Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Planetary Society to Launch Three Separate Solar Sails

LightSail-1 Artists rendition of LightSail-1 by Rick Sternbach. Credit: Planetary Society

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On the 75th anniversary of astronomer Carl Sagan’s birth, the Planetary Society announced their plans to sail a spacecraft on sunlight alone by the end of 2010. Called LightSail, the project will launch three separate spacecraft over the course of several years, beginning with LightSail-1, which will demonstrate that sunlight alone can propel a spacecraft in Earth orbit. LightSails 2 and 3, will travel farther into space.

Sagan, co-founder of the Planetary Society was a long-time advocate of solar sailing.

LightSail-1 Prior to Sail Deployment Credit: Planetary Society
LightSail-1 Prior to Sail Deployment Credit: Planetary Society

Lightsail-1 will fit into a volume of just three liters before the sails unfurl to fly on sunlight.

On today’s 365 Days of Astronomy podcast, Sagan’s widow and collaborator, Ann Druyan said this project is a “Wright Brothers Kitty Hawk-type” enterprise of inventing and proving a new way of moving through the cosmos.

“On one episode of Cosmos, we wrote ‘We have lingered too long on the shores of the cosmic ocean. It’s time to set sail for the stars,'” she said. “And that’s what I was thinking when it became clear that we had the resources to mount this expedition, that we are serious at The Planetary Society. And at Cosmos Studios, my company which provided the principal support for the first 10 years of this project, we’re really serious about giving our kids a future in which science and technology is used in its most wise and benign and forward-looking possible way. That’s why I’m so thrilled and I just think if Carl were alive he would have been absolutely overcome at the notion that The Planetary Society is mounting its own space program, let alone its own launch.”

The solar sail project was boosted by a one-million-dollar anonymous donation.

Taking advantage of the technological advances in micro- and nano-spacecraft over the past five years, The Planetary Society will build LightSail-1 with three Cubesat spacecraft. One Cubesat will form the central electronics and control module, and two additional Cubesats will house the solar sail module. Cameras, additional sensors, and a control system will be added to the basic Cubesat electronics bus.

Reflected light pressure, not the solar wind, propels solar sails. The push of photons against a mirror-bright surface can continuously change orbital energy and spacecraft velocity. LightSail-1 will have four triangular sails, arranged in a diamond shape resembling a giant kite. Constructed of 32 square meters of mylar, LightSail-1 will be placed in an orbit over 800 kilometers above Earth, high enough to escape the drag of Earth’s uppermost atmosphere. At that altitude the spacecraft will be subject only to the force of gravity keeping it in orbit and the pressure of sunlight on its sails increasing the orbital energy.

Lightsail-2 will demonstrate a longer duration flight to higher Earth orbits. LightSail-3 will go to the Sun-Earth Libration Point, L1, where solar sails could be permanently placed as solar weather stations, monitoring the geomagnetic storms from the Sun that potentially endanger electrical grids and satellite systems around Earth.

The Planetary Society’s attempt in 2005 to launch the world’s first solar sail, Cosmos 1, was scuttled when its launch vehicle, a Russian Volna rocket, failed to reach Earth orbit.

For more information, see the Planetary Society’s LightSail Page.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

What Really Happened on Apollo 13?

Apollo 13 crew reflects on the mission from David Meerman Scott on Vimeo.

Hear the story of what really happened on Apollo 13 from two of the astronauts who were on board, Jim Lovell and Fred Haise. Lovell provides great detail on the history of the oxygen tank and why it exploded, and both Lovell and Haise have some great stories to share about the flight, movie inaccuracies and more. Thanks to David Meerman Scott from Apollo Artifacts who took this video at the Kennedy Space Center at the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation event on November 6, 2009.

Also on Apollo Artifacts, check out a video of short speech by Neil Armstrong who gave a tribute to the Apollo 12 crew at the flight’s 40th anniversary gala on November 7, 2009.

Posted on by Nicholos Wethington

Masten wins $1 million X-Prize on Last Possible Day

Masten won the $1 million Northrop Grumman Lunar X-Prize challenge with their lander, Xoie.

The X-Prize competition for building a lander vehicle capable of making a simulated landing and liftoff on the Moon has come to a close, with the 1st place, $1 million award going to Masten Space Systems for their vehicle, Xoie (pronounced like the name ‘Zoey’). Armadillo Aerospace came in a close second, and received $500,000 for their Scorpius rocket. The Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander X-Prize challenge was initiated to spur development of lunar landing vehicle by a privately funded institution. The last of the challenge flights occured Friday, October 30th, and the competition came down to the wire, as Masten encountered problems on Wednesday and Thursday challenge windows that delayed their final flight to the last day of the challenge.

The challenge was divided into two categories, Level 1 and Level 2. Here’s the rules for the two categories, as taken from the X-Prize Foundation website:

Level 1, requires a rocket to take off from a designated launch area; climb to a low, fixed altitude; and fly for at least 90 seconds before landing precisely on a different landing pad. The flight must then be repeated in reverse. Both flights, along with all of the necessary preparation for each, must take place within a two and a half hour period. $500,000 in prizes was initially allocated to Level 1.

The more difficult course, Level 2, requires the rocket to fly for 180 seconds before landing precisely on a simulated lunar surface constructed with craters and boulders. The minimum flight times are calculated so that the Level 2 mission closely simulates the power needed to perform a real descent from lunar orbit down to the surface of the Moon. A $1 million First Place and a $500,000 second place prize remain to be claimed by the winners of Level 2

Xoie experienced communications and leakage issues on Wednesday and Thursday. A leak on Thursday afternoon caused a small fire, but the team spent the night fixing the problem, and the craft flew wonderfully on Friday., October 30th. Xoie is a lighter and more powerful version of Masten’s Level 1 vehicle, Xombie. (Wouldn’t it have been more fitting if Xombie flew the day before Halloween, though?)

Both teams met the qualifications for the Level 2 prize, but Masten had an average landing accuracy of 19 cm (7.5 in), while Armadillo Aerospace acheived an accuracy of 87 cm (34 in). This means that Masten beat out Armadillo on the very last day of the challenge by little over two feet! What an exiting space race!

Masten and Armadillo qualified for the Level 1 prizes earlier this year, with Armadillo claiming the first prize of $350,000 and Masten second place with $150,000. An awards ceremony will be held for the winning teams on November 5th.

Here’s a video of the winning flight:

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Neither company plans to rest on their laurels after these victories, though. Masten said in a press release, “We are building up a good head of steam. Next year is going to be full of bigger, faster, and higher. Winning contests is fun, but we won’t rest until we’re flying a fleet of vehicles into space carrying all sorts of commercial payloads.” They have been awared a Department of Defense Small Business Innovation and Research contract to use their vehicles in network communications testing. Masten also has a program that will fly payloads into space for $250 a kilogram.

Armadillo Aerospace has flown a vehicle in every X-Prize cup so far, and company founder John Carmack said after their Level 2 challenge flight on September 14th, “Since the Lunar Lander Challenge is quite demanding in terms of performance, with a few tweaks our Scorpius vehicle actually has the capability to travel all the way to space. We’ll be moving quickly to do higher-altitude tests, and we can go up to about 6,000 feet here at our home base in Texas before we’ll have to head to New Mexico where we can really push the envelope. We already have scientific payloads from universities lined up to fly as well, so this will be an exciting next few months for commercial spaceflight.” See our coverage on Universe Today of Armadillo’s qualifying test flight for more information and cool videos.

This is far from the last challenge that the X-Prize foundation has come up with. The Google Lunar X-Prize will award $30 million to the first privately funded team to send a robot lander to the Moon, travel 500 meters, and transmit videos and data back to the Earth. There are X-prize competitions in areas other than exploration and astronomy, including the life sciences, energy and the environment, and education and global development.

Source: SatNews, X-Prize Foundation

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Space Junk Threatens Future Missions

Low Earth Orbit
Estimated number of objects in low Earth orbit. Credit: NASA

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The U.S. Air Force began upgrading its ability to predict possible collisions in space after two satellites collided in February 2009, and has now done a collision analysis on over 800 maneuverable satellites. They hope to be able to track 500 more non-maneuvering satellites by year’s end. But maneuverable satellites aren’t the problem. The amount of space debris has risen by 40 per cent in the past four years alone. The Air Force Space Command now tracks 21,000 orbiting objects that are 10 centimeters or more across – including the 800 working satellites – and estimates that there are 500,000 smaller fragments in orbit.

“Our goal now is to do that conjunction assessment for all active satellites, roughly around 1,300 satellites, by the end of the year and provide that information to users as required,” said Lieutenant General Larry James, U.S. Strategic Command’s Joint Functional Component Command for Space, speaking at the Strategic Space Symposium this week in Omaha, Nebraska.

Some of the 500 satellites still to be assessed cannot be maneuvered in orbit because they are not functioning, or do not carry extra fuel that would be needed to move them once in orbit.

At another conference this week, the European Air and Space Conference in Manchester, UK, Hugh Lewis of the University of Southampton estimated the number of close encounters between objects in orbit will rise 50% in the next decade, and quadruple by 2059. The number of pieces of space debris has risen by 40% in the past four years alone.

Countermeasures by satellite builders and operators to avoid additional space debris are encouraged, but they add to the cost of missions.

Lewis has determined that compared with the 13,000 close approaches per week now, he projects there will be 20,000 a week in 2019 and upwards of 50,000 a week in 2059. From this he predicts that satellite operators will have to make five times as many collision avoidance maneuvers in 2059 as they will in 2019. “There’s going to be a big impact,” says Lewis. “You’re going to need more tracking to remove uncertainty about close approaches and undertake more maneuvers.”

Sources: Reuters, New Scientist

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Will Russia’s Next Rocket be Nuclear?

RD-0410 NTP Engine developed by Russia in the 1960's. Credit - Dietrich Haeseler

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Russia’s space agency chief is proposing to build a new spaceship with a nuclear engine. Reportedly,
Anatoly Perminov told a government meeting Wednesday that the preliminary design could be ready by 2012. It would take about nine more years and 17 billion rubles (about $600 million or 400 million euros) to build the ship. This ambitious proposal is a stark contrast to the current state of the Russian space program.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev urged the Cabinet to consider providing the necessary funding. Russia is currently using 40-year old Soyuz booster rockets and capsules to send crews to the International Space Station.

Source: Yahoo News

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Ares I-X at the Launchpad

Ares at the pad. Credit: NASA

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“The Stick” made it out to launchpad 39B without falling over. I have to admit, NASA’s new rocket looked tall, super-skinny and pointy (as Dr. Brian Cox described it), as it rolled out on the crawler transporter. Somehow, it seems the Ares I-X should be wider. It’s definitely tall — at 100 meters (327 feet,) it is 43 meters (143 feet) taller than the space shuttle. But appearances aside, this is an historic occasion. For the first time in more than a quarter century, a new vehicle is sitting out at the launchpad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

More pictures below:

Lit by xenon lights, the Ares I-X emerges from the Vehicle Assembly Building. Credit: NASA
Lit by xenon lights, the Ares I-X emerges from the Vehicle Assembly Building. Credit: NASA

The Ares I-X flight test vehicle arrived at the pad at approximately 7:45 a.m. EDT Tuesday. The crawler-transporter left Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building at 1:39 a.m., traveling less than 1 mph during the 4.2-mile journey. The rocket was secured “hard down” on the launch pad at 9:17 a.m.

The test flight of the Ares I-X rocket is scheduled to launch at 8 a.m. on Oct. 27. This test flight will provide NASA an opportunity to test and prove hardware, models, facilities and ground operations associated with the Ares I launch vehicle. Mission managers will finalize the launch date at a flight readiness review on October 23.

And in case you aren’t familiar with what the Ares I-X is for, the test flight will check out this un-crewed, modified Ares I configuration with a sub-orbital development test that will launch the rocket 43 km (28 miles) in altitude. This is the first developmental flight test of the Constellation Program, which includes the Ares I and V rockets, Orion and the Altair lunar lander.

Unless it all gets axed. The Augustine Report comes out on October 22.

Ares on the way out to 39B. Credit: NASA Edge crew
Ares on the way out to 39B. Credit: NASA Edge crew

For more great images of Ares I-X, checkout Robert Pearlman’s collection of rollout pics over at collectSPACE, or Spaceflightnow.com’s gallery of Ares I-X images from this morning.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Launches and Dockings and Robots, Oh My!

Regolith challenge participant vehicle. Credit: Jamie Foster.

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It was a busy weekend in the world of space flight — both present and future — and so we’ll try to fit it all in one article, and include a couple of videos to help tell the stories. Before that, however, just a reminder that the Ares-I-X is slated to roll out to launchpad 39-B early Tuesday morning at 12:01 am EDT, to begin preparations for the scheduled Oct. 27 first test launch. If you’re an early bird, (or a night owl) watch the six-hour trip on NASA TV.

And now on to this weekend’s launch story:

The 600th launch of an Atlas rocket took place on a foggy Sunday morning, Oct. 18, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. A new global weather observatory (DMSP F-18) for America’s military was lofted into polar orbit. Watch the video below, and click here to watch a video of the Centaur upper stage which created a sensation as it flew over Europe later in the day when it dumped a load of excess propellant.

On Saturday, Oct. 17, A Progress cargo spacecraft, delivering 2.5 tons of supplies, successfully docked to the space station at 9:40 pm EDT. Here’s the video replay of that event from NASA TV:

Also on Sunday, nineteen teams pushed their robot competitors to the limit, and three teams claimed a total of $750,000 in NASA prizes at this year’s Regolith Excavation Challenge on Oct. 18. This is the first time in the competition’s three-year history that any team qualified for a cash prize, the largest NASA has awarded to date.

After two days of intense competition hosted at NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., organizers conferred first place prize of $500,000 to Paul’s Robotics of Worcester, Mass. Terra Engineering of Gardena, Calif., was a three-time returning competitor and was awarded second place prize of $150,000, and Team Braundo of Rancho Palos Verde, Calif., took the third place of $100,000 as a first-time competitor.

Competitors were required to use mobile, robotic digging machines capable of excavating at least 330 pounds of simulated moon dirt, known as regolith, and depositing it into a container in 30 minutes or less. The rules required the remotely controlled vehicles to contain their own power sources and weigh no more than 176 pounds.

Read more about the competition here, and see lots more images and videos of the event here.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Space Shuttle Loses Battle of Launch Dates

Space shuttle Atlantis on top of one of the mobile launcher platforms at Launch Pad 39A. Credit: NASA

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It’s the old shuttle shuffle. The launch of Atlantis for the STS-129 mission has been pushed back by four days to November 16 (at 2:28 pm EDT) to accommodate two unmanned rocket launches from Cape Canaveral, as well as the inaugural launch of the Ares I-X, scheduled for October 27. Right now the shuttle launch window lasts one day – the 16th. A second launch attempt on November 17 is being negotiated with a Delta IV launch, but NASA will stand down the 18th for the Leonid Meteor Shower (NASA won’t launch the shuttle into a shooting gallery), so if weather or technical issues don’t allow liftoff then, the next window opens from December 6-14. But there are issues with that time frame, too.

Atlantis would need to launch by Dec. 13 to finish its mission before a Russian Soyuz arrives on Dec. 23 (joint safety guidelines say the shuttle can’t be docked when an another ship arrives). Additionally, the Geminid Meteor Shower is scheduled for Dec. 13-14, so NASA would likely try to launch by the 12th.

The shuttle can’t be at the International Space Station from Nov. 21 through Dec. 5 because the angle of the sun will be such that the solar arrays could not generate enough electricity to support a docked shuttle.
The way it looks now, if Atlantis hasn’t launched by Dec. 13, it will stay on the ground until January 7. As antiquated as it sounds, NASA tries to avoid flying during the New Year’s holiday because the shuttle’s computers are not designed to handle the year-end rollover.

NASA said today the main reason for delaying Atlantis’ launch from the originally scheduled date of Nov. 12 is because of Tuesday morning’s rollout of the Ares 1-X out to launch pad 39-B, and subsequent personnel issues with preparations for the Ares flight and STS-129 at the same time . In a case of bad management, the STS-129 crew flew to Florida Monday morning to begin a training and a Terminal Countdown Test, but after they arrived, they were notified that NASA managers scrubbed the two days of training sessions by the crew out at the adjacent pad 39-A. The crew will return to the to Kennedy Space Center in early November to perform the practice countdown simulation in which they suit up and board the shuttle.

Stay tuned for launch updates.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Trips to Mars in 39 Days

Artist rendering of the VASIMR powered spacecraft heading to Mars. Credit: Ad Astra

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Using traditional chemical rockets, a trip to Mars – at quickest — lasts 6 months. But a new rocket tested successfully last week could potentially cut down travel time to the Red Planet to just 39 days. The Ad Astra Rocket Company tested a plasma rocket called the VASIMR VX-200 engine, which ran at 201 kilowatts in a vacuum chamber, passing the 200-kilowatt mark for the first time. “It’s the most powerful plasma rocket in the world right now,” says Franklin Chang-Diaz, former NASA astronaut and CEO of Ad Astra. The company has also signed an agreement with NASA to test a 200-kilowatt VASIMR engine on the International Space Station in 2013.

The tests on the ISS would provide periodic boosts to the space station, which gradually drops in altitude due to atmospheric drag. ISS boosts are currently provided by spacecraft with conventional thrusters, which consume about 7.5 tons of propellant per year. By cutting this amount down to 0.3 tons, Chang-Diaz estimates that VASIMR could save NASA millions of dollars per year.

The test last week was the first time that a small-scale prototype of the company’s VASIMR (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket) rocket engine has been demonstrated at full power.

Plasma, or ion engines uses radio waves to heat gases such as hydrogen, argon, and neon, creating hot plasma. Magnetic fields force the charged plasma out the back of the engine, producing thrust in the opposite direction.

They provide much less thrust at a given moment than do chemical rockets, which means they can’t break free of the Earth’s gravity on their own. Plus, ion engines only work in a vacuum. But once in space, they can give a continuous push for years, like wind pushing a sailboat, accelerating gradually until the vehicle is moving faster than chemical rockets. They only produce a pound of thrust, but in space that’s enough to move 2 tons of cargo.

Due to the high velocity that is possible, less fuel is required than in conventional engines.

Currently, the Dawn spacecraft, on its way to the asteroids Ceres and Vesta, uses ion propulsion, which will enable it to orbit Vesta, then leave and head to Ceres. This isn’t possible with conventional rockets. Additionally, in space ion engines have a velocity ten times that of chemical rockets.

Specfic impulse and thrust graph. Credit: NASA
Specfic impulse and thrust graph. Credit: NASA


Rocket thrust is measured in Newtons (1 Newton is about 1/4 pound). Specific impulse is a way to describe the efficiency of rocket engines, and is measured in time (seconds). It represents the impulse (change in momentum) per unit of propellant. The higher the specific impulse, the less propellant is needed to gain a given amount of momentum.

Dawn’s engines have a specific impulse of 3100 seconds and a thrust of 90 mNewtons. A chemical rocket on a spacecraft might have a thrust of up to 500 Newtons, and a specific impulse of less than 1000 seconds.

The VASIMR has 4 Newtons of thrust (0.9 pounds) with a specific impulse of about 6,000 seconds.

The VASIMR has two additional important features that distinguish it from other plasma propulsion systems. It has the ability to vary the exhaust parameters (thrust and specific impulse) in order to optimally match mission requirements. This results in the lowest trip time with the highest payload for a given fuel load.

In addition, VASIMR has no physical electrodes in contact with the plasma, prolonging the engine’s lifetime and enabling a higher power density than in other designs.

To make a trip to Mars in 39 days, a 10- to 20-megawatt VASIMR engine ion engine would need to be coupled with nuclear power to dramatically shorten human transit times between planets. The shorter the trip, the less time astronauts would be exposed to space radiation, and a microgravity environment, both of which are significant hurdles for Mars missions.

VASIMR. Credit: Ad Astra
VASIMR. Credit: Ad Astra

The engine would work by firing continuously during the first half of the flight to accelerate, then turning to deaccelerate the spacecraft for the second half. In addition, VASIMR could permit an abort to Earth if problems developed during the early phases of the mission, a capability not available to conventional engines.

VASIMR could also be adapted to handle the high payloads of robotic missions, and propel cargo missions with a very large payload mass fraction. Trip times and payload mass are major limitations of conventional and nuclear thermal rockets because of their inherently low specific impulse.

Chang-Diaz has been working on the development of the VASIMR concept since 1979, before founding Ad Astra in 2005 to further develop the project.

Source: PhysOrg

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Soyuz Launch Video

Soyuz launch on Sept. 30. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls.


The Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft launched today at 07:14 GMT (2:14 CDT) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. On board were Soyuz Commander Max Suraev, NASA Flight Engineer Jeff Williams and spaceflight participant Guy Laliberte, founder of Cirque du Soleil . They will arrive at the International Space Station on Friday.

If you’ve ever wondered about some of the unusual rituals the Russians partake in before a launch, an article on Discovery Space outlined the following traditions witnessed over the years by reporters for The Associated Press, or reported in the Russian media:

CARNATIONS FOR YURI: Before leaving for Baikonur, crew members lay red carnations at the monuments of the first Soviet cosmonauts in Star City outside Moscow and visit the office of Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, and write their names in the visitors’ book.

ARRIVAL: Cosmonauts arrive in Baikonur on different planes and without their spouses. They check into the Kosmonaut hotel and walk down the alley where every tree was planted by cosmonauts who successfully returned from space.

MOVIE NIGHT: On the night before the launch, the cosmonauts watch “The White Sun of the Desert,” a 1969 comedy about a Russian soldier fighting in Central Asia.

MUSIC: Before leaving for the launch, the cosmonauts sip champagne and leave their signatures on the doors of their hotel rooms. Then they ride aboard a minibus to the launch pad listening to “Grass Near Home,” a 1983 hit of Soviet rock band The Earthlings.

BLESSING: After the Soviet era, black-robed Orthodox priests began to bless each rocket before launch.

SOAKING THE STAND-INS: 30 minutes before the launch, when the main crew is sealed in the spaceship, the cosmonaut’s stand-ins, who act as backup for the regular crew, are “soaked” by gulping vodka shots with journalists at a shabby cafeteria near the launch pad.

SOILING THE WHEEL: The cosmonauts get out of the bus near the rocket and urinate on its right rear wheel. The rite dates back to Gagarin himself, who reportedly did not want to soil his space suit during the takeoff.

MASCOT: A mascot, usually a stuffed animal named “Boris,” hangs in front of the crew. When the toy begins to float, the cosmonauts know they are approaching near zero gravity.

LANDING: After the landing in Kazakh steppe, the cosmonauts sign their capsule, which is charred by the heat of re-entry, and drink a bottle of vodka stashed before the launch. After a helicopter ride to Baikonur, they plant a tree near the Kosmonaut hotel.

RETURN TO MOSCOW: Upon their return to Star City outside Moscow, they pay a final visit to Gagarin’s monument and go to the church of St. Prince Daniil of Moscow, where they kiss the saint’s relics.

Source: Discovery Space