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Today’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. U.S. Senate procedural obstacles stall debate on NASA’s 2015 budget. Congressional differences over financial disclosure requirements for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program partners continue. NASA updates plans to identify, catch and steer a small asteroid into lunar orbit, where it can be reached by U.S. astronauts. Eighteen new studies funded to improve NASA’s asteroid, human Mars mission planning. NASA’s asteroid exploration plans could offer strategy to head off future collision. Budget concerns could shutdown NASA’s Spitzer infrared space telescope mission, a player in assessing asteroid characteristics. Europe breaks ground on Chilean mountaintop for world’s largest telescope. Astronomers stir debate over gravity wave claim and link to Big Bang. Dust devils clean up on Mars. Omega watch to commemorate Apollo 11 moon landing anniversary. Cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev toil outside International Space Station during long spacewalk. NASA, CASIS and American Astronautical Society commend 14 top scientific research activities aboard the International Space Station. Key forces in efforts to make U.S. private spaceflight possible. Russian rocket grabs record for satellite launches.
NASA’s 2015 Budget
Senate appropriations process hits a snag, minibus derailed for now
Spacepolicyonline.com (6/19): Efforts to win U.S. Senate passage of a “minibus” appropriations bill that includes NASA spending for 2015 hit a procedural stalemate on Thursday. The snag, unrelated to space issues, deals with how many votes are required for amendments, a simple majority of more than 50, or 60.
Shelby reiterates his support for commercial crew pricing language as Nelson seeks changes to it
Spacepolitics.com (6/19): U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, of Alabama, stands by language in the Senate’s version of NASA’s 2015 budget bill that would impose financial disclosure rules on NASA’s Commercial Crew Program partners. Some believe the disclosures would be too restrictive for the planned fixed price contracts.
Human Deep Space Exploration
NASA announces latest progress, upcoming milestones in hunt for asteroids
NASA (6/19): NASA outlines new progress Thursday in efforts to identify an asteroid target for the agency’s Asteroid Redirect Mission. ARM is considered a step in future efforts to develop the rockets, spacecraft, procedures and tools for exploring Mars with humans. The space agency is aiming for a 2019 lift off of a robotic mission to capture its asteroid target.
NASA IDs potential target for asteroid mission
Reuters (6/19): Asteroid 2011 MD, which passed close to the Earth three years ago, is among nine potential targets for a robotic NASA capture. The space agency identified the candidates Thursday during a Washington update of the Asteroid Grand Challenge it announced a year ago. Once captured, the small asteroid or a boulder from a larger asteroid, would be steered into a lunar orbit. There it could be visited by U.S. astronauts in the mid-2020s as a test of systems that would enable humans to reach the Martian surface a decade later.
NASA funds 18 creative concepts for bold asteroid-capture plan
Space.com (6/19): NASA awards $4.9 million to flesh out 18 proposals to help develop the agency’s plans to capture a small asteroid or a boulder from a larger one. The space agency plans to steer the space rock into orbit around the moon for future exploration by U.S. astronauts launched aboard the new Space Launch System and Orion crew capsule.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
How NASA’s asteroid mission will head off ‘Armageddon’
NBC.com (6/19): NASA briefs progress in efforts to identify and deflect asteroids that pose a collision threat to the Earth. “There are more than a million near-Earth asteroids out there, and experts estimate that about 20,000 of them have the potential to cause a city-sized catastrophe,” NBC reports.
NASA finds asteroid to visit but may lose an important tool for studying them.
Nature News (6/19): NASA’s 11-year-old Spitzer infrared space telescope could be deactivated for budgetary reasons. However, it could play an important role in characterizing asteroids NASA is assessing for capture.
Spitzer spies an odd, tiny asteroid
NASA (6/19): NASA’s Spitzer space telescope measured 2011MD at six meters across and characterized it as possibly a “rubble pile” rather than a single object.
Mountaintop blows up to make way for giant telescope
Discovery.com (6/19): A mountain top explosion in northern Chile starts the construction of the largest ground-based telescope on the Earth. Europe’s Extremely Large Telescope is expected to produce images from space 16 times sharper than those from the Hubble Space Telescope.
Astronomers hedge on big bang detection claim
New York Times (6/19): The science community stirs up a spirited discussion over March claims of a gravity wave detection from the long ago Big Bang.
NASA mission hunts down and shoots Martian dust devils
Discovery.com (6/19): On Dusty Mars, a dust devil may rival a spring cleaning.
An Omega watch recalls the lunar landing
Wall Street Journal (6/19): Omega celebrates the Apollo 11 moon landing with a replica of the timepieces worn by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin as they touched down on the lunar surface 45 years ago next month.
Low Earth Orbit
Spacewalking cosmonauts finish hard work outside Space Station
Space.com (6/19): First time Russian space walkers Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev overcome the obstacles to complete a near 7 1/2 hour spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Thursday. Tasks included the installation of a new communications antenna.
NASA, partners announce top achievements in Space Station research
NASA (6/19): NASA, the American Astronautical Society and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space select 14 top research projects from the International Space Station. The projects have the potential to benefit life on Earth as well as prepare astronauts to live and work in deep space.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
Five groups making private space flight a reality
Christian Science Monitor (6/19): Five U.S. groups strive to make private spaceflight possible.
Russian Dnepr rocket lofts record haul of 37 satellites
Nasaspaceflight.com (6/19): Russia launches its first commercial remote sensing satellite, plus microsats from other countries. The mission establishes a new single launch record for spacecraft deployments.
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