Friday, September 29, 2017

SpaceNews This Week | Musk unveils revised version of giant interplanetary launch system; SpaceNews seeks nominees for annual awards

September 29, 2017

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Musk unveils revised version of giant interplanetary launch system

Jeff Foust — SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk announced plans to develop a revised version of a reusable interplanetary transport system that he said would be more affordable and versatile.

Musk, speaking before a packed auditorium at the conclusion of the 68th International Astronautical Congress here Sept. 29, unveiled an updated version of the Interplanetary Transport System he announced at last year's conference in Mexico.

The new version of the reusable booster and spaceship, known collectively only by the codename "BFR," are scaled down somewhat from that original design, making it feasible for them to serve other markets, like satellite launch, while maintaining the ability to support human missions to Mars as soon as the mid-2020s.

Now Acce

pting Nominations

SpaceNews is establishing an annual awards program this year to recognize individuals, companies and organizations for excellence and innovation.
Winners will be featured in the Dec. 18 issue of SpaceNews.
We seek to honor headline-grabbing breakthroughs as well as outside-the-limelight innovations that may have escaped our attention.

Submit your nominees by October 15

ILS Proton launches AsiaSat-9, completes 2017 commercial manifest

Caleb Henry — International Launch Services completed its third and final 2017 commercial Proton mission today, launching the AsiaSat-9 telecommunications satellite from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Proton lifted off at 12:52 a.m. local time, performing first, second and third stage burns as planned, followed by five firings of the Breeze-M upper stage. The total mission lasted nine hours and 13 minutes.

ILS began launches this year in June after a year-long hiatus, half of which was spent investigating the cause of a premature second-stage engine shut down during the Intelsat-31 mission in 2016 (for which the launcher's Breeze-M upper stage compensated to complete the mission without incident), and the other half spent replacing second- and third-stage engines made with an incorrect solder material by manufacturer Khrunichev. Though the delays pushed out mission schedules, ILS has hailed the processes as evidence of Russia's reaffirmed commitment to quality assurance.

JWST launch slips to 2019

Jeff Foust — NASA announced Sept. 28 that the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope mission, which had been planned for next fall, will now be delayed until the spring of 2019.

In a statement posted on the agency's website, NASA said that an assessment of overall work needed to complete integration and testing of the $8 billion spacecraft led to the decision to postpone the launch by about half a year.

"The change in launch timing is not indicative of hardware or technical performance concerns," Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science, said in the statement. "Rather, the integration of the various spacecraft elements is taking longer than expected."

Army seeks fixes to vulnerable satellite communications

Sandra Erwin — U.S. Army officials went to Capitol Hill this week seeking lawmakers' approval to stop buying satellite communications systems that are susceptible to jamming and shift funds to more modern alternatives.

The system Army troops currently use — known as the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical, or WIN-T — would not be up to the task in a future war against a technologically savvy force, Army Deputy Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Bruce Crawford told the House Armed Services tactical air and land forces subcommittee.

The newest WIN-T version that was designed as a mobile command post is especially problematic, Crawford told lawmakers. "The feedback we got was that there were significant challenges with the security of the satellite capabilities."

NASA and Roscosmos to study Deep Space Gateway

Jeff Foust — NASA and its Russian counterpart signed a joint statement Sept. 27 supporting research that could lead to a cislunar habitat, but the two are far from a final agreement to cooperate on developing it.

NASA announced it signed the joint statement with the Russian state space corporation Roscosmos during 68th International Astronautical Congress here regarding research for deep space exploration that "reflects the common vision for human exploration" of the two agencies.

That research, according to the statement, could eventually support joint development of the Deep Space Gateway, a human-tended facility in cislunar space that NASA has proposed as a technology and operational testbed for future human missions to Mars.

MDA-DigitalGlobe Merger expected to close next week

Brian Berger— MDA Corp. and DigitalGlobe expect to complete their $2.4 billion merger late next week, the companies said Sept. 28.

In a press release, MDA and DigitalGlobe said the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) found no unresolved national security issues that should preclude Canada-based MDA from buying U.S.-based Digital Globe.

CFIUS, an interagency committee chaired by the U.S. Treasury Department, assesses whether transactions that could give control of an American business to a foreign entity would harm U.S. National Security.

Airbus to challenge SSL, Orbital ATK with new space tug business

Caleb Henry — European manufacturer Airbus Defence and Space said Sept. 27 that it is creating a satellite-servicing vehicle capable of refueling, repairing, and monitoring the health of spacecraft orbiting Earth.

In a tweet Sept. 27, the company described the Airbus Space Tug as "an autonomous spacecraft whose main missions are maintenance, logistics and the cleaning up of Space debris."

Airbus' entrance into this market follows that of Orbital ATK, whose first Mission Extension Vehicle launches next year on an ILS Proton Medium rocket, and Space Systems Loral, whose satellite servicer leverages work with the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). British-Israeli company Effective Space Solutions is also building servicer spacecraft based on small satellites.