In Today’s Deep Space Extra… NASA is ready to lay out a plan for a gradual return to a workforce restricted by coronavirus concerns. The effort could ready the much anticipated first test launch of the Space Launch System (SLS) in November 2021.

Human Space Exploration

Hopeful for launch next year, NASA aims to resume SLS operations within weeks
Coalition Members in the News – Airbus, Boeing, Lockheed Martin
Spaceflightnow.com (5/1): NASA is now planning the inaugural launch of the Space Launch System (SLS) in November 2021. Delays due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic concerns on the workforce and imposed March 17 could be eased soon to pursue plans for a full duration firing of the large rocket’s core stage at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The November 2021 SLS Artemis 1 mission will send an uncrewed Orion capsule on a multi-week mission around the Moon and back to Earth.

NASA lays out plan for gradual return to on-site work
Spacepolicyonline.com (5/4): NASA is launching a strategy to gradually return its workforce to normal working conditions, according to Administrator Jim Bridenstine. Currently, 12 of 18 facilities at sites across the country are closed to all but those involved in protecting life and infrastructure, including the Marshall Space Flight Center, Stennis Space Center and Michoud Assembly Facility, each involved in Space Launch System (SLS) development and test. Otherwise, it’s telework and mission essential travel only. 

NASA evaluation sees SpaceX lunar lander as innovative but risky
Coalition Members in the News – Dynetics, Lockheed Martin, Maxar, Northrop Grumman
SpaceNews.com (5/4): NASA’s source selection statement looks at the strengths and weaknesses of the multi commercial partner Blue Origin and Dynetics led teams selected by the agency along with SpaceX to develop Human Lander Systems (HLS) for the Artemis initiative, which is to achieve an accelerated human return to the surface of the Moon in 2024. The commercial lander strategy is also to help establish a sustained human presence on the Moon to prepare for human expeditions to Mars.

Commercial crew safety, in space and on the ground
The Space Review (5/4): The COVID-19 virus has placed NASA in the unusual position of urging the public not to gather in person outside of the gates of the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) to watch as NASA and SpaceX launch the Demo 2 test flight with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley aboard on May 27 at 4:32 p.m., EDT. Official visitors, family and friends of the astronauts as well as the access to the working news media are also being restricted, all to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The mission is already historic. It will mark the first U.S. launch of humans into orbital space since the final shuttle mission in July 2011. NASA intends to go all out with coverage over NASA TV and its website, www.nasa.gov.

China’s first Long March 5B rocket launches on crew capsule test flight
Spaceflightnow.com (5/5): China successfully launched a prototype crew capsule into Earth orbit atop a Long March 5B rocket from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center early Tuesday, U.S. time. There was no crew aboard. The 5B version of the rocket will be used to launch elements of an independent Chinese space station. The new capsule is to replace the Shenzhou, be reusable, carry up to six crew and capable of reaching the Moon.

Space Science

The UAE is going to Mars. Here’s the plan for its Hope orbiter
Space.com (5/4): Hope is a United Arab Emirates (UAE) mission to Mars with an orbiter that will closely study the planet’s weather from orbit for a year. A launch this summer from Japan should place Hope at Mars in February 2021. While the UAE is eager to gather the science, the mission’s primary duty is to bolster education in the Middle Eastern nation.

Chaos reigns in detailed new views of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa
Space.com (5/4): NASA’s shuttle launched Galileo mission circled giant Jupiter from 1995 to 2003, including 11 flybys of the ice and ocean covered moon Europa. Imagery from a 1998 flyby is being reassessed as NASA prepares for the Europa Clipper mission, launching in 2023 or 2025, which would also orbit Jupiter for a series of Europa flybys. Clipper’s mission in an effort to determine whether Europa may host a habitable environment.

Astronomers warn that our sun is having a “midlife crisis”
Futurism (5/1): That “crisis” may be that in comparison to 369 other stars with similar properties, the sun is less active. That suggests our star is experiencing a significant milestone, considered “midlife,” only because it’s lived half its anticipated 9 billion year life. The Max Planck Institute assessment was published in the journal Science.

Other News

RAND finds risk in Air Force plan to support two launch companies
Coalition Members in the News – Northrop Grumman, United Launch Alliance
SpaceNews.com (5/3): A Rand Corp assessment justifies U.S. Air Force plans to acquire two commercial launch services providers for national security missions and urges it to consider a third to lower risks. The military is nearing a Phase 2 procurement for launch services over five years starting in 2022.

In the recession, space firms should focus on Earth imagery
The Space Review (5/4): While the space sector is among those facing a rough time economically in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, there is a potential bright spot, Earth imagery, writes Nicholas Borroz, founder of Rotoiti, a space industry consulting firm. The amount of imagery abounds and the applications that can benefit range from environmental monitoring, urban planning and engineering and construction to disaster response and humanitarian assistance, he writes.