October 3, 2021

European Spacecraft Reveals Rare Images of Mercury’s Craters After a ‘Flawless’ Flyby (Source: Washington Post)
Europe’s space mission to the smallest and least explored terrestrial planet in our solar system, Mercury, sent back its first images of the planet after a flyby. The BepiColombo joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency comprises a spacecraft containing two orbiters. It was launched in 2018 and will take seven years to arrive at its destination in late 2025.

The black-and-white images were taken Friday and published Saturday after the spacecraft flew past the innermost planet of the solar system to undertake a gravity assist maneuver — essentially using gravitational pull to slow the spacecraft.

The images, taken by the spacecraft’s monitoring cameras about 1,500 miles from Mercury, show part of the planet’s northern hemisphere, which has been flooded by lava, and a smoother and brighter area characterizing the plains around a large crater, the ESA said. The pictures also show some of the spacecraft’s structural elements, including its antennas and magnetometer boom. A magnetometer is an observational instrument. (10/2)

Hundreds of Troops Were Chosen for the Space Force, But Congress is Getting in the Way (Source: Air Force Times)
The Space Force on Thursday announced a cohort of nearly 700 soldiers, sailors and Marines who will join the fledgling service in the next year, marking its largest batch of transfers from outside the Department of the Air Force so far. But those 670 troops — plus 259 additional civilian employees — face an immediate roadblock to becoming guardians: they can’t change jobs until Congress passes, and President Joe Biden signs, a fiscal 2022 defense spending bill.

The federal government will stay open until Dec. 3 under a stopgap funding measure Congress passed Sep. 30. But the legislation doesn’t allow the Space Force to take on new personnel or missions, like Army communications payloads that ride on satellites flown by guardians. The Space Force has never received on-time annual funding since its creation in December 2019, slowing the new service’s efforts to grow.

When troops can transfer in depends on their path to entering the service, Space Force spokesperson Lynn Kirby said on Friday. Soldiers, sailors and Marines who were announced as the first interservice transfers in June can still formally join, because their jobs were funded by the fiscal 2021 budget. Troops who volunteered to join and were announced on Sep. 30 could also see a delay, depending on how long the government is open under a continuing resolution, but will need time for their paperwork to process and may not have much of a problem. (9/30)

Bill Nelson in Tallahassee: Florida’s Future in Space Exploration is Limitless (Source: Tallahassee Democrat)
Florida’s future in space exploration is as limitless as space itself, NASA administrator Bill Nelson told a Tallahassee audience Friday. “It’s going to be an exciting ride,” Nelson, a former U.S. senator from the Space Coast, said in remarks to the Economic Club of Florida. As a member of Congress 36 years ago, Nelson flew a six-day mission aboard the Space Shuttle and he was an aggressive advocate for aerospace and tech industries during his tenure in Congress.

Nelson said the “Apollo generation,” which achieved President Kennedy’s goal of reaching the moon in the 1960s, is being supplanted by the “Artemis generation” — named for Apollo’s sister in Greek mythology. He said that means billions of dollars in government and private capital investment and tens of thousands of jobs, many of them in Florida, as NASA and commercial enterprises explore the cosmos. (10/1)

FAA Delaying Georgia Spaceport Decision is a Disservice to All (Source: Brunswick News)
Camden County’s request for state and federal approval of a proposed spaceport has been getting more than the usual runaround. The county has been at it almost a decade now, and nine years and $10 million later, it’s still waiting for a straight yes or no answer from the FAA. Its request just keeps ricocheting among the various agencies involved in the permitting process.

The latest deadline for approval or disapproval came and went this week. Claiming it needs more consulting time, the FAA now says it will be Nov. 3 before it is ready to provide an answer to the county’s request. By now, Camden officials know not to hold their breath. The National Park Service, which manages the Cumberland Island National Seashore across the way, continues to express its reservations about a facility that would launch rockets across the barrier island.

Camden’s permit would be only 12 launches a year, roughly one a month, but the park service fears what could happen if just one of the rockets went awry and crashed on the island. There’s residents, visitors and historic structures to think of, it stresses. There’s a pile of people totally behind this project and there’s a force of people completely against it. Decide so supporters can proceed with their plans or opponents can stop worrying it. When all is said and done, it is the court that will make the final decision anyway. Count on the losing side filing a legal challenge to the outcome. (10/1)

House Intel Committee OKs Space Force Intel Center (Source: Breaking Defense)
In its wide-ranging fiscal 2022 intelligence policy bill, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) paves the way for the creation of a separate Space Force intelligence center — but with caveats that raise questions about any actual change stemming from the move. The House Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA), passed yesterday by the committee, sets policy for the Intelligence Community, ranging from the CIA to the National Reconnaissance Office and now, the Space Force, which became a member (the 18th) last December.

One of the most notable items for military space is the decision by the intel committee, led by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., to allow Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall to create and fund the National Space Intelligence Center (NSIC) as a stand-alone body, separate from the Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC). NASIC, headquartered at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio, provides the Defense Department with intel about potentially threatening adversary scientific and technical advances in the air and space domains. (10/1)

Virgin Orbit Launch to Put Jewel in the Crown of Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Year (Source: Sunday Times)
The Queen will become the first British monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee next June, after 70 years of service. To mark the historic occasion there will be another first — the launch of rockets into orbit from the UK. Melissa Thorpe, the head of Spaceport Cornwall, said that an eight-year project would culminate next summer in the flight of Cosmic Girl, a Boeing 747-400, which has been modified to carry a 70ft rocket packed with small satellites into space. (10/1)

UN Secretary-General Gets Space Tourism Wrong (Source: Washington Examiner)
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently chided billionaires including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson for "joyriding to space while millions go hungry on Earth." Guterres's criticism is both unjustified and shamefully populist. It is true that the civilian race to space costs billions of dollars. Still, the return on that investment could be even greater. In the course of a decade, entrepreneurs like Bezos, Musk, and Branson have taken a fresh look at space travel-related problems.

They have then leapfrogged over ossified government agencies, which are constrained by both politics and bureaucracy. Tourism is a benefit rather than the purpose of their investments. (10/1)

Turmoil at Blue Origin: Talent Exodus Came After CEO’s Push for Full Return to the Office (Source: CNBC)
Attrition at Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has steadily climbed, passing 20% for this year, multiple people familiar with the situation told CNBC. Multiple people told CNBC that the departures are a direct reflection on the leadership of CEO Bob Smith. The central sticking point, and cause cited by many people who recently left, was Smith’s strong push this year for all Blue Origin employees to return to the office. During Smith’s tenure the company has struggled to deliver on multiple major programs, highlighted by Blue Origin’s chief operating officer leaving late last year. (10/1)

Soyuz Rocket That Will Carry Japanese Space Tourists on Way to Baikonur Cosmodrome (Source: TASS)
The Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket that will deliver the Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft with two Japanese tourists into orbit has been dispatched from Samara to the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Roscosmos said. "Late on October 30, the train with the Soyuz-2.1a rocket blocks and its fairing was dispatched from the Progress Rockets and Space Center (Samara), to the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The Soyuz-2.1a rocket will deliver the Soyuz MS-20 manned spacecraft with Japanese space tourists into orbit in December 2021," the statement says. (10/1)