In Today’s Deep Space Extra… Young NASA astronauts see mission to Mars as career goal.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Astronaut with ties to Scripps envisions missions to Mars
San Diego Union Tribune (6/10): NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, who received a doctorate from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, is a relative newcomer to the nation’s astronaut corps. A space simulation mission with astronauts from around the world begins soon in Sardinia, Italy. Then, she hopes, comes a mission to the International Space Station. Meir, 38, believes her career could include a chance to be among the first human explorers to reach Mars.
Why do we really need space travel?
The Huffington Post (6/10): What spurs humanity to contemplate deep space travel? The bottom line may be self-preservation of the species, writes astronomer Sten Odenwald.
Russia plans to send crews to Moon regularly starting in 2025
Space Flight Insider (6/11): Russia’s efforts to develop the new human spacecraft, Federation, are part of a plan to begin twice annual crewed missions to the moon starting in 2025, according to the report. Test flights may get underway in 2021, starting with an unmanned mission.
Low gravity and high radiation: Would humans remain human on Mars?
Ars Technica (6/11): Biologist Scott Solomon explores the question in a forthcoming book, Future Humans. The scientists looks at what the elevated radiation on Mars and the planet’s low gravity might mean to generations of future settlers.
Space Science
Yes, there have been aliens
New York Times (6/12): Findings from NASA’s Kepler space telescope and a new twist on the Drake equation suggest we are not the first technological civilization. There may have been millions, writes astrophysics professor Adam Frank.
UAE Space Agency and NASA sign cooperation agreement
The National/UAE (6/12): NASA and the United Arab Emirates agree to collaborate in the exploration of space under the terms of an agreement signed on Sunday. The agreement covers space science, Earth science, aeronautics, space operations and exploration, education, technology, safety and mission assurance, according to the report.
Life on Jupiter’s moon Europa? Congressman thinks NASA’s mission can prove it
6 News, of Albany, N.Y. (6/10): U.S. Rep. John Culberson, chairman of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science, believes a concerted effort by NASA to reach Europa, the ice and ocean covered moon of Jupiter, could find life. “In order to take NASA to the next level of funding, we’re going to need a transformational Neil Armstrong type moment – and this will be it – when we discover life in another world,” said Culberson. NASA is preparing Europa orbiter and lander missions.
France launches massive meteor-spotting network
Nature News (6/10): The French global network, the Fireball Recovery and InterPlanetary Observation Network, or FRIPON, could be in place by the end of the year with 100 ground based cameras. Scientists are hopeful it will lead them to meteorite recoveries that could help them better understand the history of the solar system and identify asteroids that might collide with the Earth.
Light pollution masks the Milky Way for a third of the world’s population
New York Times (6/10): Increasingly artificial light sources are making it difficult to observe the Milky Way galaxy in the night sky. A third of the Earth’s population is unable to see their host star system, according to estimates from the International Dark Sky Association.
Low Earth Orbit
China launches 23rd BeiDou navigation satellite
Xinhuanet, of China (6/13): China added the 23rd satellite to its orbiting Beidou global navigation constellation with the launch of a Long March 3C rocket from Xichang Satellite Launch Center early Monday.
Rocket with secret cargo blasts off from Florida
CBS News (6/11): A United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket, launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., placed a classified National Reconnaissance Office satellite into Earth orbit on Saturday.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
Energomash hopes for RD-180 engines contract with U.S. till 2020-2021
TASS, or Russia (6/11): Though the U.S. Congress restricted imports of the RD-180 engine used in the first stage of United Space Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket as part of economic sanctions against Russia, lawmakers soon changed their mind. The Russian manufacturer Energomash currently envisions transactions through 2021. Eighteen months ago, Congress agreed to halt imports after 2019, then acknowledged that was earlier than a domestic version could be ready to take its place.
Major Space Related Event for the Week
Major space related events for the week of June 13-18, 2016
SpacepolicyOnline.com (6/12): In Washington, the U.S. House and Senate are in session this week. More deliberations in the Senate are scheduled on the National Defense Authorization Act regarding future imports of Russia’s RD-180 rocket engine, the propulsion source for the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 launch vehicle. The House Space Subcommittee will hear from NASA astronauts on the agency’s obligations to provide long term health care. Early Tuesday, NASA will join with Orbital ATK for oversight of Saffire-I, an experiment intended to reveal how fires spread in space. A fire will be intentionally set aboard an unmanned Orbital Cygnus re-supply capsule after it departs the six person International Space Station. Space Station crew members Tim Kopra, of NASA, Tim Peake, of the European Space Agency, and Russia’s Yuri Malenchenko are to return to Earth early Saturday after 186 days in orbit.