NASA ARSET: Remote Sensing for Conservation, Session 1/2
Conservation and biodiversity management play important roles in maintaining healthy ecosystems. Earth observations can help with these efforts.
Session One: Remote Sensing for Conservation This session will focus on remote sensing for habitat suitability, species population dynamics, and monitoring wildfires. Download materials from this presentation: https://arset.gsfc.nasa.gov/land/webi… This training was created by NASA’s Applied Remote Sensing Training Program (ARSET). ARSET is a part of NASA’s Applied Science’s Capacity Building Program. Learn more about ARSET: http://arset.gsfc.nasa.gov/
NASA ARSET: Remote Sensing for Biodiversity, Session 2/2
Session Two: Remote Sensing for Biodiversity. This session will focus on the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEOBON), Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON), and essential biodiversity variables. Download materials from this presentation: https://arset.gsfc.nasa.gov/land/webi……
A sampling of links to recent space policy, politics, and government (US and international) related space news and resource items that I found of interest:
** The Space Show – Fri, 02/08/2019 – Mark Whittington discussed recent “space news, space policy, lunar return, launches and rocketry, Apollo history, SpaceX, Blue Origin, Elon Musk, Starship, BFR and much more”.
Listen to Michal Anne Rogondino discuss user experience design for the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC). Michal Anne explains design thinking and how it is being utilized to create a user experience for DoD space applications. The CEO of Rocket Communications talks about the workarounds of designing for a secret environment without having a secret clearance (it is possible) and working for the government in general. The stakes are high as there cannot be any ambiguity around an icon or a simple alarm. Bringing the user experience to the space domain is different and there are challenges with automation and autonomy that demand the creation of new rules and guidelines. In parallel is a need for creating baseline and guidelines that are common which allows everything to be designed in a common way. Space systems are complex and there will be an advantage to giving airmen or operators the tools and time to focus on what is important, their mission.
1. Monday, Feb. 11, 2019: 2-3:30 pm PST (4-5:30 pm CST, 5-6:30 pm EST): No show for today as we begin to transition to the end of regularly scheduled Monday programs.
2. Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2019: 7-8:30 pm PST (9-10:30 pm CST, 10-11:30 pm EST): We welcome back Matt Bille to discuss the use of small satellites for whale science, tracking and conservation.
3. Wednesday, Feb. 13 2019: Hotel Mars. See Upcoming Show Menu and the website newsletter for details. Hotel Mars is pre-recorded by John Batchelor. It is archived on The Space Show site after John posts it on his website.
5. Sunday, Feb. 17 2019: 12-1:30 pm PST (3-4:30 pm EST, 2-3:30 pm CST): No show today as part of the Washington Birthday National Holiday weekend.
Some recent programs:
** Fri, 02/08/2019 – Mark Whittington discussed recent “space news, space policy, lunar return, launches and rocketry, Apollo history, SpaceX, Blue Origin, Elon Musk, Starship, BFR and much more”.
** Tue, 02/05/2019 – Robert Zimmerman spoke about “record launch activity, FH, F9, heavy lift, Geo satellite market, cubesat constellations, NASA, commercial crew, space politics, and more”.
** Sun, 02/03/2019 – Wide range of topics discusses with callers including military space, Chinese space program, lunar development, and more
This image shows the far side of the Moon, as well as our own planet Earth. It was taken with a camera linked to an amateur radio transceiver on board the Chinese DSLWP-B / Longjiang-2 satellite (call sign BJ1SN), currently in orbit around the Moon, and transmitted back to Earth where it was received with the Dwingeloo Telescope.
Earth as seen from lunar orbit via a camera on the Chinese DSLWP-B / Longjiang-2 satellite and a transceiver built by a team at Harbin Institute of Technology. Credits Dwingeloo Radio Telescope.
This image represents the culmination of several observing sessions spread over the past few months where we used the Dwingeloo telescope in collaboration with the Chinese team from Harbin University of Technology, who build the radio transceiver on board Longjiang-2, and radio amateurs spread across the globe. … The transceiver on board Longjiang-2 was designed to allow radio amateurs to downlink telemetry and relay messages through a satellite in lunar orbit, as well as command it to take and downlink images. In that it has succeeded, as many radio amateurs have received telemetry and image data. Being able to use the Dwingeloo telescope to help with this has been a lot of fun.
Note that the Dwingeloo Radio Telescope in the Netherlands is the “largest radio telescope in the world for amateurs”.
A new Villanova College of Engineering student organization has formed this year—the CubeSat Club. Dr. Alan Johnston, associate teaching professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is the faculty advisor working alongside the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, a not-for-profit group that has been building and launching ham radio satellites for fifty years. Dr. Johnston volunteers with AMSAT as the vice president for education outreach. The CubeSat Club is aimed at introducing students to CubeSats and satellite technology…
Five university undergraduate students were finally able to see the 10-by-10-by-30 centimeter satellite launch into the great beyond after two and a half years working on the UNITE CubeSat project.
The launch of USI’s UNITE CubeSat from the ISS. Credits: NASA and NanoRacks.
The five active members on the Undergraduate Nano Ionospheric Temperature Explorer (UNITE) CubeSat team, Wyatt Helms, Ryan Loehrlein, Zack Snyder, Sujan Kaphle and Nathan Kalsch, watched the satellite deploy from the International Space Station on campus Jan. 31.
“It was a really great feeling because after working on this project for two plus years, finally seeing something that you put so much time and effort into being deployed from the space station I mean, you don’t hear any sound but you just imagine this little ‘boop’ as it’s being shot out,” Helms, the team lead, said.
The CubeSat will be deployed for 15 months and has three main missions: conducting space weather measurements, measuring exterior and interior temperatures of the spacecraft for comparison with a thermal model and tracking orbital decay of the spacecraft in the lower ionosphere where other methods are in error.
…
[Project advisor Assistant Professor of Physics Eric Greenwood] said that the grant required the project to be student led. The professors were not allowed to build the components of the CubeSat or be hands-on.
“It’s very exciting to have something that I was involved in that’s up in space,” Greenwood said. “The pride I feel for our students is tremendous.”
MarconISSta – A project by researchers and students at the Technische Universität Berlin that put a spectrum analyzer payload on the International Space Station in 2018 to “monitor parts of the frequency spectrum in VHF, UHF, L and S band in order to analyze current use and availability of bands for satellite communication”.
A sampling of items related to traveling to and through space:
** Virgin Galactic pilots Mark ‘Forger’ Stucky and CJ Sturckow received Commercial Astronaut Wings from the FAA for flying to space on SpaceShipTwo:
The SpaceShipTwo motor from the flight was also given some special recognition:
The rocket motor which powered SpaceShipTwo to space for the first time on December 13th last year, has been donated to the @Smithsonian@AirandSpace as an exhibit in their new Commercial Space Flight Gallery 😍 pic.twitter.com/0PMZPLHf6n
completed engineering prototype of the Stage 2 rocket (the stage that will transit into orbital flight after launch) [that] is made from a specially-formulated lightweight carbon fibre and aluminium composite and includes the world’s largest 3-D printed rocket engine.
Orbex upperstage engineering prototype “#Prime, the completed stage 2 rocket and the world’s most efficient #smallsat launcher. It includes the world’s largest 3D printed rocket engine and designed to run on bio-propane, a #clean, #renewable energy source”.
** PLD Space of Spain also makes progress in development of a smallsat launcher with a reusable first stage booster:
As we promised. #MIURA5 Liquid Porpulsion Stage Recovery (LPSR) reusable booster demonstrator is under manufacturing. First stage of the launch vehicle will be integrated in 1month for a full-scale test in April. One of our major milestones this year. Exciting test to come. pic.twitter.com/b6Tw0dyORq
Propellant loading underway to begin with #TEPREL-B flight qualification engine tests. Our first flight engine version. #Propulsion team is ready. Upgraded Teruel facilities also ready to support the test. #GoMIURA#GoPLDpic.twitter.com/TbpXDUripu
While most engineered structures operate at a fraction of their material’s tensile strength—how far they can be pulled without breaking—most biological structures, such as tendons, operate near their max. That’s because biological structures are constantly breaking themselves down and rebuilding, which allows for continual repair.
Space elevators won’t require such a strong cable if the cable also continually renews itself, Sun and Popescu reason. This feat could be achieved, they suggest, by developing a cable that’s constantly serviced by autonomous robots. Rather than waiting for breaks in the cable, these robots can dynamically break down and rebuild the cable to make sure it’s always in good working order. This cable would be segmented so that if a break occurred, it wouldn’t extend beyond a small site, note the researchers, who recently reported their solution on the pre-print website arXiv.
Design requires at least 170 metric tons of force. Engine reached 172 mT & 257 bar chamber pressure with warm propellant, which means 10% to 20% more with deep cryo.
