Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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May 21st, 2022
Deployment of China’s Zhurong Mars rover on May 22, 2021. Credit: CNSA
The China National Space Administration has noted that the country’s Zhurong Mars rover has been placed in dormancy-mode due to sand and dust storms.
Zhurong is predicted to resume its operation at year’s end, according to China Central Television (CCTV).
Imagery taken by Zhurong on March 16 and April 30, along with analyzing the data of electricity changes of Zhurong’s solar wings, scientists estimated that Mars is experiencing strong sandstorms.
Dusty Zhurong rover.
Credit: CNSA
To deal with the sandstorms which may weaken Zhurong’s power generating capacity and the low temperatures at night, scientists decided to switch Zhurong to dormant mode.
The CCTV explains that, as Zhurong’s landing area enters the winter season, the highest daytime temperatures drop to minus 20 degrees Celsius and the night temperatures may drop below minus 100 degrees Celsius with high probability of sandstorms. The temperature will continue to drop in mid-July.
Dust storm on the Red Planet observed by China’s Tianwen-1 Mars orbiter..
Credit: CNSA
Back to work
It is predicted that around December when the landing area comes into the spring season and the environmental conditions get better, Zhurong will get back to work.
In the meantime, the Mars probe Tianwen-1 is conducting remote sensing over Mars. The current image that it sent back shows the landform of the circumpolar latitude in the southern hemisphere of Mars.
The Mars mission team will try their best to continue monitoring the weather using the orbiter, the CCTV story explained.
Go to this video detailing the status of China’s Mars rover at:
Posted in 
Curiosity’s location as of Sol 3478. Distance driven since landing: 17.36 miles/27.94 kilometers.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3479 duties.
“Despite the incredibly rough terrain surrounding Mirador butte,” reports Natalie Moore, a mission operations specialist at Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, California, the nearly 10-year-old rover successfully drove a net distance forward [of roughly 33 feet (10 meters) and roughly 7 feet (2 meters] in elevation.
Martian art
“Not only did the Sol 3476 drive succeed, but placed us perfectly in front of the most beautiful laminated outcrop, a true canvas of Martian art painted by nature herself,” Moore adds.
“Evidence of possible cross-bedding and fine-scale laminations here are so interesting there was an initial question of whether we should stay for extra contact science opportunities or keep with our plan to drive away on the first sol of this plan,” Moore notes.
Dust Removal Tool result. Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) photo produced on Sol 3478, May 19, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Energized discussion
It was decided to keep the robot’s drive planned for Sol 3478, which sparked an energized discussion on which types of science Mars researchers could fit in the limited time they have before continuing forward in the afternoon.
Moore said there were questions of which activities would provide the most useful science and that they were vehemently discussed: Should we prioritize using our Dust Removal Tool (DRT) to wipe away the atmospheric dust that blocks our view of grain-size? Or would using the DRT damage the undisturbed bedrock laminations and ruin a close-up view from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI).
“Although scientists were certainly interested in the grain-size of this unit, getting those measurements from MAHLI images at this heading would most likely need low-level lighting from the afternoon sun: a seemingly impossible task,” Moore pointed out, “as we’ve kept our plan to drive away in the afternoon.”
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity took 2 images in Gale Crater using its mast-mounted Right Navigation Camera (Navcam) to create this mosaic.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Try for all of it
In the end, the heat fell on the dedicated Rover Planners who decided to try for all of it.
First, the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) was scheduled to do a short morning sniff of the laminated bedrock target researchers chose and named “Las Claritas.”
Then, MAHLI was slated to do the limbo to take a 6-frame angled mosaic surrounding Las Claritas to hopefully catch cross-bedding. Then the plan called for use of the DRT on the target itself and perform a MAHLI “full-suite” for grain-size which includes images of Las Claritas from 25 cm, 5 cm, and 2 cm away.
To get a sense of what Curiosity Rover Planners try to avoid navigating terrain, check out this Navcam image of the robot’s left front wheel at a recent parking spot.
Photo taken on May 17, 2022, Sol 3476, by Left Navigation Camera at drive 930, site number 95.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Planned drive
Besides this full sol of arm activities, Mastcam was also to carry out a stereo mosaic surrounding Las Claritas and two large farther-field mosaics covering the many outcrops around the rover, in addition to a host of other Mastcam images to document the state of our DRT and other instrument activity attempts.
Curiosity’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) was slated to shoot its laser for spectrometry on a bedrock target nearby named “Maturin” and a micro image mosaic on a layered outcrop roughly 16 feet (5 meters) away.
Curiosity imagery taken by Mast Camera Left and Right on Sol 3476, May 17, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The rover’s planned drive is for roughly less than 100 feet (30 meters) generally south, putting the Mars machinery near the south-east corner of Mirador butte for more science.
“While we wait for our drive data to come down to Earth, our rover will take environmental observations of the sky to monitor dust activity and ChemCam will autonomously choose a target for a second laser spectrometry observation at our new location,” Moore reported. “From the entire team’s hard work, everyone is getting a piece of the Martian pie this time!”
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
That Soviet-era, nuclear-powered Cosmos 954 satellite that crashed into Canada on January 24, 1978 is haunting a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer, Lance Rayner.
In a newly-posted story by Malak Abas in the Winnipeg Free Press, Rayner, then 24-years-old, was first on the scene with a fellow mountie at the site in Lutselk’e, a settlement on the eastern shore of Great Slave Lake.
Rayner has been diagnosed with a rare malignant parotid tumor and Stage 4 cancer. The former mountie believes guarding some of the radioactive remains of the Soviet satellite has caused his rare cancer condition.
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Clean-up operations
Under the code-name “Operation Morning Light,” it was determined that radioactive satellite debris had indeed survived re-entry and reached the ground.
Subsequent clean-up operations sought to safeguard the welfare of Northern Canadians living in the affected area. A search and clean-up of radioactive debris was pulled together, involving hundreds of personnel from the Canadian military and government agencies, as well as a 120-person U.S. Nuclear Emergency Search Team.
Credit: Nevada National Security
To read the Winnipeg Free Press article – “Fateful mission – Former Mountie believes guarding Soviet satellite caused rare cancer” – go to:
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/fateful-mission-576513942.html
Also, go to this video by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) at:
Lastly, go to an informative document on Operation Morning Light from Arctic Operational Histories edited and introduced by P. Whitney Lackenbauer and Ryan Dean at:
http://operationalhistories.ca/home/operation-morning-light/
Credit: Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU)
A May 17 hearing in Congress focused on reported objects zipping through the skies that are now termed Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP) – or for the elder skywatcher reading this, Unidentified Flying Object, (UFO).
Witnesses detailed the work of a newly established Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG).
Credit: Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Credit: Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee/Inside Outer Space screengrab
According to one lawmaker, the hearing was designed to bring that organization “out of the shadows.”
For the thousands of viewers that tuned into the hearing, some gave mixed reviews about what they heard – and many remain hungry for more details.
To view the open House Intelligence Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee hearing on UAP, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSDweUbGBow
For more information on what’s up with UAP and reaction to the hearing, go to my new Space.com story – “What’s next for UFO studies after landmark congressional hearing?” – at:
https://www.space.com/future-ufo-research-after-congress-hearing
Shown at hearing, Video 1 2021 flyby movie showing a purported UAP.
Credit: Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee/Inside Outer Space screengrab
China’s Tianwen-1 Mars orbiter.
Credit: CNSA
It has been a year since China’s Tianwen-1 mission reached the Red Planet consisting of an orbiter, a lander and a rover.
On May 15, 2021 – now, one year ago – the lander touched down in a pre-selected landing area in Utopia Planitia.
A week later on May 22, 2021, the Mars rover Zhurong wheeled down from its landing platform onto the Martian surface.
Zhurong has continued moving southward from its deployment site.
China’s Zhurong rover.
Credit: CNSA
Rover revelation
China’s Xinhua news agency reports that by Aug 15, 2021, Zhurong had worked on the planet’s surface for 90 Martian days, or about 92 days on Earth, despite reaching its planned working target of 90 days.
In November 2021, Zhurong and the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft performed an in-orbit relay communication test.
Illustration of the scientific payloads mounted on Zhurong rover. The group picture of the rover (left) and the lander (right) was taken by the WiFi camera (Image Credit: the ChinaNational Space Administration (CNSA)). NaTeCam: Navigation and Terrain camera. RoMAG: Mars Rover Magnetometer. MSCam: Multispectral Camera. MSC-1: MarsClimate Station (Wind field and sound probe). MSC-2: Mars Climate Station (Air
temperature and pressure probe). MarSCoDe: Mars Surface Component Detector. RoPeR(CH1): Mars Rover Penetrating Radar (channel 1). RoPeR (CH2): Mars Rover
Penetrating Radar (channel 2).
Credit: Steve Yang Liu, Et al.
In May this year, using data gathered by Zhurong on the landing site, Chinese scientists found new evidence suggesting the presence of liquid water activity and hydrated minerals on Mars.
Meanwhile, by May 5, 2022, the Tianwen-1 orbiter had been operating for 651 days circling Mars. The orbiter and rover continue to operate normally.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Future missions
China’s Tianwen-2 mission has entered a preliminary prototype development stage – designed to retrieve samples from near-Earth asteroids.
Zhang Rongqiao, Chief Designer of the Tianwen-1 Mars mission, has said that Tianwen-3’s assignment is a Mars sample return, with Tianwen-4 being a probe to investigate the Jovian system.
To view a video on the mission, go to:
In 2023, Rocket Lab is sending the first private mission to Venus.
Credit: Rocket Lab
In 2023, according to a Rocket Lab posting, the entrepreneurial launch firm is sending the first private mission to Venus to help gather important data regarding what may be signs of life in the clouds of Venus.
The goal, using an Electron launch vehicle and Photon spacecraft, is to send a probe to around 30 miles’ altitude, where Venus’ atmospheric conditions are closer to those found on Earth.
It was back in September 2020, that scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cardiff University announced they had observed the potential presence of phosphine. That gas typically is produced by living organisms, but it remains a controversial finding.
Image shows the night side of Venus glowing in thermal infrared, captured by Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft.
Credit: JAXA/ISAS/DARTS/Damia Bouic
Shallow oceans?
A 2019 study from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies found that Venus could have had shallow oceans on the surface for two to three billion years and this would have supported temperatures of between 68 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit.
However, around 700 million years ago, a resurfacing event released carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, turning Venus into a dangerous, inhospitable planet where atmospheric temperatures reach 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
According to Rocket Lab’s website, while more than 30 Venus missions have been undertaken, Rocket Lab’s launch next year will be the first private exploration of the planet.
Science instrument
The scientific payload of choice for the Venus mission — restricted to weigh a modest 1 kilogram – is an instrument called an autofluorescing nephelometer. Why so? It is small, cheap, and could be built quickly enough for the compressed mission timeline.
According to Sara Seager in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, once the probe is in Venus’ atmosphere, the instrument will shine a laser out of a window onto cloud particles, causing any complex molecules within them to light up, or fluoresce. Many organic molecules, such as the amino acid tryptophan, have fluorescent properties.
Credit: MIT/Breakthrough Initiatives
“If we see fluorescence, we know something interesting is in the cloud particles,” says Seager in a MIT press statement. “We can’t guarantee what organic molecule it is, or even be certain it’s an organic molecule. But it’s going to tell you there’s something incredibly interesting going on.”
Seager is principal investigator for the planned Venus Life Finder Missions – with Rocket Lab’s launch to kick-start the series of missions.
Things are progressing, said David Grinspoon, senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, and a member of the Venus Life Finder Missions study group. “We are having regular meetings on the instrumentation, running some tests, experiments, etc.,” he told Inside Outer Space.
Disruptive exploration
That autofluorescing nephelometer will also measure the pattern of light reflected back from the droplets to determine their shape. Pure sulfuric acid droplets would be spherical. Anything else would suggest there’s more going on than meets the autofluorescing nephelometer, adds the MIT press statement.
Whatever the 2023 mission detects, the next Venus Life Finder mission in the suite of probes is already being planned for 2026. That probe would involve a larger payload, with a balloon that could spend more time in Venus’ clouds and conduct more extensive experiments.
“Results from that mission might then set the stage for the culmination of the Venus Life Finder Missions concept: return a sample of Venus’ atmosphere to Earth,” states the MIT press statement.
“We think it’s disruptive,” says Seager. “And that’s the MIT style.”
For more information, go to my earlier Space.com story – “Venus Exploration: Cloud-bound Sanctuary for Microbial Life?” – go to:
https://www.leonarddavid.com/venus-exploration-cloud-bound-sanctuary-for-microbial-life/
Credit: Sierra Space
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is issuing a license to the Huntsville-Madison Airport Authority in Alabama to operate the Huntsville International Airport (HSV) as a commercial space reentry site.
According to the FAA, the license permits the airport to offer its site for Sierra Space Dream Chaser vehicles returning to Earth from future NASA resupply missions to the International Space Station.
The Reentry Site Operator License is valid for five years.
“The FAA license evaluation process involved environmental and safety reviews. In addition, the FAA will work with the airport to develop the necessary notifications and other procedures for safely and efficiently integrating commercial space reentries into its operations,” noted the FAA today.
FAA-licensed commercial spaceports
The FAA is also issuing the Final Environmental Assessment and a Finding of No Significant Impact/Record of Decision for the Authority’s reentry site license. These same final environmental documents also cover the related, but separate Sierra Space proposal to conduct up to eight reentry operations at the airport from 2023 to 2027.
Sierra Space, or any other commercial space vehicle operator, cannot conduct reentry operations at the airport until it obtains a Vehicle Operator License from the FAA.
BTW: The Huntsville Reentry Site is the 14th FAA-licensed commercial spaceport.
Credit: Mars Guy/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Mars helicopter flies over spacecraft wreckage. The Perseverance rover was delivered safely to the Martian surface thanks to a complex set of components including a parachute and backshell. Now Ingenuity has scoped out what became of them after they did their job.
Go to:
Credit: Mars Guy/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Perseverance finally touches rocks of the delta, so why no sample? After struggling through the gnarliest terrain it’s yet encountered, Perseverance drove across a transition in geologic history where the first sediments of Lake Jezero were deposited. Then it passed them by.
Go to:
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B image acquired on Sol 3471, May 12, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3472 duties.
After a successful drive of 154 feet (47 meters), with roughly 16 feet (5 meters) of elevation gain, the robot arrived at more new and interesting terrain to investigate, reports Elena Amador, a systems engineer and planetary scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
In a recently scripted two sol plan (Sols 3471-3472), Curiosity continued a systematic chemical characterization of the bedrock using its Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) and making its way through the clay/sulfate transition.
Nodular bedrock
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) photo produced on Sol 3469, May 10, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Two contact science targets, “Pastora” and “Tama Tama,” are nodular bedrock, and the rover was to also use the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) imager to take a close look at their fine-texture.
“Together the imaging and compositional information will provide clues for how these rocks formed and how they have been subsequently altered,” Amador notes.
The plan also calls for imaging distant buttes and layered stratigraphy using Mastcam and the ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) to learn about the depositional environments they formed in.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3470, May 11, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Dustiest season
“Our environmental team continues to monitor the atmosphere as we are approaching our dustiest season by taking tau measurements and line-of-sight observations across the crater, in addition to other weather monitoring observations,” Amador explains.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3470, May 11, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“The most fun part of my day as Science Operations Coordinator (SOC),” Amador adds, “was brokering the discussion between the science team and the Rover Planners for our drive and most importantly our end-of-drive location – which sets us up for the work we’ll do in Friday’s plan.”
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3470, May 11, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Up the mountain
The science team typically provides the SOC with several science targets that they are interested in landing on, with the SOC working with the Rover Planners to understand if those targets work with the resources available for the drive (for example, power and proper imaging), if accessing those targets is safe (for example, are they on a steep hill where the rover may slip?), and if the targets are generally along our high-level strategic path.
“After lots of fun back and forth, the team decided to drive 98 feet (30 meters) towards some unique dark layered blocks,” Amador reports. “If our drive is successful, we’ll get to do some contact science this weekend before continuing our journey up the mountain!”
This illustration shows a concept for multiple robots that would team up to ferry to Earth samples collected from the Mars surface by NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Robotic return of samples from the surface of Mars has been a holy grail goal of Red Planet investigators for many, many years.
Over that time, strategies for returning Red Planet collectibles have ranged from “grab and go” acquisition from the surface, dust collection in the atmosphere, to on-planet scientific selection by specially equipped rovers – a task now underway by NASA’s Perseverance robot wheeling about Jezero Crater.
A Mars Sample Return (MSR) campaign is now being orchestrated by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), scooping up geologic and atmospheric samples gathered by Perseverance for return to Earth in the early 2030s.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Shipment back to Earth by robotic means of bits and pieces from Mars is a multi-billion dollar, daunting task. Having our planet on the receiving end of Mars scraps that might contain Martian life is deemed a “low risk” affair in terms of ecological and public safety – but that risk is not zero.
Go to my new Space.com article:
“Mars sample return: Could Red Planet life contaminate Earth?” at:
https://www.space.com/mars-sample-return-contamination-concerns
