Hubble Space Telescope Starts 26th Year of Cutting Edge Exploration

Currently generating about 844 gigabytes of data per month, totaling more than 100 terabytes of information used in over 11,000 scientific papers to date, Hubble is one of the most productive scientific instruments ever built. Funding of the joint NASA-ESA project is expected to continue at least until the succeeding James Webb Space Telescope becomes operational NET 2018. Regardless of instrument health and funding, final orbital decay is expected 2030-2040, depending on solar activity and resulting fluctuations of atmospheric drag. The observatory maintains a circular orbit of about 560km altitude and has pointing accuracy sufficient to hold a target to less than 7/1,000th of an arc second deviation while the spacecraft is moving at 7,160 meters per second. Over 38,000 celestial objects have been imaged, revealing new aspects of subjects as profound as the age of the Universe and as mysterious as dark energy and black holes. Events commemorating the 25th Anniversary of Hubble, deployed by STS-31 Discovery and astronomer astronaut Steven Hawley of the Ad Astra State of Kansas on April 25, 1990, bring into focus the transformative power of astronomy to enhance human understanding and imagination. NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and Associate Administrator for Science John Grunsfeld, and Hubble Senior Project Scientist Jennifer Wiseman will preside over the presentation of the Hubble 25th Anniversary image on April 23 in Washington DC. One of many events celebrating the mission, which will also be featured at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum throughout April. (Image Credit: ESA/Hubble; NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team, STSciI, AURA)

MONDAY

Apr 20 — ISS, LEO: Expedition 43 crew transferring cargo to & from Dragon CRS-6 (which will remain docked until May 17), preparing for Progress 57P departure Apr 25 & Progress 59P arrival Apr 28, will perform tests on material intended for synthetic muscle for robotics; ISS has been continuously occupied since Nov 2000.

Apr 20 — Dawn, Ceres Orbit: Will continue to investigate Ceres until at least Jun 2016, make visible & infrared maps of surface to identify potential water ice, begin 13,500-km altitude science phase Apr 23.

Apr 20 — Cassini OTM-408, Saturn Orbit: Spacecraft conducts Orbital Trim Maneuver #408 today.

Apr 20 — New Horizons, Pluto Trajectory: Now less than 3 months from Pluto / Charon closest approach, fastest spacecraft ever launched & all 7 science instruments operating nominally; campaign for public to name newly discovered features open until Apr 24.

Apr 20 — Planetary Resources, Redmond WA: NewSpace company Arkyd 3 Reflight (A3R) spacecraft at ISS will be unpacked & readied for late Jul 2015 deployment from Kibo airlock for 90-day mission; next technology demonstrator Arkyd 6 to be launched Dec 2015.

Apr 20 — Terminal Velocity LLC, Atlanta GA: Advancing toward development of reentry device RED-4U, will perform 30,500-meter drop test of small payload return capsule prototype & related technologies via NASA Flight Opportunities Program

Apr 20 — Rocket Lab Ltd., Auckland, New Zealand & California, USA: Planning for commercial SmallSat launches to LEO in 2016 for US$4.9M, first launch in 2015 of two-stage Electron rocket with 4,600 lbf (20,461 newton) Rutherford engine powered by battery & liquid oxygen / hydrocarbon, composed primarily of 3D printed parts.

Apr 20-23 — Space Telescope Science Institute, NASA, ESA, Baltimore MD: Hubble’s 25th Anniversary Symposium: Hubble 2020 – Building on 25 Years of Discovery.

Apr 20-24 — International Academy of Astronautics, DLR, Berlin, Germany: 10th IAA Symposium on Small Satellites for Earth Observation.

Space Access Society Supporting Private / Public Low-Cost Space Ventures

The Space Access Society will be hosting its Space Access 2015 Conference in Phoenix, Arizona on April 30 – May 2 at the Radisson Hotel Phoenix North. The conference will feature more than 21 hours on current and future technologies, businesses and politics of cheaper space transportation. There will be a special session on ‘Return to the Moon’ by Doug Plata who is proposing to use the successful Commercial Cargo transportation model to facilitate lunar commercial development, transportation and habitation. This session will also feature talks by Jeff Greason (market implication of lunar return), Pascal Lee (the Moon and the road to Mars), Dave Masten (on low-cost access to lunar surface) and Erik Seedhouse (lunar surface crew factors and habitats). Also presenting during the conference will be Jon Goff (Altius Space Machines), Jeff Foust (The Space Review), Clark Lindsey (NewSpace Global), Doug Messier (Parabolic Arc), Ben Brockert (Moon Express), Gary Hudson (Space Studies Institute), Peter Swan (International Space Elevator Consortium) and Ed Wright (Citizens in Space). Henry Vanderbilt (Top), Executive Director and Founder of SAS 1992, continues to organize the annual conference and contribute to the long-standing Space Access Updates. (Image Credit: SAS, XCOR, Masten, GLXP, NASA, JPL)

Apr 20-24 — Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland: Meeting: The Evolving Blazar Paradigm.

Apr 20 — Moon: 8.1° S of Pleiades, 13:00.

Continued from…

Oct 16, 2014 – Jun 11 — NASA, University of Hawai`i, Mauna Loa HI: Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) Mission 3.

Mar 1 – Jan 1, 2016 — Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), Multiple Locations: Cycle 3 of science flights to observe universe consists of science flights grouped into multi-week observing campaigns totaling about 450 research flight hours.

Apr 6 – May 8 — Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics China, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China: Workshop: The Next Detectors for Gravitational Wave Astronomy.

Apr 13-24 — United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, Vienna, Austria: 54th session of the Legal Subcommittee of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.

Apr 19-24 — International Academy, Research and Industry Association (IARIA), Barcelona, Spain: 7th International Conference on Advances in Satellite and Space Communications (SPACOMM 2015).

TUESDAY

Apr 21 — Stanford University, Stanford CA: Public Conversation with Andrei Linde, Stanford professor of physics, one of the authors of the big bang inflationary theory, to address the question, “Universe or multi-universe?”

Apr 21 — SETI Institute, Mountain View CA: SETI Weekly Colloquium: Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction and the Identification of Habitable Conditions on Ancient Earth and Mars Using Clay Minerals; presented by Tom Bristow from SETI, 12:00.