October 26 – November 1, 2020 / Vol 39, No 43 / Hawai`i Island, USA

Artemis Generation Plans Lunar Return as ISS Reaches 20 Years of Continuous Human Occupation

Expedition 64 with Sergey Ryzhikov, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Kate Rubins will celebrate ISS passing its 20th full year / entering the 21st of continuous human occupation November 2. Victor Glover is set to become the 242nd person to visit ISS as part of SpaceX Crew-1 mission mid-Nov and would be the 1st Black Astronaut to join a long-term ISS crew. From an average altitude of ~400 km, ISS orbits Earth 16 times a day – nearly the same distance to the Moon and back. Capable of docking 8 ships at once, there are 4 craft which deliver cargo (Progress, HTV, Cygnus, Dragon) and soon to be 3 qualified for humans (Soyuz, Dragon, Starliner). More than 3,000 research investigations have been conducted from 108 countries, with ~200 ongoing any given day. 20 payloads can be hosted externally including Earth sensing equipment, materials science payloads and particle physics experiments such as Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-02. A total of 231 spacewalks (equaling 1,439 hours and 49 minutes) have been performed, the longest of which was March 2001 by STS-102 crew Susan Helms and James Voss at 8 hours 56 mins. There are >50 computers and 350,000 sensors monitoring crew and station health. While only 19 countries have sent people to ISS, perhaps the Artemis Program will represent more of the nearly 8 Billion people / 250+ countries and territories on Earth. (Image Credits: NASA)

MONDAY

India Approaches Major National Space Program and NewSpace Milestones

ISRO aims for an early November return to flight with PSLV-C49, the 76th launch from Satish Dhawan Space Centre. Utilizing PSLV-CA (Core Alone) configuration, RISAT-2BR2 Synthetic Aperture Radar earth observation satellite (companion to RISAT-2) and international rideshare payloads are to be lifted to 37-degree inclination orbit. Launch subcontractor Spaceflight Inc. of Seattle is providing logistical support to Kleos Space of Luxembourg, on location in Sriharikota. ‘Kleos’ Scouting Mission’ to insert the first 4 Radio Frequency Reconnaissance smallsats of future constellation. Small Sat Launch Vehicle (SSLV) inaugural flight is to follow from the same site, after launch pad retrofitting to suit the ‘Baby PSLV’ geared for commercial needs. The 34-m SSLV is to have payload capacity of 500 kg to LEO and 300-kg to SSO, and will be marketed by NewSpace India Limited, a commercial arm of ISRO for ~US$16.3M. A new spaceport in Kulasekarapattinam, Tamil Nadu, which will accommodate a due south trajectory (saving fuel that would otherwise be spent avoiding Sri Lanka downrange) is under construction to accommodate what is hoped to be regular, 2-3x monthly launch activity. Indian Human Spaceflight Program strives to realize Gaganyaan, with two orbital test flights (1,2) and crewed flight (3) set to send 1-3 Gaganauts to space by Aug 2022. India is also determined to robotically explore the Lunar surface with Chandrayaan-3 in the coming year. (Image Credits: NASA, ISRO, Google)

Oct 26 —

Oct 26-28 — American Astronautical Society, Online / Huntsville AL: 13th Annual Wernher von Braun Memorial Symposium: Space Exploration: Turning Visions Into Reality; 12:00-16:45 EDT daily.

Oct 26-30 — American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences, Online / Spokane WA: 52nd Annual DPS Meeting 2020.

Oct 26-30 — Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, IAU, Marseille, France and Online: Dust & Metals 2020 Conference; focusing on the rise of metals and dust in the Universe over a wide range of cosmic times; hosting 100 people on site and virtual participation.

Oct 26 — Apollo Asteroid 2020 QD5: Near Earth Flyby (0.025 AU)

Continued From…

Nov 2019 – Nov 2020 — Hayabusa2, Earth Trajectory: JAXA Hayabusa2 with two samples collected from C-type asteroid 162173 Ryugu on trajectory for Earth return.

NET Oct 22 — Virgin Galactic, Launch SpaceShipTwo, Spaceport America, Las Cruces NM: Launch window opens for SpaceShip Two ‘VSS Unity’ with 2 test pilots to perform 1st of 2 suborbital test flights.

Oct 19-29 — SpaceCom, NASA, Department of Commerce Office of Space Commerce, Department of Energy Office of Technology Transitions, et al, Online: Global Commercial Space Conference and Exposition (SpaceCom 2020).

TUESDAY

Oct 27 — Maryland Space Business Roundtable (MSBR), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Online: OSIRIS-Rex Public Engagement Series.

Oct 27-29 — Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, Online / Laurel MD: Cislunar Security Space Conference.