In Today’s Deep Space Extra… NASA’s Bill Gerstenmaier, who leads the agency’s human spaceflight efforts, considers the risks and benefits of adding astronauts to the first joint test flight of the Space Launch System and Orion crew exploration capsule.
Human Deep Space Exploration
NASA’s next move guided by Akron native William Gerstenmaier, head of human spaceflight
Cleveland Plain Dealer (3/2): Ohio native Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations, is leading efforts to weigh the risks and benefits of adding two astronauts to the planned unmanned first test flight of the Space Launch System and Orion crew exploration capsule, new hardware essential to achieving the agency’s ambitions of reaching the Martian realm with human explorers in the 2030s. “I’ve learned throughout my career that it’s better if I don’t have a preconceived decision about what the heck we really want to go do when I go into studies and actions,” said Gerstenmaier. “I’d rather let the data drive us and let the information push us in the direction that’s right.” The uncrewed version of NASA’s Exploration Mission-1 was planned for late 2018. A decision on whether to add astronauts may come within a month.
Space Science
NASA considers magnetic shield to help Mars grow its atmosphere
Popular Mechanics (3/1): At a Mars science conference underway in Washington this week, Jim Green, director of NASA’s planetary science division, proposes a mission that would restore a magnetosphere around the red planet. In turn, the magnetic shield would help Mars restore an atmosphere.
‘Habitable’ exoplanets might not be very Earth-like after all
Seeker.com (3/1): Late February brought news of the discovery of seven planets orbiting Trappist-1, a star 40 light years from the Earth. All seven are rocky and orbiting in or near the habitable zone of their parent star. However, some astronomers are cautioning against an over eagerness to believe they are Earth-like. Currently, scientists lack the technologies to fully explain what was discovered and what surface conditions on those and other planets circling distant stars may be like.
Martian winds carved giant mountain in Red Planet’s Gale Crater
Space.com (3/1): Observations from the surface of Mars, as well as from orbit, suggest that Mount Sharp, which juts 18,000 feet from the floor of the near 100-mile-wide Gale Crater on Mars, was exposed and shaped by wind erosion. Even in the red planet’s thin atmosphere, the wind over time was able to sculpt Sharp. Gale was formed more than 3.6 billion years ago from an asteroid or comet impact. NASA’s Curiosity rover landed in the crater in 2012.
Rise of the super telescopes: the giant Magellan Telescope
Universe Today (2/27): Magellan, a joint effort by the U.S., Australia, South Korea and Brazil, is coming together in the Atacama Desert of Chile. When assembled enough to begin observations in the early 2020s, Magellan will well surpass the resolving powers of the Hubble Space Telescope for studies of extrasolar planets and distant galaxy formation. The article is the first in a series that will examine a half-dozen of the world’s most powerful observatories.
Low Earth Orbit
New American spy satellite launches on classified mission
Space.com (3/1): A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket placed a National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) satellite in Earth orbit on Wednesday. The 12:49 p.m., EST, lift-off initiated a classified mission for the NRO. A series of wildfires at Vandenberg in September, and then an issue with the Atlas V’s upper stage, pushed the lift-off back three months. The launch was the 70th for the Atlas V.
Rocketwoman: Space race is on to find Germany’s first female astronaut
Deutsche Welle (3/1): In Germany, a privately organized effort to select and launch the country’s first female astronaut struggles to raise the funds. The eventual winner in the competitive selection is to launch on a ten-day mission to the International Space Station in two years.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
OneWeb to break ground on Florida factory, merge with Intelsat
Spaceflightnow.com (3/1): OneWeb and Intelsat announce merger plans and break ground on a new spacecraft assembly facility near Cape Canaveral, Florida.