Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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May 5th, 2022Russia’s Roskosmos and the Rocket and Space Corporation (RKK) Energia have signed a contract for blueprinting a new orbital station.
According to TASS, the largest Russian news agency, the work will be performed in two phases:
- Analysis of scenarios for deployment and the station’s inclination, including the scenario for undocking the active modules of the Russian segment of the International Space Station, the cost of deploying the station and calculating transfer of spacecraft from the station’s orbit to lunar orbit.
- Development of a preliminary design and technical specifications for a variant of the orbital station based on the results of the first stage of design. The provision of the station with communications, training of cosmonauts, medical supplies, the possibility of functioning in crewed and unscrewed modes, and use of robotic systems will also be considered.
The first phase is to be completed by June of this year; according to the terms of reference, the second phase will last until March 2024.
As noted in the document, the work should be completed on March 31, 2024. The contract value is almost 2.69 billion rubles – roughly $40 million in U.S. dollars.
Credit: Roskosmos
Credit: Rocket and Space Corporation (RKK) Energia
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Credit: Ken Farley
NASA’s Perseverance rover that is exploring Jezero Crater may unload its first cache of collected samples, perhaps near year’s end.
That prospect was highlighted during this week’s Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG) Meeting #39 being held in Denver, Colorado.
Ken Farley of Caltech and the Mars 2020 Project Scientist said the Jezero cache should contain roughly 12 of Perseverance’s 43 sample tubes, allowing roughly 31 to be available for a second cache/handoff later in the rover’s mission.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Mars sample return
“Putting the cache down on the Three Forks Landing Strip makes a lot of sense,” Farley told Inside Outer Space. “The combination of extremely benign terrain and the fact that Perseverance does not need a long divert to implement it make it desirable from both engineering and science perspectives.”
Credit: Ken Farley
When deployed, this first Jezero cache of samples will provide a target for the Mars Sample Return mission should Perseverance fail prematurely, Farley said.
The Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission needs Perseverance to document landing and cache depot sites, thereby ensuring acceptability of the site. The robot’s survey will provide detailed data for sample pickup planning – a reconnoitering task that may require several months of the mission’s time, Farley said.
Credit: Ken Farley
The MSR project will make use of two individual landers – one each for a Fetch Rover and another for the Mars Ascent Vehicle that will be loaded with samples.
This illustration shows a concept for multiple robots that would team up to ferry to Earth samples in the 2030’s collected from the Mars surface by NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
MSR is being orchestrated by NASA and the European Space Agency. The sets of geologic and atmospheric samples gathered by Perseverance are to be transported to Earth.
Intriguing ridgeline
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter recently surveyed a ridgeline near the ancient river delta in Mars’ Jezero Crater at request of the Perseverance rover’s science team.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Perseverance officially began the “Delta Front Campaign” on April 18th. Each campaign represents a sub-portion of the Mars 2020 mission and is dedicated to exploring a distinct region, drilling designated sets of cores for possible future return to Earth, and taking numerous in situ science observations with onboard instruments to study the environmental and geologic features that characterize that region.
Meanwhile, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter recently surveyed an intriguing ridgeline near the ancient river delta in Jezero Crater. Imagery of that feature was captured on April 23, during the helicopter’s 27th flight. The photos were taken at the request of the Perseverance Mars rover science team, which wanted a closer look at the sloping outcrop.
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Left B Camera photo taken on Sol 3461, May 2, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“We have left the pediment behind and are making our way back to an alternate “MSAR” or “Mount Sharp Ascent Route,” reports Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, a planetary geologist at the University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3461, May 2, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“We are at the second (of three) observation stops for this area, chosen as they offer the best chance to acquire high resolution images of the structures in the buttes,” O’Connell-Cooper adds. “We have noticed some dark layers which are reminiscent of the lenses at ‘The Prow’ and may indicate changing grain sizes or depositional environments. In an ideal world, we geologists would just climb up the side of a given butte to thoroughly investigate the layer but sadly, we are not going to be able to walk… or drive the rover… up the side of these buttes, so Mastcam is taking a large (132 frame) mosaic of the ‘Maringma’ butte here at this vantage point.”
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3461, May 2, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Low on rocks
The rover’s Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) is also acquiring a long distance RMI (remote image) of “Tweedbank,” which is one of these dark layers.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3461, May 2, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Although the rover is surrounded by large buttes and rocky hills, the robot’s reachable workspace was recently pretty low on rocks.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3462, May 3, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Fortunately, there are small fragments peeking out from under the sand and dust cover,” O’Connell-Cooper notes, so Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) were able to get two targets close to each other.
“Castlecraig” is a tilted fragment, with a brighter appearance than surrounding rocks. These targets are often veins (of calcium sulphate) and scientists like to analyze these periodically, as veins can reveal hints about conditions at the time of deposition or later.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3462, May 3, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Changes in base bedrock
The second target “Cat Firth” is on more regular bedrock. “Unfortunately, this target is too small to brush off the sand and dirt. However, it appears to be relatively clean, so hopefully will provide good quality APXS measurements on bedrock, so that we can document changes in base bedrock composition too. Mastcam is also imaging some fine laminations in the target “Moorhowe” which is in the workspace but out of reach of the arm,” O’Connell-Cooper points out.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3462, May 3, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Continuing the drive
As always, there is ongoing monitoring of the atmospheric opacity and dust levels. On the first night of a recent plan, an APXS environmental measurement was on tap, to monitor argon levels in the atmosphere which change with the seasons.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3462, May 3, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Once all the contact science and imaging are done here, we continue with our drive which is planned to take us to the third observation point, which is actually in the next naming quad – so in this drive, we will say ‘Mar sin leat’ (goodbye in Scots Gaelic) to the Torridon quad and ‘Olá’ (hello in Portuguese) to the ‘Roriama’ quad,” O’Connell-Cooper concludes.
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager photo produced on Sol 3461, May 2, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Dates of planned rover activities described in these reports are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3462, May 3, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Red Planet as seen by Europe’s Mars Express.
Credit: ESA/D. O’Donnell – CC BY-SA IGO
Those bits and pieces of Mars expected to be brought back to Earth, perhaps in the early 2030s, will land with a thud in Utah desert.
Those return samples are now being collected by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover.
NASA Perseverance rover.
Credit: NASA/JPL
To test the Mars Sample Return (MSR) Earth Entry System (EES), engineers have carried out a series of drop tests at the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR).
A Manufacturing Demonstration Unit of one potential design for the EES aeroshell was outfitted with sensors and dropped from a helicopter.
Stable during descent
Mars Sample Return capsule testing.
Credit: NASA/Langley/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The drop test series was a follow up to tests conducted last year at UTTR with a .75-meter, less detailed, EES test article. In comparison, the MDU is a full-scale vehicle, 1.25 meters across, with a structure fabricated of materials similar to those that would be used for the EES in the actual Mars sample mission.
During the tests, the MDU was dropped from an altitude of 1,200 feet to provide time to reach the intended landing speed.
“The MDU was very stable during descent – it didn’t wobble around a lot, and it landed successfully, in the sense that there was no structural damage and it survived impact as expected,” said Jim Corliss, MSR EES chief engineer, in a NASA press statement.
Utah testing of Mars Sample Return capsule.
Credit: NASA/Langley/Inside Outer Space screengrab
It’s important for the aeroshell to land in a particular orientation, Corliss added, and the drop test indicated the full-scale MDU was stable during final descent, landing right on its nose as engineers intended.
This test, along with another series of tests planned for later this year, will help researchers verify predictions of the EES landing performance and complete the characterization of the potential landing area at UTTR.
Go to this striking video at:
Credit: NASA
Bringing home the goods from Mars – what’s your view?
NASA and the European Space Agency are planning to use robotic Mars orbiter and lander missions to collect samples now being gathered by NASA’s Perseverance rover, busy at work on the Red Planet.
Perseverance rover deposits select rock and soil samples in sealed tubes on Mars’s surface for future missions to retrieve and bring back to Earth for detailed study.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
These samples, securely isolated inside an “Earth Entry System” using a layered “container within a container” approach, could be brought to Earth in the early 2030s.
The Earth Entry System would then be transported to a specialized MSR sample receiving facility.
NASA is requesting public comment on the scope of a Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the agency’s proposed Mars Sample Return (MSR) campaign.
Comments will be accepted through the mail and online through Monday, May 16, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA is also hosting two virtual public meetings about the proposed program at 3 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, May 4, 2022, and 8 p.m. on Thursday, May 5, 2022, at:
https://jpl.webex.com/meet/msr
Utah landing site
The public meetings will include briefings about the status of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process for the proposed program, as well as its purpose and scientific goals.
Meetings will also cover why the Utah Test and Training Range operated by the U.S. Air Force is the proposed landing site for the samples, and what planners are doing to ensure safe and secure return of the samples – a topic known as backward planetary protection.
NASA will consider all comments received during the scoping process in the subsequent development of the MSR Draft Environmental Impact Statement, which is currently scheduled to be released for public comment later this year.
Additional information on the agency’s National Environmental Policy Act process and the proposed NASA-ESA MSR program is available online.
Go to:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nepa-mars-sample-return-campaign/
For those people who have any comments to post in the Federal Register — pro/con regarding returning Martian samples directly to Earth — the comment period ends shortly.
Just hit the blue ‘Comment” button on the following document link below: National Environmental Policy Act; Mars Sample Return Campaign, at:
Curiosity’s location as of Sol 3458. Distance driven on this sol: 17.16 miles/27.62 kilometers.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3459 duties.
While angular, pointy rocks have damaged the rover’s wheels since early in its mission, sometimes the wheels damage rocks as the rover drives over them, reports Ken Herkenhoff, a planetary geologist at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Sometimes Curiosity’s wheels damage rocks as the robot drives over them. As seen especially at the upper left side of this image, the bedrock was scraped and fractured by the rover during the Sol 3456 drive.
This image was taken by Left Navigation Camera on Sol 3456, April 27, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Bedrock was scraped and fractured by the robot during a Sol 3456 drive.
“Unfortunately, that drive did not complete as planned, but the tactical team took advantage of the situation by targeting observations of the freshly-exposed rock surfaces.” Herkenhoff adds.
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Right B image taken on Sol 3459, April 30, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Scrape mark
A new plan calls for the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) to be placed on a scrape mark named “Cow Head” to measure its elemental chemistry, then the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) was slated to take a full suite of images of the same target.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3458, April 29, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“MAHLI will also take some images of a rock fragment ‘Orton Scar’ that was broken off a bedrock slab. Hopefully textural details will be more visible on these fresh faces than on the nearby undisturbed, dustier rocks,” Herkenhoff notes.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3458, April 29, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Outcrop close-ups
Researchers will also take advantage of Curiosity’s new location to take Mastcam images of Maringma Butte, as the rover is closer to that outcrop than expected.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3458, April 29, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Mastcam will also acquire multispectral sets of images of the Cow Head and Orton Scar contact science targets. Navcam will search for dust devils and characterize the dustiness of the atmosphere toward the north before the rover drives again,” Herkenhoff reports.
After the drive and the typical post-drive imaging, the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) was to again acquire a twilight image of the ground behind the left front wheel.
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3458, April 29, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Dusty Zhurong rover.
Credit: CNSA
China’s Zhurong rover has worked on the surface of Mars for more than 300 days.
The Tianwen-1 mission is the country’s first interplanetary outing, probe sending back a large amount of data, and is ready for more international cooperation on Mars, says a chief designer of the probe.
In May 2021, China’s Mars probe Tianwen-1 successfully landed on the Red Planet, then dispatched the Zhurong robot explorer.
Lander and Zhurong Mars rover.
Credit: CNSA/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Communication test
After its landing, the Mars rover successfully completed an in-orbit relay communication test with the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Mars Express, laying a foundation for further international cooperation.
Zhurong sent test data to Mars Express over a distance of approximately 4,000 kilometers. The communication lasted 10 minutes.
Peng Song, deputy director designer of the Tianwen-1 probe.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Mars rover Zhurong sent test data to Mars Express. Mars Express received the data and forwarded it to the European Space Operations Center (ESOC). The ESOC then forwarded the data to the Beijing Aerospace Control Center. “The data relay communication link verification test proved that the Tianwen-1 team and the Mars Express team are capable of conducting international cooperation in this field,” Peng Song, deputy director designer of the Tianwen-1 probe, told China Central Television (CCTV).
Credit: CNSA
Data analysis results showed that the relay communication equipment interfaces of Zhurong and ESA’s Mars Express matched and conformed to international standards, and the contents of the transmitted data were complete and correct.
China’s Zhurong rover wheels to the south, clearly shown in this June 11 image acquired by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Travel route
Zhurong has driven more than 6,233 feet (1,900 meters) southward from its landing point on Mars and will keep its effective momentum to travel further south to obtain scientific data.
“We have some high-interest objects in the south. Zhurong finished exploring a sand dune and some rocks in the vicinity. Its travel route is generally based on the scientific purposes,” Peng said.
Meanwhile, the Tianwen-1 mission orbiter continues to orbit around the red planet conducting tests of its own, which is tasked with taking high resolution pictures of typical landforms on Mars, including craters, volcanoes, canyons and dry river beds.
Credit: China National Space Administration (CNSA)/China Media Group(CMG)/China Central Television (CCTV)
Winter season
Additionally, the Zhurong rover is prepared for tiding over dusty weather in the upcoming winter season on the Red Planet.
“So far everything looks safe and sound. But the dust could affect the power generation of the solar wings, because the dust is bound to reduce the efficiency of the power generation, which could lead to a shortage of energy,” said Peng.
Tailored measures
To tackle the frequent sandstorms in winter, the designers have designed four tailored measures for Zhurong.
“The first is that the battery pieces installed in the solar wings are made of a special material called superhydrophobic material, which, like a lotus leaf can let the water drops falling on it slip, makes it easier for the dust to be blown off,” said Peng.
Complex terrain of rocks, impact craters and sand dunes.
Credit: CNSA
Zhurong’s solar wings also have directional tracking of the sun. Although the sun is lower in winter, the rover’s wings, like those of a sunflower, will shift as the sun rises to maximize solar energy absorption.
The third measure is that the rover can conserve energy and reduce energy consumption by changing their working patterns in windy and sandy weather.
If all the first three measures fail to solve the energy problem, the rover will go into dormancy until the dust clears, when it will wake up automatically and resume work, according to Peng.
Credit: Iceland Space Agency
Of all places on Earth, Iceland is turning out to be a cold, but nearby testing zone for spacesuits, habitats and off-world terrain vehicles.
But why there and what’s ahead in chipping away at research ideas that can furnish humanity a leg up on re-planting footprints on the Moon and start plotting out Mars habitation?
Embarking upon the future of off-planet exploration is the Iceland Space Agency.
The CHILL-ICE project is constructing a lunar-analogue habitat inside a lava tube in Iceland. (Image credit: CHILL-ICE)
While Iceland does not have a government agency for space, nonetheless, there’s a growing list of research projects underway, as well as progress in nurturing a space sector in the country.
Please go to my new Space.com story – “Iceland emerging as popular practice site for moon and Mars exploration” at:
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
High-tech leftovers from the landing of NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars have been imaged by the space agency’s Ingenuity helicopter.
Taken during the rotorcraft’s 26th flight over Mars on April 19th, images show the Perseverance’s backshell (left of center), supersonic parachute (far right) – all caught on camera from an altitude of 26 feet (8 meters).
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
During the Feb. 18, 2021, landing of Perseverance the parachute and backshell were jettisoned at about 1.3 miles (2.1 km) altitude.
The parachute and backshell continued to descend and impacted the ground at approximately 78 mph (126 kph).
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Engineers working on the Mars Sample Return program requested images be taken from an aerial perspective of the components. They may provide insight into the components’ performance during the rover’s entry, descent, and landing.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Artwork depicts CAPSTONE spacecraft in a near rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) around the moon.
Credit: NASA/Advanced Space
Rocket Lab is slated to launch in May a pathfinding cubesat mission that supports NASA’s Artemis return-to-the moon program.
The Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment — mercifully called CAPSTONE for short — tips the scales at a modest 55-pounds. This microwave-oven sized spacecraft will be lofted from New Zealand aboard a Rocket Lab Electron rocket and the launch provider’s Lunar Photon upper stage.
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
The launch window is between May 3-May 15.
For more details on this important mission, go to my new Space.com story — “Little CAPSTONE cubesat ready to launch on big moon mission next month” – at:
https://www.space.com/capstone-cubesat-moon-mission-launch-may
