Archive for April, 2022
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April 15th, 2022
Practicing ground recovery crews at the Shenzhou-13 Dongfeng landing site in north China’s Inner Mongolia.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The crew aboard China’s Shenzhou-13 mission are ready for leaving the space station core module, Tianhe, making a “fast return” to terra firma.
Ground crews at the slated Dongfeng landing site have wrapped up preparations for the return of the three astronauts, said the China Manned Space Agency.
The Shenzhou-13 crewed spacecraft, which has completed all its scheduled tasks, will separate from the space station core module Tianhe at an appropriate time and land at the Dongfeng landing site in north China’s Inner Mongolia, said the agency.
Credit: GLOBALink/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Yang Yanbo, deputy commander of the space mission team under the Beijing Aerospace Control Center, said Friday that the Shenzhou-13 crew — Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu — are in good condition and ready for their return to Earth.
“The astronauts have been preparing their return for more than 10 days. The main task is to sort out some materials and transfer them. They need to ensure the samples of experiments can be carried back safely, some key materials used in our space station can be kept there and unnecessary ones can be transferred to the cargo spacecraft in advance. Now, all the astronauts are in good shape,” Yang said.
Packing up for return to Earth – Shenzhou-13 crew.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Landing site
Recovery ground crews are fully prepared, too, as search teams are on standby and multiple search and rescue plans have been elaborately worked out to improve efficiency.
According to China Central Television (CCTV) the Dongfeng Landing Site, located in the Ejin Banner of Inner Mongolia, spans some 13,000 square kilometers with the vast Gobi Desert to the west and its sparsely-populated flatlands to the east, and provides ideal terrain for helicopters to hover and safely land.
As the longest space mission of a Chinese crew – some 6 months – this trio of taikonauts entered China’s space station on Oct. 16, 2021. Meanwhile, this crew have also left some necessary items for the crew of Shenzhou-14 mission to live and work in China’s space station Tiangong.
Upon leaving, the Shenzhou-13 crew will switch the space station into unmanned flight mode and make sure all the equipment and devices are in normal operation, stated CCTV.
Credit: CCTV Video News Agency/Inside Outer Space screengrab
On-station work achievements
As noted by CCTV, during their almost six months’ mission in orbit so far, the Shenzhou-13 crew has completed two extravehicular activities (EVAs).
Zhai and Wang made a 6.5-hour space walk and successfully performed their tasks on November 7, while astronaut Ye stayed inside to support his crewmates in completing the operations.
It marked the first EVAs in Chinese space history involving a female astronaut.
On December 26, Zhai followed Ye who went outside of the space station first and stepped into space, while their teammate Wang Yaping remained inside to assist their operations.
After the two astronauts exited the core model, they coordinated to carry out the mission of lifting a panoramic camera outside the space station, the testing for manned goods transport, and the testing of the functions and performance of the core module airlock cabin, extravehicular suit, and mechanical arm.
Robotic arm work
In January, a transposition test on Tianzhou-2 cargo spacecraft was successfully completed by the robotic arm installed on the Tianhe core module. It was China’s first trial to relocate a large in-orbit spacecraft with a mechanical arm of the space station.
On Jan. 8, the Shenzhou-13 astronauts completed the manual rendezvous and docking experiment with the Tianzhou-2 cargo craft.
It was the first time that astronauts use hand-controlled teleoperation equipment in orbit to control rendezvous and docking between a cargo spacecraft and a space station.
The test preliminarily verified the function and performance of space station and the visiting spacecraft hand-controlled teleoperation system, offering valuable reference for future in-orbit assembly of the space station.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
In addition to testing the key technologies for assembly and construction of China’s space station, the crew also livestreamed science lectures during their mission in space, reported CCTV.
“After the astronauts successfully get out of the capsule, our recovery team will conduct a series of disposals on the capsule, and then take out some samples of the experiments and payloads brought down from the space station in the capsule in time, and hand them over to the relevant party. Then, an on-site measurement and evidence collection will be carried out on the status of a series of movements after the capsule landed. The final step is to dispose of the return capsule before transportation,” said Peng Huakang, technical principal of the recovery team from China’s Fifth Institute of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.
Go to these new videos that show Shenzhou-13 landing preparations at:
Posted in 
Challenges to Security in Space was first published by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in early 2019 to address the main threats to the array of U.S. space capabilities, and examine space and counterspace strategies and systems pursued primarily by China and Russia and, to a lesser extent, by North Korea and Iran.
A just-released second edition builds on that work and provides an updated, unclassified overview of the threats to U.S. space capabilities, particularly from China and Russia, as those threats continue to expand.
Since early 2019, competitor space operations have also increased in pace and scope worldwide, China’s and Russia’s counterspace developments continue to mature, global space services proliferate, and orbital congestion has increased.
Credit: DIA
New edition
As a result, DIA has published this new edition to:
- Expand its examination of competitor space situational awareness (SSA), and command and control (C2) capabilities;
- Detail the profiles of organizations operating space and counterspace systems based on new information;
- Deepen our characterization of new space and counterspace systems deployed and in development;
- Focus on China’s and Russia’s interests in exploring the Moon and Mars;
- Provide a new section on the use of space beyond Earth orbit and its implications;
- Widen our treatment on the threats posed to all nations’ space operations from space debris.
Go to the report at:
Image shows the night side of Venus glowing in thermal infrared, captured by Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft.
Credit: JAXA/ISAS/DARTS/Damia Bouic
Venus is hot right now.
Ok, I don’t want to sidetrack you to think about the planet’s hellish surface that’s blistering enough to melt lead, nor have you cozy up to its cloud-enveloped nature to earn the title of a “love goddess” or a world that’s often tagged as “Earth’s twin.”
Here is what’s happening. Scientists are becoming increasingly eager to sort out a key question: Is Venus a cloud-bound sanctuary for microbial life?
Credit: MIT/Breakthrough Initiatives
Back here on Earth, Venus is somewhere between comedian Rodney Dangerfield’s “no respect” of a world and the Spinal Tap song about living in a “Hell Hole.”
Scientists are now discussing what future missions can cough up new information regarding that world’s potential as an extraterrestrial home address for life – life that’s busily minding its own business in a swirl within Venusian clouds.
For more details, go to my new Space.com story – “New wave of missions to reignite Venus exploration” – at: https://www.space.com/venus-alien-life-search-new-missions
Click to enlarge. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter continues to showcase its “Wright Stuff,” recently completing its 25th flight on April 8th.
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter acquired this image using its navigation camera mounted in the helicopter’s fuselage and pointed directly downward to track the ground during flight. This image was acquired on April 8, 2022 (Sol 403 of the Perseverance rover mission) at the local mean solar time of 10:05:30. This was the date of Ingenuity’s 25th flight.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Indeed, the collective flight stats are impressive:
- Distance Flown: 5,824 meters (roughly 19,109 feet)
- Highest Altitude: 12 meters (roughly 39 feet)
- Fastest Ground Speed: 5.50 m/s (12.3 mph)
- Flight Time: roughly 46.5 minutes (2,791 seconds)
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Right B photo acquired on Sol 3440, April 10, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3441 tasks.
“We are retracing our steps, picking our way slowly back down from the pediment and the dangerous gator rocks which would have eaten our wheels!,” reports Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, a planetary geologist at the University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3440, April 10, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
There have been so many times across the almost ten years of our mission in Gale [crater] that, in order to keep the forward momentum going, we have needed to move on from sites, leaving our geologists sighing at the wonderful rocks behind us,” O’Connell-Cooper adds. “Our images and compositional analyses usually downlink to Earth after we have left an area, and so we often wish for a ‘go-back’ to zoom in on details that we only noticed in images or to get more compositional data on things that were unexpectedly intriguing.”
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3440, April 10, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Golden opportunity
O’Connell-Cooper explains that, although it is disappointing to be leaving the pediment (for now at least!), this does give researchers a golden opportunity to revisit outcrops that we passed on our drive up to the pediment, back in early March.
“We have a long wish list for this area, but Mastcam acquired some incredible imagery on the drive up, which we are using to pinpoint the best outcrops in this area,” O’Connell-Cooper notes.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3440, April 10, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Last Wednesday, the rover arrived at one of these outcrops that exhibits a somewhat chaotic appearance and a jumble of veins and raised resistant ridges.
Wheel placements
Awkward wheel placements by the robot meant that scientists could not do any arm science, making use of the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), “so we had to bump back just a little to be safer. This bump actually gave us a gift – it broke up some rocks in the workspace so we can analyze fresh surfaces,” O’Connell-Cooper reports.
“Lodberrie” will be subjected to the full analytical suite of the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam), Mastcam, APXS and MAHLI in the targets, whilst Mastcam will image two other targets “Denny” and “Saltwick Bay.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3440, April 10, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Further images
APXS and MAHLI will analyze “Sneuga” on one of these raised ridges, and MAHLI will get images of the nearby target “Inchbonny.”
Mastcam will take further images of one of Wednesday’s targets (“Fort Charlotte”) on an area to the right of our workspace with abundant thin laminations but with few raised ridges.
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager photo produced on Sol 3440, April 10, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
ChemCam will use Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) to investigate the chemistry of the target “Lunna” in that same area.
Mastcam will also acquire even more images of the “Feorachas” outcrop, the intended end of drive destination for a recently scripted plan.
O’Connell-Cooper concludes: “Looking forward to seeing Monday’s workspace!”
CCTV Video News Agency/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The next step in China’s building of its space station arrived Monday at the launch site in the southern island province of Hainan.
China’s Long March-7 Y5 rocket will loft the automated Tianzhou-4 cargo craft to the country’s orbiting facility. The rocket, alongside the Tianzhou-4 cargo craft, is now at the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site, where it will be assembled and tested, announced the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).
Facilities at the launch site are in good condition, added CMSA, and preparations for all systems involved in the mission are proceeding smoothly.
Artistic image of China’s Tianzhou-2 cargo spacecraft.
Credit: CMS/China Academy of Space Technology
Shenzhou-14
According to China Central Television (CCTV), the Tianzhou-4 cargo vessel is set to deliver supplies for the upcoming Shenzhou-14 piloted mission that will send another three Chinese astronauts to the space station following the Shenzhou-13 crew’s return to Earth in mid-April.
China’s Tianzhou-2 cargo spacecraft was deorbited in a controlled manner, re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere on March 31. The Tianzhou-2 was the first cargo spacecraft sent to the station, loaded with nearly 7 tons of supplies.
Shenzhou-13 crew members.
Credit: CNS/Inside Outer Space screengrab
China’s currently orbiting Shenzhou-13 crew — Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu — arrived in the core module of the in-construction Tiangong station on October 16, 2021 embarking on their six-month journey – the longest-ever duration in the country’s human spaceflight program.
Upcoming launches
The Tianzhou-4 supply ship is one of six launches that will be made this year to wrap up piecing together the Chinese space station:
- Shenzhou-14 and the Shenzhou-15 piloted missions
- Tianzhou 4 and 5 robotic cargo spaceships for refueling and resupply operations
- Two large space labs to dock with the station: Wentian, or Quest for the Heavens, and Mengtian, or Dreaming of the Heavens
China’s space station to be completed by end of 2022.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Upon its completion at the end of this year, Tiangong will consist of three main components: a core module attached to two space labs. The facility will have a combined weight of nearly 70 metric tons.
The Tiangong station is scheduled to operate for 15 years in low-Earth orbit.
Russia’s Luna-25 will test lunar sampling skills.
Credit: NPO Lavochkin/IKI/Roscosmos
Russia’s return to the Moon is the country’s Luna-25 mission.
The purpose of the project is to send an automatic probe for research in the region of the south pole of the Moon. It is planned that the landing craft will touch down north of the Boguslavsky crater.
A “reserve area” for the landing craft is southwest of the Manzini crater.
Credit: NPO Lavochkin/IKI/Roscosmos
Repeat delays
At the end of March, Roscosmos reported that tests of the high-precision landing system for the Luna-25 interplanetary automatic station had been successfully completed.
August 22 is now the target date for launch of Luna-25, according to Alexander Mitkin, Deputy General Designer for Electrical Systems at NPO. S. A. Lavochkin – the group that has built and tested the probe.
Russia’s Luna-25 Moon lander.
Credit: RSC Energia/Roscosmos
The Russian robotic Moon lander has repeatedly slipped from last year to May 2022 and now August.
Soil sampling duties
Luna-25 is to study the upper surface layer in the region of the south pole of the Moon, the lunar exosphere and develop landing and soil sampling technologies. The declared active life of the probe on the surface of the Moon is at least one Earth year.
Credit: NPO Lavochkin
This Russian Moon mission continues the series of the former Soviet Union’s lunar exploration activities that ended back in 1976. Luna-24 successfully delivered about 170 grams of lunar soil to Earth.
The Luna-25 mission will be followed by the Luna-26 orbiter and the Luna-27 landing vehicle, after which it is planned to start deploying a full-fledged scientific station on the Moon in collaboration with China.
Topographic map of the southern sub-polar region of the Moon showing the location of Boguslawsky crater.
Credit: Ivanov et al., 2015 via Arizona State University/LROC
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3438, April 8, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3439 duties.
“We successfully drove further down off of the “Greenheugh pediment” as we head toward smoother driving pathways downhill,” reports Michelle Minitti, a planetary geologist at Framework in Silver Spring, Maryland. “However, the chaotic jumble of terrain we encountered in the final few rolls of our wheels left a couple of our wheels perched awkwardly.”
That meant the robot could not get out its arm for contact science, lest the large arm swinging around might cause the rover to shift unexpectedly.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3438, April 8, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“It also meant that our rover drivers wanted to scoot the rover off of the offending terrain to put all six wheels on terra firma (or the Martian equivalent) before attempting another drive,” Minitti adds. Thus, a recent drive aims to reposition the rover for observations this weekend.
Layered bedrock
Before the repositioning, the plan called for an extensive set of imaging and analyses with the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) and Mastcam.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3438, April 8, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
ChemCam will acquire chemistry from a beautifully layered bedrock outcrop, “Fort Charlotte,” and will acquire a Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) mosaic from the top section of Gediz Vallis Ridge, which researchers can still see despite dropping in elevation in our last drive.
“Mastcam will acquire three mosaics to cover the intricate bedrock structures in this area,” Minitti notes. Two of these mosaics center on the bedrock ridge dubbed “Feorachas” on Curiosity’s first pass through this area.
“The ridge, and the linear features extending away from it, are of great interest for what they might reveal about the history of this part of the pediment,” Minitti explains.
Curiosity Mast Camera (Mastcam) Left photo taken on Sol 3437, April 7, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Weekend plans
The third mosaic centers on the bedrock in the workspace in front of the rover, which will come in handy as scientists (hopefully) plan contact science within it over the weekend.
Curiosity Mast Camera (Mastcam) Left photo taken on Sol 3437, April 7, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
“We will also look skyward, with a Navcam image to monitor the amount of dust in the atmosphere, and a Navcam cloud movie. After we settle our wheels, we plan to acquire an automated ChemCam raster from the surrounding bedrock, a ChemCam passive observation of the atmosphere, a Mastcam tau measurement, and a Navcam dust devil survey,” Minitti reports.
The rover is scheduled to acquire a Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) active measurement after its drive to complement the longer DAN passive measurements that span parts of each sol.
Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) and Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) are slated to make their systematic measurements throughout both sols (Sols 3437-3438).
Minitti concludes: “Here’s hoping the weekend goes off without a hitch!”
Curiosity Mast Camera (Mastcam) Left and Right photos taken on Sol 3437, April 7, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Chelyabinsk sky rendering is a reconstruction of the asteroid that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia on Feb. 15, 2013. Scientific study of the airburst has provided information about the origin, trajectory and power of the explosion. This simulation of the Chelyabinsk meteor explosion by Mark Boslough was rendered by Brad Carvey using the CTH code on Sandia National Laboratories’ Red Sky supercomputer. Andrea Carvey composited the wireframe tail. Photo by Olga Kruglova.
Credit: Sandia National Laboratories.
An agreement between NASA and the U.S. Space Force recently authorized the public release of decades of data collected by U.S. government sensors on fireball events – large bright meteors also known as bolides.
This action results from collaboration between NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) and the U.S. Space Force to continue furthering our nation’s efforts in planetary defense, which include finding, tracking, characterizing, and cataloging near-Earth objects (NEOs).
NASA’s Lindley Johnson is head of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office.
Credit: Leonard David
Events
Recently a small asteroid designated 2022 EB5 approximately 2 meters in size was detected in space as it approached Earth and impacted the atmosphere southwest of Jan Mayen, a Norwegian island nearly 300 miles (470 kilometers) off the east coast of Greenland and northeast of Iceland.
Another notable bolide event in this released data set is of a meteor that was detected on Jan. 8, 2014. This object gained the interest of the scientific community, as it has been posited it could have interstellar origin due to the detected event’s high velocity within the atmosphere.
Further analysis of this event carried out under U.S. Space Command’s purview confirmed the object’s high velocity impact, but the short duration of collected data, less than five seconds, makes it difficult to definitively determine if the object’s origin was indeed interstellar.
Space Force-operated Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites are a key part of North America’s early warning systems.
Credit: U.S. Space Force
Growing archive
The growing archive of bolide reports, as posted on the NASA Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) Fireballs website, “has significantly increased scientific knowledge and contributes to the White House approved National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy and Action Plan,” said Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer at NASA Headquarters.
“The release of these new bolide data demonstrates another key area of collaboration between NASA and the U.S. Space Force,” Johnson added, “and helps further the pursuit of improved capabilities for understanding these objects and our preparedness to respond to the impact hazard NEOs pose to Earth.”
For more information, go the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) fireballs database at:
https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/about/cneos.html
Curiosity’s location on Sol 3436. Distance driven to this period if 17.09 miles/27.5 kilometers
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3437 duties.
The robot recently drove to a new workspace, one that was partially explored previously on Sol 3417, reports Ashley Stroupe, a mission operations engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B image taken on Sol 3436, April 6, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity activities included placing the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) on a smooth bedrock target, “Broo,” to contrast with the rougher target, Knott, that was looked at before. “Fortunately, this was a simpler activity for the rover planners than some of our other workspaces recently,” Stroupe notes.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3436, April 6, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Arm on target
“While the APXS integrates on Broo, Curiosity will also be doing some imaging and using the laser. With the arm placed down on the target, we needed to point our cameras at other places,” Stroupe adds.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3436, April 6, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Blue Mull,” which is another target in the workspace similar to Broo, will be examined by Mastcam and the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) and the rover’s Remote Micro-Imager (RMI).
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3436, April 6, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“We also will look at some targets outside the workspace, including a previous set of rocks called “Burnfoot,” which we previously imaged from another angle, and a rock named “Da Haaf” that we may have broken under our wheels when driving over it,” Stroupe points out.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera images acquired on Sol 3436, April 6, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Vertical exposure with layers
Also, a new plan calls for extending the past imaging of the Tighnabruaich rock cluster and mosaic of the nearby crater. “Finally, we image Youkil Quarry target,” Stroupe adds, “which shows a nice vertical exposure with layers, from a different angle. Lastly, we are doing some imaging to search for dust devils with Mastcam and Navcam.”
After the imaging and APXS are complete, the plan has taking Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) images of the Broo target and then stowing the arm.
Rover planners scripted a recent drive that continues to have Curiosity wind around difficult terrain. “We are looking forward to when we have finished returning to these prior locations and can move on to new vistas, Stroupe reports.
