In Today’s Deep Space Extra… NASA’s Journey to Mars includes plans for a small lunar orbiting habit for astronauts in the 2020s. Lockheed Martin’s version of the habitat could spur commercial interest as well.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Lockheed Martin seeks additional uses for proposed NASA habitat module
Space News (4/12): Lockheed Martin’s planning for a deep space human habitat suitable for use by NASA Orion astronauts on missions to lunar orbit in the 2020s may find utility among commercial space companies working far from Earth, according Bill Pratt, the company’s program manager for the development effort.
Space Science
No, ‘Planet 9’ isn’t messing with Cassini’s Saturn orbit
Discovery.com (4/13): NASA denies recent conjecture that a large so far unseen planet beyond Pluto dubbed Planet 9 has influenced the orbit of Cassini, a joint U.S. and European spacecraft mission to Saturn. Cassini has been orbiting the ringed planet since 2004.
NASA discovers 72 new asteroids near Earth
Universe Today (4/13): NASA’s NEOWISE mission spacecraft has increased the agency’s Near Earth Object count just slightly, up 72 from the previously estimated 10,000 asteroids and comets that orbit the sun on trajectories that periodically bring them close to the Earth. Eight of the latest finds are considered potentially hazardous, based on their size and how close they come.
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: NASA’s prolific water hunter
Space.com (4/13): Launched in 2009 to map the moon’s surface, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has discovered water ice on the moon, identified the locations of past volcanoes, spotted regions of the moon colder than Pluto and noted a shift in the moon’s spin axis.
Low Earth Orbit
Spacecraft powered by ‘green’ propellant to launch in 2017
Space.com (4/13): NASA’s Green Propellant Infusion Mission spacecraft could launch on a test flight from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., in the spring of 2017, according to the agency’s contractor, Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. The nontoxic green propellant would fill the role normally assigned to highly toxic hydrazine during a series of orbital spacecraft maneuvers.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
Investor interest in space business growing
Aerospace Daily & Defense Report (4/13): Private investment in space activities is growing, according to experts participating in a forum on the trend at the 32nd annual Space Symposium. Last year produced a record $2.7 billion for investment and debt financing. Declines in launch costs and a trend toward smaller satellites for Earth observations and communications contributed to the rise.
Official recommends FAA plan to control space traffic
Aerospace Daily & Defense Report (4/13): A plan, proposed in a new U.S. House bill, to shift the U.S. Pentagon’s responsibility for managing the ever-increasing spacecraft traffic around the Earth to the FAA’s Office of Commercial Spaceflight is winning favor. George Nield, who manages the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, intends to back the transition in a manner that does not increase the regulatory burden. “We would want to accomplish that transition in a crawl-walk-run manner so that all of the key stakeholders would be comfortable with the approach,” Nield told an audience at the 32nd annual Space Symposium.