February 25, 2022

Chancery Nixes $20M Outlay For Aerojet Board Election Feud (Source: Law360)
Delaware's Chancery Court will not decide how Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc. should use company resources while its board is deadlocked, said the vice chancellor overseeing a consolidated lawsuit, rejecting a proposal to set aside $20 million for the competing factions to fund a proxy contest. (2/25)

Biden Seeks To Boost Domestic Production In New Plan (Source: Law360)
The White House announced plans Thursday to expand small manufacturers' access to capital and bolster domestic manufacturing of critical goods, after the U.S. Department of Defense reported that broader domestic production capacity is needed to address supply chain disruptions. (2/25)

Russians Sanctions with Degrade Space Program (Source: Space News)
The US is imposing new sanctions on Russia that will "degrade" its space program but will not affect cooperation on the ISS. President Biden announced the sanctions Thursday, including strict export controls on key technologies. Those measures and similar ones by allies "will degrade their aerospace industry, including their space program," Biden said. NASA said the new export control measures will still allow civil space cooperation between NASA and Roscosmos to proceed, with no change to ISS operations. The head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, sharply criticized the new sanctions but said early Friday that he welcomed NASA's statement even as Russia continues to review and plan a response to those sanctions. (2/25)

Russian Invasion of Ukraine Puts US-Space Collaboration in Question (Source: Fox Weather)
In response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden announced new sanctions Thursday targeting the Russian economy and attempting to cut off access to emerging technology, which could impact the Russian space program, Roscosmos. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson also addressed the ISS on Thursday when asked about the international collaboration. "I have been broadly in favor of continuing artistic and scientific collaborations, but in the current circumstances, it is hard to see how even those can continue as normal," Johnson said. (2/24)

Space Command: Russian Satellite Interference Would be Difficult to Confirm (Source: Space News)
The head of U.S. Space Command says that if Russia attempted to interfere with U.S. satellites, it could be difficult to confirm that. Speaking at a conference this week, Gen. James Dickinson did not comment on reports that Russia might take aim at U.S. or allied satellites in the wake of the Ukraine invasion. However, he warned that the U.S. military and intelligence community need better tools to identify the source of nefarious activity in orbit. If a U.S. satellite were attacked, U.S. Space Command would be responsible for recommending ways to respond. (2/25)

Inouye Solar Telescope Begins Observations (Source: NSO)
A new solar observatory has started science observations. The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope on the Hawaiian island of Maui started formal science observations of the sun on Wednesday. The telescope, with a primary mirror four meters across, is designed to provide high-resolution observations of solar activity. The telescope was funded by the National Science Foundation and is operated by the National Solar Observatory. (2/25)

Orbital Sidekick Notes Growing Demand for Hyperspectral Data (Source: Space News)
Orbital Sidekick is seeing strong interest in hyperspectral imagery. Capacity is the biggest constraint for Orbital Sidekick, which launched its first hyperspectral imaging satellite, Aurora, last June. The company expects to launch its six-satellite Global Hyperspectral Observation Satellite constellation, known as GHOSt, later this year. In-Q-Tel, the U.S. intelligence community's nonprofit investment arm, recently made a strategic investment in Orbital Sidekick, which in return has agreed to share data with In-Q-Tel government partners. (2/25)

SpaceLink Adds Smaller Satellites to Data-Relay Constellation (Source: Space News)
SpaceLink will establish an initial constellation of satellites smaller than previously proposed to speed up development. Those satellites will be about half the size of the 1,000-kilogram spacecraft originally proposed, with SpaceLink expecting to select a manufacturer in April. SpaceLink plans to spend $240 million to establish its initial constellation, compared with $750 million under its previous plan, and have those satellites in service by early 2024 instead of mid-2024. Under the terms of its FCC license, SpaceLink, must begin providing satellite communications service with satellites in medium Earth orbit by June 2024, and was at risk of missing that deadline under its original contract with OHB for the larger satellites. (2/25)

Inhofe Could Retire (Source: Politico)
The top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee is expected to step down later this year. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) is likely to announce Monday his plans to retire at the end of the current Congress. He was reelected in 2020 but has missed votes and said recently his wife has been ill. His retirement would set up a special election in Oklahoma to complete the rest of his term. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the current top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, is in line to succeed Inhofe on the Armed Services Committee. (2/25)

Xplore Says it’s Brought in $16.2M So Far for IoT System (Source: GeekWire)
Xplore has generated $16.2 million in revenue and investment for its "space as a service" satellites. The company said that funding, generated over five years, comes from a mix of venture investment and customer contracts. The company is developing spacecraft to host a variety of payloads, with its first mission scheduled for launch late this year carrying hyperspectral and high-resolution video payloads. (2/25)

Stratolaunch Flies Again (Source: Space.com)
Stratolaunch flew its giant Roc aircraft for the fourth time Thursday. The aircraft took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California at 3:23 p.m. Eastern and flew for 1 hour and 46 minutes before landing back at the airport. A major milestone for the test was a successful retraction and extension of the landing gear on the plane. The flight was the second in as many months for the plane as Stratolaunch works though its test program. Stratolaunch originally developed Roc to serve as a platform for launching spacecraft, but later shifted to using the plane to host hypersonic test vehicles. (2/25)

NASA Rules Out April for Artemis I Launch, Could Target May (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
NASA mission managers on Thursday ruled out April for the Artemis I launch during a progress report ahead of the rollout of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft to Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-B for a wet dress rehearsal. While it’s targeting March 16 at 6 p.m. for the 322-foot-tall rocket to make the 4.2-mile journey to the pad, the agency will need a month or more for testing and a rollback to the Vehicle Assembly Building before NASA signs off on a launch attempt for the uncrewed mission to the moon.

“April is not a possibility. We’re still evaluating the tail end of May,” said Tom Whitmeyer. The next possible windows for launch are from May 7-21, June 6-16 and June 29-July 12. (2/24)

FAA and COMSTAC to Coordinate Interagency Group on Spaceport Policy (Source: SPACErePORT)
During last week's Commercial Space Transportation Conference in Washington DC, panelists discussed a new interagency effort aimed at developing a coordinated national policy to address the proliferation and expanding needs of US spaceports. The FAA and its COMSTAC advisory group will coordinate the effort, which will also include NASA, the Space Force, and other stakeholders. This effort has grown out of a yearslong Air Force and Space Force examination of alternatives for transitioning its launch bases to operate under a national spaceport authority model.

"We've been stating since June of 2016 that there needs to be a better governance model for a spaceport," said Space Florida's Dale Ketcham in 2020. "Neither NASA nor the Space Force are chartered or equipped to manage a bunch of commercial enterprises like we are seeing." This broader interagency effort will move the discussion beyond military launch bases and ranges, to include the policy interests of commercial and municipal spaceports, for both horizontal and vertical launches and landings. The use cases for these spaceports will likely also be addressed, including point-to-point flights, suborbital space tourism, and others. (2/25)

Impacts of Orbital Congestion Go Beyond Debris Concerns and Astronomy Interference, Launches are Threatened Too (Source: SPACErePORT)
The proliferation of LEO and MEO satellite constellations has caused interference for astronomical observations, and concerns about orbital collisions and debris proliferation. But there is also concern about interference with launch operations, including blocking limited launch windows for planetary and deep space missions. (2/25)

NASA Says Engine Controller Failure Not a Roadblock to First SLS Test Flight (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
NASA says a faulty memory chip was the cause of a problem that forced technicians to swap out an engine control computer on the first Space Launch System rocket late last year, but the issue is not a constraint for an upcoming SLS fueling test or launch later this spring. The engine controller failed to reliably power up during testing in November, and managers ordered ground teams to swap out the computer inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in December.

Engineers took the problematic computer to an offsite location for testing. The investigation determined a faulty memory chip in the computer prevented it from starting up as designed. The SLS engine controllers, made by Honeywell, is about the size of a dorm room refrigerator. The computers relay commands between the SLS flight computer and the core stage’s four Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-25 engines, regulating thrust and fuel mixture ratio while monitoring the engine’s health and status. (2/22)

The Dark Side of Online Space Disinformation (Source: Science)
Theoretical cosmologist Katie Mack spends a lot of time on Twitter. Mack joined the platform to talk about science under the moniker “Astro Katie” more than 10 years ago. Since then, her fun and informative posts about space have earned her nearly half a million followers. Unfortunately, she says, there are many other astronomy-themed Twitter accounts sharing misleading or downright wrong information. From doctored images to sinister conspiracy theories, Mack has seen it all.

"I really encourage people never to share that stuff. Never share a video that has no attribution, because you don’t know where it comes from. If you can’t find out where it came from, you should not share it. That would cut down on like 80% of the bad physics and astronomy stuff out there. If there’s something amazingly surprising, always be suspicious. Look at the Twitter feeds of astronomers you follow. If they’re not talking about it, it’s probably not real." (2/24)

James Webb Might be Able to Detect Other Civilizations by their Air Pollution (Source: Universe Today)
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), launched last December, has been slowly powering up its instruments and unfurling its sunshield, and is now in the process of aligning its mirrors in preparation for operation. Within a few months, the most powerful space telescope ever built is going to set its sights on the stars. Astronomers are hoping that what JWST sees will change the way we understand our universe, just as the Hubble Space Telescope did decades before. One tantalizing capability that JWST offers that Hubble could not is the opportunity to directly image planets orbiting distant stars, and maybe, just maybe, detect signs of life.

The possibility of remotely detecting biosignatures has been a hot topic in recent years. In our own solar system, the recent discovery of phosphine in Venus’ atmosphere sparked speculation that the chemical might be created by a microbial lifeform. Similarly, remote sensing experts have proposed that plant life – which uses photosynthesis for energy – could be detected in infrared wavelengths, as chlorophyll absorbs visible light, but shows up brightly in infrared, and would give planets covered in foliage a distinct ‘red edge‘. A single-pixel photo of a distant planet just might contain enough information to tell us if biological life is there, based on the information stored in the wavelengths of light that reach the telescope lens. (2/21)

AE Industrial Partners to Acquire Stake in Firefly From Noosphere (Source: Space News)
AE Industrial Partners is buying the part of Firefly Aerospace currently owned by Noosphere Venture Partners, which previously announced it was being forced by the federal government to sell its stake in the launch vehicle developer. The companies announced Feb. 24 that AE Industrial Partners (AEI) was taking a “significant stake” in Firefly by purchasing it from Noosphere. The companies did not disclose the value of the deal or other terms.

Noosphere, a fund run by Ukrainian-born investor Max Polyakov, announced Dec. 29 it had retained an investment bank to sell its stake in Firefly at the request of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews foreign investment in American companies. The sale to AEI appears to contradict a Facebook post by Polyakov Feb. 16 where he claimed he was selling his stake in Firefly to co-founder Tom Markusic for one dollar. (2/24)

Xplore Secures $16.2M in Venture Funding and Customer Contracts (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Xplore Inc. announced it has received $16.2 million in funding to date. The company has aligned itself with exceptional strategic and veteran space sector investors, including: Alumni Ventures, Brightstone Venture Capital, KittyHawk Ventures, Private Shares Fund, Starbridge Venture Capital, Helios Capital, Lombard Street and Gaingels. Notable investors also include Tremendous View, Kingfisher Capital and Dylan Taylor – commercial astronaut and CEO of Voyager Space. (2/24)

Boardroom Battle at Aerojet Rocketdyne Clouds the Pentagon Supplier’s Future (Source: Wall Street Journal)
A boardroom battle at Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc. is playing out in lawsuits and clouding the future of the U.S. rocket engine maker, after the collapse of its planned $4.4 billion sale to Lockheed Martin Corp. Aerojet is a supplier to defense companies and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and is in the middle of an internal legal fight, pitting a board faction led by Aerojet Chief Executive Officer Eileen Drake against one headed by Warren Lichtenstein, the company’s executive chairman. (2/24)

Virgin Galactic Soars 12% After Company Reports Smaller-Than-Expected Loss and Stays on Track for Commercial Space Flights in the 4th-Quarter (Source: Business Insider)
Virgin Galactic shares spiked as much as 12% Wednesday after the space-tourism company said it will be set for commercial flight later this year and reported a smaller-than-expected earnings loss. Virgin Galactic, founded by Sir Richard Branson, said in its fourth-quarter earnings report late Tuesday that it's "on track and on schedule to" finish enhancing its spaceships by the third quarter and launch commercial service by the fourth. (2/24)

Virgin Galactic Has ‘Less Than a Year of Cash Runway,’ Space Capital Managing Partner Says (Source: Yahoo Finance)
Well it's interesting to see the pop. You know, and it seems to be the major driver behind that is that they saved a few million on cash. Because there weren't really a lot of major announcements in the earnings call yesterday. They have ramped up their spending. They've been burning through $50 million a quarter. They're now up to 80. I guess that's less than what analysts were expecting.

But they have $900 million in the bank. $80 million per quarter that they're burning through. So they have less than a year of cash runway. So they really have to get their commercial service launched this year. So the fact that they're saying that they're on schedule for that is important. And I guess that's driving some optimism here. Reading between the lines, their Delta vehicle. So their vehicle that's going to come online in 2026 is really going to be the driver of cash flow, making them cash flow positive. And it's taken them 20 years to get here, which is, is notable. But also, it's driven by the scale of manufacturing. (2/23)

Virgin Galactic Has Lost $1 Billion During the Last Two Years (Source: Ars Technica)
Space tourism company Virgin Galactic on Tuesday afternoon released its financial results for both the fourth quarter of 2021 and the full year. As usual, for a company that has yet to begin commercial service of its spaceplane, the results were grim. During the final quarter of 2021, Virgin Galactic reported revenue of $141,000 and a net loss of $80 million. The cumulative results were even more sobering. According to the publicly traded company's consolidated statements, Virgin Galactic has now lost $1 billion during the last two years. Company officials sought to put a positive spin on these financial results. (2/23)

Fast Radio Burst’s Unlikely Source May Be a Cluster of Old Stars (Source: Science News)
In a galaxy not so far away, astronomers have located a surprising source of a mysterious, rapid radio signal. The signal, a repeating fast radio burst, or FRB, was observed over several months in 2021, allowing astronomers to pinpoint its location to a globular cluster — a tight, spherical cluster of stars — in M81, a massive spiral galaxy 12 million light-years away. The findings are challenging astronomers’ assumptions of what objects create FRBs.

The new findings come as a surprise because globular clusters harbor only old stars — some of the oldest in the universe. Magnetars, on the other hand, are young leftover dense cores typically created from the death of short-lived massive stars. The magnetized cores are thought to lose the energy needed to produce FRBs after about 10,000 years. Globular clusters, whose stars average many billions of years old, are much too elderly to have had a sufficiently recent young stellar death to create this type of magnetar. (2/23)

Laser Propulsion Will Slash Journey Time To Mars (Source: Discover)
 The radiation associated with a journey to Mars could have fatal consequences for a crew. So finding a quicker way to Mars is essential for humanity’s ambitions to visit and colonize the Red Planet. Researchers at McGill University have come up with a way to propel a one-ton spacecraft to Mars in just 45 days, accelerated by a giant laser on Earth. And they say the same technology could slash the transit time for other missions, for example, to Venus, the ice giants and even to the Sun’s gravitational focus beyond the Kuiper belt.

Laser propulsion has long been studied as a way to accelerate spacecraft. Its big advantage is that the spacecraft are powered from Earth, rather than having to carry their own propulsion systems and fuel. One current plan is to use the photon pressure from a laser to accelerate a gramme-sized spacecraft with a light sail to a significant fraction of the speed of light, perhaps enabling it to reach a nearby star in a few decades.

But this approach would not work for bigger spacecraft because the size of the laser limits the change in momentum that is possible. Instead, a better approach is to use the laser power to accelerate an onboard mass in one direction, so that the spacecraft is thrust in the other direction. One way to do this is by converting the laser light into electric power and using that to accelerate ions. But the process that McGill researchers propose is to use the laser light to heat a propellant, such as hydrogen, and allow it to expand through a nozzle to generate thrust. They say a laser array with an output of around 100 MW would do the trick. (2/24)

Angry Roscosmos Head Rogozin Muses About Dumping ISS on U.S., Europe…Maybe India or China (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Roscosmos General Director Dmitry Rogozin went on rant on Twitter, raging against what he called “Alzheimer’s sanctions” imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, and threatening to drop the International Space Station on a uncontrolled re-entry over four countries. (2/24)

NASA Responds to Rogozin’s Threat to Drop Space Station on People’s Heads (Source: Parabolic Arc)
NASA has issued a statement in response to Dmitry Rogozin’s Twitter rant in which the head of Russia’s space program threatened to drop the International Space Station on the U.S., Europe, China or India.

"NASA continues working with all our international partners, including the State Space Corporation Roscosmos, for the ongoing safe operations of the International Space Station. The new export control measures will continue to allow U.S.-Russia civil space cooperation. No changes are planned to the agency’s support for ongoing in orbit and ground station operations." (2/24)

Sierra Space Announces Major Expansion (Source: Sierra Space)
Sierra Space, with 1,100 employees, more than 500 missions and over 30 years of space flight heritage, today outlined plans for an extensive recruitment drive that will see the company significantly increase its headcount by nearly doubling its labor force and creating 1,000 net new jobs this year. The majority of the positions will be in Colorado. Sierra Space will also be increasing its workforce across the company’s other locations, including in Madison, Wis., Brevard County, Fla. and Durham, N.C., as work accelerates towards launch of the Dream Chaser spaceplane. 

At present, more than 700 new positions, including more than 400 in engineering, are listed on the company’s Careers webpage, with additional new job opportunities expected to be posted between now and mid-2022. The new members of the Sierra Space team will support the company’s efforts to build the next generation of space transportation systems and in-space destinations for low-Earth orbit (LEO) commercialization. (2/24)

Globalstar Selects MDA and Rocket Lab for New Satellites (Source: Space News)
Globalstar has selected MDA and Rocket Lab to supply a set of satellites to replenish its constellation, funded by a mystery customer. Globalstar awarded a contract valued at $327 million to MDA to build 17 satellites intended to extend the life of the company’s existing satellite constellation, which provides messaging and internet-of-things services. The contract includes an option for up to nine additional satellites at $11.4 million each. MDA, in turn, awarded a $143 million contract to Rocket Lab to provide the satellite buses. That contract includes options for additional satellites as well as satellite dispensers and launch integration. (2/24)

Volcanic Eruptions, Floods, and Daily Ice, Crop Monitoring Highlight Need for RADARSAT Imaging Program (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
SAR allows the various RADARSAT platforms to capture detailed and routine images of every point on Earth’s surface, regardless of weather and environment conditions, daily and with exact ground track repetition every 24 days for RADARSAT-2 and every four days for RADARSAT Constellation. The first RADARSAT mission launched in 1995. RADARSAT-1 was a collaborative effort between the US and Canada, with a sole focus to deliver remote sensing Earth observations through its then-powerful synthetic aperture radar instrument. It was capable of obtaining images night or day through clouds, smoke, and haze. 

Specifically related to the extreme drought, fires, and then severe flooding that impacted British Columbia in Canada, Mr. Kroupnik noted that RADARSAT Constellation and RADARSAT-2 were integral in helping teams create maps of the impacted area for search, rescue, recovery, and relief operations. In this particular case, RADARSAT data provided 24 information products and 24 maps published on short notice and with low latency by the Emergency Geomatics Services.

While repetitive ground passes over the same area with the same lighting conditions occur every four days for direct comparison of imagery (otherwise known as coherent change detection), the constellation is also capable of seeing the same locations at least daily — which enables more real-time application of the data even if it is not an exact lighting or angle match. Arctic coverage provides the opportunity for real-time ice monitoring in support of maritime traffic, monitoring of fisheries, and other elements of the maritime environment. (2/24)

Virgin Galactic Hid Space Rocket Design Flaws, Investor Says (Source: Law360)
A Virgin Galactic shareholder slapped billionaire Richard Branson, Virgin's board of directors and directors of a SPAC with a derivative suit and fraud claims, alleging that the parties covered up design flaws in rocket ships to drive up the company's stock. Shareholder Thomas Spiteri claims Virgin Galactic and Cosial Capital Hedosophia executives were aware of safety problems related to two prototype vehicles that had severely flawed designs but continued to make misleading statements to inflate the company's stock price. (2/23)

GAO Backs NASA's $1.8B Deal, Despite Ex-Official Consultant (Source: Law360)
The U.S. Government Accountability Office backed NASA's decision to award Leidos Inc. with a $1.8 billion IT contract, saying in a decision unsealed Wednesday that Leidos hadn't rigged the bidding by hiring a former top contracting official as a consultant. The GAO acknowledged that the NASA official indisputably had access to confidential information about the IT deal and served as the procurement's source selection authority until a month before his retirement. (2/23)

Macron: Europe Needs to Defend its Sovereignty in Space (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Europe needs a bolder space policy, French President Emmanuel Macron declared Wednesday, warning that Europe’s sovereignty is at stake if it falls behind rival powers in a key field for technology, science and military competitiveness. Macron said recent events had shown how crucial it is to be able to monitor troop movements from orbit — a reference to satellite images showing Russia’s mass military deployment near Ukraine that raise fears of an imminent invasion.

“There is no full power or autonomy without managing space,” Macron said. “Without (it) you can’t conquer new frontiers or even control your own.” Europe has a strong record when it comes to launching satellites for telecommunications, global positioning services and scientific research. But it has lagged behind rivals such as the United States, Russia and China on human spaceflight, having no ability to launch crewed missions of its own. (2/22)