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Tuesday’s CSExtra offers the latest in reporting and commentary on space-related activities from around the globe. In Kazakhstan, three U. S., Russian and Japanese astronauts near the start of a six month voyage to the International Space Station. NASA’s distant Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft find a surprise in the distant reaches of the solar system. Does the U. S. need a new heavy lift rocket for deep space exploration? Justifying the human exploration of deep space. Finding the grit to gather Martian rocks. Nose art for Atlantis. Twitter stars. NASA Astronaut Mark Kelly’s U2 moment.
1. From Spaceflightnow.com: A Soyuz rocket with a U. S. Russian and Japanese crew is scheduled to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan today at 4:12 p.m., EDT. Mike Fossum, Sergey Volkov and Satoshi Furukawa will dock with the International Space Station on Thursday to begin a five to six month stay. See SFN for updates.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/station/exp28/status.html
A. From the McAllen Monitor via the Houston Chronicle: McAllen native Mike Fossum says he’ll function as a “guinea pig” for a wide range of medical experiments while serving aboard as a NASA representative aboard the International Space Station. Fossum, who will launch with Russian Sergei Volkov and Satoshi Furukawa of Japan from Kazakhstan, will become the station’s commander in September.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7597517.html
B. From Florida Today: The latest Soyuz crew bound for the International Space Station will host the last of NASA’s space shuttle astronauts in July.
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20110607/NEWS0204/106070319/Milestone-ISS-crew-up-Soyuz-ride?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Home
2. From Space.com: Launched in 1977, NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft are making their way out of the solar system. What’s beyond? A turbulent sea of magnetic bubbles. Researchers intend to reveal more at a NASA news briefing on Thursday.
http://www.exploredeepspace.com/11884-nasa-bubbles-solar-system-edge.html
3. Three from Monday’s The Space Review:
A. In “Human Spaceflight for Less: the Case for Smaller Launch Vehicles, Revisited,” contributor Grant Bonin argues for the use of and presumably less expensive existing medium to small launchers for NASA’s future missions of human and robotic exploration, rather than a new heavy lifter. Bonin envisions the use of space-based fuel depots and orbital assembly for large payload missions. Congress has directed NASA to pursue a SLS, or Space Launch System heavy lifter using shuttle and Ares 1 and V investments where feasible.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1861/1
B. In “New Strategies for Exploration and Settlement,” The Space Review editor Jeff Foust examines presentations from Paul Spudis, lunar scientist, and Jeff Greason, XCOR founder, at the International Space Development Conference in May. Both presenters see exploration as the basis for ultimate survival of the human species and back strategies that make use of resources in space — for example water on the moon and other resources on asteroids and Mars — to nurture the migration. Restrictive budgets are likely to pace exploration for the long term, cautions Greason.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1860/1
C. In “Bring Home the Sample,” frequent Space Review contributor Louis Friedman sees hope for an eventual robotic Mars sample return mission. That hope is based in Russia’s plans this fall to launch a sample return mission to the Martian moon Phobos and the OSIRIS-REx mission announced by NASA last week. The latter would launch in 2016 to obtain and return a sample of the asteroid 1999 RQ36. The goal of obtaining a sample of Martian soil with a robotic probe for study on the Earth has suffered too many false starts, when it could put some much needed wind in the sails of space exploration, Friedman writes.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1859/1
4. From the Los Angeles Times: NASA’s latest Mars rover, the Mars Science Laboratory, also known as Curiosity, is nearing a fall launch that would place the robotic geologist on Mars to characterize potential habitats for past microbial life. However, some scientists are betting the last of NASA’s 2004 Mars Exploration Rovers, Opportunity, may beat Curiosity to the punch. Opportunity’s companion, Spirit, has stopped functioning.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-rovers-20110607,0,1842971.story
5. From Collectspace.com: When orbiter Atlantis takes flight on July 8, the ship’s external fuel tank will be adorned with a commemorative shuttle program logo near the top of the towering external fuel tank. The colorful design was selected through a contest to pay tribute to NASA’s final shuttle flight.
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-060611a.html
6. From Discovery.com: Twitter accelerates the drama over the discovery of a new supernova eruption in the galaxy M51 by amateur astronomers. Social media alerts permit professional astronomers to make a spectral analysis at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii.
http://news.discovery.com/space/twitter-helps-astronomers-zero-in-on-m51-supernova-110606.html
7. From MSNBC: NASA Astronaut Mark Kelly, commander of the shuttle Endeavour, sends greetings to a U2 Concert in Seattle from the International Space Station. The Irish rock musicians paid tribute to Kelly’s wife, Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who is recovering in Houston from a January gunshot wound. Endeavour returned to Earth on June 1, following a 16-day voyage to the space station.
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/06/06/6799766-u2-concert-adds-a-space-surprise
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