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Today’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. Propulsion experts prepare a Space Launch System solid rocket booster for a Wednesday test firing. The Orion capsule heat shield will receive a new round of post flight testing. Editorial questions legislative commitment to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. NASA’s Kepler space telescope marks its sixth year in space. Who speaks for Earth in extraterrestrial contact? Ancient Mars shaped by wind as well as water, say scientists. NASA’s Scott Kelly up for one year in space. NASA urged to develop a post International Space Station plan. U.S. Air Force warns that Russian rocket engine ban could weaken competition for national security mission launches sooner than anticipated. U.S. military weather satellite breakup has commercial and government satellite owners concerned over debris threat. U.S. commercial launch services companies compete for new NASA re-supply missions to the International Space Station.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Solid rocket booster for NASA’s Space Launch System ready for Wednesday test fire in Utah
America Space (3/10): QM-1, the solid rocket booster designed for NASA’s Space Launch System heavy lift rocket, will provide 500 channels of data as it develops 3.6 million pounds of thrust during a two minute ground test firing in the Utah desert on Wednesday. The most powerful solid rocket ever built is to ignite at 11:30 a.m., EDT. The SLS is under development to start humans on future missions of deep space exploration.
Orion gets ready for its close-up
Hampton Roads Daily Press (3/9): Following the successful Dec. 5 unpiloted test flight of the NASA/Lockheed Martin Orion crew exploration capsule, engineers at the Langley Research Center plan to subject the heat shield to additional testing.
Houston Chronicle (3/9): NASA’s Johnson Space Center is not receiving the kind of legislative support in Washington it needs for the agency’s commercial crew development initiative and long term human deep space exploration ambitions, according to an editorial that reflects on recent U.S. House and Senate hearings.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
Happy birthday, Kepler! NASA planet hunter marks 6 years in space
Space.com (3/9): NASA’s exo-planet hunting Kepler space telescope marks its six year anniversary in space this month. Despite difficulties with the observatory’s pointing system, Kepler has monitored 150,000 stars in the Milky Way galaxy, discovering just over 1,000 alien planets. Kepler has handed the experts another 3,100 targets in the Milky Way to evaluate.
Who speaks for Earth, and does it really matter?
The Space Review (3/9): A February session at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Jose, Calif., has sparked a debate over whether to transmit a message to extraterrestrial civilizations. Some believe it could provoke an attack. Others wonder whether Earthlings can reach a consensus on the message’s content. Others propose placing a message on the hard drive of NASA’s New Horizons mission after the spacecraft has concluded its studies of Pluto and other Kuiper Belt objects.
Martian canyons may have been carved by wind
Science News (3/9): Wind as well as flowing water may have shaped the canyons of Mars, according to the findings from a study of similar features among the Andes Mountains of Chile.
Low Earth Orbit
NASA’s Scott Kelly talks year-long space experiment
NBC News (3/9): Veteran NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is prepared to lift off late Mar. 27 on a U.S. record setting, year-long mission to the International Space Station. Kelly will serve as a subject in a wide range of medical experiments intended to help prepare his U.S. astronaut successors for missions of deep space exploration.
NASA urged to develop post-International Space Station strategy
Space News (3/9): U.S. space policy experts are pressing NASA to develop a post International Space Station strategy. Russia has expressed its intent to depart after 2024. Meanwhile, NASA’s other international partners have not indicated their plans beyond 2020. High ranking NASA officials suggest the U.S. commercial sector should develop a successor to the station.
U.S. Air Force sounds alarm over ban on Russian rocket engines
Space News (3/9): U.S. Air Force officials express concern over a Congressional ban on the use of RD-180 rocket engines imported from Russia for the launching of national security payloads. The ban, prompted by Russian interference in Ukraine, could make it especially difficult for United Launch Alliance, provider of the Atlas 5, to compete, according to the report.
Air Force weather satellite space debris hazard a concern
Americaspace.com (3/9): The Feb. 3 breakup of a U.S. military weather satellite sparks debris concerns among commercial as well as government operators of critical Earth orbiting satellites, including the six person International Space Station.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
A new space race emerges as NASA prepares to award contract to ferry supplies to space station
Washington Post (3/9): U.S. launch services providers engage in a new space race, the next round of competition to transport supplies to the six person International Space Station. It appears as many as five companies are vying for the work now carried out by Orbital ATK and SpaceX.
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