ESA Conference Explores Space for Inspiration

The conference hosted September 14-15 at Science Museum in South Kensington, London, United Kingdom with theme Space for Inspiration – ISS and Beyond is organized by ESA as an opportunity to explore how research in the unique environment of space creates opportunities to meet key challenges on Earth. Along with expert speakers highlighting new possibilities in engineering, materials, life sciences and the environment, the program includes live demonstrations and interactive sessions covering key areas such as smart materials, agriculture, biology, food, medicine and health. Feature presentations include ESA Director General Johann-Dietrich Woerner with his vision for human and robotic cooperation for exploration and development at lunar poles / far side, ESA Director of Human Spaceflight and Robotic Exploration David Parker and ESA Astronauts Timothy Peake and Luca Parmitano, as well as NASA Astronaut Don Pettit. With the intention of creating new opportunities for business, public policy and for humankind at-large the diverse international speaker list includes leaders and innovators from outside the traditional aerospace and NewSpace sectors, such as Unilever Senior Director for Sustainable Innovation Abhay A Bhagwat, Film Producer Duncan Copp, Novelist Nick Harkaway, Raspberry Pi Foundation Education Resource Engineer David Honess, Science Comedian Helen Keen, Bayer Global Digital Farming Technology Lead Alex Melnitchouck, Chef Thorsten Schmidt and others. As the world’s premier space research platform the ISS, a major recurring element in this ESA conference, has hosted more than 1,760 research investigations involving more than 83 countries. (Image Credit: ESA)

MONDAY

Sep 12 — ISS, LEO: Expedition 49 three-member crew with Anatoly Ivanishin of Roscosmos in command transferring cargo from Progress MS-02 & MS-03, new crew members Robert Kimbrough, Andrei Borisenko & Sergey Ryzhikov on Earth preparing for launch; Space Station has been in orbit more than 6,506 days; to date 549 people have been to Space including 60 women.

Sep 12 — Hubble Space Telescope, 558-km Altitude LEO: Veteran spacecraft with 2.4-meter diameter main telescope and more than 1.2M observations, receives US$114.3M NASA contract extension with Lockheed Martin to continue operations until June 30, 2021.

Sep 12 — New Horizons, KBO 2014 MU69 Trajectory: Data from Pluto flyby reveals methane snow-capped mountains on Southern region of dwarf planet; now ~5.38B km from Earth, craft imaging bodies in Kuiper Belt, including dwarf planet 50000 Quaoar (half the diameter of Pluto ~1,110 km) and distant galaxies.

Sep 12 — ISRO, Bengaluru, India: India Space Agency very likely planning to open New Frontier by landing Chandrayaan-2 at Moon South Pole, Malapert Mountain; mission expected to launch on GSLV Mk. 2 first half of 2018 with lander, rover, orbiter to explore region, perform mineralogical & elemental studies of lunar surface.

Sep 12 — Bigelow Aerospace, Las Vegas NV: NewSpace company future vision of Moon and Mars habitats remains in focus as inflatable BEAM at ISS continues being tested / monitored, planning to launch two B330s (XBASE) by 2020 perhaps to attach to ISS, collaborating with NASA, ULA, Japan Manned Space Systems Corporation, others.

Sep 12 — ENBIO, Dublin, Ireland: Provides coatings free from volatile organic compounds to protect satellites from solar radiation; ESA expects space companies in Ireland to grow from 50 to over 80 by 2020 generating more than €150M (US$168.5M), planing to open new ESA Space Solutions Centre in Cork to support start-ups.

Sep 12 — KuangChi Science, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China: Working to launch customers to 20-30 km altitude in Traveller capsule attached to high-altitude balloon for ‘near-space’ experience from Hangzhou theme park “Future Valley” scheduled to be completed end of 2017, initial investment of US$1.5B being dedicated to project.

Sep 12-14 — UNOOSA, Government of Austria, ESA, Graz, Austria: United Nations / Austria Symposium on Integrated Space Technology Applications for Climate Change.

AIAA SPACE 2016 Conference to Bring 1,500 Attendees to Long Beach CA

The AIAA 2016 SPACE Conference is being held September 13-16 at Long Beach Convention Center in California. Attendees from ~28 nations will share latest research and achievements in space, build new partnerships and outreach to students and young professionals. Industry representatives, researchers and educators will present more than 650 technical papers under 17 topics such as Reinventing Space, Small Satellites, Space Exploration, Space Transportation & Launch Systems, and Human Space Exploration, Architecture, and Colonization. There will be an exhibit hall, poster session, Space & Astronautics award ceremony, a public lecture on the Juno mission by Scott Bolton and Rick Nybakken (L-R, T-B), and an ‘Evening of Astronaut Stories from the Cosmic Frontier’ with Sandy Magnus, Chris Ferguson, Greg Johnson, Garrett Reisman and James Voss. Also speaking will be Charles Bolden of NASA, Pascale Ehrenfreund of DLR, Sophia Bright of Boeing Co., Wanda Austin of Aerospace Corp. and Bernard Kutter of ULA. Part of the Forum 360 panel discussions will be on Icy Moons and Ocean Worlds, Launch 2020, and Global Perspectives with Mangesh Sannala of ISRO, Hiro Iwamoto of JAXA and Jean Pascal Le Franc of CNES. (Image Credit: AIAA, NASA, JPL, SwRI, DLR, Energia, et al)

Sep 12-14 — Space Telescope Science Institute, American Astronomical Society, Baltimore MD: Conference: Linking Exoplanets and Disks – Bridging Compositions and Communities, Towards the Future.

Sep 12-15 — ESA Madrid, Spain: SPICE observation geometry training class; free and open to all professionals and students involved in Solar System exploration.

Sep 12-15 — Arianespace, SES, Lockheed Martin, Spacenews, ViaSatellite, Euroconsult, Paris, France: Summit for Satellite Financing; at Westin hotel.

Sep 12-15 — J. Heyrovsky Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, European Union COST Action, Liblice, Czech Republic: Evolution of Chemical Complexity: From Simple Interstellar Molecules to Terrestrial Biopolymers; at Liblice Castle.

Sep 12-16 — University of Nova Gorica, International Astronomical Union, Ljubljana, Slovenia: IAU Symposium 324: New Frontiers in Black Hole Astrophysics.

Sep 12-16 — Interuniversity Consortium for Space Physics (Consorzio Interuniversitario per la Fisica Spaziale), L’Aquila, Italy: International School of Space Science Course: Planetary Interiors.

Sep 12 — Mercury: At inferior conjunction with Sun, 0.642 AU from Earth.

Sep 12 — Apollo Asteroid 2016 LX48: Near-Earth flyby (0.046 AU).

Continued from…

Aug 7 – Sep 30 — Airbus, Perlan Project, Teachers in Space, El Calafate, Argentina: Teachers in Space Ground Crew Education Program; team members will fly experiments at 27,500-meter altitudes in air as thin as Mars atmosphere, verify operations and retrieve data for posting to internet.