Jul 24-30, 2017 / Vol 36, No 30 / Hawai`i Island, USA

Human Solar System Complete Exploration: Unlocking Full Potential

Voyager probes are traveling through interstellar space and the heliosheath, New Horizons is heading into the 3rd Zone – the unexplored Kuiper Belt, Cassini is diving closer to Saturn through its rings, Juno is studying giant Jupiter containing 70% of all Solar System planetary mass, 6 orbiters and 2 active rovers are exploring Mars, 4 orbiters and one lander are studying the Moon, Akatsuki is circling Venus and Mercury explorer BepiColombo is set to launch Oct 2018. There are over 600,000 asteroids and 16,200 Near Earth Objects found so far. Hayabusa 2 is working toward an asteroid sample return 2020 and Dawn orbits dwarf planet Ceres. The International Space Station and Tiangong-2 are the only active Human exploration points in Space. Private companies such as Blue Origin, ILOA, SpaceX envision Multi World Civilization spreading throughout the Complete Solar System. NASA has proposed a Cislunar Gateway to the Stars. China, India, Russia, Japan, ESA, S Korea are all actively planning for Human Moon settlement, with Mars and Jupiter moon missions in mind. As the 50th observance of Apollo 11 landing and the 2020s are fast approaching, it is a pivotal time to lay a foundation for encompassing, strategic considerations for long-term Human species survival through extraterrestrial habitation, international cooperation and advanced technologies – starting with our nearest Celestial neighbor Luna. (Image Credit: SPC, ILOA, NASA, SpaceX, M. Carroll)

MONDAY

Expedition 52/53 Crew members Set for Soyuz Launch to ISS

Russian launch of the Soyuz-FG MS-05 rocket on the flight designated ISS Mission 51S on July 28 is set to carry Randy Bresnik of NASA, Paolo Nespoli of ASI / ESA and Sergey Ryazansky of Roscosmos to the International Space Station from Baikonur Cosmodrome Pad 1/5 in Kazakhstan. This will be the 134th flight of a Soyuz spacecraft. Baikonur is the world’s first and largest operational space launch facility. The 3-member crew will join current ISS occupants Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, Jack Fischer and Peggy Whitson to continue a wide variety of research including the Biochem Profile, Repository and Cardio Ox investigations and the Magnetic 3 Dimensional Cell Culturing experiment. The crew have underdone final exams ahead of their 5.5-hour trip to the ISS Rassvet module docking port for a 4.5 month-long mission in Earth orbit. Yurchikhin, who is a 4-time ISS cosmonaut as well as 1-time shuttle crew member, is working on life support systems maintenance. A total of 227 individuals from 18 countries have made 390 visits to the orbital research habitat, more than half of them Americans. (Image Credit: NASA, Roscosmos)

Jul 24-28 — Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA/Caltech, Pasadena CA: NASA’s 29th Annual Planetary Science Summer Seminar.

Jul 24-28 — Sexten Center for Astrophysics, INAF, ASI, Sexten, Italy: Conference: Exploring Dark Matter and Dark Ages with Lensing Clusters.

Jul 24-28 — Warsaw University, Warsaw, Poland: Conference: Celebrating 25 years of the OGLE Project; sky survey contributing to exoplanetary astronomy, stellar astrophysics, Galactic and Local Group astronomy, cosmology.

Jul 24 — Moon: 0.84° N of Mercury, 23:00.

Jul 24 — Apollo Asteroid 2017 MT8: Near-Earth Flyby (0.094 AU).

Continued from…

Jun 30 – Jul 29 — Space Media Ventures, National Space Society, Online: Kickstarter Campaign: Space Odyssey Game; presented by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, for people of all ages to experience new Worlds and add to them as real science & their collective imagination allows.

Jul 11 – Aug 11 — Mars Spacecraft, Mars Orbit: Superior Solar Conjunction to prevent normal operations for international Mars missions, craft will undergo critical operations stand-down and most will rely on automated systems.

Jul 18-27 — Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), ESA, International Space Science Institute, AustroSpace, Alpbach, Austria: 41st Summer School Alpbach 2017 – The Dusty Universe.