Curiosity spots earth in the Mars night sky

February 7, 2014 TopSpacer

NASA JPL released an image from the Curiosity rover showing how future Mars residents will see their home planet at night:

NASA Mars Rover Curiosity Sees ‘Evening Star’ Earth

Curiosity Mars Rover's First Image of Earth and Earth's Moon The two bodies in this portion of an evening-sky view by
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity are Earth and Earth’s moon.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/TAMU
Full image and caption

The rover’s view of its original home planet even includes our moon, just below Earth.

The images, taken about 80 minutes after sunset during the rover’s 529th Martian day (Jan. 31, 2014) are available at photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA17936 for a broad scene of the evening sky, and at photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA17935 for a zoomed-in view of Earth and the moon.

The distance between Earth and Mars when Curiosity took the photo was about 99 million miles (160 million kilometers).

NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to assess ancient habitable environments and major changes in Martian environmental conditions. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, built the rover and manages the project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about Curiosity, visit www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl , www.nasa.gov/msl and mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/. You can follow the mission on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/marscuriosity .

Contests and Games, Mars, Space Systems

Inspiration Mars Int. Student Design Competition draws big worldwide response

February 7, 2014 TopSpacer

An announcement from the The Mars Society:

Massive Worldwide Response to Inspiration Mars Student Design Contest

The Mars Society’s Inspiration Mars International Student Design Competition has drawn a massive worldwide response. As of the January 31, 2014 deadline, letters of intent to compete have been received from 38 teams representing 56 universities in 15 countries.

Nations represented include the United States, Canada, Russia, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Poland, Mauritius, India, Bangladesh, Japan and Colombia.

An early concept for the Inspiration Mars transport system.

A sampling of some of the institutions signed up to participate include: John Hopkins University, St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University, Ohio State University, Warsaw University of Technology, University of Notre Dame, Indira Gandhi National Open University, York University, International Space University, Purdue University, Islamic University of Technology, University of Stuttgart, Keio University, and University of Glasgow. To view a complete list of participating schools, please click here.

The Inspiration Mars International Student Design Competition was officially announced during the 16th Annual International Mars Society Convention held in Boulder, Colorado in August 2013. The contest is open to university engineering student teams from around the world.

Inspiration Mars Executive Director Dennis Tito and Program Manager Taber MacCallum were present for the announcement. “Inspiration Mars is looking for the most creative ideas from engineers all over the world,” said Tito at that time. “Furthermore, we want to engage the explorers of tomorrow with a real and exciting mission, and demonstrate what a powerful force space exploration can be in inspiring young people to develop their talent. This contest will accomplish both of those objectives.”

Commenting on the global response to the competition, Mars Society President Dr. Robert Zubrin said, “This contest is providing a tremendous opportunity for legions of young engineers to directly contribute their talent to this breakthrough project to open the space frontier. From what we are seeing right now, there are many ready to take up that challenge. Inspiration Mars said they wanted to show that space exploration can inspire youth to develop their talent. Well, they have delivered. The call has been sounded, and from all over the world, young people have answered. Just imagine what the effect would be on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education if a full-scale program to explore and settle the Red Planet were set in motion. Consider what the vast number of new young scientists, engineers, investors, medical researchers and technology entrepreneurs resulting from such an inspiring challenge could do to advance humanity.”

The requirement of the Inspiration Mars International Student Design Competition is to design a two-person Mars flyby mission for 2018 as cheaply, safely and simply as possible. All other design variables are open.

Alumni, professors and other university staff may participate in the contest as well, but the teams must be predominantly composed of and led by university students. All competition presentations must be completed exclusively by students. Teams will be required to submit their design reports of no more than 50 pages in writing by March 15, 2014. From there, a down-select will occur with the top ten finalist teams invited to present and defend their designs before a panel of six judges chosen (two each) by the Mars Society, Inspiration Mars and NASA. The presentations will take place during a public event at NASA Ames Research Center in April 2014.

Robert Zubrin of the Mars Society, Taber MacCallum of
Paragon Space Development Corp., and Dennis Tito who
is funding Inspiration Mars.

The first place team will receive a prize of $10,000, an all-expenses paid trip to the 2014 International Mars Society Convention to be held August 7-10 in Houston, Texas and a trophy to be presented by Dennis Tito at that event. Prizes of $5,000, $3,000, $2,000 and $1,000 will also be awarded for second through fifth place.

For more details about the Mars Society and the Inspiration Mars International Student Design Competition, please visit our web site at: www.marssociety.org.

Rockets, Space Systems

Video: Launch of Soyuz rocket with Progress cargo ship

February 5, 2014 TopSpacer

Watch the launch of the latest Progress module to take cargo to the ISS:

The unpiloted ISS Progress 54 cargo craft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Feb. 5, bound for the International Space Station to deliver almost three tons of food, fuel, supplies and experiment hardware for the Expedition 38 crew. The new Progress lifted off on time from Baikonur at 11:23 a.m. EST (10:23 p.m. Baikonur time), reaching its preliminary orbit less than nine minutes later. A series of carefully choreographed engine firings were planned to enable the resupply vehicle to reach the station just four orbits, or six hours later for a linkup to the Pirs Docking Compartment. The Pirs port was vacated on Feb. 3 with the undocking of the old ISS Progress 52 cargo ship that will be deorbited on Feb. 11 to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Some background info at Progress spacecraft blasts off on quick trip to space station – Spaceflight Now.

Update: And just six hours after its launch, the Progress makes its rendezvous with the station and docks with it:

Asteroids & Comets, Astronomy, Space Science

ESO: Asteroid internal structure revealed

February 5, 2014 TopSpacer

An announcement from the ESO (European Southern Observatory):

The Anatomy of an Asteroid

ESO’s New Technology Telescope (NTT) has been used to find the first evidence that asteroids can have a highly varied internal structure. By making exquisitely precise measurements astronomers have found that different parts of the asteroid Itokawa have different densities. As well as revealing secrets about the asteroid’s formation, finding out what lies below the surface of asteroids may also shed light on what happens when bodies collide in the Solar System, and provide clues about how planets form.

Click to Enlarge

Using very precise ground-based observations, Stephen Lowry (University of Kent, UK) and colleagues have measured the speed at which the near-Earth asteroid (25143) Itokawa spins and how that spin rate is changing over time. They have combined these delicate observations with new theoretical work on how asteroids radiate heat.

This small asteroid is an intriguing subject as it has a strange peanut shape, as revealed by the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusain 2005. To probe its internal structure, Lowry’s team used images gathered from 2001 to 2013, by ESO’s New Technology Telescope (NTT) at the La Silla Observatory in Chile among others [1], to measure its brightness variation as it rotates. This timing data was then used to deduce the asteroid’s spin period very accurately and determine how it is changing over time. When combined with knowledge of the asteroid’s shape this allowed them to explore its interior — revealing the complexity within its core for the first time [2].

“This is the first time we have ever been able to to determine what it is like inside an asteroid,” explains Lowry. “We can see that Itokawa has a highly varied structure — this finding is a significant step forward in our understanding of rocky bodies in the Solar System.”

The spin of an asteroid and other small bodies in space can be affected by sunlight. This phenomenon, known as the Yarkovsky-O’Keefe-Radzievskii-Paddack (YORP) effect, occurs when absorbed light from the Sun is re-emitted from the surface of the object in the form of heat. When the shape of the asteroid is very irregular the heat is not radiated evenly and this creates a tiny, but continuous, torque on the body and changes its spin rate [3], [4].

Loading player…

This artist’s impression, based on detailed spacecraft observations, shows the strange peanut-shaped asteroid Itokawa. By making exquisitely precise timing measurements using ESO’s New Technology Telescope a team of astronomers has found that different parts of this asteroid have different densities. As well as revealing secrets about the asteroid’s formation, finding out what lies below the surface of asteroids may also shed light on what happens when bodies collide in the Solar System, and provide clues about how planets form.

Lowry’s team measured that the YORP effect was slowly accelerating the rate at which Itokawa spins. The change in rotation period is tiny — a mere 0.045 seconds per year. But this was very different from what was expected and can only be explained if the two parts of the asteroid’s peanut shape have different densities.

This is the first time that astronomers have found evidence for the highly varied internal structure of asteroids. Up until now, the properties of asteroid interiors could only be inferred using rough overall density measurements. This rare glimpse into the diverse innards of Itokawa has led to much speculation regarding its formation. One possibility is that it formed from the two components of a double asteroid after they bumped together and merged.

Lowry added, “Finding that asteroids don’t have homogeneous interiors has far-reaching implications, particularly for models of binary asteroid formation. It could also help with work on reducing the danger of asteroid collisions with Earth, or with plans for future trips to these rocky bodies.”

This new ability to probe the interior of an asteroid is a significant step forward, and may help to unlock many secrets of these mysterious objects.

===

Find more images and videos here.