NextBigFuture.com hosts Carnival of Space #614 and the Urban Astronomer hosts Carnival of Space #615.
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Shoot for the Moon:
The Space Race and the Extraordinary Voyage of Apollo 11
The guests and topics of discussion on The Space Show this week:
1. Monday, June 10, 2019; 2-3:30 pm PDT (4-5:30 pm CDT, 5-6:30 pm EDT): No show for today. Monday is for special and timely programs only.
2. Tuesday, June 11, 2019; 7-8:30 pm PDT (9-10:30 pm CDT, 10-11:30 pm EDT): We welcome David Chudwin, author of I Was a Teenage Space Reporter: From Apollo 11 to Our Future in Space
3. Wednesday, June 12, 2019: Hotel Mars. See Upcoming Show Menu and the website newsletter for details. Hotel Mars is pre-recorded by John Batchelor. It is archived on The Space Show site after John posts it on his website.
4. Friday, June 14, 2019; 9:30-11 am PDT (11:30 am -1 pm CDT, 12:30-2 pm EDT): We welcome back James A. M. Muncy to the show for space policy, news and much more.
5. Sunday, June 16, 2019; 12-1:30 pm PDT (3-4:30 pm EDT, 2-3:30 pm CDT): No show due to Father’s Day.
Some recent shows:
** Sun, 06/02/2019 – Science fiction author and professional space historian, Gideon Marcus talked about his Galactic Journeys. website, “a portal to 55 years ago in science fact and fiction, covering the Space Race, the books, the movies, and the culture of the early 1960s”.
** Fri, 05/31/2019 – Dr. Greg Matloff and C. Bangs “discussed their book, Stellar Engineering
** Tue, 05/28/2019 – James Donovan talked about his new book, Shoot for the Moon: The Space Race and the Extraordinary Voyage of Apollo 11
See also:
* The Space Show on Vimeo – webinar videos
* The Space Show’s Blog – summaries of interviews.
* The Space Show Classroom Blog – tutorial programs
The Space Show is a project of the One Giant Leap Foundation.
A sampling of links to recent space policy, politics, and government (US and international) related space news and resource items that I found of interest:
Webcasts:
** NASA Opens International Space Station to Commercial Opportunities:
During a June 7 news conference at Nasdaq in New York City, NASA announced that the International Space Station is now open for commercial business. A new policy provides the opportunity for up to two short-duration private astronaut missions to the space station beginning as early as 2020, if the market supports it. The policy also, for the first time, includes prices for use of U.S. government resources to pursue commercial and marketing activities aboard the station. The agency’s goal is to foster a robust ecosystem in low-Earth orbit through which it can purchase services as one of many customers. This will allow NASA to focus resources on its Artemis missions to land the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024.
** The 2019 Humans to Mars Summit – videos of panels, talks, and interviews are available now on the ExploreMars.Org YouTube channel. For example:
*** Is There a Commercial Market on or Around the Moon that will Lead to Mars?
*** Should We Commit to an Early Orbital Mission to Mars?
** June 7, 2019 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast | Behind The Black
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The Case for Space:
How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up
a Future of Limitless Possibility
A sampling of recent articles, press releases, etc. related to student and amateur CubeSat / SmallSat projects and programs:
** Crowd-funding chip-sats released into orbit on second try: Inexpensive chip-size satellites orbit Earth | Stanford News
A swarm of 105 tiny satellites the size of computer chips, costing under $100 each, recently launched into Earth’s orbit. Stanford scientist Zac Manchester, who dreamed up the ChipSats, said they pave the way for cheaper and easier space exploration.
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Each ChipSat is a circuit board slightly larger than a postage stamp. Built for under $100 apiece, each ChipSat uses solar cells to power its essential systems: the radio, microcontroller and sensors that enable each device to locate and communicate with its peers. In the future, ChipSats could contain electronics tailored to specific missions, Manchester said. For instance, they could be used to study weather patterns, animal migrations or other terrestrial phenomena. Spacefaring applications might include mapping the surface features or internal composition of asteroids or moons orbiting other planets.
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In 2009, while studying with Cornell professor Mason Peck, Manchester envisioned how to engineer the electronic essence of a satellite into a device even cheaper and easier to build than a CubeSat. In 2011, he crowdfunded his project by putting it on Kickstarter.com, quickly raising about $75,000 from 315 contributors, and what he initially called the KickSat project was born. “I want to make it easy and affordable enough for anyone to explore space” is how Manchester put it at the time.
The first attempt in 2014 failed when the CubeSat containing the ChipSats did not open before de-orbiting. The re-designed KickSat-2 was attached along with other smallsats to a Northrop-Grumman Cygnus cargo vehicle launched to the ISS last November. After the Cygnus departed from the ISS, the small satellites were deployed into orbit. Then on March 18th, the 105 ChipSats were released from their CubeSat mothership.
That moment finally came, when the deployment commands were transmitted from the 60-foot dish behind the Stanford campus. Another anxious day passed before Manchester learned that the sensitive dish antenna had detected the faint signals from the ChipSats, which meant they were operational. Manchester worked with collaborators around the world to track the ChipSats as they transmitted data until reentering the atmosphere and burning up on March 21.
More about the project:
** HuskySat-1 is a student project at the University of Washington. The CubeSat is booked for launch aboard a Cygnus cargo vehicle (NG-12) on an Antares rocket that is currently set to lift off from Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia on October 19, 2019.
The Husky Satellite Lab is a student-run aerospace research club working on establishing a space presence for the University of Washington. We are currently working on our first mission, HuskySat-1. The HS1 is currently undergoing flight model integration testing.
Our Mission is to foster interdisciplinary student participation in space systems research, to inspire and train future space scientists and engineers, and to advance spacecraft capabilities at the University of Washington.
Our Team is composed primarily of UW undergraduate and graduate students, as well as mentors from the local aerospace industry. Our lead principal investigator is Professor Robert Winglee.
** More about the Chinese amateur radio satellite mentioned here last week: CAS-7B (BP-1B) amateur radio satellite now ready for launch | Southgate Amateur Radio News
** AMSAT news on student and amateur CubeSat/smallsat projects: ANS-160 AMSAT News Service Special Bulletin
See AMSAT (@AMSAT) | Twitter for more AMSAT news.
General CubeSat/SmallSat info:
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The Case for Space:
How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up
a Future of Limitless Possibility
The latest episode of NASA’s weekly Space to Ground report on activities related to the International Space Station:
** Sunset Timelapse from the International Space Station
Enjoy this sped-up Earth view, captured by the Expedition 59 astronauts currently onboard the International Space Station. The station orbits the Earth every 90 minutes — meaning this sunset you see is actually one of 16 the station residents see each day!
** NASA Live: Earth Views from the Space Station
Behold, the Earth! See live views of Earth from the International Space Station coming to you by NASA’s High Definition Earth Viewing (HDEV) experiment.
While the experiment is operational, views will typically sequence through the different cameras. If you are seeing a black image, the Space Station is on the night side of the Earth. If you are seeing an image with text displayed, the communications are switching between satellites and camera feeds are temporarily unavailable. Between camera switches, a black & gray slate will also briefly appear.
The experiment was activated on April 30, 2014 and is mounted on the External Payload Facility of the European Space Agency’s Columbus module. This experiment includes several commercial HD video cameras aimed at the Earth which are enclosed in a pressurized and temperature controlled housing. To learn more about the HDEV experiment, visit: https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/ESRS/HDEV/
Please note: The HDEV cycling of the cameras will sometimes be halted, causing the video to only show select camera feeds. This is handled by the HDEV team, and is only scheduled on a temporary basis. Nominal video will resume once the team has finished their scheduled event.
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Outpost in Orbit: A Pictorial & Verbal History of the Space Station
