June 21, 2021

FAA and Air Force Agree to Shared Regulatory Framework at Major Spaceports (Source: FAA)
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Department of the Air Force signed an agreement (PDF) aimed at eliminating red tape while protecting public safety during commercial space activities at ranges operated by the U.S. Space Force. The agreement recognizes common safety standards for FAA-licensed launch and reentry activities that occur on, originate from, or return to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. It also removes duplicative processes and approvals for the U.S. commercial space sector.

Under the agreement, the FAA will accept the Department of the Air Force’s ground safety rules and other safety processes, analyses, and products as long as they satisfy FAA regulations. The Department of the Air Force will accept FAA licensing decisions and generally will not impose its own requirements for the flight portion of a launch or reentry.

In addition, the two agencies will consult before responding to commercial space operator requests for relief from safety requirements and on the development of hazard areas. Both also will coordinate prior to publication of materials related to ground safety and launch or reentry activities and collaborate on environmental reviews to ensure the government’s response is prompt and consistent. (6/21)

SpaceX Will Also Launch Starship From Cape Canaveral Long-Term, Says Elon Musk (Source: Tesmanian)
This week, SpaceX founder Elon Musk mentioned future plans to launch Starship from Florida’s Space Coast during an interaction with a Twitter user who asked if SpaceX would launch Starlink satellites atop Starship from Launch Complex-39A (LC-39A) at the Kennedy Space Center. –“After several successful launches, land overflight earlier in trajectory passes E-sub-c safety threshold. That said, Starship will also launch from Cape [Canaveral] long-term,” Musk said in response, in reference to certain missions that would require Starship to fly above land. (6/19)

Ariane 6 Debut is Slipping Again as Europe Hopes for a Late 2022 Launch (Source: Ars Technica)
Europe's top space official said Monday that ensuring the first launch of the Ariane 6 rocket takes place in 2022 is a very high priority. "This for me is a top, top priority," said ESA's Josef Aschbacher. "Ariane 6 is our most important launcher to come. We have to put all the energy and all the emphasis into making the maiden flight as soon as possible.

Together with the leaders of the French space agency, CNES, and the Ariane 6's prime contractor, Ariane Group, Aschbacher said he had put "a small group" together to make an independent assessment of the schedule for the final development phase of the Ariane 6 rocket. The goal of this task force will be to ensure that Europe does everything it needs to do launch on time. In referring to an "on time" launch, Aschbacher said he meant next year, before the European Space Agency's Ministerial Council meeting that is typically held in October or November.

The Ariane 6 rocket is a heavy-lift vehicle being developed to replace the venerable European Ariane 5 rocket. Although it is not reusable, European officials intend for Ariane 6 to have a lower launch cost than its predecessor and thus to be more competitive with SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. Some critics in Europe, however, have said the new rocket does not go far enough to challenge the reusable Falcon 9, which has put downward pressure on launch costs around the world. (6/21)

Petition Seeks to Keep Jeff Bezos in Space When Blue Origin Launches Next Month (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
The petition isn’t big on details, simply titled “Do not allow Jeff Bezos to return to Earth,” but it’s getting some attention. “Billionaire’s should not exist...on earth, or in space, but should they decide the latter they should stay there,” reads the description on the change.org offering that seeks to get 50,000 signatures so it can be one of the top signed petitions on the site. It was started two weeks ago, but took off over the weekend, surpassing 40,000 signatures Monday morning. (6/21)

Next Stop Jupiter as China's Interplanetary Ambitions Grow (Source: Space Daily)
Barely a month after China landed its first rover on Mars, the country's scientists already have plans to explore Jupiter, the largest planet in our Solar System. Zhang Rongqiao, an official at the China National Space Administration and chief planner of the Tianwen 1 Mars mission, said that China will not be content with the success of its first Mars expedition, but will continue its interplanetary adventures.

"A major highlight of our future plans for interplanetary exploration is a Jupiter mission. Humankind still lacks comprehensive knowledge of the Jovian system, and has conducted only a handful of operations there," he said. "Therefore the gas giant is full of opportunity for science and discovery." In addition to its scientific value, an expedition to Jupiter will lead to the development of new inventions and technologies, Zhang added. (6/16)

3200-Year-Old Shrine in Turkey May Be an Ancient View of the Cosmos (Source: New Scientist)
A shrine built more than 3000 years ago in what is now Turkey may be a symbolic representation of the cosmos, according to a new interpretation. It has now been suggested that the elite of the Hittite society, an empire that dominated what is now Turkey between 1700 and 1100 BC until it was destroyed, created the Yazılıkaya shrine to embody their ideas about how the universe was organised. (6/16)

Astronauts Complete ISS Solar Panel Installation (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
Astronauts completed the installation of one new solar panel on the International Space Station and started work on a second during a spacewalk Sunday. Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet spent six and a half hours outside the station during the spacewalk, completing work started on a spacewalk four days earlier to install the first in a series of solar panels. That earlier spacewalk was not able to complete the installation because of problems with Kimbrough's spacesuit and other technical issues, but the astronauts were able to get the new array installed on this spacewalk. They then started work on the installation of a second array. A third spacewalk is tentatively scheduled for Friday to complete the work on the second array. (6/21)

Hubble Offline with Computer Problem (Source: Space News)
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has been offline for a week because of a computer problem. A payload computer, which controls operations of the telescope's instruments, stopped working last Sunday, and controllers speculated a memory module used by the computer had degraded. An effort to switch to a backup memory module, though, did not restore the computer to normal operations. NASA said Friday it is continuing to study the problem, noting there is a backup payload computer available if needed. The spacecraft itself remains in good condition, but observations can't resume until the payload computer is fixed. While Hubble has suffered several glitches in recent years, project officials said prior to this latest incident that they were confident that the telescope could continue to operate through the decade. (6/21)

SES Gains Direct Connection with AWS Cloud Services (Source: Space News)
SES is expanding its partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS). SES announced it is the first satellite operator to pass technical and business reviews for directly connecting with AWS cloud services without going through a virtual private network. This gives its customers a dedicated connection to AWS at speeds from 50 megabits per second up to 100 gigabits per second. SES has a similar partnership with Microsoft's cloud services, while SpaceX's Starlink is partnering with Google. (6/21)

Lawmaker Questions Space Force Interest in NRO Role (Source: Breaking Defense)
A key lawmaker is raising questions about the Space Force's interest in taking over tactical reconnaissance from the NRO. At a webinar last week, Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN), chair of the House Armed Services Committee's strategic forces subcommittee, said that transferring responsibility for tactical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) from the NRO to the Space Force may not be a good idea, given the NRO's track record and the fact that the new service "has a lot on its plate right now." The Space Force has shown an interest in providing imagery to battlefield commanders, comparing it to what the Air Force does with airborne ISR. (6/21)

NASA-Backed Mars Payload Bumped From Psyche Mission Could Fly with Rocket Lab (Source: Space News)
A NASA-backed Mars smallsat mission may get a second chance to fly by working with Rocket Lab. The Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE) mission was to launch next year, but it was bumped from its rideshare slot on the launch of the Psyche mission when that mission changed launched vehicles. Last week, Rocket Lab announced it is working with the EscaPADE mission, run out of the University of California Berkeley, to develop a new design for the mission using Rocket Lab's Photon satellite bus. Under that approach, the mission would launch in 2024 on a NASA-provided vehicle. The change is pending reviews scheduled for this month and next month to allow EscaPADE to go into its next phase of development. (6/21)

New Zealand Green Party Seeks to Bar Military Rocket Lab Launches (Source: Stuff)
New Zealand's Green Party wants to stop Rocket Lab from launching military payloads from the country. A Green Party member of parliament said Monday he is introducing a bill that would prohibit the launch of military payloads from the country, saying the government has a responsibility not to help other countries wage war. Several Electron launches have carried satellites for U.S. military and intelligence agencies, but the company notes it does not launch weapons and all its payloads are approved by the New Zealand government before launch. (6/21)

Despite Company Statements, India Hasn't Yet Received Applications for Broadband Satellite Services (Source: Indian Express)
India's government has yet to receive license applications from any broadband satellite megaconstellation companies. The Department of Telecommunications said it had not been in communication with Amazon, OneWeb or SpaceX about offering service in India using those companies' megaconstellations. This lack of formal communications stands in contrast to comments by all three companies expressing interest in providing service in India as soon as next year. (6/21)

US Post Office Issues More NASA Stamps (Source: CNN)
The U.S. Postal Service issued a new set of stamps commemorating NASA's observations of the sun. The stamps, released Friday, feature 10 images of the sun taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, launched in 2010. The images show the sun at different wavelengths, capturing phenomena such as sunspots and solar flares. (6/21)

NASA Awards Funds to Minority-Serving Institutions for Ocean Research (Source: NASA)
NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP) Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry, or OCEAN, has awarded cooperative agreements to 10 universities for projects that will support NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in seeking a better understanding of the ocean’s role in the Earth system. More than $6.6 million will be distributed to these institutions over the course of a three-year period of performance.

One is for Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton for "Improving the Coastal Carbon Budget: Is Sediment-Derived CDOM (Colored Dissolved Organic Matter) a Significant Portion of CDOM in Coastal Areas?" This proposal aims to quantify the contribution of organic carbon from different sources as potentially significant components of regional carbon budgets in the Gulf of Mexico’s hypoxia region off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana. Click here. (6/21)

Stern Joins KinetX Board (Source: KinetX)
KinetX Aerospace is pleased to announce and welcome Dr. Alan Stern to the Board of Directors for 2021. Dr. Stern is an accomplished planetary scientist, space program leader, and visionary explorer. He is the leader of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, a mission navigated by KinetX since it launched in 2006. (6/21)

There Are Cracks in the Surface of Venus. Here’s Why That’s Important (Source: Daily Beast)
Much of the brittle upper crust of Venus is broken into fragments that jostle and move—and the slow churning of Venus’ mantle beneath the surface might be responsible. My colleagues and I arrived at this finding using decades-old radar data to explore how the surface of Venus interacts with the interior of the planet. We describe it in a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on June 21, 2021.

Planetary scientists like me have long known that Venus has a plethora of tectonic landforms. Some of these formations are long, thin belts where the crust has been pushed together to form ridges or pulled apart to form troughs and grooves. In many of these belts, there’s evidence that pieces of the crust have moved side to side, too.

Our new study shows, for the first time, that these bands of ridges and troughs often mark the boundaries of flat, low-lying areas that themselves show relatively little deformation and are individual blocks of Venus’ crust that have shifted, rotated, and slid past each other over time—and may have done so in the recent past. It’s a little like Earth’s plate tectonics but on a smaller scale and more closely resembles pack ice that floats atop the ocean. (6/21)

Bezos and Musk Want to Burn Their Cash in Space (Source: Vanity Fair)
While the space races of the past were waged between the U.S. and the USSR, wrapped up in the blanket of the Cold War and nuclear threats and international espionage, today’s space race between Bezos and Musk is quite different, comprising a few media- and Twitter-obsessed billionaires who some argue have too much money for their own good.

The two come at the race with different perspectives. Bezos thinks the world is a wonderful place that we’re going to destroy with industry and pollution, and if only we can get that stuff on the moon, or Mars, we’ll be just fine here on this big blue dot. Musk, always the pessimist, thinks the earth is well and truly fucked from climate change and that the only way to save us humans is to escape to another planet, preferably Mars, and get a sort-of do-over. And then there’s the other guy in all this, Richard Branson, who just wants to have a good, thrill-seeking time on a flight to space.

While their goals are all different, their unmitigated ambitions are not, with some worrying they’re pushing the boundaries of safety and logic all just to be first. As one person close to Bezos told me, this isn’t simply a contest over which rocket company is better; rather, it’s a war of public relations to see who can get more attention for their rocket company, and in turn win bigger bids from private companies and NASA. This all ties back to a rivalry that has existed between Bezos and Musk from the first time the two met to discuss space travel years ago. Musk would later say that he had expressed to Bezos that he was “barking up the wrong tree” with his approach to building rockets, adding that he’d already tried some of Bezos’s ideas and they’d turned out to be “dumb.” Click here. (6/21)