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Today’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. U.S. Navy, NASA to team for Orion crew vehicle recovery operations. Human space habitats should orbit their host planets, says U.S. space entrepreneur Robert Bigelow. U.S. networks, cable providers like space as a program theme. Dark streaks on the Martian terrain suggest liquid water. Pulsar flees supernova! On Mars, NASA’s Curiosity rover avoids the rocks. Asteroids: Don’t sweat the small ones? A large asteroid makes an unanticipated illusive flyby that leaves astronomers puzzled. Global space agencies contemplate protective spacecraft measures as comet nears Mars in October. Orbital Sciences “Orb-1” cargo mission departs the International Space Station. Professor finds space station worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize. SpaceX scoops up land in South Texas for possible launch complex. Russian chief of Baikonur Cosmodrome steps aside. Canada’s Urthecast is all about the photos. Sports Illustrated likes Zero G Corp 727 for annual bikini issue photo shoot.
Human Deep Space Exploration
NASA Administrator addresses media on Orion recovery operations testing
NASA (2/18): NASA joins with the U.S. Navy to prepare for the splashdown of the new Orion crew vehicle, a capsule designed to open new avenues of deep space exploration to U.S. astronauts. On Feb. 22, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will join those who command and serve on the USS San Diego to explain how that will happen.
One hotel mogul’s next frontier: Outer space
NBC News (2/18): Whether it’s the Earth or the moon, U.S. businessman Bob Bigelow envisions future explorers living aboard inflatable modules in orbit around their host planets. Bigelow believes changes in international convention are needed to encourage his vision with property rights for those brave enough to explore.
Must-see space TV: Astronauts star in new network television series
Collectspace.com (2/18): Network TV, and cable, flock to space exploration themes for their upcoming program lineups, and NASA astronaut/actor Mike Massimo will return for another episode of The Big Bang Theory.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
Strange dark streaks on Mars get more and more mysterious
Wired.com (2/18): NASA’s maturing Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter hints at evidence of liquid water on modern Mars. The water emerges as a briny liquid with an anti-freeze like makeup.
Chandra telescope observes impressive pulsar racing away from ancient supernova
America Space (2/18): The world’s most powerful X-ray space telescope spots high energy activity 15,000 light years away from the Earth, an erratic fast spinning pulsar.
Wheel concerns prompt new route for Mars rover
Spaceflightnow.com (2/18): Planners instruct NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover to change course on its way to the base of geologically rich Mount Sharp. The new navigation instructions veer off a rocky path that appears to have prematurely damaged the rover’s wheels.
Earth is prepared enough for the next asteroid strike
New Scientist (2/18): Astronomers, policy makers respond to the impact threat from hard to detect asteroids like the small near Earth object that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia a year ago Feb. 15. Some small asteroids on an impact trajectory may be detectable so late, that warnings and evacuation orders may have to suffice, according to some experts.
Asteroid the length of 3 football fields eludes sky-watchers
Los Angeles Times (2/18): Asteroid 2000 EM26, a rock the size of three football fields, escapes detection Monday as it passed about two million miles from the Earth. “Although nominal orbit information suggests it would come closest to the Earth on Feb. 18, the uncertainties of its position in the sky are enormous,” said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near Earth Object Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. Nonetheless, experts believe the object’s trajectory will not bring it close to the Earth for at least another century.
Space agencies to protect Mars probes from comet encounter
SEN (2/19): Comet C/2013 A1Siding Spring is on a course to skim very close to Mars on Oct. 19. The close encounter has space agencies from the U.S., Europe and India concerned for the fate of five orbiting spacecraft. Those include NASA’s MAVEN probe, which is to maneuver into orbit in September to unravel mysteries surrounding changes to the Martian atmosphere.
Low Earth Orbit
Orbital’s Cygnus tug departs Space Station
Space News (2/18): Early Tuesday, Orbital Science Corp’s first Cygnus resupply mission launched under contract to NASA, departed the six person International Space Station early Tuesday. Orbital’s Orb-1 capsule delivered just over 2,700 pounds of cargo including research gear on Jan. 12. The station now has two U.S. commercial re-suppliers, Orbital and SpaceX, which were nurtured under NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transport Services program.
ISS as a Nobel Peace Prize nominee? Why not?
Space News (2/17): The International Space Station is an eventually obvious candidate for a Nobel Peace Prize, writes Walter Peeters, president of the International Space University and a professor. Initially, Peeters shunned the notion when students brought it to his attention years ago, he acknowledges in an op-ed.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
SpaceX continues local land purchases
Rio Grande County Morning Star, of Texas (2/18): SpaceX continues with its purchase of property in Cameron County of South Texas amid speculation the California space launch enterprise plans to establish a commercial launch complex, the publication reports.
Russia’s Baikonur space center head quits
Ria Novosti, of Russia, (2/18): The top official at Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan steps down. Disagreements with top officials of Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency, may have been responsible for the departure, according to news reports.
Profile | Scott Larson, Chief Executive, UrtheCast
Space News (2/17): In Canada, Larson is hands on at Urthecast, a company focused on the Earth from space. In late January, Russian space walkers aboard the International Space Station deployed external Urthecast cameras to make the business case for publicly accessible near real time views of the Earth.
Suborbital
Kate Upton goes Zero-G for bikini photoshoot
Discovery.com (2/18): Sports Illustrated turned to the next best option to suborbital flight, Zero-G Corp’s Boeing 727, for parabolic flight through the Earth’s atmosphere to achieve brief moments of weightlessness for its annual swimsuit issue. Model Kate Upton was featured.
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