Category Archives: In Space Infrastructure

In Space Infrastructure, Living in Space, Space Systems

FISO: On-Orbit Servicing + To Mars via 6 not-so-easy pieces + Solar sails

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Catching up with recent presentations to the Future In-Space Operations (FISO) study group. The presentation materials are  posted in the FISO Working Group Presentations Archive for the following 3 talks.

* On-Orbit Servicing: Telepresence and the DEOS Simulator, Jordi Artigas , DLR  – May.7.14

  • An overview of the German space agency (DLR)  in-space robotics projects, past and present. An intro to telepresence
  • Artigas_5-7-14.pdf – slides
  • Artigas.mp3 – audio

A timeline of DLR space robotics projects:

Timeline

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* Mission to Mars Using Six ‘Not So Easy’ Pieces, Mike Raftery, Boeing- May 14, 2014

SEPatMars

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* Solar Sail Description and Space Weather (and Other) Mission Capabilities, Bruce Campbell , (formally ATK, GSFC) – May 21, 2014

  • An overview of the basics of solar sails, types of solar sails, a review of previous, current and future projects
  • Campbell_5-21-14.pdf – slides
  • Campbell.mp3 – audio

SizeComparisons

In Space Infrastructure, Living in Space, Space Systems

Sunday webinar on artificial gravity via rotation with tethers

On Sunday May 25th,  The Space Show will present a special video webinar program on the topic of using rotation to provide artificial gravity. Joe Carroll will discuss his ideas on using tethers for such rotating systems.

WEBINAR: The Sunday, May 25, 2014 program from 1-3 PM PDT, (4-6 PM EDT, 3-5 PM CDT): This is our first WEBINAR for 2014. Our guest of honor is Joe Carroll and I will be assisted on the panel with Dr. John Jurist and Dr. Jim Logan. Joe is updating us on his partial gravity work which was the topic of an earlier webinar in May 2011. You can listen to the audio only for this show as you would any Space Show program. If you want to see the live webinar, go to our private UStream Space Show channel, www.ustream.tv/channel/the-space-show. Note that this show will archive audio and video simultaneously. The video of our webinar will be on our private Space Show Vimeo channel. Watch for details.

Joe Carroll has worked since 1981 on advanced space transportation, mostly involving long tethers. He led the development of the Small Expendable Deployment System (SEDS), which demonstrated controlled deorbit without rockets in 1993 and also flew successfully on SEDS-2 in 1994, and TiPS in 1996. He also developed the deployer and wire for the Plasma Motor Generator (PMG), which demonstrated electrodynamic thrust in orbit.  He has also worked on unmanned and manned reentry vehicle concepts for NASA and several startups. His main current work is on electrodynamic tethers.

Here is a paper by Carroll : Design Concepts for a Manned Artificial Gravity Research Facility, by Joseph A Carroll, Tether Applications, Inc., USA (pdf).

[ Update: Some additional material has been made available for the show:

]

Here are articles from Robert Walker who examines Carroll’s tether concept. Walker includes several animations showing how a crew capsule and its spent upper stage could be tethered together to provide a spin gravity system at low cost:

Here, for example, is an animation of a Soyuz spacecraft that is tethered to its upper stage.

For lunar gravity level:

Joe Caroll suggests a 600 meter tether. The final stage weighs a third of the weight of the Soyuz. This puts the centre of gravity of the assembly 150 meters away from the Soyuz, and 450 meters away from the final stage. 

This lets you generate artificial lunar gravity with spin rate of 1 rpm.

At that rotation rate the Soyuz has delta v of 15.6 m/sec, the final stage travels at three times that speed, and the speed of the Soyuz relative to the final stage is four times that, 62.4 m/sec.

In Space Infrastructure, Living in Space, SpaceCasts

Video: “Space to Ground” update on ISS

Here’s NASA’s latest Space to Ground report on activities aboard the International Space Station:

In Space Infrastructure, Space Radio, Space Systems

“Ham TV” becomes operational on the ISS

The ESA reports on TV transmission using the amateur radio station on the ISS:

Ham video premiers on Space Station

5 May 2014: Astronauts on the International Space Station can now talk with people on Earth with video using simple transmitters. ‘Ham TV’ has been set up in ESA’s Columbus laboratory and already used for talking with ground control.


Commissioning of the  ISS Ham TV

Amateur radio enthusiasts have been able to poll astronauts circling our planet using standard radio equipment since the Station was inaugurated in 2000. Radio signals easily reach the orbital outpost flying 350 km above us on sets readily available to radio enthusiasts.

The new Ham TV adds a visual dimension, allowing an audience on the ground to see and hear the astronauts.

Ham TV equipment

The hardware, developed by Kayser Italia, was sent to the Station on Japan’s space freighter in August last year and connected to an existing S-band antenna on Columbus.

Ham video in action

NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins had the honour of being the first to commission the unit and broadcast over Ham TV. He had a video chat with three ground stations in Italy: Livorno, Casale Monferrato and Matera. The crew finished commissioning the set-up on 12 April for general use.

Just like standard television, the video signal is one way. The astronauts cannot see their audience but they will still be able to hear them over the traditional amateur radio on the Station.

Ham TV ground station

Contacts are brief – the connection requires direct line of sight and the Station’s 28 800 km/h means it quickly passes through the field of view of amateur stations.

ESA has provided five ground antennas and equipment to the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station organisation to receive video from the Station. These stations can be transported easily and positioned to follow the laboratory as it flies overhead. Linked together in this way, the stations can supply up to 20 minutes of contact at a time.

Ham TV will add to ham radio for space educational purposes, offering schoolchildren the chance to talk and see astronauts in space with simple equipment.

Anybody can still hail the Station via radio and, if an astronaut floats by the always-on receiver, they might just pick up and answer the call.

For more information on how to get involved and organise an educational event, contact the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station organisation.

In Space Infrastructure, Living in Space, Science and Technology

Microbial astronauts now and in the past

Life’s spread into the solar system may have gotten inadvertent transport via earth’s spacecraft:

Life probably spread already from earth via debris thrown into space from giant meteorite impacts in the distant past:  How Life-Bearing Rocks from the Chicxulub Asteroid Impact must have Spread through the Solar System: Earth rocks capable of carrying and protecting life have probably to travelled to Europa, Titan and beyond, say astrobiologists – The Physics arXiv Blog

Also, if life originated on Mars, it would have colonized earth in a similar manner: