September 1, 2021

Powering Sustainability: Satellite Propulsion Underpins Orbital Stewardship (Source: Space News)
Small satellite propulsion has a critical role to play in keeping space sustainable. While in-orbit debris cleaners and other emerging capabilities capture imaginations, thrusters underpin a healthy operating environment in space. Onboard thrusters can help ensure a satellite safely reaches its assigned orbit, moves out of harm’s way, relocates as market and mission requirements warrant, and dispose of itself when the time comes.

It is partly why the rise of smallsat constellations has spawned dozens of propulsion startups promising more efficient thruster as concerns over congested orbits grow. Ensuring space sustainability means giving satellite operators more propulsion capabilities for managing their constellations, according to István Lőrincz, co-founder and president of propulsion startup Morpheus Space. “You cannot talk about space sustainability without talking about propulsion,” Lőrincz said. (9/1)

Star Trek Tuvok Actor Tim Russ' Newest Mission Is Helping NASA Find Asteroids (Source: IGN)
Star Trek Voyager actor, Tim Russ, is helping NASA find asteroids for an upcoming mission. Russ played Lieutenant Commander Tuvok on Star Trek Voyager for over five years and it seems he's charting a course for space once more (kind of). He's not exploring new planets aboard the USS Voyager this time, though, as he's helping locate asteroids in space from Earth using a special telescope. Russ is a citizen astronomer and he's been a part of the Los Angeles Astronomical Society for 29 years. His history in Star Trek and what he's doing with NASA now is simply a coincidence (although it's quite a fun one). (8/31)

Wolf Amendment Prevents Lunar Sample Sharing with China (Source: Space News)
NASA says there are no plans for now to exchange lunar samples with China. At a meeting of lunar scientists Tuesday, Jim Green, NASA's chief scientist, said the restrictions imposed by the Wolf Amendment mean that NASA is not pursuing a bilateral agreement with China to share Apollo-era lunar samples with material China returned on its Chang'e-5 mission late last year. Green did not rule out securing such an agreement in the future. Chinese officials said they plan to offer some of the more than 1.7 kilograms of lunar samples Chang'e-5 returned to scientists outside China. (9/1)

COVID-Drive Liquid Nitrogen Shortage Shouldn't Further Delay Atlas Launch of Landsat 9 (Source: Space News)
NASA doesn't expect additional delays to the launch of the Landsat 9 spacecraft caused by a lack of liquid nitrogen at its launch site. NASA announced late last week the launch of the Earth science satellite on an Atlas 5 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California would be delayed a week, to Sept. 23, because of a shortfall of liquid nitrogen used for launch vehicle processing. At a briefing Tuesday, a NASA manager said trucks that normally transport liquid nitrogen to Vandenberg had been pressed into use transporting liquid oxygen to hospitals because of the pandemic. The liquid nitrogen supplier for Vandenberg has secured new trucks and is replenishing the base's liquid nitrogen stockpile, and should not cause further delays. (9/1)

Russia Plans All-Cosmonaut Crew Launch in March (Source: TASS)
Roscosmos says it will try again to launch an all-Russian crew to the International Space Station next year. Cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveyev and Sergey Korsakov are scheduled to launch to the station on the Soyuz MS-21 spacecraft in March. Russia planned to launch an all-Russian crew in the spring, but replaced one cosmonaut with NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei. NASA continues discussions with Roscosmos to exchange Soyuz seats for commercial crew seats, but no deal has been reached. (9/1)

Spire Satellites Can Spot GPS Jammers (Source: Breaking Defense)
Spire is moving into the signals intelligence business, by accident. The company found that cubesats equipped with GPS reflectometry sensors to collect weather data could also detect GPS jammers. The company is now looking at how similar sensors could be used to detect low-power interference with GPS signals in urban areas. The company recently won funding from a business accelerator backed by the British government to demonstrate radio-frequency geolocation services. (9/1)

UK's Shetland Spaceport Could Host ABL Vertical Launch in 2022 (Source: Shetland News)
A proposed spaceport in the Shetland Islands still hopes to host its first launch next year. An official with Lockheed Martin, which is sponsoring the launch of the ABL Space Systems rocket from Saxa Vord, said in a meeting with local residents Tuesday that the launch is now expected no earlier than September 2022. The launch slipped from May because of the pandemic and challenges securing government approval after concerns raised by Historic Environment Scotland about World War II-era structures at the site. Spaceport backers believe those concerns will be addressed and planning approval secured in the near future. (9/1)

SpaceX Streamlines Fleet at Port Canaveral (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
SpaceX is revamping its fleet of recovery ships. Its newest droneship, "A Shortfall of Gravitas," arrived in port Tuesday after supporting its first landing of a Falcon 9 booster on a Dragon cargo spacecraft launch Sunday. It is designed ultimately to operate autonomously, without a supporting boat. The company is also taking on two new ships, called "Bob" and "Doug" after Demo-2 astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, which will be used to recover payload fairings. The new ships are designed to more efficiently retrieve payload fairing halves in the water after the company gave up trying to catch the falling fairings with a net. (9/1)

Contractors Want America’s “Moon Rocket” to be More Than That (Source: Aerospace America)
When the first Space Launch System rocket blasts off from Florida with an unoccupied Orion capsule, possibly by the end of the year, a successful loop around the moon could prove to be a win for more than the U.S. politicians and space enthusiasts who have stood by the SLS program through delays and cost overruns in the name of seeing Americans return to the moon in 2024.

The win could help the SLS contractors make their case that the emerging fleet of huge, government-owned expendable rockets can do more than launch astronauts for NASA. They envision SLS rockets boosting robotic probes and fantastic new astronomy telescopes for NASA, and spy satellites and military spacecraft for the Pentagon and intelligence community. (8/26)

Augmented Reality is Helping NASA Get Back to the Moon (Source: Aerospace America)
Lockheed Martin is relying on a set of digital tools, especially augmented reality, or AR, to reduce the time it takes to design and build spacecraft. Take NASA’s Orion crew capsules, which Lockheed Martin has been working on since 2006 and that must ferry NASA astronauts to lunar orbit and back starting in 2023 under the Artemis program.

To aid technicians in installing such features as the crew seats, Lockheed Martin turned to augmented reality beginning with the Orion capsule for Artemis-2, the mission to send four astronauts on a slingshot journey around the moon and back home. The process began by uploading Orion blueprints to Unity 3D, the AR software from Unity Technologies. Designers and engineers donned Microsoft HoloLens 2 headsets and looked inside the Orion capsule. They saw markings overlaying the exact spots on the flight hardware where they needed to install components, including the hundreds of fasteners that would attach the seats to the floor of the spacecraft. (8/24)

NASA Wants Standards for Evaluating Claims of Extraterrestrial Life (Source: Air & Space)
The burgeoning field of astrobiology and its search for life beyond Earth has high hurdles aplenty, from hunting for habitable exoplanets to trying to understand life as we don’t know it. All the steps in this research are challenging, but the last step may be the most daunting of all: How to prove to fellow scientists that claims about extraterrestrial life are sound, then how to communicate the findings to the public in a responsible way.

With more such claims expected in the future, NASA’s Chief Scientist Jim Green and his colleagues have become increasingly interested in coming up with community standards for evaluating such findings. Claims of possible extraterrestrial life have been met with strong pushback and contentious debate from other scientists. Some researchers in the field worry that recurring strife puts the credibility of astrobiology at risk, or diminishes the actual scientific importance of some findings because they are ultimately found not to be life detections.

As a result, more than a hundred scientists representing a variety of disciplines are convening (virtually) under NASA auspices this week. They’ll be hashing out issues ranging from how to increase scientific confidence in “biosignature” detections to how best to convey the level of confidence in new discoveries to non-scientists. The hope is that this will lead to formal “best practices” and perhaps even reporting protocols for scientists working in the field. (7/20)

Space Force Needs to Make Acquisition a Critical Capability (Source: FedScoop)
One of the keys to an agile Space Force acquisition system is to remove barriers between operators and buyers and treat acquisition as a core function of the newest military branch, a study from the RAND Corporation suggests. The study lists other recommendations, including increasing the volume of information that is shared with industry, and giving decision-making subordinates more autonomy.

The Space Force has been working on a new method of acquisition to try and avoid the pitfalls of the industrial processes other military services use, which have been criticized for their sluggish pace and lack of ability to keep up with tech innovations. The Space Force “is highly reliant on technology, even more so than other services,” the study states. “This dependence on technology necessitates [the Space Force] having a close, trusting, collaborative relationship with industry.” (8/27)

Astroscale Aces Space Junk Removal Test (Source: Space.com)
The ELSA-d spacecraft of Japan-based startup Astroscale has successfully captured a simulated piece of space junk, completing the first phase of a demonstration mission that could pave the way for a less cluttered future in orbit. Launched on March 22, ELSA-d (short for "End-of-Life Services by Astroscale demonstration") brought with it to orbit a 37-pound (17 kilograms) cubesat fitted with a magnetic docking plate.

During the experiment on Wednesday (Aug. 25), ground controllers first remotely released a mechanical locking mechanism attaching the cubesat to the main 386-pound (175 kg) removal craft, Astroscale said in a statement. The two satellites were still held together by the magnetic system, which is responsible for capturing the debris.

The cubesat was then released completely and recaptured before floating too far away from the main spacecraft. Astroscale said on Twitter that this maneuver was repeated several times. This short demonstration enabled Astroscale to test and calibrate rendezvous sensors, which enable safe approach and capture of floating objects. (8/26)

SpaceFund Announces Idea-stage Incubator (Source: SpaceFund)
SpaceFund is creating the SpaceFund Labs idea incubator. The goal of this new division of SpaceFund is to capture and turn exciting ideas into funded businesses by creating a unique incubation plan for each idea that is accepted into the program. In its central role as a venture capital firm in a field that is literally taking off, SpaceFund is often presented with ideas that aren’t quite ready for prime time, but hold great promise as potential enterprises. SpaceFund Labs is designed to take these very early-stage concepts and build successful businesses around them, including team formation, financial planning, corporate setup, legal consultation, and more. (8/31)

AFRL Extends Capability for Testing Solid Rocket Motors with New Equipment (Source: Space Daily)
The Air Force Research Laboratory's Rocket Propulsion Division has a new capability, a Split-Hopkinson Pressure Bar system, also known as a Kolsky bar, that measures stress at high strain rates and helps analyze material behavior under severe conditions. Installed in AFRL's on-site chemistry lab, the system tests solid propellant at strain rates that correspond to threats from bullet impact, fragment impact and sympathetic detonations. The latter occur when unwanted detonation of a missile issues a shock wave that initiates detonation in a nearby missile. (8/31)

Rogue Space Signs with Firefly for 2023 Launch From Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: Space Daily)
Rogue Space Systems, a U.S. company developing a smart spacecraft program, and Firefly Aerospace have signed a Launch Service Agreement (LSA) whereby Rogue has secured the entire payload mass capacity aboard a Firefly Alpha rocket, scheduled for liftoff from Cape Canaveral in the fall of 2023. In addition to being the anchor customer, Rogue Space will sign, manage, integrate, and deploy multiple customer payloads on the flight with their Fred OTV (Orbital Transport Vehicle) spacecraft. (8/31)

Institute Recommends National Strategy for Space Solar Power (Source: Space Daily)
The Beyond Earth Institute (BEI) unveiled "Catching the Sun: A National Strategy for Space Solar Power," a new report on Space Solar Power (SSP) today. SSP uses solar panels in space to collect power from the Sun to serve the energy needs of the people on Earth. Recent SSP R and D programs, along with advances in computing technology, robotics, materials, space infrastructure, and low-cost launch have opened the window for SSP to move off the drawing board and into space. Click here. (8/31) https://beyondearth.org/a-national-strategy-for-space-solar-power/

ESA Has No Plans to Develop Space Tourism (Source: Sputnik)
Space tourism is good for space in general but the European Space Agency (ESA) is currently not planning to develop it, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher told Sputnik. "I think it is interesting to see that space is going into a wider domain, including space tourism. I consider this is good for the development of the space economy in general." Aschbacher said. At the same time, Aschbacher said ESA's focus was invested elsewhere in space exploration. "At ESA we have currently no program planned to develop space tourism as an activity because the activities of ESA focus on exploring space for science and for technology development," he said. (8/31)

Mystery Iinvestor Orders Life Support System for Private Space Station (Source: Sputnik)
The billionaire space race formally kicked off last month after companies owned by Virgin Group CEO Richard Branson and Amazon chairman Jeff Bezos sent the men soaring to the edge of space. Critics have viciously attacked the billionaires for bringing a dystopian sci-fi vision of the future one step closer to reality.

Raytheon Technologies subsidiary Collins Aerospace has confirmed that it has been awarded a $2.6 million contract by an "undisclosed customer" to develop environmental control and life support systems for a "privately-owned and operated orbital outpost in low Earth orbit." The company boasted that its product - the Environmental Control and Life Support Systems suite, will "enable livable conditions as low as 250 kilometers above Earth's surface," and includes air revitalization and pressure control, heating, carbon dioxide removal, "trace contaminant control," smoke detectors and other systems designed to provide a breathable environment, and optimal temperatures in space. (8/27)

Boeing 737 ecoDemonstrator Flights Test Satellite Internet for Pilot-to-Controller Communications (Source: Aviation Today)
The heavily modified Alaska Airlines 737-9 being operated by Boeing for its 2021 ecoDemonstrator program will provide the opportunity for Inmarsat to evaluate the use of Internet Protocol Suite (IPS)-based satellite data link communications between pilots and controllers can be securely executed. Alaska's 737 has been equipped with antennas, modems, and radios to enable the use of Inmarsat's Iris satellite communications technology for data link messages exchanged between the aircraft's flight management computer and ground-based air traffic control systems. (8/27)