Cirrus clouds in the Martian atmosphere may have helped keep Mars warm enough for liquid water to sculpt the Martian surface. Image: Mars Exploration Rover Mission, Cornell, JPL, NASA
Many features on the surface of Mars hint at the presence of liquid water in the past. These range from the Valles Marineris, a 4,000 km long and 7 km deep system of canyons, to the tiny hematite spherules called “blueberries“. These features suggest that liquid water played a vital role in shaping Mars.
Some studies show that these features have volcanic origins, but a new study from two researchers at the Carl Sagan Institute and the NASA Virtual Planet Laboratory put the focus back on liquid water. The model that the two came up with says that, if other conditions were met, cirrus clouds could have provided the necessary insulation for liquid water to flow. The two researchers, Ramses M. Ramirez and James F. Kasting, constructed a climate model to test their idea.
Cirrus clouds are thin, wispy clouds that appear regularly on Earth. They’ve also been seen on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, possibly Neptune, and on Mars. Cirrus clouds themselves don’t produce rain. Whatever precipitation they produce, in the form of ice crystals, evaporates before reaching the surface. The researchers behind this study focussed on cirrus clouds’ because they tend to warm the air underneath them by 10 degrees Celsius.
Cirrus clouds over Poznan, Poland. Image: Radomil, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
If enough of Mars was covered by cirrus clouds, then the surface would be warm enough for liquid water to flow. On Earth, cirrus clouds cover up to 25% of the Earth and have a measurable heating effect. They allow sunlight in, but absorb outgoing infrared radiation. Kasting and Ramirez sought to show how the same thing might happen on Mars, and how much cirrus cloud cover would be necessary.
The cirrus clouds themselves wouldn’t have created all the warmth. Impacts from comets and asteroids would have created the heat, and extensive cirrus cloud cover would have trapped that heat in the Martian atmosphere.
The two researchers conducted a model, called a single-column radiative-convective climate model. They then tested different ice crystal sizes, the portion of the sky covered by cirrus clouds, and the thicknesses of those clouds, to simulate different conditions on Mars.
A color mosaic of Candor Chasma (part of Mars’ Valles Marineris) based on data from Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. Credit: NASA
They found that under the right circumstances, the clouds in the early Martian atmosphere could last 4 to 5 times longer than on Earth. This favors the idea that cirrus clouds could have kept Mars warm enough for liquid water. However, they also found that 75% to 100% of the planet would have to be covered by cirrus. That amount of cloud cover seems unlikely according to the researchers, and they suggest that 50% would be more realistic. This figure is similar to Earth’s cloud cover, including all cloud types, not just cirrus.
As they adjusted the parameters of their model, they found that thicker clouds and smaller particle sizes reduced the heating effect of the cirrus cloud cover. This left a very thin set of parameters in which cirrus clouds could have kept Mars warm enough for liquid water. But their modelling also showed that there is one way that cirrus clouds could have done the job.
If the ancient Martian surface temperature was lower than 273 Kelvin, the value used in the model, then it would be possible for cirrus clouds to do their thing. And it would only have to be lower by 8 degrees Kelvin for that to happen. At times in Earth’s past, the surface temperature has been lower by 7 degrees Kelvin. The question is, might Mars have had a similarly lower temperature?
So, where does that leave us? We don’t have a definitive answer yet. It’s possible that cirrus clouds on Mars could have helped to keep the planet warm enough for liquid water. The modelling done by Ramirez and Kasting shows us what parameters were required for that to happen.
The massive Saturn V rocket launches the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon on July 16, 1969. Image: NASA
A bag that travelled to the Moon and back is at the heart of a legal dispute involving NASA and a woman named Nancy Carlson. Carlson currently owns the bag and obtained it legally. But NASA is in possession of the bag, and the US Attorney’s Office wants the courts to quash Carlson’s purchase of the bag, so they can retain ownership of this important piece of space memorabilia.
The lawsuit over the lunar sample bags was first reported by Roxana Hegeman of the Associated Press, and covered by Robert Pearlman at collectspace.com.
The story of the Apollo 11 bag is bit of a tangled web. To understand it, we have to look at a third figure, Max Ary. Ary was the founder and long-time director of the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center. In 2005, Ary was convicted for stealing and selling museum artifacts.
Hundreds of space artifacts and memorabilia, some on loan from NASA, had gone missing. In 2003, the Apollo 11 bag was found in a box in Ary’s garage during the execution of a search warrant as part of the case against him. However, the bag was misidentified due to a spreadsheet error, and sold to Carlson at a government auction for $995.
Sample collection on the surface of the Moon. Apollo 16 astronaut Charles M. Duke Jr. is shown collecting samples with the Lunar Roving Vehicle in the left background. Image: NASA
NASA only found out about the Apollo 11 bag after Carlson purchased it. Carlson sent it to the Johnson Space Center in Houston to be authenticated. Once NASA realized what the bag was, they set the legal process in motion to set aside the forfeiture and sale. The US Attorney’s office argued that NASA was not properly notified of the bag’s forfeiture because it was not labelled properly.
NASA’s attorney’s wrote “NASA was denied the opportunity to assert its interest in the lunar bag. Had NASA been given notice of the forfeiture action and/or had all the facts about the lunar bag been known, the lunar [sample return] bag would never have gone to a government auction.”
The attorneys added that “The true identity and ownership of the lunar bag are now known. The failure to give proper notice to NASA can be corrected by setting aside the forfeiture and rescinding its sale,” they stated. “These are unusual circumstances that warrant the particular relief sought.”
If this seems like quite a bit of fuss over a bag, remember that this bag travelled to the Moon and back, making it very rare. Apollo 11 astronauts used it to collect the first samples from the Moon, and dust fragments from the Moon are embedded in its fabric. It’s a very valuable historic and scientific artifact. The government said in a statement that the bag is “a rare artifact, if not a national treasure.”
Carlson, who obtained the bag legally at an auction, is an attorney and is now suing NASA for “unwarranted seizure of my personal property… without any legal provocation.” This after she voluntarily submitted the bag to NASA for authentication, and after NASA offered to reimburse her purchase price and an additional $1,000 dollars “in appreciation for your assistance in returning the bag” and “to offset any inconvenience you may have suffered.”
There’s no question that artifacts like these belong in NASA’s public collection, and on display in a museum. But Carlson obtained the bag through a legal auction. Maybe, as the bag’s purchaser, Carlson is hoping that NASA will tender a larger offer for return of the bag, and she can make some profit. That’s pure speculation of course. Perhaps she’s just very keen on owning this piece of history.
As for Max Ary, the man who set all this in motion years ago, he is now out of prison and maintains his innocence. Ary collected other space artifacts and memorabilia and sold them from his home, and he claims that it was just a mix up. He was convicted though, and he served just over 2 years of his 3 year prison sentence. He was also ordered to pay $132,000 in restitution.
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory has captured images of a growing dark region on the surface of the Sun. Called a coronal hole, it produces high-speed solar winds that can disrupt satellite communications. Image: Solar Dynamics Observatory / NASA
NASA has spotted an enormous black blotch growing on the surface of the Sun. It looks eerie, but this dark region is nothing to fear, though it does signal potential disruption to satellite communications.
The dark region is called a coronal hole, an area on the surface of the Sun that is cooler and less dense than the surrounding areas. The magnetic fields in these holes are open to space, which allows high density plasma to flow out into space. The lack of plasma in these holes is what makes them appear dark. Coronal holes are the origin of high-speed solar winds, which can cause problems for satellite communications.
The images were captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) on July 11th. Tom Yulsman at Discover’s ImaGeo blog created a gif from several of NASA’s images.
High-speed solar winds are made up of solar particles which are travelling up to three times faster than the solar wind normally does. Though satellites are protected from the solar wind, extremes like this can still cause problems.
Coronal holes may look like a doomsday warning; an enormous black hole on the surface of our otherwise placid looking Sun is strange looking. But these holes are a part of the natural life of the Sun. And anyway, they only appear in extreme ultraviolet and x-ray wavelengths.
The holes tend to appear at the poles, due to the structure of the Sun’s magnetosphere. But when they appear in more equatorial regions of the Sun, they can cause intermittent problems, as the high-speed solar wind they generate is pointed at the Earth as the Sun rotates.
In June 2012, a coronal hole appeared that looked Big Bird from Sesame Street.
The “Big Bird” coronal hole appeared on the Sun in June 2012. It was the precursor to a powerful storm that was considered a near miss for Earth. Image: NASA/AIA
The Big Bird hole was the precursor to an extremely powerful solar storm, the most powerful one in 150 years. Daniel Baker, of the University of Colorado’s Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics, said of that storm, “If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces.” We were fortunate that it missed us, as these enormous storms have the potential to damage power grids on the surface of the Earth.
It seems unlikely that any solar wind that reaches Earth as a result of this current coronal hole will cause any disruption to us here on Earth. But it’s not out of the question. In 1989 a solar storm struck Earth and knocked out power in the province of Quebec in Canada.
It may be that the only result of this coronal hole, and any geomagnetic storms it creates, are more vivid auroras.
Those are something everyone can appreciate and marvel at. And you don’t need an x-ray satellite to see them.
NASA's Deep Space Climate Observatory captured a series of images of the Moon passing in front of the Earth on July 5th. Image: NASA/NOAA
We’re accustomed to seeing stunning images of both the Moon and Earth floating in space. It’s the age we live in. But seeing them together is rare. Now, NASA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) has captured images of the Moon passing between itself and the Earth, in effect photo-bombing Earth.
The image was captured with the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) camera on DISCOVR, and is the second time this has been captured. EPIC is a 4 megapixel camera on board DSCOVR, and DSCOVR is in orbit about 1.6 million km (1 million miles) from Earth, between the Earth and the Sun.
“For the second time in the life of DSCOVR, the moon moved between the spacecraft and Earth,” said Adam Szabo, DSCOVR project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Cool pictures of the Moon are a bonus, though, as DSCOVR’s primary mission is to monitor the solar wind in real time for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It does so while inhabiting the first LaGrange point between the Earth and the Sun, where the gravitational pull of the Sun and the Earth balance each other. To do so requires a complex orbit called a Lissajous orbit, a non-recurring orbit which takes DSCOVR from an ellipse to a circle and back.
DSCOVR occupies the LaGrange point 1 between the Earth and the Sun. Image: NOAA
DSCOVR has other important work to do. From its vantage point, DSCOVR keeps a constantly illuminated view of the surface of the Earth as it rotates. DSCOVR provides observations of cloud height, vegetation, ozone, and aerosols in the atmosphere. This is important scientific data in monitoring and understanding Earth’s climate.
DSCOVR is a partnership between NASA, NOAA and the U.S. Air Force. As mentioned above, its primary objective is maintaining the nation’s real-time solar wind monitoring capabilities, which are critical to the accuracy and lead time of space weather alerts and forecasts from NOAA. The DSCOVR website also has daily color pictures of the Earth, for all your eye-candy needs.
The SABRE (Synergistic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine) could revolutionize access to space. Image: Reaction Engines
If new rocket engines being developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) are successful, they could revolutionize rocket technology and change the way we get to space. The engine, called the Synergistic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE), is designed to use atmospheric air in the early flight stages, before switching to conventional rocket mode for the final ascent to space. If all goes well, this new air-breathing rocket could be ready for test firings in about four years.
Conventional rockets have to carry an on-board oxidizer such as liquid oxygen, which is combined with fuel in the rocket’s combustion chamber. This means rockets can require in excess of 250 tons of liquid oxygen in order to function. Once this oxygen is consumed in the first stages, these used up stages are discarded, creating massive waste and expense. (Companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are developing re-usable rockets to help circumvent this problem, but they’re still conventional rockets.)
Conventional rockets carry their own oxygen because its temperature and pressure can be controlled. This guarantees the performance of the rocket, but requires complicated systems to do so. SABRE will eliminate the need for carrying most on-board oxygen, but this is not easy to do.
SABRE’s challenge is to compress the atmospheric oxygen to about 140 atmospheres before introducing it into the engine’s combustion chambers. But compressing the oxygen to that degree raises its temperature so much that it would melt the engines. The solution to that is to cool the air with a pre-cooling heat exchanger, to the point where it’s almost a liquid. At that point, a turbine based on standard jet engine technology can compress the air to the required operating temperature.
This means that while SABRE is in Earth’s atmosphere, it uses air to burn its hydrogen fuel, rather than liquid oxygen. This gives it an 8 x improvement in propellant consumption. Once SABRE has reached about 25 km in altitude, where the air is thinner, it switches modes and operates as a standard rocket. By the time it switches modes, it’s already about 20% of the way into Earth orbit.
Like a lot of engineering challenges, understanding what needs to be done is not the hard part. Actually developing these technologies is extremely difficult, even though many people just assume engineers will be successful. The key for Reaction Engines Ltd, the company developing SABRE, is to develop the light weight heat exchangers at the heart of the engine.
Heat exchangers are common in industry, but these heat exchangers have to cool incoming air from 1000 Celsius to -150 Celsius in less than 1/100th of a second, and they have to do it while preventing frost from forming. They are extremely light, at about 100 times lighter than current technology, which will allow them to be used in aerospace for the first time. Some of the lightness factor of these new heat exchanges stems from the wall thickness of the tubing, which is less than 30 microns. That’s less than the thickness of a human hair.
Reaction Engines Limited says that these heat exchangers will have the same impact on aerospace propulsion systems that silicone chips had on computing.
A new funding agreement with the ESA will provide Reaction Engines with 10 million Euros for continued development of SABRE. This will add to the 50 million Pounds that the UK Space Agency has already contributed. That 50 million Pound investment was the result of a favorable viability review of SABRE that the ESA performed in 2010.
In 2012 the pre-cooler, a vital component of SABRE, was successfully tested at Reaction Engines facility in Oxfordshire, UK. Image: ESA/Reaction Engines
IN 2012, the pre-cooler and the heat exchangers were tested. After that came more R&D, including the development of altitude-compensating rocket nozzles, thrust chamber cooling, and air intakes.
Now that the feasibility of SABRE has been strengthened, Reaction Engines wants to build a ground demonstrator engine by 2020. If the continued development of SABRE goes well, and if testing by 2020 is successful, then these Air Breathing rocket engines will be in a position to truly revolutionize access to space.
In ESA’s words, “ESA are confident that a ground test of a sub-scale engine can be successfully performed to demonstrate the flight regime and cycle and will be a critical milestone in the development of this program and a major breakthrough in propulsion worldwide.”
2015 RR245's orbit takes it 120 times further from the Sun than the Earth is. Image: OSSOS/Alex Parker
A new dwarf planet has been discovered beyond Neptune, in the disk of small icy worlds that resides there. The planet was discovered by an international team of astronomers as part of the Outer Solar Systems Origins Survey (OSSOS). The instrument that found it was the Canada-France Hawaii Telescope at Maunakea, Hawaii.
The planet is about 700 km in size, and has been given the name 2015 RR245. It was first sighted by Dr. JJ Kavelaars, of the National Research Council of Canada, in images taken in 2015. Dwarf planets are notoriously difficult to spot, but they’re important pieces of the puzzle in tracing the evolution of our Solar System.
Dr. Michele Bannister, of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, describes the moment when the planet was discovered: “There it was on the screen— this dot of light moving so slowly that it had to be at least twice as far as Neptune from the Sun.”
These images show 3 hours of RR245’s movement. Image: OSSOS
“The icy worlds beyond Neptune trace how the giant planets formed and then moved out from the Sun. They let us piece together the history of our Solar System. But almost all of these icy worlds are painfully small and faint: it’s really exciting to find one that’s large and bright enough that we can study it in detail.” said Bannister.
As the New Horizons mission has shown us, these far-flung, cold bodies can have exotic features in their geological landscapes. Where once Pluto, king of the dwarf planets, was thought to be a frozen body locked in time, New Horizons revealed it to be a much more dynamic place. The same may be true of RR245, but for now, not much is known about it.
The 700 km size number is really just a guess at this point. More measurements will need to be taken of its surface properties to verify its size. “It’s either small and shiny, or large and dull.” said Bannister.
As our Solar System evolved, most dwarf planets like RR245 were destroyed in collisions, or else flung out into deep space by gravitational interactions as the gas giants migrated to their current positions. RR245 is one of the few that have survived. It now spends its time the same way other dwarf planets like Pluto and Eris do, among the tens of thousands of small bodies that orbit the sun beyond Neptune.
RR245 has not been observed for long, so much of what’s known about its orbit will be refined by further observation. But at this point it appears to have a 700 year orbit around the Sun. And it looks like for at least the last 100 million years it has travelled its current, highly elliptical orbit. For hundreds of years, it has been further than 12 billion km (80 AU)from the Sun, but by 2096 it should come within 5 billion km (34 AU) of the Sun.
The discovery of RR 245 came as a bit of a surprise to the OSSOS team, as that’s not their primary role. “OSSOS was designed to map the orbital structure of the outer Solar System to decipher its history,” said Prof. Brett Gladman of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. “While not designed to efficiently detect dwarf planets, we’re delighted to have found one on such an interesting orbit”.
OSSOS has discovered over 500 hundred trans-Neptunian objects, but this is the first dwarf planet it’s found. “OSSOS is only possible due to the exceptional observing capabilities of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. CFHT is located at one of the best optical observing locations on Earth, is equipped with an enormous wide-field imager, and can quickly adapt its observing each night to new discoveries we make. This facility is truly world leading.” said Gladman.
If RR 245’s diameter is conclusively measured as 700 km, it will be smaller than the dwarf planet Ceres, which is 945 km in diameter. Image courtesy of NASA.
A lot of work has been done to find dwarf planets in the far reaches of our Solar System. It may be that RR 245 is the last one we find. If there are any more out there, they may have to wait until larger and more powerful telescopes become available. In the mid-2020’s, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will come on-line in Chile. That ‘scope features a 3200 megapixel camera, and each image it captures will be the size of 40 full Moons. It’ll be hard for any remaining dwarf planets to hide from that kind of imaging power.
As for RR 245’s rather uninspiring name, it will have to do for a while. But as the discoverers of the new dwarf planet, the OSSOS team will get to submit their preferred name for the planet. After that, it’s up the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to settle on one.
What do you think? If this is indeed the last dwarf planet to be found in our Solar System what should we call it?
NASA's Deep Space Network is responsible for communicating with spacecraft. Pictured is the Goldstone facility in California, one of three facilities that make up the Network. Image: NASA/JPL
The much-anticipated arrival of NASA’s Juno spacecraft at Jupiter is almost here. Juno will answer many questions about Jupiter, but at the cost of a mission profile full of challenges. One of those challenges is communicating with Juno as it goes about its business in the extreme radiation environment around Jupiter. Communications with Juno rely on a network of radio dishes in strategic locations around the world, receivers cooled to almost absolute zero, and a team of dedicated people.
The task of communicating with Juno falls to NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN), a system of three facilities around the world whose job it is to communicate with all of the spacecraft that venture outside Earth’s vicinity. That network is in the hands of Harris Corporation, experts in all sorts of communications technologies, who are contracted to run these crucial facilities.
The person responsible is Sonny Giroux, DSN Program Manager at Harris. In an interview with Universe Today, Sonny explained how the DSN works, and describes some of the challenges the Juno mission poses.
“The network itself consists of three primary communication facilities; one in Goldstone, California, out in the middle of the Mojave Desert. The other facility is in Madrid Spain, and the third is in Canberra Australia. These three facilities are separated by about 120 degrees, which means that any spacecraft that’s out there is capable of communicating with Earth at any point in time,” said Giroux.
Deep Space Network facilities are positioned 120 degrees apart to give total sky coverage. Image: NASA/JPL
“Each facility has several antennae, the largest of which is 70 m in diameter, about the size of a football field. These antennae can be aimed at any angle. Then there are smaller antennae at 34 m in size, and we have a number of those at each complex.”
According to Giroux, the dishes can work independently, or be arrayed together, depending on requirements. At the DSN website, you can see which antenna is communicating with which of NASA’s missions at any time.
At the Deep Space Network’s website, you can see which of the network’s dishes are communicating with which spacecraft. During Juno’s mission, you can expect to see its name beside many of the dishes. Image: NASA/JPL/DSN
Juno is a complex mission with a dynamic orbit, and Jupiter itself is an extreme radiation environment. Juno will have to weave its way through Jupiter’s radiation belts in its polar orbit. According to Giroux, this creates additional communication problems for the DSN.
“As Juno goes into its orbital insertion phase, the spacecraft will have to turn away from Earth. Our signal strength will drop dramatically,” Giroux said. “In order to capture the data that Juno is going to send, we’re going to array all of our antennae at Goldstone and Canberra together.”
Juno’s orbit around Jupiter will be highly elliptical as it contends with Jupiter’s powerful radiation belts. Image: NASA/JPL
This means that a total of 9 antennae will be arrayed in two groups to communicate with Juno. The 4 dishes at the Canberra, Australia site will be arrayed together, and the 5 dishes at the Goldstone, California site will be arrayed together.
This combined strength is crucial to the success of Juno during JOI (Juno Orbital Insertion.) Said Giroux, “We need to bring Juno’s signal strength up to the maximum amount that we can. We need to know what phases Juno is in as it executes its sequence.”
“We’ve never arrayed all of our antennae together like this. This is a first for Juno.”
This combined receiving power is a first for the DSN, and another first for the Juno mission. “We’ve never arrayed all of our antennae together like this,” said Giroux. “This is a first for Juno. We’ve done a couple together before for a spacecraft like Voyager, which is pretty far out there, but never all of them like this. In order to maximize our success with Juno, we’re arraying everything. It will be the first time in our history that we’ve had to array together all of our assets.”
Arraying multiple dishes together provides another benefit too, as Giroux told us. “The DSN is able to have two centres view the spacecraft at the same time. If one complex goes down for whatever reason, we would have the other one still available to communicate with the spacecraft.”
The most visible part of the DSN are the antennae themselves. But the electronics at the heart of the system are just as important. And they’re unique in the world, too.
“We cool them down to almost absolute zero to remove all of the noise out.”
“We have very specialized receivers that are built for the DSN. We cool them down to almost absolute zero to remove all of the noise out. That allows us to really focus on the signal that we’re looking for. These are unique to DSN,” said Giroux.
Juno itself has four different transmitters on-board. Some are able to transmit a lot of data, and some can transmit less. These will be active at different times, and form part of the challenge of communicating with Juno. Giroux told us, “Juno will be cycling through all four as it performs its insertion and comes back out again on the other side of the planet.”
“We just get the ones and zeroes…”
The DSN is a communications powerhouse, the most powerful tool ever devised for communicating in space. But it doesn’t handle the science. “DSN for the most part will receive whatever the spacecraft is sending to us. We just get the ones and zeroes and relay that data over to the mission. It’s the mission that breaks that down and turns it into science data.”
The three facilities that make up the DSN. Each is separated by 120 degrees. Image: NASA/JPL
Juno will be about 450 million miles away at Jupiter, which is about a 96 minute round trip for any signal. That great distance means that Juno’s signal strength is extremely weak. But it won’t be the weakest signal that the DSN contends with. A testament to the strength of the DSN is the fact that it’s still receiving transmissions from the Voyager probes, which are transmitting at miniscule power levels. According to Giroux, “Voyager is at a billionth of a billionth of a watt in terms of its signal strength.”
Juno is different than other missions like New Horizons and Voyager 1 and 2. Once Juno is done, it will plunge into Jupiter and be destroyed. So all of its data has to be captured quickly and efficiently. According to Giroux, that intensifies the DSN’s workload for the Juno mission.
“Juno is different. We’ve got to make sure to capture that data regularly.”
“Juno has a very defined mission length, with start and stop dates. It will de-orbit into Jupiter when it’s finished its science phase. That’s different than other missions like New Horizons where it has long periods where its able to download all of the data it’s captured. Juno is different. We’ve got to make sure to capture that data regularly. After JOI we’ll be in constant communication with Juno to make sure that’s happening.”
In preparation for the arrival of Juno, the ESO’s released stunning IR images of Jupiter, taken by the VLT. Credit: ESO
The next most important event in Juno’s mission is its orbital insertion around Jupiter, and Giroux and the team are waiting for that just like the rest of us are. “Juno’s big burn as it slows itself enough to be captured by Jupiter is a huge milestone that we’ll be watching for,” said Giroux.
The first signal that the DSN receives will be a simple three second beep. “Confirmation of the insertion will occur at about 9:40 p.m.,” said Giroux. That signal will have been sent about 45 minutes before that, but the enormous distance between Earth and Jupiter means a long delay in receiving it. But once we receive it, it will tell us that Juno has finished firing its engine for orbital insertion. Real science data, including images of Jupiter, will come later.
“We want to see a successful mission as much as anybody else.”
All of the data from the DSN flows through the nerve center at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. When the signal arrives indicating that Juno has fired its engines successfully, Giroux and his team will be focussed on that facility, where news of Juno’s insertion will first be received. And they’ll be as excited as the rest of us to hear that signal.
“We want to see a successful mission as much as anybody else. Communicating with spacecraft is our business. We’ll be watching the same channels and websites that everybody else will be watching with bated breath,” said Giroux.
“Its great to be a part of the network. It’s pretty special.”
The surface patterns on one of the microscopic dust particles from asteroid Itokawa. Image: JAXA
In 2003, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched the Hayabusa probe. Its mission was to rendezvous with asteroid 25143 Itokawa in 2005. Once there, it studied a number of things about Itokawa, including its shape, topography, composition, colour, spin, density, and history. But the most exciting part of its mission was to collect samples from the asteroid and return them to Earth.
The mission suffered some complications, including the failure of Minerva, Hayabusa’s detachable mini-lander. But Hayabusa did land on the asteroid, and it did collect some samples; tiny grains of material from the surface of Itokawa. This was the first time a mission had landed somewhere and returned samples, other than missions to the Moon.
The Hayabusa spacecraft burned up on re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere, but the capsule containing the samples survived. The glowing piece on the bottom front of the debris stream is the sample capsule. Image: NASA Ames, Public Domain
Once the collected grains made it back to Earth in 2010, and were confirmed to be from the asteroid, scientists got excited. These grains would be key to helping understand the early Solar System when the planetary bodies were formed. And they have revealed a sometimes violent history going back 4.5 billion years.
The grains themselves are truly microscopic, at just over 10 micrometers in size. The marks and surface patterns on them are measured in nanometers. Initially, all the marks on the surfaces of the particles were thought to be of one type. But the team behind the study used electron microscopes and X-Ray Microtomography to reveal four different types of patterns on their surfaces.
One 4.5 billion year old pattern shows crystallization from intense heat. At this time period, Itokawa was part of a larger asteroid. The second pattern indicates a collision with a meteor about 1.3 billion years ago. Another pattern was formed by exposure to the solar wind between 1 million and 1,000 years ago. A fourth pattern detected by scientists shows that the particles have been rubbing against each other.
The team has concluded that Itokawa didn’t always exist in its current shape and form. When it was formed over 4 billion years ago, it was about 40 times bigger than it is now. That parent body was destroyed, and the researchers think that Itokawa re-formed from fragments of the parent body.
If there is still any lingering doubt about the violent nature of the Solar System’s history, the grains from Itokawa help dispel it. Collision, fragmentation, bombardments, and of course solar wind, seem to be the norm in our Solar System’s history.
The return of these samples was a bit of a happy accident. The sample collection mechanism on Hayabusa suffered a failure, and the returned dust grains were actually kicked up by the landing of the probe, and some ended up in the sample capsule.
For their part, JAXA has already launched Hayabusa’s successor, Hayabusa 2. It was launched in December 2014, and is headed for asteroid 162173 Ryugu. It should reach its destination in July 2018, and spend a year and a half there. Hayabusa 2 is also designed to collect asteroid samples and return them to Earth, this time using an explosive device to dig into the asteroid’s surface for a sample. Hayabusa 2 should return to Earth in December 2020.
An artist’s image of Hayabusa leaving Earth. Image credit: JAXA
Hayabusa suffered several failures, including the failure of its mini-lander, problems with sample collection, and it even suffered damaged to its solar panels caused by a solar flare, which reduced its power and delayed its arrival at Itokawa. Yet it still ended up being a success in the end.
If Hayabusa 2 can avoid some of these problems, who knows what we may learn from more intentional samples. Sample missions are tricky and complex. If Hayabusa can return samples, it would be only the fourth body to have samples successfully returned to Earth, including the Moon, asteroid Itokawa, and comet Wild 2.
MSL Curiosity on the Naukluft Plateau on the Martian surface. This image was captured by HiRise on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Viewing orbital images of the rovers as they go about their business on the surface of Mars is pretty cool. Besides being of great interest to anyone keen on space in general, they have scientific value as well. New images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Equipment (HiRise) camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) help scientists in a number of ways.
Recent images from HiRise show the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity on a feature called the Naukluft Plateau. The Plateau is named after a mountain range in Namibia, and is the site of Curiosity’s 10th and 11th drill targets.
Orbital imagery of the rovers is used to track the activity of sand dunes in the areas the rovers are working in. In this case, the dune field is called the Bagnold Dunes. HiRise imagery allows a detailed look at how dunes change over time, and how any tracks left by the rover are filled in with sand over time. Knowledge of this type of activity is a piece of the puzzle in understanding the Martian surface.
Curiosity on the Naukluft Plateau as captured by HiRise. Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
But the ability to take such detailed images of the Martian surface has other benefits, as well. Especially as we get nearer to a human presence on Mars.
Orbital imaging is turning exploration on its ear. Throughout human history, exploration required explorers travelling by land and sea to reconnoiter an area, and to draw maps and charts later. We literally had no idea what was around the corner, over the mountain, or across the sea until someone went there. There was no way to choose a location for a settlement until we had walked the ground.
From the serious (SpaceX, NASA) to the fanciful (MarsOne), a human mission to Mars, and an eventual established presence on Mars, is a coming fact. The how and the where are all connected in this venture, and orbital images will be a huge part of choosing where.
Tracking the changes in dunes over time will help inform the choice for human landing sites on Mars. The types and density of sand particles may be determined by monitoring rover tracks as they fill with sand. This may be invaluable information when it comes to designing the types of facilities used on Mars. Critical infrastructure in the form of greenhouses or solar arrays will need to be placed very carefully.
Sci-Fi writers have exaggerated the strength of sand storms on Mars to great effect, but they are real. We know from orbital monitoring, and from rovers, that Martian sandstorms can be very powerful phenomena. Of course, a 100 km/h wind on Earth is much more dangerous than on Mars because of the density of the atmosphere. Martian air is 1% the density of Earth’s, so on Mars the 100 km/h wind wouldn’t do much.
But it can pick up dust, and that dust can foul important equipment. With all this in mind, we can see how these orbital images give us an important understanding of how sand behaves on Mars.
This Martian sandstorm was captured by the MRO’s Mars Color Imager instrument. Scientists were monitoring such storms prior to Curiosity’s arrival on Mars. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
There’s an unpredictability factor to all this too. We can’t always know in advance how important or valuable orbital imagery will be in the future. That’s part of doing science.
But back to the cool factor.
For the rest of us, who aren’t scientists, it’s just plain cool to be able to watch the rovers from above.
And, look at all the Martian eye candy!
These sand dunes in the southern hemisphere of Mars are just starting their seasonal defrost of carbon dioxide. Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Boeing is competing with SpaceX to be the first American company to provide commercial crew capabilities to NASA. Image: Boeing
Boeing thinks it can have its Starliner spacecraft ready to fly crewed missions by February, 2018. This is 4 months later than the previous date of October 2017. It isn’t yet clear what this will mean in Boeing’s race against SpaceX to relieve NASA’s dependence on Russian transportation to the ISS.
Currently, astronauts travel to the ISS aboard the Russian workhorse Soyuz capsule. Ever since the end of the Space Shuttle program, NASA has relied on Russia to transport astronauts to the station. Both Boeing and SpaceX have received funds to develop a crewed capsule, and both companies are working at a feverish pace to be the first to do so.
Boeing has a long history of involvement with NASA. It’s the prime contractor for ISS operations, and is also the prime contractor for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), which will be the most powerful rocket ever built and will power NASA’s exploration of deep space. So Boeing is no stranger to complex development cycles and the types of delays that can crop up.
In a recent interview, Boeing’s Chris Ferguson acknowledged that everything has to go well for the Starliner to meet its schedule. But things don’t always go well in such a complex engineering program, and that’s just the way things are.
The Starliner, and every other spacecraft, has to undergo extensive testing of each component before any flight can be attempted. Various suppliers are responsible for over 200 pieces of equipment, just in avionics alone, and each one of those pieces has to assembled, integrated, and tested. Not just by Boeing, but by NASA as well. This takes an enormous amount of time, and requires great rigor to carry out. In some cases, a problem with one piece of equipment can delay testing of other pieces. It’s the nature of complex systems.
Another challenge that Boeing engineers face is limiting the mass of the spacecraft. Recent wind-tunnel testing of a Starliner model produced aero-acoustic issues when mated to a model of the Atlas 5, the rocket built by United Launch Alliance (ULA) which will carry the Starliner into space. Now Boeing is modifying the exterior lines of the vehicle to get the airflow just right.
The spacecraft also has to be tested for emergencies. Though the Starliner is designed to land on solid ground, it’s also being tested for emergency landings on water.
NASA blames the delays in the development of the Starliner, and the SpaceX Dragon, on funding cuts from Congress. Administrator Charles Bolden has criticized Congress for consistent under-funding since the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet in 2011. According to NASA, this has caused a 2 year delay in development of the Dragon and the Starliner. This delay, in turn, has meant that NASA has had to keep paying Russia for trips to the ISS. And like everything else, that cost keeps rising.
But it looks like the end, or maybe the beginning, is in sight for the Starliner. Boeing has paid deposits to ULA for four flights with the Atlas 5. A 2017 un-crewed test flight, a 2018 crewed test flight, and two crewed flights to the ISS.
Beyond that, the future looks a little hard to predict for Boeing and the Starliner. With both SpaceX and Blue Origin developing re-usable rockets, the future viability of the Atlas 5 might be in jeopardy. Compounding the uncertainty is NASA’s stated plan to stop funding the ISS by 2024 or 2028.
By that time, NASA should be focused on establishing a presence in cislunar space, which would require different spacecraft.
But you can’t wait forever to develop spacecraft. The only way to stay in the game is for Boeing to develop the spacecraft that are required right now, and let the knowledge and experience from that feed the development of the next spacecraft, whether for cislunar space or beyond.
In the big scheme of things, a four month delay for the first flight of the Starliner is not that big of a deal. If the Starliner is successful, and there’s no reason to think it won’t be, considering Boeing’s track record, the four month delay in the initial flight won’t even be remembered.
Whether its SpaceX or Boeing who get America back into space first, that moment will be celebrated, and all the delays and funding cuts will be left in the dust-bin of history.
