July 15, 2018

Parker Solar Probe Preview Postponed Due to Tubing Leak, NASA Says (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
A news media preview of an upcoming NASA launch was abruptly postponed Friday after a team preparing the Parker Solar Probe for the viewing discovered a “minor tubing leak” in ground support equipment. “NASA will make every effort to provide updated imagery of the spacecraft prior to encapsulation,” the agency said on its website. The statement said the spacecraft, which will launch from Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Base on Aug. 4, remains fine.

Reporters were to visit Astrotech Space Operations to see the Parker Solar Probe, a spacecraft on a mission to bring it closer to the Sun than any craft has ever been. The Helios B probe, which launched from Cape Canaveral on Jan. 15, 1976, came within 27 million miles on April 17, 1976. The Parker Probe, named after astrophysicist Eugene Parker, 91, who in the mid-1950s first developed a theory of solar winds, is expected to come within 3.8 million miles. (7/13)

Astronauts Explain Why Nobody Has Visited the Moon in More Than 45 Years (Source: Business Insider)
Landing 14 people on the moon remains one of NASA's greatest achievements, if not the greatest. Astronauts collected rocks, took photos, performed experiments, planted some flags, and then came home. But those week-long stays during the Apollo program didn't establish a lasting human presence on the moon. More than 45 years after the most recent crewed moon landing — Apollo 17 in December 1972 — there are plenty of reasons to return people to Earth's giant, dusty satellite and stay there.

Many astronauts and other experts suggest the biggest impediments to crewed moon missions over the last four-plus decades have been banal if not depressing. A tried-and-true hurdle for any spaceflight program, especially for missions that involve people, is the steep cost. A law signed in March 2017 by President Donald Trump gives NASA an annual budget of about $19.5 billion, and it may rise to $19.9 billion in 2019. A 2005 report by NASA estimated that returning to the moon would cost about $104 billion (which is $133 billion today, with inflation) over about 13 years. The Apollo program cost about $120 billion in today's dollars.

Either amount sounds like a windfall — until you consider that the total gets split among all of the agency's divisions and ambitious projects: the James Webb Space Telescope, the giant rocket project called Space Launch System, and far-flung missions to the sun, Jupiter, Mars, the Asteroid Belt, the Kuiper Belt, and the edge of the solar system. "Unless the country, which is Congress here, decided to put more money in it, this is just talk that we're doing here," said Apollo astronaut Walt Cunningham during a 2015 congressional hearing. (7/14)

SpaceX Targeting Next Weekend for Early Morning Launch from Cape Canaveral Spaceport (Source: Florida Today)
The Space Coast should see yet another early morning launch next weekend when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station with a commercial communications satellite. According to the latest Air Force schedules, teams will have between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. on Sunday, July 22, to boost the Telstar 19 VANTAGE satellite for Canada-based Telesat from Launch Complex 40, though a precise liftoff time has not yet been released by SpaceX.

Telstar 19V will mark the second launch of a Block 5 version of Falcon 9, which includes improved reusability and performance compared to older Block 4 variants, the last of which flew late last month on a mission to resupply the International Space Station. The booster will attempt to land on SpaceX's Of Course I Still Love You drone ship shortly after liftoff and return to Port Canaveral several days later, kicking off the first of at least 10 re-flights with minimal refurbishment, according to CEO Elon Musk. (7/13)