The UK and ESA

You may be wondering if the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union (EU) dooms its involvement with the European Space Agency (ESA).  According to Space News, the answer is no.

First, the ESA is not an EU organization. And second, other non-EU countries are already members, including Norway and Switzerland. 

So whatever you think of the recent British vote, it should not hamper the country's space efforts. 

Starship USS Enterprise at the Smithsonian

Star Trek fans wil be happy to know the original USS Enterprise from the 1960s series has been refurbished and has its own display at the Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC (rather than sitting in the gift shop). 

The 11-foot, 200-pound, spacecraft has arrived just in time as movies and now a TV series keep the crew in our thoughts.

And here are a few interesting pieces of trivia from a recent NPR article: (1) the spacecraft is green not gray to improve the camera shots against a blue screen and (2) only one side of the spacecraft was competed since that was sufficient for filming. I know, it's like learning the Millenium Falcon is really pink. 

Time for a road trip. 

A Grander Canyon on Charon

Images from NASA's New Horizons mission indicate Pluto's moon Charon has a 430 mile long canyon named Argo Chasma (the section shown above measures 185 miles). This canyon is also estimated to be about 5.5 miles deep.

Earth's Grand Canyon is only 280 miles long and about 1 mile deep by comparison, representing a much shorter and shallower scar on a much larger world. However, the Valles Marineris is 2,500 miles long and 4.3 miles deep, so Mars still represents a much longer scar. And the longest canyons in the solar system are found in Earth's rift valleys. But none of this takes away from Charon's significant scar given its small size. 

Heinlein Prize Awarded to Bezos

The Heinlein Prize, given for progress in commercial space, was awarded to Jeff Bezos on June 21st. Mr. Bezos is the third winner of the prize, following Dr. Peter Diamandis and Elon Musk. The prize is awarded every five years.

The prize announcement stated:

Under Bezos’ leadership, Blue Origin developed a number of technology firsts that are driving U.S. space competitiveness. The reusable BE-3, a liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen engine, is now being used in Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft. New Shepard is the first rocket ever to fly above the Karman line into space and then land vertically upon the Earth. Furthermore, it has done so multiple times with the same rocket hardware – not even removing the engine between flights. In late 2014, Blue Origin reached a commercial agreement with a private launch company to develop the BE-4 engine which could be used to power the next generation of U.S. launch vehicles.

In response to receiving the award, Mr. Bezos stated:

Robert Heinlein inspired millions with his visionary—and incredibly entertaining—stories...Heinlein foresaw a thriving future with humans throughout the solar system. We won’t stop working to make that vision come true.

Let's hope that many others are following in the awardees' steps to push us into space.

Chinese Space Station Open for Business

"The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) have agreed to work together to develop the space capabilities of United Nations Member States via opportunities on-board China’s future space station...Under the agreements, UNOOSA and CMSA will work together to enable United Nations Member States, particularly developing countries, to conduct space experiments on-board China’s space station, as well as to provide flight opportunities for astronauts and payload engineers."

--Press statement by UNOOSA posted June 16, 2016. This will become more relevant as the United States and its partners start to wind down the International Space Station and end the program by 2024.

Fire Prevention in Space

This week NASA has set fire to a Cygnus space capsule after it departed from the International Space Station as part of its SAFFIRE mission (or Spacecraft Fire Experiment). The space agency hopes to learn more about fire safety in space.

Yes, 4,000 pounds of dirty laundry are burning in space. Okay, it's not the whole craft since more experiments will be conducted with the same spacecraft.

Speaking of the mission, David Urban, SAFFIRE’s principal investigator, stared:

In spacecraft, we’ve never had the opportunity to burn anything larger than approximately an index card…We really don’t know what the fate of a fire is. So our building of future spacecraft is based on one-G understanding and extrapolation of very small, short-duration experiments.

Better now as an experiment than later as an event.

Boarding the BEAM

Bigelow has posted a number of photos of its Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), including an astronaut's entry of the module on the International Space Station last week. Take a look.

Picture Quote:  "NASA astronaut Jeff Williams successfully entered the BEAM, the first human rated expandable structure in space."

New Worlds and Irrational Thought

"...given what we now know about the number and orbital positions of the galaxy’s planets, the degree of pessimism required to doubt the existence, at some point in time, of an advanced extraterrestrial civilization borders on the irrational."

-- Statement by astrophysics professor Adam Frank in a New York Times article titled "Yes, There Have Been Aliens." He discussed the findings of a paper titled "A New Empirical Constraint on the Prevalence of Technological Species in the Universe," which uses the Drake equation to re-estimate the likelihood of intelligent alien life given what we have learned to date about exoplanets, concluding "...even if you grant that level of pessimism, a trillion civilizations still would have appeared over the course of cosmic history."

Juno Approaches Jupiter

I remember a lot more excitement about New Horizions approaching Pluto, yet the Juno mission to Jupiter is also an impressive feat.

On July 4th we will have another reason to look up into the sky and celebrate as Juno goes into orbit around Jupiter after a trip that lastest five years. Juno will orbit the planet for about 20 months. 

The goal of the mission is to

...understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter, look for solid planetary core, map magnetic field, measure water and ammonia in deep atmosphere, [and] observe auroras.

That's quite a list of duties and a good reason to stay connected to the mission. So remember to celebrate on the 4th.

Ukrainian Rockets in the US

Ukraine is proposing its rocket industry help replace the current Russian-built RD-180 rockets being used by the US space industry (much to the chagrin of Senator John McCain).

According to a TASS news story, Lyubomyr Sabadosh, head of Ukraine's State Space Agency of Ukraine (SSAU), recently stated:

We have proposes using our capabilities for implementing a joint design solution for the production of a liquid propellant engine, which is currently purchased in the Russian Federation. Our partners have an understanding that it's quite a complicated task, but we can cope with it, and the discussion will take place at the level of professional experts."

While the US has plans to build its own rocket engine, a deal with Ukraine gives us more breathing room while also helping a partner in the region looking for some help. One can only hope US officials give this proposal serious consideration. 

Patience Pays Off: Student Discovers Planets

Michelle Kunimoto, a student at the University of British Columbia, recently discovered four new exoplanets about 3,200 light years away - one close to Mercury in size, two somewhat larger that the Earth, and a fourth closer in size to Neptune.  Ms. Kunimoto is a recent graduate from UBC where she obtained a Bachelor’s degree in physics and astronomy.

How did she do it?  A part of her research as a student, Ms. Kunimoto was studying data from the Kepler Space Telescope, which contained observations of about 150,000 stars. She noticed something odd with one of the stars but it has been missed because of the exoplanets long orbit - 637 days. While Kepler has found other exoplanets with longer orbits, it appears more planets such as these could be in the data for discovery.

In fact, it was this time last year that a high school student in England was credited with finding a Jupiter-sized exoplanet 1,000 light years away. He was looking at data collected by the Wide Angle Search for Planets (WASP) project at Keele University in England, which uses an approach similar to the Kepler Space Telescope.

So the data is out there. Now we simply need more industrious (and patient) students to sort through it. 

Image: UBC student Michelle Kunimoto (right) and astronomy professor Jaymie Matthews (left). Martin Dee/UBC

Great Image: Cat's Eye

An endless variety of a images populate our night sky, such as the death of a star as shown here in the Cat's Eye Nebula. Just the idea of a halo 5 light years across is amazing, large enough to include both our Sun and Alpha Centauri. By the way, a variation on this image was cited in one of my earlier posts. 

Here is the explanation from NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day: 

The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is one of the best known planetary nebulae in the sky. Its more familiar outlines are seen in the brighter central region of the nebula in this impressive wide-angle view. But the composite image combines many short and long exposures to also reveal an extremely faint outer halo. At an estimated distance of 3,000 light-years, the faint outer halo is over 5 light-years across. Planetary nebulae have long been appreciated as a final phase in the life of a sun-like star. More recently, some planetary nebulae are found to have halos like this one, likely formed of material shrugged off during earlier episodes in the star's evolution. While the planetary nebula phase is thought to last for around 10,000 years, astronomers estimate the age of the outer filamentary portions of this halo to be 50,000 to 90,000 years. Visible on the left, some 50 million light-years beyond the watchful planetary nebula, lies spiral galaxy NGC 6552. 

Image Credit & Copyright: Josh Smith

Congress Ponders Travel to Alpha Centauri

SpacePolicyOnline has put together a summary of the latest NASA bill from the House Appropriations Committee covering FY 2017 funding priorities.  Some of the highlights include:

• Rejection of the White House's plan to capture an asteroid and instead a new focus on a manned mission to the Moon;
• Continued support for a robotic mission to Europa;
• Continued support for the SLS and Orion spacecraft; and
• Support for a 2069 mission to Alpha Centauri using propulsion that is 1/10th the speed of light.

I had not heard of the Alpha Centauri mission earlier.  Here is the language from the committee report:

The Committee encourages NASA to study and develop propulsion concepts that could enable an interstellar scientific probe with the capability of achieving a cruise velocity of 0.1c. These efforts shall be centered on enabling such a mission to Alpha Centauri, which can be launched by the one-hundredth anniversary, 2069, of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Propulsion concepts may include, but are not limited to fusion-based implementations (including antimatter-catalyzed fusion and the Bussard interstellar ramjet); matter-antimatter annihilation reactions; multiple forms of beamed energy approaches; and immense ‘sails’ that intercept solar photons or the solar wind. At the present time, none of these are beyond technology readiness level (TRL) 1 or 2. The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program is currently funding concept studies of directed energy propulsion for wafer-sized spacecraft that in principle could achieve velocities exceeding 0.1c and an electric sail that intercepts solar wind protons. Over the past few years NIAC has also funded mission-level concept studies of two fusion-based propulsion concepts. Therefore, within one year of enactment of this Act, NASA shall submit an interstellar propulsion technology assessment report with a draft conceptual roadmap, which may include an overview of potential advance propulsion concepts for such an interstellar mission, including technical challenges, technology readiness level assessments, risks, and potential near-term milestones and funding requirements.

It is odd that we are going back to the Moon while also planning for travel to another star.  Yet the Moon is seen as a better way to get us to Mars.  Here is the committee report on that point:

...the Committee believes that neither a robotic nor a crewed mission to an asteroid appreciably contribute to the over-arching mission to Mars. Further, the long-term costs of launching a robotic craft to the asteroid, followed by a crewed mission, are unknown and will divert scarce resources away from developing technology and equipment  necessary for missions to Mars, namely deep space habitats, accessing and utilizing space resources, and developing entry, descent, landing, and ascent technologies.
Toward that end, no funds are included in this bill for NASA to continue planning efforts to conduct either robotic or crewed missions to an asteroid. Instead, NASA is encouraged to develop plans to return to the Moon to test capabilities that will be needed for Mars, including habitation modules, lunar prospecting, and landing and ascent vehicles. Further, the Committee is supportive of NASA’s efforts to use the International Space Station (ISS) to conduct research necessary to enable long-term human spaceflight, or ‘‘Earth-reliant’’ technology development; cis-lunar space activities, or ‘‘proving ground’’ efforts such as Orion flights on SLS in the vicinity of the Moon, and deployment and testing of deep space habitation modules; and finally, NASA’s ‘‘Earth independent’’ activities which include using cis-lunar space as a staging area, mapping potential human exploration zones and caching samples on Mars as part of the Mars Rover 2020 mission.

It makes sense to me.  Returning to the Moon may not excite some out there, yet if we sell it as a testing ground for Mars it may gain greater support.  We may be joining the Chinese and Russians on the surface as well, but if it takes a space race to get us to the Moon and Mars then so be it.  

Early Report: BEAM Not Inflating

This week NASA started to inflate the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) while attached to the International Space Station. It should have looked like the image above, but early reports indicate the pressurization has not gone well.

NASA has a press conference at noon ET today to discuss the status of BEAM.  We shall learn more, yet I am not surprised with a few glitches at the start of a new approach to space habitation. Overall, I expect Bigelow's habitat will be a solid addition to the space program. 

Update:  Per NASA:

NASA and Bigelow Aerospace will make a second attempt at 9 a.m. EDT Saturday, May 28, to expand the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), currently attached to the International Space Station. NASA Television coverage will begin at 8:45 a.m.

Second Update:  All is well. Yesterday the BEAM successfully inflated (as shows below).  Engineers believe the 15 months of storage may have made the pressurization process more difficult. 

India Tests its Space Shuttle

Who knew India had a space shuttle (shown above). Actually, it is a prototype of a reusable launch vehicle that should lead to greater things. The first flight on Monday lasted only 13 minutes.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted his pleasure at the successful flight earlier this week:

Launch of India's first indigenous space shuttle RLV-TD is the result of the industrious efforts of our scientists. Congrats to them.

This could help India increase its share of the space transportation industry, giving SpaceX and others some real competition. 

Star Trek Returns in Many Forms

If you are awaiting the new Star Trek series on CBS, you may enjoy this new clip setting the stage for the series' release in 2017.  It does not reveal any characters or plot lines, but it does promise new crews, new villains, new heroes, and new worlds.  What else can you ask for?

Of course, you can ask for more information on the next Star Trek film, Star Trek Beyond, and this trailer provides that as well.  As always, the scenes will keep you on the edge of your seat.  Better yet, you will only need to wait until July 22 for the film. 

NYT's APP: A Trip to Pluto

The New York Times has released a 3D video for smartphones called "Seeking Pluto's Frigid Heart" that takes you on a trip to Pluto via New Horizons.  It's a gripping tour specifically designed for a mobile device since you need to turn your entire body to take in everything around you, including the distant Sun, Charon on the horizon, and even the dwarf planet's surface as you observe craters and icy plains. 

The New York Times created the app with the Lunar and Planetary Institute and the Universities Space Research Association. The 3D video debuted at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival, which featured18 virtual reality movies.

You can also watch the video on your desktop, but it does not have the same effect and lacks the clarity of the app.  I recommend you download the app and enjoy the tour. 

Portrait of Mars

The Hubble Space Telescope is useful for "family" shots in our own solar system, as this new image taken May 12th demonstrates.

Here is the rest from NASA:

The large, dark region at far right is Syrtis Major Planitia, one of the first features identified on the surface of the planet by seventeenth-century observers. Christiaan Huygens used this feature to measure the rotation rate of Mars. (A Martian day is about 24 hours and 37 minutes.) Today we know that Syrtis Major is an ancient, inactive shield volcano. Late-afternoon clouds surround its summit in this view.

A large oval feature to the south of Syrtis Major is the bright Hellas Planitia basin. About 1,100 miles across and nearly five miles deep, it was formed about 3.5 billion years ago by an asteroid impact. 

The orange area in the center of the image is Arabia Terra, a vast upland region in northern Mars that covers about 2,800 miles. The landscape is densely cratered and heavily eroded, indicating that it could be among the oldest terrains on the planet. Dried river canyons (too small to be seen here) wind through the region and empty into the large northern lowlands. 

South of Arabia Terra, running east to west along the equator, are the long dark features known as Sinus Sabaeus (to the east) and Sinus Meridiani (to the west). These darker regions are covered by dark bedrock and fine-grained sand deposits ground down from ancient lava flows and other volcanic features. These sand grains are coarser and less reflective than the fine dust that gives the brighter regions of Mars their ruddy appearance. Early Mars watchers first mapped these regions. 

An extended blanket of clouds can be seen over the southern polar cap. The icy northern polar cap has receded to a comparatively small size because it is now late summer in the northern hemisphere. Hubble photographed a wispy afternoon lateral cloud extending for at least 1,000 miles at mid-northern latitudes. Early morning clouds and haze extend along the western limb.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), J. Bell (ASU), and M. Wolff (Space Science Institute)

Great Image: Double Transit of the Sun

The transit of Mercury across the sun was interesting to watch last week, as is the transit of the International Space Station. In fact, both transits are shown in the image above. 

Here is the full story from APOD:

This sharp video frame composite was taken from a well-chosen location in Philadelphia, USA. It follows the space station, moving from upper right to lower left, as it crossed the Sun's disk in 0.6 seconds. Mercury too is included as the small, round, almost stationary silhouette just below center. In apparent size, the International Space Station looms larger from low Earth orbit, about 450 kilometers from Philadelphia. Mercury was about 84 million kilometers away.

Image Credit & Copyright: Thierry Legault

Hillary and UFOs

I am not sure how many votes it will get her, but Hillary Clinton has given UFO enthusiasts her pledge to be more transparent with government data on such events.

In an interview, Clinton stated,

There are enough stories out there that I don’t think everybody is just sitting in their kitchen, making them up.

I remember Newt Gingrich discussing moon colonies during his presidential bid and all he got was a few chuckles. I don't expect Clinton will gain more than that. 

What I would like is full-throated support for a Martian mission. That might excite more Americans and move us beyond tax records, speech transcripts, hand size, and other topics that only frustrate the electorate. We need something hopeful for our future.