April 14, 2021

Blue Origin Aces Another New Shepard Suborbital Test at Texas Site (Source: Space News)
Blue Origin completed another test flight of its New Shepard vehicle April 14, putting the company on the verge of flying people. Blue Origin’s New Shepard capsule reached a peak altitude of about 106 kilometers before parachuting to a soft landing. The flight profile was similar to earlier test flights but activities were added before and after the launch to simulate a crewed flight. These included Blue Origin employees boarding the capsule, strapping in and testing communications before exiting. During commercial flights, six passengers will be accompanied by a Blue Origin crewmember. (4/14)

Sierra Nevada to Spin Off Space Division (Source: Space News)
Sierra Nevada Corporation will spin off its space division into a separate company, a move reflecting the “historic growth” the company foresees in the next several years. In a message to employees April 14, SNC Chairwoman and President Eren Ozmen said the company’s Space Systems division will become a standalone company, called Sierra Space. Creating Sierra Space, she said, will enable the company to better capture expected growth in the space industry. SNC’s space business, which currently generates $400 million in annual revenue, could book $4 billion in 5 to 10 years, Ozmen said. (4/14)

Korea Aerospace Industries Invests to Expand Space Business (Source: Space News)
Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) plans to invest 1 trillion won ($880 million) over the next five years to expand its space business. KAI plans to acquire or form strategic partnerships with undisclosed companies in an effort to provide ground station and satellite imagery analysis services in two or three years, said KAI CEO Ahn Hyun-ho. KAI also plans to manufacture small satellites, not because that business is very profitable, but because it sees value in the commercial data the satellites collect. (4/14)

HawkEye 360 Raises $55 Million for for Satellite Constellation (Source: Space News)
HawkEye 360 has raised $55 million in additional funding for its constellation of satellites that track ships and vehicles by their radio-frequency signals. NightDragon, a venture capital firm that specializes in security and related industries, led HawkEye 360's Series C round. Several existing investors also participated, including Advance, Razor’s Edge Ventures, Shield Capital, Dorilton Ventures, Adage Capital and Esri International. With the funding, HawkEye 360 plans to build and launch three additional satellite clusters. HawkEye 360 has launched two clusters of three satellites. The firm expects to have nine clusters in orbit by the end of 2022. (4/14)

SpaceX Raises $1.16 Billion in Equity Financing (Source: Reuters)
SpaceX has raised about $1.16 billion in equity financing over the last two months, the private rocket company said in an amended regulatory filing on Wednesday. The filing comes after SpaceX, whose investors include Alphabet and Fidelity Investments, in February disclosed that it raised about $850 million, which had reportedly lifted its valuation to about $74 billion. The private space company had raised $1.9 billion in August in its largest single fundraising round, according to financial software and data provider PitchBook. (4/14)

Phantom Space Corporation Raises $5M In Seed Funding to Revolutionize Space Transportation (Source: Phantom Space)
Phantom Space Corp. has raised $5 million in seed investment funding to make space commerce commonplace and to lower the barriers to space access. The round was led by New York City based Chenel Capital, who specializes in growth equity investments. Phantom is a startup working toward mass manufacturing of small launch vehicles, satellites, and space propulsion systems. Other competitors in this space are capped at conducting several dozen launches per year where Phantom Space's unique manufacturing methodology and globally distributed launch sites allow for hundreds of launches.

This latest round of funding will go toward expanding Phantom's team of engineers, scientists, technicians and managers passionate about designing space transportation systems based on today's requirements and today's supply chain realities. Phantom's current team consists of 26 space industry and technical experts with deep market knowledge and know-how not often found at a company at this stage of maturity. The company is building its first launch vehicle development unit in preparation for stage level testing late this year. 

The first launch will be with Phantom's Daytona rocket, which employs the first US produced oxidizer-rich stage combustion LOX/RP engines built by Ursa Major Technologies in Denver, Colorado. Phantom is currently building four launch vehicle development units, putting their current trajectory for their first orbital launch at Q1 2023. Founded by Jim Cantrell, Michael D'Angelo, and Michal Prywata, Phantom Space is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona. (4/14)

After Being Damaged by Irma, Lack of Funding Keeps Space Coast Planetarium Closed (Source: MyNews13)
Nearly four years after being damaged by Hurricane Irma, a Space Coast planetarium remains closed. And thousands of students are still missing out on a visit to the "out of this world" venue. "Every year we would go, there's so much hands on learning that goes on there," says Meadowlane Primary Elementary teacher Lori Majoy about taking her first graders to the Eastern Florida State Planetarium and Observatory.

"It just made everyone sad, because we know how much the kids looked forward to it," she continued. Just some of the 12,000 Brevard school children who visit every year enjoyed what the planetarium offered but in late 2017, Hurricane Irma came calling. The storm caused significant damage to the building, tearing off the roof, followed by a week of heavy rains. (4/14)

Arianespace Offers Free Cubesat Ride for Competition Winner (Source: Space News)
European launch provider Arianespace announced a competition for a free cubesat launch. The “Destination: A Better Life on Earth” competition is part of Arianespace’s campaign to unveil a range of smallsat rideshare offerings in June at VivaTech 2021, an annual technology conference in Paris. In addition to the launch provider’s Small Spacecraft Mission Service that debuted aboard a Vega launch vehicle in September, Arianespace will introduce its Multi-Launch Service, a rideshare program for its next-generation Ariane 6 launch vehicle. Submissions for the competition are due May 14. (4/14)

The Push to Define Workers' Rights in Space (Source: Axios)
As humanity stretches into orbit and beyond, experts are still grappling with how rights afforded to workers on Earth apply to those living in space. In order to create businesses and perhaps societies in space — where the biological necessities for sustaining human life, like air and water, aren't readily available — there will need to be fundamental rights agreements to guarantee laborers aren't exploited.

Translating human rights to professional astronauts and other spaceflyers isn't necessarily straightforward. Experts say the international community needs to start grappling with that now, decades before we have a city on Mars. How would the right to free expression work practically for a mistreated worker aboard a private space station where a company supplies air and life support?

"In space, we have an opportunity to create a new, holistic system from the very beginning and that includes labor protections, that includes political protections... that includes protections for accessibility to resources and oxygen and water," said AJ Link, a research director with Jus Ad Astra. The UN's Outer Space Treaty classifies astronauts as a protected group that should be considered emissaries of humanity with rights and protections. But rules around the rights of private astronauts in space aren't clearly defined in the treaty, and that could complicate things as more companies work to send private citizens to space. (4/13)

Singer Grimes Shares Elon Musk's Devotion to Mars (Source: Houston Chronicle)
Grimes is following in the footsteps of baby daddy Elon Musk in regards to interplanetary travel. Last week, the Canadian singer, girlfriend of Musk, and mother of X Æ A-Xii took to Instagram to let it be known that she is dedicated to being part of Musk’s plans to enable travel to Mars. She shared pictures from the Starbase facility in South Texas, saying that she is, “Ready to die with the red dirt of Mars beneath my feet.” (4/12)

BU-Made Telescope Going to the Moon in 2023 (Source: The Brink)
To prepare for the next giant leap in space exploration—traveling to Mars—the NASA Artemis program is planning to send humans back to the moon by 2024. But first, Artemis scientists are sending up a bunch of science projects, and a BU telescope is one of them. The Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI) is being designed and built in a Boston University lab by a team of engineers led by Brian Walsh, a BU College of Engineering assistant professor. In 2023, LEXI will be hitching a ride on Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander, alongside nine other science and technology payloads. (4/12)

It Now Seems Likely that Starliner Will Not Launch Crew Until Early 2022 (Source: Ars Technica)
About five weeks have passed since Boeing updated the status of its Starliner spacecraft, with the company saying it was "evaluating" a new target launch date for its next mission. This test flight of Starliner, which will not carry crew, is destined to launch on an Atlas V rocket and dock with the International Space Station for about a week before returning to Earth.

Despite the lack of an official update, it now seems likely that Boeing and NASA are targeting late July or early August for this test flight. This is largely due to traffic at the International Space Station rather than the readiness of Starliner itself. Two NASA sources said the vehicle is "close" to being ready, with only a few small tests to certify the spacecraft for flight remaining. Starliner is therefore expected to be ready to fly by early summer.

The primary issue is the availability of space station docking ports fitted with an "international docking adapter," which are used by SpaceX's Crew Dragon, Cargo Dragon 2, and Starliner vehicles. There are presently two such ports on the station, and for NASA, the priority for access to these ports are crew rotations followed by supply missions. So the question becomes when the Starliner test flight can find an open slot on station. (4/13)