In Today’s Deep Space Extra… Axiom Space and NASA hold a news briefing today regarding the company’s all-private astronaut mission to the International Space Station. The James Webb Space Telescope continues to make progress with the alignment of its multi-segmented primary mirror.
Human Space Exploration
NASA, Axiom plan update on private astronaut mission to ISS
Coalition Member in the News – Axiom Space
UPI.com (2/28): NASA and Houston-based Axiom Space are expected to provide more details today about their plan to launch the first all-private astronaut mission, Ax-1, to the International Space Station (ISS) in late March. Former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegria will command the crew that also includes three paying passengers to launch on a Falcon 9 rocket March 30. Liftoff is set for 2:46 p.m. EDT from Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. The paying crew members are billionaires Larry Connor, Mark Pathy, and Eytan Stibbe. NASA and Axiom’s virtual press conference about the mission will start at 11 a.m. EST on Monday.
Space Science
James Webb Space Telescope is nearly halfway through its mirror alignment stages
Space.com (2/26): The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) team continues to make progress in aligning the primary elements of the observatory’s large primary mirror. The space observatory was launched on December 25, 2021 and began a complex series of deployments to prepare it for observations of the earliest stars and galaxies. As of Friday, JWST had completed the third of seven stages in the deployment of the primary mirror’s 18 segments. The telescope reached its observation point about 1 million miles from the Earth in late January.
Curiosity finds a bizarre rock on Mars that looks like a flower
Universetoday.com (2/25): NASA’s Curiosity rover has been exploring the large Gale Crater on Mars since it arrived in August 2012. Last week, Curiosity provided an image of an intriguing flower-like feature that mission scientists attribute to a mineral formation with delicate features that formed by precipitating from water. The “flower” is among several similar types that have been observed and is technically a diagenetic crystal cluster.
Other News
Russia suspends some space cooperation with the U.S., Europe
Spacepolicyonline.com (2/26): In response to U.S. sanctions imposed due to Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, said Saturday that his agency will no longer work with NASA on Venera-D, a series of planetary science missions to be launched to Venus in the late 2020s. Russia will work alone or partner with China, according to Rogozin. However, NASA is also working on a pair of new Venus missions, Veritas and Davinci+. With regard to Europe, Russia is ending Soyuz launch operations from French Guiana. Some 87 Russians at the South American launch site have been recalled. For now the measures don’t interrupt any services for users of the Galileo satellites or of the E.U.’s Copernicus Earth observation satellite program, according to Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner for Space.
ULA: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine won’t impact remaining Atlas 5 missions
Coalition Members in the News – Boeing, United Launch Alliance
Spaceflightnow.com (2/25): In an announcement on Friday, United Launch Alliance (ULA) said the Russian incursion into Ukraine will not impact the company’s Atlas V launch program. The Atlas V first stage relies on imports of Russia’s RD-180 rocket engines. Twenty-five Atlas V launches are planned as ULA moves toward the introduction of its successor, the Vulcan Centaur, with rocket engines manufactured by Blue Origin. ULA said it had acquired the needed Russian engines prior to the transition.
Sierra Space to study Dream Chaser landings in Japan
Coalition Members in the News – Boeing, United Launch Alliance
SpaceNews.com (2/26): Sierra Space is working with Kanematsu Corporation and Oita Prefecture to study future landings of the Dream Chaser spacecraft in Japan at the Oita airport, which has been working to establish itself as a spaceport. Sierra Space and Kanematsu will also collaborate on potential business opportunities in Japan and elsewhere in Asia for Dream Chaser. The company is currently preparing Dream Chaser to launch and return cargo to and from the International Space Station (ISS) under a NASA contract. Sierra Space also envisions a crewed version of Dream Chaser.
China launches national record 22 satellites on Long March 8 commercial rideshare
SpaceNews.com (2/27): China set a domestic record for satellites launched on a single rocket late Saturday with the lift off of a Long March 8 rocket carrying 22 satellites for a range of seven Chinese commercial companies and two research institutes. Their missions include remote sensing, marine environment monitoring, forest fire prevention, disaster mitigation and gamma ray burst observation missions. It was the second launch of a Long March 8.
Major Space Related Activities for the Week
Major space related activities for the week of February 27 to March 5, 2022
Coalition Member in the News – Axiom Space
Spacepolicyonline.com (2/27): The nation is close to an annual State of the Union address from its president, this year in the midst of flare-up in global tensions over Russia’s incursion into Ukraine. On Sunday, Russian president Vladimir Putin placed his country’s nuclear deterrence forces on alert. President Biden’s response and those of the U.S. House and Senate as they return to Washington for legislative business, including completing the appropriations business for the 2022 fiscal year that began October 1, 2021, are likely to remain a news focus in the coming days. The House Science, Space, and Technology subcommittee hearing entitled “Keeping Our Sights on Mars, Part 3, A Status Update and Review of NASA’s Artemis Initiative,” is set for Tuesday at 11 a.m. EST, a rescheduling from January 20. The NASA Advisory Council begins a two-day session this week on Tuesday at 1 p.m. EST, its first session in more than two years. On Thursday, The Aspen Institute will host a webinar, “Citizens of the Worlds: What Does Being Multiplanetary Mean for Life Here on Earth?” Currently, NOAA is planning the launch of its geostationary GOES-T weather satellite for Tuesday at 4:38 p.m. EST on a ULA rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.