KARI President Seung-Jo Kim

JAXA has posted a Q&A with Seung-Jo Kim, President of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI). Most of the interview relates to growing cooperation between KARI and JAXA, but there is a good overview of South Korea’s plans in rocketry, ISS experiments and lunar exploration for the next decade. Key excerpts from the conversation follow.

On Rocket Development

“Korea’s space policy is part of the Basic Space Development Promotion Plan, which was based on the Basic Space Development Promotion Act, enacted in 2005. In particular, we emphasize the development of a purely domestic satellite launch rocket called KSLV-2. Our major goal is to launch a domestic satellite on a domestic rocket, making use of the technology and experience gained through the development of the Naro rocket.

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This week on The Space Show with David Livingston… 1. Monday, May 21, 2012, 2-3:30 PM PDT (5-6:30 PM EDT, 4-5:30 PM CDT): No show today as I am at the Sea-Space Workshop at Googleplex in Mountain View, CA. 2. Tuesday, May 22 2012, 7-8:30 PM PDT (10-11:30 PM EDT, 9-10:30 PM CDT): No show today as I am at the Sea-Space Workshop at Googleplex in Mountain View, CA. 3. […]

Hawthorne, CA (SpaceX PR) – Tomorrow, Tuesday, May 22^nd, at 3:44 AM Eastern, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) will attempt to launch a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft to orbit in an exciting start to the mission that will make SpaceX the first commercial company in history to try to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station.

Sending a spacecraft to the space station has only ever been accomplished by four entities – the United States, Russia, Japan and the European Union.

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The Stratolaunch project is moving along at the Mojave Air and Space Port. Two 747-422s are being stripped for parts to build the mammoth rocket launching platform, which will be the biggest aircraft in the world. Meanwhile, the first of two hangars is nearing completion at the other end of the spaceport. And, as an added bonus, here’s a picture of the one of the critters who makes its home […]

New results from NASA's NEOWISE survey find that more potentially hazardous asteroids, or PHAs, are closely aligned with the plane of our solar system than previous models suggested. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — Observations from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have led to the best assessment yet of our solar system’s population of potentially hazardous asteroids. The results reveal new information about their total numbers, origins and the possible dangers they may pose.

Potentially hazardous asteroids, or PHAs, are a subset of the larger group of near-Earth asteroids. The PHAs have the closest orbits to Earth’s, coming within five million miles (about eight million kilometers) and they are big enough to survive passing through Earth’s atmosphere and cause damage on a regional, or greater, scale.

The new results come from the asteroid-hunting portion of the WISE mission, called NEOWISE. The project sampled 107 PHAs to make predictions about the entire population as a whole. Findings indicate there are roughly 4,700 PHAs, plus or minus 1,500, with diameters larger than 330 feet (about 100 meters). So far, an estimated 20 to 30 percent of these objects have been found.

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An update from SpaceX: “Today’s launch was aborted when the flight computer detected slightly high pressure in the engine 5 combustion chamber. We have discovered root cause and repairs are underway. “During rigorous inspections of the engine, SpaceX engineers discovered a faulty check valve on the Merlin engine.  We are now in the process of replacing the failed valve.  Those repairs should be complete tonight.  We will continue to review […]

SAN MATEO, Calif. (Citizens in Space PR) – A NASA-inspired competition is challenging citizen scientists to build hardware for collecting microorganisms at the edge of space.

Citizen scientists can win cash prizes up to $10,000 in the High Altitude Astrobiology Challenge, announced Saturday by Citizens in Space, a project of the United States Rocket Academy. If successful, their work may help stop a future epidemic.

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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL. (CASIS PR) – Today, the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the nonprofit organization managing research on the International Space Station (ISS), announced the unveiling of a new website (www.iss-casis.org) that will serve as a portal for researchers, businesses, educators and students to discover the unique opportunities available to them on board the ISS U.S. National Laboratory.

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