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Today’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. Op-eds urge more aggressive U.S. human exploration agenda, ponder cooperation with China. Buzz Aldrin urges Mars mission, with international cooperation that includes China, as 45th anniversary of Apollo 11 lift off nears. NASA’s Space Launch System, James Webb Space Telescope increase chances of finding extraterrestrial life, say experts. Russia’s first female cosmonaut assigned to the International Space Station nears lift off. Might cancelled U.S. Manned Orbiting Lab have accelerated understanding of human adaptation to space? Aerojet Rocketdyne accelerates Orbital Sciences cargo mission to the International Space Station. Space station supplies: a must. Russia looks to December for next Angara test launch and late September for Proton recovery. SpaceX launches communications satellites.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Apollo’s children: The waiting is over
Space News (7/14): In an op-ed, Rick Tumlinson urges an aggressive program of human space exploration reminiscent of the U.S. Apollo program. Tumlinson writes on the approach of the 45th anniversary of the July 20, 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing. “And now, here we are, 45 years later. Having succeeded magnificently, we were unable to stay, became unable to return, and are now unable to even put Americans into space at all,” writes the co-founder of the Space Frontier Foundation, Deep Space Industries and other enterprises.
Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who walked on the moon, wants the U.S. to head for Mars
Washington Post (7/14): Apollo 11’s Aldrin joined mission commander Neil Armstrong 45 years ago Sunday as the first humans to step to the surface of another planetary body, the Earth’s moon. It’s time, says Aldrin, for the U.S. to establish a human presence on Mars in an international partnership that includes China.
Two perspectives on U.S.-China space cooperation
Space News (7/14): A hot topic within U.S. space circles, U.S/Chinese cooperation could serve to exert a positive influence over U.S./Chinese relations. Or, it could afford China too much on the technology front. Two experts, Michael Listner, attorney and space policy expert, and Joan Johnson-Freese, a national security expert, team up for an op-ed on the topic.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
The search for alien life could get a boost from NASA’s next-generation rocket
Universe Today (7/14): NASA’s Space Launch System heavy lift rocket offers the promise of more than starting humans on missions of deep space exploration. The SLS could boost new generations of space telescopes to seek evidence of life on distant planets, say participants in a NASA sponsored search for life forum in Washington on Monday.
NASA scientists say they’re closer than ever to finding life beyond Earth
Los Angeles Times (7/14): Top experts in the search for extraterrestrial life suggest they are closer than ever to finding the answer with new technologies such as the James Webb Space Telescope, which is due for launching in October 2018. NASA sponsored a Washington forum on the topic on Monday.
Northrop Grumman, ATK complete James Webb back plane testing
Composite World (7/15): Northrop Grumman and ATK complete a crucial test of lightweight satellite structure that will secure optics and instrumentation for the James Webb Space Telescope. JWST is in development for an October 2018 lift off.
Low Earth Orbit
Station’s first female cosmonaut preparing for September launch
Space News (7/11): Sept. 25 will mark the launch of Russia’s first female cosmonaut to the International Space Station, Elena Serova, 38. Serova will join male NASA and Russian cosmonauts as they lift off aboard a Soyuz spacecraft for the ISS. “I don’t think I’m doing anything extraordinary,” Serova said in a NASA pre-flight interview.
The Space Review (7/14): After its conceptual beginnings in 1963-65, the Pentagon’s space station, the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, encountered technical, cost and schedule issues that led to cancellation in 1969. Might the secretive project have brought useful information about how humans fare in space during long missions well before NASA’s Skylab? Essayist Dwayne Day speculates.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
Aerojet Rocketdyne, Orbital Sciences launch successful to resupply space station
Sacramento Business Journal (7/15): Two Aerojet Rocketdyne rocket engines power Orbital Sciences Antares rocket on cargo mission to the International Space Station. The Cygnus re-supply craft is on course to berth with the six person space station early Wednesday.
Getting to love logistics on the space station
The Space Review (7/14): The topic may seem arcane, but “logistics” or getting supplies to the International Space Station in a timely fashion, is crucial to the long term productivity of the six person orbital laboratory as well as the success of U.S. orbital commercial ventures, writes TSR editor Jeff Foust.
Russia ships Angara 5 to Plesetsk for December test flight
Spacepolicyonline.com (7/14): Russia readies a late 2014 launching of a more powerful version of its new Angara family of rockets. The Angara 5 is the approximate equivalent of a U.S. Delta IV Heavy. The Russians successfully test launched a suborbital version of the new post-Soviet rocket family earlier this month.
First Proton launch after crash scheduled for Sept. 28 — Roscosmos
Ria Novosti, of Russia (7/15): A Proton failure during a mid-May launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome resulted in the loss of a telecommunications satellite.
SpaceX launch delivers Orbcomm satellites to orbit
Spaceflightnow.com (7/14): SpaceX Falcon 9 delivers a half dozen compact communications satellites to orbit, following a lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
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