Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
Author: 
November 21st, 2022
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3658, November 20, 2022.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3659 duties.
Reports Keri Bean, rover planner deputy team lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the robot had a busy weekend.
On sol 3657, the plan called for a very long block of remote sensing, including a Navcam dust devil survey. Also, a Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) laser observation was on the schedule of “Cigana,” some long distance ChemCam imaging, a Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) observation, as were several Mastcam observations of Cigana, Rafael Navarro, Gediz Vallis Ridge, and some imaging of the rover deck.
“The rover will take a nice nap until later in the afternoon where the rover will wake up and perform some arm activities,” Bean added. “We’re really having fun challenging our arm rover planner,” such as two uses of Curiosity’s Dust Removal Tool.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3658, November 20, 2022.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Stow the arm
The brushing and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) imaging of both the “Lua” and “Rio Jufari” targets were planned, as was starting the evening with the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument observing the Lua target.
“Mid-evening we will replace the APXS on the Rio Jufari target to get an observation of that target. Later that night we will stow the arm to prepare for the next sol’s drive,” Bean notes.
“Starting out nice and early in the rover’s morning on sol 3658, we take a full 360 panorama around us in the morning light, followed by some imaging of Gediz Vallis Ridge,” Bean reports. “A bit later in the morning we do some atmospheric monitoring imaging with Mastcam and Navcam, a ChemCam laser observation of the previous sol’s arm target Rio Jufari, some distance imaging with ChemCam, and a slew of Mastcam observations of Saddle Mountain, “Xua,” Lua, and Rio Jufari.”
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3658, November 20, 2022.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Safe spot
After all the projected imaging, the rover is to drive for 4 hours.
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager photo produced on Sol 3658, November 20, 2022.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager photo produced on Sol 3658, November 20, 2022.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
In the plan, rover operators included what’s called the Full MAHLI Wheel Imaging activity, where there’s use of a combination of Mastcam and MAHLI to image the rover wheels and monitor those wheels for any new damage.
“We have some requirements to find a spot safe to do this imaging, so a lot of my morning on shift was verifying a good safe spot to perform this activity in,” Bean observed. “Luckily there was a good spot about 5 meters behind where the rover is, so we back up, run this activity, then start heading back the way we came.”
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3658, November 20, 2022.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Wheel markings
Bean said the plan calls for Curiosity to drive about 148 feet (45 meters), retracing its wheel markings, and end near the sand ripple from a few sols ago “with hopefully some bedrock in the workspace for the next Rover Planners to play with,” Bean reports.
The third and final sol of this plan, sols 3657-3659, has an autonomously selected a ChemCam target in the morning before sleeping until very early on sol 3660 “where we’ll take a slew of atmospheric monitoring images with Navcam and Mastcam,” Bean added.
Throughout the plan, the robot is carrying out standard environmental monitoring with DAN, the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) and the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS).
Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) wheel check, Sol 3658, November 20, 2022
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Posted in 
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
China is readying its next step in fully-commissioning the country’s space station.
A Long March 2F (CZ-2F) Y15 booster topped by the Shenzhou-15 piloted spacecraft was vertically transferred to the launching area on Monday. The launch is reportedly headed for a November 29 departure from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.
Various pre-launch function and joint tests will be carried out prior to takeoff.
Traveling less than a mile (1.5 kilometers) on the seamless rail especially built to prevent vibrations, the move of the rocket/spacecraft from the assembly test building took roughly one and a half hours.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Launch drill
“Before the transfer, we have successfully completed the function checks of the rocket, the general checks and test of matching, the comprehensive electrical test of the spaceship, fueling and installing payload fairing to the rocket in the technical area,” said Shen Tingzheng, an expert in test and launch technologies at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.
At present, the rocket and the spaceship are in good condition and ready for the launch stage, Shen told China Central Television (CCTV). “After the rocket-spaceship combo is transferred to the launching area, we will continue to carry out function checks, air tightness tests, the launch drill of the whole system and the on-site confirmation of astronauts and fill the rocket with propellant,” Shen said.
Artistic view of current T-shape configuration of China space station.
Credit: CNSA/CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
What’s ahead?
The construction of China’s space station has entered the final stage, with two tightly scheduled missions by the end of this year to complete the space station, reports CCTV. They are the launch of the Shenzhou-15 piloted mission and the return of the Shenzhou-14 crew from the space station.
The three Shenzhou-14 crew members, who were sent to the space station on June 5 of this year for a six-month mission, are expected to come back to Earth in early December.
That Shenzhou-14 crew will welcome the arrival of the Shenzhou-15 crewed spacecraft at the space station later this month. The combination of crews totaling six taikonauts are slated to push forward the final phase of station construction by the end of the year.
At this stage, China will perform its first-ever crew rotation as the now-orbiting Shenzhou-14 team departs for Earth.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Smart rockets
“Going forward, we will surely see heavier manned spacecrafts, which requires us to further increase manned carrier rockets’ carrying capacity,” said Liu Feng, deputy chief designer of Long March-2F rocket.
Liu told CCTV that secondly, “we should further elevate the fault tolerance capacity for the whole process in the air. We are building smart rockets.”
The third step is reuse. “For manned carrier rockets, we still need greater technological innovation and progress on how to reuse them,” Liu said.
China enters final stage of constructing the country’s space station.
Credit: CMS/CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Safety of crew
Liu added that Chinese engineers have not only added redundancy for the components of the Long March-2F rocket, but made two such rockets for every launch mission in order to ensure the safety and rescue of astronauts in the event of a mission emergency.
Liu noted that they will closely monitor the rocket’s condition to ensure the success of the upcoming Shenzhou-15 launch mission.
“After the rocket is transferred to the launch area, we will conduct thorough checks about the functioning of its various systems. After that, we will conduct interface matching between the rocket and the spacecraft, and carry out launch drills. At present, the rocket is in a very good shape,” said Liu.
For just-issued videos showing the Long March 2F (CZ-2F) Y15/Shenzhou-15 combination arriving at the launching area, go to:
While NASA deservedly notes that the Space Launch System-boosted Orion spacecraft’s Artemis 1 mission is “exceeding performance expectation,” there is also an irksome development.
Deployed from the Space Launch System’s (SLS) adapter after its November 16 launch, a barrage of CubeSats – 10 of them – were released to space. These small, creative packages of technology, a mixture of U.S. and international spacecraft, were sent outward from a ring attached to the SLS upper stage.
NASA’s Space Launch System rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft launches on the Artemis I flight test. Image credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
Varied set of duties
The CubeSats are built to carry out a varied set of duties. For example, solar sailing to an asteroid, thruster testing, reconnoitering the Moon for ice, to even plopping down on the lunar landscape.
Not only are these innovative CubeSats constructed for achieving great things, each demanded loads of team time and resources. Meanwhile, they collectively represent a pushing of the boundaries to showcase what CubeSats can pull off.
The CubeSat family ready for launch inside adapter.
Image credit: NASA/Cory Huston
Telemetry terror
All that said it’s disappointing to hear that a number of the CubeSats have run into trouble, perhaps 50 percent of them.
Mike Sarafin, Artemis I mission manager, said in a recent briefing that ArgoMoon, BioSentinel, Equuleus, LunaH-Map and OMOTENASHI “are on a path to success.”
Meanwhile, the other five — LunIR, Lunar IceCube, NEA Scout, CuSP and Team Miles — “either have encountered technical issues post-deploy or have had intermittent communications or, in one case, did not acquire a signal with the communication asset that they had planned,” Sarafin added.
NASA’s NEA Scout’s large deployable solar sail.
Credit: NASA
For sure, telemetry terror has reared its ugly head.
Timed release
In a NASA blog, the space agency explained that all 10 CubeSats were successfully deployed via timer from the SLS adapter.
Japan’s OMOTENASHI lunar lander.
Credit: JAXA/NASA
“The CubeSats’ individual missions are separate from Artemis I,” the blog states. “The small satellites, each about the size of a shoebox, are inherently high-risk, high-reward and the teams are in various stages of mission operations or troubleshooting in some cases.”
LunIR
Image credit: Lockheed Martin
Viewing the CubeSats as “inherently high-risk” caught my eye. Why so? There are plenty of CubeSats successfully circling the Earth; companies have been formed based on constellations of shoebox-sized CubeSats.
Then there are CubeSats like NASA’s CAPSTONE, while troubled en route, it has now successfully settled into near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) operations around the Moon. And you can’t forget the twin Mars Cube One (MarCO) spacecraft zooming by the Red Planet in November 2018.
Linkage, root cause?
One wonders if there’s need for a “mishap board” to investigate if there’s any linkage or root cause between the problems encountered by the SLS-dispatched CubeSats?
Image credit: NASA/Morehead State University
Could the gaggle of hiccups and gotchas be sparked by hurricane and technical delays in getting SLS off-the-ground, or how long the CubeSats were attached inside the SLS adapter, or battery charging issues. There could be an “or…agami” of nested troubles.
Seemingly, some sort of post-mortem might be in order here – ostensibly of value to not only NASA but the pioneering CubeSat community too. That group of people put a lot of blood, sweat, tears, time, dedication and dollars into forging a bold avenue for deep space exploration.
Let’s try and shelve “inherently high risk” (sounds like “sure to fail”) and substitute a more pro-phrase term that evokes at least a hint of possible cutting-edge triumph.
Is this a teachable moment for all involved?
This is an opinion piece by Leonard David. Responses welcomed.
Credit: NASA
Curiosity’s location as of Sol 3655. Distance driven 18.04 miles/29.04 kilometers.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3657 duties. Here are some new images that show the robot’s scenic and geologically eye-catching surroundings:
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3655, November 17, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3655, November 17, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Mast Camera Right photo taken on Sol 3655, November 17, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity Mast Camera Right photo taken on Sol 3655, November 17, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity Mast Camera Right photo taken on Sol 3655, November 17, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Credit: CMS/CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Fresh from this week’s third round of spacewalks, China is ready to stage major extravehicular activity (EVA) events in the near-future.
The next planned spacewalking task is transferring the space station’s large solar wings, now attached to the Tianhe core module, and fixing them to the recently-aligned Wentian and Mengtian lab modules, which now form the station’s T-shape configuration.
Credit: CMS/CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Wing work
“For the follow-up work, astronauts will perform more extravehicular activities, and each crew need to carry out these spacewalks,” said Wang Xin, a deputy commander responsible for the space station system under the China Academy of Space Technology.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
“We will next mainly complete the installation and maintenance of the outboard load. At the same time, an astronaut has to exit the module to transfer the solar wings on the core module to the end of the Wentian and Mengtian lab modules,” Wang told China Central Television (CCTV).
The flexible solar panels on both the Wentian and Mengtian lab modules each have a total length of around 180 feet (55 meters) and a combined area of nearly 280 square meters. These four large solar wings will generate nearly 1,000 kWh of electricity for the China Space Station per day, notes CCTV, which is equivalent to the average electricity consumption of an ordinary family for nearly half a year.
Artwork depicts current T-shape configuration of China space station.
Credit: CNSA/CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Crew handover
On Thursday, China’s Shenzhou-14 astronauts — Chen Dong and Cai Xuzhe – installed an out-of-cabin bridge, the unlocking of a panoramic camera, and the installation of mounted assistance handles for a small mechanical arm. Taikonaut colleague Liu Yang stayed onboard to support the spacewalkers from inside the orbiting complex.
The three Shenzhou-14 crew members were sent to orbit in June to begin a six-month stint in space. They will see the arrival of the Shenzhou-15 crewed spacecraft at the space station later this month and carry out the space station’s first-ever crew handover, another key step to complete the final phase of the construction by the end of the year.
For videos detailing China’s spacewalking work, go to:
Credit: White House
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has released the first National Cislunar Science and Technology (S&T) Strategy.
A November 17 White House fact sheet on the strategy notes that in the decade ahead, NASA estimates that human activity in cislunar space will be “equal to or exceed all that has occurred in this region since the Space Age began in 1957. Many more countries and other actors are planning to travel to this new sphere of human activity.”
Key objectives
The National Cislunar S&T Strategy addresses future opportunities and lays out four key S&T objectives:
Credit: NASA
— Support research and development to enable future growth in Cislunar space. American technological endeavors begin with a positive, expansive vision of the future, led by a diverse science and engineering workforce.
— Expand international S&T cooperation in Cislunar space. International S&T cooperation can foster peace, develop responsible practices, and create the foundations for new institutions to enable enduring human and robotic presence in Cislunar space.
— Extend U.S. space situational awareness capabilities into Cislunar space. Space situational awareness enables transparency and safe operations for all entities operating in Cislunar space. This objective also contributes to early warning for potentially hazardous asteroids.
Credit: NASA
— Implement Cislunar communications and positioning, navigation, and timing capabilities with scalable and interoperable approaches. Communications and positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) are the common information capabilities needed for all activities in Cislunar space, including in Lunar orbit and on the Lunar surface.
To access the fact sheet, go to:
To access the full White House report, go to:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/11-2022-NSTC-National-Cislunar-ST-Strategy.pdf
Artwork depicts T-shape configuration of China space station.
Credit: CNSA/CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Two China spacewalkers carried out a third extravehicular activity on Thursday, a five-hour long stint as the country’s space station continues to evolve.
This new spacewalk by Chen Dong and Cai Xuzhe was the first to be completed since the orbiting complex took on its T-shape look.
Shenzhou-14 crewmate, Liu Yang, supported the spacewalkers from inside the module.
Two Shenzhou-14 crewmen carry out spacewalk tasks.
Credit: CNSA/CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
It was the first round of EVAs for the crew since the assembly of the station’s basic T-shape configuration earlier this month, and the third overall spacewalk since the current crew began their mission in June.
In the big picture, this new spacewalk was the seventh round of EVAs to be conducted as part of the China’s space station construction process, with two previous crewed missions also fulfilling spacewalk tasks.
Current occupants of China’s station – the Shenzhou-14 crew. Credit: China National Space Administration (CNSA)/China Central Television (CCTV)
Bridge building
Chen and Cai worked together to install a connection “bridge” between the three station modules that could assist astronauts when crawling outside the module and better stabilize the station’s T-shaped structure. Cai attempted the first cross-module walk using this newly-built bridge, according to China Central Television (CCTV).
Cai, who made his first spacewalk in September, attempted the first cross-module walk using this newly-built bridge.
The astronauts also lifted and fixed a panoramic camera outside the Wentian lab module and added a special mounted assistance handle on the station’s small robotic arm.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Robotic arms
“This time, Shenzhou-14 set a record of carrying out extravehicular activities in one mission,” said Chen Shanguang, deputy chief designer of the China Manned Space Program.
Credit: CNSA/CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
“For the first time, we used two robotic arms, namely the big arm and the small arm to form a combined arm to support the task of extravehicular activities. As the single arm is already very long, so the combined arm will be longer, and its flexibility and rigidity is also different from that of a single robotic arm. And it is our first verification of completing extravehicular activities in such a case,” said Wang Yanlei, director of the astronauts selection and training department of the China Astronaut Research and Training Center told CCTV.
Next crew, handover
The three-person Shenzhou-14 crew members were lofted into Earth orbit last June to start their six-month trek in space, the longest duration for any Chinese manned mission.
Credit: CMG/CCTV/CASC/Inside Outer Space screengrab
During the second half of their six-month stay in orbit, the Shenzhou-14 taikonauts oversaw the arrival of the Mengtian lab that formed the three-module T-shape structure: the core module Tianhe, along with lab modules, Wentian and Mengtian.
The Shenzhou-14 crew will welcome the arrival of the Shenzhou-15 crewed spacecraft at the space station later this month. Once arrived at the station site, the Shenzhou-15 crew members will join the Shenzhou-14 colleagues to complete the facility’s first-ever crew handover, according to CCTV.
The Tiangong space station is on track to be fully up and operating by the end of this year.
To view a new video detailing the third spacewalk of the Shenzhou-14 mission, go to:
Real-time DNA sequencing in a lab installed in the Corona Lava Tube (Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain) in the framework of the ESA PANGAEA-X 2017 Astronaut training program. ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer is inside the lab module with co-author Ana Miller.
Credit: ESA
Until the last two decades, the potential for caves beyond Earth was principally theoretical.
Today, databases of subsurface access points (SAPs) exist for the Moon and Mars.
Across the solar system, 3,545 SAPs have been identified on 11 planetary bodies with “speleogenic processes” identified on another four bodies. Speleogenesis is the origin and development of caves.
Cave-forming processes
A new research paper – “Planetary Caves: A Solar System View of Processes and Products” – showcases six cave-forming processes beyond Earth that have been identified.
These processes include volcanic (cryo and magmatic), fracturing (tectonic and impact melt), dissolution, sublimation, suffusion, and landslides.
“As more orbiter and fly-by platforms with high-resolution instrumentation probe the solar system, our knowledge regarding caves beyond Earth will become more robust—culminating with the robotic and perhaps human exploration of caves on the Moon and Mars,” the paper notes.
Location of candidate caves in the Tharsis region on Mars.
Credit: USGS
Mars underground
According to Jut Wynne, assistant research professor of cave ecology at Northern Arizona University and lead author of the paper:
“Caves on many planetary surfaces represent one of the best environments to search for evidence of extinct or perhaps extant lifeforms,” Wynne said in a university statement.
“For example, as Martian caves are sheltered from deadly surface radiation and violent windstorms, they are more likely to exhibit a more constant temperature regime compared to the surface, and some may even contain water ice. This makes caves on Mars one of the most important exploration targets in the search for life,” Wynne said.
To view the paper – “Planetary Caves: A Solar System View of Processes and Products” – go to:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022JE007303
Credit: Airbus
The thought of solar power-beaming satellites churning out gobs of gigawatts of clean energy from space to an energy-hungry Earth has been in cogitation phase for many decades. In fact, Nikola Tesla experimented with the scheme of wireless power near the end of the nineteenth century.
In 1968, the notion of a solar power satellite (SPS) was detailed by U.S. aerospace engineer, Peter Glaser. It would harvest energy from sunlight using solar cells and beam it down to Earth as microwaves to receiving antennas (rectennas), which would convert those microwaves to electrical energy for input into electrical power grids.
However, over the ensuing years, SPS remained a bright light proposal whose time never came.
Peter Glaser, the father of the solar power satellite concept.
Credit: Arthur D. Little Inc.
Economically viable?
But now the notion of space-based solar power is garnering new looks – both in the U.S. and abroad, including Chinese technologists, experts in Japan, and researchers within the European Space Agency and the United Kingdom’s space agency. In addition, NASA has reactivated a look into SPS.
Why so? For one, advancements in technology needed for SPS do appear to make the idea more realistic today. That said, there remains a lingering, burning question: Is SPS anywhere close to becoming economically viable?
For detailed information, go to my new Scientific American story – “Is Space-Based Solar Power Ready for Its Moment in the Sun? Around the world, researchers are betting that beamed power from space could be the next big thing for clean energy on Earth” – at:
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B image acquired on Sol 3650, November 12, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3651 duties.
“Curiosity is continuing to climb towards a Gediz Vallis ridge viewing spot, and we can already get a glimpse of it rising in the distance,” reports Abigail Fraeman, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Curiosity Chemistry & Camera Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) photo taken on November 12, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
A recent plan listed collection of a large stereo Mastcam mosaic of the parts of Gediz Vallis ridge. This image combined with the ones Mars researchers hope to collect from an end-of-drive location on Monday, Fraeman adds, “will help the team decide if we want to get even closer.”
Fraeman adds that the Curiosity science team is trying to understand how Gediz Vallis ridge formed, in particular what kind of watery settings may or may not have been involved.
Curiosity Chemistry & Camera Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) photo taken on November 12, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
Relationships
“We also want to understand how it relates to the rest of the rocks that make up Mount Sharp and Gediz Vallis channel in order to better constrain when the events that built it happened,” Fraeman notes.
A plan has the team investigating the area much closer to Curiosity over the weekend.
Being collected are Mastcam images of some rocks that have interesting textures that are unofficially named “Uruca,” “Tikwah Mine,” and “Prata.”
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3650, November 12, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Large sand ridge
“We’re also snapping a photo of a large sand ridge that is right behind the rover,” Fraeman reports, and the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument will zap two rock targets, “Cotingo,” and “Boca da Mata,” as well as an automatically selected target using the AEGIS (Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science) – a software suite that permits the rover to autonomously detect and prioritize targets.
Curiosity Mast Camera Right image taken on Sol 3650, November 12, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager photo of brushing. Image produced on Sol 3650, November 12, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The robot’s Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) will get in on the science action as well, with observations of targets named “Jutai” and “Raposa.”
A Dust Removal Tool (DRT) is to brush dust away from the Raposa target before the APXS and MAHLI observations, “so we’ll also take a Mastcam multispectral image of this less dusty area,” Fraeman adds.
Observations to model the environment around Curiosity and a drive of 164 feet (50 meters) was slated to round out the plan.
