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Today’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. Russia focuses on the moon for human exploration. Retired space shuttle engines to ignite in Mississippi for new role as Space Launch System propulsion sources. NASA policy venue last week produces doubts about Asteroid Retrieval Mission, worries about future space budgets. Mars 2020 rover to test potential for making oxygen on the red planet. Europe’s Rosetta probe set for comet encounter on Wednesday. Japan to establish space surveillance network. Future International Space Station astronaut arranges to watch college football. Russian aerospace company executive forced aside but sought for new commercial space post. Lockheed exhibits Fort Worth assembly role for Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser. Jeff Bezos, of Amazon.com and Blue Origin, explains passion for spaceflight. United Launch Alliance lofts U.S. navigation satellite. Aerojet Rocketdyne counts contributions to four U.S. space mission within 30 days. The week ahead: Congress recesses, talk over U.S. space ambitions continues.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Russia to focus on Moon, Mars exploration, repeat Phobos-Grunt mission
Itar-Tass, or Russia (8/3): Russia intends to focus on lunar and Mars exploration over the next decade, Space Research Institute Director Lev Zeleny told the 40th COSPAR Scientific Assembly underway in Moscow through Aug. 10. “The Moon and Mars are our priority for 2016-2025,” says Zeleny. A Russian lunar surface rover is in the works after a pair of joint Russia European Mars missions in 2016-18. A manned Russian lunar mission is planned for 2030-31, according to another Russian official who spoke in early July, Itar-Tass reports.
Manned Moon mission to cost Russia $2.8 billion in Space Research Institute
Ria Novosti, of Russia (8/3): Officials place estimates for a Russian human mission to the moon at $2.8 billion. Igor Mitrofanov, laboratory director at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Space Research Institute, spoke Sunday at the COSPAR Scientific Assembly in Moscow, saying robotic lunar landers would pave the way for Russian explorers as the current decade draws to a close.
Space shuttle relics ready to roar again in Mississippi
Spaceflightnow.com (8/2): NASA readies ground testing of one time space shuttle rocket engines for a new mission — flight testing of the Space Launch System, the heavy lift rocket designated by U.S. policy makers and Congress to start future U.S. space explorers on missions of deep space exploration.
Asteroid scientists vent their concerns about ARM
Spacepolitics.com (8/3): Members of the Small Bodies Assessment Group, scientists involved in the study of asteroids, voice skepticism and some opposition to NASA’s Asteroid Retrieval Mission. The mission could be cancelled or fail and as a consequence, say some, set back their efforts to further an understanding of small planetary bodies. The new House version of a NASA Authorization measure, the first since 2010, would require a formal assessment of the mission by SBAG. The Senate has yet to act of an authorization measure.
Asteroid expert Richard Binzel: ARM is “Emperor with no clothes”
Spacepolicyonline.com (8/1): Richard Binzel, of MIT, a chief Small Bodies Assessment Group critic of NASA’s Asteroid Retrieval Mission, questions the value of risking human life to grab an asteroid sample for scientists.
Space notebook: NASA goals, budget called a ‘fraud’
Florida Today (8/2): The NASA Advisory Council, in session last week, questions whether current funding can support U.S. human space exploration goals. “…the mismatch between NASA’s aspirations for human spaceflight and its budget for human spaceflight is the most serious problem facing the agency…” the 13 member NAC panel said in part while meeting at NASA’s Langley Research Center.
Oxygen-generating Mars rover to bring colonization closer
Space.com (8/1): MOXIE, an instrument selected last week by NASA to fly aboard the Mars 2020 rover, will demonstrate the extraction of oxygen from the thin Martian atmosphere. MOXIE is in development at MIT, Oxygen could prove a resource to future Martian explorers and settlers.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
European spacecraft to attempt historic comet rendezvous this week
Space.com (8/2): Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft is nearing an encounter Wednesday with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta began its mission a decade ago. Rosetta will fly in information with the comet and deploy a lander as they journey around the sun together.
NASA reveals 2020 Mars rover will sport machine to generate oxygen, better radar
Huffington Post and Nature (8/2): Based on the Curiosity rover, NASA’s Mars 2020 rover will carry improved cameras as well as equipment to extract oxygen from the planet’s thin atmosphere of carbon dioxide and store samples of soil and rock that can someday be retrieved and returned to Earth. “I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that it’s a future astronaut that picks up the sample and returns it to Earth,” notes John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for science.
Low Earth Orbit
Japan set to create space force within SDF in 5 years’ time
Globalpost.com (8/20): Japan’s Defense Ministry intends to establish a space monitoring capability by 2017. The new operation will monitor manmade orbital debris that pose a threat to active satellites. Japan plans to share its information with the United States, which supports a military space monitoring branch. Japan aims for activation in 2019.
Astronaut arranges for SEC football in space
Tennessean (8/2): NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore arranges to watch Southeastern Conference college football games when he arrives at the International Space Station in late September. Wilmore, who played high school and college football, is training to serve as the station’s commander in November.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
Embattled RSC Energia President Lopota suspended from Post
Parabolic Arc (8/2): Company President Vitaly Lopota was suspended from duties on Friday following inquiries into allegations of abuse of office. RSC Energia suspended Lopota after seven years in the post.
Energia President Lopota offered office as vice president at United Rocket and Space Corporation
Interfax, of Russia (8/2): United Rocket and Space Corporation (URSC) President Igor Komarov proposed that Vitaly Lopota, the former president and general designer of the Energia space rocket corporation, become his deputy for technological development.
Lockheed unveils their concept for future of manned space travel
WFAA-TV, of Dallas (8/1): Lockheed Martin joins with Sierra Nevada for partial assembly of the Dream Chaser, a winged entrant in NASA’s Commercial Crew Program initiative. The space agency is to choose soon among proposals for commercial space transportation systems that can carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Components of Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser are being bonded to the airframe at Lockheed Martin facilities in Fort Worth.
Billionaire Jeff Bezos talks about his secret passion: space travel
Forbes.com (8/1): Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos traces his passion for space travel to NASA’s Apollo program. In addition to nurturing those dreams through Blue Origin, Bezos funded efforts to recover Saturn V rocket engines used to launch the Apollo missions. The machinery, pulled from the Atlantic, may eventually find its way to the Smithsonian Institution’s Air & Space Museum.
Atlas 5 rocket deploys new GPS navigation satellite
Spaceflightnow.com (8/2): United Launch Alliance launched a U.S. Air Force GPS satellite late Friday from Cape Canaveral, Fla., atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V.
Aerojet Rocketdyne supports fourth successful launch into orbit in 30 days
Finance Yahoo.com (8/2): Aerojet Rocketdyne, the California based rocket propulsion company, supports a fourth U.S. satellite launch in 30 days. The spacecraft include Earth observing civil and military satellites as well as the most recent, a Boeing built Global Positioning System satellite, launched on Aug. 1.
Major Space Related Activities for the Week
Major space related activities for the week of August 3-10, 2014
Spacepolicyonline.com (8/3): Congress is in recess this week. However, several space policy sessions are underway or will meet this week. On Wednesday, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta probe attempts a long awaited comet encounter.
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