NASA Signs Off On Spacex’s “Load-And-Go” Procedure For Crew Launches

The NASA manager overseeing development of Boeing and SpaceX’s commercial crew ferry ships says the space agency has approved SpaceX’s proposal to strap in astronauts atop Falcon 9 rockets, then fuel the launchers in the final hour of the countdown as the company does for its uncrewed missions.

The “load-and-go” procedure has become standard for SpaceX’s satellite launches, in which an automatic countdown sequencer commands chilled kerosene and cryogenic liquid oxygen to flow into the Falcon 9 rocket in the final minutes before liftoff.

Read more at: Spaceflight Now

Astronauts Zip-Line to Safety in these NASA Emergency Evacuation Test Photos

Astronauts in danger on Boeing’s new space capsule will be able to jump into bright orange seats and whoosh down zip lines to get away from their spacecraft before liftoff. And this summer, the space flyers got the chance to test out the superfast emergency-evacuation system.

In the event of an emergency prior to the liftoff of a Boeing/United Launch Alliance spacecraft with passengers, this special egress system would get them to safety.

The Boeing CST-100 Starliner crew capsule— which can carry up to seven astronauts at a time to the International Space Station and is set to fly its first crewed test mission in early 2019 — will launch atop United Launch Alliance Atlas V rockets for the foreseeable future.

Read more at: Space.com

NASA Tests Flight Recorders Ahead of Orion Abort Test

NASA engineers spent Wednesday dropping six flight data recorders into the Atlantic Ocean from a helicopter 5,000 feet up. They’re testing a system that will help keep deep space astronauts safe. If something goes wrong during a launch of NASA’s Orion space capsule, powerful engines on top of the vehicle will fire, pulling it to safety.

Engineers are planning a critical test of that system next year where they will rely on twelve tiny flight recorders small enough to fit in your hand to provide data to engineers.

Read more at: wmfe

What Happens When an Astronaut Gets Sick in Space?

Astronauts are among the fittest and healthiest people in the world. They’re rigorously trained, vetted, and quarantined before they’re allowed up in space—and yet, despite all those precautions, they do sometimes get sick. Apollo 13‘s Fred Haise, for example, had to deal with a painful kidney infection during the dangerous mission that gave us the phrase “Houston, we have a problem,” and one-time astronaut Jake Garn, a Utah senator, got so motion-sick during a 1985 Discovery mission that astronauts now rate their nausea levels on the Garn Scale. And because space missions are on a strict schedule planned far in advance, sick astronauts on a space mission can’t just pop down to Earth to see a doctor.

But when astronauts fall ill, they don’t have to worry—NASA and other space agencies that have missions aboard the ISS are prepared.

Read more at: Mentalfloss

China to Launch Space Station Tiangong in 2022, Welcomes Foreign Astronauts

China’s space station Tiangong, or Heavenly Palace, is scheduled to launch in 2022. The facility, which is expected to adhere to similar standards as the International Space Station (ISS), will be open to foreign astronauts.

Larger than the 140-ton Russian Mir space station, the Tiangong will consist of a core module and two laboratory cabins, large enough to accommodate three to six astronauts. Both the ISS and the Mir space stations have hosted international astronauts.

“Tiangong will allow China to have a space lab to conduct successive scientific experiments,” Zhang said.

The space station will also be equipped with a synoptic survey telescope, which is supposed to have a resolution as high as the Hubble Space Telescope. Synoptic is used to describe observations that provide a broad view of a subject at a particular time.

Read more at: Sputnik news

Spanish Jet Accidentally Fires Missile Above Estonia: Defence Ministry

Spain’s defence ministry said Tuesday it has opened an investigation after one of its Eurofighter jets accidentally fired a missile in the skies over Estonia during a routine training mission.

“A Spanish Eurofighter based in Lithuania accidentally fired a missile without causing any harm,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that the incident happened Tuesday afternoon “in an area of southwest Estonia authorised for this type of exercise. The air-to-air missile has not hit any aircraft. The defence ministry has opened an investigation to clarify the exact cause of the incident,” it added.

Read more at: Spacewar

President Donald J. Trump is Building the United States Space Force for a 21st Century Military

BUILDING SPACE FORCE: President Donald J. Trump and his Administration are laying the groundwork to build Space Force as the sixth branch of the United States military. On June 18, 2018, President Trump directed the Department of Defense to immediately begin the important process of establishing Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces.

The Department of Defense issued a report, pursuant to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018, describing the following five actions that can be taken immediately to begin building the Space Force:

Read more at: Whitehouse

The Trump Administration Wants Space Force Running By 2020

This morning, Vice President Mike Pence recommended creating three new organizations within the Defense Department that would be devoted to different space military needs. Then, he said President Trump will work with Congress next year to establish the US Department of the Space Force by 2020.

Pence’s recommendations are outlined in a report from Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who Congress directed to come up with ways the Defense Department could reorganize its management of space activities. The US military has long relied on space technologies for various combat operations, such as satellites that do surveillance and reconnaissance or probes that can detect missile launches from space.

Read more at: Verge

5 Unanswered Questions About Space Force

Space Force is getting closer to reality. As early as this week, the Pentagon is expected to announce various steps to reorganize the military’s space-related procurement and operations, culminating in a planned request for congressional action to authorize the creation of a separate service branch for space.

We got a preview of these steps last week, when Defense One reviewed a draft Pentagon report to Congress. That draft report said the Defense Department would, within months, establish three new organizations: U.S. Space Command, a new combatant command staffed by space warfighters from the existing military branches. Space Development Agency, an organization that would oversee the development and purchase of new satellites. Space Operations Force, a new warfighting community that would draw operators from all service branches

Read more at: Defense one

This Meteor ‘Exploded’ Over Greenland, But Nobody Saw it. Here’s Why it Matters

A fireball that streaked across the sky above the Thule Air Base in Greenland on July 25 was notable for not only the 2.1 kilotons of energy it released — the second-most-energetic “explosion” of its kind recorded this year — but also the stir it caused on social media and the frenzied calls it prompted to the U.S. Air Force.

And the blazing rock — which was traveling at about 54,000 mph (87,000 km/h), about 74 times the speed of sound, according to The Aviationist — may have sent meteorites to the ground for passersby (the few people who happened to be this far north of the Arctic Circle) to discover.

Read more at: Space.com

Air Force Silent After 2-Kiloton Meteor Hits Earth Near Base

A meteor hit Earth and exploded with 2.1 kilotons of force in July, but the Air Force has made no mention of the event.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed an object of unspecified size traveling at 15.1 miles per second (54,360 miles per hour) struck the ground in Greenland, just 27 miles north of Thule Air Base, on July 25. The base is mainly used to detect missile launches.

Director of the Nuclear Information Project for the Federation of American Scientists Hans Kristensen tweeted about the impact, but the US Air Force has not reported the event. Kristensen argues it’s concerning that there was no public warning from the government about the incident.

Read more at: NY post

A Bright Meteor Over Greenland Didnot Spark Nuclear War

Last week — on July 25, 2018, just before 10PM UTC — a space rock the size of Mini Cooper and moving at two dozen times the speed of a rifle bullet burned up over Greenland.

It also occurred, as noted by Hans Kristensen (director of the Nuclear Information Project of the Federation of American Scientists), not too far from the Thule Air Force Base, which has a missile early warning radar facility. Happily, the good folks stationed there didn’t confuse the bit of cosmic flotsam for an incoming nuke. I suspect that they knew this pretty quickly, so I doubt we were in any danger of WW III being started. But it does make me think about these things.

Read more at: Syfy

‘No Threat to Wallops’ Closing: NASA Official

Jay Pittman stood up at the conclusion of the quarterly luncheon meeting of the Wallops Island Regional Alliance on Wednesday and quietly spoke these three words to a packed room: “There’s no threat.”

The assistant director for strategy and integration at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt repeated those words several times during the next few minutes.

Rumors spreading the previous Friday had sparked news media inquiries that led NASA to release an official statement about a study designed to explore ways to improve the relationship and increase efficiencies between NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s sister facilities in Greenbelt, Maryland and Wallops Island, Virginia.

Read more at: delmarvanow

Putin Sets Task of Improving Production Quality in Space Industry

Russian President Vladimir Putin sets the task of bringing the rocket and space industry to a new quality level. The President made such a statement on Wednesday at a meeting on development of this sphere.

“Our rocket and space industry must achieve sustainable growth of quality of products and performed work, whose price should be competitive globally,” Putin said. “This is a key condition for the buildup of the commercial potential of the industry, for efficient operations on the global market, where competition and sometimes tough rivalry are growing on a going basis,” the head of state said.

Read more at: TASS

Recipe for a Spacewalk

ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen may be stationed on the ground, but his expertise was vital to the recent spacewalk of two NASA astronauts, Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold. From maintaining constant radio contact on the day, to simulating activities underwater and planning for emergencies months in advance, he shares what it takes to make a spacewalk run smoothly as Europe’s second ever ground support in radio contact for a spacewalk.

Known to the crew as an EVA (extravehicular activity), each spacewalk provides a valuable opportunity to carry out repairs, test new equipment and even perform science experiments beyond the confines of a spacecraft. Exiting the International Space Station however brings heightened risk and activities are planned down to the minute.

Read more at: ESA

Firefly ‘Back In Full Force’ Following Last Year’s Near-Death Experience

Two years ago, Firefly Space Systems appeared to be flying high. The Texas company had more than 150 employees and was making progress on a small launch vehicle called Alpha. The company was one of three that won NASA contracts for smallsat launches, with plans to carry out that launch in early 2018.

Then the bottom fell out of the company. In late September 2016 the company announced it was furloughing its entire staff, citing financial problems when an unnamed investor backed out. The company limped along using loans until last spring, when Noosphere Ventures, a fund that was one of Firefly’s creditors, acquired the company’s assets in an auction. With new ownership, but some of the same management, the new Firefly Aerospace quietly started operations.

Read more at: Spacenews

News Website Sues For Spaceport Records

NMPolitics.net has filed a lawsuit against Spaceport America seeking the release of financial documents and other records the N.M. Spaceport Authority is refusing to make public.

Haussamen Publications, Inc., which publishes NMPolitics.net, filed the lawsuit Friday in the Third Judicial District Court in Las Cruces, editor and published Heath Haussamen said. The move comes about a week after the state attorney general’s office determined that the Spaceport Authority violated the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) several times in its responses to NMPolitics.net’s efforts to investigate Spaceport America in 2017.

Read more at: lcsun

The Microlaunch Space Race has Begun

In the vastness of space, unfathomable size is generally the norm. But when Jordi Puig-Suari, an aerospace engineering professor, began looking at the stars, he started thinking small. Together with Bob Twiggs, a professor at Stanford University, they developed the CubeSat, a tissue box-sized satellite that has intensified interest in space and revolutionized satellite communication.

When Puig-Suari worked at California Polytechnic State University in 1999, he was unimpressed with the typical size of satellites — “kind of overkill,” as he puts it. Satellites of the day could often be larger than a grand piano, and weighed thousands of pounds.

Read more at: Discover magazine

Entering the Dawn of Commercial Human Spaceflight

NASA has announced the crews of the first commercial human spaceflights that will launch from American soil, scheduled for some time next year.

The launches and crew include: The Boeing Starliner test flight: Eric Boe, Christopher Ferguson, and Nicole Aunapu Mann The SpaceX Crew Dragon test flight: Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley First Starliner commercial flight: John Cassada and Sunita Williams First Crew Dragon commercial flight: Victor Glover and Michael Hopkins These astronauts will help America recapture the ability to fly humans into space. They are ethnically diverse, including two women. They were a mix of space shuttle veterans and space flight rookies. They represent a true shift toward commercialization.

Read more at: Hill

Britain Competes for the Launch of an Estimated 2,000 Satellites by 2030

New figures published today by the UK Space Agency reveal that the UK could compete in a high value market to launch an estimated 2,000 satellites by 2030 On his first visit to the site of a new spaceport at Sutherland, Business Secretary Greg Clark said that the spaceport could be worth 400 jobs to local Scottish economy In July £31.5m of funding was announced to support the Sutherland spaceport. This is a key part of the Industrial Strategy to ensure the UK thrives in the commercial space age. Commercial vertical and horizontal launch demand is worth a potential £3.8 billion to the UK economy over the next decade and will support further growth of Britain’s space sector.

Read more at: Gov.uk

Got Ideas for an Aging Space Station? NASA Wants to Hear Them

For 18 years, the International Space Station, the orbiting zenith of global scientific cooperation, has hosted a continuous human presence and thousands of science experiments in its microgravity environment. But the $100 billion laboratory won’t last forever and President Donald Trump’s proposal to withdraw federal funding in 2025 has jolted a discussion about its future.

The idea of ending the U.S. taxpayer’s role—the station costs more than $3 billion annually in a partnership with Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan—has stirred congressional opposition. It also raises a perplexing question: Who might run the place if the U.S. government doesn’t?

Read more at: Bloomberg

Mark Zuckerberg Ready to Take on Elon Musk in Web Space Race

Mark Zuckerberg is again going head to head against his fellow technology tycoon and rival Elon Musk in a new space race to bring the internet to the most far-flung corners of the world.

Documents have revealed Facebook plans to launch an internet satellite into low-Earth orbit by early next year. The project, named Athena, is designed to “efficiently provide broadband access to unserved and underserved areas throughout the world”. It is tipped to stream data 10 times faster than Musk’s push to develop an alternative system. In a statement to Wired magazine, Facebook confirmed the project’s existence.

Read more at: NZ Herald

Bright Object Observed Over West Siberia Could be Part of Space Debris, Says Scientist

A bright object observed by urban dwellers in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region-Yugra in West Siberia in the evening of August 4 could have been part of space debris, Associate Professor of the Urals Federal University Mikhail Larionov told TASS on Wednesday.

Social network users in towns of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region-Yugra posted several videos in the evening of August 4 showing several illuminating objects, after which they presumed this could be a meteorite. The regional branch of Russia’s Emergencies Ministry later told TASS it had not received any information from local residents that the fall of the objects had triggered any consequences.

Read more at: TASS

Laser “License Plate” Could Improve Identification of Cubesats

A technology using a tiny laser tracker could help resolve one of the major challenges involved with the launching of cubesats: identifying individual satellites after their deployment.

The concept, presented at the AIAA/Utah State University Conference on Small Satellites here Aug. 9, involves the use of a small, low-power laser on the exterior of a cubesat, transmitting a unique identification code that can be observed by small telescopes on the ground.

The concept was prompted in part by the difficulties satellite operators have identifying their cubesats when they’re deployed in large groups, such an Indian PSLV launch in February 2017 that relased 104 small satellites, primarily cubesats.

Read more at: Spacenews

“No Encryption, No Fly” Rule Proposed for Smallsats

Small satellites that have propulsion systems, but don’t have encrypted commanding systems, pose a small but real threat of being hacked and endangering other satellites, according to a new study.

That research by a team of graduate students, presented at the AIAA/Utah State University Conference on Small Satellites here Aug. 9, recommended the space industry take steps to prevent the launch of such satellites to avoid an incident that could lead to a “regulatory overreaction” by government agencies.

“We would propose as a policy that, for those cubesats and smallsats that have propulsion, that the industry adopt a ‘no encryption, no fly’ rule,” said Andrew Kurzrok of Yale University.

Read more at: Spacenews

Vega’s Long-awaited (Small) Successes

Although the mostly Italian Vega rocket was added to the Arianespace family in 2012, it’s only recently achieved tangible success in wooing the smallest spacecraft operators.

The reasons are twofold. First, Vega is about to get an adapter that can fit cubesats and microsats up to 400 kilograms inside the rocket’s payload fairing. The second is lower prices. This year, Arianespace signed four customers for the first flight the new adapter, the Small Spacecraft Mission System, or SMSS.

The customers — U.S. smallsat launch aggregator Spaceflight Inc., Dutch satellite builder Innovative Solutions in Space, Italian satellite builder Sitael and Italian startup D-Orbit — are due to launch on SSMS’s maiden flight in the first half of 2019.

Read more at: Spacenews

The Evolution of the Big Falcon Rocket

On September 29th, 2017, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveiled detailed plans of the Big Falcon Rocket at the 68th International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia.  It was a follow-up speech to the prior year’s presentation when he first discussed the architecture of what was then called the Interplanetary Transport System.  In his highly anticipated speech, Musk laid out the detailed plans for a two stage rocket to enable the colonization of Mars, a moon base, and hypersonic long-distance travel on Earth.

The design featured an enormous Booster that would be powered by 31 Raptor engines, planned to be the world’s most advanced and highest pressure chemical rocket engine. Following stage separation, the booster would return to Earth and land near or on the launch pad.

Read more at: NASA Spaceflight

NASA Doesn’t Have the Funds to Get to Mars Alone, Ted Cruz Says

On Friday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) spent the morning at Houston’s Johnson Space Center for a ceremony announcing the nine astronauts who will fly aboard NASA’s first commercial crew missions. During the visit, Cruz burnished his space credentials, noting that nearly full funding for the commercial crew program by Congress coincided with his selection as chairman of the Senate committee that oversees NASA in 2015.

Recently, Sen. Cruz said that—while he does not oppose the Trump administration’s plan to use the Moon as a proving ground for human exploration in deep space—NASA’s goal must remain Mars, with human landings in the 2030s.

Read more at: Arstechnica

Regulations to Focus on Space Economy

The UAE Space Agency is keen on developing appropriate laws and regulations to attract private sector investors in the country’s space industry.

The chief of the UAE Space Agency, Dr Mohamed Nasser Al Ahbabi, said they have recently completed a Space Investment Strategy, which aims to encourage local companies to invest in space. He said that investors often consider space as “high risk” and want the proper laws and regulations that will protect them legally.

“We are working on space regulations as well. You have to think about the space economy. Investors want to make sure if they invest, they have the right environment. So we need space regulations and laws to protect the local operator and to encourage foreign investors,” Dr Al Ahbabi said.

Read more at: Khaleej times

New Pentagon Report Names Russia, China as Threats to US Space Capabilities

A new space report by the Pentagon has named Russia and China as key threats to US space capabilities, according to a document released on Thursday.

“The United States faces rapidly growing threats to our space capabilities. China and Russia, our strategic competitors, are explicitly pursuing space warfighting capabilities to neutralize US space capabilities during a time of conflict,” the report said. “Other potential adversaries are also pursuing counter-space capabilities such as jamming, dazzling, and cyber-attacks.”

The report specified that the US Space Command’s capability development efforts would focus on global surveillance for missile targeting and other priorities.

Read more at: Spacedaily

Russia Looks to Hurt U.S. in Space After New Sanctions

Russia’s retaliation to new U.S. sanctions is likely going to place American access to space at risk.

To get heavy payloads into orbit, American rockets like the Atlas V use Russia’s powerful RD-180 engine—an engine that previous rounds of U.S. sanctions have studiously exempted.

But now, following the Trump administration’s decision to retaliate for the Kremlin poisoning a former spy and his daughter, Russian officials are threatening to block sales of the RD-180 to the Americans.

Russian lawmaker Sergei Ryabukhin, who heads the budget committee in the upper house of the Russian parliament, responded to the new sanctions by vowing: “The United States needs to finally understand that it’s useless to fight with Russia, including with the help of sanctions.”

Read more at: daily beast

Industry Perspective: Public-Private Partnerships Critical to Protect Space

We live in an era in which space is an increasingly challenged and even hostile environment. Today’s adversaries are able to jam satellites for reversible effects and even permanently damage space assets with kinetic attacks from ground-launched missiles, building urgency for optimal resilience in space.

In April during the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado, I joined Defense Department, intelligence community, State Department and Canadian Armed Forces leaders to examine the potential for adversaries to transform space into a battleground.

The panel discussion, titled “Warfare that Extends into Space: National Security, International, Civil and Commercial Partnerships,” focused more on tangible, achievable solutions rather than doomsday scenarios, with participants expanding upon the immediate need for partnerships that would coalesce the efforts of the U.S. government, its allies and commercial industry to foster a more protected space environment and encourage responsible behaviors in space.

Read more at: National Defense Magazine

OPINION: ‘There Won’t be Many Prizes for Second Place’

Humankind’s fascination with space is timeless-but our exploration of space is only just beginning. Our ability to explore and inhabit the heavens will soon catch up with the wistful dreaming of our ancestors. Before long, reality will eclipse fantasy as we go, build, develop, and explore the far reaches of our galaxy, beyond the wildest dreams of those who came before us. Rapid technological progress is making access to space cheaper, more powerful, and more reliable. We see titans of industry staking personal fortunes to explore and develop space. And we see the military taking an ever-more active role in defending space from those who would deny its advantages. But these moves are just the beginning. As the human quest for adventure leads inevitably deeper into space, we would be wise to act with urgency across the spectrum of society to ensure that humanity’s approach to developing space is in keeping with our values. Our destiny as Americans is in space. But we must act quickly if we want to shape that destiny for the good, before others shape it for us.

Read more at: Politico

Stop Wasting Time So we can Beat China: DoD R&D Boss, Griffin

How much of a military-industrial rock star is Mike Griffin? Well, the former NASA director turned Pentagon R&D chief can call tell a room full of defense contractors and officials they’re wasting everyone’s money and time AND get a standing ovation.

“It is a good thing that we are a rich country, because poorer countries just could not afford to waste this kind of money,” the undersecretary of Defense for research and engineering said here last night. “For the two-and-a-half years I have remaining as a political appointee in this job, I will be asking you, at every chance I get, to look at what we’re doing and find ways to either eliminate it or shortcut it, because most of what you’re doing, by definition, is not value added.

Read more at: Breaking Defense

Space-Based Missile Defense can be Done: DoD R&D Chief Griffin

Some 35 years after Ronald Reagan’s famous Star Wars speech, the Pentagon’s R&D chief said that space-based missile defenses are technically feasible and reasonably affordable. Since Reagan’s day, technology has advanced enough that putting both sensors and shooters in space is not only possible but “relatively easy,” Undersecretary for Research & Engineering Mike Griffin said. What’s more, past estimates of the cost of space-based interceptors have been “unrealistically,” even “naively” high.

Read more at: Breaking Defense

Hyten: U.S. Needs Plan to Modernize Space Launch Infrastructure

The U.S. government continues to pour money into aging launch ranges and delaying much needed modernization, Air Force Gen. John Hyten told an industry conference on Tuesday.

As commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Hyten is not responsible for launch ranges but he does have strong feelings on the matter, he said at the Space & Missile Defense Symposium. His comments came in response to a question from the audience about the rise of commercial space launch and the crunch faced by government agencies when they try to book ranges for test programs.

Read more at: Spacenews

Is SpaceX the Model for a Private Tesla?

Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has held up his closely held space transportation company SpaceX as a model for taking his loss-making electric car company private, saying he wants existing Tesla investors to continue to hold stock.

Below are several questions and answers on SpaceX, its shareholders, valuation and customers.

Read more at: Reuters

NASA Announces New Deputy Director of Johnson Space Center

NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) Director Mark Geyer announced Wednesday the selection of Vanessa Wyche as the next deputy director of JSC in Houston.

Wyche will assist Geyer in leading one of NASA’s largest installations, which has nearly 10,000 civil service and contractor employees – including those at White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico – and a broad range of human spaceflight activities.

“Vanessa has a deep background at JSC with significant program experience in almost all of the human spaceflight programs that have been hosted here,” Geyer said. “She is respected at NASA, has built agency-wide relationships throughout her nearly three-decade career and will serve JSC well as we continue to lead human space exploration in Houston.”

Read more at: prnewswire

“Safe Passage to Mars” Design Challenge

“Safe Passage to Mars” is a design challenge for undergraduate students. Enabling safe space exploration of Moon, Mars and beyond requires the application of the concepts of Engineering Psychology to design and build hardware (tools, devices, or equipment) which can mitigate critical human performance issues associated with long-duration spaceflight.

Read more at: ISSF

10th IAASS Conference

15 – 17 May 2019 – Los Angeles, USA

The tenth IAASS Conference “Making Safety Happen” is an invitation to reflect and exchange information on a number of topics in space safety and sustainability of national and international interest. The conference is also a forum to promote mutual understanding, trust, and the widest possible international cooperation in such matters. The once exclusive “club” of nations with autonomous space access capabilities is becoming crowded with fresh, and ambitious new entrants. New commercial spaceports and near-spaceports are in operations and others are being built.

Read more at: IAASS Conference

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