In Today’s Deep Space Extra… NASA’s human exploration vision extends deep into the solar system.

Human Deep Space Exploration

Lunar shelter: Moon caves could protect astronauts
Space.com (5/5): NASA’s successful GRAIL mission succeeded in mapping the moon’s gravitational field. The findings from 2012 point to new lava tubes that could provide natural shelters, some as expansive as the city of Philadelphia, for future lunar explorers, say researchers.

Expandable habitats may take us to Mars
CNN (5/5): Expandable habitats, like the enclosure that NASA and Las Vegas based Bigelow Aerospace are testing aboard the International Space Station, may be the least expensive, easiest way to shelter human explorers as they travel to Mars. Astronauts aboard the space station plan to extend the 13-foot-long Bigelow Expandable Activities Module from the station’s U.S. segment for a two year evaluation on May 26.

How do we terraform Ceres?
Universe Today (5/5): A dwarf planet, Ceres, is the largest object in the main asteroid belt. Rocky and believed to host an internal ocean, Ceres could become a candidate for future human habitation, some scientists believe. With some human engineering, Ceres may have qualities that make it more Earth-like. Currently, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is orbiting Ceres for a close look.

Space Science

The small country of Luxembourg announces big plans for asteroid mining
Inverse (5/5): This week, Luxembourg joined with Deep Space Industries (DSI) to advance the technologies and a strategy for assessing the resources on near Earth asteroids with sensor equipped robotic spacecraft. “The opportunity to partner with Luxembourg on Prospector-X allows a number of the key technologies for cost-effective deep space operations to be rapidly flight-tested in advance of more complex missions,” said Daniel Faber, CEO of DSI.

NASA renames building after ‘human computer’ Katherine Johnson
Popular Science (5/5): Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who played a critical role in the first U.S. spaceflight, that of Mercury astronaut Alan B. Shepard, was honored on Thursday, as a facility, the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility, was named for her at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia. Johnson was among the first African Americans employed by the space agency.

Transit of Mercury: How you can watch an astronomical rarity, on the ground or online
Geek Wire (5/5): For the first time in a decade, planet Mercury will cross the face of the sun as seen from the Earth on Monday. NASA TV plans special programming starting at 10 a.m., EDT.

Low Earth Orbit

Aliens attack! Space Station astronauts fight VR invasion with HoloLens
Space.com: (5/5): NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and British colleague Tim Peake demonstrated the use of Microsoft HoloLens virtual 3-D eye ware aboard the International Space Station before Kelly’s 340 day mission drew to a close in early March. HoloLens could become an important just in time training aid for astronauts far from Earth and faced with a complex operations.

Commercial to Low Earth Orbit

SpaceX rocket launches satellite, then lands on ship at sea
Reuters (5/6): SpaceX launched a Japanese communications satellite from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., early Friday. The Falcon 9 first stage then returned to Earth, landing upright on an off shore Atlantic Ocean platform.

Orbital targets July for 1st flight of redesigned Antares rocket
Space News (5/5): The planned re-supply mission to the International Space Station will mark Orbital ATK’s return to NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility and Virginia’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport for launches of the company’s Antares rocket. The Antares has been redesigned since an October 2014 first stage failure. Orbital returned to flight earlier, using the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 launch vehicle and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., as the launch site for its NASA contracted space station resupply missions.

Vostochny launch was a success, but turmoil continues
Spacepolicyonline.com (5/5): Personnel turmoil erupts at Russia’s new Vostochny Cosmodrome just a week after Roscosmos, the Russian federal space corporation, marked its first rocket launch from the new complex. Then, there’s a criminal trial focused on corruption during the long running construction of the launch site.