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Today’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. NASA looks to a concept review for its proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission within a month. U.S. Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Space chair Ted Cruz questions NASA’s commitment to deep space exploration during a Thursday budget hearing with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. Russia speaks with potential lunar exploration partners. Lockheed Martin and its partners look to a far reaching commercial re-supply mission concept. Hubble Space Telescope observations point to a major ocean on Jupiter’s moon Ganymede. New evidence for oceans on outer solar system bodies boost the search for extraterrestrial life, says NASA astrobiologist. China’s Yutu rover finds evidence for a complex lunar evolution. The European Space Agency attempts to electronically revive the Rosetta mission’s Philae comet lander. NASA’s Pluto bound New Horizons spacecraft carried out a major trajectory maneuver on Thursday. Engineers analyze an electrical short on the robot arm of NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover and make plans to resume operations. NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale mission heads for orbit late Thursday.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Review of Asteroid Redirect Mission expected in the next month
Space News (3/12): NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission proposal will undergo a key concept review within the next month, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said Thursday at the American Astronautical Society’s Goddard Memorial Symposium. The agency postponed a decision in December on whether ARM should be directed at the capture of a small asteroid or a boulder from a larger asteroid. In either case, the asteroid material would be maneuvered into orbit around the moon, where it could be visited by U.S. astronauts.
Cruz: NASA has lost focus on space
The Hill (3/12): U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, chair of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Space, urged NASA to sharpen the agency’s focus on exploring the deepest reaches of space rather than the Earth’s climate during a hearing Thursday on the agency’s proposed 2016 budget. Other members of the panel supported a balanced approach that includes both objectives.
Senators, Bolden clash over the “core mission”
Space News (3/12): A U.S. Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Space hearing on NASA’s 2016 budget turned into a debate between U.S. Ted Cruz, the chairman, and members of the panel over the space agency’s core missions, explorations of deep space or a deeper understanding of Earth science. “We must avoid the temptation to view NASA’s mission as a set of competing priorities,” said one lawmaker. NASA’s core mission should be deep space exploration, said Cruz.
Russia plans to start moon exploration jointly with partners
Sputnik News, of Russia (3/12): Russia plans to lead an international effort to explore the moon with humans, said Vladimir Mitin, deputy head of the manned program department at Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency. Mitin did not list Russia’s prospective partners. Last year, Russian officials pointed to new lunar missions in the 2016-25 time frame.
“Jupiter” space tug could deliver cargo to the moon
Aviation Week & Space Technology (3/12): Lockheed Martin will lead a contractor team from Italy and Canada in the development of a new space cargo vehicle that could deliver supplies to customers between low Earth orbit and Mars, including human explorers. The concept spacecraft has been christened Jupiter.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
Aurora shift confirms Ganymede’s ocean
Science News (3/12): A study of aurora suggest that Jupiter’s moon Ganymede hosts a vast salt water ocean beneath a mostly icy crust. The findings suggest Ganymede may have an environment suitable for biological activity.
Suddenly, it seems, water is everywhere in solar system
New York Times (3/13): Multiple science publications this week pointed to the presence of vast amounts of water on moons of Jupiter and Saturn, Ganymede and Enceladus. “After spending so many years going after Mars, which is so dry and so bereft of organics and so just plain dead, it’s wonderful to go to the outer solar system and find water, water everywhere,” said Christopher McKay, a NASA astrologist who was not involved in either of the studies.
China’s Yutu rover reveals Moon’s “complex” geological history
Xinhuanet, of China (3/12): Chinese scientists report on the findings of the Yutu rover, also known as the Jade Rabbit. Yutu landed on the lunar surface in December 2013. Using ground piercing radar, the rover found evidence of a more complex history of volcanic activity in the north pole region of the moon. Yutu was the first human spacecraft to reach the lunar surface since the former Soviet Union’s Luna 24 mission in 1976.
The Philae comet lander might have enough power to wake up
Wired.com (3/12): European Space Agency experts on Thursday began new attempts to communicate with the Philae lander, which departed the Rosetta spacecraft in November for a landing on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The landing was troubled, and Philae settled into the shadow of a cliff. The darkness appears to have prevented the solar powered lander from recharging its batteries. Brighter days are nearing as the comet travels closer to the sun.
NASA probe makes record-setting engine burn on path to Pluto
Space.com (3/12): NASA’s Pluto bound New Horizons spacecraft set a distance record, three billion miles, for a major course adjustment maneuver this week.
Mars Curiosity rover’s robotic arm back in action after electrical short
NBC News (3/12): At NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, engineers say the robot arm on the Curiosity rover is moving again after a short circuit in a drilling device led to a temporary halt in activities. The short appears to be intermittent. Experts are evaluating a strategy for future use of the drilling motor. Curiosity has been exploring the surface of Mars since August 2012.
Low Earth Orbit
Atlas 5 rocket launches NASA satellite quartet
Spaceflightnow.com (3/13): NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale mission spacecraft reached orbit late Thursday after lifting off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., late Thursday atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. The four spacecraft form a cornerstone for the new space weather mission that will study dynamic activity in the Earth’s magnetic field.
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