Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

Star Trekking: We Humans Can Beam Tools Into Space Without A Transporter

Expedition 42 astronaut Butch Wilmore holds up a 3-D-printed rachet, the first such tool made in space. Credit: NASA

In the 1960s, we thought the best way of sending stuff between Earth and space was through a transporter. These days, turns out all it takes is an e-mail and a special 3-D printer. The first tool created in space, a rachet, was made last week on the International Space Station using plans beamed from Earth. Now, we get to see if it actually works.

The printer has been active for a few weeks, making test items that had already been done on Earth. But for this particular item, manufacturer Made In Space chose to take an additional risk: creating a tool from plans that were done almost at the last minute, similar to how a real mission would work when astronauts have a sudden need for a part.

“Made In Space uplinked a design which did not exist when the printer was launched. In fact the ratchet was designed, qualified, tested, and printed in space in less than a week,” the company wrote on its blog.

NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore (Expedition 42 commander on the International Space Station) holds the first 3-D printed part made in space, which was created on Nov. 25, 2014. Credit: NASA
NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore (Expedition 42 commander on the International Space Station) holds the first 3-D printed part made in space, which was created on Nov. 25, 2014. Credit: NASA

And it wasn’t as simple as just sending up the plans and hoping for the best. NASA had to give the safety thumbs-up before it went up there. Also, the plans (once sent to the space station) were verified as okay to go by Made In Space engineers before the crew got the okay to print last week.

The rachet took about four hours to print in space, which is a heck of a lot faster than sitting around waiting for a cargo ship — especially when said ship is delayed, as what happened recently to the SpaceX Dragon that was supposed to launch on Friday (Dec. 19) and has now been pushed back to at least Jan. 6.

While the rachet could be of use for simple repairs in space, it won’t be staying up there long. Just as with all the other parts printed so far, it’s going to be sent back to Earth for analysis to make sure it can stand up to the rigors of a space mission. Made In Space will soon have a more robust printer going up to station, and wants to make sure all the kinks are worked out before then.

Source: Made In Space

Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

Kepler ‘K2’ Finds First Exoplanet, A ‘Super-Earth’, While Surfing Sun’s Pressure Wave For Control

Artist's conception of the Kepler Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

It’s alive! NASA’s Kepler space telescope had to stop planet-hunting during Earth’s northern-hemisphere summer 2013 when a second of its four pointing devices (reaction wheels) failed. But using a new technique that takes advantage of the solar wind, Kepler has found its first exoplanet since the K2 mission was publicly proposed in November 2013.

And despite a loss of pointing precision, Kepler’s find was a smaller planet — a super-Earth! It’s likely a water world or a rocky core shrouded in a thick, Neptune-like atmosphere. Called HIP 116454b, it’s 2.5 times the size of Earth and a whopping 12 times the mass. It circles its dwarf star quickly, every 9.1 days, and is about 180 light-years from Earth.

“Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Kepler has been reborn and is continuing to make discoveries. Even better, the planet it found is ripe for follow-up studies,” stated lead author Andrew Vanderburg of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Kepler ferrets out exoplanets from their parent stars while watching for transits — when a world passes across the face of its parent sun. This is easiest to find on huge planets that are orbiting dim stars, such as red dwarfs. The smaller the planet and/or brighter the star, the more difficult it is to view the tiny shadow.

Infographic showing how the Kepler space telescope continued searching for planets despite two busted reaction wheels. Credit: NASA Ames/W Stenzel
Infographic showing how the Kepler space telescope continued searching for planets despite two busted reaction wheels. Credit: NASA Ames/W Stenzel

The telescope needs at least three reaction wheels to point consistently in space, which it did for four years, gazing at the Cygnus constellation. (And there’s still a lot of data to come from that mission, including the follow-up to a bonanza where Kepler detected hundreds of new exoplanets using a new technique for multiple-planet systems.)

But now, Kepler needs an extra hand to do so. Without a mechanic handy to send out to telescope’s orbit around the Sun, scientists decided instead to use sunlight pressure as a sort of “virtual” reaction wheel. The K2 mission underwent several tests and was approved budgetarily in May, through 2016.

The drawback is Kepler needs to change positions every 83 days since the Sun eventually gets in the telescope’s viewfinder; also, there are losses in precision compared to the original mission. The benefit is it can also observe objects such as supernovae and star clusters.

Kepler-62f, an exoplanet that is about 40% larger than Earth. It's located about 1,200 light-years from our solar system in the constellation Lyra. Credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech
Kepler-62f, an exoplanet that is about 40% larger than Earth. It’s located about 1,200 light-years from our solar system in the constellation Lyra. Credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech

“Due to Kepler’s reduced pointing capabilities, extracting useful data requires sophisticated computer analysis,” CFA added in a statement. “Vanderburg and his colleagues developed specialized software to correct for spacecraft movements, achieving about half the photometric precision of the original Kepler mission.”

That said, the first nine-day test with K2 yielded one planetary transit that was confirmed with measurements of the star’s “wobble” as the planet tugged on it, using the HARPS-North spectrograph on the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo in the Canary Islands. A small Canadian satellite called MOST (Microvariability and Oscillations of STars) also found transits, albeit weakly.

A paper based on the research will appear in the Astrophysical Journal.

Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

New Pictures Of Philae’s Lonely Resting Spot On The Comet Emerge

This (in blue) is where the Philae lander came to rest on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The graphic is based on topographic modelling of the comet's nucleus and Philae's picture of a nearby cliff (in white). Credit: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CNES/FD/CIVA

In scientific style, researchers are slowly narrowing down where the Philae lander arrived on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Earlier today (Dec. 17) at the American Geophysical Union meeting, more pictures from the European spacecraft were released showing its landing site and also what the terrain looked like underneath Philae as it bounced to its destination. The pictures were also placed on NASA’s website.

The lander is sleeping in a shady spot on the comet’s surface after the dramatic touchdown — actually, three touchdowns — on Nov. 12, when it flew for more than two hours across the surface and bounced as high as two miles (3.2 kilometers). This was partly because harpoons expected to secure it to the surface failed to deploy, and also because the comet crust was icier than expected, according to Gizmodo.

You can see in the diagram above Philae’s predicament; it’s wedged in a spot that doesn’t get a lot of sunlight, at least for now. That could change as 67P draws closer to the Sun in the late winter or early spring, but nobody yet knows for sure. And yes, the search for the landing site still continues in earnest, but the challenge now is the orbiting Rosetta spacecraft only has so much bandwidth to send back images, according to Wired. As more high-resolution OSIRIS (Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging System) pictures arrive, scientists hope to figure out where it went.

Two pictures from Philae highlighted in today’s release are below. Will the lander take more? Scientists certainly hope so, but even if that doesn’t happen, the lander was only expected to return 20% of the science results in any case. Rosetta is still active and will stick with the comet through mid-2015, when 67P gets closest to the Sun.

The Philae lander captured a picture of a nearby cliff, nicknamed "Perihelion Cliff", on the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA
The Philae lander captured a picture of a nearby cliff, nicknamed “Perihelion Cliff”, on the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Reports say this picture had been released before, but was processed to show more detail (such as the glare, believed to be reflection from the lander). Credit: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA
Philae's blurred view of the surface during its first bounce from Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Nov. 12, 2014. The lander sailed for about two hours in the first bounce, made contact briefly, then bounced again before coming to rest. The black squares represent areas where data was not collected. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA
Philae’s blurred view of the surface during its first bounce from Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on Nov. 12, 2014. The lander sailed for about two hours in the first bounce, made contact briefly, then bounced again before coming to rest. The black squares represent areas where data was not collected. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA
Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

How To Experience ‘Zero Gravity’ Without Leaving Home: Virtual Reality

Still from a video short previewing "Weightless", a virtual-reality experience showing how to play with objects in a microgravity environment. Credit: Martin Schubert/YouTube (screenshot)

If you don’t have a few thousand dollars to spend on a “Vomit Comet” ride, and especially if you can’t afford to buy a ticket for a future weightless joyride in a spacecraft, virtual reality remains the best option to “experience” weightlessness.

There’s a new game available for the virtual-reality headset Oculus Rift that lets people play with objects in microgravity to see what happens next.

Called “Weightless”, the game appears to have a person zooming around a sort of space station and playing with things including pill bottles and cubes, seeing how they spin and soar without gravity’s pull weighing them down. (Note that the author does not have an Oculus Rift and could not test the game out for this article.)

“I wanted the player to have an experience that’s only possible in VR [virtual reality],” wrote creator Martin Schubert on the game’s webpage. “That means taking advantage of the ability to look around in any direction and having good spatial awareness. This led to investigating a weightless environment that allowed freedom of movement in any direction.”

Schubert wrote that the game is available in prototype form for the Oculus Rift DK2, and is best used with a head-mounted Leap Motion finger-tracking sensor. Bear in mind that the Oculus is still very much a prototype gaming platform, but that being said, the experience looks like a lot of fun for those of us lucky to have one. You can learn more about the hardware requirements and download information here.

Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

Morning Star, We Hardly Knew Ya: Venus Express’ Best Discoveries In 8 Years

Artist's impression of Venus Express entering orbit in 2006. Credit: ESA - AOES Medialab

Venus Express is mostly dead. The spacecraft spent more than eight years faithfully relaying information from the Morning Star/Evening Star planet, but it’s now out of fuel, out of control and within weeks of burning up in the atmosphere.

While we mourn the end of the productive mission, the European Space Agency spacecraft showed us a lot about the planet that we once considered a twin to Earth. Some of the surprises, as you can see below, including a possibly slowing-down rotation, and the realization that volcanoes may still be active on the hellish planet.

False colour composite of a rainbow-like feature known as a ‘glory’, seen on Venus on 24 July 2011. The image is composed of three images at ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared wavelengths from the Venus Monitoring Camera. The images were taken 10 seconds apart and, due to the motion of the spacecraft, do not overlap perfectly. The glory is 1200 km across, as seen from the spacecraft, 6000 km away. It's the only glory ever seen on another planet. Credit: ESA/MPS/DLR/IDA.
False color composite of a rainbow-like feature known as a ‘glory’, seen on Venus on 24 July 2011. The image is composed of three images at ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared wavelengths from the Venus Monitoring Camera. The images were taken 10 seconds apart and, due to the motion of the spacecraft, do not overlap perfectly. The glory is 1200 km across, as seen from the spacecraft, 6000 km away. It’s the only glory ever seen on another planet. Credit: ESA/MPS/DLR/IDA.

Quick video summary: Venus Express found that the spacecraft’s rotation may have slowed down by 6.5 minutes between 1996 (when the Magellan spacecraft was in orbit) and 2012. The surprising information emerged when scientists discovered surface features weren’t in the expected areas, and couldn’t find any calculation errors between the data.

Animation of Venus’ southern polar vortex made from VIRTIS thermal infrared images; white is cooler clouds at higher altitudes. Credit: ESA/VIRTIS-VenusX/INAF-IASF/LESIA-Obs. de Paris (G. Piccioni, INAF-IASF)

Quick video summary: Volcanic flows may still be active on Venus’ surface, according to 2010 data from the mission. Scientists looked at surface areas that had not been “weathered” very much (indicating that they are relatively young) and detected at least nine spots where the heat in those zones is much higher than the areas around it.

Venus Express picture of clouds on the planet. Despite the planet being extremely hot, the spacecraft found a cold layer in the atmosphere at temperatures of about -175 degrees Celsius (-283 Fahrenheit) that is colder than anything on Earth. It's so chilling that carbon dioxide may freeze and fall as snow or ice. Credit: ESA/MPS/DLR/IDA
A picture of Venus’ clouds. Despite the planet being extremely hot, Venus Express found a cold layer in the atmosphere at temperatures of about -175 degrees Celsius (-283 Fahrenheit) that is colder than anything on Earth. It’s so chilling that carbon dioxide may freeze and fall as snow or ice. Credit: ESA/MPS/DLR/IDA
Artist's impression of Venus with the solar wind flowing around the planet, which has little magnetic protection. Venus Express found that a lot of water has bled into space over the years from the planet, which happens when the sun's ultraviolet radiation breaks oxygen and hydrogen molecules apart and pushes them into space. Credit: ESA - C. Carreau
Artist’s impression of Venus with the solar wind flowing around the planet, which has little magnetic protection. Venus Express found that a lot of water has bled into space over the years from the planet, which happens when the sun’s ultraviolet radiation breaks oxygen and hydrogen molecules apart and pushes them into space. Credit: ESA – C. Carreau
Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

Gallery: Saturn Moons Show How Not To Be Seen In Cassini Images

Tethys is mostly obscured behind Rhea as the moons orbit Saturn. The picture was captured by the Cassini spacecraft in April 2012 and highlighted in December 2014. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Peekaboo! Tethys makes a (mostly in vain) attempt to hide behind Rhea in this picture taken by the Cassini spacecraft a couple of years ago, but highlighted by NASA in a recent picture essay. Besides the neat view of the orbital dance, one thing that is clearly visible between the two moons is the different colors — a product of their different surfaces. It turns out that Tethys’ bright surface is due to geysers from another moon.

“Scientists believe that Tethys’ surprisingly high albedo is due to the water ice jets emerging from its neighbor, Enceladus,” NASA stated. “The fresh water ice becomes the E ring [of Saturn] and can eventually arrive at Tethys, giving it a fresh surface layer of clean ice.”

Saturn has an astounding number of moons — 62 moons discovered so far, and 53 of them named, if you don’t count the spectacular ring that surrounds the planet. The collection of celestial bodies includes Titan, the second-biggest moon in the Solar System. It’s so big that it includes a thick atmosphere. (Ganymede, around Jupiter, is the biggest.)

Below are some other pictures of moons dancing around Saturn — some harder to spot than others. All images were taken by the Cassini spacecraft since it arrived at the planet in 2004.

Titan peeks from behind two of Saturn's rings. Another small moon Epimetheus, appears just above the rings. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Titan peeks from behind two of Saturn’s rings. Another small moon Epimetheus, appears just above the rings. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Saturn's moons Dione and Rhea appear conjoined in this optical illusion-like image taken by the Cassini spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Saturn’s moons Dione and Rhea appear conjoined in this optical illusion-like image taken by the Cassini spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Saturn's rings, made dark in part as the planet casts its shadow across them, cut a striking figure before Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Saturn’s rings, made dark in part as the planet casts its shadow across them, cut a striking figure before Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Three of Saturn's moons bunch together in this image by Cassini. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute. Click for larger image.
Three of Saturn’s moons bunch together in this image by Cassini. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute. Click for larger image.
Saturns rings with Saturns moon Mimas in the foreground (credit: NASA)
Saturn’s rings with Saturn’s moon Mimas in the foreground (credit: NASA)
Titan and Tethys line up for a portrait of 'sibling' moons. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Titan and Tethys line up for a portrait of ‘sibling’ moons. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

How Many Horses Can A Rocket Carry? Cool Comic Comparison

An xkcd comic from December 2014 showing spacecraft mass and launch vehicle capacity in terms of horses. The full comic is at http://xkcd.com/1461/large/. Credit: xkcd

The challenge with thinking about space is putting it into terms that we can understand. How far is a light-year? Just how powerful is NASA’s next-generation Space Launch System, which the agency hopes will bring astronauts out into the solar system?

Luckily for us, the comic xkcd is a regular contributor to making space understandable, and the latest comic from Randall Munroe is a gem — explaining launch vehicle capacity and spacecraft mass in terms of horses.

So now comparisons are fairly easy. At the left of the diagram, for example, you can see the Saturn V — that rocket that was the first stage of bringing astronauts to the moon in the 1960s — carried the equivalent of 262 horses. The SLS Block 2, if it is ever developed, will have a slightly larger capacity of 289 horses.

Blastoff of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion crew vehicle from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Credit: NASA/MSFC
Blastoff of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion crew vehicle from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Credit: NASA/MSFC

Meanwhile, the spacecraft mass of the International Space Station is an astounding 932 horses, the total shuttle mass was 206 horses, and Apollo was 67 horses. There also are a few robotic spacecraft in there, such as Voyager, Vanguard 1, the Keyhole 3 spy satellite, and the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope.

Check out the entire diagram in large here, and the original comic here. (For those unfamiliar with xkcd, make sure to mouse over the comic for an extra joke.)

Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

Venus Express Out Of Gas; Mission Concludes, Spacecraft On Death Watch

Artist's conception of Venus Express. Image credit: ESA

After surviving an eight-year mission and a daring plunge into part of the atmosphere of Venus, a plucky spacecraft orbiting the hothouse planet is finished its mission, the European Space Agency declared. Venus Express can no longer communicate consistently with Earth. The spacecraft itself will fall into the atmosphere and likely be destroyed in the coming weeks.

“The available information provides evidence of the spacecraft losing attitude control,” stated Patrick Martin, ESA’s Venus Express mission manager, who added it was because the machine exhausted its fuel as controllers tried to raise it to a more stable altitude above Venus.

The demise of the mission, in a sense, began when controllers chose to bring Venus Express into the atmosphere this summer. The goal was not only to learn more about Venus, but also to get information on how future spacecraft could “surf” the atmosphere when, say, landing on the planet.

Artist's conception of Venus Express doing an aerobraking maneuver in the atmosphere in 2014. Credit: ESA–C. Carreau
Artist’s conception of Venus Express doing an aerobraking maneuver in the atmosphere in 2014. Credit: ESA–C. Carreau

The orbit was reduced to about 130 km to 135 km (80.7 miles to 83.9 miles) above the planet at its lowest approach, which took place in earnest between June 18 and July 11. Controllers then did 15 small thruster burns, which raised the spacecraft’s minimum altitude to 460 km (286 miles).

But it wasn’t a stable orbit, with the spacecraft continuing to spiral into the planet as gravity pulled it down. ESA decided to again try raising the spacecraft’s altitude between Nov. 23 and Nov. 30, but lost consistent contact with the spacecraft Nov. 28. It appears Venus Express is out of gas, the agency said.

It’s hard to know exactly when the spacecraft will die, but it serves as a good example of how space recycling can end up making an interesting mission. The design and some of the instruments on Venus Express were based upon those used for other missions, particularly Mars Express and Rosetta. And the lessons of the spacecraft will certainly be used in future missions.

Tomorrow, we’ll run down some of the highlights of the mission.

Source: European Space Agency

Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

XPRIZE Moon Robot Contest Deadline Pushed Back A Year To 2016

For the 18 teams racing to put a robot on the Moon, some good news — they have an extra year to get the job done. Citing the groups’ difficulty in technology and raising money, the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition said the teams will now have until Dec. 31, 2016 to accomplish their missions.

The challenge was first announced in 2007 and the number of teams has stayed fairly steady since at least 2010, when 21 teams were reported in a Universe Today story. Some of the groups are competing for milestone prizes, the latest of which will be announced Jan. 15.

Astrobiotic won two previous competitions for $500,000 (in mobility) and $250,000 (for imaging). The grand prize is still open to everybody, regardless if they choose to pursue the milestone prizes.

“We know the mission we are asking teams to accomplish is extremely difficult and unprecedented, not only from a technological standpoint, but also in terms of the financial considerations,” stated Robert Weiss, XPRIZE’s vice-chairman and president.

“It is for this reason that we have decided to extend the competition timeline. We firmly believe that a whole new economy around low-cost access to the Moon will be the result of the Google Lunar XPRIZE.”

While the deadline has been extended, the goal is the same: the winning team must ferry a robotic machine to the Moon, move 500 meters (1,640 feet) somehow (on, above or below the surface) and send two “mooncasts” back to Earth. In 2013, Weiss told Universe Today that some of the teams had signed launch contracts, but declined to provide many details due to confidentiality concerns.

You can see more details about the teams and their progress on the XPRIZE website. The grand prize is $20 million and there is an additional $10 million available in other prizes.