May 5, 2020

UAE Plans for Mars Mission (Source: Space.com)
The Hope mission began with an order from UAE Prime Minister Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum: Send a UAE-built science probe to Mars before the country's 50th anniversary in December 2021, within a set budget. There were other constraints too: "The science needs to be unique. Whatever you do, it shouldn't be something that's been done before," Sharaf said the prime minister directed. "We should build it and not buy it, and work with others, don't start from scratch."

Jumping from Earth orbit to Mars in less than a decade is quite a leap, but a purposeful one for the UAE, which turned its gaze to spaceflight in 2006. "Only 50% of those missions [to Mars] succeed," said Sarah Al Amiri, science lead for the mission. "It provides the mindset that the UAE needed to have in youth who are going to be a vital part of the UAE's post-oil economy. It's about expanding their horizons and putting them in challenges at a time when the UAE is relatively comfortable as a nation." The mission is, after all, timed to celebrate the nation's 50th anniversary. "We need to catch up with nations that have been around for centuries," Al Amiri said. (5/4)

‘This Is Certainly Different’: Astronauts on Controlling the Dragon Spacecraft Via Touchscreen (Source: Tech Crunch)
Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, the two astronauts soon to launch to the International Space Station aboard a Dragon capsule, will be the first to actually fly the craft in space. “It’s probably a dream of every test pilot school student to have the opportunity to fly on a brand-new spaceship, and I’m lucky enough to get that opportunity with my good friend here,” said Behnken. Of course they’re more than adequately prepared — not only have they spent countless hours in simulators, but they collaborated with SpaceX from the early days.

“It was on the order of at least 5 or 6 years ago that we went out to SpaceX and evaluated a bunch of different control mechanisms,” said Hurley. “They were looking at every which way of flying the vehicle, and ultimately they decided on a touchscreen interface.”

“Of course, you know, growing up as a pilot my whole career, having a certain way to control the vehicle, this is certainly different,” he continued. “But we went into it with a very open mind, I think, and worked with them to define the way you interface with it — the way your touches actually registered on the display, in order to be able to fly it cleanly and not make mistakes touching it, not potentially putting in a wrong input.” (5/4)

RAND Study Sees ~20 Annual Launches for New DoD Providers to Compete For (Source: Space News)
One of the take-aways from RAND’s “Independent Analysis of the Global Heavy Lift Launch Market” released last week is that the industry faces a tough road ahead. RAND is projecting the “addressable” commercial global market for U.S. companies will be in the neighborhood of 20 launches per year over the next decade. According to RAND’s definition of addressable market, U.S. companies will be able to compete for only 35 percent of the total market. Why? Nations, or launch providers themselves, increasingly fence off areas of the total market to support their own goals. (5/5)

How Much Energy Does It Take to Blow Up a Planet? (Source: WIRED)
Let me start with three rough approximations. Let’s say the planet is the same size as Earth, with a radius of 6.37 million meters. Let’s also use the mass of the Earth, 5.972 × 1024 kg, and assume a uniform density (which is not true). Finally, let's assume that all of the planet is ejected with an average velocity of 0.5 million m/s. That’s much slower than my measurement. Why go with a lower speed? Well, the stuff I tracked was probably the fastest debris, since it was on the leading edge of the explosion. Also, I want to be conservative in my estimate of the energy demand.

With this average speed estimate, I can now calculate the total energy of the explosion as the kinetic energy (K) of all the flying fragments. (Sorry, I guess I'm using K as a symbol for two different things.) This kinetic energy is a function of m, the total mass of the planet, and the average velocity (v) at which the pieces are traveling. Using the mass of the Earth and the lower estimate of debris speed, 0.5 million m/s, I get an energy of 7.465 x 1035 joules. To put that in context: If you grab a physics textbook off the floor and put it on a table, that takes around 10 joules of energy. This is just like that, except with 35 more zeros after it. Yes, it’s a big number. (5/4)

More Rocket Engine Testing to be Done at Stennis as NASA Awards $1.79 Billion Contract to Aerojet Rocketdyne (Source: WLOX)
NASA has awarded another huge contract to a company at Stennis Space Center with the goal of sending the first woman and next man back to the moon. NASA awarded Aerojet Rocketdyne a $1.79 billion contract to produce 18 more RS-25 engines for its Artemis program. The engines will be assembled and tested at Stennis.

“We will be part of history. We’re producing that history now and getting these rockets ready now to put the first woman and the next man on the moon and then to Mars," said Stennis site director Mike McDaniel. “It’s exciting for Stennis, exciting for Mississippi, exciting for the nation to have this contract in place.” The engines will power the Space Launch Systems, or SLS, designed to carry humans deeper into space. McDaniel calls the engines the most complicated components of the rocket. (5/4)

Scientists Have Discovered Fixed Nitrogen in a Martian Meteorite For The First Time (Source: Science Alert)
A fresh new look at a 4 billion-year-old Martian meteorite has revealed organic compounds containing nitrogen - the first real evidence of fixed nitrogen molecules on the Red Planet. Nitrogen is essential for all known forms of life, and while there's currently no evidence to suggest this discovery was created by some biological unit, it does leave open the possibility that once upon a time, Mars might have been a wet and organic-rich planet - a blue planet even - the perfect place for life to begin. (5/4)

Boeing Left Out of NASA’s Lunar Lander Competition (Source: Asia Times)
And then there were three — and this time, Boeing has been left out. NASA has selected three US aerospace firms to design and develop human landing systems for the agency’s Artemis program, one of which will land the first woman and next man on the surface of the moon by 2024, Xinhua reported. Cutting Boeing out of a key NASA spaceflight effort deals a blow to the aerospace giant’s space wing, which for decades has been a key International Space Station contractor and more recently a secondary provider in NASA’s efforts to launch humans to the station under its Commercial Crew Program, Reuters reported. (5/3)

Lockheed Martin Joins GPS Innovation Alliance (Source: Shephard.co.uk)
Lockheed Martin is the 16th company to become part of the GPS Innovation Alliance, joining Collins Aerospace, Garmin and others. "With a deep and rich history of championing GPS technology and as the leading contractor in developing the next-generation GPS III satellites, Lockheed Martin brings a wealth of experience to help the industry move boldly into the future," GPSIA Executive Director J David Grossman said. (5/4)

Asteroid Has Close Encounter with Geosynchronous Satellite (Source: New Atlas)
A small asteroid came within a cosmic hairbreadth of the ring of communications satellites circling the Earth in geosynchronous orbit this week. Passing by our planet at an altitude of about 35,000 km (22,000 mi), the object measuring four to eight meters (13 to 20 ft) in diameter whizzed past the nearest satellite on April 28, 2020, at 18:49 GMT at a distance of about 1,200 km (750 mi) on one of the closest Earth flybys ever recorded. (5/1)

Fast Radio Burst Detected Within Milky Way (Source: EarthSky)
Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are short, intense bursts of radio waves lasting perhaps a thousandth of a second, coming from all over the sky and of unknown origin. In a shock discovery that could help to solve one of astronomy’s greatest mysteries – on April 28, 2020 – astronomers used an Astronomer’s Telegram to announce a Fast Radio Burst originating from inside our Milky Way galaxy. That’s a first. All other FRBs have been extragalactic, that is to say outside our galaxy. Even more importantly, the astronomers think they’ve also identified the source of the burst.

Explanations have ranged from neutron stars to supernovae to the inevitable aliens. FRBs were first detected in 2007. This new detection of an FRB is, in astronomical terms, very close to home. Astronomers found it using the CHIME (Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment) radio telescope in Canada, an instrument designed specifically to study phenomena such as FRBs in order to answer major questions in astrophysics. This particular telescope has greatly increased the bursts’ detection rate since its first light in September 2017.

At the time of the April 28 signal, the telescope was not pointing straight at the source. But the signal was so strong the telescope captured it, so to speak, out of the corner of its eye. The signal was of sufficient strength to be detected from another galaxy (indicating it is the same phenomenon as those earlier extragalactic bursts detected from our galaxy), and it had the typical duration of a Fast Radio Burst. (5/4)

Building Satellites Amid COVID-19 (Source: Space News)
During these unprecedented times of the COVID-19 lockdown, trying to work poses huge challenges for us all. For those that can, remote working is now pretty much the norm, but this is obviously not possible for everybody. One might assume that like many industries, the construction and testing of satellites has been put on hold, but engineers and scientists are finding ways of continuing to prepare Europe's upcoming satellite missions such as the next Copernicus Sentinels.

For example, with liftoff still scheduled for the end of this year, the Copernicus Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite is currently being tested to ensure that it will withstand the rigors of launch and the harsh environment of space during its life in orbit around Earth. This new satellite will assume the role as a reference mission to provide critical data for the long-term record of sea-surface height measurements. The constraints imposed by the COVID-19 crisis mean that there are far fewer engineers in the cleanroom testing the satellite at IABG's centre near Munich in Germany. (5/5)

Exoplanets: How We'll Search for Signs of Life (Source: Space Daily)
NASA missions like the space telescope Kepler have helped us document thousands of exoplanets - planets that orbit around other stars. And current NASA missions like Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) are expected to vastly increase the current number of known exoplanets. It is expected that dozens will be Earth-sized rocky planets orbiting in their stars' habitable zones, at distances where water could exist as a liquid on their surfaces. These are promising places to look for life.

This will be accomplished by missions like the soon-to-be-launched James Webb Space Telescope, which will complement and extend the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope by observing at infrared wavelengths. It is expected to launch in 2021, and will allow scientists to determine if rocky exoplanets have oxygen in their atmospheres. Oxygen in Earth's atmosphere is due to photosynthesis by microbes and plants. To the extent that exoplanets resemble Earth, oxygen in their atmospheres may also be a sign of life.

Not all exoplanets will be Earth-like, though. Some will be, but others will differ from Earth enough that oxygen doesn't necessarily come from life. So with all of these current and future exoplanets to study, how do scientists narrow down the field to those for which oxygen is most indicative of life? An interdisciplinary team of researchers, led by Arizona State University (ASU), has provided a framework, called a "detectability index" which may help prioritize exoplanets that require additional study."The goal of the index is to provide scientists with a tool to select the very best targets for observation and to maximize the chances of detecting life," says lead author Donald Glaser. (5/5)

Satellite Imagery Helps Detect Ocean Plastic Pollution (Source: EcoWatch)
More than 8.3 billion tons of plastic waste enter the oceans each year, equivalent to a garbage truck dumping its contents into the sea every minute of the day, according to a report by the World Economic Forum. Anything more than 5 millimeters in size, about a fifth of an inch, is generally considered to be "macroplastic," while anything below that size is "microplastic."

Biermann and a team of colleagues embarked on their own study of detecting ocean plastic through satellite imagery, and recently published their findings in Scientific Reports. First, they obtained high-resolution optical data from the European Space Agency (ESA), which is gathered by the Sentinel-2 Earth observation satellite. Second, they used the plastic target data from the University of the Aegean to help differentiate plastic debris from natural objects like driftwood and seaweed. Then the researchers employed an algorithm to develop a "floating debris index" (FDI) that would identify macroplastics, like plastic water bottles and plastic bags, bobbing on the surface of the sea.

Biermann and her colleagues have tested these methods on satellite imagery of coastal waters off Accra, Ghana; the San Juan Islands, U.S.; Da Nang, Vietnam; and east Scotland, reporting an 86% accuracy rate. However, the process of identifying plastic isn't always straightforward. Cloud cover and rough seas can compromise the data, and macroplastics won't stay in one place for a long time, particularly in coastal zones, Biermann said. (5/5)

GE Cuts 10,000 More Aviation Jobs (Source: AFP)
General Electric announced Monday it will cut an additional 10,000 jobs from its aviation sector as the coronavirus pandemic decimates the industry, forcing companies to cancel orders. The cuts will be a mix of voluntary departures and layoffs and come after an initial wave of 2,600 job cuts in March, GE said in a statement. The company aims to reduce its aviation employment base by 25 percent, or some 13,000 employees. The austerity program, which will affect all geographic zones, is reflective of the rough time the entire aviation sector is going through. Boeing announced last week that it was cutting 16,000 jobs, about 10 percent of its workforce, in civilian aircraft manufacturing. (5/5)

Were Hedge Funds Right About L3Harris Technologies (Source: Yahoo Finance)
At Q4's end, a total of 48 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of -6% from one quarter earlier. The graph below displays the number of hedge funds with bullish position in LHX over the last 18 quarters. With hedge funds' sentiment swirling, there exists a select group of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes substantially (or already accumulated large positions). Seeing as L3Harris Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:LHX) has experienced a decline in interest from the aggregate hedge fund industry, it's safe to say that there is a sect of funds who sold off their entire stakes by the end of the third quarter. (5/4)

SpaceX’s Starship Rocket Program Just Had One of its Best Nights Yet (Source: Teslarati)
Before dawn on May 4th, SpaceX successfully fueled a full-scale Starship prototype and (partially) tested an installed Raptor engine for the first time ever – perhaps the Starship program’s best night yet. While just a small test relative to what’s soon to come, the milestone is still an extremely significant one for SpaceX and its next-generation launch vehicle. Designed to launch atop the Super Heavy booster, both Starship and its booster are meant to be fully reusable, potentially making the launch system one of the cheapest in operation on Earth.

Despite that unprecedented full reusability, they should still be able to place dozens (perhaps up to 100-150+) metric tons of payload into orbit in a single launch. To get to that point, however, SpaceX must develop and demonstrate a cornucopia of technologies and approaches – most of which are unprecedented – at a scale unmatched by ever other launch vehicle in history, save two or three. It was perhaps the most fundamental of those steps that was on the table earlier this morning. (5/4)

Starlink Satellite Launch Slips Closer to Crew Dragon Debut (Source: Teslarati)
SpaceX’s next Starlink satellite launch has slipped about a week and a half into mid-May, placing it just nine days (or less) prior to the company’s inaugural NASA astronaut mission. Known as Crew Dragon’s second Demonstration Mission (Demo-2), SpaceX’s first astronaut launch is officially scheduled no earlier than May 27th and is with little doubt the most important mission in the company’s history. Simultaneously, however, SpaceX is working to rapidly launch thousands of Starlink satellites in a bid to deliver high-quality internet service to tens – or even hundreds – of millions of people.

The company has already launched an incredibly 420 operational Starlink satellites but that’s just a drop in the bucket compared to the ~4400, ~12,000, or even ~40,000+ the company will ultimately need to match its ambitions. Along those lines, SpaceX’s eight Starlink launch (the seventh flight of v1.0 satellites) is now scheduled to lift off no earlier than 3:09 am EDT on March 18 – a delay of 11 days from a previous May 7 target. The cause of that delay is unclear and will likely remain so but it does mean that 60 new Starlink satellites could head to orbit just nine days before Crew Dragon attempts to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station for the first time ever. (5/5)

SpaceX Moon Contract Could Be Worth $7 Billion -- Or Nothing (Source: Motley Fool)
NASA's award of $1 billion in contracts to Blue Origin, Dynetics, and SpaceX to build landers to carry astronauts back to the moon is dominating headlines this week -- and don't get me wrong, this is a really big deal. But it pales in comparison to another NASA contract that SpaceX won just a little over a month ago. That contract, to provide logistics services to a planned Lunar Gateway space station orbiting the moon, could be worth as much as $7 billion -- and SpaceX might not have to share it with anyone. Click here. (5/3)

Scientist Dumbfounded By the Bizarre Atmosphere Color of This Planet (Source: Inverse)
Amidst the hunt for exoplanets, astronomers are ultimately searching for signs of habitability and a world similar to our own. However, along the way, they often encounter strange, new worlds that defy the laws of astronomy as they know it. WASP-79b happens to be one of those worlds. The gaseous giant exoplanet has scorching temperatures, iron rain and yellow skies.

A team of researchers analyzed the atmosphere of WASP-79b and found no evidence for Rayleigh scattering, the atmospheric phenomenon that turns the sky into its familiar blue color. Instead, the study suggests that the exoplanet has a yellowish sky. "I've shown the WASP-79b spectrum to a number of colleagues, and their consensus is 'that's weird,'" Kristin Showalter Sotzen, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, and lead author of the study, said in a statement. "This is a strong indication of an unknown atmospheric process that we're just not accounting for in our physical models." (5/4)

Tom Cruise Plots Movie To Shoot In Space With Elon Musk’s SpaceX (Source: Deadline)
I’m hearing that Tom Cruise and Elon Musk’s Space X are working on a project with NASA that would be the first narrative feature film – an action adventure – to be shot in outer space. It’s not a Mission: Impossible film and no studio is in the mix at this stage but look for more news as I get it. But this is real, albeit in the early stages of liftoff. (5/4)

Amazon Joins Other Satellite Constellation Ventures in Checking Out Bankrupt OneWeb’s Assets (Source: GeekWire)
London’s Telegraph newspaper reports that Amazon is understood to be among the entities sifting through the assets of OneWeb, a venture that began building a constellation of broadband internet satellites but filed for bankruptcy in March. Amazon’s interest has to do with its plans to create its own broadband constellation, known as Project Kuiper. The most attractive assets that OneWeb has to offer would arguably be its rights to radio frequency spectrum and its access to the U.S. market — advantages that Amazon currently lacks.

Among the other entities looking at OneWeb’s assets, according to the Space Intel Report, are SpaceX, Eutelsat and the British government. SpaceX is already building out its Starlink broadband constellation in low Earth orbit, using satellites that are being built at its facility in Redmond, Wash. Eutelsat is a European satellite operator based in Paris, and the French government is said to be working with Eutelsat to assess OneWeb’s value. The Telegraph says the British government is looking into making a rescue loan to OneWeb in return for the venture moving more of its operations to Britain. (5/3)

Why Virgin Galactic Stock Dropped 11% This Morning (Source: Motley Fool)
On Friday, May 1, after the close of trading, Virgin Galactic filed an S-1 form with the Securities and Exchange Commission, advising that certain "selling stockholders" of the space tourism company intend to sell a combined 150.5 million shares of Virgin Galactic stock. In an email from the company, Virgin Galactic clarified that "under the registration rights agreement between Virgin Galactic Holdings and SCH in connection with our 2019 merger, Virgin Galactic Holdings had a contractual obligation to file a shelf registration statement within 6 months of the closing to register the shares of Virgin Galactic Holding stock owned by several stockholders."

Nevertheless, on Monday, May 4, the first trading day after the announcement, Virgin Galactic stock dropped as much as 11.4% before regaining some lost ground. As of 12:20 p.m. EDT, Virgin Galactic shares are down 4.2%. Is this an overreaction to Virgin Galactic's news? I think not.

Consider: First and foremost, this is not a "secondary issue" of Virgin stock sold by the company in order to raise cash. All the proceeds from the sale of these shares will go to the shareholders exiting the stock. Second, consider the size of the rush to the exits represented by this sale. In its filing, Virgin notes that it currently has 210.4 million shares outstanding. The shares about to be sold represent a staggering 71.5% of all shares now outstanding. (5/4)

Satellites Reveal Clearest Picture of Ice-Melting in Antarctica (Source: The Independent)
NASA satellites have provided more data than ever before on what has been happening to Antarctica and Greenland's ice over the past 16 years with dire, if not entirely unexpected, findings. Both polar ice sheets are losing billions of tonnes of ice every year and adding to sea-level rise. The results revealed that although there are small gains of ice in East Antarctica, they have been dwarfed by massive losses in West Antarctica, NASA reported. The net ice mass loss has led to almost half an inch of sea-level rise between 2003 and 2019 - just under a third of the total sea-level rise around the world in that time.

The findings were based on information from the space agency’s ICESat and ICESat-2 satellite laser altimeters - devices that use laser pulses to measure the elevation and thickness of ice sheets and help better understand global climate change. The researchers concluded that ice masses from both Greenland and Antarctica will continue to contribute to sea level rise increasing over the next few decades. Greenland’s ice sheet lost an average of 200 gigatons of ice per year, and Antarctica’s ice sheet lost an average of 118 gigatons of ice per year, NASA reported. (5/3)

Spitzer Telescope Reveals the Precise Timing of a Black Hole Dance (Source: India Gone Viral)
Black holes aren’t stationary in space; in fact, they can be quite active in their movements. But because they are completely dark and can’t be observed directly, they’re not easy to study. Scientists have finally figured out the precise timing of a complicated dance between two enormous black holes, revealing hidden details about the physical characteristics of these mysterious cosmic objects.

The OJ 287 galaxy hosts one of the largest black holes ever found, with over 18 billion times the mass of our Sun. Orbiting this behemoth is another black hole with about 150 million times the Sun’s mass. Twice every 12 years, the smaller black hole crashes through the enormous disk of gas surrounding its larger companion, creating a flash of light brighter than a trillion stars—brighter, even, than the entire Milky Way galaxy. The light takes 3.5 billion years to reach Earth.

But the smaller black hole’s orbit is oblong, not circular, and it’s irregular: It shifts position with each loop around the bigger black hole and is tilted relative to the disk of gas. When the smaller black hole crashes through the disk, it creates two expanding bubbles of hot gas that move away from the disk in opposite directions, and in less than 48 hours the system appears to quadruple in brightness. (4/30)

Planets with Hydrogen-Rich Atmospheres Could Harbor Life (Source: Science News)
Microbes can live and grow in an atmosphere of pure hydrogen, lab experiments show. The finding could widen the range of environments where astronomers seek signs of alien life. “We’re trying to expand people’s view of what should be considered a habitable planet,” says exoplanet astronomer Sara Seager of MIT (SN: 10/4/19). “It seems to increase our chances that we may find life elsewhere.”

Seager and her colleagues placed yeast and E. coli — both considered stand-ins for other single-celled organisms — in small bottles with some nutrient broth. The researchers displaced the air in six bottles and replaced it with pure hydrogen gas, pure helium gas or a mixture of 80 percent nitrogen and 20 percent carbon dioxide. A final set of bottles was left with Earth air. Every few hours, the researchers removed some of the microbes with a hypodermic needle to count how many were alive. The microbes had replicated in every atmosphere tested, the team reports. (5/4)