Space News for November 2019.

Some good news coming this month from space, successes with both manned and unmanned programs along with an interesting new concept for a future space probe. Let’s get started.

First up I’d like to talk about Japan’s Hayabusa 2 space probe that has been studying the asteroid Ryugu, see my posts of 6 January 2018, 30 June 2018, 20 April 2019 and 3 June 2019. Since arriving at the asteroid back in mid 2018 Hayabusa has photographed the asteroid, send down two landers to its surface and even fired a bullet and cannonball at it in order to blast holes that would reveal the asteroid’s internal material. Hayabusa then touched down briefly on Ryugu in order to collect some material from one of the blasted holes.

The asteroid Ryugu that was visited by Japan’s Hayabusa2 space probe. The arrow marks the spot at which Hayabusa fired its projectile. (Credit: Universe Today)
Artists impression of Hayabusa2 collecting samples of Ryugu from the crater its projectile made. (Credit: Universe Today)

Now Hayabusa has left Ryugu and is on its way back to Earth. In late 2020 the spacecraft will release a canister containing the samples collected from Ryugu that will hopefully enter the atmosphere and touch down in the outback of Australia. Once recovered the material from the asteroid will be studied to reveal some of the secrets of how our Solar System was born.

As for the Hayabusa 2 probe itself, well it will pass by our planet and make an escape maneuver that will send it back out into the Solar System where it may continue to send back data for years to come. Let’s all wish it well.

Another recent event was the successful completion of a pad abort test by Space X’s crewed version of their Dragon capsule. This test is designed to verify the capsule’s ability to quickly yank the astronauts away from the launch pad in the event of a potentially deadly problem with the booster rocket.

The Space X crew Dragon capsule undergoing its pad abort test. (Credit: CollectSpace)

You may recall that back in April a Dragon capsule spectacularly failed this very test, the solid fuel rockets intended to pull the capsule safely away instead triggering a massive fire. This failure led to months of investigation as to the cause of the ‘anomaly’ along with a major redesign of the capsule’s abort system.

The April failure of the crew Dragon in its pad abort test. (Credit: AmericaSpace)

That redesign must have done the trick because this time the abort test went off without any problems. That leaves Space X with only the in-flight abort test to pass before a manned mission to the International Space Station (ISS) can be scheduled, hopefully early next year. The competition between Space X and their rival, Boeing’s Starliner capsule is coming down to the wire, which will be the first commercial company to launch astronauts into space? I’ll let you know.

Boeing’s Starliner capsule undergoing its pad abort test. (Credit: NASA)

Meanwhile NASA is continuing its ongoing effort to design new space probes for the continued exploration of our Solar System. One place the planetary scientists are very anxious to study is Saturn’s moon Titan. Titan is the only moon in the Solar System to possess a thick atmosphere and although its surface is extremely cold it still has bodies of liquid, liquid methane that is.

In fact Titan has so many different terrains and environments that a single robotic lander of the kind that have been so successful on the Moon or Mars would only be able study one particular type of the environments of Titan. On the other hand sending multiple probes to do a comprehensive study would be far too expensive, so what can the space agency do? Be innovative!

Engineers from NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program have teamed with both Stanford and Cornell Universities in an effort to develop a ‘shape shifting’ robot that can alter its configuration that will allow it to walk on land, or float on liquid methane or even fly through the air. The current design rolls along the ground like a drum but when required the upper half can separate itself and fly on internal propellers. See image below.

Breadboard model of a shape shifting robot space probe being evaluated by NASA (Credit: JPL-NASA)

Now the engineers do have one big advantage, Titan itself. You see the atmosphere on Titan is thicker than Earth’s even though the gravity on Titan is less than a third that on our planet. These two conditions will actually make flying easier on Titan.

On the other hand floating on a sea of oily liquid may be a little more difficult. Nevertheless the engineers are hard at work on the problem. The final design will be a modular concept, see image below, with each of its various sections being capable of independent action.

Artists impression of the completed shape shifting space probe. (Credit: JPL-NASA)

The current schedule calls for a Titan probe to be launched in 2026 with its arrival in 2034 so the engineers at NIAC still have some time to work on their designs. The concept of a shape-shifting robot is only one of the advanced ideas NASA is considering for the space probes of the future, each one more amazing than the last.

One last little item before I go. You should recall that back in January the New Horizons space craft, which had already made the first ever flyby of Pluto in July 2015, successfully made another flyby of the furthest ever object visited by a man made probe. See my posts of 3 January 2019 and 30 January 2019.

The Kuiper belt object 2014 MU69 visited by the New Horizons space probe. (Credit: NASA)

Officially known as 2014 MU69 NASA had given the Kuiper belt object the nickname of Ultima Thule, an ancient Latin name for a mythical far northern land. Now however 2014 MU69 has had that nickname taken away from it for reasons that have nothing to do with science or astronomy.

You see Ultima Thule is also the name that the Nazi gave to their fictitious homeland for the Aryan ‘Master Race’. Just to make things worse, even today there are racist, white supremacists who continue to use that name to support their hate filled rhetoric.

The new name chosen by NASA is Arrokoth, which means sky in the Native American Powhatan language. Arrokoth is certainly a good name, perfect for an object in our Solar System and if it had been the first name chosen for 2014 MU69 I would have applauded the choice. But Ultima Thule is also a good name, a name with an ancient, honourable history. To my mind this is another example of how a small group of horrible people have succeeded in perverting something wonderful into something dark and ugly.  

Space News for January 2019

I’ve already discussed two very important events in space exploration that happened earlier this month. These are the New Horizons spacecraft’s flyby of the object Ultima Thule at the outer edge of our solar system along with the Chang’e 4’s successful landing on the far side of the Moon, (See posts of 2 January and 5 January 2019). Nevertheless there have also been several other news stories worthy of mention so I’ll take care of them now.

Perhaps most significant was the successful test firing of the main engines of Space X’s Falcon 9 rocket carrying their crew Dragon Capsule. This represents the first time that a man capable spacecraft has fired its engines on American soil in eight years, since the last mission of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. See image below.

Test Firing of the Falcon 9 Rocket in Preparation for the first Launch of Space X Crew Dragon (Credit: Space X)

The crew Dragon is currently scheduled for an unmanned test launch on the 23rd of February but has already been delayed several times. The mission will replicate a typical crew transfer mission to the International Space Station (ISS) with the exception of any crew to transfer. If the unmanned test is successful then a manned mission is planned for sometime in the second half of 2019.

The Space X Crew Dragon being Prepared for its first Flight (Credit: Space X)

Both the Space X Dragon and Boeing’s Starliner man capable capsules are part of NASA’s commercial crew program whose intent is to allow NASA to concentrate on pushing the frontiers of space outward while private companies like Space X and Boeing take over the now routine task of getting personnel and cargo to and from low Earth orbit (LEO).

Boeing Starliner Capsule (Credit: Boeing)

The Starliner’s first unmanned test flight is now scheduled for sometime in March with a first manned mission before the end of the year. NASA is depending on one of these two systems to be successful, their current contact with the Russians to take American’s to the ISS runs out at the end of this year.

 

And speaking of space stations the ISS may have a companion in just a few years, a privately owned space station. A California company named Orion Span had just released detailed interior views of their proposed Aurora Space Station, which the company plans on launching into an LEO sometime in 2021, and be ready to receive occupants the following year.

Now Orion Span is advertising the Aurora station as a space hotel where guests will be able to enjoy both zero gravity and the sight of 16 sunrises and sunsets every day. Despite the fairly cramped quarters, the Aurora measures 13.2 m in length with a diameter of 4.2 m with a pressurized cabin space of 157 m3, the station will support four guests along with two crewmembers.

The Interior of the Aurora Space Hotel (Credit: Orion Span)

What Life will be like inside the Aurora Space Station (Credit: Orion Span)

At a price of $9.5 million USD for a 12-day stay, price not including getting to and from the ‘hotel’, only the very rich will be vacationing there. However Orion Span also expects to welcome astronauts from small nations seeking to start a manned space program of their own, at a reasonable cost. According to Frank Bunger, founder and current CEO of Orion Span “We will support zero gravity research, as well as space manufacturing.”

Present plans for the Aurora station are modular in design to make assembly in orbit simple as well as to allow for further growth in time. And only time will tell whether or not the Aurora space station is actually placed into orbit in 2021, or indeed ever.

Longer Range Plans for the Aurora Space Station (Credit: Orion Span)

Before I go I would like to give a brief update on my Post of the 2nd of January about the New Horizons space probe’s flyby of the Kuiper belt object named Ultima Thule. The probe is still sending back the data it gathered during its New Year’s Day encounter, and will be doing so for almost the next two years.

However last week New Horizons did send back a much sharper image of Ultima Thule, see below.

Latest High Resolution Image of Ultima Thule from the New Horizons Probe (Credit: NASA)

The planetary scientists are The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) are going to be very busy analyzing the data as it comes back from the edge of the solar system, and I’m certain they’ll be enjoying every minute of it.

 

New Horizons Space Probe gets Science off to a good start in the year 2019 with a Flyby of the most distant world ever visited.

Just 33 minutes past midnight on January the first here on the US East Coast NASA’s New Horizons space probe made it’s closest approach to the Kuiper belt object 2014 MU69 better known by it’s unofficial nickname Ultima Thule. The Ultima Thule flyby comes three and a half years after New Horizons hugely successful mission to Pluto back in 2015 and was actually added on to the original Pluto mission because New Horizons was in such good shape that a flyby of Ultima Thule seemed possible.

The New Horizons Space Probe Swept Past Pluto back in 2015 (Credit: NASA)

In fact Ultima Thule was not even discovered until 2014, eight years after New Horizons had been launched back in January of 2006 so the flyby represents the first time that a space probe has visited a world that wasn’t discovered until after the probe was launched.

Ultima Thule is so far away, 6.5 Billion kilometers, that even traveling at the speed of light it wasn’t until 10:30 the next morning that the scientists at the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL, which manages the space probe for NASA) received the signals telling them that New Horizons had successfully carried out the mission. At that distance the rate at which New Horizons’ transmitter can send back the data it collected is also very low, only 1 kilobyte per second. In fact it will take 20 months for New Horizons to send all of its discoveries back to Earth.

However, knowing how anxious the public was to see some results the scientists at APL quickly published a rough first image; see below, which showed an obviously bilobed object some 30 km by 15 km. It wasn’t until a press conference the next day (January 2nd and which I just finished watching) that we started getting some real information about just what kind of world Ultima Thule is.

First, Rough Picture of Ultima Thule from New Horizon. (Credit: Sky News)

Looking at the first Hi-Resolution image below it is apparent that Ultima Thule is actually two roughly spherical objects that have come together very gently, with no sign of anything like a collision. The team at APL has decided to name the larger, lower ball Ultima and the smaller upper ball Thule.

First Hi-Res Image of Ultima Thule from New Horizons (Credit: APL, NASA)

The physical configuration of Ultima Thule has indicated to APL scientists, led by program manager Alan Stern, to suggest that Ultima Thule formed 4.5 billion years ago exactly as we see it today. Indeed it is thought that back when the solar system was forming there were literally million of small objects very similar to Ultima Thule all the way from where Mercury is now to beyond where Ultima Thule. In the inner solar system those ‘planetoids’ came together to form the planets. Beyond Pluto however the planetoids were so few and the distance between them so great that many remained just as they were, as Ultima Thule is now. The basic idea of how Ultima Thule formed is show in the image below.

Suggested Formation Scheme of Ultima Thule (Credit: APL, NASA)

The first Hi-Res pictures are capable of resolving features on Ultima Thule down to a size of about 150 m but with more data coming in the scientists hope to be able to increase the resolution down to about 40 m or maybe even a little smaller. Nevertheless there are already some features that are clearly seen in the first images, see below. The scientists at APL are especially interest in the ring around where the two lobes meet. By the way the new Hi-Res images have also enabled the scientists to determine that Ultima Thule rotates about once every 15+1 hours.

Features see in Hi-Res Image of Ultima Thule (Credit: APL, NASA)

Now the Hi-Resolution camera on board New Horizons is strictly black and white but we can produce a colour image of Ultima Thule because the data from a low-resolution colour camera can be used to colourize the Hi-Res picture. The image below illustrates how this is done and it turns out that Ultima Thule is reddish in colour.

How the Scientists Colourize the Hi-Res Image of Ultima Thule (Credit: APL, NASA)

In the days to come we’ll be learning more about Ultima Thule as more and more of the data from New Horizons comes in. The probe itself is of course still going, heading out of the solar system following a path set out by the Pioneer and especially the Voyager space probes. The scientists at APL hope that like the Voyagers New Horizons will continue to send back data for 20 or more years, teaching us even more about what is beyond our solar system. See image below.

Future Course of New Horizons, and other Probes beyond the Solar System (Credit: APL, NASA)

Before I go, since this is my first post of 2019 I’ll like to take just a moment to recapitulate 2018 for Science and Science Fiction. There were 102 published posts in all, that’s nearly two every week. 87 posts dealt with science while 14 dealt with SF and there was one post that dealt with the blog itself.

The visitor statistics for Science and Science Fiction improved steadily throughout 2018, thank you all very much. Starting at a little under 500 visits per day in January by December the number of daily visitors had risen to 1400, an increase of about 280%!!

The number of registered subscribers also rose to a total of 8,952. And the people who come to visit or subscribe live throughout the world. Seriously everyday I get comments from places like China or Germany or Hungary or just about any country you’d care to name.

All I can say is that I appreciate all of you who come to my blog in order to learn more about Science and Science Fiction! Thanks again!