Category: Other Worlds and Tech

Space Sunday: cosmic lightsabers, monkeys to Mars and junk in orbit

Posted on by Inara Pey

There were many remarkable space images published throughout 2015. However, perhaps one of the most memorable came at the end of the year, and coincided  with the release of Disney’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, the image was immediately dubbed by the media as the “cosmic lightsaber” due to the manner in which part of the image resembles the double-sided lightsaber used by Darth Maul in an earlier Star Wars film.

It shows a new-born star laying within a cloud of dust, which is shooting out two beams of light from its poles and which seem to cut through the surrounding material and space.

Two beams of light slice through space from the polar regions of a new-born star. Captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, the image was immediately dubbed "the cosmic lightsaber" (image: ESA / NASA / D. Padgett / T. Megeath / B. Reipurth) - click for full size
Two beams of light slice through space from the polar regions of a new-born star. Captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, the image was immediately dubbed “the cosmic lightsaber” (image: ESA / NASA / D. Padgett / T. Megeath / B. Reipurth) – click for full size

The beams are no optical illusion, but the result of material from the surrounding dust cloud falling into the star, only to erupt into supersonic jets of material ejected up through the star’s poles and into space. As the jets travel outwards, so they encounter other dust and material, and distinctive arced shock waves form within the “beams”, which gradually give rise to knotted clumps of material called Herbig-Haro (HH) objects, and are ubiquitous in star-forming regions, although they are relatively short-lived in astronomical terms.

Given the nature of the HH object seen by Hubble (officially designated HH24), it is thought that the star causing it is very young – just a few thousand years old. It lies in a “stellar nursery” some 1,350 light-years away “in” the constellation of Orion, and which has one of the highest concentrations of HH objects yet found in our galaxy.

Another view of the "stellar nursery" where stars are being formed, captured by Hubble. HH24 can be seen at the top left, with further HH objects just visible in the lower right. Both this image and the one above were captured in infrared, allowing Hubble to "look through" the intervening clouds of dust and "see" the jets
Another view of the “stellar nursery” where stars are being formed, captured by Hubble. HH24 can be seen at the top left, with further HH objects just visible in the lower right. Both this image and the one above were captured in infra-red, allowing Hubble to “look through” the intervening clouds of dust and “see” the jets

Monkeys to Mars?

There is a mounting effort to see humans set foot on Mars some time within the next 25 years; however, Russia is apparently set on getting “crew” to Mars by 2017, in the form of four macaque monkeys.

The simians have been selected on the basis of their cognitive and learning abilities, and have been undergoing 3 hours a day of training for a possible flight to Mars, with news of the proposal first reaching the public domain in October 2015. The training is has been taking place at the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow, and initially comprised training the monkeys to operate a joystick system to “shoot” targets on a screen, as indicated by a cursor.  Successful “hits” saw the monkeys rewarded with a sip of juice.

This has been followed by training the monkeys to solve simple puzzles and mathematical problems. “What we are trying to do,”  Inessa Kozlovskaya, responsible for the team training the monkeys, “is to make them as intelligent as possible so we can use them to explore space beyond our orbit,”

The Russian plan is to send the monkeys on a six-month voyage to Mars, during which their heath and ability to function during a prolonged stay in zero gravity conditions will be assessed, together with their exposure to cosmic radiation. However, Russian officials have refused to indicate whether the mission will include a return trip to Earth.

Rhesus macaques are one of the least endangered, most familiar of the "old world" monkeys, and are known for their intelligence and their social bonds (image: "carcoalfeather", deviant art)
Rhesus macaques are one of the least endangered, most familiar of the “old world” monkeys, and are known for their intelligence and their social bonds (image: “carcoalfeather”, deviant art)

Sending animals into space isn’t new. The very first animal to enter space was in fact a rhesus macaque called Albert. He flew a short-duration ballistic flight atop a US V2  in 1948, but died of suffocation mid-flight. His successors were no less fortunate. Alberts II, and IV were killed on impact when their capsule parachutes failed to deploy, and Albert III died when his V2 exploded on the edge of space.

Continue reading “Space Sunday: cosmic lightsabers, monkeys to Mars and junk in orbit” →

Space Sunday: bringing a rocket home; uncovering Ceres

Posted on by Inara Pey
A second from touchdown: the Falcon 9 first stage booster, with landing legs deployed, about to make a successful landing at "Landing Zone 1", Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, having been launched from the space facility 10 minutes earlier as a part of a flight to deploy 11 Orbcomm telecommunications satellites
A second from touchdown: the Falcon 9 first stage booster, with landing legs deployed, about to make a successful landing at “Landing Zone 1”, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, having been launched from the space facility 10 minutes earlier as a part of a flight to deploy 11 Orbcomm telecommunications satellites

On Monday, December 21st, the private space launch company SpaceX achieved a remarkable first in the annals of space flight: they successfully launched a payload carrying rocket into orbit, and then returned its first stage to a safe landing back on Earth, close to its original launch point.

The Falcon 9 rocket, in its first launch since June 2015 when a fuel tank failure lead to the vehicle’s destruction together with the Dragon resupply vehicle it was lifting to the International Space Station, was lifting a total of 11 communications satellites into orbit on behalf of Orbcomm.

The booster lifted-off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 20:29 EST on Monday, December 21st (01:29 UTC, Tuesday December 22nd).  At 2 minutes 27 seconds into the flight, having pushed the vehicle through the densest part of the atmosphere, the first stage engines shut down, and shortly afterwards, the first and second stages separated, allowing the latter’s Merlin engine to ignite.

As the second stage continued to accelerate up to deployment orbit, the first stage coasted upwards before using cold gas thrusters to effectively “flip” the booster around so it could use the first in a series of “boostback burns” of its main engines to slow itself down as well as pushing it back towards Cape Canaveral.

With this completed, the booster used the cold gas thrusters to again flip itself over so it would be descending engines first towards the ground, performing two further “boostback burns” to control its descent before making a final engine burn during the last few dozen metres of the descent and deploying its 4 landing legs and steering vanes for a successful touch down some 10 minutes after lift-off, which was captured by cameras on the ground and aboard an observing helicopter.

The SpaceX success came less than a month after Blue Origin, the private space company founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, also landed the initial stage of their New Shephard launch system following a test launch. However, the latter is not intended to achieve orbital velocities at present, and so the booster stage – referred to as the “propulsion module” by Blue Origin – was not travelling nearly as fast as the Falcon 9 first stage, nor did it have to perform the complex “boostback” manoeuvres.

In the meantime, the second stage continued upwards, successfully deploying the Orbcomm satellites into LEO – low Earth orbit, at around 630 kilometres (just under 400 miles) altitude. With this part of the mission completed, the second stage booster also re-ignited its main engine, allowing it to achieve a geostationary transfer orbit and coast phase.

This was as important as the first stage landing because, while existing Falcon 9 rockets are capable of placing large payloads into geosynchronous equatorial orbit, some 36,000 km (22,000 miles) above the surface of the Earth, it has required the first stage of the rocket to do much more of the work, leaving it with insufficient fuel reserves to attempt a return to Earth and landing. The uprated second stage, tested as a part of this flight, alleviates the first stage of some of the booster phase work, allowing it to retain the fuel it needs to make a successful return to Earth.

The overall hope with the upgraded Falcon 9 and the new landing facilities at Cape Canaveral, is that they will allow SpaceX to lower launch costs to the benefit of customers, and allow them to make more efficient use of their boosters rather than just tossing them away into the Atlantic or Pacific after a single use.

However, even with this first successful landing, the company still has some significant hurdles to clear. One of these will be demonstrating it can refurbish used first stages at a fast enough pace to be able to maintain a launch cadence high enough to be attractive to commercial operators looking for launch opportunities, rather than risking them look to those companies able to offer a faster launch rate.

Nevertheless, SpaceX’s achievement is clear, and after the disappointments in trying to recover the Falcon 9 first stage at sea (initially seen as a “safer” option due to the negligible risk of civilian injuries if anything went wrong when compared to  returning a rocket to Earth near populated areas), deserves every congratulation.

Dawn over Ceres

Dawn mission patch (NASA / JPL)
Dawn mission patch (NASA / JPL)

Dawn, the NASA / ESA joint mission currently mapping Ceres, one of the solar system’s three “protoplanets” located in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, reached its lowest planned orbital altitude in early December, ready to start the final phase of its mission.

The new orbit, just 385 km (230 miles) above Ceres mains the craft can image the surface at a resolution of 35 metres (120 feet) per pixel.

Of particular interest to the science team has been determining the mysterious bright patches seen within the crater Occator during Dawn’s approach to Ceres and during its higher mapping orbits. While perhaps the largest found, the bright spots in Occator are not alone – around 130 bright spots have been located, almost all of them within Ceres’ craters, and analysis now shows that the material  seems to be consistent with salts, such as sulfates, with silicate materials also very likely present.

A false-colour representation Occator Crater on Ceres reveals the short wavelength of the bright deposits in the crater, pointing to them being salts. Occator measures about 90 km (60 miles) across
A false-colour representation Occator Crater on Ceres reveals the short wavelength of the bright deposits in the crater, pointing to them being salts. Occator measures about 90 km (60 miles) across

Continue reading “Space Sunday: bringing a rocket home; uncovering Ceres” →

Space Update: silica mysteries, Brits in space and tracking Santa

Posted on by Inara Pey

new-horizonNew Horizons is still less than half way through transmitting the data gathered during its fly-past of the Pluto-Charon system in July 2015, but the wealth of information received thus far has already revealed much about Pluto and its “twin”.

Geological evidence has been found for widespread past and present glacial activity, including the formation of networks of eroded valleys, some of which are “hanging valleys,” much like those in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. A major part of this activity is occurring in and around “Sputnik Planum”, the left half of Pluto’s “heart”, a 1,000 km (620 mile) wide basin, which is seen as key to understanding much of the current geological activity on Pluto.

Images and data gathered for this region has given rise to new numerical models of thermal convection with “Sputnik Planum”, which is formed by a deep layer of solid nitrogen and other volatile ices. These not only explain the numerous polygonal ice features seen on Sputnik Planum’s surface, but suggest the layer is likely to be a few kilometres in depth.

Evaporation of this nitrogen, together with condensation on higher surrounding terrain is believed causing a glacial flow from the higher lands back down into the basin, where the ice already there is pushed, reshaping the landscape over time.

A ture colour image of Pluto's surface, captures just before the point of closest approach, and created by combining black-and-while images from from the LORRI camera with data gathered by the Ralph instrument suite. The picture show the highlands to one side of "Sputnik Planum with the pockmarked ices of the basin. A combination of evaporation and condensation between the two is giving rise to sustained glaciation on Pluto, showing it to be an active world
A true colour image of Pluto’s surface, captures just before the point of closest approach, and created by combining black-and-while images from from the LORRI camera with data gathered by the Ralph instrument suite. The picture show the highlands to one side of “Sputnik Planum” with the pockmarked ices of the basin. A combination of evaporation and condensation between the two is giving rise to sustained glaciation on Pluto, showing it to be an active world (image: NASA, JHU/APL SwRI)

More data and images have also been received regarding Pluto’s atmosphere, allowing scientists start to probe precisely what processes are at work in generating and renewing the atmosphere, the upper limits of which are subject to erosion by the solar wind, which strike Pluto at some 1.4 million kilometres per hour (900,000 mph).

As well as understanding the processes which are at work renewing the atmosphere, and thus preventing it from being completely blasted away by the solar wind, science teams are hoping to better further why the haze of Pluto’s atmosphere forms a complicated set of layers – some of which are the result of the formation and descent of tholins through the atmosphere – and why it varies spatially around the planet.

The Mars Silica Mystery

In July I covered some of the work going into investigating the mystery of silica on Mars. This is a mineral of particular interest to scientists because high levels of it within rocks could indicate conditions on Mars which may have been conducive to life, or which might preserve any ancient organic material which might be present. In addition.

As I reported back in July, scientists have been particularly interested in the fact that as Curiosity has ascended “Mount Sharp”, so have the amounts of silica present in rocks increased: in some rocks it accounts for nine-tenths of their composition. Trying to work out why this should be, and identifying the nature of some of the silica deposits has given rise to a new set of mysteries.

The first mystery is trying to understand how the silica was deposited – something which could be crucial in understanding how conducive the environment on “Mount Sharp” might have been for life. Water tends to contribute to silica being deposited in rocks in one of two ways. If it is acidic in nature, it tends to leach away other minerals, leaving the silica behind. If it is more neutral or alkaline in nature, then it tends to deposit silica as it filters through rooks.

This May 22, 2015, view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) in NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the "Marias Pass" area where a lower and older geological unit of mudstone -- the pale zone in the center of the image -- lies in contact with an overlying geological unit of sandstone. This view from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) in NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the "Marias Pass" area where a lower and older geological unit of mudstone -- the pale zone in the center of the image -- lies in contact with an overlying geological unit of sandstone. Just before Curiosity reached Marias Pass, the rover's laser-firing Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument examined a rock found to be rich in silica, a mineral-forming chemical. This scene combines several images taken on May 22, 2015, during the 992nd Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars. The scene is presented with a color adjustment that approximates white balancing, to resemble how the rocks and sand would appear under daytime lighting conditions on Earth.
This mosaic of images captures by Curiosity’s Mastcam on May 22nd 2015 (Sol 992), shows the “Marias Pass” region where mudstone (the pale rock in the centre of the image) of the kind the rover had been studying, overlaid by a geological unit of sandstone. rocks in this area should very high concentrations of silica in them, much higher than previously encountered, which the rocks above the area show strong evidence of silica deposition as a result of water action. This image has been white balanced to show the rock under Earth equivalent natural lighting conditions (image: NASA / JPL)

If the water which once flowed down / through “Mount Sharp” was acidic in nature, it would likely mean that the wet environments found on the flanks of the mound were hostile to life having ever arisen there or may have removed any evidence for life having once been present. If evidence that the water was acidic in nature, then it would also possibly point to conditions on “Mount Sharp” may have been somewhat different to those found on the crater floor, where evidence of environments formed with more alkaline water and with all the right building blocks for life to have started, have already been discovered.

The second mystery with the silica is the kind of silica which has been discovered in at least one rock.  Tridymite is a polymorph of silica which on Earth is associated with high temperatures in igneous or metamorphic rocks and volcanic activity. Until Curiosity discovered significantly high concentrations of silica in the “Marias Pass area of “Mount Sharp” some seven months ago – something which led to a four month investigation of the area – tridymite had never been found on Mars.

The region just above "Marias Pass" contained an area referred to as the "Stimson Unit" which showed fracturing rich in silica when compared to the surrounding rocks, suggesting deposition of silica / leaching of other minerals as a result of water action
The region just above “Marias Pass” contained an area referred to as the “Stimson Unit” which showed fracturing rich in silica when compared to the surrounding rocks, suggesting deposition of silica / leaching of other minerals as a result of water action (images: NASA / JPL)

“Marias Pass” and the region directly above it, called the “Stimson Unit” show some of the strongest examples of silica deposition on “Mount Sharp”, and  it was in one of the first rocks, dubbed “Buckskin”, exhibiting evidence of silica deposits in which the tridymite was found.

The question now is: how did it get there? All the evidence for the formation of “Mount Sharp” points to it being sedimentary in nature, rather than volcanic. While Mars was very volcanic early on in its history, the presence of the tridymite on “Mount Sharp” might point to volcanic /  magmatic evolution on Mars continuing for longer than might have been thought, with the mineral being deposited on the slopes of the mound as a result of wind action. Or alternatively, it might point to something else occurring on Mars.

Continue reading “Space Update: silica mysteries, Brits in space and tracking Santa” →

Space Sunday: clouds, sand, meteors and launches

Posted on by Inara Pey
Artist's impression of Akatsuki in orbit around Venus
Artist’s impression of Akatsuki in orbit around Venus

In my last Space Sunday update, I was writing at the very time a final effort was being made to see a little Japanese space probe finally achieve an operational orbit around Venus, precisely five years to the date after the first attempt failed as a result of the craft’s primary motor malfunctioning.

At the time of writing that update, it appeared as if little Akatsuki (“Dawn”), designed to probe the Venusian climate and atmosphere had finally arrived in orbit about the planet, but as I noted, final confirmation would take a while.  In the end, it wasn’t until Wednesday, December 9th that the Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency (JAXA) did confirm Akatsuki, less than a metre on a side (excluding its solar panels) was secure in its orbit around Venus and would likely be able to complete its mission.

Following the failure of its main engine on December 7th 2010 during a critical braking manoeuvre, the probe had finished up in a heliocentric orbit, circling the sun and heading away from Venus. However, orbital mechanics being as they are, both the probe and Venus would occupy the same part of space once again in December 2015, presenting final opportunity to push the probe into orbit using its RCS manoeuvring thrusters. This is precisely what happened on the night of December 6th / 7th, 2015. While not designed for this purpose, a set of the probe’s RCS thrusters undertook a 20-minute burn just before midnight UTC on December 6th, and preliminary telemetry received on Earth some 30+ minutes later showed Akatsuki had achieved sufficient braking to enter a very elliptical orbit around Venus.

A simple orbital diagram released as a part of the low-key JAXA press release confirming Akatsuki had arrived in orbit around Venus
A simple orbital diagram released as a part of the low-key JAXA press release confirming Akatsuki had arrived in orbit around Venus (image: JAXA)

Data received since then show that the craft is in an eccentric orbit with an apoasis altitude (the point at which it is furthest from the surface of Venus) of around 440,000km, and a periapsis altitude (the point at which it is closest to the surface of Venus) of around 400km. This is a considerably broader orbit than the mission had originally intended back in 2010, giving the vehicle an orbital period of around 13.5 days, the orbit slightly inclined relative to Venus’ equator.

An ultra-violet image of Venus, returned by Akatsuki shortly after achieving its initial orbit around the planet, and having passed through periapis, already heading away from the planet
An ultra-violet image of Venus, returned by Akatsuki shortly after achieving its initial orbit around the planet, having passed periapsis during the braking manoeuvre, to head away from the planet (image: JAXA)

In order to maximise the science return from the vehicle – which is now operating well in excess of its designed operational life – JAXA plan to use the next few months to gradually ease Akatsuki in an orbit which reduces both the apoasis distance from Venus, and bring down the orbital period to about 9 days.

These manoeuvres will likely be completed by April 2016, allowing the full science mission to finally commence.  This is aimed at learning more about the atmosphere and weather on Venus as well as confirm the presence of active volcanoes and thunder, and also to try to understand exactly why  Earth and Venus developed so differently from each other, despite being seen as sister planets in some regards.

Even so, right from its arrival in its initial orbit, Akatsuki has been flexing its muscles, testing its imaging systems and returning a number of preliminary pictures of Venus to Earth, such as the ultra-violet image shown above right, captured just after the craft finally achieved orbit.

Curiosity reaches Sea of Sand

NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity has reached the edge of the major “sea” of sand dunes located on the flank of “Mount Sharp”. Dubbed the ““Bagnold Dunes” after British military engineer Ralph Bagnold, who pioneered the study of sand dune formation and motion, doing much to further the understanding of mineral movements and transport by wind action. Such studies are seen as an essential part of understanding how big a role the Marian wind played in depositing concentrations of minerals often associated with water across the planet, and by extension, the behaviour and disposition of liquid water across Mars.

Sand is not a new phenomenon for rovers on Mars to encounter – Curiosity, Opportunity and Spirit have all had dealings with it in the past; in fact Spirit’s mission as a rover came to an end in 2009, after it effectively got stuck in a “sand trap”. However, the “Bagnold Dunes” are very different to the sandy environs previously encountered by rovers; it is a huge “genuine” dune field where the sand hills can reach the height of 2-storey buildings and cover areas equivalent to an American football field.

The rippled surface of the first Martian sand dune ever studied up close. Captured by Curiosity's Mastcam on November 27th, 2015 (Sol 1,176 on Mars), the view is looking up the curved slope of "High Dune", revealing a rippled surface of sand sculpted by the wind. The Bagnold dunes" are "active", in that they are migrating down the slope of "Mount Sharp" at the rate of around one metre (39 inches) a year. The dunes are active, migrating up to about one yard or meter a year.
The rippled surface of the first Martian sand dune ever studied up close. Captured by Curiosity’s Mastcam on November 27th, 2015 (Sol 1,176 on Mars), looking up the curved slope of “High Dune” as it rises above Curiosity. The “Bagnold Dunes” are “active”, in that they are migrating down the slope of “Mount Sharp” at the rate of around one metre (39 inches) a year  (image: NASA / JPL)

So far, Curiosity has only probed the edge of the dune field around a sand hill originally dubbed “Dune 1”, and now called “High Dune”, using both its camera to image the region and its wheels to test the surface material prior to moving deeper into the sands. Wheel slippage is a genuine concern for the rover when moving on loose surfaces, as it can both overtax the motors and put the rover at risk of toppling over. Given this, and while there are no plans to attempt any ascent up the side of a dune, the mission team are taking things cautiously.

Continue reading “Space Sunday: clouds, sand, meteors and launches” →

In the Press: the future of VR with Bloomberg

Posted on by Inara Pey
Emily Chang from Bloomberg Business discusses the future of VR with Ebbe Altberg and AltspaceVR CEO Eric Romo
Emily Chang from Bloomberg Business discusses the future of VR with Ebbe Altberg and AltspaceVR CEO Eric Romo (via Bloomberg Business)

On Monday, December 7th, Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg appeared alongside AltspaceVR’s CEO and founder, Eric Romo  on Bloomberg Business with Emily Chang, to discuss How to Find Realistic Timeline for Virtual Reality. In the interview, which lasts just under 5 minutes, the three discussed the potential of VR including.

The foundation for the interview is a report by TrendForce which proclaims the VR market will be worth around US $70 billion by 2020, with some US $20 billion coming from hardware purchases and US $50 billion from software and applications. It’s the latest in a bullish series of predictions on the future of the technology, many of which have gone unchallenged – and even then, TrendForce believe their prediction is an “understatement”. But how likely is it?

The Trend Force prediction for VR growth (via Bloomberg Business)
The Trend Force prediction for VR growth (via Bloomberg Business)

US $70 billion represents a tenfold increase in market worth for an industry slated to generate around US $6.7 billion in 2016. However you look at it, that’s a pretty steep growth curve. Both Ebbe and Eric see it as “reasonable”, with the latter citing the idea that a lot of companies which might not be considered as “VR companies” seeing a value proposition in the technology and leveraging it within their business model. In particular, he refers to the expected upsurge in VR as a paradigm shift comparable to that witnessed with the smartphone revolution.

Others are more cautious, as is the case with Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe, who is shown commenting:

We definitely believe the mass market … there’s going to be a lot of adopters, early adopters, of VR. but if you’re looking at the kind of smartphone scale, you know, billions of users out there, that’s going to take a long time.

While not nay-saying the potential of VR, other analysts view the TrendForce report as being unhelpful. When approached by Tweak Town, for example, Moor Insights & Strategy’s VR Analyst Anshel Sag, had this to say:

$70 billion by 2020 is more than extremely ambitious, $70 billion assumes that VR is a mature and mainstream market. There is no way that VR will explode into such a mature market within effectively 4 years. While I am extremely optimistic about the future of VR, such projections do nothing but hurt the future of VR by setting unrealistic expectations. There are no players in any part of the market that could turn this industry into a $70 billion industry in 4 years.

During the Bloomberg discussion, there is an acceptance that VR needs to overcome certain technical hurdles to gain more of a mass-market appeal. Certainly, these issues – cost, reliance on high-end supporting technology, etc. – are real, and doubtless will be overcome. But they aren’t the single issue facing VR in terms of its adoption.

Like it or not, VR is actually an isolating experience. Sure, you can in theory see anything, go anywhere, etc., while using it. But you do so at the expense of pretty much cutting you off from the rest of the world around you. It curtails your ability to properly interact with the things around you, to multi-task, etc. For many people and situations, even those seen as potential VR use-cases, that could curb the appeal.

There’s something else as well to be considered when discussing VR and its potential; what might be called the elephant in the room: augmented reality.

While AR is off to a slower start that VR, it is fair to say that it has the potential to reach into many of those markets and use-cases as seen to be ideal for VR, and offer a more attractive option in doing so. Initial AR systems are far more self-contained and portable; those on the horizon promise a wealth of capabilities (up to and including VR). More to the point, they do not isolate users from the world around them, something which could make AR far more practical and appealing for everyday use in the house, at work, on the street, etc.

By the time VR is really in a position to offer low-cost, lightweight systems freed from requiring high-end computing power, it could be facing stiff competition from AR for many of the markets seen as "ideal" for its use
By the time VR is really in a position to offer low-cost, lightweight systems freed from requiring high-end computing power, it could be facing stiff competition from AR for many of the markets seen as “ideal” for its use (image via CastAR)

So, it could be said that AR appears to be a far more natural proposition for widespread adoption and use, becoming a far more natural evolution from (and with) mobile and smartphone technologies. Hence why some put AR’s market worth as being in excess for US $100 billion by 2020.

Which is not to say that VR doesn’t have a place in the future. There are very niche and compelling cases where it will gain momentum. But whether it will ever reach the level of adoption comparable to the smartphone, as is so often cited, is questionable. There is no reason why, that for many of those potentially uses of VR outside of entertainment and gaming, AR might not offer a far better value proposition for take-up when compared to VR, leading to the latter being subsumed by it well before it has the opportunity to reach the scale of growth predicted for it.

You can catch the Bloomberg video by flowing the link towards the top of this piece, or you can catch the audio below.

Space Sunday: of Venus, Cosmic Girl and Cygnus

Posted on by Inara Pey
Artist's impression of Akatsuki in orbit around Venus
Artist’s impression of Akatsuki in orbit around Venus

It is not often that I get to report on a space event that is happening right as I’m wiring about it; but that is precisely what happened as I wrote this edition of Space Sunday.

As I was typing, high above Venus, a little cube-like space craft measuring just over a metre on a side and supported by two stubby solar panel “wings”, had been making a final desperate attempt to enter orbit around the planet.

Akatsuki (“Dawn”), is a Japanese space probe also known by the names Venus Climate Orbiter (VCO) and Planet-C. Its mission is to study the dense, intense atmosphere of Venus and gain greater insight into how it formed, whether it has active weather phenomena such as lightning, and whether Venus itself may still be volcanically active. It is also a vehicle which has taken “the long way around” in order to reach its target.

Originally launched on May 20th, 2010 Akatsuki should have entered orbit around Venus on December 7th of that year. In order to do so, the vehicle had to carry out a 12-minute “burn” of its main engine to slow itself to the point where it would be caught by Venus’ gravity and so swing into an elliptical orbit. However, while the engine did fire as expected, a fuel valve failed, preventing the burn from being completed as required, and Akatsuki failed to achieve the desired orbit, and instead was left strained in a heliocentric (Sun-centred orbit) which would bring the craft back into proximity with Venus five years later – on the evening (UK time) of the 6th / 7th December 2015.

Having managed to keep the little craft alive and functioning during the intervening years, this second encounter offer a final opportunity to get Akatsuki safely into orbit around Venus, where it might complete its primary mission. Final because the craft has already far exceeded its operational life span, and such an opportunity is unlikely to come again.

Emily Lakdawalla provided this diagram of the Akatsuki orbit insertion attempt
Emily Lakdawalla of The Planetary Society provided this diagram of the Akatsuki orbit insertion attempt

So it was that at around 23:51 UTC on Sunday, December 6th, Akatsuki fired one set of its reaction control system (RCS) thrusters for 20 minutes in an attempt to push itself into an extended orbit around Venus (VOI – for Venus Orbital Insertion – in the diagram above).  Entirely automated, the attempt could, if required, be followed by an additional motor firing if telemetry received on Earth indicated the first burn had failed.

At 00:24 UTC on December 7th, data received from the vehicle, having taken over 8 minutes to be transmitted to Earth and then be processed, indicated the initial motor firing had been successful, and that Akatsuki should have established itself in an extended elliptical orbit around Venus, between 300,000 to 400,000 km above the surface of the planet. This is somewhat greater than the original orbit for the craft, which would have varied between 300 to 80,000 km, but it still should be close enough for the probe to undertake most of its science mission, although it will be several hours before this is confirmed.

 Cosmic Girl Gets Ready to Launch

Virgin Galactic is probably best known for two things: Richard Branson and trying to develop a sub-orbital flight capability which will allow fare-paying tourists enjoy a few minutes of “weightlessness” at the edge of space, marketing itself as the “world’s first commercial space line”.

However, the company is also looking to enter the lucrative market of commercial satellite launches, using a vehicle they’ve christened LauncherOne. The vehicle is specifically intended to to provide a launch capability for “smallsats”, sub-500 kg satellites, an increasingly poplar market sector, but one where very often the main means of getting into orbit is by “hitch-hiking” aboard launchers carrying other payloads.

Virgin Galactic: entering the satellite launch market with the 2-stage LauncherOne
Virgin Galactic: entering the satellite launch market with the 2-stage LauncherOne

Unlike most boosters, LauncherOne is designed to be air-launched. That is, carried aloft by an aircraft to an altitude of some 10,770 metres (35,000 ft) before being released to allow its first and second stage motors carry its payload up to the required orbit.

The technique isn’t new – it is used most notably by the Pegasus launch system developed by Orbital ATK, and which first flew in 1990. However, the technique offers some significant advantages. The most obvious of these is that by lifting the booster a fair way out of the denser part of the Earth’s atmosphere, less fuel is required for the rocket to reach orbit, reducing its overall mass and cost. Air-launched missions also aren’t restricted to a launchpad; they can be undertaken from any airport where there are suitable facilities for handling the booster itself, thus maximising the potential launch profiles a customer might need. When all the benefits are put together, it means that Virgin Atlantic can offer tailor-made smallsat launch capabilities to clients for just US $10 million a shot.

White Knight Two flying to the Farnborough air Show in 2012 with a mock-up of the original LauncherOne mounted beneath it (Image: Virgin Galactic)
White Knight Two flying to the Farnborough air Show in 2012 with a mock-up of the original LauncherOne mounted beneath it (Image: Virgin Galactic)

Continue reading “Space Sunday: of Venus, Cosmic Girl and Cygnus” →