In Today’s Deep Space Extra… Action in the U.S. Senate on a NASA’s 2017 budget stalls this week in response to gun control debate.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Gun control filibuster derails NASA-NOAA spending bill
Spacepolicyonline.com (6/15): U.S. Senate action on NASA’s proposed 2017 budget stalled this week as the result of gun control demands. NASA and NOAA are funded within the Senate’s Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations measure. In addition, the White House this week signaled its intent to veto the Senate version of the spending bill which includes $19.3 billion for NASA because the measure exceeds the initial budget proposal for Space Launch System exploration rocket and Orion crew capsule development. The administration request was $1.130 billion for Orion and $1.310 billion for SLS. The bill provides $1.300 billion for Orion and $2.150 billion for SLS, according to the report.
Jeff Bezos says a big government `prize’ could generate more public interest in space exploration
Geek Wire (6/15): Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos backed the idea of government sponsored prizes as an effective strategy for stirring competition and engaging the public in a modern space race. Bezos joined Apollo 11 command module pilot Mike Collins for a discussion on space exploration at the Air and Space Museum in Washington earlier this week. Bezos proposed competition to develop a nuclear propulsion system for deep space travel as well as technologies to mount a sample return mission to Mars.
Space Science
Witnesses argue government has ethical obligation for lifetime astronaut medical care–and needs data, too
Spacepolicyonline.com (6/15) Current and former U.S. spaceflight record holders, medical ethicists and key lawmakers agree that NASA has an ethical obligation to provide its astronauts with life time health care. In exchange, the medical data could help the agency address the physical and psychological health issues associated with its goals for human deep space exploration. Testimony was provided to the U.S. House Space Subcommittee on Wednesday.
NASA’s Mars orbiters discover seasonal dust storm pattern
Spaceflight Insider (6/15): Scientists find that changing temperatures in the Martian atmosphere are the best indication of regional dust storm patterns. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Global Surveyor played important roles in the data gathering. The storm patterns could be a factor in preparing for human exploration of the red planet.
It wasn’t a fluke scientists see black holes collide again
NBC News (6/15): For a second time, CalTech’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory has detected ripples in gravity waves associated with the merger of two black holes. The detection, reported by scientists on Wednesday in the journal Physical Review Letters, was detected last December.
This gas leak was so massive that NASA saw it from space
Washington Post (6/15): NASA’s Earth Observing-1 satellite pinpointed a major methane gas leak in the Los Angeles area late last year, a first for a single source emission of a greenhouse gas. The findings were published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Low Earth Orbit
How does an astronaut relax after a year in space? For starters, a cruise
USA Today (6/15): U.S. space marathoner Scott Kelly, his twin brother and former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly and family will embark on a weeklong cruise in late June. The two brothers will headline a voyage to Alaska aboard the Crystal Serenity. Scott Kelly returned from a U.S. record setting 340 day long space mission to the International Space Station in early March.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
ULA modifies engine part, returns Atlas V rockets to flight
Denver Business Journal (6/16): United Launch Alliance identifies a propellant valve issue in the Russian made RD-180 rocket engine imported for use in the first stage of the company’s Atlas 5 launch vehicle. The component, a propellant mixture control value, was blamed for a premature engine shutdown during the most recent launch of a NASA contracted Orbital ATK resupply mission to the International Space Station. The Aerojet Rocketdyne upper stage compensated for the six second lapse, and the mission succeeded. The RD-180’s Russian engine manufacturer has modified the valve, and ULA plans to lift its suspension on Atlas 5 rocket launches on June 24 to place a military communications satellite in orbit.
SpaceX successfully fires satellites into orbit, but loses booster on landing
Spaceflightnow.com (6/15): The launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., placed commercial communications satellites for Eutelsat and Asia Broadcast Satellite into orbit. Efforts by SpaceX recover the Falcon 9 first stage with a landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast failed.