In Today’s Deep Space Extra… An experiment on NASA’s Mars 2020 rover will demonstrate the production of oxygen from carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere, a possible resource for future human exploration.
Human Deep Space Exploration
NASA’s Mars 2020 rover to produce oxygen on the Red Planet
Spaceflight Insider (9/19): NASA’s next Mars rover, Mars 2020, will advance the search for past life on Mars and collect samples of the soil and rock for eventual return to Earth. But one of the rover’s nine instruments, MOXIE, will demonstrate the production of oxygen from the carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere, an experiment whose success could advance the human exploration of the red planet.
NASA provides update on Asteroid Redirect Mission
Spaceflight Insider (9/19): While the U.S. Congress doubts the value of NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission, some policymakers and planners remain steadfast to the contributions it could make to human deep space exploration, science and fending off near-Earth asteroids with the potential to impact the Earth. ARM would visit an asteroid, robotically extract a boulder and maneuver the big rock into orbit around the moon. Astronauts launched in an Orion spacecraft atop a Space Launch System rocket would visit the boulder and gather samples for return to Earth.
The Space Review (9/19): Recently announced development activities at Blue Origin mean the U.S. could soon have a handful of heavy lift rocket options, some heavier than others, according to TSR editor Jeff Foust, who examines the alternatives. They include NASA’s Space Launch System and its variants for future human deep space exploration and planetary science missions, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and an even larger rocket proposed for Mars settlements, as well as Blue Origin’s New Glenn.
Space Science
DNA Sequencing in Space Could Protect Astronaut Health
Space.com (9/19): NASA’s Kate Rubins, a current resident of the International Space Station and biological researcher, has succeeded in sequencing DNA in space for the first time, using off-the-shelf medical hardware, a MinION DNA Sequencer from Oxford Nanopore Technologies. It’s a capability that could be used to identify astronaut health issues, biological spacecraft contaminants, even to carry out astrobiological investigations in deep space.
Does our Galaxy have a habitable zone?
Universe Today (9/19): So far, astrobiologists have searched for planets within the habitable zones of stars in order to assess whether a planet may have conditions suited to biological activity. But a new study suggests that whole galaxies, like the Milky Way, may be primed for life.
Hubble catches a comet disintegrating into oblivion
Washington Post (9/19): The Hubble Space Telescope observes as a distant comet, Comet 332P, breaks apart. The episode suggests comets break apart rather than melting from solar heating.
Low Earth Orbit
Soyuz MS-02 launch to ISS postponed until November 1
TASS, of Russia (9/20): Russia’s federal space agency, Roscosmos, has postponed from Sept. 23 until Nov. 1 the launching of the next International Space Station astronauts, NASA’s Shane Kimbrough and cosmonauts Sergei Ryzhikov and Andrei Borisenko, according to the report. The launch delay, originally announced on Sept. 17, is blamed on a technical issue, a short circuit discovered during checkout of the Soyuz MS-02 capsule.
Russian crew reduction to have limited effect on Space Station operations
Space News (9/19): William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations, says the U.S. and its International Space Station partners can weather a reduction from three to two in the number of Russian cosmonauts assigned to the six-person orbiting science lab. Gerstenmaier discussed the proposed reduction in an interview last week during the AIAA Space 2016 conference in Long Beach, Calif. The reduction of cosmonauts on the station would save the Russians re-supply costs.
Tiangong-1 Space Lab Will Fall to Earth Next Year, China Says
Space.com (9/19): Tiangong-1, China’s first space lab, launched in September 2011, appears destined to fall to Earth in late 2017. Most of the 9.4-ton spacecraft is expected to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere. Six Chinese astronauts visited the station, which now has a successor, Tiangong-2, launched last week.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
Commercial crew: two years after contracts, two years until flights
The Space Review (9/19): The second anniversary of the issuance of NASA’s Commercial Crew Transportation Capability Contracts passed in mid-September. As $6.8 billion in contracts were awarded to Boeing and SpaceX, it was hoped the development work and test flights would lead to certifications for regular commercial launches of astronauts to the International Space Station by late 2017. That goal has slipped a year, at least. NASA may once again have to purchase seats on Russia’s Soyuz, perhaps into 2019 at costs that now exceed $80 million a seat. NASA, Boeing and SpaceX say crewed flights will commence when it is safe to do so.