In Today’s Deep Space Extra… NASA’s Orion spacecraft will start human explorers on future deep space missions with multiple destinations.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Moon or Mars? Lockheed preps Orion for deep space adventure
Flightglobal.com (4/14): Orion, the new human spacecraft NASA is developing with Lockheed Martin, will be capable of starting astronauts on deep space missions, whether their destination is the moon or Mars. Under NASA’s Journey to Mars plan, astronauts would first journey to lunar orbit in the 2020s, then to Mars a decade later. Lockheed Martin personnel are already ground testing the spacecraft’s systems not far from the 32nd annual Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, where Larry Price, the company’s Orion deputy program manager, discussed the work.
Video: NASA releases new animation of super-heavy-lift SLS booster
Spaceflight Insider (4/14): A new NASA-produced video displays the launch and performance of the Space Launch System exploration rocket, which is just over two years from its first scheduled test flight. The three-week flight will pair the big rocket with an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to send the capsule around the moon and back to Earth for an ocean splashdown and recovery. The first human launch on an SLS is planned for as early as late 2021.
Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos turned down a $200 million trip around the Moon
Space.com (4/14): Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said he declined an offer from Russia for a lunar flyby aboard a three-person Soyuz spacecraft. Bezos, whose company is developing a reusable rocket to launch passengers and experiments into suborbital space, discussed the offer at the 32nd Space Symposium underway in Colorado Springs this week.
Space Science
Grunsfeld: SLS/Spacewalkers could build space telescopes
Aerospace Daily & Defense Report (4/14): Spacewalking astronauts are capable of assembling a large space telescope in Earth orbit powerful enough to analyze the atmospheres of distant alien planets for signs of biological activity, according to John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for science. Grunsfeld, a former astronaut who spent 60 hours working on the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, was part of a panel that discussed possible science missions for the Space Launch System that NASA is building to launch future missions of human deep space exploration. Other panelists assembled at the 32nd annual Space Symposium in Colorado Springs suggested the powerful SLS could be used to cut the journey of a robotic spacecraft to Jupiter’s ice- and ocean-covered moon Europa from seven to 2.5 years.
NOAA moves forward on commercial weather data pilot
Spacepolicyonline.com (4/14): NOAA, the U.S. civil agency that studies and monitors the weather and environment, is proceeding with a pilot project that would fold the commercial sector into its weather and environmental assessments. The project is intended to address some agency concerns over the accuracy and reliability of data from commercial sources. Congress is urging the transition.
Hawking: We probably won’t find aliens soon
Discovery.com (4/14): The probability is quite low that Earthlings will discover evidence of alien life, according to a prediction from astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. He discussed the matter in New York City in connection with an announcement that he is joining wealthy Russian Yuri Milner to sponsor the development of a tiny laser-propelled spacecraft capable of reaching the neighboring galaxy Alpha Centauri.
Low Earth Orbit
Pentagon begins revising DOD space policy
Space News (4/14): Revisions in U.S. Defense Department space policy will take advantage of rapidly evolving commercial capabilities and focus on the protection of military and spy satellites from possible attack, according to government and industry sources, some of them participants in the 32nd annual Space Symposium in Colorado Springs this week.
Secretive ANGELS satellite part of new space experiments
Space News (4/14): Launched in 2014, the Automated Navigation and Guidance Experiment for Local Space, or ANGELS, satellite has become a part of Department of Defense experiments that assess how the Pentagon and national security professionals would respond during a war in space. Gen. John Hyten, the head of the U.S. Air Force Space Command, discussed the exercise and the spacecraft placed in geosynchronous orbit during a press briefing at the 32nd annual Space Symposium this week in Colorado Springs.