Tag: Spaceflight

Martian technology comes down to Earth; NASA asks students to help

Posted on by Inara Pey

CuriosityThere’s some interesting news coming from the Mars Science Laboratory, with NASA revealing that Curiosity is contributing to matters of safety here on Earth.

Over the decades, NASA has established a strong track record for space-focused technologies having spin-off applications here on Earth. The Apollo programme, for example, lead to some 1,400 patents and technical developments which impacted all of our lives. These have included:

  • Physical therapy and athletic development machine used by football teams, sports clinics, and medical rehabilitation centres
  • Water purification systems used in community water supply systems and cooling towers to kill bacteria, viruses and algae
  • Freeze-drying technology to preserve nutritional value and taste in foods; improvements in kidney dialysis arising from the need to recycle fluids in space
  • The widespread use of flame-resistant textiles used by fire fighters, service personnel, etc.
  • Sensor system to detect the presence of hazardous gases in oil fields, refineries, offshore platforms, chemical plants, waste storage sites, and other locations where gases could be released into the environment.
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Lance Christensen of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, demonstrates the gas leak detection device developed using his tunable laser spectrometer develop for the Mars Science Laboratory

It is in reference to this last aspect of spin-off technologies that Curiosity is contributing to safety on Earth.

On Wednesday October 2nd, NASA’s JPL announced that technology developed for the Curiosity rover is now being tested by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) which should enable their personnel to identify possible leak locations, fast-tracking their ability to repair gas leaks.

The new system utilises laser-based technology developed for MSL to aid detection of Methane on Mars. It is a spin-off of the tunable laser spectrometer, developed by JPL science engineer Lance Christensen, and one of the principal science instruments carried within the body of the Mars rover. The PG&E application utilities elements of the laser system together with a tablet computer in a hand-held device. This allows field engineers to detect trace elements of gas coming from a leak by passing the detector over the ground above the line of the pipe. Testing is currently underway, and it is hoped that if successful, it will see the system introduced for general use in the US utility industry in 2015. It is particularly relevant to PG&E, after one of their gas pipes ruptured in 2010 and the resultant explosion killed eight people.

Curiosity’s compact spectrometer systems have already given rise to the testing of a new generation of compact, portable, multi-purpose spectrometers for use by geologists and researchers working in the field, and the development of this system with PG&E marks another significant step in NASA’s tradition of contributing back to technology, engineering, safety, etc., here on Earth.

NASA 3D Printing Contest for Students

3D printing has the potential to revolutionise many areas of life and business – both on Earth and in space. Earlier in 2014, for example, British Aerospace has received European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) Form 1 certification approval to use a 3D printed part in one of their aeroplanes, and the European Space Agency (ESA) is investigating the use of 3D printing methods for space applications.

NASA, in partnership with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Foundation has now opted to launch a competition for US school and college students, to design and submit a digital 3-D model of a tool that they think astronauts will need in space.

Introducing the competition in a video (below), NASA astronaut Doug Wheelock says, “As you know, we don’t have overnight shipping up in space, so when we really need something, we have to wait. To be able to make parts on demand will forever change that for us.”

The competition, launched in late September, has a closing date of December 15th, 2014. Two grand prizes are on offer: the winner of the 5-12 year age group will get a 3-D printer for his or her school, while the winner in the 13-19 age range will receive a trip to NASA’s Payload Operations in Huntsville, Alabama, where the student will watch his or her object manufactured on the International Space Station.The winners will be announced in January 2015, and full details for entry can be found on the Future Engineers website.

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A Mars Namaste and taxis to the space station

Posted on by Inara Pey

CuriosityIt’s been a busy couple of weeks on and around Mars and with space exploration in general. This being the case, I’m going to be tagging some of the other items of potential interest to the end of this Curiosity update.

On September 24th, Curiosity obtained its first sample of rock gathered from the foothills of “Mount Sharp”, or Aeolis Mons as it is more correctly named. The sample was taken from a rock in the area dubbed “Pahrump Hills”, an uprising within the initial transitional zone between what is regarded as the floor of Gale Crater and the material making up the huge mound of “Mount Sharp” located at the centre of the crater.

The rover officially arrived within the area of interest on September 19th, and conducted surveys of its surroundings and a potential candidate area was selected for sample gathering. On September 22nd, an initial “mini drill” test operation was carried out on a rock surface in the target area, dubbed “Confidence Hills”, to assess its suitability for sample gathering.

A mosaic of images captured by Curiosity's Mastcam showing the Pahrump Hills area the rover is currently investigating (foreground) and the Murrary formation, a near-term destination, beyond
A mosaic of images captured by Curiosity’s Mastcam showing the Pahrump Hills area the rover is currently investigating (foreground) and the Murray formation, a near-term destination, beyond – click any image for full size

As noted in a previous update, “mini drilling” operations are used to test a potential target for a range of factors prior to actually committing the rover’s drill to a sample-gathering exercise, the intention being to ensure as far as possible that nothing untoward may happen which may damage the drill mechanism or adversely impact future sample gathering work.

The September 22nd mini drilling was important for two reasons; not only was it intended to assess the suitability of the target rock for sample gathering, it also marked the first time the drill cut into what is essentially “new” and “softer” material compared to previous drilling activities, and it was doubly unclear as to how the drill or the rock might react.

The bore hole image from the September 24th sample-gathering at “Parump Hills”. A “merged-focused product” combining a set of images captured by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) from just 2 centimetres above the hole, it show the bore cut by the rover’s drill and surrounding tailings which, interestingly, don’t share the same distinctive light gray colouring seen with samples gathered on the crater floor. The hole is 1.6cm across and about 6 cm deep. The images were taken on September 24th, 2014, during the 759th Sol, of Curiosity’s work on Mars

The sample-gathering drilling took place on September 24th, PDT (Sol 759 for Curiosity on Mars) and resulted in cutting a hole some 6 centimetres (2.6 inches) deep into the target rock and the successful gathering of tailings. “This drilling target is at the lowest part of the base layer of the mountain, and from here we plan to examine the higher, younger layers exposed in the nearby hills,” said Curiosity Deputy Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada following the operation. “This first look at rocks we believe to underlie Mount Sharp is exciting because it will begin to form a picture of the environment at the time the mountain formed, and what led to its growth.”

Curiosity is liable to stay within the “Pahrump Hills” area for a while prior to moving up onto the Murray Formation above it, which is regarded as the formal boundary area between “Mount Sharp” and the crater floor, and as such is designated a target of particular interest. As a part of its studies of “Pahrump Hills”, and as well as gathering an initial rock sample, the rover has been surveying the rocks in its immediate surroundings with other instruments including the ChemCam laser system and the high-magnification Mars Hand Lens Imager camera, also mounted on the robot arm.

Of particular interest to the science team have been a series geometrically distinctive features on the rock surface. These are thought to be common to the Murray formation mudstones, and are believed to be the accumulations of erosion-resistant materials. They occur both as discrete clusters and as dendrites with formations arranged in tree-like branching. By investigating the shapes and chemical ingredients in these features, the team hopes to gain information about the possible composition of fluids at this Martian location long ago.

Another merged-focused image from MAHLI, showing accumulations of erosion-resistant materials in the “Pahrump Hills” area on the slopes of “Mount Sharp”. Similar features on Earth form when shallow bodies of water begin to evaporate and minerals precipitate from the concentrated brines. The width of the image covers about 2.2 centimetres, and it combines a series of images captured on September 23rd, 2014, during Curiosity’s 758th Sol

Currently, the sample gathered from the “Confidence Hills” are held within CHIMRA, the Collection and Handling for In-Situ Martian Rock Analysis system, in the rover’s robot arm. This is a mechanism that allows sample material to be graded by the size of the tailings by passing them through a series of sieves as the robot arm is vibrated at high rates, producing multiple samples which can then be delivered in turn to the rover’s onboard science instruments for detailed analysis.

Continue reading “A Mars Namaste and taxis to the space station” →

You can’t always get what you want …

Posted on by Inara Pey

CuriosityAugust 5th marked the 2nd anniversary on Curiosity’s landing on Mars. The “landiversary”, as NASA dubbed the occasion, passed in something of a subdued manner in many respects, featuring a re-run of the August 2012 video reviewing the MSL’s arrival on Mars. Reviews of the mission from the perspective of two years on from that remarkable lading didn’t start-up until the days after the anniversary, with videos and lectures from members of the mission team.

One of the films which did appear, directly out of Caltech, rather than NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (which is located on Caltech’s Pasadena, California, campus), is Our Curiosity, a 6-minute celebration of Curiosity’s mission, and humanity’s drive to explore, to seek, to learn, and to understand, narrated by Felicia Day and the superb Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

August 5th also marked my last MSL report, when Curiosity was some 3 kilometres from the lower slopes of “Mount Sharp”, the huge mound at the centre of Gale Crater, and the rover’s primary target for exploration. At that time, the rover had started to cross a region of chaotic terrain, marked by a rocky plateau cut by a series of sandy-bottomed valleys. The plateau itself proved to be littered with sharp-edges rocks and stones which had already caused some increase in the wear and tear being suffered by the rover’s wheels – albeit not as much as mission engineers had feared – by the time Curiosity had reached the edge of the nearest of the shallow valleys, which had been dubbed “Hidden Valley”.

The plan had been to use the valleys, where the sand would be less wearing on the rover’s aluminium wheels, to reach an exposed area of bedrook designated the “Pahrump Hills”, where Curiosity would engage in further rock sampling work prior to it continuing on to the “Murray Buttes”, the entry point for its ascent up the lower slopes of “Mount Sharp”.

However, rather than drive the one-tonne rover straight through the middle of the valley, where there are numerous dunes of potentially soft, wind-blown sand which might cause some difficulty traversing, the idea had been for Curiosity to skirt along the edge of the valley, where it was hoped the sand would be firmer and make for a better driving surface. Unfortunately, this proved not to be the case; as the rover proceeded along “Hidden Valley” it exhibited far more signs of wheel slippage than had been anticipated, giving rise to fears that it might get bogged-down in the sand were it to continue.

The sands of Mars: an image from Curiosity’s black and white Navcam system captured on August 4th, showing the loose sands the rover was traversing as it continued into “Hidden Valley” (click for full size)

As a result, the rover reversed course, driving back out of the valley. In doing so, it crossed the rocky “ramp” it had used to originally enter the valley, and one of its wheels cracked the slab-like rock’s surface, revealing bright material within, possibly from mineral veins. The rock, dubbed “Bonanza King” showed similar signs of origin as “Pahrump Hills”, so a decision was made to examine it as a possible substitute drilling site.

“Geologically speaking, we can tie the Bonanza King rocks to those at “Pahrump Hills”. Studying them here will give us a head start in understanding how they fit into the bigger picture of Gale Crater and Mount Sharp,” said Curiosity Deputy Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada, before continuing, “This rock has an appearance quite different from the sandstones we’ve been driving through for several months. The landscape is changing, and that’s worth checking out.”

Continue reading “You can’t always get what you want …” →

Why we’ll take VR and virtual worlds to other planets

Posted on by Inara Pey
The first touchdown: human missions to the surface of Mars have long been dreamed about and planned for. Sometime in the next 30 years or less, they’ll become a reality. And VR, AR and virtual worlds are likely to play a role (image: SpaceX)

Sometime in the next thirty years, it is likely that humans will set foot on the surface of Mars. The mission that takes them there might be an international government-sponsored mission, or it might be the result of private endeavour. However it comes about, it will be the culmination of decades of planning, hopes and dreams stretching back beyond the birth of the space age.

There is much that a crew on such a mission will be taking with them in terms of hardware, equipment and technology. And it is very likely that when looking down the list of technologies they’ll take with them, one will be able to find virtual reality, virtual worlds and augmented reality – an in a variety of roles and uses.

Take the crew’s psychological health and well-being for example. A round-trip mission to Mars will take between two and 2.5 years to complete, depending upon the “class” of mission undertaken.

The two classes of Mars mission: opposition (l), which are launched when Earth and Mars are on the same side of the Sun, and conjunction class (r) are launched when the Earth and Mars are on opposite sides of the Sun both amount to a mission duration of 2- 2.5 years
The two classes of Mars mission: opposition (l), which are launched when Earth and Mars are on the same side of the Sun, and conjunction class (r) are launched when the Earth and Mars are on opposite sides of the Sun both amount to a mission duration of 2 – 2.5 years

Throughout that entire time, they’ll be completely isolated from everything we take for granted here on Earth – the freedom to wander outdoors, the sight of a blue sky, green hills, rivers, the sea, cities, lakes, people; they’ll be confined to enclosed spaces which really don’t offer too much in the way of privacy. They’ll even be confined to meals from a menu set months in advance, with no real option to give into a whim for a particular delicacy if it isn’t on their vessel.

For the majority of the mission time, the only people they’ll be able to directly converse with are their fellow crew members – with a minimum round-trip time delay in communications between Earth and Mars of 8 minutes (and potentially as much as 40 minutes through parts of the mission), having real-time conversations with loved ones on Earth simply isn’t going to be possible; they’ll have to rely on pre-recorded messages and video and e-mail.

In these circumstances, stresses are bound to develop, both for the individual members of the crew and, potentially, between team members, no matter how carefully selected for compatibility ahead of the mission or how well-trained. One way of potentially dealing with them is through the use of VR and virtual environments, as NASA and other organisations have been investigating for much of the last decade.

It’s not hard to imagine, for example, a crew going to Mars with a library of pre-filmed environments and events  which they can then explore and enjoy individually or together through the use of personal headsets – or for such a library to be updated with new items beamed via  something like OPALS to their craft. Such environments and activities could provide psychological relief from the confines of the space vehicle.

In June 2014, NASA’s OPALS system beamed the high-definition, 36-second movie “Hello, World” from the International Space Station (travelling at 28,000 kilometres an hour (17,500 mph) to a receiver on Earth in just 3.5 seconds (compared to the 10-12 minutes radio communications would have required. Systems like OPAL offer the key to providing very high bandwidth communications capabilities between Earth and Mars, allowing much more data to be passed back and forth (image: NASA)

Similarly, high fidelity virtual world environments which support direct interaction, such as through haptic feedback mechanisms, might provide the means by which crew members can “remove” themselves from the confines of their vehicle and enjoy a variety of activities, including something we take for granted in VWs today – the ability to create and build.

ANSIBLE (A Network of Social Interactions for Bilateral Life Enhancement) was an initial attempt by NASA, working with SIFT and All These Worlds, to explore how virtual worlds might be leveraged to provide astronauts with environments which could be shared or used individually, and which might offer a range of AI interactions as well.

A screen capture of the main ANSIBLE environment. While openSim probably won't be the VW of choice for a Mission to Mars, the ANSIBLE environment has been used as a means of assessing virtual world environments could each the psychological pressures face by a a confined crew on a long duration space mission
A screen capture of the main ANSIBLE environment. While OpenSim likely won’t be the VW of choice for a Mission to Mars, the ANSIBLE environment is perhaps the first step towards assessing how virtual world environments could ease the psychological pressures face by a confined crew on a long duration space mission (image: SIFT / All These Worlds)

An intriguing element with ANSIBLE was the exploration of the idea that virtual world environments could be asynchronously “shared” between crew members and their friends and family on Earth, allowing them to engage in shared content creation activities, for example, through the swapping back and forth of OAR files, the ability to engage in “shared” immersive games and so on. ANSIBLE researchers even suggested that used in this way, a personal virtual world space could enable an astronaut and their family “share” special occasions more personally than could be done via e-mail, radio or video.

Commenting on the used of immersive environments and haptic technologies in Moving to Mars: There and Back Again (Journal of Cosmology, 2010, Vol 12), Sheryl L. Bishop, Ph.D, noted, “Telepresence and full fidelity audio/video/3-D communication replay capability will provide for more effective psychological support and interaction for crew members and to families and friends back on Earth.”

In terms of crew welfare, virtual reality has another potential use: assisting in matters of fitness. Most current mission scenarios involve the crew travelling to and / or from Mars in a “weightless” environment. Such an environment can be detrimental to many aspects of human physiology – muscles, bones, heart, lungs, etc. It is therefore essential long exposure to weightlessness is countered by routine exercise of up to two hours every day.

Exercise is an essential part of life in micro-gravity, where muscles can easily atrophy, bones suffer calcium loss, the cardiovascular system weaken, etc., away from the pull of Earths gravity. VR could help make such exercise more interesting and help space crews “escape” to more Earth-like environments (image: NASA)

In the confines of a space vehicle, the opportunities for exercise tend to be limited and potentially boring. How much more pleasant it might be for an astronaut who, after lugubriously strapping themselves into a treadmill harness and making all the required tension adjustments ready for 30 or so minutes of going nowhere while staring at a bulkhead, could slip on a VR headset, and go for a run through a woodland park or along a beach, the sounds of nature or the waves in their ears?

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Of holes on Mars and flying saucers

Posted on by Inara Pey

CuriosityIt’s been a month since my last MSL update, so I’m lagging badly; however, mission news coming out of JPL has been a little lax, so I’m not too far behind the times.

Following my last Curiosity report, drilling and sample-gathering in the area dubbed “The Kimberley” has been completed, and the rover is once more on the move, heading west before turning more to the south once more.

The drilling / sampling operation took place on Sol 621 (Monday May 5th, PDT, 2014), with the percussion drill mounted on the rover’s robot arm turret cutting a hole some 6.5 centimetres (2.6 inches) deep and 1.6 cem (0.63 in) across into a flat sandstone slab which had been dubbed “Windjana” shortly after Curiosity arrived in “The Kimberley” at the end of March 2014. The tailings gathered as a part of the drilling operations were delivered to the CHIMRA (Collection and Handling for In-Situ Martian Rock Analysis) system, in preparation for them to be transferred to the rover’s on-board science laboratory. Confirmation that the sample-gathering had been successful came early in the morning (PDT) on Tuesday May 6th.

Holey moley. An image captured by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) Curiosity’s robot arm turret on Sol 627 (May 12th PDT, 2014) showing the sample gathering hole cut into “Windjana”. Dark tailings from the operation lay around the hole and have partially filled the test drilling hole just below it. The two patches of grey visible slightly to the right and blow the drill holes mark the points where Curiosity’s ChemCam laser was used to vapourise dust covering the surface of the rock. Surface material around the rock was subjected to miniature “landslides” as a result of the percussive hammering of the drill (click to enlarge)

The drilling operation, the third time Curiosity has gathered samples from inside a Martian rock for analysis, has caused some excitement among the mission team. “The drill tailings from this rock are darker-toned and less red than we saw at the two previous drill sites,” Jim Bell, deputy principal investigator for Curiosity’s Mast Camera (Mastcam) said after the drilling operation. “This suggests that the detailed chemical and mineral analysis that will be coming from Curiosity’s other instruments could reveal different materials than we’ve seen before. We can’t wait to find out!”

Curiosity’s first two drilling operations took place over a year ago in the “Yellowknife Bay” area of Gale Crater, some four kilometres (2.5 miles) north-east of “The Kimberley”. Analysis of those samples, gathered from mudstone  yielded evidence that “Yellowknife Bay” had once been a part of an ancient lakebed environment which contained key chemical elements and a chemical energy source that long ago provided conditions favourable for microbial life.

Following their transfer to CHIMRA, the tailings cut from “Windjana” were  sifted and graded in readiness for delivery to the ChemMin (Chemical and Mineralogical analysis) and SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) suites of instruments, located in the body of the rover. The initial sample transfer to both instrument suites was made on May 15th PDT, 2014. and analysis of the samples should be carried out as the rover continues its journey towards the lower slopes of “Mount Sharp”.

A composite of eight shots from MAHLI showing successive strikes from the ShemCam laser, both within the sample drilling hole at "Windjana" and where the tailings have mixed with surface dust (top right). Such strikes allow the chemical coposition of the dust and rock to be analysed (click to enlrage)
A composite of eight shots from MAHLI showing successive dot-like strikes from the ChemCam laser, both within the sample drilling hole at “Windjana” and where the tailings have mixed with surface dust (top right). Such strikes allow the chemical composition of the dust and rock to be analysed (click to enlarge)

Prior to departing “The Kimberley”, Curiosity carried out a final set of science operations. These involved using the turret-mounted MAHLI (Mars Hand Lens Imager) and spectrometer to examine the texture and composition of the cuttings from the sample drill hole in situ. The ChemCam laser was also used to vapourise some of the drill tailings on the surface of “Windjana” and rock from the inside of the sample hole itself, allowing the ChemCam to analyse the chemical composition of the resultant vapours.

Continue reading “Of holes on Mars and flying saucers” →

Enter the Dragon V2

Posted on by Inara Pey

Thursday May 28th saw SpaceX, the private sector space company founded by Elon Musk, unveil the next iteration of their Dragon space vehicle, the Dragon V2.

Dragon has been in operation in an unmanned mode since 2010,  and was the first commercially built and operated spacecraft to be recovered successfully from orbit. In May 2012, it commenced uncrewed resupply flights to the International Space Station (which I covered here) as a part of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) development programme.

Elon Musk unveils the Dragon V2 capsule, May 29th, 2014
Elon Musk unveils the Dragon V2 capsule, May 29th, 2014 (image: SpaceX)

Dragon V2 (which had previously been called Dragon Rider by the company) is a natural progression of the Dragon spacecraft, and while always in Spacex’s plans, having been originally announced in 2006, it has been part-funded by two US Government contracts, the Commercial Crew Development 2 (CCDev 2) in April 2011, and the Commercial Crew integrated Capability (CCiCap) in August 2012, both of which are focused on developing crewed vehicles capable of supporting the International Space Station (ISS) and of operating in low Earth orbit (LEO).

Dragon V2 is capable of carrying up to seven crew, or a combination of crew and cargo. The vehicle is intended to be reusable, and capable of landing almost anywhere in the world using propulsive-landing via its eight SuperDraco engines (Dragon 1 is only capable of making splash downs). However, Dragon V2 will retain a parachute descent system for use as a back-up, although it can still make a safe touch-down even if two of its eight descent engines fail. Also, unlike Dragon 1, which makes a close rendezvous with the ISS before being grabbed by one of the station’s robot arms and manoeuvred into a docking position, Dragon 2 will be able to undertake fully automated dockings with the ISS.

Dragon 2 making a control landing, post-mission (image: SpaceX)
Dragon 2 making a control landing, post-mission (image: SpaceX)

Nor does it end there. There are some ambitious plans for Dragon. The head shield, for example, is already capable of protecting the vehicle during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere at velocities equivalent to those of a vehicle returning from the Moon or from Mars – and SpaceX has been working with NASA Ames Centre, California, on a conceptual uncrewed Mars mission evolution called Red Dragon.

Artist’s visualisation of how Red Dragon might appear when landing on Mars were the project to go ahead (image: SpaceX)

Potentially funded under NASA’s Discovery mission programme, Red Dragon, if given the green light, would provide a cost-effective means for NASA to undertake a sample return mission to Mars, allowing up to two tonnes of samples to be returned to Earth for detailed investigation and analysis in 2022, ahead of NASA’s goal of sending humans to Mars in the 2030s.

Other have even more ambitious plans for Dragon and Mars. Dutch-based Mars One plans to kick-start a permanent, self-sufficient human colony on Mars from the mid-2020, with crews leaving Earth on a one-way trip every two years. According to the Mars One website, they hope to be able to use the Dragon vehicle and its associated Falcon 9 heavy launch vehicle also constructed by SpaceX, although there has been no public confirmation as to whether formal discussions with SpaceX have taken place.

Such plans aside, however, the first actual crewed mission for Dragon V2 is unlikely to occur prior to 2016. The next major milestone for the vehicle is a launchpad abort test, scheduled for later in 2014.

This will see the vehicle positioned at pad height and then launched to simulate an emergency in which the crew must escape their launch vehicle. After this, in 2015, there should be a high altitude abort test at Max Q, the period in the vehicle’s ascent when it is exposed to the maximum dynamic pressure. Both tests will feature the use of the vehicle’s SuperDraco engines, which form a part of the escape system as well as powering the craft during descent and landing. Capable of multiple re-starts and what is called “deep throttling”, the engines are themselves unique – the first ever fully printed rocket engines ever flown, produced by a direct metal laser sintering process.

If both of these tests are successful then it is conceivable that Dragon V2 could make an initial uncrewed orbital flight towards the end of 2015, and its first crewed flight in 2016.

Continue reading “Enter the Dragon V2” →