The stunning north pole of Saturn, observed by the Cassini space probe on March 7, 2017.
Saturn’s north polar vortex imaged by Cassini on March 29, 2017. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Jason Major)
Finally, some details about how NASA actually plans to get to Mars
NASA has spent the last six years building the massive Space Launch System rocket, but beyond making general statements about a “Journey to Mars,” the agency has not provided much detail about how the SLS booster would be used to that end. This situation began to change on Tuesday, when the agency’s chief of human spaceflight, Bill Gerstenmaier, briefed the agency’s advisory council on tentative plans for the first dozen launches of the rocket.
During his presentation, Gerstenmaier presented slides outlining the assembly of a “deep space gateway” and subsequent testing of a “deep space transport” system in the vicinity of the Moon. The sequence of missions would culminate in a crewed mission to orbit Mars, but not land, in 2033. Although Gerstenmaier did not identify the funding needed for such a series of events—which would certainly be considerable and require support from the Trump administration—Tuesday’s presentation nonetheless offered an insightful peek into NASA’s future plans.
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These Scientists Sent a Rocket to Mars for Less Than It Cost to Make “The Martian”
On November 5, 2013, a rocket launched toward Mars. It was India’s first interplanetary mission, Mangalyaan, and a terrific gamble. Only 40 percent of missions sent to Mars by major space organizations — NASA, Russia’s, Japan’s, or China’s — had ever been a success. No space organization had entered Mars’s orbit on its first attempt. What’s more, India’s space organization, ISRO, had very little funding: while NASA’s Mars probe, Maven, cost $651 million, the budget for this mission was $74 million. In comparison, the budget for the movie “The Martian” was $108 million. Oh, and ISRO sent off its rocket only 18 months since work on it began.
Nearing its end, Cassini delights again. Here is 35-km Pan in mind-blowing detail with its unmistakable accretionary equatorial bulge. pic.twitter.com/RdgqnH4rkJ
— Carolyn Porco (@carolynporco)March 9, 2017
NASA, ISS partners quietly completing design of possible Moon-orbiting space station
Last month, experts from five space agencies held a behind-the-scenes meeting in Tsukuba, Japan, they home of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. In the following few months, the designs for the largest international undertaking in human spaceflight since the ISS will be reviewed by space agencies. Engineers might also begin constructing the first full-scale prototype of the near-lunar habitat here on Earth to assess the ability of proposed modules to support the crew.
The ISS partners also made a crucial decision in Tsukuba to assemble and operate the proposed cis-lunar station in a so-called Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit, or NRHO. This giant, egg-shaped loop extends 70,000 kilometers from the Moon at its farthest point and comes as close as 1,500 kilometers at the nearest. An NHRO would enable the station to save propellant for orbital corrections and avoids the blocking of sunlight by the Moon from reaching the station’s solar panels, while always keeping the spacecraft within a line of sight to ground controllers on Earth.
The principle of the kinetic impactor mitigation method is that the NEO or Asteroid is deflected following an impact from an impactor spacecraft. The principle of momentum transfer is used, as the impactor crashes into the NEO at a very high velocity of 10km/s or more. The mass and velocity of the impactor (the momentum) are transferred to the NEO, causing a change in velocity, causing it to deviate from its course slightly.
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The kinetic impactor concept has been studied to phase A level within Europe in the frame of the Don Quijote mission study. The experience gained from this study has been used during the NEOShield project in developing the detailed test mission design for the kinetic impactor mitigation method.
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The preferred mission scenario for the NEOShield kinetic impactor test mission is based on launching an reconnaissance spacecraft and an impactor spacecraft together as a stack on a Soyuz rocket from Kourou in French Guiana. In launch configuration the reconnaissance spacecraft will be mounted on top of the impactor spacecraft.
SpaceX to fly two private individuals on a Dragon 2 lunar mission
In a hastily arranged announcement, Elon Musk has revealed a plan to launch a Dragon 2 spacecraft on a circumlunar mission, with two paying customers. The launch, which will be conducted by a Falcon Heavy rocket in late 2018, is being seen as a major statement of intent by SpaceX, especially when NASA is conducting a study to launch a similar mission at least a year later.
The planet #Mercury before and after closest approach from Mariner 10 (1973), and @MESSENGER2011 during its first two flybys (2008)
Capture confirmed! Dragon now attached to the @Space_Station robotic arm pic.twitter.com/07axPcBm20
— SpaceX (@SpaceX)February 23, 2017
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