Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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January 27th, 2022
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo taken on Sol 3368, January 26, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3369 tasks.
Susanne Schwenzer, a planetary geologist at The Open University Milton Keynes in the U.K., reports the rover tried to approach “The Prow.”
“But, well, sometimes Mars does not read the script. If you ever drove off-road (or in heavy snow, for that matter), you’ll know that the landscape always rules. There is no point trying to fight it, it will win,” Schwenzer adds.
Curiosity Mast Camera Left image taken on Sol 3367, January 25, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity Mast Camera Left image taken on Sol 3367, January 25, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity Mast Camera Left image taken on Sol 3367, January 25, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Tricky terrain
“Our attempt to drive to the outcrop showed that the terrain is tricky, and that sand under the wheels caused slippage which meant we once again ended up with our left front wheel perched on a rock,” Schwenzer notes. “While we expected it, and factored it into the planning, approaching carefully, keeping the rover safe, hoping our six-wheel drive would give us the upper edge… it proved too difficult. Mars wins.”
To keep the robot safe, rover controllers decided to back off and look out for another place where scientists could find similar structures in the future, and onto which they can safely deploy the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) and its Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS).
Siblings in the future
“That said, we are not leaving empty handed, because our mast-mounted cameras, Mastcam and the ChemCam remote imager, will have imaged every important inch of the structure, and ChemCam will get chemistry too,” Schwenzer says. “Good bye to this section of ‘The Prow,’ but we’ll be looking out for your siblings in the future.”
Curiosity Mast Camera imagery taken on Sol 3367, January 25, 2022.
Before the rover’s move, there is a lot of science to be done.
Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) is to investigate the target ‘Sorowape’ in active mode and takes high-resolution mosaics of the targets ‘Kambaouk’ and ‘Chimanta’ near the rover and of the target ‘Mirador’ in the distance.
Mastcam will be busy doing documentation images of the ChemCam active target and do imaging on the targets ‘Toron’ and ‘East Cliffs’ as well as a multispectral investigation on ‘Kambaouk.’
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 3368, January 26, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“After backing off and reaching a flat area, we will do our regular full MAHLI wheel imaging that we do to keep an eye on our hardware,” Schwenzer reports.
Clast survey image
There will be a Mastcam clast survey image and the post drive imaging from Navcam for planning on Friday.
A clast pertains to a rock or sediment composed principally of broken fragments that are derived from pre-existing rocks or minerals and that have been transported some distance from their places of origin. Also, a clast can be an individual constituent, grain, or fragment of a sediment or rock, produced by the mechanical weathering (disintegration) of a larger rock mass.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 3368, January 26, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Diverse area
“Of course, we also have atmospheric monitoring in the plan and DAN [Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons] is measuring the water in the rocks beneath the rover, too.
Curiosity’s Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) is to continue to take an image after the drive, documenting the rocks under the rover.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 3368, January 26, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“Curiosity will have a busy day at the office while we will very closely inspect all the images we have – and that we will get from this plan, too – to spot a sibling of ‘The Prow.’ It’s a very diverse area,” Schwenzer notes. “It’s a feast for geologists, and for anyone else who likes to admire the wonderful structures that sedimentology has to offer.”
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That errant SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage due to hit the Moon in early March may provide some science potential.
The 4-ton stage will slam into the lunar landscape and officials for NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) are planning to take advantage of the event.
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
“The LRO project is assessing if the spacecraft will be in a position to observe the impact, similar to what we did with LCROSS and the GRAIL spacecraft,” explains Noah Petro, project scientist for LRO at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Earlier crashes
NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) was launched with the LRO to determine if water-ice exists in a permanently shadowed crater at the Moon’s south pole. As planned, LCROSS and its Centaur stage impacted the Moon on October 9, 2009.
Artist’s rendering of the LCROSS spacecraft and Centaur separation at the Moon. Image Credit: NASA
The twin spacecraft of NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission impacted the Moon on December 17, 2012 marking the end of its successful endeavor to map the Moon’s gravity. The two washing-machine-sized spacecraft were named Ebb and Flow, plowing into the Moon’s North Pole.
NASA’s twin Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) probes.
Credit: NASA
Post-impact
“The [upper stage] impact will occur on March 4, as we get closer to that date our confidence in the LRO spacecraft position at the time of impact will improve, and our understanding of the booster trajectory will change after it’s tracked in early February,” Petro explained on the informative Lunar-L website, hosted by the University of Notre Dame.
Petro added that LRO instrument teams are starting to plan what can be done to monitor changes to the Moon’s exosphere and spot the crater post-impact.
“LRO will pass over the predicted impact site on March 28 and then again roughly a month later,” Petro said. “LRO is ready to take this event and make the most of it!”
For more detailed information, go to these articles:
— “The Moon Had it Coming – After 7 years, a spent Falcon 9 rocket stage is on course to hit the Moon – The impact could offer scientists a peek at the selenology of the Moon” by Eric Berger of Ars Technica at: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/01/an-old-falcon-9-rocket-may-strike-the-moon-within-weeks/“
— SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stage will slam into the moon on March 4 – The moon’s spacecraft graveyard will soon welcome another body” by Space.com‘s Mike Wall at:
https://www.space.com/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-hit-moon-march-2022
The maiden flight of the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan Centaur rocket will carry a Celestis Memorial Spaceflight payload.
This Celestis mission, known as the Enterprise Flight, will launch more than 150 flight capsules containing cremated remains (ashes), DNA samples, and messages of greetings from clients worldwide. Destination: interplanetary space.
“We’re very pleased to be fulfilling, with this mission, a promise I made to Majel Barrett Roddenberry in 1997 that one day we would fly her and husband Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry together on a deep space memorial spaceflight,” said Celestis CEO Charles Chafer.
“The mission is named Enterprise in tribute to them – and also fellow mission participant and beloved actor, James “Scotty” Doohan,” Chafer said in a statement, “as well as the many Star Trek fans who are joining them on this, the 20th Celestis Memorial Spaceflight. We look forward to launching this historic mission on a rocket named Vulcan.”
The Vulcan Centaur’s first flight – planned for later this year — will first put Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander on a trajectory for its touchdown on the Moon.
The Centaur upper stage will then continue on to deep space, entering a stable orbit around the sun, with Celestis’ Memorial Spaceflight Payload.
For more information on Celestis, go to:
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image acquired on Sol 3366, January 24, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3367 duties.
The rover has moved closer to one of the interesting, more resistant ledges that are exposed in the area (“The Prow”), as Curiosity continues her climb up Mount Sharp, reports Lucy Thompson, a planetary geologist at the University of New Brunswick; Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.
Curiosity Mast Camera Left photo taken on Sol 3365, January 23, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
“These resistant ledges have caught our attention because they reveal distinct textures. Being able to get close-up, high resolution imaging accompanied by compositional data, will help the science team better understand how they were formed,” Thompson adds.
Curiosity Mast Camera Left photo taken on Sol 3365, January 23, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
On/off the rocks
However, Curiosity ended up perched on a couple of rocks and at a tilt, such that researchers were not able to safely deploy the arm and use either its Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) or Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS).
“This meant that the rover engineers had to figure out how to move Curiosity off the rocks, but keep the areas of interest within reach of the arm instruments,” Thompson explains.
Curiosity Mast Camera Left photo taken on Sol 3365, January 23, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Without the use of the arm in a recently scripted plan, the science team set about planning how to utilize the remaining instruments to continue characterizing this important area.
Finer grained
On tap was use of the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) to analyze a small area within the resistant ledge that appears to be finer grained (“La Ventana”), to see if it has the same composition as the surrounding, sand-size grains.
Curiosity Mast Camera Left photo taken on Sol 3365, January 23, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
A Mastcam mosaic was also to acquire imagery of the La Ventana target and surrounding area.
Two other areas on the resistant ledge (“Caramambatai” and “Potaru”) will be imaged with the ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager (RMI), “providing even more sedimentological and textural information. Mastcam will also image an area of nearby cliffs (“East Cliffs”) to look at shed blocks,” Thompson says.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3366, January 24, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
New workspace
The environmental scientists planned several observations to continue monitoring changes in the atmospheric conditions. These included: Mastcam basic tau and stereo sky column observations, and Navcam 360 sky survey, large dust devil survey and line of sight observations.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3366, January 24, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“After our hopefully successful bump, we will execute a ChemCam AEGIS analysis to autonomously measure the chemistry of a rock target in the new workspace,” Thompson notes. AEGIS stands for Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science) – a software suite that permits the rover to autonomously detect and prioritize targets.
Curiosity Mars Descent Imager photo taken on Sol 3365, January 23, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Also planned, the terrain beneath the rover wheels will be imaged with the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI). Standard Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS), Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) and Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) activities round out this plan.
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3366, January 24, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
As the APXS strategic planner this week, Thompson is excited “to hopefully be able to place the APXS on this interesting outcrop in tomorrow’s plan and see what textures and information can be teased out with MAHLI close up imaging.”
Sand avalanches
As noted in a previous posting, it looks like the robot disturbed the exploration area around The Prowl.
Explains Lauren Edgar, a planetary geologist at the USGS in Flagstaff, Arizona:
“Yes, I think it’s likely that these sand avalanches are the result of the rover disturbing and destabilizing the slope. We actually drove past this area on a previous sol and then returned on 3365, so I’d have to check to see if it was disturbed on the previous drive or this more recent one,” Edgar told Inside Outer Space. “We’ve commonly seen these dry granular flows in areas that the rover has disturbed. I guess the insights are that it’s loose sand, not cemented, and on a slope steep enough to allow for avalanching.”
Location of impact craters considered in this study (red dots): (a) the Earth: (b) the Moon: (c) Mars.
Credit: Lagain et al.
Researchers have analyzed more than 500 large craters on Mars finding issue with previous studies that suggested spikes in the frequency of asteroid collisions for the Earth, the Moon, as well as the Red Planet.
Western Australia’s New Curtin University scientists have confirmed the frequency of asteroid collisions that formed impact craters on Mars has been consistent over the past 600 million years.
Lead researcher for the study, Anthony Lagain, from Curtin’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, says the rate of impacts did not vary much at all for many millions of years.
Impact crater on Mars.
Courtesy: New Curtin University
Crater detection algorithm
Past studies had suggested that there was a spike in the timing and frequency of asteroid collisions due to the production of debris.
Crater counts on an ejecta blanket of a 40 kilometer impact crater. (a) Ejecta blanket mapping (outlined in blue) and automatically detected craters (in green). Red circles correspond to impact craters larger than 1 kilometer in diameter compiled in the manual crater database.
Credit: Lagain et al.
“When big bodies smash into each other, they break into pieces or debris, which is thought to have an effect on the creation of impact craters,” Lagain said in a university statement. “Our study shows it is unlikely that debris resulted in any changes to the formation of impact craters on planetary surfaces.”
The work and findings stem from a crater detection algorithm previously developed at Curtin, which automatically counts the visible impact craters from a high-resolution image.
Credit: ISS/NASA
Formation frequency
Co-author and leader of the team that created the algorithm, Gretchen Benedix, said the algorithm could also be adapted to work on other planetary surfaces, including the Moon.
“The formation of thousands of lunar craters can now be dated automatically, and their formation frequency analyzed at a higher resolution to investigate their evolution,” Benedix added.
The full paper – “Has the impact flux of small and large asteroids varied through time on Mars, the Earth and the Moon?” – published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, is available at:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X2100618X
Now performing Sol 3366 tasks, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover inspects “The Prow” and other sedimentary structures preserved in this region – perhaps creating shifting sands during the survey?
Curiosity’s location as of Sol 3363. Distance driven 16.79 miles/27.03 kilometers.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Right B image taken on Sol 3365, January 23, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 3365, January 23, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 3365, January 23, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3365, January 23, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3365, January 23, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3365, January 23, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3365, January 23, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3365, January 23, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Left B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3365, January 23, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3365, January 23, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera image taken on Sol 3365, January 23, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity Mast Camera Right imagery collected on Sol 3364, January 22, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
China’s Long March-8 maiden flight.
Credit: CASC
Following a week of ocean transport, China’s new generation carrier rocket, the Long March-8 Y2, has arrived at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province.
The rocket was carried in pieces to the center by ship from Tianjin, a northern coastal municipality.
According to the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, the Long March-8 mission is to take off between late February and early March.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Rocket details
The Long March-8 is a two-stage medium-lift carrier rocket, with two side boosters. It is 50.3 meters long, with a takeoff weight of 356 tons. It uses liquid propellants with a 5-ton capacity for sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 700 kilometers, or hurling satellites weighing up to 2.8 tons to geostationary transfer orbit.
This booster is designed for both land and sea launches, and made its maiden flight on December 22, 2020 from the Wenchang coastal launch site. Long March 8 can also be launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the northwestern Gobi Desert.
Long March-8 flyback booster.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Similar to SpaceX first stages, the Long March-8 is ultimately to make upright landings.
Backbone of launches
The Long March series is the backbone supporting China’s space launches. It has shouldered 92 percent of China’s launch missions since a Long March rocket placed the Dongfanghong-1 satellite in orbit 51 years ago. In the past half century and more, the series has sent over 700 spacecraft into space, with a success rate of 96 percent, reports China’s People’s Daily.
China carried out the most space launch missions in the world over 2021. Among the missions, 48 launches were made by the Long March series carrier rockets, all successful. It was the first time in history that the Long March series completed more than 40 launch missions within a year. The 400th launch of the series also came last year, notes the People’s Daily story.
For an earlier video dated December 22, 2020 that focuses on this booster, go to:
Credit: Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU)
Throughout last year there has been an upsurge of peculiar sightings reported thanks to individuals armed with an iphone or other video gear that spot and record strange glimmerings in the sky.
Could they be a SpaceX parade of orbiting Starlink satellites, airplane-deployed flares, falling space junk, maybe floating specialty balloons or purposely-faked UFO incursions by people with too much time on their hands?
Then there’s the prospect of Earth being on the receiving end of aliens on holiday excursions speeding in from Alpha Centauri that find themselves want of brake fluid and crash into New Mexico.
GOFAST
Credit: DOD/U.S. Navy/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Many of these are ultimately flagged as what they are.
Nonetheless, is 2022 the year of the revelatory “disclosure” that we Earthlings are not only alone but there’s immediate need to start cogitating just how crowded it is out there with intelligent starfolk, busily scooting through our skies?
Go to my new Space.com story:
“2022 could be a turning point in the study of UFOs – Interest in UFOs continues to grow, both among scientists and government officials,” at:
Curiosity Front Hazard Avoidance Camera Left B image taken on Sol 3362, January 20, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover at Gale Crater is now performing Sol 3363 duties.
It is a “sedimentologist’s delight,” reports Lauren Edgar, a planetary geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager photo produced on Sol 3362, January 20, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Curiosity Mars Hand Lens Imager photo produced on Sol 3362, January 20, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
After a few sols of challenges that prevented researchers from getting close-up Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) imaging of a dark outcrop in front of the robot, scientists were finally able to plan the contact science that they were hoping for, Edgar explains.
Kick that rock
Recently, there was a small rock under the right rear rover wheel, so controllers had to kick that rock to the curb to get into a stable position for using the rover arm.
A downlink of data confirmed that Curiosity had cleared the rock and scientists “are good to go with a fantastic set of contact science activities,” Edgar adds. “As a sedimentologist, I am drooling over some of these beautiful structures throughout this area.”
Curiosity Right B Navigation Camera photo acquired on Sol 3362, January 20, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Sedimentary structures
A slated two-sol plan (Sols 3362-3363) is focused on contact science on the first sol and a drive on the second sol.
“The plan starts with several Mastcam mosaics to document sedimentary structures and their spatial relationships, as well as the processes responsible for carving this landscape,” Edgar points out.
On the schedule is obtaining a Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy observation on “Kako” to investigate the chemistry of nearby nodular bedrock, followed by a long-distance Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) mosaic to investigate the stratigraphy exposed in the “Mirador” butte.
Curiosity Mast Camera Left image taken on Sol 3361, January 19, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
“Dog’s eye” mosaic
“After that, we’ll put the arm to work,” Edgar notes. “We’ll acquire a MAHLI ‘dog’s eye’ mosaic of the target ‘Caroni’ in which the camera will get an edge-on perspective of the exposed laminae, and a set of images that coincide with the [Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer] (APXS) targets ‘Coati’ and ‘Morok.’”
“All of these contact science targets are intended to understand the grain size, sedimentary structures, and composition of the dark outcrop in front of us,” Edgar explains.
Curiosity Mast Camera Left image taken on Sol 3361, January 19, 2022.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Dust and dust devils
Previously, Curiosity has acquired remote sensing observations of this outcrop, and Mars researchers are excited to get new, detailed information from MAHLI and APXS.
“After the evening APXS integrations, the rover will go to sleep, and wake up the next morning for more science,” Edgar reports.
Also on tap, a suite of observations to characterize atmospheric dust and search for dust devils.
“Then Curiosity will drive back along this dark outcrop to another interesting location to setup for more contact science in the weekend plan,” Edgar concludes. “Looking forward to a great set of data from this location!”
Credit: Ding L., et al.
Data and images collected by China’s Yutu-2 rover indicate it has experienced varying degrees of mild slip and skid. The lunar terrain trod by the six-wheeled, off-road robot, is relatively flat at large scales but scattered with local gentle slopes.
“Cloddy soil sticking on its wheels implies a greater cohesion of the lunar soil than encountered at other lunar landing sites,” reports Ding Liang with the Harbin Institute of Technology.
The Moon machinery uses four steering motors on the corner wheels with a meshed surface.
Credit: Ding L., et al.
Cloddy soil, gel-like rocks
Researchers from Harbin Institute of Technology and Beijing Aerospace Control Center analyzed the locomotive data and images collected by Yutu-2, presenting their findings in the peer-reviewed journal, Science Robotics.
China’s Chang’E-4 mission successfully targeted the Moon’s farside and deployed the teleoperated Yutu-2 rover to investigate inside the Von Kármán crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin. The robot has encountered cloddy soil, gel-like rocks, and fresh small craters inside the Von Karman crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin.
Credit: Ding L., et al.
Rolling past designed lifetime
The Moon mission – a lander and the rover – touched down on January 3, 2019. The rover has operated for three years, rolling past its initial three-month designed lifetime.
Researchers used the rover wheel as a trenching device to approximate the properties of the lunar soil.
Cover photo credit: Beijing Aerospace Control Center (BACC)
Ding Liang, the paper’s first author, State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, said that the findings are helping shape in-depth studies for China’s subsequent lunar missions.
To read the study – “A 2-year locomotive exploration and scientific investigation of the lunar farside by the Yutu-2 rover” – go to:
