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Deep Space Extra for Tuesday, May 24, 2016

May 24th, 2016

In Today’s Deep Space Extra… A 2017 NASA spending measure under consideration by U.S. House appropriators would replace the agency’s Asteroid Redirect Mission with a human return to the moon as part of a larger human deep space strategy to reach Mars in the 2030s.

Human Deep Space Exploration

House appropriators reject asteroid redirect mission, want astronauts on Moon
Spacepolicyonline.com (5/23): The U.S. House Appropriations Committee, in a draft report that will be considered Tuesday, urges fellow lawmakers to eliminate spending on NASA’s planned Asteroid Redirect Mission. Instead, the 2017 spending measure backs efforts to return U.S. astronauts to the lunar surface as part of its horizon goal of reaching Mars with astronauts in the 2030s. The unfolding FY2017 Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations measure for NASA includes $19.5 billion, a $223 million increase over 2016. The measure provides a new emphasis on NASA’s development of in space habitation for astronauts as well as continued development of the Space Launch System exploration rocket and Orion crew capsule. The SLS would be funded at $2 billion, the same as in 2016, and the Orion crew capsule at $1.35 billion, an increase of $80 million. In 2010, President Obama included asteroid activities as an interim step in the agency’s efforts to reach Mars with human explorers. The current ARM plan calls for a robotic mission to maneuver a large boulder extracted from an asteroid into orbit around the moon, where it could be examined by U.S. astronauts launched aboard Orion with the SLS in the 2020s.

Orion’s European service module faces key June review
Space News (5/23): The European Space Agency is preparing for a major critical design review on June 16 of its service module contribution to NASA’s uncrewed Exploration Mission 1 test flight of the Orion capsule and Space Launch System exploration rocket in late 2018. ESA’s service module is to provide electrical power and crew life support for at least the first Orion test flight as part of a barter arrangement with NASA rooted in the 15 nation International Space Station partnership. So far, ESA is within budget and on schedule to prepare the service module for EM-1

Creating a mission control for the commercial spaceflight industry
The Space Review (5/23): It may be opportune to bring the surge in commercial space activity, both in Earth orbit and that deemed likely to range into cis-lunar space, under one shared flight control center, according to essayist Greg Anderson. He also notes that even the government model for Mission Control is likely to change as humans range further and further from the Earth, where the delays in communication will grow longer as well.

Space Science

House appropriators have big plans for NASA
Spacepolicyonline.com (5/24): The 2017 NASA spending measure that the U.S. House Appropriations Committee will consider Tuesday includes $260 million for development of robotic orbital and lander missions to Europa, the ice and ocean covered moon of Jupiter, with launches in 2022 and 2024. The Europa mission development is part of a proposed $1.846 billion budget for planetary science in 2017, $215 million more than in 2016. The space agency would also be directed to develop an interstellar probe for a mission to Alpha Centauri, the closest star system, The 2069 launch would fall on the 100th anniversary of NASA’s Apollo 11 moon landing.

Young sun’s super solar flares helped set early Earth up for life
Science News (5/23): Observations of sun like stars with NASA’s Kepler space telescope suggest to astronomers that powerful solar flares early in the sun’s history were instrumental in shaping nitrogen chemistry on the young Earth. The alterations provided a warming environment that enabled liquid water on the Earth’s surface and the chemistry that established the foundation for life.

A spat over the search for killer asteroids
New York Times (5/23): Nathan P. Myhrvold, a former chief technologist at Microsoft, has taken issue with NASA’s experts over the collision threat posed by Near Earth Asteroids. NEO’s cross the orbital path of the Earth as it orbits the sun. The danger of collision is greater than NASA estimates, according to Myhrvold.

Scientists work on plans to defend Earth from killer asteroids
CBS News (5/23): Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are working on strategies to defend the Earth from a massive asteroid impact. Their assessments involve launching an impactor of a collision course with the asteroid, detonating a nuclear explosion close to the asteroid or a less violent strategy called the gravity tractor. The tractor, a manmade spacecraft, could alter the course with a close approach that exerts a trajectory altering gravitational force on the asteroid.

Yes, it is rocket science: Middle school team wins rocket competition
Space.com (5/23): Middle schoolers from Bellevue, Wash., prevailed in the May 16 Team America Rocketry Challenge National Finals in Washington D.C. The Space Potatoes as they are known will represent the U.S. in London during July in the international phase of the competition. Nearly 800 student teams competed nationally for the honor.

Commercial to Low Earth Orbit

Soyuz ST-B launches towards FOC Galileo milestone
NASAspaceflight.com (5/23): A commercial Arianespace Soyuz rocket placed two European Galileo global navigation satellites in orbit Tuesday, following a launch from French Guiana. The two satellites are the 13th and 14th of a planned 30 spacecraft constellation.

Apples and oranges: Why comparing India’s reusable launch vehicle with the space shuttle is totally out of place
The Space Review (5/23): India is wrestling with the hype and promise of establishing a re-usable winged launch vehicle after the successful and much anticipated launch of a small prototype early Monday. “It is just a baby step towards the giant leap,” states Dr. K Sivan, director of ISRO’s Vikram Sarabhai Space Center. Essayist Kiran Krishnan Nair, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Airpower Studies in New Delhi, India, takes a look at where the space shuttle like centerpiece of the development effort may be headed.

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