Space and astronomy news
For those following all the habitability results from the Curiosity rover lately, here’s a special treat — the Discovery Channel will air a behind-the-scenes documentary on the mission tonight (Dec. 18) at 10 p.m. Eastern.
Continue reading “Curiosity Mars Rover Stars In Discovery Television Documentary Tonight”
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – In a key test of rocket reusability, SpaceX will attempt a daring landing of their Falcon 9 first stage rocket on an ocean platform known as the “autonomous spaceport drone ship” following the planned Friday, Dec. 19, blastoff on a high stakes mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dragon cargo freighter is slated to liftoff on its next unmanned cargo run, dubbed CRS-5, to the ISS under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract. In a late development, there is a possibility the launch could be postponed to January 2015.
The instantaneous launch window for the Falcon 9/Dragon is slated for 1:20 p.m from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
As the Dragon proceeds to orbit, SpaceX engineers will attempt to recover the Falcon 9 first stage via a precision landing for the first time “on a custom-built ocean platform known as the autonomous spaceport drone ship,” according to a SpaceX statement.
“While SpaceX has already demonstrated two successful soft water landings, executing a precision landing on an unanchored ocean platform is significantly more challenging.”
SpaceX rates the chances of success at “perhaps 50% at best.”
Of course since this has never been attempted before, tons of planning is involved and lots can go wrong.
But this is space exploration, and it’s not for the meek and mild.
It’s time to go boldly where no one has gone before and expand the envelope if we hope to achieve great things.
The 14 story Falcon 9 will be zooming upwards at 1300 m/s (nearly 1 mi/s). Engineers will then relight the Merlin 1D first stage engines to stabilize and lower the rocket.
Four hypersonic grid fins had been added to the first stage and placed in an X-wing configuration. They will be deployed only during the reentry attempt and will be used to roll, pitch, and yaw the rocket in concert with gimballing of the engines.
Here’s a description from SpaceX:
“To help stabilize the stage and to reduce its speed, SpaceX relights the engines for a series of three burns. The first burn—the boostback burn—adjusts the impact point of the vehicle and is followed by the supersonic retro propulsion burn that, along with the drag of the atmosphere, slows the vehicle’s speed from 1300 m/s to about 250 m/s. The final burn is the landing burn, during which the legs deploy and the vehicle’s speed is further.”
“To complicate matters further, the landing site is limited in size and not entirely stationary. The autonomous spaceport drone ship is 300 by 100 feet, with wings that extend its width to 170 feet. While that may sound huge at first, to a Falcon 9 first stage coming from space, it seems very small. The legspan of the Falcon 9 first stage is about 70 feet and while the ship is equipped with powerful thrusters to help it stay in place, it is not actually anchored, so finding the bullseye becomes particularly tricky. During previous attempts, we could only expect a landing accuracy of within 10km. For this attempt, we’re targeting a landing accuracy of within 10 meters.”
Watch for Ken’s ongoing SpaceX launch coverage from onsite at the Kennedy Space Center.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.
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Learn more about SpaceX, Orion, Antares, NASA missions and more at Ken’s upcoming outreach events:
Dec 18: “SpaceX CRS-5, Orion EFT-1, Antares Orb-3 launch, Curiosity Explores Mars,” Kennedy Space Center Quality Inn, Titusville, FL, evenings
In scientific style, researchers are slowly narrowing down where the Philae lander arrived on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Earlier today (Dec. 17) at the American Geophysical Union meeting, more pictures from the European spacecraft were released showing its landing site and also what the terrain looked like underneath Philae as it bounced to its destination. The pictures were also placed on NASA’s website.
The lander is sleeping in a shady spot on the comet’s surface after the dramatic touchdown — actually, three touchdowns — on Nov. 12, when it flew for more than two hours across the surface and bounced as high as two miles (3.2 kilometers). This was partly because harpoons expected to secure it to the surface failed to deploy, and also because the comet crust was icier than expected, according to Gizmodo.
You can see in the diagram above Philae’s predicament; it’s wedged in a spot that doesn’t get a lot of sunlight, at least for now. That could change as 67P draws closer to the Sun in the late winter or early spring, but nobody yet knows for sure. And yes, the search for the landing site still continues in earnest, but the challenge now is the orbiting Rosetta spacecraft only has so much bandwidth to send back images, according to Wired. As more high-resolution OSIRIS (Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging System) pictures arrive, scientists hope to figure out where it went.
Two pictures from Philae highlighted in today’s release are below. Will the lander take more? Scientists certainly hope so, but even if that doesn’t happen, the lander was only expected to return 20% of the science results in any case. Rosetta is still active and will stick with the comet through mid-2015, when 67P gets closest to the Sun.
Venus Express is mostly dead. The spacecraft spent more than eight years faithfully relaying information from the Morning Star/Evening Star planet, but it’s now out of fuel, out of control and within weeks of burning up in the atmosphere.
While we mourn the end of the productive mission, the European Space Agency spacecraft showed us a lot about the planet that we once considered a twin to Earth. Some of the surprises, as you can see below, including a possibly slowing-down rotation, and the realization that volcanoes may still be active on the hellish planet.
Quick video summary: Venus Express found that the spacecraft’s rotation may have slowed down by 6.5 minutes between 1996 (when the Magellan spacecraft was in orbit) and 2012. The surprising information emerged when scientists discovered surface features weren’t in the expected areas, and couldn’t find any calculation errors between the data.
Quick video summary: Volcanic flows may still be active on Venus’ surface, according to 2010 data from the mission. Scientists looked at surface areas that had not been “weathered” very much (indicating that they are relatively young) and detected at least nine spots where the heat in those zones is much higher than the areas around it.
Peekaboo! Tethys makes a (mostly in vain) attempt to hide behind Rhea in this picture taken by the Cassini spacecraft a couple of years ago, but highlighted by NASA in a recent picture essay. Besides the neat view of the orbital dance, one thing that is clearly visible between the two moons is the different colors — a product of their different surfaces. It turns out that Tethys’ bright surface is due to geysers from another moon.
“Scientists believe that Tethys’ surprisingly high albedo is due to the water ice jets emerging from its neighbor, Enceladus,” NASA stated. “The fresh water ice becomes the E ring [of Saturn] and can eventually arrive at Tethys, giving it a fresh surface layer of clean ice.”
Saturn has an astounding number of moons — 62 moons discovered so far, and 53 of them named, if you don’t count the spectacular ring that surrounds the planet. The collection of celestial bodies includes Titan, the second-biggest moon in the Solar System. It’s so big that it includes a thick atmosphere. (Ganymede, around Jupiter, is the biggest.)
Below are some other pictures of moons dancing around Saturn — some harder to spot than others. All images were taken by the Cassini spacecraft since it arrived at the planet in 2004.
The challenge with thinking about space is putting it into terms that we can understand. How far is a light-year? Just how powerful is NASA’s next-generation Space Launch System, which the agency hopes will bring astronauts out into the solar system?
Luckily for us, the comic xkcd is a regular contributor to making space understandable, and the latest comic from Randall Munroe is a gem — explaining launch vehicle capacity and spacecraft mass in terms of horses.
So now comparisons are fairly easy. At the left of the diagram, for example, you can see the Saturn V — that rocket that was the first stage of bringing astronauts to the moon in the 1960s — carried the equivalent of 262 horses. The SLS Block 2, if it is ever developed, will have a slightly larger capacity of 289 horses.
Meanwhile, the spacecraft mass of the International Space Station is an astounding 932 horses, the total shuttle mass was 206 horses, and Apollo was 67 horses. There also are a few robotic spacecraft in there, such as Voyager, Vanguard 1, the Keyhole 3 spy satellite, and the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope.
Check out the entire diagram in large here, and the original comic here. (For those unfamiliar with xkcd, make sure to mouse over the comic for an extra joke.)
After surviving an eight-year mission and a daring plunge into part of the atmosphere of Venus, a plucky spacecraft orbiting the hothouse planet is finished its mission, the European Space Agency declared. Venus Express can no longer communicate consistently with Earth. The spacecraft itself will fall into the atmosphere and likely be destroyed in the coming weeks.
“The available information provides evidence of the spacecraft losing attitude control,” stated Patrick Martin, ESA’s Venus Express mission manager, who added it was because the machine exhausted its fuel as controllers tried to raise it to a more stable altitude above Venus.
The demise of the mission, in a sense, began when controllers chose to bring Venus Express into the atmosphere this summer. The goal was not only to learn more about Venus, but also to get information on how future spacecraft could “surf” the atmosphere when, say, landing on the planet.
The orbit was reduced to about 130 km to 135 km (80.7 miles to 83.9 miles) above the planet at its lowest approach, which took place in earnest between June 18 and July 11. Controllers then did 15 small thruster burns, which raised the spacecraft’s minimum altitude to 460 km (286 miles).
But it wasn’t a stable orbit, with the spacecraft continuing to spiral into the planet as gravity pulled it down. ESA decided to again try raising the spacecraft’s altitude between Nov. 23 and Nov. 30, but lost consistent contact with the spacecraft Nov. 28. It appears Venus Express is out of gas, the agency said.
It’s hard to know exactly when the spacecraft will die, but it serves as a good example of how space recycling can end up making an interesting mission. The design and some of the instruments on Venus Express were based upon those used for other missions, particularly Mars Express and Rosetta. And the lessons of the spacecraft will certainly be used in future missions.
Tomorrow, we’ll run down some of the highlights of the mission.
Source: European Space Agency
For the 18 teams racing to put a robot on the Moon, some good news — they have an extra year to get the job done. Citing the groups’ difficulty in technology and raising money, the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition said the teams will now have until Dec. 31, 2016 to accomplish their missions.
The challenge was first announced in 2007 and the number of teams has stayed fairly steady since at least 2010, when 21 teams were reported in a Universe Today story. Some of the groups are competing for milestone prizes, the latest of which will be announced Jan. 15.
Astrobiotic won two previous competitions for $500,000 (in mobility) and $250,000 (for imaging). The grand prize is still open to everybody, regardless if they choose to pursue the milestone prizes.
“We know the mission we are asking teams to accomplish is extremely difficult and unprecedented, not only from a technological standpoint, but also in terms of the financial considerations,” stated Robert Weiss, XPRIZE’s vice-chairman and president.
“It is for this reason that we have decided to extend the competition timeline. We firmly believe that a whole new economy around low-cost access to the Moon will be the result of the Google Lunar XPRIZE.”
While the deadline has been extended, the goal is the same: the winning team must ferry a robotic machine to the Moon, move 500 meters (1,640 feet) somehow (on, above or below the surface) and send two “mooncasts” back to Earth. In 2013, Weiss told Universe Today that some of the teams had signed launch contracts, but declined to provide many details due to confidentiality concerns.
You can see more details about the teams and their progress on the XPRIZE website. The grand prize is $20 million and there is an additional $10 million available in other prizes.
Here’s your rare chance to leave a lasting mark on a piece of the Solar System. The team behind the MESSENGER spacecraft — that machine orbiting Mercury since 2011 — is asking the public to help them name craters on the planet, in an open contest.
Fifteen finalists will be forwarded to the official arbitrator of astronomical names on Earth, the International Astronomical Union, which will pick five names in time for the end of the MESSENGER mission this spring.
“This brave little craft, not much bigger than a Volkswagen Beetle, has travelled more than 8 billion miles [12.8 billion kilometers] since 2004—getting to the planet and then in orbit,” stated Julie Edmonds of the Carnegie Institution for Science, who leads the MESSENGER education and public outreach team.
“We would like to draw international attention to the achievements of the mission and the guiding engineers and scientists on Earth who have made the MESSENGER mission so outstandingly successful.”
Here are some guidelines to increase your chances of success:
– Make sure the name does not have significance politically, religiously or for the military;
– Focus on names of writers, artists and composers and research them thoroughly, as you will be expected to provide a justification;
– Don’t pick a name that has been used elsewhere in the Solar System.
Some additional hints come from the official contest website, which adds that the competition is open to everyone except MESSENGER’s education and public outreach team and that entries close Jan. 15.
Impact craters are named in honor of people who have made outstanding or fundamental contributions to the Arts and Humanities (visual artists, writers, poets, dancers, architects, musicians, composers and so on). The person must have been recognized as an art-historically significant figure for more than 50 years and must have been dead for at least three years. We are particularly interested in submissions that honor people from nations and cultural groups that are under-represented amongst the currently-named craters.
This isn’t the first planet with recent open invitations for the public to name craters. Earlier this year, astronomy education group Uwingu began asking for suggestions to name craters on Mars for maps that will be used by the Mars One team as it plans to land a private crewed mission on the planet in the coming years. Those names, however, will likely not be recognized by the IAU (the official statement is here.)
Update, Dec. 18, 8:09 a.m. EST: Lunar Mission One closed its fundraising mission the night before at £672,447 ($1,052,413), short of its stretch goal of £700,000.
With just over a day to go in their crowdfunding campaign, a British group hoping to put a robotic lander on the moon in 2024 reached their fundraising goal of $932,000 (£600,000) overnight.
The money is supposed to move the project into more concrete phases after the founders spent seven years quietly developing their concept, but many of the details about the design and funding have yet to be unveiled.
“We plan to send an unmanned robotic landing module to the South Pole of the Moon – an area unexplored by previous missions,” the mission says on its Kickstarter page. “We’re going to use pioneering technology to drill down to a depth of at least 20m – 10 times deeper than has ever been drilled before – and potentially as deep as 100m.
“By doing this,” the statement adds, “we will access lunar rock dating back up to 4.5 billion years to discover the geological composition of the Moon, the ancient relationship it shares with our planet and the effects of asteroid bombardment. Ultimately, the project will improve scientific understanding of the early Solar System, the formation of our planet and the Moon, and the conditions that initiated life on Earth.”
“Stretch goals” for the organization include rewards for backers such as an e-commerce program, a massive open online course for educational purposes, a party for backers in London, and being “a leading role” in World Space Week 2015. The additional money, however, will also be used for drilling studies, putting together the science team and making a work plan.
With the money raised, the project now has the ambitious target of getting their lander on the moon by 2024. According to the schedule, the main mission contract should be awarded by 2017, design and development begins by 2018, and the final build commences in 2021.
RAL Space (which assisted with the Philae comet landing and 200 other space missions, according to the page) is serving as a technical advisor to the board. The project chair of Lunar Missions Ltd. (which is responsible for the project) is Ian Taylor, a former United Kingdom government science minister and co-chair of the parliamentary space committee.
As with other private ventures in space such as Mars One, however, Lunar Mission One is dealing with long timelines, a risky goal and a not-certain guarantee of success.