March 12, 2022

Space Force Announces Winners of University Consortium Research Opportunity, Including Florida's UCF (Source: USSF)
The U.S. Space Force announced the winners of its recently established University Consortium Research Opportunity that aims to provide undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral fellows with authentic research opportunities to stimulate interest within the Space Force and improve retention in STEM-related fields. Among the winners is the University of Central Florida, with a focus on “Industrial-Aero Optimization for Agile Rocket Cargo Delivery.” Click here. (3/11)

Congress Keeps NOAA's Office of Space Commerce in NESDIS (Source: Space Policy Online)
The final FY2022 appropriations bill keeps NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce under the part of NOAA that manages weather satellite programs instead of elevating it to a higher level. Charged in 2018 with taking over responsibility from DOD for interfacing with civil and commercial space operators on Space Situational Awareness, the appropriations bill does at least increase its funding, but supporters argue it needs more visibility and authority to work effectively.

The FY2022 omnibus appropriations bill, H.R. 2471, passed the Senate late this evening, a day after the House. It funds all departments and agencies including the Department of Commerce, of which NOAA is a part. The bill provides $16 million for NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce (OSC), $6 million more than the request, and keeps it under the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS), which operates the nation’s civil weather satellite systems. (3/10)

Former Astronaut Tim Kopra Joins OneWeb Technologies as New President (Source: OneWeb)
OneWeb Technologies has named former astronaut Tim Kopra as President. In his new role, Tim will be responsible for leading the company's growth as it continues to expand its partnerships and solve secure, mission-critical real-time connectivity challenges for the U.S. government, its allies, and global enterprise customers. (3/10)

Comtech: Supply-Chain Issues, Ukraine War Will Hit FY 2022 Revenue (Source: Space Intel Report)
Satellite Earth station hardware provider Comtech Telecommunications Corp. said sales of satcom equipment would drop this year following occasionally severe supply-chain issues, prospective customers’ hesitation in the face of LEO constellations and effects of the war in Ukraine. Comtech said it expects a $70 million hit to its expected revenue in the fiscal year ending July 30, half of it from effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and half from supply blockages and customer indecision for commercial satcom equipment. (3/11)

Central Florida Woman Plans to Fly Passengers to Space With Balloon (Source: Click Orlando)
A local woman has her sights set on the sky and she wants to take you with her. Jane Poynter is the Founder and Co-CEO of Space Perspective. The company’s goal is to strap a space capsule to a massive balloon and take you 20 miles into the sky for an out-of-this-world experience. “We use an enormous balloon that is the size of a football stadium literally. You can pick up a football stadium and spin it around inside once that balloon is at full altitude,” says Poynter.

Once you are up, up and away, Poynter says you will be able to see the whole state of Florida, The Bahamas and beyond. And you will be doing it in style. She says once you travel two hours up into the air, you will be able to walk around the capsule, champagne in hand, while using FaceTime or other services to share the experience with your friends and family back on the ground. Or better yet, share the experience with them in person. She says people are already buying group packages. (3/11)

SpaceX’s First 33-Engine Super Heavy Booster Reaches Full Height (Source: Teslarati)
Approximately 11 weeks after the process began, SpaceX has finished stacking its newest Super Heavy booster prototype – the first of its kind intended to host 33 new Raptor V2 engines.

Designed to launch Starship’s massive, namesake upper stage part of the way to orbit, Super Heavy is in many ways simpler than Starship but just as complex and unprecedented in others. Ignoring SpaceX’s unusual plans to have boosters land on huge mechanical arms installed on a skyscraper-sized tower, Super Heavy is ‘merely’ a large vertical-launch, vertical-landing liquid rocket booster – the likes of which SpaceX already has extensive experience with through Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. What mainly sets Super Heavy apart is its sheer scale.

Measuring around 69 meters (~225 ft) from tip to tail, Super Heavy – just one of two Starship stages – is almost as tall as an entire two-stage Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy rocket. At nine meters (~30 ft) wide, a single Super Heavy booster – effectively a giant steel tube – should be able to store at least six or seven times as much propellant as Falcon 9 and about two to three times as much as Falcon Heavy. Engine count and peak thrust are similarly staggering. (3/10)

Australia Needs to Aim High With Space Strategic Update (Source: ASPI Strategist)
Last week at the 13th Australian Space Forum in Adelaide, the minister for science and technology, Melissa Price, announced the creation of a unified strategy for Australia’s space sector. It’s an important step forward for Australia in space. ‘The space strategic update,’ Price explained, ‘will provide a vision through to the 2040s that will align efforts across the nation as we transition Australia into a leading space player.’

The Australian Space Agency will lead the development of the update—also known as the SSU—which is expected to take 18 months. The overall aim should be to enhance coordination of investment and activity across states and territories, across government and across Australia’s scientific, civil and defence activities in space.

This last aspect is most important; for too long Australia’s approach to space has kept the defence and civil aspects in separate silos. The Australian Space Agency has had a Department of Defence liaison since its inception in July 2018, but the agency’s 2019 civil space strategy was overwhelmingly focused on the growth of the commercial space sector and the use of space for civil purposes, even though many of the strategy’s national priority areas were in fact dual role in nature. (3/11)

NASA’s Embarrassing Pronouns Fumble (Source: Slate)
The gesture from the leadership at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland was simple: As of a few weeks ago, employees could add their pronouns to their official identification for meetings. On calls and chats, the information would appear alongside their names and internal ID number. The addition of a formal field for pronouns was a show of support to gender minorities and their allies.

But it didn’t last. On Monday of this week, representatives from NASA Headquarters called a meeting to abruptly end the new features in their system, which they said had been rolled out as part of a pilot program. Officials told Goddard employees who attended the meeting that they hadn’t determined if including pronouns was appropriate in a professional context and needed to consider broader impacts of displaying the pronouns, an explanation that left many feeling frustrated.

A leader of the LGBTQ+ employee resource group at Goddard who was privy to the decision-making process said in an email to other employees that NASA officials compared displaying pronouns to expressing public support for sports teams.* (I spoke with four employees at Goddard who had knowledge of the meeting or the reaction to it. They did not wish to be identified due to fears of retaliation or discomfort with making themselves the public face of protest against the agency.) (3/10)

SLS Prepares for Rollout and WDR – as Three Additional SLS Rockets Wait in the Wings (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
Years and billions of dollars in the making, the first Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is set to roll out to Pad 39B for Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) next week. While this rocket is set to launch the Artemis-1 mission, three additional SLS rockets are in various stages of preparation at the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF), setting the stage for the return of humans to the surface of the Moon. (3/10)