Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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February 8th, 2024
Wait-a-Minute!
Image credit: Barbara David
There’s some interesting “wait a minute” fallout from the upcoming nose dive to Earth of the European Remote Sensing satellite, ERS-2.
According to the European Space Agency (ESA), the spent ERS-2 satellite weighing 2.3 tons is predicted to slip into Earth’s atmosphere on February 19 – with a current uncertainty of +/- 2.8 days.
“No intervention can be made from the ground, so ERS-2 will return entirely naturally – now a common occurrence as on average one spacecraft reenters Earth’s atmosphere per month,” an ESA statement explains.
The bit about “return entirely naturally” is an interesting, user-friendly substitute for “uncontrolled.”
Artwork of incoming ERS-2. Image credit: ESA
End of life
Following its launch in April 1995, ERS-2 ran for nearly 16 years of observing the Earth.
In 2011, ESA took the decision to bring the mission to an end.
That was followed by ground-activated de-orbit maneuvers. Those lowered the satellite’s average altitude and mitigated the risk of collision with other satellites or space debris, ESA notes.
The spacecraft was also “passivated” to reduce the risk of fragmentation. Passivated is getting rid of internally stored energy, like unused propellant, even de-charging batteries.
Wake-up call
All that said there are those that see the fall of ERS-2 as a calling card from space that doubles as a wake-up call – and on several fronts.
Netting of orbital debris has been studied, with ERS-2 as the catchable bait in a mix of junk-snatching ideas.
Image credit: ESA/D.Ducros
“While the ESA should be lauded for its efforts to de-orbit the ERS-2, it should be unsurprising that a 2.3-ton satellite launched into Earth orbit without any enforceable orbital debris regulation will then return to Earth’s atmosphere as orbital debris in an explosive uncontrolled reentry,” said Michael Runnels, an assistant professor of business law at California State University, Los Angeles.
“Indeed, these events highlight the continuing need for enforceable orbital debris regulation to support the sustainable exploration and scientific investigation of outer space,” Runnels told Inside Outer Space.
Someone someday
Ewan Wright is a PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia and Junior Fellow of the Outer Space Institute. He is actively focused on the sustainability of the outer space environment.
ERS-2 is a three decade old Earth Observation satellite with a mass about that of a Ford F-150, Wright said. “ERS-2 won’t burn up entirely when it reenters the atmosphere, so there is a chance that debris will hit someone on the ground, or disrupt air traffic.”
ERS-2 artwork.
Image credit: ESA
Wright told Inside Outer Space that, fortunately, the probability of someone getting hit is small. “But if we keep doing this again and again, someone someday will get hurt.”
Random reentries
Last year, 30 satellites larger than 500 kilograms uncontrollably reentered the atmosphere.
In total, in 2023, about 55 tons of satellite reentered randomly, Wright stated. ESA was responsible in lowering ERS-2’s orbit to make sure it didn’t become permanent space debris, he said.
“But in the future, all large satellites should do controlled reentries. Operators should control them to reenter over the oceans, away from people, aircraft and ships,” Wright concluded.
Minimize risk
The incoming ERS-2 is something that happens quite regularly with defunct satellites, said Leonard Schulz, a researcher at the Technische Universität Braunschweig’s Institute of Geophysics and Extraterrestrial Physics in Braunschweig, Germany.
Such falls will only increase in the future, Schulz added, due to the growing number of objects brought into low Earth orbit.
Image credit: NOAA
“I think the mass of the object stands out, probably some parts of the satellite will survive reentry,” Schulz told Inside Outer Space. “And this is the reason why people try to make satellites burn up completely in the atmosphere, to minimize the risk to people on ground.”
Atmospheric effects
Schulz said that there’s need to consider the effects on the atmosphere from spacecraft re-entry, a hot topic that ESA is evaluating.
“Today, we are lacking information on many aspects when it comes to materials released and subsequent effects on the atmosphere,” Schulz pointed out.
Satellite reentries are a good opportunity to gather observational data with measurement campaigns, Schulz advised. However, such uncontrolled reentries as with ERS-2 are extremely difficult to observe, he said, as the uncertainty of where the satellite reenters is so high.
“But controlled reentries provide great measurement opportunities,” Schulz concluded, “which should be a focus in the future!”
Taking the fall. Space hardware dives into Earth’s atmosphere with some fragments making their way to the ground.
Image credit: ESA/D.Ducros
Posted in 
Mars beckons. Human explorers can maximize the science output for unraveling the complex nature of the Red Planet.
Image credit: NASA/Pat Rawlings
The future of Mars exploration will be greatly enhanced by humans that make the sojourn to the Red Planet. Indeed, flesh and bone on that distant world far outstrips what mechanized Mars machinery can attain – but yes, certainly at far greater cost.
NASA is blueprinting a moon-to-Mars strategy that identifies science as one of three pillars upon which the agency’s quest for a sustained human exploration throughout the solar system is built.
The huge canyon that is Valles Marineris is arguably Mars’ most dramatic landscape and offers a scientific bonanza for future expeditionary crews.
Image credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum), CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
What’s now being plotting out is the architecture for achieving that goal.
Shoe-horning in science
Arguably, the science conducted on the surface of Mars by astronauts will have the most impact on the scope and scale of that architecture. Therefore, deciding on science priorities warrant early attention.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has experimented with virtual and mixed reality environments as ways to improve exploration of Mars.
Image credit: NASA/Human Centered Design Group at JPL
Recent history demonstrates the issue of shoe-horning in science tasks for astronauts too late.
That is a central message from a recent study for the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG), one that suggests how and where on the Red Planet humans can maximize exploration and science output.
To read my new Space.com story – “Humans on Mars could conduct far better science than any machine: ‘It is important to think about what supporting instruments and technologies need to be developed now to equip our astronauts for doing outstanding science at Mars.'” – go to:
Samples of asteroid Bennu are now in vials for intensive study at the University of Arizona.
Image credit: Chris Richards/University of Arizona Communications
Scientists are now inspecting snagged, bagged and tagged bits and pieces from asteroid Bennu, the cosmic mother lode delivered by NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security – Regolith Explorer mission.
It’s known in acronymic astro-speak as OSIRIS-REx.
Scientists are now inspecting snagged, bagged and tagged bits and pieces from asteroid Bennu, the cosmic mother lode delivered to Earth last year by NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security – Regolith Explorer mission.
View of the OSIRIS-REx Touch-and-Go-Sample-Acquisition-Mechanism (TAGSAM) head with balky lid removed, unveiling the bulk of asteroid Bennu sample inside.
(Image credit: NASA/Erika Blumenfeld/Joseph Aebersold
Export control
I caught up with two leading scientists at the Univ. of Arizona’s “extraterrestrial export control central” now engaged in extracting what those darkish asteroid particles are illuminating, sorting out how these materials exported from Bennu came to be. But also what insights they hold for the origin of the worlds within our solar system, including Earth.
Go to my new Space.com story – “1st look at asteroid Bennu samples suggests space rock may even be ‘a fragment of an ancient ocean world’ – at:
https://www.space.com/asteroid-bennu-osiris-rex-samples-1st-look-surprises
Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx’s principal investigator from the University of Arizona holds a mock up of the asteroid collection device – TAGSAM.
Image credit: Barbara David
Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/Simeon Schmauß
NASA’s now off-duty and damaged Mars helicopter has been spotted by the Perseverance rover, the final resting place among the sand ripples in Neretva Vallis.
Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/Simeon SchmaußA panorama has been assembled from six images taken by the rover’s right Mastcam-Z on Sol 1052.
Simeon Schmauß explains via X/Twitter that the images were up-scaled 2x and color processed to approximately match what the human eye would see.
After its 72nd flight on Jan. 18, 2024, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter captured imagery of its rotor blades, damaged during touchdown.
Zooming in on Ingenuity's final resting place among the sand ripples in Neretva Vallis.
— Simeon Schmauß (@stim3on) February 5, 2024
Full resolution panorama: https://t.co/jbDkOAM5bB
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/Simeon Schmauß #ThanksIngenuity #MarsHelicopter pic.twitter.com/EiBZYYjbZR
NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image using its Right Mastcam-Z camera, a pair of cameras located high on the rover’s mast. This image was acquired on Feb. 4, 2024 (Sol 1052).
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Ingenuity’s color camera acquired these post-flight damage images using its high-resolution color camera mounted in the helicopter’s fuselage.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity’s location as of Sol 4083, with distance driven at that time: 19.47 miles/31.33 kilometers.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 4086 duties.
Reports Sharon Wilson Purdy, a planetary geologist at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., Curiosity continues its investigation of the light and dark banded sulfate terrain and started a two-sol (Sols 4084-4085) planning day with several beautiful rocks within the reach of the rover’s robotic arm.
“The rover is tantalizingly close to the base of the upper Gediz Vallis ridge and the team is very excited for the spectacular geology ahead,” Purdy adds.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 4085, February 2, 2024.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Flakey dark material
Mars researchers kicked off planning for sol 4084 by analyzing a finely layered rock named “Grizzly Lakes” with the dust removal tool (DRT), the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) imaging.
Purdy explains that just beyond “Grizzly Lakes,” the robot’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) and its Mastcam teamed up to characterize a crescent-shaped rock, “Gorge of Despair,” to investigate flakey dark material standing in relief on the surface of the rock.
The Mastcam team created a mosaic of the workspace in addition to three mosaics that characterized the local bedrock and sand at “Roads End,” “Knapsack Pass,” and “Rae Lake.”
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 4085, February 2, 2024.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Small impact crater
Mastcam also took a mosaic of “Round Lake” to image what is likely a small impact crater, Purdy notes.
“We pushed the plan to the limit by including two long distance ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) images of a dark band in the distance, and an outcrop along the upper Gediz Vallis Ridge to characterize the variety of rocks,” Purdy reports.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 4085, February 2, 2024.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Lastly, Mars team members included a Navcam mosaic of the view behind the rover, Purdy adds, to document several of the layers and buttes in Chenapau, Orinoco, and Kukenan that Curiosity drove by in recent months. “And then we hit the road!”
Mouth-watering vantage point
On the schedule is a planned drive of 33 feet (10-meters) that will put Curiosity on a “topographic bench,” Purdy explains, “that should provide a mouth-watering vantage point to document a section of the upper Gediz Vallis ridge that is informally named ‘Fascination Turret.’ We hope to evaluate the processes that deposited the sediment in this ridge to understand how it formed and how it was later eroded to its present-day form.”
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 4085, February 2, 2024.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
On the plan for Sol 4085, Mars researchers scheduled a ChemCam AEGIS activity.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 4084, February 1, 2024.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Purdy explains that AEGIS is an acronym for Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science and is a mode where the rover identifies and selects a geological target from navigation camera images based on a set of guidelines set by scientists back here on Earth.
“Several environmental observations are included in the plan to monitor dust devil activity as well as zenith, suprahorizon, and Tau observations that will measure the amount of dust in the atmosphere,” Purdy concludes.
Curiosity Mast Camera (Mastcam) image produced on Sol 4084, February 2, 2024.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity Mast Camera (Mastcam) image produced on Sol 4084, February 2, 2024.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The Intuitive Machines Odysseus Moon lander.. IM-1 mission is targeting Malapert-A crater near the Moon’s south pole.
Image credit: Intuitive Machines
Intuitive Machines is nearing launch of the company’s Nova-C class lunar lander, named Odysseus, via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
This Intuitive Machines (IM-1) launch was selected through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative in which NASA contracts with a commercial partner.
Given successful launch (possibly on Feb. 14 – Valentine’s Day), in-space operations, and Earth-to-Moon transfer maneuvers, Odysseus is to land near crater Malapert A near the south pole of the Moon.
Image credit: Intuitive Machines
Science objectives
The commercially built lander will carry five NASA payloads and commercial cargo.
As for the scientific objectives of the mission, they include studies of the lander’s plume-surface interactions, radio astronomy, and space weather interactions with the lunar surface.
Odysseus will also demonstrate precision landing technologies and communication and navigation node capabilities.
This Intuitive Machines lander is capable of operating for about 14 Earth days in lunar sunlight.
For more details, go to:
“Next Private Moon Lander Attempt to Fly in February” at:
https://www.leonarddavid.com/next-private-moon-lander-attempt-to-fly-in-february/
Image credit: CNSA
China’s Queqiao-2 – a relay satellite for the country’s Moon missions – arrived February 2 at the Wenchang launch center in south China’s Hainan Province.
According to China’s National Space Administration (CNSA), testing of the spacecraft will soon be underway with launch in the first half of this year.
Once on duty, Queqiao-2 will make use of a 4.2 meter parabolic antenna to enable communication between China’s lunar surface operations and ground controllers, providing relay support for the already on the Moon Chang’e-4, and upcoming missions of Chang’e-6, Chang’e-7 and Chang’e-8 robotic lunar probes.
Chang’e-6, to be launched later this year, is to attempt the first-ever sample return to Earth of lunar specimens from the Moon’s far side.
Image credit: CNSA
Fourth phase
Queqiao-2, or Magpie Bridge-2, is a key part of the fourth phase of China’s lunar exploration program, ahead of a projected human lunar expedition by 2030.
This new and upgraded relay sentinel follows Queqiao-1, launched in May 2018. It supported China’s Chang’e-4 mission. That robotic lander and Yutu rover mission made the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon back in January 2019.
Test satellites, science payloads
The upgraded Queqiao-2 relay reportedly will carry two Queqiao communication technology test satellites, Tiandu-1 and Tiandu-2 designed by China’s Deep Space Exploration Laboratory.
China’s Chang’e-6 lunar sample return mission elements.
Credit: CNSA
Queqiao-2 also totes a trio of scientific payloads: An extreme ultraviolet camera, an array neutral atom imager, and an Earth-Moon Very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) system.
To achieve better visibility of the Moon’s south pole region, the Queqiao-2 relay spacecraft is to be stationed in a stable, “frozen” elliptical orbit around the Moon.
Its designed lifetime is more than 8 years.
Ultra-small SORA-Q (LEV-2) photo of SLIM. Image credit: JAXA/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Japan’s SLIM lunar lander has now entered a dormant state, slipping into a two-week stint of sun-shy induced silence.
According to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), the ground control team for the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) said a last photo session was taken.
SLIM’s multi-band spectroscopic camera took this lunar landscape image created by synthesizing 257 low-resolution monochrome pictures. Based on this landscape image, the team is sorting out rocks of interest, assigning a nickname to each of them, with intent of communicating their relative sizes smoothly by the names.
Image credit: JAXA/Inside Outer Space screengrab
No response
“Last night [Jan. 31 into February 1] we sent a command to switch on SLIM’s communicator again just in case, but with no response, we confirmed SLIM had entered a dormant state.”
SLIM was launched last year, on September 6, 2023. Japan’s SLIM lander touched down on the Moon on January 19, making Japan the 5th nation to land on lunar territory.
Harsh lunar night
The spacecraft has now entered a two week dormancy period, a 14-day lunar night, 14-day lunar day cycle.
Image credit: JAXA/ISAS
“Although SLIM was not designed for the harsh lunar nights, we plan to try to operate again from mid-February, when the Sun will shine again on SLIM’s solar cells,” a JAXA/ISAS X/Twitter posting explained.
Image credit: JAXA/ISAS
Despite a failed rocket motor engine that led to blowing off its thruster nozzle, the craft made an unplanned “nose down” landing.
Descent landing woes aside, SLIM’s autopilot guidance led to a near pinpoint touchdown near Shioli crater – a goal of the mission.
Multiple robot exploration
Carried by SLIM was a multiband spectroscopic camera that relayed images before the craft’s power ebbed.
Image credit: JAXA/ISAS
In addition, imagery of the SLIM’s final, nose-down landing locale was taken by the SORA-Q, a baseball-sized mobile rover – a transformer-like toy device produced by the Takara Tomy Corporation.
During SLIM’s lunar descent, the ultra-small SORA-Q, dubbed LEV-2, was ejected. So too was LEV-1, a sidekick robot that executed leaping movements across the lunar landscape, including inter-robot test radio wave data transmission from the transformable lunar robot, LEV-2.
Artwork depicts the palm-sized Lunar Excursion Vehicle, LEV-2.
Image credit: JAXA/ISAS
LEV 1 and LEV 2 are the world’s first completely autonomous robots to explore the Moon, and the world’s first simultaneous lunar surface exploration by multiple robots, according to a JAXA statement.
Japan’s SLIM team.
Image credit: JAXA/ISAS
New Mexico’s Very Large Array (VLA) – on the SETI trail.
(Image credit: Bettymaya Foott, NRAO/AUI/NSF)
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.
Artistic view of the NASA data-gathering Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). Scientists are now sifting through its findings for possible technosignatures indicating an extraterrestrial civilization.
Image credit: NASA
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:
Enigmatic Venus holds tight its secrets under thick clouds. Image shows the night side of Venus glowing in thermal infrared, captured by Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft.
Credit: JAXA/ISAS/DARTS/Damia Bouic
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.
Mt. Etna in Sicily, Italy (left) viewed by ESA Sentinel-1 Earth-circling spacecraft and Idunn Mons in Imdr Regio on Venus (right) as observed by NASA’s Magellan radar system.
Image credit: P. D’Incecco, et al.
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.”
Cinder cones on the western flank of Mt. Etna (left) observed by ESA Sentinel-1 and a shield volcanoes in Imdr Regio on Venus (right) from NASA Magellan radar system.
Image credit: P. D’Incecco, et al.
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.”
Mt. Etna is one of the world’s most active volcanoes and is located on the Italian island of Sicily. Image taken in 2001 shows a plume of steam and smoke rising from the crater drifts over several dark lava flows that cover its slopes.
Image credit: ASTER Volcano Archive (AVA)
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.
Image credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
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
