In Today’s Deep Space Extra… The threat of high winds, heavy rains and storm surges associated with Hurricane Matthew grows for Florida’s space coast.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Warnings issued for Hurricane Matthew as KSC closes down
Spaceflight Insider (10/5): NASA closed the Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday as Hurricane Matthew moved closer to Florida’s Atlantic Coast. The launch complex is to remain closed through Friday. Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is closed as well, except to essential personnel. Evacuations of coastal areas are underway in response to the National Hurricane Center’s forecast that includes heavy rains, storm surges and high winds Thursday and early Friday.
Hurricane Matthew batters Bahamas as Florida and South Carolina evacuate
USA Today (10/6): Hundreds of thousands of people living along the Atlantic Coast, from Florida to South Carolina, began to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Matthew. The major hurricane recently pounded Haiti, Cuba and much of the Caribbean.
Space Science
NASA Is Setting a Bunch of Fires in Space on Purpose
NBC News (10/5): Scheduled for lift-off by October 13, the next NASA-contracted Orbital ATK cargo mission to the International Space Station will deliver and host fire ignition experiments. The outcomes could provide benefits for combustion activities on the Earth as well as a strategy to extinguish fires in the weightlessness of space. (WHEW this is long, how much do we edit here?! Or just leave as is?) I broke it into 2 sentences.
‘Alien Megastructure’ Star Keeps Getting Stranger
Space.com (10/5): The mystery over the change in brightness of KIC 8462852, an intriguing star about 1,500 light years from Earth, continues. Some have suggested “Tabitha’s star” is evidence of an intelligent civilization that has assembled an energy-capturing Dyson Shere.
Another Saturn Moon May Hide Subsurface Ocean
Seeker (10/5): Cassini’s mission to Saturn, the long-running joint NASA and European Space Agency, discovered a new outer solar system planetary object with a global ocean, Saturn’s moon Dione.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
Ariane 5 goes on test run after launching two satellites
Spaceflightnow.com (10/5): An Ariane 5 rocket placed Australian and Indian communications satellites in Earth orbit on Wednesday, following a lift-off from French Guiana. The rocket then carried out a test objective linked to the development of the new Ariane 6 launch vehicle.
Space News (10/5): The cause of a September 1 launch pad explosion of a Falcon 9 launch vehicle remains under investigation, according to SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell. Customers choosing a reused Falcon 9 to loft their payloads can expect a 10 percent discount, Shotwell said at the Asia Pacific Satellite Communications Council session in Malaysia.
Suborbital
Blue Origin successfully tests New Shepard abort system
Space News (10/5): As designed, the crew capsule separated and landed safely on the plains of West Texas, following the launch of Blue Origin’s New Shepard reusable launch vehicle. The capsule parachuted to the ground, while the launch vehicle stabilized and landed tail first to end its fifth non-crewed test launch.