Mantis Society Study Center: SpaceNews This Week | 2018 a big year of transition for military space

Friday, December 29, 2017

SpaceNews This Week | 2018 a big year of transition for military space

December 29, 2017

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Angosat-1 communications restored after post-launch glitch

Caleb Henry, GLASSBORO, New Jersey – Angola's new satellite is communicating normally with ground teams again after losing contact shortly following launch.

Moscow-based Energia, manufacturer of Angosat-1, as well as the Russian state corporation Roscosmos confirmed in press releases Dec. 29 that the satellite is sending telemetry and that onboard systems are in good health.

Angosat-1 launched Dec. 26 on a Zenit-3SLBF rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Energia reported the following day that Angosat-1 had stopped sending vital data to ground teams. Angosat-1 is the first satellite for Angola, designed for television broadcast and communications services in C- and Ku-band, and took eight years to complete.

2018 a big year of transition for military space

Sandra Erwin, WASHINGTON — A controversial shakeup of the military space organization mandated by Congress will get underway in 2018. Details of how and when the changes will unfold are slowly emerging.

A laundry list of provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act will reshape the military space chain of command and oversight of programs. Pentagon and Air Force officials are still grappling with the full extent of the reforms, the most significant of which is the removal of the role of principal Defense Department space adviser from the secretary of the Air Force.

"A lot of people focused on the fact that Mike Rogers' idea for a space corps didn't happen, and they missed that a lot of reform did go into this bill," Rep. Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee told SpaceNews in a recent interview.

Smith said Rogers and other members of the HASC have not given up on the idea. "It is a big enough issue that it deserves that level of attention," he said. "I think logically, eventually, we will get to a space corps," Smith insisted. "

Avio expanding Vega launch abilities, mulls "light" mini-variant

Caleb Henry, ROME — Designers of Europe's light-lift Vega rocket are creating a slew of new products intended to lure prospective customers away from India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle and to fend off the coming wave of launch startups that are developing dedicated rockets for cubesats and other small satellites.

Avio's product mix includes a suite of advanced offerings meant to challenge PSLV on grounds other than price — a factor both Avio and the European Space Agency admit plays to India's advantage — as well as a possible "mini-launcher" variant, to perform dedicated missions for cubesats and larger but still low-mass satellites.

Avanti tallies $114.1 million in impairment charges for Hylas-1 and 2 satellites

Caleb Henry, GLASSBORO, New Jersey — Avanti says the evolution of high-throughput satellites are outpacing the company's satellite fleet, making it difficult to secure business with the Hylas-1 and Hylas-2 broadband satellites.

The British satellite operator recorded a $53.3 million impairment charge on the seven-year-old Hylas-1 spacecraft and a $60.8 million impairment charge on the five-year-old Hylas-2, blaming falling capacity prices and the finite lifespans of both assets for limiting their competitiveness and value. The amount for both adds up to $114.1 million.

In a year-end financial report to the London Stock Exchange Dec. 27, Avanti described the near-term launch of Hylas-4, now scheduled for March 2018 on an Arianespace Ariane 5, as "critical."

NASA willing to consider flying researchers on commercial suborbital vehicles

Jeff Foust, BROOMFIELD, Colo. — As commercial suborbital vehicles capable of carrying both payloads and people prepare to enter service, NASA officials say they're willing to consider allowing agency-funded researchers to fly on those vehicles.

In an interview after a speech at the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference here Dec. 19, Steve Jurczyk, NASA associate administrator for space technology, said the agency would be open to allowing researchers funded by NASA's Flight Opportunities program to fly on suborbital spacecraft to carry out their experiments.

"As principal investigators propose, both internal to NASA and external, we'll do the same kind of process that we do with Zero G," he said, referring to the company that performs parabolic aircraft flights. Zero G flies investigations as part of the Flight Opportunities program, with researchers flying on the aircraft with their experiments.

Military launch quality issues flagged by DoD watchdog

Sandra Erwin, WASHINGTON — An evaluation of military space launch services revealed lapses in quality control that could compromise the schedule and performance of future missions, the Defense Department inspector general reported last week.

The IG specifically called out the main contractors that support the evolved expendable launch vehicle program, or EELV, for failing to comply with standards required by AS9100 — a widely adopted quality management system for the aviation and space industries.

Prime contractors United Launch Alliance (ULA) and SpaceX, and ULA subcontractor Aerojet Rocketdyne "did not perform adequate quality assurance management of the EELV program," said the Dec. 20 report signed by Randolph Stone, deputy inspector general for policy and oversight.