Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category

Credit: Bryan Versteeg

A new and excellent report has been issued by Explore Mars, Inc.

The Humans to Mars Report (H2MR) is an annual publication that presents a snapshot of current progress in mission architectures, science, domestic and international policy, human factors, and public perception regarding human missions to Mars – and highlights progress and challenges from year to year.

Credit: James Vaughan

Current facts

As explained by Chris Carberry, the group’s Chief Executive Officer and Artemis Westenberg, President, “H2MR provides stakeholders and policy makers with an invaluable resource to assist them in making decisions that are based on current facts rather than on the dated information and speculation that sometimes tends to persist in the public arena where Mars is concerned.”

While recently there has been some shift in emphasis in United States near-term space policy, by charting a return to the Moon, “the goal of human missions to Mars in the 2030s still maintains broad-based bi-partisan support, with unwavering support coming from NASA, Congress, and industry,” the report states.

Credit: Bryan Versteeg

Mars by 2033

“As always, through the publication of the Humans to Mars Report, Explore Mars is not discounting the prospect of human exploration of other destinations in the solar system. In fact, we embrace them, as long as they do not significantly delay human missions to Mars. We view Mars as a critical destination that will enable the exploration and development of space – and we firmly believe that humanity should set the goal of landing humans on the surface of Mars by 2033.”

To access this report, go to:

https://www.exploremars.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/H2MR_18_Web.pdf

Also, don’t forget to tune into the currently in progress Humans to Mars meeting in Washington, D.C. Go to the agenda at:

https://h2m.exploremars.org/

Curiosity Navcam Left B image taken on Sol 2045, May 8, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Mark Salvatore, a planetary geologist at the University of Michigan in Dearborn, reports Curiosity has had a stroke of bad luck. The issue prevented the science team from performing pre-planned rover science.

“About half-way through planning this work, the science team got news that the rover was not only sitting at a rather steep angle, roughly 17 degrees relative to horizontal, but that one of the wheels was also propped up on a loose rock.”

Curiosity Navcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2045, May 8, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

In order to play it safe and to minimize any risk that the robot would lose its balance when the arm was extended to perform many of these analyses, Salvatore adds that the rover planners and the science team decided to forego any arm activities.

Unnecessary risks

Instead, the plan now calls for only a short science investigation and to “bump” to a nearby rock to try again for a full surface characterization.

Curiosity Mastcam Left image acquired on Sol 2045, May 8, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

“While these decisions are momentarily disappointing, they are relatively frequent and necessary to ensure that Curiosity will be able to perform her job many years into the future,” Salvatore explains. “We certainly don’t want to take any unnecessary risks!”

Ridge work

As Curiosity continues to descend the Vera Rubin Ridge (VRR), Salvatore notes that the science team is doing their best to characterize, for a second time, all of the structural, chemical, and spectral variations originally seen as the robot climbed up the ridge.

Curiosity ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager photo taken on Sol 2046, May 9, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL

A recent drive brought Curiosity from the “Pettegrove Point” member of the VRR into the “Blunts Point” member, which is just below the ridge itself.

Drive ahead

Prior to the steep angle issue, the science team was planning to spend a full day at this location to perform remote science investigations, to brush off a rock surface, to analyze the surface’s chemistry, and to take some high-resolution oblique images to characterize the layering observed in the sides of the rocks.

So, instead of the plethora of science activities originally planned, Curiosity will instead only make a handful of measurements before pivoting and driving a few meters away to the next location for a renewed attempt at surface science.

Ground breaking news

New planning had Curiosity using the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument’s laser-induced breakdown spectrometer to measure “Grand Lake,” a block of the Blunts Point member that appears to have the typical properties seen earlier in the mission, as well as “Mud Lake,” which is a piece of bedrock broken by Curiosity’s wheels that revealed a bright brick-red color on its inside.

Ground breaking news: Curiosity’s wheels drove over rock, cracking it and revealing a bright brick-red color on its inside. Photo taken by
Front Hazcam Right B Sol 2045 May 8, 2018
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Salvatore says that the rover’s Mastcam is slated to follow up with documentation images as well as a multispectral image of Mud Lake to see what sort of spectral and mineralogical variations are the cause of the bright red coloration.

Curiosity will also perform several environmental monitoring measurements, including a search for dust devils and an atmospheric opacity observation. Following her short drive, Curiosity will then perform standard post-drive imaging in order to get ready for upcoming surface analyses, Salvatore reports.

Credit: Budweiser

Reaching Mars is the ultimate dream for humankind. And we’re up for the journey.

That’s why Budweiser’s on a mission to become the first beer on Mars. #ThisBudsForYou

Budweiser is celebrating its commitment to being the first beer on Mars through a just-released two minute tribute film. According to the company:

• At Budweiser, we believe that space exploration isn’t just about discovering something new, but also discovering humanity – which we know beer is an important factor of.
• The video is narrated by retired Astronaut Clay Anderson, who was an astronaut for 15 years spending a total of 167 days in space, and was also a key player in Budweiser’s initial announcement at SXSW 2017.
• Since the initial announcement in March 2017, we’ve made our first few steps to creating a micro-gravity beer including sending barley, one of our main ingredients, to space.

Credit: Budweiser

Go to this new video at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6onY7e38AR0&feature=youtu.be

For more information on this Budweiser Mars campaign, go to:

https://www.space.com/39049-mars-beer-budweiser-american-poll.html

Liftoff approaches for NASA’s next Mars mission: the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) lander is ready for a May 5 sendoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 13:05 CEST (04:05 local time).

Upon its arrival on November 26, 2018, InSight will touch down just north of the equator, on the Elysium Planitia plain, where it will commence its work as a geophysical observatory. This will be the first mission to Mars that focuses on exploring the planet’s interior and its 4.5-billion-year history.

Credit: NASA/JPL

Marsquakes

With the InSight spacecraft firmly planted on Mars, a robotic arm will deploy the French-supplied Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) onto the surface first. The seismometer will be used to record waves propagating through the planet from marsquakes and from sites impacted by meteors.

The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) is contributing one of the three principal experiments of the NASA InSight mission, HP3 – a small probe that will hammer five meters deep into the Martian soil to measure temperature and thermal conductivity at various depths to determine the heat flow from deep inside the planet. The resource-saving key technology developed by DLR has already been used in road construction in China, for agriculture in Poland and in avalanche surveillance in Switzerland.

DLR’s HP3 experiment.
Credit: NASA/JPL/DLR

Essential components

HP3 stands for “Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package.”

The experiment is designed for an operational life of two Earth years. Essential components of HP3 are the “Mole” and the ribbon cable with the temperature sensors, which the Mole will pull behind it into the ground to perform measurements.

If all goes well, in early January 2019 the HP3 experiment developed by DLR will be taken from the platform and lowered onto the Martian ground.

Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS (MOLA)

As noted by the DLR, HP3 is not a “drill” as it does not rotate. Instead, the mole advances using a special hammering mechanism in which a spring is repeatedly compressed, causing a hammer to be accelerated forward towards the inner lining of the tip of the “Mole” each time the spring is released. These impacts generate an acceleration of up to 14,000 times that of Earth’s gravity, which is why the sensitive measurement technology inside the probe requires special shock absorption techniques to withstand the stresses.

Go to this informative video:

https://vimeo.com/267786125

Curiosity Navcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2041, May 4, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is performing Sol 2041 duties.

Reports Michelle Minitti, a planetary geologist at Framework in Silver Spring, Maryland: “Curiosity continued her journey off of the ‘Vera Rubin Ridge,’ driving west along the ridge flank toward a passable route down to the bedrock north of the ridge.”

Sulfate vein

The current plan has the robot’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) acquiring ten spot rasters across “Homer Lake,” a finely-layered bedrock block, and “Barto Lake,” white sulfate vein material pasted to the side of the Homer Lake block.

Curiosity Navcam Right B photo taken on Sol 2041, May 4, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

After ChemCam shoots Homer Lake and Barto Lake, Minitti says the rover’s Mastcam will collect multispectral data from both targets, giving Mastcam a view of the areas cleared of dust by laser shots and providing complementary data to the ChemCam analyses.

Drive ahead

“Mastcam will feel at home imaging “Terrace Point,” a set of bedrock blocks with distinctive surface textures. Navcam will search for dust devils both before and after the drive,” Minitti adds.

Curiosity Mastcam Right image acquired on Sol 2040, May 3, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

In the cue is a drive of over 80 feet (25 meters), Minitti says, “aimed at a nice expanse of bedrock for the upcoming weekend plan.”

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is deep into Sol 2040 operations.

A new Curiosity traverse map through Sol 2039 has been issued.

The map shows the route driven by the robot through the 2039 Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s mission on Mars (May 02, 2018).

Numbering of the dots along the line indicate the sol number of each drive. North is up. The scale bar is 1 kilometer (~0.62 mile).

Curiosity Front Hazcam Left B photo taken on Sol 2040, May 3, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

From Sol 2036 to Sol 2039, Curiosity had driven a straight line distance of about 141.04 feet (42.99 meters), bringing the rover’s total odometry for the mission to 11.76 miles (18.93 kilometers).

The base image from the map is from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera (HiRISE) in NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Curiosity Navcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2040, May 3, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Curiosity Navcam Right B image taken on Sol 2040, May 3, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Curiosity Navcam Right B image taken on Sol 2039, May 2, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Kilopower project: The power level would be suitable to access, extract, and process lunar ice in permanently shadowed craters and demonstrate propellant production.
Credit: NASA

Important strides are being made in building and testing a key energy source that literally “empowers” human crews on the Moon. NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) has provided multi-year funding for the Kilopower project. This work is viewed as a stepping stone to small fission-powered planetary science missions – including how to energize a lunar outpost.

Building on prior work by a joint NASA and Department of Energy team, the main goal is to assemble and test an experimental prototype of a space fission power system.

In a May 2 NASA briefing, Kilopower officials announced that the experiment was successfully carried out from November 2017 through March 2018 at the Nevada National Security Site. The effort is led by NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Ohio to demonstrate space fission power systems technology.

Small and simple

The pioneering reactor is a small and simple approach for long-duration, sun-independent electric power for space or extraterrestrial surfaces. Offering high design margins for life and reliability, it will produce from one to 10 kilowatts of electrical energy, continuously for 10 years or more, explains Lee Mason, STMD’s Principal Technologist for Power and Energy Storage at NASA Headquarters. The power system uses a solid, cast uranium-235 reactor core, about the size of a paper towel roll. Reactor heat is transferred via passive sodium heat pipes with that heat then converted to electricity with high efficiency Stirling engines. They churn out about four times as much electric power from the plutonium fuel as compared to a space-rated radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG).

For Apollo expeditions to the Moon, RTGs powered five Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Packages (ALSEPs) set up by moonwalking crews.
Credit: NASA

Apollo power

A historical flashback: For Apollo expeditions to the Moon, RTGs powered five Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Packages (ALSEPs) set up by moonwalking crews. Those packages contained scientific instruments that relayed information back to Earth, such as data on solar wind and radiation, and the observation that the Moon is geologically active. The five ALSEP stations were shut down in 1977.

“What we are striving to do,” Mason says, “is give space missions an option beyond RTGs which provide a couple hundred watts or so. A Moon mission for Kilopower would be ideal. It has the potential to power lander payloads through the lunar night, and possibly for months or years. The power level would be suitable to access, extract, and process lunar ice in permanently shadowed craters and demonstrate propellant production. NASA could also co-develop the system with commercial lunar lander companies that supply power to mining ventures or small settlements,” he told Inside Outer Space.

Credit: LANL/NASA

Confidence-builder

A successful lunar campaign using Kilopower technology could be a confidence-builder for later Mars missions where humans would depend on the fission power system to make their return propellant and power their habitats.

Having a space-rated fission power unit for future lunar explorers is a game changer, Mason adds. “This new technology is in the kilowatt-class and can mature to provide hundreds of kilowatts of power, or even megawatts. That’s why we call it the Kilopower project. But first things first, and our test program is the way to do it.”

Curiosity ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager photo of Red Cliff taken on Sol 2038, May 1, 2018
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL

NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover is now in Sol 2039, following some impressive preliminary imaging of “Red Cliff,” reports Rachel Kronyak, a planetary geologist at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Curiosity Navcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2039, May 2, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The plan now scripted calls for the robot to take additional imagery of Red Cliff “before continuing to drive toward a location where we think we are likely to drill. Kronyak adds.

Small scale studies

“We have a short science block to start the day, during which we’ll use Mastcam to take some context imaging of our surroundings and upcoming terrain,” Kronyak explains. On the plan is using the rover’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) to extend the coverage of Red Cliff.

“These RMI images give us a really great opportunity to study small-scale stratigraphic details in rocks that are pretty far away from the rover,” Kronyak points out.

Curiosity Navcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2039, May 2, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Post-drive duties

Following the science block, Curiosity is to drive and take a standard sequence of post-drive images.

Also on tap is taking a dust devil movie with Navcam as well as a post-drive Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science (AEGIS) observation to collect some preliminary geochemical information at the rover’s next location.

Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) taken on Sol 2038, May 1, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Curiosity will then take standard Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) and Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) data, Kronyak concludes, “to round out another great day on Mars!”

Image of outcrop called “Red Cliff,” a vertical cliff face seen in the mid-field of this Navcam image.
Curiosity Navcam Right B photo taken on Sol 2036, April 29, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2038 duties.

“A successful drive in the weekend plan set Curiosity up nicely for a full sol of contact and remote science,” reports Rachel Kronyak, a planetary geologist at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. “The main priority during planning today was to image the outcrop we’ve called ‘Red Cliff,’ a beautiful vertical cliff face.”

The plan now calls for use of both the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) and the rovers Mastcam to image Red Cliff, “which will give us a really nice, well-rounded dataset in order to fully characterize the features and sedimentary structures present in the outcrop,” Kronyak adds.

Bedrock targets

Aside from imaging, Curiosity is to assess some local bedrock targets.

With ChemCam’s Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectrometer (LIBS) on tap is analyzing targets “Paulsen Lake,” “Negaunee,” and “Nashwauk.”

With the robot’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) and Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) additional analyses on Nashwauk is to be performed.

Curiosity Front Hazcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2036, April 29, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Environmental measurements

Lastly, Curiosity is slated to do some standard environmental science activities, including the use of the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS), the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN), and a tau measurement.

“During a tau observation, we use Mastcam to measure the optical depth of the atmosphere,” Kronyak notes. “This is particularly useful for understanding the scattering properties of the molecules and particles that are present in the martian atmosphere.”

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Road map

A newly issued Curiosity traverse map through Sol 2036 shows the route driven by the rover through the 2036 Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s mission on Mars (April 30, 2018).

Numbering of the dots along the line indicate the sol number of each drive. North is up. The scale bar is 1 kilometer (~0.62 mile).

From Sol 2034 to Sol 2036, Curiosity had driven a straight line distance of about 89.38 feet (27.24 meters), bringing the rover’s total odometry for the mission to 11.73 miles (18.88 kilometers).

The base image from the map is from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera (HiRISE) in NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.