The News from Space: Week of 2/23/20
Astronauts Bob Bhenken and Doug Hurley train for EVA at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
Credit: NASA Johnson 2020.
Astronauts prepare for Crew Dragon mission——Cape Canaveral SPACE FORCE Station——Boeing’s no good, very bad week
The Week of 2/23/20
Happy Friday,
Broad OVERVIEW: HERE.
Everything about ROCKETS from this week: HERE.
Space POLITICS from this week: HERE.
NASA:
NASA Authorization Act of 2020: “Our congressional rocket scientists have not surprisingly designed the most expensive solution with the lowest possible economic return.” More HERE.
Astronauts Bob Bhenken and Doug Hurley prepare for a long-duration mission to the ISS. They will be the first American astronauts to launch from American soil since 2011 in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. More HERE.
NASA’s Mars InSight Lander found evidence that the planet is far more seismically and volcanically active than predicted. More HERE.
Watch the unbelievable timelapse of NASA’s Juno probe leaving Jupiter’s orbit this week HERE.
Evidence of organic compounds was found on Arrokoth, Ultima Thule, by NASA’s New Horizons probe. With an orbit outside of Pluto’s, the Asteroid is the most distant object any human craft has ever visited. More HERE.
SpaceX:
Starship (the revolutionary spacecraft that Elon Musk plans to colonize Mars with) Updates:
Merritt Island, Florida, home to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and the USAF’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station prepares as SpaceX plans a staggering increase in launch activity. More HERE.
SpaceX was approved by the City of Los Angeles to build a Starship factory in the Port of LA. More HERE.
Military:
The legendary, historic Cape Canaveral Airforce Station will soon be renamed Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. More HERE.
US Northern Command plans to overcome its Arctic communications blackout with SpaceX Starlink constellations. More HERE.
The Air Force will test its Starlink capabilities in a massive live-fire demonstration. More HERE.
Boeing had a tough week:
NASA’s safety advisory board is astonished that Boeing did not implement a full end-to-end integrated software test of its Starliner capsule before the potentially disastrous software failure during its first test flight. More HERE.
Boeing will implement “more rigorous testing” of the Starliner capsule in the wake of the mishap. More HERE.
Boeing is buying Russian components for Starliner…Oof. More HERE.
Commercial:
The clandestine space startup Astra will launch its Rocket 3.0 for a DARPA challenge tomorrow from Kodiak Launch Complex, Alaska. More HERE.
Blue Origin, founded and partly funded by Jeff Bezos, invested over $2.5 billion in the impressive, reusable New Glenn rocket which Bezos hopes will compete with SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and eventually Starship. More HERE.
Despite a large quarterly loss, Virgin Galactic reports that the number of potential space tourists who registered interest in flying on its space plane has doubled in the past 5 months. More HERE.
What is China up to?
The final launches of China’s Beidou navigation system (a GPS competitor) will occur in March and May. More HERE.
China plans to launch an uncrewed version of its new capsule, which can seat up to 6 TAIKONAUTS, in April. More HERE.
Despite the controversial Wolf Amendment, NASA/CNSA collaboration may be more common in the future. More HERE.
International:
The Japanese space agency, JAXA, plans to launch a sample return mission to the tiny Martian moon Phobos in 2024. More HERE.
The intrepid, resourceful Indian space agency, ISRO, announced its launch plans for the coming year. More HERE.
NUCLEAR:
DARPA plans to develop NUCLEAR THERMAL PROPULSION systems for the coming competition with China over cislunar space. More HERE.
Australian nuclear fusion startup HB11 secured patents for its potentially revolutionary LASER-BORON FUSION REACTOR. More HERE.
Satellites:
Two commercial satellites docked in orbit for the first time in history. More HERE.
Hackers could shut down satellites or turn them into weapons. More HERE.
Lockheed Martin acquired Vector satellite assets. More HERE.
Do you like ASTEROIDS?, watch THIS.
Rest in Peace to American hero and mathematician Katherine Johnson and visionary futurist and physicist Freeman Dyson.
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Have a good weekend y’all.
Harry Thomas is a junior in the College studying Economics and Science, Technology, and International Affairs (STIA). He is a Co-President and Co-Founder of Georgetown University Space Initiative.