“SpaceX’s Crew Dragon splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean after successful Demo-1 flight on March 8, 2019.”
****The DM-1 mission was a great success. Everything from beginning to end seemed to go smoothly and according to plan. A video of highlights of DM-1:
**** The closing of the hatch of the Crew Dragon 2 last night in preparation for its departure:
https://youtu.be/JDLTqb8EeZ4
**** The Crew Dragon departs from the ISS in this video:
A view from the ISS of the Crew Dragon shortly after it left the station to return to earth. Note that the circle at the top is the nose-cap in the open position.
**** StarHopper moves to launch pad. Meanwhile, work continues at SpaceX’s facilities at Boca Chica Beach near Brownsville, Texas on the company’s next-generation launch system. While the Crew Dragon recovery was underway in the Atlantic, the booster section of the StarHopper low altitude test vehicle was slowly transported from the construction yard to the site of the launch pad:
StarHopper booster moves to the site of the launch pad at Boca Chica Beach.
[ Update: This move was reportedly due to plans for a pressure test of the propellant tanks. Once that is safely finished, it will be moved back to the construction yard.] The propulsion system with the Raptor engines have not yet been installed. A new nosecone is also under construction to replace the one damaged when it was overturned by high winds.
**The launch of the reusable SARGE rocket last Saturday by EXOS Aerospace went well overall, though it failed to reach the planned altitude. Strong winds at liftoff caused the rocket to move outside its allowed range and the guidance system turned off the engine before it completed its burn. The rocket was recovered via paraglider return and will launch again.
** Linkspace tests vertical takeoff and landing rocket in China:
Reusable Launch Vehicle Prototype RLV-T5 (NewLine Baby) had a new milestone. We had accomplished the rocket takes off, hovers and recovers under tethered protection. At the end of March, we plan to accomplish the recovery test of RLV-T5 in free state. pic.twitter.com/BOg7C9RqPp
The video was shot with Hayabusa2’s small monitoring camera, CAM-H, which points downward from the side of the main spacecraft bus. Incredibly, the camera was funded by donations from the public!
There’s so much to like about the video: The reflection of Ryugu on Hayabusa2’s shiny surface. The white target marker containing names of Planetary Society members, visible in the lower-left corner for the first part of the video. And, of course, the incredible spray of debris when Hayabusa2 hits the surface and fires its tantalum bullet.
With so much material flying around, the team says “the potential for sample collection is high.” That hopefully includes some larger pieces that either floated directly into the sample catcher or were caught on the inner lip of the sample horn, giving them a chance to tumble up into the catcher later. JAXA also confirmed some debris stuck to the lens of one of the optical navigation cameras.
NASA’s Mars InSight lander has a probe designed to dig up to 16 feet (5 meters) below the surface and measure heat coming from inside the planet. After beginning to hammer itself into the soil on Thursday, Feb. 28, the 16-inch-long (40-centimeter-long) probe — part of an instrument called the Heat and Physical Properties Package, or HP3 — got about three-fourths of the way out of its housing structure before stopping. No significant progress was seen after a second bout of hammering on Saturday, March 2. Data suggests the probe, known as a “mole,” is at a 15-degree tilt.
Scientists suspect it hit a rock or some gravel. The team had hoped there would be relatively few rocks below ground, given how few appear on the surface beside the lander. Even so, the mole was designed to push small rocks aside or wend its way around them. The instrument, which was provided for InSight by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), did so repeatedly during testing before InSight launched.
“The team has decided to pause the hammering for now to allow the situation to be analyzed more closely and jointly come up with strategies for overcoming the obstacle,” HP3 Principal Investigator Tilman Spohn of DLR wrote in a blog post. He added that the team wants to hold off from further hammering for about two weeks.
HP3 on the Martian Surface: NASA’s InSight lander set its heat probe, called the Heat and Physical Properties Package (HP3), on the Martian surface on Feb. 12. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/DLR. Full image and caption ›
Yutu-2 awakened for lunar day 3 of the mission at 02:51 UTC on 28 February, with the lander following later the same day at 23:52. A few days later, the rover stood down for its ‘noon nap’ to avoid heating issues from a high solar incidence angle, at 10:25 UTC on March 3. It will resume its activities early on 10 March, before entering a sleep state around 02:00 UTC on 13 March, when the Sun is low in the sky over Von Kármán crater in preparation for the lunar nighttime.
According to a release by the China Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP) on 4 March, Yutu-2 has so far travelled 127 meters, adding 7 meters to the total of 120 meters driven on lunar days 1 (44.185 m) and 2 (75.815 m).
The apparent relatively low distance is believed to be due to Yutu-2 taking time to image nearby rocks and features in the regolith. Analysis of the images from the Visible and Near-Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (VNIS) and Panoramic camera is expected to provide insight into the origin and composition of the rocks and development of the lunar far side itself.
Yutu-2 observes some Moon rocks during the rover’s third Lunar Day since landing on the far side.
NASA has selected 12 science and technology demonstration payloads to fly to the Moon as early as the end of this year, dependent upon the availability of commercial landers. These selections represent an early step toward the agency’s long-term scientific study and human exploration of the Moon and, later, Mars.
** NASA MAVEN Mars orbiter to support communications with Mars 2020 rover:
NASA’s 4-year-old atmosphere-sniffing Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission is embarking on a new campaign today to tighten its orbit around Mars. The operation will reduce the highest point of the MAVEN spacecraft’s elliptical orbit from 3,850 to 2,800 miles (6,200 to 4,500 kilometers) above the surface and prepare it to take on additional responsibility as a data-relay satellite for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover, which launches next year.
“The MAVEN spacecraft has done a phenomenal job teaching us how Mars lost its atmosphere and providing other important scientific insights on the evolution of the Martian climate,” said Jim Watzin, director of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program. “Now we’re recruiting it to help NASA communicate with our forthcoming Mars rover and its successors.”
While MAVEN’s new orbit will not be drastically shorter than its present orbit, even this small change will significantly improve its communications capabilities. “It’s like using your cell phone,” said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator from the University of Colorado, Boulder. “The closer you are to a cell tower, the stronger your signal.”
Aerobraking plan for MAVEN. (left) Current MAVEN orbit around Mars: 6,200 kilometers (~3,850 miles) at highest altitude, and an orbit period of about 4.5 hours. (center) Aerobraking process: MAVEN performs a series of “deep dip” orbits approaching to within about 125 kilometers (~78 miles) of Mars at lowest altitude, causing drag from the atmosphere to slow down the spacecraft. Over roughly 360 orbits spanning 2.5 months, this technique reduces the spacecraft’s altitude to about 4,500 kilometers (~2,800 miles) and its orbit period to about 3.5 hours. (right) Post-aerobraking orbit, with reduced altitude and shorter orbit period. Credits: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio/Kel Elkins and Dan Gallagher. Download in high resolution from the Scientific Visualization Studio
Images from the MRO showing pits, located north and west of Arsia Mons. Credits Bob Zimmerman
The November release imaged three pits found on the southern flanks of Arsia Mons. The January 2019 release found several north of the volcano, two of which are very close to the two middle new pits highlighted above. The February release, which is the focus of this post, included four more pits, shown above, all located north and west of Arsia Mons, as shown in the overview map [shown below in image from Behind the Black].
For most people, snow days aren’t very productive. Some people, though, use the time to discover the most distant object in the solar system.
That’s what Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., did this week when a snow squall shut down the city. A glitzy public talk he was due to deliver was delayed, so he hunkered down and did what he does best: sifted through telescopic views of the solar system’s fringes that his team had taken last month during their search for a hypothesized ninth giant planet.
That’s when he saw it, a faint object at a distance 140 times farther from the sun than Earth—the farthest solar system object yet known, some 3.5 times more distant than Pluto. The object, if confirmed, would break his team’s own discovery, announced in December 2018, of a dwarf planet 120 times farther out than Earth, which they nicknamed “Farout.” For now, they are jokingly calling the new object “FarFarOut.” “This is hot off the presses,” he said during his rescheduled talk on 21 February.
What would happen if an art experiment was launched into space? That’s the question that Grammy award-winning rock band OK Go is hoping to answer through its non-profit venture OK Go Sandbox.
In partnership with the Playful Learning Lab at the University of St. Thomas, the band is inviting students ages 11 to 18 to submit ideas for art experiments that will take place aboard the Blue Origin New Shepard spacecraft. Blue Origin’s New Shepard is a reusable spacecraft designed to take payloads — and someday, people — into suborbital space. As part of its ongoing commitment to promoting creativity and inspiring interest in science, technology, engineering and math, Cognizant is sponsoring the “Art in Space” contest.
“Cognizant helps our clients across industries – including healthcare, life sciences, banking, retail, energy and technology – solve some of the world’s most complex challenges, and we will look to the next generation of creative thinkers to further our work,” said Jim Lennox, Cognizant’s Chief People Officer. “The resources provided by OK Go and Playful Learning Lab to help teachers inspire students is so important. We look forward to seeing how young minds around the world respond to the ‘Art in Space’ challenge.”
Students from around the world are invited to submit their project ideas; the deadline to enter is May 6. To read the contest guidelines and to learn more, click here.
The contest is the latest public involvement initiative at the band’s OK Go Sandbox project.
OK Go wants to put your student art experiment on a spaceship!
OK Go thinks creativity is all about the joy of experimentation.
Now we want you to try, but in actual space! The Art in Space contest invites your creative art and science minds to dream up your own cool experiments to send into suborbital space onboard the New Shepard spacecraft.
All you need is a great idea — if you win, our experts will help build it.
Got questions? We’ve got answers* (some answers, the rest are up to you!)
The band is well known for the innovative videos for their songs. Here is one filmed on an airplane that flew parabolic trajectories to product short periods of weightlessness:
A sampling of links to recent space policy, politics, and government (US and international) related space news and resource items that I found of interest:
Historian John Logsdon discusses his new book, Ronald Reagan and the Space Frontier. It explores the legacy of the 40th president’s major space policy decisions. We look at four major topics: early efforts at commercializing space, the survival crisis for planetary exploration, the Space Shuttle, and the decision to build the space station. Casey also shares good news about NASA’s newest budget and how a battle between rocket companies could spell trouble for NASA’s Lucy mission.
Greg Autry, Assistant Professor of Clinical Entrepreneurship & Director of the Southern California Commercial Spaceflight Initiative at University of Southern California, presents his keynote “Public Private Partnerships Spur Development of Commercial Space Markets and Returns to Earth Economy.”
Their first simple launcher was a small suborbital rocket, meant to fly high, but not high enough to start circling Earth. Then came the TACHYON, made of tubes of propellant bundled against each other like firewood, rather than stacked like those of a traditional rocket. It also wasn’t meant for orbit, but the design allowed Interorbital to add and subtract the propellant tubes to make the rocket more or less powerful.
NEPTUNE, also a bundle of fire sticks, is the next step in the company’s evolution – and the rocket that will compete for DARPA’s attention. Intended to launch things much higher, the smallest configuration can get your little payload to low Earth orbit. If the Pentagon wanted to send a 20-kilogram spy satellite to take pictures from 310 miles above Earth, it could order such a configuration of the rocket. If – oops! – it actually wanted two satellites, it could just ask Interorbital to add more fire sticks.
A recent video from InterOrbital:
** The Delft Aerospace Rocket Engineering (DARE) student team at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands is “one of the largest and most advanced student rocketry teams in the world”. Here is a video about a recent launch campaign:
https://youtu.be/hp9fiRV_Nl0
This video describes DARE’s Stratos IV rocket, which they hope will reach space, i.e. exceed 100 km, in August 2019:
“We are proud of this partnership with Firefly, one of the most innovative small payload launch operators,” said Pietro Guerrieri, D-Orbit Chief Strategic Officer. “Capitalizing on the capabilities of ION CubeSat Carrier, our free-flying CubeSat deployer, we are expanding our launch services portfolio and taking an additional step in our roadmap to offer the New Space market an innovative launch transportation solution.”
“Firefly Alpha was specifically designed with the needs of our rideshare partners in mind,” said Firefly CEO Dr. Tom Markusic. “Alpha’s 630 kg to 500 km SSO capacity allows D-Orbit significant flexibility in manifesting missions. Our agreement with D-Orbit for up to fifteen launches over 5 years will allow their customers frequent, reliable access to space, on the schedule of their choosing and to the orbit that best matches their business needs.
**PLD Space tests parachute rocket recovery with an air drop test in Arizona. The Spanish company is developing reusable rockets, starting with the suborbital MIURA 1.
PLD Space performed on February 16th our Drop-Test 1 of the MIURA 1 suborbital launch vehicle, in close collaboration with Airborne Systems North America. The test was conducted in Eloy, Arizona Desert (AZ).
They will now move forward to the test flight. Last summer the second MOMO rocket failed shortly after liftoff:
The first MOMO launched in July of 2017 and flew for over a minute before a break in the telemetry communications connection caused a premature shutdown of the engine.
****Crew Dragon docking to the ISS – more videos and articles:
Video of welcoming ceremony (the crew appears at 10:19):
ISS Expedition 58 crewmembers Anne McClain of NASA, Oleg Kononenko from Roscosmos, and David Saint-Jacques from the Canadian Space Agency during welcome ceremony for the DM-1 SpaceX Crew Dragon in the Node 2 module on Sunday, March 3, 2019.
**** The booster from the launch of the Nusantara Satu satellite and SpaceIL spacecraft returns from Port Canaveral to the hangar (via www.USLaunchReport.com):
**** Latest views of activities at Boca Chica Beach:
