In Today’s Deep Space Extra… Too soon to set a date for reaching Mars with human explorers? Maybe. New NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine fills two top agency executive positions.

Human Space Exploration

Martian deadlines

The Space Review (5/22): President Trump’s recent Space Policy Directive-1 transitions NASA’s human exploration focus from low Earth orbit to the moon in partnership with the U.S. commercial sector and international partners in the coming decade, with expeditions to Mars to follow. While many in the space community would like to establish a date for a human presence at the Red Planet, it appears much too soon, writes TSR editor Jeff Foust. He was among those attending the recent Human to Mars Summit in Washington, where the topic was discussed.

 

Space Science

Camera billed as ‘world’s most advanced’ could boost search for alien life

NBCnews.com (5/21): Darkness, a new compact and high tech camera package for powerful ground based observatories, like the Thirty Meter Telescope planned for Hawaii, could advance the search for bio markers in the atmospheres of extra solar planets. The Dark-speckle Near-infrared Energy-resolved Superconducting Spectrophotometer, aka Darkness, works by filtering out the light from bright stars and distortions caused by the Earth’s atmosphere in order to focus on the light reflected by distant planets.

SpaceX set to send Iridium-6/GRACE-FO missions spaceward

SpaceFlightInsider.com (5/21): A favorable weather outlook awaits the scheduled launch of NASA’s twin Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) satellites, ride shares on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket also carrying five Iridium commercial communications satellites. The GRACE-FO Earth science mission is devoted to observing changes in the Earth’s surface mass and water cycle that reflect changes in climate. Launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, is set for Tuesday at 3:47 p.m., EDT.

Found! Weird asteroid in Jupiter’s orbit is 1st interstellar immigrant

Space.com (5/21): Last October, astronomers were startled when colleagues using the Pan Starrs observatory in Hawaii spotted a substantial planetary object, Oumuamua, moving through the inner solar system from an external source. A new study has identified 2015 BZ509 as an invader as well, but one that has been around since the early days of the solar system and sharing an orbit with Jupiter. BZ509 moves around the sun in retrograde, or in the opposite direction as Jupiter and the Earth.

 

Other News

Steve Jurczyk appointed NASA associate administrator; Krista Paquin retires; Melanie W. Saunders named acting deputy associate administrator

NASA (5/21): Steve Jurczyk was named late Monday to become NASA’s associate administrator, or highest ranking civil servant. He’s served as the agency’s associate administrator of the Space Technology Mission Directorate since mid-2015 and prior to that as director of the Langley Research Center. Melanie Saunders, an executive at the Johnson Space Center, will serve as NASA’s acting deputy associate administrator. Saunders replaces Krista Paquin, who retires at the end of May.

Neil Armstrong’s Dyna-Soar abort training aircraft being restored for Moon landing anniversary

Spaceflightinsider.com (5/20): July 2019 will mark the 50th anniversary of NASA’s Apollo 11 Moon landing mission, on which Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the surface of another planetary body. As part of the tribute, Ohio’s Armstrong Air and Space Museum is restoring the Douglas F5D Skylancer jet aircraft that Armstrong used to train for the U.S. Air Force Dyna-Soar project before he joined NASA.

Taking a page from Amazon playbook, Jeff Bezos says it’s ‘Day One’ for space industry

GeekWire.com (5/21): Blue Origins’ Jeff Bezos explores his enthusiasm for commercial space in a recent interview with Via Satellite. His Kent, Washington, company is developing orbital as suborbital spacecraft, including the reusable New Shepard, which was developed for commercial passenger flight. “I would be super optimistic about the future. The message would be that I think this is ‘Day One’ for the space industry,” Bezos says of his outlook. The entrepreneur is to receive the National Space Society’s Gerard K. O’Neill Memorial Award for Space Settlement Advocacy on Friday during a ceremony at the International Space Development Conference in Los Angeles.

VR contest simulates Moon sports

NHK World (5/20): The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency joined with game developers recently to simulate what it might be like to engage in a lunar sporting contest, a marathon. The Moon has no atmosphere and a gravity level about 1/6th that of the Earth.