will be "clearly publicized," according to Jahromi. Zafar will be used for telecommunications, imagery and "picking up space signals." The lifespan of the satellite is one year and six months. (1/2)

European Astronomers Concerned as Megaconstellations Cloud the Heavens (Source: BBC)
European astronomers have voiced their concerns about the impacts of satellite megaconstellations with companies developing them. Astronomers met privately with representatives of OneWeb and SpaceX at the Royal Astronomical Society in London, a meeting participants called "positive." Astronomers have raised concerns that large satellite constellations could interfere with optical and radio astronomy, with the bright appearance of Starlink satellites in the night sky being the best-known example of such interference. (2/3)

ISS AMS Spectronomer Working Normally After Spacewalk Fix (Source: AP)
The cosmic ray detector repaired on the ISS in a series of spacewalks is working normally again. Samuel Ting, the Nobel laureate who leads the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment, says the instrument is working better than ever after astronauts replaced its cooling system in a series of five spacewalks that concluded last month. The instrument, installed on the ISS in 2011, should now be able to operate through the life of the station, providing data scientists said could provide insights into the nature of dark matter and other astrophysical phenomena. (1/31)

Canada’s Space Industry Set for Relaunch Decades After its Biggest Achievements (Source: Financial Post)
“Canadians are really ambitious,” Renee Hložek said. “We have a lot of great things happening in Canada in space.” She believes Canadian astrophysicists are “outperforming by a lot of metrics,” relative to the community’s small size. Canada in 2018 spent the least amount on its space program in the G8, which also includes the United States, Japan and the United Kingdom. Possibly the most famous Canadian aerospace achievement was the Canadarm, the robotic space arm proudly featured on the $5 bill and first tested in orbit in 1981. The company that made the Canadarm, MDA, was sold to an American company in 2017.

But after years of muddling through, Canada’s space industry may be about to enjoy a relaunch of sorts, one that includes a growing role for the private sector. For one thing, a consortium led by Toronto-based Northern Private Capital in December announced it will acquire all the Canadian and U.K. operations of MDA and repatriate its headquarters in Canada. And last February, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) learned it would receive a large cash infusion — $2.05 billion over the next 24 years — when Prime Minister Trudeau announced that Canada would be joining the Lunar Gateway project led by NASA. Canadian robotics prowess will help develop the Moon-orbiting space station that may one day serve as a launchpad to Mars. (1/16)

Nanoracks Deploys 250th Satellite, Eighth Cygnus Mission (Source: Nanoracks)
Friday evening, Nanoracks successfully completed the Company’s eighth CubeSat deployment mission from Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft. Cygnus (S.S. Alan Bean) departed the International Space Station on January 31, 2020 and performed a number of on-orbit activities, including yet another historic Nanoracks deployment. Nanoracks’ External Cygnus Deployment mission released seven CubeSats into a circular orbit of 465km beginning at approximately 4:00 pm ET.

The CubeSats deployed were: Aerocube 14 A/B & Aerocube 15 A/B (Aerospace Corporation), SwampSat II (University of Florida), Orbital Factory-2 (University of Texas, El Paso), and HuskySat-1 (University of Washington). Friday’s operations also marked Nanoracks’ 250th small satellite deployed since 2014 across the Company’s available deployment platforms, including the International Space Station, India’s Polar Space Vehicle (PSLV), and Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus. (2/3)

SSIKLOPS Deploys STPSat-4 FROM ISS (Source: Craig Technologies)
STPSat-4, an experimental spacecraft for the Department of Defense’s Space Test Program (STP), was successfully deployed, on January 29, 2020, from the International Space Station (ISS) using the Space Stations Integrated Kinetic Launcher for Orbital Payload Systems (SSIKLOPS). SSIKLOPS, a NASA developed technology, is a platform that robotically deploys satellites from the ISS and is designed to provide a method to transfer internally stowed satellites to the external environment.

Craig Technologies Aerospace Solutions is playing an active role in the Commercialization of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) by partnering with NASA on a contract that gives Craig exclusive use of SSIKLOPS for government and commercial customers who seek access to LEO for their micro-satellites. Craig provides turnkey services to manage and execute the successful integration and on-orbit operations of satellite payloads using SSIKLOPS. SSIKLOPS fills the payload deployment gap between small cubesat launchers and major payloads by supporting the LEO microsatellite market (50-100kg). (2/3)

SATLANTIS Enters Into Launch Services Agreement with Firefly Aerospace (Source: Firefly)
Firefly Aerospace has entered into a Launch Services Agreement with SATLANTIS, a provider of high-performance payload technologies for Earth observation and remote sensing. Beginning in 2022, SATLANTIS will use the Firefly Alpha launch vehicle to deploy a constellation of satellites with breakthrough high-resolution multispectral cameras with four bands of 80 cm native resolution. (2/4)

New Challenges for NASA’s Moon 2024 Goal (Source: Space Review)
As the White House prepares to release a budget proposal that will include a cost estimate for NASA’s Artemis program, the House Science Committee took up a NASA authorization bill that could make significant changes to it. Jeff Foust reports on the debate about the bill and its importance versus the upcoming budget and appropriations process. Click here. (2/3)
 
The American Space Shuttle and the Decision to Build the Soviet Buran (Source: Space Review)
A report by two Soviet academicians in the 1970s, which argued that the Space Shuttle that the US was developing could be used as a bomber, is widely thought to have spurred development of the Buran shuttle. Bart Hendrickx and Dwayne A. Day examine that claim and find that the report likely only reinforced an earlier decision regarding Buran. Click here. (2/3) 
 
Suborbital Refueling: a Path Not Taken (Source: Space Review)
Launch vehicle developers have for decades struggled to come up with approaches to enable frequent and cost-effective access to space using spaceplanes. Francis Castanos advocates for an alternative approach. Click here. (2/3)

Canadian Companies Will Likely Have Double Digit Satellites Launched This Year – The Start of a Trend (Source: SpaceQ)
Between now and the end of 2021 Canada may have more satellites launched than the combined previous 57 years going back to 1962 and the launch of Canada’s first satellite, Alouette 1. It’s been building for well over a decade, but the small satellite revolution will see Canada join the ranks this year of countries that are launching double digit small satellites. (2/3)

House Panel Proposes NASA Bill That Would Scrap the Lunar Base — or Maybe Not (Source: The Hill)
A proposed NASA authorization bill would end the space agency’s plan to establish a continuously occupied lunar base under the Artemis return to the moon program. The bill also proposes several other things that fly in the face of Trump administration space policy. It would prohibit developing under Artemis In-Situ Resource Utilization technology. ISRU is considered a vital element for allowing humans to live long term on other worlds, such as the moon and Mars. Examples include mining ice at the lunar poles, extracting oxygen from lunar soil and building habitats and other infrastructure from materials mined from the moon.

The bill would force NASA to retain ownership of the lunar lander being developed for accessing the moon’s surface. The current plan is to contract with commercial companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origin and Boeing to build and operate lunar landers, with NASA as a customer. The idea is similar to the Commercial Orbital Transport System program that is delivering cargo to and from the International Space Station and the Commercial Crew program under development by SpaceX and Boeing to take astronauts to and from the International Space Station. (2/3)

SpaceX's Workhorse Rocket is Fast Approaching Zenith of Booster, Fairing Reusability (Source: Teslarati)
Thanks to a recent cluster of major milestones, SpaceX’s family of Falcon 9 and Heavy rockets are rapidly nearing their reusability zenith — approaching the halfway point on the path to several ambitious booster and fairing design goals.

Back in the early 2010s, SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk’s original dream was to make Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy 100% reusable, meaning that the company would need to find ways to reliably recover boosters (first stages), payload fairings (or Dragon spacecraft), and the rocket’s upper (second) stages. The concept of Falcon 9 second stage reuse actually survived all the way into 2018 before Musk ultimately conceded defeat, accepting that Falcon 9 and Heavy simply didn’t offer the performance necessary to make full reusability a worthwhile investment. The concept, however, still lives on in SpaceX’s next-generation Starship launch vehicle.

Catching fairings has proven to be incredibly unforgiving, however, and SpaceX has simultaneously worked to make its Falcon fairings much more waterproof (and thus resistant to corrosion) while keeping them as light as possible. In fact, SpaceX’s first fairing reuse occurred less than three months ago and used two halves that previously landed in the Atlantic Ocean, demonstrating that difficulties reliably catching fairings will not stand in the way of reuse. Ms. Chief missed her January 29th catch attempt, she still managed to fish her fairing half out of the ocean, while Ms. Tree’s successfully-caught half means that SpaceX ultimately recovered the full Starlink V1 L3 fairing. With a little luck, that recovered fairing will launch again in the near future. (2/4)

Ocasio-Cortez: Focus on Space Force Shows a Lack of Good Priorities (Source: Newsweek)
New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has hit out at the Trump administration's decision to funnel millions of dollars into the creation of its Space Force, while the U.S. still cannot afford "public college or health care." ... "The folks writing checks for a new Space Force are the same ones asking 'how are you going to pay for' public college or health care," Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter. "This is the richest country in the world. Our problem isn't a lack of money. It's a lack of good priorities. And that is something we can change," she said.

Where No Alliance Has Gone Before (Source: Japan Times)
On Jan. 5, scarcely two weeks following the U.S. Space Force announcement, the Japanese government reportedly indicated it plans to rename the Air Self-Defense Force the Aerospace-Defense Force. Not coincidentally, on Jan. 21, during a speech given on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Japan-U.S. alliance, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed to make the alliance “a pillar for safeguarding peace and security in both outer space and cyberspace.”

While words are good, actions are better. In a less-noticed but more consequential move, the Defense Ministry is finalizing a bill to be placed before the Diet that asks to craft a space operations-exclusive military unit staffed with 20 personnel. While this paltry number of people can barely be expected to efficiently run their task of monitoring space debris and “suspicious satellites,” the move is a significant step for a nation that often struggles with global defense developments due to Japan’s unique domestic restrictions and legal concerns. (2/4)

What the Hell Is China Doing on the Far Side of the Moon? (Source: Daily Beast)
The Chang’e 4 probe and the Yutu 2 rover it carried have stayed busy photographing and scanning minerals, cultivating cotton, potato and rapeseeds, growing yeast, and hatching fruit-fly eggs in the moon’s low gravity. The experiments are intriguing in their own right, but China’s real agenda is more than scientific. For decades, Beijing has been building the infrastructure for an eventual manned mission to the moon, effectively duplicating what the United States achieved in 1969 and hopes to achieve again before 2024. The reasons for this latter-day space race are clear, experts said, even if the real-world pay-off isn’t.

“Space has always been symbolic of leadership, through prestige, that translates into strategic influence,” Joan Johnson-Freese, a space expert at the Naval War College in Rhode Island, said. “China seeks to be acknowledged as the technology leader in Asia, and there is no more visible place to do that than space.” While the current, high-profile U.S. moon mission is mired in Trump-era politics, China’s keeps plodding forward with fewer bold pronouncements and more actual accomplishments. (2/4)

China's Lunar Rover Travels 367 Meters on Moon's Far Side (Source: Xinhua)
China's lunar rover Yutu-2 (Jade Rabbit-2) has driven 367.25 meters on the far side of the moon to conduct scientific exploration. Both the lander and the rover of the Chang'e-4 probe ended their work for the 14th lunar day on Saturday, and switched to dormant mode for the lunar night, according to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration. During the 14th lunar day, Yutu-2 continued to move along the planned route. The scientific instruments on the lander and rover worked as planned. (2/3)

Maui Represented on International Space Station (Source: Maui Now)
Maui company, HNu Photonics LLC, is bringing NASA-funded cutting-edge technology to the International Space Station to better understand the effects of living in space on the human body. Representatives say the research will help to develop and manufacture future medical cures in space where there is no gravity to distort DNA and protein molecules. On Sunday, Northrop Grumman’s 13th commercial resupply mission for NASA, a Cygnus spacecraft on an Antares rocket, is scheduled to launch from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, and carry the HNu Scorpio-V Mobile SpaceLab to the ISS.

In 2019, HNu Photonics LLC, an award-winning science and technology company based in Kahului, Maui, was the first instrument builder to be awarded a grant from NASA’s Space Biology Program to use the Mobile SpaceLab for its own biological experimentation during a roundtrip mission to the ISS. HNuPhotonics was previously awarded a grant from NASA to include its instrument on a Blue Origin launch. Additionally, they have a Space Act agreement with NASA. (2/3)

From Its West Palm Beach Factory, Aerojet Rocketdyne Delivers RL10 Engines for Artemis (Source: Space Daily)
Aerojet Rocketdyne recently delivered four RL10 upper stage engines to NASA's Stennis Space Center that will help power NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket as it carries astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft to deep space. These missions are part of NASA's Artemis program, which will land the first woman and next man on the Moon, and set the stage to send astronauts to Mars.

A single RL10 engine will provide nearly 25,000 pounds of thrust and serve as the main propulsion for the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) that will fly atop the SLS rocket Block 1 in support of each of the first three Artemis missions. Later Artemis missions will use the evolved SLS Block 1B rocket configuration that includes the Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) powered by four RL10 engines to send Orion and large cargos to the Moon. The four RL10 engines on EUS provide more than 97,000 pounds of thrust.

Aerojet Rocketdyne is under contract to deliver 10 RL10 engines to NASA to support the Artemis program. One of the four engines that were recently delivered will be used to support the Artemis II mission that will use the ICPS upper stage, while the other three are slated to support future Artemis missions aboard the EUS. Delivery of the remaining six engines will be completed by 2021. (2/4)

Air Force Seeks to Minimize Bureacracy in Space Force (Source: Space News)
The Air Force has delivered to Congress its first report on organizing the U.S. Space Force. The report, provided to Congress on Monday to comply with a provision of the 2020 defense authorization bill, said that the Air Force will seek a "clean sheet approach" to establishing the Space Force in an effort to minimize bureaucracy. The report says in the future the new service will not require more than $500 million annually over and above what DoD spends currently on space organizations, with total costs not to exceed $2 billion over five years. The report said that transfers of Air Force space personnel to the Space Force will begin this year, while Army and Navy member transfers are anticipated to begin in fiscal year 2022 pending congressional approval. (2/4)

Mazar Building Intelsat Satellite (Source: Space News)
Intelsat is the mystery customer of a Maxar commercial GEO satellite order announced last year. Maxar said Monday that the order, which the company announced last year without identifying the customer, is for the Intelsat-40e satellite, which will provide high-throughput coverage of North America and Central America. Intelsat said the satellite is an expansion of the company's fleet and not a replacement for Intelsat-29e, a three-year-old satellite that failed in April. The satellite will also include a NASA hosted payload, Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO). (2/4)

Accion Raises $11 Million (Source: Space News)
Space propulsion startup Accion Systems has raised $11 million in a new funding round. The Series B round, announced early Tuesday, is co-led by Boeing HorizonX Ventures and Shasta Ventures, both of whom had previously invested in the company. Accion is developing a thruster technology called Tiled Ionic Liquid Electrospray that uses electric fields to accelerate an ionic liquid, an approach the company argues is more efficient than other electric propulsion technologies. The company has won contracts from the Defense Department and NASA, including a $3.9 million award last year from NASA to demonstrate its technology on a cubesat mission next year. (2/4)

US On-Track Toward Solar and Space Physics Research Objectives (Source: Space News)
NASA and other agencies are doing a good job carrying out recommendations of a decadal survey in solar and space physics despite budget shortfalls. A midterm report assessing progress on that 2013 decadal survey, released Monday, concluded that NASA, NOAA and NSF had either implemented, or were in the process of implementing, recommendations from that report on missions, research approaches and related issues.

The report noted that budgets had fallen short of projections in the decadal survey, though, with NASA's heliophysics budget rising at slightly less than the rate of inflation and below other science program at the agency. Another challenge, the report said, was unstable leadership at NASA's heliophysics division, which had six leaders between 2011 and the 2018 appointment of its current director. (2/4)

SpaceX Working Approval Process for Starlink Ops in Australia (Source: The Guardian)
SpaceX has taken the first step to win approval to operate its Starlink system in Australia. The Australian Communications and Media Authority last month added SpaceX to the list of companies authorized to do business in Australia. SpaceX still needs to seek other authorizations, including obtaining a license, before it can offer broadband service in Australia. One Australian company, Foxtel, said that Starlink and another satellite constellation under development by Kepler could interfere with its TV broadcast services in the Ku-band. (2/4)

For the United States, a Second Race to the Moon is a Second-Rate Goal (Source: Space News)
Commercial development of space certainly does not need humans in space. In fact, it would be a diversion for commercial interests to have to deal with humans. Not even the U.S. Defense Department has an interest in human spaceflight. Putative lunar or asteroid commercial goals don’t need humans — robots will mine asteroids or build lunar bases (if anyone does).

Tourism is a commercial goal that needs humans (although in the days of self-driving cars, buses and airplanes, maybe less so). But tourism should not be the basis of government-funded space development, unless the trend toward serving only the wealthy continues unabated. The human spaceflight programs of China, India and possibly Russia have a geopolitical rationale driven by national prestige and regional leadership. Smaller countries with nascent human programs likewise driven by national prestige are stepping forward as partners reluctant to be left out.

This leaves the United States with two choices: compete with developing nations in a new race to the moon, one it could possibly lose; or do what President John F. Kennedy did after the U.S. lost the early rounds of the space race to the Soviet Union — set a more distant goal. In 1962, the stretch goal was the moon. Today, it should be Mars. (2/3)

Astronomers Consider Legal Action Against Mega Constellations (Source: New Scientist)
Astronomers are contemplating action at an international court against constellations like Starlink. In a letter, one group of astronomers calls for a suit against SpaceX at the International Court of Justice, arguing that the interference Starlink satellites could have on astronomers would be in violation of the World Heritage Convention, if access to the night sky is considered a "shared human right." One legal expert said such a case would have only a slim chance of succeeding. (2/4)

Russia Considers Developing Soyuz-7 for Sea Launch (Source: TASS)
Roscosmos is proposing to develop a version of its upcoming Soyuz-5 rocket for Sea Launch. The proposed Soyuz-7 rocket would be based on the Soyuz-5 but with "less fueling," Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, said. He didn't elaborate on specific design changes, but said the Soyuz-7 would still have the same payload performance as the Soyuz-5 since it would launch on Sea Launch's floating platform closer to the equator. Rogozin didn't say when the Soyuz-7 would be ready, but the Soyuz-5 is not expected to enter service until the mid-2020s. (2/4)

Skyrora Tests Rocket Fuel From Plastic Waste (Source: TechCrunch)
A British launch vehicle developer says it has successfully tested a fuel created from plastic waste. Skyrora says it tested its "Ecosene" fuel, similar to kerosene but created by converting plastic waste, in a series of static-fire engine tests at a site in Scotland. The company said it can produce 600 kilograms of Ecosene from 1,000 kilograms of plastic. The company tested the fuel using an engine of its own design that produces 785 pounds-force of thrust. Skyrora is using that technology in a small launch vehicle, Skyrora XL, with a first launch scheduled for 2022. (2/3)

Musk Promotes Texas ‘Career Day’ as SpaceX Files Paperwork for Starship Flight as Early as March (Source: TechCrunch)
SpaceX’s  next-generation spacecraft is already well into development, but CEO and founder Elon Musk clearly would like development to move at an even faster rate. Musk tweeted early Tuesday morning that SpaceX would be hosting a “Starship career day” at the company’s Stargate building in Boca Chica, Texas, where it’s currently working on producing the next Starship testing prototype. Separately, SpaceX  also filed paperwork with the FCC seeking permission for communications for a 20km (65,000 foot) test flight with a start date beginning as early as March.

Musk added that the purpose of the hiring fair would be specifically to bring on new people to staff four full production shifts to allow production around the clock for “24/7 operations” at the Texas facility. He did add that SpaceX would also be looking for “engineers, supervisors & support personnel,” but it’s clear the call is primarily to build out the production crews that assemble the Starship prototypes, which likely includes welders and others with experience in fabrication. (2/4)

Kinéis Raises 100 Million Euros to Build and Launch 25 IoT Cubesats (Source: Space News)
French Internet of Things startup Kinéis has raised 100 million euros ($110.5 million) from private and public investors to fund a constellation of 25 cubesats. Collecte Localisation Satellites (CLS), a French maritime and environmental monitoring company that spun off Kinéis last year, led the round, with participation from the French space agency CNES, the French National Institute for Ocean Science (Ifremer), and several others. French industrial partners Thales Group, cubesat builder Hemeria and software engineering company Celad also participated in the round, as did the SPI, a fund managed by BpiFrance and the European Investment Bank. (2/4)