June 17, 2023

How Science Fiction Sparked Our Flights to the Final Frontier (Source: Universe Today)
The commercial spaceflight revolution didn’t begin with Elon Musk. Or with Jeff Bezos, or Richard Branson, or any of the other billionaires who’ve spent a fortune on the final frontier over the past 20 years. Would you believe it began with Jules Verne in the 1860s? That’s the perspective taken by Jeffrey Manber, one of the pioneers of the 21st-century spaceflight revolution, in a book tracing the roots of private-sector spaceflight to the French novelist.

The influence of Verne’s classic spaceflight novel, “From the Earth to the Moon,” continues to the present day: For example, when Bezos built the headquarters for his Blue Origin rocket venture, he brought in a Verne-inspired, Victorian-style rocket ship (complete with a cushy cockpit) to serve as the centerpiece of the building’s lobby. Manber also pays tribute to Jules Verne in the title of his book series: “From the Earth to Mars.” He’s writing the story chapter by chapter, and the first two chapters recently came out as a 106-page volume. (6/15)

Student Experiments Set to Take Flight From Wallops (Source: NASA)
More than 30 university teams are launching experiments into space as part of NASA’s RockOn and RockSat-C student flight programs, taking flight from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Thursday, June 22. In addition to the university payloads, some 80 additional experiments will take flight as part of the Cubes in Space program, which partners with Wallops to provide flight opportunities for students aged 11 to 18. (6/16)

Seoul Military Salvages North Korea's Space Rocket Wreckage (Source: AFP)
South Korea's military successfully retrieved a large chunk of a crashed North Korean space rocket from the sea bed after 15 days of complex salvage operations. North Korea attempted to put its first military spy satellite into orbit on May 31, but the projectile and its payload crashed into the sea shortly after launch due to what Pyongyang said was a rocket failure. After deploying a fleet of naval rescue ships and minesweepers plus dozens of deep-sea divers, Seoul's military said it had managed to salvage what appeared to be the main body of the rocket late Thursday from the Yellow Sea. (6/15)

Firefly to Buy Remaining Virgin Orbit Assets (Source: Space News)
Firefly Aerospace has agreed to buy Virgin Orbit’s remaining assets — inventory at two company production facilities — as part of Virgin Orbit’s bankruptcy proceedings. Firefly agreed to buy the assets that had not earlier been sold at auction in May for $3.8 million. The assets, designated Segment 5 in bankruptcy proceedings, are the inventory at Virgin Orbit’s two facilities in Long Beach, California.

That includes engines and other components built or in production for the LauncherOne vehicles that Virgin Orbit manufactured there. It also includes two engines in storage at a Virgin Orbit test site in Mojave, California. Virgin Orbit’s Boeing 747 and related equipment was acquired by Stratolaunch, the company’s main production facility in Long Beach was sold to Rocket Lab, and the Mojave test site was purchased by Launcher. A liquidation company, Inliper Acquisition LLC, bought the machinery and equipment in a second Long Beach facility. (6/16)

How FAA Changes Keep Flights On-Time Around Space Launches (Source: USA Today)
The FAA said the steps it took this spring to reduce the effects of space launches on civilian air travel have already saved time for thousands of passengers and kept flights flowing smoothly to popular tourist destinations in Florida. Duane Freer, manager of the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization’s Space Operations said “taking a finer pencil to the way operations are run and managed” resulted in both time and fuel savings for airlines and air travelers.

Most space launches from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport have used a revised airspace closure procedure since April 7 to keep a major air traffic approach lane for flights to Orlando and Tampa open. A previous version of FAA guidance meant that planes set to fly that route during a space launch would have to take an aerial detour, resulting in longer travel time, more fuel burned and more congested airspace over other parts of Florida. Airspace closures were previously designed to account for any possible launch trajectory, rather than taking into account the actual spacecraft flight plan.

The FAA estimates that under those previous guidelines, up to 36 flights would be rerouted per launch, affecting an average of 4,300 travelers. Since the new guidelines were instituted, airspace that previously would have been closed was able to remain open during 10 out of 12 space launches. (6/15)