Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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April 10th, 2018
Support for a return to the Moon.
Photo Credit: NASA/GSFC
A letter signed by 72 leading lunar researchers from academia and the private sector has been sent to key congressional lawmakers in support of President Trump’s Space Policy Directive 1. That policy document refocuses NASA to rekindle human Moon exploration to enable eventual footprints on Mars.
“The U.S. lunar community is excited not only about the return to the Moon, but the new paradigm of private sector involvement that will begin to bring the Moon into our economic sphere of influence, while producing extremely significant lunar and Solar System science results,” Clive Neal, Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering & Geological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, told Inside Outer Space.
Credit: NASA
Budget request
The grass roots effort is tied to gaining support for the FY 2019 Budget Request for NASA’s Lunar Exploration and Discovery Program.
Also advocated in the April 10 letter is a request to fully fund the ongoing Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission, and restore America’s technical capability to access the lunar surface and to once again lead lunar exploration.
U.S. President Donald Trump holds up the Space Policy Directive – 1 after signing it, directing NASA to return to the Moon, alongside members of the Senate, Congress, NASA, and commercial space companies in the Roosevelt room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017.
Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani
“With the proposed Lunar Exploration and Discovery Program, NASA, in coordination with American universities, research institutions, and commercial companies will be empowered to address decades-long objectives on the Moon,” the letter, in part, explains.
Prospect for resources
“The new Lunar Exploration and Discovery program will give the United States the chance to, at long last, systematically prospect for resources on the Moon’s surface,” the letter continues, “gather comprehensive new samples from all over the surface, explore lunar lava tubes, investigate magnetic anomalies, and address a long list of unanswered geophysical questions whose answers have deep implications for understanding formation of the Solar System and planetary science.”
China’s Chang’e 3 Moon lander, imaged by Yutu lunar rover.
Lunar lander market
The start of a new lunar program could not be more timely for the United States, the letter notes.
“China has ramped up its lunar science and exploration program as a precursor to human missions, and the U.S. must move quickly, starting with missions in 2020, to regain its historic lead in lunar science and exploration. Other countries, like Japan, have committed nearly $1 billion towards the development of a commercial lunar lander to compete with emerging American systems. It is vital for our future in space that we not cede the lunar lander market and leadership to other countries,” the letter explains.
Among the over 70 individuals signing the letter, Apollo 17’s Harrison Schmitt, as well as Bob Richards, head of the commercial Moon Express and Dan Hendrickson, vice president of business development for Astrobotic that is also offering lunar lander services.
To take a view of the actual letter, go to:
https://www3.nd.edu/~cneal/Community-Support-Letter-NASA-Moon.pdf
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China space travelers, Jing Haipeng and Chen Dong, onboard Tiangong-2 space lab.
Credit: CCTV
As China’s space station era draws closer, the country’s astronauts are receiving comprehensive training to assure longer stints in space, as well as carry out space walking tasks for in-orbit assembly and repair of the station.
An April 8 China Central Television (CCTV) interview with Chen Dong – who flew on the Shenzhou 11 mission in October 2016 to board the Tiangong-2 space lab – detailed the challenges ahead. Chen said the space station era has set higher requirements for the astronauts.
Inside Tiangong-2 as crew members carry out experiments. Mission lasted 33-days.
Credit: CCTV
More tasks
“The manned space program has entered the space station era, which means that the astronauts will stay in space for a longer time with more tasks to be performed. This has set higher requirements for our physical condition, knowledge, mental status and skills, and brought more challenges,” Chen explained.
Putting in place China’s space station will offer many new challenges.
Credit: CCTV/screengrab
The missions for the space station, Chen said, will feature long in-orbit stays, regular extra-vehicular activities, in-orbit assembling and repair of the station, which means more challenges for the astronauts.
“For example, during the Shenzhou-11 mission, we spent 33 days in space. We may stay three months, or even half a year in our follow-on missions, with more extra-vehicular activities to assemble and maintain the space station. So with so many new situations and new changes, we have also improved our current trainings,” Chen told CCTV.
The Tianhe core module for China’s Space Station undergoes ground testing.
Credit: CCTV/Screengrab
Station technology
According to Chen, China’s astronauts have begun the study of space station technology, mechanical arms and extra-vehicular activities. They have also gone through diving training for adaptation, and intensified their strength and stamina training.
“So all of these are prepared for the space station. I think the change is newer knowledge, harder operation and higher requirements. But we have the confidence and capability to fulfill the tasks,” Chen said.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
New Curiosity traverse map through Sol 2017:
This map shows the route driven by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity through the 2017 Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s mission on the Red Planet (April 09, 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 2014 to Sol 2017, Curiosity had driven a straight line distance of about 16.34 feet (4.98 meters), bringing the rover’s total odometry for the mission to 11.60 miles (18.68 kilometers). The rover landed on Mars in August of 2012.
The base image from the map is from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera (HiRISE) in NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Meanwhile, the Mars robot is now carrying out Sol 2018 science duties.
Curiosity Front Hazcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2017, April 9, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Eclectic mix of targets
“An eclectic mix of rock targets has kept our team’s attention for another sol today,” reports Scott Guzewich, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The sheer number of possible science investigations led us to initially oversubscribing our science plan and thus needing to prioritize.
A full contact science sol is in the works to study targets “Hopeman” and “Askival”, “Tyndrum2” and “Ledmore.”
What is especially unusual about the plan, Guzewich adds, is use of the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) MAHLI’s to shine a (UV) light on the situation and image “Askival” after sunset. Also a depth profile at Askival is on tap.
Curiosity Navcam Right B photo taken on Sol 2017, April 9, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
A depth profile, Guzewich explains, is where the rover’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) shoots its laser at the same spot 150 times to measure how the composition changes with depth into the rock or soil.
“Last, but certainly not least to me as the environmental science theme lead today, is to conduct a dust devil survey around local solar noon. We are seeing a great deal of dust devil activity lately with a noticeable increase over the last few weeks as we move closer to the start of southern hemisphere spring,” Guzewich concludes.
Credit: NASA
Take a virtual tour of the Moon in all-new 4K resolution, thanks to data provided by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft.
This visualization moves around the near side, far side, north and south poles, highlighting interesting features, sites, and information gathered on the lunar terrain.
Music Provided By Killer Tracks: “Never Looking Back” – Frederick Wiedmann. “Flying over Turmoil” – Benjamin Krause & Scott Goodman.
This video comes courtesy of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Scientific Visualization Studio.
Go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=28&v=nr5Pj6GQL2o
Credit: GAO
Hey all you space whistleblowers out there – suck in the new United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) report: NASA Contractor Whistleblowers – Steps Taken to Implement Program but Improvements to Timeliness and Guidance Needed.
Fulfilling its duty
The GAO notes that NASA relies on contractor employees to fulfill its mission—and these employees are legally protected from reprisal, such as demotion or firing, for whistleblowing.
The question: Is the agency fulfilling its duty to investigate reprisal complaints from these employees in a timely manner?
Credit: NASA
30-day clock ticking in a timely manner?
Since 2008, NASA has not made a final determination of whether or not a reprisal occurred in the required 30-day time frame, nor has the agency evaluated its process for reviewing those complaints in a timely manner.
The GAO has recommended that NASA take steps to ensure that it meets its 30-day time frame.
NASA agreed with the recommendations and plans to develop a documented process to ensure it reviews reprisal complaints in a timely manner and clarify guidance as appropriate, among other things.
For the GAO Highlights page, go to:
https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/690532.pdf
To access the full GAO report, go to:
Credit: CSIS
A discussion with Christian Davenport, author of The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos.
This event was held on Wednesday, April 4, 2018, staged by The Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.
Credit: PublicAffairs
Billionaire entrepreneurs
The Space Barons is the story of a group of billionaire entrepreneurs who are pouring their fortunes into the epic resurrection of the American space program.
Nearly a half-century after Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, these Space Barons-most notably Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, along with Richard Branson and Paul Allen-are using Silicon Valley-style innovation to dramatically lower the cost of space travel, and send humans even further than NASA has gone.
Space entrepreneur, Jeff Bezos.
Credit: Blue Origin
Biggest disruption
These entrepreneurs have founded some of the biggest brands in the world-Amazon, Microsoft, Virgin, Tesla, PayPal-and upended industry after industry. Now they are pursuing the biggest disruption of all: space.
Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic takes flight. Will public space travel?
Credit: Virgin Galactic
Based on years of reporting and exclusive interviews with all four billionaires, this authoritative account is a dramatic tale of risk and high adventure, the birth of a new Space Age, fueled by some of the world’s richest men as they struggle to end governments’ monopoly on the cosmos.
SpaceX’s Elon Musk has a visionary space agenda for Mars.
Credit: Rob Varnas
Hard-charging startups
The Space Barons is also a story of rivalry-hard-charging startups warring with established contractors, and the personal clashes of the leaders of this new space movement, particularly Musk and Bezos, as they aim for the moon and Mars and beyond.
To watch this informative interview with author Christian Davenport, conducted by Todd Harrison, Director, Defense Budget Analysis, Director, Aerospace Security Project and Senior Fellow, International Security Program, go to:
Curiosity Navcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2014, April 6, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2015 duties.
The rover has wheeled into a candy store of sorts, reports Michelle Minitti, a planetary geologist at Framework in Silver Spring, Maryland.
“Like Harry Potter in Honeydukes or Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, Curiosity rolled up to the proverbial candy store today,” Minitti adds, wondering “where to begin?!”
Curiosity Navcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2014, April 6, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Picking favorites
“The variety of rock types in the workspace, the likes of which had not been seen for many hundreds of sols, made picking favorites a challenge,” Minitti explains.
The job of surveying the variety was made easier by the opportunities to get four targets with a combination of Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and the rover’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam).
MAHLI and APXS will image and analyze, respectively, the two large, gray blocks near the rover, “Staffa” and “Tyndrum.”
Curiosity Mastcam Left photo taken on Sol 2013, April 5, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Bright white rock
MAHLI and ChemCam will image and shoot, respectively, the targets “Askival,” a bright white rock positioned above Tyndrum, and “Hopeman,” a lumpy rock which might be a conglomerate, Minitti adds.
The robot’s Mastcam will cover much of the workspace taking imagery to get more detailed views of all the lithologies present, and will add multispectral observations over Hopeman, Askival and Tyndrum.
Embarrassment of riches
“The atmosphere also got plenty of attention,” Minitti says, with mid- and late-day dust devil movies, early morning and late day cloud and dust observations, and an APXS Argon analysis.
Curiosity Navcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2014, April 6, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Even with the embarrassment of riches in the weekend plan, the science team could not resist another shopping spree here,” Minitti concludes. “The weekend drive will pull us around the right side of the workspace to access some of the rocks that were not reachable from today’s parking spot. Stay tuned for more fun next week!”
New and different
Curiosity is exploring something new and different, explains Lauren Edgar, a planetary geologist at the USGS in Flagstaff, Arizona: “For much of the last year, Curiosity has been exploring fine-grained rocks along Vera Rubin Ridge, and investigating red and gray color variations. Recently, something else caught our eye: dark cobbles and boulders exposed in patches.”
Curiosity Front Hazcam Left B image acquired on Sol 2014, April 6, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Edgar adds that the rover has surveyed some similar blocky deposits earlier in the mission, “but it’s definitely been a while.”
These interesting rocks, Edgar points out, led the science team to decide to spend the weekend at a patch of these dark blocky deposits.
Curiosity Navcam Left B image taken on Sol 2014, April 6, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Erosional history
After Curiosity’s drive of roughly 60 feet (18 meters), the plan calls for taking post-drive imaging to prepare for contact science in the weekend plan, and we’ll acquire an overnight APXS atmospheric observation.
“I’m looking forward to learning more about these blocky deposits,” Edgar concludes, “and how they relate to the depositional and erosional history preserved at Vera Rubin Ridge!”
Credit: Boeing/screengrab
The U.S. Air Force X-37B mini-space plane has winged past 200 days of flight performing secretive duties during the program’s fifth flight.
Labeled the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-5), the robotic spacecraft was hurled into Earth orbit on September 7 of last year atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
For more details on this current mission, go to my new Space.com story:
Secretive X-37B Military Space Plane Wings Past 200 Days in Orbit
April 6, 2018 05:17pm ET
https://www.space.com/40227-x-37b-space-plane-200-days-in-orbit-otv5.html
Curiosity Front Hazcam Right B image acquired on Sol 2013, April 5, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Now in Sol 2014, NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover recently completed a drive of 125 feet (38 meters) reaching a location that researchers call Region 13 of Vera Rubin Ridge.
Curiosity Navcam Right B image taken on Sol 2013, April 5, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Reports Roger Wiens, a geochemist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico: That spot has been subdivided into separate nearby sites, with the current one as B1, still near the edge of the hematite “hotspot” identified from orbit by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Float rocks
“Curiosity is flirting with the boundary of the mapped “Biwabik” quadrangle; pretty soon we will drive into it for a while and start using target names from northern Minnesota,” Wiens points out. “The Biwabik name was selected because of the city’s connection with the Mesabi Range, which contains large deposits of Precambrian iron ore.”
Curiosity Rear Hazcam Left B image taken on Sol 2013, April 5, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The rover is back into the “Torridon” quad with Scottish names, a quad that Curiosity has been exploring most of the sols in the last several weeks. “The team is intrigued to see some fields of dark, blocky float rocks nearby,” Wiens adds.
Science duties
Curiosity’s planned science duties include Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam), Mastcam, Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), and Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) observations on “Lingarabay” and “Kinloch”.
Curiosity Mastcam Left image acquired on Sol 2012, April 4, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The robot’s Dust Removal Tool will be used on the first of the two targets, which will be an overnight APXS target.
MAHLI’s observation distances will be 25 centimeters and 5 centimeters. Mastcam’s right-side camera will stay busy, with a 5×1 mosaic on the “hematite hotspot”, a 2×1 on “Galloway”, a 5×1 on “Foula”, a 5×1 on “Suilven” (targeting grain sizes along a ripple crest) and a single image on “Arrochar.”
Additional measurements, Wiens adds, include Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) passive, Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) and Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) acquisitions, Mastcam sun tau measurement, crater rim extinction, and calibration target observations as well as the rover making a drive direction 4×1 observation.
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) produced this image on Sol 2013, April 5, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Robot inhabitants
Wiens provided some interesting factoids: “Mars is the only known planet inhabited exclusively by active robots. It has been this way for over fourteen Earth years, with a cumulative total of twenty-six Earth years of roving by four vehicles. Together these rovers have logged over 70 kilometers of distance, well over half of that by the Opportunity rover. (Curiosity will likely hit the 20 kilometer mark later this year).
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
Updated traverse map
A new Curiosity’s traverse map through Sol 2012 has been issued.
The map shows the route driven by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity through the 2012 Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s mission on Mars (April 04, 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 2009 to Sol 2012, Curiosity had driven a straight line distance of about 66.38 feet (20.23 meters), bringing the rover’s total odometry for the mission to 11.59 miles (18.65 kilometers).
The base image from the map is from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera (HiRISE) in NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Credit: Virgin Galactic/screengrab
Virgin Galactic has released a video showcasing yesterday’s SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity completing its first supersonic, rocket-powered flight.
Once released from the carrier aircraft, Unity’s rocket motor was brought to life and the pilots aimed the spaceship upwards into an 80 degree climb, accelerating to Mach 1.87 during the 30 seconds of rocket burn.
Credit: Virgin Galactic/screengrab
In VSS Unity’s cockpit: Mark “Forger” and David Mackay.
To view the video from the April 5 flight, go to:
Also, published on Apr 6, 2018, view the experience the first rocket-powered, supersonic flight through the eyes of Virgin Galactic Chief Pilot, Dave Mackay at:
