In Today’s Deep Space Extra… Deep space planetary missions could help achieve the pace of Space Launch System exploration rocket operations desired by NASA for human missions beyond low Earth orbit.
Human Deep Space Exploration
The Space Review.com (7/11): Deep space planetary missions, starting with ambitious orbiter and lander missions to Jupiter’s ice– and ocean–covered moon Europa, may help to ensure an annual launch rate for NASA’s Space Launch System exploration rocket, the flight pace those in the agency’s Human Exploration and Operations Directorate believe is necessary to sustain the world’s most powerful launch vehicle. Essayist Cody Knipfer, a Washington space policy consultant, examines the issue.
Scientists are grappling with this critical risk to a human mission to Mars
Washington Post (7/11): Aboard NASA’s Curiosity rover is a small instrument that measured the radiation environment en route to Mars. It has also gathered surface measurements since the spacecraft’s dramatic landing on Aug. 6, 2012. Studies of the radiation environment are an essential part of preparations for future human exploration of the red planet. Unlike the Earth, Mars does not have the natural shielding afforded by a magnetic field.
Space Science
Mars Rover Curiosity Bounces Back from Glitch
Space.com (7/11): NASA’s Curiosity rover, in response to a suspected onboard software mismatch, slipped into safe mode on July 2, suspending science operations. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced late Monday that the $2.5–billion mission had recovered and was ready to resume normal operations.
France’s CNES backs space station, hedges bets on reusable rockets
Space News (7/11): The president of the French space Agency, CNES, Jean-Yves Le Gall, backs an extension of International Space Station operations until 2024, something the European Space Agency as a whole does not plan to consider until December. CNES also favors a hefty investment in the U.S. Surface Water and Ocean Topography environmental satellite mission.
Astronomers say they’ve spotted a dwarf planet that’s farther out than Pluto
Geek Wire (7/11): Scientists announced they’ve discovered a dwarf planet, designated 2015 RR245, which orbits the sun beyond Neptune and may be a companion of Pluto. The discovery was made with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Hawaii’s big island, and announced Sunday in a Minor Planet Electronic Circular.
Low Earth Orbit
Last shuttle commander ‘back in the fight’ with Boeing
Spaceflightnow.com (7/11): Five years ago this week, NASA’s final space shuttle mission was underway. STS-135 launched five astronauts to the International Space Station with a storage module and spare parts. U.S. Navy veteran Chris Ferguson was in command. Today, Ferguson plays a central role in the Boeing Co.‘s development of the CST-100 Starliner, a commercial crew space transportation system for astronauts assigned to the International Space Station. NASA is overseeing development of the Starliner and a second transport, SpaceX’s crewed Dragon, as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
Company expanding at Stennis Space Center, adding 70 jobs
WGNO, of Mississippi (7/11): Aerojet Rocketdyne announced Monday an expansion of its activities at NASA’s Stennis Research Center in Mississippi. The growth supports Aerojet’s efforts to pursue development of the AR-1, a domestic alternative to Russia’s RD-180 rocket engine. The RD-180 powers the first stage of the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5, a launch vehicle crucial to the delivery of U.S. national security payloads to low Earth orbit. U.S. reliance on the RD-180 is to be phased out by 2019 as part of the economic sanctions against Russia for its intrusion into Ukraine.
Dream Chaser prepares for next free flight, ISS resupply aims
NASAspaceflight.com (7/11): Sierra Nevada Corp.‘s efforts to develop a reusable uncrewed spacecraft for NASA–contracted re-supply missions to the International Space Station starting in 2019 will also permit the Colorado–based company to strive for a test flight milestone later this year under the terms of its earlier NASA Commercial Crew Program agreement. The planned free flight test at NASA’s Dryden Research Center would follow a similar test in 2013 in which the winged spacecraft experienced a landing gear failure. Dream Chaser may yet transport humans to low Earth orbit.
The Space Review (7/11): Commercial space ventures seem to be finding investor resources currently that were not so prevalent just a few years ago, writes TSR editor Jeff Foust. “On June 21, Seattle-based Spaceflight Industries announced it had raised $18 million in a Series B funding round, a total that the company expects to grow to $25 million,” he notes. Foust continues, ” …it was just one of a growing number of financing rounds raised by entrepreneurial space companies in recent years…”