The Space Show this week – Mar.18.2019

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The guests and topics of discussion on The Space Show this week:

1. Monday, March 18, 2019; 2-3:30 pm PDT (4-5:30 pm CDT, 5-6:30 pm EDT): No show for today. Monday is for special and timely programs only.

2. Tuesday, March 19, 2019; 7-8:30 pm PDT (9-10:30 pm CDT, 10-11:30 pm EDT): We welcome back Ed Wright who will talk some about the Space Access Conference but also tell us about the upcoming 50th special event for The Space Studies Institute.

3. Wednesday, March 20 2019; Hotel Mars. See Upcoming Show Menu and the website newsletter for details. Hotel Mars is pre-recorded by John Batchelor. It is archived on The Space Show site after John posts it on his website.

4. Thursday, March 21, 2019; 7-8:30 pm PDT (9-10:30 pm CDT, 10-11:30 pm EDT): We welcome back Henry Vanderbilt and Michael Wallis for Space Access Society event news and information including the upcoming Space Access 2019 Conference. Don’t miss it.

5. Friday, March 22, 2019; 9:30-11 am PDT (11:30 am -1 pm CDT, 12:30-2 pm EDT): There is no show this Friday as we moved the program to Thursday evening.

6. Sunday, March 24, 2019; 12-1:30 pm PDT (3-4:30 pm EDT, 2-3:30 pm CDT): We welcome back Chris Carberry of Explore Mars, Inc. to discuss this years Human2Mars upcoming event.

Some recent shows:

** Fri, 03/15/2019 – 09:30 – David Shayler discussed “human spaceflight history, space stations, Gemini as a teaching mission, commercial space, humans to the Moon and Mars, orbital human spaceflight, the importance of a space future and more”.

** Tue, 03/12/2019 – Chris Blackerby, COO of Astroscale, talked about “removing space debris, business plans, effective development strategies, making a profit, risk, technology development, propulsion and more”.

** Sun, 03/10/2019 – Don Eyles talked “about his programming and software work on the Apollo lunar lander, , Sunburst and Luminary: An Apollo Memoir, lunar lander computers, landers today, human spaceflight and much more”.

See also:
* The Space Show on Vimeo – webinar videos
* The Space Show’s Blog – summaries of interviews.
* The Space Show Classroom Blog – tutorial programs

The Space Show is a project of the One Giant Leap Foundation.

The Space Show - David Livingston — *The Space Show – David Livingston*

Activism, Space Policy

Space policy roundup – Mar.18.2019

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A sampling of links to recent space policy, politics, and government (US and international) related space news and resource items that I found of interest:

Webcasts:

** “The New Space Race: Ensuring U.S. Global Leadership on the Final Frontier” – U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing held on March 13, 2019. Witnesses included:

Jim Bridenstine, Administrator National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Kevin O’Connell, Director Office of Space Commerce, Department of Commerce

** Manned Space Flight Consultant Mike Rudolphi talks NASA budget | WHNT.com

** “Staging from Earth-Moon L-2 Orbits – Gateway or Tollbooth?“, David Dunham , Kinetx – FISO – March 13, 2019

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Space 2.0: How Private Spaceflight, a Resurgent NASA,
and International Partners are Creating a New Space Age

Amateur/Student Satellite

Student and amateur CubeSat news roundup – Mar.17.2019

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A sampling of recent articles, press releases, etc. related to student and amateur CubeSat / SmallSat projects and programs:

** SpudNik-1 student CubeSat project at the University of Prince Edward Island in Canada: It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a satellite built by UPEI engineering students – The Cadre/UPEI

CubeSat is a three-year project in partnership with the Canadian Space Agency in which multiple student teams work together to design, build and launch a miniature satellite. UPEI was one of 15 schools chosen for the project and started building the satellite in September.

The project at UPEI is a little different than others. The satellite is being worked on primarily by undergraduate students, said dean of engineering, Nicholas Krouglicof.

“We are doing it primarily with the undergraduate students through our design clinic program.”

…

The satellite being built by UPEI engineering students called SpudNik-1 will be used for precision agriculture on the Island. It will be able to detect a small area to distribute pesticides, instead of just spraying a large area. It will be able to determine if crops need more water and detect changes in overall landscape.

** Designing smallSats for animal tracking in NASA sponsored contest – Problem Solvers Win NASA Tournament Lab Challenge | NASA

Implemented by HeroX, the challenge sought ideas and concepts that incorporate small satellite technology along with other space, stratosphere, land and water surface systems to improve upon the current system of data reception for tracking animal position and path movement. A panel made up of NASA, BOEM and external experts evaluated submissions and recommended two winners. HeroX awarded each winning team $15,000.

Gaia: The Future of Satellite Animal Tracking, London
Gaia proposed a constellation of 42 CubeSats orbiting 400 miles above Earth, each with a unique deployable antenna to enable reliable communication with 401 MHz animal tags. The design could enhance bandwidth, coverage and geolocation accuracy.

NEMO: The Near Earth Marine Observer, Stanford University in California
This team of five graduate students proposed a constellation of 10 polar orbiting CubeSats and implements an open tag tracking standard via Doppler-shift location mapping. Using low-cost commercial-off-the-shelf hardware and open-source software protocols, the solution could provide fast, low-cost and easy access to tag data.

** AMSAT news on student and amateur CubeSat/smallsat projects: ANS-076 AMSAT News Service Special Bulletin

AMSAT at the Dayton Hamvention — Call for volunteers
Out of This World Auction Sponsored by ARISS
50th Anniversary AMSAT OSCAR Satellite Communications Achievement Award
Lilacsat-1 LO-90 Re-entry Commemorative Competition
ARRL TI-2 Teachers Institute Includes Amateur Satellite Telemetry
ARRL Supports No Change to Table of Allocations for 45.5 – 47 and 47 – 47.2 GHz Bands
Upcoming Satellite Operations
AMSAT-DL QO-100 Up- and Downconverter Kit Modifications Announcement
Changes to the AMSAT-NA TLE Distribution This Week
Satellite/AMSAT Presentation at Phoenix AZ – March 21, 2019
VUCC Awards-Endorsements for February 2019
GPS Network May Experience Errors in “Week Number” Rollover
Satellite Shorts From All Over

General CubeSat/SmallSat info:

General

Carnival of Space #601 & #602 – Universe Today & NextBigFuture

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Universe Today and NextBigFuture.com host the most recent Carnival of Space link collections:

A part of the Globular star cluster NGC 5466. “On the right, Hubble images taken ten years apart were compared to clock the cluster’s velocity. A grid in the background helps to illustrate the stellar motion in the foreground cluster (located 52,000 light-years away). Notice that background galaxies (top right of center, bottom left of center) do not appear to move because they are so much farther away, many millions of light-years. Credits: NASA, ESA and S.T. Sohn and J. DePasquale (STScI)” – Universe Today

Astronomy, Exoplanets

Video: “The Golden Age of Exoplanet Exploration”

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At a public seminar at NASA JPL, Jessie Christiansen and Karl Stapelfeldt of Caltech and NASA talked about the exoplanets discoveries made thus far and those to be made by new observatories:

Since the discovery of the first exoplanet orbiting a sun-like star in 1995, several thousand more have been discovered. We’ve peered into the atmospheres of some, and we’ve found whole families of planets orbiting strange stars — many in configurations starkly different from our own. We’ve learned a lot from NASA’s Kepler mission, which launched 10 years ago and ceased operations in November 2018. A new NASA planet-hunting spacecraft called TESS, which began science operations as Kepler was winding down, will give us thousands of new discoveries in the coming years. And the Spitzer Space Telescope has provided us valuable insights into what these worlds might be like. This show will look at the state of exoplanet science and give us a view of what future discoveries may be around the corner.