In Space Infrastructure, Living in Space, SpaceCasts

Videos: “Space to Ground” + Other ISS reports – Oct.22.2021

October 22, 2021 TopSpacer

Here is the latest episode in NASA’s Space to Ground weekly report on activities related to the International Space Station:

** Expedition 66 Inflight with Space.com – October 21, 2021 – NASA Video

Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 65 Flight Engineers Mark Vande Hei and Megan McArthur of NASA discussed life and work aboard the orbital outpost during a question and answer session with Space.com on October 21. Vande Hei and McArthur are in the midst of long duration missions living and working aboard the microgravity laboratory to advance scientific knowledge and demonstrate new technologies for future human and robotic exploration missions as part of NASA’s Moon and Mars exploration approach, including lunar missions through NASA’s Artemis program.

** Video File: Russian Trio Returns To Earth From The International Space Station – NASA Video

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos and Russian spaceflight participants Yulia Peresild and Klim Shipenko undocked from the International Space Station’s Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module in their Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft October 16, returning to Earth a few hours later for a parachute-assisted landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan Oct. 17. Peresild, a Russian actress and Shipenko, her producer-director, spent 12 days on the station filming scenes for a movie title “Challenge” under an arrangement between Roscosmos and Moscow-based media entities. Novitskiy returned after spending 191 days in space on a flight which spanned almost 81 million miles. Novitskiy has now logged 531 days in space on his three missions.

** Spacewalk scenes with Thomas and Aki – 8K! – European Space Agency, ESA on Youtube

ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet and @JAXA | 宇宙航空研究開発機構 astronaut Akihiko Hoshide performed a spacewalk on 12 September 2021 to prepare for the installation of a new solar array on the International Space Station. The new solar arrays, called IROSA or ISS Roll-Out Solar Array, are being gradually installed over the existing arrays to boost the International Space Station’s power system. Thomas and @NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough prepared and installed two IROSA solar panels across three spacewalk in June. The arrays were taken from their storage area outside the Space Station and passed from spacewalker to spacewalker to the worksite. There the rolled arrays were secured, unfolded, connected and then unfurled. Aki and Thomas prepared the P4 truss for its IROSA installation. This is the same area as where Thomas and Shane installed two IROSA’s but closer to the main body of the Space Station, in an area called the 4A channel. Only one new solar array will be installed here, on a later spacewalk. While the extravehicular activity or EVA was already the fourth spacewalk during Thomas’ Alpha mission, it was his first with Aki and the first time a spacewalking pair did not feature a US or Russian astronaut. …

** Space food | Mission Alpha [in French with English subtitles] – European Space Agency, ESA on Youtube

ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet is on his second mission to the International Space Station called Alpha. In this video Thomas talks about his crew preference food that arrived on @SpaceX CRS-22 supply spacecraft, the video was recorded on 19 June 2021 in the Zvezda module of the Space Station. Astronauts’ full space menu comprise of a range of food designed to meet nutritional and operational requirements on board. Because of the two hours of exercise they perform every day on the Station and a full schedule of science and operations, astronauts are expected to consume approximately 3000 calories per day in space. For ESA astronauts such as Thomas, two thirds of this calorie intake come from the basic food supply that is preselected and prepacked by @NASA for the entire space mission. The final third of their calories comes from ‘crew choice meals’ – food that the astronauts choose for themselves, either from the US menu or a range of European, Russian and Japanese options. …

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Activism, Space Policy, SpaceCasts

The Space Show this week – Oct.18.2021

October 18, 2021 TopSpacer

The guests and topics of discussion on The Space Show this week:

1. Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2021; 7 pm PDT (9 pm CDT, 10 pm EDT): We welcome back Joan Horvath and Rich Cameron regarding their new book [Amazon commission] on math, geometry and space.

2. Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2021: Hotel Mars. Dr. Malcolm LeCompte will talk with David Livingston and John Batchelor about “a large asteroid strike [,] the biblical story in Genesis, [and] what science says!”

3. Friday, Oct.22, 2021; 9:30-11 am PDT (11:30 am-1 pm CDT, 12:30-2 pm EDT): We welcome back John Jossy to discuss his unique commercial space industry research, settlement and lots more.

4. Sunday, Oct.24, 2021; 12-1:30 pm PDT (3-4:30 pm EDT, 2-3:30 pm CDT): So you want to be a guest on The Space Show, right? Today is your opportunity. Call and tell us about your ideas and why you want to present them on The Space Show? You will have sufficient time to promote yourself and ideas so call us. Step up to the plate. Be on The Space Show. Don’t miss this once a year opportunity.

Some recent shows:

** Sunday, Oct.17.2021 – Dr. David Livingston led an online discussion with callers on a wide range of space issues and news items.

**Thursday, Oct.14.2021 – Dr. Brian Green “discussed his new book Space Ethics [Amazon commission link] along with leading us through a more detailed discussion about ethical issues for humans developing and living in space“.

** Tuesday, Oct.12.2021 – Dr. Ajay Kothari talked about “Thorium energy and reactors, details, advantages and some of the politics involved in using thorium to solve our energy problems“.

The Space Show is a project of the One Giant Leap Foundation .

The Space Show - David Livingston — The Space Show – Dr. David Livingston

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In Space Infrastructure, Living in Space, SpaceCasts

Videos: “Space to Ground” + Other ISS reports – Oct.15.2021

October 15, 2021 TopSpacer

Here is the latest episode in NASA’s Space to Ground weekly report on activities related to the International Space Station:

** NRCSD#21 Deployments from the International Space Station – Nanoracks

Deployments of three CubeSats from the Nanoracks CubeSat Deployer on the International Space Station. This is Nanoracks’ 21st CubeSat deployment mission from the ISS. The first deployment will contain CAPSat, a 3U from the University of Illinois. The second deployment will contain PR CuNaR2, a 3U from the Inter American University of Puerto Rico (the first ever Puerto Rican Satellite!), and a 3U from the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

** Crew 3 Training Resource Reel UHD – October 12, 2021 – NASA Video

NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn and Kayla Barron as well as ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Matthias Maurer train for their six-month stay aboard the International Space Station.

** Space food | Mission Alpha [in French with English subtitles] – European Space Agency, ESA on Youtube

Astronauts’ full space menu comprise of a range of food designed to meet nutritional and operational requirements on board. Because of the two hours of exercise they perform every day on the Station and a full schedule of science and operations, astronauts are expected to consume approximately 3000 calories per day in space.

For ESA astronauts such as Thomas, two thirds of this calorie intake come from the basic food supply that is preselected and prepacked by @NASA for the entire space mission. The final third of their calories comes from ‘crew choice meals’ – food that the astronauts choose for themselves, either from the US menu or a range of European, Russian and Japanese options. Before any mission to the Space Station, the astronauts participate in several space food tasting sessions to help determine what dishes will be included in the basic food supply. During a training course they test a range of different food and drink items and rate each of them in a questionnaire.

This information is then provided to NASA’s food lab which determines the final food package. Over 200 experiments are planned during Thomas’ time in space, with 40 European ones and 12 new experiments led by the French space agency @CNES. Follow Thomas: http://bit.ly/ThomasPesquetBlog

** Earth Images from the International Space Station. | Oct. 9, 2021– space googlevesaire

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Asteroids & Comets, Astronomy, Education

ESO: VLT images 42 of the largest asteroids

October 12, 2021 TopSpacer

The latest report from ESO (European Southern Observatory):

Meet the 42:
ESO images some of the biggest asteroids in our Solar System

This image depicts 42 of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter. Most of them are larger than 100 kilometres, with the two biggest asteroids being Ceres and Vesta, which are around 940 and 520 kilometres in diameter, and the two smallest ones being Urania and Ausonia, each only about 90 kilometres. The images of the asteroids have been captured with the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope.

Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) in Chile, astronomers have imaged 42 of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter. Never before had such a large group of asteroids been imaged so sharply. The observations reveal a wide range of peculiar shapes, from spherical to dog-bone, and are helping astronomers trace the origins of the asteroids in our Solar System.

The detailed images of these 42 objects are a leap forward in exploring asteroids, made possible thanks to ground-based telescopes, and contribute to answering the ultimate question of life, the Universe, and everything [1].

“Only three large main belt asteroids, Ceres, Vesta and Lutetia, have been imaged with a high level of detail so far, as they were visited by the space missions Dawn and Rosetta of NASA and the European Space Agency, respectively,”

explains Pierre Vernazza, from the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille in France, who led the asteroid study published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

“Our ESO observations have provided sharp images for many more targets, 42 in total.”

The previously small number of detailed observations of asteroids meant that, until now, key characteristics such as their 3D shape or density had remained largely unknown. Between 2017 and 2019, Vernazza and his team set out to fill this gap by conducting a thorough survey of the major bodies in the asteroid belt.

Most of the 42 objects in their sample are larger than 100 km in size; in particular, the team imaged nearly all of the belt asteroids larger than 200 kilometres, 20 out of 23. The two biggest objects the team probed were Ceres and Vesta, which are around 940 and 520 kilometres in diameter, whereas the two smallest asteroids are Urania and Ausonia, each only about 90 kilometres.

These images have been captured with the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope as part of a programme that surveyed 42 of the largest asteroids in our Solar System. They show Ceres and Vesta, the two largest objects in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, approximately 940 and 520 kilometres in diameter. These two asteroids are also the two most massive in the sample.

By reconstructing the objects’ shapes, the team realised that the observed asteroids are mainly divided into two families. Some are almost perfectly spherical, such as Hygiea and Ceres, while others have a more peculiar, “elongated” shape, their undisputed queen being the “dog-bone” asteroid Kleopatra.

By combining the asteroids’ shapes with information on their masses, the team found that the densities change significantly across the sample. The four least dense asteroids studied, including Lamberta and Sylvia, have densities of about 1.3 grams per cubic centimetre, approximately the density of coal. The highest, Psyche and Kalliope, have densities of 3.9 and 4.4 grammes per cubic centimetre, respectively, which is higher than the density of diamond (3.5 grammes per cubic centimetre).

This large difference in density suggests the asteroids’ composition varies significantly, giving astronomers important clues about their origin.

“Our observations provide strong support for substantial migration of these bodies since their formation. In short, such tremendous variety in their composition can only be understood if the bodies originated across distinct regions in the Solar System,”

explains Josef Hanuš of the Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, one of the authors of the study. In particular, the results support the theory that the least dense asteroids formed in the remote regions beyond the orbit of Neptune and migrated to their current location.

These findings were made possible thanks to the sensitivity of the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument mounted on ESO’s VLT [2].

“With the improved capabilities of SPHERE, along with the fact that little was known regarding the shape of the largest main belt asteroids, we were able to make substantial progress in this field,”

says co-author Laurent Jorda, also of the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille.

Astronomers will be able to image even more asteroids in fine detail with ESO’s upcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), currently under construction in Chile and set to start operations later this decade.

“ELT observations of main-belt asteroids will allow us to study objects with diameters down to 35 to 80 kilometres, depending on their location in the belt, and craters down to approximately 10 to 25 kilometres in size,”

says Vernazza.

“Having a SPHERE-like instrument at the ELT would even allow us to image a similar sample of objects in the distant Kuiper Belt. This means we’ll be able to characterise the geological history of a much larger sample of small bodies from the ground.”

This poster shows 42 of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter (orbits not to scale). The images in the outermost circle of this infographic have been captured with the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The asteroid sample features 39 objects larger than 100 kilometres in diameter, including 20 larger than 200 kilometres. The poster highlights a few of the objects, including Ceres (the largest asteroid in the belt), Urania (the smallest one imaged), Kalliope (the densest imaged) and Lutetia, which was visited by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission.

Notes

[1] In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, the number 42 is the answer to the “Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.” Today, 12 October 2021, is the 42^nd anniversary of the publication of the book.

[2] All observations were conducted with the Zurich IMaging POLarimeter (ZIMPOL), an imaging polarimeter subsystem of the SPHERE instrument that operates at visible wavelengths.

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The Space Show this week – Oct.11.2021

October 11, 2021 TopSpacer

The guests and topics of discussion on The Space Show this week:

1. Tuesday, Oct.12, 2021; 7 pm PDT (9 pm CDT, 10 pm EDT): We welcome back Dr. Ajay Kothari on thorium and going back to the Moon. Find his recent thorium Space Review article here.

2. Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021: Hotel Mars. No show this week.

3. Friday, Oct.15, 2021; 9:30-11 am PDT (11:30 am-1 pm CDT, 12:30-2 pm EDT): Dr. Brian Green on his new book, Space Ethics [Amazon commission link].

4. Sunday, Oct.17.12, 2021; 12-1:30 pm PDT (3-4:30 pm EDT, 2-3:30 pm CDT): OPEN LINES. Everyone call us and share your space thoughts with us.

Some recent shows:

** Sunday, Oct.10.2021 – Emily Carney talked about “her blog series regarding space in the 70’s, blogging for the NSS plus other listener driven phone calls and emails“.

**Tuesday, Oct.5.2021 – Dr. Robert Zubrin spoke about the “Mars Society Conference Oct. 14,19, 2021, why space, why Mars, Mars exploration, space exploration and our culture, drivers for a Mars settlement and more“.