Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category

The Magic and Menace of SpaceShipOne by Brian Binnie; Black Sky Enterprise; 500 pages; October 4, 2020; Ordering information at: https://brianbinnie.net/

This is an extraordinary book and it is a true, “can’t put it down” volume. Binnie is a former United States Navy officer and test pilot for SpaceShipOne, the experimental spaceplane created by aeronautical pioneer, Burt Rutan, and his innovative company, Scaled Composites.

On October 4, 2004, with Binnie at the controls of SpaceShipOne, he flew the second suborbital flight in one week’s time to capture the $10 million Ansari X Prize flight purse. That pioneering passage of space and time marked a new era of commercial space flight. How the author claimed his rocket ride into the history books is an entrancing story.

“Spaceships are dangerous things. There are no intentions implied to suggest otherwise,” Binnie writes. And that’s found well before the main text, carried on the “All rights reserved” page.

The author is far from being reticent, scripting an absorbing, humbling and tell-all account of his following Rutan’s “Looking Up… Way Up” credo to his own insights of “Looking Down…Way Down.”

By way of 47 chapters and scads of edifying sidebars, the author steers the reader through a saga of volatile technical challenges encountered in his career, doing so in humorous, often self-effacing writing style.

There’s great historic content in the chapter, “Rotary Unraveled,” describing his 1999 copilot experience in flying Rotary Rocket’s Roton vehicle, built to be a single stage to orbit spaceship.

The three-and-a-half years it took to pull off the milestone-making SpaceShipOne program spared no one, Binnie notes, and by the end, those involved were left exhausted.

Binnie writes in admiring detail about his colleague, Mike Melvill, the person that, among a number of flight test duties, flew SpaceShipOne on its first flight past the edge of space in June 2004, months later to pilot the first competitive flight in the Ansari X Prize competition.

“Burt’s spaceship, like many of his aeronautical designs, was elegant. Simple. Tidy. Reusable. And very, very clever. You could say it was magic,” Binnie points out.

In detailing his December 17, 2003 flight — the craft’s first powered trip skyward that ended in a skid off the runway — he dryly recalls: “There was magic in the air. That is, until I crashed SpaceShipOne,” he explains “And as the grating, grinding noise gradually subsided, the only sound left in the cockpit duly recorded — but thankfully muted in the Discovery Channel documentary — was me practicing my French,” Binnie explains.

Once again, the reader will find this book revealing and riveting.

As Binnie makes clear, this volume was created entirely by an author that has had forty years of “wrestling with recalcitrant machinery” doing its best to be lethal, but proving to be useful training.

That said, he adds “if you’ve got no fears, you’ve got no dreams.”

For more information on this book, go to:

https://brianbinnie.net/

How to open up and establish a sustainable cislunar economy has been blueprinted by Tory Bruno, CEO of the United Launch Alliance (ULA).

Bruno rolled out a ULA assessment during a webinar hosted by the Beyond Earth Institute. The institute is exploring the criteria and definitions of a community beyond Earth.

Bruno said the ULA appraisal has been given to the U.S. National Space Council for consideration.

The intent is to move away from a definition that would include cramped space habitats as suitable for thriving human communities.

During the program, Bruno discussed critical infrastructure elements that will enable the emergence of the cislunar economy that will eventually include large scale off-world communities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To view the program, go to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5mPfbyzdF0

Also, go to this informative paper — Defining the Goal: What is a Community Beyond Earth? The October 2020 BE Report by the Beyond Earth Institute — at:

https://beyondearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/BE-Paper-on-Definitions-10-13-20.pdf

 

 

Blue Origin’s New Shepard program completed today from a West Texas spaceport the 13^th mission to space and back.

The firm — backed by Amazon.com mogul, Jeff Bezos — reports that the mission marked the 7th consecutive flight for this particular vehicle – a record.

In a company statement, Blue Origin notes that there were 12 payloads onboard including the Deorbit, Descent, and Landing Sensor Demonstration under the NASA Tipping Point partnership.

That lunar landing sensor demo was the first payload to be mounted on the exterior of a New Shepard booster and tested technology designed to achieve high accuracy landing. “This will enable long-term lunar exploration, as well as future Mars missions,” the company explained in a press statement.

Mission highlights

Here are some key takeaways from today’s mission:

— 7th consecutive successful flight to space and back for this New Shepard vehicle (a record – previous booster completed 5 consecutive successful flights before retirement).

— 13th consecutive successful crew capsule landing (every flight in program).

— The crew capsule reached an apogee of 346,964 feet above ground level.

— The booster reached an apogee of 346,563 feet.

— The mission elapsed time was 10 min 9 sec and the max ascent velocity was 2,232 mph.

— Onboard the vehicle, tens of thousands of postcards from Blue Origin’s nonprofit, Club for the Future.

Go to launch video replay at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O97dPDkUGg4

Also, go to this Blue Origin video on the NASA lunar landing experiment at:

Learn how the @NASA lunar landing sensor demo on #NewShepard tests precision landing tech for future missions to the Moon in support of #Artemis. This is the first payload to fly on the exterior of a New Shepard booster. Watch: pic.twitter.com/vrUzLGadgS

— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) October 13, 2020

A global team of researchers using ground-based observatories announced September 14 the detection of phosphine gas wafting about in the clouds of Venus.

On Earth, this gas is only made industrially – or by microbes that thrive in oxygen-free environments. The detection has given rise to the thought of extraterrestrial “aerial” life on hostile Venus.

 

 

 

 

This promising find begs the question: Now what?

I discussed this issue with astrobiologist David Grinspoon, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute and an expert on surface-atmospheric interactions on terrestrial planets, such as Venus.

 

 

Go to my new SpaceNews story at:

Is Venus a living hell? Conversation with astrobiologist David Grinspoon

https://spacenews.com/is-venus-a-living-hell-conversation-with-astrobiologist-david-grinspoon/

 

 

Last August, the Navy established an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force assigned the duty of coming to grips with the nature and origins of aerial happenings on the idea that they could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security.

UAPs have become top dog in the bizarre and baffling inventory of strangeness.

And as expected…whatever they are has captured the attention of “I told you so, they’re here” UFO believers.

But there’s a rising call for this phenomenon to be eyed scientifically – even using satellites to be on the lookout for UAPs.

For more details, go to my new Space.com story at:

Scientists call for serious study of ‘unidentified aerial phenomena’

You don’t have to be an alien truther to be curious about recent UAP events.

https://www.space.com/unidentified-aerial-phenomena-scientific-scrutiny

 

 

The European Space Agency has opened a new call for ideas for space-based solar power – on the lookout for novel system concepts for applications on Earth, the Moon, or Mars.

“The potential of this concept to contribute to long-term sustainable energy is very high,” explains ESA Engineer Advenit Makaya, who is leading the hunt for ideas.

“Not only would it generate clean energy, it would also be very flexible – it could be integrated into power grids on Earth, but also used for exploration missions,” Makaya explains in a statement regarding the call for ideas.

Open space innovation

This call for ideas is the latest to be run by the Discovery element of ESA’s Basic Activities on the Open Space Innovation Platform.

As with all calls for ideas run by ESA Discovery, the most novel ideas will be invited to submit a full proposal for a system study, early technology development activity, or co-funded research.

Wanted: concepts, methods, technologies, ideas

For this Campaign, ESA is specifically looking for new ideas in any of the following categories:

— Novel system concepts for space-based solar power stations for applications on Earth, the Moon, or Mars.

— Novel subsystem concepts or technologies with the potential to substantially increase the technical or economic feasibility of space-based solar power, with regards to any of the points listed in the section above.

— Novel methods of scaling and integrating space-based solar power into energy grids.

— Novel ideas that use the opportunities offered by in-space construction (use of in-space resources, elimination of launch constraints in terms of e.g. mass, size, structural requirements, volume, etc).

— New concepts for precursor in-space demonstrations.

Further information

This Campaign is open for submissions by participants registered in one of ESA’s Member States, Associate Member States or Cooperating States.

The call is open until October 30^th, with more information found here:

https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Preparing_for_the_Future/Discovery_and_Preparation/Space-based_solar_power_seeking_ideas_to_make_it_a_reality

https://ideas.esa.int/servlet/hype/IMT?documentTableId=45087607028688020&userAction=Browse&templateName=&documentId=514a8db636ea637f6e27069183966350

 

 

Sources with China’s Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration state that the country’s Chang’e-4 farside mission has resumed work for the 23^rd lunar day.

A lunar day is equal to 14 days on Earth, and a lunar night is of the same length. That calls for the farside hardware to move into dormant mode during the bitterly cold lunar night.

The Chang’e-4 lander woke up at 11:56 a.m. Sunday, Beijing Time. The Yutu-2 rover, or Jade Rabbit-2, woke up at 6:57 p.m. Saturday.

Future duties

According to China’s Xinhua news agency, during the 23rd lunar day, Yutu-2 will move northwest toward a basalt area or impact craters with high reflectivity, both of which are located northwest of the current detection point of the rover.

The wheeled rover will also use an infrared imaging spectrometer onboard to carry out scientific scrutiny of a lunar rock, which has a diameter of roughly a foot across (30 centimeters), according to the center.

 

 

 

In addition, near noon on the Moon, the plan for the Yutu-2 lunar rover is to carry out panoramic camera ring shooting, infrared imaging spectrometer and neutral atom detector investigations. Also, the rover-carried radar system will perform synchronous detection duties during the driving.

Touching down on the Moon on January 3, 2019, the Chang’e-4 mission has survived about 647 Earth days surveying the lunar landscape.

China’s Tianwen-1 Mars spacecraft performed a major in-flight trajectory adjustment on Friday night.

The roughly eight-minute (480 seconds-plus) main engine burn was commanded by ground controllers at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center.

The Mars probe’s main engine produces 3,000 newtons of thrust power.

Transfer trajectory

China Daily reports that the craft will continue traveling about four months in an Earth-Mars transfer trajectory toward the red planet and will conduct two to three more orbital corrections before entering Mars’ gravitational field, citing sources at the China National Space Administration.

Tianwen-1 is expected to be captured by Mars’ gravity at the beginning of 2021.

“The biggest challenge in tonight’s operation was that the 3,000-newton-thrust engine would need to work for a relatively long period of time under very high pressure and temperature,” said Rao Wei, project manager for Tianwen-1 at China Academy of Space Technology, adding that the long-distance control and tracking was also a major challenge, reports China Daily.

By Friday night, Tianwen-1 had traveled more than 210 million kilometers, Rao said, adding that the spacecraft is in good condition. The probe has previously performed two midcourse orbital corrections.

 

Orbital inclination

Li Xiaoyu, chief designer, Mars Mission Control Team, told China Central Television (CCTV): “According to the time sequence of the flight procedure, we started to input these instructions and data in batches from three days before the maneuver.”

 

The current orbital inclination of Mars is about 1.8 degrees, said Chen Lidan, a chief designer of Mars Mission Control Team. “For the current orbit of Tianwen-1, the inclination is about 1 degree. That is to say, the mission is getting farther from Mars while it is flying, so we have to adjust the inclination, mainly to adjust orbital inclination.”

Cui Xiaofeng, head, Mars Mission Control Team, added that the main tasks in the flight progress are self-checks of the various equipment on the probe, including the lander segment. “The self-check can confirm that they are in normal working condition, so that the subsequent work is able to be correctly implemented,” Cui said in a XinhuaVideo interview.

May landing

China launched Tianwen-1 on July 23 from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province.

The 5-metric-ton spacecraft is a three-in-one vehicle, consisting of an orbiter, lander, and rover.

 

 

After locking into Mars orbit in February, the mission’s key objective is to soft-land the lander/rover around May 2021 on the southern part of Mars’ Utopia Planitia.

 

 

Go to these videos that spotlight China’s Tianwen-1’s latest maneuver at:

New China TV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByjyafqFN0U

CCTV Video News Agency

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azwI0qdFj7Y

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2906 duties.

“After a successful bump to our next planned drill location, Curiosity is poised to start its thorough investigation of this interesting geologic region,” reports Mark Salvatore, a planetary geologist at the University of Michigan.

“The team decided to perform a more detailed characterization of this location because of the presence of dark gray nodular features observed in this region. So, after maneuvering into position, Curiosity is ready to begin its characterization of the block in front of us and to prepare for drilling in the near future,” Salvatore adds.

Brush off, next drill target

After a day of characterizing this location, Curiosity will brush off the drill target with its Dust Removal Tool (DRT) and expose the cleaned surface for subsequent observations before drilling.

Curiosity’s observations will include Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) observations of the selected drill location (named “Groken”) and two areas of an adjacent block of bedrock material (named “Hella” and “Great Skua”).

“These two additional LIBS chemistry observations will help to understand any potential lateral and vertical variations in geochemistry,” Salvatore explains, “as these targets are located very close to each other but on different sedimentary layers of the same unit.”

 

Additional observations during this science plan include a Mastcam multispectral image of the brushed drill target (to characterize its reflectance signature and to see how it might differ from its surroundings and, eventually, its drilled interior), a high-resolution Mastcam mosaic of a nearby sediment patch to characterize any disturbances to it after drilling, and a long-distance image mosaic using the ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager (RMI).

 

“Groking” in a strange land

The science team recently had some fun in selecting the name “Groken” for the location planned for the next drill target.

“The verb “to grok” comes from Robert Heinlein’s science fiction novel ‘Stranger in a Strange Land,’ which follows a human raised on Mars who returns to Earth to learn about human culture,” Salvatore points out.

Broadly, “to grok” means to understand a topic deeply, intuitively, and empathetically, Salvatore adds, which has been the goal of the Curiosity rover mission since the beginning.

“We’re hoping that our study of the Groken drill target,” Salvatore concludes, “will allow us to grok the ancient history of Mars in a little more detail!

All that recent press about the history of Venus and it possibly being a life-supporting world has received additional attention. But this time, Earth’s Moon plays center stage.

Yale astronomers suggest that NASA Artemis lunar crews might collect billions of bits of Venus likely to have crashed on the Moon.

Venusian meteorites mixed in within the lunar terrain – how would they get there?

The researchers said asteroids and comets slamming into Venus may have dislodged as many as 10 billion rocks and sent them into an orbit that intersected with Earth and Earth’s Moon.

A new study – “Lunar Exploration as a Probe of Ancient Venus” — details the theory, one that has been accepted by the Planetary Science Journal.

Detectable amounts

Yale astronomers Samuel Cabot and Gregory Laughlin write that if Venus’ atmosphere was at any point thin and similar to Earth’s, then asteroid impacts transferred potentially detectable amounts of Venusian surface material to the lunar regolith.

Laughlin and Cabot cited two factors supporting their theory, according to a Yale University press statement.

— Asteroids hitting Venus are usually going faster than those that hit Earth, launching even more material.

— A huge fraction of the ejected material from Venus would have come close to Earth and the Moon.

Important processes

Three important processes work in favor of recovering Venusian meteorites on the Moon, the Yale researchers state in their research paper.

“First, much of the ejected material is minimally shocked, due to shock-wave interference and spallation. Second, meteorite fragments are likely to survive their impact on the Moon, given their relatively low impact-velocities. They are even more likely to survive oblique impacts. Finally, the Moon’s regolith is relatively shallow. It is amenable to excavation, particularly in existing craters; although excavation of the deeper mega-regolith presents a more challenging scenario.”

Escape travel

Cabot told Inside Outer Space that Venus meteorites on the Moon would tell you more so about its past atmosphere and geology from billions of years ago, rather than what it is like today.

“These meteorites would have come from asteroid or comet impacts on Venus a long time ago, when the planet had a thin atmosphere like Earth’s,” Cabot said. “Today, Venus has a much thicker atmosphere, and if there was an impact then it would be much more difficult for rocks to escape and travel to the Moon.”

Near horizon

Given renewed lunar exploration on the near horizon, “we posit that meteorite acquisition and identification will answer an important outstanding question about the history of Venus,” Cabot and Laughlin explain in their paper.

“Our findings indicate that in situ analysis or sample return missions, with particular focus on zircon-grains and oxygen isotope fractionation, have a high potential of identifying ancient Venusian meteorites,” they conclude.

To access their paper, “Lunar Exploration as a Probe of Ancient Venus,” go to:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.02215