In Today’s Deep Space Extra… An accelerated effort by NASA to make a sustained human return to the Moon’s surface by 2024 could set the stage to reach Mars by 2033, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told Congress this week, explaining the agency is looking to the latest technologies to hold its annual budgets well below levels required to reach the Moon a half century ago with Apollo.
Human Space Exploration
NASA’s Moon-by-2024 push could help put astronauts on Mars by 2033, Chief says
Space.com (4/3): Events of the last two weeks are prompting the White House and NASA to strive for a human return to the lunar surface by 2024 and activities on the Moon to lay the groundwork for a historic mission to the Martian realm in the early 2030s.
3-D scans of the Apollo 11 command module
Roger Lanius Blog (3/22/16): July 20 will mark the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, in which the late Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon for the first time. The Smithsonian Institution has compiled a high resolution, 3-D scan of the Apollo 11 command module which circled the Moon with Mike Collins as his colleagues touched down in the Eagle lunar module.
Space Science
Damage to Moon lander delays Chandrayaan-2
Times of India (4/4): India’s Chandrayaan-2 lunar mission will not launch until at least until May. Damage to the lander legs was sustained during pre-launch preparations in February. The mission, which includes a rover as well as a lander, was to liftoff in April.
InSight scientists not sure stalled Mars heat probe can be recovered
Spaceflightnow.com (4/3): Scientists and mission managers are cautioning that the NASA Mars InSight lander’s efforts to tap into the subsurface of the red planet for carry out first ever assessments of the crust, mantle and core may have reached a dead end on March 2. That’s when a German contribution, the Heat and Physical Properties Probe, encountered an obstruction, perhaps a rock or a layer or gravel as it began to dig. A recent assessment from mission managers reveals they have not given up, though the effort is significantly stalled. The probe is about one foot below the Martian surface, far from its goal of reaching 16 feet in depth.
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe set for second approach to ‘touch’ the sun Thursday
Florida Today (4/3): Launched last August on a $1.5 billion mission to study the sun close up, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is on course to make the closest approach ever to the nearest star late Thursday. The trajectory will take the probe within 15 million miles of the sun at 6:40 p.m., EDT, breaking a record it set in November with its wide solar orbit when the spacecraft swept within 27 million miles.
Other News
India declines comment on NASA’s anti-satellite criticism
Washington Post (4/3): India was not prepared Wednesday to comment on criticism earlier this week from NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine over the debris spread across low Earth orbit as the result of a March 27 anti satellite missile test. Bridenstine cautioned that the debris had increased the risk to multinational crews living and working aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
There are 2 rocket launches, a Moon arrival and asteroid crash on Thursday! Here’s how to watch
Space.com (4/3): Thursday promises lots of action on the space front. Russia is prepared for a fast track cargo mission launch to the International Space Station (ISS). Israel’s Beresheet lunar lander mission is on course to maneuver into an elliptical lunar orbit ahead of soon to unfold plans to touchdown. Meanwhile, Japan’s Hayabusa 2 mission is to explosively expose a stretch of the distant asteroid Ryugu’s surface for a future sample collection effort. Hayabusa 2, launched in late 2014, is to begin its return to Earth late this year.
Six questions for a space archaeologist, who has a very dire warning for Earth
ABC.net.au (4/1): Humans have done a rather remarkable job of making their presence felt on Earth, which has turned the planet into an archaeologist’s playground. Not content with stopping there, in the last six decades we’ve blasted tens of thousands of objects into space and given rise to a fertile new profession: space archaeology.