Here is the latest episode in NASA’s Space to Ground weekly report on activities related to the International Space Station:
** Cygnus spacecraft captured by space station’s robotic arm – VideoFromSpace
** Expedition 65 Cool Science Radio Podcast – August 11, 2021 – NASA Video
Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 65 Flight Engineers Mark Vande Hei and Shane Kimbrough of NASA discussed living and working in space during an in-flight interview on August 11 with Cool Science Radio. Vande Hei and Kimrbough are in the midst of six-month missions on the outpost.
** Northrop Grumman CRS-16 Research Overview: Cardinal Muscle – ISS National Lab
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has collaborated with the ISS National Lab on numerous investigations, and this marks the first NSF-funded tissue engineering payload to launch to station as part of this collaboration. The investigation, launching onboard Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply Services Mission 16 (contracted by NASA), is from researchers at Stanford University and the Palo Alto Veterans Research Institute. The project seeks to leverage microgravity conditions to develop a tissue engineered model of sarcopenia (muscle loss due to aging). If validated, the model could be used to study the progression of muscle deterioration and could serve as a valuable platform to test potential treatments for conditions that cause muscle wasting.
** ‘Bumble’ robot finds ‘simulated danger’ on space station in test – VideoFromSpace
Robots like Astrobee’s “Bumble” on the International Space Station are designed to maintain to assist in the maintenance of spacecraft.
** Astronauts play ‘no-hand ball’ for first-ever ‘space olympics’ – VideoFromSpace
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station played a game of ‘no-hand ball’ during the first-ever “space olympics.” Astronauts hold their own Summer Olympics in space: https://www.space.com/astronauts-spac…
** Astronauts show off ‘synchronized space swimming’ skills on space station – VideoFromSpace
The crew of the International Space Station perform “synchronized space swimming” in the “very first Space Olympics,” according to ESA. Team Soyuz is Roscosmos’ Pyotr Dubrov and Oleg Novitsky and NASA’s Mark Vande Hei, and Team Dragon is NASA’s Megan McArthur, Shane Kimbrough, JAXA’s Aki Hoshide and ESA’s Thomas Pesquet. Astronauts hold their own Summer Olympics in space: https://www.space.com/astronauts-spac…
The International Space Station Expedition 65 crew recorded themselves on a day off after a long week of work having some weightless fun. From Earth orbit, 400 km above our planet, the crew present the very first Space Olympics. Skip to each event: 0:00 – 00:09 Intro 0:10 – 2:47 Synchronised floating 2:48 – 6:41 Lack-of-floor routine 6:42 – 8:48 No-Handball 8:49 – 9:30 Weightless sharpshooting
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):
** Chinese Commercial “SAR Wars” Rages, iSpace Fails Hyperbola-1 Y3 Launch, Nebula-M Rocket First Hop – Dongfang Hour – YouTube
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Space News Roundup! A kind reminder that we cover a lot more stories every week in our Newsletter (newsletter.dongfanghour.com).
An experiment rode next to Richard Branson when he rocketed to the edge of space on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo last month. Planetary scientist Alan Stern says we’ve begun a new era of affordable space research thanks to this vehicle and Blue Origin’s New Shepard. Alan also delivers an update on the New Horizons mission, including a new, definitive collection of everything we’ve learned about Pluto. Then it’s Olympic gold for Bruce Betts in our weekly What’s Up segment.
China has been swiftly assembling its Chinese space station, basically a large 60+ tons space laboratory that will be orbiting the Earth at an altitude of 350-450 km. Over the period 2021-2022 alone, 11 launches will take place, sending 3 core modules of the space station as well as 4 crewed missions (Shenzhou) and 4 cargo missions (Tianzhou). But did you know that China’s crewed spaceflight projects date all the way back to the 1960s? In the episode, we cover “everything you need to know” about the Chinese Space Station, from a historical perspective to a detailed timeline of the station assembly. All the essentials of the CSS should be covered here, but we will have other dedicated episodes to decipher more specific technical details and features of the space station.
** The Space Show – Sunday, Aug.8.2021 – Open lines program with David Livingston discussing a range of topics with listeners and callers. “One key topic was the growth of naysayers about commercial space, tourism and such. Many callers on this topic, suggestions for a debate and possible guest suggestions.”
Elina Morozova in conversation with Dr Viсtor Strelets, a high-caliber expert in the field of radio frequencies and satellite orbits with 40-years’ practical experience, including within the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), regional telecommunications organizations, and the telecommunications administration of the Russian Federation.
Viсtor Strelets has dealt for the last 40 years with various aspects of managing the orbit and frequency resource. Having defended a dissertation on the international legal protection of frequency assignments to space services and systems, Dr Strelets gained hands-on experience and industry knowledge in Russian civil service and at specialized international fora. This includes ITU Plenipotentiary Conferences, World Radiocommunication Conferences, and the Radio Regulations Board which was earlier chaired by Dr Strelets. …
1. Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021; 7 pm PDT (9 pm CDT, 10 pm EDT): We welcome back Dr. Haym Benaroya for lunar updates, habitats, rocket acoustic signatures and more.
2. Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021: Hotel Mars TBA pre-recorded. See upcoming show menu on the home page for program details.
3. Friday, Aug. 13, 2021; 9:30-11 am PDT (11:30 am-1 pm CDT, 12:30-2 pm EDT): We welcome back Andrew Chanin of ProcureAM and the UFO ETF. Lots of investing news and more.
4. Sunday, Aug.15, 2021; 12-1:30 pm PDT (3-4:30 pm EDT, 2-3:30 pm CDT): No show today
Some recent shows:
** Sunday, Aug.8.2021 – Open lines program with David Livingston discussing a range of topics with listeners and callers. “One key topic was the growth of naysayers about commercial space, tourism and such. Many callers on this topic, suggestions for a debate and possible guest suggestions.”
** Friday, Aug.6.2021 – Philip Bracken of Spaceflight talked about “the business and industry of providing launch services to satellite customers“.
Here is the latest episode in NASA’s Space to Ground weekly report on activities related to the International Space Station:
** Expedition 65 National Park Service – August 6, 2021 – NASA Video
Aboard the International Space station, Expedition 65 Flight Engineer Megan McArthur of NASA discussed life in space during an in-flight interview August 6 with the National Park Service. McArthur launched to the orbiting outpost on the SpaceX Crew Dragon “Endeavour” in April and is in the midst of six-month mission.
** Nauka module’s hatch opened on space station – Peek inside – VideoFromSpace
Cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky & Pyotr Dubrov opened the hatch to the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module on July 30, 2021. Russia’s Nauka module briefly tilts space station with unplanned thruster fire: https://www.space.com/nauka-module-th…
European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet shared this video on social media with the caption: “100 days in space for #MissionAlpha. It feels like a long time ago, but we also installed new toilets shortly after arriving. I was looking at the procedures on the tablet velcroed to my thigh, and yes, this filter looked so much like a banjo, I had to. The same video specialist at ESA who edits the timelapse videos (and much, much more!), Melanie Cowan, spotted this clip from the Space Station onboard camera views, added some music and the result is… perfectly embarrassing! . True story: I actually helped Mark on this day. A little. Maybe. No one knows.” 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
China has been swiftly assembling its Chinese space station, basically a large 60+ tons space laboratory that will be orbiting the Earth at an altitude of 350-450 km. Over the period 2021-2022 alone, 11 launches will take place, sending 3 core modules of the space station as well as 4 crewed missions (Shenzhou) and 4 cargo missions (Tianzhou). But did you know that China’s crewed spaceflight projects date all the way back to the 1960s? In the episode, we cover “everything you need to know” about the Chinese Space Station, from a historical perspective to a detailed timeline of the station assembly. All the essentials of the CSS should be covered here, but we will have other dedicated episodes to decipher more specific technical details and features of the space station.
This artist’s impression shows L 98-59b, one of the planets in the L 98-59 system 35 light-years away. The system contains four confirmed rocky planets with a potential fifth, the furthest from the star, being unconfirmed. In 2021, astronomers used data from the Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations (ESPRESSO) instrument on ESO’s VLT to measure the mass of L 98-59b, finding it to be half that of Venus. This makes it the lightest planet measured to date using the radial velocity technique.
A team of astronomers have used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) in Chile to shed new light on planets around a nearby star, L 98-59, that resemble those in the inner Solar System. Amongst the findings are a planet with half the mass of Venus — the lightest exoplanet ever to be measured using the radial velocity technique — an ocean world, and a possible planet in the habitable zone.
“The planet in the habitable zone may have an atmosphere that could protect and support life,”
says María Rosa Zapatero Osorio, an astronomer at the Centre for Astrobiology in Madrid, Spain, and one of the authors of the study published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
The results are an important step in the quest to find life on Earth-sized planets outside the Solar System. The detection of biosignatures on an exoplanet depends on the ability to study its atmosphere, but current telescopes are not large enough to achieve the resolution needed to do this for small, rocky planets. The newly studied planetary system, called L 98-59 after its star, is an attractive target for future observations of exoplanet atmospheres. Its orbits a star only 35 light-years away and has now been found to host rocky planets, like Earth or Venus, which are close enough to the star to be warm.
With the contribution of ESO’s VLT, the team was able to infer that three of the planets may contain water in their interiors or atmospheres. The two planets closest to the star in the L 98-59 system are probably dry, but might have small amounts of water, while up to 30% of the third planet’s mass could be water, making it an ocean world.
This infographic shows a comparison between the L 98-59 exoplanet system (top) with part of the inner Solar System (Mercury, Venus and Earth), highlighting the similarities between the two. L 98-59 contains four confirmed rocky planets (marked in colour in the top panel), orbiting a red-dwarf star 35 light-years away. The planet closest to the star is around half the mass of Venus, making it the lightest exoplanet ever detected using the radial velocity technique. Up to 30% of the third planet’s mass could be water, making it an ocean world. The existence of the fourth planet has been confirmed, but scientists don’t yet know its mass and radius (its possible size is indicated by a dotted line). The team also found hints of a potential fifth planet, the furthest from the star, though the team knows little about it. If confirmed, it would sit in the system’s habitable zone where liquid water could exist on its surface. The distances from the stars and between the planets in the infographic are not up to scale. The diagram has been scaled to make the habitable zone in both the Solar System and in L 98-59 coincide. As indicated by the infographic, which includes a temperature scale (in Kelvin [K]), the Earth and the fifth (unconfirmed) planet in L 98-59 receive similar amounts of light and heat from their respective stars. Assuming their atmospheres are similar, this fifth planet would have a similar average surface temperature to Earth and would support liquid water at its surface.Furthermore, the team found “hidden” exoplanets that had not previously been spotted in this planetary system. They discovered a fourth planet and suspect there is a fifth, in a zone at the right distance from the star for liquid water to exist on its surface.
“We have hints of the presence of a terrestrial planet in the habitable zone of this system,”
explains Olivier Demangeon, a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, University of Porto in Portugal and lead author of the new study.
The study represents a technical breakthrough, as astronomers were able to determine, using the radial velocity method, that the innermost planet in the system has just half the mass of Venus. This makes it the lightest exoplanet ever measured using this technique, which calculates the wobble of the star caused by the tiny gravitational tug of its orbiting planets.
The team used the Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations (ESPRESSO) instrument on ESO’s VLT to study L 98-59.
“Without the precision and stability provided by ESPRESSO this measurement would have not been possible,” says Zapatero Osorio. “This is a step forward in our ability to measure the masses of the smallest planets beyond the Solar System.”
The astronomers first spotted three of L 98-59’s planets in 2019, using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). This satellite relies on a technique called the transit method — where the dip in the light coming from the star caused by a planet passing in front of it is used to infer the properties of the planet — to find the planets and measure their sizes. However, it was only with the addition of radial velocity measurements made with ESPRESSO and its predecessor, the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) at the ESO La Silla 3.6-metre telescope, that Demangeon and his team were able to find extra planets and measure the masses and radii of the first three.
“If we want to know what a planet is made of, the minimum that we need is its mass and its radius,” Demangeon explains.
The team hopes to continue to study the system with the forthcoming NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), while ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), under construction in the Chilean Atacama Desert and set to start observations in 2027, will also be ideal for studying these planets.
“The HIRES instrument on the ELT may have the power to study the atmospheres of some of the planets in the L 98-59 system, thus complementing the JWST from the ground,”
says Zapatero Osorio.
“This system announces what is to come,” adds Demangeon. “We, as a society, have been chasing terrestrial planets since the birth of astronomy and now we are finally getting closer and closer to the detection of a terrestrial planet in the habitable zone of its star, of which we could study the atmosphere.”
