In Today’s Deep Space Extra…Planetary Society exec Bill Nye, the Science Guy, urges presidential contenders to support NASA’s efforts to resume human deep space exploration.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Bill Nye to Trump, Clinton: Stay the Course in Space
Space.com (9/20): Bill Nye, CEO of the Planetary Society and widely known as the Science Guy, urges presidential candidates Hilliary Clinton and Donald Trump to stay the course with NASA and space hardware developments that enable future human deep space exploration and other planetary science missions. Nye, who spoke during the countdown for the Florida launch of NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex asteroid sample return mission, urged NASA to become more specific about the dates for human Mars exploration and said an orbital mission to the Martian environs should be a precursor to a red planet landing.
Orion heat shield for next space flight arrives at Kennedy
Space Daily (9/21): The heat shield for the next test flight of Orion’s crew capsule has reached its NASA Kennedy Space Center launch site to join the assembly process. NASA’s Exploration Mission-1, will send an uncrewed version of Orion around the moon and back to Earth for an ocean splashdown and recovery. The late 2018 mission will also mark the first flight of NASA’s Space Launch System exploration rocket.
Space Science
NASA says pictures from Hubble reveal ‘surprising’ hints of Europa’s hidden ocean
Geek Wire (9/20): The Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered more evidence for an ocean beneath the icy crust of Jupiter’s moon Europa. NASA plans to offer more information early next week. Europa is a destination for future NASA planetary science exploration and a prospect for a habitable environment.
China’s race to space domination
Popular Mechanics (9/20): The space frontier provides Beijing with a forum in which to display increased global leadership, say experts. Those plans include a groundbreaking robotic mission to the moon’s far side, one with a science agenda and perhaps other goals such as checking for helium-3, a potential fusion power source. “I don’t worry about China suddenly leapfrogging us,” James Lewis, a director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a D.C. think tank, tells Popular Science. “I worry about us being distracted and waking up to realize that they have a much more powerful position in space.”
China’s space survival experiment goes on well
Xinhuanet (9/20): A Chinese 180-day human living in space isolation experiment has reached the halfway point. The four subjects are to emerge from their “spacecraft” on Dec. 13.
First-Ever Binary Alien Planets Possibly Found
Space.com (9/20): Astronomers may have identified the first binary planets looming 65 light years from Earth. The duo may be gas giants or brown dwarfs. “They’re probably brother and sister,” says Daniella Gagliuffi, a graduate student at the University of California, San Diego, who found the twins in a star cloud.
Low Earth Orbit
Time for the U.S. military to let go of the civil space situational awareness mission
Space News (9/20): It’s time for the U.S. civilian/private sector to shoulder a greater responsibility for monitoring Earth orbital space for the hazards from mounting orbital debris and growing numbers of satellites, writes Brian Weeden, an advisor to the Secure World Foundation, in an op ed. The change would unburden the U.S. military from warning commercial users and civilian agencies of possible collisions, allowing it to focus on national security priorities.
First space shuttle astronauts mark STS-1 and STS-2 35th anniversaries
Collectspace.com (9/19): In Houston, astronauts who launched aboard the first and second NASA space shuttle missions in 1981 celebrated the 35th anniversaries of the missions in Houston recently. Apollo astronaut John Young teamed with pilot Robert Crippen to carry out the 1981 flight. Also honored at Space Center Houston were Joe Engle and Richard Truly, who flew the second mission. The gathering benefited the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
Company sets October launch date to resupply space station
Associated Press via Washington Post (9/20): NASA and Orbital ATK have set Oct. 9-13 as the launch period for the Dulles, Va.-based company’s next NASA-contracted re-supply mission to the International Space Station. The mission will mark Orbital ATK’s return to NASA’s Wallops Island Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore as a launch site. It will re-introduce the company’s Antares launch vehicle with a new Russian manufactured main engine as well. Wallops/Antares launches were suspended following an October 2014 launch vehicle explosion.
Rocket propellant manufacturer eyes Titusville
Florida Today (9/20): A yet-to-be-named maker of propellants for small solid rocket motors could be coming to Florida’s space coast, according to the report.