Fwd: Human Spaceflight News, Oct. 21

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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: October 21, 2013 8:58:31 AM CDT
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News, Oct. 21

 

 

 

Human Spaceflight News

Monday, Oct. 21, 2013

 

HEADLINES AND LEADS

 

A post-shutdown roundup

 

By Jeff Foust --- Space Politics

 

With the end of the government shutdown, things are starting to return to normal (at least in the pre-shutdown sense of "normal") for NASA and the rest of the federal government.

China: NASA mistakenly banned Chinese researchers from conference

 

By Paul Armstrong and Feng Ke – CNN

 

Hong Kong (CNN) -- Sorry, no Chinese researchers allowed! Oh wait, seems like that was a misunderstanding. Please do come.

 

Next Delta 4 rocket grounded by RL10 engine inquiry

 

By Stephen Clark – Spaceflight Now

United Launch Alliance has postponed the next launch of a Delta 4 rocket from Oct. 23 to sort out the significance of fresh conclusions stemming from an investigation into an RL10 engine anomaly during another Delta 4 launch one year ago, the company said in a statement Friday.

 

Mars Rover Curiosity Proves Some Earth Meteorites are Martian

 

by Miriam Kramer – Space.com

 

Some pieces of rock that fell to Earth from space are indeed from Mars, new measurements reveal.

 

India's Mars mission delayed

 

TNN

BANGALORE: India's Mars Orbiter Mission which was slated to be launched on October 28 has been postponed by a week due to bad weather and the new launch date will be decided on October 22.

 

US Asks Russia to Delay Satellite Launch - Official

 

(RIA Novosti)

 

MOSCOW, October 20– The US asked to delay today's launch of a Russian Proton rocket carrying an American commercial satellite after problems with one of its communications centers, a space agency official said Sunday.

 

Buoyed by Antares Success, Orbital Sciences in Hot Pursuit of Commercial Launch Contract

 

Peter de Selding - Space News

 

Satellite and rocket hardware manufacturer Orbital Sciences on Oct. 17 said that its new Antares rocket's success in its first two NASA-funded demonstration flights has begun to draw interest from commercial and non-NASA government customers.

 

Orionid meteor shower this week: See if you can catch a fireball

 

By Deborah Netburn  - Los Angeles Times

 

Looking for something to do tonight? Why not see if you can spot a fireball?

The Orionid meteor shower peaks Sunday and Monday.

 

Orionid Meteor Shower Peaking Now: See Shards of Halley's Comet Online

 

by Tanya Lewis – Space.com

 

The leaves are turning, there's a nip in the air and the Orionid meteor shower spawned by Halley's Comet is at its peak overnight tonight (Oct. 20).

 

Wakata to depart for ISS on Nov. 7, take command

 

Kyodo News Service

 

Astronaut Koichi Wakata is set to ride a Russian Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station, where he will do a six-month stint as its first Japanese skipper, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said Thursday.

 

Students: Want To Get An Experiment Into Space? You Know You Want To

 

Elizabeth Howell - Universe Today

Beer brewing in space? That's what a preteen student will ask astronauts to do on the International Space Station soon.

 

Ethiopia launches space exploration program

 

Zegabi East Africa News

Ethiopia has launched the initial phase of its space exploration program which includes East Africa's largest observatory.

 

 

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COMPLETE STORIES

 

A post-shutdown roundup

 

By Jeff Foust --- Space Politics

 

With the end of the government shutdown, things are starting to return to normal (at least in the pre-shutdown sense of "normal") for NASA and the rest of the federal government. The agency has resumed regular operations under a continuing resolution (CR) passed Wednesday by Congress that keeps the government funded until January 15, 2014, at fiscal year 2013 levels. The CR, HR 2775, doesn't contain any special policy provisions for NASA, but does allow NOAA to spend its funds at a rate "necessary to maintain the planned launch schedules for the Joint Polar Satellite System and the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite system." That language is identical to what was in the original CR, H.J.Res.59, introduced in the House last month before getting wrapped up in a debate over the Affordable Care Act.

The end of the shutdown has also affected another policy issue that arose during it, the decision by NASA officials to block Chinese scientists from attending the Kepler Science Conference at NASA Ames Research Center. The Chinese news agency Xinhua reports that those scientists who were originally blocked from attending have received a letter from NASA that the original decision was overturned and that their "paperwork is being reviewed for clearance." The end of the shutdown also allows the conference itself to proceed on schedule, starting November 4, conference organizers said Thursday.

And with the shutdown over, people can now pay attention to other space policy issues. In an op-ed in the Washington Times last week, Joshua Jacobs of the relatively new Conservative Future Project blamed NASA's current problems primarily on Congress, in particular the Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket. "Imagine what could be done if resources being thrown into the furnace for the Space Launch System was repurposed for technology incubation, commercial projects, or heaven forbid, actual missions," he writes. Jacobs, though, is critical of the Obama Administration as well for canceling the Constellation Program, saying the program was "fiercely lauded in the scientific and space community"—but also suffered from budget issues.

In another essay on the website PolicyMic last week, Christopher Blakeley says NASA's decision to shelve the J-2X engine—planned for the upper stage of the SLS but not needed for its initial missions—after tests of it are completed next year is another sign of a flawed space program. Like Jacobs, he believes NASA should partner more with the private sector. "Space exploration can no longer be a contest to see who's got the biggest rocket," he writes. "Looking at the private space travel through companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic instead of creating rockets that can't take us anywhere is a great place to start."

 

China: NASA mistakenly banned Chinese researchers from conference

 

By Paul Armstrong and Feng Ke – CNN

 

Hong Kong (CNN) -- Sorry, no Chinese researchers allowed! Oh wait, seems like that was a misunderstanding. Please do come.

NASA's management apparently misinterpreted a security law when it barred Chinese researchers from attending the space agency's Kepler Science Conference in November, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported Sunday. Xinhua said NASA sent a letter to Chinese scientists inviting them back and cited excerpts from the letter.

NASA did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Sunday morning.

The confusion apparently stemmed from a U.S. law passed in 2011 that prevents NASA funds from being used to collaborate with China or to host Chinese visitors at its facilities.

NASA had announced that Chinese nationals would not be allowed to attend the conference for NASA's Kepler space telescope program at the Ames Research Center due to national security.

The space telescope has been searching for planets outside of our solar system.

Earlier this month, China slammed NASA for its decision to ban Chinese scholars from the conference, calling it "discriminatory."

Gong Li, an official with the Party School of the China Central Committee's Communist party, said the ban was similar to previous U.S. action against the former Soviet Union during the Cold War. He said it also illustrated U.S. fear of China's fast development.

NASA didn't release an official statement on its website due to the U.S. government's partial shutdown earlier this month.

But some U.S. scientists joined in decrying the decision and called for a boycott of the conference.

"In good conscience, I cannot attend a meeting that discriminates in this way. The meeting is about planets located trillions of miles away, with no national security implications," Geoff Marcy, an astronomy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote in an e-mail to the organizers.

Russian divers find huge suspected meteorite chunk in Chelyabinsk

'Inaccuracies'

U.S. Republican Rep. Frank Wolf, who drafted the 2011 law, issued a statement on his website that sought to correct "inaccuracies" about the restrictions first reported by Britain's Guardian newspaper.

"I was concerned to read an October 4 article in The Guardian that reported on poor guidance about these policies with regard to restrictions on Chinese nationals attending a conference next month at NASA Ames Research Center. Unfortunately, the article is riddled with inaccuracies, as is, it appears, the guidance provided by NASA Ames staff to the attendees," Wolf wrote.

"As you know, the congressional provision -- which has been in place since early 2011 -- primarily restricts bilateral, not multilateral, meetings and activities with the Communist Chinese government or Chinese-owned companies. It places no restrictions on activities involving individual Chinese nationals unless those nationals are acting as official representatives of the Chinese government."

Security fears

Wolf said NASA officials may have believed the decision was needed because of extra temporary restrictions on foreign nationals after a potential security breach by a Chinese citizen at a NASA facility earlier this year.

In March this year, a Chinese aerospace contractor who worked for NASA was arrested at Washington's Dulles International Airport as he boarded a flight to Beijing.

Bo Jiang, who worked at NASA's Langley's Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, was charged with making false statements to U.S. authorities by failing to disclose all of the electronic devices he was carrying on his one-way flight.

Wolf, who oversees congressional funding of several agencies, told reporters in March he believed Jiang was spying and had access to highly sensitive documents, including source codes for high-tech imaging used in missiles, unmanned aerospace equipment and other technology desired by the Chinese government.

 

Next Delta 4 rocket grounded by RL10 engine inquiry

 

By Stephen Clark – Spaceflight Now

United Launch Alliance has postponed the next launch of a Delta 4 rocket from Oct. 23 to sort out the significance of fresh conclusions stemming from an investigation into an RL10 engine anomaly during another Delta 4 launch one year ago, the company said in a statement Friday.

The launch company, which operates the Atlas and Delta rocket fleets, said it has not set a new date for the Delta 4 rocket's launch of the GPS 2F-5 spacecraft to replenish the U.S. Air Force's fleet of positioning, navigation and timing satellites.

Engineers are reviewing whether they need to make any changes to the rocket's RL10B-2 second stage engine. During a similar Delta 4 launch of another GPS satellite in October 2012, the RL10 engine sprung a fuel leak in flight, causing the engine to fire with lower thrust than planned.

The Delta 4 rocket compensated for the low thrust by extending the duration of all three of its second stage engine burns to achieve the mission's desired target orbit. The October 2012 launch successfully deployed the GPS 2F-3 satellite into the correct circular orbit with an altitude of 11,000 nautical miles.

The RL10B-2 engine is produced by Aerojet Rocketdyne. It generates a nominal thrust of 24,750 pounds, has an overall length of 13.6 feet, including 7 feet for its extendable nozzle, and a specific impulse of 465.5 seconds.

ULA and the Air Force gave the green light to resume Delta 4 launches this spring, with three successful flights occurring between May and August, lofting two Air Force Wideband Global SATCOM communications satellites and a top secret spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office.

The Atlas 5 rocket uses a different type of RL10 engine, and although it shares design features with the Delta 4's RL10B-2 engine, officials cleared the Atlas 5 to continue flying throughout the last year.

ULA said the upcoming Atlas 5 launch of NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN, mission remains on schedule for Nov. 18. MAVEN has a tight planetary launch window extending to mid-December.

Officials kept probing the root cause of the RL10 engine anomaly to avoid similar problems in the future.

"The ongoing Phase 2 investigation has included extremely detailed characterization and reconstructions of the instrumentation signatures obtained from the October 2012 launch and these have recently resulted in some updated conclusions related to dynamic responses that occurred on the engine system during the first engine start event," ULA said in a statement.

The company said the launch of the GPS 2F-5 satellite "is being delayed to allow the technical team time to further assess these updated conclusions and assess the improvements already implemented and determine whether additional changes are required prior to the next Delta 4 launch."

ULA said the Delta 4 rocket for the GPS 2F-5 mission has completed processing and checkout at the Complex 37B launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

The GPS 2F-5 spacecraft, built by Boeing Co., is also at Cape Canaveral awaiting delivery to the launch pad once investigators recommend corrective actions or exonerate the Delta 4's RL10 engine.

"A new launch date will be established when the assessment of the updated dynamic response information is completed in the coming weeks," the ULA statement said.

 

Mars Rover Curiosity Proves Some Earth Meteorites are Martian

 

by Miriam Kramer – Space.com

 

Some pieces of rock that fell to Earth from space are indeed from Mars, new measurements reveal.

New data collected by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has pinned down the exact ratio of two forms of the inert gas argon in the Martian atmosphere. These new measurements will not only help confirm the origins of some meteorites, they could also help researchers understand how and when Mars lost most of its atmosphere, transforming from a warm, wet planet to the red desert it is today.

By understanding exactly how much of the lighter isotope argon-36 is present in the Martian atmosphere and comparing it to the heavier isotope, argon-38, scientists were able to confirm what the composition of a Martian meteorite on Earth should be.

"We really nailed it," Sushil Atreya of the University of Michigan and lead author of an Oct. 16 paper reporting the finding in Geophysical Research Letters, said in a statement. "This direct reading from Mars settles the case with all Martian meteorites."

Curiosity found that the argon ratio for Mars is 4.2. The lighter form of argon has escaped more readily than the heavier isotope, NASA officials wrote in a statement.

If Mars had not lost atmosphere through the course of its planetary history, its argon ratio would be 5.5 — the same as the sun and Jupiter, two cosmic bodies with so much gravity that isotopes cannot escape, NASA officials said.

Before this new study, scientists had placed the argon ratio somewhere between 3.6 and 4.5 by analyzing gas trapped inside Martian meteors on Earth, but one of Curiosity's precise instruments — called Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) — allowed NASA researchers to find the more exact proportion.

"Other isotopes measured by SAM on Curiosity also support the loss of atmosphere, but none so directly as argon," Atreya said. "Argon is the clearest signature of atmospheric loss because it's chemically inert and does not interact or exchange with the Martian surface or the interior. This was a key measurement that we wanted to carry out on SAM."

Although Curiosity is unable to directly investigate how much atmosphere Mars is losing, NASA's next Mars mission is designed to do just that, officials with the space agency said. The MAVEN spacecraft (the name is short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission) will launch toward the Red Planet in November.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has been roaming the surface of the Red Planet since it landed in August 2012.

 

India's Mars mission delayed

 

TNN

 

BANGALORE: India's Mars Orbiter Mission which was slated to be launched on October 28 has been postponed by a week due to bad weather and the new launch date will be decided on October 22.
'Nalanda', the ship which will track the movement of the satellite from the South Pacific Ocean, couldn't reach its designated spot due to bad weather.
Isro spokesperson Deviprasad Karnik said, "Two ships, Yamuna and Nalanda were to reach Fiji the land closest to their designated spots in the Pacific Ocean but Nalanda has been delayed due to bad weather. Our scientists and engineers have reached the island."
He said ships will be used to track the ignition of the fourth stage and separation of the spacecraft. "Unlike previous missions, by the fourth stage ignition the vehicle would have gone outside the range of our ground stations which is why we have to use ships," Karnik said.
Isro leased the ships from the Shipping Corporation of India and equipped them for tracking. The ships left Visakhapatnam in mid-September. Isro has sought Nasa's help to communicate and navigate the satellite when it reaches blind spots of their tracking systems.

 

US Asks Russia to Delay Satellite Launch - Official

 

(RIA Novosti)

 

MOSCOW, October 20– The US asked to delay today's launch of a Russian Proton rocket carrying an American commercial satellite after problems with one of its communications centers, a space agency official said Sunday.

The launch has been delayed until Monday because a US communications station in South Africa isn't working properly, said Sergei Gorbunov, a spokesman for Roscosmos, Russia's federal space agency.

The Proton-M rocket was scheduled to blast off tonight at 10.13 p.m. Moscow time from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

It's set to carry a Sirius FM-6 satellite into space, bolstering the US broadcasting giant's satellite fleet already transmitting radio across North America.

 

Buoyed by Antares Success, Orbital Sciences in Hot Pursuit of Commercial Launch Contract

 

Peter de Selding - Space News

 

Satellite and rocket hardware manufacturer Orbital Sciences on Oct. 17 said that its new Antares rocket's success in its first two NASA-funded demonstration flights has begun to draw interest from commercial and non-NASA government customers.

In a conference call with investors, Orbital Chief Executive David W. Thompson said the company is already chasing one commercial customer for a one- or two-launch contract to be conducted starting in 2016.

Thompson did not identify the customer or the type of orbit, but said Orbital would be submitting a contract proposal in the coming weeks. A contract decision is likely in the first three months of 2014, he said.

"With two really good launches under our belt, things are picking up in terms of customer interest," Thompson said of Antares, whose first two flights — one delivering a cargo module to the international space station — were conducted for NASA.

A third flight, and the second carrying the Cygnus space station freighter, is scheduled for December. It will be the first delivery on an eight-launch contract with NASA for station resupply, with the second and third of these flights to occur in the spring and autumn of 2014.

The first Cygnus demonstration flight to the station carried about 682 kilograms of payload. The second will carry double that amount, with future flights increasing their payload complement. Under the $1.9 billion Commercial Resupply Services, or CRS, contract, Orbital is obligated to deliver 20,000 kilograms of supplies to the station over the eight flights.

Clearly basking in the glow of the first two Antares successes, Thompson said the eight CRS launches are likely to be completed by the end of 2016. Orbital expects NASA to move out on a CRS follow-on contract sometime in 2014.

The partners in the space station — the United States, Russia, Japan, Europe and Canada — have agreed to maintain the orbital outpost until 2020 at least. They are talking about an extension to 2027 or 2028 pending an assessment of what hardware would need to be replaced, or recertified for further use beyond 2020.

Until the recent Antares successes, Orbital officials had been circumspect about Antares' market beyond NASA. Thompson said that for the next few years the main non-NASA customer will almost certainly be other U.S. government agencies.

Thompson made no mention during the call of Orbital's ongoing attempts to secure a supply of Antares first-stage engines, whether by restarting production of the Russian AJ-26 engines, purchased through Aerojet Rocketdyne for use on Antares, or finding an alternative.

In the past, Orbital officials have said the supply of refurbished, or refurbishable, AJ-26 engines was limited and that the company would need to settle on a long-term solution by mid-2014. Orbital has said it has enough of the current-generation AJ-26 engines to complete the NASA CRS contract flights. Each Antares first stage uses two AJ-26 engines.

Orbital and Aerojet Rocketdyne have not always agreed on the number of AJ-26 engines that could be made available without restarting the Russian factory where their production ended years ago. Restarting that production line, Aerojet Rocketdyne officials have said, would not be a problem.

Dulles, Va.-based Orbital reported an 8.5 percent drop in revenue, to $989.9 million, for the nine months ending Sept. 30 compared with last year mainly because of lower revenue in its commercial geostationary telecommunications satellite business.

Thompson said late orders, and orders that were signed but late in taking effect in terms of revenue flow, in the commercial satellite segment hurt 2013's revenue picture.

But it did not hurt the company's operating profit margins, which rose to 9.2 percent from 7.5 percent over the same nine-month period.

The same Satellites and Space Systems division whose revenue dropped 24 percent in the nine months ending Sept. 30 saw its operating profit margin increase to 10.5 percent from 8.1 percent.

Do not expect a repeat of the profit performance in 2014, Thompson said. What happened in 2013 was that several challenging commercial satellite contracts moved through Orbital's factory without a hitch, allowing the company to apply reserves it had held in the event of a hiccup to be transferred to the profit line.

Orbital has also been conservative in its profit estimates under the CRS contract. But Thompson did not disagree with investors who presumed that the CRS contract would be much more profitable for Orbital than the two-launch demonstration contract with NASA that preceded it

.

Orionid meteor shower this week: See if you can catch a fireball

 

By Deborah Netburn  - Los Angeles Times

 

Looking for something to do tonight? Why not see if you can spot a fireball?

The Orionid meteor shower peaks Sunday and Monday. If you can stay up past midnight, or get up before dawn, you may be treated to one of the super-bright "fireball" meteors for which the annual shower is known. 

The Orionids occur each year in mid-October when Earth passes through a stream of dust left in the wake of Comet Halley. Halley returns to our solar system every 76 years, and each time it does, it sheds bits of rocks and dust from its icy nucleus. These bits of debris burn up in the atmosphere, causing shooting stars to rip across the sky.

Orionids are known for their speed. They travel about 148,000 mph into Earth's atmosphere, according to a NASA report. Because they move so fast, they can leave glowing "trains" and are more likely than some other meteors to become fireballs -- meteors that glow at least as brightly as Jupiter or Venus in the night sky. 

When the shower is at its best, observers can expect to see about 20 meteors per hour, said Anthony Cook, who heads the telescope program at Griffith Observatory. However, this year viewing conditions are not ideal. Light from the nearly-full moon you may have been admiring all weekend will drown out many of the fainter meteors.

"With city lights and the moonlight, you might be lucky to see two an hour," said Cook. "But if they are bright, it will be like free fireworks."

If you want to try to catch a fireball, NASA recommends lying on your back with your feet pointed southeast (if you are in the Northern hemisphere) anytime between midnight and dawn. Give your eyes about 30 minutes to adjust to the dark, and then relax and enjoy the show.

Even if you don't get to see a fireball or two, keep your eye out for Jupiter directly overhead at dawn, and Mars off to the east. 

"Even in the suburban light bubble, the sky is really pretty at dawn right now," said Cook.

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Orionid Meteor Shower Peaking Now: See Shards of Halley's Comet Online

 

by Tanya Lewis – Space.com

 

The leaves are turning, there's a nip in the air and the Orionid meteor shower spawned by Halley's Comet is at its peak overnight tonight (Oct. 20).  

If the bright moon or bad weather doesn't spoil the view, stargazers can catch a glimpse of the annual Orionid meteor shower as it reaches its peak late Sunday and early Monday (Oct. 21). The Orionids, so-named because they appear to spring from a region to the north of the constellation Orion's second brightest star, Betelgeuse, are a less impressive version of the Perseid meteor shower that occurs in August.

The online Slooh Space Camera will air a live 15-minute broadcast of the meteors from the Canary Islands off the coast of West Africa at 8 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT/5 p.m. PDT) today. You can watch the Orionid meteor shower webcast live here, courtesy of Slooh officials. [Photos: Orionid Meteor Shower of 2012]

Unfortunately for casual observers, the bright moon - which reached its full phase on Friday (Oct. 18) - may wash out most of the view. Weather permitting, viewers can expect to see at most one shooting star every three minutes. That's about a third as many as are visible in the Perseids or December's spectacular Geminids.

"Moonlit skies from a bright waning gibbous moon make this a less than favorable year for viewing," a NASA meteor shower guide for 2013 explains. "However, the Orionids are known for being bright meteors, so there still might be a good show in the early hours before dawn."

During tonight's Slooh webcast, viewers can tweet their questions using the hashtag #Orionid. You can also watch the supernova webcast live on the online Slooh Space Camera website and the Slooh iPad App. 

The shower will be most visible in the hours around 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT), when Orion is highest in the southern sky. The Orionids are dim, so astronomers recommend watching far from urban areas. The meteor shower is visible in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

The Orionids usually start to appear around Oct. 17 at a rate of about five per hour. The shower reaches a maximum Oct. 19 through Oct. 23, generally peaking the morning of Oct. 21. By Oct. 25, activity has subsided to five meteors per hour.

Unfortunately for casual observers, the bright moon - which reached its full phase on Friday (Oct. 18) - may wash out most of the view. Weather permitting, viewers can expect to see at most one shooting star every three minutes. That's about a third as many as are visible in the Perseids or December's spectacular Geminids.

"Moonlit skies from a bright waning gibbous moon make this a less than favorable year for viewing," a NASA meteor shower guide for 2013 explains. "However, the Orionids are known for being bright meteors, so there still might be a good show in the early hours before dawn."

During tonight's Slooh webcast, viewers can tweet their questions using the hashtag #Orionid. You can also watch the supernova webcast live on the online Slooh Space Camera website and the Slooh iPad App. 

The shower will be most visible in the hours around 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT), when Orion is highest in the southern sky. The Orionids are dim, so astronomers recommend watching far from urban areas. The meteor shower is visible in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

The Orionids usually start to appear around Oct. 17 at a rate of about five per hour. The shower reaches a maximum Oct. 19 through Oct. 23, generally peaking the morning of Oct. 21. By Oct. 25, activity has subsided to five meteors per hour.

Orionid meteors are debris from Halley's Comet. The famous comet, named after English astronomer Edmond Halley, zooms by the sun every 76 years. Last visible from Earth in 1986, the icy visitor won't return until 2061.

Comets are basically balls of dusty ice, so as the sun melts the ice, the comet trails dust and debris behind, which the Earth passes through twice a year during the Eta Aquarid meteor shower in May and the Orionids in October.

Editor's note: If you snap an amazing picture of the Orionid meteor shower or any other night sky view that you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery, send photos, comments and your name and location to managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.

 

Wakata to depart for ISS on Nov. 7, take command

 

Kyodo News Service

 

Astronaut Koichi Wakata is set to ride a Russian Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station, where he will do a six-month stint as its first Japanese skipper, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said Thursday.

Wakata, 50, and two colleagues, from Russia and the United States, are expected to blast off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Nov. 7 at 1:14 p.m. Japan time and dock with the ISS about six hours later, JAXA said.

Wakata will remain on the ISS until May and captain the station for the final two months of his stay.

He will perform experiments in space medicine, release a micro-satellite developed in Japan and communicate with a talking robot that was sent to the ISS in August.

It will be Wakata's fourth trip to space and his second extended stay on the ISS.

On his first 4½-month mission in 2009, he performed experiments that involved his own body.

 

Jellyfish Born in Space Get Vertigo Back on Earth

 

Lindsay Lowe – Parade

 

You've heard of monkeys traveling to space, but…jellyfish?

Since the early 1990s, NASA has sent thousands of jellyfish into Earth's orbit, apparently to test the effects of a microgravity environment on the creatures' development and to see how they would adjust when they returned to Earth.

In 1991, the space shuttle Columbia launched around 2,500 jellyfish polyps into space, all contained in bags filled with artificial seawater. While in space, the jellies multiplied and by the end of the mission, as many as 60,000 jellyfish were orbiting Earth, The Atlantic reports.

By observing how jellyfish coped with a microgravity environment (and the subsequent transition back to Earth) researchers hoped to discover how humans might respond to long-term space travel.

Researchers chose jellyfish for the experiment because, similar to the super-sensitive hair cells in humans' ears that help us detect gravity, jellyfish have special cell hairs surrounding their bell that allow them to sense which way is up.

The results of the experiment? Not encouraging. The jellies raised in space had an impaired sense of gravity compared to their earthly relatives, researchers found, even though they were "morphologically very similar" to ones on Earth.

When they returned to Earth, "many more jellies had trouble getting around once on the planet," said biologist RR Helm, noting they struggled with "pulsing and movement abnormalities, compared to their Earth-bound counterparts."

In human terms, the space jellies had vertigo—leading researchers to believe that humans raised in microgravity would also struggle with an impaired sense of gravity.

So if microgravity confuses jellyfish, looks like it will be a while before a human baby could ever be raised in space.

 

Students: Want To Get An Experiment Into Space? You Know You Want To

 

Elizabeth Howell - Universe Today

 

Beer brewing in space? That's what a preteen student will ask astronauts to do on the International Space Station soon. "By combining the four main ingredients (malt barley, hops, yeast, and water) of beer in space, will we be able to produce alcohol?" reads the research proposal from Michal Bodzianowski. If you follow the link, you can see how this also has medical applications on station, as alcohol can disinfect wounds.

Michal was a selectee in last year's Student Spaceflight Experiments Program, which we've written about before. The program now has a new call for proposals.

"Each participating community will be provided a real microgravity research mini-laboratory capable of supporting a single experiment, and all launch services to fly it to the space station in fall 2014," a press release stated.

The design competition, the release added, "allows student teams to design and formally propose real experiments vying for their community's reserved mini-lab on space station. Content resources for teachers and students support foundational instruction on science in microgravity and experimental design."

Inquiries must be sent by Nov. 20, and participating communities must sign up by Feb. 17, 2014. Final selection will take place in May.

For more information, you can visit the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program website. The program has participation from the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education, and NanoRacks.

Below is SSEP's description of the five categories of participation:

· Pre-College (the core focus for SSEP) in the U.S., (grades 5-12), with school districts—even individual schools—providing a stunning, real, on-orbit RESEARCH opportunity to their upper elementary, middle, and high school students (Explore the 60 communities that participated in the first six flight opportunities to date)

· 2-Year Community Colleges in the U.S., (grades 13-14), where the student body is typically from the local community, providing wonderful pathways for community-wide engagement

· 4-Year Colleges and Universities in the U.S., (grades 13-16), with an emphasis on Minority-Serving Institutions, where the program fosters interdisciplinary collaboration across schools and departments, and an opportunity for formal workforce development for science majors

· Communities in the U.S. led by Informal Education or Out-of-School Organizations, (e.g., a museum or science center, a home school network, a scout troop), because high caliber STEM education programs must be accessible to organizations that promote effective learning beyond the traditional classroom

· Communities Internationally: in European Space Agency (ESA) member nations, European Union (EU) member nations, Canada, and Japan, with participation through NCESSE's Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education. Communities in other nations should explore the potential for their participation by contacting the Institute at http://clarkeinstitute.org

 

Ethiopia launches space exploration program

 

Zegabi East Africa News

 

Ethiopia has launched the initial phase of its space exploration program which includes East Africa's largest observatory.

The $3.4 million observatory located 3200m above sea level in the outskirts of Addis Ababa is expected to begin operating in a few days. It will be run by the Ethiopian Space Science Society (ESSS) with funding from Ethiopian-Saudi business tycoon, Mohammed Alamoudi.

Two telescopes, each 1m wide, will be used to observe "extra planets, different types of stars, the Milky Way, and deep galaxies," said the observatory's director, Solomon Belay. "The optical astronomical telescope is mainly intended for astronomy and astrophysics observation research."

The observatory will be used for collecting data, conducting research and building local and regional interest in astronomy, but the possibility of sending an Ethiopian to space one day cannot be ruled out.

Several skeptics have questioned the necessity of the program, considering the fact that Ethiopia is among the poorest countries in Africa and the world.

Belay however told AFP that promoting science and technology was important to Ethiopia's development.

"If the economy is strongly linked with science, then we can transform a poor way of agriculture into industrialization and into modern agriculture," he said.

He added that the country also stands to benefit from "astronomy tourism" since the observatory is expected to attract some fans from Africa and the world.

Ethiopia will launch its first satellite in about 3 years. The satellite is expected to be used to study meteorology and improve telecommunication in the east African nation. In preparation for this, the ESSS also plans to construct another observatory in Lalibella very soon. Already experts are reported to be exploring the site for the best area to set up the observatory.

Many African nation have shown interest in getting close to the stars. In 2009, the African Union announced plans to set up an African Space Agency. Currently, about 8 African nations have already set up space-related programs and others, including Ghana, are expected to join the ranks in the next few years.

 

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