Today’s Deep Space Extra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. The Martian, fictional best seller and soon-to-open feature film, signals a new enthusiasm for the challenges of human space exploration, say Mars advocates. NASA plans more ground tests of the Space Launch System rocket engine. NASA’s Curiosity rover marks three years since its drama-filled landing in Mars’ Gale Crater. Meanwhile. scientists are gathered near NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to discuss landing sites for Curiosity’s successor, the Mars 2020 rover. Astronomers find oldest galaxy yet. Recently launched U.S. DSCOVR solar sentry captures images of the full moon crossing the Earth. Experts contend origins of the Earth’s water difficult to trace. Radioactive plutonium powers NASA’s Pluto mission. Annual Perseid meteor shower brings fireballs. NASA names new International Space Station program manager. Space Station astronauts cultivate fresh vegetables. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden informs Congress he will extend payments to Russia for astronaut transportation to the International Space Station because of funding lapses. U.S. Senate passes legislation to foster commercial space industry. State of Virginia, Orbital ATK reach new agreements on use of Wallops Island state spaceport.
Human Deep Space Exploration
The Huffington Post (8/6): The Martian, a much anticipated new movie based on Andrew Weir’s book of the same name, opens in theaters Oct. 2, possibly representing a positive and realistic future in which humans demonstrate they are capable of great things, write Chris Carberry, CEO of Explore Mars, and his associate Rick Zucker. “The Martian has emerged at a significant juncture in our nation’s space program,” they write. “After over 50 years of talking about sending humans to Mars, momentum is finally building for humanity to actually achieve that goal.”
NASA prepares to test the RS-25 engine
WHNT-TV (8/5): NASA’s Stennis Space Center is prepared for more tests next week of an RS-25 rocket engine. The RS-25, upgraded from its space shuttle heritage, has been assigned to power the first stage of NASA’s Space Launch System exploration rocket.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
Curiosity rover celebrates three years on Mars
CBS News ((8/5): Thursday marks the third anniversary of NASA’s Curiosity rover landing on Mars.
Update on NASA Mars Rover plans
Planetary Society (8/5): As NASA marks the third anniversary of the Curiosity landing on Mars Thursday, NASA and its science community are discussing where the follow-on Mars 2020 rover will attempt to land. The mission is to look for bio signatures in the Martian rocks and soil and cache samples that will eventually be gathered and returned to Earth.
Ancient galaxy is most distant ever found
Space.com (8/5): A Cal Tech led research team identifies the most distant galaxy yet. EGS48p7 lies 13.2 billion light years from the Earth. What’s visible now, here, happened that long ago. The star system formed just 600 million years after the big bang. Astronomers carried out their observations with the Keck Observatory in Hawaii.
See the Far Side of the Moon from a million miles away
Time (8/5): Recently launched by the U.S. Air Force in partnership with NASA and NOAA, the DSCOVR mission spacecraft has captured images of the moon as it transits the disk of the Earth from a million miles away.
Quest to trace origin of Earth’s water is ‘a complete mess’
Science News (8/5): The origins of the Earth’s water, be it comets or asteroids in collision with the planet, fail to explain the differences between interior water and the water in the planet’s oceans, according to a University of Hawaii researcher.
The radioactive heart of the New Horizons spacecraft to Pluto
New York Times (8/5): Decaying plutonium, ironically, is the power source for the NASA New Horizons spacecraft that carried out the first flyby of Pluto on July 14. Heat from the decay of the radioactive material provides a power source far from the sun. New Horizon’s launched in 2006 with enough plutonium to power the spacecraft for another two decades, say engineers.
Spaceweather.com (8/6): An annual meteor shower, the Perseids, is growing more intense as the Earth flies through a stream of debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle. Fireballs as bright as planet Venus are a feature.
Low Earth Orbit
NASA Space Station program manager stepping down
Spaceflightnow.com (8/5): NASA’s Kirk Shireman will replace the departing Mike Suffredini as NASA’s International Space Station program manager, the space agency announced late Tuesday. Currently, the deputy director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Shireman is a previous deputy ISS program manager.
Veggies in space: Will future astronauts dine on zero-G zucchini?
Christian Science Monitor (8/5): Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are moving ahead with efforts to grow fresh vegetables. Now, the astronauts have a small greenhouse called VEGGIE. Space gardening may have psychological as well as nutritional benefits, say researchers.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
NASA signing $490M contract with Russia
The Hill (8/5): On Wednesday, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden informed Congress that his agency is extending its contract with Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency, for the launching of astronauts to the International Space Station because of underfunding of the Commercial Crew Program. The agency is working under contract with SpaceX and Boeing to resume human launches from the U.S. by the end of 2017. Until the funding lapses, NASA was targeting 2015. The extension described by Bolden will cost $490 million.
NASA, blaming Commercial Crew cuts, extends Soyuz contract
Space News (8/5): In a letter to the agency’s legislative overseers, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden says the agency must extend agreements with Russia for the launch of astronauts to the International Space Station. Bolden blames Congressional reluctance to fully fund NASA’s funding requests to establish commercial launch services with Boeing and SpaceX.
NASA to Congress: Want to stop using Russian capsules to get to space? Let us work
Washington Post (8/5): “The greatest nation on Earth should not be dependent on others to launch humans into space,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden wrote in a letter to Congressional leaders explaining why the agency needed funding at requested levels to develop a U.S. commercial replacement for NASA’s Space Shuttle. The 2017 launch target for the new Boeing and SpaceX spacecraft is two years later than planned because of funding lapses.
NASA: Seats on Russian rockets will cost us $490 million
Associated Press via ABC News (8/5): NASA Administrator Charles Bolden’s letter to Congress means NASA will pay Russia $490 million for six passenger seats to and from the International Space Station in 2017-18.
Commercial space bill clears Senate
The Hill (8/5): The U.S. Senate on Tuesday passed the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, which extends the operations of the International Space Station through 2024, and a regulatory moratorium on the commercial space industry through 2020. The measure awaits reconciliation with a House version. The White House requested an extension of space station operations from 2020 to 2024 in early 2014. The Senate legislation extends a regulatory moratorium on personal commercial space flight and commercial space industry liability.
State renegotiates Wallops spaceport deal
Richmond Times Dispatch (8/5): Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe is expected to announce new terms for Orbital ATK’s use of the state-owned spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Island Flight Facility. The launch facility was damaged as an Orbital Antares rocket exploded Oct. 28, 2014 shortly after lifting off on a re-supply mission to the International Space Station. Under the new terms, Orbital ATK insures the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport for damage from any subsequent private launches it makes there and agrees to cover one-third of the cost for the $15 million in damage caused in last year’s explosion.