Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category

China’s Tiangong-1 “target spacecraft” used for the country’s human spaceflight program is now in an extended application phase – including use for Earth remote sensing.

Tiangong-1 is churning out “hyperspectral” imaging products, collecting information from across the electromagnetic spectrum.

Launched on September 29, 2011, Tiangong-1 — meaning “Heavenly Palace 1″ — is China’s first space station and has been used for three rendezvous and docking missions: Shenzhou 8, 9 and 10.

After its use for a successful docking involving Shenzhou 10, Tiangong-1 entered the in-orbit operation management phase on June 27, 2013. Since then, now for over two-and-a-half years, Tiangong-1 has undergone switches in its flying mode, orbit maintenance maneuvers, and other activities.

Application benefits

According to the China Manned Space Engineering (CMSE) Office the still-orbiting module is outfitted with payloads such as Earth observation instrumentation and space environment detectors.

“Tiangong-1 has obtained a great deal of application and science data, which is valuable in mineral resources investigation, ocean and forest application, hydrologic and ecological environment monitoring, land use, urban thermal environment monitoring and emergency disaster control. Remarkable application benefits have been achieved,” the CMSE has stated.

For example, Tiangong-1 provided timely hyperspectral observation data during China’s Yuyao flood disaster last year and image data during a devastating Australia forest fire.

Commercial agents

The weight of Tiangong-1 is about 8 tons, and its main body is a short and thick cylinder, with a docking port on its front and rear ends. The two-modules are an experiment module and resource module.

As authorized by the China Manned Space Agency, and the Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the processing and distribution of Tiangong-1 application data is underway. It provides public users with data in Grade-1 and Grade-2, free of charge.

Commercial agents of Tiangong-1 application data are providing paid data service for domestic and international commercial users.

China is expected to continue its forward progress in space station development by lofting the Tiangong-2 space lab next year, sharpening its space skills to further the building of a larger space station in 2020.

If larger and larger payloads – including human habitats – are to set down safely on Mars, new atmospheric reentry technologies to brake in the thin air of the Red Planet are required.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is deep into cutting-edge and crosscutting demonstration flights of hardware to land hefty payloads on the Red Planet.

The work is being done under NASA’s Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) technology demonstration project.

Last week some of the LDSD work was showcased at JPL. That hardware is headed for a first flight into near-space this June, launched from the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, Hawaii.

In addition to the testing in Hawaii, a rocket sled test series has been led by JPL and conducted at the U.S. Naval Air Weapons Station at China Lake.

 Saucer-shaped

The LDSD equipment has taken on the looks of a rocket-powered, saucer-shaped test vehicle.

These new drag devices are one of the first steps on the technology path to potentially landing humans, habitats, and their return rockets safely on Mars.

Furthermore, LDSD work will also allow access to much more of the planet’s surface by enabling landings at higher-altitude sites.

NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate is developing to create the new knowledge and capabilities necessary to enable our future missions to an asteroid, Mars and beyond. The directorate is committed to developing the critical technologies required to enable future exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit.

NOTE: Take a look at this video on NASA’s LDSD efforts, at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h1NtQJ59kM

 

NASA’s Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) is taking shape.

This return sample mission to asteroid Bennu is to launch in the fall of 2016. The spacecraft will then rendezvous with the space rock in 2018. Following a year of reconnaissance of the object, OSIRIS-REx will snag a sample of the asteroid — at least 2 ounces (60 grams) — and return the material to Earth for scientists to study in 2023.

A successful Mission Critical Design Review (CDR) for OSIRIS-REx was held April 1-9 at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company in Littleton, Colorado – the firm that is building the spacecraft.

The upshot of the review is that the green light has been given to begin building the spacecraft, flight instruments and ground system.

 

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center will provide overall mission management, systems engineering, and safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. The University of Arizona leads the effort and provides the camera system and science processing and operations center.

OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed by the Marshall Spaceflight Center.

OSIRIS-REx will be the first U.S. mission sent to a near-Earth asteroid to collect and return samples.

The initiative brings together the best of NASA’s science, technology and human exploration efforts to achieve President Obama’s goal of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025.

It had to happen.

After you have plunked down the cash to achieve escape velocity, there’s nothing like a “Drinkbot” to mix your drink in microgravity and dispense the cocktail.

For one, you’ve earned it after that nail-biting liftoff.

That’s the plan according to the Cosmic Lifestyle Corporation, slated to make its first public appearance at the Los Angeles edition of the Yuri’s Night World Space Party. Furthermore, the corporation has it’s “shake out” underneath the space shuttle Endeavor on April 11th, 2014.

The “system” incorporates a mechanized “Drinkbot” that mixes liquids in weightlessness and dispenses the cocktail into the Zero Gravity Cocktail Glass.

Moreover, the first prototype models have been 3D printed, the cocktail recipe is currently being designed, and the “Drinkbot” is under construction, according to Samuel Coniglio, the group’s visionary designer.

Mainstream reality

“The Zero Gravity Cocktail Project is an attempt to bridge the gap between the space tourism vision and mainstream reality,” says Coniglio, an admitted “retro-futurist.”

“By creating a fun object that appeals to many people,” Coniglio said, “we hope to show that space tourism is not an abstract concept but a stepping stone for improving the way people live, work, and play beyond planet Earth.”

The Cosmic Lifestyle Corporation is creating the first true cocktail made in zero gravity and recognizes that the Zero Gravity Cocktail Project has “down to Earth” value as well, which will be aggressively pursued through multiple branding and marketing strategies.

Flagship project

The Zero Gravity Cocktail Project is going to be the flagship project for the Cosmic Lifestyle Corporation, added the group’s co-founder and bar industry entrepreneur, Russell Davis. Davis is a celebrity mixologist who is creating the cocktail and is on a TV show called Bar Rescue on SPIKE TV. He has won numerous awards and was chosen #1 Bartender in the USA by Bartender Magazine.

Also onboard the group is Hollywood special effects designer and fabricator Brent Heyning, CFO for the Space Frontier Foundation and space entrepreneur Paul Fuller, and award-winning roboticist and toy designer Nick Donaldson.

“With over two years of hard work, the team recognizes that there is a need for the space tourists’ to have practical applications in zero gravity that are based upon enjoyment and functionality, Davis emphasized.

“We plan on filling that niche, with the first being the cocktail, the vessel, and the ability to mix in space,” Davis said in a press statement. The Cosmic Lifestyle Corporation is a boutique concept, design, and branding company that develops stylish products for off-world use while connecting Earth brands to space.

For more information, add ice, and go to:

http://www.cosmiclifestyle.com/

Let the games begin!

A new online educational resource allows the user to build their own planetary system, putting planets into orbit around a star and racking up points until they add a planet that destabilizes the whole system.

The game is an offshoot of the open-source software package – Systemic Console — astronomers use to find planets beyond our solar system, called exoplanets.

The release of “Super Planet Crash” is a brain-buster idea, primarily masterminded by Greg Laughlin, professor and chair of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California Santa Cruz and Stefano Meschiari, now a W. J. McDonald Postdoctoral astronomer at the University of Texas at Austin.

Most visceral level

“Systemic Console is open-source software that we’ve made available for other scientists to use. But we also wanted to create a portal for students and teachers so that anyone can use it,” Laughlin said.

“For the online version, Stefano tuned the software to make it more accessible, and then he went even further with Super Planet Crash,” Laughlin said, “which makes the ideas behind planetary systems accessible at the most visceral level,” according to a UC Santa Cruz press release.

The result?

It doesn’t take long for a player to understand the physics of orbital dynamics.

Meschiari said he is keen on simulating the evolution of protoplanetary disks, the characterization of extrasolar planets, as well as citizen science-driven projects.

Support for the development of the core scientific routines underlying the Systemic Console was provided by an National Science Foundation CAREER Award to Laughlin.

To play Super Planet Crash, go to:

www.stefanom.org/spc

The most comprehensive satellite-gleaned view of land-surface conditions from coast to coast in the conterminous United States is an eye-opener!

Just issued by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), this latest look-see shows land-surface conditions from coast to coast, showcasing the extent of land cover types from forests to urban areas.

The National Land Cover Database (NLCD 2011) is being made available to the public by the USGS and partners. It divides the lower 48 states into 9 billion geographic cells.

This informative database spotlights land cover and is based on Landsat satellite imagery taken in 2011.

Sweeping, yet amazingly precise

Land cover is broadly defined as the biophysical pattern of natural vegetation, agriculture, and urban areas. It is shaped by both natural processes and human influences.

Collected in repeated five-year cycles, NLCD data is used by resource managers and decision-makers to conduct ecosystem studies, determine spatial patterns of biodiversity, trace indications of climate change, and develop best practices in land management.

“America’s land and waters face unprecedented challenges from natural disasters, climate change, development pressures, and population growth,” said Anne Castle, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Water and Science. “The digital view that the National Land Cover Dataset affords us is sweeping, yet amazingly precise. It is one of the most important tools, for the Department of the Interior or any other land or water manager, in fostering an impartial perspective of landscape dynamics.”

Carefully calibrated

According to the USGS, the carefully calibrated data enables managers of public and private lands, urban planners, agricultural experts, and scientists with many different interests (for instance, climate, invasive species or hydrogeography) to identify critical characteristics of the land and patterns of land cover change, informing a variety of investigations from monitoring forests to modeling water runoff in urban areas.

Additionally, NLCD editions from 2001 to 2011 have been integrated to provide a 10-year land cover change comparison for our nation at five year intervals.

Critical information

Having a decade of change information readily available for any location enables users to better understand the trajectory of land cover change patterns and provides specialists with critical information to advance the understanding of land cover change processes.

NLCD 2011 products will be also released for Alaska later this year.

For more information on this new product — and to download NLCD data free of charge, go to:

http://www.mrlc.gov/

Want to take part in a worldwide celebration of this year’s Earth Day?

NASA is inviting all passengers on our planet to take part in a “Global Selfie” event.

For Earth Day – celebrated on April 22 – NASA is trying to create an image of Earth from the ground up while also fostering a collection of portraits of the people of Earth.

The call is for participants to get outside, be it with mountains, parks, the sky, rivers, lakes — wherever you are — and produce a selfie. You’ll need to describe where you are via a sign, words written in the sand, spelled out with rocks — or by using printable signs that NASA officials have created that are available at a special webpage.

The #GlobalSelfie sign is available in several languages.

Crowd-sourced collection

NASA will be monitoring photos posted to five social media sites: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+ and Flickr.

Your selfie would then be posted to social media using the hashtag #GlobalSelfie.

The Earth mosaic image itself and a video using the images will be put together and released in May.

“On this Earth Day, we wanted to create a different picture of our planet — a crowd-sourced collection of snapshots of the people of Earth that we could use to create one unique mosaic of the Blue Marble,” according to a NASA website.

Big year for Earth science

For NASA itself, 2014 is being viewed as a big year for Earth science.

There are five Earth-observing missions that will be launched – more than NASA has conducted in a single year in over a decade, kicked off on Feb. 27 by the lofting of the Global Precipitation Measurement Core Observatory from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan.

It would be joined by the Soil Moisture Active Passive satellite; Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2; the International Space Station-RapidScat instrument; and the Cloud-Aerosol Transport System, or CATS, instrument.

Want to take part?

Check out the special website to take part in the Global Selfie program:

http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/globalselfie/

 

 

Europe is pressing ahead on blueprinting its Red Planet exploration via the ExoMars program.

Some 60 scientists and engineers came together late last month for the first ExoMars 2018 Landing Site Selection Workshop, held at the European Space Agency’s (ESA) European Space Astronomy Centre near Madrid.

Their task was to begin the process of drawing up a shortlist of the most suitable landing locations for ESA’s first Mars rover.

The rover can cover a limited driving range in the course of its seven-month nominal surface exploration mission.

And the landing site votes are in!

Four sites

The workshop attendees favored four candidate sites. All of the landing spots are located relatively near the equator.

They are: Mawrth Vallis, Oxia Planum, Hypanis Vallis and Oxia Palus.

The area around Mawrth Vallis and nearby Oxia Planum contains one of the largest exposures of ancient, clay-rich rocks on the planet.

The other two sites represent former fluvial environments.

A final shortlist of up to four candidate sites is expected in June 2014, prior to a more detailed analysis. According to the ExoMars project, some attention will be given to three other sites: Coogoon Valles, Simud Vallis and Southern Isidis.

The aim is to complete the certification of at least one landing site for the ExoMars rover by the second half of 2016. The final decision on the landing site will be taken sometime in 2017.

ExoMars – two missions

Two missions are foreseen within the ExoMars program: one consisting of an Orbiter plus an Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module, to be launched in 2016.

The other mission, featuring a rover, has a launch date of 2018.

Both missions will be carried out in cooperation with Russia’s Roscosmos. Roscosmos will provide a Proton launcher for both missions.

The 2016 mission includes a Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and an Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module (EDM).

The Orbiter will carry scientific instruments to detect and study atmospheric trace gases, such as methane.

The EDM will contain sensors to evaluate the lander’s performance as it descends, and additional sensors to study the environment at the landing site.

The 2018 mission includes a rover that will carry a drill and a suite of instruments dedicated to exobiology and geochemistry research.

It is tagged the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS for short.

Funded by NASA, ATLAS is being developed by the University of Hawaii as an asteroid impact early warning system.

When ATLAS is completed in 2015, it will consist of two telescopes, 100 miles apart, which automatically scan the whole sky several times every night looking for moving objects.

ATLAS can provide one day’s warning for a 30-kiloton “town killer,” a week for a 5-megaton “city killer,” and three weeks for a 100-megaton “county killer.”

Project officials for ATLAS report that a scaled-down prototype — “Pathfinder” — is now live on Mauna Loa, Hawaii Island. It is automatically scanning the sky and sending the data back to Honolulu.

Two observatories

Furthermore, on March 25, the ATLAS team obtained first light with a new MicroCam3 device outfitted on a Takahashi Telescope.

While MicroCam3 has a 16-megapixel detector, the eventual ATLAS camera will have a 110-megapixel detector, which is housed in a cryostat to keep the detector cooled to -50° C.

When fully operational, the two-telescope ATLAS system will survey the sky four times each night and take around 3,000 images per night.

By the end of 2014 the ATLAS team expects to have two observatories: one at the current location on Mauna Loa, Hawai’i Island, and a second on Haleakala, 100 miles northwest on Maui.

Roster of jobs

There is a roster of ATLAS errands that can be accomplished besides the important job of searching for dangerous asteroids. They include:

•Search for habitable planets outside our Solar System

•Look for denizens of the outer Solar System, such as dwarf planets like Pluto or Eris or a Nemesis star

•Search for minimoons that orbit Earth

•Track space junk

As noted in a recent ATLAS update: “We are very happy with our overall progress. We must be at full productivity in two years, and it’s impressive that the team is already able to find and report asteroids right now.”

Check out this informative video, detailed by ATLAS principal investigator, John Tonry.

Go to: http://fallingstar.com/video-1.php

For more information on ATLAS, go to the project’s website at:

http://fallingstar.com/home.php

You may be interested in this document:

Benefits Stemming from Space Exploration

It was released in September 2013 by the International Space Exploration Coordination Group.

At its heart, this report explains that space exploration “will continue to be an essential driver for opening up new domains in science and technology, triggering other sectors to partner with the space sector for joint research and development. This will return immediate benefits back to Earth in areas such as materials, power generation and energy storage, recycling and waste management, advanced robotics, health and medicine, transportation, engineering, computing and software.”

Furthermore, the report stresses that “innovations required for space exploration, such as those related to miniaturisation, will drive improvements in other space systems and services resulting in higher performance and lower cost. These will in turn result in better services on Earth and better return of investment in institutional and commercial space activities. In addition, the excitement generated by space exploration attracts young people to careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, helping to build global capacity for scientific and technological innovation.”

For full document, go to:

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/Benefits-Stemming-from-Space-Exploration-2013-TAGGED.pdf