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Today’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. Some in Congress question whether the Space Launch System is adequately funded — questions that arise a day after NASA announces it is moving from design to assembly of the heavy lift rocket for its first test flight. NASA space observatory spots planets in the making. Aurora mesmerizes International Space Station astronaut. Young scientist tracks a changing planet from orbit with an Earth observing satellite. NASA’s Teacher-in-Space program reaches 30. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program: Selections could come as soon as next week, according to report. Russia catching blame for Aug. 22 Soyuz launch that placed European satellites in improper orbit. Russia looks to December for next Angara launch, a potential future force among commercial launch services. SpaceShipTwo glides over California’s Mojave Desert. Designers bring flare to space suits for the adventuresome.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Capitol Hill reacts to SLS delay
Space News (8/28): Congressional supporters of NASA’s Space Launch System heavy lift rocket call for sufficient funding to move the program toward first launch. The SLS, coupled with NASA’s Orion crew capsule, is intended to start U.S. astronauts on future missions of deep space exploration.
Rep. Mo Brooks praises progress of SLS rocket, says U.S. on ‘clear path’ to Mars
Huntsville Times (8/28): Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks endorses work on NASA’s Space Launch System heavy lift rocket led by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. “The United States is on a clear path to explore beyond low earth orbit,” said Brooks a day after the space agency announced it was moving from design to assembly of the big rocket intended to start humans on future missions of deep space exploration.
House Committee Republicans question SLS/Orion schedule changes
Spacepolicyonline.com (8/28): U.S. Congressmen Lamar Smith and Steve Palazzo seek more information from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on scheduling of the first flight of the Space Launch System heavy lift rocket. Smith, a Texan and chair of the House Science Space and Technology Committee, and Palazzo, a panel member from Mississippi, believe the SLS needs more funding to stay on track.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
Proto-planetary smashup discovered around baby star
Discovery.com (8/28): Astronomers appear to capture planets in the making around a star just 1,200 light years away. The scene, captured by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, is an asteroid smashup that is generating fragments that will reassemble into planets.
Low Earth Orbit
Astronaut captures aurora in stunning time-lapse
NBC News.com (8/28): International Space Station astronaut Reid Wiseman captures flickering glow of the aurora for Vine. “Now, that is a heckuva light show..”
NASA scientist takes measure of the planet
Washington Post (8/28): Miguel Roman, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, makes the most of data from the Suomi NPP satellite’s Visible Infrared Imager Radio-meter suite, a camera that is capturing change on the Earth, the warming kind. “We are studying where we live,” said Roman, a scientist. “It’s not just square pixels and signals.”
Endearing and enthusiastic: 30 years since NASA’s teacher in space project
AmericaSpace.com 8/28): U.S. President Ronald Reagan initiated the inspirational program to include an American school teacher among shuttle crew members. New Hampshire’s Christa McAuliffe emerged. She launched aboard the shuttle Challenger in 1986, perishing with six other member crews during the lift off. The Teacher-in-Space program changed, but endured.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
Race to build NASA space taxi down to the wire
Discovery.com (8/29): NASA could announce its selection(s) in a hotly contested effort to develop a commercial crew transportation successor to the space shuttle as soon as next week, according to the website’s assessment. So far, NASA has invested $1.5 billion in the Commercial Crew Program efforts of Boeing, Sierra Nevada and SpaceX. Boeing and SpaceX offer a capsule design, and Sierra Nevada, a winged lifting body. NASA wants a system capable of carrying astronauts to the International Space Station by late 2017.
Galileo satellites incident likely result of software errors
Ria Novosti, of Russia (8/28): Errors in software were likely present in the upper stage of the commercial Soyuz rocket that launched a pair of European Galileo space navigation system satellites and placed them in an unintended orbit. The source of the assessment was an unnamed Russian federal space agency official. An investigation of the Aug. 22 incident is underway.
Too early for conclusions on Galileo satellites incident: Russian Space Corporation
Ria Novosti, of Russia (8/28): The Russian Rocket and Space Corporation cautions against rushing to judgment in the case of two European Galileo global navigation satellites that were delivered to the wrong orbit on Aug. 22 aboard a commercial Soyuz rocket.
Russia to launch new heavy-lift Angara rocket in December
Moscow Times (8/28): Russia looks to December for the next test launch of its new Angara family of rockets. The design represents a break with Soviet era rockets for Russia.
SpaceX blames rocket explosion on bad sensor
Spaceflightnow.com (8/28): Investigation points to faulty sensor as cause of Aug. 22 SpaceX test rocket failure at Central Texas development complex. Faulty sensor issued a destruct command that led to inflight explosion.
Suborbital
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo glides through a dry run
NBC News (8/28): Glide flight unfolds over Mojave Desert on Thursday.
What to wear in space: Spacesuit chic with final frontier design
Space.com (8/28): Small New York-based company pursues a fashionable space suit design with a Russian flavor. Final Frontier Designs is hopeful private astronauts will chose their garb.
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