In Today’s Deep Space Extra… Engineering researcher envisions deep space habitats fabricated with 3-D printing. China looks to Mars exploration.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Meet the man working with NASA to 3D print a colony on Mars
CNN (2/22): At the University of Southern California, Engineering Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis is advancing 3-D printing technology that might lower the cost of inhabiting Mars by taking materials present on the red planet and shaping them into habitable structures for explorers. “I believe building in space is going to become commonplace in less than 50 years,” he tells CNN. “There’s an abundance of energy and materials (in space) — all we have to do is design self-replicating factories and build a lot of objects. In a short time, our capability to manufacture in space will be many times what we can do on Earth.” The activities would likely commence on the moon, then Mars.
Economist (2/22): China’s plans to launch a Mars lander in 2022 are part of a larger strategy to become a global force in space. The lander, designed to seek out methane in the thin Martian atmosphere, would help to address questions of whether there was, or is, microbial life on the red planet and lay ground work for human exploration in the 2030s.
Space Science
Mars life could lurk within these salty streaks
Space.com (2/21): Thanks to NASA’s long-running Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission scientists have been able to make discoveries that raise the red planet’s astrobiology potential. Those include the seasonal appearance of streak-like features, Recurring Slope Linae, found on sloped terrains. Their source has been traced to flows of a salty liquid, originating underground or condensing from the atmosphere. Some astrobiologists are urging NASA to make further study of the features a priority.
Will Pluto have the last laugh? NASA scientists want to make Pluto a planet again
USA Today (2/21): Scientists behind NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto and the distant Kuiper Belt are urging the International Astronomical Union to relax its definition of a planet in ways that would permit Pluto and dozens of other small solar system objects to be classified as planets. Pluto lost the designation a decade ago, upsetting many in the astronomy community.
Low Earth Orbit
Progress MS-05 cargo ship successfully launched to ISS while Dragon closes in
Spacepolicyonline.com (2/22): Russia’s most recent cargo mission to the International Space Station launched successfully from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday at 12:58 a.m. It was the first Russian re-supply effort since the December 1 launch failure of the Progress MS-04 during third stage operations. The latest Progress, MS-05, is carrying 2.9 tons of supplies and is expected to carry out an automated docking with the station on Friday at 3:34 a.m., EST.
Dear science: Where do old spacecraft go when they die?
Washington Post (2/21): As the Age of Space matures more of its resident satellites and spacecraft are meeting their end, either left alone, nonfunctional or commanded to self-destruct. Much of the debris in Earth orbit is small and cannot be tracked from the ground with radar and telescopes. The accumulation is forcing the world’s space faring nations to forge agreements on how to reduce the threat of impacts from the debris with functioning satellites.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
SpaceX waves off Space Station cargo delivery for a day
Spaceflightnow.com (2/22): A spacecraft guidance problem forced SpaceX to delay efforts to berth the company’s Dragon resupply mission spacecraft with the International Space Station early Wednesday. The freighter was 3,700 feet below the station when rendezvous operations were halted at 3:25 a.m., EST. A second attempt to berth Dragon and its 5,500 pound cargo is planned for early Thursday. Astronauts Thomas Pasquet and Shawn Kimbrough are to use the station’s Canadian robot arm to grapple the Dragon capsule and its 5,500 pound cargo at 6 a.m., EST. The spacecraft launched early Sunday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
Boeing looks to build satellites more quickly, with fewer workers
Wall Street Journal (2/21): At Boeing, 3-D printing is part of a formula to accelerate the assembly of satellites with fewer workers. The strategy could stretch to the production of commercial and military aircraft as well.
Space startups are booming in the Mojave desert
Fortune (2/20): California’s Mojave Air and Space Port bills itself as the Silicon Valley of New Space. Seventeen startups focused on advanced materials, rockets and rocket engines are striving to demonstrate why. Mojave, located 90 miles northeast of Los Angeles, has a provocative motto, “We eat explosions for breakfast” to help explain the attraction.
Virgin Galactic continues to test LauncherOne engine
Spaceflight Insider (2/21): Designed to be air launched from a Boeing 747, Launcher One will address the growing small satellite launch services market.