Andy Tomaswick, Author at Universe Today

December 10, 2024December 10, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

A Commercial Tie-Up Bring High-Energy Nuclear Electric Propulsion Closer to Reality

Rendering of a 40 MW VASIMR® Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) human mission to Mars (Credit, Ad Astra Rocket Company)

Propulsion technologies are the key to exploring the outer solar system, and many organizations have been working on novel ones. One with a long track record is the Ad Astra Rocket Company, which has been developing its Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) system for decades. However, this type of electric propulsion system requires a lot of energy, so the company has opted for a unique tie-up for a power plant that could solve that problem – a nuclear reactor. Ad Astra has recently entered into a strategic alliance with the Space Nuclear Power Corporation, or SpaceNukes, responsible for developing the Kilopower reactor, a 1kW nuclear reactor for use in space missions.

December 9, 2024December 9, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

A Cheap Satellite with Large Fuel Tank Could Scout For Interplanetary Missions

A spacecraft that can provide the propulsion necessary to reach other planets while also being reproducible, relatively light, and inexpensive would be a great boon to larger missions in the inner solar system. Micocosm, Inc., based in Hawthorne, California, proposed just such a system via a NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant. Its Hummingbird spacecraft would have provided a platform to visit nearby planets and asteroids and a payload to do some basic scouting of them.

December 5, 2024December 5, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

A 3U CubeSat Could Collect Data During an Asteroid Flyby

ESA's Asteroid Impact Mission is joined by two triple-unit CubeSats to observe the impact of the NASA-led Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous Technology (DART) probe with the secondary Didymos asteroid, planned for late 2022. Image: ESA

One of the great things about CubeSat designs is that they constrain the engineers who design them. Constraints are a great way to develop novel solutions to problems that might otherwise be ignored without them. As CubeSats become increasingly popular, more and more researchers are looking at how to get them to do more with less. A paper from 2020 contributes to that by designing a 3U CubeSat mission that weighs less than 4 kilograms to perform a fly-by of a Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) using entirely off-the-shelf parts.

December 4, 2024December 4, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

Could We Use An Asteroid to Shield Astronauts On Their Way to Mars?

Illustration of the asteroid Bennu. Credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Radiation is a primary concern for long-duration human spaceflight, such as the planned trips to Mars, which are the stated goal of organizations such as NASA and SpaceX. Shielding is the standard way to protect astronauts from radiation during those flights. However, shielding is heavy and, therefore, expensive when it is launched off the Earth. What if, instead, astronauts could hitch a ride on a giant mass of shielding already in space that will take them directly to their destination? That is the basic thought behind a paper from Victor Reshetnyk and his student at Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv.

December 3, 2024December 3, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

NASA Wants Students’ Help Designing Missions to Other Moons

One of NASA’s primary missions is to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers to join the STEM field. It does so by producing inspirational and educational content on various platforms. But sometimes, it takes a more direct approach by rewarding students for their contributions to solving a particular problem NASA is facing. Recently, the organization announced such a challenge – the Power to Explore Challenge, which is open to submission from K-12 students until the end of January.

December 2, 2024December 2, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

A New Reconfigurable Structure Could Be Used to Make Space Habitats

Even some fields that seem fully settled will occasionally have breakthrough ideas that have reverberated impacts on the rest of the fields of science and technology. Mechanics is one of those relatively settled fields – it is primarily understood at the macroscopic level, and relatively few new breakthroughs have occurred in it recently. Until a few years ago, when a group of Harvard engineers developed what they called a totimorphic structure, and a recent paper by researchers at ESA’s Advanced Concepts Team dives into detail about how they can be utilized to create megastructures, such as telescope mirrors and human habitats in space.

December 1, 2024December 1, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

NASA Is Seeking Ideas for Rescuing an Astronaut from the Moon

Space exploration is a dangerous business, especially when squishy living organisms, such as humans, are involved. NASA has always prided itself on how seriously it takes the safety of its astronauts, so as it gears up for the next big push in crewed space exploration, the Artemis program, it is looking for solutions to potentially catastrophic situations that might arise. One such catastrophe would be if one of the Artemis astronauts was incapacitated and couldn’t return to the lander. The only person who could potentially be able to save them would be their fellow astronaut, but carrying a fully suited human back to their base of operations would be a challenge for an astronaut similarly kitted out in their own bulky suit. So, NASA decided to address it as precisely that – a challenge – and ask for input from the general public, offering up to $20,000 for the best solution to the problem.

November 30, 2024November 30, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

A CubeSat Mission to Phobos Could Map Staging Bases for a Mars Landing

The moons of Mars are garnering increased attention, not only because they could provide a view of the solar system’s past but also because they could provide invaluable staging areas for any future human settlement on Mars itself. However, missions specifically designed to visit Phobos, the bigger of the two moons, have met with varying stages of failure. So why not make an inexpensive mission to do so – one that could launch multiple copies of itself if necessary? That’s the idea behind a CubeSat-based mission to Phobos, known as Perseus, which was initially described back in 2020.

November 28, 2024November 28, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

How Much Are Asteroids Really Worth?

Asteroid mining concept. Credit: NASA/Denise Watt

Popular media love talking about asteroid mining using big numbers. Many articles talk about a mission to Psyche, the largest metallic asteroid in the asteroid belt, as visiting a body worth $10000000000000000000, assumedly because their authors like hitting the “0” key on their keyboards a lot. But how realistic is that valuation? And what does it actually mean? A paper funded by Astroforge, an asteroid mining start-up based in Huntington Beach, and written by a professor at the Colorado School of Mine’s Space Resources Program takes a good hard look at what metals are available on asteroids and whether they’d genuinely be worth as much as the simple calculations say that would be.

November 27, 2024November 27, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

An AI Chemist Made A Catalyst to Make Oxygen On Mars Using Local Materials

Breaking oxygen out of a water molecule is a relatively simple process, at least chemically. Even so, it does require components, one of the most important of which is a catalyst. Catalysts enable reactions and are linearly scalable, so if you want more reactions quickly, you need a bigger catalyst. In space exploration, bigger means heavier, which translates into more expensive. So, when humanity is looking for a catalyst to split water into oxygen and hydrogen on Mars, creating one from local Martian materials would be worthwhile. That is precisely what a team from Hefei, China, did by using what they called an “AI Chemist.”