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Tuesday’s CSExtra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from around the globe. NASA’s future emerges as a brief but surprise topic during Monday’s New Hampshire Republican presidential candidate forum. The agency’s Dawn probe nears the large asteroid Vesta with camera’s in action. In Florida, NASA prepares shuttle Atlantis for a pre-launch fuel tank test. Reflections on NASA’s shuttle era and a look at a prospective British successor. Europe sprints toward the launching of a GPS competitor. SpaceX wins a contract to launch an Asian communications satellite. On Mars, humans could face a rock storm.
1. From Spacepolitics.com: During Monday night’s New Hampshire Republican presidential forum, the candidates were asked about NASA’s future and specifically the role of a government run human space program. Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, tagged NASA as bureaucratic and an obstacle to exploration goals. Tim Pawlenty, the Minnesota governor, called for a re-directing of NASA’s responsibilities without being more specific. CNN televised the forum.
http://www.spacepolitics.com/2011/06/13/gingrich-and-pawlenty-debate-space-policy-in-new-hampshire/
2. From Discovery.com: NASA’s Dawn probe transmits video of the large asteroid Vesta. Dawn will approach Vesta in July for six-months of orbital studies. The new imagery reveals a jagged surface. Dawn will move on to a second large asteroid, Ceres, after the Vesta studies. Launched in 2007, Dawn was developed to reveal more about planetary evolution.
http://news.discovery.com/space/nasa-probe-closing-in-on-asteroid-vesta-110613.html
A. From The Coalition for Space Exploration: Vesta is sure to hold surprises for Dawn scientists, experts predict. Among them is the brightness of the planetary body.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/blog/nasa%e2%80%99s-dawn-spacecraft-%e2%80%9cmoment-of-truth-is-about-to-arrive%e2%80%9d
3. From Spaceflightnow.com: On Wednesday, shuttle Atlantis will undergo a launch pad fueling test, a prerequisite to NASA’s final shuttle mission, tentatively scheduled for a lift off on July 8. The orbiter’s External Tank will be filled with chilled propellants, then drained. The tank’s stringer region will be X-rayed in search of small cracks of the kind found on the ET that launched shuttle Discovery earlier this year. The testing was prompted by NASA’s discovery that the support stringers on some ETs were fabricated with an aluminum alloy more brittle than specified. Shuttles Discovery. Endeavour and Atlantis ET’s were subsequently modified. See SFN for updates.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts135/status.html
A. From Space.com: Shuttle Atlantis, tentatively scheduled for a July 8 lift off, will deliver the Robotic Refueling Mission experiment to the International Space Station. Developed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the experimental hardware will demonstrate satellite refueling hardware and techniques using Canada’s two armed mechanical handyman, DEXTRE.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/11957-nasa-robot-space-refueling-experiment-final-shuttle.html
4. Two commentaries from Monday’s edition of The Space Review:
A. In “The Irreplaceable Space Shuttle,” regular TSR contributor Taylor Dinerman examines the legacy of the space shuttle, with a positive conclusion. The winged orbiters were remarkable for their achievements and pioneering technologies for re-usable spacecraft. They were handicapped by substantial reductions in the initial development funding without commensurate adjustments to the original expectations for operating cost and flight rate, Dinerman writes.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1863/1
B. In “Skylon: ready for takeoff?,” TSR editor Jeff Foust looks at a British private sector initiative to develop a single-stage-to-orbit reusable spacecraft using a propulsion source that can function as a jet engine and rocket engine. Skylon would operate from a runway as well. The Reaction Engines, Ltd., led effort recently received a favorable review from the European Space Agency after assessments of the technologies and economics. Backers of the futuristic space plane would like to begin operations 2020. However, the propulsion and thermal protection systems offer untested challenges as does closing the business case, Foust writes.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1864/1
5. From Spaceflightnow.com: Europe would like to launch its first Galileo spacecraft, the cornerstones of a European equivalent to the U. S. Global Positioning Satellite System, in October. The program, which has faced financial obstacles, would achieve a welcome milestone if it can launch from French Guiana on a Russian Soyuz rocket.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1106/13galileoiov/
6. From Florida Today: California based SpaceX wins a contract to launch an Asian communications satellite from Cape Canaveral, using the company’s Falcon 9 rocket. SpaceX developed the Falcon 9 in part to launch cargo and possibly astronauts to the International Space Station under a commercial agreement with NASA. A 2013 launch of the Asian satellite is projected.
http://space.flatoday.net/2011/06/spacex-snares-contract-for-asian.html
7. From Discovery.com: Will humans settle Mars? If they do, the periodic bombardment by space rocks could present a hazard, observations by NASA spacecraft circling the Red Planet suggest.
http://news.discovery.com/space/mars-hit-by-cosmic-buckshot-again-110613.html
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