July 17, 2020

Southern Launch Prepares for Lift Off In South Australia (Source: Space Daily)
The development of small satellite technologies (SmallSats) has ushered in an era of dynamic and responsive space systems. Hundreds, and soon thousands, of these small platforms will be launched into Low Earth Orbits (LEO) every year. LEO are ideal for Earth Observation missions and other near-earth activities, including internet with global coverage. Approximately half of these SmallSats are projected to be launched into Polar Orbits with the other half orbiting around the equator.

According to recent estimates by an SSTL study, close to 1000 SmallSats will be launched annually from 2025 onwards. These satellites will be inserted into new and existing LEO constellations, offering innovative new services to the world while actively limiting the proliferation of space debris in orbits. SmallSats in LEO remain there for less than 3 years before burning up in the Earth's atmosphere. (7/16)

Spaceflight Unveils Next-Gen Orbital Transfer Vehicle to Fly Aboard SpaceX Mission (Source: Space Daily)
Spaceflight Inc. will be flying its next generation orbital transfer vehicle, Sherpa-FX, on a fully dedicated rideshare mission with SpaceX. The mission, called SXRS-3 by Spaceflight, is scheduled to launch on a Falcon 9 no earlier than December 2020. Spaceflight has contracted 16 spacecraft for this mission from organizations including iQPS, Loft Orbital, HawkEye 360, NASA's Small Spacecraft Technology program, Astrocast, and the University of South Florida Institute of Applied Engineering. In addition to the customer spacecraft, Sherpa-FX will transport multiple hosted payloads including one for Celestis Inc., as well as several that will demonstrate technologies designed to identify and track spacecraft once deployed. (7/16)

Monument to Nation's Space Program Vandalized at Titusville Space View Park (Source: Florida Today)
Titusville Police were attempting to find out who scrawled graffiti across a monument honoring astronauts and workers involved with the nation’s space program and the moon mission. The incident was reported Wednesday night at Space View Park, 8 Broad St., a public area that sits along the riverside about 15 miles west of the launch pads at Kennedy Space Center. The park — which also includes an exhibit with the handprints of Astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon and a memorial to the Apollo program — is also a frequent stop for tourists and locals who want to watch rocket launches. (7/16)

L3Harris Program Helps Florida Students Reach College (Source: ExecutiveBiz)
L3Harris Technologies will donate $2 million to the nonprofit INROADS to help disadvantaged high school students reach college. The College Links program will launch in Orlando and expand to Dallas. "This is crucial for our company, our community and the future of our aerospace and defense workforce," said William Brown, chairman and CEO of L3Harris. (7/16)

Astronomy’s Most Perfect Ring Galaxy, Hoag’s Object, Is Still A Mystery After 70 Years (Source: Medium)
Every once in a while, we find an object in the Universe that completely mystifies us. For generations, astronomers have been observing distant galaxies present all throughout the Universe, cataloguing them and noting their various characteristics. Overwhelmingly, galaxies fell into three different categories: spiral galaxies, where stars are concentrated in vast, sweeping arms; elliptical galaxies, where stars swarm around a central region; and irregular galaxies, which are neither spiral nor elliptical, and which often correspond to two or more galaxies in the process of interacting.

Spirals and ellipticals are ubiquitous, with spirals more common among isolated or sparsely populated regions of space, while ellipticals often dominate the centers of large galaxy clusters. But in 1950, astronomer Arther Hoag discovered a galaxy unlike any other: Hoag’s object, dominated by a vast, ring-like halo. 70 years later, we’re still struggling to piece together this galactic mystery. The halo, rather than showing strong emission lines, instead indicates a population of young, blue stars: it’s definitely galactic in nature. Hoag even suggested that it could be a gravitational lens, as those systems can produce a ring in the case of perfect alignments, but both the center and the halo display identical redshifts; they’re part of the same system, not caused by gravitational lensing. (7/16)

Another Delay for JWST Launch (Source: Space News)
NASA announced Thursday a seven-month delay for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) due in part to the pandemic. NASA said the observatory is now scheduled for launch Oct. 31, 2021, on an Ariane 5 from French Guiana. NASA had been targeting a launch in late March 2021, but a slowdown in work caused by the pandemic, as well as adding time in the schedule for some upcoming test activities, forced the delay. NASA said the cost of the delay should be covered by existing budget reserves, keeping the mission within its cost cap of $8.8 billion. (7/17)

Long March 5 Ready to Launch China's Mars Mission (Source: Space News)
The Long March 5 that will launch China's Tianwen-1 Mars mission rolled out to the pad overnight. The rocket is in final preparations for a launch from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center, most likely around July 23. If successful, the Tianwen-1 spacecraft will arrive at Mars in February 2021. A rover, inside an entry vehicle atop the orbiter, will remain attached to the orbiter in Mars orbit for two to three months before attempting a landing. (7/17)

France's Exotrail Raises $13 Million for Smallsat Propulsion and Flight Software (Source: Space News)
French smallsat technology company Exotrail has raised $13 million. French venture capital firms Karista and Innovacom led the Series A round with participation from several other new and existing investors. The company will use its new funding to further product development, increase manufacturing capabilities and hire business development staff in Europe and in North America. Exotrail is developing electric propulsion systems and flight software for smallsats, and has a demonstration propulsion system on a NanoAvionics cubesat awaiting launch on a delayed Indian PSLV mission. (7/17)

HawkEye 360 More Readies Satellites for RF Detection Constellation (Source: Space News)
HawkEye 360 has completed testing of three satellites the company plans to launch late this year. The satellites that just completed environmental testing are significantly larger than their predecessors, and equipped with updated processors and large solar arrays to boost onboard power. HawkEye 360 is developing a constellation of satellites to pinpoint the source of radio frequency signals on the Earth, and has three satellites currently in orbit. (7/17)

Millennium Space Testing Tether for Rapid Smallsat Deorbit (Source: Space News)
Millennium Space is preparing to test a tether system that could deorbit a smallsat in a matter of weeks. The DragRacer mission, scheduled for launch later this year on an Electron rocket, has two identical cubesats that will be ejected simultaneously in low Earth orbit from a larger satellite. One will host a tether and the other will not. Millennium predicts that the tethered cubesat will reenter the Earth's atmosphere and burn up within six weeks, versus up to nine years for the one without a tether. Tethers Unlimited is providing the 70-meter tether for the mission. (7/17)

Crowdfunders Want Space Perfume (Source: CollectSpace)
If you've ever wanted to smell like space, or the moon, a perfumer has just the thing. More than 10,000 people have contributed to a crowdfunding campaign to create "Eau de Space," a fragrance intended to replicate the distinct odor astronauts reported smelling once reentering a spacecraft after a spacewalk. That smell has been compared to burned steak, rum, raspberries and cream of mushroom soup. The same team is now planning "Eau de Luna," reproducing the smell of the moon. And what does the moon smell like? "It has that taste — to me [of] gunpowder — and the smell of gunpowder, too," Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke said. (7/17)

TNO Signs Contract ESA for Phase 2 OF TOmCAT Project for Telecom Satellites (Source: SpaceWatch Europe)
TNO signed a contract with ESA to demonstrate cutting-edge optical communication technologies for future terabit-speed telecom satellites. The TOmCAT project (Terabit Optical Communication Adaptive Terminal) will enable high-throughput laser communication between ground stations and satellites. TOmCAT is a co-funded activity in which TNO, the companies involved, the Canadian Space Agency and the Netherlands Space Office invest through the ESAs ARTES Strategic Program Line ScyLight.

Key technologies include high-bandwidth adaptive optics, thermally stable opto-mechanics, high-power photonics, and high-throughput optical transceivers. TNO Space aims to enable secure broadband connectivity that will support the growing demand for data and increase communication efficiency, and also help stimulate economic growth in the Netherlands and Europe by enabling companies to realize new products and business as well as improve their competitive position. (7/17)

China’s Home-Grown Satnav System Will Soon be Fully Functional (Source: The Economist)
Thirty-five thousand kilometers above the island of Borneo, the final piece of a Chinese infrastructure project is floating into place. The satellite is the last to join the BeiDou navigation system, which has taken nearly 30 years to develop and build. The state-owned firm that launched it from Sichuan province on June 23rd says the network of BeiDou satellites will function fully around the end of July. China sees this as a moment of triumph. It marks the end of the country’s dependence on America for provision of a vital service: location data.

Satellite-navigation systems work on a simple principle. Each spacecraft uses radio waves to beam the time and its position to Earth. Devices that receive simultaneous transmissions from three or more satellites can use tiny differences in these signals to work out where the user is. All location satellites broadcast timing data on the same frequencies, so that a location device could, in theory, lock on to whichever satellites provide the best signal, regardless of whether they belong to America’s Global Positioning System (gps), Russia’s glonass, Europe’s Galileo or China’s BeiDou. (7/17)