Universe Today

January 20, 2008December 26, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

A Possible Answer to Flyby Anomalies

galileo_earth.thumbnail.jpg — Artist's impression of the Galileo mission above Earth - which spent seven years (1995–2003) orbiting Jupiter. Credit: NASA

Strange things are happening to our robotic spaceÂ explorers. Also known as the “Pioneer effect“Â (the unexpected and sudden alterations to Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 trajectories measured as they continue their journey into the outer solar system), similar anomalies areÂ being seenÂ in flybys by modern space probes. Earth flybys by Galileo, Rosetta, NEAR and Cassini have all experienced a sudden boost in speed. After cancelling out all possible explanations, including leakage of fuel and velocity measurement error, a new study suggests the answer may lie in a bizarre characteristic of universal physics…

Planetary flybys are an essential aid to interplanetary missions to gain energy as they accelerate on their merry way to their destination. Gravity assists are accurately calculated by mission scientists so the time of arrival can be calculated down to the minute. Considering most missions take years to complete, this degree of accuracy is amazing, but essential.

So, when Galileo completed gravity assist past Earth on December 8, 1990, to speed it toward Jupiter, you can imagine NASA’s surprise to find that Galileo had accelerated suddenly, andÂ for no apparent reason. This small boost was tiny, but through the use of the Deep Space Network, extremely accurate measurements of the speeding craft could be made. Galileo had accelerated 3.9 mm/s.

This isn’t an isolated case. During Earth flybys byÂ the space probes NEAR, Cassini-Huygens and Rosetta,Â all experienced a unexplained boosts of 13 mm/s, 0.11 mm/s and 2 mm/s respectively. Once technical faults, observational errors, radiation pressure, magnetic instabilities and electrical charge build-up could be ruled out, focus is beginning to turn to more exotic explanations.

A recent study by Magic McCulloch suggests that “Unruh radiation” may be the culprit. The Unruh effect, put simply, suggests that accelerating bodies experience a type of electromagnetic radiation. At very low acceleration, the wavelength emitted will be so large that a whole wavelength will be longer than the dimensions of the Universe (otherwise known as the Hubble Distance). Low acceleration would therefore generate waves that have no effect on the body. However, should the accelerating body (i.e. GalileoÂ getting accelerated by Earth’s gravity during the 1990 flyby) slowly exceed an acceleration threshold, the Unruh radiation will decrease in wavelength (smaller thanÂ the Hubble Distance), causing a tiny, but measurable “boost” to its increasing velocity.

Although complex, this theory is very interesting and proves that althoughÂ weÂ can calculate the arrival time of space probes down to the nearest minute, the Universe will continue to throw up some perplexing issues for a long time yet.

Sources: arXiv Blog, arXiv abstract and paper download

January 19, 2008December 26, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Engineering, Budget Problems for NASA’s New Spacecraft

NASA has discovered a potentially dangerous problem with the first stage of the Ares 1 rocket that will launch the new Orion crew capsule to the space station and to the moon. Engineers are concerned that during the first few minutes of flight, the rocket could shake violently, possibly causing significant damage to the entire launch stack. Meanwhile, nasaspaceflight.com reports that a budget review of the Constellation program found a short term deficit of $700m that will likely delay test flights and development of the yet-to-be built rockets.

The shaking problem is called thrust oscillation, and is typical in solid rocket motors. The phenomenon is characterized by increased acceleration pulses during the latter part of first-stage flight. Depending on the amplitude of these pulses, the impact on the vehicle structure and astronauts may be quite significant.

The Associated Press reported that NASA discovered the problem in the fall of 2007, but did not discuss the problem publicly until January 18, 2008 after the AP filed a Freedom of Information Act request and Keith Cowing of NASAWatch.com submitted detailed engineering questions regarding the oscillations.

In the response given to both NASAWatch and AP, NASA said they are working to understand how the thrust oscillation may impact the entire stack – the Ares first stage, upper stage and the Orion crew vehicle — and to determine how to minimize the impact. They have brought in experts from within NASA and outside industry to review the issues and to determine if lessons learned from previous launch vehicles will help solve the problems. NASA said they are studying multiple systems to identify all possible scenarios.

“This is a development project like Apollo. I hope no one was so ill-informed as to believe that we would be able to develop a system to replace the shuttle without facing any challenges in doing so,” NASA Administrator Mike Griffin said in a separate statement to the Associated press. “NASA has an excellent track record of resolving technical challenges. We’re confident we’ll solve this one as well.”

The first stage is a single, five-segment reusable solid rocket booster derived from the Space Shuttle solid rocket motors developed and produced by ATK Launch Systems.

The Ares I rocket is the core of the new space transportation system that will carry crewed missions back to the moon, and possibly on to Mars. The rocket may also use its 29-ton payload capacity to deliver resources and supplies to the International Space Station.

Concerning the problems of budget shortfalls, Ares program managers have offered a re-aligned development and test flight schedule in an attempt to protect Orion’s debut mission to the ISS in 2015.

The reason for the changes relates to additional costs associated with the challenges of Ares I’s development, creating a shortfall of funds for the financial year period 2008 to 2010.

Among numerous changes, a test flight of the Ares I originally scheduled for 2012 has been delayed by a year, while test flights with the Orion crew vehicle will possibly delayed between nine and three months. The Ares V’s lunar mission debut will now be an unmanned fly-by, according to nasaspaceflight.com.

Original New Sources: Associated Press, nasaspaceflight.com

January 19, 2008December 26, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

Scaled Composites at Fault for Fatal Explosion

Safety inspectors in California have cited Scaled Composites for being at fault for the explosion that killed three employees at their Mojave Air and Space Port. The explosion occurred in July 2007 and stunned the X-Prize winning company. They now face a maximum fine of $25,310.

Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composite company has been going from strength to strength in recent years. In 2004 the company was successful at launching their SpaceShipOne to an altitude of 114km, claiming the $10 million Ansari X-Prize in 2004. Since this historic win, Rutan has formed a powerful alliance with British businessman Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic. Branson is currently heading the construction of the world’s first Space Port in the New Mexico desert, using SpaceShipOne’s successor, the larger SpaceShipTwo, as the principal craft to take 6 people into space. Stowed under a WhiteKnightTwo aircraft, SpaceShipTwo is designed for a conventional take-off until the pair are at approximately 15 km in altitude. At this point, the pair separate, allowing SpaceShipTwo to accelerate to 2500 mph by firing its single hybrid rocket engine. Weightlessness will be achieved, giving space tourists an idea of what it feels like to be in a low Earth orbit.

Tragically, three personnel working on the Scaled Composites site in the Mojave Desert last July were killed in an accident during tests involving a rocket propellant. The report from safety officials state that the company failed to provide “effective information and training of the health and physical hazards associated with nitrous oxide,” the fuel used to power the rockets. Since the incident safety measures have been stepped up and it is hoped that this sad event won’t delay the 2009 launch of the first space tourism flights by Virgin Galactic.

Source: Space.com

January 18, 2008December 26, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

Most Advanced Ion Engines For 2013 BepiColombo Mission to Mercury

British scientists have been given the green light to begin the development of the most advanced ion engines ever to be used in space travel history. Set for launch in 2013, the European/Japanese BepiColombo mission to Mercury will be propelled to the Solar System’s innermost planet by advanced ion engines, with an efficiency equivalent to 17.8 million miles per gallon. This is one very cheap spaceship to fly!

We are currently being dazzled and amazed at the sheer detail of the images being transmitted by NASA’s MESSENGER mission flyby of the tiny planet Mercury. While we watch and wait for MESSENGER to eventually establish an orbit (insertion should occur in the spring of 2011), UK scientists, working with the ESA and Astrium (Europe’s largest space contractor), are hard at work designing the engines for the next big mission to the inner Solar System: BepiColombo. The mission consists of two orbiters: the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), to carry out mapping tasks over the planet, and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), to characterize the planets mysterious magnetosphere. The two craft will travel as one for the 6 year journey to Mercury, but separate at orbital insertion.

Although BepiColombo will use the gravitational pull of the Moon, Earth, Venus and then Mercury to actually get it to its destination, a large amount of energy is required to slow the craft down, countering the Sun’s gravity. Without an engine to thrust against BepiColombo‘s decent into the huge gravitational pull of the Sun, the mission would be doomed to overshoot Mercury and fall to a fiery end. This is where the ion engines come in.

Ion engines have been used in space missions before (such as the SMART-1 mission to the Moon in 2003), but the new generation engines currently undergoing development for the next Mercury mission will be far more efficient while providing sufficient thrust. Better efficiency means less fuel. Less fuel means less mass and volume, saving on launch cost and allowing more room for scientific instrumentation.

Ion engines work by channeling electrically charged particles (ions) through an electric field. Doing this accelerates the ions to high velocities. Each particle has a mass (albeit tiny), so each particle also carries a momentum when fired from the engine. Shoot enough particles out of the engine and you produce a thrust the spacecraft can use to accelerate or (in the case of BepiColombo) slow down. Ion engines do have a drawback. Although they are fuel efficient, the thrust can be small, so missions can take longer to complete; time must be allowed for the long-term thrust to have an effect on the velocity of the spacecraft. However, this shortfall for ion propulsion won’t deter space scientists from using this new technology, as the pros definitely outweigh the cons.

So, we can nowÂ look forward toÂ over a decadeÂ of exploration of MercuryÂ by MESSENGER and BepiColombo, one of the most uncharted and mysterious planets to orbit the Sun.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

January 18, 2008December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

2007 was Tied for the Second Hottest Year on Record

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You weren’t imagining things, 2007 really was an unseasonably hot year. In fact, it was tied with 1998 for the second hottest year on record. All in all, the 8 warmest years have all occurred since 1998, and the 14 warmest years since 1990. This mini-record was announced by NASA climatologists this week.

Researchers from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies used temperature data from weather stations on land, satellite measurements of sea ice temperatures since 1982 and data from ships for earlier years.

“As we predicted last year, 2007 was warmer than 2006, continuing the strong warming trend of the past 30 years that has been confidently attributed to the effect of increasing human-made greenhouse gases,” said James Hansen, director of NASA GISS.

Perhaps the most warming occurred up in the Arctic and high latitude regions of the planet, where vast regions of ice melted away. In fact, the Northwest Passage opened up for the first time, and scientists are predicting that the region could be ice free in the Summer in less than a decade.

The lower ice levels in the Arctic provides more open water and reduces the amount of sunlight reflected back into space. This is expected to increase the rate of warming.

Let’s hope 2008 isn’t so hot.

Original Source: NASA News Release

January 18, 2008December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

More Images of Mercury are Pouring In

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Even though the Mercury flyby happened earlier this week, you can look forward to days and days of images. I’m nowhere near finished being amazed and entertained by the deluge of images captured by MESSENGER.

This latest image was captured when MESSENGER was about 20 minutes from its closest approach – at a range of 5,000 km (3,100 miles) of the tiny planet. The image is so crisp and clear that features as small as 400 metres (0.25 miles) across can be distinguished.

The large crater is located near Mercury’s equator on the side of the planet newly imaged by MESSENGER. I’m guessing it has no name, since it’s never been seen before! Around the crater are hundreds of smaller, secondary impactors. Some of these create long linear chains that look like machine gun fire. These occur when an asteroid or comet is torn apart by gravity, and then rain down on the planet in a straight line.

By counting craters that sit on top of the large crater’s ejecta blanket, and then comparing this count to the ones inside the crater, scientists will be able to calculate how old the crater is, and when it was formed.

Mission controllers also announced that they’ve received all 500 megabytes of data captured by MESSENGER as part of the flyby. The spacecraft has sent back a total of 1,213 images from its Mercury Dual Imaging System cameras.

They also revealed details about the flyby. According to their calculations, the spacecraft missed the targeted aim point by about 8.25 km (5.12 miles). This still give MESSENGER the gravity assisted speed boost it needs to meet up with the planet again and eventually go into orbit.

Original Source: MESSENGER News Release

January 18, 2008December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

NASA’s Planning its Own Version of World of Warcraft

Level 23 shuttle pilot LFG pst. If you play an online role-playing game, you understood that. If you don’t, but you really like space exploration, you might soon enough. In a recent request for information, NASA announced that it’s looking for help in the development of a NASA-inspired massively multiplayer role playing game.

The request for information from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center was published to NASA’s Acquisition Internet Service on January 16th, 2007.

Here’s their goal:

A NASA-based MMO built on a game engine that includes powerful physics capabilities could support accurate in-game experimentation and research. It should simulate real NASA engineering and science missions in a medium that is comfortable and familiar to the majority of students in the United States today. A NASA-based MMO could provide opportunities for students to investigate STEM (note: STEM means science, technology, engineering and mathematics) career paths while participating in engaging game-play. Through a NASA-based MMO, students will gain insight into a wide range of exciting career opportunities and be encouraged to make educational choices that lead them into STEM fields of study and eventually the STEM careers needed to fulfill NASAâ€™s Vision for Space Exploration. Learning Technologies is seeking input on how to accomplish those goals.

In this request for information, NASA is hoping that various game companies can provide information on how they think a NASA-based educational game could be designed, how it would support education efforts, connect to missions, and help publicize space exploration careers.

Oh, and how it might actually be fun. It’s that last part that’s going to be the challenge.

If you’ve ever played a massively multiplayer online game, there’s an awful lot of… killing. There’s also a certain degree of independence that might be hard to place over top of NASA’s governmental structure. And I’d be interested to see how they deal with the scientific reality of spaceflight. You can’t just hop the next rocket to the Moon whenever you like; there are mission plans, years of training, government intervention, greedy contractors and all that paperwork.

If some team can come up with an idea that will make for a compelling game. To be both challenging and entertaining, and yet respect the engineering and scientific reality that currently exists in human spaceflight, I’ll be impressed.

Better yet, I’ll play. I’ll put that level 67 orc warrior on hold, and switch to an astronaut – maybe a Canadian mission specialist.

The closing date is February 15, 2008.

Thanks to NASA Watch for catching this.

Original Source: NASA MMO Site

January 18, 2008January 24, 2021 by Fraser Cain

Astrosphere for January 18, 2007

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Your space photo of the day is the recent Earth-grazing asteroid 2008 AF3, captured by RickJ. It looks like a bunch of star streaks, but if you look carefully, there’s a dot right in the middle. That’s the asteroid that missed us by 370,000 km (230,000 miles).

Are you planning to sign up for Virgin Galactic and take their stomach-churning suborbital trip? Here’s an interview on Luxury Magazine with the Head of Astronaut Sales. Tip of the helmet to Space Pragmatism for the link.

Remember yesterday’s Bad Astronomy post about not finding ET? Here’s some more non-news.

This has nothing to do with astronomy. But a rat as big as a bull? That’s just cool.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently gave a speech at NASA, encouraging the agency to be more open and collaborative with the public. Advice I’ve been trying to give them for years.

A charity auction is removing a trip to space as a price – too dangerous.

January 18, 2008April 26, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

Get Ready for the 2008 Space Elevator Challenge

Looking for an exciting challenge, as well as a way to try and create easy and affordable access to space? The 2008 Space Elevator Beam Power Challenge has been announced by The Spaceward Foundation, and competitors have the chance at a $2 million top prize. And don’t think the picture included here is complete science fiction. Meteor Crater in Arizona is one of the sites being considered for the competition, which consists of climbing a vertically suspended tether using power beaming technology.

The Beam Power Challenge event is tentatively set for September 8, 2008. The objectives for the 2008 competition are climbing a tether 1 kilometer in height, at 5 meters per second minimum speed, for a prize level of $2M.

An intermediate prize level of $900k will be given for a speed of 2 m/s. Additionally, teams that can reach an altitude of 1 km at between 1 and 2 m/s will be awarded a prize of up to $50k.

The 1 km climb will be supported by a unique pyramid-anchored balloon system, providing the teams with a stable tether to climb on.

“In broad strokes, the goal of the Space Elevator games is to bring the Space Elevator closer to reality,” Marc Boucher of the Spaceward Foundation writes on their website. “The goal of the power beaming challenge is to promote power beaming technology. We think that the time is ripe now to move the competition to the next level, addressing real-world power beaming scenarios where the minimum requirements for such systems start at the km range and kWatt power levels.”

This is the fourth year of the Space Elevator Games, which started in 2005. In 2007 Team USST from the University of Saskatchewan was the best performer in the competition, moving their laser-powered 25 kg climber [55 lb] at an average speed of 1.8 m/s [6 ft/sec] over a 94 m run. This corresponds to over 400 Watts of mechanical power maintained for almost a minute. They did this 4 times within 40 minutes. 20 other teams were part of the competition.

This year’s challenge, therefore, is a huge leap from 2007. 1 kilometer is high: it’s the altitude a jetliner is at when the cabin crew asks you to put your laptop away.

“The 1 km challenge really takes us to the next level” says Ben Shelef, CEO of the Spaceward Foundation. “The point of power beaming is that it can work over any distance, and this challenge will illustrate the promise of this technology.”

The prize money is provided by NASA’s Centennial Challenges program. NASA has pledged a total of $4,000,000 starting in 2005 through 2010. The Spaceward Foundation has been distributing the prize money in slowly increasing increments, as the difficulty level of the challenges has been ratcheting up.

The ultimate goal for a space elevator system is to have the climbers ascend a tether 100,000 km long, strung between an anchor on Earth and a counterweight in space. Connecting Earth and space in this way, the space elevator will enable inexpensive access to space which, according to the Spaceward Foundation will “completely expand our society into space.”

In this year’s challenge, Spaceward provides the race track, in the form of a vertically-suspended tether, and the competing teams provide Space Elevator prototypes, featuring climbers that have to scale the tether using only power that is transferred to them from the ground using beamed power.

The climbers net weight is limited to 50 kg [110 lbs], and they must ascend the ribbon at a minimum speed of 2 m/s. [6.6 feet per second] carrying as much payload as possible. A high performance prize will be awarded to teams that can move at 5 m/s. [16.5 fps]

Climbers will be rated according to their speed multiplied by the amount of payload they carried, and divided by their net weight. For example, a 15 kg climber, carrying 10 kg of payload at 2.5 m/s will have a score of 10 X 2.5 / 15 = 1.67

Power is unlimited. It is up to the competitors to build the most power dense machine that they can devise.

In addition to Meteor Crater, other sites being considered include Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, the Albuquerque, New Mexico Balloon Festival site, White Sands, New Mexico, Brothers Rocket Site in Oregon, Black Rock, Nevada, and any NASCAR raceway sites that are far from airports.

Today (January 18, 2008) the registration fee is $1180 USD, and the price will increase by $10 each day (so get your registrations in early!) This is your big chance to change how we access space and perhaps write a unique chapter in history.

For more comprehensive specifications on the competition, see the Spaceward Foundation’s website.

Original News Source: Spaceward Foundation Press Release

January 17, 2008December 26, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

High School Students Discover Asteroid

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Here’s another wonderful example of how amateur astronomers can make important discoveries. Three high school students from Wisconsin discovered an asteroid while doing an astronomical observation project for a class in school. Connor Leipold, Tim Patika, and Kyle Simpson of The Prairie School near Racine were notified this week by the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts that the object they discovered has been verified as an asteroid.

The students will have the opportunity to name the asteroid, temporarily designated as 2008 AZ28. They spotted the asteroid through telescopes located in New Mexico that operate remotely via the internet. The technology was provided through a project sponsored by Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

As Fraser and Pamela commented on their Astronomy Cast episode about amateur astronomy, “Astronomy is one of the few sciences where amateurs make can meaningful contributions and discoveries.” And here’s proof. So the rest of you, go out there and start looking!

Original New Source: NewsDaily