Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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May 11th, 2022
Designed and built by Terran Orbital, CAPSTONE will support NASA’s Artemis program in reducing the risk for future Moon bound spacecraft.
Credit: Terran Orbital
A small satellite is en route toward the Moon…via New Zealand.
The Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, otherwise known as CAPSTONE, will support NASA’s Artemis program.
As a pathfinder for NASA’s Gateway station, a Moon-orbiting outpost, CAPSTONE’s mission is to help reduce the risk for future spacecraft by validating innovative navigation technologies and verifying the dynamics of the Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO).
Artwork depicts CAPSTONE spacecraft in a near rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) around the moon.
Credit: NASA/Advanced Space
Staging area
CAPSTONE’s orbit also establishes a location that is an ideal staging area for missions to the Moon and beyond. Its location at a precise balance point in the gravities of the Earth and the Moon offers stability for long-term missions like Gateway and requires minimal energy to maintain.
Designed and built by Terran Orbital, the CAPSTONE payload and its software are owned and operated by Advanced Space for NASA.
CAPSTONE is a 12U CubeSat that includes a radio tower on top that extends its size from a traditional 12U form factor.
Jeffrey Parker, chief technology officer of Advanced Space (left) explains the CAPSTONE mission to U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper over a full-size model of the spacecraft.
Credit: Advanced Space/Jason Johnson
Ballistic lunar transfer
The smallsat is soon to be launched (no earlier than May 31st) Rocket Lab Electron rocket from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 (LC-1) on the Mahia Peninsula of New Zealand. That company’s Lunar Photon satellite upper stage will send the spacecraft on its planned lunar transfer trajectory.
CAPSTONE will not go directly to the Moon. Instead, it will follow a “ballistic lunar transfer” that takes the craft out as far as 1.5 million kilometers before returning into lunar orbit. That transfer, which will take about four months to complete, is designed to save propellant, making the mission feasible for such a small spacecraft.
Credit: Rocket Lab
Posted in 
Colorado has been selected for a planned spaceflight training facility and a “Lab-to-Orbit”™ research campus.
Billed as the world’s first space readiness and innovation campus, Star Harbor unveiled today its planned 53-acre mixed-use development campus and training center south of Denver in Lone Tree, Colorado.
At its heart will be the Star Harbor Academy that features microgravity flights, neutral buoyancy facility, a high-gravity centrifuge, as well as land-based and underwater habitats, hypobaric and hyperbaric chambers, simulation labs, and human performance center.
Credit: Star Harbor
Additional campus features will include a space-themed hotel, office space, Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility space, non-profit Public Inspiration center and entertainment and event venues, including an e-sports arena.
The Star Harbor campus is expected to attract more than two million annual visitors, according to the organization.
Unprecedented renaissance
“There is an unprecedented renaissance occurring within the space industry today and our leading edge capabilities and people-centered approach will accelerate this transformation in ways that are not only critically needed in the industry but will foster a new vision for how space can be leveraged to improve life on Earth,” said Maraia Tanner, founder and CEO of Star Harbor, an astrophysicist and former aerospace engineer.
“We have the opportunity to foster a new generation of explorers, innovators, entrepreneurs, educators and technologies to leave a powerful, positive legacy for generations to come,” Tanner said in a press statement.
Credit: Star Harbor
The planned Star Harbor Lab-to-Orbit research campus will lower barriers-to-entry for commercial innovation, scale and speed.
Significant partnerships
Star Harbor has already established more than 30 significant partnerships and memorandums of understanding encompassing major aerospace, technology, and defense companies, leading educational organizations, international space agencies, and relevant U.S. government entities. The company said it will share these partnerships in the coming weeks.
The commercial astronaut training, space workforce development and technology incubator program also launched a Series B fundraising round through July 15, 2022 to further the development of the project. With initial offerings beginning in 2026, the mixed-use campus will host customers and the public.
“Our staff includes astronauts, experts in the aerospace and travel industry sectors, and educators,” said Star Harbor senior advisor, Alan Ladwig, and a member of the board of directors. Retired from NASA, Ladwig was formerly director of Office of Policy and Plans at NASA headquarters and senior policy advisor in NASA’s Office of the Administrator.
Dr. Sian Proctor, a member of SpaceX’s Inspiration4 civilian orbital spaceflight.
Credit: Inspiration4
A Star Harbor team includes Dr. Sian Proctor, a member of SpaceX’s Inspiration4 civilian orbital spaceflight and the first black woman to pilot a spacecraft; and Ronald Garan Jr., a former NASA astronaut and retired Air Force test pilot. Board members include Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing (retired) and Kenneth Svendsen, Entertainment Cruises, Disney and Hilton (retired).
For more information on this enterprising space readiness and innovation campus, go to:
Or email at:
Credit: Alexander Madurowicz/Bruce Macintosh
A futuristic technique could enable astronomical imaging far more advanced than any present today to image exoplanets.
Stanford scientists have proposed a gravity telescope.
The concept proposes positioning a telescope, the Sun, and exoplanet in a line with the Sun in the middle. Doing so, scientists could use the gravitational field of the sun to magnify light from the exoplanet as it passes by.
As opposed to a magnifying glass which has a curved surface that bends light, a gravitational lens has a curved space-time that enables imaging far away objects.
Solar gravitational lensing
In a paper published on May 2 in The Astrophysical Journal – “Integral Field Spectroscopy with the Solar Gravitational Lens” — the researchers describe a way to manipulate solar gravitational lensing to view planets outside our solar system.
“We want to take pictures of planets that are orbiting other stars that are as good as the pictures we can make of planets in our own solar system,” said Bruce Macintosh, a physics professor at in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford and deputy director of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC).
Credit: Alexander Madurowicz/Bruce Macintosh
“With this technology, we hope to take a picture of a planet 100 light-years away that has the same impact as Apollo 8’s picture of Earth,” Macintosh adds.
“The solar gravitational lens opens up an entirely new window for observation,” said Alexander Madurowicz, a PhD student at KIPAC. “This will allow investigation of the detailed dynamics of the planet atmospheres, as well as the distributions of clouds and surface features, which we have no way to investigate now.”
To access the research paper, go to:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ac5e9d/pdf
Also, go to this Stanford University story that details the concept at:
https://news.stanford.edu/2022/05/02/gravity-telescope-image-exoplanets/
Curiosity’s location as of Sol 3465. Distance driven to that Sol is 17.27 miles/27.79 kilometers.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3466 tasks.
The rover has cleared the “Greenheugh pediment” and the mix of sandy, steep, and rough terrain that challenged its drives up and down it, reports Michelle Minitti, a planetary geologist at Framework in Silver Spring, Maryland.
“However, we are finding that as we make our way up Mount Sharp along a new route, some of the same driving gremlins are with us,” Minitti adds.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3465, May 6, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Higher than expected tilts
A recent drive made it just about all the way to its endpoint, but Curiosity encountered higher than expected tilts as the robot attempted to turn toward a desired heading to enable clear communications with Earth via high gain antenna.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3465, May 6, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“The turn did not complete, so direct communication with Curiosity via the high gain antenna was blocked. The current relative positions of Earth and Mars plus the pediment and scenic buttes around us give us fewer heading options for direct communication, so we are less robust to a missed turn here or a drive fault there,” Minitti explains.
Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) photo produced on Sol 3465, May 6, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
That meant researchers had to wait until the morning of Sol 3465 to communicate with Curiosity another way – through one of the many orbiters circling Mars that we use to send our data to Earth. As such, Curiosity was to chill on Sol 3464, but then spring into action on Sol 3465 with the plethora of activities the science team planned.
Undaunted
“The science team was certainly undaunted by having only one sol to plan when we were expecting two, Minitti notes. “We did our best to cram in just about everything we wanted!”
The Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) was the odd instrument out, as the dusty bedrock and less-ideal integration time available for them led them to take a pass on the workspace.
APXS’s usual science partner, the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), had rocks to look at, in particular a nice layered block.
MAHLI was slated to acquire a mosaic across the layers centered on target “Firina,” and will then zoom in to look at the rock texture at target “Bartica.”
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B image taken on Sol 3465, May 6, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) was also shoot the layers of that layered block at the target “Rio Mucajai.”
Large buttes
Mastcam will image two large buttes – the one looming to the left of the rover, and “Mirador” butte – both of which have been imaged from different positions previously.
“Imaging them from a different perspective can really clarify the orientations of the structures within the buttes, and those orientations are often key to understanding the processes that formed those rocks,” Minitti reports.
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Right B image taken on Sol 3465, May 6, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Mastcam was also to image a set of newly-visible structures in the terrain below Mirador butte, centered on the target “Akopan dal Cin.”
The Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS), the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) and the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) run throughout the sol.
“With our data in hand,” Minitti concludes, “we will drive further up the slope in front of us, alongside the large butte we imaged today. Here’s hoping the terrain is more forgiving!”
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The next step in China’s space station construction effort has begun.
The Tianzhou-4 cargo spacecraft atop a Long March-7 Y5 carrier rocket has been transferred to the launching area of the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in the southern island province of Hainan on Saturday morning, announced the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).
The three-kilometer rollout took approximately three hours, according to experts at the launch site.
Credit: GLOBALink/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Launch process
“Compared with previous launches of Tianzhou cargo ships, this mission has mainly optimized the launch process. The launch process is shortened by eight days, and for the first time, liquid oxygen and kerosene are both added to the new-generation carrier rocket. Refueling time is reduced from 12 hours to 8 hours,” said Shi Yin’gen, deputy director of the launch site’s planning department.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
“The optimization of these procedures is mainly based on the accumulated experience of the Long March-7 rockets after multiple launches, and is also aimed at improving the comprehensive test and launch capability of the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site to meet the needs of frequent launches in the future,” Shi told China Central Television.
The Tianzhou-4 mission is the third cargo resupply mission to the Tianhe core module of China’s Tiangong space station. The CMSA said the cargo ship will be launched in the near future at an appropriate time. An earlier report pegged the liftoff on May 10.
China’s space station to be completed by end of 2022.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Station schedule
According to schedule, China will complete the in-orbit construction of its space station by the close of 2022.
Credit: CMS
A total of six missions are planned for this year, including the launch of the Tianzhou-4 cargo spacecraft in May, the Shenzhou-14 piloted spacecraft in June, the lab module Wentian in July, and the lab module Mengtian in October.
The three modules will form a T shape to complete the in-orbit construction of China’s space station, followed by the launch of the Tianzhou-5 cargo spacecraft and the Shenzhou-15 crewed spacecraft.
Videos of the rollout can be viewed at:
Photo taking during Chang’e-5 surface sampling.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
There is good news eking out of China’s Chang’e-5 lunar samples that were returned to Earth in December 2020.
Researchers with Nanjing University report in the scientific journal, Joule, that the lunar sample brought back by China’s Chang’e-5 probe contains active compounds that can convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and fuel.
According to the report, it is of high technological importance and scientific interest to develop a lunar life support system for long-term exploration.
Credit: CNSA
“Lunar in situ resource utilization offers a great opportunity to provide the material basis of life support for lunar habitation and traveling. Based on the analysis of the structure and composition, Chang’E-5 lunar soil sample has the potential for lunar solar energy conversion, i.e., extraterrestrial photosynthetic catalysts.”
Photosynthesis pathway
By evaluating the performance of the Chang’E-5 lunar sample as photovoltaic-driven electrocatalyst, photocatalyst, and photothermal catalyst, full water splitting and CO2 conversion are able to be achieved by solar energy, water, and lunar soil, with a range of target product for lunar life, including O2, H2, CH4 (Methane), and CH3OH (Methanol), the university scientists report.
“Thus, we propose a potentially available extraterrestrial photosynthesis pathway on the Moon, which will help us to achieve a ‘zero-energy consumption’ extraterrestrial life support system,” the researchers report.
Credit: Yao Yingfang, Et al./Nanjing University
“We use in-situ environmental resources to minimize rocket payload, and our strategy provides a scenario for a sustainable and affordable extraterrestrial living environment,” said the paper’s first author Yao Yingfang from Nanjing University.
Improving the design
In a Xinhua news agency report, citing the researchers, with this method, no external energy apart from sunlight would be used to produce oxygen and fuel to support life on a Moon base. However, the challenge lies in the fact that catalytic efficiency of lunar soil is weaker than catalysts on Earth. As a research follow-up, the scientists are testing different approaches to improve the design, such as melting the lunar soil into a nanostructured high-entropy material.
“The team is looking for an opportunity to test the system in space, for instance, with China’s future crewed lunar missions,” the Xinhua story adds.
To access the research report – “Extraterrestrial photosynthesis by Chang’E-5 lunar soil” – in the Joule journal, go to:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2542435122001787
Dusty Zhurong rover.
Credit: CNSA
China’s Zhurong Mars rover is ready for the upcoming cold season on the Red Planet.
In the northern part on Mars, the Zhurong rover is entering winter, with the coldest period expected to come in July.
The highest temperature of the spot where Zhurong is located at noon has dropped to 20 degrees Celsius below zero, and the ambient temperature at night has dropped below 100 degrees Celsius below zero.
Dusty weather on Mars also brought impact on the power generation capacity of the solar wing batteries of the rover.
Lander and Zhurong Mars rover.
Credit: CNSA/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Solar wing adjustment
The Zhurong engineering team has adjusted the angle of the solar wings on the rover and reduced mission and working hours of the device to balance the energy usage amid low temperature and dusty weather.
“At present, the main power acquisition, storage and supply of the rover have met the expectations of our original design. For the subsequent harsh winter, we’ve also made some corresponding plans and tailored schemes,” Zhang Rongqiao, chief designer of China’s first Mars exploration mission Tianwen-1, told China Central Television (CCTV).
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
To ensure safe operation amid cold and dusty weather on Mars, the design team has set automatic sleep mode on the rover, under which the rover will enter sleep mode when the energy is dropped to a given point and the rover will return to normal operation when the environment turns better.
Scientific data
The Tianwen-1 orbiter and Zhurong rover have obtained about 940GB of original scientific data.
During its orbit around Mars, all seven payloads carried by China’s Tianwen-1 orbiter have been carrying out remote sensing exploration of Mars.
Tianwen-1 Mars orbiter.
Credit: CNSA
According to CCTV, a medium-resolution camera captured an image of Mariner Valley on Mars on April 1 with a resolution of about 65 meters per pixel, and the high-resolution camera captured images of Triolet crater on Mars on April 17 at a resolution of about 0.8 meter per pixel.
As of Thursday, Tianwen-1 has been in orbit for 651 days; the Zhurong rover has been operating on the surface of Mars for 347 days, travelling over 6,300 feet (1,921 meters).
Go to this informative video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5ah4UajyI0
An artistic rendering of what a resilient microgrid for a lunar base camp might look like. Sandia engineers are working with NASA to design the system controller for the microgrid. Credit: Illustration by Eric Lundin
Engineers at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico are working with NASA and the Department of Energy to design a resilient microgrid electrical system for the Moon.
NASA’s plan for a conceptual Artemis lunar base consists of a habitation unit — complete with room for up to four astronauts — as well as the potential for separate mining and fuel processing facilities.
Early Artemis missions will include short stays at the base camp with the goal to enhance stay times of crews for two months.
Utilizing lunar resources, mining and processing facilities could churn out rocket fuel, water, oxygen and other materials needed for extended exploration of the Moon’s surface while decreasing supply needs from Earth.
Resiliency and robustness
These type facilities would be located far away from the base camp — so other science and technology activities conducted there won’t be disrupted — but the electrical grid for the two units will be connected during emergencies for resiliency and robustness.
There are some very important differences between something like an International Space Station-type microgrid to something that has the extent of a future lunar base, said Jack Flicker, a Sandia electrical engineer.
Credit: NASA
“One of those differences is the geographic size, which can be problematic, especially when running at low DC voltages,” Jack said in a Sandia press statement. “Another is that when you start to extend these systems, there will be a lot more power electronics as well as a lot more distributed energy resources that will exist throughout the base. Sandia has been looking at microgrids with a lot of distributed energy resources for quite a long time.”
Voltage level
Also in work is designing the software to regulate the electricity of the mining and processing center, underway since early summer 2021. That controller can be contrasted to cruise control in a standard automobile in that it maintains an even voltage level on the grid, despite changing external situations.
A Secure Scalable Microgrid Testbed is a unique Sandia research facility that researchers will use to fine-tune their control system. They will also use the testbed to study questions about power system controllers and the interactions between distributed energy resources, energy storage and power electronics on a DC microgrid that is a scaled and simplified representation of the eventual lunar microgrid. Most terrestrial microgrids, and terrestrial electrical grids in general, run on alternating-current power.
Sandia electrical engineers Rachid Darbali-Zamora, front, and Lee Raskin test an algorithm on a hardware-in-the-loop setup at the Distributed Energy Technologies Laboratory.
Credit: Rebecca Gustaf
Variety of situations
“With this DC power-hardware-in-the-loop setup that we’re building in the lab, we can test power converters, the impedance of electrical lines between lunar facilities, we could also test actual energy generation and storage devices,” said Rachid Darbali-Zamora. “Basically, we can use it to study a variety of situations so we can design a system that is self-sustaining and can continue operating even if a solar panel array goes down.”
While this work is for a microgrid on the Moon, the research is also relevant to creating resiliency for communities on Earth, Rachid said. Sandia has a history in designing reliable and resilient microgrids for military bases and vital city services.
This project is funded by the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Electricity as part of a DOE-NASA partnership to combine the expertise, experience and research facilities of both federal agencies.
Credit: China Central Television (CCTV)/China National Space Administration (CNSA)/United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA)/China Manned Space Agency (CMSA)/Inside Outer Space screengrab
China is slated to launch at the end of 2023 a space-based optical observatory flagship telescope.
The telescope, during its normal observations, will fly independently in the same orbit as China’s space station but will maintain a large distance apart, according to China’s Xinhua news agency.
However, the telescope can dock with China’s space station for refueling and servicing as scheduled or as needed.
Bus-sized facility
Known as the Chinese Survey Space Telescope, it is also called the Chinese Space Station Telescope (CSST) and Xuntian Space Telescope.
A bus-sized facility with a length equal to that of a three-story building, the space telescope has an aperture of two meters, a bit smaller than the Hubble Space Telescope, but its field of view is 350 times larger than Hubble in area, said Liu Jifeng, deputy director of National Astronomical Observatories Of China (NAOC), in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.
Credit: NAOC
The CSST will be outfitted with five instruments including a Survey Camera.
CSST is likely to be the largest space telescope for astronomy in the near-ultraviolet and visible in the decade before 2035, said Zhan Hu, project scientist of the CSST Optical Facility.
The CSST is expected to start scientific operations in 2024 and has a nominal mission lifetime of 10 years, which could be extended in principle.
Credit: China National Space Administration (CNSA)/China Media Group(CMG)/China Central Television (CCTV)/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Station construction steps
China intends to have their space station construction complete by the end of this year.
The China National Space Administration plans to complete the construction of the station by adding the Wentian Experiment Capsule-1 and the Mengtian Experiment Capsule-2 to the now orbiting Tianhe Core Module.
Two Tianzhou cargo spacecraft will provide supplies for the astronauts of the Shenzhou-14 and Shenzhou-15 crewed spacecraft.
The Wentian lab module will be launched in July and Mengtian in October, Hao Chun, director of the China Manned Space Agency, said recently at the press conference.
The Shenzhou-14 crew will witness the arrival of two lab modules during their stay in orbit.
The Shenzhou-15 crew will fly to the space station before the end of this year and join the Shenzhou-14 crew in space. At that time, the space station will consist of three modules, two manned spacecraft and one cargo spacecraft, with a total mass of nearly 100 tons.
Credit: China National Space Administration (CNSA)/China Media Group(CMG)/China Central Television (CCTV)/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Training and preparation
The two crews of the Shenzhou-14 and Shenzhou-15 have been selected and they are actively carrying out relevant training and preparation.
“The two crews of the Shenzhou-14 and Shenzhou-15 will stay in orbit for six months respectively, and they will carry out in-orbit rotation for the first time. The six astronauts will stay together in orbit for 5 to 10 days,” said Huang Weifen, chief designer of the astronaut system under China’s manned space program.
Credit: HeroX/NASA MarsXR Challenge
A crowdsourcing competition, NASA MarsXR Challenge, seeks contributions to a Virtual Reality (XR) testbed environment that replicates the experiences and situations astronauts may encounter on Mars.
HeroX, a leading platform and open marketplace for crowdsourced solutions, launched the challenge today.
To facilitate research, development, and testing using virtual reality, NASA, in collaboration with Buendea, is developing the Mars XR Operations Support System using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5 (UE5). Participants of the NASA MarsXR Challenge will gain first access to this virtual reality environment, which includes:
- Full Martian days, with the orange hues of day transitioning to blue at night.
- Changing weather conditions and Martian gravity.
- Over 400 km2 (~ 154 Miles2) of realistic, researched Mars terrain.
- Some existing assets, such as suits and rovers.
There are five (5) different categories to participate in, with particular scenarios to explore in each category:
Digging in…on Mars.
Credit: NASA Langley Advanced Concepts Lab/Analytical Mechanics Associates
Set Up Camp
Scientific Research
Maintenance
Exploration
Blow Our Minds
The Prize
Up to 20 participants who submit the top ideas will share a total prize purse of $70,000.
Challenge participants will be tasked with developing assets and scenarios within the virtual reality environment that model the types of tasks that may need to be performed during early human expeditions to Mars, which can then be used to expose researchers and test subjects to immersive and realistic spacewalk activities while on the Red Planet. Information gained from these simulations could help NASA prepare for future human exploration of Mars.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Whether you’re a game designer, architect, hobbyist or rocket scientist, anyone can build with UE5, and we can’t wait to see the immersive simulations the community comes up with.”
Eligibility to Compete and Win Prize(s)
The prize is open to anyone aged 18 or older participating as an individual or as a team. Individual competitors and teams may originate from any country, as long as United States federal sanctions do not prohibit participation (some restrictions apply).
To accept the challenge, visit: https://www.herox.com/MarsXR
