… In perusing the April image release from the high resolution camera of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), I came across the image above, cropped and reduced to post here, of the discovery of another landslide within Hydraotes Chaos, one of the largest regions of chaos terrain on Mars. The image above was taken on February 9, 2019, and has since been followed up with a second image to create a stereo pair.
This is not the first landslide found in Hydraotes Chaos. I highlighted a similar slide on March 11. Both today’s landslide as well as the previous one likely represent examples of gravitational collapses as shown in this science paper about Martian ground water. Some scientists have proposed that Hydraotes Chaos was once an inland sea, and as the water drained away the loss of its buoyancy is thought to cause this kind of landslide at the base of cliffs and crater rims.
The past presence of water also helps explain the soft muddy look of this landslide. When this collapse occurred the material was likely saturated with water. Today it is most likely quite dry and hardened, but when it flowed it flowed like wet mud. Its size, almost a mile long and a quarter mile across, speaks to Mars’s low gravity, which would allow for large singular collapses like this.
** Ocean Worlds in the Outer Solar System is the title of a Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture given recently by Kevin Hand of NASA JPL:
Dr. Kevin Hand of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory asks where the best place is to find life beyond Earth. He concludes it may be that the small, ice-covered moons of Jupiter and Saturn harbor some of the most habitable real estate in our Solar System. Life loves liquid water and these moons have lots of it! Dr. Hand explains the science behind our understanding of these worlds, with a special focus on Jupiter’s intriguing moon Europa, which is a top priority for future NASA missions.
A sampling of recent articles, videos, and images dealing with space transport:
** Blue Origin plans to fly a New Shepard rocket vehicle on Thursday morning at the company’s facilities in West Texas. The website will provide a webcast.
“We are now on the verge of giving students and teachers the ability to build and fly affordable experiments in space. When teachers are this excited about putting experiments in space, their students can’t help but get excited about space, too.”
Elizabeth Kennick, president of Teachers in Space, does not take the opportunity to fly an experiment to space for granted. The nonprofit organization has worked with educators and engineers to design and test standard equipment for classroom-developed experiments, including 3D-printed frames, customizable processors, power adaptors and more. The equipment first flew on high-altitude balloons and more recently on a stratospheric glider. Now, thanks to support from NASA’s Flight Opportunities program, the equipment will fly higher than ever before: to space on the next launch of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.
** The ISS crew has made progress towards fixing the power fault that caused the delay of the launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the CRS-17 Dragon Cargo vehicle. No word yet, though, if the mission will be allowed to take off early (3:11 am EDT) Friday morning.
** Rocket Lab preparing for an Electron launch of three USAF satellites during a two week window that opens this Saturday: Next launch | Rocket Lab
It’s beginning to feel like launch week! The payloads for the STP-27RD mission have been integrated onto Electron’s Kick Stage and fairing encapsulation is complete. The 14-day launch window window opens on 4 May UTC and yes, we will be live streaming launch. 🚀 pic.twitter.com/e1fagAFI88
Virgin Orbit has developed a small rocket called LauncherOne that can put satellites the size of washing machines into orbit. And its launchpad resides at 35,000 feet. Virgin Orbit owns a Boeing 747 airplane, called Cosmic Girl, which carries LauncherOne up into the sky. From there, the rocket will drop from underneath Cosmic Girl’s left wing and then ignite, climbing the rest of the way to orbit.
** Vector Launch moves towards test flights this year:
Lots of progress the past few weeks @vectorspacesys with our 1001 vehicle shipping out to the Arizona Test Site where it’s undergoing stage level testing. pic.twitter.com/zfCWHfZh0G
Skyrora will make three test launches over the next 12 months, the first expected to take place over the next few months, as part of its effort to certify its Skyrora XL satellite launch vehicle that will be 10 metres tall and will be able to loft a 100 kilogram payload into low-Earth orbit. The company conducted one of its first tests near Evanton, Scotland, in August 2018 when it launched its SkyLark Nano sounding rocket to an altitude of 6 kilometres, reaching a speed of Mach 1.45.
Among the launch tests planned for the coming year is one aiming to breach the so-called Kármán line, the altitude at which atmospheric flight ends and orbital dynamics begin – 100km.
It’s unclear what exactly the spacecraft is doing up there. X-37B missions are classified, and Air Force officials tend to speak of project goals in general terms, as this excerpt from the X-37B fact sheet shows: “The primary objectives of the X-37B are twofold: reusable spacecraft technologies for America’s future in space and operating experiments which can be returned to, and examined, on Earth.”
Still, the Air Force does divulge some payloads flying on X-37B missions. For example, we know that OTV-5 includes the Advanced Structurally Embedded Thermal Spreader experiment (ASETS-II), which is measuring the performance of electronics and oscillating heat pipes in the space environment.
A SpaceX Dragon supply ship packed with nearly three tons of experiments, crew provisions and supplies will remain on the ground until at least Friday morning to allow more time for NASA flight controllers to troubleshoot a problem with an electrical distribution unit on the International Space Station.
Multiple sources said the commercial resupply launch, previously scheduled for Wednesday, will be pushed back at least two days to no earlier than Friday at 3:11 a.m. EDT (0711 GMT).
Long March 4B rocket, with two Tianhui II-01 remote sensing sciencie satellites. Credits: Xinhua
Booster lands on a local village:
Ugh. Here’s the latest edition of toxic hydrazine rocket stages falling on inhabited areas following a Chinese orbital launch. This is from a launch at 22:52 UTC Monday/06:52 Beijing time Tues. https://t.co/dhRtu5mtFRpic.twitter.com/gqNH4ROCVD
Firefly has achieved a major milestone toward flight qualification of the Alpha second stage, supporting Firefly’s goal of Alpha first launch in 2019. A 300 second hotfire test of the complete upper stage was accomplished on the company’s vertical stage test stand. The length of the test successfully demonstrates the capability of the integrated system (flight avionics, structures, and propulsion systems) to operate for the duration of a flight mission (i.e., a mission duty cycle).
We’ve gone vertical with our new HQ and R&D facility in Kent, WA! We’re continuing to add to our world-class team and excited for a large new facility that will support rapid growth. Thanks to Mayor @dana_ralph and @cityofkent as well as everyone involved with the construction. pic.twitter.com/SjUa8fEvpM
There’s a new trend going around in the commercial space industry when it comes to launch abort systems. All three commercial companies who are putting abort systems on their crewed vehicles have ditched the classic launch abort tower we’ve seen dominate abort systems in the past. Previous vehicles like the Mercury capsule, the Apollo capsule and even the Soyuz all used an escape tower that sat on top of the crew module, capable of pulling the vehicle away from a failing rocket in a hurry.
*** Falcon Heavy core booster tested in preparation for the STP-2 Mission set for launch in June:
Barring a surprise reassignment, the booster Joshuah Murrah caught is Falcon 9 B1051, on its way west some 50 days after successfully supporting Crew Dragon’s March 2nd launch debut. Despite the availability of B1046, B1047, and B1049, B1051 was assigned to the Canadian Space Agency’s (CSA) Radarsat Constellation Mission (RCM) shortly after landing aboard OCISLY, triggering major launch delays. The most logical explanation for customer CSA’s and satellite contractor Maxar Technologies’ curious decision is that they must believe that Falcon 9 Block 5 boosters with more than one launch in their past add more risk than those that do not.
*** Broken Falcon Heavy core prepared for departure from Port Canaveral:
In this Order and Authorization (Order), we grant the application1 of Space Exploration Holdings, LLC (SpaceX) to modify its previously authorized 4,425 non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite constellation using Ku- and Ka-band spectrum.2 Specifically, we authorize SpaceX to slightly reduce the number of satellites in this constellation, to operate a substantial portion of these satellites at a lower orbital altitude than previously authorized, and to include the use of Ku-band gateway earth stations for fewer than 75 of these lower-altitude satellites.3 Grant of this modification will allow SpaceX to make efficient use of valuable spectrum resources more safely, quickly, and cost-effectively as it initiates a new generation of broadband services available to customers worldwide, including those in areas previously underserved or even totally unserved by other broadband solutions.
A statement from SpaceX:
Here’s @SpaceX‘s full statement on the FCC granting a modification request for its first ~1500 Starlink satellites.
Above all else, SpaceX’s confirmation that the first batch of Starlink satellites are already in Florida drives home the reality that the company’s internet satellite constellation is about to become very real. Said constellation has long been the subject of endless skepticism and criticism, dominated by a general atmosphere of dismissal. There is no doubt that Starlink, as proposed, is an extraordinarily ambitious program that will cost billions of dollars to even begin to realize. SpaceX will have to find ways to affordably manufacture and launch ~11,900 satellites – together weighing something like 500 metric tons (1.1 million lbs) – in as few as nine years, start to finish.
According to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, the next round of Starhopper activity will focus on removing the spacecraft prototype’s tethers and performing far more substantial hop tests.
Longer tests demand that SpaceX begins expanding the known performance envelope of its full-scale Raptor engine. Towards that end, longer-duration tests would need to be done at the company’s McGregor, TX development facilities to reduce risk, tests that Musk confirmed are already well underway. A recent Raptor static fire reportedly lasted no less than 40 seconds, more than enough time for a single-engine Starhopper to significantly expand both the maximum altitude and velocity of future hop tests. In support of the upcoming Starhopper test campaign, significant construction work is also ongoing at SpaceX’s Boca Chica test and development facilities.
*** Progress on construction of the orbital Starship test vehicle continues at Boca Chica Beach:
#SpaceX crew enjoy a day of rest after a long week of work on the orbital #StarShip prototype. Two sections of the fairing have been assembled and are awaiting for completion. 📷(4/28/19) #BocaChicapic.twitter.com/AIGBWWMJW4
1. Monday, April 22, 2019; 2-3:30 pm PDT (4-5:30 pm CDT, 5-6:30 pm EDT): No show this week.
2. Tuesday, April 23, 2019; 7-8:30 pm PDT (9-10:30 pm CDT, 10-11:30 pm EDT): Bruno Mombrinie, founder and lead designer of the electric short takeoff and landing airplane Metro Hop, will talk about “flying cars for real”.
3. Wednesday, April 24, 2019: Hotel Mars. See Upcoming Show Menu and the website newsletter for details. Hotel Mars is pre-recorded by John Batchelor. It is archived on The Space Show site after John posts it on his website.
4. Friday, April 26, 2019; 9:30-11 am PDT; 11:30 am-1 pm CDT, 12:30-2 pm EDT): Marcia S. Smith will discuss NASA budgets and lunar program costs.
5. Sunday, April 28, 2019; 12 pm PDT (3:00 pm EDT, 2:00 pm CDT): Leonard David will talk about his new book, Moon Rush: The New Space Race. The interview will be followed by an Open Lines session.
** Mon, 04/22/2019 – Daniel Suarez discussed his new science fiction novel,Delta-v, and “deep space mining, space economics, commercial space, policy and regulations, government space activities, risk taking, lunar return, Mars and much much more”.
Mentored by experts from the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), undergraduate students at Birla Institute of Technology, Pilani, are inching closer to their dream of designing and launching a nano-satellite or cubesat — of the size of a shoebox – with a special camera that will help study the earth’s surface for response during natural hazards and track carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
The country’s first student-run undergraduate research group, which is on a mission to launch a one-of-its-kind nano-satellite with hyperspectral imager, has been christened Team Anant. It has 40 members across all engineering branches and batches at the Rajasthan-based institute.
** Students at Rensselaer Polytechnique Institute (RPI) are building OSCaR (Obsolete Spacecraft Capture and Removal) smallsat to test techniques for de-orbiting space debris
OSCaR (Obsolete Spacecraft Capture and Removal) is a 3U CubeSat in development at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute that aims to de-orbit space debris.
From the RPI article:
… [Professor Kurt] Anderson and his students are developing OSCaR, a small device that will be able to inexpensively be sent into space aboard larger vehicles and then released to nearly autonomously seek out, capture, and then de-orbit space debris.
OSCaR is a three-unit member of a class of very small satellites known as CubeSats. Each unit is a small and light 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm cube.
One of those CubeSat units will house the “brains” of OSCaR including GPS, data storage, and communication, as well as the power and thermal management systems. Another will hold propellant and the system’s propulsion module to drive OSCaR forward. The third unit will contain four gun barrels, nets, and tethers to physically capture debris, one piece at a time. This capture module will also have optical, thermal, and RADAR imaging sensors to help OSCaR locate debris in the vastness of its surrounding space.
After it is done collecting debris, OSCaR will be programmed to deorbit itself within five years, destroying itself and the debris it caught.
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