April 23, 2020

Nanocardboard Flyers Could Serve as Martian Atmospheric Probes (Source: Space Daily)
This summer, NASA plans to launch its next Mars rover, Perseverance, which will carry with it the first aircraft to ever fly on another planet, the Mars Helicopter. As the first of its kind, the Mars Helicopter will carry no instruments and collect no data - NASA describes merely flying it all as "high-risk, high-reward" research.

With the risks of extraterrestrial flight in mind, Penn Engineers are suggesting a different approach to exploring the skies of other worlds: a fleet of tiny aircraft that each weigh about as much as a fruit fly and have no moving parts. These flyers are plates of "nanocardboard," which levitate when bright light is shone on them. As one side of the plate heats up, the temperature differential gets air circulating through its hollow structure and shooting out of the corrugated channels that give it its name, thrusting it off the ground. (4/22)

Antimatter Discovery Reveals Clues about the Universe’s Beginning (Source: Scientific American)
In the beginning, there was matter and antimatter, and then there was only matter. Why? This question is one of the defining mysteries of physics. For decades theorists have come up with potential solutions, most involving the existence of extra particles beyond the known species in the universe. Last week scientists announced tantalizing findings that point toward one possible solution, but the data fall short of a definitive discovery. Whatever the final answer is, resolving the question may tell us more than just why we live in a universe of matter—it could expose secrets from the earliest epochs of the cosmos or even connect us to the invisible dark matter that eludes scientists.

Most of the theories about how matter got the upper hand over antimatter fall into two main camps. One, called electroweak baryogenesis, posits extra versions of the Higgs boson—the particle related to how everything else gets mass. If these Higgs cousins exist, they could have helped set off an abrupt phase transition, akin to the shift when water goes from liquid to gas, early in the universe that might have led to slightly more matter than antimatter in space. When matter and antimatter come into contact, they annihilate each other, so most of the stuff in the young universe would have been destroyed, leaving behind just a small surplus of matter to make the galaxies and stars and planets around us.

The other leading theory, called leptogenesis, stems instead from neutrinos. These particles are much, much lighter than quarks and pass through the cosmos ethereally, rarely stopping to interact with anything at all. According to this scenario, in addition to the regular neutrinos we know of, there are extremely heavy neutrinos that are so gargantuan that they could have been forged only from the tremendous energies and temperatures present just after the big bang, when the universe was very hot and dense. When these particles inevitably broke down into smaller, more stable species, the thinking goes, they might have produced slightly more matter than antimatter by-products, leading to the arrangement we see today. (4/23)

Virgin Orbit Ventilators Granted Emergency Use Authorization (Source: Virgin Orbit)
Virgin Orbit, Sir Richard Branson’s responsive satellite launch company, announced today that regulators at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have granted an Emergency Use Authorization for the immediate delivery and use of a new “bridge” ventilator designed and built by the aerospace firm. With that authorization now in place, Virgin Orbit expects to begin delivering ventilators to hospitals within the next few days.

Guided by the medical expertise and clinical experience of the Bridge Ventilator Consortium — a group of doctors, medical researchers, and medical device engineers collaborating to advise multiple different low-cost ventilator efforts — Virgin Orbit has leveraged its extensive engineering design, manufacturing, and operational capabilities to quickly design a novel ventilator, test prototype units, and ramp up production of these devices. (4/23)

Russia Starts Adapting RD-180 Engine Used in US for Super-Heavy Yenisei Rocket (Source: Sputnik)
Russia's Energomash rocket engine manufacturer, which is part of state space corporation Roscosmos, has started to adapt RD-180 engines, which have been in use for US Atlas carrier rockets, and the medium-class Soyuz-6 and super-heavy Yenisei launch vehicles. "The RD-180 engine, which has unique flight statistics, will be used in the first stage of the Soyuz-6 rocket, which can replace the Soyuz-2 medium-class launch vehicle in the future, as well as in the central block of the super-heavy launch vehicle," Igor Arbuzov said.

According to him, the adapted engine, which was previously called RD-180MV, will have enhanced fire protection, new filters, coatings, modern materials, a new control system and a high-speed emergency protection system. The first launch of Soyuz-6 is scheduled for 2025 from the Baikonur spaceport, while the first Yenisei is planned to be launched from the Vostochny space centre in 2028. Russia has delivered 116 domestically built RD-180 engines for US carrier rockets since 1990, and 89 of the engines have already been used during launches. (4/22)

SpaceX Launches 60 More Starlink Satellites, Lands Booster (Source: Space News)
SpaceX successfully launched 60 Starlink satellites Wednesday afternoon. The Falcon 9 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 3:30 p.m. Eastern and deployed the stack of Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit 15 minutes later. The Falcon 9 first stage, on its fourth flight, landed on a droneship in the Atlantic. The launch means that SpaceX has more than 400 operational Starlink satellites in orbit, enough for the company to potentially start limited service. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, in a tweet after the launch, said a "private beta" of Starlink services will start in about three months, with a more public beta test of the service in six months. (4/23)

Swamp Politics, Ligado, Trump, and GPS (Source: Quartz)
The FCC has ended a controversial, nearly decade-long battle over a chunk of radio wave real estate. Their decision will allow a company called Ligado to build an internet-of-things communications network using a band of spectrum that had previously been reserved for satellite communications. Myriad US government agencies (and a number of private satellite operators) opposed the decision, fearing that Ligado’s network will interfere with the Global Positioning System (GPS), a vital cog for both the US economy and its military. But another chunk of the government believes that Ligado’s network will strike a blow against Chinese 5G hegemony, and so should be allowed.

“I’ve never seen it a mess like this before,” said Harold Feld, an attorney at Public Knowledge, a nonprofit that works to promote free expression and communications innovation. “All of the agencies are just acting on their own without any effort to create a coherent federal policy.” The Departments of Defense, Commerce, Interior, Justice, Homeland Security, Energy, and Transportation, as well the National Science Foundation, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Coast Guard and NASA, all called on the FCC to reject the license. But Ligado spent almost $3 million in 2019 alone on lobbyists connected to the Trump administration.

Ligado won support from US Attorney General Bill Barr—despite the Justice Department signing on to a letter of opposition in February—and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. After the FCC’s decision, Barr said that “swift FCC action on spectrum is imperative to allow for the deployment of 5G. This is essential if we are to keep our economic and technological leadership and avoid forfeiting it to Communist China.” (4/23)

DoD "Very Concerned" About Ligado GPS Interference (Source: Space News)
The chief of staff of the Air Force is "very concerned" about the prospects of GPS interference from Ligado. Gen. David Goldfein said both he and Gen. Jay Raymond, chief of space operations, are worried the Ligado system approved by the FCC this week could interfere with GPS signals in a neighboring spectrum band. Goldfein noted that any future actions to address interference with GPS will have to be approved by the Defense Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the military's unified combatant commands. (4/23)

NEC Wins Contract for Vietnam Satellite (Source: Nikkei)
NEC has won a contract to build a radar satellite for Vietnam. The deal, to be formally announced soon, involves a satellite weighing 570 kilograms that will be launched on an Epsilon small launch vehicle in 2023. The contract is valued at $190 million. The contract marks the first sale of a Japanese Earth observation satellite to a foreign customer and a move by NEC to work more with governments rather than commercial customers. (4/23)

Xtar Considers Satellite Life Extension (Source: Space News)
Xtar is considering satellite life extension to broaden its global coverage. Xtar is deciding with its partner Hisdesat how to best keep the SpainSat and Xtar-Eur satellites flying after their replacements launch in 2023. One option is to work with a company like Northrop Grumman on satellite life extension systems, allowing those older satellites to remain in operation and be moved to cover the Asia-Pacific region, where the company currently doesn't offer service. (4/23)

Scientists Warn of NASA Budget Cuts for Mars (Source: Space News)
Scientists warn proposed cuts in NASA's Mars exploration program could jeopardize the broader effort. NASA's fiscal year 2021 budget proposal would end funding for the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter and cut funding for the Curiosity rover. Both missions are working well and were highly rated in a recent senior review of extended missions, scientists said at a meeting last week, adding they were surprised that they were targeted for cuts. NASA officials have previously said that overruns on the Mars 2020 mission forced "austerity across the portfolio" of other operating Mars missions. The proposed cuts, and lack of approved missions beyond Mars 2020, put the overall Mars exploration at risk, scientists said. (4/23)

Swarm to Launch SpaceBee Satellites with Momentus on Falcon-9 (Source: Space News)
Swarm Technologies is working with in-space transportation startup Momentus to deploy its satellites. Momentus will arrange rides for 12 Swarm SpaceBee satellites on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare mission in December 2020 with additional SpaceBee launches scheduled in 2021 and 2022. The Momentus system will allow Swarm's satellites to be distributed in different orbital planes in order to build out is global constellation for internet-of-things services. (4/23)

Rocket Lab Hires Washington Lobbyists (Source: Space News)
Rocket Lab has signed up a Washington lobbying firm as it tries to win more government business. Rocket Lab has hired the government affairs firm DLA Piper, according to a lobbying registration form filed Wednesday. The company is hiring a lobbying firm as it seeks to grow its U.S. government business and works to become a dominant player in the dedicated small launch market. (4/23)

BlackSky Offering Telework Package (Source: Space News)
Geospatial intelligence provider BlackSky is offering a version of its services for teleworking analysts. Users of the BlackSky service draw intelligence from a combination of remote sensing satellite images, sensors, media and other reports, analyzed with machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques. BlackSky's telework package, called Spectra On-Demand Secure Bundle, was designed for intelligence analysts who handle unclassified but still sensitive information. (4/23)

DoD and IC Skirmish Over NRO (Source: Breaking Defense)
The Defense Department and the intelligence community are battling over the future of the National Reconnaissance Office and space acquisition. The Defense Department is studying Space Force acquisition issues, including the possibility of the new service taking over NRO acquisition authority. Some in the intelligence community, by contrast, argue that they should have full control of acquisition of any intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems, including satellites. (4/23)

USGS Releases Moon Map (Source: Space Daily)
Have you ever wondered what kind of rocks make up those bright and dark splotches on the moon? Well, the USGS has just released a new authoritative map to help explain the 4.5-billion-year-old history of our nearest neighbor in space. For the first time, the entire lunar surface has been completely mapped and uniformly classified by scientists from the USGS, in collaboration with NASA and the Lunar Planetary Institute.

The lunar map, called the "Unified Geologic Map of the Moon," will serve as the definitive blueprint of the moon's surface geology for future human missions and will be invaluable for the international scientific community, educators and the public-at-large. The digital map is available online now and shows the moon's geology in incredible detail (1:5,000,000 scale).(4/23)

The Falcon 9 Just Became America’s Workhorse Rocket (Source: Ars Technica)
Wednesday's successful launch of 60 Starlink satellites checked a few boxes for SpaceX. For the first time in three tries, the company successfully landed a first stage booster on an autonomous drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. The flawless flight brings SpaceX one step closer to the much-anticipated launch of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, as early as May 27. And, of course, the company extended its Starlink constellation to about 420 satellites, bringing SpaceX closer to offering broadband Internet service to North America from space.

But SpaceX also made a huge, symbolic leap on Wednesday. With the latest Starlink launch, the Falcon 9 rocket has now launched 84 times. This surpasses the total flights by United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket. The Atlas V rocket first launched on August 2, 2002—about three months after SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk and two other engineers, Tom Mueller and Chris Thompson. Since then, the Atlas V rocket has flown an average of a little fewer than five missions per year. All were rated as successes. (4/23)

Benchmark Space Systems to Offer Propulsion Systems in Space Catalog (Source: Orbital Transports)
Benchmark Space Systems announced that its DFAST and B125 small satellite propulsion systems would be available through the Orbital Transports Space Catalog. These innovative propulsion systems have been specifically designed to improve safety and capability for spacecraft ranging from 3U through ESPA class. Both product lines use green propellants and launch unpressurized thanks to a patented On-Demand Pressurization System and micromixing techniques. (4/23)