Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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December 16th, 2021
Now in Earth orbit, Japanese spaceflight participants Yozo Hirano (left) and Yusaku Maezawa (right) with Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin (center).
Credit: Roscosmos
Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin has instructed Rocket and Space Corporation Energia (part of Roscosmos) to develop and present a plan to increase the Soyuz MS series crewed spacecraft production in order to ensure space tourism development.
“After American crewed spacecraft started flying, Russia was relieved of its obligation to deliver foreign astronauts to the ISS,” Rogozin noted in a Roscosmos posting. “We got the opportunity to send crews of three Russian cosmonauts to the station. The first such crew of professional cosmonauts will fly to the ISS in the spring. Recently, we resumed sending tourists into space. Currently, two Japanese citizens are staying in orbit. This service brings us hard cash to finance rocket and space industry modernization.”
Soyuz spacecraft for lofting space tourists.
Credit: NASA TV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Concrete action plan
Rogozin said RSC Energia is to submit a concrete action plan to Roscosmos a concrete action plan to increase production capacity in order to build up to four crewed spacecraft per year, he said at a meeting of the industry’s operational briefing on Thursday.
Over the past few years, RSC Energia has built four Soyuz MS spacecraft per year: two under the Federal Space Program and two under international contracts to deliver foreign astronauts to the ISS.
Actress Yulia Peresild, Roscosmos commander Anton Shkaplerov, and movie director Klim Shipenko prior to film-making mission onboard the International Space Station.
Credit: Roscosmos/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Space tourism pioneer
The Roscosmos posting noted that “Russia is a space tourism pioneer,” and that between 2001 and 2021, nine commercial spaceflight participants went into orbit on Soyuz spacecraft, one of them twice.
Launched December 8 to the ISS, the Soyuz MS-20 crew consists of Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, as well as spaceflight participants Yusaku Maezawa and Yozo Hirano. The flight is performed under contract with the U.S. firm, Space Adventures.
The crew are expected to spend 12 days on the ISS and will return to Earth on December 20.
Last October, Russia flew actress Yulia Peresild, and movie director Klim Shipenko, along with Roscosmos commander Anton Shkaplerov to the orbital outpost.
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Credit: ESA
A pair of high-altitude drop tests took place in Oregon on November 21 and December 3 as part of the ongoing parachute testing to ensure the safe delivery of Europe’s ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover via the Russian Kazachok lander to the surface of Mars in 2023.
This milestone meant that the largest parachute set to fly on Mars has completed its first successful high-altitude drop test. Both the first and second stage parachutes have now successfully flown this year.
The 115-feet wide (35-meters) subsonic parachute – the largest ever to deploy over Mars – was the focus of the latest campaign. One parachute was manufactured by a European company, Arescosmo, with the back-up provided by U.S.-based Airborne Systems.
Moment of separation
Onboard video footage from the drop tests caught the moment of separation from the stratospheric balloon, the release of the pilot chute, and the extraction of the main parachute.
The footage is shown at various speeds, capturing in slow motion the inflation of the subsonic parachute.
ExoMars 2022 is set for departure on September 20, 2022 (12 day launch window) and landing on the planet on June 10, 2023.
Go to video at: https://youtu.be/6IlPBx_LqUE
A volunteer spent three nights in a high-tech sleeping bag that unloads pressure in the brain by suctioning fluids into the lower body. NASA hopes the sack can be used by astronauts in space to alleviate the vision problems they commonly endure during longer missions.
Credit: UT Southwestern
A specially designed sleeping bag may prevent vision problems astronauts endure in space, where fluids float into the head and continually push and reshape the back of the eyeball.
The phenomenon has plagued scientists for more than a decade. It remains one of the biggest health dilemmas of human space exploration.
But new research by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center – which NASA enlisted to seek answers to astronauts’ vision problems – suggest the high-tech sacks may provide a solution. The sleeping bag prototype is the culmination of several phases of research carried out at UT Southwestern to help NASA better understand the disorder.
NASA hopes the sleeping bag can address a disorder called spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome, or SANS.
Body fluids in zero gravity apply constant pressure behind the eyes, causing progressive flattening of the eyeball, swelling of the optic nerve, and vision impairment.
Credit: UT Southwestern
Vision problems
SANS is not a problem on Earth, where gravity pulls fluids down into the body each time a person gets out of bed. However, in space, the lack of gravity prevents this daily unloading process, allowing more than half a gallon of body fluids to gather in the head and apply pressure to the eyeball.
NASA has documented vision problems in more than half of the astronauts who served for at least six months on the International Space Station. Some became farsighted, had difficulty reading, and sometimes needed crewmates to assist in experiments.
Severe impairments
“We don’t know how bad the effects might be on a longer flight, like a two-year Mars operation,” said Benjamin Levine, M.D., a UT Southwestern cardiologist who is helping NASA address the health risks of brain pressure and abnormal blood flow in space. “It would be a disaster if astronauts had such severe impairments that they couldn’t see what they’re doing and it compromised the mission.”
Dr. Benjamin Levine of UT Southwestern has researched the effects of space travel since the early 1990s, when he implanted the first catheter to monitor the heart pressure of an astronaut in space.
Credit: UT Southwestern
Levine said his latest findings indicate SANS, hopefully, won’t be a health risk by the time the space agency is ready to launch humans to the Red Planet.
Levine’s team started working with the outdoors equipment retailer REI to develop a high-tech sleeping bag that could be used by astronauts each night to unload pressure in the brain. The bag has a solid frame – aptly shaped like a space capsule – and is designed to fit over a person from the waist down.
About a dozen people volunteered to test the technology.
For more information on the research, go to “Effect of Nightly Lower Body Negative Pressure on Choroid Engorgement in a Model of Spaceflight-Associated Neuro-ocular Syndrome A Randomized Crossover Trial” at:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaophthalmology/article-abstract/2787146
Also, go to this informative UT Southwestern research posting at:
https://utsouthwestern.edu/newsroom/articles/year-2021/high-tech-sleeping-bag.html
“Newer, nimbler, faster.” That’s the call stemming from a newly issued report led by MIT scientists that details a suite of privately-funded missions to hunt for life on Venus.
The Venus Life Finder (VLF) Missions are a series of three direct Venus atmosphere probes designed to assess the habitability of the Venusian clouds and to search for signs of life and life itself.
According to the report, the VLF missions would be a focused, optimal set of missions that can be launched quickly and with relatively low cost. The mission concepts come out of an 18-month study by an MIT-led worldwide consortium.
The study was partially funded by the Breakthrough Initiatives.
A composite image of the planet Venus as seen by the Japanese probe Akatsuki. The clouds of Venus could have environmental conditions conducive to microbial life.
Credit: JAXA
Sample return
Ultimately, the study concludes, a Venus atmosphere sample return is needed to robustly answer the compelling question, “Is there life on Venus?”
Envisioned is bringing back about one liter of Venus atmosphere and up to tens of grams of Venus cloud particles for detailed studies here on Earth – of the kind that cannot be done remotely.
“We hope this is the start of a new paradigm where you go cheaply, more often, and in a more focused way,” says Sara Seager in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) and principal investigator for the planned Venus Life Finder Missions.
Lingering mysteries
“There are these lingering mysteries on Venus that we can’t really solve unless we go back there directly,” Seager adds in a MIT statement, saying that lingering chemical anomalies that leave room for the chance of life on that cloud-veiled world.
Seager was part of a team that reported last year a detection of phosphine gas in Venus’ atmosphere. On Earth, that gas is produced only by biological and industrial processes.
Since that claim, the phosphine finding has been challenged. Still, Seager says the controversial finding has sparked positive momentum to the Venus missions. “The whole phosphine controversy made people more interested in Venus. It allowed people to take Venus more seriously,” she says.
Venus in ultraviolet taken by NASA’s Pioneer-Venus Orbiter in 1979 indicating that an unknown absorber is operating in the planet’s top cloud layer.
Credit: NASA
Scientific payload
Based on their research, the Venus Life Finder team focused in on a scientific payload for the mission, which was restricted to just 1 kilogram.
MIT’s Seager says they settled on an instrument called an autofluorescing nephelometer because it could get the job done and was small, cheap, and could be built quickly enough for the compressed mission timeline.
The instrument is currently being built by a New Mexico-based company called Cloud Measurement Solutions, and a Colorado-based company called Droplet Measurement Technologies. The instrument is partially funded by MIT alumni.
Mission suite
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.
“If we see fluorescence, we know something interesting is in the cloud particles,” Seager points out. “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.”
Whatever the 2023 mission finds, the next mission in the suite 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.
Credit: Rocket Lab
Rocket Lab partnership
A partnership has been put in place with the private entrepreneurial group, Rocket Lab, to provide the science payload and science team to go with their 2023 Venus Mission’s rocket, cruise spacecraft, and direct probe entry vehicle. The Venus direct entry vehicle aboard Rocket Lab’s Photon spacecraft has room for up to one kilogram of science instrumentation for the short-duration (three minute) descent through the cloud layers, the report explains.
As for the overall Venus Life Finder Missions, “we think it’s disruptive,” says Seager. “And that’s the MIT style. We operate right on that line between mainstream and crazy.”
For a detailed look at the report — Venus Life Finder Mission Study – go to:
https://venuscloudlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/VLFReport_12092021.pdf
Curiosity’s location as of Sol 3324. Distance driven is now 16.60 mile/26.72 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 3326 duties.
“As we continue exploring Maria Gordon notch, we are planning a touch and go with lots of remote sensing activities between the ‘touch’ and the ‘go,’” reports Kenneth Herkenhoff, a planetary geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B photo taken on Sol 3325, December 13, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Bedrock targets
The robot is parked near the base of the cliff to the west, and the science team is interested in investigating the bedrock in this area.
Unfortunately, none of the bedrock targets are suitable for close Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) placement, Herkenhoff adds, so researchers will not be able to measure the bedrock chemistry here using APXS.
Curiosity Rear Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B photo acquired on Sol 3325, December 13, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Rather, the rover’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) will take images of a bedrock target
named “Portgower” and the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) will sample the chemistry of another bedrock target “Thornhill” higher up the cliff face.
“Mastcam and Navcam will be used to monitor the dust content of the atmosphere and search for dust devils, then Mastcam will acquire 3 stereo mosaics of the cliffs and boulders near the rover,” Herkenhoff adds.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3325, December 13, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
More power to you
After the drive of roughly 66 feet (20-meters and post-drive imaging, another Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) twilight image is planned.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3325, December 13, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Because more power is available than initially expected, scientists were able to add an overnight Chemistry & Mineralogy X-Ray Diffraction/X-Ray Fluorescence Instrument (CheMin) wheel move and empty cell analysis to the plan.
“The second sol is much simpler,” Herkenhoff concludes, “with a ChemCam observation of an autonomously-selected bedrock target and more Navcam and Mastcam observations of the atmospheric dust.”
Curiosity Mast Camera Left image taken on Sol 3324, December 12, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity Mast Camera Left imagery taken on Sol 3324, December 12, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Credit: ESA/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Once Europe’s ExoMars rover, Rosalind Franklin, lands on Mars in June 2023 the machine will utilize a unique wheel walking locomotion mode.
Similar to leg movements, the robot’s wheel-walking combines motions of the deployment actuators (the legs) with the rotation of the wheels to progress without slippage.
This motion is designed to provide the rover good traction in soft soils and high slopes, such as dunes.
ExoMars Credit: ESA/ATG medialab
Functionality
Last month, in the Mars Terrain Simulator at the Rover Operations Control Center at Thales Alenia Space facilities in Turin, Italy, Rosalind Franklin showed off its skills. The facility is being used for training rover operators and simulating science operations that will be expected in the main mission.
Rovers on Mars have previously been caught in sand, and turning the wheels dug them in deeper, just like a car stuck in mud or snow.
“We hope to never need to use wheel walking on Mars to escape dangerous sand traps, but we are glad to have such functionality to potentially safeguard the mission,” said Luc Joudrier, ESA ExoMars Rover Operations Manager. “From a rover operational point of view, this is really our insurance against difficult terrains.”
Rosalind Elsie Franklin was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer who contributed to unravelling the double helix structure of our DNA. She also made enduring contributions to the study of coal, carbon and graphite.
Credit: ESA/MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
Loose soils
In a test run, the back wheels drag once the front four wheels have gained good traction on firmer terrain. The sequence was optimized for climbing steep slopes with loose soils; a short rotation of the wheel follows each movement of the legs. This is to anchor the wheels, digging them a little bit into the soil, before moving the rest – like when you climb a slope with snow and firm up each step before making a new one.
Russian lander cocoons Rosalind Franklin rover.
Credit: Roscosmos
ExoMars 2022 is targeted for liftoff from Baikonur, Kazakhstan on September 20, 2022 (12 day launch window); landing on June 10, 2023.
ExoMars is led collaboratively by the European Space Agency and the Roscosmos State Corporation, designed to understand if life ever existed on Mars. Rosalind Franklin will be delivered to Mars via a Russian lander, “Kazachok,” which will also serve as a surface platform for conducting science experiments.
Take a look at this video that showcases the ExoMars rover’s ability at:
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Right B image taken on Sol 3323, December 11, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3324 duties.
Abigail Fraeman, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory reports that the robot recently parked just a few meters away from the towering western wall of Maria Gordon notch.
In the shadow of Maria Gordon Notch. Image taken by Curiosity’s Right Navigation Camera on Sol 3322 December 10, 2021
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“While this location gives us spectacular views of the layering, veins, and nodules exposed on the side of the outcrop, it was actually chosen to support an experiment with Curiosity’s neutron spectrometer, DAN (Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons),” Fraeman adds.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
DAN has the ability to measure the amount of hydrogen, Fraeman points out, a proxy for water, around the rover.
“The instrument is sensitive to surroundings all around Curiosity, although usually the only interesting signature comes from the ground beneath the rover where the instrument can detect water bound within hydrated minerals,” Fraeman explains.
The Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons tool, called DAN for short, looks for telltale changes in the energies of neutrons released from Martian subsurface that indicate how much water is chemically bound in the soil or rocks.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Russian Federal Space Agency
Three-point turn
By parking close to the side of Maria Gordon notch, Mars researchers have an opportunity to see information with DAN from both the ground and the wall next to the rover, which will help refine understanding of DAN data throughout the mission.
DAN measurements will be done in three different positions: a current parking position and two more planned during a planned drive.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3323, December 11, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“The drive will place Curiosity perpendicular to the cliff and then parallel again, but a little bit closer than we are now,” says Fraeman. “It’s a little like a rover version of an almost three-point turn!”
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) photo produced on Sol 3323, December 11, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Scenic location
In addition to the DAN experiments, also on tap is collecting Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) observations on two pebbles in front of Curiosity, one with pits (“Helens Bay”) and one without pits (“Lakeheads”), as well as Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) observations of “Orlock Ridge” and “Hailes Quarry.”
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3322, December 10, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Rear Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B image taken on Sol 3323, December 11, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“And of course since we’re at such an amazingly scenic location, we’ll make sure to take lots and lots of Mastcam mosaics throughout the day,” Fraeman concludes.
Credit: Breakthrough Listen
How can we determine the meaning of a message from a distant civilization if we don’t have a common language?
That’s the topic tackled in a new research paper – “How to decode interstellar messages” – appearing in the journal, Acta Astronautica.
Credit: Michael Matessa, et al.
Highlights of the paper include:
- Five electromagnetic properties can be used in interstellar message transmission: frequency, amplitude, polarization, phase, and duration of transmission.
- Decoding messages can be done in three steps: find the dimension of the message, find the symbols, and find the symbol meanings.
- Finding the message dimension can be helped by using prime number proportions.
- Finding the symbols can be assisted by considering symbol types: delimiters, values, relationships, and functions.
- Finding symbol meanings can be helped by sub-symbolic types, redundant symbols, expression consistency, physics ratios, and physics expression patterns.
Technique and principles
This new paper presents a general technique and principles for decoding interstellar messages. First, find the dimension of the message. Prime numbers may be useful in determining the proportions of messages.
If it’s just us, it seems like an awful waste of space. In the movie Contact, a radio astronomer receives the first extraterrestrial radio signal ever picked up on Earth. How best to decipher the message and decide upon a course of action?
Credit: Warner Brothers
Next, find the symbols. This can be done considering symbol types: delimiters, values, relationships, and functions.
Then, find the symbol meanings. Features that can help in determining meaning include sub-symbolic type, redundant symbols, expression consistency, physics ratios, and physics expression patterns.
Concepts detailed in the paper can be used when a message from another civilization is received, or they can be used to create messages, which can teach communication theory concepts.
To access the paper – “How to decode interstellar messages” – by lead author, Michael Matessa of METI International in San Francisco, California, go to:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094576521006263
Blue Origin conducted its third human spaceflight on Saturday, December 11, the first with six astronauts on board. The astronaut manifest included, Laura Shepard Churchley, Michael Strahan, Evan Dick, Dylan Taylor, Cameron Bess, and Lane Bess. For replay of flight, go to: https://www.blueorigin.com/
“We had a great flight today. This was our sixth flight in what has been a great year for the New Shepard program. We flew 14 astronauts to space, flew a NASA payload flight that tested lunar landing sensors and completed our certification test flights,” said Bob Smith, CEO Blue Origin. “I want to thank our payload customers, our astronauts and, of course, Team Blue for these many important accomplishments. I am so proud to be part of this dedicated and hard-working team that ensures that each and every flight of New Shepard is safe and reliable. And it’s fun to say that this is just the beginning.”
Blue Origin is planning several crewed and payload flights in 2022.
Upper L to R: Lane Bess, Cameron Bess, Evan Dick; Lower L to R: Dylan Taylor, Laura Shepard Churchley, Michael Strahan
Credit: Blue Origin
Credit: Blue Origin/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Credit: Blue Origin/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Credit: Blue Origin/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Credit: Blue Origin/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Credit: Blue Origin/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Credit: Blue Origin/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Credit: Blue Origin/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Credit: Blue Origin/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Credit: Blue Origin/Inside Outer Space screengrab
William Shatner looks out of the New Shepard windows on NS-18.
Credit: Blue Origin
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is ending its Commercial Space Astronaut Wings Program and will recognize individuals reaching space on its website.
The FAA issued the following news today:
Credit: Virgin Galactic
- With the advent of the commercial space tourism era, starting in 2022, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will now recognize individuals who reach space on its website instead of issuing Commercial Space Astronaut Wings.
- Before the Wings program ends, the FAA will award Commercial Space Astronaut Wings to those who had qualifying space travel in 2021, including 15 individuals who have already travelled beyond 50 statute miles above the surface of the Earth on a FAA-licensed launch.
- In addition, the FAA is making an honorary award of Commercial Space Astronaut Wings to two individuals who flew on a FAA-permitted experimental test flight in a space launch vehicle that broke up during flight in 2014.
Virgin Galactic pilot Todd Ericson and NTSB investigators at SpaceShipTwo accident site. Craft broke apart during a test flight on October, 31, 2014.
Credit: NTSB
“The U.S. commercial human spaceflight industry has come a long way from conducting test flights to launching paying customers into space,” said FAA Associate Administrator Wayne Monteith.
For a complete list of FAA Commercial Space Astronaut Wings recipients, go to:
https://www.faa.gov/space/licenses/human_spaceflight/recognition/
