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Friday’s CSExtra offers a collection of the latest reporting on space related activities from around the globe. China succeeds in launching Tiangong 1, the lynch pin in efforts to assemble a future space station. SpaceX founder Elon Musk unveils plans to make his Falcon 9 rocket reusable. NASA scientists size up the asteroid impact threat. Planet Mercury offers surprises. Martian humidity readings offer implications for past climate conditions. The International Space Station maneuvers from the path of orbital debris. Houston lawmakers square off with New York over a retired NASA shuttle test orbiter.
1. From spaceflightnow.com: China successfully launches the Tiangong 1, which will form the orbital cornerstone for a series of rendezvous and docking demonstrations. The effort will prepare China for the assembly of an independent space station. Two piloted missions a year are expected to link up with Tiangong 1.
http://bit.ly/o6xKUh
A. From the Christian Science Monitor: Though China remains well behind the U. S. and Russia in space, the Tiangong 1 launching is an indication of China’s growing ambitions in space, say some experts.
http://bit.ly/o9VOpN
B. From Collectspace.com: China’s Tiangong 1 carries 300 flags that flew previously on spacecraft from the United States and Russia, the two nations that achieved the launches of astronauts ahead of China.
http://bit.ly/rgfGxx
2. From CBS News: SpaceX founder Elon Musk, in remarks Thursday in Washington, says the company intends to make its Falcon 9 rocket reusable. An engineering challenge, the outcome could reduce commercial launch costs, Musk tells an audience at the National Press Club. SpaceX is one of two companies under contract to NASA for the delivery of supplies to the International Space Station.
A. From Spacepolicyonline.com: Musk says his bid for reusability is motivated by the belief humanity can establish a self sustaining colony on Mars.
http://bit.ly/opZidB
3. From MSNBC and Cosmic Log: NASA’s WISE mission counts fewer near-Earth asteroids than estimated previously, however; there may be tens of thousands of the planetary bodies that await discovery, say mission astronomers.
http://on.msnbc.com/qT6nPD
A. From Florida Today: The findings from NASA’s Wide Field Survey Explorer spacecraft suggest the Earth is not facing an imminent collision with an asteroid.
http://bit.ly/pnOFGn
4. From Discovery.com: Planet Mercury offers surprises in findings from the NASA funded Messenger mission. Chemical elements that should have boiled away because of the planet’s close proximity to sun are indeed present. There are other mysteries including the large iron core, a fluctuating magnetic field and expansive lava flows.
5. From Space.com: Findings from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express mission suggest the Martian atmosphere holds up to a 100 times more moisture than previously thought. That may indicate Mars was wetter in its early history than previously thought, say European scientists.
http://bit.ly/pdZYFa
A. From Aviation Week & Space Technology: Signs of frustration surface at the AIAA conference in Long Beach, Calif., over seeming U. S. resistance to accept $1 billion from the European Space Agency to collaborate on a Mars sample return mission.
http://bit.ly/qC9qZ1
6. From Rianovosti of Russia: The International Space Station maneuvered on Thursday to avoid a piece of 20-year-old Russia rocket debris.
http://bit.ly/qsbkQr
7. From the Houston Chronicle: Texas lawmakers wage a new legislative campaign to wrest the test orbiter Enterprise from New York City’s USS Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum for public display. The challenge follows disclosures that New York will have difficulty housing Enterprise.
http://bit.ly/omzqZF
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