August 17, 2021

Colorado Spaceport Area Plans Up for Future Discussions (Source: Commerce City Sentnel Express)
Adams County commissioners signed off on the bulk of the plan for a sub-district around the Colorado Air and Spaceport but said they need more time to consider its plans. The reason is the planned Aerotropolis project was not part of the analysis. Adams County Community Economic Development Department case manager Nick Eagleson presented the plans for Colorado Air and Spaceport to the Adams County Commissioners for approval in a public hearing Aug. 3.

“I did not see a mention of the CDOT reference or study of the Aerotropolis area,” said Commissioner Steve O’Dorisio. Eagleson team posted a proposal and selected a consultant, Steven Chester, with Kimley-Horn in the spring of 2020. They also put together an advisory group, steering committee and stakeholder groups. “I want to mention running concurrently is the Colorado Air Spaceport Master Plan, and Dave Ruppel, the director of CASP, is heading and focusing on expanding aerospace and spaceport capabilities while the subarea plan looks at the overall area outside of the spaceport,” Eagleson said.

The intended vision is for the land use that surrounds CASP is development of infrastructure, roadways and public utilities. The sub-district plans are a guide for short- and long-term goals along with policies, standard and market potential, including jobs. “We incorporated different plans and studies with multiple jurisdictions in the subarea, including the town of Bennett and the city of Aurora. We looked at the Aurora and Bennett’s comprehensive plans, including the Aurora transportation study and Adams County comprehensive plan as well,” said Eagleson. Eagleson’s team developed focus group meetings to directly meet with residents, business owners and landowners. (8/16)

Microsoft Unveils Australian Space Startup Launchpad (Source: Space Daily)
Microsoft is delighted to announce the launch of Microsoft for Space Startups Australia designed to support emerging enterprises focussed on cloud-powered innovation on and off the planet. Through this initiative, Microsoft will support and enable cutting-edge Australian space innovation to help solve tough problems, such as bush fire detection, climate change and sustainable practices on Earth and in space.

Eligible space startups will receive Azure credits, have access to a broad range of Microsoft technologies, and have the opportunity to work with Microsoft technical specialists and mentors to support their development and rapid growth. Office of Planetary Observations and Spiral Blue are among the first Australian space startups to join the initiative.

Microsoft Azure Space is focussed on enabling our customers and partners in the Australian space industry and driving innovation. We are focussed on bringing together products and partnerships to provide comprehensive space connectivity and data services to our customers in the public and private sectors. An array of Azure technologies and services have been tailored to provide cloud-to-edge computing, streamlined access to space-sourced data and dramatically improved connectivity representing the next giant leap for cloud. (8/17)

SpaceX Receives First Major Starship Moon Lander Funding From NASA (Source: Teslarati)
SpaceX has received its first major funding from NASA for the development of a crewed Starship Moon lander meant to return humans to the surface of Earth’s nearest neighbor as early as 2024. Likely just hours after GAO released its decision to reject protests to its award to SpaceX, NASA sent SpaceX its first major HLS Starship milestone payment.

We also know from the GAO decision report page 7 that NASA only has $345M available this fiscal year for HLS Option A, so SpaceX already got most of it. Next big payday - assuming they completed the corresponding milestones - will need to wait until next fiscal year which starts on October 1st. BTW, even with this latest payment, SpaceX is still getting less money than National Team, total amount SpaceX got from HLS is $439.6M, total amount National Team/Blue Origin got is $479.7M. (8/16)

ULA Planning $20.3 Million in Equipment Purchases (Source: Decatur Daily)
United Launch Alliance plans a $20.3 million purchase of machining and inspection-related equipment that it says will "help to secure the future" of its plant in Decatur's police jurisdiction. Chrystal Morgan, director of state and local affairs for ULA, told the Industrial Development Board of Decatur the purchases are a "steppingstone" toward increasing orders for the plant at 1001 Red Hat Road. The Decatur plant has 697 employees. They make an average annual wage of roughly $88,946, not including benefits.

"These upgrades and capabilities don't create any jobs right now," Morgan said. "But all of this is setting us up for some new potential commercial and private bids that ULA is in the process of working on that would generate a substantial increase in the number of rockets you see leaving that factory." She said the company plans to buy a vertical turning lathe and various testing equipment, as well as a surface milling machine that it has to move to Alabama. (8/15)

Raytheon Tapped for $960M SATCOM Terminal Contract (Source: Shepard.co.uk)
The US Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center has selected Raytheon to support the company's Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite communications terminals aboard aircraft under a 10-year, $960 million contract. More than 500 Raytheon AEHF SATCOM terminals are currently in service with the US military. (8/17)

Amid Space Race, Cybersecurity And Resiliency Remain Concerns (Source: Breaking Defense)
Space-based systems proliferation is being driven, as well as enabled, by new tech, ranging from ships and satellites to 5G. The US military will rely on space assets as nodes in global networks to enable its Joint Warfighting Concept and All Domain Operations. In addition to defense and intelligence applications, space increasingly factors into vast swaths of global economies — shaping sectors ranging from transportation to agriculture — in turn making space progressively more of an economic security issue.

The space rush will result in tens of thousands of new assets launched within the decade, many running 5G, which will create a “truly enormous” cyber attack surface, said Sam Visner, a technical fellow at the MITRE Corp. and former associate at the Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center, which focuses on cybersecurity of space networks and assets. In the past, governments were the sole owners and operators of space assets and networks. And while those proved to be “robust systems,” Visner said, many still orbiting earth were largely designed, developed, and tested in an age that “predated cyber threats.”

Those legacy assets, which are nodes in space-based and space-to-terrestrial communications, serve as potential network entry points, much as endpoints (e.g., devices, servers, etc.) do in traditional IT networks. Given enough time and resources, as well as the right capabilities and the proper environment, adversaries could start network compromises by targeting space assets. Kevin Coggins, a vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton, highlighted the issue: “The architectures of government systems are inherently trusting,” he observed. “If we continue to have these open, trusted links, we’re going to be constantly fighting [the] next threat.” (8/16)

Arianespace Vega Rocket Launches Multiple Satellites (Source: Space News)
A Vega rocket launched an imaging satellite and several secondary payloads Monday night. The Vega lifted off from Kourou, French Guiana at 9:47 p.m. Eastern time, and released the Pléiades Neo 4 satellite about an hour later. The satellite, along with another launched in April, will enable daily imaging of any place on Earth at 30-centimeter native resolution. The Vega also carried a maritime surveillance cubesat developed by French company Unseenlabs and three cubesats for the European Space Agency. (8/17)

O'Connell Joins Kayhan Space's Board (Source: Space News)
The former director of the Office of Space Commerce is joining the advisory board of a space situational awareness startup. Kevin O'Connell will serve on the board of advisers of Kayhan Space, a startup focused on space situational awareness and collision avoidance technologies. O'Connell was director of the Office of Space Commerce from mid-2018 to January of this year. Kayhan Space is developing an autonomous collision avoidance system for satellite operators. (8/17)

ISS Crew Readies for More Spacewalks (Source: NASA)
The crew of the International Space Station is getting ready for a series of spacewalks. Astronauts Akihiko Hoshide and Mark Vande Hei will perform a spacewalk next Tuesday to prepare a portion of the station's truss for the installation of new solar arrays that will be delivered to the station on a future Dragon cargo mission. Cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov are scheduled to perform two spacewalks in early September to install cables and other equipment for the new Nauka module that docked with the station last month. (8/17)

Finland's Aurora Propulsion to Launch Cubesat to Test Thruster and Tether Tech (Source: Space News)
A cubesat developed by a Finnish company will launch on an Electron after delays with its original ride. Aurora Propulsion Technologies said its AuroraSat-1 cubesat will launch on an Electron in the fourth quarter of this year. The 1.5U cubesat will test thrusters and a tether that can be used to deorbit satellites. Aurora originally planned to launch the satellite on a Vigoride tug by Momentus, but regulatory issues delayed that launch until at least mid-2022. (8/17)

NPS: Georgia Spaceport Poses "Unacceptable Risk" (Source: Brunswick News)
The National Park Service says a proposed Georgia spaceport poses an "unacceptable risk." In a letter to the FAA earlier this month, the Park Service said it was concerned about environmental damage that could be caused by a launch accident from Spaceport Camden in Camden County. The FAA completed its environmental review of the proposed launch site, but has yet to make a formal decision on a launch site operator's license for the facility. (8/17)

NASA's Ingenuity Helicopter Completes 12th Flight (Source: CNET)
NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter successfully completed its 12th flight Monday. The helicopter made a round trip of about 450 meters on this flight, scouting a region called South Séítah to support the Perseverance rover. Project engineers warned before the flight that this trip would be particularly risky since the helicopter would fly over terrain of varying heights and its software was originally designed for flights over flat terrain. (8/17)

Chinese Satellite Whacked by Hunk of Russian Rocket in March (Source: Space.com)
In March, the U.S. Space Force's 18th Space Control Squadron (18SPCS) reported the breakup of Yunhai 1-02, a Chinese military satellite that launched in September 2019. It was unclear at the time whether the spacecraft had suffered some sort of failure — an explosion in its propulsion system, perhaps — or if it had collided with something in orbit. We now know that the latter explanation is correct, thanks to some sleuthing by astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell.

McDowell spotted an update in the Space-Track.org catalog, which the 18SPCS makes available to registered users. The update included "a note for object 48078, 1996-051Q: 'Collided with satellite.' This is a new kind of comment entry — haven't seen such a comment for any other satellites before," McDowell tweeted. He dove into the tracking data to learn more. McDowell found that Object 48078 is a small piece of space junk — likely a piece of debris between 4 inches and 20 inches wide (10 to 50 centimeters) — from the Zenit-2 rocket that launched Russia's Tselina-2 spy satellite in September 1996. (8/17)

India's Independence: Rise as a Space Superpower (Source: WION)
As India completes 75 years of its independence, it is time to introspect the country’s space programme that has grown and evolved significantly in the last decades. The program originally focused on developing space assets that provided direct developmental benefits, for example, telecommunications and remote sensing satellites that helped both in improving communication facilities and giving direct assistance to India’s farmers.

But over time, India has shifted a part of its focus towards space exploration and other high-profile missions. This includes, for example, India’s Mars and Moon exploratory missions. Overall, India has been fairly successful in these efforts and its space program has become a comprehensive one that includes not only a robust launch capacity and very large remote sensing satellite systems, but also a very well-rounded scientific and deep space exploratory program. (8/15)

Virgin Galactic’s Tourist Flight Schedule Delayed (Source: Los Angeles Business Journal)
Sir Richard Branson’s recent spaceflight from southern New Mexico generated global excitement about Virgin Galactic’s long-promised space-tourism business, but it will still be another year before the company starts flying paying passengers into suborbit. The company announced on Aug. 5 that its planned spaceship maintenance-and-upgrade program – originally scheduled as a four-month hiatus from October-January – will be extended to eight months, effectively pushing back the launch of commercial rocket flights until late-summer 2022.

That’s because Virgin Galactic must complete structural upgrades to its passenger rockets, and to the mothership that flies them partway to space, before initiating commercial service for paying customers, company CEO Michael Colglazier told investors during a second-quarter earnings conference call.

The upgrades will significantly shorten the turn-around time between spaceflights for both the VSS Unity – the rocket that flew Branson to space on July 11 – and the company’s second rocket, Imagine, which is already built but won’t begin test flights until next year. The improvements could cut downtime between flights from about seven-to-eight weeks now to just four or five weeks, Colglazier said. (8/16)

Return to the Moon Will Have to Wait (Source: Cosmos)
The pandemic, technical difficulties, and a lack of cash means planned return missions to the Moon will be delayed. NASA has revealed “significant challenges” leading to a delay in the development of the spacesuits needed for the journey. Australian companies are vying for the chance to play a role in the Moon to Mars missions. Adelaide’s Human Aerospace, for example, has been working on next-generation spacesuits.

According to the audit report from NASA’s Office of Inspector General, NASA has been working on Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Units (xEMU) for 14 years. The spacesuits are being designed for use on the International Space Station as well as the Artemis mission. The Artemis mission aims to return astronauts – including the first woman and the first person of colour – to the Moon by 2024. It’s the first part of a larger mission to establish a lunar gateway in orbit as a base from which to send people to Mars. (8/16)

SpaceX’s Orbital Starship Debut Headed for FAA Faceoff in a Few Weeks (Source: Teslarati)
CEO Elon Musk says that SpaceX’s first completed Starship rocket could be ready for its orbital launch debut just “a few weeks” from now – far sooner than most expected. And, as Musk himself notes, that complex ballet of first-of-their-kind rocket prototypes might not even be the long straw for Starship’s orbital launch debut. Technically, short of some kind of major legal intervention, there is actually no way for Starship to launch in the next “few weeks.”

In an absolute best-case scenario, the FAA would release a draft environmental review of SpaceX’s orbital Starship launch site today, accept public comments for the required 30 days, instantly clear Starbase with environmental approval within a few days of the public comment window, and then approve Starship’s South Texas orbital launch license as soon as the necessary environmental permissions are in hand. The best-case ETA of regulatory approvals for Starship’s first orbital test flight is arguably late September and going off of FAA precedent, that optimistic scenario is also a fairy tale.

In reality, a bare minimum of 2-3 months after the FAA releases its draft environmental impact statement is a more realistic best-case scenario for SpaceX. It’s possible that the FAA will decide that SpaceX needs to complete an entirely new environmental review for its Starbase launch site, easily delaying Starship’s orbital launch debut by 6-12+ months. That doesn’t even account for the potential looming challenges SpaceX might have to surmount to secure an orbital Starship launch license. (8/15)