Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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January 5th, 2024NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory has confirmed flight #70 of the Ingenuity Mars helicopter. The flight occurred on December 22, 2023, flying a horizontal distance of 260 meters (roughly 853 feet), gaining a maximum altitude of 12 meters (approximately 39 feet) and flew for 132.9 seconds over martian landscape.
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter acquired this image using its navigation camera mounted in the helicopter’s fuselage and pointed directly downward to track the ground during flight.
This image was acquired on Dec. 22, 2023. This was the date of Ingenuity’s 70th flight.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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Graphic depiction of Mars Aerial and Ground Global Intelligent Explorer (MAGGIE) Image credit:
Ge-Cheng Zha
Be it returning samples from the surface of Venus to propelling a swarm of tiny spacecraft to Proxima Centauri – there’s a big high-tech future out there, big enough to think about never-done-before types of exploration.
Graphic depiction of Sample Return from the Surface of Venus.
Image credit: Geoffrey Landis
The NIAC (NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts) program fosters pioneering ideas by funding early-stage technology concept studies for future consideration and potential commercialization.
Never short on wild ideas, NASA has selected the 2024 Phase I awardees for its NIAC program.
Graphic depiction of a lunar long-baseline optical imaging interferometer: Artemis-enabled Stellar Imager (AeSI).
Image credit: Kenneth Carpenter
NIAC-funding can help transform future agency missions. From proposals to explore low Earth orbit to the stars, the 13 concepts chosen stem from companies and institutions across the United States.
For more information on the newly-selected awardees, go to:
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/funding-future-tech-nasa-names-2024-innovative-concept-studies/
Image credit: Astrobotic
The upcoming liftoff of a Moon lander – the Peregrine Mission One – is a nail-bitter for many reasons. As a privately-built spacecraft it represents an undertaking advanced by NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
That lunar lander is a product of tender loving care provided by Astrobotic, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based firm, packed with NASA and commercial payloads.
Yes, consider Pittsburgh as a gateway to the Moon – right up there with Houston’s Johnson Space Center and regular ear-splitting rumbles of rockets departing from California and Florida. At the Astrobotic headquarters there is an adjoining Moonshot Museum that offers the public first-hand looks at lunar lander development.
Moon lander to be launched by maiden flight of Vulcan booster.
Image credit: ULA/Astrobotic
Full stop
Peregrine Mission One will be hurled Moonward courtesy of the first takeoff of the United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket.
The Moon lander is slated to come full stop in late February, firmly planting its legs at Sinus Viscositatis (Bay of Stickiness) adjacent to the Gruitheisen Domes. The touchdown target is on the northeast border of Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms).
For more information on this pioneering mission, go to my new Space.com story – “For Astrobotic, big risk (and bigger reward) ride on private Peregrine moon lander’s Jan. 8 launch – The Pittsburgh company aims to pull off the first-ever private moon landing” – at:
https://www.space.com/astrobotic-peregrine-private-moon-lander-risks-reward
Image credit: Astrobotic
A Moon-bound spacecraft houses photographs, novels, student artwork – as well as a piece of Mount Everest.
Ready for departure is the Peregrine Mission One built by Astrobotic.
The lunar lander is toting 21 payloads (cargo) from governments, companies, universities, and NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, all riding atop the maiden blastoff of the United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan launch vehicle.
Celestial symmetry
Think of that outbound piece of Mt. Everest as a touch of celestial symmetry: A reach to space from the Everest Summit — the point on Earth closest to the lunar surface — to the Moon itself.
Image credit: Michael Kronmiller
“The payload is meant to commemorate a collaborative project I ran back in junior and senior year of high school,” says Michael Kronmiller. The adventurous story is captured in manuscript excerpts of “From Everest to the Moon – Against All Odds at the Frontiers of Possibility: ‘The Garuda Project.’”
It’s a tale spurred by a low-cost small unmanned drone design for applications such as high altitude search and rescue. Also involved are educators and students at Kanjirowa National Secondary School in Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal. Then there’s Aang Tshering Lama a renowned guide that has summited Everest numerous times and conducted the highest ever rescue operation on the mountain. He gifted the summit fragment for packaging as a DHL MoonBox payload for inclusion on Peregrine Mission One.
Image credit: Michael Kronmiller
Strict rules
During Kronmiller’s time at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), he and a partner collaborated on the design to meet the payload limitations Astrobotic and DHL provided. “I was managing the finances for our campus makerspace the RPI Forge and was able to make some prototypes, the final version, and copies of the payload on our laser cutter,” he tells Inside Outer Space.
The effort also meant learning about what it takes to qualify a payload for space missions, complying with strict requirements and stringent limitations. Those rules called for payloads that did not exceed one inch in diameter and 0.125 inch in thickness.
The front payload itself includes the names of some of the key contributors on the project who were directly involved in the development and testing of the Small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS). The back features the project’s mission statement: “Humanitarian Relief, Innovation, Education, International Collaboration.”
Image credit: Michael Kronmiller
One rope at a time
Kronmiller points out that his project advisor, former NASA astronaut, Scott Parazynski, carried a Moon rock to Mt. Everest.
In February 2010 during the space shuttle STS-130 mission, a plaque containing moon rocks collected during the Apollo 11 mission and a rock from the summit of Mt. Everest made it to the International Space Station.
At a White House meeting of the National Space Council, in June 2018, Kronmiller adds, Parazynski recalled his Everest Summit climb and likened space exploration to mountaineering: “One rope at a time,” he said. Vice President Mike Pence, who was chair of the council gathering, thought for a moment, and then, repeated, ‘One rope at a time.’ He paused, again, and said, ‘I like that.’
Yes, life does have its symmetries, Kronmiller concludes.
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
Hellish Venus is blistering hot, not only temperature-wise. It’s also a hot topic for scrutinizing whether or not the cloud-enveloped world might be a haven for high-altitude life.
Sara Seager, professor of planetary sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is principal science investigator for the privately launched Rocket Lab Mission to Venus. This January 2025 mission is a first step towards exploring the mysterious chemistry that might be a sign of life, under a series of projected Morning Star Missions to Venus.
Vile work! Max Seager engages in sulfuric acid studies starting in an outdoor lab the summer 2022, with work now being done in an MIT laboratory.
Image credit: Sara Seager
Biochemistry
Last year, Seager and colleagues, including her university son, authored the research paper with a tell-all title: “Stability of nucleic acid bases in concentrated sulfuric acid: Implications for the habitability of Venus’ clouds.”
That work appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences.
“We’re trying to look into the possibility that sulfuric acid droplets could host a biochemistry, not our personal biochemistry, but a different biochemistry,” Seager told Space.com. “We have a lot of lab experiments ongoing and some are coming to fruition.”
For more information, go to my new Space.com story – “1st private mission to Venus will search for alien life in clouds of sulfuric acid” – at:
https://www.space.com/venus-private-mission-alien-life-sulfuric-acid
Image credit: Enigma
There is an increased uptick in research focused on Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon, or UAP. In many ways, serious looks into UAP is the classic unveiling of a riddle wrapped up in an enigma.
And that’s a perfect situation for an organization labeled Enigma. This group is focused on how to reach and serve people who have seen things they can’t explain in the skies.
To that end, Enigma has worked on improving sighting submissions by those encountering Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, dubbed UAPs, and often linked — deservedly or not — to flying saucers from afar and Unidentified Flying Objects, or UFOs in popular jargon.
Image credit: Enigma
It took the group 10 months — from February to November 2023 — to cross the first 10,000 sightings submitted.
Discernable patterns
I asked Alejandro Rojas, Head of Research and Content for Enigma, to explain the data gleaned so far. Are there any patterns discernable?
“A couple of patterns that stood out were that reports correlate with population,” Rojas told Inside Outer Space. “In other words, where there are more people, there are more reports. That shows us people are seeing UAP everywhere.”
Rojas added that the other pattern that stands out was the similarity with Enigma findings regarding shapes that witnesses are reporting and the shapes reported to the U.S. government’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).
Witnesses describe the majority of UAP as spheres and points of light.
Image credit: Enigma
Quality of reports
Given the public input so far, are there adjustments that must be made to maximize that public input? Are there any added “need to have” bits of information from observers?
Rojas said that Enigma has continually adjusted and improved their UAP reporting process to gather the necessary information and make the experience easy.
“However, educating the public has been essential to improve the quality of reports,” Rojas said. “We provide users with information regarding mundane objects commonly mistaken as UAP.”
Signal from the noise
Enigma personnel faced one facet of UAP reporting. What has been sorely needed is a tool to sort the signal from the noise. To that end, they have released an Augmented Reality (AR Lens) to serve as a noise reduction tool.
“We provide an AR Lens that currently tracks satellites so witnesses can rule them out. We also plan to provide more information to this lens, such as aircraft and astronomical data, so people can have a quick view of what else is in the sky that may account for what they see,” Rojas said.
Enigma has released an Augmented Reality (AR) Lens to serve as a “noise reduction” tool.
Image credit: Enigma/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Augmented Reality lens
Enigma personnel faced one facet of UAP reporting.
What has been sorely needed is a tool to sort the signal from the noise. To that end, they have released an Augmented Reality (AR) Lens to serve as a “noise reduction” tool.
“We provide an AR Lens that currently tracks satellites so witnesses can rule them out. We also plan to provide more information to this lens, such as aircraft and astronomical data, so people can have a quick view of what else is in the sky that may account for what they see,” Rojas said.
Increasing the input
As for milestones ahead, Enigma is scoping out plans for the just-arrived New Year – 2024.
“We plan to improve our AR Lens and introduce new tools such as real-time triangulation, which can make calculations of distance, height, and speed when one object is captured on video by several witnesses,” Rojas explained.
Also on the 2024 Enigma agenda is increasing the input of reports to the group.
“We reached 10,000 reports within a year of launching, and the reports are still growing,” said Rojas. “With increased reports and by educating the public to provide better data over the coming months, we expect to share some exciting and mysterious incidents with the public while gathering vital data to help researchers discover more about UAP,” he concluded.
For more information on the AR camera to explore the sky, go to:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/enigma-ufo-uap-sightings/id1548371173
The Enigma website is available at: https://enigmalabs.io/
Long March-8.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
China is spotlighting the completion of the Number 1 launch pad of the country’s first commercial spacecraft launch site, in the city of Wenchang, on south China’s island province of Hainan – the dedicated site for China’s new-generation medium-sized rocket, Long March 8.
The Long March-8 carrier rocket is a new-generation medium-sized launch vehicle mainly for low-Earth and sun-synchronous orbits payload launch missions.
Construction of that launch pad started in July 2022, and the equipment-installation phase is almost complete, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
According to China Central Television, the Number 1 launch pad contains 11 types of equipment and facilities like a fixed service tower and launch platform.
Compared with a traditional launch pad, the modular steel structure launch tower reduced the construction period by half.
Regular launches from the Hainan International Commercial Space Launch Center are expected in 2024.
Wang Peng, chief engineer, overall design team, China’s commercial spacecraft launch site project.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Cooling, noise effects
Wang Peng, chief engineer, overall design team, China’s commercial spacecraft launch site project told China Central Television (CCTV): “The conventional underground diversion method requires digging a deep diversion trench, reaching depths of around 30 to 40 meters, which would lead to a massive amount of work. Now, we have adopted the ground gas exhaust guide to make some improvements, aiming to efficiently exhaust the gas during rocket launches, prevent reverse curling and splashing, and avoid any adverse impact on the entire rocket launch process.”
Wang added that the extrusion water spray system can be adjusted, enhancing the cooling and noise reduction effects.
Guo Qiang, deputy secretary of the Party Committee of Hainan International Commercial Aerospace Launch Co., Ltd.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Launch pad #2
A Number 2 launch pad is still at the construction phase, with on-site equipment installation to be completed by the end of May 2024.
“At the same time, we are stepping up the construction of the No. 2 launch pad, which is also for medium-sized liquid-propellant rockets,” said Yang Tianliang, chairman of Hainan International Commercial Aerospace Launch Co., Ltd., told China Media Group (CMG).
At present, there are four launch sites in China: the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, the Xichang Satellite Launch Center and the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site.
The two launch pads at the country’s fifth launch site are both designed to support 16 launches per year. While the No. 1 launch pad is for the Long March-8 rocket, the No. 2 pad is designed for more than 10 types of rockets from nine manufacturers, and a higher density of launch will lead to a lower cost, said Guo Qiang, deputy secretary of the Party Committee of Hainan International Commercial Aerospace Launch Co., Ltd.
Korea Moon orbiter.
Credit: KARI
One of the driving questions regarding future Moon exploration is what available resources lurk within lunar permanently shadowed regions (PSRs).
These locales never see direct sunlight and are illuminated only by secondary illumination – light reflected from nearby topography.
Trying to get to the literal bottom of PSRs and what if any water ice may be present is one task of the Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), also known as Danuri.
A preliminary analysis of the floor of Shackleton crater from images acquired over multiple secondary illumination conditions “does not reveal indications of exposed surface ice, even though temperatures are constantly below 110K.”
The new work appears in the Journal of Astronomy and Space, the official publication of the Korean Space Science Society (KSSS), research led by Prasun Mahanti of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.
ShadowCam instrument being lifted for mounting to the Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter satellite at the Korean Aerospace Research Institute in Daejeon, Korea.
Credit: Courtesy KARI
No observed evidence
“According to our Shackleton crater interior mapping from ShadowCam images, there is no observed evidence of thick ice deposits or surface ice that could be easily recognized by any relative brightness features observed in multiple illumination geometries,” the research paper explains.
“However, this analysis did not include the estimation of reflectance, nor did it involve reviewing all of the images of Shackleton in this preliminary study,” the researchers report.
A spectacular, specially produced near-ground level oblique view of the “Connecting Ridge” between Shackleton and Henson craters. The lunar south pole (SP) occurs on the rim of Shackleton crater. The ridge along the rim of the South Pole-Aitken impact basin is a potential Artemis landing site (001) and another (004) occurs on the rim of Shackleton crater. (Image credit: ETHZ\LPI\Valentin T. Bickel and David A. Kring)
Hypothesis
Mahanti and colleagues add that their hypothesis, in the context of water frost detections in Shackleton, “is that if ice or frost is present in Shackleton’s interior, then the concentrations are either below the threshold that results in an observable signature in ShadowCam images, or might be mixed with the regolith at the detected areas. At other places where surface temperatures are below 110K, water frost could be hidden in subsurface layers.”
Shackleton crater context, ShadowCam image and simulated secondary illumination image. (A) Shackleton crater near the south pole. The green
dashed line shows the map area for secondary illumination modeling. (B) Parts of the crater and PSR and a reference (yellow text) adopted in this work. (C) Mosaic of ShadowCam images showing the floor and wall (D) Secondary illumination model generated irradiance map, cropped to the PSR extent (yellow circular boundary). Colorbar in (C) and (D) shows ShadowCam radiance and model irradiance, respectively. PSR, permanently shadowed regions. Image credit: Prasun Mahanti, et al.
ShadowCam is a NASA-funded instrument hosted onboard the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, built at Arizona State University, an instrument designed and led by Mark Robinson, a professor in Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration.
By collecting high-resolution images of the Moon’s permanently shadowed regions, the goal of ShadowCam is to provide critical information about the distribution and accessibility of water ice and other volatiles at spatial scales (1.7 m/pixel) required to mitigate risks and maximize the results of future exploration activities.
For access to the paper – “Preliminary Characterization of Secondary Illumination at Shackleton Crater Permanently Shadowed Region from ShadowCam Observations and Modeling” – go to:
Image credit: Data from USSPACECOM/A.Boley, M. Byers
The debris from a 2021 anti-satellite test created complications for satellites at higher altitudes, including SpaceX’s Starlink “megaconstellation.”
According to SpaceX, over 1700 of the 6873 collision avoidance maneuvers performed by its satellites in the six months from December 1, 2021 to May 31, 2022 were due to Cosmos 1408 debris, produced by Russia’s destructive anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon test.
A new commentary in Nature spotlights the urgent need for an international agreement banning all destructive anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon tests.
The authors are Aaron Boley of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and Michael Byers within the university’s Department of Political Science.
Credit: India Defense Research & Development Organization
Test-to-disrupt
Using the recent Russian 2021 ASAT test as a reference, the commentary authors see the incident as how states could use the guise of an ASAT test to substantially interfere with an adversary’s mega-constellation by necessitating a sudden and dramatic increase in collision avoidance maneuvers.
Because the aggressor can claim that the action was “just a test”, it would normally not trigger the right of self-defense.
This outcome, the commentary authors add, raises the possibility that a state may conduct a “test” with the intent of disrupting space operations of another state.
A highly modified F-15A scored a direct hit on a U.S. satellite in this Sept. 13, 1985 test shot over Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.
Credit: Edwards Air Force Base
“Such a ‘test-to-disrupt’ may be attractive to some states because it offers a way to diminish another state’s space capabilities without the action constituting an ‘armed attack,’ which would trigger the right of self-defense and allow a military response,” the research paper notes.
Go to this link to read the full paper at:
https://outerspaceinstitute.ca/docs/Comment_Boley_ASAT_AUTHORCOPY.pdf
Image credit: NASA
The Moon’s farside needs protection!
Because Earth’s neighboring celestial body has the distinctive property of naturally shielding radio waves generated by chatter on Earth and around it, researchers are calling for a radio silence zone, dubbing it a Shielded Zone on the Moon, or SZM in lunar lingo.
Next year, the first International Congress of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) on Moon farside protection will take place in Turin, Italy.
Image credit: IAA/Committee on Moon Farside Protection
Branches of science
Leading the discussion is Claudio Maccone of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (National Institute for Astrophysics).
In December 2021, the IAA established a new permanent committee devoted to the Moon farside protection, chaired by Maccone and co- chaired by Jack Burns of the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Maccone and colleagues contend that the Moon’s farside is a region of utmost scientific interest, as it provides an environment free from the electromagnetic pollution typical on Earth.
In particular, some of the branches of science that would greatly benefit from operating from the farside, Maccone explains, are cosmology, astrobiology, planetary defense, and the search for SETI technosignatures.
The lunar farside as imaged by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter using its LROC Wide Angle Camera.
Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University
Radio silence zone
In defining how those science branches benefit by a radio silence zone, Maccone points out:
Cosmology: To detect the extremely feeble radiation of the hydrogen line at 1420
megahertz (MHz), downshifted to much lower frequencies, MHz or kilohertz (kHz), due to the 14 billion years of universe expansion. The radio silence of the farside would ensure a significant leap forward in research.
Astrobiology: To study pre-biological interstellar molecules through their roto-vibrational spectra: a fine search for weak spectral lines that can be supported by advanced radio telescopes in combination with the radio silence of the Moon farside.
Planetary defense: From the Moon farside, radar and optical telescopes can be used for accurate measurements, without interference, of the main parameters of near-Earth objects (NEOs) to increase the lead time of detection.
Credit: Breakthrough Listen
SETI and technosignatures: To search, with very low noise, for “signatures” of alien civilizations that would reach us extremely faint due to the vast distances between stars in the Milky Way, if not from other galaxies.
Relevant frequencies
“Recent lunar missions and, even more so, upcoming programs will bring more and more artificial systems around and on the lunar surface, occupying space and emitting radio waves at various frequencies,” Maccone explains.
The Moon farside protection symposium, to be held March 21-22, is designed to sensitize and openly involve the global scientific, political, and industrial community on the need to preserve radio silence on the farside, Maccone adds, at frequencies relevant for scientific purposes.
Doing so can prevent future missions from irreversibly compromising the current condition of radio quietness.
Credit: Breakthrough Listen/Danielle Futselaar
Protected area
Moreover, to ensure the possibility of performing scientific activities, there is a desire to establish a portion of the Moon’s farside exclusively dedicated to science as a protected area.
There are already international regulations and resolutions aimed at protecting the SZM, such as International Telecommunication Union (ITU) radio regulations.
“However, it is of paramount importance to take a further step, both to extend the protected frequencies to encompass all other scientifically relevant ones — in addition to those already included — and to preserve a portion of the farside exclusively for scientific installations,” Maccone suggests.
Furthermore, there is a pressing need to elevate these regulations into enforceable and binding treaties for every space agency and private company.
Credit: United Nations
Diplomatic efforts
“All objectives can only be pursued and achieved through diplomatic efforts involving spacefaring nations, current and future, from around the world.
The newly formed IAA committee and the symposium’s ultimate goal is to soon reach an international agreement, ideally under relevant specialized organizations, such as the ITU and the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, for example.
For more information on the 1st International IAA Symposium on Moon Farside Protection contact: desk@moonfarsideprotection.org
