Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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October 3rd, 2019
NASA’s InSight Mars lander acquired this image using its robotic arm-mounted, Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC). This image was acquired on September 29, 2019, Sol 298.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
That trouble-plagued, Mars-situated, Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package, HP3, continues to receive long-distance motherly attention.
InSight’s scoop has touched the Mole as shown in this image from the robotic arm-mounted, Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC). This image was acquired on October 3, 2019, Sol 302.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Germany-provided HP3 was deployed by NASA’s InSight lander that touched down on the Red Planet in November 2018.
A self impelling nail nicknamed “the mole” was designed to hammer itself down into the surface of Mars. But the device hasn’t been able to dig deeper than about 12 inches (30 centimeters) below the Martian surface since Feb. 28, 2019.
HP3 is designed to take Mars’ temperature, revealing just how much heat is still flowing out of the interior of the planet.
The self-hammering mole, part of the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) on NASA’s InSight lander, was only partially buried in the soil of Mars as of early June 2019, as shown in this illustration.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/DLR
Pinning tactic
Tilman Spohn, of the German Aerospace Center’s (DLR) Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin, is the principal investigator of the HP3.
In a new report, Spohn outlines the path forward in getting the Mole moving again.
Components of the HP3 heat flow probe. Top left: the radiometer (RAD), which is used to measure the radiation temperature (roughly equivalent to the ground temperature) of the surface. Right: the casing with the mole penetrometer, the temperature measuring cable (TEM-P) and the data cable (ET) connected to the lander. In addition, the casing contains an optical length meter for determining the length of the temperature measuring cable that has been pulled from the casing. The mole contains the TEM-A active thermal conductivity sensor and the STATIL tiltmeter. Bottom left: the electronic control unit, known as the back end electronics (BEE), which remains on the lander and is connected to the probe via the ET.
Credit: DLR
The InSight team has adopted a strategy of “pinning” the Mole with the spacecraft’s scoop mounted on a robotic arm. That tactic supersedes spending more time to collapse the pit. Everything seems to be ready for pinning and hammering on Martian Sol 308 which will be Tuesday October 8 with data coming down Wednesday afternoon (CET), Spohn explains.
Electronics box anomaly
“But before we could work on implementing the pinning,” Spohn adds, “HP3 had to solve an anomaly” that cropped up in an electronics box (the BEE) and that had motivated JPL to switch the experiment off until only recently.
Strange readings in downlinked data already suggested that some of the data stored in the mass memory of the BEE had been overwritten.
InSight Mars lander.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“It was soon recognized that the most likely cause was what experts call a ‘bit-flip.’ This flipping can occur when cosmic particles hit the mass memory. This is not unusual at Mars where cosmic particles get through the thin atmosphere better then what we are used to on the Earth,” Spohn points out.
Bit-flip
Typically, electronics box designers have critical paths implemented in a three-fold configuration and logic compares the values and decides democratically on the majority of the voting. “Thus most of the bit-flip problems can be avoided,” Spohn says.
“Unfortunately, our BEE has that protection mechanism not fully implemented as we were short in mass memory,” Spohn observes. “JPL needed to be convinced then that a bit flip could not cause any further harm, for instance, by erroneously commanding the mole to hammer.”
InSight specialists at Jet Propulsion Laboratory have developed and implemented strategies to get the Mole moving again. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Next hammering
Fine positioning of InSight’s robotic arm will be done over the coming weekend, Spohn continues, prior to the next hammering, “the first one since the diagnostic hammering on March 26th. And this time it will not be just for diagnostics!”
The number of commanded hammer strokes has been limited to 20.
The concern is that the pinned Mole could proceed quite rapidly and make the five centimeters sticking out of the ground in only a few hammer strokes. “That might cause the scoop to hit and damage the tether coming out of the Mole’s backcap,” Spohn adds.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
20 strokes
“We here at DLR have used performance data for the Mole from laboratory measurements to determine that in the best (or worst) case it would take the Mole 8 strokes to make 4 centimeters. As this was thought to be overly conservative and it was feared that the Mole might make so little progress that the latter was unnoticeable, the team settled on 20 strokes,” Spohn observes.
Spohn’s report concludes by saying “stay tuned” until the InSight/HP3 team sees what happens next week and help them keep fingers crossed!
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HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – The 100 Year Starship (100YSS) project is building a global community to spotlight the capabilities for human interstellar travel beyond our solar system within the next ten decades.
An independent, non-governmental, long-term initiative, 100YSS was started in 2012 with seed-funding through a competitive grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to foster the type of explosive innovation and technology and social advances born from addressing such an audacious challenge.
Former astronaut, Mae Jemison, is the Principal for the 100 Year Starship Project. A physician, engineer, educator and entrepreneur, she served as a mission specialist for the STS-47 mission that flew in September 1992. Jemison was the first woman of color to orbit the Earth.
Mae Jemison aboard STS-47 mission that flew in September 1992. Jemison was the first woman of color to orbit the Earth.
Credit: NASA
Jemison provided a keynote address during the 2019 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) symposium, held here September 24-26th.
Best path forward
An initiative Jemison highlighted was “LOOK UP” – an effort to connect people worldwide, from all walks of life, to share what they see and their thoughts, hopes, fears, dreams and ideas for best path forward.
Events are held every year focused around dates that have significance in terms of the sky and the greater Universe.
Already held this year: “Look Up Apollo: Footprints on the Moon, Pathways on Earth” celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo Moon Landing. Also held was an event for this year’s “Yuri’s Night” to celebrate the former Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin’s space voyage – the first human to orbit the Earth in April 1961.
Capture, create, express, share and explore
Ever wonder what people in far off places are seeing at the same time you’re looking up at the sky?
“We started to look at what could we do with space and started to think about the whole idea of looking up,” Jemison told the symposium attendees. “Just look up. Remember when you were a little kid and looked up at the sky…and the feeling you got inside?”
Jemison noted that the Skyfie app is made exactly for that. The impact of looking up at the sky can be as profound as seeing the Earth from space orbit…particularly when it is a shared global experience. The Skyfie app is available for free on Google Play and the App Store.
The Skyfie app can capture, create, express, share and explore what participants see and feel when looking at the sky. The Skyfie app lets you easily, on a single page, generate your message to the world as a photo, video, audio recording or text and then upload it to an interactive globe of the Earth.
Mae Jemison: “The whole ability to look up from down here is as important as looking down from up there.”
Credit: Leonard David/Inside Outer Space
Sky tapestry
Furthermore, Jemison said, you can seamlessly, explore what everyone submitted across planet Earth on the Sky Tapestry – a fully interactive digital globe that shows Skyfies content from individuals worldwide in near real-time.
The Sky Tapestry renders the Skyfies on a satellite topographical map that can be zoomed to neighborhood resolution. However, your identity and specific location are not revealed.
Jemison said she has long been taken by the fact that by simply looking up, that view is tremendously significant.
“I was struck by how we are connected with each other. And the whole ability to look up from down here is as important as looking down from up there. Because it connects us with the Universe,” Jeminson said. “We’ve got to get people connected some kind of way.”
Resources
For more information on the 100 Year Starship (100YSS) project, go to:
Also, go to: www.lookuponesky.org
As well as:
Credit: Don Davis via SSI
The Space Studies Institute (SSI) has posted videos of presentations given at SSI 50: The Space Settlement Enterprise.
Held September 9-10, 2019 at the Museum of Flight In Seattle, the two focused days with ten sessions ran the gamut from habitat design to economics and construction techniques.
SSI has begun the release of the complete set of videos on the SSI YouTube Channel…with more to soon follow.
The video release begins with the first three hour session (broken into two lengthy sections) on Habitat Design, a session moderated by Dallas Bienhoff of Cislunar Development Corporation and featured presentations from Bruce Pittman of OffWorld Inc., Robert Richards of Northrop Grumman, Professor Fred Scharmen of Morgan State University, Suzanna Bianco of Space Cooperative and Space Decentral, Al Globus of the National Space Society, John Blincow of Gateway Foundation and Anthony Longman of Skyframe Research.
Credit: SSI
SSI’s mission
Professor Gerard K. O’Neill founded the Space Studies Institute in 1977 with the hope of opening the vast wealth of space to humanity.
The Institute’s mission is to open the energy and material resources of space for human settlement within our lifetime.
Interior of Island One – The circumference is nearly one mile. Houses and apartments are shown oriented to sunshine. Agriculture and industries are reached through zero-gravity corridor at top.
Courtesy of SSI
SSI’s first commitment is to complete the missing technological links to make possible the productive use of the abundant resources in space.
Resources
Give a look and listen to these first set of videos by going to:
Part One: https://youtu.be/iBPxnKHAAZY
Part Two: https://youtu.be/1meO_-SAfdg
For more information on the SSI organization, go to: http://ssi.org/about/
Curiosity Chemistry & Camera RMI photo taken on Sol 2541, September 29, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has just initiated Sol 2543 duties.
Reports Roger Wiens, Geochemist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico: “Curiosity has been at this same location for all of August and September, which included a number of days of waiting for Mars to pass behind the Sun (‘conjunction’), drilling two holes, and processing the samples.”
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera image taken on Sol 2542, October 1, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Shock waves
Wiens notes that nine laser pits form a line down the “Glen Etive 2” drill hole. He is principal investigator of the rover’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam).
“Shock waves from the laser impact at the lowest point cleared debris that had settled at the bottom of the hole to allow analysis of the hole wall at that depth,” Wiens adds.
Subsequent to this vertical raster, the rover’s ChemCam also performed a rectangular 5×2 grid pattern in the hole.
Curiosity Rear Hazard Avoidance Camera photo acquired on Sol 2542, October 1, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Dirt on its back
“The team is planning uplink commands for two sols on Mars,” Wiens reports.
In the first sol a sample will be dropped into the robot’s Chemical and Mineralogy instrument, or CheMin for short. CheMin’s inlet is on the deck of the rover, and the instrument will start its analysis.
Wiens likens CheMin’s operation to an elephant using its trunk to dump dirt on its back.
Credit: NASA/JPL-CALTECH
“That’s a far cry from what Curiosity is doing, but I like to find human or animal similarities to Curiosity,” Wiens suggests.
Curiosity’s Mastcam will provide documentation of the drop-off and will also take an image of the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) inlet to follow up from the weekend activities.
Curiosity Mast Camera image taken on Sol 2541, September 29, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity Mast Camera image taken on Sol 2541, September 29, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Analyze targets
On the second sol, ChemCam will analyze targets “Buldoo” and “Broo Gill,” and will take Remote Micro-Imaging (RMI) photos of eolian targets “Culbin Sands 1” and “Culbin Sands 2.”
Also, Mastcam is slated to perform a crater rim extinction and a Sun tau image, and will document the ChemCam targets.
Navcam is on tap to do a dust devil movie and survey.
DAN (Dynamic Albedo Of Neutrons), REMS (Rover Environmental Monitoring Station) and RAD (Radiation Assessment Detector) are set to take data in the background, Wiens concludes.
Curiosity ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager photo acquired on Sol 2541, September 29, 2019. Note laser hits on inside of hole.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now conducting Sol 2542 duties.
“Go, SAM, go!”
Those are the words from Susanne Schwenzer, a planetary geologist at The Open University in the UK. The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite “is healthy and Curiosity will be spending most of her time of the coming three sols on the wet chemistry experiment activity.”
The planning team is very excited, Schwenzer adds, “and we keep all fingers crossed that we will find interesting data on Monday.”
Curiosity Navcam Right B photo taken on Sol 2541, September 29, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Power limited activities
With SAM featuring prominently in the plan, power is limited for other activities.
Thus, there are just three other observations in the recent three-sol weekend plan:
Mastcam was to continue their testing of Mt. Sharp imaging conditions on sol 2541 with an early morning mosaic of an area already imaged at different times of the day.
Curiosity Navcam Right B photo acquired on Sol 2541, September 29, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Closer to the target
Later in the same sol, the rover’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) was slated to carry out an investigation of the “Glen Lyon” target.
“If that sounds familiar to you, then you’ve got a very good memory,” Schwenzer observes. “The target was investigated on sol 2533 when the rover was closer to the target, and is now re-measured to understand what influence – if any – distance to a target makes to the results.”
Curiosity ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager photo acquired on Sol 2541, September 29, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
Curiosity ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager photo taken on Sol 2539, September 27, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
Drill hole
Finally, a ChemCam investigation of the “Glen Etive” drill hole wall will add more data to the first set of points, improving scientific statistics on this very important target.
“Mastcam will document the ChemCam activities,” Schwenzer concludes, “and then all that there is left to do is await the data from SAM!”
NASA’s InSight Mars lander acquired this image using its robotic arm-mounted, Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) on September 29, 2019, Sol 298.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
That troubled heat probe on NASA’s InSight Mars lander continues to be a worrisome dilemma.
The instruments locomotion system, a self impelling nail nicknamed “the mole” was designed to hammer itself down into the surface of Mars. Labeled the Heat and Physical Properties Package (HP3), the German-provided mole hasn’t been able to dig deeper than about 12 inches (30 centimeters) below the Martian surface since Feb. 28, 2019.
The plan
Spacecraft engineers are back at it, continuing to interact with the device, working the mole’s immediate surroundings utilizing InSight’s robotic arm.
It was decided earlier to go ahead with the plan of loading the surface using InSight’s scoop to increase pressure and thus friction on the mole hull. However, the pit the device created would first have to be collapsed.
Bottom line: Will they succeed in covering up and filling in this hole in one?
Elon Musk rolls out his plan for the future.
Credit: SpaceX/Screengrab Inside Outer Space
Elon Musk’s/SpaceX’s Starship and Super Heavy launch vehicle is a fully, rapidly reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and anywhere else in the solar system.
Credit: SpaceX/Screengrab Inside Outer Space
On Saturday, September 28 at the firm’s launch facility in Cameron County, Texas, SpaceX Chief Engineer and CEO Musk provided an illustrative update on the design and development of Starship.
SpaceX lunar ambitions.
Credit: SpaceX
Mars city.
Credit: SpaceX
Moon, Mars…and beyond.
Credit: SpaceX
You can watch the event using the link below:
Curiosity Navcam Right B image taken on Sol 2539, September 27, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has just begun performing Sol 2540 science duties.
Reports Kristen Bennett, Planetary Geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona, recently planned use of the rover’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite did not fully complete.
Curiosity Front Hazcam Right B photo acquired on Sol 2539, September 27, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“There was an issue in the set of planned SAM activities that resulted in those activities not completing. While we diagnose the issue, we are taking a break from drill activities and filling the plan with lots of remote science,” Bennett notes.
Retaking observations
Part of the plan will include retaking observations that did not complete on sol 2537.
Curiosity Rear Hazcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2539 September 27, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
This includes Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) observations of “Peeblesshire,” “Perthshire,” and the offset from the “Glen Etive 1” dump pile.
Peeblesshire and Perthshire are both pebbles near the drill site.
Curiosity Navcam Right B image taken on Sol 2539, September 27, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Mt. Sharp mosaic
“Additionally, the plan includes a ChemCam LIBS observation and a corresponding Mastcam image of “Stove,” which is a target located between the two drill locations,” Bennett adds. “There will also be a Mastcam mosaic of Mt. Sharp that will be taken late in the day to test what the best time of day is for these observations.”
Curiosity Navcam Right B image taken on Sol 2539, September 27, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Stony Side” is a ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) mosaic that is pointed back towards Vera Rubin ridge to capture an outcrop that is along the edge of the ridge.
Ice crystals in the clouds
“There will also be a dust devil movie, a supra-horizon movie for cloud monitoring, a line-of-sight observation, and a cloud altitude observation,” Bennett explains.
“Several Mastcam observations are included to estimate the amount of dust in the atmosphere: a tau observation and a crater rim extinction observation. There will also be a phase function sky survey, which is used to measure the angular scattering of light by clouds. Observations such as this one help us to constrain the shape of the ice crystals in the clouds.”
Curiosity ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager photo acquired on Sol 2539, September 27, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
A recent Curiosity rover plan includes ChemCam RMI sky flats, Bennett points out. This is a routine observation to check for dust on the ChemCam optical window.
“Hopefully this will be a brief intermission and we will be back to drill analysis activities in the weekend plan,” Bennett concludes.
Credits: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University
The lander, Vikram, was scheduled to touch down on Sept. 6 at 4:24 pm Eastern Daylight Time. This event was India’s first attempt at a soft landing on the Moon. The site was located about 600 kilometers (370 miles) from the south pole in a relatively ancient terrain (70.8°S latitude, 23.5°E longitude).
Vikram had a hard landing and the precise location of the spacecraft in the lunar highlands has yet to be determined.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) passed over the landing site on Sept. 17 and acquired a set of high resolution images of the area; so far the LROC team has not been able to locate or image the lander. It was dusk when the landing area was imaged and thus large shadows covered much of the terrain; it is possible that the Vikram lander is hiding in a shadow.
The lighting will be favorable when LRO passes over the site in October and once again attempts to locate and image the lander.
Credits: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
Near our home planet Earth we should be on the lookout for “Lurkers” – possible sites for extraterrestrial probes that may be quite ancient.
Scientist James Benford of Microwave Sciences in Lafayette, California is promulgating the view that an attractive location for extraterrestrial intelligence may well be anchoring a probe to observe Earth throughout our deep past are the co-orbital objects. It would be a new way to do the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).
Imaginative searches
“Co-orbital objects approach Earth very closely every year at distances much shorter than anything except the Moon,” writes Benford. “They have the same orbital period as Earth. These near-Earth objects provide an ideal way to watch our world from a secure natural object.”
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in northern Chile’s Atacama desert.
Credit: ESO/B. Tafreshi (twanight.org)
Benford has pioneered imaginative searches for interstellar communication. His first work with other family members yielded the term “Benford Beacons” — short microwave bursts to attract attention, like lighthouses.
Later, Benford pointed out using powerful electromagnetic beams to send light spacecraft, “sails,” in interplanetary exploration. Now his Lurkers proposal moves on to actual relic alien spacecraft that may have been nearby for longer than humans have existed.
Spectral lines
“Alien astronomy at our present technical level may have detected our biosphere many millennia ago,” Benford explains. “Perhaps one or more such alien civilization was drawn in recently, by radio signals emanating from our world. Or maybe it has resided in our solar system for centuries, millennia or longer.”
If we give a Lurker a full-on look-see and find nothing there, Benford adds that this gives us a profound result: no one has come to look at the life of Earth, which has been evident in our atmosphere’s spectral lines over interstellar distances for over a billion years.
Credit: CNSA
Benford underscores that the most attractive target as a Lurker is 2016 HO3, the smallest, closest, and most stable (known) quasi-satellite of Earth. And to add a little space program nudge, China in April announced they are blueprinting a plan to send a probe to 2016 HO3, he notes.
Pete Worden of Breakthrough Initiatives.
Credit: ESO/M. Zamani
Reverse engineering
Breakthrough Starshot, a Breakthrough Initiatives project, aims to send a gram-sized spacecraft to a nearby star system at around 20% of the speed of light and shows our outbound thinking to reach out to other worlds.
In reverse, as Breakthrough Initiatives Chairman, Pete Worden explains, if intelligence arose elsewhere in our galaxy, it may well have sent out similar probes. “It’s intriguing to think that some of these may already have reached our own solar system.”
To access this thought provoking paper – “Looking for Lurkers: Objects Co-orbital with Earth as SETI Observables” — go to:
