Today’s Deep Space Extra offers the latest reporting and commentary on space related activities from across the globe. NASA appoints new Orion program manager. Studies of pebbles in Mars’ Gale Crater with NASA’s Curiosity rover suggest they were carried by flowing water for tens of miles. The Hubble Space Telescope unveils new details of Jupiter’s atmosphere. The U.S. and European Cassini spacecraft is prepared for a series of flybys of Saturn’s active moon Enceladus. China invites global space agencies to partner in new space station; Europe and Russia express interest. NASA and Israel sign a comprehensive new space agreement that includes human activities. Op-ed backs U.S. military, commercial cooperation in space ops. Recently launched Indian space telescope performing well. Russian President Putin calls for first launch from new Vostochny Cosmodrome by spring, while seeking greater commercial cooperation. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, grounded by a late June launch mishap, could return to flight in early December.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Mark Kirasich selected as Orion Program Manager
Spaceflight Insider (10/14): NASA veteran Mark Kirasich has been appointed program manager for Orion, the NASA spacecraft under development to launch and return humans assigned to future missions of deep space exploration. Kirasich, who served as Orion deputy program manager since 2006, replaces Mark Geyer, who in August became the deputy director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
Unmanned Deep Space Exploration
Pebbles on Mars shaped by ancient long-gone rivers dozens of miles long
Space.com (10/13): Imagery from NASA’s Curiosity rover of pebbles in Gale Crater on Mars suggest the stones were transported for tens of miles by ancient streams of flowing water that originated at the crater’s northern rim. The findings reported in Nature Communications on Tuesday are based on findings by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, Budapest University of Technology and Economics and Caltech.
Hubble’s Jupiter maps reveal weird structures
Discovery.com (10/13): A 10-hour observation of Jupiter with the Hubble Space Telescope has produced a specular map of the complex atmosphere of the solar system’s largest planet. Jupiter’s giant red spot is shrinking.
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft taking a closer look at Enceladus
NASAspaceflight.com (10/13): Cassini has been orbiting Saturn since 2004. On Wednesday, the spacecraft will begin a new series of flybys of Enceladus, a moon with active geology, including geysers. The activities suggest Enceladus may harbor environmental conditions suitable for some form of life.
Low Earth Orbit
China’s space station planners put out welcome mat
Space News (10/13): Top Chinese space officials say they are prepared to partner with other nations for a new space station in remarks before the 66th International Astronautical Congress in Jerusalem. Full operations of the Chinese space station are envisioned in 2022 with three to six person crews. Initial cooperative agreements have been signed with Russia and the European Space Agency.
NASA, Israel space agency sign cooperation deal
Arutz Sheva (10/13): Israel’s space agency and NASA signed a cooperative space agreement on Tuesday, renewing an original agreement that spanned 1996 to 2005. The new pact extends cooperation to international missions, personnel and scientific data exchanges, ground-based research facilities, space exploration and operations missions, joint workshops and meetings as well as scientific instruments on board aircraft and spacecraft.
Op-ed | Safety in space requires commercial and government response
Space News (10/13): Greater cooperation between the U.S. Department of Defense and commercial sectors will be necessary in ensuring the effective operation of orbiting satellites that share sometimes contested space with 23,000 manmade objects, most of them potentially hazardous debris and inactive satellites, writes Rebecca M. Cowen-Hirsch, Inmarsat vice president for government strategy and policy. A commercial presence in the Pentagon’s Joint Space Operations Center is a step toward improved control, she writes.
India’s first space observatory in good shape, performing science operations
Spaceflight Insider (10/13): India’s first space telescope, Astrosat, launched into Earth orbit on Sept. 28 is conversing with ground stations and has started observations.
Commercial to Low Earth Orbit
Putin hopes for more international cooperation in space industry
Sputnik News, of Russia (10/13): Russian President Putin asks for a first space launch from the new Vostochny Cosmodrome by spring 2016, possibly by mid-April. Under construction since 2012, the troubled project promises to reduce Russian reliance on the Baikonur Cosmodrome, now leased from Kazakhstan. Greater international use of Vostochny will contribute to its success, according to the Russian president, who praised his colleagues for cutting construction delays in half.
Repaired SpaceX rocket to fly by early December, company says
Reuters (10/13): SpaceX plans to resume launches of the company’s Falcon 9 in early December, according to statements from a company official in Jerusalem at the 66th International Astronautical Congress. The Falcon 9 was grounded June 28 by an in-flight explosion while lifting off on a mission to deliver supplies to the International Space Station under a commercial agreement with NASA. The December launch will carry a communications satellite for Luxembourg-based SES SA.