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Today’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. White House State of the Union guests include Scott Kelly, NASA’s one-year astronaut. NASA looks to changes in the airbag system that had difficulty fully deploying after a successful Dec. 5 unpiloted test flight of the Orion capsule. The unexpected discovery of Britain’s long lost Beagle 2 Mars lander offers lessons in how to avoid the repetition of costly mistakes. After two decades of alien planet discovery, scientists face difficult choices over their next steps. Scientists explain their debate over the origins of Martian geophysical features in photos from NASA’s Curiosity rover. NASA’s Dawn mission impresses with new images of large asteroid Ceres. Russia sets delayed Venus mission for 2025. New Chilean telescope begins alien planet search. Challenging orbital debris cleanup to take years, international cooperation. U.S. Air Force to re-examine missile warning satellite strategy. Shuttle Mate Demate Device dismantled at the Kennedy Space Center. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program discloses details of September contract choices. Virgin Galactic plans new SpaceShipTwo test flight strategy.
Human Deep Space Exploration
White House announces State of the Union guests
USA Today (1/19): The guest lineup includes NASA astronaut Scott Kelly. Kelly is preparing to liftoff March 27 on a year-long mission to the International Space Station, the longest American spaceflight to date. Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko will be the focus of research enabling future human deep space exploration.
Redesign likely needed for Orion airbag system
Spaceflightnow.com (1/19): The NASA/Lockheed Martin Orion Capsule flew well during an unpiloted two orbit test flight on Dec. 5. At splashdown, however, the inflatable flotation devices meant to upright and float the four person capsule only partially inflated.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
The Space Review (1/19): Contact with the U.K.’s Beagle 2 Mars lander was lost precipitously in December 2003 during the long entry, descent and landing phase. Recent photos from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reveal it landed largely intact on the Martian surface, the European Space Agency announced last week. Essayist Dwayne Day reviews the legacy including a reluctance on the parts of the U.K. Minister of Science & Innovation and ESA to disclose the reasons for the mission loss, which included a lack of pre-flight testing. Disclosure of the “lessons learned” will help future missions to avoid the same mistakes, writes Day.
Debating the future of exoplanet missions concepts and community
The Space Review (1/19): The science community devoted to the search for Earth-like planets around other stars faces a challenge, writes TSR editor Jeff Foust. Two decades of searching has produced thousands of prospects. The next moves, however, involve examining those planets for evidence of atmospheres capable of supporting life and perhaps even evidence of biological activity — in a budget constrained environment.
Follow up: Signs of ancient life in Mars rover photos?
Astrobiology Magazine (1/20): Geobiologists debate the origins of surface features on Mars at the Yellowknife Bay rock formation. One expert finds similarities to trace fossils of microbial mats found on the Earth in photos transmitted by NASA’s Curiosity rover. Other experts are skeptical.
Ceres in sight: NASA’s Dawn spacecraft eyes mysterious dwarf planet
Los Angeles Times (1/19): The Dawn probe places the large asteroid Ceres in focus. Dawn is on a course to reach and begin to orbit the largest of the main belt asteroids in early March. Launched on Sept. 27, 2007, Dawn’s first asteroid destination was Vesta.
Russia to send Venus exploration mission in 2025 designer
Itar-Tass, of Russia (1/19): Russia looks to 2025 for the launching of an orbiting Venus probe and lander once envisioned for a 2016 lift off.
New telescope in Chile now searching for alien planets
Space.com (1/19): The Next-Generation Transit Survey, part of the European Southern Paranal Observatory, has joined the search for planets orbiting nearby stars. The observatory is optimized to seek planets two to eight times the size of the Earth using the transiting technique.
Low Earth Orbit
Dealing with space junk: The rocky road ahead
Space.com (1/16): The Earth’s population of orbiting space debris now exceeds 22,000 objects. A cleanup is likely to take years and multi-national cooperation.
Missile warning satellites to be early subject of USAF reform initiative
Space News (1/19): U.S. Air Force will look at the standing acquisition strategy for missile warning satellites, according to Deborah Lee James, the Air Force secretary. The effort will trade cost versus capabilities.
Symbol of NASA’s space shuttle program torn down
Florida Today (1/19): At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the Mate Demate Device, a structural mechanism designed to place and remove NASA’s space shuttle orbiters on and from the fuselage of Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, has been dismantled.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
NASA outlines why it passed over Sierra Nevada
Spaceflightnow.com (1/20): NASA documents outline the reasons for its choices of Boeing and SpaceX for contracts leading to U.S. commercial crew to Earth orbit transportation services. Competitor Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser design was complex, raising schedule issues, according to the SFN’s report on the space agency’s September contract awards.
Suborbital
Virgin Galactic plans for new generation of SpaceShipTwo
Spaceflightinsider.com (1/19): Virgin Galactic plans a strategy for a new round of SpaceShipTwo test flights, with a goal of introducing space tourism flights in 2016. The company is recovering from an Oct. 31 SpaceShipTwo test flight mishap that claimed the life of the spacecraft’s co-pilot.
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