August 24, 2022

NS-23 to Fly 36 Payloads and Tens of Thousands of Club for the Future Postcards to Space (Source: Blue Origin)
On August 31, New Shepard’s 23rd mission, a dedicated payloads flight, will fly 36 payloads from academia, research institutions, and students across the globe. The launch window opens at 8:30 AM CDT from Launch Site One in West Texas. This mission brings the total number of commercial payloads flown on the vehicle to more than 150. Two of the payloads will fly on the exterior of the New Shepard booster for ambient exposure to the space environment. Eighteen of the payloads on this flight are funded by NASA, primarily by the Flight Opportunities program. 

Twenty-four payloads are from K-12 schools, universities [including the University of Florida], and STEM-focused organizations, including the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), American Society for Gravitational and Space Research (ASGSR), and SHAD Canada STEM Foundation, among others. This is double the number of education-focused payloads from previous payload flight manifests. In many cases, these payloads expose students as young as elementary school to STEM skills like coding, environmental testing, and CAD design often not taught until college.

Among the NS-23 payloads are tens of thousands of postcards from Blue Origin’s nonprofit, Club for the Future, whose Postcards to Space program gives people across the world access to space on New Shepard. The Club’s mission is to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM for the benefit of Earth. The postcards on this mission come from 19 Club for the Future grant recipients and their partners, including Guayaquil’s Space Society in Ecuador, the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, students who participated in STEM NOLA and Kenner Planetarium events in New Orleans, and schools across Kentucky. (8/24) 

Blue Origin Team Testing Lunar Dust Mitigation Approaches at KSC and JSC (Source: Blue Origin)
A Blue Origin-led team including NASA's Johnson Space Center, NASA's Kennedy Space Center, and Lockheed Martin Space recently conducted lunar dust reduction testing at Kennedy Space Center. A vehicle mockup in the regolith testbed demonstrated system level dust mitigation. This test evaluated combinations of tools, emulating tasks on the lunar surface. Lessons learned from this test series will inform the extravehicular activity concept of operations for future lunar missions, demonstrating key elements of spacecraft crew dust mitigation.

The system risk reduction testing compared dust mitigation techniques at various locations, aligning with materials and human factors testing. It focused on concept of operations paths from location to location in series to demonstrate the full lunar dust mitigation timeline. (8/23)

Space Force May Not Have Dress Uniforms, But it’s Got a Football Uniform (Source: Task and Purpose)
When it comes to U.S. military service branches, the Space Force is widely considered the runt of the litter. In terms of iconography, the branch hasn’t always helped itself with that problem, from a flag that looks a lot like the Star Trek Starfleet logo, to a swearing-in ceremony complete with Star Wars Stormtrooper reenactors, to its ongoing struggles with perfecting the seemingly terrestrial-bound technology of pants.

The newest branch in the armed forces may not have settled on all of its garb just yet, but it does have some fresh gear that’s ready to wear: football uniforms that the Air Force Academy team will wear for some games during the upcoming season. So, while there are still no service dress uniforms, the Space Force will still be looking pretty sleek in its gridiron gear.

The jerseys are black – which, much like the branch’s birthday cake, is a fitting representation of the cold, bleak vastness of space – along with silver, white and blue trim. They’ll make their debut on the field October 1, when the Air Force Academy team plays Navy. The service academy football teams often use their football jerseys as an opportunity to pay homage to various elements of their respective branch histories, like the Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornet-themed uniforms, the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division garb, or the Air Force’s Tuskegee Airmen jerseys. (8/22)

China’s Suborbital Space Tourism Ambitions Heat Up as Two Companies Seek to Challenge Blue Origin & Virgin Galactic (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Two Chinese companies — CAS Space and Space Transportation — are pursuing the suborbital tourism market, with the former closely copying Blue Origin’s fully reusable New Shepard vehicle and the latter developing a winged vehicle that could be adapted for hypersonic point-to-point travel between distant locations on Earth.

CAS Space, a.k.a., Guangzhou Zhongke Aerospace Exploration Technology Co., Ltd., is developing a single-stage reusable rocket that lands under its own power topped with a capsule that descends under three parachutes. CAS Space’s vehicle, designated ZK-6, will be powered by five Xuanyuan rocket engines whereas New Shepard has a single BE-3 engine. ZK-6 will have seven seats for passengers and four windows; New Shepard has room for six people who each have his own window to gaze out at the Earth and space. CAS Space plans to conduct the vehicle’s initial uncrewed flight test in 2023

Space Transportation, a.k.a., Beijing Lingkong Tianxing Technology, is progressing with its own program. The company said on its website that it conducted six test flights this year as part of its Tianxing program to develop suborbital and hypersonic vehicles. The launches were split evenly between Tianxing I and Tianxing II rockets. Space Transportation’s goal is to develop a suborbital spaceplane capable of carrying tourists on suborbital flights. The winged system is very different from Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle, which is currently in flight test. (8/23)

Study Highlights Need for Space Norms (Source: Breaking Defense)
In an ever-more militarized and tense space environment, risks to commercial firms of becoming collateral damage, or being deliberately targeted, in a conflict are ballooning — raising corporate stakes in national and international efforts to build norms for military space activities, a new Aerospace Corporation study finds. “There are a lot of potential situations in which commercial actors are gonna get entangled with security challenges in crisis or conflict,” said Robin Dickey. “There are numerous potential norms that could help to mitigate that challenge.” (8/23)

UK's Orbex Launches Search for 50 Space Jobs (Source: Daily Business)
Space flight company Orbex is hiring an additional 50 staff over the next six months to support the company’s bid to launch the first vertical rocket from UK soil. Many of the new roles will support ‘integrated testing’ of the complete rocket at the Orbex LP1 launch platform test facility at Kinloss. The facility allows for full ‘dress rehearsals’ of rocket launches at Kinloss, near the Orbex headquarters in Forres in Moray.

The new roles will strengthen existing teams responsible for key areas of development of the rocket, including propulsion, structures, avionics, CNC machining and embedded software. Orbex recently revealed the full rocket in its final form, making this the first full orbital micro-launcher to be unveiled in Europe. (8/23)

NASA's Last Stand (Source: Axios)
NASA's Artemis program to return people to the surface of the Moon for the first time since the 1970s is a test of whether the space agency's old way of exploration will stand up in the modern space age. If next week's scheduled launch of the new moon rocket — the Space Launch System — succeeds, it could prove that NASA is still on the cutting edge of the technology needed for human space exploration, even as companies like SpaceX nip at its heels.

But the rocket is billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule, and even a successful first launch won't change that. "NASA has never been challenged as the best way for the United States to do hard things in space until now," John Logsdon, the founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, tells Axios. (8/24)

Preparing for Huge Number of Space Coast Visitors for Artemis Launch (Source: Visit Space Coast)
The Space Coast is anticipating between 100,000-200,000 people are expected to descend on Brevard County for the #Artemis launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on August 29, 2022, with a 2 hour launch window opening at 08:33 am. While we know Space Coast residents and visitors are excited for this historic launch, there is no doubt road users will be impacted by heavy traffic congestion. The heaviest traffic is expected between 5:00 am and 10:00 am the day of the launch. In addition to the launch, there will be also be FIVE cruise ships at Port Canaveral that morning that will add to the influx of people on our roadways. Click here. (8/24)

Artemis 1 Mission Animation (Source: Orbital Velocity)
While the job of the Space Launch System will last for less than 10 minutes, the rest of the mission will see Orion sent into a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon where it will stay there for several weeks before returning to Earth. Click here. (7/6)

The SLS Rocket is the Worst Thing to Happen to NASA—But Maybe Also the Best? (Source: Ars Technica)
President Eisenhower signed the law establishing NASA on July 29, 1958. At the time, the US had put about 30 kg of small satellites into orbit. Less than 11 years later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon. President Obama signed a NASA Authorization Act in 2010, directing NASA to create the Space Launch System rocket and have it ready for launch in 2016. It seemed reasonable. At the time, NASA had been launching rockets, including very large ones, for half a century. And in some sense, this new SLS rocket was already built.

The most challenging aspect of almost any launch vehicle is its engines. No problem—the SLS rocket would use engines left over from the space shuttle program. Its side-mounted boosters would be slightly larger versions of those that powered the shuttle for three decades. The newest part of the vehicle would be its large core stage, housing liquid hydrogen and oxygen fuel tanks to feed the rocket's four main engines. But even this component was derivative. The core stage's 8.4-meter diameter was identical to the space shuttle's external tank, which carried the same propellants for the shuttle's main engines.

The SLS program has been a hot mess almost from the beginning. It has been efficient at precisely one thing, spreading jobs around to large aerospace contractors in the states of key congressional committee leaders. Because of this, lawmakers have overlooked years of delays, a more than doubling in development costs to above $20 billion. So here we are, nearly a dozen years after that authorization act was signed, and NASA is finally ready to launch the SLS rocket. It took the agency 11 years to go from nothing to the Moon. It has taken 12 years to go from having all the building blocks for a rocket to having it on the launch pad, ready for an uncrewed test flight. Click here. (8/23)

Commercial Satellites Could Become Military Targets (Source: Space News)
A new report warns that commercial satellite operators have to deal with being targets of attacks in international conflicts. The study by The Aerospace Corporation, released Tuesday, said that extensive use of private-sector satellites for communications and intelligence means the companies that operate them "risk getting caught in the middle of a tense and escalatory environment." The report recommends companies become involved, directly or indirectly, in international efforts to craft norms of behavior, which could involve the application of existing laws of armed conflict that protect civilians and their property. (8/24)

First Starship Lunar Lander Could Be a Stripped Down Version (Source: Space News)
NASA says the SpaceX Starship vehicle that performs an uncrewed lunar landing demonstration may be different from the one that makes a crewed landing. In presentations at a lunar exploration meeting Tuesday, agency officials said the uncrewed Starship lunar lander might only be a "skeleton" of the version that will be used for the Artemis 3 crewed landing, and with a requirement to land and not necessarily take off again. NASA is considering flying science payloads on that uncrewed lander, and says it has a good relationship with SpaceX as it develops the vehicle. (8/24)

Colorado Hopeful Space Command HQ Could Stay (Source: Colorado Springs Gazette)
A Colorado congressman remains optimistic the Air Force will keep U.S. Space Command headquarters in the state. A spokesperson for Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) says that Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall "appears to be receptive" to arguments from Lamborn and others that it would be faster and cheaper to renovate facilities in Colorado currently hosting Space Command rather than build a new headquarters at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama, which the Air Force selected in early 2021 as its preferred location for the command's permanent headquarters. A final decision on where the command will be headquartered is expected before the end of the year. (8/24)

Texas Seeks Opportunity to Host STARCOM (Source: Breaking Defense)
The Texas congressional delegation is asking Kendall to reconsider the state as the home for a Space Force training command. A letter signed by the state's entire congressional delegation asked Kendall to revisit a decision in April that limits potential sites for the Space Training and Readiness Command, or STARCOM, to existing Space Force bases in California, Colorado and Florida. The Texas lawmakers argued that the state's military facilities and space industry should qualify it for hosting STARCOM, responsible for training Space Force personnel, even though there is no Space Force base in the state. (8/24)

STARCOM Executes First JNTC-Accredited, Largest SPACE FLAG Exercise Ever (Source: Space Daily)
Space Training and Readiness Command completed its first exercise iteration of SPACE FLAG (SPACE FLAG 22-3) since being accredited by the Joint Staff as a Joint National Training Capability. SPACE FLAG is the first Department of Defense space exercise to receive JNTC-accreditation, joining the likes of the U.S. Air Force's Red Flag and Green Flag exercises, as well as the U.S. Army's Joint Warfighter Assessment and the U.S. Navy's Fleet Synthetic Training.

SPACE FLAG 22-3, which ran from Aug. 8-19, was the largest iteration executed to date with approximately 120 participants from nearly a dozen U.S. Space Force Deltas, as well as members from the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Army. The U.S. Marine Corps' Marine Space Support Team also imbedded members within the exercise, observing the Army's 1st Space Brigade as part of an effort to integrate them as players in future iterations. (8/23)

Epsilon 3 to Provide Software for Axiom Space Station (Source: Space News)
Axiom Space will use software from Epsilon3 to plan its future commercial space station. Epsilon3 is developing a set of operations and procedure management workflow tools as part of a multi-year deal with Axiom, the companies announced Tuesday. Founded in 2021, the software startup recently raised $15 million to expand its project management suite it argues is better suited for coordinating space development workflows than word processing software and spreadsheets. (8/24)

China Launches Remote Sensing Satellite (Source: Xinhua)
China launched a remote sensing satellite Tuesday night. A Long March 2D rocket launched from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center at 11:01 p.m. Eastern and placed the Beijing-3B satellite into orbit. The spacecraft is described as providing imagery for land resources management, agriculture and environmental management. (8/24)

NASA Picks Astrobotic, Honeybee, and Lockheed Martin for Lunar Solar Panel Designs (Source: NASA)
NASA awarded contracts to three companies Tuesday to design solar panels intended for use at the lunar poles. The contracts, valued at a combined $19.4 million, went to Astrobotic, Honeybee Robotics and Lockheed Martin and cover the development of solar arrays and environmental testing prototypes. The arrays are designed to be deployed vertically to maximize the power they generate at the lunar poles, where the sun is low on the horizon. (8/24)

Boeing Delivers SES Satellites to Florida for Upcoming Launches (Source: Boeing)
Boeing has delivered twin SES communications satellites to Florida for launch this fall. The SES-20 and SES-21 satellites are Boeing 702SP models designed to be launched together on an Atlas 5 from Cape Canaveral. SES ordered the C-band satellites as part of an initiative to clear spectrum for terrestrial 5G services. (8/24)