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           By Henry Stewart As noted by Israeli Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the one obvious takeaway from yesterday's two major pieces of space news was, " if at first you don't succeed, try try again ." Netanyahu made the comment in a control room near Tel Aviv, after watching the attempted landing of the Beresheet (Hebrew for " in the beginning ") lunar lander. The attempt was a joint project between SpaceIL , a privately funded Israeli non-profit organization, and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Israel's government owned primary aerospace and aviation manufacturer. As outlined in the April 11th, 2019 BBC News post, " Israel's Beresheet spacecraft crashes on Moon ," the first privately funded mission to the Moon has crashed on the lunar surface after the apparent failure of its main engine during decent. As noted in the article, so far only government space agencies from the former Soviet Union, the US and China have made successful ...

           By  Brian Orlotti On April 5th, Los Angeles CA based Relativity Space , a manufacturer of 3D-printed rockets, announced that it has signed its first commercial contract with Telesat , the Ottawa-based commsat operator and pillar of Canada’s space sector. The agreement is a major coup for the young American NewSpace firm and a sad reminder of Canada’s willingness to support foreign space industries at the expense of its own plentiful and skilled homegrown talent. As outlined in the April 5th, 2019 Space News post, " Relativity signs contract with Telesat for launching LEO constellation ," the contract covers the launch of an unspecified number of Telesat LEO satellites on Relativity launch vehicles, starting no earlier than 2021. The companies declined to disclose the terms of the contract. Relativity Space was founded in 2015 by former Blue Origin and SpaceX engineers Tim Ellis and Jordan Noone. Ellis and Noone both felt that their employers...

           By  Chuck Black Seattle WA based Amazon.com has joined the list of companies planning to build large constellations of hundreds or thousands of low Earth orbiting satellites able to provide broadband internet connectivity to rural areas not currently being served. As outlined in the April 4th, 2019 Geekwire post, " Amazon to offer broadband access from orbit with 3,236-satellite ‘Project Kuiper’ constellation ," Amazon hasn’t disclosed who would build the satellites or when they would be launched and hasn’t yet filed with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for US market access for the system. But it has provided a name for the new constellation. As outlined in the Geekwire post: The effort, code-named Project Kuiper, follows up on last September’s mysterious reports that Amazon was planning a “big, audacious space project” involving satellites and space-based systems. The Seattle-based company is likely to spend billions o...

           By  Brian Orlotti Three researchers, two of them Canadian, have won the 2019  Turing Award , generally considered to to be the world's top computer science award, for their work in developing machine learning and neural networks. From left, Yann LeCun, Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio. Photo c/o Facebook, via Associated Press; Aaron Vincent Elkaim for The New York Times; Chad Buchanan/Getty Image s. Université de Montréal professor Yoshua Bengio, University of Toronto professor emeritus Geoffrey Hinton and  New York University professor Yann LeCun will each share the 2019 award. The three have close ties and are perhaps best known for their work outside of academia. Bengio also acts as and scientific director of Mila , Quebec's artificial intelligence institute  Hinton is a vice-president and engineer fellow at Menlo Park CA based Google , and the chief scientific advisor at the Toronto ON based Vector Institute ...

           By  Chuck Black Almost a month after the March 6th, 2019 formal release of " Exploration, Imagination, Innovation - A New Space Strategy for Canada " by the governing Justin Trudeau Liberals , it's becoming increasingly obvious that the new Canadian space strategy is simply not the comprehensive " whole of government review " of activities, policies and legislation expected. According to the February 23rd, 2015 Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat website on the Whole of Government Framework , since 2005 the Treasury Board has " supported the development of a common, government-wide approach to the collection, management, and reporting of financial and non-financial information on program objectives, performance, and results. " The whole-of-government framework maps " the financial and non-financial contributions of departments, agencies, and Crown corporations receiving appropriations to a set of 16 high-level Government of Canada outc...

           By  Brian Orlotti Cocoa FL based space startup Rocket Crafters Inc., has patented a new method of 3d printing rocket fuel and is seeking new funding to commercialize its technology. Founded in a garage in Cocoa, Florida some 15 miles from Kennedy Space Centre, Rocket Crafters is led by former astronaut Sid Gutierrez, its chairman, and US Air Force veteran Rob Fabian, its president. In 2017, Rocket Crafters was granted a contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to test its patented hybrid rocket engine, which combines a 3D-printed solid plastic fuel with liquid nitrous oxide during ignition. This contrasts with traditional rocket engines that mix a liquid fuel and oxidizer. The fuel, of the same type of plastic used in Lego bricks, is printed as a long horizontal core. The company found that 3D printing the fuel in a linear form reduces imperfections in the plastic, making for a more efficient, predictable burn. L...

           By Henry Stewart NASA's current flagship robotics mission, the $2.46Bln US ($3.29Bln CDN) Mars 2020 rover, is " following the pattern of its predecessors and seeing its cost rise because of technical issues ." As outlined in the March 18th, 2019 Science post, " Cost of Mars 2020 mission may rise by up to 15% ," the mission’s cost will increase by " no more than 15% " according to Lori Glade, NASA’s acting director of planetary science. That's still a sizable sum and will take money away from other NASA missions. Cost growth above the 15% threshold would also trigger requirements for US Congressional notification and mission modifications, according to a plan put in place by NASA in 2016 intended to limit cost overruns. As outlined in the March 19th, 2019 Space News post, " NASA dealing with cost growth on planetary science flagship missions ," there had been " widespread rumors in the planetary science community that Mars ...

           By  Chuck Black Two years ago, as outlined in the April 10th, 2016 post, " Deltion Innovations Receives Gov't Funding to Develop Multi-Tool for Space Mining; Will Anyone Buy It? ," Capreol ON based Deltion Innovations received a $700,000 CDN contract from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to build a Percussive and Rotary Multi-Purpose Tool (PROMPT), a combination drill and rotary multi-use tool designed to facilitate future mining operations on the Moon, the asteroids and on Mars. The first PROMPT on the left with the commercial " MicroCorer " version on the right in the Deltion booth at PDAC 2019. Photo's c/o Chuck Black .  At the time, the real question was whether anyone would ever commercially support the tool by buying one. While that question doesn't yet have a definitive answer, it's worth noting that Deltion, after delivering the original PROMPT in 2017, has just rolled out a smaller, less costly, commercially availab...

           By Henry Stewart Jim Bridenstine. Photo c/o NASA/ Bill Ingalls . It's worth noting that, only a day after questioning whether the US Space Launch System (SLS) will be ready in time to be used for the scheduled 2020 first orbital flight of NASA's Orion spacecraft and its European built service module, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine sent an e-mail to NASA employees and SLS contractors praising the SLS workforce and stating that using alternative commercial carriers for Orion missions " is not optimum or sustainable ." As outlined in the March 14th, 2019 NASA blog post, " A Message to the Workforce on SLS and Orion ," Bridenstine sent this message to NASA employees and contractors: Yesterday, I was asked by Congress about the schedule slip of the Space Launch System and plans to get NASA back on track. I mentioned that we are exploring the possibility of launching Orion and the European Service Module to low-Earth orbit on an existing heavy-l...

           By  Chuck Black The rumor has been whispered in the corridors of space industry experts since almost the beginning of the program. NASA's expensive Space Launch System (SLS), an American shuttle-derived " super heavy-lift " expendable launch vehicle developed originally as part of NASA's long-term deep space exploration plans, would eventually be replaced by the smaller, but far less expensive commercial crewed vehicles currently undergoing their final testing and expected to fly astronauts to space over the next year. And now, that rumor has exploded into public view. During a public hearing of the US Senate Commerce Committee to assess America's future in space held in Washington DC on March 13th, 2019, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said the agency would decide in the coming weeks about whether to take the first orbital flight of NASA's Orion spacecraft and its European built Orion service module on a pair of commercial launc...

           By  Brian Orlotti A team from Cannes France based Thales Alenia Space (TAS), Bedford UK based Cranfield University and Glascow UK based Glenalmond Technologies has successfully 3d printed a full-scale prototype of a titanium tank to be used in future crewed space exploration missions. As outlined in the March 8th, 2019 Manufacturing Technology post, " Titanium pressure vessel for space exploration made using additive manufacturing ," the tank is made of a titanium alloy deposited using an additive process called Wire + Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM). The tank is approximately 1m in height and 8.5kg in mass. The WAAM process enabled two individual pieces to be integrated into a single part, eliminating the need for long-lead-time forgings and substantially reducing waste material to be removed by machining. If manufactured traditionally, the tank would have required about 30 times more raw material than its final mass. In WAAM, me...

           By  Chuck Black The Canadian Minerals and Metals Plan , (CMMP) the Federal governments " vision " to assist with the strategic direction of the Canadian mining industry, has been released. As expected, the new plan spends much time discussing the need for the adaption of " new and emerging technologies " from a variety of other industries, including Canada's space industry. NRCan Minister Amarjeet Sohi, at the Canadian Government Booth (#539) on the trade show floor of PDAC 2019 on March 3rd, 2019. Sohi said the new CMMP plan covered the " six key issues " identified during a two-year period of extensive stakeholder engagement. Those issues included competitiveness, the participation of Indigenous Peoples, community benefits, respect for the environment, scientific and technological innovation, and global leadership. The complete CMMP is available online at the Canadian Minerals and Mining Plan website . Photo c/o Chuck Black . As outlined i...

           By  Brian Orlotti European researchers have announced that they have succeeded in carving out graphene to nanoscale dimensions without ruining its electrical properties; a key step towards making practical graphene nano-electronics. As outlined in the February 19th, 2019 NanoWerk post, " Graphene 'sandwich' key to new electronics ," the researchers were operating under the European Union (EU) Graphene Flagship program , a €1 billion EUR ($1.5Bln CDN) initiative launched in 2013 to bring together academic and industrial researchers with a plan to commercialize graphene. Graphene, first discovered in 2004, is a form of carbon made up of hexagonal atoms that is only a single-atom thick. Graphene’s unique structure gives it remarkable properties: it is over 100 times stronger than steel, a better electrical conductor than copper, transparent, flexible, and impermeable to most gasses and liquids. Recent research has even shown the possibility of...

           By  Chuck Black Both the United States, with its " Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015 ," and the Grand Duchy of Luxemboug  are well known for recent legislation allowing their citizens and domestically based corporations to claim ownership over space based resources. Mars (on the left) has more than a little in common with the Australian outback (on the right) according to the December 4th, 2014 ABC News Australia post, " Mars V Australian Outback ." As outlined in the June 10th, 2018 VentureBeat post, " The best countries for tech companies: 2018 rankings ," the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has named Australia, Singapore and Sweden as " the countries most prepared for technological change, and the most attractive places for tech companies to invest in the next five years ." It's a shame that Canada wasn't in the top ten rankings. Photo's c/o NASA and Jane Stapleton . Those laws are designed specifical...