This week’s episode of NASA’s Space to Ground report on activities related to the International Space Station:
** A report on protein crystal experiments aboard the ISS:
Parkinson’s disease affects more than 5 million people on Earth. Research on the International Space Station could provide insight into this chronic neurodegenerative disease and help scientists find ways to treat and prevent it. In this video, NASA astronaut Serena Auñon-Chancellor narrates as European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Alexander Gerst uses a microscope to examine and photograph the LRRK2 crystals. Learn more about this research: https://go.nasa.gov/2FtsPiY
** Other NASA highlights for the week:
** The latest episode of NASA’s Rocket Range podcast focuses on Developing Technology
NASA has a reputation for creating history changing technology, and much of that technology is available to you right now. One of our secrets to success is that we aren’t developing all of this by ourselves. We’re leveraging industry and students to make innovative leaps.
devoted to the allure of the moon for American painters, whose art has reflected the eternal fascination with our closest celestial body. It is the first major museum examination of the moon as it relates to the story of the American nocturne as it developed from the early 1810s through the late 1960s.
The exhibition features more than 60 works of art, highlighting key painters who depicted the moon, from the early nineteenth-century masterpieces of Thomas Cole, the father of the Hudson River School, who embraced a kind of longing Romanticism that the astronomical body symbolized, to late works by famed illustrator Norman Rockwell, represented by his depictions of a long-held romantic yearning finally fulfilled–America’s triumphant lunar landing in 1969. All of the works in the exhibition underscore how the Romantic idea of the moon held an inexorable pull for artists, and was central to its depiction of landscape, a subject of ongoing engagement at the Museum.
[] “Oscar Florianus Bluemner (American, b. Germany, 1867–1938). Moon Radiance, 1927. Watercolor with gum coating on hot pressed off-white wove paper laid down by the artist to thick wood panel. Karen & Kevin Kennedy Collection. Photograph by Joshua Nefsky.”
[] “George Inness (American, 1825–1894). Winter Moonlight (Christmas Eve), 1866. Oil on canvas. Montclair Art Museum. Museum purchase; Lang Acquisition Fund, 1948 (1948.29).”
Nicole Stott displays a couple of her space paintings.
I grew up doing artsy crafty things, and as an adult—if I could find spare time—I would paint, do some woodworking, or tinker in the garden. Thankfully, before my first spaceflight, my crew support representative and friend Maryjane Anderson encouraged me to think about how I might spend some of my spare time while living for months in space. Thanks to her, I packed a small watercolor kit, and became the first person to paint a watercolor in space.
When people hear I’ve painted in space, they often comment about how it must have been fun to float in front of a window and paint whatever part of Earth I was looking at. And I agree, that would be great—if we weren’t for the fact that we’re passing over the planet at five miles a second. You literally wouldn’t get the brush to the paper before the thing you’re trying to paint would be out of sight. There’s no plein air painting in space.
Paglen’s collaborators on the project, Nevada Museum of Art, require the go-ahead from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deploy the artwork. In a statement written during the US governmental shutdown, the museum explained that they were unable to receive the go-ahead from the government department.
Before permission can be granted, a division of the US Air Force must identify each of the 64 satellites. This task has not yet been completed, even though the government is now back up and running.
For some operators, it seems that they were able to get in touch with their satellite at the beginning of the flight when all the satellites were in one big blob and close together in space. But as the probes have spread apart in the last few months, it’s become more difficult to know where to point their communication equipment, since so many identities are still unknown. Some operators have had trouble hearing back from the satellites in recent months.
That seems to be the case for Trevor Paglen’s Orbital Reflector — an art project that’s supposed to deploy a giant reflective balloon capable of being seen from Earth. In January, the team behind the satellite said that they had been in contact with the spacecraft, but that the government shutdown had impacted their ability to deploy the balloon. The website for the project states that the team still doesn’t have accurate orbital data for the satellite. “We are working to resolve these issues and will have more conclusive information to share in the near future,” Amanda Horn, a representative for the Nevada Museum of Art, said in a statement to The Verge.
WorldA sampling of links to recent space policy, politics, and government (US and international) related space news and resource items that I found of interest:
** Town Hall with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine:
Headquarters hosted an agencywide town hall with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine on Monday, April 1, at 1:30 p.m. EDT. NASA HQ employees were invited to join the Administrator in the Webb auditorium for this important discussion on our Moon to Mars plans.
SpaceIL is a non-profit volunteer organization that designed the spacecraft and raised $100M for its development and launch. Israel becomes the 7th country with a spacecraft to make lunar orbit.
The landing attempt is set for Thursday, April 11th.
** The Russian Progress vehicle also successfully docked with the ISS just 3 hours and 20 minutes after its liftoff from Baikonur.
Update: A Russian Soyuz launched a Progress cargo vehicle to the ISS this morning. The craft is taking a fast route to the station with the time from liftoff to docking only about 3.5 hours.
** SpaceX Falcon Heavy rolled out to the pad last night and is currently upright in preparation for the static test firing of the engines sometime today. Images of the FH on the pad:
****The StarHopper fired its Raptor engine for the first time on Wednesday, April 3rd at the Boca Chica Beach facility. The 3 second firing and tethers kept the vehicle close to the ground:
Starhopper completed tethered hop. All systems green.
The Starhopper will continue a series of tests that will eventually include un-tethered low altitude flights. These flights will require the installation of two more Raptors.
**** Falcon Heavy static fire set for Thursday in preparation for launch from Cape Kennedy on Sunday, April 7th with the Arabsat 6A communications satellite. All three stages will attempt to return and land. The side boosters will return to pads at the Cape while the center core will land on a platform at sea.
** India launches 29 satellites on a PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) including the Emisat spysat for the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) and 28 smallsats for commercial customers:
** China’s LinkSpace demos vertical takeoff and landing rocket as part of a step-by-step program to achieve an orbital rocket with a reusable first stage:
LinkSpace did a very successful test on rocket recycling on March 27, 2019. It will support us to open the next PLAN. Thank you Dr. @robert_zubrin for being here to witness this exciting milestone. Later, NewLine Baby(RLV-T5) will undergo higher flight tests in the future. pic.twitter.com/9aIpLopstW
These down-to-the-buzzer milestones are some of our trickiest to overcome yet, but we’re in the zone, we’re feeling confident and we’re ready to keep the ball rolling toward first flight.
Vector’s new plan targets the launch of a suborbital rocket, Vector-R B1001, for June. (There is no formal launch date yet set, Cantrell said, because “stuff happens.”) This mission will have a customer, but Cantrell isn’t ready to say who yet. Then, before the end of the year, the company intends to fly its first orbital rocket, Vector-R B1003, from the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Alaska.
Under the new plan, Vector now plans to skip an intermediate step in the development of its Vector-R rocket, which had been dubbed B1002. While this core would have been capable of reaching orbit, it would have only a very small payload capacity, unable to carry much more than some instrumentation. “For us, this turned out to be a dead-end configuration,” Cantrell said. Therefore, the company now plans to move directly from the suborbital test launch into a vehicle with larger tanks and more capable LP-1 engines.
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