Tag: Voyager 2

Space News for May 2023: Space X’s Starship rocket has its first test, the Voyager space probes will continue to operate until at least 2026 while the European Space Agency’s JUICE space probe had a little problem.

Did you watch it, the first test launch of Space X’s huge Starship launch system that is? Several YouTube channels streamed the entire flight, after all this was the first full test launch of the biggest, most powerful rocket ever built. The test was certainly exciting, but then failed tests are usually more exciting than successful ones.

The first test launch of the most powerful rocket ever built looked good, for a while. (Credit: Engadget)

As I watched that first test on April 20th, it seemed for a while as if everything was going pretty well but then, about a minute into the flight the announcer declared that 28 of Starship’s 33 first stage engines were still firing. That of course made me wonder what had happened to the other five engines. Then, about a minute later it became obvious that the rocket was beginning to tumble out of control and a little more than three minutes into the flight the engineers were forced to self destruct Starship in order to prevent it flying completely out of control and doing any damage to something on the ground.

The beginning of the end for Starship. Those failed engines began forcing the rocket off course and eventually ground control ordered a self destruct. (Credit: Reuters)

That didn’t prevent all of the damage at the launch site however. Those five engines that failed first must have exploded right at ignition, based upon all of the debris that was hurled as much as 20 meters away from the launch pad. The pad itself sustained the most damage including a large crater directly beneath it. So extensive is the damage to Starship’s launch facilities that it will take several months to repair them before another Starship test launch can take place. On the other hand, Space X certainly doesn’t want to attempt another launch before they’ve figured out what went wrong on the first one, and that may take longer than repairing the damage that occurred.

There were obvious signs of damage to the launch pad after Starship’s launch. Damage that will take time to repair before another test launch. (Credit: France 24)

Now every engineer knows that failures happen, especially on first tests. I’ve certainly had my share. Space X CEO Elon Musk knows that and did not expect 100% success. Before the test flight he declared that if the giant rocket only ascended past the launch tower he would consider it a partial success. Designing and developing a huge rocket like Starship takes a lot of time and effort and testing, it’s only a matter of time before they get it right.

The road to success is built on trial and failure, every engineer knows that! (Credit: Security Sales & Integration)

Much worse is when you’ve done all the design and testing and something goes wrong with the completed product, especially when that product is on its way to the planet Jupiter and there’s absolutely no way to send someone to repair it. That could have been the fate of the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) JUICE space probe. I discussed the JUICE mission back in February, see my post of 25 February 2023 , as a mission to explore three of Jupiter’s large, Galilean moons in order to determine if there are oceans of liquid water beneath their icy surfaces. The JUpiter ICy moons Explorer or JUICE spaceprobe was launched on April 14th from the ESA’s launch facility in Kourou in French Guiana aboard an Ariane 5 rocket. JUICE’s launch was successful, and within hours the probe was on its way to Jupiter and talking to ground control.

Launch od the European Space Agancy’s JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) mission. (Credit: CNN)

As the probe began to deploy its solar panels and instruments however a problem arose with the antenna for JUICE’s Radar for Icy Moons Exploration (RIME), the instrument that it was hoped would peer beneath the icy surface of the moons to confirm the existence of those oceans. Based on images sent back by the spacecraft the antenna had only unfurled to about one third of its full 16 meter length.

This image takes me back. Testing in an anechoic chamber of the antennas of the JUICE space probe. (Credit: SatNow)

The theory was that a release pin had gotten stuck preventing the antenna from completely deploying. The engineers at the ESA hoped that by using the probe’s course correction engines they may to able to shake the pin loose but they took their time to study the problem. Since JUICE would not reach Jupiter until 2031 the engineers knew that they had plenty of time to consider the problem and come up with a clever trick to fix the antenna.

The JUICE-RIME antenna stuck about halfway. Fortunately the engineers at ESA managed to shake it loose and it’s now ready to go. (Credit: Spacenews)

Turns out they knew what they were doing. After several attempts to fix the problem, each attempt showing a little improvement, the problem was solved when the engineers fired a ‘Non-Explosive Actuator’. The antenna immediately unfurled to it’s proper length.

The Rime antenna unfurling after engineers fixed it problem. (Credit: ESA)

On the other hand sometimes equipment and systems can be so well designed and built that they far exceed their original design goals. Arguably the two best examples of such extraordinary engineering are the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes.

The Voyager space probes have been exploring our Solar System, and now our Galaxy for over 45 years. They just keep going and going. (Credit: NASA)

First launched back in 1977, the Voyager spacecraft were designed to conduct flybys of the four gas giant planets in the outer solar system; Voyager 2 is still the only spacecraft to visit Uranus and Neptune. Once their original missions were completed however the two probes just kept working, sending back to Earth measurements of conditions in the outer solar system.

Real time data sent back from the Voyager 1 probe, still teaching us about the Universe after 45 years in space. (Credit: NASA)

And they are still working, forty-five years after launch both Voyager spacecraft have now entered interstellar space and are still sending back data, the first in situ observations we have of conditions between the stars. Still, nothing lasts forever and slowly but surely the energy provided to each Voyager by its three Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) is decreasing. Someday the two Voyager probes will no longer have enough energy to radio their observations back to us and they will be lost forever. At launch the RTGs supplied each Voyager with 70 watts of power but the 88 year half life of the radioactive Plutonium has caused that output to decrease by around 30%.

A radioisotope thermoelectric generator or RTG. Radioactivity produces heat and heat can be converted to electricity. These units have provided the power the Voyagers need to keep working after 45 years. (Credit: Wikipedia)

In order to keep each spacecraft functioning for this long the engineers at the Jet Propulsion Labouratory (JPL) have been turning off all unnecessary equipment such as the cameras and heaters to save power. The power loss on Voyager 2 had become so great that it was thought that by the end of the year one of the probe’s five remaining instruments would have to be shut off, with the loss of all that priceless data.

When we lose power we can resort to candles. Voyager doesn’t have that option. (Credit: KSAT 12)

Fortunately those engineers at JPL are some of the best in the world and they came up with a clever idea. The Voyager power system contains a device known as a voltage regulator that’s intended to eliminate spikes and surges in the power coming from the RTGs. With the drop in power from the RTGs there’s now much less danger of that happening and if they shut off the regulator they’d save enough power to keep Voyager 2 running as is with five remaining instruments until at least 2026, almost exactly 50 years after its launch.

The Jet Propulsion Labouratory in California, home to many of the space probes that have explored our Solar System. (Credit: NASA

The Voyager spacecraft have discovered so much, taught us so much about our solar system and now the galaxy beyond and thanks to the engineers at JPL they can continue to do so, more than 30 years longer than anyone ever expected them to.

Space News for March 2020.

Last month’s Space News was all about the race between Space x and Boeing to see which of these two aerospace corporations would be the first to launch a privately owned spacecraft carrying live astronauts. That is the stated goal of NASA’s ‘Commercial Crew Program’, a program that is now two years behind schedule. See my post of 25Jan2020. There’s been a bit more news about Space X and Boeing since then so I think I’ll begin with an update.

The bad news comes from Boeing. You may recall that back on the 20th of December Boeing launched its Starliner capsule on an unmanned final test flight to the International Space Station (ISS). The launch itself went well but while the spacecraft was adjusting its orbit a software glitch caused the maneuvering rockets to fire for so long that the spacecraft no longer had enough fuel to reach the ISS and complete the mission. The capsule was brought down from orbit and successfully recovered with what appeared to be only that single, software problem.

Launch of the Boeing Starliner Capsule on its Orbital Test Flight. Turns out the spacecraft had several software related problems during the test. (Credit: CNN.Com)

Not so fast. Turns out that there was another, potentially much more dangerous software problem that was caught just a few hours before it could have badly damaged the spacecraft. Just before re-entry the crew capsule has to discard its service module in order to expose the heatshield that will project it from the heat generated by fiction in the atmosphere. Once detached the service module then uses its maneuvering rockets to get out the capsule’s way so it can begin re-entry.

Before Re-entry of the Starliner the Crew Module must separate from the Service Module which then needs to get out of the Crew Module’s way! (Credit: Yahoo Movies UK)

That’s where the second software glitch comes in because the service module’s rockets were being told to fire in exactly the wrong direction. This could have resulted in a collision of the two modules, potentially damaging the capsule’ heatshield and making re-entry impossible.

There may even be more issues that haven’t been identified yet; the NASA investigation isn’t completed. Regardless, this second issue will almost certainly require Boeing to carry out another, more successful unmanned test flight of Starliner before NASA will allow a manned flight.

Boeing’s troubles with its Starliner capsule come on top of the company’s continuing troubles with its 737 Max 800 Jet! (Credit: New York Post)

Which makes it a safe bet that Space X will be the first private company to launch human beings into space. Having aced their final In-Flight-Abort test in January all that remains before astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken climb aboard Space X’s Dragon capsule for a trip to the ISS is paperwork, a lot of paperwork. Informed sources have stated that both NASA and Space X are working toward a target launch date of May 7th but realistically the mission could take place anytime between late April or early June. And just to make certain that the tees are crossed and the eyes dotted on all of that paperwork Space X has announced that they have hired former NASA Associate Director for Human Exploration and Operations William Gerstenmaier to oversee the final details. With his background in NASA’s shuttle and ISS programs Gerstenmaier will see to it that when Dragon does launch it will be as ready to go as humanly possible.

Space X’s Dragon Capsule has completed all of its tests and its first manned mission could come as early as April! (Credit: Space X)
William Gerstenmaier is a long time manager of NASA manned missions. His expertise will be of great value to Space X. (Credit: Space News)

One question still to be resolved is just how long Hurley and Behnken will stay at the ISS. The original plan was for the Dragon capsule to only remain docked to the station for a week but at the moment Chris Cassidy is the only American aboard the ISS. To increase their presence on the ISS NASA is considering extending Hurley and Behnken’s mission to as much as three months. If that option is chosen then Hurley and Behnken may need to undergo some additional ISS training. Whichever option is chosen the countdown has begun, in just a matter of months the U.S. will be back in the business of human space flight.

Space X Astronauts Doug Hurley (r) and Bob Behnken are ready, even anxious to go! (Credit: Space X)

Now of course NASA is also in the unmanned space exploration business as well, and there’s news from the furthest parts of our Solar system and beyond.

NASA is still downloading data from its New Horizons spacecraft that the probe gathered during its flyby of the Kuiper belt object Arrokoth, formerly Ultima Thule, back on New Year’s Day in 2019. Even from the first images that were sent back of the peanut shaped object however planetary scientists became convinced that Arrokoth was actually two objects that were fully formed before they joined softly together. See image below.

The data sent back by New Horizons clearly shows that Arrokoth is two distinct objects that gently came together. (Credit: NASA)

Now the New Horizons team thinks that their models of how Arrokoth formed may have a profound effect on theories of how our entire Solar system came into being. Current ideas about planet formation are rather violent, with orbiting boulders smashing into each other while proto-planets were bombarded by a constant rain of meteoroids.

Was the formation of the Earth this violent? The data from Arrokoth seems to say no! (Credit: Quora)

The data from New Horizons suggests that the early Solar system may not have been quite so violent however. Perhaps the pieces that made up the planets came together more gently and as the proto-planet grew the force of gravity just squeezed everything together into the familiar ball shape that the planets have today. How much influence the work of the New Horizons scientists will have on our theories of the early solar system remains to be seen, after all other scientists still get their chance to examine and criticize it. Also it’s worth remembering that things are a lot colder and quieter in the outer Solar system anyway, after all Pluto’s velocity around the Sun is just about one tenth that of Mercury’s. With that in mind you would expect events in the outer Solar System to happen less violently.

I’d like to conclude this briefing by discussing the problem that NASA recently successfully fixed on the Voyager 2 space probe. First launched over forty years ago Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited four planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

The Voyager 2 spacecraft has had a rather distinguished career! (Credit: JPL-NASA)

Voyage 2 is still working; it’s left the Solar System now, joining its sister Voyager 1 in interstellar space. With only a tiny amount of energy still being provided by its Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) NASA has shut off all of the probe’s instruments except its magnetometer and cosmic ray detector to save power.

Then on January 25 Voyager 2 failed to perform a routine calibration of its magnetometer. Telemetry from the spacecraft indicated that a fault protection circuit had been activated to prevent a power overload. Since Voyager 2 is now so far away from Earth, 18.5 billion kilometers, it takes 17 hours for an instruction to reach the probe, and another 17 for the spacecraft’s response to reach Earth, even trying to understand the problem took a considerable amount of time. In fact it took a full three days of back and forth messages to sort out the power budget.

Still they did it; they managed to fix a 42-year-old spacecraft that’s now speeding through the space between the stars. Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Labouratory are confident that both Voyager probes could continue their missions for as much as another 10 years. Imagine that, fifty years of exploring both the Solar System as well as interstellar space.