New Shepard NS-31 Flight April 14 to Take All-Women Crew to Suborbital Space

Six women are prepped to fly aboard the next crewed Blue Origin New Shepard NS-31 flight, aiming for an April 14 liftoff from Corn Ranch, Van Horn, Texas. Though many NS flights have science experiments, this flight focuses on inspiration and education. The women aboard are: Aisha Bowe, a Bahamian-American aerospace engineer; Amanda Nguyen, a civil rights activist and former Nobel Peace Prize nominee, who will become the first Vietnamese and Southeast Asian woman in space; Gayle King, a journalist for CBS News and editor-at-large for the Oprah Magazine; Katy Perry, a global pop star and singer; Kerianne Flynn, a film producer and non-profit supporter; and Lauren Sánchez, an author and philanthropist. In the course of the 11-minute flight, the civilian astronauts will ascend beyond the Kármán line of 100 kilometers, and enjoy several minutes of weightlessness and awe-inspiring views of planet Earth. The New Shepard spacecraft operates entirely autonomously, with no pilots on board. The first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, launched on a 70.8-hour flight on June 16, 1963. Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, spent 6 days on Space Shuttle Challenger starting June 18, 1983. As USA, China and India national programs work toward human lunar landings, the answer to “Who will be the first woman on the Moon?” remains an important and exciting prospect for those supporting egalitarian principles. (Image credits: Blue Origin, et al)

MONDAY

☆ Apr 14 — International Space Station, ~415-km LEO: Expedition 72 Commander Aleksey Ovchinin to hand over ISS command to Takuya Onishi on Friday; 10-member crew to become team of 7 for Expedition 73 with departure of Soyuz MS-26 on Saturday; experimenting with new thigh cuff to reduce blood flow to head / eyes.

☆ Apr 14 — Tiangong Space Station, ~390-km LEO: Shenzhou 19 Taikonaut trio have about 2 weeks left of their 6-month mission, continuing work with protein crystallization, studies on five types of cells, and with Xiao Hang (Little Space) – an AI robot; Shenzhou 20 three-member crew expected to launch April 24 (China National Space Day).

★ Apr 14 —  Blue Origin, Launch New Shepard / NS-31, Corn Ranch, Van Horn TX: First all-woman crew in 11 flights, Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyen, Gayle King, Katy Perry, Kerianne Flynn, Lauren Sánchez; 08:30 CDT.

★ Apr 14 —  United Launch Alliance, Launch Atlas V551 / Project Kuiper (KA-01), SLC41, Cape Canaveral SFS FL: Part of planned internet satellite constellation of 3,276, in 98 orbital planes; 13:00-17:34 HST.

o Apr 14-17 — Université de Lorraine, University of Connecticut, Florida International University, et al, Metz, France / Online: International Workshop on Granular Materials & Regolith: Granular Materials Fundamentals, Applications and Concepts for Extraterrestrial Regolith, including the Moon, Mars and Asteroids.

TUESDAY

☆ NET Apr 15 — Advanced Rocket Technologies, Launch Horus-4 / unknown payload, Etlaq Spaceport, Duqm, Oman: Inaugural flight of Horus-4 rocket by London-based company.

● Apr 15 — American Astronomical Society, International Astronomical Union, The Galactic Inquirer, Slooh Remote Telescopes Service, Online: Submissions due for Astronomical Science Writing Contest.

● Apr 15-18 — AIAA, Johns Hopkins University / Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel MD: AIAA Defense and Security Forum (AIAA DEFENSE Forum); discussing policy issues pertaining to the aerospace and defense community.

☆ Apr 15 — Apollo Asteroid 2023 UH: Near-Earth Flyby (0.022 AU)

LUCY: 12 Years, 11 Asteroids and Satellites, 1 Spacecraft

NASA space probe Lucy has a 12-year mission. The probe will visit C-type Donaldjohanson asteroid, diameter 4km, in the main belt on April 20, having flown by S-type asteroid Dinkinesh, diameter 0.7km, and confirmed it has a satellite, Selam. Paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson discovered in Ethiopia the skeleton known as Lucy. As the Lucy fossil glimpsed origins of humanity, the Lucy mission hopes to enhance understanding  of Solar System origins. Lucy is the first spacecraft to the Trojan asteroids, originating in the outer solar system, flung inwards, and now trapped in Lagrange points of Jupiter’s orbit. Lucy will do first-ever flybys of P-type asteroids, Polymele in 2028, diameter 21km (plus satellite Shaun), Patroclus and Menoetius in 2033, diameters 113km and 104km, and will offer a look at their dark, reddish surfaces believed to be rich in organics. They are proposed by scientists to be ancient remnants from the early stages of the Solar System. D-type are also very dark, very red, also thought to be rich in organics and carbon, and flybys will be made of Leucus, 40km, and Orus, 51km. The 1st Trojan flyby will be of C-type asteroid Eurybates and its satellite Queta, members of the only known collisional asteroids in the Trojans. The 2033 flybys end the mission, but Lucy is expected to orbit the Sun for many 100,000s or millions of years. (Image credits: NASA, Donald Johanson at Lucy build)

WEDNESDAY

★ Apr 16 —  Northrop Grumman Space Systems, Launch Minotaur IV / NROL-174, SLC8, Vandenberg SFB CA: Mission patch has phrase I Viam Inveniam, “I will find the way”; 09:00-11:26 HST.

● Apr 16 — Federal Aviation Administration, Online / Cape Canaveral FL: Meetings to obtain public input on SpaceX application to increase launch and landing cadence at SLC-40, Cape Canaveral SFS FL up to 120 per year, and up to 34 landings per year.

☾ Apr 16 — Moon: 0.51° SE of Antares, 14:00.

☆ Apr 16 — Mercury: 0.68° SE of Neptune, 14:00.

☆ Apr 16 — Mars: At aphelion, 1.6661 AU from Sun, 12:00.