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Blue Origin will work with NASA on orbital crew transport

Suborbital spacefliers gaze out windows of Blue Origin's suborbital space capsule
Coby Cotton and Steve Young gaze at Earth during a Blue Origin suborbital spaceflight in August 2022. (Blue Origin Photo)

NASA says it will collaborate with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture on the development of new space transportation capabilities that will provide high-frequency access to low Earth orbit for astronauts and cargo.

The project is one of seven selected for the second round of NASA’s Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities initiative, or CCSC-2. The first round began in 2014. All of the companies involved in CCSC-2 will work with NASA under the terms of unfunded Space Act Agreements. That means no money will change hands, but NASA will make its expertise available for the companies’ projects.

“It is great to see companies invest their own capital toward innovative commercial space capabilities, and we’ve seen how these types of partnerships benefit both the private sector and NASA,” Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight at NASA Headquarters, said today in a news release.

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Fiction Science Club

How fiction sparked our flights to the final frontier

Illustration about the building of a moon ship, from "The Earth to the Moon."
Jules Verne envisioned building a projectile for space travel in "From the Earth to the Moon." (E.A. Bayard via Scribner, Armstrong / Smithsonian)

The commercial spaceflight revolution didn’t begin with Elon Musk. Or with Jeff Bezos, or Richard Branson, or any of the other billionaires who’ve spent a fortune on the final frontier over the past 20 years.

Would you believe it began with Jules Verne in the 1860s?

That’s the perspective taken by Jeffrey Manber, one of the pioneers of the 21st-century spaceflight revolution, in a book tracing the roots of private-sector spaceflight to the French novelist.

“The first realistic steps taken in rocket development were because of a French science-fiction book,” Manber says in the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast. “And that’s an underlying theme, in that we really needed a commercial ecosystem to get going. It’s not a government decree.”

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GeekWire

Spaceflight’s former CEO moves into a different orbit

Curt Blake at Spaceflight Inc.
Curt Blake, former CEO of Spaceflight Inc., is joining Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

Spaceflight Inc.’s former CEO, Curt Blake, is joining the Seattle office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati at a time when the California-based law firm is launching an industry group to focus on the needs of emerging space ventures.

Wilson Sonsini’s clients already include high-profile investors and companies in the NewSpace industry sector, such as Astranis Space Technologies, BlackSky, Lunasonde, Skylo Technologies and Slingshot Aerospace.

Craig Sherman, a partner at Wilson Sonsini who focuses on the space industry, said in a news release that Blake’s addition to the team as a senior of counsel serves as “an ideal opportunity for us to work more closely with the innovators and established companies leading the way forward in the NewSpace sector.”

During his 12-year tenure as the CEO at Spaceflight Inc. — which is currently headquartered in Bellevue, Wash. — Blake oversaw the company’s rise as a coordinator of satellite rideshare logistics and the manufacturer of Sherpa orbital transfer vehicles.

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GeekWire

Scientists say Saturnian moon has all of life’s essentials

Illustration: Cutaway view of Enceladus, highlighting water geysers that rise through ice layer
A cutaway view shows water rising up from Enceladus’ ice-covered ocean. (NASA / JPL-Caltech Illustration)

Phosphorus, an essential ingredient for life as we know it, has been detected for the first time in water samples that can be traced back to Enceladus, an ice-covered moon of Saturn.

The discovery, reported today in the journal Nature, lends further support to suggestions that life could lurk within Enceladus’ ice-covered oceans — and perhaps in similar environments elsewhere in the solar system.

Phosphorus-containing compounds, known as phosphates, provide the molecular backbone for DNA and RNA molecules. Adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, serves as the source of energy for living cells. This research marks the first time that phosphates have been traced to an extraterrestrial ocean. The Nature paper suggests that phosphate levels in Enceladus’ hidden seas could be hundreds or even thousands of times higher than what exists in Earth’s oceans.

“By determining such high phosphate concentrations readily available in Enceladus’ ocean, we have now satisfied what is generally considered one of the strictest requirements in establishing whether celestial bodies are habitable,” study co-author Fabian Klenner, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington, said in a news release.

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GeekWire

Starfish Space’s docking spacecraft gets a big sendoff

SpaceX launch from California
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from California, sending 72 payloads into space. (SpaceX via YouTube)

A well-traveled SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket today launched dozens of satellites, including an experimental docking craft created by a Seattle-area startup called Starfish Space.

Starfish Space’s Otter Pup spacecraft was one of 72 payloads that were deployed into low Earth orbit after the launch of SpaceX’s Transporter-8 satellite rideshare mission from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base.

Liftoff came at 2:35 p.m. PT, just hours after SpaceX launched 52 Starlink internet satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Minutes after the California launch, the Falcon 9’s first-stage booster flew itself back to a landing pad not far from the launch site, marking the ninth successful launch and recovery for that booster. It was the 200th successful recovery of a Falcon 9 booster.

Meanwhile, the rocket’s second stage reached orbit and executed a meticulously choreographed series of deployments that ended nearly an hour and a half after launch. The long list of payloads included small satellites and a re-entry vehicle, as well as an orbital transfer vehicle that carried its own complement of spacecraft.

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GeekWire

Firefly acquires Spaceflight Inc. for its orbital vehicles

Spaceflight Inc.'s engineers work on orbital vehicle in clean room
Spaceflight Inc.’s engineers work on a Sherpa-LTE orbital transfer vehicle. (Spaceflight Inc. Photo)

Texas-based Firefly Aerospace says it has acquired Bellevue, Wash.-based Spaceflight Inc. and will shift the operation’s focus from satellite rideshare logistics to its line of orbital transfer vehicles.

Firefly says the strategic acquisition will add to its portfolio of low-cost space transportation services, ranging from launch vehicles to its Blue Ghost lunar lander.

“Spaceflight’s flight-proven orbital vehicles, facilities and mission management expertise will support Firefly’s rapid growth, provide a robust roadmap for investors, and meet the high demand for our on-orbit and responsive space services,” Firefly Aerospace CEO Bill Weber said today in a news release. “The acquisition further accelerates Firefly’s timeline to support end-to-end missions with launch, lunar, and in-space services.”

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

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GeekWire

LeoStella’s CEO raises his sights in the satellite revolution

LeoStella CEO Tim Kienberger at Tukwila satellite factory
Former Boeing engineer Tim Kienberger became LeoStella’s CEO in January. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

TUKWILA, Wash. — Will LeoStella go beyond LEO?

It’s been four years since LeoStella, a joint venture created by BlackSky and Thales Alenia Space, opened the doors of its Tukwila factory and began building Earth observation satellites that BlackSky could launch into low Earth orbit, otherwise known as LEO.

Since then, the company has taken on other customers as well — including Loft Orbital Solutions, which offers a turnkey solution for flying and operating satellite payloads; and NorthStar Earth and Space, which is building a satellite constellation to monitor space traffic.

This week, LeoStella announced the completion and delivery of its 20th satellite — which happens to be the third satellite it’s built for Loft Orbital.

Meanwhile, Tim Kienberger is getting settled in as LeoStella’s new CEO. He took over the company’s top post in January, after building up decades of experience at other aerospace and defense companies such as Boeing and L3Harris. “What they hired me to do was to grow the business,” Kienberger told me.

The sky just might literally be the limit when it comes to LeoStella’s future growth. During last week’s interview at LeoStella’s Tukwila HQ, Kienberger said the company could eventually take aim at missions beyond Earth orbit — to support missions to the moon, for example, or to help humanity get to Mars.

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GeekWire

Small businesses win NASA’s support for space tech

Illustration: Power beaming system at work in lunar crater
One grant would support the development of a lunar power distribution system. (NASA Illustration)

NASA’s latest round of small-business grants will support aerospace-related technologies ranging from a new kind of spacecraft docking mechanism to a power beaming system suitable for use on the moon.

Those are just two of the projects receiving Phase I grants from the space agency’s Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs, also known as SBIR and STTR.

The grants will go to 300 proposals from 249 small businesses and 39 research institutions across the country. Each proposal team will receive $150,000 to establish the merit and feasibility of their innovations, representing a total agency investment of $45 million. SBIR Phase I funding supports projects for six months, while the STTR Phase I funding is meant to cover 13 months of work.

“NASA has a key role to play in growing the aerospace ecosystem in our country,” Jenn Gustetic, director of early stage innovation and partnerships for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, said today in a news release. “Through these early-stage small business awards, we are inviting more innovators into this growing arena and helping them mature their technologies for not only NASA’s use, but for commercial impact.”

Gynelle Steele, deputy program executive for NASA’s SBIR/STTR program, said the grants are meant to “nurture pioneering ideas from a diversity of innovators across the country that may not attract the initial private industry funding needed to thrive.”

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Universe Today

UFO panel says NASA needs better data about anomalies

Navy video highlighting GOFAST anomalous object
U.S. Navy video of an anomalous object (highlighted by a red box) includes data about the circumstances of the detection. (Credit: U.S. Navy)

A panel of independent experts took a first-ever look at what NASA could bring to the study of UFO sightings — now known as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs — and said the space agency will have to up its game.

The 16-member panel’s chair, David Spergel, said he and his colleagues were “struck by the limited nature of the data.”

“Many events had insufficient data,” said Spergel, an astrophysicist who is the president of the Simons Foundation. “In order to get a better understanding, we will need to have high-quality data — data where we understand its provenance, data from multiple sensors.”

During today’s public hearing, panelists said NASA could contribute to the UAP debate by setting standards for sighting data, creating a crowdsourcing platform for sightings, and reducing the stigma that has discouraged people from reporting and studying anomalous sightings. Some of that stigma was experienced by the panelists themselves.

“It’s disheartening to note that several of them have been subjected to online abuse due to their decision to participate on this panel,” said Daniel Evans, NASA’s assistant deputy associate administrator for research, who served as the space agency’s liaison to the panel. “A NASA security team is actively addressing this issue.”

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GeekWire

Axiom crew finishes space station science mission

Axiom Space crew on International Space Station
Axiom Space crew members Rayyanah Barnawi, John Shoffner, Peggy Whitson and Ali Alqarni discuss their mission. (NASA via Axiom Space)

The second crew to be sent into space as a profit-making proposition for Texas-based Axiom Space came back to Earth tonight in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule after spending nine days on the International Space Station.

The Ax-2 trip came a year after Axiom’s first crewed space mission, and marked several firsts: Former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson became the first woman to command a private-sector space mission as Axiom’s director of human spaceflight, and mission specialist Rayyanah Barnawi became the first Saudi woman in space.

Tennessee business executive John Shoffner and Saudi fighter pilot Ali Alqarni rounded out the crew. Shoffner paid his own fare, which was thought to amount to tens of millions of dollars, while Barnawi and Alqarni flew with the backing of the Saudi government.

The trip began on May 21 with the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida, and ended today with the crew’s departure from the space station and splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast. While crew members waited for a recovery ship to pick up their Dragon capsule, which was dubbed Freedom, Whitson described the descent from orbit as a “phenomenal ride” — the same phrase she used after liftoff.

“We really enjoyed all of it,” she told SpaceX’s Mission Control.

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