Expedition 59 Crew Launch On Soyuz MS-12 Increases ISS Complement to 6
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MONDAY Highlights… Mar 11 — NewSpace: Sierra Nevada studying human habitat for lunar orbit & building Dream Chaser for LEO payload delivery; Bigelow Aerospace plans launches of B330-1 and B330-2 habitats in 2021 as building blocks for large commercial space station; Zero-G corporation announces special flight on July 20. Mar 11 — Solar System: Juno spacecraft uncovers puzzling data about Jupiter magnetic field; Mars InSight ‘Mole’ pauses digging due to unexpected obstruction; JAXA Hayabusa2 operation updates at Ryugu being reported weekly. Mar 11 — Galaxy: Chandra X-ray observations find superbubbles emanating from core of NGC 3079; Spitzer Space Telescope studies mergers of nearby galaxies; Spitzer also discovers a brown dwarf binary star by using microlensing. Mar 11 — Global: Zhongguo announces ‘imminent launch’ of new space station module, subject to successful flight of Long March 5 booster; China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology to launch Smart Dragon-1, first carrier rocket for commercial use, in 2019; 1st United Arab Emirates astronaut flight tentatively scheduled for Sep 25. Mar 11 — USA: Administration delivery of FY2020 budget proposal to USA congress set for today, NASA Space Policy Directives / Moon program financial commitment to be determined; SSERVI Microsymposium 60 features 7 of the 9 Commercial Lunar Payload Services partners; SLS 2020 launch date being reassessed. Mar 11 — Hawai’i: Kepler Space Telescope first exoplanet discovery (10 years ago) is finally confirmed by UH astronomers; Subaru Telescope Hyper Suprime-Cam contributes to search for hypothetical Planet Nine; HI-SEAS Moon / Mars mission gains publicity; Cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev, Gov. Ige and others celebrate Ellison Onizuka. |
= 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’).
Weekly Planet Watch – Evening Planets: Mars (W), Uranus (W); Morning Planets: Venus (ESE), Jupiter (SE), Saturn (SE).
Moon, ISRU, NewSpace Conferences Draw Prominent Speakers, Enterprises to Italy, Massachusetts, Texas
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Mar 11 — Secure World Foundation, SDA Bocconi School of Management-Space Economy Evolution (SEE) Lab, George Washington University Space Policy Institute, Milan, Italy: Mining the Moon for Profit: A Case Study in Space Resource Utilization.
Mar 11 — International Planetarium Society Inc., Multiple Locations: International Day of Planetaria; promote knowledge of planetaria to the public. Mar 11-13 — American Astronomical Society, Washington DC: AAS Congressional Visits Day 2019. Mar 11 — Moon: 5.5° SSE of Mars, 07:00. Mar 11 — Apollo Asteroid 2019 DH: Near-Earth Flyby (0.020 AU) Mar 11 — Apollo Asteroid 2019 CM4: Near-Earth Flyby (0.035 AU) Continued from…Jan 2019 – Sep 2020 — New Horizons, Kuiper Belt: Full data from spacecraft 7 instruments during KBO Ultima Thule flyby to be transmitted to Earth over this time period. Mar 8-17 — South by Southwest, Austin TX: SXSW Conference and Festival; celebrating the convergence of tech, interactive, film, and music industries. Mar 9-15 — International Union of Radio Science (URSI), New Delhi, India: 2019 URSI Asia-Pacific Radio Science Conference. Mar 9-20 — Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) ESA, ISRO, NASA, IAU, Punjab, India: COSPAR Capacity Building Workshop: Broadband Spectral and Timing Studies with Astrosat, Chandra and XMM-Newton. Mar 9-23 — Atlanta Science Festival, Delta Air Lines, et al, Atlanta GA: Atlanta Science Festival 2019; features Astronaut Job Fair. TUESDAYMar 12 — JAXA, Tokyo, Japan: International Space Exploration Symposium 2019; Towards Sustainable Space Exploration:Science, Industry and Society-A New Era of Joint Growth. |
Mar 12-14 — ESA, ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands: European Space Components Conference (ESCCON).
Mar 12 — Moon: 8.2° SSE of Pleiades, 07:00.
Mar 12 — Apollo Asteroid 2019 DJ1: Near-Earth Flyby (0.010 AU)
WEDNESDAY
Mar 13 — United Launch Alliance, Delta 4 / WGS 10, Cape Canaveral AFS FL: ULA Delta 4 rocket to launch USAF tenth Wideband Global SATCOM spacecraft; 18:58-21:04.
Mar 13 — SETI Institute, Menlo Park CA: Lecture: Exploring Ultima Thule – Humanity’s Next Frontier; featuring Alan Stern (virtually) and Mark Showalter, Ross Beyer; 19:00 at SRI International: Headquarters.
Mar 13-15 — MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative, Praxis, Cambridge MA: MIT Space Week featuring events Apollo 50 + 50, Beyond the Cradle 2019: Envisioning a New Space Age, and the New Space Age Conference.
Mar 13 — Moon: 1.86° N of Aldebaran, 00:00.
Mar 13 — Apollo Asteroid 88254 (2001 FM129): Near-Earth Flyby (0.087 AU)
THURSDAY
Mar 14 — ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter 2016 Orbiter, Mars Orbit: ESA and Roscosmos spacecraft reaches 3 full years in space today, launched Mar 2016, entered Mars orbit Oct 2016; craft collecting data on atmosphere, deployed Schiaparelli demonstration lander 19 Oct 2016 (unsuccessful).
Mar 14 — Roscosmos State Corporation, Launch Soyuz MS-12 / ISS 58S, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan: An RSA Soyuz rocket set to launch Exp 59/60 crew Nick Hague of NASA, Cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos, and Christina Hammock Koch of NASA (to become 63rd Women in Space).
Mar 14 — Arianespace, Launch Vega / PRISMA, Kourou, French Guiana: Arianespace Vega rocket, designated VV14, to launch PRISMA Earth observation satellite for ASI – Italian Space Agency.
Mar 14 — Pi Day: Worldwide science events celebrate Pi (Greek letter “π”), the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant – the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter (~3.14159).
Mar 14, 15 — Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech/NASA, Pasadena CA: von Kármán Lecture Series 2019: The Golden Age of Exoplanet Exploration; with speakers Jessie Christiansen (NASA Exoplanet Science Institute) and Karl Stapelfeldt (NASA Exoplanet Exploration Program).
Mar 14-17 — Physical Society of Japan, Kyushu, Japan: 74th Annual Meeting of the Physical Society of Japan.
Mar 14 — Gamma Normids Meteor Shower Peak: Meteors offer up to 6 per hour in deep-southern Milky Way appearing to radiate from star Gamma2 Normae in the constellation Norma.
Mar 14 — Moon: At first quarter, 00:26.
Mar 14 — Apollo Asteroid 2016 CK31: Near-Earth Flyby (0.093 AU)
FRIDAY
Mar 15 — Caltech Astronomy, Pasadena CA: Lecture: Planet Nine from Outer Space; by Mike Brown, Professor of Astronomy at Caltech.
Mar 15-17 — Santa Clara University, Huntsville AL: Scientific Conference on Anomalous Aerospace Phenomena (AAP); at Rocket City Conference Center.
Mar 15 — Apollo Asteroid 2015 EF7: Near-Earth Flyby (0.052 AU)
Mar 15 — Aten Asteroid 483656 (2005 ES70): Near-Earth Flyby (0.056 AU)
SATURDAY
Mar 16 — British Interplanetary Society, London, United Kingdom: Lecture: BIS West Midlands Spring Talks – India & China, Chevaline; by Gurbir Singh, John Harlow & Paul Jackman, 14:45.
Mar 16-17 — Brown University, Vernadsky Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, The Woodlands TX: Microsymposium 60: Forward to the Moon to Stay: Undertaking Transformative Lunar Science with Commercial Partners; at the Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center.
Mar 16 — Moon: 6.8° S of Pollux, 05:00.
SUNDAY
Mar 17-19 — Vienna University of Technology, Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, BKG Germany, Institute of Applied Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, et al, Las Palmas, Canary Islands, Spain: 24th Meeting of the European VLBI Group for Geodesy and Astrometry (EVGA).
Mar 17-21 — American Astronomical Society, Monterey CA: 17th Meeting High Energy Astrophysics Division (HEAD).