Space Stuff and Launch Info

[1oldman2]

Another "Space veteran" gets a mission extension, It appears as if Spitzer wil try and "hang in there" until JWST is in the commission phase.


Please pardon the shameless cut and paste approach, it's just that I'm not able to "one up" the quality of writing in the article so I don't try and improve it.
From, http://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/spitzer-space-telescope-begins-beyond-phase
"Spitzer is operating well beyond the limits that were set for it at the beginning of the mission,"
said Michael Werner, the project scientist for Spitzer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, California. "We never envisioned operating 13 years after launch, and scientists are
making discoveries in areas of science we never imagined exploring with the spacecraft ."

NASA recently granted the spacecraft a two-and-a-half-year mission extension. This Beyond
phase of the Spitzer mission will explore a wide range of topics in astronomy and cosmology, as
well as planetary bodies in and out of our solar system.

Because of Spitzer's orbit and age, the Beyond phase presents a variety of new engineering
challenges. Spitzer trails Earth in its journey around the sun, but because the spacecraft
travels slower than Earth, the distance between Spitzer and Earth has widened over time. As
Spitzer gets farther away, its antenna must be pointed at higher angles toward the sun to
communicate with Earth, which means that parts of the spacecraft will experience more and
more heat. At the same time, Spitzer's solar panels point away from the sun and will receive
less sunlight, so the batteries will be under greater stress. To enable this riskier mode of
operations, the mission team will have to override some autonomous safety systems.

Spitzer, which launched on Aug. 25, 2003, has consistently adapted to new
scientific and engineering challenges during its mission, and the team expects
it will continue to do so during the "Beyond" phase, which begins Oct. 1.
The selected research proposals for the Beyond phase, also known as
Cycle 13, include a variety of objects that Spitzer wasn't originally planned
to address such as galaxies in the early universe, the black hole at the center of
Milky Way and exoplanets.

"We never even considered using Spitzer for studying exoplanets when it launched,"
Carey of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at Caltech in Pasadena. "It would have seemed
ludicrous back then, but now it's an important part of what Spitzer does."

Spitzer’s exoplanet exploration

Spitzer has many qualities that make it a valuable asset in exoplanet science,
including an extremely accurate star-targeting system and the ability to control
unwanted changes in temperature. Its stable environment and ability to observe
stars for long periods of time led to the first detection of light from known Lensing
Experiment (OGLE) were used together to find one of the most distant
exoplanets in 2005. More recently, Spitzer’s Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) has
been used for finding exoplanets using the "transit" method -- looking for a dip
in a star's brightness that corresponds to a planet passing in front of it. This
brightness that corresponds to a planet passing in front of it. This brightness
change needs to be measured with exquisite accuracy to detect exoplanets.
IRAC scientists have created a special type of observation to make such measurements,
using single pixels within the camera.

Another planet-finding technique that Spitzer uses, but was not designed for, is called
microlensing. When a star passes in front of another star, the gravity of the first star can
act as a lens, making the light from the more distant star appear brighter. Scientists are
using microlensing to look for a blip in that brightening, which could mean that the foreground
star has a planet orbiting it. Spitzer and the ground-based Polish Optical Gravitational
Lensing Experiment (OGLE) were used together to find one of the most distant planets known
outside the solar system, as reported in 2015. This type of investigation is made possible
by Spitzer’s increasing distance from Earth, and could not have been done early in the mission.

Peering into the early universe

Understanding the early universe is another area where Spitzer has broken ground. IRAC was
designed to detect remote galaxies roughly 12 billion light-years away -- so distant that their
light has been traveling for roughly 88 percent of the history of the universe. But now, thanks to
collaborations between Spitzer and NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, scientists can peer even
further into the past. The farthest galaxy ever seen, GN-z11, was characterized in a 2016 study
using data from these telescopes. GN-z11 is about 13.4 billion light-years away, meaning its
light has been traveling since 400 million years after the big bang.

"When we designed the IRAC instrument, we didn't know those more distant galaxies existed,"
said Giovanni Fazio, principal investigator of IRAC, based at the Harvard Smithsonian Center
for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "The combination of the Hubble Space
Telescope and Spitzer has been fantastic, with the telescopes working together to determine
their distance, stellar mass and age."

Closer to home, Spitzer advanced astronomers' understanding of Saturn when scientists using
the observatory discovered the planet's largest ring in 2009. Most of the material in this ring --
consisting of ice and dust -- begins 3.7 million miles (6 million kilometers) from Saturn and
extends about 7.4 million miles (12 million kilometers) beyond that. Though the ring doesn't
reflect much visible light, making it difficult for Earth-based telescopes to see, Spitzer could
detect the infrared glow from the cool dust.

The multiple phases of Spitzer

Spitzer reinvented itself in May 2009 with its warm mission, after the depletion of the liquid
helium coolant that was chilling its instruments since August 2003. At the conclusion of the
"cold mission," Spitzer’s Infrared Spectrograph and Multiband Imaging Photometer stopped
working, but two of the four cameras in IRAC persisted. Since then, the spacecraft has made
numerous discoveries despite operating in warmer conditions (which, at about minus 405
Fahrenheit or 30 Kelvin, is still cold by Earthly standards)

"With the IRAC team and the Spitzer Science Center team working together, we've really
learned how to operate the IRAC instrument better than we thought we could," Fazio said.
"The telescope is also very stable and in an excellent orbit for observing a large part
of the sky."

Spitzer's Beyond mission phase will last until the commissioning phase of NASA's James Webb
Space Telescope, currently planned to launch in October 2018. Spitzer is set to identify targets
that Webb can later observe more intensely.

 

[Hoophy]

Planet Found in Habitable Zone Around Nearest Star

http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1629/

"Astronomers using ESO telescopes and other facilities have found clear evidence of a planet orbiting the closest star to Earth, Proxima Centauri. The long-sought world, designated Proxima b, orbits its cool red parent star every 11 days and has a temperature suitable for liquid water to exist on its surface. This rocky world is a little more massive than the Earth and is the closest exoplanet to us — and it may also be the closest possible abode for life outside the Solar System."

Might be tidally locked, though. Breakthrough Starshot may get a new boost, nonetheless.

I was thinking about the the Breakthrough Starshot program when I heard of this also! I am very excited to see if this recent development will help bring more funding and faster development to the Starshot initiative. Does anybody have any idea how long it is expected to take before the lasers And everything is 'ready to go'? This has certainly made my day! (And maybe distracted me from school just a bit.) :D

 

[rollete]

I don't know when or if the project will be realized, but sure hope it will.

 

[1oldman2]

A breakthrough for Breakthrough Starshot, that's the only way to look at it. Proxima B is turning out to be great for PR on the subject, everywhere I look they are talking about exo-planets. As for when the project is going to launch, a quick Wiki check mentions some of the tech hurdles that need to be addressed, the one Gigawatt laser being somewhat of an issue etc. I would bet the bank that this mission will take place as soon as the tech is available, It's one of the best chances we will have for studying an alien planetary system in the foreseeable future and there's no way mankind will sit on its hands and wonder why we didn't give it a try.
( I couldn't help but wonder what C. Sagan would think of the overall mission and recent discovery of Proxima B)

http://nexsci.caltech.edu/sagan/

Here is a little more relative media on the subject.

https://palereddot.org/
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exep/
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1377/nasas-next-planet-hunter-will-look-closer-to-home/
As the search for life on distant planets heats up, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey
Satellite (TESS) is bringing this hunt closer to home. Launching in 2017-2018, TESS will
identify planets orbiting the brightest stars just outside our solar system using what’s
known as the transit method.

TESS will be able to learn the sizes of the planets it sees and how long it takes them to
complete an orbit. These two pieces of information are critical to understanding whether a
planet is capable of supporting life. Nearly all other planet classifications will come from
follow up observations, by both TESS team ground telescopes as well as ground- and
space-based observations, including NASA's James Webb Space Telescope launching in 2018.

Compared to the Kepler mission, which has searched for exoplanets thousands to tens of
thousands of light-years away from Earth towards the constellation Cygnus, TESS will
search for exoplanets hundreds of light-years or less in all directions surrounding our solar
system.

Among the stars TESS will observe, small bright dwarf stars are ideal for planet
identification, explained Joshua Pepper, co-chair of the TESS Target Selection Working
Group. One of the TESS science goals is to find Earth- and super-Earth-sized planets.
These are difficult to discover because of their small size compared to their host stars, but
focusing TESS on smaller stars makes finding these small planets much easier. This is
because the fraction of the host star's light that a planet blocks is proportional to the
planet’s size.

Scientists expect TESS to observe at least 200,000 stars during the two years of its
spaceflight mission, resulting in the discovery of thousands of new exoplanets.

While the search for transiting exoplanets is the primary goal of the mission, TESS will
also make observations of other astrophysical objects through the Guest Investigator (GI)
Program. Because TESS is conducting a near all-sky survey, it has the capability to
perform interesting studies on many different types of astronomical target.

"The goal of the GI Program is to maximize the amount of science that comes out of
TESS," said Padi Boyd, director of the Guest Investigator Program Office at NASA’s
Goddard Space Flight Center. "Although TESS was designed to be capable of detecting
planets transiting in front of stars, its unique mission characteristics mean that the
potential science TESS can do includes far more than just exoplanets." According to
Boyd, the broad range of objects TESS could detect as part of the GI Program include
flaring young stars, binary pairs of stars, supernovae in nearby galaxies, and even
supermassive black holes in distant active galaxies. "We hope the broader science
community will come up with many unique science ideas for TESS, and we hope to
encourage broad participation from the larger community," she said.

 

[1oldman2]

By the way if you miss Saturdays conjunction you will have to wait until November 22 2065 to see it repeated.


http://www.space.com/33866-venus-jupiter-conjunction-star-of-bethlehem.html

 

[1oldman2]

Regarding post #17, worth reading.

From, http://spaceflight101.com/mozi-quantum-science-satellite-initiates-test-program/

China’s Quantum Science Satellite Mozi (Micius), recently launched atop a Long
March 2D rocket, has begun the first tests of quantum communications between itself
and stations on the ground - the first test of this kind performed in a space mission.

Mozi lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on August 15 as the first
satellite capable of engaging in quantum communications by creating entangled
photon pairs over great distances to test the feasibility of this type of communication
technology for operational application.

The 640-Kilogram satellite is set for a test mission of at least two years and is likely to
be followed by a global constellation of operational satellites once the principles behind
satellite-based quantum communications are proven.

 

[1oldman2]

Another EVA on September 1st, this time it involves retracting a thermal radiator panel as well as installing the first HD service cam on the exterior of the ISS, http://spaceflight101.com/iss-us-eva-37-preview/
More info on the HD system can be found here,
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20140009959
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20140009959.pdf

SpaceX will launch the AMOS-6 on September 3rd, good luck with the landing.

The first previously flown F9 core will be recycled for a launch later this year.
From, http://spaceflight101.com/ses-10-to-use-flown-falcon-9-booster/
Telecommunications giant SES decided t
launch the company’s SES-10 satellite on
a previously flown SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket
in the fourth quarter of 2016.

SES is the first large telecommunications
provider to commit to flying on a ‘used’ or
rather ‘flight-proven’ Falcon 9 rocket that
flew to the edge of space and back in an
operational mission before.

While we are on the subject of Falcon 9's I see there are a total of 10 more launches planned for this year and the December test flight of the heavy has been bumped to early 2017.

A little farther from home Chandra is coming up with some interesting "stuff"
From, http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/record-breaking-galaxy-cluster-discovered.html

A new record for the most distant galaxy cluster has been set using NASA’s Chandra X-ray
Observatory and other telescopes. This galaxy cluster may have been caught right after birth,
a brief, but important stage of evolution never seen before.

The galaxy cluster is called CL J1001+0220 (CL J1001 for short) and is located about 11.1 billion
light years from Earth. The discovery of this object pushes back the formation time of galaxy
clusters - the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity - by about 700 million
years.

"This galaxy cluster isn’t just remarkable for its distance, it’s also going through an amazing growth
spurt unlike any we’ve ever seen," said Tao Wang of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic
Energy Commission (CEA) who led the study.

The core of CL J1001 contains eleven massive galaxies - nine of which are experiencing an
impressive baby boom of stars. Specifically, stars are forming in the cluster’s core at a rate that is
equivalent to over 3,000 Suns forming per year, a remarkably high value for a galaxy cluster,
including those that are almost as distant, and therefore as young, as CL J1001.

 

[1oldman2]

A very bad day for rocket launches...
http://spaceflight101.com/breaking-explosion-at-spacex-launch-pad/
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and its payload - a $195 million
Israeli communications satellite - were destroyed in an on-pad
explosion on Thursday during what was expected to be a routine
ground test of the rocket ahead of a Saturday morning launch.

The incident occurred at 9:07 a.m. local time (13:07 UTC) when
Falcon 9 was in the final minutes of its countdown to the
Static Fire Test - a complete countdown rehearsal and brief ignition
of the nine Merlin 1D engines on the booster’s base to collect
performance data.
http://spaceflight101.com/gaofen-10-launch-failure/
A Chinese launch carried out from the Taiyuan Satellite
Launch Center Wednesday night likely ended in failure -
the first in 2016.

Liftoff of a Long March 4C rocket carrying an Earth
Observation Satellite was expected between 18:50 and
19:00 UTC, but the usual announcement of launch success -
expected around 40 minutes after blastoff - never arrived.And now for some "sunny" news.
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/0004-637X/828/2/66
Above the top of the solar corona, the young, slow solar wind transitions from low-β,
magnetically structured flow dominated by radial structures to high-β, less structured flow
dominated by hydrodynamics. This transition, long inferred via theory, is readily apparent in the
sky region close to 10° from the Sun in processed, background-subtracted solar wind images. We
present image sequences collected by the inner Heliospheric Imager instrument on board the
Solar-Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO/HI1) in 2008 December, covering apparent
distances from approximately 4° to 24° from the center of the Sun and spanning this transition in
the large-scale morphology of the wind. We describe the observation and novel techniques to
extract evolving image structure from the images, and we use those data and techniques to
present and quantify the clear textural shift in the apparent structure of the corona and solar
wind in this altitude range. We demonstrate that the change in apparent texture is due both to
anomalous fading of the radial striae that characterize the corona and to anomalous relative
brightening of locally dense puffs of solar wind that we term "flocculae." We show that these
phenomena are inconsistent with smooth radial flow, but consistent with the onset of
hydrodynamic or magnetohydrodynamic instabilities leading to a turbulent cascade in the
young solar wind.

 

[1oldman2]

 

[Filip Larsen]

To me it seems there is a high speed object moving from right to left in the video around 1:10 intersecting the rocket just as second stage (?) breaks up. It can of course be a bird or similar passing the camera much closer (giving the illusion of high speed). From the sound delay the camera seems to be around 12 sec away (4 km) so even a tiny insect could make this effect, but the timing fit the explosion suspiciously well. Also, around 5 sec before the explosion a loud bang can be heard which, like the visual of that object, may of course be completely unrelated to the break-up.

Later: learning to operate my spacebar a little faster I now see it as a bug flying by just at the right time, so to speak. It also passes visually over the rocket and not intersecting, as can be seen on the snapshot below. I still wonder though why the explosion occurs so high up and not near first stage which was supposed to undergo a live ignition test?

 

[Dotini]

Most rich men are satisfied making loud noises and stinking smoke with guns or fast cars. But I am so glad some aim for the stars.

 

[1oldman2]

Most rich men are satisfied making loud noises and stinking smoke with guns or fast cars. But I am so glad some aim for the stars.

'nuff said.

 

[1oldman2]

Stark contrast in the manner of reporting launch failures between two countries,

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/09/long-march-4c-apparently-fails-during-gaofen-10-launch/
The loss of the Long March 4C is China’s first "orbital launch" failure of 2016. However,
Chinese State media have yet to provide any acknowledgment of the loss.

China rarely provides live coverage of launches and only confirms missions once the satellite
has been successfully inserted into its transfer orbit. For this mission, no news has been
provided for over half a day.

Online photos showing debris from the rocket are not uncommon and it
appears the debris is in a nominal location for expended stages.

However, the text associated with the photos claim there is a search for
debris associated with the payload.

Coupled with the lack of any State media news on the launch, it would
appear this mission has failed and the Chinese have so far opted not to
report the failure.

 

[1oldman2]

Mars-insight-mission gets the green light for 2018 launch.
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-approves-2018-launch-of-mars-insight-mission
NASA is moving forward with a spring 2018 launch of its InSight mission to study the deep
interior of Mars, following final approval this week by the agency’s Science Mission
Directorate.

The Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport
(InSight) mission was originally scheduled to launch in March of this year, but NASA
suspended launch preparations in December due to a vacuum leak in its prime science
instrument, the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS).

The new launch period for the mission begins May 5, 2018, with a Mars landing scheduled
for Nov. 26, 2018. The next launch opportunity is driven by orbital dynamics, so 2018 is
the soonest the lander can be on its way.

Also, the commercial launch business s getting more competitive.
http://spaceflight101.com/cyclone-4-search-for-north-american-launch-site/
Ukrainian rocket designer Yuzhnoye is actively looking for a
North American launch site for its Cyclone-4 (Tsiklon-4) medium-lift
launch vehicle suitable for a variety of Low Earth Orbit applications.

launch vehicle suitable for a variety of Low Earth Orbit applications.
has been authorized by the State Space Agency of Ukraine to establish a
Cyclone-4 launch base in North America. According to the company, the
search for business investment partners is well underway and on-site
assessments of possible launch complex locations were completed in the
U.S. and Canada.

Yuzhnoye says Cyclone 4 will be available for $45 million per launch
and can lift up to 3,700 Kilograms into Sun Synchronous Orbit,
making it suitable for the heaviest Earth observation and weather satellites.

 

[puneeth8]

is this the reason why curiosity is different from other rovers
Or are there any other specs that define the working of this rover?http://mycuriositysite.com/this-is-what-makes-curiosity-different-from-other-rovers/

 

[1oldman2]

is this the reason why curiosity is different from other rovers
Or are there any other specs that define the working of this rover?http://mycuriositysite.com/this-is-what-makes-curiosity-different-from-other-rovers/

Interesting article, reading it certainly got my "curiosity" going. While the aspects mentioned are great examples of the rovers uniqueness I was left with the impression that I need to do more studying before I can comment on other factors that make it "one of a kind", While I'm getting back with an answer I would imagine other readers on the forum with far more technical knowledge than myself will come up with points that will be useful also. One thought is the landing system mentioned is the only current method that can safely land a high mass vehicle on mars, (SpaceX's propulsive system on the Red Dragon is the only alternative I have seen and NASA seems very impressed with it so far.) The sky crane is the method that will be used on the 2020 rover as well. Back in a bit after I do some studying up.
http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission/mars-rover-curiosity-mission-updates/

 

[rootone]

The sky crane is the method that will be used on the 2020 rover as well. Back in a bit after I do some studying up.
http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission/mars-rover-curiosity-mission-updates/

The 2020 rover will also be using a more or less identical body frame as Curiosity, this makes good leverage of a tested vehicle design.
Maybe one or two subsystems might be upgraded a little based on the performance of Curiosity.
AFAIK the only problem of significance has been more than expected wear and tear on the wheels, but not enough to be critical.
That approach reduces the development cost so more can be invested in the instrument payload which will be the main difference.

 

[1oldman2]

From, http://www.space.com/33993-bus-sized-asteroid-buzzes-earth.html
An asteroid the size of a school bus buzzed by Earth today (Sept. 7) in an exceptionally close - but safe - flyby. Scientists discovered the object on
Monday, just two days before its encounter with Earth.

The newfound asteroid, named 2016 RB1, is between 13 and 46 feet (4 to 14
meters) wide. The space rock made its closest approach to Earth at 1:28 p.m.
EDT (1728 UTC). According to NASA's Near Earth Object Program, RB1
zoomed past Earth at a relative speed of over 18,000 mph (8.13 km/s) and
passed within 23,900 miles (38,463 kilometers) of the Earth's surface. This is
only one-tenth the average distance between Earth and the moon.Planetary protection ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_protection
Genesis
https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.06087

 

[1oldman2]

O-Rex is finally on the way.

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/evening-launch-catapults-osiris-rex-toward-asteroid-encounter

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2016/20160809-osiris-rex-lifts-off.html
The OSIRIS-REx mission marks a bright spot in what will soon be a dark time for NASA’s solar
system exploration program. By the time the spacecraft arrives at Bennu in 2018, there will be
no spacecraft visiting or en route to any of the outer planets-Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and
Neptune-for the first time since 1979.

The Cassini probe, which has been orbiting Saturn since 2004, will plunge into the planet’s
atmosphere in 2017. Juno will follow suit at Jupiter in early 2018.

Bennu’s orbital path will keep OSIRIS-REx closer to home. It only takes 1.2 years for the
coal-black, near-Earth asteroid to travel around the sun.

After arriving in 2018, OSIRIS-REx will survey Bennu for two years before collecting a small soil
sample. The spacecraft will depart as early as March 2021 and return its sample capsule to
Earth in September 2025

OSIRIS-REx is the third of NASA’s cost-capped, mid-budget New Frontiers missions. The first,
New Horizons, flew past Pluto last year. The second, Juno, entered orbit at Jupiter on July 5.

The mission has a budget of almost $800 million, not including the $184 million sticker price of
its Atlas V carrier rocket. But at the moment, OSIRIS-REx is under budget by at least $30
million, according to Lauretta.

 

[Dotini]

To me it seems there is a high speed object moving from right to left in the video around 1:10 intersecting the rocket just as second stage (?) breaks up. It can of course be a bird or similar passing the camera much closer (giving the illusion of high speed). From the sound delay the camera seems to be around 12 sec away (4 km) so even a tiny insect could make this effect, but the timing fit the explosion suspiciously well. Also, around 5 sec before the explosion a loud bang can be heard which, like the visual of that object, may of course be completely unrelated to the break-up.

Later: learning to operate my spacebar a little faster I now see it as a bug flying by just at the right time, so to speak. It also passes visually over the rocket and not intersecting, as can be seen on the snapshot below. I still wonder though why the explosion occurs so high up and not near first stage which was supposed to undergo a live ignition test?

Despite the support of NASA, the FAA and the US Air Force, no answers are thus far forthcoming as to the cause of the massive explosion. The problem is no apparent heat source. It does seem to be a bit of an "anomaly", or "bug". Poor Elon Musk, the stars seem to have turned against him.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37316836
An investigation into how a SpaceX rocket exploded is uncovering a "difficult and complex failure", the firm's founder Elon Musk has said. Mr Musk tweeted that the explosion of Falcon 9 during a routine filling operation was the most complicated in the space travel firm's history. He said that the engines weren't on and there was "no apparent heat source".

 

[1oldman2]

Meanwhile the "commercial space race" forges ahead.
http://www.space.com/34025-virgin-galactic-spaceshiptwo-unity-first-mothership-flight.html
A Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo space plane took to the air under the wing of
its massive mothership Thursday (Sept. 8), marking the first flight test for the
private space travel company since a tragic accident in 2014.

Virgin Galactic's second SpaceShipTwo spacecraft , the Virgin Spaceship
Unity, soared over Mojave, California, in a captive carry test flight with its
WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft, the Virgin Mother Ship Eve. Although the
Unity spacecraft remained attached to its carrier plane for the entire flight, the
test did mark Virgin Galactic's first return to airborne trials of SpaceShipTwo
since the company's first spacecraft - the VSS Enterprise - broke apart
during a rocket-powered test on Oct. 31, 2014.

Thursday's test flight took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port, with the VMS
Eve carrying the VSS Unity to an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,000 meters).
That's the target altitude for the separation between a carrier plane and
SpaceShipTwo during an actual launch. From takeoff to landing, the test flight
lasted 3 hours and 43 minutes.

http://www.space.com/34011-blue-origin-new-shepard-abort-test-october.html
TITUSVILLE, Fla. - Blue Origin plans to conduct the next flight of its New
Shepard suborbital vehicle in October, a launch that the company's founder
says will test the vehicle's abort system.

In an email update Sept. 8, company founder Jeff Bezos said the upcoming
New Shepard flight, planned for the first half of October from the company's
West Texas test site, will be an in-flight abort test, where the crew capsule
will fire its abort motor to fly away from the propulsion module during the
launch.

The motor, mounted at the base of capsule, will fire for two seconds to push it
away from the booster module. The capsule will then make a parachute
landing as it does on normal flights, when it separates from the booster
module after engine shutdown.

The test, Bezos acknowledged, will likely destroy the booster module, which
has flown four previous New Shepard launches dating back to November 2015.
"The booster was never designed to survive an in-flight escape," he wrote.
"The capsule escape motor will slam the booster with 70,000 pounds of off-axis
force delivered by searing hot exhaust. The aerodynamic shape of the vehicle
quickly changes from leading with the capsule to leading with the ring fin,
and this all happens at maximum dynamic pressure."

In addition to New Shepard, Blue Origin has been working on an orbital
launch vehicle system, few details of which the company has released. Bezos
said Sept. 8 that a future update would provide more information about that
vehicle.

Also this on New Frontiers,
From, http://www.planetary.org/blogs/gues...selecting-the-next-new-frontiers-mission.html
NASA’s planetary missions fall into three categories of ambition and cost. At the high end at
around $2-2.5 billion are the Flagship missions that use highly capable spacecraft for exploration
that addresses a wide range of questions at the target world. These missions include the
Curiosity Mars rover, its 2020 Mars rover sibling in development, and the planned Europa
multi-flyby mission.

At the low end, at around $600 million, are the Discovery missions that conduct highly focused
missions. Teams are free to propose missions to study any solar system body except the Sun
and Earth (which are studied through other programs at NASA). Ten of these planetary missions
have flown successfully and have included the MESSENGER spacecraft that orbited Mercury
and the Dawn spacecraft that currently orbits the asteroid Ceres. Next up will be the 2018
InSight geophysical station for Mars to be followed by one or two missions to study either
asteroids and/or Venus that will be selected by the end of the year.

And of interest to robotics as well as the Satellite industry.
http://www.space.com/33831-darpa-to...ium-to-discuss-on-orbit-repair-standards.html

 

[Dotini]

Meanwhile the "commercial space race" forges ahead.
http://www.space.com/34025-virgin-galactic-spaceshiptwo-unity-first-mothership-flight.html
A Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo space plane took to the air under the wing of
its massive mothership Thursday (Sept. 8), marking the first flight test for the
private space travel company since a tragic accident in 2014.

Virgin Galactic's second SpaceShipTwo spacecraft , the Virgin Spaceship
Unity, soared over Mojave, California, in a captive carry test flight with its
WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft, the Virgin Mother Ship Eve. Although the
Unity spacecraft remained attached to its carrier plane for the entire flight, the
test did mark Virgin Galactic's first return to airborne trials of SpaceShipTwo
since the company's first spacecraft - the VSS Enterprise - broke apart
during a rocket-powered test on Oct. 31, 2014.

Thursday's test flight took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port, with the VMS
Eve carrying the VSS Unity to an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,000 meters).
That's the target altitude for the separation between a carrier plane and
SpaceShipTwo during an actual launch. From takeoff to landing, the test flight
lasted 3 hours and 43 minutes.

http://www.space.com/34011-blue-origin-new-shepard-abort-test-october.html
TITUSVILLE, Fla. - Blue Origin plans to conduct the next flight of its New
Shepard suborbital vehicle in October, a launch that the company's founder
says will test the vehicle's abort system.

In an email update Sept. 8, company founder Jeff Bezos said the upcoming
New Shepard flight, planned for the first half of October from the company's
West Texas test site, will be an in-flight abort test, where the crew capsule
will fire its abort motor to fly away from the propulsion module during the
launch.

The motor, mounted at the base of capsule, will fire for two seconds to push it
away from the booster module. The capsule will then make a parachute
landing as it does on normal flights, when it separates from the booster
module after engine shutdown.

The test, Bezos acknowledged, will likely destroy the booster module, which
has flown four previous New Shepard launches dating back to November 2015.
"The booster was never designed to survive an in-flight escape," he wrote.
"The capsule escape motor will slam the booster with 70,000 pounds of off-axis
force delivered by searing hot exhaust. The aerodynamic shape of the vehicle
quickly changes from leading with the capsule to leading with the ring fin,
and this all happens at maximum dynamic pressure."

In addition to New Shepard, Blue Origin has been working on an orbital
launch vehicle system, few details of which the company has released. Bezos
said Sept. 8 that a future update would provide more information about that
vehicle.

Also this on New Frontiers,
From, http://www.planetary.org/blogs/gues...selecting-the-next-new-frontiers-mission.html
NASA’s planetary missions fall into three categories of ambition and cost. At the high end at
around $2-2.5 billion are the Flagship missions that use highly capable spacecraft for exploration
that addresses a wide range of questions at the target world. These missions include the
Curiosity Mars rover, its 2020 Mars rover sibling in development, and the planned Europa
multi-flyby mission.

At the low end, at around $600 million, are the Discovery missions that conduct highly focused
missions. Teams are free to propose missions to study any solar system body except the Sun
and Earth (which are studied through other programs at NASA). Ten of these planetary missions
have flown successfully and have included the MESSENGER spacecraft that orbited Mercury
and the Dawn spacecraft that currently orbits the asteroid Ceres. Next up will be the 2018
InSight geophysical station for Mars to be followed by one or two missions to study either
asteroids and/or Venus that will be selected by the end of the year.

And of interest to robotics as well as the Satellite industry.
http://www.space.com/33831-darpa-to...ium-to-discuss-on-orbit-repair-standards.html

Thanks, 1oldman2, that's a nifty set of links to some of the commercial space programs, NASA high cost Flagship missions and low cost Discovery missions. You also touched upon the NASA Sun and Earth missions which, in my estimation, are equally vital and interesting as the others. Here is a link to the NASA Sun and Earth missions: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/missions/index.html#op
I will try to keep closer track of some these.

 

[1oldman2]

This is very likely the type of program where tomorrows tech (even asteroid mining) will be developed.
http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/n...tudents-for-in-space-assembly-of- spacecraft
In the 2017 Breakthrough, Innovative, and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge,
NASA is engaging university-level students in its quest to reduce the cost of
deep space exploration.

NASA’s Game Changing Development Program (GCD), managed by the agency’s
Space Technology Mission Directorate, and the National Institute of Aerospace
(NIA) are seeking novel and robust concepts for in-space assembly of spacecraft -
particularly tugs, propelled by solar electric propulsion (SEP), that transfer
payloads from low Earth orbit (LEO) to a lunar distant retrograde orbit (LDRO).

"GCD initiated the BIG Idea Challenge in 2016 as a unique approach to finding top
talent for NASA, and it proved to be more successful than we had hoped," said
Mary E. Wusk, acting GCD program manager at NASA's Langley Research Center
in Hampton, Virginia.Meanwhile speaking of "Curiousity" these are some of the most interesting geological images I have seen yet.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA21044
First a detailed view of Curiosity's heat shield.

then from Murray buttes.

 

[1oldman2]

On the subject of post #50, I came across this while looking into the radioisotope power supply, pretty interesting stuff.
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/2015/12/30/oak-ridge-national-laboratory-achieves-milestone-with-plutonium-238-sample
http://spacenews.com/full-scale-production-of-plutonium-238-still-years-away/

The United States has begun manufacturing nuclear spacecraft fuel for the first time in a generation,
but full production of the stuff is still seven years or so away.

In December, officials at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory in
Tennessee announced that researchers at the site had generated a 1.8-ounce (50 grams) sample
of plutonium-238, the fuel that powers deep-space missions such as NASA’s New Horizons Pluto
probe and Cassini Saturn orbiter.

The milestone marked the first domestic production of Pu-238 since the Savannah River Site in
South Carolina, another DOE facility, stopped making the fuel in the late 1980s. But Oak Ridge
is still at the proof-of-concept stage in the restart, and it will therefore be a few years
before the lab begins churning out large amounts of Pu-238, officials said.

For more than 50 years, RTGs have been the power source of choice for missions that travel far
enough from the sun to make solar panels impractical. Some famous examples include NASA’s twin
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes, which launched in 1977 and have recently been exploring the
solar system’s extreme outer reaches. (Voyager 1 actually reached interstellar space in 2012.)

From the early 1960s through the late 1980s, the Pu-238 needed for such missions was made at the
Savannah River Site, as an offshoot of the facility’s weapons-production program. (Plutonium-238
is not used to make nuclear weapons, but its close cousin, plutonium-239 - which harbors one more
neutron in its nucleus than does Pu-238 - is a common bomb-making material.)

The country currently has just 77 lbs. (35 kg) of the spacecraft fuel left, and only about half of
that stockpile is suitable for power production as-is (though the rest could conceivably be made
usable by blending it with newly produced Pu-238, DOE officials have said.)

RTGs like the one powering NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity use 10.6 lbs. (4.8 kg) of Pu-238, so right now
there’s enough of the stuff to power perhaps three more such deep-space missions, DOE officials have
said.

The activities underway at Oak Ridge are therefore designed to avert a possible shortage and keep
NASA spacecraft cruising through deep space for decades to come. NASA officials have said 3.3 lbs.
(1.5 kg) of new Pu-238 per year should suffice to accommodate the agency’s needs.

As you might expect, the production of Pu-238 is complicated. First, the Oak Ridge team receives
shipments of radioactive neptunium-237 from Idaho National Laboratory (INL), another DOE facility.

Engineers then process the neptunium into "targets," which are blasted with beams of neutrons in one
of two nuclear reactors at Oak Ridge, Wham said. This creates Pu-238, which is then chemically
processed and shipped to a third DOE site, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Los Alamos personnel further process the stuff, creating encapsulated "pellets" that are then shipped
to INL for integration into RTGs. The power systems are tested at the Idaho site, and, if all goes well,
they are then shipped to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to be prepared for launch.

 

[1oldman2]

Building on the Curiosity question, I thought this was relevant.

 

[1oldman2]

In the SpaceX and stuff department, here is some of what they are currently up to.
This is rather ambitious.
http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/o...transport-system-beginning-mars-colonization/

The Raptor is a very impressive piece of "rocket science"
http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/o...amonds-rockets-best-friend-raptor-sneak-peek/

We might be getting closer to some answers regarding the latest "anomaly"...
http://spaceflight101.com/spacex-resorts-to-creative-testing-in-falcon-9-explosion-investigation/
Potential causes of the COPV failure could include weakening of the structural integrity of the COPV due to the thermal difference between the metal liner on the inside subjected to the warm helium and the carbon fiber overwrap material on the outside in contact with the cold oxidizer. Acoustic phenomena resulting from the high-pressure helium being forced into the tank at a critical time during the LOX loading sequence are also on the table as possible scenarios that may have transpired.

The previous iteration of the Falcon 9 used Liquid Oxygen at boiling point temperature and began loading its tanks over three hours ahead of launch - permitting the COPVs to be fully chilled prior to applying high pressures. Falcon 9 FT enters LOX load on the second stage with just 19.5 minutes on the countdown clock followed by Helium load just over 13 minutes prior to launch - an aggressive tanking sequence unprecedented in the space launch business.

It is also understood that SpaceX was testing modifications to the countdown sequence on the Static Fire Test for the previous Falcon 9 mission with JCSat-16 to introduce window management capabilities for the FT version of Falcon 9 that initially had to launch very shortly after propellant loading finished in order to avoid the chilled propellants warming up inside the tanks. These modified countdown steps include adjustments to engine chilldown as well as the propellant and pressurant loading sequence.

It is possible that, with these seemingly minor adjustments to the sequencing of events, SpaceX has inadvertently designed a chain of events that overstressed the Helium bottles.

To gather data on the potential scenarios that can lead to a COPV failure, SpaceX has taken to its McGregor test site where, according to Shotwell, a lot of tests were being run on the COPVs. These tests, in all likelihood, are running different propellant and helium loading modes on highly instrumented tanks to learn about the critical chain of events in both loading sequences that overstress the COPVs.

Observant SpaceX fans passing by McGregor noted experimentation involving LOX tankers and helium supplies was underway in an open area of the facility.

Matching data from an instrumented, destructive test to the telemetry from the rocket gathered in the 93 milliseconds from the onset of the anomaly to loss of data can tell SpaceX whether their modified tanking sequence is indeed to blame for the unfortunate accident.

Identifying an operational deficiency as the root cause beyond any reasonable doubt would be the best case scenario for SpaceX, allowing them to return to flight relatively quickly compared to a design flaw requiring re-work of all existing and future Falcon 9 stages.

On the flip side, a purely ‘business-process’ related flaw can tell a lot about the ‘NewSpace’ culture ongoing at SpaceX - raising questions about other shortcuts taken to save money, cut processing time or increase launch-on-time probability and, as a result, taking hardware to or beyond design limits.

Whether SpaceX can return Falcon 9 to flight before the end of the year depends on the speed of the investigation as well as the status of the company’s launch facilities.http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/o...otwell-something-rocket-going-find-going-fix/
Shotwell said that while all plausible possibilities have to be considered in order to uncover the real reason for the explosion she felt that "the more than likely - the overwhelmingly likely - explanation is that we did something to that rocket. And we’re going to find it and we’re going to fix it." Shotwell added that the possibility of the sabotage scenario being the correct one was "absolutely not high on my list of thoughts."

 

[1oldman2]

Sooo... this is way beyond my my level of learning but I find it rather fascinating none the less, anyone have any thoughts on a possible quantum telescope in the future?
https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.06822
http://www.astrowatch.net/2016/10/quantum-information-processing-near.html

 

[rootone]

If this, (or any other sufficiently high powered method of quantum computing), is achievable then it would be perfectly suited to a future mission similar to Kepler.
That is, repeatedly scanning the same objects and trying to spot anomalies within a huge set of data.

 

[1oldman2]

I'm still thinking this thing has the potential to win a Nobel or two.
From,http://www.astrowatch.net/2016/10/new-instrument-on-iss-to-study-ultra.html

The compact, atom-chip based instrument will be capable of trapping such elements like Rubidium and Potassium and of producing degenerate gases of each species, after a few seconds of collection and cooling. It will allow the scientists to create a state of matter called a Bose Einstein Condensate (BEC). This state can be achieved by cooling a gas of extremely low density, about one-hundred-thousandth the density of normal air, to ultra-low temperatures - lower than those that are created in laboratories on Earth.

"CAL is a multi-user facility to study ultra-cold atoms - below a billionth of a degree above absolute zero. Microgravity allows scientists to observe cold atoms floating unconfined for long periods of time allowing highly precise measurements of very weak forces," Rob Thompson, CAL Project Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), told Astrowatch.net.

The main goal of CAL is to study ultra-cold quantum gases in the microgravity environment. The instrument will investigate Rubidium and Potassium isotopes and interactions between mixtures of these isotopes. The facility is designed for use by multiple scientific investigators and to be upgradable and also maintainable on orbit. CAL is also perceived as a pathfinder experiment for future quantum sensors based on laser cooled atoms.

"CAL will be making several exciting Principal Investigator-Led (PI-led) specific investigations, in such areas as tests of general relativity, the physics of few-body collisions, and studies of novel spherical quantum bubble geometry condensates," Thompson revealed.

"In addition, CAL will serve as a pathfinder for future experiments with cold atoms, which have great promise for both practical and research applications, such as tests of fundamental physics, searches for gravitational waves, better atomic clocks, space navigation, and monitoring effects of climate change," he added.

CAL’s initial mission is expected to last one year, with a possible extension for further five years. Upgrades to the facility are also being considered. Additional features could include new laser modules, new electronic components, or a new physics package.
Also,
http://www.space.com/34378-our-univ...eo.html#ooid=s0aWJuNjE60jkg4EVnR4TrUBfHjk0oXW

 

[CapnGranite]

This study really surprised me, I never imagined a Venus with these kind of conditions.
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard...deling-suggests-venus-may-have-been-habitable
http://phys.org/news/2016-08-nasa-climate-venus-habitable.html

It appears China's lunar rover is in a sort of "Schrodinger's box, http://spaceflight101.com/chinese-yutu-moon-rover-pronounced-dead/" or http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2016/08100543-yutu-is-not-dead-probably.html We may have to wait for Lunar morning when its wave function may or may not collapse.

I also found this to be an interesting "long term look" at future programs as well as the way they are funded. http://www.space.com/33694-could-commercial-space-solve-the-astronomy-funding-wall.html

The article is open access http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL069790/epdf
Was Venus the first habitable world of our solar system?

 

[1oldman2]

The article is open access http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL069790/epdf
Was Venus the first habitable world of our solar system?

Excellent link, thanks! The titles answer appears to be "pretty good odds"

 

[1oldman2]

With Exo-Mars in the home stretch, the main focus will initially be on Schiaparelli's Entry and hopefully successful landing, although long term the TGO's findings should be of great interest regarding the Martian atmosphere as well.


http://spaceflight101.com/exomars/exomars-2016-arrival-overview/
ESA’s Schiaparelli Entry, Descent & Landing Demonstration Module (EDM) sets out to become Europe’s first craft to make a successful landing on Planet Mars, joining only NASA in achieving this feat.

The primary objective of EDM is - as its name days - a demonstration of a Mars Entry, Descent and Landing vehicle for the ExoMars 2020 mission that is hoped to deliver Europe’s first rover to the surface to the Red Planet.

To satisfy its mission objectives, Schiaparelli has to conduct a successful entry into the Martian atmosphere, parachute-assisted descent and propulsive landing - in the process employing a sophisticated suite of sensors to gather data on the re-entry environment and the performance of the various systems.

Landing in Meridiani Planum - close to NASA’s Opportunity rover that has been on Mars since 2004 - EDM will survive only four Martian Days using every last bit of power stored in its chemical batteries to capture measurements with an environmental monitoring system, gathering data on meteorological and other parameters.

Only outfitted with its landing propulsion system, EDM relies on TGO to deliver it to the correct trajectory to the precisely calculated entry location. The entry angle is set at 1.1 degrees and has to be met with high precision given Schiaparelli would burn up in case of a steep entry or skip off the atmosphere if the angle is too shallow.

In case the separation of the lander fails for some reason, a backup opportunity is available 32 hours after the first slot to provide some time for teams to troubleshoot. The orbiter can not achieve orbit around Mars with the EDM still attached, therefore - if both attempts are unsuccessful, an emergency jettisoning of Schiaparelli would be performed. The additional mass of the 600-Kilogram EDM would not allow TGO to achieve the necessary change in velocity to enter a stable orbit around Mars.

In case Schiaparelli can not be separated after three attempts, the mission would move into a contingency scenario where TGO maneuvers to a flyby trajectory to fly past Mars at close distance and continue in a heliocentric orbit for another attempt at orbital insertion two years later which would be possible with the lander still attached to the orbiter.

 

[1oldman2]

Building on post #17 the last paragraph here seems to indicate quantum networking between Earth and LEO as well as deep space will becoming a reality sooner than I was expecting, this could be very useful transferring data between deep spacecraft and Earth.
From, http://www.nature.com/nphoton/journal/v10/n10/full/nphoton.2016.180.html
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/teleporting-toward-a-quantum-internet

A paper published in Nature Photonics and co-authored by engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, details the first experiments with quantum teleportation in a metropolitan fiber cable network. For the first time, the phenomenon has been witnessed over long distances in actual city infrastructure. In Canada, University of Calgary researchers teleported the quantum state of a photon more than 3.7 miles (6 kilometers) in "dark" (unused) cables under the city of Calgary. That’s a new record for the longest distance of quantum teleportation in an actual metropolitan network.

"By using advanced superconducting detectors, we can use individual photons to efficiently communicate both classical and quantum information from space to the ground," Shaw said. "We are planning to use more advanced versions of these detectors for demonstrations of optical communication from deep space and of quantum teleportation from the International Space Station."

 

[1oldman2]

I considered mentioning China's upcoming launch in passing, then after reading Jason-Davis's article from Planetary.org I realized there is much more to it than just another launch. This starts out as launch information then quickly shifts to a very good piece on the political zeitgeist of space exploration, any thoughts ?

http://www.astrowatch.net/2016/10/china-set-to-launch-shenzhou-11-crewed.html
Under a shroud of secrecy, China is completing final steps towards the launch of its Shenzhou-11 spacecraft with two taikonauts on board. On Monday, Oct. 10, the country has rolled out the Long March 2F rocket that will be used to send the crewed mission into space.

Although China has not yet disclosed the exact date of the liftoff, it is predicted that the rocket will launch around 7:30 a.m. local time on Monday, Oct. 17 (23:30 GMT; 7:30 p.m. EDT on Oct. 16), from Launch Area 4 at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi Desert.

Shenzhou-11 is China’s sixth manned space mission. The longly anticipated flight ends the country’s three-year period of absence in human spaceflight, as the last crewed vehicle - Shenzhou-10 - was launched from the Chinese soil in June 2013.

However, although the mission is of high importance for China, the officials are very reluctant to reveal details about the upcoming flight. To this date, only a handful of information has been disclosed about the crew of Shenzhou-11. It was earlier announced that two male taikonauts will fly aboard the craft; however, their names are kept under wraps and could be announced even hours before liftoff.

The duo of taikonauts will enter the Tiangong-2 module and stay inside for 30 days, testing advanced life support systems and conducting various science experiments. It will be China’s longest stay in space to date. The two-person crew will probably return to Earth on Nov. 14.

China indeed hopes that Shenzhou-11, together with Tiangong-2, will bring the nation closer towards building its own permanent space station, as they will enable testing key technologies before sending a larger module into orbit. The station is expected to be built sometime between 2018 and 2022.http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2016/20161014-america-china-space-ambitions.html
This Sunday, two Chinese astronauts are expected to launch into space. Their Shenzhou 11 spacecraft will blast off from the Gobi desert and spend a couple days chasing down Tiangong-2, the country's new 10-meter-long, 3-meter-wide prototype space station. After docking, the crew is expected to remain aboard for about a month, carrying out various science experiments and technology demonstrations.

Next year, in April, a Chinese cargo freighter will autonomously dock with Tiangong-2 and refuel it, similar to the way Russian Progress spacecraft are used to top off the tanks at the International Space Station.

These will arguably be China's most ambitious human spaceflight missions to date. Yet when compared with the long history of similar achievements by the United States and Russia, they are modest.

In the space community, we are prone to think that the pursuit of science and exploration rises above borders and politics. But in reality, China and the United States have a complicated relationship. Considering that, how should America feel about China's space ambitions?

That was the subject of a recent House of Representatives space subcommittee hearing titled "Are We Losing the Space Race to China?" The title of the hearing implies the goals of the two programs are similar enough that we can even call it a race at all.

What, exactly, are China's space goals? Is there really a race? And if the United States loses, is that anything to worry about?

The station would be fully operational around 2020, and be paired with a souped-up space telescope larger than Hubble that would float nearby, giving astronauts easy access for repairs and maintenance.

Since launching its first astronaut in 2003, China has made steady human spaceflight progress. The country's first small space station, Tiangong-1, was launched in 2011 and visited by a crew of astronauts in 2012.

Both Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2 are testbeds meant to pave the way for a more ambitious, three-module station. The first piece of that orbital complex is scheduled to be launched in 2018 atop a new rocket, the Long March 5.

The station would be fully operational around 2020, and be paired with a souped-up space telescope larger than Hubble that would float nearby, giving astronauts easy access for repairs and maintenance.

As for sending humans anywhere else, China's plans are vague, but reports have begun coalescing around a possible 2030 lunar landing.

China's robotic spaceflight program is making even more ambitious strides.

Next year, the country plans to return a sample from the far side of the moon, which would be a first for any nation. In 2018 or 2019, a lander and rover might also be sent to the far side, which would be another first, and require the country to deploy a communications relay satellite.

In 2020, China hopes to send a probe and rover to Mars, which coincides with NASA's plan to send a successor to the Curiosity rover there. That rover, currently dubbed Mars 2020, will collect and cache samples for a future return mission.

NASA has yet to finalize how it will retrieve those samples and get them back to Earth. China, meanwhile, is making plans of its own to launch a Mars sample return mission in 2030.

China's mission would use a yet-to-be-built, super heavy lift rocket named the Long March 9. The rocket could be capable of lifting around 130 metric tons to low-Earth orbit, which would put it on par with the enhanced version of NASA's Space Launch System. (The 70-ton SLS variant is expected to debut in 2018.)

For many U.S. lawmakers, not participating in a space race may be as bad as losing one.

Rep. Brian Babin, the Texas republican who chairs the House space subcommittee, opened last month's "Are We Losing the Space Race to China?" hearing with a tirade on the Obama administration, and its decision to cancel NASA's return-to-the-moon Constellation program in 2010.

"This vacuum of leadership... facilitated the ascendance of China as a leading space-faring nation," Babin said. "China has capitalized on this administration's weakness by offering partnerships with other nations, like a return to the moon, which the U.S. chose to walk away from."

In the hearing - as well as in an email to The Planetary Society in response to our Horizon Goal series - Babin pointed out the Obama administration slashed Constellation funding in 2009 prior to an independent review that deemed the program, among other things, underfunded. (The review report addresses this charge on page 59 by pointing out that while the first Obama budget indeed cut Constellation dollars, the program was already falling short of original funding projections.)

For Babin and others, then, the rise of China's space program is coupled tightly with perceived policy missteps by the Obama administration.

But China's current spaceflight aspirations, including the goal of a permanent space station, have been around much longer. And that was when the possibility of bilateral cooperation with the United States still existed; since 2011, the House of Representatives has inserted language in NASA funding bills prohibiting such a possibility. Right now, as far as the United States is concerned, China has to go it alone.

Tensions between the U.S. and China certainly exist. And China continues to be make worldwide watch lists for human rights violations.

But the narrative that the two countries are engaged in a space race akin to that of the U.S. and former Soviet Union does not entirely fit. Why, then, do some American lawmakers consider China's space ambitions such a threat?

According to Cheng, the real answer might lie in the fact that for almost half a century, the U.S. has stood alone in being able to claim the most prestigious feat of all time: landing people on another world and returning them safely to Earth.

"The reality is, the day the Chinese are able to [land humans on the moon] is the day that American uniqueness will be openly challenged," Cheng said. "And Chinese prestige will be placed on the same level as that of the United States."

 

[1oldman2]

Following up on post #69, this looks promising to me.
From, http://spaceflight101.com/videos-shenzhou-11-pre-launch-press-conferences/

China lifted a veil of secrecy on the country’s upcoming Shenzhou-11 mission with less than 24 hours to launch, releasing details on the mission’s flight plan and crew in a pair of press conferences held on Sunday.

Here's an update on the ExoMars progress.

http://spaceflight101.com/exomars-2016-separation/

ESA’s Schiaparelli Mars Lander and Trace Gas Orbiter parted ways on Sunday after traveling nearly 500 million Kilometers together on their mission to Mars.

The separation maneuver was not without some nail-biting, though, caused by a an unexpected, but temporary loss of data from the orbiter immediately after the lander was sent on its way.

Now on separate paths after a seven-month flight, the two are approaching the culmination of their mission on Wednesday when Schiaparelli could become the first European craft to master a successful landing on Mars and the Trace Gas Orbiter swings into orbit to mark the start of a five-year mission tracking atmospheric gases relevant to life.

Separation occurred right on time at 14:42 UTC - exactly three days before Schiaparelli encounters the Martian Atmosphere. A three-point separation system was designed to push the Schiaparelli lander away at a relative velocity of 0.37 meters per second and, in the process, spin it up to 2.75 rotations per minute for passive orientation stabilization until the atmospheric encounter.

The overnight Mars Avoidance Maneuver was a critical step in TGO’s approach to move away from a collision course with the planet and place itself on a flyby trajectory to set up for orbital insertion. Slewing to the proper orientation for the maneuver, TGO arrived in its burn attitude at 2:12 UTC with half an hour to spare.

Now on two very different trajectories, one intercepting the Martian Atmosphere, the other leading past the planet, TGO and Schiaparelli are set for another two and a half days of approach. For Schiaparelli, no major events will occur until its fast-paced Entry, Descent & Landing Sequence on Wednesday, spending most of its free flight in battery-saving hibernation.

The sequence of events on Wednesday will be relatively fast paced in the twofold adventure at Mars, 175 million Kilometers from Earth. No intervention from Mission Control will be possible as the one-way signal travel time will be 9 minutes and 46 seconds.

Schiaparelli will hit the Martian Atmosphere at 14:42 UTC at a speed of 5.8 Kilometers per second, enduring temperatures up to 1,750°C before ejecting its parachute and slowing down prior to a half-minute rocket-powered descent that is designed to bring the Surface Platform to a two-meter free fall to its landing site in Meridiani Planum. The entire sequence from atmospheric entry to touchdown is expected to last just under six minutes.