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Amateur/Student Satellite, Space Systems

Student and amateur CubeSat news roundup – July.22.2019

A sampling of recent articles, press releases, etc. related to student and amateur CubeSat / SmallSat projects and programs:

** East Tennessee middle school students build cubesat for launch from the ISS:

Students are in the final stages of progression from using 3-D printed plastic prototypes to working with space-age materials. The Robertsville Rams’ so-called Ramsat will help study regrowth of forests in the Smokies from space.

The student group, mentored by professionals at nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory, are awaiting word from NASA on which launch would send up their cubesat as secondary payload to the International Space Station.

** Students at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology working on CubeSat formation flying: Space exploration research ongoing at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology – KNBN NewsCenter1

At SDSM&T, a small group of engineering students are working to take the cubesat to a new level through NASA’s cubesate launch initiative.

“We need to be able to use a camera to figure out where a cubesat is relative to another cubesat,” said Skye Rutan-Bedard, undergraduate researcher.

…

The goal is to communicate between multiple cubesats, getting them close together in space.

“By introducing better technology for getting these cubesats to localize, when they’re close to each other they can produce densely packed constellations and also means we can experiment with docking and getting individual cubesats to dock in orbit,” said Rutan-Bedard.

** Arizona and Puerto Rico students to build CubeSats to carry out asteroid surface simulation experiments: $3M in NASA Funding to Help Students Build CubeSats | UANews

University of Arizona researchers will use $3 million in NASA funding over three years to research the low-gravity surface environments of asteroids, and to provide students from underrepresented backgrounds the opportunity to design, build and operate CubeSats, or miniature satellites at the UA.

The project was selected through NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project Institutional Research Opportunity, or MIRO, program. The UA, which was designated a Hispanic-Serving Institution in 2018, is one of eight institutions to receive a share of more than $8.2 million in cooperative agreements awarded through the MIRO program.

“This project will help us understand asteroid surface geophysics in a way that no one has done before,” said Erik Asphaug, deputy principal investigator for the project and a professor in the UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. “And the students get to participate in a low-cost endeavor that has huge implications for how we work with asteroids in near-Earth space.”

** Univ. Central Florida Q-PACE CubeSat to study how small dust particles grew into planets:

In the very early stages of planet formation, dust grains trapped in a disk around the young star gently collide with each other, sticking and growing into bigger aggregates. Similarly, particles in planetary rings collide at very low relative velocities and form aggregates leading to many an observed features of Saturn’s rings for example. To better understand these low-velocity collisions and the growth of aggregates, microgravity experiments observing multi-particles systems are required. In particular, collision data for µm to cm-sized particles will help closing the current gap in knowledge of how dust grows into km-sized bodies, as well as better our understanding of particle dynamics in planetary rings.

Q-PACE (CubeSat Particle Aggregation and Collision Experiment) will observe a set of 0.1 mm to cm-sized particles colliding and growing under microgravity conditions. This 3U CubeSat will allow that inherits its format from the NanoRocks experiment currently on the International Space Station will allow for the observation of particle dynamical evolution and growth for an unprecedented duration in time of several years. 

** AMSAT news on student and amateur CubeSat/smallsat projects: ANS-202 AMSAT News Service Special Bulletin

  • AMSAT is proud to announce the relaunch of its AMSAT Ambassador Program
  • Watch for ISS, SSTV Activity
  • Nihon University Announces FO-99 US Operation Plan
  • FO-29 update from JARL
  • 2019 Mid-Year Fundraising Letter
  • 2019 37th AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual General Meeting
  • Upcoming Satellite Operations
  • ARISS News
  • Shorts From All Over

General CubeSat/SmallSat info:

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The Case for Space:
How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up
a Future of Limitless Possibility

In Space Infrastructure, Living in Space, Spaceflight & Parabolic Flight

Videos: “Space to Ground” ISS report – July.19.2019

This week’s episode of NASA’s Space to Ground reports on activities related to the  International Space Station:

** Astronaut Training: Then and Now

Mission training for astronauts reflects the missions themselves: rigorous. In the Apollo era, astronauts and engineers prepared for the unknown as much as possible, but knew how to improvise in unprecedented situations. Currently, we’ve set our sights on going further, and our modern technology has allowed us to train much more safely – all in pursuit of our next giant leap.

** Astronaut Moments: Drew Morgan

Description: Before launching to the International Space Station on the anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s “giant leap for mankind,” astronaut Drew Morgan was making his own giant leaps out of airplanes as part of his training.

** We Go as the Artemis Generation

We Go: To the Moon and on to Mars. Our generation, the Artemis generation, will explore farther than we’ve ever gone before. The Artemis program will send the first woman and next man to walk on the surface of the Moon and build a sustainable base to prepare for missions to Mars and beyond.

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Outpost in Orbit:
A Pictorial & Verbal History of the Space Station

Activism, Space Policy

Space policy roundup – July.19.2019

A sampling of links to recent space policy, politics, and government (US and international) related space news and resource items that I found of interest:

Webcasts:

**  Back to the Moon: This Time to Stay? – SETI Institute. The first of two public seminars on NASA’s Artemis lunar program.

… Greg Schmidt, Director of the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI), and Michael Sims, CEO, and founder of Ceres Robotics will present this first talk.

Greg leads NASA’s lunar exploration research program and will give us an update on Artemis. Michael, an expert on AI and robotic exploration, will describe the activities of Ceres Robotics in the exploration of the Moon and the understanding of its geology and surface properties. After a short presentation, both speakers will participate in a discussion about the past, present, and future of lunar exploration moderated by David Morrison, Senior Scientist at SSERVI and former director of the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute.

** July 16, 2019 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast | Behind The Black

** Episode T+126: The NASA Ousters – Main Engine Cut Off

** The Space Show – Tue, 07/16/2019 – Douglas Messier talked about Virgin Galactic, “human spaceflight, NASA key personnel changes, congressional funding for NASA, SpaceX, Blue Origin and much more”.

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Safe Is Not an Option

History, Space Arts, The Moon

Video: “How to Draw the Lunar Lander”

Artist Stanley Von Medvey shows how to draw the Apollo lunar lander:

If you prefer to build a model of the lander, here are some paper model guides for download:

Here’s a 1960s era NASA fact sheet for the Lunar Module (pdf).

And a simulator: Eagle Lander 3D (EL3D)

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Aoshima Apollo Lunar Module Eagle-5 Model Kit

Asteroids & Comets, Astronomy, Space Science

Space sciences roundup – July.17.2019

A sampling of recent articles, videos, and images from space-related science news items:

Asteroids

** JAXA Hayabusa2 made a successful 2nd sample grab from asteroid Ryugu on July 11th. The :

From SFN:

The robot explorer’s sampling mechanism works by firing a metal bullet into the asteroid once the probe’s sampler horn, which extends from one side of the spacecraft, contacts the surface. The projectile is designed to blast away rock and dust on the asteroid’s surface, then direct the material through the sampler horn into a collection chamber inside the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft.

This image shows debris thrown up from the surface of Ryugu by the bullet.

Hayabusa2 2nd Touchdown
Image of surface immediately after touchdown. Taken with the Optical Navigation Camera – Wide angle (ONC-W1). Credits: Hayabusa-2 project.

A diagram of the touch-and-go surface sampling operation:

Outline of the 2nd touchdown operation.
Outline of the 2nd touchdown operation.

More about the The 2nd touchdown – JAXA Hayabusa2 project

** Help OSIRIS-REx mission map the rugged surface of the Bennu asteroid  NASA Invites Public to Help Asteroid Mission Choose Sample Site | NASA

Citizen scientists assemble! NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission to the asteroid Bennu needs extra pairs of eyes to help choose its sample collection site on the asteroid – and to look for anything else that might be scientifically interesting.

Bennu surface
“This image shows a view of asteroid Bennu’s surface in a region near the equator. It was taken by the PolyCam camera on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on March 21 from a distance of 2.2 miles (3.5 km). The field of view is 158.5 ft (48.3 m). For scale, the light-colored rock in the upper left corner of the image is 24 ft (7.4 m) wide. Credits: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona”

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has been at Bennu since Dec. 3, 2018, mapping the asteroid in detail, while the mission team searches for a sample collection site that is safe, conducive to sample collection and worthy of closer study. One of the biggest challenges of this effort, which the team discovered after arriving at the asteroid five months ago, is that Bennu has an extremely rocky surface and each boulder presents a danger to the spacecraft’s safety. To expedite the sample selection process, the team is asking citizen scientist volunteers to develop a hazard map by counting boulders.

“For the safety of the spacecraft, the mission team needs a comprehensive catalog of all the boulders near the potential sample collection sites, and I invite members of the public to assist the OSIRIS-REx mission team in accomplishing this essential task,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

For this effort, NASA is partnering with CosmoQuest, a project run out of the Planetary Science Institute that supports citizen science initiatives. Volunteers will perform the same tasks that planetary scientists do – measuring Bennu’s boulders and mapping its rocks and craters – through the use of a simple web interface. They will also mark other scientifically interesting features on the asteroid for further investigation.

The boulder mapping work involves a high degree of precision, but it is not difficult. The CosmoQuest mapping app requires a computer with a larger screen and a mouse or trackpad capable of making precise marks. To help volunteers get started, the CosmoQuest team provides an interactive tutorial, as well as additional user assistance through a Discord community and livestreaming sessions on Twitch.

For more info see:

Microgravity Science & Technology R&D

** SpaceX Cargo Dragon to deliver wide range of science and technology experiments to the ISS. Liftoff of mission CRS-18 is currently set for July 21st at 7:35 pm EDT (2335 GMT)

Highlights of Science Launching on SpaceX CRS 18 – July 8, 2019 –

Solar Science

** Sunspot count near zero in June. Faint spots subsequently show signs of start of next cycle: Sunspot update June 2019: Down to zero again, with next cycle making an appearance | Behind The Black

These two visible sunspots for the next solar cycle are very significant. They indicate that we will have an upcoming solar maximum, and are not heading into a grand minimum, when no sunspots are visible for decades.

Their appearance however does not mean that solar minimum is over. On the contrary, the solar cycles typically overlap by one or two years, with new sunspots for the next solar cycle appearing even as the Sun ramps down to minimum and remains relatively inactive for many months.

I cannot deny that I will be disappointed if a grand minimum does not occur. Such an event would have been a wonderful opportunity for solar scientists to get answers to their many questions about the Sun’s solar cycles that today remain unanswered and will likely not be answerable while the Sun follows its behavior of the last three hundred years.

At the same time, if the upcoming solar cycle is weak, as has been predicted by some solar scientists, it will help confirm some theories that try to explain the Sun’s behavior.

ISES Solar Cycle Sunspot Number Progression - NOAA

Check SpaceWeather.com for the daily sunspot count. More solar images and measurements can be found on the Space-for-All page The Sun & Space Weather.

Continue reading Space sciences roundup – July.17.2019 →