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Today’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. NASA’s Space Launch System heavy lift rocket development activities get off to a rigorous start in 2015. Recently enlarged Pegasus barge will move components of NASA’s Space Launch System heavy lift rocket from Louisiana to Mississippi for ground tests. NASA’s Mars ambitions paced by policymakers, budget battles. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft collects image of Pluto as a tribute to Clyde Tombaugh, the late astronomer credited with the small icy world’s discovery. Enthusiasts rally around possible Europa mission. International Space Station astronauts embrace duties as science “guinea pigs,” veteran astronaut explains. Aerojet Rocketdyne powers NASA’s latest Earth science mission to orbit. U.S. federal agencies assess Bigelow Aerospace quest for lunar property rights. Repairs to damaged Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport launch pad slowed by federal funding holdup.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Critical year for SLS development continues with base heating tests
AmericaSpace.com (3/4): At NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, engineers are working with scale models to prepare the thermal protection system for the Space Launch System heavy lift rocket. The work follows a successful SLS first stage rocket engine “hot fire” and comes just weeks before a scheduled ground test of the big rocket’s solid rocket booster. The first flight of the entire rocket designed to start U. S. explorers on future missions of deep space exploration is 2018.
Super sizing Pegasus for SLS core transport
NASASpaceflight.com (2/4): The Pegasus Barge, once assigned to ferry space shuttle external fuel tanks from New Orleans to Cape Canaveral, Fla., is being enlarged to transport components of NASA’s Space Launch System from New Orleans to the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi for testing next year.
For NASA, sending a person to Mars is simple: dealing with Congress is hard
Vox (2/4): NASA’s step by step efforts to reach Mars with astronauts in the 2030s address the technical challenges. Reaching a timely consensus with Congress on the intermediate steps — whether to visit an asteroid or return to the moon — and the appropriate funding levels are even more of a challenge.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
New Horizons probe delivers Pluto pictures as a birthday tribute
NBC News (2/4): NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has captured the closest pictures yet of distant Pluto. The new images were gathered days before the 18th anniversary of the death of astronomer Clyde Tombaugh who discovered Pluto in 1930. New Horizons is on course for the first ever close flyby of Pluto on July 14. The probe was launched Jan. 19, 2006.
Mission to Europa include in proposed NASA budget
Spaceflight Insider (2/4): The proposed White House spending plan for NASA in 2016 includes $30 million to initiate a mid-2020s mission to Europa, the ocean covered moon of Jupiter. The Europa Clipper would orbit Jupiter but carry out a series of 47 flybys of the moon. Europa may harbor conditions suitable for some form of life.
Low Earth Orbit
Space Station astronauts are ‘guinea pigs’ | video
Space.com (2/4): Veteran NASA astronaut Don Pettit explains how members of the International Space Station crew interact with the science experiments and technology demonstrations under way aboard the orbiting science laboratory. Often, the astronauts are subjects.
Aerojet Rocketdyne puts the smack into SMAP
SatNews.com (2/4): Aerojet Rocketdyne first and second stage engines placed the Soil Moisture Active Passive satellite, a new NASA Earth Science mission spacecraft, in orbit last weekend. The spacecraft will monitor moisture levels in the soil on global scales to evaluate drought and flood conditions as well as signs of climate change.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
Business on the Moon: FAA backs Bigelow Aerospace
Space.com (2/4): A handful of U.S. federal agencies, including the Pentagon, NASA and the FAA, assess efforts by Bigelow Aerospace to win recognition of lunar property rights as a commercial incentive. Bigelow is interested in developing lunar habitats for government as well as private sector users.
Spaceport awaiting federal funding to make repairs
Richmond Times Dispatch, of Virginia (2/4): Work to repair the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport launch pad damaged during the late October Orbital Sciences Antares launch mishap will be interrupted unless federal funds flow, Dale K. Nash, executive director of the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority, told a U.S. Senate panel on Wednesday. Congress appropriated $20 million for the work in its 2015 omnibus appropriations measure. The Antares rocket exploded moments after an Oct. 28 lift off with supplies for the International Space Station. Some ambiguity in the language of the legislation appears to be blame, according to one official. A setback, however, could slow Orbitals’ efforts to resume supply deliveries to the station, according to the report.
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