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Today’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across globe. Could space exploration become an issue in the U.S. 2016 presidential election? Skeptics continue to challenge NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission strategy and its link to future Mars exploration. Mars One, the Dutch nonprofit, faces questions over the sustainability of its red planet settlement plans. NASA reassures U.S. lawmakers the James Webb Space Telescope will be ready to lift off in late 2018. Laser communications makes an encouraging deep space debut. Mars had an ocean long ago. Did that make the red planet habitable? Mercury was darkened by comet dust, say scientists. Aviatrix Amelia Earhart becomes lunar crater namesake. Mars Opportunity rover unable to shake software difficulties. Just a few days into his International Space Station marathon, NASA’s Scott Kelly feeling at home. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden finds Russia eager to partner with China in space. The U.S. Air Force preps its reusable X-37B winged space plane for an early May lift off. China adds a spacecraft to its growing satellite navigation system.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Will space play in the 2016 U.S. election?
Universe Today (3/30): Space exploration is struggling to surface as a potential issue in the next U.S. presidential election, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll. However, “scientific research” is considered a potential issue, according to those surveyed in early January.
NASA rearms in its battle with mission skeptics
The Space Review (3/30): NASA furthered its Asteroid Redirect Mission plans last week with a much anticipated decision over whether to capture an entire small asteroid or a boulder from a large asteroid. The latter, Option B, is favored. Once captured, the boulder would be maneuvered robotically into a stable lunar orbit that could be reached by U.S. astronauts in the 2025 time frame. Persistent skeptics question how the mission will advance efforts to explore Mars with humans.
The evolution of NASA’s ambitious asteroid-capture mission
Space.com (3/30): NASA’s next steps in space are revolving around the Asteroid Redirect Mission, a plan to capture a small asteroid or a piece of a larger asteroid and maneuver it into a stable orbit around the moon. U.S. astronauts would visit in 2025 using the space agency’s Orion crew exploration capsule and the Space Launch System heavy lift rocket. The asteroid visit would test hardware for a future Mars mission.
Op-ed | Why the U.S. gave up on the Moon
Space News (3/30): The moon as a destination for future human deep space exploration is a better alternative than NASA’s proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission, which would robotically capture a small asteroid or a boulder from the surface of a larger asteroid and maneuver it into orbit around the moon, according to an op-ed from Paul Brower, an aerospace systems engineer.
The Space Review (3/30): Once tantalizing plans by Mars One, the Dutch nonprofit, to settle the red planet with one way volunteers in the mid-2020s have grown shaky. Skeptics say the migration cannot be financed with reality television, as Mars One proposes. The landing of the first settlers has slipped two years. Plans for two robotic precursor missions have been delayed. International media are challenging the visionary non-profit’s crew selection process as well.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
NASA assures skeptical Congress that the James Webb Telescope is on track
Scientific American (3/30): NASA scientists offer the U.S. Congress assurances the James Webb Space Telescope in on track for a late 2018 launch. Managers of the designated successor to the Hubble Space Telescope have dealt with past budget and schedule issues. However, some lawmakers are concerned about hardware meant to chill the JWST’s crucial infrared optics.
Coming soon: Interplanetary broadband
Air & Space Magazine (3/30): NASA is ready to introduce deep space laser communications in the agency’s next round of Discovery class planetary missions. The space agency has experimented with the more capable communications technology from the moon as well as the International Space Station.
Warm or cold? Mars’ history takes a watery new twist
Astrobiology Magazine (3/30): New research suggests Mars has lost the equivalent of an ocean’s worth of water over the past four billion years. Experts differ on whether the loss means the red planet was once habitable.
A steady stream of comet dust may have ‘painted’ Mercury black
Los Angeles Times (3/30): Tiny Mercury’s surface has been darkened by deposits of comet dust over billions of years, say scientists in a study published Monday in Nature Geoscience.
Ancient Moon crater named after Amelia Earhart
Space.com (3/30): The 125 mile wide crater named for the aviatrix was discovered by NASA’s recent lunar GRAIL mission.
NASA’s Opportunity Rover suffers more amnesia on Mars
Space.com (3/30): Just a week ago, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory believed they had cleared up a software problem with the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. Not so, and engineers acknowledge they are puzzled why the rover encountered a post repair bout with amnesia. Opportunity landed on Mars in January 2004, for what was to be a 90 day mission.
Low Earth Orbit
NASA astronaut already feels at home in space as 1-year journey begins
Space.com (3/30): Just a few days into mission to the International Space Station, U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly says he feels at home in a brief exchange Monday with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “It’s great to be up here,” said Kelly, “it’s like coming to my old home.”
Twin fools NASA at brother’s launch on 1-year flight
Associated Press via New York Times (3/31): U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly received a “thanks” from White House science advisor John Holdren on Monday, barely three days into an 11 to 12 month stay aboard the International Space Station. Kelly also learned his identical twin brother, Mark, a retired NASA astronaut, startled top space agency brass before Friday’s launch when he showed up without the mustache that has distinguished the two brothers for years.
Bolden says new Roscosmos Chief may want to cooperate with China
Aviation Week & Space Technology (3/30): In weekend reports, Russia seemed ready to pursue a new international space station after 2024. What Russian space policy makers likely meant is that they are ready to partner with China and other “nontraditional” nations on cooperative space ventures, according to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, who joined talks in Russia last week.
Mysterious mini space plane the next Atlas 5 payload
Spaceflightnow.com (3/30): The U.S. Air Force prepares for the next launch of its reusable X-37B space plane atop at Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., May 6 is the planned launch date. The payload has not been disclosed.
Chinese navigation system enters new phase with successful launch
Spaceflightnow.com (3/30): China launched the 17th in a series of 35 global navigation satellites on Monday. China’s Beidou rivals the U.S. Global Positioning Satellite, Europe’s Galileo and Russia’s Glonass navigation systems, which have civilian as well as military applications.
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