Category Archives: Space Systems

DIY space, Space participation, Space Systems

Ares Institute seeks to crowd-fund a solar sail project

News from Ares Institute of a Kickstarter campaign to fund a lunar solar sail :

For the first time, a solar sail powered spacecraft will orbit another celestial body.

CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – In 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon. Forty-four years later, an enterprising non-profit is building the first privately-owned spacecraft for launch into lunar orbit and using crowdfunding and social media on the internet to enable the public to participate. Named LunarSail, the goal of the project is to give students and the public the opportunity to participate in developing a spacecraft that will not only go into space, but also travel to the Moon while conducting science experiments.

LunarSail will use what is known as a CubeSat to demonstrate the ability of a spacecraft under solar sail propulsion to navigate itself into a lunar trajectory and insert itself into lunar orbit. It will show the practical application of solar sail technology for propulsion, trajectory/attitude control and rendezvous with another body in space. This will be a first of its kind mission to use a solar sail to send a spacecraft to the Moon and then utilize the sail’s unique characteristics to navigate into lunar orbit.

LunarSail will be the first spacecraft to orbit another body in the solar system using only the propulsion provided by a solar sail. Fundamentally, solar sails utilize the solar wind to provide the “push” to propel a spacecraft through space. Theoretically, they may be effective anywhere inside the solar system where the solar wind is present. In practice, a solar sail uses an ultrathin membrane that is deployed in space to form a sail not unlike that on a sailboat. The sail is controlled and maneuvered so that it is able to use the force and direction of the solar wind to literally sail through space, guiding itself much as a sailboat changes trajectory by altering the position of its sail against the wind.

To date, the most successful solar sails that have been launch were NASA’s NanoSail-D which orbited Earth in 2010-11 and the Japanese IKAROS that was sent from Earth toward the inner solar system and even flew by Venus. NASA plans to launch a giant solar sail to an orbit past the Moon next year. However, LunarSail will be both the first solar sail to orbit a planet or moon and the first “nanosatellite” to do so. It will also be the first crowdfunded CubeSat to be sent beyond Earth orbit.

Real science in a small package

Assembled in cube-shaped packages with dimensions just 10 centimeters on each side, CubeSats have enabled economical space access for industrial, academic and private organizations. These groups previously have had a difficult time affording the high costs associated with developing and launching larger satellites. CubeSats, however, can cost less than $50,000 from design to launch, putting them within reach of universities and mid-sized organizations. In fact, it has been possible for some groups to obtain rides to orbit at no cost, bringing the total cost down closer to $10,000.

Despite their small size, CubeSats are capable of doing meaningful science experiments and observations, thanks to the widespread availability of miniaturized electronic components. Our project has two primary science objectives. The spacecraft will take several months to reach the Moon and this will enable us to make detailed observations of the region of space between the Earth and Moon. The spacecraft will measure the environment, including radiation and solar wind dynamics as well as micrometeoroid impacts in this region of space. Once captured by the Moon’s gravity, LunarSail will follow a complex orbital pattern as it settles into a final stable lunar orbit. During this time, we will be able to create detailed 3D maps of the gravitational field and flow of the solar wind around the Moon. Mapping the gravity around the Moon will enable us to create an accurate picture of its internal structure.

A space mission for everyone, by everyone

We are using this project to promote space exploration and STEM education and so we are inviting the public and student especially to take an active role in the mission using various activities in a concept we call “citizen space mission”.

First, engineering students, amateur radio enthusiasts and others with similar interests will be involved in the assembly, testing and science observations of the mission. Individuals will also contribute hardware, labor, programming and their own ideas and will be participants and co-owners of the mission and its success.

To bring the public into the project at the most basic level, we are utilizing crowdfunding on the internet via Kickstarter, Indiegogo and Rockethub to raise the funds needed to complete the spacecraft. Crowdfunding has become a popular means of raising money for grass-roots individual creative and technology projects. Recently, a crowdfunded spacecraft project raised over $1.5 million on Kickstarter. We aren’t looking to raise nearly that much but there has been an enthusiastic response from people around the country and we are already well over halfway to meeting our fundraising goal. The money raised will go directly to purchasing the components that will make up the spacecraft. It will be built solely with volunteer labor.

Because of the focus on public outreach, we’re integrating social media into every aspect of the project, from development and assembly through launch and once the spacecraft is in space. The public is invited to submit messages, graphics, music and short video clips that will be stored onboard the spacecraft. We are particularly interested in contributions from students, artists, musicians and other creative individuals. Once in lunar orbit, LunarSail will play back each recording on a small video screen while a camera is trained on it with the Moon in the background. The video will be played back for viewing by anyone in the world with internet access. The sight of Earth rising over the Moon behind someone’s video recording being played back will become a highly-prized memento of the mission for the contributor.

We are also creating interactive educational materials and classroom lessons that will enable young students and their teachers to participate in activities designed around mission and learn about the important of space exploration and science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education.

An open source space mission

LunarSail is an open source project. Except for restricted or third-party proprietary material, hardware designs and source code will be available to the general public on the project website. LunarSail’s primary computer is planned to be based on the Raspberry Pi single-board computer running an open source real-time operating system. As with other aspects of the project, anyone with skills that may contribute to the success of the mission is being invited to participate.

LunarSail will make history as the first successful solar sail mission conducted by the private sector and the first solar sail to orbit another celestial body. Most importantly, LunarSail is a mission of inspiration and exploration. It will inspire young students to pursue careers in science and engineering. For the wider public audience, the mission will demonstrate the importance of a vibrant commercial space industry and space exploration.

To see our campaign on Kickstarter, go to:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aresinstituteinc/lunarsail-the-worlds-first-crowdsourced-solar-sail

For more information about LunarSail, visit the project at:

http://www.lunarsail.com.

ABOUT ARES INSTITUTE, INC.

Founded in 2002, the Aerospace Research & Engineering Systems Institute, Inc. is a 501 (c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization dedicated to promoting space exploration and STEM education through hands-on educational projects and public outreach. The Institute manages innovative programs such as LunarSail in order to give young students and the public the opportunity to work on real-world space-related projects, ARES Institute also engages in extensive public outreach including the online publication Zero-G News (zerognews.com) and a forthcoming trade magazine, Aerospace Florida. Contributions to ARES Institute are tax-deductible to the full extent permissible by law. For more information, visit http://www.aresinstitute.org.

Activism, Contests and Games, Space Systems

Black Sky Thinking Prize from Icarus Interstellar

The Icarus Interstellar organization is offering the  Black Sky Thinking Prize. It will

be awarded to an individual who demonstrates originality and ingenuity in their approach to (directly, or indirectly), tackling concepts related to interstellar travel in groundbreaking ways.

This prize will seek out an individual whose work raises questions and demonstrates new ideas related to the way we may travel to the stars.

While advances in this realm are usually associated with national institutions that employ highly skilled engineers, the Black Sky Thinker may not be from a traditional ‘space’ industry background.

It is a prize that provokes new conversations about the future of humanity and is therefore open to any discipline, ideology, educational, or cultural origin.

The prize will be awarded biennially at the Starship Congress, which is organized by Icarus Interstellar.


The judges will be “international experts, visionaries and mouldbreakers”.

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The announcement is on the Earth 2 Hub™ website.
This organization

brings together leading-edge international creatives, scientists, technologists and futurists to explore how new science, new technology and new thinking could positively impact on the future. Comprising Earth 2 Hub™ Ltd – visioning the future, and Earth 2 Design™ Ltd – designing the future, Earth 2.0® group was born of an idea conceived in the Atlantic Forest in Brazil in 2009 and was incorporated in London, United Kingdom in 2011.

History, Space Arts, Space Systems

Horizons reproduction of Colliers Magazine space series – issues 5 & 6

As I posted back in February and March , the Horizons Newsletter of  the AIAA Houston Section has been publishing full reproductions of all eight issues that Colliers magazine published between March 1952 and April 1954 with articles on space. The writers included Wernher von Braun, Willy Ley and other space notables of the time. The wonderful illustrations were created by Chesley Bonestell, Fred Freeman and Rolf Klep. The covers of the space issues are shown here:
[]

(In addition to the team at Horizons, the project includes Scott Lowther.)
Since my posts, Horizons has released reproductions of the fifth and sixth Colliers sets of space articles.
  • 5th Colliers space issue:
    • March/April 2013 Issue (74 pages) (PDF: low resolution, 18.5MB; high resolution, 53.5MB) Volume 38, Number 5
    • Includes an account (pdf) by one of the Horizon’s team of his interaction with Robert Heinlein in 1957
  • 6th Colliers space issue:
    • May/June 2013 issue (PDF, 17 MB, 56 pages):  low resolution version (PDF, 7.5 MB, 56 pages). Volume 38, Number 6. (High res version not yet available.)

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Ron Miller has an article with lots of great graphics about the spaceflight plan laid out in the Colliers series: The Great 1952 Space Program That Almost Was – io9.com.

Astronomy, Exoplanets, Space Systems

Update on efforts to revive the Kepler spacecraft

The amazing successful exoplanet finding spacecraft Kepler went out of action last May when one of its reaction wheels (basically an electric powered gyroscope) ceased to function properly. The spacecraft has four reaction wheels and needs at least three to point its telescope with sufficient stability and accuracy to carry out the extremely precise measurements of the light of stars. An exoplanet is detected by the slight dimming of a star’s light when a planet transits across the star’s face as seen by the spacecraft.

One reaction wheel had already failed (i.e. friction on the spinning wheel grew too high) and so the failure of the second seemed to ring the death knell of the observatory’s exoplanet searching. However, the team began an effort to determine if one or both of the reaction wheels could be revived to a level of performance that could allow a return to observations for at least some scientific goals if not for exoplanet searching.

Here is a good summary of the status of the recovery efforts: More Efforts to Revive Kepler Space Telescope Mission Planned – Coalition for Space Exploration

And here is the complete statement from the Kepler team:

Kepler Mission Manager Update: Pointing Test

The team has continued exploratory recovery testing of Reaction Wheel 4 (RW4). On Thursday, July 25, 2013, the wheel spun in both directions in response to commands.

While both RW4 and RW2 have spun bi-directionally, friction levels remain higher than would be considered good for an operational wheel. However, it will be important to characterize the stability of the friction over time. A constant friction level may be correctable in the spacecraft’s attitude control system, whereas a variable friction level will likely render the wheels unusable.

With the demonstration that both wheels will still move, and the measurement of their friction levels, the functional testing of the reaction wheels is now complete.  The next step will be a system-level performance test to see if the wheels can adequately control spacecraft pointing.

Reaction wheel
High-precision pointing of the Kepler spacecraft is controlled by reaction wheels,
which are small electric motors mounted on the spacecraft that control
the three axes of motion: up/down, forward/back and left/right. Image Credit: Ball Aerospace

The team is preparing for the next test using RW2. Friction levels on RW4, the wheel that failed in May, are higher and no additional testing is planned at this time. The pointing test involves determining the performance of the wheel as part of the spacecraft system. The test will be conducted in three stages.

The first stage of the pointing test will determine if the spacecraft can sustain coarse-point mode using RW1, 2 and 3. Coarse-point mode is regularly used during normal operations, but has insufficient pointing accuracy to deliver the high-precision photometry necessary for exoplanet detection. During coarse-point the star trackers measure the pointing accuracy of the spacecraft. When using wheels to control the spacecraft, pointing is typically controlled to within an arcsecond, with a fault declared if the pointing error exceeds a quarter of a degree. This degree of pointing accuracy would be equivalent to keeping an imaginary Kepler telescope pointed at a theatre-size movie screen in New York City’s Central Park from San Francisco.

In the first stage, testing will demonstrate whether or not operation with RW2 can keep the spacecraft from entering safe mode. A safe mode is a self-protective measure that the spacecraft takes when an unexpected event occurs, such as elevated friction levels in the wheels.

In the second stage, testing will investigate RW2’s ability to help control the spacecraft pointing with enough accuracy to transmit science data to the ground using NASA’s Deep Space Network. If RW2 can sustain coarse-point in stage 1, the second stage of the test will be to point the high-gain antenna to Earth and downlink the data currently stored aboard. This requires that the pointing be controlled more tightly than simply avoiding safe mode, yet does not require the very fine control needed to return to science data collection.

The Kepler spacecraft
The spacecraft provides the power, pointing and telemetry for the photometer.
Other than the four reaction wheels used to maintain the precision pointing
and an ejectable cover, there are no other moving or deployable parts on
the spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA Ames/Ball Aerospace

The final stage of the test will determine if RW2 can achieve and maintain fine-point, the operating mode for collecting science data. During fine-point the fine-guidance sensors measure the spacecraft pointing. When using wheels to control the spacecraft, pointing is controlled to within a few milliarcseconds. Using our imaginary Kepler telescope example, this degree of pointing accuracy would be equivalent to pointing at a soccer ball in New York City’s Central Park from San Francisco.

The team anticipates beginning the pointing performance testing on Thursday, August 8, 2013 and will continue into the following week if all goes well. A determination of whether Kepler can return to exoplanet data collection is expected a couple weeks after these pointing tests are complete.

As engineers explore recovery of the spacecraft, scientists continue to analyze the existing data. Earlier this week the team delivered their findings for 1,236 new Kepler Objects of Interest (KOIs) to the NASA Exoplanet Archive. The new KOIs were found by searching the observational data from Quarters 1 to Quarter 12. Of the 1,236 new KOIs, 274 were judged to be planet candidates, while many others were determined to be false positives. These newly announced Kepler planet candidates bring the current count to 3,548. Some of these new planet candidates are small and some reside in the habitable zone of their stars, but much work remains to be done to verify these results.

Also announced this week is the Kepler Science Conference II Nov. 4-8, 2013 at NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. Registration is now open.

Regards,
Roger

Living in Space, Space Systems

Video: Part 2 of ISS crew member Chris Cassidy and the space suit water leak

In an earlier video, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy discussed how water began flowing into the helmet of Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano during his July 16th, 2013 EVA. A potentially very dangerous situation. In a second video shown below, Cassidy discusses potential locations in the suit where the leak might have happened and the current leading candidate as the culprit.