July 8, 2021

Space Coast #1 in Nation for Capitol Riot Arrests (Source: Space Coast Rocket)
The Department of Justice said more than 535 defendants had been arrested so far in connection with the attack on the Capitol, January 6, 2021, one of the most documented crimes in history. FBI Director Christopher Wray said the federal law enforcement agency has “hundreds more investigations still ongoing,” including more serious charges still in store.

The state of Florida is home to the most defendants charged in connection to the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot, with 55 total as of today. Texas is number 2. Yesterday’s arrest of a Viera High School Teacher/Football Coach brought the total number of arrests for Brevard County to 7; the most arrests for one County in the entire United States. Franklin County in Ohio also has 7 arrests, tying Brevard.

Brevard County, the Space Coast, is home of NASA, SpaceX, etc, and consequently home of literal rocket scientists, and some of the most intelligent people on the planet. That begs the question, why does Brevard seem to be leading the way in this criminal behavior? Brevard County Congressman Bill Posey (R-Rockledge) voted against the certification of Biden’s election to the presidency hours after the mob stormed the Capitol. (7/7)

NASA is Testing New Composite Materials for Building Lightweight Solar Sail Supports (Source: Universe Today)
Space exploration is driven by technology – sometimes literally in the case of propulsion technologies. Solar sails are one of those propulsion technologies that has been getting a lot of attention lately. They have some obvious advantages, such as not requiring fuel, and their ability to last almost indefinitely.  But they have some disadvantages too, not the least of which is how difficult they are to deploy in space. 

Now, a team from NASA’s Langley Research Center has developed a novel time of composite boom that they believe can help solve that weakness of solar sails, and they have a technology demonstration mission coming up next year to prove it. The mission, known as the “Advanced Composite Solar Sail System” (ACS3) mission is designed around a 12U CubeSat, which measures in at a tiny 23cm x 23 cm x 34 cm. The solar sail it hopes to deploy will come in at almost 200 square meters, and both it and its composite booms will fit inside the CubeSat enclosure, which is not much larger than a toaster oven. (7/6)

Massive Invisible Galactic Structure Discovered, By Accident, with Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia (Source: WOWK)
The astronomers at the National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Telescope (GBT) discovered a massive, previously unknown structure in the Milky Way Galaxy that is quite eye-opening. The first discovery happened with a smaller telescope but because it was so unexpected that they had to bring in the big one, the 20-meter telescope, to confirm what they were observing.

This discovery is being seen through the use of radio spectrum. Since the GBT has a high level of sensitivity, it was able to detect this extremely large structure that’s made up of molecular gas, versus a physical moon or planet. Right now, the people doing the research believe the structure extends far into the distant parts of the Milky Way Galaxy.

The 20-meter dish observed the signal. “To be even more sure, we tried several different independent signal processing techniques on the GBT and 20-meter results to attempt to remove the feature as if it were from the instrumental background, rather than a real signal, and none of these methods managed to remove it.” These observations had proven, the accidental finding was a real thing. (7/6)

Planet SPAC Spoils for Sales, Software, Not Sats (Source: Space News)
Planet says it will use the proceeds of its SPAC merger to increase its sales force and software development teams, not its satellite constellation. Planet will merge with a SPAC in a deal that values planet at $2.8 billion and will provide it with $434 million in cash. Company executives, though, said they will spend it on adding more salespeople to win more customers, as well as work on software development and machine learning tools to analyze imagery. Planet is also open to acquiring "smaller companies with meaningful expertise" in the field. (7/8)

Non-Artemis SLS Missions Not Likely for Several Years (Source: Space News)
NASA says that while it's still planning to use the Space Launch System for missions other than the Artemis program, such launches likely won't be possible until at least late this decade. At a meeting Wednesday, an agency official said the current supply chain that limits SLS production to one per year, along with the demands of the Artemis program, make it "very difficult" to use the SLS for other applications, like science missions, before the late 2020s or early 2030s. By then, NASA expects to increase SLS production to two per year, creating opportunities for launching science missions. NASA says the performance of SLS makes it well-suited for outer solar system missions, particularly with the use of additional upper stages. (7/8)

Russia's Nauka ISS Module to Launch on July 21 (Source: TASS)
A long-delayed Russian module for the International Space Station is now scheduled for launch on a Proton rocket July 21. Roscosmos announced early Thursday that revised launch date for the Nauka module, a slip of about a week after encountering issues in launch processing. Nauka will dock with the station's Zvezda module July 29, taking the port currently occupied by the Pirs module. Pirs will be removed from station by a Progress cargo spacecraft July 23, assuming Nauka launches on its current schedule. (7/8)
 
Georgia Spaceport Questions Answered, But Not to Everyone's Satisfaction (Source: Brunswick News)
An environmental assessment of a proposed Georgia spaceport has left unanswered some questions about the project. Camden County, Georgia, has spent about $11 million on the Spaceport Camden project, but county officials could not say how much more the spaceport will cost if it does win an FAA license. Officials said 13 nondisclosure agreements with prospective users limited what it could say, other than that launch infrastructure would be built by the companies that use the site. The FAA is expected to rule on a spaceport license for the project later this month, based in part on the environmental study published last month. (7/8)

Musk: Starship Could Be Modified for Orbital Telescope (Source: Futurism)
SpaceX’s Starship could carry the first astronauts to the surface of the Moon since the Apollo missions, clean up our planet’s increasingly littered orbit, and perhaps even help establish a city on Mars. Now, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is saying that it could also be used to bring astronomical observations into the 21st century. In a Wednesday tweet, Musk suggested that the “ship itself” could serve as the “structure for a new giant telescope” with ten times the resolution of NASA’s Hubble — an indication that the billionaire still has plenty of big ideas left for the company’s spacecraft. (7/8)

First Arab Woman Astronaut in Training (Source: Space Daily)
The UAE's Nora al-Matrooshi is the first Arab woman to start training to be an astronaut, one of two Emiratis picked from thousands of applicants as the Gulf nation looks to the stars. The 28-year-old mechanical engineer from Sharjah -- one of the seven emirates that make up the UAE -- has dreamt about space since she was a girl, learning about planets and stars at school. And while there are no space missions scheduled, she hopes to have the opportunity to one day visit space, continuing the tradition of exploration begun by her sailor ancestors. (7/7)

Skyroot Aerospace Completes Series A Funding (Source: Space Daily)
Skyroot Aerospace, India's leading private space launch company, is set to take the global stage with help from its recent $11 million Series A capital raise. The funding will be used to acquire new talent and complete the development of its Vikram-1 launch vehicle. The company aims to reach orbit, with 90 percent less development cost than its competitors, as early as next year. This disruptive cost efficiency gives their international customers a cheaper and unique option for on-demand and dedicated payloads. (7/7)

Ten Years After Last Shuttle Mission, Space Looks Brighter Than Ever From Space Coast (Source: Florida Today)
The years following 2011 featured creative collaboration between NASA, Space Florida, and the commercial space industry in transitioning abandoned shuttle facilities to new uses. The transition was not easy, and former Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana should be lauded for piloting the agency through then-uncharted waters and championing the transition of KSC into a multi-user spaceport.

Although both are public entities, NASA and Space Florida are charged with different missions. Our vision and capabilities overlap in the re-purposing of excess government facilities to attract commercial activity, with NASA making facilities and land available for lease, and Space Florida bringing state investment and financing capabilities to attract industry. The classic example of this collaboration between NASA and Space Florida was the former Orbiter Processing Facility 3 converted into a world-class spacecraft assembly facility, now home to Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule.

The period that followed is marked by the development of Exploration Park, where hundreds of acres of KSC were leased to Space Florida to develop and manage as an industrial park. Today, it is home to Blue Origin and Airbus OneWeb Satellites. What little acreage is left is in high demand. Meanwhile, Space Florida investments in key infrastructure for SpaceX, ULA, and others enable an ever-increasing launch cadence. Next in this collaboration is the expansion of new developable land at the Launch & Landing Facility (LLF). Space Florida now operates and manages development at the LLF. (7/8)

Increasingly, the ULA-Blue Origin Marriage is an Unhappy One (Source: Ars Technica)
Bezos made his fortune at Amazon through competitive pricing and timely delivery of goods to his customers worldwide. But so far at least, his Blue Origin space company has been a less reliable vendor. This has been especially of concern to ULA, which is relying on Blue Origin-built engines for its new Vulcan rocket. The US Space Force is also watching, as it is counting on the Vulcan booster to help launch some of its most precious satellites into orbit. Blue Origin's powerful BE-4 rocket engine, which burns methane and liquid oxygen, is years late.

Privately, multiple sources say, the relationship between Blue Origin and ULA is not good. "There is great concern about this engine development," one person in the industry said. "It's much more than Tory Bruno is showing publicly. There is great concern that Blue is not putting enough attention and priority on the engine." ULA's Tory Bruno said Vulcan still has a chance to be ready for a 2021 launch, but this seems highly unlikely because it is already July, and ULA still does not have a pair of flight engines.

After receiving the engines, ULA needs to attach them to the Vulcan, roll it to the pad and conduct a lengthy series of tests before a hot-fire ignition. After this hot-fire test, the rocket will be rolled back to the hangar and prepared for an actual launch attempt. As of January, Bruno was saying this hot fire test with the flight engines would take place this summer. That will no longer happen. Bezos' company has not been forthcoming about why the BE-4 has been so late. Development has been going on since 2011. (7/7)

AST Signs Deal to Bring Satellite Broadband to Philippines (Source: Via Satellite)
AST SpaceMobile signed a memorandum of understanding with mobile services provider Smart Communications to bring the cellular broadband network to customers in the Philippines. AST SpaceMobile, a firm that went public through a SPAC, is developing a cellphone-compatible satellite broadband constellation. The agreement with Smart Communications could give AST SpaceMobile access to approximately 70 million subscribers. (7/7)
 
Start-Ups Aim Beyond Earth (Source: New York Times)
Space start-ups raised more than $7 billion in 2020, double the amount raised in 2018. Nine space companies have raised a combined $3.9 billion through SPAC deals that give the firms a combined value of $20 billion, said Carissa Christensen, BryceTech CEO. With investor interest in space at an all-time high, the trend is expected to continue. Click here. (7/7)

Oil Companies Consider Space-Based Monitoring of Methane Emissions (Source: GHGSat)
GHGSat will work with Chevron, Shell and TotalEnergies on a research project to test space-based technology for measuring methane emissions from offshore oil and gas platforms. Offshore energy producers want to confirm their reported emissions, GHGSat CEO Stephane Germaine, said in a statement. (7/7)