In Today’s Deep Space Extra… India anticipates two moon missions by March 2018.
Space Science
India to see two moon missions by March
Business Standard (10/31): India anticipates the launch of two rover-carrying missions to the lunar surface by the end of March 2018. They include the India Space Research Organization Chandrayaan-2 mission and Team Indus, a smaller, privately sponsored mission competing for the Google Lunar X-Prize.
Huge microwave observatory to search for cosmic inflation
Nature (10/30): Did a brief but enormously rapid expansion of the universe follow the big bang? A ground based observatory, the Cosmic Microwave Background Stage-4 in Chile and Antarctica, is designed to address the question, one fundamental to physics.
Astronomers find comets orbiting a star 800 light-years away
Universe Today (10/30): U.S. astronomers identify comets orbiting a distant star using NASA’s Kepler space telescope. Kepler was launched in 2009 to search for planets around other stars by assessing dimming of the stars attributed to planets crossing in front. The technique has now been used successfully to detect objects as small as comets around a star 800 light years away.
Other News
Space Florida moves forward with spacecraft, mag-lev deals
Space Florida (10/30): On Monday, Space Florida, the state economic development agency, backed efforts by Matrix Composites and York Space Systems to establish satellite component manufacturing facilities in Florida. Also, the agency’s board approved plans for skyTran to set up a magnetic levitation test track on Kennedy Space Center grounds.
SpaceX launches and lands third rocket in three weeks
Spaceflightnow.com (10/30): SpaceX logged its third commercial spacecraft launch of the month on Monday. South Korea’s Koreasat 5A reached gysynchronous transfer orbit, following a 3:34 p.m., EDT, lift-off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A on Monday. Also, the Falcon 9 first stage was recovered on a barge down range in the Atlantic Ocean within minutes of the lift-off.
Turtles all the way up: Chinese firm sends reptile to near space in flight test
GB Times of Finland (10/30): The recent test flight was part of efforts by China’s Kuang-Chi Group to establish a helium-filled, high-altitude, solar-powered balloon service for tourists. During the flight, the test balloon rose to about 70,000 feet over four and a half hours.