Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category

 

Albeit a hell hole of a world, the planet Venus is a tantalizing, cloud-enveloped cool place for scientific scrutiny to ferret out its history, evolution and gauge its present state.

Touted in 2021 as a “triple crown” moment for Venus researchers, a spacecraft trio — VERITAS, DAVINCI, and Europe’s EnVision — would be sent off to divulge the inner, topside, and outer workings of Venus as never before.

 

That was just a few years ago. But sprint forward to today.

Budget wrangling

Today, investigating Venus is akin to a political and financial weather report – cloudy!

Government budget wrangling and researcher handwringing aside, an enterprising entry into the Venus exploration fray is the first private mission to that world.

The project’s calling is indeed alluring: Is Venus cloudy with a scattering of life?

For more details, go to my new Scientific American story – “Can a Private Space Mission Pierce Venus’s Clouds? Amid uncertainty over space agencies’ plans for future Venus exploration, enthusiasm for a private-sector mission grows” – at:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-a-private-space-mission-pierce-venuss-clouds/

Russia is kicking off another of its SIRIUS Project initiatives, a 360-day isolation of individuals to mimic flight conditions of interplanetary space flight.

The work is being done under the auspices of the renowned Institute for Bio-Medical Problems (IBMP) under the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Moon landing sims

As part of the lengthy, anchored on Earth space journey, crew members will carry out a lunar mission simulation that entails a flyby to find a Moon landing site, multiple landings of four crew members for surface operations, orbiting the Moon, and remote control of a rover on the lunar surface.

For more information, go to my new Multiverse Media/SpaceRef story – “Project SIRIUS – Russia’s 360-Day Simulated Space Journey Begins Soon” – at:

https://spaceref.com/earth/project-sirius-russias-360-day-simulated-space-journey-begins-soon/

 

 

Yes, it’s a cliché, but with meaning: “If we can go to the moon, why can’t we…?”

You fill in the blank with your favorite want-to-have.

While landing humans on the moon was indeed historic and the boot-kicked lunar dust has settled, perhaps that achievement was even more impactful as a long-standing societal spinoff?

 

 

 

 

Use of the term “Moonshot” is everywhere. Seemingly it’s a word anchored in an earlier turn of phrase, “shoot for the moon.”

Today’s use of a moonshot also connotes an ambitious, exploratory and ground-breaking project.

For more information, go to my new Space.com story – “The Apollo program continues to inspire ‘moonshots’ in the 21st century” – at:

https://www.space.com/apollo-program-21st-century-moonshots

 

The U.S. military’s unique X-37B robotic space plane is being readied for its next flight, a mission that is expanding the vehicle’s past space portfolio of skills.

Right at the start, at launch that’s slated on December 7, the mission is distinctive.

For the first time, the Boeing-built craft is being hurled spaceward atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, “with a wide range of test and experimentation objectives,” explains a U.S. Space Force press statement.

The past flights of the vehicle made use of the Atlas V 501 launcher for the most part, although OTV-5 was placed in orbit via a SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 4 launcher.

New orbital regimes

The Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO), in partnership with the United States Space Force, is scheduled to launch the seventh mission of the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV) on December 7 from Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

Designated USSF-52, the space plane tests include operating in new orbital regimes, experimenting with future space domain awareness technologies, and investigating the radiation effects on materials provided by NASA.

 

Expand the envelope

“We are excited to expand the envelope of the reusable X-37B’s capabilities, using the flight-proven service module and Falcon Heavy rocket to fly multiple cutting-edge experiments for the Department of the Air Force and its partners,” said Lt. Col. Joseph Fritschen, the X-37B Program Director.

Marco Langbroek is an astute satellite tracker based in the Netherlands. His view is that the combination of the US Air Force statement that the mission will include “operating the reusable space plane in new orbital regimes” with the choice of a Falcon Heavy booster, suggests that OTV-7 will go to a much higher orbit.

“The choice of a Falcon Heavy suggests a need for a more powerful rocket, and in the case of the X-37B this can only mean a much higher orbit,” Langbroek told Inside Outer Space, perhaps to geostationary orbit or at least a mission in a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) that reaches GEO at apogee.

“That would be quite different from the previous X-37B OTV missions, which all went to the lower reaches of low Earth orbit,” Langbroek says.

Details: skimpy and classified

This upcoming X-37B Mission 7 is also known as OTV-7.

Since the X-37B first launched in 2010, Boeing has empowered the reusable spaceplane “with more capability, new technology, and pushed the boundaries of what’s possible with each ensuing mission,” the company points out.

The orbital test vehicle (OTV-6)  – after circling Earth for a record-setting 908 days — completed that mission with a successful landing at Kennedy Space Center on November 12, 2022.

As in previous missions, details of the soon-to-orbit OTV-7 in-space agenda are skimpy and classified.

The Space Force statement did note that the NASA experiment onboard will expose plant seeds to the harsh radiation environment of long-duration spaceflight. Known as “Seeds-2,” that investigation is paving the way for future crewed space missions.

Service module

As explained in the Air Force statement, the last space plane flight, X-37B Mission 6 (OTV-6), was the first mission to introduce a service module that expanded the capabilities of the spacecraft.

That module hosted more experiments than any of the previous space plane missions. In the OTV-6 flight, the service module was detached in orbit from the space plane before its landing, necessary due to the aerodynamic forces seen by the X-37B vehicle upon re-entry. That service module was later disposed of “in compliance with best practices,” according to the Air Force.

OTV-6 carried the Naval Research Laboratory’s Photovoltaic Radio-frequency Antenna Module experiment, which transformed solar power into radio frequency microwave energy, and two NASA experiments to study the results of radiation and other space effects on a materials sample plate and seeds used to grow food.

The X-37B Mission 6 also deployed FalconSat-8, a small satellite developed by the U.S. Air Force Academy and sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory.

The Air Force statement did note that the NASA experiment onboard will expose plant seeds to the harsh radiation environment of long-duration spaceflight. Known as “Seeds-2,” that investigation is paving the way for future crewed space missions.

Art-of-the-possible

Chief of Space Operations, Gen. B. Chance Saltzman hailed the craft’s experiments as “groundbreaking,” adding that the X-37B “continues to equip the United States with the knowledge to enhance current and future space operations. X-37B Mission 7 demonstrates the USSF’s commitment to innovation and defining the art-of-the-possible in the space domain.”

The Director of the Department of Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, William Bailey said: “The X-37B government and Boeing teams have worked together to produce a more responsive, flexible, and adaptive experimentation platform. The work they’ve done to streamline processes and adapt evolving technologies will help our nation learn a tremendous amount about operating in and returning from a space environment.”

In Boeing-supplied information, the company says the vehicle is designed to operate in low-Earth orbit, 150 to 500 miles above the Earth.

Additionally, the vehicle makes use of several “first use in space” technologies including:

• Avionics designed to automate all de-orbit and landing functions.
• Flight controls and brakes using all electro-mechanical actuation; no hydraulics on board.
• Use of a lighter composite structure, rather than traditional aluminum.
• New generation high-temperature wing leading-edge tiles and toughened uni-piece fibrous refractory oxidation-resistant ceramic (TUFROC) tiles and advanced conformal reusable insulation (CRI) blankets.

Flight roster

Here’s a listing of previous flights of the space plane:

OTV-1: launched on April 22, 2010 and landed on December 3, 2010, spending over 224 days on orbit.

OTV-2: launched on March 5, 2011 and landed on June 16, 2012, spending over 468 days on orbit.

OTV-3: launched on December 11, 2012 and landed on October 17, 2014, spending over 674 days on-orbit.

OTV-4: launched on May 20, 2015 and landed on May 7, 2015, spending nearly 718 days on-orbit.

OTV-5: launched on September 7, 2017 and landed on October 27, 2019, spending nearly 780 days on-orbit.

OTV-6: Launched on May 17, 2020  and landed on November 12, 2022, circling Earth for 908 days.

Derivative plan

There are known to be at least two X-37B vehicles.

Curiously, back in late 2011, a technical paper popped up at a major aerospace conference. It outlined new plans for the spacecraft and a scaled-up version to support space station cargo deliveries or even haul astronauts into orbit.

An X-37B OTV and derivatives plan assessment sketched out a variety of scaled-up versions of the X-37B space plane.

What is not known, however, is whether such a plan advanced within Boeing or the Air Force.

Artistic boost

The U.S. military interest in use of space planes did get an artistic boost last month.

A painting was commissioned with artist Rick Herter titled “High Ground Intercept” – a depiction of space as a warfighting arena, now and into the future, as part of the Department of the Air Force Art Collection.

The artwork shows a futuristic U.S. space vehicle intercepting an adversary satellite, who in turn is positioning to disable a friendly satellite.

The tomorrow land look of the vehicle has historic links to the X-20 Dyna-Soar, the first U.S. space plane design, with its low-wing delta shape and vertical winglets. The bay doors of the intercept vehicle are opening as the space plane moves into position and prepares to defend the friendly satellite.

“Because of the highly classified nature of many space operations, SpOC requested that Herter rely on historic space planes and his own imagination,” explained Christopher Rumley, Space Operations Command (SpOC) command historian in rolling out the painting on October 20 at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado.

“It was not an easy task, but Rick was able to fuse where we’ve been as a force with where we are going,” said Rumley in a SpOC statement.

Go to this informative Boeing video released last April, complete with head-banging-backed music, and look at the OTV-6 mission (thanks Mike Rose for calling my attention to this video) at:

https://www.boeing.com/features/2023/04/x-37b-breaks-records-brings-home-experiments.page

Experts around the planet agree: Earth orbit is a heavenly mess and getting messier. Decades in the making, human-made space clutter now encircles our planet, from discarded rocket stages, lifeless satellites, and other sorts of cosmic compost.

Add into the mix that the space environment is becoming ever more crowded. For one, there’s the escalating number of Internet-providing satellites put in place by various groups.

For the most part, what goes up also comes down. Furthermore, the impact of reentering satellites on our biosphere is projected to be sizeable.

In a recent report, a research team led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has detected in Earth’s stratosphere more than 20 elements that mirror those used in spacecraft-building alloys.

For more information, go to my new Multiverse Media SpaceRef story — Space Debris Leftovers Linked to Stratospheric Pollution”– at:

https://spaceref.com/science-and-exploration/space-debris-leftovers-linked-to-stratospheric-pollution/

NASA’s Mars helicopter at Jezero Crater has powered up making flight #66, doing so on November 3, and after flying the day before.

According to a NASA/JPL-Caltech posting, the Ingenuity aerial vehicle covered roughly 2 feet in horizontal distance  during a 23 second jaunt, reaching a maximum altitude of some 3 meters (roughly 10 feet).

The November 3 hop adds to the Ingenuity helicopter’s flight time that now has accumulated approximately 118.8 minutes and chalking up 9 miles (roughly 14,910 kilometers) of distance flown. During those flights the mini-chopper reached its highest altitude of 24 meters (roughly 79 feet).

Here are samples of flight #66 imagery taken by the mini-chopper’s black and white and color cameras:

 

 

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 4,001 duties.

The Mars machinery reached a milestone on the Red Planet with the planning of a 4,000th sol of exploration – a span of time covering almost 11 years and 3 months.

Lauren Edgar, a planetary geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona, reports that Curiosity has had a very busy and productive work load last week wrapping up a drill campaign at Sequoia and to prepare for the upcoming solar conjunction.

Safe state

“During solar conjunction, Mars will be on the opposite side of the Sun from the Earth, meaning that after Monday we won’t be able to communicate with the rover for the next few weeks,” Edgar points out.

A recent 3-sol plan (Sols 3998-4000), along with ensuring everything is in a safe state on the robot for conjunction, made use of power available for science activities in this plan.

“So the team planned a jam-packed weekend of observations, including nearly 6 hours of remote sensing,” Edgar adds.

Chemical diversity

On the first sol, Curiosity was to acquire a Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) observation on a target named “Ionian Basin” and a ChemCam passive observation on “Inconsolable Range” to investigate the chemical diversity of rocks near the drill hole.

“Mastcam will also take a large mosaic to provide additional context and to document the layering and diagenetic features in the area,” Edgar reports. The plan also included multiple Mastcam change detection activities to monitor the movement of fines near the drill hole and in the surrounding sand.

The environmental theme group planned several Navcam activities to search for dust devils and monitor dust in the atmosphere.

Distant stratigraphy

On the second sol, Edgar continues, Curiosity will acquire another ChemCam LIBS observation on a target named “Sphinx Crest” to assess the chemistry of a dark block among the lighter toned bedrock.

Two long distance ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) mosaics were planned to assess a dark resistant bed in the Kukenan butte, Edgar says, and to look back in the direction of Peace Vallis to assess the distant stratigraphy and geomorphology.

Atmospheric opacity

“The third sol includes a Navcam cloud altitude observation, Navcam zenith movie to monitor clouds, and Mastcam tau to assess atmospheric opacity,” Edgar adds. Throughout the plan there were numerous twilight cloud observations also scheduled.

“It makes me smile to think of Curiosity sitting there on sol 4,000, peacefully watching the clouds roll by in Gale crater, and reflecting on an impressive record of exploration,” Edgar concludes. “From our vantage point on Mount Sharp, we have quite a lot to look back on, and a lot of exciting discoveries that lie ahead. Happy sol 4000!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last month, I wrote a story for Space.com that focused on the issue of finding evidence of life on Mars…but would we recognize it?

Go to: https://www.space.com/perseverance-rover-search-for-life-on-mars-is-difficult

Indeed, NASA’s Perseverance rover is on-duty, scurrying around on the Red Planet, wheeling and dealing with Jezero Crater.

Jezero Crater definitely has a story to tell. And that’s why the rover landed there in the first place.

Microbial life could have lived in that area during a wetter period of time in its past. If so, signs of their remains might be found in the ancient lakebed or shoreline sediments that formed billions of years ago.

Eye-catching features

That said, the robot recently came across some eye-catching circular rock structures. They are attention-grabbers because they resemble ones formed by microbial communities in some lakes on Earth.

Those rover observations became the focus of an informative “Mars Guy” episode that called attention to Perseverance finding features resembling reef-like structures.

 

 

“In the very place it might be reasonable to expect, Perseverance discovered circular rock structures resembling ones formed by microbial communities in some lakes on Earth. This exciting possibility called for a closer look,” Mars Guy explained at:

https://youtu.be/7lwarWtXABA?si=wdNKRd8ESLPIke2e

Mother Nature on Mars

The finding also underscores, perhaps, how Mother Nature on the Red Planet can make it difficult to conclude what might or might not constitute evidence for life on that world.

What’s up with that rover finding? I asked Ken Farley, a professor of geochemistry in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at the California Institute of Technology. He is the project scientist for Mars 2020, the Perseverance sleuthing of Jezero Crater.

“We investigated that rock with our remote sensing instruments, and we acquired two abrasion patches and two sample cores from similar rocks in close proximity,” Farley told Inside Outer Space. “We also recognized the very peculiar and suggestive concentric-domelike morphology.”

Currently favored hypothesis

Farley said as an alternative to a biological origin – for example, a stromatolite – Mars scientists on the rover mission also considered the hypothesis that these features are simply spheroidal weathering.

That’s a very common phenomenon on Earth, Farley pointed out, and one seen elsewhere in Jezero, in both igneous and sedimentary rocks.

“Although we are still interpreting the data, the latter hypothesis is far less extraordinary, and at least partly for this reason, currently favored,” Farley said.

Plausible manifestations

As to the general question, Farley added, if ancient life were present, would Perseverance recognize it?

“My answer is ‘maybe.’ Based on ancient terrestrial analogs there are plausible manifestations we could detect with our instrument suite, but many plausible manifestations too subtle for us to confidently identify,” Farley explained.

“This is of course a key motivation for sample return,” Farley added. “As an example, compared to the organic molecule detection capabilities on Perseverance, those in terrestrial laboratories are at least a factor of 10,000 more sensitive.”

NASA’s Mars helicopter at Jezero Crater has powered up making flight #65, doing so on November 2.

According to a NASA/JPL-Caltech posting, the Ingenuity aerial vehicle flew a horizontal distance of roughly 23 feet (7 meters); reached a maximum altitude of some 33 feet (10 meters) and flew for 48.0 seconds.

Samples of imagery taken by the mini-chopper’s navigation camera mounted in the helicopter’s fuselage and pointed directly downward to track the ground during flight include:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Dinosaurs Discovered on Exoplanet!”

Now that’s a headline, surely above the fold if you’re still reading newspapers.

Research by Cornell astronomers suggest that telescopes could more easily detect an exoplanet with higher levels of atmospheric oxygen than modern Earth, as existed during the dinosaur age.

According to the new work, their analysis of the most recent 540 million years of Earth’s evolution — known as the Phanerozoic Eon — finds it feasible that detection of potential chemical signatures of life in the atmosphere of an Earth-like exoplanet might more closely resemble the age of the dinosaurs here on Earth.

Heavy on the “light fingerprint”

A possible tyrannosaur tipoff involves two key biosignature pairs – oxygen and methane, and ozone and methane. They appeared stronger in models of Earth roughly 100 million to 300 million years ago, when oxygen levels were significantly higher.

Could the “light fingerprint” of these conditions suggest a weighty tyrannosaur traipsing across on Trappist-1e, perhaps a protoceratops on Proxima Centauri b, or a quetzalcoatlus on Kepler 1047c?

“Modern Earth’s light fingerprint has been our template for identifying potentially habitable planets, but there was a time when this fingerprint was even more pronounced – better at showing signs of life,” said Lisa Kaltenegger, director of the Carl Sagan Institute (CSI) and associate professor of astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences.

“This gives us hope that it might be just a little bit easier to find signs of life – even large, complex life – elsewhere in the cosmos,” Kaltenegger stated in a university press statement.

More oxygen

One catch: while similar evolutionary processes leading to roaming dinosaurs may or may not unfold on exoplanets, the new modeling fills in the missing puzzle piece of what a Phanerozoic Earth would look like to a telescope. That modeling in hand is helping to create new templates for habitable planets with varying atmospheric oxygen levels.

The new research led by Rebecca Payne, a research associate exoplanet detective at CSI and in the Department of Astronomy and co-authored by Kaltenegger, appears in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, Volume 527, Issue 1, January 2024.

Regardless of the prospect of exoplanets being a denizen of dinosaurs, the models confirm that from a great distance, such a planet’s light fingerprint would stand out more than a modern Earth’s.

“Hopefully we’ll find some planets that happen to have more oxygen than Earth right now, because that will make the search for life just a little bit easier,” Kaltenegger said. “And who knows, maybe there are other dinosaurs waiting to be found.”

Jurassic Park – live-action remake?

To date, about 40 rocky exoplanets have been found in habitable zones where oceans could exist. Planets like Phanerozoic Earth are viewed as extremely promising targets for finding life in the cosmos.

While it may be too early to send moviemaker Steven Spielberg and crew for a Jurassic Park live-action remake, the research is seen as “a tool to plan and optimize our observation strategy, train retrieval methods, and interpret upcoming observations with ground- and space-based telescopes in order to identify life on Earth-like exoplanets.”

To access this intriguing new work, go to:

https://doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slad147