June 28, 2022

The Spanish Air Force is Now a Space Force Too (Source: Aviacionline)
Spain moves beyond: President Sanchez’s office decided to rename its Air Force as the Air and Space Force, to adapt the institution to the new challenges. Following in the wake of other armed forces that formally assumed the extension of their area of responsibility towards the space field, either by creating new dedicated branches of the military (as in the US or UK) or, as in the French case, by expanding the field of action of its Air Force, the Spanish Air Force also spreads its wings to soar beyond the atmosphere. (6/27)

Boeing-Backed Rocket Maker Partners with Blue Origin to Battle SpaceX (Source: Seattle Times)
By 2014, United Launch Alliance wasn’t the rocket industry stalwart it had been since its founding almost a decade earlier when it had a monopoly on lucrative Pentagon contracts to lift national security satellites into orbit. Instead, the company was under intense pressure — Elon Musk and SpaceX were on the prowl, disrupting the industry and threatening to take a large chunk of ULA’s government business. Congress was moving to ban the Russian-made engine the company used in its workhorse rocket. ULA’s parent companies, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, were growing desperate, and there were fears that they might want to cut their losses and move on.

So when Tory Bruno accepted the offer to lead the faltering company, which had recently ousted its CEO, he knew what he was getting into. “It was clear they were in serious trouble,” Bruno said. “This is a company that wasn’t supposed to survive.” Eight years later, after enduring what Bruno called a quest “to completely transform the company” — laying off hundreds of workers, including 40% of executives, streamlining processes, shedding surplus real estate — the company, once in a downward spiral, is experiencing a transformation.

Although SpaceX took a large chunk of its business, Denver-based ULA maintained enough to keep going, winning another round of launch contracts to hoist satellites for the Pentagon and intelligence agencies. It persuaded Congress to allow it to import enough of the Russian-made engines to keep launching. After years of delays, it says it’s close to flying a next-generation rocket with a new, American-made engine built by Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin. (6/26)

Shuttered Space Station Mockup Finds New Use with Axiom Space (Source: CollectSpace)
A Houston company building a commercial orbital outpost has found the perfect place to move: a sprawling facility that comes pre-equipped with a full-scale mockup of the International Space Station (ISS). Axiom Space, which has a contract with NASA to test components of its planned Axiom Station at the ISS, has leased the former location of Fry's Electronics in Webster, Texas to house its engineering operations. The former big-box retail store, which closed when the national chain went out of business in 2021, is unique for its football-field-long representation of the ISS.

The space station installation also has a replica of the Canadarm2 robotic arm, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, two models of NASA's never-realized X-38 emergency crew return vehicle and astronauts (mannequins) in replica spacesuits. Additional oversized modules previously served as product demonstration rooms and an in-store cafe, while most of the station sat among and above aisles of computers and other devices.

The buildout was and still continues to be one-of-a-kind on Earth. Neither NASA nor any of international partners have a complete ISS. (Nearby Johnson Space Center has training versions of each of the modules, but omits the truss and solar array wings.) Construction is now underway to convert the 146,000-square-foot (13,600-square-meter) building to meet Axiom's needs, including adding a collaboration workspace, offices and lab space. The building's high ceilings will support Axiom's plans for full-scale mockups and engineering units of its own space station. (6/28)

NASA X-57 First Flight on Track for September (Source:  Flying)
The development team working on NASA’s X-57 Maxwell are closing in on the all-electric experimental airplane’s first flight test, which the agency said could take place as soon as September 20, if all goes as planned. This initial flight will make the aircraft—named for the 19th century Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell—NASA’s first piloted X-plane in two decades.

The X-57 is basically a Tecnam P2006T twin with four seats, which has been modified to accommodate an integrated electric propulsion system powered by lithium-ion batteries. The first iteration of the airplane will be outfitted with two electric motors and propellers aimed at testing the X-57’s electric cruise propulsion system. This will be the version that is set to fly this fall. (6/27)

Starlink Ops Delayed in Phlippines (Source: Business World)
The start of Starlink operations in the Philippines is being delayed. The Philippine government originally expected that SpaceX would start offering Starlink service in the country before the end of President Rodrigo Duterte's term at the end of June. Government officials, though, said the start of Starlink service will be delayed as SpaceX has yet to set up gateways in the country required for the service. The government did not provide a new estimate for when Starlink services will begin. (6/28)

Analog Astronauts Emerge From 8-Month Mission (Source: The National)
A team of analog astronauts is about to emerge from an eight-month "mission" into a changed world. Six people from Russia, the United States and the United Arab Emirates started an analog Mars mission last November, confining themselves to a simulated spacecraft in Moscow. During the mission, scheduled to end Sunday, the six people have had no internet access and only limited contract with family and friends. "If we want to know something, the only way is to ask the people in the mission control center," said Saleh Al Ameri, one of the six people on the Sirius 20/21 mission. "To overcome these things, we try to keep ourselves busy." (6/28)

Chancery Nixes Aerojet CEO's Bid For Neutral Counsel (Source: Law360)
Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc.'s board chairman will preside over an upcoming meeting where shareholders will vote for directors, the Delaware Chancery Court ruled Monday, rejecting a bid from the chair's rival, the company's CEO, for neutral counsel to conduct the meeting. (6/28)

It’s Time for NASA to Cancel the Lunar Gateway (Source: The Hill)
A recently leaked NASA document shows there is bad news and some good news for the Artemis return to the moon program, according to a recent article in Ars Technica. The bad news is, largely because of costs associated with building the Lunar Gateway, the pace of Artemis missions to the moon slows to an unsustainable crawl, with years between flights and the establishment of a lunar base pushed off to the 2030s. The good news is that many of these problems might be solved by canceling the Lunar Gateway.

The Lunar Gateway, once known as the Deep Space Gateway when it was first envisioned in the Obama administration and then the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, is planned for an elliptical lunar orbit and would, as the name implies, serve as a gateway to the lunar surface. Astronauts on board the Orion would dock at the Lunar Gateway and transfer to a Human Landing System (HLS) to travel the rest of the way to the lunar surface.

Some at NASA argue that the Lunar Gateway, which would serve as a human-tended space station in orbit around the moon, is needed to test technologies that would sustain astronauts on the long voyage to Mars. Considering that the International Space Station exists, and several commercial space stations are being planned, this argument seems dubious at best. If a space station in lunar orbit is required to go to Mars, then it would make sense to step back and rethink it while taking it out of the critical path to return to the moon. A SpaceX Starship could be outfitted as a Lunar Gateway, for example. (6/26)

Rocket Lab Launches CAPSTONE to the Moon (Source: Space News)
A Rocket Lab Electron launched a NASA lunar cubesat mission this morning. The Electron lifted off from the company's New Zealand launch site at 5:55 a.m. Eastern and placed into orbit the CAPSTONE cubesat and its Photon kick stage. The Photon will fire its HyperCurie engine several times over the next six days to place CAPSTONE on a trajectory to the moon. CAPSTONE, short for Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, will enter the near-rectilinear halo orbit NASA plans to use for Artemis missions in November, testing its stability and as well as autonomous positioning technologies. (6/28)

ESA Picks Airbus to Build FORUM Earth Science Satellite (Source: ESA)
ESA awarded a contract to Airbus to build an Earth science satellite. Airbus will build in the U.K. the Far-infrared Outgoing Radiation Understanding and Monitoring (FORUM) satellite under a contract awarded Tuesday valued at $169 million. Forum will study the Earth's emissions of far-infrared radiation to support climate change studies. FORUM is slated for launch in 2027. (6/28)

Cygnus Cargo Craft Departs ISS (Source: Space News)
A Cygnus cargo spacecraft departed the International Space Station this morning after a test to reboost the station's orbit. The NG-17 Cygnus spacecraft was unberthed by the station's robotic arm and released at 7:07 a.m. Eastern. The spacecraft will reenter after a deorbit burn on Wednesday. On Saturday, the spacecraft fired its main thruster for five minutes, raising the station's orbit slightly. Previously, only Progress spacecraft and thrusters in the Russian segment of the station adjusted the station's orbit. (6/28)

China Launches Imaging Satellite (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
China launched a radar imaging satellite Monday. A Long March 4C rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 11:46 a.m. Eastern and placed the Gaogen-12 03 spacecraft into a sun-synchronous orbit. The spacecraft is the third in a series of radar imaging satellites. (6/28)

Spotting Objects From Space Is Easy. This Challenge Is Harder (Source: WIRED)
A battle royale called the SMART program has charged teams with a daunting first task: Identify construction sites on Earth using only data from orbiters. It’s the work an intelligence community R&D agency called the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA). SMART stands for Space-based Machine Automated Recognition Technique, and its goal is to “harmonize” data from many kinds of Earth-watching satellites and then task software with searching through it for signs of change, natural or human-made.

Everyone—from spy agencies to climate scientists to insurance companies to wildland firefighters—wants to use those visuals to understand what’s happening on Earth. But there’s more satellite data than human analysts can keep track of. Automating at least part of the analysis takes advantage of the terabytes (and terabytes) out there and eliminates the tedium so people can focus on interpretation. The program’s initial focus is on identifying and monitoring heavy construction because rather than simply identifying single objects from above, spotting a construction site requires identifying many objects and terrain changes over time and deducing a pattern from them. (6/28)

The C-Band Replacements are Coming (Source: Space News)
SpaceX is slated to launch the first satellite in SES’s C-band clearing plan this week, which will help the operator reap billions of dollars from vacating frequencies for U.S. 5G networks. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is being prepared to launch the SES-22 television broadcast satellite on Wednesday at 5:04 p.m. Eastern from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

SES-22 will be the first to launch of six geostationary satellites that SES ordered — including a ground spare — to migrate broadcast customers into a narrower swath of C-band. United Launch Alliance is slated to launch two SES C-band replacement satellites in the third quarter of 2022, and SpaceX is due to deploy another two later in the year.

SES said Friday it is on track to receive billions of dollars in total spectrum-clearing proceeds by meeting the Federal Communication Commission’s December 2023 deadline. SES and Intelsat, which hold the largest share of C-band in the United States, successfully unlocked more than $2 billion in combined proceeds from meeting an initial FCC milestone last year. However, SES and Intelsat remain locked in a long-running legal dispute over their share of the proceeds. (6/27)

SpaceX's Lack of Transparency As a Tool for Recolonization (Source: Trucha)
Last month, in the middle of a bid to take over Twitter, Elon Musk tweeted to the masses that nothing will deter him “from fighting for a good future and your right to free speech.” That Musk views himself as a crusader for First Amendment rights is difficult to understand given the ways his companies have used provisions in the Texas Public Information Act to block the release of public records in South Texas.

That Musk views himself as a crusader for First Amendment rights is difficult to understand given the ways his companies have used provisions in the Texas Public Information Act to block the release of public records in South Texas. I wanted to know what discussions public servants enchanted by SpaceX have facilitated with Musk and his companies behind closed doors. But the more records I requested, the clearer it became that both governments and Musk’s businesses were willing to stall the release of information that should be available to the public for reasons of ethics and transparency

Does an entire community benefit when a local government uses taxpayer dollars to fund a space port for a private company, then refuses to let the public in on the entire story? Open records requests show that public entities have not only withheld important public information, but that they’ve also continued to do so with knowledge that Musk’s companies haven’t necessarily followed the rules. Click here. (6/24) https://truchargv.com/the-fine-print-part-two/

House Appropriators Partially Restore Funding for Planetary Defense Mission (Source: Space News)
House appropriators partially restored funding for a planetary defense mission as part of a spending bill while also raising concerns about NASA’s closure of an airborne observatory and plans to return samples from Mars. The House Appropriations Committee released June 27 the report accompanying its commerce, justice and science (CJS) spending bill for fiscal year 2023, due to be marked up by the full committee June 28. The CJS appropriations subcommittee approved the bill without debate June 22.

The report spells out in greater detail how appropriators seek to allocate the $25.446 billion they provide to NASA, $1.4 billion more than what the agency received in 2022 but $527 million less than what NASA requested for fiscal year 2023 in March. Appropriators partially rejected a proposal by NASA to cut funding for the Near Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor mission, a space telescope to search for potentially hazardous asteroids. NASA requested only $40 million for NEO Surveyor, pushing its 2026 launch back by at least two years. The project previously expected needing $170 million in 2023. (6/27)

NASA Rents the Runway for its New Spacesuits (Source: Space Review)
NASA needs new spacesuits for both the space station and Artemis lunar missions, but has struggled to develop new suits on its own. Jeff Foust reports on how NASA is taking a services approach instead, working with two companies to lease new suits from them. Click here. (6/27)
 
Escaping Gravity and the Struggle to Reshape NASA (Source: Space Review)
Former NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver has written a book about her time at the agency. Rand Simberg reviews the book with a focus on Garver’s efforts to put NASA on a new course that leveraged commercial capabilities. Click here. (6/27)
 
Why the Space Industry Needs a Space College (Source: Space Review)
The growth of the space industry is creating new demands on the education system to train workers. Dylan Taylor and Keith Cowing discuss a concept for a “space college” that is both physical and virtual to more effectively train the next generation of the space workforce. Click here. (6/27)
 
Every Single Contribution Counts (Source: Space Review)
Improving diversity, equality, and inclusion is becoming a growing priority for the aerospace industry. Timo Pesonen describes one initiative the European Commission is taking to address this issue. Click here. (6/27)

Cyber Threats Beyond Earth: Securing In-Space Manufacturing (Source: Forbes)
Our global society is heavily dependent on space-based technologies. Most of us are aware that space positioning, weather and communications systems are critical to our transportation activities. Many people would be surprised to learn that modern factories also depend on satellites.

In the aerospace domain many of the products being produced are classified or fall into the broader category of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) and are actively sought by foreign adversaries. Securing industrial robots, waterjet cutters and 3D printers from state-sponsored cyber-intruders is a challenging task for factory IT departments. Securing the programming and parts files for these systems during their transmission is an equally important task that often gets overlooked.

NASA recognizes space manufacturing as an important technology that can benefit the agency’s own missions. It is also a critical business sector, along with space tourism, in the near-term development of a space economy. I recently lead the review of business models for the Johnson Space Center’s In-space Production Applications (InSPA) program. Under InSPA, NASA awarded eight manufacturing teams the opportunity to fly their manufacturing project to space. NASA and the ISS National Laboratory will provide these manufacturing startups with the rack space and astronaut time required for their test runs. (6/27)