May 6, 2021

Sally Ride’s Enduring Legacy (Source: Scientific American)
The U.S. Mint recently announced the first two women who will be honored on quarters as part of a program to celebrate American women’s achievements: the writer, poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou and Sally Ride, a “trailblazing astronaut,” as the agency correctly described her. Ride was also a physicist and science communicator whose zeal to get the public and students, particularly girls, more involved in science showed the same steely determination she’d taken into orbit. Click here. (5/4) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sally-rides-enduring-legacy/

NASA Has Selected its Deep Space Hardware—Now Comes the Fun Part (Source: Ars Technica)
The 2010s were a frustrating decade for human spaceflight. After the space shuttle retired in 2011, as most everyone knows, NASA had no way to get its astronauts into space. But the frustrations ran deeper. Even as the agency scrambled to launch into low Earth orbit, it was tasked with sending astronauts further afield into deep space—to the Moon and Mars. So NASA has spent seemingly forever developing "capabilities" to get there, and observers often felt like NASA was spinning its wheels. Agency officials frequently talked about going to the Moon and Mars, but that was all they did—talk.

Now, however, things are starting to change. We are still in early days, but there is increasing agreement at NASA about the need to focus less on transportation—the "how" of getting there—and more on what to do when astronauts get to their destinations. This is because, as the transportation pieces fall in line, NASA can think about actual exploration. "It's very exciting that we're starting to lay in the foundations for these key capabilities," said Kathy Lueders, the engineer who leads human exploration for NASA. "This isn't a dream anymore. We've got very, very concrete steps." Click here. (5/4)

Pentagon Has No Plans to Shoot Down Free-falling Chinese Rocket (Source: Defense One)
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is monitoring a free-falling Chinese rocket that could strike Earth this weekend, but has not developed options to destroy the debris if it is projected to hit land. A 100-foot section of the Long March 5B rocket is anticipated to fall to Earth around May 8, but it’s “too soon to explore options about what, if anything, can be done about this until we have a better sense of where it's coming down,” said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby.

“The Secretary is aware and he knows that Space Command is tracking,” Kirby said Wednesday. Asked whether the secretary had developed plans to strike the rocket debris and break it up into smaller pieces, or quickly notify allies once its trajectory is known, Kirby said it was too early to ta ke that action. But the rocket’s exact entry point into the Earth's atmosphere won’t be known “until within hours of its reentry,” U.S. Space Command said in a statement, raising questions about whether that would be too late to take action if its path threatens a local population. (5/6)

NASA’s On-Orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing 1 Mission Ready for Spacecraft Build (Source: NASA)
NASA is one step closer to robotically refueling a satellite and demonstrating in-space assembly and manufacturing thanks to the completion of an important milestone. In April 2021, NASA and Maxar Technologies successfully completed the On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing 1 (OSAM-1) mission spacecraft accommodation Critical Design Review (CDR). This milestone demonstrates that the maturity of the design for the OSAM-1 spacecraft bus is appropriate to support proceeding with fabrication, assembly, integration, and testing.

OSAM-1 will, for the first time ever, robotically refuel a U.S. government satellite not designed to be serviced. The spacecraft will consist of a servicing payload, provided by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, with two robotic arms that will be attached to the spacecraft bus. The bus will also incorporate a payload called Space Infrastructure Dexterous Robot (SPIDER) that will demonstrate in-space assembly and manufacturing. SPIDER will use a third robotic arm to assemble a communications antenna and an element called MakerSat built by Tethers Unlimited to manufacture a beam. (5/5)

Starship Test Succeeds After Vehicle Upgrades (Source: Space News)
A SpaceX Starship prototype successfully completed a short test flight Wednesday. The Starship SN15 vehicle took off from the company's Boca Chica, Texas, test site at 6:24 p.m. Eastern, flying to an altitude of 10 kilometers before landing six minutes later. This vehicle survived the landing, unlike four previous prototypes that were destroyed during or shortly after landing. SN15 included what SpaceX called "multiple upgrades and improvements" to address problems found on previous test flights as well as to prepare for future orbital missions. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk acknowledged last month that Starship has been "a tough vehicle to build" as the company tries to create a vehicle that is fully and rapidly reusable. (5/6)

Space Force Moving Toward Use of Previously Flown Falcon-9 for GPS Satellite (Source: Space News)
The Space Force is completing reviews to support the launch of a GPS satellite on a previously flown Falcon 9 in June. The GPS SV05 satellite will be the first payload launched through the national security space launch program to use a refurbished Falcon 9 booster, in this case a Falcon 9 first stage that launched the GPS SV04 satellite last November. The contracts with SpaceX to launch both GPS SV05 and SV06 in 2021 were renegotiated last year to allow reused boosters, saving the government about $64 million. (5/6)

Hughes and OneWeb Win Arctic Broadband Demo Contract with ARFL (Source: Space News)
Hughes and OneWeb won an Air Force Research Laboratory contract to demonstrate Arctic broadband services. The $3.4 million contract will test the ability of OneWeb satellites to provide services between U.S. Northern Command facilities. OneWeb's satellites are in polar orbits, which company executives say gives the company an advantage for Arctic regions of growing geopolitical interest. SpaceX, though, launched its first Starlink satellites into polar orbits in January and is expected to start adding more later this year. (5/6)

KSAT Expanding Ground Station Network (Source: Space News)
Ground station company KSAT is rapidly expanding its network to keep pace with demand from smallsat operators. Norway-based KSAT is on track to add 42 antennas to KSATlite, its network that supports small satellite constellations. That network had 22 antennas as of the end of 2020. From September 2020 to March 2021, traffic on the KSATlite network grew as quickly as it did for KSAT's overall network between 2010 and 2018. The company expects that growth trend to continue as satellite operators expand their smallsat constellations. (5/6)
 
ICBM Test Launch Aborted at Vandenberg (Source: Space News)
The Air Force is investigating an abort during a test of a Minuteman 3 ICBM. The unarmed missile was to launch early Wednesday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California as part of a regular series of tests. However, the missile experienced a ground abort during the terminal countdown that remains under investigation. The Air Force for years has warned that the decades-old Minuteman 3 fleet needs to be replaced due to its age and difficulties in maintaining the systems. (5/6)

Biden to Retain Space Cybersecurity Policy (Source: NextGov)
The Biden administration doesn't expect to change a space policy directive from the Trump administration regarding cybersecurity. A National Security Council official said at a meeting Wednesday that SPD-5, released in September regarding cybersecurity guidelines for space systems, "continues to serve as the foundation for the U.S. approach to the cyber protection of space systems." Vice President Kamala Harris, who will chair the National Space Council, plans to make cybersecurity a priority for the council. (5/6)

Bezos Sold $2.4 Billion in Amazon Stock (Source: GeekWire)
Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos is selling more Amazon stock. In an SEC filing, Amazon revealed Bezos sold $2.4 billion in the company's stock, his first such sale this year. Bezos said in 2017 he sold $1 billion a year in Amazon shares to fund Blue Origin, but it's not clear if that figure is still valid, and Bezos did not disclose what he would do with the proceeds of the sale. He sold more than $7 billion in Amazon stock in 2020. (5/6)

NASA Gets New Chief of Staff (Source: NASA)
NASA has a new chief of staff. The agency said late Wednesday that Susie Perez Quinn has been appointed to serve as Administrator Bill Nelson's chief of staff. She previously served as a chief of staff to Nelson when he was a senator, and most recently was director of government relations at the National Governors Association. Bhavya Lal, who had been acting chief of staff since the start of the Biden administration, will now serve as a senior adviser for budget and finance at the agency. (5/6)

Astrobotic Plans Moonshot Museum in Pittsburgh (Source: Astrobotic)
Lunar lander company Astrobotic is opening a space museum. The company said Wednesday it would open the "Moonshot Museum" at its Pittsburgh headquarters next year. The museum, run by a nonprofit organization, will include a viewing area where visitors can look into the clean room where Astrobotic assembled lunar landers. The company says the museum will be the first dedicated to space in Pennsylvania. (5/6)

America Can Beat China in Space with Safe Nuclear Propulsion (Source: Defense One)
Propelled by a “nuclear plasma drive,” the spaceship in 2001: A Space Odyssey fascinated moviegoers as the height of science fiction in 1969, even though nuclear-powered submarines had been quietly patrolling the world’s oceans for more than a decade. Today, nuclear-propelled spacecraft are on the verge of becoming reality — and indeed, will be crucial to the West’s efforts in the 21st-century space race with China.

Far from the controlled nuclear explosions envisioned by the Sputnik-era Project Orion, nuclear thermal propulsion, or NTP, will use a reactor’s thermal energy to heat and eject rocket propellant — specifically, liquid hydrogen — at a higher temperature and at a faster velocity than can be achieved with a chemical rocket. NTP engines promise to be roughly twice as efficient as today’s chemical rockets while also offering a much longer service life. This is thanks to Isaac Newton’s third law of motion — every action has an equal and opposite reaction — because the single-use chemical rockets require both a fuel and an oxidizer that burn at a lower temperature and accelerate heavier exhaust at a lower velocity. 

NTP can’t get a spacecraft to orbit, but’s it’s far more efficient for moving things around in space and for longer periods of time — say, moving satellites between orbits, parking them at Lagrange points, and rendezvousing quickly with suspicious foreign spacecraft. This kind of rapid maneuvering in cis-lunar space — from Earth orbit to the moon’s surface — will become increasingly important in U.S. efforts to protect DoD space missions (missile warning, satellite communications, positioning/navigation/timing, environmental sensing, etc.) and those parts of the economy that rely heavily on space systems (financial, transportation, communications, etc.). By reducing the time and cost of moving heavier payloads, NTP will expand warfighter capabilities and the “art of the possible” from Earth orbit out to the Moon. (5/4)

Roskosmos Postpones Preliminary Design of Soyuz-6 Rocket with the RD-180 Engine (Source: RIA Novosti)
Roskosmos " postponed to the 2022 preliminary design carrier rocket "Soyuz-6" with the engine RD-180 , which comes in the USA , is evident from the state-owned corporation, located on the site of public procurement. In December, it became known from state purchases that Roscosmos plans to spend 166.2 million rubles on the creation of a draft design for Soyuz-6 in the period from January to November 2021. According to public procurement materials, now the development of the project is scheduled for the period from January to November 2022. (5/6)

Elon Musk Is Maybe, Actually, Strangely, Going to Do This Mars Thing (Source: The Atlantic)
America has now tied one of its biggest space dreams to SpaceX, which means the country has tied it to Elon Musk, the company’s CEO and chief engineer. To build Starship, the billionaire has overhauled Boca Chica into his private Cape Canaveral, and has started referring to the area as “Starbase.” He has mocked Bezos and other competitors; he has chafed at federal oversight. He has also made Boca Chica the one place on Earth where the dream of getting to Mars feels most real.

The Starship work that SpaceX is doing now, if it pans out, will be the company’s most impressive achievement. More impressive than landing rocket boosters upright on a ship in the ocean. More impressive than enveloping the planet in a bubble of hundreds of internet satellites. More impressive than launching astronauts to the International Space Station, and bringing them home safely.

Musk now says that Starship could land people on the moon in 2024, and take them to Mars within the decade. He is famous for his aspirational, and usually unrealistic, timelines. But the Starship project could bring humankind closer than it has been in 50 years to reaching another world again. If the idea of SpaceX sending people to the moon, let alone Mars, seemed like an abstraction a decade ago, then a decade from now, it might seem like a given. (5/5)

Momentus SPAC Deal Having Difficult Getting Enough Positive Votes (Source: Parabolic Arc)
The Special Meeting was then adjourned to allow more time to solicit additional votes in favor of the proposal to extend the date by which Stable Road must complete its initial business combination, from May 13, 2021 to August 13, 2021 (the “Extension Amendment Proposal”). The Special Meeting has been adjourned until May 13, 2021 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern time, to consider the Extension Amendment Proposal.

At the time the Annual Meeting was convened today, a quorum representing at least a majority of the votes that could be cast by the holders of all outstanding shares of stock as of the record date of March 22, 2021 was present online or by proxy. However, Stable Road had not received the vote of the holders of at least 65% of all outstanding shares of stock as of the record date in favor of the Extension Amendment Proposal, which is the threshold needed to approve that proposal. (5/6)

Boeing's Starliner 2nd Orbital Flight Test Moved Up to July (Source: Florida Today)
If you thought the first half of 2021 was busy for launches, things really heat up for the rest of the year. Somehow Boeing was able to squeeze into the busy launch schedule and secure July 30 for the uncrewed launch of Starliner to the ISS. If this date sticks, all eyes will be on Boeing's second attempt to prove its Starliner spacecraft can successfully dock with the space station after software issues hampered the first attempt in December 2019. Since then Boeing has worked closely with NASA to update its software and complete end-to-end flight simulations. (5/6)

Over 500,000 Orders for Starlink Satellite Internet Service (Source: CNBC)
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has received more than 500,000 orders so far for the satellite internet service it’s rolling out, the company announced Tuesday. Starlink is the company’s capital-intensive project to build an interconnected internet network with thousands of satellites, designed to deliver high-speed internet to consumers anywhere on the planet. The company began accepting $99 preorders for Starlink in early February, although SpaceX emphasized that the preorders are “fully refundable.” (5/4)

Nuclear Energy Company Sets Sights on Deep Space (Source: Supercluster)
These technologies offered a path to liberation from energy scarcity and gravity, and together they promised to open up the solar system for human exploration. More than a decade before there were bootprints on the moon, NASA recognized the enormous potential for nuclear energy in spaceflight. Despite some early promising tests, NASA’s dream of a nuclear-powered Mars rocket never came to pass. But now, more than half a century later, a startup in Maryland is bringing the concept to life.

X-energy was founded in 2009 by Kam Ghaffarian, a deep-tech entrepreneur behind companies like Axiom, which is building the world’s first commercial space station, and Intuitive Machines, which could be the first to place a commercial lander on the moon. In a previous life, Ghaffarian was the cofounder of SGT, which became one of NASA’s largest services providers and endowed him with a fortune that he used to advance game-changing technologies on and off the planet. Click here. (5/4)

AFRL Contracts with OneWeb for Arctic Satcom Demo (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory has contracted low Earth orbit broadband venture OneWeb to demonstrate managed satcom services in strategic Arctic locations. Project prime contractor Hughes Network Systems, a OneWeb investor supplying parts of its ground segment, will test the services between certain U.S. Northern Command sites. The Department of Defense contract is part of the U.S. Air Force’s Defense Experimentation Using the Commercial Space Internet program. (5/4)