Space Exploration Archives

February 2, 2008December 26, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

Get a Better View of Saturn from Cassini, in 3D

Ever wondered what one of our robotic explorers can see right now? What can Cassini see as it orbits Saturn, continuing to explore the ringed gas giant? Now, in 3D, you can explore the probe yourself, seeing what Cassini sees with a neat 3D interactive viewer, imaging Saturn and her moons, accurately calculating where the probe was, is or will be. The best thing about this little online gadget is that you can speed through time, from the spaceship’s point of view, orbiting Saturn and working out when the next moon or ring flyby will be… A cool toy to waste some time playing with, especially when I really should be doing some work…

This gadget on the Cassini mission website really took me back to my childhood. For those of you who were addicted to the space exploration computer games Elite and Frontier: Elite 2 back in the early ’90s should be able to relate to this too. The Elite games were a groundbreaking series, using polygons to represent 3D objects, flying through space, trading, fighting and interacting with a basic, but engrossing, Universe. Based not on some mystical cosmos, Elite could be played in our solar system, allowing us for the first time to see an interactive 3D view of the Earth, Mars, Moon and the rest of the planets. I also remember zooming through Saturn’s blocky rings and wondered what that would really look like.

Of course, we now know what that does look like, in fact, Cassini is still out there, orbiting Saturn and analyzing Saturn’s moons: Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Titan and Iapetus (inner to outer). The Cassini mission, launched in 1997, comprised of the NASA Cassini orbiter and ESA Huygens probe. After a long seven year journey, the pair arrived in Saturn orbit on July 1st, 2004 and on December 25th, 2004 the pair separated to send Huygens to Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Huygens then made an exciting decent through Titan’s atmosphere and relayed vital information about the mysterious planet to the Cassini orbiter.

After all this excitement, Cassini carried on orbiting around Saturn and continues to this day transmitting amazing images and detailed information about Saturn’s interaction with the interplanetary medium, moons, atmosphere and magnetic field. Now, any online user can see what the historic orbiter is doing this very minute. Using NASA’s Cassini at Saturn Interactive Explorer (CASSIE), we can fast-forward or rewind to see Cassini’s most recent encounter with Titan, or see the probe pass through Saturn’s rings at our leisure. Not only is it fun, it helps us visualize where the craft is when we want to know.

Now thinking back to all those hundreds of hours I spent playing computer games, and comparing the graphics with this online gadget, I realize things have come a long way as far as 3D visualization is concerned. But I still get the same childish sense ofÂ awe about exploring the vastness of space, only this time I know I am seeing a 3D representation of the real view from Cassini.

Interestingly, on the box art of the Frontier: Elite 2 game (pictured left), Saturn is featured very boldly…

News source: SpaceRef.com

January 22, 2008December 26, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Should NASA Overhaul Its Vision?

Is the moon really “so yesterday?” An article in the Jan. 18 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology reported that a group of influential people in the space community will meet in early February to discuss alternatives to NASA’s current Vision for Space Exploration of returning to the moon to prepare for future missions to Mars. But a subsequent letter to the editor in AWST written by Planetary Society President Lou Friedman and Scott Hubbard of Stanford University tried to put the brakes on any notion that the group has already come to a consensus that NASA’s VSE should change direction and destination.

In the letter, Friedman and Hubbard state that the article created “the misperception that the workshop we are organizing at Stanford University has already decided upon a new path for the human and robotic exploration of space. We wish to make it clear that the purpose of the workshop is to examine critically the Vision for Space Exploration in order to prepare for future space policy considerations in a new Administration and new Congress.”

The Aviation Week article reported that the purpose of the February meeting is “to offer the next U.S. president an alternative to President Bush’s ‘vision for space exploration’–one that would delete a lunar base and move instead toward manned missions to asteroids along with a renewed emphasis on Earth environmental spacecraft.”

But Friedman and Hubbard’s letter said, “This point of view is undoubtedly the personal opinion of some participants – but such an opinion is neither a premise nor a presumed outcome of the workshop.” Instead, they said, the workshop will address a many issues of space exploration and the workshop has no predetermined conclusions.

“We have deliberately included a wide range of participants with disparate views, including those who would maintain the status quo. We personally do not know what the conclusions of the workshop will be – or even if there will be a definitive consensus,” said Friedman and Hubbard.

Examining the current Vision is surely a good idea. A Business 101 rule is that once a plan is put into action, you should always stay on top of changing conditions and adjust your plan accordingly, constantly updating and improving. Should NASA consider missions to asteroids instead of the moon? Will going to asteroids get us to Mars more quickly, or is the moon a good, safe place to get our space legs back before moving on?

Hopefully the group meeting at Stanford University in February, as well as the upcoming new political administration in the US, will examine the VSE with open minds, considering both human and robotic missions, and without political agendas.

Another Business 101 tenet is that communication is vital to success. It’s good to see that space exploration is something people are talking about.”

Original News Source: Planetary Society Press Release

January 18, 2008April 26, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

Get Ready for the 2008 Space Elevator Challenge

Looking for an exciting challenge, as well as a way to try and create easy and affordable access to space? The 2008 Space Elevator Beam Power Challenge has been announced by The Spaceward Foundation, and competitors have the chance at a $2 million top prize. And don’t think the picture included here is complete science fiction. Meteor Crater in Arizona is one of the sites being considered for the competition, which consists of climbing a vertically suspended tether using power beaming technology.

The Beam Power Challenge event is tentatively set for September 8, 2008. The objectives for the 2008 competition are climbing a tether 1 kilometer in height, at 5 meters per second minimum speed, for a prize level of $2M.

An intermediate prize level of $900k will be given for a speed of 2 m/s. Additionally, teams that can reach an altitude of 1 km at between 1 and 2 m/s will be awarded a prize of up to $50k.

The 1 km climb will be supported by a unique pyramid-anchored balloon system, providing the teams with a stable tether to climb on.

“In broad strokes, the goal of the Space Elevator games is to bring the Space Elevator closer to reality,” Marc Boucher of the Spaceward Foundation writes on their website. “The goal of the power beaming challenge is to promote power beaming technology. We think that the time is ripe now to move the competition to the next level, addressing real-world power beaming scenarios where the minimum requirements for such systems start at the km range and kWatt power levels.”

This is the fourth year of the Space Elevator Games, which started in 2005. In 2007 Team USST from the University of Saskatchewan was the best performer in the competition, moving their laser-powered 25 kg climber [55 lb] at an average speed of 1.8 m/s [6 ft/sec] over a 94 m run. This corresponds to over 400 Watts of mechanical power maintained for almost a minute. They did this 4 times within 40 minutes. 20 other teams were part of the competition.

This year’s challenge, therefore, is a huge leap from 2007. 1 kilometer is high: it’s the altitude a jetliner is at when the cabin crew asks you to put your laptop away.

“The 1 km challenge really takes us to the next level” says Ben Shelef, CEO of the Spaceward Foundation. “The point of power beaming is that it can work over any distance, and this challenge will illustrate the promise of this technology.”

The prize money is provided by NASA’s Centennial Challenges program. NASA has pledged a total of $4,000,000 starting in 2005 through 2010. The Spaceward Foundation has been distributing the prize money in slowly increasing increments, as the difficulty level of the challenges has been ratcheting up.

The ultimate goal for a space elevator system is to have the climbers ascend a tether 100,000 km long, strung between an anchor on Earth and a counterweight in space. Connecting Earth and space in this way, the space elevator will enable inexpensive access to space which, according to the Spaceward Foundation will “completely expand our society into space.”

In this year’s challenge, Spaceward provides the race track, in the form of a vertically-suspended tether, and the competing teams provide Space Elevator prototypes, featuring climbers that have to scale the tether using only power that is transferred to them from the ground using beamed power.

The climbers net weight is limited to 50 kg [110 lbs], and they must ascend the ribbon at a minimum speed of 2 m/s. [6.6 feet per second] carrying as much payload as possible. A high performance prize will be awarded to teams that can move at 5 m/s. [16.5 fps]

Climbers will be rated according to their speed multiplied by the amount of payload they carried, and divided by their net weight. For example, a 15 kg climber, carrying 10 kg of payload at 2.5 m/s will have a score of 10 X 2.5 / 15 = 1.67

Power is unlimited. It is up to the competitors to build the most power dense machine that they can devise.

In addition to Meteor Crater, other sites being considered include Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, the Albuquerque, New Mexico Balloon Festival site, White Sands, New Mexico, Brothers Rocket Site in Oregon, Black Rock, Nevada, and any NASCAR raceway sites that are far from airports.

Today (January 18, 2008) the registration fee is $1180 USD, and the price will increase by $10 each day (so get your registrations in early!) This is your big chance to change how we access space and perhaps write a unique chapter in history.

For more comprehensive specifications on the competition, see the Spaceward Foundation’s website.

Original News Source: Spaceward Foundation Press Release

January 14, 2008December 26, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

2008 Launch Calendar and Preview

2008 will be a busy year throughout the world and our solar system as various robotic and human missions are slated to begin their journeys of exploration and science. One of the most exciting and nail biting times of a mission is the launch, and following is a list of mission launches that will occur in 2008. Included is information about each mission and links to mission homepages, as well as launch locations, just in case youâ€™ll be in the area. Of course, as the year rolls along, weâ€™ll be covering each of the missions in Universe Today.

2008 Launches:

All launch dates are subject to change. The launches listed are non-military scientific robotic and human missions.

January 30: THEOS (Thailand Earth Observing System) (GISTDA)
Launch site: Yasny, in Orenburg Oblast, Russia Dombarovsky Cosmodrome, Russia
Launch vehicle: Kosmotras Dniepr rocket
THOES will be used for cartography, agricultural monitoring, forestry management, coastal zone monitoring and flood risk management in Thailand. The spacecraft was built by EADS Astrium in France.

Feb. 5: Progress 28P (Roskosmos)
Launch site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Launch Vehicle: Soyuz
The 28th Progress cargo delivery ship to the International Space Station (ISS).

Feb. 7: Space Shuttle Mission: STS-122 (NASA)
Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center – Launch Pad 39A
Launch Vehicle: Space Shuttle Atlantis
STS-122 will deliver the Columbus European Laboratory Module to the ISS, and is the twenty-fourth mission to the space station.

February 22: ESAâ€™s ATV Jules Verne (ESA)
Launch site: ELA-3, Kourou, French Guiana
Launch vehicle: Ariane 5
The European Space Agencyâ€™s first Automated Transfer Vehicle â€œJules Verneâ€? will dock with the ISS to bring supplies and equipment to the station.

Mid to Late March: Space Shuttle Mission: STS-123 (NASA)
Launch Vehicle: Space Shuttle Endeavour
Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center – Launch Pad 39A
Mission STS-123 will deliver the pressurized section of the Kibo Japanese Experiment Logistics Module (ELM-PS) on the twenty-fifth mission to the ISS.

April 8: Soyuz ISS 16S (Roskosmos)
Launch site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Launch vehicle: Soyuz
Flight of the manned Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft to the International Space Station with members of the Expedition 17 crew. The capsule will remain at the station for about six months, providing an escape vehicle for the crew.

April 9: Chandrayaan-1 (ISRO)
Launch site: Satish Dhawan Space Centre, India
Launch vehicle: Indiaâ€™s PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle)
Indiaâ€™s lunar orbiter mission will create a 3-D atlas of the moon, as well as conduct chemical and mineral mapping of the entire lunar surface. NASA’s Chandrayaan webpage

April 24: Space Shuttle Mission STS-124 (NASA)
Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center – Launch Pad 39A
Launch Vehicle: Space Shuttle Discovery
Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-124 will transport the Kibo Japanese Experiment Module – Pressurized Module (JEM-PM) and the Japanese Remote Manipulator System (JEM-RMS) to the International Space Station.

May 14: Progress 29P (Roskosmos)
Launch site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Launch Vehicle: Soyuz
The 29th Progress cargo delivery ship to the International Space Station (ISS).

May 15: GOCE satellite (Gravity field and steady state Ocean Circulation Explorer)(ESA)
Launch site: Plesetsk, Russia
Launch vehicle: Rokot / Briz KM
GOCE will measure the Earth’s gravity field and model the geoid, or hypothetical surface of the Earth, with extremely high accuracy and spatial resolution. It also will provide insight into the physics and dynamics of the Earth’s interior, such as volcanism and earthquakes.

May 16: GLAST (Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope) (NASA)
Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station – Launch Complex 17 – Pad 17-B
Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Delta II
GLAST the will have the ability to detect gamma rays in a range of energies from thousands to hundreds of billions of times more energetic than the light visible to the human eye. Radiation of such magnitude can only be generated under the most extreme conditions, thus GLAST will focus on studying the most energetic objects and phenomena in the universe, such as black holes, gamma ray bursts, neutron stars and cosmic rays. GLAST follows in the footsteps of the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory.

June 15: OSTM/Jason 2 (Ocean Surface Topography Mission)
Launch Site: Vandenberg Air Force Base – Launch Pad SLC-2
Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Delta II
This will be a follow-on to the Jason mission to measure sea surface height and determine the variability of ocean circulation at decadal time scales with combined data from the Topex/Poseidon mission and Jason . This is a joint U.S., Canadian and European project.

July 15: IBEX (Interstellar Boundary Explorer)
Launch Site: Reagan Test Site, Kwajalein Atoll
Launch Vehicle: Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL Rocket
IBEX’s science objective is to discover the global interaction between the solar wind and the interstellar medium. It will take a set of global energetic neutral atom images to determine the strength and structure of the termination shock, and study the properties of the solar wind flow beyond the termination shock and in the heliotail.

July 20: GOES-O Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite
Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station – Launch Complex 17
Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Delta IV
NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are actively engaged in a cooperative program, the multimission series N-P. This series will be a vital contributor to weather, solar and space operations, and science. The weather satellite will orbit 22,300 miles above the planet to monitor conditions across the U.S.

July 31: Herschel–Planck (ESA)
Launch site: CSG, Kourou, French Guiana
Launch vehicle: Ariane 5
One rocket will launch two different spacecraft, the Herschel infrared space observatory and the Planck mission to study the cosmic microwave background radiation. Herschel is a 3.5 meter diameter reflecting telescope with instruments cooled to close to absolute zero to observe at wavelengths that not been previously explored. After a four-month journey from Earth, Herschel will spend at least three years in orbit around the second Lagrange point of the Sun-Earth system. Planck will image the anisotropies of the Cosmic Background Radiation Field over the whole sky.

Aug. 7: Space Shuttle Mission: STS-125 (NASA)
Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center – Launch Pad 39A
Launch Vehicle: Space Shuttle Atlantis
Space Shuttle Atlantis will fly seven astronauts into space for the fifth and final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. During the 11-day flight, the crew will repair and improve the observatory’s capabilities through 2013.

Aug. 12: Progress 30P (Roskosmos)
Launch site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Launch vehicle: Soyuz rocket
The 30th Progress cargo delivery ship to the International Space Station.

Sept. 18: Space Shuttle Mission STS-126 (NASA)
Launch Site: Kennedy Space Center – Launch Pad 39A
Launch Vehicle: Space Shuttle Endeavour
ISS assembly flight ULF2 will deliver a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module to the International Space Station.

Oct. 12: Soyuz ISS 17S (Roskosmos)
Launch site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Launch vehicle: Soyuz
The manned Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft flies to the International Space Station with members of the Expedition 18 crew. The capsule will remain at the station for about six months, providing an escape vehicle for the crew

October TBD: SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) & Proba-2 microsatellite (ESA)
Launch site: Plesetsk, Russia
Launch vehicle: Rokot
SMOS will measure microwave radiation emitted from the Earth’s surface at L-band (1.4 GHz) using an interferometric radiometer. Proba-2 is a technology demonstration satellite.

Oct. 28: LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) & LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) (NASA)
Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station – Launch Complex 41
Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Atlas V
LRO will spend at least a year mapping the surface of the moon to help select safe landing sites for astronauts, identify lunar resources and study how the moon’s environment will affect humans. LCROSS will study the poles of the moon to confirm the presence or absence of water ice in a permanently shadowed craters.

Dec 1: SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory) (NASA)
Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station – Launch Complex 41
Launch Vehicle: United Launch Alliance Atlas V
SDO will help to understand the Sun’s influence on Earth and Near-Earth space by studying the solar atmosphere on small scales of space and time and in many wavelengths simultaneously. This is the first Space Weather Research Network mission in the Living With a Star Program of NASA.

Dec 15: OCO (Orbiting Carbon Observatory) (NASA)
Launch Site: Vandenberg Air Force Base, California – Launch Pad SLC 576-E
Launch Vehicle: Orbital Sciences Taurus Rocket
OCO will collect precise global measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth’s atmosphere to improve our understanding of the natural processes and human activities that may have an influence on this greenhouse gas. OCO is a new Earth orbiting mission sponsored by NASA’s Earth System Science Pathfinder Program.

January 11, 2008December 26, 2015 by Nicholos Wethington

MESSENGER Flyby of Mercury January 14th

If you thought you were good at pool, think again: in a game of interplanetary billiards, the MESSENGER team has guided its spacecraft to pass by Mercury for the first time on Monday, after a dizzying path that has already taken it past the Earth once and Venus twice.

The MESSENGER (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging) spacecraft will make its very first flyby of the planet on January 14th at 2:04 EST. It will pass within 200 kilometers (124 miles) of the surface. During the flyby it will be taking images and scientific measurements of the planet’s features.

The data it will be taking this time around will complement the measurements it will make when finally in orbit. MESSENGER will map the composition of Mercury’s surface, capture images at a resolution of hundreds of meters, and measure the structure of the planet’s magnetosphere and magnetic and gravitational fields.

Monday’s flyby will be the first time a spacecraft has visited Mercury in 33 years, since Mariner 10 did a series of flybys in the mid-1970s. During that mission, the spacecraft only imaged one hemisphere of the planet. MESSENGER will complete the picture, so to speak, by taking close-up images for the very first time of the other hemisphere.

The flyby will allow the spacecraft to map several features of Mercury that it will not be able to measure when in orbit, such as the magnetotail â€“ the drawn out tail of the planet’s magnetosphere as it travels through space. It will also take over 1,200 images of the planet.

MESSENGER was launched in August of 2004, and has been making its way to Mercury by a number of different flybys of the Earth and Venus. The journey, though, is far from over. The spacecraft will make two more flybys of Mercury in October 2008 and September 2009, finally settling into orbit of the planet in March 2011.

It will then start a yearlong comprehensive study with its seven scientific instruments. When the journey is over, it will have traveled 4.9 billion miles (7.9 billion kilometers).

For more information and photos of the flyby, visit the official MESSENGER website.

Source: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Press Release

December 21, 2007December 26, 2015 by Nicholos Wethington

MIT Shoots For the Moon

The Moon is a pretty popular destination these days: Google’s X-Prize is already getting applicants, Kaguya and Chang’e-1 are currently snapping pictures and taking measurements, and both India and the U.S. have missions lined up to launch in the next 10 years or so. MIT announced last week that it would join in on the fun, designing a spacecraft to study the Moon, schedule for launch in 2011.

In cooperation with NASA, MIT head a up a mission to send two satellites to simultaneously study the gravity field of the Moon in detail. Named GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory), the mission will study the gravity of the Moon to shed light on its thermal history and composition. By using two satellites to do so, GRAIL will create a map of the Moon’s gravity field that is 1,000 times more accurate than previous maps.

“After the three-month mission is completed, we will know the lunar gravitational field better than we know Earth’s,” said Maria Zuber, head of MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, who will lead the mission.

GRAIL will use a similar method employed by GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment), a mission that has been mapping Earth’s gravitational field since 2002: two satellites constantly measure the distance between each other with great accuracy, thus creating a map as they orbit the Earth and travel through its gravity field.

GRACE uses GPS technology for the positioning of the satellites, something impossible to do on the Moon. Instead, the GRAIL satellites will precisely monitor radio signals coming from the Earth. This technology could also be used in future missions to other planets such as Mars and Venus.

Knowing the interior composition and history of the Moon will allow scientists to have a better understanding of the history of other planets in our Solar System. The evolution of the Moon, and the history of its many impact craters will help to create models for its formation, which serves as a record of planetary formation in the inner planets. Any future missions to land on the Moon could also benefit from extended mapping of the gravity field, as landers could use this data to prevent crashes and help navigate to the surface.

The mission will cost an estimated $375 million. The satellites will be constructed by Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, Colo. and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will develop the communication and navigation systems.

Original Source: MIT Press Release

December 6, 2007December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Odyssey Moon is the First Lunar X-Prize Entrant

I mentioned the $30 million Google Lunar X-Prize a few months ago, but now there’s a bit of an update: the first team has stepped forward and announced that they’ll be trying to claim it. The team is called Odyssey Moon, and it stars International Space University founder Bob Richards and Inmarsat CFO Ramin Khadem. If all goes well, they’ll land a rover on the Moon within the next 7 years.

Just a quick recap. The Google Lunar X-Prize follows on the success of the original Ansari X-Prize. The first private group that can land a rover on the surface of the Moon, and complete a series of challenges before December 31st, 2014 will win $30 million.

Team organizers have said that hundreds of teams have expressed an interest, but nobody has actually filled out the necessary paperwork… until today.

Team Odyssey Moon announced their intention to compete for the Google Lunar X-Prize at the Space Investment Summit in San Jose, California. The team will be based on the Isle of Man, off the coast of England. Not a place known for its bustling space commerce, but the team founders say the location has the right business regulations and tax laws for such an unusual business venture.

And that’s the point, they expect this to be a business venture. Richards and Khadem believe they have a viable business plan for operating a Moon rover business. They’ll finance operations by the delivery of science, exploration and commercial payloads to the surface of the Moon. According to the Odyssey Moon folks, the $30 million prize is just a nice benefit.

For my fellow Canadians, you’ll be please to hear that MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates has been selected as the mission’s prime contractor. MDA has developed the robotic arms used on the space shuttle and International Space Station, and hardware for other space missions.

In addition to the two founders, the Planetary Society announced today that they’re going to pitch in with Odyssey Moon, helping out with education, public involvement, and serving as a science liaison for the project.

Although Odyssey Moon is just the first team to announce their intentions for the $30 million prize, they won’t be the last. Prize founder Peter Diamandis expects that several teams will make launch attempts within a handful of years – it seems unlikely that a rover won’t succeed before the time limit ends.

Original Source: Odyssey Moon

December 3, 2007December 26, 2015 by Nicholos Wethington

Future Mars Explorers Might Only See the Planet from Orbit

When the first humans travel to Mars, the journey will be dangerous. Perhaps the most dangerous part will be the landing; the thin Martian atmosphere makes it extremely difficult to slow down a heavy spacecraft carrying humans. To minimize the danger, the first missions to Mars might not have people land on the surface at all. Instead, they might orbit the Red Planet, and control virtual robots working down below. Just imagine how much science Martian rovers controlled by humans could get done, all from the safety of orbit – at a fraction of the cost of actually setting foot on the planet.

“It is a cheaper, simpler, and safer way to explore, and hence it will be a faster way to explore. Virtual exploration will have the excitement of being there, at a fraction of the price, ” Dr. Landis wrote in a paper titled, Teleoperation from Mars orbit: A proposal for human exploration, published in the May 2007 issue of Acta Astronautica.

A mission to Mars using teleoperation would involve robots landed on the surface which would be controlled directly by astronauts in a spacecraft orbiting the planet. The robots would be more sophisticated than current rovers, with hands and bodies that would mimic the movements of a human being, thus allowing the operator to control the robot using a virtual reality interface. The current lag between the commands from the Earth and their reception by the rovers on Mars can be several minutes, but an orbiter controlling the robots would experience almost no delay at all.

Unlike humans, the Robonauts wouldn’t need a habitat on the surface, and could be left there. They could also be equipped with a large variety of scientific equipment, and wouldn’t need to rest, making the exploration of the surface faster and more efficient.

Sure, it seems a little silly to send humans all the way out to Mars without actually landing them on the surface, but doing so poses many challenges that are eliminated by a teleoperation mission. To design and provide fuel for a vehicle to land on the surface, and then take off, is very expensive both in terms of weight and money.

We still don’t know if there is life on the surface of Mars, so being very careful not to contaminate the surface with Earth microbes is also important. Any missions that land on the surface have the potential of leaving life from our own planet there, making it difficult to later determine the origin of life on Mars â€“ if any exists â€“ and Earth microbes could possibly wipe out any Martian life.

Also, the effect potential life on Mars could have on human beings is unknown, so it is better to be safe than risk the lives of astronauts through exposure to possibly harmful alien life.

Teleoperated missions would expand the areas of Mars that could be explored, since the issue of safety is not as much of concern when using robots.

“Landing sites for a human mission are likely to be scientifically “boring” sites, featuring flat surfaces with an absence of boulders, cliffs, channels, craters or mountains. Use of telerobots lowers risk, and thereby allows dangerous exploration,” Dr. Landis wrote.

Teleoperation wouldn’t be the end, of Mars exploration, though; it’s merely a step towards landing humans on the planet to ensure the safety of astronauts and gain better information on how to conduct future missions.

Source: Acta Astronautica

November 29, 2007December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Voyager 2 is About to Cross the Termination Shock

NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft is about to cross another milestone on its long journey leaving the Solar System. According to researchers at the University of California, Riverside, the plucky spacecraft is about to pass through the “termination shock”; the point at which the Sun’s solar wind slows down to subsonic speed.

According to UC Riverside researcher Haruichi Washimi, the spacecraft will cross the termination show in late 2007-early 2008. This research will be published in the December 1st edition of The Astrophysical Journal.

As you probably know, there’s a blast of particles coming from the Sun at all times. This stream of charged particles is called the solar wind, and it’s moving at supersonic speeds when it leaves the Sun.

At a certain region of space, between 11 and 13.5 billion km (7-8.5 billion miles) from the Sun, this solar wind is decelerated to less than the speed of sound because of interactions with the interstellar wind that permeates the Milky Way.

Once Voyager crosses the termination shock, it’ll be in the outer heliosphere. Actually, though, it’s going to have to cross the termination shock multiple times. That’s because this line fluctuates inward and outward depending on the strength of the solar wind.

Washimi’s calculations predict that the spacecraft will pass through the shock later this year, and then again in the middle of 2008.

The final stage in the Voyagers’ journey will occur when they reach the heliopause; the boundary where the interstellar medium completely halts the solar wind. After that, they’ll be out of the Solar System, and just traveling out into the galaxy.

Original Source: UC Riverside News Release

November 15, 2007December 26, 2015 by Nicholos Wethington

How to Keep a Venus Rover Cool

In comparison to a mission to Venus, missions to Mars or the Moon are a cakewalk. With temperatures exceeding 450ÂºC (840ÂºF) and pressures over 92 times that of the surface of the Earth, landing a rover on the surface of Venus is quite a feat. This, however, is exactly what a research and development team at the NASA John Glenn Research Center hopes to accomplish.

Venus has been explored by a number of different missions, but there is a lot of science yet to be done on the planet.

“Understanding the atmosphere, climate, geology, and history of Venus could shed considerable light on our understanding of our own home planet. Yet the surface of Venus is the most hostile operating environment of any of the solid-surface planets in the solar system,” wrote Dr. Geoffrey Landis of the NASA John Glenn Research Center.

The extreme conditions on Venus make traditional rover technology impossible: the heat and pressure combined wreak havoc on any electronic components, and the atmosphere of Venus, mostly composed of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid, is highly corrosive on metal parts. And if this weren’t enough, the thick atmosphere makes the light conditions on the surface like a rainy day on Earth, which limits the potential of solar energy.

To solve the problem of putting electronics on the surface, the team will split the mission into two: a rover that will have limited electronic components in pressurized chamber cooled to under 300ÂºC (570ÂºF), and an airplane that will fly in the middle atmosphere of the planet, where the temperature is more moderate and the pressure not as great. The airplane will contain most of the more sensitive electrical components like computers, and will assist in relaying all the information back to Earth.

The Russian Venera lander to last the longest on the surface of Venus operated for a mere two hours before being crushed, but the rover for this mission will be designed to last more than 50 days.

Extreme conditions call for extreme technology; the team analyzed the possibility of using a number of different sources of energy, from solar to nuclear to microwave beaming. Solar power just can’t provide the energy necessary to run the rover and cool everything down, and microwave beaming energy from the airplane â€“ which would collect solar energy â€“ isn’t feasible because of how new the technology is.

This leaves nuclear power, something that has been used in past missions such as Galileo, Voyager, the current Cassini probe. To power the rover with nuclear energy, though, there is a twist: the heat produced by bricks of Plutonium will power a Stirling engine, an engine that uses the pressure difference between two chambers to produce mechanical energy with very high efficiency. This mechanical energy can be used to power the wheels directly, or transferred to electrical energy for the electrical and cooling systems, and the technology is being adapted to work on Venus.

“We’ve been working on Stirling technology for many years. The project reported was a project to design a Stirling specifically for Venus â€“ which makes for a very different design in some ways; notably in that the heat rejection temperature is extremely hot â€“ but we are building from existing technology, not developing it from scratch,” wrote Dr. Landis

The airplane would study the atmospheric conditions and Venus’ electric field, while the rover would place seismic stations and study surface conditions. A camera is almost definite on the airplane, and while it would be difficult to put a camera on the rover, it is not entirely out of the question.

When can you expect to see images of the surface, or hear more about the sulfuric acid clouds that envelop the planet?

“It’s a mission concept study so far, not a funded mission, so it’s not actually scheduled to take place. However, there’s a lot of interest in flying it in the 2015-2020 time frame,” said Dr. Landis.

Source: Acta Astronautica