Jun 12-18, 2017 / Vol 36, No 24 / Hawai`i Island, USA

Summer Space Programs Hosted by International Space Elevator Consortium and Singularity University

ISEC Summer Internship Program with up to 6 undergraduate students runs June 15 – August 15 and is designed to stimulate research inside the Space community and improve knowledge on space elevators. The online structure of the research based program connects winning applicants with an appropriate ISEC mentor. Students will select a topic of interest, conduct individual research of about 10-hours per week, confer with mentor every 2 weeks, summarize and present to mentor and / or at ISEC Conference. Areas of focus include Space Elevator History, Carbon Nanotube Applications for Space Elevator tethers, and Earth Port infrastructure. Successful interns will be awarded a grant of US$500, a certificate of completion and a letter of recommendation. ISEC is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Irvine CA led by Director & President Peter Swan. Singularity University Global Solutions Program runs Jun 17 – Aug 19 serving 90 innovators from a wide array of backgrounds, geographies, perspectives and areas of expertise. It is a 9-week immersive, residential experience on campus at the NASA Ames Research Park in Mountain View CA. The GSP as a whole exists to “foster the development of viable startups (for-profit or not-for-profit) that will positively impact the lives of a billion people in 10 years or less.” Climate Change is the overarching theme for 2017 — though with a challenge so huge and recognition that solutions will arise from the convergence of fields, applications have been encouraged from any and all technology and science disciplines. (Image Credit: ISEC, SU)

 

MONDAY

Ongoing…
Jun 12 — ISS, 330-435-km LEO: Expedition 52 three member crew transferring 2,700-kg of cargo from Dragon CRS-11, expecting Progress 67P arrival, Beijing Institute of Technology sends 1st payload to ISS – will be set up for DNA experiments, ‘SS John Glenn’ Cygnus craft burns up reentering Earth atmosphere after SAFFIRE experiment and deployment of 4 Nanoracks satellites.

Jun 12 — Solar System: Two new moons confirmed at Jupiter – bringing total known moons to 69; Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter catches image of collapse pit or an impact crater on Mars; Cassini has under 100 days left at Saturn, recent research shows moon Enceladus may have tipped from original axis; Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter jittery image indicates craft was hit by a meteoroid, LRO typically only records images ~3 hours a day.

Jun 12 — Galaxy: Exoplanet KELT-9 located 650 LY from Earth is hotter than most Stars in known Universe at 4,327° C; China planning to study pulsars, black holes, neutron stars, other phenomena in Milky Way Galaxy with Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope set to launch this week; Hubble Telescope reveals magnified views of the universe’s brightest infrared galaxies (10,000 times more luminous than Milky Way); Scientists studying turbulence / hot gas in merging galaxy clusters which are forming larger cluster Abell 115 (2.4B LY away).

Jun 12 — Global: ISRO continues GSLV Mk 3 successes, next launch of Mk 3 planned Jan 2018 for GSAT-20 satellite; Canada expected to announce 2 finalists for next Astronaut class within 2 weeks; China planning ~4 crewed missions to Tiangong-2 over 5 years, newest 10-12 Astronaut class (including 2 women) to be selected this year, chooses Chang’e-5 landing site Mons Rumker region 40.8° N, 58.1° W; Russia testing 9 dust samples collected from ISS surface during EVAs for potential comet dust / biogenic materials.

Jun 12 — NewSpace: Deep Space Industries delivers 3.5 gallons of simulated Moon / Asteroid dust to NASA for testing technologies; Virgin Galactic conducts 9th unpowered test flight of Unity; SpaceX contracted to launch next Air Force X-37B miniature spaceplane to space in August; Tethers Unlimited planning 3 experiments to launch to space within 3 years; Planetary Resources US$28M agreement with Luxembourg advancing technology for off-world water / resource mining.

Jun 12 — SETI Institute, Palo Alto CA: Making Contact; 19:00, featuring Jill Tarter, Sarah Scoles, Elliot Gillum and more.

= 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;’ Greenwich, England).


Weekly Planet Watch – Evening Planets: Jupiter (SW), Saturn (S); Morning Planets: Venus (E), Neptune (SE), Uranus (S), Neptune (SE).

Asgardia to Announce ‘Next Steps’ at Press Conference in Hong Kong

Working to be the ‘First Nation in Space’, Asgardia is holding a press conference in Hong Kong on June 13 to announce detailed upcoming plans, which could include its first nano-satellite launch. The solid state device hard drive, 2.3-kg payload may have two particle detectors, test technologies for long-term data storage, and launch to ISS on a resupply flight this September. The press meeting will feature the founder of Asgardia Igor Ashurbeyli, Co-Founder and CEO of NanoRacks Jeffrey Manber, and Director of McGill Institute of Air and Space Law Ram Jakhu, followed by a public meeting for interested Asgardians. Igor Ashurbeyli created Asgardia to function as an independent nation, a future member of the UN for Peace in Space and the prevention of Earth’s conflicts being transferred into space. Legally it envisions citizenship procedures to be enacted, and the creation of a new legal platform for the exploration of space where ‘Universal space law’ and ‘astropolitics’ replace international space law and geopolitics. Technology and science goals include one or more core satellites, clusters of network-centric small satellites, and a protective space platform. Nearly 577,000 have applied to be citizens (182,000 verified) from over 217 countries so far. This ambitious project highlights the need for a concrete legal space nation framework and may catalyze changes to current international space laws. (Image Credit: Asgardia, NASA, McGill, Mars One, ESA)

Jun 12-13 — Yale University, Cornell University, Pennsylvania State University, New Haven CT: 3rd Emerging Researchers in Exoplanet Science symposium (ERES III).

Jun 12-15 — USRA, LPI, NASA, Astrogeology Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff AZ: 3rd Planetary Data Workshop.

Jun 12-16 — ESA, ESTEC, Interplanetary Probe Workshop Committee, The Hague, The Netherlands: 14th International Planetary Probe Workshop.

Jun 12-16 — Swedish Institute for Space Physics, Royal Institute of Technology, Uppsala, Sweden: 20th Magnetospheres of the Outer Planets Conference.

Jun 12-16 — Observatory of Paris, CNRS, Paris, France: Conference: Galaxy Evolution Across Time.

Jun 12 — Venus: At aphelion, 14:00.

Jun 12 — Apollo Asteroid 2017 KF3: Near-Earth Flyby (0.033 AU).

Continued from…

May 5 – Jun 19 — Johnson Space Center, NASA, Houston TX: Campaign 4: Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA 2017); 45 day analog spaceflight / Moon / Mars mission.

May 19 – Jun 14 — RR Auction, Amherst NH: Fine Autographs and Artifacts Auction featuring Carl Sagan Cosmos Collection, Apollo / Gemini artifacts.

Jun 7-16 — UNOOSA, Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, Vienna, Austria: 60th session of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.

Jun 9-24 — British Interplanetary Society, Wells & Mendip Astronomers, Somerset, United Kingdom: WMA/BIS Space Art Show: Visions of Space 2.

Jun 10 – Sep 10 — EuroChem, TransTelekom, DHL, General Electric, Samsung, Siemens, Caspian Pipeline Consortium, Astana, Kazakhstan: Expo 2017 Astana: Future Energy.

TUESDAY

Jun 13 — Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), LEO: NASA satellite investigating black holes a billion times more massive than Sun, how particles are accelerated to very high energy in active galaxies & elements in supernova remnants begins 6th year of operations in space today; launched 2012.

Jun 13 — United Launch Alliance, Launch Atlas 5 / NROL-42, Vandenberg AFB CA: ULA Atlas 5 rocket, designated AV-072, to launch classified spacecraft payload for U.S. National Reconnaissance Office.

Jun 13 — Asgardia, Hong Kong / Online: Asgardia: Press Conference – The foundation of the first Space Nation; featuring Igor Ashurbeyli (Asgardia), Jeffrey Manber (NanoRacks), Ram Jakhu (Institute of Air and Space Law), 15.30 HKT, 08.30 BST, 03.30 EST.

Jun 13-15 — Small Bodies Assessment Group, NASA, Greenbelt MD: 17th Meeting of the NASA Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG); at Goddard Space Flight Center.

Jun 13-15 — Lunar and Planetary Institute, USRA, Houston TX: Conference: Dust in the Atmosphere of Mars and Its Impact on the Human Exploration of Mars.

Jun 13-16 — The Royal Society, National Research Foundation of Singapore, Singapore: Commonwealth Science Conference 2017.

Jun 13 — Apollo Asteroid 2017 FR2: Near-Earth Flyby (0.078 AU).

WEDNESDAY

Jun 14 — Roscosmos State Corporation, Launch Soyuz / Progress 67P (MS-06), Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan: Russia Soyuz rocket to launch Progress 67P resupply ship to ISS.

Jun 14 — Saturn: At opposition, 15:00.

THURSDAY

Jun 15 — Library of Congress Science, Technology and Business Division, Washington DC: Lecture: The 2017 Total Solar Eclipse: Through the Eyes of NASA; by Alex Young, NASA.

Jun 15, 16 — Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech/NASA, Pasadena CA: von Kármán Lecture Series 2017: The Golden Age of Exploration; by Charles Elachi Professor, Caltech JPL Director (2001-2016).

Jun 15 – Aug 15 — International Space Elevator Consortium, Online: ISEC 2017 Summer Internship Program; six interns to perform home-based / online intern studies with ISEC.

FRIDAY

Jun 16 — CNSA, Launch Long March 2D / Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT), Jiuquan, China: China Long March 2D rocket to launch Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope with a suite of instruments to image the universe in the highest-energy X-rays.

Jun 16 — 54th Observation of the 1st Woman in Space, Global: Public events and commemorations occur to celebrate the first female to fly in Space, Valentina Tereshkova of the former Soviet Union; in 1963 she orbited Earth 49 times in Vostok 6.

Jun 16 — `Imiloa Astronomy Center, University of Hawai`i – Hilo, Hilo HI: Mauna Kea Skies Talk; astronomers from Mauna Kea observatories speak about recent discoveries; this session features Michitoshi Yoshida, Director of Subaru Telescope; 19:00 HST, US$8-10.

Jun 16 — Apollo Asteroid 2010 VB1: Near-Earth Flyby (0.026 AU).

SATURDAY

Jun 17 — SpaceX, Launch Falcon 9 / BulgariaSat 1, Cape Canaveral AFS FL: SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to launch launch BulgariaSat 1 communications satellite.

Jun 17 — Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech/NASA, Pasadena CA: Lunar and Meteorite Sample Certification Workshop; Apollo lunar samples available to lend to teachers.

Jun 17-18 — Gordon Research Conference, NASA, South Hadley MA: Gordon Research Seminar: Origins of Solar Systems: The Foundations of Planets.

Jun 17 – Aug 19 — Singularity University, Moffett Field CA: SU 2017 Global Solutions Program; a 9-week immersive, residential experience for students to develop Moonshot innovations addressing humanity’s grand challenges by leveraging exponential technology and entrepreneurial tools; Climate Change is overarching theme for 2017.

Jun 17 — Moon: At last quarter, 01:33.

Jun 17 — Apollo Asteroid 2017 KU34: Near-Earth Flyby (0.075 AU).

SUNDAY

Jun 18 — 34th Observation of the 1st American Woman in Space, Nationwide USA / Global: Celebrating the first American woman to fly in Space, Sally Ride of USA on space shuttle Challenger STS-7 mission in 1983.

Jun 18-23 — Gordon Research Conference, NASA, South Hadley MA: Gordon Research Conference: Origins of Solar Systems: Making a Habitable Planet.

Jun 18-23 — Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the Research Council of Norway, Trondheim, Norway: 4th STARMUS Festival: Life And The Universe.

Jun 18 — Apollo Asteroid 471984 (2013 UE3): Near-Earth Flyby (0.049 AU).

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Florence, Italy
Includes ~150 meetings covering the fields of COSPAR Scientific Commissions / Panels / Task Groups,...
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Fukuoka, Japan
From 02 to 07 August 2026, a few thousand geoscientists across diverse disciplines will gather...
03 Aug 2026
Wenchang Space Launch Center, ~19°N, Hainan Island, China
Launching from the Commercial LC-1 launch pad.
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Online
Occurring at 12pm ET with NASA, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and SpaceX, followed by...
04 Aug 2026
Haiyang Offshore, Haiyang Oriental Spaceport ~36°N, China
Smart Dragon-3 is a solid-fuel orbital rocket designed by a subsidiary of CASC for the...
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SLC-40 (~28°N), Cape Canaveral SFS FL, USA
To deliver AST SpaceMobile’s Block 2 BlueBird satellites to LEO for cellular broadband service coverage.
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Online
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Online
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Online
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Near Einstein + Bell Craters, ~19.45°N 93.59° W, Moon Surface
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Andøya Spaceport, ~63°N, Norway
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