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In the footsteps of Apollo 11

Jonathan Nally — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 03:25:20 +0000

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter took this image of the Apollo 11 landing site, showing the equipment left on the surface of the Moon.

NASA’S LUNAR RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER spacecraft took this amazing image from an altitude of just 24 kilometres above the surface of the Moon. It shows the descent stage of the Apollo 11 lunar module, right where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left it in July 1969. Also visible are the instrument packages the two astronauts set out on the lunar surface not far from the lunar module.

So take that, Moon landing conspiracy theorists!

Visible are dark squiggly lines joining the various man-made objects. These are the tracks left by the astronauts as their boots scuffed up the powdery lunar dust.

The LRRR was the Laser Ranging RetroReflector, a device that contained “corner reflectors”—special lenses that send a light beam back out in the same direction it enters. Scientists fired laser beams at the LRRR and timed how long it took for the signals to return to Earth, enabling them to make incredibly accurate measurements of the distance to the Moon.

And because the LRRR is a passive device with no electrical requirements and no moving parts, it is still used today.

Also visible is the Passive Seismic Experiment Package(PSEP), a seismometer that detected “moonquakes” and the impact of spacecraft and radioed the data back to Earth.

Neil Armstrong (whose shadow can be seen at left) ran over to take a look at Little West crater, about 50 metres from the lunar module.

You can see a trail leading to the crater (called Little West) on the right of the lunar module. This is where Neil Armstrong ran over to take a look. The distance is about 60 metres, and marks the furthest point either of the astronauts ventured from the lunar module.

(Take a look at this Apollo Lunar Surface Journal page for a more detailed image.)

Astronauts on later missions were far less constrained in their movements, as they had more time for their spacewalks. In addition, the final three Apollo mission carried lunar rovers that enabled their astronauts to travel further.

Story by Jonathan Nally. Images courtesy NASA.

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Cargo capsule set for launch

Jonathan Nally — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:00:30 +0000

Artist's impression of the Dragon spacecraft in orbit.

AT THE CAPE CANAVERAL Air Force Station (adjacent to the Kennedy Space Centre) in Florida, final preparations are being made for a historic launch at the end of this month.

The unmanned Dragon capsule and its Falcon 9 rocket, both privately developed by the SpaceX corporation, are due for launch on April 30 (USA time) on a combined test flight and cargo flight to the International Space Station (ISS).

NASA is providing seed money to SpaceX and a second company, Orbital Sciences, to develop and operate unmanned craft that can keep the ISS resupplied in the post-shuttle era.

SpaceX is intending to field a manned version of Dragon later this decade, capable of taking seven astronauts into low Earth orbit.

More information: NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation System

Dragon capsule is mated to a "ring" that will sit on top of the Falcon 9 rocket.

Falcon 9 rocket in inside a processing hangar at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Falcon 9 rocket with Dragon capsule attached on top sits fully fuelled on Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida during a launch dress rehearsal.

Story by Jonathan Nally. Images courtesy NASA / Gianni Woods / Jim Grossmann / Kim Shiflett.

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VIDEO: The road to Mars

Jonathan Nally — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 14:00:27 +0000

WHAT DOES IT TAKE to get a spacecraft from Earth all the way to Mars? There are a few key things to consider, as explained in this 60-second video from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Adapted from information issued by NASA / JPL / Caltech.

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Three space missions extended

Jonathan Nally — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 14:00:55 +0000

Artist's concepts of Spitzer, Planck and Kepler. NASA extended Spitzer and Kepler for two additional years; and the US portion of Planck, a European Space Agency mission, for one year. (Relative sizes not to scale.)

NASA HAS EXTENDED three missions—Kepler, the Spitzer Space Telescope and the US portion of the European Space Agency’s Planck mission—as a result of the 2012 Senior Review of Astrophysics Missions.

“This means scientists can continue using the three spacecraft to study everything from the birth of the universe with Planck, and galaxies, stars, planets, comets and asteroids with Spitzer, while Kepler is determining what percentage of Sun-like stars host potentially habitable Earth-like planets,” said Michael Werner, the chief scientist for astronomy and physics at JPL.

Kepler has been approved for extension through fiscal year 2016, providing four additional years to find Earth-size planets in the habitable zone—the region in a planetary system where liquid water could exist on the surface of the orbiting planet—around Sun-like stars in our galaxy.

Spitzer, launched in 2003, will continue to provide the astronomical community with its unique infrared images for another two years. It has continued to explore the cosmos since running out of coolant, as expected, in 2009.

Among its many duties during its “warm mission”, the observatory is probing the atmospheres of planets beyond our Sun and investigating the glow of some of the most distant galaxies known. As requested by the project, Spitzer received two additional years of operations.

NASA will fund an additional year of US participation in the European Space Agency’s Planck mission. Planck, launched in 2009, is gathering data from the very early universe, shortly after its explosive birth in a big bang. Planck’s observations are yielding insight into the origin, evolution and fate of our universe.

More information:

Kepler mission

Spitzer Space Telescope

Planck mission

Adapted from information issued by JPL. Images courtesy NASA / JPL-Caltech.

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NASA head visits Australia

Jonathan Nally — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 07:33:28 +0000

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, who visited Australia this week.

THE ADMINISTRATOR OF NASA, Charles Bolden, was in Australia this week, flying the flag and interacting with students at a number of venues across the east coast.

Mr Bolden, a former astronaut (with four shuttle flights) and a former Major-General in the US Marines, became NASA Administrator in 2009. He came into the job at a challenging time, as the global financial crisis was underway and with science budgets under intense pressure.

At a lecture at the Great Hall at the University of Sydney, Mr Bolden spoke of the work NASA does in space and here on Earth, and encouraged students in the audience to work hard and follow their dreams.

He praised the work done by the staff at the tracking station at Tidbinbilla near Canberra. Known as the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex, it is part of NASA’s Deep Space Network, paid for the by the USA but staffed by Australians and managed by the CSIRO.

“Canberra is playing a critical role in tracking the Mars Science Laboratory that we’re going to be landing on Mars on August 6,” Mr Bolden said. “We’re really excited about everything they do.”

At the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Mr Bolden spent time with students and teachers involved in the Pathways to Space programme. Pathways to Space gives students a chance to learn more about science and technology by taking a “hands-on” approach, including operating rovers in a simulated Mars environment called the Mars Yard. They also get to work with professional scientists and engineers involved in space research.

The Mars Yard, a simulated Mars environment, at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. This photo doesn't do it justice – it's a very slick working environment where students interact with science and technology professionals.

Another view of the Mars Yard.

A remote-controlled rover in the Mars Yard.

Administrator Bolden, more accustomed to flying space shuttles, takes the controls of one of the Mars Yard rovers.

Pathways to Space is a collaboration between the Powerhouse, the Federal Government, the University of Sydney, the University of NSW, and CISCO Systems.

Taking the controls of one of the rovers, Mr Bolden spoke about the importance of encouraging students to put their ambitions into action and to think big … making the point that today’s students will be tomorrow’s explorers of Mars.

Your editor had a brief moment to speak with Mr Bolden, and we discussed the rarity of having a NASA Administrator visit Australia.

“I’m told there was only one previous occasion, way back in 1973, when Administrator Fletcher visited Australia as part of dealings to help set up the Deep Space Network here,” Mr Bolden said. “Let’s hope it won’t be another 30 years before another Administrator gets the chance to visit.”

More information

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden

Pathways to Space

Powerhouse Museum

Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex

Story and images by Jonathan Nally. Bolden portrait image courtesy NASA.

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VIDEO: Two amazing views of Planet Earth

Jonathan Nally — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 00:22:13 +0000

THESE TWO AMAZING NASA VIDEOS were taken by the astronauts aboard the International Space Station. The one above was made in mid March, and shows the view looking down as the Station sailed across Brazil and out into the Atlantic Ocean and across the Earth’s “terminator”. The terminator is the line dividing the half of the planet lit by the Sun and the half in shadow. The camera view also shows Soyuz (manned) and Progress (unmanned) spacecraft docked with the Station.

The video below was taken a little later in March and shows what it’s like to see an aurora from above. The Station was flying over the southern part of the Indian Ocean at the time. Toward the end of the video we can see daylight beginning to break across the horizon in the right-hand half of the screen.

Story by Jonathan Nally. Videos courtesy NASA.

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VIDEO: Tornadoes on the Sun!

Jonathan Nally — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 14:00:35 +0000

THIS TIME-LAPSE ANIMATION shows enormous tornado-like vortices on the Sun’s limb as seen by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory in February this year. The individual images that make up this animation were taken at 36-second intervals.

Adapted from information issued by NASA / Goddard Space Flight Centre Scientific Visualisation Studio.

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Rocket volley to study the atmosphere

Jonathan Nally — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 01:00:07 +0000

NASA SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHED five suborbital sounding rockets March 27 from its Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia as part of a study of the upper level jet stream.

The first rocket was launched at 4:58am US EDT and each subsequent rocket was launched at 80 second intervals. Each rocket released a chemical tracer that created milky, white clouds at the edge of space.

The goal of the Anomalous Transport Rocket Experiment (ATREX) was to improve understanding of the process that drives fast-moving winds high in the thermosphere.

Tracking the way the clouds move can help scientists understand the movement of the winds some 110 kilometres up in the sky, which in turn will help create better models of the electromagnetic regions of space that can damage man-made satellites and disrupt communications systems.

Winds up high

Fiery trails from four of the five sounding rockets are clearly visible in the time-lapse photograph (bottom of this page) of the launch. The other image (below) shows two of the clouds left in the wake of the experiment; the rockets released trimethyl aluminium, a substance that burns spontaneously in the presence of oxygen.

The harmless by-products of this glowing reaction were visible to the naked eye as far south as Wilmington, North Carolina; west to Charlestown, West Virginia; and north to Buffalo, New York. Both photographs were taken near the launch site at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

Throughout the experiment, researchers used specialised cameras in North Carolina, Virginia, and New Jersey—as well as temperature and pressure instruments on two of the rockets—to monitor the clouds.

By measuring how quickly the clouds move away from each other and integrating that information into atmospheric models, they hope to improve their understanding of the 320 to 480 kilometre winds in the thermosphere.

Each ATREX rocket released a chemical that reacts with oxygen, forming milky white clouds in the upper atmosphere.

First noticed by scientists in the 1960s, the winds are thought to be part of a high-altitude jet stream that’s distinct from the one lower in the troposphere, where commercial aircraft fly. Observing the turbulence produced by these winds should make it possible to determine what’s driving them.

An improved understanding of the upper jet stream will make it easier to model the electromagnetic regions of space that can damage satellites and disrupt communications systems. The experiment will also help explain how the effects of atmospheric disturbances in one part of the globe can be transported to other parts of the globe in a mere day or two.

The launches are part of a broader sounding rocket programmeat NASA that conducts approximately 20 flights a year from launch sites around the world.

The trails of the five ATREX sounding rockets captured in a time-lapse photo.

Photographs courtesy NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. Text adapted from information issued by Karen Fox and Adam Voiland, NASA Earth Observatory.

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Moon mission set to begin in New Year

Jonathan Nally — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:01:41 +0000

The twin Moon-orbiting GRAIL spacecraft will map the lunar gravitational field, which scientists will use to "peer" deep beneath the Moon's surface. (Artist's impression)

Twin spacecraft called GRAIL
Will map the Moon’s gravitational field
Aim is to study the Moon from core to crust

NASA’S TWIN SPACECRAFT to study the Moon from crust to core are nearing their main-engine burns to place the duo into lunar orbit.

Named the Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL), the spacecraft are scheduled to be placed in orbit beginning at 8:21am Sydney time for GRAIL-A on January 1, 2012, and 9:05am for GRAIL-B the following day.

The distance from Earth to the Moon is approximately 402,000 kilometres. NASA’s Apollo crews took about three days to travel to the Moon. Launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station September 10, 2011, the GRAIL spacecraft are taking about 30 times that long and covering more than 4 million kilometres to get there.

This low-energy, long-duration trajectory has given mission planners and controllers more time to assess the spacecraft’s health. The path also allowed a vital component of the spacecraft’s single science instrument, the Ultra Stable Oscillator, to be continuously powered for several months. That allowed it to reach a stable operating temperature long before science measurements from lunar orbit are to begin.

The two GRAIL spacecraft have followed long, slow trajectories to get the Moon.

“This mission will rewrite the textbooks on the evolution of the Moon,” said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Our two spacecraft are operating so well during their journey that we have performed a full test of our science instrument and confirmed the performance required to meet our science objectives”.

A complex arrival

As of December 28, GRAIL-A was 106,000 kilometres from the Moon and closing at a speed of 1,200 kilometres per hour. GRAIL-B was 128,000 kilometres from the Moon and closing at a speed of 1,228 kilometres per hour.

During their final approaches to the Moon, both orbiters will move toward it from the south, flying nearly directly over the lunar south pole. The lunar orbit insertion burn for GRAIL-A will take approximately 40 minutes and change the spacecraft’s velocity by about 688 kilometres per hour.

GRAIL-B’s insertion burn 25 hours later will last about 39 minutes and is expected to change the probe’s velocity by 691 kilometres per hour.

The insertion manoeuvres will place each orbiter into a near-polar, elliptical orbit with a period of 11.5 hours. Over the following weeks, the GRAIL team will execute a series of burns with each spacecraft to reduce their orbital period from 11.5 hours down to just under two hours.

At the start of the science phase in March 2012, the two GRAILs will be in a near-polar, near-circular orbit with an altitude of about 55 kilometres.

The small GRAIL twins are almost identical.

Mapping the Moon’s gravity

When science collection begins, the spacecraft will transmit radio signals to each other as they orbit the Moon, enabling scientists to precisely define the distance between them.

As they fly over areas of greater and lesser gravity, caused both by visible features such as mountains and craters and by masses hidden beneath the lunar surface, they will move slightly toward and away from each other.

An instrument aboard each spacecraft will measure the changes in their relative velocity very precisely, and scientists will translate this information into a high-resolution map of the Moon’s gravitational field.

The data will allow mission scientists to understand what goes on below the surface. This information will increase our knowledge of how Earth and its rocky neighbours in the inner Solar System developed into the diverse worlds we see today.

For more information about GRAIL, click here.

Adapted from information issued by NASA / JPL-Caltech / LMSS / KSC.

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Gallery – NASA’s next spacecraft options

Jonathan Nally — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 13:01:13 +0000

Artist's conception of the Dream Chaser spacecraft under development by Sierra Nevada of Centennial, Colorado. Dream Chaser would launch vertically on an Atlas V rocket but land horizontally like the Space Shuttle. It aims to carry seven people into low-Earth orbit.

IN 2011, NASA SELECTED a number of companies to mature the design and development of a crew transportation system with the overall goal of accelerating a United States-led capability to the International Space Station.

The programme is called the Commercial Crew Program (CCP), part of the Commercial Crew Development Round 2 (CCDev2).

According to NASA, the goal of CCP is to drive down the cost of space travel as well as open up space to more people than ever before by balancing industry’s own innovative capabilities with NASA’s 50 years of human spaceflight experience.

Seven aerospace companies are maturing launch vehicle and spacecraft designs under CCDev2, including Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK); The Boeing Co.; Excalibur Almaz Inc.; Blue Origin; Sierra Nevada; and United Launch Alliance (ULA).

Artist's conception of the Dragon capsule under development by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California. The unmanned version of the Dragon capsule has already had one successful test flight. The second test flight, due for February 2012, will see it dock with the International Space Station (ISS). After that, it will go into revenue service taking cargo to the ISS. The manned version is still some years away from flight.

Artist's conception of the New Shepard spacecraft under development by Blue Origin of Kent, Washington.

Artist's conception of the CST-100 under development by The Boeing Co. of Houston. The CST-100 will be able to take up to seven astronauts to the ISS.

Artist's conceptions of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket (left) and the Liberty Launch Vehicle (right) under development by Alliant Techsystems Inc., both of which are being considered for NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP).

Adapted from information issued by NASA.

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