March 25, 2022

Florida Legislative Session Results (Source: SPACErePORT)
The Florida Legislature wrapped up its annual session last week having appropriated full funding for Space Florida, including its operations ($12.5 million), project financing/investments ($6 million), and the annual Florida/Israel aerospace project matching grant fund ($1 million). Also appropriated were millions for academic space projects at Embry-Riddle ($28 million, Florida Tech ($2 million), and Eastern Florida State College ($1.2 million). All of these appropriations are subject to the Governor's approval or veto.

The Legislature (specifically the Senate's Military and Veterans Affairs, Space, and Domestic Security Committee) failed to pass a locally driven bill to establish a Northeast Florida Regional Spaceport Authority to serve space industry aspirations in Clay, Duval, and Nassau Counties (Duval is home to Jacksonville's Cecil Spaceport).

This year's state budget was its largest ever, at $112 billion (thanks to a large one-time federal COVID grant). Not included among the space-related appropriations are millions of infrastructure dollars programmed annually by the Florida Department of Transportation (with Space Florida's support) for space transportation infrastructure. Also, other economic development grant programs regularly used for aerospace industry recruitment incentives were fully funded, as was Enterprise Florida, the state's primary economic development agency. (3/25)

States Send Their Transportation Chiefs to Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: SPACErePORT)
Space Florida and the Space Force's 45th Launch Delta hosted a visit from multiple state-level transportation secretaries and USDOT officials last week. The visit occurred adjacent to ongoing planning for a National Spaceport Strategy (incorporating a possible national spaceport authority model for federal spaceports) led by an interagency working group, and it included a reveal for a planned  Florida-based National Federation of Spaceports. The Space Force is an active supporter of these efforts. (3/25)

Space Foundation Did Not Strip Russian Cosmonaut of Honors (Source: AP)
The Space Foundation changed the name of an annual fundraiser that was previously known as “Yuri’s Night,” but it didn’t strip Gagarin of any honors, as had been alleged due to Gagarin's Russian heritage. The nonprofit, which advocates for the global space industry, continues to celebrate Gagarin’s accomplishments at events and with a display at its Discovery Center, a spokesman said. The Space Foundation’s decision to rename an annual fundraiser amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is being distorted by social media users who falsely claim the organization stripped Gagarian of official honors. (3/21)

Saalex Corp. Announces Executive Leadership Changes (Source: Saalex)
Military and NASA contractor Saalex Corp. announced multiple executive leadership changes, Travis Mack will become the Chairman & CEO, Randy Wheeler will be promoted to Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Robert Bezduch will be promoted to President of Saalex. Saalex now has close to 700 employees in offices around the world. (3/16)

NASA Gives Blue Origin Another Shot at Artemis Lunar Missions (Source: Bloomberg)
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson declined to disclose how much the agency may spend on the new effort. He said details would be included in President Joe Biden’s budget proposal next week. Additional competition could open the door for an award to Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin LLC. The space company backed by the billionaire founder of Amazon.com Inc. disputed NASA’s decision to award its initial lander deal to SpaceX in April 2021. SpaceX was also asked to propose a lander for continued missions beyond Artemis III under its existing NASA contract, the agency said.

Blue Origin said it is ready to compete for the project. The company is “thrilled that NASA is creating competition by procuring a second human lunar landing system. By doing so, NASA will establish the critical redundancy and robustness needed for establishing permanent U.S. lunar presence,” a spokeperson said in an emailed statement. (3/23)

Chef Jose Andres Plans Paella Dinner for Axiom Space Voyage in April (Source: Space Daily)
Meals are set to get a little more exciting at the International Space Station next month as celebrity chef Jose Andres and his company ThinkFoodGroup will send two dinners to space, as a multinational crew joins astronauts already in orbit. Andres is giving two dishes -- the popular rice dish Chicken and Mushroom Paella and the pork and tomato offering Secreto de Cerdo with Pisto -- to the company Axiom, which will launch a crew to ISS aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon in early April. (3/23)

Lettuce Could Protect Astronauts' Bones on Mars Trip (Source: Space Daily)
Astronauts might one day grow and eat genetically modified plants to ward off disease associated with long spaceflights. Researchers at the University of California have developed a transgenic, or genetically modified, lettuce producing a drug to protect against bone density loss in microgravity. Our bones are constantly balanced between growth and resorption, allowing bones to respond to injury or changes in exercise. Spending time in microgravity disrupts this balance, tipping bones towards resorption, so astronauts lose bone mass.

This can be treated with a drug called parathyroid hormone, or PTH, but it requires regular injections. The researchers developed a transgenic lettuce that expresses a fusion protein combining PTH with part of a human antibody protein. The fusion protein is designed to be stable in the bloodstream and to allow astronauts to potentially purify the drug from plant extracts, Nandi said. The team is evaluating the plants for how much of the drug they can produce, which leaves contain the most product and the best time to harvest the leaves. (3/23)

UN Wants Worldwide Weather Warning Systems Within 5 Years (Source: Space Daily)
The United Nations said Wednesday it wanted the whole world covered by weather disaster early warning systems within five years to protect people from the worsening impacts of climate change. A third of the world's people, mainly in the least-developed countries and developing small island states, are without early warning coverage, the UN said, with 60 percent of people in Africa wide open to weather catastrophes. The plan will cost $1.5 billion -- but the UN insisted it would be money well spent compared to the devastation wrought by meteorological disasters. (3/23)

International Sea Level Satellite Takes Over From Predecessor (Source: Space Daily)
On March 22, the newest U.S.-European sea level satellite, named Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, became the official reference satellite for global sea level measurements. This means that sea surface height data collected by other satellites will be compared to the information produced by Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich to ensure their accuracy.

Launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in November 2020, the satellite is continuing a nearly 30-year legacy started by the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite, which began its mission to measure sea surface height in the early 1990s. A series of successor satellites have carried on the effort since then, with Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich being the most recent. Its twin, Sentinel-6B, is slated to launch in 2025. (3/23)

NASA's Roman Mission Will Test Competing Cosmic Acceleration Theories (Source: Space Daily)
A team of scientists has predicted the science return from one of NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope's groundbreaking planned surveys, which will analyze millions of galaxies strewn across space and time. The mission's enormous, deep panoramas will provide the best opportunity yet to discern between the leading theories about what's speeding up the universe's expansion.

Roman will explore this mystery using multiple methods, including spectroscopy - the study of the color information in light. This technique will allow scientists to precisely measure how fast the universe expanded in different cosmic eras and trace how the universe has evolved. (3/23)

Arianespace and SpaceX Work to Adjust Launch Manifests (Source: Space News)
Arianespace and SpaceX are adjusting their launch manifests in response to the withdrawal of the Soyuz rocket from the global launch market. At Satellite 2022 this week, Arianespace said it was working with customers who had previously planned to launch satellites on Soyuz. That included the possibility of shifting some European institutional payloads, like Galileo navigation satellites, to Ariane 6 launches next year. SpaceX, meanwhile, said it has several ways of accommodating customers looking for launches in the near term, such as using launches originally planned for Starlink satellites. (3/25)

Northrop Grumman Lines Up Customers for Satellite-Servicing Satellites (Source: Space News)
Northrop Grumman says it has customers lined up for its next generation of satellite servicing vehicles. The company is testing its Mission Robotic Vehicle (MRV) that will install Mission Extension Pods on satellites to provide propulsion to extend their lives. Australian satellite operator Optus is the first announced customer of that system, but the president of SpaceLogistics, the Northrop subsidiary that offers the satellite servicing system, said there is strong demand for it from other customers as well. The first MRV, carrying three pods, is set to launch in 2024. (3/25)

Production Proliferation Promises Satellite Innovations (Source: Space News)
Satellite makers are hopeful that higher production rates will facilitate more innovation in the market. Rising demand for software-defined satellites is helping manufacturers standardize common architectures to bring down costs and accelerate production times. Such satellites accounted for more than half of orders for high-throughput GEO satellites from 2019 to 2021, including more than 80% of such satellites ordered in 2021. (3/25)

Boeing's Millennium Readies 3D Printed Satellite for Launch (Source: Space News)
Millennium Space Systems plans to launch a satellite with a 3D-printed metal structure. The company, owned by Boeing, says it's tested the satellite, the size of a small dorm-room refrigerator, in simulators and believes the spacecraft is now ready for launch. The structure will launch as a rideshare payload in the near future as soon as the company can secure a ride. It will not serve as a functioning spacecraft but only to qualify the structure. If the space test is successful, Millennium plans to start offering satellite buses with the 3D-printed structure. (3/25)

Workforce Development a "Huge Challenge" for Space Companies (Source: Space News)
Space companies say that hiring remains their biggest challenge. Executives said at Satellite 2022 this week that recruiting employees is a "huge challenge" that takes up much of their time. Panelists discussed potential solutions like recruiting people from adjacent industries and attracting a more diverse workforce. If those steps weren't taken, they warned space companies would continue to compete for the same pool of workers. (3/25)

University of Toronto to Develop GHGSat Satellites (Source: SpaceQ)
The University of Toronto's Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) has won a contract to build three more GHGSat satellites. SFL said it will build the GHGSat-C6, C7 and C8 smallsats for launch in 2023, each carrying payloads to measure greenhouse gases. SFL built several previous satellites for GHGSat, including the C3, C4 and C5 satellites scheduled for launch in June on a SpaceX rideshare mission. (3/25)

Rocket Lab Readies for BlackSky Launch (Source: Rocket Lab)
Rocket Lab says it will launch two BlackSky satellites next week. Rocket Lab said Thursday that the launch of the "Without Mission A Beat" mission is scheduled for April 1 from New Zealand. The launch is part of a multi-launch contract arranged by Spaceflight last year. Rocket Lab said that since the launch slipped from March because of weather, it will realize revenue from the launch in the second quarter rather than the first, reducing its revenue projection for the first quarter from $42-47 million to about $40 million. (3/25)

Astronauts Assigned to 2023 Commercial Crew Mission to USS (Source: NASA)
NASA and ESA have assigned astronauts to a future commercial crew mission. NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli and ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen will be the commander and pilot, respectively, of the Crew-7 Crew Dragon mission, scheduled for launch no earlier than late 2023. It will be the first mission for Moghbeli, who joined the NASA astronaut corps in 2017, and the second for Mogensen, who flew a brief 10-day mission to the International Space Station in 2015. He will be the first European astronaut to pilot a commercial crew mission. (3/25)

New Crew Dragon Spacecraft Named "Freedom" (Source: Space.com)
The Crew Dragon flying to the ISS next month has a name: Freedom. Kjell Lindgren, the NASA astronaut who will command the Crew-4 mission launching no earlier than April 19, announced the spacecraft's name this week. This will be the first flight of Freedom, which joins Endeavour, Resilience and Endurance in SpaceX's fleet of Crew Dragon spacecraft. (3/25)

Georgia Legislator Opposes Bill to Shut Down Georgia Spaceport Authority (Source: The Current)
Legislation to shut down a Georgia spaceport authority has run into opposition. State Rep. Steven Sainz introduced a bill earlier this week to shut down the Camden County Spaceport Authority after county voters blocked the county government from purchasing land for the spaceport in a special referendum early this month. However, State Sen. Sheila McNeill, who represents the county, said she opposes the bill since it "sends the wrong message about economic development" in the area. Her opposition would make it difficult for the bill to pass the state legislature before it adjourns in early April. (3/25)

Kennedy Space Center Offers Virtual Sessions About Space Exploration for Grades 3-6 (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is offering new virtual sessions as part of its KSC Club Discovery program next month. They are designed to help children — specifically those in third grade through sixth grade — understand space exploration and interplanetary travel. The three-hour programs are conducted live and guided by a visitor complex educator. (3/21)

Busy Month Lies Ahead for Both Launch Pads at Kennedy Space Center (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
Kennedy Space Center will be juggling rockets and spacecraft in the next month that will herald a couple of new eras in space travel. Both of KSC’s launch pads will be in action, one to send up two SpaceX Crew Dragon capsules while the other is performing a dress rehearsal for the Artemis I moon launch planned for later this year.

Days could shift, but at this point, NASA plans to simulate a countdown including the fueling and de-fueling of the Space Launch System rocket topped with the Orion capsule at Launch Pad 39-B from April 1-3. Also targeting no earlier than April 3 is the launch of Axiom Space’s AX-1 flight, the first all-civilian crew to fly on a mission to the International Space Station. (3/25)