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The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) held on January 18 a discussion by experts focused on creating a more resilient civil space architecture.

CSIS is a bipartisan, nonprofit policy research organization dedicated to providing strategic insights and policy solutions to help decision makers chart a course toward a better world.

Top priorities

The Trump Administration has emphasized civil and commercial space as one of its top priorities with the reinstatement of the National Space Council, the signing of Space Policy Directive 1, and the recent National Security Strategy, which prioritized the improvement of our U.S. space architecture resiliency.

The Administration’s renewed focus on civil space requires a broader public discussion on America’s current civil space systems and how best to improve their resilience.

En Route to the Moon will focus on how NASA and others can promptly adapt civil space architectures in pursuit of the Administration’s mission objectives.

Discussion experts

Among topics detailed: Threats and vulnerabilities for civil space system, navigation and timing lessons for civil space; resiliency in commercial space launch; new perspectives in civil space policy; as well as discussion of disruptive technologies.

Speakers included Sean O’Keefe, Distinguished Senior Adviser, CSIS, and former NASA Administrator; Kathryn White, Senior Vice President and General Manager, MITRE Public Sector; Renee Wynn, Chief Information Officer, NASA; Brian Weeden, Director of Program Planning, Secure World Foundation; and Zachary Goldstein, Chief Information Officer, NOAA; Dan Hart, President and CEO, Virgin Orbit; Tom Study, Vice President and General Counsel, United Launch Alliance; and Josh Brest, Senior Director for Government Business, Space.

To video view the meeting, go to:

https://youtu.be/YWCzE5gHLuQ

Now performing duties in Sol 1941, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is busy studying bedrock transition to better understand the textural and chemical changes across this transition.

Reports Ken Herkenhoff, a planetary geologist for the USGS in Flagstaff, Arizona, the robot performed a drive on Sol 1939, placing it next to the bright/dark transition territory.

On the plan is use of Curiosity’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) and Right Mastcam observations of targets “Mallaig” and “Criffel.”

Multispectral mosaics

The rover’s Mastcam will also acquire multispectral mosaics of the transition and of the material toward the south, Herkenhoff adds, material that shows evidence for clays in orbital data. Also on tap, the robot will produce smaller mosaics of nearby bedrock target “Fetlar” and the more distant “Hallival” target, and images of the Sun and the crater rim to measure the amount of dust in the atmosphere.

Herkenhoff adds “that’s just the beginning!”

On the darker side

On Sol 1940, the script called for Curiosity’s robotic arm to be deployed to acquire full suites of Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) images of “Knoydart,” a block on the darker side of the transition, and of Mallaig.

Also, the robot’s Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) will be placed on Mallaig for a short integration, then on Knoydart for a longer, overnight integration.

Cleaning/maintenance activity

The Sol 1941 plan is dominated by a cleaning/maintenance activity of Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite – a task that requires significant power.

“Early in planning we expected that power would constrain the number of activities that we could plan, but in the end all of the requested scientific observations made it into the plan,” Herkenhoff notes.

Busy weekend

On the books for Sol 1942, the Mars machinery is slated to drive toward the southeast and acquire the usual post-drive imaging needed for Monday planning, Herkenhoff explains. Then Navcam will search for dust devils and clouds and the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) will snap another image of the ground near the left front wheel during evening twilight.

 

 

 

Finally, early on Sol 1943, Navcam will again search for clouds and Mastcam will measure dust opacity in the atmosphere.

“It’s looking like another busy weekend” for Curiosity, Herkenhoff concludes.

 

 

Upstart booster provider, Rocket Lab, successfully reached orbit with the test flight of its second Electron orbital launch vehicle, “Still Testing.”

Electron lifted-off January 21 from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 on the Māhia Peninsula in New Zealand.

 

Customer payloads

Still Testing was carrying a Dove Pioneer Earth-imaging satellite for launch customer Planet, as well as two Lemur-2 satellites for weather and ship tracking company Spire.

Rocket Lab’s commercial phase will see Electron fly already-signed customers including NASA, Spire, Planet, Moon Express and Spaceflight.

Opening access to space

Roaring skyward from its New Zealand pad, and after first and second stage burns, Electron reached orbit and deployed customer payloads at 8 minutes and 31 seconds after lift-off.

“Reaching orbit on a second test flight is significant on its own, but successfully deploying customer payloads so early in a new rocket program is almost unprecedented,” says Rocket Lab CEO and founder Peter Beck.

“Rocket Lab was founded on the principal of opening access to space to better understand our planet and improve life on it. Today we took a significant step towards that,” Beck adds in a Rocket Lab press statement.

Go to this video to see launch, staging events, mission control:

A retro-reflective look at Apollo moonwalking in 1969-1972 has found that despite their best efforts, the astronauts consistently demonstrated the challenges of keeping to schedule.

Georgia Institute of Technology researchers analyzed the archived mission reports from the Apollo moonwalks to see how well moonwalkers were able to stick to their expected timelines during extravehicular activities (EVAs).

The Georgia Tech team also examined life support systems — oxygen, power and water consumption levels — to see if the relationships between NASA’s pre-flight estimates and timeline performance were accurate.

Consumable usage

“Most of that time was lost when trying to walk or drive across the lunar surface,” said Karen Feigh, an associate professor in Georgia Tech’s Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering. “Only one of the 11 EVAs we analyzed, Apollo 15’s first moonwalk, finished ahead of schedule — and most of it was behind schedule until the end.” That mission was the first to utilize a moon rover for increased mobility.

As for life support systems, predicted consumable usage estimates were underestimated by as much as 20 percent compared to what was actually required by the crew to complete the EVA.

 

 

Exploration-class

Feigh and the Georgia Tech team looked at all EVAs during Apollo 15, 16 and 17, which represent the exploration-class EVAs performed during the Apollo program.

“These missions serve as the only precedence to help understand and guide future exploration EVA programs, including NASA’s `Journey to Mars’ program,” said Matthew Miller, who wrote the report as a doctoral aerospace engineering student at Georgia Tech.

“The synthesis of timeline execution and life support trends from Apollo captured in this study,” Miller notes in a university press statement, “provides realistic bounds on what future exploration missions might likely face.”

Computer timeline management system

The research was presented to NASA as a technical paper which has been reviewed and archived by the organization. Miller compiled a portion of the data and worked alongside NASA engineers as part of his NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship (NSTRF) at the Johnson Space Center.

In addition to the analysis of the mission reports, the researchers used the data to help inform the development and simulation of a computer timeline management system. This system served as a prototype for a new way of calculating how far ahead or beyond astronauts get while performing EVAs by integrating life support system performance and timeline execution trends.

This effort contributes to the goal of making EVAs more efficient and predictable in anticipation of future surface missions well beyond the Moon.

Message for Marswalkers

During the Apollo missions, the crew was in radio contact with mission control in Houston, which kept track of the clock and communicated schedule adjustments in real time. That won’t be possible when astronauts land on Mars.

“Communication delays will be too extreme to rely on mission control,” said Feigh. “Astronauts will have to depend on the crew inside the spacecraft to monitor their progress during EVAs.”

 

 

 

 

Resources

Full-sized timeline of all 6 Apollo moon landing missions, go to:

http://www.news.gatech.edu/sites/default/files/pictures/moon-walks-timeline.png

For a copy of the final report — Operational Assessment of Apollo Lunar Surface Extravehicular Activity – go to:

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20170007261.pdf

Also, go to a Georgia Tech lunar landing logs website at:

http://www.news.gatech.edu/features/lunar-landing-logs

Now in Sol 1939, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is wrapping up science duties, busily exploring Vera Rubin Ridge location “e,” reports Lauren Edgar, a planetary geologist at the USGS in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Scientists are excited looking over the robot’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) data, Edgar notes, seeing that the instrument did a great job with some very precise pointing in the previous plan.

Focused on small-scale features

“At location ‘e’ we have been focused on understanding small-scale features, like the tiny crystals and veins seen,” Edgar explains. The plan now in place has Curiosity complete the detailed work on this outcrop, and then it will “bump” to a new location to assess a transition from gray to red bedrock.

A two-sol plan has Curiosity acquiring four more carefully pointed ChemCam observations to assess compositional variations in bedrock, a vein, and dark nodules, along with supporting Mastcam documentation.

 

Funzie and Rona

Then the rover was slated to acquire Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) images of the target “Funzie,” and one more MAHLI image on “Rona” to assess small textural differences in the bedrock and veins that are present, Edgar points out.

Just for “Funzie,” the rover is to carry out an overnight Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) analysis. On the second sol, Curiosity’s to-do activities include acquiring a Mastcam multispectral mosaic of the area that the wheeled robot is bumping towards. Doing so will allow scientists to better understand the color differences and the transition from gray to red bedrock in this area.

Bump forward

Curiosity is set to drive roughly 16 feet (5 meters) to the south to set up for contact science in the weekend plan, Edgar reports.

“The plan also includes a number of environmental monitoring observations to look for clouds and variations in dust in the atmosphere,” Edgar adds.

 

 

Odyssey observation

One of the Mastcam atmospheric observations is coordinated with a Mars Odyssey Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) observation.

NASA’s Mars Odyssey has been orbiting the Red Planet since October 2001. The THEMIS observation, Edgar concludes, “is pretty cool,” when thinking about multiple spacecraft studying Mars from the ground and orbit.

NASA is pushing forward on testing a key energy source that literally “empowers” human crews on the near-by Moon and distant Mars, energizing habitats and running on-the-spot processing equipment to transform local resources into oxygen, water, and fuel.

The space agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) has provided multi-year funding for the Kilopower project. This work is viewed as a stepping stone to small fission-powered planetary science missions.

Safe, efficient and plentiful energy

NASA and its partners on the Kilopower work hosted a news conference today, held at the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas. They discussed a recent experiment involving a new power source that could provide the safe, efficient and plentiful energy needed for future robotic and human space exploration missions.

That Kilopower project is part of NASA’s Game Changing Development program and is led by the agency’s Glenn Research Center, in partnership with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Los Alamos, NNSS and the Y-12 National Security Complex.

Kilopower project testing began in November 2017 and is expected to continue through March,

Confidence builder

“The Kilopower test program will give us confidence that this technology is ready for space flight development. We’ll be checking analytical models along the way for verification of how well the hardware is working,” explains Lee Mason, STMD’s Principal Technologist for Power and Energy Storage at NASA Headquarters.

There has been strong leveraging of DOE/National Nuclear Security Administration infrastructure and expertise, Mason points out, as well as tapping the talents of Los Alamos National Laboratory technologists in New Mexico. NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio built the test unit. The Y12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee is providing the reactor core.

Multiple near-term missions

“A space nuclear reactor could provide a high energy density power source with the ability to operate independent of solar proximity or orientation and the ability to operate in extremely hostile environments, such as the Martian surface,” notes Patrick McClure, Project Lead on the KiloPower work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).

“The reactor technology we are testing is applicable to multiple near-term missions, and we ultimately hope that this is the first step for fission reactors to create a new paradigm of truly ambitious and inspiring space exploration,” adds David Poston, LANL’s Chief Reactor Designer. “Simplicity is essential to any first-of-a-kind engineering project – not necessarily the simplest design, but finding the simplest path through design, development, fabrication, safety, and testing.”

Achievable objective

Moving the power source from ground-testing into a space system is an achievable objective, Mason says. “The upcoming Nevada testing will answer a lot of technical questions to prove out the feasibility of this technology, moving it to a Technical Readiness Level of 5. It’s a breadboard test in a vacuum environment, operating the equipment at the right conditions,” he advises.

Looking into the future, Mason suggests that the technology would be ideal for furthering lunar exploration objectives too. “The technology doesn’t care. Moon and or Mars, this power source is agnostic to those environments.”

Lunar campaign

“A moon mission for Kilopower would be ideal,” Mason told Inside Outer Space. “It has the potential to power lander payloads through the lunar night, and possibly for months or years. The power level would be suitable to access, extract, and process lunar ice in permanently shadowed craters and demonstrate propellant production. NASA could also co-develop the system with commercial lunar lander companies that supply power to mining ventures or small settlements,” he envisions.

A successful lunar campaign, Mason said, “would give us confidence for later Mars missions in which humans would depend on Kilopower to make their return propellant and power their habitats.”

Listen-in

To give an ear to today’s review of the Kilopower project held at the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada – power up your phone fingers and dial:

1-800-944-3498

Also, go to this Los Alamos National Lab’s video at:

https://youtu.be/bdMzFQOABcQ

Now in Sol 1938, NASA’s Curiosity rover is continuing its up-close looks at features of Vera Rubin Ridge.

Positioned in location “e,” “it certainly seems that ‘e’ should stand for ‘exciting,’ as we’ve collected quite a rich set of observations at this location, including extensive imaging and geochemical analyses,” reports Rachel Kronyak, a planetary geologist at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Small-scale features

In recent planning, the Mars robot has focused its attention on small-scale features in the rocks in front of the rover to try and understand how they formed.

The script called for Curiosity to carry out a long science block in the early afternoon, during which it was slated to use its Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) to assess the targets “Macleans Nose 2,” “Funzie 2,” and “Ullapool.”

Repeat observations

“The targets with ‘2’ in their name are intended to be repeat observations of targets that we analyzed over the weekend to gather additional information,” Kronyak explains.

“We’ll then take a small Mastcam mosaic,” Kronyak adds, “to document some of the Vera Rubin Ridge terrain further away from the rover.”

Large white vein

Following the science block, the plan calls for deployment of the robotic arm to take a closer look at some interesting rock features, Kronyak adds.

The first is “Rona,” a beautiful large white vein. The rover’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) is on tap to take a series of high-resolution images of the vein to look at its interior, along with an APXS observation to see what the vein is made out of.

 

 

Finally, the schedule calls for taking additional MAHLI images of the target “Loch Maree,” a patch of dark gray material, Kronyak reports.

A hearing today of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Subcommittee on Space, offers “An Update on NASA Commercial Crew Systems Development.”

The purpose of the hearing today is to examine the development of the NASA’s two commercial crew systems, being built by Boeing and SpaceX, to service the International Space Station. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is testifying that continued delays pose risks for uninterrupted access to the International Space Station.

Witnesses and their prepared testimony:

 

 

 

— William Gerstenmaier, Associate Administrator, Human Exploration and Operations Directorate, NASA

https://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/HHRG-115-SY16-WState-WGerstenmaier-20180117.pdf

— John Mulholland, Vice President and Program Manager for Commercial Programs, Boeing Space Exploration

https://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/HHRG-115-SY16-WState-JMulholland-20180117.pdf

— Hans Koenigsmann, Vice President of Build and Flight Reliability, SpaceX

https://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/HHRG-115-SY16-WState-HKoenigsmann-20180117.pdf

— Cristina Chaplain, Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management, U.S. Government Accountability Office

https://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/HHRG-115-SY16-WState-CChaplain-20180117.pdf

— Patricia Sanders, Chair, NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel

https://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/HHRG-115-SY16-WState-PSanders-20180117.pdf

Opening statement

U.S. Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas), chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee’s Subcommittee on Space, delivered the following opening statement at today’s subcommittee hearing:

“The goal of the commercial crew program was to develop a faster, more cost-effective way to procure space transportation services without sacrificing safety or reliability. The intent was to leverage the lessons learned and the investments made in the commercial cargo program.

At the outset, there was hope that contractor funding would decrease the development costs to NASA and the taxpayer and that this would justify the contractors keeping the intellectual property derived from federal funding. There was also an assumption that the contractors would find other customers, improving economies of scale, which would then lead to lower launch prices for NASA. Finally, there was a presumption that contractors could deliver systems faster if there was less government oversight.

If not, why not?

Today’s hearing is a great opportunity to evaluate whether the program is living up to those goals. Have the contractors funded development costs? If so, how much? If not, why not, and should the government retain the intellectual property? Previous hearings held by this committee indicated that NASA is funding 90 percent or more of the costs. Has this changed?

Are the contractors finding other customers to offset NASA operational costs? The commercial cargo program created two separate Delta-2 class launch vehicles that have certainly found customers outside NASA. However, the costs to NASA under the second commercial resupply services contract went up, not down. Should we expect costs to grow rather than shrink under the commercial crew program as well?

Has the commercial crew program maintained its planned schedule? Are there appropriate incentives built into the contracts to maintain the schedule and penalize delays?

Seek answers

This hearing offers us the opportunity to reflect on the status of the program and seek answers to those questions.

A lot has happened in the last few years. The program is making significant progress; however, as we will hear from the witnesses, there have been challenges. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported last February that the neither Boeing nor SpaceX would be able to certify their systems in 2017.

That GAO report and the recently released Annual Report of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) both warned that certification is likely to slide even further to 2019. This was confirmed just last week we were formally notified that SpaceX’s first launch would be delayed again.

Further, reports from the GAO, ASAP, the inspector general and others point out that neither company may be able to meet safety requirements. The recently released annual report from the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel states that it appears that neither provider will be able to achieve one in 500 for ascent/entry and will be challenged to meet the overall mission requirement of one in 200, based on capsule design alone.

Schedules slip

Meanwhile, as schedules slip, we continue to pay Russia $80 million per seat to take our astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). This not only creates additional budget pressure on the agency, it hinders full utilization of the ISS and ultimately complicates future exploration plans. With the end of the ISS on the horizon, the clock is ticking on maximizing the return on the taxpayer’s investment. The longer we wait for the commercial crew program, the less we can accomplish on ISS.

Other programs at NASA, including SLS and Orion and the James Webb Space Telescope also face significant delays, cost overruns and challenges.

The taxpayers and Congress have neither infinite budgets nor infinite patience. Foreseeable delays, predictable overruns and performance lapses all have real consequences. Contractors should not assume that the taxpayers and Congress will continue to tolerate this.

NASA and its contractors must restore our American confidence in their ability to deliver safe, cost-effective leadership in space. This committee has strongly supported the commercial crew program and consistently advocated for full funding. That support continues, but the contractors need to deliver safe, reliable systems on budget and on schedule.”

Video:

To view the hearing, go to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xts7MzioPjA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now in Sol 1936 and investigating location “e” – an informal site name but one that is stirring up excitement within the rover’s science team.

That’s the word from Christopher Edwards, a planetary geologist from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.

Geologic story

“The first thing the science team on shift did was decide to stay at the current location rather than drive away,” Edwards notes. “This was primarily driven by the large suite of excellent science targets available in the workspace. These targets continue to help constrain the geologic story of the Vera Rubin Ridge.”

Two arm targets for Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) integrations were quickly chosen by the science team and handed off to the rover planners for assessment: “Ross of Mull” and “Mcleans Nose.”

Elongated, raised, linear features

Ross of Mull is a grayer bedrock area with nodular material nearby, while Mcleans Nose is a prominent gray toned resistant feature.

Edwards says that Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) data was acquired of a suite of targets, “including those that had the elongate[d], raised, linear features known by the team as “sticks”, as well as the two APXS targets.”

Workspace photos

Documentation imaging of these targets, Edwards adds, including multispectral imaging to characterize the visible/near-infrared spectral properties of the site, will happen over the course of the plan.

Use of the robot’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) imaging of the workspace will continue and is likely to produce stunning images, Edwards concludes. “Mars continues to provide Curiosity with some fabulous rocks for investigation!”

 

 

Entrance to an underground network of lava tubes on the Moon may have been found – perhaps an underground “watering hole” rife with ice for future explorers.

Using NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), the discovery of small pits in a large crater near the Moon’s North Pole could indicate pathways to a subsurface system of lava tubes. The finding was announced by the SETI Institute and the Mars Institute.

Impact crater

Location of the pits is cross-haired on the northeastern floor of Philolaus Crater, a large, 43 mile (70 kilometer)-diameter impact crater.

“The highest resolution images available for Philolaus Crater do not allow the pits to be identified as lava tube skylights with 100 percent certainty, but we are looking at good candidates considering simultaneously their size, shape, lighting conditions and geologic setting” says Pascal Lee, planetary scientist at the SETI Institute and the Mars Institute who made the new finding at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.

Subsurface ice

If water ice is present, these potential lava tube entrances or “skylights” might allow future explorers easier access to subsurface ice, and therefore water, than if they had to excavate the gritty ice-rich “regolith” (surface rubble) at the actual lunar poles, Lee points out.

Lee announced the discovery of the candidate lava tube skylights in Philolaus Crater last week at NASA’s Lunar Science for Landed Missions Workshop convened by the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) at Ames.

Access, extraction, utilizati

The announcement represents the first published report of possible lava tube skylights in the Moon’s polar regions. Over 200 pits had been found elsewhere on the Moon by other researchers, with many identified as likely skylights leading to underground lava tubes along sections of winding channels, known on the Moon as “sinuous rilles.”

Particularly important for future human explorers is the prospect of easier access, extraction and then utilization of lunar polar ice.

First of all, skylights and lava tubes could provide more direct access to the very cold polar underground, alleviating the need to excavate vast amounts of lunar regolith.

Secondly, if ice is present inside the lava tubes – which is not yet known – it could be in the form of massive ice formations as often occur in cold lava tubes on Earth – instead of mixed-in within lunar grit.

Lastly, solar power would be available nearby, just outside each skylight.

BTW: NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission ended on December 17, 2012 with the two spacecraft GRAIL A (Ebb) and GRAIL B (Flow) impacting the Moon. Both impact sites lie on the southern slope of an unnamed massif (mountain) that lies south of the crater Mouchez and northeast of the Philolaus Crater.

Caving astronauts

Being on the Moon’s near side, Philolaus Crater affords direct communications with the Earth.

“We would also have a beautiful view of Earth. The Apollo landing sites were all near the Moon’s equator, such that the Earth was almost directly overhead for the astronauts. But from the Philolaus skylights, Earth would loom just over the crater’s mountainous rim, near the horizon to the southeast” adds Lee in a press statement.

“This is an exciting possibility that a new generation of caving astronauts or robotic spelunkers could help address” Lee notes. “Exploring lava tubes on the Moon will also prepare us for the exploration of lava tubes on Mars. There, we will face the prospect of expanding our search for life into the deeper underground of Mars where we might find environments that are warmer, wetter, and more sheltered than at the surface.”

Go to these informative videos:

Philolaus Traverse

https://vimeo.com/250525395

Polar Caves on the Moon? – Pascal Lee

https://vimeo.com/250518650