In Today’s Deep Space Extra… NASA aims for a March 17 rollout of the Artemis I Space Launch System and Orion crew capsule for a milestone in launch preparations called the Wet Dress Rehearsal. President Biden pledged new sanctions against Russia, though NASA said they will not impact International Space Station cooperation. The Parker Solar Probe spacecraft zips past the sun again today.
Human Space Exploration
NASA to roll out SLS in mid-March for launch rehearsal
SpaceNews.com (2/25): On Thursday, NASA presented an update for Artemis I, the initial test flight of the integrated Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion crew capsule without astronauts aboard on a trek around the Moon. The next major milestone is the Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR), a simulation of an actual launch countdown on Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC). The rehearsal is set to begin with a March 17 rollout to 39B. If all goes well, the launch simulation could lead to an Artemis I liftoff between May 7 and 21, NASA managers supervising the next steps in the mission told a Thursday news briefing. The final work back at the KSC’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) after the WDR is expected to take about a month, but managers admitted some uncertainty in that schedule. “I wouldn’t want to say whether 30 days is conservative or not,” one of the speakers said. “I do acknowledge there’s a lot of work.”
Biden: Sanctions will “degrade” Russian space program
SpaceNews.com (2/24): In a speech yesterday, President Joe Biden said he estimates that upcoming sanctions on Russia as a consequence of its conflict with Ukraine will cut off much of Russia’s high-tech imports, degrading their aerospace industry, including their space program. A White House fact sheet released February 24 did not elaborate on specific sanctions or restrictions for Russia’s space program. In London, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said civil space cooperation with Russia could be impacted. “I must say that hitherto I have been broadly in favor of continuing artistic and scientific collaboration. But in the current circumstances, it’s hard to see how even those can continue as normal.” Johnson was responding to a question asked in Parliament about the implications of Russia’s invasion for cooperation involving the International Space Station (ISS).
Biden imposes more sanctions on Russia, but no apparent impact on ISS
Coalition Member in the News – Northrop Grumman
Spacepolicyonline.com (2/25): After the White House spoke about sanctions against Russia, NASA followed up with a statement that the actions to allow cooperation on the International Space Station (ISS) with Russia will continue. The President’s speech though triggered a Twitter reaction by Dmitry Rogozin, Director General of Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency. He asked if the U.S. wants to operate the ISS by itself, and then who will save it from reentering uncontrollably. He is referring to Russia’s ISS module Zvezda and Progress MS cargo spacecraft being used to correct the ISS’s altitude, which must be raised periodically to compensate for atmospheric drag. The Progress spacecraft will be used to deorbit the ISS over an uninhabited region of the Pacific Ocean at the end of its life. The other ISS partners — the U.S., Canada, Japan, and 11 European countries — currently do not have spacecraft that can perform that function, although the recently launched Northrop Grumman Cygnus NG-17 spacecraft will perform an orbit-correction maneuver for the first time operationally.
ESA to continue cooperation but monitoring situation following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
SpaceNews.com (2/25): “ESA continues to work on all of its programmes, including on ISS and ExoMars launch campaign, in order to honor commitments with Member States and partners. We continue to monitor the evolving situation,” said Josef Aschbacher, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) director general. ExoMars 2022, involving the European-built Rosalind Franklin rover and a Roscosmos-made lander, is scheduled to launch on a Proton-M rocket from Baikonur in September. Any delay would likely mean the mission would miss a narrow launch window of a few weeks for launches to Mars and would again slip 26 months until the next opportunity.
Space Science
NASA’s daring Parker Solar Probe spacecraft zips past the sun again today
Space.com (2/25): The Parker Solar Probe is ready to make its 11th close flyby of the sun during its quest to understand how our nearest star works. The spacecraft, heavily shielded against the sun’s radiation and extreme heat, will come within 5.3 million miles (8.5 million kilometers) of the solar surface today. That’s about 14 times closer than the orbit of Mercury, our closest planet to the sun.
Other News
U.S. Space Command needs help identifying hostile intent in space
Coalition Member in the News – Maxar
SpaceNews.com (2/24): In remarks earlier this week before the National Security Space Association’s Defense and Intelligence Space Conference, U.S. Space Command commander James Dickinson cautioned that it may be difficult to identify those responsible for aggressive behavior in space. He explained that the U.S. military and intelligence community need better tools to identify the source of nefarious activity in orbit. While the source of the mid November Russian anti-satellite test that generated thousands of worrisome new space debris was evident, other types of weapons that are deployed from satellites in space could be far more difficult to track and identify, Dickinson explained.
Here’s what China is planning to do in space for the next 5 years
Universetoday.com (2/24): China’s most recent long-term plan for space includes launch system and Global Positioning System (GPS) upgrades; maintaining and expanding the new Tiangong space station; preparing technologies for a Mars sample return mission; and working with Russian and other international partners on a research station at the Moon. The China National Space Agency (CNSA) released its latest five-to-10-year plan on January 28.