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Watch this video from the International Astronautical Congress in Daejeon, Korea where the future of the International Space Station was discussed by the ISS partners 

Go here for more IAC2009 videos

Watch this video from the Internatonal Astronautical Congress in Daejeon, Korea first plenary session where heads of the world's major space agencies discuss the future

Go here for more IAC2009 videos

credit NASA

Can the heads of programme and heads of agency meetings shown above and described as TBC for their December and June 2010 dates really come about or will president Barack Obama end it all?

This diagram is from the joint NASA, ESA presentation for the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) 2009 in Daejeon, Korea about the outcomes of the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) workshops. The ISECG was formed as a forum for the world's space agencies to plan out a common lunar exploration future

But will the recommendations the new NASA administrator Charles Bolden will give to his president before the end of the year permanently postpone a truly international lunar exploration plan? This week's IAC might deliver the answers

credit: IAF/KARI

So Hyperbola has finally touched down in Daejeon in south Korea, after a scorching reentry from the Oort cloud, or was that just the effect of the Korean spicy Kimchi pickle and the even more spicy red pepper paste, Kochu Chang, they put on most of their food?

Either way it is a countdown now to the start of the 60th International Astronautical Congress and the space agencies' plenary session, so expect pictures and pithy comment from this blog as the week unfolds with everything from grand human exploration visions to suborbital tourism

But it won't end with Hyperbola's Asiana flight out of Seoul next weekend, oh no, the international space theme continues with the AIAA/DLR International hypersonics and spaceplanes conference in Bremen, Germany next week

Hyperbola is launching to the Oort cloud for a week's R&R from today and will be returning via Daejeon, Korea from the 12 October. In Daejeon Hyperbola will be blogging from the International Astronautical Congress, where the world's space community meets. And yes there may even be Virgin Galactic news there...

·      Below is NASA's answer to Hyperbola's question about multiple efforts for docking systems that seemed to be springing up everywhere

As well as progress with the Orion crew exploration vehicle's LIDS NASA has informed Hyperbola that $15 million is to be spent on docking system work for the agency's commercial crew and cargo programme and last week the European Space Agency explained to this blog that it too was co-operating with NASA on a docking system that is called the Common Berthing and Docking Mechanism 


"[Low Impact Docking System] is the baselined docking mechanism for Constellation/Orion.

·         ISS has assumed responsibility for building a new docking adapter for the US [International Space Station segment]

o   Replaces the existing Pressurized Mating Adapter (PMA) based [Androgynous Peripheral Assembly System (APAS)] docking system used for Shuttle

o   ATLAS (remember that ATLAS stands for APAS to LIDS Adapter System) has been transferred from Orion to ISS and integrated into new project called Common Docking Adapter (CDA)

o   CDA Project has been asked to develop a new International Docking Standard, which would identify key technical requirements that would allow many different designs for docking spacecraft. If an agreement can be reached and the agency implements the standard on ISS, LIDS may be slightly modified to interface with the standard [emphasis added].

·         $15M in [American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009] funding is being used to develop requirements for a new docking adapter and building components for a demonstration International Docking Standard

 ·         The docking standard is being worked by an international group including [Canadian Space Agency], ESA, [Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency], NASA, and [Rocket and Space Corporation] Energia; the intent is to provide a standard for use by any nation or commercial company to provide the ability to dock spacecraft."

The European Space Agency has just this minute released this information with an invite to media to attend the Thales Alenia Space Italy contract signing event - it is on Monday


Set for launch in 2010, the data collected by the European Experimental Reentry Testbed (EXPERT) will provide aero-thermodynamic tool validation on the basis of actual flight data for a number of physical phenomena encountered by space transportation vehicles during their re-entry phase in the Earth atmosphere. It will also improve the European competence in the atmospheric re-entry field and associated technologies.

Developing improved space transportation systems requires an increased confidence in the knowledge of such phenomena and a reduction of the design margins to increase system performance. The availability of detailed experimental data will allow the refinement of the aerodynamic and aero-thermodynamic models and project tools.

EXPERT is conceived to provide these data through a low cost in-flight experimentation.

The EXPERT vehicle consists of:

- a cold structure that hosts the avionic equipment and payload electronics,

- a thermal protection system, which is also a hot structure,

- power and data handling subsystems,

- a parachute system to ensure a soft landing of the vehicle,

- an inertial measurement unit.

The payload will entail a series of scientific flight measurement equipment, including classic and advanced techniques such as temperature, heat flux and pressure sensors, spectrometers and an infrared camera.

On 22 July the UK government science and innovation, and space, minister Lord Paul Drayson and guests* will give details about the new European Space Agency facilty in the UK and Hyperbola has heard that the British National Space Centre (BNSC) is to become the UK Space Agency but there is no new money despite this BNSC statement

So this space agency will be one only in name and instead of new money for UK civil space activities there is to be a reallocation of monies with the main beneficiary being the European Space Agency's new Oxfordshire based-facility. What does that mean for the MoonLITE mission?

And so it begins the UK government public relations machine whirrs into action and canny science and innovation (and space!) minister Lord Drayson dangles the space agency carrot by not denying it could be announced next week

On 22 July in London there is to be a press conference about the new European Space Agency facility that is to be located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Centre, also home to the now privatised UK Atomic Energy Authority. The facility, for robotics, is supposed to herald a new level of investment by the UK in the European agency's activities

credit ESA / caption: (L-R) Luca Parmitano, Alexander Gerst, Andreas Mogensen, Samantha Cristoforetti, Tim Peake, Thomas Pesquet

At the Paris air show Hyperbola got to interview three of the European Space Agency's new astronauts, Tim Peake, Andy Mogensen and Samantha Cristoforetti. Go here to listen to the astronaut podcast

Peake is the UK's first ESA astronaut, Mogensen is the first Dane and Cristoforetti the first Italian woman, and second woman to be selected to the ESA astronaut corps. The other three ESA astronaut candidates are Italy's Luca Parmitano, Germany's Alexander Gerst and France's Thomas Pesquet

Danish born Mogensen revealed himself to be a bit of a Hyperbola fan, listen here as he talks about how he hoped Hyperbola would get the astro scoop of the year and reveal the names of those selected. Oddly Hyperbola had predicted that a Dane could be among those selected and also this blog expected a women to be among the finalists

And so for this blog's next prediction it will say, Cristoforetti should be the first of the new astronauts to fly. While officially the national agencies do not have a say in who flies when Italy has a bilateral relationship with NASA for International Space Station and that gives it its own opportunities for ISS exploitation, shall we say. And Italian Space Agency commissioner Enrico Saggese told Flightglobal that he would like Cristoforetti to fly as soon as possible