July 9, 2020

Falcon 9 Landing Leg Accidentally Dropped During Retraction Attempt (Source: Teslarati)
SpaceX has accidentally dropped one of its newest Falcon 9 booster’s landing legs during a retraction attempt in Port Canaveral while crews worked to prepare the rocket for transport. Despite the mishap caught on camera by diligent, unofficial observers, things appeared to work out just fine for booster B1060 as crews threaded recovery operations between bouts of disruptive Florida weather.

Based on video of the accidental leg drop captured by US Launch Report on July 7th, the most obvious conclusion is that operators either failed to release tension on a winch line or some kind of hardware/software/sensor failure unintentionally over-stressed the line. Regardless, around the same time as Falcon 9 or its ground operators were likely commanding the landing leg latch closed, one or both of the lines attached to the top of the retracting leg snapped, causing it to very quickly redeploy as gravity pulled it back to earth.

Falcon 9 booster B1060 safely arrived in Port Canaveral, Florida on July 4 after a flawless June 30th launch debut, delivering the US military’s GPS III SV03 navigation satellite to an accurate orbit and becoming the first SpaceX rocket to launch and land as part of an operational US military mission. The major landing milestone was supported by drone ship Just Read The Instructions (JRTI) as part of its second East Coast recovery mission ever after an ~8000 km (~5000 mi) journey from Los Angeles and months of slow and steady upgrades. (7/9)

NASA Adds Software Experts to Work Toward New Boeing Capsule Flight (Source: UPI)
NASA added software experts to work with Boeing and SpaceX on their space capsule programs following the failure of Boeing's Starliner test flight in December, the agency announced via a teleconference from Florida on Wednesday. The software oversight changes were outlined in NASA's release of its final review of the Starliner failure. The space agency said Boeing remains on track for a second test flight in the last half of this year. Competitor SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule successfully delivered astronauts to the International Space Station on May 31. (7/7)

House Republicans Criticize Flat Spending Plan for NASA (Source: Space News)
House Republicans criticized a spending bill Wednesday that rejected a proposed 12% increase in NASA's budget. The House Appropriations commerce, justice and science subcommittee approved the bill on a voice vote Wednesday, sending it on to the full committee. During the markup session, Republican members complained that the bill, which funds NASA at its 2020 level of $22.6 billion rather than the requested $25.2 billion, is a "rebuke" of NASA's plans to return humans to the moon by 2024 and "a deliberate effort to undercut our path to renewed American space dominance." NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Wednesday the bill is the "opening salvo" in the debate on the agency's 2021 budget, and emphasized what he saw as bipartisan support for the agency among appropriators. (7/9)

Descartes Wins Air Force Satellite Imagery Contract (Source: Space News)
Geospatial analytics company Descartes Labs has won an Air Force contract to analyze satellite and aerial imagery. The $1.5 million, 12-month contract will give the Air Force access to Descartes Labs' cloud-based data platform to analyze data from unclassified space sensors, ship tracking signals and high-altitude surveillance drones like the Air Force's Global Hawk. The platform uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to fuse and analyze data from many sources and turns them into visual products for military commanders trying to make sense of what’s happening on the ground. (7/9)

Three Win Space Force Contracts for GPS Receivers (Source: Space News)
The Space Force has issued contracts to three companies to develop improved handheld GPS receivers. The Space and Missile Systems Center said that Collins Aerospace, Raytheon, and Technology Advancement Group collectively received $41.1 million to develop small handheld devices that will be used in field tests. The receivers will be smaller than existing units and feature increased military-code capability and improved anti-jamming and anti-spoofing capabilities. (7/9)

NASA's Mars-Digging Mole Not Getting Deep (Source: Space.com)
The "mole" on NASA's InSight Mars lander is now below the surface, but is not getting any deeper. Project officials this week said that while the heat flow probe was now under the surface, aided by the scoop on the end of the lander's robotic arm, recent images suggested the mole was bouncing in place, hitting the scoop. The mole is supposed to burrow to a depth of at least three meters to study the heat flow from the planet's interior, but has struggled to make any progress since early last year. Controllers plan to move the robotic arm to use it for other activities, such as surveying dust on the lander's solar arrays, while engineers assess what steps to take next with the mole. (7/9)

Angara Shipping Soon to Spaceport (Source: TASS)
An Angara rocket will soon head to a Russian spaceport for a flight later this year. Roscosmos said the Angara-A5 rocket will be shipped to the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia in the coming weeks for a launch as soon as this fall. The rocket, intended ultimately to replace the Proton, made a single test flight in late 2014. (7/9)

Here Are The Names Space Force Rejected In Favor Of Calling Its New Units "Deltas" (Source: The Drive)
The U.S. Space Force is now just over six months old. The fledgling service has been working hard to create its own identity and esprit de corps, especially in relation to the Air Force, where most of its initial personnel and resources will come from. This has included the creation of new insignias, and flags emblazoned with them, and service-specific uniform items. Last week, the Space Force offered the first concrete details about its new core organizational structure, which will have three main echelons of commands. At the top will be various field commands run by general officers, starting with Space Operations Command (SpOC), Space Systems Command (SSC), and Space Training and Readiness Command (STARCOM).

At the lower level, there will be squadrons, just like in the Air Force. In between, in place of what the Air Force would call wings, Space Force will have newly named "deltas." However, that wasn't the only name the service considered. "Deltas ... will be organized around a specific function – operations, installation support, training, etc," an official Space Force statement said. "Within the deltas will be squadrons focused on specific tactics." Space Force says it named this new tier of units after "the triangular symbol often used in space logos." But deltas are regularly found in Air Force insignias, as well. This is to say nothing of the name U.S. Army's extremely famous, if top-secret Delta Force.

Rejected names included: Armada, Array, Brigade, Cohort, Cluster, Constellation, Division, Fleet, Legion, Nebula, Orbit, Port, Sat/Satellite, Star, Team, and Vanguard. (7/8)

MDA Workers May Strike (Source: Newswire)
Engineers working for Canada's MDA are threatening to strike. The Space Systems Engineers and Scientists Association, the union which represents MDA engineers and scientists working in Montreal, voted overwhelmingly in favor of a strike mandate over the weekend. The union accused MDA of "abusive practices" such as arbitrarily laying off experienced employees. The union, in its announcement of the strike vote, did not set a date for going on strike. (7/9)

NEOWISE Comet Now Visible in Eastern Sky (Source: Sky & Telescope)
Comet NEOWISE is putting on a spectacular display in pre dawn skies. The comet is easily visible in the eastern sky shortly before sunrise, with an estimated magnitude of about 1.5. Astronomers say that the comet, which just passed the closest point in its orbit to the sun, is one of the best in years. In the coming days the comet will be visible shortly after sunset. (7/9)

Orion: The Right Tool to Go to the Moon (Source: Politico)
I read the Washington Post guest opinion article “Send the SpaceX Dragon to the Moon” and was disappointed to see that even experienced space enthusiasts missed the mark on such a fundamental concept – picking the right tool for the job. As a former Naval aviator, test pilot, two-time space shuttle pilot, and now Lockheed martin's mission director for Orion’s Artemis II, I’ve come to appreciate having the right tool for the job.

Whether I’m outfitting my teammates for their ISS space walks or working with technicians to put the finishing touches on the Orion spacecraft, I’ve learned exactly when and why to trust my life – and that of my teammates – to the hardware, software, and systems built specifically for those missions. A spacecraft is more than a collection of hardware bolted together. Contrary to the iconic scene from “Apollo 13,” we don’t aspire to dumping a box of parts on a table and trying to make it work.

Let’s take the Dragon. You could add more backup computers, strings of communications, the ability to fly for days after loss of air pressure, and the ability to navigate in deep space without GPS and return to the Earth without the help of Mission Control. But it would no longer be a Dragon. It would be some new, untested vehicle that is bigger, heavier, less understood, and less capable than Orion, which the best engineers and scientists from around the world have designed for the sole purpose of opening the Moon and Mars to humanity. (7/8)

Astronauts Bound for Mars Should swing by Venus First, Scientists Say (Source: Space.com)
The roads of human spaceflight all seem to lead to Mars. For decades now, it's been the logical next step after the moon. But if you're an astronaut or a cosmonaut on your way to or from Mars, you might make a surprising pit stop along the way: Venus. A flight to (or from) Mars can happen more quickly and cheaply if it "involves a Venus flyby on the way to or on the way home from Mars," said Noam Izenberg. (7/8)

Boeing Communications Chief Resigns Over 33-Year-Old Article (Source: New York Times)
Boeing’s communications chief resigned last week after an employee complained about an article he wrote nearly 33 years ago that said women should not serve in combat. Niel Golightly announced his resignation in an email to Boeing’s staff on July 2. He said that what  he wrote in the article, which was published in 1987 when he was a 29-year-old Navy pilot, was wrong. (7/8)