Monthly Archives: May 2014

Education, Rockets, Space participation

Smoke & Fire over Utah Salt Flats – more on NASA Student Launch competition

Here is a NASA announcement about the Student Launch Challenge mentioned here earlier:

‘Smoke and Fire’ Rise Over Utah Salt Flats as
Student Rockets Soar in NASA Challenge May 17
NASA, ATK Present Preliminary Awards

The 2013-14 NASA Student Launch rocketry challenge has come to an end — and brought something new to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Tooele County, Utah, where car and motorcycle enthusiasts regularly watch cutting-edge vehicles put to the test, speeding across the vast, flat expanse.

On May 17, all eyes there turned upward as 16 student-built rockets, ranging in size from 7-1/2 feet to 15 feet, soared high into the cloudless blue. Each sophisticated machine carried three working science or engineering payloads. Some roared to altitudes of nearly 20,000 feet. Each successful parachute deployment and vehicle touchdown on the white hardpan was met with cheers and applause from the crowd — which included approximately 250 students from 15 states and some 500 spectators.

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The social media audience, watching live coverage on NASA Television and UStream and following real-time updates onTwitter, was equally jovial. One proud father, whose son was part of the team from Mississippi State University in Starkville, summed up the day’s launches on the NASA Student Launch Facebook page: “This is awesome!”

This was the first year the challenge was held at the Utah site. It is organized annually by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and sponsored by ATK Aerospace Group of Magna, Utah.

Teams designed and built their rockets and experiments beginning in the fall of 2013. They maintained websites to document their experience and visited elementary and middle schools in their communities to inspire younger students to pursue the study of technical subjects critical to the work of NASA and the nation.

Nine preliminary awards were presented at a post-launch banquet May 17. The grand prize — $5,000 from ATK — will be awarded in late May after final post-flight analysis and reviews are complete. This year’s preliminary awards included:

  • Best Vehicle Design: The University of North Carolina in Charlotte received the award for the most creative, innovative, safety-conscious rocket design.
  • Best Payload Design: The University of Notre Dame in South Bend won the award for the most creative and innovative payload experiment, emphasizing safety and scientific value.
  • Best Web Design: Vanderbilt University in Nashville won for the best rocketry website.
  • Project Review Award: Vanderbilt University was honored for delivering the best combination of written preliminary design, critical design and flight readiness reviews and formal presentations.
  • Education Engagement Award: Vanderbilt University won for best inspiring the study of rocketry and STEM-related topics — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — among younger students and their community.
  • Closest to Altitude Award: The team from Vanderbilt University went four for four when their rocket came closest to their goal altitude without going over. Their rocket reached an altitude of 4,850 feet — just 150 feet shy of their 5,000-foot goal.
  • Safety Award: The University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, was honored for having the best safety practices.
  • Peer Awards: All rocket teams submitted votes for peer awards in each division. The “Best-Looking Rocket” award went to the team from the University of Hawaii Community Colleges in Kane’ohe. The “Best Team Spirit” prize was awarded to the team representing the University of Florida in Gainesville.

The Marshall Center’s Academic Affairs Office, part of the Office of Human Capital, has managed the rocketry challenge since its creation in 2000. This is the seventh year ATK has provided corporate sponsorship. The National Association of Rocketry supported launch readiness reviews and range safety.

For more information, including a complete list of participating schools, visit:  www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/studentlaunch

Archived launch-day coverage is available at:  www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv

Visit NASA Student Launch Projects on Facebook and Twitter:

For more information about NASA education projects, visit: www.nasa.gov/education

[See also this set of] Images

 

 

Space Arts, Space Music

Video: The International Space Orchestra

Here’s an article about the International Space Orchestra, which I’ve posted about before (see here, here, and here) : How NASA Scientists Created an International Space Orchestra –  Space.com

Ben Hayoun’s enthusiasm for space didn’t end with the International Space Orchestra. She is currently pursuing informal astronaut training, and her next project is a film called “Disaster Playground” about potential space catastrophes, such as an asteroid impact, and the emergency procedures for handling them.

General, SpaceCasts

The Space Show this week

The guests and topics for The Space Show this week:

1. Monday, May 19, 2014, 2-3:30 PM PDT(5-6:30 PM EDT, 4-5:30 PM CDT): This is the day & show set aside to honor The Space Show on its 13th birthday. Callers and emails are welcome but I will take time to share my thoughts about space & the topics we talk about on the show from when I started the program until now. I don’t often do this type of summary review from the Space Show host perspective so tune in live if you can and ask questions.

2. Tuesday, May 20, 2014:, 7-8:30 PM PDT (10-11:30 PM EDT, 9-10:30 PM CDT): We welcome back DR. JOHN BRANDENBURG who will discuss the science of his new book, Cosmic Jesus: The Metaphysics of How the God of Israel Became the God of the Cosmos. We are focusing on Dr. Brandenburg’s scientific analysis for this program as John is a veteran plasma physicist & the senior propulsion scientist at a major aerospace company.

3. Friday, May 23, 2014, 9:30 AM-11 AM PDT (12:30-2 PM EDT; 11:30 AM-1 PM CDT): No show as I have been called to jury duty. While I may not be required to serve, I won’t know my status until the judge says so. As a result of this uncertainty, I decided against scheduling a guest for today and then having to possibly cancel the show at the last minute..

4. WEBINAR: Sunday, May 23 2014, 1-3 PM PDT (4-6 PM EDT, 3-5 PM CDT). This is our first WEBINAR for 2014. Our guest of honor is Joe Carroll. Our questioning panel includes Dr. John Jurist & Dr. Jim Logan. Joe is updating us on his partial gravity work from his first webinar with us May 3, 2011. You can hear the audio of this broadcast as you would any normal Space Show program. For those wanting to see the live broadcast webinar, please use our Space Show Ustream channel, www.ustream.tv/channel/the-space-show.

See also:
/– The Space Show on Vimeo – webinar videos
/– The Space Show’s Blog – summaries of interviews.
/– The Space Show Classroom Blog – tutorial programs

The Space Show is a project of the One Giant Leap Foundation.

Amateur/Student Satellite, Space Science, The Moon

Detecting and mapping lunar ice with nanosats

Small satellites have been under development for decades mainly by AMSAT and student groups around the world. There has always been the criticism that the smaller the satellite, the less it can do. That attitude is changing. For example, Leonard David points to a recent study by a group of 33 scientists from 15 institutions that looked at the problem of fully characterizing the amount and distribution of water on the Moon. They found that  nano-satellites offer a tremendous opportunities to tackle this challenge and to do it in a low cost manner:

From the report:

The first major goal of this study was to identify the outstanding questions about lunar volatiles that could be addressed by new observations. In order to define the key measurements, we identified two fundamental questions driving the science and exploration of lunar volatiles:

1. What are the origins and evolution of water in the inner Solar System?
2. Where are the operationally useful deposits of water on the Moon?

Existing data have only scratched the surface with regard to the abundance and distribution of water on the Moon, let alone its origins.

[…]

The second major goal for this study was to seek ways to harness emerging small spacecraft technologies for low#cost lunar missions. Since their advent in the 1990’s, nanosatellites (and the CubeSat form factor in particular) have rapidly evolved and are now routinely built (primarily by university students) and launched to low# Earth orbit (LEO) for science, technology, and education applications. With their rapid development times and extremely low cost compared to traditional spacecraft, nanosatellites and other small satellites present an exciting new paradigm to planetary science, if their capabilities can be proven beyond low Earth orbit. The Moon is ideally situated for the first of these missions. We therefore assessed whether or not one or more small satellite missions could accomplish the desired lunar ice detection measurements.

In this report, we propose a new program of lunar science and exploration by small, low-cost spacecraft. Initially, this program will be guided by the above measurement goals relevant to detection and mapping of lunar volatiles, but could later be expanded  to  other  investigations  of  the  Moon  and  beyond.  As  a  first  step,  we advocate  sending  a  “trailblazer”  nanosatellite  to  a  polar  lunar  orbit, which would  carry a limited yet useful payload (see Section 5). The goal of this mission would be  to prove that scientifically valuable data on lunar volatiles could be acquired using a  nanosatellite  at  a  total  cost  of  <$10M.  Some  of  the  key  technologies  needing  development are identified in this report. Following the pathfinder mission, one or  more  additional  small  satellites would  carry  instrumentation  specifically designed  for  the  measurements  outlined  above.  Ultimately,  we  envision  a  fleet  of  tiny  spacecraft,  each  with  its  own  specialized  yet  synergistic  payload  for  detecting,  mapping, and characterizing lunar ice deposits. If successful, such a program has the  potential to accomplish as much as a traditional spacecraft mission, at a fraction of  the  cost.  Finally,  this  program  could  pave  the way  for more  ambitious  spacecraft  missions  beyond  the  Moon,  thereby  opening  up  a  new  paradigm  in  planetary  exploration.

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I’m managing editor at NewSpace Watch, which is part  of  NewSpace Global. For a detailed review of the growing smallsat industy, check out the  NewSpace Global 2014 SmallSat Report.

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