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May 17-19: Come listen to SFF Executive Director Hannah Kerner speak at this year's
Humans to Mars Summit in Washington DC!
Registration is still open!
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Space Frontier Foundation was featured on the cover of Space News last month. SFF Executive Director Hannah Kerner discusses the transition of the foundation's goals and what the future holds as commercial spaceflight advocates. "We have a commercial space economy now, but it's a very fragile one," said Kerner. "Now we're moving from advocating for its existence to creating efforts that are specifically directed at cultivating this industry and growing it to be self-sustaining."
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SpaceX successfully landed their Falcon 9 first stage onto a drone ship floating in the Atlantic Ocean, a highly anticipated feat that came after 4 previous failed attempts. This at-sea landing zone is a key component to reap benefits from reusability and to close their business case. SpaceX has since transported the rocket back to port and will be performing tests on it with the intention of relaunching it this summer. SpaceX also announced their plan to send an unmanned mission to Mars in 2018. The aptly-named Red Dragon capsule will land on Mars to identify and test new technologies needed to regularly land payloads on the red planet. The effort will include technical, navigational, and communication support from NASA. The U.S. Air Force awarded the GPS III launch contract to SpaceX for $83 million, which is about 40% lower than its competitor, ULA. This breaks the longstanding monopoly over government launch contracts. SpaceX also released an infographic on the launch prices of its Falcon 9 ($62 million) and Falcon Heavy ($90 million).
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Blue Origin successfully launched and landed their New Shepard vehicle this month, recycling a booster stage from a previous flight. Blue Origin is the first company to vertically launch and reuse a booster stage in suborbital flight and has now used the same booster three times in a row. CEO Jeff Bezos expects unmanned commercial flights to begin later this year. The first manned flights are currently planned for 2017.
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A team of industry veterans has recently formed Vector Space Systems and raised $1M in angel investment. Experts from Virgin Galactic, McDonnell Douglas, Garvey, and others hope to disrupt the the smallsat launch industry with relatively open payload constraints. The group hopes to make orbital launches accessible to smaller groups without dedicated satellite development teams.
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Physicist Stephen Hawking and Internet Investor Yuri Milner announced 'Breakthrough Starshot,' a new project to research and develop a proof of concept for a spacecraft propelled by lasers. Called the Breakthrough Starshot, this $100 million program will prototype a tiny spacecraft that will weigh on the order of grams that will travel at 20% the speed of light for 20 years to reach the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri. This system is 25 trillion miles away, or one billion times the lengths of Earth's equator. Hawking, Milner and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will serve on the board to oversee project leader Pete Worden, former director of NASA Ames Research Center."
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The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) plans to offer a $2 million award to UrtheCast from the Space Technologies Development Program (STDP). The Contribution Agreement (CA) is to support the development of UrtheCast's upcoming OptiSAR constellation, currently slated for deployment in 2020. The 16-satellite OptiSAR constellation is expected to consist of eight X-band and L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites and eight high-resolution optical satellites, flying in a paired, tandem configuration. By capturing SAR and optical data in unison, each satellite pair is expected to help UrtheCast deliver Earth imagery regardless of weather conditions and with extremely high revisit rates - allowing for cloud-free imaging and improved identification of ground targets.
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OneWeb Ltd unveiled its plans to build a $85 million factory to mass produce small satellites in Exploration Park, Florida. The company plans an initial production run of 900 satellites (more than one satellite a day) to provide global, high-speed Internet access as early as 2019. The plan also includes producing satellites for other companies and organizations that would be configurable to their needs. The factory is scheduled to open in 2017 and the first satellites to be delivered by 2018. OneWeb has already signed launch contracts with Arianespace and Virgin Galactic to fly their satellites.
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At the 32nd Space Symposium, Bigelow Aerospace and United Launch Alliance announced a partnership that could lead to the placement of a larger Bigelow expandable module on the International Space Station as soon as 2020. The partnership is still a "work in progress" with no launch contracts signed and no exchange of funds disclosed between the companies. However, leaders of the two companies agreed that the preliminary partnership could open up new markets in space and could extend the life of the ISS beyond its current end data in 2024. While Bigelow has plans to develop its own free-flying commercial stations, the initial B330, proposed for launch in 2020, could instead be attached to the ISS. In this approach, known as the Expandable Bigelow Advanced Station Enhancement (XBASE), the B330 would increase the station's volume by 30 percent while supporting NASA and commercial activities on the station. When the ISS reaches the end of its life or the module is no longer needed on the station, it could also be detached and serve as a free flyer.
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Arizona State University recently announced development of FemtoSat which will open space launch opportunities for everyone with launch costs as low as $3000, compared to the current cost of launching a CubeSat for $6000-$7000. FemtoSat is 3 x 3 x 3 cm form factor with weight between 10g to 100g. "With a spacecraft of this size any university can do it, any lab can do it, any hobbyist can do it, that's part of our goal - space for everybody," said Prof. Jekan Thanga, head of the Space and Terrestrial Robotic Exploration Laboratory (SpaceTREx). Thanga envisions that constellations of such tiny satellites can be used in various swarm configurations to perform collaborative tasks such as inspecting damaged spacecraft.
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NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program 2016 Phase I selections have been released. A number of interesting in-situ resource utilization concepts were chosen this time around, including a proposal by Made in Space to build mechanical automata out of asteroids, as well as an on-orbit fuel collection system for landing on Mars. Other projects ranged from a fusion-powered Pluto probe to a "tumbleweed style" tensegrity lander platform. NIAC is an open invitation program every year for out-of-the box solutions to advance space exploration, and anyone is able to apply. The phase II solicitation date has passed, and the selected projects are expected to be revealed mid- to late summer.
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DARPA has detailed the second phase of the Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) program. The program, which started back in November 2013, seeks to demonstrate the technology needed to fabricate and fly a reusable vehicle to the edge of space 10 times in 10 days with "aircraft-like" operability, cost efficiency, and reliability. Phase II seeks to design and fabricate an experimental unmanned spaceplane using state-of-the-art technologies and streamlined processes. Phase 1 awarded contracts to three commercial launch providers including: Boeing (working with Blue Origin); Masten Space Systems (working with XCOR Aerospace); and Northrop Grumman (working with Virgin Galactic). Phases II and III will be competed as a full and open Program Solicitation mandating an Other Transaction Authority (OTA) agreement with the expectation of a single resulting award.
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White House Endorses FAA Oversight
[Link]
World View Enterprises Raises $15MM in Series B
[Link]
EXOS Aerospace Signs with Spaceport America
[Link]
Generation Orbit Signs with NASA Langley
[Link]
XPRIZE Appoints new CEO
[Link]
PLD Aerospace Receives $1.56MM from Spain
[Link]
Alan Stern on TIME List of Influential People
[Link]
Facebook Buys Satellite Capacity from SES
[Link]
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This month, Space Frontier Foundation's Executive Director, Hannah Kerner, and Communications Director, Ally Abrams share their respective newspace initiatives with Dr. David Livingston on The Space Show.
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Other Cool Things
Falcon Landing - I'm on a Boat! [Video]
Blue Origin - Pushing the Envelope [Video]
Luxembourg Space Resource Initiative [Link]
Meet BEAM
[Link]
Falcon Arrives at Port and Takes a Road Trip
[Video][Link]
Starshot Initiative
[Video]
Thales Alenia Stratobus
[Link]
NASA IMAX Partner for A Beautiful Planet
[Link]
House Armed Services Votes AR-1 in Atlas
[Link]
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UPCOMING LAUNCHES
May 21
Soyuz - Glonass M
May 24
Soyuz - Galileo 13, 14
May 28
Proton - Intelsat 31/DLA2
May TBD
Rockot - GEO-IK 2
Falcon 9 - Thaicom 8
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NEWSPACE MENTIONS IN THIS ISSUE
Arianespace
Bigelow Aerospace
Blue Origin
Boeing
EXOS Aerospace
Facebook
Garvey Space Systems
Generation Orbit
GeoOptics
Made in Space
Masten Space Systems
McDonnell Douglas
Northrop Grumman
OneWeb
PlanetiQ
PLD Aerospace
SES
Spaceport America
SpaceVR
spacex
Spire
ULA
UrtheCast
Vector Space Systems
Virgin Galactic
World View
XCOR Aerospace
XPRIZE
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