Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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March 11th, 2021
Credit: For All Moonkind
An interactive registry that catalogs human historical sites and artifacts on the Moon has been unveiled.
The For All Moonkind Moon Registry is a free online resource that provides overviews of every mission involving lunar exploration, including details on the objects related to those endeavors that are still on the lunar surface – from commemorative medallions and flags to rovers and scientific experiments.
As a registry, the online tool is not only an educational and awareness-raising tool, it can support a wide variety of services for historians, engineers, archaeologists and future lunar enterprises.
Credit: For All Moonkind
Historic value
In a press statement, Michelle Hanlon, Co-Founder of For All Moonkind emphasized that the history of humans on the Moon belongs to everyone on Earth.
“Yet I don’t think people realize that the first lunar landing sites are not protected by any law,” adds Hanlon, a space law professor at the University of Mississippi. She is also the newly appointed president of the National Space Society.
“We are working to obtain international recognition and protection for sites in space that have universal historic value,” Hanlon explains.
Credit: For All Moonkind
There are more than 100 sites on the Moon that host evidence of human activity and ingenuity, Hanlon points out. “The sites include objects, bootprints and tracks that bear witness to some of the most remarkable moments in our human journey. Our mission is to catalog the sites, and all the objects they contain.”
The For All Moonkind Moon Registry can be accessed at:
www.moonregistry.forallmoonkind.org
Also, go to: “‘Moon Registry’ catalogs human heritage left behind on lunar surface” By Robert Z. Pearlman at:
Posted in 
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s latest addition to Red Planet probing is the Perseverance robot – now getting up to speed on Mars within Jezero crater. Scientists believe the area was once flooded with water and was home to an ancient river delta.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona/ESA
However, early imagery relayed from Perseverance has provided some “geo…logical” head-scratching.
Picture-sleuthing science
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Jack Mustard
Jezero rock photos appear to indicate volcanic activity – and perhaps the Mars machinery is sitting in leftover volcanic rock and dust. Some picture-sleuthing readers have suggested that the water “trail” isn’t there…there is simply not enough erosion.
To help sort out the sorted details, Inside Outer Space asked noted expert Jack Mustard, professor in Brown University’s Department of Earth Environmental and Planetary Sciences, what’s the lowdown on those rocks?
“The first impression could give that interpretation, as they have landed on the Jezero mafic floor unit, which is variably interpreted as volcanic flows, volcanic tephra (ash and particulates) or maybe eolian [pertaining to the activity of wind].
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Jack Mustard
Too soon to tell
Mustard said Perseverance is actually in a place where the delta may have been long ago but has since eroded away, “so this mix of dust, fragments and rounded pebbles could be what is expected.” It’s too soon to tell, he adds.
In the photos shown here taken by Perseverance and provided by Mustard, these images shore up the interpretation.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Jack Mustard
“But the vesicles could be volcanic from degassing of volatiles from a flow,” Mustard says. They could be pits formed from eolian abrasion “or through other weather processes such as seen in pits we see on Ferrar Dolerite rocks in the McMurdo Dry Valleys.”
No doubt, more imagery and use of Perseverance’s tools will help decipher the nature of the Jezero site.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Jack Mustard
Eye of the beholder
Meanwhile, there’s a geological axiom worth considering: the “tyranny of shiny objects.”
Planetary geologist Jim Head, also at Brown University says that the meaning is what attracts the attention of the eye may be interesting, “but should be put in the context of ‘obtaining a representative sample’…as you may get a ‘piece of broken glass’ and not basic rocks/soils that actually hold the story of the origin and evolution of the region.”
Credit: Virgin Galactic
What makes space activities commercial?
A new paper uses an evolution change mechanism lens to estimate the degree that space sectors are considered “commercial.” The research identifies a set of forces that can indicate how “commercial” a market truly is.
The current space tourism market is clearly considered “commercial,” suggests the paper, but with qualifications.
A comparative analysis of the “commercial” activities of the U.S. space race era and current space tourism is offered, as is estimating the strength of evolution model forces, and also raises a flag of caution about the accuracy of “commercial” market forecasts.
Safe, round-trip, human spaceflight
Published in the Acta Astronautica journal, “What makes space activities commercial?” is written by Ken Davidian of the Federal Aviation Administration, Office of Commercial Space Transportation.
The current human suborbital space transportation market, sometimes referred to as “space tourism,” is reviewed by Davidian.
Brian Binnie flew SpaceShipOne to claim the $10 million Ansari X Prize in October 2004.
Credit: Brian Binnie
The general goal for firms competing in this market is safe, round-trip, human spaceflight, between a single point on Earth and an altitude of approximately 100 kilometers. “The X PRIZE competition was a major shock event that stimulated the creation of space tourism firms,” Davidian notes. Five space tourism firms reached the stage of manufacture, assembly, or flight testing of full-scale flight hardware: Blue Origin, Rocketplane Global, Scaled Composites, Virgin Galactic, and XCOR Aerospace.
“Scaled Composites never intended to enter the space tourism market as a vehicle operator, but they competed for, and won, the X PRIZE,” Davidian explains. By 2020, only two firms, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, remained active, he adds, and although they are pursuing the same general goals, both firms approach the problem with different innovation sets/technology trajectories.
Liftoff of suborbital space tourism vehicle, backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Credit: Blue Origin
What’s the delay?
“When I looked at the event data for the suborbital tourism industry, it was striking that the current story spans seven decades! Given that it’s been almost two decades since the X PRIZE was won, I think when people talk about significant milestones being only years away, the reality is closer to those events being decades away,” Davidian advises Inside Outer Space.
In the newly published paper, Davidian explains that, although government organizations may support the goal of the “new space” movement to operate in a truly “commercial” market, “the desire to accurately predict trends and events in that market should be tempered by the realities of an evolution-driven marketplace.”
To read the full paper — “What makes space activities commercial?” – go to:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576521001053
Note: Go to this free-to-attend virtual meeting — NASA and the Rise of Commercial Space: A Symposium to Examine the Meaning(s) and Context(s) of Commercial Space – on Wednesday, March 17, 2021 – Friday, March 19, 2021. Ken Davidian, Director of Research FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation, will offer a keynote address: “What is Commercial Space?”
To attend this free March 17-19 event, go to:
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/history/nasa-and-the-rise-of-commercial-space.html
Pre-drill brushing. Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager photo produced on Sol 3054, March 10, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has just begun performing Sol 3055 tasks.
Reports Kristen Bennett, a planetary geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona: “Curiosity is ready to go ahead with the first drill of 2021!”
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B image taken on Sol 3054, March 10, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Mars scientists have started planning preliminary observations of the potential drill location called “Nontron.” This includes Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) imaging and Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) integrations, a Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) passive observation, and Mastcam multispectral images of Nontron.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 3054, March 10, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“This plan also includes a drill preload test to prepare for the drill procedure,” Bennett adds. “After collecting this wealth of data at Nontron, we anticipate moving forward with the full drill in the next plan.”
Mast Camera Right images acquired on Sol 3051, March 6, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Cliff face observations
The newly scripted plan is also packed with non-drill related activities.
“The rover is parked near the Mont Mercou cliff face, a towering outcrop that gives us a great view of the sedimentary structures that are present. The plan includes a ChemCam passive observation and a Mastcam multispectral mosaic of part of the outcrop, called ‘La Coquille,’ to investigate the chemistry and any potential color variations,” Bennett explains.
Curosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3052, March 8, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
There is an additional Mastcam mosaic that covers several blocks of bedrock at the base of the La Coquille outcrop. This group of blocks inspired one science team member to name this target “La Madeleine,” similar to the children’s book.
Bennett flags the science team’s take on the story:
On an outcrop on Mars all covered with veins
Were twelve little rocks in two straight lines
This target is called La Madeleine!
Taking in the twilight
Curiosity is also slated to look towards the sky.
“The plan includes a Mastcam mosaic taken at twilight to monitor clouds in the evening sky. Additionally, a ChemCam passive sky observation has been coordinated with measurements from the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter spacecraft,” Bennett says. “This joint observation will be used to compare what the ground-based rover observes in the sky with what the spacecraft sees from orbit.”
Artistic impression of different spacecraft designs considering theoretical shapes of different kinds of “warp bubbles.”
Credit: Erik Lentz
An astrophysicist reports he has discovered gaps in previous “warp drive” studies. The new research, if equations hold up, would allow space travel to Proxima Centauri, our nearest star, and back to Earth in years instead of decades or millennia.
Erik Lentz at Göttingen University in Germany points to configurations of space-time curvature organized into “solitons” – a compact warp bubble wave that maintains its shape and moves at constant velocity.
In essence, according to Lentz, the new method uses the very structure of space and time arranged in a soliton to provide a solution to faster-than-light travel, which – unlike other research – would only need sources with positive energy densities. No “exotic” negative energy densities needed.
Image to show how long it would take different types of spacecraft to travel from our solar system to Proxima Centauri.
Credit: Erik Lentz
Lower the energy
“This work has moved the problem of faster-than-light travel one step away from theoretical research in fundamental physics and closer to engineering,” Lentz says in a university press statement. “The next step is to figure out how to bring down the astronomical amount of energy needed to within the range of today’s technologies, such as a large modern nuclear fission power plant. Then we can talk about building the first prototypes,” he adds.
Fortunately, several energy-saving mechanisms have been proposed in earlier research, Lentz points out, that can potentially lower the energy required by nearly 60 orders of magnitude.
Lentz is currently in the early-stages of determining if these methods can be modified, or if new mechanisms are needed to bring the energy required down to what is currently feasible.
To read the Lentz research paper in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity – “Breaking the warp barrier: hyper-fast solitons in Einstein–Maxwell-plasma theory” – go to:
Miscommunication and miscalculation between the U.S. and China in the “Space Race” could have grave consequences for the globe.
That’s the central theme of a new policy paper from the Lau China Institute at King’s College London outlines warns, written by Mark Hilborne, Lecturer, Defense Studies Department and in War Studies Online.
Slow to materialize
Hilborne explains that a greater understanding of China and its ambitions in space has been slow to materialize. However, as it does, “it begins to reveal a highly competitive agenda, with the objective to eclipse the U.S. in space by mid-century clearly laid out, all underpinned by a suite of counterspace capabilities.”
The policy paper adds that there’s a wider challenge to the U.S. across the full spectrum of national power. Nevertheless, the tensions that arise due to competition in space trigger particular sensitivities, “and these will need careful management to avoid space becoming a domain of outright hostility.”
For the full report, go to:
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/lci/assets/ksspplcipolicyno.2-final.pdf
Credit: via Roscosmos
Russia and China have signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on constructing an international scientific and research station on the Moon.
Dmitry Rogozin, director general of Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, puts pen to paper and signed an MOU to cooperate with China on constructing an international scientific and research station on the Moon.
Credit: Roscosmos
China National Space Administration’s (CNSA) Director Zhang Kejian and Dmitry Rogozin, director general of Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, put pen to paper and signed the MOU via a video conference on Tuesday.
“The state corporation Roscosmos and CNSA … will contribute to cooperation in creating an international lunar research station with an open access for all interested countries and international partners, with the aim of strengthening scientific research interaction, promoting research and using outer space for peaceful purposes in the interests of the entire humankind,” Roscosmos said in a statement.
Video conference to sign agreement on China/Russia cooperation on constructing an international scientific and research station on the Moon.
Credit: Roscosmos
Create a roadmap
According to a posted statement from CNSA, “China and Russia use joint experience and scientific technologies to create a roadmap for building an international research station on the Moon.”
That roadmap, said the CNSA, includes the planning, demonstration, development, implementation and operation of the lunar station. The two nations will also promote the project to the international space community.
Video conference to sign memorandum of understanding.
Credit: Roscosmos
“I also invited my Chinese colleague Zhang Kecan to visit the launch from the Vostochny cosmodrome of our Luna-25 mission,” Rogozin later tweeted. The Luna-25 lunar lander mission is set for liftoff this October.
Research work ahead
The International Scientific Lunar Station is a complex of experimental research facilities created on the surface and/or in the orbit of the Moon, Roscosmos explains.
Credit: NASA
Designed to carry out multidisciplinary and multipurpose research work, the lunar station’s tasks include the exploration and use of the Moon, lunar observations, fundamental research experiments and technology verification with the possibility of long-term robotic operation with the prospect of human presence on the Moon.
The two countries are coordinating future observations taken by Russia’s Luna-Resurs-1 orbiter and China’s Chang’e-7 spacecraft that will survey the south polar region of the Moon. Russia and China are also cooperating in the creation of a joint data center for the exploration of the Moon and deep space.
Japan’s Hayabusa2 is pulling up to Ryugu – a C-type asteroid – for detailed study.
Artwork: Akihiro Ikeshita
Japan’s Hayabusa2 asteroid sample-return mission continues to provide data regarding its returned specimens and the overall performance of the spacecraft.
Hayabusa2 sample return capsule recovery in Australia.
Credit: JAXA
Flown by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Hayabusa2 carried out detailed work for a year and a half at near-Earth asteroid 162173 Ryugu.
Samples snagged at the space rock were returned to Earth in early December of 2020. The spacecraft’s sample capsule landed and was recovered at the Woomera Test Range in Australia.
A post-flight analysis of the re-entry capsule collected in Australia is being intensely studied for use in designing future missions.
Credit: JAXA
Curation work underway
The amount of Hayabusa2 samples collected from the returned sample catcher exceeded expectations. Researchers from Japan’s Astromaterials Science Research Group (ASRG) are diligently cataloging the bits and pieces brought back to Earth.
The sample in chamber C was placed in observation containers with weight measurement and optical microscope observations started.
Credit: JAXA
Researchers from Japan’s Astromaterials Science Research Group (ASRG) are diligently cataloging the bits and pieces brought back to Earth from asteroid Ryugu.
Credit: ASRG
In a JAXA-held briefing last week, it was explained that curation work is proceeding with the weight measurement and acquisition of high-definition optical microscope images of the particles and bulk powder sample from asteroid Ryugu, focusing on the particles in chamber C recovered from Hayabusa2s second touchdown point on the space rock.
Re-entry capsule condition
Project experts noted that the condition of each capsule part is generally good, and the on-board equipment is functioning normally after return to the JAXA Sagamihara campus. A detailed analysis of the condition of the return capsule’s heat shield is currently underway.
Return capsule parts. Credit: JAXA
In addition, data has been retrieved from the Re-entry Environment Measurement Module (REMM) that was mounted on the re-entry capsule. REMM measured the airframe motion and temperature of each part of the capsule during the high-speed re-entry into the atmosphere.
Credit: JAXA
Analysis of the data acquired by REMM confirmed that the inside of the re-entry capsule — including the sample stored in the sampler — maintained a temperature environment that did not greatly exceed room temperature from re-entry to landing. Study of the REMM acquisition data will continue in detail, put to use in the research and development of future re-entry vehicles.
Credit: JAXA
Round-trip names and messages
The re-entry capsule was also equipped with memory chips containing electronic files of names and messages that were submitted before launch from people all over the world.
“We removed the two memory chips and were able to read both normally: the virtual round-trip to asteroid Ryugu was completed successfully! We are currently designing a system that will allow everyone to search for written names and messages,” Hayabusa2 researchers said at the March 5 press briefing. A system is being designed to allow participants to search for their written names and messages.
Depending on Covid-19 restrictions, public viewing of the Hayabusa2 re-entry capsule is slated to start this week at the Sagamihara City Museum, followed by a capsule showing at the country’s National Science Museum.
Photo credit: CNSA/CLEP/Jianjun Liu, et al.
Chang’e-4 landing site.
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
Credit: ISS/NASA
Earth’s Moon hangs there like a celestial nightlight. We have an enduring relationship with this object. But trying to shed daylight on its origins…we remain in the “dark ages.”
Where did our Moon come from? That child-like question would appear simple to answer. But today those are six words that engender debate, scads of peer-reviewed geological papers, and downright tumult in scientific circles.
Credit: NASA
As multiple nations are now engaged in a new round of robotic lunar exploration –with boots to follow – extracting the truth from the Moon about its beginnings is true CSI – Celestial Science Investigation.
A new research paper spotlights the complexities of making out a model for the origin of Earth’s Moon.
Decades of research
Prepared for the forthcoming volume of New Views of the Moon II, a research paper led by Robin Canup of the Planetary Sciences Directorate at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, clarifies the challenges ahead.
Apollo 15 image of the Mons Rümker region in the northern part of Oceanus Procellarum.
Credit: NASA
First of all, the Earth-Moon system is odd in several respects, Canup and colleagues make clear. The Moon is roughly one-fourth the radius of the Earth. That’s a larger satellite-to-planet size ratio than all known satellites – other than Pluto’s Charon.
Our Moon has a tiny core, perhaps just one-percent of its mass compared to Earth whose core contains nearly 30 percent of its mass.
The Earth-Moon system has a high total angular momentum, implying a speedily spinning Earth when the Moon formed. In addition, the early Moon was hot and at least partially molten with a deep magma ocean.
“Identification of a model for lunar origin that can satisfactorily explain all of these features has been the focus of decades of research,” the research paper notes.
Early Earth and Moon, perhaps created in a different manner than has previously been thought?
Credit: NASA
Impact origin
The lunar research group explains that decades of modeling have shown that large impacts are efficient producers of moons. However, the paper puts forward that the overall likelihood of explaining the particular characteristics of our Earth-Moon system “may be small, even given innovative and diverse impact models.”
Impact origin studies share a common goal, the paper adds, to identify collisional scenarios that can account for the properties of the Earth-Moon system.
A variety of scenarios for a Moon-forming impact are detailed in the paper. How about a roughly Mars-mass impactor that collides with Earth at a low velocity? Perhaps there was a “hit-and-run” impact? What about fender-bender simulations that advocate our planet was on the receiving end of multiple planetary-scale impacts during its final accretion?
Credit: NASA
Perhaps the Moon did not form by impact, the research team puts forward. That prospect, however, seems very difficult to explain basic characteristics, for one, the Moon’s lack of iron.
“The famous principle of Occam asserts that the simplest explanation for an observation is preferred, or alternatively, that ‘more things should not be used than are necessary,’” the paper points out.
One of the Apollo 16 sample boxes being opened in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory on Earth. The box contains a large rock and many small sample bags.
Credit: NASA/Johnson Space Center
Spirit of Sherlock Holmes
Future work may well rule out many of the models pondered, Canup and her colleagues write. If that’s the case, and in the spirit of Sherlock Holmes, whatever is left, however improbable, will be the solution?
“Perhaps a process that at this time appears constraining may later be understood to be probable. Or perhaps there is a more probable solution that eludes us still,” they add.
Whatever outcome from the detective trail, thanks to the Moon’s accessibility, facts of its detailed composition and physical properties will likely always exceed that of the other planets in the inner Solar System, the researchers conclude.
Moon base design.
Credit: ESA/P. Carril
High precision chemical and isotopic analyses of Moon samples brought back to Earth “have shaken the foundations of the paradigm of lunar formation by a giant impact,” the researchers conclude. “However, a multitude of new concepts have emerged whose details and implications still need to be evaluated. This, together with increasing prospects for further lunar exploration in the near-term, makes this a truly exciting time for lunar origin science.”
To read the entire “Origin of the Moon” research paper by Canup, Kevin Righter, Nicolas Dauphas, Kaveh Pahlevan, Matija Ćuk, Simon Lock, Sarah Stewart, Julien Salmon, Raluca Rufu, Miki Nakajima, and Tomáš Magna, go to:
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2103/2103.02045.pdf
Special thanks to Jatan Mehta and his “Moon Monday” newsletter for flagging this new research paper. Moon Monday is available at:
https://moonmonday.jatan.space
