EDITOR’S NOTE:  CDSE updated our mail distribution and the layout of Deep Space Extra beginning on Thursday, April 30.  If you are subscribed but do not receive Thursday’s edition, please check your SPAM or JUNK folders and ensure that CSE@griffincg.com is white listed.  We hope you enjoy our new look!     

 

 

In Today’s Deep Space Extra… The U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO), the audit arm of Congress, issues a worrisome annual report on NASA initiatives. NASA’s Mars helicopter gets a new name, Ingenuity. The Pentagon’s Space Acquisition Council looks to protect aerospace contractors from the financial woes of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Human Space Exploration

GAO warns of worsening costs and schedule delays at NASA
Coalition Member in the News – Maxar
Spacepolicyonline.com (4/29): Major NASA initiatives, those with a life cycle expense of $250 million or more and missions ranging from human space exploration to Earth observation, are experiencing rising costs, up from 27.6 percent last year to 31 percent, according to an annual audit by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) that was released Wednesday. The challenge could increase going forward as new initiatives linked to Artemis, NASA’s efforts to accelerate a human return to the surface of the Moon in 2024, enter the cost threshold, the GAO cautioned.

Competition and coronavirus batter Russia’s space program
Coalition Member in the News – Boeing
Eurasia Daily Monitor (4/29): Repercussions from the coronavirus pandemic and growing global competition threaten the vitality of Roscosmos, Russia’s federal space agency. Earlier this month, Russian president Vladimir Putin convened a video gathering of the nation’s space leaders, calling on them to revive the industry to full capacity. The launch market is a special concern. NASA and SpaceX have set May 27 to resume launches of NASA astronauts to the ISS for the first time since the shuttle fleet was retired in 2011. Russia’s Soyuz rocket filled the astronaut launch gap that NASA’s Commercial Crew Program expects to close with Boeing and SpaceX. 

Space Science

Q&A with the student who named Ingenuity, NASA’s Mars helicopter
NASA (4/29): When NASA’s Perseverance Mars 2020 rover blasts off for Mars during a July 17-August 5 window it will be carrying the Mars helicopter among its experimental payloads. The helicopter has a new name, Ingenuity, proposed by Vaneeza Rupani, an 11th grader at the Tuscaloosa County High School in Northport, Alabama. Ingenuity will demonstrate a type of flight on another planet that could provide airborne reconnaissance for future human explorers.

NASA needs a new ‘giant leap’ to replace its dead, dying, and dated ‘Great Observatories’
Forbes.com (4/29): NASA’s Great Observatories, led by the Hubble Space Telescope, opened a door to the origins and evolution of the universe and mysteries within our own solar system. Two of the four space observatories, Hubble and the Chandra X-ray Observatory remain functional, and it’s time to commit to what comes next, the report concludes.

‘NASA at Home’ is bringing space to you daily with incredible resources for all ages
Space.com (4/29): NASA at Home is a new agency initiative using social media to offer insight into its many missions to participants of all ages with virtual content as they contend with the social distancing demands of the coronavirus pandemic.

Other News

Northrop Grumman “bullish but cautious” about satellite servicing
Coalition Member in the News – Northrop Grumman
SpaceNews.com (4/29): During Wednesday’s first quarter earnings call, Northrop Grumman’s Kathy Warden, chair, president and CEO, offered a cautiously optimistic assessment of a future satellite servicing market. That followed the first successful Intelsat satellite counter by the company’s Mission Extension Vehicle-1 (MEV-1) and Northrop Grumman’s selection by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as a commercial partner in the Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites program.

Space Acquisition Council eyes helping space startups crack CARES Act
Breaking Defense (4/30): The new DoD-wide Space Acquisition Council met in an emergency session yesterday and, Will Roper says, is weighing how it help venture capital-backed space startups get access to small business loans under the $2 trillion CARES Act. “We have a plan to get a plan,” on the startup issue, Will Roper, head of Air Force acquisition, told reporters in a video roundtable today, noting the Air Force has put a lot of time and energy in trying to leverage venture capital interest in commercial space to help bring innovative ideas to the national security space sphere.