Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category

Last month, testing of an Airbus Defense and Space’s SpacePlane quarter-scale demonstrator showcased the conditions a full-scale craft would encounter in returning from space after suborbital missions.

Airbus envisions that its business jet-sized SpacePlane – using a combination of jet engines and a rocket engine – can fly to the edge of space hauling passengers and cargo.

The SpacePlane is being built to depart and land using a standard airport runway.

The concept is yet one more vehicle in a growing number of craft that are vying for a projected suborbital market, such as Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace.

High altitude release

Held on May 1-4, the tests involved airlifting the demonstrator from a barge by an AS350 B3e Ecureuil helicopter operated by Airbus Helicopters Southeast Asia.

At roughly 3,000 meters above ocean waters, the SpacePlane demonstrator was released. It was then piloted from the barge as it made its return to the ground, ending its flight at sea before being picked up as planned a few hours later.

The quarter-scale demonstrator used in the tests was built in partnership with HOPE Technik and Airbus Group Innovations, the corporate network of research centers of Airbus Group.

Airbus Defense and Space is a new division in Europe, the Airbus Group, formed by combining the business activities of Cassidian, Astrium and Airbus Military.

For videos on the SpacePlane project, go to:

http://bit.ly/1o3UrNm

http://bit.ly/1o3E6YX

Video Credit: AirbusDefenceandSpace/AstriumSAS2014

China has made use of its Lunar Palace 1- a ground-based artificial closed ecological facility.

Last month, three volunteers stepped out of the research facility, concluding a 105-day test – the first long-duration multi-crew sealed cabin research carried out in China.

“Lunar Palace 1” refers to the Integrative Experimental Facility for Permanent Astrobase Life-support Artificial Closed Ecosystem (PALACE) Research.

Lunar Palace 1 is a 500-cubic-meter capsule, which covers an area of 160 square meters and consists of one integrated module and two plant cultivation modules. The integrated module is divided into the living room, the work room, bathroom, waste disposal room, etc.

According to Liu Hong, chief designer of the system, by applying a combination of biological technology and engineering control technology, it establishes an artificial enclosed ecological system where life basics — such as oxygen, water and food can regenerate — thus providing Earth-like ecological environment for habitants.

Long-duration human spaceflight

During the experiment, four kinds of edible vegetables, namely lettuce, leaf lettuce, gynura bicolor and sonchus oleraceus, were planted in a 36-square-meter area to absorb the carbon dioxide exhaled by two astronauts and provide them with oxygen and 30-50 grams of fresh vegetables per meal per person.

According to the China Manned Space Engineering (CMSE) office: “The success of the experiment has laid good foundation to CELSS [the controlled ecological life support system] flight demonstration tests for China’s space station, which will be helpful for China’s astronauts to get fresh vegetables, improve their living conditions and relieve their mental stress.”

According to the CMSE, the core of Lunar Palace 1 is the world’s most advanced closed-loop life support technology so far: Bioregenerative Life Support System (BLSS), which is essential for astronauts to live and work in space for long duration, making it possible for long-duration human spaceflight and deep space exploration.

An important new report advocates that America should pursue a disciplined “pathway” approach – executing a series of intermediate steps along the way – that lead to the “horizon goal” of planting the first human footprints on Mars.

“All long-range space programs, by all potential partners, for human space exploration converge on this goal,” the report explains.

The congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council (NRC) was released today, titled Pathways to Exploration: Rationales and Approaches for a U.S. Program of Human Space Exploration. The study was sponsored by NASA.

A 17-person NRC Committee on Human Spaceflight wrote the report. The blue-ribbon group wrestled with such issues as: Why do we go there? How to assess the technical and affordability aspects of human exploration pathways? What are public and stakeholder attitudes?

NOTE: Members of the authoring committee will present the report’s findings and recommendations and respond to questions at a public briefing today beginning at 11 a.m. EDT, at the National Academy of Sciences building in Washington, D.C.

A live webcast of the event is at http://nas.edu/humanspaceflight

Wanted: steadfast commitment

While the “horizon goal” of putting humans on Mars is urged in the report, the success of this approach, the study adds, would require a steadfast commitment to a consensus goal, international collaboration, and a budget that increases by more than the rate of inflation.

Additionally, the committee asserts that the “enduring questions” motivating human spaceflight are these:

* How far from Earth can humans go?

* What can humans discover and achieve when we get there?

The study underscores that, over the years, rationales for human spaceflight and those sparking public interest are: economic benefits; contributions to national security; contributions to national stature and international relations; inspiration of students and citizens to further their science and engineering education; and contributions to science.

Also identified in the report is a set of “aspirational rationales: the eventual survival of the human species (through off-Earth settlement) and shared human destiny and the aspiration to explore.

The report flags the finding that public opinion about space has been generally favorable over the past 50 years, “but much of the public is inattentive to space exploration and spending on space exploration is not a high priority for most of the public.”

Pathways to Mars

The study evaluates three different pathways to illustrate the trade-offs among affordability, schedule, developmental risk, and the frequency of missions for different sequences of intermediate destinations. 

All the pathways culminate in humans landing on the surface of Mars — which is the most challenging yet technically feasible destination — and have anywhere between three and six steps that include some combination of missions to asteroids, the moon, and the moons of Mars.

In one of the committee conclusions, the group noted that, given the magnitude of the technical and physiological challenges, should the nation decide to embark on a human exploration program whose horizon goal is Mars, NASA would need to begin to focus right away on the high-priority research and technology investments that would develop the capabilities required for human surface exploration of Mars.

The most challenging of these will be (1) entry, descent, and landing for Mars; (2) in-space propulsion and power; and (3) radiation safety (radiation health effects and amelioration.

Re-look at returning to the Moon

The wide-ranging report serves up some zingers, such as:

“It is evident that U.S. near-term goals for human exploration are not aligned with those of our traditional international partners. While most major spacefaring nations and agencies are looking toward the Moon and, specifically, the lunar surface, U.S. plans are focused on redirection of an asteroid into a retrograde lunar orbit, where astronauts would conduct operations with it.”

As argued in one of the report’s chapters, “if humans are eventually to land and operate for extended periods of time on Mars, the capabilities required are best developed and tested on the lunar surface as well as in cislunar space.”

“The history of exploration of our own globe carries a lesson that the ones who follow the first explorers are the ones to profit from the accomplishment. Such a lesson would suggest that the United States relook at its disinterest in the lunar surface as a site for human operations.”

Playing the China card

“It is also evident that given the rapid development of China’s capabilities in space, it is in the best interests of the United States to be open to its inclusion in future international partnerships.”

The NRC committee identified some specific important issues that the nation will need to grapple with should it choose to embark on a renewed effort in deep space exploration involving humans.

One of those issues is the prohibition on NASA speaking to Chinese space authorities, a prohibition that has left open opportunities for collaboration that are being filled by other spacefaring nations.

“The committee is concerned that current U.S. law is impeding the nation’s ability to collaborate with China where appropriate, while traditional U.S. international partners have not imposed on themselves such restrictions.”

NOTE: Find the full report here: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18801

The U.S. Air Force has awarded to Lockheed Martin a five-year $914.7 million contract to build an advanced ground-based radar system – a “Space Fence.”

Lockheed Martin beat out Raytheon for the new network of ground-based radars.

This radar system will be sited on the Kwajelein Atoll to improve the ability to identify and track objects in space.

Construction of the new Space Fence system on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands is slated to begin in the fall of 2014 to meet the program’s 2018 initial operational capability goal.

The system’s design incorporates a scalable, solid-state S-band radar with a higher wavelength frequency capable of detecting much smaller objects than the Air Force’s current system. This improves accuracy, quickens response time and expands surveillance coverage.

Space clutter

Utilizing this powerful, new ground-based radar, Space Fence will enhance the way the U.S. detects, tracks, measures and catalogs orbiting objects and space debris with improved accuracy, better timeliness and increased surveillance coverage.

There is much to do given the on-going and growing orbital debris problem: Debris from space collisions, tossed away rocket stages, dead or dying spacecraft.

Fast-moving “space junk” orbiting the Earth can be lethal to spacecraft and satellites in their path.

Lockheed Martin will deliver up to two advanced S-band phased array radars for the Space Fence program. The Space Fence radar system will greatly improve Space Situational Awareness of the existing Space Surveillance Network.

Critical services threatened

Critical services are being threatened by space clutter that circles Earth, said Dale Bennett, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin’s Mission Systems and Training business.

“Space Fence will locate and track these objects with more precision than ever before to help the Air Force transform space situational awareness from being reactive to predictive,” Bennett said in a press statement.

For a video on Space Fence, go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SJdN90vT04

Also, zoom in on this infograhic at:

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/space-fence/space-fence-infographic.html

Just how fragile is NASA’s human spaceflight program? Is it lost in space?

Get ready for the June 4^th release of a new report from the National Research Council (NRC): Pathways to Exploration – Rationales and Approaches for a U.S. Program of Human Space Exploration.

Members of the authoring committee will present the report’s findings and recommendations and respond to questions at a public briefing beginning at 11 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, Wednesday, June 4.

NOTE: A live webcast of the June 4 event will be available for viewing at this site:

http://sites.nationalacademies.org/DEPS/ASEB/DEPS_069080

According to the NRC, “a national consensus on the long-term future of human spaceflight beyond the U.S. commitment to the International Space Station remains elusive.”

The NRC report, authored by a blue ribbon group, will describe the rationales for human spaceflight beyond low Earth orbit and develops recommendations that could guide the U.S. human spaceflight program “in a sustainable manner.”

For your viewing pleasure, Asif Siddiqi, a historian of science and technology, describes the major decisions that shaped U.S. human spaceflight in the 20th century.  Go to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UD7yRMazGHU
 

Meanwhile, NASA has issued its own paper, Pioneering Space: NASA’s Next Steps on the Path to Mars, dated May 29^th.

That paper is authored by NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) and explains NASA’s roadmap to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars in the 2030s. 

You can read HEOMD’s “Pioneering Space” document at:

http://go.nasa.gov/1mL91Il

Keep an eye out for Sky and Telescope magazine’s Mars 2014 issue!

Mars – Mysteries & Marvels of the Red Planet is a fascinating look at the Red Planet, making use of maps, photos, and in-depth articles on a number of topics, such as the history of water on Mars, sniffing for methane on that enigmatic world, as well as the on-going hunt for dead or alive Martian biology.

In our co-written article, Buzz Aldrin and I discuss settling the Red Planet in a sustainable way – spotlighting a possible site on Mars for the first human landing.

There’s a treasure-trove of information in this Mars 2014 issue – and once read, I think you’ll see the Red Planet in a new light.

 

They are big. They are bad. What to do with Earth-slamming near-Earth objects?

I was pleased to assist the Secure World Foundation in preparing their new just-released document:

Near-Earth Objects: Responding to the International Challenge

This booklet has been designed to bring into focus the key issues faced by the international community in dealing with the threat of near-Earth objects (NEOs) and the prospect of a celestial body hitting Earth.

In particular, the booklet reviews the state of research on asteroids and summarizes the various efforts to mitigate potential future threats. It also identifies areas of future research and development.

 

 

 

 

 

To read the full report, go to: 

http://swfound.org/media/170684/SWF_NEOs-Responding_to_the_International_Challenge_2014.pdf

As NASA’s Curiosity rover wheels about the Red Planet, the robot is on the lookout for habitable environments – sites that could have supported microbial life in the past.

But new research led by a Brown University researcher suggests that slopes of a giant Martian volcano — once covered in glacial ice — may have been home to one of the most recent habitable environments yet found on Mars.

Arsia Mons is the third tallest volcano on Mars and one of the largest mountains in the solar system. A new analysis of the landforms surrounding Arsia Mons shows that eruptions along the volcano’s northwest flank happened at the same time that a glacier covered the region around 210 million years ago.

The heat from those eruptions would have melted massive amounts of ice to form englacial lakes — bodies of water that form within glaciers like liquid bubbles in a half-frozen ice cube.

Lakes colonized by microbial life?

Kathleen Scanlon, a graduate student at Brown University, led the new research work regarding Arsia Mons, published in the scientific journal, Icarus.

Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that the lakes could have persisted for hundreds or even a few thousand years, according to a press statement from Brown University.

That may have been long enough for the lakes to be colonized by microbial life forms, if in fact such creatures ever inhabited Mars.

The fact that the Arsia Mons site is relatively young makes it an interesting target for possible future exploration.

For example, the NASA Mars 2020 mission is a future rover designed to investigate key questions about the habitability of Mars, and assess natural resources and hazards in preparation for future human expeditions to the Red Planet.

The science instruments aboard the rover will enable scientists to identify and select a collection of rock and soil samples that will be stored for potential return to Earth in the future.

Scientists are now reviewing projected exploration sites for the Mars 2020 mission.

For more information on the Icarus paper, go to:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019103514002164

Also, go to the Brown University release:

http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2014/05/mars

 

The Ad Astra Rocket Company of Webster, Texas has released an intriguing video on the future of their VASIMR engine concept.

Since the 1970s, starting at MIT and then for 25 years at NASA, astronaut Franklin Chang Díaz and his team of scientists have worked to develop a faster propulsion technology for space travel.

The result is the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) engine.

Today, former astronaut Díaz is Ad Astra’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

Ad Astra also owns and operates Ad Astra Servicios Energéticos y Ambientales (AASEA) and Ad Astra Rocket Company, Costa Rica, respectively supporting research and development subsidiaries in the U.S. and Guanacaste, Costa Rica.

VASIMR is a plasma rocket that can travel 10 times faster than a chemical rocket, uses 1/10th the amount of fuel, and can transport cargo more economically than any existing space technology. This advanced plasma space propulsion system is aimed at the emerging in-space transportation market.

The new video is a Boundless Media and Ad Astra Rocket Company film production and can be viewed here:

http://youtu.be/5ZcVGpyvLZ8

Buzz Aldrin and I had a wonderful day in Denver on Saturday, May 24^th.

In promoting our book — Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration – we visited both the Barnes and Noble bookstore in Glendale, Colorado as well as the magnificent Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum gala event in Denver that night.

At both events we were welcomed by large and receptive audiences.

As for walking on the Moon, 45 years ago this July, “it’s slow and it’s dusty…but it makes for beautiful boot prints,” Buzz told the Barnes and Noble crowd. But Buzz also had strong words regarding the overall health of the U.S. space program.

At the Wings Over the Rockies gala, Buzz and I were joined on stage by his son, Andy Aldrin, President of Moon Express, Inc. Andy wrote a great foreword to our book and was an invaluable contributor to the entire book project.

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For a look at part of our day in Denver, go to:

http://www.9news.com/story/news/education/2014/05/25/buzz-aldrin-signs-books-meets-hundreds/9560731/