We finally have clear photos of the mysterious substance that China found on the far side of the Moon, which it described as gel-like in August.

Imaged by the nations rover, Yutu 2, the glittering nature of the material instead suggests it is likely glass created by an impact, according to lunar scientists.

The odd material was discovered in July by Yutu 2, which has traveled hundreds of meters across the lunar terrain since it was delivered to the Moon by the Change-4 lander in January. Change-4 is the first surface mission in history to explore the far side of the Moon.

The drive team decided to stall the trip for a while so that the rover could get a closer look at the gelatinous substance, as it was described by Chinas Lunar Exploration Program.

A clearer image of the substance was shared on October 8 by Our Space, a government-sanctioned science publication on the social media site Weibo. It was spotted by Andrew Jones of Space.com, who has been reporting on the weird substance for months.

Dan Moriarty, a geologist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, enhanced the images into different versions by adjusting brightness, contrast, and other customizable features.

In an email, Moriarty said that there are limitations to this technique because the images might be affected by JPEG compression and the lack of any scale bar.

Even so, the enhanced pictures appear to corroborate previous suspicions that the material could be glass forged by meteorites crashing into the lunar surface, which would explain why it is the middle of a crater. It could also potentially be basaltic rock that originated from a time when the Moon was more volcanically active.

"The shape of the fragments appears fairly similar to other materials in the area, Moriarty told Space.com. What this tells us is that this material has a similar history as the surrounding material. It was broken up and fractured by impacts on the lunar surface, just like the surrounding soil.

Glassy residue, both from meteorite impacts and ancient volcanism, is presumed to be relatively common on the Moon. For instance, a patch of orange soil from a volcanic eruption that occurred more than three billion years ago was found by the last two astronauts to walk on the Moon: Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt of Apollo 17.

Both Yutu 2 and its mothership Change-4 are currently waking up after about two weeks of shutdown time to escape the cold temperatures of the lunar night. Hopefully, that means the rover will send back more pictures and data of its otherworldly surroundings soon.

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Finally, a Clear Look at the Weird Substance China Found on the Moon - VICE

Virgin Galactics chief astronaut trainer, Beth Moses, gets her suborbital spaceflier pin from Michael Lopez-Alegria of the Association of Space Explorers. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

WASHINGTON, D.C. Will the customers who fly on the suborbital spaceships operated by British billionaire Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic and Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos Blue Origin get astronaut wings? Thats not in the cards, because those wings are typically reserved for flight crews. But at least theyll get a lapel pin to mark their achievement.

The pin, created by the Association of Space Explorers, made its debut today on the lapel of Beth Moses, chief astronaut instructor at Virgin Galactic. She was pinned here at the International Astronautical Congress by former NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, the associations president.

Moses already has her commercial astronaut wings from the Federal Aviation Administration, by virtue of her trip beyond the 50-mile mark in February as a crew member aboard Virgin Galactics VSS Unity rocket plane. But shes glad to have the pin as well.

Its wonderful to be presented with this new pin, Moses said in a news release. Its a real honor to be recognized by an association which counts so many pioneers of space exploration among its members. Im looking forward to working with them to continue to inspire and educate people around the advantages of seeing the worlds problems from the perspective of space.

The Association of Space Explorers was founded in 1985, but until now it provided recognition (and a pin) only to spacefliers who achieved orbit. The pin for suborbital space travelers, created as a result of discussions with Virgin Galactic, has a slightly different design.

Going forward, the suborbital pin will be awarded to customers and crew members who rise above 50 miles in altitude whether its on Virgin Galactics SpaceShipTwo craft, Blue Origins New Shepard spaceship or other vehicles yet to be developed.

We look forward to this new demographic of spacefliers adding to our own voices in promoting the benefits of human space exploration, greater stewardship of our home planet, and inspiring the next generation, Lopez-Alegria said.

Many more pins could be given out next year if Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin stick to their current schedules.

Clare Pelly, head of astronaut relations at Virgin Galactic, said VSS Unity and its WhiteKnightTwo carrier airplane are due to make the move from its testing grounds at Californias Mojave Air and Space Port to Spaceport America in New Mexico by the end of the year. That should set the stage for commercial flights to begin next year, with Branson getting on the first flight.

More than 600 Future Astronauts have paid as much as $250,000 each to reserve a ride. One of those future fliers is Dan Durda, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute who plans to fly alongside an experiment focusing on how grains of asteroid-like material stick together in zero gravity.

Theres an entire range of researchers, biological sciences and physical sciences, who are just champing at the bit for this relatively cheap and frequent access to the space environment, said Durda, who has been working with Virgin Galactic as well as Blue Origin. Im raring to go.

Blue Origin hasnt yet started taking reservations, but each uncrewed test flight brings the day closer when New Shepard will start flying people. Greg Ray J Johnson, a former NASA astronaut who now heads the New Shepard program, said therell be one more uncrewed test before the end of the year. He acknowledged that his team has been tapping the brakes to make absolutely sure the spacecraft is safe for crewed flights next year.

Johnson said Blue Origin would make sure theres room aboard New Shepard for poets and philosophers, and artists also. He also promised that the adventure would continue even after the flight is finished.

We plan to engage with our Blue astronauts after the flight, to keep them in the club, Johnson said.

Pelly agreed with that strategy: Probably the thing we hear the most frequently from our Future Astronauts is, Im having so much fun, I dont want it to be over.

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Suborbital spacefliers will get pinned by the Association of Space Explorers - GeekWire

Attendees hoping to hear from the worlds busiest space power were disappointed after a Chinese space official didnt show at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC), a 70-year-old space conference.

In 2018, China launched more missions to orbit than any other nation, and it looks likely to do so again in 2019. But at a discussion between the heads of the worlds leading space agencies, Wu Yanhua, the vice chairman of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), was not present.

I miss an important space agency in this panel. Where is China? read the most popular crowd-sourced question displayed in enormous type above the assembled space dignitaries.

Pascale Ehrenfreund, the head of the German space agency, blamed Yanhuas absence on a scheduling conflict. Thats difficult to believe, given that the annual conference is planned years in advance. Later, Jan Woerner, the head of the European Space Agency, told Quartz that he believed Yanhua was unable to obtain a visa to enter the United States.

Its not nice for me, because Im always looking forward to interactions with all states worldwide, so Im sad that they are not here, he said.

A spokesperson for the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), which organizes the conference, said that Yanhua had notified them that he would not be able to attend several days before the conference. At a press briefing held before the opening day, no mention was made of Yanhuas absencethough organizers said they spent 18 months working to obtain visas for Chinese and Russian nationals. Chinese officials have attended other IAC events recently in Germany, Australia and Mexico.

The US State Department did not respond to e-mailed questions about the visas, nor did the CNSA.

Sergey Krikalev, the director of human spaceflight at Roscosmos, Russias space agency, frowned and said it was a pity that an official Chinese representative wasnt on hand. But he said that he would be meeting with Chinese officials next week and that space cooperation between the countries is ongoing. Krikalevs boss, Roscomos chief Dmitry Rogozin, is now forbidden from entering the US due to sanctions imposed following Russias seizure of Crimea in 2014.

Despite testy geopolitical feuds, the US and Russia have maintained admirable cooperation while operating the International Space Station alongside 13 other nations. But US space officials are forbidden by law from bilateral cooperation with their Chinese counterparts. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said that problem is above my pay grade.

Chinas space ambitionsincluding a crewed habitat in low-Earth orbit and lunar explorationhave figured as a bogeyman in the Trump administrations domestic space rhetoric. And US national security officials believe there is an organized effort by China to steal high-tech US space hardware.

This morning, vice president Mike Pence pointedly noted that space cooperation would be aimed only at freedom-loving nations. Bridenstine was asked if that represented a change in US policy, which has often had to set space aside as a place its willing to cooperate with terrestrial rivals.

When we think about the future, we do need to be careful about things like the theft of intellectual property, Bridenstine said, referencing a sore spot in ongoing trade tensions between the US and China. We need to be careful about how we go about bringing new partners in that ultimately could be more harmful than helpful in future. Thats probably what the vice president was referencing in his speech today.

The IAF spokesperson said that lower-ranking CNSA officials were attending the conference and engaging with their international colleagues, though none could be found at press time and China did not host a booth in the exhibition hall. China HEAD Aerospace Technology Co., a Chinese-European space firm, was assigned a space in the hall, but the location was empty.

All in all, Chinas absence proved a major disappointment.

Meetings where we have been here physically in person have been key to international collaboration, Sylvain Laporte, the head of the Canadian Space Agency, said during the space agency leaders panel.

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The space powers have gathered. Wheres China? - Quartz

NASA's current planetary-protection policies reflect a bygone era of space exploration and need to be updated, a new report argues.

Planetary protection refers to the effort to keep the solar system as pristine as possible. The main goals are to minimize the odds that our spacecraft infect other worlds, such as Mars, with Earth microbes (a process known as forward contamination) and to reduce the risk of alien bugs getting loose on our planet after sample-return missions (back contamination).

NASA's planetary-protection guidelines follow those established by an international scientific organization called the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), which began such work way back in 1958. The U.S. space agency's policies have changed some over the decades, but NASA recognized that additional revisions are likely needed now to deal with the fast-changing exploration landscape.

Related: 6 Most Likely Places for Alien Life in the Solar System

Those changes are occurring on multiple fronts. For example, NASA has taken real steps toward sample-return missions. The agency's next Mars rover, which launches next summer, will collect samples for eventual transport to Earth (though when this latter step will occur is unclear at the moment).

In addition, tiny cubesats are now capable of flying interplanetary missions, as NASA's MarCO Mars probes showed last year, potentially allowing a wide range of organizations to launch probes to various cosmic destinations.

Astronauts will set foot on multiple worlds in the not-too-distant future as well, if all goes according to plan. NASA aims to land people on the moon by 2024 and on Mars in the 2030s. And SpaceX is building a giant spaceship called Starship that may get people to the Red Planet even sooner than NASA does.

So, in April, NASA established a Planetary Protection Independent Review Board (PPIRB) to take a look at the agency's policies in this realm. The PPIRB was instructed to start this work in late June and have it all done three months later. The board met this ambitious timeline. PPIRB submitted a report of its findings to NASA last week, and the agency published the report today (Oct. 18).

The PPIRB, which was chaired by planetary scientist Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, came up with nearly 80 findings and recommendations. One of the first findings the team made was a recognition that the exploration landscape will continue to change rapidly in the near future, as scientific knowledge about cosmic bodies improves and more players get into the spaceflight game.

Therefore, "we've recommended that NASA conduct a process like this IRB at least twice per decade going forward, to take into account new findings, new entrants and new technologies, both on the scientific side and on the spaceflight side," Stern, the principal investigator of NASA's New Horizons mission, said during a teleconference with reporters today.

The PPIRB team also recommended that NASA reconsider how it categorizes missions from a planetary-protection perspective. At the moment, that system appears to be overly broad and antiquated, Stern said.

For example, all missions to the surface of Mars are "Category IV" projects, which are subject to stringent spacecraft-cleaning requirements. But data gathered by multiple Red Planet craft over the years suggest that significant portions of Mars are hostile enough to Earth life that we shouldn't worry too much about contaminating those areas. Such regions could be downgraded to "Category II" destinations, reducing the cleaning burden, and thus the prices, of missions targeting the spots, Stern said.

Related: Could There Be Life on Mars Today?

A similar reassessment should be done of the moon, which is now entirely a "Category II" world. Some parts the ones away from the water-ice-rich poles, for example could be reclassified as "Category I," Stern and the 11 other PPIRB board members wrote.

"The IRB wants to see more exploration to do more science. We want to open up the ways that Mars, the moon and all of these other spectacularly interesting objects across the solar system can be explored," Stern said.

"And so we want to move from this sort of '60s-'70s point of view that all of Mars should be treated precisely one way, and all of each world should be treated one way, to this more nuanced view, where we differentiate between different sites on the surface in order to enable more science to be done," he added.

The review board didn't tell NASA how to reclassify such worlds,which parts of Mars should be "Category IV" and which should be "Category II," for example. Stern and his colleagues just recommended that the space agency should undertake this work, and soon.

The board also recommended that NASA accelerate the development of the facility here on Earth that will receive and house the samples collected by the 2020 Mars rover, to make sure our planet is ready for this epic and unprecedented delivery.

And Stern and his colleagues advised the space agency to start educating the public about the planetary-protection aspects of the first crewed Mars missions soon now, if possible so people are ready for those as well.

"We recognize as an independent review board that there [is] a wide spectrum of opinions in the public, and a wide spectrum of knowledge and viewpoints about issues related to planetary protection," Stern said. "NASA needs to get ahead of that ball and start communicating proactively about both forward- and back-contamination issues."

The space agency can take some guidance in this matter, he added, from its proactive communication efforts surrounding the use of nuclear power aboard spacecraft, another issue about which many nonexperts have expressed strong opinions.

There are many more findings and recommendations,far too many to discuss in this story. You can read the entire 48-page PPIRB report here.

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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NASA Needs to Get With the Times When It Comes to Planetary Protection, Report Finds - Space.com

STORY WRITTEN FORCBS NEWS& USED WITH PERMISSION

Douglas Loverro, a veteran manager with broad experience in national security space operations, has been selected by NASA to lead the agencys human space flight programs. He takes over at a critical moment as the agency assesses the readiness of new commercial crew ships amid a full-court press to land astronauts on the moon in 2024.

Loverro is a respected strategic leader in both civilian and defense programs, overseeing the development and implementation of highly complicated systems, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement.

He is known for his strong, bipartisan work, and his experience with large programs will be of great benefit to NASA at this critical time in our final development of human spaceflight systems for both Commercial Crew and Artemis.

Artemis is the name of NASAs second-generation moon program, an accelerated Trump administration initiative to send astronauts back to the moon four years earlier than NASA originally had planned.

Bridenstine announced Loverros appointment three months after dismissing long-time associate administrator Bill Gerstenmaier, a widely respected NASA engineer with decades of human spaceflight experience, in a major management shakeup intended to spark a fresh approach to running the agencys most complex and expensive programs.

Former astronaut Ken Bowersox served as acting associate administrator of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate after Gerstenmaiers departure. He now will resume is previous role as deputy associate administrator.

Its an interesting appointment, John Logsdon, a noted author and space historian, said of Loverro. Hes a good guy, very accessible, very easy to get along with. In his earlier life, he managed big procurement projects and has a reputation as a good manager.

More recently, Logsdon said, Loverro dealt with the White House, Congress and international partners on security space issues. I think hes well fitted to negotiate the relationships in exploration going forward.

Loverro holds a masters degree in physics from the University of New Mexico, a masters in political science from Auburn University and an MBA from the University of West Florida. He spent three decades working with the Department of Defense and the secretive National Reconnaissance Office.

He retired from the Air Force as a colonel in 2006 after selection as a member of the Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service.

As chief of NASAs Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at agency Headquarters, Loverro will be taking over top-level management of the International Space Station, the Commercial Crew Program and the Artemis project.

Boeing and SpaceX, working under NASA contracts to commercially develop new space capsules to ferry astronauts to and from the space station, are struggling to ready their ships for initial piloted test flights in the wake of budget shortfalls and technical issues.

Both companies now plan to launch astronaut crews on those long-awaited test flights early next year to pave the way toward operational crew rotation missions that will end NASAs sole reliance on Russias Soyuz spacecraft for ferrying astronauts to and from the station.

Even so, NASA likely will be forced to buy additional Soyuz seats to ensure a continuous U.S. presence aboard the lab complex if significant additional delays are encountered. As it now stands, the final NASA-contracted seat aboard a Soyuz will be used in April.

Its not yet known when the first piloted Commercial Crew mission will take off, but Loverro will play a major role in assessing NASA requirements and launch targets as testing proceeds.

His biggest challenge will be overseeing the Artemis moon program in the midst of political wrangling over how much the project might cost and resolution of major technical challenges, from work to ready NASAs huge new Space Launch System SLS booster for flight to development of a commercially procured lunar lander.

NASA originally hoped to send astronauts back to the moon in 2028, but the Trump administration reset the agenda and ordered NASA to move that up four years for a landing in 2024. The administration requested $1.6 billion in supplemental funding for the agencys 2020 budget request to kick-start development of key systems, including a moon lander.

During a hearing Wednesday of the House appropriations subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies, chairman Jos Serrano repeatedly pressed Bridenstine for an Artemis cost estimate beyond 2020.

I remain extremely concerned about the additional costs to accelerate the mission to the moon by four years, he said in opening remarks. Some experts have said the additional financial resources needed to meet the administrations imposed 2024 deadline could exceed $25 billion over the next five years compared to the original 2028 schedule.

To date, NASA has not provided the committee with a full cost estimate despite repeated requests. At a time of huge financial needs across numerous government programs, all competing for funding within the budget caps, an additional $25 billion cost would severely impact vital programs.

Bridenstine said later that NASA is working to refine schedules and cost estimates and will include projected costs for Artemis in the agencys next budget proposal.

We are working with the Office of Management and Budget and the National Space Council to come up with an administration consensus for what the total cost will be, and we will submit that in February, he said.

NASA is relying on the huge Boeing-built SLS rocket to propel Artemis astronauts back to the moon aboard Orion capsules built by Lockheed Martin. The SLS is years behind schedule and is not expected to make its initial unpiloted test flight until 2021.

Assuming the rocket makes it through development and flight tests, current plans call for an astronaut crew to dock with a mini space station Gateway in lunar orbit in 2024 before descending to the surface in a commercially developed lander.

Managing how that program will play out in Congress and in space will be at the top of Loverros agenda.

Its really a management challenge, Logsdon said. Theres a flip side to his not having a background in human spaceflight, that is, he doesnt have background in human spaceflight with all the culture that comes with that. He can take a fresh look.

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NASA names new chief of human space operations - Spaceflight Now

LAS CRUCES, N.M. Boeing has set a new launch date for the first orbital flight of its new commercial crew vehicle that will soon begin ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

The unpiloted CST-100 Starliner capsule is now scheduled to launch to the International Space Station on Dec. 17, said John Mulholland, Boeing's vice president of commercial programs, here at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS).

For this mission, titled "Orbital Flight Test" (OFT), the Starliner space capsule will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on an Atlas V rocket and dock with the International Space Station, where it will stay for about a week before making a parachute-assisted landing at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

Related: How Boeing's Commercial CST-100 Starliner Spacecraft Works

A Boeing Starliner spacecraft is prepared for a planned December 2019 test flight to the International Space Station for NASA.

(Image credit: NASA)

Before Starliner makes its first trip to the space station, Boeing will first conduct a test of the spacecraft's abort system. That in-flight abort test, which is now scheduled to take place in on Nov. 4, will demonstrate Starliner's ability to return astronauts to safety in the event of an emergency on the launch pad or during the spacecraft's ascent.

Meanwhile, SpaceX is also gearing up for the first in-flight abort test of its Crew Dragon spacecraft, another commercial crew vehicle NASA has commissioned to begin flying astronauts to and from the International Space Station to end the agency's reliance on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft. According to SpaceX's chief executive Elon Musk, the Crew Dragon's in-flight abort test could also launch sometime next month. Musk tweeted on Tuesday (the same day that Boeing announced its new launch schedule) that the Crew Dragon in-flight abort test will probably happen in late November or early December.

Although Starliner has yet to reach orbit, SpaceX has already launched its Crew Dragon to the International Space Station for its first unpiloted test mission, called Demo-1, in March. However, both vehicles have faced delays in their development.

In July 2018, Boeing reported an "anomaly" had occurred during a test of one of the pad-abort engines, putting Starliner behind schedule. A few months later, Boeing announced that the OFT mission would be ready to fly in March, but it was delayed yet again due to a scheduling conflict with another Atlas V launch from the same launch pad, Boeing said. Meanwhile, NASA said it had been delayed to allow more time for testing and safety reviews.

SpaceX also recently faced its own "anomaly" with a Crew Dragon spacecraft that put the company behind schedule for its first crewed launch to the International Space Station. In April, during a routine test of Crew Dragon's SuperDraco escape engines, a Crew Dragon capsule (the same one that flew to the space station for the Demo-1 mission) exploded at SpaceX's test facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, adding to the delays.

Benjamin Reed, SpaceX's director of commercial crew mission management, said the investigation into the accident is now wrapping up, and that SpaceX has already implemented changes to mitigate the cause of the explosion: a leaky valve. Both the Crew Dragon vehicle and the Falcon 9 rocket that will be used for the in-flight abort test have arrived at the launch site, launch complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Reed said. And if all goes according to plan, SpaceX could launch its first crew of astronauts to the space station in 2020.

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and onFacebook.

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Boeing Aims to Launch Unpiloted Starliner Test Flight to Space Station in December - Space.com

NASA is already pulling together plans for what could become its first long-lived robotic rover on the moon's surface, designed to sniff out water and targeting a landing date of 2022.

Right now, that rover, called Volatiles Investigation Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER), is still a mission concept. If all goes well, the project could develop a long-lived, mobile robot that can hunt for water and other volatiles near the south pole of the moon. And VIPER has a head start, since the would-be mission builds on previous NASA development conducted as part of a project called Resource Prospector, which was axed in 2018. This time around, the rover would reflect the Artemis program, NASA's initiative to land humans on the moon in 2024.

"We are heavily ensconced in the intersection between science and exploration," Brad Bailey, program scientist with NASA's Lunar Discovery and Exploration Program, said about NASA's lunar program during a Planetary Science Advisory Committee meeting held in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 23. Volatiles are an area of particular overlap between the two programs, hence VIPER's relevance to both.

Related: Water Ice Confirmed on the Surface of the Moon for the 1st Time!

On the science side, understanding how water arrived at our closest neighbor would explain how Earth got its own water, even though plate tectonics has destroyed the geologic record of that era. Would-be explorers are on the hunt for fuel or even drinking water they could generate from stores of ice.

But in both cases, the first step is figuring out where the water is and that's what VIPER is designed to do, not only at the south pole, where it would land, but over the entire lunar surface. "The idea is that that mission is a very important part of looking for volatiles, looking for these potential resources on the lunar surface," Debra Needham, a planetary scientist at NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center, told Space.com. "It's a highly desired mission under formulation."

Scientists have confirmed the existence of sizable chunks of frozen water on the moon only over the past decade. But as it stands right now, NASA's last soft-landed mission to the moon was Apollo 17 in 1972, when humans last set foot on the moon. The agency has also only flown lunar rovers designed to work with humans, during the latter three Apollo missions. These rovers carried some instruments but primarily served as transportation devices for astronauts.

That means that although VIPER won't necessarily be the first mission to land in NASA's new, moon-focused Artemis era, it could be NASA's first lunar rover in decades and the agency's first independent rover ever.

The combination means that there are plenty of new capabilities NASA wants to build into such a mission. A particularly high priority for the agency is to design a rover that can power through the dramatic temperature swings between night and day. A couple of long-duration lunar rovers the Soviet Union's Lunokhod 2 and the Chinese Yutu rovers have slept through the night, woken up and resumed work.

But NASA wants to do something more: The agency wants VIPER and other future missions to keep gathering data through the night, without shutting down for safety. "One of the biggest technologies that needs to be developed is being able to survive and operate through the lunar night," Needham said.

Working through the night would double the amount of observations a rover could make in the same mission duration, which is of course appealing. But full-time observing would also offer crucial science data about phenomena that aren't observable during the lunar day. In particular, Needham said, scientists think that at dawn and dusk, dust may levitate and electrical currents could form in the lunar surface.

VIPER would let engineers test technologies designed to let lunar rovers work through the night, but it wouldn't tackle those specific science measurements. Instead, according to Bailey's presentation last month, there are four primary instruments that NASA is eyeing for VIPER.

Two of those instruments were under development for Resource Prospector; NASA also included both in a list of a dozen instruments selected in February to land on the moon as early as this year. (Bailey said they are scheduled to fly on board Astrobotic's lunar lander, which is due to fly in the summer of 2021.)

Those projects are the Neutron Spectrometer System, which measures hydrogen in the lunar surface; and the Near-Infrared Volatile Spectrometer System, or NIRVSS, which can study volatile composition, mineralogy and surface temperature.

A third instrument NASA is eyeing for VIPER is a drill designed to reach about 3 feet (1 meter) into the lunar regolith.

Scientists have glimpsed below the moon's surface before: Astronauts on the later Apollo missions also carried a drill, and they returned subsurface samples to Earth. But volatiles literally get their name from their ability to easily evaporate away, so scientists can't be sure what volatiles disappeared from the subsurface moon rocks they have examined up close with modern technology.

VIPER would change that, as both NIRVSS and a second instrument, called Mass Spectrometer observing lunar operations (MSolo), which can analyze isotopes, will conduct their analyses not only while the rover is moving but also on material that the drill pulls to the surface.

NASA also wants to make sure that the findings of a mission like VIPER could stretch far beyond the small patch of lunar surface that the rover itself would explore. In particular, the agency wants to work with the U.S. Geological Survey to establish how to apply the rover's local findings to orbital data about the rest of the lunar surface, Jay Jenkins, program executive for exploration at NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said during a panel about NASA's commercial partnerships for lunar science at a symposium held by NASA in Huntsville, Alabama, on Sept. 12.

After all, although the south pole's apparent ice cache is particularly intriguing to scientists and would-be explorers, it isn't the only water on the moon. "Ultimately, we really are trying to ground-truth all of the orbital data that we have, in terms of volatile, extent, composition, forms, etcetera," Bailey said during the advisory committee meeting.

Both Bailey and Jenkins said that NASA is hoping to launch VIPER in late 2022. "It's a very aggressive schedule," Jenkins said.

But that sort of timeline wouldn't be completely unprecedented, he added, pointing to NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, which he said was designed, built and executed within two years. (According to a NASA website for the mission, LCROSS was selected in April 2006; the flight concluded in October 2009. That would make for a slightly more generous timeline than VIPER would have if it hits its launch target.)

LCROSS is nothing if not a success story when it comes to understanding moon water. The mission, which launched with NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, watched a rocket stage crash into the moon and studied the debris until its own equally violent demise. The LCROSS data showed that its impact location is twice as wet as the Sahara Desert.

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Moon VIPER: NASA Wants to Send a Water-Sniffing Rover to the Lunar South Pole in 2022 - Space.com

The vehicle will transport cargo to and from the ISS.

A new miniature shuttle called Dream Chaser is moving closer to completion, with the primary structure of the vehicle now constructed and full assembly set to begin for its first planned mission in 2021.

Designed by the Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) from Sparks, Nevada, Dream Chaser is a reusable space plane that, at about nine meters long, is roughly four times smaller than NASAs historic Space Shuttle. It is designed to transport cargo, and possibly even crew one day, to the International Space Station (ISS).

At an event in Colorado, where the finished vehicle will be constructed, SNC unveiled the primary structure of the vehicle, which weighs in at 1,000 kilograms and was made with a variety of materials including carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRPs).

Built by Lockheed Martin, the primary structure is a pressurized structure designed to carry payloads on their way to the ISS. It was built in Fort Worth, Texas but has now been shipped to Louisville, Colorado, where SNC will construct the complete Dream Chaser spacecraft.

Its an extraordinary engineering and manufacturing accomplishment, said Eren Ozmen, chairwoman and president of SNC, in a statement. Our team has been looking forward to this day for a long time so that we can fully assemble Americas spaceplane in preparation for its first mission for NASA.

Dream Chaser is contracted with NASA to complete six missions to the ISS as part of a Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS-2) contract, with the first expected in late 2021. It will be capable of taking about 5,500 kilograms of cargo, supplies, and experiments to the ISS on each flight.

The vehicle will launch vertically on ULA's upcoming Vulcan Centaur rocket, before gliding back to a runway landing on Earth. This will make it one of only two private uncrewed vehicles in operation that can return equipment from orbit back to Earth, the other being SpaceXs Dragon spacecraft.

According to NASASpaceflight, each Dream Chaser vehicle will be reusable up to 15 times, which could allow for missions beyond the six that have been contracted with NASA. [This] will be useful if SNC gains additional flights via the likely extension of the CRS2 contract if the ISSs lifetime is also extended, they noted.

The vehicle has already completed several tests, including a free flight test in 2017 when it was dropped from a helicopter (although a similar test in 2013 was less successful). NASA approved the space plane for missions to the ISS in December 2018.

Now with final construction of the vehicle set to begin, SNC hope to have the cargo module built by February 2020, the left wing by the end of 2020, and the right wing by January 2021. If all goes to plan, we could then soon see this innovative vehicle take to the skies.

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Dream Chaser Space Plane Begins Full Assembly Ahead Of First NASA Mission In 2021 - Forbes

Elon Musk and his Amazon counterpart, Jeff Bezos, are in the midst of a spaceflight industry revolution. An international team of scientists and astronauts has praised the two moguls for pushing the envelope in spaceflight technology. Canadian astronaut Bob Thirsk likened the two pioneers to the 19th-century inventor Thomas Edison.

The astronaut said: Musk and Bezos are not crazy, theyre the Thomas Edisons of the 21st century.

Im a big fan of them, their vision and the work that they have been able to do so far.

Frank De Winne and I are colleagues, who following spaceflight, have become ambassadors for this notion that space can be used as a way to encourage people in their educational path towards STEM careers.

The astronaut spoke about the SpaceX and Blue Origins founders during a panel dedicated to the future of human spaceflight.

Mr Thirsk was joined by fellow astronaut Frank De Winne from Belgium who served on the International Space Station (ISS).

The other panellists included former NASA scientist Dr Mark Shelhamer, NASA Apollo programme scientist Professor Laurence Young, Floris Wuyts of the University of Antwerp and the Minster of Information for space nation Asgardia Lena De Winne.

The panellists have all agreed Mr Musk and Mr Bezos have disrupted the spaceflight industry.

They were, however, sceptical about some of the loftier goals presented by the self-made billionaires.

READ MORE:Asteroid warning: The 2019 SU3 asteroid could hit Earth - will it hit?

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SpaceX news: Elon Musk is the Thomas Edison of the 21st century, claims veteran astronaut - Express.co.uk

tech2 News StaffOct 16, 2019 13:04:58 IST

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is finally following in the footsteps of NASA and SpaceX by developing a space program for Reusable Launch Vehicles(RLV) which it has been testing since2016.

The RLV program aims to cut down on launch costs by, well, reusing the spacecraft. ISRO's current project appears to be using a hybrid design that sits somewhere between NASA's now-shutteredSpace Shuttle program and SpaceX's reusable rockets.

India'sRLV includesa Space Shuttle-like craft that could feature an air-breathing ramjet engine. This craft will take a payload to space and then glide back to Earth, landing like a normal aircraft, much like the Space Shuttle. The rocket that will take this shuttle to orbit will return to Earth much like Musk's Falcon 9 rockets. It will return under its own power and make a landing on a floating platform out at sea.

So far, the RLV shuttle has been tested over water. Now, it will be tested over land and make an attempt at an actual landing.

An artist illustration of the RLV-TD concept. Image: ISRO

The scientists at ISRO will be tracking the flight and landing of the RLV at the Aeronautical Test Range (ATR) at Challakere in Chitradurga district, Karnataka.

The ATR has 2.2 km runway and the RLV will be dropped from a helicopter at an altitude of three km. According to a report in the Deccan Chronicle, an onboard computer will help the RLV glide for some distance before touching down on the runway like an aircraft.

The launch vehicle is critical to unleashing ISROs dreams of human space flight, Gaganyaan. It will also helpto further cut the cost of launches.

The first demonstration of the rocket's concept was tested on 23 May2016, when ISRO carriedout its 'Hypersonic Flight Experiment'of a two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO), fully-reusable rocket.

An illustration showing the different stages in the RLV technology demonstration, from launch to landing of both stages. Image: ISRO

Four aspects of the vehicle are to be tested:

ISRO plans to recover and reuse two stages of the rocket.

To recover the first stage, ISRO willuse a similar principle to SpaceX's Falcon 9 boosters, whereby the rocket is programmed to land on a pad in the sea afterlaunch.

For the second stage of the rocket, ISRO plans to test an advanced version ofthe RLV, tested in 2016, in an advanced test in June or July2019. The rocket will be controlled by ISRO engineers after launch to land on an airstrip, after which it will be used again for a second launch.

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ISRO's Space Shuttle-like Reusable Launch Vehicle will attempt its first landing in Karnataka - Firstpost

A NASA scientist has created a new concept for an engine that he says can move "close to the speed of light" all without any moving parts or need for fuel.

The paper, written by David Burns from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, discusses a "helical engine" that can be used to travel across interstellar distances, send astronauts to the moon in approximately one second and Mars in less than 13 minutes,according to The Sun, which first reported the news.

"A new concept for in-space propulsion is proposed in which propellant is not ejected from the engine, but instead is captured to create a nearly infinite specific impulse," Burns wrote in the paper's abstract. "The engine accelerates ions confined in a loop to moderate relativistic speeds, and then varies their velocity to make slight changes to their mass. The engine then moves ions back and forth along the direction of travel to produce thrust. This in-space engine could be used for long-term satellite station-keeping without refueling."

NASA IS READY TO TEST ITS FIRST ALL-ELECTRIC EXPERIMENTAL X-PLANE: 'A SIGNIFICANT EVENT'

"It could also propel spacecraft across interstellar distances, reaching close to the speed of light," Burns added in the abstract."The engine has no moving parts other than ions traveling in a vacuum line, trapped inside electric and magnetic fields."

Burns' idea is novel, as it completely removes one of the heaviest components of space flight--fuel.

NASA is looking into the possibility of usingice and water on the surface of the moon as rocket fuel, but any potential solution would likely be years, if not decades, away.

The concept, which Burns admitted he is not sure is viable, takes inspiration from high-tech particle accelerators, similar to what is seen at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

"If someone says it doesn't work, I'll be the first to say, it was worth a shot," Burns said in an interview with New Scientist."You have to be prepared to be embarrassed. It is very difficult to invent something that is new under the sun and actually works."

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NASA scientist creates engine concept that can reach 'close to the speed of light' - Fox News

SpaceXs Starship Mk. 1 prototype stands 164 feet (50 meters) tall at Boca Chica, Texas. Credit: SpaceX

Standing in front of a shiny full-scale prototype of SpaceXs Starship vehicle in South Texas, Elon Musk said Saturday night he wants the companys gigantic next-generation rocket to fly into orbit within six months, a bold schedule that he acknowledged requires exponential improvements in design and manufacturing.

Regardless of when the futuristic-looking vehicle reaches orbit for the first time, Musk told several hundred employees, local supporters, space enthusiasts and space reporters along with thousands more watching online that SpaceX will build a fleet of Starships and launch them from sites in Texas and Florida.

The first full-size prototype of SpaceXs Starship space vehicle named Starship Mk. 1 and built this summer on the South Texas coast should be ready to launch on a high-altitude atmospheric test flight in the next one or two months, Musk said.

SpaceX plans to practice launching and landing the Starship with suborbital up-and-down flights, similar to the way engineers perfected landings of Falcon rocket boosters with an experimental vehicle named Grasshopper.

Whats really kind of hard to grasp, at a visceral level, is that this giant ship will do the same thing that Grasshopper did, Musk said, backdropped by the Starhopper prototype. This thing is going to take off, fly to 65,000 feet about 20 kilometers and come back and land in about one to two months So that giant thing, its really going to be pretty epic to see that thing take off and come back.

Yeah, its wild, he added.

Musk, an avowed optimist, said an orbital launch attempt with Starship, and its not-yet-built Super Heavy first stage booster, could happen next year.

With any development into uncharted territory, its difficult to predict these things with precision, he said. But I do think things are going to move very fast. So, our plan is in basically in one to two months to do the 20-kilometer flight with Starship Mk. 1. Our next flight after that might actually just be all the way to orbit with a booster and the ship.

SpaceX says the reusable Starship and Super Heavy will eventually replace the companys Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, along with the Dragon cargo and crew capsules.

According to SpaceXs website, the Starship and Super Heavy will be able to deliver satellites to orbit at a lower marginal cost per launch than our current Falcon vehicles. But SpaceX says the next-generation booster and spaceship can do much more, including interplanetary flights to the moon, Mars and other destinations with up to 150 tons of cargo, or crews of up to 100 people.

Musks presentation Saturday came three years after he first unveiled the deep space transportation architecture that became the Starship and Super Heavy. SpaceX has since settled on a smaller, but still record-large, rocket than the design Musk presented in 2016.

The Starship and Super Heavy are designed for vertical takeoffs and landings, similar to the method SpaceX uses to return Falcon rocket boosters to Earth for refurbishment and reuse. During orbital launches, the Super Heavy booster will propel the Starship toward space before detaching and returning to a landing near the launch site. The Starship will then accelerate into orbit on its own.

I have this mantra called, If a schedules long, its wrong, if its tight, its right,' he said. If the design takes a long time to build, its the wrong design. This is the fundamental thing. The tendency is to complicate things.

I have another thing, the best part is no part, the best process is no process, Musk said. It weighs nothing, costs nothing, cant go wrong The thing Im most impressed with when I have design meetings at SpaceX is, What did you undesign? Undesigning is the best thing. Just delete it, thats the best thing.

That ethos led SpaceX to assemble the first Starship prototypes in the open in public view, not inside a climate-controlled factory with strict cleanliness requirements. Musk said it would have taken too long to construct a dedicated assembly building for the Starship.

And instead of building the vehicle out of carbon fiber, as many modern rockets use, the Starship is made of stainless steel. The structures of modern launch vehicles are primarily made of carbon fiber or aluminum, but rockets designed in an earlier era, such as the Atlas-Centaur conceived in the 1950s and 1960s, flew with a stainless steel skin.

Up until October of last year, we were pursuing a completely different design, Musk said, referring to SpaceXs switch to a stainless steel structure for the Starship, reversing earlier plans to construct it out of carbon fiber.

Less than a year after the redesign, Musk has a full-size Starship prototype on the verge of its first test flight. SpaceX says a Super Heavy first stage, which will stack under the Starship during an orbital launch, is not far behind.

Stainless steel is heavier than other rocket materials, but it comes with several major benefits that ultimately make the entire vehicle, including its heat shield, lighter than otherwise possible, Musk said.

Stainless steel is resilient and strong at super-cold temperatures. Thats important because the Starship and Super Heavy will be loaded with 9 million pounds of cryogenic methane and liquid oxygen at liftoff.

The best design decision on this whole thing is 301 stainless steel because at cryogenic temperatures, 301 stainless actually has about the same effective strength as an advanced composite or aluminum-lithium, Musk said. Unlike most steels, which get brittle at low temperature, 301 stainless gets much stronger.

Its strength-to-weight ratio at cryogenic temperatures is equivalent, or even perhaps slightly better than, advanced composites or aluminum-lithium, he said. This is not well appreciated because if you just look at the materials manual and say what is the strength of stainless steel, it looks much weaker than it is. (If) you say what is the strength at cryogenic temperature much, much stronger at very low temperature, almost twice as strong. Thats when it becomes better than carbon fiber or aluminum-lithium.

Steel has a melting temperature of around 2,700 degrees Celsius (1,500 degrees Celsius), significantly higher than that of the aluminum structure used on the space shuttle orbiter.

For a reusable ship, youre coming in like a meteor, Musk said. You want something that does not melt at a low temperature. You want something that melts at a high temperature, and this is where steel is extremely good as well.

That means the top side of the Starship will not need a heat shield, and the thermal shielding on the side of the vehicle oriented forward during re-entry into the atmosphere will be massively reduced, Musk said.

Because the steel can take a much higher temperature, your heat shield even on the windward side is much lighter, he said. The net effect is that a 301 stainless steel rocket is actually the lightest possible reusable architecture.

A ton of stainless steel is 2 percent the cost of a ton of carbon fiber, Musk said.

Also, its very easy to weld stainless steel, the evidence being that we welded it outdoors without a factory, he said. With carbon fiber this is impossible, with aluminum-lithium, also impossible. But steel is easy to weld and it is resilient to the elements.

For orbital-class Starships, SpaceX plans to install hexagonal ceramic tiles on the bottom side of the vehicle. The tiles will take the brunt of re-entry heating as the ship falls into the atmosphere at an angle of attack of around 60 degrees.

The ship will then free-fall in a horizontal orientation like a skydiver, Musk said using fins and thrusters for stability before flipping vertical and igniting its base engines for a vertical landing.

SpaceX is building a second Starship prototype, designated Mk. 2, at an industrial yard in Cocoa, Florida, near Cape Canaveral. Once complete, the vehicle will be transported to the nearby Kennedy Space Center for testing at launch pad 39A, a former Apollo and space shuttle launch facility now leased by SpaceX for its Falcon rocket family.

Im giving you literally just stream of consciousness here, Musk said Saturday at SpaceXs launch site at Boca Chica, Texas. Most likely, we would not fly to orbit with Mk 1, but we would fly to orbit with Mk. 3, which will be built after Mk. 1 right here. In fact, well start building it in about a month.

A few minutes later, Musk said the SpaceX would probably launch the first Starship into orbit using the Mk. 4 or Mk. 5 vehicle.

Just to frame things, we are going to be building ships and boosters at both Boca and the Cape as fast as we can, he said. Its going to be really nutty to see a bunch of these things, not just one, but a whole stack of them. Were improving both the design and the manufacturing method exponentially.

For example, the third iteration of SpaceXs Starship will be built in fewer pieces, with thinner walls, a lighter structure, and lower costs, he said.

The rate at which were going to be building ships will be quite crazy by space standards, he said. I think well have Mk. 2 (in Florida) built within a couple of months or less, and Mk. 3, maybe three months, that type of thing. Mk. 4, four months, maybe five months. And we would seek to go to orbit with probably Mk. 4 or Mk. 5.

This is going to sound totally nuts, but I think we want to try to reach orbit in less than six months, Musk said. Provided the rate of design improvement and manufacturing improvement continue to be exponential, I think that is accurate to within a few months.

The Starship alone could probably reach orbit without a boost from the massive Super Heavy first stage, but flying it to orbit in that configuration wouldnt make sense, Musk said. Without the help of a booster, the Starship could not carry a heat shield, extra fuel or other equipment to return to Earth intact.

So far, SpaceXs development of the Super Heavy and Starship has been privately-funded through revenues from Falcon and Dragon missions. SpaceX has also raised more than $1 billion this year from investors, largely to fund the companys Starlink program designed to provide Internet services from space.

SpaceX says future revenue from the Starlink business could be applied to the Super Heavy and Starship projects.

The priority is to build at least two Starships at each site at Boca and at the Cape and then start building the (Super Heavy) booster, Musk said. Well complete Mk. 1 through 4 before doing Mk. 1 of the booster. And then well do Mk. 1 and Mk. 2 of the boosters at the Cape and at Boca.

Clusters of methane-fueled Raptor engines will power the Super Heavy and Starship vehicles.

Three Raptors are mounted to the base of the Starship Mk. 1 prototype at Boca Chica, and three more will be installed on the Mk. 2 vehicle in Florida for initial test flights, Musk said.

The Raptor is the most powerful engine ever built by SpaceX. The early version of the Raptor engine can produce up to 440,000 pounds of thrust at sea level, roughly equivalent to the main engines flown on the space shuttle.

The Raptor engine has more than twice the thrust of the kerosene-burning Merlin 1D engine that flies on SpaceXs Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. And the Raptor is the most powerful methane-fueled engine ever flown.

Orbital-class Starships will have six Raptors three gimbaling center-mounted engines for vertical landings, and three engines with expanded nozzles optimized for firings in space.

The Super Heavy booster could accommodate up to 37 Raptor engines, depending on final design decisions and mission requirements, Musk said. He expects the Super Heavy to generate around 15 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, about two times the thrust generated by the gigantic Saturn 5 rocket used for the Apollo moon landing missions.

The main constraint on launching the booster is engines, Musk said. The booster has a lot of engines. So spooling up the Raptor production rate is extremely important vital to completing the booster. Doing the tanks and the legs and the grid fins, that is not a constraint. That we can get done fast. I think wed want to have at least probably 24 engines, but I think really at least 31 engines to launch.

The Super Heavy will likely fly with seven Raptor engines with the ability to gimbal, or swivel, to provide steering. The rest of the booster engines will have fixed nozzles, Musk said.

Including development engines from now through orbit, we probably need 100 Raptor engines. Our production rate right now is maybe one every eight to 10 days, he said.

By next year, SpaceX wants to build a Raptor engine every day.

The Starship vehicle assembled at Boca Chica stands around 164 feet (50 meters) tall and weighs 200 tons without propellants. It measures around 30 feet (9 meters) in diameter, about one-and-a-half times the diameter of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet.

Combined with the Super Heavy first stage, the entire stack will stand around 387 feet (118 meters) tall.

The fully reusable Super Heavy/Starship launch vehicle will be able to loft some 150 tons of payload to low Earth orbit, Musk said.

Assuming the Starship can be refilled with methane and liquid oxygen in orbit, the vehicle can deliver the same mass to the moon or Mars, he said.

Musk, an avowed optimist, said people could ride into space on Starship flights before the end of next year.

I think we could potentially see people flying next year, he said. Its designed to be a reusable rocket, so we can do many flights to prove out the reliability very quickly. With an expendable vehicle, if you want to do 10 flights, lets say, to prove out the viability of an expendable vehicle, you need to build and destroy 10 vehicles, whereas we can do 10 flights within basically 10 days.

When I say rapid reusability, I mean you can fly the booster 20 times a day, you fly the ship three or four times a day. Thats what I mean by reusability.

Japanese billionaireYusaku Maezawa announced last year he plans to fly on SpaceXs next-generation spaceship, along with a crew of artists, on a flight around the moon as soon as 2023.

SpaceX says the aspirational goal is to make the Starship ready for a flight to Mars without humans in 2022. A crewed flight to the Red Planet could follow as soon as 2024.

While he didnt mention it Saturday night, Musk has previously saidthe Starship could be used for point-to-point transportation around Earth, enabling intercontinental flights in minutes instead of hours.

Musks presentation Saturday was heavy on propulsion systems, structural design, aerodynamics and vision, but light on talk of funding or technologies necessary to sustain Starship crews in space, which SpaceX says may number as many as 100 people at a time.

For sure, youd want to have a regenerative live support system, Musk said in response to a question. That just means youre recycling everything. Thats for sure important if youre on a several-month journey to Mars and on the surface for 18 months. Regenerative is kind of a necessity. I dont think its actually super-hard to do that relative to the spacecraft itself. The life support system is pretty straightforward.

Musk suggested work on life support systems will come later because the Starships first flights will be unpiloted.

The early flights of Starship would not have any people on-board, he said. It would just be in automatic mode. It would only be later flights that would have people on-board. Even the first flights to Mars, we would send at least a couple of ships, (and) have them land automatically before sending people.

SpaceXs Crew Dragon capsule, designed to ferry NASA astronauts to the International Space Station, will be the companys first human-rated spaceship. But its designed for a limited purpose, and has basic life support systems to accommodate crews for a few days during trips to and from the space station.

And SpaceXs Crew Dragon has not yet flown into orbit with astronauts. Musk said in an interview with CNN after Saturday nights presentation that hardware for a high-altitude abort test will arrive at Cape Canaveral next month, and hardware for the first Crew Dragon mission with astronauts will arrive in November.

He did not specify any schedule for the Crew Dragon launches themselves.

Musk hosted a presentation similar to Saturdays event in May 2014 to reveal details about the Crew Dragon spacecraft. At that time, Musk said the Crew Dragon would be ready to carry astronauts to space in 2016.

For long-duration voyages to other other worlds, SpaceXs Starship will need a much more elaborate life support system to regulate oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, store and process human waste, generate drinking water, and perhaps grow vegetables on-board.

NASA is testing some closed-loop life support system technologies on the space station, with more upgrades set for launch to the orbiting research complex in the next few years.

SpaceX and NASA have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship for more than a decade, beginning with the U.S. space agencys award of a $278 million agreement to SpaceX in 2006 just four years after its founding to demonstrate the delivery and return of space station cargo.

SpaceX has delivered on the cargo contract, and continues to provide regular resupply flights to the station. The Dragon capsule is also the only spacecraft currently flying that is capable of returning significant mass from the station back to Earth.

The early NASA investment also gave SpaceX an anchor customer for the Falcon 9 rocket, which has become a market leader in the global commercial launch business, prompting competitors to cut prices. It also pioneered the vertical landing and reuse of rocket boosters, a crucial capability for Musks vision of expanding human civilization to Mars.

Since 2006, SpaceX has received $7.7 billion in contract awards from NASA for space station cargo and crew transportation through 2024, according to a report released last year by NASAs inspector general.

NASA selected SpaceX and Boeing in 2014 to develop and fly new human-rated space capsules the Crew Dragon and Starliner to carry astronauts to and from the space station. The commercial crew program was conceivedto limit the gap in U.S. human spaceflight capability after the space shuttles retirement in 2011.

Despite the deep bond between NASA and SpaceX, the U.S. government, so far, has little role in the privately-run Starship program.

NASA is focusing on the Space Launch System, Orion spacecraft and the development of a commercial lunar lander to achieve the Trump administrations goal of landing astronauts the moon by 2024.

SpaceX wrote in an environmental impact statement outlining the companys future construction plans at the Kennedy Space Center that the development of the Super Heavy/Starship vehicle may support NASA in meeting the U.S. goal of near-term lunar exploration.

Delays in the commercial program were revisited Friday in a written statement from NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.

I am looking forward to the SpaceX announcement tomorrow, Bridenstine said Friday. In the meantime, commercial crew is years behind schedule. NASA expects to see the same level of enthusiasm focused on the investments of the American taxpayer. Its time to deliver.

A series of redesigns and technical delays have been partly responsible for schedule slips on the Boeing and SpaceX commercial crew programs. For example, problems with the abort engines on Boeings Starliner crew capsule delayed critical testing by nearly a year, and a valve failure led to the explosion of a Crew Dragon spacecraft during a ground test in April.

But some of the commercial crew delays were caused by Congress, which failed to provide the funding NASA said it needed for the space taxi program prior to 2015.

In June, the Government Accountability Office raised workload concerns for NASA engineers tasked with reviewing a high volume of data submitted by Boeing and SpaceX teams as they finalize their designs and test plans.

The reviews are aimed at ensuring the contractors comply with NASA safety requirements.

NASAs ability to process certification data packages for its two contractors continues to create uncertainty about the timing of certification, the GAO said. The program has made progress conducting these reviews but much work remains.

Musk responded to Bridenstines apparent criticism Saturday night.

From a SpaceX resource standpoint, our resources are overwhelmingly on Falcon and Dragon, he said. Just to be clear, its a small percentage of SpaceX that does Starship, less than 5 percent of the company.

The U.S. Air Force, which needs powerful new rockets to carry satellites into orbit, has funded a fraction of the Raptor engines development costs. But the military did not select SpaceX last year as part of a round of rocket development contracts that went to SpaceX rivals United Launch Alliance, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman.

SpaceX filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government in May protesting the Air Forces rocket development contracts awarded last year to SpaceXs competitors.

Meanwhile, the Air Force has received bids from SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman for lucrative military contracts for as many as 34 launches between 2022 and 2026. The so-called Phase 2 launch service procurement is the next stage in a multi-step, multi-year effort by the Air Force to select two contractors to cover the militarys future satellite launch needs, and end reliance on foreign-made rocket engines, such as those used by ULAs Atlas 5 booster.

ULA and SpaceX currently launch most of the U.S. governments military and intelligence-gathering satellites.

SpaceX said it was the only one of the four bidders to offer the Air Force a launch system that is currently flying, making the company the lowest-risk solution for the militarys most critical satellites. The Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets are already certified by the Air Force, and SpaceX indicated it planned to use the Falcon rocket family to compete for the Phase 2 launch service contracts.

ULA is developing the Vulcan-Centaur rocket to replace its Atlas and Delta rocket fleet. Blue Origin, founded by Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos, is developing the New Glenn rocket, and Northrop Grumman is working on the new OmegA launcher.

While the ULA, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman rockets are based on new designs, none look quite like the Starship.

Blue Origin is designing the first stage of its New Glenn rocket to land and be launched again, and ULA says it intends to eventually recover Vulcan main engines for reuse. But neither vehicle comes with the same lofty ambitions SpaceX has attached to the Starship.

A scaled-down version of the Starship with a single Raptor engine, called the Starhopper, completed a 500-foot (150-meter) test flight Aug. 27. The stubby three-legged vehicle, which space enthusiasts likened to a flying water tower, flew with a single Raptor engine, the most powerful rocket powerplant developed by SpaceX to date.

The Starhopper has been retired as a flight test vehicle in favor of the full-scale Starship.

About a mile down the road from the current location of SpaceXs first Starship prototype, teams are readying launch and landing pads for the vehicle. Ground crews will transfer the Starship to the launch pad ahead of the first atmospheric test flight.

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Elon Musk wants to move fast with SpaceX's Starship - Spaceflight Now

SpaceXs first full-size stainless steel Starship test vehicle stands some 164 feet (50 meters) tall and measures wider than the cabin of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. If Elon Musk has his way, it will fly to an altitude of 65,000 feet (20 kilometers) before the end of the year.

These photos taken Saturday show the Starship shining in the Texas sun before Elon Musk took the stage at Boca Chica, Texas, to present an update on SpaceXs plans for a gigantic next-generation rocket and spacecraft designed to carry cargo and crews to Earth orbit, the moon, Mars and other destinations in the solar system.

The vehicle measures 30 feet (9 meters) wide, and features movable fins and canards to provide aerodynamic stability in flight. Not visible in these images are three methane-fueled Raptor engines, which sit inside an aft skirt and can generate more than 1.3 million pounds of collective thrust at full throttle.

Future Starship vehicles will have six Raptor engines, and will be mounted atop SpaceXs Super Heavy booster for missions into Earth orbit and beyond. The entire stack will stand around 387 feet (118 meters) tall.

Up to 37 Raptor engines will power the Super Heavy booster, producing more than 16 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, according to SpaceX.

The Starship and Super Heavy will be fully reusable, SpaceX says, and capable of vertical takeoffs and landings.

Read our full story for the latest details revealed Saturday by SpaceX founder Elon Musk.

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Photos: SpaceX's first full-size Starship prototype Spaceflight Now - Spaceflight Now

Japans eighth HTV supply ship was captured by the International Space Stations Canadian-built robotic arm at 7:12 a.m. EDT (1112 GMT) Saturday. Credit: NASA TV/Spaceflight Now

Japans eighth robotic resupply mission to the International Space Station arrived at its destination Saturday, delivering six fresh lithium-ion batteries, science experiments, CubeSats and other gear to the research outpost.

NASA astronaut Christina Koch used the space stations Canadian-built robotic arm to capture Japans eighth H-2 Transfer Vehicle, or HTV, cargo craft at 7:12 a.m. EDT (1112 GMT) Saturday.

The high-altitude link-up occurred as the station flew 262 miles (421 kilometers) over Angola, concluding the HTVs four-day pursuit of the orbiting research complex since its launch Tuesday from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan.

The arrival of the Japanese cargo freighter Saturday came during a busy week of traffic at the space station. A three-person crew aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft docked with the complex Wednesday to temporarily raise the stations crew size to nine.

Another Soyuz capsule is set to depart the station Oct. 3 to bring home two members of an outgoing space station crew, along with UAE space flier Hazzaa Ali Almansoori, who flew to the station Wednesday with two new expedition crew members.

The HTV 8 mission is also known as Kounotori 8. Kounotori means white stork in Japanese.

Packed with some 8,326 pounds (3,777 kilograms) of equipment, experiments and crew provisions, the Kounotori 8 spacecraft approached the space station in autopilot mode Saturday. After Kochs capture of the HTV supply ship, control of the robotic arm was to be handed over to ground teams to maneuver the cargo freighter to a berthing port on the nadir, or Earth-facing, side of the stations Harmony module.

After opening hatches leading to the HTV, the crew inside the station will unpack 5,313 pounds (2,410 kilograms) of cargo inside the HTVs pressurized logistics carrier. Meanwhile, robots outside the station will extract a pallet from the HTVs unpressurized cargo bay containing six lithium-ion batteries to upgrade the space stations power system.

Astronauts on the space station will conduct five spacewalks currently planned on Oct. 6, 11, 16, 21 and 25 to begin install he fresh batteries, which will replace aging and less-capable nickel-hydrogen batteries on the P6 solar array module on the far port side of the stations truss backbone.

The Kounotori 8 mission delivered the third set of six lithium-ion batteries to upgrade the space stations four huge U.S.-built external power modules, each of which features solar array wings that span 240 feet (73 meters) tip-to-tip. The sixth HTV mission in 2016 carried the first set of new batteries to the station, followed by a second batch last year on the Kounotori 7 resupply mission.

A final set of six batteries will launch on the ninth HTV flight next year.

Each solar array section powers two electrical channels with 12 charging nickel-hydrogen batteries, and NASA is replacing the old batteries in power truss section with six lighter, more efficient lithium-ion batteries.

JAXA uses the HTV missions as part of its contribution to the space station program. Each HTV cargo freighter measures about 33 feet (10 meters) long and about 14 feet (4.4 meters) in diameter.

The Kounotori 8 mission also carried food, fresh drinking water, a high-pressure gas tank to recharge the space stations internal atmosphere with oxygen and nitrogen, and spacewalking tools, such as high-definition cameras and equipment for a series of repair spacewalks planned later this year for the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 cosmic ray experiment.

The HTV also delivered research payloads to the space station.

One of the experiments will demonstrate a high-speed satellite laser communications system developed by JAXA and Sony Computer Science Laboratories. The technology demonstrator will test a laser link with a ground station, which can accommodate higher-bandwidth communications than radio systems.

This technology, which employs a laser for in-orbit mass-data communication, will likely be widely used not only in the telecommunications industry, but in the future as a means of communication in the field of exploration, said Koichi Wakata, a JAXA vice president, in a statement. Specifically, it can be used as a means of communication between the Earth and the International Space Station, the moon, and Mars. There is a wide range of potential applications, such as communication with the moon rovers.

TheSmall Optical Link for International Space Station, or SOLISS, experiment willbe mounted on an experiment platform outside the space stations Japanese Kibo laboratory module.

Sony CSL is taking advantage of the in-orbit demonstrations to complete our long-distance laser communication system, said Hiroaki Kitano, president of Sony CSL. It will be the first step for Sony to build upon the results of these demonstrations and put it into practical use in society as we commercialize it.

The opportunity to use Kibo for the in-orbit demonstrations makes it possible to greatly advance the research and development of the optical communication system, much more quickly than if we had launched a small satellite for the same purpose on our own, Kitano said. The SOLISS system is built using consumer components. After the demonstrations, we will retrieve the SOLISS unit and perform follow-up analyses, which we expect will further accelerate our commercialization process.

Japans Hourglass experiment also launched on the eighth HTV mission to help scientists investigate the behavior of soil and rock particles under low gravity, simulating the conditions future probes might encounter on a small planet or asteroid.

New hardware for a cellular biology experiment rack is also flew to the space station on the Kounotori 8 spacecraft, expanding the stations capabilities for biological research.

Three CubeSats also rode to the station inside the Kounotori 8 spacecraft. Astronauts will transfer them to the Japanese Kibo module, where they will install them into a deployer for release into orbit through an airlock.

The 2-pound (1-kilogram) NARSSCube 1 nanosatellite was developed by Egypts National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Science in partnership with the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan. It carries a low-resolution imaging camera.

The AQT-D CubeSat, which weighs 8.1 pounds (3.7 kilograms) and is about the size of a shoebox, will demonstrate a water-based satellite propulsion system. The AQT-D mission is led by the University of Tokyo.

Rwandas first satellite, named RWASAT 1, also launched aboard the HTV. Officials say the satellite will aid agricultural and environmental monitoring.

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HTV delivers batteries and experiments to space station - Spaceflight Now

NASAs Galileo spacecraft captured this view of the moon in 1992 on its mission to Jupiter. Credit: NASA

An overflight last week of the Chandrayaan 2 landing site on the moon by NASAs Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has turned up no clear sign of the lost Indian lander. Another flyover with better lighting conditions is scheduled next month.

LROs high-resolution camera is searching for Indias Vikram lander, part of the Indian Chandrayaan 2 lunar mission, after ground teams lost contact with the spacecraft during a lunar landing attempt Sept. 6.

LROflew over the area of the Vikram landing site on Sept. 17 when local lunar time was near dusk; large shadows covered much of the area, NASA said in a statement. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) acquired images around the targeted landing site, but the exact location of the lander was not known so the lander may not be in the camera field of view.

In any case, hopes of contacting the Vikram lander have waned since the Sept. 6 landing attempt. Officials from the Indian Space Research Organization said imagery from the countrys Chandrayaan 2 orbiter, which launched in tandem with the Vikram lander, had located the landing craft on the moon.

All possible efforts are being made to establish communication with (the) lander, ISRO said in a statement Sept. 10.

ISRO has not released any of the Chandrayaan 2 images claimed to show the Vikram lander, and officials did not confirm whether the lander appeared to be intact on the lunar surface, or if the imagery suggested the spacecraft crashed. The final telemetry data from Vikram indicated it was plummeting toward the moon at high speed.

Even if the Vikram lander landed intact, the spacecraft was only designed for a two-week mission, leaving little hope of recontacting the lander. The sun has set on the Vikram landing site, located near the lunar south pole, and the lander was not designed to survive the frigid, dark lunar night.

NASA said the LRO camera team is analyzing the new imagery to see if the Vikram lander is visible amid the long shadows at the landing site.

LRO will next fly over the landing site on October 14 when lighting conditions will be more favorable, NASA said. NASA will make the results of the Sept. 17 flyover available as soon as possible after a necessary period of validation, analysis, and review.

The Vikram lander carried a rover named Pragyan the Sanskrit word for wisdom and several scientific instruments, including cameras, seismic sensors, rock composition payloads, and an underground thermal conductivity probe. Vikram, named for the father of Indias space program, also carried a U.S.-provided laser reflector, which NASA intended to use to make precise measurements of the distance between the Earth and the moon.

The Chandrayaan 2 orbiter, which continues its mission, carries its own science instruments. The orbiters payloads include a high-resolution mapping camera and sensors designed search for water molecules on the moon.

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LRO's view of Chandrayaan 2 landing site obscured by shadows - Spaceflight Now

Update: The deadline for to send your name to Mars has passed. NASA's student contest to name the Mars 2020 rover is still under way through Nov. 1.

If you want your name to hitch a ride to Mars with NASA's next rover in 2020, you better act fast. Today's the last day to add your name to the more than 10 million that have already signed up.

"It's the final boarding call for you to stow your name on NASA's Mars 2020 rover before it launches to the Red Planet," NASA officials wrote in a statement last week. "The Sept. 30 deadline for NASA's 'Send Your Name to Mars' campaign gives the mission enough time to stencil the submitted names - over 9.4 million so far - on a chip that will be affixed to the Mars 2020 rover."

As of 2 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT) today, more than 10.4 million people have signed up.

NASA began collecting names for the new Mars rover on May 21, with entrants filling out a short form with their name and earning a souvenir boarding pass and "frequent flyer" points in return. You can add your name to the roster here: https://go.nasa.gov/Mars2020Pass.

Note: NASA will stop collecting names tonight at 11:59 p.m. EDT (8:59 p.m. PDT, 0359 Oct. 1 GMT).

Related: NASA's Mars Rover 2020 Mission in Pictures

"This is part of a public engagement campaign to highlight missions involved with NASA's journey from the Moon to Mars," NASA officials wrote in the statement. "Miles (or kilometers) are awarded for each 'flight,' with corresponding digital mission patches available for download."

Even Brad Pitt, star of the science fiction space epic "Ad Astra," has added his name to the list. NASA shared a photo of Pitt posing with this Mars boarding pass and a rover mockup last week.

Actor Brad Pitt (right) shows off his Mars "boarding pass" with Jennifer Trosper (left), the Mars 2020 project systems engineer, at JPL on Sept. 6, 2019.

(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

After Sept. 30, engineers with the Microdevices Laboratory at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California will stencil all the names onto a tiny silicon chip with an electron beam, writing the lines of text about 75 nanometers tall. That's smaller than one-thousandth the width of a single hair on your head.

"At that size, millions of names can be written on a single dime-size chip," NASA wrote. "The chip will ride on the rover under a glass cover."

More than 2 million names rode to Mars on NASA's InSight lander, which touched down on the Red Planet in November 2018. So far, the 2020 Mars rover project has blasted way beyond that record.

While NASA's "Send Your Name to Mars" program is closing, there is still one last name needed for the 2020 Mars rover: the name of the rover, itself.

NASA is currently running a contest for students in grades Kindergarten through grade 12 to name the rover. The entry period ends Nov. 1. For details on how to submit a name for the 2020 Mars rover, visit: https://go.nasa.gov/name2020.

The 2020 Mars rover is scheduled to launch to the Red Planet on July 2020 and land inside the 28-mile-wide (45 kilometers) Jezero Crater. The 2,300-lb. (1,040 kilograms) rover, with its nuclear power source, will search for signs of past microbial life, study the climate and geology of Mars, and collect samples that may be returned to Earth on a future mission.

Email Tariq Malik attmalik@space.comor follow him@tariqjmalik. Follow us@SpacedotcomandFacebook.

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Today's the Last Chance to Send Your Name to Mars on NASA's 2020 Rover - Space.com

A Japanese H-2B rocket lifts off with the eighth HTV resupply freighter. Credit: MHI/JAXA

A Japanese H-2B rocket fired into orbit Tuesday from the Tanegashima Space Center with an automated cargo freighter loaded with more than 4.1 tons of batteries, experiments, spacewalk equipment, water and provisions for the International Space Station.

The unpiloted cargo ship lifted off at 1605:05 GMT (12:05:05 p.m. EDT) Tuesday from Launch Pad No. 2 at Tanegashima, an oceanfront spaceport on an island in southern Japan.

The 186-foot-tall (56.6-meter) H-2B rocket proceeded through an apparently trouble-free countdown Tuesday. After filling the rocket with super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants, the H-2B launch team managed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries gave approval to proceed with final launch preps, culminating in ignition of two liquid-fueled LE-7A main engines at T-minus 5.2 seconds.

After passing a computer-run health check, the H-2B rocket fired four strap-on solid rocket boosters to climb away from the Tanegashima Space Center with more than 2 million pounds of thrust.

Liftoff occurred at 1:05 a.m. local time in Japan, two weeks after a previous H-2B countdown was halted by a dramatic fire on the launch pad.

Japanese engineers called off the missions first launch attempt Sept. 10 after the fire, and ground crews returned the H-2B rocket to its assembly building for inspections. Officials determined the fire was likely caused by static electricity and high concentrations of oxygen that dripped from the rockets main engines during the Sept. 10 countdown.

After instituting unspecific corrective actions, MHI returned the H-2B rocket to the launch pad a half-day before Tuesdays launch to begin a new countdown.

No such trouble occurred Tuesday, and the H-2B rocket quickly turned to the southeast to climb into space over the Pacific Ocean. The precise launch time Tuesday was set to allow Japans eighth H-2 Transfer Vehicle to enter an orbit aligned with the orbital plane of the International Space Station, setting the stage for an automated laser-guided rendezvous Saturday.

The H-2B rocket shed its four solid rocket boosters, payload fairing, and first stage in the first six minutes of the mission. A second stage powered by a single hydrogen-fueled LE-5B engine delivered the HTV supply ship into a preliminary orbit around 15 minutes after liftoff.

Japanese mission controllers confirmed the barrel-shaped HTV launched into an on-target orbit, and the cargo freighter began charging its batteries with its body-mounted solar panels.

Tuesdays launch made the H-2B rocket eight-for-eight in launches since debuting on Japans first HTV resupply mission in 2009.

The HTV 8 mission is also known as Kounotori 8. Kounotori means white stork in Japanese.

Packed with some 8,326 pounds (3,777 kilograms) of equipment, experiments and crew provisions, the Kounotori 8 spacecraft will approach the space station in autopilot mode Saturday. The space station crew will use the labs Canadian-built robotic arm to capture the HTV supply ship around 7:15 a.m. EDT (1115 GMT) Saturday, then bring the spacecraft to a berthing port on the stations Harmony module.

The crew inside the station will get to work unpacking 5,313 pounds (2,410 kilograms) of cargo inside the HTVs pressurized logistics carrier. Meanwhile, robots outside the station will extract a pallet from the HTVs unpressurized cargo bay containing six lithium-ion batteries to upgrade the space stations power system.

Astronauts Nick Hague and Andrew Morgan on the space station will conduct five spacewalks the first is set for Oct. 6 to begin installing the fresh batteries, which will replace aging and less-capable nickel-hydrogen batteries on the P6 solar array module on the far port side of the stations truss backbone.

The Kounotori 8 mission will deliver the third set of six lithium-ion batteries to upgrade the space stations four huge U.S.-built external power modules, each of which features solar array wings that span 240 feet (73 meters) tip-to-tip. The sixth HTV mission in 2016 carried the first set of new batteries to the station, followed by a second batch last year on the Kounotori 7 resupply mission.

A final set of six batteries will launch on the ninth HTV flight next year.

Each solar array section powers two electrical channels with 12 charging nickel-hydrogen batteries, and NASA is replacing the old batteries in power truss section with six lighter, more efficient lithium-ion batteries.

JAXA uses the HTV missions as part of its contribution to the space station program. Each HTV cargo freighter measures about 33 feet (10 meters) long and about 14 feet (4.4 meters) in diameter.

The Kounotori 8 mission is also carrying food, fresh drinking water, a high-pressure gas tank to recharge the space stations internal atmosphere with oxygen and nitrogen, and spacewalking tools, such as high-definition cameras and equipment for a series of repair spacewalks planned later this year for the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 cosmic ray experiment.

The HTV will also deliver research payloads to the space station.

One of the experiments will demonstrate a high-speed satellite laser communications system developed by JAXA and Sony Computer Science Laboratories. The technology demonstrator will test a laser link with a ground station, which can accommodate higher-bandwidth communications than radio systems.

This technology, which employs a laser for in-orbit mass-data communication, will likely be widely used not only in the telecommunications industry, but in the future as a means of communication in the field of exploration, said Koichi Wakata, a JAXA vice president, in a statement. Specifically, it can be used as a means of communication between the Earth and the International Space Station, the moon, and Mars. There is a wide range of potential applications, such as communication with the moon rovers.

TheSmall Optical Link for International Space Station, or SOLISS, experiment willbe mounted on an experiment platform outside the space stations Japanese Kibo laboratory module.

Sony CSL is taking advantage of the in-orbit demonstrations to complete our long-distance laser communication system, said Hiroaki Kitano, president of Sony CSL. It will be the first step for Sony to build upon the results of these demonstrations and put it into practical use in society as we commercialize it.

The opportunity to use Kibo for the in-orbit demonstrations makes it possible to greatly advance the research and development of the optical communication system, much more quickly than if we had launched a small satellite for the same purpose on our own, Kitano said. The SOLISS system is built using consumer components. After the demonstrations, we will retrieve the SOLISS unit and perform follow-up analyses, which we expect will further accelerate our commercialization process.

Japans Hourglass experiment also launched on the eighth HTV mission to help scientists investigate the behavior of soil and rock particles under low gravity, simulating the conditions future probes might encounter on a small planet or asteroid.

New hardware for a cellular biology experiment rack is also flying to the space station on the Kounotori 8 spacecraft, expanding the stations capabilities for biological research.

Three CubeSats are also riding to the station inside the Kounotori 8 spacecraft. Once they arrive at the station, astronauts will transfer them to the Japanese Kibo module, where they will install them into a deployer for release into orbit through an airlock.

The 2-pound (1-kilogram) NARSSCube 1 nanosatellite was developed by Egypts National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Science in partnership with the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan. It carries a low-resolution imaging camera.

The AQT-D CubeSat, which weighs 8.1 pounds (3.7 kilograms) and is about the size of a shoebox, will demonstrate a water-based satellite propulsion system. The AQT-D mission is led by the University of Tokyo.

Rwandas first satellite, named RWASAT 1, also launched Tuesday. Officials say the satellite will aid agricultural and environmental monitoring.

The Japanese HTV cargo delivery flight is the first of two missions launching to the International Space Station in less than 24 hours.

A Russian Soyuz crew ferry ship is set for liftoff Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with Russian cosmonaut, NASA astronaut and the first Emirati space flier. The Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft will reach the station less than six hours after liftoff, while the HTV cargo mission is taking a longer rendezvous profile.

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Fresh batteries, experiments on the way to the International Space Station - Spaceflight Now

tech2 News StaffOct 01, 2019 16:42:34 IST

This is a picture of Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques, just as he completes his first spacewalk in April this year. He was accompanied on the 6.5-hour spacewalkby fellowastronaut Anne McClain, to restore power to a robotic arm on the ISS. Image: NASA

NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei snappedaselfie portrait,more popularly called a space-selfie,in the first spacewalk of the year 2018. He anda fellowastronaut performed maintenance on the Canadian robotic arm of the ISS. Image: NASA

Astronaut Anne McClain is an engineer, a US army soldier and a scientistwho has worked aboard the International Space Stationon two space expeditions. McClain is pictured here, 250 miles above the planet, performing spacesuit maintenance for her first spacewalk. Image credit: Instagram/NASA

A file photo of three astronauts Michael Collins, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin before the moon landing that took place on 20 July 1969. Image: NASA

NASA astronaut Serena Aun-Chancellor gives group hugs to the students of Excel Academy Public Charter school after a presentation about her experience on Expeditions 56 and 57 onboard the International Space Station. Image: NASA

NASA astronaut Joe Acaba waits with Canadian and Russian space agencies as they travel from Karaganda to Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan to welcome the three agencies astronauts as they return after 204 days in space during expedition 58 and 59. Image credit: NASA

Hollywood actor Brad Pitt, seated at the Space Operations Center at NASA Headquarters in Washington spoke with NASA astronaut Nick Hague who was onboard the International Space Station. Pitt stars as an astronaut inan upcoming film Ad Astra, and asked Hague many questions about astronaut life, including what it is like to live, work andhave mealsaboard the ISS. Image: NASA

Astronaut Anne McClain said on her first journey to space, "Putting this journey into words will not be easy, but I will try. I am finally where I was born to be." Image: NASA

In this photo, command module pilot of the Apollo 11 mission Michael Collins practices in a simulator at the Kennedy space center, a month before their scheduled takeoff and historic landing on the moon. Image credit: NASA

This is a file photo of Christine Darden, one of the women dubbed a 'human computer' during NASA's early years, at work. These designated math wizzes did the number-crunching for mechanical engineers at NASA. Not satisfied with just sitting on the sidelines, sheaspired todesigncomputer programs forthe agency, going on to become one of the few women who worked as a NASA aerospace engineers in its early years. Image credit: NASA

This is Christopher Kraft Jr. seated at the Flight Director console during the Gemini-Titan V flight simulation. He created the idea of a NASA mission control and developed the operational procedure and culture of controlling a complex, multifaceted space launch or mission from a handful of well-equipped control rooms. Image: NASA

This is Margaret Brennecke, the first welding engineer to work in the Material and Processes Laboratory at NASA. Her work in the field of aluminum alloys waskey tothe success ofthe Apollo program. Image: NASA

NASA astronaut Drew Feustel outside the airlock during a spacewalk which lasted six hours and 49 minutes. He and astronaut Ricky Arnold installed high-def cameras to enhance the views of the space station. Image: NASA

Pictures here isMae Jemison (left), the first black woman in space, who was launched aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992.Walking alongsideJemison is spacesuit technician Sharon McDougle (right). Image: NASA

An emotional picture where the astronauts on Expedition 57 return home and meet their family. Cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos and astronaut Nick Hague of NASA, embrace their families after landing at the Krayniy Airport, Kazakhstan. Image: NASA

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NASA's 61st birthday: 15 best spacewalk photos, space selfies and other incredible moments in spaceflight - Firstpost

Ad Astra presents a bold, visually stunning image of what space travel could look like in the not-too-distant future. A space antenna pierces through the upper limits of the atmosphere, lunar buggies make a mad dash over a desolate moonscape, and a massive rocket comes in for a rough landing on the dust-swept surface of Mars. And yet, the most jaw-dropping moment comes when Brad Pitt pays $125 for a blanket and pillow.

Pitt plays astronaut Roy McBride, who finds himself on a mission to the outer reaches of the solar system in an effort to stop a potentially world-ending event originating in Neptune's orbit. He'll eventually blast off from a top-secret Martian moon base, but he needs to get to the moon first, and his bosses have him fly commercial to avoid causing a public panic. So, McBride catches a ride on a Virgin Atlantic shuttle to the moon, as one does.

"The production team behind Ad Astra contacted us a couple of years ago and asked if they could use our branding in the movie," a representative for Virgin Atlantic tells SYFY WIRE. "They were keen to work with us as they thought commercial airlines might, in the future, start flying to the moon. We thought it was a really fun concept and were really happy to get involved."

In Ad Astra, commercial space flight is treated in a pretty mundane way perhaps similar to the earlier days of air travel, when passengers dressed up for flights and flying was a luxury, but still a normal, fairly unexciting experience. When McBride gets to the moon, the base has all the charm of an airport layover, complete with familiar fast-food restaurants and a Hudson News (Hudson Group did not respond to SYFY WIRE's request for comment about its lunar outpost).

There are some companies now, in the real world, that are making fledgling steps into commercial space travel of this sort, such as SpaceX and Blue Origin, and NASA is planning on eventually sending some astronauts into space via private spacecraft, similar to what happens in the movie.

In fact, Richard Branson's Virgin group already has a company that's engaging in a (much more limited) sort of commercial spaceflight. That company is Virgin Galactic, though the Ad Astra team was interested in using the traditionally terrestrial Virgin Atlantic's branding as a means of showing just how much commercial travel had changed by the time of the movie, the Virgin rep explains.

But, the casual future of commercial space travel seen in the movie is still a ways away and a long time coming.

"I signed up with Pan Am to fly to the moon in 1969. You see where that got us," John M. Logsdon, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University, explains. Logsdon, who specializes in the history and policy of space travel, recalls that the now-defunct airline had a booth at the Kennedy Space Center where would-be moon men could reserve a seat on a trip that never came. It wouldn't have been too dissimilar from a scene in the previous year's 2001: A Space Odyssey, which featured a Pan Am space clipper making commercial jaunts to the stars.

Ad Astra is hardly the first movie to capture society's dreams of catching a flight to the moon with as much ease as one travels to JFK or LAX. The film is set in the ambiguous near-future, but given that the main plot involves two generations of astronauts, it's probably safe to assume it's at least 50 years in the future, and probably more.

"All right, so here we are at 2019," Logsdon says. "You have various companies with ambitions to provide commercial-like transportation to orbit and beyond, including the moon. None of them are anywhere close to doing that. We haven't had a human to the moon for 47 years."

That's not to say Virgin Atlantic or some other company couldn't make such travel a reality, but Logsdon says we should all temper our expectations.

"There are folks that think that within 50 years there will be settlements on the moon, and regular transportation between the Earth and the moon," he says. "There's no fundamental technical reason why that can't happen, but it's multiple steps away from where we are now."

"We have no current plans to start flying to the moon but you never know what might happen in the future," the Virgin rep adds. "The team at Virgin Atlantic are always innovating and launching new routes for our customers, so the moon could possibly be next.

Okay, but when and if we do travel to the moon, will we really need to shell out $125 for a simple blanket and pillow?

"I can't conceive of having basic economy on those flights where you have to pay for everything," Logsdon says. He notes that Elon Musk's SpaceX already has a customer signed up for a trip around the moon, and while the exact price that Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa paid for his ticket hasn't been made public, $100 million isn't an outlandish estimate.

"You have to do a lot of cost reduction for Virgin Atlantic or Southwest or some equivalent services in 50 years," Logsdon says, adding that the $125 pillow seems to indicate that Ad Astra's commercial space travel still isn't all that cheap. "The fact that they charge that price suggests that it's a very small portion of what they're charging for fare, and that these flights are not going to be economy flights."

According to Virgin, though, that pillow price tag might be the most implausible part of the whole sci-fi adventure.

"We'd never charge $125 for a blanket!" the rep says. "All food, drinks, and amenities on Virgin Atlantic are always free!"

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Ad Astra predicts the future of commercial space flight, and it's a $125 blanket - SYFY WIRE

Late last year, the Government of India sanctioned Rs 10,000 crore for the countrys first human spaceflight programme, to be fulfilled by 2022. Under this project, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) plans to send three Indian astronauts to low-Earth orbit for a little less than a week and return them safely.

Colloquially called Gaganyaan, the project is part of Indias efforts to portray itself as a global space power or at least place itself at par with China.

Politicians that typically balk when asked to invest in climate-change mitigation or fundamental research jump at the chance to release the purse strings for spaceflight even if they are of dubious relevance. Case in point: the space command, which India, China and the US are currently setting up. Indeed, as a result of such showmanship and megalomania, the leaders of these countries are militarising space in earnest. If taken to its logical conclusion, this will further wreck a world already divided along religious, racial, class and caste lines.

Such space projects are useful when demagogues are looking for something to blow their trumpets over, at the expense of asking whether there are any real science outcomes. This is why especially when governments announce new space initiatives we need to raise uncomfortable questions about their overall guiding logic and benefits.

One such question is of priorities: is it worth investing in a programme that may not be able to produce any concrete social benefits?

Any large technological programme with massive investment is highly likely to produce marginal benefits, sometimes called spin-offs. Oft-quoted examples include the development of the World Wide Web and the synchrotron both at CERN, the European lab for research in nuclear physics. Satellite-based space missions have gone beyond that, however, having changed the way we communicate and observe the natural universe in revolutionary ways. ISRO has also made commendable contributions, particularly in light of its humble yet entrepreneurial beginnings in Thumba, a small hamlet near Thiruvananthapuram, in 1963.

Also read:ISRO Doesnt Have a Satisfactory Answer to Why It Wants to Put Indians in Space

But the potential benefits that could accrue from human spaceflight are not very clear, at least not immediately. Lori Garver, a former deputy administrator of NASA, wrote in The Washington Post earlier this year:

NASA remains one of the most revered and valuable brands in the world, and the agency is at its best when given a purpose. But the public doesnt understand the purpose of spending massive amounts of money to send a few astronauts to the moon or Mars. Are we in another race, and if so, is this the most valuable display of our scientific and technological leadership? If science is the rationale, we can send robots for pennies on the dollar.

The celebrated physicist Steven Weinberg is also a well-known science communicator. His latest book, Third Thoughts (2018), includes an article he wrote in 2013 in the journal Space Policy. In the article, he rebuts a paper entitled The essential role of human space flight published in the same journal. The paper reads:

should the US and nations at large pursue a human spaceflight program (and if so, why)? I offer an unwavering positive answer Space exploration is a human activity that is intrinsically forward-looking, and as such, has positive potential. Both national and international space programs can galvanize the population, inspire the youth, foster job-creation, and motivate the existing workforce. The nature of the enterprises involvedtheir scale, novelty, and complexityrequires a steady and continuous upward progression toward greater societal, scientific and technological development. That is, in order to overcome the challenges of human spaceflight, progress is required. More to the point, the survival of humanity depends on expanding beyond the confines of our planet. Human spaceflight, in short, presents us with an opportunity to significantly advance the nation and the global community.

In his article, Weinberg refutes the key arguments in favour of human spaceflight, saying that space-based observatories like the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) and the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) have broadened our understanding of the universe. More recent breakthroughs on the origin and evolution of the universe have all been derived from data generated by these observatories.

The Hubble space telescope also belongs in this league, and its mantle as the most significant space-based observatory will soon be passed on to the James Webb Space Telescope. Additionally, robotic missions like the Curiosity rover on Mars, the Yutu rover on the Moon, JUNO around Jupiter and the Hayabusa 2 probe at the Ryugu asteroid (not his examples but just as relevant) are expanding our horizons. Weinberg then asks the same question of human spaceflight: What are its benefits?

Some have said that astronauts experiences can inspire others and generates a certain potential for greatness for the present and future generations. But Weinberg is dismissive of this aspect: Manned spaceflight is a spectator sport, which can be exciting for spectators, but this is not the sort of excitement that seems to lead to anything serious.

The question about benefits is not asked rhetorically but as an instance of holding missions concerned with sending humans to space up to the same scrutiny reserved for other, often less prestigious, expeditions.

In addition, we must also ask what the priorities of our publicly funded space science and technology initiatives are. Sending humans to space without an overarching vision that answers such questions will cost us dearly as a nation.

Consider the US National Academy of Sciences decadal strategyfor Earth Science and Applications from Space (ESAS). Such peer-reviewed surveys are notable for sampling the aspirations of the scientific community, enabling larger bodies to build a prioritised programme of science goals that can play a major role in the US. For example, ESAS 2017 declared that NASA should prioritise the study of the global hydrological cycle; the distribution and movement of mass between oceans, ice sheets, groundwater and the atmosphere; and changes in surface biology and geology.

Also read:If Chandrayaan 2 Was a 90-95% Success Is the Answer, Whats the Question?

India already has satellites that assist monitor Earth dynamics, including earthquakes, landslides, large-scale groundwater extraction, atmospheric moisture and winds, sea conditions, and its scientists collaborate with agencies that use satellites to study ice-sheets and glaciers. Such observations provide inputs to develop hazard mitigation programmes.

ISRO should focus on such applications, and the science thereof, in a more purposeful manner and fix targets to develop comprehensive Earth observation systems; and on building linkages to higher education centres in the country that could then conduct research based on the data obtained from Earth and planetary observation systems. And it should locate these projects within a list of priorities and a broader scientific agenda that has been justified to the government. It makes more sense to leave human spaceflight, at least when we know a mission-critical part of the 21st century is just beginning, to those with fewer goals on their hands.

C.P. Rajendranis a professor of geodynamics at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru.

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A Gadfly's Perspective on Human Spaceflight - The Wire