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December 11th, 2024
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, left, and U.S. Department of State Acting Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Jennifer R. Littlejohn, right, look on as Ambassador of the Republic of Austria to the United States of America Petra Schneebauer, signs the Artemis Accords.
NASA welcomed onboard the Artemis Accords two new nations today, bringing the total to 50 signatories of a set of principles promoting the beneficial use of space for humanity.
Panama and Austria signed the Artemis Accords during separate signing ceremonies at NASA Headquarters in Washington, becoming the 49th and 50th nations to sign on the dotted line.
In 2020, the United States, led by NASA with the U.S. Department of State, and seven other initial signatory nations established the Artemis Accords.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, left, Ambassador of the Republic of Panama to the United States of America José Miguel Alemán Healy, center, and U.S. Department of State Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Tony Fernandes.
As noted by NASA, “the Artemis Accords are grounded in the Outer Space Treaty and other agreements including the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices and norms of responsible behavior that NASA and its partners have supported, including the public release of scientific data.”
The Artemis Accords are a voluntary commitment to engage in safe, transparent, responsible behavior in space, “and any nation that wants to commit to those values is welcome to sign,” adds NASA.
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Space debris plunges to Earth, burning its way through the atmosphere.
Image credit: The Aerospace Corporation
The European Space Agency (ESA) will premier Space Debris: Is it a Crisis? at the 9th European Conference on Space Debris being held in Bonn, Germany.
As our use of space accelerates like never before, satellites find themselves navigating increasingly congested orbits. Space has become an environment crisscrossed by streams of fast-moving debris fragments – the result from anti-satellite testing to collisions between objects in space.
Reported debris from an expended third-stage of a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) – a medium-lift launcher operated by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
Image credit: Australian Space Agency
Clutter crisis?
“Some spacecraft operators and astronomers have expressed concern about our rapidly increasing and loosely regulated use of space,” notes ESA. “But others insist that Earth’s orbital environment is so large, and that the planet’s atmosphere pulls down and burns up debris fast enough that there is no need to worry about any long-term consequences.”
So, does space clutter really represent a crisis?
ESA’s latest short documentary film on the state of space debris is to be premiered in April 2025.
Meanwhile, go to this trailer at:
NASA’s Genesis spacecraft crashed into the U.S. Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah in 2004.
Image credit: NASA
Yes, it came from outer space, but with unintended consequences.
It was in September 2004 when NASA’s Genesis return sample capsule tumbled from the sky and slammed into the Utah desert, a remote part of the U.S. Army’s Dugway Proving Ground.
The upshot of that downfall: Over 20 years of painstaking work by scientists sorting through contaminated leftovers due to the spacecraft’s high-speed, full-stop slam into terra firma.
A damaged Genesis undergoes close scrutiny as researchers salvage the mission’s scientific goals. Image credit: NASA
Late “breaking” new
You could dub it “late breaking” news about Genesis science findings after two decades of intensive study, findings that are slated for discussion at this week’s annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) being held in Washington, D.C.
For details, go to my new SpaceNews story on what Genesis researchers are reporting via – “Shattered Genesis spacecraft yields scientific discoveries 20 years after crash landing” – at:
NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft visited Uranus in a brief flyby back in 1986.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
For sure, it was a far-reaching recommendation. The planet Uranus and its moons should be NASA’s highest priority new Flagship mission for start-up in the decade 2023-2032.
A Uranus Orbiter and Probe (UOP) would conduct a multiyear orbital tour to yield knowledge of ice giants in general, and the Uranian system in particular, doing so through flybys and the delivery of an atmospheric probe.
Taking the plunge! Uranus exploration can be opened up by an orbiter/probe mission, a new NASA Flagship venture.
Image credit: Keck Institute for Space Studies/Chuck Carter
The payoff: “transformative, breakthrough science across a broad range of topics.”
Mark Hofstadter is a planetary scientist working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He’s not solar system shy and admits Uranus is his favorite planet.
Why is that the case? Take a read of my new Space.com story – “The yearning for Uranus: A far-out world with a tale to tell” – at:
Artist rendering of the X-37B performing an aerobraking maneuver using the drag of Earth’s atmosphere.
Image credit: Boeing Space
That secretive U.S. Space Force X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-7), now some 345 days in orbit, is engaged in performing aerobrake maneuvers, a technique to alter its orbit around Earth and safely dispose of its attached service module.
Lofted back in late December of 2023, the military spaceplane was placed in an orbit higher than any spaceplane, in a highly elliptical high Earth orbit. From that orbit, the United States Space Force, supported by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, conducted radiation effect experiments and tested Space Domain Awareness technologies.
X-37B (OTV-7) is also referred to as United States Space Force-52 (USSF-52). Image credit: SpaceX
This OTV-7 flight marks the first time the U.S. Space Force and the X-37B have attempted to carry out a dynamic aerobraking maneuver.
Expending minimal fuel
“The Boeing-built X37B will perform ground-breaking aerobraking maneuvers to take the dynamic spaceplane from one Earth orbit to another while conserving fuel. Partnered with the United States Space Force, this novel demonstration is the first of its kind,” Boeing explains.
Image credit: Boeing/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The use of the aerobraking maneuver requires the heat-tiled spacecraft to conduct a series of passes using the drag of Earth’s atmosphere. That technique enables the spacecraft to change orbits while expending minimal fuel.
There are no details as yet on whether the aerobrake maneuvering is complete. If so, the X-37B was slated to resume its test and experimentation objectives until they are accomplished. At that point, the vehicle is to de-orbit and execute a safe return to Earth, likely at the Kennedy Space Center.
OTV-6 return at Kennedy Space Center. Image credit: Boeing/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Apollo, Zond programs
“I wouldn’t exactly call it ground breaking. Aerobraking occurs every time something re-enters. If the object has a heat shield, it survives, if not – it breaks up,” explains Bob Christy of the informative Orbital Focus website at https://www.orbitalfocus.uk/
As far as using aerobraking for trajectory control goes, Christy told Inside Outer Space that you can look back as far as the 1960s to the U.S. Apollo and former Soviet Union Zond programs.
“Zond used aerobraking to modify the incoming extremely elliptical orbit to a sub-orbital trajectory. Original perigee was within the atmosphere, above the Indian Ocean. Encounter with the atmosphere shaved off sufficient velocity to result in a ballistic arc with a second atmosphere entry point above Russia,” Christy advised.
Image credit: Boeing Space/Inside Outer Space screengrab
“I believe Apollo had a plan to do something similar. There was a fear that a small error could strand the CM [command module] in low Earth orbit so it was modified to keep the aerobraked trajectory within the atmosphere,” Christy said, recalling Voice of America coverage of the re-entries and the danger of “skipping off into space” that was often mentioned.
Lowering orbital height
A recent reported orbit of the X-37B came November 2 by an amateur observer, Toni Simola, who observed the craft in an orbit of about 100 x 30,000 kilometers, nearly 9,000 kilometers down from its original height, Christy said. “There was never any way for the craft to return to Earth using a retro-rocket as it cannot carry sufficient propellant for the job,” he said.
OTV-6 was the first mission to introduce a service module that expanded the capabilities of the spacecraft.
Image credit: Staff Sgt. Adam Shanks
“It probably continued with the low perigee, with a plan to raise it once apogee reached 400-500 kilometers so it can continue its mission in low Earth orbit. I notice that the Boeing press release mentions disposal of the [vehicle’s] Service Module so maybe it was planned to be released before the X-37B raised perigee, to re-enter above the southern hemisphere,” said Christy. “We’ll not know whether the maneuver is complete or successful until either Boeing/Space Force announces it or an amateur observer detects it again.”
Go to this Boeing video at:
I was pleased to join my fellow space colleagues – Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik – December 6 th for an episode of their hit podcast to discuss the next NASA Administrator, delays in the Artemis rebooting of the Moon, as well the murky and mysterious nature of UFOs and UAPs, along with the consequences of contact with other star folks.
Go to:
Image credit: Huazhong University
Space travelers aboard China’s space station are soon to affix bricks made of Moon simulant to the outside of the station’s Wentian module.
The experiment involves brick samples to test techniques for fabricating lunar housing at the Moon’s south pole region.
According to the Xinhua news agency, future lunar domiciles make use of “mortise-and-tenon” fabrication, joining pieces at right angles without the use of nails.
“The earliest example of this technique dates back 7,000 years to the Hemudu culture in east China’s Zhejiang Province,” the Xinhua report adds.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Space exposure
Concocted by a team at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) in Wuhan, the brick samples weigh 226 grams and are simulated lunar regolith based on authentic samples brought back to Earth from the Moon by China’s Chang’e-5 robotic mission in December 2020.
Ding Lieyun, a professor at HUST, leads the work on interlocking joints on the Moon for assembly of habitats.
Chinese team on lunar habitat construction is led by Ding Lieyun at central China’s Huazhong University.
Image credit: CCTV/nside Outer Space
Once placed outside the Wentian module, the lunar bricks are to provide data about their resilience to temperature extremes and cosmic radiation. They were brought up from Earth to the orbiting outpost by the Tianzhou-8 supply ship last month.
The Wentian module is outfitted with 22 standard payload interfaces outboard for conducting extravehicular exposure experiments, Xinhua notes.
Cylindrical/slab forms
The brick samples in the experiment, divided into three groups, come in cylindrical and slab forms: the cylinders test mechanical integrity, while the slabs appraise insulation and heat resistance.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
These first samples are to be retrieved from their space exposure by the end of 2025. A second retrieval is slated for 2026, followed by the last retrieval in 2027.
According to the Xinhua news story, Ding’s team made use of a brick-making process that uses a caustic soda solution or sulfur to solidify lunar regolith. Volcanic ash from Changbai Mountain in northeast China’s Jilin Province closely mirrors the composition of lunar regolith.
The set of experimental bricks were prepared using three sintering techniques: vacuum, inert gas and air sintering.
Lunar building specialist, Zhou Cheng, a professor at the National Center of Technology Innovation for Digital Construction.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Lunar dwelling design
HUST research includes development of a robotic system to handle the assembly, with the final step involving the use of 3D printing to reinforce the structure.
At China’s National Center of Technology Innovation for Digital Construction (NCTI-DC), a center under the HUST, lunar dwelling designs are being evaluated. A building model takes on the look of a vertically oriented eggshell structure, divided into an upper work area and a lower rest area.
Research is also underway for fabricating a Lego-like lunar base and a lunar landing pad, the Xinhua news agency story points out.
Image credit: Huazhong University
Artemis 2 crewmembers will cruise by the moon during their mission, an eye-encounter of the lunar kind.
Image credit: NASA/Kennedy Space Center
NASA STATEMENT: “Through the Artemis campaign, NASA will land the next American astronauts and first international astronaut on the South Pole region of the Moon. On Thursday, NASA announced the latest updates to its lunar exploration plans.
Experts discussed results of NASA’s investigation into its Orion spacecraft heat shield after it experienced an unexpected loss of charred material during re-entry of the Artemis I uncrewed test flight.
For the Artemis II crewed test flight, engineers will continue to prepare Orion with the heat shield already attached to the capsule.
The agency also announced it is now targeting April 2026 for Artemis II and mid-2027 for Artemis III. The updated mission timelines also reflect time to address the Orion environmental control and life support systems.
Image credit: NASA
“The Artemis campaign is the most daring, technically challenging, collaborative, international endeavor humanity has ever set out to do,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “We have made significant progress on the Artemis campaign over the past four years, and I’m proud of the work our teams have done to prepare us for this next step forward in exploration as we look to learn more about Orion’s life support systems to sustain crew operations during Artemis II. We need to get this next test flight right. That’s how the Artemis campaign succeeds.”
Image credit: NASA OIG
The agency’s decision comes after an extensive investigation of an Artemis I heat shield issue showed the Artemis II heat shield can keep the crew safe during the planned mission with changes to Orion’s trajectory as it enters Earth’s atmosphere and slows from nearly 25,000 mph to about 325 mph before its parachutes unfurl for safe splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
“Throughout our process to investigate the heat shield phenomenon and determine a forward path, we’ve stayed true to NASA’s core values; safety and data-driven analysis remained at the forefront,” said Catherine Koerner, associate administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The updates to our mission plans are a positive step toward ensuring we can safely accomplish our objectives at the Moon and develop the technologies and capabilities needed for crewed Mars missions.”
Image credit: NASA
NASA will continue stacking its SLS (Space Launch System) rocket elements, which began in November, and prepare it for integration with Orion for Artemis II.
Throughout the fall months, NASA, along with an independent review team, established the technical cause of an issue seen after the uncrewed Artemis I test flight in which charred material on the heat shield wore away differently than expected.
Extensive analysis, including from more than 100 tests at unique facilities across the country, determined the heat shield on Artemis I did not allow for enough of the gases generated inside a material called Avcoat to escape, which caused some of the material to crack and break off.
Orion heat shield features ablative material, called Avcoat.
Image credit: Lockheed Martin
Avcoat is designed to wear away as it heats up and is a key material in the thermal protection system that guards Orion and its crew from the nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit of temperatures that are generated when Orion returns from the Moon through Earth’s atmosphere. Although a crew was not inside Orion during Artemis I, data shows the temperature inside Orion remained comfortable and safe had crew been aboard.
Engineers already are assembling and integrating the Orion spacecraft for Artemis III based on lessons learned from Artemis I and implementing enhancements to how heat shields for crewed returns from lunar landing missions are manufactured to achieve uniformity and consistent permeability. The skip entry is needed for return from speeds expected for lunar landing missions.”
Arc Jet Complex at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley has been used to study unexpected heat shield issues found after Orion capsule’s Artemis I flight in 2022.
Image credit: NASA Ames Research Center
Wait-a-Minute!
Image credit: Barbara David
Stand by for NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and space agency leadership today to offer a briefing about the Artemis “re-booting” of the Moon campaign. The NASA news conference is at 1 p.m. Eastern Time, Thursday, Dec. 5, from the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Sure to be highlighted and brought up by heavy-breathing reporters is the current status of the Orion heat shield and reported “root cause” findings about the heat shield’s unexpected problems that cropped up during the uncrewed Artemis I mission in December 2022.
Image credit: NASA OIG
Participants in the briefing include:
- NASA Administrator Bill Nelson
- NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy
- NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free
- Reid Wiseman, NASA astronaut and Artemis II commander
- Catherine Koerner, associate administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
- Amit Kshatriya, deputy associate administrator, Moon to Mars Program Office, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate
Mars on the mind
Given the Moon to Mars NASA agenda, the current status of the space agency’s sample plan for the Red Planet is likely to be discussed.
Now in limbo and sanity check status due to budget-busting problems, along with how and when the robotic outing to Mars can be scheduled, the NASA/ESA Mars Sample Return (MSR) is in revision mode.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Industry, NASA and other agencies have been diving into MSR details of how to pull off the undertaking. Where this stands at the moment is likely to also be brought up during the press event.
Crosshairs and crossroads
Lastly, the recent National Academies study of NASA’s overall health may surface. The prestigious National Academies has taken a hard look at the NASA of today and what’s ahead.
That report was titled “NASA at a Crossroads: Maintaining Workforce, Infrastructure, and Technology Preeminence in the Coming Decades.”
It details out-of-date infrastructure, pressures to prioritize short-term objectives, budget mismatches, inefficient management practices, and nonstrategic reliance on commercial partners are spotlighted as core issues needing attention.
So hold on tight and tune in via NASA+ at:
https://plus.nasa.gov/scheduled-video/nasa-artemis-campaign-leadership-news-conference/
Meanwhile, take a read of my past postings on these NASA issues:
Artemis II: Orion Heat Shield Issues – Decision Forthcoming
https://www.leonarddavid.com/artemis-ii-orion-heat-shield-issues-decision-forthcoming/
NASA at a Crossroads: Hard-hitting Report Flags Budget Woes, Aging Infrastructure, Hard Choices Ahead
Also, check out this just-out evolution of Mars exploration video at:
https://youtu.be/9rJ4vWDfiI8?si=CWPwMU-cPOK7LAVm
Wait-a-Minute!
Image credit: Barbara David
Pile driving the International Space Station into the Earth’s atmosphere is on the books, but what are the consequences?
Image credit: NASA
The International Space Station is a problem child.
The orbital outpost is plagued by cracks, coolant and air leaks, even a surprising smell that recently wafting into the station from a just-arrived Russian Progress cargo ship.
Toss into the mix a number of high-speed, close encounters with space clutter from time to time that make the space facility a risky residence.
Bottom line: There’s escalating worry that the aging complex has become a questionable home for crews to be safe and sound.
Making the Elvis Presley maneuver
Sustaining ISS operations through 2030 is touch-and-go, prior to a projected 2031 “safe, controlled de-orbit” into remote ocean territory as foreseen by NASA.
Nuanced nudge to final plunge. Artwork shows a SpaceX-provided United States Deorbit Vehicle (USDV).
Image credit: SpaceX
Think of it this way.
Such a destructive plunge might as well be labeled the Elvis Presley maneuver, one that renders the ISS as “just a hunk, a hunk of burning love,” as its temperature rises high and higher while violently deep diving into Earth’s atmosphere.
For more details, go to my new Space.com story – “Will the International Space Station’s 2031 death dive cause pollution problems? Some people have begun asking the question” – at:
