Tag: Spaceflight

Space Sunday: tiny stars & giant planets, and an interstellar visitor

Posted on by Inara Pey
An artist’s impression of the Neptune-sized world orbiting white dwarf WDJ0914+1914,. While the star is “dead” it is still hot enough for its solar wind to be slowly ripping away the planet’s outer atmosphere, most of which is lost to space, while some of it swirls into a disc, itself accreting onto the white dwarf, further heating it. Credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser

When a star like our own reaches the end of its life, two things happen: first, in a desperate attempt to keep itself burning after using its hydrogen and helium, it expands outwards into a red giant as it burns heavier elements in turn (our Sun will expand to a size sufficient to consume Mercury, Venus and Earth) before it collapses into a hot, white dwarf, a fraction of its former size (perhaps no bigger than the Earth).

But what of any gas giants orbiting the star well beyond the limits of its red giant expansion? What happens to them following the star’s collapse to a white dwarf? Do they simply continue until such time as their own internal heating fails? Might they have some additional interaction with their former parent?

A team from Warwick University, England, appear to have the answer. They’ve discovered a Neptune-sized planet some 4 times larger than its white dwarf host star, and the two have entered into what is – at this point in our understanding of such situations – a unique relationship.

The star is called WDJ0914+1914 and is some 2,000 light years away. Whilst reviewing data on it gathered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the astronomers came across something odd: the star was apparently giving off oxygen, sulphur and hydrogen emissions. While the oxygen was to be expected – by this time in a star’s life most of what is left is actually oxygen and carbon – the hydrogen and sulphur simply shouldn’t have been there.

Turning to the Very Large Telescope (VLT), the Warwick team found the emissions corresponded to to a ring of gas surrounding the star. At first they thought they had discovered a binary system in which the mass of one star was being drawn off by the other, forming a dust ring around both. However, further analysis revealed the composition of the disc matches the deeper layers of planets in our own Solar System like Neptune and Uranus, suggesting a planetary body still exists orbiting the star and material from that planet is feeding the disc, allowing it to survive.

While fusion has long since ended at WDJ0914+1914, the star is still radiating at some 28,000ºC – enough energy to tear material from the upper layers of a planet’s atmosphere. Much of this atmosphere would trail outwards from the planet as a hot plume – which the Warwick team detected – while some would collapse to feed the disc of material surrounding the star.

Putting their calculations together, the Warwick team worked out that the planet – which cannot be directly sighted – is likely to be around the size of Neptune, and it is losing its atmosphere at a rate of around 2,700 tonnes per second to both to the disc of material around the star, and eventually onto the star itself – “feeding” it, if you will. Although this sounds a lot, it actually adds up to a relative small amount given the size of the planet, and so the loss is unlikely to alter its overall structure as the star continues to cool.

This discovery at WDJ0914+1914 is unique at the moment – but it makes the case that other white dwarf stars may also be survived by planets, some of which we may be able to detect using the transiting method of observation (WDJ0914+1914 is simply too dim for this to work). Certainly, the Warwick team’s research has opened the door on this form of research, one that could help with our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres.  It also offers a cold look at the far future (roughly 4.5 to 5 billion years from now) of our own solar system.

New Dates For Commercial Crew Test Flights

NASA has issued new dates for the final test flights for the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing CST-100 Starliner that, if passed, should allow both vehicles to move on towards actually transporting astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

On December 20th, 2019, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V will launch the first CST-100 Starliner into orbit on an uncrewed orbital test flight (OTF) to the International Space Station. As well as testing the Starliner’s avionics and flight systems, the flight will also test a new docking system that is intended to become the “”standard docking system for sending humans to Gateway and to Mars” as a part of the Artemis programme, and used to deliver additional supplies and some Christmas / New Year’s extras to the ISS crew.

The first Boeing CST-100 vehicle being transported from Boeing’s fabrication centre at Kennedy Space Centre on its way to the Space Launch Complex 41 Vertical Integration Facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in readiness for its flight, November 21st, 2019. Credit: Boeing

Also flying on the vehicle will be a flight test dummy christened “Rosie the Rocketeer”, named for “Rosie the Riveter”, the iconic role model for U.S. women working in factories and on production lines in WW II. The dummy is fitted with an array of sensors to measure critical data including G-forces endured during the flight to inform the team about the stresses a human crew will experience during an ascent to orbit on the vehicle. Results from this data, and all telemetry gathered during the flight will help inform NASA and Boeing on the Starliner’s readiness to commence crewed flights.

The vehicle will not spend long at the ISS – it will be undocked on December 28th and make a return to Earth in a full dress-rehearsal for a crewed landing for the CST-100 capsule. Should weather interfere with the planned launch, both December 21st and 23rd offer suitable windows for the launch to take place.

The first Boeing CST-100 mounted atop its United Launch Alliance Atlas V booster at Space Launch Complex 41, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, December 4th, 2019. Credit: Boeing

Then, on January 4th, 2020, SpaceX is expected to complete an in-flight abort test. For that test, a Falcon 9 will lift off from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Centre carrying a test Crew Dragon vehicle – which has previously performed  a successful static fire test of its SuperDraco escape motors in November. Around 90 seconds into the flight, and the time of maximum dynamic pressure on the vehicle, the escape system will be triggered, the capsule hopefully escaping the rocket to make a safe splash-down under parachute.

SpaceX had hoped to complete this test before the end of the year, but assorted delays – including that of the CRS-19 resupply mission, which launched earlier in December (see: On the ISS – mighty mice and robots) – meant that target could not be met. If the abort flight test is successful, it should allow NASA and SpaceX to determine when crewed flights to the ISS can commence – an uncrewed test flight of the vehicle to the ISS having been completed in March 2019.

Overall. NASA would like both Boeing and SpaceX to complete their first crewed flights to the ISS – also regarded as test flights – by mid-2020.

Continue reading “Space Sunday: tiny stars & giant planets, and an interstellar visitor” →

Space Sunday: on the ISS – mighty mice and robots

Posted on by Inara Pey


A time-lapse video of the SpaceX CRS-19 cargo Dragon being captured by the Canadarm-2 of the International Space Station (ISS)

The past week has seen two resupply missions launched to the International Space Station (ISS), which between them will deliver 4.6 tonnes of supplies and equipment to the station, including some special visitors.

The first mission, CRS-19, featuring a SpaceX Dragon and Falcon 9 launch vehicle, lifted-off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (adjacent to the Kennedy Space Centre) on Thursday, December 5th, after being delayed 25 hours due to high winds over the launch site. It rendezvoused with the ISS at 10:05 GMT on Sunday, December 8th. The second mission features a Russian Progress resupply vehicle, which lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 09:34 GMT on Friday, December 6th, and is due to dock at the ISS on Monday, December 9th, carrying a mix of food, fuel and supplies.

However, it is the Dragon vehicle that has captured most attention, due to its cargo. As well as carrying the traditional Christmas goodies for the ISS crew, CRS-19 carried 40 passengers in the form of mice and elements of the station’s increasing use of robots.

The mice will spend a month aboard the ISS as a part of research into two of the most debilitating effects of spending extended periods in micro-gravity environments such as orbiting the Earth or something like a 6-month flight to Mars: muscle and bone mass loss.

Several of the mice have been dubbed “mighty mice” on account of their being genetically engineered by scientists at the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine (JAX-GM) in Maine, USA. Specifically, they have been engineered to inhibit myostatin, a molecule that occurs in mammals that regulates muscle growth (discovered in 1997 by Dr. Se-Jin Lee), allowing them to develop increased muscle mass compared to ordinary mice.

One of the myostatin-inhibited “mighty mice” (l) and a non-inhibited companion. Credit: JAX-GM

The idea is that by inhibiting the myostatin, the mice will be able to maintain both muscle mass and limit bone calcium loss whilst at the station, the lack of myostatin allowing them to continue to convert protein into muscle mass despite the mice being less active on the station than the would be on Earth.

They will spend their time on the ISS with a group of mice that have not had their myostatin blocked, and with two similar group sof enhanced  / non-enhanced mice on Earth, to determine the overall impact of the lack of myostatin in the production / maintenance of muscle  bone mass in micro-gravity compared to how myostatin might contribute to muscle / bone mass loss when allowed to function normally.

As well as helping determine what medical / genetic assistance can be given to humans on long duration, low-gravity space missions (possibly alleviating the need for up to 4 hours a day to be spent in exercise to counter muscle / bone mass loss), it is hoped that controlling / inhibiting myostatin’s function could be used to help treat patients recovering from hip fracture surgery, or those in intensive care where muscle growth could be a major factor in their recovery, and to assist elderly people suffering from muscle loss or osteoporosis.

CIMON Returns to the ISS

In addition to the mighty mice, the CRS-19 mission also delivered CIMON-2 (“Simon-2”), an updated versions of a robot assistant for ISS crews. Developed by Germany’s DLR CIMON (Crew Interactive Mobile CompaniON) is a medicine-sized robot that can float around the ISS using 14 small fans boasting a combination of IBM Watson AI, cloud connectivity, and neural network training. It was first flown aboard the ISS in 2017 / 2018, and is capable of assisting with routine tasks and research projects, displaying instructions on its forward screen, and recording images. It can also recognise, learn from, and bond with crew members through natural language; offer creative solutions to tricky challenges; and even serve as a security guard, noticing potential problems before they become dangerous.

CIMON-2 operates alongside ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst during its first outing to the ISS in November 2018. Credit: NASA / ESA / DLR

Unfortunately, the first outing for CIMON didn’t entirely go according to plan, in an outing with ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst, things started out well enough, with CIMON helping Gerst complete some test tasks, but problems arose when Gerst asked it to play his favourite music. Selecting Man Machine by Kraftwerk, CIMON continued to play the music while accepting other tasks, and when Gerst ordered, “Cancel music” the robot to replied, “I love music you can dance to! Alright, favourite hits incoming.”

While CIMON could still comprehend other commands, it appeared to become confused and not a little stroppy as Gerst communicated with those monitoring the test. “Be nice, please,” it requested at one point, followed a little later by, “Don’t you like it here with me?” and “Don’t be so mean.”

The improved CIMON-2 comes with more sensitive microphones that will hopefully allow it to hear better and not confuse commands, and a more robust AI system to allow it to better understand when it is being addressed and when an astronaut might be talking to someone else. This improved AI system includes IBM Watson Tone Analyser technology, which uses linguistic analysis to detect emotion in the tone of a conversation and respond to it – which given CIMON’s own moodiness noted above, could be interesting!

CIMON-2 is expected to spend up to three years aboard the ISS. As well as serving as a test bed for easing the stress of living and working in limited environments like the ISS and in developing greater understanding of how robots and AI can function to support crews on long duration missions, CIMON-2 is also potentially a stepping stone for developing the necessary trust human crews require to make the routine use of such systems  – which can record, process and store human activities, interactions and moods, raising concerns of privacy and data security – acceptable to crew.

Dextre, RELL and and the “Robot Hotel”

Dextre (highlighted) mounted on one of its Orbit Repair Unit (ORU) “workstations”. The Canadarm-2 robot arm hovers to the right. Credit: NASA

Robots are an important part of future human space activities, and over the years, a number of systems have been employed or tested aboard the ISS, for working both inside and outside the station. The most obvious of these is the Canadarm-2 remote manipulator system used outside of the ISS, while inside the ISS there have been robot system like CIMON and FYODOR (see: Space Sunday: Lunar landers, and robots in space).

Continue reading “Space Sunday: on the ISS – mighty mice and robots” →

Space Sunday: budgets, space planes, landers, oxygen and dust

Posted on by Inara Pey
A new ESA budget confirms the space agency’s commitment to the Space RIDER uncrewed space plane Credit: ESA

On Thursday, November 28th, 2019, European Space Agency (ESA) members agreed to a record €14.4 billion, promising to maintain Europe’s place at the top table alongside NASA and China. The four largest contributors to the budget are Germany (€3.3 billion); France (€2.7 billion), Italy (€2.3 billion) and the United Kingdom (€1.7 billion – ESA is not an EU organisation, so the UK’s involvement will remain unchanged when / if Brexit occurs, although EU funding of UK science and technology projects will be impacted).

The funding will allow ESA to move forward on a number of fronts in space exploration and technology development, including:

  • The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) – the first space-based gravitational wave observatory, comprising three spacecraft placed in a triangular formation 2.5 million km apart and following the Earth in its orbit around the Sun. LISA will launch in the early 2030s.
  • Transitioning ESA to the next generation of launchers: Ariane 6 and Vega-C.
  • Continued support of the International Space Station, including continued participation in crew missions.
  • Direct involvement in NASA’s Artemis lunar programme, including technology for the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (LOP-G) and crewed missions.
  • A joint Mars sample-return mission with NASA.
  • Development of flexible satellite systems integrated with 5G networks, as well as next-generation optical technology for a fibre-like ‘network in the sky.’
  • The development of a European reusable space vehicle: Space RIDER.

Space RIDER (Reusable Integrated Demonstrator for Europe Return) is a project I first wrote about in 2015, when ESA flew the European Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV). An uncrewed vehicle weighing just under 2 tonnes, it had the primary objective to research the re-entry and flight characteristics of a lifting body type of vehicle and test the re-entry shielding technologies for such a vehicle.

The Space RIDER vehicle shown in cutaway, showing the open payload bay, forward parasail deployment system and after avionics. Credit: ESA

IXV paved the way for the initial development for Space RIDER, which will be an uncrewed cargo vehicle designed to be launched by the Vega rocket and capable of carrying up to 800 Kg of payload into orbit. All Space RIDER vehicles will be able to carry out around 5 flights apiece, reducing the overall cost of placing payloads into orbit. Following re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, the vehicle will descend to Earth under a parasail, allowing it to glide to a nominated landing zone.

As well as being suitable for launching space payloads into orbit, Space RIDER will itself be a technology development vehicle for possible larger reusable vehicles using similar lifting body technology.

Space RIDER will largely be developed by Italy and the first flight is due to take place in 2022.

Happy Anniversary, InSight

On Monday, November 26th, 2018, NASA’s InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) lander, built with international cooperation, arrived on the surface of Mars. The focus of the mission is to probe the Red Planet’s interior – its crust, mantle and core in order to answer key questions about the early formation of the rocky planets in our inner solar system – Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars – more than 4 billion years ago.

A simulation of InSight touching down on Mars using its 16 rocket motors. Credit: NASA

Since that landing, the year has been an eventful one for InSight, the lander’s super-sensitive seismometer suite has detected more than 150 vibration events to date, about two dozen of which are confirmed marsquakes. However, and I’ve I’ve reported a number of times in these pages, InSight’s other primary science instrument, a burrowing heat probe called the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP³), has had tougher time.

The self-propelled “mole” probe designed to burrow down into the Martian sub-surface having been stuck for most of the year after only penetrating a few centimetres into the ground. Those operations only resumed in October 2019, and were short-lived after the probe inexplicably “bounced” its way almost completely out of the hole it had burrowed, leaving scientists and engineers still trying to work out what happened.

Side-by-side: (l) the first image returned by InSight using the lander-mounted, Instrument Context Camera (ICC), still with its dust cap in place. Note the lander’s leg in the lower right corner. (r) a photo captured by the robot-arm mounted Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) as the arm is exercised on November 30th, 2018

The solar-powered InSight is scheduled to operate for at least two Earth years.

Continue reading “Space Sunday: budgets, space planes, landers, oxygen and dust” →

Space Sunday: Europa’s water and a Starship’s mishap

Posted on by Inara Pey
An artist’s impression of what the 2012 water plume might have looked like if seen from the vicinity of Europa. Credit: NASA / ESA / M. Kornmesser.

What has long been suspected has likely now confirmed: water is present under the ice of Jupiter’s moon Europa.

As I’ve noted on numerous occasions in this space Sunday articles, it’s long been thought that an ocean of water exists under the cracked icy crust of Europa, potentially kept liquid by tidal forces created by the moon being constantly “flexed” by the competing gravities of Jupiter and the other large Moons pulling on it, thus generating large amounts of heat deep within its core – heat sufficient to keep an ocean possibly tens of kilometres deep in a liquid state.

Europa’s internal structure, showing the subsurface ocean that could be up to 100 km deep

Circumstantial evidence for this water has already been found:

  • During its time studying the Jovian system between 1995 and 2003, NASA’s Galileo probe detected perturbations in Jupiter’s magnetic field near Europa – perturbations scientists attributed to a salty ocean under the moon’s frozen surface, since a salty ocean can conduct electricity.
  • In 2012 the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) captured an image of Europa showing what appeared to be a plume of water vapour rising from one of the many cracks in Europa’s surface – crack themselves pointed to as evidence of the tidal flexing mentioned above. The plume rose some 200 km from the moon.
  • In 2014, HST captured images of a similar plume rising some 160 km above Europa.
A composite image showing suspected plumes of water vapour erupting from Europa at the 7 o’clock position, as imaged by the Imaging Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014. They rose 160 km, and are believed to have come from the sub-surface ocean. Note that the image of Europa is superimposed on the original, and comprises a mosaic of images taken by the Galileo and Voyager missions. Credit: NASA, ESA, W. Sparks (STScI), and the USGS Astrogeology Science Centre

Now a new paper, A measurement of water vapour amid a largely quiescent environment on Europa, published on November 18th, 2019 in Nature, offers the first direct evidence that water is indeed present on Europa. Specifically, the team behind the study, led by US planetary scientist Lucas Paganini, claims to have confirmed the existence of water vapour on the surface of the moon.

Essential chemical elements (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulphur) and sources of energy, two of three requirements for life, are found all over the solar system. But the third — liquid water — is somewhat hard to find beyond Earth. While scientists have not yet detected liquid water directly, we’ve found the next best thing: water in vapour form.

– Lucas Paganini

Evidence of plate tectonics have been found on Europa, again pointing to the influence of tidal flexing. This conceptual illustration shows the subduction process where a cold, brittle, outer portion of Europa’s 20-30 km thick ice shell moved into the warmer shell interior and was ultimately subsumed. This resulted in a low-relief subsumption band at the surface in the overriding plate, alongside which cryolavas containing water vapour may have erupted. Credit: Noah Kroese, I.NK

Using the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, Paganini and his team studied Europa over a total of 17 nights between 2016 and 2017. Using the telescope’s spectrograph, they looked for the specific frequencies of infra-red light given off by water when it interacts with solar radiation. When observing Europa’s leading hemisphere as it orbits Jupiter, the team found those signals, estimating that they’d discovered sufficient water vapour to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool in a matter of minutes. However, the discovery has been somewhat tempered by the fact water may only be released relatively infrequently.

Such infrequent releases help explain why it has taken so long to confirm the existence above Europa, but there are other reasons as well. The components that comprise water have long been known to exist on the moon whether or not they indicate the presence of water. Thus, detecting these components within a plume doesn’t necessarily equate to the discovery of water vapour – not unless they are in the right combinations. There’s a further pair of complications in that none of our orbital capabilities are specifically designed to seek signs of water within the atmospheres of the other planets or expelled from icy moons. So Earth-based instruments  – like the Keck telescope spectrographs – must be used, and these deal with the naturally occurring water vapour in our own atmosphere.

Within Paganini’s team there is confidence that their findings are correct, as they diligently perform a number of checks and tests to remove possible contamination of their data by Earth-based water vapour. Even so, they are the first to acknowledge that close-up, direct studies of Europa are required – particularly to ascertain if any water under the surface of Europa does form a globe-spanning ocean, or if it is confined to reservoirs or fully liquid water trapped within an icy, slushly mantle. It is hoped that NASA’s Europa Clipper and Europe’s JUICE mission (both of which I’ve “previewed” in Space Sunday: to explore Europa, August 2019) will help address questions like this.

Continue reading “Space Sunday: Europa’s water and a Starship’s mishap” →

Space Sunday: Apollo 12, 50 years on

Posted on by Inara Pey
NASA’s official Apollo 50th anniversary logo. Credit: NASA

Fifty years ago, on Friday, November 14th, 1969, the second Apollo Saturn V intended to place humans on the Moon lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Centre. Aboard it were mission commander Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr, Command Module Pilot Richard F. Gordon Jr, and Lunar Module Pilot Alan L. Bean.

Coming four months after the launch of Apollo 11, the Apollo 12 mission was intended to extend lunar surface operations, albeit modestly. Armstrong and Aldrin spent a total of 21 hours and 37 minutes on the Moon and completed a single surface EVA, Conrad and Bean would spend 31 hours and 29 minutes on the lunar surface, performing two EVAs in the process. However, it became the mission that almost had to be aborted thanks to a pair of incidents that occurred in the first minute after lift-off.

The crew for the flight were of mixed experience: Conrad was making his third trip into space, having flown the Gemini 5 and Gemini 11 missions; Gordon was making his second flight, having partnered with Conrad during Gemini 11; Bean was on his first flight into space. Conrad had joined NASA as part of the second astronaut intake group that included Neil Armstrong, while Gordon and Bean were both part of the third intake alongside of Edwin Aldrin.

The Apollo 12 crew (l to r): Commander, Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr.; Command Module pilot, Richard F. Gordon Jr.; and Lunar Module pilot, Alan L. Bean. Credit: NASA

Conrad joined NASA from the US Navy, where he was regarded as an outstanding carrier-based fighter pilot and first-class test pilot and flight instructor. He was regarded as one of the best pilots in his group, and was among the first of his group to be assigned a Gemini mission, flying alongside Mercury veteran, Gordon Cooper, the second American to orbit the Earth. He was also one of the most diminutive of the astronauts, standing just 5ft 6.5 inches tall. However, he made up for his small stature by being at times outspoken and a little irreverent (he facetiously referred to the Gemini 5 capsule as a “flying garbage can” during the then record-setting mission of almost 8 days in orbit, on account of the cramped size of the vehicle). While these qualities rankled some in NASA’s management, his forthrightness allowed him to become central to testing many spacecraft systems essential to the Apollo programme. These tests included the Gemini 11 mission with Gordon, and which remains the highest ever Earth orbital mission completed to date, with an apogee of 1,369 km (851 mi).

Conrad has a further distinction: under NASA’s original plans, he was selected to command the back-up crew for Apollo 8, the first test flight of the Lunar Module in Earth orbit. Under the standing protocol of back-up crews moving to a “prime” mission slot three missions later, he was in line to command Apollo 11. However, delays in getting the Lunar Module ready for flight meant that Apollo 8 and Apollo 9 were swapped, shunting his command slot to Apollo 12.

Both Gordon and Bean also came to NASA from the US Navy, where they had also served as fighter pilots before transitioning to test pilots. Both also served with Conrad during their military careers: Gordon with Conrad aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ranger, where the two shared a cabin and had become good friends, while Bean was trained by Conrad when becoming a test pilot, the two also forming a friendship in the process.

(l) The crew arrive at LC39-A ahead of the Apollo 12 launch. (r) Apollo 12 lifts-off, November 14th, 1969. Note the wet conditions apparent in both pictures. Credit: NASA

Apollo 12 launched from Cape Kennedy into a cloudy, rain-swept sky. 36.5 seconds into the flight, lightning struck the top of the vehicle and travelled through it and its ionised exhaust plume to strike the launch gantry it had just cleared. Protective circuits on the fuel cells in the service module (SM) took them off-line, along with much of the Command Module’s flight systems.

Having struck the Saturn V 36.5 second after the launch of Apollo 12, lightning travelled down through the vehicle and through its ionised exhaust plume to discharge on the launch pad gantry. Credit: NASA

15.5 seconds later lightning again struck, disabling the attitude indicator and garbling telemetry being received by Mission Control. However, neither strike affected the Saturn V rocket’s instrument unit, allowing the vehicle to continue to climb towards orbit as planned.

The loss of the fuel cells placed the CSM on battery power, but this wasn’t up to the task of providing all the power necessary to power the Command Module’s instruments for the entire mission. Nor could the fuel cells be brought back on-line.

Flight Director Gerry Griffin was considering calling for an orbital abort, despite fears the lightning strikes may have affected the Command Module’s parachute deployment pyrotechnics, when John Aaron, the Electrical, Environmental and Consumables Manager (EECOM) realised he’s seen a similar pattern of telemetry disruption during an equipment test, when a power supply unexpectedly failed.

“Flight, EECOM. Try SCE to Aux,” he stated over the radio, recalling an obscure back-up power supply switch-over.

His call went unrecognised by Griffin, the CapCom, astronaut Gerald Carr, and Conrad on Apollo 12. However, rookie Alan Bean remembered the SCE switch from a training incident a year earlier during a rare simulation of such a failure, and flicked it over. The move brought the fuel cells back to power, and both Aaron and Bean were credited with saving the mission.

After the excitement of launch, the flight settled into “routine”, with Apollo 12 reaching the Moon late on November 17th, 1969. An initial engine burn put the combined Command and Service Module (CSM) Yankee Clipper and Lunar Module (LM) Intrepid into and elliptical orbit of 110.4 x 312 km (69 x 195 mi). On November 18th, this was adjusted to 99.2 x 121.6 km (62 x 76 mi), and on November 19th, Conrad and Bean entered to the Lunar Module ready for their descent and landing.

This began after Intrepid had separated from Yankee Clipper, with an engine burn on the far side of the Moon, out of contact with Earth. The landing site was set within a region of Oceanus Procellarum, the Sea of Storms that had been given the official name of Mare Cognitum (Known Sea) on account of it having been visited by three automated probes: Russia’s Luna 5 and America’s Surveyor 3, and Ranger 7. The aim was to put Intrepid down in a precisely-denoted area within walking distance of Surveyor 3, and which Conrad had dubbed “Pete’s Parking Lot”.

Apollo 12 Lunar Module Intrepid as seen from the Command Module Yankee Clipper, November 19th, 1969, prior to commencing its descent for landing. Credit: NASA

Continue reading “Space Sunday: Apollo 12, 50 years on” →

Space Sunday: UK spaceports, Voyager 2 and TESS’s mosaic

Posted on by Inara Pey
Virgin Orbit’s plans to operate from Cornwall Airport, Newquay (CAN) – also called Spaceport Cornwall – is in the process of receiving a £20 million boost. Credit: CAN

The United Kingdom is to have two space centres operating within the next few years, if all goes according to plan, and at opposite ends of the country.

I last wrote about the plans to have both a vertical (i.e. rocket) launch facility and at least one horizontal (i.e. air lift and launch) facility operating in the 2020s (see: British space ports and some female space firsts, July 2018), and more recently plans for both have taken significant steps forward.

In October 2019 it was announced that construction of the vertical launch facility – now officially called Space Hub Sutherland – to be located at A’Mhoine on the Moine Peninsula, high up on Scotland’s North Atlantic coast, could begin in 2020. It would be used to place small satellites into a polar and sun-synchronous orbits.

An artist’s impression of the Sutherland Space Hub. Credit: Perfect Circle PV

The cost for developing the facility has been estimated at £16.2 million (US $20.7 million), with £2.35 million (US $3 million) already awarded by the UK Space Agency since July 2018. After the required studies, etc., this funding has enabled the Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), a local Scottish government economic and community development agency, to sign a 75-year option to lease the land where the space hub is to be built, and to award contracts for the design of the hub’s launch-control centre and the assembly and integration buildings that will be used by commercial launch organisations to assemble their launch vehicles and integrate payloads ready for launch. Currently, HIE are awaiting formal planning permission to be granted, which will then allow construction to commence.

A partnership of US aerospace giant Lockheed Martin and British aerospace company Orbex have committed to using the launch facility once it becomes operational – possibly in the early-to-mid 2020s.

Orbex plans to use the facilities to launch their innovative Prime rocket, and have already announced a series of contracts for the vehicle, including agreements with the Netherlands-based cubesat launch broker, Innovative Space Logistics and the U.K.-based company In-Space Missions, which plans to launch its Faraday-2b demonstration satellite from Scotland in 2022.

An artist’s impression of an Orbex Prime rocket – capable of lifting 150 Kg payloads to 500 km polar / sun-synchronous orbits – lifting off from the Sutherland Space Hub. Credit: PRNewsfoto / Lockheed Martin

Prime is a leading edge technology launch vehicle that among other things uses 3D printed rocket motors that can be produced as a single unit without joins, and utilises a bio-propane fuel and emits 90% less carbon dioxide than conventional, hydrocarbon-fuelled rockets. Bio-propane is an alternative to natural gas that’s produced from waste or sustainably sourced materials like algae. Development of the system is being partially funded by the UK government to the tune of £5.48 million (US $7 million), specifically in relation to the use of the Sutherland Hub.

Lockheed Martin has received funding to the tune of £24.3 million (US $31 million) to develop a vertical launch system suitable for operations out of the hub. However, precisely what they plan to launch from the facility once it is available, is currently unclear.

Planning permission for the facility is liable to meet some opposition, however. Moine Peninsula is part of an expanse of blanket peat bog that is a candidate for UNESCO World Heritage Site status. These peat lands are regarded as some of the most valuable ecosystems on Earth: they preserve global biodiversity, provide safe drinking water and minimise flood risk. In addition, they are the “largest natural terrestrial carbon store”, and when damaged ecologically, can contribute to greenhouse gas emissions (around 6% of global greenhouse emissions can be traced back to damaged peat lands). As such, opposition to the Sutherland Hub has already been voiced, and further objections may well be expected.

Cornwall Airport Newquay, also known as Spaceport Cornwall. Credit: CAN

At the other end of the country, plans for a horizontal launch centre at Cornwall Airport Newquay (CAN) – also known as Spaceport Cornwall – took another step forward with the UK Agency announcing on November 5th, 2019 that it will provide £7.35 million (US $9.5 million) to help develop the necessary infrastructure to support operations of the Virgin Orbit air-launch system.

We want the U.K. to be the first country in Europe to give its small satellite manufacturers a clear route from the factory to the spaceport. That’s why it’s so important that we are developing new infrastructure to allow aircraft to take off and deploy satellites, a key capability that the U.K. currently lacks.

– UK Government Science Minister, Chris Skidmore

Responding to the news of the funding, Virgin Orbit indicated that Spaceport Cornwall could host its first LauncherOne mission potentially around late 2021, the precise date being dependent on various regulatory approvals in the UK and in the United States, quite aside from the completion of the required infrastructure improvements at the airport. Should this time frame be met, a Virgin Orbit launch from Spaceport Cornwall would be the first orbital launch ever conducted from the UK (Britain’s Black Arrow launch vehicle was launched from Australia).

The funding is part of a £20 million (US $25.5 million) package promised to CAN; a further £10 million (US $12.78 million) to come from the Cornish local government and £2.35 million (US $3 million) from Virgin Orbit.

Cornwall itself is well-placed to support space launch operations. It is home to Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station, once the world’s largest satellite earth station, with more than 25 communications dishes in use and over 60 in total, the largest of which were named after characters from the Arthurian legends.

While operations at the facility were pretty much shut down in the early 2000s, the complex has entered into an agreement with CAN to provide communications support for launches from the spaceport, whilst also being subject to possible upgrade and enhancement to support future lunar missions, both crewed and automated – including those planned as a part of NASA’s Artemis programme.

The largest of the Goonhilly communications dishes, the 32m (105 ft) diameter “Merlin”. Goonhilly may provide communications support for Spaceport Cornwall. Credit: British Telecom.

Continue reading “Space Sunday: UK spaceports, Voyager 2 and TESS’s mosaic” →