CORRECTION: This story corrects a previously stated misinterpretation of the NASA Senior Report that the WISE spacecraft itself was denied an extension.
NASA has denied funding to an idea to use NEOWISE image exposures for additional processing for science purposes, according to Amy Mainzer, the deputy project scientist for the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The project, called MaxWISE, was supposed to run for three years and to use NEOWISE data for other purposes.
“We were hoping it would be possible to combine data from the prime mission, with the NEO mission, to look at
things that vary on different timescales,” Mainzer said in an interview Friday (May 16) with Universe Today.
Its goals would have included measuring the motions and distances for stars and brown dwarfs near the sun, examining variable stars and setting up a “transient detection and alerts program” for certain astronomical phenomena.
This is a mosaic of the images covering the entire sky as observed by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), part of its All-Sky Data Release. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
In its review, the panel said it was “concerned that the proposed transient detection program would yield little science considering how much it cost”, and approved the program at half of the budgetary levels originally requested. NASA, however, wrote that it would decline the proposal altogether.
“The MaxWISE proposal was recommended for selection by the senior review. However, the only source of funding would be to displace funding from higher rated operating missions in the senior review. Due to constrained budget conditions, the MaxWISE proposal is declined,” NASA wrote in its response.
“It’s tremendously disappointing,” Mainzer said of the decision, adding it is a tough NASA budget environment overall. She is encouraging people to get in touch with their elected representatives if they want to see changes.
WISE J104915.57-531906 as seen in NASA’s All-WISE survey (centered) and resolved to show its binary nature by the Gemini Observatory (inset). (Credit: NASA/JPL/Gemini Observatory/AURA/NSF).
After its launch in 2009 and successful prime mission, WISE was put into hibernation in 2011 before being turned on again last summer to look for asteroids that could pose a threat to Earth, and possibly to participate in NASA’s asteroid mission by looking for a space rock that could be captured and explored.
NEOWISE is expected to run until about 2016 or 2017, depending on how active the Earth’s atmosphere becomes. Since the spacecraft is in a relatively low orbit of 311 miles (500 km), if the sun’s activity increases molecule interactions in the atmosphere and expands it, the spacecraft can be somewhat twisted out of its orbit. Also, more scattering can occur. Both would make it harder for the spacecraft to carry out its mission, Mainzer said.
In the meantime, amateur astronomers can follow along with one of NEOWISE’s recent discoveries: the spacecraft recently found a fairly large near-Earth asteroid, about 1.24 miles to 1.86 miles (2 to 3 km) in size. It’s called 2014 JH 57 and you can get more orbital parameters on it at this page after typing in “2014 JH57” (no quotes) into the search bar.
Boeing CST-100 manned space capsule in free flight in low Earth orbit will transport astronaut crews to the International Space Station. Credit: Boeing
Boeing CST-100 manned space capsule in free flight in low Earth orbit will transport astronaut crews to the International Space Station. Credit: Boeing
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KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – Boeing expects to begin “assembly operations of our commercial CST-100 manned capsule soon at the Kennedy Space Center,” Chris Ferguson, commander of NASA’s final shuttle flight and now director of Boeing’s Crew and Mission Operations told Universe Today in an exclusive one-on-one interview about Boeing’s space efforts. In part 1, Ferguson described the maiden orbital test flights to the ISS set for 2017 – here.
In part 2, we focus our discussion on Boeings’ strategy for building and launching the CST-100 ‘space taxi’ as a truly commercial space endeavor.
To begin I asked; Where will Boeing build the CST-100?
“The CST-100 will be manufactured at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida inside a former shuttle hanger known as Orbiter Processing Facility 3, or OPF-3, which is now [transformed into] a Boeing processing facility,” Ferguson told me. “Over 300 people will be employed.” Chris Ferguson, last Space Shuttle Atlantis commander, tests the Boeing CST-100 capsule which may fly US astronauts to the International Space Station in 2017. Ferguson is now Boeing’s director of Crew and Mission Operations for the Commercial Crew Program vying for NASA funding. Credit: NASA/Boeing
During the shuttle era, all three of NASA’s Orbiter Processing Facilities (OPFs) were a constant beehive of activity for thousands of shuttle workers busily refurbishing the majestic orbiters for their next missions to space. But following Ferguson’s final flight on the STS-135 mission to the ISS in 2011, NASA sought new uses for the now dormant facilities.
So Boeing signed a lease for OPF-3 with Space Florida, a state agency that spent some $20 million modernizing the approximately 64,000 square foot hanger for manufacturing by ripping out all the no longer needed shuttle era scaffolding, hardware and equipment previously used to process the orbiters between orbital missions.
Boeing takes over the OPF-3 lease in late June 2014 following an official handover ceremony from Space Florida. Assembly begins soon thereafter.
“The pieces are coming one by one from all over the country,” Ferguson explained. “Parts from our vendors are already starting to show up for our test article.
“Assembly of the test article in Florida starts soon.”
The CST-100 is being designed at Boeing’s Houston Product Support Center in Texas.
It is a reusable capsule comprised of a crew and service module that can carry a mix of cargo and up to seven crew members to the International Space Station (ISS) and must meet stringent safety and reliability standards.
How will the pressure vessel be manufactured? Will it involve friction stir welding as is the case for NASA’s Orion deep space manned capsule?
“There are no welds,” he informed.
“The pressure vessel is coming from Spincraft, an aerospace manufacturing company in Massachusetts.”
Spincraft has extensive space vehicle experience building tanks and assorted critical components for the shuttle and other rockets.
“The capsule is produced by Spincraft using a weld-free process. It’s made as a single piece by a proprietary spun form process and machined out from a big piece of metal.”
The capsule measures approximately 4.56 meters (175 inches) in diameter.
“The service module will be fabricated in Florida.”
The combined crew and service modules are about 5.03 meters (16.5 feet) in length.
“In two years in 2016, our CST-100 will look like the Orion EFT-1 capsule does now at KSC, nearly complete [and ready for the maiden test flight]. Orion is really coming along,” Ferguson beamed while contemplating a bright future for US manned spaceflight.
He is saddened that it’s been over 1000 days since his crew’s landing inside shuttle Atlantis in July 2011.
Early version of Boeing CST-100 pressure vessel mockup inside OPF-3 and surrounded by shuttle era scaffolding at the Kennedy Space Center, FL. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
With Boeing’s long history in aircraft and aerospace manufacturing, the CST-100 is being designed and built as a truly commercial endeavor.
Therefore the spacecraft team is able to reach across Boeing’s different divisions and diverse engineering spectrum and draw on a vast wealth of in-house expertise, potentially giving them a leg up on commercial crew competitors like SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp.
Nevertheless, designing and building a completely new manned spaceship is a daunting task for anyone. And no country or company has done it in decades.
How hard has this effort been to create the CST-100? – And do it with very slim funding from NASA and Boeing.
“Well any preconceived notion I had on building a human rated spacecraft has been completely erased. This is really hard work to build a human rated spacecraft!” Ferguson emphasized.
“And the budget is very small – without a lucrative government contract as used in the past to build these kind of spacecraft.”
“Our budget now is an order of magnitude less than to build the shuttle – which was about $35 to $42 Billion in 2011 dollars. The budget is a lot less now.”
Read more about the travails of NASA’s commercial crew funding situation in Part 1.
The team size now is just a fraction of what it was for past US crewed spaceships.
“So to support this we have a pretty small team.”
“The CST-100 team of a couple hundred folks works very hard!”
“For comparison, the space shuttle had 30,000 people working on it at the peak. By early 2011 there were 11,000. We flew on STS-135 with only 4,000 people in July 2011.”
NASA’s final shuttle crew on STS-135 mission greets the media and shuttle workers during Atlantis rollover from the OPF-1 processing hanger to the VAB at KSC during May 2011. From left: Rex Walheim, Shuttle Commander Christopher Ferguson, Douglas Hurley and Sandra Magnus. The all veteran crew delivered the Raffaello multipurpose logistics module (MPLM), science supplies, provisions and space parts to the International Space Station (ISS).
Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
Boeing’s design philosophy is straightforward; “It’s a simple ride up to and back from space,” Ferguson emphasized to me.
Next we turned to the venerable Atlas V rocket that will launch Boeing’s proposed space taxi. But before it can launch people it must first be human rated, certified as safe and outfitted with an Emergency Detection System (EDS) to save astronauts lives in a split second in case of a sudden and catastrophic in-flight anomaly.
The CST-100 crew capsule awaits liftoff aboard an Atlas V launch vehicle at Cape Canaveral in this artist’s concept. Credit: Boeing
United Launch Alliance (ULA) builds the two stage Atlas V and is responsible for human rating the vehicle which has a virtually unblemished launch record of boosting a wide array of advanced US military satellites and NASA’s precious one-of-a-kind robotic science explorers like Curiosity, JUNO, MAVEN and MMS on far flung interplanetary voyages of discovery.
What modifications are required to man rate the Atlas V to launch humans on Boeing’s CST-100?
“We will launch on an Atlas V that’s being retrofitted to meet NASA’s NPR human rating standards for redundancy and the required levels of fault tolerance,” Ferguson explained.
“So the rocket will have all the safety NASA wants when it flies humans.”
“Now with the CST-100 you can do all that in a smaller package [compared to shuttle].”
“The Atlas V will also be modified by ULA to include an Emergency Detection System (EDS). It’s a system not unlike what Apollo and Gemini had, which was much more rudimentary but quite evolved for its day.”
“Their EDS would monitor critical parameters like pitch, roll, yaw rates, critical engine parameters. It measures the time to criticality. You know the time to criticality for certain failures is so short that they didn’t think humans could react to it in time. So it was essentially automated.”
“So if it [EDS] sensed large pitch or yaw excursions, it would self jettison. And the escape system would kick in automatically.”
The Atlas V is already highly reliable. The EDS is one of the few systems that had to be added for human flights?
“Yes.”
“We also wanted a better abort system performance to go with the two engine Centaur upper stage we elected to use instead of the single engine Centaur.”
The purpose is to shut down the Centaur engine firing [in an emergency].”
“The two engine Centaur has flown many times. But it has never flown on an Atlas V. So there is a little bit of recertification and qualification to be done by ULA to go along with that also.”
Does that require a lot of work?
“ULA doesn’t seem to think the work to be done is all that significant. There is some work to be done.”
So it’s not a showstopper. Can ULA meet your 2017 launch schedule?
“Yes.”
“Before an engine fails it vibrates. So when you talk about automated ‘Red Lines’ you have to be careful that first you “Do No Harm” – and not make the situation even worse.”
“So we’ll see how ULA does building this,” Ferguson stated.
Artist’s concept shows Boeing’s CST-100 spacecraft separating from the first stage of its launch vehicle, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, following liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Credit: Boeing
The future of the CST-100 project hinges on whether NASA awards Boeing a contract to continue development and assembly work in the next round of funding (dubbed CCtCAP) from the agency’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP). The CCP seed money fosters development of a safe, reliable and new US commercial human spaceship to low Earth orbit as a public/private partnership.
NASA’s announcement of the CCP contract winners is expected around late summer 2014.
Based on my discussions with NASA officials, it seems likely that the agency could select at least two winners to move on – to spur competition and thereby innovation – from among the trio of American aerospace firms competing.
Besides Boeing’s CST-100, the SpaceXDragon and Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser vehicles are also in the running for the contract to restore America’s capability to fly humans to Earth orbit and the International Space Station (ISS) by 2017.
In Part 3 we’ll discuss with Chris Ferguson the requirements for how many and who will fly aboard the CST-100 and much more. Be sure to read Part 1 here.
Early version of Boeing CST-100 capsule mock-up, interior view. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Boeing, SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, commercial space, Orion, Curiosity, Mars rover, MAVEN, MOM and more planetary and human spaceflight news.
Ken’s upcoming presentation: Mercy College, NY, May 19: “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars” and “NASA’s Future Crewed Spaceships.”
Boeing CST-100 space taxi launch atop Atlas V booster will resemble this photo of NASA’s Mars bound MAVEN spacecraft launched by Atlas V from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Nov. 18, 2013. Image taken from the roof of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.comBoeing CST-100 crew vehicle docks at the ISS. Credit: BoeingSTS-135 Shuttle Commander Chris Ferguson (right) and Ken Kremer (Universe Today) meet at emergency M-113 Tank Practice during crew pre-launch events at the Kennedy Space Center in the weeks before Atlantis July 8, 2011 liftoff. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com
Artist's impression of the Spitzer Space Telescope. Credit: NASA
“Constrained budget conditions” have prompted NASA to not approve a funding extension for the 11-year-old Spitzer Space Telescope after fiscal 2015, but Spitzer officials emphasized that doesn’t necessarily mean the mission is terminated.
“To be clear: Spitzer has not been canceled. Funding not yet identified, but NASA has asked us for a revised budget,” the Spitzer Twitter account wrote to several individuals after news broke that the telescope was not approved in agency’s Senior Review, a process to see how well ongoing missions are performing to expectations.
What this means is that the telescope is expected to go with the “baseline” plan to finish operations after the end of fiscal 2014 and terminate the mission by the end of fiscal 2015, a process that was already outlined in the NASA budget request for 2015. But there’s a chance, officials said, that this would not happen.
“The Spitzer project is invited to respond with a request for a budget augmentation to conduct continued operations with reduced operations costs,” read the NASA response to the 2014 senior review.
The bow shock of Zeta Ophiuchi, another runaway star observed by Spitzer (NASA/JPL-Caltech)
This “will be considered during the FY 2016 budget formulation process,” NASA added. “If the administration proposes additional funding for Spitzer in the FY16 Budget, the project will be able to seamlessly continue operations in FY15, while awaiting final appropriations from the Congress for FY16.”
The mission was being reviewed in association with several other astrophysics missions, such as the Kepler space telescope — an exoplanet-hunting probe that was sidelined by a mechanical issue, but was approved in the same review for a new mission.
Spitzer drew concern in the senior review for its “significant current cost”, which is reportedly the most expensive among the missions being considered this time around. The cost also concerned the reviewers because Spitzer’s “observational capabilities are significantly reduced” since the telescope ran out of coolant in 2009.
That said, the so-called “warm” Spitzer mission — which allows it to view different parts of the infrared despite operating at a higher temperature — did impress reviewers with its ability to measure light, especially since it has been able to conduct wide-field surveys that “will not be approached” until the James Webb Space Telescope goes to orbit in 2018.
The ‘Mountains of Creation’ in the W5 region near Perseus, taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / CfA
“The cost is particularly difficult in the context of an observatory with greatly reduced capabilities with respect to its prime mission,” the review read. “The mission also did not present substantial plans to reduce operations costs with such reduced capabilities. Given the budget climate, the SRP cannot recommend funding of Spitzer at the levels requested.”
While criticizing the cost, the senior review also noted Spitzer has been doing a lot of “unexpected science” such as looking at the atmosphere of exoplanets and brown dwarfs, and identifying the galaxies that are speeding away from Earth the fastest (also known as “high-redshift galaxies.”)
– Seeing light from a planet outside of the solar system, which was not in the design plans;
– Surveying stars in formation in clouds that are relatively close to Earth;
– Creating a better map of the Milky Way’s spiral arms.
NASA also regularly does image releases with wavelengths from all three of its “Great Observatories”: Spitzer, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Funding extension for both Chandra and Hubble were approved in the review. You can read more about the review at this website.
Artist's conception of the Kepler Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
After several months with their telescope on the sidelines, the Kepler space telescope team has happy news to report: the exoplanet hunter is going to do a new mission that will compensate for the failure that stopped its original work.
Kepler’s exoplanet days were halted last year when the second of its four reaction wheels (pointing devices) failed, which meant the telescope could not gaze at its “field” of stars in the Cygnus constellation for signs of exoplanets transiting their stars.
Results of a NASA Senior Review today, however, showed that the telescope will receive the funding for the K2 mission, which allows for some exoplanet hunting, among other tasks. The telescope will essentially change positions several times a year to do its new mission, which is funded through 2016.
“The approval provides two years of funding for the K2 mission to continue exoplanet discovery, and introduces new scientific observation opportunities to observe notable star clusters, young and old stars, active galaxies and supernovae,” wrote Charlie Sobeck, the mission manager for Kepler, in a mission update today (May 16).
Artist’s rendering of the Earth-sized Kepler-186f (Credit: NASA Ames/SETI Institute/Caltech)
“The team is currently finishing up an end-to-end shakedown of this approach with a full-length campaign (Campaign 0), and is preparing for Campaign 1, the first K2 science observation run, scheduled to begin May 30.”
While Kepler itself was not being used for planet hunting, scientific discoveries continue because the telescope has a legacy of observations stretching between 2009 and 2013. One notable find: 715 exoplanets were announced in one swoop earlier this year using a new technique called “verification by multiplicity”, which is useful in multiple-planet systems.
Kepler also spotted the first known Earth-sized planet in a habitable zone outside of our solar system, which achieves the mission’s stated goal of finding extrasolar Earths.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden poses with the agency’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft, mission personnel, Goddard Center Director Chris Scolese and NASA Associate Administrator John Grunsfeld, during visit to the cleanroom at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on May 12, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden poses with the agency’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft, mission personnel, Goddard Center Director Chris Scolese and NASA Associate Administrator John Grunsfeld, during visit to the cleanroom at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on May 12, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com
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NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER, MD – NASA’s upcoming Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission is comprised of a quartet of identically instrumented observatories aimed at providing the first three-dimensional views of a fundamental process in nature known as magnetic reconnection. They were unveiled to greet NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on Monday, May 12, in a rare fully stacked arrangement inside the Goddard cleanroom.
Universe Today was on hand with NASA Administrator Bolden, Science Mission Chief John Grunsfeld and the MMS mission team at Goddard for a first hand inspection and up close look at the 20 foot tall, four spacecraft stacked configuration in the cleanroom and for briefings about the projects fundamental science goals.
“I’m visiting with the MMS team today to find out the status of this mission scheduled to fly early in 2015. It’s one of many projects here at Goddard,” NASA Administrator Bolden told me in an exclusive one-on-one interview at the MMS cleanroom.
“MMS will help us study the phenomena known as magnetic reconnection and help us understand how energy from the sun – magnetic and otherwise – affects our own life here on Earth. MMS will study what effects that process … and how the magnetosphere protects Earth.”
Magnetic reconnection is the process whereby magnetic fields around Earth connect and disconnect while explosively releasing vast amounts of energy.
Technicians work on NASA’s 20-foot-tall Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mated quartet of stacked observatories in the cleanroom at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on May 12, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com
MMS measurements should lead to significant improvements in models for yielding better predictions of space weather and thereby the resulting impacts for life here on Earth as well as for humans aboard the ISS and robotic satellite explorers in orbit and the heavens beyond.
The four identical spacecraft – which are still undergoing testing – were stacked in a rarely seen launch arrangement known affectionately as the “IHOP configuration” – because they look rather like a stack of luscious pancakes.
“MMS is a fundamental heliophysics science mission,” Craig Tooley told me at the MMS cleanroom. Tooley is MMS project manager at NASA Goddard.
“Unlike Hubble that uses remote sensing, MMS is like a flying laboratory ‘in situ’ that will capture events that are the major energy transfer from the sun’s magnetic field into our Earth’s space weather environment and magnetosphere.”
“These are called magnetic reconnection events that pump enormous amounts of energy into the plasma and the fields around Earth. It’s one of the main drivers of space weather and a fundamental physical process that is not very well understood,” Tooley explained.
“The spacecraft were built in-house here at Goddard and just completed vibration testing.”
MMS will launch atop an Atlas V rocket in March 2015 from Space launch Complex 41, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
Artist rendition of the four MMS spacecraft in orbit in Earth’s magnetic field. Credit: NASA
The vibration testing is a major milestone and is conducted to ensure the spacecraft can withstand the most extreme vibration and dynamic loads they will experience and which occurs during liftoff inside the fairing of the Atlas V booster.
MMS is also another highly valuable NASA science mission (along with MAVEN, LADEE and others) which suffered launch delays and increased costs as a result of the US government shutdown last October 2013, Bolden confirmed to Universe Today.
“We ended up slipping beyond the original October 2014 date due to the government shutdown and [the team] being out of work for a couple of weeks. MMS is now scheduled to launch in March 2015,” Bolden told me.
“So then you are at the mercy of the launch provider.”
“The downside to slipping that far is that’s its [MMS] costing more to launch,” Bolden stated.
Each of the Earth orbiting spacecraft is outfitted with 25 science sensors to study the microphysics of three fundamental plasma processes: magnetic reconnection, energetic particle acceleration, and turbulence.
Magnetic reconnection occurs throughout our universe.
“The primary mission will last two years,” Tooley told me.
“Each spacecraft carries about 400 kilograms of fuel. There is a possibility to extend the mission by about a year based on fuel consumption.”
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Ken Kremer (Universe Today) inspect NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mated quartet of stacked spacecraft at the cleanroom at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on May 12, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com
The spacecraft will use the Earth itself as a laboratory to unlock the mysteries of magnetic reconnection – the primary process that transfers energy from the solar wind into Earth’s magnetosphere and is responsible for geomagnetic storms.
“To understand the fundamental physics, they will fly in a pyramid-like formation and capture the magnetic reconnection events in 3-D by flying through them as they happen – that’s why we have 4 spacecraft,” Tooley explained.
“Initially they will be spaced apart by about 10 to 30 kilometers while they fly in a tetrahedron formation and scan with their booms spread out – depending on what the scientists says is the optimal configuration.”
“They fly in a highly elliptical orbit between about 7,000 and 75,000 kilometers altitude during the first half of the mission. Eventually the orbit will be extended out to about 150,000 kilometers.”
The best place to study magnetic reconnection is ‘in situ’ in Earth’s magnetosphere.
This will lead to better predictions of space weather phenomena.
Magnetic reconnection is also believed to help trigger the spectacular aurora known as the Northern or Southern lights.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing MMS, Curiosity, Opportunity, SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, Boeing, Orion, LADEE, MAVEN, MOM, Mars and more planetary and human spaceflight news.
Ken’s upcoming presentation: Mercy College, NY, May 19: “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars” and “NASA’s Future Crewed Spaceships.”
MMS Project Manager Craig Tooley (right) and Ken Kremer (Universe Today) discuss science objectives of NASA’s upcoming Magnetospheric Multiscale mission by 20 foot tall mated quartet of stacked spacecraft at the cleanroom at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on May 12, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com
United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket – powered by Russian made RD-180 engines – and Super Secret NROL-67 intelligence gathering payload poised for launch at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL, in March 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket – powered by Russian made RD-180 engines – and Super Secret NROL-67 intelligence gathering payload poised for launch at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL, in March 2014.
Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
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Moscow delivered a double whammy of bad news to a broad range of US space efforts today by banning the use of Russian made rocket engines for US military national security launches and by declining to prolong cooperation on the International Space Station (ISS) – says Russia’s deputy prime minister, Dmitry Rogozin, who is in charge of space and defense industries.
Rogozin was quoted in a story prominently featured today, May 13, on the English language website of Russia Today, a Russian TV news and cultural network.
“Moscow is banning Washington from using Russian-made rocket engines, which the US has used to deliver its military satellites into orbit,” said Rogozin according to the Russia Today report.
Virtually every aspect of the manned and unmanned US space program – including NASA, other government agencies, private aerospace company’s and crucial US national security payloads – are highly dependent on Russian & Ukrainian rocketry and are clearly at risk amidst the current Ukrainian crisis as tensions continue to escalate with deadly new clashes reported today in Ukraine – with global repercussions.
The engines at issue are the Russian made RD-180 engines – which power the first stage of the venerable Atlas V rocket built by United Launch Alliance (ULA) and are used to launch a wide array of US government satellites including top secret US military spy satellites for the US National Reconnaissance Office, like NROL-67, as well as science satellites for NASA like the Curiosity Mars rover and MAVEN Mars orbiter.
The dual nozzle RD-180 engines are manufactured in Russia by NPO Energomash. Rogozin’s statement effectively blocks their export to the US.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. Credit: RIA Novosti
“We proceed from the fact that without guarantees that our engines are used for non-military spacecraft launches only, we won’t be able to supply them to the US,” Rogozin said.
So although the launch of NASA science missions might preliminarily appear to be exempt, they could still be at serious risk based on a qualifier from Rogozin, pertaining to RD-180 engines already delivered.
“If such guarantees aren’t provided the Russian side will also be unable to perform routine maintenance for the engines, which have been previously delivered to the US, he added.
A ULA spokesperson told me that the company has a two year supply of RD-180 engines already stockpiled in the US.
Rogozin’s statements today are clearly in retaliation to stiffened economic sanctions imposed by the US and Western nations in response to Russia’s actions in the ongoing crisis in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea; as I reported earlier here, here and here.
Therefore, US National Security spy satellite and NASA science launches are left lingering with uncertainty and potential disarray.
Rogozin is specifically named on the US economic sanctions target list.
He was also named by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk in his firms attempt to block the importation of the RD-180 engines by ULA for the Atlas V as a violation of US sanctions.
Federal Judge Susan Braden initially imposed a temporary injunction blocking the RD-180 imports on April 30. She rescinded that order last Thursday, May 8, after receiving written communications clarifications from the US Justice and Commerce departments that the engine import did not violate the US government imposed sanctions.
Rogozin went on to say that “Moscow also isn’t planning to agree to the US offer of prolonging operation of the International Space Station (ISS) [to 2024].
“We currently project that we’ll require the ISS until 2020,” he said. “We need to understand how much profit we’re making by using the station, calculate all the expenses and depending on the results decide what to do next.”
“A completely new concept for further space exploration is currently being developed by the relevant Russian agencies”.
NASA announced early this year the agency’s intention to extend ISS operations to at least 2024, and is seeking agreement from all the ISS partners including Russia.
Since the shutdown of the Space Shuttle program in 2011 before a replacement crew vehicle was available, American astronauts are now 100% dependent on the Russian Soyuz capsule for rides to the ISS and back.
Congress has also repeatedly slashed NASA’s commercial crew program budget, forcing at least an 18 month delay in its start up and thus continued reliance on the Soyuz for years to come at over $70 million per seat.
NASA thus has NO immediate alternatives to Russia’s Soyuz – period.
The Atlas V is also planned as the launcher for two of the three companies vying for the next round of commercial crew contracts aimed at launching US astronauts to the ISS. The commercial crew contracts will be awarded by NASA later this year.
In a previous statement regarding the US sanctions against Russia, Rogozin said that sanctions could “boomerang” against the US space program and that perhaps NASA should “deliver their astronauts to the International Space Station using a trampoline.”
NASA’s Curiosity rover launches to Mars atop Atlas V rocket on Nov. 26, 2011 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Atlas V 1st stage is powered by Russian made RD-180 engines.
Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
Watch for Ken’s articles as the Ukraine crisis escalates with uncertain and potentially dire consequences for US National Security and NASA.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Boeing, SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, commercial space, Orion, Chang’e-3, LADEE, Mars rover, MAVEN, MOM and more planetary and human spaceflight news.
Ken’s upcoming presentation: Mercy College, NY, May 19: “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars” and “NASA’s Future Crewed Spaceships.”
The International Space Station (ISS) in low Earth orbit.
The sole way for every American and station partner astronaut to fly to space and the ISS is aboard the Russian Soyuz manned capsule since the retirement of NASA’s Space Shuttles in 2011. There are currently NO alternatives to Russia’s Soyuz. Credit: NASA
It’s a key piece of the climate change puzzle. For years, researchers have been eyeing the stability of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet as global temperatures rise. Melting of the ice sheet could have dire consequences for sea level rise.
And though not unexpected, news from today’s NASA press conference delivered by Tom Wagner, a cryosphere program scientist with the Earth Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington D.C., Sridhar Anandakrishnan, a professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania University, and Eric Rignot, JPL glaciologist and professor of Earth system science at the University of California Irvine was certainly troubling.
The key region targeted in the study (arrowed) Credit: NASA
The Western Antarctic Ice Sheet is a marine-based ice sheet below sea level that is bounded by the Ronne and Ross Ice Shelf and contains glaciers that drain into the Amundsen Sea. The study announced today incorporates 40 years of data citing multiple lines of observational evidence measuring movement and thickness of Antarctic ice sheets. A key factor to this loss is a thinning along the grounding line of the glaciers from underneath. The grounding line for an ice sheet is the crucial boundary where ice becomes detached from ground underneath and stretches out to become free floating. A slow degradation of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet has been observed, one that can be attributed to increased stratospheric circulation along with the advection of ocean heat coupled with anthropogenic global warming.
A closeup of the region: red indicates regions where flow speeds have accelerated in the past 40 years. Credit: Eric Rignot
“This sector will be a major contributor to sea level rise in the decades and centuries to come,” Rignot said in today’s press release. “A conservative estimate is it would take several centuries for all of the ice to flow into the sea.”
Thickness contributes to the driving stress of a glacier. Accelerating flow speeds stretch these glaciers out, reducing their weight and lifting them off of the bedrock below in a continuous feedback process.
A key concern for years has been the possible collapse of western Antarctica’s glaciers, leading to a drastic acceleration in sea-level rise worldwide. Such a catastrophic glacial retreat would dump millions of tons of ice into the sea over a relatively short span of time. And while it’s true that ice calves off of the Western Antarctic ice sheet every summer, the annual overall rate is increasing.
The study is backed up by satellite, airborne and ground observations looking at thickness of ice layers over decades.
Researchers stated that the Amundsen Sea Embayment sector alone contains enough ice to increase global sea level by 1.2 metres. A strengthening of wind circulation around the South Pole region since the 1980s has accelerated this process, along with the loss of ozone. This circulation also makes the process more complex than similar types of ice loss seen in Greenland in the Arctic.
The research paper, titled Widespread, rapid grounding line retreat of Pine Island, Thwaites, Smith and Kohler glaciers, West Antarctica from 1992 to 2011 has been accepted for publication in the American Geophysical Union’s journal Geophysical Research Letters. The American Association for the Advancement of Science will also be releasing a related study on the instability of the West Antarctic ice sheet today in the journal Science.
The most spectacular retreat referenced in the study was seen occurring at the Smith/Kohler glaciers, which migrated about 35 kilometres and became ungrounded over a 500 kilometre square region during the span of 1992 to 2011.
Another telling factor cited in the study was the large scale synchronous ungrounding of several glaciers, suggesting a common trigger mechanism — such as ocean heat flux — is at play.
On the ice shelf proper, the key points that anchor or pin the glaciers to the bedrock below are swiftly vanishing, further destabilizing the ice in the region.
Assets that were used in the study included interferometry data from the Earth Remote Sensing (ERS-1/2) satellites’ InSAR (Interferormetry Synthetic Aperture Radar) instruments, ground team observations and data collected from NASA’s Operation IceBridge overflights of the Antarctic. IceBridge uses a converted U.S. Navy P-3 Orion submarine hunting aircraft equipped with radar experiment packages used to take measurements of the thickness of the ice sheet.
Possible follow up studies targeting the region are upcoming, including five Earth science and observation missions scheduled to be launched this year, which include the Soil Moisture and Passive (SMAP) mission, The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) and the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory, launched this past February.
Along with these future NASA missions, there are also two missions — RapidScat and the Cloud-Aerosol Transport System or CATS — slated to study climate headed for the International Space Station this year.
This comes as recent United Nations and United States reports have also announced the reality of climate change and anthropogenic global warming.
“The collapse of this sector of West Antarctica appears to be unstoppable,” Rignot said. “The fact that the retreat is happening simultaneously over a large sector suggests it was triggered by a common cause, such as an increase in the amount of ocean heat beneath the floating sections of the glaciers.”
Of course, the solar cycle, volcanic activity, global dimming (via changes in reflectivity, known as albedo) and human activity all play a role in the riddle that is climate change. The bad news is, taking only natural factors into account, we should be in a cooling period right now.
And yes, reflective ice cover also plays a role in the albedo of the Earth, but researchers told Universe Today that no significant overall seasonal variations in the extent of surface layer of ice will change, as the key loss comes from the ungrounding of ice from below. Thus, this ice loss does not present a significant contribution to changes in overall global albedo, though of course, much of this additional moisture will eventually be available for circulation in the atmosphere. And the same was noted in the press conference for those pinning their hopes on the 2014 ice extent being greater than previous years, a season that was a mere blip on the overall trend. The change and retreat in the grounding line below seen in the study was irrespective of the ice extent above.
NASA’s Operation IceBridge will continue to monitor the ice flow when the next Antarctic deployment cycle resumes in October of this year.
And in the meantime, the true discussion is turning to the challenges of living with a warmer planet. Insurance companies, the Department of Defense and residents of low-lying coastal regions such as Miami’s South Beach already know that the reality of global warming and sea level rise is here. Perhaps the very fact that naysayers have at least backed up their positions a bit in recent years from “global warming isn’t happening” to “Its happening, but there are natural cycles” can at least give us a starting point for true intelligent science-based dialogue to begin.
– Social media questions from today’s conference can be reviewed at the #AskNASA hastag.
Chris Ferguson, last Space Shuttle Atlantis commander, tests the Boeing CST-100 capsule which may fly US astronauts to the International Space Station in 2017. Ferguson is now Boeing’s director of Crew and Mission Operations for the Commercial Crew Program vying for NASA funding. Credit: NASA/Boeing
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – Boeing expects to launch the first unmanned test flight of their commercial CST-100 manned ‘space taxi’ in “early 2017,” said Chris Ferguson, commander of NASA’s final shuttle flight in an exclusive one-on-one interview with Universe Today for an inside look at Boeing’s space efforts. Ferguson is now spearheading Boeing’s human spaceflight capsule project as director of Crew and Mission Operations.
“The first unmanned orbital test flight is planned in January 2017 … and may go to the station,” Ferguson told me during a wide ranging, in depth discussion about a variety of human spaceflight topics and Boeing’s ambitious plans for their privately developed CST-100 human rated spaceship – with a little help from NASA.
Boeing has reserved a launch slot at Cape Canaveral with United Launch Alliance (ULA), but the details are not yet public.
If all goes well, the maiden CST-100 orbital test flight with humans would follow around mid-2017.
“The first manned test could happen by the end of summer 2017 with a two person crew,” he said.
Boeing is among a trio of American aerospace firms, including SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp, vying to restore America’s capability to fly humans to Earth orbit and the space station by late 2017, using seed money from NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) in a public/private partnership. The next round of contracts will be awarded by NASA about late summer 2014.
That’s a feat that America hasn’t accomplished in nearly three years.
“It’s been over 1000 days and counting since we landed [on STS-135],” Ferguson noted with some sadness as he checked the daily counter on his watch. He is a veteran of three space flights.
Boeing CST-100 commercial crew capsule approaches the ISS in this artist’s concept. Credit: Boeing
Since the shuttles retirement in July 2011 following touchdown of Space Shuttle Atlantis on the last shuttle flight (STS-135) with Ferguson in command, no American astronauts have launched to space from American soil on American rockets and spaceships.
The only ticket to the ISS and back has been aboard the Russian Soyuz capsule.
Chris and the Boeing team hope to change the situation soon. They are chomping at the bits to get Americas back into space from US soil and provide reliable and cost-effective US access to destinations in low Earth orbit like the ISS and the proposed private Bigelow space station.
Boeing wants to send its new private spaceship all the way to the space station starting on the very first unmanned and manned test flights currently slated for 2017, according to Ferguson.
“NASA wants us to provide [crew flight] services by November 2017,” said Ferguson, according to the terms of the CCP contact award.”
The Boeing CST-100 crew capsule awaits liftoff aboard an Atlas V launch vehicle at Cape Canaveral in this artist’s concept. Credit: Boeing
The CST-100 will launch atop a man rated Atlas V rocket and carry a mix of cargo and up to seven crew members to the ISS.
“So both the first unmanned and manned test flight will be in 2017. The first unmanned orbital flight test is currently set for January 2017. The first manned test could be end of summer 2017,” he stated.
I asked Chris to outline the mission plans for both flights.
“Our first flight, the CST-100 Orbital Flight Test – is scheduled to be unmanned.”
“Originally it was just going to be an on orbital test of the systems, with perhaps a close approach to the space station. But we haven’t precluded our ability to dock.
“So if our systems mature as we anticipate then we may go all the way and actually dock at station. We’re not sure yet,” he said.
So I asked whether he thinks the CST-100 will also go dock at the ISS on the first manned test flight?
“Yes. Absolutely. We want go to all the way to the space station,” Ferguson emphatically told me.
“For the 1st manned test flight, we want to dock at the space station and maybe spend a couple weeks there.”
“SpaceX did it [docking]. So we think we can too.”
“The question is can we make the owners of the space station comfortable with what we are doing. That’s what it really comes down to.”
“As the next year progresses and the design matures and it becomes more refined and we understand our own capability, and NASA understands our capabilities as the space station program gets more involved – then I’m sure they will put the same rigor into our plan as they did into the SpaceX and Orbital Sciences plans.”
“When SpaceX and Orbital [wanted to] come up for the grapple [rather than just rendezvous], NASA asked ‘Are these guys ready?’ That’s what NASA will ask us.”
“And if we [Boeing] are ready, then we’ll go dock at the station with our CST-100.”
“And if we’re not ready, then we’ll wait another flight and go to the station the next time. It’s just that simple.”
“We looked at it and this is something we can do.”
“There are a lot of ways we have to make NASA and ourselves happy. But as a company we feel we can go do it,” Ferguson stated.
Boeing CST-100 crew vehicle docks at the ISS. Credit: Boeing
So the future looks promising.
But the schedule depends entirely on NASA funding levels approved by Congress. And that vital funding has been rather short on supply. It has already caused significant delays to the start of the space taxi missions for all three companies contending for NASA’s commercial crew contracts because of the significant slashes to the agency’s CCP budget request, year after year.
In fact the schedule has slipped already 18 months to the right compared to barely a few years ago.
So I asked Chris to discuss the CCP funding cuts and resulting postponements – which significantly affected schedules for Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada.
Here it is in a nutshell.
“No Bucks, No Buck Rogers,” explained Ferguson.
“The original plan was to conduct both the unmanned and manned CST-100 test flights in 2015.”
“Originally, we would have flown the unmanned orbital test in the summer of 2015. The crewed test would have been at the end of 2015.”
“So both flights are now a full year and a half later.” Ferguson confirmed.
“For the presidents [CCP] funding requests for the past few years of roughly about $800 million, they [Congress] only approved about half. It was significantly less than the request.”
Now at this very moment Congress is deliberating NASA’s Fiscal 2015 budget.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has said he will beg Congress to approve full funding for the commercial crew program this year – on his hands and knees if necessary. NASA’s final shuttle crew on STS-135 mission greets the media and shuttle workers during Atlantis rollover from the OPF-1 processing hanger to the VAB at KSC during May 2011. From left: Rex Walheim, Shuttle Commander Christopher Ferguson, Douglas Hurley and Sandra Magnus. The all veteran crew will delivered the Raffaello multipurpose logistics module (MPLM), science supplies, provisions and space parts to the International Space Station (ISS). Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
Otherwise there will be further delays to the start of the space taxi missions. And the direct consequence is NASA would be forced to continue buying US astronaut rides from the Russians at $70 Million per seat. All against the backdrop of Russian actions in the Ukraine where deadly clashes potentially threaten US access to the ISS in a worst case scenario if the ongoing events spin even further out of control and the West ratchets up economic sanctions against Russia.
The CST-100 is designed to be a “simple ride up to and back from space,” Ferguson emphasized to me.
NASA’s 135th and final shuttle mission takes flight on July 8, 2011 at 11:29 a.m. from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida bound for the ISS and the high frontier with Chris Ferguson as Space Shuttle Commander. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
It is being designed at Boeing’s Houston Product Support Center in Texas.
In Part 2 of my interview, Chris Ferguson will discuss the details about the design, how and where the CST-100 capsule will be manufactured at a newly renovated, former space shuttle facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Boeing, SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, commercial space, Orion, Curiosity, Mars rover, MAVEN, MOM and more planetary and human spaceflight news.
STS-135 Shuttle Commander Chris Ferguson (right) and Ken Kremer (Universe Today) meet at emergency M-113 Tank Practice during crew pre-launch events at the Kennedy Space Center in the weeks before Atlantis July 8, 2011 liftoff. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.comScale models of NASA’s Commercial Crew program vehicles and launchers; Boeing CST-100, Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser, SpaceX Dragon. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Inbound: the Hubble Space Telescope images Comet 2013 A1 Siding Spring with its Wide Field Camera 3. Credit: NASA.
It may be the chance of a lifetime for planetary science.
This October, a comet will brush past a planet, giving scientists a chance to study how it possibly interacts with a planetary atmosphere.
The comet is C/2013 A1 Siding Spring, and the planet in question Mars. And although an impact of the comet on the surface of the Red Planet has long been ruled out, a paper in the May 2014 issue of Icarus raises the interesting possibility of possible interactions of the coma of A1 Siding Spring and the tenuous atmosphere of Mars. The study comes out of the Department of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona, the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, the Institut de Planétologie et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble at the Université J. Fourier in France, and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
For the study, researchers considered how active Comet A1 Siding Spring may be at the time of closest approach on October 19th, 2014.
Discovered early last year by Robert McNaught from the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia, Comet A1 Siding Spring created a stir in the astronomical community when it was found that it will passextremely close to Mars later this year. Further measurements of its orbit have since ruled this possibility out, but its passage will still be a close one, with a nominal passage of 138,000 kilometres from Mars. That’s about one third the distance from Earth to the Moon, and 17 times closer than the nearest recorded passage of a comet to the Earth, Comet D/1770 L1 Lexell in 1780. Mars’ outer moon Deimos has an orbital distance of about 23,500 kilometres.
The passage of Comet 2013 A1 Siding Spring through the inner solar system. Credit: NASA.
And although the nucleus will safely pass Mars, the brush with its extended atmosphere might just be detectable by the fleet of spacecraft and rovers in service around Mars. At a distance of 1.4 Astronomical Units (A.U.) from the Sun during the encounter, the vast coma is expected to be comprised primarily of H2O. At an input angle of about 60 degrees, penetration was calculated in the study to impinge down and altitude of 154 kilometres to the topside of the Martian ionosphere, in the middle of the thermosphere.
Such an effect should linger for just over 4 hours, well over the interaction period of Mars’ atmosphere with the coma of just over an hour, centered on 18:30 UT on October 19th, 2014.
What kind of views might missions like HiRISE and MSL get of the comet remains to be seen, although NEOWISE and Hubble are already monitoring the comet for enhanced activity. The Opportunity rover is also still functioning, and Mars Odyssey and ESA’s Mars Express are still in orbit around the Red Planet and sending back data. But perhaps the most interesting possibilities for observations of the event are still en route: India’s Mars Orbiter Mission and NASA’s MAVEN orbiter arrive just before the comet. MAVEN was designed to study the upper atmosphere of Mars, and carries an ion-neutral mass spectrometer (NGIMS) which could yield information on the interaction of the coma with the Martian upper atmosphere and ionosphere. The NGIMS cover is slated for release just two days before the comet encounter. All spacecraft orbiting Mars may feel the increased drag effects of the encounter.
A simulation of Mars as seen from Comet A1 Siding Spring on closest approach. Created by the author using Starry Night Software.
Proposals for using Earth-based assets for further observations of the comet prior to the event in October are still pending. Amateur observers will be able to follow the approach telescopically, as Comet A1 Siding Spring is expected to reach +8th magnitude in October and pass 7’ from Mars in the constellation Ophiuchus as seen from the Earth. Mars just passed opposition last month, but both will be low to the south west at dusk for northern hemisphere observers in October.
It’s also interesting to consider the potential for interactions of the coma with the surfaces of the moons of Mars as well, though the net amount of water vapor expected to be deposited will not be large.
UPDATE: Check out this nifty interactive simulator which includes Comet A1 Siding Springs courtesy of the Solar System Scope:
The H2O coma of A1 Siding Spring is expected to have a radius of 150,000 kilometres when it passes Mars, just a shade over the nominal flyby distance.
“There is a more extended coma made up of H2O dissociation products (such as hydrogen and hydroxide) that extends for ~1,000,000 kilometres,” researcher at the Department of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona and lead author on the paper Roger Yelle told Universe Today.
“Essentially, Mars is in the outer reaches of the coma. The main ion tail misses Mars but there will be some ions from the comet that do reach Mars. The dust tail just misses Mars, which is fortunate.”
The paper also notes that significant perturbations of the upper atmosphere of Mars will occur if the cometary production rate is 10^28 s-1 or larger, which corresponds to about 300 kilograms per second.
“The MAVEN spacecraft will make very interesting observations,” Roger Yelle also told Universe Today. “The comet will perturb primarily the upper atmosphere of Mars and MAVEN was designed to study the upper atmosphere of Mars. Also, it’s just such an incredible coincidence that the comet arrives at Mars less than one month after MAVEN does. MAVEN is nominally in its checkout phase then, and the main science phase of the mission was not scheduled to start until November 1st. However, we are reassessing our plans to see what observations we can make. It’s all quite exciting, and we have to balance safety and the desire to make the best science measurements.”
It’s an unprecedented opportunity, that’s for sure… all eyes will be on the planet Mars and Comet A1 Siding Spring on October the 19th!
An artist’s conception of a KBO encounter by New Horizons. Credit: JHUAPL/SwRI.
Are you ready for the summer of 2015? A showdown of epic proportions is in the making, as NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is set to pass within 12,500 kilometres of Pluto — roughly a third of the distance of the ring of geosynchronous satellites orbiting the Earth — a little over a year from now on July 14th, 2015.
But another question is already being raised, one that’s assuming center stage even before we explore Pluto and its retinue of moons: will New Horizons have another target available to study for its post-Pluto encounter out in the Kuiper Belt? Researchers say time is of the essence to find it.
To be sure, it’s a big solar system out there, and it’s not that researchers haven’t been looking. New Horizons was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on January 19th, 2006 atop an Atlas V rocket flying in a 551 configuration in one of the fastest departures from Earth ever: it took New Horizons just nine hours to pass Earth’s moon after launch.
New Horizons spends its last days on Earth pre-encapsulation. (Credit: NASA/KSC).
The idea has always been out there to send New Horizons onward to explore and object beyond Pluto in the Kuiper Belt, but thus far, searches for a potential target have turned up naught.
A recent joint statement from NASA’s Small Bodies and Outer Planets Assessment Groups (SBAG and OPAG) has emphasized the scientific priority needed for identifying a possible Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) for the New Horizons mission post-Pluto encounter. The assessment notes that such a chance to check out a KBO up close may only come once in our lifetimes: even though it’s currently moving at a heliocentric velocity of just under 15 kilometres a second, it will have taken New Horizons almost a decade to traverse the 32 A.U. distance to Pluto.
The report also highlights the fact that KBOs are expected to dynamically different from Pluto as well and worthy of study. The statement also notes that the window may be closing to find such a favorable target after 2014, as the upcoming observational apparition of Pluto as seen from Earth — and the direction New Horizons is headed afterwards — reaches opposition this summer on July 4th.
But time is of the essence, as it will allow researchers to plan for a burn and trajectory change for New Horizons shortly after its encounter with Pluto and Charon using what little fuel it has left. Then there’s the issue of debris in the Pluto system that may require fine-tuning its trajectory pre-encounter as well. New Horizons will begin long range operations later this year in November, switching on permanently for two years of operations pre-, during and post- encounter with Pluto.
And there currently isn’t a short-list of “next best thing” targets for New Horizons post-Pluto encounter. One object, dubbed VNH0004, may be available for distant observations in January of next year, but even this object will only pass 75 million kilometres — about 0.5 A.U. — from New Horizons at its closest.
Ground based assets such as the Keck, Subaru and Gemini observatories have been repeatedly employed in the search over the past three years. The best hopes lie with the Hubble Space Telescope, which can go deeper and spy fainter targets.
Nor could New Horizons carry out a search for new targets on its own. Its eight inch (20 cm in diameter) LORRI instrument has a limiting magnitude of about +18, which is not even close to what would be required for such a discovery.
New Horizons currently has 130 metres/sec of hydrazine fuel available to send it onwards to a possible KBO encounter, limiting its range and maneuverability into a narrow cone straight ahead of the spacecraft. This restricts the parameters for a potential encounter to 0.35 A.U. off of its nominal path for a target candidate be to still be viable objective. New Horizons will exit the Kuiper Belt at around 55 A.U. from the Sun, and will probably end its days joining the Voyager missions probing the outer solar system environment. Like Pioneers 10 and 11, Voyagers 1 and 2 and the upper stage boosters that deployed them, New Horizons will escape our solar system and orbit the Milky Way galaxy for millions of years. We recently proposed a fun thought experiment concerning just how much extraterrestrial “space junk” might be out there, littering the galactic disk.
And while the crowd-sourced Ice Hunters project generated lots of public engagement, a suitable target wasn’t found. There is talk of a follow up Ice Investigators project, though it’s still in the pending stages.
Another issue compounding the problem is the fact that Pluto is currently crossing the star rich region of the Milky Way in the constellation Sagittarius. Telescopes looking in this direction must contend with the thousands of background stars nestled towards the galactic center, making the detection of a faint moving KBO difficult. Still, if any telescope is up to the task, it’s Hubble, which just entered its 25th year of operations last month.
The path of Pluto through the constellation Sagittarius through August 2015. Credit: Starry Night.
Shining at +14th magnitude, Pluto will be very near the 3.5th magnitude star Xi2 Sagittarii during the July 2015 encounter.
New Horizons is currently 1.5 degrees from Pluto — about 3 times the angular size of a Full Moon —as seen from our Earthly vantage point, and although neither can be seen with the naked eye, you can wave in their general direction this month on May 18th, using the nearby daytime Moon as a guide.
The waning crescent Moon lies in the direction of New Horizons and Pluto on May 18th… note the ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft (lower left) and Pioneer 11 (upper center) are also ‘nearby!’ Credit: Starry Night
July 2015 will be an exciting and historic time in solar system exploration. Does Pluto have more undiscovered moons? A ring system of its own? Does it resemble Neptune’s moon Triton, or will it turn out looking entirely different ?
If nothing else, exploration of Pluto will finally give us science writers some new images to illustrate articles on the distant world, rather than recycling the half a dozen-odd photos and artist’s conceptions that are currently available. An abundance of surface features will then require naming as well. It would be great to see Pluto’s discoverer Clyde Tombaugh and Venetia Burney — the girl who named Pluto — get their due. We’ll even assume our space pundit’s hat and predict a resurgence of the “is it a planet?” debate once again in the coming year as the encounter nears…
