Monthly Archives: August 2015

History, Space Collecting

Collectors go for items linked to spaceflights of the Space Age

A look at some of  Mercury and Apollo program items owned by private individuals: Space $ouvenirs – Air & Space Magazine.

For example, a “checklist, which was stuck to an instrument panel inside the Apollo 17 command module (note the Velcro fixtures), details the immediate preparations for CM pilot Ron Evans’ December 17, 1972 spacewalk.”

02b_aug2015_apollo17lunarorbitcuecard_live.jpg__800x0_q85_crop[1]===

See also the HobbySpace space memorabilia and collectables section.

Mars, Space participation

Send your name to Mars on the InSight lander

A new public participation program from NASA:

Send Your Name to Mars on NASA’s Next
Red Planet Mission

Mars enthusiasts around the world can participate in NASA’s journey to Mars by adding their names to a silicon microchip headed to the Red Planet aboard NASA’s InSight Mars lander, scheduled to launch next year.

“Our next step in the journey to Mars is another fantastic mission to the surface,” said Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “By participating in this opportunity to send your name aboard InSight to the Red Planet, you’re showing that you’re part of that journey and the future of space exploration.”

Submissions will be accepted until Sept. 8. To send your name to Mars aboard InSight, go to: go.usa.gov/3Aj3G

The fly-your-name opportunity comes with “frequent flier” points to reflect an individual’s personal participation in NASA’s journey to Mars, which will span multiple missions and multiple decades. The InSight mission offers the second such opportunity for space exploration fans to collect points by flying their names aboard a NASA mission, with more opportunities to follow.

Last December, the names of 1.38 million people flew on a chip aboard the first flight of NASA’s Orion spacecraft, which will carry astronauts to deep space destinations including Mars and an asteroid. After InSight, the next opportunity to earn frequent flier points will be NASA’s Exploration Mission-1, the first planned test flight bringing together the Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule in preparation for human missions to Mars and beyond.

InSight will launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California in March 2016 and land on Mars Sept. 28, 2016. The mission is the first dedicated to the investigation of the deep interior of the planet. It will place the first seismometer directly on the surface of Mars to measure Martian quakes and use seismic waves to learn about the planet’s interior. It also will deploy a self-hammering heat probe that will burrow deeper into the ground than any previous device on the Red Planet. These and other InSight investigations will improve our understanding about the formation and evolution of all rocky planets, including Earth.

For additional information about the InSight mission, visit: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/insight/main/index.html

You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at: www.facebook.com/NASAInSight and twitter.com/nasainsight

Pluto and beyond, Space Science, Space Systems

New Horizons: Fly-by video + The source of Pluto’s nitrogen

Here’s a video showing the view of Pluto as the New Horizon probe flew past it:

—-

I missed this posting from New Horizons last week:

Scientists Study Nitrogen Provision for Pluto’s Atmosphere

The latest data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft reveal diverse features on Pluto’s surface and an atmosphere dominated by nitrogen gas. However, Pluto’s small mass allows hundreds of tons of atmospheric nitrogen to escape into space each hour.

2015-08-12-15-PlutoEnhancedColor-md[1]
Mission scientists are studying New Horizons data to discover what’s pumping up the nitrogen in Pluto’s atmosphere, even as it escapes into interplanetary space. This enhanced color image – created from four images from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) combined with color data from the spacecraft’s Ralph instrument – helps scientists detect differences in the composition and texture of Pluto’s surface. The data hint that Pluto may still be geologically active, a theory that could explain how Pluto’s escaping atmosphere remains flush with nitrogen. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute. (Larger image.)
So where does all this nitrogen come from? Kelsi Singer, a postdoctoral researcher at Southwest Research Institute, and her mentor Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator and SwRI associate vice president, outlined likely sources in a paper titled, “On the Provenance of Pluto’s Nitrogen.” The Astrophysical Journal Letters accepted the paper for publication on July 15, just a day after the spacecraft’s closest encounter with the icy dwarf planet.

“More nitrogen has to come from somewhere to resupply both the nitrogen ice that is moving around Pluto’s surface in seasonal cycles, and the nitrogen that is escaping off the top of the atmosphere as the result of heating by ultraviolet light from the Sun,” said Singer.

Singer and Stern looked at a number of different ways that nitrogen might be resupplied. They wondered if comets could deliver enough nitrogen to Pluto’s surface to resupply what is escaping its atmosphere. They also looked at whether craters made by the comets hitting the surface could excavate enough nitrogen – but that would require a very deep layer of nitrogen ice at the surface, which is not proven. The team also studied whether craters could expose more surface area, by punching through surface deposits that would likely be built up over time.

“We found that all of these effects, which are the major ones from cratering, do not seem to supply enough nitrogen to supply the escaping atmosphere over time,” continued Singer. “While it’s possible that the escape rate was not as high in the past as it is now, we think geologic activity is helping out by bringing nitrogen up from Pluto’s interior.”

And while the data weren’t in before this paper was written, the newest images of Pluto show land forms that suggest heat is rising beneath the surface, with troughs of dark matter either collecting, or bubbling up, between flat segments of crust, which could be related.

“Our pre-flyby prediction, made when we submitted the paper, is that it’s most likely that Pluto is actively resupplying nitrogen from its interior to its surface, possibly meaning the presence of ongoing geysers or cryovolcanism,” said Stern. “As data from New Horizons comes in, we will be very interested to see if this proves true.”

New Horizons is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., designed, built, and operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. SwRI leads the science mission, payload operations, and encounter science planning.