the astrophysics issue nasa’s next planet hunter · 2018-01-15 · guard in the hunt for...

NASA’s next planet hunter

THE ASTROPHYSICS ISSUE

JANUARY 15, 2018BUSINESS | POLITICS | PERSPECTIVE

I N S I D E

■ Zuma■ Space warfare■ Small rockets

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ABOVE: Technicians at Orbital ATK work on the fully integrated TESS telescope, a planet-hunting spacecraft launching this spring atop a Falcon 9 rocket.

ON THE COVER: NASA ARTIST’S CONCEPT OF TESS. THIS PAGE: NASA PHOTO

C O N T E N T S 0 1 . 1 5 . 1 8

DEPARTMENTS

FEATURES

10A changing of the guard in the hunt for exoplanetsAs Kepler nears its ends,

NASA’s TESS mission is

gearing up for launch.

18A 3D map of the starsEurope’s Gaia mission is

gathering info on more than

a billion stars. The hard part

happens on the ground.

13Some assembly desiredScientists and engineers are

pushing for servicing and

assembly of future space

observatories.

20Looking for daylightWith GEO satellite orders still

weak, solar panel providers

are wading into the smallsat

market.

15The James Webb Space Telescope finally takes shapeWith launch a little more

than a year away, the long

wait for JWST is nearly over.

23Sorry, Sci-Fi fansReal wars in space are not

the stuff of Hollywood.

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3 QUICK TAKES

6 AWARDS RECAP

Photos from the Space News Awards for

Excellence & Innovation

luncheon

8 NEWS ANALYSIS Russia sneers at

Trump’s moon directive,

but misses the point

26 COMMENTARY

Bob Richards Applauding the Google

Lunar X Prize

28 COMMENTARY James Dunstan

Do we care about orbital

debris at all?

30 ON NATIONAL SECURITY Can the new Air Force

weapons buyer

accelerate space

modernization?

32 FOUST FORWARD Riding a big wave of

small rockets

2 | SPACENEWS 01.15.18

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2The number of Mission Extension Ve-hicles (MEV) that Intelsat has ordered from Orbital ATK to extend the life of an orbiting satellite. Intelsat, which signed up in 2016 as Orbital ATK’s first customer for the MEV-1 mission launching late this year, announced Jan. 4 that it will also be a customer for MEV-2 launching in mid-2020.

4The number of months two com-mercial crew test flights planned by SpaceX this year have been delayed, according to a NASA schedule re-leased last week. An uncrewed test flight is now planned for August, fol-lowed by a crewed test flight in De-cember; the previous schedule listed those flights as planned for April and August, respectively. The sched-ule left unchanged Boeing’s sched-ule, which calls for an uncrewed test flight in August and a crewed mission in November.

7The number of geostationary com-mercial communications satellites or-dered in 2017 (See full list, p.22).

$2.4MThe size of the grant Spanish startup PLD Space received from the Euro-pean Commission’s Horizon 2020 program to assist its development of the Arion 1 sounding rocket and the Arion 2 orbital rocket. PLD said it is close closing an “A2” investment round, valued at nearly $10 million.

SIGNIFICANT DIGITS

Z FOR ZUMAWhen a big-ticket military system

goes off the rails, the Pentagon as a rule

does not deflect media questions to the

contractor that the government hired to do

the work.

So reporters at the Pentagon were

shocked Jan. 11 when the Defense Depart-

ment’s top spokesperson, Dana White, not

only refused to comment on the apparent

failure of a classified mission codenamed

Zuma, but referred reporters to SpaceX,

which launched the mystery payload Jan.

7 on behalf of Northrop Grumman.

“I would have to refer you to SpaceX,

who conducted the launch,” White said.

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell,

speaking at a conference in Houston the

same day as the Pentagon briefing, said she

could not discuss the mission: “You know

I can’t talk about that. It’s not my story to

tell.”

Northrop Grumman — which supplied

the Zuma payload and adapter — has de-

clined to comment on the status of Zuma,

which some sources claim reentered

shortly after launch.

SpaceX has denied that its Falcon 9

malfunctioned in any way during the

launch, saying Jan. 9 that the rocket “did

everything correctly.”

SpaceX, meanwhile, is moving ahead

with preparations for up to three launches

on the schedule for January: the debut of

the Falcon Heavy and a pair of Falcon 9

launches both slated for NET Jan. 30 (one

from Vandenberg, the other from Cape

Canaveral).A Falcon 9 first stage lands at Cape Canaveral, Florida, after launching the mysterious Zuma mission for Northrop Grumman on Jan. 7.

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CHANGE AT THE TOP The head of China’s space agency is leaving

after just half a year on the job. Tang Dengjie,

appointed administrator of the China National

Space Administration (CNSA)

in June, has stepped down

to become acting governor

of Fujian Province. Tang’s

departure is not expected

to have a major effect on

China’s space program, as

CNSA is primarily an office

for interactions with other

countries’ space programs.

India’s space program

is also getting a new boss.

K. Sivan will succeed A. S.

Kiran Kumar as chairman of

ISRO for a three-year term,

the government’s announced Jan. 10. Sivan is

currently director of ISRO’s Vikram Sarabhai

Space Center.

OUT WITH THE OLD…NOAA has retired a 10-year-old weather

satellite now that its replacement is in

operation. NOAA announced Jan. 8 that the

GOES-13 satellite, launched in 2006, had been

powered down now that GOES-16, launched

in late 2016, was operational as the GOES-East

satellite. GOES-13 can be reactivated if needed

should there be a problem with an operational

satellite. Another weather satellite, GOES-S, is

scheduled for launch in March to eventually

replace the GOES-15 satellite.

NOMINATED, AGAINThe White House has resubmitted

nominations for the leaders of

NASA and NOAA to the Senate. The

administration announced Jan. 8 it was

renominating Jim Bridenstine to be

administrator of NASA and Barry Myers to

be administrator of NOAA, part of several

dozen nominations being resubmitted

to the Senate. The nominations were a

procedural move to comply with a Senate

rule that returns nominations to the

White House at the end of a session if the

Senate does not confirm or reject them.

The Bridenstine and Myers nominations,

which were previously approved on

party-line votes by the Senate Commerce

Committee, face a narrower path to

confirmation with Republicans now

holding only a 51–49 majority in the

Senate.

GOES-T, part of the GOES-R series of weather satellites Lockheed Martin is building for NOAA.

DENGJIE

KUMAR

GOES-13

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ROCKET RIVALRIES

NOT DREAMINGSierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) said Jan. 5 that NASA

has confirmed its recent Dream Chaser test flight met

requirements for a milestone award. The glide flight of the

Dream Chaser test article in November went as planned, but

company officials said at the time they needed to wait until NASA

reviewed the data to confirm it met the requirements for the final

funded milestone in a commercial crew award made in 2012.

NASA has since confirmed that is the case, making it unlikely

the company will fly another test of the vehicle. The company is

moving ahead with a critical design review later this year of the

cargo version of Dream Chaser, which is slated to begin delivering

cargo to and from the International Space Station in 2020.

• Arianespace expects to

carry out a record number

of launches in 2018. The

company said Jan. 9 it is

planning 14 launches this

year, including seven Ariane

5, four Soyuz and three Vega

missions. Arianespace also

announced that it signed a

contract with Intelsat for two

launches, including of the

Galaxy-30 communications

satellite Intelsat just ordered

from Orbital ATK. Arianespace

also placed an order for a final

batch of 10 Ariane 5 rockets

that will cover launches into

the early 2020s as the new

Ariane 6 rocket enters service.

• China has ambitious

launch plans for 2018 that

could result in shattering

the country’s record for the

the most launches in a year.

At a conference Jan. 11, the

China Aerospace Science

and Technology Corporation

announced its “work model”

for 2018 called for 35 launches

in the year, including two

launches to support the

Chang’e-4 mission to land

on the far side of the moon

and the return to flight of the

heavy-lift Long March 5 rocket.

Launches planned by private

Chinese ventures not included

in that assessment could bring

the total number of launches

to more than 40. China carried

out 18 launches in 2017, and its

record for the most launches in

a year is 22, set in 2016.

• The general in charge of

Cape Canaveral is planning a

busy year for the spaceport.

U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Wayne

Monteith said Jan. 9 he is

projecting up to 35 launches

from the Eastern Range in

2018, a figure that includes

some submarine-launched

Trident missile tests off the

coast. Monteith said the range

is working to support up to

48 launches a year, or one

a week with two two-week

maintenance periods each

year.

• India’s Polar Satellite

Launch Vehicle successfully

returned to flight Jan. 11.

The PSLV placed into orbit a

Cartosat 2 imaging satellite and

30 secondary payloads. Among

the secondary payloads were

four Dove cubesats for Planet,

four Lemur-2 cubesats for

Spire, a prototype broadband

smallsat for Telesat and the

first synthetic aperture radar

smallsat for Finnish company

Iceye. The launch was the first

for the PSLV since an August

mission that failed when the

rocket’s payload fairing did not

separate.


THE SPACENEWS AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE & INNOVATION LUNCHEONTUESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2017 | THE CITY CLUB OF WASHINGTON

SpaceNews honored the winners of its 1st annual Awards for Excellence and Innovation at a sold-out luncheon organized by the Washington Space Business Roundtable. After handing out the 10 awards, the SpaceNews editorial team provided a forecast for 2018.

Photos by Kate Patterson

EVENT RECAP

Luncheon attend-ees dine ahead of the awards cer-emony and 2018 forecast panel dis-cussion.

Brian Berger, Paige McCullough and Greg Thomas of SpaceNews.

Jason Crusan of NASA and Aaron Rogers of SSL.Sandra Erwin, Caleb Henry, Debra Werner and Brian Berger of SpaceNews.

Jeff Hassannia of Cobham.

SPACENEWS.COM | 7

EVENT RECAP

Sandra Erwin of SpaceNews and Lt. Col. Jack Lovin of USSTRATCOM.

Marcy Steinke of Maxar Technologies and Caleb Henry of SpaceNews.

Sandra Erwin and Col. Steven Lang of the 45th Space Wing.

Rich Leshner of Planet, Amb. Sylvie Lucas of Luxem-bourg, Gwynne Shotwell of SpaceX, Kirk Pysher of ILS, Col. Steven Lang of the 45th Space Wing, Lt. Col. Jack Lovin of USSTRAT-COM, Marcy Steinke of Maxar Technolo-gies and Jason Cru-san of NASA.

Debra Werner and Rich Leshner of Planet.

Caleb Henry of SpaceNews and Kirk Pysher of ILS.

Debra Werner of SpaceNews and Ambassador Sylvie Lucas of Luxembourg.

Gwynne Shotwell of SpaceX and Caleb Henry.


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Russia sneers at Trump’s moon directive, but misses the point

There are many valid critiques of U.S. President Donald Trump’s new direction for NASA. Few, if any, would be new.

NASA has, for decades, been redirected

by nearly every new administration to take office.

But Russian government officials saw an oppor-

tunity for domestic attention and took a stab at it.

“A ‘resumption’ of flights to the moon? How

nice,” Alexey Pushkov, a prominent Russian hawk

and chairman of the information policy committee

in the country’s upper house in parliament, wrote

Dec. 19. “But how are the Americans going to get

there without rocket engines? Already they can’t get

to the [International Space Station] without ours.”

It was a familiar refrain from the more outspoken,

pro-Kremlin circles of Russian officialdom. Never

mind the fact that NASA is developing its own new

rocket for such missions, or that many U.S. rockets

are propelled by domestically manufactured engines

— the fact that any American dependency exists

has been fodder for cheap domestic messaging in

Russia since 2014.

While NASA and its Russian counterpart Ros-

cosmos have managed to keep things professional

amid the most drastic deterioration of U.S.-Russia

relations since the Cold War, Russian government

officials play a different game. Domestic politics

here often descends into a spectacle where players

compete for standing in public demonstrations of

patriotism.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, whose

portfolio of responsibilities in government includes

oversight and reform of the Russian space indus-

try, could possibly be credited with bringing space

exploration into the mix in 2014 when, in response

to U.S. sanctions for Russia’s annexation of Crimea

from Ukraine, he suggested NASA use a trampoline

to reach the ISS.

Curiously, though perhaps it shouldn’t

have come as much of a surprise, a challenger

MATTHEW BODNERRussian technicians check NASA astronaut Scott Tingle’s pressure suit ahead of his Dec. 17 launch to the ISS aboard a Soyuz capsule.

NEWS ANALYSIS TROLLING

SPACENEWS.COM | 9

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emerged last month to answer Pushkov and Rogo-

zin. The Russian Foreign Ministry’s outspoken, and

sometimes controversial, spokeswoman — Maria

Zakharova — added her own twist to the ongoing

mockery of American dependence on Russian

space technology in a Facebook post.

“Pushkov asked a reasonable question,” Zakharova

began, “In my opinion, although the question is

logical, the answer is obvious — they will be de-

livered there by ‘Russian hackers.’ As we all know,

they can do anything,” she concluded. The post

was more of a commentary on U.S. obsession

with Russian hackers than U.S. dependencies, but

it was instructive.

And to be fair, Russians were not the only ones to

have fun with Trump’s moon declaration. His re-

marks were met with ridicule in China, too, accord-

ing to the China’s English-language Global Times

news outlet. Social media users there posted jokes

about Trump flying to the moon to take a selfie,

while others commented on how every U.S. pres-

ident comes up with such a plan.

Russian officials continue to beat the drum

when it comes to U.S. purchases of RD-180 rocket

engines for Atlas 5 launches, and the fact that Rus-

sia’s Soyuz rocket remains the only crewed means

of reaching the International Space Station, but

there seems to be very little public discussion about

what an end to this state of affairs would mean for

Russia’s space industry.

While the U.S. is certainly dependent, for the

time being, on the RD-180 rocket engine built by

Russia’s Energomash, Russia is also dependent on

U.S. purchases of these engines to keep Energomash

alive. Domestic projects are creating more demand

for Energomash engines in Russia, but the bigger

problem for the Russian space program is found

aboard the Soyuz spacecraft.

Since the retirement of the U.S. space shuttles

in 2012, Russia has been able to charge NASA and

its partner agencies up to $70 million per ticket for

flights to the ISS and back aboard the three-seat

Soyuz. Sometimes foreign astronauts have taken

two of those seats at a time.

This amounts to a heavy subsidy for Russia’s

manned space launches, says independent Russian

space industry analyst Pavel Luzin. Roscosmos will

receive 1.4 trillion rubles (almost $24 billion) under

the current 2016-2025 space program budget, and

roughly half of that will be devoted to manned space

efforts, Luzin says.

“In ruble terms, one seat aboard Soyuz will cost

up to 5 billion rubles (and the price will go up to

$81 million in 2018),” Luzin explained. “So, each

American astronaut contributes up to 5 percent

of Roscosmos’ annual budget — at least in terms

of funding sourced from the federal government

via the federal space program.”

The budget cushion provided by NASA and

other foreign agencies is soon to disappear, yet no

one in Russia seems to be talking about it. Recent

NASA statements indicate the agency may stop

buying seats on Soyuz after 2019 — the current

horizon for purchased seats. It is unclear what will

happen after 2019, but the U.S. commercial sector

will have a huge impact.

U.S. launch provider (and soon-to-be astronaut

transporter) SpaceX has a busy year ahead. In addition

to tests of the Falcon Heavy booster, it will conduct

two test missions of its crewed Dragon vehicle; the

first, in April, will be unmanned, while the second

test in August will feature a crew. Presumably, it

won’t be long until SpaceX, and its competitor

Boeing, are flying American astronauts to the ISS.

And when that happens, Russia will lose a valued

avenue for trolling the United States.

“Roscosmos will also face a sensitive decline

in its income,” Luzin added. “However, the main

challenge is thus: what will Russian astronauts do

in orbit? Already they do very little, but America

pays for a large part of the launches. Without their

money, Russia will have to fund it all. This means

they’ll have to reevaluate the goals of manned

missions (beyond carrying the flag).” SN

President Trump holds up his freshly signed Space Policy Directive 1 during a Dec. 11 ceremony at the White House.

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10 | SPACENEWS 01.15.18

PLANET HUNTING

A changing of the guard in NASA’s hunt for exoplanetsJEFF FOUST

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Sometime later this year NASA’s Kepler

spacecraft, orbiting the sun more than

150 million kilometers from the Earth,

will fire its thrusters for the final time.

The spacecraft is running out of the hydrazine

fuel used by those thrusters to maintain the

spacecraft’s orientation. Once the thrusters

sputter and shut down, their fuel exhausted,

Kepler will no longer be able to control its

pointing, and the mission will end.

The project isn’t quite sure exactly when that

will happen, since the calculation depends on

rates of fuel usage and the challenges of mea-

suring just how much hydrazine is left in the

spacecraft’s tanks. “The fuel is expected to last

somewhere between the spring and summer

of 2018,” said Gary Blackwood, manager of NA-

SA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program, at a Jan. 7

meeting of a NASA exoplanet advisory group.

He added that the spacecraft’s manufacturer,

Ball Aerospace, “has found very creative ways”

to stretch out that remaining fuel.

Kepler is otherwise working well, perform-

ing since 2014 an extended mission called

K2 that is looking at different parts of the sky

for a few months at a time. “The spacecraft is

behaving completely nominally,” said Jessie

Dotson, K2 project scientist at NASA’s Ames

Research Center, at a town hall meeting about

the mission Jan. 9 during the 231st Meeting of

the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in

suburban Washington.

The K2 mission is currently performing a set

of observations called Campaign 16, scheduled

to run through late February. Mission scien-

tists have plans for Campaigns 17, 18 and 19

that would run through the end of the year in

a best-case scenario.

“I’m cautiously optimistic we’ll make it

through Campaign 16,” she said. “Anything

past that is gravy.”

ENTER TESSBut as Kepler approaches the end of its life,

NASA’s next mission to search for exoplanets is

gearing up for launch. At an Orbital ATK facility

near Washington Dulles International Airport,

technicians are completing final tests on the

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a

NASA mission scheduled for launch this spring.

TESS, like Kepler, will look for exoplanets

by detecting very small changes in brightness

of stars as orbiting plans cross, or transit, their

disks. But while Kepler initially examined a

single, small area of the sky in an effort to

determine the fraction of stars with planets,

TESS will instead perform an all-sky survey,

focused on the brightest stars nearest to Earth.

That search is intended to find exoplanets

well-suited to follow up observations by other

telescopes, including the upcoming James

Webb Space Telescope, that can help determine

their mass and composition, and even study

their atmospheres.

“TESS is tiny, but it punches above its weight,”

said George Ricker, principal investigator for

TESS at the Massachusetts Institute of Technol-

ogy, during the Kepler town hall. “It’s a finder

scope for JWST.”

The spacecraft, 1.5 meters tall and weigh-

ing a few hundred kilograms, will ship in early

February to Florida’s Kennedy Space Center for

launch processing. TESS will launch no earlier

than March 20 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket

into an elliptical orbit that is in a 2:1 resonance

with the moon.

That orbit, Ricker said, is very stable and also

allows for high data rates from the spacecraft.

However, it limits the days on which TESS can

launch in order to phase into the proper

NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler telescope is nearing the end of its extended mission.

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trajectory. Ricker said there were

about 40 days through June on which

TESS could launch.

The four cameras on TESS will map

nearly the entire sky over its two-year

primary mission. Astronomers expect that

TESS will detect thousands of exoplanets,

many of which will be ideal for follow-up

observations by other telescopes, includ-

ing the James Webb Space Telescope, to

characterize them. Any extended mission,

Ricker said, would allow TESS to fill in

gaps in observations from its primary

mission or do follow-up studies in other

parts of the sky.

SHIFTING FOCUSTESS has not been without its problems,

though. NASA confirmed last July that

engineers discovered that the focus in the

four cameras on TESS would drift once the

cameras cool to operating temperatures

after launch. At the time, the agency said

that it believed the issue would not be a

major problem for the mission, although

other astronomers expressed concern

it could affect the spacecraft’s ability to

detect exoplanets.

Additional testing and analysis since

then has given those involved with the

mission greater confidence that they un-

derstand the focus issue and that it won’t

adversely affect the mission’s science.

“Subsequent testing that we did starting

this summer and then into the fall indi-

cated that there is a model” for explaining

the focus change, Ricker said at a Jan. 9

briefing about the mission during the AAS

conference. “This is a very reproducible

crystallization effect for one of the ma-

terials used to manufacture the lenses.”

Ricker said the mission did four months

of testing on a flight spare camera to

understand long-term focus effects.

Those tests show that the focus of the

camera drifts for about one week, then

stops. “There’s essentially no measurable

change after that,” he said, calling the is-

sue a one-time “focus shift” rather than a

more continuous “focus drift.”

That focus shift, he said, won’t affect

the ability of TESS to meet its primary,

or “Level One,” science requirements,

which call for eventually measuring the

mass of at least 50 planets similar in size

to the Earth. The mission’s primary focus

on photometry — measuring very small

changes in brightness of stars — also min-

imizes the importance of a sharp focus.

“This is a photometry mission, not

an imaging mission,” he said. “What this

means is that it’s not important to have a

sharp focus across the entire field of view.

This was never part of the design. But it

is important that the focus be stable, and

that’s what we’ve been able to establish.”

A WIDE RANGE OF SCIENCETESS has also attracted interest from other

astronomers wanting to use spacecraft

data for other research. Padi Boyd, di-

rector of the guest investigator program

for TESS at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight

Center, said at the briefing that there was

a very strong response to a first call for

proposals to participate on the mission,

with scientists proposing to use TESS data

for topics ranging from other exoplanet

PLANET HUNTING

studies to stellar astrophysics and extra-

galactic astronomy.

“We were very excited to see how the

broader scientific community really re-

sponded to this opportunity,” she said,

adding that the initial set of guest investiga-

tions will be announced in about a month.

While TESS has a two-year primary

mission, Ricker said he believed that the

spacecraft could operate for much longer.

The stability of its orbit, he said, requires

no station-keeping, and hence limits the

use of thrusters. “The operational life of

the mission could very well extend for

more than two decades,” he said.

For Kepler, the science will continue

long after the spacecraft exhausts its

fuel later this year. As with TESS, Kepler

attracted astronomers interested in using

the spacecraft for more than just exoplanet

science during the K2 mission, particular

as the spacecraft looked at different parts

of the sky.

Dotson said she expects astronomers

to tap into the archive of Kepler data for

various research for years to come. “While

we’re running low on fuel,” she said, “the

science is just getting going.” SN

EXOPLANET MISSONS

SOME ASSEMBLY DESIREDScientists and engineers push for servicing and assembly of future space observatories

SPACENEWS.COM | 13

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IN-ORBIT SERVICING

Between 1993 and 2009, astronauts repaired and upgraded Hubble five times.

lives as well as the on-orbit assembly of

future observatories too large to launch

in a single piece.

While JWST is not designed for servic-

ing — Grunsfeld said it might be possible,

but risky, to do some kind of robotic re-

fueling mission for the telescope about

10 years after launch — the Wide Field

Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), the

next flagship mission after JWST, will

have some support for robotic servicing.

Adding latches and modular interfaces

for such servicing increases the cost of

WFIRST only slightly, he said, and those

costs can be recovered by savings during

integration and test.

The group is also working to convince

the teams working on four ongoing

Grunsfeld, who as a NASA astronaut flew

on three of those servicing missions.

“Had it not been serviceable, we would

have long ago abandoned it.”

Grunsfeld is among those who be-

lieves NASA should embrace servicing,

and even assembly, of future space

telescopes. During a panel discussion

at the AAS conference, he and other

members of an ad-hoc group formed

last year to study the topic argued that

servicing and assembly techniques, in-

volving astronauts or robots, could enable

servicing of telescopes to extend their

For all the attention and concern

that the development of the James

Webb Space Telescope gets, the

real nail-biting will begin after

the spacecraft finally launches in 2019.

In the weeks following liftoff, JWST will

perform a complex sequence of activities

to deploy its giant sunshield and unfold

its mirror.

All that will happen when the telescope

is hundreds of thousands of kilometers

from the Earth, with no one able to fix it

should something go wrong. “Once we

launch it, James Webb will start, on its

own, doing all of these deployments by

commands,” said John Grunsfeld, for-

mer NASA associate administrator for

science. “No one is up there to give it a

little shake if anything sticks.”

To drive that point home, Grunsfeld

displayed a slide during a Jan. 9 pre-

sentation at the 231st Meeting of the

American Astronomical Society (AAS)

in suburban Washington. “This is the

full description of the James Webb Space

Telescope servicing plans,” he said. The

slide was blank.

The approach NASA has taken with

JWST, with no ability to repair or upgrade

the telescope after its launch, stands in

sharp contrast to what it did with JWST’s

predecessor, the Hubble Space Tele-

scope. It was repaired and upgraded on

five shuttle servicing missions between

1993 and 2009, allowing the telescope to

overcome initial problems and improve

its performance.

“When Hubble was launched in 1990,

it was not a very good telescope,” said

JEFF FOUST

IN-ORBIT SERVICING

14 | SPACENEWS 01.15.18

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studies of large mission concepts for

space observatories, intended to support

the next decadal survey for astrophys-

ics to be completed in 2020, that they

should incorporate in-space servicing

or assembly technologies.

“Some of the teams are very receptive,

and others are just pedaling as fast as they

can to get some of their concept studies

done prior to the decadal,” Grunsfeld said.

Representatives of all the mission design

teams were at a November meeting to

discuss servicing and assembly technol-

ogies, he added. “Some of them hadn’t

considered any kind of serviceability.

I think we actually opened their eyes”

to concepts like making instruments

modular and easily replaced.

NASA’s proposed Deep Space Gate-

way, a human-tended outpost in cislunar

space, could also support servicing and

assembly of space telescopes, serving as

a base of operations for astronauts work-

ing on such spacecraft. “If that comes

about, it would certainly make a huge

advance to assembling them in space,”

said Ronald Polidan of Polidan Science

Systems and Technology.

Polidan said that the group, at its No-

vember meeting, suggested that NASA work

with industry and academia to study the

roles the Gateway could play in assembly

and servicing of observatories. That needs

to be done in the near future, he said, to

ensure that any specific requirements for

those activities are incorporated into the

overall requirements of the Gateway, as

well as ensure the Gateway design itself

does not preclude such work.

Whether or not the Deep Space Gateway

is used for building and repairing space

telescopes, Polidan and others argued

that in-space assembly will ultimately

be needed as the research demands by

astronomers lead to observatories too

large to be launched from the ground,

and perhaps too expensive as well.

Polidan said that the largest telescopes

that could be launched by current and

upcoming vehicles, including NASA’s

Space Launch System, have apertures

of no more than about 15 meters. Some

of the concepts under study for the 2020

decadal, like the Large Ultraviolet/Opti-

cal/Infrared Surveyor, or LUVOIR, space

telescope, are that large. “The launch

vehicle ‘wall’ is imminent,” he said. “Af-

ter this next round of telescopes, more

likely than not what we would like to fly

will not fit in a single launch.”

Servicing, he added, can extend the

lives of space telescopes and upgrade their

instruments, as was the case with Hubble,

making them more cost-effective in the

long run. “You now have the equivalent

of a ground-based observatory that you

can upgrade and change,” he said. “It is

now a facility rather than one you have

to build, throw away, and build again.”

“The James Webb Space Telescope is

incredibly audacious, and it’s going to be

amazing. For many of you, it’s going to

be your future in astronomy,” Grunsfeld

said to an audience of astronomers at the

conference. “What’s next? Are we going

to go small because we’re afraid of asking

for too much money, or afraid of risk,

or are we going to go big and keep at

the forefront of scientific research?” SN

NASA’s WFIRST spacecraft is being designed with latches and modular inter-

faces to permit robotic servicing.

JWST exits its thermal vacuum chamber at Johnson Space Center after completing nine months of cryogenic testing. The nearly $9 billion telescope is not designed to be serviced in orbit.

SPACENEWS.COM | 15

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JEFF FOUST

FLAGSHIP IN FOCUS

The James Webb Space Telescope finally takes shape

Last January, at the 229th Meeting of

the American Astronomical Society

(AAS) in suburban Dallas, astronomers

were growing increasingly excited

about the progress the James Webb

Space Telescope was making towards

a launch then expected in late 2018. A

town hall session about the mission

spent only a little time on the assembly

and testing of the spacecraft, focusing

much more on planning for the initial

rounds of observations it will perform.

“We’re in the phase of the program

where there will be many new chal-

lenges, different kinds of challenges

than we’ve had before,” Eric Smith, the

JWST director at NASA Headquarters,

said at that town hall. “The team that has

been working together so well, so when

problems arise, I’m really confident that

the team will solve them.”

A year later, at the 231st Meeting of

the AAS (it meets twice a year) outside

Washington, the mood wasn’t nearly as

celebratory. While project officials pro-

moted the progress they had made in the

last year, including recently completing

a thermal vacuum test of the telescope

and instruments at the Johnson Space

Center, they couldn’t avoid the fact that

JWST’s launch had slipped from Octo-

ber 2018 to sometime between March

and June 2019.

At a December hearing by the House

Science Committee’s space subcommit-

tee, Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate

administrator for science, said the delay

was not because of a specific technical

problem with the spacecraft but simply

testing delays at prime contractor Technicians perform a

“lights out” inspection of JWST in March 2017.

16 | SPACENEWS 01.15.18

tennis court, that will keep the telescope

cold in space. The overall test, includ-

ing repackaging of the sunshield, took

longer than anticipated.

“The actual harder part is not de-

ploying it, in terms of time, but folding

it back together,” he said. “Deploying

took a couple weeks, but folding it takes

nearly two months.”

That was one of the reasons, he said,

NASA decided to push back JWST’s launch.

Another problem was with thrusters on

the spacecraft bus. “We had to resolve

an issue with the thrusters in terms of

how the valves close,” he said. Northrop

decided to refurbish all of the valves in

FLAGSHIP IN FOCUS

Northrop Grumman that exhausted

the program’s margin.

“The sunshield and spacecraft bus ex-

perienced delays during their integration

and testing at Northrop Grumman,” he

said. “Following a schedule assessment

of the remaining activities, the Webb

launch date was changed from October

2018 to between March and June 2019.”

In an Jan. 9 interview during the AAS

meeting, Scott Willoughby, vice presi-

dent and program manager for JWST at

Northrop Grumman, said the company

had recently successfully tested the de-

ployment of the sunshield, made of five

layers of Kapton material the size of a

“By the end of 2018, we’ll have an observatory,” said Scott Willoughby, Northrop Grumman vice president and program manager for JWST, refer-ring to completion of the spacecraft’s assembly.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope emerged from Chamber A at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in December.

SPACENEWS.COM | 17

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JAMES WEBB INSIDE AN ARIANE 5 ROCKET

question, and is in preparing to

reinstall the thrusters on the bus

and test them again.

Those issues, he said, led to

a mutual decision by NASA and

Northrop to delay the launch.

“It was really the team coming

together and saying we’ve now

done most— not all — of the

first-of-a-kind type of op-

erations,” he said. There was

also a decision, he said, to

back off trying to do some

activities in parallel.

“When we looked at all

of that, we said that, for the

work we have in front of us,

we need more time,” he said.

Much more of the work

in the coming months will

be similar to what’s been

done before, such as ad-

ditional deployments of

the sunshield after various

tests to the spacecraft. That

will help save some time,

but won’t drastically ac-

celerate the schedule. “There will be a

little bit of a learning curve, but it won’t

be two months down to two weeks” for

refolding the sunshield, he said.

The sunshield and bus will soon be-

gin a series of acoustic, vibration and

thermal vacuum tests. During that time,

the telescope and instrument section of

JWST, known as the Optical Telescope

Element and Integrated Science, or

OTIS, will arrive at Northrop’s facility in

Southern California from Houston. Wil-

loughby said OTIS will be installed on the

spacecraft bus in August or September,

after another series of deployment tests.

The observatory, at long last a single

spacecraft, will undergo yet another

set of environmental and deployment

tests at Northrop before it’s loaded onto

a ship for transport to French Guiana.

That will likely take place in early 2019,

he said, or about three months before

the spacecraft’s launch on an Ariane 5.

NASA has not yet provided a more

specific launch window for JWST than

March to June of 2019. Zurbuchen said

in his congressional testimony in De-

cember that NASA expected to provide

an updated launch date in January or

February, after an independent review

of the mission’s plans. “At this moment

in time, with the information that I have,

I believe it’s achievable,” he said of the

March-to-June window.

Willoughby emphasized the overall

progress Northrop has made on JWST,

despite the schedule slip. “A year ago,

it was about deploying the sunshield.

That was the biggest newness,” he said.

“That was really big.”

Lost in that test were other milestones.

He said another major milestone last

year was commanding the spacecraft

bus for the first time from the mission

operations center at the Space Telescope

Science Institute in Baltimore. “We’re

going to have to command it from a

million miles away, so we should be

able to do it from 2,500. But still, it’s a

big deal to do flight commanding, and

that was a fantastic success.”

“By the end of 2018, we’ll have an

observatory,” Willoughby said, referring

to the completion of JWST’s assembly.

Astronomers who have been wait-

ing for years, through many previous

delays and cost overruns, can probably

handle a delay of another six months or

so for a telescope that still promises to

revolutionize their field. SN

18 | SPACENEWS 01.15.18

ASTROMETRY

MAKING A 3D MAP OF THE STARS

The European Space Agency team

operating the star-mapping Gaia

space telescope is preparing for

its most comprehensive data

release to date while defending its over-

taxed data-processing network against

budget cuts.

Since science operations began in

mid-2014, the 700-million-euro ($843

Analysis Consortium (DPAC) has been

in place since 2006, or seven years be-

fore Gaia’s launch. Funded primarily by

France, Germany, Spain and the U.K., it

also gets a sliver of the 19 million euros

ESA spends annually on Gaia operations.

Fred Jansen, the Gaia mission man-

ager at ESA, said astronomers are gen-

erating meaningful research from Gaia,

producing “something like one paper

every day and a half,” but continued CALEB HENRY

million) Gaia mission has collected more

than a trillion measurements, capturing

star characteristics such as brightness,

position and motion to create a 3D map

of the Milky Way galaxy. The return on

investment, measured in peer-reviewed

papers, is strong at 250 and climbing. The

processing of Gaia’s raw observations

into meaningful measurements involves

hundreds of astronomers spread across

20 countries. Gaia’s Data Processing and

The European Space Agency’s Gaia astrometry observatory undergoes pre-launch preparation at Europe’s South American spaceport in 2013.

ESA

Europe’s Gaia is gathering information on more than a billion stars. Turning that data into meaningful measurements is where the hard part comes in.

SPACENEWS.COM | 19

biennial delivery of refreshed Gaia data

troves are not a given. Other astronomy

missions are competing for the limited

resources going into the DPAC, which

has the arduous task of preparing Gaia

data for dissemination.

“There are a number of highly ambi-

tious projects running in Europe at the

moment which use a similar paradigm

as Gaia [for] processing the data because

it’s too complex for a single organization

to do it,” Jansen said, mentioning ESA’s

Euclid dark matter mission launching

in 2020 and the exoplanet hunter Plato

launching in 2026. Those missions will

need their own data-processing consor-

tiums, he said, and their needs could put

pressure on Gaia funding.

Astronomers got their first taste of

Gaia data in September 2016: position and

brightness info for 1.14 billion stars and

a more advanced set of measurements

for 2 million of the brightest of those

stars thanks to a combination of Gaia

measurements with archival data from

Hipparcos, a four-year ESA astrometry

mission launched in 1989. Early hardware

problems, including one that let stray

light into Gaia’s telescope, contributed

to a nine-month delay in Data Release-1.

Another contributor was the underes-

timated complexity of processing Gaia’s

star data. Prior to launch, Jansen said,

the Gaia team thought it could release

a new data set annually. As it turns out,

the best Gaia can promise is once every

two years. Data Release-2, scheduled for

April, will included the more-advanced

measurements for over a billion stars — a

500-fold increase over the 2016 release.

Jansen said a third release planned

for late 2020 will build on the first two.

DPAC chairman Anthony Brown

said ESA member states funding Gaia

research are putting pressure on DPAC

to cut costs by shedding people. Around

450 people calibrate and process Gaia

data, Jansen said. Close to 180 work full

time, said Brown.

Gaia officials see no easy way around

the mission’s processing needs, which

includes use of one of the world’s most

powerful computers, the MareNostrum

supercomputer in Barcelona. Brown and

Jansen estimate that a 10 percent cut of

DPAC’s budget — which they declined

to quantify —would be bearable, but any

more than that would jeopardize research.

Gaia’s data-processing needs stem

less from the quantity involved — just

under 50 terabytes collected as of De-

cember — and more from the fact that

nearly every pixel in every image has

scientific meaning.

“Gaia is ’big data’ not so much in the

sense of the amount of data — CERN,

Google, Facebook, etc., handle much

larger amounts — but certainly when it

comes to the complexity,” Brown said.

“Every bit in our raw data counts, and

the design of the measurements neces-

sitates processing all data together in

order achieve the ultimate performance,

where all calibrations have to be derived

from the same data.”

Furthermore, with each cycle, Gaia’s

3D map of the Milky Way becomes much

more detailed, increasing its science

value but putting a heavier burden on the

pan-European team of experts creating

and correcting the catalog.

“Normally, you would think that by

repeating processing sufficiently you get

into a routine and it becomes easier so

you can divest resources, but in our case

for the next three to four years things will

be getting more complex because we are

getting more precise,” Brown said. “Once

we are well into an extended phase of

the mission, it should be able to do with

less resources.”

Prior to Gaia’s launch, the DPAC gave

input on the telescope’s payload design

(which carries sensors for astrometry,

photometry and spectroscopy), worked

on data processing requirements and

software, and researched scientific algo-

rithms, according to Brown. The DPAC

also spent “a lot of effort” producing sim-

ulated Gaia telemetry, which supported

large operational rehearsals ahead of

launch, he said.

Gaia’s five-year mission ends next

year, but Jansen said the spacecraft is

healthy enough to reach 2024. If Gaia’s

mission is extended the full five years,

it would need three additional years of

DPAC processing. Euclid should be in or-

bit by then and Plato will be much closer

to launch. Should Gaia lose some DPAC

resources by then, it would slow — but

not stop — data harvests.

“We may have to sacrifice a few things,

but at the moment it looks like we can

keep the bulk of the necessary and guar-

anteed outputs,” Jansen said.

Extending Gaia would be well worth

the effort, said Roger Davies, president

of the European Astronomical Society.

“It is a mission which makes its impact

by looking at how the sky changes over

time,” he said. “Obviously it’s greatest

impact comes at the end of the mission

when it’s finished an it has the maximum

baseline. We can expect things to get

better and better.”

Davies described it as “a central mis-

sion for understanding galaxies,” and a

mission that gave ESA its own research

niche, building off Hipparcos, which

he credited with reinvigorating astrom-

etry, “making it essential to modern

astrophysics.”

“What Gaia is doing is now capitalizing

on that position,” he said. SN

Launched in December 2013 to Lagrange Point 2 some 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, Gaia ob-serves the full sky every three to six months.

ESA

20 | SPACENEWS 01.15.18

SOLAR SUPPLIERS

SPEC

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With GEO satellite orders still weak, solar providers eye smallsat business as offset

Suppliers of solar panels and re-

lated equipment for the space

industry are pivoting to serve

customers planing satellites

for low and medium Earth

orbits as the slow down in geostationary

satellite orders persists.

Commercial satellite operators ordered

just seven geostationary telecommuni-

cations satellites in 2017 — well below

the 20 to 25 orders considered normal

in years past. Orders for 2016 and 2015

topped out in the teens (still below av-

erage, but better than last year).

Space solar panel providers say they

see a shift toward other orbits that they

must prepare to meet with different

products and manufacturing techniques

in addition to the large panels built to

support the slower flow of GEO satellites.

“It’s well known that number of GEOs

in 2017 especially [was] down, but then

there have been other programs, other

orbits, other missions that have either

been announced — or are in progress and

haven’t been announced — that dictate

the total demand of power,” Tony Muel-

ler, president of Spectrolab, a solar-panel

manufacturer owned by Boeing, told

SpaceNews. “In general there’s been less

demand from larger satellites over the past

several years in terms of the GEO order

bookings, but overall solar demand pops

up in one segment of the market while

another may be going down.”

Factoring in the seven-satellite order

that fleet operator SES placed in September

for the medium-Earth-orbit O3b mPower

constellation does dampen the impact of

2017’s low GEO count, but only for Boeing

Satellite Systems International, the winner

of what turned out to be the year’s largest

CALEB HENRY GEO satellites have guided demand for space solar power, but as satellite operators diversify the sizes and orbits of their spacecraft, the types of solar panels they rely on also change.

SPACENEWS.COM | 21

said. “Everybody is trying at the moment

to find their position, or to position better

in the new industry order that is still not

defined how it will look like.”

CHASING NEW ORBITSSatellite ventures don’t always reveal

their suppliers, but Albuquerque, New

Mexico-based SolAero is OneWeb’s ap-

pointed provider of solar panels for its

first 900 LEO smallsats. Clevenger counts

SolAero as “a successful, early entrant

into the emerging smallsat arena,” but

cautioned that there is a gap between

demand,” added SolAero CEO Brad Cle-

venger. “So, the slow down to about half

of the typical number of GEO satellites

ordered each year has produced a chal-

lenging couple of years.”

Heizmann said the low GEO order

count has led both manufacturers of

satellites to take on more work typically

delegated to suppliers, and supplier to

push upward to higher levels of space-

craft integration.

“At the prime level of satellite manufac-

turers and also at the supplier level there

is uncertainty and reorganization,” he

comsat order. Last year’s other big win,

in terms of dollar value, was Space Sys-

tems Loral’s contract to build Jupiter-3.

SSL president Dario Zamarian said in

September the contract was worth three

to four normal GEO comsat wins. If that

becomes a trend, it could make satellite

manufacturing an even “lumpier” busi-

ness with peaks and valleys determined

by single orders.

Constellation programs such as Telesat

LEO and the soon-to-launch LEO systems

of SpaceX and OneWeb may also soon

fill the void made by the dearth of GEO

satellite purchases, but the full magni-

tude of these changes remains unclear.

“There is quite an uncertainty on the

level of the satellite operators if they should

invest in additional geostationary satellites

or if they should invest in constellations,

or maybe not going to big constellations

of hundreds of very small satellites, but

replacing one big GEO bird by [buying]

four or five smaller mid-sized satellites,”

said Jürgen Heizmann, managing director

of Azur Space Solar Power in Heilbronn,

Germany. “I think the biggest issue is the

delay in decision-making and results

from this uncertainty about the right way

forward in the new market.”

“Historically, about 60 percent of

satellite manufacturing revenues have

been driven by commercial GEO satellite

2017 GEO Commercial Satellite Orders

Satellite Customer Manufacturer Month

Kacific-1/JCSAT-18 Kacific and Sky Perfect Jsat Boeing February

Palapa-N1 Palapa Satelit Nusantara Sejahtera,an Indosat Ooredoo and Pasifik Satelit Nusantara JV

CGWIC May

Inmarsat-5 F5 (Global Xpress) Inmarsat Thales Alenia Space June

EchoStar-24/Jupiter-3 EchoStar SSL August

Star One D2 Embratel Star One SSL October

Turksat-5A Turksat/Turkey Airbus November

Turksat-5B Turksat/Turkey Airbus November

Jürgen Heizmann

AZU

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ACE

22 | SPACENEWS 01.15.18

SOLAR SUPPLIERS

BOEING

the waning of GEO and the rise of

LEO constellations.

“The GEO slowdown began in 2015,

and many major non-GEO initiatives have

not yet begun satellite production. Based

on what we see in the market, demand

will grow and likely exceed prior highs

once some of these new programs enter

production,” he said.

SolAero’s Clevenger and Azur Space’s

Heizmann both see the surge in varia-

tion among spacecraft sizes and orbits

as likely to be a permanent change. GEO

satellites aren’t going away, they say, but

both expect multiple large non-geosyn-

chronous systems to succeed.

Mueller said Sylmar, California-based

Spectrolab “will have to wait and see how

the next few years play out.” Commercial

GEO satellite orders are in an unusually

long downcycle, he said, but LEO con-

stellations promised new business in

the 1990s and didn’t deliver. That said,

Mueller pointed to a mix of government

programs and constellations as balancing

out the demand for spacecraft power.

IMPACT ON THE FUTURE OF SOLAR GEO satellites have historically driven

much of the development in spacecraft

solar power given their dominant market

share. Now that smaller and more diverse

satellite types are rising in number, they

bring variations in solar cell size and

shape, thickness and radiation tolerance.

“The complexity we are going to in

this industry makes it more difficult than

in the past to invest in R&D,” Heizmann

said, adding that the biggest driver from

commercial GEO satellites was on opti-

mizing solar cell performance all the way

through to end of life 15 or 20 years after

launch. “We are continuing our invest-

ment in end-of-life, radiation-hardened

solutions that are important for long-term

missions in the geostationary market,

and also for orbit raising, but at the same

time we need solutions for more short

life missions, especially constellations

that have even higher cost pressure, as

we have seen in OneWeb for example,

or other constellation requirements, but

have not as hard end of life requirements.”

Mueller said smallsat builders often

prefer solar panels that are “either directly

part of the spacecraft or are immediately

mounted to the spacecraft body,” reduc-

ing the need for large complete panel

assemblies.

“Typically, customers in the smallsat

solar arena are wanting to procure either

individual solar cells that they put on

themselves, or ‘strings,’ circuits of solar

cells where we put a number of solar cells

together and the smallsat builder then

populates on their spacecraft long with

other components,” he said.

Clevenger said the goal of building solar

technology for peak performance remains

the same regardless of orbit, but the way

they are produced is changing. Last year

SolAero expanded its Albuquerque plant

to vertically integrate panel production

— solar cells, composite substrates, and

integration — in preparation for OneWeb.

The scale and standardization of man-

ufacturing small satellites could spin in

new techniques and technologies that

benefit larger spacecraft, he said.

“As these new production practices

and capabilities come online, the costs

of producing smallsats will decline much

faster than those of larger satellites without

sacrificing quality or relative capability.

In time, some of these innovations will

make their ways back into the production

of larger satellites, but only to a limited

extent due to their sizes, complexities

and uniqueness.”

Clevenger added that the notion that

safety in numbers for smallsat constella-

tions makes them more risk tolerant and

thus easier to build “is a misperception.”

“The stakeholders in every company

or program want to be successful and

program assurance remains a central

part of every undertaking,” he said. SN

Boeing employees extend the solar panels on Intelsat-35e, which launched last July on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

SPACENEWS.COM | 23

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SPACE WAR

SORRY, SCI-FI FANS REAL WARS IN SPACE NOT THE STUFF OF HOLLYWOODHackers and lawyers, rather than soldiers and states-men, are key players in real-life space warfare

SANDRA ERWIN

The Global Strategic Warning and Space Surveillance System Center at Cheyenne

Mountain, Colorado.

The public’s idea of a war in space is

almost entirely a product of Hollywood

fantasy: interstellar empires battling to

conquer the cosmos and spaceships go-

ing head to head in deafening dogfights.

The reality of how nations will fight

in space is much duller. And some of

the key players in these conflicts will be

hackers and lawyers rather than soldiers

and statesmen.

Savvy space warriors like Russia’s mil-

itary already are giving us a taste of the

future. They are jamming GPS navigation

signals, electronically disrupting satellite

communications links and sensors in

space. Not quite Star Wars.

This form of electronic warfare in

space is serious enough, however, that

the U.S. military is moving to defend its

satellites and other space assets. There

is in fact a real conversation under way

about war in space, albeit one of cyber

and electromagnetic attacks, not

24 | SPACENEWS 01.15.18

SYFY

SPACE WAR

spacecraft shooting at each other.

“There are legal and practical limits

on armed conflict in space,” said Brian

Weeden, director of program planning

at the Secure World Foundation in

Washington.

“Most people experience space through

Hollywood movies, TV shows and sci-

ence-fiction books,” he said during an

online discussion last month hosted by

the American Bar Association. In almost

all cases, the depictions of warfare and

combat in space are fictional. “They take

extreme liberties and show outright ig-

norance of the laws of physics, orbital

mechanics, conservation of energy and

other things in order to make stories

more dramatic and exciting.”

Weeden mentioned SyFy’s “The Ex-

panse” as a rare example of a TV show

that depicts space warfare pretty close

to the way it would happen, but he in-

sisted that the gap between fiction and

reality with regard to space war is stark.

Space, indeed, has turned into an im-

portant battlefront, and for good reasons.

It is critical to nearly all aspects of national

security and military power, including

intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance,

communications, precision timing and

navigation, attack warning, and target-

ing of potential threats. The issue for

the United States is to figure out how to

thwart attacks within the boundaries of

current treaties and legal frameworks,

Weeden said. “Counterspace is now part

of conventional warfare because space

itself is part of conventional warfare.”

Non-kinetic attacks like jamming and

interference are occurring more often.

They are cheaper and easier to pull off

than full-on kinetic destruction of sat-

ellites that would require a high-power

laser or a ballistic missile.

As the Pentagon maps out strategies

and tactics to defend its satellites, military

lawyers are actively investigating how

international law applies to outer space.

“Any operation in outer space must

comply with the same law that is appli-

cable to other domains, like sea, air and

ground warfare,” said Michael Hoversten,

chief of space, cyber, international, and

operations law at Air Force Space Com-

mand headquarters at Peterson Air Force

Base, Colorado.

As with other uses of military force,

actions in space are restricted by interna-

tional rules. If U.S. satellites were attacked,

there is no ambiguity, he said. “The right

to use force in self defense applies.”

International law concernsThe preeminent statute of international

space law is the 1967 Outer Space Treaty,

but some of the language is becoming

harder to interpret in today’s environ-

ment, Hoversten said. “The treaty states

that the moon and other celestial bodies

must be used exclusively for peaceful

purposes” but it does not specifically say

that outer space is exclusively a haven for

peaceful purposes. The phrase “peaceful

purposes” has been interpreted as “no

military use” and also as “nonaggressive

military use consistent with international

law and the UN charter.”

The reality is that many countries

use space for military purposes, he said.

SyFy’s “The Expanse,” a science-fiction television series set in a future where humanity has finally col-onized the solar system, is a favorite of space analysts for its realistic depiction of space warfare and interplanetary poltics.

SPACENEWS.COM | 25

And most are reluctant to sign on to new

treaties that might restrict their ability

to exploit space in national security or

economic activities.

The majority view is that military use

is permissible, provided that it’s non-

aggressive and consistent with inter-

national law and UN charter, Hoversten

said. There is no consensus, however,

about the meaning of “militarization” and

“weaponization” of space, and different

states use these terms differently. Space

has been militarized for decades, but

that is not the same as weaponization.

“There is a common misconception that

weapons of all kinds are illegal in outer

space. That is not the case.” The only

specific prohibition is against so-called

weapons of mass destruction — nuclear,

biological, chemical and radiological.

Electronic arms like lasers or jammers,

or even conventional kinetic weapons

can lawfully be placed in orbit, he said.

Some countries, notably China and

Russia, for the past decade have champi-

oned efforts to prohibit all kinds of space

weapons. The United States has opposed

bans primarily because of difficulties in

defining what a weapon is, Hoversten

explained. Theoretically, any satellite

that is capable of maneuvering can be

used as a weapon. U.S. officials also have

argued that an arms control treaty for

space weapons would be unverifiable.

Also a topic of debate is how the

U.S. military would justify the use of

countermeasures. So far it remains a

fuzzy issue, said Maj. Ross Brown, chief

of space, international and operations

law at 14th Air Force headquarters at

Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

“Below an armed attack, the most ap-

plicable response is a countermeasure,”

he said. But the devil is in the details.

“Countermeasures must be proportional.

Must not be forceful. They must be con-

strained. Must be reversible,” Brown said.

“It’s a ‘mushy’ requirement.”

Another concern is that the response

must be “proportionate to the injury be-

ing suffered,” he said. “That is difficult to

measure.” Disruptions to satellite links

can cause material damage but also

“strategic harm” if the military is cut off

from access to information.

As the Pentagon and others sound

alarms about cyber threats to space, the

reality is that very little is known about

the frequency of attacks or even the

scope of the danger.

“Public data on cyber attacks on any

satellites, military or commercial, is

extremely scarce,” said Weeden. “Mil-

itaries, governments, space agencies,

companies are pretty reluctant to talk

publicly about cyber attacks, whether

successful or unsuccessful.”

There have been widely publicized

incidents like the jamming of an HBO

satellite signal in 1986 by a hacker dubbed

“Captain Midnight.” On the government

side, Congress has openly chided NASA

for cyber attacks against its aging com-

mand-and-control infrastructure. But

there are very few details.

“We have satellites and ground con-

trol infrastructure that are, easily, one

to three decades old,” Weeden said. “I

don’t think it’s a stretch to really wonder

just how hardened they may be against

sophisticated cyber attacks. But we don’t

have any good data on that.”

Satellite providers that are under

contract to the Defense Department are

required to report breaches. Otherwise,

commercial companies would not want

vulnerabilities or weakness known that

can hurt their business and might invite

additional attacks.

Commercial communications pro-

viders are now investing billions of

dollars in cybersecurity technologies

as they seek to attract government and

military customers. They are putting up

high-throughput satellites with smaller

beams that are more resilient against

jamming. And they are shielding sat-

ellite uplinks and downlinks with Pen-

tagon-approved encryption.

Hoversten said a number of space

agencies and governments are coming

together to draft a new rulebook on military

uses of outer space. “A comprehensive

manual is a few years down the road.” SN

“Public data on cyber attacks on any satellites, military or commercial, is extremely scarce. Militaries, governments, space agencies, companies are pretty reluctant to talk publicly about cyber attacks, whether successful or unsuccessful.”

Brian Weeden

26 | SPACENEWS 01.15.18

MO

ON

EXP

RESS

The creation of the $30 million

Google Lunar X Prize competi-

tion in 2007 was a masterstroke

to incentivize bold new dreams

of commercial space ventures beyond

Earth orbit. The competition was built

on the legacy of the $10 million Ansari

X Prize that was announced in 1996 and

won in 2004 with the successful subor-

bital flights of SpaceShipOne.

The winning of the Ansari X Prize was

one of the biggest stories of the decade,

shattering broadcast and online media

records and demonstrating that incen-

tive prizes work in our modern world.

But what would X Prize do next? How do

you top the world’s first private spaceship

redefining the possible in accomplish-

ing something only superpowers had

done before?

Well, you can top it with a bigger

and bolder challenge, something at the

raggedy edge of the possible. In Silicon

Valley such things are called “moon-

shots.” And what better moonshot than a

literal moonshot? X Prize pitched a lunar

competition concept to Google in early

2007, and the $30 million Google Lunar

X Prize was born and announced Sept.

13, 2007, challenging private teams to

reach for the moon.

It’s difficult to put a deadline on a

future that has such massive and un-

precedented dependencies, particularly

when it’s calling on a privately funded

group to do something that only three

super-powers have accomplished to date.

When the competition was announced,

it was envisioned that the prize could be

won by 2012.

Well, perhaps not too surprisingly, it’s

taking a little longer. Here we are in 2018

with X Prize and its prize sponsor Google

still hanging in there after more than 10

years. I think they should be applauded

for that. The winning of the Google Lunar

X Prize would, of course, be triumphant

to X Prize, Google and any competitor

who wins it. The $20 million grand prize

remains to this day the largest incentive

prize in history, but the competition has

in many ways already achieved a sig-

nificant amount of its original purpose.

A number of aspirational and serious

efforts to reach the moon have been

inspired by the competition; youth have

been motivated to enter science and

technical careers; some efforts are still

in existence outside of the competition;

and some are still contenders. Like all

incentive prizes, the value is not just in

the winning of them, but in the reaching

for them. From the prize sponsor’s per-

spective, achievements in inspiration,

education, diversity, public and market

awareness, and out-of-the-box thinking

are all of significant value. But there have

been tangible and credible advances as

well by some of the contenders among

the colorful assortment of, at one time,

over 30 competing teams.

The Google Lunar X Prize competition

has inspirational roots and legacies dating

back to Blastoff! and other heroic efforts

COMMENTARY Bob Richards

Applauding the Google Lunar X Prize They don’t call it a ‘moonshot’ for nothing

Artist’s concept of the MX-1 robotic explorer Moon Express intends to send land on the lunar surface.

SPACENEWS.COM | 27

at commercial lunar business ventures.

In turn, the competition has inspired a

number of aspects of today’s emerging

commercial lunar industry, which is

finding its way and gaining momentum

(but we’re not there yet). Regardless of the

ultimate outcome of the competition, a

huge bow of appreciation should go to

X Prize, Google and everyone who has

taken enormous personal and financial

risks on this incredibly hard challenge of

expanding commercial space activities

beyond Earth orbit.

Understandably, I get asked about the

Google Lunar X Prize by people follow-

ing Moon Express through the lens of

the competition. The competition has

certainly been an important element in

the landscape of the re-emerging global

focus on the moon, and personally I’ve

been involved in the competition since

it’s onset through two team registrations

and three team acquisitions. With Moon

Express, we have always been supportive

of the competition and have continued

to include plans for one or more prize at-

tempts in our maiden mission operations.

I was proud to be at the Google Lunar

X Prize’s 2007 launch event, joining in the

enthusiasm and optimism of the unveil-

ing of this incredible new challenge. At

that time it was the first and only prize

competition announced by X Prize be-

yond the Ansari X Prize. I was also there

when that original “X Prize ” was boldly

launched on May 18, 1996, beneath the

St. Louis Gateway Arch; and I was there

when it was won and made history on

Oct. 4, 2004. I’ll never forget the thrill of

that day, captured brilliantly in Julian

Guthrie’s “How to Make a Spaceship.”

The profoundly transformational experi-

ence of the Ansari X Prize influenced my

motivation in 2007 to become the first

registrant in the Google Lunar X Prize

with my first commercial lunar venture,

Odyssey Moon and in 2010 to enter Moon

Express into the competition.

In addition to the positive impact the

Google Lunar X Prize has had on the world,

and its important history, for me, and for

Moon Express, the competition has always

been a sweetener in the landscape of the

business case, but it’s never been the

business case itself (because it can’t be).

Our commercial lunar business model is

based on lowering the cost of access to

the moon and other solar system desti-

nations, elevated by but not dependent

on governments, and fundable within

the reach of private investment capital.

It seems to take about 10 years for really

important commercial space developments

to mature and take hold. The creation of

the Google Lunar X Prize in 2007 was a

bold move that helped rekindle public

interest in the moon and bolster aware-

ness at NASA and other space agencies

of an emerging commercial interest and

potential of private investments into lunar

exploration and development.

As it stands today, a little over 10 years

since the launch of the Google Lunar

X Prize, the landscape for commercial

lunar activity and opportunity couldn’t

be more positive. There is a global rise

in lunar mission planning among space

agencies; the U.S. has declared a return

to the moon as a cornerstone of new

space policy; and entrepreneurial efforts

for commercial space activity focused

on the moon and other cis-lunar and

deep space destinations are everywhere.

At Moon Express, we continue to focus

on our core business plans of collapsing

the cost of access to the moon and our

long-term vision of unlocking lunar re-

sources for the benefit of life on Earth and

our future in space. The recent change

in U.S. space policy focused on a return

to the moon is a thrilling development,

and we look forward to our continued

partnership with NASA developing com-

mercial lunar landing systems that will

support a new paradigm of public-private

commercial lunar activity.

Moon Express continues to work to-

ward our maiden lunar expedition as we

cheer on Rocket Lab and other launch

providers who will become our rides to

orbit. Our maiden lunar expedition is

just the beginning of a continuing series

of expeditions using our MX family of

flexible, scalable robotic explorers. We

are very appreciative of the results we

achieved with the U.S. government in

2016 gaining our mission approval for the

first private venture beyond Earth orbit

and to the moon; and are very excited

about the rising national and global tide

back toward the moon.

Throughout all of this, the Google Lu-

nar X Prize has been a clear and present

opportunity that has inspired and in-

centivized new investments, customer

commitments, entrepreneurial efforts

and public engagement around the world

toward a new era of lunar exploration and

discovery. And the story is not over yet.

I applaud X Prize and Google for issuing

a bold challenge with a big prize attached

and sticking with it all these years. The

existence of the prize has been and will

continue to be an important part of the

history of humanity’s permanent return

to the moon. If X Prize continues to offer

lunar incentive prizes, we’ll continue to

pursue them.

The Google Lunar X Prize has in many

ways become a legacy itself, while con-

tinuing to motivate and inspire. And the

final chapters of the legacy are yet to be

written. SN

BOB RICHARDS IS A FOUNDER OF THE

INTERNATIONAL SPACE UNIVERSITY,

SINGULARITY UNIVERSITY, SEDS, SPACE

GENERATION & MOON EXPRESS, WHERE HE

HAS SERVED AS CEO SINCE FOUNDING THE

COMPANY IN 2010 WITH NAVEEN JAIN AND

BARNEY PELL.

SES

Last year, in the space of a few months,

four geostationary satellites failed in

orbit. Each had reached, or exceeded,

its design life. Each incident created,

or posed a high risk of creating, debris that

could endanger other satellites; debris that

could linger for thousands of years.

This alarming string of failures didn’t stop

the U.S. Federal Communications Commission

— at the end of November — from authorizing

SES to move its AMC-1 satellite and operate it

until 2021, 10 years beyond its design life. No

one objected, but someone should have, given

last summer’s incidents:

• June: SES lost control of AMC-9 (14 years old),

which began drifting from its 83-degrees-west

orbital slot. Reports suggest at least two pieces

broke off of AMC-9. The satellite’s builder de-

nies it and SES claims the debris pose little risk

of collision with other satellites.

• July: Twelve transponders suddenly failed

on SES’s NSS-806 satellite (19 years old).

• July: PT Telkom’s Telkom-1 (18 years old)

mysteriously exploded, releasing thousands

of pieces of debris at the 85.5-degrees-east

orbital slot. The incident was caught on

ground-based video.

• July/August: The FCC authorized moving

EchoStar-3 (20 years old) to a new geostation-

ary position. On Aug. 2, EchoStar lost contact

with the satellite, which began drifting across

the geostationary arc — posing a collision risk

to the satellites whose path it crossed. After a

month, EchoStar regained contact, moving

EchoStar-3 into a safe graveyard orbit.

That’s one outright disaster, two major mal-

functions, and one harrowing near-miss.

All four satellites were at or beyond their 15-

year design lives. Lockheed Martin built three

of them. Two (EchoStar 3 and Telkom-1) used

the venerable A2100 satellite bus, which has

flown over 75 times since being introduced

in 1996. Maybe that’s a coincidence, or maybe

the issue really is about age.

The very first A2100 satellite is still operat-

ing. Launched in 1996, AMC-1 is already over

21 years old — ancient for a satellite. Yet just

at the end of November, the FCC authorized

SES to move AMC-1 to a new orbit (from 130.9

to 129.15 degrees west), extending its license

Last summer’s string of incidents should have been a wakeup call for the FCC

COMMENTARY James E. Dunstan

28 | SPACENEWS 01.15.18

SES’s AMC-9 satellite began drifting last June accompanied by still-unexplained debris.

SES’s NSS-806 satellite lost 12 of its transponders last summer.

Do we care about orbital debris at all?

until June 30, 2021 — for a total of 25 years,

and 10 years beyond its design life. SES said

it needed to move the satellite so that it could

transition traffic to SES-15, to be launched next

year. AMC-1 carries television programming

(including educational programming) to cable

system headends throughout North America.

AMC-1 isn’t just old. The original A2100

satellites lack a key safety feature the FCC

began requiring in 2004: they cannot vent

onboard fuel. So it’s critical that they’re moved

to a graveyard orbit before operators lose

control; dead satellites with pressurized tanks

can, like Telekom-1, explode if something hits

them, creating dangerous debris fields. SES’s

application to the FCC did not discuss the age

of the satellite, stating only that, according to

SES’s calculations (satellites don’t actually have

onboard fuel gauges), AMC-1 has enough fuel

left to move orbits now and shift into a grave-

yard orbit at end of life in 2021.

This application should have set off alarm

bells at the FCC — indeed, across the satellite

industry. The A2100 may be an engineering

marvel, but the fact that these satellites can

operate beyond their design lives doesn’t mean

it’s worth the risk to do so.

The FCC desperately needs a way to model

and weigh the trade-offs at stake. Yes, it’s ul-

timately consumers who will bear the costs

if satellite operators are forced to retire func-

tioning satellites prematurely. But it’s also

consumers — if not in the near future, then

someday — who will bear the cost of satellites

being damaged or destroyed by debris. In the

worst case scenario, entire geostationary slots

could simply be rendered unusable.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has promised to

integrate better economic analysis across the

commission’s work. Orbital debris would be a

fine place to start, and the sooner the better.

The FCC will be asked to grant additional li-

cense extensions for an aging generation of

satellites. And right now, the agency doesn’t

seem to know how to avoid a tragedy of the

commons, or even recognize that it’s facing

one. SN

JAMES E. DUNSTAN IS A SPACE LAWYER AND

SENIOR ADJUNCT FELLOW AT TECHFREEDOM, A

WASHINGTON-BASED TECHNOLOGY POLICY THINK

TANK.

SPACENEWS.COM | 29

AGI

An AGI visualization of the Echo-Star-3 satellite that its operator moved to a graveyard orbit last year after regaining control of the drifting spacecraft.

ON NATIONAL SECURITY Sandra Erwin

30 | SPACENEWS 01.15.18

established relationships.”

With regard to space, “He’s got tre-

mendous familiarity with the space sys-

tems architecture,” Tierney said. “I think

people are encouraged.”

It will be interesting to see if Roper is

able to bridge what some see as a wid-

ening gap between the defense and the

commercial markets. Air Force Secretary

Heather Wilson told an industry audience

this month that she worries the military

is “too hard to work with” and that arcane

procurement methods scare away many

companies in the space and technology

sectors that otherwise would consider

jumping into the military market.

Government contracting expert Karri

Palmetier, a former United Launch Alli-

ance lawyer who advises small businesses,

pointed to the dichotomy Roper and other

leaders have to contend with. “Reform is

needed to allow innovation because DoD

is hard to work with,” she said. But the

complex Pentagon procurement process

will continue to exist because the military

has unique needs. “The trick will be to find

ways to use, adapt, modify or overhaul

the acquisition system to adjust to each

acquisition as appropriate.”

The Air Force is in a tough position

when it comes to space. As space comes

under threat, there is growing pressure to

modernize but the military is not willing

to take risks with technology. And that

could deter efforts to push commercial

solutions. Some commercial firms are a

bit naïve about the realities of the military

market, analysts caution. The NewSpace

community is offering apps and services

that the military may not be prepared to

buy. The traditional contractors know that

it will take major muscle movements in

the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill to get

dollars obligated and capabilities on orbit.

Is the rhetoric going to be matched

by actions and dollars? “We’re not there

yet,” said Tierney. “But the personnel

changes are positive.” SN

The recent news about the nom-

ination of Pentagon procure-

ment “disruptor” Will Roper to

be assistant secretary of the Air

Force for acquisition has reverberated

across the industry, stirring up specu-

lation about what new ideas he might

bring into air and space modernization

programs.

The initial reaction is that this could

be good news for the burgeoning com-

mercial space industry that is now driving

the innovation agenda. “Roper’s record

suggests he will favor less complex solu-

tions for accomplishing space missions,”

said industry consultant Loren Thompson

of the Lexington Institute.

A looming question is whether Roper’s

embrace of commercial technology as head

of the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities

Office will lead to changes in how the Air

Force buys satellites and launch services.

Industry insiders see Roper’s philosophy

aligning with that of Gen. John Hyten, the

commander of U.S. Strategic Command,

who has chastised the Air Force for fa-

voring large, so-called exquisite satellites

that make “juicy targets” for the enemy.

The obvious alternative is to buy a

larger number of less expensive satellites.

Thompson sees Roper possibly making

bold moves in this area. “It’s hard to build

resilience and flexibility into a space

constellation when each node costs a

billion dollars,” he said. “The question,

though, is whether this can be achieved

without a significant loss of capability.”

A transition to commercial technol-

ogy will require tradeoffs, a concept that

Roper has championed. Does a missile

warning satellite need to have both a

staring and a scanning sensor? Well,

no, but it will function more effectively

if it does. Thompson predicts Roper’s

penchant for “better-faster-cheaper”

solutions will be challenged in areas like

space launch because while non-tradi-

tional providers may be less expensive,

they are also less reliable.

Space industry adviser Mike Tierney

of Jacques & Associates said companies

in the commercial sector are excited

about the Roper nomination and hope

he can break a lot of china. “A lot of the

rhetoric is very positive,” he said. “But

industry will want to see actual change

in acquisition strategies and in procure-

ments.” Executives who have worked

with Roper have been impressed, Tier-

ney said. “When folks in the industry

would want to engage with DoD about

commercial or available technology that

would fill mission need, it was Dr. Roper

that they would go see,” he said. “There’s

CAN WHITE HOUSE NOMINEE, WILL ROPER, HELP

ACCELERATE SPACE MODERNIZATION?

Early excitement (and questions) about new Air Force weapons buyer

SPACENEWS.COM | 31

ON THE HORIZON

15-19 Space Traffic Management Conferencecommons.erau.edu/stm

Daytona Beach, FL

21-24 Pacific Telecommunications Conferenceptc.org Honolulu, HI

FEBRUARY

DATE EVENT PLACE DATE EVENT PLACE

5-7 SmallSat Symposiumsmallsatshow.com

Silicon Valley, CA

21-23 AFA Air Warfare Symposiumafa.org/airwarfare/home Orlando, FL

12-15 Satellite 20182018.satshow.com

Washington, D.C.

28-29 Paris Space Weekparis-space-week.com Paris, France

3-5 Space 2.0infocastinc.com/event/space-2-0/

Silicon Valley, CA

9-12 Earth and Space 2018earthspaceconf.mst.edu Cleveland, OH

16-19 Space Symposiumspacesymposium.org

Colorado Springs, CO

APRIL

JANUARY

15-16 Space Forumwww.spaceforum.com

Luxembourg City

22-24 Space Tech Expo 2018www.spacetechexpo.com Pasadena, CA

24-27International Space Development Conferenceisdc.nss.org/2018/

Los Angeles, CA

28-01 SpaceOps 2018aiaa.org/SpaceOps/

Marseille, France

MAY

MARCH 15-16 Satellite & Space Missions Conferencesatellite.conferenceseries.com Rome, Italy

JUNE

4-9 Small Satellite Conferencesatellite.conferenceseries.com Logan, UT

AUGUST

FOUST FORWARD Jeff Foust

On Jan. 11, Rocket Lab announced it

plans to carry out another launch

attempt for its Electron vehicle in a

nine-day window that opens Jan. 19.

The company had tried in December to launch

the small rocket for the first time, after a partially

successful first launch in May, but was stymied by

poor weather and technical glitches. If successful,

though, Rocket Lab says they’ll be ready to begin

commercial missions immediately thereafter.

That development is just one sign of the growing

wave of small launch vehicles that has been building

over the last few years. Other companies, like Vector

and Virgin Orbit, are planning inaugural launches

of their vehicles later this year, with more vehicles

under development. Will that wave of activity con-

tinue to swell this year, or will it break and crash?

What is remarkable is the amount of activity going

into a market whose demand remains so uncertain.

A few years ago, Carlos Niederstrasser and Warren

Frick of Orbital ATK started keeping track of the

small launchers in service or in development. They

represented the results at the annual Conference

on Small Satellites at Utah State University, and

the interest was so strong they have continued to

update what has become a growing list.

Their list focuses on vehicles capable of placing

no more than 1,000 kilograms into orbit. By that

metric, five vehicles qualify as operational, having

successfully performed at least one launch: their

company’s own Pegasus and Minotaur 1, and the

Chinese Kaitouzhe-2, Kuaizhou-1A and Long

March 11 rockets.

Riding a big wave of small rockets

However, the list now includes 35 vehicles

actively under development, at least based on

publicly available information, compared to just

20 in 2015. “There was a period of time last year

where I was finding a new vehicle almost every

week,” Niederstrasser said during a panel discus-

sion about small launch vehicles at the annual

meeting of the Transportation Research Board in

Washington Jan. 7.

Just over half of those vehicles are American, with

Chinese, British and Spanish projects accounting

for most of the rest. In addition, Niederstrasser said

he maintains a “watch list” of 30 more small launch

vehicle projects about which there isn’t yet enough

information to determine how serious they are.

Clearly, not all of these 65 small launchers will

actually make it to a launch pad, let alone perform

a successful flight. But even if only a small fraction

does so, those rockets enter a smallsat market where

the numbers of satellites are growing, but so are

alternative launch options, like launching from the

International Space Station or as secondary pay-

loads. Many smallsat developers may not be able

to afford the premium cost of a dedicated launch

on one of these rockets.

So why gamble on a small launch vehicle? Nie-

derstrasser attributes the interest at least in part to

“launch fever” created by SpaceX’s success. New

launch ventures don’t want to compete head-to-

head with SpaceX but think there’s a niche in the

smallsat market they can capture, despite the fact

that SpaceX and other established launch service

providers have given up on small launchers of

their own.

Others on the panel believe companies, and

their investors, are going into this with their eyes

wide open to the risks. “I think the venture capital

community is used to having a high attrition rate,”

said Frank Slazer, vice president of space systems for

the Aerospace Industries Association, citing their

experience with internet and biotech companies.

“There will be failures, business as well as technical,

but that’s just part of the process.”

So, this year may be key to the future of the

small launch vehicle industry. As vehicles start

flying — or, at least, attempt to start flying — we will

see if crashing rockets and business plans lead to

a broader industry wipeout. SN

AT LAST COUNT, AT LEAST 35 SMALL LAUNCH

VEHICLES WERE IN DEVELOPMENT. SOME OF THEM

MAY ACTUALLY FLY.

32 | SPACENEWS 01.15.18

INNOVATION AND LEADERSHIP IN AEROSPACE

April 25–29, 2018

Berlin ExpoCenter Airportwww.ila-berlin.com

2017

2018

20 payloads orbited

19 launch contracts, including first contracts for Ariane 6 and Vega C

11 successful launches in a row

58 launches in the order book

Up to 14 launches planned

the astrophysics issue nasa’s next planet hunter · 2018-01-15 · guard in the hunt for...

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