The vehicle hardware on Cygnus NG-13 includes a new communications system called ColKa for the Columbus module that will provide increased bandwidth by communicating through the European Data Relay System satellites.

Northrop Grumman used technicians who work on other vehicles at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to accelerate preparations for the NG-13 launch.

The Cygnus NG-13 is carrying Mochii, the first scanning electron microscope for use in space, developed by Seattle-based company Voxa.

A Northrop Grumman Antares rocket launched a Cygnus cargo spacecraft on 2020-02-15 from Pad 0-A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at 3:21 p.m. Eastern.

The Cygnus spacecraft launched 2020-02-15 is carrying 3,337 kg of cargo to the International Space Station.

China tested an antisatellite weapon in 2007.

Forczyk expects an international effort to establish Earth-moon space infrastructure by 2050 while noting the profitability of such an effort is uncertain.

The People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force was established in 2015.

The 2019-10-31 Science and Technology Daily story cited some experts stating that an Earth-moon space economic zone could produce $10,000,000,000,000 in annual economic benefit for China by 2050.

Laura Forczyk is the founder of the Atlanta-based consulting firm Astralytical and considers an Earth-Moon economy worth $10,000,000,000,000 per year by 2050 highly ambitious but improbable.

Namrata Goswami is a space policy analyst who authored a Washington Post op-ed about China’s purported $10,000,000,000,000 Earth-moon vision.

Science and Technology Daily published a 300-word story on 2019-10-31 reporting that China strives to build an Earth-moon space economic zone by the middle of this century.

Bao Weimin proposed completing basic research by 2030 and making major breakthroughs in key technologies by 2040 to establish an Earth-moon space economic zone by the middle of this century.

Rocket Lab launched 13 cubesats for NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative in December 2018 under a contract originally awarded in 2015 as part of NASA’s Venture Class Launch Services program.

NASA awarded a contract to Rocket Lab on 2020-02-14 for the launch of a cubesat mission that will serve as a precursor for the agency’s planned lunar Gateway.

A Rocket Lab Electron will launch the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) from Launch Complex 2 at Wallops Island, Virginia in early 2021.

CAPSTONE is a 25-kilogram satellite being built by Colorado-based Advanced Space under a $13,700,000 contract awarded in September.

Wallops Flight Facility hosted the launch of a Minotaur 5 rocket in September 2013 carrying NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) to study the lunar atmosphere and dust environment.

Rocket Lab will use Photon, the satellite bus it is developing based on the Electron rocket’s kick stage, to place CAPSTONE on a trajectory to the moon.

The CAPSTONE launch will be the second mission to the moon launched from Wallops Flight Facility.

Astra is able to produce a Rocket 3.0 vehicle at a rate of about one per month.

Astra’s first orbital launch window from Pacific Spaceport Complex–Alaska opens on 2020-02-25 with daily windows from 3:30 to 7:00 p.m. Eastern through 2020-03-03.

Astra will receive $10,000,000 for successfully performing a second DARPA Launch Challenge launch from another site.

Astra’s first two rockets were suborbital vehicles launched from Alaska in 2018.

Astra switched from a carbon composite nose cone that cost about $250,000 to a cheaper, faster-to-produce aluminum structure.

Astra’s planned version 4 rocket will be able to place 50 kg into sun-synchronous orbit.

Astra will receive $2,000,000 for successfully placing the DARPA-provided payload into orbit on the first mission.

Intelsat notified satellite trackers that the 15-year-old Spaceway-1 had been successfully decommissioned well above the threshold for the GEO graveyard orbit.

Risk of explosion for Spaceway-1 was minimal while the battery remained powered down, but operating on direct solar power would not be possible starting in late February when several weeks of eclipses in its geostationary orbit would require periodic shadow passes.

By 2020-02-10 Spaceway-1 had completed a 500-kilometer climb to a graveyard orbit.

DirecTV originally planned to leave Spaceway-1 at 300 km above the geostationary arc but later increased the planned altitude to 500 km, possibly to consume or vent more fuel.

Spaceway-1 operated from geostationary orbit approximately 36,0 m above the equator.

Spaceway-1 has been retired to a graveyard orbit 500 km above the geostationary arc.

Earlier in the Discovery program NASA changed from selecting one mission at a time to selecting two missions in the competition that concluded in early 2017.

NASA selected four finalists on 2020-02-13 for the next round of its Discovery planetary science program.

Each selected Discovery mission proposal will receive $3,000,000 for Phase A concept studies to be completed in nine months.

NASA spaced out Discovery competitions in part to reduce the time and expense scientists incur developing proposals while selecting multiple missions to maintain an average of one mission every 24 months.

NASA will select up to two of the Discovery finalist missions for development in 2021.

Discovery missions selected in this competition would launch in one of two windows: January 2025 through December 2026 or July 2028 through December 2029.

The Department of Energy has about $18,000,000,000 per year in R&D spending.

President Trump signed an executive order amending the 2017 order that reestablished the National Space Council to add the Secretary of Energy and two White House assistants as official members.

Virgin Galactic’s stock closed 2020-02-13 at $23.66 per share.

The state of New Mexico announced plans to develop Spaceport America in 2005.

The 2020-02-13 closing price of $23.66 per share was roughly double Virgin Galactic’s share price when it debuted on the exchange in October.

SpinLaunch is developing a test site at Spaceport America.

Venrock led a $40,000,000 Series B equity round for Astranis with participation from Fifty Years, Refactor Capital, Y Combinator, and Andreessen Horowitz.

TriplePoint Capital is providing a $50,000,000 debt facility to Astranis.

Astranis raised $90,000,000 in a debt and equity round led by Venrock and TriplePoint Capital on 2020-02-13.

Pacific Dataport signed in January 2019 to lease 7.5 gigabits per second of capacity on Astranis’s satellite to provide internet service to Alaskans.

Astranis has raised a total of $108,000,000 to date.