March 28, 2020

Virgin Galactic Customers Should Focus On View, Not Weightlessness (Source: Forbes)
"Be in the moment. You will have expectations about everything. There’s going to be some apprehension, as well, because you’ve not done it before. The fear of the unknown is a powerful driver. Focus and try to absorb as much as you can. You’ll be surprised about the sensory overload. That said, all the training you’ve had will help. Rely on it so that you can control the things you can control."

"As for the view, try to etch it into your memory, because it’s amazing. Your perspective on the world and your place in it will change because of what you see. But it goes quick. Your mind can play tricks on you. The things that I thought happened in a second lasted minutes, and some things that lasted minutes felt like seconds. Again, try to be in the moment, absorb it as much as you can, because it is so fleeting." (3/27)

Citing Coronavirus, OneWeb Files for Bankruptcy (Source: Florida Today)
OneWeb, the parent company of an organization that manufactures internet-beaming satellites at Kennedy Space Center, filed for bankruptcy late Friday, citing the coronavirus pandemic as a significant driver behind the decision. In a release, the OneWeb said it filed for Chapter 11 relief in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York and hoped to sell its business "in order to maximize the value of the company."

"It is with a very heavy heart that we have been forced to reduce our workforce and enter the Chapter 11 process," OneWeb CEO Adrian Steckel said in a statement, confirming COVID-19 as the main reason. "The company's remaining employees are focused on responsibly managing our nascent constellation and working with the court and investors."

The company did not specify how much of its workforce at the KSC division, located near Blue Origin on Space Commerce Way, would be impacted. OneWeb is the parent company, while OneWeb Satellites is a separate division that manufactures the spacecraft at KSC. OneWeb also operates an administrative office in Suntree. Editor's Note: Maybe a good opportunity for Jeff Bezos/Blue Origin to acquire a near-complete megaconstellation. (3/28)

Inside the Space Force’s Push to Integrate and Change Acquisition (Source: FNN)
Despite threats from the coronavirus, the Space Force is still moving full steam ahead setting itself up as the newest military service. “The current environment hasn’t slowed our ability to do any space operations. There have been no bumps or hiccups in the road,” Shawn Barnes, the point man for space integration and acquisition told Federal News Network. “We are moving out as rapidly as we can on standing up the Space Force.”

Barnes ironically spent time at the Agriculture Department in the 1980s assisting vaccine development for dangerous infectious animal diseases. But today, his focus is less on the microscopic and more on the macroscopic in helping to set up a force around a military domain that is the size of the universe. One of Barnes’ roles is helping set up the Space Acquisition Council, which will oversee the many facets of space procurement in the Defense Department — a main selling point for the creation of the Space Force was the consolidation of the acquisition process. (3/27)

How to Survive Pandemic Reentry (Source: The Atlantic)
After falling miles through the atmosphere, Christina Koch emerged from her space capsule with a big smile on her face. The NASA astronaut had spent 328 days on the International Space Station. When she finally touched back down last month, the warmth of the sun on her skin felt glorious. And as she laid eyes on the dozens of search-and-rescue workers around the capsule, her brain raced to process the new faces.

“I only interacted in person with 11 other humans over the course of almost a year,” Koch told me. “Just seeing [new people] immediately when I came out of the capsule was definitely shocking.” On the day Koch landed in early February, the Houston Chronicle, NASA Mission Control’s hometown paper, ran a picture of her on the front page. Below it was an article reporting that, although there were no confirmed cases in Texas, business owners were worried about the effects of the new coronavirus.

Koch got a taste of normal life for a few weeks before public-health experts advised millions of Americans to stay indoors and the United States became, as of yesterday, the country with the world’s most reported coronavirus cases. Now she has found herself cooped up again, this time in her home in Galveston, Texas. Koch has returned to a uniquely anxious time on Earth, but she is unusually well prepared for the situation: Astronauts spend six months or longer away from their loved ones, living and working on a station about the size of a six-bedroom house, with personal quarters the size of phone booths. (3/27)

Missile Defense Agency's Future Debated as Space Force Rises (Source: Breaking Defense)
Senior DoD officials and top military leaders currently are pondering how to organize future missile defense acquisition, including the possible break up of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) by transferring its authorities to the Army, Air Force, Navy and Space Force, insiders say. MDA’s fate is under the microscope as DoD and military leaders struggle to consolidate space acquisition since the creation of the Space Force. While no final decisions regarding missile defense acquisition have been made, DoD officials and experts say that fundamental questions about the ‘who, what and why’ of missile defense need to be resolved.

A key question in the internal discussions is whether MDA’s acquisition authorities will move to the Space Force once the new space acquisition secretariat is created in 2022. This could either be done by subsuming MDA en masse into the Space Force, currently headed by Gen. Jay Raymond, sources say. Or it could be done by shifting only MDA’s space-related development/acquisition authorities — such as for missile detection and tracking, but also perhaps for long-range ICBM defense — to Space Force. If MDA’s space-related activities were to be shifted to the Space Force, this begs the follow-on question of whether its other activities ought to be turned over to the other services. (3/27)

NASA's CIO Retiring, Setting Up NASA's Reorganized, Consolidated IT Future (Source: FNN)
NASA is just getting started on what many expect to be a transformational reorganization. This transformation, executives hope, will set the space agency up to develop the next great rocket or space probe in a more coordinated, efficient and secure way. Renee Wynn, the outgoing NASA chief information officer, said she challenged her staff to come up with a new strategy to improve how NASA manages its IT staff, resources and systems. Implementing this new strategy will be at the top of the next CIO’s to-do list.

Wynn is retiring after about 30 years in government. Her last day is now April 30 or thereabouts instead of her original plan of leaving on March 31, a NASA spokeswoman confirmed. Wynn kicked off this reorganization effort about a year ago trying to use the authorities under the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) to get what she has called the “custody and control” of all IT across NASA. One of the first steps was getting NASA leadership to sign off on the reorganization effort. Wynn said that happened in late 2019 so the real work is getting started this year. (3/27)

COVID-19: Raymond Says No Impact On Space Ops; Space Fence Operational (Source: Breaking Defense)
Gen. Jay Raymond said today the COVID-19 pandemic has had no affect on Space Command/Space Force readiness and US space capabilities, so far. As proof, he rattled off a long list of Space Force achievements as its 100-day anniversary approaches, including yesterday’s successful launch of the final Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite for classified military communications and the fact that Space Fence situational awareness radar is being declared operational today. (3/27)