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Today’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. How to land on Mars? NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to replace countdown clock. In Huntsville, Dynetics joins with Boeing to develop the Space Launch System heavy lift rocket. Alien world just 122 light years away reveals water vapor in its torrid atmosphere. Scientists in China talk Mars sample return mission. India’s first Mars orbiter receives greetings from NASA’s Martian spacecraft. Japan labors on super space elevator. Russia says it will back a U.S. proposed extension of International Space Station operations with money. New U.S., Russian crew poised for launch to the International Space Station late Thursday. European Space Agency members size up unanticipated expense to develop the next generation Ariane 6 commercial rocket.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Air and Space Museum Magazine (10/1): After reaching Mars with human, how do you land? The discussion ranges from supersonic parachutes to touchdown sensors and air bags to ensuring astronauts have manual control in the landing phase.
NASA’s countdown clock eyed for retirement
Spaceflight Insider (9/24): The iconic countdown clock at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is due replacement with a modern flat screen version. The change may come in time for Exploration Flight Test-1, the test launching of the first unpiloted Orion crew capsule, in early December. The current countdown display was a fixture during shuttle mission launches. Orion is in development to carry U.S. astronauts on future missions of deep space exploration.
Huntsville’s Dynetics teams with Boeing to build test, flight hardware for Space Launch System
Huntsville Times (9/24): Huntsville’s Dynetics joins with Boeing to assemble test hardware for NASA’s Space Launch System heavy lift rocket. The SLS is intended to start future human explorers on missions of deep space exploration.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
Water found on Neptune-sized world
Science News (9/24): NASA’s space observatories size up the alien planet HAT-P-11b, which is 122 light years away. Roughly the size of Neptune, HAT-P-11b has an atmosphere with water vapor, thanks to observations with the Hubble, Spitzer and Kepler space telescopes.
Clear skies on HAT-P-11b pull back curtain on potentially habitable planets
Christian Science Monitor (9/24): Unbearably hot, distant HAT-P-11b intrigues astronomers with the discovery of an atmosphere with water vapor.
Scientists hit new milestone in search for water on planets outside our solar system
Washington Post (9/24): HAT P-11b represents quite a find for the Hubble, Spitzer and Kepler space observatories — a planet with a tiny rocky core four times larger than the Earth and clear skies. While there is water vapor in the atmosphere, this world 729 trillion miles away is much too hot for liquid water and breathable air.
China exclusive: Mars: China’s next goal?
Xinhua, of China (9/25): Scientists say China is considering a Mars rover mission that would gather soil and rock samples and return them to Earth around 2030.
Indian orbiter reaches Mars, gets adorable greeting from NASA’s Curiosity rover
Huffington Post (9/24): NASA welcomes India and its Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft to the red planet. The social media light up with exchanges between NASA’s Curiosity rover and India’s Mangalyaan orbiter, which steered into Martian orbit late Tuesday.
Japanese company plans space elevator by 2050
CNET (9/24): Japan’s Obayashi Corporation envisions a space elevator as a pathway to Earth orbit by 2050.
Low Earth Orbit
Russia to allocate $8.2 billion for ISS development up to 2025: Deputy PM
Itar Tass, of Russia (9/23): Russia’s Dmitry Rogozin, the deputy prime minister, says his country is ready to invest in the extension of International Space Station operations. Earlier this year, the Obama administration proposed an extension from 2020 to 2024.
Expedition 41 set to launch from Kazakhstan
Spaceflight Insider (9/24): In Kazakhstan, U.S. and Russian astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore, Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova are set to launch and dock late Thursday with the International Space Station. Serova represents the first Russian woman to travel to Earth orbit in nearly 20 years. The trio is prepared to spend 5 1/2 months living and working aboard the space station.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
ESA’s Ariane 6 cost estimate rises with addition of new launch pad
Space News (9/24): The need for a new launch pad counters production cost savings envisioned for the European Space Agency’s proposed next generation Ariane 6 rocket. ESA ministers who were briefed in Zurich request further refinements by the end of November.
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