Author: Robert Zimmerman

India proposes new oppressive space law

12:03 am

India’s government has proposed a new space law that essentially places all control of future space projects under the control of the central government.

The proposed law, which is open for comment for the next month, can be read here [pdf]. I’ve read it, and it astonishes me in its oppressiveness and hostility to private enterprise. This clause, one of many similar clauses, sums this up quite well:

Any form of intellectual property right developed, generated or created onboard a space object in outer space, shall be deemed to be the property of the Central Government.

The law would also require anyone who wants to launch a space project to get a license from the government, and gives the government the power to control that license in all aspects, including the power to cancel it for practically any reason.

If this law passes I expect that India’s burgeoning space industry will suffer significantly, especially because it will make it difficult to attract investment capital. Instead, it will be the central government that will run the business, and in the long run such government businesses always do badly.

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Samantha Whates – Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Hat tip Jim Mallamace, who tells this story about the song’s origin: ” Future country music star, Jeannie Seely, worked as a secretary at Liberty and Imperial Records in 1963. The producer for the record company, Eddie Ray, was looking for a new song for Rythm & Blues legend, Irma Thomas.

“After each day’s work, Seely would work on her own compositions on the studio piano. One day, Seely was asked to attend an Artists and Repertoire meeting by Ray. She came to the meeting with her stenography pad but was told, no, he wanted her to sing that song she was writing the night before.

“‘Anyone Who Knows What Love Is’ became a 1964 hit for Irma Thomas in both the R&B and Pop charts. It was the first song Seely had published.”

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Another Navy ship collision in the Pacific

10:51 pm

Another Navy ship was involved in a collision in the Pacific on Saturday, this time with a Japanese tugboat.

The USS Benfold, a guided-missile destroyer, sustained minor damage when a tugboat lost propulsion and drifted into the ship, the Navy said. No one was injured on either vessel and an initial assessment of the damage showed that the destroyer only sustained minimal damage including scrapes.

It sounds as if the majority of the blame falls on the tugboat, though one must still wonder how a Navy destroyer was unable to avoid the drifting tugboat.

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New study says recurring dark streaks on Mars are from flowing sand, not water

9:49 am

The uncertainty of science: A new study has concluded that the recurring dark streaks on Martian slopes are caused not from flowing seeps of water but from small sand avalanches.

Continuing examination of these still-perplexing seasonal dark streaks with a powerful camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) shows they exist only on slopes steep enough for dry grains to descend the way they do on faces of active dunes.

The findings published today in Nature Geoscience argue against the presence of enough liquid water for microbial life to thrive at these sites. However, exactly how these numerous flows begin and gradually grow has not yet been explained. Authors of the report propose possibilities that include involvement of small amounts of water, indicated by detection of hydrated salts observed at some of the flow sites.

The results do not exclude the possibility that water plays a part, but do suggest it plays a much smaller part, or none at all.

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India’s Google Lunar X-Prize competitor still short of funds

9:01 am

With only a few months left to fly its mission, Google Lunar X-Prize finalist TeamIndus is still about $23 million short in the funds it needs to finish and fly its lunar rover.

Rahul Narayan of TeamIndus admitted that a part of the budget is yet to be raised, although he did not directly comment on the missed payments. “TeamIndus inked its launch services agreement with Antrix (the commercial arm of ISRO) in late 2016. The entire TeamIndus moon mission programme is expected to cost approximately $70 million, of which nearly two-thirds has already been committed. We do not comment on individual cost line items in accordance to our agreements with various partners,” Narayan said.

This would mean that the team still requires over $23 million in funds to meet its target. The company also has limited time left to complete its developmental work for the moon rover.

There are five finalists left, and it appears that three have launch issues that might prevent them from flying by the March 31 2018 deadline. If TeamIndus does not get the funds to fly it will also prevent the Japanese team from flying since they are sharing the same rocket. Moon Express meanwhile needs an operational Electron rocket, which still has not flown a successful orbital mission.

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Air Force to shift focus to smallsat constellations

8:54 am

The head of the the Air Force’s Strategic Command revealed this past weekend that he wants the military to quickly shift its focus to buying small satellite constellations.

As one of nine U.S. combatant commanders, Hyten has a say in how the Pentagon plans investments in new technology. With regard to military satellites, STRATCOM will advocate for a change away from “exquisite” costly systems that take years to develop in favor of “more resilient, more distributed capabilities.” This is the thinking of the new “space enterprise vision” adopted by the Air force and the National Reconnaissance Office, Hyten said. “That vision is about defending ourselves. In that vision you won’t find any of those big, exquisite, long-term satellites.”

“I’ve made a call at U.S. Strategic Command that we’ll embrace that as a vision of the future because I think it’s the correct one,” he added. STRATCOM will “drive requirements,” Hyten noted, “And, as a combatant commander, I won’t support the development any further of large, big, fat, juicy targets. I won’t support that,” he insisted. “We are going to go down a different path. And we have to go down that path quickly.”

Makes sense to me. Not only will the Air Force save money, but their satellite assets will be harder to attack and easier to sustain and replace should they be attacked.

For the satellite industry this shift will accelerate the growth of the smallsat industry, and provide a lot more business for the new smallsat rocket industry that is now emerging.

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ARCA issues statement after arrest of CEO

8:38 am

ARCA has issued a statement following the arrest last week of Dumitru Popescu for embezzlement and fraud.

ARCA Space Corporation will continue the development of its aerospace technology as scheduled. The company has full confidence in CEO Dumitru Popescu and expects him to lead the efforts. Mr. Popescu was charged in New Mexico state courts with alleged embezzlement and securities issues. However, Mr. Popescu maintains his innocence and expects to prevail in court proceedings.

Meanwhile the work of the company will proceed with a goal of presenting a successful aerospike rocket engine.

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Vector makes deal to launch from Vandenberg

11:06 pm

Capitalism in space: Smallsat rocket company Vector has made a deal with Harris Corporation to use its launch facilities at Vandenberg in California for future launches.

Vector now has arrangements to launch its rockets from Kennedy, from Wallops Island, from Alaska, from the new spaceport in Georgia, and now from Vandenberg. With the rocket designed small enough for easy transportation by truck around the country, this will give them the ability to reach a large variety of orbits while also maintaining a fast launch rate.

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Arecibo gets a backer to keep it running

10:59 pm

The National Science Foundation has found at least one backer to pick up the majority of the cost for running the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, thus keeping it operational.

For about a decade, the National Science Foundation, which owns the observatory and supplies about two-thirds of its $12 million budget, had been mulling downsizing or even shuttering the telescope to free up funds for other projects. Instead, the NSF will continue scientific operations at the facility in collaboration with an unnamed partner organization, according to a Record of Decision signed this week.

Arecibo sustained $4 million to $8 million in damage during the hurricane, according James Ulvestad, acting assistant director for the agency’s mathematical and physical sciences directorate. Some scientists worried that would weaken the case for keeping the observatory operational.

But Ulvestad said the agency’s Record of Decision reflects that it has received viable partnership proposals from one or more collaborators — though he would not provide details about those proposals. This announcement allows the NSF to move forward with negotiations on a new management contract.

Under the new plan, the agency will reduce its annual contribution to the observatory from about $8.2 million to $2 million over the next five years. It is also committed to funding any repairs required to restore Arecibo to its pre-hurricane condition, Ulvestad said.

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Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne wins Defense launch contract

10:53 pm

Capitalism in space: Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne has won a contract to launch a Defense Department payload.

The details are vague, but the deal appears real. The article also suggests that Virgin Orbit is on schedule to complete its first launch next year.

Its carrier aircraft, a Boeing 747 that was formerly a passenger airliner for Virgin Atlantic, is currently in flight tests after undergoing modifications to accommodate the launch vehicle. A pathfinder version the rocket, meanwhile, has been shipped from the company’s factory in Long Beach, California to Mojave for testing, including static fire tests of both stages.

All evidence now suggests that my prediction one year ago that this Virgin company will make its first operational flight before Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, despite being in development only six years, compared to the fourteen years SpaceShipTwo has been under development.

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Rocket Lab prepares for second test launch of Electron rocket

10:40 pm

Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab’s second test Electron rocket has arrived at the company’s New Zealand launch facility in preparation for the rocket’s second flight.

They hope after several weeks of check-out they will be able to announce a launch date. The launch, though intended entirely as a test, will still carry three commercial cubesats, which Rocket Lab hopes to place in orbit.

For the Google Lunar X-Prize contestant Moon Express this launch is critical. They must launch by the end of March to win the prize, and are dependent on Electron as their rocket.

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Launch by SpaceX of mysterious Zuma payload delayed indefinitely

10:30 pm

The expected Falcon 9 launch this past week of the mysterious Zuma government payload, built by Northrop Grumman but linked to no government agency, has been postponed indefinitely because of a fairing issue identified during testing for a different customer.

This delay also suggests that this may be an issue that will delay more than one launch, which could effect SpaceX’s effort to achieve 20 launches in 2017.

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