In Today’s Deep Space Extra… The Obama administration outlined its top civil space achievements on Thursday, which included initial preparations for a future mission of human exploration to Mars.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Obama administration assesses its space achievements in “exit memos”
Spacepolicyonline.com (1/5): Soon to relinquish the reigns of the White House to President-elect Trump, the Obama administration outlined its civil space achievements on Thursday. The Office of Science and Technology Policy heralded efforts to advance the human exploration of Mars, investments in solar electric propulsion, exo-planet discoveries with the Kepler space telescope, the advent of CubeSats, and NASA’s New Horizons’ Pluto flyby in 2015.
The dawn of colossal spacecraft may be nearer than you think
Motherboard (1/5): NASA is considering future human spaceflight on a larger scale through its Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge, an annual solicitation for spaceflight platform concepts. For 2017, the BIG Challenge is turning to the design of modular spacecraft, powered by solar electric propulsion that could ferry cargo from low Earth orbit to lunar distant retrograde orbit as a part-way station for missions to the Martian realm.
‘Hidden Figures’ explores NASA and civil rights history
Space.com (1/4): The feature film Hidden Figures, which opens widely in theaters on Friday, focuses on the Cold War space race of the early 1960s and the U.S. Civil Rights movement.
Space Science
The search for aliens has become a grassroots movement for billionaires
Inverse (1/5): The search for intelligent alien life has moved into the realm of the world’s super wealthy and brilliant. Russian billionaire Yuri Milner is funding much of the new Breakthrough Starshot initiative backed also by physicist Stephen Hawking and tech guru Mark Zuckerberg. Their efforts would help launch a very small spacecraft to the neighboring Alpha Centauri star system to look for a habitable planet and signs of life.
Could dark streaks in Venus’ clouds be microbial life?
Astrobiology Magazine (1/5): Venera-D, a joint U.S./Russian Venus mission prospect, may be equipped to scout for evidence of biological activity on the planet at high altitudes. An unmanned aerial vehicle would explore airborne dark streaks that could be evidence of microbial life.
Deepest-ever x-ray image of space captures countless black holes
Space.com (1/5): Stunning new images of the distant universe reveal a region sized to host the presence of up to 5,000 super massive black holes, among the most massive, yet powerful celestial bodies in the universe. The imagery was gathered by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
NASA to launch a powerful space telescope to hunt black holes
Seeker.com (1/5): IXPE stands for the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, a future space telescope that is designed to reveal the powerful secretes of black holes, pulsars and neutron stars. The NASA space telescope trio is planned for a 2020 launch.
Low Earth Orbit
Astronauts to start New Year with spacewalk
Associated Press via Florida Today (1/5): NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Peggy Whitson embarked on a seven hour spacewalk early Friday, the first of two January excursions outside the International Space Station to install new power storage batteries. The spacewalks will contribute to the extension of Space Station activities until 2024. Kimbrough and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet are to complete the battery exchange with a spacewalk on January 13.
Chinese long march 3B launches technology demonstrator
Space Flight Insider (1/5): China launched a satellite Wednesday to test Ka band communications technologies in geostationary orbit.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
Arianespace nabs two launch contracts, aims for 12 missions in 2017
Space News (1/4): France’s Arianespace scores a pair of launch contracts that will help insure a dozen satellite mission launches this year.