Author Archive
Author: 
February 23rd, 2022
The search is on to find innovative engineering approaches that will integrate power transmission and energy storage to accommodate long-duration robotic and human missions to the Moon.
NASA has launched the Watts on the Moon Phase 2 Challenge today and will award up to $5 million across the two phases.
HeroX, a crowdsourcing platform, is working with NASA on the challenge via the space agency’s Centennial Challenges Program.
Long-term lunar habitation
This challenge is focused on re-planting boots on the Moon under NASA’s Artemis program. The intent of Artemis is to establish a long-term human presence at the Moon and to do so there’s to integrate power transmission and energy storage to support astronauts, hardware, and systems in the extremely challenging thermal and lighting conditions on the lunar surface.
Phase 1 of Watts launched in September 2020 and focused of energy management, distribution, and storage solutions. In May 2021, seven winners were awarded a total of $500,000 in prize purses.
Because Phase 1 showed that there are a number of promising approaches to address this need, Phase 2 will be launched to allow these approaches and others an opportunity to vie for part of the $4.5M prize purse to develop and demonstrate their performance in simulated lunar conditions.
Phase 2 is a three-level competition that will award up to 17 prizes across the challenge.
Lunar south pole – future Moon base location?
Credit: NASA
Wired and wireless transmission
NASA has significant interest in both wired and wireless transmission, and the Challenge seeks to incentivize and demonstrate both types of solutions: Energy storage that can (1) power mission operation loads when intermittent power generation is not available and (2) survive and operate in extreme cold environments.
“Challenges like Watts on the Moon give us the chance to utilize the creativity of industry, academia, and the public to power our return to the Moon,” said Jim Reuter, Associate Administrator for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
Reuter adds in a HeroX statement that the solutions in this challenge may also have important applications here on Earth and help advance similar technologies for terrestrial application and commercialization.
Eligibility to compete and win prize(s)
Individuals must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents of the United States and be 18 years of age or older. Organizations must be an entity incorporated in and maintaining a primary place of business in the United States (some restrictions apply).
To accept the challenge and access additional information, go to:
Posted in 
The lunar far side as imaged by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter using its LROC Wide Angle Camera.
Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University
There’s an on-going saga regarding what object will smash into the Moon’s far side next month.
First thought to be a SpaceX upper stage, it was then tagged as a leftover from China’s Chang’e 5-T1 lunar mission in 2014.
But China has indicated it’s not their hardware, a flat fact coming from Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin’s in a regular press briefing on February 21st.
However, sticking to his guns about identifying the object as related to the Chang’e 5-T1 mission is Bill Gray of Project Pluto.
“There really is no good reason at this point to think the object is anything other than the Chang’e 5-T1 booster. Anybody claiming otherwise has a pretty large hill of evidence to overcome,” Gray told Inside Outer Space.
Small mystery
“We do have a small mystery, in that the [U.S.] 18th Space Control Squadron lists this booster (the same one I’m saying will hit the Moon) as having instead hit the Earth’s atmosphere in October 2015, almost a year after launch,” Gray explains. “But the only trajectory data they provide are for shortly after launch. If that’s all they had to work with, then the re-entry date is a prediction a year ahead of time and is not particularly meaningful.”
18th Space Control Squadron logo
Credit: 18th Space Control Squadron
It’s sort of like trying to predict weather a year ahead of time, Gray adds.
Re-entry computation
“But as best I can tell, this particular error didn’t involve tracking data,” he tells Inside Outer Space. “I think it just involved confusion about two similarly named missions,” China’s Chang’e 5-T1 mission in 2014 and the country’s Chang’e-5 Moon sample effort in December 2020.
“Basically, I don’t think 18SPCS tracked the object much after launch,” Gray says. “If they had, they probably would have posted updated trajectory data. If the re-entry computation is based on just that initial tracking data, with no further observations taken into account, it’s not going to be any good. You can’t run an orbit for an object of this sort out a year and get anything meaningful.”
Also, during much of that year, the Chang’e-5T1 booster would have been well beyond the range of radar. “So I very much doubt 18SPCS were actually tracking it. But asteroid observers did keep track of it several times over that year, and in the years afterward, such that I was able to say it would hit the Moon in March,” Gray says.
Off the hook? Artist’s impression of DSCOVR on the way to L1 atop its Falcon 9 upper stage in 2015.
Credit: SpaceX
Wanted: better tracking
All of this confusion raises a flag in Gray’s view.
“Well, we should indeed do a better job of tracking these objects. First step would be to release ‘last known positions and velocities’ for objects going into high Earth orbits or solar or lunar orbits. That would have avoided the initial identification issue, where I thought this was the [SpaceX] DSCOVR upper stage.”
Bottom line for Gray is the need for better tracking of high-orbiting objects.
NASA looksee
NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
Meanwhile, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will monitor the Moon’s exosphere for any changes due to the March 4th impact, and looking for the crater in the months to come.
According to a NASA statement provided to Inside Outer Space:
“NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will not be in a position to observe the impact as it happens. However, the mission team is assessing if observations can be made to any changes to the lunar environment associated with the impact and later identify the crater formed by the impact. This unique event presents an exciting research opportunity. Following the impact, the mission can use its cameras to identify the impact site, comparing older images to images taken after the impact. The search for the impact crater will be challenging and might take weeks to months.”
According to one researcher, “a pizza is still a pizza, even if you don’t know where it came from.”
For more information on this upcoming, smashing event, go to:
- March Madness! Upper Stage Hitting the Moon: Will the Real Owner Please Stand Up?
https://www.leonarddavid.com/upper-stage-hitting-the-moon-will-the-real-owner-please-stand-up/
- The Case of the Wayward Booster Headed for the Moon
https://www.leonarddavid.com/the-case-of-the-wayward-booster-headed-for-the-moon/
- SpaceX Upper Stage: Hitting the Moon Update
https://www.leonarddavid.com/spacex-upper-stage-hitting-the-moon-update/
The lunar far side as imaged by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter using its LROC Wide Angle Camera.
Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University
That errant upper stage set to impact the Moon’s far side needs a name!
First thought to be a SpaceX upper stage, then tagged as a left over from China’s Chang’e 5-T1 lunar mission, China appears to have indicated it’s not their hardware.
Off the hook? Artist’s impression of DSCOVR on the way to L1 atop its Falcon 9 upper stage in 2015.
Credit: SpaceX
From Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin’s Regular Press Conference on February 21, 2022
Associated Press question:
On March 4th, a rocket booster will crash onto the far side of the moon. An analysis led by NASA indicates the large object is likely from a lunar mission launched from China in 2014. Could you confirm and provide any more details?
Wang Wenbin: “The Chinese side has noted experts’ analysis and media reports on the matter. According to China’s monitoring, the upper stage of the Chang’e-5 mission has fallen through the Earth’s atmosphere in a safe manner and burnt up completely. China’s aerospace endeavors are always in keeping with international law. We are committed to earnestly safeguarding the long-term sustainability of outer space activities and are ready to have extensive exchanges and cooperation with all sides.”
On the other hand, Wang’s detailing the “upper stage of the Chang’e-5 mission” is not the same as the Chang’e 5-T1 lunar mission upper stage – so that needs clarification.
Off the hook? China upper stage of CZ-3C GJ-II Y12 carrier rocket in 2014.
Via Seger Yu
However, SpaceNews reporter, Andrew Jones, notes that space tracking data from the Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron suggests that 2014-065B—the rocket stage in question—did fall into the Earth’s atmosphere in October 2015, a year after launch – and that bolsters China’s claim.
Despite uncertainty about who owns the hardware, it will still slam into the Moon on March 4 at 12:25 UTC, within a few seconds of the predicted time.
Go to the SpaceNews Andrew Jones story — “China claims rocket stage destined for lunar impact is not from its 2014 Moon mission” — at:
For earlier information about this Moon impact object, go to:
https://www.leonarddavid.com/spacex-upper-stage-hitting-the-moon-update/
https://www.leonarddavid.com/the-case-of-the-wayward-booster-headed-for-the-moon/
Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age by Lori Garver; Diversion Books (2022); 304 pages; Hardcover: $28.99
Wow!
This must-read book is divided into 3 parts: “Gravity,” “Force,” and “Motion.” More to the point, this behind-the-scenes account mixes that trio into a powerful, explosive concoction that blows the lid off the labyrinth of aerospace companies, lobbyists, astronauts, trade associations, self-interested Congressional delegations, and, of course, NASA itself.
Lori Garver was the principal advisor on aerospace issues to three presidential candidates and led the NASA transition team for President Obama. She served as the Deputy Administrator of NASA from 2009 to 2013. She is a highly-regarded champion of the new era of commercial partnerships, documenting what she terms as “the epic battle” that pitted traditional space loyalists against a new generation of space advocates, indeed, “space pirates” as she calls them, who argued that NASA had been hijacked, needed rescuing, and challenged the status quo.
“I’m proud of the accomplishments I’ve made in my career, and this book is dedicated to one of the most meaningful – driving reforms at NASA that are leading to more valuable and sustainable space activities,” the author explains. “Disrupting a paradigm as ingrained as the space industrial complex means risking one’s career and financial future to drive change.”
There’s a no-holds-barred, kick-ass and taking names feel to the book.
Garver spells out those that characterized her as a “Bond-like villain” and that she was the biggest disaster in NASA history for science. She was labeled by some as a harebrained political appointee with a scarcity of actual space experience. Even worse!
Government service, she responds, requires integrity and “many of the behaviors I saw should not have been tolerated.” Unveiled and underscored are instances of illicit and unethical behavior of a few senior leaders at NASA.
Garver drove policies and funding that enabled commercial competition just as the capabilities and resources of the private sector began to mature. Spotlighted in the book, the reader will find insights about Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, and countless other commercial space efforts – some of which have long-been forgotten, but shouldn’t be.
As author Walter Isaacson notes in his foreword to the volume: “Transformative change in government is often sought, but rarely achieved. In this revealing and personal book, Garver tells the fascinating story of how she helped a band of dreamers, rogue bureaucrats, and billionaires usher in a new space age.”
I definitely think the reader will benefit – and appreciate to a greater degree — the U.S. space industry at a transformational period of time…and the need to keep an eye on those space pirates.
For more information about this book, go to:
https://diversionbooks.com/books/escaping-gravity/
Also, go to:
https://www.amazon.com/Escaping-Gravity-Quest-Transform-Launch/dp/1635767709
Mars Perseverance Sol 353: Left Mastcam-Z Camera. This image was acquired on Feb. 16, 2022 (Sol 353).
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
This image I posted of hardware on the surface of Mars generated quite a number of comments:
A few folks got close, or provided a partial ID…others were far afield!
Some of my favorites:
“I hope it wasn’t something mission critical.”
“Looks like a camera lens or a Starbucks cup.”
“Looks like a part fell off one of the vehicles we’ve sent there.”
“Space debris is really getting out of hand.”
“Empty can of Centauri Lite.”
“Proof that robots are just as messy as teenagers.”
“Flashlight or beer bottle.”
“The fine for littering on Mars is very, very steep. Who’s ever it is had best come pick it up.”
“Lightsaber hilt.”
However, a tip of the space helmet visor for a more complete description goes to Philip J. Stooke, Professor Emeritus and Adjunct Research Professor, Department of Geography, and Institute for Earth and Space Exploration, University of Western Ontario.
Stooke reports:
“It is the Flight Abrading Bit which was discarded on sol 148. During flight and landing it occupied the drill bit slot to keep it from being contaminated. It was discarded shortly before the first abrading and sampling operations.”
Credit: Zhiyong Xiao, et al.
China’s Yutu-2 Moon rover has discovered two macroscopic translucent glass globules during its far side exploring.
According to a study published in Science Bulletin, the Yutu-2 rover captured images of two translucent globules using its panoramic camera.
Lead author of the research paper is Zhiyong Xiao of the Planetary Environmental and Astrobiological Research Laboratory, School of Atmospheric Sciences at Sun Yat-sen University.
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
According to the Xinhua news agency, no composition data has been obtained for the globules. “But their unique morphology and local context suggest they are most likely impact glasses — quenched anorthositic impact melts produced during cratering events — rather than being of volcanic origin or delivered from other planetary bodies.”
Major mechanisms
In the research paper, “Translucent glass globules on the Moon” the globules are different from the glass beads sampled by the Apollo missions, as they are larger in size and exhibit colors.
“Glass is ubiquitous in lunar regolith, and volcanism and hypervelocity impacts are the major mechanisms of forming lunar glasses. Volcanic glasses on the Moon occur as quenched skin of basaltic rocks or as glass spherules in pyroclastic deposits,” the research paper explains.
Chang’e-4’s farside landing zone.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Zhiyong and colleagues predict that the glass globules would be abundant across the lunar highlands, providing promising sampling targets that could reveal the early impact history of the Moon.
Panorama camera finding
The rover was deployed by the Chinese Chang’e-4 lander and is surveying the South Pole Atkien basin at the lunar farside.
Since being deployed from the lander, the Yutu-2 rover has traveled across the floor of the Von Kármán crater. In images obtained by the rover’s panorama camera, the two translucent glass globules were recognized along the route.
The Chang’e-4 lunar mission was launched on Dec. 8, 2018, touching down on the lunar landscape on Jan. 3, 2019.
Chang’e-5 return capsule holding lunar specimens.
Credit: National Astronomical Observatories, CAS
Cratering chronology
In related Moon work, published in Nature Astronomy, lunar samples returned by China’s Chang’e-5 mission in December 2020, Chinese researchers are updating the lunar chronology model. This work will serve as a more precise time ruler for not just the evolution of the Moon, but also that of other planetary bodies in the inner Solar System.
The research was jointly conducted by the Aerospace Information Research Institute (AIR), the Institute of Geochemistry and the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
Lead author of the research – “Updated lunar cratering chronology model with the radiometric age of Chang’e-5 samples” – is Zongyu Yue of the State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing.
To gain access to this new research, go to:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2095927321006964
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-022-01604-3
Here’s a challenge.
What inventive methods might work to help analyze and interpret data than can better understand the potential signs of past life on Mars?
That is the focus of a $30,000 prize purse, a crowdsourcing competition on behalf of NASA.
DrivenData, in collaboration with HeroX, announced today this unique challenge, and you’re invited to take part.
We now know that the Red Planet had environmental conditions that could have sustained life in the past. Understanding how these conditions persisted and changed is important to understanding Mars’ conditions for life over time.
Credit: NASA
EGA data
For this challenge, participants are tasked with building an innovative method to automatically analyze evolved gas analysis (EGA) data of simulated Mars samples collected on both commercial and laboratory instruments analogous to those used for Mars exploration. The best methods should be able to detect the presence of certain families of chemical compounds (specified in the challenge) in the samples.
By taking advantage of the many supporting experimental runs done on comparable rock samples, data science methods can be developed in order to support scientists in their analysis and interpretations of data collected by planetary mission instruments and laboratory instruments. These advancements may also help scientists more quickly and effectively conduct future mission operations.
The winning techniques may be used to help future planetary missions.
Wanted: inventive methods to better understand the potential signs of past life on Mars.
Credit: Newcastle University
This competition calls on innovators to analyze mass spectrometry data from Mars to detect conditions for past life. A prize purse of $30,000 will be shared among four teams.
Competition end date: April 18, 2022, 11:59 p.m. UTC
Accept the challenge
HeroX is a platform and open marketplace for crowdsourcing innovation and human ingenuity, co-founded in 2013 by serial entrepreneur, Christian Cotichini and XPRIZE founder and futurist, Peter Diamandis.
DrivenData is a social enterprise dedicated to bringing the data tools and methods that can tackle the world’s biggest challenges.
To accept the challenge and learn about eligibility requirements, go to:
https://www.herox.com/MarsSpectrometry?from=explore
Credit: Via Change.org petitions
A newly created petition is now making the rounds on Twitter, calling for the American government to release all unclassified Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) videos to the public.
Initiated on February 10 by Adam Goldsack of the United Kingdom, the petition is hosted on the Change.org website.
“The radical ‘transmedium’ technology of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) is currently being withheld from the American public. The UAPTF-DNI preliminary report on UAP found that 143/144 cases were classified as ‘Unidentified’,” the petition explains.
“We request that the new UAP office created by congress make available all unclassified videos and cases so that civilian science can investigate and better understand this technology,” concludes the petition.
At the moment, 1,193 have signed the petition. “At 1,500 signatures, this petition is more likely to get picked up by local news!,” states the website at:
A new report examines planned cislunar and lunar missions over the next decade from countries around the world. This compilation showcases the growth of satellites, rovers, and experiments intended to extend humanity’s reach more firmly into cislunar space and on the Moon.
The report — Fly Me to the Moon: Worldwide Cislunar and Lunar Missions – is authored by Kaitlyn Johnson, deputy director and fellow of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Compendium of missions
This report contains a compendium of cislunar and lunar missions from government and commercial entities around the world. There are several planned national and commercial missions to explore cislunar space or the Moon.
Often government efforts will enable or utilize private industry missions; however, sometimes commercial space companies are independently pursuing such missions.
Credit: CSIS
Demarcation of cislunar space
This paper concludes with analysis on the trends and commonalities across all of these planned endeavors.
One interesting observation from the paper is that “thus far, there is no consensus on the demarcation of cislunar space.
To read Fly Me to the Moon: Worldwide Cislunar and Lunar Missions go to:
https://aerospace.csis.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/220215_Johnson_FlyMe_Moon_WEB.pdf
Or read the interactive summary at:
https://aerospace.csis.org/fly-me-to-the-moon-worldwide-cislunar-and-lunar-missions/
Credit: SWF/CSIS/Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin
An inventive, web-based tool has been created to portray space situational awareness data, to help promote strategic stability in the space domain.
Called the Satellite Dashboard, its intent is to better appreciate potentially threatening actions in space.
“Our hope is that policymakers, space experts, commercial industry, and the media will be able to use the Dashboard as a reference to better understand potentially destabilizing activities in space in a way that supports informed decision-making and open dialogue,” according to the dashboard’s website.
The Dashboard collates data from multiple sources, including publicly-available data provided by the U.S. military, commercial space situational awareness (SSA) providers, and data from international, scientific, and academic sources.
Photo illustration by Thomas Gaulkin for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ January 2022 issue (used with permission).
Deceive, disrupt, deny, degrade, or destroy
Satellite Dashboard is a collaboration between the Secure World Foundation (SWF), the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin.
“This project was initiated because the number of actors and types of activities that rely on space is rapidly and dramatically increasing,” the dashboard website explains. “More countries than ever are investing in counterspace capabilities that will enable them to deceive, disrupt, deny, degrade, or destroy space systems of potential adversaries, including the United States.”
To check out this valuable new source, go to:
