August 19, 2021

Lead Engineer for Blue Origin's Lunar Lander Program Jumps to SpaceX (Source: Puget Sound Business Journal)
Blue Origin’s lead engineer for its lunar lander project announced he has left to join SpaceX, which netted a coveted contract from NASA this spring to bring astronauts back to the moon. Nitin Arora, the mission architecture and integration lead for Blue Origin’s Human Landing System announced on LinkedIn Aug. 16 that he’d taken a position at the Elon Musk-led company. (8/18)

South Korea Embraces Artemis Accords (Source: Space News)
South Korea sees the Artemis Accords as a framework for resolving international disputes in space. At an event last week, Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-moon said the increasing number of organizations and activities in space "call for a reexamination of global space governance to enable us to better manage potential conflicts." An international diplomatic framework like the Artemis Accords, he said, can help resolve those conflicts. South Korea signed in May the U.S.-led Artemis Accords, which outline best practices for countries seeking to participate in the Artemis lunar exploration program. (8/19)

ISS Supercomputer Adds Value for Space-Based Research (Source: Space News)
A supercomputer on the International Space Station is demonstrating the value of cloud computing in space. Hewlett Packard Enterprise's Spaceborne Computer-2 launched to the station in February and is being used to analyze data from several experiments there. The computer is linked to Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform, giving researchers faster access to results from those experiments. In the case of one genomics experiment, the computer analyzed the data and made it available through Azure in minutes, while previously researchers would have had to wait for weeks. (8/19)

Virgin Orbit Wraps Up Tests at Stennis (Source: NASA)
Virgin Orbit, a California-based satellite-launch company, wrapped up a series of tests on the E-1 Test Stand, Cell 1, at Stennis Space Center (SSC), Miss., last month. The stand was configured for the tests in the beginning of this year, and the hot fire series began March 30. The final testing day was July 20. Virgin Orbit’s test campaign had team members focused on the 75,000-pound force Thrust Chamber Assembly (TCA), which consists of an injector, combustion chamber, and nozzle.

The TCA is not an entire engine. Instead, it is where the propellants are mixed, combusted, and exhausted. The objective is to test different propellant injector configurations to determine which configuration will maximize performance and efficiency. Most of the main engine can be simulated with the test stand itself. The Space Act Agreement lets NASA enter a partnership with organization like Virgin Orbit, which reimburses SSC for any testing costs. Originally there were 30 tests scheduled involving 10 different injector configurations at a minimum of three tests each. But the project was later expanded to 14 injector configurations and many more tests.

The testing directly contributed to the design changes appearing on the first-stage Newton 3 engine. Virgin Orbit uses Newton 3 to propel the LauncherOne rocket, a two-stage, orbital, air-launched vehicle carried to the upper atmosphere and released over the Pacific Ocean. This rocket holds the title of the first orbital class, air-launched, liquid-fueled rocket to successfully reach space. (8/18)

Air Force Taps Raytheon for $960M Communications Deal (Source: FedScoop)
The US Air Force's Nuclear Weapons Center has awarded Raytheon Technologies a 10-year, $960 million contract for work on the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) communications network. AEHF is a joint service satellite communications system that provides survivable, global, secure, protected, and jam-resistant communications for high-priority military ground, sea and air assets. The system allows the Pentagon "to control tactical and strategic forces through all levels of conflict," according to the Air Force. (8/16)

Aerojet Completes Rocket Engine Factory Expansion in Los Angeles (Source: Aerojet Rocketdyne)
Aerojet Rocketdyne has completed an expansion of a factory that produces RS-25 engines. The company held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday for the 30,000-square-foot expansion of its Los Angeles factory. The $59 million expansion includes new equipment to produce RS-25 engine components more efficiently and cost effectively. NASA uses the RS-25 engines, originally developed for the space shuttle, on the Space Launch System. (8/19)

BRICS Alliance Agrees to Share Remote Sensing Data (Source: TASS)
The five BRICS nations have agreed to share Earth observation data. Representatives of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa signed an agreement Wednesday to exchange data from their satellites, creating a "virtual group" of remote sensing satellites. The countries say the cooperation will support efforts to address climate change and other environmental issues. (8/19)

SOFIA Completes Flights in Tahiti (Source: NASA)
NASA's SOFIA airborne observatory is wrapping up a series of flights from French Polynesia ahead of schedule. SOFIA, a Boeing 747 with a 2.5-meter infrared telescope, flew from California to Tahiti in July to allow observations of objects in the southern hemisphere. NASA had planned 20 science flights over eight weeks from there, but said this week it was returning a month early and after 13 flights, citing "updated COVID-19 precautions." SOFIA is expected to return to California in the next week. (8/19)

First Piece of Artemis II Rocket Hardware Arrives in Florida (Source: NASA)
The Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage for the second flight of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket arrived in Florida on July 28 for the final phase of production. The stage and its single RL10 engine provide the in-space propulsion needed to send NASA’s Orion spacecraft and its crew on a precise trajectory to the Moon for Artemis II, the first crewed mission of NASA’s Artemis lunar missions. It is the first piece of the rocket for the Artemis II flight to arrive in Florida.

Boeing and United Launch Alliance, the contractor team for the stage, shipped the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage from ULA’s facilities in Decatur, Alabama, to its Delta IV Operation Center at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The stage will undergo final processing and checkout before it is transported to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for launch preparations. (8/18)

What’s Going on With Russia’s Space Program? (Source: Air & Space)
Was the recent ISS emergency an aberration, or a warning of things to come? The inadvertent Nauka engine firings, which could have damaged the $100 billion ISS, were the result of a software error. Another programming mistake days earlier had also caused propulsion problems, wasting fuel and leaving mission controllers only one attempt at docking.

As usual, Roskosmos has been mostly silent about the mishaps, leaving it largely to independent researchers to sort out what actually happened. Coincidently, the Russian Duma is now preparing a law that would criminalize virtually any reporting on Russian space and military activities. What has happened to Russia’s once elite human spaceflight program?

Adding more Russian modules to the current station would seem to make no sense. Yet Roskosmos has kept the next module, called Prichal, on schedule for a launch to the ISS in November. Yet another module is under construction in Russia. This upgraded version of Nauka, known as the Science and Power Module or NEM, was intended to make the Russian segment truly independent from the rest of the ISS in terms of energy supplies and flight control. However, this year Russia committed to making the NEM the core of the new station rather than send it to the ISS. (8/13)

China Launches Earth Observation Satellites (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
China launched a pair of Earth observation satellites Wednesday. A Long March 4B rocket lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center at 6:32 p.m. Eastern and placed a pair of Tianhui 2 satellites into sun-synchronous orbits. The satellites are thought to be used by the Chinese military for cartography applications. (8/19)

Another Space Race – Pioneering Satellite Repair Robots (Source: Forbes)
A new kind of space race is in full thrust right now. Just not the one you think. It doesn't involve billionaires pioneering next-frontier tourism; rather, it’s a furious scramble of established players and startups looking to push the boundaries of “space logistics.”

Planting a flag in the past 18 months: Northrop Grumman, first to launch a “satellite life extension craft,” its Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV-1). In late February 2020, MEV-1 successfully performed an automated rendezvous with a non-transmitting satellite, Intelsat 901, in need of an in-orbit service check and a fuel-up – something never done before. This past spring, MEV-2 successfully docked to a telecommunications satellite (the Intelsat 10-02) still transmitting but running out of propellant. Additionally, Northrop Grumman has begun work on remote-controlled space garbage clean-up vehicles.

Still nascent, but quickly gaining speed and altitude, the space logistics realm is being led by a competitive, at times collaborative, community of scientists, engineers, agencies, as well as an array of aerospace and robotics companies. In the past 12 months, the U.S. space economy has been injected with an estimated $9 billion, much of it from wealthy, well-known entrepreneurs but also a sizable portion flowing from venture capital funds and crowd-funding platforms. Click here. (8/18)

TransAstra Developing In-Space Servicing Satellites (Source: Space News)
A startup founded by a former Momentus executive is getting into the space logistics business. TransAstra has been quietly developing technologies for in-space transportation systems, including a solar thermal propulsion system called Omnivore and a family of orbital transfer vehicles called Apis. The company was founded by Joel Sercel, a former chief technology officer at Momentus, which is developing its own space tugs. TransAstra was recently accepted into the Y Combinator startup accelerator and is preparing to take Omnivore to market. (8/19)

South Korea's Satrec Initiative Plans Imaging Satellite Constellation (Source: Space News)
South Korean satellite manufacturer Satrec Initiative is planning a constellation of high-resolution imaging satellites. The company announced Wednesday it will build SpaceEye-T as a prototype for a future constellation. SpaceEye-T is scheduled for launch in the first quarter of 2024 and will provide images with a resolution of 30 centimeters. The company, owned by South Korean conglomerate Hanwha Group, provided no details about the number of satellites in that future constellation or when they would launch. (8/19)