Jerome Strach

July 13th, 2017

Installation of the Soyuz-2.1a rocket with Kanopus-V-IK on the launcher system, July 11, 2017. Photo Credit: Roscosmos

A Russian-built Soyuz-2.1a rocket will launch from Russias Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Friday, July 14, 2017, at 09:36 MSK time (06:36 GMT / 2:36 a.m. EDT). Its primary mission will be an orbiting spacecraft, known as Kanopus-V-IK, with built-in remote sensing and imaging, along with a cluster of 72 miniature satellites referred to as CubeSats. This secondary cargo will be provided by numerous nations that include Germany, Norway, theUnited States, and Japan.

The rocket is composed of an upper stage named Fregat and two core stages with four boosters strapped to the first stage. The Fregat is designed to have a long life of up to 2 days and is intended to operate autonomously without interference from Earth due to an advanced satellite navigation system. The assortment of cargo requires various orbits achieved by numerous main engine ignitions, timed perfectly to deploy the different satellites several hundred miles above Earth. Upon the release of the multiple satellites, the Fregat will orient itself for an Indian Ocean re-entry that should occur several hours after launch for a safe splashdown.

The Kanopus-V-IK satellite is a Russian government built spacecraft that comes in at 1,043 pounds (473 kilograms) is designed to monitor man-made and natural disasters including severe weather events. Furthermore, it can be used to monitor forest fires with a focus area of 25 m2, along with larger emissions of pollutants discharged into the environment. Thecapability of monitoring land use is an additional benefit allowing some benefit to the agricultural industry, and finally, topographical observations allow for the improved mapping of terrain.

Kanopus-V-IK with its solar arrays extended. Photo Credit: Roscosmos

The hardware consists of various imaging tools that allow for this observational functionality. Acomplex of target equipment (CCA) for the Kanopus-V-IK includes the following:

The secondary cargo consists of various designs and sizes provided by numerous entities from all over the world. Planet Labs(formerly Cosmogia, Inc.) is located in San Francisco,California, and they will have 48 additional Dove CubeSats on board this flight. Another San Francisco company, Spire Global, will also be putting aboard several of their Lemur satellites designed for weather observation.

LEFT: Soyuz-2.1a payload stack prior to Kanopus-V-IK being mounted on top. RIGHT: Kanopus-V-IK being mounted on the payload stack. Photos Credit: Roscosmos

Various students attending University in Germany will also be watching the launch that holds two satellites of theirs, one a rather heavy 265-pound (120 kg) Flying Laptop spacecraft from Stuttgarts Institute of Space Systems.

TechnoSat will be launching technology that helps to investigate and detect strikes of tiny space debris that often occurs where spacecraft are most vulnerable their solar panels. From theTechnical University of Berlin, this experiment will be funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

Additionally, there will be five Russian CubeSats as part of the secondary cargo, all of which will be deployed from a Dutch companys QuadPack deploying system designed by Innovative Solutions in Space.

The Soyuz-2.1a rocket with Kanopus-V-IK being transported to the launch pad, July 11, 2017. Photo Credit: Roscosmos

The Soyuz-2.1a rocket with Kanopus-V-IK being transported to the launch pad, July 11, 2017. Photo Credit: Roscosmos.

The Soyuz-2.1a rocket with Kanopus-V-IK being transported to the launch pad, July 11, 2017. Photo Credit: Roscosmos

The Soyuz-2.1a rocket with Kanopus-V-IK being transported to the launch pad, July 11, 2017. Photo Credit: Roscosmos.

The Soyuz-2.1a rocket with Kanopus-V-IK being erected onto the launch pad, July 11, 2017. Photo Credit: Roscosmos

Underside view of installation of the Soyuz-2.1a rocket with Kanopus-V-IK on the launcher system, July 11, 2017. Photo Credit: Roscosmos.

Installation of the Soyuz-2.1a rocket with Kanopus-V-IK on the launcher system, July 11, 2017. Photo Credit: Roscosmos

Tagged: Baikonur Cosmodrome CubeSats Kanopus-V-IK Lead Stories Roscosmos Soyuz-2-1a

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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Soyuz-2.1a to launch assortment of satellite cargo - SpaceFlight Insider

STORY WRITTEN FORCBS NEWS& USED WITH PERMISSION

Two days after NASAs Juno spacecraft streaked over Jupiters Great Red Spot, pictures of the solar systems largest, most powerful storm, have been transmitted to Earth, giving eager scientist close-up views of the 10,000-mile-wide anticyclone where 400-mph winds have been howling for at least 187 years and possibly much longer.

The solar-powered Juno reached the low point of its 53-day orbit around Jupiter, at 9:55 p.m. EDT (GMT-4) Monday, passing within about 2,200 miles of the planets cloud tops. Eleven-and-a-half minutes later, it made its first pass directly over the Great Red Spot at an altitude of about 5,600 miles and a velocity of some 130,000 mph.

The spacecrafts camera JunoCam and its eight other science instruments were all operating at close approach and the first raw, unprocessed pictures were posted on the camera website early Wednesday.

Additional processing is expected to bring out much more detail in the images that, when coupled with data from Junos other instruments, will shed more light on the nature of the storm and presumably help answer questions that have baffled scientists for nearly two centuries if not longer.

Despite long-term observations by ground-based telescopes and a variety of spacecraft, including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Voyager probes and the Galileo orbiter, scientists still do not understand what powers the storm, how deep it extends below Jupiters cloud tops, how long it has swirled or even the source of its reddish hue.

Likewise, no one knows why the Great Red Spot has shrunk over the past several decades, becoming more circular than oval, whether the reduction is a transient phenomenon or an indicator that the storm may be dissipating.

Not a lot is known, Scott Bolton, principal investigator with NASAs Juno probe, told CBS News in an interview Monday. Heres the largest and most fierce storm in the entire solar system and its lasted hundreds of years, so thats a lot different than anything else weve ever studied.

The question is, how can it last that long? Whats powering it, hows it really working inside?

With any luck, the Juno spacecraft might may provide at least some of the answers to Boltons questions.

While NASAs Voyager spacecraft captured spectacular zoomed-in images of the Great Red Spot during flybys in 1979, as did the Galileo orbiter in the 1990s and the Cassini probe during its voyage to Saturn, they were not nearly as close to Jupiter as Juno is at the low point of its orbit.

JunoCam is a relatively wide-angle camera intended to provide context for Junos other instruments and it was added to the mission primarily to engage the public. Because Juno is spinning, the cameras images show thin strips of the cloudscape below that can be stitched together later to form a full picture.

Juno will make repeated passes over the Great Red Spot and were so close, I think were going to blow their stuff away, Bolton said of earlier missions. Well see when we see it. Eventually, well be able to make a bit of a movie, Im hoping, that you wont have been able to see before. Well definitely get an up-close-and-personal view, and hopefully be able to provide something that lets the viewer feel like theyre riding along.

Launched Aug. 5, 2011, the solar-powered Juno picked up a gravitational boost during a close flyby of Earth in October 2013, putting the craft on a trajectory to intersect Jupiter. Six years later, on July 4, 2016, Junos main engine fired to put the craft into an initial 53-day polar orbit.

Mission managers originally planned to maneuver Juno into a 14-day science orbit, but they opted not to use the main engine again because of a potential problem with the propellant pressurization system. That will stretch out the time needed to complete the missions planned observations, but it has no impact on the quality of the data.

The unprocessed JunoCam images of the Great Red Spot will be enhanced to bring out subtle details and other data. Scientists are especially eager to learn how far down into the atmosphere the huge storm might extend. Junos microwave radiometer can detect radiation coming from six cloud levels, allowing scientists to get an indirect view of whats going on as deep as 340 miles below the visible cloud tops.

Earlier Juno observations of other regions show there are motions going on deep in Jupiter that we did not expect, Bolton said.

Even 50 kilometers down it doesnt seem to be behaving the way we thought, he said. Most scientists believed that as soon as you drop below the sunlit clouds and you got into where the sunlight didnt reach that everything would kind of be uniform and boring. And thats not the case. We see quite a bit of variability.

As for how deep the Great Red Spot might extend, nobody knows, Bolton said.

Junos equipped to see below the cloud tops, he said. We will compare how Jupiter looks underneath its cloud tops at different latitudes with the part where you go right over the Great Red Spot and see if it looks any different. Well look several hundred kilometers down in this first pass.

During future passes over the Great Red Spot, Bolton said Juno will map out the gravitational field below and around the storm to find out if there might be a blob of mass far below the cloud tops that could play a role in the storms persistence.

We will not look at that on this flyby but some future one, Bolton said. The first (pass) is just look remotely, well see down a few hundred kilometers. Well sort of just investigate how does the veneer of Jupiter match with whats underneath.

Well also see the dynamics and the sheer beauty of the Great Red Spot for the first time, he added. Well search for lightning, signals of maybe water clouds or ammonia ice coming up through this region, we just dont know what to expect. And one of the things Ive learned from Juno already, even if I thought I knew what to expect, dont believe it too much.

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First images of Jupiter's Great Red Spot reach Earth - Spaceflight Now

Jason Rhian

July 8th, 2017

Advanced solar electric propulsion will be needed for future human expeditions into deep space, including to Mars. Shown here is a 13-kilowatt Hall thruster being evaluated at NASAs Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. Hall thrusters trap electrons in a magnetic field and use them to ionize the onboard propellant. It uses 10 times less propellant than equivalent chemical rockets. (Click for full view) Photo & Caption Credit: NASA

A new propulsion system, one funded bythe Space Technology Mission Directorate, underwent a series of hot-fire tests recently at NASAs Glenn Research Centerlocated in Cleveland, Ohio. The tests were conducted on a Power Processing Unit, or PPU, for anAdvanced Electric Propulsion System (AEPS) that is hoped could be used on either NASAs deep space ambitions or by the space agencys commercial partners.

The Power Processing Unit successfully demonstrated stable operation of the propulsion system and responded appropriately to all of our planned contingency scenarios, said Julie Van Kleeck, vice president of Advanced Space and Launch Programs and Strategy at Aerojet Rocketdyne via a company-issued release. This is a critical step in providing advanced Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP), which is necessary for affordable cargo and logistics transportation in support of human missions to Mars.

At Glenn, both Aerojet Rocketdyne, with help from NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, worked to provide a flight-capable system that is capable of operating for approximately 23,000 hours. If things continue to go as planned, this propulsion system could be used in the transportation of cargo and habitats

Aerojet Rocketdyne has a long successful history designing and developing electric propulsion systems, and we look forward to maturing high power Hall systems for multiple applications, including NASA, defense and commercial missions, said Aerojet Rocketdynes CEO and President Eileen Drake via a company-issued release. Congratulations to everyone involved in advancing this critical technology that will change the way humans explore space.

NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory is also involved on the project which was awarded a $65 million contract to develop and produce five 12.5 kilowatt Hall thruster subsystems. These include the thrusters, PPUs, as well as xenon flow controllers. Thecontract is part ofthe space agencys Solar Electric Propulsion Technology Demonstration Mission.

According to information issued by Aerojet Rocketdyne, the AEPS produces twice as much thrust as another recent offering made by the California-based company the XR-5 Hall thruster.

The XR-5 has already been used on both government and commercial missions. Hall thrusters, however, are nothing new. The former Soviet Union used them as far back as December of 1971

If everything goes as planned, these propulsion systems could be used on new vehicles that NASA is planning on launching beyond Earth orbit as well as those being developed by NASAs commercial partners (which are planned for taking the reins of the agencys flights to the International Space Station). Given the distances involved, the U.S. space agency hopes these efforts could seespacecraft transportation fuel efficiency improve by as much as 10 percent (over traditional chemical propulsion systems).

Hall-effect thrusters (named after the discoverer Edwin Hall) are ion thrusters that accelerate propellant via an electric field. Electrons, trapped within a magnetic field, are used to ionize that propellant, thereby producing thrust as the ions are accelerated by the electric field; the ions are then neutralized by the electrons in the exhaust plume.

With NASA becoming ever-more audible about its plans to send crews to Mars and its numerous efforts to have commercial firms handle sending cargo and crews to the sole destination in low-Earth orbit the International Space Station.

Tagged: Advanced Electric Propulsion System (AEPS) Aerojet Rocketdyne Lead Stories NASA Glenn Research Center

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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Advanced Electric Propulsion System successfully tested at NASA's Glenn Research Center - SpaceFlight Insider

July 11, 2017 by Chris Bergin

TheInterim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) is now deep into its latest phase of processing, as it prepares to be housed in theSpace Station Processing Facility (SSPF) a facility once packed with modules waiting for their ride on Shuttles to make up the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The ICPS will be the Upper Stage for the maiden flight of the Space Launch System (SLS). ICPS:

The ICPS will only have a short lifetime with SLS, as the program aims to swiftly move to themore powerful Exploration Upper Stage (EUS)that will be the workhorse Upper Stage for SLS throughout the 2020s.

However, for the ICPS, the mission with SLS is only a change of call signs for this veteran unit, with years of previous and future service with the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV rocket fleet.

The official plan has revolved around moving to the EUS by the second or third flight of SLS, pending the readiness of the new EUS. The initial plan was to human rate another ICPS for EM-2, but NASA wants to bring the EUS online by the second SLS flight.

Based on the schedule slips for SLS and the large gap between EM-1 and EM-2 the plan is to revamp the Mobile Launcher umbilicals to cater for the Block 1B SLS after EM-1 (Exploration Mission-1) launches.

The EM-1 upper stage which is effectively a regular Delta Cryogenic Second Stage (DCSS) was shipped from the ULA facility in Decatur, Alabama aboard the Mariner barge earlier this year, arriving at the Cape in March.

It is currently housed in ULAs Horizontal Integration Facility (HIF) to begin processing for launch at the ULA Delta Operations Center. That work is now drawing to a close.

The next move will see it take a short journey to the SSPF, prior to a formal handover between ULA and NASA.

The Operations Planning team, specifically the Spacecraft Offline Operations (SOO) team are supporting the delivery of the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) to the Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF). It is expected to be accelerated ten days from predicted August 1, 2017 to July 21, 2017, noted a Ground Systems Development and Operations (GSDO) update.

The SSPF is a three story structure containing 42,455 sq meters (457,000 sq ft) of offices, laboratories, and processing areas. It is located on NASA Causeway immediately east of the O&C (Operations & Checkout) Building.

The facility houses bays that were used for horizontal processing of components for the International Space Station and other Space Shuttle Payloads. With the payloads since launched on the now-retired Space Shuttle fleet resulting in the impressive orbital outpost that is now into its utilization phase the facility is almost empty of space hardware.

Prelaunch activities that took place in the SSPF included receipt, handling, and assembly of space station hardware, testing of experiments for proper configuration, and verification of critical systems and system interfaces. As such it makes it the perfect home for the ICPS ahead of its launch with the first SLS rocket.

The ICPS wont be officially handed over (or turned over) until some weeks after the ICPS arrives in the SSPF, allowing the Stages caretakers from ULA to continue to look after the ICPS and provide guidance to its new engineers.

Preparations are underway and include a contractor letter of direction for host role in the early weeks with the formal DD250 turnover to follow, hurricane plan development and approval, SSPF facility panel sampling, added the GSDO update.

(The) plan is for United Launch Alliance (ULA) access to perform monitoring and maintenance until formal turnover, and a likely transporter demonstration at the SSPF. All of these are to be addressed by the planned readiness review scheduled for July 19, 2017, at the Operations Processing Project Review (OPPR).

The eventual destination for the ICPS will bethe Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at KSC, in preparation for mating atopthe SLS stack.

The stack will be integrated while sitting onthe Mobile Launcher, which will provide the lifeblood of electrical and fluid support, along with the all-important prop loading whilst at the pad.

That connection between the ML and the ICPS will be the Interim Cryogenic Propulsive Stage Umbilical (ICPSU) will be a T-0 umbilical.

While some umbilicals have already been installed onto the ML, the ICPSU is expected to be connected in September to October timeframe well ahead of the timeframe the first SLS is scheduled to be mated with the ML in the VAB.

(Images: NASA, ULA and L2 Orbital ATK and L2)

(L2 is as it has been for the past several years providing full exclusive SLS and Exploration Planning coverage. To join L2, click here:https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/l2/)

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SLS Upper Stage set to take up residence in the former home of ISS modules - NASASpaceflight.com

A view of the BepiColombo spacecraft stacked in launch configuration at the European Space Agencys ESTEC test center in the Netherlands. The sunshield cover for Japans Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter is pictured at lower right. Credit: Airbus Defense and Space

Three spacecraft built in Europe and Japan have completed their final joint tests to ensure they are ready for departure to Mercury on an Ariane 5 rocket late next year on the nearly $1.9 billion BepiColombo mission to survey the solar systems innermost planet.

Officials displayed the BepiColombo spacecraft to the media last week in the Netherlands, where engineers are putting the probe to the test in the extreme thermal, acoustic and vibration environments it will encounter in flight.

Readying the mission to survive the searing temperatures at Mercury proved to be one of the biggest challenges in BepiColombos two-decade development.

We have to survive 10 times the solar radiation we are experiencing at Earth, plus surface temperatures of up to 450 degrees Celsius (842 degrees Fahrenheit), said Ulrich Reininghaus, ESAs BepiColombo project manager, in a press briefing last week.

The European Space Agency-led project will dispatch two scientific orbiters to Mercury with instruments to map the planets landscapes and topography, peer into darkened craters that may contain water ice and a mysterious frozen organic sludge, and probe the scorched worlds interior structure by measuring its magnetic field.

I think our two spacecraft we send to Mercury will, first of all, do a very comprehensive and thorough investigation of the planet and its environment, said Johannes Benkhoff, BepiColombo project scientist at ESA. It will help to unveil the mysteries of Mercury and hopefully provide clues to better understand the formation history of the planet and of our solar system.

A propulsion module will go along on the 7.2-year trip to Mercury to steer the robotic science probes through the solar system with the aid of four ion engines.

Scheduled for launch in October 2018, the tandem mission developed by ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is the most ambitious expedition to Mercury yet mounted, and the first time the blazing hot planet will be visited by a spacecraft not owned by NASA.

Two previous NASA missions Mariner 10 and MESSENGER previously explored Mercury. Mariner 10 zipped by Mercury three times in the 1974 and 1975, photographing less than half of the planet before MESSENGER made its own flybys and eventually entered orbit in March 2011 for a four-year global science campaign.

BepiColombo will follow on MESSENGERs results and get even more details (about Mercury), Benkhoff said. We will be able to answer many, many of the questions that were raised by the MESSENGER mission.

Those questions include the nature of water ice deposits hidden deep inside permanently-shadowed craters near Mercurys poles, and the source of the planets unexpected magnetic field.

BepiColombos European-built Mercury Planetary Orbiter carries 11 instruments, a suite comprising a high-resolution mapping camera, a laser altimeter, an accelerometer, and a set of spectrometers on a downward-facing science deck that will remain pointed toward the planet throughout each orbit.

The Japanese-made Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiters five science sensors will study the plasma environment around Mercury, attempt to image the planets sodium-rich tenuous atmosphere, and measure Mercurys magnetic field.

The Mercury Transfer Module will shepherd the two science orbiters on the 5.5-billion-mile (8.9-billion-kilometer) voyage from Earth to Mercury. The engine section hosts no science instruments, but its two electricity-generating solar panels each stretching nearly 40 feet (12 meters) long will produce power for four rear-mounted xenon-fueled electric thrusters.

The ion engines, which can fire two at a time, will provide more than half the impulse BepiColombo needs for the one-way trip. The spacecraft will also use nine gravity boosts from flybys with Earth, Venus and Mercury to line up for orbital insertion at the innermost planet.

Named for Giuseppe Bepi Colombo, the Italian mathematician and engineer who helped design Mariner 10s Mercury flyby trajectory, the mission is due to arrive at its destination in December 2025.

The flight plan calls for the spacecraft to jettison the transfer module and fire rocket engines to slip into orbit around the planet. Japans magnetospheric orbiter, cocooned in a protective sunshield during the missions interplanetary transit, will be released in an egg-shaped elliptical orbit stretching up to 7,232 miles (11,640 kilometers) above Mercury.

Then the sunshield will be ejected as the European orbiter spirals closer to Mercury, eventually ending up in a tighter orbit ranging between about 300 miles (480 kilometers) and 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) from the planet.

The dual spacecraft will spend at least a year observing Mercury.

ESA and JAXA officials said last week the mission is on track for liftoff at the opening of an eight-week launch window Oct. 5, 2018.

BepiColombos launch window opens the same month the James Webb Space Telescope a U.S.-European-Canadian observatory that will succeed Hubble is set for blastoff on a different Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana.

Arianespace officials will meet with managers from both projects in September to determine which high-profile science mission will go first.

Engineers last month simulated the vibration and noise BepiColombo will experience during its rocket ride from Earth, capping a series of tests on the combined spacecraft in its launch configuration, which towers around 20 feet (6 meters) tall.

The ground team will disassemble the spacecraft in the coming months, conduct additional electrical checks, then place BepiColombos transfer module in a space environment simulator modified to mimic the extreme temperatures at Mercury. The propulsion sections thermal test follows up similar exposure verifications already completed on the European and Japanese orbiters.

ESA originally intended to launch the BepiColombo in 2009 when the mission was formally selected by the agencys science committee in 2000.

Crafting a spacecraft capable of withstanding the hot temperatures at Mercury turned out to be tough, officials said.

Engineers had to design new solar cells, develop heat-resistant pointing mechanisms for BepiColombos antennas and solar panels, and install mirrors to reflect sunlight and infrared heat.

Much of the technology had to be invented just for BepiColombo.

The challenge was to develop a solar cell assembly that was capable of withstanding high temperatures and ultraviolet radiation at the same time, said Markus Schelkle, BepiColombo program manager at Airbus Defense and Space in Germany, the missions prime contractor. This was (something) we learned, and due to that, we had a really hard, long way to find a solution.

BepiColombo also carries ceramic thermal coatings and titanium parts covered in silver and gold to ensure its communications antenna can function in the furnace-like temperatures at Mercury.

We had several delays, Reininghaus said. Work on the solar cells and high-temperature mechanisms cost us much more time than we expected, he said.

The database on materials we had, even for qualified products, was good up to 125 degrees Celsius (257 degrees Fahrenheit), Reininghaus said.

That was not good enough for BepiColombo.

Were flying into a pizza oven, Reininghaus said. This is why we had to test materials at very high temperature regimes, sometimes with very unwanted results.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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BepiColombo Mercury mission tested for journey into 'pizza oven' - Spaceflight Now

Curt Godwin

July 11th, 2017

File photo of workers recovering a spent booster after it crashed into the ground in one of the designated drop zones. Photo credit: Roscosmos

The death of two workers following the June 14, 2017,launch of a Soyuz rocket carrying the Progress MS-06 resupply spacecraft to the International Space Station has prompted Roscosmos officials to step up safety efforts.

The two workers were part of a team tasked with mitigating the effects of falling, spent rocket components after impacting in designated drop zones. Those hazardous areas, located on the flat, grassy Kazakh Steppe, often experience extreme weather conditions.

Beyond large temperature swings sometimes more than50 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) over the course of a day the treeless plains encounter strong wind gusts.It was one of these gusts that claimed the life of YuriKhatyushin.

According to reports, when Khatyushin arrived at the drop site, a strong gust fanned the flames of a brush fire that had erupted from the fallen rocket stage, engulfing hisvehicle.

Another worker,Vyacheslav Tyts, suffered serious burns when removing fallen pieces from the Soyuz rocket.Tytslater died from his injuries after being hospitalized for more than two weeks.

In order to prevent similar incidents, state corporation Roscosmos has introduced additional measures intended to minimize possible negative consequences from launches, a representative from the Russian space agency said inTass.

To lessen the likelihood of future occurrences, Roscosmos officials, in cooperation with the Kazakh government, have proposed monitoring the drop zones via both satellite and aerial imagery. Thoughits not clear exactly what may be monitored, weather and environmental conditions likely top the list.

It is also unclear if these safety precautions will be implemented before the launch of the Kanopus-V-IK satellite aboard a Soyuz rocket, currently slated to lift off on July 14, 2017.

Launch video of Progress MS-06 courtesy of Roscosmos

Tagged: Kazakh Steppe Lead Stories Progress MS-06 Roscosmos Soyuz-2-1a

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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Multiple fatalities prompt Roscosmos to step up safety measures - SpaceFlight Insider

Tomasz Nowakowski

July 10th, 2017

CubeSats that are part of the QB50 constellation of CubeSats provided by countries from around the world are deployed from the NanoRacks CubeSat deployer. Photo Credit: NASA

Founded in 2009, the Houston, Texas-based company NanoRacks LLC provides commercial hardware and services on board the International Space Station (ISS) for government and commercial customers. To date, the firm has sent more than 550 payloads from over 30 countries to the ISS, creating trends in commercial hardware in space. In an interview with Astrowatch.net, Jeffrey Manber, the founder and CEO of NanoRacks, talks about the companys future and past achievements.

Astrowatch.net: What are your future plans for the company? What is your priority for the coming years?

Jeffrey Manber:We are growing into the worlds first commercial space station company. Today, our focus is on completing our commercial Airlock on the ISS, which will allow far larger satellites and cargo to be deployed from the station. We are also moving forward on re-use of existing in-space hardware for commercial habitats, and marketing other real estates in space, such as Blue Origins suborbital New Shepard platform. We want to be the market leader in owning or operating as much real-estate in space, from low-Earth orbit to deep space to the Moon and Mars, as is commercially possible.

Astrowatch.net: Your company is involved in many projects on board the ISS. Could we call NanoRacks a trendsetter when it comes to developing commercial hardware on [the] ISS?

Manber:I would like to think that is correct. We were first to market on the station in owning and marketing our own hardware. We were first to have non-U.S. customers, first to have commercial satellite customers using the Space Station, and we paved the way for using the space station in myriad commercial projects, from education to basic research to biopharma.

Artists rendering of NanoRacks Airlock Module attached to the ISS. Image Credit: NanoRacks

Astrowatch.net: How is your cooperation with NASA going? Do you plan some projects involving other space agencies?

Manber:Great question. The relationship with NASA has matured in many ways. NASA, and the Space Station program office, no longer question whether companies can and should make a profit [when] providing services on the station using their own hardware. The Space Station office now supports our new projects, such as Airlock, where we are self-funding. So the partnership with NASA has matured. They are, at times, a customer, they are our regulator, and they are our landlord. Just as it should be in a commercial relationship!

We have very good relations with other space agencies. ESA is a customer of ours for satellite deployment. So,too, the European Union Commission. We work extensively within the Japanese module KIBO via the U.S.-Japan barter arrangement, so we have wonderful relations with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and so, too, with the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos), with whom we work on both Progress and Soyuz.

NanoRacks is unusual in how deep is our relations with non-U.S. space agencies. This is good as we look to return to the Moon and move on to Mars.

Astrowatch.net: Are commercial space companies the future of spaceflight?

Manber:The industry is on the cusp of having space be just another place to do business. We are seeing multiple private launch vehicle efforts; we are seeing government behaving more and more as a customer. We are seeing companies like NanoRacks beginning to look beyond the International Space Station to see a marketplace where there are multiple space stations, all commercial, some unmanned for in-space manufacture, some manned as hotels, some for professionals to train for deep space missions.

Astrowatch.net: Which of NanoRacks product on [the] ISS is the most important for you and why? Which one was the biggest milestone for your company?

Manber:Right now, our satellite deployment hardware is important because it is a large percentage of our current revenue! But as we look to the future, the Airlock will be key, because not only will it increase our revenue from today for cargo egress and satellite deployment, but [also], at some point in the future, we will remove the Airlock from [the] ISS and attach it to our own commercial platform!

How cool is that? Oh, I would say our biggest milestone was [the] successful deployment of satellites. Or when we agreed to accept NASA funding for a research hardware called Plate Reader and NASA was nervous because we were new. So we agreed that if the Plate Reader did not work, we would refund the taxpayers money. Luckily, it all worked! But I have not seen any other company make that same offer when taking the space agencys funding! But it was a turning point for us when NASA realized we were serious.

Astrowatch.net: You have recently made a statement that the companys mission is to democratize access to space. How close to achieving this goal is NanoRacks?

Manber:It is fair to say that after 550 payloads in seven years of operations, from over 30 nations, including high schools and new nations to space, that after stimulating the growth of an [entirely] new market commercial CubeSats NanoRacks is today democratizing use of this incredible new frontier. Anyone, anywhere, from China to Vietnam, from Peru to Brooklyn, can and has used NanoRacks to undertake a commercial space research project. We have even had multiple customers whose funding came from crowdsourcing websites! It is a revolution and we are proud to be a leader in realizing this revolution in space utilization. Who knows what will be the situation in just five years?

Jeffrey Manber. Photo Credit: NanoRacks

Jeffrey Manber founded NanoRacks and serves as the CEO of this company since 2009. His prior experience includes serving as Managing Director of Energia USA, the American arm of RSC Energia. Later, he represented the Russian space organizations when the basic contracts to realize the ISS were negotiated.

As CEO of MirCorp, which leased the Russian space station Mir, he oversaw the first ever commercially funded manned mission to this orbital outpost. Manber also co-developed the first fund dedicated to commercial space on Wall Street (Shearson Lehman) and has served as an adviser to numerous companies and governments.

In 2012, he was awarded the NASA Exceptional Public Achievement Medal, and, in June 2017, he received the Pioneer in NewSpace Award from the Space Frontier Foundation (SFF).

Tagged: International Space Station Jeffrey Manber NanoRacks 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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Creating trends in space: An interview with NanoRacks CEO Jeffrey ... - SpaceFlight Insider

The Falcon 9 with Intelsat 35e soars skyward. Photo Credit: Carleton Bailie / SpaceFlight Insider

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. On July 5, 2017, SpaceX sent its 10th Falcon 9 into space in 2017. The Intelsat 35e launch was also the third launch in only 12 days for the NewSpace company. Even though the pace of launches for SpaceX and the Space Coast has been increasing, SpaceFlight Insider has been there to provide the best possible coverage of each event.

For this mission, an expendable Falcon 9 was tasked with sending the 14,900-pound (6,761-kilogram) Intelsat 35e communications satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). Because of the mass of the spacecraft and the velocity required for the mission profile, the company opted to forgo landing legs and grid fins, and not recover the first stage.

Liftoff took place at 7:38 p.m. EDT (23:38 GMT), at the beginning of a 58-minute launch window. In less than three minutes, the first stage used up every bit of its fuel to help send the second stage and heavy satellite into a parking orbit.

This extra velocity allowed for the second stage to send Intelsat 35e into a very high GTO, reducing the need for the spacecraft to use its own fuel to circularize itself into its final 22,300-mile (35,800-kilometer) geostationary orbit.

Built by Boeing, the more than $300 million Intelsat 35e will service the parts of the Americas, Europe and Africa at the 34.5 degrees west orbital position. It will replace the Intelsat 903 satellite and operate for at least 15 years.

Despite launching six rockets in the span of just over nine weeks, SpaceX will not be sending another rocket skyward until Aug. 10, 2017. That mission will see the CRS-12 Dragon capsule launch to the International Space Station.

On July 2, 2017, Hawthorne, California-based Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) launched the Intelsat 35e commercial communications satellite to a Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO). The payload was scheduled to be launched at 7:36 p.m. EDT (23:36 GMT) atop a 'Full Thrust' Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A located in Florida, however, a scrub was announced at just 10 seconds prior to liftoff. Unlike most of the Falcon 9s that the company has launched recently, this one lacks support legs that are used during the first stage's landing (as there is no landing attempt). It is hoped that the satellite will be successfully deployed 32 minutes after it has lifted off of the same historic pad that the crew of Apollo 11 began their journey to the Moon. Photos courtesy: Mike Howard, Tom Cross, Michael Seeley, Carleton Bailie

Tagged: Falcon 9 Intelsat-35e Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A SpaceX The Range

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Jacques van Oene

July 7th, 2017

BepiColumbo is being prepared for a planned October 2018 launch date. Photo Credit: Jacques van Oene / SpaceFlight Insider

NOORDWIJK, Netherlands On Thursday, July 6, theEuropean Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) put the two new BepiColumbo spacecraft on display. ESTEC, the largest European Space Agency (ESA)site in Europe as well as thetest center for all major ESA satellites, played host to an event denoting that the twin spacecraft arejust 15 months away from launch.

The event started at11:00 a.m. local time and lasted for about two hours with various officials touring the clean room that contained the two spacecraft.The event was held to also give the media a chance to have a last look at BepiColombo before it is shipped to the Kourou Space Centre in early 2018, with the launch campaign is scheduled to start in April of 2018.

BepiColumbo is being launched to study the planet Mercurys magnetosphere, its magnetic field, interior structure, as well as the rocky worlds tortured surface. As noted, the mission will be comprised of two spacecraft, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), and is planned to arrive above the planet in December of 2025.

At present, BepiColumbo is slated to launch atop an Ariane 5 ECA from Kourou, French Guiana, in late 2018. Photo Credit: Jacques van Oene

While the mission might be straightforward enough, its path to Mercury is anything but. It will conductone flyby of Earth, two past Venus, and six of Mercury itself.

In attendance during Thursdays event were the following: Alvaro Gimenez, Director of Science, ESA; Hitoshi Kuninaka, Vice Director General, ISAS; Mathilde Royer, Head of Earth Observation, Navigation and Science, Airbus DS; Ulrich Reininghaus, ESA BepiColombo Project Manager; Markus Schelkle, BepiColombo Project Manager, Airbus DS; Mauro Patroncini, BepiColombo Project Manager, Thales Alenia Space; Hajime Hayakawa, JAXA BepiColombo Project Manager; andJohannes Benkhoff, ESA BepiColombo Project Scientist.

Approved in 2009, BepiColumbo is a part of ESAs Horizon 2000+ programme and will be the last mission of that initiative to be sent aloft. The mission is a partnership between ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Arianespaces Ariane 5 ECA launch vehicle has been tapped to hurl the duo out of Earths gravity well and on their way to their destination from Kourou,French Guiana.

Photo Credit: Jacques van Oene

Tagged: BepiColumbo ESA ESTEC European Space Agency Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA Lead Stories

A native of the Netherlands, van Oene became infected with the space virus by an enthusiastic school teacher in 1981. Since 1994 he has been a freelance space photographer and writer for magazines and websites in Holland, Belgium and Spaceflight, the magazine of the British Interplanetary Society. van Oene is also the co-founder and CFO of SPACEPATCHES.NL. This Netherlands-based foundation currently produces all the official Soyuz crew patches for the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos.

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BepiColumbo readied to start journey to Mercury next year - SpaceFlight Insider

Following the Soviet Unions launch of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961, as the first human in space, the race for space with the U.S. reached a pace that would run to the completion of the NASAs Apollo manned lunar landing program in 1975.

Needing to address the Soviet success, the U.S. launched astronaut Alan Shepard on a suborbital flight into space May 5, 1961, as part of the Mercury Program.

The Redstone rocket on flight MR-3 was used for one other Mercury mission before more a more powerful Atlas rocket allowed for Mercury capsules to obtain orbit. Unlike the Soviet Vostok-1 with Gagarin, Shepard was able to control the Mercury capsule, named Freedom 7. Subsequent Mercury capsules would also be given names, each ending in 7.

Wernher von Braun, an ex-Nazi engineer working for the Army missile program in Huntsville, Ala., developed the Redstone rocket. It was the result of an unsuccessful struggle to develop Vanguard rockets in an urgent push to deploy satellites, and now the first U.S. astronauts.

The Redstone was not capable of reaching orbital flight. Later, von Braun would develop the Saturn V, which would carry astronauts to the moon.

According to Gene Krantz, a NASA flight director, Shepard was asked for his thoughts while waiting for liftoff.

He famously replied: The fact that every part of this ship was built by the lowest bidder.

Freedom 7s flight lasted 15 minutes, reaching an altitude of 116 miles. Shepard, from his vantage point said, What a beautiful view.

His capsule then began a re-entry into Earths atmosphere and splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean about 302 miles from the launchpad at Cape Canaveral, Fla. Trajectory calculations for this mission were performed by Katherine Johnson, a mathematician whose story is told in the recent movie Hidden Figures.

Shepard was from East Derry, N.H., and attended the U.S. Naval Academy. He began his military career during World War II aboard the destroyer USS Cogswell and served in the Battle of Okinawa.

After the war, he trained to fly F4U Corsair fighters aboard the aircraft carrier USS Franklin D. Roosevelt. Later he participated in the Navys test pilot school and took part in the development of in-flight refueling.

Over time Shepard built up an impressive record that led to an instructor role at the test pilot school. To progress further, he attended the Naval War College. At this point he had amassed 3,600 hours of flying, including 1,700 hours in jet aircraft.

As the space race heated up, President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized recruitment of astronauts, who would originate from the cadre of military test pilots. Through a process involving numerous candidates, the competitive Alan Shepard became a member of the Mercury Seven, the original group of American astronauts. With him, and the missions they flew, were John Glenn (Friendship 7), Gus Grissom (Liberty Bell 7), Wally Shira (Sigma 7), Gordon Cooper (Faith 7), and Scott Carpenter (Aurora 7). Another member of the seven, Deke Slaton, was prevented from space flight in the Mercury Program due to a temporary medical condition but was made NASAs flight crew operations director from 1963-72.

Following his spaceflight, Shepard in 1963 would become chief of the Astronaut Office, overseeing astronaut training and mission selection. He developed an ear problem that grounded him until a surgery that restored him to astronaut status. Among his later missions in space was the of commander in the 1971 Apollo 14 mission to the moon.

Alan Shepard died in California in 1998.

Former Walla Wallan Craig Dreher is a space travel enthusiast and helicopter pilot who now lives in Albany, N.Y., where he works in information technology. He holds a masters of science in aeronautics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla. He and Terry P. Bolt write Space Tourists columns for the Union-Bulletin. Comments to them are welcome at spacewwub@gmail.com.

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1961 Freedom 7 flight keeps pace in space race - Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

Laurel Kornfeld

July 8th, 2017

Occultation data will give scientists new insight of KBO 2014 MU69. The image is an artists impression of NASAs New Horizons spacecraft encountering the object. Image Credit: NASA / JHU-APL / SwRI / Steve Gribben

Data collected on NASAsNew Horizons spacecraftssecond flyby target, 2014 MU69, during its June 3 occultation of a star, may indicate that the Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) is smaller and brighter than previously thought.

Located approximately one billion miles beyond Pluto, which New Horizons flew by in July 2015, MU69 was discovered in June 2014 by scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to find a second flyby target for an extended mission.

One month after the Pluto flyby, the KBO was officially selected as the spacecrafts next target, to be visited on January 1, 2019.

MU69 passed in front of, or occulted, a star on June 3 and will occult two other stars this summer one on July 10, and the other on July 17.

More than 50 mission scientists and others assisting them observed the occultation via both fixed and portable ground-based telescopes placed strategically along the narrow path of the KBOs shadow in South Africa and Argentina.

Four members of the South African observation team scan the sky while waiting for the start of the 2014 MU69 occultation, early on the morning of June 3, 2017. The target field is in the Milky Way, seen here from their observation site in the Karoo desert near Vosburg, South Africa. They used portable telescopes to observe the event, as MU69, a small Kuiper Belt object and the next flyby target of NASAs New Horizons spacecraft, passed in front of a distant star. Photo & Caption Credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI / Henry Throop

Hubble and the European Space Agencys (ESA) Gaia space telescope viewed the event from space.

The shadow cast by MU69 during the occultation lasted just two seconds, yet all of the observing teams successfully collected data from the event, including more than 100,000 images of the occultation star.

Projected path of the 2014 MU69 occultation shadow, on July 10 (left) and July 17, 2017. Image Credit: Larry Wasserman / Lowell Observatory

Significantly, the KBO itself was not observed although the data collected is already providing mission scientists with crucial information about the objects environment.

New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado, said: These results are telling us something really interesting.

The fact that we accomplished the occultation observations from every planned observing site but didnt detect the object itself likely means that either MU69 is highly reflective and smaller than some expected, or it may be a binary or even a swarm of smaller bodies left from the time when the planets in our Solar System formed.

Less than one percent the size of Pluto, MU69 orbits in the same location where it formed about four billion years ago.

These data show that MU69 might not be as dark or as large as some expected, confirmed New Horizons science team member and occultation team leader Marc Buie, also of SwRI.

Mission scientists plan to observe MU69s next two stellar occultations, which will occur on July 10 and July 17.

The July 10 event will be studied using NASAs airborne Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), equipped with a 100-inch (2.5-meter telescope), which will search for debris near the KBO that could pose a potential hazard to the spacecraft.

On July 17, mission scientists will again set up a line of portable telescopes along the predicted path of the shadow MU69 will cast, located in southern Argentina.

Hubble will observe that occultation to aid the search for debris in the KBOs environment and possibly obtain an accurate estimate of its size.

Tagged: KBO 2014 MU69 NASA New Horizons 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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Here's Mike Pence touching space flight hardware you're clearly not supposed to touch Mashable Vice President Mike Pence visited NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Thursday where he toured the facilities, addressed employees, and touched "critical space flight hardware" despite clear instructions not to. Photos from Pence's tour of the facilities ...

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Here's Mike Pence touching space flight hardware you're clearly not supposed to touch - Mashable

Human Mars missions are still stuck in sci-fi for many reasons, one being that the right propulsion technology hasnt yet launched. Now deep space propulsion is about to take off.

The Space Subcommittee of the House Committee on Space, Science and Technology recently held a hearing with several experts who are also part of the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) taking a stand for advancing travel through the final frontier. Technological breakthroughs brought before Congress included ways to amp up speed, payloads and propulsion. There was one in particular that surprised even the cynics.

NASAs Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) program was all but extinct until leaders in the space industry highlighted the propulsion advances brought about by developments for the program meant to prepare astronauts for Mars by robotically redirecting an asteroid to orbit the Moon. They would then explore this asteroid and use it to test out tech prototypes as a precursor to putting boots on the Red Planet. Even with the current administrations planned funding cuts that threaten to be its last gasp, ARM is spawning another arm.

NextSTEP connects the public and private sector in space exploration by joining forces with NASA and using commercial developments (whose funding cant be blasted by the government) to probe new possibilities for extended missions to Mars and beyond. ARM had made some serious leaps forward in solar electric propulsion (SEP) aka ion propulsion. This is a more efficient alternative to the chemical rockets and thrusters on most spacecraft, which rely on heavy fuel. Solar panels use radiation to power the ionizingelectrically chargingof a gas, which creates enough thrust to propel the craft while minimizing weight.

SEP is the same type of technology that sustains the Dawn mission which has been exploring the asteroid belt for a decade, and thruster advancements intended for ARM have tripled its power, increased its efficiency by half and drastically reduced the amount of required propellant. It could someday send off payloads that will give rise to a human colony on Mars.

High power solar electric propulsion capabilities, scalable to handle power and thrust levels needed for deep space human exploration missions, are considered essential to efficiently and affordably perform human exploration missions to distant destinations such as Mars, stated Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Directorate, at the hearing.

The only con in the galaxy of pros SEP brings to space exploration is that such engines is that, unlike chemical rockets, they are unable to accelerate fast enough to defy Earths gravity and launch a spacecraft off the surface. That all changes once its shot into space. Outside our atmosphere, SEP can fire for years on end. Superpowered electric propulsion will operate at levels that start at hundreds of kilowatts, eventually switching out solar electric power for nuclear electric power the further away future missions take us from the sun. NASA foresees sending Earthlings to Mars by using SLS (Space Launch System), the shiny new rocket its currently developing, together with SEP to propel immense payloads towards the planet before the first human footsteps land in its red dust. But first, we actually have to blast something running on one of these engines into space.

A key goal is to demonstrate these new capabilities in the next few years and infuse them into human missions in the next decade, said Gerstenmaier. Watch out, Mars.

(via Seeker)

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Deep space flight may soon be rocketing forward - SYFY WIRE (blog)

Vice President Mike Pence, speaking at the Kennedy Space Center, said the U.S. space program would refocus on human spaceflight. Credit: NASA TV

WASHINGTON Vice President Mike Pence said July 6 that the U.S. space program would refocus on human spaceflight, including missions to the moon and Mars, but offered few other details about what such a shift would entail.

Pence, in a speech at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida, said a reconstituted National Space Council, set to hold its first meeting by the end of this summer, would help reestablish American leadership in space that he claimed has been lacking for the last quarter-century.

Under the leadership of President Donald Trump and with the guidance of the National Space Council, the United States of America will usher in a new era of space leadership that will benefit every facet of our national life, he said.

The council, last active at the end of the administration of President George H.W. Bush in 1993, will be reestablished under an executive order signed by Trump June 30. The council will be similar in format to its previous iteration, chaired by the vice president with a membership that includes the heads of a number of cabinet-level and other agencies.

The White House has not released other details about the council, including who will serve as executive secretary, its day-to-day leader, but Pence said the council will be ready to start work later this summer. I look forward to holding the first meeting of the National Space Council before the summer is out, he said.

Once in operation, the council will review current space policies and long-term goals for national space activities, he said, providing advice to the president on those and related issues. Pence did not state how long he expected any initial review of current space policies, or the development of a new national space policy, to take.

Pence, speaking in the Vehicle Assembly Building where space shuttles and Saturn 5 rockets were prepared for flight, said the administration would provide a renewed emphasis on human spaceflight, including human missions to the moon and Mars.

Under President Donald Trumps leadership, we will reorient Americas space program towards human space exploration and discovery for the benefit of the American people and all of the world, he said. We will return our nation to the moon, we will go to Mars and we will still go further, to places that our childrens children can only imagine.

That new focus on human spaceflight, he argued, was key to restoring U.S. leadership in space that he suggested was lacking today. Under President Donald Trump, America will lead in space once again, he said, one of several such statements in his speech.

Pence offered no details about how such a reorientation would be carried out, nor any schedules for human missions to the moon or Mars. Pence did not even specifically state that NASA would send humans back to the surface of the moon, although did say that we will put American boots on the face of Mars.

Other than reestablishing the National Space Council and signing a NASA authorization bill in March, the administrations actions to date have not matched that rhetoric. The White House has yet to nominate a NASA administrator or deputy administrator, nor given a clear indication of when such a nomination might be made.

While NASA received more than $19.6 billion in the final fiscal year 2017 spending bill passed by Congress in early May, the administrations fiscal year 2018 budget request offers just under $19.1 billion for NASA. That includes more than $350 million in cuts in the agencys flagship human space exploration programs, the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft.

Those cuts have received criticism from supporters of those programs in Congress. The current administration picks up where the previous administration left off, by projecting a lofty vision for space while providing a budget that keeps the vision from leaving Earth, said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA, at a June 29 hearing about the NASA budget proposal.

A House spending bill, approved by an appropriations subcommittee June 29, would increase NASAs budget to nearly $19.9 billion in 2018, including restoring funding for SLS and Orion to 2017 levels.

We made sure the Space Launch System is fully funded, and that astronauts will have the ability to go beyond low Earth orbit in the Orion crew vehicle, said Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas), chairman of that appropriations subcommittee, during the markup of the bill.

Pence, in his remarks at KSC, emphasized the importance of the private sector in ensuring American leadership in space. The backdrop to his speech included a flown SpaceX Dragon capsule and a mockup of a Boeing CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle, as well as the Orion capsule that flew on a brief December 2014 test flight.

Im particularly excited to see the increased collaboration with our burgeoning commercial space industry, so much in evidence here, he said. Were going to continue to foster stronger partnerships between government agencies and innovative industries across this country.

He also alluded in his remarks to the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch from nearby Launch Complex 39A that took place on the evening of July 5. I was praying for rain at the Kennedy Space Center so we might see that rocket go up today, he said.

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Pence says NASA to reorient towards human spaceflight - SpaceNews

Satellite ride-share: Spaceflight Industries prepares for outer space revolution (Video) Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle) 6 photos. Jason Andrews, CEO, founder and president of Spaceflight Industries, is a PSBJ innovator more. It's like an Uber service for satellites. Spaceflight Industries has drastically reduced the cost of accessing outer space through this ride ... and more »

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Satellite ride-share: Spaceflight Industries prepares for outer space revolution (Video) - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle)

Credit: SpaceX

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rumbled into the sky Wednesday from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida, flexing the rockets muscles and lofting a massive Intelsat satellite to orbit supporting wireless communications, television broadcasting and trans-Atlantic data relays.

Recovering from back-to-back countdown aborts earlier in the week, the two-stage, 229-foot-tall (70-meter) launcher lit nine Merlin 1D main engines and rocketed away from pad 39A at the Florida spaceport at 7:38 p.m. EDT (2338 GMT) Wednesday.

The slender white booster pivoted 1.7 million pounds of thrust from its main engines to steer eastward from the Space Coast, powering through the speed of sound as the kerosene-fueled first stage climbed above the stratosphere.

The nine-engine first stage shut down less than three minutes after liftoff, and the booster dropped away with the help of pneumatic pushers for a destructive plunge into the Atlantic Ocean.

Wednesdays mission the third SpaceX launch in 12 days carried the Boeing-built Intelsat 35e communications satellite toward a perch in geostationary orbit 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) over the equator.

The commercial spacecraft weighed around 14,900 pounds (6,761 kilograms) at launch, the heaviest payload SpaceX has ever launched to such a high orbit. SpaceX committed all of the Falcon 9s propellant to send the Intelsat satellite into the highest orbit possible, a ride designed to minimize the spacecrafts own fuel consumption as it maneuvers into its final operating position.

The lift requirement left no fuel in the Falcon 9s first stage to brake for landing, and the rocket was not equipped with landing legs or fins needed for an intact recovery.

Two firings of the upper stages single Merlin engine placed the Intelsat 35e spacecraft into a temporary oval-shaped orbit that ranges as far as 26,700 miles (43,000 kilometers) from Earth, according to Elon Musk, SpaceXs founder and chief executive.

After a half-hour trek across the Atlantic, the Falcon 9 deployed Intelsat 35e around 32 minutes into the flight. An on-board camera beamed back a live view of the satellite receding into the blackness of space.

Intelsat confirmed later Wednesday night that the spacecraft radioed controllers via a ground station, suggesting the satellite was healthy following the fiery journey into space.

Thanks Intelsat! Musk tweeted. Really proud of the rocket and SpaceX team today.

Wednesdays launch wrapped up a busy two weeks for SpaceX, in which the company deployed 12 satellites on three Falcon 9 rockets, including a previously-flown booster that sent the first Bulgarian-owned communications spacecraft into orbit June 23 from pad 39A.

Two days later, a Falcon 9 rocket took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and successfully placed 10 next-generation Iridium voice and data relay satellites into orbit.

SpaceX intended to launch the Intelsat 35e mission Sunday, but software errors led to computer-triggered aborts at T-minus 10 seconds during back-to-back countdowns Sunday and Monday.

John Insprucker, the Falcon 9s principal integration engineer who provided launch commentary on SpaceXs webcast, said ground software halted Mondays launch attempt because a measurement in the first stage avionics system did not match a pre-programmed limit in a ground database.

He said engineers confirmed the rocket was OK to fly without any changes to flight hardware, and officials modified the limit for Wednesdays launch attempt.

The countdown Wednesday sailed through the T-minus 10 second software readiness check, and the rockets 32-minute ascent appeared to go smoothly.

The weight and destination orbit of Intelsat 35e maxed out the lift capability of the current configuration of SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket, according to Ken Lee, Intelsats senior vice president of space systems.

Besides the need to fly the rocket without recovery equipment, the Falcon 9s upper stage was programmed to continue firing until its propellant tanks were nearly empty during the engines second burn. Rockets typically aim for a certain altitude and shut off their engines after reaching their target.

That left some uncertainty in where Intelsat 35e would end up, and Lee said in a pre-launch interview that the Falcon 9 rocket needed to send the satellite into an orbit stretching to a peak altitude of at least19,405 miles (31,230 kilometers), per an agreement between SpaceX and Intelsat.

It turns out the Falcon 9 exceeded that requirement, placing its satellite passenger into a better-than-predicted orbit.

Intelsat 35es own rocket thruster will reshape its orbit in the next few weeks at a circular altitude of nearly 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers). The satellite will raise the low point of its current transfer orbit, which currently swings as low as a few hundred miles up, and shift its ground track from the tropics to a path directly over the equator.

The satellite will park itself at 34.5 degrees west longitude, where it will remain in lock-step with Earths rotation during a 15-year lifetime.

Hosting C-band and Ku-band communications payloads, Intelsat 35e is the fourth Epic-class relay satellite developed and launched by Intelsat, joining three previous versions orbited by European Ariane 5 rockets.

The latest generation of Intelsat satellites carry all-digital payloads, giving the company added flexibility in how it beams video, voice and data signals.

In this version, what we do is we actually digitize all the traffic that comes to the spacecraft, and once youre in a digital domain, you can do so many things, Lee said in an interview with Spaceflight Now. You can put it into the beams that you want to, or you can put it into all the beams, or any one of the beams for different connectivity.

Intelsat 35e can process about 20 gigabits of data per second, routing television programming and mobile phone calls across its field-of-view. Intelsat said its newest satellite will primarily support wireless communications operators in Africa and Latin America, offer broadband services to cruise ships, andbroadcast television to Caribbean customers for the French company Canal+.

Parts of Europe and North America will also fall inside Intelsat 35es communications coverage area.

Intelsat did not disclose the cost of the Intelsat 35e, but a spokesperson said the companys Epic satellites typically cost between $300 million and $425 million each.

Companies including Orange, INWI, Tele Greenland, Sonatel, Marlink, Speedcast, ETECSA and eProcess will be among the first to deploy services on the satellite once it is placed into service, Intelsat said in a press release after Wednesdays launch.

Intelsat 35e will replace the aging Intelsat 903 satellite at the 34.5 degrees west position. The older satellite, which launched on a Russian Proton rocket in March 2002, will be repositioned to a new coverage area before the end of the year, Intelsat said.

SpaceX will slow its rapid-fire launch campaign in the coming weeks as it gears up for the next Falcon 9 launch from the Kennedy Space Center. That mission is scheduled to blast off Aug. 10 with several tons of supplies and experiments for the International Space Station, followed by up to two more Falcon 9s later in August from California and Florida.

SpaceXs three launches in a little more than 12 days, including two from the same pad, gave the company 10 successful Falcon 9 flights just past the halfway mark of 2017.

The launch record this year has already set a record for the most launches by SpaceX in a single year. The previous high was eight flights, achieved last year before a Falcon 9 rocket exploded at Cape Canaveral, destroying an Israeli-owned communications satellite, damaging SpaceXs primary launch pad, and grounding the companys rockets more than four months.

Our priority is to reliably launch our customers, said Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceXs president and chief operating officer, in a statement following Wednesdays mission. SpaceX is able to attempt three launches for three customers in 12 days not only because we have the rockets, launch pads and droneships at the ready, but because we have the teams on the ground to get the job done.

We are pleased with the progress we are making this year to launch and recover our rockets, which is key towards achieving full and rapid rocket reusability, Shotwell said.

Before Wednesdays expendable Falcon 9 launch, the last two missions featured booster landings at sea on separate SpaceX barges stationed in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

As for Intelsat, one of the worlds biggest and oldest commercial satellite operators, the company currently has no further missions booked with SpaceX, Lee said.

Nevertheless, when there is an opportunity, we consider SpaceX to be a viable option for us, and well engage them, Lee said. If the payload works out right with them, then we dont have any reservation using SpaceX.

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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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SpaceX delivers for Intelsat on heavyweight Falcon 9 mission - Spaceflight Now

Jason Rhian

July 6th, 2017

Image Credit: ESA

Ever since the start of the Space Age in 1958, humanity has left an ever-increasing amount of debris in orbit. The fact that, until recently, almost all launch vehicles were completely disposable. Even the satellites and probes sent aloft by those rockets end up adding even more high tech garbage to endlessly conduct orbits around our world. However, not all of this debris harmlessly retraces arcs above Earth as theAMC-9 satellite is currently demonstrating.

Luxembourg-basedSESstated that it had regained communications with the satellite in a release issued by the company on June 29.

The International Space Station has been struck by debris. Parts of the station have been in orbit since 1998. Photo Credit: NASA

According to SES, services provided by the satellite were restored under a restoration capacity plan designed to minimize the impact felt by customers on the ground just a day after they were lost on Saturday, June 17.

The AMC-9 restoration strategy demonstrates one of the many benefits of working with a satellite operator with a large global fleet, Anand Chari, Gogo Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer said via an SES-issued release. All networks, satellite and terrestrial, can occasionally suffer such rare mishaps. SESs ability to recover so quickly and effectively is a compelling testament to the size and flexibility of its fleet, the professionalism of its people, and the operational processes in place to ensure the resiliency needed to keep businesses, such as Gogo, running seamlessly.

AMC-9 was constructed by Thales and is working with SES to determine what caused the problem as well as ways in which the satellite might continue to provide services. The loss of services has been estimated at costing SES approximately $22,697,700 dollars (20 million); this includes the possible reduction in fleet transponders for future commercialization efforts.

A report appearing on Ars Technica noted that at least two, and likely more, parts were tracked in AMC-9s vicinity. In the days that followed, several pieces of the satellite were seen coming off of the spacecraft. The two most likely scenarios for this would either be an internal malfunction which led to an explosive event or it was struck by something. Given the sheer volume of debris orbiting our world? Such events have become more and more likely.

It can be said that humanity has not done a very good job as steward of Earth, and that messy nature appears to be expanding into the high frontier.

AMC-9 was launched atop a Proton-M rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodromes Site 200 back in 2003 and was lofted with a planneddesign life of some 15 years. The spacecraft orbits at an altitude of some 22,369 miles (36,000 km). In so doing, AMC-9 could maintain its position over its area of responsibility.

In the grand scheme of things, however, this is nothing compared to the greater risk that space debris poses. At present, estimates place some 500,000 pieces of debris in orbit above our homeworld. An array of possible solutions have been started but, as of yet, no viable systems have been put into operation. These man-made objects range in size and composition from paint chips a half inch in width (1.27 centimeters) to parts and pieces of rockets, spacecraft, and satellites. One of the more famous pieces of orbital debris is NASA astronaut Ed Whites glove that floated out of his GeminiIV capsule in 1965.These are tracked by the Department of Defenses U.S. Space Surveillance Network.

Video courtesy of Eric Berger, ExoAnalytics

Tagged: AMC-9 Gemini IV Lead Stories Proton-M SES space debris

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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As space debris concerns grow, AMC-9 satellite appears to be adding to the problem - SpaceFlight Insider

Collin Skocik

July 5th, 2017

Artists rendition of Archinaut building a satellite boom in space. Image Credit: Made In Space

Made In Space, Inc., the startup company out of Singularity University which, on Sept. 23, 2014, supplied the first 3-D printer to the International Space Station (ISS), has developed a program that it hopes will revolutionize construction in space, called the Archinaut Development Program.

Made In Space CEO Andrew Rush said: Its our ambition to develop the manufacturing technologies that will usher in the era of true commercial space utilization.

Using a combination of 3-D printing and robotic arms, the Archinaut project aims to develop small satellites which will be able to construct large structures in space.

The real difference maker for this technology is in the area of being able to put stuff up that you cant origami fold up, or that would be really, really difficult to do with a traditional deployable system, Rush said.

Rush explained that folding up structures so that they can survive launch prevents them from being truly optimized for space. Building them in space is a game-changer.

Artists rendition of Archinaut servicing a satellite. Image Credit: Made In Space

NASA selected Made In Space for its Tipping Point technologies in November 2015. Testing is under way at NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in California, analyzing structures made by the 3-D printer aboard the ISS. The next phase will involve the use of robotic arms. The first phase of the project will last 18 months.

The second phase will involve the launch of a spacecraft which will demonstrate these techniques in orbit, building a structure a few meters across.

Archinauts Ulisses process uses a 3-D printer to manufacture parts from raw material stored in the satellites toolbox. Then robotic arms would assemble the structure. Raw material could come from asteroids or it could be recycled space debris.

Where this gets really interesting is, tens to 100 meters plus, Rush said. And thats what were angling toward.

One possible construction would be massive space telescopes. The structures could be manufactured in orbit using the 3-D printer, and then the lenses and mirrors, manufactured on the ground, could be integrated using robotic arms.

Rush points out that telescopes are not really space-optimized when theyre folded up in a nosecone for launch. A totally space-constructed telescope or any other structure would be unlimited in size and shape.

Video courtesy of Made In Space

Made In Space is not the only company taking an interest in in-space manufacturing. Tethers Unlimited, a private aerospace company in Bothell, WA, plans on launching three experiments into space over the next three years.

Firmamentums Refabricator. Photo Credit: Tethers Unlimited

Tethers Unlimited CEO Robert Hoyt said: The first scheduled flight experiment is the Refabricator recycling and 3-D Printing payload that will go up in 2018.

The Refabricator was developed by Firmamentum, a subsidiary of Tethers Unlimited. Developed with backing from NASA and the Pentagons Defense Advances Research Projects Agency (DARPA), it recycles plastic waste into raw material filament for 3-D printers to manufacture new parts.

After the Refabricator, the company plans on putting MakerSat into orbit a CubeSat that will be 3-D printed, assembled, and deployed aboard the ISS.

After that, Hoyt expects to launch the Dragonfly experimental satellites. Developed by SSL (formerly Space Systems/Loral, LLC), of Palo Alto, California, the Dragonfly satellites will be assembled on orbit.

SSL President John Celli said: NASAs Tipping Point program enables SSL to qualify new technologies for the commercial market while at the same time providing advances for future NASA missions.

Satellites assembled on-orbit using our integrated robotics capability will be capable of higher performance than satellites that can be launched today. An added benefit will be antennas that can be moved and changed during a satellites mission life for flexibility and to accommodate changing market requirements.

The ISS took ten years to build, requiring dozens of Space Shuttle flights hauling huge, cumbersome modules that had been constructed on Earth and required many spacewalks to assemble. These new technologies promise to eliminate such a complex and expensive construction process as well as making space manufacturing cheap, simple, and capable of building a true spacefaring infrastructure.

Video courtesy of SSL

Tagged: 3D Printing Made in Space NASA The Range

Collin R. Skocik has been captivated by space flight since the maiden flight of space shuttle Columbia in April of 1981. He frequently attends events hosted by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, and has met many astronauts in his experiences at Kennedy Space Center. He is a prolific author of science fiction as well as science and space-related articles. In addition to the Voyage Into the Unknown series, he has also written the short story collection The Future Lives!, the science fiction novel Dreams of the Stars, and the disaster novel The Sunburst Fire. His first print sale was Asteroid Eternia in Encounters magazine. When he is not writing, he provides closed-captioning for the hearing impaired. He lives in Atlantic Beach, Florida.

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Made In Space: 3-D printing to revolutionize space construction - SpaceFlight Insider

Updated at 4:30 a.m. EDT (0830 GMT) July 4.

For the second day running, computers automatically aborted a Falcon 9 launch countdown Monday at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the final seconds before liftoff with the Intelsat 35e communications satellite.

SpaceX said its engineers will spend Tuesday examining data and reviewing systems before trying to launch again Thursday or Friday.

Out of an abundance of caution, SpaceX will be spending the 4th of July doing a full review of the rocket and launch pad systems, SpaceX said in a statement. The next launch opportunity for Intelsat 35e from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida is now no earlier than Wednesday, July 5 or Thursday, July 6.

SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk tweeted to confirm there will be no launch attempt Tuesday.

The trigger of Mondays abort was not immediately known, but an unplanned hold at the same point in a countdown Sunday was caused by a software error during a final check of the rockets guidance, navigation and control instrumentation.

SpaceX said they cleared that problem, and engineers pressed ahead with another attempt Monday to send the heavyweight nearly 7.5-ton Intelsat 35 relay and broadcasting satellite into orbit.

Stormy weather to the west of launch pad 39A at the Florida spaceport delayed the targeted launch time 58 minutes to 8:35 p.m. EDT Monday (0035 GMT Tuesday), the end of the days launch window.

Using a computer-controlled automatic sequencer, the launch team loaded the Falcon 9 rocket with super-chilled, densified RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants in the final hour of the countdown.

No technical problems were noted by SpaceX engineers as the final minutes ticked toward liftoff, until the countdown stopped at T-minus 10 seconds. Without any time left in the launch window, the hold led to an automatic scrub.

Engineers will comb through data to determine source of the problem, and identify a fix, SpaceX said.

We have all the telemetry coming off of the rocket, so weve got plenty of information, but theyre taking their time right now to understand what system theyre really looking at that would be the cause of the hold, said John Insprucker, SpaceXs Falcon 9 principal integration engineer, who provided live launch commentary on the companys webcast.

SpaceX initially said it could try a third day in a row Tuesday Independence Day to launch the Falcon 9 rocket, but officials said a few hours after Mondays scrub that the next liftoff attempt would slip until later in the week.

We had an extended countdown today, Insprucker said as SpaceXs webcast signed off. We had to wait for the weather, and we got to T-minus 10 seconds before we had a hold, once again, called by the automated abort criteria.

We were not able to recycle because we were out of the window, he said.

SpaceX is going for its third Falcon 9 launch in less than two weeks, and the second from pad 39A in that span. The Air Force-run Eastern Range was expected to be unavailable for launch operations for a couple of weeks beginning soon after the July 4 holiday.

Intelsats senior vice president of space systems, Ken Lee, said additional engineers came to Cape Canaveral to prepare for the Intelsat 35e launch, and ground teams worked around-the-clock in shifts ahead of the Falcon 9s first launch attempt Sunday.

Once the Falcon 9 takes off with Intelsat 35e, SpaceXs launch cadence will slow for a few weeks. The companys next mission is scheduled to launch Aug. 10 from Florida on a space station resupply run.

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Launch of Falcon 9 rocket scrubbed second day in a row - Spaceflight Now

BRUCE EINHORN

Last updated10:33, July 6 2017

Virgin Galactic/Facebook

Virgin Spaceship Unity glided for the first time in 2016 after being released from Virgin Mothership Eve above the Mojave Desert.

Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic is poised to resume powered test flights more than twoyears after the fatal breakup of its experimental rocket plane, with the billionaire entrepreneur aiming to make the first trip into space himself by the middle of next year.

Following the completion of a series of glide-only sorties, powered tests are set to take place every three weeks with the aim of extending them into space by November or December, Branson said in an interview. After his own flight, full commercial passenger operations should start by the end of 2018, he said.

Branson's update is the most detailed since the October 2014 crash of Virgin Galactic's original SpaceShipTwo, in which co-pilot Michael Alsbury died when the craft was torn apart after he prematurely unlocked a braking mechanism.

REUTERS

Sheriff's deputies look at a piece of debris near the crash site of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo near Cantil, California November 1, 2014.

While the accident in the Mojave Desert came just months before the planned maiden commercial flight, Branson said the appetite for travel to the edge of space remains undimmed, leaving room for a number of competitors.

Read more: *Virgin Galactic gets space tourism licence which will permit commercial operations *Virgin Galactic's new spaceship makes first glide flight *Stephen Hawking to travel to space on Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic

"We will never be able to build enough spaceships," Branson said Wednesday in Hong Kong following the introduction of Virgin Australia flights from Melbourne. "The demand is enormous."

RADIO NEW ZEALAND

Richard Branson is one step closer to lift-off after Virgin Galactic secured an operating licence for space tourism.

Branson was an early leader in the new space race after founding Virgin Galactic in 2004. Since then, rivals like the Jeff Bezos-backed Blue Origin and Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, have gained momentum by focusing on reusable rockets to cut the cost of space travel.

The Briton, who turns 67 on July 18, said there's a role for various launch systems, especially in the deployment of satellites, viewed as a likely mainstay of Virgin Galactic's future business.

The company's Virgin Orbit arm is working on a two-stage air-launched rocket that would carry small satellites, with test rockets set to be dropped from an aircraft in the first quarter of 2018, he said.

REUTERS

Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides.

"There is definitely the demand for all three," Branson said of the competing ventures. "We can take off at 24-hour's notice, put a couple of satellites up and come back again. With ground-based rockets, there's quite a long waiting time. Elon has bigger rockets, so he has advantages there."

Branson declined to comment directly on Donald Trump's June 30 announcement that he'll revive a Cold War-era council that helped shape space policy, or on the US president's suggestion that private companies are set to play "an important role" in the next phase of space technology.

"I think myself and Jeff Bezos and Elon are just getting on with it," he said. "I don't think I've heard of anything majorly exciting that's come out of the administration as far as space is concerned, but maybe they'll surprise us."

Virgin Galactic will also play a role in developing elements of Boom Technologies's planned supersonic plane, Branson said, and will build parts of the XB-1 demonstrator on which the U.S. startup plans to commence work before the end of this year, according to

Branson, a vocal opponent of the UK leaving the European Union, said he's hopeful the country is now headed for a Brexit "kinder" to business following the outcome of May's general election, which left the ruling Conservatives with fewer seats and dependent on the support of a smaller party.

-The Washington Post

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Richard Branson targets space flights by mid-2018 as Virgin begins powered tests - Stuff.co.nz