Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category

Given the growing aspirations of the smallsat community, a big concern is the mounting risk posed by orbital debris – and the potential contribution to the nagging problem by pico/nano/micro-satellites developers.

A contest is underway to suggest devices for expedited or controlled re-entry at the end of a satellite’s mission life.

To that end, the University Space Engineering Consortium (UNISEC) Global has put in place a Deorbit Device Competition – targeted at the university CubeSat community.

The competition is designed to facilitate the sharing of innovative solutions for debris mitigation and developing effective deorbit devices that can be demonstrated and validated with CubeSats.

Criteria

Any proposed deorbit device is to be evaluated according to the following criteria:

Effectiveness – How effectively and how fast can the device make the satellite de-orbit?

Mass and envelope at launch – Does the device fit CubeSat (1U-3U) at launch?

Cost – Is it affordable for university satellites?

Technical feasibility/Mechanical and electrical design – Is the device designed to function properly?

Impact on the satellite – Is the device (power, mass, weight, etc.) suitable for CubeSat?

Reliability – Is the device designed to fail with a low probability?

Safety – Does the device influence other satellites when it is launched?

Maintenance before launch – Is the device robust and hard to break?

User friendliness – Is the device easy to interface to the satellite?

Debris risk – Does the device generate risks in producing additional debris? Will it function even if satellite has problem in functioning?

Lingering litter

As noted in a de-orbiting strategies review by Herman Styen earlier this year, abandoned satellites and rocket upper stages litter the environment around Earth. There is increased probability of collisions in Earth orbit. Furthermore, uncontrolled growth of the Earth orbiting debris population risks the safety of future operations.

Over the years, scads of solutions have been proposed, Styen notes, such as chemical and electric propulsion, electrodynamic tethers and deorbit sails.

The UNISEC Global competition is meant to improve awareness of the long-term sustainability of space activities.

 

Technical approaches

The Deorbit Device Competition (DDC) is organized to identify possible technical approaches for cost effective and innovative system concepts for the deorbit device.

“Space engineers, researchers, students and all interested in contributing to the harmonious space development will be welcome to join and share ideas and plans,” notes the DDC website.

 

 

 

 

Note: The deadline for concepts submitted as abstracts is at month’s end – April 30, 2016. (This has now been changed to May 31, 2016.)

Final presentations of accepted concepts will be held in Istanbul, Turkey on October 21, 2016.

Details regarding the competition are available at:

http://unisec-global.org/ddc/index.html

A low cost, domestic launch capability will be of significant strategic value to the space sector of the United Kingdom, according to a new report published by the Satellite Applications Catapult.

The “IGS Low Cost Access to Space” report focuses on the UK’s expertise in the small satellite market – a growing segment of the space sector, for which low cost access to space is key.

Market opportunities

This new report recommends actions for industry, Government, the Satellite Applications Catapult and academia, which will be required to capitalize on existing UK strengths in small satellite manufacturing, satellite applications and services, and future demand for commercial human spaceflight and microgravity research.

Stuart Martin, CEO of the Satellite Applications Catapult and Chairman of the Space Leadership Council Industry Advisory Group on Low Cost Access to Space, said the report addresses market opportunities that low cost access to space can offer, for small satellite launch, commercial human spaceflight, and for microgravity science research, “not just for the UK, but for Europe as a whole.”

Key findings

Among the key findings of the report:

• Low cost access to space is a key requirement for any major player in this sector, leading to increased economic benefits through satellite manufacturing, applications and services.

• An operational spaceport to support orbital access is a top priority: a spaceport will position the UK to take advantage of emerging demand for small satellite launch, commercial human spaceflight and microgravity research.

NOTE: For access to “IGS Low Cost Access to Space” and other related reports, go to:

https://sa.catapult.org.uk/market-reports

China is celebrating a “National Day of Space Flight,” spotlighting the launch of its first satellite, Dong Fang Hong No. 1, on April 24, 1970.

Surrounding the festivities, Chinese space officials have pointed to a number of upcoming and projected space initiatives – such as Moon and Mars spacecraft launches, piloted space flight and space station building, as well as evaluating reusable launch technology.

Five-year plan

Over the years, China has launched the Long March series of carrier rockets for 226 times, with a success rate of over 96 percent, notes Xu Dazhe vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, administrator of the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense and administrator of the China National Space Administration.

Xu explained that in the year of 2016, the beginning of China’s 13th Five-Year Plan, China’s Mars Exploration Project has been officially approved, the National Civil Space Infrastructure Construction has been established, the Moon-bound Chang’e-4 mission has been initiated, the Chang’e-5 lunar project has entered a key stage, the Beidou Navigation System has accelerated integration with global networking and the “non-poisonous and pollution-free” Long March 5 and 7 boosters are due for their maiden flights this year.

The Tiangong-2 space lab and Shenzhou-11 piloted craft, Gaofen-3 Satellite, Fengyun-4 Meteorology Satellite, Hard-X Ray Modulation Telescope Detection Satellite and Quantum Science Experiment Satellite will also be launched this year, Xu said.

Xu also noted that China has in place over 100 cooperation agreements signed with 30 state-level space institutions and international organizations. “Starting from this new point, we are willing to take a more open attitude and collaborate with other countries to compose a new chapter in space exploration and contribute to human welfare.”

 

 

Red planet rover

“The Mars mission marks China entry into the de facto phase of deep-space exploration. Even though our spacecraft have already entered deep space, we need the Mars mission to help us improve our understanding of deep space,” Xu said.

Xu has reported earlier that the Mars probe, to be launched around 2020, is expected to orbit the red planet, land and deploy a rover all in one mission, “which is quite difficult to achieve,” Xu added. He said that the Mars mission was approved by central authorities in January.

Stressing the mission’s importance and difficulty, Xu said that although China has sent spacecraft deep into space, “only by completing this Mars probe mission can China say it has embarked on the exploration of deep space in the true sense.”

Reusable rocket technologies

 The state-run Xinhua news agency also reports that China is working on its own reusable rocket technologies.

According to Xinhua, Chinese rocket specialists have built a prototype model to test theories on reusable rocket booster landing subsystems. They have completed “experimental verifications” using “multiple parachutes” apparently attached to the booster, a source with China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technologies (CALT), developer of China’s Long March rocket series, said.

Ma Zhibin, deputy director of CALT’s aerospace department also confirmed to Xinhua that Chinese scientists are working on reusable rockets, although the technologies they employ may differ from those of Elon Musk and his SpaceX rocketeers.

“There is of course more than one way to do this … I believe we could see some serious results during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, Ma said, referring to the five years between 2016 and 2020.

Space lab living room

In related Chinese space news, Wang Zhongyang, spokesman with the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), detailed more about the upcoming launch of the country’s second space lab –Tiangong-2 — slated for liftoff in the third quarter of this year.

Tiangong-2 is assigned various duties, carrying out space science experiments and repair tests as prelude to China’s first orbital space station, expected to be in service around 2022.

Wang said Tiangong-2 has been modified from its predecessor, Tiangong-1. Those modifications will make the space lab more livable for mid-term stays of crews.

“Unlike Tiangong-1, Tiangong-2 will be our first genuine space lab,” Wang said. A two-person Shenzhou-11 spacecraft is to be linked to Tiangong-2 in the fourth quarter of this year. The two male Chinese astronauts are expected to partake in a 30-day mission in the new space lab before returning to Earth.

The yet-to-be-identified Chinese astronauts are currently receiving training for the mission.

In 2017, Tiangong-2 and China’s first space cargo ship, Tianzhou-1, are to link up in the first half of next year. Tianzhou-1 is to be orbited via a next generation Long March-7 rocket. During that mission, Chinese space authorities are to verify key technologies such as in-space propellant refueling.

 

At this writing, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is carrying out Sol 1320 duties.

“It’s always exciting when we get to drill a new sample on Mars,” notes Lauren Edgar, a research geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona reports.

Contact science went well on Sol 1319 Edgar explains, with a drill pre-load test suggested that the “Lubango” block might have moved slightly, but the plan is to drill in the weekend plan.

“In addition to the main drill activities, the plan includes several targeted science blocks, which will be used to characterize the drill location and search for the next potential drill site on unaltered Stimson bedrock,” Edgar points out.

Fingers crossed

Also on the weekend plan is Mastcam multispectral characterization of the drill hole, followed by several Mastcam mosaics.

“The color information provided by Mastcam is really helpful in distinguishing altered versus unaltered bedrock. We also planned a small mosaic to assess a fracture that crosscuts an impact crater,” Edgar says.

 

 

The science script also calls for shooting several Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) targets to assess the block that is set for drilling, and a few sites that the rover might bump to next.

Weekend science block includes an additional target to assess unaltered Stimson bedrock.

“Fingers crossed,” Edgar concludes, “for a successful drilling campaign!”

 

 

 

 

Wheel inspection

Curiosity also recently performed a detailed look at its wheels, monitored on a regular basis due to damage caused by the one-ton rover rolling over Mars rocks since landing in August 2012.

 

The European Space Agency (ESA) has released an impressive and highly informative “Interactive Guide to the Moon.”

The why and how of lunar exploration is detailed, an authoritative blueprint that’s detailed and carved up into categories: Science, Technology and Missions.

Moon first strategy

ESA’s exploration strategy is in line with the Global Exploration Roadmap drawn up by the International Space Exploration Coordination Group. That European strategy considers the Moon as the next destination for humans venturing beyond low Earth-orbit. Doing so is viewed as an integral part of the roadmap towards human missions to Mars.

The new website looks at historic and future lunar missions characterized in 5 categories: landers, rovers, Apollo, orbiters and robotic sample return.

Human-robot partnership

“Scenarios for robotic explorers foresee a stronger human-robot partnership,” the site explains. “The ESA-led study HERACLES envisions a first surface mission in the mid-2020s. This mission would collect samples using a rover that drives the material back to a rocket that would launch to a station orbiting the Moon. The crew aboard this outpost would retrieve the sample for further analysis.”

Looking to the future, the website explains that European and Russian space agencies are working together to send a lander to the Moon’s South Pole. The PROSPECT package aims at collecting and analyzing samples on the Moon and is being developed by ESA for the Russian Luna 27 mission, scheduled for flight in 2020.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To explore this unique and info-packed site, go to:

http://lunarexploration.esa.int/#/intro

China is supporting a national day of space – a date selected that salutes the country’s first satellite launching back in 1970.

April 24^th will also note China’s ongoing aerospace activities as it marks the 60^th anniversary of progress in that arena.

Space station module

Meanwhile, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency has reported that the core module of its space station – due for launch around 2018 — will be tagged “Tianhe-1” – a Chinese word for Milky Way or Galaxy.

Xinhua reports that Wang Zhongyang from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. says that two space labs will be launched later and dock with Tianhe-1.” Wang adds that the construction of the space station “is expected to finish in 2022.”

That core module is to be orbited by the yet-to-fly Long March 5 booster headed for its maiden shakeout flight this September.

Wang points out that a space telescope akin to the Hubble Space Telescope will “be in a separate space unit and share orbit alongside the space station.” He also notes that if the International Space Station is retired by 2024, “China’s new space station will be the only operational one in outer space.”

Next piloted flight

Coming up this year is launch of the piloted Shenzhou 11 and Tiangong 2 space lab. This second space lab is to rocket into space in September.

A month later, Shenzhou 11 is slated to carry two astronauts that will dock with Tiangong 2.

In 2017, the maiden flight of China’s cargo ship, Tianzhou 1, is to dock with Tiangong 2. This supply ship is to be boosted by the Long March 7, a launcher also set to debut this year.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now in Sol 1317, with all activities planned for last weekend done successfully.

Ken Herkenhoff of the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona also reports that the robot has completed a full wheel imaging session using its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI).

High silica

The science team decided to return to the “Lubango” outcrop based on Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) results that show unusually high silica there.

A Sol 1316 plan called for a drive back toward Lubango to find good targets for drilling, Herkenhoff adds. Before the drive, ChemCam and Mastcam will observe bedrock targets “Outapi” and “Okongo,” and the rover is on tap to acquire a mosaic of “Piambo.”

Curiosity’s Mastcam was scheduled to take images of the Lubango area, and Navcam will search for dust devils.

Active Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) measurements are planned both before and after a short drive of Curiosity, and the Chemistry & Mineralogy X-Ray Diffraction/X-Ray Fluorescence Instrument (CheMin) is to perform calibration activities overnight.

New map

Meanwhile, a new map has been issued that shows the route driven by the Mars rover through the 1316 Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s mission on Mars (April, 19, 2016).

Numbering of the dots along the line indicate the sol number of each drive. North is up.

From Sol 1315 to Sol 1316, Curiosity had driven a straight line distance of about 50.66 feet (15.44 meters).

 

Since touching down in Bradbury Landing in August 2012, Curiosity has driven 7.91 miles (12.73 kilometers).

The base image from the map is from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera (HiRISE) in NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Just in time for Earth Day on Friday, April 22, 2016!

A Beautiful Planet Official Trailer #1 (2016) spotlights this HD documentary epic, an exploration of Earth and beyond as seen from outer space.

The documentary features vignettes from Scott Kelly’s near-year exposure to space aboard the International Space Station.

A Beautiful Planet was made in cooperation with NASA and features stunning footage of our blue planet…and the effects humanity has had on it over time.

This visual treat is from IMAX Entertainment and Toni Myers — the acclaimed filmmaker behind celebrated IMAX® documentaries Blue Planet, Hubble 3D, and Space Station 3D.

The documentary film hits the screen in select theaters on April 29th, exclusively in IMAX and IMAX 3D.

Take a look at this trailer at:

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

Also, check out classroom activities inspired by the film to enhance your understanding of the Earth, the importance of the International Space Station (ISS) and the work that’s being done to conserve our planet and its resources.

Go to:

http://abeautifulplanet.imax.com/

 

 

 

 

 

It is tagged as “Breakthrough Starshot” – using an ultra-light vessel made of what are essentially cell phone components and a thin, reflective light sail propelled by an enormous array of Earth-based lasers.

The target would be the nearest star — other than our Sun — Alpha Centauri.

The plan was largely drafted by a team of Harvard astrophysics students and fellows led by Astronomy Department Chair Abraham Loeb. Loeb is the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science and director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Seed money

Loeb was approached last summer by Yuri Milner, a Russian Internet billionaire, and Peter Worden, the executive director of the effort and Chairman of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation.

Milner has pledged $100 million in seed money for the project, which organizers expect will require billions of dollars, 20 years to launch, 20 years to reach Alpha Centauri (a binary system where two stars orbit each other), and four years for the beamed signal to reach Earth.

Alvin Powell, Harvard Staff Writer, spoke to Loeb about the project and the importance of visionary ideas to excite the imagination and inspire a new generation of scientists.

Uplifting vision

GAZETTE: This seems like a giant leap. From a technological standpoint, is this harder or easier than sending a man to the moon was when President John Kennedy first announced it in 1961?

LOEB: I think it’s harder. Back then we had the technology. It used chemical rockets. All we needed to do was to build a sufficiently massive rocket that could carry a person safely to the moon. So there were engineering challenges, but the technique of making it was already demonstrated.

Kennedy said, “We are doing it because it’s hard, not because it’s easy,” and that vision of going beyond Earth inspired a generation. A lot of young people went to work on space-related things, and there were benefits to society from the technology that was developed. There was a political context of beating the Russians, of course, but if you think of it from a scientific perspective, this vision was really uplifting, people were inspired by it.

Oscar Wilde said, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” And the way I see it is having a vision for something bigger could inspire a generation to work toward it.

Launch of wafers

GAZETTE: What are the biggest challenges, the things we have to develop?

LOEB: This method we’re talking about was conceived as soon as the laser was invented. Back in the ’60s, Robert Forward suggested using lasers to push a sail to high speeds. The pressure of the radiation — the light on the sail — is pushing it. You can get up to the speed of light in principle because you’re pushing it with light.

The problem back then was that people thought that they needed to take humans along, and the weight of the spaceships would have been tens or hundreds of tons — very massive things, very difficult to construct.

The big technological advance over the past decades has been the miniaturization of electronics, smart electronics. It was all driven by the cell phone industry. If you look at an iPhone and strip it from the case and the human interface, you’re left with smart electronics that weigh roughly a gram, much lighter than anything else to use. You can also build a sail that weighs roughly a gram, one that stretches a few meters in size. And in terms of lasers, there were big advances in putting together many small lasers and combining their beams into a single beam.

There were these technological advances, but nobody put them in the context of space. Within a couple of months, we will launch wafers — small chips that include smart electronics — into space for the first time. We have a team member, Zac Manchester, a postdoc at Harvard’s engineering school who is now working with me, who did his Ph.D. on this subject. We will launch a mother rocket and then release 100 of these into space just to see how they behave, how they survive at low temperatures.

The goal of the project is to get to the nearest star within the lifetime of our generation. The nearest star is four light years away, meaning that it takes four years for light to make it from the sun to that star, and that means a spacecraft needs to be launched at a fifth of the speed of light in order to get there within 20 years.

100 gigawatts

GAZETTE: Is there a limit to how fast you can accelerate these little crafts?

LOEB: In principle, if you put more power behind them, you could get them to higher speeds, or you could make them a lighter weight. But what we’re trying to achieve is already very challenging, so we’re trying to do the minimum necessary to achieve the goal. You need 100 gigawatts, roughly, for two minutes, in order to do that. There’s a certain distance out to which you can focus the laser light and still have the beam small enough that it focuses on the sail and doesn’t diverge. And over that distance we need to reach a fifth of the speed of light. That tells you how powerful the laser should be.

Just for comparison, a space shuttle launch lasts 10 minutes, and it consumes a very similar amount of energy as what we need, but we give it to a gram-scale spacecraft instead of the very massive space shuttle.

 

 

FedEx for space

GAZETTE: What do we expect to see at Alpha Centauri when we get there? And it’s just a flyby, right?

LOEB: Right. It’s a flyby because it’s very difficult to stop something moving at a fifth the speed of light. The biggest cost is the launch, the infrastructure. Once we have that, we can launch every day, we can have hundreds of them going there or in different directions.

The first phase will actually be exploration of the solar system. Just to give you an example, to get to Pluto it would take three days instead of the 9½ years it took New Horizons to get there. If we launch at a fifth of the speed of light, it’ll get there the same week.

You can imagine FedEx sending packages to Mars, arriving the same day. This will allow exploration of the solar system first. For example, there is this moon of Saturn called Enceladus where you see plumes of water vapor coming out, and people think that under the icy surface there is liquid water and perhaps life. One way to find out is to go through the plumes and try to detect the fingerprints of life, these biomarkers.

These spacecraft are so cheap — the ones we are launching in two months were about $20 apiece — you shouldn’t worry about sacrificing some of them that crash against the surface of an object. If they miss their goal or something bad happens to them, it’s not a big deal. You just send more. We will try to demonstrate this by launching a swarm of these guys around the moon first, taking pictures. There is a lot that one can do within the solar system.

Expect the unexpected

GAZETTE: Are there planets near Alpha Centauri?

LOEB: We don’t know if there’s a planet in Alpha Centauri right now. But by the time we construct this system capable of launching something at a fifth of the speed of light, we will know for sure. Then we can target those planets. When I look through the window of my house at the back yard, it often looks the same. But if I walk out into the back yard, I find new things. I see a rabbit, a bird, and going to those distant places will allow us to find new things that we hadn’t expected.

Columbus aimed for the East Indies by sailing westward, and he found the New World, something he didn’t expect. It’s part of any exploration. Once you go on the journey — even though you are motivated by one thing — you find many other things.

Push from behind

GAZETTE: When Yuri Milner and Pete Worden came in to talk with you about the project, did you think “this is crazy,” or did you warm to the idea immediately?

LOEB: I said, “Look, I need some time to look into the suggestions people made over the years and see if anything looks practical.” I asked my students and postdocs, “Who wants to be involved in this?” and most of them agreed. And since July 2015, we had weekly meetings, we basically went through all kinds of proposals that people have made. The only one that looked feasible is the one where you leave the fuel at home and you’re pushing the thing from behind with a laser or with a light beam.

In December, when we go on winter break, I usually go to Israel. I went there, and my wife said, “Oh, let’s go with the family to a goat farm in the southern part of Israel.” Then the morning we were about to go, I get a phone call from Pete Worden, saying, “Yuri wants you to report on the findings of your group next week, at his home.”

So I said, “OK.” But we got to the goat farm and there was no Internet there except at the office. So at 6 in the morning, I sat with my back to the office so I could get reception and started working on my presentation. And I thought to myself, “I’m looking at these goats — some of them were born just the day before — and writing a presentation trying to advocate interstellar travel for the first time in human history. The people at that farm would never imagine that was happening.”

Real work starts now

GAZETTE: How has the response been?

LOEB: The response was overwhelming. I got hundreds of emails from people wanting to be part of this. But it’s not about the announcement; it’s about starting to work on these challenges.

The real work starts now, as far as I’m concerned. We need to demonstrate credibility in the next few years — that we know what we are doing. We need to demonstrate the technology, that’s the important thing.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

For detailed information on the concept, go to:

http://breakthroughinitiatives.org/Initiative/3

http://breakthroughinitiatives.org/News/4

NASA’s Curiosity rover is about to enter Sol 1314 on its Mars exploration adventure.

The word from rover science planners is that Curiosity has moved into an area where there are no good brushable targets in the robotic arm workspace, so the dust removal tool will not be used.

However, tactical planning included a trio of targets for the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) and use of the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) to make measurements of natural surfaces.

Selected outcrop

Ken Herkenhoff of the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona reports that the Sol 1313 plan was to start with a mid-day Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) observation of the sky and Mastcam images of the Sun to measure the amount of dust in the atmosphere.

The plan also called for Curiosity’s robotic arm would be deployed to take MAHLI images of “Kasane” and “Uau,” on either side of a bright/dark boundary in a selected outcrop.

MAHLI was then to take pictures of another bedrock target dubbed “Onesi” and of the rover wheels.

The rover’s APXS was slated to be placed on Onesi and then on Uau for detailed study.

“Early the next morning, Navcam will search for clouds and Mastcam will measure dust again by imaging the Sun,” Herkenhoff explains. Later that morning, MAHLI will take pictures of the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station’s ultraviolet sensor, which is done periodically to see how much dust is on the sensor, he adds.

Broken/crushed rocks

Herkenhoff notes that remote sensing instruments are to get busy:  Mastcam will take a multispectral image of “Gariep,” a few rocks that were broken/crushed by the rover wheels, and then ChemCam and Mastcam will observe Uau, Kasane and a bedrock target named “Kolmanskop.”

The Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) is slated to acquire a mosaic of Mount Sharp. Also, Mastcam will take stereo images of the “Rasthoff” area and image the Sun again, and Navcam will search for clouds.

Finally, the APXS will be placed on Kasane for an overnight integration, in parallel with a Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) Instrument Suite scrubber cleaning activity.

Wheel imagery

Lastly, on Sol 1315, the plan calls for the rover to complete a full set of MAHLI wheel images, bumping in between images to ensure that all parts of the wheels are imaged, Herkenhoff says.

“The usual set of post-drive images will then be acquired to set us up for planning on Monday, when we will probably drive again,” Herkenhoff concludes.

As always, planned rover activities are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.