December 31, 2017

NASA Readies Clipper Mission To Europa (Source: Forbes)
NASA is still on track to use its new Space Launch System (SLS) to --- perhaps as early as Spring of 2022 --- launch its $2 billion plus ‘Clipper’ mission to Jupiter’s moon of Europa. After a direct two and a half year transfer to Jupiter, the goal is to do 46 reconnaissance flybys of Europa over a three and a half year period. From a long orbit around Jupiter, Clipper should perform flybys of Europa at altitudes varying from 2700 to 25 kilometers above its frozen surface. (12/31)

China’s Moon Mission to Boldly Go a Step Further (Source: Guardian)
This time next year, there may be a new world leader in lunar exploration. If all goes according to plan, China will have done something no other space-faring superpower has been able to do: land on the far side of the moon. China is rocketing ahead with its plans for lunar exploration. In 2018, they will launch a pair of missions known collectively as Chang’e 4. It is the fourth mission in a series named after the Chinese moon goddess.

The first component of Chang’e 4 is scheduled to lift off in June. It will be a relay satellite stationed some 60,000km behind the moon and will provide a communications link between Earth and the lunar far side. Once this link is established, it will allow China to send the second part of the mission: a lander to the far side’s surface.

Landing on the far side of the moon is something no one has tried before. “The Chinese are pushing back the frontier with such a technically challenging mission,” says Brian Harvey, space analyst and author of China in Space: The Great Leap Forward. (12/31)

These Are Our 5 Favorite Space Events of 2017 (Source: Mashable)
Even though 2017 sometimes felt like a slow descent into madness, some truly amazing things happened this year as well. But not all of them were on Earth. From a total solar eclipse to an interstellar asteroid, space news was filled with incredible stories in 2017. Click here. (12/31)

Could a Lunar Fuel Depot Jump-Start Human Exploration of Deep Space? (Source: Discover)
At the end of the first half of our conversation, you were talking about space-based solar power for Earth. If we put a base on the moon, we’re going to need a good energy supply there too. How might that work? There are plenty of alternatives, but there are plenty. One is taking a small nuclear reactor [to the Moon]. Another, which we show in our report, is to pick a polar crater as your site on the Moon, where you could have solar rays that track the Sun as it travels around the rim of the crater in a circle. Click here. (12/31)

Rocket Lab Says No to 'Launch Fever' (Source: New Zealand Herald)
Rocket Lab says it will announce a new launch window early in the New Year after it failed to get its second test flight away before Christmas. Founder and chief executive Peter Beck said the company was wary of ''launch fever'' and it wouldn't attempt another one from Mahia until it was ready.

During the 10-day launch window before Christmas, Rocket Lab on one day got within two seconds of blast-off before the vehicle automatically shut itself down because of the high temperature of liquid oxygen to one engine. A power fault to ground equipment resulted in a scrub on the second to last day and on other days it was affected by high altitude winds. ''We would love to launch during the window but this is the business we're in - this a standard day at work in the space industry,'' Beck said. (12/28)

Orbital ATK Is Under White House Pressure for Foreign Purchase of Propellant (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Orbital ATK Inc. has sparked national security concerns among White House officials by shifting to foreign purchases of an essential chemical the company and other Pentagon contractors use to power U.S. missiles and rockets. Orbital ATK is seeking to remain competitive in the fast-changing aerospace industry partly through its acquisition of more than one million pounds of low-priced ammonium perchlorate from a French joint venture of Safran SA and Airbus SE in the past year. (12/29)

Cape to Host Critical Test of Orion Safety System (Source: Florida Today)
NASA is preparing for a dramatic, quarter-billion-dollar test of a system designed to save Orion astronauts’ lives during a launch emergency. Targeted for April 2019, the test flight called Ascent Abort 2, or AA-2, will use a surplus missile stage to shoot a mock-up Orion capsule from state-run Launch Complex 46.

Motors will yank the unmanned capsule from the booster at altitude, showing how astronauts could escape to safety if NASA’s giant Space Launch System rocket suffered catastrophic problems after blasting off from Kennedy Space Center. The $256 million test was once planned a decade earlier under the Constellation program, which envisioned Orion crews launching on Ares I rockets. (12/29)

Is the James Webb Space Telescope "Too Big to Fail?" (Source: Scientific American)
Any way you slice it, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is one of the boldest, highest-stakes gambles in the space agency’s storied history. Just building and testing the observatory has proved to be a dauntingly complex technological enterprise, pushing the observatory’s astronomical price tag to nearly $9 billion and requiring participation from the European and Canadian space agencies. JWST is both a barrier-breaking and budget-busting undertaking.

The future of practically every branch of astronomy will be unquestionably brightened by JWST’s successful launch and operation. But due to its steadily escalating cost and continually delayed send-off (which recently slipped from 2018 to 2019), this telescopic time machine is now under increasingly intense congressional scrutiny.

To help satisfy any doubts about JWST’s status, the project is headed for an independent review as soon as January 2018, advised NASA’s science chief Thomas Zurbuchen during an early December congressional hearing. Pressed by legislators about whether JWST will actually launch as presently planned in spring of 2019, he said, “at this moment in time, with the information that I have, I believe it’s achievable.” (12/29)

Rocket and Satellite Preps on Track for Next Atlas 5 Launch (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
Final assembly of the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket slated to blast off Jan. 18 with a U.S. Air Force surveillance satellite designed to detect missile attacks has begun at the booster’s Cape Canaveral launch pad. The Atlas 5’s first stage was stacked on top of a mobile platform inside the Vertical Integration Facility at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 launch pad early last week. It was to be followed by the hoisting of the Atlas 5’s Centaur upper stage and a single strap-on solid rocket booster. (12/29)

Classified Payload Hoisted Atop Delta 4 Rocket at Vandenberg (Source: SpaceFlight Now)
A clandestine satellite owned by the National Reconnaissance Office has been raised atop its United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, for liftoff Jan. 10. Already encapsulated inside the Delta 4’s payload fairing, the spacecraft was recently transferred from a nearby processing facility and hoisted by a crane inside the mobile gantry at Space Launch Complex 6 nestled between hills and the Pacific Ocean near the southern edge of the military base on California’s Central Coast. (12/29)