In Today’s Deep Space Extra… Houston lawmaker urges NASA and its contractors ahead with development of the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion crew capsule. NASA readies InSight, the nation’s next mission to Mars, for a Saturday liftoff. China’s new Long March 8 rocket is to feature a reusable first stage.
Human Space Exploration
Culberson urges NASA contractors to press forward
Houston Chronicle (4/30): Houston congressman John Culberson urged those involved as contractors in NASA’s development of the Orion crew capsule and Space Launch System (SLS) to move forward as urgently as possible with test and operational missions intended to enable the U.S. to resume human deep space exploration. Culberson chairs the U.S. Appropriations subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science, which has responsibility for NASA’s budget. “It’s just critical that we get it up and flying as quickly as possible,” Culberson said Monday after touring Oceaneering Space Systems in Houston The lawmaker assured the company’s workforce that they have bipartisan support within Congress for advancing space exploration. EM-1 is planned as soon as soon as December 2019, with EM-2 following possibly in mid-2022.
Year to abort: NASA preps Orion capsule for 2019 Abort Ascent-2 test
Coalition Member in the News – Orbital ATK
Space.com (4/30): Many in the space community have a firm fix on the first joint launches of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion crew capsule. Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) and EM-2, the first uncrewed and crewed SLS/Orion missions, are to loop around the Moon and return to Earth. But the Orion Abort Ascent-2 (AA-2), a test flight planned for April 2019 will offer drama as well as it demonstrates a lifesaving strategy. Launched from Cape Canaveral on an Orbital ATK Peacekeeper missile stage rather than an SLS, an uncrewed Orion capsule will embark on a three minute flight in which it is to be separated in flight from the booster, just as it would if an SLS problem erupted on the launch pad or in early flight with a crew on board. The Orion test article for the AA-2 test flight is undergoing preparations at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
Space Science
Mars InSight: NASA’s journey into the Red Planet’s deepest mysteries
New York Times (4/30): Slated to launch Saturday from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, NASA’s Mars InSight Lander was developed to probe the Red Planet’s interior for the first time. Scientists expect instruments on the spacecraft to help them characterize the Martian crust and learn more about the size and nature of the planet’s core. InSight will monitor for “Marsquakes” as well. The spacecraft, which has European participation, should arrive at Mars in late November.
Twin spacecraft to weigh in on Earth’s changing water
NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (4/30): NASA’s twin spacecraft GRACE-Follow On mission, set to launch no earlier than May 19, will build on a previous spacecraft endeavor that ended its 15 year mission in 2017. GRACE-FO will continue to monitor changes in the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, landmasses and ice sheets, all indications of possible responses to a changing climate. The twin GRACE-FO spacecraft will launch as “ride shares” on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, whose primary payload is five Iridium commercial communications satellites.
A new era of planetary protection
The Space Review (4/30): NASA’s new planetary protection officer, Lisa Pratt, represents a change of approach within the agency. The official within NASA responsible for making sure spacecraft missions to other planets include little chance of microbial transfer no longer works for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD). Instead, the post has been moved to NASA’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance. The official’s first task in the new organizational setup was clearing NASA’ Mars InSight lander for launch on Saturday. Down the line, there may be a lander missions to Europa, the ice and ocean covered moon of Jupiter believed to host potentially habitable environments.
How would humanity react if we really found aliens?
Space.com (4/30): The question of how humanity might respond to contact with an intelligent extraterrestrial life form has been pondered by science fiction lovers for decades. A 1938 radio broadcast drama, “War of the Worlds,” dealt with the drama in a way that many listeners believed was real. Now experts in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence field are preparing to update a 1989 protocol for public notification last updated in 2010. A key issue is how to recognize the role that contemporary social media would play.
Astronomers see a pileup of 14 separate galaxies in the early universe
Universe Today (4/30): An international team of astronomers has used the Atacama Large Millimeter-submillimeter Array (ALMA), a telescope in Chile, to observe conditions in the universe when it was 1.4 billion years old. They’ve monitored a cluster of 14 galaxies some 12.4 billion light years away. The drama unfolded in a region of space but three times the area of the Milky Way. Stars were forming 1,000 times faster than those of the Milky Way.
Other News
Space commerce traffic management
The Space Review (4/30): The U.S. Office of Space Commerce, once not noticed so much within the space community, is emerging as a potential force in the regulation of non-traditional commercial space activities. Though its new role is still in discussion among policy makers, the office may be in line to take on space traffic management responsibilities long shouldered by the U.S. Air Force. Those would include warming commercial and civil space satellite operators of potential collisions with orbital debris or other satellites.
China to test rocket reusability with planned Long March 8 launcher
Space News (4/10): China’s medium lift Long March 8 is being developed with a reusable first stage that could launch as soon as 2020. Once anticipated as an expendable, the Long March 8 design has been adapted with heritage propulsion to rise and land vertically like the SpaceX Falcon 9.