Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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December 10th, 2021
Credit: Blue Origin
Due to a forecast of strong winds, the Blue Origin New Shepard suborbital launch team has made the call to delay the launch of NS-19 to Saturday, December 11.
Liftoff from Launch Site One near Van Horn in West Texas is targeted for 8:45am CST/14:45 UTC.
“The team has completed Flight Readiness Review and confirmed the vehicle has met all mission requirements for launch,” reports Blue Origin. The space travelers have completed training and weather remains as the only gating factor for a liftoff.
Upper L to R: Lane Bess, Cameron Bess, Evan Dick; Lower L to R: Dylan Taylor, Laura Shepard Churchley, Michael Strahan
Credit: Blue Origin
All aboard!
The crew of the upcoming NS-19 flight includes two honorary guests and four paying customers.
Guests include Good Morning America co-anchor Michael Strahan and Laura Shepard Churchley, the eldest daughter of Alan Shepard, who was the first American to fly to space.
The four customers include space industry executive and philanthropist Dylan Taylor, investor Evan Dick, Bess Ventures founder Lane Bess, and Cameron Bess.
Lane and Cameron Bess will become the first parent-child pair to fly in space.
Meet the crew
Laura Shepard Churchley
Laura has dedicated her life to promoting what her father, Alan Shepard, started when he became the first American in space and the fifth person to walk on the Moon. Alan Shepard is the namesake of New Shepard. She currently serves as Chair of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation Board of Trustees, a foundation that raises funds for college students and provides mentoring to scholars pursuing careers and research in STEM.
NS-19 patch
Credit: Blue Origin
Michael Strahan
Michael is a two-time Emmy award winner, Peabody award-winning journalist, and Super Bowl Champion, who currently serves as a co-anchor on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and host of the top-rated primetime game show “$100,000 Pyramid.” Strahan additionally serves as an analyst for “Fox NFL Sunday” and headlines the Thursday Night Football Pregame Show live from New York City. Partnering with his longtime friend Constance Schwartz, Strahan formed SMAC Entertainment, a multidimensional talent management, music, branding, and production company which has become known for strong, diversified content, and its production of the “Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Sports Awards.” Strahan is also intensely dedicated to charitable work, supporting the USO, HELP USA, Merging Vets and Players organizations.
Blue Origin invited Michael to join the crew of this flight. As a crew member, he will receive a stipend, which is being donated to The Boys & Girls Club.
Dylan Taylor
Dylan is an active pioneer in the space exploration industry as a CEO, investor, thought leader, and philanthropist. He is the Chairman & CEO of Voyager Space, a global space exploration firm headquartered in Denver, and the founder of the global nonprofit Space for Humanity, which seeks to democratize access to space. He is also co-Founding Patron of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. Known for his commitment to creating positive impact in the world and leading Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives in the space community, Dylan was named a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute in 2014 and a Fellow of the Unreasonable Group in 2021.
Go to Taylor’s blog — Journey to the Dream – that details his New Shepard experience at:
Blue Origin’s crew capsule – a suborbital six-seater craft.
Credit: Blue Origin
Evan Dick
Evan is an engineer, investor, and Managing Member of Dick Holdings, LLC. Evan formerly served as Senior Vice President for D.E. Shaw and Managing Director of Highbridge Capital Management, and is a charitable supporter of the Darwin Foundation and Population Relief International Corp. Evan is an ATP-rated pilot and volunteer for Starfighters Aerospace, as well as an avid sailor and motorcyclist.
Lane Bess
Lane is the Principal and Founder of Bess Ventures and Advisory, a family fund supporting technology firms that innovate and disrupt across multiple market sectors. Lane is best known for having helped start and build two of the most important cybersecurity companies in the public markets today, Zscaler (NASDQ) and Palo Alto Networks (NYSE). Lane also serves as a Trustee at Carnegie Mellon University and, along with his family, supports philanthropic interests across health and social issues.
Blue Origin’s New Shepard booster takes flight.
Credit: Blue Origin
Cameron Bess
Cameron is a content creator with a passion for creating and expressing themselves in ways that can brighten a person’s day. After studying Computer Science and Game Design at DigiPen Institute for Technology in Washington, they’ve developed an engaged community across multiple platforms, producing original content and developing proprietary software to support their audience. Cameron identifies as pansexual and is proud to represent marginalized communities and hopes their journey can inspire others.
Live launch coverage of NS-19, go to: https://www.blueorigin.com/
Coverage starts at T-90 minutes. Follow Blue Origin on Twitter, to stay up to date on all mission details.
Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin.
Credit: Blue Origin
Posted in 
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B image taken on Sol 3320, December 8, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3321 duties.
The rover is taking in the visually stunning Maria Gordon notch, reports Scott Guzewich, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
A plan for Sols 3321-3322 involves Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) activities with a Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) target on a nearby bedrock slab and then a passive observation to study atmospheric dust, ice, and gases.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 3320, December 8, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Also, Curiosity’s arm was to be placed on “Cladh Hallan” for contact science with the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI).
Early wake-up call
On the second sol, Curiosity is slated to wake up early to catch the morning sunlight on the west face of the cliff wall lining the notch and image it with Mastcam and Navcam, Guzewich adds.
After additional science with Navcam, Mastcam, and ChemCam, the rover will drive just to the right of the corner of the cliff.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 3320, December 8, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“From our current location, it can’t help but remind me of the Old Man in the Mountain that used to be in New Hampshire. At this parking location, we’ll conduct a focused science campaign with the [Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons] (DAN) over the weekend to study the makeup of the cliff wall itself,” Guzewich notes.
“Old Martian in the Mountain” – image taken by Right Navigation Camera on Sol 3319 December 7, 2021
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Tight canyon
In an earlier report, Mark Salvatore, a planetary geologist at the University of Michigan, explains that Curiosity is currently located within Maria Gordon notch, which is a rather tight canyon surrounded by high rock walls located at the transition onto the Greenheugh Pediment.
Curiosity Mast Camera Right imagery acquired on Sol 3319, December 7, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The rover views are currently magnificent, Salvatore adds, with steep walls surrounding Curiosity that cast some rather dramatic shadows onto the workspace.
Curiosity Mast Camera Right photo taken on Sol 3319, December 7, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
“However, despite the beautiful views, today was a sobering lesson in the complexities of planning and executing martian surface science investigations,” Salvatore says. “On some days, planning the scientific activities for the Curiosity rover to perform on Mars seems easy – observe cool features, plan cool observations, and let Curiosity execute the plan as proposed.”
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager photo produced on Sol 3320, December 8, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Series of events
Today, unfortunately, was not one of those days.
“A series of events (including a drive that was cut short on the previous day and a delay in getting all of our data processed, mosaicked, and ready for scientists to use) prevented our original plan from being submitted and executed,” Salvatore explains.
First, because Curiosity’s drive ended early yesterday, researchers did not have the full imaging data available for them to ensure use of the rover arm and APXS instrument safely.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3320, December 8, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Therefore, we scrubbed our original plan to perform an APXS observation of ‘typical’ bedrock in front of the rover in exchange for using the MAHLI instrument to image the rover wheels and to determine whether Curiosity is in a stable position to use the arm in the next planning cycle, Salvatore notes.
Auto-targeting
Next, scientists modified their original plan to target local bedrock with a ChemCam LIBS observation in exchange for a ChemCam AEGIS activity, which is designed to automatically identify targets of interest in the landscape and autonomously target them with ChemCam’s laser instrument. Lastly, the team planned a handful of Mastcam imaging mosaics with the limited pointing and localization information available to the team.
AEGIS stands for Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science) – a software suite that permits the rover to autonomously detect and prioritize targets.
Planning cycle
“Even though today came with a lot of complexity and a lot of ‘back-and-forth’ between the science team and the rover planners, the uplink team managed to develop and uplink a really strong plan to characterize our current workspace with Mastcam and ChemCam observations,” Salvatore adds.
While great science is being done, Salvatore concludes, “here’s to hoping that the next few planning cycles are smoother and more straightforward than today’s planning cycle!”
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
More news on that “mystery” object spotted on the Moon by China’s Yutu-2 lunar rover.
The object, shaped like a hut, was spotted in November, two years after the rover was dispatched onto the Moon’s landscape. Photos of the feature have spurred a variety of comments. It was seen over 260-feet (80-meters) away from the rover’s location.
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
Yutu-2 controllers say it may take up to three months for the slow-going rover to reach the site.
Cyberspace spotlight
According to China’s Xinhua news agency, the blurry cube image has become a “cyberspace meme.” Some even used computer graphics to enhance the picture, jokingly, into a Minecraft portal or a Nissan minicar. Then, according to an Inside Outer Space reader: “It looks like a McDonald’s to me,”
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
The Chang’e-4/Yutu-2 lunar machinery was launched on December 8, 2018, making the first-ever soft landing within the Von Kármán crater – a large farside lunar impact feature — on January 3, 2019.
For a short video, go to:
Also, go to my “Mystery Hut” spotted on the moon by Chinese rover is just a rock, scientist says at:
https://www.space.com/mystery-hut-moon-rock-china-yutu-2-rover
Annotated image from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and the topographic map below it, provide a look at the altitude of surface features standing between the agency’s Perseverance Mars rover and Ingenuity helicopter at the conclusion of the rotorcraft’s 17th flight at Mars on Dec. 5, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Mars helicopter experienced a glitch during Flight 17 that took place on Sunday, December 5th.
Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity Team Lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, reports that a radio communications link between Ingenuity and the Perseverance Mars rover was disrupted during the final descent phase of the flight, following a planned 614-foot (187-meter) traverse.
“All available telemetry during and after the flight suggests that the activity was a success and that the loss of link was due to a challenging radio configuration between Perseverance and Ingenuity during landing,” Tzanetos adds.
Based on the telemetry, the aerial craft performed nominally during its 117-second flight 33 feet (10 meters) above the surface of Mars. The telemetry cut out during the final third of the craft’s descent, roughly 10 feet (3 meters) off the surface.
Line of sight
The problem cropped up as Ingenuity began to descend and the line of sight between the rover and helicopter antennas began to become obstructed/shadowed by a 13-foot (4-meter) hill called “Bras.”
The first opportunity to downlink the missing data from Flight 17 will be no earlier than (today) Wednesday, “after which the team will finalize its health assessment,” Tzanetos reports.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
This 17th flight was designed to continue the helicopter’s journey back to the “Octavia E. Butler” landing site by flying halfway across “South Séíitah.”
“We are planning on Flight 18 to occur in the next two weeks, which would bring Ingenuity another ~200 meters northeast, just shy of the northern edge of S. Séítah,” Tzanetos says.
For more details, go to:
https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/status/350/flight-17-discovering-limits/
Curiosity’s location as of Sol 3318. Distance driven 16.57 miles/26.67 kilometers.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3319 duties.
Scott Guzewich, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, reports that Curiosity is preparing to “shoot the gap” and dash through the Maria Gordon notch in the sols ahead. “Already we have a spectacular view of the 12 m (39 feet) tall cliff on the right/west side of the Notch.”
“Shoot the Gap” – Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Right B image taken on Sol 3318, December 6, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
A recent plan included additional imaging of the cliff face.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3318, December 6, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Neutron bombardment
A mini-campaign is on tap for the robot’s Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) to study the composition of the cliff face. DAN “active” sequences — when DAN generates neutrons to bombard the ground below the rover and help determine its hydration and composition– and a long DAN “passive” sequence — when Mars researchers let the Universe provide the neutrons.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3318, December 6, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Also scheduled, Guzewich adds, were brief contact science periods with the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on a large block in the workspace, a drive, and a late afternoon Mastcam sky survey to study airborne dust particles.
A rover drive will bring the Mars machinery into the edge of the valley where scientists can identify an ideal location for DAN’s planned campaign later this week.
Gifts from above! Image taken by Curiosity’s Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Sol 3314, December 2, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Juicy workspace
In an earlier report, authored by Lauren Edgar, a planetary geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona, Curiosity is continuing to investigate “a juicy workspace full of a variety of boulders.”
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3318, December 6, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
One rover team member described these as “gifts from above,” Edgar notes, “which sounds like the perfect description for these beautiful rocks!”
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3318, December 6, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
These boulders have tumbled downslope from the pediment capping unit above the robot, providing a great opportunity to investigate the chemistry of the different textures seen.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3318, December 6, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Back on the road
A recent 3-sol plan (sols 3316-3318) focused on wrapping up contact science at these boulders and then getting back on the road to the south.
“Normally we would only plan one contact science target in a weekend,” Edgar explains, “but we managed to get two targets for MAHLI and APXS observations (named “Whaligoe Steps” and “Laurentia”) and an additional MAHLI mosaic across the boulder which includes “Whaligoe Steps” to assess different textures.”
Beautiful views ahead
“We also planned [Chemistry and Camera] ChemCam observations on ‘Small Seal Islands, ‘Dura Den,’ and ‘Sarclet’ to investigate variability in the chemistry of these boulders, and Mastcam mosaics to document their sedimentary textures and spectral characteristics,” Edgar says.
In addition to all of the geology observations, Curiosity was to have a busy weekend monitoring the sky and searching for dust devils and clouds at different times of day.
“On the third sol we planned a drive to the south,” Edgar concludes, “heading towards ‘Maria Gordon notch.’ Stay tuned for some beautiful views ahead!”
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
There’s lots of Internet buzz about a purported “hut” imaged by China’s farside rover – Yutu-2.
Before you request a reservation at the so-called “Mystery House” as tagged in a Chinese Yutu-2 drive diary, take note.
It is a rock on a crater rim north of the rover’s last night parking location, advises Philip Stooke, Professor Emeritus and Adjunct Research Professor in the Department of Geography and Institute for Earth and Space Exploration at the University of Western Ontario.
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
“Yutu 2 will be a bit further on by now, moving towards that crater,” Stooke told Inside Outer Space. The rock is just visible in imagery snapped by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
Map showing the latest position of China’s Yutu-2 rover and also the “Mystery House.” Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University/Philip Stooke
Clickbait
“Chinese media are very eager to find all sorts of strange things on the Moon. We tend to think they are all tightly controlled and just repeat the party line, but there is a ton of stuff spinning every news item into a sensational headline…alien bases, millions of tons of priceless metals or unspecified substances, conspiracies about western interests in space and everything else,” Stooke adds.
China did recently issue a serious story about carbonaceous chondrite material discovered in a small crater, the same crater reported as having a ‘gel-like substance’ 2 years ago), Stooke says.
China’s Yutu-2 rover.
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
Apart from serious stories, there have been lots of headlines about alien substances (or even aliens) found on the Moon, the lunar expert says, all adding up to nothing more than clickbait.
“So I am not surprised that a rock which, in low resolution images, looks roughly square and is played up as a hut or other type of building,” Stooke says. “Scientifically, the rock could be interesting and I expect it or nearby rocks on the crater rim to be studied in detail when they reach it early in 2022. But it won’t look like a hut,” he concludes.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
A leading designer of China’s Moon exploration program, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, advises that the country could perform a crewed lunar landing before 2030.
“I personally think that as long as the technological research for manned moon landing continues, and as long as the country is determined (to achieve the goal), it is entirely possible for China to land people on the moon before 2030, ” said Ye Peijian in a recent China Central Television (CCTV) interview.
As reported by China’s Xinhua news agency, Ye added: “Countries that can lead in space technology have advanced technologies in various fields. In turn, space technology is something that can feed back to technologies in other aspects.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping inspects Chang’e-5 lunar sample return capsule.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Return sample success
In December 2020, China’s Chang’e-5 robotic lunar lander retrieved lunar samples weighing about 1,731 grams. Chang’e-5 was the first lunar sample-return mission since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 in 1976. The successful mission made China the third country to return specimens from the Moon after the former Soviet Union and via the U.S. Apollo program.
Landing leg of Chang’e-5 lander.
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
Ye served as the chief director of Chang’e-5 program.
After studying the Chang’e-5 lunar samples, Chinese researchers in October announced that they have dated the youngest Moon rock at around 2 billion years in age. The finding extended the “life” of lunar volcanism 800-900 million years longer than previously known, the Xinhua story notes.
Ye said the discovery about the history of the Moon bolstered China’s space research status in the international community. After the Moon and Mars, China’s next target in deep-space exploration could be an asteroid mission, Ye said, adding that his team is already working on the effort.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is moving forward on the Novel Orbital and Moon Manufacturing, Materials and Mass-efficient Design (NOM4D) program. (Image credit: DARPA)
There is growing interest in protecting strategic assets in cis-lunar space. Not only is the U.S. Space Force engaged in reflecting on the topic of how best to extend military presence far from Earth – so too is China and others.
Parallel to air, land, sea, or polar skirmishes between nations here on Earth, is cis-lunar, and perhaps the moon itself, an emerging “high-ground” and new territory for conflict? There’s a variance of views according to Space.com outreach.
Carving up near-moon locales: How strategic could this be for military interests? (Image credit: Aerospace Corporation)
To read my new Space.com story, go to:
“Military interest in the moon is ramping up – ‘Cislunar space has recently become prominent in the space community and warrants attention,’ a recent Air Force Research Laboratory document states,” at:
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now carrying out Sol 3316 tasks at Gale Crater.
New imagery from the robot shows the Mars machinery at work and views of the surrounding scenery:
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Right B image taken on Sol 3316, December 4, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3316, December 4, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager photo produced on Sol 3316, December 4, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Mosaic of imagery via Curiosity Mast Camera Right, taken on Sol 3315, December 3, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3315, December 3, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
This figure highlights how debris from the Russian military’s test cross the orbit of the International Space Station, China’s new Tiangong space station, and the orbits of several large satellite constellations made up, collectively, of 1000s of satellites.
Credit: OSI
A new assessment of the recent Russian anti-satellite test has been released by the Outer Space Institute (OSI), based at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
The Russian military used a ground-based missile to strike their defunct Cosmos-1408 satellite on November 15, 2021.
The defunct Soviet-era satellite had a mass of about 1.7 metric tons (1,750 kilograms) and was orbiting at an altitude of about 298 miles (480 kilometers).
“Due to the high impact energies involved, debris from a kinetic anti-satellite (ASAT) test such as this end up on highly eccentric orbits that cross the orbits of 1000s of other satellites twice per revolution,” the OSI paper explains.
Clutter in the cosmos.
Credit: Used with permission: Melrae Pictures/Space Junk 3D
Non-trackable debris
While some of the debris from the Russian ASAT test will deorbit quickly, a significant fraction will remain in orbit for years or longer, the preliminary OSI discussion paper points out.
“Of particular concern is the non-trackable debris, which will be more abundant than the trackable debris by at least an order of magnitude. Since small debris cannot be detected, collision avoidance maneuvers cannot be used to protect against them. And at typical relative speeds of about 10 km/s (36,000 km/hr), even a tiny piece can disable a satellite or kill an astronaut,” the OSI paper adds.
The Outer Space Institute (OSI) is network of world-leading space experts. For more information on their work, go to:
http://outerspaceinstitute.ca/
To read the full paper – Russian ASAT test: A preliminary discussion — by Aaron Boley and Michael Byers, OSI co-directors, go to:
http://outerspaceinstitute.ca/docs/RussianASAT_PrelimDiscussion.pdf
