Space Shuttle Discovery is scheduled to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) tonight at 9:04 pm. The STS-128 mission appears to be proceeding smoothly.

Only six more shuttle flights are planned after this one, although it is possible that additional flights could be flown in response to the options presented by the Augustine committee. Latest rumors are that the committee’s report will be published in mid-September, but it is unclear whether that means no information will be made publicly available prior to that. Originally the due date was September 1.

The six scheduled shuttle missions and their targeted launch dates are:

• STS-129, Atlantis, Nov. 12, 2009, two EXPRESS logistics carriers
• STS-130, Endeavour, Feb. 4, 2010, Tranquility Node 3 and the Cupola
• STS-131, Discovery, Mar. 18, 2010, MPLM and Lightweight Multi-Purpose Experiment Support Structure Carrier
• STS-132, Atlantis, May 14, 2010, Integrated Cargo Carrier and Mini Research Module (MRM1)
• STS-133 or STS-134, July 29, 2010 (see below)
• STS-133 or STS-134, Sept. 16, 2010 (see below)

NASA has not determined the sequence of the last two flights. One will be Discovery and the other will be Endeavour. One will carry an EXPRESS rack and an MPLM (Multi Purpose Logistics Module); the other will carry an EXPRESS rack and the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.

Space Shuttle Discovery was successfully launched on its STS-128 mission moments before midnight on August 28. The crew is on a planned 13-day mission to resupply the International Space Station (ISS) and drop off a new ISS crew member, Nicole Stott. She will replace Tim Kopra who will return to Earth with the STS-128 crew.

Brown University Professor Jim Head forcefully argued for a more integrated approach to studying the Sun, the Earth and other planets in the inner solar system today at a meeting of a panel of the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Planetary Science Decadal Survey.

Dr. Head described the multidisciplinary approach that should be employed in studying other planets in the inner solar system and Earth itself, called comparative planetology, and emphasized that the importance of the Sun’s role in planetary evolution not be overlooked. He explained that Earth scientists look at Earth as a planet but not as part of the family of planets that form the inner solar system. Similarly, planetary scientists who study the inner solar system – Mercury, Venus, the Earth, the Moon and Mars – do not focus on the science of Earth itself. A collective approach is needed where scientists studying all the planetary bodies in the inner solar system, including Earth, collaborate along with heliophysicists who study the Sun.

In his presentation, he said “Mars may be the true Rosetta Stone of early Earth history, filling in the missing transition” and that the Moon is a record of the first half of solar system formation. He called upon professional societies such as the American Geophysical Union (AGU), in particular, to strive to include multidisciplinary panels at their meetings. “We need to talk to each other,” he said.

He spoke at a meeting of the Inner Planets panel, one of five panels meeting under the aegis of the NRC’s Planetary Science Decadal Survey. The meeting continues tomorrow. Two other panels met this week, and two more will meet in early September.

The Mission Management Team for the space shuttle Discovery’s STS-128 mission gave it a “go” for launch at 11:59 pm EDT tonight. According to NASA’s Bob Jacobs on Twitter, permission has been given for fueling (“tanking”) to begin. NASA had been waiting for the forecast to improve sufficiently to approve that step. Earlier in the day, there was a 30 percent chance of lightning preventing the fueling operation. There is currently a 40 percent chance that weather will prevent the launch tonight.

Steve Cook, manager of NASA’s Ares Projects Office at Marshall Space Flight Center that is developing new rockets to replace the space shuttle system, announced today that he is leaving NASA. Beginning September 14, he will become Director of Space Technologies at Dynetics in Huntsville, AL. Teresa Vanhooser will be Acting Manager of the Ares Projects Office effective August 31.

Mr. Cook’s announcement comes on the same day that the initial test firing of the Ares 1 first stage was halted because of a problem with an Auxiliary Power Unit (APU). He said in a widely distributed email that he was certain the issue would be quickly resolved. He said that he had “wrestled with making this decision [to leave NASA] for the past year and the time has come for my transition.”

The presentations that were made to the first meeting of the Inner Planets panel of the National Research Council’s Decadal Survey on Planetary Science are now available on SpacePolicyOnline.com. Look on our left menu for “National Research Council” and scroll down to Decadal Surveys, or just click here.

The following presentations were made at the first meeting of the Inner Planets panel of the National Research Council’s Planetary Science Decadal Survey, August 26-28, 2009, Washington, D.C. Adobe Reader 8.0 or higher is required to open these files. Some of these are large files and make take a few moments to open; please be patient.

• NOSSE Perspective on the Last Decadal Survey, Steven Mackwell, LPI
• Charge to the Decadal Survey Committee, Jim Green, NASA
• NSF’s Support for the Planetary Sciences, Nigel Sharp, NSF
• International Lunar Network, George Tahu, Julie Bassler, and Barbara Cohen, NASA
• Mercury After MESSENGER, Sean Solomon, Carnegie Institution of Washington
• Inner Planets Strategy, Sean Solomon, Carnegie Institution of Washington
• Venus Flagship Mission Study, Mark Bullock, Southwest Research Institute
• VEXAG Priorities and Plans for Exploration of Venus, Susan Smrekar, JPL
• Open Questions for Mercury, Venus and the Moon, Jim Head, Brown University
• Importance of Sample Returns to Studies of Inner Planets, Meenakshi Wadhwa, Arizona State University

The National Research Council (NRC) has approved the appointment of an additional member of the Mars Panel of the Decadal Survey on Planetary Science. Philippe Lognonn , Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, is the 13th and final member of the panel, one of five organized under the aegis of the Survey Committee. The Mars panel will hold its first meeting on September 9-11 at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.

Three other panels have been meeting this week in Washington, DC — Giant Planets, Inner Planets, and Satellites.

The fifth panel, Primitive Bodies, will hold its first meeting in Washington, D.C. on September 9-11. For more details on the study, the members of the Survey Committee and the panels, and agendas for meetings, see the Planetary Science Decadal Survey’s website.