Deep Space Extra

Here is a list of news that were published in our Newsletter the week of June 17, 2024:

 
Human Space Exploration:

• GAO discusses Orion heat shield anomaly root cause, Artemis III internal schedule
  Coalition Member in the News – Axiom Space;
• Starlab Space adds Palantir as strategic partner on commercial space station effort
  Coalition Members in the News – Axiom Space, Northrop Grumman;
• Keeping astronauts healthy in space isn’t easy – new training programs will prepare students to perform medicine while thousands of miles away from Earth;
• Starliner ISS stay extended to complete thruster and helium leak testing 
  Coalition Member in the News – Boeing;
• U.S. and India advance human spaceflight cooperation
  Coalition Member in the News – Axiom Space;
• NASA reschedules ISS spacewalk after astronaut experiences ‘spacesuit discomfort’;
• NASA and Boeing will discuss Starliner’s delayed ISS departure today, and you can listen live
  Coalition Member in the News – Boeing;
• NASA, Boeing set new undocking, landing date for Starliner spacecraft
  Coalition Member in the News – Boeing;
• China takes small step towards the Moon with rocket test;

Space Science

• No place like home;
• Astroscale closes within 50 meters of its space junk target;
• If we really want people living on the Moon, we need an astronaut health database;
• If we want to find life-supporting worlds, we should focus on small planets with large moons;
• NASA rover discovers mysterious light-toned boulder “never observed before” on Mars;
• Hubble’s back, but only using one gyro;
• Supermassive black hole roars to life as astronomers watch in real time;
• NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover enters new Red Planet territory: ‘Bright Angel’
• Scientists may have found an answer to the mystery of dark matter. It involves an unexpected byproduct;
• NASA’s asteroid sample mission gave scientists around the world the rare opportunity to study an artificial meteor;
• The universe’s biggest explosions made some of the elements we are composed of. But there’s another mystery source out there;
• Could nearby stars have habitable exoplanets? NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory hopes to find out;
• To calibrate telescopes on Earth, NASA’s launching an ‘artificial star’ to orbit;
• Webb observations hint at giant asteroid collision in a nearby planetary system;
• China advances space mission with Europe amid ambitious exploration agenda;

Other News;

• Tabletop exercise illuminates gaps in responding to theoretical asteroid threats;
• House Intelligence chair blasts White House over Russia’s space nuke threat;
• Honeywell sees space opportunity with $1.9 billion CAES acquisition
• Space industry group warns of escalating cyber threats, outmatched defenses;
• Lockheed Martin wins contract to build U.S. geostationary weather satellites 
  Coalition Member in the News – Lockheed Martin;
• Artemis Accords lift off;
• Redwire wins contract for VLEO demonstration;
• Ancient star found zooming out of galaxy in rare discovery;
• Space weather forecasting needs an upgrade to protect future Artemis astronauts;

Major Space Related Activities for the Week

• The week begins with a White House National Space Council-sponsored Black Space Week Forum at the National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington. Kelvin Coleman, the FAA associate administrator for Commercial Space Transportation, will provide opening remarks. The “Beyond the Color Lines: From Science Fiction to Science Fact” forum will be live streamed from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. EDT.
• The NASA/Boeing CST-100 Starliner CFT is planned to depart the ISS on Saturday, June 22. NASA plans a news briefing on the status of CFT on Tuesday at 12 p.m. EDT with audio streaming over https://nasa.gov/nasatv.
• The U.N. Office of Outer Space Affairs and the Secure World Foundation will hold the first U.N. Conference on Sustainable Lunar Activities in Vienna, Austria on Tuesday beginning at 4 a.m. EDT.
• NASA also plans a virtual briefing on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. EDT summarizing the biennial Planetary Defense Interagency Tabletop Exercise held in April at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. NASA will broadcast the briefing over NASA TV and stream..

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