In Today’s Deep Space Extra… The James Webb Space Telescope is cleared to begin fueling. The National Space Council meets this week. Two House Science, Space, and Technology Committee subcommittees will hold a joint hearing Wednesday on the 2020 Decadal Survey for Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Human Space Exploration
Russian – U.S. cross flights to ISS to begin in autumn of 2022
TASS of Russia (11/24): NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, are looking to no earlier than the fall of 2022 to begin exchanging seats of Soyuz and Crew Dragon spacecraft. NASA has backed the strategy to ensure a continuous presence of a U.S. astronaut and Russian cosmonaut on the orbital lab, which earlier this month marked 21 years of continuous human presence. (Editor’s note: TASS is a Russian government-owned news source).
Russia’s Prichal docking module arrives at the International Space Station
Space.com (11/26): Russia’s Prichal docking module, launched last Wednesday, rendezvoused and docked to the International Space Station’s (ISS) Russian segment Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module on Friday at 10:19 a.m. EST. Guided on its journey to the ISS by a Progress instrumentation and propulsion module, Prichal brings four new radial docking ports for piloted Soyuz and Progress cargo vessels. The instrumentation and propulsion module at Prichal’s Earth-facing port will depart, permitting a relocation of an airlock on Russia’s Rassvet Mini-Research Module-1, which became part of the ISS’s Russian segment in 2010.
Space Science
NASA gives green light to fuel James Webb Space Telescope
Coalition Members in the News – Northrop Grumman, Ruag Space
Spaceflightnow.com (11/28): NASA engineers have cleared teams at the Guiana Space Center in South America to begin loading 63 gallons of fuel and oxidizer into the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), after extra testing showed the observatory suffered no damage during a processing incident earlier this month. Once fueled, JWST will be transferred to the final assembly building at the spaceport in French Guiana, where a crane will hoist the observatory on top of its Ariane 5 launcher.
Strange signals on Venus may be coming from an erupting volcano
The Verge (11/26): A new study adds to a growing pile of evidence that Venus may be volcanically active. If true, this finding would help explain how volcanoes impact planetary evolution and habitability across the cosmos. The research, which focuses on signals coming from a Venusian volcano called Idunn Mons, is fueling excitement about future missions to Earth’s nearest neighbor that will settle the matter once and for all.
Scientists use seismic noise to image first hundred meters of Mars
Ars Technica (11/25): It was November 26, 2018 that NASA’s Mars InSight lander touched down on Mars to begin a study of the Red Planet’s subsurface. InSight made headlines as its seismometer encountered a steady flow of “Marsquakes,” providing information about the planet’s core and mantle. New findings obtained during breaks in the quakes and focused on the Martian crust suggest InSight rests above two lava flows separated by layers of sediment closer to the surface.
AI discovers over 300 unknown exoplanets in Kepler telescope data
Space.com (11/28): NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope concluded a nine-year mission focused on the discovery of exoplanets in November 2018. Nearly 3,000 of Kepler’s discoveries were confirmed largely using an elaborate process to assess and eliminate “false positives.” Now scientists can hasten the assessment process with a new algorithm called ExoMiner, which is credited with adding 301 previously unknown exoplanets into the Kepler planet catalog from the mission data. ExoMiner was developed through the Universities Space Research Association and NASA’s Ames Research Center. Details of the research effort await publication in the Astrophysical Journal.
Other News
Rocket industrial park put into operation in Wuhan
Xinhuanet of China (11/25): Wuhan is now the site of the new China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation Limited (CASIC) satellite production line and rocket industrial park. The effort includes production estimates of 20 solid-fuel launch vehicles and 100 satellites annually. (Editor’s note: Xinhuanet is a Chinese government-owned news source).
Kuaizhou-1A rocket launches classified Shiyan-11 satellite
SpaceNews.com (11/25): A Chinese Kuaizhou-1A rocket placed the classified Shiyan-11 satellite into orbit last Wednesday, marking China’s 46th orbital launch of 2021, extending a new national record for launches in a calendar year.
Soyuz 2.1b launches Russian early warning satellite
NASAspaceflight.com (11/24): Tundra 15L, a Russian Ministry of Defense early warning satellite, launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia aboard a Soyuz 2.1b rocket last Wednesday. It joins four others to provide the Russian military with an early warning of ballistic missiles launched toward Russia.
Virgin Galactic announces winner of free trip to suborbital space
Space.com (11/24): Virgin Galactic and Omaze, a charity fundraising platform, announced last Wednesday the award of two seats on a suborbital flight aboard the USS Unity to a woman sports coach from Antigua and Barbuda. She’ll launch with her daughter, an astrophysics student. The award was part of an Omaze sweepstakes initiated on August 31 that raised a projected $1.7 million on behalf of the nonprofit Space for Humanity’s Citizen Astronaut Program (CAP).
A NASA astronaut who took part in the first all-female spacewalk describes what it was like wearing an oversized 1970s spacesuit in zero gravity
Business Insider (11/27): In 2019, NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch shared the first all-female spacewalk. They wore spacesuits designed in the 1970s, when the astronaut corps was primarily male, and that are still worn today. NASA is working to develop a new generation of garments for the exploration of deep space destinations, starting with the Moon, and that can be worn by a more diverse astronaut corps. “The new suits will be fitting a much wider range of people from the 99th percentile and they’ll have a lot more mobility inherent in them,” said Meir.
Major Space Related Activities for the Week
Major space related activities for the week of November 28 to December 4, 2021
Spacepolicyonline.com (11/28): In session this week, the U.S. House and Senate face the expiration of the current budget continuing resolution (CR) on Friday at midnight. The question seems to be whether Congress will pass another short or a long-time continuing resolution (CR) to avoid a government shutdown, or the extremely unlikely case that an FY2022 omnibus bill with funding for all 12 appropriations bills will emerge. NASA astronauts Tom Marshburn and Kayla Barron are to conduct a 6-to-7-hour spacewalk on Tuesday to replace an S-band communications antenna on the exterior of the International Space Station. The first gathering of the National Space Council under the Biden Administration with chair Vice President Kamala Harris is planned for Wednesday, though the time and place have not been announced. Also on Wednesday at 11 a.m. EST, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee’s Space and Aeronautics subcommittee and Research and Technology Subcommittee will hold a joint hearing on the 2020 Decadal Survey for Astronomy and Astrophysics, which was released by the National Academies on November 4. The Space Technology Industry, Government, University Roundtable (STIGUR) of the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board (ASEB), part of the National Academies, will receive an update on Friday from NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) on its space nuclear programs and Lunar Surface initiatives, starting at 12 p.m. EST.
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