Today’s Deep Space Extra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. NASA’s just released, three phase Journey to Mars strategy stirs debate in Congress and among outside experts. Apollo 11’s Buzz Aldrin: 50th anniversary of first moon landing perfect for Presidential commitment to human Mars mission. The Martian continues Box Office reign. The James Webb Space Telescope reaches a development milestone. Congressional hearing on extraterrestrial life sparks bipartisan enthusiasm. Global space powers upgrade a U.S. led international space docking standard. Intelsat sounds concerns over Russian satellite maneuvers. Space becomes Canadian election issue. The U.S. Congress clears a path for possible Export Import Bank re-authorization. The Pentagon holds off on Russian RD-180 rocket engine waiver for United Launch Alliance. SpaceX estimates it’s a month away from formal conclusions in the June 28 Falcon 9 launch mishap. International Astronautical Congress meets this week in Jerusalem.

Human Deep Space Exploration

GOP: NASA on ‘journey to nowhere’
The Hill (10/10): U.S. House Science, Space and Technology Committee chairman Lamar Smith criticizes a NASA Journey to Mars report released Thursday, on the eve of a Friday hearing on the strategy before the policy shaping House panel. The strategy, which says the U.S. is on a three step course to reach Mars with humans, lacks cost estimates and deadlines. The strategy says NASA’s International Space Station based operations will give way to test flight activities in cis-lunar space and then to human exploration of the Martian environs. The report anticipates spending adjusted to inflation and economic growth.

NASA finally talks Mars budget, and it’s not enough
Houston Chronicle (10/9): NASA presented a three step plan for reaching Mars with human explorers last Thursday, the eve of a congressional hearing on the topic. Absent were cost estimates, though one top official states the agency can accomplish its goal in the mid-2030s at current budget levels adjusted for inflation and future U.S. economic growth, an assumption a recent National Research Council report disputes. The Science panel’s chair, U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, expressed his displeasure at the lack of budget or schedule details in the new report.

Buzz Aldrin: Apollo 11’s 50th anniversary should kick off crewed Mars effort
Space.com (10/9): July 2019 will bring the 50th or Golden Anniversary of the first human moon landing, Apollo 11. Apollo 11’s Buzz Aldrin would like the U.S. president on that date to commemorate the landing of Neil Armstrong and Aldrin with a commitment to launch humans to Mars — within two decades.

Box office: ‘Pan’ flops with $15.5 million, ‘The Martian’ keeps top spot
Variety (10/11): The Martian, the science based film drama about a U.S. astronaut stranded on Mars, logs a second straight strong weekend box office showing.

Unmanned Deep Space Exploration

James Webb Space Telescope passes another milestone
Spaceflight Insider (10/10): Northrop Grumman, prime contractor for the multi-national James Webb Space Telescope, announced the company has completed the manufacture and assembly of the carbon composite primary structure for the space observatory, which is the designated successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. The JWST, a partnership between NASA, the European Space Agency and Canadian Space Agency, is undergoing preparations for a late 2018 lift off.

House committee holds upbeat hearing on NASA’s astrobiology program
Physics Today (10/9): An unusual bipartisan sentiment ruled at a Sept. 29 U.S. House Science, Space and Technology Committee hearing on efforts to search for extraterrestrial life. NASA’s own investment in the pursuit has climbed from $46.1 million in 2014 to nearly $60 million in this year’s budget request. The hearing came just before the release of a new 250 page NASA astrobiology roadmap.

Low Earth Orbit

International docking standard receives update
Spaceflight Insider (10/10): NASA and its major International Space Station partners agree to an upgrade of an international docking standard, a five-year-old, nonproprietary hardware design that can be used by governments and the private sector for space activities. Two of the IDS mechanisms are to be installed on the space station for use by future NASA Commercial Crew Program partners Boeing and SpaceX by 2017.

Russian satellite maneuvers, silence worry Intelsat 
Space News (10/9): Launched in September 2014, a mysterious Russian satellite went on to maneuver mysteriously and unusually close to a pair of Intelsat communications satellites. The activities raised classified concerns within the U.S. government. “This is not normal behavior and we’re concerned,” Kay Sears, president of Intelsat General, the government services arm of Intelsat, said in an Oct. 8 interview with Space News. “We absolutely need responsible operators. Space is a domain that has to be protected.”

Canada’s space policy enters orbit of election campaign
CBC (10/11): Space policy is taking a place in Canadian federal elections as a job generating research and development issue.

Commercial to Low Earth Orbit

Restoring Ex-Im bank effort gets a boost as discharge petition succeeds

Spacepolicyonline.com (10/9): The U.S. House late last week agreed to procedural maneuvers to permit a vote to re-authorize the U.S. Export/Import Bank, a vehicle for financing foreign purchases of U.S. satellites and launch services as well as non-aerospace domestic products. The latest authorization expired on June. 30. Aerospace companies report the inability of the Ex-Im bank to finance foreign sales is hurting business.

Orbital ATK poised for return to flight after rocket explosion
Space.com (10/9): Orbital ATK outlined plans to resume NASA contracted re-supply missions to the International Space Station following the loss of an Antares rocket on Oct. 28,  moments after lifting off from NASA’s Wallops Island Flight Facility on the company’s third station cargo flight. Orbital has turned to United Launch Alliance for two Atlas 5 rockets to launch supplies in early December and in March 2016. The company’s modified Antares rocket will be ready to resume space station cargo deliveries later in 2016.

Pentagon denies ULA waiver on Russian engines
Washington Post (10/9): On Friday, the Pentagon announced it would not grant a waiver to United Launch Alliance, the Boeing/Lockheed Martin joint venture, for additional imports of Russia’s RD-180 rocket engine. The RD-180 powers the first stage of the Atlas 5, the primary launch vehicle for U.S. national security missions. ULA has four but wants 14 of the RD-180s in order to compete for future launches. ULA has selected Blue Origin to develop and qualify a domestic rocket engine replacement, a process that is expected to require several years.

SpaceX wrapping up Falcon 9 failure investigation
Space News (10/9): A top SpaceX official says the company is approximately a month away from wrapping up its investigation into the June 28 second stage failure of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle on a NASA contacted re-supply mission to the International Space Station. As early signs indicated, the failure appears to lie with an internal second stage strut that secured a helium container.

Major Space Related Activities for the Week

Major space related activities for the week of October 12-16, 2015
Spacepolicyonline.com (10/11): This week’s major event is the International Astronautical Congress, which begins Monday in Jerusalem. The U.S. Congress is in recess this week.