September 4-10, 2017 / Vol 36, No 36 / Hawai`i Island, USA

= 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: Jupiter (W), Saturn (SW), Uranus (E), Neptune (SE); Morning Planets: Mercury (ESE), Mars (ESE), Venus (E).

Mars Society 20th Convention Focuses on Recent Science, Tech, Developments The four-day 20th Annual International Mars Society Convention with theme From Imagination to Reality is being held September 7-10 at University of California, Irvine. Mars Society President Robert Zubrin (L-R, T-B) will open the convention, followed by Greg Benford, George Whitesides, Loretta Hidalgo-Whitesides, Vera Mulyani and Scott Moreland. UAE Space Agency Director General Mohammed Nasser Al-Ahbabi will be joining via Skype. First Female Private Space Explorer Anousheh Ansari will be the Banquet Speaker. Topics covered are Mars Curiosity, Mars 2020, Europa probe, SpaceX Mars plans, sustainable settlements, farming, artificial gravity harness, space suits, rover designs, radiation, Deep Space Gateway, drilling operations, green launch, cost to orbit and nuclear fusion. Art Harman is presenting on “Cis-Lunar? Why a Lunar Surface Base Will Get us to Mars – and a Lunar Orbital Station Won’t”, “A New Hope – President Trump’s Space Policy”, “Don’t Destroy ISS in 2024 – Privatize it!”, and “Mars Flyby – Do it in the 2020s, not the 2030s.” Other speakers include Carol Stoker, Geoffrey Landis and Bruce Cordell. The new inspirational anthem “Rise to Mars” will be sung by Oscar Castellino accompanied by James Welland Sep 9. (Image Credit: Mars Society, NASA, NSS, Space Show, VG, JPL)

Sep 4-8 — Italy National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), Astronomical Observatory of Rome, Sicily, Italy: Meeting: The Amazing Life of Stars – From the Main Sequence to the Gravitational Wave Emission. Sep 4-8 — ESA, University of California – Berkeley, Leiden, The Netherlands: Workshop: A Decade of the Star-Forming Main Sequence. Sep 4-8 — European Meteorology Society, Dublin, Ireland: European Meteorology Society (EMS) Annual Meeting: European Conference for Applied Meteorology and Climatology 2017. Sep 4 — Mercury: 3.2° SW of Mars, 14:00; with Mars and Regulus within circle of diameter 3.19° and 13° W of Sun. Sep 4 — Neptune: At opposition, 19:00. Sep 4 — Apollo Asteroid 2017 QN: Near-Earth Flyby (0.075 AU). Continued from… Aug 27 – Sep 17 — Aspen Center for Physics, Aspen CO: Workshop: Vorticity in the Universe – From Superfluids to Weather and Climate, to the Universe; Workshop: Developing New Tools for Dark Matter Searches. Sep 2-5 — University of Cape Town, International Commission on the Middle Atmosphere (ICMA), Cape Town, South Africa: Training School on Stratosphere-Troposphere Interactions. Sep 3-7 — UNOOSA, ESA, DLR, Joanneum Research, NPOC Space Law University of Vienna, Graz University of Technology, Austrospace, Municipality of Graz, Graz, Austria: United Nations / Austria Symposium on Access to Space: Holistic Capacity-Building for the 21st Century. Sep 3-9 — University of Rome, University of Pisa, Viterbo, Italy: 7th Meeting on Celestial Mechanics.

TUESDAY

Sep 5 — Voyager 1, Interstellar Space: NASA spacecraft begins 41st year in space today, launched Sep 5, 1977; farthest spacecraft from Earth, first to reach interstellar space.

Sep 5 — Arianespace, Launch Ariane 5 / Intelsat 37e & BSAT 4a, Kourou, French Guiana: Arianespace Ariane 5 ECA rocket, designated VA239, to launch Intelsat 37e and BSAT 4a communications satellites

Sep 5 — JPL, NASA/Caltech, Pasadena CA / Online: Winning #MessageToVoyager beamed to interstellar space.

Sep 5 — Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson AZ: Colloquium: From Pebbles to Planets; Katherine Kretke from SwRI, 15:45.

Sep 5-7 — ESA, University of Warwick, Warwick, United Kingdom: The PLATO Mission Conference 2017: Exoplanetary systems in the PLATO Era.

Sep 5-7 — German Aerospace Center (DLR), ESA, Torino, Italy: 22nd Workshop on Radiation Monitoring for the International Space Station.

Sep 5 — Mars: 0.70° NNE of Regulus, 02:00.

Sep 5 — Moon: 0.74° SSE of Neptune, 19:00.

Sep 5 — Apollo Asteroid 2017 QO: Near-Earth Flyby (0.087 AU).

WEDNESDAY

Sep 6 — CNSA, Launch Long March 2D / VRSS 2, Jiuquan, China: Long March 2D rocket to launch 2nd Venezuelan Remote Sensing Satellite VRSS 2 built by China to collect imagery of Earth for Venezuela for scientific research, national security, disaster response applications.

Sep 6-7 — Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG), NASA, La Jolla CA: Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG) Meeting; at Samuel H. Scripps Auditorium.

Sep 6-19 — University of Evora, European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN), Evora, Portugal: 2017 European School of High-Energy Physics.

Sep 6 — Moon: Full (Corn / Barley Moon), 21:04.

THURSDAY

Sep 7 — SpaceX, Launch Falcon 9 / X-37B OTV-5, LC-39A KSC FL: SpaceX Falcon 9 to launch U.S. Air Force X-37B spaceplane Orbital Test Vehicle on its fifth mission.

Sep 7 — Library of Congress Science, Technology and Business Division, Washington DC: Lecture: Cassini’s Grand Finale; by Conor Nixon, NASA.

Sep 7 — British Interplanetary Society, London, United Kingdom: Lecture: Dangerous Worlds; featuring Elizabeth Tasker from JAXA, 19:00.

Sep 7 — Huntsville Alabama L5 Society (HAL5), Huntsville AL: Monthly Meeting featuring Jessica Gaskin from NASA MSFC on Looking Beyond WFIRST – the Next Large X-Ray Mission – Lynx; at U.S. Space and Rocket Center Education Training Facility.

Sep 7-10 — Mars Society, Irvine CA: 20th Annual International Mars Society Convention; will feature World Premiere of New Mars Anthem “Rise to Mars”; at University of California.

Sep 7 — Apollo Asteroid 2012 FH38 Near-Earth Flyby: Near-Earth Flyby (0.072 AU).

FRIDAY

Sep 8 — 50th Observation of Surveyor 5 Launch, USA Nationwide: Next lunar landers planned for 2017-18 by China Chang’e-5 sample return, India Chandrayaan-2 (lander, orbiter, rover) and private international GLXP teams, NASA Surveyor 5 lunar lander celebrated for its mission success and launch in 1967.

Sep 8 — Space Center Houston, Houston TX: Lunch with an Astronaut, Brian Duffy, adult US$69.95.

SATURDAY

Sep 9 — International Launch Services, Launch Proton / Amazonas 5, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan: ILS to launch Proton with Breeze M upper stage to deploy Amazonas 5 communications satellite for telecommunications services over Mexico, Central America, South America for Hispasat of Madrid.

Sep 9-14 — European Institute for Sciences and their Applications (EISA) Laboratory of Annecy-le-Vieux for Theoretical Physics (LAPTh), CERN, Corfu, Greece: Workshop on Particle Physics and Cosmology TOOLS.

Sep 9 — Epsilon Perseid Meteor Shower Peak: Appearing to radiate from the constellation Perseid, the September Epsilon Perseids can reach up to 5 per hour traveling at ~65 km per second.

Sep 9 — Moon: 4.1° SSE of Uranus, 03:00.

Sep 9 — Apollo Asteroid 2015 FO124: Near-Earth Flyby (0.070 AU).

SUNDAY

Sep 10 — Tucson L5 Space Society – NSS Chapter, Tucson AZ: Tucson L5 Space Society monthly meeting.

Sep 10 — Mauna Kea Visitor Information Station, Mauna Kea HI (2,800 meters): Star Gazing program, 18:00 22:00, weather permitting, free.

Sep 10 — Mercury: 0.60° S. of Regulus, 02:00.

Sep 10 — Amor Asteroid 2017 OP68: Near-Earth Flyby (0.051 AU).