In Today’s Deep Space Extra… NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, among those attending the Farnborough International Air Show in the U.K. this week, discussed deep space exploration plans with his European counterparts. More details about a joint lunar exploration effort could be unveiled this fall. Life on Mars? It may be underground. Astronomers detect even more volcanic activity on Jupiter’s moon Io.
Human Space Exploration
Bridenstine discusses ISS future, exploration cooperation in Europe
SpaceNews.com (7/17): Following discussions with representatives from the European and other space agencies at the Farnborough International Air Show in the U.K. this week, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said he expects to unveil more details about the agency’s exploration strategy, including a human tended Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (LOP-G), this fall. Among those he’s spoken with are Jan Woerner, director general of the European Space Agency. “There’s a lot of support for, ultimately, our next big exploration campaign, which includes the Moon,” said Bridenstine. “We’re putting together concepts and ideas from our international partners for who can plug in where.” Woerner has been an advocate of an International Moon Village, open to nations and companies, at the lunar south pole.
Chinese space official seems unimpressed with NASA’s lunar gateway
Ars Technica (7/17): European and Chinese space representatives met recently in Amsterdam to discuss possible cooperation on future lunar science missions. The meeting produced the suggestion that China intends to assemble a Lunar Scientific Research Station, while NASA leads development of the human tended Lunar Orbit Platform-Gateway (LOP-G).
Space Science
Universe Today (7/16): Science teams using the Hubble Space Telescope and the European Space Agency’s GAIA space observatory, launched respectively in 1990 and 2013, intend to more accurately determine the Hubble Constant, or the expansion rate of the universe. Currently, the accuracy of the Hubble Constant is deemed to be within 2.2 percent. The researchers using the space observatories and two different measurement strategies would like to achieve a 1 percent accuracy by the 2020s.
The case for sending the search for life on Mars underground
Seeker.com (7/16): Evidence of microbial life on Mars, past or present, might be best investigated by searching below the surface, suggests NASA Goddard Space Flight Center astrobiologist Jennifer Eigenbrode. She was the lead author for a research paper recently published by the journal Science outlining the discovery of organic molecules in Martian sedimentary rocks by NASA’s Curiosity rover in Gale Crater on the Red Planet.
One ‘oddball’ among 12 newfound moons discovered orbiting Jupiter
Space.com (7/17): Scientists at the Carnegie Institution for Science were searching for “Planet 9,” when they happened to detect a dozen new moons of Jupiter, one of them pretty small and a possible collision hazard. The find brings to 79 the number of moons now known to orbit around Jupiter.
Juno may have found new volcano on Jupiter’s moon Io
Spaceflightinsider.com (7/17): NASA’s Jupiter orbiting Juno spacecraft has discovered what appears to be another volcano at the south pole of Io, one of the giant planet’s dozens of moons. The moon Io is not large, about 2,264 miles across, but it’s considered the most volcanically active planetary body in the solar system, with 150 volcanoes and counting. Earlier volcanic discoveries at Io were made by NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2, Galileo, Cassini and the Pluto bound New Horizons spacecraft.
Other News
Blue Origin counts down to high-altitude escape test of New Shepard spaceship
GeekWire.com (7/17): As Blue Origin works toward a possible end of the year launch with human passengers aboard its New Shepard suborbital, reusable rocket and spacecraft, the company prepared for a ninth unmanned test launch early Wednesday from West Texas. The objective is a high-altitude escape motor test to check the procedure for an emergency late in the flight sequence of the six person capsule. The test will include seven customer payloads from government, commerce and academia.