Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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July 31st, 2023
Rim of the second largest crater within the crater cluster (bottom right) and the Gediz Vallis ridge in the background (towards the top of the image). Curiosity image taken by Left Navigation Camera on Sol 3898, July 25, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3904 duties.
Lucy Thompson, a planetary geologist at the University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, reports that rover engineers have navigated Curiosity through tricky terrain of fractured blocks and sand.
Image acquired by Curiosity’s Left Navigation Camera on Sol 3894, July 21, 2023. While the craters are very easy to see in orbital images, the view from the ground is a bit harder to assess. This image shows broken up blocks of bedrock in the foreground, and small depressions and ridges in the distance. Mars researchers hope to gain more insight into the origin of these features, before getting back on the road to continue climbing up Mount Sharp.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Our parking spot is on the rim of one of the larger craters within a cluster of craters that we have been driving towards for the last few weeks,” Thompson adds. “A number of people on our science team advocated for visiting these craters to learn more about the cratering process on Mars.”
Curiosity Mast Camera Left image taken on Sol 3902, July 29, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Crater morphology
Thompson explains that researchers are interested in variations in shape and morphology of the craters, the amount of degredation and erosion, and the composition of any impactor material (if present).
“Sadly, there were no obvious meteorites in our workspace and this plan focused on capturing the view of the craters and surrounding terrain. We are taking a 360° Mastcam mosaic, as well as smaller, higher resolution mosaics of the two largest craters within the cluster,” Thompson notes.
Mast Camera Right photo acquired on Sol 3902, July 29, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Laminated bedrock
Despite the significant time and power resources required to accomplish rover imaging, Mars investigators were still able to squeeze in some chemical analyses and close-up imaging of the rocks within the crater rim.
Curiosity’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) is to analyze the laminated bedrock target, “Aire de Repos,” which will also be documented with Mastcam.
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Right B photo taken on Sol 3902, July 29, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) was scheduled to acquire compositional data on the dark, vertical face of an upturned block (“Guainia”), and the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) is to take close-up images of this target and a differentially eroded, laminated bedrock fragment, “Mocambo.”
Mast Camera Right photo acquired on Sol 3902, July 29, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Gediz Vallis ridge
To continue monitoring changes in the atmosphere, also on tap is acquiring a Navcam large dust devil survey and line of sight, single frame image.
“Once we have completed all our targeted science observations, Curiosity will hopefully execute another successful drive to take us towards our next area of interest at the base of the Gediz Vallis ridge (stay tuned to hear more about this interesting feature as we get closer),” Thompson reports.
Once that drive has been executed, the robot is to acquire images of the new terrain beneath the rover with its Mars Descent Imager (MARDI).
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3901, July 28, 2023.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Standard Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS), Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) and Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) activities round out this plan, Thompson concludes.
Eroded craters
In an earlier report by Lauren Edgar, a planetary geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona, Curiosity worked her way through the “Jau” crater cluster, “with the goal of trying to understand how all of these small craters formed and have since been eroded.”
To do that, Edgar adds, the team is hoping to assess the target rocks, any evidence for the impactor, and the morphology of the craters. “While the craters are very easy to see in orbital images, the view from the ground is a bit harder to assess.”
“Through a detailed imaging campaign and contact science, the team hopes to gain more insight into the origin of these features, before getting back on the road to continue climbing up Mount Sharp,” Edgar adds.
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Image credit: Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge/NASA
GOLDEN, Colorado – The pace is quickening for using Earth’s Moon as a near-term, go-to location to land, live and explore.
NASA’s Artemis back-to-the-Moon agenda is jelling. So too are long-term plans by small and large firms, academia, along with international space agencies.
Twenty-third meeting of the Space Resources Roundtable, held June 6-9 at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado.
Image credit: Angel Abbud-Madrid/Colorado School of Mines
That was in evidence at the twenty-third meeting of the Space Resources Roundtable, held here last month at the Colorado School of Mines. A record attendance of some 250 participants spoke on lunar economic models, results of in-the-lab tests, and legal and policy issues. A number of entrepreneurial groups shared their strategies to turn the Moon into a hustle and bustle world of marketable services.
Down-to-Earth thinking about living, working, surviving and thriving on other worlds. Angel Abbud-Madrid, director of the Center for Space Resources at the Colorado School of Mines.
Image credit: Barbara David
Key glue
The key glue that anchors future Moon use is labeled in-situ resource utilization, or ISRU: on-the-spot activity.
ISRU involves the extraction of oxygen, water and other available materials for cranking out rocket fuel and to “gas up” life-support systems. Then there’s pulling out metals on the Moon, say to fabricate lunar housing, landing pads, along with other structures and products.
To dig into this quickly evolving topic, go to my new Space.com story – “Moon mining gains momentum as private companies plan for a lunar economy” – at:
Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is nearing a regular cadence of commercial suborbital travel. Shown is SpaceShipTwo zipping skyward over New Mexico’s Spaceport America.
Image credit: Virgin Galactic
That ill-fated dive of the Titan submersible and loss of its deep ocean exploring occupants has sparked conversation and debate in the world of public space travel.
Deep diving submersible.
Image credit: OceanGate
There are similarities, some of which offer lessons learned as commercial suborbital and orbital passenger flight flourishes.
Please go to my new Space.com story – “How will space tourism be impacted by the Titan submersible tragedy?” – at:
https://www.space.com/spaceflight-titan-submersible-tragedy-impacts
Image credit: RAND
The results from a just-released RAND analysis of UAP point to three recommendations for government officials.
“First, we recommend that government authorities (e.g., local and state government officials, the FAA, and DoD) conduct outreach with civilians located near military operations areas (MOAs.) We hypothesize that many civilians may not be aware that they are located near areas where military operations occur,” the report explains.
“If our results are correct—that is, if being located within 30 km of a MOA is significantly associated with UAP reports, and if some of these reported objects are in fact authorized aircraft—then communicating that such activities are being conducted nearby could reduce the likelihood that the public will report these aircraft as UAPs.”
- “Second, we recommend that government authorities conduct additional outreach to notify nearby civilians when there is airspace activity near a MOA. According to the FAA, not all MOAs are in use by authorized aircraft. When appropriate, notifying local populations of MOA activities could reduce the number of reported UAPs that are in fact authorized aircraft.”
- “Finally, we recommend an evaluation to inform the design of a detailed and robust system for public reporting of UAP sightings. Such an evaluation would inform the use of various technologies (e.g., mobile devices, artificial intelligence), reports on location types (e.g., street intersections, landmarks, latitude and longitude coordinates), sighting features (e.g., images, audio recordings), criteria for validating these reports, and who is best equipped to independently manage such a reporting system (e.g., government agencies, for-profit companies, nonprofit organizations, international organizations). Such a system would be useful in minimizing hoaxes and reports of misidentified objects.”
Increase awareness
Image credit: RAND
This RAND report presents a geographic analysis of 101,151 public reports of UAP sightings in 12,783 U.S. Census Bureau census designated places.
This report provides findings on U.S. locations where UAP reports are significantly more likely to occur and offers recommendations to increase awareness of the types of activities that might be mistaken for unexplained phenomena or that point to potential threats.
The research reported here was completed in May 2023 and underwent security review with the sponsor and the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review before public release.
To access the report – “Not the X-Files: Mapping Public Reports of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Across America” – go to:
Ready and waiting. Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx’s principal investigator from the University of Arizona holds a mock up of the asteroid collection device.
Image credit: Barbara David
Call it a “stone’s throw” type of spacecraft mission.
Making its way back to Earth is NASA’s Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer. Yes, that’s a mega-mouthful, but word manicured to OSIRIS-REx. Now it’s called by project members as just “O-REx” for the sake of speedier repartee.
OSIRIS-REx is the first U.S. mission to snare a sample from an asteroid. This spacecraft was hurled from Earth in September 2016, and in October 2020 dutifully gathered bits and pieces of space rock Bennu, an ancient rubble pile of diverse leftovers from the early days of solar system creation about 4.5 billion years ago.
Practice cleanroom session with specialists partially disassembling the OSIRIS-REx return capsule.
Image credit: Barbara David
Dugway drop zone
This mother lode of extraterrestrial freight will hot-foot its way through our atmosphere on September 24, dropping into the Department of Defense Dugway Proving Ground in the Utah Test and Training Range, roughly 80 miles west of Salt Lake City, Utah.
For details on what’s ahead, not only for the return of bits and pieces of Bennu but also rocketing to Earth Mars samples, go to my new Scientific American story – “This Is How the First-Ever U.S. Asteroid Sample Return Will Unfold – Scientists are gearing up for a high-stakes finale to OSIRIS-REx, the first U.S. mission to snare a sample from an asteroid” – at:
UAP have been reported by Navy pilots unlike anything they have ever witnessed.
Image credit: Enigma Labs/Lt. Cmdr. Alex Dietrich
They’re Here! How best to brace for “Full Disclosure.” The ongoing saga of UFOs/UAP, what are they and what impact on society?
If you follow the complex and perplexing world of Unidentified Flying Objects, now tied to the term Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, we may be inching toward “full disclosure.”
Image credit: Yannick Peings, Marik von Rennenkampff/AIAA
What that means is uncorking the bottle filled to the brim with an elixir of truth, say disclosure activists, that Earth has been on the receiving end of exotic craft of non-earth origin.
Even more, there are allegations of a covert U.S. government reverse engineering program set up to write an operators manual on how these surreptitious vehicles function.
UAP hearing test
Today, a House Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs took a deep dive on the subject of UAP and purported arrivals on Earth of exotic craft and their occupants.
Image credit: House Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Chairman Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) delivered opening remarks at the subcommittee hearing. Go to:
To view the hearing, go to:
https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/unidentified-anomalous-phenomena-implications-on-national-security-public-safety-and-government-transparency/
Who spoke?
Witnesses and prepared remarks:
Ryan Graves
Executive Director
Americans for Safe Aerospace
https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Ryan-HOC-Testimony.pdf
Commander David Fravor (Ret.)
Former Commanding Officer
United States Navy
David Grusch
Former National Reconnaissance Officer Representative, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Task Force
Department of Defense
https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Dave_G_HOC_Speech_FINAL_For_Trans.pdf
Russia’s Luna-25.
Image credit: Roscosmos
Russia is set to reactivate the country’s robotic investigation of the Moon, picking up from its former Soviet Union days of heady and milestone-making lunar exploration.
Luna-25 is reportedly targeted for an August 11 sendoff to the Moon, departing from the Vostochny cosmodrome atop a Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with a Fregat upper stage.
Image credit: Roscosmos
“This launch is important, both for historical and forward-looking reasons. It means a lot,” said Brian Harvey, a noted author and space historian in Ireland with an eye on past Soviet Union, now Russian, space exploits.
Prep work for sendoff
According to Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, Luna-25 is now fueled with propellant and loaded with compressed gases.
Meanwhile, employees of the IKI RAS, the space research institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, have arrived at Vostochny to prepare the Luna-25 scientific equipment for launch.
Topographic map of the southern sub-polar region of the Moon showing the location of Boguslawsky crater.
Credit: Ivanov et al., 2015 via Arizona State University/LROC
IKI technicians are overseeing the completion of the installation of the ARIES-L scientific equipment and its verification, measurements of the radiation background on board the spacecraft for the space experiment with the ADRON-LR device, as well as carrying out final pre-launch operations with the spacecraft.
The Luna-25 is slated for touchdown at the Moon’s south pole.
For the whole story on why this Russian reconnection with Moon exploration is crucial, go to my new Multiverse Media SpaceRef story – “Russia’s Return to the Moon With Luna-25: High Risk, High Stakes” at:
Image credit: Roscosmos
Russia’s Luna-25 Moon lander continues to make progress as it heads for its August liftoff from the Vostochny launch site.
According to Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, Luna-25 is now fueled with propellant and loaded with compressed gases.
Meanwhile, employees of the IKI RAS, the space research institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, have arrived at Vostochny to prepare the Luna-25 scientific equipment for launch.
Image credit: Roscosmos
IKI technicians are overseeing the completion of the installation of the ARIES-L scientific equipment and its verification, measurements of the radiation background on board the spacecraft for the space experiment with the ADRON-LR device, as well as carrying out final pre-launch operations with the spacecraft.
The Luna-25 is slated for touchdown at the Moon’s south pole.
Topographic map of the southern sub-polar region of the Moon showing the location of Boguslawsky crater.
Credit: Ivanov et al., 2015 via Arizona State University/LROC
Moon as observed from the International Space Station.
Image credit: NASA
NASA has selected 11 U.S. companies to develop technologies that could support long-term exploration on the Moon and in space.
Astrobotic’s LunaGrid-Lite will demonstrate the first transmission of high voltage power across the lunar surface and leading to a LunaGrid power service.
Image credit: Astrobotic
Six of the selected companies are small businesses. The awarded companies, their projects, and the approximate value of NASA’s contribution are:
Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh, $34.6 million – LunaGrid-Lite: Demonstration of Tethered, Scalable Lunar Power Transmission
Big Metal Additive of Denver, $5.4 million – Improving Cost and Availability of Space Habitat Structures with Additive Manufacturing
Blue Origin of Kent, Washington, $34.7 million – In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU)-Based Power on the Moon
Freedom Photonics of Santa Barbara, California, $1.6 million – Highly Efficient Watt-Class Direct Diode Lidar for Remote Sensing
Blue Origin manufactured this working solar cell prototype from lunar regolith simulants.
Image credit: Blue Origin
Lockheed Martin of Littleton, Colorado, $9.1 million – Joining Demonstrations In-Space
Redwire of Jacksonville, Florida, $12.9 million – Infrastructure Manufacturing with Lunar Regolith – Mason
Protoinnovations of Pittsburgh, $6.2 million – The Mobility Coordinator: An Onboard COTS (Commercial-Off-the-Shelf) Software Architecture for Sustainable, Safe, Efficient, and Effective Lunar Surface Mobility Operations
Psionic of Hampton, Virginia, $3.2 million – Validating No-Light Lunar Landing Technology that Reduces Risk, SWaP (Size, Weight, and Power), and Cost
United Launch Alliance of Centennial, Colorado, $25 million – ULA Vulcan Engine Reuse Scale Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator Technology Demonstration
Varda Space Industries of El Segundo, California, $1.9 million – Conformal Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator Tech Transfer and Commercial Production
Zeno Power Systems of Washington, $15 million – A Universal Americium-241 Radioisotope Power Supply for Artemis
Radioisotope Power System by the Zeno Power-led team, including Intuitive Machines, may enable lunar assets to survive and operate during the lunar night and in permanently shadowed regions of the Moon.
Image credit: Zeno Power Systems
Once demonstrated and implemented on the Moon, Blue Origin’s Blue Alchemist idea, the company suggests, could put unlimited solar power wherever needed.
Image credit: Blue Origin
Made on the Moon
The award win by Blue Origin is In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU)-Based Power on the Moon.
Blue Origin has proposed “Blue Alchemist” as an end-to-end, scalable, autonomous, and commercial solution that produces solar cells from lunar regolith, which is the dust and crushed rock abundant on the Moon’s surface.
“Based on a process called molten regolith electrolysis, the breakthrough would bootstrap unlimited electricity and power transmission cables anywhere on the surface of the Moon. This process also produces oxygen as a useful byproduct for propulsion and life support,” according to a Blue Origin statement.
Image credit: ISRO
India’s Chandrayaan-3 Moon lander/rover mission continues to chalk up success in raising its orbit, leading to the spacecraft’s upcoming TransLunar Injection (TLI) maneuver.
Chandrayaan-3’s TLI is reportedly scheduled for early August 1, Indian Standard Time.
Image credit: ISRO
If successful, the Moon explorer will then go into lunar orbit, perform a series of maneuvers, followed by a soft landing attempt on the Moon by late August, according to the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)
Target for landing
India’s lunar lander is headed for the southern region of the Moon’s near side, soft landing about 13 miles (20 kilometers) west of Manzinus U crater rim.
India’s lunar lander/rover target zone. Image credit: Quickmap.lroc.asu.edu/projections
Given a safe and sound touchdown on the Moon, India would join an elite group of successful lunar landing countries: the former Soviet Union (now Russia), the United States, and China.
Chandrayaan-3 was launched on July 14 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota and has now completed its fifth orbit raising maneuver prior to the crucial TLI burn.
