China to Inaugurate Hainan WSLC Spaceport / Moonport with CZ-7 Maiden Launch 26 June

The maiden flight of the China Long March 7 rocket, designed to become the national space program’s workhorse rocket in the years ahead, is set to occur June 26 as the first launch from the newly-commissioned Wenchang Satellite Launch Center at Hainan, China’s “Kennedy Space Center” in Southeast Asia, on “China’s Hawaii”. The medium-lift, liquid-fueled rocket developed by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation is a variant of the new generation rocket family that includes the heavy-lift Long March 5 and features a transition to LOX/kerosene propellant from the expensive and dangerous N2O4/UDMH of earlier models. It has capacity of 13,500 kg to LEO or 5,500 to SSO. Zhou Jianping, chief designer of the China human spaceflight program told parliamentary sessions in Beijing that this test flight will include a scaled-down version of the new crewed re-entry capsule meant as the successor to Shenzhou for human spaceflight. Hainan, literally “South of the Sea [Qiongzhou Strait]” is the smallest and southernmost province of China, and the name also refers to Hainan Island, which is the main island of the province and the location of the Wenchang spaceport. Wenchang is soon to become China’s Moonport with the launch of Chang’e-5 Lunar sample return mission via CZ-5 in 2017. (Image Credit: CNSA, CASTC, CASC, CLEP)

MONDAY

Jun 20 — ISS, LEO: Expedition 48 three-member crew setting up Cell Biology Experiment Facility in Japan Kibo lab module; 100 Sprites (4-gram chipstats) to be delivered to ISS in July to test technologies for potential Solar System & Interstellar voyages; Station passes 6,422 days in orbit.

Jun 20 — ISRO, Launch PSLV / Cartosat 2C, Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota, India: Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, flying on PSLV-C34 mission in PSLV-CA configuration, to launch Cartosat 2C high-resolution Earth observation satellite & 21 secondary payloads from international customers.

Jun 20 — MAVEN, Mars Orbit: Studying plumes in Mars atmosphere, measuring atmospheric loss, craft to perform next “deep dip” campaign in late July to lower craft to ~125 km where mean density of Mars atmosphere is about 3.0 kg/km³.

Jun 20 — New Horizons, KBO 2014 MU69 Trajectory: First mission dedicated to studying Pluto system and Kuiper Belt continuing to downlink data from July 2015 Pluto flyby and observe Pluto system from distance of ~2.69 AU, expected to encounter KBO in Jan 2019.

Jun 20 — SpaceX, Hawthorne CA: NewSpace company CEO Elon Musk planning to announce details on Mars Colonial Transporter at 67th IAC in Sep, has more than 4,000 employees at its HQ and suppliers in all 50 United States.

Jun 20 — Asteroid Day, London, United Kingdom: Co-founders Rusty Schweickart, Brian May, Danica Remy, Grigorij Richters readying for 2nd Asteroid Day global awareness campaign on Jun 30, so far 162 events in 44 countries with 60,000 attendees are planned.

Jun 20 — The Society for Planetary Impact Studies, Brainerd MN: Newly-formed, non-profit promoting study of impact events on Earth, Moon, throughout Solar System, offering membership at US$25 to support quarterly newsletter, student scholarship, annual meeting; Director Vladimir Zivkovic.

Jun 20 — The Space Show, Online / Tiburon CA: Dr. David Livingston talks with Zoltan Levay about the Hubble Space Telescope.

SFF NewSpace 2016 Conference in Seattle Expects ~500 Attendees

The NewSpace 2016 conference is being held in Seattle, Washington at the Motif Seattle Hotel on June 21-23. Hosted annually by the Space Frontier Foundation (SFF), private investors and technology innovators will interact with members of NewSpace startups, established companies and government agencies to share their latest advancements and further collaborations. Some of the featured speakers are Robert Bigelow (Bigelow Aerospace), Brooke Salkoff (Sierra Nevada Corp.), Jeff Foust (SpaceNews), Chad Anderson (Space Angels Network), Dan Faber (Deep Space Industries), Eric Stallmer (Commercial Spaceflight Federation) and Debra Facktor Lepore (Ball Aerospace). SFF Chairman of the Board Jeff Feige will give opening remarks followed by a panel on the NewSpace industry in Seattle with speakers Jason Andrews (Spaceflight Industries), Chris Lewicki (Planetary Resources), Rob Meyerson (Blue Origin), Charles Beames (Vulcan Aerospace) and Fred Wilson (Aerojet Rocketdyne). There will be 9 panel discussions, 8 keynotes, 7 individual remarks / presentations, and the NewSpace Awards Gala in the Museum of Flight at which 5 awards will be presented. SFF will publish an economic development whitepaper titled “Incentivizing the Creation of Aerospace Economic Development Clusters within the U.S.” and is planning a workshop in Los Angeles this summer. (Image Credit: SFF, Bigelow, SNC, J. Foust, Ball Aerospace, Planetary Resources, Blue Origin, DSI, CSF, TEDx)

Jun 20-23 — Lockheed Martin Corp., NASA, USAF, JPL, GE, FAA, ATK, DARPA, Teledyne, et al, Westminster CO: 2016 National Space & Missile Materials Symposium (NSMMS) & the Commercial and Government Responsive Access to Space Technology Exchange (CRASTE).

Jun 20-24 — Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara CA: Conference: Molecules and Dust as Fuel to Star Formation.

Jun 20-24 — University of Paris-Sud, University of Gothenburg, Open University, Potsdam, Germany: 11th International Conference on Permafrost (ICOP) 2016.

Jun 20-24 — UNESCO, IAEA, The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy: Conference on Genome Architecture in Space and Time.

Jun 20 — Summer Solstice: Longest day of the year (opposite in Southern Hemisphere) as Sun, traveling along ecliptic, reaches a point farthest north of celestial equator, 12:34.

Jun 20 — Moon: Full Strawberry / Rose Moon, 01:02.

Jun 20 — Apollo Asteroid 2009 CV: Near-Earth flyby (0.032 AU).

Jun 20 — Apollo Asteroid 2004 TE10: Near-Earth flyby (0.045 AU).

Continued from…

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

May 29 – Jun 24 — Vatican Observatory, Castel Gandolfo, Italy: 2016 Summer School in Astrophysics: Water in the Solar System and Beyond.

Jun 12 – Jul 3 — Aspen Center for Physics, Aspen CO: Workshop: Testing the Laws of Gravity with Cosmological Surveys.