ESA Conference Explores Space for Inspiration

calendar-feature-esa-space-for-inspiration

The conference hosted September 14-15 at Science Museum in South Kensington, London, United Kingdom with theme Space for Inspiration – ISS and Beyond is organized by ESA as an opportunity to explore how research in the unique environment of space creates opportunities to meet key challenges on Earth. Along with expert speakers highlighting new possibilities in engineering, materials, life sciences and the environment, the program includes live demonstrations and interactive sessions covering key areas such as smart materials, agriculture, biology, food, medicine and health. Feature presentations include ESA Director General Johann-Dietrich Woerner with his vision for human and robotic cooperation for exploration and development at lunar poles / far side, ESA Director of Human Spaceflight and Robotic Exploration David Parker and ESA Astronauts Timothy Peake and Luca Parmitano, as well as NASA Astronaut Don Pettit. With the intention of creating new opportunities for business, public policy and for humankind at-large the diverse international speaker list includes leaders and innovators from outside the traditional aerospace and NewSpace sectors, such as Unilever Senior Director for Sustainable Innovation Abhay A Bhagwat, Film Producer Duncan Copp, Novelist Nick Harkaway, Raspberry Pi Foundation Education Resource Engineer David Honess, Science Comedian Helen Keen, Bayer Global Digital Farming Technology Lead Alex Melnitchouck, Chef Thorsten Schmidt and others. As the world’s premier space research platform the ISS, a major recurring element in this ESA conference, has hosted more than 1,760 research investigations involving more than 83 countries. (Image Credit: ESA)

MONDAY

Sep 12 — ISS, LEO: Expedition 49 three-member crew with Anatoly Ivanishin of Roscosmos in command transferring cargo from Progress MS-02 & MS-03, new crew members Robert Kimbrough, Andrei Borisenko & Sergey Ryzhikov on Earth preparing for launch; Space Station has been in orbit more than 6,506 days; to date 549 people have been to Space including 60 women.

Sep 12 — Hubble Space Telescope, 558-km Altitude LEO: Veteran spacecraft with 2.4-meter diameter main telescope and more than 1.2M observations, receives US$114.3M NASA contract extension with Lockheed Martin to continue operations until June 30, 2021.

Sep 12 — New Horizons, KBO 2014 MU69 Trajectory: Data from Pluto flyby reveals methane snow-capped mountains on Southern region of dwarf planet; now ~5.38B km from Earth, craft imaging bodies in Kuiper Belt, including dwarf planet 50000 Quaoar (half the diameter of Pluto ~1,110 km) and distant galaxies.

Sep 12 — ISRO, Bengaluru, India: India Space Agency very likely planning to open New Frontier by landing Chandrayaan-2 at Moon South Pole, Malapert Mountain; mission expected to launch on GSLV Mk. 2 first half of 2018 with lander, rover, orbiter to explore region, perform mineralogical & elemental studies of lunar surface.

Sep 12 — Bigelow Aerospace, Las Vegas NV: NewSpace company future vision of Moon and Mars habitats remains in focus as inflatable BEAM at ISS continues being tested / monitored, planning to launch two B330s (XBASE) by 2020 perhaps to attach to ISS, collaborating with NASA, ULA, Japan Manned Space Systems Corporation, others.

Sep 12 — ENBIO, Dublin, Ireland: Provides coatings free from volatile organic compounds to protect satellites from solar radiation; ESA expects space companies in Ireland to grow from 50 to over 80 by 2020 generating more than €150M (US$168.5M), planing to open new ESA Space Solutions Centre in Cork to support start-ups.

Sep 12 — KuangChi Science, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China: Working to launch customers to 20-30 km altitude in Traveller capsule attached to high-altitude balloon for ‘near-space’ experience from Hangzhou theme park “Future Valley” scheduled to be completed end of 2017, initial investment of US$1.5B being dedicated to project.

Sep 12-14 — UNOOSA, Government of Austria, ESA, Graz, Austria: United Nations / Austria Symposium on Integrated Space Technology Applications for Climate Change.

SEP - NOV 2016 = 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: Venus (W), Mars (SW), Saturn (SW); Morning Planets: Uranus (SE), Neptune (S).

AIAA SPACE 2016 Conference to Bring 1,500 Attendees to Long Beach CA

SPACE 2016

The AIAA 2016 SPACE Conference is being held September 13-16 at Long Beach Convention Center in California. Attendees from ~28 nations will share latest research and achievements in space, build new partnerships and outreach to students and young professionals. Industry representatives, researchers and educators will present more than 650 technical papers under 17 topics such as Reinventing Space, Small Satellites, Space Exploration, Space Transportation & Launch Systems, and Human Space Exploration, Architecture, and Colonization. There will be an exhibit hall, poster session, Space & Astronautics award ceremony, a public lecture on the Juno mission by Scott Bolton and Rick Nybakken (L-R, T-B), and an ‘Evening of Astronaut Stories from the Cosmic Frontier’ with Sandy Magnus, Chris Ferguson, Greg Johnson, Garrett Reisman and James Voss. Also speaking will be Charles Bolden of NASA, Pascale Ehrenfreund of DLR, Sophia Bright of Boeing Co., Wanda Austin of Aerospace Corp. and Bernard Kutter of ULA. Part of the Forum 360 panel discussions will be on Icy Moons and Ocean Worlds, Launch 2020, and Global Perspectives with Mangesh Sannala of ISRO, Hiro Iwamoto of JAXA and Jean Pascal Le Franc of CNES. (Image Credit: AIAA, NASA, JPL, SwRI, DLR, Energia, et al)

Sep 12-14 — Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA, Greenbelt MD: Biosignatures of Extant Life on Ocean Worlds Workshop.

Sep 12-14 — Space Telescope Science Institute, American Astronomical Society, Baltimore MD: Conference: Linking Exoplanets and Disks – Bridging Compositions and Communities, Towards the Future.

Sep 12-15 — ESA Madrid, Spain: SPICE observation geometry training class; free and open to all professionals and students involved in Solar System exploration.

Sep 12-15 — Arianespace, SES, Lockheed Martin, Spacenews, ViaSatellite, Euroconsult, Paris, France: Summit for Satellite Financing; at Westin hotel.

Sep 12-15 — J. Heyrovsky Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, European Union COST Action, Liblice, Czech Republic: Evolution of Chemical Complexity: From Simple Interstellar Molecules to Terrestrial Biopolymers; at Liblice Castle.

Sep 12-16 — University of Nova Gorica, International Astronomical Union, Ljubljana, Slovenia: IAU Symposium 324: New Frontiers in Black Hole Astrophysics.

Sep 12-16 — Interuniversity Consortium for Space Physics (Consorzio Interuniversitario per la Fisica Spaziale), L’Aquila, Italy: International School of Space Science Course: Planetary Interiors.

Sep 12 — Mercury: At inferior conjunction with Sun, 0.642 AU from Earth.

Sep 12 — Apollo Asteroid 2016 LX48: Near-Earth flyby (0.046 AU).

Continued from…

Aug 7 – Sep 30 — Airbus, Perlan Project, Teachers in Space, El Calafate, Argentina: Teachers in Space Ground Crew Education Program; team members will fly experiments at 27,500-meter altitudes in air as thin as Mars atmosphere, verify operations and retrieve data for posting to internet.

Aug 28 – Sep 18 — Aspen Center for Physics, Aspen CO: Workshop: Approaching the Stellar Astrophysical Limits of Exoplanet Detection – Getting to 10 cm/s.

Sep 1-12 — Rencontres du Vietnam, Quy Nhon University, French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Quy Nhon, Vietnam: 22nd Vietnam School of Physics (VSOP-22).

Sep 10-13 — European Space Foundation, Planet PR Agency, Jasionka, Poland: European Rover Challenge.

TUESDAY

NET Sep 13 — CNSA, Launch Long March 2F / Tiangong-2, Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, Inner Mongolia: Tiangong-2 Space Lab (14.4 meters long, 20,000 kg) to launch to LEO, followed by crew and cargo missions; intended to support missions of 3 crew members for 20 days.

Sep 13-16 — AIAA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Aerion Technologies, et al, Long Beach CA: SPACE 2016 Conference; at Long Beach Convention Center.

Sep 13-16 — Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching, Germany: Workshop: Multiple Faces of Interstellar Dust.

Sep 13-16 — ESA, IEEE, Noordwijk, The Netherlands: 7th ESA International Workshop on Tracking, Telemetry and Command Systems for Space Applications (TTC 2016).

Sep 13-17 — Australia Telescope National Facility, CSIRO, Queenstown, New Zealand: Conference: Innovation and Discovery in Radio Astronomy – A Celebration of the Career of Ron Ekers.

WEDNESDAY

Sep 14 — Langley Local History Society, Oldbury, United Kingdom: Odyssey Dramatic Presentation: Lunatick Astronomy; by Andrew Lound, UK National Coordinator for the Planetary Society, 10:30.

Sep 14-15 — ESA Directorate of Human Spaceflight and Robotic Exploration, London, United Kingdom: Conference: Space for Inspiration – ISS and Beyond; with ESA Director General Johann-Dietrich Woerner, Astronaut Luca Parmitano, ESA Director of Human Spaceflight and Robotic Exploration David Parker.

Sep 14-15 — The National Academies, Irvine CA: Committee on Astrobiology and Planetary Science Meeting.

Sep 14-16 — Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun, Poland: Conference: Interstellar Shocks – Models, Observations & Experiments.

Sep 14 — Amor Asteroid 2016 QM10: Near-Earth flyby (0.094 AU).

THURSDAY

Sep 15 — ESA, Launch Vega / PeruSat 1 & SkySat, Kourou, French Guiana: Europe Vega rocket, designated VV07, to launch PeruSat 1 reconnaissance satellite for Peru government and 4 SkySat Earth observation satellites for Google/Terra Bellas.

Sep 15 — Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Space Traffic Management Conference Team, Online / Daytona Beach FL: Abstracts Due: 3rd Annual Space Traffic Management Conference: Emerging Dynamics; to be held Nov 16-18.

Sep 15 — British Interplanetary Society, London, United Kingdom: The UK Contribution to Understanding the Space Domain; Squadron Leader Ralph ‘Dinz’ Dinsley.

Sep 15-16 — The National Academies, Washington DC: Decadal Survey for Earth Science and Applications from Space: Integrating Themes Meeting.

Sep 15-28 — Mars City Foundation, Mars City Design LLC, University of Southern California, Los Angeles CA: Mars City PowerLab Workshop 2016; two-week Science Retreat for participants to begin tangibly building technology and tools for living on Mars; with Apollo 11 Buzz Aldrin, James Erickson, Madhu Thangavelu, more.

Sep 15 — Moon: 1.1° NNW of Neptune, 10:00.

Sep 15 — Apollo Asteroid 2011 BT15: Near-Earth flyby (0.051 AU).

FRIDAY

Sep 16 — United Launch Alliance, Launch Atlas 5 / WorldView 4, Vandenberg AFB CA: ULA Atlas 5 rocket, designated AV-062, to launch WorldView 4 Earth observation satellite for DigitalGlobe, 11:30-11:44.

Sep 16 — Women in Aerospace, Washington DC: Aerospace 2016 Conference: The Commercialization of Space; at Marriott Metro Center.

Sep 16 — Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston TX: Lecture: NEOWISE – Mission Overview and Recent Results; Joseph Masiero of JPL, 15:30.

Sep 16 — Moon: Full (Harvest Moon), 09:05.

Sep 16 — Penumbral Eclipse of Moon: Occurs when Sun, Earth, Moon align in an almost straight line, 06:54:42-10:53:59 HST (16:54:42-20:53:59 UT).

SATURDAY

Sep 17 — Reading Astronomical Society, Reading, United Kingdom: Odyssey Dramatic Presentation: Comets – Signposts in History.

Sep 17 — Zero Gravity Corporation, Online / Arlington VA: Last Day to Apply: Contest to fly with Zero-G; celebrating the 400th commercial zero-g flight, four winners will experience weightlessness for free.

Sep 17 — Apollo Asteroid 2016 QL44: Near-Earth flyby (0.009 AU).

SUNDAY

Sep 18-23 — ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia: 2016 CAASTRO Scientific Conference: Changing Face of Galaxies: Uncovering Transformational Physics.

Sep 18-23 — National Science Foundation, NASA Astrobiology Program, Cambridge MA: Joint NASA-NSF Ideas Lab on the Origins of Life.

Sep 18-24 — Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), Padova University, Mesoamerican Centre for Theoretical Physics (MCTP) at University of Chiapas, Dolomites, Italy: Conference: Cosmic Ray Origin – Beyond the Standard Models; at Conference center of San Vito di Cadore.

Sep 18 — Moon: At perigee (distance 361,490 km), 07:09; 2.8° SSE of Uranus, 08:00.

Sep 18 — Venus: 2.4° NNE of Spica, 10:00.

Sep 18 — Amor Asteroid 2016 QS11: Near-Earth flyby (0.031 AU).