SpaceNews This Week | Pence at KSC; Dawn extended mission; DARPA's Indian launch plans

07.07.17 View this email in your browser Pence says NASA to reorient towards human spaceflight Jeff Foust — 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 NASA's 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. SpaceX crests double-digit marker, notching tenth launch this year Caleb Henry — SpaceX continues to outperform its launch cadence from earlier years, conducting its tenth successful launch this year with a mission for Intelsat on July 5. The Falcon 9 mission, which delivered Intelsat's fourth Epic-series high-throughput satellite, Intelsat-35e, into geostationary transfer orbit, lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida at 7:38 p.m. Eastern. It's SpaceX's third launch in 13 days. SpaceX is well on track to hit the target it set last year of 18 launches in a single year. That target moved out of reach when a fueling anomaly destroyed both a Falcon 9 rocket and its satellite payload last summer.  XCOR Aerospace lays off remaining employees Jeff Foust — XCOR Aerospace, a company developing rocket engines and a suborbital spaceplane, has laid off its remaining employees but is continuing efforts to raise funding to maintain at least some of its projects. In a statement provided to SpaceNews July 5, Michael Blum, a member of the company's board of directors who is also serving as acting chief executive, said some "critical" employees would be retained as contractors as the company attempts to stay alive. "Due to adverse financial conditions XCOR had to terminate all employees as of 30 June 2017," Blum said in the statement. "XCOR management will retain critical employees on a contract basis to maintain the company's intellectual property and is actively seeking other options that would allow it to resume full employment and activity." Air Force asks SpaceX, ULA to bid on a five-launch contract Phillip Swarts — The Air Force announced it is soliciting proposals for five upcoming launches — the largest group it has posted since certifying SpaceX to compete with United Launch Alliance for launch contracts.   Claire Leon, director of the Launch Enterprise Directorate at the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center, told reporters that grouping launches together was an effort to streamline and speed the acquisition process at a time when the national security sector is demanding ever-increasing access to space. "By doing five at once, it makes our acquisition more efficient and it allows the contractors to put in one proposal," she said. NASA reviews options for Dawn extended mission Jeff Foust — NASA expects to make a decision within the next two months whether to keep the Dawn spacecraft in orbit around the largest body in the main asteroid belt or have it fly past another asteroid. Dawn completed a one-year extended mission in orbit around Ceres at the end of June, but NASA did not announce whether the spacecraft's mission would be extended again. NASA spokesperson Laurie Cantillo said July 5 that the agency's planetary science division is still reviewing an independent report on the science the mission has achieved at Ceres. "NASA's Planetary Science Division has received and is now reviewing a report from an independent science review panel with regard to Dawn's completion of Level 1 science requirements at Ceres," Cantillo told SpaceNews. DARPA trying to launch smallsat experiment on an Indian rocket Caleb Henry — Citing delays with its original launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is trying to launch an experimental small satellite mission on a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle from India. DARPA had originally planned to launch a mission called EXCITE, or eXperiment for Cellular Integration Technologies, on a secondary payload adapter called Sherpa that Seattle-based Spaceflight expected to launch on a Falcon 9 in 2015. But the continued delay of that mission forced Spaceflight this March to seek out alternatives for Sherpa customers. Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Advertise with Us | Privacy Policy | Subscribe Copyright © 2017 SpaceNews Inc., All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: SpaceNews Inc. 1414 Prince St, Suite 204 Alexandria, VA 22314