Mantis Society Study Center: SpaceNews This Week | Second SpaceShipTwo makes first powered flight; NASA studies extending Boeing commercial crew test flight to support ISS

Friday, April 6, 2018

SpaceNews This Week | Second SpaceShipTwo makes first powered flight; NASA studies extending Boeing commercial crew test flight to support ISS

April 6, 2018

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Second SpaceShipTwo performs first powered test flight

Jeff Foust, WASHINGTON — Virgin Galactic's second SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle successfully performed its first powered flight April 5, the first such test flight since a fatal crash nearly three and a half years ago.

The vehicle, named VSS Unity, was released from its WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft in the skies about 14,200 meters above Mojave, California, at approximately 12:00 p.m. Eastern time. The vehicle ignited its hybrid rocket motor on what the company said was a "partial duration burn" lasting 30 seconds. The vehicle reached a top speed of Mach 1.87 and altitude of 25,686 meters.

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NASA studies extending Boeing commercial crew test flight to support ISS

Jeff Foust, WASHINGTON — A commercial crew contract modification moves NASA one step closer to using a test flight as an operational mission to maintain a presence on the International Space Station.

NASA announced April 5 that it had updated its Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract with Boeing to study potential changes to the second of two test flights of the company's CST-100 Starliner vehicle, currently intended to carry two people on a short-duration mission to the station.

Those changes, NASA said, would involve adding a third crewmember to flight and extending its mission from two weeks to as long as six months, the typical length of an astronaut's stay on the ISS. The changes would involve training and mission support for that third crewmember and the potential to fly cargo on both that mission and an earlier uncrewed test flight.

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Wall Street analysts balk at Viasat-Eutelsat split on European broadband

Caleb Henry, WASHINGTON —Eutelsat's decision to scrap an investment in Viasat's ViaSat-3 system in favor of a fully-owned satellite means the two companies will now be competitors in the European broadband market — a stance analysts view as bad for both operators.

Eutelsat on April 5 said it no longer intends to co-finance the second ViaSat-3 satellite, which Boeing is already building to bring massive amounts of capacity to Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). The Paris-based operator will instead tap Thales Alenia Space to build Konnect VHTS, a so-called Very High Throughput Satellite that will focus solely on Europe.

"This is a net negative for all parties, in our view," Wells Fargo Senior Analyst Andrew Spinola wrote in an April 5 research note to clients. "We believe the two companies were stronger together and the European market will be less attractive with two competitors instead of one."

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Q&A: Air Force Gen. John Hyten says U.S. space strategy, budget moving 'down the right path'

Sandra Erwin, WASHINGTON — U.S. Air Force Gen. John Hyten is the nation's top officer in charge of the nuclear arsenal. He's also one of the most outspoken military leaders on the issue of national security space, and has called for changes in how the Pentagon trains and equips forces to defend space systems, pushing the Defense Department to "go faster."

Hyten oversees nearly 184,000 military and civilian personnel as head of U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska. The command is responsible for strategic deterrence, nuclear modernization, missile defense, global strike and space operations.

The general visited SpaceNews last month for a wide-ranging interview. He offered his take on the president's budget, Pentagon acquisition reforms and the ongoing debate over how the military should be organized to fight in space.

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