A map of the world made up of the locations of ISS astronaut photos (Nathan Bergey/open.nasa.gov)
If you could spend a few months — or even a few days — living aboard the ISS, what would you take pictures of? Earth, most likely, with your favorite landforms and your family’s and friends’ hometowns ranking high on the list. After a while, I’m sure plenty of other Earthly features would become photo targets — weather, aurorae, world cities at night, etc. — but ultimately, over the course of your stay in orbit, you would be able to see a trend in the pictures you take, and where you took them.
And over the span of 35 missions across more than 12 years, the graph above shows the trend of all the astronauts’ pictures. Look familiar?
Nighttime photo of the Nile delta region taken from the ISS (NASA)
Created by open-source NASA data aficionado Nate Bergey, the image above is a map made up of over a million points (1,129,177, to be exact) each representing the global coordinates of an JSC-archived photograph taken from the ISS.
Clearly the continents are astronauts’ favored photo subjects, with the populous urban areas of North America, Europe, Egypt and the Middle East, as well as the western and southern coasts of South America standing out.
“This makes sense, photos of clouds over an otherwise blank ocean get old after a while,” Nate Bergey wrote on his blog, open.nasa.gov. “I’m sure every astronaut has taken at least one photograph of the town they grew up in.”
Of course, the map doesn’t create an image of the entire globe. This is because the points denote actual over-ground coordinates of the Station (not necessarily what the photos themselves are of) and “the ISS stays between about 50° and -50° latitude as it orbits the Earth,” as noted by Bergey.
A map of the world with the points overlaid onto it, color-coded by mission, shows the difference:
Bergey also notes the proliferation of purple-colored dots… these indicate the hundreds of images taken by NASA astronaut Don Pettit during Expedition 30/31, when he created incredible time-lapse videos of the Earth from the ISS.
One of many long-exposure images taken by Don Pettit aboard the ISS (NASA/JSC). See more here.
With such a unique and lofty perspective of our world, it’s no wonder that astronauts spend so much time snapping photos — I can’t say I’d be able to tear myself away from the window myself! Read more about Nate Bergey’s project and how he created his map on his open.NASA blog here.
A big Sun sets behind the trees in Cairns, Queensland, Australia. Credit and copyright: Joseph Brimacombe.
They say that perspective is everything. In this case perspective and filters are what makes this such a great astrophoto! We’ve been following Joseph Brimacombe’s astrophotography for years, and have come to appreciate his ‘perspective!” This great zoom shot of the setting Sun was taken on March 31, 2013 using a calcium K-line Filter, using a a 60 mm Lunt CaK Solar Telescope at F/8.3 and a Skynyx 2-2 camera. It’s a single shot, but below, you can watch a negative version of the Sun sink below the horizon in a video of 1,350 frames shown at double speed.
Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.
This image of Cep OB 3b was created by combining the light from four separate observations taken through different filters on the 0.9 meter telescope at Kitt Peak. The brightest yellow star near the center of the image is a foreground star, lying between us and the young cluster. The other bright stars are the massive young stars of the cluster that are heating the gas and dust in the cloud and blowing out cavities. Image processing was done by Dr. Travis Rector. Credit: NOAO.
It takes time to understand the life of stars. A star like our Sun takes tens of millions of years to form, and so much like archeologists who reconstruct ancient cities from shards of debris strewn over time, astronomers must reconstruct the birth process of stars indirectly, by observing stars in different stages of the process and inferring the changes that take place.
One of the best places to study the lives of stars is in star clusters. These regions that are rich with young stars provide astronomers much information that is relevant to the study of stars in general, but within a cluster, stars can form during a wide range of time, as a new study of the star cluster named Cep OB3b has shown.
“By studying nearby massive young clusters like Cep OB3b, we can gain a greater understanding of the environments out of which planets form,” said Thomas Allen from the University of Toledo, who is one of the authors of the new paper.
Located in the northern constellation of Cepheus, CepOB3b is similar in some ways to the famous cluster found in the Orion Nebula. But unlike the Orion Nebula, there is relatively little dust and gas obscuring our view of Cep OB3b. Its massive, hot stars have blown out cavities in the gaseous cloud with their intense ultraviolet radiation which mercilessly destroys everything in its path. Cep OB3b may show us what the Orion Nebular Cluster will look like in the future.
Allen and an international team of astronomers have found that the total number of young stars in the cluster is as high as 3,000. Infrared observations of the stars from the NASA Spitzer satellite show about 1,000 stars that are surrounded by disks of gas and dust from which solar systems may form. As the stars age, the disks disappear as the dust and gas get converted into planets or are dispersed into space.
But these observations pointed to a new mystery. Although the stars in Cep OB3b are thought to be about three million years old, in some parts of the cluster most of the stars had lost their disks, suggesting that the stars in those parts were older. This suggests that the cluster is surrounded by older stars, potential relics of previous clusters that have since expanded and dispersed.
To search for evidence for these relic clusters, Allen used the Mosaic camera on the 0.9 meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory to observe wide field images of CepOB3b. These images show hot gas and its interaction with the stars and permit the team to study a curious cavity in the gas for evidence of older, yet still juvenile, stars that have lost their disks of gas and dust.
With these data, the team is searching for the previous generations of star formation in the region surrounding Cep OB3b, and piecing together the history of star formation in this magnificent region. When finished, this may provide clues how previous generations may have influenced the current generation of stars and planets forming in Cep OB3b.
Comet C/2012 F6 Lemmon as imaged by Luis Argerich as from near Buenos Aires, Argentina on March (Credit: Nightscape photography. Used with permission).
As Comet 2011 L4 PanSTARRS moves out of the inner solar system, we’ve got another comet coming into view this month for northern hemisphere observers.
Comet C/2012 F6 Lemmon is set to become a binocular object low to the southeast at dawn for low northern latitudes in the first week of April. And no, this isn’t an April Fools’ Day hoax, despite the comet’s name. Comet Lemmon (with two m’s) was discovered by the Mount Lemmon Sky Survey (MLSS) based outside of Tucson, Arizona on March 23, 2012. MLSS is part of the Catalina Sky Survey which searches for Near Earth Asteroids. We’ve got another comet coming into view this month for northern hemisphere observers as Comet 2011 L4 PanSTARRS moves out of the inner solar system.
The comet is on an extremely long elliptical orbit, with a period of over 11,000 years. Comet Lemmon just passed perihelion at 0.74 astronomical units from the Sun on March 24th.
Animation of Comet Lemmon as it passes the star Gamma Crucis on January 17th. (Courtesy of Luis Argerich. Used with permission).
Southern hemisphere observers have been getting some great views of Comet Lemmon since the beginning of this year. It passed only three degrees from the south celestial pole on February 5th, and since that time has been racing up the “0 Hour” line in right ascension. If that location sounds familiar, that’s because another notable comet, 2011 L4 PanSTARRS has been doing the same. In fact, astrophotographers in the southern hemisphere were able to catch both comets in the same field of view last month.
Another celestial body occupies 0 Hour neighborhood this time of year. The Sun just passed the vernal equinox marking the start of Spring in the northern hemisphere and Fall in the southern on March 19th.
And like PanSTARRS, Comet Lemmon has a very steep orbit inclined 82.6° relative to the ecliptic.
The steep path and current position of Comet Lemmon. (Credit: NASA/JPL’ Small-Body Database Browser).
Comet Lemmon broke naked-eye visibility reaching +6th magnitude in late February and has thus far closely matched expectations. Current reports place it at magnitude +4 to +5 as it crosses northward through the constellation Cetus. Predictions place the maximum post-perihelion brightness between magnitudes +3 and +5 in early April, and thus far, Comet Lemmon seems to be performing right down the middle of this range.
Brightness graph for Comet Lemmon for the months surrounding perihelion. (Created by author).
Southern observers have caught a diffuse greenish 30” in diameter nucleus on time exposures accompanied by a short, spikey tail. Keep in mind, the quoted brightness of a comet is extended over its entire surface area. Thus, while a +4th magnitude star may be easily visible in the dawn, a 3rd or even 2nd magnitude comet may be invisible to the unaided eye. Anyone who attempted to spot Comet PanSTARRS in the dusk last month knows how notoriously fickle it actually was. Binoculars are your friend in this endeavor. Begin slowly sweeping the southeast horizon about an hour before local sunrise looking for a fuzzy “star” that refuses to reach focus. Comet Lemmon will get progressively easier in the dawn sky for latitudes successively farther north as the month of April progresses.
The apparent path of Comet Lemmon for April 10th through the 30th looking east about an hour before local sunrise from latitude 30 degrees north. (Created by the Author using Starry Night).
Comet Lemmon will continue to gain elevation as it crosses from Cetus into the constellation Pisces on April 13th. An interesting grouping occurs as the planet Mercury passes only a few degrees from the comet from April 15th to April 17th. Having just past greatest elongation on March 31st, Mercury will shine at magnitude -0.1 and make a good guide to locate the comet in brightening dawn skies. The pair is joined by the waning crescent Moon on the mornings of April 7th and 8th which may also provide for the first sighting opportunities from low north latitudes around these dates.
Mercury meets Comet Lemmon on April 15th as seen about an hour before local sunrise from latitude 30 degrees north. (Created by the Author using Starry Night).
The Moon reaches New phase on Wednesday, April 10th at 5:35AM EDT/9:35 UT. It will be out of the morning sky for the next couple of weeks until it reaches Full on April 25th, at which point it will undergo the first eclipse of 2013, a very shallow partial. (More on that later this month!)
Comet Lemmon will then slide across the celestial equator on April 20th and cross the plane of the ecliptic on April 22nd as it heads up into the constellation Andromeda in mid-May. We’re expecting Comet Lemmon to be a fine binocular object for late April, but perhaps not as widely observed due to its morning position as PanSTARRS was in the dusk.
By mid-May, Comet Lemmon will have dipped back down below +6th magnitude and faded out of interest to all but a few deep sky enthusiasts. Comet Lemmon will pass within 10° of the north celestial pole on August 9th, headed back out into the icy depths of the solar system not to return for another 11,000-odd years.
It’s interesting to see how these two springtime comets will effect observers expectations for the passage of Comet C/2012 S1 ISON. Will this in fact be the touted “Comet of the Century?” Much hinges on whether ISON survives its November 28th perihelion only 1,166,000 kilometers from the center of our Sun (that’s 0.68 solar-radii or about 3 times the Earth-Moon distance from the surface of the Sun). If so, we could be in for a fine “Christmas Comet” rivaling the passage of Comet Lovejoy in late 2011. On the other hand, a disintegration of Comet ISON would be more akin to the fizzle of Comet Elenin earlier in 2011.
In the meantime, enjoy Comet Lemmon as an Act 2 in the 2013 Three Act “Year of the Comet!”
The northern lights or aurora borealis swirls over a fjord in the Norwegian Sea near Tromso, northern Norway. A mix of moonlight, aurora, and a nearby village illuminate the landscape. The Pleiades Star Cluster (the Seven Sisters) appears on the upper left. Credit and copyright: Babek A. Tafreshi.
I’m completely envious of this view! Not only is there a stunning winter vista of mountains and a fjord near Tromso, Norway, but in the peaceful evening twilight, Comet PanSTARRS (C/2011 L4) shows up. To top off the view, a sudden burst of aurora borealis makes an appearance! This view was captured by Babak Tafreshi on March 20, 2013.
See some of his stunning images below:
Click on each of the images for a larger view at Tafreshi’s website.
The northern lights or aurora borealis dances over a fjord mountains near Tromso, northern Norway. A mix of moonlight, aurora, and a nearby village illuminate the the landscape. Bright planet Jupiter and the Pleiades Star Cluster (the Seven Sisters) appear over the mountains. Credit and copyright: Babak A. Tafreshi.A fisheye view of the northern lights as it swirls over a fjord in the Norwegian Sea near Tromso, northern Norway. A mix of moonlight, aurora, and a nearby village illuminates the the landscape. Credit: Babak A. Tafreshi.
Just a few of ALMA's 66 giant radio telescopes (NRAO)
Last month a dozen journalists from around North America were guests of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and got to take a trip to the Atacama Desert in Chile to attend the inauguration of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observatory — ALMA, for short.
It was, in no uncertain terms, a radio astronomer’s paradise.
Join one radio astronomer, Dr. Nicole Gugliucci, on her trip to the 5100-meter-high Chajnantor Plateau to visit the ALMA sites in this video, also featuring NRAO’s Tania Burchell, John Stoke, Charles Blue and the Planetary Society’s Mat Kaplan.
ALMA will open a new window on celestial origins, capturing never-before seen details about the very first stars and galaxies in the Universe, probing the heart of our galaxy, and directly imaging the formation of planets. It is the largest leap in telescope technology since Galileo first aimed a lens on the Universe.
And if you’re interested in looking back, here’s an archive to all the past Carnivals of Space. If you’ve got a space-related blog, you should really join the carnival. Just email an entry to [email protected], and the next host will link to it. It will help get awareness out there about your writing, help you meet others in the space community – and community is what blogging is all about. And if you really want to help out, sign up to be a host. Send an email to the above address.
ISS Commander Chris Hadfield plans surprise Easter egg hunt for station crew today. Credit: NASA/Chris Hadfield
ISS Commander Chris Hadfield plans surprise Easter egg hunt for station crew today – Easter Sunday, March 31, 2013. Credit: NASA/Chris Hadfield Updated with more astounding ‘Easter from Space’ photos by Chris Hadfield !
Dont miss the scrumptious ‘Easter Finale’ – below
Thank you Chris ![/caption]
Hush, hush !
Don’t’ tell his crew, but Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has secretly planned a delightful space station surprise sure to also warm the hearts of Earth’s children celebrating the joyous occasion of this Easter Sunday – and there’s delicious photos below too.
They’re going on an Easter egg hunt !
“Don’t tell my crew, but I brought them Easter Eggs :)”, tweeted Hadfield from the ISS – where he currently serves as Commander of the Expedition 35 crew.
And Hadfield sends his greetings and ‘Easter from Space’ photos to all of us down here on the good Earth on this Holy Day.
“Good Morning, Earth! A fine Easter Sunday morning to you, from the crew of the International Space Station.”
You can follow along with Hadfield’s adventures from space as – @Cmdr_Hadfield
A Full Moon. It may not be made of chocolate, but it makes for a wonderfully natural Easter egg. Credit: NASA/Chris Hadfield
Occasionally, Mission Control relents and lets the astronauts have fun, taking a break from their out of this world chores.
But given the weightless of space, it’s not obvious how they’ll accomplish the traditional Easter egg roll. Perhaps we’ll hear about that later.
And there’s no word back yet on Easter Bunny sightings.
Well, to get ready Hadfield has been busy stashing assorted Easter goodies & gifts in the gazillion nooks and crannies aboard the ISS – and snapping fun photos for all the kids to play along.
“Sometimes the best place to hide an item is floating right above your nose. Or in this case, your sleep pod.”
This sleep pod apparently makes for a great hiding spot for floating Easter eggs and gift baskets on the ISS. Credit: NASA
Hadfield just couldn’t resist the temptation of some weightless juggling – and he’s not telling if they went .. splat !!
“It appears that I’m as bad at juggling in weightlessness as I am on Earth. Hopefully I’m better at hiding them… ”
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield attempts to juggle Easter eggs aboard the International Space Station. Do they go splat ??. Credit: NASA
Time will tell whether the crew of six guys are indeed clever enough to figure out all the secret hiding spots.
The Easter egg hunt could be especially trying for the three ‘new guys’ who just arrived on Thursday, March 28, on the Russian Soyuz express capsule – comprising of Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy. They join Hadfield, astronaut Tom Marshburn and cosmonaut Roman Romanenko who will stay aboard the station until May.
In the meantime, Hadfield is playfully diverting everyone’s concentration with gorgeous shots of Earth, like the Easter sunrise glinting across North America’s heartland – below.
An Easter sunrise glints across the Great Lakes. Heartland watershed. Credit: NASA/Chris Hadfield
And the Canadian Space Agency has now passed along an Easter greeting card.
Astronaut and cosmonaut crews have a decade’s long tradition of celebrating religious holidays in space. Probably the most famous occasion was when the three man American crew of Apollo 8 read scriptures from Genesis marking the first time in history that humans were orbiting the Moon – back in 1968.
All in all it’s been a busy week aboard the massive orbiting lab complex.
On Tuesday, March 26, the SpaceXDragon capsule departed the station, loaded with a long awaited trove of science goodies and successfully splashed down in the ocean. Two days later the trio of new space men arriving aboard the Soyuz restored the ISS to its full crew complement of six.
Since arriving at the station just before Christmas 2012, Hadfield has been doing a stellar job enlightening folks about what it’s like to live and work in space in fun and understandable ways.
Easter Finale: The Sun, a bright point of light surrounded by profound blackness, our world glowing in-between. Credit: NASA/Chris Hadfield
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Learn more about the ISS, Curiosity, SpaceX, Antares, and NASA missions at Ken’s upcoming lecture presentations:
April 20/21 : “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars – (in 3-D)”. Plus Orion, SpaceX, Antares, ISS, the Space Shuttle and more! NEAF Astronomy Forum, Suffern, NY
April 28: “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars – (in 3-D)”. Plus the Space Shuttle, SpaceX, Antares, Orion and more. Washington Crossing State Park, Titusville, NJ, 130 PM
A April Fools Day conjunction of Pluto & Jupiter, the likes of which you'll never see! (Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS(Jupiter) & NASA?ESA & M. Buie of the SWRI (Pluto)
The first day of April is always a traditional time for pranks and puns, and astronomers and scientists aren’t above an April Fools’ Day shenanigan or two. Hey, I gotta admit, as a freelance science journalist, even my radar will be up tomorrow as I’m sure that someone will try to slide some wowzers by the credulous media, as they always have in the past. If the aliens wanted to conquer the Earth it’s wide open to ‘em on April 1st, I’m just sayin’. Who would believe the tweets were for real, as they landed ray guns ablaze on the White House lawn? Trust us; you won’t see such April Fools’ hi-jinks from Universe Today. If you read it here, the alien invasion is for real, and you can begin stockpiling food and ammo appropriately in the best tradition of Falling Skies.
Here are just some of the classic astronomical April Fools’ jokes perpetrated in the past:
In 1974, John Gribbin published The Jupiter Effect, claiming that a Grand Alignment of the planets would spell doomsday for the Earth on March 10th, 1982. On April 1st 1976, Astronomer Sir Patrick Moore made an announcement along a similar vein to BBC listeners. A rare conjunction of the planets Pluto (which was still classified as a planet at the time) & Jupiter would weaken the gravitational field of the Earth at precisely 9:47AM. This would cause the law of gravity to become temporarily suspended, and cause things to fly about. Big hint: Pluto was nowhere near the gas giant at the time. Not that it would matter or have any consequence for the Earth! Although the hoax was quickly revealed, that didn’t stop several listeners from calling in and reporting observed results from the fake Jovian-Plutonian Gravitational effect!
The first star party? Galileo shows off the sky in Saint Mark’s square in Venice. Note the lack of adaptive optics. (Illustration in the Public Domain).
Many questionable astrophysical papers have been spotted in the wild trying to sneak past the guardians-that-be over the years on & around April 1st. On April Fools’ past, we’ve learned that Schrödinger’s Cat is not alone, the supposed discovery of the “bigon” particle, and that the “non-detection of the tooth fairy” has been reported. Hey, never let it be said that science geeks lack a sense of humor. What’s especially amazing is when one of these tall tales actually makes it past the credulous media and into print!
One of our favorites hit the servers last year on March 30th just in time to gain traction for April Fools’ Day with the cryptic title On the influence of the Illuminati in astronomical adaptive optics. OK, I’ll admit we didn’t question the veracity of the claim for oh, like, maybe a tenth of a second. For those without enlightenment into the world of Woo, the Illuminati are purported to be the shadow cult organization going back to the Middle Ages that’s supposed to be behind, well, every nefarious plot in modern society. “They put the eye over the pyramid on the back of a dollar bill, man…” as some true believers will claim. And while they didn’t have adaptive optics technology way back in Galileo’s time, the mock study does assert a tenuous link between the Illuminati and the “astronomical rise” of Brittany Spears and Lady Gaga.
Phobos (above) and Deimos (bottom) close up; no Martian construction projects noted. (Credit: NASA).
Are Martians secretly hollowing out a base on the Moons of Barsoom? The Moons of Mars were also the setting for an April Fools’ prank in 1959. The Martian moons are bizarre in their own right. Orbiting at 6,000 & 20,060 kilometres above the surface of the Red Planet, Phobos & Deimos are almost certainly captured asteroids. In fact, Phobos orbits its primary closer than any other moon in the solar system. Phobos will crash into Mars millions of years in the future.
The hoax was perpetrated when Walter Scott Houston, posing as Dr. Arthur Hayall of the fictitious University of the Sierras made a claim in the Great Plains Observer that Phobos & Deimos were in fact artificial satellites. Though the joke ran its course, the idea has cropped up in fringe circles over the years. Russian scientist Iosif Shklovsky made a similar allusion years later, asserting that the low density of Phobos indicated that was hollow (!) Mariner 9 returned the first close-up views of Phobos in 1971, showing a decidedly asteroid-looking appearance. Of course, this hasn’t stopped the likes of folks like Richard Hoagland (he of the face on Mars) from resurrecting the outlandish claim, all of which started as a practical joke. And of course, with the advent of the Internet, you don’t have to wait until April 1st to receive modern day hoax emails proclaiming “MARS WILL APPEAR AS BIG AS THE FULL MOON!!!” which now apparently happens every August.
A moon for Mercury… (or not!) (Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University/APL/Carnegie Institution of Washington).
Spurious moons are apparently the “low-hanging fruit” of astronomical April Fools’ pranks. In 2012, an image of a purported moon of the planet Mercury’s as discovered by the MESSENGER spacecraft appeared in the JPL Photojournal. The captioning declared the moon had been named Caduceus and was 70 metres in diameter. Perhaps such a prank is appealing because there’s nothing immediately outlandish about the idea. New moons get discovered periodically on first reconnaissance missions past planets. For a brief time in 1974, Mariner 10 project scientists did indeed think they had discovered a Mercurial moon. Reading on through the press release, however, revealed that a collision course of MESSENGER with the moon was set to cause it to “arrive at Earth by 2014.” The “moon” also bared a suspicious resemblance to the asteroid 243 Ida as seen by the Jupiter-bound Galileo spacecraft in 1993.
Some April Fools’ hoaxes have presented ideas that have actually gained scientific traction in reality over the years. On March 31st, 2005, NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day website contained the teaser “Water on Mars!” for its next presentation to follow on the next day. A flurry of discussion followed; was there a discovery from the Spirit & Opportunity rovers forthcoming? We should’ve checked the calendar first. The next day, APOD featured water… in a glass, sitting atop a Mars bar. What’s ironic is that recent announcements from the Mars Science Laboratory support the idea of ancient water on the Red Planet, so the MSL may well have had the last laugh.
Sulfate-rich sandstone imaged by Opportunity (left) and Curiosity (right). Both hint at ancient surface water on Mars. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/MSSS).
The Museum of Hoaxes also hosts a list of astronomy & space-themed April Fools’ Day pranks that have been perpetrated over the years. From a Soviet space capsule landing outside of Kankakee, Illinois to life discovered on Jupiter in 1996, it’s all enshrined for the curious. One of our faves is Google’s 2004 announcement that they were accepting applications at a new research center… based on the Moon in Copernicus crater. The ability to survive “with limited access to such modern conveniences as soy low-fat lattes,” was cited as a prerequisite, but a sushi chef and two massage therapists would be on site. At least the assignment wouldn’t be totally austere!
Closeup of Copernicus crater region… note the distinct lack of soy lattes! (Photo by author).
What astronomical hi-jinks await us tomorrow as we flip our calendars over to April 1st, 2013? Feel free to tell us here at Universe Today of your true tales of April Fools’ astronomy pranks past & present that you’ve spotted in the wild. Think twice before re-tweeting that link tomorrow, and don’t believe those reports of “nearby gamma-ray bursts of doom” or “alien invasions…” or at least, wait until you’ve seen the “greens of their eyes!”
Future Dragon spacecraft will one day touch down propulsively on the ground with ‘Alien looking’ landing legs instead of an ocean splashdown. Credit: SpaceX
Later this year SpaceX will unveil the design of a new and upgraded version of the firm’s Dragon spacecraft that will look like “an Alien spaceship,” said Elon Musk, the CEO and Chief Designer of SpaceX, at a NASA media teleconference on Thursday, March 28.
Musk announced the SpaceX plans at the briefing to mark the successful conclusion of the latest unmanned Dragon cargo carrying flight, known as CRS-2, to the International Space Station (ISS) earlier this week with a Pacific Ocean splashdown on Tuesday, March 26.
Dubbed ‘Dragon 2’, the futuristic capsule will eventually boast the ability to propulsively land on Earth’s surface – perhaps back at the Kennedy Space Center – instead of splashing down in the Pacific Ocean beneath a trio of parachutes.
At the moment, imagery of ‘Dragon 2’ is SpaceX Top Secret ! I asked.
How is the ‘Dragon 2’ different from the current ‘cargo Dragon’?
“It’s going to be cool,” gushes Musk.
“There are side-mounted thruster pods and quite big windows for astronauts to see out,” SpaceX founder Musk explained. “There are also landing legs that pop out at the bottom. So It looks like a real alien spaceship.”
SpaceX Grasshopper test flight successfully demonstrates touchdown on land as a prelude to future demonstration missions to recover Falcon 9 1st stages. Credit: SpaceX
Dragon 2 will also enable a transition to maximize use of the capsule by significantly increasing the quantity of cargo hauled up to the ISS, Musk stated.
The SpaceX Dragon CRS-2 capsule blasted off on March 1 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. It docked at the orbiting lab complex on March 3 and remained attached for 3 weeks until departing and returning to Earth on March 26.
Launching more mass to orbit will be a boon for the science research capability of the ISS, said NASA’s ISS Program scientist Julie Robinson. “We have over 200 investigations active.”
“The SpaceX flights are so important to our use of the International Space Station,” said Robinson.
Falcon 9 rocket is the launcher for both the cargo and human-rated Dragon spacecraft. Credit: SpaceX
With three successful Dragon docking flights to the ISS now under his belt, Musk said his goal now is to ‘push the envelope’.
Whereas initially SpaceX’s goal was to minimize risk in order to fulfil SpaceX’s $1.6 Billion commercial contract with NASA to fly 20,000 kg of sorely needed science experiments, equipment, gear, food and supplies to the ISS with a dozen Dragon cargo capsules.
SpaceX, along with Orbital Sciences Corp, are both partnered with NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services program to replace the cargo up mass capability the US lost following the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle orbiters in 2011.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said at the telecom that the Orbital Sciences Antares rocket is on schedule for a test flight from NASA Wallops in Virginia slated for mid-April.
Antares will launch the unmanned Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the ISS. Read my launch site update and visit to Antares – here.
Simultaneously, SpaceX will also debut a more powerful version of the Dragon’s Falcon 9 launch vehicle later this year that eventually will be both recoverable and reusable – long the Holy Grail in space exploration.
The new Falcon 9 version 1.1 “will be a meaningful upgrade” said Musk. “It will have 60-70% greater thrust capability, greater redundancy and more engine to engine protection. It will be more robust.”
Falcon 9 v 1.1 will incorporate the significantly more powerful Merlin 1-D first stage engines that will increase the liftoff thrust to about 1.5 million pounds – and serve as the launch vehicle for ‘Dragon 2’.
Falcon 9 SpaceX CRS-2 launch on March 1, 2013 to the ISS – shot from the roof of the Vehicle Assembly Building. The Dragon capsule splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean on March 26, 2013. Credit: Ken Kremer/www.kenkremer.com
SpaceX will also start testing the capability to recover the spent Falcon 9 first stage from the Atlantic Ocean. Thereafter SpaceX will eventually try and have the first stage fly itself back to the Cape Canaveral, Florida launch complex using the so called “Grasshopper’ version of the Falcon 9.
But Musk strongly advised that will take several test flights to demonstrate such recovery technologies.
“I really want to emphasize that we don’t expect success on the first several attempts,” Musk emphasized. “Hopefully next year, with a lot more experience and data, we should be able to return the first stage to the launch site, deploy the landing legs and do a propulsive landing on land back at the launch site.”
The overarching goal is to dramatically cut costs and increase efficiency to make space more accessible, especially in these ultra lean budget times.
SpaceX is also developing a manned version of the Dragon capsule and aims for the first crewed test flight perhaps in 2015 depending on NASA’s budget.
If all of Musk’s dreams work out, they could spark a revolutionary change in spaceflight and the exploration and exploitation of the High Frontier.
Learn more about SpaceX, Antares, Curiosity and NASA missions at Ken’s upcoming lecture presentations:
April 20/21 : “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars – (in 3-D)”. Plus Orion, SpaceX, Antares, the Space Shuttle and more! NEAF Astronomy Forum, Suffern, NY
April 28: “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars – (in 3-D)”. Plus the Space Shuttle, SpaceX, Antares, Orion and more. Washington Crossing State Park, Titusville, NJ, 130 PM
