March 13-19, 2017 / Vol 36, No 11 / Hawai`i Island, USA

2017 Disrupt Space Summit Fueling a Sustainable Space Economy

The 2017 Disrupt Space conference March 14-15 in Berlin, Germany will bring together space entrepreneurs, investors and executives to advance space technology for new applications, uses and markets. More than 300 attendees from 25 countries, 50 space startups and 35 speakers will participate in business meetings, keynotes, workshops and hands on activities. Featured speakers are (T-B) ESA Director General Johann-Dietrich Wörner, Space Angels Network CEO Chad Anderson, Earth2Orbit co-founder Amaresh Kollipara, Planet co-founder Robbie Schingler, Spaceflight Industries Director of Business Development Melissa Wuerl and OffWorld.ai co-founder Erika Ilves. Discussion areas cover commercial opportunities in space, launch services, space resources, corporate partnering, satellite constellations, and Earth observation. Five workshop topics focus on intellectual property, developing branding, and working with European Union start-up initiative, Airbus Ventures and Space Angels Network. Attending space startups include ispace which manages rovers for GLXP Team Hakuto; Space Nation aims to provide Astronaut training; O’Sol wants to develop autonomous deployable solar generators to rapidly build an electrical infrastructure on the Moon; and SEArch+ is working to develop human-supporting design concepts for living in and exploring space. (Image Credit: Disrupt Space, NASA, ESA, Planet, et al)

MONDAY

Mar 13 — Keck Institute for Space Studies, Caltech, JPL, Pasadena CA: Lecture: Hybrid Rocket Propulsion for a Low Temperature Mars Ascent Vehicle; Ashley C. Karp from JPL, 16:30.

Microsymposium 58 and 48th LPSC: Future, Present Solar System Science and Exploration

Microsymposium 58 is being held March 18-19 at Woodlands TX, preliminary to 48th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) on Mar 20-24. Co-sponsored by Brown University, Vernadsky Institute, Russia Space Research Institute (IKI), and SSERVI, Micro58 theme is Surface Exploration and Sample Return – A New Era in Planetary Sciences. The objectives are to define major science goals for the next half-century, chart exploration strategies, and discuss surface exploration, sample return, human exploration and outstanding scientific questions for Moon, Mars, Venus, Phobos, Deimos and asteroids. Co-conveners are James Head, Carle Pieters, Maria Zuber, Lev Zelenyi, Alexander Basilevsky, Harald Hiesinger and Long Xiao. Hosted by Lunar and Planetary Institute, USRI and NASA, LPSC 17,000 international attendees will highlight latest planetary science research and mission results. Eight sessions dedicated to lunar research are volcanism, magma ocean, regolith evolution, surface magnetization and  weathering, interior, petrology and geochemistry, impact cratering and crustal evolution. There are 13 Mars topics, and sessions on impacts, Ceres, Comet 67P, icy satellites, Venus, asteroids, meteorites and Mercury. Besides oral, poster and plenary sessions, peripheral team meetings, workshops, networking opportunities, and events for women in science and students are conducted. Every 10 years a Planetary Science Decadal Survey Briefing is held, the current survey is titled 2013–2022, Visions and Voyages for Planetary Science. (Image Credit: LPSC, NASA, SSERVI, Brown Univ., Vernadsky, MIT, et al)

Mar 13 — Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI), University of Central Florida,

Mar 13-16 — AASTMT University, URSI, IEEE, Port Said, Egypt: 34th National Radio Science Conference (NRSC2017).

Mar 13-17 — National Space Society, Washington DC: 2017 March Storm Washington DC Blitz; visits to Congress to voice support for a strong national space program.

Mar 13 — Apollo Asteroid 2017 EK: Near-Earth Flyby (0.013 AU).

Continued from…

Oct 15, 2016 – Sep 4 — Peabody Essex Museum, Salem MA: Lunar Attraction Exhibit; featuring 60 Apollo memorabilia, paintings, sculptures, photographs, books, movies, jewelry that illustrate our profound connection to the Moon.

TUESDAY

NET Mar 14 — SpaceX, Launch Falcon 9 / EchoStar 23, LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida: SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to launch EchoStar 23 communications satellite for EchoStar Corp to provide direct-to-home television broadcast services over Brazil.

Mar 14 — Cassini, Saturn Orbit: Epimetheus flyby scheduled at 38,000-km altitude, Pandora at 111,000 km.

Mar 14 — United Launch Alliance, Launch Delta 4 / WGS 9, Cape Canaveral AFS FL: ULA Delta 4 rocket to launch USAF ninth Wideband Global SATCOM spacecraft.

Mar 14 — NASA, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Space Telescope Science Institute, Austin TX: Panel: New Eyes on Our Home System: NASA’s Next Telescope; 12:30, during the South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival running Mar 10-19.

Mar 14 — SETI, Mountain View CA: Lecture: A Journey to Alpha Centauri; Christian Marois of University of Victoria, 12:00.

Mar 14 — Pi Day Org, Worldwide: Pi Day (3/14); celebrating STEM education with challenges and events, Greek letter “π” (Pi) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, approximately 3.14159.