UPDATE, November 7, 2013:   The Soyuz TMA-11M crew docked at 5:27 am Eastern Standard Time.

ORIGINAL STORY, November 6, 2013: Soyuz TMA-11M launched on time at 11:14 pm Eastern Standard Time (EST) tonight, November 6 (10:14 am November 7 local time at the launch site in Kazakhstan).   The crew is taking the expedited route to the International Space Station (ISS) with docking in just about six hours.

The three crew members are NASA’s Rick Mastracchio, Japan’s Koichi Wakata, and Russia’s Mikhail Tyurin.  Wakata will become the first Japanese astronaut to command the ISS later in his mission.

These three crew members will join six crew already aboard the ISS: the Soyuz TMA-09M crew (Karen Nyberg, Luca Parmitano and Fyodor Yurchikhin) and the Soyuz TMA-10M crew (Oleg Kotov, Michael Hopkins, and Sergey Ryazanskiy).  

The Olympic torch that is on its way to the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia is aboard Soyuz TMA-11M.   Kotov and Ryazanskiy will make a spacewalk with the torch on Saturday, and it then will be returned to Earth on Sunday by the Soyuz TMA-09M crew.

Docking is scheduled for 5:31 am EST tomorrow morning (November 7).

India successfully launched its first mission to Mars early this morning.  The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) is now in Earth orbit and will conduct a series of orbit raising maneuvers before setting off on the journey to Mars on December 1.

The mission, also called Mangalyaan, lifted off from India’s Sriharikota launch site at 4:08 am Eastern Standard Time (EST) today (2:48 pm Indian Standard Time, which is 10 hours 30 minutes ahead of EST) aboard India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).  Arrival at Mars is expected September 24, 2014. 

MOM is primarily a technology demonstration mission to prove that India can get a spacecraft to Mars, but it also carries five scientific instruments, including one that will search for methane in the Martian atmosphere.

The United States, Soviet Union/Russia and Europe have all successfully placed spacecraft into Martian orbit.  A Japanese Mars probe launched in 1998 (Nozomi) suffered several failures along the way and did not achieve Mars orbit.  A small Chinese satellite (Yinghuo-1) piggybacked on a Russian Mars probe launched in 2011, but that spacecraft, Phobos-Grunt, failed to leave Earth orbit and reentered. 

If this mission succeeds, India thus will become the first Asian country to place a spacecraft in orbit around Mars, but as every country that has attempted this feat knows, it’s a long treacherous journey and launch is merely one step.

NASA Astrophysics Division Director Paul Hertz painted a bleak picture of NASA’s FY2014 astrophysics budget today and forecast a future filled with uncertainty.  The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) may be secure, but the rest of NASA’s astrophysics program could have tough sailing ahead.

Hertz stressed that the country spends quite a bit of money on NASA’s astrophysics portfolio – a total of $1.3 billion “and you can’t plead poverty when there’s $1.3 billion on the table.”  Roughly half of that is for JWST, however, which is managed separately from the rest of NASA’s astrophysics programs.

Hertz manages NASA’s Astrophysics Division (APD), everything except JWST.   APD includes operations of existing space telescopes (Hubble, Spitzer, Chandra, Kepler and Fermi), astrophysics Explorer missions (Astro-H, NICER, and TESS), suborbital (balloon and airborne) missions, and development of future missions.  While he was speaking to the National Research Council’s Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics (CAA), new findings from Kepler were being announced at the Kepler Science Conference II.

Congress appropriated $659 million for APD in FY2013, Hertz said, but that was reduced by $42 million because of sequestration and rescissions.   By contrast, JWST is an agency priority and was spared any cuts; other parts of NASA’s science budget had to make up the difference, he noted.

On paper, Hertz’s current budget is $642 million (the President’s FY2014 request) of which about $14 million is for institutional costs, leaving $628 million for science “content” – performing scientific research using instruments aboard suborbital and orbital platforms and analyzing the resulting data.  In reality, NASA is now funded under a Continuing Resolution (CR) that lasts until January 15, 2014.  Hertz said that if the agency is kept at that level for all of FY2014, he will have to cut 6.5 percent (about $35 million) from the $628 million, which could rise to 10 percent (about $50 million) if the sequester remains in place.

CAA provides strategic advice on science priorities for astronomy and astrophysics programs at NASA and the National Science Foundation.   Hertz told the committee that he is always looking for good advice on how to manage his budget most effectively, especially in these constrained circumstances.

CAA member Tom Young, a retired industry executive often called upon to lead studies of why government space programs go awry and former director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, commented that the overall problem is that “there is too much program” for NASA’s budget.  He believes NASA should anticipate getting total funding in the $16-17 billion range.   

At that level, he argued, a decision needs to be made to eliminate “a thing” from the NASA portfolio or to fund everything at a “malnutrition” level.    Hertz rejoined that if he knew for certain that his APD budget would be reduced by 10 percent for many years, he would make choices with out-year budget savings, but the administration’s guidance is that this is a temporary situation and the sequester will not remain in force.  It is very different, he said, to make decisions based on “a one year cut and a forever cut.”

Young reiterated that “cuts will happen” and the only question is how the cut is distributed.  While acknowledging that Young might be correct, Hertz added “that’s not what I hear.”

Other notable points from presentations by Hertz and JWST Acting Program Director Eric Smith included:

• NASA will not implement the reorganization of government STEM education programs proposed in the President’s FY2014 budget request.  However, the funding was removed from NASA’s science programs in the FY2014 budget request, so now it must be found somewhere else within NASA’s science program.
• JWST remains on schedule despite the 16-day government shutdown; though some tests were delayed, the program has 14 months of schedule reserve, so the October 2018 launch date is unaffected.
• NASA continues to plan for a new large astrophysics mission after JWST using the NRC’s Decadal Survey as guidance.  The NRC recommended a Wide-Field Infrared Space Telescope (WFIRST) and NASA is assessing whether 2.4 meter telescopes given to NASA by the National Reconnaissance Office can be used to implement that mission cost effectively (a concept called AFTA).  However, APD cannot be sure decision-makers will agree to another large mission and therefore has created Science Definition Teams for a couple of medium-sized missions so those concepts are ready instead if needed.
• If the sequester remains in place, the estimated FY2014 budget for all of NASA would be $16.25 billion, compared to the $17.7 billion request.
• The APD program was affected by the government shutdown in a number of ways:
  • The 2013-2014 Antarctic Long Duration Balloon campaign was cancelled
  • The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) aircraft-based astronomy platform cancelled 9 science flights with U.S. experiments
  • An instrument for the NASA-JAXA Astro-H mission could not be tested, resulting in a 5-week delay in its shipment to Japan for integration into the spacecraft and increased costs
  • Other projects had schedule hits including a one-month delay for the ISS-CREAM experiment
  • There will be delays in sending out research funding

The National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Committee on Human Spaceflight is offering everyone a last chance to provide their ideas on the future of the human spaceflight program via a Twitter chat tomorrow, October 29, 2013.

This is the first time the NRC is using social media to obtain input from the public.   Anyone who wants to participate should tweet their ideas using the hashtag #humansinspace.

Input will be accepted during a 27 hour period on October 29 — from midnight Eastern Daylight Time through the next midnight Pacific Daylight Time. 

The NRC solicited ideas from the public this summer; they are available on the NRC’s website.   This is a final opportunity for the public to participate as the committee nears the end of its deliberations. 

This time the NRC is asking for responses to the question:  What are your best ideas for creating a NASA human spaceflight program that is sustainable over the next several decades.

The NRC is hoping to stimulate “a rapid exchange of ideas” among participants.   Be sure to use the #humansinspace hashtag.