May 13, 2020

It’s Time to Pink-Slip NASA and its Bloated Budget (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
The  Government Accountability Office, which investigates federal spending for Congress, has released its latest look at NASA procurement. The “major projects” of America’s astro-bureaucracy “continued to experience significant cost and schedule growth this year and the performance is expected to worsen. Since GAO last reported on the portfolio in May 2019, cost growth was approximately 31% over project baselines — the third consecutive year that cost growth has worsened.”

The current estimate for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), “designed to help understand the origin and destiny of the universe, the creation and evolution of the first stars and galaxies, and the formation of stars and planetary systems,” is $9.7 billion. That’s up 94.7% from the observatory’s fiscal 2009 baseline, which itself was quintuple the early figure of around $1 billion. (Once expected to launch as early as 2008, the JWST won’t be sent into the heavens until 2021 — maybe.)

Yet for crimes against the taxpayer, nothing can touch the Space Launch System  and its Orion capsule. The former, a massive rocket intended to launch as many as 130 tons of payload, has experienced “further development cost growth of $700 million since 2019, for a total increase of approximately $1.7 billion — or 24.6% — above the program’s development baseline” of $9.7 billion. That mark, though, was set in the 2014 fiscal year. The Space Launch System dates back further — to George W. Bush’s administration, when it was the Ares V rocket. “Limited performance, huge price tag, and the triumph of self-interest over space-faring vision.” (5/11)

Virgin Galactic Has its Eye on Supersonic Flights — and There's a Difficult Road Ahead (Source: CNN)
Taking a meeting in London at noon and returning to New York in time for dinner? Even before coronavirus, that was just a dream — but a dream business travelers and companies that serve them have clung to for decades. Last week marked the start of a new effort to make it reality again, as NASA signed a deal with space tourism venture Virgin Galactic.

The agreement will allow Virgin Galactic to share expertise and resources with the space agency, giving Virgin Galactic's engineers insight into "technologies developed over the last 50 years" as they work to develop a new commercial aviation vehicle, James Kenyon, director of NASA's Advanced Air Vehicles Program, said in a statement. Boeing (BA) also invested $20 million in Virgin Galactic last year, kicking off a partnership focused on commercial space and global travel technologies.

Virgin Galactic's pledge to develop a point-to-point travel business is one reason why the company's stock price is up more than 50% so far in 2020, even as the Covid-19 pandemic has hammered the travel industry and the broader economy. Some on Wall Street have high hopes: A UBS report last year suggested that the market for long-distance airline tickets could be "cannibalised" by opportunities to travel via outer space, tallying up to a potential $20 billion annual market. Though, the report also noted that the cost "would need to come down materially to the price of a business class ticket or below to make such travel economical for consumers." (5/12)

Study Suggests Terrestrial Life Unlikely to Contaminate Mars (Source: Space Daily)
Mars' hyper-arid conditions require lower temperatures to reach high relative humidities and tolerable water activities, which are measures of how easily the water content may be utilized for hydration. The maximum brine temperature expected is -55 F - at the boundary of the theoretical low temperature limit for life. "Even extreme life on Earth has its limits, and we found that brine formation from some salts can lead to liquid water over 40% of the Martian surface but only seasonally, during 2% of the Martian year," Soto continued. "This would preclude life as we know it." (5/12)

NASA Buys One More Astronaut Ride to ISS (Source: Space News)
NASA will pay Russia more than $90 million for an additional Soyuz seat to the International Space Station this fall. NASA announced Tuesday that it has completed negotiations with Roscosmos to purchase a seat on an October mission to the station, ensuring a continued U.S. presence on the station in the event of problems with commercial crew vehicles. Besides paying $90.25 million for the seat, NASA will also carry Russian cargo to the station on its resupply spacecraft. NASA officials said early this month they were in final negotiations with Roscosmos for the seat, but that they had not yet decided if they should acquire a second additional seat on a Soyuz mission launching in the spring of 2021. (5/13)

Space Force Wants to Prevent Chinese Buyouts of US Space Companies (Source: Space News)
The vice commander of the Space Force said the Defense Department is looking at ways to prevent space companies in financial distress from being acquired by Chinese interests. In an interview Tuesday, Lt. Gen. David Thompson said a particular concern was OneWeb, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March. The Defense Department had been counting on OneWeb to provide communications services in the Arctic. Two firms with links to the Chinese government have reportedly submitted proposals to buy some of OneWeb's assets. Thompson said the Pentagon is working on plans with the White House and Congress on ways to prevent potential adversaries like China from taking advantage of OneWeb and other commercial space companies that may be facing bankruptcy. (5/13)

OHB and IAI Revive Israeli Lunar Lander Effort (Source: Space News)
OHB and IAI are planning a commercial lunar lander mission in late 2022. The two companies signed an agreement last year to work together on a robotic lander based on the Beresheet lander that IAI built. While Beresheet crashed on the moon last year, an OHB manager said at a conference Tuesday that the companies are moving ahead after making changes to the lander's design. The 2022 mission will carry up to 25 kilograms of payloads, and OHB hopes to secure customers such as ESA, other national space agencies and companies for the mission. (5/13)

SpaceX Seeks $656,000 From California in Midst of Musk’s Battle (Source: Bloomberg)
SpaceX is seeking funding from a California agency for training hundreds of new employees. The proposal to California's Employment Training Panel requests $656,000 for training 900 existing employees for work related to the Starlink satellite constellation and 300 new employees who will work on Starship, the company's next-generation launch system. State documents recommended that the panel approve the proposal when it meets later this week. (5/13)

Florida-Based Space Force Unit Ready to Rescue Astronauts (Source: Space News)
A Space Force unit is ready to rescue NASA astronauts if something goes wrong on an upcoming launch. The 45th Operations Group Detachment 3 at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida is responsible to rescue astronauts on land or at sea if they have to abort the mission. It has been around since Apollo, but its deployment for the upcoming SpaceX Demo-2 commercial crew mission will be the first for NASA since the end of the shuttle program in 2011. The unit is part of the U.S. Space Force's 45th Space Wing but when it deploys for a mission it reports directly to U.S. Space Command. (5/13)

China Resumes Rocket Production as Pandemic Impacts Soften There (Source: Xinhua)
A Chinese industrial park that builds rockets has partially resumed operations after the coronavirus pandemic. The Kuaizhou rocket industrial park in Wuhan closed when the coronavirus outbreak started early this year, but has now resumed partial operations. The site is used for producing the Kuaizhou small solid-fuel rocket. (5/13)

Myanmar Developing Smallsat With Japan (Source: Nikkei)
Myanmar will join the club of spacefaring countries next year. Engineers in Myanmar are working with Japanese universities on a 50-kilogram smallsat, the first built in the country, that will be used for monitoring natural disasters and pollution. The $16 million effort is being financed by the government of Myanmar and will include a second satellite. (5/13)

NASA DART Mission Could Cause Meteor Shower (Source: New York Times)
A NASA asteroid mission could create a very small meteor shower. NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission will collide with a moon orbiting the asteroid Didymos in October 2022 to demonstrate a technique for changing the orbit of a potentially hazardous asteroid. A recently published study found that a small fraction of the debris from the collision could reach the Earth 15 to 30 days later, creating "a few to ten" meteors over a few days. Those meteors pose no risk, including to satellites orbiting the Earth, but some scientists say it could set a precedent for how future missions or other space activities could affect the Earth. (5/13)

LeoLabs Unveils First Automated Collision Avoidance Service for Satellite Operators (Source: LeoLabs)
LeoLabs,Inc., the leading commercial provider of low Earth orbit (LEO) tracking and space situational awareness (SSA) services, has introduced LeoLabs Collision Avoidance, a platform for automating and modernizing satellite operations, aimed at addressing the threat of orbital space debris. Powered by LeoLabs global network of radars and built on the LeoLabs SaaS data platform, LeoLabs Collision Avoidance offers a real-time stream of alerts and on-demand risk analyses that uniquely support collision monitoring. (5/13)

SkySats 16-21 To Launch On SpaceX Falcon 9 Rideshare Missions (Source: Planet)
Planet is set to launch six more SkySat satellites (SkySats 16-21) into Low Earth Orbit this summer, rounding out the fleet of 15 SkySats already in operation. SkySats 1-15 operate in Sun Synchronous Orbits, a specific type of Low Earth Orbit that results in the Earth’s surface always being illuminated by the Sun at the same angle when the satellite is capturing imagery.

About half of the SkySats currently pass overhead in a morning crossing plane, while the other half moves in an afternoon crossing plane, so together they provide twice-daily coverage of select areas on a global scale. SkySats 16-21 will operate at a “mid-inclination” orbit of 53 degrees, complimenting the Sun Synchronous fleet, and will offer more targeted coverage and thus unrivaled rapid-revisits and raw image capacity in key geographic regions. (5/13)

South Florida Startups to Compete for $100K From Space Florida (Source: Space Florida)
The Florida Venture Forum has selected 20 companies to present at the Aerospace Innovation & Tech Forum via webinar series on May 22 and May 29, with prize money award announcements on June 5. This will be the third annual aerospace-focused event the Forum has hosted in partnership with Space Florida. In addition to virtual company presentations and other informational content, the Aerospace Innovation & Tech Forum will provide a total of $100,000 in cash awards presented to three winning companies, courtesy of Space Florida. (5/13)

Raytheon Open to Acquisition Possibilities (Source: Jane's)
Raytheon Technologies says it has capacity to pursue acquisitions during the current slowdown related to the coronavirus pandemic. "If we see a buying opportunity, we're not going to be shy. We're not going to be stupid either, though. We'll do what makes sense for the long-term prospects of the business," CEO Greg Hayes said. (5/12)

Joe Biden: Space Policy Enigma (Source: Medium)
While space exploration and the NASA budget are not headline news items in the age of coronavirus, the 2020 election injects considerable uncertainty regarding America’s future in space and our return to the Moon. NASA has always been at the whim of sharp changes in presidential priorities, and there is even less predictability about its future than usual heading into 2021 and beyond.

As an incumbent, Donald Trump’s vision for America’s role in space is (relatively) well known, favoring a robust, American-led effort to return to the Moon by 2024. However Joe Biden, his presumptive November challenger, has a much more limited public stance on space exploration. This makes projecting how Biden would develop space policy as President difficult, but there are instructive examples from his past that offer clues. A number of external variables are likely to influence space policy if Biden wins, and there is an opportunity to articulate a bi-partisan, inclusive vision for space exploration regardless of the outcome this November.

Joe Biden has an extensive career in public service, first winning a Senate seat in 1972 (serving until 2008), running for President 3 times (1988, 2008, 2020), and serving as Vice President from 2008–2016. Yet despite a career spanning almost 50 years, Biden has expressed little in the way of substantive opinions on NASA and the future of American space exploration. Click here. (5/13)

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