June 30, 2022

Student Teams Compete at Spaceport America Cup (Source: Albuquerque Journal)
New Mexico’s Spaceport America Cup, the world’s largest intercollegiate rocketry engineering contest, was held last week at the commercial spaceport facility. Teams were vying for Spaceport America Cup trophies, which will be awarded for 10,000- and 30,000-foot rocket categories, as well as the categories of COTS – “commercial off the shelf” engines – and custom hybrid engines. Another award category is the SRAD, or “student research and development” engines. The Spaceport America Cup will also name an overall winner for the competition.

“Judging is performed throughout the year on design and presentation, and then on accuracy and performance of the launch,” said Alice Carruth, the public relations coordinator for Spaceport America. Carruth also said that the award-winners will be announced “in the coming days” because of some technical difficulties that delayed the collection of team performance data. (6/28)

House Appropriators Advance Commercial Space Tracking with Funding Bump (Source: Breaking Defense)
The House Appropriations Committee is supporting the Biden administration’s $87 million fiscal year 2023 budget request for the Commerce Department’s Office of Space Commerce (OSC) — a first step towards enabling the long-embattled office to take over from the Pentagon space tracking and collision warning for non-military operators.

Appropriators signed off on the request, a major increase from the $16 million appropriated in FY22, in their June 28 markup of the HAC Commerce, Justice and Science subcommittee bill that funds the Department of Commerce and its subordinate National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), as well as a number of other federal agencies. (6/29)

205 Applicants Pass Preliminary Tests in JAXA Astronaut Recruitment (Source: NHK)
Japan's space agency has announced that 205 applicants have passed preliminary examinations in its latest astronaut recruitment. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, is looking for several new astronauts to take part in an international lunar exploration project. The agency's first recruitment in 13 years drew the largest-ever number of applicants, at 4,127.

Two-thousand-226 applicants passed paper screening to take online exams on English, science and essay writing. JAXA said on Tuesday that 188 men and 17 women passed the preliminary exams. They include 61 people below the age of 30, 107 in their 30s, 31 in their 40s, and six in their 50s. JAXA plans to hold three more rounds of tests to check ability and suitability for spacecraft operation. Successful candidates will be chosen around February next year. (6/28)

Chinese Female Astronaut Inspires Graduates at Peking University (Source: Xinhua)
Exploring space means an enterprising spirit and an optimistic pursuit of the unknown, Chinese astronaut Wang Yaping said at a ceremony on Tuesday. Wang, having been in space twice and also the first female on China's space station, delivered an address at Peking University's graduation ceremony and shared her space mission experience with the youth.

"I congratulate you on your precious time on campus and the coming new journey in your life," she said via video, which was her first public appearance since returning to Earth in April from the Shenzhou-13 crewed mission. Launched on Oct. 16, 2021, the Shenzhou-13 spaceship sent Wang, along with her two teammates, Zhai Zhigang and Ye Guangfu, to China's space station core module Tianhe, where they lived and worked for six months. (6/28)

She Used to Work at McDonald's to Help Support Her Family. Now, She's the First Mexican-Born American Ever to Fly to Space (Source: CBS)
Katya Echazarreta recently made history as the first Mexican-born American woman and one of the youngest women ever to fly to space — a lifelong dream she was able to accomplish at only 26 year old. On June 4, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket carried its fifth group of passengers to the edge of space and Katya got an opportunity to apply to one of the six seats through a nonprofit called Space for Humanity.

The organization's goal is to send "exceptional leaders" to space and allow them to experience the "overview effect," a phenomenon astronauts have described after looking down at the Earth from the outside. "They recognize that, as humans, our commonalities far outweigh our differences," Space for Humanity says on its website. (6/28)

Sierra Space Explores Collaborations with Turkey (Source: Space News)
Sierra Space announced an agreement with the Turkish Space Agency and ESEN Sistem Entegrasyon, a Turkish company affiliated with Sierra Nevada Corp., spanning a broad range of potential partnerships. The partnerships could include the use of Sierra Space's Dream Chaser spacecraft and inflatable modules it's developing for the Orbital Reef space station. (6/29)

The Costs of NASA's Modern Moon Mission Are Really Adding Up (Source: CNET)
NASA's Artemis I moon mission is still a go, having slowly but surely waddled through its final testing phase. But as NASA is a government agency, pretty much all the money funding this lunar dream comes from taxpayer pockets -- a fact that inevitably calls into question whether moon missions are really worth the thrill, and even the scientific advancement, they give us. NASA's Artemis moon rocket, slated to touch space for the very first time in 2022, was supposed to launch in 2017.

It was supposed to encompass four missions, each with a price tag estimated a decade ago at $500 million -- but a 2021 audit now projects a cost of $4.1 billion per launch. That's a difference of about $3.6 billion for every cosmic ferry. At a rate of one number per second, it'd take you over a century to count to that figure. This might explain why the same audit and NASA's inspector general bluntly label the endeavor "unsustainable." According to the audit, those four launches at a projected $4.1 billion a pop would be on top of the about $40 billion already spent to build Artemis equipment -- items like the rocket itself, known as the Space Launch System, and the Orion spacecraft, which will hold important devices for science exploration.

The closest we get to an "all-in-all" within the audit is "when considering the $40 billion already spent on the Artemis mission from [fiscal years] 2012 to 2020, the total projected cost through FY 2025 becomes $93 billion." In other words, it's probably going to take at least around $93 billion to bring humanity back to the moon via Artemis. (6/28)

Space Force Poised to Get a New Plans and Programs Chief (Source: Air Force Magazine)
The Pentagon has nominated Maj. Gen. Philip A. Garrant for a promotion to three-star general and to take on the job of Space Force deputy chief of space operations for strategy, plans, programs, and requirements. If confirmed, Garrant would be just the seventh lieutenant general in the Space Force. The new service has been building up its small general officer corps in recent months, with five new brigadier generals confirmed in May.

As the deputy chief for strategy, plans, programs, and requirements, Garrant would also be responsible for the USSF’s budget, all in all an expansive portfolio that is slated to grow in the years ahead. Lt. Gen. William J. Liquori Jr. currently serves as deputy chief of space operations for strategy, plans, programs, requirements, and analysis. A Space Force spokesperson could not immediately tell Air Force Magazine whether Garrant’s slightly different title means the position is changing or splitting into multiple roles, or what Liquori’s next position might be. (6/28)

Owner of Space Coast Restaurant to Fly on Blue Origin's New Shepard Rocket (Source: Florida Today)
Stroll down the stairwell from the second-story Moon Room at Pineapples in Eau Gallie, and you'll encounter an MTV-themed mural of an astronaut holding a flag on the lunar surface amid a cosmic backdrop. Look closely: The astronaut's spacesuit bears the name "S. Young" — and he sports a distinctive goatee behind his helmet visor. Life imitates art for Pineapples owner Steve Young, who opened the three-story restaurant-bar-music venue in April 2021. The longtime Indialantic resident, who recently sold the telecommunications-installation giant Y-Com, has been selected for a seat on a future Blue Origin rocket-capsule trip into space. (6/29)

India Launches Three Satellites on PSLV (Source: Hindustan Times)
India launched three satellites for Singapore this morning on a PSLV. The PSLV launched at 8:32 a.m. Eastern from Sriharikota, India, on the C53 mission. The rocket deployed the DS-EO and NeuSAR small imaging satellites and the university-built Scoob-1 cubesat about 20 minutes after liftoff. The launch was the second dedicated commercial launch for NewSpace India Ltd., the commercial arm of the Indian space agency ISRO. (6/30)

SpaceX Launches SES Satellite From Cape Canaveral Spaceport, Recovers Booster (Source: Space News)
SpaceX successfully launched a C-band communications satellite for SES Wednesday. The Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 5:04 p.m. Eastern and deployed the SES-22 satellite into geostationary transfer orbit 33 minutes later. SES-22 is the first of six geostationary satellites that SES will launch to migrate broadcast customers into a narrower swath of C-band as part of an FCC effort to free up spectrum for 5G services. SES said it's on track to complete that C-band clearing by December 2023, making it eligible for nearly $4 billion under the FCC plan. (6/30)

Virgin Orbit Scrubs Planned Thursday Morning Launch (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
Virgin Orbit scrubbed a LauncherOne launch overnight. The company announced the scrub about a half-hour before the scheduled 1 a.m. Eastern takeoff of its Boeing 747 on the "Straight Up" mission. The company said the rocket's propellant temperature was slightly out of bounds, prompting the scrub. The company will try again "in the coming days." The rocket is carrying seven cubesats for the Defense Department's Space Test Program under a launch contract from the Space Force. (6/30)

Nelson Tests Positive for COVID (Source: Space News)
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson is isolating at home after testing positive for COVID-19. Nelson was originally scheduled to appear at a media event at the Space Telescope Science Institute Wednesday but called in instead, saying he tested positive the night before. An agency spokesperson said Nelson, who is vaccinated and boosted, is working from home. Nelson recently returned from a trip to Europe that included meetings with European space officials and a visit to the ILA Berlin air show last week. (6/30)

Space Force Open to Alternatives for Launch Procurements (Source: Space News)
The new Space Force acquisition chief says he would be open to new approaches to procuring launches. Frank Calvelli, the Space Force's senior acquisition executive, told reporters this week that the service has not decided on an acquisition approach for Phase 3 of the National Security Space Launch program. SpaceX and United Launch Alliance split up to 35 launches in Phase 2 awards in 2020, and the Space Force expects to award Phase 3 launch contracts in 2024. Calvelli said he would be open to a different model than the current two-vendor approach, such as selecting multiple companies who would then compete for task orders. (6/30)

Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO Winning Proxy Fight for Board Appointments (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Aerojet Rocketdyne's CEO appears to be winning a proxy fight against the company's chairman. Votes that arrived ahead of a shareholder meeting Thursday favor a slate of directors backed by CEO Eileen Drake over an alternative slate supported by executive chairman Warren Lichtenstein. The two have sparred over the company's operations, particularly after a planned acquisition by Lockheed Martin fell through in January when the Federal Trade Commission sued to block the deal on antitrust grounds. (6/30)

NanoAvionics Uses GoPro Camera for Boom Deployment Video (Source: NanoAvionics)
Smallsat manufacturer NanoAvionics has gone to new heights to take a selfie. The company released this week high-resolution images and 4K video taken by a GoPro camera attached to a boom extended from its NP42 microsatellite. The imagery showed the deployment of the boom from the satellite, with the Earth in the background. the company said such imagery could be used in the future to confirm satellite deployments and study micrometeoroid and orbital debris impacts. (6/30)