New Episode of The Deep Space Podcast Available Now
This week, the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration is excited to welcome Barbara Slayton, Leidos’ VP and strategic account executive for NASA, NOAA, and NSF, to the Deep Space Podcast. Barbara joins Coalition team members Christen Kapavik and Jamil Castillo for a discussion about leadership and what it means to lead a team working in the space sector. Our guest also shares insight into what motivated her to become a leader in the space industry, what she would like her legacy to be, and why exploring space is so crucial for humanity. Click here to listen to the episode now.

 

In Today’s Deep Space Extra… The Ingenuity Mars helicopter gets a first look at the Red Planet as it prepares to attempt the first-ever flight on another world. A testbed for the CAPSTONE mission, a precursor for NASA’s Artemis program, has launched to space.

 

Space Science

The mysterious core of Mars is on the large side, NASA’s InSight lander data suggests
Space.com (3/22): Assessments of data from NASA’s Mars InSight lander, which touched down on the Red Planet in November 2018, suggest the neighboring planet has a liquid core and that it is larger than previously estimated. The findings were presented by mission scientists before last week’s virtual Lunar Planetary and Science Conference (LPSC).

Mars helicopter Ingenuity gets 1st taste of Red Planet air (video)
Space.com (3/23): The helicopter aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover has gotten its first look at the Red Planet. The four-pound aircraft, a technology demonstration named Ingenuity, traveled to Mars attached to Perseverance’s belly. Over the weekend, Perseverance dropped the debris shield that protected Ingenuity during the rover’s February 18 touchdown on Jezero Crater.

 

Opinion

Back to the future
Coalition Members in the News – Lockheed Martin, Nanoracks
The Space Review (3/22): NASA administrators leave their stamp on the agency, but Bill Nelson will possibly be the first to have already shaped NASA before becoming administrator, writes The Space Review’s Jeff Foust. Nelson will be executing programs he helped create a decade ago when he was a U.S. Senator. In 2010, Nelson was instrumental in starting the development of the Space Launch System (SLS) and keeping the Orion crew capsule alive as former President Obama called for cancellation of the Constellation program.

The politics of settling space
The Space Review (3/22): If humanity is to move off the Earth, it faces a list of challenges that range from the human body’s response to changes in gravity, to the political climate across the Earth, to an agreeable legal construct, says Gregory Anderson, science fiction writer and blogger. “Before moving into space in a massive, sustained way, the legal situation needs to be clarified” writes Anderson, adding that political coherence is also a matter to consider: “exactly how a political entity on Earth could project its authority into space to enforce its rule over a self-sufficient settlement is unclear.”  

 

Other News

Testbed for NASA Moon mission rides to orbit with six other satellites
Spaceflightnow.com (3/23): The Rocketlab Electron rocket launched from New Zealand Monday evening with seven satellites for a wide range of missions. Those include a position and navigation demonstration in support of NASA’s CAPSTONE, a small satellite cislunar mission, which is scheduled to launch later this year in support of the agency’s Artemis program.

Privately-funded mission takes off to begin space debris cleanup trials
Spaceflightnow.com (3/22): A commercial mission developed by the Japanese company Astroscale launched into space on a Russian Soyuz launcher Monday, ready to demonstrate how satellite sweepers might one day drag debris out of orbit. A privately-funded mission, the End-of-Life Services by Astroscale demonstration mission, known as ELSA-d, is a pathfinder for future satellites that could roam busy orbital traffic lanes to link up with old pieces of space debris and drive them back into Earth’s atmosphere.

Europe is starting to freak out about the launch dominance of SpaceX
Ars Technica (3/22): With the initial launches of the European Ariane 6 and Vega-C rockets progressing toward their debuts, concern is growing in Europe they will not be able to compete with U.S. commercial launch service providers, especially SpaceX’s Falcon 9.