The latest report from NASA on ISS activities the past week: Space to Ground: Return to Earth: 05/16/2014 – YouTube
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A description of the RapidScat instrument that will be installed on the ISS later this year to measure wind speeds on the oceans:
Category Archives: Space Systems
ISSE-3 Reboot Project raises $125k + SpaceIL crowd-funding campaign
I wrote a post back in April about the private effort to reconnect with the 36 year old International Sun-Earth Explorers (ISSE) spacecraft and direct it back to its original solar science mission. The crowd-funding campaign to raise $125,000 to get the project underway has been a success:
- ISEE-3 Reboot Project crowdfunding campaign RocketHub
- ISEE-3 Reboot Project Passes Funding Goal – Space College
Here’s an update from Dennis Wingo: ISEE-3 Reboot Project Status and Schedule for First Contact – Space College.
And here is a video report on the project:
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The Israeli based SpaceIL team in the GLXP has opened a crowdfunding campaign as well: Join SpaceIL’s Mission to Land the First Israeli Spacecraft on the Moon! – Indiegogo.
After just 2 days they have raised $41k towards their $240k goal.
In April the Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson gave the project $16.4M: Israel space project gets $16 million boost from casino mogul Adelson | Reuters
However, they still need to raise a considerable amount of money to cover the launch and the mission operations.
Here is a new video about the project:
RevUp Render Lunar Iditarod – racing lunar micro-rovers
A readers points me to the debut of the RevUp Render Lunar Iditarod, a micro-rover contest involving stages of competition that ultimately will result in a race on the Moon as the final stage:
Micro Rover Race
The RevUp Render Lunar Iditarod is a micro rover race. Participants will build very small rovers to race, both for time and against one another. The Lundar Iditarod will take the top three participants to the moon for a final challenge.
Gated Challenge
The RevUp Render Lunar Iditarod is a gated challenge. Participants must partake in the lower level before being allowed to participate in the next. The different levels will be called “Stages.” Having different stages will provide funding for competition and also prevent individuals from jumping in at the last second and stealing the “prize” of racing on the moon.
There will be five stages:
Each stage has its own entry requirements. Each stage will have a separate entry fee. Each stage will have separate rewards. Teams may participate in as many stages as they pay for and qualify for in a single event. However, no fees are refundable.
The first and second stage competitions will be held quarterly starting on September 6th, 2014. The third stage will be held on to-be-determined dates concurrent with the first and second stage competitions once there are 16 qualified entrants.
The fourth stage race will take place seven months prior to the launch of the payloads to the moon.
Each stage of competition among the micro rovers (called DogeSleds) is laid out. Here is, for example, stage one:
Teams must connect their DogeSled to the competition wifi network. All teams must successfully start from a fixed position and travel nine meters in lunar regolith simulant across a finish line in under ten minutes.
The entry fee is 2,250,000 dogecoin.
A prize for the fastest time in an event will be awarded. That prize will be 3,000,000 dogecoins.
As you can see, the fees and prizes are expressed in Dogecoin, “an open source peer-to-peer digital currency”. Find the latest value in US dollars at DogePay – DogeCoin Price.
The schedule is still being worked out:
The first two stages will be held quarterly up to seven months before the launch. The third stage will be announced and held when 16 participants have advanced through the first two stages. The fourth stage will feature a bracketed race-off that will take place seven months before the launch from which the top three DogeSleds will advance to the moon. DogeSleds will be placed into the stowage for the launch to the moon six months prior to the launch.
The primary sponsor is RevUp Render a cloud computing service.
Requirements and Registration are now available.
Citizens in Space at MakerCon to debut space experiment carrier for XCOR Lynx
Here’s a follow-up to the recent news from Citizens in Space about their newly developed experiment payload rack for the XCOR Lynx:
New Space Research Platform Will Be Unveiled at MakerCon
Redwood City, CA (May 8, 2013) – A new research platform that promises to dramatically reduce the cost of access to space for small scientific and education payloads will be publicly unveiled at MakerCon, which takes place at the Oracle Conference Center in Redwood City next week.
The Lynx Cub Payload Carrier, developed by the United States Rocket Academy, Texas A&M University, and the Space Engineering Research Center (a Texas state agency) will fly on the XCOR Lynx spacecraft. A fully reusable, piloted, suborbital spacecraft, Lynx is designed to fly four times a day. The Lynx Cub Payload Carrier will fit behind the pilot’s seat and carry up to 15 small experiments on each flight.
The Lynx Cub Carrier will be unveiled by United States Rocket Academy founder Edward Wright during a presentation on “Citizen Science and Citizen Space Exploration.” The presentation takes place on Tuesday, May 13 at 2:55-3:15 PM, in Room 102/103 of the Oracle Conference Center.
“The Lynx spacecraft is now under construction at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California,” Wright said. “XCOR Aerospace expects to begin flight tests later this year.
“The Cub Carrier can be installed and removed quickly for frequent, low-cost flight opportunities. The Lynx Cub Carrier is an ideal platform for small materials-processing, fluid-physics, life-science, and engineering experiments. University teaching and research, K-12 education, citizen science, government and industrial R&D will all benefit from the convenient simple interfaces, rapid integration, and affordability of Lynx Cub experiments. We are pleased to have the opportunity to introduce this exciting platform to the audience at MakerCon.”
MakerCon is a premiere event organized by Maker Media, publisher of Make magazine and producer of Maker Faire.
MakerCon brings together the leaders at the forefront of the maker movement. The conference provides new insights into local and global manufacturing, design, marketing and distribution, and diverse funding options to help makers bring their products to market.
MakerCon is presented by Intel and hosted by Oracle Corporation. More information, including a complete list of speakers, is available at www.makercon.com. Registration is available at www.makercon.com/attend.
Additional information about Citizens in Space can be found at www.citizensinspace.org.
ISS earth observation: ISERV images for enviro tasks + HDEV video now streaming
The ISS SERVIR Environmental Research and Visualization System (ISERV):
automatically takes images of Earth through a small telescope with an off-the-shelf digital camera mounted in the International Space Station’s Destiny module. When ISERV is running, it captures 3 images per second that cover approximately a 19 km x 11 km area each. The goal is to improve automatic image capturing and data transfer, but the images taken in the experiment could also help environmental scientists, disaster responders and other Earth-based users.
Burgess Howell is the principal investigator and payload developer for ISERV and in this video he describes the system and examples of images.:
See also the gallery of great images at ISERV: A New ‘Eye’ on Earth – a set on Flickr.
The overall SERVIR program
is a joint venture between NASA and USAID which provides satellite-based Earth observation data and science applications to help developing nations improve their environmental decision making.
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The ISS HD Earth Viewing Experiment was mentioned here last Saturday but it was not active at the time. Today it has been showing beautiful streaming video of the earth:
Live streaming video by Ustream
Caption:
Black Image = International Space Station (ISS) is on the night side of the Earth.
Gray Image = Switching between cameras, or communications with the ISS is not available.
No Audio = Normal. There is no audio on purpose. Add your own soundtrack.
For a display of the real time ISS location plus the HDEV imagery, visit here: http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/HDEV/
The High Definition Earth Viewing (HDEV) experiment aboard the ISS was activated April 30, 2014. It is mounted on the External Payload Facility of the European Space Agency’s Columbus module. This experiment includes several commercial HD video cameras aimed at the earth which are enclosed in a pressurized and temperature controlled housing. Video from these cameras is transmitted back to earth and also streamed live on this channel. While the experiment is operational, views will typically sequence though the different cameras.
Between camera switches, a gray and then black color slate will briefly appear. Since the ISS is in darkness during part of each orbit, the images will be dark at those times. During periods of loss of signal with the ground or when HDEV is not operating, a gray color slate or previously recorded video may be seen.
Analysis of this experiment will be conducted to assess the effects of the space environment on the equipment and video quality which may help decisions about cameras for future missions. High school students helped with the design of some of the HDEV components through the High Schools United with NASA to Create Hardware (HUNCH) program. Student teams will also help operate the experiment. To learn more about the HDDEV experiment, visit here: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/917.html