SpaceX – TESS Mission Rescheduled to Wednesday 4/18/2018

TESS Satellite
(Image Courtesy inverse.com)

The planned launch of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) was scrubbed on Monday due to some last-minute rocket checks, and I for one am always happy to hear that they only will fly with every confidence of success. Fortunately there is another launch window available in a short time, and the launch has been rescheduled for Wednesday, April 18th, 2018 at 6:51pm Eastern time from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

Remember, this is an exciting launch because they will attempt to land the Falcon 9 booster on a drone ship! Be sure to tune in to the live feed over at SpaceX, and enjoy the commentary and hopefully uninterrupted views of the entire launch.

SpaceX Falcon 9 TESS Mission Launch April 16, 6:32 PM EST

NASA TESS Mission
(Image Credit NASA)

Another SpaceX Falcon 9 launch is coming up soon, and this time they are again going to attempt a droneship landing of the Falcon booster. Something great to look forward to! The last two launches have seen them opt to expend that equipment into the briny deep because it had reached end-of-life, but this time around we will hopefully all see it make a perfect landing on the ‘Of Course I Still Love You’.

The mission is to deploy NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which will greatly expand our ability to detect Earth-similar planets in orbit around distant stars. With a scope of over 200,000 stars as an initial aim of the mission, we can expect some truly exciting discoveries! If the comments of SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell today at the TED conference in Vancouver regarding the SpaceX ambition to not only reach Mars but to continue beyond our solar system hold merit, then such discoveries will be of great interest.

To learn more about the TESS mission, be sure to check out the informative NASA website dedicated to this new satellite and all of the discoveries it can enable!

Enhancing human radioresistance for deep space exploration and colonization

Human Radioresistance
Image from Futurism.com

Being able to write that headline in a non-ironic, non-fantastical context because we are finally living in ‘the future’ makes for a really wonderful evening. While the paper may be a stretch in places, it’s worth it for the 289 references alone. These footnotes cull together a dizzying array of bio and health and spacetech papers all seemingly converging on the ability to ‘enhance’ humans and make us more immune to the deleterious effects of off-Earth radiation.

The basic premise here, in this actual scientific paper which is published at oncotarget.com, is that tweaks can be made to the human body via gene therapy and other methods which will improve both resistance and repair to the damage caused by high-Linear transfer (high-LET) radiation. I think an excerpt from the abstract will say it best:

Herein, we lay the foundations of a roadmap toward enhancing human radioresistance for the purposes of deep space colonization and exploration. We outline future research directions toward the goal of enhancing human radioresistance, including upregulation of endogenous repair and radioprotective mechanisms, possible leeways into gene therapy in order to enhance radioresistance via the translation of exogenous and engineered DNA repair and radioprotective mechanisms, the substitution of organic molecules with fortified isoforms, and methods of slowing metabolic activity while preserving cognitive function.

Be sure to check out this exciting new paper, and enjoy the fact that we are living in a time where this sort of topic is not only seriously discussed, but about to be an important part of getting mankind to the stars.

(Thank you to Futurism.com for a their fantastic header image on this topic)

Marsbees

Marsbees

Marsbees

NASA has finally taken a page from the SpaceX playbook, and realizes how important marketing and branding is to this stage of the growth of spaceflight. Well, that’s not strictly fair since they were the original hypemen with the Apollo Program in the 1960s, they have just rediscovered their way.

I’m referring specifically to the fantastic new plan released by the agency to deploy a swarm of flying robots about the size of a bee, which can more effectively explore the variable surface of Mars without having to roll over top of it. This system would be paired with a new rover, which would act as a charging station for the marsbees as well as a communication hub to download their data and transmit it back to mission control.

What a fantastic plan! Now we are starting to think, and the leap in understanding of the martian surface and atmosphere will be tremendous when this system comes on line. Stay tuned to the Mars Gazette for all the updates!

(Thanks NASA !)

NASA’s Insight Lander Launch – May 5th

NASA Insight Lander
Image Credit: Alex Polimeni/Spaceflight Now

It is tempting to focus on the flash and success of SpaceX, owing to their masterful execution of new engineering triumphs and spot-on marketing efforts. However, it is also worth remembering that little to none of this would be possible without the granddaddy of them all – NASA – who is still working hard and producing valuable results in the Mars arena.

The new NASA Insight Lander is set to launch to the Red Planet on May 5th, which would give it an arrival date of November 26th 2018. Weighing in at 1,530 pounds, the primary mission of the lander is to study the planetary interior, attempting to detect tremors and studying heat which is coming from the mantle and core. “In essence, it will take the vital signs of Mars — its pulse, temperature and much more,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA’s science division. “We like to say it’s the first thorough checkup since the planet formed four-and-a-half billion years ago.”

For more details of this new Mars lander mission, please see the excellent article at spaceflightnow.com.

First-ever luxury hotel in space

Aurora Station
This is exactly the sort of accelerated pace that I hoped, in my fondest wishes, would be a direct result of the recent Falcon Heavy launch and subsequent spaced Tesla roadster. I am convinced that it will encourage and unleash a flood of entrepreneurial excitement and draw the attention of investors and boardroom executives from all corners of the world. Reading today an announcement of a planned “first ever luxury hotel in space” helps to joyously confirm my hopeful assumptions.

The past three days have seen the Space 2.0 Summit held in San Jose, and I will absolutely have to investigate further what was discussed there, since one of the items to emerge was the Aurora Station project proposed by developer Orion Span. This exciting new company is chartered to “build and sustain human communities in space” and I wish them goodspeed and the best success; as they say, a rising tide raises all boats, and I think this starts to show how Elon has opened the floodgates.

Check out the article at sky.com for more details of this new project and how you can reserve your room!

Dragon Connects with ISS

Dragon Docks with ISS
In a follow-up from the story on Monday regarding the successful launch of the Dragon cargo capsule on the NASA resupply mission, word has been received today that docking with the ISS was successful. The 3 tons of supplies have been delivered safely to the orbiting space station, and the Dragon will remain connected for the whole of April, after which time it will be sent back to earth, again loaded this time with outgoing supplies. Landing will take place in the pacific where SpaceX will retrieve the capsule after it’s second successful mission.

At current design tolerances, the Dragon capsules are rated for three missions, so this one may have yet another trip in the future. The goal of re-usability is not only here, but has now been proven to work over and over again, with the results showing clearly in the price to orbit.
(space.com)

Stellar Jurisdiction

Star Laws
There is an interesting article over at SpaceNews today regarding the peculiar and sudden imaging restriction imposed by NOAA on SpaceX in the middle of their Falcon 9 launch last Friday. While conflicting reports had been surfacing, including from NOAA themselves, it seems that the truth of the matter has finally begun to surface, and in so doing may be handily managed by the fleet of lawyers.

It boils down to restrictions on images of Earth taken from orbit, and a number of bureaucratic hoops one must jump through in order to proceed with that sort of event. What really gets my goat however, is the notion that one government (apparently our own) can claim to exercise rights over imaging of the entire Earth from points in orbit which would only briefly even be over top of the US.

It raises in my mind the much larger and more important question of: who “owns” the moon and other planets? Or at least, who claims to? I like to think that Elon and co. can simply get to Mars, set up whatever they like, and then suggest that if someone doesn’t like it they can come there and ask him to stop. The idea that the US (or any nation) would claim to have jurisdiction over the moon or Mars – when so abjectly failing to get us there themselves – is frustrating to say the least. I’m looking forward to seeing that all play out, sooner than we ever expected!

References:

Falcon 9 Launch, Monday 4/2/2018

Dragon capsule docking with space station

SpaceX has committed to a very aggressive launch schedule for the remainder of 2018, and this back-to-back demonstration of master level rocketry is a direct result! We just finished cheering and celebrating the successful launch on Friday (albeit with shortened video thanks to NOAA involvement) and now we look ahead to the scheduled 4:30pm EDT Monday afternoon launch of a Space Station resupply mission.

This will be the 14th mission (code named CRS-14) for SpaceX under the ‘Commercial Resupply Services Contract’ from NASA, and will include about 5,800 pounds of equipment. This is a repeat attempt of a launch which was delayed from February 9th and again from March 13th. Unfortunately the current plan is not to attempt a landing and recovery of this booster, which has flown before and is being reused for this flight – a key feature of Elon Musk’s strategy for reducing the costs of commercial space flight. The rocket will be pushed to the edge of some trajectory limits in order to capture useful mission data, and will be expended upon reentry. Since SpaceX is gearing up to release their new Block 5 version of the Falcon 9, recent (and likely upcoming) missions are cycling out the old Falcon boosters to make way for the new and improved 2018 model. Won’t that be great – when we are versioning rockets as commonly as we do with automobiles?

(Florida Today)