Tag: spaceflight

Classified Chinese test satellite releases second object in orbit

8:55 am

A classified Chinese test satellite, launched on January 8th, apparently released a second object into orbit on January 16th, suggesting the satellite might be doing robotic rendezvous and docking tests, similar to tests by an earlier classified satellite.

China’s Shijian 21 satellite, which launched in 2021, also reached GEO and released a satellite, which was then used for tests. Shijian 21 then proceeded to dock with the defunct Chinese navigation and positioning satellite Beidou-2 G2 and towed it away to an orbit out of the way of the active spacecraft in GEO.

China is clearly attempting to develop the same robotic servicing technologies that commercial companies in the west are beginning to fly.

0 comments

Russians successfully test replacement Soyuz capsule for leaks

8:49 am

The next Soyuz capsule to launch to ISS has now been passed its leak tests on the ground as it is being prepared for a February 20th launch.

“At the Baikonur cosmodrome, leak tests of the Soyuz MS-23 transport crewed spacecraft have been completed,” the [Roscosmos press release] said. In the coming days, checks of the propulsion system’s automation equipment, onboard digital computerized system and radio engineering systems will follow. Also, the thermal control system is to be filled with a coolant.

The launch has been moved up one month in order to speed the replacement of the leaking Soyuz presently on ISS.

2 comments

Rocket Lab successfully completes first launch from the U.S.

8:35 am

Using its Electron rocket, Rocket Lab yesterday placed three smallsats into orbit, launching for the first time from Wallops Island in Virginia.

The company now has three launchpads, one in Wallops and two in New Zealand. Expect its launch pace in 2023 to ramp up to, at a minimum, once per month.

The 2023 launch race:

5 China
5 SpaceX
1 Rocket Lab

In the national rankings, the U.S. leads China, 6 to 5. No one else has yet launched, though Japan plans a launch today.

10 comments

Curiosity’s drill fails for the fourth time to drill into the marker band layer on Mt Sharp

5:11 pm

The fourth attempt yesterday to use Curiosity’s drill to drill into the marker band layer on Mount Sharp once again was unable to drill down deep enough to obtain a sample.

Despite giving it the “old college try,” Curiosity’s attempt to drill into the Marker Band at the “Encanto” site did not reach sampling depth. Because other rocks around the rover look similar to “Encanto” and are likely also too hard to drill, the Science Team decided to convert the plan to a “Touch and Go.”

Although the Science Team is disappointed to leave this Marker Band location without a sample, Curiosity will use MAHLI, APXS, and ChemCam LIBS to analyze the chemistry and texture of the shallow “Encanto” drill hole and tailings, targeting the intriguing light-toned material exposed in the wall of the drill hole. We may see another location in the Marker Band worth sampling in the near future, but even if we don’t, there will certainly be many more exciting drilling opportunities to look forward to as Curiosity continues her climb up Mt. Sharp!

This drilling difficulty is not a surprise. The marker band is a very distinct flat layer that is seen at about the same elevation on all sides of Mount Sharp. It flatness suggests it is resistant to erosion, which also suggests its material will be hard. The inability of Curiosity’s drill to penetrate it only confirms this.

It also makes getting a drill sample to test even more intriguing. I suspect that the science team is going to try a few more times as it travels forward across the band, as indicated by the red dotted line in the panorama below.
Panorama as of January 17, 2023
Click for full image.

3 comments

Jupiter and two of its Moons, as seen by Cassini during 2018 fly-by

4:41 pm

Cool video time! Back in December 2000 the spacecraft Cassini made a fly-by of Jupiter on its way to Saturn, which it then orbited from 2004 to 2017. In 2018 JPL scientist Kevin Gil took the images from that flyby to create a short movie, first showing two of Jupiter’s moons, Io and Europa, as they drifted above the Great Red Spot.

Then, for the second half of the movie Gil used Cassini images taken when in orbit around Saturn to show the moon Titan moving across the rings of Saturn.

I have embedded this short video below. If I had posted this back in 2018, I don’t remember. No matter. It is amazing enough to watch again.

Hat tip BtB’s stringer Jay.
» Read more

5 comments

Communications issue shuts down one of Webb’s instruments

8:30 am

The near infrared instrument on the Webb Space Telescope, NIRISS, has been unavailable for science observations for more than a week due to a communications issue.

On Sunday, Jan. 15, the James Webb Space Telescope’s Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) experienced a communications delay within the instrument, causing its flight software to time out. The instrument is currently unavailable for science observations while NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) work together to determine and correct the root cause of the delay.

According to the update, the instrument’s hardware, as well as the rest of the telescope, has been unaffected and remains in good condition.

In November the telescope’s mid-infrared instrument MIRI experienced its own problems with one of its “grating wheels” that allows it to some spectroscopy. Since then the instrument has been in use, but it is unclear if the issue was resolved or observations have had to be adjusted to avoid the problem.

0 comments

Martian crater with mound of ice? mud? hardened sand?

12:17 pm

Crater with mound
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on October 31, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a small 4,000-foot-wide crater that is practically filled with a smooth, almost perfectly spherical mound, with the rest of the crater interior filled with sand dunes and what appears to be glacial debris.

Is that mound also glacial debris, covered with a layer of dirt and dust to protect it? If so, one wonders how the ice ended up in this shape. There are other craters with similar mounds in this region, all suggesting glacial debris but with the same question. Craters with lots of near surface ice in this region more often have a squishy blobby look.

Is the mound instead possibly mud, expressing the existence of a mud/ice volcano? If so, it shows no central pit or caldera, which is typical of such things.

Is it hardened sand? Martian dust that gets blown into craters generally gets trapped there, building up over time. If so, however, why does it have a smooth almost perfectly rounded shape? The ripple sand dunes surrounding it are more like what you would expect.

The small craters on the mound also tell us that it is hardened and old, no matter what it is made of.
» Read more

1 comment

Animation of Jupiter’s clouds

9:19 am

Cool video time! Using a photo taken by Juno during its 2018 fly-by of Jupiter, citizen scientist Thomas Thomopoulos has created a short animation showing the flow of Jupiter’s clouds. He also added some 3D relief by assigning elevation to the image’s greyscale, with lighter regions assigned higher altitudes.

I have embedded the animation below. Run it at the slowest speed for the best effect. It is quite spectacular, though it is also important to note that it is not reality. Thomopoulos is simply giving us a hint of the natural evolution of the cloud structures, both in elevation and in time.

You can see another equally impressive animation by Thomopoulos here of several of Jupiter’s polar storms, using AI technology to smooth out the loop.
» Read more

0 comments

First Vulcan rocket arrives at Cape Canaveral

8:50 am

ULA’s first Vulcan rocket has now arrived at Cape Canaveral in preparation for its planned inaugural launch before the end of March.

This first mission for Vucan will fly in a VC2S configuration. “VC” stands for “Vulcan Centaur.” The number, in this case “2,” represents the number of solid rocket boosters needed and the final letter stands for the payload fairing length.

VC2S will use a 51-foot-long Standard payload fairing. Nestled inside will be a few different payloads. This mission will send the first two Kuiper prototype satellites into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander to the Moon and a Celestis Memorial Spaceflight payload into deep space. The remains of several people connected to the original Star Trek series will be launched on what Celestis dubbed the “Enterprise Flight,” including show creator Gene Roddenberry along with actors Nichelle Nichols and Jackson DeForest Kelley.

This first Vulcan launch will also be the first of two flights required by the Pentagon in order to certify Vulcan for military launches. Since ULA already has contracts for seven Vulcan military launches, it very much wants to get these two launches off this year, as soon as possible. According to the article at the link, ULA is thus aiming to fly this year those two test flights, followed quickly by the first military launch.

Whether it can complete three Vulcan launches in 2023 is quite uncertain. For example, it will need to get four more BE-4 engines from Blue Origin for the second and third launches, and there is no indication at this time that Blue Origin is close to delivering.

Then there is the delays and risks involved with this first launch. Though ULA has decades of experience building and launching rockets, the first launch of a rocket almost always experiences delays during testing. We should expect the same with Vulcan.

Assuming this schedule holds, however, this means ULA is targeting 10 launches in 2023, five Atlas-5 launches, two Delta Heavy launches, and three Vulcan launches. That would be the most launches by this company in a year since 2016.

0 comments

First launch from Shetland Islands predicted for the fall

8:36 am

According to an official at the SaxaVord spaceport in the Shetland Islands in Scotland, its first orbital satellite launch is now expected before the end of this year.

Scott Hammond, director of operations at SaxaVord spaceport, acknowledged there is often uncertainty around timetables for private space launches. However, he said a recent agreement with a German company, Rocket Factory Augsburg, would see them begin testing their engines in the summer ahead of a launch later in the year.

He told the Press Association: “Probably in July, we’re going to start full stage testing. That will be the full, first stage, nine engines all firing for about three minutes. So that’ll be really, really impressive. I expect about four months or so of that depending on success. And then we’re looking with Rocket Factory to launch towards the end of the year, for the orbital launch.”

I would not bet a lot of money on this schedule. Rocket Factory is a German rocket startup that has never launched before, and the first launch from such startups are routinely delayed months to years. What Hammond is really doing is creating buzz for SaxaVord, even as a rival spaceport in Sutherland, Scotland, is getting built.

0 comments

The youngest flood lava on Mars, flowing past a crater

2:07 pm

Crater with lava flow
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced to post here, was taken on December 3, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The title given to this image by the MRO science team is “Upstream Edge of Crater in Athabasca Valles.” The crater itself is a pedestal crater, uplifted from the surrounding terrain because it was more resistant to erosion.

The material to the east of the crater’s rim definitely appears to have flow characteristics, but is it wet mud, glacial ice, or lava?

To figure this out we need as always some context. The latitude, 8 degrees north, immediately eliminates mud or glacial material. This location is in the dry equatorial regions of Mars, where no near surface ice has yet been found. Thus, the flow features are likely hardened lava.

What direction however was the flow? Was it flowing to the north, widening as it moved past the pedestal crater? Or was it to the south, narrowing as it pushed past that crater? To answer this question we need to widen our view.
» Read more

0 comments

Ingenuity completes 40th flight

9:52 am

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

As predicted by the Ingenuity engineering team on January 17, 2023, the Mars helicopter yesterday completed its 40th flight, flying approximately 92 seconds and 584 feet to the northwest to place it at the head of the hollow that Perseverance will travel to climb up onto the delta that flowed into Jezero Crater sometime in the past.

The green dot on the overview map to the right shows the helicopter’s position, post flight. The blue dot shows Perseverance’s present position. The red dotted line indicates the rover’s future route.

At the moment, only eleven images have been returned from the flight, and these only show the first 20 seconds of flight. The flight however has been added to the helicopter’s flight log, which shows that Ingenuity actually flew about 23 feet farther and 7 seconds longer than expected. This extra distance was likely because the helicopter needed to find a good landing site, using its upgraded software that allows it to fly over rougher terrain.

1 comment
1 … 392 393 394 395 396 … 1,329