Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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February 3rd, 2016
A U.S. congressional hearing was held today…and the hearing was loud, sound, critical and confusing.
The U.S. House Space Subcommittee Committee “reviewed” NASA’s human space exploration proposals – particularly the big step to a human mission to Mars.
Moon first, Mars first, asteroid first, and whether or not the U.S. can afford any of it – all these topics and others were touched upon.
Another focus of the hearing was the challenges ahead for keeping programs on track through changing presidential administrations.
Talkfest 2016
On the “talk to Congress” docket were:
Tom Young, Former Director, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA; Former President and Chief Operating Officer, Martin Marietta Corporation
John C. Sommerer, Chair, Technical Panel, Pathways to Exploration Report, National Academy of Sciences
Paul Spudis, Senior Scientist, Lunar and Planetary Institute
Credit: NASA/Langley Research Center
Video feedstock
Live video streaming of the hearing – “Charting a Course: Expert Perspectives on NASA’s Human Exploration Proposals” is available on the Committee’s website and YouTube at:
Written testimony
For readers out there, I put this list together…so take a look at the prepared text of the individual folks that testified:
1)
Thomas Young
2)
John C. Sommerer
3)
Paul D. Spudis
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Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectrometer (LIBS) uses laser pulses to study sand scarp. Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) took this image on February 2, 2016, Sol 1241
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover remains parked at Namib dune.
While troubleshooting continues on the Collection and Handling for Interior Martian Rock Analysis (CHIMRA) anomaly, the rover’s robotic arm has been cleared for use.
In a few hours of this posting, the Mars robot will slip into Sol 1242.
Lauren Edgar, a research geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff reports that science investigations in this area are nearly completed
Plans are in work, Edgar says, to make use of the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), located on the turret at the end of the rover’s robotic arm, to supplement Curiosity’s previously acquired selfie.
Also on tap are taking long-distance Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) mosaics to study layering on Mt. Sharp and the northern crater rim.
Ripple target
Previously, the rover had scuffed the edge of Namib Dune and collected scoops of sand from that dune. Curiosity’s examination of active sand dunes is the first ever done up close other than on Earth.
This view from NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover shows the downwind side of “Namib Dune,” which stands about 13 feet (4 meters) high.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Information gleaned from this research provides knowledge regarding active dune processes in conditions with much less atmosphere and less gravity than on Earth.
In other upcoming rover work, “we’ll also acquire a Mastcam image to document the target “Erongo,” and use Navcam to search for dust devils and monitor the atmosphere,” Edgar adds. “Then we’ll use MAHLI to document several of the scoop and dump locations.”
On the morning of Sol 1242, Mastcam and Navcam will image the ripple target “Epupa” under favorable morning illumination conditions, Edgar notes.
Dates of planned rover activities are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.
Courtesy: CIA
For all you flying saucer supporters, take a peek into the Central Intelligence Agency’s own “X-Files.”
The CIA declassified hundreds of documents in 1978 detailing the Agency’s investigations into Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). The documents date primarily from the late 1940s and 1950s.
There’s a vast amount of data contained in their Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) UFO collection, so the CIA decided to highlight a few documents both skeptics and believers will find interesting.
Courtesy: CIA
Within a new CIA blog on January 21, readers will find documents they claim X-Files character Agent Fox Mulder and Agent Dana Scully could use to investigate explanations for UFO sightings, such as:
Flying Saucers Reported Over East Germany, 1952; Flying Saucers Reported Over Spain and North Africa, 1952; Scientific Advisory Panel on Unidentified Flying Objects, January 1953, as well as Memorandum to the CIA Director on Flying Saucers, October 1952.
Courtesy: CIA
Go to:
https://www.cia.gov/news-information/blog/2016/take-a-peek-into-our-x-files.html
Also, the CIA issued “How to Investigate a Flying Saucer” that includes 10 tips when investigating a flying saucer at:
Credit: CNAS
In an on-line story today from Defense One: “USAF Stands Up Space Mission Force to Counter Russia, China,” written by Patrick Tucker.
The story explains that today, on February 1, “the Air Force will stand up a Space Mission Force at the 50th Space Wing at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado, the first of several steps meant to put more experienced and ready people in charge of watching U.S. military satellites.”
Later this year, the Defense One story adds, “the Air Force will stand up two more Space Mission Force crews in Colorado: one at the 21st Space Wing at Peterson Air Force Base and then one at the 460th Space Wing at Buckley Air Force Base.”
The Pentagon has been preparing for space war for decades, holding war games. “But the Space Mission Force represents an entirely different kind of buildup,” Tucker explains.
Limited war strategy for space
Credit: CNAS
Meanwhile, late last month, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) has issued: From Sanctuary to Battlefield – A Framework for a U.S. Defense and Deterrence Strategy for Space, authored by Elbridge Colby, the Robert M. Gates Senior Fellow at CNAS.
The revealing white paper details the vital importance of space to the United States and the increasing threat. The report outlines defense and deterrence for space and the need for a “limited war strategy for space,” along with a framework for favorably limiting war in space.
Credit: CNAS
The CNAS white paper explains that “the United States should continue to make clear that it would regard any attacks in space as constituting a grave form of escalation. But it should back that assertion with an ability to fight and prevail in a limited war in space. Nothing would be so likely to prevent any such war from happening, or to limit its baleful consequences should it break out, as a clear ability to do just that.”
Credit: CNAS
Resources:
For the Defense One story, “USAF Stands Up Space Mission Force to Counter Russia, China,” go to:
To access the new CNAS white paper, From Sanctuary to Battlefield – A Framework for a U.S. Defense and Deterrence Strategy for Space, go to:
http://www.cnas.org/from-sanctuary-to-battlefield#.Vq9t4NIrKt9
China’s Yutu robot was dispatched from the Chang’e 3 lander that softly touched down on the lunar landscape on December 14, 2013.
For the first time in a format easily accessible to all, downloads and downloads of science-quality images from China’s Chang’e 3 lander and Yutu rover are now available.
Check out her impressive new blog: “Fun with a new data set – Chang’e 3 lander and Yutu rover camera data.” Go to:
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2016/01281656-fun-with-a-new-data-set-change.html
China’s Chang’e 3 lander.
Chinese Academy of Sciences/China National Space Administration/The Science and Application Center for Moon and Deepspace Exploration/Emily Lakdawalla
Map produced by Phil Stooke for the Atlas of Lunar Exploration, with many names assigned from a Chang’e 3 mission overview paper by Chunlai Li and coauthors. (Li, C. et al, 2015. The Chang’e 3 Mission Overview. Space Science Reviews, v. 190, pp. 85-101.)
Credit: Chinese Academy of Sciences/Phil Stooke
Dated January 19, 2016, this self-portrait of NASA’s car-size Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at “Namib Dune.” This is a locale where the rover’s activities included scuffing into the dune with a wheel and scooping samples of sand for laboratory analysis. This new selfie combines 57 images taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera at the end of Curiosity’s arm.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is entering Sol 1239, with ground controllers still trying to troubleshoot a problem with the arm-mounted Collection and Handling for In-situ Martian Rock Analysis device – CHIMRA for short.
Soil samples are acquired with CHIMRA’s clam-shell scoop mechanism.
Diagram of CHIMRA, showing the scoop in an open position (indicated here in red).
Credit: NASA/JPL
The CHIMRA is a device that sieves and portions the samples from the scoop and the drill which are then distributed to the analytical instruments, the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite and the Chemistry & Mineralogy X-Ray Diffraction/X-Ray Fluorescence Instrument (CheMin). Various chambers and labyrinths within the mechanism are used to sort and sieve the drilled rock or scooped soil material.
Backlog of data
On Friday, Ryan Anderson, a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona and a member of the Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) team on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), reported:
“Since the anomaly with CHIMRA is still being investigated, there was no science involving the arm in today’s plan. Still, there was plenty to do, and we had to be careful not to collect too much extra data because there is a backlog of data on the rover waiting to be downlinked to Earth.”
The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on the robotic arm of NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover used electric lights at night on Jan. 22, 2016, to illuminate this postage-stamp-size view of Martian sand grains dumped on the ground after sorting with a sieve.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSSOn Friday, Ryan Anderson, a planetary scientist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona and a member of the Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) team on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), reported:“Since the anomaly with CHIMRA is still being investigated, there was no science involving the arm in today’s plan. Still, there was plenty to do, and we had to be careful not to collect too much extra data because there is a backlog of data on the rover waiting to be downlinked to Earth.”
Fine-scaled layering
Looking ahead to Sol 1239, the plan calls for observations of a target called “Gosser Schroffenstein” in the area called “Mniszechis Vlei.”
That site is where the rover’s “wheel scuff” in the sand exposed a tiny scarp or cliff in the sand, Anderson explains. “This little scarp gives us a good view of the fine-scaled layering in the top few centimeters of the dune,” he adds.
Anderson points out that once the science is done on Sol 1239 there is additional diagnostics on the balky CHIMRA. Later in the day on Sol 1239, Curiosity’s Chemistry & Mineralogy X-Ray Diffraction/X-Ray Fluorescence Instrument (CheMin) is on tap to analyze some of the sand that was collected previously.
Also slated are long-distance Remote Microscopic Imager (RMI) mosaics of Mt. Sharp.
Curiosity’s Mastcam Right image taken on January 29, 2016 on Sol 1237.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Wind moves
Rover science teams are looking at possible sites for the next use of Curiosity’s drill to collect rock-powder samples of the bedrock in the area.
Landing on Mars in August 2012, Curiosity reached the base of Mount Sharp in 2014 after investigating outcrops closer to its landing site and then trekking to the layered mountain.
On the lower portion of the mountain, the robot is studying how Mars’ ancient environment changed from wet conditions favorable for microbial life to harsher, drier conditions.
Curiosity has been surveying a group of active sand dunes for two months. The rover is studying how the wind moves and sorts sand particles on Mars. The site under study by the robot is part of Bagnold Dune Field, which lines the northwestern flank of Mars’ Mount Sharp.
The Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) 1 telescope on Maui’s Mount Haleakala, Hawaii has produced the most near-Earth object discoveries of the NASA-funded NEO surveys in 2015.
Credit: University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy/Rob Ratkowski
The outlook of Earth being on the receiving end of a menacing asteroid in the future is real – but very much in the celestial cards of chance.
But when the high-stakes card is dealt, responding to a hostile near-Earth object (NEO) is a global challenge.
In early January, NASA announced the establishment of a Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) created to coordinate U.S. agencies and intergovernmental efforts to respond to future near-Earth objects that threaten Earth.
Proposed NEOCam space telescope can survey the regions of space closest to the Earth’s orbit, where potentially hazardous asteroids are most likely to be found. NEOCam will use infrared light to characterize their physical properties such as their diameters.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Synchronizing NEO efforts
Among its functions, the PDCO has been set up to not only synchronize NEO efforts in the U.S. but also supervise all NASA-funded projects to find and characterize asteroids and comets that pass near Earth’s orbit around the sun.
First telescope of the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) system is up and operating on Haleakala.
Credit: Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii
In an exclusive interview, I talked with the chief of that office, NASA’s Lindley Johnson.
Go to my new Space.com story on how Johnson sees the office shaping up and goals for 2016 at:
NASA’s New Planetary Defense Office Gets to Work Protecting Earth
By Leonard David, Space.com’s Space Insider Columnist
January 29, 2016 07:52am ET
http://www.space.com/31770-nasa-planetary-defense-office-asteroid-threat.html
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) photo taken on January 19, 2016, during Sol 1228 operations.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The Curiosity rover on Mars has run into an anomaly using its Collection and Handling for In-Situ Martian Rock Analysis (CHIMRA) device. That hardware is attached to the turret at the end of the robotic arm on the Red Planet machinery.
“The cause of the CHIMRA anomaly is still being investigated,” reports Ken Herkenhoff of the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. The problem has curtailed robotic arm motion, while diagnostic testing on CHIMRA continues.
Bad behavior
The CHIMRA behaved in an unexpected way during processing of the third scoop of sand back on Sol 1231. Experts have been evaluating the anomalous behavior of the device and developing a recovery plan.
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity image taken on Sol 1221, January 12, 2016.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Only remote science observations from Curiosity are being allowed, Herkenhoff adds.
Curiosity is now in Sol 1237 operations.
MRO maintenance
There has been a reduction in volume of data from the rover, Herkenhoff notes, because the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is undertaking pre-planned maintenance this week and cannot relay data from Curiosity. “Fortunately, it looks like we will be able to get all the critical data via the Mars Odyssey orbiter,” he points out.
In addition to the CHIMRA diagnostic tests on Sol 1237, the rover’s Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) and Mastcam were to image the alluvial fan northeast of the rover, at the base of the Gale crater wall.
Wheel scuff in stereo
The rover’s Mastcam and Navcam are also to take stereo images of the edge of the area disturbed by Curiosity’s wheel “scuff” named “Mniszechis Vlei.”
Herkenhoff explains that the command to allow the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite to examine a sample of dune sand was not received, “so we’ll try again overnight between Sols 1237 and 1238.”
The plan calls for Sol 1238 to include day use of ChemCam to observe the sky and continue checking out new software that will allow autonomous ChemCam targeting.
CURIOSITY Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) image taken on January 19, 2016, Sol 1228.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Detection observations
“Mastcam change detection observations of the sand dune are also sprinkled throughout the plan,” says Herkenhoff.
Finally, just after sunset the Remote Micro Imager (RMI) telescope is slated to take images of the sky for instrument calibration. “We have been trying to plan this observation for weeks, and were glad to be able to include it in today’s plan,” Herkenhoff concludes.
NOTE: Dates of planned rover activities are all subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.
Credit: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Publishers
The informative New Space journal is offering free access to an “uplifting” set of articles on the space elevator concept.
This free access to readers is available through February 29th.
Read now:
- Opening up Earth-Moon Enterprise with a Space Elevator
By Peter A. Swan
Go to:
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/space.2015.0025
- The Status of Space Elevator Infrastructures
By John M. Knapman and Peter A. Swan
Go to:
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/space.2015.0028
- A Historical Look at the Concept of Space Elevators
By David I. Raitt
Go to:
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/space.2015.0024
NOTE: Special thanks to New Space Editor-in-Chief Scott Hubbard and Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. publishers for making these new space elevator articles available.
Because the Centaurs cross the paths of the major planets, their orbits are unstable: some will eventually be ejected from the solar system, but others will be thrown onto trajectories bringing them inwards, therefore posing a danger to civilization and life on Earth.
Credit: Duncan Steel
All the hoopla over that “should be there” Planet 9 has spurred speculation about its danger to Planet 3 – Earth.
So far, just mathematical modeling and computer simulations suggest this way out world could have a mass about 10 times that of Earth. Furthermore, this purported planet would make one full orbit around the Sun, a period of time that takes between 10,000 and 20,000 years.
This still to be seen planet orbits about 20 times farther from the Sun on average than does Neptune (which orbits the Sun at an average distance of 2.8 billion miles).
This artistic rendering shows the distant view from Planet Nine back towards the sun. The planet is thought to be gaseous, similar to Uranus and Neptune. Hypothetical lightning lights up the night side.
Credit: Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)
Unnerving possibility
Is it reasonable to consider an unnerving possibility: whether the orbit of this still speculative globe might not arouse waves of objects to tumble inward into our solar system, placing our world in peril?
Inside Outer Space asked that question of Duncan Steel at the Center for Astrobiology, University of Buckingham, and Armagh Observatory in the UK.
Steel and his colleagues recently reported that the discovery of hundreds of giant comets in the outer planetary system over the last two decades means that these objects pose a much greater hazard to life than asteroids.
The giant comets — termed centaurs — move on unstable orbits crossing the paths of the massive outer planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The planetary gravitational fields can occasionally deflect these objects in towards the Earth.
Planet 9 backers, Caltech professor Mike Brown and assistant professor Konstanin Batygin, have been working together to investigate distant objects in our solar system
Credit: Lance Hayashida/Caltech
Reassessment of extraterrestrial factors
More to the point, as Steel has written: “The discovery of many substantial objects in the outer solar system demands a reassessment of extraterrestrial factors putatively implicated in mass extinction events.”
Steel has calculated the terrestrial impact probability for all known asteroids and questions whether the old concept of single, random asteroid impacts causing mass extinctions is “deficient” given what is now known of the inventory of small bodies in the solar system.
Waves of objects
The “problem”, as such, Steel told Inside Outer Space, is stirring up trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). “This Planet 9 would likely fit the bill. That is, we might expect waves of objects to come inwards whenever Planet 9 is near perihelion and thus enters a denser region of TNOs.”
Be clear that most of the objects out there will be far smaller than the TNOs detected to date, Steel adds, “big devils, they have to be, to be detectable.”
“If this Planet 9 exists, then it may show itself in other ways, such as a shower of comets entering the inner solar system whenever Planet 9 nears perihelion,” Steel says. “We might see the 20,000 year periodicity in cometary dust deposits on Earth, for example. A problem would be that we know that Earth’s climate cycle, due to terrestrial orbit variations, follows a similar periodicity.”
The six most distant known objects in the solar system with orbits exclusively beyond Neptune (magenta) all mysteriously line up in a single direction. Also, when viewed in three dimensions, they tilt nearly identically away from the plane of the solar system. New work by Caltech’s Batygin and Brown show that a planet with 10 times the mass of the Earth in a distant eccentric orbit anti-aligned with the other six objects (orange) is required to maintain this configuration.
Credit: Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)/Diagram created using WorldWide Telescope.
Jury still out
On the Planet 9 hypothesis, Steel points out: “The jury is out on this idea, and will be for some time. It’s a useful and interesting suggestion, not altogether unexpected. There are certain to be contrary ideas.”
But if the claims for a Planet 9 are correct, “then more TNOs with similar orbits to those identified should be discovered over the next decade, adding to the statistical weight of evidence,” Steel concludes.
