February 1-7, 2016 / Vol 35, No 5 / Hawai`i Island, USA

Canada SmallSat Symposium: Building Capabilities & International Partnerships

The Canadian Space Commerce Association is hosting its first Canadian SmallSat Symposium at the Novotel Toronto Centre in Ontario, Canada on February 2-3. The Symposium is expected to host more than 200 people from industry, government, universities, the investment community and others interested in this growing segment of space activity. It includes two Luncheon Keynotes featuring S. Pete Worden (R) former NASA Ames Director and Lunar-exploration advocate on Breakthrough Technologies and Sylvain Laporte (C), President of Canadian Space Agency, as well as 6 Plenary Sessions, 8 Panel Discussion, up to 48 individual talks in the technical sessions, networking opportunities and a Student Mini-Symposium. Plenary speakers include Greg Wyler (L), co-founder of OneWeb, which recently attracted US$500 million in funding to deploy a SmallSat constellation to provide affordable high-speed internet connectivity around the world and Wade Larson of UrtheCast, a Canadian company offering live, high definition video from the ISS. Among other notable enterprises from Canada represented at the Symposium are NorthStar Space Data Inc., an emerging company developing its own satellite constellation to supply unique entire Earth and near-Earth space environment data to multiple markets and Canadensys Aerospace Corporation, a space systems and services company focused on accessible space, including with micro and nano space technology, currently working with ILOA on development of the International Lunar Observatory. (Image Credit: CSCA, MSU, NASA) Background Image: Lunar IceCube, Morehead State University & NASA

MONDAY

NET Feb — Hubble Space Telescope, LEO: Spacecraft will search for Earth-sized planets around Proxima Centauri as star passes in front another star; sensitive ground and space-based telescopes, such as ESA Gaia and ESO VLT may search as well.

Feb 1 — ISS, LEO: Expedition 46 six-member crew focusing on EVA and its post-op procedures, loading waste into Cygnus craft, studying how living in space affects using touch-based technologies, performing experiment on materials burning in space; student satellites (Aggiesat4, BEVO-2) released from Kibo airlock will develop / refine autonomous navigation, rendezvous, docking software & procedures.

Feb 1 — Deep Space, Jupiter Trajectory: Traveling at 26,750 kph, Juno spacecraft in Approach Phase, now 154 days from Jupiter insertion, will study giant gas planet interior by measuring magnetic & gravity fields as it passes over various longitudes from N to S in 32 orbits total, each orbit consisting of 14 days.

Feb 1 — Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Eccentric Lunar Polar Orbit: In extension 2 of mission (ends September 15, 2016), mapping Lunar poles at 20 km above S Pole & 165 km above N Pole, collecting data on permanently-shadowed craters, data release 25 expected March 2016.

Feb 1 — Columbia STS-107 13th Observation, Nationwide USA / Global: Annual international conferences and events take place to further space exploration efforts in remembrance of Columbia 7 loss: Commander Richard D. Husband, Mission Specialist Laurel Clark, Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon (the ‘1st Israeli astronaut’) and Astronauts: William C. McCool, Michael P. Anderson, David M. Brown and Kalpana Chawla (the ‘1st Indian American astronaut’ and ‘1st Indian woman in space’).

Feb 1 — Sierra Nevada Corp., Sparks NV: European Space Agency to invest ~US$36M toward development of berthing / docking mechanism for Dream Chaser spacecraft to dock to ISS; possibility craft could launch on Ariane 5 rocket and host microgravity experiments for ESA.

Feb 1 — Blue Origin LLC, Kent WA: Plans to increase New Shepard flight tests with hardware and software modifications, by end of 2016 expects to accelerate turn-around of reused vehicles to less than 2 months while working toward orbital flights, researching with Universities on pathfinder experiments to fly.

Russia Attempt to Rekindle Space Legacy Delayed Further

In the midst of budgetary adjustments and various restructuring, Russia is still the only country launching Humans to ISS and affirms that Moon missions have been a priority for the last 10 years. Igor Komarov, head of the now state-run corporation Roscosmos, announced Russia will spend 30% less on its space program over the next decade (2016-2025), which may affect the 2018 Luna-25 Moon South Pole lander and most likely delay Human Moon missions until ~2035, reusable rocket development until after 2025. USSR stakes claim to the 1st soft Moon landing (50th observation on February 3), sending the 1st artificial satellite into space (Sputnik 1, 1957), the 1st human in space (Yuri Gagarin, 1961), the 1st woman in space (Valentina Tereshkova, 1963) and conducting the 1st spacewalk (1965). The Vostochny Cosmodrome will now have one launch pad instead of two, and will hopefully be operational in April. On Feb 7 a Soyuz rocket is being prepared to launch the Glonass M navigation satellite from Plesetsk Cosmodrome. Meanwhile in space, Cosmonauts Sergey Volkov and Yuri Malenchenko will perform a 5.5-hour EVA on Feb 3 to install hardware and science experiments on the Russia segment of the ISS. One-year crew member Mikhail Kornienko is set to return to Earth on March 2. (Image Credit: Andrey Llyinsky, Roscosmos, NASA)

Feb 1 — Kennedy Space Center, Online / KSC FL: Teleconference with 2 ‘to be named’ Astronauts selected for Induction into the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame, 12:00 EST; to access the teleconference dial: 1-877-716-6777.

Feb 1 — National Radio Astronomy Observatory, National Science Foundation, Associated Universities Inc., Online: NRAO Semester 2016B Call for Proposals due; scientists invited to submit proposals for Green Bank Telescope (GBT), Very Large Array (VLA), Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), High Sensitivity Array (HSA), Global 3mm VLBI Array (GMVA).

Feb 1-2 — Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG), NASA, San Antonio TX: OPAG Meeting; at Southwest Research Institute.

Feb 1-2 — The National Academies, Washington DC: Meeting: NASA Science Mission Extensions: Scientific Value, Policies, and Review Process.

Feb 1-2 — The Royal Society, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom: Meeting: The Origin, History and Role of Water in the Evolution of the Inner Solar System; at Kavli Royal Society Centre, Chicheley Hall.

Feb 1-4 — Applied Technology Institute, Albuquerque NM: Space Systems Fundamentals course; with instructor Dr. Mike Gruntman.

Feb 1-12 — International Centre for Theoretical Physics, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Pune, India: School on Large Scale Structure: From Galaxies to the Cosmic Web.

Feb 1 — Moon: 2.7° NNE of Mars, 00:00.

Feb 1 — Apollo Asteroid 2016 BE: Near-Earth flyby (0.015 AU).