Mantis Society Study Center: SpaceNews This Week | NASA's FY19 budget; The Pentagon's space posture; SpaceX after Zuma; Cloud Constellation's cloud above the cloud

Friday, January 19, 2018

SpaceNews This Week | NASA's FY19 budget; The Pentagon's space posture; SpaceX after Zuma; Cloud Constellation's cloud above the cloud

January 19, 2018

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NASA 2019 budget expected to include lunar exploration details

Jeff Foust, WASHINGTON — Details about how NASA will implement a space policy directive regarding a human return to the moon will be in the agency's 2019 budget request, scheduled for release as soon as early February.

NASA Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot, speaking at a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) civil space forum here Jan. 18, didn't discuss specifics of those plans, but suggested both international and commercial partnerships would play key roles in NASA's approach to implementing Space Policy Directive 1. That directive, signed by President Trump Dec. 11, instructed NASA to return humans to the moon "for long-term exploration and utilization" as a step towards later missions to Mars "and other destinations."

"We're getting ready to embark on a pretty strong lunar exploration program with an eye towards Mars," he said in his prepared remarks at the conference.

More civil space headlines

Pentagon space posture: Don't even try to mess with us

Sandra Erwin, WASHINGTON — The title of the 2018 National Defense Strategy — "Sharpening the American Military's Competitive Edge" — pretty much sums up the tone that has been set by U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

The plan is straightforward: compete, deter and win. And that applies to outer space, too. "Space is like any other domain of war," Mattis said Friday following a speech at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies here, where he laid out the broad themes of the new strategy.

Asked by a member of the audience to elaborate on how the U.S. military would fight enemies in space, Mattis delivered one of his trademark one-liners: "Don't try it."

In space, the United States has to become so strong to make it obvious to adversaries that they would have "no benefit to be gained" from attacking U.S. systems, Mattis said. "What that means is that we have to have capabilities to deny them what they want to achieve."

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SpaceX and customers defend Falcon 9 after Zuma mission

Jeff Foust, WASHINGTON — SpaceX reiterated at a congressional hearing Jan. 17 that its Falcon 9 rocket performed as expected on its most recent launch, despite swirling questions about the potential failure of the classified Zuma mission.

SpaceX, though, now has the support of the customer for its next commercial launch, who said it was "confident" that SpaceX would be ready for the late January mission.

In a tweet Jan. 17, SES said it reviewed data from the Jan. 7 Falcon 9 launch of Zuma and concluded that the vehicle had performed as expected, clearing the way for the launch of GovSat-1, a joint venture of SES and the government of Luxembourg, on another Falcon 9 currently scheduled for Jan. 30.

"Following Zuma mission, our engineering staff have reviewed all relevant launch vehicle flight data following last Falcon-9 launcher mission," the company tweeted. "We are confident on SpaceX readiness & set for Govsat-1 launch late Jan!"

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Getting the cloud above the clouds (and surviving a dry spell)

Caleb Henry, WASHINGTON — Sending data to and from different spots on Earth is big business for satellite operators, but Cloud Constellation sees a lucrative opportunity to offer satellites as the ultimate cloud storage solution for sensitive data.

The Los Angeles-based startup, now approaching the third anniversary of its founding, has a way to go to fulfill that dream.

In September, Cloud Constellation signed a launch agreement with Virgin Orbit for 12 LauncherOne missions, and has a memorandum of understanding with Space Systems Loral to build a dozen satellites for the purpose of ultra-secure data storage in space.

More commercial space headlines