Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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March 9th, 2015
Map shows the single area under continuing evaluation as the InSight mission’s Mars landing site, as of a year before the mission’s May 2016 launch.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Thanks to two Mars orbiters, a landing site for NASA’s InSight Mars lander has been selected: NASA has now picked as the prime landing site one location in Elysium Planitia, a region where ancient lava flows cover the ground.
The landing-site selection process evaluated four candidate locations selected in 2014.
The Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) is slated for a March 2016 launch date.
Legged landing
Within the flat-lying Elysium Planitia, less than five degrees north of the equator, all four landing areas appear safe for InSight’s legged touchdown on the Red Planet on Sept. 28, 2016.
The single site will continue to be analyzed in coming months for final selection later this year. If unexpected problems with this site are found, one of the others would be imaged and could be selected.
The favored site on Mars is centered at about four degrees north latitude and 136 degrees east longitude.
Select sweet spot
The landing area is smooth, flat, with very few rocks in the highest-resolution images, said InSight’s site-selection leader, Matt Golombek of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
Both NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter and images from the University of Arizona’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter were used to select the sweet spot for landing InSight.
Infrared and visual images of the Martian surface taken by Arizona State University’s Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) onboard Odyssey is mapping dust and rocks at the projected InSight landing site.
“Picking a safe place means the landing site can’t be full of big rocks or covered in a thick layer of dust,” said Jonathon Hill of Arizona State University’s Mars Space Flight Facility — part of ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration.
By measuring how quickly the ground cools at night or warms in sunlight, THEMIS can tell the proportion of rocks and dust on the ground and thus help paint a picture of what awaits the lander at the surface.
Not a rover
InSight is not a rover. Built using the same flight platform as the Mars Phoenix lander, InSight will touch down in one place and stay there for its entire mission – projected to last two Earth years.
Credit: NASA/JPL
The InSight science payload is comprised of two instruments: the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), provided by the French Space Agency (CNES), with the participation of the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS), Imperial College and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL); and the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3), provided by the German Space Agency (DLR).
In addition, the Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment (RISE), led by JPL, will use the spacecraft communication system to provide precise measurements of planetary rotation.
Heritage hardware
Lockheed Martin is building the lander and other parts of the spacecraft. The assembly, test, and launch readiness of InSight, its aeroshell and cruise stage are well underway at Lockheed Martin Space Systems near Denver, Colorado.
The InSight mission is similar in design to the Mars lander that the NASA Phoenix mission used successfully in 2007 to study ground ice near the north pole of Mars. The reuse of this technology — developed and built by Lockheed-Martin Space Systems — provides a low-risk path to Mars without the added cost of designing and testing a new system from scratch.
JPL manages InSight for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. InSight is part of NASA’s Discovery Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Posted in 
Credit: Spaceport America
An impressive sculpture is now in place at the main entrance of New Mexico’s Spaceport America.
Artist Otto Rigan has created GENESIS – a multi-ton sculpture that is 40 feet wide, 23 feet high and 5 feet deep.
GENESIS is fabricated from steel and cast glass. The finish of the artwork will continue to patina over time.
New Mexico’s Department of Cultural Affairs funded the sculpture designed specifically for the spaceport through the Art in Public Places program. The simple yet strong design is to convey the beginning of a New Space Age.
In other Spaceport America news, the visitor experience is almost complete.
New Mexico’s Spaceport America.
Credit: Spaceport America
The Spaceport America Experience has three parts. The Spaceport Visitor Center located in Truth or Consequences (T or C), the shuttle bus ride to the spaceport, and the Gateway Gallery located in the Gateway to Space building.
The Gateway Gallery features a G-Shock Simulator, many interactive kiosks and displays focused on the science behind the commercial space industry. In addition, there are several displays of archaeological artifacts from the region.
Purpose-built
Spaceport America is the first purpose-built commercial spaceport in the world.
The launch complex, situated on 18,000 acres adjacent to the U.S. Army White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico, has been providing commercial vertical launch services since 2006. Spaceport America has hosted 21 vertical launches thus far.
The New Mexico Spaceport Authority continues to work closely with its tenants, Virgin Galactic and SpaceX, and its other flight customers in support of the commercial space industry.
Spaceport America is to be the focus point for Virgin Galactic’s effort to create a public space tourism business. The site will also soon see test flights by Space X in that firm’s work on flyback boosters.
A Chinese Service Module now in Moon orbit is practicing steps needed for the Chang’e 5 mission, slated for 2017 – a multi-module spacecraft that would land, collect, and return to Earth lunar samples.
Credit: China Space Website
China is reporting new progress in shaking out procedures required for rocketing back to Earth samples from the Moon.
China’s State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) noted the progress over the weekend, according to the state-run Xinhuanet news agency.
The service module from a previous experimental lunar craft mission was used to test maneuvers in Moon orbit, including braking into a suitable position for orbital docking.
These practice steps mimic maneuvers to be used in the future Chang’e 5 lunar return sample mission being eyed for 2017.
Reliability of technology
Liu Jizhong, deputy chief commander of the SASTIND’s lunar probe project is reported to say that the service module has proven the reliability of key technology needed for the docking of two spacecraft in the Chang’e 5 mission: hardware rocketed off the Moon that contains the lunar specimens that then couples to a return-to-Earth vehicle.
Various items are removed from the test capsule that made a circumlunar voyage last November.
Credit: CASC
The craft conducting the tests in Moon orbit was lofted from China in October of 2014. That mission also involved a successful test of a reentry capsule last November that parachuted to Earth after making a circumlunar journey.
Following detachment of the reentry capsule by the service module, it moved to the Earth-Moon Lagrange Point (L2) in late November of last year. It then departed the L2 point early this year and was flown into Moon orbit.
Three-step lunar program
The service module now in lunar orbit is reportedly still operating smoothly. It apparently is slated to carry out further tests, including snapping lunar images and might conduct tests that evaluate lunar gravity.
Liu told Xinhua that by using the service module to carry out the set of ongoing tests, space engineers have simulated three key procedures needed for Chang’e 5: Earth re-entry from the Moon at high speed; adjustment of lunar orbit and docking in lunar orbit, steps “laying a solid foundation for China’s three-step lunar program — orbiting, landing and returning,” Liu said.
The Chang’e 5 mission would be lofted moonward by a still-to-be tested Long March 5 booster, a maiden voyage that’s planned for this year from China’s new Wenchang spaceport in south China’s Hainan Province.
For a video on the mission now underway from the English CNTV channel — go to:
http://english.cntv.cn/2015/03/08/VIDE1425796693290658.shtml
The International Space Station.
A comet.
The Moon.
They all sport distinctive odors.
The scent of science off Earth is the topic of a new video produced by Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly magazine of the American Chemical Society.
A spew of phew. What’s the smell of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko?
Credit: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0.
In episode 15 of Speaking of Chemistry, host Matt Davenport sticks his nose into the science behind astronomical aromas and celestial body odors.
Go to the video at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxi1I8WNrGY
For related information, also go to:
http://www.space.com/26932-moon-smell-apollo-lunar-aroma.html
and
http://cen.acs.org/articles/92/i44/Fireworks-Fashion-Extraterrestrial-Smells.html
Credit: Sandor Kasas/EPFL
Looking for life on other planets usually relies on chemical detection. But that might be limited or even irrelevant to alien biology.
However, motion is a trait of all life, and can be used to identify microorganisms without any need of chemical foreknowledge.
Scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) have developed an extremely sensitive yet simple motion detector – accurate for detecting bacteria, yeast, and even cancer cells, and the rapid testing of drugs. And it could be used for the detection of extraterrestrial life.
The idea comes from the technology behind an existing microscope: the atomic force microscope, according to an EPFL press statement.
This powerful microscope uses a “cantilever” to produce pictures of the very atoms on a surface. The cantilever scans the surface like the needle of a record player and its up-and-down movement is read by a laser to produce an image.
Good vibrations
For example, a bacterium attaches to the cantilever. If the bacterium is alive, it will inevitably move in some way, e.g. move its flagellum or simply carry out normal biological functions.
That motion also moves the much smaller and sensitive cantilever and it is captured by the readout laser as series of vibrations.
Bottom line: The signal is taken as a sign of life.
In ground testing, researchers were able to accurately detect and isolate vibration signatures from living cells.
Chemistry-free system
In terms of space exploration, EPFL scientists, Giovanni Dietler, Sandor Kasas and Giovanni Longo, envision a large array of cantilever sensors used in future space exploration probes like a Mars rover.
As it relies on motion rather than chemistry, the cantilever sensor would be able to detect life forms in mediums that are native to other planets, such as the methane in the lakes of Titan.
“The system has the benefit of being completely chemistry-free,” says Dietler.
The work represents a collaboration of EPFL’s Laboratory of Physics of Living Matter with the University of Lausanne and the Vlaams Institute for Biotechnology.
For more information on “Detecting nanoscale vibrations as signature of life” go to:
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/2/378.abstract
A brief animation showing how the nanoscale cantilever could be implemented to detect life on samples from other planets can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Eft7cmi26I
New organizations have been created to coordinate international mitigation efforts in the event of an impending NEO threat.
Credit: NASA
A new story from me posted on SPACE.com today:
Dealing with Asteroid Threats: UN Completes First Planning Phase
by Leonard David, Space.com’s Space Insider Columnist
March 06, 2015 07:30am ET
Go to:
http://www.space.com/28755-dangerous-asteroids-united-nations-team.html
British Antarctic Survey’s Halley Research Station in Antarctica.
Credit: Sam Burrell, British Antarctic Survey.
Research stations in Antarctica are gearing up to study how humans adapt to living in faraway, isolated locales – useful information to help orchestrate long-duration sojourns in space and setting up habitats on the Moon and Mars.
Halley Research Station in Antarctica is hosting key research to understand human adaptation to space travel. Depending on the time of year, the facility is home to between 13-52 scientists and support staff.
The “bitter truth” is that the station is about to embark on winter and will experience temperatures as low as -50 degrees Celsius and more than four months of darkness.
Halley Research Station in Antarctica.
Credit: Sam Burrell, British Antarctic Survey.
The Halley crew will live in the same conditions as teams being studied at Dome Concordia – a joint French/Italian station, located on the other side of the continent – except they will be at sea level.
Isolated and in the dark
The experiment aims to investigate how well previously trained skills are maintained over the nine months period of the winter, being completely isolated and in the dark for four months.
The mobile spaceflight simulator at Halley Station has been designed by the Institute of Space Systems (IRS) of the University of Stuttgart.
Winter generator mechanic, Steve Croft, inside the space flight simulator at Halley Research Station. Credit: Alexander Finch
Partnerships for Moon, Mars…and beyond
David Vaughan, Director of Science at BAS, says that partnership with ESA to use Halley Research Station in Antarctica can play a part in ensuring astronauts can operate safely on future space missions.
“Offering Halley Research Station as an additional platform for European researchers will provide us with important data, experience and knowledge to prepare for future long-duration human missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond,” said ESA’s Jennifer Ngo-Anh.
Cut off from the world
Explains Halley Research Station doctor Nathalie Pattyn, in a British Antarctic Survey Press Office release: “This experiment will be running at both Concordia and Halley stations to look at the factors affecting astronauts as they embark on long periods in space. Living at Halley is in many ways similar to living in space where crew are cut off from the world without sunlight and in very small communities.”
There is expected to be a huge scientific bonus of comparing data from Halley and Concordia stations, Pattyn concludes, the kind of information useful to appreciate the influence of hypoxia, the lack of oxygen, on top of the isolation and confinement issues.
Pattyn is from Vrije Universiteit Brussel where she is a professor of biological psychology.
Psychological status check
One of the other projects running over the next nine months will involve the team members recording themselves in a video diary.
Diaries will be analyzed via a computer algorithm through parameters such as pitch or word choice.
Researchers expect that this technique will provide a new window to objective monitoring of psychological status, and thus adaptations to the stresses of prolonged space flight.
On February 14, 2015, the Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging System (OSIRIS) on the Rosetta spacecraft observed the surface of comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko in the Imhotep region with the Sun directly behind it from an altitude of six kilometers.The image resolution is 11 centimeters per pixel. The orbiter’s shadow is visible as a dark rectangular patch in the lower part of the image.
Credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
Close-up images of comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko have been taken by the Optical, Spectroscopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System (OSIRIS) on the Rosetta spacecraft during a recent overflight.
Rosetta is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission with contributions from its member states and NASA.
Recent images show the comet’s terrain – abruptly terraced steps separating flat ground from fissured areas.
Scientists have given this region, which is situated not far from the equator of the larger part of the comet nucleus, the name Imhotep.
Philae landing site, still unknown
According to the DLR, Imhotep is on the opposite side to Philae’s landing site, which means the scientists were denied the possibility of discovering the landing craft’s location during this overflight.
Rosetta’s Philae lander that touched down on the comet is funded by a consortium headed by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR), the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS), CNES and the Italian Space Agency (ASI).
This image was acquired by the Rosetta Lander Imaging System (ROLIS) on board the Philae Lander from a height of approximately 40 meters, before the first touchdown. The resolution is four centimeters per pixel.
Credit: SA/Rosetta/Philae/ROLIS/DLR
So far, only the Rosetta Lander Imaging System (ROLIS), installed on the bottom of the Philae lander, has been able to acquire higher resolution photographs of the comet’s surface as it descended towards 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko.Scientists are currently analyzing photographs of the comet’s surface, which were taken immediately after landing using artificial light.
It is hoped that these images will provide definitive information on the celestial body’s fine structure. Preliminary results are expected in April 2015, according to the DLR.
Credit: Zero 2 Infinity
“We are about to…bloon” is part of a campaign request for dollars to help record the first-ever spherical video of an eclipse from the stratosphere.
On March 20th of this year there will be a total solar eclipse. A unique feature of this event is that the Moon’s shadow will sweep over the North Pole – something that occurs once every 500,000 years or so, according to organizers of the balloon project.
Credit: Zero 2 Infinity
“This is our last chance to capture the shadow of the Moon over the northern ice cap before it melts,” say the coordinators of the effort, Zero 2 Infinity based in Spain.
On the day of the eclipse, when the Moon will obscure the Sun, the stars and the planets will become visible and the shadow of the Moon will be seen going over the Earth. The intent of the project is to record this with a spherical camera that will cover a 360º angle.
The visibility of the eclipse, from the only populated areas on the ground, is from Svalbard and the Faroe Islands.
The visibility of the eclipse, from the only populated areas on the ground, Svalbard and the Faroe Islands.
Credit: Zero 2 Infinity
GoPro cameras
A zero-emissions stratospheric balloon will carry GoPro cameras mounted on a rig to record a 360 degree spherical video at an altitude where the view of the Earth and the Sun is very similar to what astronauts experience from the International Space Station.
Near-space camera system.
Credit: Zero 2 Infinity
On the ground participants will receive the video feed into tablet or smart phone and be able to feel as if those taking part were in space – looking out their “window” to see the whole world below.
Want to take part?
The organizers have launched an indiegogo crowdfunding campaign at:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bloon-360view-of-a-total-solar-eclipse-from-space
Also, check out this near-space eclipse project via Vimeo at:
This near-infrared, color mosaic from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows the sun glinting off of Titan’s north polar seas. The view was acquired during Cassini’s August 21, 2014 flyby of Titan.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/University of Idaho
Saturn’s moon Titan may well be a site for life – but “not as we know it” say Cornell University researchers.
While liquid water is a requirement for life on Earth, other, much colder worlds, may harbor life beyond the bounds of water-based chemistry.
Cornell chemical engineers and astronomers offer a template for life that could thrive in a harsh, cold world – specifically Titan, the giant moon of Saturn. That world is awash with seas not of water, but of liquid methane.
Titan could harbor methane-based, oxygen-free cells that metabolize, reproduce and do everything life on Earth does.
Graduate student James Stevenson, astronomer Jonathan Lunine and chemical engineer Paulette Clancy, with a Cassini image of Titan in the foreground of Saturn, and an azotosome, the theorized cell membrane on Titan.
Credit: Jason Koski/University Photography
That prospect is detailed in the Feb. 27 issue of Science Advances, led by chemical molecular dynamics expert Paulette Clancy, the Samuel W. and Diane M. Bodman Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, with first author James Stevenson, a graduate student in chemical engineering.
The paper’s co-author is Jonathan Lunine, the David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Astronomy.
Promising compound
According to a Cornell press statement: “On Earth, life is based on the phospholipid bilayer membrane, the strong, permeable, water-based vesicle that houses the organic matter of every cell. A vesicle made from such a membrane is called a liposome. Thus, many astronomers seek extraterrestrial life in what’s called the circumstellar habitable zone, the narrow band around the sun in which liquid water can exist. But what if cells weren’t based on water, but on methane, which has a much lower freezing point?”
Candidate compounds from methane for self-assembly into membrane-like structures were theorized. The most promising compound they found is an acrylonitrile azotosome.
An inhabitant of Titan? A representation of a 9-nanometer azotosome, about the size of a virus, with a piece of the membrane cut away to show the hollow interior.
Credit: James Stevenson
Proof of concept
Their theorized cell membrane is composed of small organic nitrogen compounds and capable of functioning in liquid methane temperatures of 292 degrees below zero.
The azotosome is made from nitrogen, carbon and hydrogen molecules known to exist in the cryogenic seas of Titan, but shows the same stability and flexibility that Earth’s analogous liposome does.
While this initial proof of concept is stirring the creative juices, the next step is to try and demonstrate how these cells would behave in the methane environment – what might be the analogue to reproduction and metabolism in oxygen-free, methane-based cells.
Co-author of the work, Lunine says he looks forward to the long-term prospect of testing these ideas on Titan itself, by “someday sending a probe to float on the seas of this amazing moon and directly sampling the organics.”
