Category Archives: Education

Astronomy, Education, Space participation

Exoplanet search stretch goal for Planetary Resources Arkyd telescope Kickstarter

The Planetary Resources crowd-funding campaign for the ARKYD Space Telescope has reached 9,558 Backers, $858,127 pledged of $1,000,000 goal with 19 days to go. To boost pledges far beyond that goal they have posted an ambitious Stretch Goal:

Planetary Resources Needs YOUR Help to Hunt for Alien Planets

Asteroid mining company announces new crowdfunding goal to enhance
the ARKYD telescope with capability to search for alien planets around distant stars

Bellevue, Washington – June 11, 2013 – Alien planets are out there and Planetary Resources needs your help to find them! That’s right, the same high-powered telescope technology being used by Planetary Resources to identify near-Earth asteroids can also be used to hunt for what scientists call extrasolar planets or “exoplanets” – which are very much alien worlds. For the first-time ever, this capability will be placed directly into the hands of students, researchers and citizen scientists.

Planetary Resources recently launched a campaign on Kickstarter for the ARKYD – the world’s first crowdfunded space telescope accessible to the public. In only 13 days, the company has already reached well over 85 percent of its original US$1 million goal. Today, the company is announcing that if the total amount pledged exceeds US$2 million in the 19 days remaining in the campaign, it will invest the additional funds to enhance the ARKYD space telescope technology to enable it to search for alien planets!

Visit Planetary Resources’ Kickstarter Page to Pledge Your Support: http://bit.ly/ARKYD-100

These upgrades would add exoplanet transit detection capability by enhancing the telescope’s stability systems and dedicating time to monitor candidate star systems.  A special bonus is that this upgrade would also allow for better measurement of the spin-properties of asteroids, using the same technique.  “While the ARKYD won’t rival NASA’s US$600 million Kepler spacecraft, which may have to end its mission due to a recent equipment failure, the enhanced ARKYD will be a huge step toward important new scientific discoveries enabled by citizen scientists,” said Chris Lewicki, President and Chief Engineer, Planetary Resources, Inc.

The company is partnered with one of the world’s leading exoplanet scientists, Sara Seager, Ph.D. of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr. Seager, Professor of Physics and Planetary Science at MIT stated, “We’re excited about this game-changing approach that could transform how we do science in the future.  It’s not just about advanced technology in a small satellite, but a crowdfunded approach to space science that could be revolutionary. The enhanced version of the ARKYD telescope will be an important source of data for exoplanets that can only be obtained from space, above the blurring effects of Earth’s turbulent atmosphere.”

Peter H. Diamandis, M.D., Planetary Resources Co-Founder and Co-Chairman said, “We’re confident this campaign will exceed the original goal of US$1 million dollars. We’re now focusing on enhancing the capabilities of the telescope and creating meaningful and epic crowd involvement.” He continued, “We’re a hardware and inspiration company, and we’re thrilled to provide a new generation of space pioneers with the ability to take a hands-on approach to exploration.”

To date, more than 9,400 people from around the globe have pledged their support for the ARKYD.  Over 8,000 have requested their very own #SpaceSelfie, another 900 people have donated time on the ARKYD to education and many others are looking to gain access to the telescope to explore the cosmos on their own!

Planetary Resources, Inc. was founded in 2009 by Eric Anderson and Dr. Peter H. Diamandis. Our vision is to establish a new paradigm for resource utilization that will bring the Solar System within humanity’s economic sphere of influence. The company will conduct low-cost robotic space exploration beginning with the Arkyd Series of space missions that will identify the most commercially viable near-Earth asteroids. These initial missions will assist the company in enabling the retrieval of raw materials from these select asteroids, including water, precious metals and more.

Planetary Resources is financed by industry-launching visionaries, three of whom include Google’s CEO Larry Page & Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt; and Ross Perot, Jr., Chairman of Hillwood and The Perot Group; who are committed to expanding the world’s resource base so humanity can continue to grow and prosper for centuries to come. Some of the company’s partners and advisors include the Bechtel Corporation; film maker and explorer James Cameron; former Chief of Staff, United States Air Force General T. Michael Moseley (Ret.); and Sara Seager, Ph.D., Professor of Planetary Science and Physics at MIT. Members of the company’s technical staff have worked on every recent U.S. Mars lander including Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity, and include other key non-aerospace and safety-critical disciplines. For more information, please visit www.planetaryresources.com.

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Education, Space participation

Routes to a space career

A UK university student visits Reaction Engines Limited and asks about the skills and training needed for someone interested in a career in the space industry: Space… it doesn’t have to be your final frontier! – Moving On magazine

Moving On: What is the space engineering industry like as a whole? Is it quite a big community?

Anthony Haynes: The space industry isn’t very well known, because the UK has never developed its own consistent launch system. A lot of people think because there aren’t regular rockets taking off that the UK must have a small space industry and that if you want to be an astronaut, you have to be American. But we have a healthy state of satellite technology in particular.

At Reaction Engines Ltd we have employed quite a lot of people through knowing them already, with us being part of a small team – how we work together is really crucial.

That’s why networking and space societies are so useful.

Education, Space participation, Space Systems

SunSat Design Competition opens Indiegogo fundraising campaign.

The International SunSat Design Competition, based at Ohio University, has opened a crowd-sourcing campaign to fund the contest: International SunSat Design Competition – Indiegogo. Here is an announcement about the effort:

SunSat Design Competition & Indiegogo Fundraising

Our SunSat Design Competition was officially launched last week at the International Space Development Conference in San Diego. This Competition – to generate multiple new designs for the next-generation satellites and earth/space architectures for delivering sun’s energy from space to earth – is a targeted project of the National Space Society and the Society of Satellite Professionals International. Ohio University has agreed to manage the two-year Competition, but money must be raised to make it happen.

Our Indiegogo micro-funding campaign has been extended for an additional 45 days in an effort to raise the full $110,000. Please help us by going to our new International SunSat Design Competition site on Indiegogo and make a contribution at one of the several funding levels. You are also encouraged to share this opportunity with others with mutual interests.

If you doubt your contribution will make a difference, take a look at the Lewis Fraas ISDC presentation on Reflective Sunlight that is in the process of being published by the Space Journal. Earlier this week, Dr. Fraas’ paper and the Ohio University student visualization of the concept he introduced in San Diego was shared with the India Space Research Organization (ISRO) and the India Institute of Space Sciences and Technology (IISST), via Dr. APJ Abdulkalam.

Global interest in space is growing. By using the creative talents of our universities, working cooperatively with our space professionals, we can help to accelerate public interest in these developments. Energy from space is one of those historically significant first steps. Your financial assistance of this important international initiative – added to the contributions of others – will make a difference. Please join us.

Contests and Games, Education, Science and Technology

NASA Sample Return Robot Challenge competition update

None of the robots fielded by 11 teams in NASA’s Sample Return Robot Challenge completed the requirements to win the $1.5M competition in this years event, which was held at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) June 5-7 in Worcester, Massachusetts. The goal is to “demonstrate a robot that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control.”

There was, however, considerable improvement in overall performance as compared to the event last and one team did complete the first phase and received a $5k prize for that accomplishment.

WPI is managing the contest, which has been held twice so far. There will be presumably be another competition event next year. Here are two WPI sites related to the challenge:

Here’s a local article about the competition:  Party at WPI – Worcester Telegram & Gazette – telegram.com.

And here is an official press release from NASA:

NASA Awards Sample Return Robot Centennial Challenge Prize

After two days of extensive competition, Team Survey of Los Angeles was awarded $5,000 in prize money after successfully completing Level 1 of the Sample Return Robot Challenge, a part of NASA’s Centennial Challenges prize program.

The event, hosted by Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) June 5-7 in Worcester, Mass., drew robotics teams from the United States, Canada and Estonia to compete for a total of $1.5 million in NASA prize money. Eleven teams arrived to compete at WPI; 10 teams passed the initial inspection and took to the challenge field. After two rounds of Level 1 competition, Team Survey met the $5,000 prize requirements and was declared the winner of this year’s competition.

Sample Return Robot Challenge (201306050010HQ)
A NASA 2013 Sample Return Robot Challenge staff member raises a pause
flag as the AERO (Autonomous Exploration RObot) robot attempts level one of the
challenge at Institute Park, Wednesday, June 5, 2013, Worcester Polytechnic
Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Mass.

Team Survey members Jascha Little, Russel Howe, Zac Lizer, Tommy Smith, Zoe Stephenson, Scott Little, Brandon Booth, and Joanna Balme, all from Los Angeles, were presented a check June 8 by NASA’s Larry Cooper, Centennial Challenges program executive, at the opening of the TouchTomorrow technology festival. A WPI organized science and robotics festival attracted thousands of attendees, showcasing the teams and robots as well as NASA and WPI exhibits in science, robotics and space technology.

“It is evident from the level of improvements the teams have shown from last year’s event to this week’s Level 1 win that the technology has significantly progressed, and the desired results of this challenge are within reach,” said Sam Ortega, program manager of Centennial Challenges. “We are so proud of the great spirit and camaraderie the teams have shown, as well. It speaks volumes about the caliber of teams and individuals who compete in these events.”

NASA uses prize competitions to increase the number and diversity of the individuals, organizations and teams that are addressing a particular problem or challenge. Prize competitions stimulate private sector investment that is many times greater than the cash value of the prize and further NASA’s mission by attracting interest and attention to a defined technical objective.

To win prize dollars, teams were required to demonstrate a robot that can locate and collect samples from a wide and varied terrain, operating without human control. The objective of the challenge was to encourage innovations in autonomous navigation and robotics technologies.

Team Survey’s robot successfully completed Level 1 by navigating from the starting platform and locating a sample that was previously identified in the robot’s onboard computer. The robot then autonomously returned one undamaged sample to its starting platform within the 30-minute time limit. No teams made it to the second level of the competition this year.

Returning teams this year included SpacePRIDE of Graniteville, S.C.; Survey of Los Angeles; Wunderkammer of Topanga, Calif.; Intrepid of Lynnwood, Wash.; and the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. New teams entering the competition this year were Fetch of Alexandria, Va.; Middleman of Dunedin, Fla.; Mystic Lake Robots of The Woodlands, Texas; Team AERO of Worcester, Mass.; the Autonomous Rover Team of the University of California at Santa Cruz; and Kuukuglur of Estonia.

NASA’s Centennial Challenges program is part of the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, which is innovating, developing, testing and flying hardware for use in NASA’s future missions. For more information about the Space Technology Mission Directorate and the Centennial Challenges Program, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/spacetech