Scott Johnson

July 14th, 2017

NASAs Super Guppy aircraft retrieves SLS test hardware from MSFC on July 11, 2017. Photo Credit: Scott Johnson / SpaceFlight Insider

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. NASAs Super Guppy aircraft made an appearance in Huntsville earlier this weekarriving July 10 and departing July 11at the Redstone Arsenalairfield, adjacent to the agencys Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). The aircraft was in town to retrieve the MSFC-manufactured Space Launch System (SLS) Orion Stage Adapter (OSA) structural test article (STA) and transport the hardware to Lockheed Martinin Colorado.

MSFC recently completed integrated structural testing on the OSA STA, along with the Launch Vehicle Stage Adapter (LVSA) STA, the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS)STA, and other SLS / Orion test components.

Brent Gaddes, NASAs OSA Manager, explained that Lockheed, Orions primary contractor, will use the OSA STA for structural testing, for acoustic testing, [and for] . . . loadal testing, that has to do with how it vibrates when its excited at certain frequencies,to confirm the soundness of the spacecraft design.

The flight version of the OSA will connect the SLS Exploration Mission 1(EM-1) ICPS tothe integrated Orion spacecraft / service module.

Gregory C. Ray J Johnson, retired astronaut and current Super Guppy commander / pilot, speaks to media on July 11, 2017. Photo Credit: Scott Johnson / SpaceFlight Insider

The Super Guppy hasa cargo compartment 25 feet (7.62 meters) in diameter and 111 feet (33.83 meters) long. The aircraft is capable of transportingup to 45,000 pounds (20,412 kilograms). However, its most unique feature is a hinged nose that can swing open up to 110 degrees, allowing frontal loading.A lock and disconnect system at the fuselage break allows the nose to be opened and closed without disrupting the flight / engine controls.

Retired astronautGregory C. Ray J Johnson, a member of the STS-125 crew, and current Super Guppy commander / pilot, explained some of the difficulties in flying the aircraft:Guppy has no autopilot. One pilot flies for an hour, and the other pilot flies for an hour, and then you switch off and eventually land it. Very high stick forces. Frankly, quite a beast to land in crosswinds, so a lot of effort is done in the landing phase.

Flying the aircraft can be fatiguing and tiring, stated Tom Ryan, also a Super Guppy pilot, Sometimes its dancing with a lady and other times its wrestling a dragon.

SLS is NASAs new super-heavy-lift launch vehicle, which, among other capabilities, will carry astronauts to orbit in the Orion spacecraft for missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Its first flight, Exploration Mission One (EM-1), an uncrewed flight around the Moon, is expected to take place in 2019.

For more photos of the Super Guppy in Huntsville, click here.

Video courtesy of NASA

Tagged: Human Space Flight Lockheed-Martin Marshall Space Flight Center Space Launch System Super Guppy The Range

Scott earned both a Bachelor's Degree in public administration, and a law degree, from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. He currently practices law in the Birmingham suburb of Homewood. Scott first remembers visiting Marshall Space Flight Center in 1978 to get an up-close look at the first orbiter, Enterprise, which had been transported to Huntsville for dynamic testing. More recently, in 2006, he participated in an effort at the United States Space and Rocket Center (USSRC) to restore the long-neglected Skylab 1-G Trainer. This led to a volunteer position, with the USSRC curator, where he worked for several years maintaining exhibits and archival material, including flown space hardware. Scott attended the STS - 110, 116 and 135 shuttle launches, along with Ares I-X, Atlas V MSL and Delta IV NROL-15 launches. More recently, he covered the Atlas V SBIRS GEO-2 and MAVEN launches, along with the Antares ORB-1, SpaceX CRS-3, and Orion EFT-1 launches.

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Super Guppy transports SLS test hardware from Marshall ... - SpaceFlight Insider

Curt Godwin

July 14th, 2017

Artists rendering of the MX-1 shortly after landing on the Moon. Image Credit: Moon Express

Though not necessarily as widely known as their NewSpace counterparts, Moon Express showed that its plans to upend exploration beyond Earth are no less impressivethan those of its peers. On July 12, 2017, the Florida-based company announced ideas for a trio of missions to the Moon, the first of which is tentatively scheduled for late in 2017 potentially making them the first commercial company to reach Earths natural satellite.

As one of the teams competing for theGoogle Lunar X Prize (GLXP), Moon Express set itself up from the beginning to challengefor a prize totaling $30 million, by launching a robotic explorer to the Moon. To achieve this, the company must land on the surface, travel at least 500 meters (1,640 feet), and transmithigh-definition video and photos back to Earth.

Although the company is comparatively young, having been founded in August 2010, Moon Express has wasted little time in advancing its goal of opening up lunar and deep space exploration to commercial interests.

Indeed, within a year of its founding, the fledgling company successfully completed a test flight of the Lunar Test Vehicle (LTV), a prototype lunar lander that was developed in partnership with NASA. The company continued to rack up an impressive list of accomplishments in the following years, including becoming the first commercial company to develop and successfully conduct flight tests of its own lunar lander.

These successes kept Moon Express in the hunt for the GLXP, being one of five teamsstill vying for the award, as well as earning itself a partnership with NASA on the Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown (Lunar CATALYST) program.

The company secured a launch contract with Rocket Lab in December 2015, and, in July2016, it became the first company to wingovernment approval to send a payload beyond low-Earth orbit (LEO).

Moon Express co-founder Bob Richards poses next to the MX-1E spacecraft in this photo he shared on Twitter. Photo Credit: Bob Richards / Moon Express

The vehicleMoon Express has tapped to lead their first lunar mission is MX-1 single-stage spacecraft and lander. Capable of delivering up to 30 kilograms (66 pounds) to the lunar surface from LEO, the MX-1 somewhat resembles R2-D2 from Star Wars.

The lander uses Moon Express own PECO propulsion system, which makes use of high-test hydrogen peroxide as its propellant, providing approximately 5.8 km/s of delta-V (amount of velocity change the spacecraft has). This level of delta-v is sufficient for the vehicle to travel from LEO, land on the lunar surface, lift-off, and travel the requisite distance, and land again to satisfy the guidelines of the GLXP.

While the company aims to launch by the end of 2017 so that it has a shot of claiming the GLXP, Moon Express has greater ambitions than simply winning the purse.

Thats where my heart is Solar System exploration on a grand scale that democratizes and completely accelerates our evolution into the Solar System through knowledge and discovery, not just a few expensive voyages sponsored by kings and governments, like in history, Moon Express CEO and co-founder Bob Richards was quoted as saying in an article onSpace.com.

After the initial mission, termed Lunar Scout by the company, Moon Express plans to undertake two successive missions, each more ambitious than the last.

The companys second mission, which Moon Express has termed Lunar Outpost, will land near the lunar South Pole, and will utilize the companys larger MX-2 spacecraft. Essentially two MX-1 vehicles in a tandem arrangement, the larger MX-2 allows for a greater range of missions to a larger number of destinations.

From its position high on a lunar peak bathed in perpetual sunlight, the MX-2 will seek out water ice trapped in the regolith of craters shaded in terminal darkness. Water can be used to manufacture rocket propellant when broken down into its hydrogen and oxygen components, or it can be used to generate breathable oxygen or drinking water, which will be a need for human habitation beyond Earths surface.

Lastly, the company plans to launch its Harvest Moon mission by 2020. Designed around the MX-9 spacecraft, Harvest Moon will land on the lunar surface, collect samples, and launch them back to Earth for recovery. Moon Express considers this to be the beginning of their business phase of lunar prospecting.

As its name suggests, the MX-9 consists of nine MX-1 cores and can deliver up to 500 kilograms (1,102 pounds) of payload to the lunar surface from geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO).

Also in the family is the five-core MX-5. Like its MX-9 cousin, it can be configured for orbiter, lander, and deep space operations, and is capable of sample return missions. With such a diverse collection of vehicles,with a broad range of capabilities, its apparent that the company has ultimately set its sights beyond Earths nearest neighbor.

Were notTheMoon Express, Richards told Space.com. Were Moon Express, so any moon will do.

Artists rendering of the MX-9 preparing to gather a lunar sample. Image Credit: Moon Express

Tagged: Google Lunar X-Prize Lead Stories Moon Moon Express

Curt Godwin has been a fan of space exploration for as long as he can remember, keeping his eyes to the skies from an early age. Initially majoring in Nuclear Engineering, Curt later decided that computers would be a more interesting - and safer - career field. He's worked in education technology for more than 20 years, and has been published in industry and peer journals, and is a respected authority on wireless network engineering. Throughout this period of his life, he maintained his love for all things space and has written about his experiences at a variety of NASA events, both on his personal blog and as a freelance media representative.

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Moon Express announces trio of expeditions to the Moon - SpaceFlight Insider

Ocean McIntyre

July 15th, 2017

Curiositys next target: the Vera Rubin Ridge on Mount Sharp. Image Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS

After nearly five years of its exploration of the Red Planet, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), more commonly known as the Curiosity rover, will begin its long-awaited study of a tantalizing ridge formation along a slope of Mount Sharp in the center of Gale Crater.

The iron-bearing ridge is one of four unique features in the lower elevations of Mount Sharp that drew the selection committee to choose this location for Curiositys mission destination.

Curiosity has been on the surface of Mars since August 2012. Photo Credit: NASA

The ridge that Curiosity is currently observing is thought to contain a high amount of iron oxide (Fe2O3), also known as hematite, which was located with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) using its Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, or CRISM. Iron-oxide minerals form under wet conditions and can give researchers crucial information about the history and environment of ancient Mars.

Hematite can come in several colors, from gray to black, or reddish brown to red color, and is found and formed primarily in places where there has been still or standing water, or in or around mineral hot springs. CRISM also identified other water-related clay and sulfate mineral layers in the area near the ridge, which is now formally named Vera Rubin Ridge after astronomer Vera Cooper Rubin who passed away last year.

Vera Rubin Ridge is approximately eight stories tall and runs a length of about 4 miles (6.5 kilometers), and behind the ridge is the location of a trough where clay minerals are indicated.

Curiosity is driving parallel to the ridge, below it, observing it from different angles as we work our way towards a safe route to the top of the ridge, said Ashwin Vasavada, Project Scientist for Curiosity at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory(JPL) in Pasadena, California.

In the first phase of the campaign, were studying the sedimentary structures in the wall, said Abigail Fraeman, a member of the Curiosity science team who helped plan these observations.

The team also hopes to gather information on the boundary zone, an area between the material that makes up the ridge, and the Murray formation which is the name of the geologic unit named after late planetary scientist Bruce Murray thatCuriosity has been studying since the end of 2014. The Murray formation, which is located in the low elevations of Mount Sharp, has provided evidence for ancient lakes.

One of the questions researchers want to answer is how and when the hematite in the Murray formation and that in the Vera Rubin Ridge formed. Currently, it is unknown whether they accumulated under similar conditions, but the hope is that the route up the slope of Mount Sharp to the top of the ridge will allow for a closer inspection and observation of the hematite iron-oxide rocks.

We want to determine the relationship between the conditions that produced the hematite and the conditions under which the rock layers of the ridge were deposited, Fraeman said. Were they deposited by wind, or in a lake, or some other setting? Did the hematite form when the sediment accumulated, or later from fluids moving through the rock?

A key question is whether the freshwater environment that deposited the layer that is the Murray formation were turning more acidic by the time the layers from the ridge were formed, as well as whether there may have been a gradient in oxidation which could have provided the necessary energy source needed for microbial life.

Curiosity has trekked through a variety of environments in its nearly five years on Mars, and in that time it has made some remarkable discoveries, including uncovering the presence of liquid water in Mars past as well as the finger prints of wind and water on the surface of the planet. There are challenges to achieving these goals, though.

This map shows the route driven by NASAs Curiosity Mars rover, from the location where it landed in August 2012 to its location in July 2017 (Sol 1750), and its planned path to additional geological layers of lower Mount Sharp. Image & Caption Credit : NASA / JPL-Caltech / Univ. of Arizona

The first of these challenges is in negotiating the terrain. In order to examine Vera Rubin Ridge, Curiosity will need to traverse the terrain which is composed heavily of boulders and sand especially near the base of the ridge. These conditions have the potential to be difficult, especially with the breakdown in the structure of several of Curiositys wheels.

The other significant challenge is that the rock sampling drill, which hasnt been in service since December 2016, still will not be available, at least for the start of the campaign.

A mechanism on the drill that moves the drill bit forward and back failed late last year and hasnt been able to be used since, although experts at JPL are trying to come up with alternate ways to move the drill bit as well as the feed mechanism.

Were investigating methods to drill without the stabilizers, said Curiositys Deputy Project Manager Steve Lee of JPL. Instead of using the feed mechanism to drive the bit into the rock, we may be able to use the motion of the arm to drive the bit into the rock.

They are also looking at options for delivering the drilled powdered rock material into the instrument for analysis, which could include using the arms soil scoop as a delivery method.

Despite these challenges, the potential to add to the over all understanding of sand dunes and ripples, as well as gleaning a better understanding of Mars ancient history and habitability, makes for an irresistible goal.

Tagged: Curiosity Mars Science Laboratory NASA The Range Vera Rubin Ridge

A native of the Greater Los Angeles area, Ocean McIntyre's writing is focused primarily on science (STEM and STEAM) education and public outreach. McIntyre is a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador as well as holding memberships with The Planetary Society, Los Angeles Astronomical Society, and is a founding member of SafePlaceForSpace.org. McIntyre is currently studying astrophysics and planetary science with additional interests in astrobiology, cosmology and directed energy propulsion technology. With SpaceFlight Insider seeking to expand the amount of science articles it produces, McIntyre was a welcomed addition to our growing team.

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Curiosity eyes new ridge in exploration of the Red Planet - SpaceFlight Insider

A Soyuz rocket lifts off Friday with 73 satellites. Credit: TsENKI TV

A Russian Soyuz booster lifted off Friday from Kazakhstan on a complex mission to deploy 73 satellites into three different orbits, including a Russian spacecraft to locate forest fires, 48 CubeSats for Planets global Earth observation fleet, and eight nanosatellites for Spire Globals commercial weather network.

The Soyuz-2.1a rocket fired into space at 0636:49 GMT (2:36:49 a.m. EDT; 12:36:49 p.m. Kazakh time) from Launch Pad No. 31 at the Baikonur Cosmodome in Kazakhstan.

Heading north from the Central Asia space base, the Soyuz shed its four strap-on rocket engines less than two minutes after liftoff, followed by the release of the rockets core stage and bulbous nose fairing.

The Soyuz third stages RD-0110 engine shut down just before the nine-minute point of the mission, according to updates provided by a live webcast of the launch. A Fregat upper stage was expected to ignite for the first of seven main engine firings to send the launchers 73 satellite passengers into three distinct orbits several hundred miles above Earth.

A live video stream of the flight provided by the Russian state space corporation Roscosmos ended around 10 minutes after liftoff.

The Fregat engine was programmed to fire seven times, climbing into orbit to release a Russian Earth observation satellite about one hour after liftoff, then moving to a higher altitude for separation of 24 more spacecraft. Then the Fregat will descend for deployment of 48 Earth-imaging satellites owned by Planet, a San Francisco-based company.

The final Fregat engine firing will steer the stage back through Earths atmosphere, where it will burn up over the Indian Ocean.

Here is a timeline of the mission released by Roscosmos:

Fridays launch will deploy modified CubeSats from five California-based companies, two student-built German satellites, two Norwegian maritime tracking and communications satellites, a commercial Japanese microsatellite to map Arctic sea ice, two Earth-imaging CubeSats for Roscosmos, and three nanosatellites developed by Russian students.

The largest payload launched Friday is named Kanopus-V-IK, a Russian government satellite equipped with Earth-viewing cameras to map the planet in color to aid emergency responders, crop managers and environmental scientists. The Kanopus-V-IK satellite, which weighs more than a half-ton (approximately 500 kilograms) and is owned by Roscosmos, also carries an infrared sensor to detect and localize the source of wildfires.

The other 72 satellites stowed aboard the Soyuz rocket ranged from shoebox- and briefcase-sized CubeSats up to 265 pounds (120 kilograms).

Planet, owner of more than 100 Dove CubeSats currently looking down on Earth, will add 48 more spacecraft to its fleet with Fridays launch to help the company collect imagery to produce daily global maps.

Eight Lemur CubeSats from Spire Global, another San Francisco company, blasted off in support of weather forecasters, deriving humidity and temperature profiles by measuring GPS navigation signals that pass through Earths atmosphere.

With Fridays launch, Spire has sent 49 CubeSats into orbit, but not all of them remain operational.

A competitor of Spire, GeoOptics of Pasadena, California, launched three more of its CICERO CubeSats for commercial weather forecasting, using the same GPS radio occultation technique as the Lemur satellites. GeoOptics launched its first spacecraft last month on an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.

Two Landmapper-BC CubeSats manufactured and owned by Astro Digital, formerly Aquila Space, on Fridays Soyuz flight are the first members of another commercial Earth-imaging constellation. The Landmapper-BC spacecraft, also known as Corvus-BC1 and Corvus-BC2, each weigh around 22 pounds (10 kilograms) and have color and infrared cameras for wide-area imaging.

The other U.S. company with a payload on Fridays flight was Tyvak, a launch services broker and small satellite-builder in Southern California. Tyvaks experimental 11-pound (5-kilogram) NanoACE CubeSat will test an attitude control system, command and data handling system, guidance, navigation and control software and actuators, and visible and infrared cameras.

German university students built two satellites for Fridays launch, including the 265-pound (120-kilogram) Flying Laptop spacecraft from the University of Stuttgarts Institute of Space Systems.

The Flying Laptop satellite will give students experience in mission operations, take pictures of Earth and look for near-Earth asteroids, validate the performance of a reconfigurable on-board computer, and demonstrate a high-speed optical infrared communications link with a German ground station during its planned two-year mission.

In addition to the innovative OBC (on-board computer) concept, which is used as the payload on-board computer, several other new technologies are part of the system and will be verified for the first time under space conditions, and in addition, the mission carries out scientific Earth observation objectives using a multispectral camera and receives ship signals with an AIS receiver, said Sabine Klinkner, project director for the Flying Laptop mission at the University of Stuttgart.

She said the Flying Laptop project was funded by the universitys small satellite program, the German state of Baden-Wrttemberg, and with support from the regional space industry. The German Aerospace Center, DLR, paid for the satellites launch with federal government funds, Klinkner wrote in an email to Spaceflight Now.

TechnoSat from the Technical University of Berlin will test new nanosatellite components, including a camera, a new reaction wheel system, a star tracker, a transmitter, a fluid dynamic actuator, and commercial laser retro-reflectors. Shaped like an octagonal drum, the TechnoSat satellite weighs around 40 pounds (nearly 20 kilograms) at launch and is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

An experiment sponsored by DLR aboard TechnoSat will detect strikes of tiny space debris particles on the satellites solar panels to help scientists better understand the density of space junk in low Earth orbit too small to be tracked by existing radars.

Two Norwegian-owned, Canadian-built microsatellites headed into orbit to track maritime ship traffic.

The briefcase-sized Norsat 1 spacecraft, billed as Norways first scientific satellite, also carries an instrument developed by the Physical Meteorological Observatory in Switzerland to measure fluctuations in solar radiation arriving at Earth, a key input into Earths climate that will help scientists better sort human contributions to climate change. A Langmuir probe on Norsat 1 will study the plasma environment in low Earth orbit during the satellites planned three-year mission.

The Norwegian Space Center owner of the Norsat satellites rescheduled the launch of Norsat 1 after a faulty attachment bracket kept the craft off a Soyuz rocket flight in April 2016. Norsat 1 was already at the Soyuz launch base in French Guiana when engineers decided it would be unsafe to add the spacecraft to the mission, which took off without Norsat 1 with a large European environmental satellite.

In addition to its vessel detection receiver, Norsat 2 has a VHF data exchange radio to help extend the range of ship-to-shore communications.

Both Norsats were built by the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies Space Flight Laboratory.

The 95-pound (43-kilogram) WNISAT 1R satellite developed by two Japanese companies Weathernews and Axelspace is kicking off a campaign to observe sea ice in the Arctic, typhoons and volcanic ash plumes.

Five Russian CubeSats also lifted off Friday.

Two of the Russian secondary passengers will take off on Earth-observing missions for Roscosmos, and three others come from Russian universities, including a joint project with Ecuadors Universidad Tecnolgica Equinoccial.

The designers of one of the Russian CubeSats, called Mayak, say it could become one of the brightest objects in the night sky. The crowd-funded satellite, developed at the Moscow Polytechnic University, will unfurl a 65-square-foot (6-square-meter) pyramid-shaped solar reflector covered in an air-thin metallic film. If the experiment works, the tiny satellite might be the brighter than the International Space Station or Venus as it sails overhead.

Mayaks team says the CubeSat will test out a new aerodynamic braking device that could help clear space debris from orbit.

Fridays rideshare mission was arranged by Glavkosmos, a subsidiary of Roscosmos.

The Dutch company Innovative Solutions in Space accommodated most of the CubeSat payloads inside QuadPack deployers. Seattle-based Spaceflight Services booked space for some of the U.S.-owned CubeSats.

Glavkosmos aims to sell more commercial Soyuz medium-lift missions from Russian-operated launch sites. The company lists a launch price of $20 million to $22 million on its website, a cost that could be shared by multiple customers with payloads flying on the same launcher.

Arianespace works with Glavkosmos on commercial Soyuz launches from the Guiana Space Center in South America. Glavkosmos says it acts as a prime contract integrator for all Russian companies involved in Soyuz missions launched from the tropical spaceport in French Guiana.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

The rest is here:

Watch live: Soyuz rocket with 73 satellites readied for launch - Spaceflight Now

A Soyuz rocket arrived at a launch pad Tuesday in Kazakhstan for liftoff later this week with a satellite to monitor natural disasters and track forest fires from orbit and 72 secondary payloads from Russia, the United States, Germany, Norway and Japan.

The Russian launchers blastoff is timed for 0636:49 GMT (2:36:49 a.m. EDT; 12:36:49 p.m. Kazakh time) Friday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The Fregat upper stage fastened on top of the three-stage Soyuz-2.1a booster will ignite its main engine seven times to deliver the launchers 73 satellite passengers to three distinct orbits several hundred miles up, then steer the Fregat toward a destructive re-entry over the Indian Ocean more than eight hours after liftoff.

Fridays launch will deploy modified CubeSats from five California-based companies, two student-built German satellites, two Norwegian maritime tracking and communications satellites, a commercial Japanese microsatellite to map Arctic sea ice, two Earth-imaging CubeSats for the Russian state space corporation Roscosmos and three nanosatellites developed by Russian students.

The main payload launching Friday is named Kanopus-V-IK, a Russian government satellite equipped with Earth-viewing cameras to map the planet in color to aid emergency responders, crop managers and environmental scientists. The Kanopus-V-IK satellite, which weighs more than a half-ton (approximately 500 kilograms) and is owned by Roscosmos, also carries an infrared sensor to detect and localize the source of wildfires.

The other 72 satellites stowed aboard the Soyuz rocket range from shoebox- and briefcase-sized CubeSats up to 265 pounds (120 kilograms).

San Francisco-based Planet, owner of more than 100 Dove CubeSats currently looking down on Earth, will add 48 more spacecraft to its fleet with Fridays launch to help the company collect imagery to produce daily global maps.

Eight Lemur CubeSats from Spire Global, another San Francisco company, will blast off in support of weather forecasters, deriving humidity and temperature profiles by measuring GPS navigation signals that pass through Earths atmosphere.

With Fridays launch, Spire will have sent 49 CubeSats into orbit, but not all of them remain operational.

A competitor of Spire, GeoOptics of Pasadena, California, is launching three more of its CICERO CubeSats for commercial weather forecasting, using the same GPS radio occultation technique as the Lemur satellites. GeoOptics launched its first spacecraft last month on an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.

Two Landmapper-BC CubeSats manufactured and owned by Astro Digital, formerly Aquila Space, on Fridays Soyuz flight are the first members of another commercial Earth-imaging constellation. The Landmapper-BC spacecraft, also known as Corvus-BC1 and Corvus-BC2, each weigh around 22 pounds (10 kilograms) and have color and infrared cameras for wide-area imaging.

The other U.S. company with a payload awaiting liftoff from Baikonur is Tyvak, a launch services broker and small satellite-builder in Southern California. Tyvaks experimental 11-pound (5-kilogram) NanoACE CubeSat will test an attitude control system, command and data handling system, guidance, navigation and control software and actuators, and visible and infrared cameras.

German university students built two satellites launching Friday, including the 265-pound (120-kilogram) Flying Laptop spacecraft from the University of Stuttgarts Institute of Space Systems.

The Flying Laptop satellite will give students experience in mission operations, take pictures of Earth and look for near-Earth asteroids, validate the performance of a reconfigurable on-board computer, and demonstrate a high-speed optical infrared communications link with a German ground station during its planned two-year mission.

In addition to the innovative OBC (on-board computer) concept, which is used as the payload on-board computer, several other new technologies are part of the system and will be verified for the first time under space conditions, and in addition, the mission carries out scientific Earth observation objectives using a multispectral camera and receives ship signals with an AIS receiver, said Sabine Klinkner, project director for the Flying Laptop mission at the University of Stuttgart.

She said the Flying Laptop project was funded by the universitys small satellite program, the German state of Baden-Wrttemberg, and with support from the regional space industry. The German Aerospace Center, DLR, paid for the satellites launch with federal government funds, Klinkner wrote in an email to Spaceflight Now.

TechnoSat from the Technical University of Berlin will test new nanosatellite components, including a camera, a new reaction wheel system, a star tracker, a transmitter, a fluid dynamic actuator, and commercial laser retro-reflectors. Shaped like an octagonal drum, the TechnoSat satellite weighs around 40 pounds (nearly 20 kilograms) at launch and is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

An experiment sponsored by DLR aboard TechnoSat will detect strikes of tiny space debris particles on the satellites solar panels to help scientists better understand the density of space junk in low Earth orbit too small to be tracked by existing radars.

Two Norwegian-owned, Canadian-built microsatellites are heading into orbit to track maritime ship traffic.

The briefcase-sized Norsat 1 spacecraft, billed as Norways first scientific satellite, also carries an instrument developed by the Physical Meteorological Observatory in Switzerland to measure fluctuations in solar radiation arriving at Earth, a key input into Earths climate that will help scientists better sort human contributions to climate change. A Langmuir probe on Norsat 1 will study the plasma environment in low Earth orbit during the satellites planned three-year mission.

The Norwegian Space Center owner of the Norsat satellites rescheduled the launch of Norsat 1 after a faulty attachment bracket kept the craft off a Soyuz rocket flight in April 2016. Norsat 1 was already at the Soyuz launch base in French Guiana when engineers decided it would be unsafe to add the spacecraft to the mission, which took off without Norsat 1 with a large European environmental satellite.

In addition to its vessel detection receiver, Norsat 2 has a VHF data exchange radio to help extend the range of ship-to-shore communications.

Both Norsats were built by the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies Space Flight Laboratory.

The 95-pound (43-kilogram) WNISAT 1R satellite developed by two Japanese companies Weathernews and Axelspace is ready to kick off a campaign to observe sea ice in the Arctic, typhoons and volcanic ash plumes.

Five Russian CubeSats are also counting down to liftoff Friday.

Two of the Russian secondary passengers will take off on Earth-observing missions for Roscosmos, and three others come from Russian universities, including a joint project with Ecuadors Universidad Tecnolgica Equinoccial.

Fridays rideshare mission was arranged by Glavkosmos, a subsidiary of Roscosmos.

The Dutch company Innovative Solutions in Space accommodated most of the CubeSat payloads inside QuadPack deployers.

Glavkosmos aims to sell more commercial Soyuz medium-lift missions from Russian-operated launch sites. The company lists a launch price of $20 million to $22 million on its website, a cost that could be shared by multiple customers with payloads flying on the same launcher.

Arianespace works with Glavkosmos on commercial Soyuz launches from the Guiana Space Center in South America. Glavkosmos says it acts as a prime contract integrator for all Russian companies involved in Soyuz missions launched from the tropical spaceport in French Guiana.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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Soyuz rolled out for launch of multinational satellite cluster - Spaceflight Now

CAPE CANAVERAL With the Atlas 5 rocket that will boost it into space now assembled and waiting, a $408 million NASA communications satellite is in final preparations for its science data relay mission.

The Tracking and Data Relay satellite-M, or TDRS-M, will be carried aloft by United Launch Alliance on Aug. 3 from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. A 40-minute morning launch window opens at 9:02 a.m. EDT (1302 GMT).

Built by Boeing, the geosynchronous spacecraft will act like a relay station 22,300 miles above Earth to receive telemetry, voice, video and scientific data from lower orbiting platforms like the International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope and beam the signals to a central ground hub.

The satellite will become the 12th TDRS placed in space since 1983 and extend the constellation well into the 2020s, providing near continuous connectivity to spacecraft that would otherwise be in range of ground stations 15 percent of each orbit.

TDRS-M, standing 27 feet tall, currently resides at the Astrotech satellite processing facility in Titusville, Florida, having been fueled to its launch mass of 7,610 pounds.

It was shown to the news media today.

The craft arrived in Florida on June 23. Functional testing of the satellite bus, payload and propulsion system was completed by July 6 and propellant loading wrapped up on Tuesday, July 11.

We are right on schedule, said Paul Buchanan, TDRS deputy project manager.

The next step will occur next week when the craft is encapsulated in the Atlas 5 rockets 14-foot-diameter, 42-foot-tall aluminum payload shroud that will protect the delicate satellite for the trek out of the atmosphere.

Then, the payload will be hauled through Kennedy Space Center to the Vertical Integration Facility at Complex 41 for lifting and mating to the launch vehicle on July 25.

The rocket arrived by sea on June 26, sailing into Port Canaveral from the manufacturing plant in Decatur, Alabama, aboard the Delta Mariner cargo ship.

On Wednesday, July 12, United Launch Alliance workers began stacking the two-stage Atlas 5 rocket, designated AV-074, by erecting the first stage aboard the mobile launch platform parked inside the VIF.

The combined interstage, Centaur upper stage and boattail of the fairing, all pre-integrated together off-site, was hoisted atop the first stage earlier today.

With the basic buildup complete, initial power-on testing begins tomorrow.

The 191-foot-tall rocket will be wheeled to the pad on Aug. 1 at 9 a.m.

Photos by William Harwood

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Photos: NASA's TDRS-M satellite being readied for upcoming launch - Spaceflight Now

Chinasat 9A pictured with members of the satellites manufacturing and test team. Credit: China Academy of Space Technology

The Chinasat 9A communications satellite has arrived at its operational perch more than 22,000 miles over the equator after a Long March rocket deployed the craft in a lower-than-planned orbit last month due to a roll control error in the launchers third stage, according to Chinas top state-owned aerospace contractor.

The television broadcasting satellite fired its main engine 10 times to recover from an off-target launch aboard a Long March 3B rocket June 18, which placed Chinasat 9A into an orbit stretching less than halfway to the satellites intended altitude, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. said in a statement.

Chinasat 9As on-board thruster raised the crafts orbit to a circular perch nearly 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers) over the equator, recovering from a launch shortfall that delivered the satellite into an unintended oval orbit ranging between 120 miles (193 kilometers) and 10,165 miles (16,360 kilometers) in altitude.

The Long March 3B rocket aimed to place Chinasat 9A into an elliptical transfer orbit that peaked at the satellites planned operating altitude more than 22,000 miles up, but an error on the launchers third stage led to the inaccurate orbit.

In a statement last week, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. said investigators traced the problem to an anomaly in the third stages roll control thruster, part of the rockets pointing system, during a coast phase between two burns of the upper stages main engine.

The third stages dual-nozzle YF-75 engine, consuming a mix of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants, ended its first burn around 10 minutes after liftoff June 18. A second third stage engine firing was supposed to propel the Chinasat 9A satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit before the spacecraft separated from the rocket about a half-hour into the mission.

Chinasat 9A maneuvered into a circular geostationary orbit over the equator with its own fuel supply, arriving at a parking slot at 101.4 degrees east longitude July 5. The satellite is working normally, Chinese officials said, and Chinasat 9As 24 Ku-band transponders have been switched on for testing.

Based on the DFH-4 satellite design built by the China Academy of Space Technology, Chinasat 9A is Chinas first domestically-made communications satellite for direct-to-home television broadcasting, according to China Satcom, the crafts owner and operator.

Chinasat 9A is designed toprovide television broadcasts and other media services to China Satcom customers in China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, the company said.

Chinese officials have not said how much extra fuel the satellite needed for its unplanned orbit-raising burns, but Chinasat 9A had to tap into some of its propellant reserve, likely shortening its expected 15-year mission.

Engineers continue investigating the failure of Chinas larger heavy-lift Long March 5 rocket during a July 2 launch, which destroyed an experimental Chinese communications satellite before it could reach orbit.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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Chinese TV broadcasting satellite reaches operational orbit after off ... - Spaceflight Now

Laurel Kornfeld

July 12th, 2017

Juno completes historic flyby over Jupiters Great Red Spot. Image Credit: NASA

NASAs Juno spacecraft successfully completed the first-ever close flyby of the mysterious storm on Jupiter known as the Great Red Spot, and early images of the phenomenon are already being returned to Earth.

At 9:55 p.m.EDT (6:55 p.m.PDT) on Monday, July 10, only 11 minutes and 33 seconds after reaching perijove, the closest point to Jupiter in its current orbit, the spacecraft flew directly above the 10,000-mile- (16,000-km-) storm at an altitude of 5,600 miles (9,000 km), traveling at approximately 130,000 miles per hour.

All nine of Junos science instruments, including the JunoCam camera, operated successfully during the flyby.

Jupiters Great Red Spot has been observed for at least 350 years, with some sightings reported as early as the 1600s. It is the most powerful storm in the solar system, an anti-cyclone with winds up to 400 miles per hour (644 km/h).

Other missions to Jupiter, including NASAs two Voyager spacecraft in 1979, the Galileo orbiter in the 1990s, and even Cassini on its way to Saturn approached the Great Red Spot and photographed it, but none from a vantage point as close as Junos.

Enhanced-color image of Jupiters Great Red Spot as seen by the probe which was launched on August 5, 2011. This image was produced by Jason Major, a citizen scientist who used data from the JunoCam instrument on the spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Jason Major

This marks the first time a spacecraft has actually flown into the Great Red Spots cloud tops.

Juno entered orbit around Jupiter in July 2016. The recent flyby occurred during its sixth science orbit around the giant planet. Each polar orbit takes 53 days.

For hundreds of years scientists have been observing, wondering and theorizing about Jupiters Great Red Spot, said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Now we have the best pictures ever of this iconic storm. It will take us some time to analyze all the data from not only JunoCam, but [also from] Junos eight science instruments, to shed some new light on the past, present and future of the Great Red Spot.

Juno was launched in August 2011 with the goals of looking beneath Jupiters cloud tops and imaging its auroras to collect data that will shed light on the planets formation, evolution, structure, magnetosphere, and atmosphere.

Data sent back by the spacecraft has already revealed the giant planet to be a turbulent world with polar auroras, a complex interior structure, and huge polar storms.

Scientists hope the flyover of the Great Red Spot will show the storm in unprecedented detail and help them answer questions that have puzzled many for decades and even centuries.

Candy Hansen of NASAs Planetary Science Institute noted that three images, each from a different perspective, were taken during the flyby. One image captured the storms northern edge; a second was taken directly above its center, and a third, conducted with a methane filter, observed it from the south.

NASA initially reported that the earliest images from the flyby would not be available until Thursday, July 13, or Friday, July 14; however, the first raw, unprocessed images were put on JunoCams website on Wednesday, July 12. The photos will need more processing for details to become visible.

Many questions remain regarding the Great Red Spot, which scientists hope the images and other data collected by Juno will answer. However, citizen scientists have already begun working on some of the imagery that the spacecraft has produced.

I have been following the Juno mission since it launched, said Jason Major, a JunoCam citizen scientist and a graphic designer from Warwick, Rhode Island. It is always exciting to see these new raw images of Jupiter as they arrive. But it is even more thrilling to take the raw images and turn them into something that people can appreciate. That is what I live for.

Capable of detecting radiation emanating from six different levels of clouds, Junos microwave radiometer should inform scientists about activity occurring up to 340 miles (547 kilometers) beneath the cloud tops.

Even after observing it with both ground-based telescopes and space probes, researchers still do not know the source of the storms power, how deeply it extends beyond the planets cloud tops, what makes it red, and how long it has been active.

They also do not understand why the Great Red Spot, which has a diameter larger than that of Earth, has been shrinking in recent decades and changing shape from round to oval.

Photos taken at various distances from the Great Red Spot will be returned before closeups. Juno has already confirmed activity is taking place as deep as 31 miles (50 kilometers) below Jupiters cloud tops, where no sunlight penetrates.

These highly anticipated images of Jupiters Great Red Spot are the perfect storm of art and science. With data from [the two] Voyager [probes], Galileo, New Horizons, Hubble and now Juno, we have a better understanding of the composition and evolution of this iconic feature, said Jim Green, NASAs director of planetary science. We are pleased to share the beauty and excitement of space science with everyone.

In upcoming flybys, Juno will map out the Great Red Spots gravitational field; search for possible mass below the cloud tops that could be influencing the storm, and look for signs of water clouds, ammonia ice, and lightning beneath the cloud tops.

Image Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Kevin Gill

Tagged: Great Red Spot Juno Lead Stories NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory perijove

Laurel Kornfeld is an amateur astronomer and freelance writer from Highland Park, NJ, who enjoys writing about astronomy and planetary science. She studied journalism at Douglass College, Rutgers University, and earned a Graduate Certificate of Science from Swinburne Universitys Astronomy Online program. Her writings have been published online in The Atlantic, Astronomy magazines guest blog section, the UK Space Conference, the 2009 IAU General Assembly newspaper, The Space Reporter, and newsletters of various astronomy clubs. She is a member of the Cranford, NJ-based Amateur Astronomers, Inc. Especially interested in the outer solar system, Laurel gave a brief presentation at the 2008 Great Planet Debate held at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, MD.

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Juno completes historic flyby over Jupiter's Great Red Spot - SpaceFlight Insider

Jerome Strach

July 13th, 2017

Installation of the Soyuz-2.1a rocket with Kanopus-V-IK on the launcher system, July 11, 2017. Photo Credit: Roscosmos

A Russian-built Soyuz-2.1a rocket will launch from Russias Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Friday, July 14, 2017, at 09:36 MSK time (06:36 GMT / 2:36 a.m. EDT). Its primary mission will be an orbiting spacecraft, known as Kanopus-V-IK, with built-in remote sensing and imaging, along with a cluster of 72 miniature satellites referred to as CubeSats. This secondary cargo will be provided by numerous nations that include Germany, Norway, theUnited States, and Japan.

The rocket is composed of an upper stage named Fregat and two core stages with four boosters strapped to the first stage. The Fregat is designed to have a long life of up to 2 days and is intended to operate autonomously without interference from Earth due to an advanced satellite navigation system. The assortment of cargo requires various orbits achieved by numerous main engine ignitions, timed perfectly to deploy the different satellites several hundred miles above Earth. Upon the release of the multiple satellites, the Fregat will orient itself for an Indian Ocean re-entry that should occur several hours after launch for a safe splashdown.

The Kanopus-V-IK satellite is a Russian government built spacecraft that comes in at 1,043 pounds (473 kilograms) is designed to monitor man-made and natural disasters including severe weather events. Furthermore, it can be used to monitor forest fires with a focus area of 25 m2, along with larger emissions of pollutants discharged into the environment. Thecapability of monitoring land use is an additional benefit allowing some benefit to the agricultural industry, and finally, topographical observations allow for the improved mapping of terrain.

Kanopus-V-IK with its solar arrays extended. Photo Credit: Roscosmos

The hardware consists of various imaging tools that allow for this observational functionality. Acomplex of target equipment (CCA) for the Kanopus-V-IK includes the following:

The secondary cargo consists of various designs and sizes provided by numerous entities from all over the world. Planet Labs(formerly Cosmogia, Inc.) is located in San Francisco,California, and they will have 48 additional Dove CubeSats on board this flight. Another San Francisco company, Spire Global, will also be putting aboard several of their Lemur satellites designed for weather observation.

LEFT: Soyuz-2.1a payload stack prior to Kanopus-V-IK being mounted on top. RIGHT: Kanopus-V-IK being mounted on the payload stack. Photos Credit: Roscosmos

Various students attending University in Germany will also be watching the launch that holds two satellites of theirs, one a rather heavy 265-pound (120 kg) Flying Laptop spacecraft from Stuttgarts Institute of Space Systems.

TechnoSat will be launching technology that helps to investigate and detect strikes of tiny space debris that often occurs where spacecraft are most vulnerable their solar panels. From theTechnical University of Berlin, this experiment will be funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

Additionally, there will be five Russian CubeSats as part of the secondary cargo, all of which will be deployed from a Dutch companys QuadPack deploying system designed by Innovative Solutions in Space.

The Soyuz-2.1a rocket with Kanopus-V-IK being transported to the launch pad, July 11, 2017. Photo Credit: Roscosmos

The Soyuz-2.1a rocket with Kanopus-V-IK being transported to the launch pad, July 11, 2017. Photo Credit: Roscosmos.

The Soyuz-2.1a rocket with Kanopus-V-IK being transported to the launch pad, July 11, 2017. Photo Credit: Roscosmos

The Soyuz-2.1a rocket with Kanopus-V-IK being transported to the launch pad, July 11, 2017. Photo Credit: Roscosmos.

The Soyuz-2.1a rocket with Kanopus-V-IK being erected onto the launch pad, July 11, 2017. Photo Credit: Roscosmos

Underside view of installation of the Soyuz-2.1a rocket with Kanopus-V-IK on the launcher system, July 11, 2017. Photo Credit: Roscosmos.

Installation of the Soyuz-2.1a rocket with Kanopus-V-IK on the launcher system, July 11, 2017. Photo Credit: Roscosmos

Tagged: Baikonur Cosmodrome CubeSats Kanopus-V-IK Lead Stories Roscosmos Soyuz-2-1a

Jerome Strach has worked within the Silicon Valley community for 20 years including software entertainment and film. Along with experience in software engineering, quality assurance, and middle management, he has long been a fan of aerospace and entities within that industry. A voracious reader, a model builder, and student of photography and flight training, most of his spare time can be found focused on launch events and technology advancements including custom mobile app development. Best memory as a child is building and flying Estes rockets with my father. @Romn8tr

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Soyuz-2.1a to launch assortment of satellite cargo - SpaceFlight Insider

STORY WRITTEN FORCBS NEWS& USED WITH PERMISSION

Two days after NASAs Juno spacecraft streaked over Jupiters Great Red Spot, pictures of the solar systems largest, most powerful storm, have been transmitted to Earth, giving eager scientist close-up views of the 10,000-mile-wide anticyclone where 400-mph winds have been howling for at least 187 years and possibly much longer.

The solar-powered Juno reached the low point of its 53-day orbit around Jupiter, at 9:55 p.m. EDT (GMT-4) Monday, passing within about 2,200 miles of the planets cloud tops. Eleven-and-a-half minutes later, it made its first pass directly over the Great Red Spot at an altitude of about 5,600 miles and a velocity of some 130,000 mph.

The spacecrafts camera JunoCam and its eight other science instruments were all operating at close approach and the first raw, unprocessed pictures were posted on the camera website early Wednesday.

Additional processing is expected to bring out much more detail in the images that, when coupled with data from Junos other instruments, will shed more light on the nature of the storm and presumably help answer questions that have baffled scientists for nearly two centuries if not longer.

Despite long-term observations by ground-based telescopes and a variety of spacecraft, including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Voyager probes and the Galileo orbiter, scientists still do not understand what powers the storm, how deep it extends below Jupiters cloud tops, how long it has swirled or even the source of its reddish hue.

Likewise, no one knows why the Great Red Spot has shrunk over the past several decades, becoming more circular than oval, whether the reduction is a transient phenomenon or an indicator that the storm may be dissipating.

Not a lot is known, Scott Bolton, principal investigator with NASAs Juno probe, told CBS News in an interview Monday. Heres the largest and most fierce storm in the entire solar system and its lasted hundreds of years, so thats a lot different than anything else weve ever studied.

The question is, how can it last that long? Whats powering it, hows it really working inside?

With any luck, the Juno spacecraft might may provide at least some of the answers to Boltons questions.

While NASAs Voyager spacecraft captured spectacular zoomed-in images of the Great Red Spot during flybys in 1979, as did the Galileo orbiter in the 1990s and the Cassini probe during its voyage to Saturn, they were not nearly as close to Jupiter as Juno is at the low point of its orbit.

JunoCam is a relatively wide-angle camera intended to provide context for Junos other instruments and it was added to the mission primarily to engage the public. Because Juno is spinning, the cameras images show thin strips of the cloudscape below that can be stitched together later to form a full picture.

Juno will make repeated passes over the Great Red Spot and were so close, I think were going to blow their stuff away, Bolton said of earlier missions. Well see when we see it. Eventually, well be able to make a bit of a movie, Im hoping, that you wont have been able to see before. Well definitely get an up-close-and-personal view, and hopefully be able to provide something that lets the viewer feel like theyre riding along.

Launched Aug. 5, 2011, the solar-powered Juno picked up a gravitational boost during a close flyby of Earth in October 2013, putting the craft on a trajectory to intersect Jupiter. Six years later, on July 4, 2016, Junos main engine fired to put the craft into an initial 53-day polar orbit.

Mission managers originally planned to maneuver Juno into a 14-day science orbit, but they opted not to use the main engine again because of a potential problem with the propellant pressurization system. That will stretch out the time needed to complete the missions planned observations, but it has no impact on the quality of the data.

The unprocessed JunoCam images of the Great Red Spot will be enhanced to bring out subtle details and other data. Scientists are especially eager to learn how far down into the atmosphere the huge storm might extend. Junos microwave radiometer can detect radiation coming from six cloud levels, allowing scientists to get an indirect view of whats going on as deep as 340 miles below the visible cloud tops.

Earlier Juno observations of other regions show there are motions going on deep in Jupiter that we did not expect, Bolton said.

Even 50 kilometers down it doesnt seem to be behaving the way we thought, he said. Most scientists believed that as soon as you drop below the sunlit clouds and you got into where the sunlight didnt reach that everything would kind of be uniform and boring. And thats not the case. We see quite a bit of variability.

As for how deep the Great Red Spot might extend, nobody knows, Bolton said.

Junos equipped to see below the cloud tops, he said. We will compare how Jupiter looks underneath its cloud tops at different latitudes with the part where you go right over the Great Red Spot and see if it looks any different. Well look several hundred kilometers down in this first pass.

During future passes over the Great Red Spot, Bolton said Juno will map out the gravitational field below and around the storm to find out if there might be a blob of mass far below the cloud tops that could play a role in the storms persistence.

We will not look at that on this flyby but some future one, Bolton said. The first (pass) is just look remotely, well see down a few hundred kilometers. Well sort of just investigate how does the veneer of Jupiter match with whats underneath.

Well also see the dynamics and the sheer beauty of the Great Red Spot for the first time, he added. Well search for lightning, signals of maybe water clouds or ammonia ice coming up through this region, we just dont know what to expect. And one of the things Ive learned from Juno already, even if I thought I knew what to expect, dont believe it too much.

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First images of Jupiter's Great Red Spot reach Earth - Spaceflight Now

Jason Rhian

July 8th, 2017

Advanced solar electric propulsion will be needed for future human expeditions into deep space, including to Mars. Shown here is a 13-kilowatt Hall thruster being evaluated at NASAs Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. Hall thrusters trap electrons in a magnetic field and use them to ionize the onboard propellant. It uses 10 times less propellant than equivalent chemical rockets. (Click for full view) Photo & Caption Credit: NASA

A new propulsion system, one funded bythe Space Technology Mission Directorate, underwent a series of hot-fire tests recently at NASAs Glenn Research Centerlocated in Cleveland, Ohio. The tests were conducted on a Power Processing Unit, or PPU, for anAdvanced Electric Propulsion System (AEPS) that is hoped could be used on either NASAs deep space ambitions or by the space agencys commercial partners.

The Power Processing Unit successfully demonstrated stable operation of the propulsion system and responded appropriately to all of our planned contingency scenarios, said Julie Van Kleeck, vice president of Advanced Space and Launch Programs and Strategy at Aerojet Rocketdyne via a company-issued release. This is a critical step in providing advanced Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP), which is necessary for affordable cargo and logistics transportation in support of human missions to Mars.

At Glenn, both Aerojet Rocketdyne, with help from NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, worked to provide a flight-capable system that is capable of operating for approximately 23,000 hours. If things continue to go as planned, this propulsion system could be used in the transportation of cargo and habitats

Aerojet Rocketdyne has a long successful history designing and developing electric propulsion systems, and we look forward to maturing high power Hall systems for multiple applications, including NASA, defense and commercial missions, said Aerojet Rocketdynes CEO and President Eileen Drake via a company-issued release. Congratulations to everyone involved in advancing this critical technology that will change the way humans explore space.

NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory is also involved on the project which was awarded a $65 million contract to develop and produce five 12.5 kilowatt Hall thruster subsystems. These include the thrusters, PPUs, as well as xenon flow controllers. Thecontract is part ofthe space agencys Solar Electric Propulsion Technology Demonstration Mission.

According to information issued by Aerojet Rocketdyne, the AEPS produces twice as much thrust as another recent offering made by the California-based company the XR-5 Hall thruster.

The XR-5 has already been used on both government and commercial missions. Hall thrusters, however, are nothing new. The former Soviet Union used them as far back as December of 1971

If everything goes as planned, these propulsion systems could be used on new vehicles that NASA is planning on launching beyond Earth orbit as well as those being developed by NASAs commercial partners (which are planned for taking the reins of the agencys flights to the International Space Station). Given the distances involved, the U.S. space agency hopes these efforts could seespacecraft transportation fuel efficiency improve by as much as 10 percent (over traditional chemical propulsion systems).

Hall-effect thrusters (named after the discoverer Edwin Hall) are ion thrusters that accelerate propellant via an electric field. Electrons, trapped within a magnetic field, are used to ionize that propellant, thereby producing thrust as the ions are accelerated by the electric field; the ions are then neutralized by the electrons in the exhaust plume.

With NASA becoming ever-more audible about its plans to send crews to Mars and its numerous efforts to have commercial firms handle sending cargo and crews to the sole destination in low-Earth orbit the International Space Station.

Tagged: Advanced Electric Propulsion System (AEPS) Aerojet Rocketdyne Lead Stories NASA Glenn Research Center

Jason Rhian spent several years honing his skills with internships at NASA, the National Space Society and other organizations. He has provided content for outlets such as: Aviation Week & Space Technology, Space.com, The Mars Society and Universe Today.

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Advanced Electric Propulsion System successfully tested at NASA's Glenn Research Center - SpaceFlight Insider

July 11, 2017 by Chris Bergin

TheInterim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) is now deep into its latest phase of processing, as it prepares to be housed in theSpace Station Processing Facility (SSPF) a facility once packed with modules waiting for their ride on Shuttles to make up the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The ICPS will be the Upper Stage for the maiden flight of the Space Launch System (SLS). ICPS:

The ICPS will only have a short lifetime with SLS, as the program aims to swiftly move to themore powerful Exploration Upper Stage (EUS)that will be the workhorse Upper Stage for SLS throughout the 2020s.

However, for the ICPS, the mission with SLS is only a change of call signs for this veteran unit, with years of previous and future service with the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV rocket fleet.

The official plan has revolved around moving to the EUS by the second or third flight of SLS, pending the readiness of the new EUS. The initial plan was to human rate another ICPS for EM-2, but NASA wants to bring the EUS online by the second SLS flight.

Based on the schedule slips for SLS and the large gap between EM-1 and EM-2 the plan is to revamp the Mobile Launcher umbilicals to cater for the Block 1B SLS after EM-1 (Exploration Mission-1) launches.

The EM-1 upper stage which is effectively a regular Delta Cryogenic Second Stage (DCSS) was shipped from the ULA facility in Decatur, Alabama aboard the Mariner barge earlier this year, arriving at the Cape in March.

It is currently housed in ULAs Horizontal Integration Facility (HIF) to begin processing for launch at the ULA Delta Operations Center. That work is now drawing to a close.

The next move will see it take a short journey to the SSPF, prior to a formal handover between ULA and NASA.

The Operations Planning team, specifically the Spacecraft Offline Operations (SOO) team are supporting the delivery of the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) to the Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF). It is expected to be accelerated ten days from predicted August 1, 2017 to July 21, 2017, noted a Ground Systems Development and Operations (GSDO) update.

The SSPF is a three story structure containing 42,455 sq meters (457,000 sq ft) of offices, laboratories, and processing areas. It is located on NASA Causeway immediately east of the O&C (Operations & Checkout) Building.

The facility houses bays that were used for horizontal processing of components for the International Space Station and other Space Shuttle Payloads. With the payloads since launched on the now-retired Space Shuttle fleet resulting in the impressive orbital outpost that is now into its utilization phase the facility is almost empty of space hardware.

Prelaunch activities that took place in the SSPF included receipt, handling, and assembly of space station hardware, testing of experiments for proper configuration, and verification of critical systems and system interfaces. As such it makes it the perfect home for the ICPS ahead of its launch with the first SLS rocket.

The ICPS wont be officially handed over (or turned over) until some weeks after the ICPS arrives in the SSPF, allowing the Stages caretakers from ULA to continue to look after the ICPS and provide guidance to its new engineers.

Preparations are underway and include a contractor letter of direction for host role in the early weeks with the formal DD250 turnover to follow, hurricane plan development and approval, SSPF facility panel sampling, added the GSDO update.

(The) plan is for United Launch Alliance (ULA) access to perform monitoring and maintenance until formal turnover, and a likely transporter demonstration at the SSPF. All of these are to be addressed by the planned readiness review scheduled for July 19, 2017, at the Operations Processing Project Review (OPPR).

The eventual destination for the ICPS will bethe Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at KSC, in preparation for mating atopthe SLS stack.

The stack will be integrated while sitting onthe Mobile Launcher, which will provide the lifeblood of electrical and fluid support, along with the all-important prop loading whilst at the pad.

That connection between the ML and the ICPS will be the Interim Cryogenic Propulsive Stage Umbilical (ICPSU) will be a T-0 umbilical.

While some umbilicals have already been installed onto the ML, the ICPSU is expected to be connected in September to October timeframe well ahead of the timeframe the first SLS is scheduled to be mated with the ML in the VAB.

(Images: NASA, ULA and L2 Orbital ATK and L2)

(L2 is as it has been for the past several years providing full exclusive SLS and Exploration Planning coverage. To join L2, click here:https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/l2/)

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SLS Upper Stage set to take up residence in the former home of ISS modules - NASASpaceflight.com

A view of the BepiColombo spacecraft stacked in launch configuration at the European Space Agencys ESTEC test center in the Netherlands. The sunshield cover for Japans Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter is pictured at lower right. Credit: Airbus Defense and Space

Three spacecraft built in Europe and Japan have completed their final joint tests to ensure they are ready for departure to Mercury on an Ariane 5 rocket late next year on the nearly $1.9 billion BepiColombo mission to survey the solar systems innermost planet.

Officials displayed the BepiColombo spacecraft to the media last week in the Netherlands, where engineers are putting the probe to the test in the extreme thermal, acoustic and vibration environments it will encounter in flight.

Readying the mission to survive the searing temperatures at Mercury proved to be one of the biggest challenges in BepiColombos two-decade development.

We have to survive 10 times the solar radiation we are experiencing at Earth, plus surface temperatures of up to 450 degrees Celsius (842 degrees Fahrenheit), said Ulrich Reininghaus, ESAs BepiColombo project manager, in a press briefing last week.

The European Space Agency-led project will dispatch two scientific orbiters to Mercury with instruments to map the planets landscapes and topography, peer into darkened craters that may contain water ice and a mysterious frozen organic sludge, and probe the scorched worlds interior structure by measuring its magnetic field.

I think our two spacecraft we send to Mercury will, first of all, do a very comprehensive and thorough investigation of the planet and its environment, said Johannes Benkhoff, BepiColombo project scientist at ESA. It will help to unveil the mysteries of Mercury and hopefully provide clues to better understand the formation history of the planet and of our solar system.

A propulsion module will go along on the 7.2-year trip to Mercury to steer the robotic science probes through the solar system with the aid of four ion engines.

Scheduled for launch in October 2018, the tandem mission developed by ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is the most ambitious expedition to Mercury yet mounted, and the first time the blazing hot planet will be visited by a spacecraft not owned by NASA.

Two previous NASA missions Mariner 10 and MESSENGER previously explored Mercury. Mariner 10 zipped by Mercury three times in the 1974 and 1975, photographing less than half of the planet before MESSENGER made its own flybys and eventually entered orbit in March 2011 for a four-year global science campaign.

BepiColombo will follow on MESSENGERs results and get even more details (about Mercury), Benkhoff said. We will be able to answer many, many of the questions that were raised by the MESSENGER mission.

Those questions include the nature of water ice deposits hidden deep inside permanently-shadowed craters near Mercurys poles, and the source of the planets unexpected magnetic field.

BepiColombos European-built Mercury Planetary Orbiter carries 11 instruments, a suite comprising a high-resolution mapping camera, a laser altimeter, an accelerometer, and a set of spectrometers on a downward-facing science deck that will remain pointed toward the planet throughout each orbit.

The Japanese-made Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiters five science sensors will study the plasma environment around Mercury, attempt to image the planets sodium-rich tenuous atmosphere, and measure Mercurys magnetic field.

The Mercury Transfer Module will shepherd the two science orbiters on the 5.5-billion-mile (8.9-billion-kilometer) voyage from Earth to Mercury. The engine section hosts no science instruments, but its two electricity-generating solar panels each stretching nearly 40 feet (12 meters) long will produce power for four rear-mounted xenon-fueled electric thrusters.

The ion engines, which can fire two at a time, will provide more than half the impulse BepiColombo needs for the one-way trip. The spacecraft will also use nine gravity boosts from flybys with Earth, Venus and Mercury to line up for orbital insertion at the innermost planet.

Named for Giuseppe Bepi Colombo, the Italian mathematician and engineer who helped design Mariner 10s Mercury flyby trajectory, the mission is due to arrive at its destination in December 2025.

The flight plan calls for the spacecraft to jettison the transfer module and fire rocket engines to slip into orbit around the planet. Japans magnetospheric orbiter, cocooned in a protective sunshield during the missions interplanetary transit, will be released in an egg-shaped elliptical orbit stretching up to 7,232 miles (11,640 kilometers) above Mercury.

Then the sunshield will be ejected as the European orbiter spirals closer to Mercury, eventually ending up in a tighter orbit ranging between about 300 miles (480 kilometers) and 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) from the planet.

The dual spacecraft will spend at least a year observing Mercury.

ESA and JAXA officials said last week the mission is on track for liftoff at the opening of an eight-week launch window Oct. 5, 2018.

BepiColombos launch window opens the same month the James Webb Space Telescope a U.S.-European-Canadian observatory that will succeed Hubble is set for blastoff on a different Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana.

Arianespace officials will meet with managers from both projects in September to determine which high-profile science mission will go first.

Engineers last month simulated the vibration and noise BepiColombo will experience during its rocket ride from Earth, capping a series of tests on the combined spacecraft in its launch configuration, which towers around 20 feet (6 meters) tall.

The ground team will disassemble the spacecraft in the coming months, conduct additional electrical checks, then place BepiColombos transfer module in a space environment simulator modified to mimic the extreme temperatures at Mercury. The propulsion sections thermal test follows up similar exposure verifications already completed on the European and Japanese orbiters.

ESA originally intended to launch the BepiColombo in 2009 when the mission was formally selected by the agencys science committee in 2000.

Crafting a spacecraft capable of withstanding the hot temperatures at Mercury turned out to be tough, officials said.

Engineers had to design new solar cells, develop heat-resistant pointing mechanisms for BepiColombos antennas and solar panels, and install mirrors to reflect sunlight and infrared heat.

Much of the technology had to be invented just for BepiColombo.

The challenge was to develop a solar cell assembly that was capable of withstanding high temperatures and ultraviolet radiation at the same time, said Markus Schelkle, BepiColombo program manager at Airbus Defense and Space in Germany, the missions prime contractor. This was (something) we learned, and due to that, we had a really hard, long way to find a solution.

BepiColombo also carries ceramic thermal coatings and titanium parts covered in silver and gold to ensure its communications antenna can function in the furnace-like temperatures at Mercury.

We had several delays, Reininghaus said. Work on the solar cells and high-temperature mechanisms cost us much more time than we expected, he said.

The database on materials we had, even for qualified products, was good up to 125 degrees Celsius (257 degrees Fahrenheit), Reininghaus said.

That was not good enough for BepiColombo.

Were flying into a pizza oven, Reininghaus said. This is why we had to test materials at very high temperature regimes, sometimes with very unwanted results.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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BepiColombo Mercury mission tested for journey into 'pizza oven' - Spaceflight Now

Curt Godwin

July 11th, 2017

File photo of workers recovering a spent booster after it crashed into the ground in one of the designated drop zones. Photo credit: Roscosmos

The death of two workers following the June 14, 2017,launch of a Soyuz rocket carrying the Progress MS-06 resupply spacecraft to the International Space Station has prompted Roscosmos officials to step up safety efforts.

The two workers were part of a team tasked with mitigating the effects of falling, spent rocket components after impacting in designated drop zones. Those hazardous areas, located on the flat, grassy Kazakh Steppe, often experience extreme weather conditions.

Beyond large temperature swings sometimes more than50 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) over the course of a day the treeless plains encounter strong wind gusts.It was one of these gusts that claimed the life of YuriKhatyushin.

According to reports, when Khatyushin arrived at the drop site, a strong gust fanned the flames of a brush fire that had erupted from the fallen rocket stage, engulfing hisvehicle.

Another worker,Vyacheslav Tyts, suffered serious burns when removing fallen pieces from the Soyuz rocket.Tytslater died from his injuries after being hospitalized for more than two weeks.

In order to prevent similar incidents, state corporation Roscosmos has introduced additional measures intended to minimize possible negative consequences from launches, a representative from the Russian space agency said inTass.

To lessen the likelihood of future occurrences, Roscosmos officials, in cooperation with the Kazakh government, have proposed monitoring the drop zones via both satellite and aerial imagery. Thoughits not clear exactly what may be monitored, weather and environmental conditions likely top the list.

It is also unclear if these safety precautions will be implemented before the launch of the Kanopus-V-IK satellite aboard a Soyuz rocket, currently slated to lift off on July 14, 2017.

Launch video of Progress MS-06 courtesy of Roscosmos

Tagged: Kazakh Steppe Lead Stories Progress MS-06 Roscosmos Soyuz-2-1a

Curt Godwin has been a fan of space exploration for as long as he can remember, keeping his eyes to the skies from an early age. Initially majoring in Nuclear Engineering, Curt later decided that computers would be a more interesting - and safer - career field. He's worked in education technology for more than 20 years, and has been published in industry and peer journals, and is a respected authority on wireless network engineering. Throughout this period of his life, he maintained his love for all things space and has written about his experiences at a variety of NASA events, both on his personal blog and as a freelance media representative.

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Multiple fatalities prompt Roscosmos to step up safety measures - SpaceFlight Insider

Tomasz Nowakowski

July 10th, 2017

CubeSats that are part of the QB50 constellation of CubeSats provided by countries from around the world are deployed from the NanoRacks CubeSat deployer. Photo Credit: NASA

Founded in 2009, the Houston, Texas-based company NanoRacks LLC provides commercial hardware and services on board the International Space Station (ISS) for government and commercial customers. To date, the firm has sent more than 550 payloads from over 30 countries to the ISS, creating trends in commercial hardware in space. In an interview with Astrowatch.net, Jeffrey Manber, the founder and CEO of NanoRacks, talks about the companys future and past achievements.

Astrowatch.net: What are your future plans for the company? What is your priority for the coming years?

Jeffrey Manber:We are growing into the worlds first commercial space station company. Today, our focus is on completing our commercial Airlock on the ISS, which will allow far larger satellites and cargo to be deployed from the station. We are also moving forward on re-use of existing in-space hardware for commercial habitats, and marketing other real estates in space, such as Blue Origins suborbital New Shepard platform. We want to be the market leader in owning or operating as much real-estate in space, from low-Earth orbit to deep space to the Moon and Mars, as is commercially possible.

Astrowatch.net: Your company is involved in many projects on board the ISS. Could we call NanoRacks a trendsetter when it comes to developing commercial hardware on [the] ISS?

Manber:I would like to think that is correct. We were first to market on the station in owning and marketing our own hardware. We were first to have non-U.S. customers, first to have commercial satellite customers using the Space Station, and we paved the way for using the space station in myriad commercial projects, from education to basic research to biopharma.

Artists rendering of NanoRacks Airlock Module attached to the ISS. Image Credit: NanoRacks

Astrowatch.net: How is your cooperation with NASA going? Do you plan some projects involving other space agencies?

Manber:Great question. The relationship with NASA has matured in many ways. NASA, and the Space Station program office, no longer question whether companies can and should make a profit [when] providing services on the station using their own hardware. The Space Station office now supports our new projects, such as Airlock, where we are self-funding. So the partnership with NASA has matured. They are, at times, a customer, they are our regulator, and they are our landlord. Just as it should be in a commercial relationship!

We have very good relations with other space agencies. ESA is a customer of ours for satellite deployment. So,too, the European Union Commission. We work extensively within the Japanese module KIBO via the U.S.-Japan barter arrangement, so we have wonderful relations with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and so, too, with the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos), with whom we work on both Progress and Soyuz.

NanoRacks is unusual in how deep is our relations with non-U.S. space agencies. This is good as we look to return to the Moon and move on to Mars.

Astrowatch.net: Are commercial space companies the future of spaceflight?

Manber:The industry is on the cusp of having space be just another place to do business. We are seeing multiple private launch vehicle efforts; we are seeing government behaving more and more as a customer. We are seeing companies like NanoRacks beginning to look beyond the International Space Station to see a marketplace where there are multiple space stations, all commercial, some unmanned for in-space manufacture, some manned as hotels, some for professionals to train for deep space missions.

Astrowatch.net: Which of NanoRacks product on [the] ISS is the most important for you and why? Which one was the biggest milestone for your company?

Manber:Right now, our satellite deployment hardware is important because it is a large percentage of our current revenue! But as we look to the future, the Airlock will be key, because not only will it increase our revenue from today for cargo egress and satellite deployment, but [also], at some point in the future, we will remove the Airlock from [the] ISS and attach it to our own commercial platform!

How cool is that? Oh, I would say our biggest milestone was [the] successful deployment of satellites. Or when we agreed to accept NASA funding for a research hardware called Plate Reader and NASA was nervous because we were new. So we agreed that if the Plate Reader did not work, we would refund the taxpayers money. Luckily, it all worked! But I have not seen any other company make that same offer when taking the space agencys funding! But it was a turning point for us when NASA realized we were serious.

Astrowatch.net: You have recently made a statement that the companys mission is to democratize access to space. How close to achieving this goal is NanoRacks?

Manber:It is fair to say that after 550 payloads in seven years of operations, from over 30 nations, including high schools and new nations to space, that after stimulating the growth of an [entirely] new market commercial CubeSats NanoRacks is today democratizing use of this incredible new frontier. Anyone, anywhere, from China to Vietnam, from Peru to Brooklyn, can and has used NanoRacks to undertake a commercial space research project. We have even had multiple customers whose funding came from crowdsourcing websites! It is a revolution and we are proud to be a leader in realizing this revolution in space utilization. Who knows what will be the situation in just five years?

Jeffrey Manber. Photo Credit: NanoRacks

Jeffrey Manber founded NanoRacks and serves as the CEO of this company since 2009. His prior experience includes serving as Managing Director of Energia USA, the American arm of RSC Energia. Later, he represented the Russian space organizations when the basic contracts to realize the ISS were negotiated.

As CEO of MirCorp, which leased the Russian space station Mir, he oversaw the first ever commercially funded manned mission to this orbital outpost. Manber also co-developed the first fund dedicated to commercial space on Wall Street (Shearson Lehman) and has served as an adviser to numerous companies and governments.

In 2012, he was awarded the NASA Exceptional Public Achievement Medal, and, in June 2017, he received the Pioneer in NewSpace Award from the Space Frontier Foundation (SFF).

Tagged: International Space Station Jeffrey Manber NanoRacks The Range

Tomasz Nowakowski is the owner of Astro Watch, one of the premier astronomy and science-related blogs on the internet. Nowakowski reached out to SpaceFlight Insider in an effort to have the two space-related websites collaborate. Nowakowski's generous offer was gratefully received with the two organizations now working to better relay important developments as they pertain to space exploration.

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Creating trends in space: An interview with NanoRacks CEO Jeffrey ... - SpaceFlight Insider

The Falcon 9 with Intelsat 35e soars skyward. Photo Credit: Carleton Bailie / SpaceFlight Insider

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. On July 5, 2017, SpaceX sent its 10th Falcon 9 into space in 2017. The Intelsat 35e launch was also the third launch in only 12 days for the NewSpace company. Even though the pace of launches for SpaceX and the Space Coast has been increasing, SpaceFlight Insider has been there to provide the best possible coverage of each event.

For this mission, an expendable Falcon 9 was tasked with sending the 14,900-pound (6,761-kilogram) Intelsat 35e communications satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). Because of the mass of the spacecraft and the velocity required for the mission profile, the company opted to forgo landing legs and grid fins, and not recover the first stage.

Liftoff took place at 7:38 p.m. EDT (23:38 GMT), at the beginning of a 58-minute launch window. In less than three minutes, the first stage used up every bit of its fuel to help send the second stage and heavy satellite into a parking orbit.

This extra velocity allowed for the second stage to send Intelsat 35e into a very high GTO, reducing the need for the spacecraft to use its own fuel to circularize itself into its final 22,300-mile (35,800-kilometer) geostationary orbit.

Built by Boeing, the more than $300 million Intelsat 35e will service the parts of the Americas, Europe and Africa at the 34.5 degrees west orbital position. It will replace the Intelsat 903 satellite and operate for at least 15 years.

Despite launching six rockets in the span of just over nine weeks, SpaceX will not be sending another rocket skyward until Aug. 10, 2017. That mission will see the CRS-12 Dragon capsule launch to the International Space Station.

On July 2, 2017, Hawthorne, California-based Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) launched the Intelsat 35e commercial communications satellite to a Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO). The payload was scheduled to be launched at 7:36 p.m. EDT (23:36 GMT) atop a 'Full Thrust' Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A located in Florida, however, a scrub was announced at just 10 seconds prior to liftoff. Unlike most of the Falcon 9s that the company has launched recently, this one lacks support legs that are used during the first stage's landing (as there is no landing attempt). It is hoped that the satellite will be successfully deployed 32 minutes after it has lifted off of the same historic pad that the crew of Apollo 11 began their journey to the Moon. Photos courtesy: Mike Howard, Tom Cross, Michael Seeley, Carleton Bailie

Tagged: Falcon 9 Intelsat-35e Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A SpaceX The Range

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Jacques van Oene

July 7th, 2017

BepiColumbo is being prepared for a planned October 2018 launch date. Photo Credit: Jacques van Oene / SpaceFlight Insider

NOORDWIJK, Netherlands On Thursday, July 6, theEuropean Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) put the two new BepiColumbo spacecraft on display. ESTEC, the largest European Space Agency (ESA)site in Europe as well as thetest center for all major ESA satellites, played host to an event denoting that the twin spacecraft arejust 15 months away from launch.

The event started at11:00 a.m. local time and lasted for about two hours with various officials touring the clean room that contained the two spacecraft.The event was held to also give the media a chance to have a last look at BepiColombo before it is shipped to the Kourou Space Centre in early 2018, with the launch campaign is scheduled to start in April of 2018.

BepiColumbo is being launched to study the planet Mercurys magnetosphere, its magnetic field, interior structure, as well as the rocky worlds tortured surface. As noted, the mission will be comprised of two spacecraft, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), and is planned to arrive above the planet in December of 2025.

At present, BepiColumbo is slated to launch atop an Ariane 5 ECA from Kourou, French Guiana, in late 2018. Photo Credit: Jacques van Oene

While the mission might be straightforward enough, its path to Mercury is anything but. It will conductone flyby of Earth, two past Venus, and six of Mercury itself.

In attendance during Thursdays event were the following: Alvaro Gimenez, Director of Science, ESA; Hitoshi Kuninaka, Vice Director General, ISAS; Mathilde Royer, Head of Earth Observation, Navigation and Science, Airbus DS; Ulrich Reininghaus, ESA BepiColombo Project Manager; Markus Schelkle, BepiColombo Project Manager, Airbus DS; Mauro Patroncini, BepiColombo Project Manager, Thales Alenia Space; Hajime Hayakawa, JAXA BepiColombo Project Manager; andJohannes Benkhoff, ESA BepiColombo Project Scientist.

Approved in 2009, BepiColumbo is a part of ESAs Horizon 2000+ programme and will be the last mission of that initiative to be sent aloft. The mission is a partnership between ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Arianespaces Ariane 5 ECA launch vehicle has been tapped to hurl the duo out of Earths gravity well and on their way to their destination from Kourou,French Guiana.

Photo Credit: Jacques van Oene

Tagged: BepiColumbo ESA ESTEC European Space Agency Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA Lead Stories

A native of the Netherlands, van Oene became infected with the space virus by an enthusiastic school teacher in 1981. Since 1994 he has been a freelance space photographer and writer for magazines and websites in Holland, Belgium and Spaceflight, the magazine of the British Interplanetary Society. van Oene is also the co-founder and CFO of SPACEPATCHES.NL. This Netherlands-based foundation currently produces all the official Soyuz crew patches for the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos.

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BepiColumbo readied to start journey to Mercury next year - SpaceFlight Insider

Following the Soviet Unions launch of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961, as the first human in space, the race for space with the U.S. reached a pace that would run to the completion of the NASAs Apollo manned lunar landing program in 1975.

Needing to address the Soviet success, the U.S. launched astronaut Alan Shepard on a suborbital flight into space May 5, 1961, as part of the Mercury Program.

The Redstone rocket on flight MR-3 was used for one other Mercury mission before more a more powerful Atlas rocket allowed for Mercury capsules to obtain orbit. Unlike the Soviet Vostok-1 with Gagarin, Shepard was able to control the Mercury capsule, named Freedom 7. Subsequent Mercury capsules would also be given names, each ending in 7.

Wernher von Braun, an ex-Nazi engineer working for the Army missile program in Huntsville, Ala., developed the Redstone rocket. It was the result of an unsuccessful struggle to develop Vanguard rockets in an urgent push to deploy satellites, and now the first U.S. astronauts.

The Redstone was not capable of reaching orbital flight. Later, von Braun would develop the Saturn V, which would carry astronauts to the moon.

According to Gene Krantz, a NASA flight director, Shepard was asked for his thoughts while waiting for liftoff.

He famously replied: The fact that every part of this ship was built by the lowest bidder.

Freedom 7s flight lasted 15 minutes, reaching an altitude of 116 miles. Shepard, from his vantage point said, What a beautiful view.

His capsule then began a re-entry into Earths atmosphere and splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean about 302 miles from the launchpad at Cape Canaveral, Fla. Trajectory calculations for this mission were performed by Katherine Johnson, a mathematician whose story is told in the recent movie Hidden Figures.

Shepard was from East Derry, N.H., and attended the U.S. Naval Academy. He began his military career during World War II aboard the destroyer USS Cogswell and served in the Battle of Okinawa.

After the war, he trained to fly F4U Corsair fighters aboard the aircraft carrier USS Franklin D. Roosevelt. Later he participated in the Navys test pilot school and took part in the development of in-flight refueling.

Over time Shepard built up an impressive record that led to an instructor role at the test pilot school. To progress further, he attended the Naval War College. At this point he had amassed 3,600 hours of flying, including 1,700 hours in jet aircraft.

As the space race heated up, President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized recruitment of astronauts, who would originate from the cadre of military test pilots. Through a process involving numerous candidates, the competitive Alan Shepard became a member of the Mercury Seven, the original group of American astronauts. With him, and the missions they flew, were John Glenn (Friendship 7), Gus Grissom (Liberty Bell 7), Wally Shira (Sigma 7), Gordon Cooper (Faith 7), and Scott Carpenter (Aurora 7). Another member of the seven, Deke Slaton, was prevented from space flight in the Mercury Program due to a temporary medical condition but was made NASAs flight crew operations director from 1963-72.

Following his spaceflight, Shepard in 1963 would become chief of the Astronaut Office, overseeing astronaut training and mission selection. He developed an ear problem that grounded him until a surgery that restored him to astronaut status. Among his later missions in space was the of commander in the 1971 Apollo 14 mission to the moon.

Alan Shepard died in California in 1998.

Former Walla Wallan Craig Dreher is a space travel enthusiast and helicopter pilot who now lives in Albany, N.Y., where he works in information technology. He holds a masters of science in aeronautics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla. He and Terry P. Bolt write Space Tourists columns for the Union-Bulletin. Comments to them are welcome at spacewwub@gmail.com.

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1961 Freedom 7 flight keeps pace in space race - Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

Laurel Kornfeld

July 8th, 2017

Occultation data will give scientists new insight of KBO 2014 MU69. The image is an artists impression of NASAs New Horizons spacecraft encountering the object. Image Credit: NASA / JHU-APL / SwRI / Steve Gribben

Data collected on NASAsNew Horizons spacecraftssecond flyby target, 2014 MU69, during its June 3 occultation of a star, may indicate that the Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) is smaller and brighter than previously thought.

Located approximately one billion miles beyond Pluto, which New Horizons flew by in July 2015, MU69 was discovered in June 2014 by scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to find a second flyby target for an extended mission.

One month after the Pluto flyby, the KBO was officially selected as the spacecrafts next target, to be visited on January 1, 2019.

MU69 passed in front of, or occulted, a star on June 3 and will occult two other stars this summer one on July 10, and the other on July 17.

More than 50 mission scientists and others assisting them observed the occultation via both fixed and portable ground-based telescopes placed strategically along the narrow path of the KBOs shadow in South Africa and Argentina.

Four members of the South African observation team scan the sky while waiting for the start of the 2014 MU69 occultation, early on the morning of June 3, 2017. The target field is in the Milky Way, seen here from their observation site in the Karoo desert near Vosburg, South Africa. They used portable telescopes to observe the event, as MU69, a small Kuiper Belt object and the next flyby target of NASAs New Horizons spacecraft, passed in front of a distant star. Photo & Caption Credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI / Henry Throop

Hubble and the European Space Agencys (ESA) Gaia space telescope viewed the event from space.

The shadow cast by MU69 during the occultation lasted just two seconds, yet all of the observing teams successfully collected data from the event, including more than 100,000 images of the occultation star.

Projected path of the 2014 MU69 occultation shadow, on July 10 (left) and July 17, 2017. Image Credit: Larry Wasserman / Lowell Observatory

Significantly, the KBO itself was not observed although the data collected is already providing mission scientists with crucial information about the objects environment.

New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado, said: These results are telling us something really interesting.

The fact that we accomplished the occultation observations from every planned observing site but didnt detect the object itself likely means that either MU69 is highly reflective and smaller than some expected, or it may be a binary or even a swarm of smaller bodies left from the time when the planets in our Solar System formed.

Less than one percent the size of Pluto, MU69 orbits in the same location where it formed about four billion years ago.

These data show that MU69 might not be as dark or as large as some expected, confirmed New Horizons science team member and occultation team leader Marc Buie, also of SwRI.

Mission scientists plan to observe MU69s next two stellar occultations, which will occur on July 10 and July 17.

The July 10 event will be studied using NASAs airborne Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), equipped with a 100-inch (2.5-meter telescope), which will search for debris near the KBO that could pose a potential hazard to the spacecraft.

On July 17, mission scientists will again set up a line of portable telescopes along the predicted path of the shadow MU69 will cast, located in southern Argentina.

Hubble will observe that occultation to aid the search for debris in the KBOs environment and possibly obtain an accurate estimate of its size.

Tagged: KBO 2014 MU69 NASA New Horizons The Range

Laurel Kornfeld is an amateur astronomer and freelance writer from Highland Park, NJ, who enjoys writing about astronomy and planetary science. She studied journalism at Douglass College, Rutgers University, and earned a Graduate Certificate of Science from Swinburne Universitys Astronomy Online program. Her writings have been published online in The Atlantic, Astronomy magazines guest blog section, the UK Space Conference, the 2009 IAU General Assembly newspaper, The Space Reporter, and newsletters of various astronomy clubs. She is a member of the Cranford, NJ-based Amateur Astronomers, Inc. Especially interested in the outer solar system, Laurel gave a brief presentation at the 2008 Great Planet Debate held at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, MD.

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Mashable

Here's Mike Pence touching space flight hardware you're clearly not supposed to touch Mashable Vice President Mike Pence visited NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Thursday where he toured the facilities, addressed employees, and touched "critical space flight hardware" despite clear instructions not to. Photos from Pence's tour of the facilities ...

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Here's Mike Pence touching space flight hardware you're clearly not supposed to touch - Mashable