Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
Author: 
August 11th, 2022
DiskSat prototypes — a novel, thin circular satellite standard — in the lab.
Credit: The Aerospace Corporation
Over the years, there has been an explosion of CubeSat capability.
But make room for an alternate approach – DiskSat.
The Aerospace Corporation is looking into this novel, thin circular satellite. For launch, several DiskSats can be stacked to fit within a launch vehicle’s fairing and deployed one at a time after the launch vehicle reaches orbit — an ideal approach to building large constellations of small spacecraft, allowing 20 or more satellites to be containerized in a single small launch vehicle.
DiskSats shown stacked within a small launch vehicle fairing. DiskSats are high-power and high-aperture alternatives to CubeSats, launched in tight stacks but deployed individually to ensure no recontact between satellites.
Credit: The Aerospace Corporation
“The key challenge with the DiskSat is developing a dispenser that will contain the satellites during launch and then release them one at a time on orbit,” explains Richard Welle, an Aerospace Senior Scientist. “We are still working out the details of the dispensing system, but we expect that the satellites will be released one at a time from the top of the stack with sufficient speed to ensure that each satellite is well clear of the dispenser before the next satellite is released. The design of the dispensing system will be finalized and tested in the laboratory over the next few months.”
Demonstration mission
Welle adds that the Small Spacecraft Technology Program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate is supporting Aerospace to build and fly a demonstration mission.
The DiskSat next to a 1.5U Cubesat.
Credit: The Aerospace Corporation
Four spacecraft will be deployed in low Earth orbit to verify baseline DiskSat performance and validate the launch dispenser.
“The four demonstration satellites will have electric propulsion and operate in pairs: one pair will fly at low altitude, and the other will demonstrate high-altitude operations, showcasing DiskSat’s maneuverability. This demonstration mission is expected to be ready to fly by the end of 2023 and will fly as soon thereafter as a launch opportunity can be identified,” Welle explains.
Are discs the future of small satellites?
For more details on DiskSat, go to:
https://aerospacecorp.medium.com/are-discs-the-future-of-small-satellites-b95ade76d2b5
Also, go to this informative video at:
Posted in 
NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover is busy at work, on a roll to find evidence of past microbial life on the Red Planet. This rover’s selfie also captures Ingenuity, the Mars helicopter.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Since its wheels-down landing in February of last year, NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has been busily at work, on the prowl steering itself across the Jezero Crater landscape.
Perseverance is on a roll, a collectible outing to stash core samples in sealed tubes that are to eventually find their way to Earth via the Mars Sample Return program.
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
But how tough is it to spot and sample potential past life on Mars? Perhaps the rover already has?
Then there’s the question of do we need the samples back on Earth to find signs of past life, or can Perseverance, on-location, detect past, or even present life with its suite of instruments?
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
Above all, just how hard might it be to have a consensus among scientists that, yes, signs of life, be it past or present has been observed by the rover? What’s a slam dunk finding look like?
For more information, go to my new Space.com story – “Probing the Red Planet: Finding past life at Jezero Crater” – at:
https://www.space.com/nasa-perseverance-rover-jezero-crater-past-life-on-mars
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
China’s next space station segment – the Mengtian lab module – is now at the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in south China’s Hainan Province.
The Mengtian lab module means “Dreaming of Heavens,” and will be assembled at the launch site and go through relevant tests with launch later this year, in October.
Station complete is set for year’s end.
Credit: CNAS/CCTV Video News Agency/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The construction of China’s Tiangong space station is expected to be completed by year’s end with the launch of Mengtian lab module. It will then evolve from a single-module structure into a national space laboratory with three modules – the core module Tianhe, and lab modules Wentian and Mengtian.
China’s first lab module of its space station Wentian was launched on July 24 from Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site.
For a video of the arrival of Mengtian at the launch site, go to:
Alan Stern (left), principal investigator for the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.
Image credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
You would think plunging into deep space, to the outer banks of our solar system, would be a person’s career ascension.
But for Alan Stern, principal investigator of the New Horizons mission that explored Pluto and now the Kuiper Belt, he also recently descended in a deep sea submersible to view the sunken remains of the RMS Titanic.
Titanic-bound, an attentive Alan Stern ran voice com and was mission scientist.
Image credit: Alan Stern
For planetary scientist Stern, purging deep space of its secrets in the 21st century, or witnessing the 20th century deep sea sarcophagus that is the Titanic serves up analogies to spaceflight.
Out the porthole, a view of the Titanic.
Image credit: Alan Stern
But there are lots of differences too.
For more details on this dive to the Titanic, go to my new Space.com story – “Pluto explorer deep dives to the Titanic – For planetary scientist Alan Stern, witnessing the 20th century deep sea sarcophagus that is the Titanic serves up analogies to spaceflight” – go to:
https://www.space.com/pluto-explorer-dive-titanic?utm_campaign=socialflow
Space Launch System (SLS) Credit: NASA/MSFC
The “crew” of the Artemis 1 mission to the Moon.
Credit: NASA/Lockheed Martin/DLR
Riding atop the maiden voyage of the NASA Space Launch System, the uncrewed Orion spacecraft, if lofted on August 29th, would result in a mission duration of approximately 42 days, with a targeted Orion splashdown on October 10th.
The upcoming Artemis 1 flight is a haven for dummies – onboard “phantom” passengers in the Orion capsule will gather crucial data to help protect the first human astronauts of Artemis II, the first mission in more than 50 years that will send crew around the Moon.
Commander Moonikin Campos.
Credit: NASA/KSC
Commander Moonikin Campos is a male-bodied manikin previously used in Orion vibration tests. Campos will occupy the commander’s seat inside and wear an Orion Crew Survival System suit– the same spacesuit that Artemis astronauts will use during launch, entry, and other dynamic phases of their missions.
Campos will be equipped with two radiation sensors and have additional sensors under its headrest and behind its seat to record acceleration and vibration data throughout the mission.
The radiation measuring manikin Helga in individual parts.
Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
Measurement sensors
Joining Commander Moonikin Campos are two dummy torsos: “Zohar” and “Helga” representing the Matroshka AstroRad Radiation Experiment (MARE), led by the DLR Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Germany.
Zohar will fly to the Moon with a protective vest
Zohar, contributed by the Israel Space Agency, will fly to the Moon with a protective vest (AstroRad) made by the Israeli company StemRad, while Helga will fly without any protection.
A total of more than 6,000 passive measurement sensors are placed both on the surface of and inside the ‘phantoms’. After the flight around the Moon, the radiation values measured by both models will be compared in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the AstroRad protective vest.
DLR radiation biologist, Thomas Berger with the dummies in the Orion capsule during a “fit check” of Helga and Zohar.
Credit: DLR
Credit: NASA
For detailed information on the Artemis 1 mission, go to this NASA press kit at:
https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis-i-press-kit/
Credit: Helios
A new collaboration signals a significant step towards attaining a sustainable cislunar industry.
Two commercial companies — Helios and Eta Space – announced today they are joining forces to solve the problem of off-Earth oxygen production.
Helios, which is backed by the Israel Space Agency, has developed an electrochemical reactor capable of extracting oxygen from lunar regolith. Their proprietary technology and process has proven effective and is being used terrestrially for the extraction of other elements, such as iron.
Credit: Helios
Eta Space, located on the Space Coast of Florida, specializes in production, storage and transfer of cryogenic propellants. Eta Space offers capabilities in cryogenic fluid applications for the Earth, orbit, and the Moon.
Through teamwork, they are integrating their technologies to extract and store liquid oxygen on the Moon. Viewed as a valuable commodity for space, the intent is to sever the supply and transport chain of delivering that product from Earth.
Pilot plant
The key deliverable of the collaborative venture is a detailed design of a 10 metric ton per month pilot plant. The design goal is intended to test the integration of these two systems on a relevant scale for the lunar surface.
Credit: NASA
“Eta Space would play the important role of liquifying and storing the oxygen produced by the Helios reactor in cryogenic tanks,” said William Notardonato, founder and CEO of the company. He sees the joint work as a “key step” to make beyond Earth human presence sustainable.
Indeed, the April release of the U.S. National Academies Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey 2023-2032 noted for human lunar exploration under the auspices of Artemis, “sustainable” is defined to mean that there are “widely accepted reasons to continue human lunar exploration that justify the continued investment, commitment, and risk beyond a few missions.”
There is need to first develop the technologies required to give crews the wherewithal for longer and more sustainable operations on the lunar surface.
Economic value chain
“In order to enable the establishment of a permanent lunar base, Helios’ technology is not enough – a whole set of technologies are required to realize the lunar economic value chain,” said Jonathan Geifman, Helios CEO and co-founder.
“This new collaboration with Eta Space will for the first time connect two purely commercial links in the chain – the production and the storage of oxygen – thus making multiple and long-term missions to the Moon closer to being economically viable.”
Credit: NASA
If humanity is to have a sustainable presence beyond Earth, the reusable methane-fueled rocket systems need liquid oxygen at a ratio of 1:4, so the only cost-effective solution to refueling in orbit is to create and store oxygen on the Moon and on Mars, according to a Helios and Eta Space joint statement.
Partnership program
In late June, Space Florida and the Israel Innovation Authority announced recipients of industrial research and development funding tied to the Space Florida-Israel Innovation Partnership Program. The Helios and Eta Space team proposal was among the winners.
The next call for applications is expected to be released in September 2022.
Florida-based companies interested in more information can visit:
Israel-based companies can visit:
For more information on Helios and Eta Space, go to:
https://www.project-helios.space/
Special thanks to Ana Yoerg of At One Ventures for assistance in preparing this story.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
China’s Shenzhou-14 crew continues to set up the newly lofted Wentian lab module, a key element of the country’s in-construction space station.
Commander Chen Dong and co-astronauts Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe are assembling the regenerative life support system and preparing for extravehicular activities.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The taikonaut trio on Friday spent five and a half hours to sort out materials and supplies and tested the batteries of the extra-vehicular activity suits, reports China Central Television (CCTV). In the next three days, they will mainly work on the setting and test of the environmental control and regenerative life support system of the Wentian lab module.
Tests and adjustments
“The regenerative life support system is very complicated. It involves extensive plumbing operations, so there will be a lot of work to do. This week, they will do tests and adjustments in addition to installing the instruments,” said Wang Chunhui, deputy chief designer of the astronaut system of the China Astronaut Research and Training Center.
Credit: GLOBALink/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The Shenzhou-14 crew will carry out extravehicular activities from Wentian’s airlock module. In preparation for the mission, the astronauts recently conducted in-orbit tests of the functions of the small mechanical arm outside Wentian with the support of the ground team, CCTV notes.
Mechanical arm test
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
“We’ve tested the overall function of the small mechanical arm of the Wentian lab module, including crawling on the Wentian lab module and inspecting the loading platform,” said Shang Shuai, chief designer of the space station flight and control team with the China Academy of Space Technology.
“The five-day test shows that the small robotic arm is functioning normally, which meets our anticipation,” Shang told CCTV.
The Wentian lab module was launched on July 24 and docked with the space station code module Tianhe on July 25.
Go to this newly issued video showing current work activities by the Shenzhou-14 crew:
Possible design of China’s space plane.
Source: Homem do Espaco/Twitter
That Chinese space plane launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert on the night of August 4-5 by a Long March 2F rocket is being assessed by satellite watchers.
Marco Langbroek in the Netherlands has posted some interesting details via his SatTrackCam Leiden (b)log.
Credit: Marco Langbroek
“The re-usable experimental spacecraft was launched into a 346 x 593 km, 50-degree inclined orbit. The orbital inclination is similar to the September 2020 test launch: the orbital altitude is however different this time,” Langbroek reports. “The 2020 test flight was in a 331 x 347 km orbit: the current flight is in a more eccentric orbit with higher apogee altitude (at almost 600 km, or 250 km higher than in 2020).”
Langbroek adds that eight objects have been catalogued associated with the space plane’s launch: the craft itself, the rocket’s upper stage, four chunks of debris, and perhaps secondary payloads. “They could perhaps be test targets to retrieve, or ‘inspector’ satellites to check the outside of the spacecraft. We’ll see what happens.”
Credit: Marco Langbroek
Lop Nor landing strip
How long the orbiter will stay in space on this flight is unknown and whether or not the vehicle will maneuver this time; the previous flight of the vehicle did not.
“When it lands, we expect that to be at the same landing site as in 2020, a remote landing strip near Lop Nor,” Langbroek notes.
In a related story, activity at a remote Chinese airstrip has been viewed by satellite before the space plane’s launch. Go to the story by Joseph Trevithick at The War Zone at:
Also, go to Langbroek’s video showing a flyover of the space plane at:
https://vimeo.com/736997998?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=17330566
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B image acquired on Sol 3553, August 4, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity rover has been on the prowl at Gale Crater since landing on Mars in August of 2012, touching down on the evening of Aug. 5 PDT (morning of Aug. 6 EDT).
Ten (Earth) years later, the Mars machinery continues its mission of exploration, notes Scott VanBommel, a planetary scientist at Washington University.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3553, August 4, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“As we the science and engineering teams have aged this last decade, so has Curiosity,” VanBommel adds. The toll of ten years and nearly 18 miles (28.5 kilometers) of Mars driving shows with every Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) wheel imaging activity, with less energy available for a plan, and with aging mechanisms.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3553, August 4, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3553, August 4, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3553, August 4, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“This is the life of a Mars rover. Spirit and Opportunity were no different, yet they persisted and paved the way scientifically and technologically for the rovers of today. Curiosity has made numerous scientific discoveries during these ten years, emphasized by the over 500 science team publications, with many more ahead as we continue our ascent and exploration of Gale crater and Mount Sharp,” VanBommel reports. “I look forward to the next ten years.”
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3553, August 4, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3553, August 4, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
SAM: top 5 discoveries
Science writer, Nick Oakes of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, took at look at Curiosity’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite.
SAM’s top 5 discoveries aboard NASA’s Curiosity rover at Mars:
Detection of Organic Compounds on Mars; Methane Variability; Rock Formation and Exposure Age in Gale Crater; Honing in on the History of Water on Mars; and Biologically Useful Nitrogen
“No finding from SAM or Curiosity’s other instruments can offer proof-positive for past life on Mars – but importantly, these discoveries don’t rule it out, Oakes writes. “Earlier this year, NASA extended Curiosity’s mission at least into 2025, allowing the rover and its mobile SAM chemistry lab to stay focused on the tantalizing matter of Mars’ habitability.”
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity’s location as of Sol 3551. Distance driven to that Sol: 17.66 miles/28.42 kilometers.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3553 duties.
“Curiosity is making its way through the stunning ‘Paraitepuy Pass,’ the little canyon that runs between the ‘Deepdale’ and ‘Bolivar’ buttes to our east and west, respectively,” reports Elena Amador-French, Science Operations Coordinator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3552, August 3, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“The canyon floor is filled with aeolian bedforms, or sand ripples, as wind is likely funneled through the pass, mobilizing sand grains,” Amador-French adds, “a lovely modern process, active on Mars today!”
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3552, August 3, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Dog’s eye mosaic
Recent rover contact science included taking a Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) “dog’s eye” mosaic of the bedrock target “Karisparo.”
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity took 31 images in Gale Crater using its mast-mounted Right Navigation Camera (Navcam) to create this mosaic.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“In a dog’s eye mosaic, the rover planners attempt to get the MAHLI camera as parallel to a vertical face of an exposure as possible. This provides a nice view of how any rock layers are oriented relative to each other, as well as getting a fine-scale view of the grain sizes,” Amador-French notes. “The science team then uses these observations to interpret how the grains were deposited and may have been subsequently perturbed.”
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3552, August 3, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Also on tap is use of the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument to take a Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) observation of some local bedrock and long-distance Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) photography of the Deepdale butte.
Distant layering
“The RMIs provide an excellent “spy glass” view of distant layering that otherwise can’t be resolved with the other cameras. Mastcam will take mosaics of both the Bolivar and Deepdale buttes from this new vantage point,” Amador-French reports.
Curiosity Mast Camera Left photo taken on Sol 3551, August 2, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
A drive recently planned by the rover controllers will navigate about 98 feet (30 meters) forward through Paraitepuy Pass. “They are working through challenging terrain with higher than normal tilts and pointy blocks that have eroded off the surrounding buttes,” Amador-French explains. “A fun drive for Curiosity!”
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 3551, August 2, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
From the new location after the drive, rover operators were to use ChemCam’s autonomous target selection software to pick an interesting science target for a LIBS observation and document that spot with Mastcam. “We also have our continued environmental monitoring observations including a dust devil and sky survey,” Amador-French concludes.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 3551, August 2, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
High slip on steep terrain
In an earlier report by Ashley Stroupe, Mission Operations Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory noted that a recent drive by the robot stopped early due to high slip on the steep terrain, and Curiosity’s parking place was not a safe spot to unstow and use the arm.
“This terrain is particularly beautiful, so the opportunity to take more imaging is both scientifically interesting and visually stunning,” Stroupe adds.
“The drive itself was very challenging, given that we had already stopped short due to the difficult terrain. We are attempting to reach a high point…so we can look down into the valley to see if there is a way out on the other side and to help plan our path forward. High tilts, sand, and large and small rocks clutter the terrain, requiring the Rover Planners to pick their way around while making sure they stay clear of the hazards,” Stroupe explains.
