Space news – Scienceandsf -A Blog Published by Robert A. Lawler

Space News for September 2019.

There have been several interesting developments is the exploration of space this past month. Most deal with the discoveries made by unmanned probes but one deals with NASA’s Artemis program, the space agency’s plan for returning astronauts to the Moon. I think I’ll start with Artemis.

NASA’s logo for its planned Artemis Program back to the Moon. (Credit: NASA)

You’ll recall that in several posts I have mentioned that NASA intends to build a space station called the Lunar Gateway in orbit around the Moon to use as a depot and waystation for lunar exploration. See posts of 30Sept2017, 24Mar2018, 14Oct2018, 31Dec2018, 6Mar2019 and 29May2019. Additionally NASA hopes to use the Gateway as a platform for studying long-term human occupation of deep space, i.e. space outside of Low Earth Orbit (LOE).

Planned configuration of the Lunar Gateway. (Credit: Spacenews.com)

Currently NASA intends to use a mixture of rocket types to construct the Gateway and the proposed Lunar Lander. This plan would include the massive Space Launch System (SLS) still under development as well as Space X’s Falcon Heavy reusable rocket. The use of reusable rockets as much as possible is thought to be essential for a program that is already grossly underfunded.

Unlike the SLS, Space X’s Falcon Heavy is a reusable rocket and therefore MUCH CHEAPER!!!! (Credit: The Verge)

Well it is starting to appear that some members of congress may not be such big supporters of the Gateway and for once there’s bipartisan agreement. At a recent meeting of the House subcommittee on space both committee chair Oklahoma democrat Kendra Hall and Alabama republican Mo Brooks strongly questioned NASA’s planned use of private rockets at all.

Instead Hall and Brooks want NASA to accelerate the development of the SLS’s ‘Exploration Upper Stage’ (EUS), which is planned to increase the payload that the SLS can deliver to Lunar orbit from 26 to 37 tons. This EUS is a part of NASA’s long term goals for the SLS but it is scarcely beyond the design stage and its development would cost billions and add years to a program that is already well over budget and behind schedule. However the use of the EUS would allow NASA to send a crew directly to the Moon’s surface without the need of a Lunar Gateway. Exactly the way the Apollo program did it back in 1969.

NASA is Currently developing the SLS as configured in the two versions on the left. The EUS would allow the four versions on the right which are capable of delivering much more payload into lunar orbit. (Credit: Vox)

None of this has anything to do with science or engineering or even budget, it’s all about corporate rivalry. You see Boeing is the prime contractor of the current version of the SLS, and would be prime on the development of the EUS. Add to that the fact that Boeing is getting tied of Space X grabbing its market share just because reusable rockets are so much cheaper and you have Boeing trying to use a little political muscle to push Space X out of the Artemis program.

With every bit of news I hear about the Artemis program the more convinced I become that it will achieve nothing except a huge waste of resources. I’m very much afraid that the manned space program will achieve nothing until either the Chinese or perhaps private space companies like Space X are about to land on the Moon. We Americans don’t actually care about exploring space; we just have to be first.

NASA continues to have more success with its unmanned space probes. I suppose that’s because, since they are lower profile than manned missions the agency is allowed to make its decisions based on science and engineering not politics.

One of these successes is the Juno space probe currently studying the planet Jupiter. Recently the spacecraft made its 22nd close approach to the giant planet and was in the right position to take a photo of a very impressive event, an eclipse of the Sun on Jupiter caused by its innermost moon Io. See image below.

Image taken by the Juno Space probe of an eclipse of the Sun on Jupiter caused by it’s innermost moon Io. (Credit: NASA)

Now it turns out that eclipses occur on Jupiter considerably more often than they do here on Earth, after all Jupiter has four large moons all of which are capable of producing eclipses. The eclipses on Jupiter are not as impressive as ours are however because by sheer coincidence the angular size of our Moon and the Sun as seen here on Earth are nearly identical. This means that the Moon just covers the Sun’s disk leaving the entire solar corona visible. See my post of 24August 2017 for the story of my first total eclipse.

On Jupiter however the Sun is about five times further away so it’s angular diameter in Jupiter’s sky is much smaller, only about 0.1º instead of the 0.5º in our sky. That makes the Sun look smaller than any of Jupiter’s four big Moons.

Because it’s the closest, Io looks largest on Jupiter, about as large as our Moon does here on Earth. That means that Io can completely cover not only the Sun’s disk but the entire corona as well. Ganymede and Europa would probably do the same since each of them looks more than two and a half times the diameter of the Sun on Jupiter.

Only Callisto, the farthest of the four from Jupiter, would produce a show similar to that of an Earthly eclipse. Its angular diameter, as seen on Jupiter is only about 40% larger than the Sun’s so under the right conditions a good deal of the corona could probably be seen.

One more interesting fact, since Jupiter has four moons capable of producing eclipses it is quite possible for Jupiter to experience several eclipses, caused by different moons at the same time. I happened to come across an image of Jupiter, taken from Earth in 2009 of three eclipses happening at once! The moons involved are Io, Ganymede and Callisto.

Three eclipses on Jupiter happening at the same time! (Credit: NASA)

The moon Io is in the news for another reason as well. You may recall that the voyager space probes discovered that Io is the most volcanically active place in the solar system. This is because Io is being constantly pulled not only by huge Jupiter itself but by its three brother moons as well. This tugging and squeezing heats up the moon’s interior, heat that is released through volcanoes.

The largest volcano on Io, and the largest known active volcano in the solar system is called Loki after the Norse god of fire. Planetary scientists have been studying this powerful beast as best they could ever since it was first discovered. According to a paper published back in 2002 with lead author Julie Rathbun, Loki erupts on a regular basis about every 500 days.

Jupiter’s moon Io with the monster volcano Loki dead center. (Credit: NASA)

Now Rathbun, who is currently with the Planetary Science Institute, has presented at poster at the current 51st meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society. Posters at conferences are a common technique for scientists to announce results of research before a formal paper is written. Doctor Rathbun’s announcement was in fact a prediction that Loki will erupt sometime in the next few days.

Doctor Julie Rathbun has predicted an eruption of Loki within the next few days. (Credit: Twitter)

Now predicting a volcanic eruption is a very risky business. Volcanologists here on Earth have been trying to find some technique for predicting eruptions for centuries now. Doctor Rathbun is confident however and thanks to her warning both telescopes here on Earth and the Juno space probe should be ready to study the event when, and if it occurs.

Photographing eclipses and predicting eruptions halfway across the solar system, we have come a long way!

Space News for August 2019.

We generally think of a story in the news as a report of some sort of dramatic occurrence, a story about an event full of action and yes, even danger. Space news therefore would consist primarily of accounts about rocket launches and space probes landing on distant worlds.

Of course we know that isn’t quite true. In space exploration the calm, deliberate decisions that are made in engineering conferences are every bit as vital to accomplishing the mission as the more spectacular moments. In this post I will be discussing three such stories illustrating the kind of planning and decision making that will make future space missions possible.

Many ideas are developed, and problems solved, in Engineering Meetings (Credit: PSM.com)

One such important decision announced by NASA on August 19 was to give a go ahead to begin construction of their ambitious Europa Clipper space probe, named for it’s target, Jupiter’s moon Europa. The intended mission of the Europa Clipper is to study that icy world in an effort to determine if the moon is actually a possible home for life. Some 40 close flybys of Europa are planned during which the probe will measure of thickness of the moon’s ice surface along with confirming the existence of a liquid ocean beneath the ice.

The Europa Clipper Space probe will make 40 flybys of the icy moon of Jupiter (Credit: ABC57.com)

The decision by NASA means that the design phase of the mission is now over and construction will now begin at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) with a planned launch date of 2023 or 2025. One decision about the Europa Clipper still remains to be made however. What launch vehicle will be used to send the probe on it’s way to Jupiter?

Currently congress has ordered NASA to use the Space Launch System (SLS) as the launch system but that massive rocket is still not ready for it’s first test launch, and there is the real possibility that the SLS might not be ready by 2025. Also, launching the Europa Clipper with the SLS will cost over a billion dollars.

After many delays and budget overruns NASA’s massive Space Launch System (SLS) still has not flown (Credit: NASA)

NASA on the other hand would prefer to launch the Europa clipper using a commercial launcher such as Space X’s Falcon Heavy. Launching the space probe with a commercial rocket would not only save hundreds of millions of dollars but also firm up the launch schedule since the Falcon Heavy has already successfully flown three times. Unfortunately the decision here may be made by politics because the SLS is being built at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama and some very important republican senators are strongly supporting it.

The Space X Falcon Heavy rocket has already flown successfully three times (Credit: The Verge)

Speaking of the Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA has made another decision naming them as the lead management center in the development of the Lunar Lander for the space agency’s big Artemis program. Artemis is the name that NASA has now given to its plans for returning astronauts to the Moon’s surface by 2024. Since Marshall is already developing the SLS as the Artemis launch vehicle their choice as lead for the Lander now puts two big pieces of the Artemis pie on Alabama’s plate.

The Marshall Space Flight Center is where NASA has developed rockets like the Saturn V and Space Shuttle (Credit: Wikipedia)

Again the decision here was made on the basis of political, not engineering grounds and that’s never a good thing. In fact the decision could very well be changed. You see the Johnson Manned Space Flight Center is in Houston Texas and there are a couple of powerful Texas senators, also republican by the way, who think the Johnson center would be a much better selection as management lead for the lander’s development.

The Johnson Space Flight Center in Texas is Where NASA’s Manned Space Missions are developed (Credit: Wikipedia)

None of this arguing back and forth will make the lander perform any better, or be built any faster or cheaper. Indeed that sort of political infighting is more likely to stall funding appropriations that could lead to schedule delays and cost overruns.

On a more hopeful note NASA has also decided to team up with Space X in order to develop the technology necessary for the refueling of spacecraft in space! Again the idea is to reuse spacecraft rather than just throw them away after one use and build another. In space refueling has long been considered essential towards developing a space infrastructure that will enable longer and more difficult space missions.

Refueling in space would extent the operational life of satellites, thereby reducing their cost (Credit: Engadget)

Take for example the communications satellites that are now in geostationary orbit 35,000 km above the earth’s equator. These multi-million dollar radio relays must keep their antennas pointed very precisely at Earth in order to perform their job at all. To do this the satellites have small, station keeping rocket engines that keep the satellite exactly where they’re supposed to be. After about 5-7 years however those engines run out of fuel and the craft soon begins to drift until the antennas are no longer directed at Earth. Once that happens the satellite becomes nothing more than a very expensive piece of junk up in space. If you could refuel those satellites while in orbit however you could extend their useful life by years and save billions of dollars.

For manned spaceflight in space refueling would allow the development true spaceships that could travel back and forth to the Moon or Mars multiple times. Such spaceships would be refueled at the end of each mission in exactly the way you refuel your car after a long trip.

Developing the technology for refueling in space won’t be easy however. Most of the chemicals used as rocket fuel, liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen or liquid methane have to be kept cryogenically cold, requiring both refrigeration equipment and power. And everything has to be kept airtight or that fuel that you spent so much money getting into orbit will simply boil off into space. That’s why NASA teaming up with Space X makes sense. While Space X is the leader in reusable spacecraft NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Ohio and Marshall Space Flight Center are the recognized experts in handling and storing various kinds of rocket fuel. Hopefully this teaming up of skills will solve the problems of refueling in space and one day soon in addition to orbiting space stations we will see orbiting gas stations as well.

Will there soon be a ‘Gas Station’ in orbit above the Earth? (Credit: Ars Technica)

Space News for April 2019

This past month there have been a number of successes and failures in space along with a story that reminds us that spaceflight can sometimes just be fun. So let’s get to it.

As usual I’ll start with Space X, doesn’t it seem to you as if Elon Musk’s company provides us with some news to discuss every month. On April 10th the Hawthorn California based Space X successfully flew its Falcon Heavy launch vehicle for the second time, and for the first time with a paying customer.

The Second Launch of a Space X Falcon Heavy on its first commercial mission (Credit: New Scientist)

The Falcon heavy not only succeeded in placing the Arabsat 6A into its proper geostationary transfer orbit but Space X succeeded in recovering all three booster engines and even the launch vehicle’s payload nose cone failings. The two side boosters landed safely back at Kennedy Space center while the central first stage was recovered by Space X’s drone recovery ship “Of course I still love You”.

The Falcon Heavy side boosters return to Cape Kennedy (Credit: Wikipedia)

Recovery of the nose cone, which costs about $6 million dollars for a pair, is something that Space X has attempted several times before now without success. The nose cone recovery therefore makes the April 10th launch represents the most complete recovery that Space X has ever carried out.

Unfortunately on the day after the nearly perfect launch choppy seas in the Atlantic Ocean caused the central first stage to tip over and crash onto the recovery ship as it was being brought back to port. This is the first time that a Falcon first stage has been loss after successfully landing on the recovery ship and Space X promises design changes to their method of securing the rocket during transit to prevent further such losses.

The Falcon Heavy first stage landed safely on its recovery ship but heavy seas the next day caused it to tip over (Credit: Michael Howard)

A little further out in space Israel was having considerably worse luck. Their Beresheet lunar lander would have made the small Middle Eastern nation only the fourth country to achieve the feat of soft landing a probe on the Moon but unfortunately the Beresheet landed much too hard and presently is considered a total loss.

The Israeli Beresheet Lunar Lander attempted a soft landing on the Moon (Credit: The Planetary Society)

Although developed by Israeli tech companies Beresheet is the first ever privately funded lunar lander. Launched aboard a Space X Falcon 9 rocket back in February the Beresheet entered a highly elliptical orbit around the Earth, slowly enlarging that orbit until the lunar probe broke free and headed for the Moon.

The Journey of the Beresheet Lunar Lander was a long and complicated one (Credit: Space Ref)

The probe did make a number of observations on its journey including a video of the Sun appearing from behind the Earth. Nevertheless the failure to land safely is a disappointment. The Israelis haven’t given up however; money is already being raised to begin construction of Beresheet 2.

Further out in space the Japanese were having better luck with their Hayabusa 2 space probe now in orbit around the asteroid Ryugu. After several months of surveying the asteroid for the best location from which to obtain samples of the asteroid’s interior the space probe deployed a projectile to strike the asteroid. The idea was for the Hayabusa 2 to fire a small copper plate referred to as an impactor at Ryugu and as it approached the surface a small explosive would detonate which would drive the plate into the asteroid forming a crater. After the crater was formed the spacecraft would then approach and collect the desired samples.

The Small Carry-On Impactor aboard the Hayabusa 2 (Credit: Spaceflight 101)

The operation went off perfectly on April 4th, see image of the impact below, with the impactor striking Ryugu at an estimated 7200 kph. Now Hayabusa’s controllers must gently lower the probe toward the asteroid in order to collect some samples. The Hayabusa 2 is scheduled to return to Earth with its asteroid pieces in December of 2020.

The strike of the Hayabusa Impactor (Credit: Space News)

My final story today is a reminder that even as humans traveled into space we took other creatures along with us. Indeed, Laika the dog preceded the first man into space by a couple of years. The use of test animals in space exploration has a long and interesting history.

Today on the International Space Station (ISS) there are several different experiments involving lab animals being conducted at all times. One of these uses lab mice to study the long-term effect of zero gravity and radiation.

The Rodent Habitat aboard the ISS (Credit: NASA, Dominic Hart)

“Since rodents develop and age much faster than humans, studying rodent model organisms allow scientists to study diseases that may take years of decades to develop in humans.” According to lead researcher April Ronca, a biologist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California. The space agency has even designed a special habitat for the test subjects. The habitat is large enough for the mice to be able exercise and even just play, and they certainly enjoy playing. Check out the video by clicking on the link provided below. They have certainly learned how to enjoy Zero gee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7lgj3aZ8dU

Space News for November 2018.

This month we’ll talk about four of NASA’s interplanetary probes. We’ll say goodbye to two of the probes as they run out of fuel and scientists here on Earth lose the ability to control them. Another two probes however, are just beginning their work of exploration and hopefully in the next few years we’ll be taking more about the discoveries they’ve made.

We’ll start with the Kepler space telescope, see image below and check out my post of 28April2018. Launched back in March of 2009 the mission of Kepler was to continuously observe hundreds of thousands of stars searching for small, rhythmic changes in their brightness that could be caused by planets passing in front of them.

The Kepler Space Telescope (Credit: NASA)

During its eleven years of service Kepler observed over half a million stars and is credited with the preliminary detection of 2,662 planets outside of our solar system. Kepler was only designed to detect such exo-planets as they’re called, larger, more precise Earth based telescopes would then carry on the work of learning about these alien worlds.

In order to avoid having the Earth interfere in its observations Kepler was placed into an orbit around the Sun known as an Earth trailing orbit some 130 million kilometers from Earth. Without fuel to maintain its proper orbit and orientation Kepler would be unable to perform its mission.

That fuel has now run out and on October 30 of 2018 NASA announced officially that communication with the Kepler space telescope has been lost and the mission has ended. Still, thanks to the Kepler space telescope astronomers now have 2,662 completely unknown worlds to study!

Another very important space probe has suffered the same fate. The Dawn mission to the two largest objects in the asteroid belt was both the first interplanetary vehicle to orbit two different bodies, not counting Earth, and the first probe to employ an ion rocket as its main propulsion.

The Dawn spacecraft first traveled to the asteroid Vesta, the second largest but heaviest asteroid. Astronomers believed that Vesta was composed primarily of iron and nickel and might have become of core of a planet had not the enormous gravity of the planet Jupiter kept that planet from ever forming. Vesta did indeed turn out to be a very heavy, metal rich asteroid proving the astronomers correct.

After orbiting Vesta for more than a year and completing its survey the Dawn probe then did something no other probe had ever done. It fired up its ion engines again, left obit around Vesta and traveled to the asteroid Ceres, the largest of the asteroids. The image below shows the Dawn Spacecraft with Vesta, upper right, and Ceres, lower middle.

Dawn with Vesta and Ceres (Credit: SoSialPolitik)

Now ion rockets don’t give you a lot of push, but they give a small push for a very long time. Whereas chemical rockets can use up all of their fuel within minutes an ion rocket can keep firing for years. Dawn was the first interplanetary probe to make full use of all the extra push possible from an ion rocket firing its engines for more than 50,000 hours.

So Dawn became the first probe to orbit and study two different bodies in our solar system orbiting Ceres and Vesta more than 3,000 times.

Like Kepler however even Dawn’s ion rockets eventually used up the last of their fuel and the Dawn spacecraft can no longer keep solar panels pointed toward the Sun, its antenna pointed toward Earth. According to NASA Dawn missed its regular radio check in on both 31October and 1Nov and the mission is presumed to have ended.

Once again however the Dawn probe has provided astronomers with a wealth of data to analyze. Dawn isn’t finished making discoveries.

The end of two of its premier missions however doesn’t mean that NASA is running out of space probes, far from it. Two probes launched over the past two years are approaching their targets and the data should soon start pouring in!

The OSIRIS-Rex probe has been traveling for the past two years toward a rendezvous with the small near Earth asteroid Bennu (See my post of 6January2018). OSIRIS-Rex should reach its destination within a month and recently took a high-resolution image of its target, see image below. Once at Bennu, which is too small to actually orbit, the OSIRIS-Rex will land and collect a sample of the asteroid’s surface to return to Earth. The sample is expected to arrive back here on Earth in 2023 but with all of the probe’s other instruments there’s no doubt that we’ll be learning a lot about Bennu much sooner than that!

Latest Image (3Nov) of Asteroid Bennu taken by OSIRIS-Rex (Credit: Astronomy Magazine)

Another NASA spacecraft that is well on its way to its target is the Parker Solar Probe which just this past week on 29October became the closest man made object to our Sun (See my posts of 7June2017, 6January2018 and 5September2018). At the distance of 42.73 million kilometers Parker broke the record previously held by the joint German-American Helios-2 probe.

The Parker probe is going to get much closer however. During its six year mission to study the Sun Parker is expected to come as close as 6.9 million kilometers. The Parker probe will study the Sun in an effort to learn more about how the energy the Sun produces by hydrogen fusion in its core moves upward to the Sun’s surface. Parker will also study how the Sun generates its powerful magnetic field. The image below shows the planned trajectory of the Parker probe. Presently the spacecraft is just past ‘First Perihelion’.

Planned Trajectory of Parker Solar Probe (Credit: JPL, NASA)

If you’d like to learn more about any of the four interplanetary probes we’ve talked about click on one of the links below to be taken to the official NASA site for that mission!

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html

https://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/

https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex

https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/parker-solar-probe

Space news for September 2018.

Without doubt the biggest news in space recently has been the discovery of an air leak onboard the International Space Station (ISS) and even more disturbing, the possibility that the leak had been deliberately made “by human hand”! Indeed with the discovery of drill bit marks around the, too circular to be natural hole the idea that the leak had been caused by a micrometeorite has been officially ruled out. The image below is of the hole.

Hole discovered in the ISS (Credit: BGR.com)

The tracking down of the hole itself had taken nearly a week after the loss of air pressure due to the leak was first noticed. It was finally found inside the Russian Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft that had carried the three members of ISS crew 56 to the station. The image below shows the Soyuz spacecraft docked at the ISS.

Soyuz Spacecraft docked at the ISS (Credit: NBC News)

Now the crew 56 Soyuz capsule had been docked to the ISS since June 6th of 2018 so the fact that a leak was only discovered in September is strong evidence that the hole was not already in the spacecraft before it was launched. It seems very possible therefore that one of the six astronauts currently serving aboard the ISS made the hole with a hand drill; the perpetrator and his motive are as yet unknown.

So the Russians are crying sabotage while the Americans just want to stop the rumor mill and find out exactly what did really happen. With the political tensions growing between the two countries this is a serious development. Space has recently become the last area of cooperation between the US and Russia and if that is no longer true the future of the ISS is in grave doubt.

So much for the bad news, if you want some good news in space these days it seems that you can always rely on Space X Corporation. In the early morning hours of September 10th a Space X Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket was launched from Cape Canaveral carrying the Telstar 18 Vantage communications satellite, the 16th successful launch for Space X so far this year. The image below is of the Telstar satellite.

Telestar 18 Communications Satellite (Credit: YouTube)

With all of the reliability we’ve come to expect from Space X the Telstar satellite was delivered to its correct geostationary transfer orbit. Meanwhile the Falcon 9’s first stage successfully landed on Space X’s recovery drone ship so that it can be reused on some future mission. The image below shows the liftoff of the Falcon 9 carrying the Telstar satellite.

Launch of the Telestar 18 Satellite aboard a Falcon 9 Rocket (Credit: Advocator)

The block 5 Falcon 9 first stage variant is designed to be reflown 10 times with only minimal cleanup and maintenance between flights. After every 10 flights the rocket will undergo a major overhaul and it is hoped that eventually the first stages can be reused as many as 100 times.

Getting back aboard the ISS the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is preparing to launch it’s seventh Kounotori H-II supply capsule to the space station. Along with 6,000 kilos of food and equipment for the astronauts the Kounotori H-II will carry two ‘cubesats’ which may be small but who are going to conduct an experiment that could have huge consequences.

The two satellites measure only 10cm on each side and will be deployed outside the ISS. A 10-meter long steel tether will link the two cubesats together while a tiny motorized vehicle will attempt to move back and forth between them. The image below shows an artists illustration of the two cubesats.

Japanese Experimental CubeSats (Credit: JAXA)

This test is intended to be the first demonstration in outer space of technology that will be needed in order to build a space elevator, a staircase to the stars that is one of the favourite ideas in science fiction novels.

For those who haven’t heard of the space elevator it is literally a tower built all of the way up to geostationary orbit (That’s 36,000 kilometers above Earth’s surface). Elevators will then take passengers and cargo into space without the danger and expense of a rocket launch. It is thought that a space elevator could reduce the cost of going into space to as little as $100 / kilo. The image below shows a possible space elevator.

A Possible Space Elevator (Credit: Trendsderzukunft)

The theory behind the space elevator is sound. The problems may be numerous and difficult but do not require any radically new or unknown scientific knowledge. The technology that will be tested by the cubesats is relativity simple but even simple things sometimes behave strangely in space. The experiment will be a small first step to building a space elevator, but it will be the first step.

Space News for August 2018.

The future of manned space flight takes center stage this month. There’s some good news, some bad news and a big announcement so let’s get to it!

Starting with the good news a major new survey has been published in the journal ‘Genes’ discussing the research and advances in biotechnology that could help us grow food on Mars. Obviously such technology will be absolutely necessary for any long term human base on the red planet, let alone a settlement.

Authored by the Australian scientists Briardo Llorente, Thomas C. Williams and Hugh D. Goold the survey article is entitled ‘The Multiplanetary Future of Synthetic Biology’. The article begins by reviewing the difficulties that we know will be encountered when we try to grow food on Mars. Chief among these will be the fact that the surface of Mars receives only 43% as much sunlight as does the Earth because of the red planet being about 75 million kilometers further from the Sun.

The authors point out however that in general the plants of Earth only absorb about half of the light that falls upon them, in fact plants reflect almost all green light, that’s why they look green! Genetic modification of Earth plants to enhance the process of photosynthesis is a real possibility with our growing knowledge of the chemistry of chlorophyll (see my Post of 23June2018).

At the same time any plants we attempt to grow on Mars will have to be ‘designed’ to survive and grow in an environment extremely hostile to most life on Earth. Some of the hostile factors that plants on Mars will have to endure include extreme cold and long periods of drought. However there are already plants here on Earth that have adapted to such conditions and genetic studies of those plants should provide clues to help genetically engineer other plants to adapt to them as well. The image below illustrates some of the genetic engineering of traits that will be needed to develop plants suitable for life on Mars.

Desired Plant characteristics to be Genetically engineered (Credit: Llorente, Williams, Goold)

Another study however puts something of a roadblock in the way of terraforming Mars by adapting plants to endure the conditions there. Now everybody knows that the process of photosynthesis requires two main ingredients, sunlight and carbon-dioxide. Well, we’ve already mentioned sunlight but a new study by Bruce Jakosky, professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Christopher S. Edwards, Assistant Professor at Northern Arizona University has concluded that Mars lacks sufficient CO2 to either promote plant growth on a large scale or to help raise the planet’s temperature by using the CO2 as a greenhouse gas. The image below shows an artist’s impression of what a terraformed Mars could look like compared to the Mars that we see today.

The study was funded by NASA and made use of all of the available data from the many spacecraft, both landers and orbiters that have been studying Mars over the last several decades. This implies that the results of the analysis conducted by Professors Jakosky and Edwards is based on the best knowledge humanity has so this study could be bad news for those planning on colonizing Mars.

Of course it has already been suggested that Mar’s deficiency in CO2 could be fixed by importing the gas from elsewhere in the Solar System. Comets are known to possess large amounts of CO2 as well as even more water, which Mars could certainly use as well.

Imagine the possibility of rerouting the orbit of a couple of comets so that they are captured into Mars orbit allowing their resources to be sent down to the planet’s surface. Sounds like the plot of a science fiction novel, ‘The Comet Cowboys!’

Finally today there was a big announcement today by NASA of the astronauts selected for the first four missions of the space agency’s Commercial Crew Program. These missions, with spacecraft designed and built by the private corporations Boeing and Space X will be the first time in seven years that astronauts will launch from American territory.

The initial, unmanned test missions for Space X’s dragon and Boeing’s Starliner capsules are scheduled for later this year while the first actual manned missions will take place early next year. These test missions will then be followed up with the first operational mission to the International Space Station (ISS) at a later date.

As I mentioned above the first test mission for each spacecraft will be unmanned, the crews for the second test mission are:

Space X’s Dragon: Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley

Boeing’s Starliner: Astronauts Eric Boe, Nicole Anapu Mann and Boeing Astronaut Chris Ferguson.

The crews for the first operational flight to the ISS are:

Space X’s Dragon: Astronauts Victor Glover and Mike Hopkins

Boeing’s Starliner: Astronauts Josh Cassada and Suni Williams

The image below shows the chosen astronauts with the Space X Dragon and Boeing Starliner Capsules in the background.

Astronauts selected for First Commercial crew Program Missions (Credit: Engadget)

For the latest information about the crews selected for the Commercial Crew Missions click on the link below to be taken to NASA’s official site!

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-astronauts-for-first-us-commercial-spaceflights-0

Space News for July 2018; Space X and Boeing Prepare for Unmanned missions for their Commercial Crew Capsules!

The big news this week is the arrival at Cape Kennedy of the first “spaceworthy” crewed version of Space X’s Dragon Capsule, see image below. This arrival is in preparation an unmanned test launch to be conducted later this year.

Space X Manned Version of their Dragon Capsule (Credit: Space X)

Know as Demonstration Module 1 (DM-1), the capsule had just finished two weeks of environmental tested at NASA’s Plum Brooke Station in Ohio. Here the DM-1 was placed in the facilities huge vacuum chamber and exposed to all of the hazards of a trip in Earth Orbit. In addition to a vacuum the chamber can also subject whatever equipment is being tested to either the intense, unfiltered sunlight or the absolute darkness of space, the extremes of heat and cold.

These tests were all conducted to verify that the DM-1 capsule is ready to take human beings into space as a part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program which will take astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). The fact that these tests were successfully completed in only two weeks is a good sign that the DM-1 is ready for its test mission later this year. The image below shows an unmanned Dragon supply capsule taking off on its way to the ISS, a preview of the forth coming DM-1 mission.

Launch of an Unmanned Space X Dragon Capsule (Credit: Space X)

While this first test mission will be unmanned it will still conduct a full mission profile, rendezvousing with the ISS and ending with a re-entry and splashdown, just as a manned mission would. The mission is currently slated to begin on August 31st 2018 but NASA has indicated several times that the launch date will probably be pushed back until sometime in the fourth quarter of the year with the first actual manned launch sometime in the first half of 2019.

Meanwhile Space X’s competitor Boeing is also making considerable progress in preparing their proposed manned capsule the Starliner, see image below. The Starliner’s initial, unmanned test flight is also still scheduled for August but it is also likely to be pushed back into the fourth quarter of the year.

Boeing Starliner Capsule (Credit: Boeing)

Part of the reason for the slippage is the already heavy schedule of launches at Cape Kennedy along with the already scheduled crew transfer and resupply missions to the ISS. Hopefully NASA will work out the scheduling conflicts while both Space X and Boeing finish preparing their capsules. NASA’s is soon going to run out of purchased tickets on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft so by next year the US will have no other way of getting into space.

There was also a second story this week which has a certain, it’s about time quality to it. The United Kingdom has just decided on the location of their spaceflight launch facility. Sixty years into the space age and Britain, one of the world’s most advanced nations, a leader in space technology has only now decided from where to launch its satellites.

There are a couple of very good reasons as to why the UK waited so long before getting into the satellite launch business. Britain is a small, densely populated country with little room from which to safely launch big rockets. Also most launch facilities, like Cape Kennedy and the European Space Agency’s launch site in Guyana, are close to the equator where the spin of the Earth can actually give a 1500 KPH start to any launch.

In recent years however, miniaturized satellites launched into polar orbits have become a sizeable slice of the space industry market and the UK wants to grab a piece of that pie. The chosen location of Sutherland on the A’Mhoine peninsula on Scotland’s north coast will allow rockets to be fired due north. This would place the satellite into an orbit that will allow the Earth to rotate beneath it so that eventually the entire planet can be observed by the satellite’s sensors. See the map below.

Sutherland County Scotland (Credit: Wikishire)

The UK Space Agency will build the launch facility with the help of the American firm Lockheed-Martin and hopes that the first launches will take place sometime in the early 2020s.

Space news for June 2018.

Some really out of this world stories have taken place this past month. I think I’ll start with Jupiter, the king of the planets.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft has been studying Jupiter for over a year now, traveling on a highly elliptical polar orbit. That means part of its orbit passes very close above the planet’s poles while other parts of the orbit are at a much greater distance from Jupiter. The image below shows how a highly elliptic orbit works.

Highly Elliptical Orbit (Credit: Wikipedia)

One of the interesting aspects of the Juno mission is that NASA is releasing the raw images taken by the spacecraft’s cameras online and allowing citizen scientists to combine and enhance the images. Whether or not these amateur astronomers make any major discoveries they have certainly already produced some wonderfully artistic views of the planet. The image below, which rivals the best work of any avant garde painter, is the work of two such citizen scientists, Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran.

Jupiter Gas Clouds as Seen by Juno Spacecraft (Credit: Gerald Eichstadt, Sean Doran )

The Juno spacecraft is also helping to solve some long standing mysteries of the Solar Systems largest planet. For example, it’s been known for decades that lightning occurred in the planet’s atmosphere, some of which was far more powerful than any lightning here on Earth. Well, based on data sent back by Juno, the scientists at NASA have discovered that, while the lightning on Jupiter is generated in much the same way that it is on Earth, nevertheless the lightning on Jupiter is concentrated around the poles rather than being spread around the planet as it is on our planet. The image below shows a composite of many images of lightning captured by the Juno spacecraft.

Lightning on Jupiter (Credit: NASA, JPL)

Another spacecraft, the Japanese probe Hayabusa-2 has arrived at its destination the asteroid Ryugu after a 300 million kilometer journey that began back in December 2014. It didn’t take long for the Hayabusa-2 to make a major discovery for the asteroid has a very peculiar shape, that of a diamond, see image below.

Asteroid Ryugu (Credit: JAXA, University of Tokyo)

The spacecraft is expected to touch down onto the asteroid’s surface in an attempt to gather some material which is scheduled to be returned to Earth in late 2020. Hopefully that means that the spacecraft’s revealing of the asteroid’s shape is just the first in what will be a long series of discoveries.

Now you may remember that the Cassini spacecraft made its final plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere last September (See my post of 13September2017). However the data sent back by Cassini during it’s 13 years of exploring the ringed planet is still being analyzed so the spacecraft hasn’t finished making discoveries just yet.

One of the last maneuvers Cassini made before its final plunge was to actually pass through some of the material being ejected into space by the geysers it had earlier discovered on the moon Enceladus. These geysers are believed to be liquid water that was heated by the tidal friction between the moon, the planet Saturn and the larger moon Titan. (Much the same thing is believed to happen on Jupiter’s moon Europa) The image below, taken by Cassini, shows the geysers.

Geysers erupting on Saturn’s Moon Enceladus (Credit: New Scientist)

Now NASA has announced that their scientists have found evidence of complex organic molecules in the material Cassini passed through. This discovery increases dramatically the chances that some form of life may exist in an ocean under the protective ice cover enveloping the moon.

Finally Space X just seems to keep on adding on to their long string of space successes. Today’s launch of a Falcon 9 rocket with its Dragon capsule not only marked the beginning of Space X’s 15th resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) but was also a reuse of both the Falcon 9’s first stage and the Dragon capsule. Indeed the booster first stage had be used only ten weeks ago to launch NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (See my post of 28April2018) making this the fastest turnaround of a reusable first stage ever. The image below shows the launch of the Falcon 9 / Dragon capsule.

Space X launch of 29 June 2018 (Credit: Daily Express)

To date Space X has succeeded in recovering 25 Falcon 9 first stages and has reflown 14 of them in the company’s effort to reduce the cost of space travel by developing reusable launch vehicles and capsules. Space X did not attempt to land the Falcon 9 first stage after today’s launch however because the company is phasing out its ‘block 4’ design in favour of the new ‘block 5’ boosters which are optimized for reuse.

Also, in just a few months, Space X is scheduled to conduct the initial, unmanned test flight of what will become its crewed Dragon capsule. I can’t wait for that!

Space News for May2018.

Several stories of interest have been happening in space exploration over the past month so let’s get to it!

Once again Space X is rewriting the rules on how to get into orbit cheaply and efficiently. Elon Musk’s Falcon 9 rocket has now been successfully launched more than fifty times with Space X recovering more than twenty of the first stages. For the last two years the Falcon 9 has flown more often than any other rocket making Space X the leader in the drive to commercialize space travel.

The latest Falcon 9 rockets have been considerably improved and updated from the first vehicle that was launched in 2010. Lighter, more powerful engines combined with larger fuel tanks have nearly doubled the Falcon 9’s payload to orbit.

Now Space X is rolling out a new version of the Falcon 9, referred to as Block 5 by Space X. The Block 5 version has been optimized for recovery and reuse. The intention is to reuse the Falcon 9 first stages at least ten times each in order to maximize the cost savings. The first launch of the new, improved Falcon 9 is scheduled for next week but since this is a new design there may be delays as Space X wants to be certain that everything is a go for launch. The image below shows the new, optimized Falcon 9 Block 5.

Falcon 9 Block 5 Rollout (Credit: Space X)

Perhaps the success of Space X is making their competitors a little nervous because just this past week Boeing saw fit to publicly remind everyone that their Space Launch System (SLS), which hasn’t flown yet, is bigger than Space X’s Falcon heavy, which has. I think that ‘my rocket is gonna be bigger than your rocket’ doesn’t quite match the success Space X has had recently. The image below shows what the SLS will look like when it is finally tested, hopefully next year.

Illustration of the Space Launch System (Credit: NASA)

My second story is actually an update of a story I blogged about back on 27Jan2018. In that post I described the small nuclear power plant that was developed by NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland Ohio. Called the Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology (KRUSTY) the prototype has been undergoing testing to the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site. The image below shows the prototype KRUSTY.

NASA’s kilowatt Nuclear Reactor KRUSTY (Credit: Youtube)

The first two tests to be carried out were simple environment checkouts without the reactor being powered up in any way. During the third test the reactor’s core was slowly powered up in order to heat the core. The final test consisted of a full power test of 28-hour duration intended to simulate an actual mission.

The prototype KRUSTY reactor is designed to output one kilowatt of electrical power but the concept is intended to be scalable up to ten kilowatts. NASA scientists are of the opinion that four such ten-kilowatt units would be sufficient to power a manned outpost on either the Moon or Mars. The image below shows what a KRUSTY unit could look like deployed on the Moon.

KRUSTY on the Moon (Credit: Popular Mechanics)

Over the last forty years NASA has initiated several programs for the design and testing of a small nuclear reactor for use in outer space. However all of those programs were canceled before testing had even begun primarily because of public aversion to nuclear power. Hopefully the day will soon come where KRUSTY is providing the electrical needs of NASA astronauts on another world.

My final story concerns a brand new NASA program for an initial design of the space telescope of the future. What scientists at Cornell are proposing is a modular concept of a telescope that will build itself piece by piece in orbit until it is about thirty meters across. The image below shows both a single module and a partially assembled telescope.

Modular Active Self Assembling Space Telescope design concept (Credit: NASA, Cornell University)

Professor of mechanical engineering Dmitry Savransky leads a team of fifteen scientists and engineers who have been awarded a Phase I NASA Innovative Advanced Concept grant of $125,000 for an initial feasibility study.

The basic idea is for the Telescope to be constructed from one thousand or more identical pieces that can be placed into orbit one at a time. Since the larger a telescope is the more light it can gather to study we want to put the largest possible into orbit but also the larger a telescope is the more difficult it is to get into space.

This certainly makes the idea of putting the telescope into orbit in pieces and assembling them there is a logical way to go. However the final configuration of the optics of any telescope has to be so precise that the concept of a prefabricated space telescope may simply be unworkable. Only time and study will tell if a modular space telescope is the way to go or not. This is a Phase I study after all.

Space News for April 2018.

There have been several news items over the past month dealing with space exploration so let’s right get to it. I’ll start with the new kid on the block Rocket Lab.

I first mentioned Rocket Lab in my post of 10Feb18 when I discussed the second successful test launch of their Electron rocket. With two successes under their belt Rocket Lab is already planning their first actual paying launch placing two small satellites into orbit that are owned by Spire Global and GeoOptics. The mission is scheduled to take off on April 19th.

Now the Electron is a small rocket, see image below, with a total payload to orbit of only 150-250kg but Rocket Lab is aiming to grab a share of the growing market in miniaturized satellites. Presently small satellites may have to wait months or even years in order to ride up piggyback with some big satellite on an Atlas or Falcon rocket. Rocket Lab plans on using a quick turnaround launch schedule as a part of the company’s sales pitch to bring in business.

Rocket Lab’s Second Successful Launch of their Electron Rocket (Credit: Rocket Lab)

Rocket Lab launches their Electron rocket from their own launch pads in New Zealand into polar orbits at a cost of only about $5 million USD. If this third launch is successful Rocket Lab’s fourth mission, carrying 10 miniature satellites for NASA, could come in the next few months.

Also in my February post I mentioned that the Russian space agency was making plans to attach a new module to the International Space Station (ISS) as a luxury hotel in space. Well the idea of a space hotel is picking up steam as a company called Orion Span has announced plans for its own space hotel hopefully as early as late 2021.

The station/orbiting hotel concept is called Aurora and the planned cost of a twelve-day stay is ‘only’ $9.5 million USD. The initial Aurora will accommodate four paying guests along with two astronaut crewmembers in a pressurized chamber of 160 cubic meters volume. The images below show what the Aurora will look like inside and outside.

Proposed Aurora Space Hotel (Credit: Sia Magazine)

Just how customers will get to the Aurora hasn’t been finalized yet but Orion Span will soon have a choice of companies capable of providing the ride. Space X, Boeing and Blue Origin are all planning to launch a crewed space capsule either this year or next and the possibility of using these commercial, manned space vehicles to maintain a space hotel has often been discussed.

In time Orion Span intends to add additional units to Aurora and one day hopes to even sell permanent space on Aurora as a kind of orbiting condo. The image below shows what Aurora could one day look like.

Aurora Final Configuration (Credit: You Tube)

If you’d like to learn more about Orion Span’s plans for their Aurora space hotel click on the link below to be taken to their site.

https://www.orionspan.com/

Speaking of Boeing’s Starliner manned space capsule; the first, unmanned launch is now only months away with the second manned mission is less than a year. And now there’s a possibility that NASA might want Boeing to add a third astronaut to the second mission and turn the second test flight into a full mission to the ISS.

You see NASA has only scheduled to fly astronauts to the ISS on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft through the end of next year so the space agency has to get its commercial space program up and running before then. The timing is tight, especially because both Boeing and Space X have seen several delays in their original schedule. The deal isn’t done yet; NASA still has to perform a technical evaluation of switching from a test flight with a visit to the ISS to a full six month mission. The image below is an artist’s representation of the Boeing Starliner docking at the ISS, something we’ll hopefully see for real in less than a year.

Boeing Starliner docking at the ISS (Credit: Youtube)

Finally before I go, did you see it? Did you see China’s Tiangong-1 space station as it fell back to Earth? Well either did anyone else. After all of the hysteria by the chicken littles out there the Tiangong-1 ended up falling harmlessly into the middle of the Pacific Ocean and apparently nobody even got to see anything. In fact in all of the history of space exploration on one has even been harmed by debris falling from space and very few people have ever even seen anything fall from space! Only goes to show just how big our planet really is!