Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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January 16th, 2021
Core module of China’s space station.
Credit: CMS/Inside Outer Space screengrab
China’s space station core module — Tianhe (harmony of the heavens) – has passed a factory review and is scheduled for launch this spring.
China’s space station expected to be completed by around 2022. Credit: CMS/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO) reported on the completion of the factory review. Also passing muster is the project’s Tianzhou-2 cargo craft and the core module mission products of the space application systems.
The space station will now enter the implementation phase, the CMSEO statement said.
Testing of Tianhe core module.
Credit: China Manned Space Agency (CMS).
China’s Xinhua news agency adds that China is scheduled to complete the in-orbit construction of the space station around 2022, after carrying out 11 flight missions this year and next, including three launches of different modules, four launches of cargo craft and four launches of piloted craft.
Credit: People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN)
Tracking ship
Meanwhile, China’s spacecraft tracking ship Yuanwang-7 is sailing to the Indian Ocean, beginning its first maritime monitoring mission this year.
Xinhua also reports that Yuanwang-7 has been developed with the latest technologies in shipbuilding, space monitoring, marine meteorology and shipping power.
Since it was put into use in 2016, the ship has completed maritime missions for tracking space lab Tiangong-2, the Chang’e-4 lunar probe and the country’s BeiDou navigation satellites.
Posted in 
Credit: Blue Origin
Blue Origin’s is ready to push the send off button on mission NS-14, with the company’s next New Shepard flight departing from Launch Site One in West Texas. Mission NS-14 is the 14th flight for the New Shepard program.
Credit: Blue Origin
For this mission, the crew capsule will be outfitted with upgrades for the astronaut experience as the program nears human space flight. The capsule will be outfitted with six seats, including one occupied by Mannequin Skywalker.
Ready for re-flight – Blue Origin’s Mannequin Skywalker
Credit: Blue Origin/Screen Grab
Those upgrades also include improvements to environmental features such as acoustics and temperature regulation inside the capsule, crew display panels, and speakers with a microphone and push-to-talk button at each seat.
In addition, the mission will also test a number of astronaut communication and safety alert systems.
Rocketeer Jeff Bezos and his commercial rocket firm, Blue Origin.
Credit: Blue Origin
Also inside the capsule, Blue Origin’s nonprofit Club for the Future will fly more than 50,000 postcards to space and back from students around the globe. A selection of postcards will fly in Mannequin Skywalker’s pockets. This is the third batch of Club for the Future postcards flown to space.
If launched today, NS-14 liftoff is 9:45 AM CST / 15:45 UTC. Join the live webcast at T-30 minutes on BlueOrigin.com
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 3,000 tasks.
Reports Lauren Edgar, Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona: “Three thousand sols and never a dull moment!”
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Image produced on Sol 2999, January 12, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
A recent planning session orchestrated Sols 2999-3000, “and it was a real reminder of how complex and rewarding this mission can be,” Edgar adds.
Curiosity has recently completed an investigation of the “Sands of Forvie” ripple field and the rover is now working its way back to the path that scientists plan to take to ascend Mt. Sharp, transitioning back into terrain with fewer broken blocks of bedrock.
Curiosity Mast Camera Left image taken on Sol 2998, January 11, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Unexpected movement
“In the previous plan, Curiosity shifted slightly when we first unstowed the arm for the contact science activities,” Edgar explains. “When the flight software detected this small but unexpected movement, the rover stopped moving the arm to await further instruction from Earth. This is exactly what we designed the software to do to make sure everything stays safe, and it means we didn’t carry out subsequent contact science or the drive over the weekend.”
Edgar notes that this is a good safety check, and a reminder of how controllers made it to Sol 3,000 with a healthy rover by making good decisions and making sure the robot is on stable ground.
Curiosity Mast Camera Left image taken on Sol 2998, January 11, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
“All is well and it just means that today we have a familiar workspace and a chance to regain some of these observations before getting back on the road,” Edgar notes.
Diagenetic features
A recent two-sol plan starts with Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) observation of the targets “Queyon” and “Longa Skerry” to characterize the various textures and diagenetic features present in the bedrock – large‐scale color variations within bedrock. Diagenesis is the name for a wide range of changes that affect sediments during their progress to become sedimentary rocks.
Then the rover’s Mastcam will acquire a multispectral observation of “St. Andrew Square” to assess some interesting color variations. Later in the afternoon the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) was scheduled to take a closer look at targets named “Nugarth” and “Kleber.”
The second sol includes a ChemCam observation of “Backagord” and a number of environmental monitoring observations to search for dust devils and monitor the dust content of the atmosphere.
Curiosity Mast Camera Left image taken on Sol 2998, January 11, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Smoother terrain
“Then Curiosity will drive to the north to get back into smoother terrain, followed by imaging to prepare for targeting in the next plan. The next morning Curiosity will acquire a ChemCam passive sky survey to assess water vapor and dust in the atmosphere,” Edgar reports.
“It’s been an exciting 3,000 sols so far, and I look forward to seeing what else we’ll discover as Curiosity continues to climb Mt. Sharp,” Edgar concludes. “Tonight I’ll be raising a glass to Curiosity and the science and engineering teams that have gotten us this far!”
Chang’e-4’s farside landing zone.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
China’s lunar farside mission – the Chang’e-4 lander and Yutu-2 rover – have once again perked up from a 14-day nighttime slumber and have resumed work for the 26th lunar day of exploration.
Chang’e-4 lunar lander imaged by the mission’s Yutu-2 rover. Arrow points to the Germany-provided Lunar Lander Neutron and Dosimetry (LND) instrument.
Credit: CNSA/CLEP/NAOC
A lunar day is equal to roughly 14 days on Earth, and a lunar night is of the same length.
The solar-powered machinery switches to dormant mode during the lunar night.
The Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration reports that the lander woke up at 3:13 am on Friday (Beijing time), and the rover Yutu-2, or Jade Rabbit-2, woke up at 10:29 am on Thursday.
Image of China’s Yutu-2 lunar rover taken by Chang’e-4 lander.
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
Long-lived lander/rover
China’s Xinhua news agency adds that Yutu-2 is on tap to take panoramic photos. Aldo, the rover’s infrared imaging spectrometer, neutral atom detector and lunar radar will continue to carry out scientific investigations.
Within Von Kármán crater on the lunar farside, China’s Yutu-2 rover takes a longing look back from its Chang’e-4 lander dispatching zone.
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
Touching down on the Moon on January 3, 2019, the long-lived Chang’e-4 mission has survived 736 Earth days on the Moon.
During the 26th lunar day, Yutu-2 will move northwest toward the basalt area or impact craters with high reflectivity.
Planned route (white line) of the Yutu-2 rover.
Credit: Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center
Lunar Outfitters – Making the Apollo Space Suit by Bill Ayrey; University of Florida Press; 422 pages; October 6, 2020; Hardcover; $35.00.
This is a fascinating, behind-the-scenes look at suiting up and what was required to harness America’s technological cleverness in planting humans on the Moon via the Apollo program.
The story is told by Bill Ayrey, a testing lab manager for the textile manufacturer International Latex Corporation (ILC) Industries (now ILC Dover, LP) that fabricated, from head to toe, Apollo program space suits. Providing the “wear-with-all” for Apollo didn’t come easy for the company, the author explains.
When the call went out for new suit concepts in 1965, ILC faced six weeks to come up with a drastically different design, winning the space suit contract. Ayrey draws on original files and photographs to tell the dramatic story of the company’s role in the Apollo Moon landing effort.
Divided into three substantial parts, the book details the “school of hard knocks,” “the turbulent years” from 1962-1965, and reviews the Model A-7L pressure suit worn by the Apollo 11 astronauts, as well as the Model A-7LB that replaced it in 1971. The last part of the book focuses on post-lunar missions, Skylab, the U.S./Russian Apollo-Soyuz Test Program, and other development suits.
The book is a wonderland of detail. Yes, from fecal and urine containment system, in-suit drink bag to thermal micrometeoroid protection, the liquid cooling suit design and down to the lunar boots and gloves required.
Ayrey dedicates the book to all the employees of ILC Industries “who focused on the mission of making the space suits that made walking on the Moon and returning home safely possible for twelve Apollo astronauts.” He also explains that the employees were “caught up in the excitement of clothing the men who would fly to the far-off surface of the Moon” and that all involved were thrilled to be part of the adventure.
“As newer materials and assembly techniques emerged into the early 1970s, NASA began to regard many of the features of the Apollo suit as obsolete or as providing an increased risk of suit failure, particularly as missions increased in duration,” Ayrey writes. How the company met those challenges and others is a great read.
In the book’s conclusion, the author explains his work with the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in preservation of space suits for public display, including the display of Neil Armstrong’s moonwalking suit in the Destination Moon gallery.
The book includes a substantial notes section, filled with suit details and resources.
Explained on the book’s back cover, Apollo 11 astronaut, Michael Collins points out that a space suit is a “miniature space craft,” so well designed for Apollo as described in this book.
For more information on Lunar Outfitters – Making the Apollo Space Suit, go to:
Curiosity’s location on Sol 2991. Distance Driven 14.81 miles (23.84 kilometers).
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2993 tasks.
Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Right B image taken on Sol 2992, January 5, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Here on Earth, people often use the start of a new year as an opportunity to adopt new resolutions for themselves. In planetary exploration, we often talk about a different kind of resolution, namely the spatial resolution of the cameras carried by a spacecraft,” reports Mariah Baker, a planetary geologist at the Center for Earth & Planetary Studies, Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum.
Baker explains that Curiosity has a large suite of cameras with a range of spatial resolutions, one of which is the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera.
“Located at the end of the rover’s robotic arm,” Baker points out, “MAHLI can be placed in close proximity to the surface to acquire incredibly high-resolution images of the grains within loose soil and rocks. And in the rover’s first plan of 2021, MAHLI’s imaging capabilities took center stage.”
Curiosity acquired this image using its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), located on the turret at the end of the rover’s robotic arm, on January 2, 2021, Sol 2989
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.
Large sand ripples
Right before the holiday break, the robot had been making its way across rubbly terrain towards a set of large sand ripples located within the Sands of Forvie.
“One of our primary motivations for visiting these ripples was to acquire high-resolution MAHLI images of the sand comprising them,” Baker adds. “When wind blows sand around, it naturally sorts it based on properties such as particle size, so close-up images of sand grains on different parts of a ripple can provide a means to study natural sorting processes and the winds controlling them.”
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B photo taken on Sol 2993, January 6, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
A recent opportunity to study the Sands of Forvie ripples after the rover’s New Year’s “scuff,” a major focus of planning was to obtain a preliminary set of MAHLI images of the crest and trough of a prominent ripple in the robot’s workspace.
These images will allow the team to plan a second set of even higher-resolution MAHLI images.
Change detection
A recent plan made use of other scientific measurements planned including an Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) measurement to accompany MAHLI images of the ripple trough, Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) observations on sand targets “Carsaig East” and “Carsaig Arches,” and Mastcam “change detection” images for tracking sand motion.
“Special morning and evening change detection images were also scheduled to help us better constrain the timing and direction of the winds responsible for shaping the Sands of Forvie ripples,” Baker reports. “A Mastcam stereo mosaic and Mastcam multispectral observation will provide additional data on the ripples in our immediate workspace.”
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 2993, January 6, 2021.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) and Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) measurements, as well as a small set of Navcam and Mastcam observations will also allow Mars researchers to probe the current environmental conditions.
“The team is excited to be ringing in the New Year at this interesting – and sandy – spot,” Baker concludes, “and we are looking forward to exploring many more new terrains in 2021 as we continue our traverse up Mount Sharp.”
Eye of the illustrator captures asteroid Apophis near Earth.
Credit: Dan Durda – FIAAA
It is a cosmic roll of the dice. There’s no doubt that a major asteroid or comet strike could cause extensive devastation and profoundly affect life on Earth.
Thwarting an incoming object that has Earth in its crosshairs will mean deflecting or disrupting the hazardous object. That’s a task of planetary defense, an “applied planetary science” to address the Near-Earth Object (NEO) impact hazard.
DART mission schematic shows the impact on the moonlet of asteroid (65803) Didymos. Post-impact observations from Earth-based optical telescopes and planetary radar would, in turn, measure the change in the moonlet’s orbit about the parent body.
Also shown is planned ride-along CubeSat, the Italian Space Agency’s Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroid (LICIACube).
Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab
Lindley Johnson is NASA’s Planetary Defense Officer and Program Executive of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office. An email from him includes the on-the-job line: “Hic Servare Diem,” Latin for “Here to Keep Your Day.”
I caught up with Johnson to discuss recent events and a look at what’s on the planetary defense agenda in the coming year.
Go to my new Space.com story:
“Defending Earth against dangerous asteroids: Q&A with NASA’s Lindley Johnson” – A major asteroid or comet strike could cause extensive devastation and profoundly affect life on Earth.
https://www.space.com/defending-earth-asteroids-nasa-lindley-johnson-interview
It is a record amount.
A new estimate by Euroconsult has appraised the consolidated space economy, including both government space investments, as well as commercial space.
The total: $385 billion in 2020.
However, according to Euroconsult’s latest research product — The Space Economy Report 2020 — commercial revenues of $315 billion in 2020 were down 2% from 2019’s $319 billion evaluation, due partially to the Covid-19 pandemic affecting certain commercial markets.
Added to these commercial revenues are the $70 billion invested by government space budgets in 2020 (excluding government expenditures on commercial services, counted as commercial revenues), a 10% increase over 2019 government spending.
“There was no visible impact in 2020 on government space investments as budgets were voted before the pandemic, though the sustainability of these high government space investments post-Covid remains to be seen,” the group notes in a press statement.
Euroconsult is a global strategy consulting firm specializing in the space sector.
For more information on this report, go to:
https://digital-platform.euroconsult-ec.com/product/space-economy-report-new-edition/
En route China Mars probe Tianwen-1 is seen in this post-launch selfie.
Credit: CNSA
China’s Mars probe Tianwen-1 is expected to enter Mars orbit next month, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).
Tianwen-1, which means quest for heavenly truth, was launched on July 23, 2020 kicking off the country’s independent planetary exploration mission.
China’s three-in-one mission: An orbiter, lander, and rover.
Credit: Wan, W.X., Wang, C., Li, C.L. et al.
The probe has flown in space for over 163 days – a multi-part mission featuring an orbiter, a lander, and a rover. The orbiter has completed the third on-orbit self-check, and all systems are working normally, according to the CNSA.
Tianwen-1 will brake into orbit around the Red Planet in February. The expected touchdown time is May 2021, about three months after Tianwen-1 arrives in the Mars orbit.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Auto-braking
Tianwen-1 has only once chance of braking. But because the distance is too far, the time of communication is delayed for ten minutes.
This has made it impossible to do any real-time control and interference, said Li Zhencai, deputy commander of the Tianwen-1 Mars probe project of China Academy of Space Technology in a China Central Television (CCTV) interview.
“We have solidified the engine startup instruction in the control program and it is, therefore, up to the probe to implement the orders,” Li said. “We plan to complete all the commands and the joint exercise with the Beijing Aerospace Control Center before Jan. 24. It is likely that we would conduct the fourth orbital correction during the probe’s flight to Mars, with the objective of obtain the relevant orbital parameters at the capture point and ensure accurate operations.”
China’s Mars rover design undergoing ground testing.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Mars trio
Li told CCTV that after February 3, “we will all switch to centralize the flight control mode, and up to August, the entire Mars exploration mission will be completed. The designed life span of the Mars rover is 92 days and according to the time it is to land on the Mars, it is the end of August.”
UAE’s Hope Mars orbiter.
Credit: Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center
NASA’s next Mars explorer, the Perseverance rover.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
China’s Mars mission is joined by the United Arab Emirates Hope Mars orbiter, as well as NASA’s Perseverance mega-rover. These two spacecraft were also launched in July 2020, with all three expected to arrive at Mars in February 2021.
For a newly released CCTV video of China’s Mars mission, go to:
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
China space station officials foresee a busy schedule in the first half of 2021 as preparations are underway for the launch of the station’s core module.
That core module will be sent aloft by a Long March-5B Y2 rocket from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in south China’s Hainan Province.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Astronaut training
In a China Central Television (CCTV) interview, Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China’s manned space program, said tests on the core module have been completed. Astronaut training is still underway, focused on carrying out a number of space walks to ramp up space station operations.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
After the core module is sent into orbit, the subsequent space missions will include the launch of the Tianzhou-2 cargo spacecraft and the Shenzhou-12 manned spacecraft, which will complete rendezvous and docking as well as some in-orbit verifications of key technologies, said Zhou.
“We will soon complete the construction of China’s first long-term orbital manned space station meeting advanced world levels, and will carry out large-scale space scientific research on it. We firmly believe that it will play a major role in the forefront of scientific exploration of mankind and also in the development of our space technology,” Zhou said.
Two phases
According to the mission plan, the space station construction will be implemented in two phases.
Previously, the Long March-5B rocket already made its maiden flight successfully, and will be launched for 11 times successively, including the launch of the core module and two experimental modules, four cargo spacecraft and four crew-carrying spacecraft.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
“Each of these tasks is of great importance,” Zhou told CCTV. “It involves a great deal of aspects, including production, research and development, testing, launch and retrieving, on-orbit monitoring and control, and a lot of scientific research activities. Therefore, we’ve proceeded with the tasks on multiple fronts. We have two launch sites and are working on three rocket models. So we will be really busy. More importantly, we must ensure the success and quality of each mission, the safety of our astronauts, and the reliable operation of the missions.”
Construction of the space station is the final step of a “three-step” development strategy for the country’s manned space group made by the Communist Party of China Central Committee in 1992.
Go to this CCTV video regarding China’s space station program, at:
