Today’s Deep Space Extra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. NASA is meeting difficult cost and schedule challenges to keep development of the Space Launch System exploration rocket on track for its first test flight in 2018. Tests of SLS rocket engines move ahead at NASA’s Stennis Space Center. NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto stirs public interest and wins editorial praise. Meanwhile, NASA’s Dawn mission descends closer to a second dwarf planet, Ceres. Friday marked the 40th anniversary of an historic meeting in space between U.S. and Soviet astronauts. Russia prepares to select new cosmonauts for International Space Station missions. U.S. military tracks suspicious moves by a Russian satellite. Planetary Resources marks satellite test mission for asteroid mining venture. Last week’s International Space Station space junk encounter a reminder of orbital debris threat. United Launch Alliance challenged by restrictions on use of Russian RD-180 rocket engines. NASA’s Kennedy Space Center marks debut of new launch pad for small satellite launches. Kazakhstan to welcome tourists to the historic Baikonur Cosmodrome. A look at major space related activities planned for the week ahead.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Report finds SLS cost and schedule estimates tight, but on track
Planetary Society (7/17): A U.S. General Accountability Office audit finds the development of NASA’s Space Launch System exploration rocket tracking toward its first unpiloted test flight in 2018. But there are schedule challenges. The mission cost is estimated at $9.7 billion. NASA believes Exploration Mission-1, the test flight, could occur as soon at December 2017, at a reduced cost.
Watch NASA test-fire huge rocket engine at Stennis Space Center
New Orleans Times Picayune (7/18): NASA’s Stennis Space Center was the site Friday for a 535 second ground test firing of a Space Launch System first stage rocket engine. The RS-25, with a space shuttle heritage, reached 109 percent of rated performance for a brief period during the firing. More ground tests are planned as NASA adapts the engine and SLS for new deep space exploration missions.
NASA still has the capacity to awe us
Houston Chronicle (7/19): NASA’s success with the New Horizons flyby of Pluto demonstrates the enduring appeal of exploring, according to an editorial that also calls for sufficient space budgets. “We may have grown a bit blasé about how magical it is to see close-up pictures of a dwarf planet at the very edge of our solar system, a celestial body no one even knew existed before 1930,” according to the editorial. “But New Horizons reminded us. It also reminded us that NASA has been at the center of these magical moments since President John F. Kennedy first set out to put a man on the moon.”
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
Los Angeles Times (7/17): NASA’s New Horizon’s mission to Pluto wins editorial praise…”…in fact, what the New Horizons spacecraft sent back was a revelation,” according to the Times. “The flyby returned images of towering icy mountains on the scale of the Rockies, unexpected features on the least understood planet dwarf planet.”
On the cold, dead fringes of the Solar System, Pluto looks shockingly lively
National Public Radio (7/17): Scientists say NASA’s July 14 Pluto flyby produced a major surprise. Pluto and its moon Charon are geologically active.
Potential geysers spotted on Pluto
Science News (7/18): Scientists reviewing images of Pluto from NASA’s New Horizons spot surface markings that resemble geysers like traces like those found on Triton, the moon of Neptune. The markings offer potential new evidence that Pluto has internal heat, enough to be geologically active.
Pluto shows the frozen plains of its `heart’ in stunning flyover animation
Washington Post (7/18): A NASA animation reveals what the New Horizon’s spacecraft experienced as it made the first ever flyby of Pluto on July 14.
Pluto’s ‘planet’ debate reignited by New Horizons flyby
CNN (7/16): Soaring interest in NASA’s New Horizon’s mission, has amateurs and experts alike wondering if the International Astronomical Union should reconsider its decision from 2006 to shift Pluto from planet to dwarf planet status. The July 14 flyby revealed that Pluto, with five moons, is dynamic enough to mount an appeal.
The long, strange trip to Pluto, and how NASA nearly missed it
New York Times (7/18): The success that was New Horizons almost was not. Supporters faced skeptics in their own scientific ranks, regular threats to their funding, restrictions on the nuclear fuel and an unforgiving schedule dictated by the motions of the planets.
New Horizons won’t be the only spacecraft at our Solar System’s edge
Huffington Post (7/19): NASA’s New Horizons mission is hardly over after a successful flyby of Pluto. The spacecraft will continue on into the Kuiper Belt with the promise of new flybys. It will join NASA’s Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft as well as Voyagers 1 and 2 as the most distant human spacecraft. New Horizons is carrying far more modern instrumentation that is predecessors.
Dawn probe back in action at dwarf planet Ceres after glitch
Space.com (7/17): After a delay to deal with a mechanism that aims one of three ion thrusters on June 30, NASA’s Dawn mission spacecraft has resumed orbital maneuvers intended to place the spacecraft close to the surface of the giant asteroid Ceres, which like Pluto is classified as a dwarf planet. The change will take Dawn from 2,700 miles to 900 miles above the surface.
Low Earth Orbit
Apollo-Soyuz spawned 1st handshake in space by U.S. – Soviet crews 40 years ago
Space.com (7/19): In spite of Cold War tensions, the U.S. and the former Soviet Union found a way to unite their astronauts and cosmonauts in Earth orbit 40 years ago, Friday, July 17, for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project and an historic handshake. On board Apollo were Tom Stafford, Deke Slayton and Vance Brand. On board the Soyuz were Aleksey Leonov and Valeriy Kubasov.
Russia to announce open contest to enlist new cosmonauts in 2016
TASS, of Russia (7/17): With plans to join with the U.S. in operating the International Space Station until 2024, Russia intends to seek new cosmonauts in 2016, according to Yuri Lonchakov, head of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. Russia’s most recent cosmonaut selection was in 2013.
Maneuvering Russian satellite has everyone’s attention
Space News (7/17): A Russian military satellite launched in March is receiving some close scrutiny, particularly from the U.S. military. Experts believe it could be a test of anti-satellite technologies because of repeated close approaches to the upper stage of the rocket that launched it.
Asteroid mining company’s 1st satellite launches from Space Station
Space.com (7/17): Planetary Resources marked the launch of the Arkyd 3 Reflight CubeSat last week. The technology prototype was ejected from the International Space Station using a commercial NanoRacks satellite deployer. The 90-day mission will evaluate avionics, control systems and software needed to carry out the organization’s future asteroid mining objectives.
The ISS space junk crisis is a stark reminder of the lethal minefield that orbits Earth
The Huffington Post (7/16): A July 16 close encounter by the crew of the International Space Station with a piece of manmade space junk raises new questions about the safety of Earth orbit with a continual accumulation of debris from aging satellites and rockets. The debris passed a safe distance from the Space Station, though astronauts Scott Kelly, Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko were instructed to take shelter briefly in their Soyuz crew transport capsule.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
U.S. rocket supplier looks to break ‘short leash’
Wall Street Journal (7/19): United Launch Alliance, the Boeing, Lockheed Martin joint venture with a long record of U.S. national security mission launches, is struggling to compete against lower cost rival SpaceX. ULA executives say plans to replace their Atlas 5 and Delta 4 launch vehicles with the next generation Vulcan requires them to continue imports of Russian RD-180 rocket engines beyond a 2019 Congressional deadline. SpaceX is expected to soon outline a recovery strategy from the company’s June 28 Falcon 9 launch failure and perhaps resume launches by year’s end. Imports of Russia’s RD-180 are being curtailed as part of Washington sanctions against Moscow over Ukraine. ULA intends to replace the RD-180 with a domestic engine after development, ones manufactured by Blue Origin or Aerojet Rocketdyne — if it can remain competitive and profitable.
New launch pad at Kennedy Space Center built for smaller rockets
Orlando Sentinel (7/17): NASA’s Kennedy Space Center debuts a new launch complex, 39-C, designed especially for small rockets and launches of new small satellites. 39-C is the first new launch pad at Kennedy since the 1960s.
Kazakhstan to turn historic Russian spaceport into a tourist hotspot
Tourism-Review.com (7/20): Kazakhstan’s Tourist and Development Ministry has work already underway to make the historic Baikonur Cosmodrome tourist friendly. The first launches of Russian satellites and cosmonauts unfolded from the once secret Soviet launch complex.
Major Space Related Activities for the Week
Major space related activities for the week of July 20-24, 2015
Spacepolicyonline.com (7/19): Astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Kimiya Yui and Oleg Kononenko are scheduled to launch late Wednesday to the International Space Station. New developments are anticipated in NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto as well as the investigation into the June 28 loss of the most recent U.S. commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station.