Monthly Archives: April 2013

Space Collecting, Space Science

Moroccan meteorite might have come from Mercury but more study needed

An achondrite meteorite found in southern Morocco has some features that hint at a Mercury origin but has other features that argue against it. So it’s origin remains uncertain: A meteorite mystery:  Could this stone be the first meteorite from Mercury ever found? WUSTL’s meteorite expert sifts the evidence – Washington University in St. Louis

Most meteorites are stony, he explains, and of the stony meteorites, almost all (90 percent) are what are called ordinary chondrites. These are pieces of small, unmelted asteroids that are uniform in composition throughout.

The achondrites, on the other hand are pieces of large asteroids or planets, ones at least 200 kilometers in diameter. These produced enough internal heat early in their history to partially melt and segregate into a metal core surrounded by a rocky exterior. Achondrites, which come from the crust or mantle of these differentiated bodies make up only 5 percent of the stony meteorites that have been found.

Simulators, Software

The F-Sim Space Shuttle flight simulator app

Here’s a brief review and video of the F-Sim Space Shuttle “highly-realistic flight simulator for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Android devices” : F-Sim Space Shuttle – Video! – Music of the Spheres.

The video shows a landing:

Education, Space Collecting

First annual Astronauts4Hire on line silent auction

Astronauts4Hire is holding their First Annual Online A4H Silent Auction

The funds raised from this year’s auction, which runs from Sunday, April 7th until Friday, April 12th, will be used to support A4H’s educational outreach program, furthering the A4H mission: “To increase the competitiveness of commercial astronaut candidates by providing skills training, facilitating forums for candidate communication, engaging the space research community, and inspiring the next generation.”

The auction is “held in conjunction with Yuri’s Night events across the globe”: 2013 A4H Silent Auction – Astronauts4Hire.

The items up for auction were generously donated by A4H friends, members, and partners, and range from collectible NASA spaceflight memorabilia, autographed books, and unique patches, to lifetime Associate memberships in Astronauts4Hire. We would like to thank everyone who donated an item for this year’s auction, for without you and our supporters, we would not be able to carry out the A4H mission.

 

DIY space, Rockets

Copenhagen Suborbitals: Aiming for a full-scale rocket test in 2014

Kristian von Bengtson of Copenhagen Suborbitals notes that all their subsystems activities has made it seem they are losing sight of their original goal of putting a person into space on a very low cost rocket. So they have decided to aim for “for a launch or at least full scale test in Summer 2014” of the CS1600 rocket: Back on the (Megalomania) Track – Wired Science/Wired.com

CS1600 vs NASA rocketsComparison of the Copenhagen Suborbitals CS1600 to two NASA rockets
Image by Kristian von Bengtson.

 

Science and Technology, Space Science, Space Systems

ISS communications upgrade

The International Space Station is getting a big boost in communications bandwidth, which will greatly benefit the rapidly growing scientific work going on there: ISS gets communications overhaul to boost scientific output – NASASpaceFlight.com.

NanoRacks, for example, is providing plug’n’play racks to provide low cost experiment power and communications systems for a wide range of scientific investigations from biology to physics. Such experiments can benefit from real or near-real time imaging, measurement data and control access.

There are earth observation systems going to the station such as ISS-RapidScat, which will monitor “monitored ocean winds to provide essential measurements used in weather predictions, including hurricane monitoring”.

As mentioned in comments here,  NASA just approved funding for the Neutron star Interior Composition ExploreR (NICER), which will go to the ISS in 2017 to study neutron stars with a X-ray timing and spectroscopy instrument.

Such systems need lots of bandwidth to be productive and it appears the station is moving to keep up with bandwidth demands.