In Today’s Deep Space Extra… In a visit to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center on Monday, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence was briefed on the Space Launch System (SLS), spoke with astronauts aboard the International Space Station and noted the newly re-established White House National Space Council will meet for the first time in Washington in a “few short weeks.”
Human Space Exploration
Vice President Mike Pence speaks with astronauts aboard International Space Station
Space Coast Daily (9/26): The Vice President saw the progress being made on NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), the world’s most powerful deep space rocket, that will send astronauts on missions around the Moon and ultimately to Mars. He also visited Marshall’s Payload Operations Integration Center.
The Space Review (9/25): The two destinations, the lunar surface and Mars, could be merged into a uniform strategy to advance a human presence in deep space by drawing on commercial as well as international resources, write three top executives of Explore Mars, Inc.
Where do we go next? Building the Deep Space Gateway
Universe Today (9/24): The Gateway is a NASA concept that would be assembled in a special orbit around the moon, a near rectilinear halo orbit that would afford access from Earth and provide access to the lunar surface as well as Mars.
Space Science
Long March 5 failure to postpone China’s lunar exploration program
Space News (9/25): The July failure of China’s Long March 5 launch vehicle will delay efforts by the China National Space Administration to launch elements of its planned international space station and explore the moon, including plans for a lunar sample return mission, Tian Yulon, the agency’s secretary general, informed a news conference Monday at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia.
ISRO’S Mars Orbiter Mission Mars 3 years in Martian orbit
Bangalore Mirror, of India (9/26): India’s Space Research Organization Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft marked three years in orbit around the red planet on Sunday. The anniversary coincided with the release of another year’s worth of data from the mission. ISRO was the first space agency to achieve a successful spacecraft Mars orbit insertion on the first attempt.
NASA designed this low-tech rover to survive Venus
Wired (9/25): It’s so hot, 850 degrees F, and the atmosphere so dense on Venus that a sheet of paper would ignite spontaneously, making the second planet from the sun more suitable for robots than humans. NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts Program, is developing just such a candidate, the Automation Rover for Extreme Environments.
Other News
The Outer Space Treaty at 50: An enduring basis for cooperative security
The Space Review (9/25): October 10 will mark the 50th anniversary of the Outer Space Treaty, an agreement with 105 signatories who agreed to recognize space as a “province for all mankind” — a realm not to be claimed.
International partnerships to address orbital debris in absence of broader accord
Space News (9/24): Bi-lateral and multi-lateral strategies might be more effective than attempts at a comprehensive accord when it comes to dealing with a growing orbital debris threat, according to participants from several countries during an Aerospace Corp. organized discussion on the topic in Washington last week.
NASA dedicates new facility to Katherine Johnson, the pioneering mathematician of ‘Hidden Figures’
Smithsonian.com (9/25): In ceremonies Friday at NASA’s Langley Research Center, the space agency dedicated the new Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility in honor of Johnson, one of the African American women mathematicians who helped reduce the risks associated with the nation’s earliest human spaceflights.