Category: Space Sunday

Another of the first cadre of humans to visit the Moon and its vicinity was lost to us on June 7th, with the death of William Alison “Bill” Anders at the age of 90.

Born in 1933 in the (then) British Crown Colony of Hong Kong, Anders was the son of a US naval officer on deployment to Hong Kong and China, the family becoming embroiled in the Sino-Japanese War when it broke out in 1937. This forced Anders’ mother to flee Nanjing with her son and survive by wits alone to get them both back to the United States, where they were reunited with Anders’ father, who had been wounded and subsequently rescued by British forces after the Japanese dive-bombed his patrol vessel out from underneath him.

Initially opting to follow his father into the Navy, Anders studied at the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, gaining a degree in electrical engineering. However, enamoured with flying, on graduation he opted to take a commission into the US Air Force and became a fighter pilot. After a series of non-combat operational tours, he sought to become a test pilot – which required he have an MSc. Initially studying aeronautical engineering, he switched to nuclear engineering, gaining his MSc in 1962. However, at that time NASA was recruiting its third astronaut intake and applied and was accepted.

In late 1966, Anders was assigned to the crew of Apollo 9, alongside Frank Borman and Michael Collins. Together, they would carry out the second Earth-orbiting, crewed check-out of the Apollo Lunar Module (LM), following-on from the Apollo 8 mission crewed by James McDivitt, David Scott and Russell “Rusty” Schweickart. However, by mid-1968, and with both flights due before the end of that year, the LM was not fit for supporting astronauts in space. Fearing the Russians were about to fly a crew around the Moon, NASA decided to switch gear: Apollo 8 would become a cislunar mission, flying with just the Apollo Command and Service Modules (CSM), and Apollo 9 would then complete 1 Earth-orbit crewed test of the LM.

Only McDivitt and his crew didn’t want to go around the Moon, feeling their expertise was better suited to the LM test flight. So instead, the crews were swapped – Borman and Anders, now joined by James “Jim” Lovell, Michael Collins having suffered a back injury requiring surgery – became the Moon-orbiting Apollo 8 crew, and McDivitt’s mission was re-designated Apollo 9, to fly in early 1969.

Thus, on December 21st, 1968, Apollo 8 lifted-off for the Moon, racking up a number of firsts along the way: the first crewed flight of the Saturn V rocket, the first crewed spacecraft to leave Earth’s gravitational sphere of influence; the first crewed  spaceflight to reach the Moon; the first crew to broadcast to Earth from lunar orbit – and most famously of all – the first humans to ever witness Earthrise, with Anders capturing what is now regarded as “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken”.

The picture was captured on Christmas Eve 1968, as Anders was using a 70mm Hasselblad camera loaded with a black-and-white film cartridge to image the lunar surface when he happened to look up through the Command Module’s window and see Earth starting to come into view over the Moon’s limb. Calling to Lovell for a colour film cartridge, he quickly re-loaded his camera with it and then took the iconic shot we all now know as Earthrise.

In doing so, he was actually the second human to photograph the Earth rising over the Moon’s limb; the honour of being the first actually goes to Frank Borman – only his camera was also only loaded with black-and-white film. Thus Anders is the first human to capture the sight in the colour image which has come to represent the beauty, loneliness and fragility of the world we call.

If you can imagine yourself in a darkened room with only one clearly visible object, a small blue-green sphere about the size of a Christmas-tree ornament, then you can begin to grasp what the Earth looks like from space. I think that all of us subconsciously think that the Earth is flat … Let me assure you that, rather than a massive giant, it should be thought of as the fragile Christmas-tree ball which we should handle with considerable care.

– Bill Anders describing how he felt when seeing the Earth appearing from behind the limb of the Moon

Bill Anders would only make that one flight in space. In May 1969 he was appointed to the influential position of executive secretary of the National Aeronautics and Space Council (NASC), where he did significant work in developing US space policy. In 1973 he was appointed to one of the five leadership slots of the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), transferring to chair the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) when that was formed in 1975.In mid-1976 he was appointed (at his request) as the US Ambassador to Norway, prior to moving to the private sector and the start of a highly successful career in business in 1977, finally retiring in 1994.

Passionate about flying, Anders, together with his wife Valerie and two of his sons – Alan and Greg – founded the Heritage Flight Museum in 1996, regularly flying the museum’s pistoned-engined aircraft and air shows around the United States. He also owned and operated a T34 Mentor training aircraft, and on June 7th, 2024, he took to the air in this aircraft to fly circuits over Puget Sound, Washington State, where he lived. During this flight it appears – via eye witness video – he attempted a low-altitude loop in a channel between two islands, but the aircraft failed to pull up in time, slamming into the water and breaking up, likely killing Anders instantly. The accident is now under investigation by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

Anders is survived by his wife of 67 years, Valerie, and their six children.

Starliner Launches; Issues Persist

Boeing’s much-troubled CST-100 Starliner finally lifted-off on its first crewed test flight at 14:52 UTC on Wednesday, June 5th, finally sending astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams on their way to the International Space Station (ISS) in a flight intended to help clear the Starliner capsule for use in ferrying up to four crew at a time to the ISS, and in an emergency (and depending on available seating), returning up to 7 to Earth.

As I’ve reported in past Space Sundays, the Crew Flight Test of the vehicle has been plagued by problems – many with Starliner itself, but also extending to launch systems on the ground and systems within its launch vehicle, the Atlas-Centaur V-N22. However, the launch on June 5th was flawless, and marked both the first time in history that humans have flown atop the veritable Atlas V, which is more usually employed for cargo carrying launches, and the first time since Apollo 7 in 1967 that a crewed vehicle has lifted-off from facilities at Cape Canaveral Space Force station (then called the Cape Kennedy Air Force Station).

Fifteen minutes after launch the Starliner separated from the Centaur upper stage, entering a sub-orbital trajectory around the Earth, allowing for a preliminary vehicle check-out and a rapid return to Earth in the event of issues. With the crew and ground personnel satisfied all was well, Wilmore and Williams used the vehicle’s propulsion system to increase its altitude and velocity, enabling it to enter orbit 31 minutes after lift-off.

The rest of June 5th saw the crew carry out a series of tests with the vehicle as it climbed towards the ISS, putting it through various manoeuvres and testing communications and other systems. During this time further helium leaks were detected in the vehicle’s thruster system – a known leak having been the cause of one of the delays to the mission’s launch – and 6 of the vehicle’s 28 thrusters were shut down. This did not impact vehicle performance, but the fact that four further helium leaks were detected on top of the known leak indicates there may be a systematic issue within the design of the propulsion system.

Further issues occurred during the vehicle’s approach to the ISS on June 6th, when five of the reaction control system (RCS) thrusters were automatically deactivated, forcing the actual docking to be delayed, Starliner held in a station-keeping position by Wilmore and Williams some 200 metres from the station whilst a team on the ground recovered four of the recalcitrant thrusters, enabling the vehicle to dock with the Harmony module on the station. Hatches between vehicle and station being opened 2 hours after docking, to allow for further post-flight checks on the dock seal within the vehicle and for Williams and Wilmore to change out of their pressure suits.

The vehicle will remain docked at the ISS for several more days prior to departure with Wilmore and Williams for a return to Earth and a soft landing in New Mexico on June 14th.

Continue reading “Space Sunday: Bill Anders; Starliner & Starship” →

Curiosity, NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, arrived on Mars in 2012 – and helped kick-off Space Sunday in this blog. Since then, the mission has been a resounding success; even now the rover continues climbing the flank of “Mount Sharp” (officially designated Aeolis Mons), the 5km high mound of sedimentary and other material towards the centre of Gale Crater where it landed, revealing more and more of the planet’s secrets.

However, there has been one long-running mystery about Curiosity’s findings as it has traversed Gale Crater and climbed “Mount Sharp”. As it has been exploring, the rover has at times been sensing methane in the immediate atmosphere around it. Methane can be produced by both organic (life-related) and inorganic means – so understanding its origins is an important area of study. Unfortunately, Curiosity is ill-equipped to easily detect and investigate potential sources of the gas; that’s more a job for its sibling, Perseverance. As such, the overall cause of the methane Curiosity has detected remains a mystery.

And it is a mystery compounded in several ways. For example: the methane often only seems to “come out” at night; the amount being detected seems to fluctuate with the seasons, suggesting it might be linked to the local environmental changes; but then, and for no apparent reason, Curiosity can sometimes sniff it in concentrations up to 40 times greater than it had a short time before – or after. A further mystery is that whilst Curiosity detects methane in the atmosphere around it, it is the only vehicle on Mars to thus far do so to any significant extent.

Further, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), a vehicle specifically designed to sniff out trace gases like methane throughout the Martian atmosphere has, since 2018 when it started operations, almost totally failed to do so. All of which suggests that whatever Curiosity is encountering is unique to the environment of Gale Crater – and possibly to “Mount Sharp” itself.

Given this, scientists have been trying to determine the source of methane, but so far, they haven’t come up with a specific answer. However, current thinking is that it has something to do with subsurface geological processes involving water – with one avenue of research suggesting that it is curiosity itself that is in part responsible for its release, particularly when it comes to the sudden bursts of methane it detects.

A recent study by planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre has demonstrated that any methane within Gale Crater, whether produced by organic or inorganic means, might actually be following the path outlined in the diagram above – but is getting trapped within the regolith by salt deposits before it can ever be outgassed. However, this was not the original intent of the study, which first started in 2017.

At that time, a team of researchers at NASA’s Goddard Research Centre led by Alexander Pavlov, were investigating whether or not bacteria could survive in an analogue of the kind of regolith Curiosity has encountered across Gale Crater and within environmental conditions the rover has recorded. Their results were inclusive in terms of organic survivability, but they did find that the processes thought to be at work within Gale Crater could lead to the formation of solidified salty lumps within their analogue of Martian regolith.

And there the matter might have rested, but for a report Pavlov read in 2019, as he noted in discussing the results of his team’s more recent work.

We didn’t think much of it at the moment. But then MSL Curiosity detected unexplained bursts of methane on Mars in 2019. That’s when it clicked in my mind. We began testing conditions that could form the hardened salt seals and then break them open to see what might happen.

– Alexander Pavlov, Planetary Scientist, NASA Goddard Research Centre

As a result, Pavlov and his team went back to their work, looking at the nature of the sedimentary layers of “Mount Sharp”, the amount of water ice they might contain, etc., and started testing more regolith analogues to see what might happen with different concentrations of perchlorates within the water ice. Starting with around a 10% suspension (much hight than has ever been found on Mars), the team gradually worked down to under 5% (closer to Curiosity’s findings, but still admittedly high). In all cases, they found that not only did the perchlorates leach out of the escaping water vapour as it passed through the reoglith analogue to form frozen lumps, it tended to do so at a fairly uniform depth the lumps combining over time  – an average of 10 days – to form what is called a “duricrust” layer.

Duricrusts are extensive (in terms of the area they might cover) layers of frozen minerals trapped within the Martian regolith. They were first noted in detail during the NASA InSight lander mission (operational on the surface of Mars between November 2018 and December 2022), significantly impacting the effectiveness of the lander’s HP3 science instrument, which included a tethered “mole” designed to burrow down into the Martian regolith. However, the “mole” kept encountering duricrust layers which, as it broke through, would surround its pencil-like body with a cushion of very loose, fine material which completely absorbed the spring-loaded action of its burrowing mechanism, preventing it from driving itself forward.

In their tests, Pavlov and his team found that the perchlorate duricrust formed in their tests would not only spread across a sample container, it was very effective in trapping neon gas (their methane analogue). Further, when the samples were exposed to the kind of natural expansion and contraction regolith on Mars would experience during a day / night cycle, they found the gas could indeed escape through cracks in the duricrust into the chamber’s atmosphere and be detected – just as with the methane around Curiosity. They also found that if a sample were subject to a pressure analogous to that of the wheel of a 1-tonne rover passing over it, it could be crushed and allow a sudden concentrated venting of any gas under it – again in the manner Curiosity has sometimes encountered.

Whether or not this is what is happening in Gale Crater, however, is open to question – as Pavlov notes. Firm conclusions cannot be drawn from his team’s work simply because scientist have no idea how much methane might actually be trapped within Gale Crater’s regolith, or whether it is being renewed by some source. As already noted, Curiosity is ill-quipped to study methane concentrations in the regolith and rock samples it gathers, because when the one instrument which could do so – the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument – was designed, it was believed any methane trapped within Mars would be so deep as to be beyond the rover’s reach, and it thus wasn’t considered as something that would require analysis. While SAM can be configured for the work, it takes considerable time and effort to do so – and that is time and effort taken away from its primary science work, which is more-or-less constant as it handles both rock and atmospheric samples gathered by the rover.

Even so, the Goddard work is compelling for a number of reasons; it points to the fact that howsoever any methane within Gale Crater might be produced (organically or minerally), there is a good chance it is becoming mostly trapped within the regolith, and possibly in concentrated pockets. If this can be shown to be the case, and if these pockets could be localised and reached by a future mission, they might some day give up the secret to their formation – including the potential they are the result of colonies of tiny Martian microbes munching and farting (so so speak!).

Continue reading “Space Sunday(ish!): Mars methane mysteries” →

Monday, May 6th 2024 should hopefully mark the start of a new phase of crewed space launches from US soil when the long-overdue NASA Crewed Flight Test (CFT) of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner lifts-off from Canaveral Space Force Station and heads for the International Space Station (ISS).

As I’ve noted in these updates, the Starliner is one of two commercial vehicles specifically contracted by NASA to handle crew transfers to / from the ISS (the other being the SpaceX Crew Dragon), under the the Commercial Crew Program (CCP). Like Crew Dragon, it comprises a reusable capsule powered and supported by an expendable service module. Like both NASA’s Orion capsule (which is somewhat larger) and the Crew Dragon (which is somewhat smaller), the Starliner is also capable of other missions to low-Earth orbit outside of its primary NASA function.

Capable of carrying up to seven people (the general crew complement for an ISS Expedition crew rotation) – although normal operations will see it carry four at a time -, Starliner is designed to be used for 10 flights with a 6-month turn-around time. The system was first unveiled in 2010, and was intended to build on Boeing’s experience with NASA and the Department of Defence; with the company confident the vehicle could be flying by 2015 were NASA to fund it forthwith. However, as NASA did not grant a contract (US $4.2 billion) until 2014, the first flight (+ vehicle certification) was pushed back to 2017 – although development work on the vehicle continued between 2010-2014 due to funding via NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) contract.

However, as as I’ve again charted in these pages, the programme has been beset with issues – many of them to Boeing’s complete embarrassment. Over confidence on Boeing’s part saw the initial uncrewed test flight(OFT-1) delayed and delayed, finally taking place in December 2019. Post-launch a number of software errors were found, including an 11-hour offset in the vehicle’s mission clock, which resulted in an over-use of propellants and leaving the vehicle unable to rendezvous with the ISS. To further software errors were detected during the flight, either of which might otherwise have resulted in the complete loss of the vehicle.

As a result, a second Orbital Flight Test was required, to be undertaken at Boeing’s expense. Again the company was bullish about things, stating they could complete it in 2020, despite NASA requesting some significant updates to the docking system (which were further exacerbated by COVID, admittedly hardly Boeing’s fault). As a result, the launch pushed back to August 2021, and things went sideways.

somehow, Boeing managed to assemble the vehicle, ship it to Canaveral Space Force Station, have ULA integrate it into its Atlas V launcher, roll it out to the pad and then realise 13 propulsion system valves were stuck in the wrong position. Rather than scrub the mission and roll the vehicle back for a complete check-out and repair, Boeing then tried to carry out a fix on the launch pad, and when that failed, at the ULA Vertical Integration Facility (VIF). Only after this (somewhat risky) options failed, did the company return the spacecraft to the factory for proper remedial action – only to then enter into an embarrassing attempt to blame-shift with propulsion system supplier Aerojet Rocketdyne.

As a result, OFT-2 did not take place until May 2022, and whilst largely successful, the flight saw issues with both the Orbital Manoeuvring and Attitude Control System (OMACS) and Reaction Control System (RCS). Even so, the flight was seen as meeting all of NASA’s requirements and Starliner was cleared for a crewed test flight (CFT), initially scheduled for early 2023,  only for more issues to cause it to be pushed back. Chief among these were problems with the parachute harness linking the capsule to its descent parachute and also – most worryingly – the discovery that flammable tape had been used with electrical wiring in the vehicle (a contributing factor to the tragedy of the Apollo 1 fire in 1967). The need to subject the parachute harness to upgrades and testing, and to go through the capsule inch by inch and replace the flammable tape knocked any hope of a 2023 CFT launch on the head, and it was pushed by to April / May 2024, with May 6th eventually being selected for the launch day.

For the last couple of weeks, final preparations for the launch have been taking place at both Kennedy Space Centre, where the 2-person crew have been in pre-flight quarantine (with the exception of the pre-flight team assigned to them) so as to avoid either contracting any communicable illness which might be passed to the crew on the ISS; and at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, most recently with the roll-out of the Starliner vehicle Calypso atop its Atlas V launch vehicle.

The launch will mark the first used of the human-rated N22 variant of the Atlas V, and the first time any variant of the Atlas family of launch vehicles has lifted humans to space since the days of Project Mercury in the 1960s. The launch will also mark the first crewed launch from Cape Canaveral since Apollo 7 (October 1968). The mission is scheduled to last 6 days, with the crew flying the vehicle to a rendezvous and manual docking with the ISS, where they will remain for several days prior to undocking and making a return to Earth and touch down on land (Starliner does not make the more usual – for US crewed capsules – ocean splashdowns, instead using propulsive braking and an airbag, both of which operate in the last second prior to the vehicle landing, to cushion the crew).

Whilst a manual rendezvous and docking with the space station is a major goal for the mission, CFT-1 is also about getting a hands-on view of the vehicle’s capabilities and flight systems, together with an overall assessment of its human factors and handling during dynamic events (e.g. launch, docking, atmospheric re-entry and landing). For this, the crew selected for the mission are highly qualified test pilots turned astronauts in the form of mission Commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore, a Captain in the US Navy NASA, and Pilot Sunita “Suni” Williams, also a Captain in the US Navy.

Wilmore has spent a total of 178 days in space, flying both the space shuttle (STS-129) in the Pilot’s seat, and on the Russian Soyuz vehicle, which he used in 2014 to reach the ISS as a part of the Expedition 41/42 long duration station crew. As a fleet pilot, he gained over 6,200 hours flying a range of jet fighter and interceptor aircraft and making 663 at-sea landings aboard multiple US aircraft carriers. He also flew 21 combat missions during Operation Desert Storm. As a test pilot, he was heavily involved in the certification of the T-45 Goshawk trainer (a US version of the venerable British Hawk trainer) for carrier flight training, and served as an instructor for both US Navy fixed wing aviators and pilots training at the US Air Force Test Pilot School.

Williams served in the US Navy flying rotary aircraft, flying with Helicopter Combat Support squadrons. She flew missions during Operation Desert Shield, and was a senior pilot-in-charge of a detachment of Navy helicopters flying relief and rescue missions following Hurricane Andrew in 1993. She is qualified as a pilot, a test pilot and an instructor pilot on over 30 types of rotary wing aircraft, including helicopters and the likes of the V-22 Osprey.

As a NASA astronaut, she has flown in space no fewer than six times, for a total of 321 days 17 hours in space, 50 hours of which were spent carrying out 7 EVAs outside of the space station, marking her as one of NASA’s top five most experienced EVA astronauts. She was also the first person to run a marathon in space, officially participating in the 2007 Boston Marathon. She did this using a treadmill and bungee cords to hold her in place, completing the run distance in 4 hours 24 minutes – during which time she actually circled the Earth 3 times! She took part in the same marathon again in 2008.

Providing CFT-1 is a success and meets all of its goals, it will clear the way for crewed flight operations using Starliner to commence in 2025. No date has been set for the first operational flight, Starliner-1, but it is due to launch a 4-man crew of NASA astronauts Scott Tingle and Michael Fincke, Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui on a planned 6-month stay at the space station. Once operational Starliner will fly annually on ISS missions from 2025 through 2030, splitting operations with Crew Dragon.

Whilst Starliner can – like Crew Dragon – be used for other orbital mission types, Boeing stated recently that it currently has no plans to start operating the craft commercially. However, the company is a partner in the Blue Origin-led Orbital Reef commercial space station project. This is due to commence orbital operations in the late 2020s, and Starliner is the designated crew vehicle for operations and crew flights relating to that station.

Continue reading “Space Sunday: Starliners and samples” →