May 10, 2021

NASA, Axiom Agree to First Private Astronaut Mission on Space Station (Source: NASA)
NASA and Axiom Space have signed an order for the first private astronaut mission to the International Space Station to take place no earlier than January 2022. The spaceflight, designated as Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1), will launch from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport and travel to the International Space Station. Once docked, the Axiom astronauts are scheduled to spend eight days aboard the orbiting laboratory. NASA and Axiom mission planners will coordinate in-orbit activities for the private astronauts to conduct in coordination with space station crew members and flight controllers on the ground.

Axiom will purchase services for the mission from NASA, such as crew supplies, cargo delivery to space, storage, and other in-orbit resources for daily use. NASA will purchase from Axiom the capability to return scientific samples that must be kept cold in transit back to Earth. Once the proposed crew passes review and qualification, the four members will train for their flight with NASA, international partners, and SpaceX, which Axiom has contracted as launch provider for transportation to the space station. Trainers will familiarize the private astronauts with systems, procedures, and emergency preparedness for the space station and the Crew Dragon spacecraft. Based on current mission planning, training is scheduled to begin this summer. (5/10)

NASA Chief Big on Climate, Hedges on Moon Date (Source: ABC)
NASA’s new administrator is big on tackling climate and diversifying the agency's workforce, but hedging on whether the U.S. can put astronauts on the moon by 2024. In his first interview since becoming NASA’s top official this week, former Sen. Bill Nelson told The Associated Press on Friday that tracking climate change is a top issue. He also wants to diversify the space agency's workforce so it reflects America.

His underlying vision for NASA: “to explore the heavens with humans and machines.” For landing astronauts on the moon, Nelson said the goal remains 2024, a deadline set by the Trump administration. But he said he needs more time to review the matter, especially with challenges to the contract for the astronauts' lunar lander. “That is the intended schedule, but I think we have to put a dose of sobering reality into our analysis," he said from NASA headquarters in Washington. (5/7)

Congress Wants Faster Acquisition Reform in Space Force (Source: Space News)
House appropriators say they're dissatisfied with the pace of acquisitions reform by the Space Force. At a hearing Friday, members of the House Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee said progress in addressing space acquisitions problems "has been disappointing so far," in the words of subcommittee chair Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) She was especially critical of the absence of a Senate-confirmed civilian space acquisition leader, a new position that Congress directed the Air Force to fill by October 2022. John Roth, acting secretary of the Air Force, said the Pentagon was working as fast as it could to fill the position, and indicated a nominee should be announced soon. (5/10)

US Plans Sensor-Focused Role in Greenhouse Monitoring (Source: Space News)
The United States is expected to play a supporting, but not leading, role in an international campaign to monitor greenhouse gas emissions from space. Through the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, nations are coordinating efforts for space-based monitoring of greenhouse gases and other key Earth science factors. While China, Europe and Japan are making major investments in satellites to help verify how well countries are fulfilling commitments they made to reducing greenhouse gas emissions as part of the Paris climate agreement, the U.S. currently has no plans for ambitious atmospheric monitoring missions but will instead demonstrate sophisticated greenhouse gas sensor technologies. Proposed budget increases could change that, but scientists are divided about whether such monitoring should be led by NASA or NOAA. (5/10)

NOAA Considering Priorities Budget Increase (Source: Space News)
NOAA hasn't yet detailed how it will spend a large proposed increase in its budget for 2022. The White House plans to ask Congress to provide $6.9 billion for NOAA, more than $1.4 billion above the agency's 2021 budget. That includes a significant increase for NOAA's satellite programs. NOAA officials declined to comment on how the agency would allocate that money, and a detailed budget proposal for 2022 hasn't been released yet. (5/10)

Canadian Company's Lunar Mission Riding with SpaceX, Paid with Dogecoin (Source: The Verge)
A Canadian company says it's bought space for a rideshare payload on a future SpaceX launch — using Dogecoin. Geometric Energy Corporation announced Sunday it's flying a 40-kilogram spacecraft called DOGE-1 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 in early 2022. The spacecraft will go to the moon to perform "lunar-spatial intelligence," but the company disclosed few specifics about the mission or how it was funded. The company did claim it used Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency originally established as a joke, to purchase the payload space on the mission. The value of Dogecoin has skyrocketed in recent weeks, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has promoted the cryptocurrency on Twitter. The value of Dogecoin, though, plummeted over the weekend after Musk, appearing in a skit on "Saturday Night Live," called Dogecoin "a hustle." (5/10)

On-Time Delivery Top Priority at Space Development Agency (Source: DoD)
Cost, performance and delivery drive acquisition across the Defense Department, typically in equal measure. But the Space Development Agency has prioritized delivery above all else in its effort to get satellites into space that will deliver non-line-of-sight targeting to warfighters across the globe. "The key thing is always to focus on getting these capabilities up and operational as rapidly as possible," said Derek M. Tournear, director of the Space Development Agency, during an online discussion today with the Space Force Association. "We will trade performance for schedule to make sure that we can maintain that."

Budget professionals, Tournear said, are concerned about cost. "They want to make sure that the cost is correct and under control." And program managers are concerned about performance, he said. "They want to make sure that they can hit everything ... they want to get the last ounce of performance out of their program as possible." But delivery, or schedule, is about getting an acquisition product to the end user on time. (5/7)

Voyager Space Holdings, Inc. Acquires Majority Stake of X.O. Markets, Parent of Nanoracks (Source: Voyager)
Voyager Space Holdings has acquired a majority stake in X.O. Markets and its largest subsidiary, Nanoracks, the world's leading provider of commercial space services. In Dec. 2020, Voyager announced its intent to acquire majority control of the company through the infusion of growth capital and with today's closing, adds industry leading commercial space services to its list of vertically integrated NewSpace capabilities. (5/10)

Russia May Abandon the International Space Station in 2025: What Happens Next? (Source: Motley Fool)
The announcement blazed across the headlines of The Moscow Times on April 19: "Russia to Quit Int'l Space Station in 2025 "! Citing "a senior government official" (Vice Prime Minister Yury Borisov), MT reported that Russia will soon officially inform the United States and its other space partners of its withdrawal from the International Space Station (ISS) effective in 2025, and its plans to "deploy a next-generation national orbital service station" of its own instead.

Crucially, "withdrawing" from the ISS isn't just a turn of phrase. Russia's plan, it appears, is to physically detach the ISS modules that Russia owns from the station. And yet, at last report, NASA was thinking that the ISS might continue in service through 2030. Some commentators have suggested that the ISS could not function without the Russian modules (which, importantly, include the station's main propulsion module, which is used both to maintain a stable orbit, and to maneuver around threatening pieces of orbital debris when they come too close). But others believe the ISS could limp along without the Russian parts, which in any case could be replaced with new modules that we could send up. (5/9)

SpaceX Dogecoin Tweet Fails to Spur Cryptocurrency Price (Source: Yahoo! Finance)
A tweet from Elon Musk saying that his SpaceX company would accept dogecoin to fund a lunar mission next year failed to spur the price of the cryptocurrency on Monday. Dogecoin, which had been rallying last week as internet users tried to push the value of the coin to $1, was lower on the day, down 1.1% to $0.53. The Tesla owner said that the satellite, dubbed Doge-1, would be the first-ever crypto in space and the “first meme in space”.

The price of dogecoin slumped from record highs on Sunday after Elon Musk’s Saturday Night Live appearance, at which he joked the cryptocurrency was a scam. However, despite the recent losses, the cryptocurrency, which was conceived as a joke in 2013, has gained about 400% over the past month, and has spiked more than 14,000% since the start of the year. (5/10)

Jurczyk Announces Retirement From NASA (Source: NASA)
Steve Jurczyk, who served as acting NASA administrator from Jan. 20 to May 3, 2021, announced Monday he will retire on Friday, May 14, after more than three decades of service at NASA.

Jurczyk has served as associate administrator, the agency’s highest-ranking civil servant, since May 2018. He was the highest-ranking career civil servant leading NASA throughout the pandemic and most recently oversaw the successful landing of the Perseverance rover on Mars, a successful Green Run test of the core stage of the Space Launch System rocket, the naming of the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building, the launch of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 to the International Space Station, and the return of Crew-1 back to Earth. (5/10)

OneWeb Creating Government Subsidiary After Buying TrustComm (Source: Space News)
OneWeb, the U.K.-headquartered low Earth orbit (LEO) broadband operator, is buying Texas-based managed satcoms provider TrustComm to create a new government subsidiary. “OneWeb’s acquisition of TrustComm underpins our strategy to rapidly scale satellite communications service to the U.S. Department of Defense and other government agencies as they look to integrate high throughput, low latency solutions to meet new connectivity demands,” OneWeb head of government services Dylan Browne said. (5/10)

Apprenticeship Program Expands at OneWeb Event (Source: SCCAP)
The Space Coast Consortium Apprenticeship Program – an industry-driven apprenticeship program led by a group of advanced manufacturing companies operating on the Space Coast – formally welcomed ten SCCAP Advanced Machinist apprentices into its two-and-one-half-year apprenticeship program during an event at Airbus OneWeb Satellites. The event was attended by government and business leaders, including Senator Tom A. Wright, German Consul General Andreas Siegel, Frank DiBello, President and CEO of Space Florida, and Dr. Randy Fletche of Eastern Florida State College.

Under the program, the SCCAP apprentices will attend classes at Eastern Florida State College two days a week and will work full-time on the manufacturing floors of participating companies. Mixing online learning from the National Tooling and Machining Association (NTMA) and academic/lab instruction at EFSC with OJT (“on-the-job training”), these apprentices will graduate with tangible, immediately marketable skills. (5/10)

Raytheon to Update NASA’s Earth Observation IT System Under $275M Contract (Source: GovCon Wire)
Raytheon has secured a five-year, $275 million contract to help NASA update the hardware and software of an Earth data management system. The company will engineer on-premise and cloud-based applications for the Earth Observing System Data and Information System as part of the EOSDIS Evolution and Development-3 contract, the space agency said Friday.

Contract services are intended to maintain system availability, performance and reliability. The Earth Science Data and Information System Project under the agency’s science mission directorate oversees the collection of data from aircraft, satellites and field measurements through the EOSDIS platform. (5/7)