US Space Program - a thread

[Hamartia Antidote]

Any updates or additional info about the program's status?

No idea. Certainly private companies are catching the attention of lawmakers and I'm sure this will make funding more difficult.

 

[Fenrir]

Nine Real NASA Technologies in 'The Martian'

Nine Real NASA Technologies in 'The Martian' | NASA

Mars has held a central place in human imagination and culture for millennia. Ancients marveled at its red color and the brightness that waxed and waned in cycles over the years. Early observations through telescopes led some to speculate that the planet was covered with canals that its inhabitants used for transportation and commerce. In “The War of the Worlds”, the writer H.G. Wells posited a Martian culture that would attempt to conquer Earth. In 1938, Orson Welles panicked listeners who thought they were listening to a news broadcast rather than his radio adaptation of Wells’s novel.

The real story of humans and Mars is a little more prosaic but no less fascinating. Telescopes turned the bright red dot in the sky into a fuzzy, mottled disk that gave rise to those daydreams of canals. Just 50 years ago, the first photograph of Mars from a passing spacecraft appeared to show a hazy atmosphere. Now decades of exploration on the planet itself has shown it to be a world that once had open water, an essential ingredient for life.

The fascination hasn’t waned, even in the Internet Age. A former computer programmer named Andy Weir, who enjoyed writing for its own sake and posted fiction to his blog, started a serial about a NASA astronaut stranded on Mars. The popularity ultimately led him to turn it into a successful novel, “The Martian”, which has been made into a movie that will be released in October 2015.

“The Martian” merges the fictional and factual narratives about Mars, building upon the work NASA and others have done exploring Mars and moving it forward into the 2030s, when NASA astronauts are regularly traveling to Mars and living on the surface to explore. Although the action takes place 20 years in the future, NASA is already developing many of the technologies that appear in the film.

Habitat

On the surface of Mars, Watney spends a significant amount of time in the habitation module -- the Hab -- his home away from home. Future astronauts who land on Mars will need such a home to avoid spending their Martian sols lying on the dust in a spacesuit.

At NASA Johnson Space Center, crews train for long-duration deep space missions in the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA).

The Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) at NASA's Johnson Space Center.
Credits: Fox/NASA

HERA is a self-contained environment that simulates a deep-space habit. The two-story habitat is complete with living quarters, workspaces, a hygiene module and a simulated airlock. Within the module, test subjects conduct operational tasks, complete payload objectives and live together for 14 days (soon planned to increase to up to 60 days), simulating future missions in the isolated environment. Astronauts have recently used the facility to simulate ISS missions. These research analogs provide valuable data in human factors, behavioral health and countermeasures to help further NASA’s understanding on how to conduct deep space operations.

Plant Farm

Today, astronauts on the International Space Station have an abundance of food delivered to them by cargo resupply vehicles, including some from commercial industries. On Mars, humans would not be able to rely on resupply missions from Earth – even with express delivery they would take at least nine months. For humans to survive on Mars, they will need a continuous source of food. They will need to grow crops.

Real-life NASA Astronaut Kjell Lindgren harvests lettuce grown from the Veggie experiment while on board the International Space Station.
Credits: Fox/NASA

Watney turns the Hab into a self-sustaining farm in “The Martian,” making potatoes the first Martian staple. Today, in low-Earth orbit, lettuce is the most abundant crop in space. Aboard the International Space Station, Veggie is a deployable fresh-food production system. Using red, blue, and green lights, Veggie helps plants grow in pillows, small bags with a wicking surface containing media and fertilizer, to be harvested by astronauts. In 2014, astronauts used the system to grow “Outredgeous” red romaine lettuce and just recently sampled this space-grown crop for the first time. This is a huge step in space farming, and NASA is looking to expand the amount and type of crops to help meet the nutritional needs of future astronauts on Mars.

Water Recovery

There are no lakes, river or oceans on the surface of Mars, and sending water from Earth would take more than nine months. Astronauts on Mars must be able to create their own water supply. The Ares 3 crew does not waste a drop on Mars with their water reclaimer, and Watney needs to use his ingenuity to come up with some peculiar ways to stay hydrated and ensure his survival on the Red Planet.

On the International Space Station, no drop of sweat, tears, or even urine goes to waste. The Environmental Control and Life Support System recovers and recycles water from everywhere: urine, hand washing, oral hygiene, and other sources. Through the Water Recovery System (WRS), water is reclaimed and filtered, ready for consumption. One astronaut simply put it, “Yesterday’s coffee turns into tomorrow’s coffee.”

Liquid presents some tricky problems in space. The WRS and related systems have to account for the fact that liquids behave very differently in a microgravity environment. The part of the WRS that processes urine must use a centrifuge for distillation, since gases and liquids do not separate like they do on Earth.

NASA is continuing to develop new technologies for water recovery. Research is being conducted to advance the disposable multifiltration beds (the filters that remove inorganic and non-volatile organic contaminants) to be a more permanent component to the system. Brine water recovery would reclaim every drop of the water from the “bottoms product” leftover from urine distillation. For future human-exploration missions, crews would be less dependent on any resupply of spare parts or extra water from Earth

The technology behind this system has been brought down to Earth to provide clean drinking water to remote locations and places devastated with natural disasters.

Oxygen Generation

Food, water, shelter: three essentials for survival on Earth. But there's a fourth we don't think about much, because it's freely available: oxygen. On Mars, Watney can’t just step outside for a breath of fresh air To survive, he has to carry his own supply of oxygen everywhere he goes. But first he has to make it. In his Hab he uses the “oxygenator,” a system that generates oxygen using the carbon dioxide from the MAV (Mars Ascent Vehicle) fuel generator.

On the International Space Station, the astronauts and cosmonauts have the Oxygen Generation System, which reprocesses the atmosphere of the spacecraft to continuously provide breathable air efficiently and sustainably. The system produces oxygen through a process called electrolysis, which splits water molecules into their component oxygen and hydrogen atoms. The oxygen is released into the atmosphere, while the hydrogen is either discarded into space or fed into the Sabatier System, which creates water from the remaining byproducts in the station's atmosphere.

Oxygen is produced at more substantial rate through a partially closed-loop system that improves the efficiency of how the water and oxygen are used. NASA is working to recover even more oxygen from byproducts in the atmosphere to prepare for the journey to Mars.

Mars Spacesuit

The Martian surface is not very welcoming for humans. The atmosphere is cold and there is barely any breathable air. An astronaut exploring the surface must wear a spacesuit to survive outside of a habitat while collecting samples and maintaining systems.

NASA invited the public to vote on three cover layer designs for the Z-2 prototype suit, the next step in NASA's advanced suit development program.
Credits: Fox/NASA

Mark Watney spends large portions of his Martian sols (a sol is a Martian day) working in a spacesuit. He ends up having to perform some long treks on the surface, so his suit has to be flexible, comfortable, and reliable.

NASA is currently developing the technologies to build a spacesuit that would be used on Mars. Engineers consider everything from traversing the Martian landscape to picking up rock samples.

The Z-2 and Prototype eXploration Suit, NASA’s new prototype spacesuits, help solve unique problems to advance new technologies that will one day be used in a suit worn by the first humans to set foot on Mars. Each suit is meant to identify different technology gaps – features a spacesuit may be missing – to complete a mission. Spacesuit engineers explore the tradeoff between hard composite materials and fabrics to find a nice balance between durability and flexibility.

One of the challenges of walking on Mars will be dealing with dust. The red soil on Mars could affect the astronauts and systems inside a spacecraft if tracked in after a spacewalk. To counter this, new spacesuit designs feature a suitport on the back, so astronauts can quickly hop in from inside a spacecraft while the suit stays outside, keeping it clean indoors.

Rover

Once humans land on the surface of Mars, they must stay there for more than a year, while the planets move into a position that will minimize the length of their trip home. This allows the astronauts plenty of time to conduct experiments and explore the surrounding area, but they won’t want to be limited to how far they can go on foot. Astronauts will have to use robust, reliable and versatile rovers to travel farther.

NASA is currently working to on a vehicle that will be able to navigate tough terrain with the Multi-Mission Space Exploration Vehicle (MMSEV).
Credits: Fox/NASA

In "The Martian," Watney takes his rover for quite a few spins, and he even has to outfit the vehicle with some unorthodox modifications to help him survive.

On Earth today, NASA is working to prepare for every encounter with the Multi-Mission Space Exploration Vehicle (MMSEV). The MMSEV has been used in NASA’s analog mission projects to help solve problems that the agency is aware of and to reveal some that may be hidden. The technologies are developed to be versatile enough to support missions to an asteroid, Mars, its moons and other missions in the future. NASA’s MMSEV has helped address issues like range, rapid entry/exit and radiation protection. Some versions of the vehicle have six pivoting wheels for maneuverability. In the instance of a flat tire, the vehicle simply lifts up the bad wheel and keeps on rolling.

Ion Propulsion
Slow and steady wins the race, and ion propulsion proves it.

While the Dawn spacecraft is visiting the asteroids Vesta and Ceres, NASA Glenn has been developing the next generation of ion thrusters for future missions. NASA's Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) Project has developed a 7-kilowatt ion thruster that can provide the capabilities needed in the future.

Credits: NASA

In “The Martian,” the Ares 3 crew lives aboard the Hermes spacecraft for months as they travel to and from the Red Planet, using ion propulsion as an efficient method of traversing through space for over 280 million miles. Ion propulsion works by electrically charging a gas such as argon or xenon and pushing out the ions at high speeds, about 200,000 mph. The spacecraft experiences a force similar to that of a gentle breeze, but by continuously accelerating for several years, celestial vessels can reach phenomenal speeds. Ion propulsion also allows the spacecraft to change its orbit multiple times, then break away and head for another distant world.

This technology allows modern day spacecraft like NASA’s Dawn Spacecraft to minimize fuel consumption and perform some crazy maneuvers. Dawn has completed more than five years of continuous acceleration for a total velocity change around 25,000 mph, more than any spacecraft has accomplished on its own propulsion system. Along the way, it has paid humanity's first visits to the dwarf planet Ceres and the asteroid Vesta.

Solar Panels

Solar panels on the International Space Station.

Credits: NASA

There are no gas stations on Mars. No power plants. Virtually no wind. When it comes to human missions to the Red Planet, solar energy can get the astronauts far. The Hermes spacecraft in the book uses solar arrays for power, and Mark Watney has to use solar panels in some unconventional ways to survive on Mars.

On the International Space Station, four sets of solar arrays generate 84 to 120 kilowatts of electricity – enough to power more than 40 homes. The station doesn’t need all that power, but the redundancy helps mitigate risk in case of a failure. The solar power system aboard the space station is very reliable, and has been providing power safely to the station since its first crew in 2000.

Orion, NASA’s spacecraft that will take humans farther than they’ve ever gone before, will use solar arrays for power in future missions. The arrays can gather power while in sunlight to charge onboard lithium-ion batteries. In case no sunlight is available – for instance, if Orion were to go behind the Moon – there would still be plenty of power to allow it to operate.

RTG

For more than four decades, NASA has safely used Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) to provide electrical power for two dozen space missions, including Apollo missions to the Moon. Spacecraft such as the Mars rover Curiosity and the upcoming Mars 2020 rover use an updated, next-generation model for electrical power.

RTGs are “space batteries” that convert heat from the natural radioactive decay of plutonium-238 into reliable electrical power. The RTG on Curiosity generates about 110 Watts of power or less – slightly more than an average light bulb uses.

In "The Martian," the crew buries the plutonium-based RTG power source for the Mars Ascent Vehicle far away from the Hab in case of radioactive leakage. To prevent any leak, as suggested in the movie, Plutonium-238 has several layers of strong, advanced materials that protect against release even in severe accidents. The RTG mostly emits alpha radiation, which can only travel a few inches in the air and does not penetrate clothing or human skin. It could only affect human health if it were broken into very fine particles or vaporized, and inhaled or ingested. The isotope is manufactured in a ceramic form, so accidentally inhaling or ingesting it is unlikely, particularly as it does not dissolve in liquids.

In reality, the natural radiation environment on Mars is more extreme than the radiation produced from an RTG. Ionizing radiation raining down on Mars from space is far more hazardous to human health. Current Mars missions are analyzing the Martian radiation environment so that mission planners can design protection systems for future astronauts.

Future explorers will need assured, reliable and durable power sources for survival in place before they arrive. Power system options might include a mix of more efficient radioisotope power systems, solar power, fuel cells, and nuclear fission.

The Journey to Mars

Human spaceflight is a dangerous business. NASA is working to send humans to Mars in the 2030s, but there are many milestones to accomplish to ensure that astronauts come back to Earth safely. Astronaut Scott Kelly, currently aboard the International Space Station for one year, put it perfectly: space is hard. The margin for error is virtually zero for every aspect of spaceflight. However, we learn so much along the journey to Mars that furthers our understanding of the universe, and everything we do and learn is brought right back to Earth to benefit humanity.

 

[Fenrir]

Inside the Launch Abort System Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, workers are preparing the Orion spacecraft that flew on Exploration Flight Test-1 in 2014 for transport to Orion prime contractor Lockheed Martin's facility in Denver, where it will undergo direct field acoustic testing. This is a technique used for acoustic testing of aerospace structures by subjecting them to sound waves created by an array of acoustic drivers. For the test, several electro-dynamic speakers will be arranged around Orion to provide a uniform, well-controlled, direct sound field test at the surface of the spacecraft. Orion will next launch atop NASA’s Space Launch System rocket on Exploration Mission-1.

Photo credit: NASA/Kennedy

Flown Orion Prepared for Move | NASA

 

[Fenrir]

*some non-space NASA stuffhttp://gizmodo.com/i-flew-with-nasa-to-study-the-california-drought-from-t-1723143618
http://gizmodo.com/i-flew-with-nasa-to-study-the-california-drought-from-t-1723143618
I Flew With NASA To Study the California Drought From the Sky

It didn’t look good. Dark sapphire pools dotted the bare gray peaks of the Sierras, ringed in too many concentric circles of sediment to count. As I flew above the mountains with NASA scientists on a tricked-out DC-8 plane, the effects of four years of drought were painfully evident to the naked eye. But it’s what we couldn’t see that we were here to study.

For a week this summer, NASA’s flying laboratory did loops over California as part of the Student Airborne Research Program, known as SARP. Students from all over the country work closely with the agency to collect data to study topics from industrial pollution to the health of local forests.

And for the past few years, the effects of California’s drought.

Of the six missions that flew this summer, most had some connection to the state’s increasingly arid climate, from the way agriculture affects air quality in the Central Valley, to the airborne pollution generated by the slow demise of the Salton Sea, the gigantic toxic lake east of Palm Springs.

One mission was of particular interest to me: The crew planned to fly over several agricultural sites in the Central Valley, then extremely close to the Sierra Nevada mountain range to examine the local impact of its nearly nonexistent snowpack. This was the flight I boarded on a blisteringly hot June afternoon.

A Flying Lab

About 60 miles north of LA, I pull up to a sand-colored corrugated metal complex fringed by Joshua trees. This is NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, situated adjacent to Edwards Air Force Base at the edge of the Mojave Desert.

The hangar at NASA Armstrong, filled with aircraft modified for science research

I enter through a giant hangar filled with aircraft departing on other NASA missions—the suborbital Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), which is a telescope mounted on a modified Boeing 747SP, is managed out of the Armstrong research center. Although Armstrong’s current focus is on atmospheric flight research and environmental science, there’s a wealth of NASA history here: It served as a test facility for several orbiters and as the alternate landing site for the Space Shuttle Program. I receive my flight training in a room flanked with spacesuits and crates labeled “cosmic dust project.”

After learning the major differences between an airborne science mission and a flight to Vegas—no beverage cart; deploying one’s oxygen mask involves putting a huge mylar bag over your head—I head to a conference room for the mission briefing.

Today’s flight path looked like someone threw a handful of cooked spaghetti against a map of California. What’s more, the plane would be making steep descents to gather air samples close to the ground—all over mountain passes with naturally turbulent air. We were in for a wild ride.

From the tarmac, NASA’s aircraft doesn’t look too different from your typical aging DC-8. But as you board, you start to see a few differences. Like the windows on one side of the plane, which have been popped out and replaced with a series of tubes spiking out the side.

Various remote-sensing tools and air sample collection devices cluster around the center of the DC-8

Inside, this is no cushy commercial airliner. The plane has been completely gutted, then loaded back up with a rotating lineup of scientific equipment that’s bolted to the aircraft’s shell. In the place of row 12, seats A, B and C are a wall of valves, flickering monitors, and nests of plastic tubes.

The vibe is somewhere between modern-day data center and 1980’s-era RV. A handful of old leather airline seats are sprinkled throughout, laced with the black cords of heavy-duty headsets with noise-canceling headphones. Without the insulating materials on a commercial aircraft, the noise is deafening; ear protection is a must.

Students and NASA scientists work side by side in the flying lab

Among the array of experiments strapped to the floor are tools like a LIDAR system to measure distance, devices that can gather air samples in mid-air, and remote-sensing instruments that can read the levels of particles like aerosol and methane. Other scientists work with NASA to get their experiments onboard the DC-8—the same plane flew to Kansas for a storm-chasing mission we covered here on Gizmodo.

Strapped in, headset on, the plane taxis to takeoff, sailing over the salt-crusted dry lakes of the high desert. After a few minutes we drop down into the green checkerboard of the Central Valley where we’re greeted by a thick layer of brown haze.

Science at 13,000 Feet

“Yesterday was rough, three people puked,” laughs Matthew Irish, a Climate Impact Engineering major at the University of Michigan. He’s crouched near the Whole Air Sampler (WAS), an instrument that slurps up tubes of air from outside the plane. The dozens of valves and canisters clustered around him make this part of the plane feel festive, like a high-tech microbrewery or helium tanks awaiting balloons.

Matthew Irish and Marilyn Jones fill air samples from a tube mounted on the outside of the plane

Irish’s role is to fill up an canister with air samples by slurping it up from the exterior and into the tubes, which they call snakes. “We actually have snakes on a plane,” he jokes. There’s really no other way to gather the samples—the plane must first be flying at a certain elevation and speed to take the air from the right place, and then he has to manually siphon the right amount of air into the canisters. He’s only got a very short window to take the sample.

His hand hovers over the valve, waiting for the OK from University of Missouri student Marilyn Jones. She sits on the floor next to him, holding an iPad with the same real-time navigational data from the cockpit. “Right now we’re at 13,000 which is pretty high, so we’re doing some low-frequency filling of the cans,” said Jones. “But down at 6,000 feet we’ll be doing it every minute.”

While the WAS canisters must be taken back to the lab for analysis, some of the instruments collect data in real-time, like the Ultra High Sensitivity Aerosol Spectrometer (UHSAS-a) which measures the small particulate matter. Other tools are able to detect gases like carbon monoxide, methane, and ozone levels. “There’s about 100 different trace gases we can look at,” says Irish. “I want to look at the greenhouse gases that are coming off the Bakersfield oil fields and over some dairy ranches.”

As Irish readies for his next pull, we make one of the hairpin turns I saw on the flight plan. I watch the horizon disappear as the plane lurches and dives ridiculously close to a granite-topped peak. I had forgotten all this time, but now I remember I’m on an airplane. My now-wobbly legs search for a seat. A few minutes later, I lost my lunch, too.

Focusing on Drought

Back at Armstrong’s flight center, I had noticed a calendar on the wall with a photo of California’s better days: a NASA satellite image from June 2011, the Sierras frosted with snow. Up here, sailing over 14,000 foot peaks only barely flecked white, it’s hard not to worry about water.

“It’s definitely in the back of our minds,” says John Murray, a student from Fordham University. “Anytime you get a meteorology report, there’s no precipitation, no humidity in the air. But it’s also because we’re doing a lot of climate-related research now that will be used to manage the drought or deal with climate change in the future.”

One of the many shrunken California reservoirs seen from the sky

Sometimes drought-related events even change the trajectory of the students’ research. Last year, the giant Rim Fire burning just outside Yosemite gave students the opportunity to fly through the smoke to take air quality readings. This year, they’re studying the debris from the fire-scarred area.

Another perennial drought-related topic is CO2 flux. Andreas Beyersdorf works on the Atmospheric Vertical Observations of CO2 in the Earth’s Troposphere (AVOCET) instrument installed on the DC-8. On this mission AVOCET was looking at the CO2 levels in agricultural vs. forested areas, and comparing that information to various imaging data.

While satellites are helpful for some tasks, AVOCET is able to track specific air masses. So they can take samplings in the LA Basin then see how those might change downwind in the Imperial Valley, for example, tracking the type and health of the vegetation below the entire way. “Here we can have a full sweep of all the chemistry and how it all interacts,” Beyersdorf says.

Nailing the right flight lines to gather samples in a DC-8 is not easy but the pilots are pros

As we fly, the scientists provide real-time commentary on that chemistry. Every few minutes someone would report spikes in ozone, carbon dioxide, or methane, geotagging the data to look at correlations on the ground later. There’s lots of methane wafting up from below. In fact, it’s lack of water—or rather, the lack of water decimating plant life—that’s likely to blame for the vat of pollution that’s parked on the eastern flank of the Central Valley today.

As we land, I start to realize that the drought is not just about depleted reservoirs. It’s also affecting air quality in ways that we probably don’t even understand yet.

Cannibalistic Trees

For the last few years SARP has collected extensive CO2 flux data in local forests, giving NASA fairly complete pictures of tree life before and after the drought. The health of the water-starved Sierra forest was top of mind for Jessica Mazzi, a biology major at Portland State University. Her SARP study looked at CO2 flux changes over time in plants due to insufficient water.

She could see what appeared to be dead or dying trees from the plane so she began by using remote-sensing towers and air samples to look at CO2 uptake around trees that visually looked dead to see if they were indeed photosynthesizing. “I started comparing different years and it looked like there was an overall decrease in photosynthesis,” she says. In some cases she was seeing as much as a 50% decrease in photosynthesis over three years.

A slide from Mazzi’s study showing the decrease in CO2 uptake from the same flight lines year after year

It was not only the overall decrease that concerned her; it was when the trees were photosynthesizing—all the activity was happening far earlier than solar noon. After this point they’d switch to respiration, which means they’d take in oxygen instead of producing it, and give off tons of carbon dioxide and water. The drought-stressed trees were essentially devouring the food they made. “This is so gory,” she says, “But the trees are dying off from eating themselves alive.”

Reports earlier this year estimated that the drought had already killed 12 million trees, and Mazzi believed it—she saw it the evidence for herself. “These are giant trees, 20, 30 years old, and they’re totally dead. It was crazy to see.”

Like snowpack stores our future water, trees “store” our future oxygen. They also act as a carbon sink. Forests weakened by drought are actually pumping CO2 back in to the atmosphere. But dead trees pose an even greater danger. As Mazzi concluded her study, two big climate-related events occurred: Very confident forecasts were released for a giant El Niño and a record-breaking wildfire season ignited the western third of the continent. “There are two extremes we have to consider now,” says Mazzi. “It’s been dry for so long, so when rain does come, how is it going to drain properly? But fire is the bigger risk.”

You can see all the studies which came out of SARP this year, some of which explain the potential devastation of these wildfire vs. El Niño drought finales. In the bigger picture, it may not only be the lack of water that will have the biggest impact on our environment. The long-term effects to our health and well-being are likely still to be discovered.

Satellite images NASA; footage courtesy NSERC ARC-CREST; photos by Jane Peterson, National Suborbital Education and Research Center and Alissa Walker

 

[Fenrir]

Cassini's Final Breathtaking Close Views of Dione

Cassini's Final Breathtaking Close Views of Dione | NASA

This view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft looks toward Saturn's icy moon Dione, with giant Saturn and its rings in the background, just prior to the mission's final close approach to the moon on August 17, 2015.

A pockmarked, icy landscape looms beneath NASA's Cassini spacecraft in new images of Saturn's moon Dione taken during the mission's last close approach to the small, icy world. Two of the new images show the surface of Dione at the best resolution ever.

Cassini passed 295 miles (474 kilometers) above Dione's surface at 11:33 a.m. PDT (2:33 p.m. EDT) on Aug. 17. This was the fifth close encounter with Dione during Cassini's long tour at Saturn. The mission's closest-ever flyby of Dione was in Dec. 2011, at a distance of 60 miles (100 kilometers).

The full set of images released today is available at: Images taken by the flyby Collection Type

"I am moved, as I know everyone else is, looking at these exquisite images of Dione's surface and crescent, and knowing that they are the last we will see of this far-off world for a very long time to come," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team lead at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado. "Right down to the last, Cassini has faithfully delivered another extraordinary set of riches. How lucky we have been."

Dione hangs in front of Saturn and its icy rings in this view, captured during Cassini's final close flyby of the icy moon. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Raw, unprocessed images from the flyby are available at:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/flybys/dione20150817/

The main scientific focus of this flyby was gravity science, not imaging. This made capturing the images tricky, as Cassini's camera was not controlling where the spacecraft pointed.

"We had just enough time to snap a few images, giving us nice, high resolution looks at the surface," said Tilmann Denk, a Cassini participating scientist at Freie University in Berlin. "We were able to make use of reflected sunlight from Saturn as an additional light source, which revealed details in the shadows of some of the images."

NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured this parting view showing the rough and icy crescent of Saturn's moon Dione following the spacecraft's last close flyby of the moon on Aug. 17, 2015. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Cassini scientists will study data from the gravity science experiment and magnetosphere and plasma science instruments over the next few months as they look for clues about Dione's interior structure and processes affecting its surface.

Only a handful of close flybys of Saturn's large, icy moons remain for Cassini. The spacecraft is scheduled to make three approaches to the geologically active moon Enceladus on Oct. 14 and 28, and Dec. 19. During the Oct. 28 flyby, the spacecraft will come dizzyingly close to Enceladus, passing a mere 30 miles (49 kilometers) from the surface. Cassini will make its deepest-ever dive through the moon's plume of icy spray at this time, collecting valuable data about what's going on beneath the surface. The December Enceladus encounter will be Cassini's final close pass by that moon, at an altitude of 3,106 miles (4,999 kilometers).

After December, and through the mission's conclusion in late 2017, there are a handful of distant flybys planned for Saturn's large, icy moons at ranges of less than about 30,000 miles (50,000 kilometers). Cassini will, however, make nearly two dozen passes by a menagerie of Saturn's small, irregularly shaped moons -- including Daphnis, Telesto, Epimetheus and Aegaeon -- at similar distances during this time. These passes will provide some of Cassini's best-ever views of the little moons.

Saturn's moon Dione hangs in front of Saturn's rings in this view taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during the inbound leg of its last close flyby of the icy moon. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

During the mission's final year -- called its Grand Finale -- Cassini will repeatedly dive through the space between Saturn and its rings.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages the mission for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The Cassini imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

As Cassini soared above high northern latitudes on Saturn's moon Dione, the spacecraft looked down at a region near the day-night boundary. This view shows the region as a contrast-enhanced image in which features in shadow are illuminated by reflected light from Saturn. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

 

[Fenrir]

Curiosity Low-Angle Self-Portrait at 'Buckskin' Drilling Site on Mount Sharp

Curiosity Low-Angle Self-Portrait at 'Buckskin' Site on Mount Sharp | NASA

This low-angle self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle above the "Buckskin" rock target, where the mission collected its seventh drilled sample. The site is in the "Marias Pass" area of lower Mount Sharp.

 

[Fenrir]

Dammit, Congress: Just Buy NASA its Own Space Taxi, Already

Ever since the shuttle program ended, NASA has been paying Russia to ferry U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station. But the price-per-seat aboard Russia’s spacecraft has gotten ridiculous. The solution is clear and cost-effective: The US needs its own space taxis. So why won’t Congress pay for it?

When the Space Shuttles retired, NASA planned on replacing their functionality by subsidizing the development of private spacecraft, by companies like SpaceX and Boeing, with its Commercial Crew Program and Commercial Resupply Services contracts. These programs would help pay for spacecraft that would carry crew and cargo to the International Space Station, respectively.

So far, The Commercial Resupply Service has worked out great. Yes, occasionally an explosion destroys a payload, but that’s to be expected; spaceflight is hard and everyone’s rocket veers off-course sometimes. But for the most part, the astronauts have been kept well-supplied with coffee and experiments.

But NASA is having a much harder time getting the Commercial Crew Program off the ground. The Commercial Crew Program is an incremental development program where private companies compete to meet specific development milestones in constructing spacecraft to fulfill NASA’s human spaceflight needs. The program is down to just two vehicles—both the Boeing Corporation’s CST-100 and the SpaceX Crew Dragon are contracted to finish certification and start carrying astronauts to the International Space Station. Both vehicles are performing well, and each has passed qualification tests. Meanwhile, the International Space Station is being modified so that the space taxis will be able to dock in low-Earth orbit. Conceptually, the Commercial Crew Program looks a lot like the Commercial Resupply program. So what’s the holdup?

Money.

Engine testing for the CST-100. Image credit: Boeing Corporation

When the Commercial Crew Program first showed up as a line item in the 2011 budget, NASA planned on spending $6-billion over five years to develop a pair of space taxis and send their first crew to the ISS in 2015. The private companies are doing great hitting every milestone on their timelines. But the the slated date for a crewed voyage—currently scheduled for no earlier than November 2017—keeps getting delayed.

Not-so-coincidentally, every year NASA’s budget for the Commercial Crew Program has been smaller than the requested levels. The 2012 request of $850-million was funded to just $397-million; the 2013 budget request of $830-million was funded to only $520 million. The pattern follows year after year, delaying the commercial crew program and requiring yet more rented seats on the Roscosmos Soyuz spacecraft. In a 2013 audit of the Commercial Crew Program, the Office of the Inspector General wrote:

The combination of a future flat-funding profile and lower-than-expected levels of funding over the past 3 years may delay the first crewed launch beyond 2017 and closer to 2020, the current expected end of the operational life of the ISS.

Pad abort test for the Crew Dragon. Image credit: SpaceX

NASA’s budget for the Commercial Crew Program keeps getting raided to pay for rental seats on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, the only current option for sending astronauts into space. We’re shelling out so much in renting Soyuz seats that we’re delaying development of Boeing’s CST-100 and SpaceX’s crew Dragon spacecraft. In doing so, we maintain an American presence on the space station while denying building capacity to maintain that presence in the future. It’s a classic case of short-term penny-pinching resulting in long-term cost.

NASA is unamused by this state of affairs. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden wrote an open letter to Congress on August 5, 2015, scolding them over how their lack of vision is crippling the future of human spaceflight in America. The letter starts:

Across the United States, aerospace engineers are building a new generation of spacecraft and rockets that will define modern American spaceflight. The safe, reliable, and cost-effective solutions being developed here at home will allow for more astronauts to conduct research aboard the space station, enable new jobs, and ensure U.S. leadership in spaceflight this century. The fastest path to bringing these new systems online, launching from America, and ending our sole reliance on Russia is fully funding NASA’s Commercial Crew Program in [fiscal year] 2016.

The funding request of $1,243.8 million ($1.2 billion) is required to keep up with the contract terms, yet the Senate is currently proposing just $900-million ($0.9 billion), and the House of Representatives isn’t feeling that much more generous. Boeing and SpaceX are both racing along hitting their certification goals, but will run up short if NASA doesn’t have the money to keep paying out at the development milestones. If NASA can’t pay up, they’ll need to renegotiate the contracts and likely end up spending more money in the long run than it would cost to meet the budget request now.

Hitching a ride on the Russian Soyuz is getting ever more expensive. Image credit: NASA

Meanwhile, demand for seats on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft—the only human transport currently making trips to the International Space Station—has driven price of admittance to astronomical levels. In 2010, the price was $25-million per seat. The price jumped to $43-million in the last half of 2011, $60-million in 2016, and was a staggering $76.3-million per seat for the contract just signed to carry astronauts into orbit through 2017. Between 2012 and 2017, NASA will pay Roscosmos $2.1-billion to ferry astronauts to the space station on Soyuz. The latest contract will cost $458-million for six seats in 2017—more than enough to cover the gap between NASA’s budget request and Congress’s counter-proposal.

In sharp contrast to that $76-million-per-seat pricetag for Soyuz, NASA will only need to pay $58-million per seat to ship astronauts off-planet with the Crew Dragon or the CST-100. At seven astronauts per vehicle, that’s a savings of $126-million for every fully-loaded flight, with up to six flights per carrier before the fixed-price contract expires. If NASA receives its full request and can hold up their end of the contract without getting stuck in an unfavorable renegotiation, switching from Soyuz to the Commercial Crew Program taxis will immediately and dramatically increase the number of astronauts we can send to space within the limited space station crew transportation budget. And if we don’t, a righteously angry Bolden points out we’re going to keep throwing money away:

By gutting this program and turning our backs on U.S. industry, NASA will be forced to continue to rely on Russia to get its astronauts to space – and continue to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into the Russian economy rather than our own.

Interior of the Crew Dragon. Image credit: SpaceX

It’s ridiculous. The Commercial Cargo program is working great, and the industry partners for the Commercial Crew program are ready and roaring to go if we just keep funding them. The cost-saving of functional space taxis is nearly immediate: just three fully-loaded flights would save more than Congress is currently quibbling at allocating for the upcoming budget year. With the constant short-changing of the Commercial Crew Program, the only logical conclusion is that Congress doesn’t really want an American-developed, -constructed, and -operated space taxi, but a second-hand Russian Soyuz.

If we just fully fund the Commercial Crew Program for one year, we’ll be done and have a pair of space taxis to transport astronauts to the International Space Station. Suck it up and pay out, Congress: we’ve waited for the CST-100 and the Crew Dragon for too long already.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

NASA Spacecraft Confirms Long-Held Suspicion Of Neon In The Moon's Atmosphere : SCIENCE : Tech Times

Neon lights on the moon? Not quite, but NASA scientists say data from a lunar orbiter has confirmed the presence of neon in our cosmic companion's atmosphere.

NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer spacecraft, or Ladee, which spent seven months in orbit around the moon in late 2013, made the first-ever detection of neon in the thin lunar atmosphere.

Thin is the operative word when it comes to the lunar atmosphere, properly an "exosphere" because it's so tenuous — around 100 trillion times less dense than our planet's atmosphere at sea level, space agency scientists point out.

The detection confirmed for the first time what researchers have suspected since the 1970s and the Apollo missions, that noble gases like helium and argon — and neon — are present above the surface of the moon.

Those three elements make up most of the lunar atmosphere, likely coming to the moon in the solar wind of particles that bathe both the moon and the Earth.

"We were very pleased to not only finally confirm [neon's] presence, but to show that it is relatively abundant," says Mehdi Benna of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Measurements by the Neutral Mass Spectrometer instrument aboard the Ladee spacecraft showed the relative abundance of the three noble gases in the moon's exosphere changed at different times during the lunar day, the researchers said.

Argon peaked at the lunar sunrise, they explained, while neon was most abundant around 4 a.m. and helium at 1 a.m.

Not all of the gases are from the solar wind, they noted; some are likely coming from lunar rocks.

Argon results from the decay of naturally occurring radioactive potassium-40, found in rocks on the lunar surface.

Around 20 percent of the helium detected by Ladee "is coming from the moon itself, most likely as the result from the decay of radioactive thorium and uranium, also found in lunar rocks," says Benna.

Since most atmospheres around planets and moons in our solar systems are exospheres — the Earth being the notable exception — scientists are glad of any chance to learn more about them.

That chance may be a fleeting one when it comes to the moon, says Benna, as future human missions there, whether by robotic spacecraft like Ladee or perhaps permanent human settlement, could disturb the exosphere through rocket exhaust or emissions from a permanent base.

"It's critical to learn about the lunar exosphere before sustained human exploration substantially alters it," he says.

 

[Fenrir]

NASA-Funded MOSES-2 Sounding Rocket to Investigate Coronal Heating

MOSES-2 Sounding Rocket to Investigate Coronal Heating | NASA

Engineers work on the final steps of integrating the MOSES-2 sounding rocket payload. The rocket, which will launch from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico August 25, is carrying an instrument called the Multi-Order Solar EUV Spectrograph, or MOSES-2. This instrument will be used to take images of the sun in extreme ultraviolet light on its 15-minute flight into space. Taking these kinds of images is impossible from the ground, since Earth’s atmosphere blocks all extreme ultraviolet light .Credits: NASA

A NASA-funded sounding rocket is getting ready to launch to give insight into one of the biggest mysteries in solar physics—the fact the sun's atmosphere is some 1,000 times hotter than its surface. The mission, developed by scientists and students at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana, will make a 15-minute journey into space on a Black Brant IX suborbital sounding rocket. During its trip, it will take images of the sun in the extreme ultraviolet, or EUV, which can't be seen from the ground due to Earth’s EUV-blocking atmosphere.

The Multi-Order Solar EUV Spectrograph, or MOSES-2, launch will be investigating the transition region of the sun, the layer of material where the photosphere—the layer of the sun we see—becomes the corona.

“The transition region is a pretty interesting place,” said Charles Kankelborg, principal investigator for MOSES-2 at Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana.

The so-called coronal heating problem is based in the fact that the sun produces energy by fusing hydrogen at its center -- so material generally gets cooler as you move outward from that incredibly hot core. The one exception is the sun’s atmosphere, the corona. Though the corona is farther from the core than any other part of the sun, it is unexpectedly hotter than many of the layers below. Scientists have proposed several theories to explain this mystery heating, ranging from the possibility of thousands of mini solar flares to complicated magnetic wave processes.

This graphic shows a model of the layers of the Sun, with approximate mileage ranges for each layer: for the inner layers, the mileage is from the sun's core; for the outer layers, the mileage is from the sun's surface. Credits: National Solar Observatory

Kankelborg and his team are hoping to catch images of an explosive event in the transition region, one possible cause of coronal heating. Similar to a solar flare, such explosive events are thought to be caused by magnetic reconnection, a sometimes violent process in which magnetic field lines disconnect and reconfigure, releasing energy and heat. The MOSES team says that watching magnetic reconnection may well be easier in the transition region that it is in the larger solar flares.

“It’s very difficult to see the actual magnetic reconnection in a solar flare,” said Kankelborg. “Solar flares happen in the sun's upper atmosphere, the corona, where material is relatively sparse, so there’s not much stuff there to let off light and show us what’s happening.”

On the other hand, the transition region is relatively dense, meaning that researchers have a chance to observe magnetic reconnection more directly if they catch an explosive event.

The MOSES-2 instrument is finely tuned to see material in this region. Because different elements emit light at different temperatures and wavelengths, scientists can focus on a particular temperature—and therefore a particular layer of material—by taking images in a corresponding wavelength. MOSES-2 is configured to take pictures at 465 Angstroms, which represents material at a temperature of about 900,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

MOSES-2 will begin taking data when the rocket reaches a height of around 100 miles, 107 seconds after launch. Even 100 miles above the surface, there is still enough atmosphere that only about half of the sun’s EUV light is visible. However, at the peak of the rocket’s flight, nearly 187 miles in altitude, there is so little atmospheric material that any EUV light blocking is negligible. The total flight time is around 15 minutes, with about five minutes of data collection.

Though the period of data collection is short, sounding rockets are a valuable way to access space for a low cost.

“For about one percent of the cost of a satellite mission, you can spend five minutes taking data in space,” said Kankelborg. “It’s a great way to demonstrate cutting-edge instruments and new ways of doing science.”

The lower budget and shorter timeline of sounding rocket missions also make them ideal for university and student involvement.

The MOSES-2 sounding rocket payload undergoes final testing in preparation for its August 25 launch from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The sounding rocket will fly for 15 minutes, carrying the Multi-Order Soalr EUV Spectrograph, or MOSES-2, instrument. MOSES-2 will take images of the sun in extreme ultraviolet light from outside Earth’s atmosphere. It is impossible to take these kinds of images from Earth, since Earth’s atmosphere blocks all extreme ultraviolet light. Credits: NASA

“In a university setting, it’s easier to run a research program based on sounding rocket missions than satellite missions,” said Kankelborg. “You can get students involved in building instruments hands-on.” Three students from the Montana State University MOSES-2 team will attend the launch at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

The launch window for MOSES-2 opens on Aug. 25, and the team will wait for favorable weather conditions before launching. This is the second flight for the MOSES instrument. In 2006, MOSES flew on a sounding rocket to make similar observations of the sun, but in a different wavelength. The team plans to fly MOSES a third time in 2018 along with a new spectrograph to make more observations of the transition region.

The MOSES-2 launch is supported through NASA’s Sounding Rocket Program at the Goddard Space Flight Center’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. NASA’s Heliophysics Division manages the sounding rocket program.

 

[Fenrir]

On Course to the Stars: James Webb Space Telescope Shaping Up for 2018 Launch

On Course to the Stars: James Webb Space Telescope Shaping Up for 2018 Launch « AmericaSpace

From ESA: “This image shows two polished test mirror segments being inspected by an optical engineer: one segment with the gold coating already applied, the other without. In the meantime, the coating of all 18 mirrors has been completed.” Photo Credit: NASA/C. Gunn

While the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) recently celebrated 25 years in orbit and keeps returning astounding images of our universe, another space telescope continues to undergo rounds of testing and design throughout this year. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), recently completed its first round of “pathfinder” tests. In addition, a NASA publication announced that the telescope’s Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) has entered its final sequence of pre-delivery environmental tests, while Northrop Grumman has made further progress on designing the primary mirror’s backplane support structure.

ESA also showcased a photo of the telescope’s test mirror segments. Because the telescope would be too heavy to launch if its mirror was conventionally fabricated in one single piece, the mirror will consist of 18 relatively lightweight, gold-coated, hexagonal-shaped segments. A special telescope requires a special design, and the James Webb Space Telescope underscores that sentiment.

While Hubble operates at near-infrared, visible light, and ultraviolet wavelengths in low-Earth orbit, JWST will operate near the second Lagrangian point (L2) in a “halo” orbit (approximately 930,000 miles from Earth), and mainly in near- to mid-infrared wavelengths. Some of the telescope’s components will require extreme cooling to function properly, and it will employ an innovative layered sunshield described as being able to “[attenuate] heat from the Sun more than a million times.” Because of the extreme environment the telescope will be exposed to, its components must undergo extensive testing prior to its launch, scheduled to take place in October 2018 aboard an Ariane 5 launch vehicle from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. When deployed and operational, it will be the largest space telescope (approximately the size of a Boeing 737, with its large sunshield deployed), and undoubtedly the most complex of its kind.

Here is a summary of the progress recently made on JWST.

First pathfinder test completed: NASA announced that the first of three pathfinder tests is completed. According to the space agency, the tests “ … are designed to verify the operation of the support and test equipment as well as check critical alignment and test procedures, train personnel, and improve test efficiency in preparation for the final, full scale flight testing of JWST scheduled for Winter, 2016-2017.”

From NASA: “The sunshield on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is the largest part of the observatory—five layers of thin, silvery membrane that must unfurl reliably in space. The precision in which the tennis-court sized sunshield has to open must be no more than a few centimeters different from its planned position. In this photo, engineers and scientists examine the sunshield layers on this full-sized test unit.” Photo Credit: Alex Evers/Northrop Grumman Corporation

The first test, designated Optical Ground Support Equipment Test 1 (OGSE1), was conducted in a large vacuum chamber at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. NASA reported that during this time, engineers operated test equipment essential to JWST with success, including the Center of Curvature Optical Assembly (COCOA) interferometer system, a photogrammetry system, and over 500 thermal sensors and cryogenic accelerometers. The COCOA system is especially important in that it helps the telescope produce properly aligned single images.

These tests were conducted at similar conditions to what the telescope will actually experience at L2. NASA stated, “JWST will operate under high vacuum and at a nominal temperature of about 40K (-387F) as the observatory is shadowed from the Sun’s heat by its large sunshield.” Analyses of these test results are currently underway.

More rounds of tests will be ordered well before the telescope is launched into space. OGSE2 is scheduled for fall this year and, according to NASA, “will add the flight Aft-Optics-System (AOS) incorporating the flight tertiary and fine steering mirrors as well as a set of precisely located sources (AOS Source Plate Assembly, or ASPA) which will be imaged through the telescope system.” OGSE2 is scheduled for spring 2016.

ISIM enters final round of environmental tests: JWST’s Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) has reached a major milestone: Its final pre-delivery environmental tests. According to NASA these tests will verify how well the ISIM, which carries JWST’s scientific instruments, will stand up to stressors including but not limited to launch, electromagnetic compatibility with launch and in-flight equipment, and extreme conditions at L2.

NASA photo, 2014: “The James Webb Space Telescope’s ISIM structure recently endured a ‘gravity sag test’ as it was rotated in what looked like giant cube in a NASA clean room.” The ISIM is entering its final round of environmental tests. Photo Credit: NASA/C. Gunn

In June, the ISIM completed the first round of the final tests, which included vibration tests of the “ISIM prime” module. The ISIM will soon undergo Electromagnetic Interference/Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMI/EMC) tests, and an extensive cryo-vacuum test to duplicate the conditions the component will experience in space. These tests are scheduled to be complete in early 2016; after completion, the ISIM will be delivered to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center to be integrated with JWST’s Optical Telescope Element.

NASA stated that following two successful cryo-vacuum campaigns, the ISIM underwent upgrades bringing it to full flight readiness (a full list of these upgrades is included in this NASA publication). At present time, NASA reports that the ISIM is in is “full final state” before the telescope’s launch.

From NASA on Flickr: “This rendering of the James Webb Space Telescope is current to 2015.” Image Credit: Northrop Grumman Corporation

JWST’s backplane support structure takes shape: JWST’s primary mirror backplane support structure (PMBSS) has been referred to as its all-important “skeleton.” Because the telescope would be too heavy to launch if its mirror was fabricated in one piece, its mirrors must be folded and stowed on launch in order to fit into an Ariane 5’s fairing (the Ariane 5 ECA has a diameter of five meters). Northrop Grumman has been making progress on assembly of this structure, which has a center that supports 12 mirror segments, with two “wings” that support three mirrors each. The PMBSS will also house the ISIM, and too will be exposed to extreme low-temperature conditions in deep space.

At present time, NASA has divulged that “assembly and alignment of the telescope structure had been completed,” and is undergoing performance testing. The structure will be shipped to Goddard, where it will have its 18 mirror segments installed in a painstaking process employing robotic arms. In early 2016, it will receive the ISIM component. NASA announced they will broadcast the placement of the mirror segments live from Goddard’s cleanroom; those interested can check out the “WebbCam” at JWST’s website (jwst.nasa.gov).

ESA showcases photo of test mirror segments: JWST will capture light using a mirror assembly with a diameter of 6.5 meters. ESA, who will be operating JWST with NASA and CSA, emphasized why this large mirror and the low operating temperatures are crucial: “The telescope and the instruments will be kept permanently in the shadow of an enormous sunshield and maintained at temperatures around or lower than –233 °C [-387 °F] . These combined attributes of a very large mirror and very low operating temperatures are crucial for these infrared measurements of very distant stars and galaxies.”

ESA stated that the 18 mirrors will be constructed from beryllium, which was described as being “lightweight yet strong.” The mirrors will then be coated with a thin, reflective gold layer, and will be protected by glass. When completed, mirrors will be mounted on the PMBSS; its two wings will be folded to fit inside the Ariane 5’s fairing. Following launch the telescope will “spread its wings,” and unfold to its full diameter.

A full list of design milestones completed, and ones in the pipeline waiting to be completed, can be found on NASA’s JWST website.

 

[Fenrir]

Watching NASA Crash a Bunch of Stuff Is the Best Use of Tax Dollars

Real-life crashes are terrifying, but simulated crashes are not only important for safety research, they’re also really, really fun to watch. So NASA’s Langley Research Center posted this montage of crash tests that’s as good a way as any to start a Tuesday morning.

Originally built way back in 1965 to test the lunar landing module and touchdown procedures for the Apollo moon missions, the 240-foot high, 400-foot long Landing Impact and Research Facility at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, is now used for crashing everything from rover landers, to planes, to helicopters.

It almost looks like the ultimate toy for anyone who deliberately put their Hot Wheels cars or toy trains on a crash course as a kid. But there’s some legitimate science being done at this facility. Which means that, yes, people actually get paid to crash stuff here—best job in the world

 

[Fenrir]

Back to the Ice Giants: Proposed New Mission Would Re-Visit Uranus or Neptune (or Both!)

Back to the Ice Giants: Proposed New Mission Would Re-Visit Uranus or Neptune (or Both!) « AmericaSpace

Uranus (left) and Neptune (right). These two ice giants and their many moons are awaiting further exploration. Image Credit: NASA

The outer Solar System has been a busy place lately, with the ongoing Cassini mission at Saturn and New Horizons’ recent spectacular flyby of Pluto. Literally in-between those two worlds, however, it has been quiet for a long time now – the last time the ice giants Uranus and Neptune were visited was 26 years ago yesterday, when the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew past Neptune. There have been no new missions to these worlds since then, but if a new proposed mission gets the green light, that may change in the not-too-distant future.

Jim Green, head of NASA’s planetary sciences, announced that NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) will now be studying a possible flagship mission to return to Uranus and/or Neptune. The news was announced at the Outer Planets Assessment Group meeting in Laurel, Maryland.

The rings of Uranus. Like Saturn, Uranus and Neptune (as well as Jupiter) are known to have ring systems, but they are much fainter and less prominent. Image Credit: Lawrence Sromovsky (Univ. Wisconsin-Madison)/Keck Observatory

“I’ve asked [the Jet Propulsion Laboratory] to initiate an ice giant study,” Green said.

NASA’s director of planetary science, – See more at: NASA To Study Uranus, Neptune Orbiters - SpaceNews.com it goes forward, this would be the next major Solar System mission since the Mars 2020 Rover and the Europa Multiple Flyby Mission (formerly called Europa Clipper). There is also the Juno mission currently en route to Jupiter, but it is scheduled to end by 2018. Flagship missions are larger and more complex than smaller-scale missions, designed for in-depth, ongoing study of planets and moons. Previous ones have included Cassini, Galileo and Voyager. The Cassini mission will also end in 2017, when the fuel finally runs out and the spacecraft plunges into the gas giant’s atmosphere, as planned. This new mission, if approved, should cost less than $2 billion, according to Green.

The as-yet unnamed mission could use the massive Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, now being built and tested, to get to Uranus or Neptune faster than was previously possible, although would probably still be later in the 2020s. Even, it would be unlikely to close the so-called “50-year gap,” the time between the last visit to the ice giants and the predicted return to them.

There was one previous mission proposal to return to Neptune, called Argo, but it never got off the ground due to a limited supply of plutonium, which missions to the outer Solar System use since there is not enough solar energy available at such great distances from the Sun. Argo could have launched in a timeframe of 2015 to 2020, but it is now too late for that. Argo would have required gravity assists from Jupiter and Saturn to speed up the spacecraft, but that is no longer an option at this late stage. There is now, however, funding again for plutonium, making such long journey possible again. Of course, all of this is dependant on funding, as well.

Neptune’s largest moon Triton has unusual “cantaloupe” terrain and geysers of nitrogen. Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Just like the Jupiter and Saturn systems, Uranus and Neptune are of great interest to planetary scientists as they are also like miniature solar systems, with many moons of wide geological variety. They are similar in composition, with atmospheres composed primarily of hydrogen and helium, along with traces of hydrocarbons and possibly nitrogen, as well as water, methane and ammonia ices. The interiors are mostly ice and rock. Altogether, Neptune has at least 14 known moons and Uranus has 27.

Triton, Neptune’s largest moon, has active plumes or “geysers” of nitrogen erupting from ice volcanoes (cryovolcanoes). Something like the geysers on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, except those one are spewing water vapor and ice particles instead of nitrogen. So far, Triton has only been visited by one spacecraft, Voyager, and only one side was imaged in high-resolution. Even so, scientists have already seen tantalizing glimpses of this fascinating world, with weird “cantaloupe” terrain and the geysers as well as a possible subsurface ocean. The major science objectives of studying Triton closer include the interior structure, surface geology, surface composition and atmosphere, the plumes and Triton’s interaction with Neptune’s magnetosphere. Due to the scarcity of craters, Triton’s surface is thought to be quite young, only about 10-100 million years, meaning that the moon is still geologically active. Triton is also thought to possible be a dwarf planet captured by Neptune’s gravity, rather than forming in place, due to its unusual retrograde orbit.

The five main moons of Uranus are Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon. They’re combined mass would be less than half that of Triton. The largest, Titania, has a radius less than half that of our own Moon. They don’t appear to be geologically active now, but Miranda has obvious signs of past activity, with deep canyons, terraced layers and a chaotic variation in surface ages and features. It looks like bits of different moons all randomly mashed together. The moon also has the tallest known cliff in the Solar System, Verona Rupes, which is 3-6 miles (5-10 kilometers) in height.

Uranus’ moon Miranda shows signs of past geological activity, with deep canyons and other chaotic terrain. Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

There is an extensive overview of the scientific goals of OPAG, including the continued study of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and geologically active moons such as Europa, Enceladus, Titan, Io, Ganymede and Triton. Many of these moons are known or suspected to have subsurface oceans of water, making them potentially habitable and prime targets for astrobiology and the search for evidence of life elsewhere in the Solar System, even if just microscopic. Some of the primary goals include:

• Study origin and evolution of our Solar System – giant planet migration, with major complementarity with exoplanets
• Investigate habitability of icy worlds – to gain insight into the origin of life on earth
• Understand the dynamic nature of processes in our Solar System – importance of time domain
• Explore giant planet processes and properties
• Use giant planets to further our understanding of other planets and extrasolar planetary systems
• Determine giant planets’ influences on habitability

Before moving forward, the proposed mission will need to be endorsed by planetary scientists in the 2022 decadal.

“I’m sure they will,” Green said. “They’re very worthy.”

Uranus and Neptune are both jewels in the outer Solar System, just waiting for further exploration; if the new proposal becomes reality, we may get a chance to do just that after all. It was once thought that the outer Solar System was a relatively dead place geologically speaking, too far from the Sun for much if any activity to be going on. But as the in-depth studies of Jupiter and Saturn have shown, that is not the case at all, with a wide variety of worlds including ones with oceans under their surfaces. Very likely, and has been hinted at so far, the same can be said about the Uranus and Neptune systems as well.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Dawn spacecraft sends sharpest images of Ceres yet | ExtremeTech

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has been sending back images of the dwarf planet Ceres for several months now, but the latest are the clearest ones to date. Dawn entered close orbit of Ceres back on March 6th. The planet is now believed to be 584 miles in diameter (down from a pre-mission estimate of 590). It’s located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, which makes it the only dwarf planet inside the orbit of Pluto. This new set of photos, taken from an orbital altitude of 915 miles, show off Ceres’ tall, conical mountain, as well as some braided fractures and the appearance of crater formation.

“Dawn is performing flawlessly in this new orbit as it conducts its ambitious exploration. The spacecraft’s view is now three times as sharp as in its previous mapping orbit, revealing exciting new details of this intriguing dwarf planet,” said Marc Rayman, Dawn’s chief engineer and mission director at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, in a statement.

Currently, Dawn can record and send back images in 11-day cycles, each of which consists of 14 orbits. NASA said the spacecraft is using its framing camera to map the surface of Ceres for 3D modeling, and that each image has a resolution of 450 feet per pixel and represents less than one percent of the surface. The spacecraft is also using its visible and infrared spectrometer to collect mineral data.

This video, released a few weeks ago, lets you tour the surface of Ceres and get a closer look at the mysterious bright spots in the Occator crater and the aforementioned cone-shaped mountain:

That mountain should have roughly the same four-mile elevation as the highest mountain in the US: Mount McKinley in Denali National Park, Alaska.

“This mountain is among the tallest features we’ve seen on Ceres to date,” said Dawn science team member Paul Schenk, a geologist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, in a statement from JPL. “It’s unusual that it’s not associated with a crater. Why is it sitting in the middle of nowhere? We don’t know yet, but we may find out with closer observations.”

As for the bright spots, the jury is still out; so far the craft has not found evidence consistent with ice. “The science team is continuing to evaluate the data and discuss theories about these bright spots at Occator,” said Chris Russell, Dawn’s principal investigator at the University of California, Los Angeles. “We are now comparing the spots with the reflective properties of salt, but we are still puzzled by their source. We look forward to new, higher-resolution data from the mission’s next orbital phase.”

Beginning in late October, the craft will begin spiraling down to an even lower orbit of just 230 miles. Maybe by then we’ll finally get some answers about those bright spots. Ceres has some other mysteries as well; for example, it’s the only asteroid known to have been rounded by its own gravity, thanks to its extreme mass.

 

[Fenrir]

New Horizons Locks Onto Next Target: Let's Explore the Kuiper Belt!

We don’t have the funding but we have the target: the New Horizons spacecraft will adjust its course to make a flyby of Kuiper Belt Object MU69 in January 2019. This will be the most distant world ever explored.

The New Horizons spacecraft completed its primary mission by making a flyby of the dwarf planet Pluto and taking extensive photographs and measurements about the little system and its collection of moons. It collected so much data, we’ll be downlinking the data into the Fall of 2016! But like every NASA mission, the space agency likes to squeeze as much science as possible out of every gram of robot and drop of propellent.

The extended mission has not yet been funded, but to be fuel-efficient the team needs to pick a target and adjust New Horizons’ trajectory now. 2014 MU69, nicknamed PT1 for “Potential Target 1,” is a tiny, dim world (magnitude 26.8) of an estimated 30 to 45 kilometers (19 to 28 miles) diameter, which is roughly the size of Pluto’s mid-sized moons Hydra and Nix and ten times larger than most comets. By mass it’s 1,000 times larger than Rosetta’s Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko and 1/10,000th the mass of Pluto. MU69 is easier to get to than the other lead contender, 2014 PN70, which means the team will have more flexibility to tweak the trajectory when closer to the object. But most importantly, it’s a totally different type of Kuiper Belt Object than Pluto is, giving us our first up-close look at a different type of object. New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern gushes over the selection:

“2014 MU69 is a great choice because it is just the kind of ancient KBO, formed where it orbits now, that the Decadal Survey desired us to fly by. Moreover, this KBO costs less fuel to reach [than other candidate targets], leaving more fuel for the flyby, for ancillary science, and greater fuel reserves to protect against the unforeseen.

New Horizons was originally designed to fly beyond the Pluto system and explore additional Kuiper Belt objects. The spacecraft carries extra hydrazine fuel for a KBO flyby; its communications system is designed to work from far beyond Pluto; its power system is designed to operate for many more years; and its scientific instruments were designed to operate in light levels much lower than it will experience during the 2014 MU69 flyby.”

Because we think that Kuiper Belt Objects haven’t been heated or changed much in the 4.6 billion year history of our Solar System, we’re optimistic that this little world will be a timecapsule into what the outer edges looked light while planets were busy colliding and accreting in the inner solar system. New Horizons science team member John Spencer explains:

“There’s so much that we can learn from close-up spacecraft observations that we’ll never learn from Earth, as the Pluto flyby demonstrated so spectacularly. The detailed images and other data that New Horizons could obtain from a KBO flyby will revolutionize our understanding of the Kuiper Belt and KBOs.”

The New Horizons spacecraft will be making a series of burns in late October and early November to set it on a trajectory to encounter MU69. The closest approach is anticipated for January 1, 2019, although that may shift with later corrections.The closest approach of the flyby will when the object is nearly 6.5 billion kilometers (43.4 AU) from the Sun; we’re expecting that New Horizons will skim by the world even closer than it did to Pluto this summer.

We only discovered the world on June 26, 2014 as part of an intensive search for candidates for a New Horizons flyby. It’s so new to us that we aren’t even sure how long a year is for MU69! (We think it takes 293 Earth-years for it to make a single trip, but with a healthy margin of ±24 Earth-years error.) It also marks the shortest time between the discovery of a world and its exploration. Planetary astronomer Jason Cook teases that it’s downright rare for a discoverer to get to see their new worlds. More pragmatically, it’ll be interesting to see if the International Astronomical Union hustles to name it faster than its usual plodding process.

2014 MU69 will be 6.5 billion kilometers from the sun when New Horizons flies past it in 2019. Image credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/Alex Parker

Along the way, New Horizons will be making opportunistic observations of any other Kuiper Belt Objects we can. Stern anticipates we might be able to see up to fifty other Kuiper Belt Objects. The observations will be simple — basic population characteristics, searching for binary objects, estimated sizes, and if we’re very lucky a few occultations of stars.

The extended mission to actually keep New Horizons operating with a human support team and time to send back data on the Deep Space Network isn’t actually approved yet. The science team will be writing and submitting a research proposal in 2016 for external review. John Grunsfeld, astronaut and chief of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, cautions:

“Even as the New Horizon’s spacecraft speeds away from Pluto out into the Kuiper Belt, and the data from the exciting encounter with this new world is being streamed back to Earth, we are looking outward to the next destination for this intrepid explorer. While discussions whether to approve this extended mission will take place in the larger context of the planetary science portfolio, we expect it to be much less expensive than the prime mission while still providing new and exciting science.”

Many space exploration missions do get extended missions — the Mars Opportunity rover’s primary mission ended after 90 days, and Cassini’s primary mission finished after four years back in 2008. However, if you want to help NASA get the political power of clear and loud public support, here’s how you can write to your Congressional representatives about approving the New Horizons extended mission.

After the flyby, the team hopes to keep New Horizons operating as it continues beyond the Kuiper Belt, following in the spirit of Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 as it discovers what lays beyond the edges of our Solar System.

The New Horizons spacecraft is in excellent condition with all systems behaving normally. Data downlinks resume on September 5, 2015, with new image releases anticipated every Friday into next year.

 

[Fenrir]

NASA Just Sealed Six People In a Dome For a Year to Practice Mars

Life on Mars may sound glamorous, but in reality it’s going to mean a lot of time crammed in a small bubble with a few other humans. This could end very badly. So to practice, NASA has taken to sticking people in domes and keeping them isolated for months on end.

The latest isolation experiment started yesterday. Six willing humans — an astrobiologist, a physicist, a pilot, an architect, a journalist and a soil scientist — entered this lovely 36 by 20 foot dome, located near a barren volcano in Hawaii, at 3pm local time on Friday. They’ll remain in the dome for a year, eating powdered cheese, smelling each others’ BO, and slowly abandoning any sense of personal space. If we’re lucky, they’ll all emerge unscathed, perhaps even friends.

Not too shabby on the inside! Image via Getty

The happy crew. Image via Getty

There’s good reason to be optimistic. The last time NASA tried this experiment, everyone seemed to get on just fine, with no attempted space-murders or breakouts. And let’s not forget the Mars 500 project, in which six-person crews were locked inside terrifying steel tubes for 18 months. Confinement may be uncomfortable, but when the ultimate goal is intergalactic domination, humans seem willing to endure a lot.