2017 USA Space Program and the Moon, Apollo@50, Juno@Jupiter – Galaxy Forum USA Inaugurates Spacemonth July 2016

Space Age Publishing Company and International Lunar Observatory Association host Galaxy Forum USA in Santa Clara, California on Saturday July 2, to start the July 4th weekend and Spacemonth 2016. Bruce Pittman, Chief Systems Engineer, NASA Ames will talk about USA Space Program direction in 2017 and future goals in light of 2019 Apollo 11 50th Observation. A Jupiter presentation by Professor Imke de Pater of UC Berkeley Astronomy Department celebrates NASA Juno spacecraft arrival. Steve Durst of SPC / ILOA will provide introductions and welcoming remarks, and make the case for putting human Moon missions and Jupiter back into the American space program with consideration for 21st Century Solar System Complete. The incremental, low-cost and low-risk Evolvable Lunar Architecture (ELA) study partly funded by NASA and published July 2015 by Charles Miller of NexGen Space, is designed to leverage commercial space capabilities and public-private-partnerships. It projects America could lead a return of humans to the Moon surface within 5-7 years at an estimated total cost of US$10B (+/-30%) via development of 2 independent competing commercial service providers. This range of projections parallels similarly abbreviated ELA (Early Lunar Access) study by General Dynamics in 1992-93 which projected $5-10B for a 2-3 week human sojourn, additional expeditions about $2B each, further cost savings if ESA were partner. It is clear now, as ever, that a new American initiated program to return humans to the Moon should be both international and commercial, open to participation of India, China, Japan, Canada, Europe, Russia, Korea and others. (Image Credit: NASA, NexGen Space LLC, A. Nesterova, UC Berkeley, FreeFlagIcons.com)

MONDAY

Jul 4 — ISS, LEO: Expedition 48 preparing for upcoming U.S. EVA-36, monitoring micrometeoroid impacts on Station, maintaining Ultrasonic Background Noise Test hardware which will help identify sources of noise to aid in development of leak locating system, working with 3D Printer, to welcome 3 new crew members Ivanishin, Rubins, Onishi.

Jul 4 — Chang’e-3 Lander & Yutu Rover, Guang Han Gong, Sinus Iridum / Mare Imbrium, 44.12°N 19.51°W, Moon Surface: Spacecraft in Lunar Night 32, expected to wake July 15, has funding to continue science observations until at least Dec 2016, will encounter penumbral Lunar eclipse Sep 16.

Jul 4 — Mars Express, Mars Orbit: ESA Spacecraft to fly by Phobos today at ~350 km.

Jul 4 — Juno, Jupiter System: Spacecraft scheduled to arrive at Jupiter & complete Orbital Insertion phase; spacecraft will have traveled about 18.7 AU (2.8B km); estimated arrival at 17:18 PDT; NASA media live coverage available; craft to orbit Jupiter 37 times, come within 4,300 km of cloud tops, one-way transmission signal to Earth is 48 minutes.

Jul 4 — Blue Origin, Kent WA: NewSpace company 69,677 square-meter facility at Exploration Park, KSC Florida under construction – to be completed Dec 2017, will be site at which orbital rocket will be developed, tested & launched; BE-4 rocket engine first flight expected NET 2019.

Jul 4 — Axiom Space LLC, Houston TX: Planning to develop private space station in LEO, discussing potential study with NASA to add commercial module to ISS around 2020 – unlikely to use inflatable technologies, Michael Suffrendini is company President, Kam Ghaffarian Chief Executive.

Jul 4 — Interstellar Technologies Inc., Taiki, Hokkaido, Japan: Working on building the world’s smallest rockets for sending smallsats into orbit, company 1st sounding rocket launch planned for this summer; CEO Takahiro Inagawa

Jul 4-8 — European Astronomical Society, Hellenic Astronomical Society, et al, Athens, Greece: European Week of Astronomy and Space Science.

Jul 4-8 — University of Cape Town Department of Physics, South African Institute of Physics, Johannesburg, South Africa: 61st Annual Conference of the South African Institute of Physics (SAIP2016).

Juno July 4 Jupiter Arrival May Spark 21st Century Human Jupiter, Solar System Missions

Juno will reach record-breaking speeds of more than 250,000 kph relative to Earth as it approaches the North Pole of Jupiter July 4 at 14:18 HST, after a 2.8-billion km journey. The second spacecraft to orbit Jupiter, US$1.1 billion Juno mission with 9 science instruments will conduct a 35-minute speed-reduction engine burn and relay a 3-second beep back to Earth. It is scheduled to conduct 37 passes, coming within 4,300 km over the poles and as far as 1,880,000 km, over the next 20 months. Two 53-day orbits will bring Juno to a period reduction maneuver on October 19, refining its trajectory over 23 days to a 14-day orbit for science operations, ground-breaking discoveries until February 20, 2018, when it will make a dramatic deorbit burn. Jupiter is central to complete Solar System exploration and understanding with its extreme gravity 2.5 times that of Earth (254%), radiation belts extending 7M km toward the Sun and almost to Saturn orbit, Solar wind speeds up to 400 km/s, 4 main ring structures and a shrinking Great Red Spot. Of the 67 known moons, the 4 Galilean moons would be considered Planets if in direct orbit of Sun. The SPC Jupiter, Solar System Human Mission Design Project 2013-2017 calls on the 2017 U.S. Administration to emphasize 21st Century planning Ad Astra with the arrival of Juno at Jupiter, and Humans to the Jupiter system in the 2030-2050 timeframe. (Pictured: Scott Bolton Juno PI, SwRI; Image Credit: NASA, JPL, Cornell, Jane Schwadron)

Jul 4 — Earth: At aphelion (distance 1.01675 AU / 152,104,082 km from Sun), 06:00.

Jul 4 — Moon: New Moon, 01:11; 14.2° S of Castor, 15:00; 5.1° S of Venus, 17:00; 10.6° S of Pollux, 20:00.

Jul 4 — Venus: 9.1° S of Castor, 05:00.

Jul 4 — Mars: Autumn equinox, 06:00.

Continued from…

May 23 – Jul 29 — The Lunar and Planetary Institute, Johnson Space Center, NASA, Houston TX: Exploration Science Summer Intern Program.

Jun 17 – Aug 15 — Canadian Space Agency, Longueuil, Quebec, Canada: 4th Astronaut recruitment campaign for CSA; expects to announce selected candidates in Summer 2017.

Jun 27 – Aug 5 — Mavericks Lab, NASA, SETI, Moffett Field CA: Mavericks Lab Applied Research Accelerator: Asteroid Grand Challenge.

Jul 1-7 — ESA, Sardinia, Italy: 2016 CAVES (Cooperative Adventure for Valuing and Exercising); astronaut training 800 meters underground in rocky caves, six member crew consists of Astronauts Pedro Duque (ESA), Jessica Meir & Richard Arnold (NASA), Aki Hoshide (JAXA), Ye Guangfu (CNSA), Sergei Korsakov (Roscosmos).

Jul 3-8 — Astronomical Society of Australia, Sydney, Australia: 2016 Astronomical Society of Australia’s Annual Scientific Meeting.

Jul 3-8 — European Community’s Horizon 2020 Programme, Attica, Greece: Space Awareness Summer School.