Exciting things happen in the world of spaceflight every day. At Vis Viva, we do our best to keep track of these and discuss the most recent developments. As such, we have monthly news round-ups, where one of our members presents the events of the past month. This presentation was given by Ingo Gerth at our sixth bi-weekly meeting in Delft, May 29, 2013. ============== It shall be pointed out that our meetings are about more than just slides—they are about the interaction of our Fellows. Vis Viva offers a forum for the active discussion of space topics, and so our talks are lively get-together with a permanent conversation of the speaker and the audience. Since just slides cannot get this across, we kindly invite you to join one of our bi-weekly activities.

1. 1
News
Round-up
May 2013
Summary
Discussion

2. 2
From the pipes today!
● Expedition 36 reaches station!

3. 3

4. 4

5. 5

6. 6
ISS now runs on Linux
● 140 laptops for 6 astronauts – 80 run at any time
● R2 Robonaut runs on Linux, too
● All laptops migrated to Debian 6

7. 7
NASA Loses Kepler
● Four year design life till 2012 surpassed
● Two reaction wheels failed

8. 8
OHB gets EDRS-C contract
● Finally, European TDRSS equivalent
● Volume: M€157
● Uses laser terminal for space
● Ka-band for ground
● EDRS-A: on Eutelsat 9B
(Eurostar 3000)
● EDRS-B: ? (Thales...?)

9. 9
Rocket news!
●
Texus grounded
●
Second Vega success
●
Epsilon 1 to fly in August

10. 10

11. 11
Russia launches Zoo into space
● Launched April 19, retrieved May 19
● Built with spy satellite parts
● Experiments: radiation, microgravity, plant
growth etc...

12. 12
UK gets new ESA centre
● “European Centre for Space Applications and
Telecoms” at Harwell
● ESA contribution increased 25% last ministerial
● ESTEC loses communications directorate!

13. 13
MarsOne reaches 78,000 sign-ups
● Figure for first two weeks
● Now > 150,000? ~ M$ 5.7 raised→
● Bas: “Most desired job in history”

14. 14
Herschel finds mega-merger

15. 15
First topographic map of Titan!

16. 16
Asteroid collides with Moon
● 300 impacts since LRO
● 40 kg rock, left 20 m crater

17. 17

18. 18
UK astronaut assigned to mission
● Team Peake: first Astronaut in over 20 years
● 6 month mission in November 2015

19. 19
Asteroid retrieval being discussed
Congresswoman
Donna Edwards (Rep.)
House Space Committee

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