Making the Most of Limited Data: Sols 3278-3279
Wednesday, 01 February 2023 03:47
The Sol 3727 drive went well, positioning the rover at the transition in the Marker Band that was the goal of the drive. As expected, we did not receive enough image data to allow DRT brushing to be planned, but we were able to plan APXS and MAHLI observations of a rough bedrock target named "Primavera."
The lack of complete, full-resolution Navcam coverage made it more challenging than us Lockheed Martin's first LM 400 Multi-Mission Spacecraft completed
Wednesday, 01 February 2023 03:47
The first Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) LM 400, a flexible, mid-sized satellite customizable for military, civil or commercial users, rolled off the company's digital factory production line and is advancing toward its planned 2023 launch.
The agile LM 400 spacecraft bus design enables one platform to support multiple missions, including remote sensing, communications, imaging, radar and per ATLAS works with AWS to advance federated network and expand ground station coverage
Wednesday, 01 February 2023 03:47
ATLAS Space Operations, a leading Ground Software as a Service (GSaaS) provider, has announced that it is the first provider to join the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Solution Provider Program (SPP) to resell AWS Ground Station, a fully managed ground station infrastructure which lets customers control satellite communications, process data, and scale their operations.
The SPP is an official A Iridium GO exec redefines personal off-the-grid connectivity
Wednesday, 01 February 2023 03:47
Iridium Communications (Nasdaq: IRDM) has unveiled the most capable, ultra-portable solution for truly global connections to all smartphones, tablets and laptops - a new class of personal satellite communication device called the Iridium GO! exec. Built for the professional but made for everyone, the Iridium GO! exec provides a natural extension of your world off-the-grid to send and receive ema D-Orbit launches ION's first mission into a midinclination orbit
Wednesday, 01 February 2023 03:47
Space logistics and orbital transportation company D-Orbit launched Starfield, the eighth commercial mission of their proprietary orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) ION Satellite Carrier (ION), and the first one in a midinclination orbit.
The OTV lifted off January 31st, 2023, at 8:15 a.m. PT (16:15 UTC) aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from the Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Studies on hibernating squirrels may help astronauts
Wednesday, 01 February 2023 03:47
Can studying sleeping Arctic ground squirrels help astronauts and further NASA's mission? Dr. Kelly Drew and her students studied hibernating squirrels and their ability to retain muscle and bone mass during extended hibernation and they think it could apply to astronauts.
Drew, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks in Fairbanks, Alaska was awarde First commercial crew astronauts receive Congressional Space Medal of Honor
Tuesday, 31 January 2023 23:40
The two men who flew on the first NASA commercial crew mission to the International Space Station in 2020 received a rarely awarded medal from the White House Jan. 31.
New telescope project completion in sight
Tuesday, 31 January 2023 21:10
The construction of the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST) being developed by CCAT Observatory Inc., an international consortium of universities led by Cornell, is drawing to a close.
Work is poised to begin on a defining feature of the telescope—the "elevation" part that supports the upper structure and will contain the telescope's mirrors. Unlike almost any other telescope to date, the part will be constructed from Invar, a special formulation of steel that has an extremely low coefficient of thermal expansion.
"This means that it doesn't get bigger when it's hot and it doesn't shrink when it's cold," said Jim Blair, FYST project manager in the Department of Astronomy, in the College of Arts and Sciences. "At least, it's greatly, greatly reduced with Invar compared to regular steel. And that's important for the science, because at the wavelengths we are looking at, thermal expansion would actually affect the data and could ruin it.
Space Force chief: Satellites are under threat, ‘we have to be ready’
Tuesday, 31 January 2023 20:14
Threats to U.S. satellites are becoming more complex and unpredictable, which will require new ways of training and preparing for a possible conflict, Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, U.S. chief of space operations, said Jan.
Astronomers prepare to launch LuSEE night, a test observatory on the far side of the moon
Tuesday, 31 January 2023 18:42
Astronomers have not yet been able to map large portions of the radio emissions from our universe because of interference from the Earth itself. A team of astronomers hopes to change that, beginning with the LuSEE Night mission to the far side of the moon. It will launch in 2025 and chart a new pathway to Lunar observatories.
The Earth is really loud in the radio, especially at frequencies below 20 megahertz. The ionosphere of the planet itself crackles at those frequencies, obscuring radio emissions from more distant sources. Plus we use low frequency radio waves for communication and radar searches, swamping cosmic sources.
The only way to mitigate all that terrestrial contamination is to get up and away from it. The best place is the far side of the moon, so that the bulk of the moon's body blocks out radio emissions from the Earth.
NASA has simulated a tiny part of the moon here on Earth
Tuesday, 31 January 2023 18:42
Before going to the moon, the Apollo astronauts trained at various sites on Earth that best approximated the lunar surface, such as the volcanic regions Iceland, Hawaii and the U.S. Southwest. To help prepare for upcoming robotic and human Artemis missions, a newly upgraded "mini-moon" lunar testbed will allow astronauts and robots to test out realistic conditions on the moon including rough terrain and unusual sunlight.
The Lunar Lab and Regolith Testbed at the Ames Research Center in California simulates conditions on the moon in a high-fidelity environment, allowing researchers to test hardware designs intended for the lunar surface.
Orbital Sidekick raises $10 million from customers and existing investors
Tuesday, 31 January 2023 18:06
Hyperspectral imaging startup Orbital Sidekick raised $10 million in an investment round led by Energy Innovation Capital.
The post Orbital Sidekick raises $10 million from customers and existing investors appeared first on SpaceNews.
Lessons from shuttle Columbia disaster could stave off next tragedy
Tuesday, 31 January 2023 17:52
"Never again" is the phrase echoed among NASA leaders recalling the last major tragedy in the space program that occurred 20 years ago this week, when Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart over Texas on Feb. 1, 2003, never making its way back home to Florida.
But with more spacecraft, more players and farther-flung destinations like the moon and Mars, the potential for another disaster has grown.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who as a member of Congress flew on the space shuttle on the mission immediately before the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986, recalled this week how engineers at one of the shuttle's contractors told their managers to call off the launch because of the weather. The cold was ultimately blamed for shrinking an O-ring that led to the explosion.
"The management would not listen to the engineers begging them to stop the count, and that went up all the way to the top," Nelson said.
The warning signs for Columbia on STS-107 were out there as well. Nelson's mission's shuttle commander, Robert "Hoot" Gibson, told Nelson how he would always inspect the orbiter in space during missions he flew in the time between the two shuttle disasters.
The hype is out of this world, but mining in space won't save the Earth
Tuesday, 31 January 2023 17:10
We know the world must move to cleaner energy sources to head off the worst effects of climate change, but the technology required for the transition is very mineral-intensive. So where will all these resources come from?
Many in the space industry are pointing beyond Earth. Asteroids and the Moon are thought to contain abundant platinum group elements needed in the transition, as well as other valuable resources. This has prompted a push towards commercial mining in outer space.
California-based company AstroForge is the latest company to make strides into the space mining rush. The company last week announced plans to launch two missions this year—one to refine platinum from a sample of asteroid-like material, and another to find an asteroid near Earth to mine.
Proponents of mining in space often point to the potential benefits for Earth and its people. But how certain are these benefits? Our research casts doubt on many of them.
A very risky bet
Space mining supporters often claim a bounty of space resources exist, and exploiting them would generate trillions of dollars in mining revenue.
Researchers complete first real-world study of Martian helicopter dust dynamics
Tuesday, 31 January 2023 16:56
Mars is a dusty planet. From tiny dust devils to vast storms that shroud the planet, dust is a constant challenge for research missions. That was especially true for Ingenuity, the rotorcraft that since February 2021 has been exploring Mars alongside NASA's Perseverance rover. Now, researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology, the Space Science Institute, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have completed the first real-world study of Martian dust dynamics based on Ingenuity's historic first flights on the Red Planet, paving the way for future extraterrestrial rotorcraft missions.
The work, reported in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, could support NASA's Mars Sample Return Program, which will retrieve samples collected by Perseverance, or the Dragonfly mission that will set course for Titan, Saturn's largest moon, in 2027.