Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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April 5th, 2021
Credit: NASA
On Mars, things are looking up for technology demonstrations that can aid future human exploration, not only to scout about the Red Planet – but also sustain human crews there.
NASA’s Perseverance rover has successfully deployed the Ingenuity Mars helicopter. The on-going good news is that the device has survived its first cold Martian night on its own.
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter can be seen on Mars as viewed by the Perseverance rover’s rear Hazard Camera on April 5, 2021. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) rotorcraft will be the first aircraft to attempt powered, controlled flight on another planet.
First-things-first
Until the helicopter placed its four legs onto the Martian surface, Ingenuity remained attached to the belly of the wheeled robot, receiving power from Perseverance, which touched down at Jezero Crater on February 18th.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
In first-things-first fashion, the helicopter’s rotor blades, still stacked in alignment on top of each other, are to be released on April 7th. The blade span is just under 4 feet (1.2 meters).
A solar panel charges Lithium-ion batteries, providing enough energy for one 90-second flight per Martian day.
According to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), if all goes well with a set of preflight checks, the mini-helicopter’s first spin-up to lift off will be no earlier than the evening of April 11th.
Ingenuity is the brainchild of JPL’s Bob Balaram. He worked with Simi Valley, California-based AeroVironment engineers from the group’s MacCready Works Advanced Solutions team since the 1990s to fabricate Ingenuity, including the rotor blades, landing gears, and the thermal enclosure for JPL’s avionics, sensors and software systems.
The location where NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover will observe the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s attempt at powered controlled flight at Mars is called “Van Zyl Overlook.” Photo credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
AeroVironment designed, developed and then later successfully flew a solar unmanned aircraft in the Earth’s stratosphere – the closest air density match to that of the atmosphere of Mars.
Airfield flight tests
Within 30 Martian days, or sols (a Martian day is 24.6 hours), on the surface, Ingenuity is slated to conduct flight tests in the thin atmosphere of Mars from the middle of its 33-by-33-foot (10-by-10-meter) “airfield” – chosen for its flatness and lack of obstructions.
The Perseverance rover will use its suite of cameras to observe the flight characteristics of the solar-powered helicopter from “Van Zyl Overlook.”
With Ingenuity tests under its rotor blades complete, the Perseverance’s scientific exploration of Jezero Crater is to move into high gear.
MOXIE installation into Perseverance rover. Credit: R. Lannom/NASA/JPL-Caltech
Enter the “Oxygenator”
Still to come is yet another technology experiment – the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, better known as MOXIE.
MOXIE will showcase a way that future explorers might produce oxygen from the thin Martian atmosphere for propellant and for breathing.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Haystack Observatory, MIT and MIT AeroAstro teams is responsible for overall project leadership, scientific definition, laboratory characterization activities, operations on Mars, and, eventually, interpretation and publication of results.
Haystack’s Associate Director, Michael Hecht, is MOXIE’s principal investigator.
“MOXIE is actually slated to make oxygen for the first time right in the middle of helicopter month, April 17 or thereabouts,” said Hecht. “We’re one of the few instruments allowed to run at that time since the rover doesn’t have to move or deploy anything that could conceivably interrupt its readiness to be a communications link from helicopter to home,” he advised Inside Outer Space.
The size of a car battery, MOXIE weighs 37.7 pounds on Earth, 14.14 pounds on Mars. Approximately one hour of oxygen production per experiment will be scheduled intermittently over the duration of the mission.
MOXIE location.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Make note: oxygen generators that support human missions on Mars must be about 100 times larger – but the experiment breathes life into the prospect of larger units.
Aliveness and health checks
What’s the current status of MOXIE post-landing?
“MOXIE’s aliveness and health checks were successful and we are now looking ahead to our first oxygen production,” says Eric Daniel Hinterman, a member of the MOXIE team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“The exact date isn’t set but we hope it will be in the near future (i.e. during helicopter phase),” Hinterman told Inside Outer Space. “The helicopter takes first priority during these next few weeks, though, so our schedule is pretty up in the air, pun intended, as a result.”
Posted in 
Starlink satellites visible in a mosaic of an astronomical image.
Courtesy of NSF’s
National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory/NSF/AURA/CTIO/DELVE)
The proliferation of artificial satellites and space debris orbiting the Earths is a rapidly increasing source of artificial night sky brightness.
A new study points to a set of preliminary estimations and concludes that future satellite mega-constellations are expected to increase significantly this light pollution source.
For the study, go to the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters at:
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slab030
Also, read this Science magazine article: “Study finds nowhere on Earth is safe from satellite light pollution” at:
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3077, April 2, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 3078 tasks.
“Curiosity is continuing to make her way around ‘Mont Mercou’ to capture as many angles as possible of the [23-feet] 7-meter tall sedimentary outcrop,” reports Kristen Bennett, a planetary geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3077, April 2, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The rover recently stopped at a patch of sand, so the science team divided their focus between the sand at the robot’s feet and the outcrop towering above the Mars machinery.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3077, April 2, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Stereo observations
A newly scripted plan includes many images of Mont Mercou. There are several Mastcam mosaics that cover the outcrop, including some stereo observations. There is also a Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) Remote Micro-Imager (RMI), called “Montpeyroux,” of interesting sedimentary structures that are visible from this side of the outcrop.
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Right B image acquired on Sol 3077, April 2, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“The plan also focuses on the sand that is in the rover’s workspace. There are two contact science targets: “Scoor” on a ripple crest and “Garve” on a trough,” Bennett adds.
Curiosity Rear Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B photo taken on Sol 3077, April 2, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity’s Mastcam and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) will each take images of these targets, while the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) will focus on Garve.
Curiosity Mast Camera Left image acquired on Sol 3076, April 1, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity is set to drive further around Mont Mercou.
“At first the rover will drive just a little bit and use MAHLI to image the wheels as they turn. Next, Curiosity will complete a longer drive to continue circling around to the top of Mont Mercou,” Bennett reports.
Credit: New China TV/XinhuaVideo/Inside Outer Space screengrab
China’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), the world’s largest filled-aperture and most sensitive radio telescope, officially opened to the world this week, with the facility set to play a major role in advancing global astronomy.
FAST is also known as “Tianyan” or the “China Sky Eye.”
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
In a China Central Television (CCTV) interview, Peng Bo, director of the key laboratory of FAST, said overseas scientists are welcomed to participate in a collaborative way. “It’s normal to assign some open time of the telescope for international users, in order to expand telescopes impact on science outcomes.”
Credit: New China TV/XinhuaVideo/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Observation applications
According to a statement by the National Astronomical Observatories (NAO) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), astronomers from around the globe can submit their observation applications for evaluation up until May 15, with the results will be announced on July 20.
Observations by overseas scientists will start in August, said the NAO.
Around 10 percent of FAST’s observation time in the first year, which equates to roughly 450 hours, is expected to be allocated to foreign scientists.
Credit: New China TV/XinhuaVideo/CCTV-Plus/Inside Outer Space screengrab
One Earth, one sky
Peng told CCTV that China is sharing its facilities with the international science community under the principle of “one earth, one sky.”
“Due to the bandwidth limitation, it’s not practical to transfer the huge amount of data from the FAST observatory over the Internet, thus it is encouraged to make direct copies of data with hard disk at the FAST data center,” Peng said in the interview.
“There are many interesting science topics. Nowadays, mainly on pulsars, we may find new types of pulsar, such as the neutral star or black hole binary system,” said Peng.
In an earlier interview with China’s Xinhua news agency, Peng also noted that FAST’s potential to discover an alien civilization will be 5 to 10 times that of current equipment.
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is an international, collaborative affair. SETI scientist Dan Werthimer of the University of California, Berkeley, co-authored a recent paper on China’s SETI program with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST). He is shown here with other FAST SETI collaborators. Credit: Dan Werthimer
“FAST is already doing spectacular science; opening FAST to the international community will make the science even more spectacular,” Dan Werthimer of the University of California, Berkeley’s Astronomy Department and Space Sciences Laboratory told Inside Outer Space.
How was China’s FAST telescope constructed? A glimpse at the world’s largest filled-aperture radio telescope in 100 seconds can be viewed in this GLOBALink video at:
Also, go to these informative videos focused on FAST:
Curiosity’s location as of Sol 3074. Distance driven 15.48 miles (24.92 kilometers).
This map shows the route driven by NASA’s Curiosity rover since landing in Gale Crater on August 5, 2012.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 3076 tasks.
The robot is continuing its investigation of “Mont Mercou,” the tall outcrop of bedded sedimentary rock, reports Mark Salvatore, a planetary geologist at the University of Michigan.
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Right B image taken on Sol 3075, March 31, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“The science team has been navigating around the base of the cliff after having successfully drilled into the “Nontron” bedrock target,” Salvatore adds. “By imaging the cliff at different viewing geometries, we are able to change both position and illumination conditions, helping us to fully map the observed structures and properties of these sedimentary rocks.”
Curiosity Rear Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B photo acquired on Sol 3075, March 31, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Bedrock material
In a newly orchestrated plan, the team has identified a nodular bedrock target to characterize using the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument on the rover’s arm, which will provide information about the chemical make-up of this bedrock material.
Curiosity Mast Camera Left image taken on Sol 3074, March 30, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity will also be acquiring many images using both the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) and Mastcam instruments, as the rover is now on the eastern side of the cliff face.
Cliff face navigation
“Following these observations, Curiosity will then navigate to the western side of the cliff face to perform a similar suite of imaging observations, Salvatore explains.
Curiosity Mast Camera Left image taken on Sol 3074, March 30, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
These rock outcrops, where researchers can see bedding from multiple angles, Salvatore points out, “are a treasure for geologists as we try to unravel the ancient environmental conditions that were once present in Gale crater. The team is cognizant of the value of this outcrop, and so we are making sure to acquire all of the observations that we need before driving away from this location.”
Curiosity Mast Camera Right photo acquired on Sol 3074, March 30, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
A NASA “Send Your Name to Mars” website has stirred up Chinese officials.
The State Council Taiwan Affairs Office has lashed out at NASA for listing Taiwan as an independent country on a space agency website, “which is in blatant violation of international law,” reports China Central Television (CCTV).
According to Zhu Fenglian, spokeswoman, State Council Taiwan Affairs Office:
“Taiwan is an inalienable part of the Chinese territory. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s move violates the one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-U.S. joint communiqués, as well as the consensus of the international community, and hurts feelings of the Chinese people,” Zhu stated.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“We hope that the NASA, as an agency of the U.S. federal government, will respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, abide by the one-China principle and the three China-U.S. joint communiqués, and correct its mistake as soon as possible. We also believe that Chinese people at home and abroad will have a correct understanding of this matter,” Zhu said at a press conference in Beijing.
Explore as one
NASA’s “Send Your Name to Mars” campaign invited people around the globe to submit their names to ride along on the rover – with a grand total of 10,932,295 names submitted.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The result of the NASA campaign was installed on the Perseverance Mars rover on March 16, 2020. Three fingernail-sized chips affixed to the upper-left corner of the placard feature the names of those individuals that participated.
Also on the plate: a laser-etched graphic depicting Earth and Mars connected by the rays of the Sun that gives light to both.
Written in Morse code in the Sun’s rays is a hidden message: “Explore As One.”
NASA response
Asking NASA to respond, Inside Outer Space received this message from Sean Potter, Media Relations Specialist in the NASA Headquarters’ Office of Communications:
“The appropriate field on the submission form has been updated to say ‘Location’ with the drop-down menu options updated to say ‘Country/Region/Territory’ to better reflect the diversity of geographic location types listed.”
Clouds float over “Mont Mercou,”captured by Curiosity Right Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3072, March 28, 2021
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 3074 tasks.
The forecast is in! There’s a high chance of clouds at “Mont Mercou!”
That’s the report from Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, a planetary geologist at the University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera Sol 3073 March 29, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“We are finishing up at the ‘Nontron’ drill locale and moving onto the next stage of investigating the beautiful Mont Mercou outcrop,” O’Connell-Cooper adds.
Mars researchers are continuing their usual cadence of looking at compositions and textures of the rover’s surroundings, using both the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) and Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) to investigate the bedrock target “Bara Bahau.”
Curiosity Rear Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B image acquired on Sol 3073, March 29, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Rumination about laminations
Before the robot moves onward, Mastcam is taking another opportunity to get close-up imaging of the extensive laminations on the cliff face, likely the last time the rover will be as close to the feature.
In a recently scripted plan, Curiosity is to drive around to the east side of the cliff and get into position to take Mastcam images of that side.
“Once we have documented that side, we will drive back across the front of the outcrop and image the western side,” O’Connell-Cooper explains. “This will provide us with a unique 3-D perspective on this cliff and will hopefully help our scientists to understand how this amazing outcrop formed.”
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Right B image taken on Sol 3073, March 29, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Twilight cloud movie
The Environmental Theme Group (ENV) and Mastcam planned another twilight cloud movie for sol 3074, similar to that on sol 3072, which resulted in the incredible image of clouds above Mont Mercou.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used two cameras to create this selfie in front of Mont Mercou, a rock outcrop that stands 20 feet (6 meters) tall. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
“We are at the beginning of Gale crater’s cloudy season, and in the middle of a period where the potential for the formation of twilight clouds is higher than usual. ENV are taking advantage of this to observe and analyze clouds and cloud formations,” O’Connell-Cooper concludes.
Meanwhile, JPL has issued a set of new images that dramatically show the rover’s current whereabouts. Curiosity used its Mastcam instrument to produce these striking images and a panorama.
Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used its Mastcam instrument to take the 126 individual images that make up this 360-degree panorama.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) has produced a series of shots to piece together a rover selfie at the Nontron drill site. Images produced on Sol 3070, March 26, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3071 tasks.
Michelle Minitti, a planetary geologist at Framework in Silver Spring, Maryland reports: “We anticipate leaving our Nontron drill site in the next few sols, and just as you might snap one last picture of a memorable vacation spot, [the Mars Hand Lens Imager] MAHLI will wrap up the plan with a rover selfie featuring the spectacular ‘Mont Mercou’ in the background. Smile, Curiosity!”
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
New imagery from the rover clearly shows selfie imagery has been produced that will be shaped into a keepsake photo!
Final observations
“With a successful drill campaign at Nontron in the books, the team continued to wrap up drill hole observations and also grab some final observations of the interesting materials that mark this area,” Minitti adds.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The rover’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) was slated to acquire a passive spectra of sulfate-bearing buttes that beckon from farther up “Mount Sharp.”
Curiosity’s Mastcam was scheduled to image sand targets “Thenac” and “Thenon” “to look for wind-induced changes, and the target “Creyssac,” a coherent crack in nearby sand to watch how – or if – it changes,” Minitti explains.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Looking for dust devils
The robot’s Mastcam and Navcam were also on tap to both monitor the amount of dust in the atmosphere, and Navcam will acquire a movie looking for dust devils.
Curiosity’s Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD), Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) and Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) maintain their steady watch over the Gale crater environment through the plan, Minitti notes.
The Chassenon target is the white-gray-white striped feature at the edge of the bedrock block to the left of the drill hole in this image taken by rover’s Mast Camera on Sol 3056 March 12, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) will image both spots that the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) MAHLI analyzed on the pile of discarded Nontron drill sample in an earlier plan.
Multi-spot analysis
After the Nontron sample, MAHLI will team up with APXS for a multi-spot analysis, or raster, on the “Chassenon” target.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
“We most commonly associate rasters with ChemCam, as moving through multiple spots in succession – sometimes in a grid, sometimes in a line – is how ChemCam analyzes a given target. Such rasters take 20-30 minutes, depending on the number of points in the raster,” Minitti reports. “A raster with APXS and MAHLI takes much longer!”
MAHLI and APXS are both at the end of the rover’s robotic arm, “so each MAHLI image and each APXS analysis relies on the arm and turret to gently and accurately place the instruments where the science team wants them to go,” Minitti adds. “Those arm motions are slow and careful, as you would expect if you were operating a 2-meter long arm weighing nearly 100 kilograms!”
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Isolate the chemistry
If researchers only obtained a single APXS analysis over the center of Chassenon, Minitti says, the resulting chemistry would be a mix of that feature – the sand to its left and the bedrock to its right.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Minitti says that by adding two additional analyses – one slightly shifted off the center to get a mix of the feature and the surrounding bedrock, one over only bedrock – scientists can better isolate the chemistry of the feature.
“That is done by combining the chemistry from the APXS analyses with the proportions of materials in each APXS field of view, as determined with the MAHLI images that accompany each APXS analysis. The manner in which the chemistry varies with those proportions allows the chemistries of the individual materials to be separated,” Minitti explains.
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager photo produced on Sol 3068, March 24, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3069 duties.
“It takes careful planning to manage the rover’s battery and power, much like we all manage our cell phone batteries and try to keep them charged. But we have to plan several sols ahead,” reports Scott Guzewich, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
This recent Mastcam image shows the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite inlet covers. Photo taken on Sol 3065, March 21, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Usually when Mars researchers plan a Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite activity, Guzewich adds, they expect a power “gift” in the next sol where SAM does not use as much power as we budgeted.
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Left image taken on Sol 3068, March 24, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
However, that was not the case, and combined with late changes to a recent plan, they had to deal with 5 percent less power than expected. That meant a drastic reduction in extra science time.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 3068, March 24, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“We managed to still fit in a ChemCam [Chemistry and Camera] long-distance image mosaic, but otherwise are limited to our drill campaign activities” where the rover will dump the remaining powdered rock in the drill onto the surface and conduct contact science on that material with the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) and the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS), Guzewich concludes.
GIMBAL/“Tic Tac”
Credit: DOD/U.S. Navy/Inside Outer Space screengrab
A letter-writing campaign to Congress requesting transparency with respect to Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAPs) is underway.
The activity has been sparked by a report that is due this June from a UAP Task Force established last year by the Department of Defense.
The Department of Defense established the task force “to improve its understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of UAPs. The mission of the task force is to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security.”
Countdown underway
When the December, 2020 COVID-19 relief bill was signed into law, it triggered a 180-day “countdown” for intelligence agencies to provide a report to Congress summarizing what the government knows about the UAP situation.
The letter-writing campaign has a website, replete with a countdown clock, explaining that, for the first time in history, “American citizens have the opportunity to engage our government and influence the extent of the unclassified information included in this historic public report. The countdown to June 25, 2021 is underway!”
GOFAST
Credit: DOD/U.S. Navy/Inside Outer Space screengrab
E-mail requests
A sample e-mail is provided so participants can request that 1) the unclassified assessment specifically address the longstanding assertion that the government is aware of craft of unknown origin displaying advanced operational capabilities that defy physical laws as humans understand them and 2) Congress and the Department of National Intelligence faithfully and honestly release these data and any additional evidence as part of the congressional report.”
FLIR
Credit: DOD/U.S. Navy/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Additionally, the sample e-mail also requests the release of “all historical data whose 25-year classification requirement has expired that has been collected over many decades by different intelligence agencies.”
NOTE: To reach the website, go to: https://uapactnow.com/
