Tag: space

Comet 67P’s “dark side,” its southern polar region, as imaged by Rosetta’s Optical, Spectroscopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System. This region, in shadow for 5.5 years, has only recently been touched by sunlight. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team

For a long five and a half years, Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko’s southern side has been shrouded by darkness. Now, it’s coming into the light, and new microwave images, taken before the big reveal, suggest that the comet’s “dark side” may have a very unusual composition.

The European Space Agency’s Rosetta probe has been orbiting and investigating Comet 67P since August 2014 with the help of its Philae comet lander. The probe pulled together the most detailed portrait ever of a comet, but had one particular blind spot: the comet’s southern side, which is dark for over 5.5 years before a brief, searing-hot year in the light during the comet’s closest approach to the sun. Until that time, only Rosetta’s microwave instrument, MIRO, could make any sense of the blackness.

“We observed the ‘dark side’ of the comet with MIRO on many occasions after Rosetta’s arrival at 67P/C-G, and these unique data are telling us something very intriguing about the material just below its surface,” Mathieu Choukroun, lead author of the new study and researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said in a statement. [Spectacular Comet Photos from Rosetta]

Temperature maps of Comet 67P taken by the Microwave Instrument for the Rosetta Orbiter (MIRO) at two different wavelengths between September and October 2014, millimeter on the left and submillimeter on the right, suggest a transparent layer of ice on or just below the surface.
Credit: ESA/Rosetta/NASA/JPL-Caltech

The group investigated data from that region from August to October 2014, and found evidence suggesting a large amount of ice had built up. MIRO’s measurements indicated that material very near the surface is transparent, probably consisting of water ice or carbon-dioxide ice. This is very different from the dusty surface elsewhere on the comet.

Potentially, the researchers said in the statement, the water and gases were released when the comet’s south pole last saw sunlight, while the comet was closest to the sun. That material then condensed and coated the surface when the area plunged back into darkness. But there’s no way to know exactly how that occurred until that region’s shape is understood better, the researchers said.

“We plan to revisit the MIRO data using an updated version of the shape model, to verify these early results and refine the interpretation of the measurements,” Choukroun said.

Luckily, there isn’t long to wait: Data collected from May 2015 to early 2016 will reveal the full dark side at last. Once all Rosetta’s instruments have been focused on that part of the comet, the whole story should be clearer.

Matt Taylor, Rosetta’s project scientist, said in the statement that the probe has flown over the southern region several times since the area’s summer began, especially around the time the comet was closest to the sun, Aug. 13 — which is when the comet shows the most activity.

“First, we observed these dark regions with MIRO, the only instrument able to do so at the time, and we tried to interpret these unique data,” Taylor said. “Now, as these regions became warmer and brighter around perihelion, we can observe them with other instruments, too.”

“We hope that by combining data from all these instruments, we will be able to confirm whether or not the [comet’s] south pole had a different composition and whether or not it is changing seasonally,” added Mark Hofstadter, MIRO’s principal investigator.

The new research was recently accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

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

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity captured this image, which looks toward the higher regions of the 3.4-mile-high (5.5 kilometers) Mount Sharp, on Sept. 9, 2015. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has beamed home a gorgeous postcard of the mountainous Red Planet landscape it’s exploring.

The car-size Curiosity rover has been studying the foothills of the 3.4-mile-high (5.5 kilometers) Mount Sharp since September 2014. Slowly but surely, the robot is making its way up the mountain, and the new photo — which was taken on Sept. 9 but just released Friday (Oct. 2) — shows some of the terrain Curiosity will investigate in the future.

“The only thing more stunning than these images is the thought that Curiosity will be driving through those lower hills one day,” Curiosity project scientist Ashwin Vasavada, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement Friday (Oct. 2). “We couldn’t help but send a postcard back to all those following her journey.” [Latest Amazing Mars Photos by NASA’s Curiosity Rover]

In the foreground of the new image, about 2 miles (3.2 km) from Curiosity’s position, lies a ridge rich in hematite, a mineral form of iron oxide. Beyond the ridge lie ancient hills containing clay minerals, and behind those hills are buttes rich in sulfate minerals, NASA officials said.

“The changing mineralogy in these layers of Mount Sharp suggests a changing environment in early Mars, though all involve exposure to water billions of years ago,” NASA officials wrote in the same statement. “The Curiosity team hopes to be able to explore these diverse areas in the months and years ahead.”

The light-colored, heavily wind-eroded cliffs in the background of the new photo likely formed more recently, when Mars was drier, researchers said.

Curiosity is currently — and was on Sept. 9 as well — in a sandstone-dominated part of Mount Sharp’s lower reaches that mission team members call the Stimson Unit. On Sept. 29, the six-wheeled robot drilled a 2.6-inch-deep (6.5 centimeters) hole in a rock dubbed Big Sky, then collected some of the resulting powder for analysis.

That analysis — using the rover’s onboard Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) and Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instruments — will take place over the next week or so, team members said.

“With Big Sky, we found the ordinary sandstone rock we were looking for,” Vasavada said. “It also happens to be relatively near sandstone that looks as though it has been altered by fluids — likely groundwater with other dissolved chemicals. We are hoping to drill that rock next, compare the results, and understand what changes have taken place.”

Curiosity has now drilled eight such sample-collecting holes on Mars. Five of these drilling operations have occurred at the base of Mount Sharp.

Curiosity landed inside Mars’ 96-mile-wide (154 km) Gale Crater in August 2012, on a $2.5 billion mission to determine if the Red Planet has ever been capable of supporting microbial life. Curiosity’s observations near its landing site revealed that Gale Crater harbored a potentially habitable lake-and-stream system billions of years ago.

Mount Sharp has been the rover’s ultimate science destination since before its November 2011 launch. Mission scientists want Curiosity to climb up through the mountain’s lower reaches, reading the rocks for clues about Mars’ transition from a relatively warm and wet world long ago to the cold, dry planet we know today.

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

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Hurricane Joaquin over the Bahamas at 1:55 p.m. EDT (1755 GMT) on Oct. 1, 2015. This visible image was captured by NASA’s Aqua satellite. Credit: NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team

Hurricane Joaquin, a Category 4 storm that is currently battering the central Bahamas, appears to be replacing its eye, according to weather forecasters.

New satellite views of the intense hurricane appear to show the storm’s eye obscured, which could indicate that a new eye is forming around the old one, NASA said. This process, known as eyewall replacement, occurs naturally in powerful tropical cyclones. (Tropical cyclones that form in the Atlantic or eastern Pacific are called hurricanes, while those that form in the western Pacific and southeastern Indian Ocean are dubbed typhoons.)

During eyewall-replacement cycles, a new outer eyewall — a swirling mass of clouds that rotates around the center of a storm — forms. This eventually cuts off inflow to the existing eye and replaces it altogether. Such an event typically weakens a hurricane, but the replacement can also blow hurricane-force winds over a more sprawling area, according to NASA. [Hurricanes from Above: See Images of Nature’s Biggest Storms]

The agency’s Aqua satellite snapped photos of Hurricane Joaquin over the Bahamas yesterday (Oct. 1), with the storm’s eye clearly visible. However, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s GOES-East satellite passed over the area 12 hours later, clouds appeared to cover the eye, NASA officials said.

Hurricane Joaquin is currently churning over the Bahamas, delivering heavy rainfall and maximum sustained winds of approximately 130 mph (209 km/h) to the area. But over the next 24 hours, “some fluctuations in intensity are possible due to eyewall-replacement cycles,” the National Hurricane Center said in an update posted today (Oct. 2) at 11 a.m. EDT.

The storm is slowly drifting northwest and is expected to accelerate its northward movement tomorrow (Oct. 3), away from the Bahamas. Early forecasts showed the hurricane possibly making landfall along the U.S. East Coast, but models now indicate the storm’s track has shifted eastward and the hurricane will likely not hit any part of the U.S. mainland.

Still, even though the storm is expected to head out to sea, heavy rain and flooding are predicted for a wide swath of the Southeast and mid-Atlantic, according to the National Weather Service. The agency’s flood outlook predicts that as much as 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain could fall over parts of Georgia and South Carolina.

The latest forecasts can be accessed on the National Hurricane Center’s website.

Follow Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

An Atlas V 421 rocket launched the Morelos-3 mission for Mexico’s Secretaria de Comunicaciones y Transportes (Ministry of Communications and Transportation) on Oct. 2, 2015, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Credit: United Launch Alliance

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket blasted a communications satellite into orbit today (Oct. 2), marking the 100th consecutive successful liftoff for the company.

ULA, a joint venture of aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin, now has a 100 percent success rate on 100 rocket launches since its formation in 2006.

“Congratulations to the entire team, including our many mission partners, on this unprecedented achievement,” Jim Sponnick, ULA vice president for Atlas and Delta programs, said in a statement.  

The Atlas V rocket launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 6:28 a.m. EDT (1028 GMT) today, carrying the Morelos-3 satellite for Mexico’s Ministry of Communications and Transportation. Morelos-3 is joining the Mexsat satellite constellation, which helps serve Mexico’s national security needs and provides communications to rural zones, ULA representatives said.

ULA currently operates the Atlas V, Delta IV, Delta IV Heavy and Delta II rockets, which have rich heritages that stretch back more than half a century. For example, the first flights of the Delta rocket family took place in 1960, and in February 1962, an Atlas LV-3B booster launched John Glenn on the United States’ first crewed orbital flight.

ULA launches payloads for many organizations, though the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA are notable repeat customers.

In December 2014, for instance, a Delta IV Heavy rocket launched NASA’s Orion capsule on the spacecraft’s first test flight, an uncrewed mission called Exploration Flight Test 1. And Atlas V rockets lofted the agency’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (in 2010), Juno Jupiter probe (2011), Mars rover Curiosity (2011) and MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) Mars orbiter (2013), among others.

ULA is also developing a partially reusable rocket called Vulcan, which company representatives hope will eventually replace the Delta and Atlas rockets. Vulcan could begin flying by 2019.

Next up on ULA’s manifest is the NROL-55 mission for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). An Atlas V will launch the NROL-55 satellite, along with 13 tiny cubesats (four from NASA and nine from the NRO), from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base on Oct. 8.

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

Not all of the NASA hardware shown in the movie “The Martian” is fictional: astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) uses a historic NASA spacecraft. Credit: 20th Century Fox via collectSPACE.com

A historic NASA spacecraft makes more than just a cameo appearance in “The Martian,” the new Ridley Scott movie about an astronaut stranded on Mars.

The 20th Century Fox film, which opened in U.S. theaters on Friday (Oct. 2), follows NASA’s third crewed mission to land on the Red Planet in 2035. By the movie’s timeline, Ares 3 crew member Mark Watney (Matt Damon) walks on Mars 23 years after the space agency’s most recent real-life “martian,” the robotic rover Curiosity, arrived to search for environments habitable to supporting past and present life.

But it’s not Curiosity that is in “The Martian.” (Spoiler alert: the following contains plot details from the movie.) [“The Martian” and NASA: Full Coverage]

Rather, it is NASA’s first Mars rover, and more specifically its three-petal lander, that Watney uses to contact Earth.

Mars Pathfinder and its small, six-wheeled Sojourner rover touched down on Mars on July 4, 1997. For almost three months, the lander beamed back billions of bits of data, including tens of thousands of images, before it fell silent. The science gathered by the lander and rover suggested that Mars was warm and wet in its past, a finding that was confirmed by later NASA missions, including Curiosity.

In “The Martian,” Watney sets out to retrieve Pathfinder to use its radio and camera to re-establish communications with NASA after his own habitat’s antenna is destroyed in a dust storm. The filmmakers consulted with engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) before recreating the probe for the film.

“They were helpful with drawings and technical information about how that worked and the components, which we had to replicate,” described production designer Arthur Max in a video released by the studio. “We have a fully practical working Pathfinder, which we use throughout the movie.”

Ready for its close-up

“[It] looked pretty good to me,” said Donna Shirley, who in 1997 was NASA’s Mars Exploration program manager. [“The Martian”: A Movie and Book Review]

collectSPACE.com asked Shirley and Rob Manning, who was Pathfinder’s chief engineer, to help fact check the movie’s version of the spacecraft that they designed and helped to oversee on Mars.

“It looks like they got close,” said Manning. (Both he and Shirley had yet to view “The Martian,” but commented for this article based on studio-released stills and descriptions shared by collectSPACE.)

There were some differences in the details. For example, the film’s version of the Pathfinder lander is equipped with LED status lights.

“Nope, no LEDs,” Manning confirmed. “That would have been cool. We did talk about that possibility back then but LEDs were hard to qualify for the Mars environment.”

And then there’s how Pathfinder first appears in the movie when Watney arrives at its landing site — the lander and rover are completely buried in the sand. Thirty-eight years later, would the lander be covered?

“While we don’t have many decades of observation of the dust storm conditions, we can say from observations at the landing sites and observations so far that it is unlikely at the relatively short time scale between 1997 and 2035 that a significant fall out of dust could accumulate in such a short time,” said Manning. “However it’s not impossible.”

Powering up Pathfinder

Appearance aside, “The Martian” relies on how Pathfinder was designed in order to allow Watney to trade messages with Mission Control. After moving the lander to the Ares 3 hab, the astronaut sets about rebooting the probe.

“There was no accessible power plug or power connector other than the solar panel connectors” Manning said. “The power to the lander while cruising to Mars would come in through the top of the lander, [but] that becomes unusable on Mars because the lander opens up relays to prevent those wires from shorting during landing and while on [the surface].”

Even if Pathfinder had a spare port by which to plug in an external power source, as is shown in the film, it may not have done much good.

“Remember, we think Pathfinder died because something inside it broke,” Manning explained.

After about its 40th day (sol) on Mars, the lander’s battery no longer held a charge, so from that point forward, it shut off before sunset and woke up with the sun.

“At night, without a battery, it got really chilly inside the lander, and we think that the electronics got too cold and something inside broke,” Manning said. “If someone came along and put 30 volts on the lander’s solar array cables that went into the lander, [Pathfinder] would probably not wake up.”

“On the other hand, there were failure mode possibilities where a solid external 30 volts supply may have been able to overcome the fault and the lander computer might have booted,” he added.

Composite self-portrait of NASA’s Mars Pathfinder on the Red Planet. The center of the image consists of a museum model.
Credit: NASA/JPL

Smile for the camera

To communicate with NASA, Watney manually points the lander’s high gain antenna towards Earth (something only possible if he unbolted it first, Manning said) and then sets up three signs around the Pathfinder in view of its mast-mounted revolving camera. On the middle sign, he writes a question (“Are you receiving me?”) and on either side are signs that read “Yes” and “No.” [Surviving “The Martian”: How to Not Die on Mars]

To respond, NASA sends a signal to point the camera at the “Yes” sign.

“This was quite a good idea,” said Manning. [The] camera could be aimed within a degree or so in both azimuth and elevation.”

In order to allow more complex questions, Watney figures out he can arrange even more signs at intervals around the lander so NASA can spell out its replies using ASCII in hexadecimal code. The flight controllers catch on and the camera pivots between the signs in quick fashion.

Manning thought this too would be possible, although at a slower pace (minutes rather than seconds) than is shown in the film.

Ultimately, NASA conveys the instructions to Watney on how to reprogram Pathfinder such that it can be plugged into the astronaut’s rover, enabling longer text messages to be transmitted. Unlike the problem of the missing power port, establishing the comm connection might be feasible.

“There is a spare RS-422 [serial interface] port directly into the flight computer that we used to give us access to the flight software and low level commands while it was still here on Earth,” noted Manning.

Continue reading at collectSPACE about Mars Pathfinder’s fate in real life and how it may compare to “The Martian.”

Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2015 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.

Ariane 5 lifts off with Sky Muster and ARSAT-2 satellites from Europe’s spaceport on Sept. 30, 2015. Credit: Arianespace

PARIS — Europe’s Ariane 5 heavy-lift rocket on Sept. 30 placed telecommunications satellites for Australia and Argentina into geostationary transfer orbit in the vehicle’s 68th consecutive success.

The satellites — the first of two Sky Muster Ka-band broadband satellites for Australia’s NBN Co. and the Arsat-2 Ku- and C-band telecommunications satellite for Arsat of Argentina — were both reported by their owners to be healthy in orbit and sending signals.

The launch was an illustration of the widening diversity of commercial telecommunications platforms. Sky Muster, built by SSL of Palo Alto, California, weighed 6,440 kilograms at launch and is equipped with the equivalent of 202 Ka-band transponders operating through 101 spot beams.

It is designed to deliver 16.4 kilowatts of power to its payload toward the end of its operational life, estimated at more than 15 years. It will operate from 140 degrees east.

Arsat-2, the showcase product in Argentina’s growing space-development program, was built by the government-owned INVAP — with the payload provided by Thales Alenia Space of France and Italy — and weighed 2,977 kilograms at launch. It carries 26 Ku-band and 10 C-band transponders and is designed to provide 4.6 kilowatts of power at the end of its 15-year life. Arsat-2 will operate from 81 degrees west. [Satellite Quiz: Test Your Space Smarts]

In a move that the superstitious would have disapproved — and there are more superstitious space-industry personnel than one might expect — Arsat contracted with the Arianespace launch consortium before the launch Arsat-2 launch to launch Arsat-3 in 2019.

The contract includes options for two other Arsat launches between 2020 and 2023.

Ariane 5 payload fairing and Ariane 5 payload fairing and Arsat-2 satellite..
Credit: Arianespace

Argentine officials have said they are determined not to lose access to geostationary orbital slots available to them. Under international regulations, orbital slot reservations expire if they are unused for several years and are then available to others.

The first Arsat satellite, Arsat-1, was launched aboard an Ariane 5 in October 2014.

Arsat Chief Executive Matias Bianchi said after the launch that decisions by successive Argentine governments to invest in a domestic space technology base have resulted in Argentina’s becoming independent in satellite production even as it secures long-term access to orbital real estate.

Bianchi said 30 percent of Arsat-2 had been booked before the launch.

Australia’s satellite broadband program, managed by NBN Co. Ltd. as part of a diversified broadband access network including microwave and terrestrial distribution, is perhaps the most ambitious satellite broadband policy ever enacted.

Befitting its ambition — two satellites, 10 gateway Earth stations, each with 13-meter-diameter dishes for a total capital investment of $1.2 billion — the satellite piece of the network has been more controversial politically than any other telecommunications satellite effort.

Election campaigns featured arguments over the wisdom of offering what was sometimes called a “gold-plated service.”

Australia’s total population is about 23.5 million. The satellite network is designed to reach 200,000 homes and small businesses in Australia’s vast rural areas beyond the reach of terrestrial links.

Rural broadband-access programs are common in many regions, but because of Australia’s size, the investment required to guarantee service to the most remote locations works out to about $6,000 per home. Installation of the dish antenna at each residence is eligible for a subsidy that is included in the overall program budget.

NBN Chairman Ziggy Switkowski, who attended the launch at Europe’s Guiana Space Center, on the northeast coast of South America, said the $1.2 billion expense delivered a program that is on schedule and on budget. The second Sky Muster satellite is scheduled for launch in late 2016.

NBN is offering customers in areas eligible for satellite links — to assure the capacity is available for the intended users, NBN has produced detailed maps of who will be allowed to receive it — two packages. One offers downlinks at 12 megabits per second and a 1-megabit-per-second uplink, while the other offers 25 megabits-per-second downlinks and uplinks at 5 megabits per second.

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