The SpaceIL team in the Google Lunar X PRIZE competition announced today that they have signed a contract for the propulsion system for their lunar spacecraft. Ronen Zilberstein, the SpaceIl Project Manager, gives a brief description of the propulsion plan:
An announcement from the Space Frontier Foundation:
When Amy McCormick’s class developed their science experiment studying Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), they could only dream of flying it to space. Their experiment won the Teachers In Space annual spaceflight contest and later this month, their dream will become a reality when it launches to the International Space Station (ISS). Tucked into a storage rack aboard the Cygnus (along with 22 other experiments flying as part of Mission 4 of the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program), these experiments will blast off to the ISS on top of an Antares rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (M.A.R.S.). This will be the first commercial flight to the ISS provided by Orbital Sciences. SpaceX is the only other commercial company providing ISS resupply.
“This is an exciting moment for these students,” said James Pura, President of the Space Frontier Foundation. “They are learning how to conduct cutting edge science in a space laboratory. Short of going to space yourself, there is no better way to experience the wonder of spaceflight.”
On Wednesday,December 18th, representatives from Teachers in Space, a project of the Space Frontier Foundation and coordinator of the contest, will be at Wallops Island, VA to witness the launch into space. Liftoff is scheduled for 9:42 pm Eastern Time. Many on the Eastern seaboard of the United States should be able to witness this spectacular launch as well.
The experiments are scheduled to return to Earth on a later flight. From there the students will gather their data and present the results of their experiments.
About SSEP
The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (http://ssep.ncesse.org) is undertaken by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE; http://ncesse.org) in partnership with Nanoracks, LLC.
This on-orbit educational research opportunity is enabled through NanoRacks, LLC, which is working in partnership with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the utilization of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory.
About Teachers in Space
A project of the Space Frontier Foundation (SFF), Teachers in Space stimulates student interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by giving teachers authentic astronaut training and real space science experiences combined with information and resources they can take back with them to their classrooms.
Teachers in Space improves science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education in America through summer workshops that give teachers authentic astronaut training and real space science experiences combined with information and resources they can take back to their classrooms. The goal is to inspire large numbers of young people to study STEM while spreading understanding of the opportunities offered by the emergent private space industry. Visit http://TIS.spacefrontier.org.
A selection of space policy/politics related links:
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Update 2:
Bob Zimmerman gives the latest on the sun’s current mediocre performance in the solar cycle: An upbeat wimpy maximum holds on- Behind The Black
Here’s a cool video of the earth and moon taken by the Juno probe as it came it to get its kick to Jupiter from the earth:
NASA’s Juno Gives Starship-Like View of Earth Flyby
When NASA’s Juno spacecraft flew past Earth on Oct. 9, 2013, it received a boost in speed of more than 8,800 mph (about 7.3 kilometer per second), which set it on course for a July 4, 2016, rendezvous with Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. One of Juno’s sensors, a special kind of camera optimized to track faint stars, also had a unique view of the Earth-moon system. The result was an intriguing, low-resolution glimpse of what our world would look like to a visitor from afar.
“If Captain Kirk of the USS Enterprise said, ‘Take us home, Scotty,’ this is what the crew would see,” said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio. “In the movie, you ride aboard Juno as it approaches Earth and then soars off into the blackness of space. No previous view of our world has ever captured the heavenly waltz of Earth and moon.”
The Juno Earth flyby movie is available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CzBlSXgzqI&feature=youtu.be . The music accompaniment is an original score by Vangelis.
The cameras that took the images for the movie are located near the pointed tip of one of the spacecraft’s three solar-array arms. They are part of Juno’s Magnetic Field Investigation (MAG) and are normally used to determine the orientation of the magnetic sensors. These cameras look away from the sunlit side of the solar array, so as the spacecraft approached, the system’s four cameras pointed toward Earth. Earth and the moon came into view when Juno was about 600,000 miles (966,000 kilometers) away — about three times the Earth-moon separation.
During the flyby, timing was everything. Juno was traveling about twice as fast as a typical satellite, and the spacecraft itself was spinning at 2 rpm. To assemble a movie that wouldn’t make viewers dizzy, the star tracker had to capture a frame each time the camera was facing Earth at exactly the right instant. The frames were sent to Earth, where they were processed into video format.
“Everything we humans are and everything we do is represented in that view,” said the star tracker’s designer, John Jørgensen of the Danish Technical University, near Copenhagen.
Also during the flyby, Juno’s Waves instrument, which is tasked with measuring radio and plasma waves in Jupiter’s magnetosphere, recorded amateur radio signals. This was part of a public outreach effort involving ham radio operators from around the world. They were invited to say “HI” to Juno by coordinating radio transmissions that carried the same Morse-coded message. Operators from every continent, including Antarctica, participated.
“With the Earth flyby completed, Juno is now on course for arrival at Jupiter on July 4, 2016,” said Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
The Juno spacecraft was launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on August 5, 2011. Juno’s launch vehicle was capable of giving the spacecraft only enough energy to reach the asteroid belt, at which point the sun’s gravity pulled it back toward the inner solar system. Mission planners designed the swing by Earth as a gravity assist to increase the spacecraft’s speed relative to the sun, so that it could reach Jupiter. (The spacecraft’s speed relative to Earth before and after the flyby is unchanged.)
After Juno arrives and enters into orbit around Jupiter in 2016, the spacecraft will circle the planet 33 times, from pole to pole, and use its collection of science instruments to probe beneath the gas giant’s obscuring cloud cover. Scientists will learn about Jupiter’s origins, internal structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.
Juno’s name comes from Greek and Roman mythology. The god Jupiter drew a veil of clouds around himself to hide his mischief from his wife, but the goddess Juno used her special powers to peer through the clouds and reveal Jupiter’s true nature.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
More information about Juno is online at: http://www.nasa.gov/juno and http://missionjuno.swri.edu