In Today’s Deep Space Extra… The President’s 2017 budget proposal suggests plans for NASA’s asteroid mission may be changing.

Human Deep Space Exploration

NASA’s asteroid mission isn’t dead yet
Ars Technica (2/10): President Obama’s 2017 NASA budget proposal seems to raise questions about the future of the Asteroid Retrieval Mission fashioned by the space agency in response to a White House directive that U.S. astronauts travel to an asteroid by 2025. Unable to identify an asteroid destination it could reach with the Orion spacecraft, the space agency proposed a mission to collect a large boulder from an asteroid with a robot spacecraft and direct the large rock into orbit around the moon. Astronauts would rendezvous with the boulder using an Orion spacecraft launched atop a Space Launch System exploration rocket. However, Congress continues to question how the initiative advances plans to reach Mars with human explorers in the 2030s.

Buzz Aldrin promotes space exploration at MSU
Columbus Commercial Dispatch (2/10): Apollo 11’s Buzz Aldrin credits enormous teamwork for the success of NASA’s Apollo program explorations of the moon during a lecture at Mississippi State University earlier this week. “The true value of Apollo was the amazing story of innovation and teamwork that overcame many obstacles to reach the moon. I feel so privileged to have been a part of this event,” said Aldrin, who now advocates the human exploration of Mars.

Space Science

NASA Europa mission may not launch until late 2020s 
Space.com (2/10): A complex NASA mission to Europa, the ice and ocean covered moon of Jupiter, may have to wait until the 2020s for a launch, according to NASA officials. Congressional backers want the mission to include a lander as well as an orbiter, making the project more difficult. A previous mission to Jupiter suggests Europa may harbor an environment suitable for life.

NASA to decide fate of troubled Mars lander next month 
Space.com (2/10): Soon, NASA is to decide whether to pursue further the launch of the Mars InSight mission, a robotic lander that was to lift off for the red planet in March. Late last year, NASA called off the launching because of a vacuum leak in one of the on board experiments. If the leak cannot be sealed, the mission could be scrapped altogether.

New Horizons could help us locate possible planets beyond Neptune
Spaceflight Insider (2/10): NASA’s New Horizons mission carried out the first flyby of distant Pluto last July. Now sailing into the Kuiper Belt, New Horizons may be ideally equipped to identify a large planet whose presence is hinted at by gravitational interactions.

Largest rocky world found
Universe Today (2/10): NASA’s Kepler space telescope has detected a rocky planet larger than the Earth. BD+20594b is half the diameter of Neptune, composed entirely of rock and 500 light years away.

Black holes could be gateways after all
Forbes.com (2/10): Researchers led by University of Massachusetts physicist Gaurav Khanna have simulated the interior of a fast spinning black hole with computers, suggesting the gravitationally intense objects could provide passage through space time.

Low Earth Orbit

Delta 4 rocket launches spy satellite into space
CBS News (2/10): A United Launch Alliance Delta 4 placed a National Reconnaissance Office satellite in polar orbit around the Earth early Wednesday. Though classified, amateur observers believe the spacecraft payload is likely a radar imager.

Commercial to Low Earth Orbit

Budget proposal offers big increases for small space offices
Space News (2/10): The FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation would receive $19.8 million, a $2 million increase, in the 2017 budget proposal President Obama presented to Congress earlier this week. The office licenses the launch and re-entry of commercial launch vehicles and the spaceports that support them.

Black mold delays ISS cargo launch from Cape Canaveral
Florida Today (2/10): The discovery of mold on bagged cargo awaiting launch to the International Space Station has prompted a March launch delay. The bags will be disinfected and stowed aboard an Orbital ATK Cygnus/Atlas 5 launch vehicle for a Mar. 22 lift off, 12 days later than originally planned.

Suborbital

Exclusive: Virgin Galactic to move dozens of employees to New Mexico as it ramps up operations
Albuquerque Business First (2/10): The passenger spaceflight company plans to unveil its latest suborbital spacecraft later this month, Virgin Galactic’s Mark Butler tells a real estate gathering on Wednesday. The company plans to resume the test flights suspended by a 2014 crash that killed one test pilot and injured another. Passenger flights from Spaceport America could begin in 2018, according to Butler.