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Today’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. NASA injects new reality into university student rocket launch competition: pretend you are working on NASA’s Space Launch System heavy lift rocket, say contest sponsors. Former NASA astronaut Clay Anderson explains link between respect for those who sacrificed and passion for exploration. James Webb Space Telescope tracking budget, schedule expectations, say developers. NASA orbiter spots large fresh Martian crater. Superstar physicist Stephen Hawking creates black hole furor. Pluto poised for major comeback. Russian Progress cargo ship launches, docks with International Space Station. New NASA com sat finds way to geosynchronous orbit for Boeing check out. U.S. export revisions affecting satellite technology due by summer. U.S. commercial spaceflight chief ready to regulate. U.S. defense officials not comfortable with additional contractor mergers. NASA, SpaceX delay next U.S. commercial cargo launch to the space station. Ariane 5 poised for dual communications satellite lift off. Photo memories.
Human Deep Space Exploration
NASA evolves student rocketry challenge, enhances ties to Space Launch System
NASA (2/5): NASA adds elements of reality to its university student level rocket launch competition. The new NASA Student Launch challenge calls on college students to address issues as though they were at work on the Space Launch System heavy lift rocket, which is intended to start U. S. explorers on missions of deep space exploration. In addition to offering students hands on lessons in the critical STEM fields, the new competition could open career doors. Utah will host 26 university teams for the first newly minted competition in May.
The Huffington Post (2/3): Former NASA astronaut Clay Anderson recalls his duties as a family escort for the crew assigned to shuttle Columbia’s final flight. Anderson emerged from the difficult assignment convinced of the enduring value of human space exploration. Anderson’s remarks accompanied NASA’s Day of Remembrance and other tributes last week for the17 astronauts that lost their lives in the Apollo 1 fire and shuttle Challenger and Columbia tragedies.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
NASA’s troubled $8-billion Hubble successor is back on track
Scientific American (2/5): Once over budget and falling behind schedule, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is back in line, undergoing assembly and testing prior to a late 2018 lift off. The JWST is the designated successor to the Hubble Space Telescope.
NASA Mars orbiter examines dramatic new crater
NASA (2/5): NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and its high resolution imagers capture a fresh impact crater. The depression, 100 feet across, is a reminder of the random violence still at work in the solar system. Debris from the impact by a space rock sometime after mid-2010 was tossed nearly 10 miles.
National Public Radio (2/5): Recent comments from famed physicist Stephen Hawking continue to raise questions about the existence of black holes.
Fiery black hole debate creates cosmological Wild West
New Scientist (2/5): Physicist Stephen Hawking creates a stir when he claims black holes may allow some light to emerge from behind their event horizons.
Pluto wins: It may not be a planet, but Pluto explains the whole solar system.
Slate (2/5): Downgraded from ninth planet status several years ago, Pluto is poised for a comeback, according to Slate. The time frame is mid-2015 as NASA’s camera toting New Horizon’s spacecraft makes the first flyby of the distant resident of the Kuiper Belt.
Mars rover Curiosity set to ride biggest sand dune yet
Los Angeles Times (2/5): NASA’s Curiosity rover is poised to traverse the largest Martian sand dune ever on its new course to Mount Sharp.
Low Earth Orbit
Russian cargo craft docks to International Space Station
Spaceflightnow.com (2/5): Russia successfully delivers its first cargo of the year to the six person International Space Station on Wednesday. The Progress freighter carries out an automated docking at 5:22 p.m., EST, approximately six hours after lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Russian cargo craft delivers supplies to space station
Spaceflightnow.com (2/5): Launched Jan. 23 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., NASA’s latest Tracking and Data Relay Satellite has reached its geosynchronous orbital perch. The communications satellite will service the six person International Space Station as well as orbiting science missions. Three months of testing by Boeing remain before, NASA takes ownership.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
Satellite export control final rule due out by early summer
Spacepolitics.com (2/5): Look to early spring/summer for new regulations governing the export control of satellites and military electronics, a U.S. Commerce Department official informs a Washington forum this week.
U.S. Spaceflight Regulatory Chief eager to begin rulemaking process
Space News (2/5): The top FAA regulator of U.S. commercial space flight is ready to move ahead with regulations for private sector human space operations. The emerging industry would like to hold off to encourage growth.
U.S. Defense Department not comfortable if major contractors look to merge -official
Reuters via Yahoo Finance (2/5): A sluggish economic environment could lead to unwanted contractor mergers, cautions a U.S. Defense Department official who watches over the impacts on national security issues. “Even though we’re seeing a budget downturn which has corresponded to consolidation in the past, we’d be less comfortable now because of that smaller number,” Elana Broitman, the acting deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for manufacturing and industrial base policy, told an investors conference.
Next SpaceX station cargo run slips into March
Space News (2/5): SpaceX’s next cargo delivery to the International Space Station slips to mid-March, a three-week delay. NASA and SpaceX made the switch for several reasons.
Ariane 5 rocket set for opening launch of 2014
Spaceflightnow.com (1/5): Big rocket set to launch on Thursday from French Guiana with a pair of large communications satellites.
Got a Moment?
The Washington Post (2/5): “For All Mankind,” an exhibition at the Breese Little gallery in London, features more than 100 NASA photographs from the ’60s through the ’80s.
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