June 26, 2021

ULA CEO Calls For Bigger ‘Penalties’ For Unsafe Space Operations (Source: Breaking Defense)
Hot on the heels of an agreement between the Air Force and the FAA to streamline regulations on space launches from military ranges, the head of one of the biggest US launch providers has called for penalizing companies that violate the safety clauses of FAA launch licenses. “The regulations that FAA applies, and the licensing procedure that applies to commercial space launch providers, are really all about safety and they have to be taken seriously," said Tory Bruno.

“And so if a new provider or a traditional provider violates their license, or does something that is contrary to the safety regulations, there should be a deterrent set of penalties that will cause them to think twice, and not do it.” Bruno argues that the FAA’s current maximum $100,000 fine is simply too low to do any good. “The financial penalties are really a little bit out of balance with how expensive it is to actually stand up a launch crew and all of the assets that are involved. So, I would advocate for, you know, a set of penalties that are effectively deterring the behavior of operators who would not otherwise be responsible.” (6/25)

Petition to Stop Georgia Spaceport Gaining Support (Source: Brunswick News)
When Spaceport Camden was first proposed in 2014, county residents were excited about the prospect of rocket launches, high tech jobs and a boost in tourism. Then the public learned launches would have to cross over Coastal Georgia barrier islands in most trajectories. And people began expressing concerns about failed launches exploding over their homes, damaging fragile wetlands surrounding the launch site or causing wildfires if a rocket were to explode over Cumberland or Little Cumberland islands.

Despite objections by a majority of people who responded during a public comment period, the FAA released a favorable Final Environmental Impact Statement for the spaceport last week, conceivably paving the way for approval of a launch site license. Opponents remain hopeful that a launch will never happen despite the FAA's ruling. While it's expected there will be legal challenges to the FAA's ruling, some Camden County residents are taking a different approach.

A petition being circulated already has the signatures of more than 3,000 residents asking for a referendum to let the voters decide whether to go forward with the planned spaceport. They need 4,100 signatures — 10 percent of the county's registered voters — which organizers expect to have within a few weeks. It will be presented to the Camden County Probate Court judge, who will be required by state law to hold a special election where voters will be asked to repeal the county's decision to buy the Union Carbide property where launches would be conducted. (6/25)

Lockheed Martin Wins $4.9 Billion Contract to Build Advanced Missile-Warning Satellites (Source: Space.com)
Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $4.9 billion contract to build a triad of missile-warning satellites for the U.S. Space Force. The satellites will monitor Earth from the geosynchronous orbit, an orbit at the altitude of 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers), where satellites appear suspended above a certain spot on Earth. There, they will provide an initial warning of ballistic or tactical missiles launched from virtually anywhere in the world. Under the new contract, Lockheed Martin will manufacture, assemble, test, and deliver the three Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) satellites, as well as ground mission software and engineering support for launch vehicle integration, by May 2028. (6/23)

How Does China's Urine Recycling System Work in Space (Source: Space Daily)
Storing basic life support materials like water, food and oxygen aboard a space station can be challenging - so much so that some are generated aboard rather than delivered to space. Chinese scientists have devised a system to recycle water from the urine, breath and sweat produced by astronauts in space, which could save up to 100 million yuan (about 15.5 million U.S. dollars) over a period of six months with three astronauts in orbit.

The system has been installed in China's newly launched core space station module Tianhe, meaning urine can be processed into distilled water, some of which will be used for toilet flushing. The remainder, together with collected breath condensate, can be purified further for electrolytic oxygen generation and experiments, said Cui Guangzhi, one of the designers of the urine treatment system. On June 17, China successfully launched the crewed spacecraft Shenzhou-12, sending three astronauts to Tianhe for a three-month mission. The urine treatment system, a sub-system of the life support system, is undergoing full verification in space for the first time. (6/24)

L3Harris Jumps in Fortune 500 Ranking (Source: Florida Today)
Melbourne-based L3Harris Technologies Inc. has jumped to No. 163 on the just-released Fortune 500 list of the largest U.S. companies, which is based on 2020 revenue. Last year, L3Harris — the only Brevard County-based company on the list — was ranked No. 250, based on 2019 revenue. Fortune magazine listed L3Harris' 2020 revenue as $18.19 billion, up 41.5% from 2019. The rise of 87 places in the list largely reflects the impact of the merger of the former Harris Corp. and New York-based L3 Technologies Inc. (6/25)

Earth-Like Biospheres on Other Planets May Be Rare (Source: Space Daily)
A new analysis of known exoplanets has revealed that Earth-like conditions on potentially habitable planets may be much rarer than previously thought. The work focuses on the conditions required for oxygen-based photosynthesis to develop on a planet, which would enable complex biospheres of the type found on Earth. The number of confirmed planets in our own Milky Way galaxy now numbers into the thousands. However planets that are both Earth-like and in the habitable zone - the region around a star where the temperature is just right for liquid water to exist on the surface - are much less common.

At the moment, only a handful of such rocky and potentially habitable exoplanets are known. However the new research indicates that none of these has the theoretical conditions to sustain an Earth-like biosphere by means of 'oxygenic' photosynthesis - the mechanism plants on Earth use to convert light and carbon dioxide into oxygen and nutrients. Only one of those planets comes close to receiving the stellar radiation necessary to sustain a large biosphere: Kepler-442b, a rocky planet about twice the mass of the Earth, orbiting a moderately hot star around 1,200 light years away.

The study looked in detail at how much energy is received by a planet from its host star, and whether living organisms would be able to efficiently produce nutrients and molecular oxygen, both essential elements for complex life as we know it, via normal oxygenic photosynthesis. The team discovered that stars around half the temperature of our Sun cannot sustain Earth-like biospheres because they do not provide enough energy in the correct wavelength range. Oxygenic photosynthesis would still be possible, but such planets could not sustain a rich biosphere. (6/23)

Bill Would Require Ligado to Pay for GPS Interference (Source: Via Satellite)
A Senate bill would require Ligado Networks to pay for mitigation of GPS interference on government systems attributed to its new L-band network for 5G. "When Ligado's effort to repurpose spectrum causes interference in the infrastructure of those systems, as tests have shown it will, consumers and taxpayers shouldn't bear the burden of updating countless systems. That cost should only be borne by the responsible party: Ligado," said Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-OK. (6/23)

Patents Help Build a Global Map of New Space Industry (Source: Space Daily)
Researchers have reviewed almost a thousand patents held by some two hundred organizations involved in the New Space economy. The analysis helped draw a comprehensive picture of technology trends in the field. They found three distinguishing traits of New Space companies: explicit customer focus, new product development approaches, and new business models.

"In a nutshell, the main difference relates to how New Space organizations develop their products and how they approach the business. New Space organizations tend to embrace innovative development processes such as agile, have a risk-taker attitude, and focus on profit. This new attitude allows New Space companies to reduce time-to-market and lower the cost of entry to the space business," said Nicola Garzaniti. They used the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), a topic modeling algorithm, to analyze patents' data and the global intellectual property landscape, identifying the most prominent technological trends.

Having looked at 122 organizations that own 933 active patents and patent applications, the team identified ten topics, from remote sensing and image acquisition and launch systems to antenna systems and space platforms. 62% of the portfolio had to do with data related products and services, making data "the most valuable asset of the New Space ecosystem," the authors note. An analysis of trends over time revealed sharp exponential growth from 2007 onward, making that year a tentative cutoff line for the start of the New Space era. (6/23)

Russia’s Soyuz Launches Pion-NKS Naval Intelligence Satellite (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
Russia launched the first satellite for its long-delayed next-generation ocean reconnaissance system on Friday. The Pion-NKS No.901 satellite lifted off atop a Soyuz-2-1b carrier rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Northern Russia. Pion-NKS is part of the wider Liana program, aimed at replacing the Soviet-era signals intelligence satellites which Russia previously used to collect and monitor radio signals from low Earth orbit. (6/25)

Virgin Galactic Stock Jumps 39% in Best Day Ever After FAA Approves Passenger Spaceflight License (Source: CNBC)
Virgin Galactic’s stock jumped 38.9% in trading on Friday, its largest ever rise in a single trading day, to close at $55.91. Shares had tumultuous start to the year, with the stock climbing above $60 in February and then plummeting to a low near $15 last month before rebounding. (6/25)

India to Allow Private Firms to Build and Operate Launch Sites (Times of India)
As part of the ongoing space reforms, India will allow domestic private companies to establish and operate their own launch sites and pads, besides launching their own vehicles and missions involving re-entry of objects. This is part of the new draft National Space Transportation Policy released on Friday by the Department of Space and ISRO. (6/26)

How NASA Helped Send ‘Fast & Furious’ to Space (Source: Military.com)
Your tax dollars are hard at work in “F9: The Fast Saga,” the latest chapter in the “Fast & Furious” series. NASA scientists helped director Justin Lin figure out how to send a Pontiac Fiero driven by Roman (Tyrese) and Tej (Ludacris) into space. According to an interview with director Justin Lin at Vulture, the space plotline began as a joke. Producer Josh Henson and visual effects supervisor Alexander Vegh made a prank pitch to Lin.

Henson explains, “Kind of as a joke, we put together a pitch that looks like, ‘Okay, Dom and the gang go to the moon, and they race cars; they’re racing cool rovers on the moon and Dom wrecks his rover. And the bad guy’s about to get away, but he’s just at the Apollo 11 site. And he finds the original moon rover, and he’s racing. We kind of did it as a joke, and we pitched it to Justin, and we had a good laugh. But then Justin’s like, ‘Well, maybe there’s something there.’”

In real life, Lin wanted real science to fuel his space stunt, so he called the NASA crew for advice. “Going to space was not something I took for granted or I was very flippant about,” Lin said. “It is something that I did have a lot of conversations about. A lot of conversations. And it went from rocket scientists laughing, going, ‘What the f**k?’ to us saying, ‘Well, can this really happen? If other rocket scientists have to get up there and the capsules are coated with these polymers? Blah blah blah.’ This is something that was thought-out. If anything -- logistically, scientifically -- it’s one of the most sound action-set pieces in our franchise.” (6/25)

Scots Space Firm Urges UK Government to Up Investment to Avoid Falling Behind (Source: The National)
One of the nation’s biggest rocket companies has urged the UK to continue investing in its space capabilities in order to establish itself as a bona fide space nation. Volodymyr Levykin of Edinburgh-based Skyrora, believes continued government commitment is crucial if the industry is not to fall behind other countries and private firms, following successful rocket launches of the Space X payload and the Chinese manned mission last week.

It comes after the Space industry regulations 2021 were laid before Parliament on May 24 for ratification, promoting its ambition to building spaceports and launch capabilities across the country. However, Levykin believes more needs to be done to keep the UK ahead of the curve in a revamped international space race. (6/26)

SpaceX's New Rocket Factory Is Making Its Texas Neighbors Mad (Source: NPR)
Can SpaceX coexist with the original feathered inhabitants on the lower Gulf coast? Environmentalists from Brownsville to Washington D.C. are protesting his ambitious vision to build, test and launch next-generation rockets in this fragile ecosystem. "It's 24/7. The lights are really bright out here at night. It's just constant sound and presence of people," says Stephanie Bilodeau, a conservation bird biologist with the non-profit Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program. "I wouldn't want to be nesting near any of this if I were a bird." (6/26)

Small-Rocket Startup bluShift Announces 1st Signed Purchase Order (Source: Space.com)
bluShift Aerospace just hit a major milestone with its first signed purchase order, which means the small company is starting to bring in customer revenues. The Maine-based startup announced that a Virginia educational company called MaxIQ Space has agreed to purchase as many as 60 student payloads per launch, on a minimum of two suborbital launches per year — although the agreement also includes test launches and eventual orbital missions. Financial details were not disclosed. (6/25)

NASA Awards Global Information Technology, Communications Contract (Source: NASA)
NASA has awarded a new, agencywide information technology and communications services contract for Advanced Enterprise Global Information Technology Solutions (AEGIS) to Leidos Inc. Through the 10-year, $2.5 billion contract, Leidos will provide telecommunications, cloud, and data center services across all NASA centers and facilities. The contract is designed to provide a seamless communications infrastructure that encompasses both wide-area and center local-area networks while supporting cybersecurity, collaboration tools, emergency and early warning systems, telephony, cabling, and radio systems. (6/25)

NASA Will Dismantle Two Test Sites at Toxic Santa Susana Field Lab Area in California (Source: LA Daily News)
NASA said it will move forward with plans to demolish the Bravo and Coca vertical test stands at the Santa Susana Field Lab, contaminated when the area was used to test rocket engines and other activities for decades. Supporters of a complete cleanup of the site responded warily. Critics say that NASA already agreed under the terms of a binding deal with the state in 2010 to clean the soil on to the most stringent standard and tearing down the test stands is not aligned with the agreement. (6/25)

SpaceX Aims to Launch First Orbital Starship Flight in July (Source: CNBC)
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is “shooting for July” to launch the first orbital spaceflight of its Starship rocket, company president Gwynne Shotwell said on Friday. "I’m hoping we make it, but we all know that this is difficult,” Shotwell said, speaking at the National Space Society’s virtual International Space Development conference. The company in May revealed its plan for the flight, which would launch from the company’s facility in Texas and aim to splash down off the coast of Hawaii. (6/25)

Report Backs NASA Proposal to Change Astronaut Radiation Exposure Limits (Source: Space News)
A National Academies committee has endorsed a NASA proposal to change the radiation exposure limits the agency sets for its astronauts but cautioned that the revised limit is still insufficient for human Mars missions. The June 24 report by a committee established by the National Academies and sponsored by NASA backs the agency’s proposal to set a single lifetime radiation exposure limit for astronauts, rather than different limits based on age and gender.

Currently, lifetime exposure limits range from 180 millisieverts for a 30-year-old woman to 700 millisieverts for a 60-year-old man. Those limits are based on models intended to set a limit of no more than a 3% risk of radiation exposure-induced death (REID) at the 95% confidence level. NASA proposed changing that to a limit of about 600 millisieverts, regardless of age or gender. (6/25)

Military Building an Appetite for Commercial Space Services (Source: Space News)
The U.S. Space Force is eager to tap into the vibrant commercial market for space services enabled by increasingly capable small satellites and cheaper access to orbit. Commercial services of particular interest to the military include imagery, analytics, weather data and broadband from low-Earth orbit constellations. “It’s really crucial that we figure out how to successfully integrate commercial data and services into our architectures and concepts of operations,” said Lt. Gen. John Thompson, head of the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), the procurement arm of the Space Force. (6/25)

Space After SPACs: Industry Could be on the Verge of New Investment Era (Source: Space News)
The SPAC investment trend injecting billions of dollars into early-stage space startups appears to have peaked, but in its wake could be larger capital infusions from institutional investors with deeper pockets. Seven space companies plan to reap more than $3 billion in total later this year by merging with a SPAC — blank check firms that raise money on a public market before combining with businesses to fast-track investor exits.

However, more scrutiny over how SPACs operate, stemming from accounting guidance released by the SEC financial regulator April 12, have contributed to a sharp slowdown in new blank check companies. The guidance means warrants that give investors the option to buy shares at specific prices in the future need to be classified as liabilities, instead of equity instruments, in a company’s accounting books.

It has led to a pullback that means the level of SPACs in space has probably peaked, after merger announcements in the industry averaged around one a month between October and March. The space industry could be on the verge of more involvement from institutional investors — such as banks and pension funds that make sizable stock exchange investments — as it matures from the smaller venture capital days of the previous decade. (6/25)

The Hunt for a Primordial Force that Would Revolutionize Cosmology (Source: New Scientist)
The scale is hard to fathom. But if you zoom out far enough, the structure of the universe reveals itself: a “cosmic web” in which thread-like filaments of gas tangle around gigantic voids, connecting disparate clusters of galaxies. These are some of the most mysterious structures in the cosmos – and recent glimpses have revealed a surprising presence among them. Earlier this year, astronomers confirmed the detection of magnetic field lines stretching some 50 million light years between galaxy clusters.

It was one of the first demonstrations that magnetism exists at such gargantuan scales. But the real excitement is that the sheer size of the fields suggests they could be relics from the birth of the universe in the big bang. Discoveries such this are giving us more confidence that, even if we might not actually be there yet, we’ve now got the theoretical nous and observational tools to finally make the breakthrough. “The net is closing.” (6/23)

We Finally Know When the First Stars in the Universe Switched On (Source: New Scientist)
Between 250 and 350 million years after the big bang, cosmic dawn broke. Measurements of six of the most distant galaxies we have ever seen have allowed researchers to make the most precise calculations ever of when the first stars formed. The researchers observed these six galaxies with four of the most powerful telescopes on Earth to measure their distances as precisely as possible and determine how old the stars in the galaxies are. Those distant stars are some of the very first stars that ever formed, so their ages tell us the date of cosmic dawn, which the researchers calculated to be around 13.5 billion years ago. (6/24)

Orbital Assembly Successfully Demonstrates New Technology to Build Low Gravity Space Hotel (Source: Orbital Assembly)
Orbital Assembly Corporation, the first large scale space construction company, successfully demonstrated technology it developed to build the world’s first space hotel with gravity during the official opening of its Fontana, California Facility. The company is developing semi-autonomous robotic machines capable of building and assembling large structures in space quickly, and efficiently.

“Today we achieved our milestone in validating the Demonstrator Structural Truss Assembly Robot (DSTAR) fabricator,” says Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Habitation, Tim Alatorre. “Watching the DSTAR assemble the six-ton truss framework and expand to the length of a football field as it will in space was a thrill for everyone. We are on track for our first mission launch deadline scheduled for 2023.” (6/23)

NOAA to Replace GOES17 Satellite Ahead of Schedule (Source: Space News)
NOAA announced plans June 25 to move its geostationary weather satellite scheduled to launch in December into an operational role “as soon as possible.” NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-T, will replace the GOES-17 satellite in the GOES West position because of problems with the satellite’s main instrument, the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI). (6/25)

Who Wants to Step Up to a $10 Billion Risk? (Source: Space News)
The FCC faces a decision that goes beyond whether to grant AST & Science a “market access” request for a new constellation of non-geostationary spacecraft in the crowded 700-kilometer orbit. Far more important is whether the FCC will require companies seeking authority to operate in the US to be licensed by countries which agree to be bound by the norms of international space law. The AST & Science application itself is problematic enough, with its 243 gigantic satellites each with a cross-section of 450 square meters.

NASA initially filed a report raising significant concerns with this application, arguing that the number and size of the satellites in the AST constellation posed a significant risk and would cause NASA to “experience a very large number of satellite conjunctions. But the greater problem is that rather than seek a license directly from the FCC for their enormous satellites, AST & Science got a license for its system from Papua New Guinea (PNG). This is more than a “flag of convenience” situation, as PNG has signed neither the 1971 Liability Convention nor the 1974 Registration Convention. In short, PNG has not stepped up to accept specific international responsibility or liability for the activities of commercial entities it has licensed.

Under the Liability Convention, countries agree to be liable for any damages caused in space “due to its fault or the fault of persons for whom it is responsible.” AST & Science admitted that PNG has not “acceded” to the Registration Convention but claimed that PNG would voluntarily register the constellation. This brushes over the fact that voluntarily registering the constellation isn’t the same as taking legal responsibility for it. PNG has in no way assumed the potentially huge liability of a collision. Who, then, will shoulder the risk of the liability? Is the US going to step into PNG’s shoes and absorb that risk? (6/25)