May 2009 Archives

credit ESA

Congratulations to the International Space Station partners and their first crew of six for the safe arrival of expedition 20's final three members and the start of a new era in research on station and with station itself, the biggest experiment of all

Watch a replay of the ingress here

I'm off down the pub

credit ESA / caption: Soyuz TMA-15 was launched on 27 May 2009, arrives at ISS on 29 May

Care of ESA and NASA, watch the docking of Soyuz TMA-15 live today at around 12:30h GMT here at ESA's website or on NASAtv here

The expansion of crew to six on the Internatioanl Space Station will enable its space agency partners to realise the science that underpins much of the justification for the station's expense

At the International Space Development Conference (ISDC) in Orlando, Florida today Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn said that he "could confirm" that SpaceShip Two (SS2) would fly before the end of the year and that he hoped the SS2 could be air launched by its mothership WhiteKnight Two (WK2) prototype Eve and glide back to Earth

Whitehorn also confirmed that Eve would overfly the 19 June ground breaking ceremony of Spaceport America in Las Cruces on a non-stop round trip and that the mothership would fly into the EAA Airventure, Oshkosh, air show on 28 July and carry out demonstration flights during that week

He also spoke about the completion of firing tests for what he called "rocket motor two," video of which can be seen here. Speculating further on the future Whitehorn talked about bio-butanol based fuel produced by algae being used by WK2's Pratt & Whitney Canada 308A engines

Hyperbola watched Whitehorn's ISDC presentation via spacevidcast.com

Go through to the extended portion of this blog post to watch the 8min 33s video of Virgin Galactic's prime contractor Scaled Composites (and its subcontractor Sierra Nevada Corp) first test firings of the SpaceShip Two rocket motor

credit Virgin Galactic / caption: SpaceShip Two could have carry flght tests with its mothership by year's end

Virgin Galactic has put out the following press release:

"Virgin Galactic today announces the successful completion of the first phase of tests of the rocket motor that will propel space tourists, scientists and payloads into space.

In the desert of southern California, Virgin Galactic's key supplier Scaled Composites and its subcontractor SNC (Sierra Nevada Corporation) have successfully completed the first tests of the innovative rocket motor that will propel space tourists, scientists and payloads into space. The hybrid Nitrous Oxide system being used is the largest of its kind in the world and it will send Virgin's customers up into sub-orbital space at speeds over 2500 mph (4000kmh), to heights over 65 miles (110km) above the Earth's surface, before the spaceship descends back down through the atmosphere using its pioneering feathered re-entry system.

credit ESA / caption: 27 May is another major milestone for station and 29 May will see the six crew realised

Watch the video of today's launch in the extended portion of this blog post. International Space Station (ISS) expedition 20 ascends to low Earth orbit aboard an Energia Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft, launched by the TSKB-Progress Soyuz-FG rocket from Baikonur cosmodrome. The TMA-15's three passengers, Frank De Winne, Robert Thirsk and Roman Romanenko will join with ISS's expedition 19 team to bring about the first ISS crew of six

Go here to read ESA's information about its astronaut, Franke De Winne's, mission, details about Canadian Space Agency's Bob Thirsk are here and the Russian Federal Space Agency's report can be found here on pre-launch fun for the TMA-15 crew

credit USAF

Hyperbola was not aware of the potential for international collaboration for the US Air Force's plans for Operationally Responsive Space but this briefing slide suggests that that is the case

Thanks to our reader "Colin" Hyperbola has been able to look at the presentation (for those of you with access to OpenOffice.Org 3.0.1 the original powerpoint file is viewable with that) by Peter Wegner, US Air Force office of Operationally Responsive Space director

You can download here the pdf copy of the full presentation given to the US Federal Aviation Administration's Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee meeting on 20 and 21 May 2009

credit ESA / caption: just in case you did not know that kazakhstan is a very flat and very barren country

The Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft integrated with its TSKB-Progress Soyuz-FG rocket is rolled out to the Baikonur cosmodrome launch pad for its launch to the International Space Station on Wednesday 27 May at 12:34h CEST. It will carry Belgian born European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne, Russian cosmonaut Roman Romenenko and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk


credit ESA / caption: don't get mud on those flight suits fellas!

De Winne (left), Romenenko (centre) and Thirsk (right) carry out the time honoured Russian ceremony of planting a tree before their 27 May 2009 launch on TMA-15 to the ISS. Go through to the extended portion of this blog post to see more roll out images - all photos are care of the European Space Agency

click on the images in this blog post to see larger versions in the same browser window

Hyperbola hears that the British Broadcasting Corporation has been in the USA filming for a new series of the science and technology programme Tomorrow's World that was a feature of UK television from the 1960s to 2003

Tomorrow's World will apparently, after numerous reports of its resurrection, return with one episode reporting on the "New Space" industry, those small and medium sized enterprises in the US that believe they can deliver a commercial space programme for tourism, crew and cargo transport that costs a fraction of NASA's plans

One hopes that New Space doesn't fall foul of what became known as the Curse of Tomorrow's World where inventions it reported on were never seen again

The only regular science and technology programme on UK television for almost 40-years the BBC cancelled it after its viewership dropped to about 8 million, the same number that the broadcaster's "hit" tv show Dr Who now gets

Unfortunately Hyperbola also has to report that someone called Dallas is presenting the new series... 

Poor Charles Bolden. If he does actually become NASA administrator he'll have a flat budget, the job of retiring the world's only reusable spaceplane (and a few thousand workers), preside over a divisive review of US human spaceflight plans (more on that in another blog post), sign an expensive Russian deal for US International Space Station crew transport, extend ISS use and end America's hopes of returning to the Moon by 2020, dash COTS-D dreams, suffer vocal space science lobbying, Congressional pressure about aeronautics under funding and at some point take incoming from certain high profile bloggers; it is a good thing he's a former US Marine

And that is why Hyperbola thought it so appropriate to copy The Onion's famous headline from November 2004 when a certain person was elected to be the "leader of the free world"

credit Reaction Engines / caption: Skylon technology development has gained private financing

Hyperbola interviewed Skylon single stage to orbit (SSTO) designer Reaction Engines managing director Alan Bond on 22 May 2009 at the company's offices at the Culham Science Centre in Oxfordshire, England

In the 9min interview hear Bond talk about the award the company won from British National Space Centre and the European Space Agency (ESA), the company's private financing success, the European Union funded LAPCAT programme and more

The LAPCAT programme is about hypersonic transport research and it is managed by ESA. The space agency has contracted Bond's company to work on both its first and second phases

As well as this engine technology the company has also been evolving new nozzle technologies to enhance its single stage to orbit concept's performance

The interview was the same day this blog spoke to UK government minister of state for science and innovation Lord Paul Drayson of Kensington

Go through to the extended portion of this blog post to watch the video. I boosted the audio volume in Windows Movie Maker to maximum so there is some noise on the soundtrack but it should be easy to hear with your sound turned up to maximum

Go here for the US Federal Aviation Administration's Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee's 20/21 May meeting presentations are now online

In summary the key points seem to Hyperbola to be that,

• the personal spaceflight industry is drawing up training standards with a draft report now in circulation
• the FAA's office of commercial space transportation (AST) is now chairing the International Astronautical Federation's commercial spaceflight safety committee with Virgin Galactic and Swedish Space Corporation as co-chairs. The first meeting will be this October
• there is agreement that the FAA AST should operate a lessons learned database
• the COMSTAC reusable launch vehicles working group is to agree long term industry priorities with FAA AST with a meeting in October
• The COMSTAC space operations working group is going to produce a wite paper by July setting out what US Department of Defense policies, procedures, regulations are hindering the commercial sector
• unsurpisingly the non-GEO launch market forecasts says it is going to be mostly government for some time to come
• the export controls group has a whole series of recommendations relating to ITAR, whether they are just its recommendations or the outcome of the Bigelow commodity jurisidiction is not clear
• And best of luck to anyone can get Wegner's operatonally responsive space powerpoint to open

credit Reaction Engines / caption: the UK science minister Lord Drayson fully endorsed the Skylon concept

Air breathing rocket engine development company Reaction Engines was visited today by the UK government's minister of state for science and innovation Lord Paul Drayson of Kensington. He is responsible for the country's British National Space Centre

Drayson wanted to discuss the status of the Oxfordshire company's air breathing rocket engine work. Watch the video of Hyperbola's interview with Lord Drayson in the extended portion of this blog post. Behind Lord Drayson in the video is a technically detailed mockup of Reaction Engine's Sabre air breathing rocket engine

Hyperbola's interview with Reaction Engines managing director Alan Bond will be posted on Monday 25 May 2009

Scaled Composites has abandoned years of silence about its development programmes and has begun posting flight test logs for the WhiteKnight Two mothership beginning with the 20 May flight. Over the months to come it can only get more interesting

Find here the SpaceShipOne mothership WhiteKnight flight test logs from 2002 to 2004

Arianespace says: Inmarsat has chosen Arianespace to launch its new Alphasat I-XL communications satellite. The contract follows a partnership agreement between Inmarsat and the European Space Agency for commercialisation of the first mission to use the new European platform, Alphabus

credit Flight / caption: WhiteKnight Two makes fifth flight one month after its fourth

Yesterday on 20 May Scaled Composite's WhiteKnight Two prototype Virgin Mothership Eve flew for the fifth time

Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn has told Hyperbola that the test lasted 3h and that: "Flight 5 has been a great success as it tested the full cabin pressurisation system and environmental control systems. Finally on landing there was an emergency landing drill test which all in all now paves the way for the next flights can start to push the envelope on altitude etc."

Go through to the extended portion of the blog for the update

credit ESA / caption: Peake makes history but may not fly till after 2015

British Army air corps Agusta Westland Apache test pilot Timothy Peake has made history as the first UK citizen to be selected to be a space agency's astronaut

A Major Timothy Mace became backup to Helen Sharman in her Soviet government funded eight-day mission in May 1991 but never flew. Sharman's mission was not privately funded contrary to various reports

British born NASA astronauts Piers Sellers and Nick Patrick had to become US citizens to become astronauts while Cambridgeshire, England born Michael Foale had dual citizenship for family reasons

You can watch the European Space Agency press conference about its new astronaut selection live by webcast here today from 1215h GMT (1315h CET) but news about one of apparently six, not four, candidate astronauts has already leaked out to the British Broadcasting Corporation care of UK Ministry of Defence "sources"

In response to the leak the BBC story qoutes ESA human spaceflight director Simonetta Di Pippo as saying the agency wanted "additional astronauts". Previously ESA had talked about only four astronauts and four reserves

Interviewed by Hyperbola on 16 May Di Pippo would not be drawn on any aspects of the astronaut selection. Hyperbola had heard, but been unable to confirm, that a UK armed forces helicopter pilot had made it through much of the selection process and that a UK Royal Air Force pilot had also reached the last two dozen or so candidates and so had cheekily described the UK candidate as a "pilot-astronaut" in its 3 May 2009 blog post

Now it is known that a UK serviceman has been selected the question is, what deal was done? Because an astronaut is a major investment that has huge implications for the programmes that it is expected of nations to invest in. It must mean the UK will invest in optional programmes where previously the country has only paid into the mandatory ones

Hyperbola hopes to get an interview later today or tomorrow with the UK candidate and the UK minister for science and innovation (and space) Lord Drayson whose decision this would have been - along with his Prime minister Gordon Brown one imagines

credit ESA/caption:ESA's spaceflight head Simonetta Di Pippo is discussing low Earth orbit shipyards for Moonships

On 16 May 2009 the European Space Agency's human spaceflight director Simonetta Di Pippo spoke to Hyperbola about the upcoming phase one work for the proposed Advanced Re-entry Vehicle, the extension of International Space Station's (ISS) life, collaboration with the Russians and what ESA could tell the Norman Augustine led US human spaceflight plans review

Go through to the extended portion of this blog post to watch the video. The interview occured at the Golden Palace hotel in Turin, Italy before the start of the ESA departure ceremony for the ISS' Tranquility Node 3 module

credit NASA / Flight / caption: Will it be a woman's face behind the visor?

Tomorrow on 20 May at 1315h central European time the European Space Agency is to announce its new astronaut selection and that will be followed later that day by a press conference by the British National Space Centre (BNSC) because the ESA event is expected to name a UK citizen, possibly a woman, as a member of the four reserve candidates. If the UK astronaut candidate is a woman the announcement will come 18-years and two-days since British Cosmonaut Helen Sharman was launched on her 10-day mission on 18 May 1991

credit NASA / caption: This pictures shows ATV-1 Jules Verne during its ISS mission in 2008

In 2010 the European Space Agency's second expendable Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) named Johannes Kepler will undergo its mission to deliver cargo to the International Space Station

Go through to the extended portion of this blog post to see video recorded on 16 May 2009 at Thales Alenia Space's plant in Turin, Italy where ESA's cargo carrier section for its ATV Kepler is undergoing assembly in the clean room

credit NASA / caption: International Space Station with all of its solar arrays after STS-119

On 16 May 2009 NASA's International Space Station (ISS) programme manager Michael Suffredini spoke to Hyperbola about what he would tell the Norman Augustine led US human spaceflight plans review, what truth there is in the $51 million Soyuz seat price rumour, how a mission to leave a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module at station permanently could be carried out and docking adaptor standards discussions with the European Space Agency

Go through to the extended portion of this blog post to watch the video. The interview occured at Thales Alenia Space's plant in Turin, Italy at ESA's departure ceremony for the ISS' Tranquility Node 3 module

credit Flight / caption: this end of Node 3 berths with the International Space Station

Go through to the extended portion of this blog post to watch a video of Node 3 in Thales Alenia Space's Turin plant's clean room

At Thales Alenia Space's plant on 16 May 2009 the European Space Agency held a departure ceremony for the International Space Station's Tranquility Node 3 module that will arrive at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on 20 May

credit Flight / caption: behind a huge glass wall sat Node 3 in its clean room

On Saturday 16 May at Thales Alenia Space's plant in Turin, Italy the European Space Agency held a departure ceremony for the International Space Station's (ISS) Tranquility Node 3 module that will arrive at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on 20 May. The video below gives a feel for what it was like at the ceremony and how Tranquility could be viewed from the room



Go through to the extended portion of this blog post to watch the departure ceremony speeches by ESA human spaceflight director Simonetta Di Pippo and NASA ISS programme manager Michael Suffredini

credit ESA / caption: another major module for station is ready to go

Tomorrow Hyperbola will be attending the Tranquility Node 3 departure ceremony from Thales Alenia Space's Turin facility and so expect some live twittering and maybe a podcast (and even video) come Monday, hopefully with NASA International Space Station (ISS) programme manager Michael Suffredini and European Space Agency human spaceflight director Simonetta Di Pippo

The above graphic shows the ISS Node 3 Tranquility in its a previously planned location on station with other parts of the ISS identified. For more ISS info go here for ESA's website and here for NASA's. For previous Hyperbola ISS related posts go here and for archive Flight material about the 20 plus-year development of the station, go here

While on 20 May US journalists will get to see Tranquility upon its arrival at Kennedy Space Center and ESA that day will be announcing its new astronauts

credit ESA / caption: after a number of delays Herschel and Planck finally go into space

An Arianespace EADS Astrium Ariane 5 rocket launches the European Space Agency's Herschel and Planck space telescopes on 14 May from the French Guiana spaceport. Herschel has, at 3.5m (11.4ft), the largest mirror ever launched into space (hear that Hubble!) and with the help of some US technology it will observe the infra-red spectrum while Planck will study the universe's ancient radiation from the big bang

More images of the launch can be found here along with an animation and even a twitter channel link. Find more animations and an update on the misson's progress here and read here all about the spacecrafts' journey to their L2 destination

And then there is some other mission going on to fix some ageing blurry eyed space telescope called Hubble, which, by the way, is an ESA, NASA collaboration. ESA has a 15% share of the project. Further info on the STS-125 mission for Space Shuttle Atlantis crew can be found here at NASA and all over the internet, here, here and here


credit NASA

credit NASA / caption: Apollo 11 is recovered on 24 July 1969

Flightglobal.com is just a couple of years old (and Hyperbola even younger!) but its namesake Flight International magazine celebrated its centenary last year and that print title featured articles about spaceflight before it was technically feasible and reported on every step of the space age when it began in 1957

As such Flight's offices here in London (OK the south London borough of Sutton) has a library of images going back to the birth of Sputnik that includes the Apollo programme

Flightglobal.com now brings all these images to life again with a gallery dedicated to the most momentous aerospace programme the world has ever seen. This image shows the assembly of the Saturn V for the final Moon mission Apollo 17

The US Federal Aviation Administration's 20-21 May Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee Public Meeting agenda is now online. These sessions on Thursday 21 May look quite interesting

11:15 am - 11:45 am Export Controls Issues Michael N. Gold

Director, Washington, DC Area Office

Bigelow Aerospace

11:45 am - 12:15 noon Reusable Launch Vehicles Issues Brett Alexander

Issues President

Personal Spaceflight Federation

Oh well, so much for the UK reserve astronaut theory...

ESA PR 09-2009. ESA began the search for new astronauts in 2008, calling for applications from talented European citizens who wished to join the European Astronaut Corps to conduct future missions to the International Space Station, and one day to the Moon and beyond. Read more here

credit Fermilab / caption: during the telecon Augustine said he did not know why he had been picked for the job

On 8 May 2009 former Lockheed Martin chairman Norman Augustine spoke to the media on a NASA teleconference about the Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans he is going to lead with a panel of about ten that Augustine said is likely to include former astronauts, engineers and people with space operations experience. Listen to part one here and part two here of the 22min telecon. Hyperbola was not selected to ask a question

I think the company means Soyuz-U and its Progress spacecraft but anyway Arianespace says

The 1743rd flight of a Soyuz launch vehicle was performed on Thursday, May 7, 2009 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 22:37 Moscow time (20:37 Paris time).
Arianespace and its Russian partners report that the Soyuz TMA-15 manned transport spacecraft was accurately placed on the target orbit for another mission to the International Space Station. This was the fourth Soyuz family mission in 2009.

 

In the video shown below, care of Clark Lindsey's Space Transport News link to the 62 Mile Club website, Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn gives an end of year date for the first flight of WhiteKnight Two prototype Virgin Mothership Eve with SpaceShipTwo attached and an end of 2010 target for the first flight, test flight I would imagine, of SpaceShip Two above 100km (62 miles). He then mentions a licensing process with the US Federal Aviation Administration, suggesting a commercial in-service date of sometime in 2011. However in this story from Australia a Virgin Galactic customer suggests 2012 is more likely and other customers have given Hyperbola a similar date
 

The $250 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009 that is going to NASA exploration systems and not its commercial COTS work (which is getting $150 million) is being split in the following ways according to Exporation Systems Mission Directorate Associate Administrator Doug Cooke

• $4 million for materials to understand their failure limits
• $25 million for the Ares I mobile launch platform
• $10.2 million for SBIR work
• $165 million for Orion crew exploration vehicle, including $112 million to develop engineering development test units, incl life support and propulsion
• $49 million for accelerating the development of an Orion service module test article

Reviewing my audio recording of this answer it wasn't at all clear and initially it seemed to be a list of separate items that added up to $365 million and that had to be wrong so after repeatedly listening to it I think it is the above split with Orion winning the lion's share  

Cooke said that the agency wanted to spend as much of this money as it could this year rather than next but the FY2009 operational plan currently with Congress would be reviewed and how those funds could be split over this year fiscal year and the next was yet to be finally decided

Reading through the NASA fisal year 2010 budget exporation systems subsection it says that Orion crew exploration vehicle's preliminary design review will be in the fourth quarter, when it was planned for mid-2009 and Ares I-X will be in August, not July but this had been expected due to the need for two Space Shuttles on the two launch pads for STS-125. See below a screen grab from the budget showing requests for Ares I crew launch vehicle additional work. Ares seems to have won the lion's share of the ARRA monies with an extra $350 million over FY2009 while Orion is flat

credit NASA

Go here for NASA's fiscal year 2010 budget information

credit NASA / Lockheed Martin / caption: Flight Orion 1's software will differ to Orion 2 or 3

Below and in the extended section of this blog posting are answers from the Orion project office regarding decisions taken for the Orion crew exploration vehicle's software and how its development is to be phased to ensure verified flight software is available for the Orion 1 mission. Read flightglobal.com's related Orion software story here 

1 Can you confirm that Orion's software code is now estimated to be around 1.1 million lines?

1.1 million source lines of code (SLOC) falls roughly in the middle of the range of software sizing estimates the project has conducted in recent months.  Software sizing estimation is an art that employs differing methods and requires assumptions about complexity, functionality and content that is highly dependent on the details of the application for which the software is written.

Since Orion is in preliminary design and the systems, subassemblies and component designs are now being revealed, the details upon which more precise software sizing estimates will be based are still being validated.  We believe the Orion software sizing estimates reflect the current requirements and needs for Orion, and are well within the historical software quantity needed for a spacecraft of this complexity.

As rumoured the US president's office of science and technology policy (OSTP) has today initiated a review of the country's human spaceflght plans with what is to be a "blue ribbon" panel that will work for about 60-days and report by August. The OSTP press release can be found here and the letter from OSTP head John Holdren to acting NASA administrator Christopher Scolese is here

The study will examine options for using International Space Station beyond 2016 because, I would imagine, the impact that decision has on Constellation's timetable for developing its Ares V cargo launch vehicle and Altair lunar lander

credit NASA / caption: Does this mean the Dryden Flight Research Center is to be renamed Armstrong?

This image above shows a NASA procurement web page giving details of its intent to buy an oil painting of former astronaut and Apollo 11 mission commander Neil Armstrong

From what Hyperbola knows of the First Man he's unlikely to want to sit for that and will probably find news of it somewhat embarressing. The US Congress has already decided that the US portion of any international lunar outpost be called Neil Armstrong and some have wanted to rename Dryden Flight Research Center after the Apollo 11 mission commander. Poor Neil

Hyperbola will be manned during US eastern daylight time business hours on Thursday 7 May to ensure it can cover the NASA fiscal year 2010 budget roll out

Is it that surprising that a new Democratic party administration might want to understand what has come of a controversial Republican president's return to the Moon programme that is set to last the entirety of the new government's term of office?

Its one way an Obama supporter might spin the much reported review of NASA's Constellation programme

Initially Obama had talked about a review of the space agency's core mission, then NASA's John Olsen told Hyperbola that the organisation expected a blue ribbon review with the new incoming administrator and now the word on the street is that the Moon programme is to be the focus of a review that will start shortly

The blogosphere has latched onto what this review could mean for the Ares I crew launch vehicle and its much derided solid rocket motor first stage. This follows in the wake of reports of NASA reducing the crew compliment of the Orion crew exploration vehicle and other internet claims that an Aerospace Corporation report for NASA says that Evolved Expendable Launch vehicles aka EELVs can send Orion into low Earth orbit as well as Ares can

But Hyperbola has learned that the review is likely to take on the characteristics of a truth and reconciliation committee

credit NASA / caption: NASA's FY2009 budget shows ISS operations ending in 2016

Hyperbola has learned that the fiscal year 2010 NASA budget is expected to contain an intention to operate the US portion of the International Space Station (ISS) to 2020 for the first time

Seen above in the screen grab from the NASA FY2009 budget report ISS spend ends in 2016 and that can be read as an end to station use in 2015 or 2016 but either way the plan, the notionally agreed end date for ISS, had been the middle of the next decade. However last year the station partners agreed that they would approach their governments for an extension and the FY2010 budget will confirm the Obama adminisration's support for that

The extension of ISS utilisation will have a major impact on the return to the Moon timetable but has been brought about by the problems the Constellation programme has had

Hyperbola has learnt that the Space Shuttle launch and entry suit, the bright orange outfit also known as the Advanced Crew Escape System (ACES), is being considered for use with the Orion crew exploration vehicle instead of the Constellation programme's space suit that would have extra-vehicular activity capablity

Being considered as part of a wider effort by the Constellation programme to meet its 2015 first flight date for the Orion and its Ares I crew launch vehicle the selection of ACES is not without its problems as the suit is not currently compatible with Orion's systems

A NASA document states "ACES is not certified for use above 100,000ft (30,500m), which would be in conflict with a number of Orion requirements"

credit NASA / Flight / caption: Britain might not get to the Moon or station but it is a great leap forward

Hyperbola is hearing that the UK may well get its own member of the European Space Agency astronaut corps this June

Why so specific? ESA says that it intends to ask candidates to join its astronaut corps this summer after months of selection testing that ended with interviews with the space agency's director general Jean-Jacques Dordain

June is obviously, for us in the northern hemisphere, this summer, and it just so happens that that month will see an ESA, NASA bilateral meeting on what the agencies can do together after 2016 including Mars exploration. Don't take my word for it, acting NASA administrator Christopher Scolese mentioned it during the 29 April Congressional appropriations subcommittee hearing

So what has that got to do with a UK astronaut?