Posted on by Ken Kremer

Is Historic Discovery imminent concerning Martian Organic Chemistry ?

Image caption: Curiosity scoops repeatedly into this Martian soil at windblown ripple dubbed ‘Rocknest’, shown in this mosaic, and delivered samples to the SAM chemistry instrument, on the robots deck, to search for any signatures of organic molecules – the building blocks of life. This color mosaic was stitched together from hi-res color images taken by the robots 34 mm Mastcam camera on Sols 93 and 74. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS/Ken Kremer / Marco Di Lorenzo

Has Curiosity made a ‘Historic’ science discovery with the SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) chemistry instrument that analyzes Martian soil (see mosaic above) and is designed to detect organic molecules – the building blocks of life? Has Curiosity unambiguously and directly detected the first signatures of organics on Mars ? Is an announcement imminent?

Speculation is rampant that NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has made an earth-shaking discovery ‘for the history books’ , following a radio interview by NPR’s Joe Palca with the mission’s Principal Investigator, John Grotzinger, while sitting in his office at Caltech last week. NPR reported the story on Tuesday, Nov. 20.

“We’ve got a briefing on Monday [Dec 3] where we’ll discuss our results,” John Grotzinger told me.

Grotzinger will describe the SAM data and their potentially pivotal implications at the annual meeting of the AGU (American Geophysical Union) being held from Dec 3-7 in San Francisco. Many papers and results from the first three months of the Curiosity Mars Science Lab (MSL) mission will be presented at the AGU meeting.

“The science team is analyzing data from SAM’s soil inspection, but not ready to discuss yet,” JPL Press spokesman Guy Webster informed me today.

It’s the Thanksgiving holiday period here in the US so the answers will wait a tad longer.


Image Caption: Curiosity Self Portrait with Mount Sharp at Rocknest ripple in Gale Crater. Curiosity used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on the robotic arm to image herself and her target destination Mount Sharp in the background.SAM chemistry suite located on robot’s deck near Mast. To the left is the northern rim wall of Gale Crater. This color panoramic mosaic was assembled from raw images snapped on Sol 85 (Nov. 1, 2012). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

Curiosity had been collecting and analyzing Martian soil samples for more than a month at a windblown ripple called ‘Rocknest’. So far Curiosity has scooped into the Martian soil five times and delivered a single sample to SAM and two to the adjacent CheMin chemistry instrument.

“This data is gonna be one for the history books,” Grotzinger went on to say to NPR. “It’s looking really good.”

JPL Press spokesman Guy Webster advises caution and patience while damping down euphoria. He told me that the team is still trying to interpret and understand the analysis from SAM and seeking to clarify their meaning before making any premature conclusions.

“This is no change from the policy with past results from the mission, such as SAM’s atmosphere analysis or CheMin’s soil sample analysis: The scientists want to gain confidence in the findings before taking them outside of the science team,” Webster informed me.

“As for history books, the whole mission is for the history books. John was delighted about the quality and range of information coming in from SAM during the day a reporter happened to be sitting in John’s office last week. He has been similarly delighted by results at other points during the mission so far,” Webster said.

Organic molecules are the basis for life as we know it, and they have never before been discovered on the Red Planet’s surface. I am an organic chemist and to me the detection of organics on Mars would indeed be “Earth-shaking”. But just a finding of organics alone does NOT mean we discovered life. Organics are a prerequisite to life. Life requires finding much more complex molecules, like amino acids and far more beyond that.

Furthermore, finding signatures of organics so close to the surface might be a surprising result when one recalls that highly destructive ionizing radiation bombards the Martian topsoil 24/7.

So, it’s wise for the MSL team to be abundantly cautious and recheck their results multiple times. They wisely waited for further data before prematurely announcing the discovery of Martian methane. Initial SAM atmospheric measurements detecting methane turned out to be false – they actually originated from contamination by residual traces of Florida air trapped in the interior chambers of SAM and were carried all the way to Mars.

If organics are detected in the dusty dunes at Rocknest, the implications could be vast and potentially point to their widespread distribution across Gale crater and beyond.

As renowned astronomer Carl Sagan once said; ‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

Stay tuned.

Learn more about Curiosity’s groundbreaking discoveries, SAM and NASA missions at my upcoming free public presentations:

Ken Kremer

…..

Dec 6: Free Public lecture titled “Atlantis, The Premature End of America’s Shuttle Program and What’s Beyond for NASA” including Curiosity, Orion, SpaceX and more by Ken Kremer at Brookdale Community College/Monmouth Museum and STAR Astronomy club in Lincroft, NJ at 8 PM

Dec 11: Free Public lecture titled “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars (in 3 D)” and more by Ken Kremer at Princeton University and the Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton (AAAP) in Princeton, NJ at 8 PM.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Surreal Images of Soyuz Landing in the Dark

The Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft is seen shortly after it landed on November 19, 2012 with the Expedition 33 crew. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls.

The Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft carrying Expedition 33 Commander Suni Williams and Flight Engineers Yuri Malenchenko and Aki Hoshide landed in the steppe of Kazakhstan, and even though it was 7:56 a.m. Kazakhstan time (01:56 UTC Nov. 19, 8:56 p.m. EST on Nov. 18), it was still dark near the remote northern latitude town of Arkalyk (50°14’53.16″N). This was the first pre-dawn landing in darkness for a station crew since April 9, 2006, when Expedition 12 crew members returned. The overhead pictures from the scene have a surreal feel to them.

A problem with the Soyuz’ parachute – it deployed about 5 seconds later than planned – caused the crew to land several miles away from the planned landing site, but a Russian recovery team and NASA personnel reached the landing site by helicopter shortly afterward to assist the crew in getting out of the spacecraft, which landed on its side. Frigid temperatures greeted the crew when the hatch was opened; it was about -12 C (12 F), said NASA TV commentator Rob Navias.

Another overhead view of the Soyuz. Note the soot on the snow from the landing. Credit: Ria Novosti//Maxim Shipenkov. See a slideshow of images here.

The return of Williams, Hoshide and Malenchenko wraps up 127 days in space for the three since their launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 15, including 125 days spent aboard the International Space Station.

Screenshot from NASA TV of the post-landing activities.

Earlier the crew bid farewell to their fellow crewmates, NASA astronaut Kevin Ford and Russian cosmonauts Evgeny Tarelkin and Oleg Novitskiy, and closed the hatches between the spacecraft at 2:15 p.m. When the Soyuz undocked from the station’s Rassvet module at 5:26 p.m. it marked the end of Expedition 33 and the beginning of Expedition 34 under the command of Ford.

The Expedition 33 crew sit in chairs outside the Soyuz Capsule just minutes after they landed in a remote area outside the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, on Monday, Nov. 19, 2012. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls.

Three additional Expedition 34 flight engineers — NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield, and Russian Federal Space Agency cosmonaut Roman Romanenko — are scheduled to launch from Baikonur Dec. 19 and dock to the station two days later for a five-month stay. Hadfield will become the first Canadian to command the station when Ford, Novitskiy and Tarelkin depart in March, marking the start of Expedition 35.

Here’s the video of the landing, although there is no actual footage of the Soyuz touching down, since it was dark and the spacecraft landed well away from the planned landing spot.

Posted on by Ken Kremer

Can Humans Live on Mars?

Image caption: Curiosity is taking the first ever radiation measurements from the surface of another planet in order to determine if future human explorers can live on Mars – as she traverses the terrain of the Red Planet. Curiosity is looking back to her rover tracks and the foothills of Mount Sharp and the eroded rim of Gale Crater in the distant horizon on Sol 24 (Aug. 30, 2012). This panorama is featured on PBS NOVA ‘Ultimate Mars Challenge’ documentary which premiered on PBS TV on Nov. 14. RAD is located on the rover deck in this colorized mosaic stitched together from Navcam images by the image processing team of Ken Kremer & Marco Di Lorenzo. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Ken Kremer / Marco Di Lorenzo

Metallic robots constructed by ingenious humans can survive on Mars. But what about future human astronauts?

NASA’s plucky Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has thrived for nearly a decade traversing the plains of Meridiani Planum despite the continuous bombardment of sterilizing cosmic and solar radiation from charged particles thanks to her radiation hardened innards.

How about humans? What fate awaits them on a bold and likely year’s long expedition to the endlessly extreme and drastically harsh environment on the surface of the radiation drenched Red Planet – if one ever gets off the ground here on Earth? How much shielding would people need?

Answering these questions is one of the key quests ahead for NASA’s SUV sized Curiosity Mars rover – now 100 Sols, or Martian days, into her 2 year long primary mission phase.

Preliminary data looks promising.

Curiosity survived the 8 month interplanetary journey and the unprecedented sky crane rocket powered descent maneuver to touch down safely inside Gale Crater beside the towering layered foothills of 3 mi. (5.5 km) high Mount Sharp on Aug. 6, 2012.

Now she is tasked with assessing whether Mars and Gale Crater ever offered a habitable environment for microbial life forms – past or present. Characterizing the naturally occurring radiation levels stemming from galactic cosmic rays and the sun will address the habitability question for both microbes and astronauts. Radiation can destroy near-surface organic molecules.

Researchers are using Curiosity’s state-of-the-art Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) instrument to monitor high-energy radiation on a daily basis and help determine the potential for real life health risks posed to future human explorers on the Martian surface.

“The atmosphere provides a level of shielding, and so charged-particle radiation is less when the atmosphere is thicker,” said RAD Principal Investigator Don Hassler of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. See the data graphs herein.

“Absolutely, the astronauts can live in this environment. It’s not so different from what astronauts might experience on the International Space Station. The real question is if you add up the total contribution to the astronaut’s total dose on a Mars mission can you stay within your career limits as you accumulate those numbers. Over time we will get those numbers,” Hassler explained.

The initial RAD data from the first two months on the surface was revealed at a media briefing for reporters on Thursday, Nov. 15 and shows that radiation is somewhat lower on Mars surface compared to the space environment due to shielding from the thin Martian atmosphere.

Image caption: Longer-Term Radiation Variations at Gale Crater. This graphic shows the variation of radiation dose measured by the Radiation Assessment Detector on NASA’s Curiosity rover over about 50 sols, or Martian days, on Mars. (On Earth, Sol 10 was Sept. 15 and Sol 60 was Oct. 6, 2012.) The dose rate of charged particles was measured using silicon detectors and is shown in black. The total dose rate (from both charged particles and neutral particles) was measured using a plastic scintillator and is shown in red. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ SwRI

RAD hasn’t detected any large solar flares yet from the surface. “That will be very important,” said Hassler.

“If there was a massive solar flare that could have an acute effect which could cause vomiting and potentially jeopardize the mission of a spacesuited astronaut.”

“Overall, Mars’ atmosphere reduces the radiation dose compared to what we saw during the cruise to Mars by a factor of about two.”

RAD was operating and already taking radiation measurements during the spacecraft’s interplanetary cruise to compare with the new data points now being collected on the floor of Gale Crater.

Mars atmospheric pressure is a bit less than 1% of Earth’s. It varies somewhat in relation to atmospheric cycles dependent on temperature and the freeze-thaw cycle of the polar ice caps and the resulting daily thermal tides.

“We see a daily variation in the radiation dose measured on the surface which is anti-correlated with the pressure of the atmosphere. Mars atmosphere is acting as a shield for the radiation. As the atmosphere gets thicker that provides more of a shield. Therefore we see a dip in the radiation dose by about 3 to 5%, every day,” said Hassler.

Image Caption: Curiosity Self Portrait with Mount Sharp at Rocknest ripple in Gale Crater. Curiosity used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on the robotic arm to image herself and her target destination Mount Sharp in the background. Mountains in the background to the left are the northern wall of Gale Crater. This color panoramic mosaic was assembled from raw images snapped on Sol 85 (Nov. 1, 2012). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

There are also seasonal changes in radiation levels as Mars moves through space.

The RAD team is still refining the radiation data points.

“There’s calibrations and characterizations that we’re finalizing to get those numbers precise. We’re working on that. And we’re hoping to release that at the AGU [American Geophysical Union] meeting in December.”

Image caption: Daily Cycles of Radiation and Pressure at Gale Crater. This graphic shows the daily variations in Martian radiation and atmospheric pressure as measured by NASA’s Curiosity rover. As pressure increases, the total radiation dose decreases. When the atmosphere is thicker, it provides a better barrier with more effective shielding for radiation from outside of Mars. At each of the pressure maximums, the radiation level drops between 3 to 5 percent. The radiation level goes up at the end of the graph due to a longer-term trend that scientists are still studying. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI

Radiation is a life limiting factor to habitability. RAD is the first science instrument to directly measure radiation from the surface of a planet other than Earth.

“Curiosity is finding that the radiation environment on Mars is sensitive to Mars weather and climate,” Hassler concluded.

Unlike Earth, Mars lost its magnetic field some 3.5 billion years ago – and therefore most of its shielding capability from harsh levels of energetic particle radiation from space.

Much more data will need to be collected by RAD before any final conclusions on living on Mars, and for how long and in which type habitats, can be drawn.

Learn more about Curiosity and NASA missions at my upcoming free public presentations:

And be sure to watch the excellent PBS NOVA Mars documentary – ‘Ultimate Mars Challenge’ – which also features Curiosity mosaics created by the imaging team of Ken Kremer & Marco Di Lorenzo.

Ken Kremer

…..

Dec 6: Free Public lecture titled “Atlantis, The Premature End of America’s Shuttle Program and What’s Beyond for NASA” including Curiosity, Orion, SpaceX and more by Ken Kremer at Brookdale Community College/Monmouth Museum and STAR Astronomy club in Lincroft, NJ at 8 PM

Dec 11: Free Public lecture titled “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars (in 3 D)” and more by Ken Kremer at Princeton University and the Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton (AAAP) in Princeton, NJ at 8 PM.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Change of Command on the Space Station

Before the crew of Expedition 32/33 comes home today, astronaut and commander Suni Williams handed over the reins of the International Space Station to Kevin Ford during the traditional change of command ceremony … which was not so traditional. Williams handed out gifts to the new crew, and at times seemed quite emotional. Last week Williams wrote in her blog that she really didn’t want to think about leaving the ISS. “Up to this point I haven’t, and sort of denied it,” she wrote. “And, I am still in denial, but I am going thru the motions because I don’t want to forget something when the hatch closes.”

Williams, Aki Hoshide of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko will return home after what seems like a short 125 days in space, arriving at the ISS on July 17.

They will leave the station today (Sunday, Nov 18), undocking at 22:26 UTC (5:26 p.m. EST) Sunday and land in Kazakhstan at 01:53 UTC on Monday (8:53 p.m EST Sunday). You can watch live coverage on NASA TV.

Remaining onboard the ISS to begin Expedition 34 are Ford, Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin. They will be joined by Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency, Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, and NASA’s Tom Marshburn on Dec. 21 to bring the ISS crew compliment back to six. As Ford notes in the video, the new crew are “newbies” with a combined in-space experience of about 3 months, while Williams and her crew have a combined time in space of about 3 years.

JAXA astronaut Aki Hoshide during an EVA on Nov. 1, 2012, where he and Suni Williams worked to troubleshoot problems with an ammonia leak outside the ISS. Credit: NASA

The time Williams, Hoshide and Malenchenko were on board saw the October arrival the first official commercial spacecraft, SpaceX’s Dragon. Williams and Hoshide also carried out two spacewalks, with Williams now holding the record for total spacewalk time by a female at 50 hours and 40 minutes over seven career spacewalks. Malenchenko is a space veteran with several Soyuz flights, a flight on the Space Shuttle and three stints on the ISS.

Here’s the scene as Williams, Hoshide and Malenchenko say goodbye and close the hatches between the ISS and Soyuz:

Posted on by Ken Kremer

‘Ultimate Mars Challenge’ – PBS NOVA TV Curiosity Documentary Premieres Nov. 14

If you’ve been following the spectacular adventures of NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover since the nerve wracking Sky Crane touchdown just 3 months ago, then PBS NOVA TV has a sweet treat in store for you – Viewer Alert !

Be sure to tune in Wednesday night Nov.14 at 9 PM EDT/PDT for the premiere broadcast of NOVA’s thrilling new documentary titled “Ultimate Mars Challenge” on your local PBS station. The highly acclaimed NOVA science series has been decorated with numerous major television awards.

Get a preview of the show by watching this short 30 second trailer below, featuring the top scientists and engineers who created and gave birth to the Curiosity Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission at NASA field centers and University’s and aerospace companies spread across the US and Europe – and then guided her to an unprecedented pinpoint landing beside a layered Martian mountain in search of the ingredients of life.

‘Ultimate Mars Challenge’ also features several Curiosity mosaics specially created for the program by the image processing team of Ken Kremer & Marco Di Lorenzo

And in case you miss the show or want to watch it again, check this PBS link to replay the video of episodes of NOVA.

Read this Program Description from PBS for complete details:

“Ultimate Mars Challenge gives viewers a front-row seat for the Curiosity’s thrilling landing as well as the spectacular discoveries to come. The most ambitious robotic geologist ever, Curiosity carries 10 new instruments that will advance the quest for signs that Mars might have once been suitable for life.

But no rover does it alone: Curiosity joins a team that includes the Mars Odyssey, Express, and Reconnaissance orbiters, along with the tireless Opportunity rover. As we reveal the dynamic new picture of Mars that these explorers are painting, we will discover the deep questions raised by forty years of roving Mars: How do we define life? How does life begin and what does it need to survive? Are we alone in the universe?

Why go back to Mars? Far from dead, Mars holds untold potential. Nearly half a century of Mars exploration has yielded tantalizing clues that Mars may once have harbored life—and may harbor it still.

The extraordinary landing of a revolutionary rover named Curiosity—which successfully touched down inside the Gale Crater—means we have wheels down on the planet once again, in the form of the most sophisticated robot ever to rove the Mars surface.

Will NASA’s bold mission and this marvel of technology answer some of our biggest questions and usher in a new golden age of exploration? NOVA goes behind the scenes on NASA’s quest to solve the riddles of the red planet”

Image Caption: Curiosity Self Portrait with Mount Sharp at Rocknest ripple in Gale Crater. Curiosity used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on the robotic arm to image herself and her target destination Mount Sharp in the background. Mountains in the background to the left are the northern wall of Gale Crater. This color panoramic mosaic was assembled from raw images snapped on Sol 85 (Nov. 1, 2012). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

‘Ultimate Mars Challenge’ was produced by the Emmy award winning team of Jill Shinefield and Gail Willumsen at Gemini Productions in West Hollywood, California. Jill and Gail were on site at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., to cover the Aug. 5/6 touchdown inside Gale Crater. They say the show just wrapped production in early November, so it’s completely up-to-date through the first 90 Martian days, or Sols, of the 2 year prime mission.

On Nov. 9, Curiosity delivered her first soil sample to the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite that is designed to detect organic molecules and help determine if Mars ever supported Martian microbial life – watch for my upcoming story.

Image caption: Curiosity looks back to her rover tracks and the foothills of Mount Sharp and the eroded rim of Gale Crater in the distant horizon on Sol 24 (Aug. 30, 2012). This panorama is featured on PBS NOVA Ultimate Mars Challenge’ documentary premiering on Nov. 14. The colorized mosaic was stitched together from Navcam images. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Ken Kremer / Marco Di Lorenzo

Check the PBS, NASA and JPL websites for mission details. Later this week on Nov. 16, I’ll be presenting a free public talk about the mission titled “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars (3-D)”, at Union County College in NJ, hosted by Amateur Astronomers Inc. (AAI) in Cranford, NJ. And the power is thankfully back on ! – in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Ken Kremer
…..

Nov. 16: Free Public Lecture titled “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars (in 3 D)” and more by Ken Kremer at Union County College and Amateur Astronomers Inc in Cranford, NJ.

Dec 6: Free Public lecture titled “Atlantis, The Premature End of America’s Shuttle Program and What’s Beyond for NASA” including Curiosity, Orion, SpaceX and more by Ken Kremer at Brookdale Community College/Monmouth Museum and STAR Astronomy club in Lincroft, NJ

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Enticing Trailer for New Movie about a Mission to Europa

Here’s a trailer from a new movie called “Europa Report” about a near-future mission to Jupiter’s moon, Europa, in search of extraterrestrial life. From the trailer, the film looks to be of extremely high quality, and it stars Sharlto Copley (District 9), with music score from composer Bear McCreary (Battlestar Galactica).

And while this is a sci-fi flick, the makers of “Europa Report” say they are trying to steep it in real science.

The PR for the film is just getting underway, but they have a realistic-looking website that appears to show webcam views from a spacecraft heading to Europa.

Screenshot:

Here’s the blurb from the website:

For decades, scientists have theorized the existence of liquid water oceans on Jupiter’s moon, Europa. We’ve recently discovered new, captivating evidence that these sub-surface oceans do exist and could support life.

We’ve sent six astronauts from space programs throughout the world on a three year journey to Europa to explore its oceans and confirm these findings.

We’re proud to be at the forefront of the effort to prove the existence of extra-terrestrial life within our solar system, within our lifetimes.

And yep, like any film about spaceflight, something has to go wrong during the mission.

The release date for the film has not yet been set.

Posted on by Elizabeth Howell

Google Honors Canadarm’s 31st Anniversary

Canada’s most famous robot is on the front page of Google.ca today. The Google doodle honors the 31st anniversary of the first use of Canadarm in space.

Canadarm is a robotic arm that flew on virtually every shuttle mission. The technology is still being used today in space.

According to the 1992 book A Heritage of Excellence, Canada was first invited to work in the shuttle program in 1969. Toronto engineering firm DSMA-Atcon Ltd. initially pitched a Canadian-built space telescope, but NASA was more interested in DSMA’s other work.

“The Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland expressed interest in another of DSMA’s gadgets – a robot the company had developed for loading fuel into Candu nuclear reactors,” wrote Lydia Dotto in the book, which Spar commissioned to celebrate its 25th anniversary.

“It was just the thing for putting a satellite they were building into space.”

Dozens of astronauts have used the Canadarms during spacewalks, including Michael L. Gernhardt on STS-104. Credit: NASA

The Canadian government and NASA signed a memorandum of understanding in 1975 to build the arm. Legislation allowing the project to move forward passed the next year. Canadian company Spar became the prime contractor, with DSMA, CAE and RCA as subcontractors.

Engineers had to face several challenges when constructing the Canadarm, including how to grapple satellites. The solution was an “end effector“, a snare on the end of the Canadarm to grasp satellites designed to be hoisted into space.

Several NASA astronauts, including Sally Ride, gave feedback on the arm’s development. Canadarm flew for the first time on STS-2, which launched Nov. 12, 1981. (Ride herself used the arm on STS-7 when she became the first American woman to fly in space.)

Marc Garneau, the first Canadian astronaut in space, has said the arm’s success led to the establishment of the Canadian astronaut program. He flew in 1984, three years after Canadarm’s first flight.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield during an EVA in 2001. Also in the image is the Canadarm2 robotic arm on the ISS. Credit: NASA

Some of the arm’s notable achievements:

– Launching space probes, including the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, as well as short-term experiments that ran during shuttle missions;

– Retrieving satellites for servicing. One prominent example was the rescue of the INTELSAT VI satellite on STS-49, which required the first three-astronaut spacewalk;

– Launching the Hubble Space Telescope, then retrieving and relaunching it during each repair mission;

– Helping to build the International Space Station along with Canadarm2, its younger sibling;

– Scanning for broken tiles on the bottom of the shuttle. Astronauts used a procedure developed after Columbia, carrying seven astronauts, was destroyed during re-entry in 2003. A Canadarm was modified into an extension boom; another Canadarm grasped that boom to reach underneath the shuttle.

The arm was so successful that MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (which acquired Spar) built a robotic arm for the International Space Station, called Canadarm2. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield helped install the arm during his first spacewalk in 2001.

Canadarm2’s most nail-biting moment was in 2007, when astronauts used it to hoist astronaut Steve Parazynski (who was balancing on the extension boom) for a tricky solar panel repair on the station.

November 3, 2007 – Canadarm2 played a big role in helping astronauts fix a torn solar array. Here, Scott Parazynski analyses the solar panel while anchored to the boom. Credit: NASA

More recently, Canadarm2 was used to grapple the Dragon spacecraft when SpaceX’s demonstration and resupply missions arrived at the International Space Station this year.

MDA recently unveiled several next-generation Canadarm prototypes that could, in part, be used to refuel satellites. The Canadian Space Agency funded the projects with $53 million (CDN $53.1 million) in stimulus money. MDA hopes to attract more money to get the arms ready for space.

You can read more about the Canadarm’s history on the Canadian Space Agency website.

Posted on by Jenny Winder

Spaceflight: Taking it Lying Down

Caption: Bedrest volunteer in bed during a study conducted in 2005. Credit: ESA

As you get older, do feel you could do with more rest? Our bodies lose bone density and muscle strength as we age. Astronauts in space suffer similar changes but at a much faster rate. Finding ways to understand and combat this process is important to space agencies, hospital patients and all of us as we grow older. A new study is about to commence at the French Institute for Space Medicine and Physiology, in the clinical research facility in Toulouse, France, that hopes to understand and address changes in astronauts’ bodies in space as well as in bedridden people on Earth. 12 volunteers will spend 21 days in bed. Sound relaxing? Think again.

The volunteers taking part in the study, will lie for 24 hours a day with their heads tilted 6° below the horizontal. They will not be allowed to get up, for any reason. Not for a breath of fresh air, a change of scenery, a shower or to use the toilet, until the 21 days are over. This will cause their bodies to react in similar ways to being weightless, without the expense or  risks involved in sending them into space.

In microgravity, bone loss occurs at a rate of 1 to 1.5% a month. This bone demineralization increases the risks of kidney stones and bone fractures as well as altering the ability of bones to heal after fractures. Loss of muscle mass, strength and endurance, increases risk of fatigue and injury. The heart may experience diminished cardiac function and possible disturbances in heart rhythm.

Microgravity also causes body fluids to be redistributed away from the extremities, which results in puffiness in the face during flight. The body’s neurovestibular system that controls balance, stabilizes vision and body orientation in terms of location and direction may also become impaired, leading to disorientation and lack of coordination. The body can also suffer loss of blood volume, low red blood cell levels and immunodeficiency

Although many of the effects are reversible upon return to Earth, astronauts may have problems standing up, stabilizing their gaze, walking and turning, immediately after landing. Some astronauts find their blood pressure drops abnormally low when they move from lying down to a sitting or standing position.

The participants in this latest study will be scientifically scrutinised to see how they adapt to staying in bed for long periods, but they will also be divided into three groups to test a set of measures designed to counteract muscle and bone loss. The control group will be given no countermeasures, while a second group will use resistive and vibrating exercise machines. The last group will use the exercise machines and eat nutritional supplements of whey protein – a common supplement used by bodybuilders to train their muscles.

Each group of volunteers will participate in all the regimes, one after the other, over the course of the entire experiment of more than a year. They will be given four months between each bedrest session to recuperate. After the first 21-day session, they will return to the at the MEDES Space Clinic in Toulouse, for another session and once more in 2013 for a final session. After all that I bet they will need a rest.

Read more about this study here
And read diaries from participants in a similar study that ran for 60 days in 2005 here

Posted on by Ken Kremer

Curiosity Celebrates 90 Sols Scooping Mars and Snapping Amazing Self-Portrait with Mount Sharp

Image Caption: Curiosity Self Portrait with Mount Sharp at Rocknest ripple in Gale Crater. Curiosity used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on the robotic arm to image herself and her target destination Mount Sharp in the background. Mountains in the background to the left are the northern wall of Gale Crater. This color panoramic mosaic was assembled from raw images snapped on Sol 85 (Nov. 1, 2012). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

NASA’s revolutionary Curiosity rover is celebrating 90 Sols on Mars by snapping amazing self-portraits (see our mosaics above and below) and biting into the Red Planet’s surface to accomplish unprecedented scientific analysis of an alien world.

Nov. 6 marked a major milestone in Curiosity’s daring and evolving mission in search of signs of life. This is the three month anniversary of her toiling on the breathtaking Martian surface since the hair-raising pinpoint touchdown on Aug. 6 inside Gale Crater at the foothills of a humongous and gorgeous layered mountain that likely holds the key to understanding Mars watery past and 4 billion plus year evolution.

The never before seen mosaic vista above shows a matchless self portrait of Curiosity’s Mastcam ‘head’ and body combined with a thrilling scene of her target destination – Mount Sharp – the layered mound of sediments that could unlock the mysteries of whether Mars ever possessed habitats favorable for the evolution of life, past or present.

Last week on Sols 84 & 85 (Oct 31 & Nov 1) Curiosity took hundreds of high resolution color images with the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera – located at the end of the 7 foot (2.1 m) long robotic arm – thus affording us a breathtaking portrait view of our emissary from Earth to Mars.

Our Sol 85 self-portrait mosaic was stitched together by the imaging team of Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo. Last week NASA released the first self portrait mosaic of the Sol 84 MAHLI camera imagery that included the left flank of 3 mile (5 km) Mount Sharp.

Image Caption: High-Resolution Self-Portrait by Curiosity Rover Arm Camera. On Sol 84 (Oct. 31, 2012), NASA’s Curiosity rover used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to capture this set of 55 high-resolution images, which were stitched together to create this full-color self-portrait. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The Curiosity team spent considerable effort to build the imaging sequences and then remotely maneuver the robotic arm to precisely collect the raw images and transmit them to Earth.

Previously the team used the MAHLI camera to photograph Curiosity’s underbelly (see our mosaic).

Image Caption: A mosaic of photos taken by the MAHLI camera on Curiosity’s arm shows the underbelly of the rover and its six wheels, with Martian terrain stretching back to the horizon. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

For the past month Curiosity has been hunkered down at “Rocknest” ripple which lies at the edge of “Glenelg” – her first major science destination – and that sits at the natural junction of three types of geologically diverse terrain.

Rocknest afforded the perfect type of fine grained Martian dust to carry out the first test scoops of Martian soil and then used the material to thoroughly cleanse the robots’ sample processing system of residual Earthy contamination and then ingest the first samples into the robots pair of analytical chemistry labs – CheMin and SAM.

Curiosity has eaten into Rocknest 4 times so far and delivered two samples to the CheMin (Chemistry and Mineralogy) instrument for analysis.

Scoop sample #5 should deliver the first solid material to SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) sometime in the next week or so.

SAM is specifically engineered to search for organic molecules – the building blocks of life as we know it. CheMin uses X-ray diffraction techniques to accurately determine the mineralogical composition of pulverized and sieved red planet soil and rock samples.

Curiosity’s key science finding during the first 90 Sols is the discovery of evidence for an ancient Martian stream bed at three different locations along the short route she has traversed to date.

Curiosity found a trio of outcrops of stones cemented into a layer of conglomerate rock. Hip deep liquid water once flowed vigorously on the floor of Gale Crater billions of years ago. Liquid water is a prerequisite for the origin of life.

Since the landing, some 400 members of the Curiosity science team had been camped out at Mission Control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif to efficiently coordinate the rovers surface planning and operations.

With the first 90 Sols now successfully behind them and with Curiosity operating in tip top shape, most of the science team has just departed JPL and returned to their home institutions scattered across the globe, mostly in North America and Europe.

The 1 ton SUV sized Curiosity rover has taken over 22,000 pictures thus far and is funded for a 2 year primary mission.

Ken Kremer

…..
Nov. 16: Free Public Lecture titled “Curiosity and the Search for Life in 3 D” and more by Ken Kremer at Union County College and Amateur Astronomers Inc in Cranford, NJ.

Dec 6: Free Public lecture titled “Atlantis, The Premature End of America’s Shuttle Program and What’s Beyond for NASA” including Curiosity and more at Brookdale Community College/Monmouth Museum and STAR Astronomy club in Lincroft, NJ

See more of our Curiosity Mars mosaics by Ken Kremer & Marco Di Lorenzo at PBS Nova TV (airing Nov 14), NBC News Cosmic log and Scientific American.

Image Caption: Panoramic mosaic shows gorgeous Glenelg snapped by Curiosity on Sol 64 (Oct. 10) with eroded crater rim and base of Mount Sharp in the distance. This is a cropped version of the full mosaic as assembled from 75 images acquired by the Mastcam 100 camera. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Could Plasma Jet Thrusters Kickstart Interplanetary Travel?

A great offshoot from commercial space companies getting a foothold in real missions to orbit is that the old entrepreneurial space spirit seems to have been revived. People are attempting to develop and build what could be breakout space technologies, sometimes in their garages or basements. A new Kickstarter project is especially exciting, as it is looking to build a prototype electric pulsed plasma jet thruster, and the engineers behind the project say this could be used for reliable, high performance, low cost interplanetary space transportation.

UPDATE: HyperV has reached its Kickstarter goal and will be funded.

A group plasma physics researchers started a company about 8 years ago called HyperV, and they have come up with a new design for basic pulsed plasma jet technology. It runs on superheated ionized particles, and the engineers envision it could be used for orbital maneuvering, asteroid/comet rendezvous, orbital debris cleanup and interplanetary transportation.

They say that using this kind of electric propulsion would significantly reduce the mass and weight of spacecraft, resulting in more affordable missions. Although there are other types of electric propulsion systems that have been used for space travel – with mixed results — the HyperV team believes their new design offers solutions to problems in previous designs, and will ultimately provide cheaper and more robust space travel.

The team describes their project:

We believe our thruster technology has the potential to be just as efficient as existing electric thrusters (such as ion and Hall effect thrusters) and with similar specific impulse. But our advantages will be derived from a thruster that is less complex (and much more robust), which can use a variety of propellants including gases, inert plastics, and propellants derived from asteroids, Mars, the Moon, etc., It will also be far cheaper to build, and can be more readily scaled to larger sizes and very high power levels than current electric propulsion systems. Our plasma thruster technology should be scalable from a few kilowatts all the way up to megawatts of average power. The electricity which is needed to power electric thrusters would most likely come from new high performance solar panels, but could also utilize other compact energy sources. From a practical viewpoint for satellite design, our thruster will have much higher thrust per unit area than ion or Hall thrusters, thus taking up less room on the rear of the spacecraft.

They predict their prototype could produce a specific impulse (Isp) of 2000 sec, which is an equivalent to an exhaust velocity of 20,000 m/s.

They are looking to raise $69,000 by November 3, 2012 to get their project started. At the time of this writing, the team has just over $54,000.

Here’s a video from HyperV:

“We invite you, the citizens of Earth, to join with us as we design, construct, test, and execute this demonstration,” the team wrote on their Kickstarter page. “The culmination of this project will be an all-up, laboratory demonstration of our prototype thruster.”