October 7, 2021

NGA to Tap Into Commercial Analytics, Innovations (Source: Space News)
A National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) official said the agency needs to make more use of commercial analytics services. David Gauthier, director of NGA's commercial and business operations group, said at the GEOINT Symposium that the agency has to transition away from government analysts exploiting raw imagery to commercial analytics services that can quickly provide answers. His vision is for NGA analysts to have the geospatial intelligence equivalent of a Bloomberg terminal, with a wide range of data at their fingertips. NGA recently awarded contracts to five companies for analytic insights on economic activity and trends around the world, such as the flow of raw materials, agricultural products, fuels and vehicles.

 NGA is also looking for ways to harness other innovations in the private sector. Cindy Daniell, NGA's director of research, said the agency is now focused on accelerating innovation by working more closely with the private sector and making it easier for geospatial technology players to do business with NGA. She said those efforts are necessary because "our decision advantage [is] at risk" as geospatial capabilities in other nations grow.

Part of that effort by the NGA to tap into private sector innovation involves its new campus in St. Louis. The $1.7 billion "Next NGA West" facility in St. Louis, slated to open in 2025, will set aside 20% of its space for unclassified work so that it can collaborate with companies and academia. In July, NGA opened its Moonshot Labs in downtown St. Louis, a workspace where government analysts and startups will collaborate, and also host a business accelerator. (10/7)

High Winds Scrub Another Epsilon Launch Attempt (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
High winds scrubbed a second attempt to launch a small Japanese rocket Wednesday. The launch of the Epsilon rocket was postponed because of gusty winds at the Uchinoura Space Center, and a new launch date was not immediately announced. The Japanese space agency JAXA scrubbed the first launch attempt last week because of a ground station problem. The rocket is carrying a technology demonstration satellite and eight smallsat secondary payloads. (10/7)

Kleos RF Intelligence Satellites Performing Well (Source: Space News)
Kleos says its radio-frequency intelligence satellites are performing better than expected. In a presentation at the GEOINT Symposium, the Luxembourg-based startup tested the RF-mapping capabilities of its first cubesat cluster by homing in on a beacon on an island in the Atlantic. The satellites pinpointed the beacon to an ellipse of 4.5 by 0.26 kilometers. Kleos launched its first cluster of four cubesats in 2020 and its second cluster in June, with plans to place as many as 20 satellite clusters into orbit. (10/7)

Satellogic Links with Amazon for Ground Station Services (Source: Space News)
Satellogic will use Amazon's ground station service to control its imaging satellites and download data from space. Amazon's ground station is a managed service that allows satellite operations to ingest satellite data and integrate it with apps and other data on the AWS cloud. Satellogic says the partnership with AWS marks another step in the company's expansion into the commercial and government markets, which also includes making its imagery and data analytics services available on a GSA contract schedule. (10/7)

Koenigsmann Joins Mynaric's Board (Source: Space News)
A longtime SpaceX executive who recently retired is joining the board of laser communications company Mynaric. Hans Koenigsmann was one of SpaceX's first employees in 2002 and retired this year after serving as vice president of build and flight reliability. Mynaric CEO Bulent Altan, who previously worked with Koenigsmannn at SpaceX, says he is "a natural" to serve on the board as Mynaric looks to scale up its optical satellite communications work. (10/7)

India Holds Cards [Too] Close on Lunar Missions (Source: The Wire)
India remains reluctant to share information about its current and future lunar missions. ISRO declined to answer questions about the Chandrayaan-2 mission currently orbiting the moon and the upcoming Chandryaan-3 lander, filed using India's version of the Freedom of Information Act, by claiming the requested information "would prejudicially affect the scientific, technical and strategic interest" of the country. Space enthusiasts in the country are frustrated, and see the failure to answer even basic questions about the mission as a continuing failure by ISRO to effectively communicate its progress. (10/7)

NASA's Deep Space Atomic Clock Supported Space Navigation (Source: NASA)
Time has run out for a NASA atomic clock experiment in space. JPL said it shut down the Deep Space Atomic Clock last month after running for more than double its planned one-year lifetime. The atomic clock, a payload on the Orbital Test Bed spacecraft launched on the STP-2 mission in June 2019, demonstrated the accuracy in timing needed to use it for deep space navigation. (10/7)

UK's Prestwick Spaceport Advances Agreement with Houston Spaceport (Source: Prestwick Spaceport)
Following Prestwick Spaceport’s recent launch partnership announcement with UK horizontal ‘air launch’ company Astraius, Central Ayrshire MP Dr. Philippa Whitford has met with Professor David Alexander OBE, from the board of directors of Houston Spaceport Development Corporation, to discuss plans for the future and to strengthen ties between the two facilities.

Prestwick and Houston Spaceport signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 2016, to allow both organizations to share relevant policies, processes, and other information related to commercial spaceport licensing and operations.

The discussions between Whitford and Alexander arrive at an exciting time for Prestwick Spaceport, which has recently secured a partnership with launch provider Astraius in a deal that will boost momentum for the Scottish and UK space industries. It also follows a recent initiative organized by Professor Alexander, who is director of the Space Institute at Rice University in Texas, which connected schools from Scotland, Ecuador and Texas, with the International Space Station (ISS), where they were able to ask questions directly to astronauts in space. (10/7)

Building On-Ramps to Space Is This Founder’s Multimillion-Dollar Mission to Send Alaska’s Economy to the Stars (Source: BootStrappers)
Ben left SpaceX in 2014 having done amazing things, such as working on the conversion of a rundown Titan launch site into a modern spaceport for SpaceX. But as he enjoyed his first good night’s sleep in over two years, little did he know his biggest test yet was just around the corner. Just six weeks into his rest, a friend called with a proposition that would later almost break him.

“A friend called and said, ‘Hey, want to help us build ocean barges to land first stage rockets?’ I said yes because it sounded like an awesome project and would be just eight weeks’ work. However, eight months later we still hadn’t cracked it. We’d build the barges, drag them out on the ocean, and the rocket would blow them apart and we’d have to rebuild them.” Click here. (10/6)

Rate of Space Industry Deals May Slow Down in the Next Year (Source: Space News)
The torrid pace of investment and acquisitions involving space companies this year is unlikely to continue next year, but investors and bankers are still optimistic about the long-term growth prospects for the industry. Space startups this year have benefited from a broader wave of deals involving special-purpose acquisition corporations, or SPACs, so-called blank check ventures that merge with privately held companies, allowing those companies to go public outside of the traditional initial public offering process.

About a dozen space companies have announced SPAC mergers in the last year, raising several hundred million dollars each. Skepticism about SPACs in general, though, may slow the rate of such deals in the future. “Since the beginning of the year, there’s now a lot more friction to go down the SPAC path than to raise privately,” said Shireen Sharma at Goldman Sachs. (10/6)

Is Netflix’s Inspiration4 Docuseries a New Era in Space Age Media Relations? (Source: Space News)
Inspiration4 had its own approach to media. There were a few media briefings between the time the mission was announced in February and the launch in September, although some reporters complained they couldn’t get access to the phone line for the final briefing the day before launch. However, the project invested more in special arrangements with specific outlets. Shortly after the announcement of Inspiration4, Time revealed it had secured the “competitive documentary rights” to the mission, giving it “exclusive access to the groundbreaking mission.”

While Time featured Inspiration4 in a cover story in August, the culmination of that effort was Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space, a documentary series available on Netflix. The five-part series follows the mission from Jared Isaacman’s announcement of the mission and select of the three people who fly with him through training. The final episode, released last week, covers the mission itself, from final preparations for launch through splashdown.

The payoff comes in the final episode, released last week (the first four were released in early September.) This episode starts in the final days before launch, when the crew arrives at the Kennedy Space Center for their final preparations and launch rehearsals—and goodbyes to loved ones—and then launch itself. Then we get to see the four in orbit, with much more footage than was available in realtime during the three-day mission. It concludes with the splashdown and the crew reuniting with their families. (9/6)

Simulations Suggest an Earth or Mars Size Planet May be Lurking Out Beyond Neptune (Source: Brighter Side)
A team of space scientists has published a paper in Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics suggesting that there may be an Earth- or Mars-sized planet orbiting beyond Neptune. They further suggest that simulations of the creation of the solar system show that such a planet may have been pushed from the outer regions of the solar system by the gas giants.

As scientists continue to study the solar system, they are still trying to understand not only how the planets came to exist but why they occupy their current orbits. In this new effort, the authors note that simulations of the evolution of the solar system are not yet able to explain the current configuration due to missing information. And they suspect that the missing information involves a planet that once circled the sun in the outer solar system (where the gas giants, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune reside) but now exists out beyond the edges of the solar system or even in deep space.

The authors note that there is something odd about the current configuration of the planets, which has four inner rocky planets, an asteroid belt and then four gas giants in the outer solar system. Past the giants are dwarf planets and other objects such as comets. The researchers believe something is missing. They contend that it is unlikely that the natural evolution of our solar system would have four gas giants and then nothing but dwarfs. Logic suggests there should be some planets of other sizes, and their simulations back them up. (10/5)

Learning From Facebook, Blue Origin, and Tesla’s Mistakes (Source: Quartz)
Employees are taking action. Along with Frances Haugen’s allegations against Facebook, 20 anonymous Blue Origin employees detailed a toxic culture, and a judge ruled against Tesla in a $137 million racism lawsuit. By demoralizing and threatening the wellbeing of their workers, these companies are cultivating a climate where employees are more empowered to defect and speak out. Leadership demands collaboration, a shared vision, and mutual respect—all of which are lessons we can take away from the week’s news. (10/6)