Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Archive for January, 2024

To spot other star folk occupying space out there in the great beyond, first you must cast the net wide by using an array of techniques and technologies.

Indeed, any “fishing expedition” for ET includes close-in studies of life in extreme environments, be they right here on Earth, on Mars, or deep diving through the icy facade of Jupiter’s moon, Europa.

Also blend in use of space-based telescopes to inspect Earth-like planets circling their home stars. Then there’s cupping a radio telescopic ear to the cosmos to pick up any bustling interstellar civilization or perhaps look for far-off laser-pulsed communiqués from extraterrestrial homebodies.

I recently caught up with Bill Diamond, President and CEO of the SETI Institute for an exclusive, mind-stretching close-encounter discussion regarding the mounting evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence.

For more information, go to my new SPACE.com story – “’It’s getting closer and closer for sure.’ How SETI is expanding its search for alien intelligence (exclusive)” – at:

‘It’s getting closer and closer for sure.’ How SETI is expanding its search for alien intelligence (exclusive)

An international team of researchers have proposed Mount Etna – one of the most active and monitored volcanoes on Earth – as a suitable terrestrial laboratory to get a handle on possible active volcanism on Venus.

And there’s more.

This research probing of the Sicilian volcano Etna is proposed within the “AVENGERS” initiative. In Venusian verbiage, AVENGERS stands for Analogs for VEN us’ GE ologically R ecent S urfaces.

The global research team members come from organizations in Italy, Russia, the U.S., Great Britain, India, Spain, and the Netherlands.

Appearing in the journal Icarus, lead author of the paper, “Mount Etna as a terrestrial laboratory to investigate recent volcanic activity on Venus by future missions: A comparison with Idunn Mons, Venus,” is Piero D’Incecco of the Abruzzo Astronomical Observatory of the National Institute of Astrophysics of Italy.

Eruptive styles

Mount Etna offers the opportunity to analyze multiple eruptive styles, both monitoring active volcanism and identifying the possible occurrence of pyroclastic activity on Venus, they explain. “The eruptive style at Mount Etna of the last 2,500 years gives rise to different types of lava flows.”

And as they submit, timing is everything.

Given government and private-sector initiatives to further explore Venus, “one key scientific question to be addressed by these future missions is whether Venus remains volcanically active, and if so, how its volcanism is currently evolving,” the research team explains.

“We directly compare Mount Etna with Idunn Mons, one of the most promising potentially active volcanoes of Venus,” D’Incecco and colleagues explain. “Despite the two structures show a different topography, they also show some interesting points of comparison, and in particular: a) comparable morpho-structural setting, since both volcanoes interact with a rift zone, and b) morphologically similar volcanic fields around both Mount Etna and Idunn Mons.”

First step

Given its ease of access, the scientists also propose Mount Etna as an analog site for laboratory spectroscopic studies to identify the signatures of unaltered volcanic deposits on Venus.

While the research paper points out that there is no perfect analog to match what’s served up in the solar system, the case is also made that it will be fundamental to select and analyze several suitable analogs on Earth.

Each terrestrial analog can help researchers to better study and understand some specific aspects of the current volcanic activity on Venus. “Indeed, each suitable analog on Earth can reveal to us a part of the volcanic history of Venus,” the team adds.

Indeed, the proposed analysis of Mount Etna can be considered as the first step of the AVENGERS initiative “that will indeed select and analyze suitable analog volcanic structures on Earth for the analysis and identification of active volcanism on Venus,” they conclude in the new paper.

Revolution in exploration

“Venus really matters as we analyze the treasures from asteroid Bennu, explore Mars with Curiosity and Perseverance on the road to returning samples, and embark on new journeys with James Webb Space Telescope to Venus-like exoplanets that could be in evolutionary states different from our Venus next door,” said James Garvin, principal investigator of the DAVINCI mission to Venus at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Garvin is a co-author of the Icarus paper.

Researchers can study Venus from Earth as preparations are underway for such missions as NASA’s DAVINCI, VERITAS, the European Space Agency’s EnVision, and others now, Garvin told Inside Outer Space.

“Studies of Mt. Etna and other analogues are helping,” Garvin said, “as well as great lab work here in the U.S. and in Germany, and via testing of new capabilities that we need to work at Venus.”

In Garvin’s view, “we are now in a state of revolution in exploration that rivals those days 500 years ago when Renaissance over-ocean explorers were launching to new vistas for political, economic, and even science. The next 10 years should be juicy as we discover what the solar system can tell us.”

To read the full Icarus journal paper – “Mount Etna as a terrestrial laboratory to investigate recent volcanic activity on Venus by future missions: A comparison with Idunn Mons, Venus” – go to:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103524000174?via%3Dihub

 

Space scientists are eager to protect the option of doing astronomy from Earth’s Moon.

What’s foreseen in future years is planting hardware on the lunar landscape such as super-cooled infrared telescopes, a swath of gravitational wave detectors, large Arecibo-like radio telescopes, even peek-a-boo instruments tuned-up to seek out evidence for “out there” aliens.

Tomorrow land beckons

But the urgency to save from harm probing the surrounding Universe by Moon -based astronomical gear looms as a present-day issue.

Efforts are ongoing to scope out and provide protection plans to the United Nations in the hope of fostering international support.

Go to my new Space.com story – “The moon could be perfect for cutting-edge telescopes — but not if we don’t protect it: ‘We are entering a new era of science investigations from our nearest neighbor in space.’” – at:

https://www.space.com/moon-perfect-for-lunar-astronomy-protection

The NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel’s Annual Report for 2023 is just out and about for your reading critique.

ASAP was established by Congress in 1968 to provide advice and make recommendations to the NASA Administrator, as well as Congress, on safety matters.

There are some fascinating “wait-a-minute” takeaways to ponder.

“Make, manage, or buy?”

One of those eye-catchers is that NASA should try to figure out how it implements “make, manage, or buy” decisions on future programs or projects.

The ASAP reports notes that NASA is no longer the sole driver or customer for human space flight capabilities and related technology, nor is it the sole organization creating demand.

“NASA, however, still has a critical role and responsibility in the space sector, and the Agency’s decisions, opinions, and direction have weight and merit in the industry and across the globe,” the report adds.

Therefore, NASA must anticipate risks that otherwise might go unknown or unforeseen.

Top down, bottoms-up

The space agency’s major human spaceflight endeavor, the aspiring Artemis “reboot the Moon” program was also eyed by the ASAP.

“NASA should manage Artemis as an integrated program with top-down alignment, and designate a Program Manager endowed with authority, responsibility, and accountability, along with a robust bottoms-up, collaborative feedback process for both Systems Engineering and Integration (SE&I) and risk management.”

Deorbiting the beast

Another flagged concern regards the deorbit plans for dumping the big beast of a Earth orbiting megatonnage, the International Space Station (ISS).

While discussions about ISS are ongoing between NASA and the Russian Space Agency to make the controlled deorbit plan more robust, “the ASAP reiterates its concern first stated in 2012, about the lack of a well-defined, fully funded controlled reentry and deorbit plan for the ISS that is available on a timeline that supports the planned ISS retirement. Furthermore, the Panel recognizes that the ISS partners are operating at risk, today, without the capability to deal with a contingency situation that would lead to a deorbit.

Risk to public safety

“The risk to public safety and space sustainability,” the report points out, “is increasing every year as the orbital altitudes in and around the ISS continue to become more densely populated by satellites, increasing the likelihood that an unplanned emergency ISS deorbit would also impact other resident space objects.”

NASA should define an executable and appropriately budgeted deorbit plan, the report adds, “that includes implementation on a timeline to deliver a controlled reentry capability to the ISS as soon as practicable — to be in place for the need of a controlled deorbit in event of an emergency as well as in place before the retirement of the ISS — to ensure that the station is able to be deorbited safely.”

NASA response

In a response to the ASAP by NASA leadership, the space agency has made progress toward solicitation of a U.S. Deorbit Vehicle to serve as the nominal ISS deorbit capability to be used in conjunction with Russian thrusters.

NASA is still coordinating with Russia’s Roscosmos on sustaining ISS operations until nominal deorbit and providing contingency deorbit capability with existing Progress and Service Module thrusters.

For a full look at the report — NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel’s Annual Report for 2023 – go to:

https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/asap-2023-annual-report-tagged.pdf

New research indicates that potential landing sites at the Moon’s south pole for robotic and human-carrying Artemis missions are vulnerable to quakes and landslides.

Science results published in the Planetary Science Journal show linkage of a group of faults located in the Moon’s south polar region to one of the most powerful moonquakes recorded by seismometers planted by Apollo moonwalkers over 50 years ago.

Active thrust faults

“The potential of strong seismic events from active thrust faults should be considered when preparing and locating permanent outposts and pose a possible hazard to future robotic and human exploration of the south polar region,” explains the paper, lead by Thomas Watters, a senior scientist emeritus in the National Air and Space Museum’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies.

“Our modeling suggests that shallow moonquakes capable of producing strong ground shaking in the south polar region are possible from slip events on existing faults or the formation of new thrust faults,” said Watters in a University of Maryland press statement.

Landslides from seismic shaking

Nicholas Schmerr, a co-author of the paper and an associate professor of geology at the University of Maryland, said this means that shallow moonquakes can devastate hypothetical human settlements on the Moon, in the university statement.

The research team made use of computer models to simulate the stability of surface slopes in the south pole region, finding some areas were particularly vulnerable to landslides from seismic shaking.

“As we get closer to the crewed Artemis mission’s launch date, it’s important to keep our astronauts, our equipment and infrastructure as safe as possible,” Schmerr said in the university release.

“This work is helping us prepare for what awaits us on the Moon,” Schmerr adds, “whether that’s engineering structures that can better withstand lunar seismic activity or protecting people from really dangerous zones.”

Magnitude 5 moonquake

Unlike earthquakes here on Earth that tend to last only a few seconds or minutes, shallow moonquakes can last for hours and even a whole afternoon, the researchers report.

The magnitude 5 moonquake recorded by the Apollo Passive Seismic Network in the 1970s was connected to a group of faults found by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) more recently. 

The research paper concludes: “The potential of strong seismic events from active thrust faults should be considered when preparing and locating permanent outposts and pose a possible hazard to future robotic and human exploration of the south polar region.”

For access to the paper in the Planetary Science Journal – “Tectonics and Seismicity of the Lunar South Polar Region” – go to:

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ad1332/pdf

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now wrapping up Sol 4078 duties.

“We arrived at a workspace with bedrock delightfully dotted with resistant features whose granular appearance and gray color were intriguing,” reports Michelle Minitti, a planetary geologist at Framework in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Those features were intriguing enough to warrant attention from a number of Curiosity instruments: Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS), Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam), as well as the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI).

More data the better

These Curiosity instruments were targeted to one of these features, “Tehipite Dome,” while MAHLI and APXS were set to target a different feature on the same block, “Sierra Columbine,” after the dust removal tool brushes it.

“When we are investigating such features,” Minitti adds, “the more data the better!”

ChemCam also planned long distance imaging of two of the features dominating the rover’s skyline — the “Kukenan” butte and the Gediz Vallis Ridge.

Sun safety

“The mosaics had to be carefully planned to avoid any risk of sun getting into the ChemCam optics — what we colloquially refer to as “sun safety.” The mosaics balance sun safety with imaging the exact features of interest on each rise,” Minitti says, “a delicate dance to achieve great science!”

The robot’s Mastcam joined in imaging of the Gediz Vallis Ridge, overlapping the ChemCam-targeted area to provide context and additional coverage.

 

“Mastcam’s other planned mosaics focused closer to the rover, capturing different structures and features of interest,” reports Minitti. “Frozen Pass Lake” looks at the light and dark banding Mars scientists have been exploring from their current perspective on it.

Near-vertical vein

“Rough Spur” captures a near-vertical vein that sharply divides a bedrock block, Minitti notes.

“On one side of the vein, the bedrock exhibits thin layers, but on the other side of the vein, the bedrock is structureless,” Minitti observes. “The ‘Mule Ears’ bedrock block has multiple subparallel veins that artfully fan out through the block.”

Minitti says that, before the rover drives further south and uphill for the weekend, Navcam is scheduled to look for dust devils and clouds near midday.

 

 

Delightful workspace

Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) DAN passive, the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) and the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) were to run before, during and after the drive, “and REMS and RAD continue long into the wee hours before the next plan begins.”

Once the rover is settled in at its next, hopefully equally delightful workspace, Minitti says, Navcam and Mastcam will measure the amount of dust in the atmosphere in the late afternoon and the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) was slated to image the terrain beneath the rover near twilight.

“Whatever will we find next?”

China is pressing forward on its space station plans, readying the next two crew flights with selected astronauts undergoing active training.

This will be a busy year for China’s space launches, with six major missions planned, including the recently launched cargo craft Tianzhou-7 now docked to the orbiting outpost.

Upcoming missions

Tianzhou-8 and the crewed spaceships Shenzhou-18 and Shenzhou-19, as well as the return of Shenzhou-17 and Shenzhou-18 will take place in 2024, said Yang Liwei, deputy chief designer of China’s crewed spaceflight project and China’s first astronaut in space.

Meanwhile, the six astronauts for Shenzhou-18 and Shenzhou-19 missions have been finalized, Yang told China Central Television (CCTV). In addition to basic training, they are also undergoing specific trainings related to the tasks they will perform on the space station this year, he said.

Hardware lifespan

“During the operational phase, the main task will be scientific experiments conducted in the space station, as well as maintenance, repairs, and assembly tasks,” Yang added.

“This includes the replacement of certain components that have reached their lifespan. Our astronauts will be responsible for these,” Yang continued. “There may also be some unexpected or temporary tasks, such as the maintenance of the solar panels this time.”

Currently, the space station is occupied by three Shenzhou-17 astronauts that arrived there on Oct 26, 2023. As the sixth batch of inhabitants of the Tiangong station, they are scheduled to return to Earth around April after wrapping up their space mission for about six months.

 

Moon expedition

Yang also reported progress in China’s human lunar exploration project.

In the preliminary stage before the project was approved last year, “we had already worked a lot on technological breakthroughs and project feasibility,” Yang told CCTV.

“After the project was approved, we’ve worked out the prototype samples of the rocket systems, spacecraft, and lunar landers. Next we’ll work on the formal samples and some experiments, and we’ve already made breakthroughs in many key technologies,” he concluded.

 

New details regarding the successful landing of Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) have been released at a January 25 press briefing held by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

It has been confirmed that on January 20, the Lunar Excursion Vehicle (LEV-1), a small robot deployed from SLIM did carry out activities on the lunar surface. Telemetry data was sent directly to Earth from the small robot.

That data indicates that, after deployment from SLIM, the LEV-1 executed planned leaping movements and direct communication with ground stations, including inter-robot test radio wave data transmission from the Transformable Lunar Robot (LEV-2, nicknamed “SORA-Q”).

Standby state

Currently, LEV-1 has completed its planned operational period on the lunar surface, depleted its designated power, and is in a standby state on the lunar surface.

While the capability to resume activity exists contingent on solar power generation from changes in the direction of the sun, efforts will be maintained to continue receiving signals from LEV-1.

Both LEV-1 and LEV-2 have become Japan’s first lunar exploration robots.

JAXA stated that LEV-1’s leaping movements on the lunar surface, inter-robot communication between LEV-1 and LEV-2, and fully autonomous operations “represent groundbreaking achievement.”

Attitude of SLIM

Regarding the SLIM spacecraft, due to it not being at the planned attitude upon landing, power generation was not possible from the solar cells.

Subsequently, SLIM was shut down with a command from the ground. The multi-band spectroscopic camera (MBC) onboard SLIM was operated on a trial basis and captured images until the power was turned off, JAXA announced.

Analysis of the data acquired before shutting down the power confirmed that SLIM had reached the Moon’s surface approximately 180 feet (55 meters) east of the original target landing site.

Pinpoint landing achieved

“While more detailed evaluation continues, it is reasonable to mention that the technology demonstration of pinpoint landing within an accuracy of 328 feet (100 meters), which has been declared to be the main mission of SLIM, has been achieved,” JAXA said.

All technical data on the navigation guidance leading to the landing, and navigation camera image data captured during the descent and on the lunar surface that is necessary for future pinpoint landing technology were obtained from the spacecraft.

Engine issue

Regarding SLIM’s attitude on the lunar surface after touchdown, it is a position that could not generate power from the solar cells.

Analysis of technical data revealed that at an altitude of 50 meters — just prior to the start of the obstacle avoidance maneuver — the thrust from one of the two main engines was most likely lost.

The SLIM onboard software autonomously identified the anomaly, and while controlling the horizontal position as much as possible, SLIM continued the descent with the other engine and moved gradually towards the east.

SLIM landed “upside down” with the thruster up. No two-step landing was performed.

Below design range

The descent velocity at the time of contact with the ground was approximately 1.4 meters per second or less, which was below the design range.

Conditions such as the lateral velocity and attitude were outside the design range, and this is thought to have resulted in a different attitude than planned.

The cause of the loss of the main engine functionality is now being investigated.

As for future activities, JAXA said that further analysis has shown that SLIM’s solar cells are currently facing west, suggesting that there is the possibility for power generation and thus recovery of SLIM as the sunlight illumination condition improves with time.

Japan has become the 5th country to successfully soft land a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon.

The SLIM project is led by members of the JAXA Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), and researchers from universities and other institutions across the country.

SLIM was launched last year on September 7, departing Earth atop an H-IIA launch vehicle from the Yoshinobu Launch Complex at JAXA’s Tanegashima Space Center.

Go to this informative video showcasing the Transformable Lunar Robot (LEV-2), nicknamed “SORA-Q.”

https://youtu.be/PupLqwt4d2o?si=Z8V4poXC2Tvx2zPG

Artwork depicts the palm-sized Lunar Excursion Vehicle-2.
Image credit: JAXA/ISAS

 

NASA is busy putting its best foot forward in rebooting the Moon via the Artemis program.

Artemis missions, NASA has explained, will build a community on the Moon, drive a new lunar economy, while inspiring a new generation.

 

NASA released on January 23 the outcomes of its 2023 Moon to Mars Architecture Concept.

As for Earth’s partner in gravitational lock, what’s foreseen is lunar infrastructure emplaced over time through “Foundational Exploration” and “Sustained Lunar Evolution” segments.

Starting with the lunar South Pole, future crews can perform multiple missions there, as well as carry out forays to different regions within range of each other.

Putting up the framework

Creating a long-term, self-sustaining habitation on the Moon, NASA says, constitutes a framework for government, industry, academia, and international partners to participate in a robust lunar economy and facilitate science.

Definitely, the Moon is going to become a work in progress.

But how best can we Earthlings keep track of that evolving growth on that celestial site?

For future’s sake…record the past

Jonathon Keats is an experimental philosopher, writer, and artist. He is a research associate at the University of Arizona’s College of Fine Arts and an artist-in-residence at the SETI Institute, among his affiliations.

Keats is creator of the “Millennium Camera.” Its purpose is to record the past for future humankind, as well as spur discussion about what current humans can do to influence the future.

In fact, one Millennium Camera is a silent sentinel gazing out across the desert landscape toward the Star Pass neighborhood, West of Tumamoc Hill in Tucson, Arizona – on duty for 1,000 years.

Environmentally-sensitive locations

The Millennium Camera is designed to take a single photograph over a period of one thousand years, Keats explains, revealing changes in the landscape to future generations and motivating people in the present to take responsibility for what future generations will eventually see.

Over the past decade, Millennium Cameras have been installed in several environmentally-sensitive locations in the United States in collaboration with academic institutions including Arizona State University and the University of Arizona.

Additional cameras will be installed on other continents including Europe and Asia in the next several years.

Galactic optimism

“I propose also to install a Millennium Camera on the South Pole of the Moon, overlooking the site where the Artemis Base Camp will be built,” Keats told Inside Outer Space.

Keats said that NASA’s Artemis program emblematizes “galactic optimism” in a time of deep uncertainty on Earth. “It represents a fresh start, and can provide a model for new social dynamics on our home planet, or a launching point for our future elsewhere in the solar system.”

The program also carries significant risk, said Keats, not only of technical failure but also of polluting a near-pristine environment and undermining future opportunities for scientific discovery.

Focal point

“Given the range of possible futures, and given that the Artemis Base Camp will be a focus of human attention for centuries to come,” Keats added, “the Millennium Camera has the potential to serve as a focal point for important conversations here on Earth and beyond.”

Keats pointed out that the history of astronomy is a history of observation, made possible with instruments such as the telescope.

“The Millennium Camera falls into this tradition not only as an optical instrument but also as a philosophical instrument,” Keats said. “The image will not be seen for one thousand years. For the next millennium, the camera on the Moon promises to enlarge the human imagination.”

To visit the Millennium Camera website, go to Deep Time Photography at:

https://tumamoc.arizona.edu/arts-and-science

 

Specialists are now pulling together potential photography assignments for the crewed NASA Artemis 2 Moon flyby, now projected to occur in September 2025.

Surprisingly, one conceivable duty is keeping an eye out for flashes. It turns out that during the Apollo lunar landing program (1969-1972), there were three impact-induced flashes by meteors observed by astronauts.

Kodak moments

Data gathered during the Apollo era flagged those flashes, and lunar scientists have started plotting out photographic nice-to-have “Kodak Moments” for the four-person Artemis 2 crew to consider during out-the-windows viewing.

Tucked inside their Orion spacecraft, they will be hurled moonward by the NASA Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and travel roughly 4,600 miles beyond the far side of the moon during the nearly 10 day voyage.

For more information on this lunar lightshow, go to my new Space.com story – “Apollo 17 astronauts saw strange flashes on the moon. Will Artemis crews see them too?”

https://www.space.com/artemis-astronauts-see-flashes-on-the-moon-apollo-17