In Today’s Deep Space Extra… Victor Glover, one of 18 astronauts selected by NASA to train for the Artemis program, embarked on an International Space Station spacewalk early Wednesday with veteran NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will take a final close look at Bennu before beginning a return to Earth in May.
Human Space Exploration
Astronauts are taking a spacewalk today to upgrade a Space Station science module. Watch it live!
Space.com (1/27): NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins and Victor Glover embarked early Wednesday on the first spacewalk of 2021. Working outside the International Space Station (ISS), they will equip the new European Space Agency (ESA) Bartolomeo science platform with power and data cabling as well as a Ka band antenna for a direct ground communications link. The planned 6 1/2-hour excursion, which got an early start at 6:28 a.m. EST, is airing live via www.nasa.gov/nasalive. Victor Glover is the first African American ever to begin a full six-month stay on the ISS.
Meet the people paying $55 million each to fly to the Space Station
Coalition Members in the News – Axiom Space, Boeing
CBS News (1/26): Meet the Axiom crew, retired NASA astronaut Mike Lopez-Alegria; Ohio investment group manager Larry Connor; Canadian investment manager Mark Pathy; and former Israeli Air Force fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe.
Space Science
One of the oldest stars in the galaxy has a planet. Rocky planets were forming at nearly the beginning of the universe
Space.com (1/26): In a surprise, astronomers have identified an extrasolar planet that formed during the early era of the Milky Way galaxy, before it was thought the heavy chemical elements required would be present within the star system. The planet, which orbits a star estimated at 10 billion years old, was detected by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). Findings were published in the Astronomical Journal.
UA-led asteroid mission announces May 10 departure date for spaceship’s return trip to Earth
Tucson.com (1/26): NASA plans to delay the departure of the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission spacecraft from asteroid Bennu from early March until May. The slip will permit the spacecraft to make a previously unplanned second closeup approach to the site on Bennu where it touched down briefly on October 20 to gather samples for return to Earth. The planned Earth return is unchanged, September 24, 2023, when it will release a container with the Bennu samples it collected for a parachute descent into Utah for recovery.
Other News
U.S. Space Command chief makes case for civilian space traffic control
SpaceNews.com (1/26): Speaking Tuesday, James Dickinson, commander of the U.S. Space Force, expressed support for the transfer of space traffic control from the military to the U.S. Department of Commerce, where the responsibility can be carried out much as the FAA provides civilian responsibility for air safety. Dickinson spoke at a Michell Institute online event.
Colorado delegation petitions Biden to review U.S. Space Command headquarters decision
Spacepolicyonline.com (1/26): As his term in office was coming to a close, former President Trump named Huntsville, Alabama, as the site for location of the headquarters for the new U.S. Space Command. Colorado’s congressional delegation has asked President Biden to reconsider. Colorado is host to four of six candidate sites across the U.S. announced in May 2019.
‘Got a fire in the cockpit!’: The Apollo 1 tragedy that killed three astronauts
Pennlive.com (1/27): Today in 1967, astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward H. White II and Roger B. Chaffee perished in a cabin fire during a launchpad test of the Apollo 1 command module. Apollo 1 was the first planned crewed mission of NASA’s Apollo program and was set to launch on February 21, 1967 as the first low Earth orbital test of the Apollo command and service module.