October 27, 2022

'Project Oz,' Quietly Eyeing Hundreds of Jobs at Kennedy Space Center, Moves Forward (Source: Florida Today)
Space Florida, the state's economic development agency and spaceport authority, appears to be moving forward with a secretive project that could lead to hundreds of new jobs and investments at Kennedy Space Center. After briefly appearing in Space Florida documents earlier this year, a permit application filed with the St. Johns River Water Management District shows "Project Oz" appears to be moving forward.

An environmental resource permit, or ERP, was filed Oct. 13, indicating the mystery company aims to begin construction soon. "The company plans to invest up to $250,000,000 in construction, high-value equipment, and tooling in the project." Space Florida expects Project Oz to generate about 500 jobs by 2025 with an annual salary of $100,000. The agency said it hoped to help with financing lease agreements, equipment, and construction. Officials were also seeking matching grant money from the Florida Department of Transportation's Spaceport Improvement Program. Editor's Note: My guess: a payload processing facility. (10/27)

Space Coast's BRPH Expands Architectural, Engineering Portfolio, as it Tackles Hiring Challenges (Source: Florida Today)
Aarchitectural, engineering and construction company BRPH has faced many tests during the pandemic and post-pandemic environment, especially as it sought to grow. Competition for talent was intense. BRPH Vice President of Engineering Andy Miller said one of BRPH's big challenges is hiring and retaining staff in a high-demand industry. That's still true now, when the Brevard County and Florida unemployment rates are relatively low.

BRPH now has a total of about 350 employees at its nine offices. In a symbol of BRPH's recent success, one of its signature local projects opened this summer at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex — "Gateway: The Deep Space Launch Complex." BRPH was founded in 1964 to support America’s space race — specifically, to provide engineering support for the Vehicle Assembly Building where the Apollo/Saturn V moon rocket was assembled.

Some of BRPH's local clients are NASA/Kennedy Space Center, Delaware North Parks & Resorts at KSC/the KSC Visitor Complex, Space Florida, Boeing, Embraer, L3Harris, and Northrop Grumman. The company also was involved in upgrading the Air Force Technical Applications Center at Patrick Space Force Base. (10/26)

Privateer Partners With Celestron (Source: SpaceWatch Global)
Space sustainability company Privateer, is partnering with telescope manufacturer Celestron to crowdsource the transparency and predictability of space, Privateer said. Dr Moriba Jah, Co-Founder & Chief Scientist at Privateer has been advocating for transparency, predictability, and accountability in space for years. “What I’ve learned from my time with Native Hawaiian and other indigenous groups is that every day, we are in an existential crisis… and the only way through it is to have a successful conversation with nature,” said Dr Jah.

Celestron telescopes are distributed globally, bringing space closer, inspiring and educating millions of people day by day. Privateer plans to harness those millions of eyes on the sky, empowering them to “become stewards of the space environment.” The crowdsourced data will be shared with the world through Privateer’s Wayfinder platform ensuring that space remains accessible to all. The companies will keep looking for ways to collaborate with those who share their vision for a sustainable future in space. (10/27)

SpaceX's Starlink Quietly Mentions High-Speed Data Caps Are Coming for US Users (Source: PC Magazine)
It looks like SpaceX is preparing to impose high-speed data caps for Starlink users in the US, possibly to address congestion woes facing the satellite internet service. The company quietly added a section to the Starlink terms of service(Opens in a new window) that discusses potentially slowing down internet speeds for subscribers once they exceed a monthly limit, which was noticed by(Opens in a new window) a user on Reddit.

According to the new policy, residential Starlink users will receive a “monthly allocation of ‘Priority Access,’" with fast internet speeds. But once they exceed an unspecified limit, speeds could be reduced if the surrounding area is already full of other data-hungry Starlink subscribers. “Under such plan, after you have used your monthly limit of Priority Access data, you will continue to have an unlimited amount of ‘Basic Data’ for the remainder of your billing cycle,” the company says. (10/26)

Russia State TV Proposes Nuking Elon Musk's Satellites (Source: Newsweek)
Avideo of a Russian state TV host calling for Elon Musk's satellites to be nuked has gone viral on Twitter. Host Vladimir Solovyov made these comments on his show, Evening with Vladimir Solovyov, on Monday, while speaking with Moscow State University Department of Global Politics professor Andrey Sidorov. Around 20,000 of Musk's Starlink satellite units have been donated to Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February. They play an important role in battlefield communication for Kyiv's forces. (10/26)

Georgia Spaceport's County Backer Takes Job with Florida County (Sources: SPACErePORT, Citrus County Chronicle)
On October 18, 2022, the Board of County Commissioners for Citrus County, Florida, approved an employment agreement for Steve Howard to become the new county administrator and to formally begin work on Tuesday, November 29, 2022. Mr. Howard is currently the county administrator of Camden County, Georgia and the Spaceport Camden Project Lead. (10/26)

D-Orbit Signs Launch Contract with AAC SpaceQuest (Source: Space Daily)
Space logistics and transportation company D-Orbit announced the signing of a launch contract with AAC SpaceQuest, the US subsidiary of AAC Clyde Space. SpaceQuest is a well-established satellite manufacturer and operator specialized in small satellite technologies and space data services.

The agreement covers the launch and deployment of an initial two satellites, based on SpaceQuest's newest generation of maritime satellite design, with an option for an additional two spacecraft. The satellites, called respectively Sedna 1, 2 will scale the company's satellite automatic identification system ("S-AIS") space infrastructure and validate new, key maritime space-data technologies. (10/27)

UCF Researcher Receives NASA Award to Develop Revolutionary Rocket Engine Technology (Source: Space Daily)
A University of Central Florida researcher has received NASA funding to further develop a novel rocket engine system that could revolutionize space travel. The project focuses on rotating detonation rocket engines (RDREs), which are powered by continuous Mach 5 explosions that rotate around the inside of the engine and are sustained by hydrogen and oxygen propellants fed into the system in certain amounts. NASA recently awarded $50,000 to fund the project.

Mach 5 explosions create bursts of energy that travel 4,500 to 5,600 miles per hour, which is more than five times the speed of sound. By using these high-energy detonations, more energy can be generated with less fuel, improving engine efficiency and cutting down space travel costs and emissions. (10/27)

There May Be 4 Quintillion Alien Spacecraft Buzzing in Our Solar System (Source: Daily Beast)
Five years ago a very strange object—maybe a thousand feet long, oblong, shiny and fast—streaked across space, tens of millions of miles from Earth. Its course and speed indicated it had come from outside the solar system. A visitor from another star. Astronomers dubbed the thing ‘Oumuamua—Hawaiian for “scout”—and started arguing about it. On one side are an overwhelming majority of scientists who don’t know what ‘Oumuamua is, but aren’t willing to speculate as to what it might be.

On the other side, are a much smaller camp led by Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, who argues that we should at least consider the possibility that ‘Oumuamua is an alien spacecraft. Now Loeb is asking the next logical question. How many other ‘Oumuamuas could there be in and around the solar system? In a new study that appeared online on Sept. 22 and hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed, Loeb and his coauthor Carson Ezell, also a Harvard astronomer, concluded there are as many as 4,000,000,000,000,000,000 (or 4 quintillion) of them. Each is a visitor from another star, and each, possibly, artificially created. (10/27)

Lt. Gen. John Shaw on Deep Space Exploration (Source: ExecutiveGov)
Lt. Gen. John Shaw, deputy commander of U.S. Space Command, participated in a panel discussion and talked about deep space and the security challenges facing deep space exploration. Shaw highlighted the importance of collaboration in addressing security issues in the space domain and the role of the commercial sector in advancing deep space exploration. “I would like to see this idea of cooperative ‘norms of behavior’ that support all of the sectors, the commercial, the civil and the national security, again, to be something that we can share across the globe,” he noted. (10/26)

Quantum Space Plans SSA Satellite (Source: Space News)
Quantum Space plans to launch a small satellite to collect space situational awareness data. The QS-1 spacecraft, built by Blue Canyon Technologies with a Geost visible imager, will have room for hosted payloads. Quantum Space was founded early this year by Steve Jurczyk, a former NASA associate administrator, Kam Ghaffarian, co-founder of Axiom Space and Intuitive Machines, and Ben Reed, a former NASA Goddard Space Flight Center division chief. (10/25)

Array Labs Raises $5 Million for Radar Satellite Constellation (Source: Space News)
Array Labs raised $5 million in a seed funding round backed by Seraphim Space and Agya Ventures, a real estate technology fund. With the infusion of capital, the Silicon Valley startup is developing a constellation of radar satellites to fly in formation, gathering global 3D imagery. Array Labs plans to launch a technology demonstrator within 18 months and establish an initial constellation within two to three years. (10/25)

Space SPACs: The Reckoning Ahead (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Inflation is up, stocks are down and access to capital has become increasingly constricted. All that means big challenges for space companies trying to raise money and stay in business, experts said during the AIAA’s ASCEND conference. Space companies that went public by merging with special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) over the past three years are at particular risk. John Olds, principal engineer at SpaceWorks Enterprises, estimated that up to 50 percent of space SPACs will cease to operate as independent companies due to the worsening economy. Click here. (10/26)

Boeing Takes Another Loss on CST-100 Starliner Delays (Source: Space News)
Boeing took another charge against earnings because of delays in its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew program. In an SEC filing Wednesday, the company said it recorded a $195 million charge in the third quarter. It comes after a $93 million charge reported in its second quarter financial results July 27. The total losses recorded by the company to date on the program are nearly $900 million.

The primary reason for this latest charge was to address delays in its first three post-certification, or operational, flights that the company previously thought would be completed by 2024 but instead will be done in 2026. Boeing has now recorded $886 million in losses on Starliner because of delays in the vehicle's development. (10/26)

Five Companies Selected to Develop Weather Models for USAF and DIU (Source: Space News)
The Defense Innovation Unit and the U.S. Air Force announced Wednesday that they selected five companies to help build weather models using satellite data and other sources. The companies won contracts to demonstrate the integration of commercial data into the U.S. Air Force Weather Virtual Private Cloud, which it uses to develop weather models to support military operations. Two of the five companies are space startups: Muon Space designs small satellites and instruments for monitoring the atmosphere and oceans and predicting climate-related change, while Tomorrow.io is developing a constellation with a mix of small radar-sensing weather satellites and microwave sounders. (10/27)

SpaceX Takes Preorders for Land-Vehicle Starlink Antennas (Source: Space News)
SpaceX has started taking preorders for a flat panel antenna that enables land vehicles to use its Starlink broadband service while in motion. The flat panel antenna will cost subscribers $2,500 and is better suited for moving vehicles because its wide area of view can connect to more satellites, according to SpaceX. Despite being primarily marketed to owners of RVs, Elon Musk tweeted that the in-motion service works "on any moving land object" that can fit a dish with a little over half a square meter of surface area. Starlink for RVs will cost the same $135 per month in the U.S., regardless of the antenna, for connection speeds that are throttled during peak hours to prioritize customers on other Starlink service plans. (10/27)

Quantum Space Readies First Cislunar Mission (Source: Space News)
Quantum Space announced its first cislunar smallsat mission Wednesday. The company says its QS-1 mission, slated for launch in late 2024, will carry a sensor from GEOST to collect space situational awareness data in cislunar space. The mission may also carry hosted payloads for other customers. Blue Canyon Technologies will supply the satellite bus. Quantum Space announced its intent in February to develop platforms in cislunar space that could be serviced, and QS-1 is an initial pathfinder towards those long-term plans. (10/27)

Russia to Support ISS Missions Through 2027 (Source: TASS)
The Russian government has signed paperwork that would allow missions to the International Space Station to continue through 2027. The document, signed by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, directs Roscosmos to conclude a contract for research and development activities that includes sending crews and cargo to the ISS through 2027. Russian officials had previously stated they would end participation in the ISS sometime after 2024 but still need to offer a detailed schedule. (10/27)

ESA Explores Alternative NavSat Technologies (Source: ESA)
The European Space Agency proposes testing satellite navigation technologies in low Earth orbit. ESA proposes flying a network of six smallsats in LEO to test navigation capabilities that would be complementary to the Galileo constellation in medium Earth orbit. The LEO system could better resist interference and provide higher precision. ESA will request funding for the project at next month's ministerial meeting. (10/27)

Astronomer Barred From University After Harassment Claims (Source: Science)
A Dutch astronomer who was once director of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) has been barred from his university for "extremely unacceptable" behavior. Tim de Zeeuw, a professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands who was director of ESO from 2007 to 2017, bullied people and sexually harassed women at the university, an investigation by the university recently concluded. De Zeeuw will be banned from the university and not allowed to supervise students, but will retain his job and salary, a decision that left many unsatisfied. ESO, which operates several major telescopes in Chile, will also ban De Zeeuw. (10/27)

UCF Researchers Create Lunar Regolith Bricks That Could be Used to Construct Artemis Base Camp (Source: Space Daily)
As part of NASA's Artemis program to establish a long-term presence on the moon, it aims to build an Artemis base camp that includes a modern lunar cabin, rover and mobile home. This fixed habitat could potentially be constructed with bricks made of lunar regolith and saltwater, thanks to a recent discovery from a team of UCF researchers.

Associate Professor Ranajay Ghosh of UCF's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and his research group found that 3D-printed bricks of lunar regolith can withstand the extreme environments of space and are a good candidate for cosmic construction projects. Lunar regolith is the loose dust, rocks and materials that cover the moon's surface. The results of their experiments are detailed in a recent issue of Ceramics International and were also featured in New Scientist magazine prior to publication. (10/26)

SDA Developing Translator Payloads for National Defense Space Architecture (Source: National Defense)
As the Space Development Agency readies to launch the first satellites of the National Defense Space Architecture into orbit later this year, the agency is developing capabilities to ensure the satellites in the architecture can communicate with other government or commercial constellations, an official said Oct. 25.

The SDA — which transferred to the Space Force on Oct. 1 — has led the development of the National Defense Space Architecture since the agency’s creation in March 2019. The architecture calls for proliferated layers of satellite constellations primarily in low-Earth orbit that will provide warfighters with beyond-line-of-sight targeting for time-sensitive targets and advanced missiles in flight. The agency will begin launching the first constellation of the space architecture, Tranche 0, into orbit before the end of 2022, with all of Tranche 0 in orbit by March 2023. (10/25)

SpaceX Edges Out Boeing To Become NASA's Top Vendor After JPL's CalTech (Sources: Aviation Week, Teslarati)
Fourteen years after winning its first major NASA contract, data shared by Aviation Week reporter Irene Klotz shows that SpaceX has usurped every other major aerospace company in the US to become the space agency’s largest for-profit vendor.

SpaceX’s ascension up those ranks has been arduous and far from guaranteed, but the company now provides NASA with a wide range of relatively affordable spaceflight services. SpaceX was paid a record $2.04 billion for those services in the 2022 fiscal year. Only the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), a nonprofit that includes the entirety of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and received $2.68 billion in the same period, ranks higher on NASA’s list of FY2022 vendors. Boeing came in third with $1.72 billion, followed by Lockheed Martin with $1.34 billion. (10/25)

NASA’s UFO Study: Identifying the Unknown Lies in Better Quality Data (Source: The Hill)
Over the next nine months, a NASA study team will examine unclassified data on UAP in an attempt to separate the signal from the noise and advise NASA whether to fund future UAP research, such as the scientific program already pursued by Harvard's Galileo Project. The instruments designed by the Galileo Project aim to figure out the nature of unusual interstellar objects as well as UAP — allowing for the possibility that they were manufactured by extraterrestrial technological civilizations.

Within a year, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile will survey the entire southern sky every four days with its 3.2-billion-pixel camera. Its Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) telescope is likely to discover many new interstellar objects. We could find meter-size interstellar objects every week with LSST. As a result, our lack of knowledge regarding the nature and potential origin of unusual interstellar objects like IM1 and IM2 may change dramatically in the coming years. (10/25)

NASA Instrument Detects Dozens of Earth's Methane Super-Emitters (Source: Reuters)
An orbital NASA instrument designed mainly to advance studies of airborne dust and its effects on climate change has proven adept at another key Earth-science function - detecting large, worldwide emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The device, called an imaging spectrometer, has identified more than 50 methane "super-emitters" in Central Asia, the Middle East and the Southwestern US since it was installed in July aboard the ISS.

The newly measured methane hotspots - some previously known and others just discovered - include sprawling oil and gas facilities and large landfills. The spectrometer was built primarily to identify the mineral composition of dust blown into the atmosphere from Earth's deserts and other arid regions by measuring the wavelengths of light reflected from the surface soil in those areas. (10/25)

Extremophiles on Mars Could Survive for Hundreds of Millions of Years (Source: Space.com)
One of Earth's toughest microbes could survive on Mars, lying dormant beneath the surface, for 280 million years, new research has shown. The findings increase the probability that microbial life could still exist on the Red Planet. Deinococcus radiodurans, nicknamed "Conan the Bacterium," is one of the world's toughest microbes, capable of surviving in radiation strong enough to kill any other known life-form. Experiments have now shown that if Conan the Bacterium or a similar microbe existed on Mars, it could survive 33 feet (10 meters) beneath the surface, frozen and dried out, for 280 million years. (10/25)

Royal Astronomical Society Rebukes NASA Over Alleged Homophobic Roots of Webb Telescope Name (Source: The Independent)
The Royal Astronomical Society is asking all scientists submitting papers referencing the James Webb Space Telescope to use the abbreviation JWST instead of the instrument’s full name, citing a lack of transparency from NASA over allegations of homophobic behavior by the telescope’s namesake.

NASA named the Webb telescope after former space agency administrator James Webb, who led NASA from 1961 through 1968. Recent scholarship by University of South Florida LBGTQA+ historian David K. Johnson suggests Webb may have participated in what Dr. Johnson calls the “lavender scare,” a purge of gay and lesbian people from government service in the late 50s and 1960s. NASA determined there was no substance to the allegations and refused to change the telescope’s name.

Notably, NASA did not make the full report and explanation of its findings public or share them with the astronomical community. In a Monday media statement, the RAS said it would cease using the full name of the Webb telescope because of “the apparent failure to investigate James Webb’s background and the dismissal of requests to rename the telescope.” “Until that investigation takes place and the results are made public,” the statement goes on, “the RAS now expects authors submitting scientific papers to its journals to use the JWST acronym rather than the full name of the observatory.” (10/25)

Six Startups Win Care In Space Challenge (Source: Starburst)
August 4, 2022, was the first annual CIS Challenge Pitch Day at UCLA. Finalists selected from the initial application process had the opportunity to pitch their solutions to aerospace, bioscience, and bio/medtech industry experts who assessed entrepreneurial acumen, scientific merit, business model viability, and overall feasibility in order to choose winners.

The six founders and their startups are awarded an equity investment of $100K, admission into the Care In Space 13-week accelerator program mainly operated by Starburst to help bring their ideas to fruition, and the unique opportunity to receive mentoring directly from Axiom. Click here. (10/25)

Belarus, Russia Advance Strategic Cooperation in Space (Source: Belta)
Belarus and Russia advance strategic cooperation in the sphere of outer space. Chairman of the State Science and Technology Committee Sergei Shlychkov made the statement during the 8th Belarusian Space Congress. Sergei Shlychkov said: “Belarus tightly cooperates with the Russian Federation in the space industry. Seven R&D programs of the Union State of Belarus and Russia have been implemented. Another program is about to begin. We are contemplating the development of a full-fledged joint strategy for space exploration on the scale of the Union State.” (10/25)

Sidus Space Signs MOU with Mission Space for Space Weather Intelligence Data Partnership (Source: Sidus Space)
Sidus Space has signed a memorandum of understanding with Mission Space for a partnership for space weather intelligence data collection. With this partnership, Sidus Space will integrate sets of Mission Space’s Space Weather detectors into its hybrid 3D printed satellite, LizzieSat.

As Sidus Space looks ahead at value-creation opportunities, the sale of data gathered through its satellites is a key piece of the strategic growth plan. Space weather ranks among the highest priority natural hazards and can affect operations and reliability of space and ground-based technological systems and threaten the health and life of humans. (10/26)

AFRL Upgrades Rocket Fabrication Capabilities (Source: Space Daily)
The Air Force Research Laboratory upgraded its fabrication shop equipment with 20 new state-of-the-art machines for manufacturing rocket components that will enhance capabilities, increase accuracy and save money. The Rocket Propulsion Division, part of AFRL's Aerospace Systems Directorate, recently modernized its fabrication shop with five new computer numerical control, or CNC, milling machines; three CNC lathes; a waterjet cutter; a wire electrical discharge machining, or EDM machine; a sinker EDM machine; a small hole EDM and numerous manually operated machines. (10/24)

"The recently upgraded machines provide AFRL with an increased capability to fabricate components of higher complexity and provide customers the benefit of being able to keep more of their work on-site, reducing program costs and turnaround time," said Ben Gleason. Specifically, the new equipment will increase accuracy on multi-sided and complex parts, while improving operator safety and allowing for a cleaner, safer working environment. (10/24)

Gilmour Space Partners with Equipmake on Advanced Motors for Rocket Program (Source: Space Daily)
Global electrification specialist Equipmake has been selected by Australia's leading space company, Gilmour Space Technologies, to support its commercial space rocket programme with the supply of advanced electric motors and inverters. Led by former F1 engineer Ian Foley, Equipmake has forged its reputation by developing advanced EV technology for automotive OEMs and specialist supercar manufacturers, offering a complete suite of solutions from electric motors to power electronic systems to complete EV drivetrains for buses. (10/25)

Virgin Australia Selects Intelsat for Inflight Wi-Fi (Source: Space Daily)
Intelsat, operator of one of the world's largest integrated satellite and terrestrial network and leading provider of inflight connectivity (IFC), has been selected to provide high-speed in-flight Wi-Fi to Virgin Australia's fleet of existing 737NG aircraft and future-delivery 737MAX aircraft. Intelsat's 2Ku satellite connectivity solution will deliver industry-leading speeds to support video streaming, web browsing, and anything else Virgin's guests want to do with Wi-Fi-enabled devices onboard their flights. (10/26)