March 7, 2020

Boeing Had 49 Gaps in Testing Starliner Capsule Before Failed Flight (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
An independent review of the decisions that led to a failed test of Boeing’s Starliner astronaut capsule found systematic and widespread missteps in the legacy company’s testing procedures and software development, prompting more NASA involvement in the agency’s commercial human spaceflight program. NASA has declared Boeing’s mission a “high visibility close call” mishap, a low-level but fairly rare procedural decision that kicks off a process to ensure that the same problems are not prevalent elsewhere in the organization.

The review is now calling for 61 corrective actions to be undertaken by both Boeing and NASA in the coming months to stopper numerous shortfalls that led to an ill-fated mission for Starliner when it took off from the Space Coast in December. At the conclusion of the process, which is expected to take several months, NASA and Boeing will announce whether or not they will require Boeing to repeat the December test, or whether the company will be cleared to proceed with a test mission carrying astronauts onboard. (3/6)

Space Force Leaders' Quest: A Gender-Neutral Force (Source: Politico)
The Space Force has made its first two hires and both are women, a move that officials say shows the new branch is making sure it is gender-neutral from its very beginnings. The push to be more welcoming to women is one part of the Space Force’s larger effort to build a service that’s more reflective of a 21st-century workplace, including keeping gendered terms out of the service’s culture and offering more flexible policies to enter and exit the service over the course of a career.

Maj. Gen. Clinton Crosier, the director of Space Force planning, said Tuesday the service will convene a group of advisers in the next two months to look at the Space Force’s “human capital management strategy.” “We have a clean sheet approach to everything we’re doing,” Crosier said. “The workforce today ... operates differently than the workforce did 10, 15, 20, 35 years ago for so many reasons. We want to make sure we understand that and are on the front end of figuring out how we can leverage that.” (3/5)

Lettuce Grown on the ISS is As Nutritious as Earth Harvests (Source: Engadget)
The red romaine lettuce astronauts grew on the ISS a few years ago aren't just as good as Earth-grown lettuce, they're also as nutritious. NASA's Gioia Massa, Christina Khodadad and their colleagues examined and analyzed three batches of lettuce grown on the space station between 2014 and 2016. They compared it to lettuce that they grew here at home under similar conditions -- in the same relative humidity, carbon dioxide concentration and temperature, among other things -- and determined that the level of nutrients between them is very similar.

The main difference between the two is that the ISS vegetables have more microorganisms, but that's probably just because of the microflora that live on the space station. None of them, however, are harmful to humans, such as E. coli and Salmonella. The scientists' findings are significant, because they tell us that we can grow food in space for long journeys. NASA regularly sends supplies to the ISS, so the station's crew isn't at risk of food shortages. For trips to the moon and Mars in the future, though, NASA needs to find a way to supplement pre-packaged food. (3/6)

Rocket Lab to Send Capella Radar Satellite to Mid-Inclination Orbit (Source: Space News)
Capella Space will send a  Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite into a mid-inclination orbit later this year on a Rocket Lab Electron launch vehicle, the two companies announced March 5. “It will be the first commercial SAR satellite in a mid-inclination orbit,” Payam Banazadeh, Capella Space CEO, said. “Customers want to monitor areas around Korea, the Middle East, some portions of Europe and North America. Putting a satellite in a 45-degree-inclination orbit allows you to have good coverage of those areas.”

San Francisco-based Capella plans to launch its first seven operational satellites in 2020. The first, called Sequoia, is scheduled to launch into sun synchronous orbit in late March alongside Saocom 1B, an Argentine L-band SAR satellite, on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral. Capella’s Electron launch will occur sometime in mid-2020, Banazadeh said. Capella has not yet announced launch contracts for five additional satellites in its Whitney constellation. Those satellites are under construction at the firm’s Boulder, Colorado, facility. (3/6)

So, You Want To Be a Space Lawyer? (Source: Particle)
Fifty-three years ago, the United States, Soviet Union and United Kingdom signed the Outer Space Treaty. Written during the Cold War, the treaty banned weapons of mass destruction in Earth’s orbit and the establishment of military bases on the Moon. It would form the backbone for the international laws that apply in space today.

Professor Erika Techera teaches space law at UWA. She says treaties dating back to the 1960s and 1970s emphasise that space belongs to everyone. “Those treaties really focused on peace and security,” Erika says. “Trying to avoid the militarisation of space and prevent any country from appropriating a space object or a celestial body.” Click here. (3/6)

Scientists Plan a New Orbiter Mission to Pluto (Source: Astronomy)
The exploration of Pluto wasn’t easy, but it sure was worth it. It took 14 years (1989 to 2003), about a dozen different mission concept proposals, and the weight of the first National Academy Planetary Science Decadal Survey just to unleash the funding. After a fierce competition among rival teams, NASA ultimately selected New Horizons as its Pluto flyby mission.

The New Horizons science team and many other members of the planetary science community have concluded that a new mission to explore Pluto in more depth is required. This is needed in part because much of Pluto and its moons couldn’t be mapped in sufficient detail with a single fast flyby. It’s also needed because Pluto’s surface and atmosphere are evolving with time and beg for an orbiter to observe those processes. But the main reason for a new mission is that many of the mysteries New Horizons found require new types of instrumentation to be brought to bear — instruments New Horizons did not carry.

The mission timeline we created is as follows: Launch in December 2028, a Jupiter gravity-assist flyby in October 2030, braking into Pluto orbit beginning in 2046, and concluding in 2059. We could get there faster if high-power nuclear systems are available to increase braking thrust so the orbiter has enough power to slow down at Pluto, but a slower trajectory is feasible with current systems. (3/6)

China's Weina Star Raises $14 Million (Source: Space News)
Chinese company Minospace has raised $14 million to develop larger satellites. The company, also known as Weina Star Technology Co., Ltd., is focused on developing platforms and payloads for its clients, rather than constructing its own constellations. It also develops ground station equipment. The new funding round will go towards work on producing satellites weighing more than 200 kilograms. The company has sent seven satellites with masses less than 100 kilograms into orbit to date, with more scheduled for launch in July. (3/6)

Axiom Contracts with SpaceX to Fly ISS Tourists on Crew Dragon (Source: Space News)
Axiom has signed an agreement with SpaceX for a Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station. Axiom will fly three private astronauts, along with its own professional astronaut, to the ISS on the mission scheduled for no earlier than the second half of 2021. The 10-day mission will include eight days on the station and two in transit. Axiom says it expects to perform a series of such "precursor" missions to the station prior to the launch in late 2024 of a commercial module to add to the station, part of a long-term effort to develop its own free-flying commercial space station. (3/5)

SpaceX Expands Workforce in Texas (Source: Ars Technica)
SpaceX is rapidly growing its workforce in South Texas building Starship prototypes. The company doubled the number of employees working there, to more than 500 people, in a hiring binge over two days in late February, after SpaceX CEO Elon Musk asked why things weren't going faster. Musk said in an interview he wants to be able to build one Starship vehicle every week by the end of the year, and still seeks to conduct an orbital test flight of the next-generation reusable vehicle this year. (3/6)

Alternatives to Space National Guard Under Consideration (Source: Space News)
U.S. Space Force leaders say they're examining a range of options beyond a "Space National Guard" for its reserve component. In hearings this week, Space Force leaders said they're taking "a clean sheet 21st century look" at what kind of reserves the Space Force should have. Lawmakers at the hearings pressed officials on why they are not establishing a National Guard equivalent for space, but the defense authorization act that created the Space Force last year only directed the Pentagon to submit a report on how reserve components would support the U.S. Space Force. (3/6)

Zero Gravity Corp. Considers International Expansion (Source: Space News)
Zero Gravity Corporation, the company that provides reduced gravity aircraft flights, is planning an international expansion. Company executives said this week that the are examining plans to conduct flights outside of the United Stated, and hope to begin those flights in about a year. Doing so will require the company to buy at least one more aircraft beyond the Boeing 727 it currently operates to provide passengers and researchers brief exposures to weightlessness. (3/6)

Mars 2020 Rover Named Perseverance (Source: NASA)
NASA's Mars 2020 rover finally has a name: Perseverance. The agency announced the name Thursday, concluding a student competition that featured 28,000 entries from students across the country. The winning name was proposed by Alexander Mather, a seventh grader in northern Virginia. Perseverance will launch in July and land on Mars in February 2021 on a mission that will include collecting samples for later return to Earth. (3/6)

Bill Would Create First Step Toward Maine Spaceport.(Source: Mainebiz)
Legislation in Maine would being the state one step closer to establishing a spaceport. The bill, introduced this week, would create a "Maine Spaceport Complex Leadership Council" of state officials and private citizens charged with studying the feasibility of creating a spaceport in the state for hosting small launch vehicles. The bill requires the council to complete a strategic plan on a spaceport by the end of 2021. (3/6)

Apollo Astronaut Walter Cunningham Has Space Memorabilia Stolen From Storage Facility (Source: Click2 Houston)
More than two dozen storage units were broken into in at the Public Storage near the Galleria, according to investigators. The thief got away with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of valuables. Walter Cunningham, a retired NASA astronaut, was one of the victims. He said he kept space and family memorabilia in his storage.

"Documentation when I was with NASA for eight years," Cunningham said, who was the Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 7. "We expected it to be secure and looked out for." A few days ago, Cunningham said he received a harrowing call from employees with the storage company informing him that something might have been wrong with their lock. Cunningham and his wife, Dot, found that their items were tossed around, and the storage unit was ransacked. (3/5)

Organic Molecules Discovered by Curiosity Rover Consistent with Early Life on Mars (Source: Space Daily)
Organic compounds called thiophenes are found on Earth in coal, crude oil and oddly enough, in white truffles, the mushroom beloved by epicureans and wild pigs. Thiophenes were also recently discovered on Mars, and Washington State University astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch thinks their presence would be consistent with the presence of early life on Mars. (3/6)

How Movies and TV are Picturing Your Future Life on Mars (Source: C/Net)
Hollywood's most recent portrayals of Mars or even its colonization have been less about the green-skinned, head-exploding creatures of Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! (1996) and more about what the planet would realistically look like after we arrive and terraform it. "You can't portray Mars in purely fanciful ways anymore without straining suspension of disbelief," Andy Weir, author of the 2011 best seller The Martian, tells me. He says modern-day people are too well-educated about the realities of the planet. Click here. (3/6)

Coronavirus Epidemic Having Limited Effect So Far on Space Industry (Source: Space News)
The ongoing coronavirus epidemic has so far has only a limited effect on the space industry, with few cancellations or other major interruptions. In a brief interview here March 2 after a speech at the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference, NASA Administration Jim Bridenstine said the agency was taking a “day-by-day” approach to addressing the disease, and that any responses may vary from one field center to another depending on the locations of outbreaks.

“We’re taking it at this point day by day. We have ten centers across the nation and every single one of them, as this continues to develop, is going to be affected differently,” he said. He said NASA was following a “tiered approach” to the coronavirus, starting with guidance and direction from government officials, tailoring that as needed for various centers. “More than everything, we need people to understand that we care about them individually and that there’s a lot of guidance out there as far as what needs to be done” to minimize the risk of infection, he said. (3/3)