February 3, 2022

SpaceX Launches NRO Satellite From California, Lands Booster at Space Force Base (Source: Space News)
SpaceX launched a classified NRO payload Wednesday. A Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4 East at 3:28 p.m. Eastern on a mission designated NROL-87. The rocket's first stage, on its first flight, landed back at the launch site eight minutes later. The NRO said later that the launch was a success but did not disclose details about the payload. NROL-87 was the NRO's first mission launched by a Falcon 9 procured under the National Security Space Launch program run by the U.S. Space Force. The NRO purchased two earlier Falcon 9 launches using commercial contracts. (2/3)

Report Recommends Change to DoD Procurement of Commercial Satellite Imagery (Source: Space News)
A new report recommends the U.S. military improve how it acquires commercial satellite imagery. The report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies concludes that many military and intelligence needs can be met by commercial providers under services-based business models rather than the traditional approach of buying and operating satellites. The report suggests that the government could buy images or other data products on a pay-as-you-go basis or as a subscription to a company's data catalog. While the NRO has started efforts along those lines, such as study contracts for radar imagery, the report's authors call it a "baby step." (2/3)

Aerojet Grapples with Fallout From Potential Failed Acquisition (Source: Breaking Defense)
With its acquisition by Lockheed Martin now in question, Aerojet Rocketdyne is grappling with internal conflict. The company announced Tuesday it is investigating its executive chairman, Warren Lichtenstein, hours after his holding company filed documentation for a slate of directors to replace several members of Aerojet's existing board, including CEO Eileen Drake. The announcements come a week after the Federal Trade Commission announced it would seek to block Lockheed's proposed acquisition of Aerojet, with growing speculation that Lockheed will abandon the deal rather than fight it in court. (2/3)

Rocket Lab to Expand Colorado Footprint with New Space Systems Complex (Source: Rocket Lab)
Rocket Lab USA will open a new space systems complex in Littleton, Colorado to support growing customer demand for flight software, mission simulation, and Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) services. The new complex expands on Rocket Lab’s existing footprint in Colorado, which was established in October 2021 with the acquisition of Advanced Solutions, Inc. (ASI). ASI’s off-the-shelf spacecraft flight software, MAX, has been operating across 49 spacecraft for a cumulative 135 years in space supporting missions for leading aerospace prime contractors, the U.S. Air Force, U.S. DOD organizations, NASA, and commercial spacecraft developers. (2/2)

Blue Origin Expands to Phoenix and Denver (Source: GeekWire)
Blue Origin is opening offices in two new cities. An office in downtown Phoenix will focus on avionics, systems engineering and integrated supply chains, while one in south Denver will cover some of those same topics as well as program management, software and mission design. The company has 87 job openings in Phoenix and 50 in Denver, compared to nearly 1,000 at its Seattle-area headquarters. (2/3)

Axiom Mission Approved by ISS Partners (Source: NASA)
NASA and the other space station partners have formally approved Axiom Space's first mission. NASA said Wednesday the ISS partnership approved the four people scheduled to fly to the station on the Ax-1 mission, now scheduled to launch March 30. The Crew Dragon spacecraft Endeavour will dock with the station and spend 10 days in orbit before returning. The mission is commanded by former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría with three commercial customers:  Larry Connor, Mark Pathy and Eytan Stibbe. (2/3)

Astronomers Discover Second Trojan Asteroid (Source: Science News)
Astronomers have discovered the second Earth Trojan asteroid. The asteroid, designated 2020 XL5, is about one kilometer across and is at the Earth-sun L4 point, leading the Earth in its orbit around the sun. Asteroids at the L4 and L5 Lagrange points are known as Trojan asteroids, and 2020 XL5 is only the second Earth Trojan asteroid after one found in 2010. The asteroid is likely only there temporarily, with astronomers estimating it will remain at the L4 point for at least 4,000 years. (2/3)

Embry-Riddle to Open First Space Force Base Campus (Source: ERAU)
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, a pioneer in educating the workforce that powers the space industry, will soon open an on-ground campus location serving the Schriever Space Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It will be the first Space Force Base site for Embry-Riddle, which has a long history as a key partner in military education and locations at more than 90 military installations around the globe.

Embry-Riddle was selected after a rigorous evaluation process by the installation. Initially, the university will offer four renowned programs so that students can earn Bachelor of Science degrees in Engineering or Technical Management, or Master of Science degrees in Cybersecurity Management & Policy or Space Operations. (1/24)

NATO Responds to Russia Aggression, Seeks Talks on Reducing Space Threats (Source: El Pais)
Given the Russian complaints over the deployment of allied troops ever nearer its borders, Washington states in its written response to Moscow that the presence of US and NATO forces in the east of Europe is “limited, proportionate, and in full compliance with its commitments under the NATO-Russia Founding Act.” NATO also combines this outstretched hand with a warning. On the one hand, it offers Moscow a full reestablishment of its relations, reopening its respective embassies, which have been closed since last October, and assures that NATO “is not seeking confrontation.”

NATO’s concerns are not limited to conventional war. The Alliance proposes the promotion of “a free, open, and secure cyberspace, by consulting on ways to reduce threats in the cyber domain, by pursuing efforts to enhance stability by adhering to international legal obligations and voluntary norms of responsible state behavior in cyberspace; and all states desisting from malicious cyber activities.” This is not just a rhetorical demand: in the midst of the ramping up of tensions, Ukraine has been the victim of cyberattacks attributed to Russia.

NATO also proposes to Moscow holding talks on reducing threats to space systems and promoting responsible behavior in space. Specifically, it calls on Russia to refrain from conducting anti-satellite tests, “which create large amounts of debris.” All of these issues should be dealt with during a series of video-conferences, after the NATO-Russia Council met on January 12 for the first time in nearly two years. (2/2)

Kratos and Kymeta Join Forces to Develop Advanced Antenna Technologies with Software-Defined Ground Systems (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Kymeta and Kratos will jointly develop products and solutions that will enable modern, virtualized ground systems to better leverage the capabilities of next generation mobile satellite antennas. Among the broader goals of the partnership are to advance the ability of ground systems to support, leverage, manage, and control electronically-steered and multi-purpose antennas to better support the capabilities of software-defined and multi-beam satellites. (2/1)

ASTRA (Not That ASTRA) Re-Brands as Orion Space Solutions (Source: OSS)
Atmospheric & Space Technology Research Associates, LLC, or "ASTRA" announces completion of a major rebranding and is now doing business as Orion Space Solutions (OSS). "Our new identity – Orion Space Solutions, LLC – continues to emphasize our space domain expertise and history of imagining, implementing, and actualizing all aspects of our customers' space mission requirements," says Geoff Crowley, Orion Space Solutions CEO.

Established in 2005, Orion Space Solutions, LLC (OSS) has specialized in Science, Technology, and Applications, and is first and foremost a technology development and demonstration company. The Company's excellence in its core competencies has enabled it to achieve rapid revenue growth over the past five years. It is a key partner to government agencies, as well as large industry participants and universities. (2/1)

El Paso County, City of Colorado Springs Spending on Federal Lobbyists to Keep Space Command (Source: The Gazette)
El Paso County is boosting spending this year on federal lobbying focused on keeping U.S. Space Command from moving to Huntsville, Ala. in 2026. The county spent about $33,000 on a partial year of federal lobbying to retain the command last year and voted Tuesday to spend $50,400 this year as part of an annual contract with Potomac Partners totaling $150,000, county documents show. The firm is a Washington D.C.-based company that represents other local governments.

El Paso County commission Chairman Stan VanderWerf said he felt the community's efforts to retain the command — including work by the city of Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs Chamber and Economic Development Corporation and the state's federal delegation — is competitive with Huntsville's efforts to attract the command. Federal records show both communities are spending on federal lobbyists.  The future of the command's long-term home is uncertain and under investigation by the Pentagon's Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office. (2/2)

Bill Could Give Maine an Advantage in New Space Race (Source: Press Herald)
Maine soon could get a boost in a new and increasingly competitive space race. One year after a Brunswick company became the first to launch a commercial rocket here, advocates are urging lawmakers to create a new entity that would help Maine firms capitalize on technology to make it easier and more affordable to send small satellites into orbit.

A bipartisan bill sponsored by Sen. Mattie Daughtry, D-Brunswick, would create the Maine Space Port Corp. The public/private partnership would be charged with building launch sites, data networks and the support operations for sending small satellites into space, and for developing new products based on the data collected. Sen. Scott Cyrway, R-Albion, is one of seven co-sponsors.

Proponents said the bill could help bring in new revenue to the state, provide future employment opportunities in the technology sector and allow Maine to compete against other communities in the United States and Canada. Maine is ideally situated for launching small satellites into polar orbit, supporters said, because it has former military bases that could become launch sites. Maine also is rural, making it easier to avoid launching over populated areas. Furthermore, it takes less fuel to reach orbit from Maine, and there are larger launch windows here during the summer. (2/1)

The NRO and the Space Shuttle (Source: Space Review)
One of the few remaining gaps in the history of the shuttle program was how it was affected and used by the National Reconnaissance Office. Dwayne Day finds new insights into that relationship from recently declassified documents. Click here. (2/1)
 
Building a Commercial Space Sustainability Ecosystem (Source: Space Review)
Despite growing concerns about the threat posed by space debris, there’s been little action by governments recently to tackle the issue. Jeff Foust reports on how more companies are getting involved in tracking debris, forecasting potential collisions, and preparing to deorbit satellites and debris. Click here. (2/1)
 
Reconsidering the Efficacy of an “Incidents in [Outer] Space Agreement” for Outer Space Security (Source: Space Review)
Some have proposed an agreement analogous to the Incidents on the High Seas Agreement to improve space security. Michael Listner reexamines an earlier proposal he made along those lines and finds new flaws in the concept. Click here. (2/1)

NASA is shifting ISS to commercial use before dropping it in the Pacific Ocean (Source: C/Net)
The International Space Station's days as primarily a scientific effort are numbered. NASA is offering new details on how it will transition the ISS into a commercial operation over this decade, including the agency's plan to develop supply and demand for a "low-Earth orbit commercial economy." And then it plans to "deorbit" the ISS into the Pacific Ocean to end its life in January 2031.

"Eventually, after performing maneuvers to line up the final target ground track and debris footprint over the South Pacific Oceanic Uninhabited Area (SPOUA), the area around Point Nemo, ISS operators will perform the ISS re-entry burn, providing the final push to lower ISS as much as possible and ensure safe atmospheric entry," NASA said in the International Space Station Transition Report. Before the ISS hits the Pacific Ocean, the space agency is focused on signing commercial deals. It has already entered into one contract to attach commercial modules to a space station docking port and has signed agreements for the design of three other free-flying commercial space stations. (2/2)

ESA Determines New ‘Space Time’ (Source: ESA)
Since November 2021, ESA’s satellites and ground stations have been running on a newly defined, incredibly precise “ESOC time”. Measured by two atomic clocks in the basement of the ESOC mission control center in Germany, this new time determination will bring wide-reaching operational benefits for all ESA missions, making new feats possible in space while adding to our global definition of ‘now’. Click here. (1/31)) https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Operations/ESA_determines_new_space_time

NRO Plans 7 Spy Satellite Launches in 2022; One From Mystery Foreign Spaceport (Source: Breaking Defense)
The National Reconnaissance Office kicked off its launch manifest for 2022 Wednesday with SpaceX using a Falcon 9 to loft a classified payload from Vandenberg Space Force Base. NRO historically has launched from Vandenberg and Cape Canaveral  in Florida. In 2020, it for the first time launched a spy satellite from foreign soil, putting up NROL-151 into LEO on a Rocket Lab Electron booster from New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula.

But Col. Chad Davis, NRO’s director of the Office of Space Launch, told reporters Monday that the spy agency is planning to use a space launch facility on a “third continent” for one the seven launches it has planned for this year. Just where that new spaceport might be is a bit of a mystery. New Zealand technically isn’t part of the Australian continent, but is close enough — often designated as part of Oceania along with Australia and the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. That leaves five other continents to choose from: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Europe and South America. (2/1)

Imminent Merger of Giant Black Holes Predicted (Source: Science)
In the center of a galaxy 1.2 billion light-years from Earth, astronomers say they have seen signs that two giant black holes, with a combined mass of hundreds of millions of Suns, are gearing up for a cataclysmic merger as soon as 100 days from now. The event, if it happens, would be momentous for astronomy, offering a glimpse of a long-predicted, but never witnessed mechanism for black hole growth. It might also unleash an explosion of light across the electromagnetic spectrum, as well as a surge of gravitational waves and ghostly particles called neutrinos that could reveal intimate details of the collision. (2/1)

Developing 'Google Maps' for Space (Source: Quartz)
Keeping track of space junk like SpaceX’s Moon-bound Falcon 9 is becoming an increasingly complicated task. The amount of trash in space has shot up as we put more pieces of equipment in orbit, and so has the risk of collision. “A small object can have the effect of a hand grenade, just because of sheer velocity, and take out an entire satellite,” says Stijn Lemmens, a space debris expert at the European Space Agency.

Space debris not only threatens a growing array of key services on Earth—weather forecasting, GPS, the internet—but our overall access to space. Yet, our ability to monitor these stranded items is still imprecise at best. For example, we know that in January, there were at least 70 instances of objects in high orbit that came close to each other. How close? We can’t say exactly. For now, we can locate the neighborhood of a piece of junk, not its house number.

The other big problem is that space monitors don’t fully share their data, so we don’t have a complete picture. Even piecing together what information is out there is hard because there is no common code. “We haven’t built a Rosetta Stone that tells me ‘When these people say Object 1, 2, 3, that’s actually Object 4, 5, 6,’” says Moriba Jah, a professor at the University of Texas in Austin and a professional space junk tracker. Jah and others say more investment is urgently needed to create a global and more effective system to detect and identify objects. His goal: the equivalent of a Google Maps for space, which he is already working on as chief scientific advisor of Privateer, the space startup founded by Steve Wozniak. (2/3)

Agbakoba Advocates Effective Legislation for Nigerian Space Program (Source: Sun News)
Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and former president of the Nigerian Bar Association, Olisa Agbakoba, has emphasized the need for operative legislation for the implementation of the Nigerian Space Program. Agbakoba made the statement when he paid a courtesy call on the director-general of the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), Halilu Ahmad Shaba, at the agency‘s headquarters in Abuja.

The legal luminary, who was of the opinion that space-related activities in the 21st century were platforms for societal development, stated that the future of mankind was space, hence the need for laws that would not only strengthen the agency, but also give it the necessary legal backing to actualize its constitutional mandate as well to operate in line with trends in the global space industry. Agbakoba called for a rejigging of NASRDA’s space policy to include licensing of space objects as more people are beginning to show interest in space, with some emerging and strategic developments in the sector. (2/2)

Quantum Space Unveils Plans for Cislunar Platforms (Source: Space News)
A startup led by a former acting administrator of NASA has announced plans to develop platforms serviced by robotic vehicles in cislunar space to support a range of applications. Maryland-based Quantum Space announced Feb. 3 it’s starting work on a spacecraft platform that would initially operate at the Earth-moon L-1 Lagrange point and host various payloads. That platform would be serviced by another spacecraft that would deliver and install payloads.

“We’re trying to transform the way we deploy and operate spacecraft,” said Steve Jurczyk, co-founder, president and chief executive of Quantum Space, in an interview. “We’re really an in-space services company, and those services are enabled by a new platform called an outpost, which is a spacecraft designed to be serviceable.” (2/3)

Orbex Applies for Licence to Launch First Rockets From Scotland (Source: Orbex)
Orbex has submitted its application to the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) for a launch licence, the latest stage on its roadmap to beginning commercial space launches from the UK. Orbex has already successfully completed pre-application meetings with the CAA, the UK’s new space regulator. It has now progressed to the application stage, becoming one of the first UK launch operators to do so. The licence application process is another key milestone in the journey that will see Orbex begin rocket launches from Space Hub Sutherland in the North of Scotland. (2/3)