In Today’s Deep Space Extra… Work on the core stage of NASA’s new Space Launch System (SLS), which is to start astronauts on future missions of deep space exploration is reaching new milestones leading to first flight. NASA’s Mars InSight begins regular red planet weather reports. The International Space Station (ISS) prepares for X-ray communications tests.
Human Space Exploration
Boeing reaches milestone of firsts with forward join of NASA’s inaugural SLS Core Stage
Coalition Member in the News – Boeing
NASAspaceflight.com (2/19): At NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, prime contractor Boeing has reached a significant milestone in efforts to assemble the upper segment of the new Space Launch System (SLS) core stage with three elements, the forward skirt, liquid oxygen tank and intertank. Remaining segments of the SLS core are slated to be joined later this year. Much of the work so far has progressed despite a record December/January partial U.S. government shutdown affecting NASA, among other civil federal agencies. The work underway is intended to prepare for the first joint test flight of the SLS and Orion crew capsule, an uncrewed mission called Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1). EM-1 is to send Orion around the Moon and back to Earth for an ocean splashdown and recovery.
Isolation periods could be introduced as prepping program for cosmonauts
TASS of Russia (2/19): Periods of isolation could become a part of the preparation cosmonauts undergo for long space missions, according to Evgeny Tarelkin, who is to lead a Russian isolation experiment, the Scientific International Research in Unique Terrestrial Station (SIRIUS), which will simulate a human orbital mission to the Moon.
Space Science
And now for the weather on Mars, courtesy of new NASA lander
Associated Press via Washington Post (2/19): NASA’s latest Mars lander, Mars InSight, which touched down successfully on November 26, 2018, began sending regular weather reports back to Earth from its landing site earlier this week. Mars InSight was developed to carry out the first studies of the deep Martian subsurface.
NASA set to demonstrate X-ray communications in space
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center (2/19): This spring, the International Space Station (ISS) is to serve as the base for the demonstration of a new communications technology, using X-rays, a step beyond optical communications and well beyond the tradition of radio communications. The promise is the transmission of more data using less energy over vast distances. The experimental device is called the Modulated X-ray Source.
Other News
Trump signs Space Force policy directive, now comes the heavy lifting
SpaceNews.com (2/19): President Trump on Tuesday signed off on Space Policy Directive 4 (SPD-4), an initiative establishing a Space Force, as a branch of the military under the U.S. Air Force and responsible for national security activities in space. In an Oval Office ceremony, the president called the move long overdue. The proposal will now go to the White House Office of Management and Budget for approval and then on to Congress for authorization and funding.
DeSantis formally asks Trump to base Space Command in Florida
The Hill (2/19): In a letter Tuesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis requests that President Trump base a new U.S. Space Command in Florida, already home to the U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command as well as the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) launch complexes.
Virgin Galactic will launch its next SpaceShipTwo test flight today
Space.com (2/19): Virgin Galactic, the suborbital space passenger launch services company, plans its next test flight of SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity today, if planning holds. Like the December test light, Wednesday’s is to carry NASA research payloads as well as two pilots as they launch with a drop from the WhiteKnightTwo aircraft near Mojave, California.