July 2012

31 July

• The Toshiba Vision screen in New York City’s Times Square will become the largest East Coast location for the public to see live mission coverage of Curiosity, NASA’s most advanced planetary rover, as it lands on the Martian surface at 1:31 AM EDT 6 August.
• Top-secret surveillance spacecraft and several smaller research satellites will be launched aboard an Atlas 5 rocket scheduled for blastoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base early Thursday. The United Launch Alliance rocket is sitting at Space Launch Complex-3 East on South Base, where crews have spent the past several months preparing the booster for blastoff. The team is shooting for liftoff at 12:40 a.m. Thursday.

30 July

• Images taken by high-resolution cameras on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter reveal that five of the six flags erected by Apollo astronauts are still standing.

29 July

• A second attempt to re-dock the Russian Progress M-15M resupply spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) with the help of a new rendezvous system has been a success.

28 July

• Russia’s Space Forces launched early on Saturday a Rokot carrier rocket with a Cosmos class military satellite and three civilian satellites on board. The Rokot blasted off from the Plesetsk space center in northern Russia at 05:35 AM Moscow time (01:35 UTC).
• John Kelly discusses the recent review passed by the Space Launch System. But expresses concern that this may be another project given the green light by NASA that will run into budget and schedule difficulties.

27 July

• The H-II Transfer Vehicle “Kounitori 3” (HTV3) started its final approach to the International Space Station (ISS), and was captured by the ISS robotic arm at 21:23 PM on July 27 (Japanese Standard Time, JST – 1223 UTC). After being maneuvered by the arm, the HTV3 was successfully berthed to the ISS at 2:31 AM on July 28 (JST – 1731 UTC).
• Russia’s Space Forces launched early on Saturday a Rokot carrier rocket with a Cosmos class military satellite and three civilian satellites on board. The Rokot blasted off from the Plesetsk space center in northern Russia at 05:35 AM Moscow time (01:35 UTC).

26 July

• A Long March rocket launched the third in a series of Chinese data relay satellites on Wednesday. The Long March 3C rocket lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center and placed into geosynchronous transfer orbit the Tianlian 1-03 communications satellite
• Even as Shenzhou 9 undocked from Tiangong 1, and before it returned to Earth, the Beijing Aerospace Control Centre was starting preparations for the Shenzhou 10 mission, possibly December 2012.

25 July

• A test of a new docking antenna on a Progress spacecraft was aborted last Monday after a malfunction. The Progress M-15M cargo spacecraft, which arrived at the station in April, undocked from the station Sunday and moved out to a distance of over 150 kilometers before returning to the station’s facility for a planned redocking to test a new Kurs-NA rendezvous antenna. The docking was aborted, though, when the antenna malfunctioned when the Progress was about 15 kilometers away.

24 July

• The normalization of space services.

23 July

• Sally Ride died on Monday in La Jolla, California after a 17 month battle with pancreatic cancer. She is survived by her mother and partner Tam O’Shaughnessy.

22 July

• A Soyuz rocket successfully launched a collection of small satellites on Sunday. The Soyuz-FG rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 2:41 am EDT (0641 GMT, 12:41 pm local time) Sunday and placed five satellites into Sun-synchronous orbits.
• The Discovery Channel Telescope at Lowell Observatory has seen First Light. Images include M109, the Sombrero Galaxy and M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy.

21 July

• Japan successfully launched their HTV-3 re-supply mission to the International Space Station. Docking is expected to occur on 27 July with the Harmony Node.

20 July

• On 20 July 1969, at 10:56 PM EDT, Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon.
• Orbital Sciences Corporation announced Thursday it is now planning the inaugural launch of its medium-lift Antares rocket this October, with a demonstration flight of its Cygnus cargo spacecraft to follow by the end of the year. Orbital said it plans a “hot fire” test of the first stage of the Antares on its launch pad at Virginia’s Mid-Altantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) in late August or early September, to be followed by the first Antares launch, carrying a demonstration payload, in October..

19 July

• Astronomers examining data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have found evidence for an extrasolar planet two-thirds the size of the Earth tightly orbiting its star. The University of Central Florida astronomers found the potential world in Spitzer observations of GJ 436, a star already known to have a Neptune-sized exoplanet, when they noted small, periodic dips in the star’s infrared light that they believe are caused by another planet transiting the star’s disk.
• Researchers have discovered a rare early galaxy (z=2.18) with pronounced spiral arms. The report is in the July 19 issue of Nature..

18 July

• A problem with a spacecraft currently in orbit around Mars could mean that telemetry from next month’s landing by NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission could be delayed by perhaps hours. NASA had expected to use the Mars Odyssey orbiter to relay data from MSL as it landed on the evening of August 5. However, officials said Monday that a problem with a reaction wheel on Mars Odyssey means the spacecraft could be out of position to relay the data live.
• Shot into space under a cloak of secrecy last month, a bright new object spotted in space this week has confirmed that the most recent Atlas 5 rocket successfully dispatched a data-relay satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office.

17 July

• A Soyuz spacecraft carrying three new International Space Station crewmembers docked with the station early Tuesday. The Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft docked with the station’s Rassvet module at 12:51 am EDT (0451 GMT) Tuesday, two days after launch from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. On board the Soyuz were Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, American astronaut Sunita Williams, and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, who jointed the existing ISS crew of Russians Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin and American Joe Acaba.
• NASA picked SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket for the planned December 2014 launch of the Jason-3 satellite for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and international partners. The satellite is designed to measure sea surface height to monitor ocean circulation and sea level. The contract is valued at $82 million.

16 July

• NASA’s Launch Pad-39A serving as a back drop, bus loads of students arrived from Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) Melbourne Campus to watch and participate in this year’s Space University’s rocket launch competition.
• Sierra Nevada Corporation has ramped up the hiring process for its Dream Chaser program in advance of a scheduled NASA announcement of the next round of commercial crew funding. Dream Chaser is in the running for additional development funds. Since NASA usually tells NASA awardees prior to the awards, the pre-emptive hiring may indicate Sierra Nevada knows it has been selected
• Is Pluto a Binary Planet?

15 July

• Russia successfully launched the Soyuz TMA-05M manned spacecraft toward the International Space Station (ISS) this Saturday evening, 14 July, at 7:40 PM Phoenix time (0240 UTC 15 July).

14 July

• Aviation Week reviews the emerging British Space Industry and its renewed cooperation with the European Space Agency.

13 July

• NASA said today that SpaceX has passed “an important design review” on the crewed version of its Dragon spacecraft. The “concept baseline review” took place June 14 at the company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
• Democrats Highlight Importance of the Nation’s Investments in NASA that Strengthen the American Economy, and Improve Our Daily Lives
• Scientific American weighs in on the consequences of the 2013 NASA Budget for robotic exploration of the Solar System, and it isn’t pretty.

12 July

• In an announcement today at the Farnborough International Air Show, Virgin Galactic revealed it is partnering with a privately funded satellite launcher to build a two stage air launched rocket capable of placing 225 kilograms into orbit for around $10 Million dollars.
• Astronomers announced Wednesday the discovery of a fifth, and very small, moon orbiting the dwarf planet Pluto. Scientists detected the moon, temporarily designated S/2012 (134340) 1, in Hubble Space Telescope images of Pluto taken in late June and early July. The moon is thought to be irregular in shape and between 10 and 24 kilometers across, and in a circular orbit about 42,000 kilometers from Pluto.

11 July

• Rocket Crafters Inc., a Utah-based company that specializes in hybrid-rocket design and aerospace-composite technologies, said Tuesday it is moving to Titusville, where it hopes to create as many as 1,300 full-time jobs. The company plans to develop and commercialize a new hybrid rocket-propulsion technology and an ultra-light, advanced composite material for the manufacture of dual-propulsion space planes for suborbital flight.

Astronauts return to Earth weakened and unsteady after weightlessness and radiation in space take their toll on the human body. New research now shows that the humble nematode worm adapts much better to spaceflight.

10 July

• XCOR Aerospace, a suborbital vehicle developer based in Mojave, California, announced plans Monday to move its headquarters and create a research and development center in Midland, Texas. XCOR and a local development organization, the Midland Development Corporation, announced the plan that includes up to $10 million in incentives for XCOR to set up operations at the Midland International Airport.
• The “Hot-Jupiter” exoplanet that orbits only 3.3 million miles from its sun, HD 189733A, is losing its atmosphere at the rate of a thousand tons per second, according to studies by Hubble and Swift over the past two years.
• International Launch Services (ILS) successfully carried the SES-5 satellite into geostationary transfer orbit today on an ILS Proton for SES of Luxembourg.

9 July

• Spaceport America, the world’s first purpose-built, commercial spaceport, has launched a new look for its brand on Independence Day. “Spaceport America is helping a new American Revolution take place in the commercial space industry, and what better time to showcase our new brand than the Fourth of July,” said Christine Anderson, Executive Director of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA).
• In findings released Sunday by the journal Science, two research teams take aim at the “arseniclife” bacteria. The microbe was announced by the journal in 2010 at a NASA news briefing as “the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic.” The new findings show that was not the case.
• Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has just celebrated its 3,000th sol* on Mars. This may sound like an important milestone, and it is. This tenacious six-wheeled robot has survived five Martian winters since it landed on the Red Planet on Jan. 24th, 2004 — considering its warranty was only 90 days, we’re certainly getting our money’s worth!

8 July

• Midland Texas newspaper reviews XCOR.

7 July

• The Guardian discusses the Opportunity mission on Mars at Endeavour Crater.

6 July

• NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) praised the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion programs for making “considerable progress” during their latest meeting, but called for managers to ensure the debut SLS flight – known as Exploration Mission -1 (EM-1) – is heavily aimed at risk mitigation, ahead of the first crewed mission.

5 July

• A dust disk spotted around a young star just a few years ago has disappeared in the course of just a few years, puzzling astronomers. In a paper published in the current edition of the journal Nature, astronomers reported that they are no longer able to detect a warm disk of dust surrounding the star TYC 8241 2652. That disk was discovered in data from NASA’s IRAS satellite in 1983, and seen in follow-up observations for 25 years. However, astronomers were unable to see it in infrared observations at the Gemini South observatory in Chile two months ago, leading astronomers to conclude that the warm, infrared-emitting dust disappeared within the last 2.5 years.
• On Thursday, July 5, Arianespace successfully launched two satellites: the dedicated Internet satellite EchoStar XVII for the American operator Hughes Network Systems, and the MSG-3 weather satellite for Eumetsat, the European Meteorological Satellite organization.

4 July

• Fireworks on the fourth: The violent behaviour of a young Sun-like star spinning at high speed and spewing out super-hot plasma has been revealed thanks to the combined X-ray vision of three space telescopes, including ESA’s XMM-Newton.
• The coming months aboard the International Space Station promise to be exciting and dramatic, with no fewer than two spacewalks scheduled from the US and Russian segments, plus a Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV), SpaceX’s first dedicated Dragon cargo flight, the maiden voyage of Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus craft, the departure of a European Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) and a ‘fast-rendezvous’ experiment which aims to dock a Progress freighter onto the space station just seven hours after launch.
• The Economic Observer compares and contrasts China’s space program with the space industry in America. Their conclusion: China will be left in the dust.

3 July

• The World Policy Journal discusses the changes in space policy as the Obama Administration enlists private enterprise in the space program.
• Russia’s Energia space corporation is holding talks with U.S. aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin over manufacture of docking sites and thermal protection equipment for space capsules for the U.S. firms, Izvestia daily newspaper reported on Tuesday citing Energia head Vitaly Lopota.

2 July

• Lockheed Martin has delivered the first space-bound Orion spacecraft crew module structure to the Operations and Checkout Building on NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. The crew module structure recently underwent its final friction stir weld at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, La. and was transported to KSC last week to be readied for its Exploration Flight Test (EFT-1) in 2014.
• United States Navy Captain and retired NASA Astronaut Alan Poindexter lost his life Sunday in a tragic jet ski accident near Little Sabine Bay off Pensacola Beach, Florida.

1 July

• The Soyuz TMA-03M mission spacecraft carrying three U.S., Russian and European astronauts descended to a landing in remote Kazakhstan early Sunday, closing out a 193-day mission to the International Space Station that included the first visit by a U.S. commercial re-supply craft. The Soyuz capsule carrying Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, NASA astronaut Don Pettit and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers was greeted by helicopter borne Russian recovery teams, shortly after it touched down under parachute south of Zhezkaghan at 1:14 AM Phoenix time (0814 UTC). Pettit, Kononenko and Kuipers appeared to be in good shape.