World Space Week: Inspiring Discovery

SC Feature World Space Week

Growing into the largest public space event on Earth, World Space Week is a global celebration of the many contributions that science, technology and education add toward the betterment of humanity. The project is coordinated by the United Nations, based on a UN General Assembly declaration, with support from World Space Week Association (WSWA) and a hardworking team of National Coordinators. Some of the goals are to provide unique leverage in space outreach and education, educate people around the world about the benefits that they receive from space, encourage greater use of space for sustainable economic development and foster international cooperation. In 2015 organizers are hoping to top the 1,400 events in 80 countries logged last year. There are events set this year on every major continent, with the highest concentration being in Europe. The Board of Directors of WSWA is chaired by Max Grimard of Airbus Defence and Space and includes Buzz Aldrin, Anousheh Ansari, Art Dula, Tom Hanks, Elon Musk, Bill Nye, Misuzu Onuki, Seiichi Sakamoto, Chris Welch, Yang Junhua, George Abbey and Adigun Ade Abiodun. (Image Credit: NASA, WSWA, UNOOSA, Solar Fuels Institute, NewSpace2014)

MONDAY

Oct 5 — ISS, LEO: Expedition 45 transferring ~3,000 kg of cargo from Progress 61P, continuing to work with SPHERES experiment & ocular ultrasound study, routing cables in Destiny laboratory to support Cygnus cargo mission planned for early Dec, Kelly and Lindgren reviewing procedures for 2 U.S. EVAs in late Oct / early Nov.

Oct 5 — Chandra X-ray Observatory, HEO: In highly elliptical 65-hour orbit, studying Sagittarius A*, data indicates the supermassive 4-Million solar mass black hole is producing 10 times the normal amount of X-ray flares; normal rate is 1 bright X-ray flare about every 10 days.

Oct 5 — Juno, Jupiter Trajectory: Scheduled to arrive at Jupiter July 4, 2016, will be 2nd craft to have orbited Jupiter; planning to orbit gas giant 33 times, 5,000 km above clouds; ESA is working to launch JUICE in 2022, NASA selecting science instruments for Europa Clipper mission to launch ~2025.

Oct 5 — Cassini OTM-423, Saturn Orbit: Spacecraft conducts Orbital Trim Maneuver #423 today.

Oct 5 — Astrobotic Technology Inc., Pittsburgh PA: NewSpace company signs agreement to send Lunar Mission One’s ‘Footsteps on the Moon’ digital storage payload to Moon; now has 8 payloads to piggyback on Griffin lander (including Team Hakuto rover).

Oct 5 — Spaceflight Industries, Tukwila WA: Purchasing & manifesting a SpaceX rocket for its first rideshare mission “2017 Sun Synch Express” in Q2 2017, twenty satellites already manifested; planning yearly dedicated rideshare missions, has 135 satellites to deploy through 2018.

Oct 5 — Virgin Galactic, Las Cruces NM: Developing & testing 324-newton (73,500-lbf) LOX/RP-1 engine to power LauncherOne small payload launch vehicle capable of lofting 200 kg to Sun Synchronous Orbit.

OCT - DEC 2015 = All times

for terrestrial events in local time unless noted.

= All times for international terrestrial events in local time unless noted.

= All times for space events, and…

= All times for international space / astro events in Hawaii Standard Time unless noted. Add 10 hours to obtain UT (‘Universal Time;’ Greenwich, England).


Weekly Planet Watch – Evening Planets: Saturn (SW), Uranus (E), Neptune (SE); Morning Planets: Venus (E), Mars (E), Jupiter (E).

5th LunarCubes Workshop Focuses on Moon Missions Potential, Funding and Infrastructure

LunarCubes 5th

The 5th International Workshop on LunarCubes is being held in Silicon Valley, California October 6-9 at the Doubletree Hilton San Jose. NewSpace company Flexure Engineering, with Russell Cox (pictured L-R) as CEO, hosts Lunar Initiatives including Lunar Surface Applications Workshops, The Lunar Conference (Italy 2016, South Korea 2018, Czech Republic 2020), Lunar Artwork Challenges and Lunar Geophysical Year 2017-2018. This year’s speakers include Dan Faber of Deep Space Industries, Jim Cockrell from NASA / Cube Quest Challenge, John Powell from JP Aerospace, Friedemann Freund from SETI, Yang Liu of SwRI and Steve Durst of ILOA. LunarCube technologies are being developed for Lunar IceCube to search for ice, liquid, and vapor water on the Moon surface from a highly inclined elliptical orbit (Morehead State University), Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper (LunaH-Map) to map hydrogen distribution at Moon South Pole up to a meter beneath the surface (Arizona State University), Lunar Flashlight to map Moon South Pole for water-ice deposits on surface and demonstrate 80 square meter solar sail (JPL, UCLA, MSFC), and Hydrogen Albedo Lunar Orbiter (HALO) to investigate the lunar hydrogen cycle and origin of water by examining reflected hydrogen in the Moon’s solar wind (GSFC). The first privately-funded Moon mission, 14-kg OHB 4M spacecraft developed by LuxSpace, traveled to the Moon October 2014 via China Long March 3C, performed a lunar flyby and transmitted signals for 438 hours. (Image Credit: Flexure Engineering, JP Aerospace, SETI, NASA, SwRI, Morehead State University, LuxSpace, OHB, Sean Amidan, ASU, SpaceTREx, JPL)

Oct 5 — European Astrobiology Network Association, ESA-ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands: Astrobiology Graduates in Europe (AbGradE) Mission Design Workshop.

Oct 5 — Bradford Astronomical Society, Bradford, United Kingdom: Presentation: Neptune – A Calculated Guess.

Oct 5 — Cornell University, Ithaca NY: Lecture: Topographic Evidence of True Polar Wander on Enceladus; presented by Radwan Tajedine.

Oct 5-7 — Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore MD: Workshop: Feedback in the Magellanic Clouds.

Oct 5-9 — Haute-Provence Observatory, Mont Saint-Michel, France: OHP 2015 Colloquium: Twenty Years of Giant Exoplanets.

Oct 5 — Moon: 11.6° S of Pollux, 11:00.

Oct 5 — Amor Asteroid 2009 TK: Near-Earth flyby (0.045 AU).

Continued from…

Aug 28 – Aug 28, 2016 — NASA, University of Hawai`i at Mānoa, Mauna Loa HI: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) Mission 4; at 2,440-meter altitude.

Sep 14 – Dec 7 — SSERVI, NASA, Online: SSERVI teams at University of Central FL (CLASS) and Brown University/MIT (SEEED) give 13 lectures on Planetary Evolution: Phobos and Deimos, every Monday; live coverage available.

Sep 28 – Nov 27 — Charles Miller, SpaceNews, Online / Alexandria VA: Commercial Space Executive Training course.

NET Oct — ISRO, Launch of Reusable Launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD), Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota, India: India RLV-TD mission planned to occur late this month.

NET Oct — Taiwan National Space Organization, Advanced Rocket Research Center, Jiupeng Base, Pingtung, Taiwan: First crowd-funded rocket of Taiwan to be launched to 100-km altitude this month.

Oct 4-10 — World Space Week Association, Global: World Space Week 2015: Discovery; annual celebration of international contributions of space science and technology to the betterment of the human condition; Oct 4 is 58th observation of 1st Space mission Sputnik One launched by Soviet Union 1957; Oct 10 is 48th observation of Outer Space Treaty going into effect 1967.

TUESDAY

Oct 6-7 — DLR, ESA, CNES, Darmstadt, Germany: 4th Human Dependability Workshop (HUDEP 2015).

Oct 6-9 — Flexure Engineering, San Jose CA: 5th International Workshop on LunarCubes (LCW 5); topics include NewSpace, Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs, NASA, JPL, CubeQuest, SLS EM-1, Cislunar Communication & Transportation Infrastructure.

Oct 6-9 — European Astrobiology Network Association, ESA-ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands: 15th EANA Astrobiology Conference.

Oct 6 — Moon: 5.5° SSW of Beehive Cluster, 14:00.

WEDNESDAY

Oct 7 — Cornell University, Ithaca NY: Lecture: Discovering the Radio Universe; presented by Ken Kellermann.

Oct 7 — British Interplanetary Society, London, United Kingdom: Lecture: The History and Applications of the Geostationary Orbit; presented by Stuart Eves.

Oct 7 — Lunar Missions Ltd., United Kingdom / Online: Last Day for Young Persons and Young Adults “Send yourself to the Moon” art competition.

Oct 7-8 — New Mexico Space Grant Consortium, Blue Origin, AIAA, ULA, Boeing Co., et al, Las Cruces NM: International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS 2015).

Oct 7 — Apollo Asteroid 2007 RU9: Near-Earth flyby (0.051 AU).

Oct 7 — Aten Asteroid 2014 MZ17: Near-Earth flyby (0.081 AU).

THURSDAY

Oct 8 — ULA, Launch Atlas 5 / NROL-55, Vandenberg AFB CA: United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket to launch classified spacecraft payload for U.S. National Reconnaissance Office.

Oct 8 — Hosted Payload Alliance, Washington DC: Hosted Payload and Smallsat Summit; at Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

Oct 8 — Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA, Greenbelt MD: NASA GSFC Flight Mechanics and Propulsion, Guidance, Navigation & Control Technology and Capabilities Showcase.

Oct 8 — Library of Congress – Science, Technology and Business Division, Washington DC: Lecture: The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (Tess); presented by Stephen Rinehart.

Oct 8 — Cornell University, Ithaca NY: Lecture: Discovering the Radio Universe; presented by Ken Kellermann.

Oct 8 — SpaceVR, Online: Last Day to support SpaceVR: Step into Space Kickstarter Campaign to place virtual reality camera on the International Space Station.

Oct 8, 9 — Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech/NASA, Pasadena CA: von Kármán Lecture Series: Unveiling an Alien World: Dawn at Ceres; presented by Dr. Carol Raymond of DAWN Deputy Principal Investigator.

Oct 8-9 — STSG Poland (Społeczne Towarzystwo Szkoły Gimnazjalnej – Social Association of High Schools), Warsaw, Poland: Poland International Conference on Space Applications (PICOSA2015).

Oct 8 — Moon: 3.2° SSW of Regulus, 10:00; 0.97° SSW of Venus, 11:00.

Oct 8 — Venus: 2.5° SSW of Regulus, 20:00.

Oct 8 — Draconids Meteor Shower Peak: Appearing to radiate from constellation Draco, Draconids offer slow moving (20 km/s) meteors which are faint and fragment easily, about 10-20 per hour; peak 20:00.

FRIDAY

Oct 9 — The British Interplanetary Society, Herschel Society, Bath, United Kingdom: Joint British Interplanetary Society and Herschel Society Meeting: Zero Gravity; presented by John C. Ives at Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute.

Oct 9 — The Royal Astronomical Society, London, United Kingdom: Royal Astronomical Society Ordinary Meeting; Specialist Meeting: Weather on Other Planets: Measurement and Interpretation.

Oct 9-11 — Flexure Engineering, Startup Grind, San Jose & Sacramento CA: Hack the Moon.

Oct 9-11 — The Astronomical Society of New Haven, Goshen CT: 25th Connecticut Star Party (CSP); at Edmund D. Strang Scout Reservation.

Oct 9-10 — Space Studies Board of U.S. National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Council, National Space Science Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China: 2015-16 Forum for New Leaders in Space Science.

Oct 9-11 — United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, Jerusalem, Israel: United Nations/International Astronautical Federation Workshop on Space Technology for Socio-Economic Benefits: Water Resources Management; Canceled.

Oct 9 — Moon: 3.3° SSW of Mars, 05:00; with Mars & Jupiter within circle diameter of 3.99° and 35° W of Sun, 08:00; 2.6° SSW of Jupiter 12:00.

Oct 9 — Apollo Asteroid 2010 SX11: Near-Earth flyby (0.040 AU).

SATURDAY

Oct 10-11 — Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA/Caltech, Pasadena CA: Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Open House.

Oct 10 — Apollo Asteroid 2015 SZ: Near-Earth flyby (0.047 AU).

SUNDAY

Oct 11 — International Astronautical Federation, Jerusalem, Israel: 2015 IPMC Young Professionals Workshop.

Oct 11 — International Academy of Astronautics, Jerusalem, Israel: IAA Academy Day.

Oct 11 — Moon: 0.90° SSW of Mercury, 02:00; at apogee (distance 405,960 km), 03:00.

Oct 11 — Uranus: At opposition, 18:00.