Category Archives: Space Systems

Contests and Games, Space Systems, The Moon

“The Moon Race” – A lunar technologies competition

Airbus, Blue Origin, ESA, and some other heavyweight companies and organizations are backing a new technical competition program called The Moon Race:

The Moon Race competition is a global initiative founded by Airbus and international partners, aiming to boost the movement around Moon exploration and enable the demonstration of key technologies required for its sustainable exploration.

Some minor details such as exactly what technologies are to be demonstrated and the value of the prizes have yet to be determined: Blue Origin and Airbus back ‘The Moon Race’ – Alan Boyle/GeekWire

Organizers launched their effort at this week’s International Astronautical Congressin Bremen, Germany. They want teams to propose technological challenges for lunar surface operations in time for next year’s IAC meeting.

Suggestions could include constructing the first artifact made from lunar resources, extracting enough water from lunar soil to fill a standard-sized bottle, building a power-generating system capable of lighting up the lunar night, or operating the first lunar greenhouse.

The application period is due to open in early 2019. “Details on monetary prizes will be announced with the opening of the applications period,” the organizers say.

The competition is envisioned as a five year program starting from the 2019 starting line. The teams would be expected to “demonstrate proof-of-concept” in 2020, test the systems in a “lunar environment” in 2021, build working implementations in 2022-2023, and send them to the Moon in 2024.

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Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto

Living in Space, Space Systems, SpaceCasts

Videos: “Space to Ground” ISS report – Sept.28.2018

The latest episode of NASA’s Space to Ground report on activities related to the International Space Station:

** Sunset to sunrise as seen from the ISS:

 

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Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto

Future space, Science and Technology, Space Systems

Videos: Leading edge space technologies presented at the 2018 NIAC Symposium

Check out the latest leading edge technology ideas presented this week by winners of NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program grants at the 2018 NIAC Symposium underway in Boston till Thursday. The agenda (pdf) lists the talks and you can watch the presentations at the NIAC 2018 Livestream.

Below are videos of three of the sessions on Tuesday. The presenters included, for example, Ryan Weed of Positron Dynamics on antimatter catalyzed fusion propulsion, Stephanie Thomas of Princeton Satellite Systems on a plasma magnetic fusion propulsion design, and James Woodward of the Space Studies Institute on a Mach Effect drive.

This video from Princeton Satellite Systems describes their fusion propulsion design:

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Asteroids & Comets, Space Science, Space Systems

The Japanese Hayabusa-2 spacecraft deployed two rovers onto the asteroid Ryugu

On Friday the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa-2 has successfully placed two mini-rovers named MINERVA-II1A and MINERVA-II1B onto the near earth asteroid Ryugu, which is about 1 kilometer (0.6 mi) in diameter:  They Made It! Japan’s Two Hopping Rovers Successfully Land on Asteroid Ryugu.

Hayabusa-2 came within 55 meters of the surface of the asteroid to release the rovers. The spacecraft then moved back about 20 km from the surface. The rovers will explore the surface by short jumps or hops from one spot to another.

Here is a sampling of postings on Tweeter as the spacecraft approached the asteroid and then deployed the rovers: Tweets  by HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) | Twitter:

 

 

The ambitious mission is really just getting started:

  • The larger rover MASCOT will be deployed to the surface in October.
  • The mini-hopper MINERVA-II2 will be deployed in 2019.
  • Samples of the asteroid will be returned to earth in 2020.

Find more images from the spacecraft at Navigation Images from the MINERVA-Ⅱ1 deployment operation | Galleries | JAXA HAYABUSA2 PROJECT.

Animations of the mission events and technologies:

A press conference on the event:

 

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Living in Space, Space Systems, SpaceCasts

Videos: “Space to Ground” ISS report – Sept.21.2018

Here is the latest episode of the Space to Ground weekly report from NASA on activities related to the International Space Station:

*** A brief item about a sediment study underway on the station:

Quantifying Cohesive Sediment Dynamics for Advanced Environmental Modeling (BCAT-CS) focuses on the study of forces between particles that cluster together by studying sediments of quartz and clay particles. By conducting the research aboard the International Space Station (ISS), it is possible to separate the forces acting on the particles over a short range (adhesive forces) versus those acting over a long range (cohesive forces). The quartz/clay system is commonly found in a wide variety of environmental settings (such as rivers, lakes, and oceans) and plays an important role in technological efforts related to deep sea hydrocarbon drilling and carbon dioxide sequestration.

*** A NASA high altitude balloon experiment observed “rare electric blue clouds”:

On the cusp of our atmosphere live a thin group of seasonal electric blue clouds. Read the story: https://go.nasa.gov/2QPcrOD. Forming fifty miles above the poles in summer, these clouds are known as noctilucent clouds or polar mesospheric clouds — PMCs. A recent NASA long-duration balloon mission observed these clouds over the course of five days at their home in the mesosphere. The resulting photos, which scientists have just begun to analyze, will help us better understand turbulence in the atmosphere, as well as in oceans, lakes, and other planetary atmospheres, and may even improve weather forecasting. 

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