Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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December 13th, 2017
New Shepard liftoff.
Credit: Blue Orign/Screenshot
Blue Origin’s New Shepard flew again for the seventh time December 12 from Blue Origin’s West Texas Launch Site.
Video at:
Known as Mission 7 (M7), the flight featured the next-generation booster and the first flight of Crew Capsule 2.0.
New Shepard landing.
Credit: Blue Orign/Screenshot
Crew Capsule 2.0 features large windows, measuring 2.4 feet wide, 3.6 feet tall.
Onboard payloads
M7 also included 12 commercial, research and education payloads onboard.
Crew Capsule 2.0 reached an apogee of 322,405 feet AGL/326,075 feet MSL (98.27 kilometers AGL/99.39 kilometers MSL).
Capsule landing.
Credit: Blue Orign/Screenshot
The booster reached an apogee of 322,032 feet AGL/325,702 feet MSL (98.16 kilometers AGL/99.27 kilometers MSL).
NanoRacks payload integration
It was the third flight in which NanoRacks has managed customer payload integration.
Notably, one full Blue Origin payload locker in which NanoRacks integrated on this mission is for Orbital Medicine, in collaboration with Purdue University Aerospace Engineering. Their experiment, “Thoracic PARG” is demonstrating a new medical technology for managing collapsed lungs in microgravity or other extreme environments, according to a NanoRacks press statement.
T-cells, genes
In a statement from Embry-Riddle’s Daytona Beach Campus, one experiment carried within the capsule assessed how microgravity impacts the cellular processes of T-cells or T-lymphocytes, which develop from stem cells in the bone marrow and are key to the immune system.
The second Embry-Riddle payload was designed to study how microgravity affects genes that play a role in tumor growth.
Embry-Riddle’s two experiments were part of 12 commercial, research and educational payloads onboard the first flight of Crew Capsule 2.0.
Blue Origin’s chief rocketeer, Jeff Bezos, (right) discusses capsule payloads with team members.
Credit: Blue Origin
Capsule closeup.
Credit: Blue Origin
“Mannequin Skywalker” instrumented test dummy made the suborbital journey.
Credit: Blue Origin
Posted in 
U.S. President Donald Trump, speaks before signing the Space Policy Directive – 1, directing NASA to return to the Moon, in the Roosevelt room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017.
Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani
U.S. President Donald Trump has put pen to paper in signing the Space Policy Directive – 1 – placing NASA on the pathway for a return to the Moon.
The event took place in the Roosevelt room of the White House in Washington, Monday, December 11, 2017.
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
Wanted: funds, political will
“This could turn out to be a historic step towards sending Americans once again, after 45 years and counting, away from their home planet,” explains John Logsdon, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Affairs for the Space Policy Institute, Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.
Apollo 17’s Jack Schmitt presents U.S. President Trump a moonwalker figurine. Apollo 11’s Buzz Aldrin views the scene as does Peggy Whitson, the only female astronaut reaching a total of 665 days over the course of three long-duration missions.
Credit: Screenshot/Inside Outer Space
“The words are all good words, and incorporating them into the formally-stated National Space Policy is significant,” Logsdon tells Inside Outer Space. “But a policy is only as good as its implementation. I hope the White House follows through with the funds and political will to make this happen, and that the Congress can agree to what should be a non-partisan return to space exploration.”
Wait and see
Remarks James Vedda of the Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Space Policy & Strategy in Arlington, Virginia: “Trump and his spokespeople have been talking about this in very general terms for a year, so the only real news here is that they finally put it in writing in an official document – again, in very general terms.”
As others have noted, Vedda adds let’s wait and see what’s in the Fiscal Year ‘19 budget request to support this activity.
“The fact that the administration did this with a simple amendment to the previous administration’s National Space Policy may indicate that there are no plans to completely replace that policy, at least not in the near term,” Vedda advises Inside Outer Space.
Ivanka Trump, advisor to President Donald Trump, touches a sample from the Moon that former astronaut Jack Schmitt, left, collected during the Apollo 17 mission, just after President Trump signed Space Policy Directive – 1, directing NASA to return to the moon, in the Roosevelt room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017. Under glass, lunar sample 70215 with Schmitt noting to Ivanka Trump the size of the boulder it came from.
Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani
Memorandum, remarks
For related documents go to:
Presidential Memorandum on Reinvigorating America’s Human Space Exploration Program
Remarks By President Trump and Vice President Pence at Signing Ceremony for Space Policy Directive – 1
President Donald J. Trump Will Make America a Leader in Space Exploration Again
Video of signing ceremony can be viewed at:
President Trump Participates in a Signing Ceremony for Space Policy Directive – 1
Tech Insider has published a very informative video focused on comparing SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and Big Falcon Rocket, Blue Origin’s New Glenn, and NASA’s Space Launch System.
NASA’s Saturn V rocket was the pinnacle of technology during the Apollo era. More than 40 years after its final flight, it’s still the world’s most powerful rocket. But that’s finally about to change.
NASA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin are developing their most impressive rockets yet. Here’s how America’s monster rockets of the future measure up to NASA’s moon rocket
Saturn V – 363 feet tall
Falcon Heavy – 229 feet tall
BFR – 348 feet tall
SLS – 365 feet tall
New Glenn Rocket – 326 feet tall
At peak performance, the Saturn V could lift 310,000 pounds to orbit. That’s equivalent to the weight of 33 African elephants respectively (avg. African elephant weighs 9500 pounds.)
Some of these payloads are subject to change, but here’s an estimate of how much each rocket can carry to space.
Saturn V – 310,000 lbs (33 elephants)
Falcon Heavy – 119,000 lbs (12.5 elephants)
SLS – 286,000 lbs (30 elephants)
BFR – 330,000 lbs (34 elephants)
New Glenn Rocket – 99,210 lbs (10 elephants)
The Falcon Heavy will be the first rocket since Saturn V capable of sending humans to the Moon, though it won’t be quite as powerful. Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket will compete with SpaceX for commercial satellite launches.
But the real monsters of the group are NASA’s Space Launch System and SpaceX’s Big Falcon Rocket. Both will out power the Saturn V and are designed to eventually launch humans to Mars.
Credit: Tech Insider
Now, let’s check out the true test of a rocket’s power — its thrust.
Saturn V – 7.6 million pounds (42 Boeing 747s)
Falcon Heavy – 5.1 million pounds (28 Boeing 747s)
SLS – 9.2 million pounds (51 Boeings)
BFR – 11.8 million pounds (66 Boeings)
New Glenn – 3.85 million pounds (21 Boeings)
The Saturn V generated 7.6 million pounds of thrust at liftoff
That’s equivalent to the same propulsive power as 42 Boeing 747s
(referring to Boeing 747-400 model, which has 4 engines that produce 44,700 lbs of thrust each)
Roaring to life
Before the decade is up, we can expect to see at least a couple of these rockets roar to life for the first time.
SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy is scheduled for its maiden voyage in early 2018. NASA’s SLS will likely take flight two years later in June 2020, and we can hope to see New Glenn launch by 2020.
The era of monster rockets is fast approaching. Can you hear the engines, yet?
Artist’s impression of the interstellar asteroid `Oumuamua
Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
Anybody onboard ‘Oumuanmua – the mysterious interloper that was spotted hurtling through our solar system?
The Green Bank Telescope is tuning in on the odd cigar-shaped object to find out.
Cigar/needle shape
“Researchers working on long-distance space transportation have previously suggested that a cigar or needle shape is the most likely architecture for an interstellar spacecraft, since this would minimize friction and damage from interstellar gas and dust,” suggests Breakthrough Listen, the global astronomical program searching for evidence of civilizations beyond Earth.
In a statement today, the group announced plans to explore the possibility that ‘Oumuamua could be an artifact. “While a natural origin is more likely,” they add that there is currently no consensus on what the origin of the object might have been.
Credit: GBT Green Bank Observatory
Observation campaign
Listen’s observation campaign will begin on Wednesday, December 13 at 3:00 pm ET. Using the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in Virginia, it will continue to observe ‘Oumuamua across four radio bands, from 1 to 12 GHz. Its first phase of observations will last a total of 10 hours, divided into four “epochs” based on the object’s period of rotation.
Even if no signal or other evidence of extraterrestrial technology is heard, Listen observations will cover portions of the radio spectrum in which the object has not yet been observed, and could provide important information about the possibility of water/ice, or the chemistry of a coma (gaseous envelope), neither of which have yet been identified.
Unprecedented sensitivites
“‘Oumuamua’s presence within our solar system affords Breakthrough Listen an opportunity to reach unprecedented sensitivities to possible artificial transmitters and demonstrate our ability to track nearby, fast-moving objects,” said Listen’s Andrew Siemion, Director of Berkeley SETI Research Center. “Whether this object turns out to be artificial or natural, it’s a great target for Listen.”
‘Oumuamua is now about 2 astronomical units (AU) away, or twice the distance between Earth and the Sun. This is closer by a factor of 50-70 than the most distant human artifact, the Voyager I spacecraft. At this distance, it would take under a minute for the Green Bank instrument to detect an omnidirectional transmitter with the power of a cellphone.
Richard Branson’s WhiteKnightTwo/SpaceShipTwo launch system at New Mexico’s Spaceport America.
Credit: Virgin Galactic
An investigative series of articles takes a look at New Mexico’s Spaceport America.
The Spaceport America site is to become the departure spot for the Richard Branson-backed SpaceShipTwo commercial operation to propel customers to the suborbital heights.
Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic takes flight. Will public space travel?
Credit: Virgin Galactic
An in-depth set of articles and an interview about Spaceport America’s future has been made available by Heath Haussamen at NMPolitics.net on December 5, 2017.
Go to:
http://nmpolitics.net/index/series/spaceport-america/
http://nmpolitics.net/index/2017/12/an-in-depth-interview-about-spaceport-americas-future/
New Discovery! NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has gazed at more than 150,000 stars and continues to transmit back data that leads to important discoveries of celestial objects in our galaxy, including first-time observations of planets outside our solar system.
Credits: NASA/Ames Research Center/Wendy Stenzel
What’s the new scoop of heavenly news from the planet-hunting Kepler space telescope?
NASA is set to announce the latest discovery at 1 p.m. eastern time on Thursday, December 14.
Machine learning
The discovery was made by researchers using machine learning from Google.
Machine learning is an approach to artificial intelligence, and demonstrates new ways of analyzing Kepler data.
Past its prime directive
When Kepler launched in March 2009, scientists didn’t know how common planets were beyond our solar system. Astronomers now believe there may be at least one planet orbiting every star in the sky.
Kepler completed its prime mission in 2012 and went on to collect data for an additional year in an extended mission.
In 2014, the spacecraft began a new extended mission called K2, which continues the search for planets outside our solar system, known as exoplanets, while introducing new research opportunities to study young stars, supernovae and other cosmic phenomena.
Moonwalking geologist, Apollo 17’s Jack Schmitt.
Credit: NASA
Apollo 17: Diary of the 12th Man is the continuing saga of America’s last deep space human mission of the 20th century.
Installment s of Apollo 17 astronaut Jack Schmitt’s diary are available, with a new post on December 7, 2017 – in commemoration of the 45th anniversary of his launch on this date in 1972 at 12:33 a.m. EST.
Critical minutes
The new Chapter 5, “30 Seconds and Counting”, continues the story that ended Chapter 4 with the words used as the title of this new addition. It comprises the crew’s tasks during the critical minutes after launch, including operations as they passed through the various emergency stages until achieving orbit.
Nighttime liftoff of Apollo 17.
Credit: NASA
Following adjustments of the orbit are events related to TransLunar Injection (TLI), and a very important task of the journey, the removal of the Lunar Module (LM) from the S-IVB upper stage and the docking of the Command Service Module with the LM.
Schmitt’s personal thoughts during this critical first part of the mission give the reader an uncanny sense of presence, unavailable heretofore.
Go to Apollo 17: Diary of the 12th Man at:
Off-world geologist, Apollo 17’s Jack Schmitt.
Credit: NASA
Apollo 17 was the final act in the “opening curtain” for deep space exploration.
But that lowering of the human exploration curtain was in December of 1972.
Apollo 17 was the longest human lunar landing flight (301 hours, 51 minutes); longest lunar surface extravehicular activities (22 hours, 4 minutes); largest lunar sample return (an estimated 249 pounds (113 kilograms); and longest time in lunar orbit (147 hours, 48 minutes).
What was the value of Apollo and where next?
Check out my Space.com story with the last man to step onto the Moon, Jack Schmitt:
Q&A with Apollo 17’s Jack Schmitt: Remembering the Past, Looking to the Future
https://www.space.com/39009-apollo-17-astronaut-harrison-schmitt-interview.html
John H.L. Hansen stands next to the SoundScriber, the only device that could play the analog recordings of thousands of hours of communications during NASA’s lunar missions.
Credit: The University of Texas at Dallas
Listen up!
Previously unheard communication between Apollo astronauts, mission control and backroom support staff is now available given speech-processing technology utilized by a team of researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas.
ExploreApollo.org uses signal, speech and language processing algorithms to extract new information, merge information sources, and provide a new perspective on the NASA Apollo missions.
Analog tapes
Thousands of hours of communications remained stored on analog tapes at NASA for years.
From left: John H.L. Hansen, Chengzhu Yu, Abhijeet Sangwan and Lakshmish Kaushik. The four oversaw the project to develop speech processing techniques to reconstruct and transform thousands of hours of audio from NASA’s lunar missions.
Credit: The University of Texas at Dallas
Researchers at the University’s Center for Robust Speech Systems (CRSS) in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS) received a National Science Foundation grant in 2012 to develop speech-processing techniques to reconstruct and transform the massive archive of audio into Explore Apollo.
The result: Explore Apollo is a website that provides public access to the materials. The project, in collaboration with the University of Maryland, included audio from all of Apollo 11 and most of the Apollo 13, Apollo 1 and Gemini 8 missions.
Explore Apollo website.
Credit: The University of Texas at Dallas
SoundScriber
When they began their work, researchers needed to digitize the audio.
However, transferring the audio to a digital format proved to be an engineering feat itself. The only way to play the reels was on a 1960s piece of equipment at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston called a SoundScriber.
“NASA pointed us to the SoundScriber and said do what you need to do,” said CRSS founder and director John H.L. Hansen. The device could read only one track at a time. The user had to mechanically rotate a handle to move the tape read head from one track to another.
Credit: The University of Texas at Dallas
Solution: 30-track read head
By Hansen’s estimate, it would take at least 170 years to digitize just the Apollo 11 mission audio using the technology.
“We couldn’t use that system, so we had to design a new one,” Hansen adds. “We designed our own 30-track read head, and built a parallel solution to capture all 30 tracks at one time. This is the only solution that exists on the planet.”
The results of their work can be found here at:
Curiosity Navcam Left B image taken on Sol 1896, December 6, 2017.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now deep into Sol 1897 operations.
Long wheel tracks in Sol 1896 imagery from the robot show a successful drive of roughly 82 feet (25 meters), bringing it to another stop along the route on Vera Rubin Ridge.
“We’ll actually spend a few days at this stop, where we plan to assess the surrounding bedrock, soil, and what we think might be a small impact crater,” reports Rachel Kronyak, a planetary geologist from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
Curiosity Front Hazcam Right B photo acquired on Sol 1897, December 7, 2017.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Bedrock rubble
The bedrock around the rover at the new stop is quite rubbly, which made choosing targets for Curiosity’s Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) measurements slightly more difficult, as it’s often hard to place the arm in contact with rough surfaces, Kronyak adds.
“Nevertheless,” Kronyak continues, “we planned a very busy 2 sols of science activities! We’ll spend Sol 1897 using the robotic arm to collect APXS and MAHLI data on two bedrock targets, named “Muck” and “Wick” and a soil target named “Sandness.”
Curiosity Mastcam Left image acquired on Sol 1896, December 6, 2017.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Play it again SAM
Overnight on Sol 1897, a Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite (SAM) preconditioning activity is to be performed.
Doing so will mean carrying out a geochrononology experiment over the weekend on the onboard and stored “Ogunquit Beach” sand sample.
Suprahorizon movie
Sol 1898 is primarily devoted to remote science.
First, the rover will take some environmental measurements, including a suprahorizon movie, dust devil survey.
Next, the plan calls for analyzing the soil target “Sandwick” with the robot’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument, along with use of automated software called Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science, or AEGIS, on a selected target.
Curiosity Mastcam Left image talen on Sol 1896, December 6, 2017.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Sandy targets
“To wrap up our observations,” Kronyak notes, “we’ll take a series of Mastcam mosaics to capture the local geology, including the sand ripple target named “Loch Eil” and the coarse sandy target named “Ballantrae.” We’ll also take a few images of the terrain ahead to help assess our drive path along the Vera Rubin Ridge. We’ll remain at this location for the weekend as well.”
Curiosity ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager photo acquired on Sol 1895, December 5, 2017.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL
Exciting news
Kronyak says there’s exciting news.
Curiosity has crossed into a new section of the science team’s geologic map. This means using a new theme for naming targets.
“The new quadrangle is named after Torridon, a village in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland that is near the Torridonian Supergroup, a geological formation that contains some of the oldest evidence of life of any rocks in the United Kingdom,” Kronyak explains. “We hope that this life-inspired Torridon quadrangle will give us good luck as we explore the ancient and potentially habitable environments along our trek up Mount Sharp!”
