Laurel Kornfeld

July 1st, 2017

Binary black hole gravitational waves simulation. Image Credit: Swinburne Astronomy Productions

The European Space Agency (ESA) is partnering with NASA on a new space mission that will study gravitational waves from space. Known as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, or LISA, the project was approved by ESAs Cosmic Vision science program on June 20.Both space agencies will now work together to design the mission and outline a budget for it prior to construction.

The concept for LISA involves three spacecraft placed into a triangular array, each separated by 1.6 million miles (2.5 million km), which will follow the Earth in its solar orbit. On board each spacecraft will be a shielded device known as a test mass, which responds only to gravity, ignoring other forces.

This illustration shows ESAs (the European Space Agencys) LISA observatory, a multi-spacecraft mission to study gravitational waves expected to launch in 2034. In the mission concept, LISA consists of three spacecraft in a triangular formation spanning millions of kilometers. Test masses in spacecraft on each arm of the formation will be linked together by lasers to detect passing gravitational waves. Credits: Image AEI / Milde Marketing / Exozet; Caption NASA

These test masses will be linked together by lasers, which will be sensitive to the tiny changes produced by gravitational waves.

NASA and ESA have already spent decades developing technologies LISA will require, such as systems for measurement, control, and micropropulsion.

ESAs LISA Pathfinder successfully demonstrated a technique known as drag-free flight a method of flying that does not disturb test masses, which LISAs three spacecraft will have to do last year. Testing showed this technology to be capable of the precision and sensitivity LISA will require.

Technologies pioneered for LISA will also be used on the GRACE Follow-On mission satellite project scheduled for launch later this year to replace the aging GRACE satellites. This joint project between the U.S. and Germany will test the ability of the satellites Laser Ranging Interferometer to detect minute distance changes between two spacecraft.

Initially predicted about 100 years ago by Albert Einstein as part of his theory of general relativity, gravitational waves are produced by massive accelerating objects, such as two merging black holes, which generate waves of energy that radiate through space-time.

They were first detected indirectly in 1978 in the form of very small changes in the movement of binary neutron stars, stellar remnants produced in supernova explosions of precursor stars.

Scientists studying the pair of neutron stars found that energy was leaving the system in just the amount predicted by theorists of gravitational waves.

Direct detection of gravitational waves first occurred in 2015, when the National Science Foundations Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) confirmed a signal coming from two merging stellar-mass black holes approximately 1.3 billion light-years from Earth.

Since then, several similar signals have been detected, all coming from merging black holes.

Because LIGO is ground-based, it is capable of detecting only high-frequency gravitational waves at about 100 hertz (or cycles) per second. Interference from seismic, thermal, and other activities that produce noise make it impossible for the observatory to detect any frequencies lower than about one hertz.

As a space-based observatory, LISA will not suffer from these limitations and will be capable of detecting signals from extremely powerful activities, such as mergers of supermassive black holes at the centers of colliding galaxies.

Much larger than stellar mass black holes, supermassive black holes have millions of times the mass of the Sun.

LISA will sense gravitational waves coming from a range of events, such as binary systems comprising two neutron stars or one black hole and one neutron star. Production of these waves shrinks the orbits of the two objects in the binary system.

Scientists hope LISA will also be sensitive to background gravitational waves produced in the early universe. LISA is scheduled to launch in 2034.

This visualization shows gravitational waves emitted by two black holes (black spheres) of nearly equal mass as they spiral together and merge in an event like GW170104. Yellow structures near the black holes illustrate the strong curvature of space-time in the region. Orange ripples represent distortions of space-time caused by the rapidly orbiting masses. These distortions spread out and weaken, ultimately becoming gravitational waves (purple). This simulation was performed on the Pleiades supercomputer at NASAs Ames Research Center. Credits: NASA / Bernard J. Kelly (Goddard and University of Maryland Baltimore County), Chris Henze (Ames), and Tim Sandstrom (CSC Government Solutions LLC).

Video courtesy of NASA.gov Video

Tagged: European Space Agency Laser Interferometer Space Antenna LISA Pathfinder NASA The Range

Laurel Kornfeld is an amateur astronomer and freelance writer from Highland Park, NJ, who enjoys writing about astronomy and planetary science. She studied journalism at Douglass College, Rutgers University, and earned a Graduate Certificate of Science from Swinburne Universitys Astronomy Online program. Her writings have been published online in The Atlantic, Astronomy magazines guest blog section, the UK Space Conference, the 2009 IAU General Assembly newspaper, The Space Reporter, and newsletters of various astronomy clubs. She is a member of the Cranford, NJ-based Amateur Astronomers, Inc. Especially interested in the outer solar system, Laurel gave a brief presentation at the 2008 Great Planet Debate held at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, MD.

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ESA and NASA to collaborate on mission to detect gravitational waves - SpaceFlight Insider

July 1, 1960

NASA opened the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville. Led by director Wernher von Braun, MSFC became NASAs propulsion research center and, in the 1960s, developed the rockets that sent Americans to space and to the moon. Over the years, MSFC has diversified its research specializations and participated in a variety of NASA programs, including developing the Skylab space station, the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station. In 2011, the center began developing the Space Launch Systems initiative to provide next-generation propulsion for manned missions to other parts of Earths solar system.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Marshall Space Flight Centers F-1 Engine Test Stand is shown in this picture. Constructed in 1963, the test stand is a vertical engine firing test stand, 239 feet in elevation and 4,600 square feet in area at the base, and was designed to assist in the development of the F-1 Engine. Capability is provided for static firing of 1.5 million pounds of thrust using liquid oxygen and kerosene. The foundation of the stand is keyed into the bedrock approximately 40 feet below grade. (Photo Credit: NASA)

Dr. Wernher von Braun and Maj. Gen. August Schomburg officiate the official transfer of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) to the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) on July 1, 1960. The Official transfer ceremony took place in the front of the ABMA-MSFC joint headquarters, building 4488, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. (Photo credit: NASA)

President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Mrs. George C. Marshall unveil the bronze bust of General George C. Marshall during the dedication of the Marshall Space Flight Center. Eisenhower signed an Executive Order on October 21, 1959 directing the transfer of persornel from the Redstone Arsenals Army Ballistic Missile Agency Development Operations Division to NASA. On March 15, 1960, another Executive Order announced that the space complex formed within the boundaries of Redstone Arsenal would become the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center. The Center was activated on July 1, 1960, with dedication ceremonies taking place September 8, 1960. (Photo credit: NASA)

The Marshall Space Flight Center, a NASA field installation, was established at Huntsville, Alabama, in 1960. The Center was named in honor of General George C. Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff during World War II, Secretary of State, and Nobel Prize Winner for his world-renowned Marshall Plan. (Photo credit: NASA)

For more on Alabamas Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.

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On this day in Alabama history: Marshall Space Flight Center opened in Huntsville - Alabama NewsCenter

A Falcon 9 rocket missing its payload fired its nine Merlin 1D main engines at 8:30 p.m. EDT Thursday (0030 GMT Friday). Credit: SpaceX

Six days after SpaceX fired its last Falcon 9 rocket from NASAs Kennedy Space Center, another launcher rolled to historic pad 39A and ignited its nine Merlin 1D engines at sunset Thursday in preparation for a commercial satellite delivery mission Sunday for Intelsat.

The two-stage rocket rolled out to pad 39A from SpaceXs nearby hangar Thursday, and ground teams lifted it vertical on the pads launch mount around 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT). A few hours later, SpaceXs launch crew loaded super-chilled, densified RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants into the rocket.

The nine Merlin 1D engines affixed to the base of the first stage ignited at 8:30 p.m. EDT Thursday (0030 GMT Friday), a few minutes after sunset at Cape Canaveral. The engines ramped up to full throttle around 1.7 million pounds of thrust and fired for around seven seconds, sending a plume of exhaust into the air and a dull rumble across the Florida spaceport.

SpaceX confirmed the test on Twitter a few minutes later, and the hotfire keeps the companys next mission on track for liftoff Sunday at 7:36 p.m. EDT (2336 GMT), weather permitting.

Engineers will review data from Thursday nights test before clearing the Falcon 9 rocket for flight in a launch readiness review.

The flight will loft the Intelsat 35e communications satellite on a trip toward geostationary orbit, a perch nearly 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers) over the equator. Built by Boeing, the Intelsat 35e spacecraft is set for a 15-year service life covering the Americas, the Caribbean, the Atlantic Ocean, Europe and Africa for Intelsat.

SpaceXs technicians will remove the Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39A as soon as Friday and roll it back to the hangar a quarter-mile away, where workers will connect the Intelsat 35e satellite and its protective payload fairing to the two-stage launcher.

The U.S. Air Force weather team predicts iffy conditions could prevent the Falcon 9 from launching Sunday. Anvil clouds and cumulus clouds from storms expected across Central Florida have a 60 percent chance of violating weather criteria for a launch, forecasters said.

If the Falcon 9 is able to blast off Sunday, it will be the third launch by SpaceX in less than 10 days.

A Falcon 9 rocket took off June 23 from Kennedy Space Center with the BulgariaSat 1 communications satellite, then another Falcon 9 launched June 25 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with 10 voice and data relay spacecraft for Iridium. Both missions were successful and featured landings of the Falcon 9s first stage on platforms at sea.

BulgariaSat 1s booster made its second flight after SpaceX recovered, inspected and refurbished the stage following its first liftoff in January.

SpaceX does not plan to recover the first stage after Intelsat 35es launch due to the satellites heavy weight. The booster is not fitted with the landing legs or grid fins needed for a landing.

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Next SpaceX launch on track for Sunday after hold-down firing at pad 39A - Spaceflight Now

Blasting off shortly before sunset in French Guiana, an Ariane 5 rocket delivered two communications satellites to orbit Wednesday for the Indian space agency and companies based in Greece and the United Kingdom.

Propelled by two solid rocket boosters and a hydrogen-fueled Vulcain 2 main engine, the Ariane 5 took off at 2115 GMT (5:15 p.m. EDT; 6:15 p.m. French Guiana time) Wednesday from the ELA-3 launch pad at the European-run Guiana Space Center on the northeastern shore of South America.

Its payloads were the Hellas-Sat 3/Inmarsat S EAN and GSAT 17 communications satellites designed for television broadcasts across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, airborne Wi-Fi connectivity as part of the European Aviation Network, and video and data distribution services over India.

Wednesdays launch was the fourth Ariane 5 flight of the year, and the 94th Ariane 5 launch overall. A video replay and photos of the liftoff are posted below.

Read our full story for details on the mission.

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Imagery from Wednesday's Ariane 5 launch in French Guiana ... - Spaceflight Now

Tomasz Nowakowski

June 30th, 2017

Front page of the 2017 Facts & Figures report. Image Credit: AIA

The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), a trade association representing leading aerospace and defense (A&D) companies in the U.S., has recently published its report entitled 2017 Facts & Figures, which reveals key numbers about A&D industrys economic impact. Among other things, the summaryhighlights the condition of the space systems sector as part of the A&D industry.

According to the document, in 2016, the U.S. A&D industry supported 2.4 million American jobs. By industry group, employment for 2016 accounted for the following: 547,900 for aeronautics/aircraft, 79,000 for space systems, 140,900 for land and sea systems, and 77,700 for cyber.

Based on the employment numbers, you can see that the nearly 80,000 people employed in the space sector are much smaller than the number of employees in aviation which shows that space, while important and stable, is still dwarfed by the aviation sector, Frank Slazer, Vice President for Space Systems at AIA told SpaceFlight Insider.

Employment trends in space systems sector number of jobs in recent years (in thousands). Image Credit: AIA

Employment in the space systems sector has beenstable during recent years as since 2011 the number of jobs in this segment fluctuates between 79,000 and 80,800.

However, sales in this sector remained stagnant. In 2016, space systems generated $40.4 billion out of $450.1 billion overall attributed to A&D firms producing end-use goods and services. This value has not exceeded $42.2 since 2010.

Total U.S. government spending on space is about 12 percent of the global space market of $335 billion in 2015 much of which is tied to commercial services from space, Slazer said.

What is also noteworthy, commercial space is far more than just the new space market entrants such as Blue Origin and SpaceX that tend to get a lot of media attention. AIA member companies sell billions of dollars of satellites and launch services annually to commercial customers and have for many years, he added.

Slazer also notedthat while these might be government space programs that the work being done is performed by commercial contractors.

In fact, typically, over 80 percent of NASAs budget is spent through industry contracts, he noted.

In general, the A&D industry generated approximately last year $872 billion in sales, and reduced the U.S. trade deficit by a record $90.3 billion the highest of any U.S. industry sector.

The report also underlines the significant growth of government research and development (R&D) spending relevant to A&D. In 2016, it grew by 7.5 percent to $84.7 billion.

R&D spending from the Department of Defense (DoD) accounted for 84 percent ($71.5 billion) of the total, while R&D spending from NASA accounted for the remaining 16 percent ($13.3 billion).

AIA was founded in 1919 by many of aviations early pioneers including Orville Wright and the organization regularly publishes reports on topics related to the A&D industry since 1922.

Tagged: Aerospace Industries Association AIA Commercial Space Department of Defense report The Range

Tomasz Nowakowski is the owner of Astro Watch, one of the premier astronomy and science-related blogs on the internet. Nowakowski reached out to SpaceFlight Insider in an effort to have the two space-related websites collaborate. Nowakowski's generous offer was gratefully received with the two organizations now working to better relay important developments as they pertain to space exploration.

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Space sector stable but still dwarfed by the aviation sector: AIA Vice President - SpaceFlight Insider

Jason Rhian

June 29th, 2017

NASA launched a Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket at 4:25 a.m. (08:25 GMT), on Thursday, June 29, from Wallops Flight Facility located in Virginia. (Click for full view) Photo Credit: NASA

On Thursday, June 29, after numerous delays, the early morning skies along the mid-Atlantic coast came alivewith luminescent clouds as NASA checked outa new deploymentsystem. that supports science studies of the ionosphere and aurora.

The flight lasted for about 8 minutes and deployed about ten canisters as part of the rockets payload. Photo Credit: K. Hoppes / NASA

The mission was launched atop a two-stage Terrier-Improved Malemute suborbital sounding rocketfrom the agencys Wallops Flight Facility (the 15th flight of one of these rockets from Wallops Island) on the eastern Virginia shore. The flight was supposed to get underway on May 31, then on June 1.

When all was said and done, the mission was rescheduled numerous times, almost all of which were due to weather conditions not being optimal.

The space agency has not stood still while waiting for this mission to get underway. A Terrier-Improved Orion sounding rocket carrying the RockOn/RockSat-C payload was successfully launched at 5:30 a.m. EDT (09:30 GMT) on Thursday, June 22.

Clear skies whilepreferred, werenot required, on this particular mission with blue-green and red artificial clouds being produced as part the test this occurred approximately4 and 5.5 minutes after launch. NASA has stated that these could be visible all the way fromNew York to North Carolina.

Ground cameras located at Wallops and Duck, North Carolina, monitoredthe vapor tracers. which provide their results through an interaction withbarium, strontium, and cupric oxide.

It is anticipated that these clouds or vapor tracers will allow scientists to visually track particle motions in space from the ground. These tracers were deployed at altitudes of about96 to 124 miles (154 to 200 kilometers).

NASA hopes that scientists will be able to usethismulti-canister or ampule ejection system to get data from a much larger area than was previously possible.

During the flight, ten canisters, about the size of a soda can, weredeployed into the atmosphere around 6 to 12 miles (9.65 to 19 kilometers) away from the 670-pound (304 kg) primarypayload.

From start to finish, the mission elapsed time stood at approximately 8 minutes, with the payload (which was not recovered) splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean some 90 miles (145 kilometers) from the launch site.

As one might imagine, such a highly visible event was witnessed by a large number of people.Wallops received almost2,000 call-ins, emails, and images relating to the clouds from New York and all the way down to North Carolina. According to the space agency, these also came from across Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.

Video courtesy of NASA Wallops

Tagged: NASA Terrier-Improved Malemute The Range Wallops Flight Facility

Jason Rhian spent several years honing his skills with internships at NASA, the National Space Society and other organizations. He has provided content for outlets such as: Aviation Week & Space Technology, Space.com, The Mars Society and Universe Today.

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NASA sounding rocket releases artificial clouds above mid-Atlantic - SpaceFlight Insider

Jerome Strach

June 29th, 2017

The CHESS payload is integrated with the sounding rocket before launch. The goal of the mission was to measure the light filtered through the interstellar medium in order to examine the earliest stages of star formation. Photo Credit: Kevin France / University of Colorado

In New Mexico, from the White Sands Missile Range, NASA launched a Black Brant IX sounding rocket at 1:10 a.m. EDT on June 27, 2017. The mission known as CHESS Colorado High-Resolution Echelle Stellar Spectrograph has given every indication to NASA mission handlers that the flight appeared very promising with science data being received as anticipated.

Within the vastness of distant star neighborhoods, there float near-infinite clouds of neutral atoms and molecules, along with charged plasma particles called the interstellar medium, that scientists theorize could form into new stars, or even planets, over millions of years. CHESS will focus on these vast reservoirs of interstellar soup seeking to analyze infant star formation stages.

CHESS will analyze the atoms and molecules as light passes through the interstellar medium to gain a better understanding of stars and their dynamic history. The gathering of this scientific data for later analysis of the light spectrumis achieved with a brief 16-minute flight. Only 45 percent of this flight time can be used making observations while the sounding rocket travels 90200 miles (145322 kilometers) above the surface.

The observations must be made above Earths atmosphere because far-ultraviolet light, which is the portion of the light spectrum that CHESS focuses on, will not penetrate our atmospheres protective shield. Once observations have transpired through apogee, the payload delicately parachutes back to Earth in order to be recovered for future flights.

This iterative process is why this particular flight is the third in a series initiated over the past three years, and also why it is the most significant survey yet. This launch payload utilized a newly upgraded diffraction grating, a process whereby light reflection is separated into various wavelengths allowing for detailed analysis.

Kevin France is the primary investigator from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and he discussed this upgraded payload grating. A more efficient grating means the instrument is that many times more sensitive, France said. Compared to the first flight of CHESS, this third incarnation is about eight times more sensitive.

Utilizing sounding rocket vehicles allows for an economic science hardware refinement process that can ultimately see advanced instrument design placed into orbit for long-term missions. According to France, the CHESS instrument serves as a spectrograph prototype for NASAs LUVOIR concept.

Supporting technology and suborbital flight projects today directly translates into lower risk and shorter development time for NASAs large missions in the next two decades, France said.

CHESS is supported through NASAs Sounding Rocket Program conducted at the agencys Wallops Flight Facility, which is managed by NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Orbital ATK provides mission planning, engineering services, and field operations for the NASA Sounding Rocket Operations Contract. NASAs Heliophysics Division manages the sounding rocket program for the agency.

Tagged: Black Brant IX CHESS The Range University of Colorado White Sands Test Facility

Jerome Strach has worked within the Silicon Valley community for 20 years including software entertainment and film. Along with experience in software engineering, quality assurance, and middle management, he has long been a fan of aerospace and entities within that industry. A voracious reader, a model builder, and student of photography and flight training, most of his spare time can be found focused on launch events and technology advancements including custom mobile app development. Best memory as a child is building and flying Estes rockets with my father. @Romn8tr

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CHESS mission measures light filtered through interstellar medium - SpaceFlight Insider

Credit: ESA/CNES/Arianespace Photo Optique Video du CSG S. Martin

Two geostationary communications satellites rode an Ariane 5 rocket into orbit Wednesday from a launch pad in French Guiana, embarking on missions to broadcast television across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, link European air travelers with Wi-Fi, and relay video and data signals across India.

The tandem satellite launch marked the fourth Ariane 5 flight of the year, and Arianespaces seventh mission of 2017, deploying a spacecraft shared by the Greek and Cypriot operator Hellas-Sat and London-based Inmarsat and a payload built and owned by the Indian Space Research Organization.

The nearly 180-foot-tall (55-meter) rocket blasted off at 2115 GMT (5:15 p.m. EDT; 6:15 p.m. French Guiana time) after a 16-minute delay to allow the Arianespace launch team time to finalize final countdown preparations.

Rocketing into a partly cloudy sky shortly before sunset, the Ariane 5s guidance computer directed the launcher east from the northeastern coast of South America before it dropped two side-mounted solid rocket boosters into the Atlantic Ocean just after the flights two-minute point.

The Ariane 5s Swiss-made nose cone jettisoned in the fourth minute of the flight, and the core stages Vulcain 2 main engine, guzzling a mix of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen fired for nine minutes before giving way to an HM7B upper stage powerplant for the final maneuver to enter orbit.

The launcher intended to drop off the Hellas-Sat 3/Inmarsat S EAN and GSAT 17 communications satellite into an egg-shaped transfer orbit with a perigee, or low point, of 155 miles (250 kilometers) and an apogee, or high point, of 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers). The drop-off was inclined around 3 degrees to Earths equator.

Arianespace said the Ariane 5 reached an on-target orbit before releasing the two satellite passengers, first the 12,742-pound (5,780-kilogram) Hellas-Sat 3/Inmarsat S EAN spacecraft, which launched in the upper position inside the rockets dual-payload accommodation.

The Indian-built 7,665-pound (3,477-kilogram) GSAT 17 communications satellite separated second.

Officials with Thales Alenia Space, the manufacturer of the Hellas-Sat 3/Inmarsat S EAN satellite, and the Indian space agency confirmed ground controllers established contact with both spacecraft soon after arriving in space.

The launch closed out a successful first half of 2017 for Arianespace, which had its launch campaigns in French Guiana halted more than a month in March and April by a general strike by local workers.

Arianespace resumed launchings May 4, and Wednesdays mission was the French launch companys fourth rocket flight in eight weeks.

Arianespace is delighted to announce that Hellas-Sat 3/Inmarsat S EAN and GSAT 17 have been separated as planned in the targeted geostationary transfer orbit, said Luce Fabreguettes, executive vice president of missions, operations and purchasing at Arianespace.

For the fourth time this year, and the 80th time in a row, Ariane 5 performed flawlessly, she said. Unlike Ariane 5s usual missions, our heavy-lift vehicle delivered not for two but for three major customers at the service of telecommunications today.

The satellites will fire on-board thrusters in the coming days to circularize their orbits nearly 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers) over the equator, where they will hold position over a fixed spot on the planet in geostationary orbit.

Developed in a cost-sharing arrangement by Hellas-Sat and Inmarsat, the missions larger payload will broadcast direct-to-home television programming over Europe, Africa and the Middle East with 44 Ku-band transponders and a Ka-band payload owned by the Hellas-Sat, a telecom provider based in Greece and Cyprus.

It will expand and eventually replace broadcast capacity currently offered by the Hellas-Sat 2 satellite launched from Cape Canaveral by an Atlas 5 rocket in May 2003.

Harry Iordanou, Hellas-Sat 3 project manager, said the satellite will be Hellas-Sats second satellite at 39 degrees east delivering in-orbit, direct-to-home, and telecom services over its coverage areas in Europe, the Middle East and sub-Saharan African countries.

Its activation will not only maintain but also expand Hellas-Sats business reach with additional capacity, while bringing video content in high and ultra-high definition format, Iordanou said.

The satellites initial orbit-raising maneuvers and deployments will be controlled from Thales Alenia Spaces center in Cannes, while in-orbit testing and commercial operations will be managed from a control site in Nemea, Greece.

Speaking soon after Wednesdays launch, Greek telecommunications and digital policy minister Nikos Pappas said Greece is set to start its first space agency in the next month or two.

The S-band payload on the Hellas-Sat/Inmarsat S EAN spacecraft will connect airline passengers traveling across Europe with Wi-Fi as a centerpiece of Inmarsats European Aviation Network.

This is a key milestone for our European Aviation Network, said Michele Franci, Inmarsats chief technology officer. Its part of a hybrid satellite and terrestrial network to provide cabin connectivity to passengers throughout Europe. This is one step of many, but with this we hope to be able to launch the service at the end of this year.

The European Aviation Network will have coverage in all 28 European Union member states, plus Norway and Switzerland.

The aeronautical communications project is a partnership between Inmarsat and Deutsche Telekom, which provides a network of approximately 300 4G ground sites, allowing a computerized controller aboard aircraft to automatically switch between ground and satellite Wi-Fi service as needed.

The airborne Wi-Fi network is a European program that has been riding on one of Europes best successes, Ariane, and its to provide a service in Europe for European passengers, Franci said. It will add to our drive to provide more and more services for aero connectivity, for cabin and passenger connectivity throughout the world. We have several hundred planes already being installed with our terminals and getting into our network, and well be able to serve many, many airlines over the next months and years.

Passenger jets operated by British Airways, Vueling, Iberia and Aer Lingus will be among the first to go live in the European Aviation Network.

Heading for an operating position at 93.5 degrees east longitude, GSAT 17 is the heaviest Indian-built spacecraft ever built, according to Prakasha Rao, GSAT 17 launch campaign manager at ISRO.

Outfitted with C-band broadcast transponders and an S-band payload designed for mobile services, GSAT 17 will join 17 current satellites in Indias communications network. According to ISRO, GSAT 17 also hosts a payload to relay meteorological data and has a search and rescue support mission.

K. Sivan, director of Indias Vikram Sarabhai Space Center, said GSAT 17 is the third Indian communications satellite to launch in the last 50 days. It also caps a busy June for ISRO, which launched the maiden orbital test flight of its largest rocket, the GSLV MK.3, June 5 and deployed 31 Indian and international satellites in orbit on a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle last week.

GSAT 17 is a major (mission) for ISRO and India, Sivan said It is providing continuity of services of two aging satellites, as well as augmenting our transponder reliability and broadening our horizon to mobile satellite services, as well as to the Antarctic areas.

Arianespaces next launch from French Guiana is set for Aug. 2 at 0158 GMT (Aug. 1 at 9:58 p.m. EDT), when a lightweight solid-fueled Vega booster will hurl the Optsat 3000 high-resolution reconnaissance satellite into orbit for the Italian military and deploy a French-Israeli environmental satellite named Vens.

The next Ariane 5 mission is scheduled to lift off Aug. 31 with the Intelsat 37e and BSAT 4a communications satellites.

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Ariane 5 rocket tallies 80th straight success with on-target satellite launch - Spaceflight Now

Curt Godwin

June 28th, 2017

Ariane 5, Flight VA238, launch. Image Credit: Arianespace webcast

After a minor technical glitch interrupted the countdown for five minutes, Arianespaces Ariane 5 rocket left the pad at the Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 5:15 p.m. EDT (21:15 GMT) on June 28, 2017. Flight VA238, as the mission was named by Arianespace, deployed two satellites Hellas Sat 3 / Inmarsat S EAN and GSAT-17 into a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) 39 minutes after lifting off, completing the fourth Ariane 5 launch of the year.

Ariane 5, Flight VA238, ascends from the Spaceport in French Guiana on Arianespaces seventh mission of 2017 with Hellas Sat 3-Inmarsat S EAN and GSAT-17 aboard. Photo Credit: S. Martin / ESA / CNES / Arianespace

While tropical thunderstorms threatened to delay the mission, conditions improved enough to allow for an (almost) on-time launchat five minutes after the opening of the 77-minute window.

At T-minus 0 seconds, the core stages Vulcain 2 engine roared to life. Approximately seven seconds after main engine ignition, and after passing health checks and allowing the main engine to reach flight thrust levels, the flight computer signaled the twin P241 solid rocket boosters (SRBs) to ignite.

The output from the triowas more than enough to lift 20,408pounds (9,257 kilograms) of satellites, plus the mass of the rocket and its propellant, off the pad.

With a combined 2.92 million pounds-force (13,000 kilonewtons) of liftoff thrust, the 180-foot (54.8-meter) tall Ariane 5 climbed fromthe pad and soared into a cloudy nighttime sky, with the roar and crackle from the three engines echoing across the jungle.

Shortlyafter clearing the launch tower, the Ariane 5turned eastward and climbed over the Atlantic Ocean.

As the rocket climbed and gained velocity, atmospheric pressure reached its maximum impact on the vehicles structure. This region of high stress is called max Q and is a function of the vehicles speed combined with the pressure exerted on the rocket by the surrounding air. At nearly the same time, the Ariane 5surpassedMach 1 the speed of sound as it continued its rapidlyacceleratingclimbto orbit.

After passing through this part of its flight profile the most stressful on the rocket throughout its ascent the dynamic forces began to rapidly dissipate.

Slightly more than two minutes after ignition, and at more than37miles (60 kilometers) in altitude, the Arianes pair of solid-fueled boostersexhausted their propellant and were jettisoned. Unlike the boosters from the now-retired U.S. Space Shuttle program, the spent motors were not recovered after splashing down into the Atlantic Ocean.

Though only operating for marginallymore than two minutes, the SRBs accounted for more than 90 percent of the Arianes thrust at liftoff. However, with the vehicle weighing significantly less than it did on the pad, the core stages Vulcain burning through approximately 700 pounds (317.5 kilograms) of fuel and oxidizer per second was able to supply the power necessary to continue accelerating the lightened rocket and its payload.

Approximatelythree-and-a-half minutes into the flight, and at68 miles (110 kilometers) in altitude, the Ariane jettisonedits 55.8-foot (17-meter) long protective payload fairing. Though the aerodynamic shell protectsthe vehicle and its payload from acoustic, aerodynamic, and thermal stresses in the lower, thicker parts of the atmosphere, it becomes unnecessary mass and a barrier to payload deployment once in the vacuum of space.

The Vulcain main engine powered the vehicle for nearly nine minutes, and, once the core stage was depletedof its liquid oxygen (LOX) and liquid hydrogen (LH2) propellant, itseparated from the ESC-A (second) stage and fell into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa in the Gulf of Guinea.

The ESC-As highly efficient HM-7B engine, burning a cryogenic mixture of LH2and LOX, startedits 16-minute long burn to place the two satellites in their intended GTO delivery spot.

Twenty-eightminutes after lifting off, the ESC-Awas in a position to deliver the first of its two passengers to the 155-mile (250-kilometer) by 22,236-mile (35,786-kilometer) transfer orbit.

Hellas Sat 3 / Inmarsat S EAN was the first of the satellites to separate from the vehicles SYLDA payload adapter. After the Thales Alenia Space-built satellite was clear and at a safe distance, SYLDA was jettisoned, exposing GSAT-17.

Following a short coast, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) GSAT-17 satellite was free to deploy.

Both satellites will raise their orbit with their onboard propulsion system while undergoing a set of checkout procedures by theground crew before being declared operational.

Flight VA238 marks the seventh overallmission for Arianespace in 2017, with fivemore left on the manifest for the year. Coming next for the French multinational launch provider is the launch of their lightweight Vega launch vehicleon Flight VV10, carrying Optsat 3000, scheduled for July 25, 2017.

Video courtesy of Arianespace

Tagged: Ariane 5 ArianeSpace GSAT Hellas Sat Inmarsat Kourou French Guiana Lead Stories Urgent VA238

Curt Godwin has been a fan of space exploration for as long as he can remember, keeping his eyes to the skies from an early age. Initially majoring in Nuclear Engineering, Curt later decided that computers would be a more interesting - and safer - career field. He's worked in education technology for more than 20 years, and has been published in industry and peer journals, and is a respected authority on wireless network engineering. Throughout this period of his life, he maintained his love for all things space and has written about his experiences at a variety of NASA events, both on his personal blog and as a freelance media representative.

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Arianespace closes the first half of 2017 with launch of Flight VA238 - SpaceFlight Insider

Jim Sharkey

June 28th, 2017

The Pancam on NASAs Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity took the component images of this enhanced-color scene during the missions walkabout survey of an area just above the top of Perseverance Valley, in preparation for driving down the valley. (Click for full view) Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.

NASAs Opportunity Mars roverisinvestigating rocks near the rim of Endeavour Crater for signs that they were either transported by a flood or eroded in place by the Martian wind. These are two of several possible explanations for features observed the crater rims crest above Perseverance Valley, which is carved into the inner slope of the craters rim.

Once Opportunity completes its walkabout survey of the area, the rover team will drive it down Perseverance Valley. Opportunitys drives now use steering motors on only the rear wheels, due to a temporary jam of the left-front wheels steering actuator earlier this month. The rover has not used its right-front wheels steering actuator since 2005.

Artists rendition of Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity on Mars. Image Credit: NASA / JPL / Cornell Univ.

The walkabout is designed to look at whats just above Perseverance Valley, said Opportunity Deputy Principal Investigator Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis. We see a pattern of striations running east-west outside the crest of the rim.

There is a broad notch in part of the crest at the top of Perseverance Valley. Just west of the notch, elongated patches of rock line the sides of a slightly depressed, east-west strip of ground which may have had a drainage channel billions of years ago.

We want to determine whether these are in-place rocks or transported rocks, Arvidson said. One possibility is that this site was the end of a catchment where a lake was perched against the outside of the crater rim. A flood might have brought in the rocks, breached the rim and overflowed into the crater, carving the valley down the inner side of the rim. Another possibility is that the area was fractured by the impact that created Endeavour Crater, then rock dikes filled the fractures, and were seeing effects of wind erosion on those filled fractures.

Investigation of the piles of rock along the edges of the possible channel may help scientists evaluate these and other possible histories of the area. The Opportunity team is currently studying stereo images of Perseverance Valley to plot the rovers route. The valley extends about the length of two football fields, at a slope of about 15 to 17 degrees.

The steering actuator for Opportunitys left from wheel stalled with the wheel turned outward more than 30 degrees on June 4. On June 17, diagnostic testing succeeded in straightening out the left front wheel.

For at least the immediate future, we dont plan to use either front wheel for steering, said Opportunity Project Manager John Callas of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California. We can steer with two wheels, just like a car except its the rear wheels. Were doing exactly what we should be doing, which is to wear out the rover doing productive work to utilize every capability of the vehicle in the exploration of Mars.

This graphic shows the route that NASAs Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity drove in its final approach to Perseverance Valley on the western rim of Endeavour Crater during spring 2017. Image & Caption Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona/NMMNH

Tagged: Endeavour crater Mars NASA Opportunity The Range

Jim Sharkey is a lab assistant, writer and general science enthusiast who grew up in Enid, Oklahoma, the hometown of Skylab and Shuttle astronaut Owen K. Garriott. As a young Star Trek fan he participated in the letter-writing campaign which resulted in the space shuttle prototype being named Enterprise. While his academic studies have ranged from psychology and archaeology to biology, he has never lost his passion for space exploration. Jim began blogging about science, science fiction and futurism in 2004. Jim resides in the San Francisco Bay area and has attended NASA Socials for the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover landing and the NASA LADEE lunar orbiter launch.

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NASA's Opportunity Mars rover on walkabout near crater rim ... - SpaceFlight Insider

SpaceFlight Insider

June 27th, 2017

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. SpaceFlight Insider is proud to announce it has joined Patreon, a crowdfunding website that is a simple way for our loyal audience to contribute every month to our coverage of the space industry and get exclusive rewards in return!

For the last four years, we have been endeavoring,with a team of hard-working individuals, to produce daily content in the form of stories, exclusive interviews, a photographic library, videos, live webcasts, and more. In total, more than 100 pieces of content are produced each month along with coverage of launches from around the world.

In working to make our audience an insider regarding all things space, the SFI team has created one of the best launch calendars currently in existence, an ever-expanding gallery of photographs and video packages, a mission monitor page, that, unlike most, provides all the essentials to track missions in one central location and a database of launch vehicles, spacecraft and centers called the Hangar.

At present, SpaceFlight Insider is the only comparable media outlet to host live webcasts during launches at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. We hope to expand that to other locations in the near future.

However, providing these services is a labor of love for the SpaceFlight Insider team. Regular travel expenses, equipment procurement, and maintenance, as well as paying editors, writers, and photographers, consumes much of what funds SFI has managed to acquire so far. All of these efforts require a great deal of infrastructure, manpower, and coordination to achieve.

We at SFI want to create a place where people can turn to for all the information they want regarding space exploration and development. The team aims to deliver high-quality video, audio, still imagery, and much more to give you an insiders view of the whole industry and we take your questions directly to those officials within NASA and other space-related organizations who can answer them.

SFI offers all of its services for free, but we could use your help to keep it that way. We ask those of you who are able, to help us not only maintain what we have doneso far but also to take even larger, bolder steps. We believe that with Patreon, this will allow us to truly make you the insider our name implies.

You can pledge any amount you want for as long as you feel comfortable. However, at five dollars, were going to start giving back to you. Head over to our Patreon page to see what we offer and what works best for you. Contribute what you feel is fair. If only one-third of our daily viewers were to contribute one dollar a month, thats just 12 dollars a year SpaceFlight Insider would finally be able to bring you the level of access that weve envisioned and that you deserve.

Our team has decades of experience covering the space program and we are focused on providing you with the absolute latest on all things space. If we cant pay the bills, let alone our staff which currently consists of mostly volunteers and hard-working space enthusiasts then we cant do everything we can to share the thrill of space exploration with the world.

If you like space and want more space news, launch videos, images, and podcasts, then help us by becoming a Patron of SpaceFlight Insider.

Tagged: Lead Stories Patreon SpaceFlight Insider

SpaceFlight Insider is a space journal working to break the pattern of bias prevalent among other media outlets. Working off a budget acquired through sponsors and advertisers, SpaceFlight Insider has rapidly become one of the premier space news outlets currently in operation. SFI works almost exclusively with the assistance of volunteers.

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SpaceFlight Insider has joined Patreon! - SpaceFlight Insider

A new study that stemmed from a planetary protection project for NASA and the European Space Agency. It turns out our skin is crawling with single-celled microorganisms -- and they're not just bacteria. A study by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the Medical University of Graz found that the skin microbiome also contains archaea, a type of extreme-loving microbe, and that the amount of it varies with age.

It was not until the 1970s that scientists realized how different archaea were from bacteria, and they became a separate branch on the tree of life -- the three branches being Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya (which includes all plants and animals). Archaea are commonly found in extreme environments, such as hot springs and Antarctic ice. Nowadays it is known that archaea exist in sediments and in the Earth's subsurface as well, but they have only recently been found in the human gut and linked with the human microbiome.

At first it was thought the Thaumarchaeota were from the outside, but after finding them in hospitals and other clean rooms, the researchers suspected they were from human skin. So they conducted a pilot study of 13 volunteers and found they all had these archaea on their skin.

The researchers conducted both genetic and chemical analyses of samples collected from human volunteers ranging in age from 1 to 75. They found that archaea (pronounced ar-KEY-uh) were most abundant in subjects younger than 12 and older than 60. Their study has been published in Scientific Reports (a Nature journal) in an article titled, "Human age and skin physiology shape diversity and abundance of Archaea on skin."

"The skin microbiome is usually dominated by bacteria," said Hoi-Ying Holman, director of the Berkeley Synchrotron Infrared Structural Biology (BSISB) Program and a senior author on the paper. "Most of the scientific attention has been on bacteria, because it's easier to detect. Based on the literature, six years ago we didn't even know that archaea existed on human skin. Now we've found they're part of the core microbiome and are an important player on human skin."

The study was a joint effort of Holman, Berkeley Lab postdoctoral fellow Giovanni Birarda (now a scientist at Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste in Italy), UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow Alexander Probst (now associate professor at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany), and Christine Moissl-Eichinger, the corresponding author of the study. Moissl-Eichinger and her team at the Medical University of Graz in Austria and at the University of Regensburg in Germany analyzed the genetic features of the skin microbiomes.

In addition to the influence of age, they found that gender was not a factor but that people with dry skin have more archaea. "Archaea might be important for the cleanup process under dry skin conditions," said Moissl-Eichinger. "The results of our genetic analysis (DNA-based quantitative PCR and next-generation sequencing), together with results obtained from infrared spectroscopy imaging, allowed us to link lower levels of sebum [the oily secretion of sebaceous glands] and thus reduced skin moisture with an increase of archaeal signatures."

Holman's focus is on developing synchrotron infrared spectroscopy techniques to look at biological or ecological systems. Using Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source (ALS), one of the world's brightest sources of infrared beams, the Holman Group developed a rapid and label-free method to screen cells and immediately tell if they're bacteria or archaea.

"The challenges in microbial profiling are speed, throughput, and sample integrity," she said. "We spent years developing this technique and could not have done it without the unique resources of the ALS."

But the dearth of studies on skin archaea is not just because of technical limitations. The researchers assert that the lack of age diversity in the sampling in previous studies was also a factor. "Sampling criteria and methods matter," Holman said. "We found middle-aged human subjects have less archaea; therefore, the archaeal signatures have been overlooked in other skin microbiome studies."

As a follow-up, which is the current study, they tested 51 volunteers and decided to get a large range in ages to test the age-dependency of the archaeal signatures. Samples were taken from the chest area. The variations in archaeal abundance among the age groups were statistically significant and unexpected. "It was surprising," Holman said. "There's a five- to eightfold difference between middle-aged people and the elderly -- that's a lot."

Their study focused on Thaumarchaeota, one of the many phyla of archaea, as little evidence of the others was found in the pilot study. "We know that Thaumarchaeota are supposed to be an ammonia-oxidizing microorganism, and ammonia is a major component of sweat, which means they might play a role in nitrogen turnover and skin health," Holman said.

In collaboration with Peter Wolf of the Medical University of Graz, the team also correlated archaeal abundance with skin dryness, as middle-aged persons have higher sebum levels and thus moister skin than the elderly.

So far, most archaea are known to be beneficial rather than harmful to human health. They may be important for reducing skin pH or keeping it at low levels, and lower pH is associated with lower susceptibility to infections.

"The detected archaea are probably involved in nitrogen turnover on skin, and are capable of lowering the skin pH, supporting the suppression of pathogens," said Moissl-Eichinger. "Bacteria with the same capacities are already used as skin probiotics, potentially improving skin moisture and reducing body odors. Nevertheless, the clinical relevance of Thaumarchaeota remains unclear and awaits further studies."

Holman listed several avenues of inquiry for future studies with Moissl-Eichinger. "We would like to investigate the physiological role of human skin archaea and how they differ from environmental archaea," she said. "We would like to find out which niches they prefer on or in the human body. We also want to know whether they might be involved in pathogenic processes, such as neurodermatitis or psoriasis. So far, there is little evidence of the pathogenicity of archaea."

The Daily Galaxy via DOE/Lawrence Berkeley Nat'l Laboratory

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NASA Space-Flight Discovery: Archaea Found in Extreme Earth ... - The Daily Galaxy (blog)

June 27, 2017 by Chris Gebhardt

As the mid-way point of 2017 arrives, both of NASAs Commercial Crew Program service providers are making significant progress toward the first uncrewed test flights of their Dragon and Starliner capsules. At their second quarter 2017 meeting, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel noted this progress while also discussing outstanding concerns regarding the program and vehicles as well as the positive steps being taken to address these matters.

Commercial Crew progress:

During last months NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) second quarter meeting in Huntsville, Alabama, the panel noted the significant progress both Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) providers are making toward their first uncrewed demo flights.

Currently, SpaceX is on track to be the first to perform their uncrewed flight, known as SpX Demo-1, with Dr. Donald McErlean reporting to the ASAP that the flight continues to target a launch later this year.

Currently, both NASA and SpaceX hold that SpX Demo-1 will fly by the end of the year though L2 level KSC scheduling claims the mission has potentially slipped to March 2018.

Regardless, SpX Demo-1 will be followed under the current plan by Boeings uncrewed OFT (Orbital Flight Test) in mid-2018.

Notwithstanding the ultimate commencement of the Commercial Crew Program (CCP) flight operations, the ASAP noted its concern and recommendations regarding CCP provider System Engineering & Integration (SE&I) process and controls.

In her opening statement to the meeting, Dr. Patricia Sanders, ASAP Chair, noted the two recent mishaps of commercial launch vehicles.

While one of those two recent mishaps is obviously the AMOS-6 conflagration of the Falcon 9 during Static Fire last year, what the second one is in reference to is somewhat nebulous as mishap is not a word usually applied to situations that do not result in the loss of a vehicle.

Nonetheless, Dr. Sanders statement referenced both CCP providers, potentially pointing toward last years close call with the Atlas V during the OA-6 Cygnus launch or perhaps this years hydraulic issues as the second of the two recent mishaps.

Specifically, Dr. Sanders noted that In the case of two recent mishaps on commercial launch vehicles, the Panel believes that the underlying root causes could be traced to escapes on systems engineering and integration (SE&I) processes and controls, states the minutes from the second quarter ASAP meeting.

To this end, the ASAPs previously put forward a recommendation at a meeting in first quarter 2017 that NASA require the commercial crew providers to produce verifiable evidence of the practice of rigorous, disciplined, and sustained SE&I principles in support of NASA certification and operation of commercial crew transportation services to the International Space Station (ISS).

Based on the wording of the CCtCap contracts, both providers are allowed to utilize their corporate policies rather than NASA-traditional SE&I processes; however, the contracts also stipulate that NASA will confirm through documentation, requirements verification, and deliverables that both companys have adhered to SE&I principals.

Nonetheless, the ASAP remains concerned.

According to the minutes of Dr. Sanders remarks, the ASAP remains concerned that no amount of insight or oversight by the CCP can ensure that the appropriate level of engineering discipline and control is employed unless the providers have internalized the need for it and made it an inherent part of their corporate culture.

While each provider was not mentioned by name, the minutes reflect that one provider has a history of employing rigorous SE&I practices. However, they need to continue to ensure that these controls are not employed blindly but with an awareness of the rationale for doing so.

The other provider has placed a value on agility and rapid problem solving with beneficial results. They are also showing signs of evolving to reconcile their approach with the benefits and need for discipline and control.

However, they need to ensure that the evolution reflects an inherent desire to adopt the tenets of systems engineering.

Dr. Sanders opening statement closed with a reminder of an already-established ASAP recommendation that Regardless of the methodology employed, both providers need to demonstrate that the proper controls are in place to ensure hardware is properly qualified, hazards are identified and appropriately mitigated, and the system is employed within the constraints of that qualification.

As the meeting progressed (which covered a wide-range of NASA-related programs), Dr. McErlean presented a dedicated Commercial Crew Program briefing.

A large portion of this section, unsurprisingly, focused on the LOC (Loss Of Crew) gap between what Dragon and Starliner are independently capable of providing v. what the CCtCap contracts require of them.

As previously reported by NASASpaceflight.com, the CCtCap contracts establish a minimum baseline requirement that Dragon and Starliner each meet a LOC criteria of 1 in 270 meaning for every 270 flights, only one would result in an LOC event.

Currently, there is a gap in what the data analysis shows both Starliner and Dragon are capable of providing and that 1 in 270 requirement.

While NASA has rightly not made the current LOC number for each vehicle public (as both providers are still working on this requirement), Kathy Lueders, NASAs CCP manager, stated earlier this year to the NASA Advisory Council that I will tell you that we are having a hard time getting to 1 in 270. But were not done yet.

While it might seem arbitrary, the 1 in 270 number is actually linked directly to the Space Shuttle.

At the end of the Shuttle Program in 2011, NASA determined the Shuttle to have an actual LOC number based on all 135 flights of 1 in 65.

This number was used as an initial benchmark by NASA, which decided that all U.S. crew vehicles commercial or government from 2011 onward should meet a safety factor 10 times that of Shuttle, or an LOC requirement of 1 in 650.

That was quickly determined to be completely unfeasible by all parties involved, and a new obtainable benchmark of 1 in 270 was set.

However, after NASA set this requirement and signed the CCtCap contracts with SpaceX and Boeing, more stringent MMOD (Micro Meteoroid Orbiting Debris) protection requirements were imposed on everyone (NASA included).

This new MMOD requirement has made it challenging to reach the 1 in 270 LOC benchmark.

At the NAC meeting in March, Ms. Lueders stated that SpaceX and Boeing were still updating MMOD protection and a few other critical areas including looking at operational controls, and when we get through all that well be in a better place to talk about our final LOC projection.

At the ASAP meeting, Dr. McErlean reminded the panel that the LOC contract requirements were a recommendation of the ASAP and that the panel remains happy it was included because the requirement appeared to drive systemic behavior by both providers in making their systems substantially safer than they might have been without such an incentive and [that both providers] have achieved considerable progress from their initial LOC estimates.

However, Dr. McErlean noted that the threshold values [are] acknowledged to be challenging, and both providers are still striving to meet that precise number.

From here, a discussion that NASA might have to accept the risk and/or that waivers might have to be processed if the LOC requirement cant be met took center stage.

According to the ASAP meeting minutes, Dr. McErlean said that While these LOC numbers were known to be challenging, and both providers have been working toward meeting the challenge, it is conceivable that in both cases the number may not be met.

However, Dr. McErlean cautioned the ASAP and NASA about rushing to judgement on the current and whatever the final LOC number for each vehicle is.

The ASAP is on record agreeing with the Program that one must be judicious in how one applies these statistical estimates. In the case of LOC, the numbers themselves depend very heavily on the orbital debris model used to develop the risk to the system [as] orbital debris is a driving factor in determining the potential for LOC.

The orbital debris models have been used and validated to some degree, but they are not perfect.

One must be wary of being too pernicious in the application of a specific number and must look at whether the providers have expended the necessary efforts and engineering activity to make the systems as safe as they can and still perform the mission.

To that last point, Dr. McErlean reported that both providers indeed expended the necessary efforts and engineering activity to make the systems as safe as they can.

Importantly, too, Dr. McErlean noted that there was no evidence that spending more money on closing the LOC gap for both providers could [make] their systems considerably safer.

The ASAP at large concurred with this finding and noted their pleasure at the progress made in closing the LOC gap for both Dragon and Starliner.

However, the panel did discuss the possible necessity for NASA to do a formal risk acceptance of the variance from the requirement.

To this point, the ASAP discussed a recommendation of how NASA would do this including the need for a formal and complete presentation of the alternatives and the consequences as well as the rationale for the path that [is] ultimately chosen for risk acceptance before any such rationale is signed off on by the appropriate authority.

In this case, Mr. John Frost noted that that authority is likely at the highest levels of NASA.

Importantly, though, the ASAP meeting wasnt just focused on the panels concerns. Considerable time was dedicated to a discussion and review of the progress both providers continue to make and where each provider is in terms of schedule milestones for their first uncrewed demo flights.

Presently, Boeing is moving through software release for Starliner, and the Starliner STA (Structural Test Article) is progressing through its test regime.

Meanwhile, the first Starliner spacecraft the one that will fly the OFT mission next year has undergone initial power activation, and the builds for Starliner spacecrafts two and three are progressing inside Boeings Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center.

For SpaceX, Dragon has completed its first pressurized space suit test and final assembly of the craft for SpX Demo-1 has begun all while SLC-39A at Kennedy is undergoing final acceptance testing ahead of the upcoming installation of the Crew Access Arm onto the pads Fix Service Structure tower.

Moreover, the new, full-thrust (Block 5) Merlin 1D engines are in developmental hot fire testing at McGregor, and NASA has received the detailed CDR (Critical Design Review) of the engine for crew mission certification.

Finally, the ASAP noted that Both providers have completed parachute testing for landings and are moving into production and qualification.

Moreover, SpaceX and Boeing have implemented solutions to several issues flagged by NASA toward the end of last year, and very few new issues have been identified to date.

(Images: NASA, L2 Shuttle and L2 artist Nathan Koga The full gallery of Nathans (SpaceX Dragon to MCT, SLS, Commercial Crew and more) L2 images can be *found here*)

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Commercial Crew providers making significant progress toward first flights - NASASpaceflight.com

File photo of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket inside a hangar at Cape Canaveral. Credit: SpaceX

After back-to-back launches last weekend, SpaceX could launch its next Falcon 9 mission as soon as Sunday from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida with a high-power Intelsat communications satellite.

Liftoff Sunday will hinge on the ability of SpaceXs launch team to prepare KSCs launch pad 39A for another flight after the successful June 23 blastoff of a Falcon 9 booster with the first Bulgarian-owned communications satellite.

A customary hold-down hotfire test of the Falcon 9s nine Merlin 1D engines is scheduled as soon as Thursday.

An Intelsat spokesperson confirmed Tuesday that Sundays one-hour launch window will open at 7:36 p.m. EDT (2336 GMT). If the flight takes off Sunday, it will be the third SpaceX launch in a little more than nine days.

The Boeing-built Intelsat 35e satellite, designed for broadband data delivery, Ultra HD television broadcasts, and services for mobile and government customers, will be the payload on Sundays mission. Intelsat 35e is the fourth satellite in Intelsats Epic series featuring a fully digital communications payload that can be reconfigured by controllers on the ground for quick response to market demands.

Intelsat 35e will replace the Intelsat 903 communications satellite at the operators 34.5 degrees west position in geostationary orbit, where a spacecrafts velocity matches Earths rotation, allowing a telecom station to remain over a fixed location. Intelsat 903 launched in March 2002 aboard a Russian Proton rocket.

The satellite will provide trans-Atlantic communications links, reaching customers across Latin America, the eastern United States and Canada, Africa and Europe.

SpaceX is coming off a pair of Falcon 9 launches from Kennedy Space Center and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The back-to-back flights, which took off Friday and Sunday, respectively, both included landings of the Falcon 9s first stage booster on a drone ship at sea.

Fridays launch from Florida with the BulgariaSat 1 television broadcasting satellite used a previously-flown Falcon 9 first stage, while Sundays mission from Vandenberg was powered by an all-new rocket. Intelsats flight Sunday will also use a newly-manufactured booster.

The heavy weight of the Intelsat 35e satellite is expected to prevent recovery of the first stage Sunday.

SpaceX will take a longer break between launches after the Intelsat flight, with the next Falcon 9 mission scheduled for no earlier than Aug. 10 from Florida with the companys next Dragon resupply craft for the International Space Station.

That will be followed by at least two more Falcon 9s later in August, one more from Florida with the fifth flight of the U.S. Air Forces X-37B spaceplane, and a mission from Vandenberg with Taiwans Formosat 5 Earth observation satellite.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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SpaceX will try for third Falcon 9 launch in less than two weeks - Spaceflight Now

Tomasz Nowakowski

June 27th, 2017

This illustration taken from the Cassini Grand Finale movie shows Cassinis fly-through of the Enceladus plume in October 2015. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Saturns icy moon Enceladus is perhaps best known for its numerous geysers ejecting plumes of water and ice. These eruptive fountains have perplexedresearchers searching for signs of microbial life beyond Earth. A dedicated spacecraft designed to study the plume-like features sprouting from Enceladus could definitely tell us whether they contain alien microorganisms.

We need a spacecraft to travel to Enceladus, fly through a geyser plume, and analyze the water that is immediately accessible, Geoffrey Marcy, a retired professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, told Astrowatch.net.

Marcy is a renowned exoplanet researcher, who discovered many extrasolar worlds. He was one of the co-investigators of NASAs Kepler planet-hunting mission that detected more than 4,000 exoworlds. He was also involved in studies focusing on detecting signals from extraterrestrial civilizations and was the principal investigator of the Breakthrough Listen project. The program, funded by billionaire Yuri Milner, is looking for signs of extraterrestrial civilizations by searching stars and galaxies for radio signals and laser transmissions.

Marcy underlines that when it comes to searching for signs of microbial life in the Solar System, some assistance from billionaires investing in the space project would also be most helpful.

Enceladus has become one of the prominent places in the Solar System where scientists are actively seeking out alien life. Photo Credit: NASA / JPL

The NASA missions, as currently planned, will require at least 20 years before a detection of microbial life will happen, at the earliest. However, a brilliant team of billionaires could work with NASA to fund a spacecraft to Saturns moon, Enceladus.It could capture the water spurting out the geysers and use conventional microscopes to detect any microbial life there, Marcy said.

While a future mission to Enceladus would address complex questions about the origin of life, the spacecraft itself will be relatively easy to build and operate. According to Marcy, we just need a dedicated probe equipped with a set of well-suited science instruments, capable of flying through the plumes and able to perform required measurements.

The remarkable aspect of the search for microbes in the water spurting from geysers is that thespacecraft only needs to fly through the plume, well above the surface of Enceladus. No lander is needed just a succession of fly-bys through the plumes as it orbits Enceladus, Marcy said.

He noted that such spacecraft should be fitted with a mass spectrometer necessary to detect organic compounds that could be signs of microbial life. The spectrometer will look for amino acids and the structure of any organic molecules, especially fatty acids that compose cell membranes. It could also measure the relative amounts of isotopes of carbon (12 and 14) to detect non-natural anomalies due to biological processes.

Moreover, the mission to Enceladus would measure the properties of the water such as pH, oxidation, temperature; therefore, assessing its suitability for organic life.

Marcy added that, besides a spectrometer, the proposed spacecraft should also have an optical imaging system capable of capturing microscopic images in order to more effectively search for microorganisms on this icy world.

The mission should also include a microscope and camera to image directly any organisms in the water that are as small as a few microns in size, Marcy said.

Discovered in 1789 by William Herschel, Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn, with a diameter of about 310 miles (500 kilometers). First detailed pictures of this moon were acquired in the early 1980s by NASAs two Voyager probes. Since 2005, Enceladus is continuously studied by the NASA/ESA Cassini spacecraft, which detected the water plumes erupting from the moons south polar region.

Tagged: Enceladus Geoffrey Marcy NASA Saturn The Range

Tomasz Nowakowski is the owner of Astro Watch, one of the premier astronomy and science-related blogs on the internet. Nowakowski reached out to SpaceFlight Insider in an effort to have the two space-related websites collaborate. Nowakowski's generous offer was gratefully received with the two organizations now working to better relay important developments as they pertain to space exploration.

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Could a dedicated mission to Enceladus detect microbial life there? - SpaceFlight Insider

"My government will work to attract investment in infrastructure to support economic growth. Legislation will be introduced to ensure the United Kingdom remains a world leader in new industries, including electric cars and commercial satellites".

The space industry welcomed this announcement in the Queen's Speech on 21 June 2017. The aim is to place the UK in a market-leading position to compete in the rapidly growing global space market. It is even more important for the UK to distinguish itself in the run up to Brexit.

The Foreword to the UK Space Industry Bill (previously the Draft Spaceflight Bill) comments that:

"As we prepare to leave the European Union and so refine our place in the world, we must ensure that the decisions we take now put the UK in a position to build a strong, resilient, well balanced economy that works for everyone."

The UK Government are committed to getting the regulatory framework right to take advantage of the multi-billion pound opportunity presented by the growing space market and recognise the urgency with which legislation like the Space Industry Bill is required.

The UK seeks to be the first country in Europe to provide a hub for the low cost launch of small satellites, "We want to see UK spaceports enabling the launch of small satellites from the UK, as well as sub-orbital spaceflights and scientific experiments" the Foreword continues.

The UK is a world leader in the development and manufacture of small satellites. The Government seeks to encourage this by ensuring a UK sovereign launch capability; thus providing end to end capability for small satellites. This is aligned with the Government's ambitious efforts to grow the UK's share of the global space market to 10% by 2030.

Low cost access to space will be a game-changing technology which will open up the market and commercial opportunities for small sats. The UK Government intend that licences for launch and sub-orbital activities will be granted by 2020 and offer grant funding of around 10 million to kick-start activities.

Through the Bill the UK needs to balance long term risks and liabilities with encouraging innovation, commercialisation and sector growth, and keeping those involved as safe as possible.

To do so, it will use tools such as: risk assessments; third party liability and launch insurance requirements; unlimited indemnities to the Government; and liability caps for operators. Such requirements need to be transparent, proportionate and reasonable. It is vital that the UK Government works with industry to draft the implementing regulations under the Bill detailing how such tools will be used effectively.

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Satellite Bulletin June 2017: The Queen's Speech - Securing Spaceflight in the UK - Lexology (registration)

The Falcon 9 rocket accelerates downrange south from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California after Sundays liftoff with 10 Iridium Next satellites. Credit: SpaceX

Two days after launching a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida, SpaceX sent another mission into orbit Sunday from Californias Central Coast with 10 new satellites for Iridiums voice and data relay network.

Like Fridays flight from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Falcon 9s first stage plunged back through the atmosphere and made a propulsive vertical landing on a barge stationed several hundred miles downrange from the launch site.

The back-to-back launchings and landings set a record for the shortest turnaround between two SpaceX flights from different launch sites, a milestone the company could repeat as it reactivates a damaged launch pad at Cape Canaveral later this year and begins service from a Texas spaceport as soon as next year.

The last time two orbital-class U.S. rockets of similar type lifted off two days apart was in March 1995, when aLockheed Martin Atlas 2AS rocket and a similar Atlas-E launcher flew separate missions from Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Air Force Base, delivering an Intelsat broadcast satellite and an Air Force weather satellite to space.

Russian Soyuz rockets, on the other hand, have flown the same day from different launch pads, most recently inMarch 2015, when Soyuz boosters took off two hours apart from the Baikonur Cosmodome in Kazakhstan with a three-man space station crew and from the European-run space base in French Guiana with two Galileo navigation payloads.

A four-day delay in SpaceXs previous launch from Florida, which carried a Bulgarian-owned communications satellite to orbit on a previously-flown, reused Falcon 9 booster, set up the weekend doubleheader.

Sundays mission began at 1:25:14 p.m. PDT (4:25:14 p.m. EDT; 2025:14 GMT), the instant when the Falcon 9 rocket could dispatch its 10 satellite passengers directly into one of the six orbital pathways populated by more than 60 Iridium communications spacecraft.

The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon launcher lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg, the primary launch site on the U.S. West Coast. After climbing through a soupy fog bank enshrouding the hillside launch pad, the Falcon 9 steered through clear skies on a southerly trajectory with its nine Merlin 1D main engines producing 1.7 million pounds of thrust, chugging a super-chilled combination of RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants.

After consuming most of its propellant, the first stage dropped away from the Falcon 9s upper stage to begin a descent toward a SpaceX barge in the Pacific Ocean.

Four upgraded titanium grid fins, flying of the first time Sunday, extended from the top of the 14-story first stage and helped steer the rocket on its glide back to Earth. The booster ignited a subset of its Merlin engines twice, first to slow down for re-entry through the atmosphere, then to brake for landing.

A four-legged landing gear opened at the base of the booster just before touchdown, and the rocket braved high winds and challenging seas as it dropped through a low cloud deck onto the football field-sized drone ship, dubbed Just Read the Instructions, around eight minutes after blastoff.

The rocket will return to port in Southern California in a few days for inspections and possible reuse.

Elon Musk, SpaceXs founder and chief executive, said the new, larger grid fin design is more robust than the Falcon 9s previous aluminum fins, which had to be shielded against the extreme heat during re-entry, then replaced before the first stage could fly again.

The new finsare cast in a single piece of titanium and cut to form their shape, Musk tweeted. Hesaid the titanium fins are slightly heavier than the shielded aluminum fins, but the upgrade offers more control authority for stabilization and steering as the pencil-like 14-story booster glides back to Earth.

The Falcon 9 rocket can land in heavier winds with the upgraded fins, Musk said.

New titanium grid fins worked even better than expected, Musk tweeted after Sundays landing. Should be capable of an indefinite number of flights with no service.

The billionaire entrepreneur also gave a brief update on SpaceXs efforts to recover pieces of the Falcon 9 rockets payload fairings, the nose cone that protects satellites during the first few minutes of each launch. SpaceX intends to guide the fairing parts, which jettison from the rocket like a clamshell, with tiny thrusters and gently land them in the ocean with a parafoil.

Getting closer to fairing recovery and reuse, he tweeted. Had some problems with the steerable parachute. Should have it sorted out by end of year.

While the first stage made its daring descent, the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket fired its single vacuum-rated Merlin engine into a preliminary parking orbit. After sailing over Antarctica, the upper stage reignited the Merlin engine for three seconds to reach a targeted 388-mile-high (625-kilometer) orbit to begin releasing the 10 Iridium satellites.

Fastened to a two-tier dispenser specially designed and built by SpaceX, the 1,896-pound (860-kilogram) satellites separated one-by-one at intervals of approximately 90 seconds. The deployments were complete by T+plus 1 hour, 12 minutes.

SpaceX and Iridium officials declared the launch a success, and ground controllers established radio contact with all 10 of the new satellites to verify they survived the trip into orbit.

Ten for ten, its a clean sweep, said Falcon 9 product manager John Insprucker, who provided commentary on SpaceXs live webcast of the mission. We can tie a broom to the Falcon 9.

Sundays launch targetedPlane 3 of the Iridium constellation, which is designed to have 66 satellites spread out evenly in six orbital planes around Earth. One of of the satellites will filla hole in Plane 3 where one of Iridiums aging communications platforms failed last year.

It was the second of at least eight Falcon 9 flights to deliver 75 next-generation satellites to replace Iridiums network with upgraded services and new spacecraft designed to operate for the next 15 years. Twenty of the satellites are now in space with the conclusion of Sundays mission.

Iridium ordered 81 of the new-generation Iridium Next satellites in 2010 from Thales Alenia Space, a French aerospace contractor. Thales partnered with Orbital ATK to build the spacecraft in an assembly line fashion in Orbitals factory near Phoenix.

Right now, its two down with six more launches to go, said Matt Desch, chief executive officer of Iridium, in a post-launch press release. Our operations team is eagerly awaiting this new batch of satellites and is ready to begin the testing and validation process. After several weeks of fine-tuning, the next set of slot swaps will begin, bringing more Iridium Next satellites into operational service, and bringing us closer to an exciting new era for our network, company, and partners.

Specifically for this launch, five satellites will go into mission in Plane 3, replacing existing satellites, or in one case, filling a hole in our network weve had for the last year or so, Desch said in a pre-launch conference call with reporters. Four satellites will be sent drifting down to Plane 2, where three of those satellites are expected to go into mission and one will be positioned as a spare.

One more satellite launched Sunday will drift to Plane 4 and go into operation there next year. It takes 10 or 11 months to reposition an Iridium satellite to another orbital plane.

The satellites will boost themselves to a higher altitude around485 miles (780 kilometers) above Earth in the coming weeks and months, rendezvousing with the older spacecraft each is intended to replace.

Desch said the satellites launched Sunday will replace aging members of the Iridium fleet that lifted off on a Russian Proton rocket from Kazakhstan in September 1997, and on two Boeing Delta 2 rockets from Vandenberg in March 1998 and February 2002.

The first-generation satellites were designed to last eight years, but most of them are still providing service, more than 20 years after the first batch of Iridium spacecraft reached orbit.

Iridium Next features the same unique interconnected satellite architecture as the original constellation, which is the key feature that distinguishes Iridium from all other commercial satellite operators, Desch said. Cross-links, as we refer to them, allow our satellites to bounce data and voice calls around the world nearly instantaneously, creating a true web of coverage around the entire planet, the key advantage of our network and one of the biggest reasons for our growth and success.

Improved service for Iridiums nearly 900,000 subscribers will also come with the new satellites.

Besides faster connections on voice calls and data relays, the modern satellites are the cornerstone of Iridium Certus, which the company says will link customers on-the-go via an L-band network that is not as susceptible to interference from poor weather and other factors.

Desch said the Certus initiative will provide Iridium customers with up to 1.4 megabits per second of L-band connectivity, up from 128 kilobits per second available with the existing satellites.

Certus is an L-band service built for reliability, coverage, mobility and able to be certified for safety services to ships and the cockpits of aircraft, he said, adding that Certus will go to market in early 2018.

Iridiums clientsinclude the U.S. military, oil and gas companies, aviation and maritime operators, and mining and construction contractors.

Piggyback payloads on the Iridium satellites orbited Sunday will help commercial companies track and stay in contact with airplanes and ships outside the reach of land-based radars.

All of the Iridium Next satellites host radio receivers for Aireon, an affiliate of Iridium established in partnership with air traffic control authorities in Canada, Ireland, Italy and Denmark.

Aireon technology is hosted by us on every Iridium Next satellite and is poised to change how the world views the skies, Desch said. The only way to really provide 100 percent global aircraft tracking and surveillance in realtime is through the Iridium network and our unique cross-link functionality thats provided by our satellites.

Don Thoma, Aireons CEO, told reporters his companys service will help usher air traffic control into the modern era, making for more efficient use of airspace over oceans, where ground-based radars cannot see aircraft on intercontinental flights.

When aircraft leave terrestrial airspace, they fly very rigid formations, typically conga lines or highways in the sky, along fixed routes to ensure that the aircraft maintain safe separation distances from one another, and make sure the air traffic system is as safe as it is, Thoma said.

Thats all in the process of being changed, he said. Theres a major upgrade by the worlds air traffic control organizations to move from a radar-based technology to a new GPS-based technology called Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, or ADS-B.

While ADS-B signals were originally meant to be received by ground stations and other aircraft, the Aireon payload on each Iridium Next satellite can detect them from space.

ADS-B will provide realtime, very accurate, frequent updates on aircraft location to air traffic control, Thoma said.What Aireon represents is the ability to provide that not just over land-based areas, but over the entire world.

Touting financial and environmental benefits in fuel costs and pollution reductions, Thoma said Aireons position data will help ensure airplanes are not lost over remote oceans, like the case of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, a Boeing 777 that went missing with 239 passengers and crew in March 2014.

Well be able to pick up those (position) signals and provide them in realtime to air traffic controllers, Thoma said.This will truly be a revolutionary aspect of air traffic control, not only supporting the surveillance across remote areas like the oceans, but also providing a backup capability and additional gap-filling surveillance over significant parts of land masses around the world.

The first eight Aireon payloads aboard Iridium Next satellites launched in January are already receiving ADS-B position signals, he said.

Nine of the 10 Iridium Next satellites launched Saturday also have antennas to monitor maritime traffic for exactEarth, a Canadian company, and Harris Corp. of Melbourne, Florida, according to Nicole Schill, an exactEarth spokesperson.

Like all eight of Iridiums launches booked with SpaceX, Sundays flight used a brand new Falcon 9 first stage.

SpaceX has racked up two successful launches with recycled Falcon 9 boosters, including Fridays mission from Florida, which coincidentally was powered by the first stage that sent the first 10 Iridium Next craft to space in January from California.

I believe previously-flown boosters are fantastic, Desch said. I think its revolutionizing the industry. I think its fantastic, in the future, for the availability and cost of launches.

Desch said he was inclined, for now, to continue launching Iridium satellites on newly-built Falcon 9s.

Our using them or not using them is not a statement around the quality or capability of those boosters, he said.

Instead, Desch would like to see a steeper discount for flying on a reused Falcon 9 booster than SpaceX currently offers. Perhaps most importantly, he said, is determining whether a switch to a previously-flown Falcon 9 rocket will get Iridiums satellites up sooner.

Iridiums first 10 satellites were supposed to launch last September, but the flight was grounded until January in the wake of a Falcon 9 rocket explosion in Florida. A manufacturing bottleneck at SpaceXs headquarters near Los Angeles delayed the second Iridium Next flight from April to June.

When would they be available, and would they improve the current launch plan we have with brand new rockets that I basically contracted for a number of years ago, and have budgeted for and have paid for? Desch said. Thats the first thing. Will they improve my schedule because schedule, to me, is very, very important.

Secondly is the cost, and really the cost and risk are kind of aligned, he said. I believe the risk is pretty low right now, but its not zero because its a new thing.

He said the reduced cost of a reused Falcon 9 is minor right now, at least in our perception of it.

If that changes as there are additional launches, Ill reconsider that, but right now I think weve made the right decision.

While we are currently flying first-flown launches, Im open to previously-flown launches, particularly for maybe the second half of our launch schedule maybe in 2018 but I really want to see the answers to all those questions before wed ever make that kind of decision, Desch said.

The next Falcon 9 flight is set for takeoff from Kennedy Space Centers launch pad 39A some time next month. It will send an Intelsat high-throughput communications satellite toward its perch in geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles (35,000 kilometers) over the equator.

Vandenberg is set to host its next Falcon 9 launch in late August, when it will loft a long-delayed Taiwanese Earth observation satellite, according to Taiwanese news reports.

Then 10 more Iridium satellites are set to go up on another Falcon 9 from Vandenberg some time in early fall.

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SpaceX launches and lands second Falcon 9 rocket in two days - Spaceflight Now

Christopher Paul

June 25th, 2017

A Minotaur IV pathfinder sits on the mount at Space Launch Complex 46 in February 2017. Space Florida has worked to revitalize launch sites at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. This summers ORS-5 launch will mark the first time that Space Launch Complex 46 has been used in nearly 20 years. Photo Credit: Vikash Mahadeo / SpaceFlight Insider

A Minotaur IV rocket scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) inmid-Julyhas been delayed to late August, according to the U.S. Air Force. The entirely solid-fueled Minotaur IV was scheduled to fly out of Launch Complex 46 at CCAFS in mid-July.

The press office at Patrick Air Force Base, which handles press affairs for CCAFS, told SpaceFlight Insiderthe launch will take place around the last week of August but declined to be more specific. No reason for the delay was given.

The rocket is slated to carry a small satellite called SensorSat for the Air Forces Operationally Responsive Space Office. The spacecraft is officially designated ORS-5, as it is the fifth launch of the ORS program.

SensorSat will be launched into a novel low-Earth orbit, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technologys Lincoln Laboratory, which is cooperating with the ORS on this spacecraft. Once there, it will look toward geostationary orbit the band of satellites whose orbital period is the same as Earths rotational period, making them appear to hover over one spot on the Earth. SensorSat will observe the debris of defunct and damaged satellites.

This debris, also called space junk, is of increasing concern to all spacecraft operators. Since collisions between uncontrolled satellites or junk can often spawn many more pieces of debris, its possible for one such collision to create a chain reaction, spreading more debris across all of Earths orbital space and denying everyone the use of Earth orbit. This chain reaction is called the Kessler Syndrome after the NASA scientist who first described the possibility.

The rocket carrying SensorSat is made by Orbital ATK. Minotaur rockets are derived, in part, from Peacekeeper missiles. They are usually launched from Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia, but they have also lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California as well as from Kodiak Island Launch Complex in Alaska. This is to the be first Minotaur fly from Florida in the history of the program.

Launch Complex 46 is being refurbished, in part, by Space Florida to support the ORS-5 mission and other launches.

The Minotaur IV usually has four stages, the last being a single Orion 38 solid fueled stage, but this mission will carry an additional Orion 38 to help SensorSat achieve its desired orbit. The ORS office expects a follow-on launch of a similar spacecraft sometime in the future, but no schedule is set.

Tagged: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Minotaur IV Orbital ATK ORS-5 SensorSat Space Launch Complex 46 The Range

Christopher Paul has had a lifelong interest in spaceflight. He began writing about his interest in the Florida Tech Crimson. His primary areas of interest are in historical space systems and present and past planetary exploration missions. He lives in Kissimmee, Florida, and also enjoys cooking and photography. Paul saw his first Space Shuttle launch in 2005 when he moved to central Florida to attend classes at the Florida Institute of Technology, studying space science, and has closely followed the space program since. Paul is especially interested in the renewed effort to land crewed missions on the Moon and to establish a permanent human presence there. He has covered several launches from NASA's Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral for space blogs before joining SpaceFlight Insider in mid-2017.

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Minotaur IV launch postponed 6 weeks - SpaceFlight Insider

The BulgariaSat 1 communications satellite. Credit: Space Systems/Loral

On the eve of the launch of his countrys first communications satellite on a Falcon 9 rocket, the chief executive of BulgariaSat credited SpaceXs cost-cutting ways with making space accessible for small nations and money-conscious companies like his own.

Maxim Zayakov, CEO of BulgariaSat and its affiliate television provider Bulsatcom, told Spacefight Now that SpaceXs push to reduce the cost of space transportation has yielded tangible results for his country.

People dont realize that, for small countries and small companies like us, without SpaceX, there was no way we would ever be able to even think about space, Zayakov said. With them, it was possible. We got a project. I think, in the future, its going to be even more affordable because of reusability.

Bulgarias first telecommunications satellite, named BulgariaSat 1, is scheduled to lift off Friday at 2:10 p.m. EDT (1810 GMT) from pad 39A at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Fridays launch window extends for two hours, and forecasters call for favorable weather, with partly cloudy skies and a 90 percent chance conditions will be acceptable for liftoff.

The launch from Florida is the first of two Falcon 9 flights on tap this weekend. Another SpaceX launcher is set for liftoff Sunday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with the second batch of 10 voice and data relay satellites for Iridiums upgraded communications constellation.

BulgariaSat 1 will ride SpaceXs second previously-flown Falcon 9 first stage booster. The vehicle made its first flight Jan. 14 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and SpaceX engineers inspected and refurbished the booster for a second mission.

The recycled rocket flight comes nearly three months after the March 30 launch of an SES communications satellite on SpaceXs first reused booster. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk heralded that achievement as a significant step toward the companys objective of making spaceflight more routine and less costly.

Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceXs president and chief operating officer, said last year the launch company was offering about a 10 percent discount for customers willing to switch from a newly-built to a previously-flown booster. The discounts are expected to remain small as SpaceX tries to recoup its $1 billion investment in reusable rocket technology, but Musk said dramatic cuts from the Falcon 9s current list price of $61.2 million are eventually in the offing.

With BulgariaSats urging, satellite manufacturer Space Systems/Loral brokered a chance to fly BulgariaSat 1 on a reused Falcon 9. Negotiations began before the first SES 10 launch in March, Zayakov said, but insurance considerations kept BulgariaSat 1 from getting the first flight on a reused Falcon 9 first stage.

Space Systems/Loral built BulgariaSat 1 in Palo Alto, California. The terms of the satellite contract made SSL responsible for booking the launch with SpaceX, and the BulgariaSat will take control of the spacecraft once it is ready to begin service in orbit.

Zayakov said BulgariaSat saw no financial benefit from swapping a new rocket for a used one, and any discount in the deal went to SSL.

SSL engineers who work with all the launch providers were involved in this case, and they were convinced of the overall reliability of the booster to reuse it, Zayakov told Spaceflight Now.

BulgariaSat announced the switch to a reused rocket May 5, and BulgariaSat 1 arrived at Cape Canaveral from its California factory a few days later for final preflight testing and fueling.

The launch was scheduled for June 15, but a delay in the preceding Falcon 9 launch and a problem with a pneumatic valve on the rockets payload fairing moved back the mission to Friday.

Designed for a 15-year lifetime, BulgariaSat 1 weighs about 8,100 pounds (3,700 kilograms) with a full load of maneuvering propellant. The telecom craft is heading for a station in geosynchronous orbit nearly 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers) over the equator at 1.9 degrees east longitude, where its velocity will match the rate of Earths rotation, keeping BulgariaSat 1 in range of users across Europe.

The $235 million satellite project took 12 years from to go from an idea to reality, Zayakov said.

The satellite is a huge thing, he said in a telephone interview. Its a big milestone and gives us a chance for regional development, more presence in the region, as well as throughout Europe, where we have our main coverage. For the country, definitely, its the first geostationary communications satellite. It also is going to utilize our national orbital slot, which is important.

Bulsatcoms satellite television channels will be broadcast through BulgariaSat 1 into homes and businesses across Bulgaria. A Bulsatcom subsidiary in neighboring Serbia will also relay TV channels through BulgariaSat 1.

TV is the focus, Zayakov said of BulgariaSat 1. Were trying to provide much higher quality and much better quantity of services to our customers, not only in our country, but also in the region, and trying to expand. Certainly, more HDTV and some 4K channels.

4K is beautiful, of course, for sports, he added. We dont have anything in 4K whatsoever right now. This is an opportunity right there.

Bulsatcom currently leases transponders on Hellas-Sat 2, a 14-year-old satellite launched from Cape Canaveral on an Atlas 5 rocket in 2003. BulgariaSat 1 will add significantly more capacity to the companys network in Bulgaria, Serbia and other regions in the Balkans.

Well have two satellites offering services now, Zayakov said. Our operations in Serbia are nearly dormant, just 35,000 subscribers there, because there was no capacity on this satellite were leasing now to grow. There are other countries in that region. We have potential to grow, but the problem is the capacity.

Zayakov expects BulgariaSat 1 will be operational by early August.

The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket will soar to the east from Floridas space coast, dropping its nine-engine first stage around T+plus 2 minutes, 40 seconds.

While the second stages single Merlin engine powers BulgariaSat 1 into orbit, a subset of the Merlin engines on the first stage will slow it down for a vertical landing on SpaceXs recovery barge, or drone ship, in the Atlantic Ocean downrange from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage will try to make its second landing on one of SpaceXs drone ships after an on-target recovery during its first flight Jan. 14.

Two burns of the upper stage engine are needed to send BulgariaSat 1 into an arcing supersynchronous transfer orbit with a low point a few hundred miles above Earth and a high point well above the satellites final operating post 22,300 miles in space.

Separation of BulgariaSat 1 from the Falcon 9s second stage is expected at T+plus 34 minutes, 55 seconds.

The satellites on-board engine will reshape its orbit with a series of burns over the next few weeks, then BulgariaSat 1 will settle into its slot in geostationary orbit for several more weeks of testing before entering service.

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Head of BulgariaSat says satellite project would be impossible without SpaceX - Spaceflight Now

Curt Godwin

June 23rd, 2017

Archive photo of the Soyuz TMA-17M docked to the ISS with Typhoon Soudelor in the background, August 5, 2015. Photo Credit: NASA

According to a report from the Russian news agency TASS, not only will U.S. astronauts launch to the International Space Station (ISS) in a Soyuz spacecraft through 2019, but also there is a strong possibility that Boeingwill engage their Russian counterpart to continue the service through 2020.

We have contracts signed for 2017, 2018 and 2019, stated Vladimir Solntsev, Director General of Energia,in an article with TASS.At present, we are negotiating contracts (that will be implemented) after 2020 and the chances that they will be signed are very high.

Until flights are available from NASAs Commercial Crew partners, U.S. astronauts will be launching aboard Russias Soyuz. Photo Credit: Joel Kowsky / NASA

Following theretirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011, NASA and its partners have relied on Russia to ferry astronauts to the orbiting outpost. Though there were several vehicles capable of delivering supplies to the ISS, Russias Soyuz was the only spacecraft capable of carrying crew to space and returning them safely to Earth.

Understanding this, NASA engaged the private industry in developing crew-capable spacecraft, ultimately selecting SpaceX and Boeing as part of the Commercial Crew Program. That program aimed to return crewed launches to U.S. soil in 2015.

However, delays have beset both commercial partners, and a reportfrom the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) indicates flight certification for both might not occur until the latter half of 2018, more than seven years after the Shuttle last flew and three years later than the original projected date.

This leaves Russia as the only option to deliver crew to the ISS and bring them back to Earth.

Though Russia may be the only ride to the ISS, NASA has options from which to choose to buy those seats. Should further delays to Commercial Crew threaten to impact operations of the station, NASA may very well have to procure more seats on the Russian spacecraft.

However, they might not necessarily have to contract those flights with Russia directly.

Infact, NASA may be gearing up to asktheir Boeing partner to call in the Soyuz seats they were awarded as part of a $320 million judgment the American company received in a legal dispute with Energia over Sea Launch.

Indeed, Boeing has already sold some of their seats to NASA for flights in 2017 and 2018, and the space agency has inked an option to procure three more seats in 2019.

With such a thin margin between currently contracted seats and the availability of commercial flights from U.S. soil, it would appear that NASA ismaking preparations to ensure they do not lose the capability to deliver astronauts to the ISS should the Commercial Crew program encounter further delays.

Tagged: Boeing Commercial Crew Program International Space Station NASA Soyuz The Range

Curt Godwin has been a fan of space exploration for as long as he can remember, keeping his eyes to the skies from an early age. Initially majoring in Nuclear Engineering, Curt later decided that computers would be a more interesting - and safer - career field. He's worked in education technology for more than 20 years, and has been published in industry and peer journals, and is a respected authority on wireless network engineering. Throughout this period of his life, he maintained his love for all things space and has written about his experiences at a variety of NASA events, both on his personal blog and as a freelance media representative.

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US astronauts may continue to launch aboard Soyuz into 2020 - SpaceFlight Insider