Copy
A Weekly Chronicle of Developments in the Space Industry
subscribeupdate preferences - donate
View this email in your browser
Venmo @Edward-Ellegood Venmo @Edward-Ellegood
Twitter Twitter
LinkedIn Group LinkedIn Group
PayPal Tip Jar PayPal Tip Jar
December 13, 2021

What is this SPACErePORT? 
The SPACErePORT is a free weekly e-newsletter distributed to ~1500 subscribers. It is supplemented by a daily-updated SPACErePORT blog; a Twitter feed with ~1800 followers; and a spaceports-focused LinkedIn Group with ~280 members. (I also manage the National Space Club's Florida Committee LinkedIn and Twitter feeds.) If you like receiving this free resource, donations are encouraged using the PayPal tip jar, or Venmo using @Edward-Ellegood. I can also publish banner advertisements at affordable rates, or sometimes for free if I support the cause. Happy holidays!
 
ULA Launches Atlas V From Cape Canaveral Spaceport, Carrying Multiple Payloads (Source: Florida Today)
The most powerful variant of an Atlas V rocket shot off its Cape Canaveral pad like a laser beam early Tuesday, taking several payloads on a mission overseen by the Space Force. The RD-180 main engines and five solid rocket boosters generated more than two million pounds of thrust at 5:19 a.m. sharp, pushing Atlas past the lightning suppression towers at Launch Complex 41 faster than other rockets in its class. It marked United Launch Alliance's third Florida mission of the year.

The rocket's second stage was then expected to spend a whopping seven hours delivering the Space Test Program-3 mission, or STP-3, to a geosynchronous orbit some 22,200 miles above Earth. The mission took several payloads to orbit, including a NASA experiment to test data transmission using lasers. The agency says laser-based communications outstrip legacy radio systems as they deliver more data while using smaller, lighter hardware. The National Nuclear Security Administration, a Department of Energy agency, also boosted a payload designed to detect nuclear detonations high in the atmosphere. (12/7)

SpaceX Launches NASA Astronomy Satellite From Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: Space News)
A Falcon 9 launched a NASA X-ray astronomy satellite overnight. The Falcon 9 lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center at 1 a.m. Eastern Thursday and released the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) spacecraft into orbit 33 minutes later. IXPE is designed to measure the polarization of X-rays from black holes and neutron stars, providing new information about the nature of those objects. To maximize the science of the mission, IXPE needs to fly in an equatorial orbit, which required most of the performance available from the Falcon 9 to change its inclination despite the fact that the spacecraft weighs only about 325 kilograms. (12/9)

Bruno: Vulcan BE-4 Engines Coming Soon, Testing Well (Source: Space News)
ULA CEO Tory Bruno says he expects to receive the first flight versions of the BE-4 engines for his Vulcan Centaur rocket early next year. Bruno said Friday that those engines are being built by Blue Origin, but won't be ready by the end of this year as he had hoped. Production of the engines has been affected by supply chain problems, he said, but added that certification testing has been "going really, really well." ULA expects to conduct two Vulcan launches in 2022. (12/6)

Launch Startup Astra Will Fly its First Florida Mission in January (Source: Florida Today)
Astra, an upstart launch provider with high-profile investors and dozens of contracts under its belt, will fly its next mission from the Space Coast. The California-based small satellite launcher will become one of a select few to fly from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport in January when its launch system boosts a $3.9 million NASA mission to orbit. An exact timeframe has not yet been approved by the range.

Hosting the Venture Class Launch Services Demonstration 2 mission will be Launch Complex 46, a pad formerly used for military ballistic missile tests now operated by Space Florida, the state's spaceport authority. The agency over the years has turned LC-46 into a "plug-and-play" facility, meaning agile launchers like Astra don't need to construct a dedicated pad for their rocket and can instead use provided infrastructure.

That existing infrastructure combined with Astra's ability to fit the majority of its launch system in a few shipping containers meant Space Florida and the Space Force's locally based Space Launch Delta 45 were able to approve the company in just seven months. Companies typically take between three to five years for approval because of the need for complicated ground systems and entire complexes dedicated specific types of rockets. (12/5)

Relativity Space Tests Water Deluge System at Refurbished Florida Launch Pad (Source: Relativity Space)
Relativity Space, the launcher startup developing 3-D printed rockets, continues its work at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport to modify an old launch pad for their commercial missions. The company recently posted this video of their new water deluge system at Launch Complex 16. (12/10) 

Florida Governor Proposes $18.5 Million Budget for Space Florida (Source: SPACErePORT)
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has released his proposed budget for FY22-23. His "Freedom First" budget proposal will be considered during the state's annual legislative session (11 Jan through 11 Mar), with competing budgets offered by the House and Senate. DeSantis' proposal includes $12.5 million for Space Florida's operations, and $6 million for Space Florida financing and infrastructure projects. Another $5 million is proposed for "Space, Defense and Rural Infrastructure" grants (most likely not going to space projects), and $38 million for other economic development incentives that include a "Qualified Defense Contractor and Space Flight" business tax refund program. (12/9)

Space Florida Official Departs Agency to Join Space Force Delta Staff (Source: SPACErePORT)
Mark Bontrager, Space Florida's vice president for spaceport operations, will leave the state's spaceport authority to serve as a senior civilian executive with the Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45 (SLD45), reporting to Brigadier General Stephen Purdy. Bontrager has been responsible for much of Space Florida's success in accommodating new users at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. He will now bring his deep knowledge of the state's space infrastructure, policy, and financing to Space Force decision making on the spaceport's future as a multi-user, multi-agency transportation hub. (12/9)

Future of Florida's OneWeb Satellite Factory Threatened as Company Plans UK Production (Source: The Telegraph)
A OneWeb executive says that the company will move manufacturing of its satellites to the U.K. by 2025. Speaking before a parliamentary committee Wednesday, Chris McLaughlin said the company planned to build the satellites for the second generation of its constellation in the U.K. at a site to be determined. OneWeb currently builds its satellites in Florida through a partnership with Airbus called OneWeb Satellites, but it's not clear if OneWeb will continue to work with Airbus on the second-generation system. (12/9)

Rocket Lab to Launch Three Dedicated Electron Missions for EO Firm Synspective (Source: Space Daily) Rocket Lab USA has signed a deal with Japanese Earth imaging company Synspective to carry out three dedicated Electron launches. The first two missions are scheduled for lift-off from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in 2022, with a third to follow in 2023. Each mission will deploy a single StriX satellite, growing Synspective's synthetic aperture radar (SAR) constellation developed to deliver imagery that can detect millimeter-level changes to the Earth's surface from space, independent of weather conditions on Earth and at any time of the day or night. (12/8)

Virgin Orbit Set to Launch on Dec. 22 (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Virgin Orbit is planning to launch five satellites using its LauncherOne rocket on Dec. 22, according to a U.S. Coast Guard Notice to Mariners. LauncherOne will be dropped by the Boeing 747 Cosmic Girl over the Pacific Ocean near the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California. The launch window will last from 2-5 p.m. PST, the notice said. Backup launch dates are Dec. 23 and January 8-10 from 2:15-5 p.m. (12/10)

Houston Spaceport Opens Doors to Expand Commercial Aerospace Industry (Source: KPRC)
The Houston Spaceport is creating a home for some of the forward thinkers in aerospace. The Houston Spaceport at Ellington Field is moving at incredible speed to create a multi-purpose space to attract leading companies, and provide sense of community for space innovators. KPRC provides this video report. Click here. (11/24)

Maine Town Pumps Brakes on Proposed Spaceport (Source: Brunswick Times Record)
The town of Jonesport voted Wednesday against an aerospace facility proposed by a Brunswick rocket company. Plans for a launch site, mission control area and associated infrastructure were brought to the town by bluShift Aerospace, a company headquartered at Brunswick Landing that made headlines in January for becoming the first in Maine to launch a commercial rocket and the first in the world to launch a commercial rocket using bio-derived fuel.

The town voted in a special meeting to put a six-month moratorium on the proposal, 60-4 against. According to Harry Fish, a Jonesport selectman, the moratorium will give the town time to develop zoning regarding aerospace. “I would say by the feeling of the town that the wording of the ordinance is going to be extremely prohibiting,” said Fish, adding that it will likely render the project impossible.

Primarily local fishermen are pushing back against the project, Fish said, due to concerns that it would interfere with fishing schedules and that gear could be damaged and tangled with parachutes coming down alongside rockets. The company first approached the town about a month ago. The proposed location for the launch site is on an island, although the mission control facility would be closer to town. The cost of the project would be in the range of $1 million. (12/2)

Making Space Travel Inclusive for All (Source: San Diego Metro)
In a weightless, microgravity environment like space, what do ability and disability look like? How can someone with partial sight or impaired mobility navigate in a confined space like the space station? As scientists and innovators continue to push the boundaries of spaceflight and the possibility of human life on other planets, how can we build space infrastructure that is inclusive of all humans?

The Mission: AstroAccess project aims to answer these questions, starting with a historic parabolic flight that took off from Long Beach on Oct. 17, 2021. A group of 12 disabled scientists, veterans, students, athletes and artists launched into a zero-gravity environment as a first step toward understanding what is needed to make space inclusive for all. (12/9)

Blue Origin Safely Completes Third Human Spaceflight at Texas Launch Site (Source: Blue Origin)
Blue Origin today successfully completed the third human spaceflight - the first with six astronauts on board. The astronaut manifest included, Laura Shepard Churchley, Michael Strahan, Evan Dick, Dylan Taylor, Cameron Bess, and Lane Bess. The NS-19 mission marked the sixth flight of the year for the program. Blue Origin is planning several crewed and payload flights in 2022. (12/11)
 
Bezos Ripped for Celebrating Space Trip After Amazon Warehouse Collapse (Source: New York Post)
Jeff Bezos was blasted Saturday for cheering on his latest group of space tourists while making no mention of the deaths of at least two workers in an Amazon warehouse hit by a tornado Friday. The Amazon founder greeted former NFL star Michael Strahan and the other five members of the latest crew of his New Shepard rocket after the 10-minute flight landed in West Texas. “Welcome back, guys,” he said, as he opened the capsule door after their return.
 
Prior to the flight, he posted a photo on Instagram of himself with the space flight crew and the comment, “Happy crew this morning in the training center” — but made no mention on the social media site of the tragedy at the Amazon warehouse in Illinois. “You should worry about the tornado situation more,” one woman commented.
 
The billionaire celebrated his space success in the midst of the tragedy unfolding in Edwardsville, Illinois, where search and rescue operations continued at an Amazon warehouse that saw part of its roof ripped off and a sizable wall collapse late Friday. While some 30 workers managed to escape, it was unclear how many might still be trapped in the football-field sized rubble. (12/11)

Old Shepard vs New Shepard: How Astronaut Daughter's Launch Stacks Up (Source: CollectSpace)
Laura Shepard Churchley is now the 372nd American to fly into space. Her dad was the first. Separated by 60 years, 7 months and 6 days, Churchley followed in her father's footsteps — and suborbital flight trajectory — by launching on board Blue Origin's New Shepard on Dec. 11. The rocket, named after Alan Shepard, the United States' first astronaut to fly into space (and Churchley's dad), completed its 19th successful spaceflight and first to carry a full crew of six people.

The two Shepards' history-making missions were similar in many ways, but here's how they were different: Alan Shepard (AS) flight duration = 15 minutes 28 seconds, New Shepard (NS) flight duration = 10 minutes 13 seconds; AS apogee = 187.5km, NS apogee = 105.9km; AS vehicle height = 25m, NS vehicle height = 15m; AS vehicle diameter = 1.8m, NS vehicle diameter = 3.7m. (12/11)

FAA Says Lack of Federal Whistleblower Protections is 'Enormous Factor' Hindering Blue Origin Safety Review (Source: CNN Business)
Jeff Bezos' rocket company, Blue Origin, became the subject of a federal review this fall after a group of 21 current and former employees co-signed an essay that raised serious questions about the safety of the company's rockets — including the rocket making headlines for flying Bezos and other celebrities to space.

But that review was hamstrung by a lack of legal protections for whistleblowers in the commercial spaceflight industry, according to emails from Federal Aviation Administration investigators that were obtained by CNN Business. The FAA also confirmed in a statement Friday that its Blue Origin review is now closed, saying the "FAA investigated the safety allegations made against Blue Origin's human spaceflight program" and "found no specific safety issues."

The emails reveal that investigators were not able to speak with any of the engineers who signed the letter anonymously. Investigators also were not able to go to Blue Origin and ask for documents or interviews with current employees or management, according to the FAA. The situation highlights how commercial spaceflight companies like Blue Origin are operating in a regulatory bubble, insulated from much of the scrutiny other industries are put under. There are no federal whistleblower statutes that would protect employees in the commercial space industry if they aid FAA investigators, according to the agency. (12/10)

FAA Will No Longer Give Out Commercial Astronaut Wings Because Too Many are Launching Into Space (Source: WESH)
Heads up, future space travelers: No more commercial astronaut wings will be awarded from the FAA after this year. The FAA said Friday it's clipping its astronaut wings because too many people are now launching into space and it's getting out of the astronaut designation business entirely. The news comes one day ahead of Blue Origin's planned liftoff from West Texas with former NFL player and TV celebrity Michael Strahan. He and his five fellow passengers will still be eligible for wings since the FAA isn't ending its long-standing program until Jan. 1. (12/10)
NASA, Aerojet Rocketdyne Working Through Engine Issue for Artemis I (Source: MyNews 13)
The highly anticipated launch of the first mission in the Artemis program is potentially only a couple months away, but before that happens, NASA needs to work through an issue with one of the rocket’s four RS-25 engines that power the core stage of the rocket. During a series of systems tests and checkouts, NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) team encountered a problem with part of the avionics that controls engine four.

A NASA spokesperson told Spectrum News 13 that during the week of November 22, the SLS team “could not verify communication between the flight computers and the engine controller for engine number 4,” but that prior to that week, “the engine four controller was powered up and communicated with the rocket’s flight computers as expected.”

The engine controller is described by NASA as “an avionics unit that controls engine operation and communicates with other avionics systems in the vehicle.” The RS-25 engines are built by Aerojet Rocketdyne. The first three rockets for the Artemis program will use 16 engines originally developed for the Space Shuttle program. (12/7)

NASA's Future is in Private Space Companies' Hands (Source: Axios)
The private space players who will drive NASA's plans for the coming decade are declaring themselves and defining the stakes. Why it matters: NASA plans to focus on getting people to Mars and the Moon, and its deep space exploration ambitions hinge on the agency being able to successfully hand over major operations in low-Earth orbit to private companies.

The space agency hopes companies will build private space stations that its astronauts can use and to continue to buy space on private rockets for launching its satellites and other payloads to orbit and beyond. NASA's "big experiment" right now is to test where these commercial partnerships work, the Planetary Society's Casey Dreier told Axios. (12/7)

How Blue Origin And Other Commercial Space Stations Will Lead NASA to Mars (Source: Inverse)
As recent air leaks and congressional funding debates have made clear, the ISS won’t live forever. While NASA has officially secured funding for the ISS through 2028, the space station — which has been continuously inhabited for more than 20 years — is not expected to live beyond the current decade. “Around 2030, approximately, is when NASA has decided it needs to transfer away from the International Space Station and start to think about deorbiting plans and end-of-life,” Laura Froczyk says.

At the same time, NASA will still need an outpost or outposts in LEO well into the 2030s, she says. Such facilities will be vital in preparing the astronauts, technologies, and procedures necessary to send astronauts to Mars. NASA estimates it needs to conduct around 200 investigations in LEO annually — but NASA cannot afford to build and operate another ISS, return to the Moon, and head into deep space at the same time.

“What we're seeing is NASA saying we need to free up funds to pursue the Artemis program because they've been given only so much money to do a whole lot,” Forczyk says. Just as NASA ended the expensive and troubled Space Shuttle program and now contracts with SpaceX to ferry crew and cargo to and from the ISS through the Commercial Crew program, the LEO Destinations program will replace the ISS and allow NASA to purchase space station services it needs a la carte. (12/8)

Nanoracks Led Team Want to Build a Commercial Space Station (Source: Space Daily)
Nanoracks, in collaboration with Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin, has been awarded a $160 million contract by NASA to design its Starlab commercial space station as part of the agency's Commercial Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) Development program. Starlab will enable NASA's initiative to stimulate the commercial space economy and provide science and crew capabilities prior to the retirement of the International Space Station (ISS).

"While today marks a major milestone for Nanoracks and our Starlab team, the impact goes far beyond this award," said Dr. Amela Wilson, CEO at Nanoracks. "To receive this support from NASA validates over a decade of Nanoracks' hard work forging commercial access to space, bringing over 1300 commercial payloads from 30 nations to the ISS. This opportunity opens far-reaching possibilities for critical research and commercial industrial activity in LEO. We are honored to be selected as one of three awardees to work with NASA, and we cannot wait to bring our existing global commercial customer base to Starlab." (12/2)

One Private Space Station Effort Ends - Bigelow's BEAM Inflatable Module Transferred to NASA (Sources: @toOast, Space News, Wikipedia)
In December 2021, Bigelow Space One LLC transferred title and ownership of the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) to NASA's Johnson Space Center. BEAM is an experimental expandable space station module developed by Bigelow Aerospace, under contract to NASA, for testing as a temporary module on the ISS from 2016 to at least 2020. It arrived at the ISS on 10 April 2016, was berthed to the station, and was expanded and pressurized on 28 May 2016.
 
Bigelow laid off its entire 68-person workforce in March 2020, in part due to the coronavirus pandemic. Bigelow had licensed expandable module technology from NASA’s TransHab project, and intended to launch a large free-flying B330 commercial space station. It launched two demonstration modules in 2006 and 2007, and then won a NASA contract in 2013 to develop the BEAM module for attachment to the ISS.

On 10 December NASA/JSC issued a sole-source solicitation for engineering support services for BEAM metallics/structures to ensure continued usage of the BEAM on the ISS.  This service includes on-call support in the event of anomalies and/or issue resolution impacting the BEAM and/or ISS interfaces to the BEAM. NASA/JSC intends to contract with ATA Engineering, Inc. starting as early as the first quarter or the second quarter of FY 2022 to support BEAM on-orbit operations. (12/12)

High-Speed Lunar Surface Transportation (Source: Space Daily)
Proposed lunar surface mobility systems for human colonization appear to be severely limited in speed and payload capabilities. Roving vehicles are massive and move slowly over the rough lunar terrain, at a high cost of energy and life support supplies. Flying units, powered by chemical rockets are fast, but the price of speed is payload and range. On the other hand, a hopping transporter concept, conceived in the 1960s by Stanford professor Howard Seifert, could incorporate both the conservative use of fuel and a high average surface speed.

In fact, an early investigation of feasibility, with respect to performance capabilities, was carried out. The objective was achieved by studying the dynamic characteristics of somewhat idealized hopping vehicle configurations which were based on assumed conditions and mission requirements. Two schematic designs were investigated. One was a single-crew device assumed to be of minimum complexity and mass. This device is intended to extend the operating range of astronauts on short-duration lunar surface exploration missions.

The other design was a multi-crew transporter capable of making long-range and duration explorations of the lunar surface. Both vehicles employed the technique of accelerating up a thrust-leg, locking this leg to the main body at the end of acceleration, executing a classic ballistic parabola, and finally, decelerating down this leg to complete each hop. Energy could be essentially conserved in this process, thus providing for substantial payload capability, in addition to other performance advantages. (12/3)

How to Clarify Human Futures Beyond Earth (Source: Space Review)
One of the major questions regarding the ability of humans to live in space for extended periods is whether partial gravity levels, such as those on the Moon and Mars, are sufficient to keep people healthy. Joe Carroll examines the issue and how a concept for a rotating spacecraft could answer those questions. Click here. (12/6)

NASA Gets New Astronauts (Source: Space News)
NASA introduced a new class of astronauts Monday while its safety advisory group recommended changes in the planning and management of exploration missions. The 10 members of the astronaut class of 2021, six men and four women, will start two years of training in January, after which they will be eligible for flight assignments. NASA introduced the astronauts the same day that its Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, in a special meeting, offered several recommendations it says are vital to ensuring the success of future exploration efforts. Those recommendations include a new long-term strategic plan, creating a "board of directors" at the agency and consolidating the overall Artemis effort into a single program. (12/7)

Central Florida Native Among 10 New NASA Astronaut Candidates (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
One of 10 new NASA astronaut candidates grew up with rocket launches in his backyard. Luke Delaney, 42, was born in Miami but grew up in DeBary, attending both DeLand and Deltona High School in Volusia County. He was among 10 candidates that will begin two years of training starting in January to gear up for future missions either to the International Space Station or on Artemis flights to deep space.

“I wanted to be an astronaut when growing up in Central Florida, got to see some launches, got some exposure to that,” Delaney said. “I think it was a big effort or big endeavor at the schools and elementary school, and you got a lot of exposure to those kind of things.”

Delaney joins current NASA astronaut Joe Acabá with Central Florida ties. Acabá, who once taught science and math at Melbourne High School in Brevard County as well as Dunnellon Middle School in Marion County, was chosen last year to be among NASA’s astronaut corps for its Artemis missions. Other notable former astronauts with Central Florida ties include second man on the moon and Florida Tech professor Buzz Aldrin; moonwalker and commander of the first space shuttle mission John Young; and UCF graduate Nicole Stott who flew on the space shuttle and spent 91 days on board the ISS. (12/6)

NASA Selects Education Projects to Help Broaden STEM Participation (Source: NASA)
NASA has selected a diverse group of projects from museums, science centers, library systems, and other informal education organizations across the country as NASA Informal Education Community Anchors.

The projects all received Teams Engaging Affiliated Museums and Informal Institutions (TEAM II) Community Anchor Awards. Designation as a community anchor recognizes an institution as a local community resource. These projects will bring space exploration to traditionally underserved areas and broaden student participation in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Click here. (12/9)

New NASA Telescope Will Provide X-Ray Views of the Universe (Source: New York Times)
A brand-new space telescope will soon reveal a hidden vision of the cosmos, potentially transforming our understanding of black holes, supernovas and even the nature of the universe itself. No, not that one. Much attention is being devoted this month to the James Webb Space Telescope, from NASA and the European Space Agency, which is set to launch on Dec. 22. But a more exclusive cadre of astronomers watched excitedly on Thursday during the trip to space of a smaller, but also transformative, observatory.

NASA launched the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, or IXPE mission, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1 a.m. Eastern. The spacecraft cost a mere $188 million, compared with the James Webb’s mammoth budget of $9.7 billion, and is expected to demonstrate a new form of astronomy. It will, for the first time, perform imaging X-ray polarimetry in orbit, a technique that could offer astronomers insights that no other telescope can match. (12/9)

JWST Fueled and Ready for Launch (Source: ESA)
The James Webb Space Telescope is fueled for launch. ESA said Monday that technicians in French Guiana completed loading the spacecraft's tanks with hydrazine and dinitrogen tetroxide used by its thrusters. The fuel is designed to support at least 10 years of operations of the spacecraft once it reaches the Earth-sun L-2 point after launch. (12/7)

NASA Returns Hubble to Full Science Operations (Source: NASA)
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope team recovered the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on Monday, Dec. 6, and is now operating with all four active instruments collecting science. The team has still not detected any further synchronization message issues since monitoring began Nov. 1.

The team will continue work on developing and testing changes to instrument software that would allow them to conduct science operations even if they encounter several lost synchronization messages in the future. The first of these changes is scheduled to be installed on the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph in mid-December. The other instruments will receive similar updates in the coming months.

Hubble has been operating now for over 31 years, collecting ground-breaking science observations that have changed our fundamental understanding of the universe. With the launch of the Webb Telescope planned for later this month, NASA expects the two observatories will work together well into this decade, expanding our knowledge of the cosmos even further. (12/7)

NASA Exploring Options to Fix Lucy Solar Array (Source: NASA)
NASA is planning additional ground tests before deciding how to fix a solar array on the Lucy spacecraft. One of the spacecraft's two circular arrays failed to fully deploy after launch in October, and ground tests concluded that "additional motor operations" are likely needed to fully deploy that array and latch it into place. NASA will conduct additional tests on how to conduct those motor operations, but is leaving open the option of keeping the array in its current state. (12/9)

Airbus to Build Ariel Exoplanet Telescope (Source: BBC)
Airbus will build an ESA spacecraft to study exoplanets. ESA said Tuesday it selected Airbus to build the Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey, or Ariel, spacecraft scheduled for launch in 2029. Ariel will study the composition of exoplanets by collecting data at visible and infrared wavelengths. The contract is valued at $225 million. (12/7)

NASA’s Next-Generation Asteroid Impact Monitoring System Goes Online (Source: NASA)
The new Sentry-II system improves the capabilities of NASA JPL’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies to assess the impact risk of asteroids that can come close to our planet. With Sentry-II, NASA has a tool that can rapidly calculate impact probabilities for all known NEAs, including some special cases not captured by the original Sentry.

To date, nearly 28,000 near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) have been found by survey telescopes that continually scan the night sky, adding new discoveries at a rate of about 3,000 per year. But as larger and more advanced survey telescopes turbocharge the search over the next few years, a rapid uptick in discoveries is expected. In anticipation of this increase, NASA astronomers have developed a next-generation impact monitoring algorithm called Sentry-II to better evaluate NEA impact probabilities. (12/6)

A New Era of Planetary Exploration: What We Discovered on the Far Side of the Moon (Source: Space Review)
Even though spacecraft have studied the Moon for more than 60 years, new technologies and instruments can provide new insights. Iraklis Giannakis discusses how ground-penetrating radar has helped scientists understand what’s going on below the surface of the Moon. Click here. (12/6)

Rover Escapes From Sand Trap (Source: Space Daily)
The ExoMars rover used in the Earth-based Mars Terrain Simulator makes escaping from a sand trap look easy in this exercise. The rover initially has its front two wheels almost completely buried in sand, but easily escapes using its unique wheel-walking mode. It takes about 20 minutes to complete the 2 m drive - slow and careful being the key to getting out of a difficult situation.

Rovers on Mars have previously been caught in sand, and turning the wheels dug them deeper, just like a car stuck in mud or snow. To avoid this, the ExoMars rover Rosalind Franklin - and its replica - has a unique wheel walking locomotion mode. Similar to leg movements, wheel-walking combines motions of the deployment actuators (the legs) with the rotation of the wheels to progress without slippage. This motion gives very good traction in soft soils and high slopes, such as dunes. (12/3)

Mars Helicopter Flies Again; Encounters Radio Interference on 17th Flight (Source: Space Daily)
Ingenuity flew for the 17th time at Mars on Sunday, Dec. 5. After the helicopter executed the planned 614-foot (187-meter) traverse to the northeast, the radio communications link between Ingenuity and the Perseverance Mars rover was disrupted during the final descent phase of the flight. Approximately 15 minutes later, Perseverance received several packets of additional Ingenuity telemetry indicating that the flight electronics and battery were healthy.

All available telemetry during and after the flight suggests that the activity was a success and that the loss of link was due to a challenging radio configuration between Perseverance and Ingenuity during landing. However, before planning our next flight, we need transfer the missing data from Flight 17 from helicopter to rover, and then to Earth, so we can confirm vehicle health. (12/9)

High Tech Sleeping Bag Could Mitigate Astronaut Vision Problems (Source: BBC)
A high-tech "sleeping bag" could be the solution to vision problems astronauts have suffered in orbit. Scientists are studying a bag that draws fluids from the upper body to the lower body. In microgravity, fluids can pool in the upper body and distort the shape of astronauts' eyeballs, causing their vision to worsen. Tests on patients confined to bed show promise, scientists said in a newly published paper. (12/10)

Technology Development Research Announcement to Leverage ISS National Lab Now Open (Source: CASIS)
A new research announcement was released today soliciting flight projects leveraging the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory to advance technology development applications. This research announcement seeks flight projects within the areas of applied research and development, translational medicine, technology readiness level maturation, and technology demonstration.

As a public service enterprise, the ISS National Lab allows researchers to leverage this multiuser facility to improve quality of life on Earth, mature space-based business models, advance science literacy in the future workforce, and expand a sustainable and scalable market in low Earth orbit (LEO). Through this research announcement, investigators can use the unique ISS environment to develop, test, or mature products and processes that have a demonstrated potential to produce near-term, positive economic impact. (12/7)

New National Science Foundation Tissue Engineering Solicitation to Leverage ISS National Lab (Source: CASIS)
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, Inc. (CASIS) announced a solicitation to utilize the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory to advance research in tissue engineering and mechanobiology. NSF will provide up to $1.2 million in funding to support multiple projects that will launch to the orbiting research platform under the sponsorship of the ISS National Lab.

Microgravity affects organisms—from bacteria to humans, inducing changes such as altered gene expression and DNA regulation, changes in cellular function and physiology, and 3D aggregation of cells. Research leveraging these effects can drive advances in pharmaceutical development, disease modeling, regenerative medicine, and many other areas within the life sciences. (12/6)

Team Formed to ISS "Science Park" (Source: Voyager Space)
Voyager Space and Nanoracks announced that the Universities Space Research Association, ZIN Technologies, The Ohio State University, and the International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation have been selected as the founding leadership team of the George Washington Carver (GWC) Science Park on the Starlab commercial space station. The GWC Science Park, established by Nanoracks, is the world's first-ever science park in space, operating today on the ISS and soon on future commercial platforms. (12/8)

Russia Strikes Deal with NASA for First Cosmonaut on SpaceX Flight (Source: Space Daily)
Russia's only active female cosmonaut, Anna Kikina, will make her first trip into space in fall 2022 as the first Russian to fly on a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, Russia's space agency announced Wednesday on Twitter. Dmitry Rogozin, director general of Russia's Roscosmos agency, said his program has pledged a seat of a Russian Soyuz capsule to an American astronaut in return. Rogozin did not specify SpaceX in his statement, saying only "an American spacecraft." But SpaceX's Crew Dragon is the only American spacecraft certified to carry people. (12/9)

Russia Selects Cosmonaut to Fly on Crew Dragon (Source: Space News)
Roscosmos says it's selected a cosmonaut to fly on a commercial crew mission next fall, although the agency has yet to finalize an agreement with NASA for that flight. Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, said this week that Anna Kikina would fly on a SpaceX Crew Dragon commercial crew mission in the fall of 2022, with a NASA astronaut flying on a Soyuz around the same time. A NASA spokesman said the agency is still working on completing an agreement with Roscosmos to swap seats between Soyuz and commercial crew flights. Such exchanges would ensure that there will be NASA and Roscosmos crew on the station in the event either Soyuz or commercial crew vehicles are sidelined for an extended period. (12/10)

India and Russia to Strengthen Space Cooperation (Source: Space News)
India and Russia have agreed to strengthen cooperation in the space sector, including human spaceflight programs and satellite navigation. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in New Delhi Monday and signed a broader set of trade, military and technology agreements. In addition to cooperation on human spaceflight and satellite navigation, the countries agreed to study potential cooperation in launch vehicle development and planetary exploration. (12/9)

Japanese Duo Prepare for First Tourist Flight to Space Station Since 2009 (Source: Space Daily)
Two Japanese businessmen plan to become the first paying tourists to visit the International Space Station since 2009 by rocketing into orbit from Kazakhstan on Wednesday. Billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, who made his fortune in the fashion industry, booked seats for himself and his production assistant, Yozo Hirano, aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft through Virginia-based spacecraft broker Space Adventures.

Cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin will pilot the Soyuz during its flight to the space station and upon its return 12 days later. NASA plans to broadcast live video of the launch planned for 2:38 a.m. EST Wednesday. The mission is part of a rapid expansion in space travel, Tom Shelley, president of Space Adventures, said in an interview. (12/6)

Soyuz Brings Two Japanese Tourists, One Russian to ISS (Source: Space News)
A Soyuz spacecraft delivered two Japanese private astronauts and a Roscosmos cosmonaut to the International Space Station Wednesday morning. A Soyuz rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 2:38 a.m. Eastern and placed the Soyuz MS-20 spacecraft into orbit. That spacecraft docked with the station six hours later. Soyuz MS-20 is commanded by Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin with two private astronauts on board: Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his production assistant, Yozo Hirano. Space Adventures arranged the dedicated commercial flight. The three will return to Earth on the Soyuz spacecraft Dec. 19. (12/8)

Japanese Tycoon Tries Out Space Station Before Future SpaceX Flight to Moon (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
With his future ride to space still under construction, a Japanese billionaire and a film producer in tow hitched a ride with a cosmonaut to the International Space Station. Yusaku Maezawa, 46, who is slated to travel on SpaceX’s Starship on a trip around the moon on a future mission, paired up with civilian space tourism outfit Space Adventures to line up a 12-day visit to the space station. (12/9)

Yusaku Maezawa: Irreverent Billionaire Fascinated by Space (Source: Space Daily)
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, who blasts off for the International Space Station this week, is an irreverent space enthusiast who has made headlines for splashing the cash on modern art. The 46-year-old tycoon is the founder of Japan's largest online fashion mall and is the country's 30th-richest person, according to business magazine Forbes. But he is far from the traditional image of a staid Japanese businessman, with more than 10 million people following his Twitter account.

And he's a big spender, particularly when it comes to his twin passions: modern art and space travel. He hit the headlines in 2017 when he forked out a whopping $110.5 million for Jean-Michel Basquiat's 1982 painting "Untitled", a skull-like head in oil-stick, acrylic and spray paint on a giant canvas. It was a record price, but Maezawa insists he is just an "ordinary collector" who buys pieces "simply because they are beautiful". On December 8, Maezawa will become the first space tourist to travel to the ISS with Russia's space agency Roscosmos since Canadian Guy Laliberte, co-founder of Cirque du Soleil, in 2009. (12/6)

The NASA-China Space Race is About to Go Nuclear (Source: The Hill)
Recently, NASA and the United States Department of Energy put out a call for industry to propose designs for a nuclear power plant that could be deployed on the moon within the decade, according to Science Alert. In the meantime, Interesting Engineering reports that China has completed a design for its own lunar-based nuclear reactor. The two news items suggests that both sides of the current space race are very serious about returning to the moon and developing Earth’s nearest neighbor in a big way.

The Chinese lunar nuclear reactor is described as being capable of generating a full megawatt of electricity. According to Live Science, NASA requires that the lunar nuclear power plant generate just 40 kilowatts of power for 10 years, fit inside a 12-foot long by 18-foot-wide rocket, and weigh no more than 13,200 pounds. Presumably, if the moon base requires more than 40 kilowatts of power, more power plants can be launched and deployed ready for use. (12/5)

China's Manned Moon Landing Possible Before 2030 (Source: Xinhua)
It is "entirely possible" for China to perform a crewed lunar landing before 2030, said a senior Chinese scientist in deep-space exploration. "I personally think that as long as the technological research for manned moon landing continues, and as long as the country is determined (to achieve the goal), it is entirely possible for China to land people on the moon before 2030, " Ye Peijian said in a recent interview with the state broadcaster CCTV.

Chief designer of China's first moon probe Chang'e-1 and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ye noted that space exploration is not just a matter of science, but also something related to the future of a nation. "Countries that can lead in space technology have advanced technologies in various fields. In turn, space technology is something that can feed back to technologies in other aspects," Ye added. (12/5)

Mexico Joins Artemis Accords (Source: Space News)
Mexico is the latest country to join the Artemis Accords. The country's foreign relations secretary announced Thursday that Mexico was signing the accords and looked forward to participating in the Artemis program. However, he did not disclose what role he envisions Mexico playing in the effort. Fourteen countries have now signed the accords, which outline best practices for safe and sustainable space exploration, many based on the Outer Space Treaty and related agreements. (12/10)

UAE Gets New Space Chief (Source: The National)
The United Arab Emirates' major space center has a new leader. Salem Al Marri is the new head of the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre, which is responsible for the Hope Mars orbiter and the country's astronaut program. He replaces Yousuf Al Shaibani, who led the center since 2013. (12/6)

EAEU Countries Interested in Creating Eurasian Space Agency (Source: TASS)
The countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) are interested in the idea of creating the Eurasian Space Agency, Member of the Board - Minister in charge of Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasian Economic Commission Sergey Glazyev said at the EAEU business forum Space Integration on Friday.

"The idea of the Eurasian Space Agency is really relevant and in demand," he said, commenting on a proposal of Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin. He added that, in his opinion, all countries of the union are interested in Roscosmos’ projects. Earlier at the forum, Dmitry Rogozin proposed to seriously discuss the possibility of creating a Eurasian Space Agency. "I would like us to seriously discuss this topic of developing the Eurasian Space Agency," he said. (12/3)
A Biden Space Policy Takes Shape (Source: Space Review)
The National Space Council met for the first time last week in the Biden Administration. Jeff Foust reports on how the meeting, and a policy document released that day, show an emphasis on continuity, with some added attention in certain areas. Click here. (12/6)
  
Biden: US Government to be Carbon Neutral by 2050 (Source: The Verge)
The US government has set a 2050 carbon neutrality deadline under an executive ordered signed by President Joe Biden. Biden set intermittent goals that would be achieved by converting federal fleets to electric, retrofitting government buildings and embracing alternative energy sources. (12/8)

Bye Bye Ajit Pai - Senate Confirms Rosenworcel to Chair FCC (Source: The Verge)
The Senate confirmed Jessica Rosenworcel as chairwoman of the FCC. Senators voted 68-31 to confirm Rosenworcel to a new term on the commission and to be the first woman to chair the FCC in its 86-year history. She has been an advocate for expanding broadband access, including by satellite. (12/8)

DoD Space Procurement Nominee Expected Soon (Source: Space News)
Kendall said the White House is preparing to nominate a senior procurement executive for space programs. The candidate for the position of assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration is being vetted by the White House ahead of a formal nomination for the position, which requires Senate confirmation. Kendall said having a senior leader in charge of military space acquisitions is important as the Space Force looks to modernize its satellites and other systems developed decades ago, and to acquire advanced technologies needed to compete with China and Russia. One of the first assignments for the new assistant secretary will be to oversee organizational changes in the Space Force procurement enterprise. (12/6)

Another Funding CR Keeps New Space Force Programs in Limbo (Source: Space News)
The decision by Congress to pass another stopgap spending bill rather than full-year appropriations is "very unfortunate," Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said. In an interview, Kendall said the continuing resolution (CR), which funds the government at 2021 levels through Feb. 18, means new programs at the Air Force and Space Force remain in limbo. The potential for a year-long CR "would be devastating," he warned. "We're in a race, and giving time to your adversaries is not a good thing to do." (12/6)

DoD's SDA Makes Plans for CR Funding (Source: Space News)
The Pentagon's Space Development Agency (SDA) is making contingency plans for its programs if it doesn't get a full-year budget by February. Speaking at the SpaceNews Awards ceremony Monday, SDA Director Derek Tournear said that the agency assumes it will spend the first quarter of a new fiscal year under a continuing resolution (CR) that funds it at the previous year's levels. However, if it doesn't get fiscal year 2022 appropriations by February when the current CR expires, it could result in slips for the Tranche 1 satellites it is currently procuring as well as the Tranche 0 satellites scheduled to launch next year. (12/7)

NDAA Bill Authorizes $768 Billion for DoD, But Removes Space National Guard Provision (Source: Space News)
The final version of a defense authorization bill dropped language that would have created a Space National Guard. The final version of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2022 was released Tuesday after House and Senate negotiators worked out differences between their two versions. The compromise bill does not include language in the House version that would have created a space component of the National Guard, a proposal opposed by the Senate and the White House.

The bill still requires the Pentagon to study options to stand up a reserve component for the Space Force. The bill directs the Defense Department to examine all Space Force programs to determine if the classification level of any of these programs could be changed to a lower level or declassified entirely. It allows the Pentagon to spend money on relocating U.S. Space Command headquarters to Alabama even as investigations into that basing decision continue. (12/8)

Space Force General Claims China Moves 'Twice the Rate' of US in Space Race, May Overtake It by 2030 (Source: Sputnik)
Top American generals have repeatedly expressed fears about the speed of development of the latest generation of military technologies in the main rival countries for the US - China and Russia - noting, to their own regret, the bureaucracy and slowness of the development of the latest weapons by the US. General David Thompson, Vice Chief of Space Operations for the US Space Force, stated that China is building space capabilities at "twice the rate" of the US.

Thompson also stated that "2030 is not an unreasonable estimate" for China's space capabilities to surpass those of the United States. But the general assured the public that the Space Force and other military branches can still succeed in catching up with the Chinese. Moreover, Thomspon added that the US military has been watching Russia's tests of satellite destruction with a ground-based weapon for years, so last month's missile test that blew up a satellite in orbit did not come as a complete surprise to the military and intelligence community. "These advances in capabilities are concerning, they are not a surprise," he said. (12/6)

Space Force Pledges Proportional Response to Satellite Attacks (Source: Space News)
A Space Force official says the U.S. would respond in a "proportional manner" if a country attacked a satellite with an anti-satellite missile or other weapon. Brig. Gen. John Olson, the senior reserve officer of the U.S. Space Force, said in a video presented at a conference Wednesday that, depending on the specific situation, an attack against a satellite could justify retaliation, but it doesn't have to be with a space weapon, and could involve diplomatic and economic responses. Olson insisted that the United States "will respond in a proportional manner at a time and place of our choosing. And I think that's really effective because that leads to the element of surprise." (12/9)

Russia Showed it Can Attack. Is U.S. Space Force Ready to Defend? (Source: Space News)
Russia’s anti-satellite missile test has raised calls for the United States and its allies to push for international norms to ban such tests. But reaching an agreement on space arms control could take years or even decades. And until that happens, there is no guarantee Russia or another country won’t attempt to blow more satellites out of the sky, including those belonging to the United States.

How should the U.S. respond? “We need to get on with building resilient architectures,” he said. Work is underway to design future satellites with more maneuverability and deploy them in larger numbers to create disaggregated networks that would be harder to target. The Pentagon’s deputy chief of space operations, Lt. Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, noted that the satellites the U.S. military currently operates were not designed for space warfare.

“When I started flying satellites, our primary concern was the longevity of the system. It was so expensive to put these capabilities on orbit that we did trend analysis on batteries and solar array efficiencies.” These satellites clearly were not intended to operate in a “contested domain,” he said. “So now we have to shift.” The Space Force stood up a warfighting analysis center to lead the design of future space architectures using modeling and simulations. (12/9)

Debris of Destroyed Soviet Satellite Poses No Threat to Space Objects, Says Russian Military Chief (Source: TASS)
The debris of a Soviet satellite that was destroyed by a direct hit during the tests on November 15 is under control and poses no threat to operational space vehicles, Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov said at a briefing for foreign military diplomats on Thursday.

"The fragments that emerged pose no threat to space activity in orbit. Currently, the fragments are moving along the trajectories outside the orbits of space stations, are under control and have been entered into the main catalog of the Russian space control system," Gerasimov said. As the chief of the Russian General Staff said, on November 15 "successful tests were held to strike a defunct domestic satellite launched back in 1982." (12/9)

Amendment to Defense Bill Directs DoD to Plan for Commercial Broadband Satellite Services (Source: Space News)
The defense authorization bill would direct the Pentagon to outline its plans for buying commercial broadband satellite services. The provision, included as an amendment to the bill, requires a report on plans to acquire such services, particularly from low- and medium-Earth-orbit satellite constellations. The provision is in response to growing demand in the U.S. military for high-speed internet aboard Navy ships and other locations where there is no terrestrial telecom and satellite signals are the only option available. SES, which operates the O3b MEO satellite network, was a prominent advocate for this amendment, the company said. (12/10)

DoD's SDA Plans New Missile Tracking Satellites (Source: Space News)
The Pentagon's Space Development Agency (SDA) is planning a new procurement of missile-tracking satellites. SDA is looking to buy 28 satellites for the constellation known as Tracking Layer Tranche 1, according to a draft solicitation published this week. These 28 spacecraft, projected to start launching in late 2024, would build upon the eight Tracking Layer Tranche 0 satellites SpaceX and L3Harris are building for launch in 2023. The satellites are intended to provide warnings of Chinese and Russian ballistic and hypersonic missiles. (12/9)

SDA Approves L3Harris' Missile-Tracking Satellite Design (Source: Space Daily)
L3Harris Technologies has completed the final design review for the Space Development Agency's missile-tracking program. The company will continue with development and integration of four satellites for Tracking Layer Tranche 0 under a $193 million firm, fixed-price contract. L3Harris completed Critical Design Review in November, and the company will proceed through build, integration, test, and acceptance on the way to the launch phase in early 2023. (12/3)

DoD’s SSC Awards Contract to PredaSAR for On-Orbit Hybrid Architecture Demonstration (Source: Satellite News Network)
Space Systems Command (SSC), in partnership with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), has awarded a $2 million contract to PredaSAR, of Boca Raton, Florida. The contract will support an on-orbit cooperative demonstration between the PredaSAR satellite constellation and the joint SSC, AFRL, and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Blackjack satellite constellation.

The Commercially Augmented Space Inter-Networked Operations (CASINO) program office, managed by SSC’s Space Development Corps and a partner to the DARPA-led Blackjack program, is coordinating this demonstration in conjunction with the launch of the Blackjack constellation. Together, the Blackjack and PredaSAR constellations will demonstrate the military utility of proliferated Low Earth Orbit satellite architectures. (12/9)

BAE to Develop Hardened Chips for DoD Space Programs (Source: Space News)
BAE Systems announced Monday a Defense Department contract to qualify a new version of integrated circuit chips for use in space electronics. BAE will qualify radiation-hardened 12-nanometer chips, which are faster and more efficient than the current 45-nanometer chips used by the Pentagon for space applications. The company declined to disclose the value of the contract. (12/7)
 
Stratolaunch Announces Research Contract with Missile Defense Agency (Source: Stratolaunch)
Stratolaunch, LLC is pleased to announce a research contract with the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). The company plans to augment existing Department of Defense flight test resources through affordable, commercially contracted, rapid-turnaround hypersonic flight testing for DoD and its prime contractor partners. (12/8)

DOD Grants UCF $1.5 Million for Hypersonic Propulsion Research to Compete with China and Russia (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
The University of Central Florida is working on propulsion technology that can travel at least five times the speed of sound or greater as the U.S. chases China and Russia in developing the latest air defense technology. The Department of Defense awarded UCF researchers $1.5 million to advance its hypersonic propulsion technology in the hopes of surpassing China, which successfully tested new hypersonic missiles last August, a feat the U.S. has yet to accomplish.

“Hypersonics are the new set of technology that everyone is interested in weaponizing,” said Tom Dolan, UCF associate professor at the School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs. “The concern is that hypersonics could represent a complete revolution of technology that changes everything but we don’t know for sure.” (12/1) 

Space Force Accelerator Funds Three Startups (Source: Space News)
Three space industry startups won prize money from a business accelerator funded by the U.S. Space Force. Hyperspace Challenge, run by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Space Force's SpaceWERX program, announced Dec. 2 that Varda Space Industries, SCOUT and Neutron Star Systems received $25,000 (first place), $15,000 (second place), and $10,000 (third place), respectively. Varda is working on in-space manufacturing technologies, SCOUT on space situational awareness and Neutron on electric propulsion. (12/6)

Los Alamos National Laboratory Awards Satellite Mission Contract to NanoAvionics (Source: Space Daily)
Smallsat mission integrator NanoAvionics US has received a mission contract by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), one of the largest science and technology institutions in the world. The 12U spacecraft, about the size of a microwave oven, will host the Mini Astrophysical MeV Background Observatory (MAMBO) mission. The goal of MAMBO is to make the best-ever measurement of the cosmic diffuse gamma-ray (CDG) background using its on-board, innovative gamma-ray detector. This will be the first satellite mission hosting a high-energy astrophysics payload developed by LANL in 20 years. (12/10)
BlackSky Continues Operational Momentum with Two Back-to-Back Launches in Six Days (Source: Space Daily) 
BlackSky plans to add another two satellites to its constellation Wednesday with the Rocket Lab mission titled "A Data with Destiny." Satellites from the SpaceX mission Thursday began delivering revenue-generating insights for customers less than 24 hours following launch and increased constellation revisit rates to six consistent visits per day in key markets during daylight hours. (12/8)

Canada's GHGSat Picks SpaceX to Launch Three Smallsats on Transporter-5 Rideshare (Source: Space News)
Canadian company GHGSat has selected SpaceX to launch its next three satellites. The company said Wednesday it will launch the GHGSat-C3, -C4 and -C5 satellites on the Falcon 9 Transporter-5 rideshare mission in the summer of 2022. The three nanosatellites are part of a constellation designed to measure greenhouse gas emissions, notably methane, from oil and gas installations and other facilities. The company is starting work on seven more satellites to launch by the end of 2023. (12/8)

Spire Global Selects Virgin Orbit for Late-Load Addition to Next Flight (Source: Space Daily)
Virgin Orbit has announced with Spire Global that they have received waiver approval from the FAA to include Spire on Virgin Orbit's upcoming launch. The satellite, which was integrated at Virgin Orbit's Long Beach facility within 36 hours, will fly as the third customer in the previously announced Above the Clouds mission, scheduled Dec. 22.

Going from idea to orbit in less than one year, ADLER-1 is developed by Spire in partnership with the Austrian Space Forum and Findus Venture GmbH and has demonstrated the speed at which satellites can be developed. ADLER-1 is also part of a growing movement to address the issue of dangerous space debris and to improve sustainability in Low Earth Orbit. The 30x10x10 cm satellite will study the micro space debris environment in Low Earth Orbit to complement the space debris models by obtaining in-situ data. (12/10)

NetGen Acquisition Corp. II Sets Vote on Virgin Orbit SPAC Merger (Source: Parabolic Arc)
A special meeting of stockholders of NextGen Acquisition Corp. II is scheduled for Dec. 28 to vote on a SPAC merger with Virgin Orbit. Upon closing, Virgin Orbit will be listed on NASDAQ under the new ticker symbol “VORB”. The boards of directors of Virgin Orbit and NextGen Acquisition Corp. II have already unanimously approved the Business Combination. (12/8)

Tomorrow.io Plans SPAC Merger Deal to Fund Satellite Constellation (Source: Space News)
Weather company Tomorrow.io will go public through a merger with a SPAC to fund the development of a constellation of satellites. The company said Tuesday it expects to raise up to $420 million by merging with Pine Technology Acquisition Corp., a deal projected to close in mid-2022. Tomorrow.io will use the funds to build a constellation of approximately 32 small satellites equipped with storm-tracking radars to improve weather forecasts. California-based Astro Digital is building the first two spacecraft for a launch late next year. (12/8)

dMY Technology Group Stockholders Approve Plan to Take Planet Labs Public (Source: Parabolic Arc)
Planet Labs Inc. (“Planet”) announced that its proposed business combination with dMY Technology Group, a special purpose acquisition company, was approved by stockholders at a special meeting held on December 3. Approximately 99% of the votes cast at the meeting on the business combination proposal voted to approve the transaction.

The closing of the business combination is expected to take place on December 7, 2021. The transaction will result in at least $590 million in gross proceeds for the post-closing company, including proceeds from the dMY IV trust account and the previously announced committed private placement. Following the closing, the post-closing company will be renamed “Planet Labs PBC” and its common stock is expected to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange beginning on December 8 under the ticker symbol “PL”. (12/6)

Planet's First Day of Public Trading Sees Higher Share Prices (Source: Space News)
Shares in Planet closed higher in its first day of trading Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange. Planet, formally Planet Labs Public Benefit Corp., closed up 5% at $11.35. The company became publicly traded by closing a merger with a SPAC that allowed the company to raise $590 million. Planet is preparing to invest in sales, marketing and software as it seeks to bolster its revenue and customer base. Planet currently has 700 customers for its imagery services, but Robbie Schingler, Planet chief strategy officer, said he wants to grow that to thousands and millions over time: "That's the opportunity for the Earth-observation community, not just Planet." (12/9)

Loft Raises $140 Million for SIAAS Satellites (Source: CNBC)
Loft Orbital says it's raised $140 million for its "space-infrastructure-as-a-service" satellites. BlackRock led the new funding round the company disclosed Tuesday, which included participation by several other funds as well as a $10 million in short-term debt. Loft Orbital has launched two of its YAM "condosats" so far, carrying payloads for a range of government and commercial customers. (12/8)

Valley Tech Systems Wins $94 Million Lockheed Martin Contract for Propulsion Systems (Source: Space News)
Valley Tech Systems, a firm recently acquired by Voyager Space, won a $94 million contract for missile propulsion systems from Lockheed Martin. The contract, announced Tuesday, covers technology development and risk reduction for a roll control subsystem to help stabilize the flight trajectory of NGI, a missile designed to defend the United States from intercontinental ballistic missiles. Valley Tech Systems is scheduled to deliver a flight-qualified, production-ready propulsion subsystem to Lockheed Martin in time for NGI to be fielded in 2027. (12/8)

Ursa Major Raises $85 Million for Rocket Engine Development (Source: Space News)
Rocket engine developer Ursa Major raised $85 million in a Series C funding round. The round, announced Tuesday, was led by the investment management firm BlackRock with several other funds participating. The company said the new funding will help accelerate production to meet current demand and begin the development of its next-generation engines. Its engines have yet to support an orbital launch, but it says it has orders for more than 50 engines and has received several R&D contracts from commercial customers and the U.S. government through 2022. (12/7)

Israel's hiSky Raises $30 Million for Satellite Terminals (Source: Space News)
Israeli startup hiSky raised $30 million to mass-produce compact satellite terminals for internet-of-things services. Singapore-based aerospace and defense technology provider ST Engineering led hiSky's Series A funding round along with several other investors, including the U.A.E.'s Strategic Development Fund. The terminals that hiSky are developing are designed to work with satellites in multiple orbits, providing IoT services for a wide range of markets, such as oil and gas, digital farming and vessel tracking. (12/9)

Redwire Announces Supplier Agreement with Terran Orbital to Support Satellite Manufacturing (Source: Space Daily)
Redwire Corp. has announced a three-year supplier agreement with Terran Orbital. Redwire will deliver a range of advanced components and solutions that will be used in Terran Orbital's industry-leading line of satellite manufacturing and service offerings. Terran Orbital recently announced that it intends to go public through a SPAC merger with special purpose acquisition company Tailwind Two Acquisition Corp.

Redwire's range of advanced components and spacecraft solutions include lightweight high compaction rollable solar array systems developed at the company's Goleta CA facility; machine vision camera and advanced avionics systems, power solutions, and sun sensors and star trackers. Additionally, Redwire's world-class digital engineering capabilities offer customers state-of-the-art modeling and simulation, which enable configuration of multiple satellite constellations and other assets within a single simulation, thereby reducing development and operations costs. (12/10)

Andesat Taps Astranis for Peru’s First Dedicated Telecoms Satellite (Source: Space News)
Cellular backhaul provider Andesat has ordered Peru’s first dedicated telecoms satellite in a deal with Astranis, which will build a teleport in the country ahead of the spacecraft’s expected 2023 launch. The contract is worth more than $90 million over the Andesat-1 satellite’s eight-year lifetime. It includes an option for a second satellite that could launch as early as 2024 to provide additional bandwidth.

San Francisco-based startup Astranis is building a business around satellites that, at 400 kilograms, are much smaller than traditional spacecraft in geostationary orbit (GEO), scaled to provide smaller geographies with dedicated bandwidth at lower costs. (12/7)

Microsoft Adds Partners to Azure Space (Source: Space News)
Microsoft is adding new partners and services to its Azure Space initiative. Microsoft said Thursday it is adding partnerships with Airbus, Kongsberg Satellite Services, STE iDirect, Orbital Insight, ESRI and Blackshark.ai. Microsoft plans to bring high-resolution satellite imagery and elevation data from Airbus into Azure Maps, Microsoft's geospatial services platform. Microsoft also rolled out new products to provide cloud-free daily imagery and artificial intelligence tools to sharpen that imagery. (12/10)

ESA Head Says Europe Needs to Stop Facilitating Elon Musk’s Ambitions in Space (Source: Ars Technica)
The head of the European Space Agency has urged the continent’s leaders to stop facilitating Elon Musk’s ambition to dominate the new space economy, warning that the lack of coordinated action meant the US billionaire was “making the rules” himself.

Josef Aschbacher, the new director-general of ESA, said that Europe’s readiness to help the rapid expansion of Musk’s Starlink satellite Internet service risked hindering the region’s own companies from realizing the potential of commercial space. “Space will be much more restrictive [in terms of] frequencies and orbital slots,” he said in an interview. “The governments of Europe collectively should have an interest to... give European providers equal opportunities to play on a fair market.” (12/6)

European Consortium to Study Broadband Constellation (Source: Space News)
A consortium of more than 20 European space companies won a contract to study disruptive ideas for Europe's planned satellite broadband constellation. The New Symphonie consortium, led by Unseenlabs and Euroconsult, will use the $1.6 million six-month contract to investigate and recommend the optimal infrastructure for Europe's sovereign multi-orbit connectivity vision, drawing on new business models and capabilities in the emerging space ecosystem. The contract comes as a yearlong feasibility study awarded to a consortium of larger industrial companies in December 2020 draws to an end. (12/9)

China Plans 36-Satellite Imaging Constellation (Source: Space News)
A new Chinese imaging satellite constellation is in development. The "36 Tiangang" project is led by Tianjin Satcom Geohe Technologies Co., Ltd., with involvement from Satellite (Zhuhai) Aerospace Technology Co, Ltd. The 36-satellite constellation will include a mix of panchromatic, multispectral, hyperspectral and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) spacecraft, with more than half carrying SAR payloads. The first six satellites are scheduled to launch in June 2022, with the entire constellation in place by May 2023. SAR imagery, which is typically more expensive and more difficult to use than optical imagery, is in short supply in China, which is likely a big factor in the new plans. (12/8)

Euroconsult: 17,000 Satellites Will Be Launched By 2030 (Source: Euroconsult)
17,000 satellites will be launched in the next 10 years: a fourfold increase over the past decade, reflecting structural changes in the whole space ecosystem and a limited short-term impact of the pandemic. 170 constellation projects (110 from commercial companies) are individually assessed. OneWeb, Starlink, Gwo Wang, Kuiper and Lightspeed will represent 58% of the 17,000 satellites to be launched, but will account for only 10% of the satellite manufacturing and launch revenues of the space industry. Two reasons: economies of scale in satellite manufacturing and a strong decrease in launch prices. (12/8)

Soon, 1 Out of Every 15 Points of Light in the Sky Will Be a Satellite (Source: Space Daily)
In order to find out how badly the night sky is going to be affected by sunlight reflected from planned satellite megaconstellations, we built an open-source computer model to predict satellite brightnesses as seen from different places on Earth, at different times of night, in different seasons. We also built a simple web app based on this simulation.

Our model uses 65,000 satellites on the orbits filed by four megaconstellation companies: SpaceX Starlink and Amazon Kuiper (United States), OneWeb (United Kingdom) and StarNet/GW (China). We calibrated our simulation to match telescope measurements of Starlink satellites, since they are by far the most numerous. Starlink has so far made some strides toward dimming their satellites since their first launch, but most are still visible to the naked eye.

Our simulations show that from everywhere in the world, in every season, there will be dozens to hundreds of satellites visible for at least an hour before sunrise and after sunset. Right now, it's relatively easy to escape urban light pollution for dark skies while camping or visiting your cabin, but our simulations show that you can't escape this new satellite light pollution anywhere on Earth, even at the North Pole. (12/5)

Insurers to New Space: Be Patient As We Adapt and Learn to Price Your Risk (Source: Space Intel Report)
Space insurers said they are adapting their business practices to with New Space constellations of small satellites and said insurance companies need to streamline the way they assess New Space risks. “It needs to be a a bespoke solution when it comes to the [individual] policy. As for the process, insurers need to be way more efficient,” said Stephanie Deml, head of aviation and space at underwriter Munich Re. “There may be an automation of some tasks that we do manually these days.” (12/9)

Oculus Observatory Set to Disrupt Space Situational Awareness Globally (Source: Space Daily)
The 'Oculus Observatory' is a new kind of space observatory, designed, built, and managed by Silentium Defence, which delivers the widest field of view, and the most cost-effective monitoring of objects in orbit, anywhere in the world. Opened today, by Head of the Australian Space Agency, Enrico Palermo, 'Oculus' is located on the fringe of South Australia's dark sky reserve in the Mid-Murray region. (12/9)

SSTL-Led UK Consortium to Study Orbital Debris Clearing (Source: Space News)
A consortium led by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) has won a British government contract to study removing defunct satellites from orbit. The SSTL-led team includes Airbus Defence and Space, satellite navigation specialist GMV NSL and several other companies and organizations. It joins two groups that previously won similar study contracts from the U.K. Space Agency to study technologies for deorbiting satellites. The three groups are sharing about $1.3 million in funding for the effort. (12/10)

Phase Fource Tests Electric Thruster (Source: Space News)
Phase Four says it completed testing that confirms significant performance improvements in its electric thruster. The company said that tests of the Block 2 version of its Maxwell thruster show an 85% increase in performance in terms of both thrust and specific impulse. The company has several smallsat constellation customers for the new thruster, with production set to begin early next year. (12/6)

Lightweight Space Robot with Precise Control Developed (Source: Space Daily)
Robots are already in space. From landers on the moon to rovers on Mars and more, robots are the perfect candidates for space exploration: they can bear extreme environments while consistently repeating the same tasks in exactly the same way without tiring.

Like robots on Earth, they can accomplish both dangerous and mundane jobs, from space walks to polishing a spacecraft's surface. With space missions increasing in number and expanding in scientific scope, requiring more equipment, there's a need for a lightweight robotic arm that can manipulate in environments difficult for humans.

However, the control schemes that can move such arms on Earth, where the planes of operation are flat, do not translate to space, where the environment is unpredictable and changeable. To address this issue, researchers in Harbin Institute of Technology's School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation have developed a robotic arm weighing 9.23 kilograms - about the size of a one-year-old baby - capable of carrying almost a quarter of its own weight, with the ability to adjust its position and speed in real time based on its environment. (12/6)

Concerned About SpaceX, France to Accelerate Reusable Rocket Plans (Source: Ars Technica)
On Monday French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire announced a plan for Europe to compete more effectively with SpaceX by developing a reusable rocket on a more rapid timeline. "For the first time Europe ... will have access to a reusable launcher," Le Maire said, according to Reuters. "In other words, we will have our SpaceX, we will have our Falcon 9. We will make up for a bad strategic choice made 10 years ago."

The new plan calls for the large, France-based rocket firm ArianeGroup to develop a new small-lift rocket called Maïa by the year 2026. This is four years ahead of a timeline previously set by the European Space Agency for the development of a significantly larger, reusable rocket. Although the technical details are sparse, Maïa will not be Europe's "Falcon 9." It will have a lift capacity of up to 1 metric ton to low Earth orbit and be powered by a reusable Prometheus rocket engine, which is fueled by methane and liquid oxygen.

This engine, which remains in the preliminary stages of development, has a thrust comparable to a single Merlin 1D rocket engine, which powers SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. But since there are nine engines on the SpaceX rocket, it can lift more than 15 times as much as the proposed Maïa in fully reusable mode. France plans to soon call for projects on reusable micro-launchers, smaller than the Maïa project. Nascent startups French Venture Orbital Systems and Strato Space Systems are expected to compete, with the French space agency providing technical support to the winners and launch contracts. (12/7)

Themis Tanking Test Marks Milestone in ESA’s Path to Reusability (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
The ESA (European Space Agency) has taken a major step towards developing reusable rockets with the completion of a series of tanking tests for its Themis vehicle, which will serve as a testbed for the agency to experiment with launch and landing operations.

After initially announcing plans for a reusable rocket – Ariane Next – to succeed the Ariane 6 rocket currently in development, as well as the potential to incorporate reusability into Ariane 6 itself, the ESA has been working quietly on the project. While the initial announcements outlined hop tests of a pathfinder vehicle, Themis, the agency has recently given an update to its plans, whose ultimate goal is the development of a launch vehicle with a reusable first stage in the 2030s.

In a recent test series of six tests, two of the steel propellant tanks for Themis were successfully filled with cryogenic propellants and then detanked multiple times. This series of tests, comparable to those recently carried out on SpaceX’s Starship and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan pathfinder vehicle, serve to reduce the risk of an electrical or tank malfunction with the completed vehicle. (12/8)

New Rocket Test Facility Under Construction in Scotland (Source: Space Daily)
The UK Space Agency welcomes the news that British company Orbex is constructing a state-of-the-art rocket test facility in Kinloss, Scotland. The construction of this new facility marks another major milestone in our ambitions to become a modern, agile spacefaring nation. Orbex is an innovative spaceflight company developing its own launch vehicle which will be tested at this new facility, before launching from Space Hub Sutherland. (12/19)

South Korea's Hanwha Plans Small Launcher (Source: Space News)
South Korean conglomerate Hanwha Group plans to develop a small launch vehicle. Hanwha Aerospace, an affiliate of Hanwha Group, said Monday it will work with the Korea Aerospace Research Institute on the project. The vehicle will be designed to place up to 500 kilograms into low Earth orbit, but other details, including budgets and schedules, remain undecided. This is the latest space project for Hanwha Group, which previously acquired a controlling stake in domestic satellite manufacturer Satrec Initiative and British phased array antenna-maker Phasor Solutions, as well as an 8.8% stake in OneWeb. (12/7)

China's Galactic Energy Launches Five Satellites (Source: Space News)
Galactic Energy launched its second Ceres-1 rocket late Monday, becoming the first Chinese private firm to reach orbit twice. The four-stage Ceres-1 solid rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 11:13 p.m. Monday, successfully placing five satellites into a roughly 500-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit. Galactic Energy performed its first orbital launch in November 2020, making it at the time only the second Chinese private venture to reach orbit. Galactic Energy says it plans five launches in 2022. (12/7)

China Launches 400th Long March Rocket (Source: Space News)
China placed a set of classified satellites into orbit Thursday on the 400th launch of a Long March rocket. The Long March 4B lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 7:11 p.m. Eastern and put the Shijian-06 (05) group of satellites into orbit. Chinese officials said the satellites will be used for space environment exploration and technology verification tests, but Western analysts think they could be designed for signals intelligence or electronic intelligence purposes. The launch was the 49th orbital mission this year by China, a record, and the 400th launch of a Long March rocket dating back to 1970. (12/10)

Soyuz Rocket Launches Galileo Satellites From Kourou (Source: NasaSpaceFlight.com)
A Soyuz rocket launched two Galileo navigation satellites Saturday night. The Soyuz ST-B rocket lifted off from French Guiana at 7:19 p.m. Eastern after a few days of delays because of weather and a malfunctioning downrange tracking station. The Fregat upper stage deployed the two Galileo satellites nearly four hours after liftoff. The satellites are the first two in a batch of 12 ordered by ESA in 2017 and built by OHB in Germany. (12/6)

Space at Expo 2020 (Source: Space Review)
Expo 2020 Dubai, the latest version of a world’s fair, is underway after a one-year delay. Jeff Foust tours the expo to look for space-related exhibits, from small moon rocks to a full-sized replica booster. Click here. (12/6)
Scientists Just Discovered a Gigantic Planet That Shouldn't Exist (Source: Inverse)
A massive, odd planet was just discovered orbiting around two bright stars in the southern sky. It’s so weird that it’s challenging scientists’ ideas about how planets form and evolve. b Centauri is a double star system that lies 325 light years away from Earth. The newly-discovered gas giant planet is 11 times as massive as Jupiter, with a vast orbit that’s 100 times wider than that of Jupiter’s — and strangely, it most likely formed there.

The astronomers who discovered the planet detail their findings in a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. It marks the first discovery of a gas giant planet around a star that is more than three times the mass of the Sun, and around stars this hot. The b Centauri system is composed of two stars — b Centauri A and b Centauri B. Combined, they weigh in at about six to 10 times the mass of the Sun. At this mass range, they should be too big to have a large planet. They’re also both hotter stars than we usually find planets around. (12/8)

The Great Neutrino Mystery Could Point to Missing Particles (Source: WIRED)
The simplest explanation of the LSND anomaly was the existence of a new, fourth kind of neutrino, dubbed the sterile neutrino, that mixes up all the neutrino types according to new rules. Sterile neutrinos would allow muon neutrinos to oscillate more readily into electron neutrinos over the short distance to the oil tank.

But as time went on, the sterile neutrino didn’t fit the results of other experiments. “We had our champion theory, but the problem was that elsewhere it fails miserably,” Argüelles-Delgado said. “We were very deep in the forest, and we needed to come out.”

Forced to retrace their steps, physicists have been rethinking what’s behind the muddle of hints and half results. In recent years, they’ve devised new theories that are more complicated than the sterile neutrino, but which, if correct, would thoroughly revolutionize physics—resolving anomalies in neutrino oscillation data and other major mysteries of physics at the same time. Not least, the new models posit heavy additional neutrinos that could account for dark matter. Click here. (12/05)

Comet Leonard Could Fizzle (Source: Space.com)
A comet that astronomers hoped would put on a show in the night sky might be fizzling out instead. Comet Leonard, discovered early this year, will make its closest approach to the Earth on Sunday as it nears an early January perihelion. Astronomers expected the comet to bright dramatically as it warmed, releasing gas and dust, but the brightness increases seen so far are only because it is getting closer to the Earth. One astronomer warned that the lack of brightening is a sign that "something unhealthy is happening to the comet," including the risk of it breaking up. (12/10)

Another Day, Another Asteroid That Won't Hit Us: Nerius Will Miss Earth (Source: SyFy)
Over the weekend, an asteroid bigger than the Eiffel Tower will not be impacting the Earth. I'm sorry to disappoint you. Mind you, this is not the news you'd see if you've checked social media this week or read any number of fish-wrappery sites that have breathlessly exclaimed that an asteroid "larger than the Eiffel tower" will "break Earth's orbit", whatever that last bit means.

I even saw one TikTokker start off a video saying, "An asteroid might be hitting Earth on December 11." He has six million followers. I've known about the asteroid for a while, and I really thought that this time, maybe this time, there wouldn't be dozens of media outlets overhyping this misleadingly. (12/10)

Saving Data From the Stars (Source: Dug)
For more than half a century, the Arecibo Observatory (affectionately called Arecibo in this article) in Puerto Rico was the largest single-dish telescope on Earth. Initially designed for atmospheric scientists to study Earth’s ionosphere, over the years the facility blossomed into one of the most iconic trailblazers in the fields of planetary science and radio astronomy.

And since then, the observatory has been a source of countless astronomical breakthroughs. From discovering the first-ever binary pulsar — a study that tested Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity and earned its researchers a Nobel Prize in 1993 — to spotting the first planet outside our Solar System and mapping the surface of Venus and Mercury, Arecibo has been a gift that keeps on giving.

Even current space endeavors such as NASA’s asteroid-hunting mission, DART, and its asteroid-sampling mission, OSIRIS-REx, owe their success partly to the sea of data collected from observations made by Arecibo in the past five decades. Did you know that Arecibo was something of a pop culture icon too? It enjoyed a star-studded career as a backdrop for scenes in the James Bond film, Goldeneye, and the Jodie Foster Sci-Fi epic, Contact. (12/6)
 
DOJ Accuses Likely Pratt & Whitney Exec Of Wage Violations (Source: Law360)
The U.S. Department of Justice announced the criminal indictment Thursday of an aerospace executive for allegedly participating in a conspiracy to restrict the hiring of engineers and other skilled laborers working for engineering services suppliers, marking the latest example of criminal enforcement against attempts to illegally restrain wages. (12/10)

NASA, Partner to Highlight Passenger-Friendly Aviation Technology (Source: NASA)
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson visited Orlando International Airport in Florida on Nov. 24 and met with the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority (GOAA) CEO Phil Brown. They discussed implementing NASA-developed flight scheduling technology that will improve dependability for passengers – which is especially important during peak holiday travel times. NASA’s Airspace Technology Demonstration 2 (ATD-2) was transferred to the FAA in September and will be implemented at airports across the country – including Orlando International – beginning in 2023. (11/22)

Missing and Worth Millions: Plucked From the Moon, Dozens of Lunar Rocks Have Disappeared (Source: Florida Today)
They are among the rarest items on Earth, worth millions of dollars on the black market. They've been at the center of stings, swindles and high-profile heists. Still others have been stashed away in garages or storage units untouched for years or possibly decades. They've been handled by presidents and kings, dictators and mercenaries, school kids and scholars.

One example is in the Oval Office at the White House. Another is buried somewhere in a garbage dump outside Dublin, Ireland. Yes, the Apollo moon rocks have continued to make intriguing journeys even a half century after making the quarter-million mile trip to Earth. Click here. (11/24)

Meet the Real NASA Scientist Behind Netflix’s Don’t Look Up (Source: The Verge)
In Netflix’s new star-studded space comedy Don’t Look Up, scientists scramble to save the world from a “planet-killer.” In the movie, it’s a comet. In the real world, humans are more likely to conjure up the vehicle of our demise all on our own, whether it’s through climate change or the patriarchy. The movie gets into those thorny themes, too.

It opens with a scene in which a grad student played by Jennifer Lawrence discovers the comet, something real-world NASA astronomer Amy Mainzer has experience with. Just last year, Mainzer and her team discovered the brightest comet in the northern hemisphere in more than two decades, called NEOWISE. To flesh out Lawrence’s character and the other scientists in the film — and bring some real science to a movie about the end of times — the actors took cues from Mainzer.

Mainzer happens to be “one of the world’s leading scientists in asteroid detection and planetary defense,” according to NASA, and she has also turned her attention to climate change (she’s using remote sensing to find invasive species that fuel wildfires). The Verge talked with Mainzer about the end of the world and what to do about it. (12/10)

Shatner’s Blue Origin Flight Will Be Featured in Amazon’s One-Hour Special ‘Shatner in Space’ (Source: Variety)
William Shatner’s recent flight to space aboard a Blue Origin vessel will be explored in “Shatner in Space,” a one-hour special from Amazon Prime Video. The announcement was made by Shatner himself during one of the streamer’s Comic-Con Experience virtual panels on Sunday. The special will premiere on Prime Video on Dec. 15 in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia and New Zealand. Additional territories will receive the special in early 2022. (12/5)

Former JSC Director Passes Away (Source: Space News)
Former NASA Johnson Space Center Director Mark Geyer has died. Geyer passed away Tuesday, seven months after he stepped down as director of the center in order to focus on cancer treatment. Geyer was director of JSC for three years after spending several years as manager of the Orion program and other roles at the agency. (12/8)

AFRL Opens State-of-the-Art Digital Space Legacy Portal Exhibit (Source: Space Daily)
With a video of the historic 1969 Apollo 11 launch shown on the nearly two-story screen behind him, Dr. Darren Raspa, the Air Force Research Laboratory Phillips Research Site historian, welcomed guests and colleagues to the grand opening of the AFRL Space Vehicles Directorate's Legacy Portal Mission Control exhibit, in a ceremony held November 15 at Kirtland AFB. (12/6)
 
Saving the Shuttle Simulator: “It Was an Artifact That Needed to be Preserved” (Source: Ars Technica)
Every NASA astronaut who ever rode aboard the space shuttle, more than 350 of them, first sat in its full-motion simulator. And even though the simulator was firmly on the ground, anchored inside Building 5 at Johnson Space Center, it offered one hell of a ride.

"It was absolutely identical to what we flew," says Bonnie Dunbar, a former NASA astronaut who launched on the space shuttle five times from 1985 to 1998. "It rolled over on its back. It would vibrate as if you were going through a launch and landed like a shuttle entry. If you wanted to go into space, you had to pass the training in the motion simulator."

After the space shuttle was retired in 2011, artifacts from the program were sent across the country to various museums. Precious little of the shuttle actually remained in Texas, where the program was managed and its astronauts were trained. Texas A&M University sought to keep the full-motion space shuttle simulator, however. The chair of the aerospace engineering department at Texas A&M, Dimitris Lagoudas, led the effort to raise $500,000 and move the simulator to the university's campus in 2012. (12/10)

What is this SPACErePORT? 
The SPACErePORT is a free weekly e-newsletter distributed to ~1500 subscribers. It is supplemented by a daily-updated SPACErePORT blog; a Twitter feed with ~1800 followers; and a spaceports-focused LinkedIn Group with ~280 members. (I also manage the National Space Club's Florida Committee LinkedIn and Twitter feeds.) If you like receiving this free resource, donations are encouraged using the PayPal tip jar, or Venmo using @Edward-Ellegood. I can also publish banner advertisements at affordable rates, or sometimes for free if I support the cause. Thanks!
Florida Aerospace Calendar
Click HERE to suggest new items and corrections.

Dec. 14 - National Space Club luncheon featuring Astra's Francisco Isenberg, Port Canaveral Radisson, 11:30 a.m. - https://www.nscfl.org/our-events/

Dec. 18 - Falcon-9 launch, Turksat 5B satellite deployment, Cape Canaveral Spaceport, 10:58 p.m. - http://www.spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html

Dec. 21 - Falcon-9 launch, CRS-24 space station cargo delivery, Cape Canaveral Spaceport, 5:06 a.m. - http://www.spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html

Jan. TBD - Falcon-9 launch, COSMO-SkyMed satellite deployment, Cape Canaveral Spaceport, Time TBD - http://www.spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html

Jan. TBD - Falcon-9 launch, Transporter 3 rideshare satellites deployment, Cape Canaveral Spaceport, Time TBD - http://www.spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html

Jan. TBD - Atlas-5 launch, USSF-8 satellite deployment, Cape Canaveral Spaceport, Time TBD - http://www.spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html

Jan. TBD - Falcon-9 launch, Starlink satellites deployment, Cape Canaveral Spaceport, Time TBD - http://www.spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html

Jan. 10-12 - Spaceport Summit and SpaceCom 2022 conference, Rosen Shingle Creek Hotel, Orlando - https://spacecomexpo.com

Jan. 22 - Women In Defense Space Coast Chapter 9th anniversary event, Larsen Motorsports, Palm Bay, 11:30 a.m. - http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07eiwaqnc457de039a&llr=smyyv8nab

Jan. 27 - Florida Space Day, Capitol Building, Tallahassee - http://floridaspaceday.com/

Feb. 12 - NASA SLS Artemis 1 launch, Cape Canaveral Spaceport, Time TBD - http://www.spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html

Feb. TBD - Atlas-5 launch, CST-100 Starliner Uncrewed Orbital Flight Test 2, Cape Canaveral Spaceport, Time TBD - http://www.spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html

Feb. 21 - Falcon-9 launch, Axiom 1 commercial ISS crew, Cape Canaveral Spaceport, Time TBD - http://www.spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html

Feb. TBD - Falcon-Heavy launch, USSF-44 satellite deployment, Cape Canaveral Spaceport, Time TBD - http://www.spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html

Mar. 1 - Atlas-5 launch, GOES-T satellite deployment, Cape Canaveral Spaceport, 4:40 p.m. - http://www.spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html

Apr. TBD - Falcon-Heavy launch, USSF-52 satellite deployment, Cape Canaveral Spaceport, Time TBD - http://www.spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html

Apr. 15 - Falcon-9 launch, NASA crew launch to ISS, Cape Canaveral Spaceport, Time TBD - http://www.spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html

Jun. TBD - Vulcan Centaur launch, Peregrine satellite deployment, Cape Canaveral Spaceport, Time TBD - http://www.spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html
Forward Forward
Share Share
Tweet Tweet
Share Share
SPACErePORT news and editorial summaries are distilled and organized by me and don’t necessarily reflect my opinions or any SPACErePORT advertisers.






This email was sent to <<Email Address>>
why did I get this?    unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences
FLORIDA SPACErePORT · Florida · Cape Canaveral Spaceport, FL 32931 · USA

Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp