September 1, 2022

NASA, Axiom Sign Second Private Astronaut Mission to Space Station Order (Source: NASA)
NASA and Axiom Space have signed a mission order for the second private astronaut mission to the International Space Station to take place in the second quarter of 2023. The spaceflight, designated as Axiom Mission 2 (Ax-2), will launch from Florida and travel to the space station. Once docked, the Axiom astronauts are scheduled to spend 10 days aboard the orbiting laboratory. NASA and Axiom mission planners will coordinate in-orbit activities for the private astronauts to conduct in coordination with space station crew members and flight controllers on the ground. (8/31)

BlackSky Awarded NASA Contract to Advance Earth Science Research (Source: Space Daily)
BlackSky Technology received its first call order, worth $1.7 million, from NASA to evaluate accessibility, accuracy, quality and utility of the Company's imaging data services for the Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program. "New discoveries in Earth science can be accelerated with innovative research methods and real-time dynamic data sets that keep up with the increasingly rapid pace and scale of change on our planet," said Dr. Patrick O'Neil, BlackSky chief innovation officer. (8/30)

Comet Impacts Formed Continents When Solar System Entered Galactic Arms (Source: Space Daily)
New research has found evidence that Earth's early continents resulted from being hit by comets as our Solar System passed into and out of the spiral arms of the Milky Way Galaxy, turning traditional thinking about our planet's formation on its head. The new research, published in Geology, challenges the existing theory that Earth's crust was solely formed by processes inside our planet, casting a new light on the formative history of Earth and our place in the cosmos. (8/30)

Firefly Gets New CEO (Source: Space News)
Firefly Aerospace has hired a longtime aerospace and defense executive as its new CEO. The company announced Thursday it hired Bill Weber as CEO, effective immediately. He was an executive with several defense companies, including president and CEO of KeyW Corporation, acquired by Jacobs in 2019. Peter Schumacher, a partner at majority owner AE Industrial Partners, had been Firefly's interim CEO since mid-June when co-founder Tom Markusic stepped down as CEO. Firefly is preparing for its second launch of its Alpha rocket, scheduled for Sept. 11 from Vandenberg Space Force Base. (9/1)

SpaceX Conducts Super Heavy Engine Test (Source: Space.com)
SpaceX performed the first multi-engine static-fire test of its Super Heavy booster Wednesday. The test at the company's Starbase test site in Boca Chica, Texas, involved two or three engines firing for several seconds. Super Heavy, which serves as the booster for the Starship vehicle, has 33 Raptor engines. (9/1)

Collins Opens Spacesuit Production Facility at Texas Spaceport (Source: KPRC)
Collins Aerospace opened a new facility in Houston where it will develop spacesuits for NASA. The company held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday at Houston's spaceport at the city's Ellington Airport. Collins will use the 11,000-square-meter building for work on spacesuits for the ISS and Artemis missions under a contract it won from NASA in June. (9/1)

Perseverance Rover Producing In-Situ Oxygen (Source: CNN)
A payload on the Perseverance rover is producing oxygen equivalent to a small tree. The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) payload on Perseverance takes in carbon dioxide from the planet's thin atmosphere and converts it to oxygen. In a paper published Wednesday, researchers said MOXIE has demonstrated its ability to operate at different times of day and in different seasons, producing about six grams of oxygen per hour, the same rate of a small tree on Earth. The technology behind MOXIE could be scaled up future Mars missions to generate oxygen for astronauts. (9/1)

Mars Orbiters View Aurora (Source: The National)
Observations by two Mars orbiters have revealed a "patchy" aurora. Data from NASA's MAVEN mission along with the UAE's Hope orbiter discovered the proton aurora on the planet's dayside, caused when particles from the solar wind interact with the Martian upper atmosphere. While aurorae had been previous seen at Mars, they were more uniform than the patchy ones seen by Hope and MAVEN, and appear to be caused by turbulent conditions in the solar wind. (9/1)

NASA Will Pay Boeing More Than Twice as Much as SpaceX for Crew Seats (Source: Ars Technica)
NASA did not elaborate on its reasons for purchasing 14 missions from SpaceX and just six from Boeing. However, this decision to buy all of the remaining seats from SpaceX is likely due to past performance and price. SpaceX started flying operational missions to the space station in 2020, with the Crew-1 mission. Although Boeing's Starliner has a crewed test flight early next year, likely in February, its first operational mission will not come before the second half of 2023.

Additionally, there is some question about the availability of rockets for Starliner. Boeing has purchased enough Atlas V rockets from United Launch Alliance for six operational Starliner missions, but after that the Atlas V will be retired. During a news conference last week, Boeing's program manager for commercial crew, Mark Nappi, said the company is looking at "different options" for Starliner launch vehicles. These options include buying a Falcon 9 from a competitor, SpaceX, paying United Launch Alliance to human-rate its new Vulcan rocket, or paying Blue Origin for its forthcoming New Glenn booster.

Whatever NASA's ultimate reasons, it is clear in hindsight that the space agency has gotten a much better deal from SpaceX in the commercial crew competition. For the same services, development of Crew Dragon and six operational missions, NASA paid SpaceX $2.6 billion. After its initial award, NASA has agreed to buy an additional eight flights from SpaceX—Crew-7, -8, -9, -10, -11, -12, -13, and -14—through the year 2030. This brings the total contract awarded to SpaceX to $4.93 billion. (9/1)

NASA Extends SpaceX Commercial Crew Contract (Source: Space News)
NASA announced Wednesday it completed an extension of its commercial crew contract with SpaceX worth more than $1.4 billion. The extension adds five Crew Dragon missions to the ISS to the contract, bringing the total to 14. The extension has a value of $1.44 billion, or $288 million per mission, and brings the total value of the Commercial Crew Transportation Capabilities contract with SpaceX to more than $4.9 billion. NASA announced three months ago its intent to extend the contract so that it had in place all the missions it needed from SpaceX and Boeing for ISS operations to 2030. (9/1)

Intelsat Payload Switched Off in Orbit (Source: Space News)
A malfunctioning Intelsat satellite has turned off its payload, reducing the risk of interference with other spacecraft. The Galaxy 15 satellite turned off its communications payload Wednesday after it stopped responding to commands in mid-August. However, Galaxy 15 continues to drift out of its geostationary orbit slot at 133 degrees and will soon pass near other GEO satellites, Intelsat warned. The company said it is working with other GEO operators to minimize the impacts caused by the drifting Galaxy 15. Intelsat had already ordered a replacement for Galaxy 15, called Galaxy 33, that is scheduled for launch in October. (9/1)

Space Command Seeks More Investment for Deep Space Ops (Source: Space News)
A U.S. Space Command general called for more investments in technologies needed for deep space operations. Space Force Lt. Gen. John Shaw, deputy commander of Space Command, said at a DARPA event Wednesday he met with NASA officials at the Artemis 1 launch attempt about collaborating on future technologies needed for operating beyond Earth orbit. That includes the ability to track objects in cislunar space as well as propulsion and logistics. He said he expected future Artemis missions will require working with NASA to track objects in cislunar space that could range from debris to "deliberate threats." (9/1)

China Looking at Same Area as NASA for Lunar Landings (Source: Space News)
China is considering some of the same regions at the south pole of the moon for lander missions as NASA. NASA earlier this month announced the selection of 13 potential landing regions for the Artemis 3 crewed mission, flying no earlier than 2025. Meanwhile, a Chinese journal article on potential lunar south pole landing sites identifies 10 suitable spots near the lunar south pole. The sites are thought to be related to the country's Chang'e-7 mission, currently scheduled for 2024. Several of the Chang'e-7 sites are the same as Artemis 3 locations. That overlap reflects the limited amount of "prime real estate" around the south pole based on lighting conditions and access to potential water ice deposits. (9/1)

Ursa Major Wins Air Force Contract for Rocket Engines (Source: Space News)
Rocket propulsion startup Ursa Major has won a U.S. Air Force contract to support rocket engine development. The $3.6 million deal is a small business innovation research contract known as a TACFI, or Tactical Funding Increase, that includes both government and private funds. The funding will support the company's work on the Hadley liquid-propellant engine, which generates 5,000 pounds-force of thrust. The Air Force plans to use the engine to power the X-60A airdropped rocket designed for hypersonic flight research. (9/1)