Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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July 27th, 2019
Curiosity Navcam Right B photo acquired on Sol 2477, July 26, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now wrapping up Sol 2478 duties.
Over the last few weeks Curiosity has collected hundreds of spectacular images that document the layers and textures of rocks exposed in the “Visionarium,” reports Abigail Fraeman, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Curiosity ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager photo taken on Sol 2478, July 27, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
Delve deeper
“With all of this imaging under our belt, we’re now hoping to delve deeper into studying the composition of the rocks in the Visionarium, so we are beginning to look for our next potential drill target,” Fraeman explains.
The scripted plan for the weekend is having Curiosity driving roughly 33 feet (10 meters) to the top of the southern escarpment in the Visionarium.
Curiosity Mastcam Left image acquired on Sol 2477, July 26, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Future drill targets
“The drive will place us in an ideal location to image potential future drill targets,” Fraeman adds. Before the drive, Mars researchers will spend a sol collecting Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) and Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) data from targets named “Naver” and “Fetterangus,” along with Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) and Mastcam observations of “Malin Sea,” “Loch Katrine,” and “Loch Broom.”
Curiosity Navcam Left B image taken on Sol 2477, July 26, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“We’ll also take several environmental science monitoring observations,” Fraeman points out, “and an 80 frame stereo Mastcam mosaic of ‘Hebrides,’ which is the area where we hope to find our next drill target.”
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Credit: NASA
The City of Kent, Washington and the Kent Downtown Partnership in King County, Washington received historic landmark designation on July 25 for the Lunar Roving Vehicles that were built in Kent at the Boeing Space Center and used in Apollo Missions 15, 16 and 17 in 1971 and 1972.
The designation was unanimously passed at a public hearing at the Kent City Hall on Thursday evening by the King County Landmarks Commission.
Now that the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicles have achieved landmark designation for the region, the City of Kent will go on to pursue recognition at the state level.
To date, only California and New Mexico have lunar objects in their state historic registers.
Astronaut John Young works at the mission’s Apollo 16 Moon buggie in April 1972.
Credit: NASA
Heritage worthy of protection and preservation
Applauding the decision for designation is Michelle L.D. Hanlon, co-founder of For All Moonkind.
The group’s stated mission is to ensure the six Apollo Lunar Landing and similar sites in outer space are recognized for their outstanding value to humanity and consequently preserved and protected for posterity as part of our common human heritage.
“While it is an entirely symbolic designation, the more organizations and entities that recognize our history on the Moon as heritage worthy of protection and preservation, the closer we come to persuading the international community to help us develop a convention to do the same,” Hanlon told Inside Outer Space.
Credit: NASA
Embrace contributions
Hanlon points to the 400,000 individuals who worked on some aspect of the Apollo program. These are people who worked, sometimes around the clock in anonymity and without clamoring for recognition, she said.
“The fact that communities are starting to understand and embrace their contributions to space exploration helps to put names against numbers. And hopefully, it will help inspire a renewed interest in space exploration at all levels of public discourse,” Hanlon concluded.
Go to this earlier story at:
Historic Landmark Designation Sought for Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicles
https://www.leonarddavid.com/historic-landmark-designation-sought-for-apollo-lunar-roving-vehicles/
Curiosity Front Hazcam Right B image acquired on Sol 2477, July 26, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now concluding Sol 2477 tasks.
“Europeans, Californians… and many others on the team watched their thermometers rise to record highs today, reaching 36 °C,” reports Susanne Schwenzer, a planetary geologist at The Open University, Milton Keynes, U.K.
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) photo produced on Sol 2477, July 26, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Thinking about planning, Schwenzer adds, where the Mars researchers think about cold, wintertime temperatures on Mars and seeing the maximum temperature was minus 30 °C according to the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS), this 66 °C difference in temperature “is a very practical demonstration of orbital mechanics and other factors, and more generally how different Earth and Mars are!”
Curiosity Navcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2476, July 25, 2019. It is pointed at Mt. Sharp and shows how steep a tilt the rover currently is experiencing.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Rover tilt
Temperatures are not today’s most important record, though: Curiosity is currently tilted 25° – and that’s more than ever before, during science operations, Schwenzer explains.
Despite the slope, the robot is using its instrumented arm to investigate the outcrop in front of the Mars machinery.
“Since lamination and other sedimentary features are exceptionally well accessible,” Schwenzer notes, the plan calls for using the rover’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to create a “dog’s-eye mosaic” to study all the details on a target called “East Caithness Cliff.”
Curiosity ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager photo taken on Sol 2477, July 26, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
Outcrop observations
The robot’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) is slated to target some of the layers of East Caithness Cliff for chemistry.
Curiosity’s Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) is busy on the target “Cruden Bay,” which is also part of the outcrop but at a lower level than the MAHLI mosaic.
Curiosity Navcam Right B image taken on Sol 2476, July 25, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Curiosity will then drive away to reach the top of the ridge,” Schwenzer concludes, with the robot then on closer-to-horizontal ground, “which hopefully comes with a first view of the top of this ridge.”
Credit: ISRO
India’s Chandrayaan–2 continues to make progress – a lunar orbiter/lander/rover mission.
A second Earth bound orbit raising maneuver for Chandryaan-2 spacecraft has been performed successfully today (July 26, 2019) at 0108 hrs (IST) as planned, using the onboard propulsion system for a firing duration of 883 seconds.
The Moon mission’s orbit is now 156 x 34,069 miles (251 x 54,829 kilometers).
Credit: ISRO
All spacecraft parameters are normal reports the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
The third orbit raising maneuver of Chandrayann-2 is scheduled on July 29, 2019.
Lunar orbit insertion
The spacecraft is scheduled for lunar orbit insertion by August 20, 2019.
Once the Moon probe is in lunar orbit, imaging of the landing site region prior to landing will be done for finding safe and hazard-free zones.
Credit; ISRO
The lander-Vikram is slated to touch down near the south pole of the Moon on September 7, 2019.
India’s Pragyan rover mounted on the ramp projecting from out of the sides of Vikram lunar lander.
Credit: ISRO
Subsequently, the Pragyan rover will roll out and carry out experiments on the lunar surface for a period of one lunar day – equal to 14 Earth days.
The orbiter will continue its mission for one year.
Credit: NanoRacks
NanoRacks released today its NASA-funded Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) Commercialization study.
The four-month long LEO Commercialization Study came out of the Administration and NASA’s efforts to understand the role of the private sector in creating a sustainable LEO marketplace, allowing NASA to focus its energies going forward to the Moon and onwards to Mars.
NanoRacks was one of 12 companies selected to participate in this study.
No station gap
“Today we are at the crux of defining the role of commercial space as we consider the eventual end of the International Space Station in order to assure there is no United States space station gap,” said Jeffrey Manber, CEO of NanoRacks, based in Webster, Texas.
“No one company is going to succeed on their own. Commercial space survives if we develop an ecosystem, full of multiple providers, a world-wide customer base, and government and regulatory support,” Manber said in a statement regarding their study.
Credit: NanoRacks
Space: viable location
Per the study: “The most important conclusion to come out of the data gathered through this LEO Commercialization Study is that there is no single point solution for the challenge of creating a commercial marketplace in space. Rather, an ecosystem of service providers, hardware manufacturers, and consumers (to include government customers) are required to make space a viable location for commercial activity.”
Also noted in the study: “NASA and the U.S. government should consider LEO activity a Public Private Partnership, or PPP. In such partnership, NASA and government agencies like the FCC retain important regulatory roles, as well as basic infrastructure maintenance, while largely leaving open room for commercial activity—of whatever nature—in LEO.”
Right balance
The right balance within a PPP, the study suggests, “would be one where NASA and the government make infrastructural investments that the private sector leverages with private capital, commercial rules, and commercial terms and conditions.”
To read this important study — Outpost: An In-Orbit Commercial Space Station Habitat Development Enabling Cost-Effective and Sustainable U.S. Presence in Low-Earth Orbit – go to:
Credit: iSpace/China Central Television (CCTV)
For the first time in China, a carrier rocket developed by a private company has successfully sent satellites into orbit.
iSpace’s Hyperbola-1 launch vehicle was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, Gansu Province, northwest China, on July 25, 2019, at 05:00 UTC (13:00 local time).
Solid fuel launcher
Hyperbola-1 is a four-stage small solid launch vehicle designed by iSpace, (Beijing Interstellar Glory Space Technology Corporation) with a payload capacity of over 570 pounds (260 kilograms).
Credit: New China TV/XinhuaVideo
Hyperbola-1 launched two satellites into orbit, a balloon satellite and the BP-1B satellite, developed by China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation and Beijing Institute of Technology.
Go to this video from iSpace/China Central Television (CCTV) at:
https://youtu.be/qA6NfP_KM2A?list=PLpGTA7wMEDFjz0Zx93ifOsi92FwylSAS3
Also watch this clip from New China TV/XinhuaVideo
Credit: House Subcommittee on Space & Aeronautics/Screengrab by Inside Outer Space
The House Subcommittee on Space & Aeronautics holds a hearing today to discuss the importance of government-industry collaboration in achieving space exploration and maintaining U.S. leadership on this issue.
Witnesses and their respective testimony:
Dr. Bhavya Lal, Research Staff Member, IDA Science and Technology Policy Institute
Ms. Carissa Christensen, Chief Executive Officer, Bryce Space and Technology
Mr. Eric W. Stallmer, President, Commercial Spaceflight Federation
Mr. Mike French, Vice President, Space Systems, Aerospace Industries Association
Ms. Laura Montgomery, Proprietor, Ground Based Space Matters, Professor, Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law
For a live video of this hearing, go to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uZpZK9Twt8
Credit: Bryce Space and Technology
Curiosity Navcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2476, July 25, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now closing out Sol 2476 duties.
Reports Ashley Stroupe, a mission operations engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the robot is parked at the base of the southern escarpment of the Visionarium.
“She’s at a significant tilt of 21 degrees,” Stroupe adds. “We’ve been imaging this ridge from several locations over the past few sols, trying to build up our understanding of the geology in this area.”
Curiosity Front Hazcam Left B image taken on Sol 2476, July 25, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Details of layering
A recently drafted plan has Curiosity continuing to take high resolution images of the outcrop with Mastcam and its Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument; three specific areas are being targeted on the outcrop to see details of the various layering: “Antonine Wall,” “Tyrebagger Hill,” and “Seaton Cliffs.”
Curiosity Rear Hazcam Left B photo acquired on Sol 2476, July 25, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“After completing the imaging, Curiosity will be driving just a little bit closer to try to put the layers near Tyrebagger Hill into the arm workspace,” Stroupe explains. “This requires backing up a short distance, turning slightly, and then re-approaching the ridge at a slightly different location, where we believe parking will be safe to unstow the arm for contact science,” including low-angle Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) photos of the layers.
Curiosity Navcam Right B photo taken on Sol 2476, July 25, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“We may get close to or even break Curiosity’s high tilt record on this drive!”
Winter for Curiosity
In an earlier report, Dawn Sumner, a planetary geologist at University of California Davis, notes that it is winter for Curiosity, and it’s cold.
“That means that we have to spend extra energy heating up the instruments and motors for our activities,” Sumner explains. “All of our energy comes from batteries, charged by the [radioisotope thermoelectric generator] RTG.
Curiosity Navcam Left B image of RTG unit, taken on Sol 2475, July 24, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“The RTG gives us more power than solar panels would, but in the winter, we are still limited by the amount of power it can generate. That means we have to choose among various activities,” Sumner adds.
Document the topography
Team members selected the saving of a little extra power for a big science day coming up.
“Thus, we planned only one ChemCam analysis, which was on the target Monreith,’ accompanied by a Mastcam image to document the analysis. We also asked Curiosity to take a Mastcam mosaic looking west to document the topography.”
Curiosity ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager photo taken on Sol 2476, July 25, 2019.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
Seasonal changes
After playing photographer, Sumner points out, “Curiosity will drive up to the escarpment we’ve been imaging to the south. Once there, Curiosity will image its surroundings as well as look for clouds in the sky. Winter is the cloudy season at Gale Crater, so we are doing extra cloud imaging to better understand the atmosphere.”
Seasonal changes provide important insights into the climate of Mars, Sumner concludes. “Thus, winters are particularly interesting times for environmental observations even if the cold means that we can’t take as much data as we can in the warmer months.”
Credit: Rendering by Lior Rubanenko/UCLA
The polar regions of Earth’s Moon may contain significantly more water ice than previously thought, according to new research by space scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Shoring up this belief are two decades of observations from telescopes and spacecraft, not of the Moon, but the planet Mercury. What’s been found are glacier-like water ice deposits near Mercury’s poles.
Why, despite their similar surface conditions, does our Moon have so much less ice than Mercury?
NASA’s Messenger orbiter at Mercury. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington
Buried below
“The simple answer is that the Moon has lots of ice — it’s just buried below the surface,” said David Paige, a UCLA professor of planetary science and a co-author of the study.
The study, published July 22 in Nature Geoscience, points to the existence of previously undetected thick ice deposits on the Moon. It was led by Lior Rubanenko, a UCLA graduate student.
Parallel investigations conducted on the Moon, whose polar thermal environments are very similar to those of Mercury, found only patchy, shallow ice deposits. Paige said that difference was the impetus for the UCLA study.
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter flies over Shackleton crater near the lunar south pole in this computer rendering.
Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio
Undetected thick ice deposits
Using data from NASA’s Messenger orbiter at Mercury and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, researchers measured approximately 15,000 simple craters with diameters ranging from 2.5 to 15 kilometers (about 1.5 to 9 miles) on Mercury and the Moon.
So what’s the lowdown on lunar ice?
“We found that shallow craters tend to be located in areas where surface ice was previously detected near the south pole of the Moon,” Rubanenko said in a UCLA press statement.
According to the study, the most probable explanation for those shallower craters is the accumulation of previously undetected thick ice deposits.
Next step
The researchers conclude by suggesting that future Moon missions include the use of probes that can be used to study the shaded craters to confirm their suspicions.
The UCLA study also suggests that there may be enough water to sustain a future lunar settlement.
“We may use our results to re-estimate the total mass of the ice trapped in the lunar poles. Lunar cold-traps have been previously estimated to occupy ~104 km2. If all cold-traps hide a ~10-m-thick pure subsurface ice deposit, the total mass of water ice on the Moon could be estimated to be up to ~100 million metric tons.”
If true, this is approximately two orders of magnitude greater than previous estimates, the researchers report.
Buried treasure
“Our results combined with previous radar data imply that the most concentrated lunar ice deposits are likely to be buried a few meters under permanently shadowed south polar cold-traps. The possibility that thick ice-rich deposits exist on the Moon may not only help resolve the outstanding question regarding its low ice abundance relative to Mercury, but may also have practical applications in preparation for a future permanent lunar settlement,” the researchers conclude.
The paper – “Thick ice deposits in shallow simple craters on the Moon and Mercury” – has been published in the journal Nature Geoscience, and is authored by Lior Rubanenko, Jaahnavee Venkatraman and David Paige.
For more information on the paper, go to:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0405-8
Credit: Spacefest
Join me at Spacefest X – August 8 – 11, 2019 – at the JW Marriott at Starr Pass, Tucson, Arizona.
Speaking Schedule
All times subject to change.
- Moon and Mars Exploration: Where are We Headed?
- Salons A & B
- Friday 8/9
- 01:15 PM to 02:15 PM
-
Leonard David, Confirmed
- Tucson Ballroom Foyer
- Friday 8/9
- 02:15 PM to 02:45 PM
-
Carolyn Porco, ConfirmedLeonard David, Confirmed
- Tucson Ballroom Foyer
- Saturday 8/10
- 10:00 AM to 10:30 AM
-
Dennis Jenkins, ConfirmedLeonard David, Confirmed
Annual gathering
Spacefest is an annual gathering of NASA Apollo, Gemini, and shuttle astronauts, space historians, astronomical and scientific guest speakers, authors, astronomers, spacey vendors, phenomenal STEM/STEAM events, an IAAA space art show, and all the fandom included!
Dr. Franklin Chang Díaz joins a host of astronauts to take part in this year’s Spacefest X.
There are paid events and many free events for the whole family to enjoy!
The goal of Spacefest is to reach out to those who “like space, but just don’t know it yet!” This unique, novel, and eclectic event is produced by Novaspace, a Tucson space art gallery & memorabilia dealer.
See you there!
For more information, go to:
