Category: space.com

In “Please Stand By” (2018), Dakota Fanning plays Wendy, a young woman with autism who makes her way to Los Angeles to submit a “Star Trek” script for a contest.

This enhanced-color view shows a swath of Jupiter’s moon Europa that’s 217 miles wide by 466 miles long (350 by 750 kilometers). New research suggests that Europa’s surface could be 95 percent porous, meaning a probe might sink if it landed there.

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – The successful launch of Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket Jan. 20 also tested a kick stage designed to circularize the orbits of its satellite payloads.

The company said Jan. 23 that the Electron carried a kick stage for the two Lemur-2 cubesats it launched for Spire. The kick stage separated from the Electron’s upper stage and, after a 40-minute coast phase, fired an engine called Curie to circularize its orbits before releasing the cubesats.

The Electron’s upper stage placed the kick stage, as well as a Dove cubesat from Planet, into orbits of approximately 300 by 500 kilometers. Data from the U.S. Strategic Command’s Space Track website shows that three of the objects, not identified but believed to be the two Lemur-2 cubesats and the kick stage, are in orbits with perigees of 490 to 500 kilometers and apogees of 530 to 535 kilometers, far more circular than the other objects tracked from the launch. [Watch Rocket Lab’s Electron Launch Satellites for Customers]

Rocket Lab, which had not previously disclosed the development of the kick stage, said it pursued the system to provide its customers more flexibility in the orbits it could achieve with its vehicle and how it could deploy those satellites.

The kick stage developed by Rocket Lab for circularizing the orbits of its satellite payloads and other maneuvers.

Credit: Rocket Lab

Rocket Lab

The kick stage developed by Rocket Lab for circularizing the orbits of its satellite payloads and other maneuvers. Credit: Rocket Lab

“We saw the need to be able to deploy satellites in different orbits,” said Rocket Lab Chief Executive Peter Beck in an interview. He cited as one use of the kick stage spacing out deployments of cubesats in different orbits. “We see that as being a real operational advantage for our customers.”

A Rocket Lab Electron Rocket lifts off from the company’s launch site in New Zealand Jan. 20. This launch, the second for the small launch vehicle, was the first to successfully reach orbit.

Credit: Rocket Lab

Beck said the kick stage performed as planned on the launch. “It was 100 percent mission success,” he said.

The heart of the kick stage is Curie, an engine developed by Rocket Lab. Beck described the engine, capable of performing multiple burns, as 3D-printed and using an unspecified “green” monopropellant. The name follows a trend by the company to name its engines after famous physicists: its Electron rocket is powered by engines named Rutherford.

Beck said the stage could perform a number of applications to change orbits of its payloads, but didn’t disclose technical specifications like the stage’s total delta-v. The stage could also lower its orbit after satellite deployments to minimize its time in orbit before reentry. “We can be much more conscious and deliberate about ensuring we don’t leave stuff behind,” he said.

On the Electron launch itself, which was the first successful flight of the small launch vehicle. Beck said the company was just starting an intensive review of the data collected during the test flight. “Everything is looking very good at this stage,” he said. “We’ll be accelerating into commercial operations since everything looks pretty nominal.”

This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.

Kepler’s first satellite, Kipp, launched Jan. 19 on a Long March 11 as a precursor to a constellation of up to 140 cubesats.

Friday, November 17, 2017: As sunlight illuminates a small sliver of the crescent moon, the rest of the moon’s face is faintly lit by Earthshine, a subtle glow created by light reflecting off the surface of the Earth. Astrophotographer Jennifer Rose Lane captured this stunning view of the waning crescent moon from Chapmanville, West Virginia on Wednesday (Nov. 15), just three days before the invisible new moon will rise into the morning sky. — Hanneke Weitering

Tuesday, October 10, 2017: NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hai (left) and Randy Bresnik are spotted working outside the International Space Station on Thursday (Oct. 5) during the first of three spacewalks taking place this month. The spacewalking duo replaced a degraded “hand” at the end of the Canadarm2 robotic arm. Today the astronauts are taking a second spacewalk to lubricate the newly installed equipment and swap out some old cameras outside the space station. European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli, who assisted the spacewalkers by operating the Canadarm2, captured this view of the spacewalkers from inside the orbiting laboratory. — Hanneke Weitering

The Lyrids will fill the sky from April 16 to April 25, with a peak on April 22. Like all meteor showers, it’s best seen after midnight, but can be seen any time after its parent system rises at around 9 p.m. local time. Skywatchers should see about 18 meteors per hour at maximum.

The Lyrid meteor shower is caused by Earth passing through the path of the comet Thatcher, and its bright streaks, traveling as fast as 110,000 miles per hour, or 30 miles per second (177,000 kilometers per hour, 49 kilometers per second) can typically shine about as bright as the stars in the Big Dipper, usually making it a great beginner meteor shower. Sometimes, viewers even see fireballs in the sky. [Amazing Lyrid Meteor Shower Photos]

And a dark sky should be in store for viewers this year: “The moon will be really favorable for them this year; it will set by the time the Lyrid radiant is high in the sky,” Cooke told Space.com. “The moon will be around first quarter, so the moon will have set by the show getting fired up after midnight.”

“When you’re watching meteor showers, the thing you dread is getting the full moon, because that washes out all the fainter ones because of the bright light,” Cooke said. “The Lyrids, which are what we call a medium meteor shower, or a moderately intense meteor shower, are going to get washed out by the full moon.”

NEXT: Where to spot the Lyrids.

Thursday, September 28, 2017: En route to visit an asteroid, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft flew by Earth on Friday (Sept. 22) and captured this stunning photo of our “blue marble.” The spacecraft passed 10,711 miles (17,237 kilometers) over Antarctica during the gravity-assist flyby, which gave the spacecraft a speed boost on its way to asteroid Bennu. — Hanneke Weitering

A Space Launch System rocket fires during a test on the A-1 Test Stand at Stennis Space Center.

Two commercial satellites and a NASA Earth-observation instrument managed to reach orbit despite a scare during liftoff today (Jan. 25).

NASA’s Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) instrument and the SES-14 and Al Yah 3 communications satellites launched atop an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket this evening from Guiana Space Center in French Guiana. GOLD, which is a bit bigger than a microwave, rode piggyback on SES-14.

About 9 minutes after liftoff, the outlook turned grim: Arianespace lost contact with the rocket’s upper stage, leading to speculation that the payloads had been lost. But everything turned out all right in the end, according to representatives of the France-based launch provider. [NASA Goes for ‘GOLD’ to Scan the Border of Earth and Space]

An Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket carrying the SES-14 communications satellite, with NASA’s GOLD instrument, and the Al Yah 3 satellite lifts off from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana on Jan. 25, 2018.

Credit: Arianespace

“A few seconds after ignition of the upper stage, the second tracking station located in Natal, Brazil, did not acquire the launcher telemetry. This lack of telemetry lasted throughout the rest of powered flight,” Arianespace representatives wrote in a statement a few hours after launch.

“Subsequently, both satellites were confirmed separated, acquired and they are on orbit. SES-14 and Al Yah 3 are communicating with their respective control centers,” they added. “Both missions are continuing.”

GOLD will study Earth’s upper atmosphere, especially the temperatures in the ionosphere and thermosphere, from its perch in geostationary orbit, about 22,000 miles (35,400 kilometers) up. The instrument’s observations should allow researchers to better understand this region and how it’s affected by solar activity, NASA officials have said.

GOLD is the first NASA science mission ever to fly as a “hosted payload” on a commercial satellite, agency officials said.

“Being on hosted commercial satellites gives us, NASA, a new cost-effective tool in our toolbox for doing science,” Elsayed Talaat, heliophysics chief scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., said in a teleconference yesterday (Jan. 24). “There are still many times when we would have to build the satellite and do the launch ourselves, but the more tools we have to get into space, the better for our overall science program.”

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

Update for 9:17 pm ET: Read our full story on tonight’s launch anomaly and orbital success for NASA’s GOLD instrument, SES-14 and Al Yah 3 here: Ariane 5 Rocket Delivers Satellites, NASA GOLD to Orbit Despite Launch Anomaly

Update for 8:47 pm ET: Arianespace representatives have reported that the SES-14 and Al Yah 3 satellites are in their expected orbits after the company lost contact with its Ariane 5 rocket’s upper stage during tonight’s launch. Here’s the latest statement from Arianespace: 

“The launcher’s liftoff took place on January 25, 2018 at 7:20 pm. A few seconds after ignition of the upper stage, the second tracking station located in Natal, Brazil, did not acquire the launcher telemetry. This lack of telemetry lasted throughout the rest of powered flight. Subsequently, both satellites were confirmed separated, acquired and they are on orbit. SES-14 and Al Yah 3 are communicating with their respective control centers. Both missions are continuing.”

Update for 7 p.m. ET: European spaceflight provider Arianespace has apparently lost contact with the Ariane 5 rocket that was carrying two commercial satellites and a NASA science instrument into orbit. 

Arianespace CEO Stephane Israel delivered a statement regarding the anomaly via the launch webcast (video above). That statement is as follows: “Ladies and gentlemen, I come to give you some information because we have had an anomaly on this launch. Indeed, we lost contact with the launcher a few seconds after ignition of the upper stage. At that time, we can consider that the upper composite and the satellite as being (inaudible). But as I said, we lost contact. Up to now, our customers do not have contact with the satellite. We need now some time to know if they have been separated, and where they are exactly, to better analyze the consequences of this anomaly. I want to present my deepest excuses to our customers, who have entrusted us one more time. We know that there is no launch with no risk. We know that launch is always difficult, and tonight Ariane 5 has had an anomaly, so lets take time now to better understand the situation of the satellites. Arianespace, in full transparency, will come back to you to provide you with some more information as soon as we have them. I apologize on behalf of Arianespace.” 

Our original launch story appears below:

An eagle-eyed NASA instrument, built to study the boundary between Earth and space, hitched a ride to space today (Jan. 25) with a new communications satellite that launched into orbit on a European rocket.

The Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) instrument, somewhere between a microwave and minifridge in size, lifted off with the SES-14 telecommunications satellite on an Ariane 5 rocket from Guiana Space Center in French Guiana. Another communications satellite, called Al Yah 3, launched on the same rocket. [NASA Goes for ‘GOLD’ to Scan the Border of Earth and Space]

“GOLD is a true pathfinder for NASA in several ways,” Elsayed Talaat, the heliophysics chief scientist at NASA headquarters, said in a teleconference yesterday (Jan. 24). “This is the first time that NASA’s flown a science mission as a hosted payload on a commercial satellite … [and] we anticipate that having GOLD up there will give us new insight into the upper atmosphere that will revolutionize our understanding of space weather.”

Members of the GOLD team pose in a clean room at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, after the instrument underwent a pre-ship review before being sent to Airbus Defense and Space in Toulouse, France.

Credit: LASP

Living on the edge

After launch and separation from its rocket, SES-14 and GOLD will begin to use electric propulsion to transfer into the satellite’s final, geostationary orbit — a high spot in space where its circling keeps it centered above one spot on Earth as the planet turns. (It’s headed to an orbit of 22,000 miles, or 35,400 kilometers, above Earth; for comparison, the International Space Station circles at about 250 miles, or 400 km above the surface.) From there, it will be able to track the temperature of nearly a whole hemisphere’s ionosphere and thermosphere, giving scientists invaluable data to build models of the complicated region near the top of Earth’s atmosphere.

“Part of the problem with this region is it’s constantly changing — it can change very rapidly,” Richard Eastes, principal investigator for GOLD and a researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), which built the instrument, said during the teleconference. “The temperatures there can change by hundreds of degrees in just an hour, but we haven’t been able to really track this very well.”

Conditions in the upper atmosphere, which vary based on particles and radiation coming from the sun as well as weather patterns on Earth, are poorly understood. But this information is critical to communications and navigation systems, because radio waves bounce off of the atmosphere, and satellite-Earth communications (and GPS signals) must pass through it.

Communications between satellites and Earth-based antennas must pass through the ionosphere.

Credit: NASA/GSFC/CIL/Krystofer Kim

In addition, space weather — the sun’s variation, changes in Earth’s magnetic field and changes in near-Earth space — can disrupt electric power systems and grids on Earth in severe cases, Talaat said. The better scientists can understand and model the region, the better they can monitor and predict the effects it will have on Earth and low Earth orbit.

“This is a really incredible region where terrestrial weather from below percolates up and mixes with solar influences like geomagnetic storms and solar extreme ultraviolet radiation from above,” said Katelynn Greer, a research scientist at LASP. “With GOLD, we’re going to be able to get to observe this with measurements of temperature and composition on the whole disk [nearly a whole hemisphere of Earth] every half-hour. And we’ve never had information like this before.”

Layers of Earth’s upper atmosphere — GOLD focuses on the neutral thermosphere and the charged particles, called the ionosphere, embedded within it.

Credit: NASA Goddard/Genna Duberstein

Coming online

SES-14 and GOLD will take about 4 and a half months to maneuver to their high perch in geostationary orbit using electric propulsion, the researchers said. After that, the satellite, and then GOLD, will run checks to make sure everything is in order. All told, it should be “September-ish” before observations start coming down.

But there’s one key moment that will take place just a few days after launch, according to Susan Batiste, a systems engineer at LASP.

“We do have an opportunity where we’re going to turn on the instrument and send a few commands,” she said during the teleconference. GOLD’s highly specialized detectors can’t be surrounded by air; they can only be in nitrogen or a vacuum, she said. After launch, the GOLD team will allow the instrument to open its detector doors and expose them to the vacuum of space for the trip up into geostationary orbit.

This image shows GOLD scanning the ionosphere from a position in geostationary orbit, which stays over one particular spot on Earth as it orbits and the planet rotates.

Credit: NASA Goddard/SVS/Tom Bridgman

“It’s a very rough ride through launch, and this will be just a nice feeling to know, yes, it made it through launch; we can turn this guy on and open the doors; then we can sit back and relax while SES and Airbus [Defense and Space, which built SES-14] do their thing getting this spacecraft up into geo[stationary] orbit,” she said.

It’s just one of many benefits of placing NASA science instruments as a hosted payload on a commercial satellite — and although GOLD is the first, NASA officials anticipate that more will follow that route. (One other mission, called GeoCARB, is also set to launch with a commercial satellite.)

“Being on hosted commercial satellites gives us, NASA, a new cost-effective tool in our toolbox for doing science,” Talaat said. “There are still many times when we would have to build the satellite and do the launch ourselves, but the more tools we have to get into space, the better for our overall science program.”

The SES-14 telecommunications satellite, carrying NASA’s GOLD mission, and the Al Yah 3 communications satellite launched aboard Arianespace’s Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana Jan. 25, 2018.

Credit: NASA TV

Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

To honor the upcoming anniversaries of three deadly disasters that claimed the lives of 17 NASA astronauts over the years, the space agency will host its annual Day of Remembrance ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia today (Jan. 25).

This time of year is always somber for NASA, with the anniversaries of the Apollo 1 fire, the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger and the loss of the space shuttle Columbia all happening over the span of just five days.

These tragic accidents occurred decades apart, and the fact that their anniversaries are so close together is just a coincidence. Every year, NASA takes this depressing streak of anniversaries as an opportunity to honor all of the lives that have been lost over the course of its human-spaceflight program. [Fallen Heroes of Space Exploration: A Memorial (Gallery)]

During today’s ceremony, NASA acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot and other senior officials will lead an observance starting at 10:25 a.m. EST (1525 GMT) followed by a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

“Various NASA centers also will hold observances on and leading up to the Day of Remembrance for the public, employees and the families of those lost in service to America’s space program, including Johnson Space Center in Houston and Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville, Alabama,” NASA officials said in a statement.

At Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Astronauts Memorial Foundation will host a ceremony in which daughters, sons and widows of the fallen astronauts will speak. Astronaut Eileen Collins, NASA’s first female space shuttle commander, will also speak at this event. Members of the public are welcome to attend.

NASA TV will not broadcast these events, but those who cannot attend can learn more about the Day of Remembrance in a special multimedia presentation that the agency published online this week.

The three tragedies

The first fatal accident to ever befall NASA astronauts happened before the crew members even made it to their scheduled launch date. On Jan. 27, 1967, during a prelaunch rehearsal test about a month before their planned launch, a fire erupted inside the Apollo command module. Trapped inside were all-star astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee.

Investigators later determined that the cause of the fire was totally preventable and was rooted in flaws in the spacecraft’s design. An electrical spark started the fire, and combustible materials inside the spacecraft — combined with a pure-oxygen atmosphere — caused the fire to spread rapidly. The doors of the command module were built to open inward, which prevented the astronauts from opening the door as fire consumed the spacecraft. [Photos of the Apollo 1 Fire: NASA’s First Disaster]

Then 19 years later, tragedy struck again. On Jan. 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after lifting off from Kennedy Space Center. All seven crewmembers (five NASA astronauts and two payload specialists) were killed as the shuttle disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean. Investigators once again blamed the accident on design flaws. Specifically, a device known as an O-ring, which was designed to separate the sections of the rocket booster, had failed due to cold temperatures on the morning of the launch.

NASA made design changes after the Challenger disaster in an attempt to make the space shuttle safer. Seventeen years passed before the next fatal space shuttle disaster. On Feb. 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia broke apart as it returned to Earth after a two-week mission, killing the seven-person crew. This time, a piece of foam had broken off the shuttle’s external fuel tank during launch and collided with the shuttle’s left wing, damaging the heat shield. This didn’t seem deadly at first — only when the spacecraft re-entered Earth’s atmosphere did the extent of the problem become apparent.

Every time NASA has experienced tragic loss of human life during spaceflight missions, the agency has taken time to re-evaluate and redesign its spacecraft in order to prevent more tragedies like these from happening again. But spaceflight is inherently dangerous, and as all three of these incidents illustrate, potentially catastrophic issues are most easily recognized through hindsight.

 Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebookand Google+. Original article on Space.com.