JOINT ESA/NASA STATEMENT

On 29 and 30 June the ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration, David Southwood, met NASA’s Associate Administrator for Science, Ed Weiler, in Plymouth, UK, to establish a way for a progressive programme for exploration of the Red Planet. The outcome of the bilateral meeting was an agreement to create a Mars Exploration Joint Initiative (MEJI) that will provide a framework for the two agencies to define and implement their scientific, programmatic and technological goals at Mars.

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NASA conducted a successful test of the Max Launch Abort System (MLAS) on Wednesday from Wallops Island, Virginia.

Date: 7 July 2009, 8 p.m. EDT

Moderator: Dr. David Livingston, The Space Show

Panelists:

Miles O’Brien, veteran news reporter (formerly of CNN)
Leonard David, reporter Space.com
Michael Potter, documentary filmmaker
Jeff Roth, founder and president of Jeff Roth Productions
Harry Kloor, film producer

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International Space Station

The Houston Chronicle‘s Eric Berger has a Q&A with Mike Suffredini, manager of the International Space Station program. Excerpts follow:

Q. Do you see the Augustine commission have a significant impact on station operations?

A. One of the things they’re deliberating on is whether to extend the life of the ISS beyond 2015. I would expect, very much, that to happen.

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OSC's Taurus II rocket at Wallops Island.

Accomack, Worcester poised to battle for spaceport-related businesses
Delmarvanow.com

It appears competition between Accomack County in Virginia and its northern neighbor, Worcester County, Md., is heating up in an effort to attract business associated with Orbital Science’s Taurus II rocket program and other growth at Wallops Island.

Despite talk of cooperation between Maryland and Virginia at a groundbreaking for the project last week at Wallops, Accomack County officials Wednesday at a Board of Supervisors meeting appeared ready to fight Worcester for economic development dollars.

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DLR PRESS RELEASE

In Bremen on Tuesday 7 July 2009, the second European space transporter, ATV-2 – developed in association with, and with the support of, the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) – was presented to the public. It was officially given the name of the German astronomer and scholar Johannes Kepler.

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A tribute to the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, using Flaii’s new 3-D web browser technology.

Video of Peter Diamandis’ address at the opening ceremony of the International Space University and Singularity University.

ASTROBOTIC PRESS RELEASE

Astrobotic Technology Inc. announced today that it has begun testing a robot designed to win a NASA competition for excavating simulated Moon dirt.

The NASA Regolith Excavation Challenge, set for Oct. 17-18 at the NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, will award $500,000 for the robot that can dig and dump the most simulated lunar dirt during a 30-minute workout. (”Regolith” is the technical term for the soil covering a planet, moon or asteroid.)

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High resolution imaging sensors on the Japanese Selene/Kaguya lunar orbiter have failed to detect any signs of water ice in permanently shaded craters around the South Pole of the Moon.

CU BOULDER PRESS RELEASE

The University of Colorado at Boulder is working with NASA to develop a new communications technology now being tested on the International Space Station, which will extend Earth’s Internet into outer space and across the solar system.

Called Disruption Tolerant Networking, or DTN, the new technology will enable NASA and other space agencies around the world to better communicate with international fleets of spacecraft that will be used to explore the moon and Mars in the future. The technology is expected to lead to a working “Interplanetary Internet,” said Kevin Gifford, a senior research associate at CU-Boulder’s BioServe Space Technologies and a faculty member in the aerospace engineering sciences department.

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Helen Sharman: the British astronaut who flew the flag
The Telegraph

With almost 500 people having made the trip, Britain, once at the forefront of human space exploration, has been reduced to a bit-part player. Although Tim Peake, an Army helicopter test pilot, was selected by the European Space Agency last month to be trained as Britain’s first official astronaut, ministers have refused him any financial support. Currently, Britain does not contribute to manned space flight programmes, preferring to put resources into satellites and robotic missions.

As a result, Dr Sharman has used her first public appearance in recent years to hit out at the British Government’s reluctance to involve itself in human space flight, and call for a dramatic shift in policy that will see funds dedicated to manned space flight.

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