In Today’s Deep Space Extra… Live coverage of spacewalk. Assembly of a NASA led lunar orbiting habitat for astronauts could get underway by 2022. Finland’s Space Nation looks to share the space experience. Astronomers organize to prevent cancellation of NASA’s proposed WFIRST space telescope. Nonbinding U.N. sanctioned guidelines could lower space risks.

Human Space Exploration

Live coverage of U.S. spacewalk

“NOTE: The spacewalk began at 7:00 am ET and can be watched live at nasa.gov/live

NASA (2/15): U.S. and Japanese astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Norishige Kanai have embarked on a planned six to seven hour spacewalk outside the International Space Station early Friday to complete upgrades to the Station’s Canadian robot arm carried out during a series of four spacewalks in January and October.

NASA’s moon orbit space station, Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (LOPG), Planned For 2023

International Business Times (2/14): First components of a Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (LOPG), could be in orbit around the moon in 2022, according to a timeline in the White House budget proposal for 2019 outlined earlier this week.

Canadian Space Agency president not surprised by NASA ISS transition plans

Space News (2/15): The president of the Canadian Space Agency will wait for more detail before offering a response to plans outlined in NASA’s 2019 budget request to end government funded support for the International Space Station in 2025. ”This is not a surprise. We have been going down that path for years now,” said CSA president Sylvain Laporte earlier this week. “But we don’t know how it’s going to materialize.”

President Trump wants his moonshot without paying for it

Space News (2/15): Future budget realities, as projected in the White House budget proposal for 2019, could mean decreases in spending power and a challenge for efforts to resume human missions to the lunar environs, writes Thomas G. Roberts, a space policy researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Aerospace Security Project, in an op-ed.

The Finnish entrepreneur who wants to take the world to space

Coalition Member in the News – Space Nation

Culture Trip (2/15): Finland’s Space Nation has a plan to widely share the space exploration experience by offering supporters the opportunity to live the healthy lifestyle of an astronaut and compete for opportunities to attend a physical training camp. Annually, a participant will be chosen to launch into space.  “We need to tell people it’s not fantasy, it’s close, it’s warm. That’s in all that we do, basically bringing space closer to everyone in meaningful and relatable ways,” says Space Nation co-founder Kalle Vähä-Jaakkola.

NASA releases Request For Information (RFI) for new Orion Service Module engine

NASAspaceflight.com (2/15): NASA is seeking proposals for a new rocket engine for the Orion crew exploration capsule’s European Space Agency furnished service module. The new hardware will be introduced on the sixth flight of Orion. Earlier test and operational flights will use service modules equipped with former space shuttle Orbital Maneuvering System engines.

Former astronaut Bolden discusses space exploration

Daily Princetonian (2/15): As a Princeton University guest speaker, former NASA administrator and astronaut Charles Bolden spoke of how space exploration and science help to unite and inspire people across the globe. The International Space Station, said Bolden, is worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize for its ability to bring Russia, Europe, Japan and the U.S. and Canada together after the Cold War.  He reminisced over the Apollo moon and Mars Curiosity Rover landings as well.

 

Space Science

Astronomers gravely concerned about proposed WFIRST cancellation

Spacepolicyonline.com (2/16): NASA’s efforts to develop WFIRST, a major space telescope envisioned for launching in the mid-2020s to study dark energy and the early  phases of the universe’s evolution, would be cancelled in the 2019 NASA budget proposal submitted to Congress earlier this week by the Trump White House. The American Astronomical Society has vowed to oppose the cancellation, while defending the mission priority setting processes of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine that led to the observatory’s formulation.

Robonaut has been broken for years, and now NASA is bringing it home

IEEE Spectrum (2/15): Robonaut, the humanoid robot that NASA launched to the Space Station in 2011, will be coming back to Earth for troubleshooting and repairs. At launch, NASA hoped Robonaut would eventually assist astronauts outside the Station during spacewalks as well as take on menial chores inside the Station. Legs were added in 2014, but Robonaut’s advances came to a stop, due to difficulties associated with its electrical systems.

Saturn moon Enceladus blasts rings with geysers in gorgeous Cassini photo

Space.com (2/15): During 2009, NASA’s now concluded Cassini mission to Saturn captured a photo of geysers rising from the ice and ocean covered moon Enceladus. The spray extends out into the large planet’s ring system.

 

Other News

U.N. committee approves space sustainability guidelines

Space News (2/15): A U.N. working group, meeting recently in Canada, reached agreement on nine nonbinding guidelines intended to reduce spaceflight risks, including rising levels of manmade space debris. Lengthy in the making, the guidelines are intended to help shape the legal and regulatory policies adopted by individual nations. Other guidelines would make the identifying of hardware launched into space more transparent and lessening the chance of uncontrolled re-entries. Eventually, the guidelines are to be forwarded to the U.N. General Assembly.

DigitalGlobe’s parent Maxar Technologies will move its global headquarters to Colorado and hire 800 workers

Denver Post (2/15): Maxar Technologies, of San Francisco and Richmond, Canada, and recent purchaser of Digital Globe, of the Denver area, will move its global headquarters to Colorado, along with 800 jobs. Maxar was known formerly as MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd.