In Today’s Deep Space Extra… Tuesday’s Utah test firing of NASA’s powerful Space Launch System solid rocket motor is furthering efforts to develop a U.S. launch vehicle for future human deep space exploration.
Human Deep Space Exploration
NASA completes final test of SLS boosters before first launch
Space News (6/28): The solid rocket motor component of NASA’s Space Launch System exploration rocket cleared a final ground based test-firing on Tuesday at Orbital ATK test facilities in Promontory, Utah. The just over two-minute test firing helps set the stage for the first test flight of NASA’s SLS with an unpiloted Orion crew capsule on a three-week circumnavigation of the moon planned for late 2018. Two of the Orbital ATK solid rocket motors will be strapped to the SLS first stage for NASA’s Exploration Mission-1. All of the SLS hardware is intended to initiate future missions of human deep space exploration from the lunar to Martian environs.
Space Science
Target Mars: Red Planet in world’s crosshairs
Space.com (6/28): Increasingly, Mars is coming into focus for government — even private spacefaring agencies and interests — from around the world. The high-interest lineup ranges from the U.S. to Europe, the United Arab Emirates, India, China and Japan. Their focus ranges from searching for life to technology demonstration and human settlement.
See how NASA simulates year on Mars…on Earth’s largest volcano
Christian Science Monitor (6/28): Six volunteers, three men and three women, are at the 10-month point of a yearlong simulation of life on Mars. They are living and working in a two-story dome at elevation on Mauna Loa, a Hawaiian volcano, as part of HI-SEAS, an experiment to assess how astronauts will respond to the isolation and confinement of a year-long journey to the red planet. Not one has had to depart the simulated Mars shelter as yet for psychological reasons, project managers report.
Hubble Space Telescope celebrates the Fourth of July with galactic fireworks
Geek Wire (6/28): Tiny on galactic scales, the small star system Kisco 5639 is vibrant enough to quality for a July 4 fireworks display as evidenced by imagery gathered with the Hubble Space Telescope in 2015. The star system is 82 million light years away.
Excitement builds for the possibility of life on Enceladus
Scientific American (6/28): Veteran planetary scientists gathered recently at the University of California, Berkeley, to make the case for further exploration of Saturn’s intriguing ice- and ocean-covered moon Enceladus. The long-running U.S., European Cassini mission to the large ringed planet long ago discovered watery, geyser-like sprays rising from the moon’s South Pole, an indication of an internal heat source. Enceladus may be habitable.
Low Earth Orbit
NASA astronaut Kate Rubins prepares for first trip to space
ABC News (6/29): Kate Rubins, a research biologist, will join Russia’s Anatoli Ivanishin and Japan’s Takuya Onishi as they blast off from Kazakhstan for the International Space Station late July 6. Rubins, who was selected for NASA’s astronaut corps in 2009, is the first woman in three years to fly a Space Station assignment. Her duties will include scientific research in biology. “Funny enough, my scientific and personal goals are almost identical,” the Connecticut native told ABC.
Is China militarizing space? Experts say new junk collector could be used as anti-satellite weapon
South China Morning Post (6/28): China celebrated the inaugural launch of its new Long March 7 workhorse launch vehicle last weekend. Among the multiple payloads was Aolong-1, or Roaming Dragon. Equipped with a robot arm, Roaming Dragon was designated to remove orbital space debris. But some experts wonder whether Aolong may have an anti-satellite primary mission.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
Blue Origin breaks ground on Florida factory
Space News (6/28): Blue Origin broke ground Tuesday on its new orbital launch vehicle production plant near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said the facility will focus on the production of reusable launch vehicles.
Move over, Musk: Russia’s reusable winged carrier rocket to fly like plane
Sputnik International, of Russia (6/29): Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency, has initiated planning for a rocket with a winged first stage intended to be reusable. The agency will draw on experience gained from the development of the Energia Corp’s former Buran space shuttle project, according to the report.
Isakowitz to succeed Austin as Aerospace Corp. president and CEO
Space News (6/28): Steve Isakowitz will leave his executive position at Virgin Galactic to preside over the El Segundo, Calif.-based Aerospace Corp., the nonprofit think tank that counsels the Pentagon and federal civilian space agencies on technical aerospace issues. Isakowitz succeeds Wanda Austin.