In Today’s Deep Space Extra… Kathy Lueders Selected to Lead NASA’s Human Spaceflight Office. NASA has chosen Astrobotics, one of 14 Commercial Lunar Payload Services partners, for the 2023 integration, launch and landing of a lunar ice-seeking robot. Organic molecules, the building blocks for life, are more prevalent across the universe than once suspected.
Human Space Exploration
Kathy Lueders Selected to Lead NASA’s Human Spaceflight Office
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine Friday selected Commercial Crew Program Manager Kathy Lueders to be the agency’s next associate administrator of the Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) Mission Directorate. Since 2014, Lueders has directed NASA’s efforts to send astronauts to space on private spacecraft, which culminated in the successful launch of Demo-2 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 30.
Astrobotic wins NASA contract to deliver VIPER lunar rover
Coalition Member in the News – Astrobotic Technology, Inc.
SpaceNews.com (6/11): VIPER is a significant robotic precursor mission to NASA’s Artemis initiative to return human explorers to the surface of the Moon in 2024. Thursday, NASA announced the selection of Astrobotic, of Pittsburgh, to integrate, launch and land the golf cart sized Viper rover at the Moon’s south pole in late 2023 to explore for and characterize water ice deposits. Lunar water ice is considered a valuable resource in the effort to establish a sustained human presence at the Moon. The ice could be processed into rocket propellants and provide the water and oxygen life support needs of astronauts.
Virtual reality will be a big part of Boeing’s Starliner astronaut training
Coalition Member in the News – Boeing
Space.com (6/11): Boeing is teaming with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program to help provide redundant means of commercially transporting astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS). The astronauts who launch on Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, perhaps this year, will train in part using virtual reality headsets.
Architects have designed a Martian city for the desert outside Dubai
CNN (6/11): The United Arab Emirates (UAE) plans to establish the prototype for a city on Mars in the outskirts of Dubai. The UAE would like to colonize the Red Planet within the next century.
Space Science
Five years after Pluto encounter, New Horizons probe does a far-out parallax experiment
GeekWire.com (6/11): After an historic first every close flyby of distant Pluto nearly five years ago and the Kuiper Belt Object Arrokoth on New Year’s Day 2019, NASA’s New Horizons probe continues to contribute to new deep space discoveries. In April, while 4.3 billion miles from the Earth, New Horizons teamed with ground-based observatories in Arizona and Australia to create a parallax effect to image two of the closest stars, Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359.
Ingredients for life appear in stellar nurseries long before stars are born
University of Arizona (6/11): Observations by University of Arizona astronomers reveal that the organic molecules considered to be the building blocks of life are more prevalent than previously thought in the clouds of stellar gas and dust that form the planets. The ingredients are present for hundreds of thousands of years before stars begin to form. The findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal.
Other News
Japan firm to develop satellite to remove space debris
Nippon.com (6/11): The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is one government agency that will join with SKYPerfect JSAT Corp., the satellite communications provider, to develop a technology for removing mounting amounts of space debris. The approach is to use a satellite-based laser to push space debris into the Earth’s atmosphere so that it burns up on re-entry.
More than 8,500 airmen volunteer to join U.S. Space Force
SpaceNews.com (6/9): More than 8,500 active duty military airmen from 13 career fields have volunteered to move to the new U.S. Space Force, officials in the new sixth branch of the U.S. military announced earlier this week. Those volunteering include enlisted and officers. The total exceeded projections. It’s estimated that about 6,000 of those eager to join will be selected to transition beginning in September.