Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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September 1st, 2020
Credit: DoD
The U.S. Department of Defense has issued an annual report – Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2020.
Within its pages, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) space enterprise is spotlighted.
Among observations in this just-issued DoD report:
— The PRC’s space enterprise continues to mature rapidly. Beijing has devoted significant resources to growing all aspects of its space program, from military space applications to civil applications such as profit-generating launches, scientific endeavors and space exploration.
– In 2019, the PRC described space as a “critical domain in international strategic competition” and stated the security of space provided strategic assurance to the country’s national and social development.
Space and Counterspace Capabilities
In more specific terms, the DoD assessment of the PRC’s space activities includes these sections:
The PRC continues to strengthen its military space capabilities, despite its public stance against the weaponization of space. The PLA continues to invest in improving its capabilities in spacebased intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), satellite communication, satellite navigation, and meteorology, as well as human spaceflight and robotic space exploration.
Anti-satellite painting by William K. Hartmann
The PLA continues to acquire and develop a range of counterspace capabilities and related technologies, including kinetic-kill missiles, ground-based lasers, and orbiting space robots, as well as expanding space surveillance capabilities, which can monitor objects in space within their field of view and enable counterspace actions.
In its report, the DoD notes that the PRC continues to develop counterspace capabilities, including direct ascent, co-orbital, electronic warfare, and directed energy capabilities—that can contest or deny an adversary’s access to and operations in the space domain during a crisis or conflict.
Satellite jammers
As of May 2018, the PRC’s reconnaissance and remote sensing fleet consisted of more than 120 satellites designed to collect data for civil, commercial, or military owners and operators.
Reportedly, the PLA owns and operates approximately half of these systems, most of which could support situational awareness of regional rivals and potential flashpoints, while monitoring, tracking, and targeting an adversary’s forces. In concert with its marked improvements in satellite navigation, launch capabilities, and space object surveillance and identification, the PRC is developing electronic warfare capabilities such as satellite jammers; offensive cyber capabilities; and directed-energy weapons.
Credit: U.S. Air Force/Staff Sgt. Corey Hook
Blind and deafen the enemy
Moreover, China has demonstrated sophisticated, potentially damaging onorbit behavior with space-based technologies. China has an operational ground-based Anti-Satellite (ASAT) missile intended to target low-Earth orbit satellites, and China probably intends to pursue additional ASAT weapons capable of destroying satellites up to geosynchronous Earth orbit.
China is employing more sophisticated satellite operations and is probably testing dual-use technologies in space that could be applied to counterspace missions.
Although the PRC has not publicly acknowledged the existence of any new programs since it confirmed it used an ASAT missile to destroy a weather satellite in 2007, the PLA’s defense academics often publish on counterspace threat technologies. These scholars stress the necessity of “destroying, damaging, and interfering with the enemy’s reconnaissance…and communications satellites,” suggesting that such systems, as well as navigation and early warning satellites, could be among the targets of attacks designed to “blind and deafen the enemy.”
On-orbit fleet
China has built an expansive ground support infrastructure to support its growing on-orbit fleet and related functions including spacecraft and space launch vehicle (SLV) manufacture, launch, Command and control (C2), and data downlink.
In 2019, China launched 34 SLVs (of which 32 were successful) that placed more than 70 spacecraft into orbit including navigation, ISR, and test/engineering satellites, as well as satellites for foreign customers.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Launch vehicles
In 2019, the PRC continued to develop its space launch capabilities, providing cost-savings through efficiency and reliability, extending their reach into multiple Earth orbits, and improving their capability to rapidly reconstitute space capabilities in low Earth orbit.
In June 2019, China performed its first seaborne launch using its LM-11 solid-propellant vehicle. China also successfully launched an updated LM-2C with grid fins on its core stage in July 2019, providing greater landing precision of rocket debris and lowering the risk of collateral damage when falling over China.
Additionally, two new launch vehicles were successful in their maiden flights: Hyperbola-1—built by the private firm iSpace—and Smart Dragon-1—built by ChinaRocket, a subsidiary of China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology.
LinkSpace, another private firm, completed suborbital tests of reusable rocket technology for its future NewLine-1 reusable launch vehicle, which is expected in 2021. Finally, state-owned commercial company Expace conducted two orbital missions using Kuaizhou-1A light-lift vehicles from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center within six hours of one another.
Satellite navigation
Augmenting its regional BeiDou-2 satellite navigation system, the PRC moved closer to achieving global service capabilities through its BeiDou-3 constellation with the launching of nine additional BeiDou-3 satellites in 2019. China also launched one BeiDou-2 satellite in 2019 bringing the combined total of operational BeiDou-2 and BeiDou-3 satellites to 44. By mid-2020, China plans for the BeiDou-3 worldwide constellation to be at full operating capability with 30 satellites, providing mass communication capabilities to its users and additional command and control for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), reducing or removing China’s dependence on U.S. GPS.
New BeiDou satellites are equipped with radiofrequency inter-satellite links, new atomic clocks, and other advanced technologies. Additionally, China plans to offer satellite-based augmentation services, a worldwide short message service, and internationally recognized search and rescue capabilities.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Space station, Moon plans
In December 2019, China launched the Long March-5 (LM-5) heavy lift vehicle as part of its return to flight. China plans to use this launch vehicle for lunar and interplanetary exploration missions in 2020 and use a variant, the LM-5B, to launch the core module of its space station for completion and use by 2022.
China plans to have a permanently operating space station by 2022 that will host its own and foreign payloads and astronauts.
In January 2019, China became the first country to soft land a probe on the far side of the Moon with its Chang’e-4 lunar lander. Shortly after reaching the surface, the lander deployed China’s second lunar rover, Yutu-2. In May, Yutu-2 completed its primary objective of characterizing materials from the Moon’s largest far side crater. Building on these missions, China plans to conduct a lunar sample return mission in the late 2020s, construct a lunar research station around 2025, and establish a crewed lunar research and development base around 2050.
Making tracks. China’s Yutu-2 robot dispatched from farside lander.
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
Enhancing Data Relay
China launched the first of its second-generation Tianlian-2 data relay satellites in March 2019.
Once complete, the Tianlian-2 satellite will reportedly provide faster data transmission and greater connectivity between ground control stations and spacecraft in low Earth orbit. China could also use the Tianlian-2 satellite constellation to maintain communications with future human spaceflight missions, including its planned space station.
To access the full report — Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2020 – go to:
Posted in 
Apollo 17 helmets and dusty spacesuits stuffed inside lunar lander following the last human treks on the Moon in December 1972.
Credit: NASA
Between 1969 and the end of 1972, twelve U.S. astronauts kicked up the powdery regolith, the topside dust and rock of the Moon. They were later dubbed the “dusty dozen.” Along with invaluable lunar samples, Apollo moonwalkers brought back a significant message to Earth: The Moon is a Disneyland of dust.
A team led by the University of Colorado Boulder has come up with a potential solution to the problem: one that makes use of an electron beam, a device that shoots out a focused stream of negatively-charged, low-energy particles.
Dust up on the Moon. Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan prepares to doff lunar dust-covered space suit.
Credit: NASA
The research group’s early findings suggest that electron-beam dustbusters could be a fixture of Moon bases in the not-too-distant future.
The research has been published recently in the journal Acta Astronautica.
Dust hazards
“Dust mobilized on the lunar surface due to natural processes and/or human activities can readily stick to spacesuits, optical devices, and mechanical components, for example. This may lead to dust hazards that have been considered as one of the technical challenges for future lunar exploration,” they write.
Furthermore, lunar dust poses a health hazard to Moon crews. Apollo 17 lunar module pilot Harrison Schmitt’s exposure resulted in symptoms he described as “lunar hay fever.”
A vacuum chamber on the CU Boulder campus.
Credit: IMPACT lab
The research team’s new method utilizes an electron beam to charge fine-sized dust particles and shed them off of various surfaces as a result of electrostatic forces.
Jagged and abrasive
To test the idea, a vacuum chamber was loaded with various materials coated in a NASA-made “lunar simulant” designed to mimic lunar dust. After aiming an electron beam at those particles, the dust poured off, usually in just a few minutes.
In their paper, the team reports that an alternative dust removal method using a short wavelength UV light will be also tested in future work.
A vial of Apollo 11 Moon dust from a lunar sample collected in 1969.
Credit: Marilee Bailey/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
“Lunar dust is very jagged and abrasive, like broken shards of glass,” said Xu Wang, a research associate in the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU Boulder. The problem with lunar dust, he adds, it isn’t anything like the stuff that builds up on bookshelves on Earth.
Moon dust is constantly bathed in radiation from the Sun, a bombardment that gives the material an electric charge. That charge, in turn, makes the dust extra sticky, almost like a sock that’s just come out of the drier. It also has a distinct structure, Wang noted in a CU Boulder press statement.
By using the new technique, “It literally jumps off,” said lead author Benjamin Farr, who completed the work as an undergraduate student in physics at CU Boulder.
Flow chart shows the possible health effects of breathing lunar dust, in both the short- and long-term.
Credit: Rachel Caston
Electron beam shower
Study coauthor Mihály Horányi, a professor in LASP and the Department of Physics at CU Boulder, believes the technology has real potential.
NASA has experimented with other strategies for shedding lunar dust, such as by embedding networks of electrodes into spacesuits. An electron beam, however, might be a lot cheaper and easier to roll out, Horányi explains.
Moon base design.
Credit: ESA/P. Carril
Horányi imagines that one day, lunar astronauts could simply leave their spacesuits hanging up in a special room, or even outside their habitats, and clean them after spending a long day kicking up dust outside. The electrons would do the rest. “You could just walk into an electron beam shower to remove fine dust,” he notes.
Credit: NASA
Other coauthors on the new research include John Goree of the University of Iowa and Inseob Hahn and Ulf Israelsson of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
To read the paper – “Dust mitigation technology for lunar exploration utilizing an electron beam” – go to:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094576520304902?via%3Dihub
Also, go to this video of jumping motes of Moon dust at:
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Right B image acquired on Sol 2868, August 30, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2869 duties.
“Curiosity has been in the area of the ‘Mary Anning’ targets for a while now, and that’s for a very good reason,” reports Susanne Schwenzer, a planetary geologist at The Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom. The rover came to find the ideal rocks for a very special experiment using the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite.
The Sample Analysis at Mars tool is called SAM. SAM is made up of three different instruments that search for and measure organic chemicals and light elements that are important ingredients potentially associated with life.
Credit: Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument, at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., will analyze samples of material collected by the rover’s arm.
Credit: NASA-GSFC
“First, we confirmed we had the rock-type we desired. Appearance can always deceive (and yes, that’s not just for rocks, we all know that!),” Schwenzer adds. Chemistry, however, doesn’t lie, and the robot’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) and its Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) have confirmed that what’s under the drill is what scientist’s came for.
Ready to go
“SAM has confirmed that all procedures are now ready to go. Thus, the big headline today is: We are ‘go’ for drilling the “Mary Anning 3” target,” Schwenzer says, and to perform the SAM wet chemistry experiment later this week.
Curiosity Mast Camera Right image taken on Sol 2867, August 30, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
“As it’s [a] well-tested routine for our drill sequence by now, the first thing to do after the drilling is to image the drill hole. ChemCam will perform a passive spectral investigation, and Mastcam will do a multispectral measurement on the drill fines. While at it, Mastcam also takes a small 5×1 mosaic of the nearby target “Upper Ollach” again. We are taking advantage of the fact that – for the drilling – we are in the same place for several sols in a row,” Schwenzer adds.
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager photo produced on Sol 2867, August 30, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Wind regime
Using repeated imaging of this target, scientists can detect changes that occur over time, and this way judge the current wind regime. Dust devils are one way to watch out for wind, looking at how grains shift over time is another.
“While we are here,” Schwenzer continues, “we are of course also looking for all the small features we can spot in our surroundings. Tiny dark layers in a nearby target ‘Ayton’ caught our eye a few sols ago and were investigated by ChemCam,”
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager photo produced on Sol 2867, August 30, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The robot’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) is looking at them this sol. “We are also investigating their chemistry further, as ChemCam will add more measurements on those features to improve measurement statistics and thus understand better what the dark nodular features are made of,” Schwenzer points out.
Will looks deceive?
ChemCam targets for that are “Toab” and another raster on the Ayton block. ChemCam is also looking at the target “Sartle,” Schwenzer says, which has a bit more greyish appearance and some white material – suspected calcium sulfate, at least if it is what it looks like. “Let’s see, if looks deceive – or not!”
Target “Ayton” as seen by the rover’s Chemistry & Camera Remote Micro Imager (RMI). Photo taken on Sol 2867, August 29, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
In other parts of the plan, the rover’s Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) is doing a DAN passive, and environmental researchers continue to observe the current atmospheric situation with dust opacity and dust devil observations.
Mastcam is also adding to the mosaic they are building over the past sols with a 14×3 mosaic.
“All the things one can do while drilling, and that are very exciting for science to analyze a wider area for relationships of the observed structures and textures,” Schwenzer concludes, “but the big nail-biting moment will be when we learn if the wet chemistry experiment was successful. Fingers crossed for SAM!”
Cover art design by Bryan Versteeg
Credit: NASA
Explore Mars, Inc. has issued its annual report — The Humans to Mars Report (H2MR) — presenting a snapshot of current progress in mission architectures, science, domestic and international policy, human factors, STEAM Education, and public perception regarding human missions to Mars.
The document highlights progress and challenges from year to year.
“The momentum that has been building for many years to send humans to Mars in the 2030s has continued unabated, and indeed grown, during the past year,” the report explains. “The decade of the 2020s is now upon us, and we can now truly say that instead of Mars being two decades away, it is now achievable in the next decade.”
NASA’s robotic Holy Grail mission, a Mars sample return effort to bring back to Earth Martian collectibles.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Findings and observations
The report contains a number of “findings and observations.” Among them:
— Stronger collaboration between NASA mission directorates will help assure that the science missions of the 2020s maximize both scientific goals as well as advance human exploration in the 2030s.
— Implementing next-generation orbiters and surface missions in the near future to prospect for resources (notably water ice) will reduce the overall cost of missions to Mars while providing significant science gains.
— A Mars Sample Return project would not only achieve revolutionary science, but would also allow scientists to assess the material characteristics of martian dust and its potential toxicity to human explorers, as well as to develop appropriate planetary-protection measures.
China’s three-in-one mission: An orbiter, lander, and rover.
Credit: Wan, W.X., Wang, C., Li, C.L. et al.
— Multiple additional year-long missions on the International Space Station with diverse populations in low Earth orbit that evolve to the duration of human Mars missions will be required. Consider sending astronauts directly from the ISS to Mars analogs to investigate how self-guided recovery impacts both health and productivity with realistic communications delay.
— As lunar activities are developed, such plans should be constructed in a manner that should feed forward to and therefore advance the goal of human missions to Mars in the 2030s and should not hinder achieving that goal.
— As long as valid security concerns by the United States and its international partners are sufficiently addressed, the role of China in future international efforts to reach Mars should be considered by Congressional and Administration policy makers.
To read the full report, go to:
https://www.exploremars.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/H2MR_2020_Web_v1.pdf
Also, go to the group’s virtual conference this week, starting today, at:
In Pursuit of the Moon – The Hunt for a Major NASA Contract by Bill Townsend; iUniverse – a self-publishing imprint; 168 pages; 2019; Softcover; $13.99.
This is a tell-all story that’s rarely told. The author takes the reader deep inside the inner-workings of a real-life aerospace industry pursuit – vying for the ARES I Instrument Unit Avionics contract, released by NASA in 2007. Ares I was the crew launch vehicle that was being developed at the time by NASA as part of the Constellation program, a precursor to today’s Artemis adventure.
After forty-plus years with NASA, the author details his joining of Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado, in 2004, then taking thirty-five top-notch “Birkenstock-wearing engineers” to Huntsville, Alabama, to establish a new Ball Aerospace office designed to champion the chase for the contract. The competition was stiff – an entrenched cabal of aerospace contractors who had dominated NASA’s human space flight program for decades.
You can get a sense of the astronautical angst a person can go through just by noting the titles of this six-part book: “The Situation,” “Before the Storm,” “The Proposal,” “The Down Select,” “The Decision,” and “The Aftermath.”
“So, with the benefit of perfect hindsight,” what did we do well, and what could we have done better?,” Townsend writes.
This is an intimate look at how to work with a major government agency, NASA, and how the space agency behaves and conducts itself with its contractor base…sometimes in ways you would not anticipate.
For those not familiar with the aerospace industry, the author’s intent is to pry your eyes open to what really goes on. And for those in the aerospace industry, “perhaps there is a thing or two that you can learn from my telling of this story,” Townsend explains. Moreover, for those within NASA, he has some select words too!
Townsend has spent more than fifty years in the aerospace industry, a distinguished career with particular expertise in the management of major space flight programs. His reflections about the people, the places, and the paperwork makes it a worthy read for all those out there trying to shape a vibrant, yet-affordable space program for today.
For more information on this book, go to:
https://www.iuniverse.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/794782-in-pursuit-of-the-moon
The Zimmerwald Laser and Astrometry Telescope (ZIMLAT) in Zimmerwald, which is used for distance measurement to space debris objects.
Credit: University of Bern, AIUB
Possible collisions between orbital debris and satellites can be detected at an early stage and evasive maneuvers can be initiated – that’s the promise of a new ability to spot space clutter during the day.
According to researchers at the University of Bern’s Zimmerwald Observatory they are the first in the world to succeed in determining the distance to a space debris object using a geodetic laser in daylight.
Geodetic laser systems are at least one order of magnitude less powerful than highly specialized space debris lasers.
The orbits of disused satellites, rocket upper stages or fragments of collisions and explosions are not known with sufficient accuracy, i.e. only to a few hundred meters.
The measurement of distances to such objects using the satellite laser ranging method is an effective technology to improve the trajectory accuracy to a few meters, say university specialists.
Example of a “string of pearls” of photons reflected by the target debris object in the “sea of sky background photos.”
Credit: University of Bern, AIUB
Reflected photons
“We have been using the technology at the Zimmerwald Observatory for years to measure objects equipped with special laser retroreflectors. Only a few observatories worldwide have succeeded in determining distances to space debris using special, powerful lasers to date,” explains Thomas Schildknecht, head of the Zimmerwald Observatory and deputy director of the Astronomical Institute at the University of Bern. “These measurements were also previously only possible at night,” he adds.
The success at Zimmerwald Observatory was made possible using a combination of active tracking of the debris using a highly sensitive scientific CMOS (short for complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) camera with real-time image processing and a real-time digital filter to detect the photons reflected by the object.
Schildknecht told Inside Outer Space that the observation was an abandoned launcher upper stage. “Pretty large, of the order of [26 feet] 8 meters long. Precise orbits of such large objects are particularly important to avoid catastrophic collisions (laser ranging allows for higher accuracy orbits than, e.g., radars).”
During night time objects with sizes of the order of 1 meter have been tracked with lasers, Schildknecht says.
Thomas Schildknecht of the Astronomisches Institut der Universität Bern (AIUB).
Credit: Manu Friederich
Network of stations
In 2018, two additional domes extended the observatory ultimately making it the world’s largest observation station for space debris.
“The possibility of observing during the day allows for the number of measures to be multiplied. There is a whole network of stations with geodetic lasers, which could in future help build up a highly precise space debris orbit catalog,” Schildknecht points out. “More accurate orbits will be essential in [the] future to avoid collisions and improve safety and sustainability in space.”
A composite image of the planet Venus as seen by the Japanese probe Akatsuki. The clouds of Venus could have environmental conditions conducive to microbial life.
Credit: JAXA
The clouds of Venus may be a depot for life.
New research has looked into the prospect that microbial life could reside inside protective cloud droplets (sulfuric acid mixed with water) hovering high above that hellish world.
The new work is led by Sara Seager in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and published in the journal, Astrobiology.
Challenges
The scientific team reassessed the severe and unique environmental challenges that life in the aerial biosphere of Venus would have to overcome. “The challenges include: an extremely acidic environment, far more so than any known environment on Earth; very low water content; and nutrient scarcity,” they write.
The main new point of the work is to present a life cycle concept – albeit hypothetical.
Hypothetical life cycle of Venusian microorganisms.
Credit: Sara Seager, et.al
Leaky depot
“Assuming that life must reside inside cloud droplets,” the researchers report, “we resolve the subsequent conundrum of gravitationally settling droplets reaching hotter, uninhabitable regions by proposing a Venusian life cycle where a critical step is microbes drying out to become spores on reaching the relatively stagnant lower haze layer, which we call a leaky ‘‘depot.’’ The dried out spores would reside there until some of them can be transported back up to the temperate, habitable cloud layers, where they would act as CCN [cloud condensation nuclei are ‘‘cloud seeds,’’ a small solid surface needed for vapor to condense] to promote cloud formation, becoming enveloped in cloud droplets to continue the life cycle.”
“We argue that life, if it exists in Venus’ atmosphere, must reside inside cloud liquid droplets for the majority of its life cycle,” the scientists report.
Go to the paper — “The Venusian Lower Atmosphere Haze as a Depot for Desiccated Microbial Life: A Proposed Life Cycle for Persistence of the Venusian Aerial Biosphere” – at:
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 2864, August 26, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now carrying out Sol 2865 duties.
“Mars is often a very dynamic place due to its atmosphere and how it interacts with the surface,” explains Claire Newman, Atmospheric Scientist at Aeolis Research in Pasadena, California. “At present, we’re in the “windy season” in Gale crater.”
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B image taken on Sol 2864, August 26, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
This means, continues Newman, “that we’re seeing increased aeolian (meaning “related to the wind”) activity at the surface. In recent sols, we’ve taken Mastcam images of the same surface ripples on multiple sols. We’ve been able to see the ripples moving from sol to sol, due to wind moving the sand grains that make up the ripples, which tells us both the dominant wind direction and how strong the wind is.”
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) photo produced on Sol 2864, August 26, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Surface, rover deck changes
A recent plan scripted for Curiosity included more observations designed to look for changes on the surface and rover deck: a Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) image of the region below the rover, to prepare for making more images of that location over the next few sols so Mars researchers can look for changes, and a Navcam deck pan, to look for changes to dust and sand grains on the rover deck.
Look closely! On Sol 2847, Curiosity captured a dust devil that was so impressive that you can just see it moving to the right, at the border between the darker and lighter slopes. Give up? Go to this video at: https://mars.nasa.gov/internal_resources/929/
Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech
“It’s almost summer in Gale crater, which puts us in a period of strong surface heating that lasts from early spring through mid-summer,” Newman adds. “Stronger surface heating tends to produce stronger convection and convective vortices, which consist of fast winds whipping around low pressure cores. If those vortices are strong enough, they can raise dust from the surface and become visible as “dust devils” that we can image with our cameras.”
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) photo produced on Sol 2864, August 26, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Dust devil movie
A recent plan has added both a short and a long Navcam dust devil movie, which take lots of images of the same region over, respectively, a five or 30 minute period.
“These give us the most information about dust devils, such as where they initiate, how they evolve, and how much variety there is in size, dust-content, and duration. Looking at how fast they’re moving and in what direction also tells us about the background wind speed and direction at their location,” Newman explains.
Combining images
Also taken, meteorological measurements with the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) throughout each movie, in case the robot images a vortex that’s close enough for scientists to also measure its pressure drop, impact on local temperatures, or even ultraviolet radiation if it’s dusty enough to partially block out the Sun.
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) photo produced on Sol 2864, August 26, 2020.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
“Combining imaging with other observations can tell us more about the size and dust content of a dust devil and how far it is from us,” Newman points out. “We also added a five-minute Navcam dust devil survey. This takes three images in eight directions, covering the whole 360° around the rover, and helps us gather statistics on when and where dust devils occur.”
Not in position
Also continuing is exploration of the clay-bearing unit, where the primary goal at present is to drill and sample material for SAM’s “wet chemistry” experiment. This involves transforming less volatile organics into forms that can be detected using the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer.
Newman notes that it turned out that the robot was not positioned perfectly to drill at the “Mary Anning 2” target, so the rover is slated to take a short drive or “bump” to put it in the right place by the next plan.
Regional dust activity
In the meantime, added to the plan were three ChemCam observations of the nodular layers in the “Howwood,” “Maligar,” and “North Fearns” targets, plus a Mastcam image to document those targets. Also added was a ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) long-distance mosaic and a Mastcam workspace image.
Finally, the plan included usual Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) and Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) passive and active measurements, and REMS cadence of observations, plus cloud movies and measurements of how much dust is above the robot and across the crater.
“The dust measurements will help us to track the regional dust activity on Mars that has been seen from the surface and orbit in recent sols,” Newman concludes.
As always, dates of planned rover activities are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.
Factory floor integration of science instruments on Russia’s Luna-25 moon mission, being readied for an October 2021 sendoff.
Credit: Roscosmos
There is a multi-country Moon rush in progress. Case in point is NASA orchestrating the Artemis program of robotic and human lunar exploration. Then there’s China, preparing this year to hurl a go-getting return sample mission to the Moon, joining still-active Chinese lander/rover machinery on the lunar farside. Other nations, such as Japan and India, including private firms, have cross-hairs on future lunar exploration.
Now, enter a new “old-timer” that’s joining the celestial fray.
Soviet Union’s Luna-3 snapped this first image of the Moon’s farside in 1959, one of a number of the country’s space race firsts in exploring Earth’s celestial neighbor.
Credit: NASA
Russian re-build
Russia is rebuilding a multi-pronged return to the Moon program, one that kick-starts a 21st century round of outreach to Earth’s extraterrestrial neighbor.
But as Russian space scientists script a “this then that” plan to reconnect with the Moon, how best to gauge their chances of revitalizing a lunar look-see agenda?
For more information, go to my new Scientific American story:
Luna-25 Lander Renews Russian Moon Rush
The former front-runner in the lunar space race aims to rekindle its exploration after nearly half a century
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/luna-25-lander-renews-russian-moon-rush/
Extraterrestrials by Wade Roush; The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series; Cambridge, Massachusetts; 224 pages; published April 2020; $15.95.
This is an engaging and an excellent tutorial on life elsewhere – always anchored in that are we alone in the universe, and if we are not, where are they?
Containing 5 chapters, the book is very straightforward in its details: “Alien Dreams”; “Making SETI into Science”; “Extremophiles and Exoplanets”; “Answering Fermi”; and “Joining the Conversation.”
“Why the search connects us to the cosmos,” is the one driver of this volume, explains Roush, a freelance science and technology writer, columnist at Scientific American, and host and producer of the tech-and-culture podcast Soonish.
For starters, as one subtitle explains, we need to organize our ignorance.
So where is everybody? The author dives in on that Fermi Paradox with a first-rate number of scenarios, from the Drake equation to intelligent life is rare to the possibility that technological civilizations are uncommunicative.
If they are “out there” how best to prepare for contact? Roush responds by saying “let’s not spend too much time speculating about an inherently unknowable event.” But he suggests, prior to potential contact, we Earthlings should ask ourselves what we would contribute to an interstellar society and what we should do to prepare for that occasion.
This nicely written, reader-friendly book ends with a glossary of terms and a very useful notes section for the entire volume.
Again, this is an easy-to-read 101-explanation of the mind-bending excursion to contemplate the often asked, are we alone question…or perhaps start grappling with just how crowded is it in the universe.
For more information on this book, go to:
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/extraterrestrials
Also, go to “Life as We Don’t Know It – If we’re going to find extraterrestrials, we need to stop assuming they’ll think like humans,” by Wade Roush at:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/life-as-we-dont-know-it/
as well as a podcast featuring Roush at:
https://mitpress.podbean.com/e/extraterrestrials-with-wade-roush/
