Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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July 6th, 2022
CAPSTONE team members install solar panels onto the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment – at Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems Inc. in Irvine, California.
Credits: NASA/Dominic Hart
Looks like good news for that newly launched NASA Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) CubeSat.
During commissioning activities an anomaly was experienced related to the communication subsystem; the operations team began actively working the issue with the NASA Deep Space Network and identified a path forward.
Artwork depicts CAPSTONE spacecraft in a near rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) around the moon.
Credit: NASA/Advanced Space
Recovery procedures
From Advanced Space, owner and operator of the micro-explorer:
In the last 24 hours the CAPSTONE team has identified the “likely cause” of the communications anomaly and has been working to recover from the issue. This work has included rapid engineering support and resources from many different mission partners. We are extremely grateful for this team effort and want to express our appreciation to all of those involved.
Jeffrey Parker, chief technology officer of Advanced Space (left) explains the CAPSTONE mission to U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper over a full-size model of the spacecraft.
Credit: Advanced Space/Jason Johnson
As of approximately 7:26 AM MT this morning, the operations team began receiving signal from the spacecraft. The signal confirmed the location of the spacecraft was consistent with the predictions generated from the initial acquisition activities. The team worked subsequent recovery procedures to obtain telemetry from the spacecraft at approximately 8:18 AM MT and initial indications suggest the spacecraft systems are functioning properly.
Happy and healthy
The team will continue with this work and once the communications system is fully recovered the team will review spacecraft status and telemetry to monitor for any addition issues since the communications outage began. Initial data from the spacecraft suggests that it is happy and healthy.
Rebecca Rogers, systems engineer, left, takes pre-launch dimension measurements of the CAPSTONE spacecraft at Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Inc., in Irvine, California.
Once the system is determined to be back to operational capacity and a new state estimate has been obtained an updated trajectory correction maneuver will be designed and uploaded to the spacecraft for execution.
This is still a very dynamic situation, added Advanced Space, and as things progress further updates and corrections will be shared as appropriate.
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Credit: CNAS/CCTV Video News Agency/Inside Outer Space screengrab
China’s three-member Shenzhou-14 crew are preparing for a busy month in space.
The country’s in-construction space station team is preparing for arrival of the Wentian lab module that is scheduled to be launched this month.
Spacewalk suit check. Credit: CNSA/CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Station commander Chen Dong recently tested a spacesuit, preparing for upcoming spacewalks that will depart from the Wentian module. Once attached, the astronauts will choose an appropriate time to get out of the spacecraft complex from the airlock part at the rear end of Wentian for spacewalk chores.
Credit: CNSA/CCTV/Inside Outer Space
The now-orbiting trio of taikonauts — Chen Dong, Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe — are on a sixth month mission. During their stay in orbit, the crew will witness the outfitting of two lab modules to the Tianhe core module. Also on tap is to greet the Tianzhou-5 cargo craft and the Shenzhou-15 crewed spaceship.
China’s Tiangong space station is to be fully installed in Earth orbit by the end of 2022.
Large workload
As of Tuesday, the current crew have spent a full month working and living in the space station. According to China Central Television (CCTV), the Shenzhou-14 crew has successively completed various tasks, including material arrangement and movement of key items into the Tianhe module.
Credit: CNSA/CCTV/Inside Outer Space
“With the material management system, the astronauts have classified and sorted out the materials in the space station, which is quite a large workload,” said Wu Dawei, deputy chief designer, astronaut system, of the China Astronaut Research and Training Center.
“We have upgraded and improved the system for this mission, [making it easier for] the astronauts to take some photos and videos, sort out and record the information of materials in the space station, which has further facilitated the communication between the Earth and the space station,” Wu told CCTV.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Launch schedule
China is set to launch the Wentian laboratory module to dock with the current complex of China’s space station in late July and then loft the Mengtian laboratory module at the end of this year. Most of laboratory cabinets prepared for carrying out space station experiments will be confined within the Wentian and Mengtian modules.
Following this phase, the Tianzhou-5 cargo craft and the Shenzhou-15 piloted spacecraft will arrive at the complex later this year.
The crew members of the Shenzhou-15 will join the Shenzhou-14 taikonauts aboard the Tiangong for the station’s first-ever crew handover.
For video updates on activities on the station core module by the Shenzhou-14 crew, go to:
Credit: NASA
Work is progressing on a vital part of NASA’s Mars Return Sample plans.
The Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) is a small, lightweight, two-stage solid propellant rocket with a big assignment: hurl rock, sediment, and atmospheric samples from the surface of the Red Planet.
Developer of the MAV is Lockheed Martin Space of Littleton, Colorado, with this “cache and carry” transport device crucial to enable the first rocket launch from another planet.
The MAV would be packaged within NASA’s Sample Retrieval Lander, another central part of the campaign, with the all-in-one spacecraft (lander and MAV) touching down near or in Jezero Crater. That’s the spot where the Perseverance rover is already busily gathering Mars specimens, some of which are destined to be shot back to Earth in the early 2030’s.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
For more details, take a look at my new Space.com story – “How NASA will launch Mars samples off the Red Planet – Meet the 10-foot-tall (3 meters) Mars Ascent Vehicle” at:
Simulated lunar exploration on Mount Etna, a volcano in Italy.
Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
The Helmholtz Future Project Autonomous Robotic Networks to Help Modern Societies (ARCHES) has wrapped up simulated lunar exploration on Mount Etna, a volcano in Italy.
The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) organized the venture that also involved the European Space Agency’s “Analog-1” project.
DLR lander and rover working together.
Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
The Mount Etna site resembles the lava landscape on the Moon. In addition to the loose, coarse-grained surface composition, the solidified lava layers also present realistic challenges for exploration missions.
DLR Lightweight Rover Unit 1 (LRU1).
Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
Robot menagerie
According to the DLR, two robots moved around together autonomously. They were joined by a drone. Also practiced was control of the robots from a simulated station in orbit. For maximum realism a second of signal delay was added to the rover control system, equivalent to the time it would take commands to travel between the Gateway station and the lunar surface. The force feedback control method has been designed to operate with such delays.
LRU2 robot took on the role of “assistant.”
Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
During this demonstration activity, German astronaut Thomas Reiter carried out this task from a special control room, in fact a hotel room, in Catania, Sicily about 14 miles (23 kilometers) away.
- The Lightweight Rover Unit 1 (LRU1) robot evaluated soil samples using its cameras and is considered the “scientist” of the team.
- LRU2 took on the role of “assistant,” collecting surface samples, then analyzed them using Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS).
- ESA’s four-wheeled Interact rover collected rock samples and brought them to a lander. The Interact Rover has a camera arm and a gripper arm that also provide haptic feedback. This means that the remote scientists can obtain a tactile “feel” for the rock samples. ESA’s Interact rover was built by the Agency’s Human Robot Interaction Lab and modified for the rugged slopes of the volcano. Interact Rover operations were coordinated from the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Germany.
- The ARDEA drone is considered the “scout” for the team and mapped the area.
Scout rover in the lava landscape.
Credit: DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
Far side simulation
Various scenarios were played out, including the “LOFAR Experiment.” It involved simulating the installation and maintenance of a low-frequency radio antenna array. The LRU rover and the ARDEA drone demonstrated the installation of an antenna system on the far side of the Moon. A similar antenna could be directed from the lunar surface into deep space.
Heterogeneous, autonomous, networked robotic systems have been in development since 2018 as part of the ARCHES initiative. This involves a number of different robots and fields of application.
ESA’s Interact Rover chose rock samples and brought them to DLR’s RODIN lunar lander.
Credit: ESA
Extension of human arms and eyes
Thomas Reiter commented: “We’ve learned a lot about collaboration between ground control on Earth and the crew aboard a space station orbiting the Moon, both operating a rover on the surface – this ‘shared’ operation can be extremely efficient –much more efficient than if either side does it alone.”
ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter at the controls.
Credit: ESA
“Teams of mobile robots have an important role to play in future space missions. Operating in heterogeneous teams, the robots complement and support each other with their different capabilities. They serve as an extension of human arms and eyes,” explains Armin Wedler, Project Manager at the DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics in a DLR statement.
In addition to opening up the exploration of the Solar System, ARCHES also opens the way for environmental monitoring of the oceans and can provide assistance during crises on Earth.
CAPSTONE over the Moon’s North Pole. After arrival at its cis-lunar destination, CAPSTONE will begin its 6-month-long primary mission. The mission will validate a near rectilinear halo orbit’s characteristics by demonstrating how to enter into and operate in the orbit.
Illustration credit: NASA/Daniel Rutter
Just in from Advanced Space – the owner and operator of this mission headed for its target – the Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO) around the Moon.
During commissioning activities an anomaly was experienced related to the communication subsystem; the operations team is actively working this issue with the Deep Space Network and has identified a path forward.
- As a result of this anomaly the first trajectory correction maneuver (originally scheduled for the morning of July 5) has been rescheduled. This maneuver is designed to more accurately target the transfer orbit to the Moon – the spacecraft remains on its intended ballistic lunar transfer (BLT) while this targeting maneuver is delayed.
- One of the benefits of the BLT, the designed trajectory, is its robustness to delays such as this.
- The mission transfer approach and system margins provide time to resolve and understand this anomaly before proceeding with the first trajectory correction maneuver
- At the time of publication, the CAPSTONE spacecraft is currently approximately 285,000 km from Earth (~8 times GEO) on its planned ballistic transfer orbit to the Moon
Status check
Spacecraft was commissioning nominally for the first 11 hours.
- Spacecraft was deployed successfully from the launch vehicle
- Spacecraft successfully deployed solar arrays, achieved three-axis stabilization, and entered a battery charging mode
- Spacecraft successfully executed Earth-pointing mode, communicated with DSN stations in Madrid Spain and the operations team began check-out and commissioning of the spacecraft
- The operations team was able to determine spacecraft state (position and velocity) and design initial trajectory correction maneuver.
- Propulsion system was commissioned and prepared for the first trajectory correction maneuver
Jeffrey Parker, chief technology officer of Advanced Space (left) explains the CAPSTONE mission to U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper over a full-size model of the spacecraft.
Credit: Advanced Space/Jason Johnson
What now?
The CAPSTONE mission team has been working around the clock and through the holiday weekend to support this important mission. With CAPSTONE utilizing the BLT, it will take four months to reach the planned Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO) around the Moon. As further details emerge, Advanced Space and NASA will make them available.
More details about the CAPSTONE mission can be found at:
Keep updated on CAPSTONE at: https://advancedspace.com/
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3524 duties.
Here are some new images of the robot’s surroundings:
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3522, July 3, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3522, July 3, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3522, July 3, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3522, July 3, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) photo acquired on Sol 3523, July 4, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
Credit: Roscosmos/Keldysh Research Center
Russia’s go-it-alone space station plans include cosmonauts visiting a nuclear tug to turn on the system.
As reported by TASS, Dmitry Rogozin, Director General of Roscosmos, has stated that crews of the Russian Orbital Service Station (ROSS) would trek to the nuclear tug “Zeus” before turning on its reactor in order to control the deployment of systems.
“The new station will operate in an orbit from which the crew with their manned spacecraft will be able to visit our nuclear space tug Zeus to control the deployment of all its key elements and structures,” Rogozin wrote in his Telegram channel.
Credit: Roscosmos/Keldysh Research Center
Rogozin said a visit to the nuclear tug will be possible in a safe orbit of roughly 500 miles (800 kilometers) above the Earth prior to the reactor being turned on. Astronauts will primarily control the deployment of radiators to dump excess heat.
Transport and energy module
Zeus details are being fleshed out at the Keldysh Research Center. Work is ongoing at the center that carries out experimental, calculation and theoretical studies on improvement of power supply characteristics in rocket and space technologies.
Credit: Roscosmos/Keldysh Research Center
For example, a Transport and Energy Module (TEM) concept is based on a megawatt-class nuclear power propulsion system.
TEM is envisioned as hardware to implement expeditions into deep space; increase the efficiency of transport operations in space by 20 times; augment more than 10 times the use of electric power in space, according to the Keldysh Research Center website.
Credit: NASA/Institute of Biomedical Problems
The SIRIUS-21 space isolation experiment has been completed. Five members of the international crew (three men and two women) spent 240 days in conditions that simulate the work of a real space expedition on a lunar orbital station and the surface of the Moon.
The crew included Russian, American and Arab participants.
SIRIUS-21 has been underway at the Moscow-based Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) of the Russian Academy of Sciences. SIRIUS is supported by the NASA Human Research Program.
SIRIUS-21 crew members.
Credit: Institute of Biomedical Problems
The SIRIUS-21 lunar flight began on November 4, 2021. For eight months, the participants “entered near-Earth orbit” on the simulated interplanetary complex “flew to the orbit of the Moon” and several times “landed” on the Earth’s natural satellite and carried out moonwalks on the “lunar surface.” Various experiments were also carried out.
Crew members
Oleg BLINOV (Russia)
Ashley KOWALSKI (USA)
Victoria KIRICHENKO (Russia)
William BROWN (USA)
Saleh Omar AL AMERI (United Arab Emirates)
Problems faced
During the just completed experiment that mimicked a flight to the Moon, there were a number of problems expeditionary space crews faced, such as:
- sensory deprivation, monotony, limited social contacts, limited living space
- factors of autonomous interplanetary flight, including limiting the resources of the expedition and extravehicular activities on the planet’s surface
- professional activities of the crew (docking of transport ships, landing of the lunar module, control of robotic equipment)
- communication delay up to 5 minutes one way
MARS 500 Session training in the IMBP module.
SIRIUS-2023
The international project SIRIUS (Scientific International Research In Unique Terrestrial Station) includes a series of isolation experiments. Experiments have already been carried out for 17 days in November 2017 and four months in 2018-2019. It is also planned to hold three annual programs, the first of which should start in the second half of 2023.
The selection of the crew for the annual isolation experiment SIRIUS-2023 will begin this fall, according to Oleg Orlov, Director of the Institute of Biomedical Problems.
“We will announce the recruitment of a new crew, I think, already in the fall. And, in fact, the selection of the crew did not stop. We have candidates who have confirmed their desire to participate in the annual experiment,” Orlov said.
Credit: MBR Space Centre/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Aerospace engineering doctoral student Adrien Bouskela (left) and aerospace and mechanical engineering professor Sergey Shkarayev hold an experimental sailplane. They hope to one day send a custom version of a similar plane to Mars.
Credit: Emily Dieckman/College of Engineering/University of Arizona
Winging over Mars via motorless sailplane, even taking deep dives at Valles Marineris – the spectacular, huge canyon system of the Red Planet.
That’s the vision of a team of University of Arizona engineers, imagineering an 11-pound craft that can soar over the Martian surface for days at a time, using only wind energy for propulsion.
Credit: Adrien Bouskela, et al.
A Mars sailplane would contain a custom-designed array of navigation sensors, a camera, as well as temperature and gas sensors to harvest data about the Martian atmosphere and landscape.
The sailplane would exploit atmospheric wind gradients for dynamic soaring, and slope/thermal updrafts for static soaring.
Credit: Adrien Bouskela, et al.
Low-cost secondary payload
Packaged in CubeSats and on release, sailplanes would either unfold, like origami, or inflate, like high-tech pool floaties, then rigidize at their full size. The sailplane concept, unlike previous proposals for Mars, would be a low-cost secondary payload, price-tagged at $100 million or less.
After making its flight for days at a time, a sailplane would make a soft belly landing on the Martian surface and transform into a meteorological station, continuing to relay information about the atmosphere.
Equations of motion for the sailplanes were combined with wind profiles from the Mars Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (MRAMS) for two representative sites: Jezero crater, Perseverance’s landing site, and over a section of the Valles Marineris canyon.
The team conducted a tethered launch of an early version of the sailplane, in which it descended slowly to Earth attached to a balloon.
Credit: University of Arizona
Close-to-wall flying
Numerical results demonstrated that Mars sailplanes can do close-to-wall flying passes over locations inaccessible by conventional landers and rovers, thus providing a unique, close-up oblique viewing of the canyons and their stratigraphy.
This summer, the university team will test experimental planes at about 15,000 feet above sea level, where Earth’s atmosphere is thinner and flight conditions are more akin to those on Mars.
The research – “Mars Exploration Using Sailplanes” — has been published in the monthly journal, Aerospace.
To read the full paper, go to:
“Deepdale” on the left and the edge of “Bolivar” on the right. Curiosity Left Navigation Camera image taken on June 26, Sol 3515, at drive 3152, site number 95. While it looks like it’s about the same size as the hills that bound it, this effect is just due to forced perspective. In reality, Kukenán is nearly five times farther away and over three times as tall as Deepdale!
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3521 duties.
Abigail Fraeman, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, reports that Curiosity is proceeding through a pre-planned checklist of activities for drill campaigns, after a successful drilling of Avanavero.
The rover team is waiting for the downlink that contains data from the robot’s Chemistry & Mineralogy X-Ray Diffraction/X-Ray Fluorescence Instrument (CheMin) – the first analysis of the Avanavero drilled sample.
Curiosity Mast Camera image of drill hole taken on Sol 3512, June 23, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
That data helps Mars researchers to decide whether to analyze the sample with the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite as well.
Onboard lab work
“While we wait today, we planned a whopping six sols worth of activity that will cover the upcoming July 4th US holiday,” Fraeman adds. “The main activities in the plan included a second evening of analysis of Avanavero with CheMin, and an activity to prepare the SAM instrument to accept a sample so that we can be ready to say ‘Go for sample analysis!’ on Tuesday after we see the CheMin results.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3519, June 30, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“We planned lots of remote sensing activities around the tasks of our SAM and CheMin onboard laboratories. We will be collecting several high resolution Mastcam mosaics of the area and environmental sensing data,” Fraeman explains.
Impressive expression
Also slated is collecting Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) observations of rock targets named “Tocobirem” and “Uaiparu,” a soil target named “Simibi,” and the drill hole itself.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3519, June 30, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
On top of that, ChemCam will also acquire two long distance Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) mosaics, one over Gediz Vallis ridge, and one over a far distant hill named “Kukenán.”
“Kukenán’s Earth namesake is a tepui, or distinctive isolated table-top mountain, found in South America. The Martian Kukenán is also somewhat flat topped and an impressive expression in Mt. Sharp’s topography,” Fraeman adds.
Curiosity Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) photo taken on Sol 3520, July 1, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
“Curiosity’s strategic traverse path takes the rover right past Kukenán in about a kilometer or so,” Fraeman notes, “so this feature will become a familiar landmark rising in our windshield for months to come.”
Curiosity Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) photo taken on Sol 3520, July 1, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
