Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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August 3rd, 2024
Image credit: ESA
Pressure is mounting.
Flight controllers are putting the squeeze on to ring out science from a spacecraft called Juice – the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer.
Later this month, that probe will zip by the Moon and pass within the altitude of satellites in geostationary and medium-Earth orbits.
For a select set of viewers with powerful binoculars or telescopes here on Earth, Juice should be observable as the spacecraft passes overhead, flying directly over Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean.
Image credit: ESA
Double dipping, trajectory bending
The outward going Juice mission to Jupiter is making a lunar-Earth flyby – the first ever double gravity assist by a spacecraft.
Juice was launched by the European Space Agency in April 2023, slated to arrive at Jupiter in July 2031. But to get to its destination, double dipping, trajectory bending maneuvers are set to take place on August 19 and 20.
Juice’s trajectory through space and time will redirect it on a course for a flyby of Venus in August 2025, then onto its Jupiter arrival some six years later.
Test environment
ESA’s ground controllers have already adjusted Juice’s path to ensure that it arrives first at the Moon, then a day later at Earth.
Image credit: ESA
Image credit: ESA
As Juice passes by the Moon and Earth, ESA will be activating the spacecraft’s ten science instruments.
The Moon-Earth flyby provides a “prime test environment” for instrument teams to collect and analyze data from an actual surface in space for the first time. It will give scientists and engineers the chance to calibrate instruments, smooth out any remaining issues, “and who knows, they may even make some surprising scientific discoveries,” an ESA statement suggests.
Static on the line: RIME and reason
One Juice payload, the Radar for Icy Moon Exploration (RIME) instrument, is already known to be disturbed by some electronic noise within the spacecraft. During the closest approach to the Moon, RIME will observe alone, as the other instruments are to be either switched off or set to quiet mode.
Based on the RIME output, that instrument team can work on an algorithm to correct the noise problem.
Juice is an ESA-led mission to the Jupiter system to make detailed observations of gas giant Jupiter and its three large ocean-bearing moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.
Image credit: ESA
RIME has been a trouble-maker post-launch. Weeks of work were needed to successfully deploy the experiment’s folded-up antenna – an over 50-foot (16-meter)-long boom.
Meanwhile, Juice’s two onboard monitoring cameras will be snaring photos throughout the lunar-Earth flyby, promising to supply eye-catching imagery.
To keep your eye on the whereabouts of Juice, go to:
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Headed to a Sphere near you.
Image credit: Sphere Entertainment
One of over 20 payloads ready to set sail to the International Space Station (ISS) is an ultra-high-resolution, single-sensor camera.
“Big Sky” is developed by Sphere Entertainment. The captured content is an initiative of the group that is providing next-generation entertainment in Las Vegas, Nevada. The first Sphere venue opened in Las Vegas in September 2023.
A first phase of the effort launched in November 2022. It was a commercial off-the-shelf camera that collected baseline information while astronauts tested the camera’s use in space.
Image credit: Sphere Entertainment
Ultra-sharp
The upcoming second phase will see Big Sky capture content for Sphere, tested inside the ISS.
This Big Sky payload features the world’s largest image sensor and ultra-sharp cinematic lenses, promising to capture detailed, large-format images. The upcoming flight of the hardware is to help validate camera functioning, its operation in space, and also verify a video downlink of Big Sky output.
Sphere Entertainment and their Las Vegas complex has already been home where foremost artists, creators, and technologists create experiences to take storytelling and viewing audiences to places both real and imagined.
The Sphere Entertainment payload is onboard Northrop Grumman’s 21st Commercial Resupply Services (NG-21) mission, slated for liftoff no earlier than Saturday, August 3.
Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus space freighter is pictured attached to the Canadarm2 robotic arm ahead of its release from the ISS on July 12, 2024.
Image credit: NASA
Illustration of Haven-1 space station and docked SpaceX Dragon.
Image credit: Vast
The emergence of private space facilities circling Earth has been boosted by the promise of a just-announced commercial microgravity research and development platform.
This week, Vast announced a partnership with U.S. payload provider Redwire and Yuri, a biotech research group headquartered in Germany.
The Haven-1 lab/platform is projected for launch no earlier than the second half of 2025.
According to Vast, the Haven-1 is slated to be a hub for companies, governments, and other entities to collaborate on science, research, and in-space manufacturing.
NASA contributions
Last year, Vast of Long Beach, California was awarded an unfunded NASA Space Act Agreement under the second Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities (CCSC-2) initiative.
Image credit: Vast
These agreements are crafted to advance commercial space-related efforts through NASA contributions of technical expertise, assessments, lessons learned, technologies, and data. The space agency’s CCSC initiative is dedicated to helping create a robust low Earth orbit economy.
Meanwhile, the space agency is also dealing with an aging International Space Station, headed for “retirement” in 2030 followed by a destructive de-orbiting decision to plow the ISS into ocean waters.
Redwire’s Advanced Space Experiment Processor 4 can host up to four sample processing cassettes (PIL-BOXs) for stem cell, bacteria research, in addition to pharmaceutical output.
Image credit: Redwire
Products and samples
The Haven-1 Lab is to be outfitted with payloads operated by astronaut crews on the orbiting complex. Partners using the Haven-1 can return products and samples from space via a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.
Redwire, based in Jacksonville, Florida, owns nine payloads and facilities currently installed on the ISS including the firm’s BioFabrication Facility, which successfully printed the first ever human meniscus and first live human heart tissue in space.
Also, Redwire developed a Pharmaceutical In-space Laboratory – the Bio-crystal Optimization Xperiments (PIL-BOX) — which has flown three flight missions to and from the ISS, showcasing the prospect of how microgravity can lead to innovations in drug development.
Vast’s other payload partner, Yuri, is keen on leveraging microgravity for biotech products, cures, and medical solutions. By utilizing Yuri’s on-orbit version of ScienceTaxi, the potential for low Earth orbit commercial biotech can be advanced, such as advanced space microscopy.
Yuri’s on-orbit version of ScienceTaxi, to carry out biotech research in microgravity.
Image credit: Yuri
Institutional knowledge
“The ISS may be on its way to be retired in 2030, but the institutional knowledge deserves a new platform for future microgravity research and manufacturing innovation,” said Vast CEO, Max Haot in a company statement.
“Our Haven-1 Lab is designed to provide that bridge well before the eventual retirement of ISS. This ensures that as we begin a new era of commercial space stations we can continue and expand upon vital international and commercial science and research in low Earth orbit (LEO),” Haot stated.
Sprawling but aging International Space Station.
Image credit: NASA
Now is the time
Yuri’s co-founder and CEO, Maria Birlem, stated that “now is the time” to showcase market-driven commercial collaboration in low Earth orbit. “Haven-1 is set to be the first Post-ISS scenario, and the entire world stands to benefit, Birlem said.
Mike Gold, Redwire’s Chief Growth Officer, also highlighted the Vast’s Haven-1 Lab partnership, to create “a new and dynamic economy in low Earth orbit.”
“Haven-1 is the first private sector platform that Redwire hardware will launch with,” Gold added, “extending the legacy of the ISS into a new era of commercial platforms.”
For an update on the promise of private space facilities, go to my recent Space.com story – “After ISS: The private space station era is dawning” – at:
https://www.space.com/private-space-stations-commercializing-low-earth-orbit
Sprawling but aging International Space Station.
Image credit: NASA
There are continual, creaky reminders that the International Space Station is showing its age.
Hissy-fit pressure leaks in the Russian segment. Loss of attitude control on two separate occasions in 2021. Toss in close encounters of the space debris kind having the huge, human-occupied facility performing duck and dodge maneuvers.
Orbital Reef complex.
Image credit: Blue Origin
Transition
To remain safe and sound for human occupants, the massive structure requires continuous maintenance, a flow of replacement parts, and upgrades to many of the station’s systems.
In 2021, NASA inked a trio of funded Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations, or CLD agreements. They are intended to support work on commercial space stations, outposts that can “transition” NASA from the ISS by decade’s end.
Go to my new Space.com story — After ISS: The private space station era is dawning – at:
https://www.space.com/private-space-stations-commercializing-low-earth-orbit
Image credit: Honeybee Robotics/Inside Outer Space screengrab
What does a parking lot in Altadena, California have to do with the Moon?
First of all, that area is in front of Honeybee Robotics.
Secondly, a sky-high test structure was recently erected to spotlight the group’s LUNARSABER, thankfully the truncated acronym for “Lunar Utility Navigation with Advanced Remote Sensing and Autonomous Beaming for Energy Redistribution.”
Image credit: Honeybee Robotics
Deployable mast
“LUNARSABER stands as a cornerstone for lunar infrastructure by providing key utility services at a fraction of the cost and accelerating the lunar economy for all humankind,” Honeybee’s Vishnu Sanigepalli told Inside Outer Space.
The deployable mast uses the Honeybee technology called DIABLO for Deployable Interlocking Actuated Bands for Linear Operations.
Proposed at over 100 meters tall, Honeybee’s LUNARSABER is a deployable structure that integrates solar power, power storage and transfer, communications, mesh network, PNT (Position, Navigation, and Timing), and surveillance into a single infrastructure.
Image credit: Honeybee Robotics/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Range of services
Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company, was selected last year for DARPA’s 10-Year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) Capability Study to develop and integrate its technology.
The idea is for LUNARSABER to stand head and shoulders above the lunar landscape.
This Moon structure can host payloads at its base for other commercial services to interface with the system. Also, payloads can be mounted at the top of the mast to perform a wide range of services.
Image credit: Honeybee Robotics/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Partnerships
“We’re looking forward to partnerships with both commercial and non-commercial customers to host payload and services that will help accelerate lunar infrastructure,” Sanigepalli said as principal investigator of LUNARSABER on LunA-10.
Honeybee Robotics captured LUNARSABER’s capabilities during a demonstration of a scaled prototype. Take a look at this informative video on the project at:
That mysterious Chinese space plane has been newly caught on camera by a satellite watcher that has snagged new imagery of the high-flying robotic vehicle.
China’s space plane, now circling Earth on its third flight, was lobbed into orbit on December 14, 2023 by a Long March 2F rocket.
Space watcher veteran, Felix Schöfbänker in Upper Austria took the imagery.
Equipment used
Schöfbänker made use of a telescope having a 14-inch mirror and assorted gear capable of following satellites that keeps them automatically in the center of a field of view, finessing the equipment with a bit of input and corrections, he told Inside Outer Space.
“I make these images by taking a video during the flyover and then stacking (averaging out) and sharpening the best frames,” Schöfbänker said.
Possible design of China’s space plane.
Source: Homem do Espaco/Twitter
What’s seen?
The two solar panels that can be seen at the end aren’t visible on any of the computer renderings available online, Schöfbänker advised. “I am not really sure if they are solar panels or some other features like an antenna or something of that nature.”
In terms of size, the satellite spotter measures the craft to be more or less 30 feet (10 meters) in length, which would make it longer than the American X-37B space plane operated by the U.S. Space Force.
“But this could also be a bit off, since the angle that the plane is illuminated could hide certain features,” Schöfbänker said.
X-37B space plane. Image credit: Boeing/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The 10 meters length would still fit inside the booster used to rocket it into space, Schöfbänker added. “I can’t say anything about the wingspan since they aren’t visible in my images. But previous launches had to make small cutouts for the wings to fit.”
Orbit changes
Schöfbänker noted that the Chinese space plane appears to be oriented with the nose facing the front of the flight path, like a normal plane. The vehicle recently lowered its orbit to roughly 217 miles (350 kilometers) above Earth.
What China is gleaning from the craft’s third flight is unknown. That situation is similar to what the currently flying U.S. Space Force X-37B is accomplishing after its launch on December 29, 2023 and now 216 days into its secretive mission.
A gif provided by Schöfbänker:
Image credit: Firefly
Blue Ghost, mission one, is now being prepared for launch to the Moon later this year under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
Built by Firefly, a private company in Cedar Park, Texas, Blue Ghost is being readied for final, pre-launch, environmental testing.
Image credit: Firefly/Inside Outer Space screengrab
“We’re still on track for a fourth quarter launch,” Risa Schnautz, Firefly’s communications director told Inside Outer Space.
Firefly has three current task orders through the NASA CLPS program, totaling more than $230 million in awards for Blue Ghost missions to the Moon in 2024 and 2026.
The CLPS undertaking is part of the NASA Artemis program to “reboot” the Moon with expeditionary crews with the intent to place a long-term base on the Moon.
Image credit: Firefly/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Moon manifest
Firefly’s first Blue Ghost mission is outfitted with 10 scientific instruments and technology demonstrations.
The payloads on Blue Ghost Mission 1 are built to carry out several first-of-its-kind demonstrations, according to Firefly’s website, such as testing regolith sample collection, radiation tolerant computing, and mitigating the problem of pesky lunar dust.
Here’s the Blue Ghost, mission 1 manifest and payload providers:
Image credit: Firefly/Inside Outer Space screengrab
— Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER): Honeybee Robotics (Blue Origin)
— Lunar PlanetVac (LPV): Honeybee Robotics (Blue Origin)
— Next Generation Lunar Retroreflector (NGLR): University of Maryland
— Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC): Aegis Aerospace
— Radiation Tolerant Computer (RadPC): Montana State University
— Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS): NASA Kennedy Space Center
— Lunar Environment heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI): Boston University; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; Johns Hopkins University
— Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS): Southwest Research Institute
— Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE): Italian Space Agency (ASI); NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
— Stereo CAmera for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS): NASA Langley Research Center
NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s (LRO) LROC mosaic image shows Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium.
Image credit: ASU/NASA GSFC
Landing zone
To be lofted via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, Blue Ghost will spend roughly 45 days in transit to the Moon, targeted for lunar touchdown in Mare Crisium.
Payloads onboard Blue Ghost are to operate for a lunar day – that’s about 14 Earth days.
Blue Ghost’s selected landing zone is near a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium, in the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s near side.
That locale, although miles away, was also where the former Soviet Union’s Luna-24 landed, gathered up specimens, and rocketed them to Earth in 1976.
Luna-24 came to full stop at the northwestern rim of impact crater Lev, on the volcanic plains.
Firefly video
Given a successful spot landing, Blue Ghost-carried experiments are intended to gather data about the Moon’s topside covering of regolith, geophysical characteristics, and the interaction of solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field.
Firefly has posted an informative video on the upcoming mission, available on X at:
Lights out for NASA’s VIPER ice-hound?
Image credit: NASA
That recent tough call by NASA to cancel the space agency’s VIPER south pole Moon rover mission continues to stir up lunar exploration supporters.
NASA’s pronouncement on July 17 to kill the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) project has irked several thousand (4,000+ signatures and counting) advocates for the undertaking, with people signing an open letter to Congress, requesting lawmakers to “refuse to authorize” the NASA verdict.
Recent photo shows engineers testing the VIPER rover’s wheel movement and rotation in a clean room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Image credit: NASA/Helen Arase Vargas
VIPER status
Last week, during the NASA Exploration Science Forum staged by NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI), a VIPER status report was given.
Anthony Colaprete, lead VIPER scientist, reported the rover last week completed acoustic testing, marking the completion of launch environmental testing.
There’s a number of post-acoustic tests and baselining for thermal vacuum (TVAC) testing which completes the VIPER environmental test campaign, Colaprete reported. All rover elements have already been through TVAC testing at the component level so as to minimize risk of issues at the integrated system level testing, he added.
Artwork depicts NASA’s VIPER, on the prowl for water and other resources.
Image credit: NASA Ames/Daniel Rutter
So what now?
There appears to be broad agreement on seeking a constructive route forward for the rover and its team.
The south pole machinery was dedicated to — as NASA’s first mobile robotic mission to the Moon, directly analyze ice on the surface and subsurface of the Moon at varying depths and temperature conditions within four main soil environments.
VIPER-supplied data was slated to be used to create resource maps, helping scientists determine the location and concentration of ice on the Moon and the forms it’s in, such as ice crystals or molecules chemically bound to other materials.
A close-up view of the area that were to be explored by VIPER, showing a nominal traverse route and highlighting permanently shadowed regions that may contain water ice and other volatiles.
Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio/Ernie Wright
Open letter…still open for signatures
“The decision to cancel the mission was taken by NASA without giving the wider VIPER team or lunar exploration community an opportunity to propose cost-saving solutions or alternatives to the dismemberment or scrapping of the rover,” the open letter explains.
VIPER’s projected landing site, the Nobile Region of the Moon’s south pole.
The rover is under the wing of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) and was built to scout about on the Moon for 100 Earth days, covering 3 cycles of lunar day and night.
Similar in size to a golf cart, VIPER weighs 992 pounds (450 kilograms). A distance on the Moon goal for VIPER was 12 miles (20 kilometers), carrying 3 spectrometers and a 3.28-foot (1-meter) drill.
Meanwhile, the open letter can be viewed at:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeIUzsdEiT8cbt7YqYE1RdctvtMaflyh3bc2M9HnH0C0Wpzww/viewform
Go to my earlier story — “VIPER Bite Marks: NASA Moons a Lunar Rover” — at:
https://www.leonarddavid.com/viper-bite-marks-nasa-moons-a-lunar-rover/
Boeing Starliner attached to International Space Station.
Image credit: NASA
Boeing reports that the over-the-weekend “hot fire” testing of Starliner thrusters is complete.
“The Starliner team completed a docked hot fire test of the spacecraft’s Reaction Control System (RCS) thrusters Saturday afternoon, and monitored its helium system, providing additional data points for the Crew Flight Test’s return to Earth,” Boeing reports.
Flight controllers commanded the sequential firing of 27 RCS thrusters on the troubled spacecraft. The docked to the International Space Station hotfire sequence was safely executed. Both NASA and Boeing “were very happy with the results,” the Boeing posting adds.
Image Credit: Boeing
Real-time feedback
Flight test astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were inside Starliner Calypso giving the team on the ground real-time feedback during the test.
In preparation for the return home, the Boeing statement adds, Wilmore and Williams will participate in two undock-to-landing simulations next week.
As explained in the Boeing statement, the one-pulse firings were designed to confirm the performance of each thruster.
“Aft-facing thrusters were fired for 1.2 seconds and all others for .40 seconds. Between each firing, the team reviewed real-time data and all thrusters performed at peak thrust rating values, ranging from 97-102%.”
Boeing “Doghouse” unit containing thrusters.
Image credit: Boeing
Next up
In addition, the Boeing statement continues, the helium system also remained stable. “Additionally, an RCS oxidizer isolation valve that was not fully seated previously, was cycled several times during today’s testing and is now operating normally.”
Next up is a Flight Test Readiness Review with the data gathered to be reviewed and included in “return flight rationale,” Boeing notes. “While a landing date has not yet been set, opportunities are available throughout August.”
Image credit: Boeing
Image credit: Land landing of Starliner.
Image credit: Boeing
Image credit: Image credit: Kwa-Mbili Lodge/NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Mars Guy
A vein-filled slab of rock reconnoitered by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover at Jezero Crater was already important evidence of water activity.
“But now the team has revealed that it’s the strange spots in between the veins that make this the most important rock yet found in Jezero crater,” explains Mars Guy, also changing his own video and teaching spot to become Steve Ruff, an associate research professor and Arizona State University’s School Of Earth and Space Exploration.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Poster child
But examining the spots in labs back on Earth would be needed to definitively address the question of life on Mars being detected, Mars Guy concludes. “This is exactly the scenario that the Perseverance mission and Mars sample return was intended to address.”
“It’s just that no one imagined that a rock with organic matter and leopard spots would become the poster child for the entire endeavor,” Mars guy concludes.
Image credit: Mars Guy
Heady headline?
But remarks one viewer of this most recent episode of Mars Guy:
“Supposing they prove the spots are biological in origin, and we look back at this as potentially one of the greatest of all scientific discoveries, let it be known NASA went with the headline: ‘Scientists Find Intriguing Mars Rock.’”
Go to this new episode of Mars Guy at:
