The News from Space: Week of 3/1/20

NASA tests Orion capsule recovery operations with the US Navy.

Credit: NASA 2020.

China drills into the far side of the Moon——Elon’s Texas Starship bonanza——Perseverance

The Week of 3/1/20

Happy Saturday.

Space POLITICS recap from this week: HERE.

NASA:

• The new Mars 2020 Rover’s name: Perseverance. More HERE.

• Nobody likes the new NASA House Authorization bill, and that is fine because it probably won’t pass: More HERE.

• An Op-Ed further analyzing the NASA Authorization bill. HERE.

• The first Orion capsule for the Artemis program (NASA’s plan to return American astronauts to the surface of the moon by 2024) is undergoing electromagnetic and thermal testing. More HERE.

• Despite political and technical delays, the Space Launch System, NASA’s latest megarocket and the cornerstone of the Artemis program should launch by the end of 2021. More HERE.

• NASA will lose contact with the Voyager 2 probe, one of two human spacecraft in interstellar space, for 11 months because of a Deep Space Network radio dish in Australia: More HERE.

• NASA concludes: SPACE LETTUCE is better for you than Earth lettuce: More HERE.

SpaceX:

• Updates on Starship (the revolutionary spacecraft that Elon Musk plans to colonize Mars with):

  • Starship SN1 exploded during a liquid nitrogen pressure test: More HERE.

  • If you just want to watch the EXPLOSION…HERE.

  • Musk increases the construction intensity by an order of magnitude at the Boca Chica, TX Starship plant and MUCH more: Watch HERE.

  • The full ARS Technica article mentioned in the video above (Musk’s absolutely absurd plan to build a Starship a week by the end of the year): More HERE.

  • At full production capacity, Musk wants to build a Starship every 72 hours: More HERE.

• Elon Musk wants to help the Space Force build “Starfleet”: More HERE.

• Watch Musk’s full conversation with Air Force Lt. General John Thompson HERE.

• SpaceX launched a cargo resupply mission to the ISS last night (CRS-20). Watch NASA’s coverage HERE.

• The NASA Psyche mission to study a metal rich asteroid will launch on a Falcon Heavy in 2022: More HERE.

Space Force:

• What does the Space Force do? … Congress doesn’t know. More HERE.

• L3Harris one a contract to overhaul the military’s aging Space Situational Awareness system (space debris tracker) that was implemented in the 90s. More HERE.

• Boeing and Lockheed win a contract to develop jamming-resistant satellite communications payloads for the USSF. More HERE.

• Space Force’s budget for 2021 is heavy on two unsurprising things: Rockets and Satellites. More HERE.

Why you should try to feel bad for Boeing:

• NASA found 61 “corrective actions” for Boeing after the botched Starliner mission in December…uh oh, that’s not good! More HERE.

• NASA declares the same Starliner demo mission in December a “high visibility close call”. NASA Chief of Human Spaceflight says, ”we could have lost a spacecraft twice during this mission”…YIKES! More HERE.

• So, should Boeing have to test the Starliner again before a crewed flight? … Everybody: Yes! … NASA: 🤷‍♀️. More HERE.

Commercial:

• Rocket Lab, the daring launch company from New Zealand, will launch a Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite (how satellites can image in inclement weather and night) for Capella Space later this year: More HERE.

• Axiom Space, the space infrastructure company planning to install an add-on to the International Space Station, struck a deal with SpaceX to send commercial astronauts to the ISS next year. More HERE.

• Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ well-funded, steady-moving launch company, has BIG plans for this year. More HERE.

• Astra, the stealthy launch company that came out of nowhere to attempt a DARPA rapid launch challenge, has failed to launch in the challenge’s time frame. But it is not all bad. More HERE.

Fantastic, what about China?

• Yutu 2 (Jade Rabbit 2), China’s lunar rover and part of the Chang’e 4 lander, took surface samples of the far side of the moon this past week. More HERE.

• The intrepid rover and lander duo also completed their 15th day on the far side of the Moon this past week. More HERE.

NUCLEAR:

• The Department of Defense is seeking public input for the potential development of an ADVANCED MOBILE NUCLEAR MICROREACTOR. More HERE.

• In April, researches at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory plan to rebuild the NATIONAL SPHERICAL TORUS EXPERIMENT (an experimental nuclear fusion reactor). More HERE.

• A stunning shot of Pluto: LOOK.

The Mars 2020 Rover: “Perseverance”

Credit: NASA JPL 2020.

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Have a good rest of the weekend y’all.

Harry Thomas is a junior in the College studying Economics and Science, Technology, and International Affairs (STIA). He is a Co-President and Co-Founder of Georgetown University Space Initiative.