In Today’s Deep Space Extra… NASA astronauts are to embark on the second of two spacewalks outside the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday to upgrade the power storage batteries that keep electricity flowing across the six person orbiting science lab. A White House call to return human explorers to the Moon has stirred public interest. However it is not the first and will face challenges.
Human Space Exploration
NASA TV broadcasts live spacewalk coverage Friday morning. Spacewalk reassignments: What’s the deal?
NASA (3/28): The second in a series of six to seven hour NASA spacewalks dedicated to the change out of power storage batteries on the outside of the International Space Station (ISS) is set to get underway on Friday at 8:05 a.m., EDT. The spacewalk will team NASA astronaut Nick Hague with colleague Christina Koch, who will be spacewalking for the first time. Koch was to walk with NASA astronaut Anne McClain. But only one medium shirt like segment of the space suits, the Hard Upper Torso (HUT), was available. McClain, who spacewalked with Hague on March 22, made it available to Koch so she could gain spacewalk experience. NASA is broadcasting the spacewalk and preview material starting at 6:30 a.m., EDT over NASA TV and by webcast.
Not going back to the Moon: A brief timeline
Popular Mechanics (3/27): This week, the White House through Vice President Mike Pence called on NASA to return human explorers to the surface of the Moon by 2024, four years earlier than previously planned. It’s not the first time in the post-Apollo era that a presidential administration has called on NASA to go far, with each facing political and international issues as well as cost and technical challenges.
NASA to pay people to stay in bed for two months
Orlando Sentinel (3/28): Germany is organizing an 89 day “bed rest” study for NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) in which volunteers will be restricted to a bed with their heads tilted down six degrees to simulate on Earth many of the physical effects of prolonged weightlessness on the human body. In exchange for compensation, participants will experience muscle loss and an accumulation of fluids in the upper torso. Similar tests have been conducted in the U.S. to evaluate how a cross section of people respond to the physical challenges of long spaceflights.
Space Science
SpaceNews.com (3/28): NASA’s cost and technically challenged Wide Field Infrared Space Telescope (WFIRST), a companion to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), escaped a cancellation threat from the White House in 2019 thanks to Congress. But the threat of cancellation has returned under the administration’s 2020 budget proposal. In a Congressional hearing this week, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine suggested that additional development of WFIRST might best be held in abeyance until after the JWST is launched in March 2021. WFIRST is to study the influence of dark energy on the observed expansion of the universe as well as distant extra solar planets for signs of biomarkers in their atmospheres..
NASA’s Mars Helicopter completes flight tests
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (3/28): NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is preparing a potentially ground breaking demonstration as part of the Mars 2020 rover mission that is to launch in July of next year and land at Jezero Crater on the Red Planet in early 2021. It’s the Mars Helicopter, a small drone like autonomous flying machine that will attempt to take off and land in the very thin Martian atmosphere. If successful, an advanced version of the helicopter could might someday extend the reach of human explorers by functioning as a scout, overflying hazardous terrain, and surveying regions close-up otherwise off limits to humans because of planetary protection concerns.
Rare disintegrating asteroid spied by Hubble Telescope (photo)
Space.com (3/28): 6478 Gault, a fast spinning asteroid with a width of 2 1/2 miles is steadily tossing material from the surface, according to a research collaboration using the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based observatories. Details will be published by the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Saturn’s rings are sculpted by a crew of mini-moons
New York Times (3/28): Data from NASA’s long running Cassini mission to Saturn, which concluded in September 2017, is revealing how some of the large planet’s more than 60 moons interact with its famous ring system.
Other News
U.S. military was immediately aware of India’s anti-satellite missile test
SpaceNews.com (3/27): The U.S. Air Force Space Command detected a surprise anti-satellite test launch by India early Wednesday and began to notify satellite operators that could be threatened by debris created by the missile strike, USAF Lt. Gen. David D. Thompson, informed the U. S. Senate Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on strategic forces, later in the day. Thompson noted that the six person International Space Station (ISS) was “not at risk.”
CNBC News (3/27): Anti-satellite weaponry like that demonstrated early Wednesday by India places the national security, communications, GPS and Earth observing satellites of other nations at risk. With its orbital debris inducing test, India joins a small group of nations, including the U.S, Russia and China, who’ve also demonstrated the capability. Nonetheless, a spokesman for India’s Washington embassy declared his country against the weaponization of outer space.
Rocket Lab Electron orbits DARPA’s R3D2 prototype antenna
Spaceflightinsider.com (3/28): The launch Friday of Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from New Zealand placed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) radio frequency risk reduction payload, R3D2,in orbit to qualify a new reflector array antenna made of very thin Kapton that could be launched aboard smaller rockets or on larger rockets with other payloads.
Chinese startup OneSpace fails in first orbital launch attempt
Spaceflightnow.com (3/27): Chinese Startup OneSpace logged the second failure by a domestic commercial launch services company to place a satellite in orbit with the last five months. The launch on Wednesday veered off course quickly after liftoff and first stage separation.