In Today’s Deep Space Extra… NASA looks to include human investigators as part of suborbital research projects. Winner of contest to name NASA’s Mars 2020 rover to be announced on Thursday.
Space Science
NASA exploring ways to fly astronauts on commercial suborbital vehicles
SpaceNews.com (3/3): NASA’s flight opportunities program is taking measures to certify commercial suborbital spaceflight vehicles for human tended payloads. “We’re not doing that for the sake of having human spaceflight, but if it helps the researcher, we’re accommodating it,” explained Jim Reuter, NASA’s associate administrator for space technology. Efforts to develop a certification plan, however, may take another year.
NASA to reveal name of its next Mars rover
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (3/3): NASA’s next Mars mission, the Mars 2020 rover, is moving closer to a mid-July/early August launch on a journey to the Red Planet’s Jezero Crater, where it is to land in February 2021. A month’s long contest in which students were invited to submit names for the six wheeled rover is scheduled to end Thursday as NASA announces a selection at 1:30 p.m., EST. The competition produced more than 28,000 essays from kindergarten through high school students. Mars 2020 is look for evidence of past microbial activity on Mars and gather soil and rock samples for return to Earth and laboratory analysis. The selection announcement will stream at www.nasa.gov/nasalive.
NASA is planning to build a lunar rover with a 1-meter drill to search for water ice
Universe Today (3/3): NASA’s robotic Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, better known as VIPER, is being prepared for a mission to the Moon’s south pole. It will carry a one-meter drill and to help it map out water ice deposits that could be converted to life support resources for future human explorers as well as liquid hydrogen and oxygen rocket fuels. Though delayed by a year, the VIPER mission will unfold prior to Artemis-3, NASA’s planned late 2024 return to the Moon with human explorers.
DSCOVR back in operation
SpaceNews.com (3/3): NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observer, a key spacecraft involved in space weather and Earth observations, experienced an issue that placed it in safe hold on June 22, due to an issue with the attitude control system. The spacecraft resumed operations on Monday, according to an update from NOAA. Due to its age, the permanent loss of DSCOVR poses a concern for the nation’s ability to monitor space weather, according to agency officials.
Other News
Coronavirus epidemic having limited effect so far on space industry
SpaceNews.com (3/3): NASA and organizers of annual space conferences in the U.S. are closely monitoring coronavirus developments. NASA has restricted international travel to “essential” activities only. Each of NASA’s 10 field centers is assessing the concern on an individual basis. Two upcoming conferences, the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, in suburban Houston starting March 16, and the Space Symposium, in Colorado Springs starting March 30, are moving ahead while continuing to assess the spread of the disease and its impact.
Space collectibles dealer offers to fly flags, tags to Space Station
Collectspace.com (3/2): Space Collective, a U.K based space memorabilia dealer, has penned an agreement with the operator of a commercial science facility that fastens to the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS) to fly and host space collectibles, including tags and flags for about six months at a cost of $300 per item.
SpaceX giving Adidas running shoe a boost to space
Florida Today (3/3): An experiment developed by the shoemaker Adidas is among the science payloads scheduled to launch to the International Space Station (ISS) late Friday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9. The tech project, flying as a U.S. National Laboratory initiative, will investigate a gravity free technique for assembling the foam within the mid sole of shoes, the foam cushion layer between the shoe’s outer sole and the inner sole.