In Today’s Deep Space Extra… More hardware for the launch of Artemis 1, the first test flight of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion capsule, comes together at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) with an historical note. Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus Space Station cargo capsules display their versatility. Retired NASA shuttle astronaut and Hubble Space Telescope repairman believes the aging observatory deserves another makeover.

Human Space Exploration

Shuttle-flown solid rocket segments arrive in Florida for Artemis I SLS
Coalition Member in the News – Northrop Grumman
Collectspace.com (6/15): The components for the twin solid rocket boosters that will provide a majority of the launch thrust for NASA’s Artemis 1 test flight of the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion crew capsule reached NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida late last week, following a week long journey by rail. The trip began at Northrop Grumman facilities in Promontory, Utah. Planned for 2021, Artemis 1 is to send the Orion spacecraft without astronauts on board around the Moon and back to Earth for an ocean splashdown and recovery. Ten of the segments delivered for assembly at KSC into the two boosters helped to launch 40 space shuttle missions dating back three decades. Their legacy includes the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope; the first U.S. spaceflight commanded by a woman, Eileen Collins; and the shuttle mission on which Mercury astronaut John Glenn, then a U.S. senator, returned to space.

NASA lit a fire in space to keep future astronauts safe (video)
Coalition Member in the News – Northrop Grumman
Space.com (6/15): Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus resupply capsule, which delivers cargo to the International Space Station (ISS), has proven a worthy post-delivery platform for free-flying science investigations. Those include NASA’s SAFFIRE experiments that examine how fires ignite and spread in the absence of gravity aboard habitable spacecraft. SAFFIRE is providing information on how to prevent and suppress the hazard. The fourth in a series of six planned SAFFIRE investigations was recently completed.

The International Space Station (ISS) is getting a new toilet this year
Space.com (6/15): Later this year, the International Space Station’s (ISS) U.S. segment is to be equipped with a new space toilet, one that will be evaluated for suitability for use on future human deep space missions. The Universal Waste Management System could be expected to process as much as 600 pounds of human waste on a two to three year round trip mission to Mars. Some waste could be recycled.

Space Science

Hugging Hubble longer
Coalition Member in the News – Northrop Grumman
The Space Review (6/15): John Grunsfeld, a former NASA astronaut who participated in three of the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope upgrade missions, believes the 30-year-old orbital observatory deserves another upgrade, one that could be executed by astronauts launched aboard an Orion or SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. “We certainly could do that,” he told a National Academies’ Space Studies Board session in early June.

How the coronavirus pandemic can help us prepare for an asteroid impact
Space.com (6/15): Efforts to detect and counter the global coronavirus pandemic are offering lessons learned in dealing with the threat of a potentially catastrophic impact from an asteroid, according to scientists and planetary defense strategists. Those include the need for global transparency in data gathering and sharing as well as collaboration in efforts to mount a deflection.

New research: There could be 36 alien civilizations in our galaxy
Space.com (6/15): An estimate that the Milky Way Galaxy could be home to 36 alien civilizations is based in part on an assumption, that as on Earth, it has taken 5 billion years for intelligent life to emerge and that each civilization arose around a star that is as metal rich as the sun. The assessments led by a University of Nottingham researcher suggests, however, that the average distance to an alien civilization would be 17,000 light years. The study appears in the Astrophysical Journal.

Oumuamua: Neither comet nor asteroid, but a cosmic iceberg
New York Times (6/15): Now making its way out of the solar system, the cigar shaped object known as Oumuamua, which was discovered by astronomers about 2 1/2 years ago with a telescope in Hawaii, has long mystified scientists as to its origins, composition and designation — asteroid or comet. Yale University astronomers are now suggesting it is a chunk of frozen hydrogen that came together within an interstellar cloud, the birthplace of stars.

Op Eds

The Eagle, the Bear, and the (other) Dragon: U.S.-Russian relations in the SpaceX era
The Space Review (6/15): In the long term, the success so far of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program SpaceX Demo-2 mission that launched and docked to the International Space Station (ISS) on May 30/31 with two NASA astronauts appears an overdue milestone in U.S. efforts to establish an independent low Earth orbit human launch capability lost when the space shuttle fleet was retired nine years ago. However, it may sound a negative note for the future of U.S. and Russian relations, in the opinion of Gregory D. Miller, associate professor of military and security studies at the U.S. Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College. Bottom line, Russia is losing many millions of much needed dollars that NASA provided for the launch of astronauts to ensure a permanent U.S. presence on the Space Station.

Other News

The U.S. military is getting serious about nuclear thermal propulsion
Coalition Member in the News – BWX Technologies
Ars Technica (6/15): The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, recently announced plans to demonstrate a nuclear rocket propulsion technology by 2025. It’s a concept that NASA has studied off and on as a deep space propulsion source for journeys to Mars. DARPA’s Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations, or DRACO program, is to assess a technology for a more responsive control of spacecraft in Earth orbit and cislunar space for military operations.