1. Space News Update - August 7, 2018 - In the News Departments Story 1:
TESS Catches a Comet Before Starting Science
Story 2:
SpaceX Launches Indonesian Comsat with ‘Used’ Booster
Story 3: Top Five Technologies Needed for a Spacecraft to Survive Deep Space
Departments
The Night Sky
ISS Sighting Opportunities
NASA-TV Highlights
Space Calendar
Food for Thought
Space Image of the Week

2. TESS Catches a Comet Before Starting Science
In this computer graphic, NASA's Voyager 1 probe, moving toward upper left, nears the edge of the sun's influence, flying through a region of space dominated by a "magnetic highway" that helps mediate the flow of particles into and out of the solar system. The region includes particles from the sun's southern hemisphere that have been forced northward by the pressure of the interstellar wind. Voyager 1 is expected to cross the boundary into interstellar space sometime within the next few years if not sooner. (Credit: NASA)

3. SpaceX Launches Indonesian Comsat with ‘Used’ Booster

4. Top Five Technologies Needed for a Spacecraft to Survive Deep Space

5. The Night Sky Sky & Telescope Tuesday, August 7
• Venus, Jupiter, and Mars currently outshine them, but the two brightest stars of summer are Vega, overhead shortly after nightfall, and Arcturus, shining in the west.
Draw a line down from Vega to Arcturus. A third of the way down, the line crosses the dim Keystone of Hercules. Two thirds of the way down it crosses the dim semicircle of Corona Borealis with its one modestly bright star, Alphecca or Gemma.
Vega and the Keystone's star closest to it form an equilateral triangle with Eltanin, the nose of Draco the Dragon, to their north. Eltanin is the brightest star of Draco's quadrilateral head. He's eternally eyeing Vega.
Wednesday, August 8
• With the advance of summer the Sagittarius Teapot, now moving into the south after dark, is starting to tilt and pour from its spout to the right. Saturn stands above the spout.
The Teapot will tilt farther and farther for the rest of the summer — or for much of the night if you stay out late.
Thursday, August 9
• Bright Vega passes closest to overhead soon after dark now. How closely it misses your zenith depends on how far north or south you are. It passes right through your zenith if you're at latitude 39° north (Washington DC, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Lake Tahoe). How closely can you judge this by looking?
Then Deneb crosses closest to the zenith almost exactly two hours after Vega.
Friday, August 10
• It's Perseid weekend! The annual Perseid meteor shower should come to its peak late Sunday night August 12th. Already the meteors are increasing in number. You may have noticed a few early Perseids as early as a week or two ago.
Conditions are ideal this year. There's no moonlight, and the shower's predicted maximum comes during nighttime for Europe and North America on the night of August 12–13.
Whatever the night you'll see the most meteors when the shower's radiant is high: from about midnight to dawn. On peak night you may see one or two meteors a minute on average during this time if your sky is very dark. There will be fewer in the evening, but the ones you do see when the radiant is low will be "Earthgrazers" skimming the upper atmosphere in long, graceful flight paths.
Sky & Telescope

6. ISS Sighting Opportunities
ISS For Denver:
Date
Visible
Max Height
Appears
Disappears
Tue Aug 7, 8:50 PM
4 min
59°
34° above NNW
12° above ESE
Tue Aug 7, 10:25 PM
1 min
13°
10° above W
13° above WSW
Wed Aug 8, 9:33 PM
3 min
26°
15° above W
21° above SSW
Thu Aug 9, 8:43 PM
52°
39° above W
10° above SE
Fri Aug 10, 9:27 PM
10°
10° above WSW
10° above SW
Sat Aug 11, 8:35 PM
20°
17° above WSW
10° above S
Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information

7. NASA-TV Highlights (all times Eastern Time Zone)
MAVEN Launch November 18, 2013
NASA
MAVEN Launch November 18, 2013
NASA
MAVEN Launch November 18, 2013
NASA
NASA-TV Highlights
(all times Eastern Time Zone)
August 7, Tuesday 12:15 p.m. – Space Station Educational In-Flight Event with the Challenger Center in Washington, D.C., and NASA astronaut Ricky Arnold (All Channels)
August 9, Thursday 1 p.m. - Parker Solar Probe Pre-Launch Mission Briefing (All Channels) 2:35 p.m. – Space Station Educational In-Flight Event with the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord, New Hampshire, and International Space Station Commander Drew Feustel and astronauts Ricky Arnold and Serena Aunon-Chancellor of NASA (All Channels)
August 10, Friday 6 a.m. – Live interviews from Kennedy Space Center on upcoming launch of Parker Solar Probe (All Channels) 6:30 p.m. – NASA Edge: Live Tower Rollback for Parker Solar Probe (All Channels) 7:30 p.m. – Sunset Show: How Parker Solar Probe helps NASA – Live from Kennedy Space Center (All Channels)
Watch NASA TV online by going to the NASA website

8. Space Calendar JPL Space Calendar
Aug 07 - Comet C/2017 S3 (PANSTARRS) Closest Approach To Earth (0.758 AU)
Aug 07 - Comet P/2011 A2 (Scotti) At Opposition (3.486 AU)
Aug 07 - Aten Asteroid 2018 MD7 Near-Earth Flyby (0.059 AU)
Aug 07 - Asteroid 9957 Rafaellosanti Closest Approach To Earth (0.998 AU)
Aug 07 - Asteroid Galapagos Closest Approach To Earth (1.563 AU)
Aug 07 - Asteroid 2620 Santana Closest Approach To Earth (1.789 AU)
Aug 07 - Asteroid Darmstadt Closest Approach To Earth (1.839 AU)
Aug 07 - Apollo Asteroid 6063 Jason Closest Approach To Earth (2.795 AU)
Aug 07 - Kuiper Belt Object 2008 OG19 At Opposition ( AU)
Aug 08 - Comet 66P/du Toit Closest Approach To Earth (0.917 AU)
Aug 08 - Comet P/2009 SK280 (Spacewatch-Hill) Closest Approach To Earth (3.430 AU)
Aug 08 - Apollo Asteroid 2018 OG Near-Earth Flyby (0.059 AU)
Aug th Anniversary (1978), Pioneer Venus 2 Launch
Aug 08 - Svetlana Savitskaya's 70th Birthday (1948)
Aug th Anniversary (1863), Pillistfer Meteorite Fall (Hit Building in Estonia)
Aug 09 - Comet 172P/Yeung Closest Approach To Earth (2.922 AU)
Aug 09 - Comet C/2017 M5 (TOTAS) At Opposition (5.039 AU)
Aug 09 - Apollo Asteroid 2008 HU4 Closest Approach To Earth (1.236 AU)
Aug 09 - Asteroid Maldives Closest Approach To Earth (1.314 AU)
Aug 09 - Asteroid 6349 Acapulco Closest Approach To Earth (1.772 AU)
Aug 09 - Asteroid Sloan Closest Approach To Earth (2.056 AU)
Aug 10 - Comet 105P/Singer Brewster Perihelion (2.045 AU)
Aug 10 - Comet C/2016 M1 (PANSTARRS) Perihelion (2.211 AU)
Aug 10 - Comet 129P/Shoemaker-Levy At Opposition (3.625 AU)
Aug 10 - Apollo Asteroid Tomaiyowit Closest Approach To Earth (0.462 AU)
Aug 10 - Apollo Asteroid 1566 Icarus Closest Approach To Earth (0.551 AU)
Aug 10 - Asteroid 1951 Lick Closest Approach To Earth (0.668 AU)
Aug 10 - Amor Asteroid 3352 McAuliffe Closest Approach To Earth (1.531 AU)
Aug 10 - Asteroid Boston Closest Approach To Earth (2.039 AU)
Aug 10 - Asteroid 1941 Wild Closest Approach To Earth (2.070 AU)
Aug 10 - Asteroid 1069 Planckia Closest Approach To Earth (2.382 AU)
Aug th Anniversary (2003), 1st Person to Marry in Space (Yuri Malenchenko)
Aug th Anniversary (1968), Piancaldoli Meteorite Fall (Hit House in Italy)
JPL Space Calendar

9. That Newfound Mineral Isn't Harder Than Diamond — But It Is from Space
Food for Thought
That Newfound Mineral Isn't Harder Than Diamond — But It Is from Space

10. Space Image of the Week
Trapezium: At the Heart of Orion  Image Credit: Data: Hubble Legacy Archive, Processing: Robert Gendler