Here is the latest episode in NASA’s Space to Ground weekly report on activities related to the International Space Station:
** U.S. Spacewalk 77 Animation – September 9, 2021 – NASA Video
This animation discusses the September 12th spacewalk in which ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide will install a support bracket, called a modification kit, on the inward port side of the station’s backbone truss structure in a position known as P4, which is closest to the station’s pressurized living space. The kit prepares the site for future installation and deployment of the third of six new International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Arrays (iROSA) to upgrade one of the station’s eight power channels known as 4A, which provides partial power to the U.S. Laboratory, the Harmony module, and the Columbus module. The modification kit will be attached to the mast canister at the base of the original solar arrays. The crew will also replace a device that measures the electrical charging potential of the arrays and associated surfaces in its vicinity, called a floating point measurement unit, on a separate truss.
** Expedition 65 inflight interview with Houston Chronicle and Reuters – September 10, 2021 – NASA
Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 65 Flight Engineers Megan McArthur and Mark Vande Hei of NASA discussed life and research on the orbital laboratory during a pair of in-flight interviews Sept. 10 with the Houston Chronicle and Reuters. Vande Hei arrived on the station in April aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, followed two weeks later by McArthur, who launched aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon “Endeavour”.
** Watch a Russian spacewalker jettison a cable reel cover away from space station – VideoFromSpace
Cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy jettisoned a cable reel cover during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Sept. 9, 2021. Spacewalk Wrap: https://www.space.com/space-station-c…
** Smoke alarm triggered on space station, burnt smell reported – ‘No impact to crew’ – VideoFromSpace
On Sept. 9, 2021, a smoke alarm was triggered in the Russian Zvezda service module. The crew reported a “burnt plastic or electronics type smell,” according to NASA. The source was not found and air filters were replaced.
Watch over one hour of our planet, seen from the International Space Station, in 4K resolution. This compilation was made from video taken by ESA astronauts, mostly by Thomas Pesquet during his first mission, Proxima, and ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst on his second mission, Horizons, as well as footage from Samantha Cristoforetti’s Futura mission and Paolo Nespoli’s Vita mission.
These eleven images are of the asteroid Kleopatra, viewed at different angles as it rotates. The images were taken at different times between 2017 and 2019 with the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument on ESO’s VLT. Kleopatra orbits the Sun in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. Astronomers have called it a “dog-bone asteroid” ever since radar observations around 20 years ago revealed it has two lobes connected by a thick “neck”.
Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), a team of astronomers have obtained the sharpest and most detailed images yet of the asteroid Kleopatra. The observations have allowed the team to constrain the 3D shape and mass of this peculiar asteroid, which resembles a dog bone, to a higher accuracy than ever before. Their research provides clues as to how this asteroid and the two moons that orbit it formed.
“Kleopatra is truly a unique body in our Solar System,”
says Franck Marchis, an astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, USA and at the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, France, who led a study on the asteroid — which has moons and an unusual shape — published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
“Science makes a lot of progress thanks to the study of weird outliers. I think Kleopatra is one of those and understanding this complex, multiple asteroid system can help us learn more about our Solar System.”
Kleopatra orbits the Sun in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. Astronomers have called it a “dog-bone asteroid” ever since radar observations around 20 years ago revealed it has two lobes connected by a thick “neck”. In 2008, Marchis and his colleagues discovered that Kleopatra is orbited by two moons, named AlexHelios and CleoSelene, after the Egyptian queen’s children.
This image provides a size comparison of the asteroid Kleopatra with northern Italy. The top half of the image shows a computer model of Kleopatra, a “dog-bone” shaped asteroid which orbits the Sun in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. End to end, Kleopatra is 270 kilometres long. The bottom half of the image gives an aerial view of northern Italy, with the footprint Kleopatra would have if it were hovering above it.
To find out more about Kleopatra, Marchis and his team used snapshots of the asteroid taken at different times between 2017 and 2019 with the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument on ESO’s VLT. As the asteroid was rotating, they were able to view it from different angles and to create the most accurate 3D models of its shape to date. They constrained the asteroid’s dog-bone shape and its volume, finding one of the lobes to be larger than the other, and determined the length of the asteroid to be about 270 kilometres or about half the length of the English Channel.
In a second study, also published in Astronomy & Astrophysics and led by Miroslav Brož of Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, the team reported how they used the SPHERE observations to find the correct orbits of Kleopatra’s two moons. Previous studies had estimated the orbits, but the new observations with ESO’s VLT showed that the moons were not where the older data predicted them to be.
“This had to be resolved,” says Brož. “Because if the moons’ orbits were wrong, everything was wrong, including the mass of Kleopatra.”
Thanks to the new observations and sophisticated modelling, the team managed to precisely describe how Kleopatra’s gravity influences the moons’ movements and to determine the complex orbits of AlexHelios and CleoSelene. This allowed them to calculate the asteroid’s mass, finding it to be 35% lower than previous estimates.
Combining the new estimates for volume and mass, astronomers were able to calculate a new value for the density of the asteroid, which, at less than half the density of iron, turned out to be lower than previously thought [1]. The low density of Kleopatra, which is believed to have a metallic composition, suggests that it has a porous structure and could be little more than a “pile of rubble”. This means it likely formed when material reaccumulated following a giant impact.
Kleopatra’s rubble-pile structure and the way it rotates also give indications as to how its two moons could have formed. The asteroid rotates almost at a critical speed, the speed above which it would start to fall apart, and even small impacts may lift pebbles off its surface. Marchis and his team believe that those pebbles could subsequently have formed AlexHelios and CleoSelene, meaning that Kleopatra has truly birthed its own moons.
The new images of Kleopatra and the insights they provide are only possible thanks to one of the advanced adaptive optics systems in use on ESO’s VLT, which is located in the Atacama Desert in Chile. Adaptive optics help to correct for distortions caused by the Earth’s atmosphere which cause objects to appear blurred — the same effect that causes stars viewed from Earth to twinkle. Thanks to such corrections, SPHERE was able to image Kleopatra — located 200 million kilometres away from Earth at its closest — even though its apparent size on the sky is equivalent to that of a golf ball about 40 kilometres away.
ESO’s upcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), with its advanced adaptive optics systems, will be ideal for imaging distant asteroids such as Kleopatra.
“I can’t wait to point the ELT at Kleopatra, to see if there are more moons and refine their orbits to detect small changes,” adds Marchis.
Notes
[1] The newly calculated density is 3.4 grams per cubic centimetre, while previously Kleopatra was believed to have a mean density of about 4.5 grams per cubic centimetre.
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 (find previous space policy roundups here):
The European Space Agency ESA is known for spectacular landings on distant comets or the like. What is little known is that the ESA has no less exciting departments in completely different areas. Like telecommunications, for example. What exactly is ESA up to in this field and why is it probably one of the most exciting tasks of all? Elodie Viau, Director of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications at ESA has taken the time to answer this question in the current episode of the Space Cafe Podcast.
During this week’s Space Café, SpaceWatch.Global publisher, Torsten Kriening spoke with a Member of the European Parliament and member of the German Alliance 90/The Greens party, Niklas Niennas, about Europe’s role and response to the space race 2.0.
Elected in 2019, he is a member of the committees on regional development, culture and education, however, he also takes great interest in space, with 20 percent of his workload dedicated to space policy. He also regularly writes about the sector on his blog and has hosted webinars on space law and policy, and the current upheavals facing the sector.
This week, he and Torsten discuss how Europe can prepare for a new space world that’s both brimming with private sector players and is increasingly militarised, through the creation of an international rulebook and European space strategy. …
Space and defense startups frequently have a tough time “being heard” in the field. Not only that, these small companies struggle with learning the byzantine paths to discovering and connecting with prime contractors and government organizations who could be looking for their technical help. Katie Bilek co-founded govmates in 2015 to smooth the way and assist in making teaming connections. If you’re a space or defense startup founder looking for help in developing these kinds of connections, listen in to our discussion. …
Artemis [program] and why our guest deeply opposes the program. Also, asteroid mining, resource minding the asteroids compared to the Moon, Tic-tac and ET matters, global society history and nefarious forces opposing the U.S. experiment and more.
** The Space Show – Friday, Sept.3.2021 – Roman Chiporukha talked about “High end space, earth and ocean adventures, space missions, marketing, educational outreach, educating the general public about space, STEM goals“.
1. Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2021; 7 pm PDT (9 pm CDT, 10 pm EDT): We welcome back Chris Blackerby of Astroscale for important updates on their orbital debris mitigation project.
2. Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2021: Hotel Mars TBA pre-recorded. See upcoming show menu on the home page for program details.
3. Friday, Sept.10, 2021; 9:30-11 am PDT (11:30 am-1 pm CDT, 12:30-2 pm EDT): We welcome back Dr. Namrata Goswami for a look at our space and national space security efforts in Asia post Afghanistan.
4. Sunday, Sept.12, 2021; 12-1:30 pm PDT (3-4:30 pm EDT, 2-3:30 pm CDT): We welcome back John Bucknell for part 2 of his discussion around his new company focusing on SSP.
Artemis [program] and why our guest deeply opposes the program. Also, asteroid mining, resource minding the asteroids compared to the Moon, Tic-tac and ET matters, global society history and nefarious forces opposing the U.S. experiment and more.
** Friday, Sept.3.2021 – Roman Chiporukha talked about “High end space, earth and ocean adventures, space missions, marketing, educational outreach, educating the general public about space, STEM goals“.
Here is the latest episode in NASA’s Space to Ground weekly report on activities related to the International Space Station:
** Cosmonauts spacewalk outside Nauka module in these amazing views – VideoFromSpace
Cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov’s conduct a spacewalk outside the Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module on Sept. 3, 2021.
** Animation Depicts First Russian Spacewalk to Outfit the New Nauka Module – NASA Video
The animation depicts the work to be conducted by Expedition 65 cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov of Roscosmos during the first pair of up to eleven spacewalks that will outfit the new Russian Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module that was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on July 21 and docked to the International Space Station July 29. The first two spacewalks involve the connection of power, ethernet and telemetry cables between Nauka, the Zvezda Service Module and Pressurized Mating Adapter 1 that links the U.S. and Russian segments of the orbital complex.
** Space Station Crew Talks with Gateway Habitation and Logistics Outpost Team – NASA Video
** Expedition 65 – SpaceX CRS 23 Rendezvous and Docking – NASA Video
SpaceX Cargo Dragon docks with the International Space Station with science experiments and supplies.
Water is life, on Earth and in space. Dutch ESA astronaut André Kuipers recounts his experience living in space for 204 days, and his time looking back on the blue face of ‘Planet Aqua’, comparing notes with divers about what is going on beneath the waves. He goes on to explore how space technology is being used for water management, from orbital tracking of water quality and pollution to spacecraft-grade recycling systems deployed down on the ground, as well as ambitious efforts to identify marine plastic litter using satellites. Produced for SIWI World Water Week with the support of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
** Enter the airlock with Thomas Pesquet (in French with English subtitles available) – European Space Agency, ESA
ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet gives a tour of the International Space Station’s airlock – the module used to prepare for and carry out spacewalks. In this video, Thomas provides an overview of the EMU spacesuit used for US spacewalks and its different components. The spacesuits can be adjusted depending on an astronaut’s size, but the gloves are customised to ensure each astronaut has maximum mobility in their hands and fingers. Thomas shows the cameras and lighting systems that allow astronauts to continue work when over the side of Earth not lit by the sun, the visors they put down during periods of harsh light and the cooling garments worn under the suits that keep their bodies at the right temperature. He also explains the equipment lock and the crew lock, where astronauts breathe in a controlled way to rid their blood of nitrogen and adjust to the lower pressure of space.
ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet takes you on a tour of the International Space Station like no other. Filmed with a 360 camera, the Space Station 360 series lets you explore for yourself alongside Thomas’s explanation – this is the Node 2 module. Node 2 is a European-built connecting module also known as Harmony that acts as an internal passageway and utility hub. Its exterior also serves as a work platform for the station’s robotic arm, Canadarm2, and has docking ports for spacecraft. In this video, Thomas shows the different modules that Node 2 connects: Europe’s Columbus Laboratory, the US lab Destiny and the Japanese Kibo Laboratory. He also shows workspaces and sleeping cabins where astronauts can have some personal space and sleep with their sleeping bags attached to the wall.
