Artists concept of Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft at Venus. Credit: JAXA
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Japan’s first Venus space probe encountered problems while attempting orbit insertion and went into safe mode. It took longer than expected (an hour and a half) to regain communications after a known 22 minute blackout with the Akatsuki spacecraft, and apparently controllers are still trying to ascertain the spacecraft’s orbit. From translated Twitter reports and a document posted on the JAXA website, it appears engineers confirmed ignition of the thruster before Akatsuki moved behind Venus, but had trouble pinpointing the spacecraft after the blackout should have ended. They have regained some radio communications.
“It is not known which path the probe is following at the moment,” a JAXA official Munetaka Ueno told reporters at the ground control late Tuesday, according to AFP. “We are making maximum effort to readjust the probe.”
“The communication situation analysis has been confirmed that the spacecraft into safe hold mode,” says a translated document. “It is conducted to ensure continued operation of the information obtained at an early state of the spacecraft and orbital …stable spin probe to capture the sun.”
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Take a layer off a Matryoshka doll and you find more of the same. Try to answer questions about a mysterious satellite of Saturn and more questions come bubbling up to the surface. Ralph Lorenz and Jacqueline Mitton in their book “Titan Unveiled – Saturn’s Mysterious Moon Explored” treat the reader to this common scientific dilemma. In it, we see that the recent Cassini-Huygens mission gave us many answers to many questions but leaves a whole lot more just awaiting.
The tiny moon Titan orbits its giant mother planet Saturn. Our distant Sun shines so dimly at its distance that it can have no appreciable effect. But, some unidentified source of energy effects Titan’s surface. We know this because of the spectacular terrain that’s eerily evocative of Earth. Coastlines, volcanic mounts and great sand dunes appear to grace every view. This apparently dynamic surface may lead to other terrestrial similarities and may point to terrestrial analogues. This potential gave rise to the mission to Saturn and, in its own way, to this book.
This book has three intermingling tracts: Titan and its physical details, the Cassini-Huygens mission, and an author’s personal travails with the mission and space exploration. The Titan tract includes a review of the growth of knowledge regarding this moon. Particularly, there’s concepts drawn from the Voyageur probes as well as space based and land based telescopes. These include the magnetosphere, atmosphere and surface reflectivity. The accumulated knowledge is shown to be a necessary precursor to the mission and in particular to the Huygens lander.
The second tract looks at the Cassin-Huygens mission, its history, funding, scientific payload and initial arrival at the Saturn system. The writing is current to about July 2006, or Cassini orbit T16. Though the book has some well-known detail, such as the scientific payload, for the most part it looks at the processes, whether the need for continual political support, constant adaptation to modifications and the need for patience during the long flight out. These are interesting but don’t really pertain to the unveiling of Titan.
Sections that have sub-titles such as “Ralph’s Log, August 1994” easily identify the third tract. These also seem out of place as they exhibit a more personal interest rather than a exposition of Titan. In the logs are descriptions of breaking into rooms, threading wires through instruments and traveling to conferences. While adding a distraction, they may or may not be to the reader’s liking.
These three tracts constitute the majority of the book and also exhibit the book’s main weakness. That is, rather than unveiling Titan to the average reader, it is a personal narrative regarding a personal interest. Further, by finishing the writing before the end of the Cassini-Huygens mission, the reader should wonder, “why now, what’s the rush, what’s been left out?” Also diminishing the book are the many but small images. Though some have fantastic shapes, such as one of the cat’s claws at the feature Shikoku, they’re usually quite small and don’t do justice to the concept of unveiling. Thus, though entertaining, the book never really unveils Titan in a succinct manner.
This book does excel as a personal narrative of a scientist’s involvement in one of our grandest research endeavours. Equally, it will well satisfy someone who’s interested in the background of the Cassini-Huygen mission and especially the early results from its view of Titan. But, I expect that those who want a greater amount of detail of Titan will need other, more academic sources to obtain a better reference.
We are only beginning to appreciate the many interdependent physical properties that exist on Earth. Yet, we see similarities wherever we look. The book “Titan Unveiled – Saturn’s Mysterious Moon Explored” by Ralph Lorenz and Jacqueline Mitton shows how advancing our knowledge of a distant satellite that orbits a distant planet has provided a special benefit to us on Earth.
Artists concept of Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft at Venus. Credit: JAXA
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Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft will arrive at Venus later today, and will enter orbit around the planet. The box-shaped orbiter will make observations from an elliptical orbit, from a distance of between 300 and 80,000 kilometers (186 to 49,600 miles), looking for — among other things — signs of lightning and active volcanoes.
The Akatsuki probe (Japanese for “Dawn”) has been traveling for six months, and launched along with the IKAROS solar sail mission. The timing for the orbit insertion burn is Dec. 6 at about 6:50 p.m. EST (2350 GMT), which is early Tuesday morning Japan Standard Time.
Twitters can follow Akatsuki. (in Japanese — Google translate works well on the spacecraft’s Twitter homepage.)
This is Japan’s first mission to Venus. The Japanese Space Agency, JAXA, hopes the spacecraft will work for two years studying Venus’s clouds and weather in order to gain a better understanding of how the planet’s atmosphere evolves over time.
As of 18:49 UT, a gigantic solar prominence was visible to the Solar Dynamics Observatory in the ultraviolet spectrum. Image Credit: SDO
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The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping off the Sun is estimated at over 700,000 km across, which is about the radius of the entire Sun. Amazing!
There’s nothing to worry about here on Earth, though – we are safe from such activity on the Sun, even if that prominence is big enough swallow up thousands of Earths. There is no coronal-mass ejection or flare to go along with this prominence, both phenomena on the Sun that can reach Earth and mess with satellites and our power grid.
As you can see (or rather, not see) in this visible light image below, the flare seems to only be visible in the ultraviolet. Other spectra of the Sun as imaged by the SDO are available here. Why is this? Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, explains it best:
“In visible light, the light from the extremely thin material in the prominence is totally overwhelmed by the intense emission from the Sun’s surface, and is invisible. It’s only when we filter out most of the Sun’s light (and let through light specifically given off by the plasma in the prominence) that we can see it at all,” he wrote. The Sun in the visible light spectrum, as seen from SDO at 18:00 UT. The two visible sunspots seem to be unrelated to this large prominence. Image Credit: SDO
This video shows the buildup up this most recent spectacular solar show, as this portion of the Sun comes into view from a 48-hour period between December 4th and 6th:
[UPDATE]: Here is a video that shows the prominence eruption as it expanded:
Spaceweather.com also has some other fantastic images that are linked to on their front page. Prominences like this can come crashing down quickly when they become unstable, so head over to the SDO site to watch the action as it develops!
Success for SpaceX static test fire of Falcon 9. Credit: SpaceX
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SpaceX will delay the launch attempt of the Falcon 9 rocket until at least Thursday, Dec. 9. At a press conference today, company president Gwynne Shotwell said a final review of closeout photos this morning found some indications of a potential issue on a second stage nozzle. Reports from journalist Robert Pearlman on Twitter said the Falcon 9 had been lowered from the vertical launch position. And Shotwell said if they have to replace the nozzle, the launch would be no earlier than Friday, Dec. 10.
“During an inspection of final closeout photos they determined there were some indications in a weld joint that they wanted to take some additional steps to look at,” said Shotwell, “and they brought the vehicle down to horizontal. I believe it is back up to vertical now.” When asked for details, Shotwell said “porosity and potential cracking in a weld joint.”
There were some weather concerns for the early to mid part of this week, but the weather improves later in the week, so perhaps the delay was going to happen anyway.
This is the first demonstration launch for NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, with a functional Dragon capsule.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said he thinks they have a 70% chance of successful first flight of the Falcon 9/Dragon capsule.
Shotwell agreed, saying history predicts SpaceX will likely have a substantial issue to deal with in this test flight.
“Given we got Falcon 9 to orbit on our first test flight, I’d say 70% for this flight, too,” she said.
At the press conference, NASA’s Phil McAlister, from the Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation, provided some insight into NASA’s thinking on if there were to be substantial problems with any of the COTS test flights. “We expect anomalies and the purpose of a test flight is to find the problems,” he said. “We won’t know until the end of the program if we’ve been completely successful, but to date this has been remarkably successful. Even if we have a bad day on this flight, for example, we expect to move forward. It is not a condition that every test flights be successful. We are committed to learn from each flight. But we would certainly like to have a a successful flight. So far we are on very good track and we will learn a lot from this test flight and move forward regardless of the outcome.”
The key milestones for this flight are a successful launch, separation of the Dragon vehicle from the rocket and successful reentry of Dragon.
No matter the outcome of this flight, SpaceX plans on having next Dragon flight ready by late spring/early summer 2011.
For the future, McAlister also said that he believe competition is very important, and that NASA would like to have at least 2 cargo service companies. “We would like to have routine, cost effective cargo services to LEO by 2020.”
Shotwell said it would be at least two and a half to three years after the cargo program is initiated is the first chance for astronauts to be ferried on board the Dragon capsule.
Artist concept of Nanosail-D in Earth orbit. Credit: NASA
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Despite being an idea rattling around inside the head of engineers and space enthusiasts for over 40 years, solar sails have never really gained much traction in the way of actual deployment. Today, NASA has taken an important step towards testing solar sail technology for use in future spacecraft.
The Nanosail-D spacecraft was launched Friday, Nov. 19 at 8:25 p.m. EST from Kodiak Island, Alaska, and was piggybacking on another satellite, both aboard a Minotaur IV rocket. It has successfully been ejected from the launch vehicle as of today, and is on its own. Though the sails have yet to deploy, this is already an achievement that bodes well for the future of both solar sail and small satellite technology.
The Nanosail-D satellite – commonly described as “loaf of bread” sized – was ejected from the Fast, Affordable, Science and Technology Satellite (FASTSAT) at 1:31 a.m. EST December 6th. Not only is this NASA’s first attempt at deploying a solar sail in space, but this also marks the first time a nanosatellite has been ejected from another satellite, proving that this is a reliable way to get multiple satellites into orbit at the same time.
Nanosail-D is a nanosatellite – or cubesat – designed to test the potential for solar sails in atmospheric braking. Such sails – made from a an ultra-thin and light material, in this case the polymer CP1 – could potentially be used to propel a spacecraft outside of our Solar System. The Nanosail-D sail will be deployed in low-Earth orbit, about 650 km (400 miles) up. The sail will be used to show how such technology could slow down satellites when they need to de-orbit.
Currently, de-orbiting satellites involves maneuvering them into a lower and lower orbit using the engines of the satellite, which necessitates more propellant aboard the spacecraft simply to dispose of it properly. Nanosail-D will deploy a solar sail and orbit for 70-120 days, eventually spiraling into the Earth’s atmosphere to burn up.
Since it will be orbiting so close to the Earth, its potential for testing solar sails as propulsion is not the focus of the mission; however, the deployment of a solar sail is itself a huge engineering challenge. Nanosail-D will be the perfect experiment to test out whether the method NASA will be using to unfurl the sail is workable in space.
Immediately after the ejection earlier today, a timer started a three-day countdown. Once it reaches zero, it will go boom – that is, four booms will spring out from the small satellite, and within five seconds the sail will be fully extended to its 100 square foot (10 square meter) sail-span. The first Nanosail-D, unfurled in the lab with the mission team. Image Credit: NASA
Dean Alhorn, NanoSail-D principal investigator and aerospace engineer at the Marshall Space Flight Center explains on the mission page, “The deployment works in the exact opposite way of carpenter’s measuring tape. With a measuring tape, you pull it out, which winds up a spring, and when you let it go it is quickly pulled back in. With NanoSail-D, we wind up the booms around the center spindle. Those wound-up booms act like the spring. Approximately seven days after launch, it deploys the sail off the center spindle.”
There have been other attempts at launching and deploying solar sails before, but once deployed, Nanosail D will be the longest-running solar sail experiment yet attempted. Both JAXA and the Russian space agency have deployed successful solar sail experiments.
JAXA launched a clover-shaped sail aboard a sounding rocket in 2004, and the experiment lasted about 400 seconds. They also launched the IKAROS spacecraft in May, 2010, which is currently en-route to Venus, and will fly to the opposite side of Sun from Earth. The Russians deployed a 20-meter diameter mirror successfully aboard the Progress M-15 resupply mission to Mir in 1993. Named Znamya 2, the mirror cast a 5km (3 mile)-wide bright spot on the ground that swept across southern France to western Russia, and orbited for several hours before burning up.
The Planetary Society is probably the most vocal and enthusiastic organization in support of solar sail technology. They are currently developing a solar sail similar to that of Nanosail-D, called Lightsail-1. The society attempted a launch of a solar sail called Cosmos 1 in 2005, but the rocket carrying the satellite did not fire during its second stage, and the craft was lost.
Nanosail-D is in its second iteration. The first spacecraft was commissioned in early 2008, and the team – astrophysicists and engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center and the Ames Research Center – had four months to put together a workable satellite. It launched aboard a Falcon 1 rocket in August of 2008, but the rocket burned up in the atmosphere. If engineers are good at one thing, it’s redundancy – the team had constructed a second Nanosail-D, and had ample time to work out some of the bugs and develop the technology even more. Doug Huie, a research technician at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, prepares the spacecraft for launch testing. The spacecraft measures 4 inches wide, 4 inches deep and 13 inches long, and weighs 9 pounds. (10cm X 10cm X 33 cm, 4kg) Image Credit: NASA
The Planetary Society almost had a chance to launch Nanosail-D, according to Louis Friedman, executive director of the The Planetary Society, they were contacted by the team developing Nanosail-D after the failed initial launch attempt, and asked if they would like to help launch the second Nanosail-D spacecraft. The Planetary Society agreed, but the team then found space aboard the FASTSAT launch. Consequently, Lightsail-D was borne out of this brief collaboration.
The timer is silently counting down what promises to be an exciting mission, and potential milestone in the future of spaceflight. Watch this space for further developments on the mission.
Who knew it could take almost seven minutes to get a tour of the teeny-tiny crew quarters on board the International Space Station? But Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly provides an engaging peek inside his personal living space, and an inside look at life aboard the ISS.
Mono Lake in California, with the bacteria (inset) that lives there. Credit: Science
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I’m not a biologist – just a journalist who specializes in space and astronomy — so I won’t pretend to be knowledgeable about NASA’s announcement last week of the weird life in a California lake that appears to be able to live with arsenic instead of phosphorous. But I did want to bring to our reader’s attention some various points of view on the topic that have emerged since last Thursday’s press conference.
Her opinion was quickly seconded by many other biologists/bloggers, as you can read in David Dodds post at Wired, and also this post by Larry Moran, a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto.
The National Geographic Society publishes popular accounts of a vast quantity of information related to the natural sciences. The society has a new space themed book by Howard Schneider entitled ‘Backyard Guide to the Night Sky‘. And, true to form, in it is a large quantity of information just ready for consumption by the average reader.
This smaller format soft cover book touches on just about everything above the Earth’s surface. Within it are details from the Earth’s troposphere to its exosphere, the planet Mercury to the Ort clouds and the constellations Andromeda to Virgo. With each description, the reader can understand a bit more of the subject and often view an excellently chosen, vibrant, adjoining illustration. The book’s closing pages discuss the big bang and deep sky astronomy to complete this book’s exposé on the night sky.
With a simple yet effective table of contents and a useful index, this well entitled guide serves as a handy reference to the amateur enthusiast. It’s perfect for an evening’s entertainment at a cottage, some reflective pondering while sitting in a back yard or even for daytime studying to broadening one’s knowledge of our existence.
The downside to trying to be such an exhaustive reference is that the book’s content lacks any sort of depth. For example, it mentions that analysts use spectroscopy to determine the chemical composition of stars. And, that is the complete notation of spectroscopy. Or, it mentions that the eye has rods and cones that effect visibility but not how. As well, the book targets the readers living in the northern hemisphere, as some southern constellations are not included. But, shortcomings are expected when a book aims to satisfy a large audience by choosing breadth over depth.
Yet, true to form with other National Geographic Society publications, this book has a rich presentation. Diagrams, photographs and tables vividly embellish the paragraphs. Four somewhat small sky charts show the position of some of the brightest stars. As well, star tables introduce the reader to each constellation’s main components. With this book, there’s no need to go searching elsewhere for many of the facts and figures regarding our night sky.
For some light entertainment, Howard Schneider’s book ‘Backyard Guide to Night Sky‘ provides the reader with a pleasant, enjoyable and fact-filled reference. It will be a useful guide that may even point the direction to a long, fun-filled and rewarding past time.
Success for SpaceX static test fire of Falcon 9. Credit: SpaceX
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The third time was a charm for SpaceX’s static fire of the Falcon 9 rocket, with a successful 2-second test of the nine engines, clearing the way for a launch next week for a NASA demonstration mission. SpaceX said preliminary he data analysis showed the engine test firing went as expected. An earlier try on Friday and then again Saturday morning ended in a-computer controlled abort.
SpaceX said the launch of the rocket, carrying a demonstration Dragon capsule could occur as early as December 7th, with December 8th and 9th as backup days. The weather prediction for Tuesday, however is for cold temperatures and high winds and they estimate a 40% chance for “go” that day. The launch window for all three days extends from 9:00 a.m. to 12:22 p.m. EST, from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
From SpaceX: “The Dragon capsule is expected to orbit the Earth at speeds greater than 17,000 miles per hour, reenter the Earth’s atmosphere, and land in the Pacific Ocean roughly 3 1/2 hours later. This will be the first attempt by a commercial company to recover a spacecraft reentering from low-Earth orbit. It is a feat performed by only 6 nations or government agencies: the United States, Russia, China, Japan, India, and the European Space Agency.”
There will be a webcast of the launch on the SpaceX website that will begin approximately 45 minutes prior to the opening of the daily launch window, at 8:15 a.m. EST / 5:15 a.m. PST / 13:15 UTC. During the webcast, SpaceX hosts will provide information specific to the flight, an overview of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft and commentary on the launch and flight sequences.
There will be a post-mission news conference at the Kennedy Space Center.
On Sunday, a Russian rocket launched with three new navigation satellites but failed to reach orbit, and some reports say the satellites crashed into the Pacific Ocean after launch.
