June 18, 2023

Wallops Range Supports First Rocket Lab HASTE Launch (Source: NASA)
Rocket Lab launched its first-ever Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron, or HASTE, launch vehicle from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility Saturday, June 17. "The range team worked tirelessly to support this first HASTE mission for Rocket Lab," said David L. Pierce, Wallops Flight Facility director. "Wallops, at its core, is a test and research range perfectly suited for these sorts of missions."

Wallops, NASA’s only owned and operated launch range, enabled the mission providing services such as tracking, telemetry, and range safety to ensure a safe and successful mission. Next up for Wallops is the launch of a Terrier-Improved Orion sounding rocket carrying more than 30 university student experiments into space Thursday, June 22, as part of NASA’s RockOn and RockSat-C student flight opportunity programs. (6/17)

Weirdly, a NASA Official Says Fixed-Price Contracts Do the Agency “No Good” (Source: Ars Technica)
Last week NASA official Jim Free appeared before the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board and Space Studies Board in Washington, DC. Free spoke about the agency's Artemis Program to return humans to the Moon. He basically said the Artemis III mission, the first to carry humans down to the lunar surface since Apollo, will not happen in 2025. Free, according to Space News, said he had some "concern" about the viability of the 2025 launch date. Well, yes, a more realistic starting target for Artemis III is probably 2028-ish.

Free had no harsh words for the plethora of cost overruns for SLS and Artemis. Instead, he says NASA's fixed-price contract with SpaceX "does us no good." "I can't give him a pass on the fixed-price comment," one of these officials said of Free. "On cost-plus contracts, the hardware is always late, and you pay more. On fixed-price contracts, it's only late. So yeah, his comment was technically accurate but totally tone-deaf. What really makes me worried is that I think it shows where the heart of the agency is." (6/17)

UK Space Agency Prioritizes Sustainability (Source: Space News)
The UK Space Agency has a direct message on space sustainability. “We’re going to stop making it worse. And we’re going to start making it better,” Julie Black, UK Space Agency director of missions and capability for discovery and sustainability, said June 13. Toward that goal, the UK Space Agency is continuing to encourage and prioritize space sustainability, both domestically and internationally. (6/15)

What We Know About Rocket Lab's Upcoming Secret Launch (Source: Gizmodo)
NASA’s launch facility in Virginia has been prepped for an upcoming Rocket Lab launch, the details of which are under tight wraps. Rocket Lab is gearing up for its mystery launch, which is scheduled to take place sometime between June 15 to 20 from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. “There is no live stream planned for launch and the Wallops Visitor Center will not be open for launch,” NASA Wallops wrote. It’s presumed that Rocket Lab will be flying its HASTE suborbital testbed rocket for the first time. (6/15)

McAlister: How Much Did NASA Hate Commercial Crew Initially? (Source: LinkedIn)
Since I was the primary author of the Commercial Crew plan, I was (no surprise) very pleased with it. I delivered it to the NASA Administrator’s Office and waited for the accolades to rain in about how innovative and brilliant the plan was. Nobody has been more wrong about anything in the history of things. Basically, everybody who was anybody at NASA hated the plan. The comments were even more sobering. Click here. (6/8)

Ball Corp. Explores Sale of Aerospace Unit for More Than $5 Billion (Source: Reuters)
Ball Corp., the world's largest supplier of beer cans, is exploring a sale of its business that provides aerospace and national defense hardware, such as sensors and antennas, for over $5 billion, people familiar with the matter said on Friday. The divestment of the aerospace business, which accounted for 13% of Ball's consolidated net sales in 2022, would allow the Westminster, Colorado-based company to focus more on its beverage packaging operations and trim its debt pile of about $9.7 billion. (6/17)

Space Command's Leader is Building Out his Colorado HQ Even as Congress Tries to Force the HQ to Move to Alabama (Source: NBC News)
The head of U.S. Space Command is building out his military command headquarters in Colorado, even as members of Congress try to force the Defense Department to move the headquarters to Alabama as planned by holding funding hostage, two congressional officials and two defense officials say. The Biden administration is reconsidering an approved move of the headquarters to Alabama because the state has imposed a near total ban on abortion.

On June 7, Gen. James Dickinson, the commander of Space Command, initiated a review to determine whether the command is at Full Operational Capability, or FOC, the officials said, which means whether it has the resources and personnel to be totally capable of performing its mission in its current location. While under Initial Operating Capability, Space Command is hiring personnel for temporary positions at its current headquarters at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado, but under FOC it could make the positions permanent. (6/16)

Space Force Official Hints at Reason for Delay in Moving Space Command HQ to Huntsville (Source: WAAY)
A Space Force official speaking at the U.S. Department of Defense’s LGBTQ+ Pride Ceremony at the Pentagon hinted at the reasoning behind the delay in moving Space Command headquarters to Huntsville. Lt. Gen. DeAnna Burt told the audience at the diversity, equity and inclusion event Thursday that the selection of the new home for Space Command cannot be based solely on a city or state's top-ranked qualifications.

Without mentioning Alabama specifically, Burt said states that pass laws protecting the unborn or impacting the LGBTQ+ community are threats that should also be considered. “When I find the right candidates for squadron command, I strive to match the right person to the right job. I consider their job performance and relevant experience first,” said Burt. "However, I also look at their personal circumstances – and their family is an important factor,” Burt continued. (6/17)

NORTHCOM’s Head Sets Record Straight on Missile Defense Boundaries with SPACECOM (Source: Breaking Defense)
Gen. Glen VanHerck wants to make it crystal clear that the military’s most recent plan laying out warfighting responsibilities in no way changes the missile defense-related roles of his two commands, US Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and NORAD — following what he told Breaking Defense was an “incredibly misleading” announcement from US Space Command late last month.

“To be clear, the missile defense mission has not changed,” he said in an interview Thursday. “There’s been no change to any of our missions, including the NORAD mission for missile warning, attack assessment, any of those. And we’re still tracking Santa Claus each year.” VanHerck pulled no punches in expressing frustration after SPACECOM’s May 31 statement about the 2022 revision of the Unified Command Plan (UCP) signed in April. (6/16)

SpaceX’s Starship Launch Dust That Covered Cars Wasn’t Concrete Says Research (Source: WCCFTech)
The dust from SpaceX's Starship launch that residents of Port Isabel were showered with in April might just have been sand from the beach, according to fresh analysis. The first Starship orbital test flight was quite an event - stunning observers with the scale of the rocket that successfully flew on its first test flight attempt and shocking them due to the damage left to the launchpad and the dust that fell on nearby Port Isabel in the aftermath.

Now, it appears as if residents of Port Isabel might have encountered sand from the beach instead of chunks of concrete and Fondag from the launch pad shows a spectral analysis of the dust samples. Dr. Phil Metzger, a planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida, ran the analysis of the dust samples from Port Isabel. He has decades of experience in space flight, and has previously researched debris resulting from the launch of NASA's Space Shuttle.  (6/17)

Space Force Extends Palantir's Data-as-a-Service Contracts (Source; Space News)
The Space Force awarded data analytics company Palantir $110.3 million in contract extensions for the company’s cloud-based data services. The Space Systems Command announced June 15 it has added one more year to Palantir’s existing contracts for data-as-a-service. Under a project called Warp Core, the Space Force since 2021 has used the company’s cloud platform and analytics services to aggregate large amounts of data from disparate sources. (6/17)

Russia's Latest Space Agency Mission: Raising a Militia for the War in Ukraine (Sources: Financial Times, WION)
Another weapon of war in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict has developed, and it involves marketing. The Russian space agency Roscosmos is enthused to help the Army generate money and outfit the militia to fight in Ukraine right now. Roscosmos has released recruitment videos calling on citizens to join the Uran volunteer battalion to fight in Ukraine. (6/16)

L3Harris Looks To Acquire Aerojet Rocketdyne; Why It’s Time To Keep Lockheed & Northrop Away (Source: EurAsian Times)
The planned $4.7 billion acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne by the sixth-ranked US defense contractor L3Harris (LHX) has resulted in a big debate involving the US arms industry. The principal question raised in the process is whether the merger will further consolidate the stranglehold of the few selected companies in the country, thereby reducing any scope for genuine competition.

In a recent analysis in the EurAsian Times, it was pointed out how the number of defense primes in the US has come down from 51 in the 1990s to just five in 2023 (Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Raytheon, and General Dynamics). These five companies make most of America’s bombs, missiles, combat aircraft, helicopters, tanks, and other major weapons systems and sell them to the US government.

Such a situation of lack of competition has resulted in a situation in which these five major companies have nearly monopolized the supplies to the Pentagon and dictated their prices. As a result, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is now very particular in approving the mergers of companies that could further limit the number of major players competing in the industry. (6/17)

New Fastest Star Zooms Through Milky Way at 5 Million MPH (Source: Space.com)
Six new runaway stars were discovered racing through the Milky Way. Two of the super-speedster stars, designated J0927 and J1235, are moving faster than any object of this type ever seen. According to new research, these record breaking stars are traveling at an incredible 5.1 million miles per hour and 3.8 million miles per hour, respectively. J0927 has the fastest sun-orbiting velocity ever seen, making it capable of racing between New York and Mississippi in under a second, if it were a terrestrial object. At that speed, an object could race around Earth 694 times in just an hour. (6/16)

European Space Agency Is Paying Volunteers Over $18000 To Stay In Bed For Two Months (Source: DOGO News)
Exposure to microgravity can wreak havoc on the human body. Hence, before astronauts can embark on the long trip to the Moon or Mars, scientists need to find ways to mitigate the physical impacts of space travel.

In an effort to help them, 12 men, aged between 20 and 45, are currently spending 60 days lying in bed at a laboratory in France. They will each receive $18,300 for their efforts. The study, spearheaded by ESA, began in April 2023. It is designed to help scientists determine if cycling can help reduce the impact of space travel on the human body. (6/16)

Arianespace's New Agreements with Orbex and PLD Could Address Europe's Rocket Crisis (Source: Interesting Engineering)
It's well established that Europe has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to expanding its launch capabilities. Earlier this year, for example, a panel commissioned by ESA released a report warning that the continent is at risk of missing out on the next big tech boom — unless it channels more funds toward its space industry, that is.

Now, Europe's sole operational launch provider, Arianespace, has announced it has signed memorandums of understanding with Orbex and PLD Space, two ambitious rocket startups from the UK and Spain respectively. The new agreements could go a long way to boosting Europe's space sector and they also go some way to addressing serious concerns regarding its current launch capabilities.

The MOUs are a promising step in the right direction of Europe's space sector, and they could help boost two of the most promising launch companies in the continent. Neither Orbex nor PLD Space has launched a rocket yet, though both have demonstrated key technologies. (6/16)

Eutelsat Embraces Risk in Broadband Race with Starlink and Kuiper (Source: CNBC)
Part of Eutelsat’s hope with OneWeb is that it will help the company compete with Musk’s Starlink as well as Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s effort with Project Kuiper. The latter is also attempting to launch satellites for internet connectivity. “We just have the two biggest business innovators coming in and saying, ‘oh, this is an interesting space, I can do something here. I can actually industrialize this niche.’ And I think that’s what Elon Musk needs to have a lot of credit for doing, really shaking up this,” Berneke admitted.

Many Eutelsat shareholders see the OneWeb acquisition as a risk. But Berneke said that Musk has changed the way businesses think about risk. “One of the things we need to start doing is taking a measured risk, but also be able to move forward superfast and learn from those risks.” (6/17)

We Asked a NASA Scientist: Is Polar Ice Melting? (Source: SciTech Daily)
Is polar ice melting? The simple and straightforward answer is yes. It is, in fact, melting. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. You can think of ice sheets or Antarctica and Greenland as a bathtub full of water. And we want to know how much is going into that bathtub and how much is coming out. So, for instance, snow falling over the ice sheet is like running the faucet. You turn on the faucet, it fills up with water, and then melting when you get a warm atmosphere or a warm ocean, it’s opening up the drain and letting water out. So it’s not just about melting. It’s also about how much snow falls and what the balance is there. (6/17)

Mars Declared Unsafe For Humans: No One Can Survive for Longer Than Four Years (Source: Physics-Astronomy.com)
An international group of space scientists recently published a paper detailing the threat of particle radiation on Mars. Their findings show that a stay longer than four years on the Red Planet would exceed safe exposure to radiation for humans. The radiation threats include particle radiation from the Sun, distant stars, and galaxies, which humans are usually shielded from by Earth’s magnetosphere. Mars declared unsafe for humans by the group of space scientists.

The researchers explained that a Mars mission longer than four years would expose astronauts to dangerously high levels of radiation, primarily from sources outside our solar system. This revelation is based on the combined studies from several esteemed institutions, including UCLA, MIT, Moscow’s Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, and GFZ Potsdam.

Editor's Note: UCF's Dr. Phil Metzger begs to differ: "If I had peer reviewed this paper I would have pointed out this serious flaw: it shows a monotonically increasing dose if you increase shield thickness above a certain point. Then they hand-wave that no material can reduce the radiation further... which is ridiculous. The ... *entire* question hinges on where the curve reaches a maximum then comes back down again. This should depend on the material... but this paper only studies aluminum, which is a terrible material for space radiation shields." (6/16)