Other News
The Senate passed a NASA authorization bill Friday in a largely symbolic move. The Senate passed by unanimous consent a revised version of a NASA authorization bill approved by the Senate Commerce Committee more than a year ago. The bill supports the Artemis program, including NASA's approach for developing lunar landers, and extends the authorization of ISS operations to 2030. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), lead sponsor of the bill, acknowledged in a speech that the bill won't be passed by the House this year, but hoped the bill could serve as a starting point for a bill in the new Congress that could pass next year. [SpaceNews]
NASA's Mars Sample Return (MSR) program is moving into its next phase of development. NASA announced last week MSR would move into Phase A, supporting work on initial designs of the missions and key technologies. MSR will feature two spacecraft, a lander and an orbiter, currently scheduled for launch in 2026 to collect samples cached by the Mars 2020 rover and return those samples to Earth. An independent review board supported continuing with MSR in a report last month, but cautioned it will take longer and cost more than what NASA currently plans. Some in the planetary science community are concerned the cost of MSR will make it difficult to pursue other major planetary science missions in the coming decade. [SpaceNews]
NASA has selected Reid Wiseman as its new chief astronaut. Wiseman joined the astronaut corps in 2009 and flew a long-duration mission on the ISS in 2014. Wiseman will oversee the 46 currently active U.S. astronauts and coordinate activities with 18 additional astronauts from Canada, Europe and Japan. He succeeds Pat Forrester, who NASA said taking an extended leave of absence to pursue a personal opportunity outside the agency. [collectSPACE]
One scientist is warning the upcoming solar cycle may be far more active than the consensus view. Scientists on the Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel recently predicted that the new solar cycle, which formally started last year, will be similar in intensity to the previous 11-year cycle, which was relatively quiet. But Scott McIntosh of the National Center for Atmospheric Research argues that the cycle will be more intense, based on an alternative analysis that appears to be supported by a recent surge in activity. A more active solar cycle would be a higher number of solar storms with greater intensity, affecting systems ranging from the electrical grid to satellites. [Washington Post]
A curious signal recently detected from a nearby star doesn't appear to be natural, but probably isn't aliens, either. Astronomers with the Breakthrough Listen project detected a narrowband signal from Proxima Centauri at a frequency of 982 megahertz using an Australian radio telescope. Astronomers said they don't know of a natural phenomenon that could produce such a signal, but acknowledge that the most likely explanation is some kind of human-made interference, particularly since the signal shows no sign of modulation. [Scientific American]
Russian officials have identified a new suspected cause for an air leak on the ISS: FEDOR the robot. One Russian expert said that FEDOR, while being unloaded from and then being placed back into a Soyuz spacecraft, could have created a small fissure in the Zvezda module. The ISS has been experiencing a small air leak since September 2019, around the time FEDOR was flown to the station. The developer of FEDOR denied that the humanoid robot could be responsible, saying that FEDOR was designed to fit through Soyuz and other ISS hatches and that the process for transferring the robot had been carefully rehearsed. [Sputnik]
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