Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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August 28th, 2022
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
China’s Shenzhou-14 crew — Chen Dong, Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe — are preparing for their first spacewalk duties. Activities including physical trainings and spacesuit inspections in the airlock cabin of the Wentian lab module which will become the main exit-entry point for extravehicular activities.
Shenzhou-14 crew enters new lab module. Credit: China National Space Administration (CNSA)/China Media Group(CMG)/China Central Television (CCTV)/Inside Outer Space screengrab
According to China Central Television (CCTV) the preparatory work includes regular inspection of spacesuits to ensure safety and smooth operation of extravehicular activities.
The new-generation spacesuits named Feitian (meaning flying to space) have been worn on 4 spacewalks by crew members of Shenzhou-12 and Shenzhou-13.
These spacewalking suits are now placed in Wentian lab module’s airlock cabin waiting for the next mission.
Current configuration of China’s in-construction space station.
Credit: China National Space Administration (CNSA)/China Media Group(CMG)/China Central Television (CCTV)/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Multi-element space station
China launched Wentian, the first lab module of its space station Tiangong, on July 24. The second lab module Mengtian is set to be launched in October.
The Tianhe core module was launched in April 2021.
The construction of the Tiangong space station is expected to be completed by year’s end.
Go to video at: https://youtu.be/sutg8mze5LI
Posted in 
Meteor Crater in Winslow, Arizona.
Credit: Dale Nations, Northern Arizona University/Arizona Geological Survey
That huge, bowl-shaped Meteor Crater in Arizona that was formed some 50,000 years ago continues to yield new information, surprisingly so. In addition, it is a go-to spot for preparing Artemis crews how to explore the moon – as that place once did to train Apollo astronauts for lunar duties in the 1960s.
Astrogeologist Gene Shoemaker at Meteor Crater with Apollo astronauts during field trip in May 1967.
Credit: NASA
Research payoffs from the out-of-this-world Meteor Crater is ongoing said David Kring, principal scientist at the Universities Space Research Association’s Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas. He has carried out field training and research at the Winslow, Arizona site for a decade.
For more information on Meteor Crater and the on-going research at that impact site, go to my new Space.com story – “Meteor crater: The hole from space that keeps on giving – Research payoffs from the out-of-this-world Meteor Crater are ongoing” at:
https://www.space.com/meteor-crater-hole-from-space-lunar-surface
Credit: Blue Origin
Blue Origin has announced that on August 31, the New Shepard suborbital vehicle will fly its 23rd mission. This flight will not include human passengers.
It will be a dedicated payloads flight, packed with 36 payloads from academia, research institutions, and students across the globe.
The launch window opens at 8:30 AM CDT / 13:30 UTC from Launch Site One in West Texas.
This mission brings the total number of commercial payloads flown on the vehicle to more than 150.
Two of the payloads will fly on the exterior of the New Shepard booster for ambient exposure to the space environment. Eighteen of the payloads on this flight are funded by NASA, primarily by the space agency’s Flight Opportunities program.
This will be the fourth flight for the New Shepard program this year, the first dedicated payload flight since New Shepard (NS-17) in August 2021, and the ninth flight for this vehicle, which is dedicated to flying science and research payloads to space.
To date, the New Shepard program has flown 31 humans to space.
For details on the flight, go to:
https://www.blueorigin.com/news/new-shepard-ns-23-mission-announcement/
A “State of the Space Industrial Base” report flags a number of concerns, particularly that strategic competition in space remains a paramount worry.
“China continues to compete toward a strategic goal of displacing the U.S. as the dominant global space power economically, diplomatically and militarily by 2045, if not earlier,” the report stresses.
The summary report is based on workshop meetings and has been written by officials of the United States Space Force, the Defense Innovation Unit, the Department of the Air Force and Air Force Research Laboratory.
North Star vision
The report represents the collective voice of approximately 350 industry experts who gathered between May 25 and June 3, 2022 to provide inputs and recommendations on how best to nurture and grow a healthy space industrial base and national security innovation base.
The report calls for proactive measures, such as:
An enduring North Star vision for America in space is an essential guidepost to remain competitive with a rapidly advancing China. Workshop participants recommend “Economic Development and Human Settlement” is a vision to retain U.S. economic leadership, a way to motivate the American people, and protect U.S. national interests.
Credit: NASA
Space ecosystem: at risk
In other findings, the report stresses that the space ecosystem is at risk.
The agile engineering ecosystem that has become the hallmark of the modern space era, the report notes, is at risk due to some U.S. policy and procurement practices within the bureaucracy that are not aligned with, or work counter to, national space strategy.
“The national enterprise must adopt and further implement the U.S. National Space Strategy and modify practices to ensure U.S. competitiveness.
In order to protect the planet, we must get off-planet, the report explains.
“Advancements in off-world power production, manufacturing and lunar resource extraction will be foundational to the trillion-dollar space economy.”
Go to this video: State of the Space Industrial Base 2022 at:
For the full report, go to:
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Has NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover uncovered a “biosignature” of life on Mars?
The wheeled robot investigator of Jezero Crater is gathering detailed data on desert varnish – a potential biosignature.
But is this coating enriched in manganese? If so, then that elevates the case that it is desert varnish…and may well be a potential biosignature, or does it?
“Yes, there are definitely features that look ‘desert varnish-y’ in Jezero right now,” said Amy Williams, a Mars specialist on the Curiosity and Perseverance rover missions at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida.
Signs of ancient life on Mars could be preserved in layered rocks like those shown in this illustration of NASA’s Perseverance rover in Jezero crater.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“On Earth, desert varnish is certainly intimately tied with microbial interactions. But we do know of some unique instances wherein these types of rock coatings can be generated abiotically [absence of life or living organisms]. The question then remains whether microbes ever played a role in the formation of similar rock coatings on Mars,” Williams said.
Sample return
“My take on the biogenicity part [produced by living organisms] is that on Earth we see microbiology associated with desert varnish because Earth is widely inhabited,” Williams told Inside Outer Space. “Based on our findings in terrestrial analog environments, we’re therefore interested in the biogenicity of desert varnish on Mars.”
Williams said, however, that Mars researchers don’t have the ability to determine biogenic character in these Mars varnishes. To do so will take back-on-Earth, lab-based techniques, she said. “But that’s the beauty of Mars Sample Return…we could send these samples back to Earth to address that profound question!”
Depiction shows Jezero Crater — the landing locale of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover — as it might have appeared billions of years ago when it was perhaps a life-sustaining lake. An inlet and outlet are also visible on either side of the lake.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Controversial, complicated question
So what Perseverance is snooping out at present is looking for an answer to a complicated question.
On Earth, microbes appear to be involved in at least some, if not all, desert varnishes that we find. But that appraisal is still controversial in some people’s minds, notes astrobiologist Penelope Boston, Associate Director for Science Business Development at NASA Ames Research Center in the heart of Silicon Valley in California.
“There is a huge range of compositions in desert varnish, and indeed varnishes even in wetter environments, e.g. protruding boulders in some streams or rivers,” Boston told Inside Outer Space. “The diversity in the varnish makes it hard to make generalities about the phenomenon.”
Newly revised Mars Sample Return campaign makes use of a set of machines, including use of helicopters, to collect Martian soil, rock and atmospheric specimens for return to Earth.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Manganese components
Boston said that under Earth’s surface and near-surface conditions, the iron components of varnish don’t need the presence of microbes to drive the oxidation processes because it so easily oxidizes by itself, albeit microbes are usually present in samples that researchers have examined.
“The situation with the manganese components is much more indicative of microbial interaction because chemically reduced forms of manganese do not oxidize anywhere near as easily as the iron,” Boston said. “However, a number of organisms have been shown to greatly facilitate the oxidation of manganese compounds, thus, Mn [manganese] could be a more indicative potential biosignature.”
Varnish compositions range from all iron to all manganese or somewhere in between, Boston advised. In addition, usually some sort of clays are present which could be either blown in materials deposited on the rock, or clay weathering products of the rock itself. Then varnishes vary a great deal in terms of whether an amorphous glassy layer of silica is or is not present, she said.
Credit: NASA
“Lastly, many varnishes have lots of trace metals or other elements also present. The presence of microorganisms on and partially within varnishes is tantalizing, and I believe them to be intimately involved with the geological processes that produce varnish, but of course, it is hard to definitively demonstrate that…and there are other nuances too,” Boston noted.
Look and see
Definitely, the varnish is an important feature on Mars, Boston added, one that Mars researchers have known to be present for a long time.
“Perseverance is giving us a close-up look at such materials. Studying it in detail could yield a lot of information about surface climate to which these rocks have been exposed, either with or without biological influences,” Boston said.
Can we tell whether the varnish is bio or abio?
“I don’t know. Would the biosignatures that we see in Earthly varnish be preserved after the much greater periods of time that the Martian varnish has endured? I don’t know. We can only look and see,” Boston concluded.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Adds planetary scientist at Ames, Carol Stoker, desert varnish on Earth is high in manganese. It is Mn that makes the coating dark.
In another Mars location, NASA’s Curiosity rover has seen a lot of rocks with high Mn which were thought to be coatings, Stoker explains.
“Since Mn coatings are potentially biologically mediated, this should be a high priority rock for sample return,” Stoker said.
Bottom line: Thin dark coatings known as desert varnish are common on rocks in arid regions on Earth and they’re thought to form in part from microbial activity. Now, on Mars, the Perseverance rover has found similar coatings.
For a short course on this issue, go to this episode of Mars Guy [aka Steve Ruff at ASU] at:
Curiosity’s location on Sol 3571. Distance driven to that sol: 17.76 miles/28.58 kilometers.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3572 duties.
“We are almost through Paraitepuy pass, an area between two large buttes that has made for tricky driving while dealing with communication challenges, sand and broken-up rocks,” reports Lucy Thompson, a planetary geologist at University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B image taken on Sol 3572, August 24, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“But the end is in sight as we near an area identified from orbit as probably containing hydrated magnesium sulfates, in contrast with the clay-bearing unit that we have been transitioning out of,” Thompson adds.
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B image taken on Sol 3572, August 24, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Broken-up bedrock
“Before we get there though, the team noticed that there is an area that appears quite different from what we have been driving over, and the upcoming, potentially sulfate-rich area. The broken-up bedrock is characterized by numerous, relatively large, resistant features,” Thompson points out.
Although researchers recently had these rocks in front of the rover, because of a low data volume downlink from the previous plan, they did not have the imaging necessary to safely place the arm and the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) and Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instruments on the rocks.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3572, August 24, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Thompson, as the APXS strategic planner this week, advocated for trying to get APXS compositional data on these rocks before the robot drives away.
“We therefore prioritized driving in this plan to put us in a good position to do contact science on one of these interesting rocks in tomorrow’s plan. Given that these ‘nodule-rich’ rocks occur in the vicinity of the ‘sulfate-bearing’ area mapped from orbit, the team decided that it was important to fully characterize them,” Thompson reports. “They could provide insights into the processes that occurred in the rocks as we change from clay-bearing to sulfate-bearing.”
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3572, August 24, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Document textures
Although Mars researchers could not do contact science, they took full advantage of Curiosity’s remote sensing instruments to investigate the rocks immediately in front of the rover, as well as attempting to place them in context with outcrops exposed in the surrounding buttes.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 3572, August 24, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) was slated to acquire compositional data on an exposure of the nodular bedrock, “Isla Cangrejo,” which will also be imaged with Mastcam.
Mastcam images were to also be obtained of “Kulishiri,” “Jiboia,” and “Altana Creek” to further document textures.
Nodule rich material
Also in the plan is producing a Mastcam mosaic of a section of the Bolivar butte to look at possible exposures of the nodule rich material, and the relationship with underlying and overlying strata.
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) photo produced on Sol 3571, August 23, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
To fully document the terrain around and below us, a Mastcam starboard mosaic and Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) image were also planned.
Also busy, the environmental science team planned several observations to continue monitoring changes in atmospheric conditions. These included: a Navcam large dust devil survey and cosmic ray survey. Standard Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS), Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) and Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) activities round out this plan, Thompson concluded.
Group photo of the Galileo Project members during their first-year conference at the Harvard College Observatory on August 1–3, 2022.
Image credit: Andy Mead, courtesy Avi Loeb
The Galileo Project is the first systematic scientific research program in a search for artifacts or remnants of extraterrestrial technological civilizations.
Team members of the initiative held a conference on August 1–3 at the Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts to make note of its first-year accomplishments and to chart plans for the year ahead.
Layout diagram of the all-sky Galileo Observatory for UAP on the roof of the Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Image credit: Avi Loeb
One action item of note was the opening up of a rooftop set of instruments to look into the issue of Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP), also frequently characterized as Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs).
Avi Loeb details the Galileo Project effort.
Image credit: Matt Checkowski/Galileo Project archive
Heading the Galileo Project is noted astrophysicist Avi Loeb of Harvard University.
For details, go to my new Space.com story – “On the trail of unidentified aerial phenomenon: the Galileo Project looks ahead” – at:
https://www.space.com/galileo-project-uap-ufos-one-year-update
Venus cloud encounter – a private sector investigation.
Credit: Rocket Lab
Here on Earth, Venus is somewhere between the Spinal Tap song about living in a “Hell Hole” but mixed with comedian Rodney Dangerfield’s quip of getting “no respect.”
Nevertheless, for all that negativity, Venus is more positively alluring than ever.
Electron small launch vehicle enables Venus exploration.
Credit: Rocket Lab
Scientists are now sniffing out what future missions can cough up new information regarding that world’s potential as an extraterrestrial home address for life – life that’s busily minding its own business in a swirl within Venusian clouds.
Boosting the promise of life on Venus detection is to make use of private rocketry capability, such as using the entrepreneurial Rocket Lab booster and their Photon upper stage.
Venus Life Finder Mission report.
Credit: MIT/Breakthrough Initiatives
For many months, work on reaching out to Venus has been in tight-lipped mode.
But for details, go to my new Space.com story – “Rocket Lab planning to launch private Venus mission in May 2023 – A new paper provides details of the ambitious mission” at:
https://www.space.com/rocket-lab-planning-to-launch-private-venus-mission-in-may-2023
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter acquired this image using its navigation camera. This camera is mounted in the helicopter’s fuselage and pointed directly downward to track the ground during flight. This image was acquired on Aug. 20, 2022 (Sol 533 of the Perseverance rover mission).
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter appears to have gone airborne on its 30th sortie. Flying on August 20th, the craft took a set of navigation camera images.
In a pre-flight posting, Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity Team Lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said the 30th flight would be a short hop. The intent of the flight would be to “check out our system’s health after surviving 101 sols of winter, collect landing delivery data in support of NASA’s Mars Sample Return Campaign, and potentially clear off dust that has settled on our solar panel since Flight 29.” That sortie took place on June 11, 2022.
Translate sideways
Tzanetos said that flight 30 would have Ingenuity translate sideways only 7 feet (2 meters) and then land, “but with the specific goal of providing a data point on Ingenuity’s ability to accurately approach a landing target.”
The rotorcraft’s navigation system’s performance “will be of value to the Sample Recovery Helicopter team (part of the Mars Sample Return Program) in their early design work for a next-generation Mars Helicopter navigation system, Tzanetos said.
Illustration of Ingenuity helicopter.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Credit: CGTN/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Reports from China indicate the country is advancing research on next-generation crewed launch vehicles with new Long March launch vehicles potentially used in China’s human lunar landing program and the construction of an international research station on the Moon.
“The payload capacity of the next-generation rockets and heavy rockets for manned lunar missions has plenty of room for another major upgrading to support the construction and implementation of these projects.” said Chen Xiaofei, an expert with the general design department of China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology.
Credit: CGTN/Inside Outer Space screengrab
While maintaining a high success launch rate of the active Long March rockets, China Central Television (CCTV) says the country is also carrying out work to reduce the launch cost, as well as make technical breakthroughs like re-use of spacecraft.
“We have been conducting researches and working on solutions revolving around the reuse technology for Long March rockets. Our plan is to finish the relevant flight tests within the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025),” Chen told CCTV.
Maiden flights
In the past two years, the Long March rockets have put more than 200 spacecraft into the preset orbit precisely, adds CCTV, with several new types making their maiden flights successfully.
China’s large carrier rocket Long March-5B made its maiden flight on May 5, 2022, increasing the carrying capacity of Chinese rockets to low-Earth orbit to 25 tons.
CCTV also added that the successful launch of the medium-lift carrier rocket Long March-8 on Dec. 22, 2020 has filled the gap in China’s launch capability to the sun-synchronous orbit from three to five tons.
The modified version of the Long March-6 carrier rocket with solid strap-on boosters adopted two types of engines, achieving its maiden flight on March 29 of this year and sending two satellites into planned orbit.
Credit: CGTN/Inside Outer Space screengrab
“We must have our own powerful and suitable carrier rockets, because how strong the capability of the carrier rocket decides how deep China’s space capability can reach into space, and how smoothly this pursuit would be,” said Yan Zexian, director of quality and technology department of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).
Lunar landing: around 2030?
Meanwhile, the Beijing-based Global Times reports that even without the new-generation crew-carrying rocket and super-heavy lift launch vehicle, leading Chinese rocket scientist Long Lehao, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chief designer of the Long March rockets, revealed in August 2021 that China could use two rocket launches to send two taikonauts to the Moon by around 2030.
Long referred to the new variant as Long March-5 DY, which stands for “dengyue,” meaning “lunar landing” in Chinese, reports the Global Times.
China’s Long March-5 booster departs Wenchang launch site.
Credit: CASC
Two rockets carrying a lunar lander and a next-generation piloted spaceship would be launched for the mission, and the two parts of the spacecraft will rendezvous and dock in near-lunar orbit, before executing the landing process.
The two taikonauts could work on the Moon’s surface for some six hours, according to Long.
Global Times adds that there is no mention of a specific landing site. The new piloted spaceship would then depart the Moon and carry out another docking with an orbiting module before heading back to Earth – a scenario already used for China’s robotic lunar sample return mission.
