December 1 – December 8, 2018 | Colorado Space News

Planetary Defense: The Bennu Experiment

This artist’s concept shows the Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security – Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft contacting the asteroid Bennu with the Touch-And-Go Sample Arm Mechanism or TAGSAM. The mission aims to return a sample of Bennu’s surface coating to Earth for study as well as return detailed information about the asteroid and it’s trajectory. Image Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

December 7, 2018 – On December 3, after traveling billions of kilometers from Earth, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft reached its target, Bennu, and kicked off a nearly two-year, up-close investigation of the asteroid. It will inspect nearly every square inch of this ancient clump of rubble left over from the formation of our solar system. Ultimately, the spacecraft will pick up a sample of pebbles and dust from Bennu’s surface and deliver it to Earth in 2023. Read More

Student-Built Rocket Tops 14,000 Feet And Sound Barrier

Image Credit: University of Colorado Boulder

December 7, 2018 – The University of Colorado Boulder student group the Colorado Boulder Rocketry Association (COBRA) successfully launched its Copperhead rocket to an altitude of 14,583 feet Sunday at 10:50 a.m. MST. Read More

Everette Joseph Is Named NCAR Director

Everette Joseph has been named director of NCAR. Image Credit: University at Albany

December 7, 2018 – Everette Joseph was named director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research today, following a rigorous international search. He joins NCAR from the University at Albany, State University of New York, where he is director of the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center. Joseph will assume his new post on February 4. Read More

Mathematician Inducted Into Space And Missiles Pioneers Hall Of Fame

Dr. Gladys West is inducted into the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame during a ceremony in her honor at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., Dec. 6, 2018. West was among the so-called “Hidden Figures” part of the team who did computing for the U.S. military in the era before electronic systems. The Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame is one of Air Force’s Space Commands Highest Honors. Image Credit: Adrian Cadiz

December 7, 2018 – Lt. Gen. David Thompson, Air Force Space Command vice commander, presented Dr. Gladys West with the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers award for her decades of contributions to the Air Force’s space program. West was unable to attend the formal induction ceremony that took place August 28, where three others joined the elite list of professionals who have greatly impacted the Air Force space program. Read More

United Launch Alliance To Launch NROL-71 In Support Of National Security

December 5, 2018 – A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV Heavy rocket carrying a payload for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) will lift-off from Space Launch Complex-6 on December 7 at 8:19 p.m. PT. Designated NROL-71, the mission is in support of our country’s national defense missions. Read More

2nd SOPS Reaches GPS Milestone With AEP 7.5 Command

Paul Bowman, 2nd Space Operations Squadron Network Administrative Operator, monitors operations during 2nd SOP’s command of Architecture Evolution Plan 7.5 at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado, Nov. 16, 2018. AEP 7.5 is the largest GPS architectural change in operational history, and paves the way for the installation of AEP 8.0, which will deliver the capability to command and control GPS III satellite vehicles. Image Credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman William Tracy

December 5, 2018 – The 2nd Space Operations Squadron took formal command of Architecture Evolution Plan 7.5, the largest GPS architectural change in operational history, after its successful installation at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado, November 16, 2018. Read More

‘Beam’ Your Greeting To New Horizons

Image Credit: JHUAPL/NASA

December 5, 2018 – NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has traveled 13 years to reach the heart of the Kuiper Belt – but you can get there in a matter of hours! In 2005, more than 430,000 people signed up online to place their names on New Horizons for its trek to Pluto and beyond. Now, with the intrepid spacecraft in the “beyond” phase of its voyage and poised to conduct the farthest planetary flyby ever, NASA’s New Horizons mission team is offering the public another chance to send a message to New Horizons on its historic exploration of Ultima Thule — an ancient Kuiper Belt object a billion miles farther than Pluto! Read More

University of Alaska, GeoNorth Information Systems, Lockheed Martin Partner To Collect Arctic Surveillance Data For The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

December 5, 2018 – The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) awarded GeoNorth Information Systems (GNIS) a five-year, $15 million contract for persistent surveillance services of the Arctic region. Lockheed Martin will provide a scalable geospatial processing platform to enable the surveillance project. Read More

Record Setting Course-Correction Puts New Horizons On Track To Kuiper Belt Flyby

This composite image of Ultima Thule was taken just 33 hours before the Dec. 2, 2018, course-correction maneuver that fine-tuned New Horizons’ trajectory for its New Year’s 2019 flyby. At left is the full Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) image (an average of 10 individual 30-second exposures) with a yellow circle centered on the location of Ultima Thule. Unlike the LORRI images taken in August through October 2018, Ultima is now evident among the many background stars even without further processing. Nevertheless, Ultima really stands out after subtracting the background stars; the region within the yellow box has been expanded in the star-subtracted version of the image on the right (many artifacts from the imperfect star subtractions are visible in this difference image). Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

December 4, 2018 – With just 29 days to go before making space exploration history, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft performed a short but record-setting course-correction maneuver on December 2 that refined its path toward Ultima Thule, the Kuiper Belt object it will fly by on January 1. Read More

High-School Students Around The U.S. Take Virtual STEM Field Trip To Lockheed Martin’s Famous Skunk Works

Lockheed Martin Senior Manager, Conceptual Design Brian Hershberger engages with students during today’s “virtual field trip.” Image Credit: Lockheed Martin

December 4, 2018 – High-school students took a virtual field trip today to Lockheed Martin Skunk Works where they learned about five advanced technology developments being pioneered by the Lockheed Martin engineers and scientists, or “skunks,” who work there. The virtual learning experience was designed to introduce students to the exciting work a career in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) can offer. Read More

Ball Aerospace To Build Prototype Data Processing Framework For U.S. Air Force’s FORGE Program

Image Credit: Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.

December 4, 2018 – Ball Aerospace was selected to build an adaptable, open-source framework testbed to support ground processing needs for the U.S. Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC). This prototype works with third-party processing applications and helps visualize the time-critical processing performance in satellite ground systems, ensuring timely and reliable missile warnings, battlespace awareness and technical intelligence. Read More

Blue Canyon Technologies Hardware Guides MarCO CubeSats For Historic Relay From Mars

Blue Canyon Technologies’ (BCT) XACT Attitude Control Systems. Image Credit: Blue Canyon Technologies

December 4, 2018 – While people around planet Earth were eagerly listening to the events unfold with NASA JPL’s InSight Lander on Mars, NASA JPL’s MarCO CubeSats were busy making history themselves by relaying, in real-time, the telemetry from InSight back to Earth. Read More

Record Launch Delivers Two LASP CubeSats To Orbit

Falcon 9 launches 64 payloads to orbit for the Spaceflight SSO-A: SmallSat Express mission. Image Credit: SpaceX

December 3, 2018 – Two miniature satellites designed and built at the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) were part of a record-breaking launch today on Spaceflight’s SSO-A: SmallSat Express mission, the largest single rideshare mission from a U.S.-based launch vehicle to date. In all, 64 satellites were placed in sun-synchronous low Earth orbit via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. Read More

OSIRIS-REx Begins Proximity Operations At Bennu

The mapping of the near-Earth asteroid Bennu is one of the science goals of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, and an integral part of spacecraft operations. The spacecraft will spend more than a year surveying Bennu before collecting a sample that will be returned to Earth for analysis. Image Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

December 3, 2018 – OSIRIS-REx has arrived at asteroid Bennu. On December 3, the spacecraft completed its two-year, multimillion-mile cruise phase to come within 12 miles (20 km) of Bennu. The arrival marks the start of proximity operations, the up-close science phase of the mission. Read More

CU Boulder Scientists To Help Measure The Mass Of Asteroid Bennu

December 3, 2018 – This morning, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft closed in on asteroid Bennu and began proximity operations. OSIRIS-REx will spend the next year and a half scanning and mapping the asteroid in preparation for a pristine sample collection to be returned to Earth in 2023. Read More

Blue Canyon Technologies Awarded Phase 1 Contract Of DARPA’s Blackjack Program

December 2, 2018 – Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) has been awarded a $1.54 million contract for Phase 1 – Architecture and Design of a spacecraft for the highly sought-after Blackjack Program, a military space capabilities demonstration developed by The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). BCT will design an ESPA-class micro-satellite using their state-of-the-art commoditized FleXbus spacecraft architecture. The spacecraft will feature BCT’s flight-proven integrated avionics and precise attitude control. BCT’s focus will be on the development of the systems requirements and preliminary designs, culminating in the Preliminary Design Review (PDR). Read More