Tag: Orion SLS

Space Sunday: Juno, Orion and getting to Mars

Posted on by Inara Pey
An artist's impression of Juno orbiting Jupiter (Nasa JPL)
An artist’s impression of Juno orbiting Jupiter (Nasa JPL)

Juno is the name of the NASA deep space vehicle due to rendezvous with Jupiter in July 2016. Launched August 5th, 2011, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the mission is designed to study Jupiter’s composition, gravity field, magnetic field, and polar magnetosphere, as well as seeking evidence and clues on how the planet formed, including whether it has a solid core, the amount of water present within the deep atmosphere, how its mass is distributed, and its deep winds, which can reach speeds of 618 kilometres per hour (384 mph).

Unlike most vehicles designed to operate beyond the orbit of Mars, which tend to utilise radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) to produce their electrical power, Juno uses three massive solar arrays, the largest ever deployed on a planetary probe, which play an integral role in stabilising the spacecraft.

On arrival at Jupiter on July 4th, 2016, Juno will enter a 14-day polar orbit around the planet, where it will remain through the duration of the mission, which should last until February 2018, when the vehicle, fuel for its manoeuvring systems almost depleted, will be commanded to perform a de-orbit manoeuvre and burn-up in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere.

Juno's journey
Juno’s journey (image: NASA)

Currently travelling at some 25 kilometres per second relative to the Earth and 7.6 kilometres per second relative to the Sun, Juno has used a 5-year gravity assist mission to reach its destination.

The first part of this saw the craft launched into an extended orbit about Earth which carried it beyond the orbit of Mars (2012), before swinging back to make a close flyby of Earth in 2013 which both used Earth’s gravity well to accelerate the craft and as a “slingshot” to curve it onto a trajectory that would carry it to Jupiter.

By the time Juno enters orbit around Jupiter, it will have travelled some 2.8 billion kilometres (1.74 billion miles, or 18.7 AU).

Juno’s planned polar orbit is highly elliptical and takes it to within 4,300 kilometres (2,672 mi) of either pole at its closest approach to the planet, while at its furthest point from Jupiter, it will be beyond the orbit of Callisto, hence the 14–day orbital period. This extreme orbit allows Juno to avoid any long-term contact with Jupiter’s powerful radiation belts, which might otherwise cause significant damage to the vehicle’s solar power arrays and electronics. Overall, Juno will receive much lower levels of radiation exposure than the Galileo mission. But even allowing for this, there is no guarantee the exposed science instruments on the vehicle will last the full duration of the mission. Scientists and engineers are hoping the JunoCam and Jovian Infra-red Auroral Mapper (JIRAM), will last at least eight of the mission’s 37 orbits of Juptier, and that the microwave radiometer will survive for at least eleven orbits.On Wednesday February 3rd, 2016, the vehicle completed the first of two final manoeuvres designed to correctly align it with its intended point of orbital insertion around Jupiter. The second such manoeuvre will take just before Juno is due to arrive at Jupiter.   The spacecraft’s name comes from Greco-Roman mythology. The god Jupiter drew a veil of clouds around himself to hide his mischief, but his wife, the goddess Juno, was able to peer through the clouds and see Jupiter’s true nature – just as it is hoped the mission will probe deep into the planet’s atmosphere and reveal its true nature and origins.

Orion at Kennedy Space Centre

Now set for launch in September 2018 on a circumlunar mission lasting 20 days, the second Orion space vehicle arrived at Kennedy Space Centre, Florida, on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2016. The vehicle, sans its outer skin and massing 1.22 tonnes, arrived from NASA’s assembly facility iin Louisiana by air aboard the agency’s “Super Guppy” transporter, which has been transporting space vehicle components since the Apollo era.

Further construction activities and a variety of tests will be performed at KSC and NASA’s Glenn Research Centre in Ohio to prepare the craft for its mission, officially titled Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1). This will see the uncrewed Orion launched for the first time with and operational, European-built Service Module atop its dedicated Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.

A European Orion Service Module having the launch payload fairings attached to it. The Orion vehicle is attached to the circular part of the Service module visible at the top. This was a structure flight test article used in Orion's first test flight in December 2014 (image: Airbus / ESA)
A European Orion Service Module having the launch payload fairings attached to it. The Orion vehicle is attached to the circular part of the Service module visible at the top. This was a structure flight test article used in Orion’s first test flight in December 2014 (image: ESA / NASA)

“This mission is pretty exciting to us,” Scott Wilson, NASA’s Orion production manager, said as the capsule arrived at KSC. “It is the first time we will have the operational human-rated version of Orion on top of the SLS rocket. It’s a lot of work, but a very exciting time for us.”

The flight will see the Orion system launched into Earth orbit, where a purpose-built upper stage propulsion unit will power the craft onto a flight towards the Moon.

Orion will use the relatively low lunar gravity to both accelerate it and throw it into an elliptical orbit, carrying it a further 70,000 kilometres beyond the Moon – almost half a million kilometres (312,500 miles) from Earth – further than any space vehicle designed to carry humans has yet flown.

Following this, the vehicle will swing back towards Earth, passing the Moon once more before the Command Module separates from the Service Module to make a controlled entry into Earth’s atmosphere and a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

The flight will be a comprehensive test of the European-built Service Module, which is vital for providing power and propulsion to the Orion capsule, and which is being built using  the expertise Europe gained in building and operating the Automated Transfer Vehicle, which remains the largest ISS resupply vehicle so far used in space.  The Service Module includes four post-launch deployable solar panels for electrical power, and provides power, heat rejection, the in-space propulsion capability for orbital transfer, attitude control and high-altitude ascent aborts. It also houses water, oxygen and nitrogen for deep space missions.

Like the Apollo Command and Service modules vehicles, the Orion capsule sits on top of the Service Module at launch, covered by the launch abort system shroud, the service Module protected by special payload fairings and mated to the SLS upper stage propulsion unit. The launch abort system and the fairings are jettisoned once the Orion has reached low Earth obit and has separated from the rest of the SLS booster. The Service Module solar panels are then deployed, and the upper stage of the booster re-fires, sending Orion on its way.

The 2018 mission will be followed in 2023 by a similar flight, this time carrying a crew of four further into space than any humans have ever previously been. Together, Orion and the SLS are intended to be the backbone of America’s return to the moon and for human missions to Mars.

Continue reading “Space Sunday: Juno, Orion and getting to Mars” →

Space Sunday: see Pluto’s mountains and the size of the Solar System

Posted on by Inara Pey
Back lit by the sun: Pluto's hazy atmosphere seen from just 18,000km (11,000 miles) and 15 minutes are the point of closest approach to the planet by the New Horizons spacecraft on July 14th, 2015. To the upper right of the planet can be seen the icy expanse of "Sputnik Planum", bordered below and to the left by tall mountains, and to the right by what appears to be glacial outflows. Image courtesy of NASA / JHU / APL,
Backlit by the Sun: Pluto’s hazy atmosphere seen from just 18,000km (11,000 miles) and 15 minutes are the point of closest approach to the planet by the New Horizons spacecraft on July 14th, 2015. To the upper right of the planet can be seen the icy expanse of “Sputnik Planum”, bordered below and to the left by tall mountains, and to the right by what appears to be glacial inflows. Image: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI (click for full size)

Just when you thought images of Pluto returned by the New Horizons spacecraft could get any more awe-inspiring, NASA / JHU  APL release a set of raw images that are utterly stunning.

The images come from the wide-angle Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC) on the space craft and were captured just 15 minutes after the vehicle reached is point of closest approach to the little world, and thus from a distance of just 18,000 km (11,000 miles) from Pluto.

The stunning vistas presented in the image show the ice plains of “Sputnik Planum” bordered to the left and from below by Pluto’s huge mountain ranges, informally named Hillary and Norgay, Montes after the first partnership to successful reach the summit of Mt. Everest here on Earth. All of this is dramatically backlit by sunlight reflected through Pluto’s hazy atmosphere to create a wonderful scene said to be reminiscent of views of the Antarctic viewed from space or very high altitude.

A closer view: In this image just 380 km (230 miles) across, shows "Sputnik Planum" bordered to the west by towering mountains reaching up to 3,500 metres (11,000 ft) in altitude. In the foreground sit the informally-named Norgay Montes, and on the skyline to the top and left of the image, the Hilary Montes
A closer view: in this image just 380 km (230 miles) across, shows “Sputnik Planum” bordered to the west by towering mountains reaching up to 3,500 metres (11,000 ft) in altitude. In the foreground sit the informally named Norgay Montes, and on the skyline to the top and left of the image, the Hillary Montes. Image: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI (click for full size)

However, the images aren’t just notable for the panoramic beauty; they actually reveal a lot about what is happening in the Plutoian atmosphere. Because of the back lighting from the Sun, the high-resolution MVIC has revealed just how complex Pluto’s atmosphere is, comprising multiple layers of nitrogen and other gases rising to around 100 km (60 mi) above Pluto’s surface (and visible as a banding in the images above).

“In addition to being visually stunning, these low-lying hazes hint at the weather changing from day-to-day on Pluto, just like it does here on Earth,” said Will Grundy, lead of the New Horizons Composition team from Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona.

What is also exciting the science team is evidence within the images for Pluto having a complex “hydrological” cycle which seems to be comparable in some ways to that found on Earth – only on Pluto, it involves nitrogen ice, rather than water ice.

When compared with images captured as New Horizons approached Pluto, the MVIC images further suggest that the regions eastward of “Sputnik Planum” appear to have been encroached over time by ices and material possibly evaporated from the surface of “Sputnik Planum” to be deposited on the higher lands as a new ice blanket, which in turn appears to have formed glacial formations flowing back into “Sputnik Planum”.

Glacial flow on Pluto: deposits of frozen nitrogen which have accumulated on the uplands on the right side of this 630 km (390 mi) wide image has formed glacial flows leading from the uplands beck into "Sputnik Planum" draining from Pluto’s mountains onto the icy plain through the valley system indicated by the red arrows (the valleys average between 3 and 8 km (2 and 5 mi) in width). In the meantime, the ice of the plain appears to be flowing outwards and towards the uplands, as indicated by the blue arrows. Image: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI.
Glacial flow on Pluto: deposits of frozen nitrogen which have accumulated on the uplands on the right side of this 630 km (390 mi) wide image has formed glacial flows leading from the uplands beck into “Sputnik Planum” draining from Pluto’s mountains onto the icy plain through the valley system indicated by the red arrows (the valleys average between 3 and 8 km (2 and 5 mi) in width). In the meantime, the ice of the plain appears to be flowing outwards and towards the uplands, as indicated by the blue arrows. Image: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI (click for full size)

“We did not expect to find hints of a nitrogen-based glacial cycle on Pluto operating in the frigid conditions of the outer solar system,” said Alan Howard, a member of the mission’s Geology, Geophysics and Imaging team from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. “Driven by dim sunlight, this would be directly comparable to the hydrological cycle that feeds ice caps on Earth, where water is evaporated from the oceans, falls as snow, and returns to the seas through glacial flow.”

To Scale: The Solar System

We’re all familiar with the idea that the solar system is so vast, that it is almost impossible to show the Sun and the major planets proportional to one another and at a scale where all the later are both visible and have orbits which can be adequately encompassed in an easily viewable space.

1972: The Blue Marble (click to enlarge)

Obviously, some models do exist; the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, USA, for example, has a walk that allows visitors to travel from the sun and by each of the planets, but it’s not always easy to clearly grasp the sheer scale of things. The same goes for digital models (and a few have been built within virtual worlds like Second Life).

With this issue of scale and proportion in mind, Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh set out to produce a scale model of the solar system that might help people understand just how vast our planetary back yard is when looked at on a human scale.

They started with a blue marble to represent the Earth, echoing the famous photograph taken on December 7, 1972, by the crew of Apollo 17 en route to the Moon and which NASA dubbed the Blue Marble.

Continue reading “Space Sunday: see Pluto’s mountains and the size of the Solar System” →

Orion: first flight time line

Posted on by Inara Pey
The moment of separation: Orion, shrouded by the Launch Abort System, and attached to the "dummy" Service Module / Delta upper stage combination at just after separation from the main stage of the Delta rocket. The two panels seen either side of Orion are the panel that protect the Service Module during ascent to orbit
The moment of separation: Orion, shrouded by the Launch Abort System, and attached to the “dummy” Service Module / Delta upper stage combination, just after separation from the main stage of the Delta rocket. The two panels seen either side of Orion protect the Service Module during ascent to orbit, and are jettisoned just ahead of the Launch Abort System

Update: Friday, December 5th. The Orion EFT-1 mission was a complete success, and I have an update available for those interested.

Update: Thursday, December 4th, 2014: due to a series of issues involving a boat straying too close to the launch pad, wind speeds around the pad exceeding safe limits, a fuel valve problem on two of the booster engines and – finally – concerns over the battery lief on Orion’s camera systems expiring due to lack of charge (with the fuel valve issues also unresolved) a decision was made to scrub the launch. A re-try will be made on Friday, December 5th, all major times given in the time line here remain the same, although NASA TV coverage will not commence until 11:00 UTC / 06:00 EST.

At approximately 12:05 PM UTC, on Thursday, December 4th, a Delta IV Heavy booster should lift-off from Launch Complex 37 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (immediately to the south of NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre, and the home of the vat majority of America’s unmanned rocket launches).

Sitting at the top of the rocket, covered by the protective shroud of its Launch Abort System, will be America’s newest space vehicle, one that will – if all goes well, and political willingness is maintained – carry a crew to an asteroid in 2021, before taking humans back to the Moon, and then, perhaps around 2032, onwards to Mars and back.

The Orion "stack" at launch
The Orion “stack” at launch

The Orion Multi-purpose Crewed Vehicle (MPCV) is, as I’ve mentioned before in these pages, the first crew-capable space vehicle NASA has commissioned and will operate since the the space shuttle – a design itself rooted in the !970s. Yet in some respects, Orion evokes an even earlier era than that – the heady days of Apollo. Not only will it hopefully participate in lunar missions in the future, it actually resembles the Apollo Command Module, being a capsule vehicle, albeit one larger than Apollo (it can carry up to six crew, although four will likely be the usual crew number) and it is truly state-of-the-art in terms of design and capabilities.

This first launch will see Orion operated in an uncrewed proving flight, and will mark the start of a 4.5 hour mission that will see the capsule, complete with a “dummy” service module (again, like Apollo, Orion uses a Service module unit to supply life support, power and propulsion), travel further from the Earth than any vehicle designed to carry a crew has gone since the last of the Apollo Moon missions in 1972.

In doing so, the vehicle will be tested through the Van Allen radiation belts surrounding the Earth, and the capsule will be directed to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere at around 80% of the velocity it would achieve on a return from a cislunar mission (that is, roughly 4,000 kph (2,500 mph) faster than the space shuttle ever returned to Earth).

For those interested in the mission, here’s a brief time line of events:

  • 03:50 UTC, December 4th / 10:50 EST, December 3rd: The mobile launch gantry starts to withdraw from the launch vehicle
  • 07:35 UTC / 02:35 EST, December 4th: Fuelling the Delta IV Heavy commences
  • 08:35 UTC / 03:35 ET: NASA flight control team take over from United Launch Alliance in managing launch preparations
  • 09:30 UTC / 04:30 EST: NASA TV coverage of the launch commences
  • 11:46 UTC / 06:46 EST: Terminal countdown hold for final pre-launch checks
  • 11:57 UTC / 06:57 EST: Go / No Go launch poll; Orion switches to internal power
  • 12::01 UTC / 07:01 EST:  Terminal countdown begins
  • 12:05 UTC: / 07:05 EST: Lift-off!
  • 12:05  through 12:22:39 UTC / 07:05 through 07:22:39 EST:  vehicle climbs to initial orbit of 185 x 888 kilometres (115 x 552 miles), during which boosters and first stage are jettisoned, as are the Service Module fairings and Launch Abort System. Orion and Service Module still attached to Delta upper stage
  • 14:00:26 UTC / 09:00:26 EST: Delta upper stage engine re-fires for 4:45 minutes, pushing the vehicle to its extended elliptical orbit that will carry it 5,800 km (3,600 miles) from Earth
  • 14:10-14:25 UTC / 09:10-0925 EST: Orion passes through Van Allen radiation belts; cameras turned off during this period
  • 15:10 UTC / 10:00 EST: Orion reaches furthest distance from Earth
  • 15:28:41 UTC / 10:28:41 EST: Orion capsule detaches from “dummy” service module / Delta upper stage
  • 15:35-16:10 UTC / 10:35-11:10 EST: Orions passes back through Van Allen radiation belts, reaction control motors used to initiate return to Earth
  • 16:18:35 UTC / 11:18:35 EST: re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere commences at 36,000 kph (20,000 mph)
  • 16:18:41-16:21:11 UTC / 11:18:41-11:21:11 EST: radio blackout & hottest period of re-entry with heat shield temperatures reaching 2,200C (4,000F), slowing the vehicle to around 480 kph (300 mph)
  • 16:24:29 UTC / 11:24:39 EST: parachute bay cover jettisoned (and also recovered after parachuting to its own splashdown)
  • 16:24:31 UTC / 11:24:31 EST: drogue parachute deployed, slowing vehicle from 480 kph (300 mph) to 160 kph (100 mph)
  • 16:25:40 UTC / 11:25:40 EST: main parachute deployed, slowing the vehicle from 160 kph (100 mph) to less than 30 kph (20 mph)
  • 16:28:29 UTC / 11:28:29 EST: Spashdown, to be followed by recovery by the USS Anchorage.
The boat (arrowed) that initially held the Thursday, December 4th launch, as it sits within the safety exclusion zone
The boat (arrowed) that initially held the Thursday, December 4th launch, as it sits within the safety exclusion zone. the first of several delays and issues which eventually resulted in the planned launch being scrubbed for 24 hours.