Amateur/Student Satellite, Education

NASA selects another group of Cubesat projects for rides to space

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NASA will provide piggyback rides to space for two dozen Cubesats, including many student built spacecraft, in the next three years:

NASA Announces Fourth Round of CubeSat Space Mission Candidates

WASHINGTON — NASA has selected 24 small satellites to fly as auxiliary payloads aboard rockets planned to launch in 2014, 2015 and 2016. The proposed CubeSats come from universities across the country, a Florida high school, several non-profit organizations and NASA field centers.

CubeSats belong to a class of research spacecraft called nanosatellites. The cube-shaped satellites measure about 4 inches on each side, have a volume of about 1 quart, and weigh less than 3 pounds.

The selections are from the fourth round of the CubeSat Launch Initiative. After launch, the satellites will conduct technology demonstrations, educational research or science missions. The selected CubeSats will be eligible for flight after final negotiations and an opportunity for flight becomes available.

The following organizations submitted winning satellite proposals:

— The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, Calif.
— The Discovery Museum and Planetarium, Bridgeport, Conn.
— Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott, Ariz.
— Morehead State University, Morehead, Ky., in partnership with the University of California at Berkeley
— Montana State University, Bozeman (2 CubeSats) in partnership with The University of New Hampshire, Durham
— Merritt Island High School, Florida, in partnership with California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
— NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
— NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. (3 CubeSats)
— NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., in partnership with the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena (3 CubeSats)
— NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida
— Pennsylvania State University, in partnership with the Naval Research Laboratory, Monterey, Calif., and the Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, Calif.
— Saint Louis University, St. Louis
— Tyvak Nano-Satellites Systems, Irvine, Calif., in partnership with the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
— University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
— University of Colorado, Boulder
— University of Florida, Gainesville, in partnership with Stanford University
— University of Maryland, Baltimore County
— University of Texas, Austin
— Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn., in partnership with the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, Silver Spring, Md.

In the three previous rounds of the CubeSat initiative, NASA has selected 63 missions for flight. The agency’s Launch Services Program Educational Launch of Nanosatellite (ELaNa) Program has launched 12 CubeSat missions. This year, 22 CubeSat missions are scheduled for flight.

For additional information on NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative program, visit: http://go.nasa.gov/nXOuPI

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.go

Solar Science, Space Science

NASA Van Allen spacecraft find third radiation belt around earth

NASA’s Van Allen Probes spacecraft discover that the Van Allen belts are even more complicated than previously thought:

NASA’s Van Allen Probes Reveal a New Radiation Belt Around Earth

WASHINGTON — NASA’s Van Allen Probes mission has discovered a previously unknown third radiation belt around Earth, revealing the existence of unexpected structures and processes within these hazardous regions of space.

Previous observations of Earth’s Van Allen belts have long documented two distinct regions of trapped radiation surrounding our planet. Particle detection instruments aboard the twin Van Allen Probes, launched Aug. 30, quickly revealed to scientists the existence of this new, transient, third radiation belt.

The belts, named for their discoverer, James Van Allen, are critical regions for modern society, which is dependent on many space-based technologies. The Van Allen belts are affected by solar storms and space weather and can swell dramatically. When this occurs, they can pose dangers to communications and GPS satellites, as well as humans in space.

“The fantastic new capabilities and advances in technology in the Van Allen Probes have allowed scientists to see in unprecedented detail how the radiation belts are populated with charged particles and will provide insight on what causes them to change, and how these processes affect the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere,” said John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for science in Washington.

This discovery shows the dynamic and variable nature of the radiation belts and improves our understanding of how they respond to solar activity. The findings, published Thursday in the journal Science, are the result of data gathered by the first dual-spacecraft mission to fly through our planet’s radiation belts.

The new high-resolution observations by the Relativistic Electron Proton Telescope (REPT) instrument, part of the Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma Suite (ECT) aboard the Van Allen Probes, revealed there can be three distinct, long-lasting belt structures with the emergence of a second empty slot region, or space, in between.

“This is the first time we have had such high-resolution instruments look at time, space and energy together in the outer belt,” said Daniel Baker, lead author of the study and REPT instrument lead at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado in Boulder. “Previous observations of the outer radiation belt only resolved it as a single blurry element. When we turned REPT on just two days after launch, a powerful electron acceleration event was already in progress, and we clearly saw the new belt and new slot between it and the outer belt.”

Scientists observed the third belt for four weeks before a powerful interplanetary shock wave from the sun annihilated it. Observations were made by scientists from institutions including LASP; NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.; Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M.; and the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

Each Van Allen Probe carries an identical set of five instrument suites that allow scientists to gather data on the belts in unprecedented detail. The data are important for the study of the effect of space weather on Earth, as well as fundamental physical processes observed around other objects, such as planets in our solar system and distant nebulae.

“Even 55 years after their discovery, the Earth’s radiation belts still are capable of surprising us and still have mysteries to discover and explain,” said Nicky Fox, Van Allen Probes deputy project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. “We thought we knew the radiation belts, but we don’t. The advances in technology and detection made by NASA in this mission already have had an almost immediate impact on basic science.”

The Van Allen Probes are the second mission in NASA’s Living With a Star Program to explore aspects of the connected sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. Goddard manages the program. The Applied Physics Laboratory built the spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA.

For more information on the Van Allen Probes, visit:  http://www.nasa.gov/vanallenprobes

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See also NASA’s Van Allen Probes Discover a Surprise Circling Earth

Space Arts, Space Settlement

Bryan Versteeg illustrates the future of space development

Bryan Versteeg has developed a very distinctive and impressive style of illustration of future space habitats, asteroid mines, Mars bases and other space facilities. See galleries of his images and videos at Space Habs by Bryan Versteeg.

For example, he created the asteroid mining images for Deep Space Industries, Inc.

Fuel Harvester concept:

DSI Asteroid Harvester

Wheel Construction:

DSI - Wheel Construction

 

Amateur/Student Satellite, Space Radio

AMSAT & ISS amateur radio news

Go to AMSAT News for the latest headlines about developments in amateur and student satellites and for updates about amateur radio on the ISS.

ANS 062 Weekly AMSAT Bulletin – March 2, 2013:
* Vanderbilt-AMSAT RadFxSat Cubesat Selected for NASA ELaNa Program
* AMSAT Shows New President’s Club Pin
* 5th European CubeSat Symposium, 3-5 June 2013, Brussels – Belgium
* American satellite starts transmitting after being abandoned in 1967
* STRaND-1 Information and Telemetry
* ARISS NEWS
* AMSAT-DC Workshop on Portable Satellite Ground Stations
* AMSAT Forum at ACADIANA ARA Hamfest – Free Admission Coupons for Youth
* Korean OSSI-1 Ham Radio CubeSat Frequency Coordinated
* ARRL Offers Two Sessions of their Teachers Institute

In Space Infrastructure, Space Science

Chelyabinsk event details + Euro/US asteroid intercept project

More details of the meteor fireball event over Chelyabinsk and the object that created it have been found in the subsequent studies:

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If we are to ever deflect an asteroid on a collision course with earth, it would be good if there had been at least some basci tests of some techniques such as simply hitting an asteroid with an object and seeing if it as the effecst expected. Ed Wright talks about a ESA/Johns Hopkins project to do just such a test: ESA, Johns Hopkins Plan First Asteroid Intercept Mission – CitizensInSpace.com

More about the project here: Asteroid impact mission targets Didymos – ESA

AIDA is a low-budget international effort that would send two small craft to intercept a double target. While one probe smashes into the smaller asteroid at around 6.25 km/s, the other records what happens.

One effect would be a change in the orbital ballet of the two objects. AIDA is not intended to show how we could deflect an asteroid that threatens Earth but it would be a first step.

 

 

Everyone can participate in space