Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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December 23rd, 2021
Curiosity’s location as of Sol 3333. Since landing in August 2012, the rover has driven 16.69 miles/26.86 kilometers.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3335 tasks.
New imagery taken on Sol 3333, December 21, 2021, shows that the robot has been busily taking numerous Mast Camera Right and Left photos of its surroundings.
Here’s a sampling:
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
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Credit: Sea of Stars campaign
Justin Sun, Founder of TRON, a blockchain platform, today revealed that he placed the winning $28 million bid for the first seat on Blue Origin’s Inaugural New Shepard rocket.
Justin Sun placed that winning bid for the first seat on New Shepard on June 13 and wants to turn this “flying” opportunity into 6 slots to inspire more people to participate in space exploration.
Sun and five crewmates will fly on a New Shepard flight in fourth quarter 2022.
Credit: Sea of Stars campaign
As part of his planned voyage, Sun has launched the “Sea of Stars” campaign. Over the coming months, Sun will nominate five men and women to travel with him on his voyage.
Nominees may include a member of the TRON decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) community, comprising long-term holders of TRX, BTT, JST, SUN, NFT, and WIN, and other leaders drawn from the worlds of fashion, art, technology, space exploration, and entrepreneurship.
Details on the nomination process and criteria will be announced in the coming months.
For more information, go to: https://seaofstars.tron.network/
Video at: https://seaofstars.tron.network/static/media/v.f5517f86.mp4
Credit: GLOBALink/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Dubbed the “China Sky Eye,” the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) situated in southwest China’s Guizhou Province, has identified 509 new pulsars – four times the total amount of pulsars identified by other telescopes around the world, according to the Xinhua news agency.
Pulsars, or fast-spinning neutron stars, originate from the imploded cores of massive dying stars through supernova explosions.
FAST started formal operation in January 2020. It is believed to be the world’s most sensitive radio telescope. Among its tasks is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Credit: GLOBALink/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Chinese researchers found the first evidence of three-dimensional spin-velocity alignment in a pulsar in May of this year.
Since the radio telescope officially opened, FAST has been available for scientists worldwide and received approximately 200 observation applications from 16 countries to utilize the facility.
FAST has also discovered weak fast radio bursts (FRBs) that are hard to locate using other telescopes, and collected the largest-ever samples of FRBs in the world.
Go to this GLOBALink video focused on FAST at: https://youtu.be/rYGpjyir6qw
Project Managers James Winter (Air Force Research Laboratory) and Tara Theret (Northrop Grumman) hold models of the photovoltaic and the radio frequency sides of the sandwich tile, while at the Linthicum, Maryland facility, to witness the conversion and beaming experiment. Courtesy photo/Northrop Grumman)
A fundamental programmatic step required to pave the way for a large-scale solar power collection system in space has been announced.
The Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Space Solar Power Incremental Demonstrations and Research (SSPIDR) Project is a team effort with Northrop Grumman.
That AFRL/Grumman team has successfully conducted the first end-to-end demonstration of key hardware for the Arachne flight experiment.
Sandwich tile
Specifically, a ground demonstration of novel components for the “sandwich tile” were used to successfully convert solar energy to radio frequency (RF) – key work toward a large-scale solar power collection system in space.
“The successful conversion of sunlight into RF energy in a lightweight and scalable architecture is a significant step forward in delivering the technology building blocks to achieve the Arachne mission,” said Jay Patel, vice president, remote sensing programs business unit, Northrop Grumman.
Credit: Northrop Grumman/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Building block payload
In 2018, AFRL awarded Northrop Grumman a contract worth over $100 million for the development of a payload to demonstrate the key components of a prototype space solar power system.
According to AFRL, successful testing of the individual tile for the Arachne payload provides a building block for a square meter panel of tiles – a threshold that has not yet been met by any other solar-to-RF experiments.
Image depicts Space Solar Power Incremental and Demonstrations Research (SSPIDR) project to beam solar power from space to Earth. SSPIDR consists of several small-scale flight experiments that will mature technology needed to build a prototype solar power distribution system.
Credit: Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL)
Arachne is anticipated to launch in 2025. The sandwich tile is currently under development as an essential payload component for Arachne, and as a building block for a large-scale operational system.
Pivotal step
The sandwich tile consists of two layers. The first layer is a panel of highly efficient photovoltaic (PV) cells which collect solar energy and provide power to the second layer. The second layer is populated with components that enable solar to RF conversion and beamforming.
“Converting solar energy into RF energy at the component-level is a pivotal step to realizing space-based solar power beaming on a larger scale,” said Melody Martinez, SSPIDR deputy project manager in an AFRL statement.
Go to this Northrop Grumman video — From Science Fiction to Reality with Space Solar Power Beaming — at:
Curiosity’s location as of Sol 3331. Distance driven 16.65 miles/26.80 kilometers since landing in August 2012.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3333 duties.
“On Mars, like Earth, we are prepping for the holidays,” reports Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, a planetary geologist at the University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.
A newly scripted eleven sol plan will take Mars researchers to the end of December.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3332, December 20, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Complex plan
For this plan, the environmental instruments take the main stage, with lots of Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) activities and a rare, day-long Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) passive experiment.
“With such a long complex plan, contact science had to be short and sweet today,” O’Connell-Cooper adds.
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B image acquired on Sol 3332, December 20, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Large nodular features
The robot’s current location is dotted with large nodular features, also identified in other recent workspaces, and scientists would have liked to analyze them with both the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), but it was not to be.
A new plan featured Touch and Go contact science, where APXS and MAHLI analyze a target early in the morning and then the Mars machinery drives to a new location.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3332, December 20, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“These plans need complexity to be kept low, so the challenging topography of the nodules meant they were a little too much for today,” O’Connell-Cooper notes. “We will keep our eyes peeled for these in the coming workspaces, in the New Year!”
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3332, December 20, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Flatlying bedrock
Instead Curiosity’s APXS was slated to analyze some flatlying bedrock “Shinnel” and the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) will investigate “Castle Sween” which appears to be a small vertical vein face in the workspace.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3332, December 20, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Mastcam will document both targets,” O’Connell-Cooper reports before the robot wheels itself nearly 200-feet (60 meters) to a holiday workspace, which will hopefully be chock full of gifts for all the hardworking Curiosity scientists and rover planners, “in the form of fantastic science targets to analyze and vistas to image!”
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3332, December 20, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Mast Camera Right image acquired on Sol 3331, December 19, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity Mast Camera Right image acquired on Sol 3331, December 19, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Credit: Roscosmos/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The Soyuz MS-20 crewed spacecraft descent vehicle landed December 20 at the designated point in Kazakhstan. The “tourist’ crew” of Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin and Japanese spaceflight participants Yusaku Maezawa and Yozo Hirano are back on terra firma – all in good health.
The space travelers stayed 11 days onboard the International Space Station.
Roscosmos sent the two space tourists — Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and his assistant Yozo Hirano — from launchpad Vostok of Site 31 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome on December 8.
Credit: Roscosmos/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Post-flight rehabilitation
In a statement from Roscosmos, the just-returned space crew will enter a program of post-flight scientific experiments and rehabilitation. Misurkin, Maezawa, and Hirano traveled to the Prelaunch Training and Post-Flight Rehabilitation Complex for Cosmonauts of Star City (Moscow Region).
“The crew’s rehabilitation will last from 14 to 21 days, depending on how the crew feel. During this time, the cosmonauts regain normal physical form, under the supervision of doctors, they go swimming, hiking and gradually increase the load on the muscles,” a Roscosmos statement explains.
Deep space medical experiment
On December 21 veteran cosmonaut Misurkin will continue his participation in the Lazma medical experiment, which began in the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center before the flight, and then continued during the orbital mission. The Sozvezdiye-LM experiment also remains traditional with the main purpose to study the human capability to fly into deep space and work on the surfaces of the Moon and Mars. Misurkin has logged 346 days and 7 hours on three space missions.
Credit: Roscosmos/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The duo’s space tourist journey lasted a total of 12 days under the command of cosmonaut Misurkin. Space Adventures has been cooperating with Roscosmos since the world’s first space tourist flight in 2001. The successful completion of the flight by their clients, Maezawa and Hirano, makes them the eighth and ninth private astronauts to have visited the space station with Space Adventures and the private first spaceflight participants from Japan.
Maezawa is one of the richest people in Japan as founder of the online clothing store Zozotown. In addition, he is an art collector and founder of the Contemporary Art Foundation.
Hirano joined Zozo after graduating as a casting director for a photography group. He currently works as a producer for SPACETODAY. On the ISS, Hirano was responsible for covering the flight of Maezawa.
Pre-flight photo of Japanese spaceflight participants Yozo Hirano (left) and Yusaku Maezawa (right) with Alexander Misurkin (center).
Credit: Roscosmos
Preventive measures
The space tourists took part in the station’s scientific program: in particular, in the Lazma medical experiment, aimed at studying blood microcirculation in microgravity conditions.
Space tourist crew onboard the ISS.
Credit: Roscosmos via Space Adventures
“The results obtained during the study will further help in the development of preventive measures. The improvement of existing preventive measures is especially important for prospective deep-space flights,” stated Roscosmos. “The elimination of unpleasant symptoms associated with circulatory disorders will help cosmonauts avoid getting sick and maintain high performance on the station. Thanks to the Japanese tourists, this is the first time this project has been carried out aboard the ISS.”
A just-issued video shows the Soyuz MS-20 crew being extracted from their landed space capsule.
Go to: https://youtu.be/0Yq5rWZS02E
Long March-5 at the launch pad. Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP) insignia: a lunar crescent with two footprints at its center. The symbol resembles the Chinese character for “Moon.”
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
A senior official at the China Manned Space Agency reports that the country is making preparations for a human Moon landing.
According to China Daily, Dong Nengli, head of the agency’s technology bureau, made the claim at a news conference at the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee in Beijing last Friday.
Dong said that space program planners and engineers are researching the road map and technologies for a crewed Moon landing.
“The results of their work will be seen in due course. Our astronauts will definitely touch down on the Moon,” Dong told reporters.
Credit: CCTV-Plus
Long-term plan
The China Daily report also adds that China’s space authorities have a long-term plan to land astronauts on the Moon and set up at least one scientific station on the lunar surface. By using crewed lunar missions, the intent is to carry out scientific surveys and technological research, explore ways to develop lunar resources and strengthen the nation’s space capabilities.
In September 2020, Zhou Yanfei, a deputy chief designer of China’s manned space program, said that the country has the capacity to independently land astronauts on the Moon because of its technologies, well-trained, innovative professionals and efficient research and management systems.
Video conference to sign agreement on China/Russia cooperation on constructing an international scientific and research station on the Moon.
Credit: Roscosmos
Wanted: new booster
Toward that goal, Wang Yanan, editor-in-chief of Aerospace Knowledge magazine, has stated that Chinese engineers, to achieve a humans-to-the-Moon program, there’s need to build new, stronger carrier rockets and spacecraft.
“The nation’s current rockets and manned spaceships can’t send astronauts to the Moon because they are not designed for such a mission. We need to design a new rocket, a new spacecraft, a lunar landing capsule and a new spacesuit fit for a moon walk. We also need to upgrade our ground support system that was designed for operations in low-Earth orbit rather than on the lunar surface,” Wang explained.
China’s Long March-5 booster – but planting taikonauts boots on the Moon requires a bigger, more powerful booster.
Credit: CASC
Earth-Moon trajectory
Meanwhile, according to China Daily, designers at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology are blueprinting a super-heavy rocket that will be several times bigger and more powerful than the Long March-5.
That booster would have a length of nearly 295-feet (90 meters) and have a liftoff weight of about 2,000 metric tons. The launcher would be capable of placing a 25-ton spacecraft into an Earth-Moon trajectory, designers stated, adding that this new rocket will provide the capability to boost China’s piloted Moon project into reality.
In an earlier interview with China Central Television, Chinese Academy of Sciences member Ye Peijian said: “As long as the technological research for manned moon landing continues, and as long as the country is determined, it is entirely possible for China to land people on the Moon before 2030.”
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3329, December 17, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3329 duties.
“Our Sol 3326 drive was successful, completing our shot through the Maria Gordon notch, with its spectacular structures and deep shadows, and continuing our climb up Mount Sharp,” reports Michelle Minitti, a planetary geologist at Framework in Silver Spring, Maryland.
To keep the rover’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) safe over the upcoming holiday break, a recent plan was the last chance to take images with MAHLI’s cover open until researchers plan the sols post-holiday, so the team was on the hunt for a good target.
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B image acquired on Sol 3329, December 17, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Thin, gray vein
For MAHLI and the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS), scientists started trying to target one of the thin, gray vein features cutting across the bedrock directly in front of the rover.
“However, their small size and the topography on and around them prevented the arm from gaining easy access to them. So we pivoted to some of the flatter bedrock off the right front wheel of the rover and landed on “Korskellie” for MAHLI and APXS analysis,” Minitti adds. The robot’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) was, and will be, busy off the rover’s starboard side, as well.
Curiosity Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) photo taken on Sol 3329, December 17, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
New drive
After a new drive brought Curiosity to a new location, ChemCam used its autonomous targeting capabilities to shoot a target on the right of the rover.
“As we were planning, we did not know exactly where that raster hit, but given the expanse of bedrock available, we assumed we already had one bedrock analysis in the bag,” Minitti explains. “That allowed us to add a little variety to the nature of the targets for today. We selected ‘Achentoul,’ another bedrock target but one that appeared to cross a color change in the bedrock. We also selected ‘Carragheen,’ a round, roughly ping pong ball-sized resistant feature standing proud above the bedrock.”
Curiosity Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) photo taken on Sol 3329, December 17, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
Cliffs and buttes
The rover’s terrain has been increasingly scattered with gray rounded features presumably shed from the local bedrock, so Carragheen will give scientists a chance to investigate one of these features on-the-spot.
“We were still close enough to the cliffs and buttes that form Maria Gordon notch that they got lots of imaging attention,” Minitti reports. “Mastcam will acquire large mosaics of the floor of the notch that we just drove over to capture bedrock textures and structures, and the butte to the rear left of the rover to gain yet another perspective on its internal structure and evaluate its relationship to the rock above it.”
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3329, December 17, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Imaging act
Early in the morning of Sol 3329, when the sun was still shining on the cliff to the robot’s west, Mastcam was set to image the structures at the cliff base and acquire a multispectral analysis higher up the cliff where previous mosaics have indicated color variations. Lastly, Navcam will image the cliff in a small stereo mosaic at an early morning time to improve researcher’s three-dimensional picture of the structures in the cliff face.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3329, December 17, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) was also slated to get in on the imaging act, but looking farther uphill at buttes that will be increasingly hard to see along the particular path we plan to take up Mount Sharp, Minitti says. “Both buttes are features we have imaged previously, but from farther away and from different angles. Today we will get a new perspective on them.”
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3329, December 17, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Dust load
Also on tap, Curiosity is to acquire atmospheric-focused measurements throughout the plan, with imaging to measure the dust load in the atmosphere at different times of sol, a Navcam cloud movie and dust devil survey, and measurement of argon in the atmosphere with APXS.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image shot on Sol 3328, December 16, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD and Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) are to run systematically over both sols. The Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) instrument was to acquire nearly seven hours of passive data from the subsurface in addition to one 20 minute active observation right after the rover completes its drive of roughly 98-feet (30 meters) drive uphill.
The Red Planet: A Natural History of Mars by Simon Morden; Published by Elliott & Thompson/London (2021) and Pegasus Books/U.S. (2022); 256 pages; Hard Cover: £14.99.
This delightful volume is a must-have for those perplexed by the wonderment of the Red Planet, what research has already revealed and those mysteries still to be exposed.
Morden is trained as a planetary geologist and geophysicist, as well as celebrated science fiction author. He showcases his excellent ability to make clear just how intriguing Mars has been for centuries. The author takes the reader from the planet’s formation 4.5 billion years ago, through its geological history, and serves up a unique perspective on the planet’s present-day state of affairs.
The book is divided into seven parts, clearly detailing the Noachian, Hesperian, and Amazonian periods ending up asking the question, what should we make of Mars…and calling out that we are the Martians! Morden adds that there’s a whole raft of difficult ethical questions to wrestle with in how best to treat Mars.
“We cannot stand aside from the conversation to come — and it will come soon – as to what we do with Mars,” the author writes. His perspective of the future of Mars spreads out over the next 100-200 years.
Given the attention to Mars by multiple nations over the decades, this book provides a “get to know the planet” feel, page by page. Morden supplies a vibrant view of that enigmatic world.
As for the life on Mars question, the author suggests digging down deep. “If we ever do find Martians, that’s most likely where they will be.”
I particularly liked the nicely detailed descriptions of Mars’ ice caps, the planet’s equatorial ice zones, and the Martian weather system – specifically, the planet’s dusty veneer and swirling dust devils.
Taken as a whole, The Red Planet: A Natural History of Mars is a primer for those hungry to travel to, explore, and perhaps colonize that distant destination.
For more information on this book, go to:
The Elliott & Thompson website at: https://eandtbooks.com/books/the-red-planet/
The Pegasus Books website at:
http://www.pegasusbooks.com/books/the-red-planet-9781639361755-hardcover
Artist’s impression of the ExoMars 2016 Trace Gas Orbiter at Mars.
Credit: ESA/ATG medialab
New research points to a water-rich region of Valles Marineris, making it a promising target for future human explorers.
As the largest canyon in the Solar System, Valles Marineris is arguably Mars’ most dramatic landscape, and a feature that is often compared to Earth’s Grand Canyon – despite being some ten times longer and five times deeper.
The water-rich area is about the size of the Netherlands and overlaps with the deep valleys of Candor Chaos, part of the canyon system considered promising in the hunt for water on Mars.
Valles Marineris, seen at an angle of 45 degrees to the surface in near-true colour and with four times vertical exaggeration.The largest portion of the canyon, which spans right across the image, is known as Melas Chasma. Candor Chasma is the connecting trough immediately to the north, with the small trough Ophir Chasma beyond. Hebes Chasma can be seen in the far top left of the image.
ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum), CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The finding stems from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO).
TGO launched in 2016 as the first of two launches under the ExoMars program. The orbiter will be joined in 2022 by a European rover, Rosalind Franklin, and a Russian surface platform, Kazachok, and all will work together to understand whether life has ever existed on Mars.
ESA’s Mars Express has taken snapshots of Candor Chasma, a valley in the northern part of Valles Marineris.
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum), CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Below Mars’ surface
“With TGO we can look down to one meter below this dusty layer and see what’s really going on below Mars’ surface – and, crucially, locate water-rich ‘oases’ that couldn’t be detected with previous instruments,” reports Igor Mitrofanov of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Russia; lead author of the new study; and principal investigator of the FREND (Fine Resolution Epithermal Neutron Detector) neutron telescope onboard TGO.
Mitrofanov’s revealing research is carried in the journal Icarus.
ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter maps water-rich region of Valles Marineris.
The coloured scale at the bottom of the frame shows the amount of ‘water-equivalent hydrogen’ (WEH) by weight (wt%). As reflected on these scales, the purple contours in the centre of this figure show the most water-rich region. In the area marked with a ‘C’, up to 40% of the near-surface material appears to be composed of water (by weight). The area marked ‘C’ is about the size of the Netherlands and overlaps with the deep valleys of Candor Chaos, part of the canyon system considered promising in our hunt for water on Mars.
Credit: From I. Mitrofanov, et al. (2021)
Unclear mix of conditions
FREND revealed an area with an unusually large amount of hydrogen in the colossal Valles Marineris canyon system, Mitrofanov adds in an ESA statement.
The finding assumes the hydrogen detected is bound into water molecules. If so, as much as 40% of the near-surface material in this region appears to be water.
What special, as-yet-unclear mix of conditions must be present in Valles Marineris to preserve the water – or that it is somehow being replenished — that’s up for more research.
“This finding is an amazing first step, but we need more observations to know for sure what form of water we’re dealing with,” adds study co-author Håkan Svedhem of ESA’s ESTEC in the Netherlands, and former ESA project scientist for the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter.
The ExoMars project is a joint project of Russia’s Roscosmos and the European Space Agency.
To view the research paper – “The evidence for unusually high hydrogen abundances in the central part of Valles Marineris on Mars” – go to:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103521004528?via%3Dihub
