BBC: Japan’s Hayabusa 2 sends probes to the surface of asteroid Ryugu
On Friday, Japan’s Hayabusa 2 probe moved closer to the asteroid Ryugu and released two small probes to the surface. The miniscule gravity of the 1 kilometer asteroid means that the two “rovers” won’t roll across the surface, but will “hop” from place to place on stubby legs. The landers are now taking measurements and images of the surface while the main probe snaps shots from only a few hundred meters above.
And the mission is far from over. Next week, Hayabusa will release another lander, called “Mascot” — a joint French and German device. And then three weeks later Hayabusa itself slowly land, collect samples, and lift off again. It will return these samples to Earth.
Japan previously visited a different asteroid with the original Hayabusa probe, but this is the first any nation has managed to land rovers onto an asteroid. This is really a showcase mission — four different vehicles, conducting four landings on an asteroid, maneuvering around in very low gravity, and sample return.
So far, Hayabusa 2 has been an amazing success. The probe will hang around Ryugu after collect samples until December, then it will begin the flight back to Earth. Samples should be delivered in 2020.
SpaceFlightNow: Last Delta II heads for special place at Kennedy Space Center
After 30 years of providing a lift some of the most successful satellites and probes—including Kepler and just about anything that has landed on, orbited, or rolled across Mars—the final Delta II launched earlier this month to loft NASA’s ICESat 2 super-accurate ice and ocean observer.
But there’s actually enough parts around for one more Delta II. And it’s going to a good home.
United Launch Alliance plans to assemble leftover parts for a Delta 2 rocket display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida alongside other icons of U.S. rocketry, the company announced Saturday soon after the final Delta 2 launch.
“Just because we recently watched a Delta 2 lift off for the last time doesn’t mean we have to say goodbye,” said Tory Bruno, ULA’s president and CEO. “I’m excited to announce that the final Delta 2 rocket will soon take its place in the lineup of historic rockets located in the Rocket Garden as NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.”
JAXA / NASA: US and Japan sign an agreement for joint exploration of the Moon
Japan has signed on to the NASA plan for a moon-orbiting “Gateway” station, and will use a new version of the HTV vehicle now used to supply the ISS as part of its package to support Gateway and Moon exploration. The agreement suggests that NASA’s Space Launch System will handle delivering humans to Gateway, while JAXA will provide cargo via HTX. As with ISS, it’s likely that NASA will look for several partners, private and governmental, to provide supplies to Gateway.
SpaceNews: Budget analyst says Trump’s “Space Force” is padded with thousands of unnecessary people
Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson’s estimate of what it will cost to stand up a new military service for space is not credible and the numbers appear inflated, defense budget analyst Todd Harrison said on Thursday.
Harrison, director of defense budget analysis and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Wilson’s $13 billion estimate — which includes setting up a Department of the Space Force, a U.S. Space Command, a Space Development Agency and sustaining them over five years — is grossly inflated because it includes thousands of additional personnel that might not be needed and a billion-dollar construction project that seems questionable.
ArsTechnica: Warns that now that TESS is in business, exoplanet news is going to come in waves
NASA's successor to the Kepler mission, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), is already paying dividends. The satellite was only launched in April and spent time undergoing commissioning and calibration. But it has now started its science mission, and researchers have already discovered two new planets.
These are expected to be the first of as many as 10,000 planets spotted by TESS. So we thought this was a good opportunity to take a careful look at the planet hunter's design, the goals that informed the design, and what its success should mean for our understanding of exoplanets.
Give it a read to catch up with personal friend, TESS (Hey, I visited her on the pad. We’re close.) and what you can expect over the next five years as the number of exoplanets explodes.
Aviation Week: Stratolaunch proposes some new vehicles to be lofted by its giant plane
Air launch space company Stratolaunch Systems has unveiled study plans for a pair of hypersonic flying testbeds that could be launched from the company’s very large carrier aircraft currently in pre-flight testing at Mojave.
Stratolaunch recently rolled out their beast of a plane along with a selection of proposed satellite boosters. These craft would be potential “space planes” that might serve as tourist carriers similar to Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, or might ultimately compete with Sierra Nevada’s Dreamchaser.
Space.Com: On the habitability of the closest known exoplanet
Ever since the discovery of the exoplanet — known as Proxima Centauri b— in 2016, people have wondered whether it could be capable of sustaining life.
Now, using computer models similar to those used to study climate change on Earth, researchers have found that, under a wide range of conditions, Proxima Centauri b can sustain enormous areas of liquid water on its surface, potentially raising its prospects for harboring living organisms.
SpaceDaily: Reports on funding for another exotic space drive possibility
Dr. Mike McCulloch, from the University of Plymouth, first put forward the idea of quantised inertia (QI) - through which he believes light can be converted into thrust - in 2007.
He has now received $1.3 million from the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for a four-year study which aims to make the concept a reality.
The QI theory predicts that objects can be pushed by differences in the intensity of so-called Unruh radiation in space, similar to the way in which a ship can be pushed towards a dock because there are more waves hitting it from the seaward side.
I confess to not having hear of QI previous to this. But now that the prospect of an EM Drive seems to be all but dead, I’m ready to chase another phantom. Bring on the … what? Quantised Inertia? Well, at least Unruh radiation is an actual thing. But, boy does this sound unlikely.
Upcoming Launches
September 22 — H-2B | HTV 7
Cargo launch from JAXA to the ISS. Delayed from last month. (this actually launched this morning so … you can check it out here. This was delayed from an earlier date because of the massive typhoon in the Pacific.
September 25 — Ariane 5 | Horizons 3e
After several delays, an Ariane 5 ECA rocket is scheduled to head up from the Arianespace launch site in French Guiana carrying high bandwidth comms satellites for Azerbaijan and the Pacific region.
October 6 — Pegasus XL | ICON
Plane launched Pegasys leaves the lofting L-1011 near Cape Canaveral and carries the small Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) satellite for NASA. ICON will study the still somewhat mysterious ionosphere. Delayed for almost a year now. Keep fingers crossed.
October 7 — Falcon 9 | SAOCOM 1A
Another Block 5 (but not Harold) carries up an recon and communications satellite for Argentina.
October 11 — Soyuz | ISS 56S
If someone on the ISS really is dying to come home (and no, the Soyuz leak was not the result of space sabotage) they’ll get their chance soon as a replacement crew heads to the ISS from good old Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
October 17 — Atlas 5 | Advanced Extremely High Frequency 5
Military satellite in a series provided highly secure communications for the armed services.
October 18 — Ariane 5 | BepiColombo
Arianespace launch from French Guiana for a joint ESA / JAXA mission. This is a two-part interplanetary probe to Mercury, which is exciting. Poor little Mercury has only been visited twice before. Matching orbits with Mercury takes quite a bit of velocity change, so BepiColumbo won’t be on station for another seven years. This launch is delayed from the summer.