Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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May 13th, 2018
Chang’e-4 Moon lander and rover.
The first phase of China’s bid to land a robotic mission on the far side of the Moon is reportedly nearing launch.
A projected May 21 launch of a Long March-4C booster is topped by a relay satellite named Queqiao (Magpie Bridge). This spacecraft is to be dispatched into a halo orbit of the Earth-Moon Lagrange Point L2 and relay signals between the Earth and the Chang’e-4 far side lander which will deploy a rover.
Meanwhile, China’s tracking ship Yuanwang 6 recently departed from a port in East China’s Jiangsu province to monitor the trajectory of Queqiao, the Chang’e-4 relay satellite.
Together with Queqiao, two microsatellites — “Longjiang-1” and “Longjiang-2” developed by the Harbin Institute of Technology — will also be sent into orbit to conduct scientific research.
Radio astronomy
The relay spacecraft is multifaceted. It carries the Netherlands-China Low-Frequency Explorer (NCLE) built by a team of scientists and engineers from ASTRON (the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy in Dwingeloo), the Radboud Radio Lab of Radboud University in Nijmegen, and the Delft-based company, ISIS.
NCLE is considered a pathfinder mission for a future low-frequency space-based or Moon-based radio interferometer.
The constellation of three active NCLE antennas is mounted perpendicular to the upper side of the satellite body. The final assessment of the instrument took place early April in Beijing, clearing the way for the integration of the radio antenna package on the Chinese relay satellite.
Netherlands-China Low-Frequency Explorer (NCLE) hardware undergoes testing.
Credit: Astron
The objective of the NCLE mission is two-fold. In addition to the characterization of the lunar radio environment, NCLE will allow for radio science and astronomy, including constraining the 21-cm line Dark Ages and Cosmic Dawn signal, measuring the auroral radio emission from the large planets in our Solar system, determining the radio background spectrum at the Earth-Moon L2 point, studying the Solar activity and space weather at low frequencies, creation of a new low-frequency map of the radio sky, and study the Earth’s ionosphere and its interaction.
Far side mission
Chang’e-4 is to be sent to the Moon atop a Long March 3B booster with liftoff expected in late December.
According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, the lander will carry a tin containing seeds of potato and arabidopsis, a small flowering plant related to cabbage and mustard. It may also tote along silkworm eggs to conduct the first biological experiment on the Moon.
Courtesy: Philip Stooke
This “lunar mini biosphere” experiment was designed by 28 Chinese universities, led by southwest China’s Chongqing University, The cylindrical tin, made from special aluminum alloy materials, weighs roughly 7 pounds (3 kilograms).
The tin also contains water, a nutrient solution, and air. A tiny camera and data transmission system allows researchers to keep an eye on the seeds and see if they blossom on the Moon.
Candidate landing region
The candidate landing region for the Chang’e-4 lander mission – expected to be hurled moonward this December — is 45°S-46°S 176.4°E-178.8°E, which is in the southern floor of the Von Kármán crater, within the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin.
Chang’e-4 will carry payloads for Germany, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia and Sweden.
China’s lunar exploration program is designed to be conducted in three phases. The first phase is to orbit the Moon, which was completed by Chang’e-1 in 2009. The second phase is to land on the Moon, which was done by Chang’e-3 in 2013. The third phase is to collect samples and return them to the Earth, which will be advanced by Chang’e-4, Chang’e-5 and Chang’e-6.
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Geologist Harrison Schmitt performs Moon tasks during Apollo 17 mission in December 1972. Note suit covered by lunar dust.
Credit: NASA
New research finds breathing lunar dust could cause health problems for astronauts spending long periods of time on the Moon.
Researchers at New York’s Stony Brook University find simulated lunar soil is toxic to human lung and mouse brain cells. Up to 90 percent of human lung cells and mouse neurons died when exposed to dust particles that mimic soils found on the Moon’s surface, according to a press statement.
“If there are trips back to the Moon that involve stays of weeks, months or even longer, it probably won’t be possible to eliminate that risk completely,” said Bruce Demple, a biochemist at Stony Brook University School of Medicine and senior author of the new study.
Flow chart shows the possible health effects of breathing lunar dust, in both the short- and long-term.
Credit: Rachel Caston
Hay fever-like reactions
Demple explains that Moon dust caused reactions similar to hay fever in astronauts who visited the lunar surface during the Apollo missions. Their experience coupled with the new study’s results suggest prolonged exposure to lunar dust could impair airway and lung function.
If the dust induces inflammation in the lungs, it could increase the risk of more serious diseases like cancer, Demple said.
Apollo 17 helmets and spacesuits stuffed inside lunar lander following the last human treks on the Moon in December 1972.
Credit: NASA
Lunar simulants
In the new study, Rachel Caston, a geneticist at Stony Brook University School of Medicine and lead author said human lung cells and mouse brain cells were exposed to several types of lunar soil simulants – soil found here on Earth that mimics the lunar highlands and the Moon’s volcanic plains. For example, JSC-1A simulant is low-titanium mare volcanic ash from Arizona that resembles lunar maria. Also used was a simulant from the Colorado School of Mines, developed from Colorado lava.
Caston grew the cells under controlled conditions and exposed them to the various types of dust. She counted how many cells were left and measured whether the simulants caused DNA damage. She and her colleagues found all the simulant types killed or damaged the cells’ DNA to some degree.
Simulants ground to a powder fine enough to be inhaled killed up to 90 percent of both cell types. The simulants killed the human lung cells so effectively the researchers couldn’t measure the DNA damage. The simulants also caused significant DNA damage in mouse neurons.
The study “Assessing Toxicity and Nuclear and Mitochondrial DNA Damage Caused by Exposure of Mammalian Cells to Lunar Regolith Simulants” was supported by a grant from NASA and appears in GeoHealth, a journal of the American Geophysical Union and can be found here:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/2017GH000125
Credit: NASA/JPL
The Mars Helicopter, a small, autonomous rotorcraft, will travel with the agency’s Mars 2020 rover mission, currently scheduled to launch in July 2020, to demonstrate the viability and potential of heavier-than-air vehicles on the Red Planet.
Started in August 2013 as a technology development project at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Mars Helicopter had to prove that big things could come in small packages. The result of the team’s four years of design, testing and redesign weighs in at little under four pounds (1.8 kilograms). Its fuselage is about the size of a softball, and its twin, counter-rotating blades will bite into the thin Martian atmosphere at almost 3,000 rpm — about 10 times the rate of a helicopter on Earth.
The helicopter also contains built-in capabilities needed for operation at Mars, including solar cells to charge its lithium-ion batteries, and a heating mechanism to keep it warm through the cold Martian nights. But before the helicopter can fly at Mars it has to get there. It will do so attached to the belly pan of the Mars 2020 rover.
As a technology demonstration, the Mars Helicopter is considered a high-risk, high-reward project. If it does not work, the Mars 2020 mission will not be impacted. If it does work, helicopters may have a real future as low-flying scouts and aerial vehicles to access locations not reachable by ground travel.
Go to video at:
Credit: NASA
Over a span of 20 years, the vision of an international orbiting outpost—one with continuous human presence, measuring the size of a football field, and orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes—became a reality.
The International Space Station (ISS) has been labeled an engineering miracle – a facility that also expresses vision, leadership, perseverance, political support, and funding.
The ISS enables world-class scientific research, forges pathfinders for future exploration travel, and unites 15 international partners working together with common goals to keep the ISS viable.
The ISS is part of NASA’s ongoing, deliberate, step-by-step approach for expanding the boundaries associated with human spaceflight exploration that will return humans to the Moon and eventually to inhabiting Mars.
A new NASA book – available for free as an e-book – is titled: The International Space Station: Operating an Outpost in the New Frontier. Robert Dempsey is the Executive Editor of this informative book.
International Space Station.
Credit: NASA
Real time, continuous
In the book’s preface, Dempsey explains: “This is an unusual book. Half the chapters are devoted to operations, meaning what we do in real time during a mission. For the International Space Station, real time is continuous 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. These chapters will describe different operational aspects of “flight control.” However to get the full context, the remaining chapters will provide technical descriptions of the primary space station systems. Although not strictly required to understand the operations, they are intended to provide more information for proper context.
Chapters include: Living and Working in Space and on the Ground; Debris Avoidance—Navigating the Occasionally Unfriendly Skies of Low-Earth Orbit; When Major Anomalies Occur; as well as Vital Visiting Vehicles—Keeping the Remote Outpost Crewed and Operating.
The 400-page book brings together the collective knowledge of the 10 space station flight directors who authored it, drawing on their combined 45,000 hours of experience at the helm of mission control. In addition to Dempsey, they are Dina Contella, David Korth, Michael Lammers, Courtenay McMillan, Emily Nelson, Royce Renfrew, Brian Smith, Scott Stover and Ed Van Cise.
This new NASA e-book is available at:
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/iss-operating_an_outpost-tagged.pdf
Notional design of Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway.
Credit: Lockheed Martin
NASA’s Exploration Campaign calls for establishment of U.S. preeminence in cislunar space through the operations and the deployment of a U.S.-led Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway.
Together with the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft, the Gateway has been deemed central to advancing and sustaining human space exploration goals. NASA sees it as a unifying single stepping off point in creating architecture for human cislunar operations, lunar surface access and missions to Mars.
Credit: NASA
Directive 1
The gateway is necessary to achieving the exploration campaign goals set forth by the White House Space Policy Directive 1.
NASA has published a memorandum outlining the agency’s plans to collaboratively build the Gateway.
This document is available at:
Curiosity Navcam Left B image taken on Sol 2047, May 10, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now in Sol 2048 after completing a successful bump, a short drive that was slated for Sol 2046, reports Ken Herkenhoff, a planetary geologist at the USGS in Flagstaff, Arizona.
The robot is now in a good position for contact science on a couple of bright blocks in front of the Mars machinery.
Curiosity Navcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2047, May 10, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Two targets
The current plan, Herkenhoff explains, calls for Curiosity to brush two targets on the larger block, named “Bilbert” and “Giants Range,” before Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) images them and the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) measures their chemistry at night.
Before the arm activities, the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) will shoot its laser at Giants Range and targets “Vermillion” and “Lac La Croix” on nearby blocks.
Curiosity Navcam Left B image taken on Sol 2047, May 10, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Contact science
“Because the stowed arm partly blocks our view of the part of the arm workspace closest to the rover, we’ll acquire a Navcam stereo pair and a single Left Mastcam color image of that area after the arm is deployed,” Herkenhoff adds. “These images will be useful in planning more contact science this weekend.”
Curiosity Navcam Left B photo acquired on Sol 2047, May 10, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is carrying out Sol 2047 duties.
Reports Scott Guzewich, an atmospheric scientist at NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland: “In Curiosity-speak, a ‘bump’ is a short drive the rover performs to better position itself for a particular science investigation…often contact science with the rover’s arm.” A recent plan included such a bump to reach a suitable target for contact science, but unfortunately the drive did not execute.
A new plan is aimed to recover this drive and reach a target for contact science in the next plan.
Curiosity Front Hazcam Right B image taken on Sol 2047, May 10, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Bedrock plates, tilted rocks
Curiosity is at a spot where the ground is full of bedrock plates and tilted rocks, one of which Curiosity is standing on, Guzewich adds, which prevented contact science at the current location.
“Curiosity will continue to head northward away from the ridge to find a target suitable for drilling,” Guzewich notes.
Curiosity Mastcam Right image acquired on Sol 2046, May 9, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The science plan now being carried was necessarily limited and will include post-drive imaging, a dust devil movie, and routine Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) and Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) environmental monitoring, Guzewich reports.
NASA Mars 2020 rover is designed to collect samples, store the specimens in tubes, then deposit the tubes on the surface for later pick-up.
Credit: NASA/ESA
The move is on to pull together a robotic sample return from Mars mission. A new video details how such an undertaking would be staged. It would require at least three missions from Earth and one never-been-done-before rocket launch from Mars.
A first mission already being built is NASA’s 2020 Mars Rover. This robot is set to collect surface samples in pen-sized canisters as it explores the Red Planet. Up to 31 canisters will be filled and readied for a later pickup.
A small fetch rover would pick up soil samples for delivery to a Mars Ascent Vehicle.
Credit: NASA/ESA
A second mission with a small fetch rover would land nearby and retrieve the samples in a Martian search-and-rescue operation. This rover would bring the samples back to its lander and place them in a Mars Ascent Vehicle – a small rocket to launch the football-sized container into Mars orbit.
Mars Ascent Vehicle lifts off from Mars carrying soil samples.
Credit: NASA/ESA
A third launch from Earth would provide a spacecraft sent to orbit Mars and rendezvous with the sample container.
Once the samples are safely collected and loaded into an Earth entry vehicle, the spacecraft would return to Earth, release the vehicle to land in the United States, where the samples will be retrieved and placed in quarantine for detailed analysis by a team of international scientists.
Mars Ascent Vehicle heads for orbit.
Credit: NASA/ESA
Orbiter would capture the capsule containing Mars samples for delivery back to Earth.
Credit: NASA/ESA
Take a look at this informative video from NASA/ESA:
http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos/2018/05/Mars_sample_return
Credit: Orbital/ATK
Orbital ATK has released a new video showing its vision for the next step toward human space missions employing its Cygnus advanced maneuvering spacecraft as a human habitat in cislunar space, the region between the Moon and Earth.
In the early 2020s, Orbital ATK says it would launch the initial habitat on NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.
Featuring a modular design, the habitat would serve both as a destination for crewed missions and as an unmanned testbed to prove-out the technologies needed for long-duration human space missions.
Credit: Orbital/ATK
The habitat is also envisioned as a base for lunar missions by international partners or commercial ventures. With additional habitation and propulsion modules, the habitat could be outfitted for a Mars pathfinder mission.
Go to the video at:
NASA/commercial return to the Moon.
Photo Credit: NASA/GSFC
A House Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) Appropriations Subcommittee bill provides a record $21.5 billion for NASA. That bill released late yesterday “fully funds the requested amounts for robotic and human exploration of the Moon, including $504.2 million for the lunar orbital platform; $116.5 million for advanced lunar and surface capabilities; $218 million for planetary science, including rovers and science instruments.”
“The FY 2019 House Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations bill firmly sets America on a course back to the surface of the Moon for the first time since 1972 with its full funding of the Lunar Discovery and Exploration program in Science Mission Directorate and Advanced Cislunar and Surface Capabilities in the Advanced Exploration Systems office,” said Astrobotic’s CEO John Thornton.
Peregrine lunar lander.
Credit: Astrobotics
“These approaches will build on NASA’s ongoing work with Lunar CATALYST partners to provide small robotic lander capabilities as early as 2020 on Astrobotic’s first Peregrine mission to the Moon, which will launch on the ULA Atlas V,” Thornton said in a company statement.
Lunar providers
Yesterday NASA held an “Industry Day” for its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, in which NASA will partner with commercial lunar providers to deliver NASA payloads to the surface on at-least annual cadence.
Notional Gateway.
Credit: NASA
Also, NASA recently closed its Request for Information for Medium Lander capabilities. This RFI was another important signal that NASA is moving out on a methodical and highly capable lunar program.
Astrobotic Technology Inc. is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is a lunar logistics company that delivers payloads to the Moon for companies, governments, universities, non-profit organizations, and individuals.
