Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Once Classified Russian Rockets to be Used for Commercial Space Venture

n Almaz Reusable Re-entry Vehicle (RRV), like this one shown here, will form the cornerstone of a private orbital spaceflight service planned by the international company Excalibur Almaz. The vehicle was originally developed to support Soviet Almaz space stations in the 1970s. Credit: Excalibur Almaz.

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An international company announced plans to launch a commercial space venture using spacecraft designed for a once classified Russian space program. Excalibur Almaz Limited plans to offer week-long orbital space flights beginning as early as 2013 with updated 1970’s era Reusable Return Vehicles, designed for flying to the USSR’s top-secret Almaz space station. Excalibur Alamaz’s press release said they would be “taking a big leap beyond the sub-orbital flight market targeted by most other private space companies.”

Excalibur Almaz (EA) is currently updating the spacecraft to conduct crew and cargo space missions for private individuals, corporations, academic institutions and national governments.

JSC MIC NPO Mashinostroyenia (NPOM) of Russia originally built the spacecraft and EA has purchased both the rockets and modules for the Almaz space station, which was never flown. The RRVs went through nine flight tests, with two RRVs flown to orbit several times.

EA Founder and CEO Art Dula said, “Through cooperation with NPOM and with the support of leading space contractors around the world and an exceptionally strong management and advisory team, EA is in a unique position to initiate a new era of private orbital space exploration.”

Cosmonaut Vladimir Titov, advisor to EA in Russia, said, “With this announcement, the dream of private orbital space exploration may become a reality in the very near future.”

Former NASA astronaut LeRoy Chiao, a current member of the Augustine Commission, is the Executive Vice President for EA.

EA is headquartered in Isle of Man, British Isles, and support contractors are located in Moscow, Tokyo, Houston and Los Angeles.

EA’s spacecraft will consist of two parts: an RRV and an expendable service module to provide crewmembers with room to comfortably operate during spaceflight. EA said they will “update the Almaz RRVs with flight-proven technologies where appropriate, while retaining tested legacy systems to ensure safety and economy of operation. A critical feature of the RRVs is their reusability, which will reduce logistical, overhead and program costs for commercial access to space.”

EA plans for its spacecraft to be compatible with a number of launch vehicles and capable of being launched from worldwide sites.

Excalibur Almaz website.

Source: EA Press Release

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Report: UFO Sightings Coincide with Popular Sci-Fi Films, TV

Scene from the movie "Independance Day." Credit: 20th Century Fox

The British Ministry of Defense released 4,000 pages of documents detailing hundreds of UFO sightings between 1981 and 1996. A summary of the documents by UFO expert David Clarke comes as no surprise to scientists and skeptics: many of the sightings coincide with the release of popular sci-fi movies or television shows.

609 UFO sightings in 1996, compared with 117 in 1995 correspond with the rise in popularity of the “X Files” television show and the release of the alien blockbuster film “Independence Day.” “Obviously, films and TV programs raise public awareness of UFOs and it’s fascinating to see how that appears to lead more people to report what they see to the authorities,” Clarke said.

The documents released include sightings reported by police officers and fighter pilots as well as young children, the Daily Mail reported Monday. 90% of the sightings could be explained by mundane objects such as bright stars and planets, meteors, artificial satellites and airship advertising.

The other 10% were listed as “unexplained,” mainly because of insufficient information.

For an excellent overview of what really happened in one of the most famous UFO stories of all, the 1947 Roswell, New Mexico alien spaceship crash, listen to Brian Dunning’s 365 Days of Astronomy podcast on the subject.

Source: Reuters, UPI

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

2000 Sols on Mars

2000 Sols on Mars. Credit: Astro0 in Space

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Another milestone for the Mars Exploration Rovers: Spirit has been operating on Mars for 2000 sols, or Martian days. Who would have ever thought the rovers would last this long? But here they are, still going, um, pretty strong. Even though she’s got plenty of electrical power, Spirit is currently stuck in loose soil at her location, called Troy. But engineers are working hard to figure out how to set her free. Check out the latest on the efforts at the Free Spirit website.

To celebrate Spirit’s milestone, Unmanned Spaceflight’s Astro0 has put together a Sol 2000 poster over at his website, Astro0 in Space. It’s gorgeous, and includes a new poem by my pal Stuart Atkinson, so check it out!

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Send a Tweet to our Alien Friends on Gliese 581 D

An artist’s impression of Gliese 581d, an exoplanet about 20.3 light-years away from Earth, in the constellation Libra. Credit: NASA

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If you’ve ever wanted to communicate with aliens, here’s your chance. Cosmos Magazine is offering the chance to send a message to another planet, Gliese 581 d. This exoplanet is about 20.3 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Libra, and some have said if life is elsewhere in the Universe, this is the mostly likely place that we currently know about. It was first discovered in 2007, and astronomers say this planet is well within the habitable zone around its star, where liquid water oceans could exist. Cosmos is collecting short, 160 character messages to be transmitted out to the vicinity of Gliese 581 d with the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex in Tidbinbilla, Australia. Cosmos says it will take about 20 years for the message to reach its destination, and admits there is no guarantee of a response. If interested, check out Cosmos’ “Hello From Earth” webpage. Hurry, as the deadline is 5pm Monday August 24, 2009 Sydney time (07:00 GMT Monday 24 August 2009).

This is Cosmos’ way of celebrating the IYA and National Science Week in Australia. However, we’ve had lively discussions here on before UT about if we are sending too much information out into the cosmos. What do you think?

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Podcast: How to be Taken Seriously by Scientists


For those non-scientists trying to get their original ideas accepted by the scientific community, you’ve got to have thick skin. It might seem like there’s a vast conspiracy, or a general attitude that drives away original, but unorthodox ideas. But that’s not true, the reality is that great ideas in science come from everywhere, even amateurs. In this episode we’ll help you understand what scientists will be looking for, and the best ways to be taken seriously.

Click here to download the episode.

Or subscribe to: astronomycast.com/podcast.xml with your podcatching software.

How to be Taken Seriously by Scientists — transcript and show notes.

Posted on by Jerry Coffey

Where Do Asteroids Come From?

An artists impression of an asteroid belt. Credit: NASA

[/caption]Where do asteroids come from? Most of them are grouped in the main belt, but that is not the only asteroid field in the solar system. There are actually four sets of asteroids grouped into different fields: the main belt, Trojans, scattered disc, and the Kuiper belt. To understand where do asteroids come from, you need to know the theory on how they were formed.

Most scientists agree that all of the asteroids are the result of the the big bang. After the initial turmoil, large asteroids collided together and through the process known as accretion planets and dwarf planets were formed. The planets and dwarfs grew large enough to develop gravity and became rounded and able to sustain their own gravity. Asteroids continued to collide and destroy each other until we have the elliptical and other odd shaped, pock-marked solar objects that we have today. Here is a little information to help you understand where do asteroids come from today.

The asteroid field known as the main belt is a large collection of objects that are in orbit between Jupiter and Mars. The largest known asteroid in the belt is Ceres which accounts for 27% of the belts’ total mass. Ceres is also the only asteroid in the belt that is classified as a dwarf planet. Vesta, Hygeia, and Pallas are the other of the four largest bodies in the asteroid field. There have been several space missions that have crossed the field. The asteroids are far enough apart that traversing it is easily done. The Dawn space mission to the next to visit the main belt and will visit two of the largest bodies, hopefully it will be able to help reclassify Vesta as a dwarf planet.

The Kuiper belt is populated with thousands of icy bodies. The only one that is currently designated as a dwarf planet is the former planet Pluto. That may change in the near future since there are at least two bodies in the belt that are larger than Pluto. Our ability to send spacecraft that far out is what is holding us back right now.

The Trojans asteroid field, originally referred to the Trojan asteroids, orbits around Jupiter’s 4th and 5th Lagrangian points. Subsequently objects have been found orbiting the same Lagrangian points of Neptune and Mars. The word Trojan, in astronomy, refers to a natural satellite that shares an orbit with a larger planet or moon, but does not collide with it because it orbits around one of the two Lagrangian points of stability.

The scattered disc asteroid field is a subset of the Kuiper belt. Because their orbits take them well beyond 100AU from the Sun they are the coldest objects in the Solar System. Due to its unstable nature, astronomers now consider the scattered disc to be the place of origin for most periodic comets. Many of the objects in the Oort cloud are thought to have originated in the scattered disc.

Answering the question: ”Where do asteroids come from?” is pretty easy, but it is ambiguous at the same time. What we have are mostly theories and few definite facts. Things get even more blurry as you study different asteroids and find that some from different belts have somehow inter-mixed. Ah, the beauty of astronomy!

There is some good info on the asteroid belt here. NASA has a good piece on KBO’s. Here on Universe Today there is an article on the possibility of an alien asteroid belt and the Milky Ways’ own asteroid belts.

Reference:
Wikipedia

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Watch Satellite Data In Action


Ever wonder about all the different data that satellites are collecting as they orbit Earth? This video is a sample of Bella Gaia, a 45-minute movie is meant to be watched in an immersive theater, such as a fulldome planetarium. This clip is an audio visual “Living Atlas” journey of our world, showing the beauty and fragility of planet Earth as seen through satellite data. Created by director and violist Kenji Williams, the The movie is based on the stunning orbital imagery created by SCISS’ Uniview software and NASA, and shows data ranging from oil consumption and air traffic, over Earth’s magnetosphere and polar sub storms to time-lapse images of the Arctic ice melt. It’s a new way to look at Earth, and hopefully will instill some of the awe that the first “Earthrise” images brought. Look for the full version coming soon to an immersive theater near you. More info on Bella Gaia.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Amino Acid Found in Stardust Comet Sample

Artists concept of the stardust spacecraft flying throug the gas and dust from comet Wild 2. Credit: NASA/JPL

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NASA scientists studying the comet samples returned by the Stardust spacecraft have discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life. Stardust captured the samples from comet Wild 2 in 2004 and returned them to Earth in 2006. “Glycine is an amino acid used by living organisms to make proteins, and this is the first time an amino acid has been found in a comet,” said Dr. Jamie Elsila of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Our discovery supports the theory that some of life’s ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts.”

Proteins are a major component of all living cells, and amino acids are the building blocks of protein. Just as the 26 letters of the alphabet are arranged in limitless combinations to make words, life uses 20 different amino acids in a huge variety of arrangements to build millions of different proteins.

Stardust's racket-sized collector made from aerogel. Credit: NASA/JPL
Stardust's racket-sized collector made from aerogel. Credit: NASA/JPL

As Stardust passed through dense gas and dust surrounding the icy nucleus of Wild 2 (pronounced “Vilt-2”), special collection grids filled with aerogel – a novel sponge-like material that’s more than 99 percent empty space – gently captured samples of the comet’s gas and dust. The grid was stowed in a capsule which detached from the spacecraft and parachuted to Earth on January 15, 2006. Since then, scientists around the world have been busy analyzing the samples to learn the secrets of comet formation and our solar system’s history.

Earlier, preliminary analysis in the Goddard labs detected glycine in both aluminum foil that lined the collection grids, as well as in a sample of the aerogel. However, since glycine is used by terrestrial life, at first the team was unable to rule out contamination from sources on Earth. “It was possible that the glycine we found originated from handling or manufacture of the Stardust spacecraft itself. We spent two years testing and developing our equipment to make it accurate and sensitive enough to analyze such incredibly tiny samples,” said Elsila. The new research used isotopic analysis of the foil to rule out that possibility.

Isotopes are versions of an element with different weights or masses; for example, the most common carbon atom, Carbon 12, has six protons and six neutrons in its center (nucleus). However, the Carbon 13 isotope is heavier because it has an extra neutron in its nucleus. A glycine molecule from space will tend to have more of the heavier Carbon 13 atoms in it than glycine that’s from Earth. That is what the team found. “We discovered that the Stardust-returned glycine has an extraterrestrial carbon isotope signature, indicating that it originated on the comet,” said Elsila.

Another team member Dr. Daniel Glavin said, “Based on the foil and aerogel results it is highly probable that the entire comet-exposed side of the Stardust sample collection grid is coated with glycine that formed in space.”

The team’s research will be published in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science.

Source: NASA

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

NASA Tests Inflatable Heat Shield

Screen shot of the IRVE inflatable heat sheild during Monday's test flight. Credit: Wallops Flight Facility

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NASA conducted a successful test Monday morning of a new type of heat shield that could make it possible to land larger payloads on Mars. The Inflatable Re-entry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE) demonstrated an inflatable heat shield which could slow and protect spacecraft entering atmospheres at hypersonic speeds. “This was a small-scale demonstrator,” said Mary Beth Wusk, IRVE project manager, based at Langley Research Center. “Now that we’ve proven the concept, we’d like to build more advanced aeroshells capable of handling higher heat rates.”

IRVE launch from Wallops Island, Virginia. Credit: NASA
IRVE launch from Wallops Island, Virginia. Credit: NASA

IRVE was vacuum-packed into a 38 cm (15-inch) diameter payload shroud and launched with a Black Brant 9 sounding rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va., at 8:52 a.m. EDT. The 3 meter (10-foot) diameter heat shield, made of several layers of silicone-coated industrial fabric, inflated with nitrogen to a mushroom shape in space several minutes after liftoff.

At four minutes into the flight, the rocket reached 210 km (131 miles), and deployed the heat shield, which took less than 90 seconds to inflate. According to the cameras and sensors on board, which relayed real-time data back to engineers on the ground, the heat shield expanded to its full size and went into a high-speed free fall. The key focus of the research came about six and a half minutes into the flight, at an altitude of about 50 miles, when the aeroshell re-entered Earth’s atmosphere and experienced its peak heating and pressure measurements for a period of about 30 seconds.

“Our inflation system, which is essentially a glorified scuba tank, worked flawlessly and so did the flexible aeroshell,” said Neil Cheatwood, IRVE principal investigator and chief scientist for the Hypersonics Project at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. “We’re really excited today because this is the first time anyone has successfully flown an inflatable reentry vehicle.”

NASA engineers check out the Inflatable Re-entry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE) in the lab. Credit: NASA/Sean Smith
NASA engineers check out the Inflatable Re-entry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE) in the lab. Credit: NASA/Sean Smith

Inflatable heat shields hold promise for future planetary missions, according to researchers. To land more mass on Mars at higher surface elevations, for instance, mission planners need to maximize the drag area of the entry system. The larger the diameter of the aeroshell, the bigger the payload can be.

For more information on the problems of landing on Mars, and other inflatable heat shields and supersonic decelerators that are being developed, check out our previous article with Rob Manning of JPL and Glen Brown of Vertigo, Inc.

Fact Sheet on IRVE (pdf)

Sources: NASA, NASA

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Podcast: Astronomy Research from Idea to Publication


Have you ever wondered how astronomers do their research? How do they go from idea or question, to gathering their data, to publishing the research. What are all the hoops they have to jump through, the paperwork to fill out, and the cool toys they get to use along the way?

Click here to download the episode.
Or subscribe to: astronomycast.com/podcast.xml with your podcatching software.

Astronomy Research from Idea to Publication – Transcript and show notes.