Space Stuff

[redrumloa]

I think we'll have seen at least a Martian fly-by before 2035 (no guarantee that either of us will last that long but one can hope..)

I sure hope you are correct.

I should add, I don't think it will purely down to NASA.

NASA still seems to be the big dog, despite being stagnated for nearly half century. Others are catching up, but until proven otherwise it seems all eyes are on NASA. I've read in recent years how China is fast tracking their program to put humans on the moon. I really hope this happens.

Also while I am against globalism, I think that space exploration should be as cooperative as possible due to the costs and the potential overall benefit to humanity.

 

[Robert]

James Webb Space Telescope + luck = long distance astrofun
Gravitational lensing may help NASA kit see some real golden oldies

Gravitational lensing ... Light rays from a distant object are bent by a galaxy cluster making it appear brighter to an observer on Earth.

Researchers hope that NASA's budgetary-challenged James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) may score some good fortune with a boost from galactic alignment.

While European Space Agency (ESA) scientists are breathless with excitement at the volume of star survey data received from the Gaia satellite, NASA researchers are comforting themselves with what their big new telescope might do, should it ever actually make the trip into space.

Researchers, writing in The Astrophysical Journal, theorise that by using gravitational lensing and quite a lot of luck, it may be possible to magnify the brightness of a distant star by 10,000 times or more, making it detectable by instruments on board the JWST.

Gravitational lensing occurs when the light from a star is bent and magnified by a distribution of matter – like a cluster of galaxies – between the light source and the observer.

The effect can magnify the light by between 10 and 20 times, which was good enough for the ageing Hubble Space Telescope to image the farthest star ever seen, named Icarus, but not enough for the JWST to peer deeper.

To go further, the star, galaxies and observer must be perfectly aligned, resulting in the magic 10,000 times amplification of the star's light. The effect would only last a few months, which should be enough time to identify stars formed in the hydrogen and helium of the early universe.

 

[metalman]

quantum mechanics at macroscopic distances

Einstein's 'Spooky Action' Has Just Been Demonstrated on a Massive Scale For The First Time

an experimental demonstration, with the moving bodies being two massive micromechanical oscillators, each composed of about 10^12 atoms, coupled to a microwave-frequency electromagnetic cavity that is used to create and stabilize the entanglement of their centre-of-mass motion

 

[Robert]

Arguable whether this even qualifies as space but they claim it is so I'll post it here:
New Shepard flies again, bringing suborbital space tourism closer
Blue Origin has not released a price for the spaceflight experience.

Blue Origin's New Shepard booster lands after the system's eighth flight.
Blue Origin flew its New Shepard system for the eighth time on Sunday, launching from West Texas at about noon local time. During the 10-minute flight, the capsule reached a record height of 107 kilometers, and both the booster and capsule landed safely.

Although it has yet to make a formal announcement, the company seems to be getting closer to flying people on the suborbital tourism launch system—and perhaps beginning ticket sales.

Not only was this the second flight of a new version of the capsule with large windows, but the webcast's host, Ariane Cornell, repeatedly discussed the customer experience. Cornell, who oversees business development for Blue Origin, spoke about how customers will fly into West Texas on a Friday (complete with panoramic views of the region), spend a day of "fun" flight training on Saturday, and then the launch into space itself on Sunday.

 

[Robert]

Love the chutzpah here. A bit like saying the Amiga 1200 can't compete with the Amiga Walker:
Boeing describes the Falcon Heavy rocket as “too small”
"SpaceX's rocket is a smaller type of rocket that can't meet NASA's deep-space needs."

Image from Boeing's Watch US Fly website.https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/04/boeing-slams-the-falcon-heavy-rocket-as-too-small/
Recently, Boeing created a website called "Watch US Fly" to promote its aerospace industry—a grab bag of everything from Chinese tariffs to President Trump's visit to the company's facilities in St. Louis. Among the most intriguing sections is one that promotes the company's Space Launch System rocket and argues that SpaceX's Falcon Heavy booster is "too small" for NASA's deep exploration program.

"The Falcon Heavy launch turned heads in February, but SpaceX's rocket is a smaller type of rocket that can't meet NASA's deep-space needs," the website states. "Once the Boeing-built SLS is operational, it will be the most powerful rocket ever built."

 

[Robert]

NASA dusts off FORTRAN manual, revives 20-year-old data on Ganymede
Analysing Galileo's Jovian moon results

NASA scientists have made some new discoveries about Jupiter's giant moon Ganymede, thanks to a dedicated team, an elderly VAX machine and 20-year-old data from the long-defunct Galileo probe.

Fifteen years after Galileo (no, not that one) ended its days with a plunge into the atmosphere of Jupiter, NASA scientists have resurrected the 20-year-old datasets and added more detail to the puzzle of Ganymede's magnetosphere.

 

[Robert]

SpaceX and Boeing spacecraft may not become operational until 2020
"The contractors have had difficulty executing aggressive schedules."

An artist's view of the Starliner spacecraft en route to the International Space Station.
A new report provides some insight into the challenges that SpaceX and Boeing are facing when it comes to flying commercial crew missions, and it also suggests both companies may be nearly two years away from reaching operational status for NASA.

The assessment of large projects at NASA, published on Tuesday by the US Government Accountability Office, found that certification of the private spacecraft for flying astronauts to the International Space Station may be delayed to December 2019 for SpaceX and February 2020 for Boeing.

 

[Robert]

NASA lunar rover trundles to a meeting with Doctor Hacksaw and Mister Axe
Bits of doomed Resource Prospector may survive on commercial moon buggies

NASA has hinted that its Lunar Resource Prospector rover won’t be going to the Moon anytime soon. Not in one piece at any rate.

The American space agency's new administrator, Jim Bridenstine, pulled out his axe on his third day in the job, and tweeted out what hinted at confirmation of the rover’s cancellation.

The project’s own website was updated accordingly, with text stating “NASA is planning a series of progressive robotic missions to the lunar surface,” just not the rover that is has spent the last few years developing.

 

[Robert]

Astroboffins score a first by spotting traces of helium on an exoplanet
The second most abundant element has proven surprisingly hard to detect

WASP-107b in front of its star - artist's impression

Astronomers have detected helium floating around in the atmosphere of an exoplanet for the first time, according to a paper published in Nature on Wednesday.

The discovery was made after a team of scientists probed WASP-107b with the Hubble Space Telescope. It's an exoplanet located about 200 light-years away from Earth that orbits its parent star in less than six days,

Light passing through the upper atmosphere of WASP-107 was processed using a spectrometer to reveal helium’s signature absorption lines. Due to the strong helium signal, researchers estimate that the gas is plentiful in the atmosphere, with helium clouds probably extending tens of thousands of kilometers out into space.

Powerful solar rays emitted from its host star are stripping the atmosphere and it's probably losing approximately 0.1 to 4 per cent of its atmosphere's total mass every billion years.

 

[Robert]

NASA demos little nuclear power plant to help find little green men
Kilopower experiment looks good for 10 kilowatts on the Moon, Mars or beyond

A NASA depiction of a Kilopower unit on Luna

NASA has announced successful tests of a small fission reactor capable of producing about 10 kilowatts of power, and hopes the technology will prove suitable for use on the Moon or Mars.

The space agency’s developed the reactor because crewed missions will need lots more electricity than can be generated by either the Sun or the radioisotope thermoelectric generators that power the likes of the Voyager probes, New Horizons and the Curiosity rover. Future probes will also be able to do more if they have more power to play with.

Enter “Kilopower”, a fission reactor with the potential for output of 10 kilowatts.

As described in a 2015 paper (PDF) the device has a small, hollow, Uranium 235 core. The central hole can be occupied by a single control rod. When on, the device creates heat that passes up through “sodium heat pipes” until it reaches Stirling Engines that turn it into electricity.


The guts of a Kilopower reactor. Click to enlarge

NASA on Wednesday announced that a first round of tests - dubbed KRUSTY (Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology) – have proven a success.

 

[Robert]

This is what a payload fairing looks like as it returns from space
Reusing fairings would allow SpaceX to focus more on its next-generation rocket.

One half of a Falcon 9 payload fairing deploys its parafoil.
SpaceX has been experimenting during recent launches with recovering the payload fairing at the top of its Falcon 9 rocket. The fairing is a $6 million shroud that protects the satellite during its turbulent ride through the atmosphere and into outer space. We haven't really seen what this kind of recovery looks like as it happens—until now.

On Tuesday night, SpaceX founder Elon Musk shared a photo of one half of a payload fairing opening its parafoil after re-entering Earth's atmosphere. In his Instagram post, Musk did not specify which mission this photo is from.

After experimenting with how to control the fairing during its return through the atmosphere in 2017, SpaceX had enough confidence to hire a boat named Mr. Steven to try to catch the fairings as they fell into the Pacific Ocean. During the PAZ launch in February, the fairing narrowly missed the boat but achieved a soft water landing. During a launch of Iridium satellites in March, the parafoil twisted, and the fairing again missed the boat.

 

[Robert]

Lakes on the moon? Boffins think they've found the evidence
Watery remains of meteorites could be trapped in craters

A team of physicists have uncovered evidence that the Moon may have had liquid water on its surface at one point.

The team of Japanese and German researchers probed 13 different lunar meteorites using micro-Raman spectrometry, electron microscopy, and synchrotron angle-dispersive x-ray diffraction to work out the different minerals in the rocks.

One meteorite, dubbed NWA 2727, was first discovered in northwest Africa over a decade ago. The team found traces of moganite, a grey-coloured oxide mineral with the chemical formula SiO2 (silicon dioxide) locked inside. The results have been published in Science Advances, and hint that the Moon may have had a murky, watery past.

On Earth, moganite can only form when pools of alkaline fluids are trapped under high pressures. A series of experiments ruled out that the moganite samples were created on Earth, meaning they are most likely formed on the moon itself.

But, where could the liquids come from on the Moon? The researchers reckon that chunks of meteorites or left over asteroid material from the early solar system collided with the Moon and brought alkaline liquids that got trapped within its surface. The fluids, together with the impact, kickstarted the formation of moganite on the Moon. A heavier impact from a comet or asteroid would have dislodged the moon’s surface containing the moganite and hurled it to Earth.


The process of forming moganite on the Moon, and the lunar meteorite arriving on Earth.

 

[Robert]

Nasa mission to map Mars interior will launch this weekend
The InSight lander will make contact on the Martian equator and dig deep down into the planet to take examine its inner core

This drawing of the InSight lander shows its sensors, cameras and instruments.
Nasa’s latest mission to another planet is set to blast off on Saturday on a seven month voyage across the frigid depths of space to Mars, with the aim of mapping the planet’s interior for the first time.

 

[Robert]

The Sun will blow up into a huge, glowing bubble of gas during its death
New study shows the Sun will turn into a planetary nebula after all

Planetary nebula Abell 39. Image taken with a blue-green filter that highlights the light emitted by oxygen atoms.

The Sun will shed a large chunk of its mass to turn into a planetary nebula, a gigantic globe of luminous gas, as it nears the end of its life cycle.

Low mass stars like the Sun will become red giants and then white dwarves when they die. Now, a paper published in Nature Astronomy predicts that in between those stages, the Sun will evolve into a planetary nebula.

"When a star dies it ejects a mass of gas and dust - known as its envelope - into space. The envelope can be as much as half the star's mass. This reveals the star's core, which by this point in the star's life is running out of fuel, eventually turning off and before finally dying," Albert Zijlstra, co-author of the paper and a professor of astrophysics at the University of Manchester, said.

 

[Robert]

Astroboffins spot the first perfect exoplanet free of clouds
Without a shadow of a doubt WASP-96b has the clearest atmosphere yet

Astronomers have discovered the first exoplanet completely devoid of clouds, according to a paper published on Monday in Nature.

WASP-96b described as a “hot Saturn” for its toasty temperature of 1,300 Kelvin (1,027 degrees Celcius or 1,880 degrees Fahrenheit) and a similar mass to Saturn, is located about 980 light years away in the Phoenix constellation.

“We've been looking at more than twenty exoplanet transit spectra. WASP-96b is the only exoplanet that appears to be entirely cloud-free and shows such a clear sodium signature, making the planet a benchmark for characterization,” said Nikolay Nikolov, first author of the paper and a physics and astronomy research fellow at the University of Exeter.

 

[Robert]

SpaceX Bangabandhu-1 launch held up while Dragon splashes down on time
First night nerves for Elon’s revamped rocket

SpaceX Dragon Splashdown (pic: NASA/SpaceX)

SpaceX has opted to spend a few more days checking out its new Falcon 9 following a successful test fire of the rocket on 5 May, but its latest cargo ship enjoyed an uneventful return to Earth.

The famously taciturn rocketry outfit was expected to launch the Bangabandhu-1 communications satellite for the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) on 7 May but, following the test, engineers wanted to take few more days to review the data.

 

[Robert]

For the first time, two CubeSats have gone interplanetary
CubeSats could be launched in swarms to planets in the outer Solar System.

Artist's illustration of two CubeSats at Mars.

The first CubeSats launched in 2003, and in less than a decade, more than 100 had reached orbit around Earth. The aerospace industry has debated whether the 2kg to 15kg microsatellites are a fad, a toy, or a disruptive technology that will change the way we ultimately observe and study Earth and the rest of the Solar System. However, what is now beyond doubt is that the first CubeSats have gone interplanetary.

On Saturday, after the launch of the InSight probe to Mars, NASA received signals from the Mars Cube One, or MarCO-A and -B satellites. The signals indicated that the twin spacecraft had retained enough charge in their batteries to deploy their own solar arrays, stabilize themselves, pivot toward the Sun, and turn on their radios.

The twin MarCO satellites are not critical to the success of the InSight lander—they instead have their own separate mission to test the feasibility of CubeSats in deep space. They will follow InSight on its interplanetary trajectory to Mars and attempt to track the larger spacecraft's descent and landing on Mars in November.

 

[Robert]

The material science of building a light sail to take us to Alpha Centauri
We're unsure about the best material and don't have the measurements to know.

It has been about two years since Yuri Milner announced his most audacious piece of science-focused philanthropy: Breakthrough Starshot, an attempt to send hardware to Alpha Centauri by mid-century. Although the technology involved is a reasonable extrapolation of things we already know how to make, being able to create materials and technology that create that extrapolation is a serious challenge. So much of Breakthrough Starshot's early funding has gone to figuring out what improvements on current technology are needed.

Perhaps the least well-understood developments we need come in the form of the light sail that will be needed to accelerate the starshots to 20 percent of the speed of light. We've only put two examples of light-driven sails into space, and they aren't anything close to what is necessary for Breakthrough Starshot. So, in this week's edition of Nature Materials, a team of Caltech scientists looks at what we'd need to do to go from those examples to something capable of interstellar travel.

 

[Robert]

NASA’s Orion spacecraft getting closer to finally flying again
"Our destiny is to explore, so you want to get your tests behind you."

NASA's Orion spacecraft and its launch abort system shown in this rendering of the Ascent Abort-2 test flight.
It's been a long three-and-a-half years since the Orion spacecraft first launched into space in December 2014, making a successful shake-out flight. But now, NASA’s program aimed at building a large, deep-space capsule capable of sending astronauts to and from lunar orbit is finally ramping back up toward a series of test flights.

In less than a year, a boilerplate model of the Orion spacecraft will be jettisoned from its rocket at 55 seconds after liftoff to test the vehicle’s launch abort system. Provided that goes well, about a year after that, the Orion spacecraft will be sent into lunar orbit for longer than a week for a shakedown cruise. Finally, as early as June 2022, two to four astronauts will fly aboard Orion into lunar orbit, sending humans into deep space for the first time since 1972.

This isn’t exactly a rapid cadence of flights, but three missions in four years would represent a remarkable increase from the vehicle’s flight rate to date—one in 13 years. “Our destiny is to explore, so you want to get your tests behind you and get humans on the spacecraft, and start that exploration,” Annette Hasbrook, an assistant manager for the Orion program in Houston, told Ars.

 

[Robert]

In his first public speech as NASA administrator, Jim Bridenstine had a short and clear message for the aerospace community: "We are going to the Moon."

Bridenstine's address to a lunar conference at NASA Headquarters was a mere five minutes long, but during that time he demonstrated a refreshing grasp of space-policy history. While acknowledging the space agency's lamentable efforts to return to the Moon after the Apollo program, Bridenstine also promised that this time would be different.

"To many, this may sound similar to our previous attempts to get to the Moon," Bridenstine said Tuesday. "However, times have changed. This will not be Lucy and the football again."